by Ben Counter
Antigonus was confident he could control the Titan's legs well enough to walk. The twin plasma blastguns which took up the Warhound's weapon mounts would be more troublesome, as would the complicated sensor arrays and tactical cogitators that any Titan operator, human or otherwise, would need to control the war machine effectively in battle. Antigonus peered through the strange fungal masses of information that made up the Titan's operating systems and found the communications centre, selecting a wide-band vox-transmission that would reach anyone in the area with a receiver.
'Justicar.' he said into the blackness of the radio spectrum. 'Can you hear me?'
Hundreds of whispering voices answered back. One of them cut through. 'Just.' came Alaric's voice.
'Scraecos is dead. Saphentis too.'
'Understood. The servitor attack fell apart a few moments ago. Can you make it over here and clear them out?'
'Maybe. I haven't got complete control. I'm surprised I managed to get what I have.'
'We could do with a Titan, magos. What we've seen here is just the first response. There will be a whole army on its way unless we...'
Antigonus was deafened by the blast of information, like a thousand choirs bellowing the same harmony at once, streaming from every direction. The blast almost knocked him out, but he held on like a man in a storm.
'It's the construct!' he transmitted, not knowing if Alaric could pick him up. 'It's the STC! It has to be!'
'Antigonus?' came Alaric's reply, crackling through the gales of information still pummelling the Warhound. 'I've lost you, what's happening?'
Antigonus tried to reply, but the information was like white noise and he couldn't hear his own thoughts.
'Wait,' said Alaric. 'Wait, I see something...'
ALARIC TRIED TO hear a reply through the static over the vox, but there was nothing.
The fallen Titan was spattered with blood. The stretch of the rockrete bounded by the Titan's body was covered in the bodies of tech-priests and servitors. The daemonic priests were gone, perhaps thrown back by the Grey Knights' concentrated fire, perhaps dismayed by the death of Scraecos. Many of the servitors were still alive but they were uncoordinated, scrabbling over the wreckage in ones and twos instead of concentrated waves. Many seemed to have lost all sense of direction, slithering at random between the feet of the Titans heading further away from Alaric's position. The remaining Grey Knights - including Cardios, who had dragged himself to Alaric's position - were keeping the servitors away with comparative ease.
What had caught Alaric's attention was something moving in the distance, near the tall spire in the centre of the titan works. A section of the ground had risen up and a huge shape was emerging, something from beneath the ground being slowly raised upwards. Alaric saw twin triangular eyes of burning green and massive shoulders, tall exhaust spires like curving horns and solid slabs of gleaming silvery armour. It was humanoid, but if it was a Titan it was bigger than any of the others in the titan works. It was on a different scale entirely.
'Antigonus?' voxed Alaric, but the thing's arrival seemed to be wreaking havoc with all communications. 'Antigonus, what is it?'
It was rising further out of the ground, wreathed in white smoke from a coolant system. The silvery armour looked wet and pearlescent and one arm seemed to end in an enormous multi-barrelled cannon, bigger than any Titan weapon Alaric had ever heard of. The other had a huge fist from which bluish sparks were pouring as a power field was activated around it. The eyes sent thin traces of luminous green scattering over the Titans around it as it scanned its surroundings, its head turning slowly to take in the titan works. Already it was as tall as any of the other Titans and it had only emerged up to its knees.
Alaric looked away to see the remaining tech-guard from Tharkk's unit clambering down the fallen Titan's armour, carrying Hawkespur. The interrogator was clinging to him with one arm but her legs and body were limp.
'She's hit.' said the tech-guard simply.
Alaric saw a laser burn in her abdomen. She had been hit by a multi-laser from one of the servitors. Even with the wound hidden by her scorched void-siut, Alaric could tell it was bad. Normally an interrogator of the Ordo Malleus would have access to the best healthcare in the Imperium and that would probably save her, but on Chaeroneia, Hawkespur would probably die.
'Haulvarn, see if you can help her.' said Alaric. He turned to the tech-guard. 'Keep with her.'
'Yes, sir.' Alaric couldn't see the tech-guard's face through his visor, but he knew it would be expressionless. The Mechanicus had seen to it that he had barely any emotions save for a desire to obey. In a way the Grey Knights were no different to Tharkk's tech-guard - they had been made into different people too, far different from how they would have turned out if they had lived the normal lives they would have chosen. But that was the sacrifice they all made. To serve the Emperor of Humankind, they had to give up their humanity.
'What is it?' asked Hawkespur faintly as Haulvarn slit open the abdomen of her voidsuit with the tip of his sword.
Alaric glanced back. The shape was almost completely emerged now. It was a clear head and shoulders taller than the tallest Titans the Dark Mechanicus had built. 'It's a Titan.' he said. 'I think they've sent it to kill us.'
'Show me.'
Haulvarn propped up Hawkespur so she could see. She shivered with pain and Alaric saw the las-bolt had burned right through. Her insides were filling up with blood. Alaric was surprised she was still conscious.
'I don't think the Dark Mechanicus are controlling it.' she said, her voice a whisper. 'It was the Titan that was controlling them. I think that's the Standard Template Construct.'
Chapter Nineteen
"The enemy of my enemy dies next.'
- Lord Solar Macharius (attr.),
'Maxims of the Eminent'.
URKRATHOS SAW CHAERONEIA unfold beneath him, emerging slowly from its veil of pollution. And by the Fell Gods, it was beautiful.
From the observation blister on the underside of the Hellforger he watched Manufactorium Noctis appearing. First its magnificent spires, weeping blood and oil from the corroded steel like spearheads fresh from battle. Then the webs of walkways and bridges, some wrought in the brutal architecture of the city's creators, others biological like webs spun by huge spiders.
The deep pits between the spires were dark and noxious, some clogged with masses of pallid pulsing flesh. Veins as thick as train tunnels reached up from the depths to strangle the buildings, and other spires were held in the grip of gargantuan bleached skeletons where the lifeforms sustaining them had died and decayed years ago. The heartbeat of the city thudded up into the atmosphere and Urkrathos felt it, the cycle of life and death that kept this cannibal world alive.
Somehow, it had survived in the warp, where any other mortal world would have been torn to shreds by the mindless predators that swam the currents of the Empyrean. Somehow it had not only survived, but prospered, its ignorant Emperor-fearing population throwing aside their allegiance to forge a cannibal planet created for survival. Here truly was a world touched by Chaos - not just its champions and daemons but its very heart, the concepts of freedom through destruction that were the true foundation of Chaos.
Urkrathos saw now why he had been called here. The people of Chaeroneia had found their way back to real space and immediately sought out fellow believers in the galaxy. When they heard news of Abaddon the Despoiler and his triumphs at the Eye of Terror, it was clear to them to whom they should give their devotion. And so they had honoured Abaddon with a tribute to demonstrate their commitment to the work of Chaos.
'The signal has changed.' came the rumbling telepathic voice of the communications daemon. 'It guides us now. It speaks of the home of the great tribute.'
'Take us there.' Urkrathos thought back to the bridge. The bridge daemons obeyed him instantly, the Hellforger swinging around and heading towards the edge of the city where the decaying spires gave way to
desert. Even from the belly of the Hellforger Urkrathos could feel the toxicity of the desert, the radioactive ash dunes and the melted glass plains that stretched in all directions away from Manufactorium Noctis.
It was a different kind of beauty, reminiscent of the pure desolation that Chaos promised to leave in its wake. Chaeroneia was a world so given over to Chaos that its whole surface was a tapestry of worship to the Fell Powers. Rivers of toxic gunk, the lifeblood of the planet, oozed up from below the planet's crust. Slabs of glassy slag rose up from the ash. Ravines like deep wounds glowed with the power of the radioactive waste that had been dumped into them.
But there was something else in the desert. Close to the outskirts of the city, near the scars of an ancient mine working there was a massive factory ringed by watchtowers, with a single tall spire stabbing up from its centre. Across its blistered rockcrete surface stood a legion of Titans, from Warhound scout models to the gigantic Reaver and Warlord-pattern Titans. Even from a distance Urkrathos could see the marks of corruption on them, blooms of fungus and rot, throbbing veins, weeping sores and mutant growths.
Urkrathos had thought hundreds of years before that nothing would ever surprise him any more, but the sight of the corrupted Titans standing silently to attention almost took his breath away.
'There.' he said out loud. 'Take us there.'
* * *
THE TITAN WALKED slowly between the ranks of lesser Titans, the whole of Chaeroneia seeming to shake with its footsteps. Green flames burned from its eyes, dripping bolts of power onto the ground. The barrels of its gun cycled and the fingers of its fist flexed, as if it were finally stretching its metallic muscles after long years interred.
Alaric, crouching with his squad in the shadow of the fallen Titan's armour, knew he was witnessing the dark heart of Chaeroneia. But there was something missing. The stink of Chaos, the psychic stain of corruption that he had felt ever since he had first seen Chaeroneia in orbit, was gone. It had come in waves from the daemon-possessed servitors and tech-priests, but now it was blanked out as if the approaching Titan was suppressing it. In its place there was blankness, psychic silence - not purity but yet another kind of corruption.
Alaric didn't know what he was dealing with any more. This was a kind of enemy he simply didn't understand.
'Any ideas, justicar?' asked Hawkespur.
'Our orders are clear,' said Alaric.
Hawkespur smiled in spite of her pain. 'You're going to go down fighting it?'
'Fight, yes, but Grey Knights never count on dying. We're not very good at it.' Alaric flicked through the vox-channels, trying to find one that wasn't still full of howling static from the Titan. 'Antigonus? Antigonus, are you there?'
'Justicar! I thought I'd lost you.' Magos Antigonus's voice was heavily distorted, as much by his Warhound as by the newly arrived Titan.
'Can you see this?'
'Barely. It's like the Warhound doesn't want to look at it.'
'We're going to need your help again.'
'With respect, justicar, this is a Warhound Scout Titan. Even if I could get the weapons up it wouldn't last more than a few seconds against that... that thing.'
'That's all we need.'
Alaric realized that the metallic choking noise issuing over the vox was actually Antigonus laughing grimly, because Antigonus had guessed what Alaric was planning to do. 'You have, Justicar Alaric, a healthy disrespect for logic.'
'Can you do it?'
'I very much doubt it. But then I've done a few things in my life that were impossible, most of them in the last couple of days. So welcome aboard. And make it quick, justicar, I can't stay hidden in here forever.'
Alaric turned back to his squad. The stump of Cardios's leg had clotted and he had propped himself up against a chunk of wreckage, Incinerator in hand. 'Cardios. Stay with Hawkespur and...' Alaric looked at the tech-guard, suddenly realizing he didn't know the man's name.
'Corporal Locarn, sir.' said the tech-guard simply.
'Corporal Locarn. Keep the servitors away, Cardios, and pray for us. We'll be back if we can.'
'I'd rather be with the squad.' said Cardios.
'I know. But right now you're more useful here. Hawkespur is still the Inquisitorial authority on this planet, so you keep her alive.'
'Yes, justicar.'
'The rest of you, with me. Stay close, there are still servitors out there. We're meeting up with Antigonus and we need to move fast, because the Mechanicus will have an army heading for us right now.'
'Goodbye, justicar.' said Hawkespur.
'For now.' said Alaric and led the way out of the wreckage.
THE COLLECTIVE MIND of Chaeroneia was in uproar. Outwardly, of course, it was silent. The veiny growths, in which the tech-priests were suspended in amniotic fluid, barely quivered. The dense, murky air of the command spire was undisturbed. But the thoughts that flickered through the connected minds were frenetic.
Some of the oldest tech-priests on Chaeroneia, who had been elderly Magi when Scraecos's excavations had first unearthed the Castigator beneath the desert, were little more than brains connected to their neighbours with heavy ribbed nerve-impulse cables. But they were the most vocal in the debate. They had seen it all, the gradual growth of Manufactorium Noctis and the forge cities all over Chaeroneia, the perfection of biomechanical technology and Chaeroneia's self-sufficiency, and so they felt most keenly the damage the current disturbances could do to the delicate balance of creation and consumption.
Even the facts were disputed. Archmagos Veneratus Scraecos had gone rogue and failed to return to the collective mind, instead retaining his discrete personality in spite of Chaeroneia's will. Many thoughts suggested that Scraecos, who had been the very first of them to look upon the face of the Castigator, had become convinced of his own superiority over the other tech-priests and was disregarding their authority. Others said that Scraecos must be dead. A few even thought the truth was a combination of the two.
The fate of the recent intruders was also in doubt. Energy traces similar to small arms fire had been pinpointed to the titan works and there were three maniples of death servitors unaccounted for from the command spire's garrison - but some of the tech-priests originated the thought that the intruders, even if they were Space Marines, could not possibly have penetrated that close to the command spire. Reports from the hunter-programs in the moat conflicted about whether the intruders were in the titan works at all.
Orbital sensors were even suggesting multiple spacecraft descending into the middle atmosphere and heading for the titan works. The whole situation was a confused mess and confusion was anathema to the collective of tech-priests which was accustomed to knowing everything that happened on the planet.
The only fact not in dispute was that a few minutes ago, the Castigator had risen from its vault and was now on the surface of the titan works, among the Titans. It could even be seen from the clouded windows in the command spire itself, striding slowly between the other Titans, the burning green fire of its eyes tingeing everything around it. The Castigator had, as far as the collective memory knew, never seen the sky of Chaeroneia, since its vault, like its body, had been built around the tomb that Scraecos had found. And it had never moved of its own accord. The tech-priests had not even known that the Castigator's vault was capable of raising it to the surface, but then most of the construction of the body and the vault had been overseen by Scraecos.
The avatar of the Omnissiah, the mouthpiece of their god, was walking among them and it had not deigned to speak with them and explain why. To suggest that such a thing might ever happen would have been heresy for any of Chaeroneia's subjects. But now it was happening and the collective could not decide why.
Several thoughts were shuttled through the assembled brains. Chaeroneia had fallen short of its devotions to the Omnissiah, said one, and the Casti-gator had risen to punish them since it was the instrument of the Omnissiah's vengeance as well as His teach
ings. Another said that a threat had arisen to Chaeroneia, perhaps the approaching spacecraft, which only the Castigator's physical shell could fend off. One even maintained that the Castigator's body was being controlled by an outside agency - the originator of this thought, the mind of a lesser tech-priest only recently ascended to the collective, was promptly snuffed out for daring to think such heresy.
THE ENGINES OF the Warhound thundered deep inside its torso as Antigonus forced the Scout Titan back into action, the corrupted war machine fighting his every move, rebelling against the foreign consciousness controlling it.
Alaric clung on tight to the railing at the edge of the Warhound's carapace. From his vantage point just above the Warhound's shoulder mount he could see through the forest of Titans that were ranged across the titan works - Reaver and Warlord Titans, more Warhounds and a few marks Alaric couldn't recognize. Many of the Titans were corrupted beyond belief, with hydraulics replaced with bundles of wet glistening muscle or exoskeletons of gristle and bone. Many were covered in weeping sores or sported spines of bone stabbing out through rents in their armour. Alaric had never seen so much destructive power gathered in one place, let alone such corruption.
But the STC Titan dwarfed them all. It was fully twice the height of the Warhound, bigger even than the Imperator-class Titans that the Adeptus Mechanicus sometimes fielded. It was walking slowly through the titan works, its eyes scanning the ground as if searching for something.
The Titan's form was more elegant than the brutal designs of the Adeptus Mechanicus - its head rose above its shoulders instead of jutting from its chest as most Titans did and was protected by a high curved collar of armour. The collar swept out to form shoulder guards. Its face was featureless save for the eyes, but those were more than enough, burning with an intense green flame that licked up into the air above it. The plates covering its torso and limbs were a strange pearlescent grey-white and they wept rivulets of moisture, giving the Titan a sickly biological sheen.
