by Nick Kyme
Warhammer 40,000
It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
Prologue
274.973.M41
The primary generators were dead. No litanies to the Machine-God, no entreaties to the Omnissiah were about to revive them. The last tremor had been the largest – the Mandos Prime fusion stations were down.
It was the job of Gorgardis and his crew to repair them.
‘Critical failure across all facilities,’ the exofabricator muttered. His breath fogged the air with the cold from the permafrost.
‘My lord,’ a voice crackled through the vox-implant in Gorgardis’s ear. The heavy ice and some kind of latent, as of yet unspecified, radiation marred his reply with static.
‘Present,’ said the exofabricator, distracted with his scanner read-outs. The seismographic returns were incredible, more than merely tectonic plate shifts. Perhaps the planet was destabilising.
The voice’s next words made Gorgardis stop what he was doing.
‘We’ve found something.’
He licked his lips, tasting the blandness of ice crystals, and put away the scanner. Artak’s position in the facility came up on the retinal display of his optic implant. It was flashing, and a small binaric code indicated the other exofabricator was a further eighty-six point two metres down.
Gorgardis paused to think, the logic engines supplementing his organic brain functions making swift correlations. ‘I’ll be right down,’ he said, and made for the nearest rail-lifter.
Much of the hard ice around the structure had melted, but it was buried so deep and seemingly without end that it was impossible to tell just how big the thing was.
There were icons upon the smooth outer wall. It looked like metal but very dark, shimmering, almost vital. Despite a wealth of experience in runic symbolism and semiotics, Gorgardis didn’t recognise any of the iconography.
‘Unknown provenance,’ he muttered, tracing his hand over the symbols but being careful not to touch them. He turned to Artak, who was waiting anxiously behind him. Gorgardis waved him on. ‘Bring up the servitors – drills and hammers, heavy-bore.’
Magos Karnak observed the pristine surface of the half-buried ruins with cold detachment.
‘Incredible…’ he breathed. It had been many years since he’d experienced awe, let alone expressed it through his organic vocal cords. Karnak was mostly machine, but he still retained the gamut of human feeling. Presently, it was being stimulated to a greater extent than he’d thought possible since his apotheosis from the flesh.
Mechadendrite scanners performed a full spectral, auditory and metallurgic analysis of the structure, feeding the results to the tech-priest’s machine-cortex for later study. An initial review made little sense.
‘And you went to every length to open it?’ he asked.
Gorgardis gestured to the half-dozen wasted servitors slumped in a pile nearby. ‘We exhausted our every resource,’ he said.
Upon witnessing the slab-sided ruins, he’d summoned the tech-priest of the facility at once. Karnak had been swift to respond, bringing in his adepts: a horde of enginseers, transmechanics and genetors. The tech-priests were baffled.
Gorgardis went on, ‘Returns from our sonar-staves reveal that this is but one structure amongst a series of many. Most are buried deep beneath the ice bed.’
‘And this?’ Karnak referred to a floating grav-bench on which several items of alien origin were arrayed.
Gorgardis singled out a six-legged creature with silver chitin across its back and mandibles not so dissimilar from mechadendrite tools.
‘My best estimate is a repair drone of some sort. It’s dead.’
‘Or dormant,’ Karnak countered, his gaze absorbing and cataloguing the other mechanical finds on the bench. Some were perhaps weapons; others were harder to classify. Partial degradation from exposure to ice moisture made the task difficult but not impossible. ‘I’m taking all of them,’ he decided, before showing Gorgardis his back and driving away on the tracked impellers he had in lieu of his legs.
‘M– my lord?’
‘All finds are to go to Goethe Majoris where they can be better studied.’
Gorgardis made the sign of the Cog and went about his orders.
‘Seal this site,’ Karnak added by way of afterthought. ‘Its secrets will be revealed to us in due course, Omnissiah be praised.’
ACT ONE:
EMERGENCE
Chapter One
779.973.M41
The vox-transmitter was wretched with interference, so Falka hit it again.
‘Keep doing that and you’ll break it,’ said a deep and sonorous voice behind him.
When Falka turned, his smile was broad and bright enough to light up the whole mine. ‘Jynn!’
He seized the woman in a bear hug, lifting her off the ground. Even in her environment suit, she felt the steel of his girder-like arms.
‘Easy, easy!’ she warned, mock-choking.
Falka put her down, ignoring the questioning glances from the rest of the shift. Riggers, drill-engines and borer-drones advanced towards the darkness of the vast ice-shaft like an army. They were accompanied by menial servitors and heavy-set chrono-diggers. Like Falka and Jynn, the human contingent of the labour force wore bulky environment suits to stave off the cold and make the twelve-hour cycles possible.
‘Where’s your rig?’ asked the big man. He’d stripped back the thermal protection on his arms, revealing faded gang-tats and wiry grey hair. ‘I didn’t see it.’
Jynn pointed to a docking station, one of many in the massive ice cavern. Like most of the mining vehicles it was squat, decked out with plates and protective glacis and only partially enclosed. A crew of three menials and a pair of chrono-diggers stood around it awaiting her return.
‘She’s all mine,’ she said proudly, adjusting the thermal-cutters, flare-rods and chain-pick fastened to her tool belt from when Falka’s bear hug had dislodged them.
A klaxon sounded and an array of strobe lamps filled the cavern with an intermittent amber glow. They started walking.
‘You look good,’ said Falka a moment later.
Jynn gave a wr
y smile. The ice concourse underfoot crunched as they moved. It was hard-packed by industrial presses to create a serviceable roadway for the mine entrance. Most of the light was artificial, though some natural light filtered down from the bore hole above them at the entrance’s threshold.
‘What I mean,’ Falka struggled to say, ‘is it’s good to see you back at the ice-face. I thought after Korve, you might–’
‘Honestly, Fal, I’m fine,’ she said, brushing a strand of errant hair behind her ears and pulling down her goggles.
Falka did the same – close to the vent a fine spray of ice chips saturated the air. Environment suits managed the worst. Get one in the eye and you’d know about it, though.
‘Just with the ’quake and all that…’
She stopped and glared at him. The other workers flowed around them to their riggers and crews. The first few cohorts had already begun descent.
‘Seriously, Falka – just drop it. Korve’s dead and that’s it.’
The big man looked distraught. ‘Sorry.’
She lightly gripped his shoulder. ‘It’s all right. I under–’
‘Rig-hand Evvers,’ a shrill, imperious voice interrupted.
Jynn had her back to the speaker and groaned inwardly before she turned. ‘Administrator Rancourt,’ she replied politely.
A hawkish man, trussed up in thermal gear and flocked by a retinue of scribes and aides, approached them. Despite the cowl drawn up around his small head and the padded mittens he wore, the administrator still shivered.
‘I had not expected to see you on shift,’ he said, fashioning a poor smile. It was meant to convey warmth but only exuded his awkwardness.
‘Nor I, you…’ she muttered.
‘I beg your pardon. I’m finding it hard to hear under all of this.’ He gestured to cowl and thermal coat.
‘I said it’s rare to see you, administrator… at the ice-face, I mean.’
Rancourt moved in close to Jynn.
‘I’ve told you before,’ he said. ‘You may call me Zeph.’
Falka broke his stoic silence to grunt.
Rancourt’s gaze moved to the giant. ‘And Rig-hand Kolpeck. Don’t you have shift to go to?’
‘We both do, administ… ah, Zeph.’ She tugged lightly on Falka’s arm, urging him to join her.
The big man looked like he’d rather stay and squeeze Rancourt’s neck, but he followed anyway.
‘Of course, of course,’ the administrator blathered, shooting a dark glance at Falka. ‘I have much work to attend to. In the Emperor’s name,’ he added, pretending to look at a data-slate proffered by one of his toadies.
‘May His glory watch over us all,’ Jynn replied.
Heading in the direction of the vent, the air suddenly felt as if it were actually getting warmer.
‘He still stalking you, then?’
‘Leave it, Fal. I can handle it. He’s harmless enough.’
Falka grunted again. He was prone to doing that. ‘Eyes and ears,’ he said, peeling off towards his rigger and crew.
‘You too,’ said Jynn, diverting to her vehicle. She’d put one boot on the boarding stirrup when the concourse trembled. She slipped, snatching a holding rail to steady herself. A second tremor shook some debris from the roof. More violent than the first, it sent men and servitors sprawling.
‘What the feg was–’ she muttered over the vox-bead.
A high-pitched keening cut her off.
She fell, the intensity of the sonic burst forcing her to press her palms to her ears. ‘Throne!’ Jynn gasped, grimacing against the auditory pain.
The keening became a hum, throbbing at the back of the skull, but at least she could stand. Around the ice cavern, the walls were shaking. Sections of the ceiling rained down on the labourers in a cascade. The cries of one man ended abruptly when a slab of permafrost crushed him.
Jynn staggered. It was just like with Korve. Memories came flooding back, but she suppressed them, focussed on surviving instead. ‘Not yet, dear heart,’ she muttered, finding some resolve. ‘Not yet.’
Falka was on his feet too and rushing over to her.
‘You hurt?’ He had to shout to be heard above the ice-quake.
Jynn was about to answer when a massive cold cloud ripped through the vent in a bright white bloom. The rig-hands closest to the shaft were shredded by the host of shards within the cloud. Snow crystals fogging the air were tainted a visceral red.
A burst of hard, emerald light followed, refracted from the angular descent shaft beyond the vent. Shouting echoed from the icy dark, injured and desperate men trying to control some unseen catastrophe. The shouts became cries, and then screams. There was something else too… a sort of discharge, as of an energy beam or perhaps a heavy generator.
The winches slaved to the adamantite descent lines at the vent threshold started to retract. Someone was coming up.
‘We have to get out,’ said Jynn, then with greater urgency as the emerald light issuing from the vent intensified. ‘All of us – right now!’
Falka nodded.
‘No!’ she cried, seizing the big man’s arm as he made for the vent.
He looked back at her nonplussed. ‘People are down there, our people. They might need help.’
Jynn was shaking her head. ‘They’re gone, Fal. This way, come on.’
‘Wha… but…’
‘They’re dead! Now, come on!’ She heaved and he followed, reluctant at first but then with more conviction. Something was scurrying up the shaft. It sounded like a horde of giant, mechanical ants.
The first of the rig-hands from below made it to the ice cavern. He was dead. Men screamed, terrified, when they saw the flesh of his partly flayed corpse. Surgical, precise, horrific – it was as if the layers had been stripped anatomically.
More followed, equally gruesome.
Jynn and Falka were running, shouting at anyone who would listen to join them, yanking environment suits or shoving them bodily. Down tools and flee. This was not a rescue; it was a full scale evacuation.
She found Rancourt cowering behind a rigger, getting his aides to peer around its armoured flanks and provide him with updates. Several of his entourage were dead, one from fright when the keening blast had struck; another to the sudden avalanche from the ceiling.
‘Get up!’ She seized his collar and pulled. ‘Get up! These people need guidance. The surface must be told what’s happening down here.’
‘What is happening?’ he shrieked, unwilling to stand at first, casting fearful glances towards the vent where the emerald glow was now spilling into the ice cavern.
Jynn looked over her shoulder, still hanging on to Rancourt’s suit. ‘Falka!’
The big man gently moved her aside and threw the administrator over his shoulder.
‘Unhand me! I am an officer of the Imperium. Release me at once!’
‘Shut up.’ Falka smacked Rancourt’s head into the rigger just hard enough to leave him dazed.
Then they were running again. The remnants of the administrator’s retinue followed without need for coercion.
The exit shaft and the rail-lifters were just a few metres ahead. The light from the surface was like a soothing balm as it touched Jynn’s sweat-slick face. She glanced back.
Several more rig-hands from below had made it to the ice cavern. Though they were far away and her view was unsteady on account of her fleeing for her life, she made out… creatures attached to the miners. The rig-hands were thrashing and squirming. Eventually they fell and the swarm dispersed, silver beetle-like creatures the size of Falka’s clenched fist, leaving a flensed corpse in their wake.
‘God-Emperor have mercy,’ she breathed.
Larger, bulkier shadows were reaching the end of the vent shaft. A coruscating emerald beam lanced from the darkness, throwing a spider-like cr
eature into sharp relief. Like the beetles it was metallic, but almost the size of a rigger. The beam, fired from one of the creature’s mandibles, struck a fleeing rig-hand and atomised him. The afterimage of the man’s flayed skeleton was seared into Jynn’s retinas just before it collapsed into ash and she looked away.
‘Move, move!’
They raced into the nearest rail-lifter. About sixty rig-hands had joined them on the access plate, and Falka gunned the engine as soon as they were all aboard.
Jynn gazed to the distant surface as the heavy winches began to drone. She willed the oval of light from the ground-zero bore point closer.
Below them, the other rail-lifters started up – fifteen in total, all screaming, engines hot, towards the upper world.
One of the cables snapped, lashing wildly with the sudden slack. A beam from one of the spiders had severed it. Rig-hands screamed as they plunged to their deaths. Others, clinging on, could only watch in horror as the beetles already scaling the shaft wall sprang from their perches and landed amongst them.
Jynn saw a few of the miners let go and embrace death by falling rather than face being flayed alive.
The hard drone of a warning klaxon sounded from farther up the shaft. The oval of light was becoming a rectangular strip, narrowing by the second.
Rancourt, having recently regained consciousness, put away his command-stave. Falka saw him do it and rounded on him.
‘What are you doing? The others will never make it.’
The administrator’s pupils were dilated, his eyes wide and haunted. ‘Those th-things…’ he stammered. ‘They can’t be allowed to get out.’
‘Bastard!’ Falka punched him, a solid blow to the chin that put Rancourt back on his arse, and then ripped the command-stave from the administrator’s trappings. ‘Show me how to stop it,’ he said, bearing down on him, threatening more violence.
‘Leave him,’ Jynn wrenched the big man’s shoulder. She had a strong grip and made him turn.
‘You’re defending this worm?’