Chapter Text
The Astartes surged through the streets, overflowing with Tyranids. Their bolters roared continuously, clearing a path through the xenos scum. Bluey clung to the ceramite gauntlet of the Astartes, aware that it was her only protection. She watched as the massive horde flooded the streets of the city she once knew, now a grotesque battlefield. The air was saturated with the smells of ichor and blood.
"Where is this damn laboratory?" Valerius, the astartes captain proclaimed.
"We don't know," Bluey stammered, her voice barely understandable. "Mum and Dad never told us."
Valerius turned his head down toward the pup, momentarily pausing his advance. "Our intel suggested you two are the keys to entry."
“Mum and Dad were always working,” Bingo cried, tears brimming in her eyes. “We don’t know. They never said where they worked.”
A grim silence fell over the intercessor squad. Their intel was incomplete, and their mission parameters now void.
With the city collapsing around them, Valerius declared, “Then we have to find the magistrate; he must know the location of the facility.”
The four Astartes changed course, the three pups still clasping their hands together. The heavily armored marines pushed toward the city center, determined to finish their objective. The fighting around them intensified as the Tyranids ramped up their assault on the bastion, turning the streets into a labyrinth of chitin and death with fresh horrors lurking around every corner.
After several hours of fighting, they finally reached the central plaza, only to find utter chaos. The guardsmen were doing everything they could to hold the Tyranids at bay but were quickly becoming overwhelmed. The magistrate's bunker, a formidable structure made of plasteel, was under siege.
Valerius knelt next to a wounded guardsman, demanding to know where the magistrate was. "The coward locked himself in the bunker while leaving most of the militarium out. He doomed the planet," the guardsman gasped before life left his body.
Valerius looked toward the bunker, trying to find a way in. "We don’t have time to breach the bunker; we need another way."
Bluey's mind raced until she suddenly remembered something her dad had told her. "There's a cogitator on the second floor. Dad said it holds vital information, but only the magistrate and high officials can use it."
Valerius huffed, "The machine spirit will heed my command. We will access the data it contains." He declared, "Mackenzie, you stay here."
Mackenzie started to panic; he didn’t want to be left behind. He would die if he stayed here. He started to protest. Luckily for Mackenzie, Bluey and Bingo took his side. "If Mackenzie stays, we stay," the sisters said in unison.
Valerius sighed, realizing it made his task a lot harder. But it was clear what he needed to do. Without the Heeler pups, the mission would be futile. "Okay then, but you will have to pull your weight," he said, pushing a Lasgun into Mackenzie’s paws.
The Astartes quickly found a secondary entrance into the higher levels of the bunker. One of the marines powered his power fist and smashed the door in. They entered swiftly before being spotted by Tyranid flyers.
Inside, the bunker was arranged like a maze. Corridors led nowhere or in circles, with only a few of them actually leading to their objective. They had no problems reaching the cogitator.
When they arrived at the cogitator, they entered a room filled with databanks and flickering screens. In the center, a terminal glowed, indicating it was the central node. Valerius strode toward it, setting up the ritual to appease the machine spirit.
Valerius quickly went through the necessary rituals, ensuring he did everything correctly. Time was not on their side.
After a moment, he finished, and the cogitator displayed a message indicating they had not gained access to the requested files, notifying them that the highest level of clearance was required—clearance only chapter masters or higher could obtain.
Valerius was intrigued; this wasn’t a normal mission anymore. The planet hid a secret, a secret only a select few knew about. But how were they going to get that information?
He heard Bluey and Bingo humming a rhyme. Thinking they were scared and that the song calmed them down, he didn’t pay much attention to it. However, the cogitator responded, “Please repeat sequence.”
“Bluey, what are you two humming?” Valerius asked through his vox device. Bluey curled up at the sudden loud noise.
“A rhyme they taught us. One for the city, two for the flame, three for the children, and four for the name.”
Valerius turned back to the cogitator, noticing that it was now unlocked. He had never heard that rhyme, even though he hailed from this planet. It must have been a passphrase Bandit had taught the children.
“Machine spirit, please link all your data to my vox device and show me the location of Bandit Heeler's laboratory,” he ordered.
The cogitator complied, recognizing Valerius as the one privy to the information. It displayed the lab's location, revealing that it was deep beneath them—several levels down. The system indicated level -56, but the plans for this facility only showed 20 sublevels.
Valerius quickly searched for ways to enter the labs and found that there was a secret elevator in the bunker.
Turning to the kids, he said, “You have guided us well, but now the real mission begins. We have to enter the laboratory and find your parents’ lab. It’s located deep beneath us.”
As he finished speaking, the bunker shook as the Tyranids breached the thick gate, the walls groaning under the relentless assault. Time was running out fast. As the bunker trembled beneath the pressure of the Tyranid attack, Valerius locked eyes with Bluey and Bingo, determination blazing in their gazes.