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

==4-096-001-M42==
“Well, my brothers, I have to ask,” Leman Russ asked casually, “did you miss me?”<br>
The sound of seven thousand Space Wolves roaring their approval met his question, as Russ pumped his fist over his head, grinning ear to ear. Grimnir and Deathwolf, along with the eight other Wolf Lords present, knelt at the bottom of the steps leading up to the gate of the Great Hall. “Welcome home, Lord Russ, Wolf Father,” Grimnir said loudly, before lowering his voice considerably. “Like what we’ve done with the place?”<br>
“Not so much,” Russ said sotto voce, eliciting a few nervous glances from the other Wolf Lords. Russ raised his voice again. “Brothers, I do indeed look forward to greeting you all, but as it is I’ve been fighting and travelling for weeks, and am in need of quartering. Where shall I reside?”<br>
A pair of serfs nearly jumped to their feet, stumbling over to where Russ was standing, kitbag on his shoulder. “Honored Wolf Father, this way, please, Lord Grimnir has set aside a guest suite until yours can be unsealed,” one said, nearly in tears of joy from the honor.<br>
“Thank you, lad,” Russ said, before turning to Grimnir. “ ‘Unsealed?’”<br>
“Well, you never did specify when the Wolftime would be,” Grimnir said awkwardly, “so we put a stasis projector in there to seal it off until you came back. It’s just sort of…complicated to disarm.”<br>
“Right.” Russ struggled to find words, then gave up. He turned back to the waiting serfs. “Show the way then, lads.”


----

He’stan had it. The symbols on the cube and the symbols on the gate had been the same words, and in the same order, but the cube had been facing away from the gate when he crossed it. With careful deliberation, he rotated the cube to face the open gate, aligning the metal block precisely. He placed his hands on either side of the block and waited.<br>
Very gradually, the block peeled open, seams appearing the featureless metal. The side fell off, pulling the lid down, as the alien material sloughed away. Inside was a mess of interlocked metal tubes, armor plates, and a bewildering array of sheathed hoses and electronics. He’Stan looked at the mass of equipment in bewilderment. The box that had contained the Song of Entropy had looked nothing like that.<br>
Suddenly, the entire room sank. He’Stan adjusted for balance, his hands clutching the adamantine wargear as it shook. He looked up at the gate in alarm: the room had sunk nearly a foot, with the threshold of the gate now jutting into the air. He’Stan didn’t wait for the other metaphorical foot.

The Forgefather scooped up the Unbound Flame and sprinted for the exit, easily hurdling the gate. The floor seemed stable for now, but that wouldn’t last. Nobody rigged devices to destroy their own crypts unless they were meant to be used only once. He’Stan charged down the short, smooth tunnel, slamming his ceremite boots into the blank, fifteen-foot wall at the end, with all the force he could muster. The impact carved a crater in the wall that he sank his foot into, nearly two feet off the ground. He rammed his hand into the crumbling stone, punching another foothold, levering himself up, distantly wondering how in the world Vulkan had done it.<br>
Suddenly, the stone block shook violently. Forewarned, He’Stan dislodged himself from the wall, throwing himself backwards as the entire room rose, sliding back into place. Feeling distantly foolish, He’Stan took the opportunity, running back to the T-junction.<br>
As he passed the rough, jutting blocks of stone, however, a problem arose. The blocks began shooting forward from the walls as if propelled, slamming into the opposite walls and each other like bullets. Jets of seawater propelled them forward, flooding the entire corridor in moments. He’Stan tumbled to his feet, the water buffeting him around like flotsam.<br>
As abruptly as it started, the water jets ceased. Cunning mechanisms behind the loose stone walls revealed themselves, the complexity and sinister nature of their device betrayed by their appearance. This was no mere crypt.

The torrent of water poured down the halls, filling each chamber they passed until they reached the ends. The mechanisms weren’t done, however. A second set of nozzles, concealed by the first, suddenly started spraying their own payload, coating the surface of the knee-deep water with slick, oily promethium. With an inaudible click, a hidden spark ignited the promethium, sending a wall of flame down the hallway, engulfing He’Stan completely.<br>
He was not greatly concerned. Salamanders master fire as a nature of their being. No oil fire was going to stop him. He waded through the burning oil, feeling the heat on his armor and ignoring it completely. The Unbound Flame, whatever it was, he held over his head, protecting it from the fires.<br>
At the end of the T-junction, he spotted the spinning rock rods, still turning above the flames. Only now, they were turning faster, spinning around on their conveyors behind the walls like the treads on a tire. He’stan charged through them as fast as he could. The thin stone rods splintered on his armor, but he wrapped his arms around his precious cargo and bulled on through, shattering them.<br>
He’Stan cannoned down the last stretch of hallway, noting that the water and fire were only still present because another stone block had risen up at the end of the hall, cutting off the water’s flow. Rising several feet up from the ground, the burning water licked at the sides of the sandstone block, caking it black.

He’Stan vaulted the stone block, slowing his pace as he escaped the flames. The last, flickering bits of oil on his armor burned themselves out as he walked back through the cave, already paging the Swift. “Swift, He’Stan, package retrieved, pickup, acquire.”<br>
“He’Stan, Swift, negative on pickup, contacts blue, assume hostile, close on you,” Wilcox said urgently. He’Stan’s head snapped up, noting with urgency that no fewer than fifteen contacts had appeared at the edge of his helm’s expanded sensor suite. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and snapped into the radio.<br>
“Swift, override restrict, lift, lift, lift.”<br>
“Confirm lift.”<br>
“Lift.” As soon as the word left his lips, the world ended. All around him, unthinkable horrors swirled and laughed and screamed, pain like nothing he had ever felt ripped through him. After a heartbeat, it ended, and the familiar interior of the Swift’s hangar greeted him. He’Stan fell to his knees, cradling his prize in his hands, as the ship’s teleportorium powered down.<br>
“Brother!” Ir’Shal said in surprise, having walked past him on the way back to the engine room. “What are you doing here?”<br>
“Celebrating a triumph, brother,” He’Stan said weakly. “An Artefact is ours.”

“Would you care to tell me why a piece of my coastline just burst into flames and collapsed, Marine?” Fap demanded, having listened to the scout team’s reports over his helmet feed.<br>
“No. What I will say, however, is that I have quite enough of you. I am leaving.” Vulkan took a few steps back from where Fap was still standing, and tilted his head back to look at the blank, green sky.<br>
“You are going NOWHERE,” Fap said, his courage increasing proportionally with his distance from the enormous Terminator.
“Far to the contrary.” Vulkan looked back down and spread his arms wide. “Know this, Tau: this was the last chance any of you will ever have received for the Emperor’s service,” he said, his voice amplified to fill the entire landing pad, where the various diplomats had been standing, some in pain from having held still for so long. Without another word, he pointed the Gauntlet at the ground and triggered it, bathing his feet in white-hot fire.<br>
Fap leaped forward, jumping over the fire and wrapping his gargantuan arm around Vulkan’s waist, just as the teleport homer in Vulkan’s suit triggered, and Vulkan was sucked back up to the ship.<br>
A few meters away, Ir’Shal and He’Stan reacted instantly, raising their bolt pistols and leveling them at their erstwhile guest. Vulkan shook Fap off of him, staring down at the trembling alien in amusement. “It’s not often my enemies take themselves prisoner to save me the trouble.” He glanced up at Ir’Shal with a cruel smirk behind his gold helmet. “I brought you a present.”

“It was just sitting in the cube, Lord,” He’Stan said, sitting at the table in his quarters with Vulkan, staring at the Unbound Flame. The assemblage of tubes and plugs had been meticulously cleaned by the two men once both had shed their armor.<br>
“I left it there. I trust the Slann traps didn’t give you too much trouble?” Vulkan asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.<br>
“Piece of cake. What got me were the Tau scouts. How did they react to us so quickly?”<br>
“They must have better orbital sensors than we thought,” Vulkan said. “They must have detected the Uninspired after all.”<br>
He’Stan nodded in silence. “And how do you propose that we deal with our new captive? It could take centuries to travel back to Imperial space in the absence of the Navigator. Tau do not live that long.” He’Stan’s casual question belied his host of questions about the other problems that being out of contact with Terra for so long would create, not the least of which was the death of every non-Astartes on board.
“It will not take that long,” Vulkan said with confidence. “Recall that I have visited this system before. I can tell the helmsman what course to set even in the absence of the Navigator. His presence is not needed to maintain the Gellar field.”

Their conversation was cut short by the arrival of Lieutenant Commander Wilcox, who knocked on the door of He’Stan’s quarters. “Sirs, if I may?” he asked.<br>
“Speak,” Vulkan said beckoning Wilcox forward.<br>
“The Tau frigate is on our tail, sir, chasing after us as fast as it can. Without FTL, we will be unable to evade them forever…however, sir, Lord Ir’Shal had an idea.” Wilcox made the gesture of the Aquilla and sat in the chair Vulkan indicated. “The Warp Drive is reparable, sir, and he is almost finished with it, as you know, but he thinks we may be able to use it to escape the Tau.”<br>
“How?” Vulkan asked.<br>
“Sir, he says that if we shut down everything but life support, sensors, and the sublight drives, and divert the power of the deactivated systems to the active cooling systems for the main sublight engine, we may be able to accelerate past our normal maximum speed by as much as 18%. That would put our velocity as significantly higher than the Tau ship, sir, faster than even a Falchion radier.”<br>
Vulkan nodded. “Then why have we not done so?”<br>
Wilcox nodded respectfully. “Because both you and Lord Tu’Shan would have to approve, as well as me. He has my authorization, of course, my Lord, but…well, there is also the matter that decelerating once we escape the star’s pull to the speed we need to enter the Warp and escape would also take longer. The Tau may catch us on our way out.”<br>
“Then maneuver down from the plane of the solar ecliptic,” Vulkan said, thinking it over. “We will escape the combined gravitational pull of the system’s gas giants and star faster that way. The Tau will be closer to us when we escape, but we can Warp out faster.”

“As you will, my Lord Vulkan,” Wilcox said. “I will pass along your approval and suggestion. As for the prisoner…he is demanding to be released to the Tau pursuing us.”<br>
“Of course he is, but he is the only thing keeping them from firing on us,” Vulkan said dismissively. “Feed him and ignore everything he says.”
“Aye, sir. Ah…sir,” Wilcox said carefully. “The Tau doesn’t seem to know your name?”<br>
“Indeed, I never told him,” Vulkan said. “He didn’t seem interested,” he added with a smirk.<br>
“Very well.” Wilcox stood. “Then I shall leave you, my Lord, unless you have a message for Lord Tu’Shan?”<br>
“Thank him for accepting a side-lined position during this mess,” Vulkan said.<br>
“Yes, my Lord,” Wilcox said, genuflecting and closing the door.<br>
He’Stan had never stopped staring at the Unbound Flame. “Brother…you said this was some kind of upgrade kit?”<br>
“Yes, brother, it is. The plugs here, here, and here,” he said, gesturing at the kit, “fit into the power generator of a Terminator Suit. The brace here folds around the wrist mount for the Song of Entropy, while this fits around the Gauntlet…here.” Vulkan slowly unfolded the mess of adamantine equipment, slotting components together. “Finally, the piping here actually…replaces the secondary fuel line for the Gauntlet.”
“So…when assembled, what does it do?” He’Stan asked, staring at the contraption.<br>
“When attached to a Terminator armor suit with all the other Artefacts installed, it dramatically enhances the heat output of all thermal weapons, and doubles the range of the Song of Entropy.” Vulkan said back, looking at his handiwork. “You know, if you recovered the Artefacts in order, this would have been the last.” He looked up at He’Stan and smiled. “Glad we could save the time.”