501.470.M41 — Myrrak
Myrrak was a mine pretending to be a world.
Seen from orbit, it barely looked alive. Its rusted landmasses were threaded with conveyor scars and buried rigs, reactor towers coughing fire into the clouds. Slag fields spread across the valleys, glowing faintly from thermal runoff.
There were no forests. No open water. No signs of growth — only exhaust stacks and drill spires rising like spears from the crust.
The skies above churned with permanent overcast, layered with ash and metallic dust. Clouds hung low and bronze, veined with chem-lightning that danced in silence. Storms rolled not with wind, but with the waste heat of a planet long since stripped of balance.
The air was technically breathable — meaning it only killed slowly. Saturated with carbon residue, metal particulate, and the exhaust of millennia, it tasted of rust and decay. Helmets were not recommended. They were required.
Most worlds turned in seasons. Myrrak turned in shifts.
The workers lived in hab-stacks bolted to cliff walls or buried beneath extraction towers. They worked by klaxon, slept by rotation, and died without record.
Few ever saw the sky. Most never left the dark.
It didn't live. It produced.
Then it stopped reporting.
The last signal from Extraction Complex Nine was short: power failures, broken command uplinks, vox-blackouts in the lower strata. A single report broke through — violent breaches by unknown assailants. Then silence.
No follow-up. No surface ping.
No response through the astropathic channels.
Now, a Thunderhawk gunship cut through the upper atmosphere.
Ash peeled from the hull. Lightning crawled through the clouds below. Extraction towers broke through the haze — spines of metal surrounded by churned dust, with bulk-lift gantries and sealed cargo platforms extending into the storm.
Inside, nine Astartes stood anchored in grav-clamps. One Adept interfaced with the machine-spirit.
Armor silent. Helmets sealed or clipped. Weapons mag-locked. No speech. No motion. Just the ship's internal thrum and the dry hiss of recycled air.
Lieutenant Caelan stood at the forward rail, gauntlet braced against the drop-hatch strut. His armor was cobalt and matte-etched from prior campaigns, unadorned but worn with earned weight. A standard-pattern power sword hung at his left hip. No embellishment. No name etched into the blade.
The inverted omega on his left pauldron was dulled by dust but unmistakable — Ultramar, still unbroken.
He hadn't moved since launch.
Sergeant Varras stood beside him, bolter mag-locked across his chest.
Tyrax bore the squad's flamer unit — scarred casing, primed.
Varro waited behind them, bolter secured and his narthecium idle at the gauntlet.
Veyl and Tarn carried standard bolters, weapons clamped and quiet.
The others remained unreadable — armor still, stances locked.
Malrix crouched at the cogitator, interfacing with the Thunderhawk's systems in silence. Lenses across his augmetics pulsed dimly as data streamed in.
There were no prayers. No last checks. Everything had been completed before launch.
This was the wait before contact.
The mission was clear.
Extraction Complex Nine had gone dark.
Confirm status. Identify threat.
Eliminate if confirmed.
The Thunderhawk jolted — hard, sudden.
Caelan didn't react. Neither did the others.
He sealed his helmet with a hiss. HUD icons lit green — squad vitals stable. Vox link flickered, then steadied. Auspex static crawled faintly along the edges.
He keyed squad-vox.
"Standard pattern. Confirm before engagement. Hold comms."
Nine runes flashed green. Absolute. Immediate.
Ten seconds to drop altitude.
Grav-clamps disengaged with a unified snap — nine sets of boots thudding onto the deck in perfect sync.
The ramp began to lower.
Ash howled in. Red dust curled like smoke. Stormlight flickered beyond the threshold.
Extraction Complex Nine waited below — jagged spires and buried metal bulk, half-lost in the storm.
Caelan stepped into it.
The others followed.
-
The Thunderhawk's ramp hissed open into the ash-strewn winds. Extraction Complex 9 loomed ahead — gantries twisted, towers dead and cold, silhouetted by distant firelight.
Lieutenant Caelan stepped off first, bolter raised. His boots struck scorched steel. Storm grit rasped against his armor.
"Maedon."
"Heat low. No vox returns. Possible breach bearing forty."
The rest of the squad deployed swiftly.
Varras and Tyrax moved to flanking positions. Brannic secured the rear. Kastor and Veyl advanced along the left arc; Tarn and Varro took the right, the Apothecary watching their flank. Malrix kept to the rear center, servo-limbs twitching in the wind.
Caelan raised a hand. The squad halted, bolters sweeping across dead metal.
"Malrix."
The tech-adept approached, red robes rippling. He knelt by a corroded control pillar, mechadendrites locking into rusted ports. His vox-synth buzzed with binaric distortion.
"+++Command-seal detected. Manual override: affirmative.+++"
"+++Interior control systems: disabled. External access: required.+++"
"No servitors. No signals," Caelan muttered. "Eyes up."
Caelan stepped forward and placed his armored palm on the runeplate.
Seals hissed. Vents cycled pressure.
The outer door opened with a grinding rumble, revealing a narrow transition chamber — barely wide enough for two Astartes shoulder-to-shoulder. Cold light flickered along the ceiling.
The squad entered in formation. The outer door sealed shut behind them with a dull metallic thud.
Inside, the air was warmer. Stale. Recycled. The silence hung heavier.
Another bulkhead stood ahead, its controls lit with a dull amber glow.
"Malrix."
"+++No anomalous power signatures. Access system: dormant.+++"
Caelan stepped forward and activated the runeplate.
The lock cycled. Mechanisms churned behind the seal.
The door opened.
Several figures stood motionless inside.
-
The inner door parted with a groan of pressured steel.
Beyond stood a group of survivors.
They looked like miners. Soot-streaked coveralls, utility harnesses, worn boots. A dozen in total, standing in the gloom just beyond the bulkhead. No movement. No talking. Just watching.
One stepped forward — older, lined face, shaven scalp, a torn Administratum tag still clinging to his collar. He raised his hands slowly, palms out.
"Emperor's Angels," the man rasped. "We weren't sure the signal reached anyone."
No one from the squad answered.
Maedon's helm tilted slightly, auspex sweeping. Varro remained near the rear, gauntlet brushing the grip of his narthecium. Caelan stepped in slowly, bolter lowered but ready.
"You sent the distress?"
The man nodded. "Three days ago. Xenos breached the lower levels. We sealed what we could. Vox went out. We've been holding the upper platform since."
"Describe the enemy," Caelan said.
"Fast," the man said. "Came out of the lower conduits. We didn't see much. Claws. Teeth. Some didn't look right — bent wrong. They pulled men off the gantries and vanished."
His voice was hoarse. Not fearful — calm. Too calm.
Caelan's gaze swept the others. All stood quietly. No wounds. No weapons drawn. No signs of fatigue.
"You're unarmed."
"Not by choice," the man said. "Those of us with weapons were first in line when the tunnels collapsed. We sealed it to hold the xenos back — bought time for the rest of us to regroup."
Caelan's helm didn't move.
"What happened to them?"
"They didn't make it. We lost contact before the tunnel gave out. We think the xenos took them."
Tyrax's flamer adjusted by a fraction. Varras stepped closer, falling in beside Caelan.
Varras, over vox:
"Doesn't feel right."
Caelan:
"Noted."
"Show us," Caelan said aloud.
The man gestured toward the corridor ahead. "Primary lift shaft. Sealed, but we kept local control. Xenos were below, last we heard... unless they've come back up."
Behind them, the rest of the squad filtered into the room in full formation. No one lowered their weapons.
Malrix remained near the entrance, mechadendrites twitching faintly.
"+++Power relay anomalies persist. Internal signal paths rerouted.+++"
"+++Not interference. Deliberate tampering.+++"
-
The squad followed the survivors silently down the passage. The corridor smelled of burnt wiring and industrial decay.
Caelan's optics swept the corridor, picking up signs of violent breach — ripped plating, broken conduits.
On the floor lay discarded weapons and industrial tools: a crushed stub gun, a snapped power drill, and a scorched lascutter. The lascutter's cutting head was blackened and cracked. Scorch marks stained the nearby bulkhead.
Dried blood smeared the floor, dragged as if something had been pulled away.
Caelan keyed his vox.
"Multiple resistance points. Tools and weapons abandoned. Blood present. No bodies."
Tac-acknowledgements flickered silently across the squad's vox feeds.
Caelan's optics flicked to the survivors.
"Details don't align."
He keyed again.
"Maintain formation. Keep spacing."
They moved deeper into the corridor.
-
The survivors moved steadily ahead.
Caelan's optics continued sweeping the corridor, noting every detail.
The passage widened into a large chamber — the lift bay. Thick cables hung slack above the yawning shaft. Flickering lights cast uneven shadows.
Caelan keyed vox.
"Adept, scan lift controls. Kastor and Tarn, cover rear."
The squad shifted formation, muscles tensed beneath sealed helmets.
"+++Primary lift current within tolerance. Secondary subsystems nonfunctional. Machine-spirit dormant but responsive.+++"
The survivors halted at the lift bay, their eyes fixed silently on the approaching squad.
Caelan keyed vox.
"Kastor, Tarn—hold position here. Watch the survivors."
The two Marines took their positions, bolters ready.
One of the survivors suddenly spoke, a smile creeping across his face.
"May the Emperor watch over you."
The blessing—or curse—settled over them as they boarded the lift. The heavy doors sealed with a hiss, and the platform shuddered as it began its slow descent into the darkness below.