The Beast Arises

‘And now I want you to steal him away,’ Phifer had insisted. ‘The extraction will be hot: the transport will get to you where it can, but you may have to improvise…’

With her Marineers leading the way with their assault lasrifles, Allegra escorted the mob of inbreeds and palace favourites down through the stairwells of factoria and hab levels, down into the derelict underhive. An evacuation from the aerie villa terraces had to be abandoned, due to the shuttle being overwhelmed by swarms of terrified hivers. The pick-up became ugly, with the shuttle being rushed and crashing into the spire wall. The mob turned on the Maritine Guard and Allegra was forced to order Imperial civilians shot, just to keep the madness at bay. A second lift simply didn’t happen. Allegra had instructed Chief Gohlandr to establish a perimeter amongst the sky talons and gigabarge dry docks. There they had joined forces with Commandant Hektor Szekes and five of his enforcers in their black carapace armour. Forced to abandon their precinct house due to rioting and gangs emboldened by the chaos, the enforcers had been fighting running battles through the freightstacks.

Hours overdue and faced with small armies of trigger-happy gangers driven up though the sub-levels by flooding, Allegra ordered the Marineers and their charges on. The commander had little choice but to push down through the underhive and out through the pontoon shanties. There were fewer gangers taking potshots at the Marineers and enforcers, but the sub-levels were filling with rising seawater and some sections were now fully submerged. Gravity quakes collapsed tunnels both before and behind them, sending torrents of floodwater through the depths that swept away several of their number.

Borghesi had struggled. The Lord Governor had seen more of his Hive-Primus in the last two-score hours than the trecentigenarian had experienced in his elongated life. Even carried by his valets, the physical demands of the descent were too much for him. Combined with the overexcitement of riots and gunfire, the extraction meant to save Artemus Borghesi’s life almost took it on several occasions. Every few levels brought on a fresh attack of organ-failure and the personal physicians Borghesi had insisted on including in their party had to resuscitate the mouldering aristocrat.

‘I’m not saying you need to lay on the airs and graces, commander,’ Phifer had said, ‘but the man is the planetary governor: the God-Emperor’s representative on this world. I don’t care how hurt his sensibilities are but I need you to get him out of there alive and in one piece. Understood?’

The commander had nodded. The commander had saluted. It was less simple than that in the hive. For two days the Marineers navigated a labyrinthine hell of flooded darkness, losing a number of the grandee’s frail relatives to the rigours of exposure and exhaustion. The vox-channels kept Allegra apprised regarding the impossibilities of a planetary invasion that she could not see. Across her headset, in the dripping gloom of the depths, the insanity and slaughter reported and described seemed distant and unreal. It was unnerving, regardless. Allegra kept her men focused on the mundane: reconnaissance, the conservation of power and keeping the master-vox and the power packs of their lasrifles as dry as possible. When Chief Gohlandr blasted the rusted lock mechanism from the maintenance opening and kicked open the metal cover, water flowed out while daylight flooded in. Leading the way with her laspistol and shielding her eyes, the commander stepped out on the rockcrete.

What she experienced made her want to return to the cold and dark of the claustrophobic underhive. It was horrific.

Lux Allegra could not believe what she was seeing.

THREE

Undine — the Pontoon Shanties

It was raining meteorites. Large meteorites. Allegra watched the incandescent rocks — too many to count — stream from the sky. The heavens were a thatch-work of crossing dust trails, while the air trembled with the sonic boom of descents. Staring out across the chromatic water, Allegra could see the distant silhouette of Hive Galatae: mist-cloaked, massive and falling into the polluted sea. Hive Tyche may have been the Hive-Primus but Galatae was older and bigger, and like the capital, Hive Galatae had suffered the gravity quakes and disturbances. Vast tidal waves had done for Hives Arethusa and Thetis, but it was the trembling seabed and ruptured hydrothermics that toppled great Galatae.