Day 38
With a million limbs and many more, Tide dug. Some were small, the size of ants and even less, sent into the gaps between rockrete and shattered metal and crushed flesh, seeking out anything that might still breathe. Others were large enough to pick up tank-sized chunks of debris. There were countless others between these extremes, all working together with a singular intent, yet it was not proving to be enough.
More flashes of light filled the ruins of the hive city of Dolus, like the flashing of never-ending strobe lights. Tide had run out of metal pods long ago and had begun using biomass-based ones, cannibalizing them upon arrival to create more laborers. There still wasn't enough.
Machines, modified swiftly for a new purpose, began to arrive to assist. Tanks with dozers cleared away smaller piles of rubble, while aircraft flew above and lifted up ruined metal slabs and boulders of rockrete.
Bodies were common, though rarely recognizable. Smashed bones, organs, flesh. Occasionally, he found people who were intact, yet had suffocated from a lack of oxygen. It was only very rarely that he ever found someone who still drew breath. Whether alive or dead, however, the Star Road would appear, wrapping them in gentle bands of light, before vanishing, carrying them into the Domain to rest, whether temporarily… or eternally.
He had uncovered over a hundred million bodies in the day since the hive had fallen and he had barely scratched the surface. The number of those from Dolus who currently rested within his Domain… fifty-two.
He had seen death on a colossal scale before. The three genestealer hives had been filled with their murdered populations, nearly a hundred billion people in all. The corpses had been piled up high, like offerings to alien gods. There was little difference between these dead and those dead. They were all lost to him. Their souls were not there to be collected for his Domain, meaning they had been sent to wherever souls went in the Warp.
He knew. He didn't want to think about it, but he knew what had most likely happened to those souls. For the first time since he had discovered the tear into the Warp that existed within his Domain, he turned his gaze elsewhere, desiring nothing but for it to seal itself and never open again.
Yet, the tear remained.
Vidriov felt like his power core was being ripped out of its reinforced casing as he watched the final pieces of the Faux-Mjolnir Mk.0 be delivered before him from the egg-like pod by grimly silent bioforms. The state of the creation was… horrific.
The armor had been bisected at the waist, narrowly missing its archaeotech power core. There was an additional stab wound precisely over where the heart of a human would have been, further damaging the complex internal circuitry and power cords of the system. To see an artifact he had built with Machine God-sent inspiration be in such a state was a terrible thing.
He and the thirty other tech-priests stood in an ancient warehouse in the depths of Enyo, one that had been filled with all kinds of equipment, materials, and over a dozen suits of power armor. Although, it was not entirely accurate to say they were there at all.
Their true bodies were back within their respective hive cities, performing various tasks that were important enough to warrant each their stations, but nonetheless routine enough that Tide could easily fill in for them. Meanwhile, the minds of the Tech-Priests were allowed by the Chosen of the Omnissiah to use the bioforms that resided within the warehouse.
While the forms were almost entirely crafted from organic components, none could call them any more human than the usual bodies the tech-priests wore. Arms and tendrils sprouted from backs like mechadendrites, yet were able to shift their shape and size to allow for an almost infinitely greater number of uses. They could grow whatever senses they required, even ones that a human did not normally possess, wherever they required them. They could stand atop two legs or two hundred and, best of all, the bodies were easy to get used to with Tide essentially interpreting their mental commands into physical movements.
For a time, the tech-priests had done nothing save change their forms, almost gleeful at the sheer variety of what they had access to.
Vidriov had taken the form of a giant, spider-like being with a dozen tendrils that sprouted from its back. In place of mandibles, a pair of arms sprouted from the head, which also possessed a field of the red stalks that he had seen many of the bioforms use, something which he was amazed to find granted him incredible insights into nearby lifeforms, along with multiple sets of differently sized eyes.
Sathar, who was the sole tech-priest Vidriov really considered anything close to being a rival among the thirty of them, had taken a form that was just as inhuman. He was a mass of separate tendrils, connected to one another by hair-sized fibers, held aloft by their combined strength. Such a form gave him almost unlimited arms, as well as all manner of senses. It also meant that even if a few of the worm-like bodies were destroyed, the whole form would remain intact. The mass could even take on rough shapes, but Sathar had chosen for a simplistic serpent-like silhouette.
Vidriov.
Tide's voice was quiet, subdued even. Vidriov's eyes looked up to the ceiling of the warehouse. The bioform that hung there was so expansive it almost seemed like it was the building's ceiling, only parting in certain sections where recently repaired lights glowed. The flesh writhed occasionally and a variety of tendrils hung loosely like chains from it, simply waiting for commands.
Vidriov noted the rest of the tech-priests had looked up as well, seemingly all agreeing that, in this instance, the largest bioform present must have been the Chosen. Whether Tide was addressing each of them by name or just him, he didn't know for sure.
I apologize for the destruction of the Faux-Mjolnir. While a prototype, I know you all worked hard on it.
Morose though Vidriov himself felt, he did not think Tide's own sadness was not caused by the armor's sorry state. It would take far longer to repair the armor than it had been to modify it, but that was no reason for the solemn feeling.
I understand you all must desire to repair and improve upon your work. However, for the moment, I would like to request you all work on something else for me, if you are willing.
"Command us, Chosen," Vidriov spoke. The rest nodded, at least those who possessed a working neck.
Thank you. The Chaos vessel that destroyed Dolus has crashed in the Freezing Wastes.
For a moment, their minds left their inhabited bodies, their senses turned to that darkest and coldest of lands on all of Monstrum. Where the Barren Lands possessed heat to melt even the hulls of starships if they lingered there too long, the Freezing Wastes could encase it in ice or dash it into countless pieces against frozen mountains with gale winds. To travel there in aircraft was to die and the same could be said for going by land.
There had been few expeditions into that half of Monstrum. Craft that could survive out there were rare and, more importantly, expensive both to maintain and produce. Even shuttles rated for exiting the atmosphere did not always return from that place. Vidriov was not sure how a frigate would fare, but he doubted its occupants could survive. Evidently, his thoughts were similar to what the rest of the tech-priests felt, as Tide addressed the concerns directly.
By using the Star Road and a bioform as a scout, I was able to determine the location of the vessel. It is intact, which is fortunate. If its power core had ruptured, it likely would have caused issues for this world. Nothing that could not be fixed in time, but I am glad that, in my anger, I did not cause any more devastation. However, it also presents the possibility of survivors. When I attacked, there were at least three Space Marines present on the bridge, perhaps more elsewhere in the ship. If anyone could survive such a crash, Astartes could. Chaos Astartes and sorcerers doubly so.
Vidriov wasn't sure even a Space Marine could have survived in the Wastes. However, Tide showed them, from a distance, the downed Chaos warship. While Tide's assault had torn away many of the corrupted components, there were still several sections of the hull that writhed with sorcerous growths. If they had survived the initial crash in so intact a ship and reached a deeper portion of the vessel, sealing the way behind them, if they worked to repair the heating systems, using the power core to do it… Perhaps they might have been able to live.
As the craft remains active, at least in some sense of that word, I will not risk the Star Road going closer. While nothing mundane can destroy it while it is active, I do not know how it will interact with sorcery and I do not wish to risk it to find out.
Vidriov didn't need to ask if there was a reason to go after them. Setting aside the practical, like the fact that leaving a trio of Chaos Space Marines alive was no different from asking for this world to fall under waves of daemons, there was the impractical, the emotional reason. Namely… Revenge.
Tide was making little effort to hide the fury boiling within him, even if the surface of his words only held a grim sorrow and determination. Vidriov, wisely, kept to himself his feelings on whether the people of Dolus, complicit in the crimes of harboring and aiding a Chaos uprising, deserved the treachery of their lord and master.
Regardless of the differences in their beliefs regarding judgement, Vidriov wouldn't stand in the way of the Chosen of the Omnissiah when he was on the warpath.
I have spent a day sending all manner of bioforms and craft into the Wastes, both outside and near the vessel.
Once more, their sight changed. They watched through the eyes of hundreds of bodies as they appeared into the Wastes in a flash of light. Some of the bodies were covered in thicker and thicker coats of fur, while others possessed internal organs that would have perished from overheating in moments were they in normal temperatures. Each time, the bodies perished in seconds, freezing solid. Some were the size of battle tanks, others even larger. Those that travelled in pods would last the longest, but would be unable to do anything but sit within their transports, which had frozen shut outside them. In minutes, even that thin protection would fail. At times, the cold was not what killed them, but a sudden gust of terrible wind, which tossed the bodies about with the force of a rampaging titan, smashing them into rock or flinging them hundreds of feet into the air only to shatter into icy pieces when they returned to the ground. Those that appeared within the ship itself fared little better. Without the Star Road's sight to guide them, when they did not find themselves fused inside the hull or corridors, they were swiftly killed by the cold that had even infiltrated so deeply into the vessel.
Surviving in such a place with flesh alone is not possible for me. I need heat to move my limbs, armor to protect my flesh, strength to let me stand unmoving against the winds. I need power armor.
There was a pause as their vision returned to the warehouse. Their gazes were guided over to the empty suits of Sister of Battle power armor, standing like silent guardians.
But these suits cannot survive as they are. For the moment, I require nothing but scouts with which to search the Chaos vessel and find any sections with an interior that might hide survivors.
Once more, the tech-priests turned their regard upwards, to the form that took up the vast ceiling. It seemed to shiver then, as though its whole form were a clenched fist.
Fashion these armors into something that can survive these conditions and deliver these wretches into my hands. Show this cabal that nowhere is beyond our reach.
Cass and Brunt had not remained in that strange residence for very long. 'Tide' had barely stepped out of the doorway before they started looking for a way out of the chamber. After finding nothing save the front door, they used that one and found it unguarded. As the man had said, no one stopped them because there was no one to stop them. All they found were vines that seemed to have taken up living there in the absence of any humans, spread across the ceiling and walls, yet absent from the ground.
They had kept on and for nearly a day now they had kept going. They had gotten hungry a few times, but food was in short supply, or so they'd thought. They had been wary of the strange, bright red orbs that grew from the vines. It was only after they saw the first other living thing in the city that wasn't vines, a large, white-haired rat roughly the size of a human head, scamper off with one of the orbs already in its mouth that they decided to risk it.
Both were glad they had. The objects, which they somehow each knew to be named 'fruits', were delicious beyond anything they had ever tasted before and quite filling. The fact that they were so plentiful was incredible and Cass wondered if this was simply what it was like to live in one of the higher parts of the spires, where food literally grew all around her.
Still, they'd kept on. Everywhere they went, they found vines and everywhere there were vines, there were fruits. However, the rat was the lone creature they had seen and no other people had appeared, even Tide himself had seemingly vanished. Despite this, the sounds of factories, if subdued compared to what had been the near constant background noise of Whiro, were still strong enough to be heard everywhere they went.
The man, Tide, had said this was no longer a city of the living. Was this what he had meant?
Tide had been quiet for a long time. He had shown Ellen what had happened, shown the destruction of Dolus in her mind. Then, he had placed the two of them in the same tree-trunk hall they'd held a meeting with her two acolytes not long ago, taking on the wooden form he'd taken then as well, with its four teardrop, gemstone eyes.
Ellen should have felt elated that the traitors had turned on one another. For that matter, Tide, given all his professed hatred for the Ruinous Powers, should have been celebrating. And yet… He was silent as the grave. While no psyker, she could feel his emotions, or at least the surface of them, in his Domain.
She didn't feel happiness or even satisfaction. If he had lied to her and supported the forces of Chaos, she would have expected frustration or even anger. Instead, there was just… sadness.
You have never commanded an Exterminatus be conducted.
Ellen blinked at the sudden statement. It was true, she had never had to commit the vile act of condemning a whole world and ordering its destruction. She believed she would, if it ever came to that.
What line would you draw?
The question surprised her even more than the statement had. It was a vague question, yet the intent and nuance accompanied it when Tide spoke. At what point would she decide a world was beyond saving through another method?
She opened her mouth to speak, to say 'when the world is thoroughly corrupted', then closed it. What did that mean, corrupted? Chaos corruption, obviously. A daemon world would be no great task to decide deserved extermination. But… An exterminatus was far more often rendered upon a world that had not fallen so far, but was merely on the verge of doing so. At least, that was what her mentor had told her and even he had never conducted an exterminatus in over two centuries as an Inquisitor. It was not something to be done lightly.
"I do not know," She answered. It was true, as well. She didn't know if she could ever consign herself to condemn a whole world with a single command. If there was anyone upon it still loyal, still fighting against the enemies of the Imperium, how could she reward their loyalty with the destruction of everything they had ever known?
Why was Tide asking her this? Was he wondering what to do with the survivors of Dolus? They had served in a city corrupted by Chaos and such taint was difficult, if not outright impossible, to excise.
I suppose that is a fair enough answer.
"And what of you?" She'd asked the question before even realizing she had intended to.
Tide was quiet for a time, considerate. Perhaps it was because so much of his attention was elsewhere, perhaps it was because he was truly mulling it over.
I do not know.
He was quiet for a while longer after that before he had decided how to continue.
I have killed people before, by action and inaction. If I have another option that does not require the sacrifice of other lives, I will take that option, but it is not always there. Sometimes I must choose who to save. Sometimes I must choose who shall die.
The words reminded her of something her mentor had told her once. It had been right after he'd sent an entire Guard regiment to their deaths against a horde of Tyranids to allow for a dozen other regiments to escape. He had been a hard-faced man, cold and aloof. Yet, when he had given the orders to the regiment's colonel, he had taken on a more morose appearance and treated with the man, a mere officer, as an equal.
I see you, Catherine Ellen, and I see a world. I see the pride and fear you felt in equal measure when you were risen to an Inquisitor, colored by the sorrow you felt at that moment as well. I see the life you led, half-forgotten, on your homeworld before the hive mind came to devour it. Every hidden doubt, every secret withheld, every blunder, and every triumph. I see these things in all who I am connected to. Every. One.
The head of the xenos' illusory form looked up toward the ceiling. It was difficult to tell with nonhuman and literally wooden features, but she thought she saw it staring off into the middle distance as well.
You are all like worlds to me. I do not see the lives of those who I have not connected with. I did not connect with the people of Dolus. Nor the people of Limos, Enyo, and Whiro. Nor the people who I have decided were to die. I did not know any of them as I know you and many others. But they were worlds all the same.
He turned and fixed her with an unblinking gaze that contained emotions she wasn't able to quite parse.
So, I suppose I do know what I would choose. What I already have chosen. Kill the few to save the many.
"Why ask me all this?" Ellen felt an inkling of concern. "Why bring me here and speak to me of all people?"
Tide was quiet again for a time and she wished his eyes could communicate emotion, yet they held only the shine of gemstones.
Just as there are those who I have decided to kill, there are many people who I have decided not to, in spite of what they have done in the past, people whose lives have been spent in committing things I find horrific. Most of the Sisters of Battle are such. As are many of the so-called nobles and officials of this world. There are many others as well, spread across this world.
"And… I'm one of them." It wasn't really a question.
Yes. I have seen all manner of atrocities and crimes committed on this planet, by your Imperium, by its people, by xenos, and I have often wondered how I should respond, how I should stop them, how I should punish them, if I should interfere at all or if this is the natural state that the universe itself desires.
"And what have you decided?" Ellen would be lying if she claimed there wasn't a serpent of fear coiling itself inside her guts. To see someone so powerful and dangerous speaking like this was disturbing for all manner of reasons.
Tide looked away and up again.
I do not know.
He paused and while his form was inhuman, she could see the tenseness in his body, like a chain strained to its limits.
I suppose we will find out once the one who destroyed Dolus is in my grasp.
