The Fall of Heiross

Corridan often dreamt of the dark passages he was born in. At night, when the dim hive lights coursing power lines faded to a comfortable hum, he would see darkness where others might be dreaming of light. Slime-coated metal hallways, cramped and low on breathable air. Piercing red eyes watching his every move from black pipes and murky waters wrapped in shadow. He could remember frantic, desperate flights from unseen, unheard beasts and quiet, unnerving periods of silence where he waited out the creatures in the dark. That was the part he hated most. His dreams were filled with the echoing drip-drop of stale water falling from low-hanging wires and sewage pipes but when the dripping stopped...that's when he knew the nightmare started.

He would often awake from his shallow, restless sleep among companions in some new environment. His job was incredibly travel-intensive and he rarelystayed in the same place for more than a week. There were many reasons for this. Usually, his job was done within a couple of days and he and his compatriots had to sally forth to some unknown place to complete a task there. More often then not, staying in one place for too long meant their enemies had an easier time of finding and killing them whilst they slept.

This time was different. As consciousness came to him he felt a deep, painful throbbing at the back of his head. He wasn't as responsive as usual. Every morning, without fail, he was the first one awake and alert. This time he just wanted to fall back into the darkness without sparing a second thought to the world of the living. Their latest place of residence had been an abandoned warehouse, where the air was cool and unfiltered, but now it was awfully hot. The smell of smoke reached his nose. In his grogginess he put two and two together a great deal more slowly than he would have wanted, and his eyes shot open as he realized his immediate vicinity was a blazing ruin. Then he remembered:

Fire, guns, explosions. Heresy.

Corridan pushed his pain away and lifted himself off of the street, flexing his bionic arms as he scanned his surroundings. The truck that he and his team had escaped in was dead, along with the ogryn that had been manning the autocannon in the truck bed before the ambush hit. The truck lay on its side, a smoking wreck with a crippling gash on its right side where a PDF rocket had blown it nearly in half. The ogryn was none the worse for wear save a bullet hole through his skull. That was right, the ogryn had died first. It was picked off as they were peeling out of the intersection. Corridan looked around. The signs of the attack were still fresh, wisps of smoke still spiraled into the air, remnants of the attack. It had only been moments since they were ambushed, but Corridan's team had already left him for dead. Again.

He spared one last glance around before sprinting across the street. It was bright out, high noon he guessed. The buildings were neatly spaced, without any alleys or cramped passages. Not his normal operating environment. He cursed the Inquisitor for the thirtieth time for sending his team into a back water agriworld and increased his pace, turning the corner of the residence and running off to the field beyond. All around him was open farmland, bright golden thin plants waving in the afternoon breeze as far as he could see. There, in the North, the one city for a thousands kilometres loomed above the open fields and sparsely packed farms. The plants, whatever they were, were tall. Behind him he could hear a vehicle approaching the ambush site and raised voices shouting out which direction Corridan had ran. They must have seen him from afar when he was crawling out of the wreckage. He smiled at the sounds of their pursuit and when he reached the tall stalks, dove in.

Not long after he had hid inside the copse, the enemy vehicle pulled up violently and four man leaped out, autoguns readied.

“Fan out, shoot if he attacks. He's unarmed, and we have meds. Cripple him if you can,” one of them said. The speaker was Palvor Ingrane, a liutenant of the Heiross PDF. He, like his friends, wore a flak vest. His his hair was long and reedy, his face a high-cheeked, thin nosed type. Corridan had smelled the nobility on him before the man even opened his mouth. Palvor held a special place in Corridan's heart, as the man was singlehandedly responsible for the death of planetary governor Jaston Kelle, a loyal citizen of the Imperium. This was the man who had damned Heiross to a war it was entirely unprepared for, a war they never asked for. Corridan fought back the urge to run out and rip him apart right then and there. Unfortunately, Palvor only stayed to give those commands. As soon as he was done speaking he hopped into the driver's seat and drove off, leaving the three men defenseless and weak as they strode ahead, guns out and trained on the field.

Corridan crept to where he felt the one furthest from his companions would enter the dense field. Every step was dangerous, as more likely than not any snap or unknown sound in the field would set the men on edge and they'd begin firing wildly at the source. Corridan found that with PDF traitors like these, it was often an intelligent plan assume the worst of their training.

He went on all fours, carefully sliding past dry plant stalks as he stalked toward his first vicitim. His vision was somewhat obscured, but the men were clomping through the field like amateurs. He could hear them easily enough.

He swept up behind the first one and with a grunt of exertion, drove the claws of his bionic arm into the man's neck and ripped out, his finely tuned servos whirring silently with the force of the kill. The man gurgled, not quite dead, and Corridan grabbed him by the hair and wrenched him back and down to the dirt where he snapped the soldier's neck. Only three men. Corridan felt a grim sense of satisfaction at how catastrophic Palvor's error truly was in sending so small a number against him.

He listened for any panic from the other two soldiers, but they either didn't hear their comrade's death or didn't pay any mind to the scuffle. Corridan took the dead PDF's autogun and looped the strap around his shoulder, slinging it behind his back and absently wiping his sharpened metal fingers on the corpse's uniform. He doubted he would need the gun at all. He was far more fond of confirming the kill with more direct means. He stood and, without bothering to hide his presence, marched towards his nearest victim.

Corridan emerged on the other side of the field a few minutes later, his pockets now heavy with autogun magazines, just in case. Palvor had driven off toward the city, presumably after the rest of his team. It was more than likely the traitor lieutenant would have ample back up. New Tonsport was the capital of Heiross and boasted the strongest concentration of PDF forces on the planet. Corridan knew that not all of them were corrupt, but he couldn't chance being discovered and shot down by someone he assumed to be a friendly. He set forth down the road, drawing ever closer to the man that ahd plunged this world into ruin.

 

The city of New Tonsport was a pale imitation to the hive cities that Corridan had seen in his time serving the Inquisition. There were no spires or multi-level tiers of society that clearly marked the wealthy and priviliged from the poor, impoverished and mutated. The sky above was absent toxic clouds. Nevertheless, the population had been plunged into chaos that rivaled the food riots and wage-wars of even the largest hives he had come across. Corridan watched the pandemonium from his perch on the balcony of the governor's villa. Heiross' sun had begun to set, turning the sky into an eerie twilight and casting long shadows across the streets, where throngs of civilians pushed each other in crowds eager to escape the confines of the city and flee out into the countryside. They knew the price that they had to pay for Palvor's treachery. They knew that the Imperium would target the capital first.

It had been long hours since he had marched from the killing field where Palvor had served his men up as an appetizer before the main course, but Corridan had yet to find the man who hunted the rest of the acolyte cell. The PDF had been mobilizing, directing their troopers closer to the city center where the one bastion of defense that New Tonsport had was the Arbites Precinct House. Corridan suspected that whatever Arbites that had not joined with Palvor's plan had been slaughtered by now.

Corridan tapped his microbead impatiently. He hadn't heard word from his team though he was most likely in range to hear their radi chatter, and that made him uneasy.

They must be heading towards the Precinct House. Corridan couldn't think of anywhere else they could be. With the company he kept, it was likely they thought their last chance for redeeming the mission on Heiross would be to find and kill Palvor themselves.

Corridan turned away from the panicking masses below and walked back into the villa. The governor had foregone the usual eccentricities power and wealth forged in politicians, instead favoring a modest estate at the penthouse of the Heiross court rooms. A tall building at forty two levels, the court rooms housed every one of Heiross' governmental branches from lowly cabinet ministers to the most influential men on the planet, namely the governor himself. As if it wasn't enough of a target for rebel terrorists, the court houses below were open to the public and lacked proper security measures. Corridan had slipped by them with ease, intent to gather whatever splinters of power remained so that he could could organize some semblance of law and order. To his frustration, he had found the New Tonsport stronghold of executive power devoid of anyone who had the official authority to get anything done.

A curious sight caught his eye as he passed the bathroom. He stopped and opened the door, inspecting his person. He never paid too much in his appearance. He was of stocky frame and average height. His black hair was cut short, buzzed off by his own hand. His beard had grown in over the last few days to match his hair length. He was strong of jaw and his eyes were a brilliant cold blue. He looked haggard and tired, flecks of blood dotting his white shirt, but that wasn't what caught his attention. The black paint on his left bionic had been scratched away to reveal the gold inlay beneath. The scripture there, a telling of his arms' sanctification, was revealed to any who might spare a glance. He grimaced. Those words were not for just anyone to see. He reached for the red shower curtain, tearing off a strip with ease and wrapping it around his arm. There. It was covered. He left the bathroom and stalked off towards the exit.

Corridan didn't trust elevators and avoided them as often as he could manage, but forty-two flights of stairs was an unreasonable trade off for a sense of security. He entered the death-box and pressed the button signifying the ground floor. It descended slowly and he pressed himself to the left wall of the elevator. All he needed was to be surprised by a squad of PDF at the bottom floor and riddled with automatic fire. Halfway down, a low ding sounded from the button console and the light on the 10th floor button lit up in red. Someone was hailling the elevator.

Corridan snarled in annoyance. He didn't have time for this. He pulled an arm back and slashed at the wall, tearing a hole through the metal. He planted a boot in it and pushed himself up, driving his claws into the ceiling and pulling. With great effort, the ceiling panel came off. He dropped the warped panel to the floor and pulled himself out of the elevator. It was dark in the shaft. The elevator was slowing, and when it was coming to a halt Corridan leaped up and grabbed onto the ledge of the outer elevator door for the 11th floor. He climbed to the point where he could get a decent footing on the ledge, and once he did, pushed the hydraulic smooth doors open. He heard a ding from the elevator, and the doors slid open.

A muffled WHUMP from below. Corridan recognized it as the sound of a grenade launcher. The elevator exploded.

Corridan flew across the hallway, searing pain all across his back, flames bursting up through the elevator shaft. He smashed into the ground and rolled, coming to a stunned stop three meters from the door. He hissed in pain as he stumbled to his feet, feeling little pieces of shrapnel moving in the flesh of his back. He spotted the stairs heading down to the 10th floor just down the hallway. He stood, rolled his neck, and walked down the hall to the stairs. One short flight of steps down, he could hear them.

“Negative. No body,” one said. “I don't think we got him.”

“He went down didn't he?” said another. “The feed showed him walking in.”

Corridan swore. He hadn't considered the security cameras all over the building. He looked around his immediate vicinity, but couldn't see any. Good. He moved forward. He passed the corridor leading to the elevator and appraised what he saw. Four men, flak vests, lasguns and a grenade launcher. He swept past the PDF with them none the wiser.

He searched the floor for several moments before he found what he was looking for. Just ahead of him a placard reading “Maintenance” hung over a nondescript blue door. He opened it, found the fuse box inside, and shut off every one.

The 10th floor was plunged into darkness.

 

Erin Cail jumped when all the lights went out. He had expected an easy mission. Go to the building, kill one guy. He had four men in his squad. It was supposed to have been easy. He had seen the man with metal arms enter the elevator, he knew he'd seen him, yet no body had been found after they'd blasted it. After that, the lights going out was an eerie omen.

“Why'd it get so dark?” Bast asked from Erin's left.

“Inconvenient power failure,” Captain Gillar said. “Flashlights on, find the fuse box and light this place up. We still have to kill this guy.” Erin covered his eyes as a brilliant light shone into his face.

“Oops, sorry bud,” Bast said, moving his light away. “We go, you two stay?”

Gillar nodded, his grim features shadowed by the flashlight's angle. “Me and Ven will hold here.”

“Ready to die?” Erin asked nervously, taking point as they headed to the maintenance room.

“Uh, no,” Bast said. “The hell are you talking about?”

“It's like a horror holovid, man,” Erin said, sweeping the light from side to side in front of him. All he could see was white tile floors and closed-off offices. “The beginning of a genestealer infestation, like that-”

“Shut your mouth,” Bast said. “That's not funny. Fuckin' hate those movies.”

Erin smiled, taking comfort that Bast was just as nervous as he was. The big guy didn't always show it.

They turned a corner and carried on. “Almost there and nothing's hit us yet,” Erin said, a grin on his face he was glad Bast couldn't see. “This is that quiet part where the genestealers-”

“I said shut your Emperor-damned-”

Erin noticed something above him. He panicked and flung himself forward to the floor. That something he saw, hanging from the ceiling, just barely missed him as it dropped. Bast screamed.

Erin scrambled to his feet to turn and shoot. The hall lit up as two shots discharged from Bast's gun, and then his scream was cut short. Erin turned to see the man with the metal arms tear Bast's jaw from his head. Erin ran. He ran harder than he had run in his entire life. PDF drilling had been a cakewalk. The accidental discharge of the orbital cannon three years ago had been an infintesimal speck in his life. Here, trapped in a dark hallway with that...thing behind him: this was horror.

He sprinted down the hall, aiming to circle around to get back to the Captain and Ven. They'd help him, they had to help him. Ven was a scary-ass motherfucker, he'd take this guy head on and wouldn't even care. He ran past all those closed office doors and he ran past the maintenance hall, too focused on escape to remember his original task. He was almost there.

He turned the corner, ready to warn the Captain and Ven that trouble was on the way. Instead, he saw Gillar, shock on his face as he looked down to his lasgun to see that it had been shorn in half. Ven behind him, combat knife in one hand and his other pulling Gillar away.

Gillar tried to smash his assailant with the half of his gun he had left but the man grabbed his makeshift weapon with both hands, wrenched it from Gillar's grasp and flung it aside.

Ven managed to pull Gillar away and lunge in with a stab. The man caught it on his forearm, the clash eliciting a metallic clang.

Ven came at him again and again, knife slashing so fast Erin could barely follow it, but the man he was trying to kill was the one pushing forward, blocking every strike as he marched. Then it was over. Ven stabbed in and the man caught his forearm twisting it back and then slashing down upon it with his other hand. Ven's forearm separated from his body cleanly. Ven screamed, staggering back, but metal arms wasn't done. He came forward, ready to finish Ven off but Gillar flew in with a mighty kick aimed for Metal Arms' chest. Metal Arms caught his leg and smashed the captain into the wall. He then cleanly broke Gillar's leg at the knee. Gillar cried out in agony.

Without missing a beat, the man slammed his metal fist into Gillar's stomach, smashing Gillar to the floor. He opened his metal hand tipped in mono-claws and walked forward towards Ven, cutting Gillar open from stomach to neck in the process.

With shaky hands, Erin brought up his lasgun and aimed it at the man. He fired once, the shot burning the wall next to him. The man glanced back, cold blue eyes watching him like a bird of prey. Erin aimed again. When the man saw that, he lunged forward, grabbed the crippled Ven and spun him around, putting Ven between him and the lasgun. Erin flipped the selector switch to full auto and held the trigger down, screaming all the while.

At one point Erin closed his eyes. He only opened them when the lasgun's clip was completely empty. The hallway was marked with burn marks where the lasers had seared the walls. Ven's corpse was on the floor, a charred, smoking mess.

Erin breathed. Someone else breathed behind him. He spun around to find himself face to face with those same cold blue eyes.

“Boo,” Corridan snarled. He gripped the man's head with both hands and planted his boot to the PDF soldier's chest. With a twist and a pull, the man's head sailed from his body.