May 20th at 9:40am
SCENE 36
The corridors beneath Red Reach narrowed the deeper the group descended. At first they still resembled maintenance tunnels from an old mining complex, with rusted hazard signs, leaking pipes and thick bundles of cables running along the walls. But soon the structure became stranger. The passageways were too reinforced for ventilation shafts and too cramped for industrial transport routes. Heavy vibrations pulsed beneath the metal floor plates while distant machinery groaned somewhere far below them. Emergency lumens flashed overhead in slow intervals, staining the corridors of rusty red before plunging them back into darkness.

Doctor Bast carried the newborn xeno wrapped carefully against her chest while Thanatos advanced ahead with his lasgun raised. The creature occasionally emitted weak screeching cries that echoed through the tunnels.
When LIV forced open another sealed blast partition, the smell beyond the gate changed immediately. The air became warm and damp, saturated with the same sweet scent they had associated with Pixie Dust since arriving on Chagoth.
-The Airborne pheromone concentrations are increasing- stated Doctor Bast looking at her scan. The atmospheric contamination is consistent with refined P1-10.-

A turn in the corridor leads to a series of narrow openings in the walls allowing the team a look in the colossal underground chamber in front of the facility, swallowed almost entirely by darkness. Rows of collapsed defensive barricades crossed the floor beneath gigantic support columns while burned heavy bolter emplacements and abandoned ammunition crates remained exactly where they had been left years earlier. millions of lasburn marks covered the walls. Entire trench networks cut through the chamber floor, now filled with dust and scattered bones.

Commissar Bryce took a step away from the shooting hole.
-...How many Imperial personnel died down here?-

The adept processed silently for several seconds.
-Ref 1- Incomplete records estimate attrition levels above 2.8 million Imperial assets derived to this sector along a time span of 5.23 terran years.
-Emperor preserve us…

Bryce noticed that the trenches did not lead toward defensive positions but deeper underground. Bone fragments still filled the channels beneath layers of dust.
Doctor Bast understood first.
-They dragged the bodies downward-
-What for?- Bryce asked.

-Ref 1-Accumulated biomass significantly increased xeno reproductive activity within local colonies.
╙►Consequence 1- The war itself fed the infestation

Far away in the darkness, shrill screeches suddenly echoed through the tunnels. The newborn creature answered instinctively from Bast’s arms, and moments later dozens of distant calls replied from deeper inside the outer gallery complex.
Thanatos immediately raised his rifle.
-Move-
Eventually the group reached at the center of the underground metropolis where a solitary administrative tower stood illuminated beneath a massive cogitator array.
LIV stared toward it.
-Ref 1- Active command authority confirmed
╙►Consequence 1- Jarsus Stulton remains inside.

Five armed guards stood watch outside the entrance wearing Chagothian heavy combat armor and rebreather masks. Unlike the exhausted workers and security personnel above, these men looked disciplined, alert and well supplied. Three of them carried advanced heavy lasguns while the others rested gloved hands near the trigger of a compact melta rifle and a heavy flamer.
Bryce remained silent for several seconds while studying the guards.

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What to do now?
1 - Open fire immediately before the guards can spot them.
2 - Use Commissar Bryce’s authority to demand entry into the administrative sector.
3 - Attempt to lure one of the guards away silently and capture him alive for questioning.
4 - Try to slip in unnoticed.
5 – Something else (what?)