Salient Pacification The Battle of Plenty Valley, M.31 Thirty bikes raced across the southern desert, dust and grit pluming up behind them. The riders were Astartes, save for the two, the lead bike being a two-man pattern starters bike with a sidecar and heavy bolter strapped onto it. On that bike rode Arnulf Wode, newly-minted Primarch of the Tenth Legion, and his longtime companion, Saul Imogen, who manned the heavy bolter, which seemed comically large for the smaller human. The run had been quiet for the most part, the small kill team moving under cover of night and resting during the day under chameleoline, auspex-resistant tarps to avoid detection. Imperial Army orbital augur scans had confirmed something large and mechanical was traipsing around the southern desert, a machine so large and so densely protected even concentrated orbital lance strikes had failed to kill, or even wound the unknown archeotech weapon. This, however, had merely confirmed what Wode and the naturalized members of Salient had known through legend for years, that there were technological horrors roaming the sands that had made vast swathes of the desert uninhabitable, as the devices would spring from the sands without warning and wipe clean any efforts to colonize these parts of the planet. The merchant houses had, over the years, attempted their own crusades to lay low these ancient horror-devices, but had always ended in failure, the graveyards of tanks and men dotting the desert scant evidence of these failed punitive measures. With the arrival of the Emperor and his Astartes however, a problem that was inconvenient politically for the Merchant houses became top priority for the fledgling conqueror that was the Primarch of the 10th legion. As steward of Salient, as leader of the Pact of the Lance, these Dark Age techno-horrors had to finally be brought to heel. Thus, this kill-patrol, this attack swarm. The merchant houses had tried open warfare without success; the giant war-machine roaming this stretch of desert more than equal to even the most lavishly equipped armies. Imperial tacticians had tentatively agreed when Wode suggested using a small team of warriors to board the device, which resembled something like a giant, mechanical snake or worm, and find some weakness in its insides that could be used to kill it. He had, of course, volunteered for the duty, as had Saul, and most of the newly-minted Pact marines. The team had eventually been decided by lottery, with only Wode and Saul being confirmed by seniority. The radio in Wode’s ear crackled. He wasn’t wearing the specially forged armor his Father had brought him, instead opting for simple tanker fatigues and a carapace vest. He wore a radio headset pressed over an abused and wrinkled field cap, and Saul wore similar. The rest of his team was wearing the lavishly protective armored plate of Imperial space marines, so they didn’t have to shout over the wind noise like he did. “Getting somethin on ‘spex, father.” A deep voice rumbled in his ear. “Looks big. Might be our target.” ‘Bearing?” Wode shouted. The astartes listed off a direction, and Wode ordered his bikes to to re-align and pursue. The device - it had no name as far as anyone knew, and the idea of recognizing it with a name seemed to disgust the strange, half-mechanical priests of Mars - was below them, traveling along a valley that had ironically been named the Valley of Plenty. In truth, this valley was no such thing. A stretch of sand that was, at best, deprived, and at worst, actively hostile to life, it was of little value to anything alive. But, it was narrow, and the sides of the valley gave the team a way to drop onto the top of the beast. The team gunned their bikes, gaining speed, going as fast as the compact fusion engines pushing the bikes along would go. The device was sliding through the bottom of the Valley, kicking up a vast gale of sand and stones that pittered off the armor plating of the bikes with a sound like rain. Wode keyed his radio again, looking for the frequency of the orbital ships of the Imperial Army. “Lord?” The voice on the other end asked, choked by static and distortion. “Son, I need a lance strike on grid…” Wode listed off the grid reference. “We’ve got eyes on the Device and we need it to stop so we can drop onto it.” “Roger sir. Our lances have been primed and waiting. You’ll have your strike in…” His voice trailed off into a blast of static. The night sky was pierced by a bright white beam of energy, creating a hole in the cloud cover and striking the earth in front of the vast machine, throwing up a mushroom cloud of smoke and sand that would be visible for miles around. The machine howled, a sound that seemed like a frustrated scream to Wode, coming to a stop in front of the newly created, glowing-hot gully that halted its progress. The team stopped above the creature, laying their bikes on their kickstands and removing their weapons. Saul climbed onto Wode’s back, as the drop would’ve been long enough to kill him unaided. With a nod, Wode dropped down onto the hull of the beast first, the other Astartes falling in behind him with loud clanks, their mag-locked boots securely clamping them to the ferro-steel construction of the archeotech device. Wode crouched, allowing Saul to hop off his back onto the ground. At five feet, the human looked like a child compared to Wode and his gene-sons, clutching a Salient-pattern autogun, but the primarch trusted Imogen with his life. His own sons, as callous as it sounds, were still relatively unknown quantities. “Start looking for an entry point.” Wode growled to his team, “A hatch, a void we can cut into, anything. I don’t want to be topside when this thing starts moving again.” “Here, father.” A rasping voice sounded over Wode’s shoulder. That would be Markus Vulf, then, the mutilated old-timer that had, if the Legion rumours were true, participated in the unification of Terra. A lot of his legion had, the veterans at least. Wode wasn’t sure what to make of that, inheriting soldiers who had claimed loyalty to his father long before they’d known who we was, but most seemed loyal enough. Wode walked over to Vulf, the Lancers around them parting to their Primarch could go through. “What d’you got, Optio?” Wode said, referring to Vulf by his rank. “Access hatch. Locked, but-” Vulf said, but was cut off. Wode had pulled a bolt pistol from his belt and put a shot through the hatch, shattering the locking bar beneath. He wrenched the miserable piece of metal off of the hull of the beast and threw it away, the hatch tumbling to the desert hardpan below. Wode and Vulf locked eyes, and Wode grinned. Vulf was wearing his helmet, but he laughed, rasping into the local vox push. “After you, Father.” Vulf said, “Age before beauty.” It was Wode’s turn to laugh, as he jumped into the hatch. He fell a few feet, landing squarely on his feet, then caught Saul as he jumped down. The Lancers followed, twenty-nine of them. They had landed in some sort of hangar bay, completely empty and covered in dust and rust. Whatever this was, it was unused by the device, having been long forgotten even for storage. “Spread out.” Wode said, holstering his pistol. He unslung the shotgun on his back, racking a fat shell into the chamber. “We’ll use this room as a staging point. Volunteers, c’mon. I need five men to hold this room while we look for our objective.” Five assents rapidly followed, and five Lancers took up defensive positions, bolters held ready. Wode and the rest strode towards an access hatch facing north, and opened it, striding forward along the device’s length. Fates willing, they’d find some sort of enginarium they could sabotage, but if not, there was always the kilometer or so of machine behind them. As the kill-team walked along the capillarial maintenance trunks and arterial passageways, the sense that they were in something alive became more and more apparent. The temperature took on a humid, warm sensation, condensation beading on the walls. Wode stopped the kill-team briefly, coming to a halt to read the hull numbers in an effort to get some sense of direction besides ‘north’. His hands brushed a trunk of hydraulics hoses and he recoiled, his hand snapping back as if bitten. “Arnie?” Saul said, looking at his hand, then up into his face. “Are you okay?” “Yea, I…” Wode flexed his fingers, looking at the hoses. “Feel those. The hoses. Tell me what that feels like.” Saul looked at him, puzzled, then felt the trunk. His eyes widened. “They’re warm…” He recoiled, “And it almost feels like a pulse…” Wode motioned to one of the Lancers near him, and took the knife from the Astarte’s belt. He cut into the hose, and brown-orange fluid seeped from it. It was oily, viscous. He put some on his fingers. It didn’t seem to burn him, but it was warm, almost hot. He sniffed it. Promethium oil and… he sniffed again. Blood. Wode wiped his hand on his fatigues. He gave the Lancer his knife back. “Father?” The marine asked. “Is everything alright?” “No.” Wode remarked. “I… let’s go. Whatever this thing is is unlike any machine I’ve ever seen.” “Goes without sayin’.” Vulf said from the head of the column. “This is techno-blasphemy most foul.” Wode motioned them forward again. “It’s definitely an affront to -something-. To what remains to be seen. C’mon.” As the party moved forward, the sensation of life became more apparent, more pronounced. Small robots skittered along the passageways, repairing damage, or simply traversing the walls or ceilings. The team ignored them, as the robots seemed intent on ignoring them. When the machines stopped to look at them, it had an animal feeling, like being watched by a cat, more than being scanned by a machine. “If this thing is alive…” Saul said, “And those hoses, those are the arteries and veins.” “Right.” Wode said, not really wanting to consider it, but tired of the silence.” “Then the robots, they’re like the platelets and red blood cells, they fix the damage to it.” Saul said, wiping sweat from his forehead. “One shouldn’t think of these things too hard, human.” Vulf rasped, “They can drive a man insane.” “Let him.” Wode said, “He may stumble on something that will let us kill this thing.” “My question is, then.” Saul continued, “What’s the white blood cell equivalent? The antibodies? We’d be an infection then, wouldn’t we?” Silence passed over the party, itself an answer to the question. Gunfire erupted into their commlinks. “Contacts!” The voice was from one of the Lancers that had stayed behind to guard their entry point. “Coming in through the north and south hatches!” “Kill ‘em. Single shots as they come through.” The Optio of the section responded. “Father, we have hostiles.” “Report, then. Organic? Mechanical?” Wode asked. “Both. They’re human, sir, but they’ve been extensively modified.” Another bolter shot rang through the link. “Like servitors, but…” “Can you hold them?” Wode asked. Silence met his question. “Optio, answer me.” Wode growled, “Can you hold them?” Laughter answered him, female, manic. It screeched into their commlinks, the volume and frequency of it disturbing on a basic, primal level. It made their stomachs churn even hearing it, and then it cut off. The lights cut out in their passageway, replaced by red emergency lighting. Sirens blared. The Lancers began to fire as targets appeared, not even bothering to call out targets. The bolters were deafeningly loud in the cramped causeways, the muzzle flash blindingly white. They were shooting at… humanoid figures, with human features, but the proportions were wrong. They hand long legs and arms, the toes and fingers ending in wicked claws. They had no faces, the skull a cavity that had two pinpricks of light emanating from it. They howled as they came on, folding as .75 caliber bolt shells punched into them. “You said something about the antibodies, Saul?” Wode shouted, shooting his shotgun, the blasts drowning out even the rak-WHOOSH of the boltguns. Saul changed mags on his autogun, the barrel red-hot. “I don’t wanna talk about it, Arnie.” “Push forward!” Wode bellowed, “If this thing is alive, it has to have a brain, or a heart! We find that, we kill it!” The Lancers responded, using the weight of their fire to push up through the causeway. Although they could only fit two abreast, with Wode shooting over them and Saul shooting between them, they managed an intricate formation where the lead two Lancers would fall back as their guns ran empty, pressing against the sides of the causeway as the column moved past them, reloading their weapons and taking up rearguard. It was a peculiarly caterpillar-like motion, but it worked, and they made progress. As they moved up, Wode’s nose began to bleed. He could feel something scratching on his scalp, his skull, but everytime he pressed his hand to his head, there was nothing. The feeling got stronger and stronger as they moved up through the bowels of the machine. The scratching became whispering, then a voice. “What is this, crawling through me…?” the voice whispered. “A new host? You seem worthy…” Wode gritted his teeth, pushing shells into his shotgun. The revenants seemed to have stopped their attack for now, for whatever foul reason their logic worked by. Wode spoke out loud in response to the voice. “A new host?” He growled, wiping the blood from his nose. “I’m your killer, whatever you are.” “Are you…?” It sounded amused. “You don’t seem to be. I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time. I was promised a new host, a strong one, and you are quite possibly the strongest I’ve seen yet…” “-Fuck- your promise.” Wode snarled. Saul looked at him like he was going insane, and for all he knew, Saul was right. “You’re about to learn what disappointment is, you bitch.” “We will see, Arnulf Wode.” It tittered. “That’s not your real name, you know. You weren’t supposed to come to this planet. You were part of a deal, a deal that was reneged upon. I intend to fulfill it, and my reward, oh, my reward...” With that, the scratching sensation on his skull stopped, the voice absent. “Arnie, who were you talking to?” Saul asked. The Lancers, for their part, were too professional to let themselves be distracted by their father as they bounded and held, but they clearly were curious as well. “This thing, I think.” Wode said, “It doesn’t matter. The sooner we kill this… horror, the better.” “Read my mind, Father.” Vulf said, reloading his bolter. They continued on, before reaching another access panel. Vulf tugged on the panel, confirming it was locked, then called a Lancer forward, who sparked a fusion torch. Wode felt the scratching at his skull again. “Let me.” He said. Vulf looked at him for a few seconds, then nodded. Wode touched the hatch, and pulled. It opened, without so much as a squeal of tortured hinges. He stepped through, and the hatch slammed close behind him. He could hear the anvil-blows of Vulf hammering on the hatch, then the hiss of the fusion torch. Then, gunfire. His team wasn’t part of this thing’s deal, and they had served their purpose of delivering him. He sneered at the hubris of this monster, this archeotech demon that had lurked the southern wastes for millenia waiting for… the Lord only knew. Well. If it thought mind tricks were enough to save it, then it would be sorely mistaken. He walked forward into a cavernous chamber, the ceiling and floor not even visible to him. The space was split by a lonely catwalk that he strode upon, his shotgun held ready. There was a light at the end of the catwalk, pulsing, white, warm. He followed it, the scratching becoming louder and louder, until he swore it was flaying the skin from his scalp. His nose bled freely. “There you are…” It cooed, “Come to me. Come to meeeee… Join me, become one with me…” It whispered coyly, seductively, beckoning him to it like a concubine beckoning an emperor to their bedchamber. His body reacted, his pulse quickening, his skin becoming warm, itchy. He was sweating, rivulets of sweat running down his skin, pooling in his boots, his socks soaked through. His men were shooting, cursing, dying on the radio, and there was nothing he could do, nothing except approach the light, approach the warmth that threatened to swallow him. He entered it. It was warm, wet. He pushed through it, elbowing, striking at it, the voice laughing, bubbly and bright, in his head. He emerged out the other side, his body shaking with the psychic pressure on his mind, on his body, threatening to fold him like a cheap table. He looked up. The nexus of this machine, this device, was fleshy, organic, a wet, meat chamber of veins and skin and mass that turned mechanical the farther it got from the center. Polyps were suspended all over the mass, hanging like heavy fruits from tree branches, and as he looked up, one opened, dropping a human figure to the ground. It was a woman, one of the most beautiful he had ever seen, despite being covered in viscera and amniotic fluid. She stood up, her skin light brown, her hair black, her eyes brown, and she strode towards him, confident, smiling. She seemed so familiar somehow, his mind recognizing her, but no name, no face came to his memory. Other polyps sprouted, creating similar women, all of them the same as the first. When they spoke, they all opened their mouths in unison, but only one voice entered his mind. “There you are.” The voice cooed, “Delivered to me, as promised. Come, take your place. My benefactors can grant you anything your heart desires, and so much more.” “Who are you?” Wode spat, “What are you?” “Don’t you recognize your sister?” The bodies spoke, “You were built to be compatible with her. Is she not enticing? I can be anything for you, you know…” The masses of bodies began to change, all except for the first woman, who retained the sister-shape, as it called it. The others formed a vast variety of women, of all shapes, all colors, and in species other than human, some Wode recognized, some he didn’t. “Your father broke his arrangement. His agreement. You and your siblings were scattered across the galaxy because he couldn’t play by the rules he agreed to.” The voice was venomous, hostile. “But you, you can make it right. Join me, and share in my gifts…” The scratching, the pressure increased, but Wode stood, his legs shaking. He lashed out at the press of warm, inviting bodies, his fists killing everything that they struck. Laughter rung out in his mind like the bell tolls of the damned as he killed, but he wouldn’t be stopped. The forms the mass had created were weak, even the one of his supposed sister-primarch. He waded through them the way a man might wade through a high river, his body covered in their blood. He was screaming, incoherent, his rage and his disgust all consuming, rejecting the influence on his mind. “No, NO!” The voice screamed, “You’ll kill me! This is your last chance! Accept my offer or die! The fates are sealed! I am your last chance to live!” He focused, his face a painful rictus of hate. This seemed to hurt the voice, and the mass, more than any physical weapon could. Flesh withered at his indomitable will, his hatred of this profanity of life itself. When he got to the tower of flesh in the center, he tore into it, biting, ripping, and the scream in his mind got louder and louder. He tunneled through the flesh, tearing as he went, soaked in gore, not able to see but able to hear a beating heart, a pulsing that he dug towards in an inconsolable rage, a gross parody of intimacy. He clutched the beating heart in his hand, and he crushed it. The voice stopped, and everything went black. ---- In the coming months, the history of the horror-device of the southern wastes would be wiped from Imperial record, and the survivors of it’s purging sworn to silence. When the team that killed the beast emerged, blinking, into the desert sun, they ordered the Imperial Army orbital elements to bombard its corpse, now devoid of its ability to protect itself or heal itself for three days with lance strikes, ensuring nothing of the foul creature remained. Eventually, even the craters of the bombardment filled with sand, the Battle of Plenty Valley was over.