Atlas Infernal

by Rob Sanders

  It was the screech of the brutal chainflail that demanded Torqhuil’s attention, however, as the beast brought it up off the deck and around his head in one dreadful, practiced motion. Remains span and limbs flew as the devastating weapon sang through torsos and burst through bodies, circling the monster in a continuous circumference of unremitting mutilation and carnage. The Chaos Space Marine bawled through the bloodshed in some kind of dark tongue, slicing up the instrumentation and floor of the mezzanine pulpit deck and clouding the area with a haze of cadaver gorespittle.

  Torqhuil allowed the angry flail to pass over his helmet before storming through the fleshstorm and raining bodies at the World Eater. The adrenaline-flooded berserker was much swifter than the Relictor had anticipated, however, and managed to make a sudden half-turn. With mindless skill he brought the flail singing back at the Space Marine in an arc that Torqhuil found almost impossible to avoid and the appendage of one of his servo-arms came clean away from its mechadendrite limb.

  Torqhuil instinctively dropped backwards, his power axe smashed out of his armoured grip by a sudden and unexpected encounter with the floor. The Relictor slid onto his pack and skidded under the blur of sawblades, the blood and gore swamping the command deck providing him with an excellent surface to toboggan the World Eater’s armoured legs from under him.

  Ceramite plates clashed as the two Space Marines toppled messily. They were still gliding through the bloody mire when their bodies fell from the mezzanine pulpit deck. The warriors hit the bridge stairwell and both smashed and crashed their way brutally down the steps. The berserker landed on his back, slapping the deck for the chainflail that had fallen and died dangerously nearby. Unfortunately, Torqhuil’s power axe was still sitting in the macabre filth of the pulpit deck, but he did have his bolt pistol. As he drew the weapon the World Eater got his hand on the stalled chainflail. Swinging it around with one hand the Chaos Marine smashed the Relictor across the faceplate with the barbed thing before backslashing the bolt pistol from his grasp.

  The Techmarine landed helmet first in the blood and slime, reaching through the muck for the pistol. Failing he rolled back across, burying the elbow of one armour-enhanced arm into his enemy’s contorted face. Up close, the Relictor realised that the World Eater had a pair of upturned, tusk-like sabres. These cracked with the rest of the monster’s face, imbedding fang fragments in the Khornate warrior’s already brute-ugly features. Spitting blood and smashed teeth at the vaulted ceiling the World Eater snarled and hammered Torqhuil in the face with a knuckle-spiked gauntlet before backhanding the Relictor once again with a clump of lifeless chainflail, gathered up in the other fist.

  This graceless brawling continued until two of Torqhuil’s mechadendrite limbs reared and hovered above the prone Chaos Marine before plunging forward with the sharp tips of their servo-claws. The pincers opened as they pierced the corroded deck either side of the World Eater’s wrists, effectively pinning the Khornate to the floor. The monstrous demigod went wild, thrashing limbs, snapping his hideous blood-stained maw at Torqhuil and howling his hatred and frustration at the Relictor.

  Crawling up through the World Eater’s bloody work and over his ancient, armoured form, the Techmarine was calm and deliberate by comparison. Slipping his armoured palms around the Chaos Marine’s straining neck, Torqhuil began to squeeze. The maniac warrior bucked and strained, desperate to get its arms free but the armoured limbs were bound to the deck. The grotesque features of the Space Marine suddenly lurched for Torqhuil as the thing arched its back and threw its head forward, butting the Relictor’s armoured chest time and again with warped, skull-smashing determination. Torqhuil’s grip tightened further as he felt the digits pulverise the knots of muscle and sinew around the Chaos Marine’s brawny neck and begin to go to work on the robust vertebrae.

  Like some wounded beast of the plains, brought down by a fleet-footed predator, the World Eater’s chest heaved and his thrashings ceased for a moment, before the skull-taker began writhing around within the foetid plates of his own armour. What the Techmarine took for more mindless thrashing was something else entirely and as the bones in the heretic’s bullish neck began to crack and splinter, the World Eater punched clean through the bloody and rusted space between his chest plate and the shoulder section of his own hate-hallowed armour. How he did this Torqhuil could barely imagine; perhaps inside the shell the monster was an emaciated mess with atrophied limbs and a warped body. It was more likely that the beast was simply so out of its mind with blood hunger and violence that it didn’t think twice about dislocating its own arm and shattering its fist. The strategy had worked, however, and the Relictor now found himself with the danger of an unaccounted limb.

  The ruined hand clutched at a collection of blood-drenched hides and furs tied about the monster’s waist. The World Eater found what he was searching for and Torqhuil suddenly found himself looking down the barrel of a chubby bolt pistol, the muzzle of the weapon crafted to resemble one of the Blood God’s single-horned daemonic steeds. Dodging his head to one side, the Techmarine allowed the first few bolts to crash past his ear before releasing his throttling grasp on the World Eater’s throat and grabbing for the pistol.

  As the two Space Marines fought for control of the sidearm the pistol barked its explosive fury around the command deck, ripping up the walls and runebanks further before doing its worst and slamming a staccato of wild bolts into the reinforced plate glass of one of the bridge port screens. The bolts had failed to penetrate but the impact was enough to initiate a bloom of spidery cracks, sheering through the glass in all directions.

  The World Eater gave a bestial roar and threw the muzzle of the bolt pistol point blank back into Torqhuil’s face. The Relictor knew he had to end this fast and although not usually given to bouts of furious frustration like his counterpart, batted the unarmoured wrist of the creature aside with one arm before sending his ceramite fist like a jackhammer, straight through the sinew and pulp of the Chaos Marine’s bull neck. Armoured knuckles snapped the brute’s spine, collapsing the warrior’s windpipe and grinding up ruptured arteries. Hanging over the monster with another retracted blow, Torqhuil watched and waited as the last of the World Eater’s insensible life left him in a series of grotesque, gulping attempts to fill his lungs with air instead of blood clots and shredded flesh. For the first time in a long time, the abomination stopped fighting and allowed the inevitability of death to take him.

  Getting to his feet, the Relictor rescued his axe and reholstered his blood-drenched pistol and went to work on the runebank, literally carving the mnemonic cogitator out of the console section adorning the far wall.

  A slurping scrape between his hacking alerted Torqhuil to the danger he was in. Turning slowly, with the power axe held high, the Techmarine came to regard the sickening spectacle of the World Eater, dragging himself and his armour out of the crimson slush. The World Eater’s head hung horribly to one side, spine shattered and bloody bubbles frothing from the punch-hole in the monster’s ruined neck. With one bale eye and the will to kill supplementing the will to live, the Chaos Marine fixed the Relictor with the bolt pistol in one feeble-wristed grasp. The muzzle trembled with the creature’s exertions but was steady enough to cut the Techmarine in half if the superhuman degenerate had the oxygen left to pull the trigger.

  Torqhuil turned his helmet. He had punched his servo-arms deep into the runebank and was held there motionless under the World Eater’s explosive-tip threat. Moments passed. Torqhuil decided.

  With the cogitator in his hydraulic grip, the Techmarine tore the mnemonic engine out of the wall and spinning, sling-hurled the hefty mem-bank at the World Eater. Insanely – there still being a little adrenaline left in the warrior’s blood – the armoured figure lurched its shoulder to one side, allowing the tumbling mem-bank to pass by. With daemonic determination, the Chaos Marine again brought up its weapon and prepared to fire. It would have, but the mnemonic cogitator sailed straight through the bolt-weakened w
indow behind.

  The Hellebore’s bridge became a bloodstorm of bodies and howling gales. Snatching at anything that might prove a handhold in the blinding maelstrom, Torqhuil secured his footing and held against the shrieking vacuum. As the swirling muck cleared, the Relictor found he was alone – his helmetless adversary taken with the gore he’d undoubtedly helped to spill. Releasing his servo-grip, Torqhuil took several magnetic steps across the now cleared deck, before diving at the gaping hole smashed through the bridge port screen.

  The venting gale, drawn from the length of the Iconoclast, shot the Space Marine like a bolt-round across the freezing void. It didn’t take the Techmarine long to catch up with the mnemonic cogitator – the power of his awkward throw and the inconvenience of the plate glass no match for the explosive force of the depressurising vessel. As the starboard side of the Malescaythe grew in size and decreased in distance, Torqhuil could see the magnificence of the rogue trader’s laser cannons running out in unison. With the cannibal cultists now frost-shattered, Torres had re-established life support in the starboard sections and flooded the gundeck with eager, suited crewmen who set about priming and rolling their gargantuan weapons to bear. The captain, in accordance with her Navy training, wasn’t about to leave her enemy combat-capable.

  The spectacle wasn’t enough to distract Torqhuil from the certainty that at present speed he was going to hit the rogue trader. The mnemonic cogitator would be smashed to pieces and its potentially precious data lost. Grabbing at a trailing power cable, the Techmarine pulled the bulky piece of equipment protectively to his armoured chest. Bending his servo-arms around like an improvised cage, the Relictor aimed his hurtling form at one of the vessel’s hangar bays. Washing through the pressure phase field, Torqhuil succeeded in avoiding the rogue trader’s armoured flank and thunderbolted into the bay. The Space Marine braced for impact. Like a meteorite, he struck the deck with a ceramite-pulverising crunch and then rolled between a pair of Arvus lighters like a whirling firework, showering sparks and smashed servo-harness components.

  Hitting the hangar wall with much less force that he would have experienced colliding with the Malescaythe’s side, the Relictors Space Marine came to an ugly stop. Still clutching the battered mnemonic cogitator and with patches of his power armour glowing with friction, Torqhuil watched several hangar crew members sprint across the deck with fire extinguishers. As they gathered around the fallen giant, he held up a gauntlet to prevent them from dousing him with carbon dioxide and foam. Several Mercantile Sovereignty serfs were on vox-casters, reporting the incident to the bridge, while others – intent on helping the Space Marine to his feet – were forced back by the heat coming off his armour.

  As the serfs confirmed the Relictor’s presence on board, Torres gave the order to fire. The broadside rippled down the rogue trader’s starboard side, mega-bore laser cannons disgorging raw power and shaking the ship on their slamming carriages. The Hellebore took the firestorm at almost point blank range and without shields. The Iconoclast staggered immediately away from the force of the blast, her port side a mess of blazing wreckage and her decks racked with the vengeance of internal fires and explosions.

  The Techmarine watched the Chaos vessel fall away. The vox-bead in the Relictor’s helmet chirped. It was the bridge. It was Czevak.

  ‘Do we have it?’ the High Inquisitor asked, direct and to the point.

  ‘Yes, inquisitor,’ Torqhuil informed him. ‘We have it.’

  Exit

  ACT I, CANTO VI

  Ship’s chapel, Rogue trader Malescaythe, The Eye of Terror

  Enter CAPTAIN REINETTE TORRES

  Torres had insisted that the secrets of the Hellebore’s mnemonic cogitator be explored in the ship’s chapel. The captain reasoned that if the large adamantium aquila, the images and representations of the God-Emperor and the recovered holy artefacts that Torqhuil had installed were enough to restrict Hessian’s powers, then it would be safe to store the damned mnemonic runebank there.

  Czevak had insisted that it wouldn’t be possessed or afflicted and the Relictors Space Marine confirmed that beyond appearing gore-spattered and long in need of blessed oils and maintenance devotions, that the cogitator was simply a piece of ancient Navy technology.

  As a door guard of bruiser Savlar Guardsmen admitted her to the chapel, Torres caught the eye of Klute, who was kneeling and offering prayers. He was separate from the group gathered around the cogitator and looked almost apologetic for the lengths of runecable and power lines draped across the chapel pews and altar. It was just another thing to upset the captain, who had barely calmed down after their close run-in with the Khornate destroyer.

  The cogitator was a ragged, buckled and filthy piece of equipment that looked like it had been unceremoniously ripped from the bridge of the Hellebore by pure force. Wires sparked and components smouldered as they hung out of both sides of the thing, like entrails from a dissected cadaver. The Relictor Techmarine and the High Inquisitor were deeply invested in the workings of the piece, committed to bringing it back to operational life. Following some speedy repairs on his servo-harness and appendages, as well as an Omnissiah-honouring coat of red paint on his deck-grazed power armour, Torqhuil had the cogitator attached to a variety of other pieces of non-standard template equipment, the workings of which the rogue trader captain would rather not be privy to.

  Epiphani paced around the gathering in an outfit worthy of the Hive Baptiste Carnivale-Cardinale. A lacework neckpiece ran up into her hair – that in turn cascaded with metallic ribbons; her eyes were a dark spectrum of colour and wire-framed long-gloves and stockings wound up the warp-seer’s pale limbs; a bustle completed the piece, supporting the extravagant frills of a pseudo-skirt hanging above the tops of her rivet-picker boots. She was taking an interest in Czevak and the Space Marine’s efforts and was completely oblivious to the sacrosanct nature of her surroundings. The servo-skull, Father, hovered above the cogitator, lines running between the smashed bank and grotesque familiar.

  Hessian rested, draped across several pews, his head hanging off one of the harsh ferrouswood seats in smug slovenliness, staring upside down at the cogitator and its workings.

  ‘Well, for anyone who’s interested – we’re clear,’ Torres informed them, as if delivering a report. ‘If Epiphani’s calculations are correct–’

  ‘They are,’ the warp-seer inserted with self-satisfaction.

  ‘–then we should reach a safe jump point within the hour.’

  ‘Excellent work, captain,’ Klute said, hastily completing his prayers and getting to his feet, when the report drew little in the way of interest from the rest of the room.

  ‘Got it,’ Torqhuil complimented himself as one of his intricate tamperings brought new life into the ancient piece of technology. The cogitator hummed and rattled like an old refrigerator unit, tiny wisps of smoke trailing from its controls and cracked runescreen. Data flashed across the display in inanimate panic and a profusion of glyphs and symbols began pouring out of the mnemonic crate on dry, blood-stained vellum. Tearing off a section, the Techmarine admitted, ‘Not a dialect I’ve seen before.’

  Czevak took one of the crisp sheets.

  ‘The cultist crew were from Koryban,’ Czevak said with confidence, ‘but the vessel’s point of origin was…’

  ‘The Strigoi Shipyards,’ Captain Torres completed for him.

  ‘Would make sense,’ Czevak agreed pointing out several patterns on the vellum. ‘The long vowels, the harsh roots. Father?’

  A short vellum scroll of the servo-skull’s own unravelled with some short scratchings inked onto it. Epiphani tore it off.

  ‘Hessian will know.’

  Czevak turned on the warp creature, ‘Abominate, make yourself useful.’

  Czevak handed the paper to the languid daemonhost. Hessian took a disinterested glance at the runes and glyphs and nodded.

  ‘The technacular is Lesser Skattawaul,’ Hessian hissed.

  ‘Strigoi,�
� Czevak nodded.

  Torqhuil was already rooting around in a nearby crate. He tossed the High Inquisitor a fresh vellum roll and extracted a tubular interface, made up of a revolving key of signs and symbols.

  ‘I don’t have anything that specific,’ the Techmarine acknowledged, separating a nearby runecable and connecting the disassociated ends to the chunky conduit. ‘But this dia-log should get us most of the way there.’ Spinning the symbols on the shaft of tubular keys, he swiftly settled on a sequence. The cogitator runescreen blanked before flashing uncertainly and then gushing forth information in bastardised Gothi-lex.

  ‘I want the Hellebore’s mnemonic log,’ Czevak told the Techmarine as he went to work on the main bank controls.

  ‘Order?’

  ‘Reverse chronological – starting with the attack on the Malescaythe.’

  As the cogitator began vomiting forth fresh vellum and its secrets, Torres leaned in, watching the High Inquisitor scrabble through the pages, his eyeballs almost to the ink.

  ‘What piece of information is so important, that you would risk the lives of everyone on this ship to attain it?’ the captain asked.

  Czevak hesitated. Then, ‘This, for one.’

  ‘What is it?’ Klute said.

  ‘Two weeks ago the Hellebore ran down on an Imperial heavy freighter called the Pluton in the Gehennabyss Reaches, much in the same way it ran down on us.’

  ‘So? So what? Imperial vessels lose their way near the Eye all the time,’ Torres shot back.

  ‘As the Hellebore closed the appearance of the vessel changed. It had been disguised using some sorcerous illusion,’ Czevak explained. ‘The ship maintained a high-speed pursuit for so long that the Hellebore’s runebanks record the vessel sustaining significant damage to its sub-light engines, which must have driven the cultists onboard the raider wild.’