Another body lay nearby - or most of it at least, Korvax saw. This eldar's body had been bisected at the waist, and the lower half lay mangled several metres away.
Korvax waved his squad forward and cautiously they entered the room, Livris alongside him. There must have been five hundred of the cylinders here, arranged in rows like standing stones, with a clearing in the middle where cold vapour coiled off a huge hemispherical machine.
'Spread out!' ordered Livris, and his Assault Marines broke formation as they entered, moving between the cylinders in ones and twos. Korvas kept his squad closer, and as he advanced towards the centre of the room he saw more and more eldar bodies, mostly warriors but also one or two xenos in elaborate robes whose enclosed helmets had complex crystalline arrays built in. The eldar leadership caste, all psychic, the guides of their species on the battlefield and off it. The Imperial studies of the eldar named them warlocks, and several had met their end here beneath Stratix Luminae. One body was full of shuriken discs - this was not the result of a tech-guard last stand. Something else had happened here.
'Something's alive,' voxed Livris curtly. Korvax looked across to see the sergeant consulting his auspex scanner.
'Where?'
'Everywhere.'
There was a strange, faint buzzing in the air now, like a failing lumoglobe, almost imperceptible but coming from everywhere at once.
Bio-alarms flashed on Korvax's retinal display. Toxins were building up in his blood now. His armour integrity was in the green so it was as if the poisons were spontaneously appearing in his organs. His oolitic kidney kicked in to filter it out but if it kept increasing...
'I see him,' voxed the point Marine of his squad. Korvax looked through the cylinders and saw what the Marine was indicating - in front of the huge metallic hemisphere was a figure, kneeling as if in supplication, its warlock's robes spattered with blood.
'In position,' voxed Livris. Korvax knew he could give the word and the assault squad would be on the stranger in a heartbeat.
'Hold,' he replied. 'Squad, cover me.'
Korvax stepped slowly towards the figure. The area around the hemisphere was like a clearing in a forest of glass, and thick cables ran from ports all over the curved panels. The tingling, buzzing sound grew stronger and Korvax could feel the strain on his internal organs as more and more exotic poisons synthesized themselves in his bloodstream.
The figure stood. It was tall and slim, and even from behind Korvax recognised the elongated skull of the eldar. It turned around. Its long face was mournful and its eyes were weeping black blood. Korvax levelled his bolt pistol at the alien's head. 'Why are you here, xenos? What do you want?'
The alien spoke a few hushed syllables, then as if suddenly remembering the Marine could not speak its language- T could not hold it, brutish one. I thought... we could take it with us and keep it from you. We could destroy it.
But we were too late, you have let it grow for far too long.'
'What? What did you come for?'
The eldar smiled. The skin of its face was taut and it split hideously, weeping watery gore. Korvax saw blood running down its wrists to drip off its fingers and realised the alien was coming apart under some great force.
"You tell me, low creature. It was your kind that made it!
As Korvax watched, the eldar's skin turned mottled and dark, tendrils of blackness tracing out its veins. It slumped back down to its knees and its body sagged grotesquely, its skeleton coming apart under the same forces that were starting to prey on Korvax and his Marines.
'Squad Veiyal?' voxed Korvax, 'get onto the crews on the Carnivore. Have them prep the infirmary, we'll need every man checked out. Inform the Chaplain there is a potential moral threat on Stratix Luminae.'
'Understood,' came Sergeant Veiyal's voice, filtering down through the sound of static and muted gunfire.
'Marines, fall back!' ordered Korvax as the eldar warlock collapsed in a welter of blood.
The eldar was dead, its remains twitching inside its stained robes. The plates of the hemisphere were pulsing in and out like a ribcage drawing breath, cables popping from the sockets.
Korvax turned and jogged with his squad as they fell back, then broke into a run as a terrible creaking roar began from the hemisphere and the floor and walls began to warp. The remaining cylinders shattered one by one, filling the air with showers of liquid and glass, spilling malformed humanoid shapes out on the floor. A plate burst off the hemisphere, spinning across the huge room and embedding itself in a wall.
The buzzing became a scream and warning telltales flashed all over Korvax's retina. He saw battle-brothers flagging as they ran, the terrible influence of whatever lurked in the centre of the room working on their systems. The eldar warlock had held on with his mind, the Marines had their bodies, but the eldar had been defeated and so could they.
Korvax was one of the last through the doorway. Livris, beside him, slammed a palm into the door controls and the massive security doors began to yawn closed.
'Move!' yelled Korvax. 'Get to the surface, this battle is over!'
Before the doors shut Korvax saw the hemisphere erupting in a huge gout of cables and machinery like metallic entrails, biomechanical equipment pouring up from a lower level and bringing a force with it that Korvax could feel in his very bones. The gene-seed organs in his throat and chest burned, his third lung and second heart were like lumps of molten metal in his chest.
Korvax just had time to see a human form rising from the middle of the destruction.
I The eldar had come to Stratix Luminae to kill it. They had been too late. As Korvax rushed towards the surface, he hoped the Imperium would not make the same mistake. ..
THE IMAGE FROZE, with Korvax's pict-recorder looking out on the destruction of the lab floor.
'This.’ said Sarpedon, 'is all we have. Stratix Lumi-nae was closed afterwards and forgotten about. There are no plans or records within our reach. Captain Korvax's record is the only visual of the facility that exists. So this is what we will use.'
Sarpedon stood on a pulpit looking out on the Marines of Squads Luko, Karraidin and Graevus. In front and below him was the focus of the briefing sermon - the projected pict-recording that Captain Korvax had taken during the first assault on Stratix Luminae. The image, and Sarpedon's voice, would be transmitted to the other ships in the tiny fleet, where the Soul Drinkers would be stood as here in the cargo bay of the alien fighters.
'It is a testament to the strength of your will, brothers.’ continued Sarpedon, 'that you have fought alongside me though very few of you know our ultimate goal. The truth is, we are fighting for survival. We are fighting for the Great Harvest, when the Soul Drinkers will take novices and begin the process of transforming them into Marines. The Harvest should be underway already, with our Chaplain and our Apothecaries forging another generation to take the fight to the Enemy. It has not happened.’
Sarpedon spread his arms, indicating his mutated legs. This is why. There is not one Marine that has no mark of mutation upon them. Many are stronger because of it, as am I. But the blood of Rogal Dorn is poisoned.
'Our blood, the gene-seed taken from Dorn's own body, is corrupted down to its basest elements. The Chapter is a chalice of that blood, and each drop poured out is the seed of another battle-brother. But the chalice is bleeding dry of Dorn's blood and soon there will be only corruption left. Our gene-seed is tainted, it cannot be used to create new Marines.’
The image rewound suddenly, flitting through the moments of destruction as Korvax retreated. Then it paused again, looking out on the glass cylinders and their obscure contents, as Korvax saw them when he first entered the lower floor.