The alarms blared through the hive corridors like a warning scream, echoing off steel walls and metal girders.
Governor Erik's planetary defense force scrambled into position, rifles slung and aimed high. The flickering red lights cast long shadows across the catwalks, and the smell of scorched circuitry mixed with industrial grime.
"Secure the lower levels!" Erik barked, his voice cutting through the din.
Through the narrow corridors, the first cultists emerged, chanting in distorted voices. They were fanatics even by the hive's standards: gaunt, pale, and frenzied, wielding scavenged lasgun rifles and incendiary devices. Their eyes glimmered with a madness that chilled the spine.
Erik signaled to the nearest PDF units. "Form a line! Engage with suppressive fire!"
Multiple rounds of bullet streaked across the corridors, carving sparks from metal walls. The PDF' volleys tore through the lightly armored cultists, felling several instantly, but their numbers were too great. A few units faltered, crushed under the psychic pressure of the cultist chants.
Then, from the smoke and shadow, the real horror emerged.
The cultists had brought their trump card: mutant abominations.
Twisted mutants, hulking and grotesque, emerged from the corridors. Muscles and bone bulged unnaturally, fused with jagged metal shards, some limbs ending in claws or spinning blades. Their skin glimmered wetly, scarred and pulsating.
The first mutant swung a massive claw, crushing a PDF soldier like he was paper. Screams echoed, rifles went silent, and a ripple of panic ran through the ranks. Another mutant barreled down a corridor, rending steel support beams as if they were toothpicks. The PDF absorbed some of the impact, but a few were hurled into walls or crushed under debris.
Erik' heart pounded as he shouted orders. "Hold your ground! Focus fire on the largest ones first!"
But it was chaos.
One mutant grabbed a trooper and threw him across the corridor, where he struck a generator, sparking and igniting a fireball.
Another abomination lunged at the barricade, swinging a chain of jagged blades, tearing through armor plating. The PDF' energy bolts barely slowed it.
"Grenades!" Erik roared, tossing one himself. The explosion tore off a mutant's arm, but it barely slowed its advance. PDF soldiers fell left and right, some screaming, some silent, their bodies twisted unnaturally by the mutants' strength. Blood and coolant sprayed across the floor, leaving a slick hazard.
Erik ducked under a swinging claw, rolling behind a console. Sparks rained down as a mutant smashed the terminal where several soldiers had been taking cover. He fired his sidearm with surgical precision, vaporizing the creature' exposed optic sensors, but another mutant surged forward, its claws snapping. A soldier who had attempted to flank it was shredded in a heartbeat.
"This is worse than I thought," Erik muttered, sliding along the corridor walls. "They've raised these abominations to hit hard and fast. Keep moving, don't stay in the open!"
The cultists themselves weren't idle. They leapt atop machinery, firing improvised plasma weapons, cutting down anyone who hesitated. It was coordinated madness—mutants breaking the front lines, cultists cutting down stragglers.
Erik' forces were pushed to the brink. He watched as entire squads were crushed or thrown aside. His command team sustained injuries; several were screaming for medics. He saw one of his lieutenants impaled on a mutant's jagged claw. Rage and fear surged through him.
But he couldn't falter. "Concentrate fire! Overload their circuits!" he barked. Soldiers obeyed, coordinating bursts of energy fire and grenades. Over the next tense minutes, the mutants' momentum slowed under precise volleys and targeted explosives.
A massive abomination tried to charge the central stairwell, its foot crushing three soldiers in a single stomp. Erik fired at its knees, and the combined militia grenades detonated beneath it, sending it crashing into a catwalk railing. Sparks flew, debris rained down, and finally, with a roar of frustration, it collapsed.
The remaining mutants and cultists tried to regroup, but the disciplined line of PDF and Erik' command units began pushing back methodically. Neural-linked rifles, grenades, and improvised barriers turned the tide. One by one, the mutants fell, torn apart by firepower or collapsing from internal damage.
Finally, silence fell. Smoke lingered, and the walls were scorched and dented.
The floor was littered with bodies: cultists, abominations, and fallen militia alike. Blood, coolant, and scorch marks made the corridor almost unrecognizable.
Erik exhaled slowly, surveying the carnage. Many of his militia had been injured or killed. He counted the dead, feeling the weight of leadership as each name passed through his mind.
"This wasn't a random uprising," he said. "Someone with resources and knowledge engineered those abominations."
He scanned the casualty reports, cross-referencing known factions on Gaulle. His suspicion sharpened like a blade.
"The Mossur House," he muttered quietly, almost to himself.
The Mossurs were a formidable noble family, old rivals to the Gussman line. They had influence over several sectors of the hive, controlling resources, and maintaining private militias. If they were behind this, it was not just a threat to a single district; it was an attempt to destabilize his governance entirely.
Erik' expression hardened. "So the Mossurs are playing a deeper game," he said, with voice low but firm. "They've been manipulating the desperation here, letting hunger and fear ferment. And now they strike through the fanatics?"
He turned to his adjutant, a lean, sharp-eyed officer. "Prepare reconnaissance. I want the Mossur networks mapped, their operatives identified. Nothing—absolutely nothing—escapes my notice."
The officer nodded swiftly. "Understood, Governor. Should we increase PDF patrols immediately?"
"Yes," Erik replied. "But subtly! The people must not panic further. I wanted them in order. Containment is the priority; exposure of Mossur involvement can be followed. We cannot let them know we are aware yet."
Erik walked through the corridors once more, his eyes catching the flicker of dying fires and the wounded being tended. The hiveworld was bruised, nearly broken. Hunger and fanaticism might have tested his leadership, but he would endure—and he would strike back, decisively.
The threat of the cultists had been exterminated, but a new danger lingered in the shadows. The Mossur House was patient, and patient enemies were the deadliest.
'Gaulle is mine to govern,' Erik thought grimly, looking out over the hive's smog-choked horizon.
Somewhere in the lower sectors, hidden by smoke and debris, he knew the Mossur' people were watching.