Chapter 6

Mike skidded to a halt outside X-ray's armory. The others were only just arriving before him.

"What's the situation?"

"Fucked, that's what it is!" Daniel yelled over his shoulder as they jogged to their suits. "Jesus, you should have heard what that Fullhorn guy was going on about when he called us in the hangar. He says Captain Lightner and two of his own senior officers were in an elevator when its brakes failed. Sent them falling straight to the bottom of the ship. If they're still alive then they've been down there for almost two hours."

"Two hours?" Mike asked. "Haven't they sent their own team in?"

"They did," Billy told him, appearing on a holographic display at the centre of the room. "Two in fact. One went down the shaft seventy minutes ago, the other one is heading down now."

"Why would they send two teams in?"

Mike stepped up to his MJOLNIR armour and turned to let the tech crew do their job.

The AI turned her projected face towards him. "They lost contact with the first group after they hit the bottom of the ship. Now, they officially stated to us that the first team had only lost radio contact. But as you all know," she said, looking smugly into the distance. "I'm not one for 'official statements'. I did some digging through their com network, not the easiest thing to do but doable none the less, and it turns out the team didn't just get washed out by radiation."

She played the transcript of the first team's mission log. In Mike's opinion, it was one of the most awful things he'd ever heard.

+ [Capt. Fullhorn] Sergeant?

[Sergeant Drovtis] We hear you, sir. We haven't found Lieutenants Fisk and Traviss or Captain Lightner yet. It does look like the emergency hazard suits are gone though.

[Capt. Fullhorn] Confirmed, move ahead and find them.

[Sergt. Drovtis] Alright men stay tight. You know this place is off limits and you know why. I want Krobec and Salles to take point for their squads. Move parallel to each other down those corridors. Go, go!

[/FFW˃˃20Minutes/]

[Sergt. Drovtis] What have you found, Guardsman?

[Guardsman Ieko] Looks like one of the rad-suits, sir. It's had the shit torn out of it, but there isn't any blood. I'd say our missing guys musta used it as a distraction for something.

[Sergt. Drovtis] Hmm. Second squad, what have you found, over?

[Unknown Guardsman; Second Squad] Err…

[Sergt. Drovtis] Second Squad?

[Unknown Guardsman; Second Squad] Well, there's blood over here, sir. And bullet casings. Lots of 'em. From the looks of it they were firing back down the corridor in the direction of the elevator.

[Sergt. Drovtis] That's bad. It means they're getting hounded like lobotomized grox down here. Okay, second. Keep moving forward. If you don't find anything then we'll meet you at junction…86-D. Copy?

[Unknown Guardsman; Second Squad] Copy, sir. 86-D. over and out.

[/FFW˃˃15Minutes/]

[Sergt. Drovtis] All right, men. 86-D. Hold up, Salles, we'll wait for second squad to get here.

[Unknown Guardsman; Second Squad] Serg-…-vis-…-eant Dro-…

[Sergt. Drovtis] Second? Second, you're breaking up! Where in the Emperor's name are you?

[Unknown Guardsman; Second Squad] Corridor T-sixte-…-bout half a click from your current-…-God Emperor, they're just-…-tearing-…-ease hel-…

[Sergt. Drovtis] Throne. Salles take Ieko with you and find out what the hell those idiots are doing.

[Guardsman Salles] But, sir-

[Sergt. Drovtis] Damn it, trooper, I gave you an order!

[Guardsman Salles] Sarg! Listen! (Distant screeching; unknown origin)

[Sergt. Drovtis] What the hell?

[Guardsman Prokovo] Whoa! Motion spike on my tracker! Throne, it's coming from corridor T-16!

[Sergt. Drovtis] Is it second squad?

[Guardsman Prokovo] Negative, it's too large.

[Sergt. Drovtis] Form up! At least two men covering each corridor at all-(Rending of metal; Sub human screeching) Shit! (Las-fire) Salles! Get that fucker off of Prokovo! (Terrified screams) Ieko? Ieko, calm down, Emperor damn your corpse! Ieko-...+

Mike's armorers stepped away from him. Their usual pre-mission banter had died away minutes ago and their faces were grim. Mike wished there had at least been some video to show what they were up against.

He put his helmet on and walked to the centre of the room.

The others assembled around him. A look, not of dread but determination framed each of their faces. They put on their helmets, and marched out of the room.

THERE WAS barely enough room. Raze, Auem and Cain stood behind Anicetus in the cramped space of one corridor leading away from the elevator. They had waited nearly twenty minutes for the Spartans to arrive. The first was just detaching from his ascension cable; the blue armoured team leader, Mike.

The soldier made no salute, he simply walked over to Anicetus as his team repelled in behind him.

"Brother Anicetus," the man said.

"Brother-Sergeant Anicetus," Cain corrected him in a menacing tone.

Anicetus told him to calm down through their com-beads. He turned back to the Spartan. "Do not worry yourself, I care not. Now, as for our mission. I believe that we should move in separate groups with one Spartan and one of my own brothers in each."

"I don't think that's wise," Mike replied. "There will be communication problems and our tactics are too different."

"Yes, but since our tactics are different, when our enemies attack one member of a group then they won't be able to predict the movements of the second." Anicetus tried to say this as reassuringly as possible, but was unable to gauge the Spartan's response through his visored helm. The smaller warrior did ask, however, what they would be fighting.

"Hullghast," Raze answered him. "The children of former crew and stowaways mutated into little more than beasts by the radiation."

"All right then," the Spartan said. Anicetus watched him move back to his squad to give them orders. He turned to his own brothers to do the same.

"Brother Raze, you shall go with their weapons specialist. You don't have your flamethrower, but you can help direct her fire. Auem, go with their scout and move ahead of us to pick up the trail. I shall move with their team leader. Cain shall have to go with the other two Spartans." They gave their acknowledgments. Anicetus went to confirm the choices with Mike. They had had similar ideas.

"Brothers, move out."

Adel wasn't angry. He hardly ever was.

Many people thought Adel was one of the silent brooding types. He saw himself more as the 'strong but silent' type; he didn't say much, but that was because he often thought there wasn't a need to. The space marine Mike had told him to go with however…

Adel wasn't angry, but he was downright annoyed.

Adel appreciated his skill and observational abilities, but the man would not stop talking.

"Hmm," he started up again. "These tracks here in the grime suggest they went along in this direction. It looks like they continue onwards for quite some time up the same corridor. Hello, what's this?"

Adel watched as the giant bent down to pick up a tattered piece of yellow material stuffed between an old crate and a bulkhead. Auem, as he was called, studied it for some time before putting it back. Adel opened a secure line to Mike.

"Mike, we just reached point alpha, object of interest found."

"Affirmative, Adel. Don't move it, take a look and keep going till you reach point beta. Out."

Adel clicked his radio off and followed behind Auem.

"What were you doing back there?" the giant asked.

"Nothing," Adel replied. "Just calling it in."

Gun tracking from left to right, Isabel stalked down the corridor with her space marine counterpart not far behind. The place was giving her the creeps.

Gothic and dark by its original design, the access ways and corridors were made even more grim and menacing by the bursts of steam from old and broken pipes, the flickering of emergency lights and the constant damp that covered every wall. Every vent and duct and door had the potential to hide an enemy, and memories of the transcript weren't helping.

At least she had her gun and Raze there to help. She had seen him fight during the battle of the space port back on Hope and she had been impressed by his ability to remain perfectly calm and on task, moving slowly but surely to wipe out the orks.

She stopped. A noise was coming from a junction up ahead. Raze moved to her side, his bolter up.

"Trouble?" he asked.

"You bet your life," Isabel whispered. With her night vision she could see the creature. Like Raze had said earlier it was once human, but it had since degraded into an animal. Its skin was leathery and pulled taught with horns erupting at odd places across its body and great talons replaced what were once fingernails. Raze made to shoot the creature, but Isabel held his bolter down. "Don't want more of them to show up."

She thought for a moment. "Hold my gun," she said, thrusting the weapon into Razes grasp. Drawing her combat knife, she flipped it in the air and caught it again by the blade. She drew her arm back and cast the knife through the air, embedding it into the hullghast's temple and sending the beast crashing into the deck.

Isabel moved over to retrieve her knife. Raze followed and handed her back her machine gun.

"A fine throw."

"Thank you. Now I guess we'd better go, there could be more-"

Isabel was smashed to her right, into a bulkhead. A second hullghast had snuck up from behind and now stared down at her prone form. It raised its clawed hand to strike at her helmet but stopped as it noticed Raze moving slowly towards it. The hullghast took a swipe at his chest plate which he shrugged off and continued on. Catching a second swipe at his head, Raze calmly clasped his free hand around the creature's mouth and face. Unable to call for help the hullghast died flailing its arms as Raze crushed its skull with little effort.

With a single bloodied gauntlet, Raze picked up Isabel's machine gun by the barrel casing and used it to help her up before giving it back.

All she could say was. "Thanks."

CAIN WAS angry. He usually was.

He had thought that Auem's ceaseless ramblings were rage inducing, but these two Spartans made up a whole new meaning for the word. They constantly squabbled between each other, their arguments not only tiresome but also extremely trivial. The taste of the food on their ship, which of them was better at sports. The only one of their arguments Cain thought was worth listening to concerned which of them had the higher kill count, but even this he found unbearable after it began to drag on.

Listening to them both did reveal much about their characters however.

He had discovered that one, named Daniel, was a whiney, annoying and cocky fool. It came as no surprise when he was told Daniel was a pilot.

He had also discovered that the other was a risk taking, talkative, warmongering, near-insane idiot named Connor. Worryingly, Cain had also learned that he was a demolitions expert.

Cain followed the two of them through a large archway. He had not expected what was on the other side.

The archway opened out onto the floor of a large room with crates of ammunition and old equipment scattered around the entire space. At the centre of the room was an enormous blast door leading down into a disused airlock.

The two Spartans moved out, inspecting each crate. Cain walked to the one nearest to him and brushed the dust from its side. The stenciled letters underneath the dust read 'Lasgun Standard Ammunition Cartridges'. He moved to the next crate and did the same, only this time a grin flickered across his usually stern face. The crate read 'Handle with Care: Hellfire Bolt Rounds'.

"Confirmed, Brother Cain, stay in contact with us."

Mike was barley listening. They had been searching the lower decks for an hour and the only hope they had of finding Captain Lightner and the others were the broken trails they found in every other corridor.

Mike did have to hand it to Adel and Auem. They had kept each group heading in the right direction this entire time and hadn't lost the real trail once.

"That was Cain," Anicetus said to him. "They have found a weapons cache. If we lose the ability to get back to the elevator we can use it to resupply and fight through."

"Good."

Anicetus stopped.

"What's wrong?" Mike asked.

"Nothing," the giant replied as he started walking again. "You just seem quite distracted. We should only be focused on finding our men."

Mike followed him. But there was one question he just had to ask. "Anicetus, do you have any other space marines in your unit?"

"Hmm? Well, yes there is one other in fact," Mike cocked his head to one side, motioning for Anicetus to continue. "His name is Sigvald, of the Space Wolves. A silver-tongued young man he is. Quite a rarity for a Wolf scout to be so young. The only Space Wolf I've ever known to shave and one of the few Deathwatch marines who operate in scout armour. You've met him, haven't you?"

"Just before we came down here," Mike replied. "He cheated me out of the prize money for a fight."

"Aye, he'll do that. He often sets up fight clubs to 'weed out all the dissidents on a ship'." Anicetus laughed. Mike could tell the Wolf scout had other motives.

They continued on down the corridor.