Servants of the Machine-God, page 23
Behind Sythika came the moderati, Scanntor and Pharuis, left and right hands, then Dolco and Gasia, left and right carapace respectively. Their MIU cables trailed behind them like plaits, as did Sythika’s, carried by small servocherubs with thrumming wings.
Ten steps behind the piloting crew came the enginseers, four in total, headed by Kauath Sahsu, the enginseer dominatus. They broke away from the short procession to head into the bowels of Evocatus where they would finish the preparations to awaken the beast of war.
Chanting drifted up from the choir behind the line of censer-bearing tech-priests below, praising the history and victories of the Warlord. Battlefields and worlds dating back thousands of years, to conflicts that pre-dated even the Imperium by a millennium.
The names of the many princeps was not mentioned – the roll of honour of past commanders held in the archives was too long for such recital, numbering as it did seven hundred and twenty-eight individuals. Such fleeting individuals were unimportant in the schemes of the Cult Mechanicus, a necessary fleshy component required for the running of the god of war they had raised up for the glory of the Omnissiah.
Sythika knew her place well enough. Evocatus would, Machine-God willing, outlast her tenure even if she lived long enough to die of natural causes. Such was the drain on a princeps body and mind she could hope for at most three decades service in total, a blink in the timeless life of a Titan.
Even so, her rank accorded her some respect and she halted at the metal door before stepping into the ruddily lit interior. She looked down to acknowledge the banners of the Legio Praesagius raised by three companies of skitarii assembled in her honour, the standards of the True Messengers black and gold like the machines that made up their ranks.
Ducking inside, she moved from the heady, rarefied atmosphere of the docking temple to the unadorned, functional corridors and bulkheads of the Titan’s interior. Sythika could feel the gentle vibrations of the idling reactor, the sense of it causing a frisson of excitement to run through her.
She made her way quickly along the passages to the bridge, and took up position in the command throne at the centre of the Titan’s head. Below and in front of the princeps maximus, the moderati settled at their stations.
‘Requesting MIU interface,’ they chorused, having spent so much time in each other’s company that their thoughts ran to the same rhythm even before they were bound together with the spirit of Evocatus.
Together they slid their cables into the waiting circuitry, fingers hovering above the activation runes. Sythika did the same, plugging the wire hanging from the back of her neck into the neural socket in the arm of the command chair. She met the looks of each moderati in turn and nodded, as she had done forty-eight times before, the routine as much a ritual as the censer-swinging and chants that continued outside and were being carried out in the engine rooms.
‘Blessed Machine-God,’ she said quietly, intoning the prescribed words of the Archaia Titanicus. ‘Grant us this day the grace of your favours. Gift us the boon of knowledge so that we might learn of your will. Hear our thoughts and carry them upon the beam of wire-light to the mind of our great protector.’
She took a breath, anticipation and expectation vying with anxiety for several seconds.
‘Let’s wake up the old beast,’ she told the others, and touched the Rune of Activation.
In the darkness of the cave, the beast waited for Sythika. She felt the heat of its breath radiating from the blackness. She heard the rumble of a heartbeat throbbing. A rasp of flexed claws. A growl. Two points of light grew brighter, eyes opened to bring the stare of the immortal beast full upon her.
She muttered placating verses, soothing the angry mood of the beast. Sythika ventured into the darkness a little further, knowing the way though blinded, screwing up every iota of her being to confront the monster that lies just out of sight. The princeps maximus was aware of the huge bulk just beyond the scope of her senses, the dormant power that could crush her at any moment.
Still Sythika advanced closer, daring its wrath. There was no other way to waken the beast but to prod it into life with her proximity. Her thoughts would become its thoughts. Its body would become her body…
In their wisdom, the ancient primogenitors of the Collegia Titanicus had seen fit to pattern the spirits of their war machines upon ferocious Terran animals. Perfect for a war machine, possessed of the instinct to hunt and kill. Frightening and deadly.
It made it no easier that she was fully aware the entire scene was a construct of her subconscious. Just like that moment in a dream when one wonders if one is dreaming, she was both inside and separated from the beast, connected via the MIU but not yet wholly cohabiting the circuitry of its artificial thoughts.
She was careful not to goad, to threaten, but instead coaxed and gently cajoled. While she awakened the dormant thought patterns of the Titan, she could feel its strength returning as the ancient reactor was stirred into vigour by the attentions of the enginseers. Energy flowed through conduits into the systems and sub-systems of the massive waking engine, bringing light and heat and awareness. Stoked by the activations and prayers of the tech-priests, Evocatus roused from its slumber, its mind flashing with predatory thoughts.
Like a veteran stable hand approaching a troublesome steed she knew the precise moment to act. Sythika leapt into the unfolding pattern-wave of Evocatus’ growing mental pulses, letting her thought-forms weave into its own sentient matrix. Sythika eased herself along the troughs and peaks, aligning her thoughts to that of the beast.
When the roar came, when the claws and fangs flashed, they were the voice and the claws and fangs of Sythika.
At the moment of connectivity, she became aware of the others taking up their places around her, reactive nerve bundles connected to the brain stem node. She was the thought, they were the deed. The senses of the Titan flooded through her: visual, aural and impossible mechanical inputs her brain had learned to interpret as touch and smell.
Sythika wakened the beast and stretched, letting plasma and electricity flow through its limbs, charging weapons decks and locomotive servos.
‘Animus animatus. Princeps online,’ she told the others. The statement was redundant; the moderati were well aware of her position of control. Nevertheless there was a form to follow lest the beast become recalcitrant again.
‘Sinister animatus. Power fist online,’ Scanntor said out loud, though his words echoed through the MIU for a moment after.
‘Dexter animatus. Volcano cannon online,’ Pharuis told them.
Gasia and Dolco spoke together, their vox-filtered voices initially discordant before becoming unified.
‘Sinister minoris animatus. Gatling blaster online.’
‘Dexter minoris animatus. Gatling blaster online.’
With a thought, Sythika sent a message-pulse to the docking template systems. Monstrous gears ground into life, shaking the walls as they drew back the boarding gantry and the main doors of the drop-ship rumbled open. Daylight flooded in, blanketing the Titan’s senses with their crimson taint. Warning sirens blared and hazard lights strobed yellow while the princeps maximus and temple command exchanged flash-dumps of data regarding the Titan’s status and the full mission brief. Sythika absorbed the information without fully processing it, the memory-core of the Titan archiving the details for later retrieval.
She received the permission-flare through the MIU connection, confirmed by vox-cast from the control booth.
‘Evocatus is cleared for battle. Set forth and crush the enemies of the Machine-God, Warlord of the True Messengers.’
At her thought-command, Evocatus took a step, and another. Three strides brought them clear of the docking temple and into the bright sunshine and clean air of Placia Mundus. The beast surged forth and Sythika let free its roar.
The deafening bass-note of the Titan’s war-horn sounded across the valley in challenge to the waiting foe.
Battle Group Indictus formed on their princeps maximus thirty kilometres from the last enemy sighting. Alongside Evocatus strode the other Warlord, Iron Brother, and the Reaver Titans Glorious and Conqueror. Several kilometres ahead of them, the Warhounds Tempestum and Wolf Runner scouted for the foe. The last contact had been near the White Rift oil refineries on the edge of the Capacia Massif – a tortured range of steep gorges and vertiginous cliffs that would be a death-trap for any Imperial Titan battle group. The war assets of the Adeptus Mechanicus were stretched thin enough already without wasting lives and engines trying to prise the renegades’ grip from the mountains.
Covering the kilometres of wilderness with long strides, the war machines advanced in echelon, Evocatus at the leading end of the line, the Iron Brother anchoring the other two kilometres to the right, the Reavers between them. The plains were marked by the ancient lines of long-forgotten highways – roads all but reclaimed by forest and scrub.
The Capacia Massif was open dust country, barely a shack or bush for cover, a perfect killing ground for Titans but a graveyard for tanks and infantry. Divested of the usual drama of an accompanying battalion of skitarii, the Titans of Battle Group Indictus forged on into a growing storm, intent on engaging the enemy at all costs.
Flickers of recollection collided inside Sythika’s thoughts. Not memories, not as a human would reckon it. Mimetic engrams, laid into the circuits of Evocatus over thousands of years, like well-worn tracks left across the ground. Images of battlefields past, of worlds trodden ten millennia before she had been born. Grey skies that flashed with lightning over a desert of red oxide. Wastelands carved by hundreds of dust devils that swept through the puny squads of infantry, tossing them about like insects while the Titans of the Legio Praesagius strode through the tempest. Ancient seabeds littered with bones of massive prehistoric creatures laid bare by oceans retreating beneath the burning heat of blazing twin suns.
While she experienced these not-memories, Sythika analysed the incoming stream of augur data, from both Evocatus’ scanning arrays and the telemetric feeds from the rest of the battle group. The Warhound hunting pair went deeper into the growing storm, visibility reduced to a few hundred metres, aural scans wiped out by the howling winds and scratching whisper of tonnes of grey airborne dust.
‘Cyclone speed increasing, princeps maximus,’ reported Taithan of the Wolf Runner. ‘Footing stable, but energy readings are spiking off the scale. Something in the bedrock, perhaps.’
‘Or enemy Titans,’ Sythika replied. ‘Hold position and await our arrival. There is a traitor battle group somewhere near here. We could be right on top of them and not know it in this filthy storm.’
‘Orders received, princeps maximus. Maintaining picket patrol until your arrival.’
The beast that lurked in the heart of the Warlord Titan sensed the princeps’ apprehension and responded with contempt. Sythika could feel its desire to fight, its longing to be free of the weak fleshy yoke that had been placed around its neck. It took effort to suppress the resurgent animal personality to focus on the data stream and the mission at hand.
‘Engage and destroy,’ she reminded her crew and the commanders of the other Titans. ‘We cannot afford to allow a breakthrough here. Reinforcements will be in orbit in a matter of days, but until then, we are all that stands against the traitor war engines. We are likely outnumbered. Our strategy must be to isolate and annihilate.’
Evocatus’ anger rumbled at the back of her thoughts, waiting to be unleashed as Sythika led the Titans further into the storm.
Encased within the metres-thick metal skin of their engines, the crews of the Titans paid no heed to the deadly nature of the elements screeching around their war machines. Wind-driven sand that would strip flesh from bone swirled and ebbed around the huge limbs of the walkers, settling in the thick weave of kill banners hanging from the gigantic weapons, creating trembling drifts against the gun mounts of their carapaces. Underfoot, the ground sank beneath their heavy tread, leaving a trail of compressed craters to mark their progress swiftly filling with freshly blown dust. Above, the sky was a uniform pale grey but for a wavering disc of white that marked the position of Placia Mundus’ post-noon sun.
Evocatus’ scanners blinked with the location transponders of the two Warhounds, zigzagging on their patrols ahead, some two kilometres distant. The vox-link crackled with interference from the storm.
‘Erratic contact, princeps maximus,’ reported the princeps of Tempestum, Targilio. ‘Could be radioactive deposits, could be an enemy reactor.’
‘It’s an enemy,’ cut in Taithan, ‘unless your deposit is moving closer.’
‘Number, distance,’ snapped Sythika. ‘Battle group, power to void shields.’
As she gave the command, she shunted the power flow of Evocatus from the locomotive actuators to the void shield generators. In the systems chambers at the Titan’s heart, the enginseer oversaw the transition, monitoring the power output of the reactor and adjusting their coolant stream accordingly. Around the Warlord Titan, banks of warp energy shimmered into existence, flaring white and purple as they crackled through the sweeping sandstorm.
‘That will slow us down, princeps maximus,’ replied Dorfana of Conqueror. The poor quality of the vox did not mask her disapproval.
‘You would prefer that we ran headlong into the enemy without our shields raised?’
‘No, princeps maximus. But our scout pair are vulnerable.’
‘Taithan and Targilio know their role today, Conqueror.’
‘The feint,’ said Targilio.
‘That’s an odd way of pronouncing “bait”, hunt-brother,’ Taithan replied with a laugh.
‘I have a second– No, wait…’ Targilio showed no signs of humour as he relayed his scan results. Tempestum was the further forward of the two Warhounds, just in sight two hundred metres from its companions. ‘Three definite readings, estimate Battle Titan size.’
‘Reavers or Warlords?’ asked Taithan.
‘Alas, the Machine-God did not bless me with magical eyes to guess the nature of a plasma reactor from a blurry dot on a screen.’
‘Confirmed – I have fresh readings also, princeps maximus,’ said Taithan. ‘To the left, north-east. Two definite energy signatures.’
‘Five so far,’ replied Sythika.
‘Eight, princeps maximus,’ Targilio corrected her. ‘Now we have eight readings, all within two kilometres of my position.’
‘Time to withdraw, hunt-pair,’ Sythika told her Warhounds. ‘The enemy must have seen you by now.’
‘There might be more,’ protested Taithan. ‘I swear there’s another reading directly north. Another thirty seconds to make sure…’
‘Now!’ growled the princeps. ‘We fight as one today. This is not a raid on a supply column – this is pitched battle. Concentration of force means everything we have against a single target at a time. That includes both of you. The enemy are coming from the left and ahead – fade south-east and bring them to us. That should give us a flank to work against. We take the fight to them and hit before they know our strength. Battle group, attack speed.’
It was impossible for Sythika’s flesh-and-bone body to feel the way Evocatus felt – if the MIU-patterned programming and sensory augur inputs could be deemed feelings at all. Neurons and synapses could only learn and re-learn so much, so it was that the energy signatures of the converging enemy Titans came to the princeps maximus in a conflation of touch and smell. Like a scent carried on a wind, the energy output of the enemy Titans left unique traces across Evocatus’ multi-spectral arrays.
A kilometre distant, almost directly north, she could feel the ponderous approach of another Warlord – she had dubbed it ‘Abomination’. A second Warlord was further east, a kilometre and half from contact, nothing more than a swirl of heat in the raging storm. This one she had named ‘Abhorrent’. A trio of Reavers completed the enemy battle group within striking distance – several other unidentified enemy signatures flittered through the storm at greater distances, a few more minutes from engagement.
Had it not been for the dust cloud, the battle would have already begun.
Less than two kilometres apart, the battle groups were well within the range of the support weapons they carried – in the case of Indictus that was the rocket launchers of Glorious and Conqueror. Yet without a solid targeting contact, such longer-ranged weapons were rendered no more useful than the gatling blasters and las-blasters that would come into play soon enough.
Indictus formed up closely to each other, the Warlords flanking the Reavers to mask their reactor signatures while the two Warhounds criss-crossed ahead, feinting and retreating, threatening to dart around a flank, keeping the enemy battle group occupied like a pugilist throwing out jabs while waiting for the moment to land a more punishing blow.
The input from Abomination was getting stronger, only seven hundred and fifty metres away. Sythika could feel the pulse of void shields throbbing through the storm cloud. In her visual feed from Tempestum – a crude, detached interaction compared to the MIU impulses of Evocatus – the princeps maximus saw glimmers of blue in the grey, the merest hint of energy shields.
‘Weapons ready,’ she told the moderati and received their affirmatives. From the reactor bay the enginseers sent their reports: all systems optimal and stable.
‘Detecting a locking beam, princeps maximus,’ warned Dorfana in Conqueror. ‘Second Titan advancing in the energy wake of Abomination.’
More than one, it quickly transpired. So close their void shields had merged, two Reaver Titans had used the much larger Warlord to screen their advance.
‘The plan is the same,’ Sythika quickly told the other princeps. ‘Target locks, full bombardment of the Warlord. We’ll deal with the Reavers when it has been crippled. Hunt-pair, start stripping their shields.’
