\\ GARBAGE COLLECTION


"Wake, Lexmechanic."

The slight but firm touch at my shoulder made my eyes open instantly–

'Ow!'

With a little hiss of discomfort I cringed, right eye snapping back shut, "Ah… cusswords."

My eye cracked open slowly to the unfamiliar ceiling…

… fuck, I'm Shinji Ikari.

My face scrunching up, I grunted as I pushed myself up into a sitting position, "Ow." My hand– bandaged hand coming up to cover my right… eye socket as I looked up at a really big black blob?

Brain finally rebooting both metaphorically and literally, I looked up at the Astartes and croaked out, "Time to move out?"

"No."

I blinked in confusion, "Then…?"

"There is a problem, I will need to head out to handle it."

"Ah…" I blinked furiously for a moment as that processed, "Can I at least have a knife or something in case they get in? Like, teleport or some shit?"

There was some shuffling from the vaguely darker patch of dark in the room, and my eye finally focused on the red lenses of the Astartes' helmet as my brain started to pick out on sounds beyond the holding cell. After a moment, there was the briefest glint of light on… that is a big knife.

It wasn't all that heavy, but it was half shoved to my chest, and I haphazardly grabbed it with my left hand, the tentacle like dendrites coiling about it, "Thanks."

The red eyes nodded once before turning and disappearing into the gloom of the holding cell. I took a few moments to readjust my grip and actually hold onto the short sword of a knife and get at least a little ready for something to happen.

The door opened soundlessly, the only reason I even knew was because there was suddenly dim light in the holding cell, outlining the form of the massive Astart– "Oh skak." –es briefly…?

Three thudding steps later and the black-armored warrior had exited my little cell and the door closed behind him.

"Um–" I started, holding onto the combat knife tightly–

*PshTHOOM–crckrck*

I nearly jumped at the sudden sound of gunfire, actually putting a scratch into one of my dendrites, the metal screeching as it met the likely monomolecularedge of the Astartes combat knife.

I took a slow breath to calm myself down as the gunfire rang outside of the holding cell, taking a tight hold of the handle of the knife.

Several tense moments passed as I did my best to stay alert, watching the gloom for anything like teleportation or the door opening as gunfire of various forms came from the other side of the door. I had a more than brief moment of hoping it wasn't anyone I knew getting shot, but I did my best to push that away.

Seriously, chaos, not even once. I might feel bad if someone I considered a friend or aquaitence was one of them, but I wasn't crazy. I knew that when it came to corruption and chaos in this universe, there wasn't really 'going back'. It may be possible, but it wasn't at all within my capabilities to even consider remotely safely. Death was a far greater mercy.

I had a brief moment of relief, realizing that while my head wasn't exactly rosey, it definitely wasn't a throbbing mess of pain anymore.

Several minutes later, the sounds of gunfire died off and dim light flooded the holding cell again, outlining the Astartes dark form.

"Done?"

"Yes. Come, the Inquisitor has need of us."

"Well…" I eloquently grunted, shuffling to the edge of the slab before dropping to my feet. I wobbled in place for just a moment before straightening, "Fuck."

A quick nod was all I got before he turned around and I began to move after the Astartes, a dendrite grabbing my robes and pulling them after me as I passed through the-…

Oh wow.

That's… a lot of blood.

"Stand strong, Lexmechanic."

"Yeah… yeah. Different from what I'm used to seeing is all."

"Lexmechanic, can you use a Needle Rifle?"

I blinked, once, twice, then scowled as my brain caught up, metaphorically rebooting after seeing the… ah… remains. "Yes, I'd prefer a las weapon though…" forcing my way past my discomfort and nausea at the cooked, crushed, cavitated, or otherwise melted remains of the techpriests and servitors, I stepped forward, eye looking over them quickly, "What else did they have?"

Gesturing with his gun, he responded, "A few las-weapons, no hotshot versions though. The servitors had a variety of weapons-"

"But those are integrated, so useless since we're in a rush." I noted, tossing the knife to the Astartes, who caught it easily with a hand.

Unbothered, the Astartes continued, sheathing the knife in a single smooth motion even as he gestured at the dozen or so corpses, two of which were in the same form of rust-red robes that I wore, "There was also a melta, inferno pistol, hand flamer and an arc pistol."

I brightened just a bit, "Those I can use!"

Following the gestured barrel of the Astartes I hurried over and after a moment's hesitation, pulled the mostly pistol weapons out of the hands or bionics of the two techpriests. It took a quick check for the STC safeties to ensure that I flipped them on for each weapon, stuffing the pistols into the numerous pockets in my pants, as well as the few clips of ammo for them that were in obvious places, as I did so, I asked, "Which of the rifles do you think would be more useful? I don't know the situation and I'm honestly equally bad with all of them."

"The further you are away from the lines of fire, the better. The Omnissiah may guard you, but ceramite would be better. It is why I recommend the Needle Rifle."

"That'd be useless against most servitors or techpriests worth their salt. Arc rifle it is."

Grabbing the blocky, steampunk-esque weapon, I slung it over my shoulder and swiped the bulky cylinder of its rotary battery. Didn't know exactly how it worked, yet, but I knew how to gun.

I shoved the backup drum into another pocket. They'd taken all of my limited equipment when they'd taken me in, so the cargo pants were empty, goody. I didn't see a combi-tool on my quick grab of stuff, but whatever.

It took me just a minute or two to grab everything, most of that spent moving between the corpses. I was still admittedly pretty unsettled by the violence this close, there were more than a few moments where my hand hesitated reaching towards them, red robes scorched and burned and body parts blasted apart and burned. But those hesitations were small, I found the fact that I was so desensitized to such things a good bit unsettling in of itself.

Servitors and mechanical accidents could be pretty horrifying, OSHA was not a thing here.

"Are you ready, Lexmechanic?"

Planting the butt of the arc rifle against my left shoulder properly, I gave a curt nod, "Lead the way, sorry in advance if I slow you down." I blinked once, twice before shaking my head a bit, "If I slow you down… god that's stupid. I'm apologizing for the further slowing down I'm about to cause."

The Astartes was already moving past me at a brisk walk, giving a small nod, "Have faith, Lexmechanic, the Emperor protects."

"I'd appreciate it if the Emperor also provided asprin or recaff," I noted, still slightly groggy even as I walked quickly after the space marine, "But I'll make do."

Unsurprisingly, he didn't deign that one with a response as we moved out into the Forge Temple, and I did my level best to put the thoughts of the corpses behind us… well… behind us. The Space Marine sped up bit by bit until I had to half-jog to keep up with what was a brisk walk for the Astartes. Which wasn't surprising considering that he had literally two feet on my short, 5'6" ass.

We moved quickly down the sparse hallways, it was pretty dark really, this section was meant for servitor storage and maintenance, and most techpriests didn't really need a whole lot of light, "Do we know where my servo-skulls are?" My combi-tools would be with them, and having my auger skull would be super nice to have if we were getting into craziness.

"No."

"Damn." Well there went that idea.

It was dark out now, night had fallen on Iacroaria, our red sun having set quite some time ago and the few lights in the hallway didn't do a lot to illuminate it. The heavy footfalls of the Astartes led the way through the almost mazelike corridors of the Forge Temple.

Mind you, I knew where I was going and where we were, I've lived here, and it's not like this department was restricted or anything. Hell, I picked up quite a few servitors for my master here myself. That didn't mean I had the slightest fucking clue where we were going though.

"Where are we-… " I trailed off as the Astartes head jerked to the side, looking off even as he moved quickly. "Um…?"

"We must make haste," he said simply before beginning to jog.

A little startled, I started to outright run after him, hurrying to point out, "I can't keep this up long! Any chance we could grab a vehicle?"

Rounding a corner with a grace that I honestly envied and fumbled to emulate, the Astartes shook his head, "The enemy isn't far, Lexmechanic."

I panted as the Astartes and I came to a rapid stop at one of the major cargo lifts of the Forge Temple, "Yay."

A silver gauntlet reached out to hit the button to call the lift, "The Emperor protects, Lexmechanic."

"Yeah…"

[center]-oOo-[/center]

Iacroaria's sky was naturally a dark brown, the stars obscured by the thick atmosphere and the lack of a major satellite meaning the sky was dark with the small sun on the other side of the planet.

But even though the Forge World didn't really have much in the way of street lighting, waterfalls of glowing multicolored waste poured from the pipes of the tall manufactorums and forges, lighting the large gantries and bridges between the forges with a scintillating multicolored glow.

It made it easy to follow after the massive form of the black-armored Astartes as he moved quickly down the large bridges over the lake of biosludge and factory waste that Manufactorum Lumenlacus was built atop of.

His heavy boots thudded against the asphalt of the raised bridge between the buildings, a light jog for the Astartes that was just short of a full sprint for me. It was awkward to rush around with a rifle, how do soldiers do this shit?

The disconcerting part was that even I could hear the sounds of gunfire over the never ending hammers of the forges and the bubbling currents of Lumen Lake.

Of course we were running straight towards it. Obviously. What else would we be doing?

My chest heaved slightly, sweat soaking into my robes as we moved quickly down the dark street, running towards the sound of gunfire. Damnit, I hadn't kept up with my cardio as much as I should've, and I was definitely feeling it now.

I could only pilot, sure, I had a gun now and I'd shoot at Chaos cultists, but I wasn't a trained shooter, so why…?

The bridge shook beneath my feet, nearly making me fall over as I rushed after the Astartes. Flashes of light lit up the gothic buildings of the manufactorums, but their sources hidden by the large structure at the end of the bridge we were on now.

Servitors and some of the menials on the bridge were shoved out of the way, too slow to move out of the Astartes path as he charged through the large doors of the manufactorum.

My scrawny ass followed in the wake he left behind, entering the large manufactorum. Massive power hammers, conveyor belts, and casting molds holding poured molten metals moved on gantries in the large room. It was dangerously unsafe working conditions, but we were relatively safe running along the central corridor. It was deliberately free of any equipment or dangers so that shipments of materials could be moved easily between the various buildings that stood in Manufactorum Lumenlacus.

Okay, so, if I remembered correctly, this massive structure was just outside of one of the starports, which had several factories and warehouses around it. If I was right, then the gunfire was coming from it or near it and that's where we were headed.

We made a sharp turn around one of the corners within the manufactorum, dodging a stopped vehicle as we rushed towards the distant gate, barely visible amongst the machinery between us and it.

My heart thundered against the inside of my chest, each thud slamming against the inside of my cyber-mantle. Some of the menials were running from the big doorway, but others and the servitors were simply too slow as the Astartes and I charged through.

There! Dashing around one of the massive, half finished farming machines the doorway came into view and… and a lot of battle servitors and cybeasts.

Shit.

Thankfully, they weren't looking our way, but the various bio-warriors and beasts, further enhanced by cybernetics and integrated weaponry were all firing off to the side at one of the buildings. At the moment, I couldn't remember what was out that way, and well before I had any chance to remember it, the Astartes and I were approaching the threshold of the gate and the bridge between the manufactorum and starport.

And it was then that the Astartes really took off in a full sprint, "For the Emperor!"

Okay, so, here's the thing. The Adeptus Mechanicus is extremely protective of the knowledge they hold. They consider knowledge itself holy and that the measure of a man is entirely in the knowledge they contain. They do everything that they can to ensure that knowledge is concentrated in those 'able to appreciate its holiness' or however else they try to make their monopoly palatable. But there's some things that are so fundamental, so basic, that they don't really care if the average menial or scrub knows them so long as the exact details are kept obscure.

In this case, it refers to a pretty simple equation: Big Thing + Gotta Go Fast = Much Ouchies.

As those poor, heavily but insufficently defended and armored servitors and beasts discovered when over half a ton of metal and ceramics and circuitry slammed into them at highway speeds.

Blood and oil splattered everywhere as a half dozen of the near mindless things were scattered by the impact alone, the Astartes' power ax coming out in a smooth motion, a blue haze and electric-like current jumping from its head as it was swung about, separating limbs and heads and torsos from the horde of slaves in a dervish of destruction, cleaving his way into the horde and towards the center of the wide starport. Beasts nearly twice the size of the Astartes, vaguely reminiscent of tigers or wolves, cybernetically and genetically enhanced, standing alongside combat servitors nearly the size of the Astartes, with heavy bolters or lascannons instead of arms, all of them were scattered, both as individuals and as individual body parts by the black-armored angel of death before they could even reorient on the sudden new target.

And here I was trailing behind him, sweating all over and still trying to figure out wtf was going on.

The shock of my boots hitting the asphalt of the bridge jolted up to my knees as sweat poured down my forehead, there just wasn't any more gas in the tank to keep rushing after an Astartes, but I did my best to catch up with the situation as I approached the door.

Okay, dozens of servitors and beasts, about a dozen red robes scattered about, all firing at…

shit.

The starport was a large central circle at the center of a cog-wheel of spokes that reached out to other manufactorums or storage houses, a central location to simplify logistics. At the edge of one of those bridges was this horde of servitors and beasts and the techpriests, all firing on one of the warehouses, bolts of lasfire and plasma flew out from the warehouse back into the horde.

Oh, and let's not forget the teensy little detail of fucking Ordnatus in the starport!

I nearly stumbled as my brain registered the Knight's presence, lit by the glowing lake as it fired into the warehouse. I hadn't been able to see it from inside the manufactorum due to the poor lighting and missing an eye but fucking hell! What did she expect me to do?! Steal the fucking thing while it was in use?!

And then the massive Knight began to turn.

'Fucking fucker fuck of fuck! Of course!' I skidded to a halt, rifle coming up to my left shoulder, leveling it with the horde and pulling the trigger quickly, bolts of lightning shot from the end of the gun, its blue ports flashing brightly with each sizzle-crckthoom of the shots. The blindingly bright bolts of went first low, into the ground of the starport, and then high, over the heads of the servitors, overcompensating for the miss and the near lack of recoil of the weapon.

By the time I was getting ready for another shot, Ordnatus had turned towards the manufactorum we'd come from. It stood at the starport's side of the bridge to the warehouse and was now turned towards us. The Astartes had carved a swath into the servitors and had smashed the first of the techpriests, but the lightning cannon had leveled.

The weapon whined and my eye closed tightly turning y head away desperately as–

*crckTHOOM!*

Blinding even through my closed eye, the bridge trembled beneath my feet as Ordnatus' lightning cannon fired.

My ears rang, but I wasn't knocked off my feet or otherwise dead, so that was good at least.

Bringing the arc rifle up even as I squinted my eye open, I felt fear in my heart– the Astartes, where was the Astartes-?!

There! Rolling up to his feet, smoking and his right pauldron gone, plasma rifle coming up and firing at the Knight. The servitors and cybeasts turning about to start aiming at the Astartes-

I did not have enough guns for this! The hell was I supposed to do?! Steal Ordnatus-?!

My finger pulled the trigger of the arc rifle, sending bolts of lightning down into the masses of the servitors, a bolt of lightning hitting one of the combat servitors dead on, making it spasm and fall over, sparking and smoking.

But it was only one servitor out of literally dozens, the other bolts going wide as I fired rapidly into the horde.

The Astartes was a whirlwind of death, diving and lunging, grabbing a closing cybeast and tossing it in the way of the bolter rounds and plasma bolts raining on his position as he ran off to the left side around the horde, firing rapidly into it with his plasma rifle.

What could I do-?! I didn't have heavy ordinance, I didn't have melee weapons, I didn't have armor or force fields or anything!

Fuck it.

Heart thundering against the inside of my chest, my breath trembling as my skin went cold, I ran.

My right hand pulled away from the barrel of the arc rifle and fumbled at my pocket for just a moment before I pulled out the hand flamer and rushed down the bridge, pressing the stock of the arc rifle to my shoulder as I rushed straight towards the heretek hordes.

This was such a fucking stupid idea!

Arms pumping, I ran as hard as I could down the bridge, robes flapping as my world narrowed to a panicked focus.

I had to get to Ordnatus.

I didn't have the guns to meaningfully affect this fight. The pain in my knees, the ache in my chest as my heart hammered against the metal of my cyber-mantle inside my ribcage, the throbbing of my head in time with my heart, the burn at the base of my skull from the damage to my MIU… it all faded into the background as adrenaline and terror surged.

I had to get to Ordnatus.

Ears ringing, unable to hear anything over the thundering of the guns and the crack of the lasfire, the heat of plasma and pinpricks of pain as tiny bits of bolter shrapnel skittered across my skin, none of it mattered. I didn't have anything to give to this fight, to this defense of my home, nothing except for the fact that Ordnatus had recognized me as a pilot. All I could do was try and make the Knight open up and kill the current pilot and steal it back, it was my only hope, the only thing I had any chance of even trying to do.

But all that was based on me getting to Ordnatus.

Coming off of the bridge and only a few feet away from the lines of the combat servitors as they split between tracking the Astartes and firing into the warehouse, I was completely insignificant. The smell of blood and oil, of copper and grease and cooked meat, it filled my nose as I prayed to the Emperor that I could do this.

This was my only hope.

The heavy, pistol-sized weapon came up and I pulled its trigger uselessly once before frantically thumbing its safety back off and firing it wildly as I ran into the loose mob of combat servitors and cybeasts.

Fire reached out, a hose of heat and horrifying death sprayed out from the weapon, promethium fanning out in an arc and splattering over a dozen mindless weapons and even a techpriest, many catching fire, but I couldn't afford to pay attention. I fired blindly behind me with the hand flamer, getting mechanical, synthesized screams of pain.

"Ordnatus!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, boots skidding across the ground as I desperately dove around the combat servitors, the mindless machines slowly turning, reacting to me too slowly as I moved through their ranks, "They're hereteks! Hereteks!"

The Knight's head swung to me, spouting binary before it started to turn its torso in my direction, plasma fusils still firing in the Astartes direction even as it raised its right arm, the chainsword revving up.

"0011111000111110001000000100100101000100010001010100111001010100010010010100011001011001010010010100111001000111001011100010111000101110000011010000101000111110001111100010000001000001010011100100010001001111010100100100100101001111010011000010000001010000010010000100100100100000001100100011001100110001001110010000110100001010001111100011111000100000010101100100010101010010010010010100011001011001010010010100111001000111001011100010111000101110."

I didn't have time to parse what the binary was, I didn't have time to aim as the flamer ran out of fuel, the gun was tossed aside as I brought the arc rifle down and fired blindly as I dove between what few gaps I could see between the massive conglomerations of man and machine and guns, "They're hereteks! Hereteks!"

With a footstep like an earthquake, the Knight turned, its chainsword roaring like a demon from hell as it was swung about. My eye was wide as I watched it come, but I wouldn't stop, I couldn't stop, I had to get to Ordnatus!

"0011111000111110001000000101000001001001010011000100111101010100001000000101000101010101010001010101001001011001001110100010000001000110010000010100100101010100010010000010000000111011001000000100100001001111010011100100111101010010001000000011101100100000010100000101010101010010010100000100111101010011010001010000110100001010."

The chainsword swung, teeth a whirling blur as the gold and rust red Knight took a step to meet me, panic surged in my chest–

Pain exploded in my chest-!

I saw white as I fell to the ground, and all I could hear was the deafening roar of the weapon swinging above my head and the ringing in my ears.

Hacking and coughing, I desperately tried to orient myself, each jerk sending spasms of pain through my body, my arc rifle clattering uselessly to the ground somewhere off to the side as I clutched my chest. Sobbing and crying, snot leaking from my nose, my hand came away wet from the gaping hole in my chest.

On my hands and knees, I coughed up a small fountain of blood onto the blurry ground beneath me, I could hear Ordnatus continue to spout the binary language, something I'd learned but wasn't fluent enough in to parse in my panic and agony. I glared up at the crimson and gold Knight's optics, trembling and shaking as I struggled to get a foot beneath me; my breath bubbled and popped as flashes of my friends, my master, of Luriline… of everyone I cared about here insisted on making themselves known in my head, "No… 'fuse…"

My vision swimming, my chest heaving, I shook my head, glaring up at Ordnatus as it raised its chainsword high, "I refuse. I refuse. Heretek."

"001111100011111000100000010001000100010101010100010001010101001001001101010010010100111001000001010101000100100101001111010011100010000001010010010001010100000101000011010010000100010101000100000011010000101000111110001111100010000001000011010000010101001101010100001000000100100101001110001000000101010001001000010001010010000001001110010000010100110101000101001000000100111101000110001000000100011101001111010001000011101000100000010110010100010100100000010001110101010101001001010011000101010001011001."

My teeth grit as I tried to watch it descend, hands and knees trembling as I tried to dive aside at the last instant, to roll aside, anything, anything I could do- but in spite of myself, I flinched. Eye closing as I looked away from the falling flurry of teeth.

And the roar was gone.

There was a moment where all I could hear was the ringing in my ears and the thundering of my heart.

My eye opened again and my chest went cold, only a foot above my head was the massive chain of Ordnatus' chainsword, frozen in place.

"0011111000111110001000000100000101000011010100010101010101001001010100100100100101001110010001110010000001010011010000010100111001000011010101000100100101000110010010010100010101000100001000000101000001001001010011000100111101010100."

"What-?" I stumbled onto my feet, staggering and clutching the hole in my chest–

The chainsword was suddenly swept away from above me and Ordnatus stepped forward, its torso opening up like a maw, silver and red fluid dripping inside it even as its left claw dove towards me-?!

Staggering backwards, I nearly fell over before the massive power-claw envelop me, a wordless little panicked and pained escaping me as I was picked up and stuffed into that maw.

My world turned into a dizzying mess for just a moment before I was slammed into place, my vision blurring into uselessness at the sudden pain, a wet squish accompanying the mechanical sounds around me. Silver and red dripped down onto me in streams as my eye slowly opened once again and I could see the screens of Ordnatus' cockpit lighting up around me.

Text scrolled across the red-painted screens–

\\ CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD: YE NOT GUILTY
\\ TRANSFERING CONTROL TO PILOT

I gaped for a long moment before a grin spread across my face, "… oh fuck yes."

Broken hand scrambling around, it was almost like the MIU plug jumped to my palm, it was wet like the seat, but I didn't pay that any attention as I shoved the jack into the base of my skull. My teeth grit together at the fire that lanced through my head, the flexible limbs that formed my left hand uncoiling, the interface jack seeking one of the ports inside Ordnatus' cockpit even as the feed began to pour into my head like hot water on sore muscles.

My right eye was gone, there was a sizable bullet hole in my chest, and my body trembled and shook as the gray and red liquids dripped in the cockpit.

And then I was no longer a man, wounded and augmented and likely dying, I was a portion of a god-machine, a king of the battlefield, a lord of war.

The world jumped into existence in my head, targeting reticles slapping on the heretek forces as my blurry and ruined vision was replaced with that of Ordnatus' own, filled with static and white noise from my damaged interface.

Confused looks, guns reorienting, confused queries coming over the vox.

\\ ALL HERETICS
\\ RENDERING JUDGEMENT

No.

The chainsword revved back up as I began to move forward, left arm coming up as I fired the heavy bolter into the hereteks, plasma fusils firing freely as my gaze swept across the mob of servitors and cybeasts.

\\ DAMAGE SUSTAINED ; ENGAGING HEART OF OMNISIAH

Panic, fear, cries for retreat. Bolter rounds, plasma bolts, lasfire and more began raining onto Ordnatus from the horde of hereteks, some too close and able to fire underneath the ion shield, which is why I had the chainsword and stomping boots!

Roaring like a demon, the chainsword swept at Ordnatus feet, sending blood and oil and bits of flesh and machine scattering everywhere as it tore half a dozen of the mindless beasts to shreds.

Lasfire and plasma bolts came from either side of Ordnatus into the horde before the black clad Astartes charged into the group from Ordnatus' right, the firepower from the warehouse on our left pouring on.

The heretek priests scattered, taking some of the servitors with them as they tried to run, others staying behind to keep the pressure on us. Grenades were thrown and smoke began to fill the starport, pain in my chest and I fired into the horde as quickly as I could, "No!"

Red robed bastards scattered and ran, hiding in the smoke as they tried to flee, one, two, three of them fell to plasma and bolter fire in rapid succession. The lightning cannon kicked and smoke was blasted away from the sudden explosion of white, taking out another dozen of the mindless cyborgs as I chased them down!

A combat servitor was crushed beneath Ordnatus heavy boot as I fired after the fools-White?!

Vision was suddenly gone-?! "The hell-?!"

\\ CAMERAS SUFFERED ELECTRICAL OVERLOAD ; REBOOTING

My cursing was cut off by a hacking cough, I didn't dare fire blindly, the Astartes was somewhere around my feet-! Pain was still flaring across my body, both the real one and the simulated one of Ordnatus, I didn't dare crack open the cockpit to eyeball it. My broken hand clutched uselessly at the wet hole in my side as I grit my teeth, waiting for the cameras to reboot, listening to the mechanical screams and the roar of guns and the Astartes battle cry.

The sounds drew out far too long as I waited for an unacceptable amount of time, my body shaking as one by one, the feeds flickered back to life, revealing a scattered force of combat servitors being torn apart by the Astartes– where were the techpriests?!

Ordnatus' head swung around, bolts of plasma streaking out to blast apart any combat servitors far enough away from the Astartes to target safely.

But no red robes, no nests of mechadendrites, no true hereteks, just mindless cyborgs and beasts.

"Damnit!" I hacked and coughed, wetness splattering onto my lap as my vision swam, the feed from Ordnatus filled with static and white noise, my focus failing as the pain in my body drew me back to it.

My robes… the entire right side was a mess, a darker red than normal as my blood stained it, a big hole in my chest…

It hurt so much…

Silver and red all over my body…

The world swam and shook–

A shock of pain jolted into the base of my skull, getting a small cry from me, "Gah! The-… the hell…?"

"Lexmechanic! Open up!"

"What…?" my face scrunched up, taking a trembling, bubbling breath as I tried to bring myself back to reality–

"Throne. Titus! Get up there!" A feminine voice…? "Ordnatus Acies Dominus! In the name of the Inquisition, I order you to open up!

"001111100011111000100000010000010101001101000011010001010101001001010100010000010100100101001110010010010100111001000111001000000100001101010010010001010100010001000101010011100101010001001001010000010100110001010011."

"Lady Inquisitor Lydia Veylan. Authorization Terra Ultraviolet Phi Four Thu'um…–" The world swam once more, flashes of static and the image of… the Inquisitor…? Her robes were singed and there were the guardsmen around her and a few others…? She was speaking again… what…?

"001111100011111000100000010000110101001001000101010001000100010101001110010101000100100101000001010011000101001100100000010000010100001101000011010001010101000001010100010001010100010000001101000010100011111000111110001000000100001101000001010100110101010000100000010010010100111000100000010101000100100001000101001000000100111001000001010011010100010100100000010011110100011000100000010001110100111101000100001110100010000001011001010001010010000001001110010011110101010000100000010001110101010101001001010011000101010001011001."

The dim light of the glowing lake danced across my face as Ordnatus' cockpit opened with a hydraulic hiss–

"Chirurgeon! Get over here! Titus! Get the Lexmechanic out of there!"

There was a thump as the large form of the Astartes swam into my vision, a silver gauntlet reaching towards me– "At ease Lexmechanic, you've done the Emperor's work."

Blackness crept at the edges of my sight as the hard gauntlet gripped my shoulder and I was pulled forward, "The Emperor protects."


A.N. - This is a placeholder.