‘Master Surcouf, I owe you an apology,’ he said.
Roboute was taken aback. Of all the things he might have expected from Kotov, an apology wasn’t high on the list.
‘You do?’
‘Yes,’ said Kotov. ‘Because you were right. One larger problem is simply a series of more manageable problems. We have alerted Magos Blaylock to Telok’s perfidy, but it is not enough to warn others and expect them to fight our battles. We must take action to stop Telok. We have to stop the Breath of the Gods from ever leaving Exnihlio.’
‘So what’s our next move?’ said Roboute.
‘Simple,’ said Kotov. ‘We make our way back to the surface and kill Vettius Telok.’
Another arcing web of lightning crackled into existence aboard the Speranza, where granite priests of Mars whose deeds had long since been eclipsed flanked a dusty processional nave. Here stood a magos whose achievements Roboute Surcouf had once vowed to uncover, but never bothered to seek out.
The storm of lightning expanded at a geometric rate.
Forking tongues of corposant leapt from statue to statue and detonated each one with a thunderous crack of splitting stone and shearing rebars.
Last to be destroyed was the statue of Magos Vahihva of Pharses, who exploded in a bellowing fury of rock and fire. The swirling lightstorm seethed and raged around the vault of pulverised statuary, dragging their fragmented matter into the coalescing mass of a crystalline warrior-construct.
The attackers manifesting throughout the Speranza were little more than inert crystal, their latticework structure threaded with billions of tiny bio-imitative machines that gave them motion.
Equipped with limited autonomy by superlative rites of cortex evokatus developed by Archmagos Telok after his abortive expedition to Naogeddon, they manifested a cognitive awareness of their surroundings and behaviour that had all the appearance of being inventively reactive.
They were in fact bound by strict protocols of engagement and limited in intelligence by the number of micro-machines in each manifestation.
But what was manifesting in the processional nave was something else entirely. Within a raging supernova of white-green energy, a crystalline giant took shape. Fashioned and empowered by the critical mass of Telok’s machines aboard the Speranza, it was a macrocosm of synaptic connections far in advance of even the largest life form.
Each connection was useless in and of itself, but capable of combining the networked potential of every single crystalith into something greater than the sum of its many parts.
Taller than a Dreadnought, its crystalline limbs were hooked and tined, rippling with biomorphic induction energy. Its body was constantly in motion, cracking and reshaping as each new form was tested for lethality. Sometimes brutish and ogre-like, sometimes quadrupedal like a glass centaur. Other times it became a multi-limbed horror in the form of a clawed scorpinoid.
A host of guardian beasts surrounded it, bulky constructs of crystal with mantis-like blade limbs, glassy shields and angular skulls like vulpine hunters.
The alpha-creature’s newly awakened consciousness spread throughout the crystaliths aboard the Speranza like a wireless plague. It connected to the thousands of warrior-constructs and took away their autonomy.
And the apparently undirected nature of the attackers changed instantly to something singularly directed and driven by ferocious intent.
The Secutor temple squatted in the Speranza’s midships. Monolithic and threatening, it was the fiefdom of Magos Dahan. Its frontage was a weapon-studded cliff of glossy black stone cut from the bedrock of Tallarn, its only visible entrance a towering gate of black adamantium.
An enormous fanged skull variant of the Icon Mechanicus normally kept the gate sealed, but not today.
Mechanicus war engines rolled from the gate, spider-legged flame-tanks, praetorian phase-field guns, quad-cannons on armoured tracks and Rhino variants with turret-mounted graviton cannons. Following them came the clan-companies, augmented cybernetic warriors with baroque armour and technological variants of feral weapons.
The skitarii cohorts rolled from the gate to a central hub chamber below the temple. War-logisters with hook-bladed banners directed the warrior packs to radial transits that offered swift deployment throughout the ship. Braying skitarii warhorns and raucous war cries shook the walls as they clambered aboard their transports.
At the heart of the temple was the command vault, a cavernous bunker filled with banks of clattering logic engines at which sat hundreds of calculus-logi, strategos and members of the Analyticae. Ticker-tape machines spat punch-cards of orders and contact reports. Binaric chants relayed multi-layered vox and catechisms of praise in equal measure. Noospheric veils steamed from the ground. Servo-skulls flitted through the veils of light, recording, bearing messages or dispensing cryptic quotes from the Omnissiah in an aspect of the Destroyer.
Like a spider at the centre of its web, Magos Hirimau Dahan drank in the volumes of information, let it fill him. His body was a true hybrid of flesh and machine, weaponry and combat actuators. Dahan was a bio-mechanical engine geared for one purpose and one purpose only.
Killing.
And right now, his every faculty was engaged in the killing of the crystalline invaders of the Speranza. Thousands of boarding actions cycled through Dahan’s awareness, the particulars of each combat parsed and either discarded or added to the growing database of likely outcomes.
He processed engagements large and small – mass assaults on capital ships, desperate counter-boardings of mid-displacement cruisers, grappling actions of burning gunboats. The free-associative portions of his inloaded combat-memes were replete with notable boarding actions that offered the closest correlations with the current action.
Assault on the Circe by warriors alleged to be World Eaters.
Capture of the Dovenius Spear by the Ultramarines First Company.
Destruction of the Ophidium Gulf by the Dark Angels.
His battle-management wetware was currently processing two hundred and twenty-six separate engagements throughout the ship, each existing in a discrete compartment of thought within his neuromatrix. Everything from running firefights in cramped and darkened corridors to clashes between enormous crystalline hosts and skitarii cohorts through statue-lined processionals. Enemy war machines and Mechanicus heavy ordnance clashed in echoing maintenance hangars.
The fight for the Speranza would not be ended in a single glorious and decisive battle – what war ever really was? – it would be won or lost by incremental victories or defeats.
A holographic map shimmered in the air before him. Spectral grid lines rotated as Dahan’s upper manipulator arms spun them to display the relevant sections of the Speranza’s topography. Cadian positions were marked in blue, Mechanicus in gold and known hostile forces in red.
Dahan saw them all.
The enemy’s ability to appear without warning throughout the ship was Dahan’s biggest problem. Boarders constrained to fixed or predictable entry points could easily be contained and destroyed.
Boarders appearing at random were not so easily corralled.
The lack of cohesion was proving to be a bane as much as a boon.
It allowed no definitive plan to be formed. Instead, Dahan’s defence was relying on reactive deployments and rapidly mobile forces stationed at crucial nexus points.
Dahan shook his head. This was no way to fight. Too random, too unknown. His sub-cortical pattern recognition mechanisms were unable to attach any predictability to the attack. Dahan was left to make numerous command decisions in total ignorance of the enemy’s intentions or movements.
Was this how mortals fought?
No wonder the battles of the Imperial Guard were such bloodbaths. Fighting to such an inefficient model of war, it was hardly surprising the rate of attrition within Imperial regiments was so high. Though, to be fair, the Cadians aboard the Speranza were maintaining a high ratio of combat kills to casualties.
Information came from all across the ship in pulsed bursts of rapid-fire data. Dahan answered them just as swiftly.
++Intruders detected, sub-deck 77-Rho, Section Occident++
++Clan Belladonna report 73 per cent losses. Combat ineffective in four minutes++
++Cadian positions Alpha-44 through Alpha-48 withdrawing to Axis Gamma-33++
Something in the nature of that withdrawal triggered a response in Dahan’s pattern recognition matrix and he spun out of the closed-in view on the holographic to a larger scale view.
The reason for the Cadian redeployment was easy to see.
A fresh batch of invaders had manifested on their flanks and was moving to cut off their supporting companies and line of retreat. Other enemy forces shifted their focus, suddenly breaking off engagements, initiating others or realigning their vectors of attack.
Like a missing piece of a puzzle, this fresh batch of invaders instantly brought terrible focus to the enemy attack.
‘Finally, you have your cohesion,’ said Dahan, recognising the appearance of a higher command authority within the enemy ranks and finding that he had been anticipating this moment.
It took him less than a picosecond to see the new objective of the enemy forces and realise that Captain Hawkins had been correct.
Enemy forces were perfectly poised to take the training deck.
And from there, the bridge.
Roboute slumped onto his haunches, fighting to draw air into his lungs. He rubbed the heels of his palms down his thighs while stretching his calves out in front of him. He had no idea how far they’d climbed, but was already resigning himself to the fact there was still a long way to the surface.
This cavern shelf was, like the rest of the steps cut through the planet’s rock, lined with split crystalline panels and littered with granular black ash. The eldar and Black Templars were already here, keeping a wary distance between each other. Most of Ven Anders’s Cadians kneaded the muscles in their legs or drank the last of their water.
Anders himself paced like a restless lion, eager to get back into the fight.
‘Long climb, eh?’ grinned the Cadian colonel, looking like he’d only been for a brisk walk. ‘Best to keep the legs moving. You don’t want to get a cramp and seize up. Pull that Achilles tendon and it’ll be months before it’s fit for purpose.’
‘I’ll take that chance,’ said Roboute.
‘Come on,’ said Anders. ‘I thought you Ultramar types were fit?’
Roboute wanted to hate Anders right now, but only ended up envying the man’s fitness. He nodded and said, ‘Back in the day, I’d have given you a run for your money, Ven. But right about now I feel like I’ve climbed to the very summit of Hera’s Crown. It’s times like this I wish I’d kept up my defence auxilia training regimes aboard the Renard.’
Anders grinned and offered Roboute a canvas-wrapped canteen.
‘This climb isn’t so tough,’ said the Anders. ‘Reminds me of the livestock trails over the Caducades Mountains I used to run when I was a lad.’
‘Everything here reminds you of Cadia,’ said Roboute, taking a mouthful of water.
Anders shrugged. ‘Because it’s all so Emperor-damned awful.’
Roboute didn’t have an answer to that.
Finding a route out of the hrud prison complex had proven to be more difficult than getting in, though the eventual solution turned out to be far simpler. The rusted funicular had made its last journey in bringing them to the repulsive alien warrens, and no amount of coaxing by Kotov could force it to move. The archmagos had refused Pavelka’s offer of help, and when Roboute asked her about it, all she would say was that Kotov was a man closed to alternative thinking.
In the end it had been one of Kotov’s servo-skulls that found a way out, a crooked canyon of steps concealed against the cave wall behind a mass of collapsed crystalline machinery. The skitarii and Templars cleared the crumbling shards of crystal and so the climb back to the surface had begun.
Roboute had thought himself reasonably fit, but soon lost track of time after the first four hours of climbing through the claustrophobic stairs burrowed through the rock. The gruelling ascent punished his every indulgence and excuse to avoid exercising in each muscle-burning step and laboured breath.
An hour later, he’d paused to reach into his coat pocket and check his astrogation compass. Since pointing unerringly towards the universal assembler, the needle had resumed its old habit of bouncing between every possible direction.
‘Does that guide you?’ asked one of the green-armoured eldar, standing above him on the steps. Roboute tried to decide if the alien was male or female beneath the armour, but quickly gave up.
‘Sometimes,’ he said between breaths. ‘But not now.’
‘The Phoenix King teaches us that talismans only guide us when we are lost and without purpose,’ said the eldar warrior.
‘I feel pretty lost right now,’ said Roboute.
The warrior looked puzzled by Roboute’s admission. ‘Why? We have a thread to cut, a life to end. No surer path exists anywhere in the skein.’
‘And here I thought Bielanna was the farseer.’
‘In matters of death, all warriors are seers,’ said the eldar, springing away and making a mockery of Roboute’s exertions.
He bit back an oath and continued onwards, step by grinding step.
Every footstep crunched over broken shards of glass and ash, making the ground treacherous underfoot. He and Pavelka steadied each other, him guiding her hesitant steps, her augmented limbs helping to keep him upright.
Kotov and his skitarii brought up the rear, the two cybernetic warriors helping to steady Kotov, whose gyros were having trouble in keeping him balanced on the crooked steps.
Now, slumped with his back against the wall, Roboute finally had the opportunity to catch his breath. This chance to rest was a blessing straight from the hand of the Emperor Himself.
Roboute eased his breathing into a more regular pattern, flexing the muscles of his legs and closing his eyes. It seemed ridiculous to want to sleep at a time like this, but he’d been sustaining such a heightened edge of perception for so long that the rest of his body was beginning to shut down.
Despite his best efforts, sleep eluded him, so he gave up and ran through a series of muscle-lengthening stretches and mental exercises to order his thoughts and clear the mind.
He pictured the world above and replayed the secrets Telok had voiced in the expectation of their imminent death. Meaningless to Roboute for the most part, but he remembered one thing Telok had said that struck a note of unreasoning horror within Kotov.
A name that even to Roboute had overtones of darkness that blighted his thoughts. What was the name…?
‘The Noctis Labyrinthus,’ he said when it finally came.
Kotov immediately looked up, as Roboute knew he would.
‘What did you say?’
‘The Noctis Labyrinthus, what is it?’ said Roboute. ‘When Telok mentioned it, you knew what it was and it scared you to the soles of your boots. So what is it and why did Telok need to recreate it to get the Breath of the Gods to work?’
‘It is nothing I wish to speak of.’
Roboute shook his head. ‘I think the time for secrets is over, don’t you, archmagos?’
Kotov stared at him, as though weighing the cost of revealing what he knew against the likelihood of their survival. At last he came to a decision.
‘Very well,’ said Kotov. ‘The Noctis Labyrinthus is a maze-like system of steep-walled valleys within the Tharsis quadrangle of Mars. Most likely formed by volcanic activity in the ancient past, perhaps even by a long-ago eruption of Olympus Mons.’
‘What’s that got to do with Telok and why were you so shocked when he mentioned it? What’s inside those valleys?’
‘I am getting to
that,’ said Kotov. ‘The region was declared Purgatus millennia ago after it was revealed that a sentient weapon technology from pre-Unity was discovered to be still active. The Fabricator General of the time claimed it would lay waste to Mars if it escaped, so the entire area was quarantined and fortified. It has remained so ever since.’
‘Sounds like a smokescreen to me,’ said Roboute.
‘People needed to be kept away,’ said Kotov. ‘That seemed like the best way to achieve that.’
‘Wait,’ said Pavelka. ‘You mean there was no ancient weapon technology?’
‘Correct,’ said Kotov.
‘So what is there?’ asked Roboute.
‘I suspect no one knows the full extent of what lies beneath the Noctis Labyrinthus, but as an archmagos I was privy to the old legends circulating the higher echelons of the Cult Mechanicus, of course. Unfounded speculation mostly, noospheric gossip and the like. And since the word of those… crescent-moon xenos ships landing in the deepest valleys began to circulate, the rumours have only grown stronger.’
‘What kind of rumours?’ asked Tanna, coming over to listen.
Kotov seemed hesitant to continue, baring as he was the innermost secrets of his order.
‘That there was necrontyr technology beneath the red sands,’ said Roboute.
‘How could you possibly know that?’ demanded Kotov.
‘Remember, I saw the fall of Kellenport on Damnos,’ said Roboute. ‘I’ve seen ships like you described and I’ve seen necrontyr war machines. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw Telok’s device.’
Kotov sighed and nodded as if Roboute had passed some kind of test.
‘Very well, Mister Surcouf, I believe you may be correct. Perhaps some aspect of necrontyr technology does lie at the heart of the Breath of the Gods, and if that is the case, then it is doubly imperative we prevent Telok from leaving this world.’
‘Why?’ said Anders, ‘I mean, besides the obvious?’
‘Because if there is any truth to the old legends, then it is entirely possible that a vast shard of one of the ancient necrontyr gods lies entombed within the Noctis Labyrinthus.’