Tremors.
With a loud bang from the hydraulic locking mechanism, the Thunderhawk Gunship’s landing gear slammed heavily onto the deck.
The hatch opened with a hissing sound.
A mixture of stale oil, incense, and the musty smell of long-term confinement rushed toward him.
Alex jumped off the ramp and was dumbfounded.
This was not the starship hangar he knew.
There was no bright LED lighting, no holographic guide lines, and no neat automated robotic arms.
Overhead was a black steel vault dozens of meters high, like the ribs of a cathedral buried deep underground.
Dim red emergency lights dyed the entire space an eerie color.
The walls were covered with huge red cloth banners inscribed with golden prayers he couldn’t understand, their edges blackened by oily smoke.
“Move!
Don’t block the way!” Several Armed Attendants wearing crude robes with numbered iron plates hanging from their chests waved batons.
White steam puffed from behind their masks, and their voices were muffled as they herded Tros and the group of surviving veterans inside the yellow and black cordon like livestock.
On the other side, however, was a completely different scene.
A group of attendants in dark red ceremonial robes carefully surrounded the thunderhawk’s cargo bay.
They held holy oil, incense burners, and pure white wiping cloths.
As the Astartes carried down the bodies of their fallen brothers, these attendants immediately knelt on the ground, chanting sorrowful tunes in low voices while wiping the blood and filth from the power armor with trembling hands, as if these were not just corpses, but holy relics just taken from an altar.
Several sets of lifting magnetic locks slid down from the ceiling tracks, securing the remains of those steel giants one by one onto the recovery racks on the hangar’s side walls.
The metallic clicking sounds were crisp and efficient, like driving the final rivet into a coffin lid.
“…This is truly insane.” Alex coughed repeatedly, choked by the pungent white disinfectant spray.
He watched the Priests pasting wax-sealed papers onto the engine nozzles, applying holy oil, and reciting prayers to appease the machine spirit, his eyelids twitching.
One fellow covered in tubes held an incense burner under the thunderhawk’s nozzle as if feeding medicine to a fierce beast, while another stuck a piece of paper sealed with red wax onto the metal casing, gently touching it with his forehead after finishing.
Alex complained wildly in his mind.
Are these people running a spaceship or a temple fair?
Maintenance relies on prayer, and engines smell incense ash…
it’s a miracle this ship can even fly.
He turned to look at the veterans behind him.
Tros was staring at the several Astartes corpses being carried away, his eyes showing no sadness, only fanatical envy.
“They have returned to the Golden Throne…” Tros murmured to himself.
“This is glory.” Alex curled his lip and didn’t respond.
In his view, death was death.
Whether lying on velvet or rotting in the mud, the end result was becoming a pile of dross.
So-called glory was just a placebo made up by the living for the dead…
a confessional.
“Get in.” Two Armed Attendants with cold faces pointed toward the heavy airtight door with their rifle butts.
Their armor wasn’t particularly sophisticated, and the Chapter insignia on their shoulders was worn white, but their aim was steady, as if they were long accustomed to keeping their distance from things like Alex that might cause trouble.
Alex and half of the surviving veterans were pushed into this narrow metal compartment.
On the floor was a black gridded drainage ditch, where dried brown stains could be faintly seen.
Rows of rusty chains and iron plates covered in talismans were riveted to the walls.
Click.
Hum— The airtight door slammed shut behind them, followed by the sound of several heavy mechanical lock bolts striking, completely cutting off the outside noise.
“This is what you call ‘valuable’?” Alex kicked a metal bucket in the corner, making a loud clanging sound.
He leaned against the cold wall, looking at the scriptures carved there as warnings.
For example: Ignorance is bliss, the heretic must die.
The surviving veterans huddled in the corner, their wounds only given the simplest bandages.
Some looked around in terror, but no one dared to complain.
Tros leaned over, clutching the deformed Aquila Badge tightly in his hand.
“Don’t say that, veteran.” Tros’s voice was very soft and trembling.
“The Angels must be cautious.
We have had contact with Xenos…
we must go through the purification process.
This is for the safety of the Chapter.” “The Emperor will protect us.
He remembers our sacrifice.” Alex glanced at Tros’s bloodshot yet still devout eyes.
It seemed that if they didn’t have that bit of ethereal faith to sustain them, this group of people would have probably gone mad long ago.
“Fine.” I hope your Emperor has a better memory…
the Apothecary’s laboratory.
There were no dim candlelight here, only cold white shadowless lamps so bright they made one dizzy.
Various complex instruments of unknown purpose emitted a low servo hum.
The air was so cold that every breath carried frost.
Alex wasn’t locked up with Tros and the others for long.
A few minutes later, he was led here by two Servo-skulls.
Heaven knows how much he reacted when he saw those floating bone things; it was only because his weapons had been confiscated, otherwise he would have performed a one-second magazine dump.
But clearly, as a mortal providing support to the Astartes, his treatment was slightly higher than that of the pure consumables—but only slightly.
He was sitting on a metal examination table, shirtless, with several cold probes attached to his spine and arms, reading some kind of data.
Each slight adjustment of the probes brought a lightning-like sting.
At the other end of the room stood a transparent Stasis Casket.
Captain Davian Tull was suspended in the Stasis Field, as if pinned to a specific moment.
Time was locked around him, but the massive wound in his chest was still shocking—dark purple toxins were eroding along the cracks like a frozen spiderweb, clinging tightly to the patterns of his blood vessels.
Apothecary Gordian.
This Apothecary of the Blood Ravens Chapter had his back to Alex.
He wore white master-crafted power armor, and his left arm was equipped with a terrifying integrated medical/cutting device, with blades, needles, clamps, and syringes arranged like a cluster of closed fangs.
Before he had stated his identity, Alex really couldn’t associate his gear with a medical profession like an Apothecary at all.
Zzt— The miniature cutter in Gordian’s hand made a soft sound.
From the crack in the pauldron that had just been brought in belonging to Thaddeus, he carefully scraped off a layer of dark purple viscous substance—the bodily fluid residue left by the Tyranid Warrior.
The Apothecary dripped the sample into a glass test tube filled with red liquid.
Beep—Beep—Beep—!
The nearby analyzer instantly erupted with urgent red alarms, and the symbols and charts on the holographic screen reorganized like they were going crazy.
The drop of black substance diffused wildly in the red liquid, like ink swallowing clear water, painting everything “normal” into the color of death within seconds.
“This toxin…” Gordian’s voice came through his faceplate, “is highly gene-invasive.
It is attempting to overwrite the host’s genes.” Alex looked at the test tube that had instantly blackened and couldn’t help but frown.
As a Pilot, he had seen all kinds of biochemical weapons, but this was the first time he had seen something that seemed to have its own will.
Alex moved his shoulder, which was numb from the probes, and asked in as relaxed a tone as possible, “Since you have the sample, you should be able to come up with an antidote, right?
I mean…
that thing doesn’t look that hard to deal with.” In the wars back home, as long as there was a sample, wouldn’t one injection make the Captain fit as a fiddle again?
Gordian stopped his movements.
The white power armor slowly turned, the servo motors emitting a slight hum.
The green lenses on the helmet stared dead at Alex, as if looking at a pitiably ignorant single-celled organism.
He held up the test tube that had completely blackened and shook it gently.
“Antidote?” Gordian let out an extremely brief laugh.
There was no humor in that laugh, only a statement of some desperate reality.
“This sample is indeed enough to prepare a serum to save the person in the Stasis Field.” The Apothecary turned and walked to an embedded observation window.
It wasn’t an ordinary porthole; orbital scales and runic markers floated within the dark glass.
On the screen, large areas of Calderis’s planetary surface were marked with spreading purple regions, like necrosis spreading; further away, strings of unfamiliar light points were approaching, arranged not like a fleet, but more like biological tentacles.
Gordian’s voice was as cold as if pronouncing a death sentence: “But it is not enough to save a planet.” “And even less enough to save this sector, mortal.” Alex followed his gaze, and the smile on his face slowly vanished.
He finally realized that what they were facing wasn’t just a small planetary campaign.
“Aside from tendon strength and bone hardness far exceeding ordinary people, your body has no further abnormalities, mortal.
Now return and await orders; the Imperium will soon require your sacrifice.”