The opening of a row of bemused eyes met Flux’s facetious question about particle shields. Did it look as if they had one? A laugh was all well and good here, this far from the battlefield, but Ilshar found that how humorous one found anything involving high explosives tended to drop sharply the closer one was to the detonation point.

“No, and that is why I’m asking,” he tapped over the upper joints of his armour, checking for warpings from the last operation. Finding a loose link once in the vacuum would have been an unpleasant surprise. “Burning your way through half the station to retrieve us will have been a waste of time if we’re incinerated because you hit a bulkhead too close. And me, I don’t intend to rejoin the folds of the Nexus yet.”

Unfolding beady organules continued to eye the scielto warily. Ilshar was not sure if he had asked about the faith in earnest - the question was not a meaningless one, for a layman - or was making light of it. Did their worm-kind even understand what it meant to know beyond knowing? Much as they sometimes styled themselves with ethereal trappings, he had never heard of any putting any real stock into it.

“Worms are born from the loam, and so they are of it, like we are of the rotting Spiral. But they are not the only thing that returns to mulch. The cosmic maw awaits us all. Be careful.”

---

It had been one thing to see Sargasso in the sterile light of a projection and sweep through quantified etheric readout data. It was another entirely to see it, to feel it in person. Noxious ripples of immaterial fallout pervaded what to some might have been empty space. The soundless drone of innumerable life-threads, corroded and parasitizing, radiated from no particular direction, echoing from its own folds. The place itself was alive, not just as a hive swarming with scavengers and murk-dwellers, but like a corpse whose putrescent flesh becomes a receptacle for new life.

A strikingly apt comparison, Ilshar thought as he steadied itself on the outside of the decaying space station. The insulation of his vacuum-suit shrouded his body, limiting the angles at which he could extrude sight-organs. Between it and the ambient energy sending his Chasm-attuned symbiotes into a stir, even just standing there was slightly disorienting. It would probably help to get moving.

“Maybe the hatch is not suspicious enough,” he commented as the squad advanced towards the least ominous of the ingress points, “It’s what thinking, material boarders would use. We might not be the first.”

Still, it might have been the safest option regardless. Pirates, junkers or whatever other dregs might await within were a concrete enemy, one that could be shot or stabbed. With the Chasm, things were not always so certain.

Ilshar walked in the middle of the squad, eyes kept in all directions as far as his armoured suit allowed. The ulvath would have been unwieldy in cramped quarters, besides running the risk of puncturing something, and so he kept it slung at rest. He held his piercer gun in his left hand, while the right, empty, rhythmically wriggled its fingers. He could feel the material feelers of the worm-host stirring within his forearm, ready to burst out. Perhaps it would be sated soon enough.

King, being a full construct, had no need to suit up in order to endure the pitiable conditions of hard vacuum and cosmic radiation - though whether or not the etheric forces writhing within the Sargasso were of any influence to him was less certain. As it came into view, he actually seemed to *shrink* - literally, hunching over as he eyed the derelict warily.

_{"Not this shit again."} He could be heard to utter quietly. As they all cycled out onto the station exterior, he seemed laughably underdressed for the occasion - but he glided through space with what seemed to be perfect precision, making no evident corrective maneuvers. He simply moved and went exactly how he wanted to, almost as if he had perfect motion control even in hard vacuum.

As the group struck out from the dropship and towards their chosen entry point, King's form shimmered and turned eerily translucent - light from one side of him gliding and being projected back out the other as a form of optical camouflage. Not the most effective at short distances, but from a distance or simply in a very dark space it would likely do the trick. In the shadow of the looming station, he became exceedingly difficult to pick out unless the team checked against any of the signal filters he read as being completely dead on.

"Ingress through the hatch. Others are too suspicious. We'll rotate who's on point as we go through, no sense killing any single one of us from the stress. Rho-Hux, you're up first. Let's keep it quiet as best we can."

“Maybe the hatch is not suspicious enough,” he commented as the squad advanced towards the least ominous of the ingress points, “It’s what thinking, material boarders would use. We might not be the first.”

"I'm uh, with the big guy on this one, chief." King chipped in over comms. His voice was all-but cracking from evident apprehension. "This is a tiny chokepoint, probably booby-trapped, leading into a killbox, and there is some little shit waiting for us to go in so they can seal the way back out behind us." Almost as if his simple utterance would make it come true, King began swiveling about, taking in the immediate surroundings, paying particular attention to anything obstructing line of sight or any corners. He had not put out any active scans or bursts, thankfully.

"Say what you will about the big exposed hull breach; at least we would be able to get back out that way pretty easily. This hatch may as well be a coffin." His camouflaged form was practically rigid now as they came closer to the hatch, in stark contrast to his erratic bout of movement earlier - and his voice had a faint undertone of near-panic to it. Whatever the advantages of his evidently malleable form were - hiding his feelings, if indeed he had any, was not one of them.

A mission! No more talks, no more lords giving orders from lofty chairs. This is where beasts like Rho-Hux belonged. Being told to go first was a great honor. Rho-Hux relaxed his body and triggered his stealth ability. He bit down on the collar of his suit for extra measures, triggering its camouflage abilities.

Strange he thought to himself. I felt sore the last time I ran this fast. He figured it could have been the regenerative implants they gave him not too long ago, or he was excited to be on the field again. It reminded him of when he read about ancient hunting animals humans had domesticated in their homeworld. Canis Familiars, or something like that. Working familiars that specialized in herding or hunting would grow restless and develop health problems. Perhaps that's why he felt so good after challenging that rude tech-worm to a duel. It didn't matter if he lost or won. This old familiar wanted to hunt!

Looking back at his comrades, he could not see their faces. All Rho-Hux could see were the serious, stoic faces of loyal Imperial soldiers. At times, he wasn't even in a spaceship; he was in a jungle world with soldiers who had died decades ago. Once he had scanned the surrounding area, he gave his first report.

"Lieutient Xis-Nev, no warm bodies spotted. Area one is secured. Proceed with caution. Heading to area two. Wait for my signal.

Rho-Hux stopped in his tracks momentarily to rethink what he just said. Did he just say Xis-Nev? Xis-Nev was a lieutenant who served with him on Cluub-Prime. He was another Gealtirocht. Rho-Hux was talking to Salvator Rasch. That's what he said. Yes. He was just thinking of an old friend, but Rho-Hux was confident he had said Rasch or maybe Ard’sabekh. He certainly didn't say Xis-Nev.

Rho-Hux activated his comms one more time before moving further ahead to scout.

"In my old unit, I would tap the in-armor comms three times to signal danger ahead to avoid making any noise the enemy might overhear. Is this compatible with your unit?

The hatch itself wasn't rusted or broken. Electronics flickered and blinked as they were accessed with lights flicking around the manual access levers and grips hidden behind retractable or flipping components. The fogged-over slit stared back at them but they could see multiple mechanisms unlocking, hissing out smoke, sealing the chamber as the hatch's lights blinked red. Smoke billowed out of the edges as the portal opened to a dull teal room. Lights on the floor and ceiling peered at the squad as they entered and the hatch shut behind them.

Pressure readjusted, sanitizing gas filled the chamber, gravity stabilized as the door before them groaned, creaked, and retracted.

The Sargasso welcomed them to its depths.





The corridor itself was narrow and already crowded with a mixture of debris both artificial and uneartly in origin. If they entered the corridor they would find doors collapsed inwards, crushed like broken spines before rooms where collapsed ceilings lay meshed over by rampant growths. Growth reddish and fleshy, coalescing into bioluminescent bulbs complimenting the flicker of dying neon.

Oxygen was low but not absent, mixed in with a variety of strange chemicals likely from the creeping flesh-like growths. Gravity was low - bits of shattered furniture and fixtures hovered and slowly descended as if kicked up by a distant current. The room was chilly and cool with the only heat being faint from the bare electronics needed for functionality and milder still for the carpeting flesh that claimed whatever it could. If not stretching thinner and thinner across the floor, drifting lazily outside the windows.

Past a door sucked into a floor by a veiny mess of void-mold, they would come across a room where seeping flesh had long since conquered cold metal.



On their HUD's and augmented visual displays, markers superimposed themselves across the moldering terrain. Each was chased by a series of digital trails racing through the door being pried open by pulsing roots and the circular hole in the ceiling. A timer manifested as well.

TIME UNTIL COMMUNICATIONS RE-ESTABLISHED - EST. 30:00 MINUTES.

On their digitized map, they were still around the edges of the Sargasso, roughly two and a half clicks towards a point where the overlaid navigation trails diverged, offering roughly three visible paths towards the crashed ships. The path through the pried-open door appeared to present a longer, straightforward shot to the forking paths but the map data was incomplete. The ceiling hole featured more obstructions but data for it was more readily available.

The envenomed were on the far side away of the station from where pirate vessels had been spotted foraying into and blasting the derelict station. That did not account for prior incursions into the Sargasso however.

Nor did it account for the sounds already wafting into the room.

It was a dull ambience in the background at first, electronic and feeble - an inconsistent twittering buzz that followed them as they entered the first room and were able to see the full extent of the infestation. Feel and hear it squelch under feet and whisper in the residual echo of ethereosynthesized qillatu, the touch of ether lingering from years upon years of falling in and out of the Oneiric Chasm. Sounds that echoed not just in the very space they occupied but float like fragments of thoughts, intruding upon the conscious mind, hiding behind the clouds of their consciousness before vanishing.

For the voidhangers, Ilshar, and Rho-Hux there was something more. They could feel something, almost like viscous fluid of some sort, sliding along the surfaces as if even if not communing with them, nonetheless was overheard by senses attuned to the otherworldly. There were two streams of this liquid-like sensation, following to trails of creeping tendrils - the more powerful signatures stretched upwards into a room lit by faded yellowing lights and a comparatively feeble one through the door those growths kept pulled open.

Behind the collapsed ceiling that lead upstairs, a variety of blue-white computer screens faded and glowed as if they were eyes struggling to stay awake. The meaty growths did not crowd around or over them save for a few strands across their edges, silhouetted against their pulsing electronic blink. There was a smell that emerged from behind where the ceiling had fallen down, something rank and foul - finely rotted and by its strength, recent.

Of note was that the large hole in the ceiling appeared to be under a holographic display projector. A very dated model buried under the creeping void-filth but the ceiling-mounted image maintenance hardware was absent, not embedded into the gunk but seemingly removed. By the various indents along the branch-like masses that formred a bridge from the current floor to the one above, they had been used very frequently.

Very distantly, a sound like a wailing throb wafted through the corridors. The echo itself was not a series of paused phrases or tones but a single and long pulse uninterrupted and strangely clear. Little distortion could be heard but it diminished gradually as if patrolling the unseen passages above - from the map they were given, apparently some sort of larger hallway area or an environmental regulation chamber. Scanners detected a degree of fuel of some sort splattered about upstairs - possibly for shuttles or some of the older model thrusters on the aged station.

The derelict spacestation was a setting unlike any Echo had been on before. The Echo platform was primarily used to conventional battlefields, maneuver warfare and straight gunfights, so entering an area so saturated in etheric energies was disconcerting. The platform took cautious scans of everything the squad witnessed, though was careful not to directly interface with any of the working ghost machines- having any of its armor of systems compromised would be bad for the health of the group.

Rho-hux took the front position of the squad, his attending microform not far from him as he did. Echo's larger Endoform stuck to the back of the formation, it could effectively see all around it, and the heavy armor wouldn't block the sight or firing lines of any of the squad members should they run into contact. At worst, Echo's Endoform was tall enough that it could fire over the heads of the rest of the squad if they needed more forward facing firepower.

As Rho-hux indicated that he would tap his armor comms to indicate danger, the Endoform chimed in. Acknowledged. Designating triple-ping. Implication. Danger.

As the squad advanced, the microforms stayed at the edges of their formation, close enough to their designated squad members to defend, 'eyes' pointed outward to scan their environment. The Endoform, unfortunately was nowhere near as lightfooted as it's Microform support units, the heavier armor crunching and squelching as it pressed on fleshy organic material and bulkhead metal, but it's 'eyes' were facing the back of their formation, watching for any threats coming up behind them.

Alert. Initiating Multi-spectrum scanning. Elaboration. Relevant information to be overlaid on friendly HUD.

"Valid point." Salvator granted Ilshar and King over comms. "But better the devil we know. Pirates and raiders are still preferable to dealing with dead zones and the etheric off the bat."

They breached. All clear so far. By God in His void, Salvator hated this sort of mission, especially considering all the etheric disturbances. The squad wasn't alone, either. That much was obvious. Nothing was in sight yet, but between the still-working electronics and the flow he could feel with his sixth sense, they'd be making contact with something in short order. He caught Alice's concerned gaze at him, nodding.

"Squad, be advised: etheric senses are pinging. We've got a weak signal coming from the doors, and a much stronger one up above. Eyes up, stay alert. Something probably knows we're here by now. Those of you stronger with ether, try and trace back the streams if you can. Rather have an idea of what's waiting for us."

One hand slid off the underbarrel of his shotgun, glowing purple as he waved it around. For a moment, a dull haze shimmered around the Envenomed squad before fading away.

"Maintaining a shroud. We're not invisible, but we'll be much harder to detect in the etheric."

The hatch had yielded easily - entirely too easily. The odds that all those systems would have been working so well after the rest of the station had been in that state for so long were slim. Someone had probably been keeping this entrance functional, and it would have been strange if that was all they had been doing. Ilshar nodded at Rho-Hux's words, not paying the part about one Xis-Nev too much mind - concentrations of ether could have this effect on people sometimes - and followed, ready to fire.

Fortunately, there were no traps or improvised alarms behind the opening, nor a guard. The latter was not too surprising, considering the creeping intrusions from the Chasm that spilled through the corridor ahead. It was not healthy to remain among them for too long, as Ilshar was reminded when the squad advanced deeper into the infested structure. Presently, it was lucky that many of his senses were curtailed by his vacuum equipment; the ambient qillatu was unpleasant enough on his purely etheric organs without having to feel it on his skin.

More obvious and more troubling was the sensation of a viscous sheen gathering and drifting in heavy, though immaterial trails. Its fluid appearance was what alarmed him most: it might just have been an approximation of that force that he could visualise, but one thing was often as true in the Chasm as in the material - vibrations in a fluid carried both ways. If the Envenomed were not wary enough in sounding this presence, whatever lay further along it might sense them before they did it.

"Careful with skimming the Chasm here. Some things could have an easier time finding us by the ripples," Ilshar whispered aloud, as much to Salvator as to anyone who might be about to follow him in probing the ambient trail. Suppressing the distraction of the ominously regular sounds from not quite so far, he cast his senses into the ether, compacting his projection as a lightly drifting spore rather than a denser tendril. With an effort of will, he cast it onto the upwards-leading trail. His body continued to move forward in steady steps, but almost insensibly. He would have to rely on the others if something unexpected struck at this moment.