In the roiling tides of the Sea of Souls, where all dreams and nightmares dwelled in ceaseless discord, a chain of bargains, threats and intrigue was forged. Its originator was young, as such things were counted among the immortal denizens of the Empyrean, only recently raised above her mortal origins by the Dark Power she served.
According to what passed for rules in the Great Game of Chaos (though they weren't really rules, just suggestions enforced by the Dark Gods), such a thing as she sought to achieve should have been beyond the newest Daemon Princess of Slaanesh. But Emeli was the prodigal daughter of the Dark Prince, and such restrictions melted away before the favor of the Profligate One.
For Slaanesh was the god of obsession in all its myriad shapes, and Emeli's was among the rarer the Prince of Pleasure had tasted. Few indeed were the followers of the Sixfold Sovereign who retained the capacity for such emotion as bound the Daemon Princess to her rising champion, and fewer still were the things Slaanesh enjoyed more than new experiences.
The daemonic servants of the other Dark Gods opposed Emeli's intentions, and so a battle was waged in the Sea of Souls. By the standards of the Materium, it was vast beyond comprehension, but by those of the Great Game, it was barely a skirmish. Billions of daemons belonging to each of the Four were slain and devoured, and the Daemon Princess grew stronger on the soul-stuff of those she defeated.
After an eternity that only lasted six heartbeats, the host of the Dark Prince was victorious, and the prize Emeli desired to gift her beloved was secured. As the ichor of her vanquished foe dripped from her mouth, the Daemon Princess smiled the innocent smile of a lovestruck maiden, wondering what her beloved would think of her present.
And around her, the lesser servants of She-Who-Thirsts shivered with mixed dread and envy at the sight, wondering what depths of debauchery and excess their dark lady was contemplating.
As I walked up the stairs of the House of Remembrance toward the room containing Emeli's statue (which I swore was in a slightly different position each time I visited), I did my best to keep my fears and concern off my face. I had been here several time since the inauguration : refusing Krystabel's proposal of regular visits would have been a snub that would set the Handmaidens against me, and would tip off Emeli as well. Having a Daemon Princess obsessed with me was already nerve-wracking enough : I didn't want to imagine what would happen if she were to realize the truth.
Krystabel had contacted me yesterday asking for us to meet there, refusing to give any details beyond the fact that Emeli had something she wanted to tell me 'in person', so to speak. I couldn't think of any particular reason for that, and that made me uneasy.
The news that Krystabel wanted to speak to me in private had immediately set my palms tingling. In the month since Slawkenberg had somehow defeated the first Imperial attempt at reclaiming the planet, things had gone back to what I'd realized with a horrified shudder I was starting to consider normal. There had been a lot of partying right after the destruction of the Pyroclast Retribution, as the people understandably celebrated the fact that they weren't going to die after all. Despite my attempts to explain Tesilon-Kappa had been the one to save the day by sabotaging the Exterminatus, most of the credit for it had still fallen on my shoulders, because I'd been the one everyone had seen killing Karamazov live.
At least the magos didn't seem angry I'd stolen their thunder like this, though that was probably because they'd been too busy taking apart the seized Militarum equipment in order to learn how to build more for the USA. The borgs had been working on their own tank designs already, of course, but having something to use as a standard was very useful for their research.
The artillery they had already designed had worked well against the Imperial Guard, but Tesilon-Kappa had freely admitted that the pieces the USA had captured were of far more advanced make. Which, given that the borgs had been working exclusively on civilian gear before the Uprising while the Guard's equipment was produced in forge-worlds dedicated to arming the Hammer of the Emperor, made perfect sense to me.
The surrendered Guardsmen themselves had been more delicate to handle than their equipment. I had promised to treat them well, and I intended to keep my word, if only because the maniacs of the USA put far too much stock into honor for my liking and I didn't want them start having doubt as to the moral character of their beloved Liberator. On the other hand, the USA had no idea how to deal with captives : the last time Slawkenberg's PDF had taken prisoners, they had been protesters against the Giorba's reign, and nobody wanted to repeat what had happened to them. The Militarum had its own protocols, but I didn't think trying to follow those was a good idea either : they were meant to keep traitors and heretics contained while they were processed by the authorities (or the Inquisition), and this looked to be a much more long-term arrangement.
In the end, I had worked with Mahlone and Jafar to cobble together something acceptable for everyone. The Valhallans had been sent to another mountainous region, one more accessible than their original landing ground but still isolated. The borgs had built up dormitories and set up everything the thousands of prisoners needed, along with the walls and watchtowers for the soldiers who had been assigned to guard them. I had visited a few times, the temperature getting colder and colder as winter set in, but they hadn't seemed annoyed by it : if anything, they were enjoying the colder temperatures, which I guessed came with being ice-worlders. Even Jurgen was more chipper than usual as the season rolled in, though someone less used to him than I would be hard pressed to see it : after being forced to stay behind while I went gallivanting on the Pyroclast Retribution, he had become even more determined to keep me safe.
The Guardsmen were as relaxed and happy with the situation as could reasonably be expected. Their commanding officers were keeping everyone calm and busy going through drills and various chores around the camp : after years spent under Chenkov, they appeared to be enjoying the chance to relax. The fact that being held captive by heretical rebels was apparently an improvement of their situation was almost enough to make me wish I had taken Chenkov alive to hand him over to the rest of the Liberation Council instead of giving him a swift death.
I had visited the accommodations in person with a bunch of pictcasters in tow, to show the plebs everything was going well and they didn't need to riot demanding the summary execution of all captives. Jurgen had been at my side in case one of the captives tried to avenge their commanding officer for some unfathomable reason, but his presence hadn't been needed in the end. I couldn't exactly say the soldiers had been happy to see me, but their officers had been cordial enough, even inviting me to partake in their unique kind of tea, which they called tanna and that I'd to admit I had quite enjoyed. Certainly Jurgen had seemed happy to have a taste of his distant home. The resulting propaganda shoot had worked perfectly, the people of Slawkenberg apparently buying my speech about the Valhallans being as much victims of Imperial oppression as us wholesale.
The original crews of the ships who had survived the boarding had been sent to the planet below, kept separate from the Guardsmen as much to prevent temptations of escape as because they weren't Valhallans and would actually have felt the cold. Most of them had spent their entire lives in the void, or close enough, and being subject to a planet's gravity and atmosphere was causing all manners of health issues the magi biologis assigned to keeping them alive and as healthy as possible were fascinated by.
I had also arranged for the Valhallan officers to be given tours of the weapon production lines and USA training centers. Officially, this was done in order to impress them with the scale of the rebellion's achievements so that they would join us in our righteous uprising against the Imperium's tyranny. Obviously, being much more aware of the wider galaxy than the rest of the Liberation Council, I knew that Slawkenberg's facilities, while impressive given where the planet had started from, were but a pale shadow of the sprawling manufactorums and barracks of the Imperium. My actual goal was to give the captives as much important knowledge about the planet's resources as I could, so that when the next wave of the Imperium's retribution arrived and they were liberated, they would be able to direct the Imperium's wrath toward valid military targets. Hopefully this would minimize civilian casualties and buy enough time for me to figure out a way off-world.
My musings ended as I reached my destination. Krystabel was waiting for me, kneeling in prayer before Emeli's statue, which I could swear was in a slightly different position than the last time I had visited. She stood up to greet me, her bow giving me a full view of her impressive cleavage.
"Lord Cain," she said. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me so quickly. I know you are very busy with your work."
One of the most annoying aspects of this entire situation (as opposed to all the horrifying ones) was that she was right : my workload had dramatically increased since the Uprising. I had come to Slawkenberg planning to spend my entire career doing the absolute minimum I could get away with while enjoying my posting as much as I could, but running a planetary government was a lot of work, even only as a figurehead. I had very little free time, and given most of it was spent drinking expensive amasec and staring at the walls of my appartment wondering where it had all gone so catastrophically wrong that may be better for my health.
Of course, I wasn't going to tell her that. Especially when Emeli was watching through her eyes.
"It's no trouble at all," I assured her. "Now, you asked me to come here early. I hope this isn't to tell me another Imperial task force is on its way ?"
Throne, I hoped not. I knew it was inevitable, but I wasn't mentally prepared.
"Oh, no, nothing like that," she said. "I would have made my request more urgent if that were the case, especially now that we know for certain how far the slaves of the False Emperor are willing to go to crush those who dare rise up against their tyranny. No, I have a personal message from Lady Emeli to pass on to you."
The more Krystabel spoke, the heavier the weight in my stomach grew.
"The Lady was delighted with your heroic actions, and enjoyed your gift of that wretched Inquisitor's soul immensely. While she knows the bond between you is greater than any petty exchange of gifts, she still wanted to thank you for it. So," the Handmaiden continued with a wide smile, "she has arranged for a Space Hulk to arrive in the system."
I blinked. Several seconds later, my brain gave up on trying to ignore what she had just said.
"I am sorry," I managed to say, "what ?"
Fortunately, Krystabel took my shock well, delighted that her mistress' present had managed to surprise me. Once I'd left the House of Remembrance (once again after making sure Krystabel, and through her Emeli, were convinced of my gratitude for the latter's … gift), I summoned the rest of the Liberation Council to inform them. It was difficult to tell with their artificial voice, but I was certain Tesilon-Kappa was all but vibrating with excitement at the thought of all the technological wonders they could find within a Space Hulk. I was more concerned with all the dangers that were sure to be present myself, and determined not to get anywhere close the accursed thing.
Two weeks later, I was standing within the hangar of one of the three Imperial troop carriers that had been captured following the Pyroclast Retribution's destruction, making a show of looking over the new paint job of the gunship that had saved me from going up in flame alongside Fyodor Karamazov's flagship. Whoever had been assigned to it had done a thorough job : all Inquisitorial and Imperial iconography had been removed from the craft. It had also been repainted the same crimson as the USA troopers' carapace armor, with the sigil of the Liberation Council embossed on the front.
Internally, I was asking myself how I had gotten into this mess. I knew the answer, of course, but much like picking at a scabbing wound, I was too morbidly curious to resist the impulse.
The Space Hulk had emerged from the Warp three days ago, its arrival accompanied by a flare of Warp activity that every two-bit psyker and auspex in the system had picked up. From what little I knew of such things, it looked like a typical example of its kind : an enormous amalgam of wrecked ships, lost to the Warp and fused together by the Immaterium's whims before being spat out to unleash whatever foulness dwelled within, as well as serve as bait for anyone foolish enough to get aboard. Which, unfortunately, was going to include me.
According to Jafar, who had delved into the Administratum archives he had inherited from the previous administration and somehow managed to find what he had been looking for, the Space Hulk was known to the Imperium as the Heart of Darkness, and had haunted the Segmentum for at least as long as the Emperor had sat on the Golden Throne. But after the Handmaidens had spread the story of why it was here across the populace, the Liberation Council had instead chosen to name it Emeli's Gift.
Aside from the potential bounty of xeno and archeotech, the real advantage to be gained from the Space Hulk was in what it could to bolster our inexistent orbital defenses. Despite the incompetence of its leadership, the Imperial expedition had highlighted that this was the most glaring weakness in Slawkenberg's defenses, as without the ritual Jafar and Krystabel had pulled out of nowhere we would have been well and truly frakked. While we had added some of the transport ships to our modest flotilla (meaning that at the very least we had something Warp-capable I could use to run away should the worst come to pass), they were all but useless in void battles.
Building spaceships was the work of years if not decades, and required specialized facilities, knowledge and resources we didn't have. But the Space Hulk, being an amalgam of dozens of vessels, could potentially be converted into a void fortress greater than anything I had ever heard about, save the legendary Phalanx of the Imperial Fists Chapter. Reactivating even a tenth of the guns the auspex had discovered across its vast surface would give up enough firepower to wipe out entire flotilla, so long as we could move the behemoth in orbit (something the borgs had sworn to the Council they could achieve, though I had distressing feeling their confidence had been motivated more by enthusiasm than fact).
Space Hulks were supposed to slip back into the Immaterium at random, but according to Krystabel, Emeli had arranged things so that this one would remain in the Materium in perpetuity, or until the borgs managed to get the various Warp engines under control. Which left only the small, tiny, insignificant issue that Space Hulks were notorious for being filled with all manners of xenos abominations they picked up during their random trips through the galaxy. And due to my fraudulent reputation, it was only natural that I lead the first reconnaissance teams to board Emeli's Gift. The subject had been mentioned so casually at the last meeting of the Council that I hadn't been able to find a way to avoid it without undermining my image in the eyes of my supposed subordinates.
And now, here I was. Since there was no getting out of this, I decided to make the most of it. Jurgen would accompany me, as well as the ten USA troopers who had survived the boarding of the Pyroclast Retribution. Every single one of them was wearing crimson carapace armor and a variety of gear that was supposed to give them the best chance of survival for the operation ahead : short-range, stronger las-guns, cutting tools, rope, and other knick-knacks, along with a supply of water and ration bars. One member of the squad was carrying a heavier vox, and another had been trained to use a short-range auspex.
Tesilon-Kappa would also accompany me, though in their case I would have needed to use force to stop them from coming. The thought of all the technology to be found within the Space Hulk had completely overridden their self-preservation instincts. When I'd suggested it might make more sense to send someone less important to the efforts of the Liberation Council (in the half-formed hope that someone would then point out that I probably shouldn't go on this suicide mission either), I had thought for a moment they were going to challenge me to a duel there and then.
Still, I suspected I would soon have reason to be glad for their presence. The ability to take control of an entire ship's system they had demonstrated certainly sounded like something that might come in handy on a Space Hulk. With all the sensors they had implanted within themselves, the auspex was perhaps redundant, but since I wasn't the one carrying the device I was perfectly happy with having a second method of searching our surroundings for danger that didn't involve me going out and checking myself.
This small team would be far from the only force making the journey to Emeli's Gift : several other transports were at rest alongside the gunship, and although none of them were nearly as advanced as the one we had liberated from Karamazov they were all void-capable. Some had belonged to the SDF before the Uprising, others were repurposed joyrides of the tourists and nobility, and the ones which looked most like actual military transports had been captured from the Imperial expedition.
Around two hundred troopers were standing by in the hangar, along with a veritable gaggle of borgs. I was given to understand that the competition to decide which tech-priests would get to take part in the expedition aboard the lethal agglomeration of derelict spaceships had been hotly contested, which was a clear sign of the dangers of putting too much metal in your brain. Then again, Mahlone claimed to have had the same issue when asking for volunteers to take part in this operation, so maybe it was a heretic thing and not a tech-priest thing.
In the end, the General had selected the troopers based on their training results and, for those who had taken part in what could generously be called the battle against the Imperial expedition, those with the best performance. My intent was to stay right in the middle of the pack, keeping as many armored troopers in all directions around me at all times. One might think that my reputation for leading from the front would make that difficult, but the story of how I had gotten separated from the rest of the attack group during the boarding of the Pyroclast Retribution had spread through the entire USA, and as a result the men were determined to keep me safe. I had managed to look as if I was going along with their polite suggestions that they take point reluctantly, as if I wanted nothing more than to rush through the labyrinthine corridors of long-dead spaceships that had spent Emperor knew how long in the Warp.
With the last preparations ready, our small armada took off. The ship's long-range auspex array had identified a section of the Space Hulk as a standard Imperial cargo hauler, one of uncounted millions which transported resources from one system to another, keeping the lifeblood of the great interstellar empire flowing (or so my tutors had described it : personally, I imagined life aboard one of those must be dreadfully boring). We had selected it as our point of ingress because its schematics were readily available, the borgs were confident they could persuade its surviving machine-spirits to serve us, and according to our scans there was still an atmosphere in it.
Within an hour, the landing bay had been secured. I had ordered it to be made into as much of a fortress as we could : if (or, as the tingling of my palms made me think, when) we needed to run away, I wanted there to be somewhere we could retreat to. As the borgs worked to set up camp, I reluctantly set off with the rest of my team. Despite the breathable atmosphere, Jurgen and I were both wearing void-sealed helmets, because neither of us were idiots. Our goal was to explore the immediate surroundings of our staging area, scouting any potential threats to the exploration of the Space Hulk.
I intended to be very, very careful, and seize the first excuse for us to go back to the hangar and its relative safety. At which point, having heroically led the first expedition into danger, I would begrudgingly sit back and direct the efforts of the several exploration teams we'd need to have any hope of mapping the derelict sometimes this century. I didn't care what that excuse was : a piece of useless archeotech, a weird xenos corpse, an encounter with a bunch of Orks (I vaguely remembered hearing stories that the greenskins sometimes used Space Hulks to travel the stars, which assuming the storyteller hadn't been playing a joke at my expense said everything you needed to know about the xenos' intellect, a trooper slipping and twisting his ankle – anything.
Clearly the Emperor was listening to my thoughts, and clearly I was still in His bad books for my long list of sins, however unwitting the gravest of them had been.
We were crossing from one section of the Space Hulk to another when it happened. We'd been walking for around an hour at that point, trying to make our way deeper into the hulk. According to my helmet's display, the atmosphere was still breathable, if thinning. Though we had yet to encounter any threat, the oppressive ambiance was weighing down on me. The Gift was eerily silent compared to the few ships I had travelled on – ours were the only footsteps to echo down the dusty corridors, and the vox-speakers which had broadcast orders and calls to prayer were ominously silent as we passed them by.
The trooper at the front called for a halt, claiming that there was something strange going on that he was unable to define. Tesilon-Kappa moved forward, scanning the area with one of their implanted devices, then declared that the disturbance was due to the overlapping of the gravity fields of the two ships : having little experience of voidcraft, the soldier had failed to realize this. How the gravitic engines (or, for that matter, the generators powering them, the lumens and the air purifiers) still worked after Throne knew how long in the Warp without maintenance I had no idea, and felt it best for my peace of mind not to inquire.
The borg leader assured us that a bit of nausea was the worst we could expect, and a quick push by the scout revealed the area affected was small, only a single corridor that, due to how the two ships had been smashed together, started as part of the cargo hauler and ended as part of whatever the next ship had been before meeting its ill-fated end. Just in case, I ordered the party to cross it one at a time. Once five troopers had made it without issue, I followed suit, walking carefully.
I was half-way through the affected area, with little more than an upset stomach to show for it, when I suddenly missed my next step.
Gravity had reverted, I thought, too late to grab at something. I fell upward, what had previously been the ceiling of the corridor bursting open under my weight and its own suddenly inverted weight. The next few moments were full of fear and confusion, as I desperately tried and failed to stop my own motion while being pulled by the malfunctioning gravitics like a toy fought over by several children.
Eventually, my nightmarish ordeal stopped, leaving me laid down on a metal floor, breathing shallowly and trying to keep the contents of my stomach down. By sheer luck, I hadn't suffered anything worse than bruises and nausea, my body armor and the angle of my fall keeping me from breaking any bones. I was, however, cut off from the rest of the boarding party. Before panic could set in, I activated my vox-bead, set up to the squad's frequency :
"This is Cain," I called out. "Can anyone hear me ?"
There was no response, only static. Looking at my surroundings, I saw that I was no longer within the cargo hauler : instead of the reassuring patchwork of metal plates that had made up that vessel's walls, these were smooth and single-pieced. For a moment I thought I was in a xenos vessel, before catching sight of a faded sign painted above a red arrow. Only two letters were still visible, a B and an E, but at least I knew whoever had built this ship had used the standard human alphabet.
Much as I wanted to stay put and wait for the others to find me (I was confident Jurgen at least wouldn't leave me behind), the thought of remaining immobile in the middle of unknown and probably hostile territory sat ill with me. I had no idea what else was in this ship with me, and while my helmet was equipped with a short-range motion detector it couldn't be compared to a proper auspex, nor did I have any troopers to hide behind. Stealth was my best option, meaning I needed to find a safe hiding spot and stay there while keeping an ear on the vox. The USA had run search-and-rescue exercises as part of their training program, and I was familiar with their protocols : if they kept their heads, they would send a single vox-pulse every five minutes while they searched, until I responded.
Unlike in the previous section of the Space Hulk, the lights weren't on here, though the gravity quite obviously still worked). Having to choose between the risk of broadcasting my position to any threat with eyes and that of stumbling around blindly in the dark, I activated my helmet's headlamp on its weakest setting and started advancing, drawing on every bit of experience moving stealthily I had gained from my childhood in the underhive and the years I had spent at the Schola avoiding detection by discipline officers as I sneaked out of the dorms at night.
After several minutes with the loudest sound in my ears being my own heartbeat, I swept my helmet's beam of light across the room I was about to enter, and froze. There was … something there, less than five meters from where I stood. A mass of chitin, its four limbs coiled together. The sight was so hideous that I jerked back on instinct, moving much less gracefully than I had before, and my armored boot slammed against the metal deck like cathedral bell.
I stopped moving completely, holding my breath despite knowing my helmet suppressed all noise from my mouth. Then, to my horror, the creature's limbs began to twitch. My hands moved to my weapons, but before I could draw them, instinct made me move my neck, checking the rest of the room and filling my guts with ice.
The creature I had seen wasn't the only one. The room was full of these slumbering monsters, a score of them nearly occupying the whole space with their alien bulk. I could only imagine how long ago they had arrived here, or how it had even happened. This ship had to be centuries old at the very least, and had been lost in the Warp for Throne knew how long. Yet regardless of how they had arrived, they were here.
And they were starting to move. However deep their hibernation must be, they must still have some way of monitoring their surroundings alerting them to the presence of prey stumbling into their midst – which in this case was me.
I did not give myself time to think, because doing so would have left me paralysed with horror. Instead, I whirred my chainsword to life and, with a scream of terror, began to hack at the stirring xenos. I tore through their bulbous skulls, targeting the one thing I was almost sure they could not live without. Even with fear granting me strength, each kill took several blows, the thick carapace of the beasts blunting my strikes and forcing me to hack away like a butcher, a sight that would've had my instructors in tears.
By the time I reached the last one, it was fully standing up, towering above me. Time seemed to slow down, as it tends to do in such situations when adrenaline flows freely through your blood, letting me take my first full look at a xenos in my entire life. It had six limbs in total, a pair of powerful legs and two pairs of arms, one set of which ended in five-fingered hands, the other in a trio of vicious talons. In the weak light of my headlamp, its chitin appeared mostly sickly white, with its talons and a handful of reinforced spots on its natural armor a vivid blood-red.
It lurched at me with its talons, its repugnant mouth opening to reveal far too many teeth, and screamed loud enough that my helmet's audio protectors kicked in, dampening the sound to protect my eardrums. I ducked underneath its swing and lashed out with my chainsword, leaving a long cut on its chest but failing to penetrate deep enough to draw blood.
Instinctively, I knew that despite its awakening, the creature's movements were sluggish after its prolonged hibernation, as groggy as I in the mornings after a late evening drinking before Jurgen handed me my first cup of recaf. The longer the fight dragged on, the more alert it would become, and the lower my chances of survival would get.
So, ignoring every instinct in my body that told me that I should get away from the clawed abomination, I instead rushed inside its reach, holding my chainsword in both hands. The move briefly took it by surprise, and in the small opening before its dazed mind could react and rip me to shreds, I rammed my weapon upward and, with a scream of effort, cut its head off, my body armor getting drenched in ichor in the process (although thankfully the rebreather kept me from smelling it).
I stood there, breathing heavily, until a sharp noise from the other end of the room made me swivel in that direction, my hand moving to the bolt pistol at my hip. But, to my immense relief, its source wasn't more monsters. Instead, there was Jurgen, his entire body crackling with Warp energy, with the rest of our expedition running to catch up with him. I could glimpse torn metal behind him, showing where he had used his powers to literally rip and tear his way through the ship in order to find me. Somehow, in the frenzy of the fight, I had failed to hear the noise.
Never before had I been so happy to see my aide.
"Sir !" He shouted, before slowing down as he took in the carnage around me, as did the troopers. "You're … alright …"
I wondered what was going on, then realized what the scene must look like. Here I was, standing alone and unharmed, surrounded by xenos corpses, having just dispatched the last one with a decapitating blow. Judging by the looks I was getting, they had already made up their mind as to how this had come to pass.
No doubt if we made it out this deathtrap, a new chapter would be added to my undeserved reputation, telling of how I had stood alone against a nest of alien killing machines and emerged the victor. I suppressed the urge to scream, my survival instincts barely overcoming my frustration.
"Hello, Jurgen," I called out to him. "Did you have any trouble finding me ?"
"None at all, sir," said Jurgen as he rushed to my side before starting to fret over me, checking me for any sign of injury. "We went straight up and didn't find any of those beasties ourselves, whatever they are."
"Genestealers," said Tesilon-Kappa, kneeling by one of the corpses and inspecting it with a variety of tools I could not identify. "Once thought to be just one more predatory xenos species, they have since been revealed to serve as a vanguard of sort for the Tyranid Fleets."
I blinked. "How do you know that ?"
"Since Space Hulks are known to host all manner of xenos creatures, I made sure to download all the information available to my cogitators," they replied with a faintly smug air.
Well, that made sense, I thought, before the meaning of his previous announcement hit me.
"Wait," I said, barely keeping my renewed terror from my voice. "Are you saying there is a Tyranid fleet coming to Slawkenberg ?"
"That … seems unlikely," they said. "According to the records I have access to, there have been countless more reports of Genestealer presence than there have been of Tyranid attacks."
That wasn't as reassuring as they probably intended it to be. I told myself Emeli wouldn't have sent the Space Hulk if it was going to doom Slawkenberg, forcefully ignoring the little voice telling me that even if that were the case, she might not have known what she was doing. There was nothing I could do about it in any case. For all that the USA had surprised me with its effectiveness against Karamazov's invasion, they didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell against the kind of chitinous tide that had taken the full strength of the Ultramarines themselves to break decades ago.
I really wanted to give the order for us to turn back. With my heroic, single-handed dispatch of twenty beasts, nobody would have argued against it. Unfortunately, I couldn't shake the dreadful certainty that doing so would be a fatal mistake.
"We need to push on," I said out loud. "There might be other nests."
And while there was a chance they were still asleep, I couldn't risk that staying the case until I was off this accursed derelict. Of course, the rest of the team were all too eager to continue. It took me a moment to realize what this looked like from their perspective, since they thought I'd faced the Genestealers while they were awake. To them, having just taken down an entire nest of the beasts by myself, I still yearned for more, and was leading them to glorious battle.
We continued our exploration of the ancient vessel, advancing very cautiously and with weapons drawn. To my immense relief, we didn't encounter any more nests of hibernating Genestealers, let alone active ones. It was possible, of course, that any awakened xenos were keeping clear of us after the damage we had already dealt them, unwilling to risk their lives now that they knew we (or, more accurately, the troopers and Jurgen) could fight them off. But that would be a problem for the next exploration teams to deal with, so I was perfectly happy with that possibility.
Tesilon-Kappa guided us toward where they reasonably sure the bridge was located : while the ship was of an older make than anything in their data-banks, there were some points of ship architecture that had always remained the same. When we arrived there, we found the entire place smashed, though whether it had been so before the ship had been dragged into the Warp was difficult to say : half the space was filled by the hulk of another vessel, which had been fused to this ship on an impossibly fine level : I saw a command station whose screen was pristine, except for the chunk of it missing where it met the rough metal. The whole thing was like seeing the result of some demented god-child playing cut-and-paste with reality, which I suppose wasn't that far from what had actually happened.
There was no sign of the crew. The floor was covered in various pieces of debris from elements of the bridge that had fallen down after losing their support. Tesilon-Kappa rushed to investigate, while I directed the team to guard the entrance and check the corners, just in case there was something else in there with us.
A moment later, Tesilon-Kappa made a noise I couldn't identify, but which in hindsight I suppose was their vox-speaker trying to vocalize a strangled scream. I immediately turned towards them, thinking they had found something dangerous or been attacked by a threat we hadn't noticed, but they looked perfectly fine, kneeling on the ground and holding some kind of boxy device with blinking lights on it, with one mecha-dendrite linked to an input port.
"Tesilon-Kappa ? Magos, what is it ? Is something wrong ?"
"It … this … this is a miracle." They were trembling under their robes, which I hadn't thought was possible with how much of their body they had replaced with metal. "The Lady Emeli is most generous …"
"Yes, she is," I cut them off. "But can you tell us exactly how, in this instance ?"
"This is a STC database," they proclaimed in the tone of a priest declaring the advent of a new Living Saint. Which probably wasn't that far off a comparison, come to think of it.
I choked on the dusty air for a few seconds, before managing to ask confirmation, thinking I must have misheard :
"You are telling me there is a Standard Template Construct schematic in this thing ?"
"Not just one," the borg leader said reverently. "Several."
"Sir ?" Jurgen asked. "What is it ? Is it valuable ?"
Judging by the glances the rest of the team were sending our way, they were curious too. I supposed it made sense they wouldn't know, either being from a backwater planet like Slawkenberg or, in Jurgen's case, not exactly having received whatever passed for a conventional education on Valhalla. Seeing as Tesilon-Kappa was too awe-struck to speak, and would probably go on a long-winded rant once they recovered, I hurried to explain.
"Standard Template Construct designs are relics from the Dark Age of Technology, centuries before the Imperium existed, back during Humanity's technological peak. From what I understand, they are extremely detailed blueprints and instruction manuals explaining how to build … well, anything really. Most of the Imperial Guard's equipment is built according to STC designs, as is nearly everything else the Mechanicus builds. Even the underwater generators on Slawkenberg were built according to one such design."
"So they are valuable, then," said Jurgen. Which was like saying that the ocean was wet, or that Slawkenberg's last Governor had had a bit of a temper.
"Let me put it this way : when a pair of Guardsmen found a STC to make knives a few years back, the Mechanicus gave each of them their own planet. And even the mere rumor of a damaged, partial STC schematic is enough to warrant entire Mechanicus expeditions."
"That doesn't sound right," said my aide, sounding respectfully doubtful. "Why would the Martians make so much of a fuss for knives ? Anyone knows how to make one, don't they ?"
"From what I understand, those are very, very good knives," I replied. "To the point that a whole bunch of Space Marine Chapters started using them."
"Oh. That would explain it, yes." It was somewhat reassuring to see that, despite everything, Jurgen was still properly cowed by the mention of the Emperor's Angels of Death. "So what's this one for then ?"
"I have no frakking clue," I admitted, seeing no reason to lie about this. "Magos ?"
My addressing them directly shook Tesilon-Kappa from whatever religious trance they had been trapped into, and they jolted back to awareness of their surroundings.
"What ? Oh, my apologies. From what I can tell from a cursory inspection, this database was meant for use by human colonists on hostile worlds. One of them appears to be for a human-sized suit of power armor, another … by the Omnissiah."
"What is it ?" I asked, suddenly very worried for no reason I could articulate.
"There is a design for a device called the Panacea within this database, Lord Liberator." Somehow, Tesilon-Kappa's artificial voice sounded even more reverent than before. "According to the attached description, it is capable of healing all sicknesses and afflictions of the human body."
The entire room was filled with silence as everyone processed what the borg had just said. My heart filled with ice.
Objectively, this was an incredible discovery. I wasn't blind to the incredible potential of this STC : in the right hands, it could save billions, even trillions of lives, depending on how the Panacea worked. Even just on Slawkenberg, it would revolutionize healthcare. Handled poorly, it could also cause massive social upheaval, but that wasn't my main worry.
The source of my new, fresh terror was that, if the Mechanicus heard about this, they wouldn't offer me a planet in exchange for the database. They would come with an army that would make Karamazov's look like a bunch of rowdy juvies, and they would take it from the ruins of Slawkenberg, probably after killing every heretic who had even breathed in the same room as their sacred artefact. Furthermore, if word of the Panacea reached the rest of the Imperium, there would be no shortage of powerful individuals ready to pay any price in lives and materiel to obtain it.
And to top it all off, I couldn't imagine the Dark God Nurgle was going to be very pleased about this either. I'd already pissed him off by wiping out his cults on Slawkenberg when I had freed Jurgen from captivity, and from what I knew of the Lord of Plagues, a miracle cure for all diseases was guaranteed to draw his ire.
All in all, Emeli's gift had painted a massive target on Slawkenberg, far bigger than the one I had created by killing Karamazov, and I wasn't at all certain whatever else was in this database would be enough to keep the planet, and more importantly myself, safe.
For a brief moment, I considered shooting Tesilon-Kappa before ordering Jurgen to kill every soldier in the room, all to conceal the discovery. Unfortunately, while I was fairly certain I could trust my aide to go along with my tearful story of how we had come under attack and the two of us had been the only survivors without question, removing Tesilon-Kappa would greatly impair the functioning of the Liberation Council, throwing the delicate balance of power completely off. It would also damage my reputation, which I was growing more on more dependant on to keep the heretics surrounding me from turning on me.
With that first plan discarded, a new one began to form in my mind. I considered it for several moments, then decided it was my best shot at surviving the consequences of this discovery in the long-term.
"Men," I said out loud, addressing every soldier in my best command voice, "none of what you just heard is to leave this room. Do you understand ? This discovery will be crucial to the survival of Slawkenberg against the forces that seek to tear us down. You will never speak of what happened here."
The discipline of the USA played in my favor, and they all nodded and voiced their understanding. Partially relieved, I turned back to Tesilon-Kappa :
"Magos, you know how dangerous this could be to us all if the Mechanicus were to hear about this." I didn't bother making the sentence a question.
"I … Yes. You are correct, Lord Liberator," they replied. "My former associates learning about this would be suboptimal."
"To say the least," I said drily. "So here is what I suggest : we are going to go back to the landing bay, and you are going to return to Slawkenberg and bring this database to the most secure location you can think of within the Bringers of Renewed Greatness' headquarters. You will limit knowledge of its existence to the absolute minimum, while I ensure nobody on the expedition ask any questions."
"But," they protested, "We cannot simply lock this treasure away ! Think of all the good the STCs within it can do ! The Panacea alone -"
"I am," I assured them. "Which is why, as soon as you have properly tested it and designed a way to distribute it, your order will announce that they have discovered a universal cure to disease and poison."
I watched the metallic face of Tesilon-Kappa as the not-so-metaphorical gears turned within their head.
"You want us to take credit for the knowledge of this database," they said slowly. "To say we invented it ourselves rather than rediscovering it."
"It looks to me like the safest course of action," I confirmed. "We will have to come up with a release schedule for the designs that won't look too suspicious, but that's more your wheelhouse than mine."
"I understand," they said. "It does not sit well with me to lie about such sacred matters, but you are correct; this is the best course of action. Once again, I am in awe of your wisdom, Lord Liberator."
I chuckled nervously, dismissing their praise with a wave of my hand, and we soon began to make our way back to the landing bay. Although I remained vigilant for more Genestealers or any other peril, our journey back was uneventful, leaving me to darkly wonder what other complications to my life remained aboard Emeli's 'gift'. I wanted to think none would match the discovery of the STC database, but my paranoia kept me from even finishing the thought, lest fate take that as a challenge.
At the very least, I consoled myself, I now had an excuse to leave the Space Hulk : the rest of the Liberation Council would need to be informed of this in person. And surely once I was back on Slawkenberg, I would be able to find an excuse to remain planetside and leave the exploration and refitting of the Emeli's Gift to other, more qualified people.
Of course, I realized with a shudder of apprehension, that would leave me on the same planet as Krystabel and the rest of the Handmaidens, whose mistress apparently thought a Space Hulk and a trove of priceless knowledge were a perfectly normal thing to drop in my lap. Maybe I would be safer on the Space Hulk after all.
AN : NEW CIAPHAS CAIN BOOK ANNOUNCED HYPE !
Well, here it is, Emeli's Gift. Only Obscura on SpaceBattles guessed correctly as to the nature of Emeli's present to her beloved Ciaphas. Congratulations ! Also, I may or may not have taken notes from the many other suggestions (the one about a daemonic sword was weirdly frequent).
The Panacea is a canon STC, though the only copy of it got stolen by the Dark Eldars and turned into a relic for their faction. But somehow, I find it hard to believe that the Panacea STC would only be located on a single forge-world. Much more likely, Nurgle was relentless in erasing all existing copies of the design in order to wipe out this affront to his domain. And since one copy escaped to be discovered on Verdigris IX, other copies eluding the Grandfather is plausible.
Of course, the real reason is because I thought it would be funny to give something so enormously valuable to dear old Ciaphas. If you have suggestions for other templates in the databases, don't hesitate to post them in the reviews/comments.
Aquila-eyed readers might have noticed a certain small detail in this chapter. I look forward to seeing if anybody noticed it, and what you make of it.
Finally, as announced in the last chapter of A Young Girl's Weaponization of the Mythos, due to the release of the next chapter of Fate Grand Order's storyline and me making bargains with the Gacha Gods, I am going to go back to A Blade Recast. I think I have managed to break through the writer's block that has stopped me from continuing it for the last six months (well, that and the fact that I reacted to finishing Prince of the Eye by starting two new stories, spreading out my attention once more). The plan is to finish the current arc of the story, which based on my notes should take three more chapters. Given the writing speed I have been able to muster at some points during the last six months, this should be achievable before the end of Summer ... if the Muse cooperates, that is.
Until then,
Zahariel out.