Before leaving the scrapyard, Leon Drake looked back one last time at the Terran Command Center.
Leaving an installation that valuable behind without protection?
Not a chance.
“Ada.” [Online.] “Lift the Command Center.” “Maintain silent hover mode.” [Command acknowledged.] The next second, brilliant blue thrusters ignited beneath the massive fortress.
The ground shook violently.
The multi-thousand-ton structure slowly rose into the air as its engines thundered, making the surrounding sheet-metal walls vibrate.
Suspended from the SCV’s mechanical arm, Helena watched in stunned silence as the fortress she had seen built only moments earlier ascended into the darkness high above the Underhive.
Within seconds…
Its massive silhouette disappeared.
Optical camouflage engaged.
Only a swirling cloud of disturbed dust remained.
Helena’s lips moved.
For the first time in her life…
She didn’t know whether she should denounce Leon as a heretic…
Or fall to her knees and thank the Omnissiah.
In a place where even rocket launchers were a rarity…
A fortress that could both fly and turn invisible was practically untouchable.
Satisfied, Leon led his two Marines and the SCV into the sewer.
Darkness swallowed them almost immediately.
Filthy water reached their ankles.
The walls were coated with greasy sludge and strange fungal growths.
The air stank of rat nests, rotting flesh, and chemical runoff.
The Marines spread out into a combat formation.
Their Gauss Rifles tracked every shadow ahead.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the tunnel.
Mixed with the sound of metal scraping against concrete.
Not Tyranids.
Humans.
Six figures emerged from the darkness.
The SCV’s searchlight swept across them.
They looked like ghosts.
Thin.
Malnourished.
Wrapped in patched ballistic vests stitched together countless times.
Most carried rusted shotguns.
Two of them wielded whining chainswords.
Their leader was a bald man.
Half his face had been burned away.
A crude bionic eye replaced his left eye, its dim red lens flickering erratically.
The group quickly formed what they believed was a proper defensive formation.
Then…
They saw the Marines.
Two towering figures in blue powered armor stood waist-deep in the filthy water.
The barrels of their rifles looked thicker than a man’s arm.
The bald man’s bionic eye emitted an ominous burst of static.
Clang!
One of his followers dropped his chainsword into the sewer.
“A…
Astartes…” The bald man’s knees buckled.
He dropped to both knees in the filthy water.
To people like him…
Only the Emperor’s Angels of Death wore armor that enormous.
Ordinary Underhive scavengers like them didn’t dare provoke even a lone Imperial Guardsman.
Yet today…
They had walked straight into what looked like living legends.
Leon kept his pistol raised.
Kill them?
Waste of ammunition.
Let them go?
They’d probably sell the information to another gang before sunset.
Besides…
He needed guides.
This maze had no signs, no maps, and every wrong turn risked stumbling into another Genestealer nest.
Fresh guides had practically delivered themselves.
He wasn’t about to waste the opportunity.
“Where are you from?” The bald man immediately slammed his forehead against the wet concrete.
Mud splashed across his face.
“M…
My lord!” “We’re scavengers from the Gear Gang!” “We heard explosions in the sewers…” “…and came to see if there was anything worth salvaging.” Leon glanced over his shoulder.
Helena still hung from the SCV’s mechanical arm.
Her complexion had turned deathly pale.
Black pus soaked through the armor around her waist while dark purple veins continued spreading toward her heart.
She couldn’t die.
Not before revealing everything she knew.
[Unstable Biomass Concentrate secured.] [Resource currently incompatible with Medic deployment.] [Current resources:] Minerals: 35 Vespene Gas: 0 Fifteen more Minerals.
That wasn’t the real problem.
The scrapyard had already been stripped nearly clean.
Anything valuable left behind was buried beneath reinforced foundations.
Digging it out wasn’t worth the effort.
More importantly…
The disgusting biomass extracted from the Genestealer still couldn’t be refined into usable Vespene Gas.
He needed a stable high-energy catalyst.
Or at the very least…
A new place filled with scrap metal while Helena stayed alive long enough to become useful.
He needed a new base of operations.
Somewhere with salvage.
Defensible terrain.
And locals who could be put to work.
Leon holstered his pistol.
“You.” “Lead the way.” The bald man blinked.
Leon looked him straight in the eye.
“Take us to your settlement.” The scavenger opened his mouth.
Before he could answer…
The Marine on the right stepped forward.
Hydraulic joints hissed.
The muzzle of the C-14 Gauss Rifle stopped inches from the man’s forehead.
“The Commander has issued an order.” “Lead.” The scavenger nearly collapsed.
“Y…
Yes!” “It’s only two districts above us!” “Gear Street!” “I’ll take you there!” Leon patted the SCV’s armored tread.
“Big guy.” “Bring the woman.” “Carefully.” The SCV tightened its mechanical claw around the reinforced collar of Helena’s armor, lifting her into a more stable position.
She bit down hard and remained silent.
Her eyes never left Leon’s back.
He wasn’t heading toward an Arbites precinct.
He wasn’t looking for Imperial forces.
Instead…
He was willingly following an Underhive gang back to its headquarters.
Did he have any idea…
That tens of thousands of desperate hive dwellers lived there?
Twenty minutes later…
The group emerged from three twisting alleyways and entered Gear Street.
Calling it a street was generous.
It resembled a giant beehive built entirely from scrap.
Discarded pipes.
Rusted sheet metal.
Torn tarps.
Broken ventilation housings.
Everything had been stacked together until it disappeared into the darkness far above.
Thousands of impoverished hive dwellers crowded the narrow passages.
The air reeked of engine oil, human waste, and cheap synthetic starch.
The moment the two Marines stepped into the settlement…
Chaos erupted.
Merchants abandoned their stalls and fled screaming into makeshift shacks.
Gang lookouts collecting protection money raised their weapons…
Yet none dared disengage the safeties.
Each step the SCV took shook the metal flooring beneath it.
Handcarts and trash bins blocking its path were crushed beneath the treads.
From a nearby alley…
A ragged figure wrapped in filthy crimson robes suddenly dropped to his knees.
“The Omnissiah has revealed Himself!” The partially augmented man frantically traced cog symbols across his chest before repeatedly kowtowing toward the SCV.
To a low-ranking follower of the Adeptus Mechanicus…
This crude…
Heavy…
Unadorned machine looked far more divine than the incense-covered relics he worshipped every day.
Suspended in the SCV’s grasp, Helena felt a chill run through her.
These Underhive gangs usually had the audacity to ambush isolated Arbitrators.
Yet now…
Every one of them cowered against the walls.
No one questioned where Leon had come from.
No one dared block his path.
Down here…
Firepower…
And sheer tonnage…
Were the only laws that mattered.
“Commander.” “The road ahead is blocked.” One of the Marines stopped.
Deep within the settlement…
The gates of the largest scrap-metal fortress burst open.
More than a dozen armed men rushed outside.
At their head stood a massive brute whose body had been crudely rebuilt with cybernetics.
His right arm had been replaced by a heavy hydraulic manipulator.
His left hand gripped a bolt pistol.
Ironbone.
Leader of the Gear Gang.
Hearing the tremors, he had assumed another gang had come to seize his territory.
He had intended to fire a few warning shots.
Instead…
The moment he stepped outside…
He froze.
Blue powered armor.
C-14 Gauss Rifles.
And behind them…
A three-meter-tall yellow engineering machine.
His bolt pistol stopped halfway into firing position.
The Marines reacted first.
BRRRT!
A burst of Gauss rounds screamed past Ironbone’s head.
The composite steel wall behind him exploded apart.
Fragments the size of dinner plates blasted across the courtyard.
Several of his men were struck by the flying metal and collapsed screaming.
The entire settlement fell silent.
Thin trails of white smoke drifted from the Marines’ rifle barrels.
Ironbone’s bolt pistol slipped from his hand.
His mechanical arm twitched uncontrollably.
He hadn’t even seen them aim.
Leon stepped over a pool of filthy water and walked to the front.
He pointed toward the scrap fortress built from abandoned generators.
“Move out.” “I’m borrowing your headquarters.” Ironbone stared blankly.
“…What?” Leon pointed toward Helena.
“This woman was wounded by a Purestrain Genestealer.” “Something may hatch out of her at any moment.” Every face in the settlement turned pale.
Purestrain Genestealers.
In the Underhive…
Those words inspired far more terror than an Arbites warrant.
Leon slowly looked around the settlement.
“I need scrap metal.” “As much as you can gather.” His calm gaze settled on Ironbone.
“You have five minutes.” “If I don’t have enough materials by then…” He glanced toward the unconscious Helena.
“…when the thing inside her crawls out…” “…your entire settlement will make a fine first meal.”