I don't know if you have ever tried to hide from a group of heretics while naked and painted with arcane sigils, but it isn't even as much fun as it sounds. I ducked through access ways and pipework, worming my way deeper into the decayed heart of the ancient machine. From what I had seen the heretics knew they had been made, judging by the fact they knew Hadrian's name, that was because they had been warned and not merely because their man had been killed. I dearly wished I were sifting through astropathic communiques rather than dodging las bolts in the underhive to find the answer. They were obviously burning the evidence of whatever it was they had been doing here, denying intelligence to Hadrian and the Ordos.

"Find the bitch and kill her!" someone shouted off to my left and I turned right, heading away from the sound as silently as I could, my shoulder blades itching for the las bolt I was certain they were about to collect. I heard activity up ahead of me and slowed my pace, peering out from the edge of a gangway into a vast open space. It took my mind a moment to realize it was a starship shuttle bay, though turned on its side when whatever ancient ship this was had crashed here. Dark fluids fell from above, making the air shimmer with rainbow refractions.

"Throne of Terra," I breathed as I realized that every ancient refueling line had been broken open and were currently spilling ancient prometheum down into the void below. All it would take would be a stray blast and this whole place was going to go up like the mother of all fireworks. I doubted the higher ups had bothered to inform their low level cultists about this face. A las bolt burst against the bulkhead beside me in a shower of sparks.

"She's on the shaft rail!" someone shouted. Praying their wild firing didn't touch off the waterfall of volatile petrochemicals I bolted up a nearby set of stairs, chased as I went by a stream of las bolts.