Titandeath

by Guy Haley

  Harr­tek keyed the door shut and hung his head.

  He rubbed his lank hair. The sensation soothed him until his fingers brushed against the input ports burrowed through the bone of his skull. Then the headache resurged, emanating in cold waves from his occiput. His nails caught on something around the port. A scab. He picked at it until a small, sharper pain overlaid the migraine.

  When he held his fingers up to his face, they were smeared with thin blood.

  ‘God of war, save me from peace,’ he murmured. He was drained mentally and physically. Controlling Nuntio Dolores was getting harder. The long bond between them should have made it easier as the machine-spirit moulded itself ever more to his imprint, and indeed it had once been so, but recently it felt as if the Titan was starting to fight him.

  ‘Peace,’ he said again. The quiet made his headache worse. His mouth was dry. The fruit tempted him.

  Abruptly, he tore at his uniform. His brass collar piece had to come off first. The whole thing was cast in one part and sealed to the uniform with bolts and strips of magnetic plastek. After a few seconds of angry yanking, he remembered himself, keyed the adhesion off, and fiddled with shaking hands at the release nuts until the cumbersome thing was free. The job of removal was difficult without aid, but the thought of anyone near him at that moment made him want to scream.

  He shook away an image of himself throttling the life from Casson.

  He lifted the command collar awkwardly over his head and dropped it carelessly onto the bed. His stomach lurched as it rebounded on the mattress and threatened to fall to the floor, but the piece of valuable technology wobbled to a halt at the edge. Status lumens around the collar blinked red. He stared at them until the redness bled out from the lights and stained the room a bloody shade. He screwed up his eyes. So soon after the battle and he needed to fight again. There was no outlet without war, nothing to vent his violence upon. He needed to kill, he needed to rend, he needed…

  ‘You need to calm down,’ he told himself. He took a deep breath, whispered silent mantras learned long ago to calm the spirit when joining with a Titan. They helped a little. He opened his eyes.

  Scribed around the collar’s edge were the sacred marks of the god of war – good luck, he had been told, especially for so martial an order as the Legio Vulpa, so he had accepted their engraving as he accepted so much else: without thought beyond a vicious amusement that it would offend the Emperor. Wondrous at first, the gods’ existence had become mundane. The galaxy was crammed with all manner of bizarre things. Gods did not seem out of place. The marks crawled in his vision. The Emperor is a liar they seemed to read, though in truth he did not understand what they said. That made him angrier still. The Legio had been outraged by the so-called Master of Mankind’s duplicity, his lies about the nature of the warp and the existence of the creatures within. They had added their banners to the Warmaster’s cause as soon as the truth was revealed to them by Vorrjuk Kraal.

  Fierce martial pride rose in his chest, and a nervous energy suffused him, urging him to act immediately. He paced, stopped, started pacing again. From afar he thought he heard the sounding of brazen horns calling him to battle.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Rest.’

  He tore at his uniform again, tugging it from himself and strewing the heavy plasticised fabric across the floor, then the fatigues underneath, until he stood naked and affronted by his own stink.

  The reek had him pulling a face. A rich and meaty war sweat. Somehow the animal nature of his own body brought him back down to earth. He stooped. He was suddenly very tired.

  He regretted leaving the connection with the Titan; at least there his own anger was lost within its greater fury. He should have stayed within. As Nuntio Dolores he was strong. As a man he was weak. He could request permanent bonding via tank or cyberlinkage, but the thought filled him with irrational fear. As much as he wanted to creep back into his bond with Nuntio Dolores, he was glad to be out of it for a while.

  Calm, he thought. Calm. He took another deep, shuddering breath that felt dangerously close to a sob. He was conflicted. He was not yet so fatigued by the war that he was blind to the contradictory nature of his emotions, but he was close. Constant fighting would wear him away, layer by layer, until there was only the need to fight left. He could see it coming.

  ‘Combat stimm withdrawal,’ he told himself. The sticky mouth, the gritty eyes, the headache and the mild hallucinations were all symptoms. He took the drugs as a matter of course. There was no time to rest. They helped.

  He stepped into the ablutorial. There was a shower head mounted directly over the waste throne. He slammed his hand against the water release button with unnecessary force. A warm gush of rust-tainted water sprayed over his head. It smelled of metal, and tasted of blood. Nevertheless, the eighty seconds of water flow his status allowed was sublime, and though the headache did not recede, some degree of his tension flowed away with the oil and sweat.

  He had seen her again, after all this time. He had expected thinking of Esha would make him angrier still, but instead he felt a numb sadness. There was a time once when they were friends, nearly something more.

  That was long ago, and a decade of war and hatred now lay between them.

  Terent Harrtek, Princeps majoris Nuntio Dolores

  Ten

  Two Legios

  ‘There is a Legio that is composed entirely of women. Can you imagine such a thing?’

  That was the first Terent Harr­tek had heard of the Legio Solaria. It had been Averna who told him, a princeps he respected well past the moment he had to kill her. Her loss was a shame, for she was an able warrior and a good friend, but she would not renounce her vows to the Emperor, and so she and her Titan had died under Nuntio Dolores’ guns.

  All that had come later.

  Fate had its sense of humour. Before Averna mentioned the Legio Solaria, Harr­tek knew next to nothing of them. Not long after Averna had said those words, an emissary mission of the Legio Solaria arrived at Legio Vulpa’s field fortress on the newly compliant Barcan’s World.

  The emissary was a woman, of course.

  Within hours of her arrival, Harr­tek learned the two Legios were to fight alongside each other. Although they were enjoined to fight together by the primarch Ferrus Manus, bringing two Legios to walk side by side was not so simple as ordering it to be so. Inter-Legio alliance necessitated negotiations of the most complex sort. There were days of quibbling. Everything from orders of precedence in parade, seniority of command in mixed battlegroups, priority of supply, and hierarchies in intermingled techno-clades were up for negotiation. There was a pecking order in the Collegia Titanica. Militaris Grade mattered less than an order’s date of patent; older generally trumped bigger. But the relative numbers of god-machines and the size and power of a Legio’s warden domains were important too. Like every­thing the Martians did, the relative rank of one Legio in regard to another was mind-numbingly complex, and despite the application of numerous algorithms, or maybe because of their opaqueness, so much of it was subjective. The princeps of a god-engine valued pride over all other vices, and it forced him to trumpet his own virtues loudly.

  The princeps could not get involved themselves if oil and blood were not to be shed. Matters of cooperation were arranged by the tech-priests of the Legios, usually with an intermediary drawn from a third-party forge world. Unfortunately, technis hierarchy was squared in complexity when two forge worlds dealt with one another, and multiplied to the power of all egos involved where there were three. Talks were conducted in furiously paced binharic behind closed doors.

  As in all matters, the Mechanicum was jealous of its secrets. The tech-priests assiduously projected an air of unity for fear of revealing their internal fractions to the overlords of Terra. Nowhere was this compact of unity more important than when presenting their mightiest assets of war to outsiders. It was an unspoken
rule, adhered to by all factions whether avowed worshippers of the Emperor as Omnissiah or deeply sceptical of the same: the Legios had to appear unified, and ready to march to Mars’ command.

  This was what the Martians euphemistically called ‘informational rerouting around non-definable factual parameters’. Or a lie, as more prosaic beings would name it.

  Therefore, very few people outside of the Mechanicum priesthood were permitted to see any of the ruthless horse trading that underpinned Legio alliances, and that included the Titan crews.

  For the princeps and moderati, who were closer to humanity than the priests were, there was a feast. The princeps were foremost a martial order, so tales of victory and notable escapades were exchanged, delivered in the usual mode by specially modified cyber-bards.

  Esha Ani Mohana had been in the delegation, and it was during the Moment of Exchange before the feast that Terent Harr­tek first met her. Harr­tek spotted her as soon as she walked in. She stood out among the thirty-strong cadre of Solaria princeps like a candle in the dark. She had the bearing of an apex predator, lean and graceful, her killing power hidden by a languidness that he knew, as a killer himself, could be cast aside in the blink of an eye. Her smiles flashed fangs. Death could come unexpectedly from a woman like that. She intrigued him. He was attracted to her immediately.

  During the Moment of Exchange, all present were permitted to speak with whomever they chose while the tech-lords of the Legio cults publicly read their opening positions to each other. Closed negotiations would commence soon after. For the priesthood it was a guard against disingenuity, while the accompanying social ritual was supposed to help bring the two Legios together.

  To begin with there was an uneasy detente. The Death Stalkers watched their guests suspiciously. The Imperial Hunters provoked them with secret smiles.

  Harr­tek was the boldest. He broke the silence, and marched up to Esha Ani Mohana.

  ‘You are Esha Ani Mohana,’ he stated. He saluted her with a full aquila, hands splayed across his chest. Her returning smile was condescending. She forwent the salute and clicked her heels instead.

  ‘I am. Princeps of Bestia Est,’ she said.

  ‘The Beast Is,’ said Terent Harr­tek, translating the High Gothic into the common speech. ‘You are no beast. You look like a huntress.’

  ‘That is because I am,’ she said with a confident smile. ‘We all are, of course.’ Her smile took on elements of flirtation, and mockery. ‘We are the Imperial Hunters.’

  The women with her laughed.

  ‘What is the class of your Titan?’ he said.

  Her forehead wrinkled between raised eyebrows. ‘This is fine introduction,’ she said. ‘I heard the lords of your Legio never learn the identities of their moderati, but I thought a princeps might offer his name in greeting to another commander.’

  Harr­tek tensed. The situation was not proceeding as he had planned. Legio Vulpa was a forthright order: assess the target, advance and destroy. Esha slipped aside from the first volley of conversation like gun smoke on a breeze. He was gladdened when others approached their opposite numbers, and began making their own introductions. Some princeps pledged vows of support to their would-be allies, others simply bragged about their prowess. Soon the room was abuzz with human and machine speech, covering Harr­tek’s discomfiture.

  ‘I apologise,’ he said, the words coming hard to him. ‘I am Terent Harr­tek, princeps of Nuntio Dolores.’

  ‘The Herald of Sorrow.’ She flashed another wounding smile. ‘Do you live up to your Titan’s name?’

  His own expression set hard. ‘So my enemies say, in the moments before their deaths.’

  ‘How impressive.’ She looked about herself, amused at the display around her. The Hunters were more at ease than their hosts, but tentative friendships were budding. The line of green and dark-red uniforms was beginning to mingle, two sets of particles mixed by inevitable social physics. ‘Like this hall. It is beautiful, if a little brutal in design. Each to their own, I suppose.’

  ‘This is only a field base,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘It is mightier than our order’s base fortress. But then, we are swift runners, we live on the wind.’ She smiled again. He was not entirely sure she was joking. ‘You are a fearsome order, so I hear.’ She smiled. ‘So then, is it true?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What I heard, that you do not learn your crews’ names?’

  He nodded.

  ‘It is true. Crewing a Titan requires men of honour. Bravery, loyalty, decisiveness, these are the skills our Legio demands of every member of its Titan crews. We princeps are more than those we command. We are the minds of the god-engines. The moderati are components in the engine. They are beneath us.’

  ‘You speak of them like they are servitors.’

  ‘Servitors have no will of their own. Our moderati understand our code – they are part of it. From their ranks we raise new princeps. They fight harder to be granted their own command. The day they cast off their mask and are accepted into our ranks is one of great honour.’

  ‘You were a moderati once?’

  ‘I was. Every princeps was. Were you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ he echoed. ‘Then answer this,’ he said. ‘When you were a moderati, did you seek to impose your view upon the princeps? Did you question his orders? Did you act of your own accord?’

  ‘Her orders,’ corrected Esha.

  ‘Hers. His. It doesn’t matter.’ He shrugged. ‘Only resolve matters. Affection does not matter. Personal ties are an encumbrance. I do not make friends with my pistol. To be a moderati is to be a part of a god-machine, but to be a princeps is to be one. The chance for command is enough of an honour for any man. They need no more.’

  ‘An interesting perspective,’ she said. ‘What of the mind impulse unit? When you link with your engines, do you not touch minds?’

  ‘That is the nature of the mechanism,’ he said, allowing himself a little of his own condescension.

  ‘Then you must know something of your crew.’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ he said. ‘We undergo rigorous training to banish all extraneous thought. Only mental activity pertaining to the successful prosecution of war is permitted. You experience the machine trance?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not like we do,’ he said. ‘Our mental techniques purify it. We excel at union. When our minds mingle over the interface we achieve a greater unity with our Titans than other Legios. If we did not, then every personal feeling, all the envies and passions and the doubts men feel would poison the blessedness of psycho-mechanical congregation, and the machine would suffer. The mission would suffer. With our humanity separated, we are free to abandon the weakness of the flesh. We embrace the full fury of the god-engines, and wreak the destruction that must be done without either doubt or regret.’ He was speaking as fervently as one of the Legio tech-priests. She laughed at him for it, and his hackles rose.

  ‘You take this all too lightly, madam. By banishing humanity we are one with the machine. Can you say the same?’

  ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘I am insulting your honour, and I do not mean to. It is just that your way is so different to ours. Actually, our methods are completely opposed.’ She plucked a glass of sparkling wine from a server’s plate and sipped it. ‘We all know each other deeply. We hold nothing back. We share everything. That way, there are no difficulties in achieving a deep mind blend. We cannot surprise each other because we know all there is to know about one another. We know how we will react, and all our strengths and weaknesses. We live together and hunt together. Our bonds lessen the pain of withdrawal from the machine when we are not at war.’

  ‘I hear you lie with each other,’ he scoffed.

  ‘We do,’ she said, and glanced at him. ‘A human body has its needs. Like I said, we share ever
ything.’

  Harr­tek noted how smoothly the Imperial Hunters moved. They slid between the stolid Death Stalkers as water slides through reeds. If their Titans moved as easily as the women, perhaps their way of battle had something to recommend it. His own sense of superiority prevented him from saying so.

  ‘Do you not indulge the flesh?’ she asked. ‘We are as we are because the Machine-God decreed it. The mechanisms of bodily pleasure are his gift.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Harr­tek admitted. He felt ashamed. He had that yearning. He felt it for her, right then. ‘It is a weakness I do my best to control. It interferes with the state of perfect union.’

  ‘It is not a weakness,’ said Esha. ‘Nor is it a right or an obligation as others maintain, but it is an opportunity. You feel shame for no reason. No permanent attachments are allowed, of course,’ she went on, either oblivious to his rising passion or deliberately snubbing it. ‘That would bring complications, but we believe all of human nature must be embraced if the machine is to have balance.’ She looked at him. ‘Your Legio has a reputation for cruelty. We do not. Perhaps your methodology separates you too much from mankind.’

  ‘Yours has a reputation for cravenness,’ he said back.

  He was disappointed when she did not take offence. ‘It might look that way, but our tactics are sound. Our engine loss to victory ratio is better than all but three other Legios.’ She stared at him provocatively, and repeated herself for emphasis. ‘Only three other of all the orders of the Collegia Titanica can claim to lose fewer god-engines per battle than we do. We strike, we fall back, we bleed the enemy’s strength. When the time is right, we deliver the deathblow. Your order walks forwards, levelling everything that is found in front of it. It is simplistic. Some might say you are too much in thrall to the machine-spirits of your Titans.’