The Imperium of mankind spans the galaxy from end to end. It is an empire of a million worlds, each one its own unique biosphere with its own flora and fauna. On most planets, the environment is somewhat similar to Old Earth, with the subjects of the Imperium dwelling in sprawling cities set amidst rolling green hills, broad alpine vistas and great deserts, perhaps the result of some ancient terraforming project. But on some worlds, life exists in a way that would be unrecognisable to the denizens of old earth. In many systems, humans exist in great stations suspended in the airless void, thriving on resources taken from dense asteroid belts, or the shattered remains of dead planets. Some worlds are entirely oceanic, and contain endless vertical stacks of underwater farms, tended to by a race of abhumans watched over by a planetary governor on an orbiting platform. Some, like Tallarn or Valhalla, have surfaces that are uninhabitable by human life, and so they dwell in vast underground arcologies.

The mighty war machine of the Imperium cannot be limited by any environment, and it was for these latter worlds that the Hellbore was created. It resembled an enormous bullet, tipped by a whirring drill, and it contained enough space to comfortably seat a company of soldiers, or a squadron of tanks. The passengers are loaded above ground, while the drill rests on its flatbed transport. That transport then raises its rear end, and sends the drill into the ground under its own gravity. Once it hits the ground, the drill begins burning through the earth and rock with an array of plasma cutters, whilst grinding metal blades shift the molten earth aside. On the side of the drill, great toothed tracks pull the machine along the channel of rock, forcing the drill ever onwards. At the end of its journey, which could begin dozens of miles from its origin point, the plasma-drill burns through the walls of the enemy arcology, incinerating anyone unfortunate enough to be close to its exit point in clouds of superheated steam. The drill continues for a few yards on its own power before shutting down, and disgorging its passengers.

These passengers sit in long rows of seats that rotates with the drill, so that they are always kept pointing vaguely downwards. This system was far from flawless, but it did negate the risk of nausea. Still, Amelia felt distinctly unwell as her seat rocked gently from side to side. It would perhaps be unwise, she remarked to herself, to blame her uneasiness solely on the slight rocking; Amelia was scared, more scared than she had been since she had knelt before the Inquisitor in the Courts of Justice. It was fear of the unknown, that primal fear that has been with humanity since the first man looked up at the stars and wondered what lay beyond his cave. Humanity has tamed the stars, and now looks into the warp with fear, wondering what they might become. As a Psyker, Amelia had always skirted the line between the warp and the material realm, and this connection meant she could feel, even perhaps see, the twisting sense of wrongness that lay ahead of them.

If she turned her head and looked beyond the rows of seated stormtroopers and sisters, past the Inquisitor and his retinue, past the twitching form of the penitent witch, driven into convulsions by the tainted air, then she could see, even through the drill and the miles of earth, a faint crack in the air, and a faint light spilling out into the world. It was a small thing, but it seemed to dominate her attentions. As they drew closer, the tear did not increase in size but stayed the same small speck, as if it was right in front of her and only appeared distant. The only thing that changed as they closed in was that it became more sharply defined, going from a wave of light to collections of wire-thin tendrils, each clearer than even her own surroundings. None of the others seemed to notice, except for the wretched penitent whose face was marred by a steady stream of clear tears.

The cabin lighting turned red, and the troopers set about their final checks. At the front of the transport, the red-armoured sisters raised their voices in a hymn to the emperor, a sweet sibilant sound that spread to fill the whole space. Their leader, a sister superior, moved down the transport, blessing the stormtroopers by placing her armoured palm on their bare forehead. The stormtroopers offered short catechisms as she passed, but there was no unity here as each man spoke the words that held the most meaning to him. When the Sister Superior reached Amelia’s group, Corporal Al’Said removed his helmet so that he might be blessed. Amelia had never seen his face before, and she watched his dark-skinned features, with its short-trimmed hair and beard, shift into a grim look of determination as he accepted the blessing. The Sister did not bless Amelia, instead refusing to even acknowledge her presence, but that was to be expected. Amelia’s faith had become a private thing, a reserve she could fall back on, and she had long since accepted that she would never be fully welcomed back into an Imperial congregation.

The Hellbore’s vox-system shuddered into life and the voice of the tech-adept controlling the gargantuan machine began to count down from thirty. When he hit one, the entire drill shuddered as it broke through into open space, and the steady grinding of rock was replaced by the shrill shriek of scraping metal. As the drill slowed, it ponderously rotated itself so that one of the long exit hatches was level with the seating. Outside, Amelia could hear the dull thud of bolt rounds, as turrets emerged from the Hellbore’s flanks and began firing into an unseen enemy. As one, the passengers stood, grabbing onto handles hung just above their heads, ready to leap out at a moment’s notice. Behind her, Amelia could hear the long doorway slide open as soldiers leapt out into the unknown. Before her, the hatch, jammed by some unknown obstruction, burst from its housing as emergency explosive bolts were detonated, sending the door careening to the floor.

The stormtroopers leapt out with a wordless cry of rage, joined by the Sisters of Battle’s banshee shrieks and the utter silence of the Inquisitor’s crusaders. Amelis followed, dropping the six feet between the hatch and the ground before landing unsteadily on her feet. What she saw, was pandemonium. Their transport had been aimed at one of the corridors filled with circular chambers, which they had estimated were storehouses of some kind. The drill had burst straight through one of these chambers before settling at an oblique angle in the corridor. The walls of this chamber, and much of the Hellbore’s flank, were covered in a thin layer of gore, and it became clear that something alive had been kept here. The cell’s doorway, what little of it still remained, sparked and sputtered with the unmistakable ozone-smell of void shielding. Her musings, which were the effort of a moment, were interrupted by a cacophony of animalistic howls and shrieks, and the echoing sounds of gunfire.

A thin line of stormtroopers were hunkering down behind scraps of fallen masonry, firing into a massive melee. Their advance had been checked by a force of cultists in latex medical gowns, topped by red flak armour, who fired down the open expanse of the corridor with autoguns. In and amongst the ranks of both the cultists and the Inquisition, horrific monstrosities lunged indiscriminately. No two were unique, though the majority stood twice as tall as a man, and each was a horrific amalgam of tentacles, fur and scales with enough pink flesh left to identify them as having once been human. These Chaos Spawn lurched on misshapen legs through the ranks of both forces, striking indiscriminately into the crowds. Both gun lines dissolved into this general melee, and soon everyone was engaged in a desperate struggle against this third adversary.

Amelia ran into the crowds, forced in part by the mass of soldiers that surrounded her, and soon found herself surrounded on all sides by opponents. She drew her sword while simultaneously readying her real weapon, an aura of psychic energy that would bolster the Imperials resolve. The results were imperceptible, a man fighting for his life looks much the same when his resolve is bolstered, but the effect gradually gave the Imperials the upper hand. Her influence went some way to suppress the primal fear of these men, and they fought without flinching, and without becoming the victim of their fears. Still, the melee was fierce and brutal. The Inquisitor’s forces, whether the stormtroopers’ hellguns or the Sister’s bolters, were geared towards fighting at range, and only the Inquisitor, his retinue and some select acolytes were equipped to fight in melee. To Amelia’s surprise, she saw Interrogator Filburn, still in his ostentatious garb, facing the enemy head on. He moved with a fencer’s grace, almost running rings around the misshapen goat-creature that towered over him.

Amelia preferred to duck and weave through the fighters, getting in opportunistic cuts when enemies turned their backs, or selectively paralysing enemies with psychic energies. The strange tear in reality was still present, and its foul energies had Amelia reluctant to employ any of her more powerful abilities. Instead she fought with the infantry, using the small amount of musculature she had developed while on planet to carve a path through, holding back the enemy from a small group of stormtroopers as they fired over her head. One cultist, wielding a bloody butcher’s knife, caught her on the side with the back of his blade, sending her reeling. The wretch’s head was shaved, but his skin was crisscrossed by misshapen scar tissue, and his jaw appeared to be hanging on by a thread. His attack had not been deliberate, but rather the result of the confined battlefield, and while he was confused Amelia quickly drew her blade up, carving a bloody red line along his pristine white apron.

The stormtroopers moved up beside her, pouring automatic fire into the crowds before bludgeoning enemies to death with their rifles when the enemy got too close. An officer, a whirring chainsword held in his hand, moved up besides Amelia as a horrific abomination forced its way through the mass of humanity. The beast had the broad features of humanity; a human torso and a vaguely human left arm, both oversized to the point of absurdity, but it staggered towards them on two different legs, one of which had two knees while the other was bent backwards. It had no right arm, just a trio of barbed tentacles that stretched out twelve feet, a whirling dervish of blades that carved its way through the troopers. Its head was split down the middle, revealing a gaping maw and it leered at them through an eye set between its pectoral muscles. Its left side was torn by bolter fire, but it seemed not to notice the long intestinal tube that was dragged behind it.

The officer rushed forward, raising his chainsword in a grim gesture of defiance, as he prepared to defend the senior Acolyte from this monstrosity. His knees bucked as the beast brought its arm down, but he did not break and the two stood there for a moment as the whirring blade skimmed ineffectually of the beast’s thick hide. His arms failed, and the beast drove a colossal blow downwards that crushed through the Stormtrooper’s helmet, before shttering the skull beneath. The headless body sank to its knees before gravity brought it down. The beast stepped over and through the armoured chestplate as it rounded on Amelia, bringing its arm up for another titanic strike.

The blow fell with the force of a meteor before stopping mere inches from the Psyker’s face. Amelia’s eyes glowed the unnatural violet of the Warp as she tried desperately to reign in the animalistic mind of her opponent. The Spawn’s head was a twisted place, like an amalgamation of different souls stitched together, and at its heart was something unrecognisably, and horribly, human. She caught flashes of corrupted memory. The warmth of a mother’s embrace, the pride of a military parade, the passionate flesh of a girl seized from her dance in the Raptor’s Nest, the thrill of victory, the grief over slaughtered brethren and finally the sense of betrayal as an armoured god drove spikes of iron through his hands. The memories were corrupted and disjointed, but their humanity was undeniable.

All this occurred within a moment, two warp-touched beings facing off against each other, before a fire team of armoured stormtroopers fired on the beast. Their lasbolts were absorbed by its unnaturally tough hide and one of the troopers ran up to the side of the beast, driving the barrel of his rifle through its wounded flank. The Chaos Spawn glowed from within as the incandescent bolts tore through its flesh. Gradually, Amelia felt its raging mind calm and withdraw, as its grey mater was torn to shreds. The creature seemed strangely relaxed in the face of its death, as if the tortured mind lacked the most basic will to live.

There was no respite after it fell, only the next in a massive menagerie of deformed cultists or horrifying Chaos Spawn. Their entry had severed the power to most of the cells, but it seemed some unseen hand had released the remaining monstrosities, not caring if his own cultists were caught in the warpath. It was a war of attrition, a brutal melee with no defined sides or frontlines. There were enemies all around, but allies too, and the Chaos Spawn wandered like elephants, attacking both sides indiscriminately or simply wandering in dazed confusion.

The Inquisitor and his retinue carved through this melee with cold fury. His power-armoured figure drew attacks like moths to a flame, but his heavy plates shrugged off mutated arms whilst his head lit up in coronas of golden light as enemy fire hit his Iron Halo. Gradually, that small nexus of organised resistance grew into an impenetrable ring as more and more Acolytes filtered in. Now the stormtroopers had room to manoeuvre and the room lit up in a kaleidoscope of red beams, cultists dying in droves whilst Chaos Spawn fell beneath massed volleys of Bolters.

The stormtroopers were left to secure the remaining cells while the Inquisitor, his acolytes and the Sisters of Battle ran down the remaining length of the now cleared corridor. The forced their way through a wide steel bulkhead, the Inquisitor’s power-sword carving off the hinges, and emerged into what had once been the fuel silo. Above their heads, the towering heights of the tank disappeared into inky blackness, while the only light came from a solitary floodlight suspended two hundred metres above the ground. They were on a gantry raised five metres off the floor, which ringed the broad expanse of the chamber along which seven other entrances led to the rest of the complex.

What drew Amelia’s eye was the same anomaly she had seen before, now rendered crystal clear. The tear hung in the air fifty metres off the ground, directly over the centre of the chamber. Now that Amelia was underneath it, she could see that it was more of an opening then a tear and, though she couldn’t see what was on the other side, she could smell acrid smoke, and she heard what sounded like the distant noise of battle. This oculus looked down on the floor of the chamber, and Amelia followed its gaze. The floor was entirely red, the colour of fresh blood, and there was a concentric series of runes ringing the centre that burned with an unnaturally red flame. At the centre of this edifice was the prone form of a nude woman, secured to the floor of the chamber with massive iron spikes.

Amelia recognised the girl as Maria Benevene, who she had seen through her father’s eyes. Her back was unnaturally arched, as if the oculus was drawing her closer, and Amelia could see the tendons in her arm and legs tearing against the pressure of the spikes. Her mouth was wide in a wordless scream and her eyes had rolled back into her head, leaving only white orbs in their place. The entire circle was ringed by a hundred skulls, their eyes glowing red, that faced the naked girl like some horrific audience. On the opposite side of the chamber stood a titanic figure, a space marine, dressed in off-white power armour covered in shards of bone. His face was concealed beneath a horned helmet, and his arms were raised in supplication while he continued a long, droning, chant.

The oculus flared, pulsing and growing, as white tendrils expanded. Amelia was struck by the presence of something else in the chamber. Something immense and ageless was watching them, or, more specifically, watching Maria. Her wordless scream ended, she sank back to earth, and seemed to regain some control of her senses. Her eyes rolled back into her head and fixed on the oculus. For a horrific moment, Amelia caught something unnatural in the girl’s pupils, even from this distance. This shrouded figure paused as it weighed up the crucified girl before the oculus began to retreat in on itself and Maria Benevente began to convulse unnaturally. The figure had been unknowable, but Amelia had managed to glean a single hint of understanding, as if its mood was strong enough to be reflected into others.

It was disappointed.