Chương 62: Chapter 60: Space Hulking

POV: Nicole After a considerable amount of shuffling, Halo station finally managed to prepare docking locations for both the Argent Drake and the Purest Shadow. Meanwhile, the repairable heretic hulls had been towed to an isolated arm of the station. Those marked as salvage drifted near Ur-Haven's orbit, well away from the last cluster; a growing graveyard of corrupt detritus centered around the wreck of the faux Silver Tower awaiting destruction.

I expected the embarkation area to be busy, but I didn't expect it to be packed to the brim. Drakios sailors, Mechanicus personnel, and what looks like the full force of the Star Dragons' 9th Company have filled the staging area.

"Did I miss something?" I ask Delta-A3, my brow furrows as I scan the crowd.

"Archmagos Doll and Lord Drakios plan to address the crew. It should not take long," he replies, guiding our group to an overhead balcony with a clear view of the platform below. From our vantage point, I spot Master Doll and Lord Drakios as they approach the stage. Lord Drakios takes the lead and steps onto the command pulpit, his voidcloak billowing in the recycled air. His voice, amplified and commanding, booms across the deck.

"Men and women of the Argent Drake, my loyal voidsmen, armsmen, pilots, gunners, Mechanicus Tech-Priests, and every soul who calls this proud vessel home, hear me now," he starts, his voice full of pride.

"You have stood firm in the jaws of death. You have braved the thunder of broadsides and the black fury of the void and fought the Archenemy. You met the Chaos not with fear, but with fire. We have prevailed!" He lets the words hang before continuing.

"This victory does not belong to me alone - no, it belongs to every hand that steadied the ship, every eye that scanned the scopes, every arm that bore a weapon. You fought like dragons, and the stars themselves bore witness. Let it not be said that I do not reward good service. You shall be rewarded. Each and every one of you. From the lowest deckhand to the most seasoned officer, there will be spoils. There will be coin, commendations, and for some, there may even be elevation, titles, land…

perhaps even the chance at a ship of your own one day." He raises his arms and salutes the crowd with the sign of the Aquila.

"This is the promise of service under House Drakios. Glory is not hoarded. It is shared. Take pride, my crew… However, our work is not yet done. The spoils must be extracted from our fallen foes. We will aid the denizens of Ur-Haven with the purging of the captured Space Hulk. Then we will train and practice ship recovery with the vessels within and wrest their hulls free. After this is done, I will personally open some of my reserves, and we shall feast! Drink! And revel in our victory!"

He glances up towards our balcony as he mentions the recovery operations. It's good he remembered my words from before the battle. The roar of cheers is deafening and lasts almost a full minute before Master Doll steps forward, serene and composed, the presence of the Archmagos silences the crowd swiftly.

"As the Lord Trader said, these tasks are not a punishment but preparation," he says in his usual placid tone.

"We have the methods, the theory, and now we must put that into practice. The skills we polish over the next few months will be put to the test shortly thereafter. And the better our work, the larger the tallied value of the spoils. The Drakios Dynasty and the Mechanicus have been awarded a significant share." He continues, "We will be deploying scouting teams, followed by investigation and recovery teams to survey the wrecks and transport any valuables to a designated holding area.

There is a high likelihood these teams will encounter either lingering enemies or dangerous situations. Any and all suspicious objects must be screened and cleared. Thievery will not be tolerated." Doll's red-eyed gaze sweeps across the crowd like a scanner.

"If an item discovered catches your interest or you believe it would be useful to us or the ship, you may tag and flag it using our digital reporting system. All sailors, armsmen, and workers have two flags. Officers have three. Certain high-ranking individuals have larger pools, but they are not unlimited. Use them wisely." He looms over the podium.

"All teams within the hulk will be monitored, and the Astartes will be present to aid in purging any residual foes. Do not disgrace yourselves or the Argent Drake in their presence. Your orders will be relayed through your superiors. May the Omnissiah bless our labors." He makes the sign of the cog, and then steps back. Moments later, my slate pings. Our team has received confirmation to report to the staging area for the Hulk expeditions.

I skim the briefing, and it seems we are one of the few multi-role teams not tied to any specific section. Three such teams are operating under the Inquisitor, another Mechanicus team under Doll, and the Magi, and of course, Lord Drakios has gathered his retinue. Apparently, the old man couldn't resist a treasure hunt any more than the rest of his ilk. The teams have not been idle.

They've accomplished more than I expected, going so far as to remove the Rak'Gol ship, set up the forward operating bases, and secure the outer portions of the Hulk all within the last week. They have also been pumping in fresh atmosphere into the core of the Hulk to replace what was lost to the void when it struck the mines and was hit by the torpedo salvos. I glance around our rally point.

Lael stands nearby, flanked by her ever-watchful guardian squad of Sisters, their armor freshly sanctified, fresh purity seals affixed, expressions barely visible behind their helms. Of my automata, I've elected to bring only the Thallax cohort and a pair of Scyllax guardians. The heavier units would be poorly suited for this kind of close-quarters exploration. Brother Silverwalker is present, his solemn stance as unshifting as ever.

Just behind him looms Baldos, his armour repaired and repainted, all the damage from the battle has been removed. Delta-A3 stands to one side with his cadre of Skitarii, red optics scanning in silent readiness. All members of my usual protective detail are accounted for. However, I also note the additions on our assignment log.

Lord Drakios and Master Doll appear to have taken the liberty of bolstering our number with a handful of lesser-known Tech-Adepts and junior priests, their robes still heavy with incense and fresh sigils of sanction. More curiously, we've also been assigned an abhuman scouting unit. As if summoned by my observations, my noospheric network pings with an incoming biometric tag, one of the abhumans is approaching. I turn as the lead figure steps into view.

A Felinid officer clad in light carapace armor, his movements graceful and precise. The sigil of House Drakios is proudly displayed on his left pauldron, stylized and gleaming. He halts exactly two paces from me and delivers a crisp salute, his feline eyes locking with mine for a brief but measured moment.

"Ma'am! Captain Felixis of the Felinid Scouts, reporting! Assigned to your cadre for this expedition. In addition, we have a small crew of Tech-Priests to operate our assigned semi-portable high-powered Auspex systems." His tail twitches slightly, and I catch his eyes flick towards Baldos and Silverwalker. He holds himself well, but I can read him. Eager, but tense. Understandable. The Astartes tend to have that effect on most people.

"Welcome, Captain Felixis. We'll put your scouting team to good use." I glance over the Tech-Priests Doll assigned to me, and I immediately recognize a few from the atomic mine project. I catch the tail end of a binaric exchange between Rayke Claw-Jack and L3-3T.

"Yes! We got assigned to the Princeps! Those extra shifts paid off," Rayke celebrates loudly.

"Calm down!" L3-3T, hisses, swatting at her with a combi-tool. They were busy guiding industrial-grade servitors hauling the massive, blocky Auspex units we'll need, and managing a small troop of lesser Tech Adepts. I nod to them, it's nice to see familiar and competent faces. The rest of the troops have various supplies, and signal boosters we will be deploying as we go. Nearby, the rest of the Felinid scouts are checking their weapons.

A few bold ones even start chatting with Delta-A3 and Lael, something Lael's Sororitas guardians don't seem to be comfortable with. I pull my Sky Eye drone out of my pack and check its charge. I'd thought about bringing my C. A. T., but it was still busy mapping the Argent Drake, hunting down the elusive compartments represented by the dim scales on Argent's display, so the Sky Eye had to be enough. I wrap my cameleoline cloak around my shoulders, then check the straps on my mag boots.

Everything was in place and operational. Once I'm ready, I call the team together.

"For those who don't know, I am Princeps Nicole Cavalerio, Matriarch of House Cavalerio. Further introductions can come later. I'm in charge of this expedition team. Unlike some others, we haven't been assigned a specific section of the Hulk. I'll be choosing where we go." – I brought up a holographic map on my dataslate, scanning the layout.

"Preliminary external scans from our ships cover the surface, and I have some internal scans of large segments, mainly focused around where the heretic forces were operating, though not all of them. We'll likely visit every major hull eventually, but for our first survey, I'm considering two candidates: the Long Serpent Battlecruiser and the Conquest Star Galleon.

The Galleon is the oldest, along with the Forge Tender fused to the Mass Conveyor, while the Long Serpent is the largest, and possibly the most intact of the wrecks." I look up at them with a serious expression.

"This isn't a race. These surveys will take time. We'll work carefully and thoroughly, I'd rather take the time to uncover a hidden vault than miss it in a rush." I let that sink in before continuing.

"If you see anything odd, report it. We'll be encountering hazards and likely hostiles. Be ready." I straighten, trying to add a bit of gravitas. It's difficult when everyone else is much taller than I am.

"Is that clear?"

"Yes, Lady Cavalerio!" comes the chorus from the soldiers.

"Affirmative, Princeps," the Tech-Priests and Skitarii echo in binaric.

"Let's go already. I just know you'll lead us to entertainment," Baldos rumbles. He has loaded up his melee and melta armaments. Which is good considering we might need them at some point. I roll my eyes.

"We'll start with the Long Serpent. Lord Drakios has his eyes on the Star Galleon. It's belly down, dorsal side facing the surface of the hulk… depending on how many lower decks were crushed, it might be a nightmare to salvage. Not that I dislike the type of hull. Just that particular ship… I just... I don't think it'll be an easy fix." I trail off and shake my head. No need to overthink it now.

We're not the first team to deploy, but several others are still assembling as we move into the asteroid section of the Hulk, following a broad central tunnel cut through ancient stone. Progress is slow, each step measured with the caution the environment demands. After over an hour of steady walking, we finally pass beyond the boundaries of the established safe zone.

There, I release my Sky Eye and send it ahead with the Felinids, trusting their instincts and the drone's sensors to guide us through whatever lies ahead. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. As we delve deeper into the twisted corridors, I order a halt every hour so the Auspex team can take readings and transmit updates. We also regularly place down the data relays as we advance. Doing our best to preserve Vox and Noosphere connectivity in this place.

We have to take elaborate detours twice. Once, due to the Felinid scouts finding a lake of acidic chemicals that had pooled from various vessels. The second was my Sky Eye finding that the main tunnel we wanted to take had collapsed. Sci's map was extremely useful, but the impact with the Halo station made the immaculate and detailed maps... outdated, due to the considerable amount of structural stress the entire Hulk experienced on impact.

Since we had to start on the opposite side of the Hulk from our target, we had to pass through the core areas. It's in this area that we encounter our first real patch of resistance. The signs that the Chaos cults were present before are all over, though most were caught up in the Chaos ritual and were devoured. The first warning we get is the sound of one of the scouts firing their hellgun. The team immediately stops and takes up a defensive position.

"Contact. We have encountered a large swarm of corrupted servitors. They are armed and in pursuit." Felixis voxes in.

"Fall back, if you can lure them through the large access tunnel." I reply.

"Baldos, we have a horde of corrupted servitors that need purging. They should come from that tunnel." I say, pointing as I quickly look over the map.

"Good." He purrs as he lumbers forward. The sound of gunfire gets more frequent and draws closer as the scouts lure them towards our position. Only Baldos and Silverwalker are bold enough to stand in the open, the rest of us take positions behind cover and sight down the dark, slightly curved tunnel. Felixis and the forward scouts rush out and dart around Baldos and Silverwalker, and smoothly transition to join the firing line.

Behind them, we can hear the stomping, clanking, and howling of the small horde, along with an ominous red glow that spreads along the tunnel as they draw closer. Just for the sake of saying I tried, I sent a shutdown override signal. It's ignored, not that I expected it to work. The sheer amount of corrupted warp-flesh and daemonic scrap code makes my shutdown command almost useless, as whatever machinery follows my shutdown command is simply brute-forced to move through sheer strength.

The first of the servitors spots Baldos and lets out a screech as it breaks into a loping run. Baldos lifts his multi-melta, and the first few warped servitors are vaporized in a cone of superheated energy. Next to the dreadnought, Silverwalker hefts his heavy bolter and fills the tunnel with a stream of mass-reactive shells. The rock and metal supports of the tunnel are illuminated by all the weapons fire and cast dancing shadows with each explosion.

The rest of the defenders add the weight of their fire to the two Astartes. Despite it all, the mutated servitors are tenacious; some continue to charge even after losing their heads. The ranged return fire from the foul creatures is sporadic and easily avoided, but many sport dangerous melee weapons and mutations, and they rush forward to close the distance. I add my own carefully aimed shots targeting any weak points I identify with my plasma pistol and ballistic mechadendrite.

Baldos steps on the first one that manages to get into melee, backhands another so hard it gets embedded into the far wall. At least he is having fun. The smell that fills the air inside the tunnel as we gun them down is eye-wateringly vile, and I quickly shut off the air intakes to my armour. One of the lesser Tech Adepts vomits off in a corner.

"Clear." Baldos declares as he pulps the last twitching horror with his combat claw.

"Disgusting, foul things, a perversion of the machine." I mutter as I emerge from behind cover. I take one look at the ruined corpses and shake my head.

"Someone bring over a flamer and burn these. Please. Nothing of value here." We move on and soon arrive at what should be the prow of the Long Serpent Battlecruiser. The vessel is impaled nose down into the structure of the Hulk with only the engines still visible externally, like a sword planted in the ground. As we rest to take the first high-fidelity Auspex scan, I get a sense of how this came to be. The prow is a ruined, compacted mess.

The Nova cannon is gone, the entire prow segment of the vessel has been utterly crushed and ruined, but there is just enough leftover that a quick infiltration of the ship's network is enough to confirm my suspicions and work backwards to discern what happened to the once proud vessel. The prow was heavily reinforced, and I can detect the adamantine from the plates in the ruined remains, along with the cabling and materials for a power ram system. This was a ship enhanced to ram things.

If the power ram had been active at full power and the ship had been traveling at full speed, it would have sliced through the first few layers of the Hulk like a hot knife through butter before the field was overloaded and failed, then the ship's momentum would have buried it the rest of the way, crushing the prow and sealing the ship within. Anything extraneous, sensor towers, spires, had likely been torn away.

However, the damage to the prow is constrained to just the prow and a few sections immediately behind it. That bodes well for the overall status of the ship. We know the reactor and engines are operational because the cultists were using them to propel the Hulk. Despite the prow getting scrunched, the Long Serpent lives up to its name. The ship runs a daunting five kilometers long. My Sky Eye finds a suitable entrance into the vessel that is large and stable enough for us to use, which saves us considerable hassle.

The ship is not powered at the moment, and not even emergency lights are on. It's apparent after only a few minutes of exploration that this was a former Imperial Navy vessel. The insides have little ornamentation; they're spartan and utilitarian, prioritizing function over form, without the typical signs of a Mechanicus vessel. I have the team halt to conduct another Auspex sweep, this time with no external interference from the hull and the Hulk.

It's early, but it will give me a baseline of the ship's internal state, its structural integrity, and provide a navigational map to chart a clear and efficient route forward.

"Stygies-pattern Macrocannons and Pyros Melta-cannons? With that prow, I think this captain liked being up close and personal," I mutter with a soft chuckle. As I continue to parse through the data, I gasp sharply, drawing a mix of worried and excited looks from the team.

"The lance turret survived! And it's an archeotech Star-Flare Lance!" I exclaim excitedly, showing L3-3T and Rayke the data, which gets them buzzing with excitement. A further two kilometers deeper into the ship is when we start seeing signs of recent heretic presence as we near one of the two large barracks. Sigils, both painted and carved into the walls, their former gear and equipment strewn across the floor wherever they disintegrated, much of it dubious.

I order my team to scan our surroundings, but they don't pick up anything of any value - the cultists had thoroughly cleaned this part of the ship. There are no other life signs in the Auspex range at least. The second scan is not as encouraging as the first: the shield generator is shot, the Gellar field generator has been broken and defaced by the cultists. The crew quarters, medical bay, and life support are Navy standard components, nothing rare or unusual.

The ship's Auger array has been ruined and scrapped off the hull. The bridge has suffered under the presence of the cultists, as every Imperial symbol has been either scraped from the walls or obscenely defaced. Finding a working cogitator that has information of any value to me takes a while.

"Oh." I say sadly, "That's a shame."

"Princeps?" Felixis inquires, his ears perking up in intrigue.

"The late captain of this ship was a veteran of the Gothic war. It's a shame to lose such an experienced and talented sailor." I chuckle, shaking my head, "One with a sense of humor. The ship is named The Basilisk. Warp core is kaput, but the main reactor is interesting. A Saturnine-pattern Class 4A 'Ultra' Drive with an additional secondary reactor. Looks like the cultists depleted the entire plasma reserve when they triggered both reactors to move the Hulk.

A few of the engine cones are cracked, and the two drives are in emergency shutdown, but I am not seeing any major damage that would compromise the drives." I relay to the team, my tone optimistic.

"The cultists didn't manage to get into his personal vault, however, thanks to the genelocks, and there's a cargo hold we need to check." I lead them to the Captain's office. The vault itself is well hidden behind a wall panel, and surprisingly, it takes me a few minutes to get past the peculiar and tricky genelock, but in the end, I get the door open.

Inside the safe is a wine bottle I don't recognize, the Captain's baton, a packet of sealed orders, a medal from the Gothic war in a display case, and a trio of rings, one of which I recognize as a single-shot digital weapon. I take the items out and pass them around.

"We'll take these with us, and be sure to secure them in the cases." As my team secures the loot, I plot a course to the lower cargo hold.

"According to the manifest, this particular cargo hold was holding an entire company's worth of Wyvern tanks when the ship crashed, and the best part? This cargo hold was never opened when the ship had power." We arrive at the large industrial doors, and I effortlessly disengage the locking system. All that's required now is to pry the doors open.

I gesture at Baldos and the door, and he walks up and grabs one of the massive handles and yanks the doors open, the rusted wheels and gears screeching at first before they yield to his might. I shine a light into the bay and smile. Ten tanks remain safely chained down and secure in their berths, four have broken out of their moorings and tumbled about the chamber, two are upside down, one is on its side against the far wall, and the last is partially wrapped around a steel pillar.

"Well, this was certainly worth the trip." I say, feeling pleased as I mark the area for recovery and transmit back the data on our finds and the status of the wreck.

"Everyone good to continue? We can always return to the operations center to rest and rearm if needed." Unlike myself, the Astartes, and the Skitarii, most of the humans need to sleep at some point. Stims would only take them so far before their skills start to be negatively impacted.

"Alright, we'll head towards the Galleon since it's on the surface and we're nearby. We'll try to find a route through an unmapped portion of the Hulk. A section that has numerous smaller wrecks and pieces that have accumulated over time. It will be good to get it all mapped out and checked for dangers. Any objections?" I ask as I glance around, and when no one speaks up, we make our way out of The Basilisk.