Chương 12: Chapter Eleven - Take and Hold

Alexis thought that sending one of her servitor friends ahead would be the wisest choice. If something jumped out of ambush, they would take the brunt of it, and while she didn't like the idea of having one of her friends be hurt in her stead... well, she was also not entirely non-pragmatic. Her friends were more metal than flesh by mass. Something that a lot of adherents to her faith desired, ironically. They were repairable. She, on the other hand, had two points and a wrench.

Vyper was helpful, guiding her through the passage they were in, then backtracking up a floor. That brought them to a long, wide corridor with a low ceiling covered in pipes that made her rather nervous. She had been down this same passage before, but last time, the shadowy spots between the pipes had been nothing but shadows. Now, they were places where enemies might be lurking. She almost leapt out of her robes when the sounds of las fire echoed down the passage from way out ahead, followed by distant shouts.

Heart in her throat, Alexis started to jog forwards, but then slowed down. 054-648 could keep up well enough on such a flat and even surface, but K84-321's stumpy little feet could only move so fast. Still, from the screaming up ahead... she didn't want to linger too long. Around a slight bend came a four-way intersection. There were guards posted there, with barricades laid down to provide cover. Most of them, she noticed, were on the sides, lasrifles aimed outwards, and it was those to the right who were firing.

Someone noticed her, and she froze up as a las rifle was levelled in her direction, then it was lowered.

"Tech-priest?" the man holding it said.

"Hey! Get to cover!" Alexis nodded and scampered over. A few others saw her, and her companions, and moved one of the barricades aside. What she found was a small command area of sorts, built right there in the corridor. A voidsman-at-arms with command stripes on his lapel was speaking into a vox hooked up to another's bulky backpack. He noticed her, then lowered the vox.

"Ma'am," he said.

"Are you here for the priests?"

"I'm sorry, what?" she asked. His frown, if anything, deepened, and he eyed her up and down.

"I take it you're not?" Alexis almost shied away, but then she remembered what she was here for.

"No, I might be? I'm here to help! I'm Alexis Lambda-3, from the Servitorium. I'm a Tech Acolyte. These are my, ah, companions. Which tech priests are you talking about?" It was pretty normal for common people outside of the Mechanicum to confuse the ranks within the Mechanicum together. To them, there was little distinction between a Transmechanic and a Lexmechanic, and she bet that most of them could hardly tell an Electro-Priest apart from a Rune Priest!

She had a bit of a hard time, sometimes, especially since unlike many others, they didn't have very standard uniforms. Martian red was what everyone from the lowliest Adept to the greatest Archmagos wore, and that was it... unless they were from one of the other forge worlds, in which case it got even more confusing. The voidsman-at-arms sighed.

"We've lost three decks. Sealed off to prevent the mutants from spreading too far. A lot of us are putting out fires, literally and otherwise, across the rest of the quadrant and don't have time to be fighting anything. Sealing the area is the command I received and I'm carrying it out."

"I understand," she said. It made some sense. Closing the bulkheads would lock the genestealers to one place, at least temporarily. If that gained them some time, then it was to their advantage. There were plenty of enforcers and voidsmen on The Broken Scale. Once they were organized, they could sweep through the deeper sections of the ship and eliminate the mutants. Then the Adeptus Mechanicus would come in after them and appease the machines disturbed by the chaos and perform necessary maintenance.

At least until they returned to a dock.

"I sent three members of your order ahead, to close one of the primary bulkheads. QT1-4. If it's shut, then the mutants will be redirected into our killbox here. They haven't reported back."

"Were they alone?" she asked.

"I sent them with a squad, and they're not reporting back, either," he replied.

"Oh... which way is that?" He pointed past the barricade that his troops were stationed at. The firing had stopped, at least for the moment. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. That corridor was darker, less well lit, and there were a few dozen corpses lying across the space. She could recognize the malformed shapes of genestealers.

"It's getting rough here, but it's worse a deck below," he said.

"Okay, then," she said.

"There aren't too many of them, right?"

"Here? No. Just stragglers from what we can tell."

"Good, good," she said.

"Can I borrow a gun?" One of his eyebrows perked up.

"Don't you have your own?"

"No?"

"Do you know how to use a lasrifle?"

"It can't be harder to use than any old tool," she said before giving him a winning smile.

"No." Her smile was replaced by a pout.

"Fine, then," she said.

"Ah, wish me luck!" She moved over to the barricade and pulled it aside... or tried to. Instead all she did was strain her arms and grunt a bunch. Much to her embarrassment, a few voidsmen took pity on her and stood, helping her move the barricade aside so that her servitors could pass.

"Thank you! Sorry, coming through! Come on, guys, this way." She could feel the eyes on the back of her head as she walked out.

"We just letting her go, lieutenant?" someone asked.

"She's not in my chain of command," he replied. Alexis walked a little faster, trying to ignore the bodies on the ground as she did so.

"Vyper," she subvocalized.

"Are there going to be a lot of them?"

"Not initially." That was less reassuring than she may have hoped, but it was better than nothing. At the end of the corridor, she came to another junction. There were stairs to one side, and more corridor to the other. Vyper told her to turn left, down the corridor, and so she did just that. It wasn't long before she had company. Three genestealers moved, slowly, out from the shadows, then a fourth dropped down from the ceiling. Alexis' heart was beating so fast she felt faint.

"Guys, we--" she began. Then the genestealer nearest her started to speak.

"Good, good little priest. Red, red, yes," he said, his voice a growl, as though he had not seen water in days.

"More of you come. To help friends, yes? This is good. But you don't need to worry. No. The Clawed Emperor welcomes! Come. Join. No pain. No pain, just... purpose. Yes? Is good. Very good." Alexis shook her head.

"What? No."

"Alexis. I should warn you that based on your brain chemistry, this near-human is affecting you with a neurological agent of some sort." She blinked and shook her head. A what? But there was no smell other than the oil and incense and grime of a normal corridor, and the thing ahead of her, the man, he didn't seem that evil. A little wrong, maybe, a mutant, certainly, but. He pulled out a small item, on the end of a chain, and started to wave it to and fro.

"Come come? You're lady. Very pretty, yes? We need you! We need you. You will give birth to many more."

"Oh, uh... 054-648," she said before swallowing. Her gaze could barely move from the swinging symbol.

"Large calibre." There was a thump, then a hiss. The mutated man's head exploded. The other three were shocked, just for a moment, before they screeched and ran at her. She eeped, then ran back, ducking behind K84-321. One of the genestealers rushed for her anyway, but was caught out of mid-air by a pneumatic grabber. A moment later, K84-321's new pruning saw was jabbed into the mutant's guts, splattering blood across the floor.

054-648 kept shooting, but the remaining genestealers were quick to dodge past him and rush at her. She swung, eyes closed, and felt a hard crunch as her wrench rammed into a monster's head. Then KYS was there, scalpels and saws swinging out around Alexis to stab and cut into the genestealer. Then the last of them rammed into her, and she screamed. It didn't last long, however. The genestealer grunted as three smaller rivets thumped into its back, then it was grabbed in a powerful claw and ripped away.

Moments later, Alexis was still lying on the ground, heart thumping away, but... Kills Confirmed: 4x Genestealers New Point Total: 42"Well done!"

"Yeah, thanks," she said.

"We, uh... need to make sure we don't run into too many of those. I think that was a near thing."

"I think you did well enough, all said and done."

"Thanks?"