Garro

by James Swallow

‘What in Terra’s name…?’ he murmured.

  Garro heard Tallery shout a series of numeral code strings, clusters of ones and zeroes that meant nothing to the legionary. And yet, the effect they had on the drone was stark and immediate. The massive cannons powered down and the machine’s targeting lasers winked out. As abruptly as it had descended upon them, the gunship powered away into the sky without firing a single shot.

  ‘It worked,’ said Tallery, amazed by her own actions. ‘Praise the Emperor, it actually worked!’

  ‘What did you do?’ Garro came to her side, glaring into the shadows in search of any other lingering threats. ‘Those words you said, that was a Mechanicum code.’

  She nodded briskly. ‘A base Gothic form of binaric, yes. I used a departmento override command to convince the drone that its weapons were in need of rearming. It’s heading back to the hangar right now.’ Tallery paled as the adrenaline in her system ebbed away. ‘A machine can be made to think anything you tell it to, isn’t that what you said? You just have to know how to talk to them, of course.’

  Despite the woman’s reckless act, Garro could not help but be impressed by her resourcefulness. ‘Clever. Could you not have done that with the machine-soldiers as well?’

  ‘Different mechanoids have different command protocols,’ she explained. ‘I remembered those of the gunships from an addendum in Curator Lonnd’s files. I remember all I see…’ She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘It seemed a practical risk to take.’

  ‘You seem to have a proclivity for risking your life,’ he replied. ‘You could have been killed.’

  ‘That would have happened anyway.’ As she said the words, Garro saw that she understood that truth as well, the reality of the danger she had just been in dawning on her. ‘Other drones will be coming to take that one’s place, and my trick won’t work twice. Is there somewhere you can send me? Into custody of some kind?’ Her tone became imploring. ‘If you are Malcador’s agent, then perhaps he can keep me safe until this is all out in the open.’

  In spite of himself, Garro’s scarred face twisted in a scowl. His presence on Riga was utterly unsanctioned, and he was reluctant to speculate on what might happen if he brought this before the Sigillite. Malcador was not a man to tolerate disobedience lightly, as others had learned to their cost.

  He reluctantly shook his head. ‘As much as I wish it, for now that option is not available. Circumstances mean we must remain together, scribe. I will have need of that perfect memory of yours, if I am to cut through the lies surrounding this conspiracy. We must find Othrys and learn its secrets.’

  Garro thought she might oppose him, but then the scribe gave a hesitant nod. ‘My life is in your hands, my lord. As it has been all along.’

  To protect Katanoh Tallery, Garro destroys the Thallaxii

  Thirteen

  Deadship

  Long sleep

  The hidden fortress

  They found their way to the secondary docking ring beneath the lip of the orbital plate without further incident. Under Garro’s unerring direction, the pair evaded fresh waves of the Thallaxii as they poured into the shipyards, and slipped the net.

  Here, stalactite-like towers extended out from the underside of the floating metropolis, with nothing but open air beneath them and the surface of the Throneworld far below. Between each tower there were bays where war-wounded ships lay waiting for new orders. For many of these once-proud vessels, grievously mauled in battle against the traitors, the only fate before them was in the maw of a breaker’s yard.

  One such ship was the Akulan, a small, battered corvette that had served with the defence fleets outbound from Proxima Centauri. It lay at anchor nearby, a sad ruin of its former self, making ready to set sail for the last time.

  In a cramped control compartment inside one of the towers, a lone control servitor worked the dock systems in an endless, monotonous cycle of arrivals and departures. ‘Ready for decoupling,’ it muttered, speaking into a vox-pickup. Its dull eyes blinked constantly as it processed complex shipping data. ‘Stand by.’

  Behind it, a hatch opened out of turn and two humans entered. Without invitation. Correction: one human, one transhuman.

  The servitor halted in its work cycle to address them. ‘This area is restricted.’

  The transhuman (gender: male, classification: Space Marine) ignored the warning. ‘Make sure this is the right one,’ he growled, speaking to the other intruder.

  The human (gender: female, classification: Scribe-Adepta) nodded and pushed past the servitor, moving to a console where she began to type out a string of commands on a keypad.

  ‘Stop,’ insisted the machine-slave. ‘Identify yourself.’

  The transhuman strode forwards and towered over the dock controller. ‘Look upon the brand on my armour, servitor,’ it commanded. ‘Recognise the authority.’

  ‘And if it does not?’ The human female’s voice betrayed doubt. ‘That didn’t work the last time you tried it.’

  ‘Then things will not end well for our half-brained friend here.’ With the oiled clatter of metal on metal, the transhuman recovered a magazine of ammunition from a pouch on his belt and loaded it into a bolt pistol. The weapon was primed and aimed towards the servitor’s chest.

  The slave-worker hesitated, registering a faint fear-analogue as it realised its continued existence was being threatened. Its ruby-lensed optics clicked as they peered at the Sigil of Malcador, visible in the ultraviolet spectrum of its vision blocks. ‘The mark of the Sigillite,’ it intoned, processing this radical new datum.

  ‘Let me make this clear,’ said the legionary. ‘Obey me or I will end your wretched existence.’

  The servitor executed a stiff bow. ‘Understood, my lord. How may I assist you?’

  ‘It learns quickly,’ said the female. The servitor watched her access the Akulan’s resources packet and data queues, efficiently retrieving pages of information about the frigate. ‘This is the right vessel, Garro. A “deadship” with the same registration I saw in the hidden files. Records indicate it is bound for the scrap-works of Jupiter’s moons, but there’s no terminus point logged.’

  ‘Indeed?’ The transhuman (nomenclature: Garro) shot the servitor a look. ‘Where is this hulk really going?’

  ‘Exact destination unknown.’ The machine-slave had the same information in its head that the female had before her, and the troubling void in the Akulan’s flight plan made it flinch with physical pain. ‘Error condition,’ it amended.

  ‘A different question, then.’ The bolt pistol’s black muzzle dropped away. ‘Where is Othrys?’

  The word lit a sudden, hateful fire inside the brain matter of the servitor, and it began to twitch like a victim of palsy. ‘Unknown. Unknown.’ Pain analogues rippled through it, causing countless neural misfires in its cerebral matrix. ‘Cannot answer. Data purged.’

  ‘Stop!’ ordered the female, and the command brought a wash of relief through the servitor’s hybrid body. It immediately purged the offending word from its short-term recall buffer, afraid to even consider it again. ‘It must be a mnemonic block,’ continued the human. ‘It doesn’t know that word because it can’t know it. All references to “Othrys” have been burned from its mind.’

  At the sound of the forbidden name repeated, the servitor jerked, running the purge program again and again before the word could take hold in its sluggish thoughts.

  It became aware of the transhuman studying it coldly. ‘Even a psyker would be unable to find anything in there,’ the legionary told the female. ‘Servitor. How long until this wreck is sent on its way?’

  It bowed again. ‘Egress will occur in ten minutes.’

  The transhuman paused, and the servitor knew he was considering the act of termination. It waited powerlessly for the killshot to come, but it never did. Instead, the legionary nodded to the female and they left as quickly
as they had arrived.

  After a moment, the dock servitor decided to purge its memory of everything that had happened in the last five minutes, just to be certain.

  What few guards there were watching the docking bay had their attention elsewhere, allowing Garro and Tallery to steal aboard the derelict in short order. The scribe did her best to keep pace with him, but she was flagging. He frowned, holding open the Akulan’s wide airlock hatch so that she could enter. ‘Hurry. The umbilicals are already detaching. The ship will be under power in a few seconds.’

  ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ she panted, as all around the craft began to rumble and rattle into life.

  ‘You have faith in the Emperor, Tallery. Grant me some fraction of the same. Actions of this kind are not new to me.’ He let the hatch drop shut and led her down the corridor that ran the length of the corvette’s spine.

  She followed gingerly. ‘I have never been to the Jovian yards…’ Tallery swallowed a gasp. ‘In all honesty, I have never left the orbit of Terra in my life.’

  Garro glanced over his shoulder at her. ‘I very much doubt that Jupiter or any of her moons are our final destination. Othrys, wherever it is, could lie anywhere within range of this ship’s engines. A craft of this tonnage is fully capable of making a leap across the immaterium, clear across the Segmentum Solar at maximum potential.

  Tallery went pale. ‘But, if we take to the warp, we could be in transit for days. Months!’

  He nodded again. ‘Or more.’ Garro had already considered what duration of journey they could be letting themselves in for, and accepted it. ‘But we are committed to this now.’ He felt the vessel leave the dock, the iron walls about them creaking and grinding.

  Garro went to a grimy portal in the hull and watched the departure, with Tallery silent at his side. Thrusters firing, the deadship disconnected from Riga and got under way; within minutes it had pulled away from the gravity of Terra, rising out of the atmosphere. It came about to put its broken bow towards the stars. The deck beneath their feet trembled as velocity increased, dim lights flickering over their heads as power ebbed away to maintain more vital systems.

  A heavy chill began to descend. Rimes of frost formed on the metal walls, and their breath blossomed into streamers of white vapour. ‘The cold,’ said the scribe, releasing a cough. ‘Where is it coming from?’

  ‘I expected this,’ he told her. ‘We are aboard a derelict. The Akulan no longer has any human crew to speak of on board, only cogitators and servitors to run it, and they are confined to the command tiers. All the other decks will be empty. So there is no need for life support down here. Oxygen. Water. Heat. All unnecessary.’

  Tallery’s eyes widened. ‘And how exactly am I supposed to survive a journey without those things? I have heard that Space Marines can endure even the vacuum of the deep void, but I am not so gifted!’

  ‘Be calm,’ he admonished. Garro gestured down the corridor, indicating a compartment off to one side, and beckoned Tallery to follow him. She drew her robes close and shivered, following him across the frost-rimed deck. ‘I have not brought you this far only to let you suffocate or starve. You are correct that my genetically enhanced physiology allows me to live for extended periods in a state of suspension. For decades, if need be. I have something similar in mind for you.’

  ‘Wh-what do you mean?’

  Garro tapped a control stud and another hatch opened, vapour hissing out into the corridor from within.

  Tallery stepped warily inside and the scribe baulked at the sight of dozens of glassy capsules, each the size of a coffin, wreathed in wisps of sub-zero gases. ‘Stasis caskets. You’re going to put me into deep-sleep?’

  ‘I will stand guard while you slumber,’ he promised.

  ‘No! I can’t!’ Raw panic flared in her. ‘What if I don’t awaken?’

  Garro reached for his helmet where it lay mag-locked to his thigh plate. ‘Soon the atmosphere in this part of the ship will thin to the point where you will not be able to breathe. I have seen men lost to that manner of death and it is not a clean ending. You must survive. I need you so we can finish what we have started.’

  She seemed to shrink before his eyes. ‘This is all too much for me.’

  He shook his head. ‘I do not believe that. You are braver than you think. You faced that gunship without fear.’

  Tallery gave a dry, humourless chuckle. ‘Oh, there was quite a lot of fear, my lord.’

  ‘You will be safe,’ Garro insisted. ‘You have my word as a legionary.’ Before she could say more, he set to work activating one of the capsules. The operations of such stasis devices were known to Garro, recalled through old regimens of hypnogogic instruction given to him as a Legion recruit. The data implanted in him a lifetime ago as a Death Guard neophyte now returned, and he set to work bringing the system online. He knew that if he allowed Tallery to dwell upon her plight, the scribe’s resolve would soon erode. He had to keep her focused on something else.

  ‘I would know how it was you came to see the Emperor’s divinity, scribe. Why do you think Him to be a god among men?’

  She looked up at him with hooded eyes. ‘I am not alone in such belief. Even if the Lords of Terra do not wish it, even if He Himself shies away from our Imperial Truth. Our numbers swell as time passes. Those who share true insight, who embrace the faith, we are many.’

  ‘You did not answer my question.’

  ‘I read a book.’ Tallery sighed, as if a weight were lifting off her shoulders. ‘It was called the Lectitio Divinitatus. A rough thing, printed on real paper, if you can believe that. Smuggled to me by a friend now dead and gone. What was written there…’ She paused, then smiled slightly. ‘All I can tell you is that it spoke to me. In a way I cannot articulate. But I felt as if I had been blind all my life, and only then learned how to see.’ The smile deepened and became rueful. ‘It sounds irrational when I say it aloud.’

  ‘To some, perhaps,’ Garro said earnestly. ‘Not to me.’

  ‘Do the Legions worship the Emperor?’ Tallery shivered and hugged herself. ‘You are the sons of His sons, the primarchs, after all.’

  ‘We obey Him,’ Garro allowed. ‘But it is seen as improper to consider the Emperor as a divine being.’

  She studied him closely. ‘You think otherwise.’

  He paused in his work. She is perceptive, this one, he thought. ‘It is difficult for me to put into words also. I have seen horrors, Scribe Tallery. Worlds burning. Monsters. Brothers turning upon brothers. Death and war. All I rescued from that madness was my unbroken faith.’

  ‘In what?’

  ‘In Him.’ Unbidden emotion, and reverence thickened his words. ‘I believe He preserved me for something. He saw me to be of purpose.’

  ‘Then I envy you,’ she admitted. ‘After what I have been through these past days, my conviction has been severely tested.’

  Garro’s gaze turned inwards. ‘You are not alone in that. It is the nature of this conflict.’ He met her gaze. ‘I came to Riga because I was looking for answers. I have spoken of that to no other until now.’

  ‘You are looking for the Saint Keeler, yes?’

  Her answer shocked him with its truthfulness. ‘You know of her?’

  ‘How could I not?’ Tallery shivered as she went on. ‘They say she gives enlightenment with every word she utters. But I have never seen her. There are rumours that the Saint moves from station to station, never straying far from Terra. And so you came to Riga in the hope that she would be there.’

  He looked away. ‘I was mistaken. Euphrati Keeler once helped me see clearly. I had hoped she might do the same again.’ What seemed like an eternity ago, Garro had led a crew of fugitives on a desperate mission to escape Horus’ treachery. The woman Keeler had been with them on that fateful journey, and along the way Garro learned that she had been changed by the Warmaster’s actions
just as he had. Keeler became, for want of a better word, a prophet… And he had become a believer.

  ‘The air… is getting thinner.’ The woman’s words were laboured. ‘Difficult… to breathe now.’

  Garro cranked open the lid of the stasis casket and helped her climb stiffly inside. ‘Here. It will preserve you for the duration of the journey.’

  Cautiously, the woman settled herself into the padded interior. ‘I am trusting you with my life once again. In the name of the Saint… and the Emperor.’

  ‘Your faith is not misplaced,’ he promised, and touched a control. The casket began to slide closed.

  ‘Neither is yours,’ she told him, her eyes fluttering closed as the stasis systems began to lull her towards deep-sleep. ‘Like courage, that comes from within, not from… the words of others.’ She gave a low chuckle. ‘I read that in a book–’

  The lid thudded shut and cut her off as it locked tight. Garro watched the stasis casket gather up Tallery’s fragile life and hold it in check, the hiss of cryogenic gases and the crackle of ice sounding as she was rendered dormant. Frozen in an instant of time, she would survive for as long as it would take them to reach Othrys, wherever that might be.

  ‘Sleep, Katanoh Tallery,’ said Garro softly. ‘I will keep watch.’

  Terra fell away into the endless blackness, and the derelict ventured on alone. Its drives blazing against the void, the Akulan was only a guttering candle, a tiny shard of corroded steel in the unforgiving night.

  As Tallery faded into the mindless slumber of stasis, Garro joined her in his own kind of suspended animation. The legionary allowed himself to drop into a fathomless trance-state. The catalepsean node implant deep in his cerebellum let him take rest without the need for true sleep as humans knew it. As one hemisphere of his brain went dormant, the other maintained a baseline level of alertness, shifting function back and forth so that he would never truly lose himself to unconsciousness.

  The days stretched and thinned like heated glass, becoming unnumbered, their count forgotten. In the dark and dreamless abyss between worlds, the silence was all-encompassing. Out here, where stars turned upon pillars of gravity and the night went on forever, one might be able to briefly forget that this was a galaxy in flames.