Warhammer 40k: Bound souls (Short story)

Personal log #16

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This will be a retelling of my sixth mission as an interrogator.

I was ordered by my mentor to investigate a tech priest suspected of experimenting with the warp, simple enough I thought. We followed the route his ship was expected to use, and by the emperor's grace, after weeks that felt like months of dull searching we found the ship simply drifting not answering our hails. Truth be told I did not like the look of this, my last encounter with a ghost ship was still a very fresh memory. We carefully boarded the ship. As soon as we stepped foot on the ship I got a strange feeling, as if I was being watched. However I simply brushed it off, thought I was being too paranoid because of the previous ghost ship I investigated. The entire ship was without power so I ordered the tech priest to get it back on since we were going to spend a while there. We spent hours searching through rooms and we found nothing, not a single body, or a single drop of blood, ironically it made me even more uneasy then if we would have found some gruesomely torn up corpses. Our next stop was the bridge of course, I was certain the ship's log would have had some answers. We had to wait a few hours until the tech priest got the power back on before we could try accessing the logs, unfortunately it was coded, but then again, what could you expect from a heretical tech priest?

Our tech priest said that it will take days to crack.

Great I thought, having to spend multiple days on a ship that's crew mysteriously disappeared was totally what I wanted. 

Ah I apologize for the sarcasm, let's just continue. 

My men used the barracks nearest to the bridge, while I got the captain's quarters. It was surprisingly bland but I did not complain, it was unarguably better than the barracks my men had. I checked the captain’s personal logs but of course that was coded as well. However I could not simply sit idly and wait for the tech priest to decode the logs so I decided to explore the ship, maybe we would find something interesting. We spent the rest of the day searching through the ship, checking every room we could access, very thoroughly may I add. But despite our search we found nothing, only tools and equipment that were on the ground, open panels that were probably opened, next to them dusty tools. The canteen's tables had food on them, but it was already rotten. Seemed like they left in a hurry. With the search ending up as fruitless I ordered my men to go to their barracks while I headed for the captain’s quarters. I walked for hours and followed the route my data slate told me would lead to the captain’s quarters, but I ended up at the bridge instead. Strange I thought, but I brushed it off as the data slate acting up. Eventually I found it and sat down at the room’s table, had a few things to read and did not feel like resting yet, so why not?

Hours of reading later I finally fell asleep, only to be plagued by nightmares. I woke up in the middle of the night and got a feeling as I was being watched. I quickly grabbed my las-pistol and scanned the pitch black room, ready to blow out the brains of whatever cursed creature could be hiding in the darkness. After making sure the room was safe I put my armor on and got out of there, didn't want to try going back to sleep. But even the corridor was pitch black. Power outage I presumed and switched on the flashlight on my las-pistol and tried contacting the tech priest. However, the only thing I heard through the vox device was static, so I decided to head to the bridge and talk to tech priest personally. During the trip I heard movement behind me and I quickly spun around to look, only to see a creature standing behind me.

 It was tall and slim, it’s deathly pale skin tightly stuck to it’s bones, it’s face bearing a single eye that glowed in the dark and a sinister grin made out of hundreds of razor sharp teeth. It let out an ear piercing screech and charged at me. I fired into the foul creature, but to my horror it had barely any effect, so I shot into it’s thin leg and ran. It stunned it long enough for me to get away thank the emperor. I quickly made my way through the hallways of the ship, not knowing whenever that thing may find me again. As I was going through the darkness my flashlight began malfunctioning and switched off, leaving me in complete darkness. I froze. Every noise, creak made me uneasy. As the flashlight flickered back on I felt something grab my leg and I turned my las-pistol down at it to shoot. It was hand sticking out of the floor, without hesitation I fired and the arm pulled back into the floor. I looked around and saw hundreds of other hands on the floor, walls and ceiling, all grabbing into the air frantically. I was freaking out at this point and I began firing into the hands. Not wanting to go back the way I came from I marched through the path I carved for myself, muttering every prayer I knew. 

After a while the hallway was clear, and I checked my data slate for the path to the bridge. But it said that I was already there. Damn thing was either glitched out or that creature was manipulating it. With this I was forced to carefully roam the halls until I find the bridge, hoping I'll find it before the creature finds me. After an hour or two of walking I heard movement and I quickly switched off my flashlight and hid inside a room that's door was open. I heard footsteps slowly walking by the room, I held my breath. Suddenly I felt something grab my leg and arms. I wanted to to switch my flashlight on again to shoot the hands but with the creature walking by I couldn't, so I had to stay still as a statue while the hands grip tightened. After what felt like an eternity the creature walked far enough away that I couldn't hear it anymore and I got shot the hands off of me. I silently crept through the halls until I ran into a dead end, and as I turned around I saw the creature block my way, it's sinister grin even wider than before. I began firing, if I were to die I won't go down without a fight. But my shots barely had any effect. As I made peace with the thought of death dozens of beams of las weapons hit the creature's back letting out a pained screech as it jumped into a vent and disappeared. My stormtroopers found me.

"You alright sir?" the sergeant asked. 

"I'll be fine, let's just get off this piece of scrap metal" I responded.

"Where's the tech priest?"

"Dead, I'm sorry, sir. The creature took him out, but he managed to decrypt some of the ship's data. It's on this data slate" The sergeant answered as he handed me the tech priest's data slate. 

"I'll go through it once we get out, do you know which way we should go?"

The sergeant nodded as his squad formed up behind him and he led the way. I was at the back, nervously checking behind myself every once in a while. As we almost made it to the hangar the creature bursted out of one of the vents on the floor and grabbed my leg, trying to pull me down into the vent. I frantically kicked into its eye. It let out a painful scream as it let me go and disappeared into the vent. The Scions helped me up and we got into the Valkyrie, leaving the wretched ship behind. Once we got onto my ship, the Hammer of justice, I ordered my gunnery chief to tear the cursed ship apart with our weapons. As I watched it's destruction I felt easier, knowing whatever was on that ship died with it. 

The few parts of the ship's logs my tech priest decoded mentioned experimentation with the warp and the binding of souls to items. 

The experiment must have gone wrong and the souls of the crew was bound to the ship, it would explain the hands that tried grabbing me. What that creature was I can only speculate. A creature of the warp sensing the defenseless souls that came to feast upon them. Or an alien that was captured by the heretical tech priest on an unknown world. A mutant perhaps, even now I cannot say for sure. After I wrote down the mission's report and gave it to my mentor I never really thought about it, I had more pressing matters at hand. This was only one of the countless horrors the void has instore for us after all.

End log… 

<Log ends>