by Guy Haley
He sheathed Encarmine Dread clumsily, and pushed shaking fingers at the clasps on his pauldrons. The heavy shoulder plates disengaged and fell to the ground one after the other with dull clangs. He walked a little easier. He fumbled tools from his belt, and set to work on the rest of his battle-plate as he walked.
Soon the trail of his footsteps was punctuated by discarded pieces of armour.
‘There is much activity ahead, lord captain,’ said Eskerio. ‘Genestealers.’
‘We cannot delay,’ said Plosk. ‘We do not have much time.’
‘How many?’ asked Galt.
‘Twenty-nine, maybe more,’ said Eskerio. ‘They are in hiding, being cautious. I’ll warrant they know they are being hunted.’
‘That will play well for us, cousin,’ said Sandamael.
‘What do you propose to do?’ asked Plosk.
‘Fight our way through,’ said Galt. ‘That is what you would have us do, I think. Or would you relinquish your prize?’
‘Of course not,’ said Plosk brusquely. ‘Please, make use of my servitors.’
‘That will not be necessary. Have them guard you. Lord Reclusiarch Mazrael, what will you and yours do?’
‘We shall come with you, lord captain,’ said Mazrael.
‘Very well. Forgemaster Clastrin, remain here with the magi. You may take Lord Magos Plosk up on his offer. Command his servitors. Establish fields of fire. Do not allow the genestealers through.’
‘Yes, brother-captain.’
‘My thanks!’ called out Plosk.
Galt ignored him. He had the Terminators advance rapidly from the crossways they were in and into the corridor where Eskerio’s auspex had detected the movement. This ship, so close to the heart of the hulk, was in poor condition and immeasurably ancient. This deep into the agglomeration, many of the component vessels were crushed into impassibility, and this one differed only in that a clear way to the heart of the hulk existed through its crumpled halls. The corridor they entered was wide and tall, its metal heavily corroded. It had been the access way to the ship’s warp engines, but was now broken open along much of its length so that the compartments that had once lined it had become a part of the corridor. Consequently, the space was a deadly tangle of low walls, crumpled bulkheads and hanging catwalks.
‘If only the lights and gravity functioned here,’ said Militor. ‘It would make our lives a little easier, brothers.’
‘I do not think we will find any machine activity this deep into the hulk,’ said Eskerio. ‘These vessels are as old as the Imperium, if not older. Their spirits are broken and fled.’
‘It is surely the business of Forgemaster Clastrin to declare such as a fact, brother,’ said Astomar.
‘Quiet, all of you!’ said Voldo.
‘What is it, cousin?’ asked Tarael.
‘Sounds. Not of motion, but of power.’
‘Cousin Voldo is correct. I’m getting a reading, brothers,’ said Curzon.
In the sensoriums of the suits, energy indicators jumped. A tortured groaning went up deep in the ship. A series of bangs accompanied a building whine.
The Terminators sank into themselves suddenly as ancient grav plates under their feet activated. Lights flickered. Many burst in showers of sparks. Crackles of energy sputtered from power relays and severed cables. A grav plate imploded with a thunderous crack. Small fires leapt into being as ancient machinery failed, dying as quickly as they drank the small measure of oxygen in the stale air. A door shuddered into life. It shook as it attempted to close, stopped, then tried again.
‘What is this?’ hissed Galt.
‘A refutation of your words, from the Machine-God himself!’ said Plosk over the vox. ‘Tread carefully in these halls, oh captain. You walk nigh unto a tabernacle of the Omnissiah himself! Do not doubt me, lord captain! We are close to His presence.’
The genestealers attacked. Scared out of their hiding places by the unexpected light, they leapt through holes in the rusted walls, dropped from their hiding places high in the ceiling, running at the Terminators from gaping doors.
The Terminators reacted without delay, decades of training and experience guiding their arms. Genestealers died with raucous screeches as bolts cut through the air. The space was open, the genestealers disorganised, only a handful got through to the Terminators’ position, where they were rapidly slain by Tarael, Voldo and Galt.
Plosk did not wait for Galt to give the all clear, but walked into the ruinous corridor as soon as the last bolt had been fired.
‘You see, Captain Galt, the Machine-God is with us here. We are close to the source of his power, the STC data core, so mighty is He incarnate that He answers even the prayers of the unbeliever!’
‘This is nonsense,’ said Mazrael, but there was uncertainty in his voice.
‘Come,’ said Plosk, ‘we are close.’ He walked arrogantly through the Terminators. Galt signalled them and they followed uncertainly, servitors clomping mindlessly behind them.
‘Be on your guard,’ said Galt.
The engine walkway stopped. The hull that had bounded it was long gone. Plosk stepped through the gaping hole in the ancient ship, and out onto a shelf of rock. Galt came close behind, careful of his footing as the gravity abruptly ceased.
The shelf of rock – the surface of a small asteroid – finished seventy metres away, rearing up to form one side of a small cave. A mangle of structures, ice and rubble made up the majority of the rest, but one component stood apart from this; a spacecraft of a kind totally unfamiliar to the Space Marines.
The greater part of the spaceship was buried in the mass of debris, but the side of it presented to them was undamaged by time or the shifting crush of the agglomeration. His sensorium could not penetrate its gleaming hull, but Galt estimated it to be around three hundred metres long, small by Imperial standards. It was clean of line and unembellished, which made the craft appear strange to Galt’s eyes. No Mechanicus runes marked its outer surface, nor were there any statues or artistic flourishes of any kind, yet in its functionality there was a clean aestheticism. It did not appear like any ship crafted by men, but Galt knew instinctively that this vessel had been built by human hands.
‘This is what you hide from us?’ said Galt, wary and awed in equal part.
‘Hide? No, captain. You are here with me. I merely did not wish to burden you with excitable supposition,’ said Plosk.
‘Or alert his rivals,’ said Clastrin quietly.
Plosk walked forward. Light erupted into life along the ship’s length, the glow coming directly from the hull itself.
‘Wait!’ shouted Galt.
Plosk ignored his warning. ‘Long have I searched for this vessel, several lifetimes of lesser men,’ he said. ‘On Vardus Prime, far out in the Halo, did I find a mention of it, buried deep in the Liber Solentus, penned by men who never knew the light of the Emperor, and who were destroyed long before they could be saved. I have searched and searched and searched. There has only been one other of its kind reliably documented, the ill-omened doom-ship the Blade of Infinity. I surmised if there was one, there must be, have to be more.’ He was speaking to himself now more than the others, close to incoherence as human emotion overran his electro-mechanical faculties. He fell to his knees. ‘And it is real!’
Another light came on, its radiance undimmed by time or corruption. It lit a message on the side of the hull in a strange script Galt could barely read. As alien as the straight lines of the font seemed, they were human letters, a plain form of the Gothic script. The words, however, were meaningless to him.
Plosk pointed to it. ‘See! The Machine-God shows us the truth of it. Here, my lords, as I predicted, rests a pre-Imperial starship.’ His voice shook with triumph as he read the ancient script aloud. ‘The Spirit of Eternity.’
Plosk collapsed into fevered prayer. Nuministon and Samin joined him in supplication, bowing before the ancient vessel. Clastrin hesitated, stayed by Galt’s suspicions, but overwhelmed he fell to
one knee. Their servitors looked mutely on.
‘Look, lord captain,’ said Voldo. He pointed at an object upon the floor close by the Spirit of Eternity.
Mazrael walked past them, right up to the skin of the ship. He bent down and picked the object up.
‘A vambrace. It is Lord Caedis’s,’ he said.
‘He is alive?’ said Metrion. He took a hopeful step forwards.
‘He was recently,’ said Mazrael. If Galt was expecting some sign of joy from Mazrael at the news, he was disappointed.
‘He is inside the ship then,’ said Voldo.
Mazrael examined the ship before him. The ship was clean, as if newly made. ‘I cannot tell. I see no doorway.’
‘Stay back, lord,’ warned Voldo. ‘Who knows what evils it has carried through time.’
‘No!’ said Plosk joyfully. ‘The ways of the ancients are beyond your ken, my lord. There is no harm here, only knowledge. The doorway will not be obvious to the likes of you, I, however, can see it.’
‘Then how do we gain entry to the archeotech you seek, magos?’ said Voldo. ‘Do we have time for you to cut your way in?’
Plosk started to answer, but a great rumbling interrupted him as the hulk underwent a tremor. They watched nervously as the component vessels of the cave’s walls moved past one another, like fish in a net struggling to be free from the fisherman. Hull skins crumpled. The chamber was airless, yet the group heard the shifting of the tortured agglomeration through their feet, a roaring and grinding of overwhelming volume. They struggled to keep their footing in the near zero-gravity. Those of the Terminators that could, mag-locked themselves to the wall. Others shot out their safety grapnels. One of the servitors and a data-savant, their butchered brains not quick enough to respond to the rapid movement, were cast from their feet and were sent hurtling into the cave walls. There they died, broken by the impact.
The magi remained unmoving, bent in serene worship throughout the quake.
The tremors lessened. The magi stood.
‘Lord Plosk has searched the length and breadth of this galaxy for four hundred years, gathering the lore that led us to this momentous point in time,’ said Samin scornfully. ‘Do you think he would not also gather the information unto him required to access such a craft?’
‘Quickly, Lord Plosk,’ said Nuministon. ‘I am reading data commensurate with warp field generation.’
‘Warp field generation from where?’ said Galt incredulously. ‘From the ship?’
The mage priests ignored him, and dropped into a rapid conversation of screeching binaric.
‘It cannot be active, surely, lord captain,’ said Brother Militor. ‘It is at the heart of this hulk. It must have been here for thousands of years.’
‘And the lights, cousin, and the energy emanating from the vessel?’ said Sandamael. ‘I do not like this, lord captain, it has the stink of corruption to it.’
‘It is a vessel from the Dark Age of Technology,’ said Plosk. ‘From a time blessed by the Omnissiah himself, before those who wielded His powers were adjudged unworthy and had His light withdrawn from them. It functions, oh it functions!’
‘And the warp engines, do they function too? Damn you, mage priest, what more are you concealing from me?’ shouted Galt.
‘The warp fields are generated by the hulk, not this vessel. Once an agglomeration has sailed the tides of the warp, its fabric develops a sympathy for it. Any perturbation in the veil between real space and the empyrean can drag it back.’
‘The gravitic well of the sun Jorso?’ said Clastrin.
‘Perhaps so, Forgemaster,’ said Nuministon.
‘Are we to retrieve the datacore, or are we to argue as the hulk breaks up around our ears?’ said Plosk. ‘I will explain all, but first we must gain entry.’
Galt looked to the Forgemaster. The Techmarine chief gave a brief nod.
‘Very well, but be quick.’ Aftershocks troubled the chamber still.
‘The unbelievers must withdraw,’ said Plosk.
‘I see no door,’ muttered Tarael. ‘This is a waste of time.’
‘Where there is no way, there will be a way,’ said Nuministon. Galt was certain he was quoting something.
Mazrael rejoined the other Terminators, Caedis’s armour clasped in his hand.
Plosk’s servitors formed a semicircle about the magos, and began a low mumbling drone, thick with formulae and holy data.
Plosk threw his hands wide and spoke over his choir. ‘Oh mighty vessel of the Omnissiah! We, the humble servants of He who made you, we who have searched for long eternities to find your like, we request access to your holy innards, and the information that you contain therein. Let us prove ourselves worthy to you and to our Lord, so that mankind might slip the shackles of ignorance, and learn anew the true runes of knowledge!’
Nothing happened.
‘He has lost his mind,’ said Tarael drily. ‘He speaks to a wall.’
Voldo made a noise of agreement. ‘Brother Gallio?’
‘Wait, my lords!’ said Samin, holding up a hand. ‘He only greets it as it should be greeted; he treats it with the respect it demands. To approach otherwise would be an affront to the vessel’s spirit and perilous to us all. Only now might he utter the codes of access.’
Plosk began to speak rapidly in a language none understood. It was not the electronic chitter of binaric, but a true, spoken language of men. A chill went down Galt’s spine as the tech-priest went on; the language was foreign to him, but amid the babble were words that sounded half-familiar, as if Plosk spoke High Gothic distorted by a dream.
And then the ship replied.
The Terminators stepped backwards, weapons raised.
‘Hold!’ said Nuministon. ‘It is only a voice-activated ward, nothing more. The machine’s spirit has a voice as our servitors have a voice.’
The ship’s voice was soft and emotionless; it too used the ancient tongue.
Plosk’s hands dropped. The servitors sang on.
The ship responded, and the way opened. A section of the hull glowed green, forming a solid square. The light receded, so that the square became a doorway with rounded corners, delineated by a band of brightness. And then there were steps, appearing in some manner Galt could not understand. The light dimmed, lighting the new doorway and stairs in soft lambency. The ship looked as if it had always been that way, as if there had always been a door and not been a solid wall of metal only seconds before. Data flooded into their sensoriums and auspexes as the inviolable skin of the craft parted for them.
‘Witchcraft!’ gasped Mazrael, tightening his grip on his crozius. The Space Marines backed up further. Mutters of alarm came from all of them.
‘No, my lords! Power, technology. Behold the true might of the Omnissiah revealed!’ Plosk said. He looked into the vessel. ‘And soon it will all be ours again, and mankind will rule the stars rightfully, totally, and alone. But as much as I long to enter, we must plan our escape. As Nuministon says, we do not have much time. Teleportation is our only hope.’
‘I have a clear reading from within the vessel now,’ said Eskerio.
‘As do I,’ said Curzon.
‘The energy fluctuations of the ship’s secondary reactor will not allow a firm pattern lock,’ said Clastrin.
‘We should turn back now,’ said Eskerio.
‘No!’ said Plosk. ‘There is a way. The reactor can be deactivated. Once it is, then we may be safely away with the ship’s secrets.’
‘What do we do, lord captain?’ said Voldo uneasily.
‘If the ship opened for us, it may have opened for my lord,’ said Tarael, taking a step forward. Mazrael said nothing.
They all looked to Galt.
‘So be it,’ said Galt finally. ‘So be it.’
Caedis passed through the hulk in Holos’s fugue, wandering deeper and deeper into the Death of Integrity. Sometimes he was Caedis, and on the edge of his perception he was aware that he was casting away his armour as he walked,
an act that had lost any sense of importance. It must be done, so he did it. Then there were times when he thought he was Caedis but could not be sure, for the roar of his own blood in his ears was deafening. His twin hearts pounded like war drums, and the Thirst tore at his soul with dripping claws. Sometimes he was Holos, climbing metre by painful metre up the side of Mount Calicium. Sometimes he was neither. He, Holos and the other shades which climbed with him were sent tumbling into the distant past by Holos’s own Black Rage. Caedis suffered the Rage and through suffering it he suffered Holos’s own Rage, until the two multiplied each other into an infinite tunnel of dark memories of war. An eternity of slaughter and bloodshed and burning torment beckoned.
Holos dragged himself along the lip of the volcano’s crater with his one good arm. The rim was narrow, no more than a few metres wide at its narrowest, and his movement sent rocks tumbling over the edge. They bounced higher and higher as they fell, toward the steaming, poisonous green lake at the centre. Holos had discarded what armour he could, but his chestplates and leg assembly would not come free. His hand and arms were bloodied from dragging himself along the sharp stone. The hypercoagulants in his blood sealed the wounds quickly, but each painful metre fresh wounds were torn into his flesh by the spines of the mountain.
The smell of his own life fluids drove him deeper into insanity. He blacked out twice, finding himself soaring high in the air over a battlefield he did not recognise. The sensation of unaided flight was so intoxicating, he almost lost himself. Doubtless had he not had the will, Holos would have died raving upon the rim of the volcano, and the Blood Drinkers would have died with him. But Holos’s will to survive was mighty, and his pride in his Chapter mightier still. He dragged himself back to the present. Holos was aware of the others who climbed with him only fleetingly.