Kratos5627
patreon
The Blood Beneath
🕑 Added 2025-03-31 03:30:01 +0000 UTCCassian woke up, but it didn’t feel like waking. It felt like surfacing from something deep and dark, dragging himself out of a pit where time had no meaning. His eyes cracked open, and the first thing he registered was the stale, metallic taste in his mouth. The recycled air felt thicker somehow, pressing down on his chest.
His head pounded. The echoes of what he’d seen, what he’d felt, still lingered in his skull. He squeezed his eyes shut, but it didn’t help. The image of that twisted city, the impossible geometry, they still gnawed at the edges of his mind. He could still feel the cold, alien awareness that had brushed against his thoughts.
“Fuck…” His voice cracked.
He sat up slowly. The room felt colder. Or maybe it was him. He looked down at his hands, fingers trembling. Dark circles ringed under his eyes. His skin looked paler, almost sickly under the dim light. When he ran a hand through his hair, he found it slick with sweat. His body had been resting, but his mind hadn’t stopped.
He cursed under his breath. None of this made sense. Not just the daemon world, not just the ship — everything. First, he got ripped from his life, thrown into a hive world on the brink of damnation. Fine. He adapted. He survived. But then? After escaping that hell, he’d ended up here, in something even worse. Another Chaos-tainted nightmare. He couldn’t even cling to the idea that this was just terrible luck. No one was that unlucky.
“Why?” he muttered to himself. His voice barely rose above a whisper. “Why me? What the hell did I do to deserve this?”
No answer. Just the quiet hum of the ship’s failing systems.
Cassian forced himself to stand. His head throbbing painfully, but he ignored it. He needed food. Energy. He needed to think.
The corridors felt emptier than before. Maybe they were. He kept his eyes forward, forcing himself to ignore the occasional flicker at the edge in his vision. The whispers had faded, but he still felt watched. The hum of the lights, the distant creak of metal — it all felt… wrong. There were no crew members in sight maybe they were corrupted or maybe they were sane. He didn't care anymore. His head was aching very painfully to pay mind.
He reached the cafeteria. It was quiet. Empty. The auto-servitors stood idle, their mechanical arms twitching now and then. The lights overhead flickered once. Cassian grabbed a ration pack from the nearest dispenser and sat heavily at one of the metal tables. He tore open the package, chewing slowly. The food was bland, dry, but it didn’t matter. He just needed something in his stomach.
As he ate, his mind raced. He needed a plan. The ship was compromised. The crew? Useless. No, worse than useless — lost. He didn’t even know if they were still alive in the conventional sense. The Magos… well, at least Farren was still functioning. That was something. But the ship itself was turning into a daemon engine. It was only a matter of time before it crossed the point of no return.
Escape. He needed to escape.
But how?
A shuttle? No — if the ship was compromised, the smaller craft would be as well. Besides, where would he even go? The planet was just as cursed as the ship. No matter how far he ran, this place would eat him alive.
No. Running wouldn’t work. He had to fight back. Somehow.
His fingers tapped against the table. Slow. Rhythmic. His mind sifted through possibilities. The Warp was everywhere, but it wasn’t omnipotent. There had to be something.
He closed his eyes, taking a slow breath. His telepathy brushed against the ship’s fabric — not the metal, but the underlying… presence that had wormed its way into the hull. He flinched immediately, pulling back. No, not yet. His mind was still raw. Pushing too far again could kill him.
But that brief touch told him something. The corruption was there, yes. But it wasn’t complete. The ship’s Machine Spirit… it was still fighting. Barely. Like a candle in a storm.
Cassian’s mind raced. If the ship wasn’t fully lost, that meant he still had a chance. A slim one, but a chance. He needed to act before the corruption spread further.
The first step? Resting. His mind. He’d pushed too hard before, too fast. He’d treated his psychic abilities like a crutch, but they were more than that. They were part of him — and if he was going to survive, he had to become more proficient in them.
He wiped his mouth and stood, the empty ration pack crumpling in his fist. He’d train. Not physically — there was no time for that now — but mentally. He’d stretch his mind carefully, and as much as he could. He’d learn to feel the currents of the Warp without drowning in them. And when he was ready, he’d push back. He’d tear through the illusions, find the heart of this corruption, and rip it out.
Or die trying.
Cassian looked down at his trembling hands. He clenched them into fists.
He turned and walked out of the cafeteria, his footsteps echoing in the silence.
—-
Cassian sat cross-legged on the cold metal floor, eyes closed, hands resting on his knees. The hum of the ship’s failing systems was a constant backdrop, but he pushed it aside. Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. Slowly. Steady.
The first day had been the hardest. Every sound, every constant on and off of light, every distant groan of the ship's hull set his nerves on edge. His mind still felt raw from the last time he’d pushed his powers too far. Even now, he could feel the Warp scratching at the edges of his thoughts, eager to sink its claws into him again. He ignored it.
Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.
Time passed. Hours. Maybe days. He didn’t count. The ship’s chrono had stopped working properly, and he didn’t care. Rest came slowly, but it came. Sleep was uneasy, haunted by flashes of daemonic landscapes and whispers that curled through his dreams, but the meditation helped. It kept him anchored.
By the third day, his mind was clearer. He still felt the weight of the ship’s corruption pressing against him, but it no longer felt overwhelming. His thoughts were no longer as jumbled as before. Previously, he made a mistake ignoring the signs of the corruption in this world. He craved normalcy after the ordeal in the previous hive world. Maybe he could have been better prepared if he listened to his instincts. It was too late for regrets now.
He spent the fourth day walking the corridors, forcing himself to look at the state of the ship with a clear head. The once-sterile walls now felt… off. Twisted. The lights flickered in odd patterns, the hum of the engines occasionally shifting into something that almost sounded like a voice. He observed it.
By the fifth day, he was as ready as he could be. Delaying more would only lead to the shop becoming a nightmare.
Cassian found Magos Farron in the engine bay, hunched over a console. The Tech-Priest’s mechanical limbs moved with practiced efficiency, data streaming across his augmented eyes. He didn’t look up when Cassian entered.
“You’ve recovered,” Farron said, his voice the same metallic rasp it always was. It wasn’t a question.
“Enough.” Cassian leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “The ship. It’s still fighting, isn’t it?”
Farron paused. “Yes.”
Cassian exhaled slowly. “How bad is it?”
Farron hesitated. That alone was worrying. “The Machine Spirit resists, but it is weak. The daemonic corruption is… pervasive. It has entwined itself with the ship’s core systems. The Spirit’s pain is immense.”
Cassian closed his eyes. “Can we help it?”
Farron regarded him silently for a long moment. Finally, he spoke. “Perhaps.”
That was all Cassian needed to hear.
“Alright,” Cassian said quietly. “Let’s make a plan.”
---
They started planning on a broken display slab.
Cassian leaned over the cracked table, jaw tight. “We cut the engines, isolate the infected decks.”
Farron shook his head. “Infection’s in the manifold already. You kill power, you kill the ship.”
“Then we vent the sections. Burn it out.”
“No fuel. No pressure.” Farron’s tone was flat. “That fire died two days ago.”
Cassian rubbed his face, tired. “The rites?”
“I tried. The Spirit doesn’t answer. Just... static.” Farron looked at him. “It’s in pain, Cassian. I can feel it.”
Silence.
Cassian stared at the dim lights overhead, flickering in and out like a dying pulse. “Then we go in.”
Farron’s mechadendrites froze. “You mean—”
“Yes,” Cassian said. “Direct sync.”
“You’ll be exposing your mind to everything in the ship. The code, the pain, the corruption.”
“Good,” Cassian muttered. “Then I’ll know where to hit back.”
Farron studied him for a long second. Then he slowly nodded. “Then we build it.”
“All right.” Cassian was happy about this. They were finally going somewhere with this. No matter how dangerous to him there was still hope now.
Farron spoke clinically. “We can use what's left of the soul-threaded conduits from the Navigator’s chamber. Those can carry psychic signal. I’ll repurpose the dorsal relay matrix as a stabilizer.”
“And the psi-reactor core?” Cassian asked.
Farron paused. “Cracked. But usable. Enough for a single pulse-sync.”
“Good,” Cassian said. “Then we make it one shot.”
The concept was simple. In theory. Cassian would be wired into the ship’s noosphere, not as a pilot—but as a presence. His psychic field would be flooded through the machine’s thought-routes. The corrupted sectors could then be confronted from within, not purged mechanically, but denied metaphysically. Denied reality.
He wouldn’t just see the infection. He’d fight it. In the raw.
---
It took four hours to build.
Cassian scavenged the materials, cutting power conduits from the ship. Farron rewired the old bridge throne, carving sigils into the steel frame, adding in sacred insulation foam around the base.
The throne looked nothing like what it once was. Now it pulsed faintly, like it was alive. Psychic transference coils lined the headrest. A cracked lumen-rosarius was built into the chest plate. The psi-core hummed behind it, barely holding.
Cassian stared at it. “Feels wrong.”
Farron didn’t look up. “That’s because it is.”
---
They did one last check.
“Once you’re inside, you must push outward,” Farron said. “You cannot allow the ship’s pain to become your own. If you do—”
“I won’t,” Cassian said. Calm. Focused.
Farron held out a short metal spike. “If the pressure becomes too much, use this. It will sever the link.”
Cassian took it without looking. “That’ll kill me, won’t it?”
“Possibly.” Farron paused. “But it will save the ship.”
Cassian exhaled. “Well. That’s fair.”
---
He strapped in. The throne accepted him with a hiss of steam and a low groan. Coils wrapped his wrists, his skull, the base of his spine. Metal bit through his armor.
Farron began chanting low binary. The psi-core surged.
Cassian closed his eyes. Focused.
The moment the circuit closed, he felt the breach—like falling through himself.
---
Inside, there was no shape. Just heat. Noise. Thought. He wasn’t Cassian anymore—he was the signal Cassian carried. Rage, memory, will. He pushed into the machine.
The ship’s mind was fragmented. Frantic. Screaming in seven voices.
Cassian moved through it, lighting up corrupted clusters with raw thought, tearing apart daemonic logic, pushing his presence deeper, forcing the Spirit to remember itself.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t think.
He demanded.
Forcing the corruption outside the ship interface.
---
Outside, Farron felt it. The lights started flickering often. The machine was still groaning and screaming.
The massive cogitator banks hissed and hummed around them, flickering displays casting eerie shadows. Farron started moving very fast, his mechadendrites snaking out to interface with the console. The Machine Spirit stirred faintly, like a wounded animal sensing help while speaking binaric chants.
Cassian knelt, resting his hands on the armrest of his throne.
His body trembled. Blood dripped from his nose. He pushed harder, pouring everything he had into the connection. Farron’s cant grew louder, his mechanical limbs twitching as his code clashed with the daemonic infection. Sparks flew from the consoles. Lights flickered wildly.
And then — a crack.
Cassian felt it. A shift. A tiny breach in the corruption. He seized it. Pushed. The Machine Spirit surged, its flickering presence flaring brighter. The corruption writhed, resisting, but Cassian didn’t let go. Inch by inch, they pushed the corruption back, forcing it out of the core systems.
With a final surge, the Machine Spirit roared. The lights flared. The consoles screamed with static. Cassian felt the daemonic presence recoil, shrieking as it was forced out, its grip slipping away. The ship shuddered violently, and then —
Silence.
Cassian collapsed, gasping for breath. His vision swam. Blood dripped from his eyes, noses and ears, pooling on the cold metal floor. Farron stood frozen, his mechanical limbs twitching as the last remnants of the corruption faded.
The Machine Spirit stirred once more — weak, but alive. Cassian felt its gratitude, faint and distant. He smiled weakly.
They’d done it.
Farron turned to him, his red optics flickering. “The corruption is purged.”
Cassian laughed softly. It hurt. “Yeah… I noticed.”
Farron knelt beside him, scanning him with a mechadendrite. “You are… damaged.”
“No shit.” Cassian coughed, wiping the blood from his face. His entire body ached. His mind felt like it had been put through a meat grinder. But they’d won. That was what mattered.
“The ship?” he asked quietly.
Farron hesitated. “Stable. The daemonic infection is gone. But the damage is… severe.”
Cassian frowned. “Can it fly?”
Farron shook his head. “No.”
Cassian closed his eyes. Of course not. Nothing was ever that easy.
“So we’re stuck.”
“Affirmative.”
Cassian exhaled slowly. “Great.”
They sat in silence for a long moment. Finally, Cassian spoke.
“Thanks, Farron.”
The Magos tilted his head slightly. “For what?”
Cassian managed a weak smile. “For not letting me die.”
Farron was quiet for a moment. Then, softly: “You are… welcome.”
Cassian leaned back against the cold metal floor, closing his eyes. He was too tired to think about what came next. For now, he just let himself breathe.
Word count: 2385
Comments
Rowan
Good, more ^,...,^
Delltree100
this fanfic is THE best warhammer 40K fanfic ever.
Kratos5628
No, at least not to my knowledge. Their faith is Omnissiah not the emperor.
Darth Bane
Does the adeptus mechanics have living saints?
