Day 48
Selene and her mama nestled together in their hab unit. Someone had gotten the idea of using the vines as makeshift padding and they'd all been surprised by how comfortable they were to use like that, though perhaps less so than when they had suddenly begun to grow fruit. In her hands, Selene held small, thin sheets of what she somehow knew was something called 'paper', bound together with string.
Her mama, who knew how to read though didn't remember when she'd learned, told her what the little letters on the paper said. They made a story, they made many stories. 'Fables' was what the first word, written large across the front page in bold symbols. Selene had sounded the word out and her mama had pointed out each letter.
They had found the little papers a while ago, just outside their hab unit. Other papers had been placed in front of all the other hab units as well. All kinds of strange things had been happening recently, but people were getting used to it.
One of the strange things, that had nearly made her mama cry for some reason, was being were a lot of changes that Selene didn't really understand. She'd asked what was wrong, but mama had just smiled and laughed and they had played all night. All she really understood was that her mama had gotten to stay home for a lot longer, as had everyone else, and Selene couldn't help but be happy about that.
As her mama spoke, Selene saw things in her mind. Animals she had never seen before, venturing under a blue sky, amid tall things that grew from the ground, which was softer than ash and covered in green blades that produced a peculiar scent. In this fable, she saw an outcropping of stone rising from the ground, a cavern. A large, four-legged beast that radiated strength, even majesty, yet also danger, rested at the entrance. It was golden furred with a mane like fire in the sunlight and lounged back, tired and sick.
Emerging from the underbrush, another animal emerged, far smaller, with bright white fur and no mane, and a long, hairless tail. Its head was longer, pointed, and it gave off a cunning air with its sharp eyes. Her mama's words told her it paused outside the cave, far from the lion and came no further.
'How is your health, great king of the plains?' The rat asked. The lion lifted its head and gave a cough.
'I am old and sick, little rat,' The lion replied. 'Won't you step into my cave for a moment? I would share my final thoughts with you.'
Yet the rat did not move, clever as it was.
'I should be glad to do as you request, but let me ask a question of you first, great king,' The rat said. The lion seemed displeased but nodded.
'Ask then,' it said and the rat nodded its nose towards the ground in front of the cave.
'I have noticed there are many footprints going into your cave,' The rat said. 'Yet none coming out. My question is this: where do your visitors leave from, if not this entrance?'
Selene gasped at that as she saw, indeed, there were many footprints that went one way, from all kinds of animals, but none heading in the other direction. Her mother began to speak the reply of the lion, when suddenly, the sound of knuckles rapping against rockrete disturbed them and the images faded from her mind. Her mama's head snapped up, staring at the trespasser. They didn't get visitors.
It was a boy, maybe twelve years old, holding another little stack of strung together papers. Selene had thought all the papers were the same, but now that she looked more closely, she saw the big letters on the front page of the stack the boy held was different to the one she had.
"H-hi," The boy said, shifting nervously from one foot to another. Mama's gaze did not waver from him for an instant and Selene felt her arms tighten about her. "I was… wondering if we could trade."
Mama blinked. "Trade?" She repeated and Selene looked from her to the boy.
"My… thing has pictures," The boy continued, holding the booklet aloft and opening it. Selene's eyes widened at the colorful interior which seemed to contain a number of small, strangely drawn people. "Its… funny, I think, but I've read them all. I was… hoping you'd be okay with trading them."
"I don't think-," Mama began, but Selene's voice cut her off.
"Can we?" Selene asked, intrigued by the comics. Her mama looked down at her, uncertainty on her face, before cracking a small smile.
"Alright," she said. She picked up Selene and set her down to the side, taking the papers as well. She rose and held it out to the boy, though there was still some tenseness in her shoulders. He handed over his set and accepted hers in turn, a gleeful smile on his face. She watched him turn around and scamper away before she returned to Selene.
"Now, let's see here," She began, but stopped when Selene tugged at her arm. "What is it?"
"What happened with the rat and the lion?"
For some reason, her mama sighed.
Ahsael held another of the dark red crystals up for what must have been the hundredth time. It had been nearly a week since he'd begun his studies of the last organic remains of his servants. He'd learned several things over the six days he'd spent studying them.
First off, the blood crystal was not actual blood. At least, it did not act like blood. He'd first noticed this after picking it up, when it hadn't broken apart like disintegrating parchment in the grip of his armored gauntlets. It was surprisingly sturdy, having a durability more on par with iron rather than frozen blood, though it remained brittle and could be broken with an exertion of force from his gene-enhanced muscles. Strangely, once broken it would lose any of its special qualities. Difficult for a mortal to break, however.
Second, it did not melt even in room temperature environments. In fact, it shared yet another quality with iron, requiring similar levels of heat to cause it to melt. After that, it would swiftly boil away as it, again, lost its special qualities.
Finally, his Warp-sight granted him no new knowledge of the crystals. Yet, that was not to say it did not interact with sorcery at all.
Ahsael's hand rose, index finger pointed towards the cieling. With an arcane utterance, a small, blue flame ignited atop his finger, like a candle. It hung there, flickering normally for a moment.
Then, as though pushed by a gust of wind, the flames began to flicker towards the crystal, held next to it. The closer Ahsael brought the crystal to it, the stronger the effect, until…
Sssssss…
Like the sound of water dousing a blaze, the moment the crystal moved into the flame the fire was sucked up, vanishing from existence as though the spell had ended. Ahsael watched the entire occurrence with his Warp-sight. He stared in awe and rampant curiosity as Warp-stuff was drawn towards the crystal, like its energies were being leeched off by it.
How was the process facilitated? Was this purely Warp-craft of a kind he had never seen before, or was it possible that this was something more? The crystals did not noticeably change ever after absorbing the power of the tiny flames, so was it simply not enough power to cause it to alter or was it shunted off to someplace else?
Fascination filled him, threatening to drive his mind further away from the task at hand. There were so many things he wished to study on this planet, it was an endless source of strangeness, he simply needed time and the proper facilities. Part of it was the power such studies would surely bring, but also simply the chance to understand something so incredible. Unfortunately, he lacked the tools and the opportunity to perform any such in-depth study for so noble a goal as the expansion of knowledge.
Instead, he produce anther flame, maintaining the same size, yet putting more power into it. It slowly began to condense, like a beam of light being focused. However, the power continued to be leeched away by the crystal at the same… No, not quite the same rate. The rate had slowed, ever so slightly. Ahsael felt a grin spreading across his face.
Then, he felt a drop of water fall onto his face. His gaze turned upwards and he saw a thin crack in the plating of the ceiling of the fuel rod storage room he'd turned into a temporary study. A pipe must have sprung.
Returning the crystal to the pile of others that had been harvested, Ahsael rose as he felt an approaching presence. Uirus opened the door to the study, stepping in with another two crystals in hand.
"Four went missing this time," His brother said, handing the crystals over, a look of deep frustration on his face. "That makes twenty-two."
"Another breach?"
"No, these ones went down the corridor we sealed off yesterday. I think they were trying to make a run for it."
Ahsael snorted at that, while Uirus just shrugged. Mortals made poor decision under stressful situations, but trying to flee into a snowstorm was another level of idiocy.
"You say four, but return with two," Ahsael noted, adding the pair to the pile.
"I wasn't able to find the other two," Uirus replied, before gesturing to the pile. "The snow has already filled that section of the ship, so there were tracks I was able to follow. Four definitely left that way, but those two were the only ones who came back. I followed the tracks to their furthest point. I found signs of two people collapsing, but they were gone…"
Ahsael tilted his head at the pause. "Continue," he ordered.
"There were tracks leading away from the bodies, out into the Wastes. I think… they might have gotten up and walked."
Ahsael nodded, having expected as much. The icy remains of those servants caught by whatever was out there rarely remained where they were discovered for long and Ahsael had suspected that they were being transformed into… something else. The blood crystal being removed seemed to destroy the body, causing it to shatter into tiny pieces, so Ahsael had been having Uirus collect those crystals whenever possible. However, his fellow Astartes did not always reach them in time.
He'd tried to use scrying to follow the mortals he sent out, to try and catch whatever was doing this in the act, yet he'd never managed it. This was in spite of the fact that they'd lose men nearly daily and were starting to run out of them, even as more and more breaches were opened necessitating they be sent out to seal them and Uirus and the Rubric could not travel with every group. The fact that the crystals could affect his sorcerous power at all made him suspect the culprit or culprits were capable of detecting or otherwise evading his scrying. They'd also yet to attack any group protected by Uirus and the Rubric, which made him suspect they were avoiding them purposefully.
At this point, Ahsael didn't even have the necessary number of sacrifices for his ritual to call for aid or find a way out of this, even if his working environment were properly sealed and undisturbed. If the worst came to pass, Ahsael could sell his own soul, but that was the final option he desperately did not wish to take.
So, instead, he turned to these crystals. They were clearly draining Warp energy somehow, he just needed to harness that. Perhaps it would be enough to safely deliver him from this peril. Perhaps Uirus, as well.
If only he had more time…
The armors were ready. Despite the bickering between Vidriov and Sathar occasionally causing delays, their criticisms of one another's designs had also improved the other's. Flaws were leapt upon wherever they were found, only to be dealt with through additional modifications in an attempt to remove them. The rest of the tech-priests had also produced additional design improvements that were quickly incorporated into both armors in order to prevent the other side from gaining an edge.
In the end, Tide noted, the two sets of Sororitas Power Armor they had ended up with were even more modified than the Faux-Mjolnir prototype had been, though perhaps not as advanced, nor as artfully done. They were also nearly unrecognizable compared to the original suits. The tech-priests had worked tirelessly, to the point that Tide had actually started getting concern for their health. While most of the tech-priests had augmented themselves beyond the need for sleep, he had required they all take some time to recuperate each day. He'd initially asked them all to sleep for eight hours a day, but they'd been viciously opposed to that. Nonetheless, the swiftness with which they completed their modifications was laudible, even if Tide now planned to find a way to convince them of adding mandatory nap breaks into their schedules.
Vidriov's armor had increased its size by nearly twenty percent, with thicker armor, stronger motors, and a secondary power pack that looked like a backpack had been hooked onto another, larger backpack. It was not a pretty design, but it was tough and had an improved heating system built with quite a robust set of internal circuitry that would prevent the additional power flow from causing any kind of overload.
Sathar's armor was tiny in comparison. The armor had actually had sections of plate removed or replaced with something smaller and thinner. They hadn't been able to run the armor for very long at even a quarter power in tests due to the lack of a coolant system threatening to overheat the gear in their room temperature testing environment, but it had managed to distribute that heat evenly across the armor thanks to Sathar's modifications. Its light size, without sacrificing power, also let it carry a large amount of secondary equipment, including a pair of grapple hooks that shot out from its wrists and a pair of hydraulic poles that extended from its wrists that could punch through stone like pickaxes and, theoretically, hold it there fast. There were further modifications to both suits as well that would further enhance heat retention and regulation, though none were quite as extensive.
Tide recalled hearing once that Terminator power armor, or whatever design it had originally been based upon, had been a mining suit. Even if that was not truly the case and simply misinterpreted lore or an outright misconception, Tide thought it was interesting how Sathar had, inadvertently, created something that might have worked well for that purpose.
Perhaps he should look into getting similar equipment for his bioforms he was using to mine Monstrum's underground resources? Then again, he didn't really care if a few of them got crushed in tunnel collapses, he had plenty of biomass and didn't rely on people to gather raw materials. And, unfortunately, power armor was too expensive to produce in that kind of quantity, let alone use it for something so mundane. While the Sisters of Battle had facilities in their headquarters to produce spare parts, which could be used to assemble at least partially complete suits only lacking certain rarer components, the process to produce even one of those partial suits could take over a year.
Cheaper and simpler power armor… Tide tucked that idea away for the moment. There were more important things at hand. Namely, the field test.
A pair of Flood forms flowed into the armor like slime through the gorget, swiftly filling out the suits and taking on a more humanoid shape. Their internal forms restructured, organs and bones creating structure where none existed before. In a matter of a few seconds, the armors held puppet soldiers who connected to the nerve ports of the armor, fusing themselves to it and making it an extension of themselves. Like the armors, these also had means of retaining their heat.
Around them, the myriad forms of the bodies the tech-priests had borrowed watched on. Despite the size difference, the armors were intended for forms roughly of a similar size, so the speed at which both were ready was about the same.
Tide ran through a number of tests with the armor, feeding the data into various cogitators he had brought for this purpose, then sending those readouts directly to the minds of the tech-priests. Once all were satisfied, a special transport pod lowered from the ceiling, one that had been rapidly assembled elsewhere in the hive for this express purpose.
This was not one crafted wholly of biomass, though sections of it were filled with Flood-based lining to provide additional insulation, act as cogitators, and perform other various functions. Instead, it was essentially a massive box on large legs, with its own life-support system, internal heating, and thick layers of insulation and metal that should allow it to survive even in the Wastes and act as a forward base from which he could operate, even if the two scouts did not accomplish their mission. It was also large enough to receive the smaller pods, if he decided reinforcements were in order. It possessed the strongest auspex equipment that Tide could produce and fit inside it. It was certainly the largest of the pods he had ever created and the most advanced by far, essentially being its own bunker. The only things larger than it that he had sent out of reality with Neural Physics were the massive Flood forms he had sent to capture the Valkyrie and to attack the chaos vessel in the first place.
The pod's name was Sentinel-01 and Tide could only hope it would perform its task as intended. Since Sathar and Vidriov had largely taken over the development of the scouts, he'd had the other tech-priests working on this when neither the Logis or Genetor were feeling charitable enough to share their chosen tasks. The pair had barely noticed the absence of their audiences and had continued their verbal sniping with one another the entire time they'd been working.
The two armored scouts and around a dozen unarmored puppets entered the Sentinel pod, moving into it through an air lock that sealed behind them. The puppets would essentially be there to act as additional biomass in case anything went wrong and maintain the internal systems. With luck, nothing bad would happen, but when had he ever had any of that?
Once the Sentinel's last hatch clacked shut, the Flood form on the ceiling descended down upon it, wrapping around and under the immobile craft. There was a build-up of strange energies and then… the tendrils pressed in on one another as there was a sudden absence of anything to press against.
With the Star Road to guide him, his aim was dead on.
The Chaos vessel had come to a stop on the side of a mountain, slashing a horizontal scar across its face and looking somewhat precariously positioned. The snows had already begun to cover the damage and would, in time, cover the ship as well, assuming it wasn't pushed down the mountain by the increasing amount of weight piling atop it as the snow collected.
Rather than directly outside the vessel, where the Sentinel might be seen by any of the survivors and possibly attacked, Tide planted it around a hundred meters away. The constantly falling snow and ash ensured that there was no way for it to be seen even by a Vindicare's enhanced eyesight. He could only guess that would be sufficient to block an Astartes' as well.
The exact position of the Sentinel was atop a relatively flat patch of mountain that Tide had made sure was solid rock and not merely a snowbank. In time, the snows would gather there and atop his little bunker enough to become a problem, but he could deal with that through a number of methods at a later date. The Sentinel's legs, like long poles, purposefully were sent to occupy the same space as the rock below it, fusing and ensuring a stable platform.
The scouts did not immediately deploy out of the pod, instead going over their final system checks. First, the powerful auspexes within the pod activated and swept the surrounding area. However, as Tide had feared, the resulting scans only revealed a patchy image of the surrounding area for only dozens of meters rather than the hundreds they should have been. Disappointed but unsurprised, Tide looked to his scouts. Only once all was accounted for did they step into the airlock and let the interior door closed shut behind them.
The heat slowly leaked out of that section of Sentinel-01, in time with the increasing levels of power being put out by the two sets of power armor in response. By the time the temperature had become level with the outside, both suits seemed fine, though the metal beneath Sathar's armor was drinking up as much of the heat as the air was and had begun to glow below its boots, while its image had an almost shimmer-like quality to it as the heated air warped around it.
The exterior door opened and both scouts braced as a gust of wind threatened to knock them back against the interior. Slowly, they fought their way forwards, making their way down to the ground, nearly half a meter below the ledge of the pod's entrance. Tide would need to make a staircase for that…
Almost immediately after Sathar's scout struck the snow-covered ground, water and then steam sprouted from around its boots, only to freeze again in an instant and fall back to the ground. While that would not cause any fog to form, thankfully, the land was still a flurry of snow and ash that impaired vision. Fortunately, neither suit relied wholly upon even the sharp eyes he had gained from the Vindicare, which were unable to see anymore than a dozen or so meters ahead of them even with powerful, helmet-mounted flashlights.
Together, the two suits of armor trudged their way forwards. He'd withdrawn the Star Road, sending it to continue the transport of survivors and captured enemies elsewhere on the planet, as it was no longer needed here. He'd already mapped out a route with the Star Road for the scouts to take.
Suddenly, Tide made both suits halt. They had been travelling for nearly two minutes, leaving behind a trail of melted snow that quickly transformed back into ice once out of contact with Sathar's suit, and gotten around fifty meters away from the Sentinel. Yet, now, they paused.
Tide watched in disbelief as he looked out into the flurry of the snow and ash and saw the silhouette of a person, tall and lithe, standing before him, in conditions that would freeze a man solid in less time than it would take to blink.
The two scouts weren't heavily armed, at least for suits of power armor, but they still possessed weapons. Modified hellguns were drawn and primed, their simple construction with few moving parts allowing for them to be more easily modified with protections against the conditions.
The silhouette did not move. Tide activated his auspexes, both the scouts' and the Sentinel base's, pushing them to full power and directed towards the silhouette. However, in spite of what his two sets of eyes told him, there were no indications of any lifeform standing before him. Not even a trace of organic material. Some kind of stealth?
Sathar's scout moved up, towards the silhouette while Vidriov's scout maintained a steady aim on… whatever the thing was, because it certainly wasn't human. Not if it could survive out here without protection.
Just as Sathar's scout was nearly able to make out more of the features of the silhouette, however, it vanished, sinking into the snow itself. No, that wasn't quite right. It was as though it had come apart, like it had turned into water and fallen away. The Sathar scout moved to where the creature had been standing, but all it found was dappled snow. Wait, was that a flash of color…?
The Vidriov scout's systems flared in alarm as the power-armored Flood form was suddenly wrenched off its feet by titanic strength. Something long and sharp sliced through the armored back of the puppet, ripping through the flesh into where its heart pumped. An instant later, the Flood form froze solid within the armor as the heat was ripped away from it unnaturally swiftly, before it collapsed to the ground.
The Sathar scout rounded on its heel and let loose with a full auto burst from its hellgun. The air over where the Vidriov scout had fallen flashed with red bolts, but there was nothing for them to hit and the bolts vanished swiftly, their energy devoured by the cold faster than they would have been by regular air.
In a moment that was as much born of instinct as calculation, the Sathar scout leapt forwards into a roll, narrowly avoiding a claw the length of a sword that struck through the air it had been standing in a moment later. The hellgun barked again, this time aimed directly at the silhouette that seemed to refract the light of the scout's helmet-mounted flashlight.
For just an instant, Tide managed a glimpse of the creature's form. For Tide, an instant may as well have been an eternity.
The creature was indeed humanoid, if only in outline. It stood atop two legs, had two arms, and a head, all connected to a torso. That was around where similarities ended, however. The first thing he noticed were its claws. One on each hand, both longer than even the one-handed chainswords of the Sororitas, yet wickedly sharp with pointed ends. Its hide, if it could be called such, seemed to shine with the red light of the hellgun, reflecting and refracting like ice and did not seem like it should have been flexible, yet moved and shifted with the fluidity of flesh. Tide never saw its face but could make out the faintest of white light in the snowstorm, barely stronger than a spark. Its chest, where the heart would have been in a human, was a cavernous opening speckled with red crystals.
The shot connected and the light of its burst died in a moment, shrouding the creature once more. The silhouette just stood there, as if suspended for a moment… then collapsed, just as the silhouette from before had, vanishing into the snow, perhaps dead, but he doubted it.
The Sathar scout rose to rush over to the site, only for it to stop as a claw pierced through its back and the Flood form within froze solid.
The tech-priests had gathered within the Domain to watch the field test, separated by an invisible line between those that had sided with Sathar's design and those with Vidriov's.
In the end, the differing designs had not mattered in the slightest, as they watched the mysterious attacker or attackers rip their creations apart with the ease one would expect from a power blade slicing through flesh. They were quiet, stunned into silence. As was Tide, for a time, until at last his voice spoke to them all. It was not angry, so much as… frustrated.
There's always something else.
