Kotov felt the ship’s pain as it it was torn from side to side, buffeted by tortured pockets of gravity and forced to endure swirling eddies of ruptured time. Where gravity pockets intersected, he shared its pain as its hull was torn open and its inner workings exposed to forces no sane designer could ever have expected it to suffer.
The Speranza was howling across every channel it possessed: binaric, noospheric, data-light, Manifold, augmitter and vox. Kotov sensed its distress along pathways even he had not known existed, and its pain was his pain. Its suffering was his suffering, and he offered a prayer of forgiveness to its mighty heart, supplication to the hurt it was suffering in its service to the Adeptus Mechanicus.
If they survived to reach the other side of the Halo Scar, then great appeasements would need to be made in thanks for so difficult a transit.
The ship dropped suddenly, as though in the grip of a planet’s gravitational envelope, and Kotov gripped the edges of his command throne as he felt steel and adamantium tear deep within the body of the ship. More explosions vented compartments into the hellstorm surrounding them, and the cries of the Speranza grew ever more frantic.
And this, thought Kotov, was the eye of the storm.
The shipquakes wracking the Speranza were felt just as keenly throughout the lower reaches of the ship. In the maintenance spaces, teams of emergency servitors cycled through the engine decks and plasma drive chambers emitting soothing binaric cants to the afflicted machines. Only those mortal workers deemed expendable were tasked with maintaining the volatile and highly specialised workings of the great engines of the Ark Mechanicus.
For once Abrehem’s revered status had worked in his favour. Together with Hawke, Crusha and Coyne, he had been singled out to spend the shuddering journey through the Halo Scar on a downshift. The respite was welcome, but Abrehem was itchy to get back to doing something that felt like it mattered. Ever since their escape from the reclamation chambers, his duties had become less physically onerous and much more obviously relevant to the operations of the engine deck.
For the last few shifts, he and Coyne had been given tasks that almost resembled the jobs they’d had on Joura, managing lifter rigs and directing the fuel transfers from the deep hangars to the plasma chambers. It was still thankless, demanding and dangerous work, but spoke of the deep reverence even their overseers had for those the Machine-God had singled out.
Totha Mu-32 was Vresh’s replacement, and where Vresh had been unthinking in his cruelty and uncaring in his ministrations, Totha Mu-32 was a more spiritual member of the Cult Mechanicus. He appeared to recognise the very real dangers faced by the engine deck crews and was cognisant of the vital nature of their work. Together with an up-deck magos named Pavelka and an enginseer called Sylkwood, Totha Mu-32 was working to get the engines functioning at full capacity by harnessing the devotion of the men and women in his cohorts. Pavelka was typical Mechanicus, but Sylkwood wasn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty in the guts of an engine hatch.
Conditions were still hard, but they were improving. Totha Mu-32 drove his charges hard, but Abrehem had always been of the opinion that work should be hard. Not impossible, but hard enough to feel that the day’s effort made a valuable contribution. Where was the reward and sense of pride if work were easy? How could such service be measured worthy of the Machine-God?
Hawke, of course, had laughed at that, pouring scorn on the idea of work as devotional service.
To Hawke, work was for other people, and the best kind of work was work avoided.
Like many of those on the downshift, Abrehem, Coyne and Ismael gathered in one of the many engine shrines dotted around the deck spaces while the ship groaned and creaked around them as though trying to pull itself apart. This shrine was a long narrow space slotted between a grunting, emphysemic vent tube and a bank of cable trunking, each thrumming cable thicker than a healthy man’s chest. It seemed wherever there was a space between functional elements of the engineering spaces, a shrine to the Machine-God would appear, complete with its own Icon Mechanicus fashioned from whatever off-cuts and debris could be scavenged and worked into its new form. Such off-the-schemata installations were, in theory, forbidden, but no overseer or tech-priest would dream of dismantling a shrine to the Omnissiah on an engine deck, a place where a servant of the Machine might be fatally punished for a moment’s lack of faith.
The bisected machine skull at the end of this particular nave was a mosaic constructed from plasma flects scavenged from the reclamation chambers. Abrehem and Coyne’s former dock overseer knelt before the icon, his hands clasped before him like a child at prayer. Ismael’s eyes had an odd, faraway look to them that spoke of a broken mind and fractured memory. The glassy skull glinted in the winking lights of the vent tube and a gently swaying electro-flambeau as the deck tilted from one side to the other.
‘That was a bad one,’ said Coyne as the vent tube groaned and a crack appeared in the weld seam joining two sections of pipework together. Hissing, lubricant-sweetened oil moistened the air with a chemical stink.
‘They’re all bad ones,’ said Abrehem, reading the frightened hisses, burps and squeals of binary echoing from the cables as they carried information throughout the ship. ‘The ship is scared.’
‘Bugger the ship, I’m just about ready to piss my drawers,’ said Hawke, pushing aside the canvas doors of the temple and sitting down next to Abrehem. Crusha followed behind Hawke, carrying a pair of bulky-looking gunny sacks over his shoulders. The walls shook, and Abrehem felt suddenly heavy as the ship lurched like a raft in a storm. He didn’t like to think of the kinds of forces that could affect a ship as colossal as an Ark Mechanicus.
‘Hush,’ said Coyne. ‘A bit of respect, eh? Remember where you are.’
‘Right,’ said Hawke, making a quick Cog symbol over his chest. ‘Sorry, just never liked being reminded I’m in a pressurised iron box flying through space.’
Abrehem nodded. It was easy to forget that the cavernous spaces in which they lived, worked and slept weren’t on the surface of a planet, that they were, in fact, hurtling through the void at vertiginous speeds on a gigantic machine that had a million ways to kill them with malfunction.
‘You know, for once I find myself in complete agreement with you,’ said Abrehem.
‘Come on,’ said Hawke. ‘You make it sound like we disagree all the time.’
‘I can’t think of anyone else I disagree with more.’
‘Is the ship in... danger?’ said Ismael, still on his knees before the Icon Mechanicus.
‘Yes,’ said Abrehem. ‘The ship is in danger.’
‘Can you make it better like you made me better?’ asked Ismael, rising to his feet and coming to stand before him, hands slack at his sides.
‘I didn’t make you better, Ismael,’ said Abrehem. ‘You took a blow to the head and that rearranged bits of your brain, I think. The bits the Mechanicus shut off, they’re coming back to you. Well, some of them at least.’
‘Savickas,’ said Ismael, holding out his arm and letting the electoo drift to the surface again.
‘Yes, Savickas,’ smiled Abrehem, pulling his sleeve up to show the identical electoo.
‘You are right, the ship is in great pain,’ said Ismael, his words halting and slow, as though his damaged brain was only just clinging on to its facility for language. ‘We can feel its fear and it hurts us all.’
‘We?’ said Abrehem. ‘Who else do you mean?’
‘The others,’ said Ismael. ‘Like me. I can... feel... them. Their voices are in my head, faint, like whispers. I can hear them and they can hear me. They do not like to hear me. I think I remind them.’
‘Remind them of what?’ asked Coyne.
‘Of what they used to be.’
‘Is he always going to talk like that?’ asked Hawke, as Crusha laid the two gunny sacks at his feet before moving past Ismael to the skul
l icon at the far end of the shrine. Like Ismael, Crusha had a childlike respect for ritual and devotion.
‘I don’t know,’ said Abrehem. ‘I’ve never heard of a servitor retaining any knowledge of its former life, so I’m guessing really.’
‘It sounds like deep down they remember who they were,’ said Coyne.
‘Thor’s balls, I hope not,’ said Hawke. ‘Trapped in your own head as a slave, screaming all the time and knowing that no one can ever hear you. That’s just about the worst thing I can imagine.’
‘Even after all the stuff you said you saw on Hydra Cordatus?’
‘No, I suppose not, but you know what I mean.’
‘I don’t think they remember anything consciously,’ said Abrehem, hoping to avoid another retelling of Hawke’s battles against the Traitor Marines. ‘I think their memory centres are the first things the gemynd-shears cut. All that’s left once they’re turned into a servitor is the basic motor and comprehension functions.’
‘So one bang on the head and he remembers who he is?’ said Hawke. ‘We should do that to them all and we’d have a bloody army.’
Abrehem shook his head as Hawke rummaged through the first gunny sack. Another shipquake shook the cramped shrine, and Abrehem quickly made the Cog over his heart.
‘I don’t think it’s as simple as that,’ said Abrehem. ‘You can’t mess with someone’s brain and know exactly what might happen.’
‘Ah, who cares anyway?’ said Hawke, pulling a plastic-wrapped carton from the gunny sack and tearing the packaging away with a sigh of pleasure. ‘There you are, my beauties.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Coyne, trying and failing to mask his interest.
Hawke grinned and opened a packet of lho-sticks, lighting one with a solder-lance hanging from his belt. He blew out a perfect series of smoke rings and, seeing Coyne and Abrehem’s expectant looks, begrudgingly passed the carton over. Coyne took three, but Abrehem contented himself with one. Hawke lit them up, and they smoked in silence for a moment as the ship shuddered around them once again and the electro-flambeau clinked on its chain.
‘So where did you get these?’ asked Coyne.
‘I got a few contacts in the skitarii now,’ said Hawke. ‘I don’t want to say too much more, but even those augmented super-soldiers have a taste for below-decks shine. A few bottles here, a few bottles there...’
‘What else have you got in there?’
‘This and that,’ said Hawke, enjoying keeping his answers cryptic. ‘Some food, some drink that hasn’t got trace elements of engine oil and piss running through it, and some bits of tech I think I can use to trade with some of the overseers. Turns out they’re pretty far down the pecking order too, and aren’t averse to the odd bit of commerce that makes life a little more comfortable.’
‘What could you have that an overseer would possibly want?’
‘Never you mind,’ said Hawke, wagging an admonishing finger. ‘I’m already telling you too much, but seeing as how we’re practically brothers now, I’d be willing to cut you boys in on a piece of the action.’
‘What kind of action could you get?’
‘Nothing too much to start with. I’m thinking maybe we can get some extra food or some pure-filtered water. Then if things work out, we might see about getting some better quarters or transfer to a deck that isn’t killing us with rad-bleed or toxin runoff. Give me six months and I’ll have us in a cushy number, where we don’t have to do any work at all. It’s all about who you know, and that’s just as true on a starship as it ever was in the Guard.’
‘You could really do that?’ asked Coyne.
‘Sure, no reason why not,’ said Hawke. ‘I’ve got the smarts, and I’ve got Crusha if folk start getting uppity.’
‘You start making moves like that you’re going to piss off a lot of people,’ warned Abrehem. ‘And Crusha can’t keep you safe all the time.’
‘I know, I’m not an idiot,’ said Hawke. ‘That’s why I got this.’
Hawke reached into the second gunny sack and pulled out a scuffed and battered case, held closed by a numeric lock. He punched in a five digit code and removed an ancient-looking pistol with a long barrel of coiled induction loops and a heavy power-cell that snapped into the handle. The matt-black finish of the gun was chipped and scratched, but the mechanism appeared to be well-cared-for, an antique with sentimental value.
‘Holy Throne, where did you get that?’ said Coyne.
‘I told you, I got to know some of the skitarii,’ said Hawke. ‘They heard I was ex-Guard and we got to talking, and... here we are.’
‘Does it even work? It looks like it’s about a thousand years old.’
Hawke shrugged. ‘I think so. I’m betting it doesn’t matter though. You point it at someone and all they’re going to be worried about is getting their head blown off.’
‘Put it away,’ hissed Abrehem. ‘If the overseers see you with that, you’ll be thrown out of an airlock or turned into a servitor. And probably us too.’
‘Relax,’ said Hawke, ‘they’re not going to find it.’
Hawke looked up as Ismael appeared at his shoulder, the servitor looking confused and disorientated.
‘What do you want?’ spat Hawke.
‘That gun,’ said Ismael. ‘Helicon Pattern subatomic plasma pistol, lethal range two hundred metres, accurate to one hundred metres. Coil capacity; ten shots, recharge time between shots; twenty-five point seven three seconds. Manufacture discontinued in 843.M41 due to overheat margin increase of forty-seven per cent per shot beyond the fifth.’
‘You know about guns?’ asked Hawke.
‘I know about guns?’ asked the servitor.
‘You tell me, you’re the one who just recited the bloody instruction manual,’ said Hawke.
‘I... had... guns,’ said Ismael, haltingly. ‘I think I remember using them. I think I was very good.’
‘Really?’ said Hawke. ‘Now that is interesting.’
The first indication that the crossing of the Halo Scar would involve sacrifice came in a broad-spectrum distress call from the Blade of Voss. The nearest vessel to the escort was Cardinal Boras, and its captain, a hoary veteran mariner by the name of Enzo Larousse, was a shipmaster who had sailed treacherous regions of space and lived to tell the tale. As executive officer of the Retribution-class warship he had traversed some of the worst warp storms ever recorded, and as captain had brought his ship back from Ventunius’s disastrous expedition to the northern Wolf Stars.
Larousse ran a tight ship with a firm hand that recognised the value each crewman brought to the ship. His bridge staff were well-drilled and efficient, his below-decks crew no less so, and a palpable sense of pride and loyalty was felt on every deck.
The screams on the vox were awful to hear, sometimes distorted and stretched, like a recording played too slow, sometimes shrieking and shrill. Crushing gravity waves compressed the time and space through which the vox-traffic was passing, twisting the words of each message beyond recognition, but leaving the terrible sense of terror and desperation undiminished.
Larousse’s bridge crew felt the horrific fear of their compatriots aboard Blade of Voss, and waited for their captain to give an order. Seated on his command throne, Larousse listened to the screams of fellow mariners, all too aware of how dangerous the space through which they sailed was, but unwilling to abandon the stricken ship.
‘Mister Cassen, slow to one third,’ he ordered.
‘Captain...’ warned Cassen. ‘We can’t help them.’
‘Deck officer, raise the blast shutters, I want to see what in the blazes is happening out there,’ said Larousse, ignoring his Executive Officer. ‘Surveyor control, see what you can get, and someone raise the bloody Speranza. They need to know what’s happening here.’
‘Captain, we have a precise course laid in,’ said Cassen. ‘Or
ders from the archmagos are not to deviate from it.’
‘To the warp with the archmagos,’ snapped Larousse. ‘He’s already abandoned one ship, and I’ll be damned if we’re going to leave another one behind.’
‘Surveyors are dead, captain,’ came the report from the auspex arrays.
‘No auspex, no vox, no voids,’ snarled Larousse. ‘Another bloody fool’s errand.’
‘Blast shutters raising.’
Larousse turned his attention to the hellish maelstrom of ugly, raw light that spilled around them, the excretions of dying stars and the bleeding light and spacetime surrounding them. Hypnotically deadly, coruscating shoals of ultra-compressed stellar matter painted space before the Cardinal Boras with splashes of light that writhed and exploded and snapped back as it was deformed by the titanic energies of the tortured gravity fields.
‘Holy Terra,’ breathed Larousse.
In the bottom quadrant of the viewing screen was the Blade of Voss, close enough that it could be seen without the need for surveyors, auspex or radiation slates. The ship was caught in a squalling burst of gravity from a star that appeared to be no bigger than an orbital plate or the great segmentum fortress anchored at Kar Duniash. Convergent streams of gravity were coalescing into a perfect storm of hyper-dense waves of crushing force.
And the Blade of Voss was caught at the bleeding edge of that storm.
Plates of armour tens of metres thick were peeling back from her hull and the ship had an unnatural torsion breaking her apart along her overstretched keel. Compounding gravitational sheer forces were tearing the ship apart, and though her mater-captain was fighting to break the ship free, Larousse saw that was a fight she couldn’t win.
‘Take us in, Mister Cassen,’ ordered Larousse. ‘Full ahead and come in on her starboard side. If we can block some of the wavefronts from hitting the Blade, she might be able to break free.’
Forge of Mars - Graham McNeill Page 35