The Void Scorn(40K)

Ivex stared down the barrel of his brother's bolter. He grunted and dragged his face into a snarl, pleasantly pointed towards his executioner. Yivroxhu gave no fuss over the incarcerated librarian, giving a quick nod to the squad mate who promptly pulled the trigger. A loud wailing sound shouted through the stiff air before he dropped to the ground, his face a singed and burned mass of flesh. 

Her nostrils tingled as she stirred, Caela gradually opened her eyes to the moist air around her. 4 metal walls. She was bound by both hands, held aloft with many others. She struggled, cursing against the thick manacles that pressed hard into her wrists. The entire chamber was dark, somberly lit by a singular blue light bulb. For a few hours she stayed, trying to work her blood back through her body every now and then as her son kicked in her abdomen. 

The far door opened, its metallic thud shook her from her stupor. Servitors approached, dousing each of the many prisoners in icy water, rubbing the dirt from her now brown uniform. After them came another 2 figures. The first and obvious mechnicus adept, in long flowing red garbs, tendrils streaming from his face and arms. 2 milky green lenses were dotted haphazardly into his chest. She looked down, trying to keep whatever was in her stomach stuck there as she averted her gaze from its head. The second was human. at least close to it. His skin was a pale blue, short black hair donned his scalp, with a long scar that ran down the side of his face. He was speaking in a sibylic language she did not understand. They approached her first, like wolves to an ailing deer. 

They stood in front of her, at first scowling, before the tech adept began drewling oil and refuse, drawing up data from a small cogitator, that beeped and blipped, hurting her ears and causing her to recoil into the cold wall behind her. The pale man then turned to her, his blue eyes stabbing into her soul. 

"I am Iazhec" it said, its low gothic, slurring, like a being with a forked tongue trying to speak instead of hiss. 

"luckily due to your pregnancy you shall be spared the worst of the work, unlike your peers" he sneered, looking around the rabble on the walls in all manner of work uniforms and old dark blue drabs. 

He took out a set of keys as two more entered the chamber from behind. Both covered in olive green flak armour, the aquila's ripped off in scarring. Both carried lasguns. 

"Come with us, less you draw wrath" 

she shuddered, feeling her wrists come loose, free from their pressure and bindings. The two guards took up position behind her. Nudging her slowly towards the door. The realm outside the chamber was similar. Dark corridors, with pale faces that passed every now and then, eyeing her up and down. 

"You shall feel the emperor's anger for this" she hushed under her breath. He cricked his head back slightly. 

"If the emperor did not save us, then he shall not save you" She curtailed herself as they ascended through the metal lined corridors. Caela began to feel different; she had never left the Katul in her entire life. But now she felt motion, more and more as they ascended she could feel the breath of the ship. 

"Who are you?" she ogled, already regretting her sudden lapse in control. She was startled when he began to answer. 

"I am Iazhec, artificer to the Yaczhari" he said without turning, putting his arms behind his back, so that his long-sleeved shirt caught around his lean shoulders. She noticed a large tattoo or branding on both wrists. On the left, a blinded woman holding something. She stood in a proud stance. it had been scarred, rending cuts that melted the image. On the other, the same woman was shown. This time sober and longing, long tears streaming from her blindfold. She was holding a helmet. Caela snapped back, withdrawing herself into a cage once more, less they catch her. 

The tech adept had started again, drewling long thick, viscous liquid on to the floor as Iazhec spoke to him in the hissing tongues. Finally they stopped before a metal door, inside was a small yet relatively comfortable living quarters. 

"what will happen to me?" she uttered, like the sad words of those she had to sign the death warrant of back aboard the Katul. Iazhec waited, then spoke. His face curling into a smile supposed to reassure her. 

"Your son will be taken into the war band and elevated with the honoured tech priest's guidance, on board" 

"relax, you shall be treated well" he pushed her over the boundary into the room. The door thudded into the ground. She turned around to face her new situation. 

The marine dropped instantly, the ceramite helm melted in a flurry from the blue plasma bolt. Ivex turned his head to spy Ctakle, and ominous grin growing on his face, the large barrel of his lascannon red hot with charge. Yivroxhu grunted raising his bolter. 

"This is payback for Antus Ivex" he spoke, practically beaming at Yivroxhu's misfortune. 2 bolters, a plasma gun and a lascannon gaped at Yivroxhu. 

"Thank you Ctakle" he said reverently as brother Vholu reattatched his powerpack allowing him to flex his joints. Yivroxhu became itchy, his trigger finger slowly vibrating and squeezing. Bolts flew thrugh the air. Ivex dashed fast, his armour straining with a new surge of power. He and vholu simultaneously ripped the powerpack from Yivroxhu's MKVII armour, causing him to fall limp, his face a gnarling mess. 

"I will kill you" he spat, causing acidic saliva to fly onto Ivex's armour, melting away the black paint. 

"incarcerate him Ctakle, leave him In the abyss for him to think on his actions" 

"understood… Sire" a lash of the whip of his tongue as Ctakle spoke, he grabbed a fallen marine's helmet and planted it onto, Yivroxhu's face, sealing anger and anguish. Tethri then moved the halted power armour slowly, painfully, edging it forward through the doors, as silence once again engulfed the bridge. Each crewmember sat in hushed tones, some whimpering whenever a servitor beeped or clicked. 

The Viper's Bite sleuthed into real space. As the shutters winched upward Tyllalb felt heavy eyes upon him. The new termite plate that bolted across the newly melded crevice of his armour shuddered as the ship lurched. Zhouggath sighed heavily upon gazing into real space. Norma gazed up at the astartes momentarily, issuing orders to scurrying rats of crew. She gasped as the shutters finally wound their way up. The planet in front of them was like a hive of insects. Ships crowding around orbital platforms and the planet itself. Gamorrah. A purple haze engulfed real space in wisps and winds. Like a soporific musk that clung to a malshapen body. Each ship was ancient beyond belief. Scars and rends present in each escort and strike cruiser. Every ship was a marvel of construction, marble spires and purple arches. Each as she looked closer was marred with corruption, shrivelling flesh that filled cracks in the ships hulls, tendrils that coiled up the marble spires. Whispering began to tug at her mind, promising pleasure and excess, endless wealth and respect. A large thud came against her head. Her body sprawled to the floor. She scrambled to her knees, falling in reverence as Zhouggath levelled a grimace down at her, disgusted. Weakness. 

"do not stare, captain" Tyllalb spoke like a commissar to a PDF trooper. 

"Close the shutters and keep a close eye on the rest of the crew. Zhouggath" he turned his MKVIII helmet glowing to illuminate Zhouggath's face 

"You are to travel to the Indomitable with your squad. Take the captain alongside any important crew and supplies, Seeker shall be here shortly." 

Zhouggath nodded, replacing his helmet and stalking back down towards the hangar deck. 

11 Massive frames stood in the miniscule war room of The Indomitable. Ivex turned, watching the door lock out any light from the corridors beyond. 

"I have arranged a meeting with the chosen one, in hopes that he shall repair The Indomitable" 

"This is bold Ivex" Ctakle said, resting both arms on the consol and leaning forward. 

"Tell us, what are we planning to give for this, incredible hospitality?" 

"The Viper's Bite. Zhouggath and Tyllalb have already stripped her of all important crew, armaments and supplies. With our current number it is futile to garrison 2 ships without risk of revolt" 

There was a quiet divination of sound before hushed breathing returned. 

"And we are to trust this heretical idol?" Zhouggath spoke, his tongue flicking at the corners of his lips. 

"We shall see, for now, it is all we can do. Ready yourselves for a warp jump if signaled. Yanuthlu shall follow us as escort aboard the orbital station." 

Seeker rocked back and forth as usual, 7 lumbering astartes barely filled her capacity, leaving her eerily spacious. 

"Tell me brother" Tyllalb spoke deftly 

"Why have we called upon Iazhec to fly Seeker?" 

"Brother Mlyxo was injured" Finnik responded. 

"What happened in my absence?" 

"Mlyxo lost his head" 

Tyllalb turned away, his face still as stony as before, running possibilities, with 4 less astartes active in the warband. He turned back to his weapon. He had begrudgingly handed his heavy bolter to Tethri, giving them their 3rd heavy weapon, to Ctakle's delight. A weapon he himself had inherited millennia ago. Replacing it was his 'Gift' as Finnik called it. How desperate we are to use our chapter's sacred relics. 

"I trust Ivex did not use Night Reaver, to reap his own brothers" 

"He did not" 

Seeker moved like a slug through gel. The soporific space had begun to cling to her black hull, caressing each entrance and begging the machine spirit to let it in. 

Finnik laughed as he launched himself from the spire. Blue light glinting of his light yellow scout armour. His unscarred blue skin glinted with moisture, as Shiolda's sea peeked over the buildings. The sky filled with deep blue smog. He ran fast, drawing his large metal gladius as he thundered after the mutant. It started to scream, hiss and click as he started to close in. His joy sounding judgement. He chased it through the under hive, through tunnels and sewage wells. He leaped, catching it by a leathery bound claw functioning as a foot. A humanoid face stared up at him, lashing with a third bound and clawed armour. It was clad in regular dockyard uniform. He ripped and tore. The gladius missing its goggled eyes by a hairbreadth. 3 arms lashed back, scraping against his face and causing large claw marks that wept blood. 

Finnik grimaced. Hammering the gladius into placed between the uniform's sodden seams. Causing the mutant to cry out, the regular ribs on it's forehead vibrating. He ripped off it's third clawed arm from it's back, causing purplish green blood to vomit from the wound. The bandages that incarcerated the arm now falling loose onto the grey floor of the basin. 

Finnik kept the beast down, stabbing over and over. Peeling each arm from its socket, skinning them of their exo skeletons. Finally ploughing the skull from its neck. It began to speak to him, as they all did. He resisted keeping it. He would be punished for committing collection. He could imagine his brother's anger already. He took a glance at the wall. Scratching the symbol it bore over and over in ritual and methodical action. Causing the curled Xenos serpent to be little more than a turquoise smear. 

He waltzed endlessly back through the under hive, his hunt over. He sighed, he had at least 5 more rotations before he could return to purity. He grasped at his pauldron, the lady who the scales scratched and ruined. He will need to replace it. He walked through a small back plaza. Surrounded by black metal habitation hubs. A large stone statue stood in the middle. It lofted a large fist, brimming with lightning claws upwards towards the greater imperium. It was armoured heavily, a winged helmet stared forwards, casting an empty gaze. 

Seeker nudged itself into the hangar bay of the orbital platform. Ivex sat up, doing his final checks via his display, messing with Night Reaver's power outputs and readings. Leading to it thudding back and forth along his fist, until it rested. Finnik, slouched over, standing up slowly. Holding an ornate boltgun, plastered with inscriptions and runes in crimson red in Shioldan. Tyllalb rose, beginning to heft his large weapon, newly repaired, treated and blessed by Osatar with fine inscriptions. Large cooling fins mounted is rectangular barrel, as he hoisted it to be underslung. Resting it against his pelvis. 

"Artificer, speak to us only over vox. Do not open Seeker's doors until we get back. And. Do. Not. Leave" He spoke slowly, barely turning his head to face the cockpit. 

"understood lord Finnik" Iazhec replied. Promptly opening Seeker's large ramp door to reveal the malignant station beyond.