The narrow corridors—barely passable even for unaugmented humans—gave way to cavernous halls capable of holding hundreds, if not thousands. Yet they all shared the same grim tapestry: walls and floors slick with blood, strewn with the cooling corpses of the crew.
"Grand-Captain Buri! Reinforcements cannot teleport to your position. Systems are non-functional. The Mechanicus cannot estimate repair time." The vox-crackled report reached me mid-breaching charge against yet another barricade.
"Blood of Terra! I'll rip their skulls from their spines! Rork—order the captain to close distance with the enemy vessel. We shift to shuttle boarding protocols. Transmit the approach vector when locked. I'll dispatch two teams to cripple their point-defenses." Orders barked, the assault clawed forward toward the enemy command nexus.
Resistance thickened—autoturrets, naval armsmen, internal security teams, then the real filth: mutants and ancient automata. Without the latter two, our advance would've been swift as a chainblade's stroke.
The mutants were grotesques: tiny, malformed heads atop hulking frames, rope-like muscles writhing along elongated arms, legs like stumpy pillars of corded flesh. Killing them was simple—a knife through the temple, eye, or ear saved precious bolter rounds—but their numbers and pain tolerance turned each engagement into a grinding melee. Worse, their piled corpses became barricades of their own.
The robots were relics of the Dark Age, eclipsing even Mechanicus servitors in crude lethality. Thankfully, these were civilian models—plasma cutters and construction manipulators instead of proper weaponry, their movements sluggish. But without meltaguns or heavy rockets (too risky for shipboard combat), we resorted to primitive tactics: concentrated fire or luring them into grenade range.
"Optics!" I marked the target. A storm of bolter fire rattled the machine's cranial unit, lenses shattering.
"Grenade." Before the word faded, one of my Astartes was already moving. The automaton barely registered the threat before a krak grenade detonated against its neck. The follow-up—three bolter rounds fired point-blank into the wreckage—sealed its fate.
"Pray this is the last heavy resistance. Ammo check—redistribute." A grim tally followed:
"Five."
"Three."
"Six."
"Four."
"Seven."
As magazines changed hands, the Techmarines reported success in overriding bulkhead controls—though security feeds remained beyond reach. A wall-mounted monitor flickered from red to blue. The gates had barely risen a third before enemy fire erupted.
Plasma bursts and las-beams turned the corridor into a killzone. A frontal assault was suicide. Our shields and transhuman reflexes evened the odds, but there was a cruder solution.
"Bharon! Can your men control all access points?" I voxed the lead Techmarine.
"Affirmative. Further system breaches are time-consuming and uncertain. The security—"
"Spare me. Open every airlock, hatch, and vent. Let the void do the rest."
"The Mechanicus will lose interrogation data from the officers."
"Bharon." My voice turned to frozen iron. "Comply."
"Acknowledged."
Within minutes, my helm's sensors screamed warnings—oxygen plummeting, temperature diving toward absolute zero. The enemy learned the void's embrace sooner.
Chaos erupted in the command hub. Crewmen without void-seals turned on those who had them. Officers shot panicking ratings over contested respirators. Then my order came:
"Assault."
The vox-channel might as well have been a death knell. Half the enemy died before realizing their mistake. Priority targets—plasma gunners, las-cannon teams—fell first. The rest became slaughter. Only a handful survived to surrender.
"Rork, Bharon—command secured. Dispatch a Techmarine with minimal escort. Seal the bulkheads. We begin field interrogations."
I waited until atmosphere stabilized, then gestured to strip the prisoners.
"Do any of you understand me?" My helm's vox-grille turned the words into a predator's growl. The captives trembled.
"I repeat—do you comprehend Imperial Gothic?"
"Y-yes! I know words! Spare me!" A man in an embroidered uniform—epaulettes marking him as nobility—crawled forward.
"You will tell me everything." No bargaining. No games. I seized his scalp, dragging him close.
"Agh! No! Mercy!" His shrieks echoed as blood slicked his hairline.
"Pain, yes. Mercy, no." His will shattered like glass.
***
The prisoner was Dolion aristocracy—exiled to this ship (dubbed "Vessel Four" by locals) as part of some political balancing act. Other nobles had been aboard, including the captain. Only he remained.
"Useless. Your status means nothing." I twisted his hair, flesh peeling.
"No! Ransom! My uncle—brother—serve on Vessel One!" He babbled in bastardized Gothic, eyes squeezed shut against the blood.
Further interrogation revealed Dolion's elite were a cross between feudal lords and corporate dynasties. They fought amongst themselves but always ransomed prisoners. A mad idea took root—one straddling genius and insanity.
"Would they pay dearly for you?" I stared into his weeping eyes.
"Yes! More than you could spend in ten lifetimes!"
"Good. Very good." Behind my visor, I smiled. Had he seen it, he'd have prayed for the void instead.
***
"Can't believe it worked." Rork stepped over a corpse, watching Techmarines puppet the ship's systems.
"Worth the risk. Saved us another boarding action."
Thirty minutes prior, a shuttle had launched from our captured prize—carrying the noble and two hidden EMP charges. Vessel One, recognizing his sigils, let him dock near their command hub. His "rescue" lasted seconds before the EMPs fried their bridge.
We struck like lightning. Techmarines and bodyguards breached the crippled ship, slaughtering the bridge crew before they could react. No protracted firefight this time—just cold, clinical butchery.
The loss of two vessels broke the Dolion fleet. Some ships surrendered; others died fighting. A few detonated their warp cores rather than yield. My Grand Battalion paid its toll—one brother vaporized by plasma, others lost to self-destruct protocols.
But victory was ours. Only their homeworld remained.
Ah, if only I'd known what awaited us.
POV: A Dolion High Lord
The Council Chamber seethed with panic. Once-proud oligarchs now resembled frightened hive-rats.
"They're monsters! Small-arms don't stop them!"
"We're doomed! Even escape is impossible!"
"I warned you! We should've negotiated!"
The eldest lord silenced them with a fist against marble. "Enough. Only one path remains. We summon the Masters from Beyond the Shadow."
The room stilled. Those entities demanded terrible payment—thousands of lives, perhaps more.
"But the cost—" a younger member protested.
"Our lives are worth more! Let the rabble pay! A tenth? A quarter? Even half the population is a fair trade!"
The vote was unanimous.
That night, the elders anointed a rune-embedded arch with their blood. The stone glowed.
"Masters of the Shadow—save us. We will pay."
Silence. Then—laughter like cracking ice.
"We come. Prepare… the sacrifices."