Five Days of Preparation
For five days, the logistics drones did not stop.
They moved through the fortress workshops in disciplined streams, servo-limbs hissing, manipulators clicking, fabrication arms feeding raw metal, circuit boards, gravitic stabilizers, and shield components into production lines that had not existed a week earlier.
Sparks fell like hard rain from cutting rigs. Cooling vats steamed. Cogitator banks chattered through the night as Qin Mo stood among them, correcting errors before the drones themselves recognized a fault.
The result was a new generation of Dimensional Transmission Safeguard Units.
The first prototypes had been bulky, ugly devices built to answer a single question: could a human body survive transition through dimensional transmission without being torn apart, misplaced, or separated from the soul-shadow attached to it?
They had answered that question, but battlefield equipment could not remain a laboratory curiosity. Soldiers had to carry it. Armor had to power it. Logistics had to maintain it. If it could not be issued quickly and used by frightened men under fire, then it was not a weapon system. It was decoration.
So Qin Mo miniaturized the safeguard units.
He stripped the architecture down, compressed the stabilizer arrays, hardened the phase-shield emitters, and integrated the final design directly into the power packs of standard Praetorian-pattern power armor. From the outside, the upgraded packs looked only slightly heavier than before. Inside, they contained locator beacons, body-pattern anchors, short-range dimensional stabilizers, and emergency phase shielding designed to activate the instant transmission began.
The Thunderborn-pattern power armor received something better.
Those suits were too valuable, and their wearers too important, to rely on the basic issue model. Qin Mo built advanced safeguard systems into their armor frames from the beginning: redundant anchors, faster transition correction, stronger shielding, and emergency return logic in case a warrior emerged somewhere structurally unsafe, hostile, or simply wrong.
For now, Qin Mo suspended further research into long-range dimensional transmission.
Interstellar traversal could wait. The stars were not going anywhere.
The immediate objective was simpler, uglier, and far more urgent.
Turn Yoan, a scrap-born Underhive wretch whom most men could barely stand to look at, into a warrior.
....
Training Grounds
Beyond the fortress walls, three armored figures clashed beneath a low ceiling of blackened cloud. Ash drifted through the air in slow gray sheets, carried by the breath of distant manufactoria and burning districts. The training ground had once been an open cargo yard. Now it was a scarred field of compacted dust, shattered plasteel slabs, spent casings, and target pylons welded together from battlefield salvage.
Grey. Grot. Yoan.
All three wore Thunderborn-pattern power armor.
Yoan's suit had been tuned down for training, its weapons restricted and its internal safeguards locked behind Qin Mo's direct authorization. Even so, the armor made him broader, taller, and harder to kill than any ordinary soldier. It should have made him confident.
It did not.
Qin Mo watched from beside a cogitator array mounted on a tracked chassis. The machine hissed, clicked, and spat streams of combat data across several cracked display panes. His arms were folded. His gaze remained unreadable as Yoan's telemetry crawled across the screens: pulse rate, reaction delay, shield usage, servo strain, breathing rhythm, evasive movement, threat response.
None of it looked good.
"Too cowardly!"
Grey's snarl cut through the ash. He raised his left arm and fired his wrist-mounted scatter-laser. The training output had been reduced, but each burst still struck with enough force to stagger a man in armor. Spears of hard light snapped through the gloom and hammered into Yoan's chestplate with brutal precision.
"Just like when you froze in the tunnel!" Grey fired again, tracking Yoan's retreat without effort. "Only difference is—"
Another burst struck Yoan squarely in the sternum. His armor's shield flared blue-white, absorbing the impact with a sharp crackle.
"You're not pissing yourself this time!"
Yoan stumbled sideways. His boots scraped across ash-caked ferrocrete. The Thunderborn armor tried to compensate, servos whining as they corrected his balance, but Yoan fought the suit as much as he fought Grey. He moved like a man trying to escape a beating, not win a fight.
Grey's aim never left him.
Every dodge came late. Every step surrendered ground. Every flinch wasted power. Yoan kept trying to make himself smaller inside a suit designed to make a soldier impossible to ignore.
"Hit number one thousand four hundred and twenty," Qin Mo noted. His tone was flat, but his patience was thinning.
Yoan had the instincts of an Underhive survivor. He knew how to avoid attention, how to run before a gang ambush closed, how to duck when stronger men started swinging, and how to endure humiliation long enough to keep breathing.
Those instincts had kept him alive.
They were useless here.
A soldier in power armor could not win by shrinking from danger. A Thunderborn did not survive by begging the enemy to miss. Yoan had armor, shielding, strength amplification, and weapons capable of tearing through barricades, yet every decision he made came from the same place: hide, dodge, endure, wait for someone else to end the threat.
Against Grey, that meant failure.
Against the enemies Qin Mo intended to send him against, it meant death.
"STOP RUNNING, YOU COWARD!"
The shout came from Grot.
A thunderous impact followed.
Grot charged across the yard like an armored battering ram. His massive gauntlet slammed into Yoan's chestplate with a force that overwhelmed the training shield and launched him off his feet. Yoan hit the ground hard enough to crack the ash crust beneath him.
Before he could rise, Grot was on him.
One heavy boot pinned Yoan's arm. A gauntlet closed around his collar assembly and hauled him halfway upright before smashing him back down. Grot's fist struck Yoan's helmet once, twice, three times, each blow ringing like a hammer against a cathedral bell.
Inside the armor, Yoan's skull rattled. His vision blurred. Warning runes flashed across his visor. His breathing dissolved into short, panicked gasps.
He did not fight back.
That was what angered Grot most.
"Enough."
Qin Mo raised one hand.
Grot stopped immediately. The last punch hung in the air for half a second before he lowered it. His anger did not vanish. It settled into his posture, into the way his armor servos growled as he stepped back.
Yoan lay on the ground, chest heaving. For a moment, he did not move. Then he slowly pushed himself upright and released his helmet seals.
The helm came free with a hiss. Beneath it, his face was drenched in sweat. One lip had split. One eye was already swelling. Shame sat on him more heavily than the armor.
"I… I'm sorry to disappoint you."
Qin Mo looked at him for a long moment.
Yoan expected contempt. He expected disgust. He expected the same look he had received from almost everyone else since birth.
He did not receive it.
"Growth takes time," Qin Mo said. "Learning takes time. Fear does not vanish because someone gives you armor."
Yoan swallowed.
Qin Mo's gaze shifted to Grot.
He did not need to say anything.
Grot understood immediately.
The larger warrior grabbed Yoan by the throat guard and hauled him upright. Yoan's boots scraped against the ground before the armor remembered to support him.
"From now on," Grot growled, helmet inches from Yoan's face, "I'm going to beat the cowardice out of you. You disgrace that power armor."
He dragged Yoan away, leaving deep boot prints in the ash. Yoan did not resist. Perhaps he was too stunned. Perhaps some desperate part of him understood that, for the first time in his life, someone was treating him as a man who could become more than a curse wearing skin.
As they vanished into the smoke-hazed distance, Grey exhaled. The sound was quiet, but Qin Mo heard the relief in it.
Then Grey turned to him.
"With all due respect… he's not fit to be a soldier."
"Not yet," Qin Mo replied.
Grey frowned.
Qin Mo continued watching the direction Grot had taken. "But he will be. Grot will make sure of it."
That answer did not satisfy Grey.
Qin Mo never wasted resources. He did not hand out advanced armor because he felt pity. He did not spend time on useless men. Every drone, weapon, ration block, shield emitter, and soldier existed somewhere inside a plan Grey usually understood only after it had already saved lives.
But Yoan?
Yoan looked like wasted effort. A blank, hated by instinct, trained by no one, frightened by everything, and now dressed in armor worth more than whole hab-districts.
Grey could not see the logic.
That bothered him more than he wanted to admit.
"And what do you think about the Devotees?" Qin Mo asked.
Grey stiffened. The shift in topic was abrupt, but not random. Qin Mo did not ask idle questions.
The day before, Grey had been ordered to monitor the cult-like movement spreading beneath their ranks and among the civilians of New Kato. He had obeyed, listened, watched, and disliked almost everything he found.
"They have turned their backs on the Emperor," Grey said at once.
Qin Mo nodded.
Grey hesitated. His jaw tightened behind his helmet. "However…"
Qin Mo waited.
"I understand why they worship you."
The admission came quietly, almost reluctantly. Grey was not a man who enjoyed speaking against doctrine, even when doctrine had done little to keep anyone alive.
"You led us out of certain death," he said. "You gave starving men food, wounded men medicine, frightened men armor, and dead positions artillery. The things you've done…" He searched for a word that would not sound like blasphemy. He failed. "They look like miracles."
Qin Mo smirked.
"I think I'm a god, too."
Grey went very still.
For one horrible second, he could not tell whether Qin Mo was joking. Then Qin Mo's grin widened, and the tension in Grey's shoulders eased by a fraction.
Only a fraction.
"I don't need their worship," Qin Mo said. "And their faith makes them vulnerable."
Grey's eyes narrowed. "Vulnerable to what?"
Qin Mo's expression lost its humor.
"Manipulation."
The word hung between them.
"Imagine what happens if someone twists their beliefs," Qin Mo continued. "If devotion becomes obedience to the wrong voice. If discipline becomes fanaticism. If their little creed turns into heresy before anyone notices the change."
Grey frowned. "Corrupted by what?"
Qin Mo looked at him and remembered, not for the first time, how little the average Imperial soldier was allowed to know.
Grey knew treason. He knew cowardice, sedition, mutation, xenos infection, and the weakness of men who broke when they should have held. He knew the Warp as sailors and soldiers were permitted to know it: dangerous, necessary for interstellar travel, and best left in the hands of sanctioned authorities, Navigators, astropaths, and the God-Emperor's mercy.
He did not know the truth beneath the warnings.
He did not know that faith could become a door. That fear, hunger, rage, pride, and desire could be sharpened into hooks. That a whisper heard at the wrong hour could turn a prayer into a leash.
That ignorance was cruel.
It was also protective.
Most minds were not strengthened by knowledge of the Ruinous Powers. They were wounded by it. The Imperium buried the truth beneath fire, censorship, sermons, and mass execution not because the system was kind, but because the alternative could be worse.
Qin Mo exhaled.
"Forget it."
Grey did not like that answer. He accepted it anyway.
"Just tell them they are forbidden from spreading their faith," Qin Mo said.
Then, after a moment, he smirked again.
"Tell them I am the Emperor's Angel."
Grey absorbed that. It was not a denial of the Devotees' belief so much as a cage built around it: direct their worship back toward Imperial doctrine, bury the dangerous parts beneath familiar symbols, and reduce the chance that the Ecclesiarchy would smell a rival cult before Qin Mo could deal with it properly.
Practical. Uncomfortable. Very Qin Mo.
Grey nodded.
"Yes, Lord Commander."
He turned and walked away.
Qin Mo watched him disappear through the smoke and ash, then rolled the phrase across his tongue.
"Emperor's Angel."
He nearly laughed.
If it were not for Chaos corruption, and if the Adeptus Ministorum would not eventually try to burn them all for unauthorized theology, he might have accepted the worship gladly.
Unfortunately, the galaxy had rules.
Most of them were stupid.
All of them were dangerous.
....
Five Days Later.
Five days later, the entire ground force assembled beneath the fortress launch bays and open mustering grounds.
Rows of soldiers stood in Praetorian-pattern power armor while logistics drones moved between them, replacing standard power packs with the newly fabricated safeguard units. Each pack locked into place with a magnetic hiss and a hard mechanical clack. Status runes flickered across armor displays as internal systems recognized the upgrade.
Officers walked the lines, checking seals and repeating instructions until every soldier could recite them through exhaustion, fear, or concussion. Do not remove the pack. Do not damage the beacon. Do not attempt transmission without command authorization. If the shield deploys, stay still. If nausea occurs, report it. If the world appears to fold, do not panic. If you hear voices, report immediately.
That last instruction made several men glance at one another.
No one laughed.
Among them, Duncan stepped forward.
He lifted the new power pack assigned to him, turned his back toward two armor technicians, and allowed the old unit to be released from his armor. The replacement locked into place along his spine with a deep magnetic pull. His suit shuddered as the safeguard system integrated with its power flow. A blue confirmation rune blinked twice, then stabilized.
Then Duncan received his orders.
He would be the first.
The test subject.
His mission was simple in wording and insane in implication: transmit outside the Underhive, confirm arrival, and deploy a beacon.
Once the beacon activated, the army could follow.
Duncan did not ask why he had been chosen. He already understood. He was an officer. He had survived the Underhive. He had seen Qin Mo's impossible machines reshape the war. If the device killed him, his death would frighten the men less than if the first test subject were some anonymous trooper dragged forward by order.
He also understood something else.
If this worked, the sealed Underhive would no longer be a prison.
With the transmission device fully charged, Duncan stood motionless at the center of the marked platform. The air around him smelled of ozone, heated metal, and the bitter tang of overstrained capacitors. His armor hummed with stored energy. The safeguard unit on his back vibrated once, then deployed its protective field.
A translucent blue shimmer wrapped around him like a second skin.
Unlike the first human test subject, Duncan felt no pain.
Only pressure.
The Master Control AI performed rapid calculations. Coordinates aligned. Mass confirmed. Anchor stable. Shield integrity acceptable.
Then Duncan stepped into the void.
....
Between Dimensions
It was strange.
Duncan could see his body.
He could also feel that he was inside it.
The contradiction should have broken his mind open, but the safeguard unit held him together with cold, mechanical insistence. His armor, blood, bones, thoughts, and the faint presence that priests would have called his soul remained bound in a single pattern while everything around him blurred.
There was no tunnel. No lighted corridor between places. No holy passage. No blessed gate.
There was only force.
Currents moved around him, through him, and not through him at all. He sensed pressure without wind, distance without direction, motion without steps. For an instant, he understood that the material world was not as solid as men believed. It was arrangement. Law. Agreement. A pattern held together so consistently that human minds mistook it for certainty.
Then something pulled him back.
The world solidified.
His senses snapped into place with brutal clarity.
Duncan's boots struck hard ground. His armor compensated before he could stumble. Wind dragged ash across his visor. Cold air filled his lungs through the filtration system.
He was no longer underground.
Behind him stretched a vast, empty wasteland of dead industrial earth, slag hills, broken roads, and abandoned fortification scars. Ahead stood the sealed entrance to the Underhive: a colossal armored checkpoint built around the primary ascent route, its gates locked, reinforced, and surrounded by heavy defensive works.
Between Duncan and the gate lay a Planetary Defense Force encampment.
The PDF and the Adeptus Arbites had established a fortified perimeter around the sealed entrance. Sandbag walls, razorwire, armored barricades, searchlights, heavy bolter nests, autocannon emplacements, and troop trenches covered every approach. Vox-masts rose from command tents. Armored vehicles sat in revetments with engines idling. Arbites patrols in black carapace armor stood near the inner barricades, shotguns held ready.
The moment Duncan appeared, the entire defensive line reacted.
Heavy bolters swiveled toward him. Autocannons tracked. Hundreds of lasrifles rose as one. Searchlights snapped onto his armor, bathing him in harsh white glare. Vox traffic spiked into overlapping alarm.
A general stepped forward from behind the first barricade, flanked by two Adeptus Arbites and a knot of staff officers. His uniform was immaculate by battlefield standards, his breastplate polished, his expression rigid with command authority.
That expression nearly shattered when he saw Duncan.
Moments earlier, the defenders had seen only a flickering distortion in the air. Now a fully armored warrior stood before them, wearing wargear none of them recognized and carrying himself like a man who had walked out of a grave with orders still in hand.
The general's voice boomed across the field.
"Are you human or xenos?!"
Duncan slowly removed his helmet.
Cold surface air struck his face. He did not flinch. Sweat had dried against his skin during transmission, but his expression remained calm, defiant, and unbroken.
"I am Colonel Duncan of the 87th Infantry Regiment, First Legion."
The general's expression darkened.
"87th Regiment?" His gaze flicked toward the sealed Underhive entrance, then back to Duncan. "That's impossible."
One of the Arbites shifted his shotgun slightly.
"You should all be dead," the general said.
Duncan ignored the accusation, the disbelief, and the weapons aimed at his chest.
He raised one arm and hurled the transmission beacon behind him.
The device struck the ground, bit into the ash-caked surface with stabilizing spikes, and unfolded. Its casing split into four armored petals. A signal emitter rose from the center, locked, and activated.
A pulse of energy surged outward.
The air warped around it. Dust lifted from the ground in expanding rings. Auspex systems across the encampment screamed warnings as the beacon carved a stable anchor point into local space.
The soldiers on the defensive line looked at one another, bewildered and afraid.
What was he doing?
Duncan put his helmet back under one arm and looked the general in the eye.
"We're alive," he said. "All of us."
Then the sky tore open.
Across the open field, rifts flared into existence one after another. Not Warp breaches. Not daemonic wounds. Controlled spatial apertures stabilized by the beacon and guided by machine calculation. Their edges shimmered blue-white, folding ash, light, and sound into brief halos before disgorging the army hidden beneath the hive.
Gravity-shielded drones emerged first, weapons tracking, engines humming. They spread into a defensive pattern with inhuman precision.
Then Grey stepped through, clad in imposing Thunderborn armor, his silhouette broad and lethal beneath the surface light.
After him came the rest.
Infantry in Praetorian-pattern power armor. Tanks rolling out under their own power. Heavy artillery platforms. Logistics drones bearing ammunition, fuel cells, medicae supplies, and spare parts. Command units. Reconnaissance machines. Entire formations that should have been buried, starved, or dead in the Underhive now stood battle-ready beneath the open sky.
The PDF line did not fire.
No one had given the order.
No one seemed capable of giving it.
The general's lips trembled. His breath shuddered once. His eyes moved from Duncan to Grey, from the drones to the tanks, from the growing army to the sealed gate he had believed marked a tomb.
Finally, he whispered.
"By the Emperor…"