The interior of Hive Primus was a vision of ordered decay.
The path from Gate Aurelian was a chasm-like roadway, wide enough for a column
of tanks, flanked by plasteel cliffs that rose for kilometres. Waterfalls of
green, chemical-laden fluid cascaded from unseen heights, and the air was thick
with the smells of recycled air, ozone, and the cloying press of too many human
bodies. Millions of eyes watched from fortified windows and maintenance
gantries thousands of feet above, their faces pale masks of disbelief in the
perpetual twilight. The silent, disciplined march of the shadow army was
perhaps more terrifying to these people than any Ork war-cry could ever be.
The Monarch remained atop the Chimera, a still point in the
flowing river of shadows. The scale of this city was impressive, a testament to
a species that would rather build a tomb for billions than surrender a world.
He processed the data from the Sergeant's mind. Hives like this were the
backbone of the Imperium, churning out soldiers and materials for a war that
had never ended. Every soul he saw was a cog in a machine, their faith the
lubricant that kept it from grinding to a halt.
"Kasran," he said, his voice cutting through the low rumble
of the Chimera's engine.
The officer scrambled out of the driver's hatch, his face
slick with nervous sweat. "Lord?"
"The spaceport," the Monarch stated. "Direct us there. Take
the most efficient route."
Kasran swallowed, nodding quickly. "The Apex Lifts...
they're the only way up for a vehicle this size. They lead to the Spire-level,
to the Governor's Palaces and the Star-Docks. It is... heavily defended."
"That is no longer your concern," Jin-Woo replied. "Your
concern is navigation."
High above, in the needle-thin spire that pierced the smog
layer, Planetary Governor Marius Hax watched a grainy pict-feed of the
procession with trembling hands. His council chamber was a cacophony of
panicked vox-transmissions.
"My lord Governor, the Aurelian Gate garrison has
collapsed!" one voice squawked. "Their commanders are... complying with the
entity."
"Heresy!" boomed the voice of Commissar Validus, his
transmission crackling with fury. To his rigid mind, this was simple. "Governor
Hax, you will order the immediate destruction of the Apex Lifts! Trap the beast
in the underhive and bury it under a mountain of rubble! Any man who disobeys
is a traitor!"
Before Hax could form a reply, a third voice, dry and
synthetic, cut through the noise. It was laced with the static of binary cant,
the voice of Arch-Magos Veneratus Kovax, master of the Adeptus Mechanicus on
Kryllus Secundus.
"Negative," the Arch-Magos stated. "The integrity of the
Grand Lifts is paramount. They are holy constructs of the Omnissiah. To destroy
them would be sacrilege. Furthermore," the voice continued, its tone hardening
into something akin to cold fury, "the Star-Docks and the sacred void-faring
vessels within are the Machine-God's anointed children. They will not be tithed
to a creature of profane warp-sorcery. The port is sealed. Its Machine Spirit
is roused. We will defend it ourselves."
The transmission cut out, leaving the Governor in a state
of impotent dread. He was trapped between a heretic who would burn his city for
defiance and a monster who would do the same for compliance.
The Apex Lifts were marvels of ancient engineering,
colossal platforms capable of raising entire tank companies from the hive floor
to its peak. The one they approached was guarded by a hastily assembled line of
Leman Russ tanks and soldiers loyal to the Commissar's zealous command. Their
stand was brave, foolish, and ultimately brief.
The shadow soldiers swarmed them. They were not fighting to
kill, but to disable. Shadows surged over the tanks, their ethereal claws
tearing at treads and cannon barrels. The First Knight moved through the
infantry line like a phantom, his greatsword of darkness disabling squads with
every swing, the sheer terror of his presence breaking their morale far more
effectively than any weapon. The battle was over in minutes.
The lift ascended, its groaning gears a hymn to the hive's
age. They rose through layers of civilization. The darkness of the underhive
gave way to the neon-lit gloom of the mid-levels, then to the sterile,
utilitarian hab-blocks of the upper hive. Finally, they emerged onto the roof
of the world.
The Apex Starport was a vast, windswept plateau under the
sickly orange sky. Gothic gantries and cranes, large enough to hoist
battleships, stood like skeletal giants over the docks. Three ships were
berthed: two sword-class frigates and a larger Dauntless-class light cruiser,
their hulls scarred from void-battles.
The air was still. The expected defense force was nowhere
in sight. Instead, standing in silent, disciplined ranks before the cruiser,
was a different kind of army. They were not fully human. Their limbs were
spindly metal pistons, their faces cold brass plates with glowing blue optics,
and their rifles hummed with an unnatural, sickly green light. Skitarii. The
cyborg soldiers of the Machine God.
At their center, on a mobile command pulpit, was the
Arch-Magos. He was more machine than man, a grotesque fusion of crimson robes,
writhing mechadendrites, and a desiccated face half-hidden behind a rebreather
grille.
His amplified, synthetic voice boomed across the tarmac.
"Foul anomaly of flesh! You stand upon holy ground! This is the domain of the
Omnissiah, the God in the Machine! Your biological sorcery is an obscene
logic-plague! Your request is denied. The Machine Spirit of the 'Spear of
Judgement' will not suffer your profane presence. It will be your tomb!"
The Skitarii raised their radium carbines and galvanic
rifles, weapons that killed through radiation saturation and bio-electric
discharge. Their lack of fear was palpable; it had been scrubbed from them and
replaced with cold, calculating logic.
"An interesting religion," the Monarch murmured, his eyes
scanning not the soldiers, but the machinery around them. The cranes, the fuel
conduits, the docking clamps. They were ancient, soaked in millennia of toil,
failure, and the deaths of countless workers who had fallen from their heights
or been crushed in their gears. They possessed a history. A shadow.
The Skitarii opened fire. A storm of radiation and
electricity washed over the front ranks. The lesser shadows flickered and
dissolved, the energies disrupting their form, but they simply reformed an
instant later, rising from the tarmac as if from water.
The First Knight charged forward to meet the cyborgs, his
dark blade clashing against their energized taser goads. But the Monarch had a
more efficient solution.
He raised his hand, not towards the Skitarii, but towards
the towering, dormant machinery of the starport itself. He felt the echoes of
every death they had caused, every life they had consumed. He reached into
their mechanical, inanimate shadows.
His voice was quiet, but it was a command that resonated in
the very metal of the port. It was not a call for the dead to serve, but for
the inanimate to obey.
"[System Command: Dominate Object]"
A low groan, deeper than the lift's ascent, shuddered
through the starport. The Arch-Magos paused, his optical sensors widening. A
flicker of violet light, the Monarch's light, sparked across the joints of the
nearest gantry crane. Its massive, multi-ton grapnel, previously dormant, began
to swing.
With a shriek of tortured metal, the crane, imbued with his
will and animated by the shadows of its own grim history, slammed its immense
claw into the center of the Skitarii formation. The cyborgs, for all their
logic, had no protocol for being attacked by their own holy machinery. They
were scattered like toys, crushed under the weight of their own god's temple.
From his pulpit, the Arch-Magos Veneratus Kovax let out a
burst of horrified binary static. He was witnessing the ultimate blasphemy. His
god was a puppet, and this anomaly of flesh was pulling its strings.