by Guy Haley
Harrtek turned his face out of the light. His migraine built. He abandoned his attempts at moderation, grabbed up his drink and downed it in one. It helped a little.
‘Legio Solaria bitches,’ he gasped. ‘One bore me a child. She gave it to the damn priesthood, practically laughed in my face about it. He would have been a fierce warrior, I am sure, had he been born into this Legio. Now what is he? A servitor? At best a mumbling, obsessive caster of nuts and bolts, drawing patterns in oil to guess at the ailments of machines.’
He glanced at the cowled figure hovering in the corner.
‘No offence,’ he said insincerely.
‘Do you know why we wear black?’ asked the priest.
‘I genuinely do not care,’ said Harrtek. ‘Get out.’
‘We wear black to forget Mars,’ said the priest, making no move towards the door. ‘Your assessment is correct. The old Mechanicum are obsessed with meaningless ritual. They are cowards. They are too scared to uncover the truth. Black is the colour of the void. It is the colour of eternity. It is the colour of the ignorance we wish to abolish with the light of knowledge.’
‘Why not wear white then, if you’re so illuminated?’ said Harrtek sarcastically.
‘We will, when our task is done and all is known, and not one scrap of knowledge lies beyond the grasp of the New Mechanicum. You are correct to be disdainful of the so-called Adeptus Mechanicus, these colleagues of mine who have abandoned all claim to independence. The Emperor would deny us the full measure of the Machine-God’s knowledge. Now we are free to take it. The last doubts have been removed. But until the time that all is known, we will wear black as a reminder that darkness enwraps the minds of men. By our efforts, out of ignorance shall rise bliss. I am here to ask you to join me on this quest. I know, I know,’ he held up his silver hands in a display of modesty, ‘it is quite the opportunity.’
Harrtek laughed. ‘What a fine pitch, my friend.’ He picked up the bottle. The neck rattled against the glass as he poured. ‘But I’m not buying. I have heard better from street hawkers. If that kind of thing worked on me, this room would be full of gewgaws and silk scarves from a hundred worlds.’ He looked around pointedly. ‘As you can see, it does not work on me. Now get out of here – your damn grav impeller is making my headache worse.’
The magos’ augmetics made a disturbing growling sound. The movement of his robes calmed, and he sank closer to the floor, though still he did not touch it, and he did not leave.
‘Are your aural sensors in bad function?’ said Harrtek sarcastically. ‘Out!’
‘I assure you my hearing is far superior to yours. Allow me to tell you a story.’
‘Marvellous,’ barked Harrtek. His feet slammed into the floor and he stood unsteadily. He forced himself to appear more sober than he felt, and moved on the priest. ‘If you’re not going to hover out, I’ll push you out, and don’t give me admonishments of blasphemy. I’m a loyal disciple of the triple god, but I’m more drunk now than I am devout.’
Harrtek reached for the priest. His hand got no closer than a decimetre before his entire body locked up. His implants burned, and a buzzing pain gripped his nerves, sending his muscles into spasm lock. His teeth clacked loudly as his jaw snapped shut.
‘I am going to tell you a story,’ said the priest, ‘and you are going to listen. When I have finished, you will be intrigued enough to hear me out. Once you have heard me out, you will agree to my request, I promise you. I will assume your agreement, seeing as you cannot currently speak.’
Harrtek made a strangled noise that was most definitely not of agreement. The priest ignored him.
‘There are many of my people who still cling to their oaths to the Emperor. They are misguided. The Emperor is not the Omnissiah, the Machine-God made flesh, but a trickster of the gravest sort whose actions go against all we of Mars have fought for since the Age of Technology came to a close in fire and death. We are the disciples of knowledge, and the Emperor has the gall to come to our world, to conquer us in all but name, and lay down the lore on what is forbidden and what is not. The Crimson Accords are nothing but chains. Now we of the New Mechanicum are free of them, we have learned many secrets He would have denied us.
‘I think an introduction is in order now, yes? My name is Ardim Protos. I am fortunate to count myself the first of the followers of Sota Nul, emissary of the New Mechanicum to the Warmaster, and representative of the Fabricator General Kelbor-Hal. I find myself humbled by the honours given me, for she has seen fit to make me a member of her synod.’ He chuckled self-deprecatingly. ‘I work hard to prove her faith in me just.
‘Our denomination of the Cult Mechanicus is concerned with the power of the empyrean. You know a little of this, I think. Apostle Vorrjuk Kraal has done a fine job in spreading the truth of the universe to your Legio,’ he said, referring to the Word Bearer attached to the Legio Vulpa as spiritual adviser. ‘He preaches the creed of the old gods to you, and I note that your warrior cadres have taken to honouring the one known as Khorne, the god of war. This is probably wise – it is best not to upset them,’ said Ardim Protos. ‘What Lorgar’s fanatics have not seen is that these gods are nothing compared to the power and the majesty of the Machine-God. Already, members of our growing cult are using the grace of the Omnissiah – the true Omnissiah, not Terra’s false prophet – to harness the might of the warp. Geller fields, warp missiles, void shields, all these things you are familiar with. But their underlying principles can be turned to so much more. Through novel exploitations of these technologies we will gain mastery first over the energies of the empyrean, then over the lesser entities, until finally the very gods themselves will bend the knee and recognise the supremacy of the Machine-God, though I say that to you in confidence. One wouldn’t wish them to find out.’
He laughed drily. ‘He, unlike they, is master of both realities, materium and immaterium, for the rule of his lores holds sway in both. Veritably, we of the New Mechanicum are fortunate, liberated from a false god to witness the truth of reality.
‘What I am here to offer you is a place in this. There are other beings who inhabit the oceans of the empyrean. They can be caught, and bound into machineries in the mortal realm. Do you understand me? Grunt once for yes, twice for no.’
Harrtek grunted once. Saliva that had gathered in his mouth flooded down his chin.
‘Good. My intention is to create the greatest engine of war ever seen.’ He held up one mechanical hand, palm up. ‘A Warlord Titan.’ He held up the other. ‘The soul of a greater warp entity.’ He brought them together with a metallic clap. ‘Together, an engine of furious destruction. With its machine-spirit replaced by the essence of a being of the warp, the god-machine will function with greater efficiency and respond with greater alacrity. You do not know me, Princeps Majoris Terent Harrtek, but I know you. You have been chosen as a fine candidate for this process. Imagine, if you will, fusion not with the near-living mind of a Titan, but touching the soul of a demigod with your own.’ He leaned closer. ‘Tempting, yes? I will release you now.’
A loud snap emanated from the adept’s robes, and the pain holding Harrtek in place went out. Harrtek dropped to his hands and knees on the floor and vomited loudly.
‘How disappointingly biological.’ Protos floated backwards away from Harrtek as he heaved liquid upon the floor.
‘This is madness,’ said Harrtek. He got up shakily, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his uniform. ‘I have seen these things in action. They are deadly xenos, uncontrollable.’
‘They are not xenos as you would understand it,’ said Protos. ‘But they are dangerous, if handled incorrectly. What I offer to you is not without precedent. It was done, once, on Astagar. It can work.’
The name was familiar to Harrtek. ‘One of the Ultramaran worlds?’
‘Quite so. A single Titan given a true soul, the result of sor
cery and prayer. Alas, the work was undertaken by the Seventeenth Legion alone, not supported by a magos of the arts like myself. The machine was unstable, and ultimately defeated by the Thirteenth Legion Astartes.’
‘Then why do it?’
‘Because, though flawed, the engine of Astagar was a glorious thing,’ said Protos. ‘It showed us the possibilities. We have refined the science. Our way is better. Stable. Permanent. Sota Nul herself perfected the process. She really is quite inspiring. She did the final experiments on herself.’
‘If that is true, she is insane.’
‘She is powerful. She is anointed.’
‘Madness,’ said Harrtek. ‘The beings of the warp are abominations.’
‘You follow this religion yourself, you realise,’ said Protos.
‘There are limits to devotion,’ said Harrtek. ‘My first master is the Machine-God.’
‘And the god of war?’
‘A useful ally, nothing more,’ said Harrtek.
‘Then you say no to my proposal?’
‘The problem with you priests is that you never take a hint. I say no. Get out.’
‘A pity. You can become more than a man. I offer you godhood. I offer you freedom from these difficulties you are experiencing.’ He gestured at Harrtek’s head, his shaking hands. ‘You are ill, yes? Your order seeks close bonds with their god-engines, and that is a laudable goal, but the MIU was never intended to bring man and machine into perfect union. You push the limits of its capabilities, and of yourself. These pains, the sickness, the headaches, the palsy… I can take these away. I can give you what every princeps of the Legio Vulpa has sought since its patent was granted. I can bring you into full union with god, forever.’
‘There is a light year’s distance between becoming a god-machine for a while, and losing yourself in it forever.’
A wrinkled, human face emerged from the darkness of Protos’ cowl. It was so old it had come full circle and once again looked like that of an infant: toothless, pink and smooth. The gleam of malicious intelligence in Protos’ eyes was sinister as he looked pointedly at Harrtek’s dishevelment, and the puddle on the floor.
‘I suppose there is,’ he said archly. ‘What a shame it would be to leave all this behind.’
‘I will not do it, said Harrtek.
‘You will come around. Your sickness will only get worse. You should be happy, Terent Harrtek. You suffer because you come closer to your Legio’s goal than most, but what we truly desire is rarely what it best for us, and it will kill you, in the end. Your Titan is fighting you, yes? It will get worse. There will come a moment when you will lose control.’
‘Get out!’ shouted Harrtek.
‘There is a surprise we have engineered for any who might turn the Iridium toehold into an advantage. Once you have seen what we are capable of, you will desire the change.’
‘I said get out,’ he said. Harrtek put his hand upon the butt of his laspistol. ‘Now.’
‘You have no conception yet of what I am offering you.’ Protos gave him a knowing look. ‘Ah well. I’ll be seeing you.’ The grav motor puttered to a higher pitch. He lifted up from the floor, and floated out of the door.
Eyes screwed up against the meagre light, Harrtek slapped blindly at the door panel until the door closed, rested his back against it and sank to the floor. He stayed there for an hour before calling Casson to clear his stinking vomit away.
Part Two
Beta-Garmon III
Fourteen
Broken Hive
Grey fog swirled around Cursor Ferro’s armoured eyes as it hunted for the lost Titan. Owing to its role as a scout, a Warhound had big windows where its larger kin had only tiny ports or lacked viewing apertures altogether. The oculi did not help in the murk. Large droplets undulated past the thick armourglass, dipping and swimming like a shoal of living things. Dark shapes came and went. With human vision, it was impossible to say if they were solid objects or thicker patches of vapour turning back upon themselves to create the illusion of form. Jehani Jehan heard the restless sea, and felt the drag of water upon Cursor Ferro’s feet as the swell washed over them, but her eyes saw nothing through the grey.
Jehani Jehan relied upon her Warhound’s systems. Cursor Ferro’s senses extended far beyond the limitations of flesh. Infrared penetrated the fog perfectly well. A pair of illuminators set into the muzzle of the scout shone invisible light for the machine’s broad-spectrum augurs. The grainy view on the forward vid screen was the same as the one fed directly into Jehani Jehan’s mind: a grim coastline of broken, metal cliffs topped with deadly badlands of razored scrap impossible for god-engines to traverse. Sluggish waves pounded on the metal, calling forth mournful booms from newly made sea caves. None of this had existed a few months ago. It was a vista born of destruction, the remains of Jinsu Hive toppled into the Chymist’s Sea.
The Warhound skirted reefs of rockcrete and plasteel. Its feet stamped three-toed pools into the sand. Waves rushed in to smooth them out, collapsing the sides, wiping away the Titan’s spoor. The bigger waves rushed around its greaves, reaching up foaming arms that collapsed into spume before they touched the waist. Splashes from the highest spattered against the Warhound’s viewports. Sensitive monitoring instruments warned of the ocean’s high alkalinity, and the dangerous build-up of corrosive salts upon the Titan’s casing. The fog, too, was caustic.
‘Visibility four metres,’ said steersman moderati Natandi Fahl. ‘I recommend a reduction in speed.’
‘Denied,’ said Jehani. ‘Keep up the pace. The tide is coming in. There’s not much time for us to investigate the signal.’
‘As you command, princeps,’ said Natandi Fahl.
Jehani’s mind was half-in, half-out of the Warhound’s world. She let her soul take respite in her flesh, away from the burdens of controlling the machine. Cursor Ferro was content to run. The rhythm of its stride and the sway of the head as it swept back and forth rocked Jehani pleasantly. Calm reigned. Though she remained at the edge of full manifold link, Jehani touched the minds of her moderati. She felt it as Ophira Mendev in left gunnery control stifled a yawn. The edge had gone from her vigilance.
Jehani supposed she should bring her crew back into deeper cohesion, but she let them relax. Since arriving on Beta-Garmon III there had been no rest. Every day saw another battle. Nobody on either side seemed to have a grasp on strategy. Traitor formations came in at random, all types. But they were relentless. Whether intentionally or not, their attacks were wearing down the Legio.
The transponder pulsed on the edge of her awareness. Not far now. The electronic signature song of a missing Legio Defensor Titan.
She regretted the approaching conclusion to the mission. She enjoyed the distance from Esha far more than freedom from battle. The years of their friendship were so far back in the past. What memories she had of it became more shrivelled and grotesque as time passed, like a mummifying corpse. Esha should have released her to another maniple – it is what she would have done – but Esha was stubborn as well as condescending, and would not let her go.
Two decades later, she was still clinging on.
There was no fighting around Jinsu Hive any more. It had been burning when Legio Solaria made planetfall. Temperatures were so high the metal itself was ablaze, the tech-priests said. The eight-thousand metre height of the hive acted like a giant chimney, funnelling fire through its guts with the efficacy of a blast furnace. For two weeks it had burned on the horizon like a giant sacrificial bonfire, hiding the sun with toxic gases, until it had collapsed in the dead of night. The spires of the uppermost levels crashed down into the midhive; the midhive compacted into the underhive. High towers toppled into the sea in a new promontory laid out like a sleeping giant’s corpse.
Three hundred million people had died there. Jehani Jehan could hardly imagine what that many peop
le would look like. She had tried conjuring graphical representations through Cursor Ferro’s cogitators. Even they, with clearly marked comparators, could not convey the scale of the loss of life, and Jinsu was just one hive on one world. The death toll was unremarkable in the Garmon Cluster. Innumerable people had died, billions on Beta-Garmon II alone. There were adepts at the camp whose role it was to record these things. They struggled. Outside the adepta, in the rank and file, a name had arisen for this stupendous cull of humanity. It was simple, direct, apt enough to cross the boundaries between the various military organisations and the ranks within.
They were calling it the Great Slaughter.
Jehani Jehan shuddered at the name. The glory days of the crusade seemed so long ago. Her experiences in the conquest of recalcitrant human civilisations and the extermination of alien life were rendered irrelevant in the moment of the Warmaster’s betrayal. No one could prepare for this kind of war. Total, all devouring, merciless. Preservation of life and infrastructure went by the wayside. She had heard some Imperial commanders were bombing their own cities, killing thousands to destroy a handful of enemies. The Garmon Cluster was sinking into blood madness. Legio of both sides operated without restraint. The devastation they caused was horrifying. She had been proud of her god-engine. Now she feared it a little. Arrogant by nature, Jehani Jehan found new character traits soon after her first engagement with another Legio. She had discovered caution.
She slipped deeper into Cursor Ferro’s mind. The Legio Defensor identification signal called to her. Bodily fatigue receded. She was lifted up by Cursor Ferro’s uncomplaining strength, but even so she needed to disconnect soon. She needed sleep. Her head throbbed and she felt sluggish. Her response times were way down, her thoughts thick and syrupy.
She concentrated, forcing herself to think. Readings could be falsified. It would not be the first time a friendly signum had been used as a lure in an ambush, but it had to be inspected.