Thule, Jupiter's moon. The food storage warehouse for the servitor-laborers.
Keon, Captain of the 5th Company of the Fourth Chapter of the Shadows of Order, opened his eyes.
His mind raced, thoughts rapidaly re-establishing.
'Where am I?'
After five seconds, he retrieved his memories before the freezing.
'I have successfully infiltrated Thule.'
Keon and his Shadow Guard had "died." They had ingested a thick soup of organic and chemical compounds, allowing their bodies to blend with their surroundings.
Then, they had consumed a potion prepared by the Chief Apothecary.
Through the twelfth surgical modification, a flat organ implanted atop the cerebral cortex, fused with the brain's meninges, they had entered a state of suspended animation.
The servitor-laborer families under contract to the Hessen Cartel on Thule were of low status. A discreet method of insertion was necessary.
Keon looked at the inner wall of the metal container. It was made of plasteel, tightly sealed.
Inside, it was filled with a viscous fluid.
The liquid enveloping him was a residue from a biological processing plant; it came from a nutrient factory in the orbital city of Ganymede III: The Hessen Cartel held 58.19 percent ownership in that factory.
Thule's million servitor-laborers needed food to survive.
The thick soup of organic residue left from the cracking process departed the orbital docks, flowing down the transport chain, passing through layer after layer of security.
When bio-scanner fields swept over the containers, they could only detect inert, inorganic matter.
No signs of life: no bio-electricity, no pulse, no heat.
In the end, a hundred full-fledged "Corpse Collectors" were transported to a storage warehouse, lying in their metal "coffins."
Until the potion's effects wore off.
Their two hearts began to beat again and blood flowed.
Keon's left hand drew a black object from the inner wall. It resembled a broken shard of a blade, without a guard or grip.
Any weapon with a complex structure might be detected by the Mechanicum's deep-scans. But a simple shard fixed to the metal wall would not be exposed.
He slowly raised his right arm, pushing against the lid. It clattered to the side.
He crawled out, leaning over the container, vomiting the liquid from his body.
The acrid stench of the bio-soup lingered, but he had been in environments far more foul, both physically and supernaturally.
He landed on the floor. One by one, low, muffled thuds followed.
After leaving the storage room, the Shadows of Order heard the shrill alarm.
The "Gatekeeper" raised his arm, lightly tapping the brow above his right eye.
A burst of ethereal light, then spinning, collapsing inward, forming a blurry, double bronze door.
The door was covered in mystic patterns, radiating an indescribable stillness and depth.
The door creaked open. Ethereal forms, pale bodies, stepped out from within.
The "Spirit Guides" gathered around the door, chanting the "Language of the Dead," communicating with their zombies and wraiths.
They could not, like the "Gatekeeper," contain the dead within themselves. They had to temporarily "lodge" their thralls within Keon's body.
Fortunately, the severance had not been long. They re-established their connection within dozens of seconds.
Keon made a gesture. The Shadows of Order split into ten squads.
Wraiths rose, shrieking, diving towards the surveillance sensors on their paths.
Zombies walked ahead of the Shadows of Order, moving swiftly up through the labyrinthine tunnels.
Within the central security control room.
Magos Rayan-10's bionic eye swept over the urgent, flashing crimson runes. He spat out a seventy-two-bit code.
"Have you contacted the Fabricator General?"
"Terra has destroyed the comm relays, refusing the sacred code song. Our comm links are being disrupted."
A stream of action reports flowed through Thule's communication network to his terminal.
[Dock fires have been extinguished. The Furious Abyss has broken orbit.]
[Docks -2 and -3 defenses have been reinforced. Two Macro-Hypori Legions now control the dock sectors.]
After reading all the reports, Rayan-10 stared at the three hundred monitoring screens covering the wall.
Only one screen showed the strange intruders.
Pale forms advanced along the passage. The gun-servitors' dense fire shredded their flesh.
But the bio-scanners identified them as corpses. They felt no pain, and were unaffected by the loss of flesh, advancing relentlessly.
Their tall, slender forms, like dead Aeldari xenos, moved with graceful speed, lunging at the servitors.
Their spectral green blades fell, and the servitors fell.
Rayan-10's mechadendrites extended from his shoulders, quickly tapping across the control panel.
The runes of a Macro-Hypori Legion were converging on the target from all sides.
Whether the intruders were true corpses or not, they would be consumed by the Machine God's fury.
A torrent of molten fire flooded Keon's vision. A wave of promethium fire consumed dozens of Aeldari zombies.
In the smoke, their flesh was scorched black.
Pale skeletons, as if mired in quicksand, stumbled through the flames. One skeleton cracked and collapsed.
An icy wind, cold enough to freeze bone, rose from nowhere, spreading through the fire.
Whoosh!
The cold wind propelled several Aeldari zombies, hurling them at the automata, their pale bone swords falling.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Three more zombies fell. The icy wind of death swept the area.
The ground froze, coated in frost.
The Aeldari zombies advanced, cutting down the automata, their blades driven by resentment.
Keon sensed something. His gaze shifted to the tunnels at one o'clock, three o'clock, nine o'clock, and eleven o'clock.
He raised his hand, tapping his brow.
The ethereal bronze door appeared, creaking open.
With a shriek, winged wraiths shot from the door, diving into the tunnels.
A dark green feather sprouted from Keon's armpit.
The feathers spread along his ribs, covering his flanks.
This came from the powerful wraith that had willingly entered his body from the waters of Sodheim VIII when he became a "Gatekeeper."
His dark green wings beat. He rose, following his intuition towards the eleven o'clock tunnel.
Rat-tat-tat!
The xenos wraith's hunting rifle spat dark green bullets.
The bullets, flying through the air, met no resistance, burrowing into the automata's steel bodies.
A bullet struck an engine core. A red light flared within the steel shell.
The automaton exploded, tearing apart a dozen around it.
Another bullet struck a steel skull. A green light detonated in the control crystal.
Bang!
The automaton shut down, crashing to the ground.
Keon spread his arms, his feathers spreading, covering his body.
He broke free of the tunnel's gravity generators, flying outward like a bird.
The automata raised their weapons. Streams of molten fire slammed into him.
Bang, bang, bang!
A series of impacts. The dark green wings grew dim, shifting from dark green to grey-green.
As his feathers blackened, Keon emerged above ground, pursued by hundreds of automata.
He looked around. Two pillars of fire shot skyward.
The signal of the Black Emperor's command had been lit.
....
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