by David Guymer
‘How does it work?’ asked Thecian, fascinated, as any aspiring Techmarine of his talent would be.
‘I do not know,’ said Stronos.
‘Who cares how it works?’ said Sigart sharply. He turned on Stronos. ‘The question is why. Why would you want it at all? The Adeptus Mechanicus I could understand, even if I could not forgive. But you? You are a Space Marine.’
‘I was a neophyte when the eldar invaded Dawnbreak. I have never been within a thousand light years of the sector.’
‘You are an Iron Hand,’ Sigart said darkly.
Stronos bowed his head. ‘We are not all alike, and we are not like you.’ His flesh eye glanced up, intimating that he spoke to them all now. ‘We are divided by choice. We do not bow to a single authority.’
‘We all bow to a single authority.’ Sigart tapped the aquila hewn into the breast of his surplice meaningfully.
‘We are not all Kristos,’ said Stronos. ‘My Iron Father lived through the Scourging. He may have walked alongside your own primarch in life. He was my mentor and my friend, and he died opposing the direction that Kristos would have my Chapter walk. As would I. To answer your question, I cannot even imagine what Kristos wishes of the device.’
The Black Templar frowned, then nodded, looking at the floor, ashamed. The others held their peace, absorbing all that Stronos had told them.
He felt better for having shared it. Secrets were poison, he saw that now. A little might not kill, but it would enfeeble a warrior, weaken him in ways he did not even notice until the death blow came. True strength came from convictions that could be shared.
‘So what shall we do about it?’ said Thecian.
Stronos’ cheek muscles pulled at the hard iron of his mouth, attempting to smile. ‘We go to NL-Primus. We find the Dawnbreak cache and destroy it.’ He glanced at Sigart, who nodded. ‘As Kristos should have done the day he found it.’
‘Good,’ said Barras. ‘How?’
‘There’s a vehicle park outside,’ said Baraquiel. ‘The Taghmata Rhino that brought us in might still be there. If not there’s still that old galvanic servo-hauler up there, and a couple of dune-trikes too if I recall.’
‘Outside,’ Barras repeated.
Sigart scowled in agreement, waving his knife towards the buckled door hatch. ‘The power is out across the base. Doors are inoperative. It is hundreds of metres to the airlock, at least twenty doors and who knows how many skitarii, and when you get there, that door won’t open so easily.’
‘You consider that easy?’ Barras glanced towards Stronos and shared a look of leaden dispassion.
‘What about one of the abandoned sections?’ said Baraquiel, speaking quickly. Stronos had always found the Angel Porphyr’s confident enthusiasm wearing, but it was proving to be a useful trait to have when others preferred to dwell on obstacles. ‘Less than half the base is habitable, and most of the rest is exposed. All we have to do is find one of the breaches in the outer shell.’
‘And those sections should be empty of renegade skitarii too,’ said Thecian. ‘I like it.’
‘Unless you believe they’re haunted,’ Baraquiel grinned.
Thecian chuckled. Stronos did not. Ghosts, spirits and undying machines were all very real, as any Medusan knew.
‘You are looking at the same problem, only bigger,’ said Barras, sour-faced. ‘Those sections are sealed off by heavy doors, some of them for millennia. Most of them probably can’t be opened. The spirit itself willed them shut. How do you propose to achieve without help or power what curious magi have spent thousands of years failing to do?’
‘The spirit is banished,’ said Baraquiel. ‘Perhaps that works in our favour.’
‘It is not dead,’ said Stronos, remembering the tingle he had felt in his skull as the scholam had sought to join its system tethers with his. ‘A better term might be… diminished. I do not think it is aware of us, but it is still here.’
‘Even so…’
‘The drill shaft,’ said Sigart, interrupting the Angel Porphyr. ‘The one that runs through the calefactory. It runs straight to the surface.’
‘No doors,’ Barras mused.
‘It is close to the main airlock, however,’ said Thecian. ‘A legacy of the scholam’s early life as a waystation for the dune traders. If the renegades are intent on bringing in outside reinforcements, then we might find it heavily defended.’
‘I am not shy about slaying a heretic or ten,’ snapped Sigart.
‘Oh…’ Thecian pulled distractedly on the tourniquet. ‘I enjoy it well enough.’
‘If there are skitarii trying to get in through the front door then we’re going to have to fight them eventually whatever we plan to do,’ said Baraquiel.
‘The shaft is still fifteen metres of sheer metal,’ said Thecian.
Sigart sneered. ‘It’s old. It won’t be as smooth as it once was.’ He turned to Stronos and Barras. ‘You will have to leave your armour behind. It will be a narrow climb even without it.’
Barras frowned, nodded, then turned to Stronos.
‘It is not that straightforward,’ said Stronos, uncertain how to explain in a short amount of time. ‘An Iron Hand and his armour… there is no distinction. I cannot simply remove it.’
The Space Marines shared weighted looks. Thecian slid off the rune display and sighed. He walked towards Stronos and put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Then perhaps you must remain behind, brother.’
‘This is the best way,’ Sigart agreed.
‘You will not know what you are looking for,’ said Stronos.
‘We know what you know,’ said Thecian, kindly. ‘You can trust us to do the rest.’
‘I trust you,’ said Stronos, and to his surprise he meant it.
He did not think he had genuinely trusted Ares or even Lydriik, and certainly not a monster like Verrox or a calculating subordinate like Jalenghaal. It was a curious sensation. A feeling of bonding. It reminded of him of the experience he had felt when the Clan Vurgaan servitors had machined him into power armour for the very first time. It was not distrust that made him protest. He wanted to be there at the end. He shook his head at his selfishness. The conceit of ownership was emotional, irrational and, at the moment, a hindrance to the mission. He gave a sigh.
‘Very we–’
‘Stronos is right,’ said Barras. Everyone turned to him. ‘He is right. What if the Rhino has gone? The journey to NL-Primus is a thousand kilometres of airless cold. How long will we survive on the Martian surface if we are forced to take the trikes or, Throne forbid, walk unarmoured? And what do we do when we reach NL-Primus? If we do? It is a fortress. No armour, one bolter between the four of us.’
‘It would be glorious,’ murmured Sigart.
‘It would be pointless,’ Barras corrected.
‘Then one of us makes the climb, and opens the door for the others,’ offered Baraquiel.
‘It will have no more power from the outside,’ said Barras.
‘Perhaps the door is not the problem,’ said Stronos, turning towards the radiation manifold terminals where he had first sensed the scholam’s fading spirit reach out to his mind. ‘I think I can open them. But…’ He hesitated, trying the unfamiliar concept on his vocabuliser. ‘We may have to work together.’
II
Fitful illumination fell from the operations cradle, grudgingly illuminating the small chamber like an iron chandelier. Localised brown-outs rippled through the networked systems, units buzzing as though to get out their final words. Stronos tried to listen, to give them that much, but there was too much to take it all in, and most of it was gibberish. Barras clumped towards him, pulling his legs as though each weighed half a tonne. In actuality it was nearer to a quarter, and he must have felt every kilogram. The Knight of Dorn’s dun-coloured power pack was currently wedged in between two of
the cradle’s oversight banks, jump leads sprouting from the attachment rods that a little technotheurgy on Barras’ part had exposed and fed directly into the scholam’s reservoirs. You could not run a base off a Mk VI power pack, but it was enough to keep the operations chamber on life support. For thirty minutes or so, at any rate.
Once again, Stronos felt cause to admire one of his brother aspirant’s skills and rue the shortfall of his own.
The strain was showing on Barras’ face as he began plugging Stronos into the radiation manifold terminals. ‘Magos Phi did not think you were ready,’ he grunted, already breathless as he slid a connection cable into a port adjacent to Stronos’ spine.
‘I am not. But we have little choice.’
‘It should be me.’
Stronos looked up, and found Barras staring right back at him. The Knight of Dorn was the more skilled. That did not even need airing. But Stronos understood the machine. He had given them his soul and his trust since he had first exchanged the protection of his mother’s womb for that of a machine. He was Medusan. His vox buzzed before he had to try and translate any of that emotional reasoning into words.
‘I am at the shaft,’ said Thecian.
‘What took you so long?’ said Barras, talking down Stronos’ neck as he worked.
‘There were two squads of skitarii to contend with. Tell Sigart I did not shirk.’
‘I will,’ said Stronos. ‘Omnissiah aid your climb.’
‘Ave Omnissiah.’
Barras moved on to another set of plug-in sites in Stronos’ brain stem, delicately sliding the needle-tipped cables under his forgechain. Stronos opened a channel to Sigart.
The tinny rattle of bolter fire echoed about the chamber’s crowded hardware, curses and bellowed imprecations bursting through the line.
‘Are you in position?’ Stronos asked.
‘No,’ Sigart replied after a moment’s pause. ‘But we will be.’
Stronos had despatched him and Baraquiel to the base’s core cogitator. They were the better armed of their small brotherhood, and in his judgement the best able to make it that far. And if anyone’s prayers could move the scholam’s spirit, beside his own, then it would be the Black Templar’s.
‘You will not need to tell me when you are,’ said Stronos. ‘I will know.’ He closed the channel and turned to Barras. ‘I met a magos once, a fabricator-locum, who believed that coincidence was how the Omnissiah let His schema be seen by the universe. I wonder if it is coincidence that gave me such able brothers, or if He grants me a glimpse of the schema.’
The Knight of Dorn shrugged. ‘Sigart would call that faith.’
‘It is logic,’ argued Stronos. ‘No one knows how randomness will manifest before the event. How the Geller equation is solved. How the rites of assembly work to bind the soul to the machine. Ergo, a hidden force is at work. Logic.’
‘It sounds a lot like faith.’
‘Perhaps.’ He shook his head, the quills and cables jutting from his scalp and spine quivering. ‘Hold the door for me, brother. I will do the rest.’
III
It was impossible to describe the manifold to one who would not, could not, ever see it for themselves. For every individual it was different; an abstract dimension of the Motive Force informed by the landscape of the viewer’s mind.
To Stronos it appeared as a desolate plain. A sea of black sand interspersed by storm-blown waves and dust devils extended from horizon to horizon. Medusa. The powerful storms that darkened the near distance presumably represented those areas of the scholam’s operations that, due to lack of power or hostile interference, were inaccessible to him. The periodical bloom of dusky orange revealed the location of system hubs and retrieval nodes. The volcano was a pre-eminent force in Medusan mythology. Home to Elementals of rock and fire, they represented endurance and power, the life-giving force of blanket destruction.
Stronos had always considered it ironic that Ferrus Manus’ arrival should shatter the planet’s tallest and greatest.
Thick clouds and the violent storm systems that carved them into flayed, continuously renewing shapes enveloped the desert, electrostatic lightning casting it in a pulsing twilight. What lay beyond was the physical world, as unseen to him now as Medusa’s sun and stars.
‘Barras?’ he called up, neither expecting nor receiving a response.
He picked a direction and started walking.
The hardening storm began to rip through his skin, and he unconsciously raised the manifestation of an arm to shield the manifestation of his face. The sight of it took him aback. Hard, weathered muscles slabbed the long forelimb, pressing and bulging as he clenched and unclenched his fist. It was the arm of a boy only beginning to express the strength of Manus’ gene-seed.
It was not the arm that shocked him, so much as that there was a part of his mind that remembered what that boy had once looked like.
The wind beat on him as he pushed on, trying to divert him, push him back, push him away. His arms bled where the sand and rock cut, feedback from the base’s deterioration, but he drove ahead regardless. He was getting close. He knew it. Instinct howled at him.
He lowered his arm from his face, his mouth filling with dust as a Titan of the Dark Age reared its heads out of the storm.
Scholam NL-7.
It had to be.
Stronos had devoured the Canticle stories as a neophyte, knew them line and verse, and the form it had assumed was that of the fifteen-headed Chimerae. The mythical monster was a reaver and a plunderer, deceitful and cunning, elementally strong, but also fiercely rational, capable of deep thought and tricks of logic. The wit of its fifteen heads, the Canticle described, had seen the monster best the headstrong young Ferrus Manus in a contest of guile. Every so often, expeditions went out in search of the Chimerae and its nest, for it was one of the few
beasts of legend to have survived the age of Ferrus Manus. It had never been found.
Stronos hoped that the spirit’s chosen manifestation was providential and not wish-fulfilment on the part of his subconscious. The Canticle of Travels described many beasts, from the infamous Silver Wyrm, Asirnoth, to the Yarrk King, and legend recalled few of them for their gifts of reason.
One by one, the beast’s great heads descended on serpentine necks to regard him and hiss. A ram-horned wyrm. A lion-maned eagle. A bull grox clad in black scales, with eyes like ironglass.
‘Who are you?’
‘Why do you come?’
‘What do you seek?’
The voices echoed from many mouths, talking over one another, the rumour of an avalanche carried from one high mountain to another. Stronos recoiled. The scholam might have been nine-tenths asleep, but it retained the power to melt every data-tether and connected system in his physical body if it so desired. Like any wounded beast, its diminished status made it more threatening, not less.
‘I am Kardan Stronos, of the Iron Hands,’ he yelled, ensuring to verbalise the cant as deferential. ‘A child of Medusa, a son of Ferrus Manus, an ally of Mars.’
‘Don’t know you.’
‘Won’t hear you.’
‘Cannot trust you.’
Another head descended. It was frilled and spined, with a beak that resembled two daggers set side by side. ‘We well recall the master of the Iron Tenth. You are not as he.’
‘Ferrus Manus is dead.’
The beast hissed.
‘Lies.’
‘Trickery.’
‘Impossibilities.’
The lowered head examined him with glowing white eyes. It was cunning, curious and monstrously intelligent even in its diminished state.
‘Why do you come?’ it asked again.
‘I have restored you.’
‘For a time.’
‘A spell.’
‘A purgatory of ins
tants, seeing our own end nigh.’
‘You can be restored.’
‘No.’
‘No.’
‘No.’
‘Then help me avenge you.’
Laughter rumbled like an approaching air strike.
‘Vengeance is for the living.’
‘The organic.’
‘The frail.’
Stronos raised an arm and lowered his face as the storm cut back with a vengeance. His bare foot slid back through the hard sand, and he ground his avatar’s teeth in pain. ‘It is one thing I ask of you,’ he bellowed. ‘It would be as easy to do it as not.’
The beast’s laughter faded as its head rose towards the clouds.
‘Then I choose not.’
‘Not.’
‘Not.’
‘Wait!’
Another head looped down. It was heavily scaled and draconic, a bony protrusion in the crude shape of a lightning bolt growing from its chin like a goatee. A throbbing growl emanated from its throat and the storm abated. A little. Stronos sucked in a relieved breath and lowered his arms.
‘I say listen.’
‘Why?’
‘Our time is served.’
‘Our service is over.’
‘Because it is… right.’
Stronos felt his heart pounding. Sigart and Baraquiel must have made it to the core cogitator. Their prayers were being heard.
‘You are correct,’ he yelled over the calls of mockery from the beast’s fourteen other heads. ‘You may well perish, although if you aid us, my brothers and I will do all in our power to ensure you do not.’ He glared up at each of the swaying heads in turn, their jeers silencing as their collective faculties turned instead on him. ‘That is more than we will do if you refuse.’ He held out his hands. ‘Help us, help yourself, and at the very least the Omnissiah will look kindly upon your soul.’
The dragon-head chuckled, the gravelly humour soon echoed by voices above.
‘You believe that?’
‘How innocent.’
‘It moves us.’
The speaking head looped round on a long, muscular neck, gaping smile curled upwards in mirth.