It was a circular vault, its door sealed with a cog-and-skull lock. Korr spent six hours communing with the machine-spirit before it hissed open. Inside, the air was warm. And it was breathing.
“The Astarte is dead,” Valerius said, stating the obvious. The ship’s spine had snapped during the emergency translation. They had maybe a hundred survivors from a crew of five thousand. “We take the shuttles down to the surface.” stranded on santa astarta
Valerius lowered his rifle. “Wake your forges.” It was a circular vault, its door sealed
“We need a power source,” Liatris whispered. Her voice echoed too far. “The Hauler’s cells are cracked. We can’t leave.” And it was breathing
Valerius raised his las-rifle. “Who did you expect?”
They moved inward. The cathedral-city was a necropolis of forgotten industry. They passed rows of automated penitent engines, long dead, their iron skeletons still bolted to the floor in eternal kneeling. They found manufactoria that once built war titans, now filled with the frozen shadows of workers—calcium outlines pressed into the stone by some ancient, silent detonation.
The Astarte had been a rust-bucket even before it fell out of the warp. Now, it was a tomb. Captain Valerius pulled himself through the twisted access corridor, his mag-boots clanking on the hull plates that had become the floor. The emergency lights were the color of a bruise.