Editing The Tales of the Emperasque: Part Ten (section)

==Hive Lucresti, Terra==
Vulkan checked over the auspex gear in his helmet. The source of the missiles seemed to be a pair of concrete buildings clean on the other side of the annex, and several stubber gunners had mounted heavy guns on the sides of the plaza, firing down on the team every time they tried to advance. The crew of the Thunderhawk elected to stay behind and await Arbites extraction, while Vulkan advanced the others through the train station. They hadn’t had to wait long before the obvious signs of more serious problems began to emerge. No sooner had the Astartes sorted out their wargear than the doors on the building had burst open, and a pack of screaming rioters had charged at them. The Custodes, true to their nature, hadn’t hesitated a fraction of a second despite their inexperience, and had waded into the ranks of the rioters with cool precision, slicing them to ribbons with their Guardian spears. Vulkan and the other three Power Armored men hadn’t had to fire off a single shot before the gold, black, and red cloud of swinging blades had ceased their cleaving, and the rioters were crushed.

Once inside, however, it was clearly a different story. There weren’t any people left there, but clearly there had been before the missile ruined the forces outside. Vulkan pawed through a heap of paper marked with bizarre, raving scribbles and sighed.

“I’ve seen this before.” Draigo nodded agreement.

“Their minds are going. Something here is…very wrong.” The Companions shifted their gaze from the doors to the two men.

“What do you mean, Lord Draigo?” one asked.

“These fanatics were planning this. They’ve been camped here, making these drawings, since before the riots started,” Draigo said. He held up one sheaf, covered in strange symbols. “Most heretics are idiots, with no idea whatsoever how to summon the powers of the Warp. Some aren’t. It looks like these particular rioters were making a summoning circle.”

“And did they succeed?”

“Of course not, there are no bloody summoning circles outside of cheap horror holos,” Draigo said. “It takes either dozens of psykers and huge amounts of effort, nearly a hundred cultists and lots of preptime, or a few very powerful cultists and a massive sacrifice of innocent blood to even consider summoning a daemon. These people had none of that.”

“They still attacked us,” the Companion pointed out.

“They were out of their minds, and attacked us. Yes. However, they attacked us because they were being controlled by something foul, something they didn’t summon. Where it is and how long it’s been here I have no idea. Looks to me that they got here when the Emperor’s new form was announced, tried to summon a daemon to cause some anarchy for their own gain, and got brainwashed into attacking us by a sorcerer nearby with far more power, who noticed their clumsy attempts,” Draigo said, dropping the papers into a heap on the floor of the train station’s security room with contempt. Vulkan swept the Spear through the heap and they instantly burst into flames. Tu’Shan hefted his own bolter and nudged the door open, and the six men walked back into the train station.

A trio of very fast shadows raced across the ground outside, visible against the blackened concrete. A moment later, a single loud *boom* echoed across the open space. Vulkan grimaced. “Lightnings. This is getting worse.”

“Let’s go,” Draigo said, jogging for the exit. He reached one side of the main doors into the building and paused, pressing his hands against his temples for a moment. He stopped, seemingly listening for something, then turned around and kicked the doors open, running out as fast as his legs could take him. The other men followed suit, trusting Draigo’s psychic power to forewarn them of any snipers. Just as they reached the cover of the first singed train, however, a stream of lead spattered against the ground at Tu’Shan’s feet. He skidded to a halt behind an upturned bench and glanced around, looking for his assailant. The bright flashes of a heavy stubber on full automatic from one of the offices in a nearby building betrayed his location. Tu’Shan brought his bolter up to bear and fired, hosing the luckless gunner down with bolts. He flew apart at the seams, the explosion tossing his loader to the ground with a scream, several hundred feet below.

“I bloody hate this,” He’Stan grumbled. “This is the worst kind of cityfight, there’s ten thousand windows and skyways around this plaza. There could be snipers anywhere.”

“Yes, but there aren’t. We know where at least a few of the gunners are,” Vulkan came back. The two stubbers that had been firing on them before opened up again, their shots clanking off of the train. Vulkan pointed at one with his finger, and He’Stan incinerated one of them with a burst of Hellfire bolts.

He’Stan pivoted at the waist and fired at the other pair of gunners. After only a few shots, however, the chunk of the office building they had been hiding in exploded, with a massive burst of smoky rubble. A low rumbling from behind them heralded a pair of Arbites-marked vehicles, crawling across the square to retrieve the Thunderhawk crew. One was a Leman Russ, much to the relief of the squad, and its bolters were making a mess of the few gunners unwise enough to poke their heads out to target the two units. The other vehicle, a Chimera, was turning to load the injured men still huddling behind the damaged train station into its compartment.

Suddenly, the clamor of bolter shells and lasers was joined by a new, horrible sound: a krak missile launch. Vulkan traced a pinprick of grey ahead of a streak of smoke, heading straight for the tank. By a miracle, it hit the Leman Russ square on the dozer blade, instead of the vehicle itself. Vulkan took the opportunity, firing his pistol’s magazine into the office that had concealed the missile launcher. He didn’t wait to see whether his shots had any effect, instead shoving the Companions into motion, directing them both towards the opposite end of the plaza. They all reached the cover of the entrance to the nearest spire without getting hit, and Vulkan pulled open one of the massive, bronze-plated doors of the building. A few civilians inside screamed and ran off, and Vulkan waited until the other five men entered before slamming the door shut.

Draigo peered down the cavernous hallway, which seemed to stretch on as far as the horizon, filled almost entirely with people, wandering from one interconnected series of rooms and halls to another. The ones nearest the door spotted the power-armored warriors and pointed, some making the sign of the Aquila.

Fortunately, none seemed to be priming weapons, and indeed there were a few local police directing people as far from the doors as possible, no doubt reacting to the battles outside. Draigo closed his eyes and inclined his head for a moment, then glanced sidelong at Vulkan. “I sense no taint on these folk. We are still far from wherever the core of the corruption lies.”

“Good to know,” Vulkan said. He glanced around, utterly lost in the outermost edges of a hive. “How do we get ourselves up to wherever those missiles were coming from? These people don’t even seem to know what’s happening outside.”

“Yes, and I’m not surprised,” Draigo said. “Hive structures on Terra are meant to house tens of billions. The battle beyond may well not have registered here, with the walls so thick. As to your question, I have no idea. The missiles were coming from the windows of the structure, but it will be impossible to find which ones.”

“Then we don’t bother,” Vulkan said heavily. “We don’t have enough men to sweep an entire hive. We press on, as best we can.”

“We could summon another aircraft, but I doubt it will fare better than the last,” He’Stan said, glancing around. “Unless you want to charge down this hallway, we’re probably going to have to move outside.”

“Through that killing corridor? Watched by who knows how many millions of snipers? Hell no,” Vulkan said. “We’re going the fast way.”