Creating the supply cache in one of the abandoned rooms of the void hab takes little time, but it does give you a few moments to think for yourself. The dust covering everything indicates that Interrogator MacWater and Mechwright ZTO left the void hab some time ago. They could still be alive, down in the Capitalis Congestus. It is a dangerous place, but it takes a dangerous person to rise to the rank of Interrogator, given that it is one step from becoming an actual Inquisitor. And ZTO had survived one incursion into the Capitalis Congestus herself, an impressive feat for a non-astartes human. There was a decent chance, perhaps one in four or five, that at least one of them was still alive inside the hulk these weeks later.
Your work complete, you gather with Epistolary Tayib next to the hatch leading from the void hab to the hulk.
“Alright. I do not have any new orders with regards to this hulk, so I must assume that my mission remains unchanged. That mission is to find the ‘blighted heart’ of the Capitalis Congestus. I had no instructions passt that, but all of the indicators that I had was that I was to scout the way for a follow up attack.”
“Correct. I was to lead a follow-up attack on the Capitalis Congestus, but Watch Command has other plans in motion responding to large-scale events across the entire Imperium of man. The kill team that I was to be apart of was dispersed before it was ever assembled, and I was to be attached directly to your team instead. Then your team comes back early, and injured, leaving just the two of us to prosecute the mission.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Understood. My mission is to get you to the ‘blighted heart’ and then assist in your attack.”
“Correct. That will consist of covering me while I plant the special weapons charge, if all goes well.”
“First we need to find the ‘blighted heart’.” You pull out a printed copy of your map of the Capitalis Congestus. “Approximately forty two percent of this hulk is either mapped or known to be destroyed. The Khamsin is here, at grid reference bravo two and charlie two. The largest unknown area, and thus the likely location of the ‘blighted heart’ is down here, between foxtrot seven and juliet one zero. I purpose we hook above the destroyed sections, through ‘known’ territory and then ‘south’ towards the unknown sections. With any luck, we may be able to find the Interrogator or the Mechwright who could assist us in our mission.”
“You do realise that they are almost certainly dead.”
“Of course. I put their odds at surviving at no better than twenty five percent. Less than that of being combat capable.“
“Less than that. There is a moral threat lurking in the depths of this hulk. I hear sounds in the silence at the edge of what is real, and they will only grow louder as we approach the Heart.”
“Can you get a bearing off of them? Something to give us a direction in which to search?”
Tayib bows his head and drums his gauntleted fingers on his vembrances in an irregular pattern. At length he shakes his head, “nothing definite. Pink motes about a green haze. ‘South’ and ‘east’, but nothing definite enough to narrow it to a single grid reference.”
“Good enough to begin with. Let’s go.”