He recognized the intense pain of emergency de-frosting as soon as his neurons began firing up. There were about sixty or so reasons for that to have happened and in just a moment he would know which one it was. He needed only to wait for the pair of bio-techs to open the lid of his pod. In the meantime, he had to bite through the pain of muscle cramps and air burning his lungs.

The conditioning he had received, almost forced him to go through the steps for de-frosting. His name was Lucas, codename Helix. He was part of mobile assault team Demon, the moment he had been ejected from the growth vats. They were sent to Sigma 37-4H as a guard unit until a proper army force could be gathered. Command had even sweetened the posting by promising them, they would earn last names once their mission was complete. His long-term memory was intact, but he had no idea what he was doing inside a cryo-pod.

Twelve seconds after regaining his senses he began to notice some oddities. First of all, he was in full gear. That could spell a lot of problems if anything was damaged form the 0K temperature inside the cryo-pod during sleep. Virgil was going to chew his ass out for this, especially after he had been the one to give the safety lecture before each sleep.

Thirty-six seconds after waking, he realised the staff were late in opening his pod. It was a major violation of regulations and it could even turn into a capital offence if he got injured in any way. Either way, the entire shift of bio-techs would be under investigation by the military police and at least one of them was going to be vented.

Forty seconds in, he realised he was upside down inside the pod. Which meant something had happened when he had entered it. The memory loss should have been his first clue that procedures had not been followed. Forty-three seconds – his vision had cleared and he saw that his rifle and pistol were with him. This would also mean that his specialised equipment was inside his belt as well. The only way he could avoid execution for derelict of duty would be if he could… Do what? His memory was a mess.

Forty-nine seconds had passed since he had woken up from cryo-sleep. He pulled the emergency manual release of the pod’s lid. However, instead of the chromium-cobalt superalloy slab to fly off the pod, the container began moving for a few seconds. It could mean only one thing - the cryo-pod was on its side and something had blocked the lid. And that meant he was in serious trouble. Quickly he adjusted his position and pressed at the now unlocked lid with both his legs. With a groan and the sound of metal grinding metal, the hinges gave.

A wave of vertigo assaulted him as he saw the darkness that awaited him. The pod's yellow interior light revealed only a small area around it, but it was enough for him to notice the floor on the side of his vision. He also saw that it had turned into cracked glass, which would mean that a fusion detonation had occurred. That would explain the missing bio-techs, the memory loss and his strange position inside the pod. It also gave him a few ideas as to why he had been in full gear with all his equipment and weapon.

He slammed the back of his helmet in complete disregard to all the warnings the techs had drilled into his mind. It was the only way to clear the frosting from the vents and forcing the damned thing to power up. On cue, the text lines began to appear on the inside of the artificial crystal protective display. To some surprise, he was bombardment by a number of errors and failures. The most worrying of all being the lack of connection to command.

“Reset internal clock to 00:00:00.” He acknowledged that his voice sounded hoarse as he spoke the command to the reactive AI.

That cleared a large portion of the errors. After all, Arthur had been spot-on, when he had joked that if someone had tech trouble, they just needed to reset the damned thing.

“Increase UV enhancement by two-fold.” With that, the darkness was pushed back and coloured everything with a dark violet tinge.

He could see the entire section was a complete mess. Something really bad had happened here. At least Cryogenics was deep inside the station, otherwise, he would be breathing vacuum with the way the entire facility had collapsed. His training kicked in and he scanned the room, his rifle ready.

“Connect to command feed – Demon. Authorization Helix 07A34GTAA.”

It was not the response he had hoped for. And despite his training, he could feel the first signs of panic setting in. He knew it was because short term memory was shot to hell and back, but understanding the reason did not change a thing.

“Display squad status.”

He should have expected that. But he had to try something. If the server was down, either the enemy had taken the command centre or the relay for his section was out of commission. And judging by the damage he was seeing; it was most likely the latter. There was a heat spike to his right and a small bright dot began to form on a pile of rubble.

“Assess spectrum, show only 70% or above possibilities.”

“Open feed channel 1TX through 9LL.” He ordered as he ducked behind the pod.

Quickly he ejected the magazines of his Ripper Mk 7 assault rifle. The horizontal mag-clip one was almost empty with only four super-dense iridium slugs with a tungsten head. He felt one more clip on his belt with his hand, which gave him a total of forty-nine shots. Not enough for a prolonged fight, but enough to make a break for it.

Next, he examined the box-magazine attached just below the weapon’s main barrel. It was as depleted as the gauss one. He could only count the violet glow of two bullets. In general, most army personnel favoured the plasma rounds, but they were all positively charged ones. Whereas Demon squad preferred the experimental positively-charged caesium plasma ones. That stuff could and would eat through most armour types. It also meant he could only find more in the armoury.

“Puppeteer, this is Helix. Come in, Puppeteer.” He said while ensuring that his weapon was operational.

Judging by the colour of the boring laser, he had about forty seconds before whoever was on the other side came in. A plan was forming in his head, despite the mess it was inside it. A plan that became useless as he caught a glimpse that one of the many cables, dangling around the doorway, was the main communications array one. No wonder he couldn’t reach anyone. At least three levels above him had collapsed for that thing to be anywhere near Cryogenics.

“Switch to short-burst radiofrequency comms.” He made the only possible command he had for the AI.

“This is Helix. I am trapped in section 01-02.” Only static answered his call. “Come on, Preacher. I know you can hear me, you, large ball of lard.”

Quickly he reached inside the stims pack attached to his hip and pulled one of the two flashbangs he had hidden inside. Each of them was just large enough to fit in his palm and with a cylindric shape with a press-trigger on the top. They were not part of the standard equipment for a combat medic, but Julius had been kind enough to lend them to him.

“Hornet, can you hear me? I know you are nearby.” He was certain the man was close after all the assault trooper was assigned as his shadow.

Again, he had only the static answer him. Lucas understood very well he was in a bad situation. Low on ammo, unable to reach his squad and with unknown enemies trying to reach him. Well, they could be friendlies, but he was not willing to trust his luck. The moment the boring laser touched the dangling cluster of cables, this was confirmed, as a long line of warnings scrolled through his HUD display. What was left of the emergency lights flared and bathed the room in a disturbing blood-red hue.

“Deactivate UV enhancement.” He spoke before the brightness blinded him.

At least it was not all bad. Thanks to this he now knew that the command centre was operational and the connection problem was on his side. Most likely some circuit was damaged due to the frost build-up during his stay in the cryo-pod.

“Hide time stamp and switch on ATL.”

“Damn it. I don’t have time for this.” He cursed, forgetting that the assistant targeting was reset as almost all of his AI’s functions were.

And he did not have the time to go through every step to have them operational again, because his motion tracker detected movement on the other side of the cleared doorway. It would be a few more seconds before what was left of the debris settled and it became safe to go through. But if he had picked them up, they had picked him up.

“Manual targeting it is… Man, I really should have taken Tess’s offer.” He scoffed, knowing that there were other reasons for the best marksman in their group to have had invited him to the range at night.

It wasn’t that Lucas was a bad shot, he was good enough to be above what was required for the regular assault troopers, but he was the worst amongst his squadmates. His training had a different focus; bio-treatments, electronic repairs, chem synthesis, triage, cybernetic maintenance, the list went on. That’s why Julius was his shadow on every deployment.

He primed the flashbang and threw it through the doorway. He sprinted after it and stopped at the frame, taking cover and disconnected the video and sound functions of his helmet. Even so, he felt the blast. A small smile formed on his lips as he remembered Samuel’s words.

“Demons never wait, they strike first, that’s why we should fear them.”

Too bad he was trying to convert him to the teachings of the Church of the Third Hell at that time. Because Lucas had honestly liked the concept. It fit their squad perfectly. Right now, he was willing to listen to another sermon, just to have Lucifer’s Siege-breaker pattern flamer by his side. However, wishful thinking would not help him out, instead, he took a deep breath and stepped into the opening. The butt of his weapon pressed into his shoulder and his finger ready on the trigger.

Lucas had to give his opponents some credit. Most of them had taken cover and thus had avoided the major effects of the flashbang. There was a total of four he could see in the small decontamination chamber attached to Cryogenics. And only one was visibly stunned and trying her best to move. However, he was more interested to know who they were and why they wore a poor imitation of his Predator armour.

As a medic, he immediately picked up on the skin discolouration of the men and the irritated areas on the side of the third man’s jaw – failing combat implants. The one on his left had a tattoo of the Converts of Armageddon over his right eye, while the larger one at the back had the subdermal implants of a Cathran ganger. The two factions were supposed to be at war. On top of that, the older man to his right had the neck scars of a Hellion pirate. It made no sense at all to him, why those three would work together… Unless…

His eyes darted back to the woman squirming on the floor. He had missed it. The black carbon jacket with white shoulder pads and white lines running along the sleeves. As he had thought, she was a Black Confessor. Which made the men her psi-locked slaves, but what was she doing here?

“Stand down! I’m friendly!” He barked before things could go out of hand.

< ERROR: EXTRNL_ SPEAKERS FAILURE >

They could not hear him. This was really bad. His suit did not have any of the proper imperial markings and only sported the medic sign on his chest. On top of that, he was not connected to command and they could not see his authentication code. He had to remove his helmet and as he was about to lower his rifle a magnetically accelerated bullet passed by his head.

Without thinking, Lucas shifted his aim to the slave nearest to him and pulled the trigger. The wretch’s head exploded in a mist of organic matter as the tungsten head of his bullet detonated at nearly super-sonic speed. He caught movement with the corner of his eye and fired again. Lucky for her, the Confessor moved in the other direction he had thought she would. The slug burst into the floor, while she jumped behind the boring laser. An odd choice of cover, because he just needed to take out one of the tripod’s legs and she would be caught right in the open.

A round from the pirate caught him in the shoulder and threw his aim off. The low-calibre slug was a complete waste against the Predator suit. At the end of the day, Lucas would only have a slight bruise, but given enough hits, one was bound to find a weak spot and do real damage.

The Confessor and the ganger exchanged something, most likely an attack command, since the large man fired a couple of shots at him. It was all said in a dialect he had not heard before, but one that sounded very close to Gethian techno-speak. This, in turn, raised too many questions in itself, questions he did not have the time for, but nonetheless, he logged the conversation. The pirate had reached for a grenade and was going to make Lucas’ day even worse. Aim, take a deep breath and fire, Tess was fond of telling him. But a slug would detonate the explosive.

His finger pressed the switch at the barrel of his rifle and a plasma bullet was fed into the chamber, instead of a supper-solid. Both appendage and grenade were turned into liquid as the beryllium polymer glass casing shattered and the caesium plasma ignited on impact. As the man fell screaming to the ground the Confessor fired at Lucas, but her aim was way to off-target for him to even consider her a danger. Which was odd, Black Confessors were crack shots.

Quickly he put a slug through the tripod and fired his last plasma round at the door leading out of the decontamination chamber. His motion tracker informed him of movement from that direction and the shouts made it more than obvious. He could only hope that the plasma round would deter them from storming his position.

Lucas returned his eyes on the Confessor and began to wonder if she was the worst person ever to wear the black and white. She was trying to fire up the boring laser as if that would do something meaningful. It was a stationary weapon at best and besides that, it was tilted on one side, so there was no chance to actually hit him.

It took him two steps to reach her position and nudge her with the barrel of his rifle. In a way he was proud, now he could boast to the others that he had captured a Black Confessor. Arthur would be pestering him for that story for at least a month. Although, Virgil would not be that happy of this. In just a minute, Lucas had broken almost all agreements and treaties between the empire and the Kōng Cathedral.

“Surrender. You are my prisoner, Confessor.” He half-laughed as he saw the message and blink-clicked the connection.

“Unfortunate. It seems we’ll have to talk face to face.” Lucas could feel his anger building.

He would have missed the arc-mine if the Confessor had not spoken up. That was a good trick on part of the psi-locked slaves, or rather the girl pulling their strings. Too bad she had tried to save them. Lucas caught her by the collar of her jacket and placed her as a shield in front of him.

“Magnetise outer layer.” He ordered the AI.

The discharged high-voltage arc lightning danced around him with a couple of them finding the girl. He had not thought it possible that her suit was not magnetised so that it could deflect the electronic weapon. To make matters worse, she began to convulse and orange foam gathered at her mouth. Her implants were failing or going haywire. His training and field experience told him that she had at least one extra reinforced adrenal gland and an irisin-melatonin injector inside her liver. Add to that the damaged done to her heart from the electro-shock of the arc-mine and she had about ten minutes before she expired.

To make matters worse, the psi-locked slaves began to open fire. Lucas had to admit he had been wrong. She was not the one they were locked to. There must have been a senior Confessor around the corner, which would make her some sort of a trainee. Either way, she would make a valuable source of information. His mind made up, he sprinted back through the doorway, slamming his second flashbang, inside the rubble to its side, and dove into the darkness of section 01-02. All the while his other hand was wrapped tightly around the Confessor’s waist.

Lucas sprinted for another two-hundred meters through the ruins of Cryogenics, jumping over broken and overturned pods. He smiled as he saw that his destination, although damaged, was usable. The express cadaver elevator, leading to surgical theatre C, was where it was supposed to be and in a surprisingly good state. Its door might have been missing and the cage might have been twisted inside the shaft, but there was access to the lower level.

He mag-locked his rifle on his back and dove into the gap leading to what was supposed to be a nasty drop. Lucas coiled his arm around the thick power cable dangling from the cart and used it to decrease his speed. Once his boots touched the floor at the bottom, he placed two shots from his pistol at the cage, forcing it to slide half a meter down, effectively closing the gap he had used.

Which was pointless, he realised as he turned to look at the surgical theatre. The entire place was one big pile of rubble, ashes and liquified metal. Only once, he wished for only once, to be able to work on one of his patients in a proper medical facility. He dropped the confessor on the floor and kneeled next to her.

Without wasting more time, he removed a needle from the compartment in his forearm and jammed it her throat. The nanite inhibitors within the solution would deal with the excess adrenalin her reinforced gland was producing. Using his combat knife, he stripped the chest guard of her combat suit and the cut through the body glove beneath it. The fingers of his left hand stopping over her heart, while those of his left reached for the artery in her neck.

Lucas increased the sensitivity of the sensors of the fingertip of each glove and smiled when he sensed the echo. An additional ventricle, just as he thought, it would make dealing with the cardiac arrest so much easier. But before that, he had to disable the implant in her liver. And if he were a good doctor and followed the teachings of all the medical textbooks and manuals, he would be cutting her up and locating the analogue off switch.

However, Lucas was not a good doctor, he was a bloody vat-grown combat medic. He took out a needle containing a large dose of enriched acetaminophen. With her liver short-circuited, and no more high doses of adrenalin rampaging through her system, her heart could finally stop its seizure. And with a small dose of a standard combat cocktail, he had it beating again. Although it would take a few days, before all three ventricles returned to normal, she was going to live.

“Analyse log entry 001 and begin language decryption. Start mnemonic integration of result as soon as previous task is done.” He instructed the AI and began the slow process of calibrating all the working functions of his Predator suit.