Forges of mars, p.41
Forges Of Mars, page 41
According to Totha Mu-32, the previous incumbent of Abrehem’s new command throne had been killed during the attack of the eldar pirates.
‘I think Virtanen was waiting for you,’ Totha Mu-32 had said when Abrehem first sat in the command throne. ‘Its name means “small river”, but even the smallest river can cut a mountain in half given time, yes? I think you will get along very well.’
Abrehem had no answer to that, and merely shrugged, still uncomfortable at the notion that people thought him Machine-touched. He certainly didn’t feel any intimate connection to the godhood of all machines. Totha Mu-32 had told him that such men as he were rare indeed, bringing a deeply implanted electoo up to the surface of his organics, a depiction of a coiled dragon with silver and bronze scales.
When Abrehem asked the overseer what the tattoo represented, Totha Mu-32 told him it was the mark of a proscribed Martian sect that made it their business to seek out and worship Machine-touched individuals. Archmagos Telok, the object of this voyage of exploration, was said to be so blessed, and shipboard rumour had it that Magos Blaylock likewise had the eye of the Omnissiah upon him. To have a trinity of such individuals connected to this voyage was seen as a sign of great import by Totha Mu-32, a physical manifestation of the Originator, the Scion and the Motive Force.
Abrehem listened to Totha Mu-32’s sermons in silence, finding the overseer’s zeal for his beatification misplaced and more than a little off-putting.
He certainly had no sense that he was in any way special.
The hard metal of a bionic arm grafted to his right shoulder seemed to mock that belief.
The augmetic limb had been fitted after a contraband plasma pistol that shouldn’t have been able to fire had explosively overheated and melted the flesh and bone from his body after he’d used it to shoot dead an eldar warrior-chief. He didn’t like to think of that moment – the bowel-loosening terror of the xeno-killers descending upon them, only to be cut apart into bloody chunks by a cyborg death machine that had apparently adopted him as its new master. His plea to Sebastian Thor and his bloody handprint had opened the door to the arco-flagellant’s dormis chamber, which Totha Mu-32 and a great many others were taking as a sign of his divine favour.
Abrehem shook off thoughts of Totha Mu-32’s reverence, knowing that a moment’s inattention could cost him his life when he was hundreds of metres above a hard steel deck.
He worked his way down the ladder, and even with the aural bafflers the noise in the forge-temple was almost deafening. Heavy machinery sprouted like the towering skeletal remains of vast-necked sauropods around the temple’s perimeter, and arch-backed rigs rumbled overhead on suspended rails, hauling containers weighing thousands of tonnes back and forth with no more effort than a Cadian might carry his kit-bag. Magos Turentek himself worked across the centre-line of the forge-temple, handling the largest and heaviest containers personally. His multiple loader arms depended from a central machine-hub where the organic components of his body were interred like the biological scraps of a god-machine’s princeps.
Most of the containers being loaded onto the vast-hulled shipping rigs contained modular plates of adamantium and structural members intended for the lower decks. Kilometres of hull plating had been torn from the Speranza by the crossing of the Halo Scar and the guns of the eldar warship – rendering entire districts of the Ark Mechanicus uninhabitable. The prow forges were producing millions of metric tonnes of desperately needed components for the ship’s repair crews, but Abrehem’s experienced eye saw the pace was slowing as the Speranza’s supply of raw materials was increasingly depleted.
Abrehem reached one of the transit walkways on the cliff-like walls of the forge-temple and took a moment to catch his breath. The air here was bitter and electrical, with an acrid chemical tang that left the men working here with raspingly sore throats and increased breathing difficulties. This, combined with months spent below decks and working backbreaking shifts in the reclamation halls or plasma refuelling details with little sleep and only nutrient paste to sustain him, had robbed Abrehem of his once robust physique. Daily doses of Hawke’s shine didn’t help, but sometimes it was the only thing that knocked him out enough to sleep.
He rubbed a hand over his shorn scalp, a decision he and his fellow bondsman had taken in a fit of righteous indignation to turn them into the drones the Mechanicus believed them to be. Though their actions during the eldar attack had improved their lot somewhat, Abrehem’s anger at the inhuman treatment of the below-deck bondsmen still smouldered like a banked fire. Kept as slaves and regarded simply as assets, numbers and mortal resources, the bondsmen existed in a nightmare that would only end with their death.
The Mechanicus believed its bondsmen were honoured to serve the Omnissiah this way!
Abrehem spat a wad of oily phlegm and climbed back onto the ladder. Below, he could see Coyne and Hawke clambering down towards the deck from their sub-control cabs, where they managed the articulation and linkage of the various connectors to whatever was being transported.
Awaiting them on the deck were two hooded figures, one robed in the red and gold of a Mechanicus overseer, the other swathed in the black cloak of a death penitent. Both looked up at him with a measure of devotion. Abrehem relished speaking to neither of them, not that Rasselas X-42 ever spoke much.
Eventually he reached the deck, and took another breath of chem-scented air.
‘A successful shift,’ said Totha Mu-32. ‘Virtanen has bonded well with you.’
‘It’s a good rig,’ replied Abrehem. ‘Smaller than we’re used to, but it’s got heart.’
‘It’s no Savickas,’ said Coyne, echoing Abrehem’s earlier sentiment.
Hawke shrugged. ‘One lifter’s much like another,’ he said.
‘Shows how much you know rigs,’ said Abrehem. ‘What was it you did on Joura again?’
‘As little as possible would be my bet,’ quipped Coyne, rolling his shoulders to ease the itching of the synth-skin grafts on his back where he’d taken a razored fragment from a ricocheting eldar projectile.
‘Damn straight,’ said Hawke with a wink. ‘After the regiment tossed me out, I worked Cargo-8s mostly, driving the containers between the depots and the sub-orbitals. Though that was grunt work compared to being a moderati on a lifter-rig.’
Abrehem sent an amused glance at Coyne, and his fellow rigman hid a grin at Hawke’s boyish enthusiasm for working the lifter-rigs. Give it a month of monotony and he’d soon think twice about rating his job in the sub-cab as being anything close to a Titan moderati’s role.
‘May I?’ asked Totha Mu-32, reaching up to examine the raw flesh at Abrehem’s temples and forehead. Abrehem nodded and Rasselas X-42 bristled at the overseer’s familiar touch. He waved the arco-flagellant to submission. It didn’t matter how many times Abrehem reinforced that certain people weren’t to be considered threats, Rasselas X-42 still viewed everyone who came near him as a potential assassin.
Though now clad in baggy fatigues, heavy work boots and a kevlar vest machined to his impossibly muscular form, Rasselas X-42 could never be mistaken for anything other than the slaughterman he was. Though currently obscured by the wide sleeves of his penitent’s robe, his gauntlet-hands were silver-sheened electro-flails capable of tearing through steel and bone with equal ease. The back and crown of his skull were sheathed in metal and a circular Cog Mechanicus of blood-red iron stood proud on his forehead. Sharpened metal teeth glinted in the shadows beneath his hood and flickering combat-optics shimmered with a faint cherry red glow.
‘You know there is no need for you to wear the command headset,’ said Totha Mu-32. ‘If you concentrate more fully, the augmetic eyes you inherited from your father can display the datasphere more efficiently.’
Abrehem nodded. ‘I know, but I’m not confident enough in my control over the noospheric inloads to feel comfortable commanding Virtanen by them alone.’
‘You are Machine-touched,’ asked Totha Mu-32. ‘Trust in the Omnissiah and it will come.’
‘If that bastard’s bloody Machine-touched, then how come he damn near smashed into our rig’s arm?’ said a rasping voice.
Abrehem turned as a gang of six men appeared around the corner of Virtanen’s wide baseplate. All six wore bondsmen coveralls and had the same gaunt-faced meanness common to the Speranza’s below-deck crew. Three men sported augmetics on their arms and craniums, while the rest were ornamented with rig-tattoos, mohawks and ritual brow piercings. They carried heavy power wrenches and other, similarly brutal-looking tools.
Pulsing just beneath the skin of the man who’d spoken was a wolf-head electoo, crudely applied and fuzzed with bio-electric static. He carried a buzzing mag-hammer in his piston-boosted arms and looked like he knew how to use it in a tight spot.
‘Wulfse,’ said Abrehem.
‘You’re the sons of bitches that almost hit us!’ snapped Hawke. ‘What in the name of Thor’s backside are blind idiots like you doing running a lifter-rig?’
Hawke’s vehemence caught the men by surprise, but for all his bluster, their newest rigman was right. The near miss had been the fault of Wulfse’s crew, but it didn’t look like they were in the mood to hear that.
‘Listen,’ said Abrehem. ‘Nothing happened, right? Nobody got hurt and we’ll all be a bit more careful next time, right?’
‘There ain’t going to be a next time,’ snarled the lead rigman of the Wulfse. ‘Only thing you’ll be driving is a medicae gurney.’
Totha Mu-32’s floodstream surged with binaric authority signifiers.
‘You men are to return to your posts immediately,’ he said. ‘If there has been an infraction of rig safety protocols, I assure you those responsible will be assigned the required punishment.’
‘Stay out of this, overseer,’ warned the man, hefting the mag-hammer onto his shoulder. ‘Rigmen sort out their own discipline.’
That at least was true, reflected Abrehem, but right now he wished it wasn’t.
The man launched himself at Abrehem, bringing the mag-hammer around in a brutal arc.
Abrehem felt a rush of movement and a black blur shot past him. He flinched as a whipcrack of electrical discharge snapped the air. When he looked up, the lead rigman of Wulfse was pinned to the side of Virtanen’s baseplate.
Rasselas X-42’s left arm was extended ramrod straight, his stiffened electro-flails impaling the man through his shoulder and holding him a metre off the deck. The rigman’s coveralls were soaked with blood and his face was bleached of colour by pain and shock. Rasselas X-42 drew back his right arm, the flails whipping out to form slicing claws of crackling metal.
‘Live or die?’ asked the arco-flagellant.
Between sobs of agony, the rigman screamed, ‘Live!’
Rasselas X-42 leaned in close, his killer’s eyes and pulsing Cog Mechanicus bathing the man’s face in a blood red glow.
‘He’s not talking to you,’ said Abrehem. ‘He’s asking me if he should kill you.’
‘No, please!’ yelled the man, desperately trying not to struggle and tear the wounds in his shoulder wider. ‘Don’t kill me!’
The rest of Wulfse’s crew backed away from the arco-flagellant, terrified of its unnatural speed and power. Chem-shunts had elevated along its arms, sub-dermal adrenal boosters ready to kick the bio-mechanical killer into combat mode. Anyone unlucky enough to find themselves in the path of a rampaging arco-flagellant was almost certainly dead, and rumours of how thoroughly Rasselas X-42 had slaughtered the eldar boarders had spread through the under decks like a virus.
The shared aggression in Wulfse’s crew drained away like oil through a perforated sump. They dropped their makeshift weapons and backed away with their hands up.
‘Put him down, X-42,’ said Abrehem. ‘This one’s not going to cause any more problems, are you?’
The man shook his head, biting his lip to keep from screaming out.
The arco-flagellant’s flail claws snapped back into his gauntlets and the man dropped to the deck with a bellow of agony. His hand clamped down on his wounded shoulder and he scrambled away after his fellow rigmen, casting fearful glances back at the arco-flagellant as though he expected it to pounce on him once his back was turned.
Rasselas X-42 ignored him and pulled his hood up over his head.
Hawke whooped with glee, bent double with mirth.
‘Did you see the look on his face?’ he managed between laughs. ‘Thor’s balls, I though he was going to shit his britches!’
The arco-flagellant came to stand at Abrehem’s shoulder, and the stink of its chemically stimulated physiology was a powerfully astringent reek. By now, a crowd had gathered to watch the altercation, but they backed off as the arco-flagellant’s dead-eyed stare swept over them like a butcher eyeing choice cuts of meat.
Abrehem saw that as many faces were lined in fear as were lit with adoration.
‘We should return X-42 to his dormis chamber so that I may attempt to re-engage the pacifier helm,’ said Totha Mu-32. ‘I should not have allowed him to remain at your side. That bondsman is fortunate to be alive.’
‘He wasn’t hurt too bad, and he’ll not bother us again,’ said Coyne.
‘You misunderstand,’ said Totha Mu-32. ‘Wulfse’s overseer will hear of this. As shall high-ranking magi who will not think it fit that a mere under-deck bondsman claims stewardship over an arco-flagellant. And when they discover I gave you an augmetic arm, we will both be in trouble.’
‘What do you think they’ll do?’ asked Abrehem.
‘They will come to remove X-42 from your presence. And your arm.’
‘I’d like to see them try,’ said Hawke, lifting a hand to lay a comradely slap on the arco-flagellant’s shoulder. Rasselas X-42’s head snapped around, sharpened iron teeth bared, and Hawke’s hand dropped back to his side.
‘Yes,’ said Abrehem, with grim relish. ‘Let them try.’
‘Open her up,’ said Roboute, and Pavelka unlaced the security systems keeping the atmosphere within the cargo bay breathable. The lights surrounding the tall rhomboidal outline of the embarkation ramp flared in a rotating display of amber warnings. A depressurisation alarm blared through the deck, in case they had suddenly been struck blind. Cable stays vibrated in the sudden evacuation of air from the deck, and Roboute felt his ears pop with the equalisation of pressure to the outside world.
Even through the heating elements woven into the fabric of his void-suit, he felt the stabbing chill of the world beyond. Amber light changed to red, though the unambiguous nature of the warning would have been wasted on anyone still in the cargo bay, as the lack of atmospheric pressure would already be killing them.
Metres-thick pistons either side of the embarkation door groaned and pushed the heavy slab of metal outwards, forming a ridged ramp down to the surface of the planet. The glaring brightness of reflected sunlight on ice made Roboute blink in shock until the polarisation filters in his helmet dimmed.
‘Let’s see what a world beyond the galaxy looks like,’ said Roboute, driving out of the shuttle and into a city of iron and noise, arcing lightning and mountains of beaten iron that were surely too large to have any hope of moving.
A starport metropolis.
That was Roboute’s first impression upon disembarking from the Renard’s shuttle. The grav-sled slid gracefully over hexagonal sheets of honeycomb plates, typical of every landing field in the Imperium, and came to an abrupt halt as he eased up on the power to the engines.
‘Why are we stopping?’ asked Magos Pavelka. ‘Is there a problem?’
Roboute twisted in the seat of the grav-sled, and his answer was stillborn as he saw how ashen the magos’s skin had become.
‘My dermal layer is being reinforced to withstand variant radiation levels, pressure and temperature,’ she said, pre-empting his inevitable question.
‘Ah, okay then,’ he said, marshalling his thoughts to answer Pavelka’s original question in a manner that wouldn’t sound churlish or disappointed. He gave up after a few moments, turning back around to watch scores of boxy containers being offloaded from Mechanicus cargo-barques by exo-armoured servitors. Tracked fuel tenders moved past crackling void-generators along precisely defined routes, while a host of lifter-rigs stacked the ever-growing mass of materiel in hardened supply depots. Sealed Cadian transports rolled from the vast bellies of Imperial Guard drop ships, their hull integrity checked by Mechanicus logisters before being allowed onwards.
No trace of Katen Venia’s surface could be seen beyond the encroachments of the Mechanicus, giving no clue that this was an unexplored world in the last moments of its existence.
‘It just looks like any other fleet muster centre,’ he said.
‘What did you expect it to look like?’ asked Pavelka. Roboute shrugged, no easy feat in a bulky void-suit. The exhilaration of discovering worlds and opening up uncharted regions of space had never left Roboute, no matter how many new skies and unspoiled vistas of distant worlds he saw. Though the landing fields were thronged with robed adepts, grey-skinned servitors and bustling activity, he saw nothing that resembled excitement, only the monotonous duty of routinely familiar tasks.
‘I thought this place would be different,’ said Roboute. ‘We’re exploring a new world, after all.’
‘An unfamiliar environment is all the more reason to work by established methodologies.’
Roboute knew it was pointless to try and convey that a singular moment of history was being trampled beneath the grinding, rote efficiency of the Mechanicus, but felt he had to try.
‘This is a world beyond the galaxy, Ilanna,’ said Roboute. ‘We’re the first human beings to come to this world in over three thousand years. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’
‘This is a significant world in terms of what might be learned, I agree, but geologically it is just like any other: a metallic core, layers of rock and ice. No different to any planetary body within the arbitrary geographical boundaries of Imperial space. Soon the star’s expanding corona will envelop it. And then it will be gone.’
