Dark Adeptus

by Ben Counter

  'Machine-code.' said Archmagos Saphentis, who was crouching just behind Alaric.

  In response to the code, two massive lumbering shapes followed the tech-priest into the gallery. The torso were those of bloated muscle-bound humanoids, the legs huge pneumatic pistons. One of the beasts had twin heavy bolters in place of its arms, while the other had a circular saw blade and a pair of massive shears. They belched hot vapour and sprays of oil as if they were steam-powered - Alaric guessed they were combat-servitors. That would mean they were physically powerful but extremely limited in their responses. In an open conflict they were at a severe disadvantage, unable to improvise like a good soldier had to, but in the close confines of the tun­nels they would make for extremely efficient killing devices.

  'They're hunting us,' said Dvorn. The horse-skulled creature, who seemed to be in control, directed its menials to spread out while the two servitors stomped forwards to flank it. It beckoned one menial towards it with its whip hand - the menial in question had knee joints that bent the wrong way so it could move on all fours like a dog and its nose and mouth were gone, replaced by a bunch of knife­like sensor-spines.

  The dog-menial listened to a burst of machine-code speak and darted forward, head jerking as it tasted the air, crawling up the walls as it rushed around trying to pick up a scent.

  Before Alaric could have his men withdraw the dog-menial stopped, head arrowed right towards where Alaric crouched overlooking the balcony.

  'Fall back,' hissed Alaric. 'Everyone back!'

  The leader screamed a stream of machine-code, high and piercing. Heavy bolter fire streaked up from the gun-servitor and the menials bayed like animals at the sudden din. Alaric could hear sound from all around as the spire's inhabitants were alerted to the intruders in their midst - scrabbling, crawling slithering bestial howling and more bursts of machine-code.

  Alaric found Saphentis as the force moved back through the tunnels. 'Are they Mechanicus?'

  'Not any more.' said Saphentis simply.

  Gunfire flared up ahead. In the flashes of the las-blasts Alaric could see tech-guard swapping fire with pallid, scrabbling menials. Brother Haulvarn returned fire and storm bolter shells tore down the tunnel, blasting a menial against the wall as Lykkos blew another one apart with a psycannon shot. But there wasn't enough space for the rest of the Grey Knights to get to grips with the enemy.

  A hideous grinding sound tore up from below Alaric's feet. He dived to one side as the floor of the tunnel erupted in a storm of flying iron shards and something immense chewed its way through - a cir­cular head like the mouth of a voracious metallic worm, ringed with grinders that ripped out lumps of metal and forced them into the bladed steel spiral of its throat. It roared as Alaric just swung his trailing leg away from its maw and Alaric felt his psychic wards flaming beneath his armour, describing a white-hot spiral around his skin.

  The more powerful ward, the one woven around his mind, filled his head with a red scream as some­thing very powerful and very angry expressed its psychic rage.

  Witchcraft. The reason they were here.

  The worm reared and Alaric realised it was mechanical, steam belching from its segmented body, whirling guts of clockwork deep inside its churning form. Alaric fired a spray of storm bolter fire down its throat and the worm spasmed in pain, vomiting acidic gore and broken cogs.

  'Move!' yelled Alaric as he fired again but the mon­ster surged forwards. Alaric paused only to grab Tech-Priest Thalassa and haul her clear as he dived into a side tunnel. The worm roared past and Alaric saw how thick greying muscles wrapped around its body until its tail was a long lash of biological sinew, whipping behind it.

  'Witchcraft.' said Alaric. 'That thing was made with sorcery.' He flicked on the vox-channel. 'Grey Knights! Fall back!'

  Alaric darted out of the side tunnel and lunged with his Nemesis halberd, hacking off a good length of the worm's tail. Gore sprayed from the wound as it lashed in pain and the thing's scream was truly terrible, vibrat­ing through the iron like an earthquake. The worm's body contorted and its pain spasms forced it off course, chewing its way up through the ceiling of the tunnel.

  'We've got hostiles up ahead!' came Brother Archis's voice, crackling over the vox. 'Heavy resistance! They're bottling us in!'

  'Then fight!' replied Alaric, hauling Thalassa after him as he headed towards the sound of gunfire. Thalassa's eyes were wide in horror and her breathing was shallow - she was in shock. Data expert or no, Saphentis should never have brought her.

  Alaric saw, up ahead, the Grey Knights and tech-guard fighting against the menials trying to force their way in through the side tunnels. Saphentis was in the thick of the fighting, his more normal bionic hands dragging enemies out of the throng while his blade-tipped arms cut them apart. One menial dived out onto a tech-guard and the vials at his waist emptied themselves into his veins. The menial's muscles swelled massively, bone cracking where the muscles on his arms and back pulled his spine apart. The menial roared and ripped off the tech-guard's arm, then pistoned a fist into his face with enough force to leave a dent in the tunnel floor.

  Interrogator Hawkespur took aim and snapped an autopistol shot through the menial's head. It didn't drop and she loosed off several more, the shots slic­ing its head apart until it toppled onto the dying body of the tech-guard.

  The Grey Knights were holding the front of the tunnel, storm bolters and Nemesis weapons keeping the way forward choked with bodies. A chain of heavy fire strobed down the tunnel and the Grey Knights took cover, using the menial bodies as a bar­ricade. A couple of shots thudded off Alaric's power armour.

  Alaric could hear noise from all around. Heavy battle-servitors stomped towards them. Something cackled a stream of zeroes and ones. They were com­pletely surrounded.

  Justicar Tancred and his Terminator squad could have pooled their psychic power and called up the cleansing fire the Chapter's Chaplains called the Holocaust. They could have forced their way through with their massive terminator armour and Tancred's own sheer strength. But Tancred and his squad were dead, annihilated so completely Alaric hadn't even been able to recover their bodies from Volcanis Ultor. Alaric's squad was on its own here, surrounded and exposed.

  The wall near Alaric was being chewed away by breacher drills, screeching and showering sparks into the tunnel. A battle-servitor the size of a tank was lumbering into view at the far end of the tunnel, storm bolter fire ricocheting off it as it blasted at the Grey Knights. They had nowhere to go and a dozen ways to die.

  To me!' yelled Alaric. His squad broke cover and headed for Alaric, leaving the tech-guard to deal with the rampaging servitors. They ducked the chains of fire and reached Alaric just as the wall gave way, chunks of crumbling iron collapsing in a drift of metal.

  Menials, crudely combat-fitted with drills and saws, clambered through the gap. Alaric met the first with the butt of his halberd, shattering its ribs even as he blocked a huge circular saw with the halberd's blade. The first menial reared up again, its ribcage collapsed and oozing gore. Nothing human could have gone on fighting. A breacher drill bored up into the collar of his armour, forcing him back as the tip ground through the ceramite in a shower of sparks, aiming for his throat.

  'Perdition!' yelled Brother Dvorn as he smacked the drill-armed menial across the tunnel with his Nemesis hammer. 'Blasphemy!'

  They were blasphemous, too. Muscles and nerve bundles slid over the menials' metallic parts in a way that Alaric had never seen in Mechanicus bionics, as if there was something else inside the menials, some­thing independent and alive. That was blasphemy if ever he had seen it. Alaric reached up and grabbed the armature on which the second menial's saw was mounted, pulling and twisting. Tendrils of flesh wrapped around his wrist but the arm came away, the menial screaming bestially. Warm, foul-smelling blood spattered over Alaric. He hacked down into its body with his halberd and it died.

  Brother Haulvarn spitted two menials at once on his sword and Dvom struck again
, his hammer's head smashing right through one menial and embedding itself in the nearest wall. Dvorn didn't miss a beat, filling another menial with storm bolter fire as he ripped the hammer head out again. Alaric looked around to see where Thalassa had got to - she was on the floor curled up, with her hands over her head. It was surprising she was still alive.

  'Archis!' yelled Alaric but he needn't have bothered - Brother Archis was already ramming the nozzle of his Incinerator through the hole, pulling the firing lever and drenching the space beyond with burning promethium.

  Alaric glanced through the hole. The menials had fallen back in confusion - Alaric guessed they were so corrupt they could understand a simple order to kill anything beyond the wall and now they had done so they needed someone to direct them to do anything more. The space beyond looked like a heavy engineer­ing plant, with enormous pistons pumping into an oil-belching engine block.

  'Fall back to me!' yelled Alaric over the din of gunfire. 'Saphentis! Tharkk! Back to me!'

  The tech-guard broke from their own firefights and hurried towards the Grey Knights, who covered them with a spray of rapid storm bolter fire. Alaric led the way through onto the factory floor. The air was heavy and hot with steam and the machinery that sur­rounded them was on a huge scale, with massive hinged sections clanking as the masses of engineering reconfigured themselves.

  There didn't seem an obvious way out. As the tech-guard got through the hole and reorganised themselves to cover it, Alaric waved over Interrogator Hawkespur.

  'It's a dead end.' he said. 'We won't have time to find another way out.'

  'What do you suggest?'

  'Fight here. Hope they run out of troops.'

  'Agreed. If they're only menials we can take on sev­eral waves of them. More battle-servitors and our chances will not be high, though.'

  Las-fire from somewhere above interrupted them, spattering against the filthy metal floor. The tech-guard scattered, Tharkk yelling at them to take cover and return fire. The Grey Knights fired back instinc­tively, spraying shots up into the darkness overhead, then followed the tech-guard. Several slabs of machinery rose to shoulder height, like the teeth of a tank trap and behind them was an imposing bank of machinery that belched hot, choking fumes.

  'Save it!' shouted Alaric and the Grey Knights stopped firing, getting into cover and peering into the darkness. Their ocular augmentations would help them see the threat before anyone else. Archmagos Saphentis drifted serenely back towards them, too, seemingly unconcerned about getting shot. Alaric had not imagined Saphentis would be a fighting man but now he was covered in blood and his blade-tipped arms were clogged with gore.

  A shape drifted down overhead. It was like the gun-platform that had ambushed them outside but this one was more ornate and large enough to carry three figures, two of them far larger and flanking the third. A glistening corona surrounded the platform. Alaric guessed it was an energy field, which meant that most bullets would probably bounce off it. Lykkos's psycannon would be their best bet but it would have to be a damn good shot. The field was probably being generated by the pulsing, brain-like mass on the platform's underside. The platform extruded sev­eral biological looking guns, which trained themselves on the chunks of machinery that hid the Grey Knights and tech-guard.

  The two larger figures were battle-servitors, bristling with guns. The third was the horse-skulled creature Alaric had seen earlier, now connected to both the platform and the servitors by a web of vein-­like filaments running from his back. More smaller platforms were drifting down beside it. Some were simple gun platforms, others held parties of menials or what looked like more regular troops, hooded and crouched, with guns hardwired into their forearms. Maybe a hundred troops and those were only the ones Alaric could see.

  The leader raised its arms, palms up, elongated face pointed upwards. It brayed a long, atonal sound and the guns on the platforms dipped slightly.

  'It's a tech-priest.' whispered Brother Haulvarn, crouching down at Alaric's side. 'It's one of them.'

  If it was a tech-priest, it was corrupted down to the core. It emitted a stream of dots and dashes, more machine-code, apparently directed at the tech-guard.

  Archmagos Saphentis peered out of cover and replied, reeling off his own stream of machine-code.

  The two exchanged machine-code a couple more times. Then the enemy tech-priest brayed and the guns were again trained on Alaric's force. The plat­forms began to descend, the menials and troops making ready to jump down onto the factory floor and attack.

  'Whatever you said.' growled Alaric at Saphentis, 'it didn't work.'

  The first shots fell, glowing black bolts of energy as powerful as lascannon shots shearing through the metal. One tech-guard was blown clean in half and the others hit the floor, the cover disintegrating around them.

  With a massive grinding sound, the bank of machinery behind them began to open up. Hinged plates of corroded iron the size of tanks were recon­figuring to reveal a black and forbidding space beyond. 'Hawkespur!' shouted Alaric. 'We can't take them!'

  'We don't know where it leads!' she replied, taking aim at the lowest platform. She loosed off a shot and a menial fell, knocked off the platform by a perfect hit. More fire was falling against them, tearing deep gouges in the floor, sending superheated shrapnel through the air.

  'Move or die!' replied Alaric. 'Grey Knights! Tharkk! Covering volley, then retreat!'

  The lowest platform was already disgorging its troops. Crimson and black bolts of energy were rain­ing down now, scoring molten red scars everywhere. Another tech-guard fell, blown open by chattering automatic fire as his fellow soldiers withdrew through the storm of fire.

  Alaric ran through the opening, turning to make sure Hawkespur made it. Brother Dvorn grabbed Tech-priest Thalassa as he ran, carrying her with one hand while he fired all but blind over his shoulder with the other. The inside of the machinery was tight and infernally hot, lit by a ruddy glow from furnaces deep within the machine. The machinery ground around them and the opening shrunk, fire thudding around the entrance. Saphentis was the last in, his robes flapping around him as gunfire punched through the fabric.

  'Where now?' asked Hawkespur.

  'Anywhere,' said Alaric.

  The floor was sinking below and slabs of machin­ery closing over them. Alaric imagined them being crushed as the machinery closed, the ceramite frac­turing, his bones splintering, dying in the furnace at the heart of the black iron spire.

  'Close in!' barked Captain Tharkk. 'Form up around the archmagos! Fix bayonets!'

  Something rumbled far ahead, massive and closing fast. The ceiling opened up above them again, this time in a spiral that bored rapidly straight upwards and the sound got louder. The floor began to open too, and the dull red glow subsided leaving only blackness.

  Alaric could just see the troops around him cling­ing to anything they could find as the space became a sheer shaft, heading straight down into the lower levels of the spire.

  The glimmer he saw above was a rush of foaming fluid pouring down towards them. Alaric hadn't seen much of Chaeroneia but it was enough to tell him it probably wasn't just water.

  The flood hit and Alaric held on, the weight of industrial waste dragging him down. He gritted his teeth and held on but the metal beneath his gauntlet was giving way. With a yell of defiance he fell, sluiced downwards. He was battered against the sides of the shaft and the armoured bodies of his fellow Grey Knights. He had no control any more and whether he lived or died now was down to where the flow went and whether he could break the surface before he drowned. Everything was noise and motion, deafen­ing, blinding, one hand gripping the haft of his Nemesis halberd and the other reaching out for a handhold.

  He found none. The blackness rushed up around him and he willed himself to survive as everything, outside and inside him, went black.

  Chapter Seven

  He that counselleth as does the Enemy, so shall he becometh that enemy, no matter that a friend he cl
aimeth to he.

  - 'On Heresy'

  Chapter MMIV

  Lord Inquisitor Karamazov

  'Show me again.'

  Horstgeld had not been in the tactical chancel for some time, ever since the Tribunicia had last been at war. Most of the intervening time the ship had run patrols or formed blockades and there had been no need for the complex holographic dis­plays that could be projected into the centre of the circular room. The chancel was decorated with tasteful marble busts of past captains and Naval heroes and could hold several officers, but now it held just Rear Admiral Horstgeld and Chief Navi­gation Officer Stelkhanov.

  Stelkanov pressed a sequence of control studs at the base of the central holomat and the grainy holo-image appeared again - the equipment was old and should have been replaced decades ago.

  'I grant it's not an excellent quality image.' said Stelkhanov, 'but it was enough to work with.' Stelkhanov's voice was slightly stilted thanks to the fact that he had been sleep-taught Imperial Gothic late in life, having been recruited from the engine-rooms where the press-ganged scum could barely speak Low Gothic at all.

  Horstgeld watched the image roll by again. It was from a deep-space scan, picked up by the ship's sensoria in the ultra-orbital space beyond Chaeroneia. The swathe of space rippled, bulging and contracting in a dozen places, before flares of hazy energy indicated that something had broken through. Then, just as fleetingly, the images were gone.

  'When was this picked up?' asked Horstgeld.

  Stelkhanov consulted the dataslate he carried. The greenish glow of the holo picked out his refined, aquiline face - it was hard to believe the man had once been dragged out of the short-lived engine gangs. 'Seventy-nine minutes ago.' he said.