"The Velvet Abyss is approaching. Repeat, the Velvet Abyss is approaching."
Inside the cramped shuttle, the monotonous notification droned from the vox-system, crackling with the interference of age and neglect. Light from a distant star bled through the reinforced glass, shifting and dancing across the dark expanse of the void.
Enkidu sat in his harness, watching the Lash of Agony recede into the distance. Light and shadow flickered across his face. Beside him sat a heavily locked stasis-crate, the condensation on its surface a testant to the near-absolute zero temperatures maintained within.
The Velvet Abyss was looming.
He pulled his gaze away from the Lash. That ship had beco his "ho." It was where his brothers were, where his "ntor" resided, and where he had slowly forged himself into a functional Astartes. But that chapter was closing. He had to step out alone to face the heart of the warband's rot.
Enkidu rested a hand on the crate containing the Genestealer Patriarch's flesh. The biting cold of the tal was grounding.
In the vacuum of space, the transit between two ships in the sa fleet was brief. Within half a minute, the flagship filled the entire view of the porthole.
Compared to the Lash, the Velvet Abyss was a thing of perverse beauty. It was larger, more heavily armored, and bristling with superior firepower. The prow was adorned with ticulously carved statuary, and a faint, sickly purple glow emanated from the viewports like a thousand unblinking eyes.
Yet, it was undeniably hideous. Mutated, fleshy growths pulsed across the outer hull, watching approaching vessels with a palpable, sentient malice. The original Imperial saint-statues on the prow had been defaced with blasphemous sigils, their faces replaced by writhing masses of raw at. A single look at it dragged Enkidu's mind back to the horrific mories of his "birth."
Just as he was starting his third ntal exercise to ward off the ship's distorted allure, the light outside vanished.
The shuttle lurched and settled with a heavy clunk.
He had arrived.
Enkidu stepped out of the shuttle, and was imdiately hit by the familiar, suffocating wave of cloying perfu mixed with the stench of open decay.
"Welco... Lord... En-En-Giel..."
A line of slaves stood to receive him, swaying with a rhythmic, mindless joy. They wore ornate nose-clips of gold and silver, and small pouches of heavy spices hung from their brows over their faces to mask the rot that a normal human would find unbearable.
"It is Enkidu, slave," he corrected, his brow furrowing.
"Of course... En-kee-dye, my Lord..."
The slaves smiled, their words slurred and their eyes vacant, glazed with narcotics. Enkidu stared at them for a long second before deciding it was a waste of breath to argue with people whose brains had been cooked by excess. He tapped the crate in his hand.
"Telax sent on a mission. Where is the Apothecary? Take to him."
"Apothecary... mission... Apothecary... tee-hee..."
The slaves giggled nonsensically and turned to lead the way. After three minutes of wandering through corridors lined with living tapestries, Enkidu lost his patience and chased them off.
Watching the slaves dance away down the "flesh-walled" hallway, their laughter echoing with a terrifying lack of concern, Enkidu massaged his temples in frustration.
Expecting these husks—who were less functional than a lobotomized servitor—to rember a route was a mistake. He'd have better luck finding a sane human and forcing them to act as a guide. He didn't know his way around this ship.
Enkidu began to stride forward, his gaze scanning every mortal he passed for a sign of lucidity. After fifteen junctions and two deck-levels of climbing, he finally found a man who looked relatively human.
"Lord... Angel... what... what is your will?"
The man was skin and bones, trembling so violently he could barely stand, yet he forced a pathetic smile onto his face.
"The Apothecary. Where is he? Take to him."
"I... I don't know..." The man looked like he was about to burst into tears, but survival instinct kicked in. "I have a distant cousin who works the upper decks! He'll know! I'll take you to him right now!"
Enkidu frowned. Just as he was about to command the man to move, a piece of jagged shrapnel whistled through the air and tore through the man's skull.
The corpse twitched and slumped to the floor.
"Tee-hee! Look what I've found. A new brother." A sick, lodic chuckle echoed through the hall as an Astartes stepped out from the shadows. He examined Enkidu with predatory interest, though his expression flattened into disappointnt when he saw the scout-carapace. "Oh. You haven't truly beco my brother yet. How dull."
"What do you want?"
Enkidu's voice dropped into a low, dangerous growl. His hand rested on the hilt of his sabre.
"Don't be so cold, my stranger-brother," the Astartes chirped, his iron-shod boots squelching in the fresh blood on the deck. "Don't you think that man was a subpar servant? You asked him a question, and he dared to spin lies because he knew nothing."
He only lied because he was terrified of monsters like you.
Enkidu felt a wave of visceral disgust. This was the warband: flamboyant, arrogant, and treating human life like discarded trash. Even the interactions between "brothers" were a thin veil for hypocrisy and violence. They had abandoned all nobility. They were completely fallen.
"My business is none of your concern."
Enkidu adjusted his stance, ready to draw the Charnabal Sabre at a mont's notice.
"But we are brothers! There should be no secrets between kin, should there?"
"Stay back. Keep your distance."
"How rude," the Astartes sighed, though his excitent only seed to grow. "But I like it! Telax is a stubborn, stinking rock, and you're just a little pebble. I like that look in your eyes. I really do."
In the blink of an eye, the violence began.
Screams echoed through the deck as the stranger laughed like a madman. The air hissed as his blade carved through the stagnant air, emitting a high-pitched, shrieking tone. He moved with a dancer's grace, gliding across the blood-slicked floor toward Enkidu.
Enkidu didn't brace; he flowed backward like smoke. His breathing shifted into a battle-rhythm, muscles coiling and releasing as the Charnabal Sabre beca a wall of silver.
The stranger deliberately clashed his blade with Enkidu's, making as much noise as possible to disrupt his focus. Enkidu rely tilted his head, letting the worst of the sonic vibrations pass. Steel t steel in a frantic duet; they rged in a blur of movent and then snapped apart. The reinforced deck-railings were sliced into ribbons by the back-draft of their blades, falling into the dark pits of the lower decks.
"Beautiful!" the stranger roared, his eyes shining with sadistic delight. "Telax really did give a surprise! My life was so boring, and then you show up! Brother, I am Varcus! Rember that na!"
Enkidu remained silent. Not just because he was focused on fighting a veteran, but because he genuinely despised the man. For a creature like this, the best response was the one Sharrowkyn gave: a naless death, unobserved.
"Brother! Tell ! Your na!"
"Brother? Brother!"
"Are you a statue?! TELL !!!"
Varcus shrieked in frustration, his blade becoming a frantic, disorganized blur. Simultaneously, his mutated left claw lashed out in a heavy arc. Enkidu caught the opening in the veteran's rage. He dropped into a low slide, his sabre carving through the tips of the reaching claws.
"YOU DARE WOUND !!!"
Varcus howled in a mixture of agony and perverse joy. Just as he prepared to carve the "scout" into pieces, a single gunshot shattered the tension.
"Enough, Varcus."
An ard combat servitor had appeared in the hallway, its heavy gun-barrel lowered. From its internal vox-system, the cold, clinical voice of the Apothecary, Morpheus, erged.
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