บท 22: Chapter: 4.3
Chapter: Zeta-IX
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Part: 3
Space Station Zeta-IX - Section E19
En Route to the Lance Battery
The Inquisitor glanced around the carnage and felt nothing but irritation,
'Frak! None of them have a whole head!"
The air in the corridor was thick with the acrid scent of burnt flesh wafting off of the twenty-thirty-odd corpses which were of limited use to her, very limited indeed.
At least until they were properly examined, there would be no conclusions or information that she would be able to extract from them. Only if they had a whole, unmelted brain, she might have raided their memories and scourged around for information with no regard for the Pirate's mental stability.
'Well, no point in regretting now.'
Instead, she snapped off a couple of instructions through the Vox channel,
"Enyo, Athena, Ariadne. Front, back, and center. Next time we encounter hostiles, try to capture one of them alive."
The Honor Guard fell into position within moments, showcasing a precision that would have left the Strom Troopers gaping.
Greybrand and her Honor Guard pressed on, their armored boots crunching over the grisly aftermath of the ambush. But a sudden buzzing sound in her comm-bead caught her attention.
"Report."
No sound.
Static.
More static.
She restrained an urge to tear the damned thing out and stomp on it, she was pretty sure that someone had initiated contact over the main Vox channel. But the party on the other side could not be someone hostile or simply playing a practical joke unless one of the team got their asses handed to them.
"Team Alpha. Report."
Another burst of static before the channel suddenly opened up loud and clear,
"This is Team Alpha, objective secured. I repeat, objective secured."
That was a bit of a surprise.
If the guardsmen and guardswomen had managed to secure the emergency generator before the Battle Sisters and her Honor guards... well, they should be competent enough.
"Team Alpha to Command Element. Requesting instructions on how to proceed with surrendering hostiles."
Greybrand thought for a moment, on one hand, they could get some more fresh specimens to interrogate, but she was pretty sure her team would find more than enough enemies in the Lance Battery Station.
"This is Command Element to strike force. Give No Quarters."
The words hung in the air for a moment and before the Catachan woman could reply, the Sister Superior's voice cut in,
"Confirmed. No prisoners."
So the bolter-hag does talk!
She didn't know how to react to the Battle Sisters' sudden bloodlust. It was something closely monitored by Ordo Hereticus of course, but the Emperor's light seemed to shine slightly more upon his daughters and the Inquisition had yet to find any signs that might indicate their vulnerability to blood fanaticism.
"Confirm instructions. Alpha out."
For a moment, she thought she overheard the crackling sound of lasgun firing over the comm before the network closed... well that was the command after all.
Greybrand gave a mental shrug as she dismissed the lingering doubts about their course of action. This was 'Warhammer 40K,' mercy was for the powerful or the dead. She wasn't any of the two.
With the directive clear, she and the Honor Guard continued their advance towards the Lance Battery. The corridor stretching far into the distance was proof enough that they hadn't crossed even a single section as of yet. In their defense, team Alpha's objective was right next to the hangar or to be more precise, right below the Hangar, which should explain their relatively quick securing of their target.
If anything, it was the Sororitas she was more worried about, those fanatics' target was at the very center of the station, roughly a kilometer of corridors and hallways from the hangar. They would likely encounter the toughest resistance and might sustain losses.
'Serves them right!'
The Inquisitor thought with a strange glint in her eyes.
The Inquisition was no charitable organization, its hands were stained in the blood of traitors and loyalists alike. Ordo Xeno, however, was the one that handled most of the dirty work. Purposefully assigning suicide charges to the Sororitas wasn't that big of a deal, at least for her it wasn't.
The corridor eventually reached a blast door, and if their auspex scans were correct, on the other side was a large chamber, leading to a set of stairs that would lead them straight to the Lance Battery.
Enyo signaled for the team to halt, good that she did so, Greybrand was picking up an even larger concentration of souls behind the door. She waited as one of the Honor Guards, the engineer from the looks of her armor, fixed a small demolition charge to the airlock and withdrew along with the rest of them.
"Prepare for entry,"
She instructed, her voice crackling over the Vox channel. Purely as a formality, of course, they were more than experienced enough to already be preparing for breach.
Fully charged power packs were snapped into place and Athena moved to the front, her melta at the ready for breaching. Greybrand reloaded her bolt pistol and drew her power sword, anticipating close combat.
She gave the engineer a curt nod and the woman pressed the detonator.
*BOOM*
Despite being a small charge, the noise generated was deafening. What made it worse was the narrow space in the corridor, although wide enough for a space marine to run through, as was the norm for most of the imperium structures above ground. Still, the echoes of the explosion left her ears ringing.
Her Honor Guard, unperturbed by the noise due to the insulation of their helmets, rushed into the chambers, hellguns at the ready and melta beam pouring in at the very front.
What they were met with, was a scene of utter carnage!
Corpses of pirates and traitors cluttered up the space, their faces a twisted mask of terror and pain. Figures clothed in the local PDF uniform or tattered cloaks, guts spilling, limbs scattered, brain matter painting the wall, corpses bisected both horizontally and vertically!
Enyo kept low behind the heavy cover provided by ruined machinery, in case any nasty surprise was left for them in the room. She moved from cover to cover, in a pattern that made it easier for the rest of the squad to follow her, looking for any hostile targets and taking note of the occasional dead bodies.
As the team pushed deeper into the chamber, they encountered more and more bodies, mutilated and broken. The walls and floor were splattered with gore, making it difficult to avoid stepping on an organ or two or getting blood on their boots. Even with a rebreather, Greybrand could still smell the faint metallic tang of blood and death, mixed with the the acrid smell of burnt flesh.
"Bloody Throne."
She cursed as her boot thumped down on the spilled innards of a pirate, spilling blood and what looked uncomfortably like undigested food from his insides. This was getting a bit uncomfortable even for her.
'There are souls here alright, just not in their bodies.'
Which was just as good since if she tried to scavenge their memories, the poor bastard wouldn't be able to struggle both physically and spiritually.
Enyo was soon joined by Athena as they reached the center of the hall, their weapons at the ready for any survivors, but all they found were more corpses. The other Honor Guards dispersed, looking around for survivors or a clue as to what happened. However, from the looks of it, they only had hopes for the latter.
'There is something strange about this room.'
The Inquisitor moved closer to one of the corpses, her boot stepping on a bloody hand, once belonged to a girl from the looks of it, not ripped out but severed with something sharp. Not ominous at all.
Her attention, however, was soon drawn to another corpse and she knelt down to examine it, not minding how her clothes got progressively less clean and salvageable with each step.
It, or rather she, was once a PDF trooper, that much was apparent from her worn-out, light blue flak armor. Average height, bluish green hair, lean build, pale skin from the excessive blood loss, spilling innards, and a slit throat, the former incapacitated her and the latter dispatched her.
Not much to see but from the amount of her intestine hanging out of her belly, she could tell that both blows were dealt in quick succession and her half-drawn laspistol meant she saw who attacked her and was about to retaliate.
Greybrand wiped the blood off of her name tag which read Sergeant Jenny of some 8th Company, 3rd Planetary Defence Force Regiment.
"Let's see if you've got anything worthwhile."
To her, it mattered not if 'Jenny' had been a loyalist or a traitor, it was her objective to acquire information so she could advance the Imperium's interest, and if she could keep her hide intact while doing so, then all the better. The sororitas could bath in blood for all she cared, as long as they didn't take off her neck while at it.
Greybrand removed her gloves and extended her hand toward the dead woman's head, her warp sense gathering on the tips of her fingers, ready to obliterate any mental defense that 'Jenny' might have had when she was alive. If she was an unbeliever, her mind would be as easy to read as an open book, if not, well...
'All in the name of the Emperor.'
Her fingers clasped around her head, a thin strand of warp energy seeping into the corpse's skull, and then...
"Frak!"
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