Sain is at ease. Her aquisator scans the structure in the sands while the dozen archonauts she’s hired rifle through the small ruins around the exterior. Overhead, her overwatching combat drone prowls the skies, ready to alert her to any hidden threats. Here on the ground, by her side, she has Avendor. The mercenary is almost a head higher than her and kitted from head to toe in scavenged mil-spec armour and a variety of nasty weapons, most of which are cleverly concealed.
Sain remains at ease as they proceed into the unlit passages of the long abandoned structure. The footsteps of the party echo down vaulted corridors that have not heard the sound in millenia and the light from their luminors cut across shadows undisturbed for just as long.
The archonauts, ever greedy and jealous, fan out before Sain and Avendor, stooping and sometimes crawling as their embedded oculars feedback a variety of visual channels that alert them to any signs of the tech they hunger for.
Anything they find belongs to her, but Sain knows well enough they will steal whatever small trinkets they can and keep it for themselves. She is content to let this slide. It’s a long-standing, unspoken agreement between authorised pathfinders and mercenary archonauts. Regardless, Sain isn’t here for trinkets. Old Imperial ruins like these contain prizes far grander than mere baubles. A pathfinder who searches enough Imperial wrecks is sure to come upon a retirement-funding find sooner or later. Sain would rather that be sooner, she isn’t getting any younger.
Deeper into the structure they go, and despite all her years of experience, Sain isn’t quite able to ascertain the long-forgotten function of this venerable place. There are massive chambers whose ceilings remain beyond the light of the luminors, each a nexus that feeds into smaller subchambers, each containing hundreds of vaults.
A necropolis would seem the obvious answer, were it not for the lack of bodies. It’s design certainly suggests it was built for the storage and preservation of bodies, with its thousands of disused stasis crypts. The Imperials certainly did revere their dead. But perhaps they never got around to filling it. The insignias they find throughout suggest this was intended to be some kind of military graveyard.
Avendor halts Sain as they reach the large, central chamber. The aquisator and the archonauts are already scampering around inside, chattering excitedly over the airwaves.
‘What is it?’ Sain asks, her brow creasing in concern. Avendor is usually relaxed - a little too relaxed sometimes - and doesn’t fret over nothing.
Avendor’s oculars are fixed on the far end of the chamber, at a throne-like structure that dominates the back half of the space. At its core, a long dead stasis capsule.
‘That thing over there,’ says Avendor, ‘it’s giving off residual heat. It looks powered.’
Sain nods. She hails the aquisator. ‘What do you make of that?’
The aquisator burbled back in binary which Sains communication hub translates.
[...data process// inconclusive// read- 24%// internal structure suggests… stasis hub hailing from imperial era… more data required - permission for deployment of probe scan]
Sain mulls it over. Sometimes its better to let dead tech stay dead. But you don’t profit from bringing back rumours. You need to know what it is.
‘Granted,’ says Sain.
Avendor bristles. ‘I don’t like it.’
[probing… feedback… // RED RED RED]
The aquisator’s warning lights blare across its semi-human form. The archonauts begin to squeal electric signals. Avendor pushes Sain behind them and Sain hears the plasma in the mercenary’s pistol begin to superheat.
‘Aquisitor,’ barks Sain, beginning to backpedal ‘what the hell is it?’
The whole structure begins to shudder as deep power reserves thrum to life for the first time in millenia.
[imperial gene tech detected// ALERT// ASTRADUM-class reanimation protocols initiated by tomb-system…]
‘That’s a…’ breathes Sain, eyes wide and flesh pale with terror.
‘An imperial lancer,’ Avendor snarls, staring across the cavernous space, over the heads of the fleeing archonauts, at the sarcophagus lid that is slowly sliding open.
Paddy Dobson
28th June 2022