Mechanicum whh-9

by Graham McNeill

  'Yes, famulous, he is doing better,' said Sharaq.

  'But not well enough,' put in Suzak, the straight-backed slayer of engines.

  'It takes time to adjust,' said Agathe, looking at the forlorn, naked form suspended in the steel-edged amniotic tank, linked to the projection table via a host of insulated cables. 'To go from hard-plug connection to full immersion. It's not an easy transition to make.'

  'No,' agreed Sharaq, 'but the point remains, the Stormlord cannot command the Legio like this. Not yet.'

  Agathe pointed to the projection table. 'He took on and defeated three engines single-handedly. Doesn't that count for anything?'

  'It speaks of great courage,' said Jan Mordant, looking over at Sharaq. 'Maybe we're being too cautious?'

  'It speaks of recklessness,' snapped Sharaq.

  'It's just a simulation, Kel,' pointed out Mordant. 'It's a whole different game when you're linked with the Manifold. We all know the risks you take in a sim aren't the ones you take when your neck's on the line.'

  'I'm aware of that, Jan, but if this had been real, the Stormlord would have died and taken his engine with him. A Warlord no less.'

  'But three engines, Kel…' said Mordant. 'Come on!'

  Sharaq sighed. 'I understand, Jan, I really do, but you've only recently been elevated to the princepture of a Reaver from a Warhound.'

  'What's that got to do with anything?'

  'It means you haven't yet shed your own recklessness,' said Suzak. 'You have to think in terms other than individual heroics when you command a larger engine. You should know that, and Princeps Cavalerio should damn well know it.'

  Agathe saw the flush of temper colour Jan Mordant's neck, but he controlled his anger and simply nodded. She saw his knuckles were white where they gripped the projection table.

  Softening his tone, Sharaq said, 'Princeps Cavalerio should have waited for the engines of his battlegroup to take the enemy en masse. We are not in the business of futile heroics, Jan, we are in the business of destroying our foes and then bringing our engines and crews back alive.'

  'So the decision stands?' asked Mordant.

  Sharaq nodded. 'The decision stands. Until such time as I deem Princeps Cavalerio fit to return to active duty, I will assume command of Legio Tempestus forces on Mars.'

  Mordant and Suzak nodded and saluted their new Princeps Senioris.

  Agathe watched the foetal outline of Cavalerio twitch in the blood-flecked jelly of his amniotic tank. Could he hear what his warriors were saying about him?

  She hoped not.

  He had already suffered the pain of losing his engine. How devastating would it be to lose his Legio?

  Dalia felt an icy hand clamp down on her heart at the sight of Rho-mu 31.

  Her perceptions seemed to contract to a bubble of warped reality, where the world around her ceased to flow. The motion of people, the sound of the vox-system and the crackle of electricity, and the actinic reek of ozone were all held in stasis, while her personal experience spiked like an arrhythmic heartbeat.

  She could feel the panic in her companions, and fought to control her breathing.

  Rho-mu 31 stood immobile in front of her, his robes bright red and his body carrying the strange aroma of spoiled meat that always seemed to attend the Protectors. Silver gleamed in the shadows of his cloak where augmetic implants emerged from his flesh.

  'Oh,' she managed. 'Hello.'

  As far as excuses or opening gambits went, it was fairly poor.

  The noise of the transit station swelled in her ears, and suddenly all she could hear was the rustle of a hundred conversations and the shuffle of a thousand feet.

  'Rho-mu 31,' she said, struggling to think of something more meaningful to say and failing miserably. She felt herself looking at her feet like a naughty child.

  Zouche came to her rescue, standing in front of her and craning his neck to look up at the heavily muscled and augmented Mechanicum warrior.

  'Rho-mu 31 is it?' he said. 'Good to see you. We… ah… we were just taking the transit to the port facilities. Got some supplies coming in from the Jovian shipyards.'

  'The port facilities?' asked Rho-mu 31.

  'That's right,' added Caxton. 'We wanted to make sure they were the right ones, you know, save the stevedores the bother of getting them here and finding out they were the wrong ones. It would add days to our work, and frankly we don't have days to lose.'

  Dalia closed her eyes, unable to meet Rho-mu 31's gaze as her companions told their terrible, unbelievable lies. She imagined the ground opening up and plunging her deep into the magma, or that an approaching mag-lev might fly from the rails in a cataclysmic crash.

  Anything would be preferable to this excruciating feeling.

  Severine joined with the others in weaving the deception, the lie growing ever more convoluted and drawing in elements and characters - many of whom she was certain didn't exist - until Dalia could stand it no longer.

  'Enough!' she yelled. 'Throne, don't you realise how stupid this all sounds?'

  A few heads turned at her use of the Throne as an oath, but most people kept their heads down, knowing it was not wise to attract the attention of a Mechanicum Protector unless you really had to.

  The others fell silent, studiously examining the floor as though it held the key to their salvation. Dalia drew herself up to her full height, which wasn't much compared to Rho-mu 31, and looked into the glowing green lights behind his bronze mask.

  'We're not going to the port,' she said. 'We're going to the Noctis Labyrinthus.'

  She heard the collective intake of breath from the others and pressed on, knowing she had no choice but to tell Rho-mu 31 the truth.

  'Why would you want to go to such a benighted place?' asked Rho-mu 31. 'Nothing good can come of it. Only the Cult of the Dragon is said to dwell within the Labyrinth of Night.'

  'The Cult of the Dragon?' asked Dalia, her excitement piqued. 'I've never heard of it.'

  'Few have,' said Rho-mu 31. 'It was an obscure sect of madmen. Regrettably only one of many on Mars.'

  'But who are they?'

  'When the adepts who attempted to set up forges within the Noctis Labyrinthus abandoned their workings, not everyone left with them. A few deluded souls remained behind.'

  A rush of air filled the transit station. A mag-lev train was approaching.

  'I need to go there,' said Dalia. 'I need to go there now.'

  'Why?'

  'I don't exactly know, but there's something important there, I can feel it.'

  'There is nothing there but darkness,' said Rho-mu 31, placing a meaty hand on Dalia's shoulder. 'Are you truly sure of the path you are on?'

  Dalia shuddered at Rho-mu 31's mention of the darkness, but slowly the implications of his words emerged from behind her fear. 'Wait a minute… you're not going to stop me?'

  'I am not,' said Rho-mu 31. 'And if you insist on making this journey, I have no choice but to accompany you.'

  'Accompany us?' asked Zouche. 'Now why would you do a thing like that and not drag us back to Adept Zeth? You have to know we're travelling without her sanction.'

  'Be quiet, Zouche!' said Severine.

  Rho-mu 31 nodded. 'I am aware of that, but Adept Zeth tasked me with keeping Dalia Cythera safe. She said nothing about restricting her movements.'

  'I don't understand,' said Dalia as the glowing stab-lights of a mag-lev emerged from the arched tunnel and the smell of ozone grew stronger.

  'Mars is in crisis, Dalia Cythera,' said Rho-mu 31. 'Disaster strikes at every turn, and though Adept Zeth's forge escaped the worst of it, our beloved planet is on the verge of slipping into chaos.'

  'Chaos? What are you talking about?' asked Caxton. 'We heard some rumours of accidents, but nothing like as serious as you're making out.'

  'Whatever you have heard, I can assure you the reality is far worse than you can possibly imagine,' said Rho-mu 31. 'The terror of Old Night threatens to descend upon us once more, and I belie
ve Dalia may hold the key to our salvation.'

  'Me? No… I told you before that I'm nobody,' said Dalia, unwilling to be saddled with such responsibility.

  'You are wrong, Dalia,' stated Rho-mu 31 as the mag-lev came to a halt behind her. 'You have an innate understanding of technology, but I believe what makes you special is the ability to intuit things that others would not. If you think there is something within the Noctis Labyrinthus of importance, then I am willing to put my faith in you.'

  'I thought you didn't believe in faith?'

  'I don't. I believe in you.'

  Dalia smiled. 'Thank you,' she said.

  'I do not require your thanks,' replied Rho-mu 31. 'I am a Protector. I am your Protector. That is my purpose.'

  'I thank you anyway.'

  Caxton patted Dalia on the shoulder. 'Well, if we're going to go, we should probably get on this mag-lev?' Dalia nodded and looked up at her Protector. 'After you,' said Rho-mu 31.

  Adept Zeth stood in the highest tower of her forge, the noospheric halo above her head twitching with information. She sorted through a number of active feeds with her MIU. None of them made for easy reading.

  Most were streaming from the forges of Fabricator Locum Kane and Ipluvien Maximal, but there were others coming in from isolated adepts that had come through the Death of Innocence and were desperately seeking friendly voices.

  Beside her, one of her underlings waited uncomfortably for the adept to speak.

  'Be at ease,' said Zeth. 'Rho-mu 31 is with them now.'

  'They're safe?'

  Zeth shrugged and glanced down at the woman beside her. 'As much as anyone can be said to be safe on Mars just now.'

  'And he'll keep them from harm?'

  'That is his purpose,' agreed Zeth. 'Though a journey to the Noctis Labyrinthus is not without peril. They will pass close to Mondus Gamma, the domain of Lukas Chrom, and he is a pawn of the Fabricator General.'

  'That's bad, isn't it?'

  'Yes, I rather suspect it is,' said Zeth, thinking of what Kane had told her. 'It is imperative that no one else should learn of Dalia's whereabouts.'

  'Of course.'

  'Delete all records of her destination from your memory coils and supply me with a record of deletion. Understood?'

  'Yes.'

  Zeth waited for a few seconds until the deletion record arrived in her noosphere before speaking again.

  'You should return to your duties,' she said. 'Ambassador Melgator will be arriving soon from Olympus Mons and I think it would be better if you were elsewhere.'

  'As you wish,' said Mellicin.

  2.05

  Of all the visitors ever to climb the steps to her forge, Ambassador Melgator was one of the least welcome. Koriel Zeth watched the man approach, his thin body wrapped in a dark, ermine-trimmed robe, his few overt augmetics concealed beneath a hood of dark velvet. Though Kelbor-Hal's messenger was still some distance away, Zeth's enhanced vision saw that the ambassador had changed since last she had seen him.

  His skin was waxen and unhealthy, yet his eyes remained dark pools of sinister purpose like a bearer of bad news eager to spread his misery. However, Melgator's presence, as unwelcome and unlooked for as it was, did not worry her so much as that of his companion.

  Sheathed in an all-enclosing bodyglove of a gleaming synthetic material that rippled like blood across her skin, a slender female figure followed a discreet distance behind the ambassador.

  Zeth needed no help from the noosphere to recognise what this woman was.

  asked Magos Polk in a soft cant of binary. Zeth could read her apprenta's disquiet in the formulation of his numerics and hoped her own biometrics did not betray her unease so obviously.

  'Yes,' she said. 'Do not speak to her if you can avoid it.'

  'Have no worries about that,' promised Polk. 'Not if my life depended on it.'

  'Let us hope it does not come to that, Polk,' said Zeth. 'But her presence here cannot be a good thing.'

  'Surely the Fabricator General has merely despatched her as a guard for the ambassador after all the troubles we have had,' said Polk, his tone begging for reassurance.

  'Perhaps, but I doubt it. To act merely as a bodyguard would be seen as beneath the skills of a tech-priest assassin.'

  'Then why is she here?'

  Zeth felt her irritation at Polk's questions grow, but forced it down. 'I expect we shall find out soon enough,' she said. This meeting with Kelbor-Hal's lackey would need a clear head and Zeth could not afford to be distracted by Polk's fear, even though it mirrored her own.

  The tech-priest assassins were a body of mysterious and aloof killers who had existed since the settling of Mars in the distant past. A law unto themselves, they answered to no authority save that of unknown masters said to dwell in the shadows of the Cydonia Mensae.

  Melgator and his accomplice reached the plinth beneath the great portico, and Zeth wondered if this was how she was going to die, struck down by an assassin's blade, her vital fluids pouring down the steps of her forge.

  Melgator smiled, though Zeth found nothing reassuring in its reptilian insincerity. The ambassador and his companion came towards her, passing into the splayed shadows of the piston columns and golden portico. Melgator moved with the clicking gait of one whose lower limbs were augmetic, while the assassin flowed across the milky white marble of the floor as though on ice.

  Zeth saw that the assassin's legs were long and multi-jointed, fused together just above the ankles by a spar of metal, below which her legs ended not in feet, but in a complex series of magno-gravitic thrusters that skimmed her along just off the ground. Her athletic form was beautifully deadly, honed to perfect physicality by a rigorous regime of physical exercise, gene-manipulation and surgical augmentation.

  Melgator stopped before Zeth and bowed deeply, his arms spread wide.

  'Adept Zeth,' he began. 'It is a pleasure to once again visit your unique forge.'

  'You are welcome, Ambassador Melgator,' said Zeth. 'This is my magos-apprenta, Adept Polk.'

  She left her words hanging and Melgator read the pause expertly. He turned towards his companion, who wore a facemask fashioned in the form of a grinning crimson skull with a horn of gleaming metal jutting from its chin.

  'This is my… associate, Remiare,' said Melgator.

  Zeth nodded towards Remiare and the assassin inclined her head a fraction in acknowledgement. Zeth took a second to study the hardwired targeting apparatus grafted to Remiare's mask and the long snake-like sensor tendrils that swam in the air from the rear portion of her cranium.

  'And what brings you to my forge?' asked Zeth, turning and leading Melgator towards the wall of bronze doors that led within. Polk dropped back to stand at her right shoulder, while Melgator and Remiare fell in smoothly to her left.

  'I come to you as a great shadow hangs over our beloved planet, Adept Zeth. Disaster strikes Mars at every turn and in times of such trouble friends should stand shoulder to shoulder.'

  'Indeed,' replied Zeth as they passed into the forge and along its silver-skinned arterial halls. 'We have suffered greatly and much has been lost that can never be recovered.'

  'Alas, you speak the truth,' said Melgator, and Zeth could barely keep the contempt she felt for his false concern from her field auras. 'Thus it is ever more imperative that friends should acknowledge one another and do whatever is necessary to aid one another.'

  Zeth did not answer Melgator's leading comment and turned into Aetna's Processional, a passageway of ouslite walls and burning braziers that led into a high-ceilinged chamber at the heart of Adept Zeth's forge.

  Formed from the intertwining of twisted columns of silver and gold, the web-like walls rose to a tapered point above the centre of the chamber. Gracefully curved sheets of burnished steel and crystal rippled overhead, winding through the columns to form an impossibly beautiful latticework roof, like glittering shards of ice frozen in the moment of shattering. The toxic skies of
Mars were visible through the gaps in the columns as angled slivers of cadmium, hazed by the void shielding that surrounded the highest peak of the forge.

  Beneath the apex of the roof, a wide shaft descended into the depths of the forge and a fiery orange glow billowed upwards from the heart of the magma far below. Searing heat and waves of energising power rippled the air over the shaft as Melgator made appropriately impressed noises.

  Receptors like thin, slitted gills opened in the folds of his neck as Melgator partook of the invisible currents of drifting electricity.

  Remiare paid the hot majesty of the space no mind, her own energy receptors kept hidden beneath her body-glove, and Zeth felt as though the assassin's attention was focused firmly on the cardinal weak points of her bronze armour. She shared a glance with Magos Polk, who assumed a deferential pose beside her with his hand tucked into the sleeves of his robe.

  'It has been too long since I stood within the Chamber of Vesta,' said Melgator. 'Your current is exquisite. I can almost feel the fire of the red planet within me.'

  'It has always been here,' pointed out Zeth. 'Those who are friends to the Magma City are always welcome to take sustenance within its walls.'

  'Then I should hope you count the Fabricator General amongst such friends.'

  'Why should I not?' asked Zeth. 'Kelbor-Hal has never expressed his displeasure with me. He continues the great work of the Mechanicum, does he not?'

  'Indeed he does,' said Melgator quickly. 'And he sends me to you in the spirit of peace in these dark days of loss and death to assure you of his continued goodwill.'

  'The spirit of peace,' said Zeth, walking around the shaft in the centre of the chamber. Polk made to follow her, but she waved him away. The heat was intense and she could feel her organic portions begin to sweat. 'Is that why you come to me in the company of one of the Sisters of Cydonia?'

  'These are troubled times, Adept Zeth,' said Melgator.

  'You said that already.'

  'I am aware of that, but it is a point I cannot make strongly enough,' replied Melgator. 'An enemy strikes at us, weakens our forges, and only a fool dares to travel without precautions.'