"Magos Lena, I'm here."
Having just finished handling the cleanup after the boarding action on the lower deck, Horne sat down on the cold medical chair. The stiff synthetic leather pressed uncomfortably against his bones, leaving a faint ache behind.
A heady sour odor mixed with an unknown sweet metallic scent, making him feel slightly uneasy.
He looked at the red-robed woman preparing medicine with the mechanical arms behind her. After hesitating for a moment, he asked,
"Magos, how many more times do I need to come here?"
When he had first regained consciousness from the endless burning pain, the first person he saw had been this oddly behaved Tech-Priest.
After carefully bandaging his wounds, she had told him to come back once every half month for a physical checkup.
But Horne had always wanted to return to the Astra Militarum as soon as possible, so he hoped Lena's treatment and examinations would be over quickly.
Magos Lena did not answer him right away. Instead, she had the servo-skull behind her carefully scan his body once more, then replied in her cold mechanical voice,
"That depends on how your recovery progresses. At least for now, it is difficult to determine in the short term."
"After another three or four examinations, I should be able to give you an exact answer."
Once she finished speaking, Magos Lena loaded the strange green medicine that her mechadendrites had just prepared into a syringe.
After flicking the injector a few times with a mechanical finger to expel the air, she continued in the same emotionless tone,
"Expose your right upper arm."
Horne took off the right side of his greatcoat, then rolled up the sleeve of the inner layer and rested his right arm on the dark brown armrest of the medical chair.
A prickling sting followed, and as the needle entered his vein, Lena slowly pushed the plunger.
After a strange swelling sensation, the medicine entered Horne's body.
Once she skillfully applied a small patch over the injection site, Lena turned and walked over to a strangely shaped cogitator.
She placed her mechanical hands on a special keyboard and began asking questions without looking back at Horne, who was pulling his clothes back on.
"How has your appetite been recently?"
"Well... I guess because I've been injured for so long and haven't been moving much, my appetite has gone down a little."
"Do you experience negative emotions such as irritability?"
"When I see those bastards who abandoned the Emperor's grace, yes."
"Have you had any unusual dreams?"
"Does dreaming that I got the Star of Terra count...?"
"Do you ever feel the urge to loudly shout any specific phrases?"
"For the Emperor?"
With every answer Horne gave, Magos Lena rapidly entered a huge amount of information into the cogitator.
The process went on for a long time, to the point that Horne started feeling a little lost.
The most gentle medical officer he had ever met had never been this bothersome.
After receiving answers to all those trivial questions, Lena took out another small syringe.
"I need to draw a little of your blood. Expose your left forearm."
The process repeated in much the same way, except this time it was extraction rather than injection.
After finishing, Lena nodded.
"You may leave."
Horne immediately shot to his feet like a drowning man who had just found a lifeline.
For some reason, he always felt that Lena was strange.
"If you feel any discomfort at all, you may come to me at any time. You will have priority access here."
Just before he stepped out the door, the Magos's mechanical voice rang out behind him again.
He nodded stiffly, then hurried out at once and made straight for the lower deck.
He was needed there now.
Under the flickering blue light, her cold mechanical eye silently watched Horne's departing back.
She stood there for a long time, like a red metal statue lost in thought.
After a while, the Magos slowly turned and headed deeper into the medical station, toward the laboratory inside.
As she passed the cogitator, she casually switched off its power.
Before the screen, full of flashing red乱码, completely went dark, a few strange words could still be made out.
"Gene chimera compound."
"Test subject."
...
In the dim dungeon, Goldtooth was cursing inwardly.
"Damn it, why haven't our main forces taken this wreck of a ship yet?"
"And if they interrogate me later, what am I supposed to do? I made all that up. How the hell would I know any valuable intel?"
At the thought of the enemy putting him through the top ten tortures of Ancient Terra while admiring what a tough man he was, cold sweat started pouring down his face.
Had his delaying tactic just gotten himself killed?
Just as he sat there in growing panic, a cry of alarm came from the dungeon entrance.
"Who are you?"
Goldtooth immediately looked over in excitement.
He remembered that voice clearly. It belonged to the sailor who had brought him here.
Could it be one of his own people?
He craned his neck eagerly, but then he heard a dull impact, followed by a shrill burst of laughter.
It was an incredibly grating laugh, and every note of it seemed to scratch at the listener's mind, stirring up negative emotions.
Goldtooth's pupils contracted. He silently backed deeper into the cell, covering his mouth and nose, hardly daring to breathe.
In an instant, he remembered those terrifying tales whispered among pirates about the horrors that sometimes happened aboard ships that had spent too long in the Warp.
Tap. Tap.
A clear, crisp footstep sounded.
And it was coming closer.
Goldtooth felt his heart climb into his throat.
A suffocating pressure gripped his soul, the kind of terror a lamb would feel upon seeing a wolf. He could not even summon the will to resist.
Then, amid the frantic screaming inside his head, a figure appeared at the cell door.
His heart lurched so violently at the sight of it that it nearly stopped altogether.
But when the dim light fell on the figure's face, some of his fear eased.
It was the same sailor guarding him.
Goldtooth felt the man's gaze crawl over him like worms, then heard him speak in a slightly mocking tone.
"You seem troubled."
"Oh, I understand now. You're worried about what happens when you can't actually produce that valuable intel you bragged about."
Ignoring the terror in Goldtooth's eyes, the sailor continued,
"Oh, and let me remind you, your people have already all been put down."
"If you still can't come up with something valuable enough to buy your life, then the only thing left for you is to experience the artistic achievements of human civilization's torture methods across tens of thousands of years."
Seeing the fear on Goldtooth's face, the sailor split his mouth into a healthy smile.
"But, actually, I do have a way."
Goldtooth trembled.
He had no idea how this man had read his thoughts so clearly, but at this point he really had been driven into a dead end.
Whether the sailor really had a solution or not, he had no choice but to believe him.
Because this was the only possible way left to break the stalemate.
Thinking that, he scrambled to the front of the cage, grabbed the bars, and asked anxiously,
"What method do you have?"
Looking down at him, the sailor smiled in an amused way. Then he slowly reached behind his back and, like a stage magician, drew out a data core glowing with faint blue circuitry.
"This is a star chart marking stable routes through this section of the Warp."
"I'd say it's more than enough to buy a worthless life like yours."
Goldtooth's eyes widened in shock.
Something of this level would normally only be in the hands of the pirate captain of the Darkstar crew.
He did not even care to ask where it had come from, or who this man really was. At this moment, he had only one thought.
Use it to save his life.
"Give it to me."
Goldtooth stared at the star chart in the sailor's hand, only to watch the man's mouth curl upward at an unnatural angle.
"Of course I can give it to you. But you'll need to trade me something for it..."
...
After several screams so painful they tore at the throat, Goldtooth finally held out his blood-covered gold teeth with trembling hands through the bars.
But to his surprise, the sailor did not take them.
Instead, he lightly pinched them up and placed them somewhere Goldtooth could just barely touch, yet not actually reach.
"A pleasant transaction, isn't it?"
With a strange laugh, he tossed the star chart into the cell, then stepped backward into the shadows of the dungeon and vanished from sight.
(End of Chapter)
[Check Out My P@treon For +20 Extra Chapters On All My Fanfics!!][[email protected]/euridome]
[+500 Power Stones = +1 Extra Chapter]
[Thank You For Your Support!]