Editing The Tales of the Emperasque: Part Twelve (section)

==9-095-001-M42==
“It wouldn’t be fair of me to assume that you HAD to be here for conquest alone,” Fap said, crossing his arms with some difficulty. “Certainly with one tiny ship. And yet, Astartes are Space Marines, not Space Diplomats. So why were you on that ship?”
“Why I was there is tangential to the topic at hand,” Vulkan said patiently, watching Fap with the practiced ease of a veteran. Fap had none of the optimistic naiveté that Dante had said colored the Tau’s every move. He was acting like a cynic. “Besides, what difference would it make? I’m stuck here now.”<br>
“And yet, once more, you are a warrior. On a ship that normally would not travel alone or have Astartes aboard if it did. So why were you there if not to fight?” Fap pressed.<br>
“You will not get an answer from me that you trust. Why ask?” Vulkan said, suddenly on the offensive. “Now I have a question for you. How long have the Tau been on this world?”<br>
“Long enough to construct a surface-to-space siegebreaker rail-cannon, which will reduce your ship to powder should it attempt to fire on the surface,” Fap said, smirking behind his helmet.<br>
“And yet, having been here for over a day, we have not fired a single shot at the surface or your ships,” Vulkan pointed out, digesting the words and considering their implication. “Your argument makes no sense.”<br>
“You spoke of a tomb before,” Fap said suddenly, changing his tone in an attempt to throw Vulkan off-balance.<br>
“Yes. There is an alien crypt here on the surface that I visited once, very long ago,” Vulkan said, undeterred.<br>
“You expect me to believe that?” Fap said derisively. “This moon was completely uninhabited when we got here.”<br>
“As it was when I visited the tomb,” Vulkan said.

“Then why were you here?” Fap demanded. The Water and Fire caste personnel around him all suddenly reacted to something, something Fap apparently didn’t notice. Vulkan leaned back on one heel and planted his hands on his armored hips.<br>
“Something to share, Fap?”<br>
Fap glared behind his expressionless mask. He didn’t want to admit it, but acting without the direct oversight of an Ethereal in a matter of such importance was, while permissible, discouraged. An Aun from Sekka was on her way, but until she arrived, he was on his own. And the Space Marine was getting to him. Acting as if he had absolute and complete control of the entire discussion. Why? What did the human know?<br>
“Shas’O,” one of the Fire Warriors said faintly, tapping Fap on the shoulder and gesturing at his helmet. Fap silently switched his radio back on with a blink.<br>
“Shas’O Fap, please come in. Shas’O, please respond immediately,” a voice on the other side said urgently.<br>
“What the hell do you want?” Fap demanded. “I’m speaking to the prisoner!”<br>
“Sir, the rail cannon is armed and ready to fire. The ship in orbit will be in range in thirty-seven minutes,” the voice on the other side said.<br>
Fap nodded, turning his gaze to the ground and smiling. “Good. Good. Lock on as soon as it comes in range and let me know when you do. Fap out.” Fap cut the link and glanced up with a smirk.

The smirk vanished. Vulkan was only a handspan away, having moved in total silence, and with such speed that not one of the guards had raised their weapons in time. Fap tensed, his hand dropping to his knife.<br>
“ ‘Prisoner?’” Vulkan hissed, his voice so low and angry that Fap took a step backwards from the sheer force of it. “I was a ‘prisoner’ for ten thousand years, alien. I am a ‘prisoner’ no longer. I am the scion of the Emperor’s will, and the living force of the Salamanders. I am no man’s ‘prisoner.’”<br>
Vulkan’s rage was very, very real. Fap felt his blood run cold. The human’s eyes were solid red, he noted in fear. They were so bright that they were actually emitting heat and light, enough to actually return on his helmet sensors.<br>
“How did you even hear me?” Fap asked uncertainly.<br>
Vulkan’s eyes flashed horribly. “I hear much. And know this: if your railgun fires on my ship, even in show, I will reduce you to blue-colored fertilizer before you can so much as breathe – I SWEAR it.”<br>
Fap stared at the massive warrior, noting for the first time the darkened metal around the tiny hole on the back of the left gauntlet: a flamer. A very small one, but a flamer nonetheless.<br>
“Now…I believe we were discussing what happens here next,” Vulkan said, his homicidal impulse fading. He straightened up as much as his suit would let him, the Mantle billowing in the rising breeze.

“Yes we were,” Fap said, suddenly feeling a lot shorter.<br>
His radio blared again. Fap hastily turned the volume down with another flick of the eyes, and acknowledged the hail, this time in his own language. “What is it?”<br>
“Sir, the Imperial vessel is powering its active sensors on and off in bursts. We have no record of Imperial vessels behaving this way, sir, not with active sensors. Their regional comm system is also pulsing, sir, but there are no other ships in range.”<br>
“And the human’s not wearing a helmet,” Fap said softly. Vulkan tilted his head and smirked cruelly.<br>
“Something WRONG, Fap?”<br>
“Not at all. Why is your ship pinging the moon with its active sensors?” Fap asked, in Gothic.<br>
“Don’t rightly know,” Vulkan said, grinning, his eyes flaring again. “Surely it’s not causing you problems? With all that…fancy wargear?”<br>
“Your ship is still here, Human, only because I allow it,” Fap said, but the moment he said it, his throat tightened in regret.<br>
“You have thrown nothing but vitriol and suspicion at us since we arrived, Fap, which I understand completely,” Vulkan said, tilting his head back. “You have no idea what to do with us, do you?”

Fap stared at the Astartes in silence for a long moment, then spoke…very carefully. “You landed here to talk. You wanted to trade. You speak of tombs and navigating Warp Streams. Enough posturing. I want honesty. Why here? If you were just deposited here by the Warp Stream and your intention was to leave as soon as possible, you would have turned your ship around and burned vacuum for Imperial space waiting for rescue in the void. So enough threatening. Why…are…you…here?”<br>
Vulkan stared at the expressionless white mask before him, then slowly donned his helmet. “I spoke the truth. I set foot on this world ten thousand years ago. I explored an ancient alien crypt. I left. I knew it would still be here. I do not know exactly where it is now, with all your construction-”<br>
“There is no way that can be true,” Fap said, gesturing at Vulkan. “No human lives that long.”<br>
Vulkan sealed his helmet back in place, noting the complex display of data from the orbital link. “I am Fire-Born.”<br>
Fap sighed tensely. Why was there never an Ethereal around when you REALLY needed one?

He’Stan ducked the thin rock beam that crossed the narrow hallway in the crypt, standing up and bracing his arms against the walls, lifting his armored boots as the second beam swept under him. As soon as it cleared, he dropped down and sprinted for the end of the narrow corridor, as the rods continued to cycle behind him, oblivious. He’Stan paused at the end of the tunnel, looking back at where the rock rods were, noting how they were moving. The rods were in a loop, like a conveyor set in the walls; not so far apart that they could be bypassed, but fast enough that you had to wait for one to move before you could clear the other. They hadn’t stopped him, though; he had fought his way through an entire Webway city to rescue Elysius and his Sigil, no cheap movie prop would stop him.<br>
The hallway branched into a T-junction, though the left branch had collapsed. The right twisted deeper into the hillside, and the hall broadened out, with clear seams between each block of alien stone. He’Stan closed his eyes and thought for a moment, willing the memories forth. This looked all too familiar…<br>
After a moment, it clicked. The design was familiar because it was a Slann Magehold crypt, left behind as the original builders of the Webway decayed into complete indolence and sloth. He had fought through them as part of the Titan Recovery force of General Sylth’s First Brigade, back as a mere Brother-Lieutenant of the Forth Company. The tombs were scattered across the entire Segmentum Tempestus, most of them almost as old as the Eldar.

He’Stan grinned tightly at the hallway. The Slann may have been a pitiful, decayed form of their glorious progenitors, the Old Ones, who had crafted the Webway and who knew what else, but they weren’t completely without knowledge. The hallway was probably laced with traps, not to keep men out, but to trap them in.<br>
He’Stan tapped his helmet. “Swift, He’Stan. Pulse, active, record, close.”<br>
“He’Stan, Swift, pulse.” Wilcox cut the comm feed and nodded to the sensor officer, who burst the sensors at full strength at He’Stan’s location, recorded the data, and just as fast sent it down to He’Stan, using as little time as possible. You could never know who was listening in.<br>
He’Stan watched the data pipe down to his helmet with interest. There was an active power source on his level and an inactive power source one level down. The nearer source was linked to a small machine behind one of the walls of the crypt. The machine was set behind the wall, on the south side of the room. The Forgefather gauged the floor, and didn’t spot any obvious pressure plates. He carefully stepped down the very center of the passageway, where the most wear from passing feet had wiped the floor clean, millions of years ago. To his relief, whatever mechanism the power source controlled did not activate, and he reached the end of the hallway unimpeded.

The hallway ended with a precipitous drop, going at least fifteen feet down, with no means of climbing back up. He’Stan jumped the distance, landing heavily on the weathered stone. The rumble of his landing echoed away in the underground corridors, leaving nothing but silence. He’Stan strained his augmented ears, but if the landing had damaged the integrity of the tomb, he couldn’t hear it.<br>
He took a few more cautious steps forward, then paused, looking at the ground. The wear on the ground was continuous. There was no interrupt in the pattern at the base of the drop. How had the builders of the tomb reached the top of the gap?<br>
For that matter, why was there wear and tear at all? The Slann worshipped death; they wouldn’t have taken the offense of violating the tomb with cross-traffic lightly. So why was the floor worn down? He’Stan pondered the mystery before putting it temporarily out of his mind. He would have to come back this way with his prize; he would solve it then.<br>
The lower section of tunnel was smooth-walled, with a thin metal strip, like a track for lights, running along the ceiling, from which ancient, corroded metal hooks, no larger than a bolt cartridge, hung, their purpose inscrutable. The short segment of tunnel dead-ended at a wall, with the marking of the Slann defaced and scoured, as if by a powerfully intense heat. He’Stan ran his armored hand over the burn, noting its remarkably clean cut. The Spear had done this, he was certain. This, then, had to have been one of the very first Artefacts to have been hidden, if others had been used in its placement.

He’Stan pressed against the door, trying to ascertain its resistance. He could just knock it down if he had to, of course, but if it was thick enough he would have to use his bolter, and he didn’t want to risk a cave-in. The door was split across the length, with very faint grooves on the sides that indicated that the two halves were supposed to rise into the ceiling and retract into the floor. The mechanism to open it had been gouged out with the Spear. In its place was a hole, with a few runes of the Nocturnean earth-shaman language carved in. Silently, He’Stan blessed his decision to heed Tu’Shan and Velcona’s advice regarding learning its script before departing on his quest for the Song of Entropy.
The runes were carved into the molten rock left behind by the Spear. He’Stan turned his helmet illuminators on and read them. “Carving, Mechanism, Overcome, Flood.” The Forgefather tapped his finger on the runes in thought. “Well, one way to find out.” He thrusted both hands into the gap left behind by the Spear, and forced the rock apart, placing all his strength behind them. With a muted rumble of rock grinding against rock, the door groaned open, parting before the venerable Salamander’s strength. The rock slid into the ground and ceiling and locked in place, as they caught on the latch Vulkan had left intact, ten thousand years prior.<br>
He’Stan walked in, wringing his hands. There was a large, black block on a pedestal in the center of the room, with another set of Nocturnean runes carved on its top. He’Stan stared at them, translating them aloud. “Carving, Mechanism, Overcome, Flood. Again. What is the meaning of this…”