by Ben Counter
'The rest was mostly ideological. The tech-heresy has historical precedent.'
'Then it is true.' said Antigonus. 'The Dark Mechanicus.'
'The Dark Mechanicus?' The term was unfamiliar to Alaric.
'Tech-priests loyal to the Traitor Legions in the days of the Horus Heresy.' said Hawkespur. 'They were exterminated during the Scouring that followed the Battle of Terra.'
'It was not quite that simple, interrogator.' said Saphentis. 'The schism within the Mechanicus was perhaps more complicated than even the Inquisition generally understand. My rank gains me certain privileges and greater access to historical data is one of them.'
The facets of Saphentis's eyes shifted colour as he accessed encrypted mem-cells built into his augmentations. 'The faction that sided with Horus.' he continued, 'probably only became known as the 'Dark' Mechanicus after the Heresy, when Horus had been defeated and it was realised that the beliefs they followed were corrupt. The Dark Mechanicus was not a body of tech-priests, but the beliefs they held and the principles to which they adhered. The fusion of the flesh and the machine. The creation of new living things. Innovation and freedom of research.'
'But they were destroyed.' said Hawkespur.
It was Antigonus who replied. 'You can't kill an idea, interrogator.' he said. 'As hard as the Inquisition has tried, they just keep on coming back. There were so many tech-heresies recorded in the libraria of Mars that I was never certain which had taken hold on Chaeroneia. But the Dark Mechanicus... yes, that makes sense. Perfect sense. Especially if they are in league with daemons. Towards the end of the Heresy they say the Dark Mechanicus trafficked with daemons. Perhaps Scraecos and his tech-priests have renewed the old pacts.'
'And these ideas were left to flourish?' snapped Alaric. 'Where heresies are found among the authorities of the Imperium they are stamped out! Burned! The Mechanicus knew of this heresy and they let it live? The Precepts of Guilliman required that the works of the traitor Horus and all his acolytes be destroyed! The Mechanicus was no exception.'
'What the justicar says is true.' said Saphentis. Alaric looked at him in mild surprise - it was the first time he could recall the archmagos genuinely agreeing with him.
'The details of Dark Mechanicus heresy I uncovered were comprehensive. The data was in a poor state but there is little doubt they represent a knowledge of the Horusian schism that even as an archmagos I was not privy to. Scraecos was an archmagos veneratus but even then it is unlikely in the extreme he could reconstruct the specific rituals and research procedures from current Adeptus Mechanicus records alone.'
'Which begs the question.' said Hawkespur echoing Alaric's own thoughts, 'where did Scraecos get it all from?'
Antigonus sighed, his servitor body hanging its head. 'I knew that Chaeroneia's heresy was exceptional. But this is something else.'
'Then we need to keep going.' said Hawkespur. 'Our immediate priority is to reach the obelisk. Then we contact Nyxos in orbit and tell him that the Dark Mechanicus have returned.'
Chapter Thirteen
Ask not the name of the Enemy. Ask not his Will, nor his Method. Ask not to think his Thoughts and ask not to speak his Words. Ask only for the strength to kill him!
- The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer (Addendum Spiritual) 97 14
THE SHAPE OF the Hellforger filled the viewscreen on the bridge of the Tribunicia, a massive red-black wedge of a ship bigger than the Tribunicia and sporting twice as many guns. The traitor ship was hurtling towards the Imperial fleet at a speed no Imperial captain would have dreamed of going, torpedoes still sailing on glittering streams of exhaust from its forward ports.
'Where are my damage reports?' yelled Horstgeld over the barely contained chaos of the bridge.
'There's a breach in plasma reactor three!' came a reply from somewhere in the Engineering section. 'It's ignoring all our tech-prayers, we're going to have to shut it down!'
'Shutdown denied.' replied Horstgeld. It was less dangerous to keep the reactor running than to risk the drop in engine power that would ensue if the reactor was shut down. Probably the decision would cost lives from leaks of superheated plasma into the engineering deck that surrounded the reactor, but those were the kinds of sacrifices that a captain had to make.
It was bad. The initial volley of torpedoes from the Hellforger had scored hits on the Tribunicia and the Exemplar. Ptolemy Gamma, already seriously compromised by the loss of its comms, had been all but crippled by a lucky strike that blew off a sizeable chunk of its stern and ripped a breach through most of its engineering decks. The torpedo salvo was just the opening move, that was clear - the Hellforger fully intended to take the first major kill up close with its guns, or even its boarding parties, and was charging towards the Tribunicia with a fervour that could only mean it was commanded by a madman.
The second, unidentified enemy cruiser, a strange bloated shape that fairly dripped with guns, was coming in behind the Hellforger and once it got amongst the Imperial ships its broadsides would reap a horrendous tally among the transports and escorts. The last major ship in the enemy fleet looked like a very old pattern fighter platform. Triangular in cross-section, each of its three long sides housed a host of attack craft hangars and launching bays.
Each of the enemy ships had picked its target. Each was more than a match for its chosen prey. Horstgeld's role was now to simply delay the enemy for as long as possible and hope against hope that the time he was buying actually meant something.
'Bring us side-on to the Hellforger,' ordered Horstgeld to the navigation section. 'Ordnance, load up for a broadside. Get everyone on the guns.' Horstgeld glanced at the tactical readout inset into the viewscreen. 'And Comms! Get me the Pieta!'
'Sir?'
'You heard me. And do it soon.'
The Hellforger was one of the ugliest ships Horstgeld had ever seen. It had originally been a very old mark of Imperial ship with the flat wedge shape that had been all but abandoned by the Imperial navy. Over the thousands of years it had been in service, the traitor ship's hull had become covered with blisters and weeping sores as if the metal of the ship was diseased and its scores of guns poked from open bleeding gashes in the hull.
A ship that ugly needed some ugly tactics to fight it. Horstgeld murmured a prayer imploring the Emperor for forgiveness and set about thinking what he would tell the Pieta.
THE ORBITAL COMMUNICATIONS obelisk was a needle of dull grey metal three hundred feet high, covered in dense circuitry like elaborate scrollwork and half-buried in the corroded mass that made up the foundations of Manufactorium Noctis.
'Are you ready?' asked Magos Antigonus.
Hawkespur nodded. She sat on the rubble at the foot of the obelisk, which speared up above her into the mass of compressed wreckage that formed the ceiling of the chamber. Antigonus had set up a simple vox-unit plugged into the obelisk which Hawkespur was to speak into. With the hood of her voidsuit back, her tumours were vivid blue-grey lumps under the skin of her throat. It wouldn't be long before they started to constrict her breathing.
'Will the Dark Mechanicus notice the power drain?' asked Alaric.
'Probably.' said Antigonus as he made the final adjustments to the vox-unit. 'They suspect we are down here. But they rarely send hunter-servitors down this far.'
'The spirits of such technology rarely answer us any more.' said Archmagos Saphentis, stroking a mechanical finger over the patterns inlaid into the obelisk. 'This must be very old, from the very earliest days of Chaeroneia. Very difficult to replicate.'
'I suggest you take notes, then, archmagos.' said Alaric. 'We don't plan on being here for very long.'
The whole chamber vibrated with a low hum as power flooded into the obelisk. The vox-unit howled with static.
'Let it cycle through the frequencies.' said Antigonus. 'If we're lucky it will tap into the receivers on one of the Imperial ships.'
Always, thought Alaric, it eventually came down to luck.
'We're getting something,' said Hawkespur. 'To all Imperial forces, this is Interrogator Hawkespur of the Ordo Malleus, please respond...'
MAGOS MURGILD REACHED the bridge of the Exemplar in time to see the automated maintenance servitors clearing the scorched remains off the floor. Given that Korveylan had been hardwired into the floor of the bridge, that she was not there and that her command throne was the epicentre of the smouldering mess of flesh and metal, he instantly guessed that it was the ship's captain who had died. He was slightly taken aback by the sight of his captain being scooped up by a servitor's slop-trowel, but he did well not to show it.
'I was given the bridge.' said Murgild as he shambled towards the charred command post. He spoke through a chest-mounted vox-unit since the lower half of his face was hidden by a thick metal collar, an extension of the armoured voidsuit he wore under his robes to protect him from the dangerous conditions in Engineering. 'What happened?'
'Magos Korveylan detonated herself.' said Inquisitor Nyxos. He had several cuts on his face from the shrapnel from the explosion. The naval armsmen he had brought from the Trihunicia were now stationed on the bridge under the command of Commissar Leung, in case Murgild was in any doubt as to who held the real authority on the ship. 'I voiced my suspicions about her allegiance and in response, she killed herself.'
Murgild paused. 'I see.'
'The initial torpedo volley is done but the enemy fleet is closing fast. They have a gun-heavy cruiser making straight for us and our first priority is for evasive manoeuvres to put the Ptolemy squadron between us and that cruiser. Do what you must but remember that by the authority of the Inquisition I am in ultimate command of this ship. Fleet Commissar Leung is now responsible for ship security.'
Murgild stood at the command console and began scanning through the manoeuvring sermons in the ship's navigation logs. The Exemplar wasn't an agile ship and it would take all the magos's efforts to keep it mobile as the enemy closed in. Murgild seemed able to ignore the greasy smoke that surrounded the control helm, the last remnant of Magos Korveylan.
Nyxos turned to Leung. 'Commissar, I need Magos Korveylan's personal effects and communications logs thoroughly searched. Find out if she kept any record of who she was working for and what their orders were. Along with any indication of what she was looking for.'
'I shall have the armsmen conduct a thorough search.' replied Leung.
'And make it quick. This ship might not last long.'
'We have multiple target locks.' came a vox from the sensorium centre. 'Source is the cruiser-class craft.'
'They're taking aim first. Then they'll hit us with everything they've got.' said Nyxos. He looked at the tactical orrery, which showed the bloated unknown cruiser-sized enemy ship heading menacingly for the Exemplar. 'At least we know who we shall have to deal with. Murgild, our priority is staying alive. Draw that cruiser in and keep out of its broadside arcs for as long as we can. Can this ship pull that off?'
'Possibly.' replied Murgild. 'Depending on the manoeuvring capabilities of the enemy.'
'Good. Do it. And had Korveylan got any closer to decoding the signal from the planet?'
'The verispex labs were making some headway.'
'Keep me posted.' The ship shuddered as another structure in the prow gave way. The Exemplar was badly battered and it would only get worse.
'Captain.' came another vox, this time from the communications centre. 'We are receiving anomalous transmissions from the planet's surface. Possible Imperial origin.'
'Route it to the bridge.' said Nyxos.
The static from the signal sputtered from the bridge vox-casters, layering a grainy film of sound over the clacking of servitors working the bridge consoles and the pounding of the engines from deep inside the ship. Nyxos struggled to make out words from the mess of sound.
'...repeat, this is Interrogator Hawkespur of the Ordo Malleus, can anyone...'
'Hawkespur! This is Nyxos. What in the hells is going on down there?'
'...we crashed. Moral threat confirmed, it's the Dark Mechanicus...' Hawkespur's voice sounded weak, as if she was exhausted, as well as distorted and broken up by the poor reception.
'Hawkespur, we're running out of time up here. The planet sent out a signal and the Hellforger just turned up in response. It was last seen in the service of the Abaddon the Despoiler and it looks like they want to get down to the surface.'
'...not happen, sir, the enemy is routing a lot of power to an area outside the city. May be something there the enemy want...'
'They're not the only ones. Magos Korveylan here was looking for it, too and she wasn't following Mechanicus orders. We don't know who she was working for. Maybe someone a lot higher up.'
'...to understand our priority is now to find the centre of the enemy activity and ascertain any threat?'
'Correct. Do whatever you must, Hawkespur. Use scorched earth if you have to. And you're on your own down there, we're facing several cruiser-class ships and we can't hold them off forever.'
'...sir, just get us time, I'll go by my judgment.'
'You do that. If Alaric's alive, trust him, he knows how to stay alive in places like that. And if Saphentis is there, don't trust him. He could be compromised. The Mechanicus know something they're not telling us. Hawkespur? Hawkespur?'
Nyxos listened intently for a long minute. There was only static.
'Damn it. Murgild, have Comms keep scanning that frequency. Let me know of anything you get. '
Yes, inquisitor.'
'And have verispex keep on decoding that signal, even if the ship starts falling apart. If Hawkespur gets back in contact I want to have something useful to tell her.'
'I UNDERSTAND, BUT we still don't know what we are up against, sir. Just get us time, I'll go by my judgement.' saidHawkespur. The vox-unit howled with feedback and then just coughed static. 'Sir? Inquisitor?'
The circuits of the obelisk were glowing dull red with resistance. The vox-unit sparked and shorted out.
'They could be blocking us.' said Antigonus.
'Which means they know where we are.' added Alaric.
'I think he told me everything he had to.' said Hawkespur, pulling off the vox headset. 'The Dark Mechanicus have summoned a Chaos fleet. They were probably transmitting to them since before we even arrived. It's led by the Hellforger, one of the most notorious ships of the Gothic War. That means our theory about Chaeroneia's reappearance being linked to Abaddon's attack through the Eye of Terror just got much more realistic.'
'Hardly good news.' said Antigonus, prodding at the smouldering vox-unit.
'It is better than no news.' said Alaric. 'We have some idea of what we are up against. The Chaos fleet wants something on Chaeroneia. If we get to it first, that means we can hurt them. You might not like what you hear, but every piece of information we have makes this fight easier.'
'It also means we need to leave.' said Hawkespur, pulling up the hood of her voidsuit. 'Antigonus, we need to get to the site of that power spike. Can we get there quickly?'
'There are ways. If we mobilize everything we have we could be there in less than two hours. But we rarely send anyone out there. There's nowhere to hide, it's all ash dunes. And there isn't anything there, no structures, no stores.'
'It seems.' said Saphentis, 'that there is something there now. Something that is draining inordinate amounts of power from this city.' The archmagos hadn't spoken since the obelisk had started broadcasting, listening carefully as if he was sifting through frequencies inaudible to normal hearing. 'And Antigonus, you have no idea what it might be?'
Antigonus shrugged as best his servitor body would allow. 'The only place that ever drew that kind of power in Manufactorium Noctis was the titan works and as far as we can tell they've been completely dismantled for eight hundred years.'
'Whatever it is.' said Hawkespur, 'we have to get there. This mission is no longer about investigation. It's about denial to the enemy of whateve
r the Dark Mechanicus have created.'
'Agreed.' said Alaric. 'My squad will be ready to move out immediately. Antigonus?'
'My adepts are ready.'
'Good. Then we move.'
'We move.' said Hawkespur.
As the four of them returned to Antigonus's base, they could hear Manufactorium Noctis groaning above them, as if the city itself was trying to claw its way down to get them. The whole of Chaeroneia hated them and knew they were there, like an infection in the biomechanical mass of Manufactorium Noctis. The taint of sorcery Alaric felt when he saw the planet for the first time seemed to be getting stronger, as if the dark heart of the planet was waking up and turning its gaze on them.
It wanted to see them dead. It would probably succeed. But Alaric trusted in Hawkespur and in his battle-brothers to ensure that, before that happened, it would have as hard a fight as anyone could give it.
MISSIONARY PATRICOS PULLED himself up onto the pulpit of the main amphitheatre, an enormous auditorium where all the pilgrims who travelled on the Pieta could be addressed at once. And most of them were there - men, women and children crowding the rows of seating, clutching aquila icons or battered prayer books, murmuring their fear and uncertainty.
The crew of the Pieta had just affected a sudden course change on the orders from the Rear Admiral in command of the fleet. Some of the pilgrims even thought they were about to come under attack from an enemy craft. Patricos had been with the ship all the way on its pilgrimage from Gathalamor around the southern edge of the galaxy towards San Leor and he was the spiritual leader for these thousands of people, the conduit for the Emperor's will to be revealed to them. He had led them for thirteen years of long, hard pilgrimage and they trusted him absolutely.
'Brothers!' called Patricos in his rich preacher's voice. 'And sisters! Do not despair! We are in a trying place, yes and the servants of the Emperor are sorely stretched at this time. But we are His people! He will protect us from the depredations of those who would harm us. For we carry His beneficence in our hearts! We have devoted ourselves to Him! Trust in Him, as you have done these long years and you will be rewarded with His grace in the next life!'
