Bright green light heralded the appearance of forty giants in Terminator armor. The suits themselves were still not common and to tell the truth, twenty were actually all the Emperor's Children had. The Dusk Raiders, by the virtue of having more members, had managed to accumulate more. The group broke into smaller clusters, as the Marines prepared to head for their objectives.
Sergeant Huron-Fal eyed his squad. The idea of sending mixed-squads was naturally correct, given that it was a decision taken by two Primarchs. There were surely very good reasons for it and it was bound to be successful. Having ascertained of himself that he was in no way doubting his Primarch and Lord Fulgrim, Huron-Fal noted that two of the Emperor's Children were eyeing him back and one—Thorian, if he remembered his name correctly—was wrinkling his nose at Brother Helon. He had hoped the fact that the two had known each other beforehand would make things easier. In retrospect, he ought to have asked Helon about the whole thing.
"Move out," he said, shaking his head. His squad needed to get to the bridge and it would take a while before they got there from the landing bay. Huron-Fal did not expect any resistance, given that so far they had not picked up any signs of life, but nevertheless had his Squad move in a scouting pattern, with Helon at the front and Thorian in the back. He was not going to take risks here—veterans they all may be, but nevertheless even the most experienced warriors fell prey to private animosities.
The ship was silent. There were no voices, only the thump of their own armored feet as they marched forward. There were no corpses, which worried Huron-Fal. If the crew were dead, their bodies should be somewhere. The lack of cadavers made the sergeant wonder, if perhaps someone had survived. They couldn't have left—the shuttles were still there and Morr with his squad had reported that the teleportarium was not in any state to be used safely. Or at all. The survivors, if there were any, had to be still on the Sovereign. There could be a good reason why they had not responded to their hails or tried to check who was making all the noise—they had not been on the bridge, because they were wounded or frightened. The communications array was malfunctioning. They suspected a trap. He could list many more reasons and none sounded harmless.
The lights were on, illuminating the floor and the walls. Neither looked particularly odd: simple, utilitarian, the same as on any Imperial ship. Occasionally, the Marines would spot a mark left by a stray bullet or a las discharge. Clearly, the ship's crew had been fighting something here, but Huron-Fal couldn't make out any hints of Xenos weapons being fired. Perhaps mutiny then? But that would still leave the crew alive. Some of it, anyway. Those were the only signs of battle they could find. This tidiness was starting to become less then just odd and more unnerving as they progressed.
"This is wrong," one of the Emperor's Children said, as they passed another empty corridor.
"Truly, you are the master of obvious, Jacinthus," grumbled Thorian from his spot at the back of the group.
"Pay attention," Huron-Fal growled. Thankfully no one saw fit to be witty and asked if they should watch out for the walls falling on them or something like that. Joking in a place like this would only serve to make his temper flare. Even now, he half expected something to happen—a shot, a scream, a running crew member, anything. Perhaps the Emperor's Children felt the same? Even experienced Astartes would have to feel uneasy in such a place and that could account for the rather unbefitting demeanor.
And yet nothing happened. The ship remained silent and dead. The only sounds were the fall of their feet and the thrumming of their armours' power packs. Huron-Fal felt almost absurdly like he was inside a mausoleum. A desecrated mausoleum.
Then Helon stopped and pointed at a corridor with his twin-linked bolter. According to the data Huron-Fal received, it was not the one they were supposed to investigate first. Nevertheless, he approached his battle brother and looked in the indicated direction—he knew Helon wouldn't stop because of something inconsequential.
The first few meters were no different than what they had so far seen, but afterwards there was progressively more damaged. At first, it was merely some sort of dark residue on all the surfaces, but as one moved towards the end of the corridor the amount of damage grew. There was a large gaping hole in the wall to Huron-Fal's left and another opposite to it, as if something had exploded. Remains of some metal object, probably of a door, lay scattered all over and there was a familiar smell in the air.
"Burnt bodies," Jacinthus said.
"This was supposed to be the sanctum of the Astropaths," Huron-Fal mused loudly. "Change of plans—we'll check this first. I want to be sure there's nothing nasty hiding here."
Helon nodded and headed forward cautiously. He navigated through the debris—quite the feat given how bulky his armor was, as he neared the first hole and carefully peered inside, before waving the rest of the squad over.
What remained of the room could be called empty, given that none of its furnishing had survived. Most of it was mixed with the mortal remains of the inhabitants, burned to ash or at best a charred paste. As soon as they entered Huron-Fal felt as if something was subtly wrong. He and his battle brothers had seen quite a few places destroyed or damaged by an explosion and they knew what signs to look for to determine the cause. They searched all over, trying to gauge what could have caused such damage and yet found no signs of explosives or discharges from a weapon. It was almost as if the Astropaths had spontaneously exploded. The thought made Huron-Fal stop in his tracks. It was not as absurd an idea as he might have thought. Psykers did tend to come to messy ends, if they overtaxed themselves. Some mutated spontaneously, others fell prey to Warp predators and there were those who simply exploded. Something like that could have easily happened here.
But what could have caused the Astropaths to tax their powers to such a degree? Perhaps they had been calling for help? Unfortunately, the room offered no answers for this question. If there had been any records of what the psykers had been doing before their demise, it was most likely destroyed. If they were lucky, it was simply stored elsewhere. Having ascertained that they would not find any further clues, Huron-Fal had his squad get back on their way to the bridge, as he contacted the other squads.
"We've reached the reactor room," Sergeant Leander said, responding to Huron-Fal's query as to their current location. "The reactor itself is operating at a minimal setting, the control systems are offline. No Adepts in sight. The servitors are gone as well."
"What? All systems?" Huron-Fal asked, his voice disbelieving.
"I'm not a techmarine," Leander replied, as he started to trail the golden eagle on his breast, like he always did when impatient. "But according to Brother Oeneus only the most basic systems are working. We cannot turn on the security protocols or access any database."
He shook his head and rather grouchily added, "We can turn off the lights and change the temperature."
He could almost hear Huron-Fal rolling his eyes, as his Dusk Raider counterpart spoke. "Keep on looking."
Once the transmission stopped, Leander turned to look at his squad, his eyes resting on the purple and golden form of his blood brother.
Techmarine Oeneus was frowning, as he inspected the control consoles with utmost care. They appeared to be perfectly intact—there were no signs of outside damage and the one he had currently dismantled appeared to be undamaged inside as well. Unlike the rest, he was not wearing Terminator armor and so had quite firmly insisted the others stay away from the devices, to prevent them from accidentally stepping on something important.
"Odd," he murmured to himself. "This should work."
That earned him several quizzical stares.
"It's not broken," he said. He shook his head and carefully started putting the cogitator back together: piece by piece until he could switch it on again. Slowly, the screen blinked to life, the machine spirit awaking from its slumber. Oeneus followed the data displayed on the screen for any mentions of anomalies, but the diagnostics weren't showing anything. Finally, when the cogitator appeared to be ready to display the data, the screen flickered out and grew black again.
"Maybe you broke something when you were fiddling with it?" Leander asked, frowning.
"Lay off," one of the Dusk Raiders said gruffly. "It's not like you know what goes where, anyway."
Oeneus blinked, surprised to find such an unexpected defender of his skill and virtue. Nevertheless, he felt better knowing not all Dusk Raiders had missed how meticulous he had been.
"Perhaps you have missed the fact that I am a sergeant and we do not have all day, Brother Alvin," Leander replied snappily.
Oeneus sighed and prodded Leander with his mechandrite. That earned him an offended look from his brother and several mortified ones from his battle brothers. The Dusk Raiders he understood, but he thought the Emperor's Children would have learned already that one just couldn't act all formal around one's sibling all the time.
"And you, sibling," he said in a polite tone, "are an u- "
Leander stifled a groan before hastily saying, "Perhaps my impatience is getting the better of me. I shall investigate the chambers to the left."
Sometimes, he really wished Oeneus had never become a Techmarine. He had been so much easier to live with.
Leander was used to the sight of corpses in various states of dismemberment. He was also fairly well acquainted with the sight of decay and so finding a mummified body on the floor did not faze him particularly. He regarded the skeletal brown form, trying to gauge what might have been the cause of death.
It had to be a high-ranking adept, given how heavily augmented it had been. Most of its lower face and neck had been replaced by metal, wire and some strange apparatus. It had far too many legs for Leander's liking. He had never been fond of the Mechanicum, finding their obsessive augmentation to be a perversion of the perfect human form.
He chased the thoughts away. Oeneus could have been one of them, had they not been chosen to become Emperor's Children. He knelt down next to the corpse and carefully tried to lift the robes on its chest. There was a rather odd hole in them and something black had stained them there. It looked as if something blunt had been shoved through the Adept's chest. It had been done with enough force to come out through the back. But what had been the weapon?
Slowly, he rose and took a step back from the body, turning his attention back to his companions.
He noticed that Alva was already riffling through the belongings of the previous inhabitant, along with a Dusk Raider by the name Dowell. They would leave the room in a worse condition than the one they had found it in, but there was no way to avoid damage when trying to search through a place in bulky and heavy Terminator armor.
Meanwhile, Phoebus was doing his best to turn on the personal cogitator of the Adept and apparently having a lot more success that Oeneus had had with ones in the previous chambers. Leander didn't fail to notice that Phoebus had followed the Techmarine's example and removed his gauntlets to do so.
"This is a log," he observed after a while, just as Alva and Dowell discovered that the leftmost locker held a pile of laundry. "Seems like he or she kept a list of breakdowns on the ship."
"Does it tell us anything about the cogitators?" Leander asked, as he approached the other Marine.
Phoebus nodded and started scrolling down the list, until he reached the final entries. "Indeed. Apparently, they started breaking down and refusing to operate… a month from the last entry, at least. There were only a few problems at first, but by the latest entry most of them were either out of commission or malfunctioning to a serious degree. That was roughly two weeks ago."
Leander nodded. Then something occurred to him. "How come this one is working?"