Baneblade

by Guy Haley

  ‘I…’ stuttered Bannick. ‘I am Colaron Artem Lo Bannick.’

  ‘Of the opticals clan? Hmmm, I suppose had I been here longer I would have been able to tell. There is a certain look, I am told, to each of the clans, but I as yet do not see it. All the children of Man are equal to me.’

  ‘You are not here long?’ said Bannick, seeking refuge in this mundane exchange, anything to push the image of Tuparillio’s face from his mind.

  Confessor Pyke shook his head. ‘No, not long here, not long anywhere, in truth. The Ecclesiarchy do like to move us so, keeps us from putting down roots. But one mustn’t complain, one’s duty is to the church and to the Master of Mankind.’ The confessor glanced back to the eagle, then smiled at Bannick. ‘And one is happy in one’s work. Tell me, why have you not been to church for so long, my son? Our praises warm the Emperor, trapped in the cold machinery of His Golden Throne, our strength is His strength, and His strength is the pillar that holds up the Imperium. Would you deny succour to our lord?’

  Bannick had no answer.

  ‘I suppose you have not unburdened yourself of sin, either?’

  Bannick shook his head. ‘I have had nothing to confess,’ he lied.

  ‘Oh, my son.’ The priest smiled and inclined his head, placed a plump hand on Bannick’s shoulder. ‘I am sure you have. What you mean is “I have nothing to reveal bar minor transgressions that I would prefer the law does not know of.”’ He looked meaningfully at Bannick’s wounded face. ‘And that is perfectly understandable, all young men are the same. But looking at you now, this has changed, has it not?’

  Bannick nodded. His knees felt weak.

  The priest came forwards and took his elbow. ‘Take heart, my son. There is little that the Emperor will not excuse if a man offers true service, body and heart, soul and mind. There is nothing higher in this world than to serve the Emperor, and in so doing, serve man.’ Both of them raised their eyes to the effigy of the man-god suspended above.

  ‘Yes,’ Bannick managed.

  ‘Good. Be warmed, young man, in this coldest of seasons, be warmed in the knowledge that through service lies glory. But first, yes, first we must pray so that we may know what service will aid in the repentance of our transgressions. There is nothing quite like sharing a burden to ease one’s heart and the mind, no? Come with me, to the altar, let us there offer up ourselves to the Emperor.’

  Bannick offered no resistance.

  ‘I’m afraid shriving requires a donation, no problem for a man from such a wealthy background as yourself, but all these candles do not pay for themselves, alas.’

  Together they walked into the long aisles running down either side of the nave where Confessor Pyke took him to the altar. They knelt together in prayer before Pyke bade Bannick tell of his sins to the God-Emperor.

  There, in the dark and cold of the house of the Lord of Man, Bannick told of how he had become a murderer.

  INTERSTITIAL

  Hive Meradon is the administrative capital of the Kalidarian southern hemisphere. A hole in the sand that produces 36 megatonnes of processed lorelei pellets per annum for the Scholastica Psykana and Adeptus Astartes Librarium, there is nothing else remarkable about it at all. If I do recommend the locally caught, magnesium-seared sand-mite, it is only because it is practically the only palatable thing to eat there. At all costs, avoid the ‘salad’.

  Heironymous Squeam,

  Minor Industrial Worlds of the Segmentum Pacificus,

  a Precise Guide.

  Chapter 17

  Kalidar IV, Hive Meradon

  3335397.M41

  Brasslock shifted from consciousness to unconsciousness so often he was not sure which was which. At the moment, he thought he was awake. His mental processes were coherent. There had been no sudden relocation or arbitrary change in causal events. Processional phenomena went one to the other without non-logical shifts. The existence of the room he occupied was objectively apparent by the level of detail available to his senses; the grains of dirt under his flesh hand, the hum of distant machinery, the trickle of dust on his face, the smell of unwashed bodies and suppurating wounds, the moans of prisoners, the clank of chains as they shifted listlessly, attempting to find a little comfort for their tortured bodies; these were not the soft-edges of a dream, where sensation came and went on a whim. The floor he lay face down on was the same floor he lay on a minute ago, the dark the same dark. He was not dreaming. He wished he were.

  He pressed his flesh forefinger into the metal. Grit moved in the ridges of his fingerprint and he took a slow, painful breath. Real, all too real.

  The Adeptus Mechanicus lived by two contradictory creeds; faith, and reason. Faith in the Machine-God and His knowledge, reason the key to unlocking the deep truths underlying His gifts. Prayer was the appropriate adjunct to both.

  When the orks came, he had thought he was about to die. He should have been dead. But he was not. Reason told him that, while his faith told him that it could not be any other way. He was a servant of the Omnissiah, and he lived because He willed it.

  He ran a diagnostic with his cranial implants. His augmetics were sluggish to respond, the external sockets and cabling damaged by the blows rained down upon him by the orks when they took him. He was relieved when the contents of his intelligence core memory dumps showed continued viability. To have lost the contents of his ingrams would have been too much.

  He remembered the orks’ foul breath and rough hands, their hulking mass, his panic as they grabbed him. Poor, faithful Urtho smashed down and torn to pieces as the servitor tried to defend him.

  Pity and fear. Weaknesses of the flesh. His augmetics attempted an emotion suppression, unsuccessfully. He’d never been able to let go entirely of his human frailties, and in truth he had never wanted to. Under the plasteel and the wiring, he was a man, all the servants of the Omnissiah were. He was not an adherent of the subsects who regarded all trappings of the biological frame to be shameful failings. Was not the body, after all, a marvellous machine itself? Was not the flesh-form that worn by the most holy Emperor Himself? The Magos Biologis argued thus, even as they tinkered with its genetic underpinnings, tireless in their endeavours to improve upon it. How were the tech-priests to serve man’s Imperium if they left humanity entirely behind? He had read the secret histories, the chronicles of the Blind King and his uprising against the High Lords of Terra, how he had sought to use the powers of the Machine-God to rid the universe of all organic human life. This unholy course of action had been disastrous for the Imperium and the Adeptus Mechanicus both, yet still some of his colleagues failed to see the lessons of the past.

  There were those of the Adeptus Mechanicus who tried to sever themselves from their biological origins completely, adepts like Rotar. But not Brasslock. For him, the perfection of the will of the Omnissiah was the operation of machinery and humanity in balance, not in discord, neither side attempting to usurp the other, but both locked in a perfect reciprocal circle, benefits flowing between them without end. Knowledge as the tool of man. Best trust in metal, in cog and gear, best be a machine, but always with a human heart.

  Brasslock was a man, forever would be a man. As an adept of Mars Brasslock had complete faith in the process of cause and effect, felt it inevitable, and was calm in the face of his circumstances. They were as the Omnissiah and Emperor intended. As a man, Brasslock felt fear.

  The orks had hacked away most of his augmetics. They had stopped trying to pull out his mechadendrite assembly when they discovered that to do so would kill him. Likewise, his internal heart, lung and nutrient mechanisms remained intact, although not one part of him remained untouched. Curious ork specialists, one dressed as some hideous parody of a medicae doctor, the other wielding a variety of surprisingly delicate machine tools, had gone over his body for hours. Strapped to a table, unanaesthetised, his augmetics had fought hard to keep the pain at bay, but had failed. T
he agony of that examination remained with him, reduced to a dull throb now, but there. When he moved, bone and metal ground and pain flared high, especially around the crude sutures of the wounds they’d inflicted. This was as nothing to the sensations he’d suffered as they’d pulled him apart.

  He felt feverish. The beginning of infection, he thought. That would probably kill him if the orks did not do the job themselves.

  His mechadendrites themselves had been scissored off, the stubs of them twitching infuriatingly as they malfunctioned, a deep itch he could not scratch. Much of his right arm assembly had gone. They hadn’t been able to undo the locking mechanism for the multitool prosthesis he had been wearing. In the end they had become impatient and wrenched it out, damaging his nerve circuitry interfaces. After that they’d proceeded to dismantle his entire limb, piece by excruciating piece, only stopping when they’d severed the pressure lines that went deep within him. These acted as a secondary circulatory system and, when cut, his machine components had almost bled out, but the ork mechanic had been quick. He sealed the rupture and refilled the lubrication tubes with some filthy orkish oil. He felt polluted, the vile distillates of the greenskins within the holy Omnissiah’s gifts!

  They’d become agitated when it looked like he might die, a flurry of activity had erupted around him, the smaller gretchin xenoforms, humans too, working fast. They’d been more cautious after that, for a time.

  The pressure in his machine circulatory system was too low, the oil of entirely the wrong kind. His intelligence core’s mental interface was alive with warning sigils. His breathing laboured and machine heart beat erratically. His legs were practically non-functional, he could move them, but there was not sufficient pressure in the hydraulics to bear his weight. One of his eyes had been smashed in with the butt of a powerdrill by the mechanic, wires pulled and teased by poking ork fingers. It was as if the beast had been trying to understand how it worked, to see what made Brasslock function, but this could not have been so, orks were animals.

  He drew some comfort from the knowledge that they, xenos and masters of nothing but the crassest mechanisms, would never understand, and that even if they did, they lacked the blessing of the Omnissiah’s faith to make His blessings function correctly and with joy. They did not know the correct prayers, the rightful rituals to ensure proper operation. One only had to look at the ork machines to see that, the way they rattled and banged and puffed black smoke, forever on the brink of catastrophic malfunction. This provided some comfort.

  Brasslock was restricted in his movements. One weak flesh arm was left to him, the two smallest fingers of that hand broken. He could move his torso slightly, but the weight of his broken augmetics dragged at his ancient flesh. He was effectively a cripple, and unlike the others in the room about him, he wore no chains or binding. The orks judged him to be no threat. Face down on the floor, he awaited his death.

  The orks would not leave their prisoners alone. Time and again they returned. Many men went out and were not brought back, others died in the cell from the horrific injuries they returned with.

  Brasslock was unrobed – naked, humiliated, broken and bereft, his only succour the small array of blinking icons telling him of his pains, the last gift of the Omnissiah remaining to him.

  Next time, they would take that away too. He prayed as hard as he could to the Omnissiah and the Emperor both that he would die before that happened.

  For the first time in two centuries, Brasslock knew what it was to be truly human. Without the power of the Machine-God’s gifts, he was helpless and feeble, an old man. Had his tearducts not been removed decades before, he would have wept.

  ‘Brother,’ came a voice. ‘Brother?’ A hand fell on his flesh shoulder. Brasslock started. The prisoners did not talk to one another for fear of reprisals from the orks. When they did, they did not address Brasslock, superstitions surrounding the tech-priests keeping them distant.

  ‘Who is this who calls me brother?’ he managed. He could not see the man’s face.

  ‘It doesn’t matter much,’ whispered the man, sitting near the crippled tech-priest. ‘We’re all brothers here.’

  The tech-priest turned his head a little. The room was too dark for a man to see, but the light amplification enhancements of his remaining ocular augmetic provided him with a green, blurry version of sight.

  The man who called him brother sat, knees drawn up, hands clasped round them. Light reflected from his retinas and teeth, giving him a ghostly air, intensified when he moved, the lighter parts of him leaving streamers of greenish-white across Brasslock’s vision field. His uniform was stained dark, his hair wild, face smeared with something; all came out as darker greens to the tech-priest’s eye, but he appeared remarkably unharmed.

  ‘You, you are not fettered,’ croaked the priest with his flesh voice. His augmitters, including his vox grille, had been stripped from him.

  The man looked himself up and down as if surprised. ‘No, I suppose I am not, but then iron cannot bind any man who has faith in the Emperor, is that not the case?’

  Brasslock turned his head away. ‘I find your faith uplifting,’ he said, not sure if he believed that any more.

  ‘And so you should, Enginseer Brasslock. I once had none, but in circumstances such as mine, it becomes something of a necessity.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Brasslock.

  A cruel shout in guttural Gothic came from outside the room, telling them to shut up. A metal object banging on the door. Other prisoners hissed, urging the tech-priest to silence.

  The stranger ignored them. ‘Brasslock, do not let them break you, no matter what. Do not give up your secrets!’

  Brasslock did not respond, weary to the bone. He was drifting into sleep when it occurred to him that he had not told the man his name.

  When Brasslock lifted his head to ask him if they’d met before, the man had gone.

  INTERSTITIAL

  The amount of lorelei present in the Ozymandian Flatlands estimated by the previous Geologian Surveyor team has proven to be, if anything, a grievous understatement. The combination of tidal effort, stellar radiologic bombardment and the trauma to the crust of the impact event has created lorelei deposits of unparalleled purity and quantity. Our recent calculations indicate that an amount of raw crystals equal to half the entire crystalline resource of Kalidar is present in fracture lines throughout the basin. Although deep compared to some of the other deposits – sand harvesters would be entirely ineffectual – the concentration of the veins make viable the establishment of deep mining, at a cost in lives and materials easily borne, no greater, we perceive, than five billion Imperials annually, lower caste and mutant slave deaths at >20,500.

  It is the recommendation of this committee that the founding of a new hive be undertaken in the heart of the basin as soon as possible, better to exploit this most precious of resources.

  Ozymandian Basin geological report, M40.

  Chapter 18

  Kalidar IV, Ozymandian Basin

  3338397.M41

  ‘Steady! Steady! Outlanner, hold the line down the middle!’ Cortein shouted into the internal vox.

  ‘I see it sir, I see it!’ the driver’s voice crackled back over the speakers. ‘Got to bear left a little, there’s a fissure there in the rock to the right, it might give.’

  Mars Triumphant’s engines grumbled loudly as the tank struggled down the slope into the basin, its great weight working against it on fractured rock and sand covering the sides of the basin.

  Cortein nodded to Epparaliant, who waited expectantly at his comms station. He turned to his unit, hands playing over the controls for the tank’s laser pulse data systems, warning those coming behind them to follow Outlanner’s lead.

  Behind Mars Triumphant, the other vehicles of the taskforce came on: a thin line of Leman Russ, one after another, five of the nine accompanying the larger tank. Behind
them, two Chimeras, then the first of four Trojan supply vehicles. Tethered behind it was a large flatbed carrying vast fuel drums, also tracked, another Trojan attached to the end to stabilise its progress. Then Exertraxes’s command Chimera, bristling with antennae rendered useless by the storm, another Chimera, and Captain Verselleo’s command tank. Following them came another paired unit of Trojans guiding a second flatbed trailer, this stacked high with ammunition. The rear was brought up by the second of Exertraxes’s platoon lieutenants in his Chimera, two of his squads alongside him. Then came an Atlas recovery vehicle, currently home to the taskforce’s enginseer and astropath. Finally, two standard armed Leman Russ battle tanks, turrets reversed, acting as a rearguard.

  ‘This is not easy,’ came Outlanner’s voice. The storm blew on. The wind could be heard even inside. The internal vox crackled like gunfire, external vox swamped by static. Mars Triumphant shifted abruptly to the right, metal groaning, equipment jangling. All the crew were on duty. Even Vorkosigen, bruised and subdued, sat at his station, Meggen hanging from the central well ladder, keeping a watchful eye on him. Every one of them, bar the loader, scanned their station pict screens, gauging how much space they had on the treacherous mountain path.

  ‘Steady, Outlanner, steady. Four degrees left, forward three metres, back five degrees,’ said Cortein, adjusting the heading dials.

  ‘Sir.’ The tank juddered as it shifted, creeping forwards a centimetre at a time.

  When they’d reached the barrier range, it had taken a day to find a gap through the worn mountains around the crater. Exertraxes’s first lieutenant, Polikon, found this path and had driven its length once before returning with the information for the rest of the convoy. He and his command crew had then descended a second time in their Chimera, and now waited at the bottom.

  Bannick was deeply thankful they only had to do it once.