by Thorpe, Gav
Exasas-primary [inquiry]:
Exasas-secondary:
Exasas-primary [directive]:
Exasas-secondary [negative]:
Exasas-primary [inquiry]:
Exasas-secondary [theory]:
Exasas-primary [imperative/directive]:
Exasas-secondary [affirmative]
They rumbled upwards without conversation. With nothing to distract her, Ghelsa’s thoughts returned to her predicament. Her hands started to tremble, causing the callipers of her exo-phalanges to click rapidly.
‘You weren’t very convincing earlier, when you said you’d call off the hunt for me.’
‘I will ensure your safety once I retrieve my sigil and contact the skitarii dominus.’
Ghelsa nervously tapped her metallic fingertips against the cage wall until a scowl from the inquisitor stopped her.
‘They say that an inquisitor can kill a world,’ she said, far more cheerfully than she had intended.
‘Who are “they”?’
‘Stories. Bunk chat. Is it true?’
‘It is called exterminatus. And yes, it is within the authority of an inquisitor.’
Ghelsa nodded. She felt on edge, bordering on frantic. She put her hand on the control lever, using it as an anchor, a connection to the real world when everything seemed so dream-like.
After a moment, Harkas laid his hand on the back of hers. There was blood under his fingernails and his knuckles were swollen.
‘Have you ever ordered exterminatus?’ she asked.
‘Twice.’
She studied his face for a deeper reaction, but there was nothing there. She could read more emotion in the metallic features of a tech-priest. He was so steady, so solid, that her giddiness subsided just by looking at him. It was reassuring in a way. If someone had the power to destroy a world, she wouldn’t want them to be prone to excessive emotion.
‘They could not be saved,’ Harkas continued. He took his hand away and folded his arms. ‘It was better that their corruption did not spread to other worlds.’
‘That’s why you’d prefer the Casus Belli to be destroyed rather than turned against the Imperium.’
‘I see that you are starting to gain a better perspective.’
Ghelsa realised she had lost count of the number of decks they had passed and looked at the numeral dial. They approached the pentaz. Two more to go.
They clanked past the tesseraz in silence. Harkas reached past her and pulled the handle to the braking position, bringing them to a halt as the indicator dial reached the third numeral.
‘Are you ready?’ he asked, his hand hovering over the manual door activation. Ghelsa nodded even though she didn’t feel ready at all. Staying in the elevator cage wasn’t going to improve her situation.
While the devolved persona started running its own simulations and data-mining, Exasas returned his main focus to the ongoing battle, shunting across any relevant data as it arose. Counter-battery fire had reduced the thunder of the quake cannons to an erratic booming and proximity to Az Khalak prevented further attack from orbit. Like ants beneath the attention of one of his skitarii, streams of infantry fled through the ruins unmolested as the Titans directed their ire against the main defences. The troops that remained posed little threat to the Imperator, but the opportunity to deploy the skitarii seemed obvious to Exasas. He made no such request, calculating a high probability of rebuttal and further unpleasant possibility of censure.
The Casus Belli had reached the slope of the city outskirts – more accurately the main cordon wall that encompassed the outer settlement. Ragged breaches in the thick ferrocrete barrier gave ingress to streaming lines of traitors on foot, but the gates were barred, leaving scores of tanks abandoned on the roadways leading to them. Engine detonations accompanied each of the Titan’s steps as it advanced along the main highway, armoured vehicles like the shells of insects crushed beneath a careless soldier’s tread.
Iealona [imperative]:
A spur of urgency from all three moderati betrayed their competitive rivalry as each attempted to bring their weapons to bear before the others. Exasas detected power level warnings throbbing through the noosphere from the reactor, but they were quickly erased by a command protocol from the princeps senioris directing all available energy to weapons fire.
It was Haili’s plasma annihilator that discharged its rage first, targeting the western tower – a blocky hexagonal fortification studded with heavy weapon ports. Three bright stars flashed into the building in rapid succession and a trio of blast waves pulsed out, dispersing the atomised remains of the tower’s structure. The gate sagged, but held for a few more seconds until the combined fire of Gevren’s main battery, defence laser and akropoliz gun towers shredded the reinforced metal with a blinding barrage.
Rasdia’s annoyance flooded the noosphere, the target obliterated before his hellstorm cannon had built up to firing speed. With a whine audible even within the command module, the weapon powered down, its multiple barrels slowing to a stop.
Rasdia:
Haili:
Iealona [rebuke]:
It was indeed a sobering thought, and one that Exasas pondered as the Casus Belli strode through the smoke of the gate remains. To either side the wall proved little obstacle to the Warlords, whose fists and guns broke apart wide sections to allow them to pass, tumbling the broken pieces upon the bodies of the dead as all the works of traitors would be toppled.
Exasas [direct trans/closed/Monderas/inquiry]:
Monderas [direct trans/closed/Exasas]:
Exasas [direct trans/closed/Monderas/inquiry]:
Monderas [direct trans/closed/Exasas/theory]:
Exasas [direct trans/closed/Monderas/inquiry]:
Monderas [direct trans/closed/Exasas/theory]:
This caused a worry to shiver through Exasas’ cognitive processors.
Exasas [direct trans/closed/Monderas/inquiry]:
Monderas [direct trans/closed/Exasas]:
Exasas [direct trans/closed/Monderas]:
Exasas-secondary [direct trans/closed/Monderas/Exasas-primary/inquiry]:
Monderas [direct trans/closed/Exasas-primary/Exasas-secondary/interrogative]:
Exasas-primary [direct trans/closed/Monderas/apologies]:
Monderas [direct trans/closed/Exasas-primary/Exasas-secondary]:
Exasas-secondary [direct trans/closed/Exasas-primary/Monderas/inquiry]:
Monderas [direct trans/closed/Exasas-primary/Exasas-secondary]:
Exasas felt the secondary persona parse both of his neurocomponents away from the noosphere, ending the dialogue with Monderas.
Exasas-secondary [theory]:
Exasas-primary:
Exasas-secondary:
His purpose fulfilled, Exasas started to subsume the split persona but asked a last question before wholly absorbing his data.
Exasas-primary [inquiry]: Why would the enemy wish to degrade the numbers of the battle group but not destroy an Imperator Titan?>
Exasas-secondary:
The area of the downdecks was just below the antae and temple gates of the tech-priests, through which they could pass to and from the akropoliz. The smell of incense was heavy, drifting down through grates in the ceiling just above their heads. It was almost pitch black, given over almost entirely to the immense gearing and levers of the weapons mounts. Patches of ruddy light gleamed on lubricated metal, showing scattered glimpses of spinning axles and gears. The steady chugging of the autoloader beltfeed made everything tremble. Somewhere nearby, but unseen, a tech-priest chanted low ministrations to a faltering motor.
Further up the Imperator’s torso the motion of its gait was more pronounced. Ghelsa walked along the deck without problem, compensating for the movement. Harkas had a harder time of it, swaying like an infant.
‘You’ll need to leave the robe,’ Ghelsa said. She pointed to a series of handholds cut into the plasteel of a slanted stanchion. Just a few centimetres below the brace a pair of gears creaked round as the moderatus of the hellstorm cannon adjusted aim.
A yellow light sparked into dim life above their heads.
‘Cover your ears and open your mouth!’ Ghelsa obeyed her own instruction as Harkas put his hands to the side of his head without question.
The hellstorm opened fire.
Thunder resonated across the deck, filling the air with sound and flakes of rust. Even with her hands clasped tightly over her ears, Ghelsa felt the enormous pressure of the cannon’s rapid pounding. It made her teeth ache and her gut tighten.
One Omnissiah… Two Omnissiah… Three Omnissiah… she counted, blinking away the dust. Five seconds the burst lasted, as long as a lifetime amid the deafening noise.
The tumult stopped. The yellow warning light disappeared. Harkas mouthed something, but her ears were ringing too loudly to tell what he had said and the light was too dim to read his lips. She pointed at her ear and shrugged.
He shook his head and shucked off his robe. She thought he was naked at first, but his skin caught the light with a glossy sheen. He was tightly muscled, barely any fat on his body at all. As he moved she saw pockets in the flesh – small bulges on his pectorals and abdomen concealing small pieces of gear, and a slender dagger sheathed into his thigh.
‘Synskin,’ he said, his voice raised above the background throb of the autoloader. He gestured for her to approach and took her wrist, laying her hand on his arm. It felt cold and slightly plastek. ‘Hit me.’
‘What?’
He pointed to his stomach. ‘Hit me and see what happens.’
Frowning, she complied, driving her fist into his gut. At the instant of impact the secondary skin hardened. The force of the blow staggered him, but the synthetic skin protected him from any internal damage.
‘The hyperezia were hardly hurting you at all,’ she said.
‘That is not quite true.’ Harkas raised a finger to his swollen cheek and eye. ‘But they did less harm than you thought.’
‘So you probably would have fought them off if I hadn’t come along…’
‘I am glad that you did,’ he said. ‘They were instructed to kill me. Even if I had overcome them, I think I would have been apprehended again, as you warned.’
Ghelsa collapsed the multi-tool and slid it into a sheath on her belt. She reached for a grip-hole on the stanchion and pulled herself up to the first step. She looked back at the inquisitor.
‘That almost sounded like thanks.’
‘Thank you, Ghelsa vin Jaint.’ He clasped his hands to his chest and nodded. ‘So often those of us that struggle to protect the Imperium do so in the darkness, without fame or gratitude.’
With his repeated attempts to interpret the enemy’s intentions failing, Exasas dedicated the majority of his attention back to the wider battle. He synchronised with the surveyor arrays of the Casus Belli to get a sense of the situation while a sub-processing routine accumulated tertiary dataflow from the noospheric wash of the moderati. Though it was far from the perfect interaction afforded by the MIU links, this approximation provided sufficient clarity for the magos to construct artificial sense of the conflict.
The greater part of the enemy army had been destroyed or routed, leaving the ruined streets between the Titans and the citadel a near-deserted rubble wasteland. With no concern given to the preservation of civilian life or structure, the Titans had enjoyed free rein with their weapons. Whole districts had been flattened, and across nearly half of the fortified city barely a structure more than two storeys high had survived.
In places Exasas detected collapse patterns more suggestive of demolition works than warfare. Correlating these positions to the database of the city’s geography, he discovered that many of them had been of significance to the Imperial or Adeptus Mechanicus authorities.
It was simple enough to surmise that the traitors had started deconstruction before the arrival of the Omnissiah’s punitive forces. It seemed counterproductive to put resources into destruction rather than construction, particularly in the face of likely retribution for their rebellion.
The majority of Az Khalak had been under the jurisdiction of Adeptus Terra. Administratum tithe houses
and Adeptus Arbites had been knocked down, along with several Adeptus Ministorum shrines. Whether the rebels had intended to replace them with edifices of their own misguided cult would have to remain pure speculation. Other efforts to expunge the Imperial presence seemed less conclusive. Larger housing blocs and private estates had been razed, presumably due to the pro-Imperial leanings of their former occupants.
It had been a far more calculating erasure than that being enacted by the Legio Metalica. The Titans pulverised the remnants of homes and storehouses beneath their tread while their weapons unleashed laser and plasma against the buttressed wall of the keep at the city’s heart. The decision to conserve ammunition in favour of energy-based weaponry pleased Exasas on the grounds of general resource management, but a few quick equations proved it was poor for immediate kill-efficiency.
Exasas [inquiry]:
Monderas [datalog packet]
Registering the transmission time, Exasas realised he had been distracted by the exchange with his secondary persona when the princeps senioris had issued a revised mission objective. He unpacked the command.
Iealona [imperative]:
It was unorthodox, both in timing and nature, but the datalog confirmed that the order had been issued via the princeps senioris’ MIU noospheric interface. Backtracking through the archive, Exasas discovered a spike of inter-moderati traffic prior to the announcement, but the details of their interactions were codelocked against examination. This was also unusual but not without precedent. Exasas tried not to interpret his exclusion as a personal slight, but given that the communications had been sealed by Gevren’s authority it was not a possibility he could wholly discount.
