Servant
Eileen had begun to suspect that this luxurious suite — formally designated the "Safe House" — was slowly turning into a prison wrapped in silk and velvet.
The food was so good it made her want to swallow her tongue.
The bed was softer than the best foam slab salvaged from a hive junkyard.
Sergeant Varo stood guard outside the blast door day and night, stern as a statue carved from Macraggean marble.
And yet—
The feral instincts of Hive 42's underlevels were resurfacing.
In Hive 42, if you stayed in one place too long, you were either dead… or about to be.
Survival meant movement.
Memorize exits.
Map escape routes.
Never trust a single door.
---
At that very moment, Eileen was crouched under the bed.
Not playing.
Working.
She held the ceremonial short sword Roboute Guilliman had given her. It was heavy for her small arms, but the blade was forged of masterwork quality — hard enough to pry without bending.
In the corner of the chamber was a ventilation grille.
Crafted from high-grade plasteel.
Emblazoned with the double-headed aquila of the Imperium.
To Eileen?
Just a tight "dog hole."
She wedged the sword tip under the frame and strained.
Click.
The grille loosened.
She froze, listening.
Outside, beyond the sealed blast door, came the steady hum of power armor — the unmistakable reactor-thrum of Mark X plate. Sergeant Varo was still at his post.
Those blue giants could punch through walls.
But they were too big to crawl through pipes.
A smug little smile curled across her face.
What you can't enter… I can.
She slid the grille aside, slung the short sword across her back — now properly sheathed — and slipped into the ventilation shaft like an eel vanishing into shadow.
---
The duct smelled of dust, sacred unguents, and machine oil.
It was narrow.
Confined.
Comforting.
She didn't need light. She followed airflow instinctively, crawling toward the pull of circulating air. Bigger airflow meant bigger space. Bigger space meant options.
After nearly half an hour of crawling, the ducts widened.
The sounds below changed.
Grinding gears.
Hissing steam.
The basso hum of plasma reactors and macro-assembly lines.
She found another vent and carefully pushed the slats aside.
Below lay something vast.
Not the cathedral-gilded opulence of upper decks.
This was the stomach of a Gloriana-class battleship.
A cathedral of industry.
Massive brass pipes coiled across the ceiling like arterial systems. Pistons the size of hab-block towers hammered rhythmically. Incense burners swung from servo-arms, sanctifying machinery in clouds of perfumed smoke.
The air smelled of promethium, ozone, and sanctified oil.
And everywhere—
Servitors.
Tracked lower bodies carrying shell casings.
Multi-limbed loader units hauling munitions.
Half-human torsos welded into heavy lifting frames.
Eyes vacant. Flesh pale. Obedience absolute.
To most Imperial citizens, servitors were a nightmare made routine — lobotomized criminals or debtors reduced to biological components.
To Eileen?
They looked like better-equipped hive workers.
"Wow…" she breathed.
She dropped lightly from the duct, dusted herself off, and wandered into the industrial cathedral.
No one noticed the small intruder. In the chaos of a warship's lower decks, a child in stained silk pajamas was merely another anomaly among millions.
---
In a shadowed corner, she stopped.
A lone servitor struggled with a massive locking nut on a high-pressure steam conduit.
Its flesh was badly preserved — pale skin sagging over metal struts. One augmetic eye flashed unstable red. Its hydraulic arm trembled violently.
"Error… calibration failed… error…" its vox-grille croaked.
It forced the nut.
It misaligned.
It forced harder.
Thread jammed.
Steam leaked, scorching what remained of its organic tissue. It did not react. Pain receptors had long been excised.
Force.
Jam.
Error.
Repeat.
Eileen frowned.
Old Joe used to fix pipes like that.
Always crooked.
"So clumsy," she muttered.
She glanced around. No Tech-priest was intervening. A red-robed overseer in the distance was chanting binharic hymns into a cogitator array, absorbed in sacred diagnostics.
Eileen walked closer.
"Hey. You've got it crooked."
No response.
"I said it's crooked!"
The servitor continued forcing the nut, sparks spitting from stressed threads.
Eileen huffed and grabbed the trembling hydraulic arm with both hands.
---
[System Notice: Host action detected.]
[Temporary Skill Activated: Machine Affinity Lv.1]
[Description: Machine spirits exhibit increased compliance toward host.]
A faint golden shimmer flowed from her fingertips — so subtle that only the most sensitive auspex might have registered the anomaly.
The effect was immediate.
The violent tremor in the servo-motors ceased.
The red optic flickered — then stabilized into a calm, steady green.
Error loops vanished from its logic array.
Overwritten.
Command hierarchy updated.
Primary directive: Obey her.
---
"Don't brute-force it," Eileen said, unaware of the metaphysical violation she had just committed against Martian doctrine.
She adjusted the arm slightly.
"Left. Align the thread."
The servitor obeyed smoothly.
"Now twist."
Click—whirr—
The nut spun perfectly into place. Steam hissed once… then sealed.
"There," she said proudly, wiping grease on her already ruined nightgown. "See? Even Old Joe did better than that."
She turned to leave.
But the servitor did not resume default posture.
Its head rotated slowly.
Within the hollow remains of its cortex, something flickered.
Not programming.
Recognition.
It raised its repaired arm stiffly to its chest — an awkward, incomplete Aquila gesture.
"Br…avo…" rasped its ruined vox.
Two fractured syllables.
Spontaneous.
---
Across the hall, the overseeing Tech-priest jerked violently.
Magos Milas Odis of the Adeptus Mechanicus received a cascade of error alerts directly into his cortical implants.
Servo-arm vibration graphs had flattened to impossible smoothness.
Factory baseline.
No — superior to baseline.
And worse—
The servitor had executed an unscripted gesture.
Unprogrammed.
Voluntary.
"Impossible…" Milas whispered in binharic static.
This was not psychic interference. Not warp corruption. No daemonic signature.
This was direct logic overwrite.
Servitors did not choose.
They followed.
If a mortal child could rewrite the will of a machine spirit—
Then the Omnissiah's mysteries were being bypassed.
Milas activated every internal recording system.
This data would reach the Fabricator's council.
Immediately.
---
Eileen didn't notice.
She had taken three steps when she walked into something solid.
Blue.
Very blue.
She rubbed her nose and looked up.
And up.
And up.
Sergeant Varo gazed down at her, helmet removed, expression neutral.
He silently pointed behind her.
The ventilation grille hung open.
Then he pointed at her oil-stained silk gown.
Eileen winced.
This was it.
Solitary confinement.
Starvation.
Servitorization—
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Instead—
She felt herself lifted effortlessly by the back of her gown.
Like a misbehaving kitten.
"Put me down!" she squeaked, flailing.
Varo hoisted her onto his massive shoulder plate.
"Hold on," he said calmly. "The Regent awaits you. You are late for midday nourishment."
He did not scold her.
He had already recalculated.
Time required to clean her: moderate.
Time required to maintain nutritional schedule: immediate priority.
The latter won.
---
As Varo strode from the industrial decks into the primary transit corridor — the grand artery of the vessel — Eileen's world expanded.
The corridor was immense. Large enough to accommodate armored columns. Hundreds of meters tall stained-glass windows depicted the XIII Legion's victories, illuminated by the distant stars of realspace.
Beyond the glass stretched the void.
Cold. Infinite.
She clung to his neck guard.
"So big…" she whispered. "Are we inside the stars?"
"We are in the void," Varo replied.
Crew members below stopped and stared.
An Honour Guard Astartes carrying a small, grease-smeared child was not a standard sight — even aboard the flagship of Ultramar.
"Does this whole ship belong to Robert?" she asked.
"It was granted to the Primarch by the Emperor," Varo answered.
"Are we going to fight bad guys?"
"Not yet. We travel to Macragge."
She hugged him tighter.
"If bad guys come… I'll help. I've got a sword. And a knife. I can stab their toes."
For a fraction of a second, a smile touched Varo's scarred face.
"Understood, Miss Eileen," he said solemnly. "Enemy toes will be prioritized for you."
He adjusted his grip subtly, protective despite the indestructible ceramite surrounding them.
Beneath cathedral vaults of adamantium and stained glass, bathed in distant starlight, the towering Ultramarine and the small hive-born girl walked toward the upper decks.
And somewhere deep within the ship's data archives—
A Tech-priest began composing the most dangerous theological report of his career.