The transport shuttle shuddered as it touched down just outside the towering manufactorum. Its hull was streaked with soot and sanctified oil, scorched from atmospheric re-entry. After giving a quick acknowledgment, the pilot veered away, lifting off and vanishing into the smog-choked sky.
Vick, accompanied by a squad of Skitarii Rangers and a team of Skitarii Vanguard, entered the facility. Without pause, they boarded a macro-lift, a platform large enough to transport a hundred Leman Russ battle tanks, and began their descent into the manufactorum's sub-levels.
The platform trembled as magnetic clamps disengaged, the lift plummeting into the forge-world's metal-buried depths.
As the lift plunged through layered strata of steel and fire at breakneck speed, Vick's augmented optics scanned each floor in passing. From the layout and equipment, he quickly deduced that this manufactorum specialized in the production of autoguns.
Crude chemically propelled ballistic rifles. Simple to manufacture, easy to maintain, and capable of functioning even with poor maintenance or low-grade ammunition. Their core design had remained largely unchanged since humanity's earliest interstellar eras.
Vick sneered internally.
In his view, Forge World Agripinaa should have been mass-producing the Agripinaa-pattern lasrifle, not wasting industrial capacity on crude projectile weapons suited for under-equipped planetary militias and low-priority PDF regiments. Even if autoguns remained common across the Imperium, they were inefficient compared to proper Mechanicus-approved energy weapons, relics from M2 to M3, before humanity knew better.
Lasrifles required fewer moving parts, simpler logistics chains, and standardized power cell distribution. Autoguns consumed enormous quantities of physical ammunition and generated additional transport burdens across already strained supply networks.
"The gunfire is getting closer," the Vanguard Alpha stated as he stepped beside Vick. "Once we reach the bottom level, I recommend you stay behind the Vanguard line."
His proximity caused Vick's ocular augments to flicker with static interference. The Alpha's radiation signature registered at gamma-intensive levels. Radiation output exceeded that of several compact reactor cores, enough to kill an unshielded baseline human within seconds.
But Vick was extensively modified. Radiation posed no mortal threat to him.
"I am not weak," Vick replied coldly, refusing to take cover behind the Vanguard line. Instead, he gestured for the Rangers to fall back and give the forward line space.
The Rangers, understanding their combat capabilities were inferior to the heavily augmented Vanguard and to Vick himself, withdrew to the lift's rear without hesitation.
Three-point-two seconds later, the macro-lift screeched to a halt. With a mechanical groan, the adamantium doors slid open.
The underlevels of the manufactorum had become a warzone.
Thousands of combat servitors and more than a hundred Skitarii Rangers were locked in brutal combat with a massive tide of plague-corrupted zombies. The air was thick with ozone, vaporized blood, and aerosolized machine oil, heavy enough to taste.
Explosions flashed continuously across the chamber, briefly illuminating furnace columns, conveyor rails, collapsed gantries, and wrecked production lines.
Auto-turrets mounted along the ceiling fired uninterrupted streams of tracer rounds into the horde while warning klaxons sounded through overloaded vox-speakers.
Some infected enemies retained enough coordination to wield weapons, barely human, yet distinct from the usual mindless horde.
These Forge World plague zombies were not like those found on feral or hive worlds.
Unlike the shambling corpses common on less industrialized planets, these infected had been cybernetically augmented before infection.
Their bodies were riddled with low-grade industrial augmetics likely installed during their lives as manufactorum laborers, penal workers, failed servitor candidates, or lower-forge personnel. The crude cybernetics allowed them to absorb levels of damage that would normally disable standard infected organisms.
Some possessed hydraulic lifting arms in place of limbs. Others had mining drills, industrial cutters, or servo-claws mounted directly into their skeletal frames, grotesque tools now wielded as weapons.
"Cover their withdrawal," Vick ordered as he stepped off the lift platform.
The Vanguard surged forward, forming a radiation-shielded phalanx and opening fire with their radium carbines. The radiation-charged munitions shredded organic tissue and left lingering contamination across the battlefield.
Some plague zombies simply liquefied under the barrage, while others stumbled forward with half their torsos missing.
Though Vick's primary form remained hunched, his true frame deceptively unimposing, eight mechadendrites emerged from beneath his red robes and unfolded in full combat configuration.
Each limb carried a separate integrated weapon system. Solid projectiles, lasbeams, and glowing blue rad-rounds poured into the enemy ranks with relentless precision.
His targeting systems processed firing solutions faster than baseline human cognition could comprehend. Every burst struck weak points, damaged joints, or exposed biological tissue.
Alone, Vick's firepower rivaled that of an entire Skitarii company.
"Rally to my position," Vick transmitted in Binharic, the machine-code language of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
The higher-order binary command propagated instantly through the local Mechanicus communications network. Servitors, Rangers, and Tech-Priests throughout the manufactorum floor received the directive and began withdrawing toward the macro-lift.
His objective was simple: a coordinated withdrawal.
The defenders had likely been ordered to protect the manufactorum's sacred production lines at all costs, but that priority was now obsolete. Vick saw no value in sacrificing experienced personnel for infrastructure that could no longer be reliably secured.
The Forge World faced an even greater, apocalyptic threat.
Each life saved now represented another combat-capable asset for the battles yet to come.
Survival now meant future resistance.
As retreating Skitarii units fell back toward the lift, Vick continuously reorganized their formation through binharic command bursts. Damaged servitors were repositioned to absorb frontal pressure while Rangers established overlapping firing lanes behind the Vanguard.
The withdrawal immediately became more efficient. Casualty rates dropped once individual squads stopped attempting isolated defensive stands around damaged machinery.
While overseeing the retreat, Vick's optics flashed as an incoming holo-transmission established itself across his visual display.
Magos Sevin appeared.
"I believed you descended there to purge the plague zombies," Sevin stated coldly, "not run from them. The manufactorum must remain operational. I require them to remain and cleanse the infection."
"Are they cleansing plague zombies," Vick asked bluntly, "or dying to defend production equipment?"
Sevin paused, silent.
Vick knew him too well.
Like many senior Tech-Priests, Sevin viewed manufactorums as sacred extensions of the Omnissiah's divine work. His dogma dictated that even doomed manufactorums were to be preserved at all costs, worshipped with futile sacrifice rather than abandoned in strategic retreat.
But the troops were being wasted.
They were not just fighting rotting flesh. They were battling infected forge-world civilians now warped by plague and machine. Some bore enough modification to withstand multiple shots from even a Vanguard's carbine.
"You never valued the sacred production lines as I do. You gave away an STC template without compensation, like it was common data," Sevin snapped. "This is not meaningless sacrifice. To die defending the Omnissiah's forges is a noble end."
"Do you wish to debate doctrine with me while your Skitarii are being overrun?" Vick asked.
The transmission went dead.
More and more Skitarii and servitors poured into the macro-lift. Vick and the Vanguard formed the rear guard, holding the horde at bay.
Blood, machine oil, irradiated organic residue, and spent shell casings pooled across the metal flooring beneath them, sizzling under lingering rad-contamination.
When the last damaged servitor limped onto the lift, Vick turned toward the Vanguard Alpha, meeting his glowing red optics.
A short Binharic exchange passed between them.
The Alpha understood immediately. He signaled his squad and ordered them onto the lift.
Vick remained behind last. He wasn't some martyr.
He stayed behind last not out of selflessness, but because every statistical model generated by his internal processors concluded that his presence at the chokepoint produced the highest overall survival probability for the retreating force.
The horde of Undead surged toward him. He fired continuously while backpedaling. From the lift, firepower rained down to cover him.
Vick glanced toward the lift's activation panel, its runes glowing with dull machine-spirit awareness. The lift's machine-spirit had already interpreted the emergency conditions and initiated ascent preparation protocols. The thick blast doors began to close.
He backed into the lift, weapons still blazing, holding the narrowing threshold as plague zombies clawed toward him, their augmented limbs sparking as they slammed against the metal frame.
Then the entire manufactorum shook.
At the far end of the sub-level, multiple support pillars collapsed outward.
Something enormous burst through the debris, its arrival accompanied by vox distortion and psychic interference severe enough to disrupt even Vick's augmetics.
An amorphous, bloated abomination forced itself into the chamber.
Its anatomy lacked stable structure. Tendrils, malformed limbs, swollen growths, and partially formed appendages shifted constantly across its surface. Sections of its flesh expanded and collapsed as though the creature had not fully stabilized within realspace.
A Beast of Nurgle.
Not fully manifested. Still tethered to this world by biomass and unholy infection.
Warp energy bled from the creature in unstable pulses. Corrupted mucus and partially dissolved organic matter dripped from its body onto the manufactorum floor, where the metal immediately began oxidizing and softening under unnatural contamination.
It crushed plague zombies, steel supports, conveyor systems, and machinery beneath its bulk as it advanced toward the lift.
Even Vick had never encountered a daemon-spawned organism of this scale directly before.
His cybernetic mind registered no fear.
Only variables.
"Concentrate all fire on the primary target," he ordered immediately.
Every available weapon redirected toward the beast. Plague zombies began breaching the flanks of the lift platform, but no one could spare firepower from the larger threat.
The defenders' weapons tore gaping holes in the monstrosity's bulk. The Vanguard's radium rounds burned through its flesh, but the monstrosity still advanced.
The Vanguard Alpha stepped forward. His right forearm unfolded, revealing an integrated launcher system. A high-explosive munition fired from the concealed barrel and detonated against the creature's side.
The explosion staggered the beast but failed to stop it.
Shrapnel from the blast ricocheted back into the lift, shredding several unshielded servitors. Their damaged systems emitted bursts of distorted machine-prayers before shutting down completely.
The abomination pushed forward relentlessly. Even plague zombies caught in front of it were crushed flat beneath its mass.
Vick quickly calculated the remaining options.
Standard firepower would not neutralize the target before physical contact with the lift platform.
He acted immediately.
With a hiss of depressurizing seals, a concealed compartment opened within his chest cavity, revealing a micro-antimatter charge mounted above his augmetic heart assembly.
Several Skitarii briefly turned toward him in alarm.
Even among the Mechanicus, antimatter weapons were rare, unstable, and tightly restricted. Carrying one inside his own chassis bordered on insanity by conventional standards.
Vick removed the device and threw it forward without hesitation.
In midair, the charge unfolded like a mechanical arachnid. Its auspex systems activated instantly, scanning the battlefield and identifying the highest-priority target. Gravitic thrusters ignited beneath its chassis, accelerating it directly toward the daemon.
The device slammed into the abomination's torso. Magnetic clamps punched through corrupted flesh and anchored the charge in place.
A half-second later, the world went white.
The detonation vaporized the creature in a burst of searing bioluminescence. The shockwave tore through the horde, flattening plague zombies within a thirty-meter radius and scattering burning organic debris across the manufactorum floor.
Several seconds later, the macro-lift blast doors sealed shut completely.
The platform began ascending toward the surface.
At first, faint vibrations echoed through the lift shaft like distant thunder.
But as they rose closer to the surface, the sound resolved into something else.
Artillery.
Orbital bombardment.
Air-defense fire.
Emergency sirens.
The Forge World was already under siege.
When the macro-lift reached surface level, the sight beyond the manufactorum forced even Vick's heavily modified cognition systems to pause.
The sky was filled with warships. An invasion fleet had broken through.
Massive silhouettes occupied low orbit as the invasion fleet engaged Agripinaa's orbital defense grid.
Defense platforms and orbital batteries exchanged continuous fire with incoming vessels. Void shields flashed across the heavens with bursts of luminous discharge. Burning debris fell through the atmosphere like artificial meteors.
The heavens once claimed by the Omnissiah, now bled fire.
Agripinaa's defense grid was cracking.
Vick saw farther than most. His optical augments zoomed, analyzed, and processed battlefield telemetry in real time.
Orbital supremacy was lost or soon would be. Planetary bombardments and atmospheric drop-pods were inevitable. In his mind's eye, the fires of extermination already rained from above.
Compared to what was coming, the plague zombie outbreak below had been localized gnats.
Nothing more.
No one could look upon such a sky and not feel utter insignificance.
"How did they get here so fast? the Vanguard Alpha asked.
Vick had no answer. He too was stunned by the speed of the assault.
But contemplation was pointless.
"We return to the southern central spire," Vick ordered. "Immediately."
Without further delay, Vick led the surviving Skitarii and servitors through the forge-city streets between colossal manufactorum towers.
Smoke rose from distant districts.
Warning sirens echoed across the industrial skyline.
Aircraft and orbital debris burned overhead as the survivors advanced toward the only remaining fortified stronghold within reach.
For the Omnissiah. For Agripinaa.
The true war had begun.
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