‘I have already begun corroborative surveys of the spatial volumes illuminated by Galatea’s data, but so far only these deliberately ordered systems are proving coy in revealing their secrets.’
‘Our augurs are being blocked?’
‘Not blocked, per se,’ said Vitali. ‘More like obscured by a confluence of strange forces I cannot, as yet, identify.’
‘Deliberately?’
‘Hard to say, my dear, hard to say.’
‘Then we definitely need to speak to Galatea.’
Vitali turned to his daughter and put a hand on her shoulder.
‘No, Linya,’ he said. ‘That we must manifestly not do. Galatea is a very dangerous entity, and if it is obfuscating our understanding of these systems on purpose, then it will take steps to silence anyone who questions it.’
‘Galatea saved my life,’ pointed out Linya. ‘If it wanted me dead, it could have let that battle robot kill me.’
‘I am aware of that,’ snapped Vitali, shying away from the thought of how close Linya had come to death on the Tomioka. ‘And we still do not fully understand how it was able to neutralise the robot’s command cortex.’
‘Would you rather it hadn’t?’ asked Linya.
‘Of course not, but please promise me that you will, under no circumstances, make an approach to Galatea with our concerns over its agenda here. At least not until we have a better understanding of why it might seek to mislead us.’
Linya hesitated before answering and Vitali turned her to face him. What little organic features were remaining to him were fretted with concern.
‘Please, Linya, promise me,’ begged Vitali.
‘Of course,’ said Linya. ‘I promise.’
The last time Marko Koskinen had seen the tech-priests this panicked had been when the Wintersun opened fire on the Moonsorrow in the training halls. This panic was just as urgent, but didn’t have the focus of so obvious a catastrophe. He skidded to a halt in the infirmary, trying to figure out what had caused the magi attending the princeps to trigger a Legio-wide alarm.
At first glance, nothing looked amiss. Both princeps appeared to be adrift in their fluid-filled suspension tanks as normal, twitching within their hibernation-comas. But then Koskinen saw the brain-activity monitors spiking like crazy with neural activity. These were readings that might be expected in the midst of a furious, multi-vectored engine brawl, not in the downtime between implantation.
‘What in the name of the Oldbloods is going on?’ he shouted.
None of the tech-priests looked up, but Koskinen saw Hyrdrith desperately affixing a Manifold interface array to the armourglass of the Wintersun’s casket. He ran over to his princeps, placing his palms against the casket’s warm sides and feeling the heat of the bio-gel within.
‘Hyrdrith, talk to me,’ he commanded. ‘What’s going on?’
Lupa Capitalina’s tech-priest shook her head and shrugged. ‘The Winter-sun and Moonsorrow have established a Manifold link between their caskets.’
‘What? Who established the connection?’
‘No-one, they did it themselves,’ answered Hyrdrith.
‘How is that even possible?’
‘Admission: I do not know,’ said Hyrdrith. ‘I think we are learning that there is a great deal we do not know of a princeps’s abilities.’
Koskinen looked over to the Moonsorrow’s casket, where the wizened form of Eryks Skálmöld drifted into view, his truncated form like a foetal ancient, heat-fused limbs drawn up to his chest where his elongated skull perched like a scavenger bird. Wired optics trailed from his eye sockets and blue-white light shimmered behind his sutured lids.
‘They’re together in the Manifold?’
‘So it would appear,’ answered Hyrdrith.
The door to the infirmary slammed open and Joakim Baldur entered. Koskinen saw he had his pistol drawn and placed his hand on the polished walnut grip of his own stub-pistol.
‘So the Wintersun wants to finish the job?’ asked Baldur, aiming his pistol at Arlo Luth’s casket.
Koskinen immediately put himself between Baldur and his princeps, one hand extended outwards, the other curling a finger around the trigger of his own gun.
‘Easy, Baldur,’ said Koskinen. ‘Think about what you’re doing. You’re pointing a gun at your alpha. That’s enough to get you mind-wiped and turned into a gun servitor. Is that what you want?’
‘The alpha is trying to kill my princeps,’ snarled Baldur.
‘The Wintersun is your princeps now, or had you forgotten that?’
‘Moonsorrow is my princeps. Once Reaver, always Reaver.’
Koskinen shook his head. ‘No, you’re Warlord now, Joakim.’
The gun wavered, but was still too close to the Wintersun’s casket for Koskinen’s liking. The anger in Baldur’s eyes wasn’t showing any signs of lessening and Koskinen fervently hoped he wasn’t going to have to shoot the man. Baldur had his gun drawn, but his attention was switching between the two princeps’ caskets. If Koskinen wanted to kill him, it would be easy enough, but shooting a moderati was like vandalising one of the irreplaceable Legio Titanicus murals on Terra.
As it turned out, Koskinen was spared the necessity of murder.
The infirmary door opened again, and the Legio’s Warhound drivers entered; Elias Härkin encased within his clicking, ratcheting exoskeleton and Gunnar Vintras in his dress uniform.
Härkin took one look at Joakim Baldur and said, ‘Put that bloody weapon down, you damn fool.’
Baldur nodded and lowered his gun, backing away as the two Warhound princeps took charge. Koskinen saw he had failed to safe the weapon or holster it, so kept his own finger resting lightly on the trigger of his own pistol.
‘You!’ snapped Härkin, beckoning Hyrdrith with a snap of bronze calliper-fingers. ‘Front and centre, what in the Omnissiah’s name is happening here?’
‘We are not sure, princeps,’ said Hyrdrith. ‘A Manifold link between the princeps’ caskets was initiated nine point three minutes ago, and–’
‘Nine point three minutes ago? And you wait until now to summon us?’
‘There was no need,’ said Hyrdrith. ‘The connection appeared to be entirely benign, with concurrent data flow between the Wintersun and Moonsorrow.’
‘What changed?’ demanded Härkin, as Vintras examined the data-feeds on the slates attached to each princeps’s casket.
‘Admission: we do not know. The transition from their rest-state neural activity to readings comparable to a high-stress engagement was instantaneous and unforeseeable.’
‘They’re fighting,’ said Gunnar Vintras, reading the matching brain-wave activity on the senior princeps’ readouts. ‘They’re trying to kill one another.’
Amarok’s princeps seemed more amused than horrified by the revelation and laughed aloud.
‘Emperor damn it, they’re fighting,’ he said. ‘Looks like the Wintersun has gone back to finish what he started on the training deck.’
‘No,’ said Hyrdrith. ‘That possibility has been discounted.’
‘Really,’ said Vintras. ‘Why is that?’
‘Because it was the Moonsorrow that initiated the Manifold connection.’
They came together like two great boulders crashing into one another with such force that both must surely be smashed to powder and flying chips of stone. The thunder as they met echoed from the cold green evergreens surrounding the arena, ringing up and down the mountainside like the peal of the Bell of Lost Souls atop the Tower of Heroes.
They both fell back from the impact, but the first to rise was Luth. He grappled with Skálmöld, whose flesh had been torn in the collision of claws. Luth raked his opponent’s marmoreal skin and hooked his claws beneath the bronze torq at Skálmöld’s neck. He snarled and wrenched it forwards.
Sensing the danger,
Skálmöld punched Luth in the face. Luth fell away, dislodged, and Skálmöld wrenched the torq from his neck with a screech of twisting metal. Then like an avalanche he hurled himself down on Luth, his form blurring as the wolf within roared in release.
The very rock of the mountain shook with the impact as Luth rolled and loosed his own lupine howl of anger. He drove his fist into his opponent’s gut, raking his claws up as Skálmöld bit down near Luth’s throat. Drops of hot blood flew through the air. Luth slammed his elbow into Skálmöld’s ribs, and the Moonsorrow lurched sideways in winded pain, giving Luth time to scramble upright again.
Snow was falling and Luth’s neck and shoulder were wet where Skálmöld’s fangs had drawn blood. He felt his own teeth lengthen in response to the blood-stink.
For a moment the two wolf princeps stood apart, circling the arena and getting their breath back.
The gleaming eyes in the darkness of the forest glittered in approval at the fury of the bout before them.
Skálmöld was bleeding freely from a long stomach wound, but Luth knew he was worse off. The wound at his neck was deep, and his breath was hot and painful in his chest. Despite his injuries, Luth grinned, feeling the wolf within take the pain and turn it to his advantage.
To let Skálmöld take the initiative would be a mistake.
Luth leapt at Skálmöld before he realised how badly he was hurt. The impact was sudden and ferocious, knocking the challenger head over heels. He followed up with a clawed lunge at the raw part of Skálmöld’s neck, but the Moonsorrow threw him off and then the two princeps were at each other again. Fountains of snow were thrown up as they fought, spraying in all directions and falling in a mist of glittering crystalline droplets.
Skálmöld tore a wound in Luth’s belly, but a moment later, after another convulsive explosion of snow, both princeps were standing upright like duellists. Luth slashed at Skálmöld’s face, but the Moonsorrow was hitting back just as savagely. The weight of their blows was far beyond what their physical forms could have inflicted, as if Imperator Titans were swinging wrecking balls at one another.
Claws slashed flesh, teeth crashed on teeth and breath roared harshly. The snow of their arena was splashed with red and trodden down for metres into a crimson mud.
Skálmöld was bigger and stronger than Luth and he had had the best of the fight so far. Both princeps’ forms wavered between human and wolf, like mythic lycanthropes in the midst of a transformation. Neither man could allow the wolf full rein, for none had ever come back from such a surrender. To allow it near the surface was as much as either of them dared risk.
Luth was breathing heavily. Both princeps were wounded in the shoulders, arms, and neck, but Luth’s wounds were the deeper. Skálmöld was hungry to be alpha, but Luth knew he was not yet ready to lead the warriors of the pack. He wondered if this was hubris speaking, the inability to cede control of the pack before he became too weak to lead.
No, decided Luth, looking into Skálmöld’s yellowed eyes.
The Moonsorrow was a killer and would be a great leader one day.
But that day was not now.
At least Luth hoped not.
Skálmöld circled the bloody slush of their combat, his eyes roving in search of a weakness. Luth saw a feral grin split his features as he found it. Luth was limping, his left arm hung unmoving at his side. Luth watched Skálmöld replay the last of their clashes in his head, baring his fangs as he understood that Luth had not struck a telling blow with his left hand for some time. The crushing punches he’d delivered only a few seconds before were now little more than gentle slaps.
‘Surrender the pack to me,’ said Skálmöld, red foam spitting from the corner of his jaw. ‘You don’t have to die.’
‘I don’t plan to die.’
Skálmöld laughed. ‘Look at the blood on the ground, Arlo. Little of it is mine. You cannot win. Your arm is gone. The tendons at your elbow and shoulder are fraying.’
‘I only need one hand to beat you, Eryks.’
‘Good, good, you still have spirit,’ taunted Skálmöld. ‘A victory is not a victory if it is won over a foe who already believes he is dead.’
‘Then come finish me,’ said Luth, letting his shoulder drop.
Skálmöld obliged, swinging blows at Luth from right and left – each impact a thunderbolt from the heavens, a slamming hammerblow he could no longer parry. Luth moved backwards, one step after another, crouching low under the rain of blows from the grinning Moonsorrow.
But what Skálmöld had not seen was that he was moving backwards only to seek firm rock beneath him. Luth felt the resistance of the ground underfoot change from snow to the heart-rock of the black and silver mountain. He braced himself against it, tensing his legs like a runner at the starting blocks and waiting for his moment.
That moment came when Skálmöld vaulted towards him, bellowing his triumph and raising his clawed arms to slash down at Luth’s apparently weak side.
Luth moved.
Like an avalanche that had built its strength over a thousand miles of bare mountainside to sweep all before it in a tide of devastation, Luth exploded from his firm footing on the heart-rock and sent a ferocious blow at Skálmöld’s exposed side.
It was an appalling, horrifying, mortal strike. Luth’s claws punched through Skálmöld’s torso and ripped the entire right side of his ribcage clean away. Shattered bones flew through the air, spraying blood to the snow a dozen metres away.
Skálmöld landed on his knees before Luth, blood raining from his opened belly and the glistening, blue-pink meat of his ruptured lungs oozing outwards. The Moonsorrow was suddenly helpless, and Luth’s hand fastened on his throat, ready to tear Skálmöld’s life away in his claws.
‘Do you yield?’ demanded the Wintersun.
‘I yield,’ nodded the Moonsorrow.
‘I am alpha?’
‘You are alpha.’
‘Then we return to the pack united,’ said Princeps Luth, and the black and silver mountain fell away.
‘Drink?’ asked Roboute, pouring himself a stiff measure of a spirit he’d acquired from a trader by the name of Goslyng on a trading excursion around the Iabal and Ivbal clusters. The liquid was pale turquoise, which always struck Roboute as an odd colour for a drink, but he couldn’t argue with the taste, which was like ambrosia poured straight from the halls of Macragge’s ancient gods.
‘No, thank you,’ said Tarkis Blaylock. ‘I suspect the molecular content of that beverage would react poorly with my internal chemistry.’
The Fabricatus Locum had appeared at the opened flanks of the Renard while Roboute sourced parts and tools with Magos Pavelka to begin repairing the broken grav-sled. Its sadly neglected parts had lain rusting in a corner of the cargo deck, and its state of disrepair had been a thorn in his side ever since their return from Katen Venia.
Pavelka had reminded him numerous times of the oath he’d sworn to repair the sled during their escape from the crystal-forms on the planet’s surface, admonishing him that to renege on such a pledge would be tantamount to blasphemy. Roboute almost laughed at her, but changed his mind when he saw Sylkwood backing her up with a serious expression on her face and the heavy wrench held at her shoulder.
Then Magos Blaylock had saved him from an afternoon of manual labour.
Throwing his hands up with a ‘what can you do’ expression, he’d left Pavelka and Sylkwood to it, leading Blaylock and his coterie of dwarf attendants through the Renard to his staterooms on the upper decks. Now, drink in hand, he was beginning to wonder if he’d made the right choice in leaving the cargo decks.
‘So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Tarkis?’ asked Roboute, taking a seat behind the expansive rosewood desk and taking a sip of his drink.
‘I believe the pleasure will be mine,’ said Blaylock, lacing his mechanised hands before him like a man who
enjoys delivering bad news.
‘That sounds ominous.’
‘For you, perhaps.’
Roboute put his drink down on the desk next to the astrogation compass he’d taken from the wreckage of the Preceptor. He noticed the needle was wavering, bouncing back and forth, where before it had kept a steady and true course since the crossing of the Halo Scar. The Fabricatus Locum nodded to the keepsakes and mementos Roboute kept on the walls of his stateroom: the commendations, the rosettes and laurels and the hololithic cameo of Katen, the girl he’d left behind.
‘The last time I came here, I was most impressed by the certificates of merit you had earned in your travels,’ said Blaylock.
‘No, you weren’t,’ said Roboute. ‘You were going through the motions of being human, just before you asked me to surrender the Tomioka’s memory coil. Just like you’re doing now, right before I imagine you’re going to ask me for some other favour I likely won’t feel inclined to grant.’
‘That is where you are mistaken, Mister Surcouf,’ said Blaylock.
‘Then get to the point, Tarkis.’
Blaylock nodded, almost as though he were disappointed Roboute hadn’t played along.
‘Very well,’ said Blaylock, circling around the desk to stand before Roboute’s Letter of Marque. He took a long look at it and Roboute’s hand slid over his desk to the top drawer, unlocking it with a precise series of finger-taps. He kept one eye on Blaylock’s back as the drawer slid open.
‘A Letter of Marque is a powerful artefact,’ said Blaylock, lifting the gilt-edged frame from the wall. ‘In the right – or wrong – hands it can be a powerful weapon. With such a document, a man could forge himself an empire among the stars. Or roam free from many of the more… bureaucratic entanglements in which smaller trading fleets might otherwise find themselves mired.’
‘Very true, Tarkis,’ said Roboute, slipping his hand into the drawer. ‘It’s the one good thing to come out of my time aboard the Preceptor. My service record went a long way to persuading the officials at Bakka that I was worthy to bear such a letter.’
Forge of Mars - Graham McNeill Page 60