The inquisitor nodded. ‘Then we move into the complex, search for survivors and extract what data we can from central cogitation. Once the station is secure, we make for the excavation site. Maintain vigilance.’
Achairas affirmed and signalled his battle-brothers to lead.
Vemek chimed in, advancing with his thralls towards the bulkhead door at the base of the augur tower. ‘Are we expecting hostiles?’
‘We always expect hostiles,’ Brother Nym, to Achairas’ right, answered. ‘Chirinoids. Togorans. Cythor Fiends. Eldar. Other xenos. This station didn’t murder itself.’
Achairas gestured at the Hydra batteries. They were unused. ‘Whatever happened, it was no aerial incursion.’
‘What then?’ Vemek crackled. ‘A teleportation onslaught? A–’
‘We’ll find out soon enough.’ Astolyev waved the teams onward, to the large door at the base of the augur tower.
Vemek coaxed the airlock open with a spark of energy from his potentia coil, and the team moved into the gloom of the entrance chamber. It was powered down, the elevator inoperable, so Achairas and his squad took point, levelling their bolters as they descended the adjacent stairwell. Even though the station had pressure and air, none removed their helmets.
‘Sevrim, Nym, Celaeno, with me on point. Charason, rearguard,’ Achairas commanded into his squad’s vox-net. Their affirmations were silent.
The four Death Spectres were followed by the inquisitor and Vemek, while the rest of the force trailed behind. A musty, clammy gloom that reeked of oil, ozone and spilled viscera met them. The walls were dull, riveted gunmetal, coated in grease and condensation. Several of the Inquisitorial acolytes activated their luminators.
‘Vemek, is there any way to restore power?’ Astolyev asked.
‘Negative. Preliminary readings suggest power generator units are destroyed, not disabled.’ The magos muttered a spurt of binaric prayer for the machines that had died in this place.
‘Death is here…’ Brother Sevrim, on point, gestured to three eviscerated, half-decayed corpses clustered in a gouged-open service duct. By their red robes and augmetics, they could be identified as Adeptus Mechanicus adepts. Achairas knelt and saw the patchwork crest of the Dalvarakh Consortium on the robes of one of the least dismembered bodies.
‘You crewed your station with Consortium adepts?’ He looked to the inquisitor.
‘Yes,’ Astolyev replied. ‘I acquired six hundred indentured serfs of varying specialities to complement my own crew. They were to be returned afterwards, mnemonically cleansed…’
‘Well that won’t be happening any more,’ Brother Nym cut in, drawing a glare from the inquisitor.
‘Impending debts aside,’ Vemek rasped, ‘what happened to them? The wounds are… unusual.’
Vast raking incisions marred their remaining flesh. Even their augmetic components were shredded, as was the sheet metal behind them.
‘Looks like Bloodreeks,’ Brother Nym guessed, poking the remains with his boot. ‘Savage. Grotesque. Generally excessive.’
Achairas suspected otherwise and shook his head. The wounds were too clean. ‘These are blade wounds, of a sort, even if they are patterned like claw marks.’
‘Genestealers, possibly?’ the inquisitor interjected. ‘Only their talons cut that sharp.’
Vemek shook his head. ‘Electrical abrasions on flesh, and oxidation on metal suggests electrical charge,’ he chittered. ‘Unlikely to be genestealers, unless they have developed new biomorphs.’
‘These corpses don’t tell us enough. We should head deeper,’ Achairas suggested.
The inquisitor nodded in the affirmative and the group continued.
More dead awaited them, several Adeptus Mechanicus personnel, blood and oil trails suggesting they’d been dragged down several flights of stairs. At the access doorway to the main body of the station’s interior, they discovered three eviscerated skitarii flayed to the bone, their galvanic rifles empty of ammunition and discarded, the door rife with flash-burned bullet holes. But the real damage was in the form of oxidised tears in the bulkhead door, as if something had clawed its way through.
With the door inoperable, it fell to Vemek’s melta-armed gun-servitors to widen the breach, allowing the party to move on.
Achairas led with Sevrim, stepping into the charnel horror of the corridor before them.
Silently, the Death Spectres stepped over a river of viscera, bone and augmetic remains. Several in the inquisitor’s retinue hesitated for a brief instant. It was testament to their discipline that most did not.
‘What a mess,’ one of them muttered.
‘Steel yourselves,’ Astolyev reminded them. ‘We are not here to gawk like greenhorn Guardsmen at the sight of the dead. Worse will come.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ Brother Nym agreed, rolling over a rotten, quartered torso. ‘Whatever did this, they seem mostly interested in the meat. Still think it’s Bloodreeks…’
Achairas studied the macabre carpet. No body was whole. Each had been torn apart, flayed and flensed. It was impossible to distinguish where one corpse ended and the next began. Las-burns, blood and oil splatters covered the walls.
‘They were attempting to reach the door,’ Vemek muttered. ‘But it was already locked. They couldn’t get out, so they just… died.’
‘Whatever did this came from further inside,’ Achairas observed. ‘What is down that way?’
‘Central cogitation,’ Astolyev answered, stepping over the corpses with his stalking gait. ‘Below that? The sub-levels… maintenance, aeroponics, the armoury and ground access…’
‘Ground access. Could they have come from below, then?’ Brother Sevrim inquired, voicing Achairas’ suspicions. ‘From the excavation site?’
‘That is a possibility,’ Astolyev nodded after a moment.
Achairas could not read the inquisitor, but his pause indicated unvoiced information. He knew something. Or guessed at something.
‘That would imply that whatever did this either landed far away and advanced on foot, to avoid the Hydras…’ Achairas tested the inquisitor’s reaction. ‘Or came from the xenos structure.’
Astolyev didn’t respond, staring out over the dead. There were no other bodies to indicate who, or what, they’d been fighting. The enemy had either taken its own dead, or it had been a single-sided massacre.
‘From the ruin…’ Vemek muttered, partly to himself, turning a few heads.
‘Could something have been down there?’ Achairas inquired to both of them.
‘I’m afraid I cannot answer that,’ the inquisitor replied, his words slow and measured. ‘The station’s last reports indicated the excavation teams were unable to enter the structure.’
Vemek gave an ominous answer, his mechadendrites twitching uneasily. ‘The sudden ignition of the power source within might imply some manner of activity. It could be that something… awakened.’
‘Awakened?’ Achairas glared at the magos.
‘Uncertain…’ The tech-priest held up his hands defensively. ‘Pure conjecture.’
‘Let us move,’ the inquisitor cut in. ‘If there’s any data on what happened, it’ll be in central cogitation.’
The team progressed through the corridor, intersected by a dozen corpse-strewn side passages leading to laboratories and monitoring stations, before they finally reached their destination.
Central cogitation was a large chamber fitted with gantry walkways that wound between two-storey-high cogitator stacks. Several of these were damaged or had been destroyed by raking slashes, and there were the mangled remains of dozens of people and servitors scattered about. At the heart, upon a central dais, was a fully intact data loom. The massive machine was all columns, humming faintly, blinking with cascades of raw binaric data. A vast network of thick cables spread out from it like arteries, feeding into the cogitator
stacks, and into wall sockets. Many more connected directly to the ceiling, looping up to link to the augur station on the landing pad.
Astolyev stalked towards the dais. ‘The data loom was connected to reserve power, and given maximal priority. It must still be active, to some degree.’
‘What did you need all of this cogitation power for? What were you doing here?’ Achairas asked, motioning Celaeno and Sevrim to move ahead and secure the chamber. Nym and Achairas kept pace with the inquisitor, while Charason kept watch out in the hall.
‘Cross-referencing,’ Astolyev replied. ‘It stores thousands of years of relevant data copied from the archives of both Terra and Mars – xenology, archaeology, geology, astrography, et cetera. It possesses the power to analyse, filter and compile all relevant insights.’
‘All those resources invested for one archaeological investigation?’
Vemek cut in, trailing behind them. ‘An archaeological investigation that might be the find of the millennium! The t– ruin possesses a metallic outer structure that is almost impervious to all forms of direct aggression.’
Achairas was mildly impressed. ‘An indestructible metal?’
‘Indeed,’ Vemek replied, smugly, reaching the central data loom, and plugging two of his mechadendrites into data-ports.
After a few moments, the data stream flickering from feed to feed on the display, Vemek spoke. ‘Or perhaps not so impervious.’ He cocked his head to the side, as if confused. ‘It would appear they did breach the outer shell. Fascinating. Bringing up hololithic visuals.’
‘What!’ Astolyev snapped. ‘They breached the ruin?’
A hololithic geological survey image flickered to life, suspended above the data loom’s access panel. Achairas saw a pyramid, colossal by the scaling of the surrounding crater, more than a mile high, and attached to some manner of immense crescent shape below. The shape beneath extended further, stretching well beyond the crater, buried in the crust of the planetoid.
‘Immense… Much larger than we anticipated,’ Vemek chirped in excitement. ‘It appears the initial structure we found was part of a considerably larger one!’
Vemek zoomed the image to the apex of the pyramid, barely a minute fraction of its actual bulk. ‘The breach was made here–’
‘I did not authorise a breach,’ the inquisitor interrupted. ‘My orders were to send an astropathic message with each major advancement.’
‘Yes, erm, regardless, it would appear the research team used vortex charges to gain access to the apex.’
‘When did this occur?’ Achairas already suspected the answer.
‘Seven weeks ago…’ Vemek hesitated, his mechadendrites slumping. ‘To the cessation of all further records.’
‘The day the station was silenced,’ Astolyev muttered. ‘Undoubtedly not a coincidence…’ He turned sharply to the magos. ‘You told me your researchers were reliable. I specifically ordered them not to perform any hasty actions without first acquiring my consent.’
‘Evidently I made a miscalculation.’
Astolyev snarled, shaking his head. ‘And who authorised the breach?’
‘That is unclear,’ Vemek replied. ‘All records of who gave the orders, and to whom they were given, have been deleted.’
Astolyev flexed his organic hand, clearly unsettled by the revelation. ‘Then one of your men has compromised this operation by acting too swiftly. Or it was sabotage. See if you can dig deeper.’
‘Unfortunately, many of the station’s records have been compromised by an unknown data corruption. And, as there is no data, and your personal crew made up a significant portion of the station’s crew, it is also a notable possibility that it was one of your men that acted hastily.’
‘I select for loyalty and obedience, Vemek. My men do not act without my express consent. It was your team that formed the weakest link, not mine.’
‘Can we get a visual feed from interior surveillance?’ Achairas inquired, ignoring the argument. ‘I want to know what we’re dealing with.’
‘Negative. Interior feed is corrupted. In any case, all of the station’s primary functions were shut down thirty-two minutes after the breach was made.’ The magos’ fingers flitted over the control console. ‘I detect traces of a viral onslaught, but I cannot identify the source. Only the enhanced aegis systems hardwired into the data loom saved this relic, Omnissiah be praised.’
Achairas glanced around. The acolytes and skitarii had taken cover behind the cogitator stacks, assisting his battle-brothers in covering each entrance. The inquisitor moved to the data loom, adjusting several of the runes and zooming the image out. Six other points were highlighted and arrayed in an equidistant radius a few dozen miles from the central pyramid.
He magnified one of those. It was one of the pylons Achairas had seen earlier from the landing pad. It was buried some thirty yards beneath the surface, its pinnacle barely visible. It was clear that excavations had been performed around it as well. The damage to it was obvious. Vemek flitted through the images of the other pylons, and it became evident that all of them had been at least partially destroyed.
‘These were intact before!’ Astolyev snarled, whipping towards the magos. ‘Find out what happened! I did not authorise their destruction.’
Vemek hastily complied.
Shaking his head in rage, the inquisitor circled around Vemek like a predator while the magos frantically sifted through the data stream. Minutes passed before Astolyev shoved Vemek aside and seized the access panel himself. The magos retreated to his skitarii, evidently not wanting to stand near the inquisitor.
‘I suppose the destruction of the pylons might explain why they were no longer emitting energy signatures,’ Achairas mused.
‘Yes,’ Astolyev hissed. ‘That would be logical.’ He paused for a moment, sifting. ‘It would appear as though my researchers discovered that the energy fields emitted by the pylons were linked, like… some manner of fence around the ruin. It did not seem to affect our vehicles and personnel, however…’ He trailed off, inspecting the data feed closer. ‘What! They were destroyed under my authority! Somebody used my access codes to relay orders to this station.’ He aggressively hammered a few more codes into the panel, before stepping back, exasperated.
‘Naturally,’ he spat. ‘The data concerning when and where these orders originated was deleted!’
Achairas did not know what to make of the foul play. Had somebody deliberately sabotaged the inquisitor’s work, or were there elements within the excavation team that had become hasty, and careless in their assessment of this ‘miraculous discovery’? In any case, he had no time to ponder it as his auspex flickered to life.
‘Unidentified movement, two hundred feet due north,’ he reported into the vox-net. ‘Approaching through access corridors.’
The inquisitor and Vemek knelt down behind a fallen cogitator stack in the centre of the defensive ring.
‘Protect the data loom!’ Astolyev shouted.
In a matter of moments, Achairas counted scores of contacts converging on their location from multiple angles. As Achairas and the inquisitor relayed their orders, the teams repositioned, with the Death Spectres taking forward positions around the data loom, concealed behind the cogitator stacks to inflict maximum damage if violence broke out.
‘Survivors?’ Vemek chittered.
‘If so, they’ve picked a rather aggressive way to announce their presence,’ Brother Nym retorted.
Seconds later, the first shape emerged, not sixty feet from Achairas. By the look of her tattered garb, she was an enginseer. Coming to a halt, she stood there, regarding them with her three augmetic eyes. Shredded red robes clung to her heavily augmented body, and with some disgust, Achairas noted that remnants of flayed flesh were interwoven into the cloth, making a macabre cowl. Her fingers had been severed, and razor-sharp blades were crudely grafted in t
heir place.
Vemek muttered some binary spurt, and she turned to regard him as a score more shapes, similar in apparel and disfigurement, emerged behind her. Brother Sevrim flanked them, unseen between the cogitator stacks.
The chittering of binary echoed from the ragged rabble approaching them. To Achairas, it sounded like static, except for the alien syllables interspersed between the clicks and crackles. Even his unaugmented ears could hear them.
‘Llandu… Gor…’ the words came, slithering through the noise. Somehow, they were an affront to Achairas’ ears. This was something vile. Alien.
Vemek started back, leaving his cover and retreating. ‘Corrupted data streams. The binary is broken! Kill them! Kill them all!’
The mob of mutilated Adeptus Mechanicus personnel rushed them at that instant, making his wish reality.
‘Fire,’ Achairas commanded calmly, into the general vox. The Death Spectres fired first, unleashing a crossfire of bolter shells from their concealment to reduce the entire charging mob to pulped meat and twisted metal in a matter of seconds.
But more came, from other passages and the gantries above. Scores of additional malformed machine cult men and women poured into the cogitation hall, descending upon the defenders from all angles with a reckless abandon born of madness. They screamed those words, again and again. Achairas did not know what they meant, and he did not care.
He spent his bolt pistol, turning half a dozen of the attackers into pulp and scrap, blasting them off the gantries above. Drawing his power sword, he sprinted between two cogitator stacks to where one of the lunatics had descended upon a skitarius, tearing into the warrior’s armour with his grafted talons. Achairas scythed past the madman, delivering a decapitating strike with his power sword before twisting around and deflecting the deranged swing of another wretch with his vambrace. The talons gouged raking scratches into his armour, negligible, but deep enough that Achairas guessed the blades would be more than able to slice through the sealed joints. He cleaved the second attacker in two, reversing his momentum to disappear behind another cogitator stack and relocate.
Inferno Volume 2 - Guy Haley Page 15
