by Thorpe, Gav
BACKLIST
Discover the war machines of the Imperium in
• IMPERIAL KNIGHTS •
By Andy Clark
Book 1: KINGSBLADE
Book 2: KNIGHTSBLADE
KNIGHTS OF THE IMPERIUM
TITANICUS
TITAN
From The Horus Heresy
MECHANICUM
TALLARN
THE BINARY SUCCESSION
HONOUR TO THE DEAD
IRON CORPSES
Tales of the Adeptus Mechanicus
• THE MARS TRILOGY •
FORGES OF MARS (Omnibus)
Also available individually
Book 1: PRIESTS OF MARS
Book 2: LORDS OF MARS
Book 3: GODS OF MARS
• ADEPTUS MECHANICUS •
Book 1: SKITARIUS
Book 2: TECH-PRIEST
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6: ECHOES OF THE LONG WAR
7: THE HUNT FOR VULKAN
8: THE BEAST MUST DIE
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CONTENTS
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
Warhammer 40,000
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
About the Author
An Extract from ‘The Voice of Mars’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license
WARHAMMER 40,000
It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of His inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that He may never truly die.
Yet even in His deathless state, the Emperor continues His eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in His name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Astra Militarum and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
From the pinnacle of Az Khalak’s immense citadel, Koshao could see as far as the Demetrian Plains and beyond the silvery line of the Laskaih River. All that she surveyed was a scene of destruction. The city that nestled around the great fortress was almost untouched – here and there a district had been flattened by long-range missiles of opportunistic orbital fire. Further out, there was barely a hectare of mountainside or flatland not marked by shell crater, wreck or corpse.
The streams that fed the Laskaih ran red with blood seeping from the battle dead. Woodlands had been burned to dunes of ash. The sky itself was stained with the smoke of burning tanks and transports.
Even now the shadow of another army spread across the river like a pall of filth.
‘Hundreds of thousands dead, and still they persist,’ she said, glancing to her companion. She pulled her cloak tighter about her, the cold wind tousling greying hair. ‘The Servants of the False Light will never cease in their attempts to silence the truth.’
The man beside her – her husband of seventy-two years, as judged on Nicomedua – shrugged. ‘The truth does not care for our travails.’
He extended a segmented artificial limb and laid it about her shoulders, pulling her closer. She felt the familiar jag of his other augmentations pressing against her flesh from beneath his black robe – a robe that had been red in deference to Mars until three years ago.
‘The longer we prevail, the greater the power of the truth we uncover.’ He waved a pincer-clawed hand across the scene of devastation. ‘They ruin themselves in a quest for ignorance.’
A bright flash drew their eyes upwards. The sky was dimming to evening, and several glints of dying light were reflected in the heavens. Drop-ships.
It was not long before the city’s block-sized landers could clearly be seen, seven of them, followed by an uncountable swarm of smaller craft.
‘They are larger than those that came before,’ remarked Koshao.
‘Titans,’ said Longmyar. ‘The Machine-God finally sends the engines of death.’
‘Titans…’ whispered Koshao, cowed by the thought of the war machines descending towards Nicomedua. A steady stream of dropcraft fell towards the planet, bringing a battle force whose entire purpose was to break cities and conquer worlds. Long plasma jets shone brighter than the setting suns as they prepared to touch down beside the river.
She shuddered.
‘Do not fret, Koshao.’ Longmyar smiled. ‘The Tangential Path shall set us all free.’
CHAPTER 1
THE CASUS BELLI GOES TO WAR
‘Almighty Machine-God whose data binds the universe, look upon your humble servant and let the tangents of your intersection be beneficent.’
As he spoke the ritual lines, Magos Dominus Militaris Xaiozanus Skitara Xilliarkis Exasas dilated the dorsal spiracles of his intertracular lymphoid to release a cloud of bacteriophagic incense. The vapour billowed as a purple cloud, cleansing the air of biological contaminants that might infect the implant connection points in the few remaining parts of his flesh.
His sense of smell had been replaced by far more complex molecular sensors when his face had been removed, yet his sensory system still latched on to the old memories and interpreted the smell as forge exhaust and hot metal. It was an aroma that he had known since his first moments in the incense-sterilised hatcheries of Metalica.
Lifting up one of four multi-jointed gripping limbs, Exasas let three drops of blessed lubricant spill from the slender bottle in h
is grip. Flexible optical lenses capable of microscopic vision tracked the trio of liquid spheres as they fell past the gantry on which Exasas stood with the other senior tech-priests of Casus Belli. He followed their fall for several metres until they hit the gilded crest of the Titan’s head below.
From this vantage point the Imperator continued down into the brightly illuminated main deck of the Legio Metalica landing barge. Arrayed about the feet-citadels of the Casus Belli were lines of white-clad skitarii waiting for the command to board, arranged by squad and platoon, the precision of their ranks pleasing to Exasas.
He extended a link through the noosphere that connected to the skitarii alphas far below. At his invisible command the squad leaders became surrogates for his physical presence, an extension of his communication system. Even as he framed the thoughts, the words were announced by the mouths of the dozen alphas, ringing from across the Titan dock.
‘Tech-guard of the Casus Belli, the perambulations of destiny have again brought us to holy war. Our great Imperator is to be unleashed against the heretek darkness that has befallen Nicomedua. The servants of the Omnissiah have turned from their duties and we shall be the punishment unleashed against them in the name of the Machine-God. The Legio Metalica are blessed to be chosen as the executioners of this sacred task. With our companion-engines we shall see Nicomedua delivered back to the light of diligent service.
‘I stand before you as magos dominus, incarnation of the martial precision of the Cult Metalica. We are one, indivisible, favoured in the working of the Machine-God, for we have been given this sacred duty and in its completion shall move closer to the perfection of the Omnissiah’s design.’
Another noospheric pulse sent the embarkation order into the alphas, who disseminated the command to their squads. In unison, the skitarii offered their weapons in salute and then turned towards the gates of the Imperator’s citadel-like lower legs.
‘I still do not comprehend why you insist upon this ceremony. One might as well expend energy boosting the morale of a circuit breaker.’
Recognising the voice of Zerkei Metalis Gevren, the dominus turned his centipede-like body to face the moderatus prime. Along with the other moderati, Gevren approached along the docking gantry, passing from the light of the vast chamber into the shadow of the Casus Belli’s akropoliz carapace superstructure.
Unlike the magos and the other tech-priests, the moderatus prime and his companions mostly retained their human anatomy. It was partly in honour of the humanoid form of the Titan, and partly because when they interfaced with the Casus Belli’s mind impulse units it remained more natural for them if they shared the same number of limbs and basic shape. Even the hint of a phantom limb reaction could prove devastating when spiritually connected to a forty-metre-tall war engine.
They wore bulky piloting uniforms rather than robes, though in the same white as the Metalican tech-priests, and each carried their interface helm under their arm.
Gevren himself was a solid figure, broad at the waist and shoulder, with a similarly slab-like face and flat nose. The glitter of implants behind his eyes and a few stud-points in the sides of his neck indicated the presence of the mind impulse unit connections inserted into his flesh.
‘It is not as if your warriors will contribute anything meaningful to this battle,’ added Moderatus Secundus Haili. Her smile was one of patient contempt as the group stopped on the other side of the gantry line, leaving a path to the command module entry ramp. ‘We shall leave them only ruins to guard.’
‘There are some duties beyond even the wrath of the Casus Belli, Zerkei,’ argued Exasas. ‘Tasks that are beneath the dignity of an Imperator Titan, but nonetheless vital to victory. If the ruins need to be guarded, my skitarii will be equal to the challenge.’
‘They are simply martial lubrication, Xaiozanus,’ said Gevren. ‘Human grease for the gears of battle. It is a pity that you waste your intellect with such a dull subject.’
The last moderatus, Rasdia, said nothing, but his expression was one of condescension. The coterie of moderati fell silent at the approach of the princeps senioris. Like them, she did not wear the robes of office, but her single-piece protective suit was more elaborate, decorated with gilded piping and ruby-studded fasteners. Her face was lined with age – and the toll of melding with the psychometric circuits of the Casus Belli. Slender black lines beneath the skin of her neck and throat and in the backs of the hands that held the interface helm betrayed the presence of life-prolonging inserts. She walked with the aid of a cane fashioned from the bone of a Titan-sized tyranid beast they had destroyed on Durasa Four.
‘You are looking at my stick again, magos dominus,’ Princeps Senioris Iealona said. ‘Even with your five independent visual detectors, I can tell when you are looking at my cane.’
‘Your perception is infallible as ever, princeps senioris.’ Exasas constricted his body segments to shorten herself, bringing his theoretical eyeline to the same level as the princeps senioris’. ‘It seems an unnecessary peripheral assistance.’
‘And I must remind you again that I cannot risk my harmony with the Casus Belli with further changes to my physiology or chemical balances. So, I must limp.’
She stopped between the two groups, tech-priests of all shapes and sizes to the left, human moderati on her right. As with the Imperator itself, she was the fulcrum upon which the alliance turned, the mechanical and the organic fused within her when she interfaced with the Titan.
‘You wish to test Liberik’s Fourth Theorem during our engagement?’ she said, looking at Exasas.
‘I do,’ the magos replied. He caught Gevren shaking his head scornfully. ‘I have proposed a corollary that I wish to enact with my troops, if it is possible.’
‘I will see what can be done, but I think it unlikely there will be any infantry engagement today.’
Despite the life-extension surgeries and cerebral enhancements he had undergone, the dominus was still capable of disappointment. He remained still, containing any display of the emotion before the princeps senioris.
‘I am your honoured servant, princeps senioris. We shall do as the Machine-God moves us.’
‘That we shall,’ said Iealona. She glanced at her moderati and waved her cane towards the zigzagging ramp that led into the open gate in the side of the Imperator’s head. ‘Time to get started. We are due to rendezvous with the rest of our battle group in forty-seven minutes and begin the assault in sixty. Six Warlords, three Reavers, three Warhounds and a pair of Warriors shall be accompanying us. And a whole skitarii support echelon. We shall not keep them waiting.’
They advanced as a group along the gantry. It made Exasas uncomfortable, seeing their individual stride patterns, making no effort to harmonise their movements. Their humanity was meant to be key to their success with the mind impulse unit, but to the magos it seemed like a terrible inefficiency.
He spurted an audible packet of binaric at the other tech-priests and together they followed the humans into the Casus Belli.
Each of them in turn briefly approached the small shrine alcove in the docking vestibule, laying a hand or tentacle-like mechadendrite on the twelve-toothed cog symbol rendered in gleaming platinum upon the devotional stand. Exasas placed the tip of a tendril against the symbol and felt a pulse of recognition from the Titan’s dormant spirit.
‘Benevolent Casus Belli, I commend my body to your protection and dedicate my mind to your service.’
An archway led to a corridor that descended into the command module proper, cleansing incense falling curtain-like across the opening. Exasas moved through, inhaling deeply of the strong fragrance, neuroreceptors firing swiftly under the influence of the stimulating agents contained within the mist.
‘Almighty Machine-God whose data binds the universe, look upon your humble servant and let the tangents of your intersection be beneficent.’
The callipers of Ghelsa’s augmetic phalanges clicked as her dark-skinned fingers closed around six meticulou
sly inscribed steel polyhedrons. She lifted them from the polished offering plate and touched them to the breast of her off-white coverall.
Ghelsa kissed her steel-wrapped fist and held the shapes to her brow. Her metal-capped knuckles clinked against the silver twelve-toothed cog set into the flesh of her forehead before she threw her hand down.
Cast from her fingers, the twelve-sided dice clattered into the concave bowl, skittering around the raised lip. Shadows and light played over the spinning, skipping shapes as the silent watchers crowded closer, peering over Ghelsa’s and Adrina’s shoulders as they waited for the dice to come a halt.
The duluz of the downdecks wore a mixture of tabards, half-robes, kilts and coveralls depending on station and expertise. Many showed signs of crude augmentation – either gifted by a patron in the upper echelons of the priesthood or made in one of the basic workshops of the lower spaces. Like Ghelsa’s, their clothes were uniformly off-white, the colours of their hegemaarkhus, the forge world of Metalica. Their formal allegiance colours were augmented with an array of tattoos, piercings, brand marks and other decorations to identify home world, sect membership, personal relationships and other sundry information. Most had not seen the metal-sheathed planet, but were natives of various vassal systems or the detritus of conquest and liberation swept up by the Casus Belli on one of its many campaigns. Ghelsa was one such tributai, sent to serve in the Legio Metalica as part of an ancient pact between the tech-priests and her world of Zakhinta.
The gaming pieces belonged to Ghelsa, who was proud to tell anyone who asked that she had made them herself from bearings that had once been part of the Casus Belli’s starboard hip main rotator. She had salvaged them two years earlier during a rededication to the Machine-God and spent half of that time diligently filing the flat surfaces with a handrasp and autopolish. She had used an acid stylus to etch the twelve sacred symbols, each one of the Perfections of Form as listed in the holy books of Metalica.
A red flare of light played over the settled dodecahedrons – the signal beam from Adrina’s artificial left eye. Ghelsa was quicker to count the revealed symbols than her opponent’s scan-mechanism.