Deck Seventy-Five. Side maintenance passage.
Just as Fezex had said, the entrance to the armory was completely hidden behind a collapsed section of bulkhead and a mass of twisted metal plates.
From the outside, it looked like nothing more than a sealed-off dead passage.
"The door is behind that rubble."
Fezex pointed with its forked tail at a plate in the lower right corner that looked slightly more regular than the surrounding wreckage.
"That was the original hatch. There's still an Imperial Aquila on it. If you don't mind getting dirty, scrape the dust off and you'll see it."
Lawson signaled for Number One to step forward.
Number One examined the edge of the metal plate, found a gap he could get leverage on, and drove both hands into it.
In the dim light, the muscles in his arms bulged, veins standing out like cords.
Kreeeak... kreeak kreeak...
Under sheer brute force, the metal plate began to deform. Its edges were pried out of the wall grooves inch by inch.
Number One ripped the entire hatch loose from the frame by force, exposing a rectangular opening wide enough for a man to pass through.
Beyond the opening was pure darkness.
Lawson had Numbers Two and Three stand guard at the entrance while he took Numbers One, Four, and Five inside.
Fezex was still clutched in his hand.
It was a standard small Imperial shipboard munitions reserve, about twenty meters long and ten meters wide.
Both walls were lined with layered metal weapon racks. Time had buried everything under thick dust and rust.
The instant Lawson saw the full interior, his pupils widened slightly.
Hundreds of weapons.
On the first row of racks to the left, at least forty standard-pattern M-G Astra Militarum lasguns had been stacked in neat rows. Their overall structure still looked intact. On the bottom rack beneath them sat more than a dozen sealed charge-pack storage cases.
The second row on the left was the bolter section.
Lawson recognized those familiar silhouettes at a glance. Locke-pattern boltguns, bolt pistols, and two heavy bolters with barrels longer and thicker than the others.
Beside them sat neatly stacked ammunition crates. Beneath the dust, the brass sheen of .75 caliber bolt shells glimmered with a cold metallic light.
The racks on the right side were even more varied.
Whole crates of standard Imperial fragmentation grenades and high-explosive grenades had been carefully fixed into shock-resistant frames.
There were also several Imperial chainswords, those terrifying melee weapons whose blades were made of tiny high-speed rotating teeth. Lack of maintenance had left rust across the chain edges, but with a little machine oil, they could be brought back to life.
There were several melta charges as well, along with explosives and detonators Lawson could not identify by exact model.
At the far end of the armory, on a separate metal stand, rested a round power shield.
Its face was about sixty centimeters across. The edges were visibly battered, and at the center was an Imperial Aquila worn faint by age.
On the back of the shield was a set of leather and metal forearm straps, along with a compact field generator connected to a power cell.
A power shield's generator could project an energy barrier in front of the shield face, enough to block lasfire, solid rounds, and even low-output plasma attacks for a short period.
Judging by the shield's age, the battery could probably sustain continuous defense for only a few minutes.
But a few minutes, in the space between life and death, could sometimes mean the difference between an instant and forever.
"Emperor protect," Lawson murmured.
He loosened his grip and tucked Fezex under one arm, then reached out and picked up a Locke-pattern boltgun. He pulled back the action and inspected the mechanism.
Intact.
The preservative oil had done its job in the sealed environment.
It was not as smooth as a factory-new weapon, but every mechanical component still functioned properly.
He was just about to set the gun down and inspect the ammunition crates.
Then something happened.
At the edge of his vision, a boltgun resting on the top shelf of the rack to the right moved.
It was floating.
The weapon slowly rose off the rack, hovered in the air for about half a second, then turned its muzzle toward Number Four, who was checking the ammunition beside the rack.
Lawson reacted faster than thought.
Before the weapon could finish aiming, his right hand was already there. All five fingers clamped hard around the gun body and slammed it down out of the air.
The gun struggled in his grip.
Actually struggled, as though some invisible hand were fighting him for control.
But Catachan grip strength was not something petty psychic tricks could match.
Lawson pinned the weapon hard against the rack and felt a faint warmth across its surface, something that did not belong to the metal itself. It was the telltale sign of warp energy residue clinging to matter, like an invisible layer of slime.
This gun was tainted by the warp.
Stored in a sealed armory for centuries, the same warp radiation that had seeped into the hulk's metallic structure had also infected some of the weapons.
Most would carry only weak residue, but some would inevitably absorb enough Chaos energy to develop a kind of crude self-awareness.
In the Warhammer universe, that was hardly rare.
Lawson held the tainted boltgun firmly against the rack and turned to look at Fezex under his arm.
Fezex stared back at him with an expression of absolute innocence.
"You did this," Lawson said in a tone so flat it might have been the statement of an obvious fact.
"What?" Fezex shrieked in denial, voice sharp enough to hurt the ears. "I didn't! I swore on my true name! I can't harm... wait, no, I don't think my oath actually said I couldn't harm anyone, but I really didn't control that gun!"
"There's warp contamination on those weapons. They could develop abnormal behavior on their own. You should know that if you have even the slightest understanding of Imperial ordnance!"
The explanation sounded perfectly reasonable.
Lawson spent no time at all deciding whether it was true.
Because it did not matter.
Whether Fezex had controlled the gun, or whether the gun had moved on its own because of warp contamination, the result was the same.
The existence of this warp imp was itself an unstable factor.
As long as it remained alive, as long as it remained nearby, something like this could happen again at any moment.
And given a warp imp's inherently deceitful nature, even under the restraint of a true-name oath, it would keep probing every possible gray zone for loopholes.
Fezex clearly sensed the calm, bone-deep killing intent in Lawson's eyes.
Its single eye widened.
Its whole body began to tremble violently.
Slowly, Lawson tightened his fingers.
"Wait, wait wait wait..."
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Oh, you like the story? Wow, who knew. Go ahead, drop a review and throw some power stones maybe I'll be motivated to keep going.