In the Hive Tunnels
Julius had abandoned the idea of marching on foot. The principles of a commander sharing his men's hardships had merit, but not at the expense of efficiency. He was now aboard a heavy anti-grav vehicle, an armored command and transport Mastodon, speeding at the head of the column. His instinct told him to go fast, but his reason demanded impartiality. An order was given: similar, lighter anti-grav vehicles were deployed for elite and support units. The column's speed skyrocketed. They had to reach the heart of the underhive before hell solidified there for good.
In the Underhive
This was hell. Not a metaphor, but a tangible, bloody reality. A demented civil war was tearing the lower levels apart. The screams of the innocent mixed with the hysterical laughter of daemons and the guttural chants of cultists. The air, already foul, was now thick with the scent of copper, burning flesh, and psychic ozone.
The inhabitants, already accustomed to misery, were caught in a vise. They had vaguely heard that the upper hive had fallen to invaders, but that was an abstract, distant concept. Their immediate reality was their neighbor, transformed into a shrieking mutant, or the local gang, now adorned with heretical symbols and hunting souls for their new gods.
Amidst this chaos, a tenuous island of resistance tried to hold. Sergeant Boris, his face scarred and his security uniform stained with soot and blood, had just gunned down a Khorne cultist trying to dismember a child. The fanatic's skull exploded under the impact of Boris's jury-rigged lasrifle.
"ALL SURVIVORS, FOLLOW ME!" he roared in a voice that momentarily cut through the din.
A score of terrified civilians rushed in his wake, weaving between smoldering wrecks and debris. Boris rejoined three of his subordinates, huddled behind an overturned metal counter.
"Sarge, what's happening?" asked one of them, a young woman named Kaela, her hands trembling on her weapon. "The gangs... they've all gone berserk at once! And those... those things with them..."
Boris reloaded his weapon with a sharp click. "I don't know, Kaela. But ever since that damn purple light appeared in the low sky and the air started reeking of rotten metal, everything's gone to shit. It's like a collective madness took hold of everyone with a grain of vice or anger in them."
Another guard, Markov, a massive man with tired eyes, nodded. "Men are dropping like flies. We're barely holding our posts. But the civilians..." He cast a glance at the haggard group huddled behind them—elders, mothers with infants, children with eyes too wide. "They've got no chance. No weapons, no training. Just cannon fodder for these maniacs."
Boris gritted his teeth. The assessment was devastating. "We can't abandon them. We're the only ones still wearing a uniform in this sector. Our duty is to protect them. Even if it's the last damn thing we do."
"And how do we do that?" Markov growled. "Fight to the last bullet here? To end up impaled on some obscene symbol?"
Boris scanned the surroundings, his sergeant's mind desperately seeking a solution in this nightmare. The tunnels. The old maintenance and emergency tunnels that snaked up to the upper levels, theoretically sealed for generations.
"The emergency tunnels," he said finally. "The ones leading to zone 7-Gamma. We gather all the survivors we can by radio, all the guards still fit to fight, and we punch our way to those tunnels. We go up."
Kaela stared at him, incredulous. "Up? To the upper hive? But... that's where the other invaders are! The ones with the armor and the ships! They'll slaughter us!"
"Maybe," Boris admitted, his face hard as stone. "But look around, Kaela!" He pointed a finger towards a scene of horror a hundred meters away: a group of daemons with impossible shapes danced in a fountain of blood, while cultists in a trance mutilated themselves with delight. "Down here, it's the end. A horrible, certain end. Up there... it's the unknown. Maybe a clean bullet. Maybe a cell. Maybe a chance to negotiate. But with these... things... you don't negotiate. You die, or you become like them."
Markov exchanged a long look with the third guard, a rookie named Jax, who looked like he was about to be sick. Resignation, then a glimmer of dark acceptance, passed in their eyes.
"Better to surrender to an enemy you might be able to talk to, than to madmen where the only option is to die screaming," Markov murmured, echoing the desperate conclusion they had all reached.
Boris nodded, a desperate survival plan taking shape in the hell of the underhive. "Then it's decided. We gather, we break through, and we go up. For humanity. For what's left of it."