The Subsector Project

Caomer Subsector – Near Hazoul Anchorage – 901.M41

  The Proctor breathed in, the stench was sticky, musty and sweet in all the worst ways. It was the smell of organics- life, death, decomposition. It was all underpinned with a metallic taste, likely heavy metals, maybe blood.

“Rack ‘em!” Sergeant Miloh’s command growled through the vox, and helmeted figures around the Proctor acquiesced, their lethal armaments clicking and buzzing as they came to life at their operators’ commands. Proctor Giurney paid them no heed. He had brought no weapon beyond his authority, and the inert baton at his side, and had eschewed his helmet once the Mechanicus ship had been confirmed both airtight and free of airborne pathogens. He was a different form of person.

The airlock hissed as it finished cycling, giving them the first glimpse of what lay beyond. Slowly, his eyes adjusted, just in time for the Breachers surrounding him to flick on their headlamps, destroying his night vision. The hallway before him was cramped, its manufacturers evidently unconcerned with human comfort.

“Proctor,” the sergeant sounded almost apologetic as he nudged Giurney aside to take point position. “Please stay behind us.” The man had been reluctant to allow a Proctor to accompany them on the initial boarding process. Navis Breachers occupied amongst the highest-mortality roles for the Anchorage Naval Authority, and did not typically appreciate bringing hangers-on along with them. Nothing the verbal battery of his superiors couldn’t fix. Nevertheless, the Proctor dipped his head briefly, allowing six of the eight-man team to pass him, their visors reflective and expressionless. They were, after all, the professionals.

“Limited power, no lights.” The most technically-adept of the Breacher team’s members buzzed in his ear, as if the evident lack of lighting weren’t a dead giveaway of such a fact. “Functional servitors- short timeframe loss, no biological hazard.” The lights played over a pair of dead-eyed servitors standing straight-backed and rigid next to an internal door, still at their post despite the absence of any crew members to serve. Giurney paused for a moment to inspect the duo. They sported the usual bushel of augmetics, lacking eyes and jaws, fitted with replacement servo limbs, that sort of thing. Both had a grey, pallid countenance, and showed some sign of emaciation due to a long voyage.

“I’d rather we didn’t tarry, Proctor, most derelicts do not become so by accident.” Miloh kept the same tone of obsequience, and Giurney fought the urge to strike him. He was technically outside their chain of command, an interloper to their world, and the rigid hierarchy of the Navis Imperialis more generally, so he likely could. Yet still, he imagined it would brook him no favors with the heavily-armed men, far from the grasp of the Adeptus Arbites stationed aboard Hazoul Anchorage. Instead, he gave a tight smile, his hand fingering the shock baton for a moment before he stepped back from the servitor, leaving it to its continued sightless attention.

Giurney easily fell into step with his escort, listening to the clicks of the vox as they cleared hallways, rooms, and junctions one at a time. The ship appeared to have suffered no damage, and they found no bodies, save for the occasional expired servitor less fortunate than those they’d encountered in the hallway. Seemingly, the Mechanicus crew of the ship had simply vanished, leaving their vessel to be swept up by the tides of the Empyrean and deposited at the outskirts of the Hazoul system.

Giurney knew better. His contacts had provided him the exact time and place of the ship’s arrival, the exact nature of its abandonment, and the tools he needed to find the object of their desire. The ship had not drifted, it had been sent.

“Command sanctum ahead.” The sergeant signaled for the squad to form up as they emerged into a larger chamber. Now, at last, they were able to stand more than two abreast. The doors before them depicted the cog of the Mechanicus, observed by two decks above them to allow for worshipful assemblies, railed and gilded in the deepest reds of Mars.

Here, the servants of the Machine God still worked and moved. Dozens of servitors crawled the decks, ceaselessly cleaning, polishing, working their tasks as ordered, not even pausing to identify the interlopers in their midst. The Breachers’ tracks were wiped away from the burnished deck before they’d even gone a score of paces.

“Query: Identify.” The tech-adept had paused by one of the servitors, causing it to stop its work in turn. The machine’s body was bent and wasted, its optics boasting multiple levels of magnification to better identify spots and deficiencies in its cleaning efforts. It remained bent, frozen in place as it responded.

“Compliance. Explorator QZ-R.401-039.” The servitor droned, unmoving, its tone was dry, as though uninterested in its words.

“Part of an Explorator fleet?” Miloh’s voice was sharp as he paused next to the adept, shotgun steadily aimed at the top of the servitor’s head.

“Syntax. Unrecognized. Repeat.” The servitor droned, the weapon unnoticed. Its hand slowly extended, a clawed and damaged thing, clutching a burnishing rag as it sought to correct an unseen blemish.

“They’re not going to be able to answer, sergeant.” The adept helpfully piped in, earning a cuff from Miloh’s gauntlet.

“I can hear that, Yoerk.” He grunted, shifting his shotgun-mounted light to the doors before them, flitting it across the twenty foot tall Cog Mechanicum, cast in bronze. “Get these doors open, I think we’ll find our answers within.”

The group moved efficiently, rearranging themselves to cover the massive sanctum entrance, switching their focus from the dozens of mind-slaved servitors to a new potential threat. Yoerk muttered a brief litany of activation and tapped into the control panel adjacent to the ceremonial portal, connecting it to a powercell hanging from his webbing.

“Proctor, if I may,” Giurney sighed at the sergeant’s words. The man had opened a private channel to his comm bead. “This smells wrong. This feels wrong. There are no Explorator fleets in the sector, and I would be hard-pressed to imagine one having any business in the Nobus. This ship should not be here.” The man was correct, of course, but being correct was different than being right.

“I’m not sure how you can smell at all with your helmet on.” Giurney remarked dryly, kept his voice low, letting his comm bead pick it up without carrying to the rest of the Breacher team. “We will extract momentarily, once we confirm that there are no stowaways aboard and we can safely salvage the ship.” He was aware that his reasoning for joining the team aboard the system defense vessel was transparently thin. Such a task would certainly be within the purview of the Adeptus Arbites, but in interceding so publicly he was breaking protocol. Unless the promised reward were worth it, there would be questions he would eventually have to answer.

But eventually assumed he would be sticking around to answer them.