by Guy Haley
‘I apologise for these inconveniences,’ said the magos, as dully as if the lumens in her quarters were inactive and he had no time to spare to fix them. ‘The human brain is among the greatest accomplishments of the Machine-God, a device given us so that we might improve upon it for his satisfaction and our enlightenment. But in order for us to comprehend the workings of the universe, our cognitive centre has to be large. This makes childbirth dangerous for human females. It always has been, and is still.’
‘Right,’ Esha said. ‘All hail the Machine-God in his wisdom.’ Worry made her more than a little blasphemous. The magos was too far past humanity to hear the irony in her voice, but carried on his relentless explanation.
‘It all serves a purpose, of course. It is a rite of passage. The pain will activate certain chemical processes within you that will bond you and make rearing the infant easier.’
‘I will love it,’ she said, ‘because it will hurt me?’ It sounded ridiculous. His explanation probably was, but she would love it, she knew. She felt it as surely as a star warms its planets and brings forth life from the sea. The Machine-God decreed it to be so.
‘A crude and imprecise way of encapsulating the marvels of neurochemistry,’ said the magos aloofly, ‘but if you prefer, then yes, you will.’ Before he left, while he was packing away his instruments back into the slots in his torso, he said, ‘If you wanted to be a mother, I really do not understand why you did not petition for cloning. Your combat record is exemplary. The Legio would have gladly acquiesced.’
Esha’s hand strayed to her swollen stomach protectively. ‘It just happened.’
‘Nothing ever just happens, Esha. The Machina Cosma does not work that way.’
This short conversation did not help much, and neither the other mothers nor the magos prepared her adequately for what actually occurred.
She never knew such pain. It was like no insult ever done to her body before, going beyond even the sympathetic agonies she experienced when her engine took a direct hit. All sense of deference to her superiors and those others who attended her was forgotten.
She swore a lot and cursed them all.
But when it was over, and she held the snuffling infant in her arms, she knew for a fact the magos was correct about something. She did love her child. Unconditionally.
She nuzzled the small damp head, enchanted by the smell, part her, part the baby’s father, but together a unique scent all of its own, as every human being is unique. Esha believed in the Machine-God absolutely, and was awed by his miracles, but never had she seen anything as miraculous as that child. They called the place she recovered in a convalescence chamber! As if there was something wrong, as if she had been ill.
Men had named the place. Men were blind.
But so were some women.
Jehani Jehan was late to come and visit her in the medicae facility. So late, Esha thought she would not come.
The day was over, the sun had just gone down, but there were windows high up in the room wall that were still rectangles of orange. Rhomboids slanted from them high onto the opposite wall. They were golden, warm. Jehani was by contrast cold. Her eyes glinted darkly in the shadows by the door. Esha smiled to see her friend, but something about Jehani’s manner put her on her guard. She hugged her child close. Instinct warned her. She was suddenly afraid of her friend.
‘It’s all finished then?’ said Jehani Jehan.
‘Here she is,’ Esha moved around in her bed to show off her precious bundle, but kept her close. She did not offer the infant up to be held, as she had done for all the other women who had visited. ‘She is to be called Abhani Lus Mohana.’ She looked down at Abhani proudly. ‘Granddaughter of the Great Mother herself.’
Jehani stayed by the door.
‘You can’t mean to keep her.’ Jehani’s attitude was hostile.
‘Why not?’ said Esha. ‘There was no gene-contract made between me and her father. There is no bargain to be honoured. She is a happy accident, and therefore she is a scion of Procon Vi and Legio Solaria alone.’
‘Is that so?’ said Jehani.
‘Why are you being this way?’ said Esha.
Her friend moved closer, and peered down at the sleeping child.
‘She’s the bastard of bastards,’ said Jehani coldly. She gestured at the curl of red hair on the baby’s crown, the pale skin. ‘She even looks like one of them. She’s not one of us.’
Esha was hot, and tired, her skin stretched with fluids and emotion. Her abdomen was slack, the muscles weakened, and her groin was a mess of stitching and fading pain. But in that moment she would have fought Jehani to the death if she threatened the child, and she would have won.
Jehani Jehan made no move, but stared with hatred at her child.
‘The Imperium of Man is not concerned with the appearance of its citizens, the Mechanicum even less so, Jehani. Why aren’t you happy for me? She is one of us.’
‘Is she? I watched her father burn fifty thousand innocent people for a point that did not need to be made.’
‘She is not her father.’
A little passion entered Jehani. ‘How do you know she will not grow to be like him? Evil like that is carried in the genes, my sister. Dispose of it. It is the right thing to do.’ She looked at Abhani like she was a thing.
‘I will do nothing to her,’ she said.
Jehani stood suddenly, and backed away in a display of shame and anger.
‘Then you have gained a daughter but lost a sister. I hope you think the price right.’ With those words she left, leaving their friendship discarded behind her.
‘One day, you will fight alongside this girl, and you will see that you were wrong, Jehani Jehan,’ Esha called after.
But her friend was gone out into the dark corridor.
Esha felt a stab of pain. It could not diminish how she felt for her daughter. There was no love like it.
Jehani Jehan simply could not compete.
Eighteen
Neuro-slaves
Morning brought new light and new hope. A human hand rocked Esha’s shoulder. In her dream she had left behind womanly form and become at one with her god-engine. The sensation of human fingers big enough to clasp an engine’s shoulder was a striking incongruity that had her come to wakefulness with a gasp.
Domine Ex Venari jerked with her rousing.
Yeha Yeha looked about, alarmed. Domine Ex Venari settled as Esha woke fully.
‘Incoming contacts, my princeps,’ Yeha Yeha said, speaking formally now they were unlinked. ‘Landing craft. They broadcast friendly identification signals. The Fasadians are here.’
Esha nodded her thanks and sat forward. The input jack dragged at her neck. Her mouth was foul and eyes sore. With shaking hands she unplugged herself and stood. The moderati seats were empty.
‘Where are the crew?’ she asked.
‘Resting, as you commanded.’
Esha nodded again. Yeha Yeha smiled at her. ‘This is a rough hunt. I brought you this.’ She handed Esha a steaming mug of sustenance broth. Esha sipped it gratefully. It tasted only marginally better than her mouth, but it warmed her. Stimulants lacing the broth stabilised her mind, and the tremors in her hands subsided.
‘Let’s go and see,’ she said.
They passed into the atrium behind the head. Mephani Ohana and Jephenir Jehan were curled up into one another on the floor. From the left gunnery control sounded the loud snoring of Fenina Bol.
‘Wake them,’ Esha told Yeha Yeha. The moderati primus set to the task with her customary gusto. Esha pulled up a cartolith onto the chart desk. Wireframes of the Legio decorated the plain black surface, the large Titans motionless. Flickering data tags described their activity status. Half were inactive, as she had ordered.
She pulled the view back. The Titans shrank until they would all fit in the pal
m of her hand. Tiny Warhounds stalked a wide perimeter. The limits of the fallen hive rose at the edge of the display, poorly represented by crudely stacked triangles. The sea was a mess of tiny geometric shapes that rose and fell. The tide had come in a long way in the night, inundating more of the hive ruins, and was now only a few miles from the Legio’s position.
At her command the view went further, the Titans dwindling to points of light that merged, until she had a high view that took in all the collapsed hive and the lower orbits. A fleet converged there, its escorts forming a loose screen around landing craft. A small force had broken away from the blockade bombarding Hansu Hive and was moving to intercept.
Behind her, the moderati were grumbling at being awoken. Yeha Yeha handed out more of the awful ration drink.
‘That’s not my mug,’ Ohana moaned. ‘That’s Jephenir’s.’
‘It’s the Legio’s mug,’ Yeha Yeha responded.
‘But it’s not my Legio mug,’ Ohana said.
Esha leaned in. She set her breakfast down on the desk. Part of the mug intruded onto the projection surface, upsetting the image.
‘This doesn’t look right,’ she said.
‘Princeps?’ said Yeha Yeha.
‘Look,’ she pointed at the arrowhead of ships coming in to attack the Fasadian reinforcements. ‘Does that look right to you?’
Yeha Yeha’s warm body pushed against hers as she bent down to scrutinise the cartolith.
‘It’s a small attack – maybe they can’t spare the ships from the Hansu blockade?’
‘They’re coming in at the wrong vector.’
Yeha Yeha shrugged. ‘I’m not a void specialist.’
‘Void war is not dissimilar to engine combat – you merely have to project it into three dimensions.’
‘Easy for you to say, my princeps,’ said Yeha Yeha. ‘You score far higher than me. That’s why you’re princeps and I’m a primus.’
‘Look at it,’ said Esha. ‘If you were going to attack a concentration of enemy engines with an inferior force, would you come in from that direction?’
‘No. It’d be suicide,’ said Yeha Yeha.
‘It’s the same with this. There aren’t enough ships. But what if you did not want to commit suicide? What if you had another aim with this manoeuvre? What would that aim be?’
Yeha Yeha frowned. ‘I’d come in at that position if I weren’t concerned with the obvious target but were aiming for something else.’ Yeha’s eyes moved across the display, coming to rest upon the agglomerated dots that represented the Legio.
‘Like us,’ Esha got up in a hurry. ‘Everyone, back to your stations.’
‘But I haven’t even used the ablutorial yet!’ Ohana said.
‘Back, now!’ Esha pulled a vox horn from the wall. ‘All Titans, engage reactors. Prepare for immediate attack!’ She didn’t wait for the confused replies to come through, but ran for the hatch to downdecks, shoving past her moderati as they raced for their seats. She yanked open the trapdoor, taking the furnace blast of the reactor full in the face. ‘Omega-6, reactor to full power immediately!’ she hollered. She slammed the hatch closed on his protests and went into the czella.
Domine Ex Venari’s reactor came online roughly, surges of badly moderated power causing instrument lumens to flare all around the cockpit. The moderati were shouting their way through their cross checks, the prayers of activation given barest acknowledgement. The snap of flicking switches rattled around the czella like dice in a cup. Esha rammed her feet into the emergency command stirrups, fumbling her restraint harness closed.
‘Esha, what is happening, is the attack coming?’ Durana Fahl voxed. ‘I have nothing on my scopes besides the Fasadians.’
‘The Fasadians are the attack!’ she shouted. She pushed the MIU interface spike home, her jaw clenching against the pain in her spinal column.
Domine Ex Venari woke badly. Its soul unfurled from hidden logic engines in uncoordinated spasms. Its arms twitched. Unbidden, the Reaver took a step forward.
‘Damn it! Damn it!’ Esha swore. The descent into unity was a series of precipitate drops rather than a smooth submersion. Her moderati were presences struggling for contact, the tendrils of their outreached souls reaching and failing to catch her.
She was still fighting Domine Ex Venari when the first lance strikes slammed out of the heavens, and obliterated Odercarium.
‘Warlords, return fire!’ she shouted into the vox. ‘The rest of you, move!’ Shells were screaming down from upper orbit, blasting craters into the wastes, sending hundred-metre-high spouts of water up from the ocean, and carving new holes into the carcass of Jinsu Hive.
Odercarium was a burning wreck. Half the Titans were in the same situation as Domine Ex Venari, their princeps battling through emergency activation to bring them to full operation. The Titans on watch were already running and therefore quicker to react; their void shields were going up. The twelve Warlords Esha had under her command were tilting upwards and firing, pacing back to find better lines of fire to their assailants. Light flashed high up somewhere beyond the atmosphere as their laser blasters and volcano cannons found one of the attacking ships.
A shell exploded on Virtue of War’s carapace, sending the Reaver reeling.
‘Get your void shields up!’ she shouted, though her own were still inactive. ‘Theatre command, this is Esha Ani Mohana. Redirect defence laser fire to low void zone, my sector. We are under orbital attack. The Fasadians have turned!’
She struggled to maintain her plea for aid and fight her Titan’s soul into submission.
‘Mephani, continue trying to raise them!’ Esha shouted. She screamed at feedback pain and hit the armrest of her throne. ‘Damn it, Domine!’
‘There is a wide cast denial broadcast emanating from both fleets. I am getting no response,’ Mephani Ohana said.
‘We’ll have to wait for command to notice. Concentrate on getting the shields up!’ Esha gasped. Her rest the night before had lessened her fatigue only minimally. The struggle with her engine quickly drained what small reserve of strength she had.
Domine Ex Venari, they are coming for us. Awake! She thought. She shut her eyes, closing out the shouts of her princeps and moderati by force of will. She saw again the molten soul of her engine, the being she parasitised, a swirling vortex of alloyed science and power.
Fight! she shouted at it. Fight!
The erratic noise of the reactor smoothed out. Domine Ex Venari peered into her being with a dumb animal’s mix of love and hate.
They joined.
Esha’s mind blended with the roaring heart of the Titan. Her senses expanded. Her reality shifted. She felt the raising of the void shields as three, distinct shudders across her back. The Titan moved out of time with her thoughts, disorienting her, but they rapidly synchronised. Her moderati’s minds touched the machine, and through it hers.
Domine Ex Venari was active.
‘Power all weapons!’ she ordered. ‘Demi-Legio split, maniple by maniple. Weapons free. Choose targets of opportunity. Keep moving.’
Her maniple came to her and she stepped out, moving forwards just in time. A column of light slammed into the ground where the Titan had been standing, evaporating salt and vitrifying sand. The sky blossomed with a string of explosions. A larger detonation erupted in the middle. The bombardment eased. Lines of fire arced down from a destroyed voidship. Her Warlords had struck back, but falling wreckage would soon add to their woes.
The shapes of drop-ships were growing in the sky, pale white as daytime moons. Rains of laser fire blasted down from their undersides to clear landing zones of hostiles. While the bombardment was ongoing, the drop-ships were left free as the Titans tilted backwards, straining their mechanisms to target the warships firing upon them. The combined fire output of a demi-Legio was considerable, and a genuine threat to void craft in orbi
t. Another voidship was hit multiple times and removed itself from the battle. It headed off, the gases pouring from its wounded sides clearly visible from the ground. Esha could not tell if it was dying or retreating under control. It didn’t matter. It was gone over the horizon and no longer her problem.
She allowed her weapons moderati to fire the guns without her direction. It was a strange sensation, like having someone else move her hands for her, but she ignored it. She had to concentrate on the tactical situation.
The warships attacking them were small, destroyers, a couple of cruisers. Their purpose was to distract her Titans from the drop-ships. But both were threats.
Come on, Vannes, she thought to herself. See what’s happening here. Fire on the enemy!
The drop-ships were spreading their formation. Rather than using the landing zone designated by the Legio Solaria, most were coming down in a wide ring, aiming to encircle the demi-Legio and destroy it. To scatter the engines, several ships were making a perilous run to the centre of their encampment. The Legio was in danger of being trapped.
Esha saw that they had been tricked. As she had suggested, the wrecked scout had been bait; they were supposed to see the attack coming. Esha could not let their plans succeed in the destruction of yet another loyal Titan Legio, opening the way to Hansu Hive’s vulnerable southern flank.
‘They are attempting to surround us. Maniples spread. Scatter. Unto the hunt!’
Domine Ex Venari’s war horns blared.Its sisters answered, their hooting songs defying the enemy’s attempts to destroy them.
The air vibrated with the descent of the drop-ships stirring vertical winds in the atmosphere. The pulsing of their grav motors bounced the ground like a drum skin. Gravel danced across the hardpan. The drop-ships went from pale grey to dark cream marred by metallic patches, their livery eroded by exposure to the void.
An enormous troop drop-ship with a disembarkation port fifty metres across and an angular flight deck elevated high over it neared the ground. Void shields flared as the Legio’s scattering Titans blasted at it. Stray shots pierced the aegis, adding black scarring to the craters pocking the hull. Fires took in the sides, but it flew undaunted. Enormous landing claws reached for the hardpan, splaying fingers as large as marshalling yards. They grasped the earth, claiming it for their own. Clustered pistons as thick through as a Warhound took the ship’s immense weight.