I do not own warhammer 40k in any way at all, it all belongs to Games Workshop, praise be to them battle brother. But as this is a fanfiction site I doubt I'm going to get sued. ( i.e. please don't sue me because I'm poor)
Thanks for all the reviews. Sorry whoever asked, but I don't know what a sensei is, I made Sarah up all on my own.
Yes I know I've taken ages to update this. But it's not my fault. Ages ago I got a new laptop and I couldn't access any secure sites (e.g. FF.net) but its finally fixed and I can get updating my various stories.
On with the show....
***
Benz sat waiting, he was very used to waiting. Sarah had woken him in the night and told him of her vision, he had dug into their supplies and found weapons for them both, he had organised everything they needed and packed it into a couple of bags. Experience told him that having things ready to leave at a moments notice greatly reduced the chance of having to fight his way out.
Sarah had gone to the city's spaceport, looking for a ship going off world, neither of them wanted to be around when the fighting started, Benz least of all. Sarah's immortal body could take most things the galaxy could throw at it, but Benz was only human, not a particularly tough human either. His augmented eyes gave him extremely good eyesight, better than any natural eyes, his metallic head could take a bullet but the rest of him was human, pure and simple human flesh and blood.
He offered up a prayer to the God-emperor by reflex as his thoughts wondered what would happen if they didn't manage to get of Mallor II in time. He had never been on a planet with a warp breach of the magnitude Sarah's vision had suggested.
Warp breach, he had heard a number of names for it. He had seen the largest of its kind. The eye of terror, ocularis terriblus, light years across it could bee seen for entire sub-sector in the sky of every planet, it had been there as long as all human records indicated and only the most classified of inquisition reports dared to hint otherwise.
He was broken out of his revere by the sound of Sarah returning, she looked serious and pale, but she was always pale.
He raised his eyebrows questioningly. She shook her head.
"We're not going anywhere." she said. "They've cancelled all warp-capable ships, we could get off world but not out of the system and the only other planet here is a penal colony" She muttered the words quietly, apology almost creeping into her voice.
He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder, he didn't quite understand why she got like this after a vision, but he knew how to help.
"Its not your fault" He said
She just looked at him, eyes betraying age beyond his own, he shifted uncomfortably in the chair. That stare was always frightening, it was her way of reminding him how much more she knew about the galaxy than he did.
***
Everything had gone wrong since the ritual, Corbilus knew that much.
The ritual was meant to honour the gods, ask them for their power and knowledge, but they had responded from the warp with more force than was asked for. The daemons had ripped through the skin of reality and killed indiscriminately, cultists and servants of the corpse-god alike.
Now Corbilus cowered in a corner, wishing he had some way out of this place, the daemons had destroyed all of the submersibles, leaving the humans trapped in listening post B11-C/6. Corbilus had no one to pray to, he had long abandoned the teachings of the pitiful corpse-god, and now it seemed the gods of chaos had turned on him.
He knew they were fickle deities at best, if such a human expression could be used to describe gods. Only a few months ago a member of the cult had been 'blessed' with cloven hooves instead of feet, it hadn't taken long for his mutation to be seen by people outside the cult, he had been mobbed by the inhabitants of the listening post and burnt alive. That was the fate of all heretics and traitors, to be submitted to the emperor's 'mercy'.
Corbilus's breathing was laboured and his lungs threatened to stop working as he heard the gentle clicking of hooves on metal, he struggled to make himself seem as small as possible. Deep down he knew it wouldn't make any difference, his time in the cult had thought him that daemons saw souls, not bodies.
He could smell it now, blood and charcoal, like a body set on fire. He felt a wave of nausea hit him as the stench assaulted his nostrils. He clawed at the walls like a trapped animal, all sanity leaving him as the clicking got louder. He screwed up his eyes and started to cry as felt heat radiating from behind him accompanied by deep, rumbling breaths. His whole body paralysed as he felt something grab his arm and pull him to his feet. He could not help but open his eyes as he stumbled to a standing position.
It was a vision of hell, easily eight feet tall, the smell raping his nostrils. Skin blood red and glistening, muscles rippling beneath. Its face threatened to drive him insane, no forehead, bulging maddened eyes, sunken bat-like nose and a maw full of irregular gnashing teeth.
His mind steadied itself just enough to ask ÔWhy hasn't it killed me yet?
***
The tactical screen was huge, it filled an entire room. Much to his annoyance, Max had no idea how to operate it alone. He sat at a long table with General Lavacith, who was in control of the planetary defence forces and his senior Logicator, Erat, who was operating the screen and explaining the various forces at Max's disposal.
Max had got through an entire pack of cigars and was on his second. The number of things that could go wrong were simply unbelievable. What made it worse is that the General didn't understand the conditions involved with a warp breach and Erat was not explaining them very well either.
"That is just unsound." The General's voice filtered into Max's mind. "By thinning our forces like that we will have no way to supply them all." He was arguing with Erat.
"Would you prefer Deamons be allowed to run amok anywhere they please?" Erat retorted.
"Wha...." the General was confused for a moment. "The won't be running amok you idiot, because our forces will stop them as they emerge from the sea. If the.....what did you call it Sir?" the General paused and looked to Max.
"Realspace breach." He said, mind numbing at this pointless argument.
The General continued. "Yes, if this... realspace breach is underwater then the deamonic army will have to emerge from the sea.
"I don't think you quite understand" Erat's tone of voice was spiked with contempt. "The deamons will.....".
"Don't you dare tell me I don't understand!! You pathetic schemer, I am a General and if you...." Now it was the General's turn to be cut off.
Max rose sharply to his feet. He wondered if him having to do this twice in as so many hours was a reflection of how stupid his staff were.
"Both of you shut the fuck up." he shouted. "Now, General, allow me to explain" Max strode over to the tactical screen.
"Put it back to the original view please Erat." He asked. Erat pressed one of the buttons on the pad before him and the screen returned to showing a blank view of Mallor III's surface. Max rummaged in his cloak for a pen. He found one and drew a circle on the board where listening station B11-C/6 probably was. Erat looked indignant at Max drawing on the screen, but he kept silent.
"Right General, the breach is here, yes?" Max spoke in a patronising tone, he wanted the General to really understand the seriousness of the situation.
The General nodded.
"Good. Now it doesn't matter where the breach is in the sea. Because deamons aren't stopped by land mass. They are not affected by the water. They will most probably bore through coastlines straight for cities. They now infect the planet's water supply so we can expect thousands of chaos-riddled towns within hours. They won't just come from the sea either. That breach means they can manifest anywhere. They can come right into Ne-tay to kill and rape women and children." Max finished his angry rant at the General, who sat stunned.
"Sir.....I" He began.
"No" said Max "I don't want explanations and bootlicking. I want men out there now! I want regular patrols of every street in every city, I want men listening to seismic activity, I want company psychics watching the warp. I want everything done RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!!
The General stood up, and bowed his head to Max.
"Yes sir, right away." He was flustered by Max and hurried out the door.
Max rounded on Erat.
"Erat, go to the astropathic chambers and ask them to send an a-class repeating distress signal." Max knew some of the other systems nearby would respond. What he didn't know was that a system listed as dead housed an Inquisition fortress.
The signal would reach there first before it reached any other planets.
Max sighed as Erat rushed to obey, he needed a stiff drink.
