Farreskh crept forwards, low amongst the rubble, noise suppression systems at full. She could see her prey ahead of her. She was close, almost within striking range, but the prey was skittish. If she did not close the distance stealthily it could escape, as it had done before.
This was close enough. She stepped forward. “Greetings, Beloved.”
Barrakhad turned to look down at her. “Lady Farreskh.”
“I wished to thank you, my Lord, for sending Master Glokht to watch over me in the last battle. It was not necessary, I have my own bodyguard, but your concern for my safety is greatly appreciated.”
“No thanks needed. You and Klotophis killing each other would result in a loss of 17.8% operational efficiency.”
How romantic, Farreskh thought, but did not say. “I fear Klotophis is deceiving you, my Love. He is taking advantage of your… current state. He is plotting something.”
Barrakhad gave a brief chuckle, just a dim echo of the full-throated roar his laugh had once been. “Klotophis lies. Klotophis schemes. It is his function. I permit it.”
“And me, My Lord, what is my function?”
He paused for a moment. “I… do not know. It will be decided.” He cocked his head as his auditory sensors picked up a familiar sound. “Battle comes,” he announced, and scuttled away faster than she could keep up.
***
Klotophis eyed the red-and-gold armoured marines warily. The Blades of Redemption being here was worrying, both due to the immediate threat they represented but also because they should have no reason to be here in the first place. This area had little strategic value. There was nothing here, above ground – only the burnt-out remains of a few hab-blocks. The only reasonable explanation was that the marines were here for the same reason the Necrons were – the hidden Tomb Complex beneath the ground.
“Dig faster,” he commanded. His work-crew of Warriors did their best to comply, gauss weapons pointed down, stripping away layers of dirt and rockcrete.
He’d sent Farreskh north, to the least promising of the possible entry points, hoping the humans would be drawn off in that direction. No such luck, it appeared. Several squads of astartes were headed this way, jump packs roaring. Still, that wasn’t the only card up his sleeve. The warriors were drawing double-duty as bait. Behind them, lurking with their bodies phase-shifted down into the ground so that only their heads were visible, a group of Canoptek Wraiths lay ready to pounce the moment the melee began.
The warriors had bored down deep enough that they had started to uncover blackstone – the top layer of the buried Necron structure. This was not something he ideally wanted to rush – if this was indeed the fabled archive they were searching for there would be defensive countermeasures. The astartes were a real inconvenience.
Warriors began to drop as bolt and plasma bursts started to stream in. The incoming jump pack troops had landed a short distance away but then halted, not taking the bait. Among their number, surrounded by a gold-clad bodyguard of Sanguinary Guard, Klotophis picked out Chapter Master Furos, commander-in-chief of the Imperial defenders.
Well, if Szarekh would not go to the mountain… he signalled the Wraiths and called the Deathmarks out of hiding. Killing Furos might destabilise this assault and perhaps even the entire Imperial defense of the planet. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.
It was only a few seconds later that he realised it was he who had fallen into a trap. With a swift flurry of blows from Furos five Wraiths lay destroyed, his Argent blade cutting through their phase shields like they were not even there and smashing the automatons apart with every blow. Katophis lost vision for a second as the sheer illogicality of it overwhelmed his neural net with mental feedback. It was not possible. It was against all mathematical projection. Nothing should be able to do that.
He regained control of his faculties only to see another, even larger squad of gold-clad angels swooping in from behind. They blasted through the disorganised ranks of the warriors, sending broken chains of skeletal metal cartwheeling through the air. Before he could even gain the wherewithal to rewind time and save himself the crackling blade of a power sword descended and he fell to the ground in two bisected halves.
***
Farreskh dropped into the hole, her metallic feet striking sparks off the stone as she landed at the bottom of the tunnel. The cylinder of light from the opening above caught dust drifting down in waves that matched the tempo of the thumps and booms of the battle that still raged on the surface.
She stepped out of the light and walked down the tunnel, casting her own purple glow onto the crumbling walls. She found a door a short distance away. It did not open to either of her dynastic signatures and so she held a palm up to the access panel, passing in a stream of nanoscarabs which rebuilt the locking mechanism into a more compliant form. The door jerked open.
The other side of the door stood a Necron noble, blade raised in challenge. She was nanoseconds from swinging her own scythe before analysis confirmed it was only a statue. The ornate Voidglaive that it held was real, though, and she took a second to tug it from the crumbling stone hands and test its weight. It was pleasing.
She wondered about the Necrons who had – for want of a better word – ‘lived’ here. Were they still here, unawakened? Was the subject of this memorial slumbering somewhere in the catacombs beneath her feet? Or, had they left, or been destroyed? If this were an active tomb she would have expected to find at least some Canopteks on patrol for maintenance and defense, but everything was still and – excepting the muffled gunfire from the surface – quiet. Perhaps she would take the glaive. For safe keeping.
She walked on, following the residual traces of power conduits to a control interface globe on the back wall of the chamber. She placed her palm onto it, fed in enough energy to activate it and in return demanded it give up its secrets.
The datastream was muddled, incomplete. Possibly encrypted. Certainly, nothing new seemed to have been logged for thousands of years. But there was something that looked like a power network map, the nodes of which might correspond to other tomb-complexes dotted across the planet. If that is indeed what it was, there was something strange about it – some kind of power source connected to the network, but far deeper than even tomb-cities were normally built and not corresponding to any Necron architecture she recognised.
She switched mental context briefly to check on the battle above. A good portion of the Necron forces seemed to be offline. Barrakhad was alone, surrounded and presumably enjoying himself immensely. Glokht and his Deathmarks held a bridgehead and her own Lychguard stood sentry around the entrypoint to the tomb, but the rest of the battlefield appeared to be overrun with the red-clad vermin.
A few seconds later an explosion echoed through the tunnels, swiftly followed by the thump of ceramite boots on stone. The Imperials must have forged their own entrance somewhere else in the complex. She had carved her way through two full squads of marines to gain access to the tomb but it didn’t do to press one’s luck. It was time to go.
She drained as much as she could out of the terminal and into a datavessel for later examination, then uploaded an expungement phage. The globe glowed brightly for a moment before falling dark forever.
With the pounding of boots and the barbaric barks of human language now sounding only a few chambers away she turned and strode back the way she had come.
+Nachmund Gauntlet Strike Force Crusade Battle+
Mission: Purge after Inload
Forces: Necrons (Awakened Dynasty) vs Blood Angels
Result: Blood Angels victory 10:8
Victory Pointless 
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