章 488: Far Future Ch. 198 – Into the Belly of the Spire

The three psions present all hid their swallows, feeling the brushing of those Helices like a great and deadly siphon, ready to drain away all of their power and render them no more than any other man. Expending psionic energy while touched by the Helices would be impossible, it would simply be drained away. While the streams of smoke and multi-hued fire were up, however, they had nothing to fear from the power of the Warp...

"Where did she go?" Bemrin repeated, looking at the tunnels extending out, forming the lifts and layers of a typical kiloplex's maze of public transportation.

Klisto advanced up between the pilot seats, the Coronal and Umbran parting to let him, and simply pointed ahead. Kiprugh sent the skimmer gliding forwards, following that arm.

They passed idle trains and maglevs, some of them badly mangled and shot up, blocking open tunnels, and signs of violent conflict all about them. They were tumbled and crushed and bent like toys, with bullet holes and searing blobs of metal ripped through them, and the traces of a great deal of blood everywhere.

That blood was then used to daub more hideous and blasphemous symbols on everything around, nothing going to waste... although the bodies were gone, no bones hiding in nooks and crannies, although scattered dropped purses, clothing, shoes, and other items that might have fallen off the dead were scattered here and there.

The skimmer glided into a final landing, a relay point for workers embarking for jobs and positions deeper into the Crownspire ahead of them. There was one maglev off the tracks here, tumbled and crushed like a broken saint, the glitter of crushed safety glass scattered beneath the broken windows and mangled hulls of the carriages.

He looked left. "She went down that tunnel." Everyone looked at the dark subway access, where at least a half-dozen lines of writhing Runes seemed to be converging and plunging into it, making it look like some great devouring hole sucking away foul energies for some unknown purpose.

"What prompted her to do so?" Inquistor Hrom frowned.

"There is a maglev approaching," Sergeant Kampi spoke out, turning his head, confirmed a second later by Techmeister Vahix. Weapons arose warily as they waited in the darkness, only the emergency lights that could burn for a century still working as they fluttered and flared in a profoundly disturbing manner and cadence, while the lights within the skimmer itself glowed steadily.

There was no roar of an engine, only the rushing howl of air getting out of the way as the great engine shot by without slowing, towing car after car of what was obviously not passenger carriages.

"She was following one of those! After it!" Sir Mugamu ordered crisply, and as the maglev's final cars roared by at over two hundred mph, the skimmer spun and shot after it into the yawning maw of the dark tunnel.

"Munitions transport," Sergeant Kampi stated in his filtered bass. "Carrying shells to the guns on the Spire. They are emptying the distant warehouses before they tap their own."

Everyone acknowledged his assessment with nods as they hurtled after the maglev. If they followed this maglev, naturally they'd be heading right into the heart of the enemy's base!

"Is she planning to blow the munitions dump?" Gemrin hazarded to nobody in particular, the sniper keeping watch on their rear.

"That would hardly take out the Spire. Their munitions will be too separated. She might be able to knock out a bank of artillery and make an opening in the bombardment, but that would be all, and certainly insufficient to stop the enemy," Sergeant Kampi stated. "Such a tactic would take a large-scale assault striking at multiple locations where the munitions are stored."

"Then she's going for the leadership, who should be around there, hoping it will disrupt something," reasoned Hrom, eyes thoughtful.

"No," said Klisto, staring ahead. "She's following the Rune lines to see where they go, and what the Warped are planning."

They looked at him, and glanced out the sides of their eyes at the unclean colors flowing past them in the tunnel and stations they were passing, looking like pulsing, foul serpents moving up and down the walls, ceiling, and floor at their speed.

"The Warp is planning something big," Sir Mugamu breathed.

"Very, very big," the Assassin acknowledged. "Big enough to threaten the planet."

Everyone there swore to themselves.

"Does she plan to stop them, or aid them?" the Techmeister said skeptically. "Such stakes... the Warp would offer much to stop any interference."

"Are you feeling greedy, Techmeister?" Sir Mugamu said in a very strange tone of voice, setting his eyes on the more-machine-than-man Mechanist.

Artificial eyes rotated in his direction, then away. "My thoughts are clear on this matter, Sir Knight."

"That is good to hear," the Coronal replied softly.

"We're veering!" Kip shouted out, as the train ahead of them suddenly swung into a side tunnel, and finally started heading towards the heart of the Spire. Likewise, the Rune paintings all diverted with them, and were joined by others coming in from the other direction, merging and making writhing patterns of Runes even larger, more colorful, more damning...

Everyone averted their eyes, to the point of actually looking at the floor of the skimmer so as not to see the patterns, instinctively try to follow and work them out, and so damn themselves without even knowing how they were doing it. Kiprugh had actually narrowed his entire field of vision down strictly to the train ahead of them so he couldn't see them...

"We should be coming up on the primary transit station of the central Spire in thirty seconds," the Techmeister droned, and his waldos and servos began to whine and charge up, getting ready for combat.

Holsters were clicked open, hands laid to weapons. Sergeant Kampi stepped back and picked up the heavy, thrice-blessed heavy autolaser standing up at the stern of the skimmer, hefting the heavy weapon in two great gauntleted hands like a toy. Gemrin hastily plugged the power relay cables into the sockets on the Legionnaire's armor before picking up his own long rifle. The barrel of his rifle abruptly Compressed over two feet, reducing it to a much more manageable combat firearm.

The rumbling roar ahead of them suddenly dispersed, wan light tinged with an unhealthy yellow-green was visible, and abruptly they were out in the open.

The room was immense, as was only suitable for a place that had seen millions of people of foot traffic every day. Sunlight filtered by polluted clouds, the whining refraction of the Dome Shields stopping orbital bombardment, and something glowing and burning below, washed across a cavernous room big enough to drop a stadium into with room to spare, with at least a dozen track lines streaming into it from all directions. The central lanes were occupied by dozens of maglevs sitting idle in them, while the outside lanes were occupied by cargo haulers urgently lifting off racks of artillery shells, shuffling them onto cargo lifters heading for side tunnels, or great lifts that had been built into the sides of the room recently, blots on the smooth stone adding to the searing blasphemy made of the famed Tellus Anointed fresco of the vaulted ceiling, now rendered into something unclean and maddening to look upon.

It was a hive of activity, of lifters and cranes, and masked and shambling men and women going about their tasks, faceless and tireless drones of the Warp, knowing only work, work, work. Carts and carriers pulled away with their loads ceaselessly, others zipping up and waiting in long and hungry queues for the new ammunition coming in ceaselessly.

On the other side of the tracks, there was rather more activity then there was on this side, which seemed to be rather distracted for some reason.

It could have been the burning corpses in the cabins of half a dozen cranes, making it impossible to unload more ammunition until they were relieved. It could have been the hundreds of corpses, strewn around their right side. Drivers were burning in their seats, workers were fallen and burning white in every direction, and the trail led across and over the tracks to their left, where the ground was ablaze with a virtual wall of ignited vivus eating away at dozens, hundreds of writhing lines of power snaking across the ground and frescoed walls towards a massively expanded side tunnel there.

Warped were racing that way from all directions. Some were the normal Warped shambling around in their ichor-daubed work coveralls; some were bloated Possessed, shepherding the others on with deep cries and imprecations in no mortal tongue; and some were full demons, towering over the masses of Warped and laughing at the carnage. Servomechs made for moving cargo, now bent and twisted and rippling with unnatural energies, cannons and bolters crudely nailed onto them and moving back and forth as if alive, lurched towards the tunnel, following the trail of dead.

Nobody said anything, but they looked at the carnage and thought mutually, How far was she ahead of us, and she did all this?

"That way!" ordered Sir Mugamu, and Kip grimaced as he wrenched the skimmer to port.

It was starting to whine in his hands and mind, and he knew it wouldn't make it out of here, especially closing in on what looked like a nexus of Warp energies ahead. He simply gunned the motor as fast and hard as he could, laboring for altitude enough to cross those tracks before the anti-grav blew out with a whimper, and they started falling rather too fast.

He started the whole fight by holding down the nose-mounted pulse laser and simply spraying it back and forth, uncaring of how much energy he was using, and there was certainly no way he was going to miss a target. The inertial field that streamlined their air passage ate the force impact as they hit the ground, and the jets behind kept them skidding forwards into the mass of troops coming apart under the skimmer's gun, until he crashed into a rather big demon and the skimmer spun away and around.

Those aboard opened up with their sidearms, with the roar of Sergeant Kampi's thrice-blessed autolaser the loudest thereof, the prayer ribbons upon it drifting about as endless streams of hard light chewed into the crowd of Warped and the things they had brought here, plowing through multiple targets and sending bits of sliced and superheated corpses exploding in all directions.

Sir Mugamu's mindsword drove deep into the head of the demon that had sent them spinning and detonated, blowing its ill-formed and bulbous head into foul spatters of fleshy ectoplasm... which the unwhite fires burning all over the floor leapt up to devour hungrily, rapidly turning the multi-ton, sloughing corpse into a virtual bonfire of vivus.

Rapidfire assault lasers sent the Warped falling in all directions, and then the team piled out; leaping, jetting, bounding, even Blinking as it might warrant. Techmeister Vahix rose up on six spider-like legs, clambering out with complete balance and control, his waldos and their mounts spraying mixtures of flesh-shredding flechettes, precise laser fire, and plumes of hot plasma at Warped, Possessed, and demons, as appropriate. Four mini-rockets launched from a hive on his shoulder, spotting lasers painted from his eyes guiding them to the lumbering demonized mechs as the burning skeletons manning them screamed, and completely outsized explosions blew long-dead operators and demontech to flying scrap.

Gemrin busied himself taking out anybody that looked like they were giving orders, had a decent head on their shoulders, or the Warped were paying attention to, popping skulls with relentless precision as he hustled along.

Sergeant Kampi was striding backwards with perfect balance and control, faster than a man could trot, and hosing down everything behind him as he did so with the casual ease and accuracy of long experience.

Mentat Kiprugh was the least adept of them in combat, but he was a Ten, and so still incredibly dangerous. He was Blinking from place to place, a heavy laser in each hand, popping headshots at point blank range before flitting off quickly.

Sir Mugamu, Inquisitor Hrom, and Assassin Klisto were basically leading the way. Each had a heavy laser in one hand and a weapon in the other. They were all moving with incredible speed and vicious efficiency, while Techmeister Vahix ambled behind them and handled the mass slaughter aspect as the three men deftly sliced through the masses of Warped. A glowing mindsword, a dark blade, and pale Helices wrapped around a hacking long kukri reaved through the Warped, their owners blurs of gold, shadow, and elusive smoke as they killed.