Editing Ghosts of Rage (Warhammer High) (section)

== Arc Two ==

=== Lockdown ===

There is a notion among most people in the Imperium that all ships have a beautiful names attached to them. As seen in holovideos throughout history, only true love can be found on such ships that travel the galaxy.

Wherever this romantic notion has come from is obviously false. This is blatantly apparent for anyone who has seen the prison vessel called the Gradgral. No love has ever been found within the many cells of this ship. In general, the Gradgral is a horrible looking vessel. It was old, and most would decide its time had come and passed long ago but somehow it managed to barely live.

Out of a population of a thousand souls on board the Gradgral, only a fifth weren’t prisoners. Most of that were naval officers and mechanics, leaving only eighty Arbites in charge of eight hundred prisoners.

Eight hundred prisoners that were some of the worst in the entire Segmentum Pacificus. These criminals were too dangerous to keep on their home planets, either due to insufficient funding by the government to keep them jailed or too many of their friends to not bust them out of prison. It was then proposed to have prison ships roam from planet to planet, shuffling criminals around until their end days. Therefore, ten to one odds made it so that the guards had to be careful not to get swarmed by the maniacs.

Thankfully, being on a ship made things easier. Choke points were strategically created to ensure that the most vital parts of the ships would not be easy to take, even with numbers. As well, all systems on the Gradgral needed voice and DNA authentication, making it hard to take control of the ship with force. Finally, with the ship being in space most of the time, there wasn’t much to escape too other than an air lock to vacuum, so most prisoners didn’t try anything funny.

All these defenses meant little to stop actually gang fighting. It was quite common for the prisoners to kill one another over rivalries and blood feuds. Although the average person in the Imperium would not care if the criminals killed one another, this wasn’t how the Imperial Lords saw it. Every prisoners’ soul belonged to the Imperium, and only the Imperium decides when they die.

This made it so that the captains couldn’t lose a certain percentage of their cargo per tour without being fined or possibly court martialled. In the Gradgral’s case, out of 800 prisoners, only 100 were allowed to die without any inquires. The ship was in its third month out of a six month trip and so far 37 prisoners were killed. The officers found this well within their expectations.

This however put a strain on the guards most of the time, having to endanger their lives to protect those who forfeited their own. That is why when there was a stabbing of an important figure of the Croms gang, the Arbites were already prepared in the corridors when the first sign of fighting began.

Captain Dain stood in front of his squad, gripping his riot shotgun carefully as he awaited his orders to march. Behind him were a dozen men and woman under his command. The majority were veterans on the ship, having served with him for several years, so his trust in their skills was absolute.

They only had one rookie with them today, a young teenager having signed up three months ago when the tour started. Usually there was a whole procedure and training involved before being allowed to join the guards, but this new recruit had shown enough skill and courage that they made a special case for this one.

Dain felt that this was a mistake. There were so many unknowns when it came to the stranger. No background search, no way of knowing if there were any ties to the prisoners on board. Plus, she was a girl so it made her an obvious target. Indeed, Kate Gunnar was a total liability for him, but orders were orders.

As being the newbie, she stood beside him in her full battle gear. Thankfully, she wasn’t allowed a stun gun yet, so she sported the standard shock maul and shield. Even with her weapons and armor equipped, she seemed totally unburdened by the weight. He could see why with her being over six feet tall and well muscled for a female at her age. At least she wasn’t a total weakling.

“How are you holding up rookie?” he asked her, having to look up to the tall woman.

The young teenager turned her head and grunted. “Alright...sir,” she added at the end. It had taken awhile for her to get used to the idea of a chain of command, but she was catching on quickly enough.

He nodded slowly as he turned back to the closed steel door. “Just stick close to the group and we will cover you. What is this, your third riot so far?”

The teenager didn’t respond to him, and Dain could imagine she was at least a bit afraid. Or she was being annoyed by his constant questions. “Its kinda unlucky, you know? You are getting off at the next port and this shit comes into the way. Ain’t that warp?”

She still said nothing. He would’ve kept pushing for a response if his commanding officer didn’t radio in a moment later. “Something’s happening Dain. Get ready to move in, thirty seconds.”

The captain nodded as he spoke over the radio to his squad. “Get ready, twenty five till the doors open.”

He heard the sound of shotguns being cocked and shock mauls turning on from his squad. Behind the large steel gate, he could already hear shouting and some fighting, knowing that they would be walking into a fight quickly enough.

“Take em down quickly and move to the next target. Unless they are on the floor, they are asking of it, understood?” he told his squad. A unified shout was all he needed to hear. They were ready.

The gate in front of him lifted as light poured in from the other side.  The sounds of fighting intensified as the door fully opened in front of them. As expected, it seemed that over a fifty prisoners in this area were fighting and things were getting worse by the moment.

“Move in!” he ordered and raised his shotgun to the closest target. He fired a moment later and stunned the man, downing him within a second. He turned to another target as the melee members of his squad moved forward, keeping the prisoners off the ranged arbites.

Four dozen guards had moved into the room in similar fashion. The response was immediate, as prisoners hated the guards more than they hated each other. The tide turned towards them as expected, and that is why people like Kate Gunnar stood in front of him with their shields while he shot them from afar.

What he didn’t expect was the new surge of prisoners from above. Although the fighting had started between the Croms gang and the Iggies, the Kefkas felt it was an obvious time to show the guards to stop meddling in their affairs. So when a new surge of sixty prisoners fell from the third floor above, Dain new shit was about to get real.

“Command, we have new targets appearing,” he shouted into his headset. “Seems like the Kefka’s want a piece of the action. Send in the-”

He was cut off when a Kefka fell on top of him from above. Dain fell over from the solid mass of man as he tried his best to wrestle his gun back. The prisoners, a large beefy man with a cybernetic eye, yelled at him wildly as he held on to the shotgun, prying it away from the captain.

He roared victoriously as he slammed the gun down on the man like a club, smashing the butt of the gun into his body repeatedly. Dain groaned from the attack, his armor only good against gun shots and knife wounds, not a blunt object. He could feel his bones breaking and wondered if this was how his career was going to come to an end, being beaten to death with his own gun.

His relief came when a shock maul slammed into the man’s ribcage, sending an electric current through his muscles. The man convulsed for a second before falling over beside Dain. Looking up, he noted that of all people in his squad, the rookie had come to save him.

Her helmet had fallen off in the fighting, showing the young woman’s face to the entire room. Her short hair whipped around as she looked for new targets. Dain had never seen such rage as Kate was portraying. With her eyes wide and teeth clenched, she looked as crazy as the prisoners in the room.

A prisoner charged from behind her, and Dain raised a hand to warn her of her impending doom. It seemed unnecessary as she turned around and slammed the face of her shield into the man’s body, sending him flying backwards. Another prisoner ran up and grabbed the shield, which she let go immediately. She immediately slammed her maul into the side of his leg and knocked him out.

One of the guards must have been downed as well, as another maul rolled up beside Kate’s feet. Picking it up with her free hand, she roared as she stepped forward, dual wielding the mauls into the mass of prisoners who dared face her.

Eventually, the prisoners began to back off from the angry teenager as she felled any challenger with exceptional ease. No one seemed to move as fast as she was, striking with such force to down even the largest of men. A group of ten prisoners stared at the angry brunette as she stepped forward, growling at them. They were stupefied and scared of the young woman, seemingly an entity of rage and fury unlike which any of them had ever seen. Another roar and she jumped forward into the mass, swinging her mauls in every direction.

As reserve guards came into the room from behind Dain, the fight began to subside as it swung back into their favor. He stood up with the help from one of his squadmates as he continued to watch the destruction that followed Kate Gunnar.

---

The riot was eventually pacified, after a further half hour of fighting. In total, 8 prisoners were killed, bringing the tally up to 45 deaths in total. As well five guards were injured, some that would take months to heal, two were dead. Somehow, the deaths of the guards did not count to the total.

Dain ached all over, but that didn’t stop him from completing his work. Indeed, he had reports to write, letters for the dead guards, check in with his commanding officer. As well, he had to take care of the rookie standing in front of him.

Indeed, everyone on the ship knew her as Kate Gunnar, a new recruit and apparently the hero from that day’s riot. Having felled over two dozen prisoners and saved the life of Captain Dain, her reputation had grown substantially. Yet no one knew her real name, one that would raise many questions about her past.

Indeed, Furia had kept the name her name a secret for obvious reason. If news got around that the a royal member, heiress of the World Eaters Legion, was travelling on one of the most dangerous ships in the segmentum, then it would be long before the Imperial dogs came chasing.

Only one year had passed since she had left Terra and she had changed since then. She was taller, beginning to look like a true primarch. She had grown in her strength, giving her more of a muscular look then what she had in high school. She didn’t have the mass that her uncles did, so she still kept her slim figure. From a distance, she looked like a girl, but as you got closer, you would need to be careful to treat her anything less than a fighter.  She no longer dyed her hair red, keeping it to the natural brown she was born with.

Dain nodded as he finished filling out her request. “You sure about this Kate? Could use someone like you on the ship for much longer.”

She grunted. “Positive. I’m getting off at the next stop.”

Dain shrugged at her, not understanding. “From everything I remember, Nenavist is a shit hole. There are better ports you know.”

She shook her head at him. “Nenavist is what I signed up for. That was the agreement.”

“Yeah, I remember. Funny, I was going to refuse letting you go like this since it was so unconventional. Warp, you are a mystery to me Kate. But you saved my life today.” He signed the papers and handed them to the tall teenager. “The ship should be coming out of warp within a couple hours. Best of luck, Kate.”

=== The Forgotten World ===

As the captain had said, a couple hours passed before an announcement said they were close to their destination. Soon enough, the ship came out of warp and approached the planet she had long sought. Furia had been so excited for this moment that she had waited the remaining time in the transport shuttle, not wanting to miss leaving at all. She sat in the co-pilot's chair, her belongings were in a bag beside her, the same one she had when she left Terra a year ago.

She couldn’t believe that number. One year had passed since she had left her home. So much had happened since that she began to wonder what Terra was like now. Her thoughts eventually focused on the two people she wanted to talk to the most: Isis and Simon. She wondered how their lives had gone without her, hopefully better now that she was out of the way.

Indeed, one year of travelling the galaxy in search of her home planet. Without context, most people would assume she had taken her time, but this was far from the fact. Nenavist was a bitch to find. She had originally checked the Astropath department back on Terra, but no records could find a planet or system called Nenavist.

So for a better part of a year and half, she travelled blindly through the stars, jumping from ship to ship, port to port in search of a planet that might not even exist. For a while there, she imagined her grandfather had tricked her, giving her a false name in hopes of leading her off. Still, a part of her believed, and she was thankful she did.

It was only four months ago that the name Nenavist finally emerged as a location. It was apparently a new mining world near the border between Segmentum Tempestus and Pacificus. She had looked at the star charts in the area in detail and no Legion Homeworld was nearby.  She wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but it was a step forward after a single year.

Lights in the transport turned on as someone entered behind Furia. She turned her head and grinned at the young pilot who stared back at her.

“A bit early, aren't we?” he asked her as she stepped forward.

“Didn’t want to miss the shuttle down.” The man walked up and sat in the pilot chair beside her. He glanced at her quickly before returning his attention to the ship. Flipping some switches, she felt the floor beneath her shake as the shuttle came to life.

“Normally, I’d tell you to wait in the back, but I don’t mind having a cute girl sitting up front with me. Plus, I don’t want to give our cargo the chance to ogle you all the way down.”

“Cargo?” she asked him.

He nodded slowly as he continued to check out the controls. “Ten prisoners for labor down on Nenavist. The planet usually gets a shipment every couple of months to work the machines and such. If they carry out the remainder of their sentence in peace, they can live out the rest of their lives on the planet. Better than dying at the edge of an ork axe in a penal legion, in my opinion anyway.”

She nodded slowly, knowing how most criminals would be sent to penal legions if their crimes were unforgivable. This way, they would die for the glory of the Imperium. Three months on a prison ship would teach you much about how the system worked.

The pilot keyed the intercom on the ship as he spoke. “Command, am I clear to take off?”

Several seconds passed before an acknowledgement was sent. “You’re good to go S-244. See you in a bit.”

The shuttle began to shake harder as thrusters lifted the massive hulk upwards into the launch bay. A second later, the pilot pushed his joystick forward as the ship leapt forward out of the bay. It passed through the atmosphere field into vacuum, racing towards the planet below.

Furia looked through the small viewport eagerly. She had been searching for it for over a year now and, wondered what she would find on the surface below. The entirety of the ground was caked in red with small parts of black to break apart the uniformity. It looked almost like marble from so high above.

“What do you know about Nenavist?” Furia asked the pilot.

He shrugged. “It’s a shit hole really. Colonized just under two decades ago, Mechanicum had scanned a large amount of minerals available for mining. Set up shop soon after to send back a large quantity of materials for the forges in the core.” He tapped the screen. “I don’t know if you can understand any of this, but the planet is riddled with blast craters.”

She looked at him curiously. “Meteors?” she asked.

“Nope, this is weapons fire. Planet was bombarded a while ago before it was colonized. Looks like capital ship weapons too. I think a major battle took place here during the crusade.”

“How do you know something like that?” she asked him.

He grinned at her, feeling a bit confident. “I used to be a pilot in the navy. Flew bombing missions in the Void Walks against the orks.” Furia realized he meant the war just a year ago, during the time she had run away. Orks had invaded a trade lane deep in the Ultramarines backyard, having created much havoc in their wake. “Got my commissions and found out that I just didn’t enjoy Dakka jets on my ass. This job is nice and simple.”

She nodded slowly as she stared at the planet some more. Indeed, she could note a large amount of rock debris in orbit around the planet. She wondered who fought who, and who won in the end. Most likely them as they suddenly owned the area.

Her eyes picked up a shadow near the edge of the planet and pointed at it through the small windows. “What’s that?” she asked him.

Glancing over, he looked back at the many screens on his dashboard and nodded. “Another ship in orbit. Small, a frigate or destroyer. Imperial markings make it a navy ship.”

She felt a knot in her stomach form. A navy ship over the planet she was landing? She didn’t like that at all. Maybe it was a trap from her grandfather, having set her up to come here eventually to bring her back home. But it seemed kind of small to fetch her in the end.

“What kind of ship is it? Space Marine?” she asked quickly, wondering if this was a bad idea. A part of her wondered if it was a World Eater ship, in orbit of her possible homeworld, or a possible recruitment world near their the legion’s planet.

He chuckled at that suggestion. “Space marine? Warp no. That’s just a regular patrol ship. They make trips around the segmentum often enough to check out if everything is alright. Probably will be gone in a day or two after they’ve completed their paperwork.”

This calmed her down a bit as she leaned back into the chair, on the edge a moment ago. Still a chance it was a trap, but she had to try anyway. She had come so far for her to be scared off by one ship.

A second later they passed through the atmosphere, the shaking stopping soon enough as they clear their way down to the planet.

The pilot glanced at her, and his stare lingered. She frowned at him as he kept looking. “What?”

“You’re Kate Gunnar right? Hero from the riot a day ago?”

She smirked at that and looked away. “So what if I am?”

“Nothing. Just didn’t think a girl that took out so many prisoners would be so sexy.”

She shook her head. “You always hit on girls while flying?” she asked him.

“Hey, gets me out of the way of orks and into girls such as yourself.” He smiled even harder, and she could imagine he felt successful with his attempts of seduction.

“Get in my way and you’ll be losing that joystick,” she said.

He laughed at that as he approached the port up ahead. It was a large complex she could only assume to be the central port for the planet. It was a tall building with many landing pads on the side. The very architecture of the structure was a good telling that this was indeed a Mechanicum planet. It had no curves of any sort and
did not seem aesthetically pleasing in any way.

“Well, listen. The Gradgral isn’t scheduled to leave orbit for another week. Transfer of additional prisoners, paperwork, refuelling. I got some time to spare while we are here. You wanna go to a bar and have a drink or two? My treat.”

She sighed as the shuttle came up towards the metal landing pad. Within seconds, the craft landed with ease even with the pilot looking at her the entire time. She had to admit that it was kind of impressive.

“No thanks. You seem too quick when it comes to your approach.” She grabbed her bag and got up, walking to the door. The pilot swung around in his chair as he left.

“Come on babe! I got plenty of fuel!” he yelled after her, but she didn’t stop as she made her way out.

The ship’s side door opened as a ramp pulled down to the surface. Immediately, Furia felt the intense heat and humidity of the planet. It felt like she had stepped into a sauna.  She could feel herself sweating as she stepped down unto the cement landing pad.

She looked around the dusty area as she tried to find her way to the inside of the starport. Servitors walked up to the ship, sporting several tools and tubes for maintenance on the vessel. Making her way past them, she turned her head slightly as the back door of the shuttle opened. Out came several guards, pulling out the “cargo” of the ships. The large prisoners looked at her as she walked past them, growling at displeasure at their new home. She stared back for several seconds before looking away, not wanting to taunt them further. One fight was enough this week.

Up ahead she noted the open hatchway to the inside of the port, which she quickly jumped in to hide from the rays of the sun. The insides of the building were air conditioned, something Furia welcomed greedily as she stood for a moment, having a breather. Looking around her, she found herself in a large open room that clearly told her this was a mechanicum planet.

The ceiling was a web of tubes and wires, some dropped down to power the equipment in the room itself. The large majority of people in the room had at least one apparent augmentation. No one immediately noticed her entrance as the twenty or so workers of the facility scrambled around to their work. It was a couple minutes of her just standing at the side when eventually one of the augmented workers stopped and stared at her. She stared back, not backing off even with his two infrared eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her rudely. His mechanical arm whirred at his side impatiently. Furia braced her sudden jolt of anger as she realized she wasn’t going to like the locals very much.

“I’m looking for the naval registry.”

“Why?” he asked immediately. She could imagine that this conversation was way too slow for him. She used this against him.

“Cause I want to look at it,” Furia growled slowly, taking her time with every word. His arm clenched, giving away his unhappiness with her slow response.

“Listen unenlightened, you don’t come in here with your damn requests. So why don’t you take that snotty attitude and shove it up you-”

“You! Stop harassing the girl!

It was lucky that someone else interrupted him, or Furia was about take his mechanical arm off and use it against him. From the side walked a red robed figure, clearly a techpriest. If it wasn’t for electronic female voice, Furia wouldn’t know that this one was a woman. It was hard to tell, as most of the figure was a collection of tubes and lights and mechanical appendages with instruments she could not recognize. Her head was hidden under the typical red robe that adepts of the Mechanicum wore.

“This is no way to treat a guest, no matter if they are blessed to be able to support the gifts of the Omnissiah or not.”

“My apologies priestess.” Without another word, the man bowed and backed off, returning to his duties. The priestess turned to Furia and nodded.

“I apologize for his behaviour. Some of the new recruits are a bit too devout for their own good. What brings you to the Nenavist colony?”

Furia was quick to the point, not in the mood for a lengthy conversation that would lead to them trying to induct her into their cult. “Where is the naval registry?”

“You came all this way to see our naval registry?” The electronic voice was strange to Furia who had never really been around tech priests in her life.

“How do you know I travelled here?” Furia asked suspiciously. The techpriest shrugged.

“Your accent is from the inner colonies. It is quite obvious with the way you speak so informally.”

Furia paused and reflected on her choice of words, suddenly self conscious in the way she spoke. It was several seconds before she responded as she pushed such ideas aside. “Can you show me the registry or not?” she asked, becoming impatient.

“No need to be hostile on the matter. Follow me and I will lead you to our data centre.”

Without another word, the red robed priestess turned and walked away to a nearby exit. Furia followed closely behind, glaring at the man who she spoke to earlier. He did the same to her with his beady red eyes.

=== The Taghmata Familia ===

She followed her into a large service elevator and descended into the ground two floors. From there, they followed down a large hallway, this one mostly empty other than the occasional worker or servitor group conducting their duties.

As they walked by a windowed room, Furia stopped at the sight. She wasn’t sure immediately what she was looking at until the priestess walked up beside her so she could ask.

“Is this... a nursery?” Furia asked her.

The room was more natural compared to the rest of the complex, which still didn’t mean much for a Mechanicum complex. There was over a hundred ‘cribs’, each a highly complex machine that outputted all the data on the life form inside to a nearby screen. Most of them were full of tiny babies, sleeping or crying as many attendants walked by, nursing to their every need.

“Indeed. This is where we check if a baby is viable to accept augmentations or not.”

“But I thought this was the port. Why have a nursery?” Furia asked her.

“This is actually the first building that was created on the planet when the Explorator fleet had arrived. From there, we grew upon this complex until we had the working atmosphere generator created to colonize the rest of the planet. Even though we have grown beyond the use of this complex, many services still remain here for the time being, like this nursery.”

Furia nodded slowly as she watched behind the window. She was about to turn to leave when the door to the nursery opened and another techpriest came out.

“Myrn, do you have a cycle? One of the containers is malfunctioning again, I need your input.”

The female priestess nodded and turned to Furia. “I’ll only be a moment,” she announced and disappeared inside.

The teenager waited a moment outside, feeling quite alone as servitors walked by, not even glancing at her. Her curiosity urged her on as she opened the door and walked into the nursery.

The effect was immediate. It seemed that the window was sound proof as the yell of nearly a hundred babies hit her at once. The room smelled quite sterile, even with these many children to take care of. Attendants moved between the rows as they check each crib and wrote down results on their data slates.

Furia walked up to one of the cribs and looked at the small child inside. The baby was yelling, clearly displeased with something about his situation. He, suddenly stopped as he noticed the tall girl beside him. Furia glared at the baby for a moment as the small human eyed her curiously before reaching out to her, laughing.

For whatever reason, she humoured the child as she brought her hand towards him. He immediately grabbed her index finger, hanging on tightly. It seemed all he wanted was some attention, Furia thought to herself, as he continued to smile at her.

She never thought of herself to be good with children and she knew her father wasn’t either. A part of her wondered if her mother cared for her before she died. She barely remembered the woman, only a single memory with very little details. A careful hold, a smell of roses, blond hair. She remembered not much else besides that, and had seen no photos of her in her household. Maybe when she found her homeworld there would be more information.

At some point in her thoughts, the baby holding on to her had fallen asleep, and she stared at him for a moment longer. Myrn walked up beside her and looked down at the baby. “You put him to sleep? You must have a caring touch then,” she commented.

Furia grinned at that idea. “You don’t know how wrong you are,” she muttered in response.

Myrn shrugged as they both walked out, making their way past the nursery. Soon after, they approached another room, which Furia assumed to be their destination. “Data Storage,” she read off the door as Myrn opened it easily enough. The room was frigid as Furia wondered how she was sweating a couple minutes earlier and freezing now. The priestess seemed unaffected as she led the young teenager to a console and turned it on.

“You can access the registry from here. Be warned, if you are found tampering with the system, you will be terminated with no inquiry. To leave, just go back the way we came and take the elevator to the ground floor. If you need anything, I am sure there is someone around here who can help. I must be off.”

Before Furia could ask her anything, the tech priestess left, leaving the brown haired teenager alone.

“Great,” she muttered, turning to the console and going to work. The faster she could find what she was looking for, the faster she could leave the freezer she was in.

=== Life on the Frontier ===

Two hours Later, Furia had lost the feeling in her arms. However, that did not stop her from slamming the table in frustration, groaning at her failures.

She had gone through dozens of searches of all possible ships that had come and gone from Nenavist. None of them came up with results of Space Marine ships of any sort. No Legiones Astartes had ever come to Nenavist, let alone for any World Eaters on a recruiting mission. She had hoped she would find her homeworld in recruiting range, but that was not the case. She had to now think of something else. Furia suddenly wished Isis was here to help.

Her thoughts returned to home as she suddenly felt very homesick. She wondered how school was going for her cousins and Simon. How her father was taking her disappearance. How things had changed since she had left. She wondered if she should return home and stop with this search. But her grandfather had sent her here for a reason. He wouldn’t have made her travel halfway across the galaxy for no reason.

But maybe that was it. Maybe he wanted her out of the picture, to protect her and everyone else. Maybe this was his way of telling her that she needed to be as far away from Terra as possible.

The more Furia thought about it, the more it made sense. There was no space marine homeworld anywhere nearby. This was on the southeast end of the galaxy in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing here for her to destroy or hurt. Indeed, she was quite alone.

As this sudden realization set in, Furia sighed, knowing full well she deserved such a fate. She wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone she cared about anymore.

“Dang this room is cold!” a voice said behind her. She spun around, not having heard the room’s door open.

Somehow, Gradgral’s shuttle pilot had found her, even in the bowels of the Mechanicum complex. She got a better look at the man for the first time. He was a small fellow, barely five foot six inches by her estimations. With short cropped navy brown hair and a trimmed beard, he looked well into his thirties. The man smiled as he shivered, teeth clattering.

“How did you find me?” she asked him, not in the mood to talk as she felt like depressed with her current revelations.

“Not hard, needed to ask where the hot sexy normal was. Some guy up top seemed pretty pissed off when I mentioned it to him. You getting along with the locals?”

Furia was no longer in the mood as she grabbed her bag and walked past him towards the door, done with her search. The pilot was persistent as he followed. “Was it something I said?” he asked, seemingly desperate.

“I’m not in the mood,” she growled at him, but the effect was lost on him.

“Come on, you always this uptight?” he said as he stopped in the hallway, giving up on his chase.

She stopped as well as she turned to him, her eyes glaring. She wanted to do nothing else than to pummel the man into the ground, turn to her anger like she always did. It wasn’t because of his flirtations or his remarks, but because he was the only person around that she could vent her anger upon.

But she realized that was the reason she had to leave her home in the first place. The anger she could barely control that fueled her to destroy. Maybe it was time for a change.

She looked at him. “What do you have in mind?”

The man was ecstatic. “There’s a bar most of us norms go to hang out on this planet. Its pretty good for a Mechanicum world. Nice drinks and entertainment.”

Furia breathed for a moment, dissipating her anger as she nodded. “Sure, why not.”

The man smiled even harder as he jogged up beside Furia, walking with her towards the elevator. “By the way, name’s Kilau Tohne.”

She grunted. “Kate Gunnar.”

Within a few minutes, the duo walked out of the port and into the heat of the sunset. Even though it was the end of the day, it was still warm and humid. Within seconds Furia felt her clothes stick to her skin. “What’s with this humidity? Isn’t this planet just colonized?”

Kilau chuckled as they walked into the empty road. No cars could be seen in any direction between the massive rows of buildings. “You see that?” he said as he pointed to a large tower in the distance. She hadn’t noticed it until then. The structure was at least ten kilometres high, emitting white smoke from the very top. “That’s the atmosphere generator. It’s supposed to help colonize the planet into something liveable in the next century or so. Too bad it’s broken.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Furia asked.

“They tried to make it rain, but instead it got very humid. Funny, something breaks on a Mechanicum planet and nobody can fix it.”

Furia chuckled at that. She stared at the needle like tower for a bit longer before turning her attention to where they were going.

It was easy enough to tell which one was the bar from the many small structures that surrounded the port complex. Most mechanicum buildings were very similar, a sea of metal boxes lined up in proper order. All were from a standard template, and none differed from the design.

All except the structure up ahead. It had bright flashing lights and an illuminated sign, “Honor’s End”. It was the only building on the dusty cement road that had a crowd outside. Music poured into the streets as she could feel the bass from the speakers inside.

As they walked to the entrance, the large bouncer in the front stepped aside and let Furia in, growling at the pilot behind her. The building seemed half full, crowds of people across the many tables having drinks and sharing stories. Most of them wore Imperial uniforms, meaning they were part of the administration of the planet. Even though the Mechanicum were in charge, the Imperial bookkeepers still needed to keep track of what was going on.

As they both approached the bar, the pilot turned to her. “You are legal, right?” he asked beside her. She turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “To drink. And maybe for other things.”

“You like to push your luck huh?” she asked him as she waved the bartender over. “Two beers. He’s paying.” She pointed at Kilau. The man nodded and went to get their drinks. She dropped her bag by her feet before turning her attention back to him.

“Well, if I am paying for the drinks, you might as well respond to my poor attempts.”

She shook her head. “You need to give a reason for woman to sleep with you. Flying prisoners ain’t exactly the most impressive thing in the galaxy.”

The pilot puffed his chest out. “I’m a war hero. I flew hundreds of missions, dropping death unto the enemy while being shot at by dakka jets. I even received a medal from a Primarch for my bravery.”

Furia spun her head and stared at him. “You met royalty?” she said, much more interested now. Kilau leaned in and smiled, feeling he finally found something to impress the girl.

“Lord Mortarion himself congratulated our bombing wing, giving a speech to all of us about how we helped his own Astartes against the Ork horde on Seadelant. He was immensely pleased with all of us. Even though he was incredibly nauseating to be around, it still was probably the greatest day in my life.” The drinks arrived as Kilau paid the bartender before continuing. He opened his bottle, took a sip and nodded. “It’s a shame with what happened with Lady Morticia. The shooting that is. I hope she has recovered quickly and safely.” He raised his beer at that before drinking it.

Furia shook her head at that comment. “Why do you care?” she asked him. “You don’t know them personally. Why does it affect you?”

Kilau glanced at her, a confused look on his face. “Why wouldn’t I care? All the daughters are important to the Imperium. They are the leaders of the future, for a time of peace and growth. They are symbols of hope for people who have none. I felt horrible for a weeks after I heard what had happened to Lady Morticia. To hurt someone so innocent and friendly is appalling to me. And then she had the will to go to court and face her would-be killer. That’s brave right there.”

Furia looked at him steadily, surprised by his words. “You mean that?”

“Every word. Why, you hate them or something?” Kilau looked at her strangely, as if the thought had never occurred to him.

“No. Just seems like you almost worship them.” Furia remembered how the Morticia’s shooter was a Emperor worshipper, suddenly wondering if Kilau was capable of such devotion.

“No, not anything like that. They are just people I look up to, you know?”

She chuckled at that, sipping her beer. “Not really. Didn’t exactly have many role models when I grew up.” She paused and shook her head. “No, that’s a lie. My last boyfriend was the only person I wish I was more like. Helped me through some tough times, even if I was a bitch.”

“Last? What happened?” Kilau wasn’t flirting anymore, seeming sincere in his interest.

She shrugged. “Life got in the way. I left my home and haven’t gone back. Been over a year now.”

“Sounds tough. You ever regret it?”

She paused and thought back to her sudden realization that day. “No, it was for the best. What about you Kilau, got any family? A girlfriend to return home to?”

“Nope. My night is clear of any responsibilities if that’s what you are asking.” He smiled mischievously and she grinned at that, shaking her head. She had no plans to sleep with a man she had just met. Still, Kilau was turning out to be someone she actually enjoyed talking to so far, which was rare indeed.

“You know, if you actually acted like yourself instead of a sex maniac, you would probably have more luck with the ladies,” she commented.

“Tried that through my teenage years. Didn’t work. That’s why I became a Navy Pilot. Usually it is all I need to say. Guess you are different.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Furia mumbled.

He nodded slowly. “I had a feeling though. I mean, I don’t know many young women that go around and beat the warp out prisoners so easily.”

“Just have good genes, that’s all. I learned to fight very early on, not necessarily for the best reasons.” Indeed, most of her learning came from fighting with Hana and Freya. But he didn’t need to know that.

Her attention turned to a man that walked up beside her at a mostly empty bar. He leaned over the bar and ordered a drink, waiting patiently beside her. Furia’s eyes  turned back to Kilau as he spoke.

“Well, I’ll be very honest. You look too unscathed to be someone who fought a lot. Either you are very good or just pulling my leg.”

She shrugged. “As I said, good genes.”

Kilau nodded as he grinned. “Yeah, must be to give a body like that.”

She sighed, not sure how to stop him from talking like that without having to break his arm. She was about to ask him again, this time more sternly, when she felt something brush up against her leg. She turned around and noted the man beside her had disappeared. Looking down quickly, her bag was gone too.

“Son of a bitch!” she yelled loudly as she saw him run out the bar at the opposite bar. Growling in rage, she chased after the man, leaving Kilau at the counter, completely confused at the situation.

She ran out past the bouncer looking around, her eyes flaring. “Where did he go?!” she shouted at the large man.

The bouncer seemed a bit shocked at her current demeanor, and pointed down the road away from the port. Instantly she was off, running at high speeds as she noted the man’s speck in the distance. Most people weren’t sure what to make of her as she ran faster than most humans possibly ever could.

Her target dipped in between two buildings with her bag in hand. She had to break early from the intense speed without toppling over herself. Skidding to a stop, she turned and made her way down the short alley to the next street over, where she noted him running into another alleyway. Picking up the distance between them with her superhuman agility, she began to follow the man farther and farther away from the core of the port area to the outer reaches of the small town.

In this area, the building began to look a lot less uniform, seemingly built at random. This seemed to be a worker area away from the administration complexes near the port. It was obvious the equivalent of the slums of the planet.

Furia didn’t notice the change of scenery as she had closed the distance to the thief. With one final leap, she tackled the man into the ground hard, making him land on his side. Her small bag left his grasp and fell beside him.

The man, bald headed and quite young, groaned in pain at the attack. Furia was unharmed as she stood up and looked down at the man. She would take care of him in a second, as she walked over to her bag to check her things.

She picked up the bag and found it relatively untouched. That’s when she noticed that several men had come out of the nearby buildings and looked at her, all grinning as they surrounded her.

“You in the wrong side of town, girl,” one of the large men shouted at her. His friends agreed as they continued to surround her. Furia stood in place as she looked at each of them in turn. There was six in total, along with their friend who was struggling to get up. Each seemed to be unarmed except for the man who spoke to her, who seemed to have a small knife in his hand.

“Then I will be on my way,” she said calmly, not sure if having a fight within the first day of her arrival was the best way to live in peace.

“Nuh uh. We have a toll here you need to pay. You ain’t leaving till you paid the toll.”

She growled at them as she flexed her arms. She assumed she knew what they were looking for as payment since she was a young female. “I should warn you, I bite.”

The man chuckled as he played with the knife in his hand. “Good thing all I am looking for is a tankard worth of your blood.”

Furia was taken aback by the statement, suddenly realizing that these men were not looking for her body, but something a bit more sinister. They began to close on her as she wondered if running was a better option. It didn’t matter soon enough as one the men charged her wildly, trying to catch her from the side.

Her lightning primarch reflexes were too fast for the man however, as she raised a foot and kicked him in the chest a moment after. Adrenaline started pumping through her veins as time began to slow down in her eyes. The men’s movements around her seemed sluggish and slow as she surveyed the area quickly. She had caused significant harm to the man with the kick as he fell backwards. Five of them were untouched, and then there was the other guy who was getting up from her tackle. She had her work cut out for her.

Another man closed the distance, this time trying to tackle her down to the ground. She fell backwards, grabbing the man’s shirt as he closed in on her. Falling to the floor, she pushed her legs into his chest and sent him flying over her, into a friend of his. Both of them toppled to the ground as she easily used the momentum to roll back up to a crouched position.

Unfortunately for her, the other attackers had closed the distance. Two of them immediately jumped on her as she tried to get back into a defensive stance. Even though she was stronger, the mass of a fully grown man tackling her was enough to send her back to the ground. The man roared at her point blank as he used his position to hold her down, quite successfully.

Before Furia could free herself, another man tackled her attacker, sending the duo off to the side. Furia glanced over to see Kilau to her ‘rescue’, struggling with the man on the ground. Furia got up as she noticed the rest of her attackers had also recovered. Some were wary to attack again, while the bloodlust of others had no hesitations as one man charged headfirst at her.

Furia quickly swung her right fist into his head, timing it perfectly as she knocked the man out mid charge, sending him running to the ground to the side. It didn’t matter as the rest of his companions followed behind him, this time using their numbers to their advantage.

Even though she immediately knocked one out, three others grabbed her arms and legs and held her in place. She struggled like a caged beast, trying to use her brutish force to free herself. The men that held her were surprised by the strength of such a small girl as they couldn’t hold on to her for long.

“Damn she’s strong!” one of them yelled.

“Hold her steady, this one is a fine addition to our cause!” She recognized the voice to be the man she spoke to earlier. He walked up with what looked like an aerosol can in his hand. Whatever it was, Furia didn’t want any piece of it as she struggled even harder.

It was too late as the man sprayed the can into her face. The smell of the gas released was strange, being something she thought she recognized. She blinked as she breathed the gas in for a moment, unsure of where she knew it from.

The men around her smiled as they let her go, making her fall to the ground. As Furia slowly stood up, the man with the knife nodded. “Welcome sister.”

A quick kick to the groin made him shut up quick as Furia’s anger had not disappeared, only slightly delayed. She punched another man beside her as the attackers no longer wanted to deal with her, backing off and grabbing their fallen companions.

She roared furiously as they ran off, leaving her and a bloody Kilau to their own devices.

“We showed them,” the pilot said, his eye swollen and his nose bleeding. Other then that, he seemed perfectly fine.

Furia nodded slowly before clutching her head with both hands. Pains shot through her skull as she fell to her knees, unable to cope with the sudden mental stress. “Hey, you alright?” Kilau asked beside her, but she didn’t answer. This was probably the worse headache she had ever had in her entire life.

It was so bad she didn’t notice Kilau topple over beside her. A shadow appeared over her as she struggled to look up at the newcomer. She didn’t have much a long time to look as the shadowy man raised his arm. She barely felt something in her arm before she the tranquilizer took effect.

=== Test Subjects ===

Furia wasn’t sure how long she had been knocked out, but that much time couldn't have passed. She could still feel the massive migraine she had earlier as she woke up. Not to mention she felt a bit sore from the fight, even though she had no injuries to speak of.

All she wanted to do was get some fresh air and stretch her legs. Hopefully that would calm her head pains. It was then that she noticed her arms and legs were strapped down to a metal table. As she suddenly realized that she was indeed in trouble, she began to struggle against the bonds, testing their strength with her limbs.

“Subject 09 has awoken, a mere 20 minutes after the tranquilizer was applied. Very quick compared to average time. Could be due to mutation within the mysterious element. Further testing will need to be done to before such a conclusion could be reached.”

Furia turned to the mysterious voice by her head. A very pale and skinny man stood beside her, wearing a white apron, a surgical mask and goggles. He was bald and seemed to have not eaten for several days.

“Who the fuck are you?” she growled at him.

“Subject seems to exhibit the normal anger issues that have been seen in previous tests. Although, she is lacking other symptoms of subjects 4, 6. This puts into question theory #3, this is probably not an STD.”

Furia flexed her arms as she tested the leather straps holding her down. The man looked at her curiously. “Subject seems more responsive to her surroundings compared to previous subjects who took hours before returning to a more normal state. Maybe there is indeed a mutation with the disease, causing a quicker hold on the subject’s sense.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?! Let me go, right now,” Furia ordered.

“All in good time my dear. Once I find out what’s wrong with you, I’ll fix you right up. OR I’ll move on to subject 10. No matter.”

Furia’s eyes bulged when she heard the word “wrong with you”. She finally had enough as she flexed her arms one final time against her binds. The straps strained for a moment before she ripped them off from the table. The man stared for a moment, unsure of what just happened. It was obviously too late when she had grabbed him by the colour, pushing him up against the wall with all her might.

He gasped as he stared at her, completely shocked by her abnormal display. “Don’t kill me,” he whispered.

“Who are you?” she grumbled out as she pinned him against the wall.

“I’m a doctor. A virologist specialist.” The man answered quickly and stammered slightly.

Furia stared at him till he explained a bit more. “I study diseases. I am part of a group that arrived earlier this month to investigate some murders.”

“What murders?” Furia asked, actually curious.

“You don’t know?” he said, a bit surprised. She stared at him unmoving till he got the message. “There has been killings near the miners habitat. Brutal killings that have... sparked some sort of interest in my employers.”

“Employers?” Furia asked. He shook his head.

“You might as well kill me. If I tell you, they will probably do the same.”

Furia frowned as she let him go, not going to go that far. The man rubbed his throat as he looked over her. Furia didn’t mind as she glanced around the room. It seemed to be an apartment of some sort, except without the regular furnishings. Instead of a bed or tables and chairs, the room seemed to be a storage for equipment. Large black boxes covered the walls with the Imperial symbol on it, the double headed eagle. There were a couple metallic tables like the one she was on. Kilau was sound asleep one such tables.

“Is he alright?” she asked.

The doctor nodded slowly. “He is fine. He wasn’t affected by the spray like you were.”

Furia suddenly remembered what the man was talking about. Right near the end of the fight with the gang, she had been sprayed with something she thought she recognized. It was different, but something about the gas reminded her of Terra.

“What was it?” she asked a moment later.

“Not sure, but I believe it to be the source of these murders. The rest of my task force had gone to investigate the possible source of the gas but they have been missing for a week.”

“A week?” she exclaimed. “You are all alone out here while your team has been gone that long?”

“It's part of the job description. Two teams working on either side of the large city. I sent a message to the others, but they have yet to respond. It might be some time.”

“That's stupid,” she said flatly. “So I seem unaffected by the gas. What was it supposed to do?”

“Faster heart rate, increase in adrenaline production, increase in muscle growth. Can cause a various number of affects on the brain, but primarily seems to make the recipient more emotionally unstable, easy to anger and such.”

“Wait,” Furia said, the gears in her head turning. “Easy to anger? Oh shit.”

The doctor looked at her strangely. “What?”

“It's Xelaratin,” she blurted out. “Or the opposite of it.”

“Xelaratin?” the man asked. “I've never heard of such a drug.”

Furia noted her stuff near the door and went to grab it. “It's something I used to take back home. It's an anger reducing drug, something the military came up with. Apparently they had an opposite as well which induced anger in the taker.”

The man looked at her as she grabbed her bag and walked to the door. “Wait, you can't leave!” he shouted.

“Yeah, too bad. Where is the possible source of this drug?” she asked.

The doctor paused, unsure of what to make of the girl who seemed so eager to suddenly investigate the matter. “There's an habitat mine entrance north of here. That's all I know.”

Furia nodded as she opened the door. She paused and looked over at Kilau, still out from the tranquilizer. “Let him go, or else I'll be back.”

The skinny man nodded quickly as she walked out. “Wait! If you find the team, tell them Dr. Hongun sent you!” She slammed the door shut as she left.

=== The Dark Heart of Nenavist ===

To cut costs and increase productivity, the Mechanicum had to come up with a way to make workers sleep as close as possible to their work area without having to travel much. That is when they thought ot the idea of using the space left over from mining to create habitat structures within the ground. This way, all the workers would need to do was descend deeper into the mine every shift to continue work. The idea was applauded by the ruling priesthood and hated by miners around the galaxy.

Living in such a structure was usually dark. They had no windows to speak off and very little sunlight other than ones from artificial sources. It was cramped and poorly ventilated, making tensions rise very easily. It was very much a hellish place to live.

Furia walked up to the above portion of the structure, which was nothing more than a small building that held the elevators down. Beside the building was two service elevators side by side, used to bring large machines down and minerals back up. One of the lifts was easily a hundred feet wide and long, making for a reasonable large area.

Walking into the small structure, there was three lifts and a ladder hatch down for emergencies. No one else was in the area, making Furia a bit more than wary of the situation. Pressing the nearby button to call the lift, she waited patiently till one of the doors opened. The cabin was empty as she walked inside. Looking over the many floors of the structure, she saw one button was worn out more than the others.

“Why not,” she said to herself as she pressed it. The lift groaned as it began to move downwards.

Several minutes passed in silence as the lift descended further and further into the ground. Furia wasn’t sure if it was the lift being slow, or the habitat was that deep.

Eventually, the machine slowed down and came to a stop. A loud ding announced she had arrived as the door opened in front of her.

Several large men turned and stared at her. Furia wouldn’t have minded another fight, but this time they all sported autopistols and shotguns. She was clearly not in a winning position.

Several minutes later, she was escorted down a long hallway by several large guards, all well equipped with close combat weapons and firearms. Not only was she surrounded, but they had also restrained her hands with makeshift handcuffs, welded together by them apparently. Even with her super strength, she wouldn’t be breaking these easily.

As expected, the living conditions in the habitat were quite low. The hallway seemed dirty, lights needed to be changed. The air seemed stale in taste, as if it hadn’t changed in a long time. She didn’t even want to talk about the smells. She had spent time on a prison ship and even this seemed to surprise her.

They passed numerous other people who stood in the hallway, watching them walk by. Most of the stares lingered as she saw no other females so far. No one made a move though as her escorts made it quite clear she wasn’t for taking.

“So where are we going?” she asked eventually. None of the guards answered her as the pushed her. “Guess you guys don’t speak gothic huh.”

“Shut up,” a guard in front of her said. She grinned slightly.

“Make me,” she challenged him.

The lead guard stopped, and the rest of the escort did as well. The large dark skinned man turned and stared at her. He moved up to her slowly, breathing down unto her face. He was as tall as she was, something she actually found to be impressive. He stared at her for several long moments.

“Maybe you should keep that mouth shut before I do it myself.”

“I’d like to see you try,” she said. The man’s arm flexed as she anticipated a punch, but none came. “What, you scared?”

It was clearly getting to the man as his face twitched for a moment. “No. But the boss doesn’t want me to kill prisoners. Makes for poor sport.”

The man turned around and continued walking. One of the guards behind Furia pusher her as she started to move again. She realized that they wouldn’t kill her just yet, somehow needed her for other purposes.

It was after couple more minutes before the hallway ended to a double door. On top of the doorway was a sign that said “Recreation Room”. The leader of the pact knocked. A second later the doors opened as armed guards stood at either side of the entrance, ushering them in.

The room was quite large as this seemed to be the gathering point for that level of the habitat. Furia glanced around quickly, trying to gather as much information as possible, mainly an escape route. Unfortunately, there was at least twenty other men in the room, mostly armed. They covered all the entrances and seemed to be keeping an eye on her.

In the center of the room as a large table with several people around it. Most of them looked alike except for one man who stood out, wearing a blood red robe and had a very peculiar tattoo on his bald head. She had never seen the symbol before which was symmetrical through its middle axis and was imprinted with red ink.

The man looked up and stared at her as she was brought up to the table. The men around the table turned to look as well, following what was obviously their leader’s gaze.

“Who is this Kortal?” the man in the red robe asked.

“Intruder who came from the elevator. She fits the description from the patrol earlier.”

The leader turned to look at her. “You? You are the one who fought my men and made them act like spineless cowards?”

Furia smirked at that. “Yeah, it was easy.”

The red robed man returned the grin and nodded. “Confident as well as strong. That’s good.” He walked around the table and approached her. “Who are you girl? You look strong, a fighter. An imperial spy like the rest or something else entirely?”

Furia stared at him, and he did not flinch away. “Yes, something more perhaps.”

“She’s a guard from the Gradgral!”

All heads turned to the other side of the room, where a familiar group of men stood together. It was the prisoners that were unloaded with the shuttle today. They all seemed to remember her as well.

“She came down with us on the shuttle. She can’t be trusted.” The prisoners in question was a skinny man who she recognized to be part of the Iggies back on the Gradgral. Or so she thought, as his tattoo had been recently burned off it seems.

“A guard? Come to take your prisoners back home?” the man beside her asked.

“I don’t give a shit about them. I didn’t come here to cause trouble. I came for answers.”

The man shrugged. “You aren’t in a position to ask for anything. In this place, I am king. Take her to the cells, I will decided on her fate later.”

Before she could say anything, the man called Kortal stepped in front of her and pushed her away. She growled at him, but a shotgun convinced her to shut up and be polite for the time being.

After another silent trip, this time down the elevator a couple levels, they arrived to what she could only surmise to be the ‘prison’. She used that word carefully, as it was nothing more than a room that had been transformed by the local populace into a holding cell. The front door had been reinforce with locks and there was a viewing port to take a look inside. The guards in front of the door noted their arrival and quickly unlocked the front entrance.

A second later they opened the door and walked inside, weapons ready to fire. “Move back!” she heard the guards shout inside. Kortal smiled as he shoved her inside the room.

“Prison guard in a prison. Isn’t that life for you?” he told her, smiling.

Furia grinned at him back at him. “You’re a funny guy Kortal. That’s why I’ll kill you last.”

The man sneered at her as the guards left the room. A second later, the door was locked, leaving her to think about her situation.

“Who the fuck are you?” a voice behind her said. She turned slowly and got a better look at her prison mates. There was a total of three of them standing near the other side of the room. They all wore black shirts and pants, and she could recognize the Imperial fatigues.

The one that spoke was a young man, about her age she supposed. He was skinny and short, and wasn’t very built to begin with. He had a closely shaved head and brown eyes. His eyes darted over her quickly as he waited for her to respond.

Beside him was a young woman, who seemed to have the same physique overall. Like her partner, she didn’t look like a fighter. She was the only one with long black hair, and looked quite a bit like Hana except smaller. She shook her head at her friend and sighed. “Chill out Jef, she’s in the same boat as we are.”

The final person was the one who stood out the most among the trio. Another woman, this one was much older. Furia guessed she was in her mid thirties at least. She also looked like a soldier, as she was well built and had a tattoo on her bicep, the Imperial Eagle. This one stayed silent as they both glared at each other for a moment. The older woman had short blonde hair and green eyes, which stared at her with unwavering accuracy.

“Sorry about my friend, he is a bit on the edge with the situation and all. I’m Penny. Who are you?”

Furia looked at them and realized who they were. “You are the team right? The one Hongun was talking about?”

“That weirdo is still alive?” the older woman said. Furia nodded slowly. “Figures. We leave him alone for a week and he finally understands that something is wrong. So where’s the rest of Beta team kid?”

Furia frowned at her. “I’m not here to rescue you. I came here for my own purposes.”

“What,” the man said to her flatly. “You got yourself captured and taken prisoner because you wanted to? Fuck this.”

“What about Bravo team? Didn’t Hongun call them?” the older woman asked.

Furia shrugged. “He said he tried to get in touch with them, but didn’t get a response.”

“Fucking great. No offense kid, but you are an idiot.” The older woman sat down and shook her head. “I don’t know what you think you are doing here, but you just got yourself into a world of hurt.”

Furia clenched her fist but said nothing. She just turned around and stared at the door, wondering if it was indeed reinforced enough to hold back her attacks. The prisoner named Penny walked up beside Furia.

“I’m Penny Quill.”

“Kate Gunnar.” The young woman, who looked only a bit older then Furia, nodded slowly. She nodded slowly and looked at the door.

“It’s pretty well made. Not likely that we are going to break through it.”

“I know. I’m not an idiot,” Furia said defensively.

“I didn’t say that. Listen, Kate. Sorry about my companions. Things went sour with the mission.”

“I noticed. What happened?”

“Ambush, caught us off guard when we were trying to storm the place. We expected little resistance and poorly trained soldiers, but the moment we began the assault we were already surrounded. It was too late to escape then.”

Furia looked at the small skinny girl and shrugged. “You don’t look like a soldier.”

“Cause I’m not. I’m a valkyrie pilot.”

Furia nearly facepalmed. Meeting two pilots in one day was more than she wanted. The man named Jef was similarly built, so it was likely he was another pilot as well.

“What about the rest of your team?”

Penny went quiet and looked away. “Two dead in the ambush. Another two, including the captain, taken for ‘interrogation’.” The young woman clenched her fists and her face seemed to strain with emotion. “We haven’t seen them since.”

Furia nodded slowly. “Sorry to hear that.”

“Part of the job, unfortunately. Bryn is right. You are in the wrong place. You shouldn’t have come.”

Furia looked behind her to the older woman named Bryn and back at Penny. “Maybe you should think about yourself instead of me.”

Penny sighed at Furia. “At this point, it doesn’t matter. You won’t be getting out of this untouched.”

---

The next two hours passed silently for Furia. The three other prisoners didn’t mingle with her at all, keeping to themselves. The two pilots spoke to each other quietly, seemingly speaking of old stories of home and friends. Bryn remained quiet off to the side, occasionally glancing at her before going back to her own thoughts, whatever they may be.

It was just over the second hour that the door opened. All eyes shifted to the metal gate as it swung outward. Kortal walked in with guards behind him.

“You, up,” he ordered as he looked at Furia. The brown haired girl didn’t argue as she stood up and was escorted out of the room.

“Miss me?” she said to Kortal outside. A quick slap across her face was the only response she got from him. She growled as she stared at him.

“You better stay quiet bitch.”

A bit of blood came out of her mouth. She would make him pay for that.

They pushed her into the elevator once more, this time going down further than she ever had been. After a couple minutes of descending into the habitat, the elevator came to a stop and the door opened.

The room in front of her was gigantic. It seemed to be a large garage as all she could see was different times of machines and vehicles parked on the sides. There was a couple of chimera’s with bulldozer attachments, mining equipment and diggers in general.  It was at the far end of the room that had a trio of machines that didn’t belong: two hydra flak tanks and a valkyrie. She could only guess that the flying transport was from the captured team and its pilots. The anti-air artillery was surprising as she wondered where the group of miners found such a device.

In the middle of the large room was two long shaft upwards and she guessed they were the elevators she saw above ground. Men around the large service area were moving boxes around, loading up the chimera’s with some equipment, may be for another mining trip into the caverns below.

She was taken to a side room of the garage, where the red robed figure from earlier was standing behind a table. He seemed busy as he was looking over some sort of a device on the table itself. “Welcome child. I hope Kortal has been keeping you in good care.”

“You can say that,” she muttered as she glanced over at the man in questions. He looked unphased by her stare as her eyes turned back to the robed man. “Who are you?”

“Atmok. And you are?”

“Kate Gunnar,” Furia answered with practiced ease. It had become second nature to her after a year of people wondering who the incredibly strong teenager was.

The man nodded thoughtfully, looking her over once more before continuing the discussion. “Why are you here Kate?”

Not one to be subtle, she went directly to the point of the matter. “I wanted to know where you found the Xelaratin.”

“The what?” Atmok answered, confused by the word. He obviously didn’t recognize the term.

“The drug you have been using. The anger inducing drug.”

“You know of its existence yet you gave it such a strange name,” Atmok said out loud. “You obviously have seen it before.”

Furia shrugged. “I took the opposite equivalent. A drug that was meant to calm a person down.”

He chuckled as he moved around the table. “If the drug you speak of was as potent as the one I know of, then you must have some impressive anger issues.”

She smiled at that. “You don’t even know the half of it.”

“But I do, Kate. That is why you are here no? You seek answers for something you don’t understand. Answers that I have.”

She looked at him strangely for a moment, wondering what he was getting at. “I don’t know what you are talking about. I want to know where you found such a drug.”

“Would you believe me that our overlords kept such a drug in their vaults on this very planet?” the man answered.

“What? The mechanicum? I doubt that very much.” She couldn’t foresee any reason the mechanical priesthood would use drugs for anything instead of a circuit board.

“No, not those fools. They try to hide what is visually in front of us with lies. But I know the truth. I know the secrets this planet holds.”

Furia stared at Atmok as he said that, suddenly very curious at what he meant. “What secrets?”

He grinned at her. “All in good time my dear. But I need to know if the gift really runs through your veins. Kortal, take her into the caves. I will be there shortly for the trial.”

Before she could say anything else, the guards pulled her out of the room. “Congrats woman, you are actually blessed this day.”

They shoved Furia forward as they approached a chimera. “What do you mean?” she asked him.

The dark skinned man smiled as they pushed her inside. “You are given the chance to die for our master.”

=== Bound by Blood ===

The road trip wasn’t long, but it felt like an eternity for Furia. All her mind could think of was the conversation she had with Atmok only minutes beforehand. Apparently, the planet held some sort of secrets. This made her stop and think that maybe she wasn’t sent on some wild goose chase by her grandfather. Maybe Nenavist actually had more than meets the eye.

Now all Furia needed to know if Atmok was actually insane like how he acted, or was there some actual truth behind his omens. Only time would tell.

Unfortunately for her, she was short on time as it was. The chimera came to a stop after nearly fifteen minutes of driving. The back door opened slowly as the occupants stood up.

“Out,” Kortal ordered. She gave no resistance as she stepped out of the vehicle. She was eager to find out what she got herself into.

She paused and considered the sight before her, unsure of how to make sense of it. She knew mechanicum digging techniques were renown of getting the most possible resources in the most efficient way possible, but she was still unprepared for the scale of their operations.

The cavern was unimaginably huge as it spanned in front of her into the far distance. Try as she might, she couldn't see the end as it fell into the darkness ahead of her. And for the first time since she had arrived on Nenavist, deep beneath the earth and in a large dark cave, she actually felt she was surrounded by what she could only describe as being evil.

Kortal moved ahead of her, leaving her standing by some guards. She only then began to notice the many workers near the walls on either end, working against the rock with machines and muscle. There was probably a good 30 of them in this section, toiling at their work. The foreman by the ground walked up beside Kortal and started a talk, glancing at her every once in awhile. After a minute, he took out a horn and blew it into the cave.

The sound echoed loudly all over the room, gathering the attention of all the workers at the walls. Soon enough, they began making their way over, a large group of miners wondering what all the commotion was about. A small few stared at her as they approached the foreman and she wondered what they were thinking about. Still, none made a move towards her with the two armed guards at her side.  She could probably guess what Atmok’s test was.

And as if she had mentally summoned him, he arrived himself after ten minutes of waiting. Everyone turned to the sound of an approaching Chimera behind them. The large metal box rolled forward steadily through the rough terrain of the underground with relative ease, even crushing some small rocks on the way.

The large armored transport came to a stop a few meters away from where she was, parking up beside the one she arrived in. The door in the back opened and out came Atmok, surrounded by several guards. All of them seemed to be armed with some sort of handcrafted automatic rifle, probably created by the miners themselves.

“Doing well, Kate?” Atmok asked her as she approached. She sneered at him, giving no other verbal response. The red robed figure chuckled at her as he walked past her towards the group of thirty men. “That’s good. I need you to be angry. It makes it more interesting.”

He didn’t wait for a response as he turned to the group of thirty and raised his hands. “Men, I have a simple task for you. I am giving you ten minutes, I repeat, ten minutes to beat this female into submission. Whoever manages to hold her broken body above their shoulders can do whatever they want to her. Understood?”

The air was still as Furia gritted her teeth. She had an idea that this was going to happen, but the prize was a bit startling. She should have expected it from a planet so barbarous.

All the miners had turned to look at her, and Furia flexed in anticipation. Silence continued to fill the air as no one made a move, as if expecting a starting signal. Then it came as Atmok looked at her, then at the group and sighed. “Nine minutes and forty seconds remaining.”

The crowd exploded. Miners clawed at each other as they tried to get to Furia first. Some began fighting amongst themselves before the first challenger managed to get in front of her.

Furia didn’t notice the man’s details, nor did she care. Her heart began to race and her fists clenched in readiness. She glared angrily as the man simply tried to grab her with his hands, hoping for a quick victory.

The lightning punch caught him by surprise as it not only broke his nose and knocked him out, but also broke a few teeth. He fell backwards into the wave, but his comrades didn’t bother helping him as the rushed forward towards her. She roared in fury as she prepared for the long run.

---

Furia liked to fight. It was in her blood since birth. Between her father, Kharn and Hana, she always had an excuse to throw a punch. So she could easily boast that she was a veteran of fist fights and brawls. She was trained in different ways of fighting, but in the end always back to the idea of hitting hard. It usually worked out for her.

But for the first time since she could remember, she was actually tired of fighting. Ten minutes of quarreling with strong, drug enhanced miners was enough to make her breathless, as she struggled to keep standing and have her fists in front of her, awaiting the next challenger.

Her arms ached and so did her legs. She was pretty sure she was bleeding at least from the nose, possibly from the mouth as well. Her clothes were torn in several places, and she could feel that her ribs were bruised when one of the attackers managed to get a kick off into her abdomen. She made him pay as she kicked him right back.

A slow clap from the side was the first sign that something had happened. It was Atmok, and she realized that this was probably the end of his challenge. She looked around and noticed that it would matter anymore. At least half of the original group of attackers was on the ground, either unconscious or in large amounts of pain.

The remaining bunch were a mix of having injuries that no longer made them fighting capable, or simple too wary of what she had done to the other challengers. Either way, they kept a good radius around her, not making a move to anger the brown haired girl any further.

“Congrats child, you managed to pass my test. Guess I won’t be killing you yet,” Atmok announced as he approached her, still escorted by his guards.

Furia would have normally made a witty retort, but all she could manage to do was grunt, neither in approval or against. Atmok stopped clapping as he approached the young teenager, and she had to resist the urge to kill him, primarily due to the many guards following him. “I am truthfully impressed Kate. I have never seen a warrior with such brutality, such... fury.”

She said nothing as she stared at him through weary eyes. He smiled at her, but she felt threatened by the sight of his teeth. “You came looking for answer,” he whispered to her. “Maybe it is time to show you.”

=== The Secret ===

Furia wasn’t sure what happened in the next hour. She had a massive headache and couldn’t concentrate on her surroundings. It seemed that finally the day’s long and exhausting events had finally caught up to her, making her want nothing more than to fall asleep.

Unfortunately for her, it wasn’t in the plan, as she was dragged around the complex. First by chimera back to the central habitat and second by foot as Atmok took her deep into the complex. She wasn’t sure where she was going, but could feel the air becoming thinner and more difficult to come by. Obviously, she was deep within the ground as it also became hotter and hotter with every passing moment. The ground beneath them had returned to being rock, signalling that this was a passageway dug out by the miners.

“I worked here for years, carrying out a prison sentence given by the corrupt rulers of mankind. They shackled me to this earth, expecting me to disappear forever,” she heard Atmok says, but his voice seemed so distant to her at the moment as she wasn’t able to concentrate at all. “But they were wrong. As I worked, I found what this earth holds. A treasure, a gift, a dark omen. Right then, I knew the truth of it all, as if my eyes were opened for the first time. In a galaxy of blind men, I was the one eyed king.”

Finally, the escort came to a stop as Furia looked up to her surroundings. Atmok stood by a large double  metal door. She straightened herself as she gathered what little strength she had remaining. “Are you ready child? I will show you the truth,” he whispered to her.

Furia said nothing, as she waited as patiently as possible to figure out if this man was crazy or was there some truth behind his tales. Atmok turned to the doors and opened it in one fell swoop, walking in.

The brown haired teenager paused and stared, wondering what she was looking at. It suddenly struck her as she realized that Atmok was not insane. She slowly took steps forward as she began to understand the truth of it all.

The large object in the middle was hard to miss. It was spherical in nature, having several detailing bumps over it. It was white marble and bigger than she was as she was only a few steps in front of it. It was easily five feet in diameter.

It was a male face. He was frowning at her, an angry face that she was all too much familiar with. The nose had been beaten out by what she could assume to be chisels and hammers, leaving nothing but two deep holes staring at her. The hair at the end had been cut off, seemingly destroyed when the statue itself had been crumbled to the ground.

However, this old relic of the past seemingly survived the devastation that had befallen this planet. For whatever reason, this little nugget of truth survived against all odds to be found by Atmok, and possibly to be shown to her.

She wondered if the Emperor knew of this, knew that she would find out eventually. Maybe that is why he sent her here. Whatever the truth might be, it didn’t matter to Furia at the moment. She was slowly putting the pieces together to the puzzle.

It wasn’t hard as her father’s face stared at her. Angron’s giant white head was found deep in Nenavist. Her home.

[[Category:Warhammer High]][[Category:Stories]]