Day 16
In the depths of Malum, a large, open space had been cleared of debris and equipment. Twenty meters wide, it was surrounded by the clamor of machinery, the pounding of metal, and the stretching of titanic muscles. A single structure was taking its final shape within the space, held aloft by massive tentacles that wrapped around its metal frame. It was cylindrical and lacked any kind of decoration or symbol. Wrought ceramite, fresh from the forges, armored its sides. There was only a single gap in its armor, a door that hung on a simple, but sturdy hinge.
As the final pieces of armor were fused into place by plasma torches, the eight occupants of the container crawled, walked, or slithered inside. The door swung shut and heavy bolts locked it in place from the inside. Only enormous force would allow anyone, or anything, to get in.
The cylinder was lowered to the floor, even as new tentacles moved to take it up. These were massive things, wider than men were tall, and they wrapped around the cylinder with a gentleness that belied the horrific strength within each of them. Around and around, they went, covering more and more of the container, until nothing could be seen of its metallic surface.
For a moment, nothing happened, as though a long breath were being drawn in. Then, something within the mass of flesh began to shake and a sound like the drawing of a blade from its sheath could be heard, overpowering the racket of biomachine and forge-flame. It grew louder and louder as the shaking grew stronger and stronger before, all at once, it stopped.
There was no sound as reality, as the universe itself, opened and let the cylinder slip from its grasp. There was no sight, as the ceramite container disappeared from existence, slipping from the universe and its myriad dimensions and laws. There was nothing. There was everything.
Then, in a moment that was both an eternity and an instant, the container and its eight occupants was back, once more in the embrace of this universe, returned not to the underhive of Malum, but far away from the hive, appearing within the hold of a cargo ship, one of countless such vessels that had been fused together into an unnatural craft.
The cylinder hovered in midair for less than an instant, its exposed surface simultaneously glowing white with more heat than was contained within the universe itself and colder than absolute zero as the paradoxical residues of the multiverse forced the structure beyond the extreme ends of this universe's laws and possibilities.
Then, reality once more held dominance and the ceramite cylinder dropped to the floor with a thunderous, metallic clang, its surface once again the same temperature it had been before it had appeared within the cargo hold, no sign that it had undertaken any journey so harrowing as skimming the multiverse itself save for its change in location.
The heavy bolts were thrown once more, and the cylinder's door swung open.
Grut and his boyz had heard the crashing of metal and being the curious (bored) sort had gone to look. There might have been something to fight, after all. At the very least, if it was just some grots that had dropped something loud, they'd be able to have some fun beating them.
Grut was a large nob and he had around twenty boyz in his mob. They were all excited, jabbering and shouting about the 'umie planet and the fights that were to be had. Grut was pretty excited too, but he had to look tough in front of his boyz.
They entered a cavernous cargo hold of one of the wrecks and it was pretty obvious what had made the noise. A massive tube, like a rokkit that had both of its ends lopped off, sat in the middle of the hold. A hatch leading into the container was open, resting on its hinge and Grut couldn't see anything inside it.
"Oy!" Grut clobbed the nearest Ork over the head. "Get to it, runt!"
"Y-yeah, boss!" The boy squeaked, scurrying forwards, choppa and shoota in hand. The boy scrabbled up the hatch and inside the tube. For a few moments, the boy stood within sight, just looking around the inside of the tube, before turning. "Nothin 'ere!"
"Well, there was somethin'!" Grut spat, annoyed. "Dat hatch didn't open itself! Somethin' opened it!"
The boyz looked at one another, clearly not understanding what he meant, but nodding in agreement anyways. Grut just rolled his eyes. "Dat hatch only opens from da inside, ya gits."
The boyz all nodded as though they had all figured it out as well, but Grut snarled and their confidence drained away in an instant, replaced by abject fear.
"FIND IT!" Grut roared at them and the boyz scattered to go and look, or at least to look like they were looking. "NOTHIN' TA DO BUT THIS 'TIL WE HIT THE 'UMIES!"
Grut moved towards the tube, congratulating himself for his shoutiness as he did. He could be a warboss, one day. Possibly today, if he challenged Grinhide. It'd be a good fight either way, but Grut wasn't sure he could win that one. The Boss was big and real strong, but also real clever. Some said he was more cunningly brutal than brutally cunning, but Grut thought the opposite.
Nah, better to fight Grinhide another day. The 'umies would provide enough fun, for a little while anyways. Grut stomped up to the tube and climbed up the hatch. The tube was fit for big 'uns, that was for sure. He didn't even need to stoop to get his head through the entrance.
The inside of the tube sort of looked like a boarding torpedo, but the outside was built all wrong. Shoddy 'umie work, maybe? Too big for regular 'umies though… Oh, maybe some beakies had come aboard! That would be fun!
Grut heard the scream of one of his boyz outside, only for it to be suddenly cut short, and a malevolent grin split his face. Rushing back out of the tube, he leaped down to the cargo hold floor, enjoying the small tremor that shook the boyz around him.
"WUT WAS DAT?!?" Grut shouted at the nearest group of boyz, enjoying the look of fear in their eyes. That was until he realized they weren't looking at him and trembling, but something at the far end of the cargo hold. Grut turned around and his eyes widened.
It wasn't beakies. Or 'umies. Or panzees, or tin eadz, or spikey boyz, or anything else Grut had seen before.
The thing was big, bigger than Grut even, with two sets of powerful claws that sparked with lightning and seemed to be made as much out of flesh as metal. Its 'head', if it could even be called that, was stunted, barely a bump on the thing's broad shoulders, sprouting stalks of some kind that ended in twitching, red leaf-things. At its feet, the charred remains of one of his boyz smoked and shivered with something more than just death twitches.
Grut stared at the thing and he got the feeling it was staring back. For a moment, it was just the two of them, alone in the universe. Grut saw the thing that would be his death and it saw him as the one it would murder.
Grut roared in defiance, raised his choppa above his head, and charged. The thing rushed forward to meet him, claws sparking.
Tide watched through the senses of his chosen invaders as they stalked through the myriad halls, holds, and bays of the space hulk, slaughtering any they found. Eight pure forms, even as powerful as each of them was, would not be enough to stop the ork invasion by any means. At most, they would stall it a few hours at most.
He'd spent the past day, while the container was being assembled, handcrafting each of them. They were unique, more than any other flood form he had created. Namely because he'd not limited himself to purely genetic manipulation for them but had also combined them with technological augments. They were crude, built out of scavenged parts and using what limited knowledge his absorbed Mechanicus adepts had given him. However, they were interesting proof of concepts that he had had and would provide interesting data for future works.
He'd even gone as far as to name each of their 'types'. He'd made four pairs and dubbed them Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, and Ranger. Not very original names, granted, but he wasn't exactly going to be telling anyone these. Not like every thought had to be shared, after all.
Barbarian-01 and Barbarian-02 were the largest of the 'party' he had made. They were modeled off the Tank pure form, but even larger and stronger, not to mention tougher. He had the theoretical knowledge to create actual lightning claws, but he lacked the materials required, so he'd settled for simply electrifying their talons. The effect was less than desired, but the Barbarian form itself was at least proving efficient in rampant slaughter. Barbarian-02 had remained behind at the tube and already it had slaughtered a mob of Orks that had come to investigate.
Fighter-01 and Fighter-02 were smaller then the Barbarians, roughly on par with an Ork Nob or a certain Ogryn. They were also much more humanoid in form, possessing large hands rather than claws or tentacles. Each one was equipped with Tide's best attempt at a gravity hammer, utilizing the same anti-grav technology commonly found in servoskulls to draw the enemy closer as the hammer fell, then push them away with a powerful burst. Results thus far were… mixed, but Tide suspected higher quality materials would provide a better example.
Rogue-01 and Rogue-02 were the smallest of the lot, at just over a meter tall. He wasn't expecting too many ork deaths from this pair, as they weren't really designed for killing as much as they were for stealth, scouting, and sabotage. The same anti-grav tech in the Fighters' gravity hammers gave them a lighter step and enhanced an already substantially powerful leap. He'd also equipped them with laspistols, but he doubted they'd survive a direct encounter with anything stronger than an Ork boy. Even that would likely be a close fight.
Ranger-01 and Ranger-02 were Elites he had equipped with armor and weapons suited to their unusual body type. He'd done something possibly stupid and equipped each of them with modified plasma guns taken from the dead Mechanicus. It was possibly stupid because he currently lacked the knowledge needed to manufacture new ones. His 'modifications' of it really just came down to a grip better suited to the sangheili hand. While two plasma guns wasn't a great loss, he didn't like wasting rare equipment he couldn't replace. He'd also given them each a chainsword that had been built from scratch to look like the Elite energy blade from Halo.
The Rangers were the ones he spent the most time watching as they fought. The added attention ensured their combat styles were less feral and more refined, which likely improved their success against the wilder fighting of the groups of Orks they came up against.
For the moment, he had his Rogues follow in the wake of each of the Rangers, scratching the corpses left behind with their claws to infect them. He'd already raised quite a few of them as combat forms, around forty including the bunch taken down by Barbarian-02. He didn't need a Proto-Gravemind or anything like that for the moment, so he was content to simply let them rampage across the space hulk.
The hulk itself was quite large, three hundred kilometers at its widest point. Roughly the size of a small moon. If Monstrum had oceans, or any kind of natural environment that had adapted to the system's standard gravity fluxuations, it would likely have been thrown into chaos by the hulk's presence in orbit.
Already, Malum's augurs could detect the first transports beginning to leave the hulk. No opening orbital bombardment then, as his anxiety had feared. Nor were the orks insane enough to think they could 'land' the hulk on the planet either.
Monstrum had plenty of skyfire defenses, but Tide doubted they alone would be enough to deal with an Ork WAAAGH! Not to mention the fact that there were large portions of the planet left uncovered by any form of defense. A part of him considered trying to draw in the Orks towards Malum by reducing the flak from his city in particular, but doing so would almost certainly draw suspicion from the Inquisitor, not to mention the civilian casualties.
He knew people, ordinary, innocent people, were going to die. It was inevitable in this universe. However, they didn't need to die because of his actions.
Tide had Malum's defenses alerted and readied long before the first transport touched the atmosphere. He wouldn't take outright control of the defenders, but he… greased the gears, so to speak. He pushed down their fears, reinforced their determination. Those that slept, he ensured did so soundly and gave them dreams of Imperial Guard training. The civilians, scared in their homes he calmed their hearts. He gave them a feeling that some hadn't felt since childhood, if ever: hope.
With luck, that would be enough. He doubted it would be though, so he expanded his search for and repairing of factories in the underhive. He'd be needing the weapons soon enough.
