Echoes of the Long War

by David Guymer

  Force was mass, velocity, and an exponent.

  Kindness did not factor.

  The chamber on the other side of the door was a short octagonal cylinder, like an expressionistic version of an antique eight-shot’s firing cylinder portrayed through geometry. The ceiling and main walls were a ridged metal, some kind of supplementary ventilation system running along the recesses. The floor was the same loose, rattling metal slats as it had been outside. The angled slants joining the horizontals to the verticals were of a browning armourglass.

  ‘Stop here,’ grated the skitarius to his right.

  He stopped there.

  The two skitarii backed away through the door. The guard simultaneously lowered his own weapon and punched the control panel to bring the doors to a shuddering close. Urquidex stared at the solid plasteel for a moment, feeling an utterly illogical sense of panic on watching the two skitarii leave, as if they had been not colluders in his captivity, but protectors, the only thing standing between him and death.

  He shivered, the tensile fibres bonding his digitools directly into his nervous system causing them to twitch accordingly. Unsure what else to do, he swallowed and shuffled around to face the opposite door.

  There was a clank, as if he had triggered something with his movement, and an intense ultraviolet light flooded in through the armourglass. He grunted in pain. His instinct was to turn away and he did so, optics down, but the light was coming from everywhere. It was purple, piercing, retina-burning, but at the same time little more than bleedthrough, an augur ghost at the edge of his perceptual range. The effect was at once vivid and watery. Biologis adepts designated the treatment as ‘soft’ decontamination: degrade any biological contaminant, while leaving precious technologies intact and without chemical residual.

  Urquidex retracted his telescopic eyestalks and dialled their sensitive optics shut, burying his face in the folds of his robes for good measure. He could feel his exposed flesh begin to heat. This biological contaminant did not consider the procedure nearly as soft as it once had.

  At the same time, he became aware of an urgent hiss. Some kind of gas was being delivered into the chamber through that secondary ventilation system. His heart rate spiked, a fight or flight reflex that perversely then delivered the command for his lungs to draw deep. Ozone, he realised, sensing the epithelial sting on the lining of his nose. Urquidex felt his UV-reddened skin begin to burn.

  The lights shut down abruptly. The hiss stopped.

  Cautiously, Urquidex re-extended his eyes. He could still smell ozone, a sore-throat tightness down the back of his mouth.

  ‘Proceed, magos.’

  The voice was female, piped into the chamber like gas through the walls.

  A clunk sounded from the far end of the cubicle, followed by a whoosh of evacuating air. Urquidex winced as it flowed over his sunburned flesh and the door ground open. His ears popped under the change in pressure.

  A biologis laboratorium, then: the design adhered to schemata laid down by arch-magi from an era before the Dark Age of Technology, and to Urquidex was more familiar than his own surgically modified face. A slender needle of curiosity pricked his skin of fear. Such a place was an unlikely venue for an interrogation, or even an execution.

  He walked through the door to be met by another skitarius. This one was female, that much of her original body plan evident even through her heavy robes and obtrusive techno-refinements, and was covering the door with an arc pistol. Her left hand had been retrofitted with a combat glove with an integrated transonic razor. Urquidex absorbed those prosaic details at a glance, for her most unique feature was too stunning to devote time and attention elsewhere. Head to toe, the skitarius had been physically remodelled in dazzling silver. Other agencies of the Imperium exploited that precious metal for its anti-psychic properties, but the Adeptus Biologis archives retained many fragmentary references to its ancient bactericidal application.

  She watched him sceptically, and Urquidex, fearfully, said nothing.

  ‘Stand down to readiness level, Zeta-One Prime,’ came the deep, breathy voice of Artisan Trajectorae Van Auken, each word enunciated with a puff of mechanical diaphragms.

  Eldon stiffened and froze.

  The artisan trajectorae emerged from the incense pall that cloaked a bank of shuddering ruminators. His spindly shoulders were slumped under the weight of a servo-harness and multitools, and his forehead had been broadened and deepened with the installation of a thick plasteel plate. He emitted a hiss of pistoned air and dismissed his sterile and glittering adjutant with the flex of a mechadendrite.

  ‘You have no questions, magos? Do you forget the Eleventh Universal Law?’

  Urquidex answered by rote. ‘The universe is uncertain until it is observed.’

  ‘Your locum trajectorae expressed concerns regarding your state of mind. It was her conclusion that you were distracted, that the Grand Experiment was in some way insufficiently fulfilling.’

  Urquidex opened his mouth, but there was no subjective rebuttal to the locum trajectorae’s objective conclusions. He remained silent, mouth dry. Van Auken knew. The thought ran round and round his higher functions like a scrapcode algorithm on a recursive loop.

  ‘You are frustrated by the lack of progress,’ Van Auken continued for him. ‘I understand. It is not your proper specialism. You have been unable to devote your full energies to this grand task.’

  ‘Yes, artisan,’ he said carefully. ‘But my lapse of purpose is inexcusable.’

  ‘Indeed so, but the Fabricator General has another task more meritous of your talents, magos.’

  The artisan trajectorae turned and for the first time, Urquidex took a proper look at the glorious scale of the laboratorium.

  Instruments filled the floor, spaced apart from one another, as machines of their type were known to be jealous of their status within the schemata, and could be cantankerous when the proper attention was not afforded them. Adepts of the first level chanted soothing psalms, scattering the straining machines with crystals from their aspersoria, carbon dioxide produced and sanctified in the manufactories of Marcotis Temple. Even so, electrical smoke seeped from the instruments’ backs and pooled on the metal tiles. Wheezing scrubbers did their best to filter the pollutants from the air.

  Servitors clumped from instrument to instrument carrying plastek plates indented with tiny wells containing organic serum. Attendant techno-magi received the sample dishes, commended them to the all-seeing attentions of the Omnissiah, and fed them into the machines under their care. And through the semi-transparent plastek view-plates that overlooked the sterilisation chamber, the exact repetitive routine was enacted over and over, identically laid out levels stacked one atop the next high into the smog layer.

  ‘Samples are brought to this laboratorium from across the Imperium,’ said Van Auken. ‘You can understand the demand for secrecy. And for biological integrity.’

  Urquidex nodded.

  A magos was loading a set of plates into the ornately inscribed chrome housing of a prognosticator, triggering seizures of clacking and shuddering and frenzied bursts of laser light. In parallel, hundreds of sequence graphics sputtered up on the networked displays. Each was an assemblage of coloured lines representing As and Ts, Cs and Gs, and Xs. After about half an hour of chewing noises the machine expelled the spent samples and emitted an insatiable peal for more data.

  ‘You hope to find a solution to the Grand Experiment in their genetic code,’ said Urquidex. ‘It won’t work. Veridi giganticus’ genome is structurally unstable. It is a mosaic of recombinatorial sequences and mobilisable elements, continually on the cusp of one speciation event or another. Veridi giganticus should not be at all.’

  ‘It is your specialism, magos, not mine, and I do not pretend to understand it. But no, that is not our goal.’

  With his human hand Van Auken directed Urquidex’s
attention to a neighbouring screen. This one was packed with moving code lines, the backing cogitator plugged via a heavy-duty shunt into a run of cabling that disappeared into the ceiling. The system’s program wafer had the machine data-mining the Martian noosphere, pulling up astropathic logs, engagement reports, every bit of data relevant to the Veridi giganticus samples that came with a grid stamp and a time stamp, and then cross-referencing them against the sequence output.

  A map.

  The artisan trajectorae was making a map.

  The very genetic instability of Veridi giganticus was the way in. A population would be expected to accumulate sequence alterations over a very short period of time. As they moved on and established new populations, those unique alterations would be carried forward and added to, and so on. With enough samples those changes could be tracked back. The Adeptus Biologis did it all the time. Mapping the spread of viruses through hive worlds, extrapolating the evolution of newly discovered Homo subspecies at the request of the Inquisition. Thus was the grace of the Omnissiah made manifest in the base material of Its organic machines.

  Urquidex could see sample tags referenced to Ardamantua, Undine, Malleus Mundi. Hundreds, thousands of names: worlds from the breadth and span of the Imperium. The ork incursion was more widespread even than he had realised.

  ‘You are looking for the orks’ home world.’

  ‘One successful test does not complete the Grand Experiment. Phobos has a diameter of twenty-two kilometres. Mars is more than three hundred and ten times larger. In effect, the Grand Experiment has become an issue of scale.’

  ‘Scale…’

  Urquidex tested the word, measured it, weighed it. The Grand Experiment had not stalled because of him or Yendl. It was a technical problem. Yendl was probably still alive, going over his last communiqué and wondering what had become of him. He swallowed, his sudden relief somehow more powerful even than his fear had been, and clasped his hands behind his back to obscure his quivering digitools.

  ‘Veridi giganticus has somehow managed to overcome the discontinuity between efficiency and scale,’ said Van Auken. ‘Or otherwise devised a solution to circumvent the Omnissiah’s constants.’

  ‘It sounds as though you admire them for it.’

  ‘They are a superbly constructed species, individually adaptive, collectively diverse. They are an apex species, magos, as once we were. There is much to re-learn from them, and yes, we are not above admiration. We have narrowed their point of origin to six or seven candidate sectors. A few thousand systems at the galactic core of Ultima Segmentum.’

  Urquidex’s mind spun out a stream of hurried calculations. Stars came fast and close in the core and a few thousand systems need not, comparatively at least, cover a lot of space. A search of it would still be a massive logistical undertaking, but compared to the galaxy as a whole…

  ‘Has the Imperium been informed?’

  ‘The Fabricator General will apprise them if and when the timing is opportune. The Imperium is more than Terra, magos, and humanity is more than the Imperium. We must learn how Veridi giganticus operate their technology. You were there on Ardamantua. The Eleventh Universal Law applies. You have observed Veridi giganticus. They are not unknown to you.’

  Eldon nodded mutely, numbly. The instruments before him continued to gorge on the galaxy of data they were being fed. Too much to smuggle to Terra. Far too much. He had to find the world.

  One world. One word.

  That, he could get to Yendl. And to Terra.

  Five

  Vandis System – Mandeville point

  Targeting solutions crowded the lower right quadrant of Dantalion’s main viewer, coloured box reticules jostling over the vid-feed of the cannibalised Oberon-class battleship. Energy sources. Weapons arrays. Structural weaknesses. Void-suited strategium serfs worked furiously to keep the display updated as the two vessels sailed into weapons range. Lobbed shells blistered Dantalion’s forward shields. Fire broke out between them as the two warships closed and slowly, slowly, began to turn apart. The Oberon-class dropped to port, Dantalion climbed to starboard, both ships manoeuvering to present the massed firepower of their broadsides. Banks of hardlines provided wired communications between Dantalion’s command deck and the thousands of weapons hardpoints, loading bays, and cogitators throughout the two-kilometre-long battle-barge. Breathless operators called in status reports.

  ‘Prow beamers charged and locked.’

  ‘Macro-cannons trained to target.’

  ‘Launch tubes alpha through delta report cyclonic warheads loaded and ready at your mark.’

  ‘Hold torpedos,’ Shipmaster Marcarian commanded. ‘Macro-weaponry and beamers only until we have the measure of their shields. Steady as she goes.’

  ‘Fire weapons!’ Zerberyn snarled.

  ‘Firing, aye.’

  White-hot beams of stellar fury drilled from Dantalion’s fusion batteries at near-light speed. The gap between the two ships had narrowed to a few thousand kilo­metres – an almost terrestrial scale, a space of particle fire and scrambled fighter craft – and the barrage hit almost instantaneously. The first beam strike overloaded the Oberon-class’ jury-rigged void shield array. The second lanced through the outer hull, and set off chain explosions within the superstructure. The fusion beamers fired in sequence. Each blast lasted split seconds before the collider cells had to be removed to be cooled and recharged, but the relative velocities and opposing vectors meant that those snap shots were sufficient to gouge through hundreds of metres of armour cladding.

  Spewing drive plasma and the atomised constituents of its outer hull, the Oberon-class sailed under Dantalion’s belly, the battle-barge yawing over its blistered prow.

  ‘Ventral batteries report locks.’

  ‘Fire!’

  Sustained firepower chewed up the cannibalised vessel’s dorsal plating. Atmospheric decompression ignited like the pilot light of a super-heavy flamer. Edged with greens, yellows and purples from vaporised hull elements, fire erupted into the void. For all Dantalion’s killing might, however, the honour of the ship-kill and the steel plaque on the wall of her shipmaster’s cell fell to another.

  ‘Shipmaster Akienas, of the Paragon, hailing,’ Marcarian exclaimed, panting with short bursts of relieved laughter. ‘It’s the fleet.’

  The cheers of those on the command deck followed the aegis frigate Paragon as she cut across her parent ship’s nose. Engine stacks on full burn whited out Dantalion’s viewer and for a moment the escort passed close enough that the electromagnetic distortion generated by the interplay of the two sets of shields whined over every open channel.

  Zerberyn did not cheer. He had never doubted, and there was little to celebrate in seeing others catch up to one’s certainty.

  The escort sailed under as Dantalion went over. The dying Oberon-class battleship cruised between them, trailing plasma discharge and colour distortions as Paragon opened up. Anti-fighter batteries walked down her centre line at devastatingly close range. They struck something critical, an unsecured mega-weapon or a main plasma chamber of the drive core.

  The battleship detonated like an atomic warhead.

  Dantalion blazed inside her shields like a model voidship in a lightning cage. Paragon’s layered shielding failed simultaneously in an explosive moment of brilliance that rivalled the birth of a star. Her starboard side buckled under forced compression. Bent plates spewed atmosphere, and she skewed off wildly on a new trajectory.

  Unshielded ork fighter-bombers that had been emptied out of the Oberon-class’ flight decks were simply obliterated. Muzzle-flash explosions dotted the cloud of attack craft that had been racing in behind. The survivors broke off their run under the barrage of Dantalion’s flak guns and scattered, weaving a craze of propellant tails behind them.

  ‘Track them, shipmaster, see where they go,’ said Zerberyn. ‘Move to cover
Paragon and raise Akienas.’

  ‘Helm, new heading,’ Marcarian relayed. ‘Put us between Paragon and the orks, siphon power to starbord shields, mobilise reserve gunnery teams to dorsal, starboard and ventral flak batteries.’

  The command deck, already a hive of purpose, set about the new orders with a well-drilled efficiency.

  ‘Aye sir, new heading. Plotting turn.’

  ‘No response from Paragon.’

  ‘Reading catastrophic damage to her primary transceiver array. Trying to contact her machine-spirit.’

  On the main viewer, the wreckage of the Oberon-class slowly dispersed.

  ‘The beacon?’ said Zerberyn, impatiently.

  ‘Nothing yet, lord.’

  ‘Lords!’ The elated cry came from the vox-liaison. She tore off her headphones, and leapt out of her chair. ‘Fists Exemplar ships incoming. Chastened. Angel Astra. Unbroken. It’s the whole fleet.’

  ‘Bright skies,’ Marcarian murmured, and closed his good eye.

  ‘Show me,’ said Zerberyn.

  The vid-feed in the oculus switched to a view dorsal aft. There were bits of coiled wire, ice-encrusted cosmic dust that had accumulated around the communication vanes, and macro-turrets around the edge of the image. Beyond the fuzz, a dozen iron-grey splinters hung in space, ranging from aegis frigates a few hundred metres long to mighty strike cruisers a kilometre in length and bristling with armament enough to waste a planetary hemisphere. Explosive shells and high-energy plasma spat between them and the loose agglomeration of ork cruisers that had strayed this far from the main battle area.

  The most likely theoretical was they were a picketing force set to guard the Mandeville point. To what end, Zerberyn could only speculate, but if he was indulging in theoreticals then he might further suppose that it was to ensure that whomever it was currently engaged by the main ork battlegroup did not escape the system.

  More warships translated in all the time, cutting through the empyreal sheath like knives through black silk. Each new arrival brought a burst of vox-chatter that gabbled from the vox-turret hardlines and bled into the general commotion. Void-suited tacticians hurried to update the strategium desk, while vox-personnel spoke on two, or sometimes three, lines at once in an effort to impose the pre-formulated formation protocols on the emerging fleet.