Titandeath

by Guy Haley

  Something boomed off the Titan’s greaves. Harr­tek spared enough of his consciousness to flick through the Titan’s auspex feeds and see a broken crane spin end over end into the void.

  ‘Steady the machine!’ he snarled.

  Nuntio Dolores’ stride was thrown off by the low gravity. The moderati steersman was struggling. All of them were. Graphs depicting neural feedback sprang across Harr­tek’s internal vision space.

  ‘No,’ he growled. ‘Slowly.’

  But Nuntio Dolores would not listen. Denying the machine-spirit only encouraged it. He had to change tactics. He had to listen to his machine. He had to follow its desires. Cautiously, he relaxed his grip, ceasing to fight it so hard.

 

  Four Titans made up the rest of his command. Four replies were given. Maniple Seven was a standard axiom configuration, the three Warlords Nuntio Dolores, Tenebris Vindictae and Ultimate Sanction with the two lighter Reavers Dust of Ages and Ars Bellus to flank them.

  The Legio Solaria were coming in fast. Their drop-ships hit the metal of the dockyard at the limits of safe speed parameters. He felt the impact. Two ships were already down, another incoming. Harr­tek’s expression soured as the squadron of ships split again, and three more powered off for the moon’s surface, denying him glory. The six drop-ships that had diverged earlier were heading off around the further side of the moon, to another section of the interlinked warren of zero-g manufactories and docks that caged it. A standard ruse, to divert attention from the main assault. He paid it no attention. They would either land where there was something to oppose them, or they would not. The other battles were not his concern. His foe was ahead of him.

  He wondered if she were among the Titans coming for him.

  The sublime link with the machine hiccupped at this thought, and Nuntio Dolores stumbled a little. Harr­tek snarled at his weakness, added his anger to that of the Titan. Multiplied by its arcane technologies, his fury roused the machine to move faster. He did not care. He did nothing to slow it. Queries from the other princeps intruded into the manifold space. Tocsins admonished him. Twitching graphical bars in his helm display and in the space carved out of his imagination slid into red fields. He shut them off.

  Bennif Durant spoke into Harr­tek’s mind. He was shield warden, the maniple second, and master of Tenebris Vindictae. His word carried weight.

  thought Harr­tek in response. His words never passed his lips, but were translated by the machines plugged into his brain into text and monotone vox blurts and broadcast to his unit.

  Bennif Durant responded.

  Harr­tek sent a bundle of data pointing out the flaws in Durant’s argument. The most notable was the large collection of starscrapers that dominated the dockyard’s limited horizon. They were bundled so close together they resembled a tableland mesa, and would block all but the first few shots.

  Harr­tek would not give the foe the dignity of their name.

  Durant fell quiet. The other princeps added nothing either verbally or through the maniple infosphere.

  He did have a point, thought Harr­tek. They could have held back. There was a case to be made for longer-range battle. Legio Solaria’s fleet outgunned their own forces, and Maniple Seven were in ­danger of attracting their attention. The sky burst with the colourful explosions of raging combat.

  Terent Harr­tek did not want to play a shooting war. He agreed with his Titan’s furious spirit. He thought again of grappling with the foe. His hand – Nuntio Dolores’ arioch power claw – curled in anticipation of melee, rousing his heart and the Titan’s reactor.

  He did wonder why the Hunters had put down in the moon’s sub-complex of orbitals, and not all descended to the surface. Obviously they wished to secure Iridium as a base of operations, but they did not have to do it by taking every last structure around it.

  Personally, he would have driven for the moon alone. Any foes that did not retreat from the orbitals could be safely knocked out of the sky from the ground. He calculated a loss of infrastructure of around fifteen per cent for near certain victory for the Legio Solaria. But the Imperial Hunters did not fight that way. They were sentimental, too concerned with preventing deaths. They probably sought to preserve the civilians of the yards around the moon. They had always been weak.

 

he said.

  There was something he saw, a blind spot. He called for assistance from Maniple Eighteen. He could not find them, but they were close. With a second maniple at his side, victory was certain.

  He snarled in frustration when the reply came, and he discovered where Maniple Eighteen were.

  ‘The fools will ambush the ambushers,’ he said to himself. ‘Never take on an enemy on his own terms.’

  ‘My princeps?’ spoke the primus.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said into the czella cockpit. ‘Inform Maniple Eighteen that we are moving on their position, to aid in their retreat.’

  ‘Retreat, my princeps?’

  ‘They have made a bad decision.’ He slipped back into the manifold.

  Confirmations winged their way through the Legio infosphere. Maniple Eighteen’s reply was predictably furious, but Harr­tek was right, he was certain. Nuntio Dolores pulled ahead, heading right around the cluster of starscrapers. The maniple stayed in close formation, a Warlord and a Reaver to either side of their leader. The entire exercise occurred in the eerie silence of the void, but inside the manifolds of every Titan the crews’ minds clamoured for the coming fray.

  Eight

  Old Enemies

  Esha’s body glowed with the ecstasy of holy union. Domine Ex Venari moved easily in the low gravity, and she experienced its long, loping strides as if they were her own. Locomotion under low gravity conditions felt deliciously lazy. Fifty metres of metal passed by with every bound.

  The Legio fanned out from the drop-ships under a burning sky. Flights of fighter craft sped overhead, driving back attempts by the enemy to attack the Legio Solaria from above. Metallo Mutandis and Battlegroup Solaria took up position between the orbitals and the Iridium moon, lashing everything around them with destruction. The False Mechanicum had no formation of sufficient strength to oppose the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the ships were free to concentrate on major defensive positions away from the moon. Already, the three void forts floating near the moon and its sub-network designated as targets for the fleet were coming under concerted attack.

  Cold, airless space was the field of battle. Skitarii, thallaxii and attached Legio Cybernetica battle automata were raining down on the orbitals around the moon. None were bound to aid the Imperial Hunters on the surface. Their role was to take the fight inside, subvert the orbital systems, and if possible turn the guns of the great docks on the enemy. On the moon below, mixed formations led by god-engines would be striking out to secure command and control centres. She anticipated these lesser wars would be done quickly. Iridium was mostly in loyalist hands already. She could spare no thought for that now. On the outside of the docks and processing centres surrounding the moon was where her battle would be decided, engine to engine.

  Esha Ani Mohana’s reinforced maniple adopted a hunting pattern that Pahkmetris herself would have recognised: Warhound pack ranging in front, Reaver huntresses behin
d ready to take down prey started by the hounds. Third, Tenth and Sixth Maniples adopted similar formations to either side of her as their drop-ships came down and they walked onto the field of battle in her wake. Second Maniple was first in the hierarchy. The others deferred to her.

  The orbital they fought on was the largest over Iridium and was joined to its fellows by a mess of transit ways and structural supports. The purpose of this tangle of metal eluded her. It seemed overly complex for the orbital’s role as shipyard and fuel store – counterproductive, even. The Iridium sub-network caging the moon was only a part of the giant lattice of steel, stone, adamantium and energy bonds that orbited Theta-Garmon V. The network centred on the gas giant’s equator, spreading far north and south into the tropics. Further stations clustered around the poles and the planet’s other moons. The docks were situated further out from the world. Much closer in was a second agglomeration of hydrogen processing decks whose syphons descended deep into the upper atmosphere. Together, they made a fat, broken belt of silver links.

  A shiver of premonition passed through her body and mind. A superstitious backworlder would recognise the feeling and make some gesture to ward off the evil eye. But this was holy, from the Machine-God. By primal feeling she processed Domine Ex Venari’s auspex input, and this was a warning of incoming engines. There was of course a plethora of light-spun models for her to see on her helm display, and similar could be accessed mentally via the manifold, but visceral emotion was far more natural, far more right. She felt the enemy as an arachnid feels her web move, or a felid hears the faint crackle of grass and knows instantly what prey has made it. She smelled the enemy on winds of data.

  This was Procon’s gift to the Legio of Tigris.

  ‘I am the huntress, you are my mistress of hounds,’ she voxed. These were the words that must be said. Ritual demanded them. They remembered the whisper on the wind, the subtle hand signal that brings meat to the table through blood and death. She felt every mind in the maniple intent on her across the maniple infosphere.

  ‘What orders for the hunt, second princeps majoris?’ responded Durana Fahl.

  ‘Let slip the dogs,’ she said.

  Facsimiles of canine howls blared through her soul. She smiled indulgently.

  The ritual done, the business of engine war had to be attended to.

  ‘Third Maniple, Tenth Maniple, Sixth Maniple, you walk with us. Will you acquiesce to my command?’

  ‘Aye. Third Maniple names you princeps seniores,’ spoke Akali Netra, the princeps majoris of Third.

  ‘As does Sixth.’

  ‘And Tenth. You are hunt leader. You are Second Maniple. You command, we shall follow. Set out the course of the hunt.’

  Esha’s gratitude touched their minds in reply. The election was another ritual. As commander of Second Maniple, she was the Great Mother’s chosen representative. She had automatic right of command when on the field, but to the adepts of the Machine-God, ritual was important. Through the war-cants the bond between human and machine was forged. The division between she and Domine Ex Venari closed a little more at this show of respect to their deity.

  The forces voted to her were three full-strength venator configuration maniples. Along with her own reinforced group it made for a total of sixteen Warhounds and five Reavers. The disposition they should take was obvious.

  ‘Five engines, single maniple, axiom configuration coming in on bearing one-three-five. The enemy will round the tower cluster ahead of us in six minutes, fourteen seconds. They threaten our major landing zone on this section of the orbital structure. Response – four packs, four hounds each, three wide echelon right, one fall back to sweep wide right. Single concentration hunter group, back line inverse V. Long range primary bombardment, firing advance, hounds to bring home the kill. Elude, encircle, obliterate.’ She spoke in a pulsing chant. She spoke the orders, but they were transmitted to her fellows as light speed cascades of data before she had finished speaking.

  ‘Confirmed,’ responded the others, Sixth first, the rest following. They understood the commands. The formations were second nature to the engines and their crews.

  Ahead the Warhounds had spread out into a single loose crescent, their advanced auspex suites pinging the complex, artificial landscape ahead with the aim of flushing out the foe. At Esha’s command they changed configuration. The fan of hunting scout Titans broke up by maniple and clumped into hollow box formations. The Warhound packs from Third, Sixth and Tenth Maniples strung themselves out in an echelon right, with Third Maniple in the lead. Second dropped back from the middle, swung about, and began to run for the end of the line in a long, steep curve. The three Reavers of the other maniples increased speed. Domine Ex Venari and Steel Huntress slowed to allow them to catch up. Steel Huntress and the Reaver Broad Spear made up the tips of an inverted V. Domine Ex Venari took the trailing point, a position Esha could easily view the whole engagement from. Arcadian Might of Sixth and Netra’s Odercarium flanked her.

  Now close to, the Reavers extended their infospheric network, linking their auspexes together with a flicker of pulsed data squirts that blended the senses of engine and princeps. Information flashed between them. Esha felt herself uplifted again as she took another step on the Machine-God’s sacred stair. Joining this wider network she moved closer to her god. Her humanity seemed very far below now, nearly forgotten.

  The notification came on a flash of pulsed laser quicker than thought from the Warhound Howl of Fire of Third Maniple. Along with the words were cartolithic data, pict and vid. In the systems linked to her mind, it integrated itself seamlessly with data cast from the other scouts.

  Esha processed the input instantaneously. Her sisters saw what she saw.

  Howl of Fire and its pack mates were approaching a collection of tall, annular buildings in the shadow of the starscrapers: a magnetic forge where metals heated to gaseous states were spun into ship components and flash-cooled, while powerful electromagnets aligned the crystals in the metal to the maker’s whim.

  It was online, the city-sized emitters blanketing an area forty kilometres square in invisible, electromagnetic fog. If she looked with her human eyes, Esha witnessed the ingenuity of man given form in metal. Three-hundred-metre-tall towers rose in praise of the Machine-God, filling the emptiness of the void and dividing it into useful spaces. Crisp shadow and brilliant metal made an abstract scene. She saw order there. Bright flashes from the ongoing void war glinted on the metal, but could not drive back the shadow between.

  If she used anything but the fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum visible to human eyes, she saw blankness.

  The perfect place for an ambush.

  ‘Third Maniple hunting pack, pull left immediately,’ she voxed, breaking out of the infosphere for a moment. Her mind drew back from Domine Ex Venari’s soul. She remembered flesh and blood. She remembered weakness. The Reaver felt her sorrow and its being reached out to embrace Esha in its power once more.

  Third Maniple’s hunting pack was at the leading edge of the echelon. The hollow square of Warhounds swung left in perfect coordination. They sent alert signals to the other groups. The packs slowed. To get clear of the dead space, they had to skirt around a field of spherical hydrogen tanks a thousand strong.

  ‘Warhounds slow, but continue. We shall draw them out. Reavers, halt,’ thought Esha. The Reavers took a few more unsteady steps in the low gravity. The Arcadian Might stumbled, forcing it to fire anchor cables from its upper greaves to bring itself to a stop.

  ‘Princeps seniores?’ The minds in the infosphere were nodes of information, bright orbs of light in a sea of data rendered as glittering threads. The princeps’ minds were larger than the moderati’s, the engine souls biggest of all. No single voice spoke the query. All spoke the query.

  ‘Ready weapons,’ she said. ‘Maniple packs Sixth, Tenth and Third slow and prep
are to scatter.’

  The Reavers set themselves against the coming recoil. Gatling blasters, laser blasters and volcano cannons levelled. Bracing pistons engaged. Energy gauges crawled upwards with the building thrum of reactor power draw.

  ‘Weapons are charging,’ Omega-6 voxed from the reactor.

  ‘Third Maniple pack, you are too close – draw back from the chem-stores.’

  Too late. A Reaver surged from the darkness, chain fist churning. Howl of Fire had time to turn and bring its guns to bear before the weapon punched into and through the void shields and cut across the delicate waist-joint of the scout.

  The upper half of Howl of Fire was thrown free and up, crashing into a hydrogen tank dozens of metres away. Liquified gas boiled off in a geyser kilometres long. The Warhound’s reverse-jointed leg section took four more steps before collapsing.

  Alarms whooped in the cockpit.

  a flat, machine voice repeated.

  ‘There’s another maniple in the forge, five more engines, a second axiom configuration, split one-four grouping, coming out of the magnetic shadow. They’re ambushing us. Fools,’ said Kansa Rit of Tenth Maniple.

  The enemy Reaver was striding from the kill site, gatling blaster volleying fire at the fleeing Warhounds. Void shields sparked. One of the Warhounds twisted upon its waist, loosing a spear of sun-hot gas from its plasma blastgun. It splashed on the void shield, curling back like a blowtorch flame pressed to metal. The Reaver’s first shield flared bright crimson. Light intensity and hue dropped through the spectrum, dark red, darker, more blue creeping into the discharge, until finally it died to purple and guttered out. Sheet lightning flashed. The shield dropped.