The autocarriage underneath Hector rumbled and jolted as a wheel clipped the edge of yet another crater pockmarking the road, prompting a grumble as he attempted to find where on the mission dossier he had been reading by the dim glow of a stablight. He had read it during the briefing, he had read it during the flight down from the Hunter In Darkness to Kreyta Prime's surface, he had read it as they descended in the elevator from their chosen and sufficiently bribed auxiliary shuttle bay to the correct sublevel of Hive Brael. And now, he was reading it again, as they neared to the dead zone. Some soldiers fiddled with their weapons, with their armour, with their webbing, prayed or enjoyed a last lho-stick or preserve-stick; his calming ritual was to go over the information on file, and there had been enough times in his career that it had made the difference for even one more soldier coming home with him that he'd gladly cry fie on any who scoffed at it.
Still, the details writ across the pages were grim enough reading; one of the Chromus scions, estimated at seventeenth place in the line of succession for the Warrant, had arranged to support the discreet transit of a Magos of the Silver Rings who had expressed displeasure at the growing surveillance of the Juris over her work. Seemingly unwarranted surveillance at that, given there was supposedly not even a whiff of xenotech nor mechanical innovation to be found (that was noted by the fool's seneschal in her dictated confession; there had been nothing worth pilfering from the effects brought with the machine cultist). Some grandiose gift or favour had been promised in exchange for sanctuary upon Kreyta, and a dynastic safehouse converted into an ad-hoc temple-laboratory for the Magos, going by the name of Vethaline Arkheus. Wasn't there a House Arkheus over in the Steel Line? Something for higher paygrades to ponder, Hector decided. He was just the leader and namesake of kill-team Kynvaniks.
Regardless, an annual celebration in the hab-block surrounding the safehouse had reportedly turned very bloody indeed. The cause remained unknown, save that when the enforcers shut down the power lines to the block as part of their cordon, the music playing over the communal laud-hailers had not ceased. So, while other teams and the local Household Armsmen loaned from the Governor's palace determined whether the scion was still hidden on the surface or had stowed away on one of the outgoing freighters or pilgrim vessels to flee, he and his had the unenviable task to secure the safehouse and erase all traces of the rogue Magos. This clusterfrak would not be allowed to compromise the Chromus dynasty's standing.
Finally, their ride came to a halt, and the rumble of boots sounded out into the echoing halls as his kill-team disembarked from their convoy. Hector hefted his Munitions Launcher, inspected the chamber, and took his place in formation.
The M33 Bakka-Rogelin-pattern Munitions Launcher was once a prized weapon for Imperial Navy breacher teams. Resembling an oversized box magazine-fed bullpup shotgun by silhouette, its integral multi-spectral optic and rangefinder allowed it to fire programmable smart munitions to just past an open bulkhead or over a barricade used as cover by enemy combatants. And when those would be inappropriate to the situation or simply too costly, it was still capable of firing immense flechette clusters or depleted atomic slugs capable of coring the side armour of a Chimera. A pity the manufactorum complexes creating the smart munitions were lost in the fighting that ensued from the Plague of Unbelief. Bakka had been a major enough shipyard for the Imperium that vast stocks remained in circulation, but the Munitorum policy has always been to field only that which can be replaced, and so it had faded from common use.
It, and the bolt pistol sitting in its holster by his side, had seen him victorious through two hundred and seventy-three firefights and counting. The compact power axe hanging from a loop on his belt had barely seen use, save for hacking through bulkheads and doors, since he'd been granted the weapon from the Dynasty's armouries.
He could already hear the music, beautiful in its intonation, flawless in cadence. Reportedly, the enforcers had had to put down some of their own and withdraw the cordon to a greater distance from the dead zone when they had broken into hysterical laughter and begun to dance with single-minded vigor, lashing out at anyone who attempted to interrupt and deaf to all orders. With a gesture of his hand, the kill-team switched on their dead-space earpieces. Microbeads would ordinarily accompany such, but with the target being a Magos, electronic interference was practically a guarantee. Compromised comms served no one but the enemy. Thankfully, his munitions launcher operated on an air-gapped system, and would still serve.
It did not take long to find the remains of the revelers. So many bodies, savaged with nails and fists, torn into with teeth, yet others bearing the signs of dehydration and starvation in place of open wounds. Each one marked by a rictus grin upon their lifeless faces. Some looked to have bitten their own tongues out amidst their laughter. Hector could only wonder if that had been by accident, or if some had retained some fraction of higher thought and wished for death to claim them more swiftly. And still, the music was playing, the sound waves registering on auspex displays even as they carried on through the charnel house this hab-block had become.
And then, they began to hear the music again. Dead-space earpieces were capable of reducing an Earthshaker barrage landing just shy of shrapnel range to a dull roar, they were capable of shielding from sonic weaponry and the music was sounding through them.
There was no choice now but to carry on in haste. The effects were not immediate, the reports had said as much. The mission could not be allowed to fail, not by something like this. Finding no trace of resistance, they ran towards the objective with all haste that tactical drilling could yet allow for.
Neranx was the first to falter, three streets away from the safehouse, his body quaking with silenced laughter as he made to begin the gyrations of some demented dance. Hector's bolt pistol granted him the Emperor's Peace. Kharkolme stumbled not long after, falling to hands and knees as he tore at his webbing, cackling as he lunged at Telanx. Hector's aim was unerring, carapace plating cracking against the impact of the boltshell which carried through to his shoulderblade before detonating. The kill-team recovered the meltabomb he had been carrying, and kept running forward. Telanx himself, followed by Syarbad and Fiora, fell to the auditory onslaught and were disposed of in turn by the time they had reached the outermost door. The lock gave way in short order before his power axe, and the door itself to Cik's kick. Another two troopers, Gunda and Eniam (the Arnheim twins), were lost as they cleared room after room with ordinance and shrapnel.
Hector lamented losing them all, each and every one, but he did not despair; he still had enough men to see the mission through. There were always enough men to see the mission through, just never enough men of quality to lead them to success.
Finally, they stacked up to the door of the last room, the strongroom. The obvious choice to shelter in against an assault, yet also foolish, for sealing oneself in there ceded initiative to the attacker. The priority had been to ensure the target could not escape, for the strongroom would have made the ideal opening for such or an ambush, being the obvious target for the breach. Hector would not say that they had overestimated the Magos, but her sense of tactics seemed lacking with this move.
Aida Erax, his second, took up the meltabomb and placed it against the armoured door. Hector slotted in the magazine of tempest grenades he had been issued for just this purpose. First, disable the tech-priest's augmetics and whatever broadcasting equipment was producing the music with a merciless barrage the instant the door is breached. Secondly, move in and secure the room before eliminating Vethaline. Disposal procedures would then occur in whatever order was deemed best.
Aida, like his ever-present shadow, sidled up next to him, bracing her hotshot volley gun to lay down a withering hail of suppressing fire.
The meltabomb detonates, showering the other side of the door with a deluge of bubbling slag. Aida's lasbolts fly in through the breach, followed in mere milliseconds by the first of the grenade barrage. As jets of flash-boiled coolant rush out of the vents of the volley gun and his launcher clicks empty, the rest of the kill-team pile in through the melted doorframe, letting loose all their accumulated fury and hate for the losses the rogue Magos has inflicted on them.
Not even ten seconds have passed, and the room is secure. Every portion of the breach has gone precisely as intended, exactly as he has drilled the team to do countless times. Every occupant of the room is unmistakably dead.
Except the music has not stopped playing.
With the tones now so loud they feel as though they are drowning out his own thoughts, Hector tears away the dead-space earpieces from his helmet; locating the target is now the priority, or they are all lost. And then he spots it, his ears lending direction to the sound.
What appears to be a scratch-built vox-phonograph, embedded into a hole cut into the ceiling. Hovering by it, a solitary servo-skull, glimmering with the light of a refractor field and with the transmitter for a vox-caster wired into what was likely once a laud-hailer for Ecclesiarchal sermons.
Who knows how many power cells are scattered all around the hab-block, feeding power into the broadcasting systems despite the blackout?
...None of the bodies present bear the reported appearance of the Magos.
He can't help it, he starts to snicker.
How had it all gone so wrong?
His hand snatches up his bolt pistol as his head swims, and aims to do at least one thing right in this operation. I'm sorry, Aida-
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Vethaline observes diligently as the strike team finish succumbing to the music, letting their whims guide them as they begin their dance, as guns meant to turn upon themselves or each other fall from slackened fingers. A stir beside her draws her attention as she cuts the noospheric connection to the strongroom's internal vid-relays. "Ah, you have awoken. I do hope you are not still in excessive pain, yes? I do apologize for that; I have done my best but there is only so much refinement that can be done upon a base so barbarous as the Sicarian's audiostrobers. Only so much that can be improved upon for an experience fundamentally intended to hurt and muddle."
"H-heretic... you will not escape... the Emperor's justice-" The Interrogator's words aspire to such strength, yet fall short by their speaker's poor condition. Vethaline can only suppose she is to blame for that. Not merely for the disorientation; her tutors had impressed upon her the effect proper posture had on the quality of a voice as a child, and she supposed maintaining such a thing with a disconnected spinal cord would be rather beyond most endoskeletal organic life.
"It seems to me as though I already have, Miss Deltomes. That is how you introduced yourself, yes? Interrogator Marika Deltomes, of the God-Emperor's Holy Inquisition. Who bears the Emperor's justice, if not you?"
"If not I, then- then whoever strikes you down... in the Emperor's name!"
"Why should that be the case? The Emperor sought the unity of humanity, did he not? I only seek to further this glorious vision of oneness. I expected this manner of small-mindedness from my former peers, but from you? All I had experienced and learned in life had made me expect that one so strongly tied to the Imperial Cult would rejoice at the scope of my ambitions. So many hymnals, so many wondrous compositions and songs, how could you not see what it is I hope to accomplish?"
"Tarnish not... the Master of Mankind's name... by uttering it with your vile tongue, heretic."
Vethaline's vox-grille made an intonation approximating a hum at that, her servo-arm clasping the slumbering backpack reactor of the poor confused soul's power armour, lifting up the dead weight as she began to walk towards the door. "...Yes, I suppose I am being premature. All success and progress is marked by suffering, in one form or another. I must not permit my enthusiasm for this project to become impatience. Have no fear, my dear; I have the utmost confidence you will come to understand, in due time, and feel just as much passion for this great working as I do. In the meantime..."
Pausing by the auto-gurney, Vethaline turns her head towards the shrieking, gagged wretch restrained atop it, running a single bionic digit across an exposed electoo. "Yes, yes, I know these accommodations are not to your usual standards, 'your Excellency', but you too have fallen rather short on the resources you promised would be at my disposal in your service. I am not terribly incensed by this, since I rather estimated your reach exceeded your grasp by several orders of magnitude, but that does not absolve you from doing all that you are physically able to match your side of the bargain. Have no fear; I am certain you will manage some success under my... exacting... guidance. There is much work to be done, after all; many opportunities for you to demonstrate some personal growth."
"But at the end of this long road, you shall doubtless have been key players in this grand composition, my masterwork, my magnum opus."
"And then, when all can hear the Golden Tune, all shall be one. All shall be truthful. All shall be calm, and all shall rejoice. For music transcends all data..."
