Nine lives in exchange for the secrets of a Titan Legion and six suits of the most powerful armour created by mankind.
Deltrian always smiled, for that was how his skullish face was formed. Now, however, as he regarded his newfound riches, the expression was sincere.
AMBITION KNOWS NO BOUNDS
Andy Hoare
“Give me a reading, Joachim,” Brielle Gerrit shouted against the raging wind. “I can’t see a damn thing!”
“Augur says two-fifty, ma’am,” Brielle’s companion and advisor called back, his voice barely cutting through the howling cacophony of the storm. “We should have visual any—”
“There,” Brielle called, and halted, craning her neck to look upwards. Against the churning, dark, purple clouds there was revealed an even darker form. She attempted to gauge its height, but her senses were confounded and unable to decipher its alien geometry. The rearing, slab-sided structure could have been standing scant metres in front of Brielle, or it could lie many kilometres distant.
“Two-fifty.” Brielle repeated her advisor’s estimate of the range to their destination. Even as she looked upon the structure’s form, its cliff-like planes appeared to shift, as if new surfaces and angles were revealed by the slightest change in perspective. “If you’re sure. Is everyone ready?”
Brielle turned to inspect her small party, its members appearing from the all-enveloping shroud of the storm. She lifted the visor of her armoured survival suit, the cold air rushing in to sting her exposed cheeks. Squinting against the wind, she noted with satisfaction the deployment of the dozen armsmen that accompanied her from her vessel, the Fairlight, which waited in high orbit above this dead world to which she had come in search of riches for her rogue trader clan. Each was heavily armed, and appointed in Rigged armour, their faces obscured by heavy rebreather units. Their leader, the taciturn Santos Quin, stepped forwards, shadowed by the far smaller form of Adept Seth, her senior astropath.
“All is ready, my lady,” Quin answered, his tattooed face just visible through his own suit’s visor. “But the storm rises,” he added, casting a glance upwards at the churning skies.
“Understood,” Brielle replied, nodding, before looking to the astropath. “And you, adept, have you anything to report?”
The astropath stepped forwards, bowing his helmeted head to his mistress. Through his visor, the adept’s face was visible as a gruesome mass of scar tissue; his eyes were hollow pits and his nose and mouth were barely discernible. The soul binding, the ritual by which the astropath had been exposed to, and sanctified by, the Emperor’s Grace, had blasted his body such that the man was in constant pain. Yet, although the normal range of human senses was denied to him, Adept Seth was possessed of far greater perception than any ordinary man.
++This place is dead to me, mistress,++ the astropath replied. His voice was little more than a guttural rasp, so ravaged was his throat, yet Brielle heard the man’s words clearly for he spoke with his mind, directly into her own. ++Dead, yet I hear echoes, reverberations of ancient thoughts, or the hint of a sleeper’s dreams. I cannot tell which.++
Brielle caught the sneer that crossed the face of Santos Quin at the astropath’s words, and knew that the man’s feral world origins made him distrustful of Seth and his powers. Yet, she knew what the astropath referred to, for she imagined that she too had discerned the very faintest of echoes, distant thoughts carried on the unquiet winds. She knew not what alien mind might have given rise to such thoughts, but she believed, hoped, relied upon the fact that they were mere echoes of some ancient and long-dead power.
“Well enough,” Brielle said, lowering her visor. “We continue, with caution.”
Brielle stood before the pitted, black wall of the vast alien structure. Although the surface was but an arm’s length in front of her, she felt compelled to reach out and lay a palm upon it, just to be certain. Even through the tough glove of her survival suit, Brielle felt the cold radiating from the stone-like material, a cold that touched not only her skin, but her soul too.
“Mistress.” Brielle withdrew her hand at the sound of the astropath’s voice. “Please, try not to—”
“I know, Seth,” Brielle replied. “I know.” She looked around, and addressed Quin. “We need to find a way in. Have your men spread out.”
The warrior nodded silently, and moved away to speak to the armsmen. In a moment, they, as well as Brielle’s advisor Joachim Hep, had departed, all bar Quin himself having moved out in search of a means of entering the vast structure. Brielle saw Quin test the mechanism on his boltgun, before lowering his sensor goggles to scan the depths of the storm. He would stand vigil over his mistress, no matter what.
Brielle resumed her study of the alien form. She craned her neck upwards, noting that either the storm clouds had lowered or the ever-shifting planes of the structure had elongated, for now the top appeared to be lost to the storm above. She pondered, not for the first time, the risk inherent in this expedition, but knew that vast riches were to be claimed on such worlds as this. As next in line to sovereignty of the mighty Clan Arcadius, it fell to Brielle to carve her name across the galaxy, to pierce the darkness in the name of the Emperor, to face whatever might lurk in the depths of the void and to overcome it, for the sake of humanity. And, she mused, smiling coyly behind her visor, to amass untold wealth and undreamed-of glory along the way.
It was Brielle’s hope, and that of her clan, that this unnamed world, far out in the void between spiral arms, might yield such riches. The galaxy was strewn with the ruins of civilisations far older than the Imperium of Man, and planets such as this were home to dusty tombs sealed before mankind even looked to the skies above ancient Terra. Such tombs, when discovered, had been known to contain relics of long-dead alien races, artefacts of wonder for which the pampered nobility of the Imperium’s ruling classes would pay a staggering price just to possess. The vast majority of these items were considered curiosities or art, having no discernible function. Others could be studied, their functions and exotic abilities unlocked. Brielle knew that dilettante collectors and self-proclaimed experts in the proscribed field of xenology would give their all for such items.
Yet, Brielle was struck with a cold sense of dread, an unutterable feeling that something was terribly amiss with this dead planet.
“Something stirs, my lady,” Adept Seth warned, as if giving voice to an unnamed fear gnawing at the periphery of Brielle’s consciousness.
“What do you sense, Seth?” Brielle answered, casting around her for any sign of danger. Quin hefted his boltgun across his broad chest, and took a step closer to his mistress.
“I sense… a guttering flame… the flame is the soul, all but extinguished, yet it refuses to die…”
“I need a little more than that, Seth,” Brielle responded, biting back a less politic remark. “Are we in danger?”
“Something knows we are—”
Before the astropath could complete his sentence, the vox-channel burst into life. Howling static assaulted Brielle’s ears, before the voice of Joachim Hep cut in. “…a way in. Repeat, we have found a way in.”
“Stay where you are,” Brielle answered, not entirely sure whether or not Hep had heard her through the raging atmospheric interference. “Quin, lead the way.”
“Recent damage, Joachim?” Brielle asked of her advisor. Though aged, the man stood almost as tall and broad as a Space Marine. She waited as he studied the vast rent in the cliff-like side of the alien structure, his eyes taking in every detail with practiced skill.
“I would say so, ma’am,” Joachim replied, without turning his gaze from the sight before him. “Millennia of storm damage brought this about, but the damage itself has only recently occurred.”
Brielle’s gaze moved from her advisor to the great fracture in the alien tomb. Though only a metre or so wide, the crack ran upwards what must have been many hundreds of metres, or would have been, if it weren’t for the damnable geometry of the place. B
rielle moved closer, aware of Quin keeping pace behind. She leaned in to examine the ragged edge of the crack, to glean some idea of the material and what might have damaged it.
++Time, my lady,++ Adept Seth spoke into Brielle’s mind. ++The only force which could damage such a place as this, is time itself.++
Brielle raised an eyebrow and cast a wry glance at her astropath, aware that he had read her surface thoughts. She turned back, leaning in yet closer to the damaged surface. She fancied she could see signs of repair, if only at a minuscule scale. Perhaps this place could heal itself, she mused. Perhaps that explained how it could have withstood the ravages of this storm-wracked world for so many long, lonely aeons.
“Let’s go,” Brielle said, stepping into the fracture before Quin could take the lead.
Scant metres into the fracture, Brielle was plunged into utter darkness. She paused, allowing senses other than sight to come to the fore. She extended her awareness as far as she was able, attempting to gain some idea of her surroundings. She strained her hearing. The storm still raged outside, but now its howl was muffled and distant. She heard too the action of the rebreathers worn by her companions, and discerned the sure, heavy tread of Santos Quin as he sought to overtake her, to take the lead lest the party encounter danger and his mistress be threatened.
Savouring the darkness for but a moment longer, Brielle reached her hand to the mechanism at the side of her helmet, lowering a set of goggles over her visor. The headset buzzed as lenses whirred to focus on what Brielle’s own eyes could not register. The goggles were capable of registering many different wavelengths, overlaying what they perceived over Brielle’s own vision.
The blackness was replaced by a kaleidoscopic riot of colours, shot through with grainy static. Brielle adjusted a control at the side of her helmet, and the image resolved into something she could make sense of. Before Brielle, there stretched a circular tunnel into which she and her party had stepped. She looked behind, confirming that the tunnel stretched off in both directions, evidently running perpendicular to the outside wall through which, via the fracture, they had entered.
Satisfied that no immediate danger presented itself, Brielle used the control to cycle through a range of settings, the sight before her changing from one of vivid green hues to another of black with violet highlights, to yet another of purest white with shadows of turquoise. She paused on a vista of deep greens, seeing on the curved wall nearby an intricately carved icon. She stepped closer, aware that Quin did likewise. The icon was revealed to be a series of circles and lines, joined together into what must surely have been some long dead alien script.
“Joachim.” She turned to address her advisor, and he stepped forwards, past Santos Quin, who grunted as he stepped aside. “Set your readers to sigma-twelve, and look at this.”
Joachim, his goggles already lowered, reached to his helmet and adjusted the controls. A moment later, his head scanned the walls of the corridor.
“I’ve never seen its like, ma’am,” Joachim Hep replied after a long pause. “Though it puts me in mind of…”
“Of what?” Brielle replied, uncertain she wanted to hear her advisor’s answer.
“Of the machine scripts of the servants of the Omnissiah, ma’am.”
“But this place is ancient,” Brielle answered, as much to assuage her own uncertainties as to answer her advisor. “It predates the Mechanicus by countless millennia. There can be no connection.”
“Quite, ma’am,” Hep replied, nodding gravely to Brielle.
“Then let’s continue,” Brielle ordered, “this way.” She made to set off, but this time allowed Santos Quin to take the lead. The feral-worlder raised his boltgun as he advanced into the darkness, using his own set of goggles to pierce the gloom. The warrior used silent hand signals to direct his armsmen to the proper order of march, ensuring Brielle, Hep and Adept Seth were well protected in the centre of the line. Brielle allowed Quin to do so, grudgingly reminding herself that she would, after all, inherit the Warrant of Trade of her rogue trader house, and Quin was only doing the duty her father had bestowed upon the warrior.
Before making off along the tubular corridor, Brielle paused briefly, imagining she heard, at the very edge of perception, an out-of-place sound. She imagined she heard a metallic chitter. She listened intently, but heard no more. With a glance back beyond the rearmost armsmen, she set off.
“Not a sound,” Brielle whispered over the vox-net, edging forwards to peer over Quin’s shoulder. She knew she need hardly have given the order, for the armsmen of the party followed the feral-worlder’s lead, and he himself stood motionless and silent against the curved wall at the end of the corridor. Brielle found herself gazing into a vast blackness.
She was about to lower her goggles to scan the space in a different wavelength when she caught a glimpse of a dim, green glow amidst the darkness. Focussing, her eyes adapted, and after a few minutes she could make out a hint of the space before the party. What she saw made Brielle gasp.
The passageway in which her party waited opened out into some manner of chamber so vast that Brielle was struck by a nigh-crushing sense of insignificance as she tried in vain to comprehend its benighted dimensions. Brielle imagined herself an insect crawling across the worn flagstones of the mightiest of cathedrals, the vaults above lost in darkness. A cold shiver ran through her body as she realised the notion was not entirely her own imagining.
So vast was the space that its surface appeared to rise and fall with the curvature of the planet on which it stood. Brielle dismissed the notion; a structure so large would have been detectable from orbit, and the tomb had not measured so vast on their approach. Nonetheless, the geometry of the place played all manner of tricks upon Brielle’s senses. Just as she had been unable to gauge the true size of the structure from outside, she now found herself unable to estimate its internal dimensions, and the sensation was deeply unsettling.
As Brielle’s eyes adjusted further to the gloom, she saw that across the dark floor of the chamber there lay a gently undulating sea of what must surely have been dust. How long had this place stood, she pondered, that its floor should have accumulated such a layer of sediment? Looking closer, she saw low dunes, their crests gently aglow with the ever-present green illumination.
“Joachim,” Brielle addressed her advisor, who stood at her back. “Do you see a source for the back light?”
Brielle waited while Hep scanned the vast space before them, then turned her head to look to his face as he answered. “I do not, ma’am,” he replied. “It may be the result of some background effect, an energy source not detectable by the augurs.”
“My lady,” Quin growled low. Brielle turned her gaze from her advisor to the warrior, instantly alert in response to his tone. “Ahead, a hundred paces.”
Brielle squinted as she sought out the point Quin was indicating. After a moment, she found it.
“Tracks?” Brielle whispered.
“Aye, my lady,” Quin replied. “Something small.”
“Vermin?” Brielle asked.
“Possibly,” Quin growled back. “Though I see little for such a creature to hunt.”
Brielle nodded. “When?” she asked.
The feral-worlder glanced back at his mistress. “Hours, or decades, my lady. Such is the stillness of this place I can scarcely tell.”
Brielle made to answer, but Adept Seth spoke first. ++An aeon… and a day, mistress,++ he whispered, the sound of his voice whispered directly into her mind. ++An epoch past, yet still to occur.++
Growing uneasy with the astropath’s manner, Brielle replied curtly, “Speak plainly, Seth, please.”
The astropath turned his monstrous face towards Brielle. She knew that even though the man lacked conventional sight he was looking straight at her. “My apologies, mistress,” he whispered. “I know such things make little sense. But just as your eyes have difficulty perceiving the true dimensions of this place, so too do my own senses. This place is weighte
d, mistress, weighted with ages impossible for such as us to comprehend. Perhaps the gods themselves—”
“Enough!” growled Quin. Brielle’s gaze lingered on the face of Adept Seth for a moment, before she turned back towards the warrior. “Such words gain us nothing.”
Brielle took a deep breath, steeling herself to go on, before taking a step forwards into the vast chamber. She glanced back to her party, the dust of impossible ages rising around her boots. Looking back at them, she felt a moment of giddy recklessness, knowing her father would disapprove were he here to witness her actions. An instant later, the feeling passed, to be replaced with the crushing deadness of the tomb. “Enough indeed,” she breathed, and set out across the ocean of dust.
Soon after setting forth across the chamber, the party had come upon the tracks that Quin had spotted from the passageway. The feral-worlder’s hunting senses had told him that some form of insect perhaps a metre in length had made the tracks, and that the fine layer of dust overlaying them told him the trail was not recent. Despite this news, Brielle’s feeling of unease had not been assuaged, but had instead increased the further into the dust sea the party had advanced.
At first, Quin had advised that the explorers should proceed with caution, treading softly lest great plumes of the thick dust carpeting the ground be thrown up with their passing. Brielle was soon forced to countermand this order however, for otherwise they would never have made any progress at all. And besides, she had mused, who might be watching? She had no answer to that question.
As she walked, Brielle attempted once more to gain some idea of the nature of her surroundings. She craned her neck to look upwards, and was immediately greeted with a wave of nausea as the distant planes high above shifted. She looked back to the ground, and a second wave of sickness came over her, causing her to stumble and come to a halt.
Fear the Alien Page 29
