The Kaban Project

by Graham McNeill

  ‘I know this,’ interrupted Ravachol. ‘My history upload told me of this period.’

  ‘You know nothing!’ snapped the priest, and Ravachol quailed before his anger. ‘You have had dates and facts stamped into your cerebral cortex, but I lived through those days. I stood on the tallest peak of the Olympus Mons and watched as the Emperor set foot on Martian soil, the first Terran to do so in five thousand years. Can you imagine such a span of time, Adept Ravachol? Can you even begin to comprehend the secrets that can be lost and regained in that time?’

  ‘No,’ said Ravachol.

  ‘No,’ agreed the priest. ‘I remember it well, the Emperor kneeling before the Fabricator General. As they exchanged greetings, I recognised a kindred spirit in the Emperor, even though he was twelve hundred and thirty six metres away. I saw that he was a man of science, a man who solved problems with empirical evidence and who had unlocked the secrets of machines that had eluded the greatest geniuses of Mars for centuries. We, the masters of technology, were humbled by the discoveries this Terran had made and yet he was gracious in his mastery, granting us access to the forgotten vaults of Terra and offering us an end to the war between our worlds. A union of Terra and Mars, the head of the Emperor’s eagle gaining a twin in his heraldry.’

  The priest unplugged himself from the wall and slid across the floor to Ravachol. ‘The Emperor shared his vision of a galaxy for humanity to inherit, but for such a grand dream to become reality, he needed weapons, supplies, tanks, ammunition and all that the Mechanicum could provide. He promised to protect Mars and respect our sovereignty of the forge worlds, even going so far as to grant us the exclusive services of six of the great Navigator houses to once again despatch our Explorator Fleets. An unprecedented era of cooperation with Terra followed and when the Emperor set out to prosecute his great war of conquest, it did not take long for some of the tech-priests to equate the arrival of the Emperor as the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies of the coming of the Machine God.’

  ‘All hail the Omnissiah,’ whispered Ravachol.

  ‘Indeed,’ nodded the priest. ‘You believe as I do, but many others did not. They questioned such beliefs and claimed that such philosophies were blasphemous, that the Machine God still slept far beneath the surface of Mars.’

  ‘The Noctis Labyrinthus…’ said Ravachol.

  ‘Yes, the Noctis Labyrinthus, where some say the Machine God lies dreaming his silver dreams that filter through the red sand to us on the surface. Such divisions within our order are becoming ever more pronounced, Adept Ravachol, and I fear that what you have discovered will only lead to further division between those that support the Emperor and those that seek to follow the rumours that the Warmaster has made entreaties to senior adepts – promising them access to lost STC systems and permission to research the dark technologies.’

  ‘Then— what should I do?’ begged Ravachol. ‘Such lofty designs are beyond me!’

  The priest placed a cold, metallic hand on Ravachol’s shoulder and said, ‘If your belief in the Emperor is true then you must seek out a senior adept who shares your beliefs in the danger of the Kaban project. Claim the ancient right of Sanctuary within his temple and while you are protected by his patronage none may enter his temple that mean you harm. Know you of such an adept?’

  ‘I do,’ nodded Ravachol. ‘My former master, Adept Urtzi Malevolus.’

  ‘Then seek him out, adept,’ said the priest. ‘And may the Omnissiah watch over you.’

  LEAVING THE TEMPLE, Ravachol felt a curious lightness upon him. The priest had offered him a chance to rest, but he had wanted to press on without delay. He had, however, accepted nutrients and water, the use of a wheeled transport-skiff to hasten his journey to the forge temple of Urtzi Malevolus, which lay three hundred and nine kilometres to the east of the basilica.

  The battle servitors sat immobile in the back of the skiff as Ravachol guided it expertly through the press of bodies and more outlandish vehicles that thronged the metalled roads of Mars. Avoiding collisions was easy, for the skiff broadcast a continuous electronic bow wave that registered against anyone in its way, gently guiding their steps or course away from its path and thus Ravachol was able to make steady progress through the Martian landscape.

  The towering basilica receded behind him as travelled deeper into the fiery skylines that marked the territories of Adept Malevolus. His forges specialised in the manufacture of arms and armour for the Astartes, and forges hammered day and night to fashion the Mark IV battle plate of the Space Marines and the bolters by which they cleansed the stars of the enemies of mankind.

  The sky above darkened as Ravachol travelled onwards, dark smudges of smoke staining the sky, and the temples that crowded in to either side of him appeared dark and threatening, their soot-stained flanks black and brooding. Huge ore carriers thundered alongside him and the beat of powerful forges filled the air with the booming, industrial peals of war.

  Lightning danced between the tall towers of Mars and filled the red and yellow sky with a creeping fear of potential, the sensation of a storm about to break.

  Though it never rained on Mars, Ravachol knew that this philosophical storm would wash all division from the red planet in a tide of blood.

  He could see it clearly; understanding that his whole life was now pointed in one direction, and that there had never been a choice for him.

  He was the Emperor’s lonely man, doing what was right for that reason alone.

  THE BASILICA OF the Blessed Algorithm never closed its doors and none were forbidden the succour granted by the priests of the machine. The priest that had spoken to Ravachol knelt before his data terminal, letting the blessed music of the planet wash through him. Its subtle rhythms filled him and he basked in the harmonics of devices talking to one another from opposite sides of the planet.

  The visit of the young adept had troubled him more than he like to admit and was another example of how far the Mechanicum had fallen since the glory days of the Emperor’s coming. As soon as Ravachol had left, the priest had plugged himself into the temple and had spent these moments of privacy in commune with the machines of Mars.

  The first indication that something was amiss was a gradual dampening of the sounds, as though, one by one, the devices of Mars were falling silent. Puzzled, he ran a self-diagnostic test, finding to his alarm that several of his primary interface systems appeared to be offline.

  The glow from his sensory dome intensified and he cast a 360° sweep of his surroundings.

  Behind him was a figure clad in a form-fitting bodyglove of deep red. Though the priest had long since left much of his flesh upon the surgical tables, he recalled enough to know that this was a female of the species. Two pistols hung from her slender hips, but, more horrifyingly, she held a bundle of wires in one hand and a series of delicate tools in the other.

  The priest looked down at his robes, finding a wide square cut in the fabric and a host of neatly severed wires protruding from the framework of his body.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said, relieved to find that his vocabulator still functioned.

  ‘I am Remiare,’ said the figure. ‘Where is Adept Ravachol?’

  ‘Who?’ said the priest, though he knew such an act of defiance was futile. Amongst the adepts of Mars, the name Remiare was well known and he understood with terrible clarity that his doom was at hand.

  The tech-priest assassin smiled as she saw the effect her name had and cocked her head to one side. She tapped the enlarged portion of her skull where a multitude of sensor equipment was grafted to her death mask face and said, ‘I have followed his information trail here, so do not insult me by denying you know him. Tell me where he is now’

  The priest looked towards the vestry doorway, praying that one of his fellow priests would find reason to come this way or hear the silent call for aid he was even now broadcasting.

  The assassin dropped the parts she had taken from his innards and shook her head. She waved a finger at him
as though scolding a child and knelt before him.

  ‘This is a very private vestry,’ she said, lifting the delicate tools she held. ‘And your Confessor Field should ensure we are not interrupted.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ asked the priest. ‘Tell me that at least.’

  ‘You have become an enemy of my employers.’

  ‘What? How? I have hurt no-one, I simply pray to the Machine God!’

  ‘No,’ said Remiare. ‘The time is coming when there can be no neutrality and whether you know it or not, you have chosen a side.’

  The priest tried to move as Remiare reached inside his violated body, but found that his motor functions would not obey his commands.

  ‘What have you done to me?’ he cried, horrified at the idea of the assassin taking him apart from within and cutting him off from the Machine God. ‘If you have followed Ravachol here, then surely you can find him without doing this! Please!’

  ‘You are right,’ agreed the assassin and the corners of her mouth twitched as she smiled.

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘Because I enjoy your suffering,’ said Remiare.

  THE FORGE TEMPLE of Urtzi Malevolus loomed from the darkness ahead like a dark volcano, its sloping sides black and glossy. A web of glowing ore channels converged on the forge temple, carried along massive aqueducts, insulated pipes and deep channels. The branding iron heat rendered the air here hot and stagnant, the bitter taste of metallic oxides catching in Ravachol’s throat.

  Deafening thunder surrounded Ravachol, each mighty edifice that reared up through the smoke vented from a thousand coolant towers echoing to the sound of a thousand hammer beats and the relentless tread of millions of workers. Though proud of the vast industry being pursued here, Ravachol felt acutely exposed, the dark skies pressing down on him like a slowly lowering ceiling.

  His progress towards the forge temple had slowed markedly as he drove within the high walls of his former master’s fiefdom. Such was the volume of tankers, workers and bulk transporters that, passive electronic bow wave or not, he could only move at a crawl through the masses of traffic. It had taken him two hours to get this far.

  Eventually he turned onto the main thoroughfare that led towards the mighty gates of Malevolus’s temple, remembering the way with the ease of someone who had worked there for a great many years. He felt a surge of sudden welcome as he passed through the crowds and smiled at the thought of setting foot in the temple that had once been his home.

  With his purpose clarified by the machine priest, he felt as though his ordeal would soon be over.

  Even as he drew up to the gates, mighty portals flanked by mighty, pumping pistons the size of a titan, he saw a red blur speed past him. A hot spray of oil and blood spattered his face and he cried out as a severed head landed in the passenger seat next to him.

  Ravachol slammed on the brakes and spun in his seat. Behind him, one of his battle servitors lolled against the sides of the transporter, its knees buckling as its reduced nervous system decided it was dead. The servitor collapsed with a heavy, metallic clang, blood pumping energetically from the neat stump of its neck. The others ignored the death of their compatriot and stared glassily ahead as Ravachol searched frantically for the source of the attack.

  He leapt from the driver’s seat and dropped to a crouch as he saw the red blur flicker through the clouds above him. He squinted through the particulate air and saw a lithe figure in red zip towards the transporter, a long energy blade held extended before it. Though he had never seen such a being before, he knew enough to recognise that his attacker was a tech-priest assassin.

  ‘Servitors!’ shouted Ravachol, pointing to the red-clad figure. ‘Defend me!’

  The three remaining servitors jerked into action, their weapons powering up and combat protocols searching for the identified target. Ravachol hunkered down as a stream of heavy calibre gunfire ripped up the sky and a rain of brass shell casings tumbled musically to the ground. The sharp bark of rapid-firing laser bolts mingled with the booming reports of heavy bolter fire.

  Thanks to his embedded wetware, both enhanced servitors would be working together to bracket the target and destroy it. The third surviving servitor clambered from the transporter to shelter him as the crowd of adepts scattered from the gunfire. The servitor’s left arm was a powerful gauntlet sheathed in deadly energy, its right ending in a short-range plasma discharger. Its heavy boots and thick jumpsuit were a reassuringly solid presence between Ravachol and the assassin, but he knew from their reputation that mere servitors could not stop such a deadly killer for long.

  ‘You, with me!’ shouted Ravachol, risking a glance into the sky. The assassin spun from building to building by some unknown means, skimming from the walls and twisting through the air like a red slick, its legs bending in all kinds of impossible ways.

  Puffs of shell impacts and the burning afterimages of las-fire followed its inhumanly quick flight, blasting chunks of stone and metal from the buildings, but leaving it unscathed.

  Darts of fire spat from the assassin’s pistol and bloody craters erupted on one of his servitors. It didn’t go down, but dodged and kept firing until another shot struck its head and its lobotomised brain mushroomed from the back of its skull.

  Ravachol set off towards the great gates of Adept Malevolus’s forge, knowing that were he able to claim Sanctuary, then not even a tech-priest assassin would dare violate the sanctity of a Master Adept.

  The servitor ran after him, its lumbering gait thumping on the metal roadway as it followed. Behind him, Ravachol could hear hissing barks of laser discharges and knew that one servitor was still fighting. Even with its enhanced combat routines, it wouldn’t last long, but the entrance to the forge complex was just ahead.

  Panicked people were running for the gates, desperate to escape the gunfire and the destruction being wrought behind them. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw the assassin skim low across the roadway, using the now-wrecked transporter for cover as the battle servitor leapt from its back to get a clear shot.

  Surprised by such an aggressive move, the assassin slid to the side as a flurry of lasblasts sawed towards her and left molten craters in the roadway. She flipped up into the air until she was upside down and passed over the servitor, her sword a blur of blue fire.

  Lasblasts followed the assassin through the air, but they were wild and undirected as the servitor fell to the ground in two halves, its body severed at the waist.

  He covered the last few yards towards the temple, where the two-headed eagle of the Emperor and Mechanicum were acid-etched onto each leaf of the great steel doors. A stoup of blessed engine oil was formed from the metalwork of the door’s frame and Ravachol hurriedly dipped the fingers of both hands info the viscous substance as he heard a speeding bass hum drawing closer.

  Ravachol cast the oil around himself and shouted, ‘In the name of the Adept Malevolus, I claim the ancient right of Sanctuary within this temple! I claim this by right of past sponsorship by the Master of the Forge!’

  No sooner had the words left his mouth than a pair of cone-shaped shield projectors mounted on the ceiling swivelled to face him. He looked up and saw a nimbus of green light build within the cones.

  A shriek of blazing energy flashed towards him from the ceiling. He turned and cried out in terror as he heard a screeching yell from behind him. The razor edge of the assassin’s energy sword exploded in a flare of brightly discharging energy as it impacted on the newly generated conversion field.

  Ravachol fell to his knees, blinded by the dazzling light and blinked away the stuttering afterimages of the incandescent explosion. The assassin, a female he now saw, spiralled upwards into the darkness of the vestibule, tracked by a battery of quad-barrelled gun turrets.

  Before they could open fire, she slid out of sight, skimming the walls and vanishing into the Martian night.

  ‘Thank the Machine God,’ he whispered, feeling as though his speeding heart-rate was abo
ut to choke him. He stayed on his knees as curious onlookers began to gather around him, wondering what fate had brought him to seek Sanctuary in this place and what manner of person would attract the attention of a tech-priest assassin.

  He slumped to his haunches and put his head in his hands as a trio of Mechanicum Protectors marched towards him from the temple’s interior. Each was armed with a bolter-topped spear stave and was augmented with a fearsome array of plate armour and enhanced battle gear.

  His last servitor turned to engage the Protectors, but he said, ‘No, stand down. These are the Protectors of Malevolus.’

  ‘IT’S QUITE A mess you have left behind,’ said Master Adept Urtzi Malevolus, his voice muffled behind the dark bronze of his facemask. A trio of green bionic eyes set into the pale remnants of his skull illuminated the interior surfaces of his red hood.

  Though Malevolus’s primary mode of locomotion was his human legs, they and his right arm were all that was left of his humanity. His red robes were fashioned from vulcanised rubber, thick and hard-wearing, and a monstrously large power pack was affixed to his back, its bulk held aloft by tiny suspensor fields. Remote probe robots darted back and forth from his body, kept in check by the coiled cables that connected them to the senior adept.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Ravachol as he and his last remaining battle servitor followed Malevolus through the cavernous chambers of the forge temple. ‘I am sorry to return to you in such circumstances, my lord, but I did not know where else to turn.’

  ‘No, no,’ replied Malevolus, waving a pale, age-withered hand as they passed into a wing of the temple that was wide and tall, its massive pilasters and curved ceiling making Ravachol feel like he had been swallowed and was in the belly of some enormous beast.

  ‘You did the right thing by coming to me,’ continued Malevolus. ‘Absolutely the right thing. I always said that you would make a big impact here, did I not?’