Vimana
The distant screams did nothing to alleviate the grim atmosphere between us. It was easy to lose sense of time here. Only the sluggish movement of the drone we rode upon like hapless menials distracted me from the end of our dreary odyssey. I mutely entertained myself by keeping track of what the drone crunched under its ceaseless advance. I'm reminded of ground bones, cracked glass, gnarled scrap metal, chewy corpses, heaped filth, and the racket of empty casings the farther we delved down. Such macabre clutter along the way only compounded the apprehension that swarmed my mind, my augments working overtime to sooth me and damping down my panic. I had never been in true combat before and the ugly howling that resounded far and near wasn't helping my nerves at all, my mechadendrites prowled around me as if protecting me, their terminal inputs replaced with ominous emitters and bludgeons flaring with power. I kept my hands fixated onto my robes while agonising over our supplies and potential options if a fight was going to erupt. The depot drone was saddled with my equipment and dendrite mods while also holding stocks of ammo for my stern watcher. The spools of belt ammunition for the drone's own defence haven't been touched either. Alongside the piles of junk and dubious explosives we've looted from the butchered gangers I was faintly confident we would make it out of this alive without any more bionics after this. Hopefully.
It was similar to descending into the underworld the more we marched headlong into this rapacious dusk. Things ceased to look like mere constructed bedecked rusted pathways and steadily morphed into a dangerous landscape of veiled peril and baneful facades. The light of our torches and the headlights of the drone cast a warped shadow into the tortuous paths ahead. Each incline forced stale fetid air into my lungs and every slope warned of an imagined cliff. The monotonous decay and withering walls fell away to hurtling unknown depths. Whatever cables and thread that haven't rotted away hung crucified on ossified ducts. An oppressive cynicism choked the area. I felt like a blind and deaf fish traversing a deep-sea trench. An unconscious prayer escaped my lips with nary a breath. Clouds of mildew and dust spun in response.
Next to me the fretful prayers never stopped. She was hunched over in concentration as the lasgun was filed stripped. An onslaught of quiet prayers surged out of her, an outpouring of urgency rippling with a staccato of lingua technis. The frame of the lasgun was wiped clean of stains and stray dirt, the cog of the Mechanicus lovingly detailed in harsh geometric lines. An assorted array of bespoke circuitry, capacitors, gas assembly, lens, and even stranger modules I couldn't grasp were looked over with a mothering eye and painstakingly managed with minute adjustments. Her hands had split apart in a lurid display as her fingers divided themselves into multiple segmented tendrils to access the hidden structure of the lasgun, the frame of her hands splayed open like a burst open shell. The pilot lights of the lasgun flashed with a steely resolve as the battery pack receiver was tested for conductivity and wear. Finally, she looked satisfied, her shoulders lowered and the lasgun was reassembled and palpitated with power, bold formula describing thermodynamics and transmittance shone in the light. Burnt into the lasgun with electrolytic etching, she absently remarked it was a gift from her makers upon the completion of particularly difficult mission.
Even with the rituals of maintenance observed the crescendo of hymns continued. The frayed buzzing of binary flowed from her reminiscent of cracked subwoofers. As she raised her head and gazed at me her face was as frozen as ever. The stiff silicon plates and scales that formed her face gleamed with inlaid filigree and iconography. The lens of her eyes evoked the image of twined flower petals edged with an electric lustre.
"Magos?" a hushed question eased out. This tension was taking its toll on both of us. I forced my hands to relax and laid them on my lap.
"You've dealt with rampant Servitors before?" mercifully she didn't comment on how my voice cracked.
"I have, although never on my own. I was always with a hunter-killer maniple as we cleared factory floors when a rampancy outbreak was detected. People underestimate just how dangerous servitors can be with no restraints. They're still augmented same as us. I've witnessed servitors launch themselves at us from servo-powered legs across entire factory wings screaming their babbling nonsense caked in gore. Stay behind me Magos, no matter what happens. We don't know what we're truly facing here." She took on a slight lecturing tone seeming to want to drill in her warnings. I didn't complain.
What was once a dull roar of rushing water came crashing down like an avalanche as soon as we drove down the last sloping hallway. Massive reservoirs forged underground oceans before us for leagues in all directions. Towering pipes and aqueducts loomed over us like colossus as they disappeared into the shrouded ceiling. Lonely swaying fluorescent lamps created islands of marred light that revealed decomposing mutants and hive scum, long dead. The choking rust and dust gave way to stifling humidity and glistening moisture. The noise of rushing water was constant and flagrant. Millions of tonnes of water were being transferred to this artificial basin every cycle waiting to be processed. A persistent glow suffused the area everywhere we went. We were left mystified.
"Magos? What is that light?" She stared transfixed at what we we're seeing. It was incongruous to see this after the ruined wastelands we've traversed.
"I can't believe it! Is this deliberate?" I was equally struck by abrupt change.
Everywhere around us was faintly shining with bioluminescence. The lichen, moss, mold, reedy plants and hanging vines were aglow with a soft glimmer. A biological nebula bloomed wherever we looked. Nature had slowly established a beachhead even in so inhospitable a place. No wonder the fighting between the gangs was so fierce over access to these places. This was baffling to witness. The ground was flush with a benign intensity as carpets of moss basked in the cloying humidity. A vivid spectrum of alien colours erupted with our passing. Long corridors of tangled vines and weeds whirled with outlandish shades that nearly hypnotised me. Serpentine trails of fuchsia slime molds lead us towards the central station. It was hard to miss.
Every reservoir and piping lead inexorably to the morbid edifice that dominated the chamber. Hundreds of aqueducts and sluiceways merged into a lofty monument to the Mechanicus' ability. It was like a mishappen sunken oil derrick suspended by invasive plumbing to impose its will over this artificial ocean. Visibly muscled with filters, tanks, silos and melded with sinewy tubing where ammonia and chlorine seethed. It taunted us with its silence as we approached. Streaked with faded adornments and eroded shrines, it looked like an industrial temple to the Machine God. Mankind's irrefutable proof of his conquest over nature.
"STOP RIGHT NOW MAGOS!" The sheer urgency behind her outcry stunned me briefly as I forced the drone to immediately halt and enter sentry mode, its gun primed and waiting.
Suddenly I could hear the huge displacement of water surge around us. The nearby reservoir enroute exploded as something oozed out of its slumber. Gibbering madness greeted us as the inhuman foe was borne naked before us. It was long. Hundreds of insectile legs clicked and clambered out of their watery lair. The legs were sewn and welded onto a sinuous and lithe body akin to an obscene centipede crafted from crude metal and cruel ambition. The pounding of its stunted legs assaulted my mind as I traced its bizarre design to its head.
Lethal. That was the word to screamed in my mind. A multi-layered wriggling torso faced me. Mounted upon its undulating frame was a man. Impaled, eviscerated, flayed, entwined, and hacked with unfeeling steel. His chest was striated with circuitry and raw wiring. Industrial hydraulics and pressure valves burrowing into his lungs and stomach. His skin looked dead and mummified as it was strangled with silicon and frothing tubing. His neck strained as if trying to snap his own neck to no avail while his veins and leftover muscles writhed with an inflicted power. His legs were sawed off and inserted into the insectile frame twitching behind him. Creeping metal enveloped him in a jealous cocoon that draped him like a straitjacket. Where his arms once were now held multiple apertures armed with industrial tooling and merciless talons. There was no face that was recognisable to me. Instead of a face there was swirling mess of wires smothering an iron-shod skull littered with sensors and antennae that bent and reformed erratically. Beyond a drooping drawn out lens smouldering with a vicious light was a single eye fixated upon us as he heaved his segmented body out of the water, an endless despair and rage boiled within them with a psychotic fervour.
"Disgusting abomination. Defiler. Sinner. Heretic. Blasphemer. Rampant filth! Magos, ready yourself and stay behind me! Burn the Heretic!" The Skitarii landed in front of me with a superhuman alacrity and readied her lasgun and shield before this cyborg psycho, the lasgun igniting with a frightful enthusiasm. Seeing the robes of the Magi clearly enraged the shivering servitor as it flinched back as if struck. Immediately however it reared back and wailed a terrified and wrathful clarion call that rebounded the entire chamber.
The call was answered.