Chp 6: Option 4

Location: Formless Wastes 

Date: Error-3 (2 Months later)

Kaldor stood over Adam's unconscious body which was lying on a metal bed in the rusting officio medicae of a great space hulk. This part of the space hulk had crashed "ashore" of the formless wastes from the shallows sometime in the last 10,000 years of humanity's expansion amongst the stars, though some parts on closer inspection looked suspiciously non-man-made. 

At that moment Kaldor's transhuman hands were masterfully sewing up a long cut through the centre of Adams's chest before beginning a new cut to the back of his head inspecting the last object sitting on the surgical table.

Sometime later having finished up the necessary surgery Kaldor strode across the room aluminium floor panels creaking beneath his mass, before he sat down beneath an orange strip light that was beginning to flicker out. 

I hope this will be enough, he thought searchingly if only I had access to a bioscopea or any of the other necessary components, but I guess we can't wish for everything I was lucky enough to find three untainted as it was in this broken battle barge, it's in boys body's hands now. 

----

Two days later....

Adam woke up, startling awake, still groggy but he remembered something approaching his head and then black. 

'What, where am I' said Adam looking around. 

Out of the shadows to his side, a statue moved. 'Aaaaaaahhhh' screamed Adam. 

'Calm down you little shit, thrones hell' said Kaldor moving out of the swallowing shadows 'You hit your head on a pipe running from some gene stealers and now you've wasted weeks of our time'.

'Whaaaaght' said Harry 'but I haven't hit my head like that in years…, gene stealers I don't remember any gene stealers'. 

'Well, it definitely happened, ... you had luck on your side though, so looking on the bright side, you have no lasting injury' said Kaldor curtly 'but it's a lesson to remember an important one, you won't always be pint-sized. Now we've got time to make up, GET UP'.

~ Kaldor Draigo: Grandmaster of the Grey Knights, Demon Slayer, Professional Gas Lighter ~

One hour later Adam dragged himself up to climb out of a battered and warped section of the bulkhead which seemed to have been shattered at some point by an unknown great ship-born macro weapon.

Adam looked back up at the towering mass of the space hulk above him inducing vertigo as its uncountable mass seemed to loom over and sway in the pale purple dusk outside which grew ever darker, vertigo made worse by the splitting headache and the tightness he felt in his chest. 

Coming up next to Kaldor as they crested an escarpment, Kaldor said 'Look over there what do you see'. 

'Nothing' said Adam head still hurting.

'Look better' replied Kaldor. 

Adam cast his gaze carefully across the black discoloured landscape which looked like the lifework of one Hans Gieger; pitted with craters, and littered with the wrecked debris of cities, aircraft, and vehicles innumerable.

But far in the distance, his eyes struggling he saw a staircase which impossibly seemed to end where it began, always going up … how the hell, he thought. 

'Don't look at the staircase, it'll only do your head in, look to its left' said Kaldor impatiently.

'Is that an Egg' said Adam seeing a largely spherical blob in the gloom? 

'I mean I guess you called call it an egg' said Kaldor quizzically, 'if what it birthed was 8 ft tall fortification experts ready to dig the most fortified trenches known to mankind'.

'What' said Adam beginning to become exasperated, looking confused.

'I would surmise by its colouration and design that it is an imperial fist-drop pod and I'm hoping for our sakes it's got enough juice to get us into the air and towards something that can take us home'. 

Breaking into a slow gait for a Grey Knight, Kaldor headed down the hill, forcing Adam to barrel down after him tripping and stumbling as loose volcanic gravel cascaded around him a gap quickly opening up despite Adams's attempts to sprint after him.

Thirty minutes after Kaldor had reached their objective, Adam reached the egg-like drop pod which he now could see was yellow paint, it was more chip than paint but still obviously yellow at some point.

'Kaldor wait up next time' said Adam gasping for breath as he stepped up and through the main door of the drop pod 'I can't walk as fast as you can'. 

'Hold this' said Kaldor, dropping a huge spanner-like tool in Adam's hands, which brought him to his knees, it being the same size as him. 

'I've reconfigured the drop pods arresting thrusters to get us into the air but it's going to be one burst and then little to no control after that'. 

'It's important if something goes wrong, that you be better than your best, but no hero behaviour if this goes wrong fighting Khorne with a toothpick may be a preferable option' said Kaldor sternly only lightning up for the last part, followed by a low chuckle. 

'Really ups my confidence', said Adam wheezing 'Can you get this spanner off me now'? 

Kaldor picked up the spanner with an insulting ease before grabbing the front of Adam's carapace armour chest plate which he had adjusted to fit Adam months prior, hoisting him onto his feet. 

'Over there' he said pointing to an oversized chair made smaller by what looked like the bent pieces of an APC door and a crammed-in thick velvet curtain cobbled together to keep Adam somewhat in place and relatively unbruised, 'sit down'. 

Crawling up into the chair… Adam watched as Kaldor pulled down an over-the-shoulder restraint, with a pneumatic whoosh locking in place with a click, before bending across a piece of rebar to keep Adam in place in lieu of Adam being half the size of its usual passengers. 

'You would really make the day of a slanneshey demonette with how tight you've got me in here' said Adam nervously.

'Quite' said Kaldor all humour disappearing from his face, 'jokes stop now, prepare for the drop pod to launch' keep your back straight. 

Adam watched as Kaldor sat on the seat across from him, placing his helmet on. The familiar face that Adam had seen every day of his life, replaced by an impassive face of gleaming unpainted ceramite. 

'Brace boy' said Kaldor all emotion vacant and diluted by the static from the speakers in his helmet, 'it's going to be a bumpy ride …'.

 IGNITION 

Grabbing the bars on either side of him Adam held on for dear life as the machine came to life almost like a heartbeat, hearing and feeling as the thrusters screeched from side to side as Kaldor tested their range of movement.

Kaldor held out his arm giving Adam a thumbs up as the thrusters ignited seemingly all around the craft the sound deafening, roaring louder and louder like a cauldron about to burst, the whole structure swaying and vibrating like it had become alive. 

Counting down with his fingers, each descending quickly like a guillotine.

3

2

1

Then in the next moment, his brain smashed into the base of his skull as the thrusters hit max burn catapulting the craft like a reverse meteor up and over the kilometre-high section of the exposed space hulk they had cleared earlier in the day and in seconds the craft released a cone of sonic booms as it ignited all of its remaining fuel producing a final burst like an exploding star beneath their feet, flash banging the barren hellscape below. Adam felt all this for only a second though, as the inertia of his brain crashing into his skull forced lights out as he experienced going from 0 – 1235km per hour in just under six seconds. 

Coming to seconds later, ears ringing, he saw through blood-tinted vision Kaldor motioning at him. Adam let out a breath of relief seeing the craft was still in one piece. But then as he began to hear Kaldor's voice over the roaring noise of the final burn something happened.

Claws and maws and tentacles of every type imaginable crushed through the wall of the drop pod closing around Kaldor like an iron maiden, ripping him from the pod and sucking him out of the pod and back down to the formless wastes below. In an instant, less than the blink of the eye the drop pod now had only one passenger as it began to careen towards the shallows of the warp above.

Panic set in, as Adam hurtled across the sky. Not comprehending what had just happened and seeing no other option his critical thinking betraying him, he drew on the warp no longer caring for the consequences, ripping free of the rebar across him before fighting his way up the walls of the spinning pod against the wind gushing in. Exhausted already he looked out to see where Kaldor had gone, careful to keep his head within the slipstream, his face looking around desperately only for his facial expression to drop down even further as he spotted a huge maw opened wide ready, waiting in the path of the drop pod. Which was streaking across space towards the great leviathan-like body, which was slowly beginning to become exposed through the smoky reaches of the shallow warp, ready and waiting to swallow the drop pod whole. 

'HEEEEEELLLLLPPPPPPP' Adam attempted to scream silenced by the buffeting of the wind, which picked up enough force to slam him back against the other side of the pod as the relative weightlessness at the top of the ascent, descended into the oppressive force of gravity which asserted itself through the perverse physics of the warp. 

----

In that moment, careening to certain doom, Adam's psyche snapped.

Though it must be recognised that by a long shot up till then, he as a mortal held onto his sanity longer than any other human being ever had in the warp. However at that moment had he recognised this he wouldn't have cared, panic and emotion clouding reason entirely for the first time in his life. 

The pod flew between the teeth of the beast, which closed with a resounding finality, but followed by a subtle pop unheard by all the galaxy. 

Crashing down below into the pocket-marked ground, adding yet another crater. Kaldor could only watch as the drop pod disappeared and the leviathan disappeared back into the gloom. Rage and grief burned in his hearts like they hadn't in aeons.

A whisper sounded in his ear, a voice he knew well, 'You don't get to matter Kaldor.... it's all hopeless, give up, the boy is dead, yet again you have failed, failed like you always do'.

'Show yourself M'Kar you coward' roared Kaldor, whipping around, greeted only by the echoes of his old foe M'Kar laughing in the wind.