[center][img]https://cdn.openart.ai/stable_diffusion/80ba3165a316a7ddcb867a27431b3d99dd900dff_2000x2000.webp[/img]
[h2][Undisclosed Location]
[Deep Beneath the Himalazian Mountains][/h2][/center]


There should be some sort of grand pronouncement at things like this.

At least, that’s how the histories always wrote them down. The Director shifted uneasily as she looked over the final report for the… she had lost track of how many times she had read it. Everything seemed correct, but far from feeling the triumph of success the scientist kept searching for a flaw, some error that she had missed earlier. She didn’t dare to let herself have hope anymore. But…

It was undeniable. The two children, vat-bred and flash-grown from her own genetic stock, had passed every preliminary test and screening she and the rest of the Biotechnical Division could devise. They were perfect, or at least as close to perfect as any human could ever become. It was them, or cancel the project entirely.

With a deep, bone-weary, sigh, Amar Astarte stood from her desk and prepared for surgery. Distantly, suppressed, the glory hound that lived in the heart of every great genius mused upon the words she would use to usher in a new era of human history, the thoughts flashing by as she reflexively went through the motions. She had done the procedure enough times now after all.

[i]I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds[/i] flashed into her mind as the boy and girl were sedated.

Too trite. Long overused by generations of madmen unleashing their newest weapon. Besides, these were meant to be more than a weapon.

She paused at that last thought, hands covered in soapy water. Did she still believe it? Did she trust any one of his promises? She had to. It was the only way.

[i]I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End[/i] intruded upon her as the first of the artificial organs were being implanted in the girl’s chest cavity.

Better, but too aspirational. She wasn’t playing God. A frown crossed her face, hidden by her mask, as she looked down at the organ in her hand. Secondary heart, the simplest and easiest of implants. Very low rejection probability. Most of her assistants in the operating theater - failures, all, for so few could be trusted with this most sensitive of tasks - had one beating in their chests, placed there by her own hand.

Perhaps she was playing God. Then again, what did that make those who had commissioned this great work? The heart beat its first beat as she was lost in her musings, her body having carried on with the task without her. The work was good, flawless even. How many of these had she implanted? There was a record with the exact number. She decided she didn’t want to know.

[i]I am He who protects you for millions of years[/i] took months for her to remember, the woman thinking of it as she sliced open the boy’s brain. The full-production models would rest years in between the surgeries, but the prototypes didn’t have such a luxury. 

The thought was better, she decided, seizing upon the distraction as she took the occulobe in hand. That was the point of all of this, wasn’t it? To create protectors. But that did really mean robbing those chosen of their childhoods, their lives? She stopped, letting out a shaky breath as she pulled her hands back and gave the implant to one of her gene-lineage. She couldn’t work, not like this. The failures could continue the surgery.

Her mind did not intrude again. The thirst for fame fled from her thoughts, chastised, knowing that it had almost brought about failure. The remaining surgeries went as planned, the Director icy-eyed and unfazed as she butchered the pair. She needed the focus more and more as they proceeded, as the two proved themselves capable of withstanding what was done to them. There were far fewer successes with each step further she took after all.

Until, at last, she was upon the greatest and final desecration. Flaying the girl, for there was little else that could be said of the procedure, and piecing the skin back together again with the grotesque black layer now laid beneath.

[i]Like clay I shall mold them.[/i]

The thought wasn’t hers, of course, but then again none of them had been. That ate at her, somewhat, that at the precipice of her triumph, she could only think of the ancient prayers of long-dead religions. But this wasn’t one of those either. No. This was his.

“They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give themselves to me,” she whispered to herself as she grafted on the last of the plates. “Like clay I shall mold them and in the furnace of war forge them. They will be of iron will and steely muscle. In great armor shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them. They will have tactics, strategies and machines such that no foe can best them in battle.” By now she had moved on to suturing up the mess of skin she had created, hiding the horror she had unleashed upon the two - they were no longer children, no matter the age attached to them.

“They are my bulwark against the Terror,” Amar continued in a stronger voice, the heads of the failures turning towards her quizzically as she turned off the drip of sedative to the warriors she had forged.

“They are the Defenders of Humanity,” she recited, nearing the end of the charge that he had set down when this project had begun so many long years ago. The Director took a shaking step back away from her work as a rebellious part of her prayed that these two, unlike so many before, would wake.

“They are my Space Marines and they shall know no fear,” the Director said with a confidence she did not feel as stimulants began to flow into the pair’s blood.

Two pairs of eyes flashed open.

[hr]

The echo of boots clicking along the floor vied for supremacy over the sounds of hissing mechanical arms and chattering cogitator banks. The place was alive with the actions of several hundred white-suited scientists working tirelessly in the cold sterility of the lab. They spun liquids in glass beakers, moved pipettes of unknown organics across Petri dishes, focused magnometers, and clicked away at archaic cogitators of immense power. Between them, scientists with red stripes running vertically down one side of their sterile suits from their shoulders crossed from station to station, their hands writing ceaselessly at the dataslates they held.

Above it all, Aria Allectus watched through the armorglass windows and floor of her office. She had the best view in the entire facility, her circular office set high above the laboratory floor allowing her an unimpeded view of every workstation. She could pull information from any cogitator bank or workstation she gazed at with her implanted optical augmetics, monitoring the progress of the hundreds under her charge with ease. Few things unsettled her here, in her domain, at the forefront of scientific advancement. But the being standing in her office unsettled her beyond words.

“The cultivation goes with only minor issues, th---”

“Minor issues?” the voice rumbled, rich and low at Aria’s choice of words.

“Minor issues, Lord-Tribune, when the stocks were lost to us---”

“A temporary setback, Assistant Director Allectus, we will bring the stocks back into our embrace soon enough. For now, you must make do with what you have, no matter these setbacks.”

Aria gulped, hoping that the Custodian before her couldn’t sense her fear, but knowing all too well that he could. “Of course, of course. My people are working as efficiently as possible,” she eyed a cogitator bank on the far side of the vast space below her and pulled up the scrolling information within it, the information projecting onto one of the windows of her office as she did, “In fact, we are operating at 137% efficiency, the cogitators provided to us from the Terrawatt Clans have raised our numbers significantly and my Floor Leaders tell me they expect a further increase by the close of next year.”

Tribune Sachiel, resplendent in the golden armor and fine filigree of his station, nodded in approval as he took in the data in what Aria could assume was less than a heartbeat.

“Fine work, Assistant Director Allectus, the Emperor will be proud no doubt,” he paused, turning his head to face Aria as he took a step across the room, “but you must do better.”

“Better, Lord-Tribune?”

“Better. The Sigillite foresees the need for your work far sooner than anticipated, and the Emperor agrees. Show me then, that we can meet His request beyond doubt.”

Aria nodded to the Lord-Tribune and scooped up her dataslate from her desk. She motioned for the Custodian to follow despite knowing she did not need to, and made her way through a hissing autodoor and into a brightly lit hallway. The walls were roughly hewn bedrock, sterilized, and hermetically sealed by engineers long ago, but they had the peculiar look of glistening rock at all times despite the humidity in the entire facility being zero. She brushed past the lingering thought and made a quick pace through the halls with the Custodian close behind.

“Lord-Tribune, might I ask, why the timeline is being accelerated?”

The Custodian, keeping easy pace with the far smaller Assistant Director, nodded as his voice rolled through the corridor in step with them, “Ursh makes inroads in Europa, threatening Franc and Albion as we delay here.”

Aria listened intently as she walked, soaking in the information from the world outside her aseptic halls and security doors.

“We have achieved much, as I’m sure you’re aware, the Nordafrik Conclaves bow to us, and the central Steppes our the Emperor’s as they should be,” the Custodian gave a nod to a fellow Custodian standing before a massive security door to their front.

Aria stopped as an automatic security scan quickly read the pair's biometrics before releasing a set of heavy interior locks from within the door ahead of them. She gave an uneasy smile to the Custodian Guard before it, grateful to warrant such protection but well aware that they served as both protector and goaler here. The groaning of the behemoth of a door filled the hall as it rolled along its track into the recesses of the wall, pulling her focus away from the demigod and back to her task at hand. She stepped through the doorway into a new hall, she noted the auto-turrets tracking only her as the Tribune walked alongside her down a long causeway suspended over a seemingly never-ending abyss.

“So Ursh forces our hand? Can the first of the gene-wrought truly not handle Ursh?” she asked carefully.

“The Legiones Cataegis make a game of the conquest He leads. They accomplish their task well, but there is a need for reinforcement, Assistant Director. [i]Stable[/i] reinforcement. Reinforcement that can be sent into our own territory is desperately needed, foul magicks are unleashed in our conquered cities as we march on toward victory, and the Thunder Warriors are not the proper instrument to deal with these incursions, lest we leave our hives and manufactorums devoid of life and purpose.”

“Of course,” Aria agreed, well aware that the Thunder Warrior’s ranks had been left to dwindle for longer than she cared to admit.

Another biometric scan and a lifetime of security checks later and the pair were finally at the final destination. An observation unit, large enough for some fifty people, looked down on an operating theater in all its aseptic glory on one side of the room. On the opposite side, shuddered windows overlooked an unknown room.

“The Director has been busy, I apologize if it seemed a purposeful slight to you, Lord-Tribune,” she bowed her head in deference as she stepped toward the windows of the observation unit, “but I have received word that we have finally had the success you so push for.”

“Survival?”

“More than survival, Lord-Tribune,” she turned her gaze to the two subjects, still strapped down to their operating tables with fluid lines and archaic constructs running from their flesh, and smiled as she noticed their eyes searching the room. 

“Space Marines.”

Tribune Sachiel did not seem to share Aria’s awe at the sight before him, turning away in what she could only assume was frustration.

“Only two, they will not be pleased with this progress, the Director must be aware.”

Aria smiled, tapping a key on her dataslate as she spoke, “Two Space Marines, Lord-Tribune yes,” the security shudders began to slide away from the windows on the opposite side of the room, revealing a new room beyond.

“With a hundred thousand more well on the way,” she smiled.
The shudders rose quickly, revealing a room beyond full of growth vats. Myriad organs floated suspended within liquid solutions, monitors reading critical data by the millisecond, in some of the vats, far in the distance of the expansive room, floated humanoid figures. She motioned toward the center of the room, wreathed in cryogenic frost and surrounded by mist, and stood twenty massive edifices, like the sarcoffagi of the Gyptian Kings of old.

“137% efficiency,” she stated proudly, “We are ready, at present, for the implantation of forty-four thousand subjects.”

“Forty-four thousand [i]Space Marines[/i],” Tribune Sachiel corrected with a hint of a smile.