Chapter 14: The Charnel Pit
Once the Aqua-Purifier was operational, Kian grabbed his industrial plasteel drill and connected it to the promethium battery. He moved to the furthest corner of the Sanctum and began boring a hole directly through the reinforced floor.
He had scouted the sub-levels before; beneath his floor was a vertical drop of several hundred meters—a lightless abyss supported by gargantuan ceramite pillars. He didn't know what was at the bottom, and he didn't care. It was the perfect "Output Pipe."
Kian spent the next few hours fabricating a Sanitation Unit. He used a scrap-metal basin, recycled piping, and a bucket of pressurized water.
[SANCTUM UPGRADE: SANITATION UNIT (LVL 1)]
He even went a step further, building a small wooden partition and hanging a perforated bucket from the ceiling to create a primitive shower. He poured a few liters of cold, purified water into the overhead tank and enjoyed the first real wash he'd had since arriving in this hellish millennium. The wastewater vanished into the "Sump-Void" below.
After scrubbing the "Sump-stink" out of his clothes and bedding, he hung them to dry and collapsed into a deep, clean sleep.
Kian woke up feeling refreshed. He checked his production: the second bottle of Sanctified Oil was ready, and the Aqua-Purifier had yielded 99 liters of crystal-clear water. He reset the cycles, grabbed his gear, and prepared to deploy.
His objective today was twofold: find PDF Dog Tags for Lieutenant Rudolphson and ask the man for a way to acquire Armor-Piercing (AP) weaponry. The "Pig-Grit" manifolds were worth a fortune, but he couldn't rely on luck and grenades to kill Chem-Sows. He needed a gun that could punch through scrap-plate.
Equipped with his 2-stage armor, the twin-barrel pipe shotgun, two smoke grenades, and a toxic cinder-flask, Kian stepped into the deployment zone.
[DEPLOYING OPERATIVE]
Location: North War Zone - Sector 496b (Agri-Silo G-14)
The world shimmered and reformed. Kian found himself a short distance from the grain station he'd seen before. Rudolphson's armored raid had cleared the place out days ago, but the Imperium rarely had the manpower to hold every scrap of land.
As Kian approached the Silo, he stayed low in the tall stalks of grain. He reached the perimeter and peered through a gap in the fence—a jagged hole punched by a Chimera's hull.
The station was a mess. The walls were pockmarked by 40mm autocannon fire, and the ground was littered with brass casings and bodies. But the rebels were back.
Nearly a hundred insurgents were swarming the Silo. They weren't fighting; they were cleaning. They were loading corpses onto flatbed trolleys, presumably to clear the area for re-occupation.
Should I move in? Kian wondered. A hundred rifles were too many to fight alone.
Then, he saw a lone rebel struggling with a heavily laden cart, pushing it toward the northern road, away from the main group. It looked like a "Corpse Detail."
Kian had an idea. He smeared mud and soot over his face, dirtied his already-scruffy armor, and slung his pipe-shotgun over his shoulder. He walked out of the grain and into the Silo as if he belonged there.
In the chaos of the Underhive and the rebellion, there was no uniform. As long as you looked miserable, dirty, and carried a weapon, you looked like a rebel. Kian walked right past a group of insurgents. No one looked up. One man was too busy vomiting; another was trying to pry a boot off a dead man.
Kian caught up to the young rebel with the cart. He placed a hand on the back of the trolley and pushed. The weight shifted, and the young man looked back, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Keep moving," Kian grunted, keeping his head down. "The Sergeant wants this cleared before the PDF scouts return."
"Right... thanks, brother," the youth panted, leaning into the harness.
They pushed the cart out of the Silo and onto the northern road, heading deeper into the Secessionist-controlled territory. As they moved, Kian saw peasants working the fields nearby. They actually looked... happy. They were smiling as they harvested.
Kian knew it was a fantasy. The rebels might offer better tax rates than the Governor, but the Imperium didn't negotiate. Eventually, the Departmento Munitorum would lose patience, and an Inquisitorial Purge Fleet would arrive. When the cyclonic torpedoes hit, it wouldn't matter how low your taxes were.
The youth eventually stopped by the side of the road, gasping for air. "Emperor... my lungs are burning. Let's take a five-minute breather."
He sat on a dirt mound and looked at Kian. His brow furrowed. "Wait... what squad are you with? I haven't seen you at the Silo before."
Kian stopped lighting a Lho-stick. He looked around. The road was empty. The peasants were too far away to hear anything.
"I'm with the 4th Recon," Kian said calmly.
The youth's eyes widened. "We don't have a 4th Recon. We only have—"
Kian didn't let him finish. In one fluid motion, he drew his combat knife and drove it through the boy's throat. He held the youth's mouth shut, muffling the wet, bubbling gurgles until the light faded from his eyes.
"Too many questions," Kian whispered.
He heaved the boy's body onto the cart, covering him with the other corpses. He buried the bloodstains on the road with a few kicks of dirt, then grabbed the handles of the trolley himself.
A kilometer up the road, he spotted an old farmer leaning on a scythe.
"Oi, uncle!" Kian called out in a rough accent. "I'm new to the detail. Where's the pit? The boss said to dump these before they start to rot."
The farmer pointed a gnarled finger toward a jagged ridge to the west. "Follow the path for two klicks. When you smell the rot and see the crows, you've found the Sump-Grave."
"Blessings of the Four... er, the Emperor be upon you," Kian corrected himself quickly and pushed on.
Two kilometers later, the stench hit him like a physical wall. He rounded a bend and saw it: a massive, natural depression in the earth, fifty meters wide and ten meters deep.
It was a Charnel Pit. Thousands of bodies—PDF regulars and rebels alike—had been unceremoniously dumped there to be forgotten.
Kian grinned. "Jackpot. Time to go fishing for some silver."