Manticore Reborn

by Peter J Evans

  Many appeared drugged. Red thought of Oray Abd Durwan back on the Ulai fin, and the barter musk he'd sniffed as a neural enhancer. Maybe these Archaeotechs were taking a similar substance, snorting mind altering chemicals to amplify their intelligence. Certainly there were those that must have come close enough to see her, but they'd just walked past muttering, as if engaged in some furious mental exercise.

  There was no sense tempting fate. Red found some lockers and broke into them, stealing some heavy, hooded robes for herself and the team. As long she and her companions kept their heads down, and muttered occasionally in the right preoccupied tone, Red hoped they would form an effective disguise.

  The number of wandering Archaeotechs lessened as Red led her team inward. Before long, most of the humans they saw were soldiers, wearing an ornate variant of the classic shocktrooper armour. "The Custodes Arcanum," Godolkin explained, as a squad of them rounded a corner and marched out of sight. "Keepers of the Secret. They are the elite fighting order of the Archaeotechs, and not to be underestimated."

  "What's that on them?" Red whispered. "That curved thing?"

  "The closed eye, Blasphemy. A symbol of their order. They are sworn to never reveal anything discovered by their Archaeotech masters." He glanced quickly right and left. "Should they ever do so, they are publicly blinded before execution."

  "Nice," Red replied. "Which way?"

  Godolkin had the dataslate Harrow had prepared. The map it contained wasn't complete, but the big Iconoclast's knowledge and enhanced senses were, so far, filling in the gaps. "Follow me."

  She fell into step behind him. The passages in the temple-lab were narrow and dimly lit. "Just as long as you know where you're going."

  "And what makes you think that?"

  "You're the one with the map, dipstick."

  He snorted. "In case you had forgotten, Mistress, it is a map with no names. I am directing our search toward likely areas, nothing more."

  Red resisted the urge to kick him. "Why didn't you tell me that before?"

  There was an obvious answer to that, but if Godolkin had intended to say it he never got the chance. Three of the Custodes Arcanum had appeared in front of him, bolters at the ready.

  "Ah," said Red, very quietly. "Bollocks."

  One of the Custodes moved slightly ahead of his fellows, eyes narrowing above his filigreed breathe-mask. "Didn't you hear the alert chime, student?"

  "I did not," replied Godolkin, keeping his head bowed. "I was lost in contemplation."

  "Admirable. However, you are in violation of an alert curfew. Return to your halls now, and your chapter savants need never know."

  Red saw Godolkin tense, and quickly put her hand to his shoulder. "Heed him," she breathed, trying to sound as much like an Iconoclast as she could. Her accent didn't make it easy. "We don't want to get into trouble. Not yet."

  "Of course." Godolkin relaxed, moving slightly away from the trio of Custodes. "My thanks."

  The man frowned. "Wait, student. What's your chapter?"

  "Time travel," Red blurted. "I mean-"

  "Chronotech? In this block?" The Custodes turned to share a glance with his colleagues. "You must have been thinking hard, girl."

  "Try looking at your chapter plan next time," said one of the men behind him. "Now go on, back to your halls. This is no time to be skulking around. Play your games when the alert is over."

  He turned, chuckling, and the three of them strode away.

  When they were out of earshot Red finally let out the breath she had been holding. "Sneck, that was close."

  Godolkin rounded on her. "Blasphemy, we could have taken them. Why did you restrain me?"

  "Because, you great lummox, firefights are loud. If we start blasting away in here we'll be swarmed, and there's a lot more of them than there are of us. So just keep your head down and stay quiet until we get what we came for, okay?"

  "This still leaves us no closer to the time engine." One of Cormoran's strike team, Helsa, had thrown back her hood. She was a small woman with an angular face and rather wild blonde hair. "Time is running short. Maybe Commander Sibbecai can hold off two dreadnoughts, but a third is approaching. We have to end this now."

  Cormoran put a hand on her arm. "Be still, Helsa."

  "At least we know what we're looking for now." Red took a comm-linker from her robes. "Jude?"

  "Still here, holy one."

  "Good stuff. I'll keep this short, because I don't want anyone picking up the signal, but can you get into some kind of info system for this place?"

  There was a pause filled by the sound of keys being rapidly pressed. "Some outer command strings and basic information. That's all."

  "Just what I need. Get into the student resources and hunt down a chapter plan. Then tell us how to get to Chronotech."

  The temple-lab, in addition to being a seat of Archaeotech study, was also a training facility with a sizeable population of students.

  The very idea that anyone would have a university on a world as hostile as Chorazin made Red's mind spin, but she had long ago given up on trying to make sense of life in the Pan-Species Accord. Sometimes she felt as though she was living in a system of societies that had, probably as a result of the brutality of their great war, gone utterly insane.

  If the Iconoclasts got Brite Red's time engine up and running, she could see it getting rapidly worse.

  From what Harrow had been able to read in the chapter plan, Chronotech was a sub-section of Xenotechnology housed in a structure to the east of the temple-lab. It was based around a high energy testing facility commonly known as a "lightning vault", a nickname that Red found slightly chilling, given that she was going to be wandering around inside it before long.

  She, Godolkin and Cormoran were poring over the map while the rest of the team kept watch. Cormoran had pointed out the four blockhouses that surrounded the vault. "These may have access," he said. "The main entrance will be guarded, but the labs might only be staffed by academics. They wouldn't put up much resistance."

  "I don't know," Red replied, gnawing a thumbnail. "I never thought I'd say it, but the idea of blasting my way through rooms full of students doesn't really appeal. If there's a way to get into that vault without going through the labs I'd prefer it."

  Godolkin sniffed. "This newfound respect for life is laudable, Blasphemy, if misguided. We have greater concerns."

  She glared at him. "Keep your opinions to yourself, and do as I bloody tell you: we're going in through the front door or not at all."

  Godolkin could sneer as much as he liked, Red thought sourly as they made their way towards Chronotechnology, and if he thought she was going soft then so be it. He'd been with her in the Grand Keep on Magadan, when the entire structure had begun to collapse around them, and all he'd seen was the danger. At the time Red had too, but the difference came afterwards. She knew that hundreds of thousands of people had died in that catastrophe, pulped in their homes because they were too afraid to leave the Keep or just because they had no way of getting out. Men and women, children and babies, the old and the sick; there was no distinction. She had saved a few, convinced the mad creature that ruled them to let them leave, but it could never be enough.

  Godolkin had seen genocide before, and thought nothing of it, but Red would hear the screams of the Magadani until she died.

  Remorse was one thing, survival another. When the strike team finally got to the Chronotech facility, Red could see that just going in through the front door with all guns blazing would be a quick way to meet her maker. At least forty Custodes Arcanum had been stationed there.

  "Sneck," she said, ducking back around the corner to join the others. "It's a convention."

  "There has already been one attempt to gain entry into this vault, Blasphemy." Godolkin had taken the plasma rifle from beneath his robes. "It is only natural that they should anticipate another."

  "Natural, but bloody annoying." She took the dataslate from him and checked the map again,
scanning hopelessly for a secret tunnel or air shaft that she might have missed before. She failed, of course. "Okay, plan B. Who's got the demo charges?"

  "I have." That was Malak, one of Cormoran's people. He reached into his robe and took out a palm sized slab of plastic. "Where do you want it?"

  "Just give. And two more." She took the charges from him and turned them over in her hands. "Integral detonator?"

  "Here." He showed her. "Timer, motion sensor or remote. I have the initiator."

  "Remote will be fine." She took the initiator too, then handed two charges to Godolkin. "There you go."

  He regarded them calmly for a moment. "What, exactly, should I do with these?"

  "Put them somewhere middle-of-the-range vital. Secondary power cabling, water supply, airscrubbers. Nothing that's going to take out half the base, but enough to cause a diversion." She waggled the initiator at him. "I want as many of those troopers out of the way as you can get."

  Godolkin turned without a word and stalked off, cradling the charges. If he thought there was any chance of Red setting them off while he was still holding them he had obviously come to terms with it. Perhaps, she thought idly, he would welcome the release.

  Lesham, the third member of Cormoran's team, was scowling after him. "Can he be trusted?"

  "I'm sorry," Red replied, feigning politeness, "who did you say you were again?"

  The mutant lowered his head, but his expression didn't change. "Forgive me, holy one. But he is a human, and an Iconoclast. Hardly the most reliable of allies."

  "As a matter of fact, I'd trust Godolkin with my life." Red fixed Lesham with a stare. "More to the point, I'd trust him with yours."

  The man said nothing, but appeared to shrink slightly into his robes.

  A few seconds later Godolkin returned, padding quickly around the corner. "The charges are placed, Blasphemy."

  "Good work, Godolkin." In the face of Lesham's distrust, Red suddenly felt protective of the Iconoclast. "Shall we dance?"

  "An excellent suggestion."

  The charges were on separate crypt-keys. Red pressed the activation stud twice, and each time was rewarded by a massive hammer blow of sound from somewhere off in the base. After the second blast, she ducked around the corner again to see the Custodes ranks in turmoil. Their rigid formations had gone, replaced by milling confusion. An officer was shouting orders, trying to make himself heard while dust from the explosions drifted past. Moments later he was leading a detachment of soldiers away, two dozen or more of them sprinting from the vault hatch.

  "Nice going," Red muttered appreciatively, moving back around the corner. "What did you blow up?"

  "There was a communications node not far from here," Godolkin replied. "And a Custodes ready room. It was largely empty, but the effect seems to be as desired."

  "I'm not surprised, you evil bugger," Red barked out a laugh. "You fragged their canteen."

  "Fifteen troopers remain," Cormoran reported. "Holy one, if we are going to do this, it should be now."

  Red held up the demolition charge she had kept back, then leaned around the corner and flung it at the vault hatch. She saw it skid to a halt against the boots of Custodes soldier before she scrambled back into cover.

  Panicked shouts erupted. Red waited until she could hear people running, then hit the initiator stud again.

  The demo charge exploded with a deafening whiplash of sound and an impact Red felt like a physical blow through the deck. A solid cloud of smoke and debris washed around the corner, enveloping her, making her duck and turn her face to the wall. "Bloody hell, Cormoran. What's in those things?"

  "It's a shaped detonex charge." The man drew alongside her, and she heard the metallic sounds of a frag-carbine being primed. "Normally we fix them to something before setting them off. Their effects can be a bit unpredictable in the open."

  "A bit," she muttered. The smoke had cleared a little, enough to see a few metres. Red drew her pistols, gestured to the others to follow her lead, and charged around the corner.

  The scene, or what she could see of it through the dust and smoke, was one of utter devastation. The demo charge had scoured the corridor; any Iconoclast who hadn't fled had been scattered by the force of the blast. Armoured figures lay on the deck and against the walls. Many weren't the right shape any more. A couple of them were on fire.

  The walls around the vault hatch were burning, curtains of greasy flame licking up at the scorched ceiling. Red skirted the blaze and stopped in front of the hatch, wiping the locking controls free of soot. "Who's got the data-pick?"

  "That's my honour, Saint." The woman, Helsa, moved past her, taking Harrow's data-pick from her robes. Red stepped aside to give her space as the pick began to sequence the vault's lock.

  Harrow had once told Red that the data-pick had cost as much as Crimson Hunter, and had been far harder to acquire. Red, watching the way it chewed through the billions of crypt-combinations protecting the vault, found no reason to doubt him.

  Something was moving at the end of the corridor, partly concealed by smoke. Red turned to it, and as she did heard the unmistakeable hammer-on-anvil slamming of a bolter, followed by a metal scream as a staking pin caromed off the wall close to her head. She yelped in surprise and brought her magnums up, but Cormoran was faster. A burst of frag-shells ripped back down the corridor, carving holes in the dusty air, and in the distance someone screamed and fell.

  "Whenever you're ready, Helsa," Cormoran said flatly.

  "Done." Red saw Helsa disconnecting the data-pick and shoved past her, guns held high, shrugging off the robes as soon as she was in. She went left, knowing that Godolkin would go right, that the pair of them could cover the whole circular floor of the chamber.

  She could never convince him of it, but she and Godolkin made a damned good combat team.

  There was no one in the vault to challenge them. Red turned her aim back to the hatch, covering the rest of the squad as they came through. When they were all in, Helsa closed the doors and began using the data-pick to scramble the lock, leaving Red to lower her guns and look around.

  The lightning vault was smaller than she had expected, but still impressive, a tall room the shape of a flattened cone. It was narrow for its height, taller than it was wide, and at the centre stood a slender construction so tall it reached almost to the spiny, cable strewn ceiling.

  The tower was ornate, its faces delicately curved, like a vast perfume bottle. At the apex of it, resting in a steel cradle, lay the most bizarre, confusing piece of machinery Red had ever seen. It was like a half solved puzzle, a partly melted labyrinth, a chaotic fusion of wheels and rods that seemed to pass both around each other and through each other simultaneously. Red had never seen anything like it.

  But somehow, she recognised it. "That's it," she breathed. "That's the time engine."

  Godolkin discarded his own robe, then pointed up at the cradle. "The weak point is there. With enough firepower we could bring the engine down to the vault floor, and then fix demolition charges directly to it."

  "Sounds like a plan." Red raised her magnums.

  Godolkin moved further around the tower, aiming his rifle, and the strike team took up positions closer to the base of the tower. "At your command, holy one," Cormoran called.

  And that was when Durham Red's luck ran out.

  Although there was no one in the vault with them, someone had been watching. Before Red could speak, a blinding wash of green light snapped down from the ceiling in a looping, roiling wave that spiralled down to strike her full in the face. The force of it slammed into her, kicking her clean off her feet and sending her sprawling backwards. She rolled, guns flying from her grip, feeling the rough metal of the deck scrape at her until she finally fetched up against a cable duct, her vision full of flashing lights, her skin livid with residual voltage.

  The vault was echoing with sound, a throbbing hum that made Red's teeth try to turn around in her jaw. Voltage crackled and sizzled around her
, snapping in fat sparks from her hands as she tried to right herself, to stand up and see what this awesome power was.

  There were screams, too.

  Red staggered upright. The light hadn't just come down to hit her; it had encircled the entire tower. It was still there, rippling like a liquid, a steady, stable column of glassy light that stretched from the ceiling to the floor. The tower was completely enclosed by it.

  "Sneck," Red moaned. "A bloody forcewall."

  Godolkin appeared from behind the tower, his shape sent leaping and swarming by the forcewall's ripples. "Blasphemy, we have casualties."

  "Shit." She limped around to meet him, and saw Cormoran kneeling on the floor halfway between the tower and the far wall. He was clutching his left arm to his chest, a broad stain of crimson spreading across the fabric of his robes. Helsa was lying some distance away, quite still.

  The other two members of the team hadn't been so lucky. Malak was slumped at the base of the tower, inside the forcewall's shell. The light had torn into him, sent his skin one way and his blood another. It had taken him apart in an instant.

  Red stepped closer to the tower and looked down at the deck. There was something there, a blackened mass, transfixed by the edge of the forcewall. There were shapes in the mass that reminded her of a man - a twist of spine here, a row of teeth somewhere further up, a tangle of bent sticks that could almost have been ribs - but nothing more.

  Lesham had been standing right on the spot where the forcewall touched the deck, and it had pulverised him.

  She turned away, sickened. Godolkin was helping Cormoran, easing the man's hand away from his chest. It was missing fingers. "Blasphemy, that is a dreadnought class forcewall. No weapon we have will penetrate it."

  Red tried to speak, found something warm and coppery in her mouth, and spat blood. "Someone switched it on," she snarled. "We'll just find them and convince them to shut it down again."

  "No time," whispered Cormoran, his face white with shock. "They're here."