Lords of Mars

by Graham McNeill

  ‘For reasons I cannot explain, we are currently unable to track Bondsman Locke or his immediate co-conspirators via their sub-dermal fealty identifiers,’ said Blaylock. ‘It seems likely they have been removed or shorted out by Totha Mu-32. Which would explain why the regular snatch teams of armsmen and cyber-mastifs were unable to locate them after their initial display of mutinous behaviour.’

  ‘This just gets better and better,’ said Anders.

  ‘The mutiny began in Feeding Hall Eighty-Six,’ continued Kotov. ‘In the short time since then, it appears to have spread to neighbouring decks. Every servitor aboard the Speranza is currently in an enforced dormancy state from which they refuse to be roused, but there are tens of thousands of bondsmen aboard this vessel. And every one of them heard Locke’s broadcast.’

  ‘So we could be looking at a ship-wide army of mutineers?’ asked Tanna.

  ‘You people,’ said Anders with a shake of the head. ‘You keep calling this a mutiny, but that’s not what this is. I can’t believe you don’t see it.’

  ‘If it is not a mutiny, then what would you call it, colonel?’ demanded Magos Dahan.

  ‘It’s a strike,’ said the Cadian colonel. ‘Mutineers want to take over a vessel, but that’s not what these men are doing. I’ve listened to what Bondsman Locke’s saying, and I don’t think he wants a starship of his own.’

  ‘Then what does he want?’ asked Kotov.

  ‘You heard what he wants,’ said Anders. ‘He wants the men of this ship to be treated like human beings. Don’t get me wrong, these bondsmen are legitimate servants of the Mechanicus, and they’re here to do a job, just like every grunt that joins my regiment. But what every Cadian officer knows, and what the Mechanicus has forgotten, is that the way to get the best out of a man isn’t to beat him to death with a stick, but to beat him just enough that he’s grateful for a hint that the carrot even exists.’

  ‘Such a thing is unheard of,’ said Kotov, horrified at the idea of entering into negotiations with bonded servants. ‘They are indentured workers, bound to the purpose of the Mechanicus and the will of the Omnissiah. To allow them to believe that their demands might be met is to break with thousands of years of tradition and precedent. It cannot be done. I refuse to entertain such a vile notion!’

  ‘I don’t think you have a choice,’ replied Anders. ‘In two hours this ship is going down unless you offer these men something that’ll convince Abrehem Locke to put the servitors back to work.’

  ‘You believe I should stand before these… strikers and address their so-called grievances?’

  Anders shook his head and said, ‘No, archmagos, I think these negotiations need a human face.’

  Roboute had seen and heard many bizarre things in his time as a rogue trader, but the looping recording coming over the vox from the Speranza had to rank as one of the strangest. Hearing a man called Abrehem Locke making a stand for the rights of his fellow men on a Mechanicus ship might, under different circumstances, have stirred the underdog in Roboute’s heart.

  Leaving the shuttle flying on its own autonomous systems, Roboute wound a path through the companionways and corridors of the shuttle to the cramped crew berth where his own servitors – which, thankfully, seemed free of whatever rebellious streak had overtaken those of the Speranza – had taken the wounded Linya.

  Roboute smelled the stench of her burned flesh long before he reached the berth.

  Trying to hide his horror as best he could, Roboute stood in the doorway and felt his fist clench in anger. He didn’t know where to direct that anger, no one was to blame for this. According to Vitali, Princeps Vintras had worked miracles in keeping the Titan upright as long as he had. What god was there to rail against for sending the earthquake?

  Linya lay encased in a counterseptic dermal wrap that kept contaminants from reaching her burned and exposed flesh, but did nothing to begin the healing process. A basic bio-monitor was hooked up to her arms and an oxygen mask was clamped over her mouth and nose. Her scalp was raw and red where her hair had burned away in clumps, and milky tears leaked from the corners of cracked augmetic eyes. The fire in the Titan had blinded her, but that was probably a good thing.

  Concealed beneath the dermal wrap, Linya’s legs were crooked lumps of fused meat and burned muscle; little more than ruined nubs of bone. They were fleshless below the shin, and even if she lived, Linya would never again walk as she had done before.

  Vitali Tychon sat beside his daughter, resting a spindly mechanical hand next to her on the bed. A slender copper-jacketed wire ran from the back of Linya’s skull to an identical port behind Vitali’s ear. The old man looked to have aged a hundred years since Roboute had last seen him; no mean feat for a man centuries old.

  Vitali didn’t look up as Roboute rapped a knuckle against the doorframe, but nodded briefly in acknowledgement of his presence.

  ‘I take it there is no change in the tether’s status,’ said Vitali, phrasing his words as a statement instead of a question. Vitali would likely know before Roboute if anything changed aboard the Speranza.

  ‘No,’ said Roboute. ‘I’m afraid not.’

  Vitali shrugged. ‘I could almost admire this Locke fellow were it not for the fact that his actions will in all likelihood see my daughter dead.’

  ‘They’re trying to get things settled, Vitali,’ said Roboute.

  ‘Yes, I heard that a parley has been arranged in the main port-side embarkation deck. Apparently the revolutionaries have seized it and are preventing any resupply vessels from docking.’

  ‘Colonel Anders is en route to negotiate with Locke,’ said Roboute. ‘He’s a good man, and if there’s a way to sort this, he’ll find it.’

  ‘The outcome will not matter to us,’ said Vitali sadly. ‘The Speranza’s orbit is decaying too sharply, and since this shuttle is not as thickly hulled or shielded as the Ark Mechanicus, we will die long before it. We will be torn apart by gravitational stress forces or burned up by atmospheric friction, take your pick. Assuming, of course, the Cadians don’t just gun everyone down and doom us all anyway.’

  ‘I got the impression that Colonel Anders is too smart for that kind of gunboat diplomacy.’

  ‘I hope you are right, captain,’ sighed Vitali. ‘In any case, it is clever of the archmagos to send a human to speak to Locke. A less inhuman face might make all the difference.’

  Vitali reached out to place his hand gently on Linya’s shoulder, the clicking fingers of his metallic hand clenching into a fist before they made contact.

  ‘She always wanted to hold onto her baseline body-plan as long as possible,’ said Vitali, and even with his back turned, the man’s grief was entirely obvious. ‘Seems like such a silly thing to have insisted on, but she was quite adamant.’

  ‘I don’t blame her,’ said Roboute. ‘It’s easy to forget your humanity when you don’t see it in the mirror every day.’

  ‘That’s the kind of thing she used to say.’

  ‘She’ll get through this,’ said Roboute, ‘She’s a strong one. I hadn’t got to know her well, but that much I could tell.’

  ‘You are not wrong, young man,’ said Vitali, finally turning to face him.

  Nothing could have prepared Roboute for the deathly pallor and gaunt death mask of Vitali’s face.

  His eyes were sunken deep into their sockets; though the majority of his flesh was artificial, there was no disguising the suffering he was experiencing.

  ‘Imperator, are you all right?’ asked Roboute.

  Vitali nodded, though he was clearly very far from all right.

  ‘My daughter lies dying before my very eyes,’ said Vitali. ‘Within sight of one of the greatest technological marvels of the galaxy. There’s an irony there somewhere.’

  Roboute knelt beside Vitali and placed a hand on the venerable stargazer’s shoulder. He felt vibrations running through Vitali’s body, the micro-tremors of a man holding back an ocean of unimaginable, fiery agony.

  ‘Pain ha
s to go somewhere,’ said Vitali, the muscles in his face tensing and twitching with the effort of keeping his daughter alive. ‘And I couldn’t let her last hours be filled with suffering.’

  Roboute had heard that Vitali was managing Linya’s pain, but seeing the traumatic reality of that process was horrifying. He felt his admiration at Vitali’s devotion to his daughter soar – the Ultramarian core of him knew he could do no less.

  He stood and used the vox-panel on the wall to open a channel to the Renard.

  After a minute of clicking, static-filled growls, Emil Nader’s voice barked from the augmitter.

  ‘Roboute,’ said Emil. ‘Are you aboard yet? We can’t get anything from the Mechanicus, all the internal systems are down. What in Konor’s name is going on?’

  ‘Shut up and listen, Emil,’ snapped Roboute. ‘We don’t have much time. The Speranza’s on lockdown, and the shuttle’s snagged on an e-mag tether.’

  ‘Hell, and I guess you know the orbital track of the Ark’s decaying?’

  ‘Painfully aware,’ replied Roboute. ‘Now listen, we need to get back aboard right bloody now, and I’m going to need your help to do it.’

  ‘Go ahead, whatever you need.’

  ‘You remember that lunatic hauler pilot out of Cypra Mundi, the one with the ship that had those giant green eyes painted on its prow?’

  ‘Rayner? The captain of Infinite Terra?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ said Roboute. ‘You remember how he died?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Emil. ‘I still get nightmares thinking about the evacuation of Brontissa.’

  ‘Yeah, tyranids do make things messy,’ agreed Roboute. ‘Now listen up, Emil. We’re stuck out here, and unless Mistress Tychon gets to a proper medicae deck soon, she’s going to die.’

  ‘Shit! What do you need us to do?’

  Roboute took a deep breath, knowing that what he was about to ask of his first mate was so dangerous that it might charitably be called suicidal.

  But if there was one pilot in the galaxy Roboute would trust to pull this off, it was Emil Nader.

  ‘I need you to do what Rayner tried,’ said Roboute. ‘But I need you to pull it off.’

  It felt strange going into a hostile situation without his ubiquitous Hellhound tanks at his back or the roaring form of a Leman Russ Conqueror beneath him. Colonel Ven Anders firmly believed that marching towards the enemy on foot was a tactic of last resort or a way for gloryhounds to get themselves killed trying to make a name for themselves.

  Yet here he was, marching towards the towering shutters of the embarkation deck at the head of a command squad of twenty Cadian Guardsmen, and not a single battle tank to be seen. Archmagos Kotov wasn’t about to let him negotiate with Abrehem Locke without a show of force from the Mechanicus, and thus Magos Dahan and three Cataphract battle robots marched with him.

  Anders wished the archmagos had despatched someone else. Dahan was twitchy and full of blistering indignation at this strike, just the sort of mindset that could turn this negotiation into a full-blown firefight. Bringing three hulking battle robots didn’t exactly display a willingness to reach a peaceful solution.

  Sergeant Tanna and a warrior named Varda were also part of the detachment, but were at least keeping a low profile to the back of this detachment – or as low a profile as two Space Marines could keep. Anders’s original plan of keeping a human face on the negotiations was starting to look less and less convincing, but he’d extracted oaths from both Dahan and Tanna that they would make no aggressive moves. Beside him, Captain Hawkins fought to keep his hands from reaching towards his pistol and sword.

  ‘Steady, captain,’ said Anders as they reached the embarkation deck. ‘We don’t want to upset the natives, now do we?’

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ replied Hawkins, conspicuously forcing his hands to his sides. ‘Force of habit.’

  ‘Understandable, but I want it absolutely clear that there is to be no weapon drawn without my express order. I don’t even want bad language or unkind thoughts, you understand?’

  ‘Absolutely, sir,’ said Hawkins. ‘I’ve passed the word, and anyone that messes up will have Rae to answer to.’

  ‘I think Lieutenant Rae will be the least of anyone’s worries if this goes to hell.’

  ‘Right enough, sir,’ said Hawkins as the shutter began to grind its way aside, accompanied by the wheezing clatter of gears and protesting servos.

  ‘Here we go,’ whispered Anders, marching into the embarkation deck. ‘Once more into the Eye.’

  The cavernous space beyond the shutters should have been filled with industrious labour; with servitors, bondsmen and Mechanicus logisters co-ordinating deck operations to Kryptaestrex’s detailed resupply plans. A dozen recently-arrived cargo haulers sat before the shimmering integrity field at the opening to the void, their hulls icy and sealed shut. Stevedore-servitors stood dumbly at the cargo doors, unmoving and rendered uncooperative by whatever power Abrehem Locke’s restored servitor had exercised over them.

  Ready to meet them were around fifty men in the dirty red coveralls of Mechanicus bondsmen. Anders saw thousands more behind them, lounging on stacked crates, milling in conspiratorial groups or sprawled on the deck asleep. To see men asleep while the clock ticked down to extinction almost beggared belief, but Anders had long since learned that human beings were capable of the strangest behaviour in times of crisis.

  Their welcoming committee had ripped the sleeves from their uniforms or otherwise disfigured them in an obvious attempt at visibly throwing off the shackles of their perceived oppressors. Every one of them was armed, either with a heavy length of steel piping or a buzzing power tool of some description. Anders recognised the leader of this group immediately; Julius Hawke, an ex-Guardsman and a die-hard malingerer according to his file. He carried a rusted las-lock, and despite a long list of disciplinary infractions and poor performance evaluations, it was clear he knew how to use it.

  ‘You Anders?’ asked Hawke.

  ‘I am Colonel Ven Horatiu Anders, Colonel of the 71st Cadian Regiment of Hellhounds. Why aren’t you in uniform anymore, Guardsman Hawke?’

  ‘Been a long time since anyone’s called me that,’ laughed Hawke, a sour bark that spoke of years spent undermining authority and mocking his betters. Despite what he’d said to Hawkins, Anders felt a strong desire to draw his sabre and run this affront to soldiery through. ‘I’m just Hawke now, and I am in uniform. This is the uniform of the ain’t going to take any more shit regiment.’

  ‘I am here to speak with Abrehem Locke,’ said Anders. ‘So I’d be obliged if you’d take me to him.’

  Hawke shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  The man’s tone was infuriating and Anders bit back an angry retort.

  ‘I was told he would be here.’

  ‘Yeah, he is, but we didn’t say nothing about bringing three bloody battle robots and a couple of Space Marines hiding at the back,’ said Hawke. ‘You think we’re stupid?’

  Anders dearly wanted to give the answer he knew he shouldn’t, but contented himself by saying, ‘Every second of my time you waste brings this ship closer to destruction. You tell me if that’s stupid.’

  ‘I’ve seen your sort before,’ said Hawke. ‘Think they’re better than the rest of us grunts. You know, I knew an officer called Anders once before. A cocksure bastard, that’s for sure. Got himself killed on Hydra Cordatus.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Anders. ‘I read your statement on the way here. During a supposed attack by Space Marines of the Archenemy, wasn’t it?’

  Hawke nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s the one.’

  ‘On a dead world of no material or strategic significance,’ said Anders. ‘An attack both the Adeptus Mechanicus and Adeptus Astartes claim never happened.’

  ‘That’s what the Mechanicus want you to believe,’ sneered Hawke, as though Anders were the very model of gullibility. ‘Course they’re not going to admit there was a fortress there and that the enemy came and
took it off them like coins from a drunk.’

  ‘Can you take me to Bondsman Locke or not?’ asked Anders, tiring of Hawke’s rambling.

  ‘Yeah, I can, but just you.’

  Captain Hawkins stepped forwards and said, ‘That’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Now who’s wasting time?’ asked Hawke.

  Anders waved Hawkins back. ‘If that’s what it takes to end this.’

  ‘Sir, you can’t just–’

  ‘Captain, remain here with the men,’ said Anders.

  ‘Sir, I can’t let you walk in there alone,’ insisted Hawkins.

  Anders ignored Hawkins’s protests and said, ‘I will be quite safe, I assure you. I need you to maintain discipline and keep the ranks straight. Oh, and if I’m not back in twenty minutes…’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You have my permission to kill everyone on this deck.’

  Anders turned back to Hawke, whose face was a picture in stunned shock.

  ‘Right then, Bondsman Hawke,’ said Anders. ‘Take me to your leader.’

  Making her way through the guts of the humans’ starship was childishly easy. Its gloomy corridors were draped in shadows and threaded with passageways even its crew appeared to have forgotten. The sepulchral gloom masked Bielanna’s ascent from the depths of the ship as she slid through the shadows of towering machines that had not moved for centuries and along abandoned passageways ankle-deep in rat-infested water.

  Towering metallic skull-on-cog icons stared down at her at every turn, nestling cheek by jowl with fretted stone gargoyles and gleaming machinery of brutish complexity: all pneumatic gears, clanking chains and smoke-belching pistons. The humans’ starship was a mass of contradictions: a nightmarish temple where inhuman machinery was venerated and a breeding ground for the teeming masses of humanity who crewed it.

  Bielanna would never understand the mon-keigh, a race so numerous and wantonly fecund that they outnumbered the stars. But the unimaginable scale of their species did not give them solace, but rather filled them with fear and drove them to stamp out any form of life and worship that did not match their own. Such unthinking hatred could only ever breed hatred in return, but the humans could not see that by their own actions were they damning themselves to an eternity of strife.