[Doctor Thunder]

Chapter 6


The bridge of the La’mibara was unlike anything Tella had ever seen before. A transparent geodesic dome that allowed the occupants to see out directly into space. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust after the blindfold was taken off her eyes. A full three quarters of their view was dominated by the swirling purple and blue storm in space. Small lines and text appeared on the dome, identifying it as the eye of terror. As the lines faded, Tella noticed that they were made of millions of tiny metallic beads that arranged themselves on the inside surface of the dome.

Beads collected over the surface, blocking out the view from outside but creating a new one themselves. Tella recognized it as a map of the pilgrim routes running through Segmentum Obscurus like veins in a body, with countless small icons moving around, representing vessels.
“I’ve been collecting this data for the last decade. The lives of hundreds of my kin were lost attempting to compile it all,” Hanover explained grimly. Despite the fact that she was shackled and cuffed, Tella could tell he was uneasy at her presence.
“We’ve traced the lineage of each of the seventy two worlds confirmed tainted back to a single individual deposited there. In each case, the method was the same, a merchant vessel is attacked but not destroyed. During the fighting an infant striker organism is left behind. In the chaos that follows the attack the infant is assumed to be an orphan of the deceased and, per standard practice, deposited on the next world traveled to. The beads moved impossibly fast as the timeline was reversed, showing attacks appearing as bright flashes.
“These deposit attacks appear random unless you overlay all of them over the last five centuries.”
The beads rearranged themselves, displaying the cluster of attacks arranged in an almost perfect sphere.

“In the center there is an abyssus, a place where temporal stratum intersect. The distance between reality and The Immaterium is very small there,” Catherine explained. “We believe that this is where Organism 196Y21BIO1.55 is created and given life.”

The beads fell away and they could again see out into space. At first Tella saw nothing, but when a nearby star winked out she realized that they were, in fact, in orbit of something, blacker then the blackness of space. At Harokai’s command a signal torpedo was fired, and as it detonated below them, the bright flash momentarily illuminated something that at first looked like a black planet covered with jagged ridges, but as the light faded Tella could see pulsating movement. It was as if an impossibly large collection of organs had collected together under mutual gravity and had fused together, sucking and throbbing with unnatural life.

“By the throne,” Tella whispered. It made her sick just looking at it.
“Don’t revile,” Hanover warned spitefully. “That thing is basically your mother.”
A slit of light pierced the darkness below and opened into a sickly eye, longer then the length of their entire craft. It focused on them with a soulless menace that Tella had seen once before. Catherine screamed in pain and coughed up blood onto the floor.
“Volcanus Torpedoes ready,” came the raspy brass tones from the Senior Magus, his one organic eye nearly overcome with countless mechanical insect-like mouth pincers. “These weapons are the last of their kind in the sector.”

“And their sacrifice will not be in vain,” Inquisitor Harokai confirmed. “Await my signal, and have the Astropath Choir attune itself to block out any interference.”
Tella’s blindfold was replaced and she was lead down onto the teleportation pad. Only once there were her restraints removed, and three dozen guards kept their weapons trained directly on her at all times as she donned her power armor. The sacred prayers had been filed off, and the Ecclesiarical symbols removed. The purity robes had been cut out, leaving it functionally intact, but bereft of any of The Emperor’s blessings.
“You couldn’t even let me have this one thing, could you?” Tella whispered to herself as she powered up the armor’s reactor systems.

Harokai and the others joined her on the pad and the ancient systems whirred to life. Reality shattered around them, but this time the ice cold hands felt closer, and the chittering voices nearer. Somewhere Tella heard laughter, but before she could turn her head, reality healed itself around them, and they found themselves in a living corridor of muscle and bone. Air rushed in and out rhythmically, leaving a whistling sound like breathing.
The sight before her eyes was so horrible it made Tella step back. Row upon row of human females encased in agony, cemented into the walls by a thick dripping mucous. Their bellies were large with pregnancy, pulsating black cables sprouting out in all directions.
Thirty rows of them rose above, their moans and screams melting together into a terrible combined wail that Tella could hear even after she shut down her external mikes.
Large black creatures resembling spiders crawled among the women, selecting those that were ripe and leaping upon them, tearing out their bellies with spincter-like mouths and sucking out the contents within and carrying them off into the central chamber.

Tella looked around as they entered the central chamber. Fifty similar hallways stretched out in all directions, the spider-creatures bringing their harvested contents to the center, where a column of twisting green energy descended down onto an alter of discarded bones and organs, upon which a lifeless fetus were placed one at a time.

The man standing over the alter wore a patchwork cloak made out of human skin, his back dissolving into multiple mechanical appendages that moved quicker then the eye could see, injecting, cutting, inserting and sewing, until finally he stood back and let the energy strand from above soak into the lifeless form. The small feet began twitching, and the man let out a laughter that echoed through the halls.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked through grey necrotic lips. “Only one in ten thousand survives the process, but every one that does is a perfect seed to be planted.

“By the authority of The Emperor’s Holy inquisition,” Taddius said, drawing his sword, “I sentence you to death by my blade, and the banishment of your black soul to the hell that awaits you and your master.”

“Who else but Fabius Bile could conquer a sector without armies and without warships? But with only that which I hold in my hand?” he cackled, ignoring Harokai.

A space marine in black armor emerged from the shadows and placed himself between them and Bile. With his helmet off, they could see that his eyes and mouth were sewn shut, and Tella fell backwards with terror. It was the beast.

It leapt forward with frightening speed, landing on Hanover and crushing him beneath his mass. Bendit released a glob of phlegm that rooted the space marine into place. Harokai and his retinue fired their weapons, tearing deep chunks out of the black armor. The beast twisted sideways, breaking free and slashing out with a clawed hand that caught Bendit at the waist, cleaving him in two.
Catherine stretched out her hand and released a bolt of purple lightning that threw the beast back, the wet living floor tearing up and apart under his bulk as he rolled. He stood up and raised his hand, drawing in the energy greedily. Catherine grabbed her raised hand, trying to force it down, but the beast pulled back and even more energy flew out of Catherine. Her body aged to dust in the blink of an eye and her bones and clothes fell lifeless to the floor.

Anthon released a blast of plasma that caught the marine in the knee, burning straight through and separating the leg from the rest of the body. Undaunted, the beast charged forward with its three remaining limbs and knocked Anthon backwards. Anthon spun through the air and was impaled on a thorn protruding from the floor, sticking right up through his chest.

Inquisitor Harokai slashed with his powersword, catching the marine at the elbow and cleaving the arm from its body.

Tella rose to her feet and took aim. Sweat was rolling down her face, and she had to force her eyes open through the fear. The servos in her armor couldn’t completely steady the tremble in her hands. She felt like she could hear her father’s screams. She whispered the prayer of fortitude and forced herself to fire a trio of shots at his exposed head, but her aim was off and the shots slammed into his chestplate, digging deep gouges into the armor there.

The marine grabbed Harokai at the waist with its remaining hand and lifted him aloft as he struggled. There was a terrible crunch as Harokai’s pelvis and spine were pulverized. Taddius screamed but kept his grip on his weapon, slashing down and severing the arm that held him at the shoulder.

Tella forced herself to run forward and get a better angle, then triggered another trio of shots at the bloated purple skin that had once been a human head. The bone and flesh were pulped and the beast finally slumped over dead at Tella’s feet.

Tella ran over and tried vainly to stop the flow of blood coming out of Anthon’s chest.
“Tella,” he said softly. “I’ve always…”
“I know,” she said, opening a cauterizing capsule and pouring its contents out onto the wound. “Try not to speak, you’ll tear up your insides even more.” She heaved at Anthon’s shoulders and with a wet sucking sound his body pulled free of the thorn. She rolled him onto his back and poured another capsule onto the entrance wound.

Deep laughter filled the room.

“Well done, my child,” Fabius praised as he clapped his rotting hands. “Now, emerge from your shell and finish off the Inquisitor with your bare hands.”

Tella heard a breathless word pass through her mind, then a terrible wave of sickness overtook her, and somewhere from deep with, a fury filled her up completely. Every memory and moment were swallowed up in an inexhaustible source of rage, brighter then a thousand suns. Reason, thought, and every other emotion melted before the incredible heat, leaving nothing but inexhaustible anger.
Tella grabbed the sides of her head and screamed, blood trickling out from her eyes, nose and ears. The rage pounded against the inside of her mind, and she felt herself crack and splinter as she tried desperately to hold onto who she was. The force withdrew, then pounded again, and the person she had been simply shattered.
Her body curled to the floor as it swelled and grew, her armor splitting and breaking as muscles and bones took on a new larger form.

“Hurry, and fire the torpedoes,” Harokai gurgled into his vox comm, blood spilling out of his mouth.

In orbit two golden shafts streaked out into the night. Relics of a bygone age, they slammed into the surface of the living planet but did not detonate.

“Duds?” Harokai coughed. “That is so typical.”

Her transformation complete, the beast stood up, her ruined armor barely clinging onto her new form. She stood over eight feet tall now, like an amazon of ancient legend, with black pupil-less eyes. Powerful muscles quivered and strained painfully over strong bones and sinew. She looked down at Anthon’s lifeless body strangely.
“The Emperor…” the beast growled inhumanly.
“Yes, say it, my child,” Bile beckoned.
“The Emperor…is my Lord and Protector,” the beast said, trembling with pain.
“What?”
“The Emperor, is my Father and Savior,” she continued, struggling against every cell in her body.
“Impossible,” Bile breathed.”
“I live and die only for him,” she prayed in agony.

Every fiber strained in protest, yet she forced past the pain and willed her taloned fingers over to the vox on her wrist and activated it.
“The psychic trigger,” she said in gravely tones, “It’s my true name, the true name of my kind, Ka’alina’ari.”
“Tell the choir to transmit that message right away,” Harokai screamed into his comm as he lay dying on the floor. “That word is worth more then all your lives put together.”

“You fool!” Bile screamed, green spittle dribbling down his grey lips. “Your devotion on that corpse god is wasted. Don’t you know that the Emperor despises you?”

“I know that,” the beast insisted. “The Emperor will always hate me. But that does not mean I must choose to hate him.”

The beast dropped low and began sprinting straight at Bile.

“FOR...” she screamed, throwing her weapon to the ground.

“…THE…” she continued, gaining speed.

“…EMPEROR!”

Tella tackled Bile backwards. Their bodies entered the flowing column on energy, polluting it. Atom by atom, they were stripped away through muscle and bone until there was nothing left. The polluted energy began twisting and contorting violently, then exploded outwards in a perfect ball of green fire that consumed everything as it expanded.

On the bridge of the La’mibara, the crew watched in amazement as the black world below was consumed from within, then disappeared as the green fireball expanded further outwards. The ship listed to one side, then was overtaken and destroyed as the fireball expanded further outwards, then was pulled back in, every lick of flame pulled back in through the abyssus until nothing remained but the flicker of cold stars and the blackness of space.

The End.