by Guy Haley
Harrtek fulminated silently within the manifold, his smouldering anger fed by Nuntio Dolores’ facsimile of rage. The Imperial Hunters had Iridium. Harrtek’s had been among the last Titans retrieved.
A dozen kilometres away a whole maniple walked towards another berth, lined up like a family of beasts striding some alien savannah. The distance and the setting made them look small while accentuating the sheer size of the Gardoman Hub, but though they seemed like crawling insects, they moved quickly, and were soon lost to Nuntio Dolores’ sight.
There was little life left in the city. Horus’ Legions had no interest in repairing the harm they had caused. They deployed what was still functioning to resupply, but it was a short-term use. The ruined factories and burned-out habitation zones would remain as they were, perhaps forever, thought Harrtek. If this were the Great Crusade, teams would already be surveying the area, waiting for the moment the enemy was vanquished to enact their repairs and improvements in order to demonstrate to the people the beneficence of the Emperor.
Terent Harrtek doubted a great deal if times like that would come again. When Horus won, the new Imperium would be a very different one to the Emperor’s.
Once, maybe, that would have bothered him, but Harrtek had realised some time ago that he did not care. His Legio was an agent of destruction. For too long they had been held back from their purpose by ideologues and empire builders. To see such places broken for their defiance gratified him.
Nuntio Dolores reacted to his thoughts with an approving spike of reactor activity. An indignant message came moments later from the enginseer clade responsible for the war machine’s heart, urging Harrtek to more responsible emoting. Harrtek ignored it.
The Titan reached the bottom of one of the bridges linking the ravaged city with the shipyards. Arching high over the ring of blackness for nothing other than aesthetic reasons, it allowed views of the city, the yards and the other bridges. Tall lumen poles warded traffic away from the edges, but there was nothing upon it but the Warlord now. It strode on, towering over the poles, its feet crushing the barriers dividing the road into lanes. The bridge began its downwards journey to the shipyard hub, and presently Nuntio Dolores stepped onto the flared collar that encircled the midpoint of the tower docks where the road went into sealed tubes. In a station by the road a clutch of trams were laid up, the workers they had carried from the city to the docks either enslaved at their work places or dead. Nuntio Dolores stepped onto the crystalflex ceiling with malicious intent, crushing it into glittering powder and flattening the trams.
Harrtek laughed darkly. His steersman moved to correct the Titan’s path.
The collar around the shipyards was narrow. The Titan clambered up over service conduits and repellers intended to help convey ship hulls from dock to dock as they were moved to different yard sections. The Gardoman Hub’s areas were highly specialised. One part made engines, another shields, another intertial field tuning, and so on. The work of making a void ship was so complex and immense even the hub only produced a few of the millions of components required for a finished vessel. Segments were assembled and launched to be towed elsewhere for further work. Before the Warmaster had come, each area had been ruled by specialised shipwright clans only part controlled by the Mechanicum. They had a reputation for bickering, before order had been fatally imposed. Now things ran a little more smoothly.
Nuntio Dolores approached the dockyard designated for its maniple. Frozen gas broke from interlocking teeth as the immense doors opened into a space as harshly lit as the surface of an airless moon.
‘Bring us in to the atmosphere dock,’ Harrtek commanded, retreating from the manifold now battle was behind them.
‘As you so command, princeps.’
Secutarii auxilia protected by void-hardened augmetics patrolled the decks of the dock. Machine eyes glowed a baleful red from every gantry and companionway. The marks of the New Mechanicum were emblazoned everywhere. Months had been put into the capture of the facility in preparation for the final taking of Theta-Garmon V. The pressurised atmosphere-docks were one of the few spaces upon Theta-Garmon’s orbital arrays big enough to accommodate Titans, and only in a few rare places like Gardoman were there enough of them to house a demi-Legio. All the Legio Vulpa god-engines present at Theta-Garmon occupied the centre of the hub, along with their thousands of support troops and staff. The hub’s defences had been left intact during the attack, at the cost of thousands of lives, as had the outer docking spars where the gargantuan spacecraft needed to transport the Legio lay at anchor. Every army needed a camp. A Titan Legio was no different, though planning for its accommodation required a little more forethought than most.
Nuntio Dolores walked along a road painted recently upon the deck plating. Bare metal gleamed in the light of arc-lumens where spacecraft construction equipment had been cut out to make space for the god-machines. Although immense, with all their mechanisms in place the atmosphere docks would have been too cramped for the god-machines to move.
Four engines stood already in the rearming bays set up along the edges of the refashioned facility. Repair drones and Mechanicum teams were at work all over them. A rail-mounted crane dragged a piece of armour six metres wide along the ceiling towards the Reaver Dust of Ages. It had attracted fire from the enemy fleet and taken damage to its left arm as the maniple withdrew. The damaged section had been removed, and a new shoulder joint already fitted. The broken remains of its arm lay on the flat bed of a magnahauler by its feet, ready to be taken away for scrap.
‘The magi are working fast – we are expected to re-enter the fray soon,’ said Harrtek to himself. Through Nuntio Dolores’ staring eyes he looked upon a world of silent industry. The dock had yet to refill with atmosphere.
‘Docking station one hundred metres and closing.’
‘Moderati oratorius, announce our battle tally to Legio command. Moderati steersman, begin manoeuvres, bring us in.’ Harrtek lived for battle, and had no patience for the tedious task of matching the Titan to its service cradle, so he left it to his crew to move the giant machine into position. A series of tiny steps and minute course adjustments saw the machine edge its way into the berth. Forced to move in such close confines and to so close a degree of accuracy, Nuntio Dolores lost its warrior’s grace and became a clumsy, juddering piece of heavy machinery.
Harrtek let his consciousness slip out of the Warlord’s mental clasp, far enough that the input of his natural senses overwrote the impressions flooding his mind from the Titan’s autosenses and augury units. He was stiff, his mortal body not having moved while he communed with the machine. When he blinked, he was surprised at the movement in his face. The unnatural feeling of the flesh passed. The memory of the engine’s numb, metal body, which had seemed far more real than the one he had been born with, faded away. Even after all this time, his bond with Nuntio Dolores felt fanciful when he was not connected to the MIU, like a pharmacologically induced dream.
It was unsatisfactory. Harrtek’s Legio lived to perfect the bond with their machines. He craved more. Nuntio Dolores responded to his thoughts with a minor spike in its secondary systems. The machine-spirit was welcoming. It desired to share its power with him forever. It called him back.
He let his eyes refocus. He needed to get out of the machine before the machine got too far into him. Perfect union was laudable, but it came with a price. A headache was already building behind his eyes. The pain came quicker after every disconnection.
Red war-light suffused the head. The czella of the Titan was massive, as befitted its immense body, but so much of it was taken up by systems and equipment there was little space for the crew.
In the rear wall new niches harboured polished skulls, each one inscribed with the manner of its earning. Every skull in this grisly r
ecord of victory represented an engine kill. Where possible, an enemy crew member was retrieved and their head taken. Where not, frankly, any skull would do. It was the presence of the skull that mattered, not whose it was, or so the Apostle Vorrjuk Kraal had said. From his position Harrtek could not see the trophies, but he felt their cold, wide glares burning into the back of his neck. Soon, a new skull would join them. It was pitiful, really. A single Warhound. Nothing to celebrate.
At least the deathblow had been delivered by his hand and the curs of Maniple Eighteen would hark to his wisdom more closely in future.
A series of clunks and rattles from outside heralded their final arrival. A dull boom as the docking umbilicus snaked up to the rear and clamped itself in place was the signal to disembark.
‘Power down reactor. Summon the enginseers,’ he said aloud.
Harrtek cut the link to Nuntio Dolores’ bellicose soul. Without its anger smouldering in the back of his mind his head should have felt clearer, but if anything his own fury exceeded that of the machine. By the time he had unclasped the heavy helmet from his tall armoured bevor he was seething. He was not entirely sure why.
‘Rest. Feed,’ he commanded his crew. ‘There will be no days of idleness to come.’ He dipped two fingers into a flask of blood by his command chair and dragged them down his face, marking himself with the sign of a recent kill. He flicked more over his crews.
‘Honour. Glory. You did well today. If you see my anger, fear not – blame Maniple Eighteen’s recklessness.’
They saluted but did not respond. No doubt they counted themselves lucky. Harrtek’s punishments were growing harsher.
As was his right, Harrtek departed the head first, proceeding through its flexible metal neck, down cramped stairs past the reactor chamber and out to the access portal in the back. The gates ground open at his approach, splitting down the middle of the grim opus machina adorning the doors’ inner faces, and revealing the extendible plastek corridor that connected the machine to the dock’s interior. In the passage a small escort of four augmentatii stood to attention, their multiple enhancements allowing them to maintain an immobility that an unaltered human could not mimic. Upon their shoulder plates and helms were the badges of the Legio, and their long coats were the same red, bone and bruised purple of the Titans. They were Legio Vulpa’s property, flesh and steel, entirely separate from the hordes of tech-thralls and half-men who served the wider New Mechanicum.
Between them Harrtek’s servant Casson waited for him, a half-smile on his face. His uniform was immaculate. Too clean in the grubby confines of the umbilicus, it was almost an insult to Harrtek’s post-battle dishevelment. Casson saluted, and held out a warm, damp towel to his master. Harrtek snatched it from the smaller man’s hand and wiped the grime of combat from his face and hair. The towel came away black with oil and sweat, smeared with red from his victory stripes.
In the light, Harrtek appeared ghoulish. Once he had been a handsome man, but he had changed. His face was gaunt. Aquiline cheekbones had become razors pressing against his skin from beneath, so hard it looked like they were about to part it. His thick black hair had started to fall out in clumps. He was too vain to shave it off, but brushed it over the bald spots. It fooled no one, least of all himself. Deep purple bruising almost as dark as the colours of his Titan surrounded his eyes, and his eyelids were inflamed. Only his eyes were as they had been, a blue so deep they were almost as dark as lapis. He had been complimented on them by more women than he could remember. They alone remained beautiful.
He had come to hate his eyes for reminding him of what he had been. Victory was a fleeting savour, no matter how great. When the adrenaline was spent and the glory faded, there came a point when he would look upon his ageing face in a mirror, and his youthful eyes would look back in mockery at him. Victory is nothing, they seemed to say. Secretly, he feared they were right, and that he had given up something precious in exchange for hollow power.
‘Congratulations on your kill, my lord,’ said Casson.
Harrtek threw the towel back at him. The man was too impertinent by half. There was a half-smile underneath everything he said. Harrtek’s snarling words echoed behind the bevor hiding his mouth.
‘A Warhound. Nothing. Not even a Reaver. I want a Warlord or a Nemesis. What honour is there in besting so feeble an engine? We lost, Casson. The Hunters have Iridium. This whole world was supposed to have been taken. A war of three years finished in a week. That was the plan, and we have failed.’
Casson bowed. ‘Whatever the outcome, you acquitted yourself well, my lord.’
‘The others will call me out for cowardice, mark my words,’ he said.
‘Retreat was the only option.’
‘And what do you know about it?’ said Harrtek dangerously.
Casson bowed again. Harrtek stared at him. Casson had been with him for, how long? He couldn’t really remember. Since Barcan’s World? Maybe before? When he tried to think about it, Casson seemed to have always been there. He was a secretive fellow, constantly about some business or other, and the way the other duluz acted towards him perturbed Harrtek sometimes – too respectful. But Casson was useful, there was no denying that.
‘I have your quarters prepared,’ Casson said smoothly. ‘You may cleanse yourself there, and take refreshment.’
Air hissed from the edges of the umbilicus where the seal clamped imperfectly to the Titan. Harrtek glanced at it in disgust. The sound aggravated the pain in his skull.
‘The station is not yet fully adapted for our use, my lord,’ said Casson. ‘But you will find your household well accommodated. I swear on my life.’
‘One day, I will hold you to that pledge, Casson,’ growled Harrtek.
‘There will be no need today, princeps majoris.’
Harrtek nodded once at him. Casson bowed his head again and held out his hand.
‘This way.’
Casson led him on. The augmentatii fell wordlessly into step behind Harrtek. They walked for a few minutes before Harrtek broke the silence.
‘I saw her,’ he said abruptly.
‘My lord?’ Casson raised an eyebrow in query.
‘Don’t play the fool – when else do I speak this way? About whom else?’ he snapped. He was so angry. It felt ridiculous. He forced himself to calm, slowed his breathing, but that did not stop the hammering of his pulse behind his eyes. ‘The Legio Solaria have come into the cluster. They are here, at Theta-Garmon Five. Today, I fought them, and she was there at the front. Esha Ani Mohana.’
Casson did not reply. Harrtek grunted but let it be. He was taken through a warren of cramped corridors. The dock’s architects had never expected such vaunted personages as Terent Harrtek to grace its ways. They were in a realm of menials and thralls. Only when they reached a corridor designed to allow heavy classes of servitors room to operate freely did the spaces open up. Nowhere was the complex anything other than utilitarian. Everything was painted a sickly green; hazard stripes and the stamp of the machina opus were the extent of its decoration.
Casson took him from the supply corridor back into the tighter spaces of the dock. It took an amount of careful movement for Harrtek not to launch himself into the low ceilings in the minimal gravity, reminding him of Nuntio Dolores walking in the void. The memory sparked an urge in him to join the Titan again.
‘By Terra, life gets more dismal with every damn engagement,’ said Harrtek, ducking through a door designed in the most primitive way to remain airtight in case of hull breach. A small lip-sill provided space for a rubber seal that ran all around the door, allowing it to be dogged shut against atmospheric leaks with a manual lever. With his inflexible metal collar clamped around his neck, Harrtek struggled to get through.
‘This is a shortcut, my lord. We will soon be there.’
No sooner had Casson spoken than they e
merged into an area more conducive to easy movement. The corridor there was white, with rough steel floors painted red. Casson stopped and gestured at one of several thick doors set into the wall. This one was sufficiently sized to walk through without difficulty, and servitor operated. A machine monotone announced Harrtek’s rank and name as he approached, and the door rolled back into the wall.
‘Not bad, Casson,’ Harrtek said as he took in the room.
It was no palace, but the quarters were large enough for a few items of furniture, and a separate ablutorial off to the left. Casson had hung Harrtek’s trophy flag upon the wall, a patchwork of small cloth squares stitched together, each one taken from the banners of a Titan slain by his maniple. This was his custom before the skull rack was installed in Nuntio Dolores, and he preferred it. Food was laid out on the table. Some of it was even fresh; fruit and vegetables rested among the cubes of reconstituted nutrient and synth meat.
‘Not bad at all.’ Harrtek stepped into the room. He turned around, barring his servant’s way as he was about to follow.
‘Do you wish help changing, sir?’
The pressure of Harrtek’s headache pushed mercilessly at the back of his eyes. It was all he could do not to scream into Casson’s face.
‘I’ll call you if I need you,’ he said with enforced calm.
‘As you wish.’
Casson departed. Two of the augmentatii took sentry outside the door. The others turned smartly about and marched away without any form of acknowledgement. Harrtek rested his head against the cool metal of the station until the clang of their feet had receded into the distance. A servant bustled past. His questioning, sidelong glance gave Harrtek the energy to retreat fully into his new quarters.