[h2][center][color=0054a6]???. Closest inhabited celestial body: Pentious.[/color][/center][/h2]

The orbital dockyards of Pentious were decades away from being anywhere close to operational. Never mind the actual production of its first capital ship.

Production of the dockyards had actually started prior to the Orkish invasion of Warboss Kracker'Laker, with much of the foundational works put into place during these young and peaceful days. However, the arrival of the Orks had caused priorities to shift, resources and personnel being moved towards wartime production and fighting the ground war. The in-construction dockyards were never forgotten, but had simply been pushed down so far on the list of survival against the Orkish Waaargh that many simply wrote it off as a dream that would never be realized. 

With the orks destroyed and the ability to turn resources towards rebuilding their world in the aftermath, the decision to commit resources and personnel towards the unfinished dockyard rather then towards furthering reconstruction efforts on the ground was met with a degree of scrutiny by many. Myrmidax Uixien's arguments about it being vital to the future defense of Pentious against future greenskin invasions committed by whichever warboss on any of the worlds Kracker'Laker had left in their wake managed to form a Waargh of their own held merit, but it was still going to be a lot of resources spent on something that wasn't going to be able to produce anything towards that defense for decades. 

The abomination of voidships thrown together into a singular, tortured mass of monumental size had caused a great deal of damage and death merely arriving in system. However, it also provided several opportunities. Capturing and securing the abomination and shutting down its ability to warp jump would not only protect Pentious from the second wave of madness as it tore a hole in reality of massive scale, but would allow for the reclamation and purification of some of the ships within the bulk to serve as the core of a new fleet. And since cutting those ships out would be a time intense endeavor, the hulk could serve as a make shift defensive space station. 

Of course, such a feat was easier said then done. 

Scans of the Space Hulk provided... [i]disturbing[/i] readings. Some sections of the hulk provided stable, clear data but [i]others[/i]... 

With some sections of the combined wreckage, the very act of trying to scan it caused the scanners to be infected by some kind of hyper aggressive, corruptive malware. Machine spirits that had long ago been twisted into malevolent monsters by pain and exposure to the alien energies of the warp attempted to spread the agony of their existence to other machine spirits solely by the act of being gazed upon and multiply in fresh hosts.        

Countless cogitators had to be isolated and granted a merciful end in order to prevent the infection from spreading beyond them, but their sacrifice was not in vain. Between them, something resembling a vague map of the hulk was produced; At least Fifty eight ships of various origins and ages, alongside asteroids and other space debris. While the exact layout [i]inside of the hulk[/i] was currently beyond them, in theory there were (logically) around fifty eight warp drives (or their equivalent) that needed to be shut down in order to prevent the Hulk from trying to randomly jump again. 

Of course, in order to perform this operation, there needed to be boots on the ground. 

That part was actually easier to accomplish then one would think. Transport shuttles and void craft that were designed with the intention of transporting goods and manpower into orbit in order to work on an orbital dry-dock transferred over to the transportation of troops and supplies for said troops with a minimum of modifications. The most major of those modifications being updating the fuel reserves so that the transports could range far enough to reach the Space Hulk and come back to Pentious. 

A literal fleet of transport ships took off from Pentious and left its atmosphere behind to travel for four days in tight, cramped conditions. Skitaraii, Servitors, Tech Priests and what would normally have been considered logistical support/camp followers in a more conventional campaign alike made the trip. The plan was to have the shuttles land in different areas of the outer layer of the hulk, taking advantage of entrance points were possible and cutting their way in through the hull if need be, with the intention of covering as much ground and locating key locations to be shut down as swiftly as possible: No one knew just how long the Abomination was going to remain in system before whatever cascade of events that triggered its journeys into the warp manifested and time was of the essence. 

On one of those countless shuttles sat Myrmidax Uixien, his axe resting across his lap as he seemed to be in a state of mediation while trying to take up as little room as possible for the benefit of those who were traveling with him. There was a tenseness in the air of the shuttle that only seemed to grow the closer they approached their destination, even for those who had upgraded their minds to be able to compartmentalize their emotions. 

The destination and operations were going to be taking them into the areas of the highest risk; Their landing zone was assumed to have once been a void ship of some kind, but the unnatural shape it had been forced into made it all but impossible to determine its origins. All attempts at scanning it past the outer hull had failed drastically, with the resulting malware infections of the cogitator being among the most potent and deadly on record, even compared to other sections of the Space Hulk. All that was known for sure was that the energy readings it was given off caused error messages in the machinery and defied all classification.  

Whatever the journey through the Warp had done to that section of the Space Hulk was unknown, but as far as scavenging it was concerned it had already been condemned to the mercy of destruction. The exact nature of its dangers was not apparent, but exist they certainly did. Yet... someone still had to go in there in order to find what was suspected to either a warp drive or something akin to one and shut it down. Or at least confirm that it didn't exist in the first place. 

Rik had never been one to order someone else to do something he wasn't willing to do himself. So he had volunteered to lead what was calculated to be the most dangerous sections of the Space Hulk. As the transport latched itself to the hull and the cutting process began, Rik briefly wondered if that bravery was truly a virtue at times. 

[hr]

Fear was something that Rik had experienced before, but never had he felt just a cold, sharp knife of it punch into his heart like in the second that entrance into the hull was breached. The first and truthfully most horrifying thing to hit him was the unrelenting [b][i]stench[/i][/b] coming from within; Rik was wearing a void sealed suit with an internal oxygen supply. He shouldn't have been able to smell anything! 

There was a moment of panic in which Rik not only ran a diagnostic on his breathing equipment, but visually looked himself over, trying to find a breach or fault somewhere that was causing a leak. Failing to find anything wrong with his own equipment, Rik noticed that the majority of those sharing the transport with him were in the middle of doing what he had just done; Checking their equipment for a leak with various levels of panic. Those that weren't were servitors and tech thralls. 

Accepting that as illogical as it was that this was going to be an unpleasantness that they were just going to have to deal with for the foreseeable future, Rik sighed as he instructed over the vox "The Tech Thralls will stay and hold the transport while the rest of us move in. Try to breath through your mouths like I'm going to do." before he stepped through the breach and entered the condemned ship. 

The first footstep was a ghastly wet squelch noise, followed by a sudden splash that somehow made the smell [b][i]worse[/i][/b] as the top layer of 'skin' broke under his weight. Rik needed a moment in order to try and properly recognize just what he suddenly found himself ankle deep in, and sight along simply didn't provide an answer. The aupex scan [i]did[/i] offer an answer. It didn't make it better.

Blood. He was standing ankle deep in a mixture of old, filthy, crusted over blood and... fresh blood. Blood he was actively watching bleed out of the walls and drip from the ceiling, slowly mixing fresh in with the old. The sight was disconcerting when the reddish substance was coming out of the rusted metal walls, but it was the patches of... [i]pulsing organic matter[/i] that parts of the wall were seemingly completely made out of the drew the eye. 

It... appeared to be some kind of meat. The rotten drapes of flesh upon them and the texture of the muscle structure running throughout gave the impression of someone taking the building blocks of the human body and using them to craft some kind of living support structure out of it. The fact that the structure was twitching and pulsing and [i]actively bleeding[/i] did not, unsurprisingly, make things better. Already acknowledging that things were unlikely to get better anytime soon, Rik allowed a sigh to escape him... before he started to lead the way in deeper. 

[hr]

As the expedition continued within what Rik had privately named 'The Blood Labyrinth' in absence of the original name of the ship, Rik noticed the rising sense of unease that was sinking into those traveling with him. He didn't blame them. The warped and twisted nature of the structure made navigating a nightmare because it followed no logic or reason that could exist in a rational reality and the paranoia of the awful smell being able to seep into void sealed breathing systems never went away. But there were other things as well that he personally didn't quite understand. 

There was something fundamentally wrong with this place that had nothing to do with its twisted physical form, the meat walls or the creek of blood in various states of being that they were wading through. It... It was as if the very walls of reality here were slowly being eaten away by something. Shadows that shouldn't exist or didn't move correctly, things in the corner of the eyes that disappeared when you turned to look. Pathways that gave off an ancient, animal instinct that walking down them would be the last thing you would ever do. 

And yet... Rik didn't seem to feel the same shroud of dread that the rest of his group was enduring and he didn't know why. The only thing that made sense to him was that it was due to something that was apart of his genetic engineering, but exactly how or why currently eluded him.   

But the thought was swiftly pushed back to be reviewed later, for a mystery had manifested before him that needed his attention [b][i]now.[/i][/b] 

In the hallway that they were striding through the blood took a very drastic turn. The blood they had been walking through up to this point was largely black due to rust, grim and decay mixing into it to create semi firm skins and solid mass, but at a cut off point, the nature of the blood changed. It was swallow and dry... almost powder like in appearance. An unhealthy pale color and lacking all the signs of decay and outside contamination. The fresh blood trying to bleed out of the walls was even now attempting to pool, but the small sizes of those puddles suggested whatever happened had occurred here recently.

Raising a fist in order to bring those following him to a stop, Rik started another aupex scan in order to try and get a better idea of what was going on. The results were... [i]interesting[/i].

The targeted zone had been rendered completely sterile of all bacteria and life in a matter of seconds. The water in the blood had been evaporated, leaving behind a lifeless gray ash. Fresh contaminates were trying to move back in but the data indicated that this was not the first time such a purge had happened, nor had it only happened once recently. The area was awash with different energies that had been left behind in the wake of the purge, but by themselves wouldn't be dangerous for them to pass through while in such a passive state; On closer inspection, the energy readings were akin to those created by variations of atomantic generators that served as the basis of rad furnace technology... but the strength of the energy being pumped out was of a much higher magnitude.

And from the data of various blood ash indicating the time between unleashing that energy, it was doing so in wild, uncontrolled bursts. A sign of its neglected, possibly damaged state. Rik couldn't predict when the energy source would activate again since its bursts didn't follow a given pattern. They could have simply focused on going past it and leaving it where it was. But... capturing it could provide insight into atomantic generators in general. However, if it triggered while someone was attempting to shut it down, the readings he had gotten from its past bursts indicated that the current level of protection himself and everyone else in their expedition was using would not protect them... because the level of rad protection required needed to be specialty made for these kinds of levels. 

The information and decision was made within less then two seconds. The binary response took one. "Hold position. I am going to attempt to shut down and secure a malfunctioning piece of archotech." Before the confirmation messages had even reached him, Rik had stepped forward onto the dust as he strode towards an open doorway to look further in.  

Whatever the room had originally been, he couldn't tell. It had been warped, much let the rest of the ship... but to a much lesser extent. The constant sterilizations had prevented the blood and rot from seeping into here as it had everywhere else, covering everything with a thick layer of radioactive dust. Seeing the source of things confirmed what Rik had already deducted; It was some kind of atomantic engine, through this one had clearly been designed to be portable. Some kind of backup generator to be moved around and plugged in to keep a downed section running if primary power failed.   

...One that had been hooked up to a machine that had long ceased to function, causing the engine to slowly build up and overload with power. It had been trying to vent the excess power that it was gathering without release or end, but while it had clearly been designed with emergencies in mind, being left in that state long term was not part of the plan. Time and the constant build up and venting of energy into the world had damaged parts of it, causing it to go into a critical state; As Rik looked it over, the calculations and information he gathered quickly came to one conclusion. 

The engine wasn't going to vent again; It was going to explode and [i]soon[/i]. If it was allowed to do so, its violent death would easily surpass its attempts to vent the excess power before. While the damage to the hulk itself would be acceptable (what with the section it was in already being condemned to destruction), a calculation of the blast radius would mean that everyone in Rik's expedition would be caught in the blast, even if they attempted to abandon the mission. 

This was not an acceptable outcome. The engine needed to be saved and safely shut down. A task that required more hands for him to work with then he currently had. 

"Psi-Upsilon 39, Chi-Tau 27. I need your assistance to defuse a class Terminus level threat." Was it somewhat unprofessional to refer to two of the leading tech-priests with him without addressing them by title over the vox? Under normal circumstances, yes. But with a terminus level danger to contend with, some formality could be brushed aside in the name of not dying. The fact that both of them responded quickly in silence gave credence to that. 

Out of social politeness, Rik gave them several seconds to observe the failing engine for themselves and catch up on the seriousness of the situation themselves before he suggested "I suggest we form a neural link conclave. This is going to require us working in tandem and with the state it is in, we cannot afford a mistake." 

A neural link conclave was a procedure in which tech priests would link into each other, briefly becoming an entity made up of the minds of the participants sharing the sensors, instruments and resources of all their bodies at once. A temporary hive mind. It was not a procedure to be used for combat operations, due to the physical links required to establish the conclave being a clear weak point and limiting the member's individual ability to move around without triggering an unprepared disconnect. There were also some psychological risks involved, since not all personalities meshed well together... or meshed a bit too well. 

But with the nature of the operation they were about to perform, the unmatched coordination and instant understanding of what the others were seeing and doing might be the difference between life and death. It was a calculation that Psi-Upsilon 39 and Chi-Tau 27 couldn't refute, if the fact that after a moment both presented their cables and ports for the connections to be made. 

With the connections made, thus began what would have been the most tense maintenance rituals of Rik's life if those feelings weren't isolated in their respective vaults. Every maintenance ritual was a time consuming affair, with the only silver lining of a possible mistake being that at the range and power of the blast, they wouldn't be alive long enough to realize they had slipped up. 

It took forty minutes. Forty long, tense minutes with the threat of death and failure one slip up away. But where the flesh was weak, steel proved certain. The unity of the conclave proved itself as with a final whine, the engine was safely powered down into a dormant state. With the danger averted, the ritual of disconnection was performed as the Conclave was ended. Rik watched the other two with care, but as both Upsilon 39 and Chi-Tau 27 adjusted post-conclave it was rather clear that they were free of any of the lingering effects that a conclave could cause. 

But the engine itself, now dormant... it was still too important as an example of archeotech to simply leave behind. Having already lost enough time, Rik strapped the engine to his back before they began to move deeper once more.