by Thorpe, Gav
‘Four iambic crucibae,’ she groaned, throwing up her hands in despair.
‘Militus Martia!’ her opponent cried in triumph, reverting to crude Gothic in his excitement.
There was a mix of cheers and moans from the onlookers as various side bets were won and lost.
Adrina held out a pudgy, oil-stained hand, his smile not unkind. Half a tattoo was just visible where his wrist entered the tattered white cuff of his overseer’s robe, depicting the iron skull of the Legio icon. He was epilekhtoz, Metalican-born, hence his higher station.
He beckoned with fingers tipped with broken nails, their golden enamel chipped and scratched.
‘Hand it over, vin Jaint. Everyone saw you swear the wager before the Omnissiah’s oracular.’
She delved a hand into one of her coverall’s many pockets and produced a thin sliver of circuit-covered plastek. Adrina leered as he made to snatch it from her fingers. Ghelsa pulled it out of reach.
‘One downshift only,’ she warned, glancing to the others as witnesses. ‘And if you’re caught, you didn’t get it from me.’
Adrina nodded, his fingers twitching in excitement.
‘Come on, come on, my downshift starts soon.’
Eyes narrowed, Ghelsa handed over the forged datachip. The overseer thrust it into an inner pocket of his robe, hiked his chain of office more comfortably around his neck and gave a smile. He stood, head bent to one side to avoid the condensation-dappled coolant pipe that ran through the small chamber.
‘Always a pleasure, vin Jaint. Luckily for all of us you’re a better spindle-wrangler than you are a player of Omnissekh.’ The crowd parted to let Adrina pass and they filed away, ducking beneath the various cables, pipes and other impediments between them and the small hatch that led back into maintenance duct S-11.
Notasa lingered for a moment after the others had left, his gaze suggestive, which was impressive considering his eyes had been mirror-sheathed, the orbs like pure quicksilver.
‘You can’t win at everything, Ghelsa,’ said the diminutive duct-runner. He leaned back against the bulkhead, arching his neck like a contented feline. ‘But no need to be sad for long.’
‘The lower port manifold array is coming loose,’ Ghelsa said with a grimace of lost opportunity. ‘I really should go and fix it.’
‘Always so dutiful,’ snapped Notasa, his anger fuelled by rejection. He flicked stained blond hair from his face, revealing skin pocked with tiny scars from errant welder sparks. ‘You know they’ll never make you epilekhtoz, no matter how hard you work. You’ll always be tributai like the rest of us.’
‘You’ve got it all wrong, berth-friend,’ Ghelsa said, stepping forward. She picked up the metre-long multi-tool she had left beside the door. Its considerable weight was nothing in her grasp, her own significant musculature assisted by a tracery of exo-skeletal cable sealed into her flesh.
‘How about on the downshift?’ Ghelsa asked, feeling the urge to reconcile even though, rationally, she knew she had done nothing wrong.
‘Just go and fix that manifold array,’ muttered Notasa, stepping away from the hatch. ‘Maybe we’ll see each other later.’
Already anxious about the time she had spent playing Omnissekh, Ghelsa aimed a kiss towards Notasa’s cheek, but he retreated, scowling. The spindle-wrangler ducked out into the corridor, stepping out from the relative cool and quiet of the coolant exchange access.
The sound had always been there, of course, and most of the time Ghelsa barely registered it. For three and a half years – Martian-adjusted standard – she had lived on or around the Casus Belli. Since achieving adulthood her existence had been dedicated to the services of the Machine-God, as dictated and directed by the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Yet there were times, like now, when she moved from one part of the downdecks to another and listened again, her attention drawn back to the nuances of her home. There was the obvious noise, the clatter and clank, the grinding of the massive gears, the low pulsing of the reactor links. Any neophyte could identify them within a matter of days. It was the deeper, quieter sounds that were the most welcoming. The hiss of coolant as a spin-off drained heat down from the main reactor exchanges. The ever-present gurgle of waste water falling through the cisterns beneath the starboard decks. The thrum of the pumps inside the capillary towers that took lubricant up to the immense hellstorm cannon.
She stepped into a pass-niche as a trio of sweat-slicked mattokhai labourers dashed past, the uncoupled pieces of their thrum-hammer over their shoulders, power cables swishing like monkey tails. Droplets of perspiration trickled down her cheek and the side of her nose, the heat and humidity of the core-ways as oppressive as the first-hour labour-sermons of the tech-priests. Ghelsa made her way along the corridor, the metal dappled by the pale yellow glow of lumens behind wire cages, in places splashed by the green or amber of a system registry lamp through a grimy inspection plate.
Through the mechanical din she detected organic sounds. The hacking cough of Merkadoa, who was still waiting on a promised new lung after an incident with the trash conflagrator’s secondary exhaust. Chatter. Ceaseless, unintelligible sounds occasionally punctuated by a spurt of screeching, clicking binaric from a passing enginseer, and ever so occasionally the artificially modulated tones of a higher-ranking tech-priest descended from the God-decks to conduct an inspection or investigate a delayed report.
Just as her constitution had adapted to the clammy conditions, and her ears were attuned to the sonic flexes of the internal society of the downdecks, so her eyes were well accustomed to the gloom. With her other senses guiding her unconsciously to her destination, Ghelsa was free to wander almost at will, knowing instinctively where to step around open hatches, dodge across ladder holes and duck beneath intervening cables and piping. It was mid-shift and most of the others were at their stations, the narrow walkways and transit-bridges populated only by occasional movement.
Through the doors and arches she passed she saw other tributai at their work, blotches of white through clouds of vapour. She saw smears of paleness in dark maintenance bays or clustered around the fully robed enginseers as some fundamental duty was enacted or a Principle of Conduct passed on for the appeasement of an itinerant fragment of Casus Belli’s all-encompassing machine-spirit.
Thoughts fixed on her job in the lowest decks, Ghelsa moved on.
The command module dominated the inside of the Imperator Titan’s head. Two massive eye-like screens relayed realtime feeds from thousands of augurs across the war engine, creating a complex representation of the surroundings in both visual and noospheric frameworks. Exasas not only saw the doors of the barge’s hangar as a human would, but knew exactly the composition of the metal and the weight and torsion values, as well as a welter of data on atmospheric pressure, temperature and other tertiary readings. It was the closest he could come to feeling as the Titan felt without the benefit of the mind impulse units to organically share the sensation.
The princeps senioris’ main command throne sat on a dais towards the back of the chamber, looking down at the three moderati positions. Each was a reclining chair beneath a tangle of cables that would connect to the incumbent’s MIU systems. On the left, Moderatus Haili controlled the energies of the plasma annihilator; the twinned position on the right for the hellstorm cannon was the seat of Moderatus Rasdia. The two of them made for their couches, handing their interface helms to the tech-priests attending each station.
Moderatus Gevren was stationed between them, responsible for the activation and monitoring of the rest of the Casus Belli’s considerable arsenal – main battery, defence laser, anti-aircraft systems and point defence weaponry.
In most Titans the moderati were in sole control of their armaments, but the guns of the Casus Belli were too large for a single moderatus to control – or in the case of Gevren, too numerous. They were aided by gunnery teams with the weapons themselves, mostly slaved servitors that acted as extensions of the moderatus’ will, each team o
verseen by a trio of tech-priests to ensure their continued operation.
Between the princeps senioris’ throne and the moderati, and along the outer walls of the chamber to either side, the tech-priests addressed their panels and interfaces. The noosphere crackled with their intent, linking their minds even as dataports and mechadendrites connected them physically with the Omnissiah’s greatest warrior.
Exasas’ position was just behind the moderatus prime, from which he could link into the noosphere signals related to the skitarii systems and personnel. Connecting to the cogitators, he felt the company of warriors settling into their barracks chambers within the two leg-citadels, and several more platoons likewise preparing for departure in the battle stations of the akropoliz.
He could feel the skitarii as a homogeneous force, or relay part of his strategic consciousness into one of a hundred and forty-two separate organisms via their noospheric cortical weaves. In a split second the magos dominus could switch to the individual view of a particular warrior – he picked one on a whim and watched the faces of the three soldiers opposite through his chosen receptacle’s eyes. At the same time, cyclical simulators tracked other battle-pertinent datafeeds, for the moment semi-dormant and reliant on the last orbital data uploads he had taken just before boarding.
Little had changed and the princeps senioris’ assessment that there was only a small probability of infantry engagement remained accurate. Their mission was to break the heretek lines defending a citadel and break into the mountain passes, spearheading the full battle group. It was an overwhelming use of force, mounted not only to sweep aside the barriers to the advances of the Astra Militarum and other skitarii armies, but also to demonstrate the folly of further resistance to the will of the Omnissiah.
Exasas played back his memory-store of the prime dominus’ instruction, passing it through his thoughts and into the minds of his subordinates.
Exasas [broad trans/concept/loop]:
A tremor ran through the noosphere, a throb of intent that channelled into every datafeed. Exasas turned one of his sensory inputs to the princeps senioris and saw that she wore her helm, its MIU cables linking her to the essence of the behemoth she would guide into battle.
Sharing her thoughts, made whole by the metaphorical sacrifice of her consciousness, Casus Belli started to rise from its slumber. The leading edge of a powerful wave of awareness touched upon the noosphere and digital systems flickered into wakefulness, caressing Exasas’ sensory inputs. He heard a sigh from Iealona’s parted lips, grunts and murmurs emanating from the moderati as they were joined to the machine-spirit.
Exasas could not comprehend how it might feel to be one with the god-machine. He could interpret the millions of data-signals and extrapolate sensory curves for eternity and still not know what it was like to share physicality with the might of the Imperator. Only Iealona and her predecessors had shared that singular, glorious experience.
A visual feed highlighted a glint of amber light on the head of the bone cane leaning against the side of the command throne. While monitoring the other developments, Exasas allowed a portion of his thoughts to consider the implications. Princeps senioris, and to a lesser extent moderati, had shortened lifespans due to their connections with the immortal spirits of the Titans. For the Machine-God’s warriors to live, their mortal components had to shed a little of their span. Even as her frail body was failing, the princeps senioris was able to clad her thoughts in the armour and power of the Imperator. She could not escape her mortality – in fact she hastened it – but in the time she had, she could share the body and thoughts of an immortal.
As an exchange, it was not without merit.
The noosphere flared with reports and counter-signals, confirming the readings of the plasma reactor, the online status of motivation and balance systems and the networking of the mind impulse units with the moderati and princeps senioris.
Exasas sent his own confirmations, having spared a moment to check that all skitarii personnel were aboard and at their stations.
Awoken, the spirit of Casus Belli yearned to be free of the confines of the barge. With a final flurry of data exchanges, the tech-priests allowed the reactor to come to full power and the MIU to flow unhindered between the circuits of the Imperator and the synapses of its princeps senioris.
Casus Belli lived.
In semi-aware fashion, Ghelsa traversed the main lateral passages of the Imperator Titan’s downdecks, coming upon the third service shaft from the rear. The mechanism was nothing more than an old autoloader, repurposed by the engine crew for human cargo. Two shafts contained a continuously slow-moving chain, every few metre-long links interspersed with a metal platform just large enough for a foot.
Ghelsa waited at the drop-shaft until the next platform rattled into view and then quickly stepped out, bare foot on the plate, one arm wrapping through a chain link. The descent carried her past the wall of heat that emanated from the sealed reactor decks into the comparative gloom and cool of the motivator and traction assembly. So much quicker than negotiating the monkey-ladders.
She deftly jumped off at the main actuator array – a huge gearing system that powered the left hip joint of the forty-metre-tall war engine. Artificial fibre bundles each thicker than her waist vibrated with latent power while the hiss of immense pneumatics punctuated a steady grinding of metal on metal. The entire compartment shook, a constant tremor that pulsed through the nervous system. Just a few metres away, immense cog teeth that could crush her in moments knitted together, the piercing screech of their contact setting her teeth on edge.
She immediately saw the dysfunction, her experienced eye drawn to the ever-so-slight wobble of a tertiary drive shaft linking in to the main coupling. Here, close to the fulcrum of the hip’s movement, there was little sense of vertical motion compared to the upper downdecks or the heights of the templedecks. The floor rose and lowered laboriously like a ship on a lazy ocean swell. The turn of the gears was a far better indication of the Titan’s stride. At the moment it was at a comfortable cruising pace, perhaps four strides per minute, each step covering some fifteen metres of ground. They had been in motion for a while – since before the dice game had started – and she reckoned the landing barge was now several kilometres behind them.
There was a pause of three and a half seconds at the apogee of the stride during which cantilevers and secondary gyros compensated for the shift of weight from one system to the other. Ghelsa waited, bobbing lightly on the balls of her feet, adjusting the wrench head of the multi-tool to the required bite.
Just as the drop-gear shifted into place, some twenty metres below her the Titan’s massive foot settled into the ground. Ghelsa sprang into action. She pulled herself up onto the box of the main drive train and latched the head of the multi-tool around the errant fitting. Her exo-muscles creaked as she pulled back, one foot braced against a cross-stanchion. One turn. Two… The second pull seized at the halfway mark, fully tightened.
Ghelsa loosened the tool, pulled it free and jumped back to the deck with half a second to spare. She watched the drive system engage again, and listened for an erroneous clatter. The wheel spun smoothly, its low growl testament to a job completed.
‘The Machine-God blesses,’ she intoned, lifting the multi-tool to touch the godplate upon her brow. ‘In praise of the Omnissiah our duty is done.’
She cast her eye around for any other small fixes that might be performed while she was there, but all seemed to be running well. The tributai took a deep breath. The air was thick with lubricant and incense, a mix she had come to know and adore in her time aboard the Casus Belli. Those of different homes might long for the scent of fresh bread or the animals in their pens, but for Ghelsa it was the machine smells that made her feel safe.
By the rattle of the lifter chain she knew a platform was coming around. She stepped back into the alcove without looking, her foot coming upon the plate just as it passed the level of the floo
r.
Taken up once more, she wondered what other tasks awaited her and started to hum a slow inkanta in her contentment.
Two decks up, just below the reactor exchanges, movement and alien sound caught her attention. Through the grille of the deck above she saw a huddle of people wearing the red-lined cloaks of the hyperezia, the tech-priests’ enforcers in the downdecks. Their grunts and shouts were audible above the noise, and Ghelsa could clearly see fists and short staves rising and falling – they were beating someone.
She was not one to interfere in the disciplining of another, but that it took place here in the dark rather than before the peers of the offender struck her as odd. Ghelsa alighted on the deck a few metres away from the gaggle, noting the blood on their knuckles and mauls.
‘What’s happening here?’ she called out.
One of the hyperezia cast a glance over his shoulder, bearded face half shrouded in shadow.
‘Get gone, oil-rat,’ snarled the henchman.
In moving, he revealed something of the victim. Ghelsa glimpsed a blood-spattered hand and a white sleeve, but saw no mark upon the wrist.
‘Ho there, that’s a tributai!’ she shouted, taking another step.
‘He’s a heretek, is what he is,’ one of the others spat back, her face contorted in anger. ‘By word of the moderatus prime.’
Invoking the rank of their superior only worsened their case. It all seemed out of place.
‘You’re killing him.’
‘Want some as well?’ growled the first of the watchmen, lifting his baton towards her.
Ghelsa covered the distance in three strides, the last of which was accompanied by the upswing of the multi-tool. Powered by momentum, thick muscle and reinforced armature, the heavy metal implement struck the hyperezia’s chin at full speed.
Bone splintered and the guard toppled back, blood spraying from his ruined mouth.
Ghelsa was no warrior, but her augmented body gave her strength enough to compensate for a lack of skill. Her next blow shattered the baton raised to ward it away and smashed into the chest of the man holding it, hurling him backwards with a broken breastbone. A fist glanced off her cheek – nothing worse than she had suffered in one of her spats with Notasa or a fight in the narc-hide. Her return blow to the woman’s gut lifted the hyperezia off her feet, the air exploding from her lungs in a hoarse whistle. The guard crumpled, gasping, while the remaining three backed off, their rods held warily before them.
