by Nick Kyme
Brother Tiberon returned and rejoined his squad.
Dak'ir tested the reaction of a slaved servitor with the up of his chainsword, watching it slump back as if its invisible strings had been cut by the weapon's teeth.
'We must find out what happened here.' He looked to Pyriel for some guidance, but the Librarian was still and appeared pensive.
Instead, Dak'ir looked around and noticed a console independent of the forge-machines.
'Emek, see if you can access the onboard maintenance logs. Perhaps it will provide some clue as to what happened.'
Emek went to work again, using the surplus power available from the shut-down forge-engines to activate the console. Dak'ir at his shoulder, the other Salamander brought up more ship schematics, this time with maintenance logs appended alongside. He read quickly, assessing the information display and absorbing it like a savant. Emek's capacity for knowledge and aptitude at applying it was impressive, even for a Space Marine.
'Records are incomplete, possibly as a result of the damage sustained to the ship,' he said, whilst reading. Touch sensitive screens allowed Emek to call up specific decks and areas, digging deeper for answers as he zeroed in on the salient information the vessel did still possess. 'There's an alert for a minor hull breach to the aft, starboard side.'
'We entered via the port side,' muttered Dak'ir. 'How close to our current position is it?'
'Several decks - potentially an hour's travelling through the ship, assuming a clear route and walking speed. It's too small to be weapons damage.'
'An internal explosion?'
'It's possible…'
'But you don't think so, brother?'
'This ship has been drifting for a while, any incendiary reaction from inside would have occurred before now,' Emek explained. 'There is a fading heat trace associated with this breach, which suggests it's recent.'
'What are you telling me, Emek?'
'That the breach was caused by external forces and that we are not the only ones exploring this ship.'
Dak'ir paused to consider this then slapped Emek's pauldron.
'Good work, brother. Now find us a route through the ship that will take us to the bridge. We may need the Archimedes Rex's log to ascertain what tragedy befell them.'
Emek nodded and began examining the ship's layout in detail relative to the Salamanders' position in its bowels and the bridge situated in the upper decks.
'Brother-Librarian,' Dak'ir said to get Pyriel's attention after he left Emek to his task.
Pyriel faced him and his eyes crackled briefly with psychic power.
'So it seems we are not alone, after all,' he said.
Dak'ir shook his head. 'No, my lord, we are not.'
The Salamanders proceeded with caution, following the route established by Brother Emek and inloaded to Brother Iagon's auspex. They passed through cargo zones, abandoned crew quarters and vast assembly yards fed by the forge-engines from below decks. The further into the ship they travelled, the more frequent the discovery of servitors became. Unlike those on the foundry floor in the bowels of the Archimedes Rex, these automatons were independent of engines or other machineries. Some lay slumped against bulkheads, others hung slack like wretched cybernetic dolls over benches or cargo crates, many were simply frozen stiff, locked in whatever perfunctory task they had been performing when the ship had been attacked. Whatever had crippled the Ark-class cruiser had acted swiftly and to devastating effect.
Despite its disrepair, the iron majesty of the Mechanicus still came through and intensified the deeper the Salamanders went in the ship. Symbols of the Machine-God were wrought into the walls, the holy cog of the Martian brotherhood prevalent throughout the upper echelons of the Archimedes Rex. Alcoves recessed into the walls punctuated regimental lines of bulkheads and were minor chapels of devotion to the Omnissiah. Incense burners hung from chains looped under the vaulted ceilings, emanating strange aromas reminiscent of oil and metal. Designed to appease and mollify the machine-spirits, these lightly smoking braziers were ubiquitous throughout the Archimedes Rex's many upper halls, chambers and galleries.
Skulls set into the walls were mistaken as some form of reliquary at first, but the circuitry and antennae jutting from bleached bone exposed them as cyber-skulls, the sanctified craniums of pious and devoted servants of the Imperium. The entire ship was a monolith of religio-metallurgic fusion, the spiritual alloyed with the mechanised.
Tsu'gan stooped over the collapsed body of a servitor. There appeared to be no external damage, and yet it was lifeless and unmoving. Its staring eyes, milky orbs of glass, were bereft of animus.
'No putrefaction, no decay of any kind,' he reported from the head of the group. Brother Honorious watched the dingy route ahead of his sergeant, flamer at the ready.
The ship's corridors had narrowed, becoming almost labyrinthine, devolving into a myriad of tunnels, conduits and passageways like the multitudinous neural pathways of a vast mechanised brain. Only Emek's route to the bridge had kept them on course. The Salamanders had to advance in pairs, one squad at the fore, the other guarding the rear. Tsu'gan had been quick to establish his dominance, eager for action, and taken the lead. Librarian Pyriel had seemed content to let him, occupying a position at the centre of the two squads. The longer they spent on the ship, the more seldom Pyriel spoke. He interrogated his psionics constantly, trying to ascertain some thread of existence of the other intruders on the vessel, but the machine presence on board, though slumbering or inert, was hindering his efforts.
'These creatures are not dead.' Tsu'gan got back to his feet. Though the majority of their bodies were mechanised, even servitors required biological systems to maintain the integrity of their human flesh parts and organs. Without them they would not be able to function. 'It's like some kind of deep hibernation,' the brother-sergeant added.
'A defence mechanism, perhaps?' offered Emek, alongside Dak'ir who was just behind Pyriel.
Tsu'gan didn't have time to answer before Iagon spoke up.
'I have a life form reading, two hundred metres east.'
Looking in that direction, Tsu'gan grunted. 'Weapons ready.'
Together, the Salamanders followed the quietly flashing signal on Iagon's auspex.
Two hundred metres east led the Salamanders to a large Mechanicus temple. Octagonal in shape and with an archway leading off from each of its eight sides, here the blending of machine and religiosity was even more prevalent. There were iron altars, burning brazier pans and devotional statues; cyber-skulls wound around the temple's ambit like eternal sentinels. An inscrutable sequence of ones and zeros, doubtless some esoteric equation relating to Mechanicus science, filled the plated floor. Huge, bulb-headed battery units spat arcs of electricity across flanged conductor fins fixed to a thin torso of metal. The ephemeral sparks filled the chamber sporadically, illuminating it in a harsh white glare.
In the centre of the room, encircled by the cog symbol itself, a robed figure knelt in supplication.
Tsu'gan was the first to enter, Honorious and Iagon at his back with weapons drawn. The figure seemed still to the brother-sergeant, though after he'd stared at it long enough he detected the slightest tremor of movement as it rocked back and forth. As it faced away from them, hooded by a heavy cowl, Tsu'gan was unable to discern its features or physical disposition. Combi-bolter readied cautiously, he battle-signed for his fellow squad members to fan out around him. In a few short seconds, the entire complement of Salamanders was in the large room and poised for immediate assault.
'A magos, by the look of it,' uttered Pyriel. His eyes flashed cerulean blue behind his helmet lenses and then died again. 'I see nothing,' he added in a hollow voice, 'Nothing but mental static. It is as if its mind is shut off somehow, or merely waiting for some trigger to ignite it.'
The Librarian looked to Brother Iagon, who was adjusting the auspex trying to get a more detailed reading.
'The biorhythms appear normal, all circadian functions are per
petuating as expected. Heart rate, respiration, they are consistent with a deep sleep.'
Brother Emek shook his head. 'It isn't sleeping, as such,' he observed, his curiosity coming through via the comm-feed. 'Its movements are acute, but exact and repeated, as if locked in some kind of holding pattern or mechanised catatonia. It is irregular.'
'Explain, brother,' Dak'ir returned.
'Magos are sentient: they are unlike servitors, dependent on doctrina wafers or pre-programmed work protocols. Cold and inhuman, certainly, but they are not slavish automatons. Some trauma must have afflicted it in for it to behave in this way.'
Tsu'gan had heard enough. He levelled his combi-bolter, taking careful aim.
Dak'ir put out a hand to stop him. 'What are you doing?' he snapped.
Though he couldn't see Tsu'gan's eyes behind his battle-helm, Dak'ir felt the heat in his fellow sergeant's glare.
'Listen to your battle-brother. It's a trap,' he growled, looking over at Dak'ir's gauntlet on his bolter stock. 'Step aside unless you want to lose your hand, Ignean.'
Dak'ir bristled at the slight. He had no issue with his lowborn heritage, he only objected to the way that Tsu'gan used it as a derogatory barb.
'Desist,' he warned him, through clenched teeth. 'I won't allow you to shoot a man in cold blood. Let me approach him first.'
'It's not a man, it's a thing.'
Still Dak'ir would not yield.
Tsu'gan's finger lingered near his bolter trigger for a few seconds more before he lost the battle of wills, lowered the weapon and stepped back.
'Proceed, if you wish,' he growled. 'But as soon as the creature turns - and mark me it will - I shall fire. You'd best be out of the way when I do.'
Dak'ir nodded, though the gesture went unheeded so was scarcely necessary. He glanced behind him at Ba'ken, who gave an acknowledgement of his own, though this one indicated that he was watching his sergeant's back. Before he turned away, Dak'ir noticed Pyriel looking on. The Librarian had observed and, doubtless, heard the entire exchange between the feuding sergeants but had said nothing. Dak'ir wondered then whether Pyriel's presence on this mission was more than merely simple command. Had Master Vel'cona, at Tu'Shan's bidding, instructed him to assess how far the enmity between the brother-sergeants went and act appropriately or even report back? Or perhaps there was another imperative guiding the Librarian, one related to his careful observations during the ceremony on Nocturne? Now was not the time to consider it. Dak'ir slowly drew his chainsword and approached the magos.
His bootsteps sounded like thunderclaps through his battle-helm as he walked tentatively towards the centre of the temple. As Dak'ir moved he panned his gaze slowly back and forth, interrogating the deeper shadows lurking in the recesses of the room. Cycling through the optical spectra afforded by his occulobe implants and combined with the technology of his battle-helm's lenses, Dak'ir felt certain there were no hidden dangers.
Within an arm's length of the kneeling magos, he stopped. Listening intently, he made out a susurrus of meaningless sound seeping from the supplicant's mouth. Close up, the tremors in the magos's body seemed more pronounced, though whether this was merely proximity or the fact that it had somehow detected his presence, Dak'ir was uncertain.
'Turn,' he said in a low voice. It was possible the magos was in some kind of trance or deep meditation. Perhaps he had lost his mind and was fixed in some catatonic state as Emek had suggested. In any case, Dak'ir had no desire to alarm him. 'Have no fear,' he added when a response was not forthcoming. 'We are the Emperor's Astartes, here to rescue you and your crew. Turn.'
Still nothing.
Dak'ir took a firm grip on his plasma pistol, still holstered for now, and reached out with the tip of his dormant chainsword.
The blade had barely brushed the crimson robes, when the magos turned, or rather its torso rotated as if on a gimbal joint, and it faced the intruder defiling the sanctity of its temple.
'Abandon hope, all ye who enter…' it barked, the chattering phrase it had been repeating made audible at last and vocalised in a grating, machine dialect.
Kadai's words in the dream came back at Dak'ir like a hammer blow and he almost staggered.
The phrase continued in an uninterrupted loop, speeding up and increasing in pitch and volume until it became an unintelligible whine of noise. Dak'ir brought his chainsword up into a guard position and retreated one step.
The sound of tearing cloth followed as the magos's robes flared out in shreds at his back and two mechanical arms sprang out like the pincers of some insect. A chainblade affixed to the end of one of the arms roared into life; on the other a vibro-saw shrieked. Pale, gelid skin, sutured with wires and metal, possessed no life. Sightless eyes held neither pity nor anger, only a simple function: eliminate the intruders. A nozzle protruded from its mouth like an obscene tongue forcing its way from the cold, dark crevice. It was the tip of an igniter, and spat a thin column of flame.
Dak'ir used his free forearm to shield himself, and intense heat washed over him. Radiation warnings spiked in his battle-helm's display. In the same movement, he parried the sudden dart of the vibro-saw blindly with his chainsword. Powerless to stop the magos's chainblade, it churned against his left pauldron hungrily. Spitting sparks, it retracted and came about again.
Bolter fire thudded behind him and Dak'ir half expected to feel the shots penetrate his suit's generator and then his back, but the aim of his battle-brothers was true and he did not fall. Instead, he felt the crackle of electricity and detected the stink of ozone in his nostrils. A secondary flash lit up his battle-helm, lenses struggling to compensate as the blades whirred towards him again. Dak'ir realised that the magos was force-shielded.
'Hold your fire!' barked the voice of Tsu'gan behind him. 'Encircle it, find its shield generator and destroy it.'
Dak'ir was aware of movement in his peripheral vision as his brothers sought to open their trap. Between searching blows, its mechanised limbs lightning fast, the magos reacted to the threat. Servos whining, its robed form began to rise on cantilevered legs until it loomed almost a metre over Dak'ir. Its mouth widened like the rapidly expanding aperture of a pict-viewer as a second and third flarner nozzle took their place alongside the first. Panning its head left and right like a scope, it spewed white-hot fire around the fringes of the room, keeping the Salamanders back. Molten deck plates and iron altars rendered to slag were left in its wake.
Dak'ir caught the vibro-saw as it came at him again, and cut it off with a brutal sweep from its chainsword. The magos's own chainblade struck the Salamander's generator on his back and found itself at another impasse. Dak'ir swung around, dislodging the weapon with his momentum, and hacked down the piston-driven arm two-handed. Issuing a metallic screech, the magos recoiled, the severed chainblade arm spitting oil and sparks. Exploiting his advantage, Dak'ir ripped his plasma pistol from its holster and blasted a hole through the magos's torso. Something within the voluminous folds of its shredded robes flared and died. Still, the firestorm cascading from its distended mouth continued, keeping Dak'ir's battle-brothers at bay, their only avenue of attack blocked by the brother-sergeant himself.
A flash of metal registered briefly in Dak'ir's restricted vision. Pain lanced his armoured wrist, forcing him to drop the plasma pistol, and he looked down to see a churning drill trying to impale his arm. Wrenching himself free, he gripped the twisting tendril fed from the magos's robes that had impelled the weapon towards him. Dak'ir was about to cut it off when a second mechadendrite sprang from the creature's torso, sporting some kind of mecha-claw. Dak'ir blocked it with the flat of his blade and pushed it down. Locked as he was, and acutely aware of the battle-brothers behind him, he started to try and manoeuvre his body to the side.
'Ba'ken!' he cried, seeing the vague form of the hulking Salamander in his peripheral vision.
'Hold it steady,' a booming voice returned.
It took almost all Dak'ir's strength to force the magos around and
keep him steady as Ba'ken wanted.
Intense heat and blinding light filled Dak'ir's senses. His ears rang with the shriek of expulsed energy and he fell. For a fleeting moment as the radiation of the fusion beam stroked his battle-helm and power armour, Dak'ir was thrust back to Stratos and the instant of Kadai's death. The jarring impact of iron-hard deck plates against his body brought him quickly back around. The dull report of sustained thunder echoed around the room as the rest of the Salamanders unleashed their bolters. Sporadic muzzle flashes lit up the magos like some macabre animation, its body jerking and twisting as it was struck and demolished.
The munitions fire died and with it so did the magos, clattering to the floor in a disparate melange of wrecked machine parts and biological matter, the components of his former existence scattering across the deck like metal chaff. Oil slicked it, reflecting the dim light of the brazier pans like iridescent blood.
Bizarrely the head remained intact, rolling from its eviscerated body until coming to rest next to Ba'ken. The end of his multi-melta still exuded vaporous accelerant created during the chemical reaction engaged to fire the heavy weapon. He looked down at the decapitated head, his body language suggesting repulsion. The flamer nozzles had since retracted into the thing's lipless maw. Ba'ken shifted uncomfortably as a stream of binaric, the machine language the Mechanicum primarily used to communicate, barked from it like a torrent of ceaseless profanity.
Without waiting for orders the Salamander brought down his booted foot and smashed it to pulp and wires.
Dak'ir, now back on his feet, nodded his appreciation to Ba'ken, who immediately returned the gesture. Once the chattering had ceased, he turned to Tsu'gan who was making sure no life existed amidst the wreckage of the magos.
'I owe you a debt of gratitude, brother.' Tsu'gan didn't even look up.
