Warhammer 40,000: Stavrakis- The Hunt For Valakt

Revelations

We left the room to inspect the upper gantry. A small basket elevator situated next to the entrance brought us to the upper level. This area was full of cogitators and databanks. We conducted a full sweep while Lex tried to connect to the local databanks. Surprisingly, we found no Tyranid corpses. We found human corpses though. Or Hybrids. On the face of it, it was hard to tell. More than once, I gouged my knife into the bodies, stuck my hand in there and then pulled out a Genestealer Implant. We did not check all of the bodies, so the final number would remain a mystery. In the end, one third of all of the corpses we inspected were genestealer puppets. On those that had their worker Ident tags still, more than half had senior privileges. That meant access to the data server, and any restricted rooms if there were any. At this point, I safely assumed that there were. How did these Genestealers get in?

Safe answer: they landed here and selectively targeted the people they needed to target.

Not so safe answer: Someone willingly allowed themselves to be taken. I swept my laspistol left and right as I came to a four-way junction. Nothing. So far, we've encountered nothing out of place, apart from the grossly apparent. I was rapidly getting sick and tired of the stark, metallic walls. They were manufactured with a particular bleach in the process, giving them a tiny inconsistency with their hue. It was distracting. Not as distracting as that though...

"Squad, I have something. Highly suspicious." I voxed.

"Ok. Define suspicious." Someone snarked back. Probably Kalanaar.

"Ok. How about a puddle of rapidly thinning, green... well, Goop." I replied, keeping my distance. "Looks like whatever Valakt dissolved into on the surface. Reality is going insane, so lock on to my locator and get here. I'm out."

I quietly drew my rapier. The puddle was leaking dark, smudgy ribbons into the atmosphere. This reeked of Valakt. In more ways than one. The puddle was thinning at the edges, small rivulets of water running away from the mass. I sniffed. It reeked of the worst Dark Eldar fermentation I could have imagined, and that with only one previous engagement with them. I could see there were bits of unidentified solids in the mess. Backing up, I made one last sweep of my immediate area. Nothing was creeping around me. I turned back around and gingerly crept up on the puddle. By now, it was quite messy and large. The smell was lessening, but only because it covered a wider area. At times like this, I cursed myself for being a major force for the Ordo Xenos. As an Inquisitor, I would of course have access to a vast majority of texts. Some prohibited, some not. A good portion of my current shipboard librariam, for example, was filled with my own published works regarding the Tyranids. Some Lord Inquisitor in the greater Artame Sector thought my work was worthy of study, and that was that. The one subject missing, is that of the Ruinous powers, specifically the plague father. Valakt chose his patron well. Which is why I cursed myself as I had none of the requisite knowledge to fight my enemy. I engaged the powerfield of my Rapier as I crept up slowly. The little puddle was running watery now, the tiny chunks of mass disintegrating. I placed a foot near the edge of the puddle and poked it with my rapier.

Nothing.

I breathed a sigh of relief. For good measure I splished the tip of my boot into it as well. I had to take some effort to pull it away, but for the most part it wasn't dangerous. Immediately dangerous, I corrected myself. Valakt was obviously down here, somewhere and somehow. I keyed in my Vox.

"Guys. Valakt is definitely here and in operation, be careful. How far away are you?" I whispered. While nothing was in my immediate area, the fact that a highly dangerous Heretical Inquisitor could be around the corner dulled my enthusiasm somewhat.

"Fifteen minutes." They all chorused.

"Smartass. Lex, how far are you with those systems?" I started walking along the stark corridors, my weapons at the ready.