Grey knights the omnibus, p.45
Grey Knights: The Omnibus, page 45
He was no longer connected. He had to communicate with the other tech-priests by more mundane means. ‘I have assumed individuality,’ he said out loud, the nerve-endings in the walls absorbing the sound waves and turning them into data. His vox-unit was uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Memories – if they could be likened to something as human as memories – were coming back to him, the centuries in service to the Imperium, the dawn of his enlightenment when the Omnissiah’s avatar had first been uncovered and the years of rebuilding in the warp as Chaeroneia was transformed into the Omnissiah’s perfect vision.
‘It is good,’ came the reply. ‘You possess the experience required to do the Machine-God’s will. State your immediate intentions.’
‘The standing declarations of the Omnissiah are clear,’ said Scraecos. ‘As given to me personally by the Castigator, there is one course of action compatible with the holiness of the planet’s ground and the principles of the Adeptus.’
‘State this course.’
‘Kill them all.’
Scraecos let the weight of his physical form fall back onto him completely. He had been formidable in physical combat a long time ago and his body was still in efficient and uncorroded condition, which meant he was still a capable killer. He remembered the feeling of blood spattering on his few remaining areas of biological flesh, its warmth, its smell and felt a flicker of human emotions like bloodlust and exultation. Eventually, such crudeness would be gone from Scraecos and he would be a perfect being of logic in the sight of the Omnissiah.
Yes, Scraecos could kill. But there were far more effective murderers on Chaeroneia. Scraecos’s first task, then, would be to summon those killers from the furthest corners of Chaeroneia’s dataconstructs and give them the scent of their prey.
NINE
‘Know the enemy not and the battle cannot be won. Know the enemy too much and the battle will be doubly lost.’
– Lord Admiral Ravensburg,
‘Naval Maxims Vol. IX’
‘Ordnance ready,’ said the chief ordnance officer as Rear Admiral Horstgeld strode onto the bridge. ‘We can fire at fifteen minutes’ notice.’
‘Excellent,’ said Horstgeld. The bridge was buzzing. The Tribunicia had not fired a shot in anger for some time and Horstgeld had almost forgotten how it felt when danger was near. Now only the Emperor’s guns and the Emperor’s torpedoes stood between the good of the Imperium and the depredations of the Enemy.
It was a good feeling. It was why Horstgeld had been put in this galaxy.
‘Preacher!’ shouted Horstgeld heartily. ‘What does the Emperor demand of us?’
‘Obedience and zeal!’ came the response from the raw throat of the confessor up on the pulpit. ‘Defiance unto death!’
If the command crew disliked Horstgeld’s habit of having the Confessor spouting prayers, they didn’t show it. Navigation were assembling the rag- tag fleet into a battle line. Communications was relaying orders back and forth between the other ships under Horstgeld’s command. Engineering was keeping the plasma reactors at full close orbit manoeuvring capacity and Ordnance was shepherding the ship’s stock of torpedoes into the firing bays. The Tribunicia was old but she was tough, she had seen battle before and she was relishing it again.
But then, most of the crew hadn’t seen what Horstgeld had seen – the full size of the approaching fleet.
Horstgeld paused briefly to kneel before the image of the Emperor that crowned the viewscreen. The screen was now showing a map of Chaeroneia’s orbit, with the positions of the Imperial fleet and the complex maze of asteroids below. The Emperor’s golden mask glowered down over the bridge as if admonishing the crew to work harder in His name – which of course He was, watching over them from the Golden Throne on Terra.
‘Grant us the strength to forsake our weaknesses,’ said Horstgeld. ‘Our Emperor, preserve us.’
‘Captain?’ Stelkhanov stood over Horstgeld’s shoulder. ‘Ship’s archive may have found a match.’
‘So soon? I thought we’d have to ask Segmentum Command at Kar Duniash.’
‘The archives found something in Ravensburg’s histories of the Gothic War. The largest ship in the approaching fleet matches various energy signatures logged by the Ius Bellum at the Battle of Gethsemane.’ Stelkhanov handed Horstgeld a sheet of complicated sensorium readings. ‘The chances of a false match are very low.’
‘Throne deliver us,’ said Horstgeld. ‘It’s the Hellforger.’
‘Sir?’
‘Comms! Get me Fleet Commissar Leung. And put our reinforcements on screen.’
The viewscreen shifted to show the details and schematics of the ships that had answered Horstgeld’s call to join the fleet at Chaeroneia.
‘What in the hells is this?’ he demanded, rounding on the Communications section. Several officers occupied the pews of the section, relaying streams of vox-commands and scanning ship-to-ship channels. ‘I asked for warships! Subsector Command was supposed to send us everything they had!’
‘These are all that were available,’ replied Chief Communications Officer Kelmawr, a squat and powerful woman who had earned her stripes in boarding actions during the Rhanna crisis.
Horstgeld turned back to the screen. ‘The Pieta… that’s… that’s a pilgrim ship for the love of Earth. It’s barely even armed. And the Epicurus is a bloody yacht!’
‘It’s refitted,’ said Kelmawr. ‘The Administratum confiscated it and turned it into an armed merchantman…’
‘Contact Kar Duniash. Tell them we have a crisis here. If Segmentum Command there can’t help us then we’re on our own.’
Horstgeld sat down on his command pew, shaking his head. It wasn’t enough. They might have been able to hold off a grand cruiser, since that’s what the Hellforger was. But not a whole fleet. Especially since the Hellforger had last been seen during the Gothic War in the service of the Chaos lord, Abaddon.
Chaos. The Enemy. Horstgeld couldn’t tell the crew but the very soul of corruption was represented by ships like the Hellforger. Chaeroneia itself wasn’t the only moral threat any more.
‘Not good news then, Rear Admiral?’
In all the hubbub, Horstgeld hadn’t even noticed Inquisitor Nyxos sitting quietly on the pew, almost hidden under the hood of his robes.
‘The fleet is in the service of Chaos,’ said Horstgeld. ‘The flagship is the Hellforger. At Gethsemane it launched a boarding raid that killed…’
‘I have read my Ravensburg, Horstgeld. They teach us rather more history in the Inquisition than I suspect they do in the Navy.’
‘And we do not have enough ships to hold them off.’
‘You are ready to abandon Chaeroneia?’
Horstgeld looked into the old man’s eyes. He didn’t like what he saw. He didn’t believe the most outlandish stories they told of inquisitors – burning good Imperial servants at the stake, destroying whole planets – but he did know that an inquisitor’s authority stood above all others and they did not take kindly to those who gave up in the face of the Emperor’s enemies. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘But there is little we can do.’
‘You may not have to do all that much. Have you regained communications with Alaric and Hawkespur?’
Horstgeld shook his head. ‘Comms are working on it but there is too much interference. At the best of times the pollution in the atmosphere is so thick it would be difficult to get any signal down. With the asteroid field it’s all but impossible.’
‘What about the Exemplar?’
‘Magos Korveylan hasn’t had any luck.’
‘Hasn’t she? I thought the Adeptus Mechanicus didn’t believe in luck. I understand Commissar Leung is on the Exemplar?’
‘He is.’
‘Good. I am sure the combined efforts of Leung and myself will convince Korveylan to place contacting Alaric rather higher on their list of priorities. Can you live without me for a few hours?’
‘Yes. But I might need your authority getting further reinforcements from Segmentum Command.’
‘I will see what I can do on that account, but you must understand that my priority here is discovering what became of Chaeroneia. If we can get that information then you may not have to make a stand here at all.’
Horstgeld smiled bitterly. ‘That won’t happen, inquisitor. There’s something on Chaeroneia the Enemy needs and they’re going to go through us to get it. You’re not going to just let them walk onto that planet.’
Nyxos stood up and smoothed down his robes. ‘Quite right, of course. But I have my priorities. I shall require a fast shuttle and a couple of armsmen in case Korveylan proves recalcitrant.’
‘Of course. And inquisitor… we can slow the enemy down. Perhaps force them out of formation and delay a landing, but not much more than that. I believe you represent the will of the Emperor and I will sacrifice this fleet if you feel it is necessary, but there is a limit to how much time we can buy for those men on the surface.’
‘Unless I tell you otherwise, the Emperor requires you to reach that limit. There is nothing I will not do to seek out the foes of the Emperor and I will accept nothing less than the same from those under my authority. Now, if you please, my shuttle.’
Horstgeld stood and saluted – if this was the last time he would speak with Nyxos face-to-face, he wanted it to look formal. ‘It will be ready by the time you get to the flight deck. Wish us all luck, inquisitor.’
‘The Inquisition doesn’t believe in luck either, Horstgeld. The Emperor protects.’
With that Nyxos swept off, looking imperious now rather than the hunched old man he normally appeared. Horstgeld knew then that Magos Korveylan would be on the same side as the rest of the fleet, whether she wanted it or not. That, at least, meant the Enemy would have to work a little harder to break through the fleet and reach Chaeroneia.
There were huge gliding things, like hollow-boned manta rays the size of fighter craft, that floated on industrial thermals in the lower reaches of the pollutant layer. Metallic snakes like animated cables, slithering through rainbow-sheened pools of caustic oil. Plumes of fungus made of living rust. Tiny bright insects made of metal, like intricate clockwork toys, scuttling like cockroaches looking for nuggets of iron to eat. Chaeroneia had once been typical of a forge world, with barely any indigenous flora or fauna able to survive the constant pollution – but the planet’s thousand-year corruption had given rise to a unique biomechanical ecosystem where half-machine creatures flourished like living vermin.
Thalassa steered the strike force around the most obviously populated areas of the city. A dozen cities had been built on top of the original manufactorium and each one had seen areas fall into dereliction while others had prospered. The force moved through caverns formed from the fossilised remains of biomechanical factory-creatures, through twisting caves formed from their skulls and waist-deep seas of rancid coolant fluid that drizzled from some power plant far overhead. Aside from feral menials and wandering servitors they avoided the city’s population successfully, though Alaric could feel a hundred artificial eyes on him and he knew that someone in the city knew exactly where they were. Gun platform patrols had been everywhere and Alaric had let his training take over his every movement, seeking out the best cover at every turn. His instinct had begun to rub off on the other troops, with even Archmagos Saphentis starting to move like a soldier.
And they had seen such things. Spires of glass. A slumbering monster with shiny grey skin that sweated a river of black blood. A creature like a corpulent tank-sized spider that writhed its way between the towers, exuding a stream of thick sticky strands which solidified into hardened bridges. Chaeroneia was becoming an exhausting parade of dark wonders, every turn bringing something new and terrible.
The journey had been arduous. Tharkk had called for more regular rest breaks to keep his tech-guard from collapsing from exhaustion and Tech- priest Thalassa had to be carried across the rougher ground. Something in Interrogator Hawkespur’s metabolism had reacted badly to the pollutants, and tumours were breaking out in her throat and lungs so her breathing got more and more laboured and she had to stop to cough up lungfuls of foam. The Grey Knights were competent at battlefield first aid and Saphentis could have been an able surgeon, but Hawkespur was beyond help. Without a fully-functional medical suite, she would die within a week. Hawekspur herself hadn’t commented on this at all – she was the finest naval stock, brilliant and brave enough to serve as interrogator to an inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus, and she didn’t let anything as trivial as her own death get in the way of her duty.
‘We should nearly be there,’ said Hawkespur at the end of the third day. They were walking on the floor of a chasm between two multi-storey factory complexes, rearing up like tarnished steel skeletons. ‘We should rest. The fortress will probably be guarded and we don’t want the tech-guard going in exhausted.’
‘You’re not doing so well yourself,’ said Alaric. Though the hood of Hawkespur’s voidsuit was up he could see her reddened eyes through the visor.
‘I could do with a rest, too,’ she said grudgingly.
‘You’re no good to us dead, interrogator. I heard you were the best shot on Hydraphur.’
‘Just a third-round winner, justicar.’
‘Good enough.’ Alaric looked around their immediate surroundings – the lower floors of the closer factory complex looked deserted and they would cover them from observers overhead. It was a good place to hole up before making the final slog down the datacore valley that led to the fortress. ‘My Space Marines just need an hour of half-sleep. We’ll take the watch, tell Tharkk to have his tech-guard rest. Thalassa, too.’
Hawkespur looked around. ‘Where is Thalassa?’
Alaric followed her gaze. He could see the Space Marines of his squad, spread out through the formation with Lykkos taking up the rear. Tharkk and his remaining tech-guard were in the middle with Archmagos Saphentis. But not Thalassa.
The chasm floor was littered with debris and trash. There was plenty of room for Thalassa to be hidden if she had fallen. ‘Damnation,’ said Justicar. ‘We need her.’ He switched to the vox. ‘Grey Knights, I need a visual on Tech-Priest Thalassa.’
The acknowledgement runes flickered back negative. ‘I helped her over the broken ground two kilometres back,’ replied Brother Cardios. ‘I haven’t seen her since.’
‘Captain Tharkk!’ called Alaric.
The tech-guard officer jogged up to Alaric. ‘Justicar?’
‘Was Thalassa with you?’
‘No, justicar. No orders were given to assist her.’
‘We can’t spend time looking for her,’ said Hawkespur.
‘I know,’ said Alaric. ‘Tharkk, get your men into the cover of the factory. Hawkespur, go with them. Get some rest. Grey Knights, search by sections, half a kilometre range, then pull back and take the watch. I’ll stay here.’ He turned to where Archmagos Saphentis was sitting unruffled on a fallen slab of rusting machinery. ‘Archmagos, you were responsible for Thalassa.’
‘She was subordinate to me. I was not required to watch her. There was a difference.’
‘Was? You sound like she’s already dead.’
‘And you believe she isn’t?’
Alaric turned away from the archmagos and stomped into the shadow of the factory complex. Saphentis was probably right, that was the worst of it. Since the moment they had crash-landed he had known Chaeroneia would have ways of killing them without them even knowing, But they couldn’t afford to lose Thalassa – Saphentis could perform some of the same functions but he wasn’t a data-specialist like her.
Saphentis had been responsible for Thalassa and that was what worried Alaric the most. Thalassa had been horrified at Chaeroneia, as any right-thinking human would be, but Saphentis had not shown such revulsion. He seemed to be impressed by the way the planet had reinvented the Mechanicus creed. If Thalassa had suspected Saphentis wasn’t on the planet for the benefit of the Imperium, but to fulfil some other agenda, would Saphentis have had any compunction about killing her? Probably not. The higher the rank, the less human the tech-priest and Saphentis was both high-ranking and soulless.
Alaric watched Saphentis idly pick up a chunk of rusted wreckage and incinerate it in a crucible formed from the palm of one bionic hand, watching the smouldering nugget giving way to a wisp of black smoke. The strikeforce now needed Saphentis more than ever, so Alaric couldn’t just storm in accusing Saphentis of being a murderer and a traitor – Saphentis would just flee into the black heart of the city and the Grey Knights probably wouldn’t be able to find him. Alaric wasn’t even sure if he could take Saphentis in straight combat if it came to that, since Saphentis’s combat augmentations were formidable and Alaric didn’t know the full extent of what he could do.
And Saphentis knew it all, too. He knew full well Alaric couldn’t do without him. If Alaric’s worst suspicions were correct then Saphentis was just using the Grey Knights and tech-guard as a bodyguard while he searched for some tainted prize on Chaeroneia, and the wrench of it was that Alaric couldn’t do anything but go along with Saphentis and hope he had the wits to know when Saphentis was about to betray them. This was what Alaric hated more than anything else – the politicking, the petty betrayals that seemed to seethe through everything the Inquisition ever did. There was a time when he had thought organisations like the Mechanicus and the Inquisition stood together in the service of the Emperor, but every day that went by seemed to show him some new way for humanity to fight itself instead of focusing on the Enemy.
At least the Grey Knights themselves stood apart. They were one, devoted, pure of purpose. That was the quality that would see them through this, traitors in their midst be damned.
