Shadows of Treachery

by Edited by Christian Dunn

  The Protectors formed an unbroken line between Ravachol and the chamber’s exit and he felt a chill of fear as one stepped forward and said, ‘Adept Pallas Ravachol?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Ravachol, attempting to keep his tone light. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘You are to come with us immediately.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That is irrelevant,’ said the Protector. ‘Surrender yourself to our custody immediately.’

  ‘But I haven’t done anything wrong!’ cried Ravachol, backing away towards the Kaban machine. His fear rose in suffocating waves as the Protectors raised their weapons in unison. He saw melta guns, plasma coils, nerve scramblers and solid projectile weapons, and knew that they could kill him in a heartbeat were he to resist.

  ‘By order of Master Adept Lukas Chrom, you are to surrender yourself to us or face summary termination.’

  Ravachol felt hot tears of betrayal and fear spring from his eyes as he realised that he would either die here or be subjected to a lobotomy and turned into a mindless servitor. Adept Chrom could not take the risk that the forbidden work they were undertaking here might escape the surface of Mars and his life was the price for maintaining that secrecy.

  ‘Even if I surrender, you’re going to terminate me,’ he said.

  ‘You are to come with us,’ repeated the Protector.

  ‘No,’ sobbed Ravachol. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Then you must die.’

  He screamed in terror and anticipation of pain as a deafening roaring ripped through the chamber. Blazing afterimages strobed on the inside of his eyeballs as flashes of gunfire illuminated the walls with a hellish glow.

  Ravachol threw up his arms, but instead of the expected agony he saw the Protectors jerked and twisted by dreadful impacts as a line of gunfire and laser energy sawed through them. Blood sprayed from their bodies as they danced in the hail of bullets, and laser-sheared limbs dropped to the floor.

  In seconds it was over, the six Protectors reduced to smoking piles of torn flesh and shattered metal. Ravachol dropped to his knees and vomited at the horrific stench of burned meat and blood. As repellent as the sight of the mangled corpses was, he found himself unable to tear his gaze from their ruined forms, struggling to comprehend how they could have been so thoroughly slaughtered in so short a time.

  The whine of weapons powering down and the barrels of a hyper-velocity cannon slowing finally penetrated the thunderous ringing in his ears and Ravachol looked up to see the Kaban machine’s sensory blisters glowing brightly and thin plumes of blue smoke curling from the weapons mounted on the ends of the metallic tentacles.

  Amazed, he switched his gaze from the corpses to the Kaban machine and back again.

  ‘What did you do?’ he said. ‘Sweet blessed mother of invention, what did you do?’

  ‘You said they were going to kill you,’ said the machine.

  Ravachol picked himself up and took a hesitant step forwards, unwilling to move closer to the blood-drenched portion of the chamber where the Protectors had died. The Kaban machine’s weapons settled back down into their scaffold mounts and Ravachol took a deep breath as his racing heartbeat began to slow.

  ‘You killed them,’ he said, as though still unwilling to believe the evidence of his own senses. ‘You killed them all.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed the machine. ‘They were going to kill my friend and that made them my enemies. I took action to neutralise them.’

  ‘Neutralise them,’ gasped Ravachol. ‘That’s a bit of an understatement. You… obliterated them.’

  ‘Rendering them neutralised,’ pointed out the machine.

  Ravachol fought to rationalise what had just happened. The Kaban machine had just killed soldiers of the Mechanicum of its own volition and the implications of that action were as inescapable as they were terrifying.

  Without human orders, a machine had killed humans…

  Even though the Kaban machine’s actions had saved his life, he found himself horrified by what it had done. For without the yoke of conscience and responsibility enforced upon machines by the Mechanicum, what else might it decide to do?

  He backed away from the Kaban machine, suddenly afraid of its homicidal tendencies and avoiding the pools of blood as best he could as he made his way to the battle servitors that stood sentinel at the chamber’s entrance.

  ‘What are you doing, Pallas?’ asked the machine.

  ‘I have to get out of here,’ he said. ‘It won’t be long before Chrom realises that the Protectors haven’t brought me in and he sends others after me.’

  ‘You are leaving?’

  ‘I have to,’ said Ravachol, moving from servitor to servitor. He opened the backs of their skulls and swapped their doctrina wafers for ones he removed from the pouch that hung from his tool belt. Each wafer contained a personalised battle subroutine he had authored and slaved each servitor to respond only to his vocal commands. As each wafer was replaced, the servitor turned to face him and stood expectantly awaiting his orders.

  ‘Where will you go?’ asked the Kaban machine and Ravachol heard genuine concern in its voice, a childlike fear of abandonment in its synthetic tones.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ confessed Ravachol. ‘But I know I have to get away from this temple. Perhaps I can claim Sanctuary in another Master Adept’s temple, one of my master’s rivals perhaps.’

  ‘My motor functions are not yet active, Pallas,’ said the machine. ‘I will not be able to protect you beyond this chamber.’

  ‘I know,’ replied Ravachol, ‘but I have these battle servitors, so I should be safe. At least for a time.’

  ‘Will I see you again?’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Ravachol, ‘but I just don’t know. Things have just become… complicated.’

  ‘I hope I will see you again,’ replied the machine. ‘You are my friend.’

  Ravachol had no answer for the machine and simply nodded and turned to leave.

  ‘Servitors, follow me,’ he said, and the cyborgs fell in behind him as he left the chamber of the Kaban machine without so much as a backwards glance.

  He just hoped that four battle servitors would be enough to protect him from whatever other agents Adept Chrom might send after him.

  Losing yourself on Mars was easy.

  One of the unofficial rites of passage in joining the Priesthood of Mars was the certainty that you would, at some point, become lost in the vast hinterlands of monstrous industry that was the surface of Mars. Ravachol remembered spending an entire week attempting to reach the forge complex of Ipluvien Maximal, sustained only by the protein dispensers spread throughout the Martian complex and the thought of the punishment that would be meted out to him should he fail to deliver the message he had been entrusted with.

  Upon leaving the chamber of the Kaban machine, Ravachol had quickly sealed the door behind him and made his way towards the mighty forge temple’s exit. If anyone thought it odd that four battle servitors accompanied him, none remarked upon it, for a tech-priest powerful enough to have such an entourage was clearly not someone to be trifled with.

  His thoughts were tumbling over themselves as he made his way through the twisting, steel walled corridors of the forge. His sandals slapped on the marble floor as he hurried to put as much distance between himself and the dead Protectors.

  He passed into the Halls of Devotion, the mile-long canyon of red stone the forge temple had been built around, its bas-relief walls adorned with schematics of ancient machines and algorithms that were ancient when humans had first trod the Martian soil. The first tech-priests had brought with them the lost secrets of mankind and guarded them jealously as far away Terra had descended into anarchy and war.

  Above the walls of the canyon, the faint orange glow of sodium vapour lamps glittered from the vast crystalline dome that spread its protective cover over the ent
ire complex and kept the hostile atmosphere out.

  Trails of smoke and streaks of light crossed the smeared sky and the low-orbiting moon of Phobos glimmered some three thousand kilometres above him. Its cratered surface was home to a vast surveyor array; its rapid orbit making it perfectly suited to perform multi-spectral sweeps of surrounding space.

  The second moon of Mars, Deimos, was not yet visible, its wider orbital trajectory carrying it in a longer circuit of the red planet.

  Ravachol kept his head down, as though fearing that the sensor arrays of Phobos could discern him amid the masses making their way along the canyon.

  For all he knew of their capabilities, perhaps they could…

  ‘This is a situation and no mistake,’ he said to himself as he finally reached the end of the Halls of Devotion and climbed the steel stairs laid into the canyon walls that led towards one of the transport hubs that linked the various forge temples and manufactorum.

  Itself a vast complex of tunnels, glass and steel bridges, rotating turntables and blaring klaxons, thousands of figures flowed in and out of the hub, travelling along horizontal mass conveyors or embarking upon the silver-skinned trains that slithered across the surface of Mars like twisting snakes.

  If there was one surefire way to lose yourself on Mars, this was it.

  From a hub, a person could travel anywhere on the surface of Mars within a few hours.

  As he pondered where he might travel to, he realised that he was attracting a number of inquiring stares from passers by. Within a forge temple it might be odd, but not remarkable, that an adept of his rank might travel with four battle servitors, but mingling with the general populace of Mars was a different matter entirely.

  Ravachol realised that he would need to find somewhere to hide quickly before the very things that would protect him from harm would be the things that would give him away.

  He set off into the mass of robed servants of the Machine-God, heading towards one of the silver trains, knowing that his best chance lay in getting as far from Chrom’s forge complex as he could.

  Once he had some distance, he would decide on a more permanent solution to his dilemma. He mounted the funicular conveyor that led into the belly of one of the silver trains and pushed his way through the crowds of robed adepts and menials disembarking.

  Ravachol hurriedly made his way along the swelteringly hot length of the train, finding an empty compartment and ushering his servitors inside before closing and sealing the door. Inside, there was a plain metal bench and a window aperture filled with a shimmering energy field that allowed passengers to see, but kept the environment out.

  Silently, he sweated in the heat and prayed that no-one would attempt to force their way into his compartment. Eventually, a light winked above the door and he held on as the train sped from the hub and out into the Martian landscape.

  Mars…

  Ravachol knew that in ancient myth, Mars had been the father to the founders of the great Romanii empire, a centre of culture and technological innovation that was said to have spanned the globe. For millennia, Mars had squatted in the imagination of the people of Terra as a fearful place of invaders or long dead civilizations, but such notions had long since proved to be ridiculous.

  Such ideas were said to have come about due to a long forgotten astronomer’s discovery of the channels in the planet’s surface, which had then been mistranslated as ‘canals’, suggesting engineered waterways rather than natural features.

  Ravachol watched the landscape of Mars speed past him in a grey, iron blur. Where once Mars had been known as the Red Planet, virtually nothing remained of the iron oxide deserts that had earned it its name.

  Technical texts Ravachol had read spoke of the terraforming of Mars many thousands of years ago when the southern polar icecap had been melted with orbital lasers in order to release large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This had raised the temperature to the point where water could exist in a liquid form and formed a viable ozone layer. Genetically modified plant life had then been introduced, enriching the atmosphere with more carbon dioxide, oxygen and nitrogen.

  But he knew that all that visionary work had been undone within a few hundred years when the Mechanicum had spread like a virus across the surface of Mars and begun the construction of its massive forge complexes, continent sized refineries and weapon shops.

  Soon the atmosphere of Mars was as polluted as that of Terra, the mountains hollowed out in the search for minerals and the surface paved over with metal roads, strip mines and towering monuments to the glory of the Machine.

  The train sped past the Ascraeus Mons, a shield volcano with a diameter of over three hundred kilometres that was now home to the Legio Tempestus Titan Legion. A mighty golden gateway had been cut into the flanks of the volcano, a pair of the mighty war machines standing sentinel to either side of it, their massive height rendered tiny by distance.

  Sprawling metallic complexes spread around the volcano, domes and spires of glass and steel that defied the polluted climate of Mars with humankind’s ingenuity. Pillars of smoke clogged the sky and plumes of fire blazed from countless refineries as they produced the raw materiel required by the Emperor’s Great Crusade.

  Only the very tips of the mountainous regions of Mars outwardly remained untouched, though even the mightiest peaks had been carved hollow and turned into temples or manufactoria. Even the shadowy ‘face’ located in the Cydonia Mensae region of the northern hemisphere had been obliterated, flattened and built upon to house the towering temples of the Technotheologians.

  Ravachol peered through the energy-shielded aperture as the train described a gentle eastward curve to catch a glimpse of the vast holy complex. Its temples, shrines and reliquaries covered millions of square kilometres and was home to billions of faithful priests.

  ‘Perhaps there I can find guidance,’ he said to the servitors.

  The servitors twitched at the sound of his voice, but did not answer him.

  Master Adept Chrom watched impassively as a crew of waste servitors cleaned the bloody remains of the Protectors from the Kaban machine’s chamber. He spared them no more than a glance. What remained of their mechanical components would be salvaged and their flesh would be rendered down into proteins to feed the technomats and servitors.

  The Kaban machine itself sat dormant at the far end of the chamber, its sensory blisters glowing a dull red, indicating that the tech-priests of Adept Laanu that swarmed over the scaffolding had disconnected its vocal, aural and visual apparatus.

  He stepped down into the chamber, followed by a slender figure in an all-enclosing bodyglove of a gleaming synthetic material that rippled like blood across its skin. The figure was athletic and toned through a vigorous regime of physical exercise, genetic manipulation and surgical augmentation.

  ‘The machine did this?’ asked the figure, its facemask like that of a grinning crimson skull with a horn of gleaming metal jutting from its chin. Despite the synthetic edge to its tone, there was no mistaking the feminine nature of the voice.

  ‘So it would appear, Remiare,’ replied Chrom without turning to address her.

  ‘And you would employ such a machine? One that kills without orders?’ said Remiare disgustedly. ‘To eliminate without purpose or design is wasteful.’

  ‘Indeed,’ agreed Chrom, ‘but there was purpose here. You are my most lethal Mechanicum Assassin, but you are blind to the emotions involved.’

  ‘Emotions are an impediment to the truth of killing,’ snapped the assassin. Chrom turned to face the assassin, surprised at the vehemence in her tone. Hardwired targeting apparatus grafted to the side of her skull made her a deadly killer and the long snake-like sensor tendrils that swam in the air at her back ensured that she would always be able to track her prey.

  The Tech-Priest Assassins of Mars were a law unto themselves and Chrom knew better t
han to antagonise one with talk of emotions, but he could not resist elaborating.

  ‘True, but it was emotions that killed these Protectors,’ he said. ‘I believe the Kaban machine formed some kind of bond with the mutinous Ravachol in the preceding weeks. It is truly a wondrous thing we have done here. A mind from mindlessness. Thoughts from chaos. A creation that lives and develops, that grows and learns. To create a being that lives and thinks for itself… what is that if not the power of a god?’

  ‘It is arrogance,’ said Remiare, fingering the grips of the exquisitely designed pistols she wore, low-slung, on her hips.

  Chrom permitted himself a chuckle at the assassin’s obvious distaste and said, ‘We come from differing perspectives, Remiare. Your genius is with ending lives. Mine… well, mine is in creating them.’

  ‘Then give me an order,’ said the assassin, her voice keen with the feral anticipation of the kill.

  ‘Very well,’ said Chrom. ‘I charge you with the elimination of Adept Pallas Ravachol.’

  Remiare gave a high, keening cry that signalled the beginning of her hunt and leapt into the air. Her lower body twisted like smoke, her long, multi-jointed legs fused together just above the ankles by a spar of metal. Below the spar, her legs ended, not in feet, but in a complex series of magno-gravitic thrusters.

  The assassin skimmed up the walls and over the ceiling, spiralling away down the corridor on her mission of murder and Chrom knew that Ravachol was now as good as dead.

  He turned back towards the adepts working on the Kaban machine and said, ‘Are its weapons offline?’

  Adept Laanu himself looked up and said, ‘Yes, Lord Chrom. The machine’s weapons are no longer active.’

  ‘Then reconnect its communication arrays,’ ordered Chrom, walking with heavy, metallic steps to stand in the centre of the chamber before the Kaban machine.