It’s sixty degrees celsius, cloudy skies, with a big bright sun (a supergiant in actuality) looming over a charred land; coated in sand dunes. The heat does not bother the two reptilian men, however. Of course their suits help greatly, though being cold-blooded also has its advantages. Their tails waver quite highly- meaning that they’re content. Deresius finishes fueling up his plasma torch and starts torching alongside Ulas.
He had been paired with the man, his newest friend, stripping down a crashed cruiser of some ancient design. They met each other on Kjazeen-Po, a space station that prizes itself on ores, lethal weapons, beverages, drugs and scrap. This was about two months ago, Ulas attempted to haggle more than he could bargain for. To his fortune, Deresius passed by and caught onto this. Together they got five hundred credits extra.
Now, they are here on this forsaken rock by having accepted a contract offered by the Skillian Strippers, and no, it definitely has nothing to do with that. The Skillian Strippers are one of the best salvaging organizations among the independent systems (They’re also the ones who built the underground base for Deresius and his associates). They will be paid generously depending on how many units they’ll have collected by the end of the month. It’s a sweet bonus. Gorjin (their leader, and Deresius’s best friend) is salvaging a smaller ship to the east, nine-hundred metres away, with Jaq.
“How are you finding your first day here?”
Deresius lets go off the trigger of his plasma torch and lifts the blast-shield that covered his visor, looking over to Ulas.
“It’s…different”, he says.
“In what way?”
“The silence. It’s quiet here compared to all the operations I’ve done, even in space, I was with groups of people. Their was always something going on. This place makes me nervous, and it’s too quiet”
Ulas finishes off his part and collects another sheet of metal, dropping it onto a pile behind himself. Deresius’s is higher than Ulas’s. Clearly showing the gap between each others experience.
“What was your last operation?”, the man wonders.
“Lowii, it’s in Confederacy space, they use the planet as a kind of dumping place. Windy as hell but the scrap is in vast amounts. Myself and a team of five stripped down a Drakk X-300 battleship. Coming here though…there’s more, something I can’t put my finger on. Makes you wonder. Whoever fought here, for what, and why?”, Deresius stops and cuts the power to his plasma-torch, taking a break.
“Yeah, you should see the mausoleum”
“The mausoleum?”
“Yeah, it’s a name Gorjin, Jaq and myself gave to a burial site, the entrance is down in a crater. That’s where Gorjin and Jaq have gone to”, Ulas points over to the dunes. As he does so, a huge starship or an orbital station, catches Deresius’s eye.
“Why didn’t we set a base over there?”, Deresius asks, confused, pointing over to the massive structure.
“Other salvaging teams were already there. I came here two weeks ago and at that time, when we went to take a look, we heard weapon fire. Now, we’ve not detected any since”
To Deresius’s amazement, Ulas’s pile has gotten bigger. Shocked. Then it caught onto him; it was the distraction of conversation. All this time he’s been standing there listening to the man, whereas Ulas never stopped. A beeping sound filled the inside of Deresius’s helmet.
“Deresius, something is happening on Jaq’s end, I need you and Ulas over here now. Take a truck”, his voice sounding coarse.
The pair head back towards the base, unsure whether to take their piles back to base, yet, they knew which ship and where their stuff will be as it isn’t far from the base anyway. Together they take a vehicle out from the garage (built into a hillside) and race over to Gorjin and Jaq.
—
It didn’t take them long to travel the nine-hundred metre distance. Thank goodness too, Deresius winced all the way as he drove the truck, through what seemed to be a glimmering city. Even with the polarized screening of the vehicle and their visors, it did not reduce the volume of light. The desert didn’t bother him as much, it’s the fucking brightness that pisses him off. Back on Lowii he could see at least. He’d much prefer the rampaging wind to this.
They spot Gorjin waving at them as he stands on a chunk of hull plating that had been rammed into a hill, the man’s visor blocking any expression, yet the way he waves frantically tells them he’s anxious. Out of the three he has the longest tail; Ulas’s is smaller and Deresius’s is in between, if somewhat girthier.
Leaving the vehicle behind to meet with Gorjin- eager for company. He had to stop himself for a minute or else he would have tripped.
“Oh thank the seven lords you’re here. I don’t know what’s going on. Jaq’s over there”, he points where a crater lies in between them and where Jaq supposedly should be. A distinct vessel stuck out from the ground. A strong silver.
“Isn’t that a V-X150?”, Deresius calls out.
“Yeah, looks like pirates have been topping up from here. I’m not surprised, it crashed here two days ago. Jaq pointed it out, planned to go check on it himself. He chose today to investigate; said he detected a functional power converter. Jaq called me and something happened, he went static on me. His signal disappeared after that”
Ever since this world was discovered, three months ago, its become a hot-spot for many walks of life, including pirates. All three squint to see if they can pick Jaq out, nothing, only the truck he took to get to where the pirate ship is, can be seen. It appeared to be powered down.
“Salvagers, gunfire?”, Deresius asks.
“None of that”
“Ok so what’s the plan?”
Gorjin puts a hand over his visor, blocking any further light, and scans the area.
“We’ll take the truck and head over. It has several sidearms inside, so we can take them in case we encounter any resistance. See if we can find Jaq, if not then there has got to be clues to his whereabouts”
The three of them hop in and drive round the crater that held the mausoleum, to Jaq’s last known position. Sal hails the team, she is surveying the area safely back at base. Gorjin reports the incident, and tells her to perform a deep scan. She manages to find the power converter as well as something else, something far more subtle. Sal does not make out what it is, however. Gorjin then asks her to let him know if their are any changes.
Jaq’s truck appears to be unscathed; no blast marks, holes, scratches- aside for the little tiny ones caused by the weather. The man they are looking for can not be seen anywhere. No footprints, no gun fire, no life signs, nothing. Whilst Gorjin and Ulas check the vehicle, Deresius wanders over to the edge of the crater. A dark void lies below, and he sees a glimmer of light, the man also notices broken and worn out steps, that swirled all the down into this pit. It wouldn’t be far-fetched if he had gone down there. His eyes come across something metallic peeking over a rock, close to the edge. Deresius explores this.
“Jaq isn’t in there”, Gorjin announces, carrying a set of guns in his arms.
It’s a grapple hook, the man discovers, and follows the rope all the way down, difficult to see where it ends because of the obscuring darkness.
“What about down here!”, Deresius shouts, gaining the attention of the men. They hurry over to see what he had found. They see what he sees…a void, a glimmering light and of course, the grapple hook. One that is not worn, it’s fresh, recent. It couldn’t be the pirate’s. A question then manifested in their minds.
“Why did he go down there, and why use a grapple hook when we’ve jet-packs?”
“To save fuel?”, interjects Deresius. Ulas shrugs in a manner of saying, “Yeah, I guess”
Standard salvager gear consists of a plasma torch, grapple hooks, jet-pack, a marker to mark an area for salvage, a scanner that searches for an items value, a magnetic beam to manipulate gravity around an object in order to move it (usually used in zero-gravity environments); and a thermal vision to look out for any sources of power or potential dangers.
“Let’s take a look”, Gorjin suggests.
The three men look at each other, waiting for one to opt in to take the first trip down. Ulas reaches out with a closed hand.
“Gun, shield, fists?”
Deresius obliges, Gorjin hands out the sidearms first, then readies himself. All three stick out their hands. Gun beats fists, shield beats gun, fists beat shield. A game that is well-known in the interstellar neighborhood.
“Three, two, one…”
Deresius goes for fists, Gorjin for the gun and Ulas for the shield. No one wins. They go again.
Deresius and Ulas go for the gun and Gorjin clenches his hand into a fist. He looks at theirs and then back to his.
“Ah, shit…”
Gorjin heads on down, it takes about five minutes to reach the bottom, although it felt like an age. Deresius and Ulas follow. The bottom is shrouded in shadow, except for one corner near an entrance, a green light. This collapsed entrance bears a crack with enough room to maneuver through. It looks like it was once a doorway into a temple, or a facility. A strange mist emanates from this crack. Whether natural or artificial. This is the first time Deresius shall see this, mausoleum. An idea perks itself up in Gorjin’s brain, forcing his hand to scan for the power converter Jaq was on about. They didn’t check the pirate’s ship, alternatively, if they scan for it now they will know if it is still there or down here; potentially in Jaq’s possession. Gorjin is soon right.
“The power converter Jaq mentioned…it’s down here”
Together, the three men wiggle into building and find a network of winding tunnels, a dense mist, and a darkness so malevolent that their headlights are not enough to cut through it.
—
A few more steps in, following Gorjin’s lead, they enter an antechamber, lit by lights around its perimetre. A place that had seen luxury, counting the amount of treasure laid around; chests, statues, scrolls, tablets, coins, weapons, exotic fabrics. Then later used for the dead, as there are rows of skulls and piles of bones amidst everything else. Like the wasteland outside and its countless collection of crashed ships, over eons…perhaps this world was once a beautiful paradise.
“This place is Khorre…”, utters Deresius. Death, is what he said, the word means, death.
This converter leads them further in, deeper into the mausoleum, to an area where not even Gorjin or Ulas had been to. Deresius activates his sidearm, nervously…just in case. The mist grows thicker, seeming unnatural, and a distant glow from one of the corridors Deresius passes, catches the man’s attention, re-tracing his steps. That’s where the signal is.
Neither Gorjin or Ulas are by his side anymore…maybe they are over there? Carefully and surely, he makes his over, with that sidearm, hands quivering. Turning a corner, he sees a glowing pedestal, emanating with a pool of bright dust flowing around it. Its recently been activated. Ahead, standing in this pool, is Jaq. The skinny man, if albeit skinnier than normal, appears to be transfixed by this device. By his feet is the power converter.
“Jaq? I’m glad you’re alive, we need to get — ”
As he spins Jaq round he sees something entirely different, it was no longer the man he knew. Empty eye sockets glare back with a face that is now bone, a gaped jaw dangles loosely. It’s as if something had stripped the flesh off the man. Bony hands reach out for his neck. Deresius flails backwards, falling onto the dusty ground, rolling, his eyes wide with horror and despair. He is alone, for the first time in his life he is completely alone, vulnerable, and that frightens him. Whenever he was, bad things had happened. That’s why he prefers to be among others. Damn Gorjin for persuading him into taking this contract.
“Damn you Gorjin, you bastard!”
The gun in his hands goes off, missing, then fires again…misses. He’s no soldier. This sidearm slips out from his hands and drops down by Jaq’s feet. The only thing on him is a grappling hook and a plasma torch. Drawing out the hook, Deresius swings, giving it momentum, and then whips fiercely into Jaq’s direction, knocking the corpse face first into the ground!
Two figures appear down the corridor Deresius had travelled down. It’s Gorjin and Ulas. A smile forms, though what replaces it soon after, is not joy. Two skeletons limp towards the man, like puppets on a string. Their bony fingers longing to strangle the life out of him.
“Oh no……not Gorjin. You fucking bastard….why?….Why did you have to go?…Damn it…DAMN IT ALL!!!”, he wanted to breakdown, yet couldn’t, theirs too much adrenaline in him.
Deresius swings the hook, knocking both of them down. He turns to peek over his shoulder and immediately dodges Jaq’s leap. He must have gotten up when Deresius was not looking. An urge to run takes over, and so he does. The beating within his chest pounds faster and faster, his intake for air increases; the muscles in his legs get hotter.
Upon reaching the antechamber, he realises that a secondary, inner door had closed. Shutting him in. Hurrying for the plasma torch dangling on his hip, he starts to burn through the door. In the beginning it doesn’t do much, he decides to pump more power into it, to the point of overloading. A white, red spot spreads out from the focal point of where he directed the plasma. Then begins making a door for himself to get out.
“Come on, come on…”, the lights around the perimetre flicker, a gentle but firm quake rumbles beneath the earth.
Daring not to look back, he can feel their dark presence gaining on him. That cold shiver down the spine, that steady breath that creeps up on you — coming for you. Certain he can hear echoes from behind, mysterious voices whispering in an unknown language; whether this is his mind making it up, or not.
“Almost there, come on, COME OOONNN!!!!!”
Bones crack from what only seemed a few feet away from him. The last bit of metal is cut, the door complete, he pulls it off, revealing the crack. Deresius pounces at it, slipping through like water. Then something stops him, he feels a pull on his shoulder. It’s Gorjin, or Ulas, Jaq? Deresius can not see the difference anymore. He tries to get away, pushing more and more. It does not work. Struggling, straining his hand, Deresius is able to bring about the plasma torch to burn through the bone. It drops off easy as if drawing a knife through skin; one without a shred of a shriek. It gives him time to wiggle out.
The grapple they used to get down here is no longer attached to the edge up above, nonetheless, Deresius planned to use another device that will get him out much faster. Within a second of initiating the jet-pack, he flies off, up high. He has plenty of fuel to reach the top. As he does, Deresius jumps into a truck and heads back to base. Foot fully down against the accelerator. Along the way, he thought about what that pedestal was, and the glowing powder it had encircled around it. Did this stuff strip them of their flesh and turned them into walking corpses. Or was there a larger being behind all this with some ulterior plan, and was now awake???
—
When he arrived, the hatch was already open. He had tried to get into contact with Sal earlier to see if she was alright. Bits and pieces came through the comm. He did hear her voice. Then silence ensued.
Deresius makes his way down the ladder, closing the hatch after himself, and enters a decontamination unit. A blue force-field goes back and forth, penetrating him. Removing any contaminants. A red light turns to yellow, and slots open on both sides.
Whooooooooooooshhhhhhhh
Air fills the place, pressure stabilises, and the door into the base unlocks. Deresius lifts his helmet off. Taking a massive inhale, then a sigh of relief follows. Making his way inside, he sees her, sitting at the desk observing streams of data.
“Sal, we need to get ready and leave. This place is not what we thought it to be…..Sal?”, he says, gradually making his way over to the woman.
Then the man freezes in place. At first he did not notice the dimness of the lights, a little flicker here and there, as well as how stiff she sat. Sal gives out a twitch.
“Sal?”, he gulps a load of saliva down his throat.
Her head snaps to the last step he takes.
Back to the Nav-System