Heralds of the Siege Read online

  She waited upon the third construct observing the runescreens in the command centre. Trundling forth on a tracked throne was Raman Synk, lexorcist ward engine and leader of the Omnissian Faithful.

  Synk had been a covenant agent of the Mechanicum, responsible for the prosecution of techno-heresy for the Prefecture Magisterium, the Malagra and the Lexorcist General of Mars. He had been better prepared than most when the infectious corruption of the scrapcode swept across the Red Planet and the maddened Fabricator General had declared war on all true subjects of the Omnissiah.

  But Synk had paid a terrible price in those early days of war and betrayal. Now he was but a broken construct.

  He had found purpose, however, in the doom of Mars. In the dark days since, he had established the Omnissian Faithful and launched a campaign of sabotage and destruction upon the Dark Mechanicum, from deep beneath Invalis.

  Although he was little more than a red-robed cadaver restricted to a throne, the metal digits of Synk’s skeletal hands were at constant work upon the runekeys of a claiverboard built into his chest. A floating servo-skull called Confabulari-66 with an undercarriage of tools, interface lines and clawed appendages fussed about him, attending to the lexorcist’s needs. Synk’s voice even proceeded from loudhailers mounted on the servo-skull.

  ‘My lord,’ Lennox said, stepping through the cables of the command centre and kneeling briefly. Confabulari-66 circled the princeps slowly.

  ‘Princeps,’ the lexorcist said through the servo-skull’s loudhailers. ‘Your mission to Temple-Tarantyne was a success. A mighty god-machine denied to Kelbor-Hal and his accursed Warmaster.’

  ‘Yes, lexorcist.’

  ‘Yet the same scavengers reported that some hours later,’ Raman Synk said, ‘Belladon Ventorum, the engine that hunted you at Tarantyne, left the assembly yards in company with two other Warlord Titans. They marched across the Argye Planitia, the Autonox solar collector fields and on into the Invalis region. A corrupted siege company of Krios battle tanks and a section of Thallaxii joined them at Malea Corda.’

  ‘Gordicor?’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ the lexorcist agreed.

  ‘Then we need to mobilise,’ Lennox said. ‘Why haven’t you sounded the general alarm?’

  ‘Because they stopped at Phasmi Fossae.’

  ‘Outside the dead zone?’

  ‘I don’t think the magos reductor can know of our location,’ Raman Synk told her. ‘If he knew where we are, he wouldn’t have sent Titans and siege equipment. He expects to find a rebel fort or camp. His god-machines won’t help him here – and not in the Invalis dead zone either.’ A rasping chuckle emanated from the loudhailers.

  ‘But how could the Ordo Reductor even know we are in the area?’ Lennox said.

  ‘Timings and trajectories don’t lie,’ Logista Zephyreon said. ‘The Titans followed you from Temple-Tarantyne, to Autonox, to here.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Lennox told the hag defiantly. ‘We were well below augur-range. We surfaced only once, to pick up scavengers and salvage.’

  ‘The magos catharc has a theory,’ Synk said.

  ‘A theory I am putting to the test,’ Arquid Cornelicus said, moving between runescreens, trailing cerebral cabling. As the main screen sizzled into focus, Lennox saw that it was showing visual-feed captures from the base’s quarantine facility – a large reinforced cell that was used by the magos catharc and his code scrubbers to inspect constructs and materiel for evidence of corruption. In the reinforced quarantine chamber, the princeps could see the towering Kastelan-pattern robot standing upright but lifeless. Dwarfed by the battle-automaton and hugging the rocky wall was Lenk 4-of-12, diagnostic cabling swinging from his ports and up into the ceiling hub. Cornelicus activated the vox-receivers.

  ‘Get me out of here!’ Lenk 4-of-12 howled. ‘Don’t leave me in here with this thing!’

  The forge labourer seemed genuinely uncomfortable in the robot’s solemn presence.

  ‘You think the battle-automaton is corrupted?’ Lennox asked. ‘That it somehow transmitted a trace of our position?’

  ‘We’ll soon know,’ Arquid Cornelicus said. The princeps looked down at the floor and then at the lexorcist. The magos catharc spoke into his vox-bead. ‘Release the probes.’

  Lennox watched the runescreen as mech-spiders dropped down from the quarantine chamber ceiling on thin cables. They crawled about the armoured shell of the battle-automata, fawning over it with their augur-probosces. Several flattened themselves and, trailing their lines, scrabbled between the armoured plates of the robot to inspect its inner workings.

  ‘Both the scavengers who found it and my enginseer examined the unit, but could find no evidence of pollution.’

  ‘Yes,’ Logista Zephyreon said, her voice a harsh reproach. ‘A find altogether too good to be true...’

  ‘The good princeps is not to be blamed for this,’ Raman Synk said, silencing the hag. ‘Diemon Gordicor becomes more desperate and devious by the day. He’s a warped construct answering to equally warped masters. He’s ready to try anything. He knows that rebel groups need a constant supply of weapons and equipment. He simply needs to scatter such tracked items about and wait for our scavengers to bring them back to base. Inevitable really.’

  ‘Princeps Lennox is right,’ the magos catharc said, processing the data returning from the mech-spider swarm. ‘Neither I nor my code scrubbers are finding indications of corruption. The machine appears clean.’

  ‘All the more reason for our scavengers to take it, in the field,’ Algerna Zephyreon insisted. ‘This is bait.’

  ‘What of tracking devices?’ Raman Synk asked. ‘We need to know if this battle-automaton harbours a device that led the Ordo Reductor here – at least up to the edge of the dead zone.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you that it has no cortex or processor,’ Cornelicus said, ‘and that its reactor core is burnt out. Although, I have some kind of energy signature.’

  ‘There,’ Lennox said, squinting at the visual feed. ‘In its chest – an augmentation that my enginseer couldn’t identify.’

  The polyhedral cogs of the orb were in motion, each gear synchronising impossibly with hundreds of others. It was mesmerising to watch.

  ‘What is the name of this cursed machine?’ Raman Synk demanded to know.

  ‘Identica recorded as Impedicus,’ Arquid Cornelicus said. ‘First Maniple, Daedarii Reserve.’

  ‘By the Omnissiah, no,’ Raman Synk gasped, his projected voice wavering. ‘The Tabula Myriad.’

  ‘You’ve seen this thing before?’ Lennox said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A long time ago,’ the lexorcist said. ‘It is a heretekal thing of monstrous power. An exigency engine – an Abominable Intelligence that I thought I had buried deep in a dungeon-diagnostica.’

  ‘What does it do?’ the princeps asked.

  ‘The Tabula Myriad wins. Using the coldest logic and computational power beyond the servants of the Machine-God.’

  With that, the battle-automata suddenly crackled with power. The mech-spiders beneath its armoured shell were fried within the machine’s workings and their trailing lines fused to Impedicus’ feeds. The lamps and the runescreens of the command centre momentarily faded, before cycling through screeds of information at impossible speeds.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Lennox said.

  ‘It’s in,’ Arquid Cornelicus said, his voice tinged with fear. ‘It’s using the probe lines to draw power from the base reactor.’

  ‘Shut it down!’ the princeps shouted.

  ‘I can’t!’ The magos catharc tugged at the crown of cables ported into his skull. ‘It’s reversed the data-stream on the same lines. Instead of inspecting it, the machine is now raiding our runebanks. I have no base control!’

  As the magos panicked and tried to rip his cables free, Lennox stepped forward. Drawing her chainblade, she gunned the weapon’s motor and cut through the cables, freeing the magos catharc from the influence of the Abominable Intellige
nce.

  She looked back to the runescreens. Impedicus had stomped forward, trailing cable lines behind it, the Tabula Myriad’s polyhedral cogs spinning in a blur of alien synchronicity.

  Lenk 4-of-12 was screaming. The menial, who had been fearful of the battle-automata when it was a lifeless shell, was now throwing himself wildly at the thick armourglass of the quarantine observation window, his data cables swinging wildly. Battering himself bloody and insensible, he shrieked like a madman. Tearing at his body and face, he turned to face Impedicus. The battle-automata drowned the forge labourer in its shadow.

  The screaming stopped. Lenk 4-of-12’s face seemed to relax.

  Then, horribly, he thrust his fingers into his stomach with such mindless force that he tore a gaping hole in his own abdomen. Fishing around in his guts, with dark-eyed lunacy plastered across his features, the menial tore a black, metallic device from his body. It was covered in spines and flickered with an infernal light.

  ‘Is this what you are looking for?’ Lenk 4-of-12 hissed in a voice that was not his own. The menial’s skin smouldered to darkness, his teeth grew and his facial features warped into a visage of daemonic savagery. The data cables connecting him to the hub began to seethe with malevolent code.

  The battle-automata Impedicus stood silently over the possessed forge-worlder.

  Logista Zephyreon staggered back. Both Raman Synk and Confabulari-66 simply stared at the horror unfolding in the quarantine chamber. Lennox hit a vox-stub on the runebank.

  ‘Activate incendiary countermeasures!’ she ordered, but the code scrubbers and the gun-servitors outside the chamber couldn’t hear. The Tabula Myriad was blocking the transmission. She turned to leave the command centre.

  ‘I’ve got to get down there and destroy them…’

  ‘Wait,’ Raman Synk said. He was staring at the runescreen so intently that it drew Lennox back to the spectacle.

  The daemon fury of Lenk 4-of-12 faltered. Rather than the Kastelan, it had been the menial recruit who had been carrying the tracking device: the device that could have led Gordicor’s Ordo Reductor force to Invalis.

  But now, the fused diagnostic lines bucked and flickered as Impedicus sent a cold stream of logic back into the ceiling hub.

  Lenk 4-of-12 let out a pained screech so loud that it distorted the audio channels.

  In the presence of the Abominable Intelligence, bathed in cold logic and the truths undeniable, the false construct was cleansed of its corruption. Lennox watched the impossible on the runescreen. The daemonic presence was banished from Lenk 4-of-12. The infernal light died in his eyes. Like tumorous growths before the intensity of radiation, the menial’s corrupted flesh withered. Allowing the tracking device to drop to the floor, Lenk 4-of-12 lost consciousness and followed it, the limp data cables tugging loose from his interface ports as he fell.

  Lifting an armoured foot, Impedicus stamped down on the tracking device, crushing the filth of its inner workings into the floor.

  ‘We found Dark Mechanicum skitarii and shock troops in the field,’ Lennox said, turning to the lexorcist. ‘They had been purged of corruption...’

  Synk nodded slowly. ‘Disengage the quarantine fail-safes.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Arquid Cornelicus demanded. ‘This thing must be destroyed.’

  ‘The enemy of my enemy,’ the lexorcist said. Confabulari-66 looked at Algerna Zephyreon. ‘We are not a threat that concerns the Tabula Myriad?’

  ‘Correct,’ the crone said, processing her terrible equations.

  ‘It wants what it has always wanted – dominion over Mars. As far as the Abominable Intelligence is concerned, we are no threat to its ambitions. The Dark Mechanicum, however, is... and it must be neutralised. In fire, or in spirit.’

  ‘The greater the number of pure constructs fighting the corrupted,’ the logista added, ‘the greater its chances of success.’

  ‘Lexorcist,’ Lennox said, ‘what do we do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Raman Synk said. ‘Open all data lines.’

  ‘That’s insanity,’ Arquid Cornelicus said, checking over the runebanks. ‘The Abominable Intelligence is infiltrating all of our systems and noospherics with its signal. It already has transmission access to the base’s border beacons. Instead of alerting us to the presence of intruders, the beacons could advertise our presence to the whole of the quadrant!’

  ‘Let me hear it,’ the lexorcist ordered.

  Flicking a stud, the magos catharc reluctantly allowed Impedicus’ searing signal to fill the command centre. It was simultaneously the most beautiful and horrific thing Lennox had ever heard. Code, cold and constantly recalculating. An irresistible, arithmetical force.

  A song for the red sands of Mars.

  Cornelicus’ nest of runescreens sizzled suddenly to static, then fell blank.

  Letter by letter, word by word, a message began to appear across them – like a forgeling learning code for the first time, or a construct struggling to communicate in a different cant.

  ++ EXIGENT ASSESSMENT ++

  ADAPT/ENHANCE/REPLICATE

  ++ EXTERMINATION OF THREAT PRESENTATION ++

  ADAPT/ENHANCE/REPLICATE

  ++ PLANETARY ASSIMILATION ++

  ADAPT/ENHANCE/REPLICATE

  ++ SOLAR SYSTEM ASSIMILATION ++

  ADAPT/ENHANCE/REPLICATE

  ++ GALACTIC ASSIMILATION ++

  ADAPT/ENHANCE/REPLICATE

  ++ UNIVERSAL ASSIMILATION ++

  ADAPT/ENHANCE/REPLICATE/ADAPT/ENHANCE/REPLICATE/ADAPT/ENHANCE/REPLICATE/ADAPT/ENHANCE/REPLICATE/ADAPT/ENHANCE/REPLICATE/ADAPT/ENHANCE/REPLICATE/ADAPT/ENHANCE/REPLICATE/ADAPT/ENHANCE/REPLICATE...

  ‘We have prayed, and the Omnissiah has delivered,’ Raman Synk said finally. ‘A dire weapon for a dire threat. Fire with which to fight fire.’

  ‘It is heretekal,’ Arquid Cornelicus pleaded with the lexorcist.

  ‘Then let us all be damned, but Mars be saved. This is a heretekal weapon for heretical times. Princeps.’

  ‘Yes, lexorcist.’

  ‘I need eyes out on the sands,’ Raman Synk said. ‘Go and see what horror the Tabula Myriad visits upon the enemies at our borders.’

  Looking between Cornelicus, the lexorcist and the line-draped figure of Impedicus standing in the quarantine chamber, Lennox turned and left the command centre.

  Lennox peered down the magnoculars at a scene of devastation. Having Moderatii Ratchek bring Archimedex up at Phasmi Fossae, the princeps watched as Belladon Ventorum turned the wrath of its quake cannon upon its two compatriot god-machines and its mighty gatling blaster against the armoured companies and cybernetic formations at its feet. With the other two Warlord Titans now nothing more than smoke-streaming wrecks of corruption and the Ordo Reductor forces blasted to oblivion, the god-machine stood silent. Examining it through her magnoculars, Lennox watched the warped crew climb out of the top hatch of the command deck and leap to their deaths. While suffering superficial damage from fire hastily returned by its compatriot Titans, it seemed as though the element of surprise had spared Belladon Ventorum a mauling.

  Casting her gaze across the engine, Lennox could find no sign of spiritual or physical pollution. The ghostly darkness of its void shielding had dissipated. The infernal glow of its command deck was gone.

  With Omnek-70 covering them with his arquebus, Lennox led Ratchek and Enginseer Zarco across the mauled sands. Thallaxii and Krios battle tanks alike had been shredded in the rain of destruction. Picking their way through the devastation, they stood before the still form of Belladon Ventorum.

  Lennox flashed her moderatii a smile. The goggled Ratchek nodded.

  ‘Enginseer, shall we?’

  ‘Princeps first,’ Zarco said. ‘As protocol dictates.’

  It took some time to climb the shell of the mighty Titan, even making use of maintenance ladder rungs and scramble holds. The rebels found the hatch to the command deck still open. There was no need for Zarco to go to work with his tools this time.


  The bridge space was cool and still. A preliminary check of the god-machine’s systems revealed that it had received the Tabula Myriad’s broadcast and that its own comm-vanes were in turn now transmitting on all channels.

  As Zarco climbed down into the engineering section, ready to provide a damage report, Lennox and Ratchek interfaced with the mighty machine-spirit of Belladon Ventorum. They were only two for now, but they would find other experienced crew loyal to their cause in time.

  Hesitantly, the moderatii ported into his deck station.

  And Kallistra Lennox became one with the god-machine.

  She plummeted through possibility. She was at once sense and shielding. Flesh and iron. Bone and the colossal workings of an iron behemoth. Lennox felt the machine’s pain, rage and power. She became a conduit for its apocalyptic doom. In those moments, in which monstrous possibility flooded her being, Lennox found it hard to understand how she had ever survived being separated from such Titanic annihilation.

  Belladon Ventorum felt strange at first, like wearing a dead man’s boots. Its machine-spirit was all silent hostility and frustrated anger but, like a death world predator tamed, the Titan slowly took to Lennox. She felt it assess her. As she sensed the god-machine’s destructive capabilities, the machine, in turn, sensed her own. It drew upon her vengeance. It drank deep in the princeps’ cold fury.

  Mars felt different through the sensors and augurs of the god-machine. Lennox was no longer a being of flesh and fragility. She need not fear the corruptions of code nor the petty fury of deranged traitors. She was beyond such concerns. She was an unfolding tempest, looking down upon Mars and the afflicted constructs that ailed the planet with the serenity of a natural disaster. She was the calm before the coming storm.

  She opened a noospheric channel.

  Lennox said in a flurry of binaric data.

  ‘And the Tabula Myriad has provided them,’ Raman Synk’s voice came, crackling over the vox in reply, ‘in order of tactical importance. A four-thousand-two-hundred-and-sixty-seven-step strategy for taking back the Red Planet, executing a model of growing capability.’