Punishment

Colonel Sven studied the shabby and broken replacements ranked before him on the muddy floor of the wooden shack. A mixed lot he thought. Male, female, child, abhuman, broken officials, and officers, scum from the ranks. As a matter of fact and of the record here, and also in the ministorium they were all equal in their degredation. All were Emperor cursing scum who had been dealt with far too leniently by legal tribunals as far as Colonel Sven was concerned. About the only sort he had not seen pass through this regiment were space marines. It would be pleasant, he thought, to get his hands as it were, on one of those goody too shoes superheroes just to see if they were as tough as they claimed without their power armour. It did not seem likely. The other sort he got only occassionally were true heretics. These were usually winnowed out by the Inquisition long before they got to a penal legion. Sometimes they got here but he and his officers knew how to deal with them. With a shrug he turned his attention back to this lot of criminals to be inducted into the 666th Penal Legion, known to its officers and especially to the scum who served in it as Hell's Own.

"This is the end of the line for all of you." The colonel snarled. "You have been given this final chance to redeem yourselves in the name of the Emperor. Some, a few, of you will take this opportunity and die in pain and contrition fighting heroically for the Emperor's blessing."

He paused to see if his words were having any effect with this lot. No matter he thought.

"Most of you will just die uselessly, blown to bits in an obscure skirmish on a useless and unknown planet, if you are lucky. The unlucky bastards amongst you will survive and make a home here in Hell's Own the 666th Penal legion."

"You have not been mind wiped despite your crimes just in case some of you have useful skills. Any infraction of discipline will be punished by use of the blessers."

"Sergeant demonstrate the blesser."

What Happened

Time jumped. Emperors belly, that hurt thought Hammerhand. He felt ravenous. What was he doing here? Where is here actually? I am in deep shit he thought. Looking around he changed the thought. We are in deep shit is more correct.

Space Hulk

The deep scanning naval auspexes on the orbiting “Emperors Will”, the “Imperial Holocaust and the “Xenos Extermination” suggested that the Hulk contained as many as two hundred ships. Many were clearly of alien origin and bizarrely shaped. A dozen of the more recently attached around the periphery of the Hulk were clearly Ork in origin with their aggressively crude and makeshift but functional construction and appearance. The drives in these ships were burnt out. Across the Hulk as a whole energy sources indicated a least thirty warp plasma drives with the same number of alien drives using different principals from the Imperium to develop Warp power. Some ships were vacuum welded to each other but many showed evidence of sentient actions in their location and attachment to the Hulk. Deep scans showed corridors running in a regular grid in some parts of the Hulk, directly through separate ships that had been welded together while in other areas the there seemed to be no pattern to the corridors and in others thay ran in curves and spirals. The central agglomeration of the Hulk contained the oldest ships. The density of Xenos ships was highest in the center suggesting that one or more Xenos species had been responsible for initiating the creation of the Hulk. The oldest Imperial ships were of ancient patterns both civilian and naval. These were clustered around the core with the age of the incorporated ships decreasing the closer to the outer surface they were located although this was not an absolute rule as some old Imperial ships could be identified vacuum welded to the outer parts of the Hulk’s pack of ships.

The outer surface of the Hulk was scarred. There were blast craters including the one recently created by the Ork infestation. There were lasers scars and evidence of torpedo and other projectile weapon hits. There were weapons bulges and warped organic looking towers of unknown function dotted across the surface. Simple crude Ork style cabling and piping ran alongside advanced Xenos and sophisticated Imperial ducting and piping linking point to point on the skin of the Hulk. There were orifices for engine exhausts and given its age there were craters that could only have been form meteor impacts. There was evidence of patching some of the damaged areas indicating that some of the previous inhabitants had existed in the Hulk for some time,

“There in the outer shell of the core is our target,” stated Hawk. “The design of the ships indicates that these Imperial Naval Cruisers are at least three thousand years old. There is a strong possibility that we will be able to salvage archeotechnology that wil be invaluable to the Imperium.”
“How will we get there, Lord?” asked Captain Meddigo of the Red Hunters.

Progressive

The skeletal remains of the gargantuan predator had the mummified remains of a naked Ork stuffed in its jaws.
“This makes no sense”, muttered Hammerhand.
“When the impossible is eliminated, whatever remains is the truth,focus on that", remarked Hawk casually.
“Captain Pilgrim, I need a review of all ships types that the fleet scanners have identified as part of this Hulk agglomerate. I also need the likely age of all known vessels and any specific identifications available from the Imperial Navy data sets”, ordered the Inquisitor.
Inquisitor Hawk was patient, cunning, secretive and remarkably intelligent as a result his chosen augmentations. If some of his orthodox puritan colleagues and associates in the Inquisition had the slightest idea of what Hawk had done inside his head he would have been declared Abominus Imperialis without hesitation particularly by the Ordo Hereticus.
“This conference is adjourned until Captain Pilgrim’s savants extract the necessary data from the imperial archives.”
Hawk left followed by his bodyguard and savant.
“What are our orders, Chaplain Arsestus?” called Sergeant Mudmilk.
Hammerhand stood even so the Red Hunters Chaplain’s bulk dominated the room. “Advance to the next bulkhead. Take samples of the beast and Ork”, ordered Hammerhand. The Chaplain stirred. Hammerhand waited for the Chaplain.

Lots of Teeth

It had had a lot of teeth. The pict sender image showed the bony remains of a gargantuan creature.
“Sergeant Mudmilk”, ordered Hawk, “take your squad and the pict sender up to that carcass.”
The Red Hunter Space Marines advanced in hostile territory formation. The pict sender showed the vastness of the space in which they were advancing.
The images on the screen swung from side to side with the advance but the image of the skull of the massive beast with teeth as tall as an erect Space Marine lingered in the vision of the watchers.
“Hammerhand started. “What is that in its mouth?”

Conference

Hawk was using the bridge on his assault shuttle as his master tactical nerve center. Cables snaked from the belly of the blunt armoured craft. With its heavily armoured hull and bulky weapons pods, stubby wings for atmospheric maneuvers and shielded engines there was no mistaking the ship for what it was. Beside it the pragmatic design of the Arvus Lighter that Hammerhand had arrived with seem graceful in comparison. The towering walls of the remains of the hanger in which the Orks had ambushed the first assault dwarfed both. Both ships sat in vacuum. But technical servitors had domed part of the hangar and linked the ships in the landing zones to the domes and the airlock entrances to the Hulk with atmosphere tunnels.

Cables were stapled across the undomed part of the hangar to link the ships to the manned Hulk command rooms that Hawk’s teams had activated.
Chaplain Arsestus was reporting the Red Hunters progress to the conference Hawk had called. Present were Hammerhand, Hawks autosavant, Captain Meddigo, the Colonel of the Belisimar boys and a Holo of Captain Pilgrim.

“The Red hunters Teams have opened a route through the Ork infested area to hullward. The advanced tactical squad Panther has entered the unknown section. No resistance has been encountered.”
“Sergeant Mudmilk has a datavox report which has been downloaded to the Holopict projector.”
“With your permission?” he asked Hawk.
Hawk nodded.

The image quality on the screen was superb. Hawk had made and maintained many friends within the ranks of the techpriests having supplied many xeno and archeotech artifacts without allowing them to be subjected to a full bureaucratic assessment through the Ordo Xenos. As a result Hawk’s technical equipment was always fully functional and of top specification.

On screen and with sound Sergeant Mudmilk demonstrated the vast cathedral like empty space that squad Panther had entered. Powerful searchlight failed to penetrate to the far wall of the cavernous chamber. The floor was covered in a fine dust.
“Scanners indicate that the dust is organic in origin. Only 78% probability of entirely human origin.” A background ticking noise could be heard over the link.
“Turn the pict sender on the walls and roof,” asked Hammerhand.
The walls were ribbed. Each rib rose tapering in an arc to meet others in a point on the ceiling. The walls were significantly indented between each rib.
From the rib arch points on the ceiling hung glistening white moist material, that slowly oozed fluid dripping to the floor 20 metres below.
“The atmosphere is breathable but only if you are desperate. The air temperature is only slightly above freezing. The oxygen concentration is only 10%. The remainder is carbon dioxide some nitrogen plus sulphur dioxide and a high level of complex organics as you can see from the data downloaded to your auspexes,” continued the sergeant.
“Comfortable if you are wearing power armour,” commented the Belisimar Colonel.
“Good job we can’t smell the air over there from the data you have downloaded. “The stench from the sulphur dioxide and organics must be overpowering,” commented Felix the autosavant.
“It must smell like rotting flesh of some sort,” thought Hammerhand aloud.
“What is that in the distance, rotate the pict sender clockwise 45 degrees,” commanded Hawk.

The Astropath

A low dull insistent throbbing could be just about heard. It made it difficult to think unless tasks were concentrated on directly. Hammerhand blamed the throbbing for the fact that he had almost tripped and fallen twice on his way back down the corridor to the second and third control rooms they were using. In contrast to the chamber he had left the corridor’s walls and ceiling were made of slabs of a metallic alloy that appeared to have been welded together, Contrastingly the floor was lightly ribbed. That along with the cabling snaking between the control rooms that they had taken over made walking while thinking of something else a hazard. Mechanical servitors were still working on the cabling.

Hawks idea was that by combining the functions of different rooms and linking them directly to the shuttle controls it would be possible to gain significant control over the Hulk. Perhaps more control than anyone had achieved before. That in turn could lead to even greater access to the bulk of the Hulk with the release of as yet untapped knowledge. Although the cabling was not quite completed, Hawk had already ordered that the Ork infested chambers forward and hullward of their location be vacuumed as a test of the set up. The pumps were transferring the atmosphere to another of the Hulk’s areas, one that was thought to be a storage area.

Hammerhand reconsidered the conversation he had overheard Hawk having with Captain Pilgrim’s Astropath. The Astropath Xavier had been insistent he had sensed unpredictable changes in the warp ahead. He had warned Hawk that if he did not have full control over the Hulk in the next 48 to 72 hours the vortices could be expected to induce the Hulk to launch back into the Warp.

Space Hulk Control Chamber

The dark sooty and spongy walls of the chamber were ribbed, arcing to an apex at the centre. Lighter green and yellow stains of something had dribbled down and dried between the ribs. The room had an organic under odour as if something had died and rotted to dust many years ago in a sealed room. From the apex dripped clear fluid. The autosavant had stated this was merely condensation. Hammerhand was not so sure himself. He though that sometimes it seemed blood red as it fell but each time he examined a drop in the bucket that had been thoughtfully placed below the fluid remained gin clear. Hammerhand dismissed this consideration from his mind and refocused on the briefing. This was another of the Hulk’s so called control rooms. There did not seem to be any pattern except that from each it was possible to interface to the systems that controlled some of the Hulk’s systems. Each of the four he had seen had been unique. Perhaps even created by different species. Each offered access to different parts of the Hulk’s systems. No single room found so far had been the motherlode control giving complete control over the Hulk. He had seen only four but between the team over 30 chambers had been examined so far within the part of the Hulk to which they had access. Large areas of the enormous spacefaring body were presently inaccessible. Some contained hordes of Orks that had been trapped and needed to be dealt with. Others probably contained some even less sociable of the spacefaring species know to the Imperium. Others were simply a blank. They were inaccessible with nothing so far known about what they contained.

Assets

Inquisitor Hawk commenced the meeting. “Let’s review our assets.”
“Two squads of Grey Knights Terminators,” Announced Captain Meddigo.
“Four platoons of Belisimar Boys with heavy weapons and Inhalers,” added Hawk. He had taken command of the remnants of the Belisimar Boys at Hawk’s order.
“The Inquisitorial assets,” remarked Hawk, “including two daemon hosts.”
“Three squads of Red Hunters Space Marines,” grunted the pale faced Chaplain Arsestus.

Tombstone Blues

“Sir, may I respectfully request that we immediately evacuate the Hulk”
“Why,” grunted Hawk to Hammerhand.
“The statistical records, err, such as they exist, demonstrate that despite the best organised efforts of the Imperium and Inquisition, Hulks have unpredictably and typically at the most inconvenient instant dematerium to the Warp.”
“Unpredictable they are like any living organism. Admittedly there are risks, but any engagement with the arch-enemy of Mankind and the Living Emperor has risk stamped on it.”
“Are the gains here worth these risk to all we have so far achieved”
“Look on it as another adventure, Hammerhand, you are young enough, why question this opportunity to seize control of a Hulk for the Inquisition and Imperium.”
“I do not question the opportunity nor do I wish my loyalty to be questioned. I am solely concerned that we will find ourselves at the mercy of the Hulk within the warp and in circumstances that releases the contained mobs of Orks and probably Tyranid Hordes.”