by Thorpe, Gav
The standoff was interrupted by a sudden motion from the Casus Belli. Exasas broke off from his rival and hurried to the frontal parapet. The last of the relief augmentatii were racing up the steps of the port bastions, those within the starboard already secured as the foot started to lift. He swung back towards Olvatia.
‘The princeps senioris is keen to avoid delays.’ He measured his next words and opted to voice them as suggestion rather than command until the matter of hierakos was unified between them. ‘You should deploy your troops within so that we can secure the akropoliz.’
Olvatia did not reply immediately, and Exasas suspected she would try to force the issue of dominance. Instead she extended a noospheric frond to his receptors.
Olvatia [conciliatory]:
It seemed a strange thing to say, effectively suggesting that they ignore the protocols of hierakos. Exasas toyed with the idea of exerting his position more strenuously, but in an effort to maintain amity, he did not argue the point.
Exasas [conciliatory]
He undulated alongside the other magos and extended a limb towards the open gateway.
‘My alphas and battle-priests are keen to integrate our conjoined forces.’
A noospheric pulse from Olvatia had the augmentatii running to the gate a second later, followed more serenely by the two magi.
As the battle group headed into the storm-wreathed valley the interference grew stronger. Arcs of scarlet fire played across the void shields, each lightning strike rippling coruscations of bright purple and white about the Titans. Dark hail started to fall, some of the stones as large as fists. They posed no threat to the armour of a war engine, but soon the constant drumming became an audible counterpart to the static-crackle that beset the noosphere and vox-links. Wherever Exasas extended his senses, be it biological or digital, a numbing drone greeted her.
Visibility was similarly impaired. In the gloom beneath the immense thunderhead, storm lamps lit the way, their beams seeming to flicker in the monumental deluge. Datafeeds sputtered and stalled beneath the onslaught of electromagnetic discharge and feedback surges rattled into the magos’ system like impact vibrations.
He had returned to his monitor station to witness the Casus Belli’s entry into the stormfront, but doing so had meant leaving Olvatia alone in the akropoliz. Between the intermissions inflicted by the storm activity and the augmentatii proprietary cipher channels, it was impossible for her to study exactly what the new arrivals were doing. Exasas was forced to use visual and auditory feeds from across the Titan to supplement the intermittent noospheric data, which was a time-consuming process.
A few minutes after crossing the outer boundary of the tempest, they lost contact with the rest of the battle group. Like sparks whirled away on a hurricane, the noospheric signatures of the other Titans disappeared, leaving the Casus Belli to forge along with only the glimmer of their lamps to signal their positions.
Monderas:
Exasas did not agree, but chose not to voice any doubts. The matter of his continued command rank had not been brought up again since the arrival of the new skitarii contingent, but he was of no mind to draw attention to herself in the eye of the princeps senioris.
Iealona had been silent since Exasas’ return to the czella, an absence of communication easily explained by the need to focus all of her effort on guiding the Imperator through the storm. In contrast to Monderas’ attempt at positivity, Exasas found herself drawn into a declining morale gradient by the thought that their uninterrupted advance served the purposes of the enemy more than their own. If his conclusions that the traitors had been attempting to weaken the rest of the battle group were correct, the isolating influence of the electrical tempest furthered that end.
Risking a repeat accusation of data-paranoia from Monderas, the magos connected to the surveyor systems and ran his own analysis as a redundant process. The dataflow was painfully sporadic, utterly non-existent in some quadrants during particularly excessive storm discharges. Even the lamps of the other Titans had become almost invisible in the darkness, so that it seemed the Casus Belli advanced alone through a tunnel of blackness lit only by the reflections of light from the curtain of hail.
According to the archive logs there were old settlements dug into the mountains on either side, storm-shielded to protect the inhabitants from just the kind of elemental rage that currently engulfed the valley. There was a significant probability that the enemy were using those subterranean dwellings at that moment, poised to attack when the storm’s fury abated.
A worrying track of logic drew Exasas into further extrapolation. If the hereteks were ensconced within the mountains in any conflict-viable numbers, they might mount a problematic counter-attack against the forces securing the remains of Az Khalak. Devoid of the battle group’s considerable firepower and yet to establish their own defensive positions, the tech-guard were vulnerable to a rapidly launched assault.
Exasas:
Monderas [interrogative]:
Exasas:
Gevren:
Haili [injunctive]:
Exasas:
Gevren:
Exasas:
Monderas [intercessionary]:
Exasas:
Gevren:
Exasas [emphatic]:
Monderas:
Exasas:
Gevren:
Exasas:
Iealona:
The sudden emergence of the princeps’ senioris presence surprised Exasas, as did her question. He sensed a flurry of moderati-princeps traffic across the distorted noosphere. Although it was a direct contravention of hierakos, the pattern suggested that Gevren and the other moderati were exerting undue influence over their superior. If there was a moment for Exasas to reiterate his case, it was now. It was his duty to challenge the logic of the others, but with another dominus on board Exasas felt insecure in his position of command.
He hesitated, keeping his fears to herself.
Iealona:
And with that pronouncement, all further discussion was thwarted. Against Exasas’ grave misgivings, the Casus Belli would press on.
An insistent signal through the static of the noosphere finally drew Exasas’ attention. It was a latent communication from Olvatia that had been inserted during their first contact, time-coded to not make itself known immediately. Exasas treated the data-packet with suspicion, just the latest in a series of increasingly unorthodox occurrences that had beset her and the Casus Belli since they had started their attack on Az Khalak.
There was a pattern to be discovered, he was sure of it. He could see the edges – the extant facts of the enemy’s behaviour and the spiralled intertwining events that had brought the battle group to its current status. Yet no amount of examination revealed the hub that connected them. Exasas knew well enough that the centre was not only the end point of the calculation – it was also the beginning. He knew that if he could decipher the meaning of the enemy’s actions and properly extrapolate them to a defined outcome, there would be an evident counter to it.
There were other, more disturbing factors to take into consideration. Facets of the moderati’s behaviour – perhaps even Monderas’ – that raised more questions. The arrival of the other magos dominus possibly implicated some sort of politicking at the Legio command level.
It was not unusual, though less common within the Legio than the wider Cult Metalica. The demands of hierakos and the ambitions of individual magi meant factionalisation was inevitable. In some social models it was even deemed desirable, though as a strict militarist Exasas viewed dissent and internal competition as inefficient compared to cooperation against external threat.
Although it had probably held back his progression into the higher ranks, Exasas had previously remained explicitly neutral in such affairs. A power struggle within the upper echelons of the Legio Metalica would explain some of the idiosyncrasies of their current deployment, but the magos dominus was determined not to be drawn into it on account of it being a distraction from completing his theorem.
The time capsule attracted his attention again, with increased vitality. Still unsure, Exasas created a sub-persona to engage with the message, shielding the greater part of herself from contact. Sub-Exasas accessed the data-stub with the care and circumspection of a surgitas trying to remove an unexploded bolt from a patient.
#security.of.casus.belli.compromised#immediate.action.necessary#consultation.required#auditory.exchange.only#main.battery.magazine#
The message confirmed Exasas’ opinion that the crew of the Casus Belli were being subjected to an unseen manipulation at the cost of operational effectiveness. As an outsider Olvatia had an ideal perspective to determine these irregularities, although the clandestine nature of her communication did not bode well for any ambition on her part to bring the issue to light with the rest of the command crew. It was reasonable to assume that she wished to pass on whatever information she had to Exasas to avoid becoming embroiled herself – although her presence on the Imperator was already evidence that she was unwittingly involved.
Even so, the promise of further data on the subject was sufficient to temper Exasas’ suspicions. He registered his desire to depart the command module. Though he needed no justification to do so, he felt the need to provide an excuse. The lie came with shocking ease.
Exasas:
None of the others responded, so Exasas disconnected the physical links to his station and departed without further comment.
The corridor filled with noise and brightness as Delta 6-Terror opened fire. Burning rounds from the phosphor blasters hammered into the hyperezia, setting fire to clothes and flesh with intense bursts of whiteness. Their screams were drowned out by the din as the battle-construct’s salvo continued, round after round tearing apart the hapless servants of the Machine-God.
All bar one of them collapsed straight away, riddled with burning holes where white flickers of flame still danced. That one survived to flail down the corridor, clothes ablaze, his screams pitched higher than any sound Ghelsa had imagined a human could make.
The hiss of still-burning projectiles sounded disproportionately loud in the quiet that followed. Fat sputtered amid steaming vapours, accompanied by the thud of a twitching boot or slap of a hand spasm. The stench of charred flesh mixed with the already noxious odour of the skitarii bodies, and in combination it was too much for Ghelsa. She staggered to the wall and vomited, her legs weak beneath her. She trembled, only the exo-skeleton keeping her upright as she retched again, her bile acrid with incense aftertaste.
‘You…’ She took a breath and leaned her head against the wall. The pressure against her brow-cog helped cut through the fog of her thoughts. ‘You could have warned them.’
Anger flared. She whirled on Harkas, multi-tool raised. He shook his head, his eyes widening, and it was only as Delta 6-Terror started to turn towards her that she realised her mistake. She let the metal fall from her fingers to clang to the floor, stepping back with her hands over her head so that she presented no threat.
She stood like that for several seconds, fixing Harkas with a venomous glare. The click of servitor tracks drew her eye back to the incineratorum. They laboured without interruption, dragging away bodies. One of them raised its head, saw the freshly slain hyperezia and cruised down the passageway towards them, claw-arms outstretched.
‘You should have warned them,’ she said again. ‘They would have had to let us go.’
‘Or summoned a magos or officer with the authority to revoke our faith status.’ He frowned. ‘This was your intention, not mine. I wanted to esc–’
He glanced at the warbot and evidently decided against finishing the sentence.
‘You were commanded to deliver us to the hyperezia,’ said Harkas. He stepped over the burnt corpses and retrieved the two laspistols. He offered one to Ghelsa, but she declined with a shake of her head. ‘You have achieved your mission.’
The automaton pointed a blaster at the smoking remains.
‘Your mission is to protect us,’ Ghelsa said quickly, realising the potential of having a kastelan bodyguard.
illations.
The construct stomped along the passage back towards the atrium. Harkas put a finger to his lips to quieten Ghelsa as she opened her mouth to call after it. A slight shake of his head silenced her protest of his dismissive gesture. When the machine had turned the corner into the connecting passageway, the inquisitor let out a long sigh.
‘It is better for us that it doesn’t think we are still in custody,’ he explained. ‘At least we will not get shot for taking a wrong turn that it interprets as us trying to escape.’
Harkas returned to the bodies and pulled his sigil from the hyperezia leader’s grip, breaking off a charred finger as he did so. He held it up, his expression similar to Notasa’s when he had not seen Ghelsa in too long. Thoughts of her fellow tributai spurred a sudden sickness in Ghelsa. Though only a few hours had passed since she had first seen the inquisitor, it felt as though she had been away from her people for an age.
‘Go,’ she said, retrieving her multi-tool.
Harkas looked at her, contemplative, and hung the chain around his neck.
‘Go?’ he said. ‘What do you mean?’
Ghelsa pointed at the Inquisitorial badge. ‘You can complete your mission now.’ She turned her stare back to the corpses of the hyperezia. ‘I’m done with this murder.’
CHAPTER 10
POWERLESS
To expedite his progress to the higher levels of the akropoliz, Exasas sped to one of the vertical conveyors that had been shut down during the boarding attack. He summoned the car with a noospheric broadcast and likewise set the container into motion for the battery level after he had curled his form into its cage-like interior.
As he ascended he could see as well as sense Olvatia’s augmentatii spread around the akropoliz. He had counted one hundred and forty warriors disembarking from the skyspears and assumed a similar number had entered each of the bastions in the lower legs. Four hundred and twenty skitarii soldiers were nearly one hundred more than he had commanded at the outset of the campaign, and quadruple the troops now at his disposal.
