Chapter 140: The Final Audit
On the opposite side of the battlefield, the Tox-Mother and her remaining hundred elite gunmen were fleeing like shadows through the dark transit conduits.
Their minds were in a state of fractured panic. The level of firepower the "Voss Syndicate" had brought to a localized gang skirmish was a violation of every unwritten rule in the Underhive. This wasn't a riot; it was a military purge. They didn't want the reactor anymore. They didn't want the "Bounty." They just wanted to reach the safety of their home warrens and pray the "Metal Beast" didn't follow.
They sprinted through the lightless pipes, their path illuminated only by the frantic swaying of tactical flashlights.
Suddenly, the darkness ahead of them was cut by two twin beams of blinding brilliance. The roar of a multi-fuel engine echoed off the curved walls, shaking the very floor-plates.
The Mother and her retainers shrieked, skidding to a halt. Blinded by the searchlights and paralyzed by their own high-strung nerves, they instinctively opened fire.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!!
A wall of solid-slug lead slammed into the source of the light. But instead of the wet thud of hitting flesh, they heard the rhythmic ping-ping-ping of bullets bouncing off reinforced plasteel.
The "Light" was an armored hull.
Before they could reload, the shadow responded.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!!!
The Chimera's 40mm Autocannon roared into life, vomiting high-explosive shells into the cramped corridor. In the tight confines of the pipe, the overpressure alone was enough to liquefy internal organs. Those hit directly were vaporized. The rest were raked by a blizzard of shrapnel that turned the transit tunnel into a pressurized meat-grinder.
This was the "Voss Pincer."
Kian had positioned fifty infantry and the Chimera at the rear of the Hound's escape route before the battle even began. They had waited in silent ambush for the "Rout Phase."
By the time the smoke cleared, the corridor was a ruin of perforated metal and shredded meat. The hundred "Elite" Hounds were gone.
Kian arrived with the primary pursuit force minutes later. He voxed the Chimera to cease fire, ensuring his own men didn't wander into the autocannon's traverse.
He prowled through the piles of corpses. Most were beyond recognition, but near the center of the blast-zone, he found a few figures still twitching. Among them was the Tox-Mother.
The "Goddess of the Needle" was a pathetic sight. Both her legs had been severed by shrapnel, and her left arm was a charred stump. She was effectively a human nugget, leaking life-fluid into the muck.
Kian stepped forward, his Lasgun humming in his hand. He methodically put a "Mercy-bolt" into the skulls of the surviving lieutenants, then pressed the warm barrel of the sun-gun against the Mother's forehead.
"Spare... spare me..." she wheezed, blood bubbling from her vox-augmented throat. "Please..."
Kian pulled a Lho-stick from his pouch and beckoned Shiv. The boy stepped forward, flicked his lighter, and Kian took a long, slow drag before blowing the smoke into the dying woman's face.
"Listen up, bitch," Kian rasped. "Remember what your 'Daddy' told you in the Mid-Hive? You're an 'Unclean' element. You're human-refuse. Now that you're a meat-stump, you've lost your industrial utility. Give me one reason why I shouldn't help you report to the Emperor right now."
"I... I can be useful!" she shrieked, the fear of death overriding the shock. "I can give you my Spire-patron's cipher! You can inherit my supply lines! I have chemical formulas only I know... I can show you how to manufacture the Chem-Sows! I can make you an army of monsters!!"
Kian paused, his finger hovering over the trigger. A formula for bio-engineered siege-beasts? That was a high-tier asset for the Voss Guard.
"Fine," Kian decided, lowering the gun. "I'll keep you on the books for a few cycles. See if your data is worth the starch it takes to feed you."
He signaled two of his soldiers. "Stimm her up. Stop the bleeding."
The Voss Guard didn't have a medicae-theater on hand. They performed a "Sump-Cauterization." They dragged the Mother over to a nearby high-pressure steam pipe, opened a vent-valve, and pressed her bleeding stumps against the white-hot metal.
Her screams filled the conduit, but when they pulled her away, the wounds were sealed. They slammed a Regen-Bolt into her neck to stabilize her heart, and tossed her into the back of the cargo-trolley like a sack of scrap.
Before the convoy could move to claim the new reactor, there was one final bit of "Bureaucratic Maintenance."
The Kais brothers (Big/Little Joel's counterparts) dragged a bound man from the cargo-car and threw him into the dirt at Kian's feet. It was the coward who had dropped his rifle and run during the Sow-charge.
Kian's rebel scouts had caught him trying to slip into the side-tunnels.
The assembled Voss Guard watched in silence. Some looked on with pity; others with a cold, judgmental fury. They had all stood their ground while this man had betrayed the "Tribe."
Kian drew the Antique Longsword. He pulled a flask of moonshine from his belt, took a swig, and spat the alcohol across the shimmering steel of the blade.
The scent of spirits filled the air. The deserter began to wail, his bladder failing for the second time that day. "Boss! Master Voss! Please! It was the stimms! My brain was on fire! Give me a second chance!!"
Kian performed a slow, elegant sword-flourish, his eyes cold behind his visor.
"Laughable," Kian whispered. "You thought the 'Coward's Protocol' leads anywhere but a grave? You ate my meat. You drank my water. You accepted my armor. And then you spat on the brothers standing next to you."
SHRIT.
With a single, effortless stroke, Kian lopped the man's head off. The skull rolled into a sump-puddle, its expression frozen in a mask of terror.
Kian wiped the blade on the dead man's tunic. "Shiv, inform the labor-factorum. His family is evicted from the brewery. They are 'Unregistered' now. Let them see if the Sump-rats are as merciful as I was."
The Voss Guard shivered. The message was clear: The Syndicate provides everything—but the price is absolute loyalty.
The "War-Band" mobilized once more. They reached the G-9 Reactor site within the hour.
Kian had the Matriarch lashed to the front glacis plate of the Chimera—a living, mangled figurehead. When the remaining Alchem-Hound laborers and the few surviving guards saw their "Goddess" reduced to a trophy and an Imperial tank rolling into their lobby, they didn't fire a single shot.
They dropped their tools and fell to their knees.
The G-9 Reactor and the entire Alchem-Hound territory were now under Voss management. The Syndicate had doubled its size in a single morning.
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