‘I am, though I am not sure quite how I am seeing it,’ said Vitali. ‘This is a river valley…’
‘How is that possible? The oceans are still forming, but the appearance of the rock suggests this valley was carved through the mountains by the action of a vast river.‘
‘This is most peculiar,’ said Vitali, as the Warhound strafed around a spur of stone that looked almost like the broken stub of a great wall. ‘Quite out of keeping with a world of this age and whose oceans are only just forming. But planetary accretion is, given the enormous spans of time involved, still something of a mystery, so I expect it won’t be the last incongruous thing we see on Hypatia.’
The pict screen before Linya crackled to life as the threat auspex lit up and every input she had filtered out bloomed on the slate before her.
‘I think you might be right,’ said Linya, staring at the ruined city spread over the valley floor.
Kryptaestrex, are you seeing this?+ asked Azuramagelli, switching the cabling from the inload sockets of his cerebral jars and dispersing the input through the command deck’s data prisms.
Whatever it is, it can wait,+ said Kryptaestrex from a data hub linking him to the cargo holds and embarkation decks. +Have you not seen the level of my data-burden?+
No,+ replied Azuramagelli with a crackle of belligerent code. +It cannot wait.+
I am co-ordinating a planetary harvesting mission,+ snapped Kryptaestrex. +A thousand cargo shuttles are ferrying back and forth from the planet’s surface and there are hundreds of ship-wide lading operations in progress. I have little inclination to deal with whatever your problem is.+
Azuramagelli shunted the data with greater force.
Look,+ he demanded, seeing the flare of irritation surge through Kryptaestrex’s floodstream.
Irritation that faded just as quickly as Kryptaestrex saw what Azura-magelli had seen.
What is going on down there?+
The data was image-capture from one of the dormitory decks below the waterline, an area of the ship where gravitational torsion forces within the Halo Scar had buckled the Speranza’s ventral armour almost to the point of a breach. Only hastily-mounted integrity fields were maintaing atmospheric pressure, but the power drain of such a solution was proving to be untenable, and Archmagos Kotov had tasked a thousand-strong labour force of bondsmen and servitors with repairing this damage to the lower decks.
Crackling sheets of energy arced through the chamber, leaping from stanchion to stanchion and filling the vast space with a storm of lightning. Men, women and children were soundlessly screaming as the lightning blitzed through the lower-deck living spaces, turning living bodies to ash and smoke with every flickering blast of blue-white light.
Impossible,+ blurted Kryptaestrex. +There are no electrical power sources within the chamber capable of generating such a discharge.+
That isn’t electricity,+ said Azuramagelli, taking urgent inloads from the Speranza’s astropathic choir chambers. +Choirmasters across the ship are reporting a psychic event of battle-grade levels.+
Warp-craft?+
Unknown, but Choirmaster Primus believes the source to be non-human. Recommendation: cut power to the entire deck,+ said Azuramagelli. +Flush out whatever is causing this.+
The integrity fields are tied into the chamber’s grid!+ protested Kryptaestrex. +We would lose the deck and repair materials. There are thousands of workers down there.+
You would rather lose the entire ship?+
The door to the command deck hissed open and Archmagos Kotov strode in with Magos Blaylock at his heels. The archmagos was clearly aware of what they were seeing, and his order was swiftly and mercilessly given, in the full and certain knowledge of what it meant for the thousands of people below the waterline.
Cut the power,+ he said.
Impossible was the word Linya kept groping towards as Amarok strode cautiously through the ruined city. Princeps Vintras had initially been reluctant to enter, but the natural aggression and hunter instinct of the Warhound had won through and convinced him to explore the shattered structures and rubble-strewn streets.
That a city of such age should be found on a world in the mid-stages of its life cycle was highly unlikely, for the surface had yet to achieve a level of geological solidity that would make raising cities of such size a viable proposition. Numerous buildings appeared to have been wrecked by earthquakes and Amarok was forced to detour several times to negotiate wide chasms ripped through the city streets. Twice the Titan had braced itself against single-storey structures as earth tremors shook the ground. Neither had force enough to concern her or the Warhound’s princeps, but they were indicative of the planet’s underlying instability.
Linya had been forced to revise her initial impression of Gunnar Vintras. Cocksure and arrogant certainly, but he was also a highly-skilled Warhound driver, darting from cover to cover and keeping his engine’s back to the walls as he moved deeper into the city.
‘It’s Imperial,’ said her father. ‘That much is obvious. There’s STC patterning clearly visible on almost every structure.’
‘I see that,’ said Linya as a slab-sided hab-block passed to her right. ‘But the auspex readings are making no sense. I can’t get a certain fix on the age of this city from one structure to the next.’
‘No,’ agreed her father. ‘I’m seeing emissions that suggest much of this city was constructed around fifteen thousand years ago.’
‘That’s pre-Great Crusade,’ said Linya. ‘Might this place have been settled in the First Diaspora?’
Her father paused before answering and Linya looked up from the pict-slate, which displayed a grainy image of a collapsed structure that had borne the brunt of an earlier earthquake. Its exposed floors were awash with debris, but she saw no sign of any previous habitation.
‘That is certainly one conclusion,’ said Vitali.
‘I can’t think of another.’
‘Premature ageing,’ said Vitali. ‘Accelerated decay caused by entropic fields. I’ve heard of xeno-breeds possessing technology capable of such feats, but never on this scale.’
‘That’s something of a reach, is it not?’ asked Linya. ‘Lex Parsimoniae suggests that the explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most often the correct one.’
‘You’re right of course, my dear, and under normal circumstances I’d agree with you.’
‘But?’
‘I have linked with the Speranza’s more specialised surveyors, and take a look at what they are detecting. Compare the current readings to what we detected when we first began building the map of this region from Galatea’s inloads.’
Linya switched her inload array to display what her father was seeing, and once again, impossible was the word that first leapt to mind.
‘They’re different,’ said Linya. ‘By a small, but significant amount. I don’t… but that’s…’
‘Impossible?’ finished her father. ‘Routine chronometric readings are now telling me that the planet we are on is younger than it was when the Speranza set course towards it. This is not a planet evolving through its mid-stage of development, but one that has reverted to it over a vastly compressed time-frame. And one that will continue to revert until it breaks apart into an expanding mass of stellar material.’
Linya struggled to process the idea that a planet could regress through its phases of existence. If she accepted it as truth then the laws of space-time were being violated in unspeakable ways, and she felt her grasp of what constituted reality being prised loose from every-thing she had learned as a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
‘Do you think this is a side-effect of the Breath of the Gods?’ she asked.
‘One can only hope so,’ said Vitali. ‘The alternative is too terrible to contemplate, that the fundamental laws of the universe are not nearly as fixed and constant as we have assumed.’
‘We need to alert the harvesters,’ said Linya. ‘Before Hypatia reverts to a more unstable phase.’
‘Please, do you think I wouldn’t have already done that?’ asked Vitali.
Before Linya could answer, she registered the incoming seismic waves through the gyroscopes set within the lower reaches of the Warhound’s clawed feet. The magnitude of the incoming energy was far greater than anything she had seen before and they were right over its epicentre.
‘My princeps!’ she shouted, but it was already too late, as the full force of the earthquake roared up from the planet’s depths. The buildings around them were smashed apart in a storm of splintering masonry and snapping steelwork. Cladding panels and roof spars cascaded from the tallest towers as the most damaged buildings simply ceased to exist.
Millions of tonnes of rubble fell in roaring avalanches of broken rock as the valley shook itself apart. Dust billowed from chasms that tore through the city like splitting ice on the surface of a lake, and apparently solid rock ripped open as easily as tearing parchment. Amarok staggered like a mortally wounded beast as the ground lurched and broke apart into bifurcating chasms. Spewing gouts of magma bubbled to the surface, bathing the ruined city in a hellish, red glow.
Linya’s stabiliser panels blared warnings as their tolerances were horribly exceeded, filling the Titan’s interior with emergency lights. Even insulated within the lower reaches of the god-machine’s body, the noise was deafening. Linya fought to keep the Titan stable as Vintras threw Amarok into a looping turn. The rock beneath the war-engine cracked and split into geysering crevasses.
Linya grabbed onto a handrail above her head as Amarok leaned far beyond its centre of gravity.
She cried out as she realised the Titan was going to fall.
Vintras bent Amarok’s right knee and pistoned its mega-bolter arm straight down. A hurricane of explosive shells blasted the ground at point-blank range. The recoil was ferocious, and with the compensators offline it was just enough.
Incredibly, the Titan righted itself, taking half a dozen lurching, unbalanced steps before fully regaining its balance. Linya was astonished. She had already revised her opinion of Vintras to a highly-skilled princeps, but now she realised he was extraordinarily skilled.
But then the ground beneath the Titan split apart.
Not even an extraordinarily skilled princeps could keep its leg from plunging into a crevasse of bubbling magma.
‘This is a mistake, Abe,’ said Hawke, rapidly sidestepping to keep up with Abrehem as he marched through the arched hallways of the Speranza. ‘Seriously. Think about it, you’re a wanted man, my friend. Putting your head over the parapet like this is a sure-fire way to get it shot off. I’ve spent a lifetime not sticking my neck out, it’s the best way to operate, trust me.’
‘Omnissiah save me, but for once I find myself in complete agreement with Bondsman Hawke,’ said Totha Mu-32. ‘This is not wise.’
Abrehem rounded on Hawke, the fury in his heart like a slow-burning fire being fed incrementally-increasing amounts of oxygen. His fists were clenched at his side and behind him, Rasselas X-42 bared his metallic teeth.
‘Wasn’t it you that said: One day I’m going to make the bastard listen?’
‘Maybe, I don’t remember, but you don’t want to go listening to me, Abe,’ protested Hawke. ‘I shoot my mouth off, but I don’t do anything about it. You’re one of them dangerous types that actually means to do what he says he’s going to do.’
Coyne and Ismael caught up to them, the latter looking solemn, the former like a frightened prey animal that knows there are apex predators nearby.
‘Thor’s beard, but you’ve got to listen to him, Abrehem,’ said Coyne. ‘You’ll get us all killed.’
‘If you’re scared, Vannen, go back,’ said Abrehem. ‘You don’t have to come. I’d rather have someone at my back who gives a damn than someone who’s just out for their own skin.’
Coyne’s face fell, but Abrehem was in no mood for regret.
‘That’s not fair, Abe,’ said Coyne. ‘Haven’t I always been there, every step of the way?’
‘That’s true,’ said Abrehem, ‘but how much is your support worth when it’s simply the lesser of two evils? We’re doing this, and we’re doing it now. It’s time the Mechanicus learned that we’re not just numbers or resources. We’re human beings, and they can’t keep killing us because it suits them.’
Ever since Ismael had forced him to feel the anguish of the Speranza’s servitors and its bondsmen in his soul, Abrehem had found himself unable to close his eyes without feeling gut-wrenching horror at the suffering throughout the Kotov fleet. He’d felt the deaths in the ventral dormitory deck when the power to the integrity fields had been cut. He’d wept as the already tortured armour plates had given way and an entire deck explosively vented into space.
Two thousand three hundred and seven men, women and void-born children had died, not to mention the three hundred and eleven servitors who had flash-frozen or had their organic components disposed of in the aftermath.
He could endure it no longer – and with Ismael’s help – he was going to show the Adeptus Mechanicus that their workers would stand for no more. After disengaging the arco-flagellant’s pacifier helm, he had marched from hiding, following a route he could never describe in detail. With Rasselas X-42 and Ismael at his side, he made his way back to the portions of the Speranza in which he had spent his days not, he now realised, as a bonded servant of the Mechanicus, but a slave.
Totha Mu-32 tried a different tack.
‘You are Machine-touched, Bondsman Locke,’ he said, gripping Abrehem’s arm. ‘You are special, and you must not risk yourself like this. You are too valuable to be lost in an act of emotional spite.’
‘If I’m special, I need to earn that reverence,’ said Abrehem. ‘If I am Machine-touched, then I’m beholden to do something with that power, yes? After all, what’s the use of being someone important if you don’t use that power to make people’s lives better?’
‘The Mechanicus will kill you,’ said Totha Mu-32.
Abrehem jerked a thumb over his shoulder and said, ‘I’d like to see anyone try when I’ve got an arco-flagellant with me. I’ll use him if I have to, don’t think I won’t.’
‘X-42 is a powerful weapon,’ agreed Totha Mu-32. ‘But he is mortal like all of us. A bullet in the head will kill him, the same as any of us. Please reconsider this course of action, I beg you.’
‘No,’ said Abrehem. ‘It’s too late for that.’
His footsteps had unerringly carried him back to Feeding Hall Eighty-Six, the site of a previous casual massacre of bondsmen, and Abrehem smiled to see that his timing was impeccable. One shift of thousands was just finishing its nutrient paste meal, while another stood waiting at the opposite entrance, pathetically hungry for the slops with which the Mechanicus saw fit to present them.
A group of augmented overseers stood in the arched entryway, and Abrehem relished the looks of fear as they saw Rasselas X-42 and retreated into the feeding hall. He felt their calls for aid flow into the noosphere, knowing he could prevent them from reaching their intended destinations, but wanting the rest of the fleet to know he was here.
‘Let them go,’ he said, quelling X-42’s natural urge to murder the fleeing overseers.
Though there were only six of them, what they represented was more of a terror to the Adeptus Mechanicus than any army of destructive greesnskins could ever be.
Abrehem marched straight into the feeding hall, feeling every pair of eyes fasten upon him.
Everyone here knew who he was. They had heard the stories, passed them around themselves and maybe even added a detail here and there. On some decks he was already being named as an avatar of the Machine-God. On others, his name had became synonymous with messianic figures from history: great liberators, firebrand revolution
aries or pacifist messengers of tolerance.
Abrehem would be all of these and much more.
Flanked by Rasselas X-42 and Ismael, Abrehem made his way to the centre of the vast chamber. By now, the desperate calls for armed assistance had reached the skitarii barracks, Cadian billets and armsmen stations. Hundreds of men and women with guns and the will to use them were even now converging on Feeding Hall Eighty-Six.
None of them would arrive in time to stop what was about to happen.
Abrehem climbed onto a table, turning a full circle so everyone could see him. He had come in a plain robe, red like the Mechanicus, but unadorned with the finery so favoured by the tech-priests, and roughly-fashioned like the overalls worn by the bondsmen. He had prepared no speech and had no words ready with which to sway men he already knew would applaud what he had to preach. His words had to come from the heart, or all he would soon represent would mean nothing at all.
He nodded to Totha Mu-32, and the vox-grilles throughout the feeding hall crackled and hissed as the overseer took them over.
‘My fellow bondsmen,’ began Abrehem, his voice booming throughout the feeding hall and far beyond. ‘You all know who I am and why the Mechanicus fear me. I am Abrehem Locke and I am Machine-touched. And I am one of you. The overseers have told you that I am a madman, a lunatic with delusions of divinity. You know this to be a lie. I have toiled with you in the bowels of Archmagos Kotov’s slave machine, and I have been burned as you have been burned. I have bled and I have been sickened by what we have all experienced. You know I have suffered as you continue to suffer. I am here to tell you that your suffering is at an end!’
Heads were nodding in agreement, and Abrehem saw the armsmen and overseers clustered together in nervous groups. Totha Mu-32 assured him that his words were being carried throughout the Speranza over the hijacked vox-system. Abrehem relished the uncertainty he saw in the overseers’ faces as they debated the wisdom of pushing into the feeding hall to seize him before this situation spiralled completely out of hand.
Abrehem didn’t give them time to reach a conclusion.
Forge of Mars - Graham McNeill Page 64