Warhammer 40,000: Echoes of Divinity

"Where are you… bastard…

Emperor protect us… Lord Commander guide us…"

Duncan was growing desperate.

His breath came in ragged bursts, his armor's servos whirring with each frantic step.

He had even begun to mutter prayers to Qin Mo, as if invoking the name of the enigmatic warlord who had forged his wargear might grant him some technological miracle—perhaps an unseen function within his auspex array, something that could push the bio-scanner's range just a little further.

But he knew better.

The auspex was never designed for tracking people. Its purpose was post-battle extermination—a tool to ensure that all enemy combatants, whether wounded or feigning death, could be identified and executed.

Still, he pushed on. His heads-up display (HUD) flickered, feeding him streams of information as he sprinted through the ruins of the underhive, his footfalls reverberating against the rusted metal and broken plasteel.

Then, at last—a return signal.

[Liveform detected: 1]

The bio-scanner locked on, overlaying a marker on Duncan's visor, providing an exact coordinate feed.

A clear, direct path.

Duncan exhaled, steadied himself. He advanced carefully, moving fast but silent.

....

Two minutes into the pursuit, Duncan crouched behind a corroded metal bulkhead, his autosenses (augmetic eye) filtering through the dim, industrial gloom. His target came into view.

Albert.

The man moved like an automaton, his stride unwavering, his gaze empty. His eyes glowed faintly—an unnatural, dull purple sheen bleeding into the shadows.

Duncan's instincts screamed at him to act. His first thought was to tackle Albert and drag him back, force him out of this psyker-induced stupor before it was too late.

His armor's Anti-Psyker Dampeners could at least mitigate the worst of any warp-born influence.

But just as he start moving, a new threat emerged.

A distant growl of engines.

A squad of heretics atop combat bikes thundered toward Albert's location. Their vehicles, blackened by warp-taint, left behind trails of acrid exhaust as they skidded to a halt.

One of them—a bald woman clad in patchwork carapace armor—dismounted. Her eyes gleamed with eerie amusement as she strode toward Albert, speaking rapidly.

Duncan was too far to hear, but his HUD's auto-translation subroutines kicked in, analyzing the lip movements.

A text feed appeared on his visor.

["We finally caught an enemy alive. Take him back. I'll use him to track down that abhuman freak."]

Albert did not resist. Without hesitation, he mounted one of the heretics' bikes, allowing them to take him away.

Duncan clenched his fists. A surge of instinct told him to strike now—to purge the Cultists before they could escape.

But he held back.

A direct engagement was too risky. If Albert was under psychic influence, attacking now could compromise him even further.

In the end, he chose to return and report what he had seen.

....

47th Regiment Fortress

Far beneath the fortress, Qin Mo was at work.

The subterranean chamber hummed with energy as he fine-tuned a machine of his own design—

A device meant to triangulate the location of the Genestealer Patriarch.

It was then that Klein entered, holding a fresh data-slate.

"My Lord," Klein began, "Duncan has returned with a report."

Qin Mo barely glanced up. His mind was already assembling the situation before Klein even spoke.

Albert had wandered off.

A Genestealer Psyker had taken control of him.

And now, the enemy had seized the opportunity to abduct him.

Had this been an Imperial Guard regiment, such a failure would have been an unforgivable disgrace.

But for a Planetary Defense Force (PDF) unit?

Hardly surprising.

Qin Mo had no illusions about the PDF's worth. They were little more than militia at best—barely superior to Kato's own underhive rabble they were meant to police.

Klein sighed. "With all due respect, my Lord, I warned you not to have high expectations of the PDF."

Then, out of habit, he asked, "What's our next move?"

Qin Mo narrowed his eyes.

"Psykers…" he muttered.

"I need a Cult Psyker. Badly."

Klein raised an eyebrow but did not question it. He had long since learned that if Qin Mo wanted something, it was for a damn good reason.

"Send Grey and Grot to clear out that extraction shaft," Qin Mo ordered.

"I have only one demand: bring back the Psyker alive. If they must kill them… then at least bring back the head. So long as the brain remains intact."

Klein gave a curt nod. "Understood." He turned to relay the order.

Qin Mo returned to his work, a rare glint of satisfaction in his gaze.

....

Ten Minutes Later

A transport drone hovered silently above a extraction shaft.

Two figures leaped down.

Grey and Grot.

Their descent was swift and controlled, a two-meter formation gap maintained to prevent their gravity shields from interfering with one another.

"I'll take point," Grey said.

"I've got your six, brother," Grot responded, his HUD's rear-view feed automatically activating, allowing him to watch their flank even as he moved forward.

Grey switched to thermal imaging, engaging his bio-scanners.

A single pulse swept through the mineshaft.

Then—movement.

A rustling sound, unnatural and chittering, echoed ahead.

Then they saw them.

The xenos abominations slithered from the shadows—grotesque, twisted Genestealer hybrids, their elongated claws twitching with barely contained aggression.

Their anatomy was an abominable fusion of human and alien—warped beyond recognition, yet still bearing faint traces of their original forms.

Aberrants.

They moved unnaturally fast, scuttling across walls and ceilings, their chitinous hides glistening in the dim light.

Grey didn't hesitate.

His twin-linked shotgun-las roared, sending scatter-blasts of searing energy, dismembering the first wave of hybrids before they could close the distance.

Meanwhile, his augmetic left hand—personally crafted by Qin Mo—came to life.

He clenched his cybernetic fingers.

The aberrants in front of him exploded.

Their mutated flesh detonated into viscera, their biomass liquefied by unseen forces.

The bio-scanner completed its sweep.

Grey checked the results—and his visors flooded with red markers.

"We've stirred up a Genestealer nest," he noted grimly.

The data was horrific. The entire shaft was crawling with lifeforms. There were so many targets that the HUD had to fade out markers to prevent total visual obstruction.

Grot smirked. "I can't even see the exit anymore."

Behind them, the swarm rushed in.

The first hybrid lunged—only to be instantly crushed by Grot's gravity shield.

Without hesitation, Grot charged forward, graviton hammer in hand.

One swing.

The nearest aberrant flattened into a bloody smear.

The gravitic shockwave followed, hurling nearby xenos into the walls with bone-shattering force.

With the immediate threat cleared, Grey examined the corpses.

These aberrants were different from the usual xenos scum—their mutations were more severe, yet still retained traces of human anatomical features.

They were something new.

He activated his bio-sample extractor—a compact mechanicus like-designed device. With a simple insertion into the flesh, it began automatically harvesting genetic material.

"Move out, brother," Grey ordered. His shoulder-mounted plasma cannon rose into position, locking onto the tunnel ahead.

"We don't have time to waste on these things. Finish the mission quickly."

The cannon fired—a scorching plasma beam melting through the metal walls, carving a direct path forward.

Originally, the tunnel led deeper down.

But thanks to Grey's intervention, a brand-new passageway now existed.