The Voice of Mars

by David Guymer

  Talos Epsili awoke with a start, reaching instinctively for the carafe of oiled wine that his servants habitually left out for him on. Perturbed to find it absent from its proper place at his bedside, he extended scapulal dendrites to prop him up in his bed.

  His bedchamber was dark, still in its night cycle. The tapestries on the wall, detailed anatomical schema in crimson thread on gold, rippled under the steady nineteen-degree breeze from the atmosphere cyclers. The air smelled of prophylactic counterseptics and of his own nightly soil, usually removed and deodorised well before the conclusion of his sleep algorithms. Scowling, he swung his legs out of bed and checked his bedside chrono. It confirmed his internal count. He had been woken several hours short of his programmed cycle.

  Leaning over his knees, servo-mechanisms pushing through the papery flesh of his shoulder blades, he buried his face in his hands. He had an appalling headache, bits of foreign memory and information jumbling about in his head like loose screws.

  He staggered up, proprioceptive extensors telescoping to the walls, ceiling and floor to help as he moved to the wash basin. He ran it cold, and splashed water into his face.

  The spigot felt different, the water splashing strangely through his hands. He felt different. It could mean only one thing.

  Nicco Palpus was dead.

  He turned off the water, running his hand back over the metallic discs embedded in his scalp. Something was wrong. He did not yet know what, but the sense of it ate at him, something missing.

  The Voice of Mars was more than just a man. It was a chain, unbroken, forged in the heat of the Iron Hands’ transition from a broken Legion to a Chapter with an uncertain identity and no hope in their future. The responsibility was immense, the spans of time involved great, too great for one man, even an adept of Mars. It was decreed that the Voice of Mars could not be permitted to die. A data transposon of mobilisable information had been integrated into the noospheric physicality of that first priest, passing from inheritor to successor, snippets of personality and memory acquired through the quasi-molecular violence of excision and integration to generate a shotgun mosaic of scrapcode insertions and binaric drift that could don the crimson of the Voice of Mars.

  As Secondary Voice of Mars, Talos Epsili had known this, had lived for this day.

  He knew that something was wrong.

  The chain had been broken.

  Half the transposon was missing.

  Talos stared into the bottom of the draining basin. ‘Where has it gone?’

  Supplemental Two

  Stronos emerged from the containment chamber, dragging one leaden boot ahead of the other. He blinked in the light, his fist still ringing from beating on the barrier doors to be let out. Part of him was still to accept the fact that they had been opened.

  Yolanis hurried to intercept him, her crimson robes flapping. ­Thecian and Barras followed close behind, their expressions unreadable, or at least unreadable to Stronos. He noticed the Harlequin, Fall, watching him from just beyond the boundary of Yolanis’ halo, her face masked by her own interlocking fingers.

  ‘Have you been… weeping?’ asked Thecian. The Exsanguinator sounded oddly impressed, and clapped him on the shoulder.

  Stronos’ mouth pipe emitted a wheeze. ‘It will take some explaining.’

  ‘What happened?’ said Yolanis, stepping back from the three Space Marines so as to look him up and down. ‘What did you see?’

  Stronos shook his head wearily. He felt as though he could sleep for a hundred years. ‘I destroyed it. Down to the last gemstone.’

  Thecian punched his pauldron, and turned to Barras who grunted an acknowledgment.

  Yolanis studied him, frowning.

  ‘And are you–’

  Her mouth hung open, contorting as though the word were somehow stuck in her throat. The left side of her face slackened, the frown falling out. Her right eye twitched. ‘You.’ There was a retinal flash of blue as a circuit overloaded, her spasming tongue forced a trickle of spit over her down-curled lip and the enginseer dropped.

  Thecian was quick to catch her, lowering her gently to the ground, while men and women in battle-stained robes rushed towards them with a cry. Barras moved instantly into an aggressive posture, blocking their run on the enginseer and swinging his borrowed autopistol around to aim at the Harlequin. She was the only one who was not moving. Stronos pushed his aim to the ground. The Knight of Dorn glared at him hotly. He ignored it to crouch by Thecian and Yolanis.

  The enginseer’s eyelids fluttered, then she moaned, scrunching her face as though in pain.

  ‘What happened?’ Stronos asked.

  Her eyes snapped open, and the intensity behind them took him aback, as though it were a different person looking back.

  ‘We have to return to Medusa. Now.’

  About the Author

  David Guymer is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 novels Eye of Medusa and The Voice of Mars along with The Beast Arises novels Echoes of the Long War and The Last Son of Dorn. For Warhammer Age of Sigmar he wrote the audio dramas Beast of Cartha, Fist of Mork, Fist of Gork, Great Red and Only the Faithful. His work for Warhammer includes the Gotrek & Felix novels Slayer, Kinslayer and City of the Damned, along with the novella Thorgrim. He is a freelance writer and occasional scientist based in the East Riding, and was a finalist in the 2014 David Gemmell Awards for his novel Headtaker.

  An extract from Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah.

  ‘Almighty Machine-God whose data binds the universe, look upon your humble servant and let the tangents of your intersection be beneficent.’

  As ve spoke the ritual lines, Magos Dominus Militaris Xaiozanus Skitara Xilliarkis Exasas dilated the dorsal spiracles of vis 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 vis flesh.

  Vis sense of smell had been replaced by far more complex molecular sensors when vis face had been removed, yet vis sensory system still latched on to the old memories and interpreted the smell as forge exhaust and hot metal. It was an aroma that ve had known since vis 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 vis 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. Ve 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.

  Ve extended a link through the noosphere that connected to the skitarii alphas far below. At vis invisible command the squad leaders became surrogates for vis physical presence, an extension of vis communication system. Even as ve 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, in
divisible, 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 vis 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 vis body segments to shorten verself, bringing vis 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. Ve 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 ve had undergone, the dominus was still capable of disappointment. Ve 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.

  Ve 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 meticulously 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 a
n 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.

  ‘Four iambic crucibae,’ she groaned, throwing up her hands in despair.

  ‘Militus Martia!’ her opponent cried in triumph, reverting to crude Gothic in his excitement.

  There was a mix of cheers and moans from the onlookers as various side bets were won and lost.

  Adrina held out a pudgy, oil-stained hand, his smile not unkind. Half a tattoo was just visible where his wrist entered the tattered white cuff of his overseer’s robe, depicting the iron skull of the Legio icon. He was epilekhtoz, Metalican-born, hence his higher station.

  He beckoned with fingers tipped with broken nails, their golden enamel chipped and scratched.

  ‘Hand it over, vin Jaint. Everyone saw you swear the wager before the Omnissiah’s oracular.’

  She delved a hand into one of her coverall’s many pockets and produced a thin sliver of circuit-covered plastek. Adrina leered as he made to snatch it from her fingers. Ghelsa pulled it out of reach.

  ‘One downshift only,’ she warned, glancing to the others as witnesses. ‘And if you’re caught, you didn’t get it from me.’

  Adrina nodded, his fingers twitching in excitement.