Chapter Three.
Smoke rose above the rig designated as Omkara-three-five-Gamma in a grey horsetail.
Alarms were still sounding, fire-suppression servitors were going to work and the rig garrison had moved in to isolate the area and hold back labourers from the wider rig and nearby transit station, who had come out to see what had occured.
Zyrol's landcar drove along the lane reserved for Administratum officials, an automated gun-servitor spun about to track the landcar's approach. Zyrol's chauffeur keyed the vox code, and the gun-servitor spun back to the crowd as it acknowledged Zyrol's right to proceed.
In the restricted area around the collapsed warehouse, the walkways were empty, except for emergency teams guiding the lobotomised servitors.
'What are we looking at?' Zyrol asked his aid, a PDF captain named Tarshin, was monitoring the information on a data-slate.
'The pict-captures indicate a transport, of a sort. Big, bulky, it seems a bit big if you asked me.'
'I wasn't, what pict's are you looking at?'
Tarshin passed the data-late to Zyrol. 'It landed on a platform, then slipped off?' he questioned. 'Have this cross referenced with our records, we could be looking at Imperial subjugation forces here.' Zyrol ordered.
'Certainly, sir,' said the aid.
The landcar came to a halt, as it did so, Zyrol was already reaching for the door handle. His reinforced boots crunched shattered glass, for once, he was glad that his job required an inscessent degree of safety wear. Too-long armed servitors were firefighting amidst the collapsed warehouse, blasting water from shoulder-mounted cannons.
'Well then, let us get to work then.'
The tunnel took them up another maintenance shaft, then through a labyrinth of walkways, crawlways and pipeline gantries. As they navigated them, they passed close to the outskirts of the ironclad skin of the hive, indicated by the crash of waves outside. They paused in an abandoned encampment, where water dripped from the cold pipes.
'Area secured,' Kaito's voice cut over the vox-net from ahead of the squad. 'The next chamber is clear.'
'Acknowledged,' Racine replied. 'Hold position. We are joining you.'
The squad second and Bull had led their brethren into the tunnels linking the maglev tracks to the city maintenance ducts. They had encountered no sign of enemy presence. Kaito gad halted their advance in the pair of chambers, the single largest chambers in the underground network. He checked the chronometer in his display, over three hours till captain Alcaetus would start Company-wide deployment.
He led his squad forwards, along winding corridors, dirt covered plasteel gantries. Then, they found Kaito held up against a corner wall.
'Racine, take a look at this.' Kaito said, stepping back from the wall.
Racine took his second's place, scrutinising what he saw. Rcaine looked out over a wide processional. Blocks of great smelting complexes loomed over the craggy roadway, rising into clouds of steam and smoke. He saw mutant labour gangs working under augmented overseers.
'There,' Kaito pointed to the false-cloud line. 'A way up.'
Looking up from the labour gangs, Racine saw gantries of pipelines.
'Quick and quietly,' Racine said.
Above the false-clouds, on the sloped gantry, great arc-lumens hung like sad, fading, cage stars. Huge ventilator units and generatorums hunched atop the smelting complexes sides. Recycled winds blew up, hiding the heavy bangs of their footsteps.
They made the best time they could, edging carefully across the shaking gantry, bracing themselves against the hard winds that threatened to push them into the great furnaces below.
Down there, Racine could still hear the heavy bangs of the work gangs fruitless leabours. They crouched above a chugging vent, Varath keeping watch with his heavy bolter.
Racine reached the top of the gantry. 'Brothers,' he said. 'I welcome you to civilisation.'
Ah yes, a short Chapter. Well fear not, for the next will be about average length and will take a look into the wider story. Till next time, I've been Jam.