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Day 36

Cass sucked in one grueling breath after another. The air had grown hotter and she thought initially they might be nearing a forge, which would mean danger. However, the truth of it was made clear soon enough.

A door slid open with the clicking of gears and whirring of cogs, revealing something strange and unfamiliar in comparison to the endless labyrinthine halls and corridors they came from. Cass had always been able to see the other end of the corridor in the hive, unless it was particularly dark or smoggy. Such was not the case now.

Expanding outwards, seemingly endlessly, was the vastness of the outside world, so huge it nearly made Cass sick just looking at it. No, wait, Cass realized as she doubled over and began to puke. It's just the baby.

They'd found a small hangar bay with its doors left open, not that either Cass or Brunt were aware of what a hangar even was. It was empty, not that it really mattered since neither had so much as seen an aircraft, let alone knew how to fly one.

Brunt lagged behind her, holding his wounded arm tightly against himself. He nearly stumbled when he saw the outside world. They'd both seen it only once before, many years ago. It'd been how they'd met, in fact, each running from mobs of murderous Imperials. They'd nearly killed one another over a hiding place, before the ones following them had neared and forced them to share the spot, rather than risk drawing attention with some kind of fight.

In the end, both were quite pleased they had not killed the other. More than that, they were shocked to find someone not only who was like them, but who did not inherently detest the other for reasons that had never been clear to either.

Neither had ever been particularly religious, the God-Emperor hadn't ever done them any favors after all, but they came close to true belief after that time, when they'd huddled together below the shadow of an Imperial Saintess' statue, even as the two disparate mobs mistook the other for some kind of uprising by the impure and attacked. It had been hours before the last of the dead and wounded were dragged off by servitors for recycling and Cass and Brunt had dared to emerge. Only then would either realize that there was no ceiling they could see and both had clung to the ground in fear of falling upwards into the billowing clouds of ash and smoke above.

They'd spent some time after that together. It had been… difficult, at first, learning to trust one another. Neither had slept much the first few nights, unable to get used to the idea of being near another person while so vulnerable. Eventually, exhaustion had taken them over and they'd slept deeply that night.

Of course, that was all years in the past. The recent… uprising? Invasion? Whatever had happened to Whiro, it had become a more dangerous place for both of them, and a bit of that tension had returned, though this time, none of it was directed towards each other.

Cass reached out to Brunt and held the arm that hadn't been scratched. "Is it alright?" She asked. "I can change your bandages?"

"I'm fine," Brunt said, waving her off even as she saw him holding back a grimace of pain. "Just… tired."

He was tired, but he wasn't fine. That much was obvious. If his wound had gotten infected… There wasn't anything Cass could do to help him, not without the proper tools. A new kind of nausea, one unrelated to the pregnancy, threatened to overtake her.

If… If he wasn't helped, if the infection spread, his arm would have to go. The best way to go about that would be…

Well, it would be a lasgun. Not exactly an easy find in this place, but not impossible either. They didn't have many other options. Nothing down here was clean, especially not any bladed instruments. A lasgun would take his arm off easily enough and… make sure there wasn't any bleeding afterwards.

The shock might kill him though. They didn't have any drugs to dull the pain either. Not many medicae stations left after the genestealers first swept through here.

Cass shook her head clear of the dark thoughts as Brunt passed by her and began looking for a way further down the spire. They'd need to find a lasgun first and if those things weren't coming around looking it wasn't likely one was going to just fall out of the sky. They'd need a miracle and Cass and Brunt had never seemed high on the God-Emperor's list of priorities.

But if she did nothing… Cass watched as Brunt seemed to feel some fresh burst of pain from his arm, coming to a stop and gritting his teeth tightly in an attempt to not cry out. After he settled, he looked her way to see if she noticed. She had, but something else had drawn her attention.

Far across the city, near its edge that gave way to an endless black ocean, the tunnel that stretched out to another hive was ablaze.

If it could have, the Brood Mind would have sneered as the explosives erupted along the tracks closest to the hive called Whiro, the tunnel collapsing onto the train in a thunderous clamor of tearing metal and volatile gases igniting. The train, which had only just begun to slow, buckled as it derailed, the separate cars that housed countless soldiers of the Enemy flipping off the tracks, some taking others with it, while some with steel wires connecting them snapped like a blade of grass being torn. That sneer of the Brood Mind's would have fallen away quickly, however, at the realization that the mammoth construct, for all its size, did not contain the bulk of the Enemy's forces, nor had the trap ensnared the other trains, which were spaced apart, presumably in expectation of something like this.

Which meant…

The Brood Mind's scouts, the quickest of those few tens of thousands of drones that it had reluctantly taken from its defense of the other tunnel, swarmed towards the burning wreck, even as the far-off screech of metal wheels scratching metal tracks indicated the deceleration of the other trains, reaching them even over the din of secondary explosions.

However, there were no screams. That, in and of itself, was unsurprising. The Enemy's forces never screamed, at least not in pain or in death. Only as means of intimidation or, it suspected, in mockery. However, there were also no survivors, pulling themselves from the wreck. As bad as it was, if it had been filled to the brim with soldiers, there should have been survivors. Certainly, the Enemy's forces should have been able to handle it better than the species the drones were a part of, with their strange abilities that even now the Brood Mind did not understand.

And yet, as its scouts passed fearlessly through fire and wreckage that even now was still settling in some areas, they found no bodies, no enemies rising to attack, not even a sign of the train ever having been occupied by anyone. Some sections couldn't be accessed, of course, buried under rubble or covered in flames, sometimes both, but there were plenty of areas that were empty.

The Brood Mind shuddered with powerful, alien emotions that sent some of its weaker drones to their knees under its psychic weight. A moment later, like puppets with their limbs being dragged into every movement, they rose again, their eyes clouded over.

The scouts hid themselves amid the rubble, even as the last sounds of the screeching wheels died down, leaving only the crackling of fire and the still-settling wreckage to drown out any other sounds. The drones readied their weapons, even as the Brood Mind set the rest of its forces into action, making final adjustments to its rapidly-prepared defenses.

In truth, it had half-expected the opening trap to fail, though not through such a mundane trick as an empty train. It had prepared some explosives in the past in order to collapse the hive Malum, but had used up most of them in the retreat from that first disastrous battle with the Enemy. That it had produced more had first been done in the intent to launch another attack at some point, only for everything to fall apart.

The expectation of failure had been more that such a method likely wouldn't have stopped the assault. The Enemy had never used such methods before. While it had shown theh cleverness to avoid defenses, it had never bothered with transportation. Why did it even need the train?

Perhaps it had been meant as a battering ram of sorts. There had been no indication of the train slowing and it'd been nearing the point where it wouldn't matter if it had screeched to a halt or not. But if it was a battering ram, why not fill it with explosives instead to produce an even greater effect? Had the Enemy not considered that? Was it not a ram at all, but simply unfamiliarity with the control schemes then that caused it to not slow down in time?

What kind of trap was this? Why was it even bothering with the trains when it never had before? Was this even really an attack by the same Enemy that had attacked the last two hives?

The Brood Mind had dug in, the Enemy had to have known that. Even with only a paltry force guarding the entrance, that area was in corridors that had been secured on both ends. No ventilation shafts for tiny bioforms to crawl through, guarded by filtration device-equipped drones who possessed weapons that mad such long hallways killing zones, even for such creatures as the Enemy had fielded before, along with a myriad of other hastily-prepared traps. A swarm would not avail it this time.

Right?

Corren felt the explosion more than he heard it, the shuddering of the train as the one in front of it was blown apart by mines the enemy must have planted in preparation for their attack. The second thing he felt was the sudden shuddering of his own train as it began to slow down rapidly, the wheels screeching as they ground to a halt far more quickly than was normally recommended.

Some of the Guard managed to keep their seats, others were nearly thrown bodily from them, not expecting the sudden deceleration. The Malum PDF faired no better or worse. Shockingly, the black-armored soldiers in the back who were standing kept their footing with a simple shift of their weight, seemingly not even stumbling. The casket they guarded shuddered but seemed to adjust to the sudden change in speed easily enough.

He felt Sulla grab his arm to steady herself, her fingers digging in painfully into his flesh even through his uniform, even as he grabbed the seat under him in an attempt to not go tumbling across the ground as some of his fellows were.

"What's happening?!" Sulla hissed, after a rather colorful, and slightly heretical, string of harshly muttered curses and oaths.

"NO IDEA!" Corren replied, louder than he had intended, nearly yelling. Even then, it was barely enough to be heard over the sound of screeching metal. It was only as the train came to a halt that Sulla released her grip. Those who had been thrown from their seating rose, all seeming fine save for what would almost certainly be a few painful bruises.

By the time they'd come to a stop, some were already starting to stand, others lying on their backs, stunned. However, the black-armored soldiers were already on the move, the casket floating between them as they marched in formation towards the exit.

"Malum Urban Cohorts, disembark and move out." The orders came across the vox-speaker. The PDF rose, still shaking off the jitters of the sudden halt, before following the black-armored ones.

The PDF was moving out first? That should have been the Guard's role, why were the Malumites being given priority?

In truth, Corren already had a likely explanation. The commander of this task force, that Marcus Agrippa, was a Malumite. More than that, he was a PDF colonel. He likely wanted to give his own troops a chance to prove themselves and, through their efforts, show himself to be worthy of the command he'd been given.

Politics. Corren was quickly learning to be sick of them.

It was a few minutes before the second order came down, long after the PDF troopers had disembarked and the sound of distant autogun fire began to grow louder and louder.

"Imperial Guard, disembark and move out." It was a simple order, basically the same as the first had been. Likely, they would receive further and more detailed instructions once they were off the trains.

Or so Corren initially thought.

He stepped out into the tunnel and his eyes widened. He had been near the middle of the kilometers-long train, but he still had good enough eyesight to see ahead at where the train in front of them had been. The train that was currently a burning wreck, half-buried under the tunnel that had collapsed on top of it. The train he had been on seemed to have only narrowly avoided crashing into that wreck, stopping just short of it.

The PDF's forces were ahead of him, marching forward into the sound of autogun fire on the other side of that wreckage. There were tens of thousands of men in front of him, each in a Malum uniform. However, the black-armored troopers were not among them, but had remained by the train car, alongside the casket.

The sergeants quickly got the Guard into formation, readying them to move out at once. And then… they waited.

They waited for a long time. Meanwhile, more PDF, each dressed in Malum uniforms, kept marching past his platoon and the black-armored soldiers.

Some of the Guard kept throwing them sidelong glances, especially after the first hour passed. Sulla, who had ended up beside Corren perhaps out of sheer luck, especially seemed to be eyeing them suspiciously.

"Who are they, do you think?" She whispered to him and he narrowed his eyes even though he didn't turn his head. Talking was not allowed and if a sergeant heard them they'd both be punished for her indiscretion.

She got the message and shut her mouth. Corren couldn't help but wonder himself, though, even as his fingers idly, secretly, played with the holster strap on his plasma pistol. He had been allowed to keep it, much to the jealousy of some of his compatriots.

He had never been good with just standing around and he was very bored. However, no other orders were forthcoming. Then, just as the second hour passed him by…

"Guard is to move forward and secure the tunnel entrance."

Finally!

"ODST Units to support the Guard."

Support the Guard? Like they needed it? Corren felt a bit of scorn for a moment, but as he watched the so-named ODST unit start forward with that same prowling walk he had seen from Belleric, he decided he was fine to have them with him. However, he did wonder if the casket was some kind of weapons cache, as they brought it with them.

It was another hour before the Guard had assembled and begun preparing its defenses, apparently left to its own devices by higher command. At first, Corren had been kept busy assembling defenses, finding choice pieces of scrap metal to erect barricades, but after they were completed, he was one of the poor bastards chosen to guard them. And then he was bored again, resolving himself to watch the ODST's as they seemed to be on high alert, ensuring everyone gave them, and their casket, a wide berth.

Perhaps he shouldn't complain, given what he went through during his first battle. Still, he was stuck here, meanwhile more and more PDF were continuing to march past and-

Wait. The sound of autogun fire had not gotten louder or quieter except for when they had approached the entrance, when they had gotten closer to the source. Which meant the lines weren't moving much. Despite that, hundreds of thousands of PDF troopers had already funneled past them.

A coil of dread settled into his stomach. The enemy probably had defenses. Were the troops being constantly sent forward just being… thrown into some kind of meat grinder?

Maybe he was alright with not being sent forward.

"ODST units, move forward in preparation for breakthrough."

Did that mean they were close to winning? Corren had no idea, he had never been in a siege before. Almost immediately, the ODST's started forward and Corren blinked in surprise as they left the floating device behind, now unattended even by servoskulls, which had disappeared at some point he hadn't noticed.

For thirty minutes, he resisted the temptation, contenting himself with furtive glances. However, when his sergeant seemed to be distracted, Corren couldn't help it. The thing almost seemed to be floating towards him and, despite his silent scolding of Sulla earlier, his curiosity was getting the better of him.

He stepped over to the coffin, coming side-by-side with it. He was almost certain now that it had floated closer to him. It was large and looked well-armored, plated in metal coated with silver paint. The emblem of the Mechanicus stared at him unblinkingly and he wondered if the glowing red eye in it was really just an emblem or some kind of camera.

And then, emitted by a vox he hadn't seen it had, came a ghostly command.

"Unseal the hushed casket."

The casket gave a hiss of escaping air as internal latches came undone and fog poured down its sides. Dim lights flickered within that haze, like spirits dancing in a graveyard mist. The door swung open with the clicking of gears and yet more fog combined with the darkness to obscure his vision of anything more than the silhouette of what was contained within. It was tall, easily passing two meters in height, but clearly shaped like an armored human. Then, like a beacon being lit, a silver visor ignited.

A gauntleted hand whirred and clicked softly, almost inaudibly, as it reached out and grabbed the edge of the casket, pulling the rest of the body into the dim light of the tunnel. The armor was the same red as the Mechanicus, but it lacked almost entirely for decoration save for the Cog Mechanicum emblazoned upon its shoulder pauldrons and silver numbers on the left side of its chestplate, which were simply four zeroes in stark white paint.

The armored warrior took a few steps forward, seeming to right itself in an instant. It scanned its surroundings, its head swiveling slowly from the left to the right, before coming to a stop on Corren. The Guardsman felt his blood freeze, yet strangely also felt a swelling of hope. The warrior's voice was deep and confident.

"I need a weapon."

Day 36, Continued

Powered joints whirred and a power generator hummed, barely able to be heard over the sound of heavy stubber fire. The corridor was filled with hundreds of corpses wearing Malum PDF uniforms, cut down in waves like a scythe harvesting wheat. Bodies laid in pieces and pools of blood mixed with a sticky yellow substance, some were blown apart by the powerful kinetic rounds, others had been seared to a crisp by the rarer lascannon and plasma fire.

However, this corridor was not producing the sounds of battle. The only living things within it were genestealer drones, each wearing air filters to deal with the invisible threat of spores.

Outside it, hiding on both sides of its entrance, were four fireteams of black-armored ODST's. They made no move to attack, however. Instead, they waited for the final individual holding outside to move in.

The Spartan took its position, just before the entrance. Perhaps the genestealers were surprised by the calm movements, perhaps they expected some kind of trap, perhaps they didn't want to waste even a few seconds of ammo when only one enemy would die in exchange. Regardless of their reasons, their weapons only tracked the armored figure, but did not fire. They waited, readying themselves for the preparation of a new wave.

Still, the novelty of this new foe drew the attention of the genestealer brood's controlling intelligence. They were not the only hive mind with a portion of its attention focused on this being, however. Nor were those portions anywhere close to equal.

In other hives, flesh-bound factories slowed as their processing power was redistributed. Puppets in areas where they didn't require constant management had their normally flawless masks diminished. And, in two hives that held nothing but dead flesh given new purpose within its spires, a powerful intelligence bent its will towards a single, power armored figure.

Twenty percent. That was roughly the amount of processing power of the total that the Flood possessed which had been bent towards the task of operating this one, single Spartan. Not out of necessity, but out of the desire to exploit a rare opportunity to its utmost and… as a test. A test of the best of what the Flood… no, of what Tide and his allies could bring to bear.

The Spartan strode forward, its every step, every stretch of a muscle, every one of its movements perfectly precise and deliberate. Its hand hovered over the sole weapon it possessed, a plasma gun that hummed with a full charge.

Well… Not quite its only weapon.

An invisible line was crossed, one known only to the Brood Mind, but the results of crossing that line were easy to see.

A hundred and fifty meters inside the dimly lit tunnel, a drone made the final correction of his heavy stubber and began to squeeze the trigger.

Begin.

The Spartan ducked low, a hail of stubber fire crossing through the air where it had been less than a second ago, the gears of its armor groaning at the speed of the movement, of being nearly wrenched into its new position by the powerful musculature contained within it. The drone corrected and pointed the stubber slightly lower, but the Spartan was already moving, sprinting forwards at a speed something so large and armored shouldn't have been capable of.

One second had passed. 142 meters to target.

The Spartan threw itself to one side, just as the finger around the trigger of the lascannon tightened. In an instant, the now empty air was seared by the bright red bolt, which slammed into wreckage a moment later. Autogun rounds sliced through the air around it, each slug's trajectory already calculated from when the barrels themselves had moved into place.

Two seconds had passed. 134 meters to target.

The Spartan leapt up, flipping around, just as a new flurry of lasgun fire lanced forwards. Stray autogun rounds crashed into it, the first hits, only for them to flash like stars as they slammed into the conversion field protecting the armor, turning the kinetic energy into harmless light.

Three seconds had passed. 130 meters to target.

The Spartan fell back to the ground, tumbling as it did, narrowly avoiding a flash of plasma that burned through the air. Its plasma pistol was in its hand, protected by its back as the armor absorbed the shot of a lasgun and a stray stubber round, once more accompanied by a flash of light. In a moment, it rolled into a crouch, barely holding that pose for an instant before pushing off the ground and bounding forwards into a sprint, raising the pistol as it did so and squeezing the trigger, already knowing where the shot would land.

Four seconds had passed. 122 meters to target.

A white-hot flash illuminated the tunnel, travelling like the strike of a lightning bolt. A trio of genestealers, two with lasguns and the third handling the heavy stubber, were unable to even feel a moment of pain as their existence ended in burning flames that seared them to charred corpses, still gripping their weapons. The one on the heavy stubber collapsed, dragging the stubber down with it, tearing a vicious line through the rockrete walls as stubber rounds erratically fired away, until the charred fingers snapped off and crumbled into ash. The Spartan was still running.

Five seconds had passed. 112 meters to target.

Another leap by the Spartan, this time twisting in the air like an acrobat to avoid the trajectories of yet more autogun rounds as well as bringing its heavy feet around to absorb the energy of its jump, internal hover engines firing for just a moment to reduce its weight. It crouched against the ceiling, almost as though gravity had reversed, then pushed, striking downwards like a meteor, just as a lascannon shot melted the spot on the ceiling where it had 'landed'.

Six seconds had passed. 105 meters to target.

It skidded across the ground, using its engines once more, not to slow down, but to accelerate into a roll, letting the back of the armor take the brunt of a las shot, continuing the roll and bringing its arm with the plasma pistol up again. Another flash erupted from the barrel and, this time, the drone operating the heavy stubber turned to ash, as well as an unfortunate drone that had been too close. Even as that drone collapsed, another had gone to take up the lascannon.

Seven seconds had passed. 94 meters to target.

Second by second, the Spartan closed on its target. Another four shots of plasma cooked each drone seeking to operate their heavier equipment, before the continuous use threatened to overheat the weapon. Some shots struck the Spartan, but far more were evaded with efficient movements that would have been beyond the ability of any mere mortal. Meanwhile, those rare shots that made contact either had their kinetic energy devoured by the conversion field or were like water against the powered armor.

Eight seconds, 84 meters. Nine seconds, 72 meters. Ten seconds, 61 meters. Eleven seconds, 51 meters. Twelve seconds, 43 meters. Thirteen seconds, 31 meters. Fourteen seconds, 20 meters. Fifteen seconds, 9 meters.

Sixteen seconds. Target Reached.

The Spartan leapt upwards, carried over the barricade by inhuman strength, the plasma pistol fastened once more to its side as it descended towards the first foe. The genestealer hybrid, likely of the fourth generation of their reproductive cycle given its more human appearance, roared as it revved a chainblade in its hand, screaming a wordless prayer to a god that would have devoured this world if given the chance. It swung the brutish weapon towards the Spartan, well within reach now.

The Spartan ducked low and rushed forward in a crouch. Like a lightning bolt, its arm lanced out and speared the genestealer through the chest, breaking through flesh and bone with raw power. The next genestealer, a drone using the butt of its autogun as a club, rushed forward, only to have its swing intercepted by the screaming hybrid as it was wrenched bodily between the new attacker and the Spartan. Bone crunched and the hybrid fell silent, its skull slightly crumpled in as blood spewed from its nose and mouth.

The Spartan ripped its gore-covered arm out of the hybrid, just in time to catch the descending club of another genestealer, who wielded it one-handed while its other hand fiddled with the pin of a frag grenade. Reaching forward, the Spartan crushed the hand of the genestealer around the grenade, ripping it away and tearing off the genestealer's hand to do it, pulling the pin in the same motion. The grenade disappeared, along with the hand, further into the tunnel, exploding and taking several genestealers with it.

More came at the Spartan and more fell in a series of lightning blows, each strike and even the slightest movements calculated by a mind powerful enough to view even this fast-paced fight as though it were occurring in water, moments slowed to their utmost.

The Spartan did not limit itself to mere hand-to-hand combat, however. It took the weapons of its kills, using them for as long as they were needed, then discarding them, often in a violent enough manner to acquire a replacement.

The genestealer horde was numerous, but it was far from endless. This static defense had only a limited number to defend it, after all. There'd been no need for more, or so it had been thought.

The Brood Mind had thought wrong. In the end, there wasn't even a need for the Spartan to turn to the only weapon it had actually brought along with it in the coffin.

Prototype Faux-Mjolnir Mk.0 was the full title given to the armor by Vidriov. Tide could respect the Tech-Priest's admittance that this suit wasn't quite like the armor it was based off of, hence the 'Faux' part of the name. It was still Imperial technology inside it, after all, and the appearance was more like a hybridization of MJOLNIR and a regular suit of Imperial power armor, with much of it taken from the Inquisitor's armor. The only completely new piece, in fact, was the helmet.

However, Vidriov had spared nothing in this armor's creation. And, as Tide brought more Tech-Priests into the fold and they learned of the project, many were interested in contributing certain rare technologies they'd had hoarded away that could prove useful in such a set of armor. The Mechanicus was certainly a very reclusive organization, one that wasn't normally so prone to sharing. It was not lost on Tide that the majority of those who parted with their treasures and 'sacred' artifacts were of the half who considered him to be, in some way, divine.

Vidriov had initially been planning on having a power pack on the back of the armor, as was the norm, but one of the artifacts had solved that. It was a rare piece of archaeotech in the form of a miniaturized power generator that could replace the entire pack and even extend its total operating time. Tide had reluctantly allowed its installation, as such a device could be quite useful if reverse engineered. He had only accepted it because its owner had absolutely refused to part with it for any other reason than to contribute it to the creation of a 'sacred armor' brought by the supposed Chosen of the Machine God. Fanatics could be quite stubborn.

That, and he was aware that at least four other power generators of similar capabilities were on Monstrum that he could give to those tech-priests more willing to take things apart to learn from them. It was not a pressing issue and it allowed for a higher performance from the prototype, so he didn't mind too much.

What do you think of its performance?

Around thirty tech-priests, each contributors of varying degrees to the project with Vidriov at the lead, resided within his Domain, watching and analyzing the Mk.0 as it figuratively and literally ripped the Genestealer drones a new one.

The tech-priests communicated silently with one another. It wasn't through the noosphere, as that system simply didn't exist within this place. Instead, Tide acted in its role, allowing them to have that semblance of normalcy.

"It will not always be so effective," Vidriov determined, acting as the voice of the group. Given his role in the project, it was fitting. That had been the thought of the rest of the tech-priests, anyways. "You cannot always expect to provide such an amount of your processing capabilities to a single unit in the future."

Of course. Nor do I intend to. This was merely a means to test the armor's capabilities with a Flood-form operator to their fullest.

"Of course," Vidriov said, bowing. Around half of the other tech-priests followed suit, while the other half, which had notably chosen to group together and give themselves a bit of distance from the others, did not.

"A question," Another voice spoke up, one from the irreligious group. While Tide technically had a final say over how a person looked within his Domain, as well as virtually everything else in this place, Tide had chosen to let these tech-priests decide how they appeared. Most simply chose how they looked in the Materium, while Sathar chose the form Tide had initially had him appear here in, seeing it as almost a holy blessing or something. Not this one, however. Not Logis Sathar.

They wore the red robes of the priesthood still and they maintained a vague humanoid shape, but Sathar's real body still had scraps of flesh visible, bits and pieces that Tide knew they loathed. Secretly, Sathar deeply wished to cast off the human form entirely and while they had not chosen to appear as what they truly wished to be in Tide's Domain, there were signs.

In place of two legs were four, arrayed like a spider's, each well-armored enough that they looked like they could withstand autocannon fire. The torso was a reactor with an exposed core that burned with the fury of a sun, topped by a mechanical head that was spider-like with all the sensor bulbs that covered it. Their arms were certainly human, though Tide knew each contained enough weaponry to level a hab block contained within each of them.

In that last part, at least, Sathar was like the others. All of them had included vastly greater quantities of hidden weaponry in the forms they'd chosen to appear here in, more than was practical or even necessarily possible had they been in the Materium.

There was no reason. Rather, every tech-priest's reasoning was 'why not?' even after Tide had explained to all of them that there was no point in having such an excessive amount of firepower when their bodies were essentially illusions here made for convenience.

He really shouldn't have been surprised.

Ask away.

"What purpose does this prototype serve? Especially now that so many rare components that we lack the means to recreate have been contributed to its crafting? We will not be able to mass produce such armors or even have limited numbers of them if we cannot find such rare technologies."

"The creation is divinely inspired, Sathar!" Vidriov cried, as though astonished his fellow tech-priest could even say such a thing. "That alone is reason enough! It is not for us to question the Machine God's Chosen."

Excellent questions, Sathar. While the original desire to create the armor was Vidriov's own, I did support and encourage it. I did so because I wished to have an idea of what was feasible. While mass production of any form of power armor is presently impossible for us, we do possess an abundance of already created sets.

It took a moment before any of them realized what he meant. It was neither Vidriov or Sathar who understood first, but Logis Calarn, highest ranking tech-priest of the Order of the Cleansing Rains.

"You intend to convert the Sororitas' Wargear into Faux-Mjolnir sets like this one?" He asked, bringing the rest of the tech-priests up to speed. Tide found it privately amusing at the use of the word 'convert' in such a context.

Yes and no. The bulk of the Sororitas or, rather, their minds currently reside here, in my Domain, as I teach them to remember their own humanity and the humanity of others. As such, they have no need of their wargear. Before that, however, I intend to make use of those sets given up by many in their Order before they even left Deimos for war.

"The Sisters Repentia," Calarn said. He shook his head. "Why anyone would give up armor created by the grace of the Omnissiah is beyond me."

Nonetheless, we shall take advantage of their choice. I have already secured the gear and begun its transportation. Roughly a hundred, in total.

There was a quiet ripple of awe and excitement through the gathered tech-priests.

Each of you will receive a set to work upon personally, as gratitude for your contributions. Modify them, take them apart, I only ask that you seek to learn all you can from them and share that knowledge between yourselves freely.

That had certainly gotten their attention. Power armor was one of the most sacred forms of technology by the Mechanicus' reckoning. Few on Monstrum got to work on such things and even someone as senior as Calarn had never been given free reign over a set. It was probably asking a bit for them to actually share any findings, but it wasn't like they could hide such things from Tide in any case.

The rest of the armor sets will be utilized in a collective effort, both as a means of understanding and enhancing the technologies within them. I hope it will allow us to create a design that is not only powerful, but one that can be produced within Monstrum's factories.

Tide was well-aware of the fact that what he was saying would have been heretical – heretekal? – in most Mechanicus circles. However, these were the individuals he had cherry picked from thousands of Monstrum's tech-priests and their subordinates, not only for their intelligence and capability, but also for their willingness to push the boundaries of their doctrines, if not outright discard them. While they might have disagreed with one another on the exact nature of his supposed divinity or lack thereof, not a single one of them considered the fact that what they were doing would be seen as wrong by others as anything more than a reason to maintain secrecy.

I will deliver each of you your suits to wherever you wish in the coming days. However, I intend to have the ones for our collective use be sent to Deimos' underhive. I have an… idea I wish to try. One that could ensure none of you are endangered by our search for knowledge.

It would be wrong to say the Brood Mind resided within the Genestealer Patriarch itself. That missed the key point of a hive mind. Rather, the Patriarch was the central node in a vast network that had once spanned a quarter of this world and more, both the leading voice of a choir and its conductor.

True, that was insignificant compared to the incomprehensibly vast size of the God Mind's own power, which spanned the space between whole galaxies. However, it was still larger than what the Brood Mind had been reduced to. A single hive city. No, not even that.

Whatever had been growing within the hive spires had continued to expand outwards, like a bubble of disruption. The Brood Mind had been forced to abandon hastily prepared defenses near the towers, fourth and fifth lines that were being readied against the ongoing invasion of the Enemy. It had lost scores of drones to the phenomena and been forced to put them down like feral beasts.

Fortunately, the bulk of the Brood Mind's forces remained far away from the strange occurrence, safe in the defenses it had constructed within the tunnel to Enyo. For now, anyways. The Patriarch itself was there, behind the heaviest of weapons. It wasn't accurate to say the Patriarch was the Brood Mind itself, but it was definitely the most valuable component, the piece the Brood Mind couldn't afford to lose or risk dissolution.

That fate seemed to be increasingly likely, however. Despite the strange change in tactics by the Enemy, it was only slightly slower in its onslaught and push into the hive. The Enemy did not seem aware of the location of the bulk of the Brood Mind's forces, instead opting for a general push everywhere into the hive, particularly towards the spires.

There was a possibility that whatever had disrupted the Brood Mind in the spires would do the same to the Enemy. The Brood Mind desired such an outcome with an alien feeling that its drones interpreted as both hope and fear.

The Brood Mind considered its Patriarch for a moment. As long as it survived, there was the possibility of contacting the God Mind, once the Warp Storm fell. Would the defenses it had be enough?

It already knew the answer to that question. The Patriarch rose to its feet and a pack of purestrain genestealers rose with it. It could not flee to Enyo. It could not flee to Mania. And it could not stay in Whiro. The wilderness then. But could it survive out there, on its own? Perhaps. But it would need food and it didn't know how much there was out there.

Hence the purestrains. They would provide sufficient biomass until such a time as the Warp Storm subsided.

They had to.

Day 36, Continued

Corren had watched the power armored warrior depart, wondering as it did, if he had just encountered one of His Angels, a Space Marine. Surely… Surely not, right? They were said to be taller than that one had been, and bulkier as well. The power armored warrior did not fit with the icons of Space Marines found in many of the chapels Corren had been to in his life. And while he had felt intimidated by the being, especially when it had spoken to him and he'd wordlessly offered up his plasma pistol to it, it wasn't some divine experience as he would have expected it to be.

There had been an… odd feeling, though. Like he didn't need to be afraid, despite the power of the thing before him.

It was a short time later that the coffin or cradle, the device the not-Space Marine had arrived in, floated away, soon surrounded by a team of the black-armored troopers to escort it away into the back lines. It had possessed the symbols of the Mechanicus, so was it some kind of special project? A secret weapon?

He had no idea. The warrior had left after accepting Corren's plasma pistol, a gift which the Guardsmen was starting to regret giving when he'd had his lasgun on hand. Still, the warrior might have taken that as an insult to be given an inferior weapon like that. Or it might not have?

He glanced around by chance and saw Sulla, a dozen or so meters away, watching the departing coffin with a curious expression on her face. She turned her head, as if sensing his eyes, and nodded with a half-cocked grin, before returning to her defensive position, a pile of scrap rendered somewhat defensible by a number of sandbags strategically placed to ensure it didn't all come tumbling down if it was hit by autofire. Small arms autofire, in any case.

Corren sighed and shrugged to himself. This was all a bit above his paygrade, he supposed. His quartermaster would either be outraged or pleased beyond measure that Corren had given away a relic like the plasma pistol, given how rare the weapon itself was and how difficult it could be to acquire their hydrogen flasks. He'd probably be both, in all honesty.

Hopefully, it would be worth it.

Corren stepped back over to his own position, coming close to the wall, only to feel something drop from his pocket. Glancing down, he saw it was one of the spare flasks he'd just been thinking of and he winced, wondering if he should have given the coolant to the warrior as well.

Coming to one knee, he reached down and plucked the hydrogen flask off the ground, coming below the barricade he had built hours earlier, lowering himself just enough so that the burst of autogun rounds sent flying towards where he had been standing a moment earlier only passed through air. In an instant, the sound of autoguns filled the tunnel, followed in moments by shouts of alarm as Guardsman rushed for cover, some falling to the ground as they were struck.

Explosions followed, like the clanging of a manufactorum and he heard a sound like the tunnel collapsing, though this was smaller and directed behind him. He turned his head, at first afraid that the rest of the tunnel, perhaps destabilized by the initial explosions or this subsequent surprise attack, had indeed fallen, but he was mistaken. Instead, he blinked in surprise as what seemed in his eyes to be Chimeras and various other transport vehicles of the Guard opened up their hatches, unleashing a flood of Malum PDF.

How in the Emperor's Name are there so many of them? How did they get here so quickly? Corren wondered those questions, even as half-a-dozen rushed to his barricade, their autoguns firing all the time into the enemy mass, who Corren only now dared to look at, glancing up over his barricade.

A teeming mass of frothing maws, battle cries for some mutant god, and ramshackle weapons of a variety of types rushed towards him. Some had wargear as good as the PDF around him, others would not have been out of place laying in some dark alleyway, either drunk and asleep or dead. Thousands of them all rushed forward, those with ranged weapons firing continuously while those equipped with what could reasonably be called melee weapons waved them above their heads and charged forwards, a look of horrifying ecstasy on their faces as they praised a Four-Armed Emperor.

A hand with surprising strength gripped his shoulder, pulling him down from his vantage point and throwing him to the ground. He snarled, until he saw the face of the PDF trooper that had grabbed him, glaring at him.

"You should take a nap." The trooper said and Corren blinked at the other man giving him an order. He couldn't be… He couldn't be serious, right? Yet, when he tried to get up, tried to speak, Corren found he couldn't. In fact, he felt quite tired all of a sudden, strangely so.

He collapsed onto his chest, struggling to keep his eyes open as a wave of drowsiness took over. The last thing he saw before he finally fell away into nothingness were the rest of the Guardsmen he could see all falling to the ground, even as PDF moved up to take their places.

All the guardsmen… save one.

The hive city was strewn with corpses and battle. Whiro had become a slaughterhouse, as genestealers fell in waves to try and contain the onslaught of Malum's true master. The living fought over the dead they trampled underfoot. In more ways than one, Ahsael mused, as both parasite and hunter desired the flesh for their own machinations.

He stared down at the shimmering images of the scrying bowl. This attack was different, that much was obvious from the start. The so-called Malum PDF were not humans at all, but creatures born from the same place as the monsters that had overtaken first Limos and then Enyo. For some reason, the creature had chosen to fight alongside the Imperials and was unwilling to reveal its true nature. However…

During his research, he had scried the hive of Malum. There, the creatures moved with freedom throughout the hive, seemingly unseen by all, while its vines covered the lower hab blocks, producing strange fruits that the peoples freely ate. Some addictive substance or simple sustenance? Either could provide a leash around their necks for the entity.

He was tempted to peer deeper than simple sight, to try and look into the minds of one of these creatures. However, he didn't dare do more than watch. Vra'kzil had tried and its whereabouts and status were still unknown. If it was banished or imprisoned somewhere, Ahsael couldn't say, but while the daemon had not been the most powerful of its kind, neither was it weak or unlearned in the sorcerous arts. It was inferior to him, hence why he had been the master and it the servant, but anything that could deal with Vra'kzil posed a threat to him.

Perhaps if he had one of his acolytes look… But no, that could tip off whatever entity controlled all this. Once the Gallow's Eye was prepared for departure and he had made his case to the others, he could return with the resources of the Legion at his disposal and conduct a thorough study without risking himself.

He had been following the events regarding the Malum entity's attack on the genestealers closely over the last few days. When he saw no movements from Enyo towards Whiro, he'd noted the Malum PDF forces in the north and realized the attack was already prepared. While the genestealers had busied themselves preparing defenses against an attack from the South, the entity had already found a way to flank them and render their efforts worthless.

He had swept his eyes through the forces being sent from Deimos, surprised to find there were Guardsmen present. Not only that, these Guardsmen seemed entirely human, with none of the entity's mimics as far as he could tell. It made sense, he supposed, to use another's forces if possible, but didn't it risk discovery like this?

He'd noted the large number of carapace armored soldiers among their numbers as well, each with the bearing of a veteran soldier. It was disconcerting to see how easily the Malum entity could adopt the posture of decades of training and experience. How did it work? It had to be more than simple mimicry. Did it steal the memories of those it slew somehow?

If that was the case… What would happen if it stole the memories and experiences of a Space Marine? If every one of its soldiers possessed the skills of an elite warrior on top of its other, more esoteric abilities… it made significantly more sense how easily it had conquered Janus so swiftly.

No, he had no certainty that was the truth. He shouldn't jump to conclusions.

He had been intrigued by the black armored warriors, studying them intently. They seemed almost robotic in their movements, perhaps relying on the elite aura that surrounded them to explain their inhuman capabilities. What had caught his attention the most, however, was the casket.

He had watched that casket, yet been unable to pierce its outer shell because of the wards placed within it. It was legitimately of Mechanicus make then, he suspected, and it gave him reasurrance that the entity had not infiltrated at least that red-robed order. If the entity had possessed the knowledge to ward things, surely it would have done so already to protect itself.

Initially, he'd been dismissive of the power armored warrior that had stepped out of the casket. While capable, a mortal in power armor was still just a mortal. The armor was similarly warded by the faith of the Mechanicus as the casket that carried it had been. While strange in appearance, being a pattern he had never seen before, Ahsael could not have helped but feel some disappointment at the revelation that that was all it was.

Then he'd seen it in action and his disappointment had transformed into a deep concern.

Relatively speaking, the power armored creature was not that physically fast or strong. Relative to a space marine, that is. The inferior patterns of power armor used by mortals and clearly by this creature lacked the black carapace that Space Marine armor possessed that allowed it to connect to the nervous system of the wearer, becoming an extension of them and allowing them to move in it to the fullest extent. This creature had clearly been pulling its armor about rather than moving with it.

However, despite being slower than most space marines would have been, the creature had performed feats few, if any, could have accomplished. At first, Ahsael had assumed it was mere luck and incompetence on the genestealers' part that had kept it from being shot to shreds. However, as it got closer and closer and continued to avoid nearly every shot, he'd realized it wasn't either. Whatever was controlling this creature was carefully watching the trajectory of every ballistic and las round before it was fired and avoiding those paths in time with when they would be fired.

Ahsael couldn't have done that. He wouldn't have needed to in the first place, of course, but still. What kind of mental power was needed to perform a feat like that? The creature inside the armor couldn't have done it by itself, certainly not if it was a mortal, hence his determination that it had to be one of the entity's lot.

Now, the creature pushed on, finding more genestealers to slaughter. It never showed the same level of speedy reactions as it first had, but that was small comfort and it was still far faster than mortals should have been even in power armor. Was it something that could only be done occasionally or had the mind behind that shell of armor decided it just wasn't needed anymore? None of the foes it faced now were as dangerous as that kill-tunnel had been.

Concern filled him at all the questions. Concern… and greed. If he could harness this entity, harness its powers and combine them with his sorcery… Nothing would be beyond him. Monstrum itself was a paltry prize compared to that.

Ahsael imagined it, allowing himself that for just a moment. He saw worlds ablaze, an army of warriors with the skills of its greatest warriors and minds, with him to lead them in a conquest of the Materium. This sector, this segmentum, this entire galaxy.

All of it would be his.

Corren jerked awake, fear and confusion making him uncertain where he was for a moment. However, as he looked around, he remembered. His barricade still stood, his weapon was still in hand, but there was no sound of battle or cries of the wounded. He'd been… set against it, like he was sleeping?

He looked around, but there was no sign of the enemy hordes that he could have sworn had just attacked. Nor were there any Malum PDF he could see, or the transports that had carried them.

Had it… been a dream? Yet it had seemed so real. When had he fallen asleep?

Checking his waist, he noted the plasma pistol was still missing. So, the power armored warrior had been real, but what after that?

He looked over to where Sulla had been standing guard, but she was nowhere to be seen. He heard the thumping of boots on rockrete and looked over, watching as four of the black-armored soldiers sprinted off in one direction.

Just what had happened?

A portion of Tide's mind sent the four ODST's sprinting away, following an unusual and somewhat concerning anomaly he had noticed some time ago, but done nothing about just yet. Should he send the Spartan as well…?

No, not necessary, at least at this point. From what he could tell, the issue was a minor one, and the testing of the Faux-Mjolnir on the legitimate foes that still faced him was of greater priority. The four would be sufficient, he was sure.

Dozens of other such fireteams of his ODST's were being deployed throughout the battlefield as well. While he had withdrawn the vast majority of the attention he had previously been dedicating to this campaign, most of which had gone into that initial assault with the Spartan, and redistributed it to other tasks, he still had enough to control and devise tactics for his smaller units, rather than doing the headlong rushes and swarm charges the genestealers and their Tyranid masters seemed to prefer.

The genestealer counterattack had been expected, but Tide was more than a bit upset they'd gone after the Guard rather than his Puppets. He had prepared for such an attack, however, with pods like the one he'd sent up to infect the space hulk being readied in other hive cities, though these had been filled with Puppet soldiers.

To the minds of the Imperial Guard, the Neural Physics teleportation of those pods had appeared like Chimeras and other vehicles rushing to the front to deliver fresh soldiers. Though, to ensure he could focus on dealing with the genestealers quickly, he'd put them all to sleep temporarily, a simple matter, making their memory of the battle a quickly forgotten dream once he'd cleaned up a bit.

Well… almost all of them. One who had somehow avoided infection through a means Tide wasn't sure about just yet had stayed awake and would have seen the reality of the transports. That she had fled during the battle wasn't too surprising, disappearing into the many tunnels and corridors of Whiro, as seeing all that would have been… a lot for most people to handle. Hence the ODST's, who would bring her back and, perhaps, plant a small Flood infection form on her to allow for a more direct method of infection. He had some information on her past in Malum, mainly from those who'd known her, but nothing which would have granted some kind of resistance to the Flood. If she was immune because of some less obvious mutation, that was a concern and something to look into.

The genestealers would also have seen the reality, though he seriously doubted their Brood Mind would understand what had just occurred. Still, he wasn't happy to be showing more of his tricks if he could help it. However, if he hadn't acted when he did, some of the Guard might have died.

Many had been shot by stray bullets in the initial volleys, but those wounds had been easy enough to fix. Since he'd been pumping out spores, lots of the genestealers had started dying in scores as he waged wars inside their bodies as well as outside them, rendering the battle even easier. This had been a desperate attack, one to try and divert his forces, probably to make some kind of an opening, perhaps to mount further attacks or even an escape.

Instead of allowing that, he should probably add to their encirclement.

Speaking of, he should probably make sure none of them escape. Ever since the situation with the space hulk, he'd begun mass producing pods like the one he'd sent there for Neural Physical transit. They weren't strictly necessary, but he was less concerned about sending a pod with linked Flood forms through that could form a small proto-gravemind than he was sending individual units. If something did get lost in transit, the Flood forms at least wouldn't go completely feral. Probably.

Hopefully, nothing of the sort would ever happen. And, even more hopefully, if something like that did occur, another instance of Tide or even the same instance would be in control of said pod, rather than the Flood's inherent instincts taking over. There was the possibility that… something else might take over, but so far, Tide had not noticed any signs of the Primordial's presence within his Domain or any other entity exercising control over the Flood. Of course, if such a being was present, a true Precursor with far more experience could probably have hidden itself from him, right?

He set aside that disconcerting thought.

Part of him wondered what would happen if he sent something like a daemon somewhere via Neural Physics. He might test it one day… Then again, he might not. He didn't need any Warp entities discovering other universes beyond those already connected to the Empyrean, let alone being exposed to the whole of the multiverse.

He'd had a few dozen readied with Puppet soldiers, but the majority just had regular Flood forms. He'd rather not just drop them into the middle of genestealer forces in his version of a deepstrike, since he was testing his Puppet soldiers and their equipment for the moment. Instead…

In the depths of Malum, hundreds of pods, the bulk of his reserve, loosed their grip upon this universe, slipping through gaps like serpents sliding from shed skin. Then, like water bubbling from a creek, they were back. This time, however, they ringed the whole of Whiro, landing just outside their walls with quiet thuds, their occupants rushing out, breaking apart and becoming swarms of tiny, insect-like bodies that formed a long, circular river of glistening bodies and scuttling legs.

There would be no running from this battle.

The woman who was called Sulla moved at a pace that would not have been impossible for an ordinary human of her build, if difficult to sustain, through Whiro's tunnels and corridors. Where genestealers moved, she hid or struck when she could not leave them for whoever was following her, then continued on her way, never lingering for a moment more than she had too.

As she came to a fork in her path, however, she reached into a hidden pocket and withdrew a small humming device. It was a chain of finely wrought gold, each link no larger than a fingernail, their surfaces covered in the words of prayers. Hanging from it was a silver crystal that glowed with witch-light. It shifted in the empty air, turning and pointing to the right. Without hesitation, she stored the device back where it had come from and continued onwards, following its given directions.

Whatever had happened back there, in the battle, was dangerous. Hundreds of Guardsmen collapsing into unconsciousness while strange cylinders filled with soldiers teleported in via methods unknown to her and filled with mere PDF troopers who fought almost as well as Tempestus Scions. Initially, she'd intended to go along with the Guard as they moved further into the city, only slipping away when it would be more convenient. That incident had proven to her that could endanger her mission.

She paused midstep, going as still as a statue in the darkness of the corridor, where no human eyes could have seen without aid. Then, as silent as a ghost, she crept to the wall, fitting herself into a small gap a normal person would have struggled to fit into.

Dozens of footfalls could be heard moments later, thumping along the rockrete, as nearly twenty genestealer cultists half-marched, half-ran down the corridor, lit only by the glow-globes they carried, directed forwards. They completely missed the Guardswoman hidden not a meter away from them as they passed her by, entirely unawares.

She did not move, even after they passed. Minutes went by.

The soft sound of clicking and a quiet, trill-like growl could be heard. Razor sharp claws tapped lightly against the rockrete and something smelled the air with deep breaths.

The purestrain genestealer roared and leapt at the concealed Guardswoman, four claws outstretched for her neck, only for her to bend into a masterful roll that carried her easily under the leaping creature. The purestrain slammed into the wall, its claws leaving deep gouges in the rockrete, whirling around in a moment.

In that moment, she'd already drawn and readied her lasgun, firing ineffective blasts straight into its face. The purestrain roared in annoyance as its eyes struggled with the flashes of powerful light in addition to the slight amount of pain they brought. It thrashed about with its claws blindly, its every movement easily avoided by the Guardswoman with movements like a dancer's.

Like a serpent, she circled around it without a sound, drawing a combat knife far sharper and stronger than one any infantryman and even most officers should have possessed. With practiced ease, she drove the blade into the neck of the genestealer, severing its spine with a lethal twist, sending the creature to the ground where it lay, twitching wildly, its limbs and claws flexing as it went through its death throes.

Turning and sheathing her knife in the same movement, she continued on towards her target.