The sounds of infants crying desperately for their mothers who in turn had all but given up hope and would have slathered them just so that the infants themselves would not suffer the fate that awaited them at the hands of their captors.
An entire sector of space had been attacked by a Tyranid hive fleet and whatever souls that could, fled from the doomed worlds, slowly a refugee fleet began to form ships of all sizes, designs and shapes had gathered, out of simple necessity in a desperate attempt to survive.
Unfortunately, the Dark Eldar took advantage of this and like a plague they struck the migrant fleet, taking advantage that the few remaining combat troops that remained, would be hindered by the fact that they had little maneuverability and the fact that even if they fired their weapons, their attacks would be hitting an Imperial citizen instead.
Calls for help were sent, but no one answered and one by one each ship began to go dark, their people taken captive by the dark eldar.
The sheer hopelessness of the situation nearly made him smile, the dark eldar that usually hid from sight had forgotten that very fact and showed their ships to what remained of the refugee fleet, they did this for the simple fact that it would drive what remained of each ship's crew to lose hope entirely.
It wasn't long until the last of the defenses completely fell and everyone was separated by their captors, then it happened he was on the bridge when space tore itself open and a massive structure exited the Warp, without word or warning the massive fortress fired upon the dark eldar ships completely immobilizing them.
Whether this had been because of the power of the weapons on the fortress or the fact that the dark eldar believed themselves untouchable and had paid for their arrogance, he would never know.
Soon glimmers of lights could be seen over the ships monitors before vanishing and leaving behind several skeletal figures made of metal, alongside them were easily recognizable servitors and defends bots, from wat little he could see, in space a battle had begun and the realm that was usually completely dark, became bright like if a star had come to drive away the darkness.
Soon the fighting began once more and for each machine that was destroyed five more took its place, until the dark eldar wore simply overwhelmed by the overwhelming by the amount of firepower.
He prepared himself to fight for his life once more as a metal skeleton stood in front of him, before it stretched out its metal bone like hands and pulling apart the collar on his neck, then it did the same to the ones in his arms and legs.
He looked around, only to see that all of the other people that remained were equally as confused as him and couldn't quite figure out how to react. However, before anyone had a chance to say anything the skeletal figures, the servitors and the defense bots were all teleported away by the same glimmer of light that had delivered them in the first place.
The ship's systems alerted him that several cables had attached themselves to it and were now dragging the ship towards the massive fortress, but without any way of moving the ship was entirely at the fortresses mercy.
"All right can everyone hear me. All of the dark eldar are gone but your ships are too damaged to be left alone, so I'll crack everyone a deal."
"I'll allow you all to enter my ship and find the people you are missing, while your ships are being repaired. In exchange, no one is to go into any higher floors, or even try to make contact with anyone inside my ship, as for any AbHumans, leave them alone and carry on with your lives."
"If there are any xenos on the slave ships, leave them alone and stick to wherever your at. I don't want my ship damaged, food, water and medic in will be provided. Do you agree?"
He listened to the voice of the man that had forced its way into his ships communication and he braced himself for the next set of worlds that would have gotten him shot in any other occasion, he pressed a single button and said.
"Agreed." Emidiatly this ship along with the dark eldar ships and what remained of the refugee fleet began to be pulled towards the fortress.
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(Character change Jose)
I could see the people starting to arrive, the moniters showed that every other entrance was sealed, plus all life signs remained the same, it would be a couple of days before everyone was able to get off the ships and entered the fortress but I'm not taking any chances.
The dark eldar are people that make living beings into furniture while they are still alive, a bloody chair will have eyes in it and will moan with the tormented person begging for death, so even if it took weeks there was no way, I'm going to risk any of them on my ship.
For that reason, the people are using a thin hallway in order to be able to exit each ship, this both forced the people to exit one at a time and allowed the fortresses computers to pick up everything from weight, to movement, life signs and so on.
Back when I first woke up on the fortress and I realized where I was, the two-headed eagle and the flying skulls human filled with machine parts were a dead give away, so I looked thru everything that had arrived with me and found every object that was anti-magic and anti-psych, some of them began to cover the fortress the moment I touched them, others I had to order.
To be perfectly honest I have no Idea just how many things are all over the fortress, the only thing I do know is that, for two years I was perfectly safe, until I entered that hellish place and brought Hera with me, so I know those things work and now I know they aren't foolproof.
Regardless I've gone thru warp storms and come out perfectly fine, hell one time I literally crashed into a giant daemon and while the fortress was inside the thing, no ill effects happened to the fortress, as for the daemon. Well, it learned not to swallow things that have so much firepower that it can tear its way out of its stomach.
All of this is important because just in case some eldar, psyker, or reality warping nut job might get in.
Still, as I look at the people getting off the slave ships, I'm reminded of my food supply problem, I have more than enough food and water for a while, but for how long it will last I don't know, add the fact that I don't know what effects the animals, plant life and water, that have all of a sudden come to life, will have on people if they are eaten, makes things unnecessarily complicated.
That reminds me I haven't seen Hera in a while, she was supposed to go change clothes or something, I pressed a single button and the screen changed until it showed Hera dancing, normally I wouldn't have cared and just rotten her off as a crazy person had she not been so rounded by the flying snails from Halo.
"How the hell did she do that?" I said as the computer alerted me of the changes done to twelve floors.
Somehow pipes had been moved around, some doors had been permanently sealed shut and the twelve floors had been positioned in such a way, that a person could now walk and they would be able to enter each floor, in a way that seemed like hiking to them.
The repositioned pipes made salt water connect with areas that had it, while those connected to areas that had fresh water made the various rivers have a fresh supply of drinking water. Somehow the animals knew what was going on and were now find out where they liked to live.
Zubats were flying around in one of the floors that had its lights off, somehow that floor now had glow in the dark plants, spiders the size of horses, wolfs the size of cows and other animals whose eyes or bodies glowed in the dark.
The floor that had an ocean in it, for some reason now had whales, sea dragons and giant snakes, there were fish in there along with birds and if he wasn't mistaken Jose swore the monitor showed several fish men dancing at the bottom of the floor.
The forest was no better trees walked around on their own, frogs danced and for whatever reason monkeys could sting animals with their tails. Jose remembered the number of playing cards he had and how many of them were meadow and forest cards, because of this he decided it was better not to think about what was in that forest.
The open fields had herds of animals of all kinds, dragons, wolves, lions, leopards, giant kangaroos that could boulders that they would throw at each other.
As Jose looked at all of the animals using fire, electricity and other attacks that by all rights they shouldn't even able to, he slowly remembered all of the dinosaurs, he immediately looked they the security cameras and found them in their own area, somehow despite having no powers whatsoever, they had managed to kill everything and come out on top.
This was surprising considering they had to fight animals that were literal living bombs and creatures that were made of poison.
At the end when the security footage showed Hera so rounded by animals that looked like worms that joined together into a creature that looked like a bipedal bolder, Jose decided to let them be as long as they were all cut off from the rest of the fortress.
Still, le had other things to worry about, primarily finding the rest of the twelve lights, he had gotten the first one, it tuned out to be a strange orb that gave off a golden glow that somehow seemed kind, it was the main reason, Jose had found the refugee fleet in the first place.
The glowing orb slammed into the fortress and instantly the fleets call for help came in, the other thing besides not separating from the fortress that the orb did was for whatever reason turn the fortress original grey, black and white colors into gold.
Jose would even swear that a lot of things were turned into actual gold, unfortunately, Jose was certain this was his first and only simple catch.
The fortress instantly stole all maps from both the eldar and refuge fleet and what they both reveals was disturbing, right now the fortress was inside an area of space that the Imperium had no control, the warp had cut space I half.
Normally this wouldn't have been an issue but all of his targets were located in areas so dangerous that it was sheer stupidity for him to go there.
The next location was someplace covered with Tyranid, it wasn't a fleet or ships, no every planet was fighting for its life and entire fleets were getting the hell out if there, another place was a fortress of Orks and another was disturbingly quiet, there was no life in there.
These were just the closest ones and by the files uncovered they were the safest ones, fortunately for him the maps also showed planets that were filled with food and fresh water, unfortunately, they were all located directly in the path of the enemy.
Like it or not even if he left this area of space eventually something would catch up to him, so Jose decided to head to the area of space where the Tyranids were located, it was a long shot, but as long ad no one was stupid enough to make some sort of space anomaly the space bugs could locate, he should be able to go in and get out safely