Cyclae’s overlays highlighted damaged plating as he moved inside. The ravaged decking gave off an odd vibration that he felt more than heard. He crouched to collect a piece of debris from the ground: a tooth from a shattered Reaper chainsword. A nearby area of malfunctioning gravity served for a test: he tossed the fragment in. It hit with aberrant force, kicking up a cloud of dust. In his optical overlays that arc was mapped out and compared to what it would have been under standard gravity. The force within was more than twenty times as strong. With the aid of his augmetic senses he picked a path and carefully worked his way forward.
Soon the great rift opened up before him, allowing a glimpse into ravaged decks and shattered conduits below. It was just over fifty feet across at its narrowest point, according to his analysis. Yet duty beckoned. He set off at a sprint. Power flooded his alloy legs and they churned at inhuman speeds. In a cogitator’s cycle he was at the edge and leapt. The gap yawned beneath him, a fall so deep that his systems would suffer irreparable damage.
He hit the other side with terrific force, inches from a descent into the dark. Yet his momentum was carrying him forward, right towards a patch of damaged grav-plating. Thinking fast, he fired the stabiliser spikes built into his legs. The left punched down into the decking, but a red rune flashed in his vision as the other failed to engage. He spun against his insufficient anchor before the momentum ripped him loose and he tumbled on.
He bled what speed he could with scraping hands and feet. It wasn’t enough. He stopped just over where the damage began and his arm slammed down with terrific weight behind it. Warnings flashed in his vision as he gritted his teeth and pulled with his other arm. Slowly the trapped limb was dragged loose from the crushing gravity. His armour was cracked, and the fingers twitched spasmodically.
The servo-skull followed, effortlessly hovering across the gap. ‘You could have been destroyed with that manoeuvre.’
‘It is the privilege of cogs to be ground down that the machine may run, magos,’ he streamed back, examining the damage. His heart pounded. High levels of adrenaline, his implants reported.
The skull floated up to him, the tools within its undercarriage engaged, fixing what it could. The spasms ceased. ‘Caution, skitarius. I have no spare parts available. You are not permitted to destroy yourself until our mission is through.’
Cyclae made the symbol of the cog with his interlaced knuckles. ‘In the name of the Omnissiah, magos. My apologies.’ He stood and they worked their way to the other side of the bay. Another override got them through the sealed door there. As the hatch ground shut behind them, he surveyed their new surroundings. This area seemed familiar. He had been here before. He started to stride off, confident of their route, but the skull stopped him with a click. ‘Not that way.’
He hesitated. ‘This leads to the mag-rail terminus.’
‘The rail took a direct hit and is inoperable. There is a maintenance crawlway that will take us to the deck we need.’
‘Lead the way, magos.’ Down several winding side corridors, they found the hatch. It creaked open to reveal a ladder that descended into darkness. The light from his helmet illuminated scratches and scrapes to either side, as if something had been hurled down the shaft and desperately tried to stop its headlong tumble. He paused. Questioning the Priesthood was not permitted, but he was allowed a certain tactical discretion. ‘You are certain this is the optimal path?’
‘It is not a safe passage – there are none. It is your best chance at being useful, however.’
Cyclae swung onto the ladder and began the climb down. His temperature sensors reported rising heat the deeper he went. The ladder seemed to go on forever, and he wasn’t sure how long he’d been climbing. His inbuilt chronometer just fed him the same senseless data. His damaged arm was still malfunctioning, freezing up occasionally. ‘How far down is the access point we need?’
‘Having trouble with the climb?’ Cyclae could have sworn that flat voice held a note of some emotion. Condescension, maybe. ‘Perhaps it will serve as a reminder to proceed cautiously.’
The question remained. ‘How far?’
‘Not far. Another hundred and eighteen feet.’
He counted the rungs from there. Five. Ten. Thirty rungs. Sixty. One hundred. One hundred and– ‘Here.’ He turned his head to look to where the skull hovered. This aperture was partly open, allowing a glimpse of a shadowed hall beyond. He reached out and gripped the hatch with his unscathed arm, bracing his feet and heaving. For a moment it wouldn’t budge, before giving way with a grinding screech.
The sound echoed up the shaft in both directions and down the hallway as well. There were lights in this section, dull red emergency strips that painted everything in a bloody glow. ‘So much for subtlety. Still, you should deactivate your light for now and prepare your weapons.’ The magos’ tone was exceedingly dry.
Cyclae did as instructed and proceeded down the hallway. ‘There are threats?’
It stank down here. It always had on the engineering decks, his scattered memories told him that much: mildew and hot metal. This was worse. The rancid stench of spoiled meat and sickness. Some found it strange that the skitarii were left with something so human as an olfactory system, but it made sense once you understood that scent was data. Data was everything.
The hallway opened out into a great chamber, lined with immense machines of unknown purpose. ‘Yes.’ The servo-skull’s broadcast dropped to a whisper. Something was stirring in the shadows of the monoliths. Cyclae slipped back into the cover of another of the great machines to observe. It uncoiled, a serpentine shape slithering out into view, a centipede of rusted metal and pallid, suppurating flesh. A torso mounting the end reared up to twice Cyclae’s height, vaguely humanoid. Questing optical tendrils protruded from ravaged sockets, lenses gleaming in scarlet light. ‘The crew.’
The Alpha Primus’ sensors picked out body parts from at least a dozen people incorporated into the structure. Fragmentary memories stirred at the sight, files from long ago, of fighting on a Mechanicus world fallen into darkness. Monstrosity birthed of madness. He must have triumphed then to be here now. His cortical implants collated data and projected a seventy-one per cent chance of victory in the coming battle, with the right terrain. An acceptable projection, if far from ideal; he would prefer a plasma caliver for this fight. Not to mention a full repair and a squad of the faithful similarly armed, as long as he was imploring the Omnissiah for what could not be.
He took slow steps back, thinking to retreat to the hallway, where the bulk of the creature would impair it. Then his foot came down with a distinct crunch. Old bones lay unseen in the dark. The sound brought a tendril round to stare at him with a malefic blankness. Cyclae didn’t hesitate. He sprinted for the tunnel, but the creature was moving now too. It was fast, faster than he had thought possible, the charge heralded only by the chittering of many clawed feet. It was a moment’s calculation to realise it would catch him before he got there. The projections dropped sharply to fifty-two per cent. Whipping blade-tipped mechadendrites unfurled from the creature’s metal carapace. There wasn’t much time, just enough to raise his pistol and fire a single shot.
The phosphor struck home, burning into the thing’s side in a blaze of brilliant white that banished the gloom of the chamber. The searing mass eating at the construct drew a hissing screech, like a broken steam valve. Yet it came blundering on through the pain. Cyclae braced to try to absorb the shock, but it didn’t matter. It hit him like a runaway mag-train. He hurtled through the air and smashed into one of the great machines. His pistol tumbled away, knocked loose from his grip. He blurted a hasty binaric apology to the apparatus he’d impacted, as he gathered himself back to his feet and engaged his taser goad to sizzling life. ‘Magos!’ he barked, ‘Now would be a good time for Conqueror imperatives!’
‘I do not have access to any means of uploading the Doctrina.’ The skull was
half-hidden behind one of the nearby machines, observing.
‘Less than optimal.’ His battle chances plummeted to twenty-nine per cent. The monster clawed at the still burning wound, but that merely spread white fire to its tendrils. He took the opportunity to try to circle towards the tunnel again, but the movement drew it back to him instantly. It was wary now, having felt the bite of its prey. The first few strikes seemed testing. One, two, three deflected with sweeps of his goad, each impact casting crackling sparks. He was already trapped on the defence. The attacks came faster now. Cyclae’s economy of motion was preternatural as he knocked aside four more lashing blades. Out of the corner of his optic he spotted another striking towards his head with lightning speed. He darted to the side and the bladed tip thudded harmlessly against the thick carapace on his shoulder instead. Then warnings blazed in his vision as a tendril he’d failed to notice slashed upwards from the other side and dug into a gap in his armour.
He whirled the other way, off balance, to wrench free of it with a spray of dark fluid. Before he could recover, a mechadendrite lashed out and coiled around his legs in an instant. He was whipped off his feet in a dizzying blur as another slithered around his midsection and bound his goad to his side. He was left hanging before its optics, and could not escape the unmistakable impression that there was something behind those cold lenses. Too much to just be battle-servitor encodings. It studied him with a cruel curiosity now that it thought him helpless, beginning to constrict its hold tighter and tighter.
Yet he was not abandoned. Seeing that Cyclae was in danger of termination, the servo-skull darted in, slashing at the creature with a plasma torch. The strikes scored the thing’s flesh and armour, and for a moment its attention was off the Alpha Primus. A mistake. Skitarii were weapons before they ever visited the armoury. Cyclae reached out with his free hand and grabbed hold of the optical tendril right below the lens. It instantly refocused and tried to writhe free, but his grip was implacable. He wrenched outward with all his bionic strength. It came loose with a wet squelch, and the thing gave another screech as it hurled him away in enraged desperation.
He hit the ground hard but his hand malfunctioned again and froze in a death grip on the goad, keeping it from being knocked away. Small blessings. For a moment he was disoriented, unable to rise. Part of his mind coldly assessed the grinding in his chest – a broken rib. The projections still did not favour him, hovering at thirty-five per cent. That’s when he felt it: that telltale shivering hum. A broken grav-plate, just like he’d encountered in the upper decks. He could see the ragged decking off ahead to the right.
The sound was drowned out in that rushing clatter of claws. In desperation he scrambled around to the other side of the broken plate so that it was between him and the monstrosity, before whirling to face his foe from a crouch. It came on in a heedless rush. Then it was over the damaged plating, and with a series of metallic crunches its many legs collapsed under the vast weight. It fell with a hard crash as he rolled out of the way, momentum carrying its front through to the other side of the malfunctioning plating. Cyclae didn’t rely on that to be the end of it. He lunged, goad raised high, and brought it down with all of his might.
It stabbed in and unleashed the energy bound within. Serpentine tendrils of lightning crawled through the monstrosity, sizzling and burning. It writhed uncontrollably and hissed one last time before falling still. He fell to his knees next to it as damage and strain caught up. A hand tested the gash in his side and came away wet with blood and sacred unguents. After a moment the servo-skull hovered over. ‘Skitarius? Do you still function?’
‘I am damaged, but I can continue the mission,’ he managed. He levered himself to his feet and looked his fallen foe over with distaste. ‘What is this? I have never seen a servitor of this pattern.’
The skull floated over to examine the thing. ‘There is no pattern. Whoever created it used an ad hoc amalgamation of unsanctioned modifications.’
He turned to the skull sharply. ‘That is heresy.’
‘The desperate have ever turned to dark methods.’ The skull’s visage offered no clues as it turned to float away. ‘Come. There is yet a ways to go, and we should depart lest others heard the battle.’
Cyclae retrieved his pistol and followed after, cataloguing damage. He spoke as he went, ‘Perhaps you should explain the mission to me, magos. Should we encounter another threat like that, I may not be able to prevent damage to your remote. I could go on alone and ensure your safety.’
‘Pointless.’
The skull didn’t even slow, so Cyclae sped up to match it. ‘I would see the task complete.’
There was a pause, perhaps of contemplation. ‘We must restart the primary plasma reactor.’
‘I am no enginseer. I do not know those rites.’
‘Correct. Yet you are the only tool available to me, so I must walk you through it. Thus, it would be pointless for you to proceed alone.’
Cyclae followed in silence. Between the ageing of his components and the damage suffered since waking, his performance was suffering. Still, duty compelled him onward. The Ark and its precious cargoes must be saved.
There were signs of habitation as they proceeded: sigils scrawled on the walls, rubble cleared to open passages. Occasionally he thought he heard footsteps fleeing before them. He kept his weapons ready just in case.
At last they reached the hatch into the primary plasma drive compartment. It groaned open into a red expanse of grated walkways beyond. The plasma reactor itself hung suspended, like an immense adamantine heart connected by arterial cables and conduits to a thousand systems. His caution proved providential. A bizarre gaggle of individuals stood restlessly, clearly waiting for them. For a moment, he took them for servants of the Machine-God, but the subterfuge failed under scrutiny. Their sacred implants were fakes, crude scrap ritually burned into their flesh. Their robes were crimson rags wrapped about them, draped about with severed ventilation tubes for bandoleers and belts. All of them were armed, albeit poorly, with repurposed tools and sharpened scrap metal. The frontmost woman even bore an axe crudely shaped to mimic a cog. It didn’t take an expert on body language to gauge they were angry and scared, a dangerously irrational combination.
The servo-skull immediately retreated behind him. ‘Kill them, skitarius.’
Cyclae tilted his head at the skull. ‘They are not a threat, magos. It seems wasteful to spend energy on them.’
The leader stepped forward and spoke in a crude pidgin of Low Gothic and Lingua-Technis, ‘You not pass. This ground sacred. Turn away.’
‘They are rebels and heretics. Kill them.’
Cyclae surprised himself by ignoring the skull, speaking to the leader instead, ‘We agree there. The Great Machine…’ He pointed beyond the gantries to the reactor. ‘It is holy and must be protected. I would not harm it.’
She shook her head, pointing to the skull behind him. ‘You serve Not-Flesh. You go.’
Their obstinate refusal was irrational. ‘I must pass. Stand aside.’
The skull’s voice was pounding, demanding. ‘This is an imperative, skitarius. Kill them.’ Cyclae’s hands tightened on his weapons, and the gathering braced themselves. ‘You will obey.’
Disobedience was unthinkable. Yet the Machine-God abhorred waste, and these people styled themselves like the faithful. He looked down at his pistol, then back to the skull. In that moment one of them panicked and hurled a javelin of sharpened rebar. It glanced off his breastplate with a dull thwack, and his combat systems activated. The gun came up as if of its own accord and fired, the blazing shot dividing everything into white light and shadow.
It did not merit being labelled a battle. He moved among them like death itself, killing at will. Crude projectiles and simple weapons rebounded off his war-plate unfelt, while each of his attacks killed one or more. Within moments it was over, and quiet fell again. He stood am
ong the bodies and stared at them. They were strangely pitiful in their mocked-up garb.
‘What is this? These are not the crew. Not as I knew them.’
The servo-skull floated up beside him, obscurely satisfied. ‘No. They are descendants of the rebels.’
He froze. ‘Descendants? What? How?’
It drifted on. ‘Hydroponics, corpse starch processors. It all breaks in time though. They infest these levels like vermin, but there are fewer of them every year. This may well have been the last. A fitting last stand for their miserable cause.’
He shook his head. ‘No, how long? How long was I in stasis?’
The skull turned and regarded him with its cold lenses, and for a moment he couldn’t help but remember the optical dendrites on the corrupt servitor. ‘Two hundred and thirteen years. There is an insignificant margin of error due to records damage.’ It immediately turned and floated off again. ‘Come, skitarius. My victory is nearly complete.’
Cyclae followed slowly. They proceeded along the walkways and up stairs until they reached the control room. It was curiously quiet here with the reactor still. Like the calm before a storm. The skull floated to the middle of the chamber and surveyed the room. ‘Follow my instructions exactingly. There is no room for your fallibilities here. Begin by pressing the third most rune on the fuel control console…’
The skull piped information directly to him, highlighting the controls as it went. He did as instructed. He whispered as he worked, ‘Forgive me, Great Machine. My hands are not consecrated for this work, yet I come to you in an hour of utmost need. We have voyaged into the outer dark with your aid, and we need it again if we are to complete our mission. I implore you, burn with the Omnissiah’s light once more.’
At last, the skull intoned, ‘The final step. There is an activation code. It must be input with complete precision.’ The skull carefully denoted the necessary sequence of runes, and Cyclae entered them.
A vibration grew, small at first but rapidly increasing until it knocked him from his augmetic feet. Then there was a roar that stirred half-memories of the thunderous hails of Titanicus god-machines, and the light outside the control chamber flared from red to brilliant white for a single moment before everything cleared to stillness. That was when his rad-censer screamed, a shrill keening without end.
Inferno Volume 2 - Guy Haley Page 7