Warhammer 40,000: Stavrakis- The Hunt For Valakt

Research

Once the doors opened, we fanned out with murder on our minds. I stayed back and swept my rifle left and right, trying to identify any anomalies. None were forthcoming. Senver rushed forward as our point man, his gaze swinging about wildly. Aurora had her laspistol drawn and was right behind him, eager to prove herself. Lex had a monstrous hand cannon in her left hand. She had a firm double handed grip. Me, Kalanaar and Gro'kna secured the rear. I crept out slowly, feeling the bulk of my equipment weighing me down. The hive was waking up... meh. We had emerged into a sparse foyer, or antechamber of some sort. The same polished metal sheeting made up the walls. It was sparsely furnished with a light security checkpoint at the far end near an exit. Some plants and a couch made up the rest of the room's belongings. The next thing that caught my eye was the lighting. Clusters of downlights dotted the ceiling, but they were underpowered, and so their lighting was spotty at best. Dark pools of shadow collected in the space between lights and in the corners. My ears caught up next. A murmur in the background. It sounded like a huge air filter, or environ control engine. Above that, a whispering roar, rising and falling. As if something huge was drawing breath. I signalled everyone to be careful. The room was maybe fifty paces long, and I took point alongside Senver. We both pressed ourselves to either side of the exit. In keeping with the theme, it was a simple glass swing door, the handle a large iron bar fixed across the width of the door. Pulling it up and pushing would unlock and open the door. Why was the locking mechanism on this side of the door?

"Kalanaar, Gro'Kna, breach." I instructed, taking two steps back. I motioned Senver to do the same. This was a technique that these two had developed. Somehow, their alien nature matched and allowed them a greater level of synchronicity. Kalanaar closed his eyes, and laid his left hand over Gro'Kna's. It was a technique that they had improvised. The temperature dropped sharply as Kalanaar extended his psychic powers and enveloped Gro'Kna.

"Ready." Kalanaar said, his voice toneless, and seemingly far away.

"Willing." Gro'Kna said in response, his voice raised and multiplied. I nodded and opened the door.

Gro'Kna leapt, almost horizontally through the door. The basis of this technique was that Kalanaar overlapped his senses with Gro'Kna, essentially having double the sensory input. Both sets were augmented with Psychic overlays and boosts. What you had was a superpowered probe. Kalanaar received all the sensory input from Gro'Kna as he leapt, and rapidly converted that into a three dimensional mind map that he superimposed on Gro'Kna's senses mid-flight. It was over in seconds. As Gro'Kna landed, we stormed in with the psychic imagery overlaid in the real world now. The room was dark, but much of the geometry was revealed by the ghostly white shell of Kalanaars image that we saw.

The lighting must have failed in this section. The image started to fail and dissipate as we took positions. The heavy rise and fall was quite apparent here. The room looked more like a huge warehouse. There was an immense gap in the middle, roughly one hundred meters long and forty wide. All around the edges of the room we caught glimpses of reflections and false light. There seemed to be an upper gantry and also a large-ish room off to the right. We fanned out more.

"Lex, Aurora, with me." I whispered. "The rest of you, fan out. I want you all covering the edges, do not stray out of sight. This damned lighting is shit." We split off cleanly. I was making my way to the large room off to the right. I could detect slight movements, but no concrete returns on the handheld Auspex. At the edges of my hearing, I could detect the air scrubber or environ control unit, whatever it is, getting fainter. The breathing noise was still quite audible and distinct. As I crept nearer to the room, I could see that the section facing towards the middle of the room was almost all clear armourplex. My eyes were getting used to the gloom and I started to see more clearly. The door was wide open, another simple glass swingdoor. This one looked substantially thickened, the glass and the overall frame being bulkier than the earlier example. Again, the locking mechanism was on the inside. What was going on in here? I made my rifle safe, and drew my sword and pistol. Me and Lex would enter first, with Aurora supporting. We stood near the door frame, tensed, and entered. Nothingness. In the gloom, I could make out misshapen lumps littering the floor. The room was ten paces wide, and looked about thirty long. Bulky shapes were fixed to the side nearest the armourplex. Control panels would be my best guess. The back of the room was taken over by piping and machinery. We disturbed dust and other things as we took it all in. This room hadn't been used in years. A patina of grime covered everything. Lex studied the control panels for a few moments. She blew onto the panels and a small dust storm erupted. Gratuitous coughing ensued.