Brutal Kunnin' (Warhammer 40,000) by Mike Brooks

Author:Mike Brooks [Brooks, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2020-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

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Zaefa reached the outer portal of her personal chambers only to find that she was already inside.

Or at least, that was what the door’s machine-spirit thought. It refused to open to her, and when she interrogated it with a blurt of code she realised it had recorded her as having entered seven minutes and thirty-two seconds previously, which coincided exactly with the alert she’d received. Whoever had entered her chambers had convinced the lock that it was the rightful occupant of these chambers.

What they hadn’t predicted was that Zaefa had set up an alert to notify her whenever anyone entered her chambers, herself included. It was a minor annoyance whenever she walked through her own door, but anyone hoping to circumvent security systems through impersonation instead of force might underestimate her… well, ‘paranoia’ was a term that implied disordered thinking. And clearly, Zaefa’s concerns had been justified.

She paused for point seven seconds to consider calling for assistance, but decided against it. Most available skitarii units were fighting to defend the node itself, and only the most important locations within still maintained any sizeable force of armed guards. Besides which, Zaefa’s chambers were her own private sanctum, in which she had many delicate items. One did not undertake the level of research and study necessary to become lexico arcanus of a prominent forge world without picking up some curios along the way. Any breach of a high councillor’s personal chambers might be enough to pull even Ronrul Illutar away from his grandstanding under the pretence of investigating a potential incursion, as though the xenos brutes were going to sneak into Node Primus in order to rifle through Zaefa’s personal effects.

No, Zaefa wasn’t going to sound a general alarm and give the tech-priest dominus the excuse to investigate and catalogue her private domain. She would deal with this herself. Whoever was within was likely unaware that she knew they were there. Even if they were, they would quickly find out that entering the sanctum of a senior tech-priest uninvited was a risky endeavour.

Then again, overconfidence was the enemy of reason. Zaefa hastily formed a distress message and placed it into the noosphere with a six hundred-second delay on it. If she was unable to resolve matters satisfactor­ily within that time and cancel the message, it would probably be necessary.

Thus satisfied, she pushed at the lock again, overriding its simple memory and convincing it that yes, the being on its outside was indeed the rightful occupant. It chimed a welcome and the bolts and bars inside unlatched, allowing the doors to swing inwards. Zaefa stepped through into her home.

And into a bubble of silence.

This wasn’t like the audio baffles at the Shrine of the Omnissiah: this was a silence deeper and thicker, for it was a code-silence, and not one that she’d had any part in creating. Zaefa was four steps inside the entrance hall when her audio receptors picked up the door closing and locking itself again behind her.

Whoever the intruder was

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