This engagement could, without reservation, be characterised as a decisive victory. The underhive and subhive sectors had been brought under Nyx's comprehensive dominion; the mid-hive districts were experiencing accelerating propagation of revolutionary ideology. The strategic disposition could, with considerable justification, be described as 'crystal clear'.
This victory had, however, also induced in Nostramo's pleasure-saturated aristocracy their first authentic experience of the terror attendant upon loss of control. For the first time, the revolutionary conflagration had communicated its thermal distress to their sensorium.
The Aristocratic Conclave — Upper Hive —
"BOOM!"
"A consortium of INCOMPETENT waste-products! I have SUSTAINED these syndicate degenerates, and this is how they REQUITEmy beneficence?!"
Corset — the nobleman occupying the pre-eminent station — registered a somaticconviction that his cardiac organ was undergoing haemorrhagic compromise.
His wine-glass detonated against the adjacent bulkhead. Its vitreous fragments and alcoholic contents cascaded across the conference table — an apt metaphor for the commercial establishments recently deconstructed by the Resistance.
As the proprietary authority over half of Nostramo's armaments industry, he had sustained catastrophic attritional losses. His prestige among the aristocratic cohort had been comprehensively compromised; his franchise of discursive primacy was undergoing rapid, irreversible dissipation.
"My Lord... The circumstances are, in fact, attributable to—"
"SILENCE!"
"My requirement is not for exculpatoryexposition! My requirement is for the cephalicextremity of the Resistance commandechelon! You are a functionally inert organic residuum!"
Corset, in his apoplectic derangement, elevated his inferior extremity and committedit to percussive contact with the subordinate syndicate commander.
A nobleman who had, throughout his entire existential trajectory, eschewed all forms of calisthenic exertion — how could such an individual perturb, let alone injure, a seasoned syndicate enforcer?
The syndicate commander, however, recognised his subordinate status with commendable alacrity. He immediatelysimulated acute distress and collapsed upon the substratum.
He commenced re-elevation — and was arrested by Corset's fulminant regard. He immediately resumed his genuflective posture, his entire corporeal configuration tremblingwith studied abjection. He dared not articulate.
This exhibition of indiscipline elicited from the assembled aristocracy a cascade of mockingexhalations.
The syndicate commander dared not remonstrate. He dared not even register resentment.
Within the perceptual framework of the spire's aristocratic cohort, syndicate operatives were merely feral canines — expectant upon posterior appendicular oscillation and prostration before their betters.
"Enough, Corset. What purpose is served by this intemperate exhibition?"
Reed — an nobleman of considerableadiposity — delivered his interjection with deliberate, provocative languor.
His entire facial configuration was obscuredbehind an adamantium masque. His digital extremities were festooned with chromaticallydiverse annular ornaments.
"You have convened this assembly. Surely your objective is not to demonstrate your canine calibration protocols?"
It was, in fact, the inaugural convocation of Nostramo's pre-eminent aristocratic houses in several decades.
Each had, to a greater or lesser degree, sustained attrition at the Resistance's hands.
"Reed. Your familial commercial enterprises have sustained no impairment whatsoever. It is effortless to maintain such equanimitywhen one's proprietary interests remain unaffected." Corset's remonstration was vitriolic.
"Heh heh. Indeed, my attritional profile is considerably less acute than that of Lord Corset's armaments facilities."
Those adipose oral commissures — opening, closing — Corset very nearly committedhimself to an irreparable discursive indiscretion.
It was a humiliation to be enumerated within the same aristocratic register as this grotesquespecimen.
"I have no requirement for your solicituderegarding my manufactorum... These coleopteran vermin, however — they shall INDISPUTABLY expiate their transgressions!"
"Well..." A nobleman at the conference table's distal extremity ventured a tentative enquiry. "Is it not feasible to procure the Resistance command echelon through conventionalpecuniary inducement? As has been precedentially established?"
Insurrectionary episodes, though infrequent, were not entirely without precedent within Nostramo's historical archive.
Their protagonists had, in each prior instance, been assimilated by the planet's ambientcorruptive effluent. They had, in due course, been reclassified as aristocratic acquisitions.
"I have attempted this expedient. The vermiform degenerate — incomprehensibly — decapitated the servitor I dispatched for negotiations."
"Unfortunate." Reed's simulatedcommiseration was accompanied by an affectation of ocular humidity. "His familial dependents shall, I suppose, require reassignment."
(The servitor's conjugal partner and progeny had, in fact, been appropriated by Reed for his personal collection considerably prior to the servitor's dispatch.)
"It appears that designating this individual a syndicate commander is insufficient to satiatehis ambition..."
"Then — what of elevating him to the aristocratic register?" Another nobleman proposed.
"ELEVATE* him?!"* Corset's regard traversed the assembled concourse. His ocular organs were incisive. "Which distinguished member of this assembly is prepared to transfer 10% of their proprietary holdings to this coleopteran vermin?"
The congregation of lesser aristocrats immediately inclined their crania in concertedaversion of his regard.
The aristocratic temperament was, in its essence, acquisitive. Which among them would voluntarily relinquish any portion of their accumulated holdings?
"This expedient is unworkable. That expedient is inadequate. We must formulate a viable counter-insurrectionary protocol."
"Perhaps — a feigned accommodation... Followed by a concealed ambuscade...?" The adipose Reed ventured, after a protracted interval of simulated cogitation.
"Have you not reviewed the tactical archives transmitted from the forward operational theatre? This vermiform entity's martial proficiencies are such that we could expendhundreds of operatives in recurrent attritional cycles and still fail to terminate him!"
Corset, as if prompted by this objection, immediately displayed the archival footage of Nyx's martial engagement.
The entity depicted within the pict-recording was a consummate evisceration automaton. He effortlessly bisected his passage through the opposing syndicate complement. Throughout the entire duration of the archival record, Nyx sustained zero injuries. He did not even register respiratory perturbation.
This entity is a monster.
This was Corset's immediate, visceralassessment upon reviewing the archival footage.
He was incapable of comprehending how a sentient organism could bifurcate incominghigh-explosive ordnance with a bladedimplement.
High-explosive projectiles already represented the terminal escalation of syndicate ordnance-capability. To furnish them with munitions of greater destructive potency was impracticable.
It was not that Corset was reticent about eradicating Nyx through extreme measures. It was that such measures would ineluctablyentail the annihilation of the entire underhive and subhive districts.
He would, in all probability, be summarilyexecuted by his hypocritical, perfidiousaristocratic colleagues prior to the implementation of such measures.
The convocation resonated with sustaineddiscursive agitation. Propositions proliferated— and were, with equivalent celerity, refuted.
Nyx's scything martial proficiency had induced comprehensive apprehension in every witness. These aristocrats — their cognitive faculties enfeebled by protractedexposure to vinous and carnal excess — were incapable of formulating a coherent counter-insurrectionary protocol.
Certain female aristocrats, upon their inaugural registration of Nyx's transhumanphysique, had experienced disconcertinggenital effluvium. They had even venturedsuch preposterous propositions as 'sororalseduction initiatives'.
(Nyx, had he been apprised of these grotesque formulations, would, in all probability, have emitted a single, contemptuous nasal exhalation. He would, he reflected, prefer to provoke the Dark Eldar of Comorragh than entangle himself with these pallid, spectral Nostraman aristocraticfemales, their ocular organs saturated with chromatic pigment.)
Amidst this discursive tumult, a servitor approached the fatigued Corset with subauditory discretion. He inclined himself and transmitted several phonetic units into his proprietary nobleman's auditory meatus.
Corset's ocular organs were instantaneouslydenuded of their fatigue.
He elevated his laryngeal apparatus and executed a brief, delicate expectoration.
"This convocation is concluded. You may withdraw."
This abrupt dismissal occasioned universalastonishment among the assembled aristocratic cohort.
Observing Corset's uncompromisingcountenance, however, they complied, with varying degrees of alacrity.
The adipose Reed, prior to his egress, directedan eloquent regard at Corset.
The convocation chamber was submerged in silence.
Only Corset — and the syndicate commander, who yet maintained his genuflective postureupon the substratum — remained.
"You — also withdraw!"
The syndicate commander, pardoned, darednot protract his occupancy of this augustprecinct. He hurried towards the egress aperture.
His superior extremity had not, however, attained the actuation mechanism, when the aperture was noiselessly translated from its seating exteriorly.
"I present my compliments, Lord Corset."
A male entity of mature chronological station, his vestments saturated with the chromatic register of freshly effused haemorrhagic fluid, insinuated himself into the convocation chamber with a compliant maxillofacialconfiguration.
His cervical periphery was festooned with eight miniaturised human cranial acquisitions. His facial integument was inscribed with the proscribed iconography of the Blood God.
The mature male entity's regard traversed, with deliberate languor, to the syndicate commander transfixed before him.
He did not await the syndicate commander's reaction.
His superior extremity — with the irresistibleprehension of ferrous clamps — enclosed the syndicate commander's cephalic extremity.
CRACK——!
The syndicate commander's cervical vertebrae underwent catastrophic fracture. His inferior extremities and superior extremities oscillatedwith the flaccid pendulation of ichthyoidmortality.
The mature male entity, with unhurrieddeliberation, detached the commander's cephalic extremity from his residual corporealconfiguration and elevated it for inspection.
"What is the meaning of this transgression, Bishop Soth?!" Corset's remonstration was severe.
"The haemorrhagic effluent saturating my vestmental substrate is extremelyinconvenient to sanitise — and it shall retainits ferruginous effluvium!"
Corset's affective investment in the syndicate commander's existential termination was, it appeared, negligible.
Such operatives were, after all, immediatelyreplaceable. Their valuation, within his perceptual framework, was considerablyinferior to that of his vestmental adornments.
Confronted with Corset's fulminantdisapprobation, Bishop Soth offered no exculpatory exposition.
The syndicate commander's transectedcervical vasculature, however, obliginglydisgorged its haemorrhagic contents in a copious fountain. This effluent, with manifestpreternatural agency, deflected from its anticipated gravitational trajectory and coalesced with the Bishop's sanguinaryvestments.
Not a single erythrocytic residuum contaminated the aristocratic substratum.