[Tome of Fire 01] - Salamander

by Nick Kyme - (ebook by Undead)

  Pyriel gave the order to advance, invoking a faint glow in the blade of his force sword.

  “No life signs,” uttered Iagon through the comm-feed after a minute had elapsed. He glanced down intermittently at the auspex clutched in his gauntlet, scanning for bio-signatures.

  “It’s deserted,” rasped Tsu’gan, combi-bolter held at the ready, stalking along one side of the hall in front of his dutiful brother.

  “Like a tomb…” hissed Brother Ba’ken from the other side, adjusting the weighty multi-melta he held, unknowingly echoing Tsu’gan’s earlier words on the flight deck.

  “Let’s hope it stays that way,” Dak’ir muttered, taking point opposite Tsu’gan.

  After several minutes, Brother Zo’tan articulated what they were all thinking. “Feels like we’re heading down.”

  “We’re in one of the ship’s entry conduits,” offered Emek, flamer low-slung as he panned it back and forth with smooth sweeps. He had been promoted to special weapons trooper after the campaign on Stratos. The previous incumbent, Brother Ak’sor, had died during the engagement. He had been one of several Fire-born lost on that world. “It leads into the bowels of the Archimedes Rex,” Emek continued, using the data he’d accessed from the ship’s schematics and then stored in his eidetic memory to ascertain their exact location. “At this pace we should reach the end of it in approximately eight minutes.”

  Eerie silence resumed with only the dull thud of the Salamanders’ footfalls disturbing it.

  The empty sockets of a Mechanicus skull glared at them when they reached the end of the conduit, another massive bulkhead door impeding the way ahead.

  “Brother Emek,” invited Pyriel, a brief flare erupting along the blade of his force sword as he readied his power.

  Emek allowed the flamer to loll against its strap as he went to the bulkhead’s control panel and prepared to engage the access mechanism. Behind him, all nineteen of his battle-brothers took up battle positions. “Disengaging locks,” he reported, and fell back quickly to join them.

  A crack split the immense door, hermetically sealed from the outside, dividing it into two. Shrieking mechanisms were immediately smothered by an intense clamour spilling out from the chamber beyond, filling the conduit with raucous noise. After the silence they had just experienced, the din was like a physical blow and the Salamanders reeled as one. Only Pyriel was unfazed.

  Adapting quickly, the Salamanders filtered out the crashing wall of sound, just as Dak’ir had done aboard the Fire-wyvern. Maintaining vigilance, they awaited the slow, inexorable process of the bulkhead opening.

  Massive forge-engines loomed in the next chamber, banks and banks of pistons, foundries, kilns and smelting vats filling an expansive machine floor. Conveyors chugged with monotonous motion, steam spat in sporadic intervals from pipes and vents, unseen gears churned noisily.

  It was a hive of industry, a slow-beating heart of metal and machines, oil and heat. Yet, for all its labours, the forge-engines had achieved nothing. The vast machineries were merely turning over and over, going through their production cycles bereft of raw materials. Spent bolts piled up on the floor beneath an array of heavy-duty riveting guns, their ammunition long spent; hammers pounded the vulcanised rubber tract of a running belt, their concussive force impotent without plating to beat; oil spilled across the deck and seeped down through cross-hatched grilles, no joints for the empty needle-dispensers to lubricate.

  With no independent servitors in sight, no adepts to instruct them, the many and multifarious apparatus continued in their various indoctrinated routines uninterrupted. The only creatures in the forge were those servitors attached physically to the machines, but they too merely worked by rote, implementing their protocols like automatons. There was no evidence of crew or even skitarii armsmen or Martian praetorians, either — wherever the inhabitants of the Ark-class vessel were situated, it was not here.

  “Tiberon,” barked Tsu’gan into the comm-feed, “shut it down.”

  The Salamander saluted and broke from formation, bolter held low and ready. He disappeared briefly amidst the forge-machines. A few moments later the machines slowed and began to power down, the din receding gradually into silence.

  Brother Tiberon returned and rejoined his squad.

  Dak’ir tested the reaction of a slaved servitor with the up of his chainsword, watching it slump back as if its invisible strings had been cut by the weapon’s teeth.

  “We must find out what happened here.” He looked to Pyriel for some guidance, but the Librarian was still and appeared pensive.

  Instead, Dak’ir looked around and noticed a console independent of the forge-machines.

  “Emek, see if you can access the onboard maintenance logs. Perhaps it will provide some clue as to what happened.”

  Emek went to work again, using the surplus power available from the shut-down forge-engines to activate the console. Dak’ir at his shoulder, the other Salamander brought up more ship schematics, this time with maintenance logs appended alongside. He read quickly, assessing the information display and absorbing it like a savant. Emek’s capacity for knowledge and aptitude at applying it was impressive, even for a Space Marine.

  “Records are incomplete, possibly as a result of the damage sustained to the ship,” he said, whilst reading. Touch sensitive screens allowed Emek to call up specific decks and areas, digging deeper for answers as he zeroed in on the salient information the vessel did still possess. “There’s an alert for a minor hull breach to the aft, starboard side.”

  “We entered via the port side,” muttered Dak’ir. “How close to our current position is it?”

  “Several decks — potentially an hour’s travelling through the ship, assuming a clear route and walking speed. It’s too small to be weapons damage.”

  “An internal explosion?”

  “It’s possible…”

  “But you don’t think so, brother?”

  “This ship has been drifting for a while, any incendiary reaction from inside would have occurred before now,” Emek explained. “There is a fading heat trace associated with this breach, which suggests it’s recent.”

  “What are you telling me, Emek?”

  “That the breach was caused by external forces and that we are not the only ones exploring this ship.”

  Dak’ir paused to consider this then slapped Emek’s pauldron.

  “Good work, brother. Now find us a route through the ship that will take us to the bridge. We may need the Archimedes Rex’s log to ascertain what tragedy befell them.”

  Emek nodded and began examining the ship’s layout in detail relative to the Salamanders’ position in its bowels and the bridge situated in the upper decks.

  “Brother-Librarian,” Dak’ir said to get Pyriel’s attention after he left Emek to his task.

  Pyriel faced him and his eyes crackled briefly with psychic power.

  “So it seems we are not alone, after all,” he said.

  Dak’ir shook his head. “No, my lord, we are not.”

  The Salamanders proceeded with caution, following the route established by Brother Emek and inloaded to Brother Iagon’s auspex. They passed through cargo zones, abandoned crew quarters and vast assembly yards fed by the forge-engines from below decks. The further into the ship they travelled, the more frequent the discovery of servitors became. Unlike those on the foundry floor in the bowels of the Archimedes Rex, these automatons were independent of engines or other machineries. Some lay slumped against bulkheads, others hung slack like wretched cybernetic dolls over benches or cargo crates, many were simply frozen stiff, locked in whatever perfunctory task they had been performing when the ship had been attacked. Whatever had crippled the Ark-class cruiser had acted swiftly and to devastating effect.

  Despite its disrepair, the iron majesty of the Mechanicus still came through and intensified the deeper the Salamanders went in the ship. Symbols of the Machine-God were wrought into the walls, the holy cog of the Martian brotherh
ood prevalent throughout the upper echelons of the Archimedes Rex. Alcoves recessed into the walls punctuated regimental lines of bulkheads and were minor chapels of devotion to the Omnissiah. Incense burners hung from chains looped under the vaulted ceilings, emanating strange aromas reminiscent of oil and metal. Designed to appease and mollify the machine-spirits, these lightly smoking braziers were ubiquitous throughout the Archimedes Rex’s many upper halls, chambers and galleries.

  Skulls set into the walls were mistaken as some form of reliquary at first, but the circuitry and antennae jutting from bleached bone exposed them as cyber-skulls, the sanctified craniums of pious and devoted servants of the Imperium. The entire ship was a monolith of religio-metallurgic fusion, the spiritual alloyed with the mechanised.

  Tsu’gan stooped over the collapsed body of a servitor. There appeared to be no external damage, and yet it was lifeless and unmoving. Its staring eyes, milky orbs of glass, were bereft of animus.

  “No putrefaction, no decay of any kind,” he reported from the head of the group. Brother Honorious watched the dingy route ahead of his sergeant, flamer at the ready.

  The ship’s corridors had narrowed, becoming almost labyrinthine, devolving into a myriad of tunnels, conduits and passageways like the multitudinous neural pathways of a vast mechanised brain. Only Emek’s route to the bridge had kept them on course. The Salamanders had to advance in pairs, one squad at the fore, the other guarding the rear. Tsu’gan had been quick to establish his dominance, eager for action, and taken the lead. Librarian Pyriel had seemed content to let him, occupying a position at the centre of the two squads. The longer they spent on the ship, the more seldom Pyriel spoke. He interrogated his psionics constantly, trying to ascertain some thread of existence of the other intruders on the vessel, but the machine presence on board, though slumbering or inert, was hindering his efforts.

  “These creatures are not dead.” Tsu’gan got back to his feet. Though the majority of their bodies were mechanised, even servitors required biological systems to maintain the integrity of their human flesh parts and organs. Without them they would not be able to function. “It’s like some kind of deep hibernation,” the brother-sergeant added.

  “A defence mechanism, perhaps?” offered Emek, alongside Dak’ir who was just behind Pyriel.

  Tsu’gan didn’t have time to answer before Iagon spoke up.

  “I have a life form reading, two hundred metres east.”

  Looking in that direction, Tsu’gan grunted. “Weapons ready.”

  Together, the Salamanders followed the quietly flashing signal on Iagon’s auspex.

  Two hundred metres east led the Salamanders to a large Mechanicus temple. Octagonal in shape and with an archway leading off from each of its eight sides, here the blending of machine and religiosity was even more prevalent. There were iron altars, burning brazier pans and devotional statues; cyber-skulls wound around the temple’s ambit like eternal sentinels. An inscrutable sequence of ones and zeros, doubtless some esoteric equation relating to Mechanicus science, filled the plated floor. Huge, bulb-headed battery units spat arcs of electricity across flanged conductor fins fixed to a thin torso of metal. The ephemeral sparks filled the chamber sporadically, illuminating it in a harsh white glare.

  In the centre of the room, encircled by the cog symbol itself, a robed figure knelt in supplication.

  Tsu’gan was the first to enter, Honorious and Iagon at his back with weapons drawn. The figure seemed still to the brother-sergeant, though after he’d stared at it long enough he detected the slightest tremor of movement as it rocked back and forth. As it faced away from them, hooded by a heavy cowl, Tsu’gan was unable to discern its features or physical disposition. Combi-bolter readied cautiously, he battle-signed for his fellow squad members to fan out around him. In a few short seconds, the entire complement of Salamanders was in the large room and poised for immediate assault.

  “A magos, by the look of it,” uttered Pyriel. His eyes flashed cerulean blue behind his helmet lenses and then died again. “I see nothing,” he added in a hollow voice, “Nothing but mental static. It is as if its mind is shut off somehow, or merely waiting for some trigger to ignite it.”

  The Librarian looked to Brother Iagon, who was adjusting the auspex trying to get a more detailed reading.

  “The biorhythms appear normal, all circadian functions are perpetuating as expected. Heart rate, respiration, they are consistent with a deep sleep.”

  Brother Emek shook his head. “It isn’t sleeping, as such,” he observed, his curiosity coming through via the comm-feed. “Its movements are acute, but exact and repeated, as if locked in some kind of holding pattern or mechanised catatonia. It is irregular.”

  “Explain, brother,” Dak’ir returned.

  “Magos are sentient: they are unlike servitors, dependent on doctrina wafers or pre-programmed work protocols. Cold and inhuman, certainly, but they are not slavish automatons. Some trauma must have afflicted it in for it to behave in this way.”

  Tsu’gan had heard enough. He levelled his combi-bolter, taking careful aim.

  Dak’ir put out a hand to stop him. “What are you doing?” he snapped.

  Though he couldn’t see Tsu’gan’s eyes behind his battle-helm, Dak’ir felt the heat in his fellow sergeant’s glare.

  “Listen to your battle-brother. It’s a trap,” he growled, looking over at Dak’ir’s gauntlet on his bolter stock. “Step aside unless you want to lose your hand, Ignean.”

  Dak’ir bristled at the slight. He had no issue with his lowborn heritage, he only objected to the way that Tsu’gan used it as a derogatory barb.

  “Desist,” he warned him, through clenched teeth. “I won’t allow you to shoot a man in cold blood. Let me approach him first.”

  “It’s not a man, it’s a thing.”

  Still Dak’ir would not yield.

  Tsu’gan’s finger lingered near his bolter trigger for a few seconds more before he lost the battle of wills, lowered the weapon and stepped back.

  “Proceed, if you wish,” he growled. “But as soon as the creature turns — and mark me it will — I shall fire. You’d best be out of the way when I do.”

  Dak’ir nodded, though the gesture went unheeded so was scarcely necessary. He glanced behind him at Ba’ken, who gave an acknowledgement of his own, though this one indicated that he was watching his sergeant’s back. Before he turned away, Dak’ir noticed Pyriel looking on. The Librarian had observed and, doubtless, heard the entire exchange between the feuding sergeants but had said nothing. Dak’ir wondered then whether Pyriel’s presence on this mission was more than merely simple command. Had Master Vel’cona, at Tu’Shan’s bidding, instructed him to assess how far the enmity between the brother-sergeants went and act appropriately or even report back? Or perhaps there was another imperative guiding the Librarian, one related to his careful observations during the ceremony on Nocturne? Now was not the time to consider it. Dak’ir slowly drew his chainsword and approached the magos.

  His bootsteps sounded like thunderclaps through his battle-helm as he walked tentatively towards the centre of the temple. As Dak’ir moved he panned his gaze slowly back and forth, interrogating the deeper shadows lurking in the recesses of the room. Cycling through the optical spectra afforded by his occulobe implants and combined with the technology of his battle-helm’s lenses, Dak’ir felt certain there were no hidden dangers.

  Within an arm’s length of the kneeling magos, he stopped. Listening intently, he made out a susurrus of meaningless sound seeping from the supplicant’s mouth. Close up, the tremors in the magos’ body seemed more pronounced, though whether this was merely proximity or the fact that it had somehow detected his presence, Dak’ir was uncertain.

  “Turn,” he said in a low voice. It was possible the magos was in some kind of trance or deep meditation. Perhaps he had lost his mind and was fixed in some catatonic state as Emek had suggested. In any case, Dak’ir had no desire to alarm him. “Have no fear,�
� he added when a response was not forthcoming. “We are the Emperor’s Astartes, here to rescue you and your crew. Turn.”

  Still nothing.

  Dak’ir took a firm grip on his plasma pistol, still holstered for now, and reached out with the tip of his dormant chainsword.

  The blade had barely brushed the crimson robes, when the magos turned, or rather its torso rotated as if on a gimbal joint, and it faced the intruder defiling the sanctity of its temple.

  “Abandon hope, all ye who enter…” it barked, the chattering phrase it had been repeating made audible at last and vocalised in a grating, machine dialect.

  Kadai’s words in the dream came back at Dak’ir like a hammer blow and he almost staggered.

  The phrase continued in an uninterrupted loop, speeding up and increasing in pitch and volume until it became an unintelligible whine of noise. Dak’ir brought his chainsword up into a guard position and retreated one step.

  The sound of tearing cloth followed as the magos’ robes flared out in shreds at his back and two mechanical arms sprang out like the pincers of some insect. A chainblade affixed to the end of one of the arms roared into life; on the other a vibro-saw shrieked. Pale, gelid skin, sutured with wires and metal, possessed no life. Sightless eyes held neither pity nor anger, only a simple function: eliminate the intruders. A nozzle protruded from its mouth like an obscene tongue forcing its way from the cold, dark crevice. It was the tip of an igniter, and spat a thin column of flame.

  Dak’ir used his free forearm to shield himself, and intense heat washed over him. Radiation warnings spiked in his battle-helm’s display. In the same movement, he parried the sudden dart of the vibro-saw blindly with his chainsword. Powerless to stop the magos’ chainblade, it churned against his left pauldron hungrily. Spitting sparks, it retracted and came about again.

  Bolter fire thudded behind him and Dak’ir half expected to feel the shots penetrate his suit’s generator and then his back, but the aim of his battle-brothers was true and he did not fall. Instead, he felt the crackle of electricity and detected the stink of ozone in his nostrils. A secondary flash lit up his battle-helm, lenses struggling to compensate as the blades whirred towards him again. Dak’ir realised that the magos was force-shielded.