Boom. Boom. Boom.
The Thunderhawk landing gear locked onto the strike cruiser's outer hull with heavy magnetic clamps. The Lamenters in Terminator plate activated their magnetic boots, gripped bolt guns and power swords, and stepped out of the cabin hatches onto the outer deck of the cruiser, standing in open void with radiation bleeding through their armor sensors on every side.
Nolan tilted the skull helmet upward. The bridge structure rose several hundred meters above the hull line, visible through the eyepiece even at this distance.
"The full squad divides into three teams of ten. First team, proceed to the mid and lower decks and secure the engine systems. Second team, sweep the upper decks for any sign of the expeditionary force. Remaining team, with me to the bridge."
He let the channel carry his voice to every suit on the hull.
"Whatever you find inside, if any survivor makes an unusual movement, shoot first. Is that understood?"
The Lamenters shook their helmets once, then separated without a word and moved to their assigned routes.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
A minute later, Nolan was walking along the outer armor plating with five Terminators toward a maintenance access hatch beneath the bridge structure. One Lamenter drove forward and began working the hatch's opening program. The warning light cycled from red to green. White gas vented from the widening gap as the hatch lifted, and Nolan led the team inside.
"No emergency lighting in the passage. Atmosphere is thin. Temperature is below zero." The Lamenter who had entered first swept his helmet optics across the corridor in both directions and spoke through the vox. "If the crew aboard did not take emergency measures, the mortal personnel are almost certainly entirely dead. Astartes is a different matter."
Nolan was already reading the same data from the auspex inside the skull helmet. He moved to the front of the team, the Warscythe held in both hands with its green-edged blade forward, and drove the power armor past the others.
"No Chaos psychic fluctuations detected yet. Working assumption is a xenos incursion of some kind. Inform the other teams: treat this as a space hulk boarding. Proceed with maximum vigilance."
He was moving before he finished the sentence. The Lamenters came behind him, storm bolters up in one ceramite fist and power swords in the other, their footfalls echoing in the dark passage.
Not long after, the team stepped out of the corridor into a wide ancient hall. The space was thick with the evidence of ritual use: devotional objects hung from the walls, banners suspended from the ceiling, the surfaces marked with the accumulated attention of repeated prayers. Nolan read the chapter badge on the banners in a moment: white field, black cross.
"Black Templars. This expeditionary force is Black Templars."
He turned the skull helmet toward one of the Lamenters.
"Notify the other teams of the chapter identity. Then maintain regular comms intervals. I want continuous contact with every team inside this ship."
Once the vox report was sent, Nolan drove toward the bridge.
Ten minutes of moving through empty corridors, empty bays, empty junctions, no resistance and no contact. They stepped into the bridge and spread out across it in a practiced sweep.
Everything was intact. Every station was in order. A mechanical cogitator still running on stored power threw pale green projection light across the deck. No damage to any equipment. No marks of combat. No blood. Not even the most basic auxiliary servitors remained at their stations.
Nolan stood in the middle of the bridge deck and let his magnetic boots carry him through a slow circuit of the space.
"No Chaos psychic trace. No damaged equipment. No blood anywhere." He stopped. A brief expression moved across the bronze face behind the visor. "Kahurangi's assessment may be accurate."
"Halt!"
The shout came from the Lamenter posted at the bridge entrance. His storm bolter was up and aimed down the dark passage beyond. A single burst of detonations lit the corridor for a fraction of a second.
Nolan was already moving. He crossed the bridge at a full power armor sprint, drove into the passage, and came to a stop above the body of a human figure crumpled on the deck plating.
He read the naval uniform. The rank insignia. Most likely the strike cruiser's mortal captain.
The skull helmet had done what the Lamenter's shot had done: removed it entirely.
Several other Lamenters pushed past Nolan and crouched over the headless corpse, checking it. The Lamenter who had fired hesitated, then spoke toward Nolan's back.
"I apologize, Lord Primarch. I should have taken him alive. But his mental state seemed wrong when I saw him, and I..."
Nolan turned.
"Battle-brother. You did nothing wrong."
He held the other warrior's gaze for a moment, then looked back at the corpse.
The Lamenters crouching over the body froze.
A mass of something — the color of green smoke, diffuse and shapeless, moving with a deliberateness that had nothing to do with air currents — emerged from inside the corpse. It rose in a loose cloud from the body's interior and drifted into the corridor passage, and then, between one moment and the next, it drove itself directly into the chest plate of the nearest Lamenter's Terminator armor.