God-Machines, page 6
Flurries of anti-tank fire and smaller-calibre guns scratched across the remaining shields. None of them were powerful enough to land a debilitating blow, but in concert they gnawed at the Warlords’ defences.
Exasas felt the Casus Belli slow further as more power siphoned from the legs to the weapons, powering up the Imperator’s primary guns. The rest of the battle group thrust onwards, their weaponry of no use against the city at this range. They targeted their ire against the troops still manning foxholes and gunpits, wading into the criss-cross of defensive embrasures and trenchlines like skitarii soldiers picking their way across uneven ground.
The thrum of potential filled the noosphere as the plasma annihilator powered to full energy, the anticipation of Casus Belli’s spirit spilling out through its princeps. But even the Imperator’s greatest weapon could not hope to reach a foe still many kilometres distant. The ravening star that roared forth seconds later crashed into a company of traitor Leman Russ tanks that had attempted to push around the flank of the battle group. Five disappeared in a flash of incandescent power and startling energy co-efficients, the ground where they had been replaced with a glass-sided crater and a rising cloud of vapour. Streaks of molten plasteel marked the crater edges, where cooling droplets of what had once been machines fell like rain.
The hellstorm added a wrathful stream of shells to tear a fresh canyon through the ridge of a high hill ahead of the Casus Belli. Whole platoons of traitor skitarii and rebelling defence troopers died in the initial hail; as many again were crushed when the remaining hillside slipped away, tumbling thousands of tonnes of earth and rocks on the fortifications built across the valley.
A kill-efficiency of 96.4 per cent sent a pleasurable quiver of appreciation through Exasas, but the momentary elation did not detract from the magos’ underlying pensiveness.
Ve sidelined an ongoing simulation to make more processing power available to assess the enemy’s potential objectives. Faster and faster ve ran prognosticating algorithms, shutting down sensory inputs and redundancy systems to concentrate all available cogitation on the matter. Swathed in virtual and visual darkness, the magos let the equations dance through ver, streaming together into a single conjoined extrapolation.
A brief lance of formative data broke the meta-silence when the city batteries opened fire again. Targeting predictions seemed amiss at first, locating the point of impact among the Reavers now spearheading the advance, rather than upon the Will of Iron and Indomitable Guardian, whose shields were already partially overcome.
Exasas took the data as truth, sparing nothing to reevaluate the trajectories. Instead ve paused all other calculations to hone the forecast antarithms – those parts of vis program that attempted to emulate the enemy’s intent. One consequence pulsed through the findings, repeated again and again as ve reran the data flow.
Exasas [imperative]:
Monderas:
Iealona [inquiry]:
Gevren:
Before Exasas could examine the situation further, a new development interrupted vis analysis.
Monderas [alert]:
Iealona [interrogative/emphasis modulation]:
Even disregarding the princeps senioris’ overly emotive phraseology, the thought caused Exasas some trepidation. There was a high probability that the heretek forces had turned dedicated anti-Titan platforms such as the Shadowsword, Stormblade and Doomhammer. Was the emergence of the super-heavy tanks sufficient to justify the loss of lesser vehicles and personnel in the feint? Had they been lured closer to the city so that these vehicles could bring their attack to bear before detection? Was there sufficient time to combat the emergent threat? Conflicting threat value revisions cascaded through the magos’ systems so fast it bordered on paralysis.
Monderas [direct trans/closed/Exasas/rebuke]:
Exasas [direct trans/closed/Monderas/apology]
Exasas:
Gevren [rebuke]:
Exasas [imperative]:
Iealona [rebuke]:
Exasas whipped back vis noospheric presence like a prey creature fleeing for its burrow. Leaving only a narrow data-tendril to absorb a trickle of incoming data, the magos dominus retracted all of vis ongoing simulations, which had multiplied a dozenfold while examining the possible attack vectors of the new traitor forces.
Thwarted both by the censure of the princeps senioris and vis own cogitational limitations, the magos dominus busied verself recalibrating several non-functional secondary systems – a form of digital fidgeting. Only dimly aware of the continuing datastream, ve spared just a fraction of vis calculating processors to monitor the arrival of three Shadow Sword Titan-hunters, escorted by a similar number of Baneblade and variant super-heavy tanks. The formidable engines unleashed their firepower against the lead Reaver, forcing it to halt to return fire with its plasma blastgun and a storm from its missile launcher amid the cerulean detonations of its void shields.
Monderas [alert]:
Frustration coursed along Exasas’ datastream and remaining nervous system, leading to a flurry of physical agitation as the released energy demanded to be expressed. To return the weight of the quake cannons’ fire against the Warlords was even more illogical than the first salvo. The Titans had restored their void shields and were advancing again, but they were far from a direct threat to the wall guns. It seemed that Monderas had been correct in the assumption that the defenders sought only to delay the attack.
Delay.
What could be earned by slowing the assault if it was not to concentrate the available firepower? How could the traitors gain advantage from stalling the battle group’s attack?
Evacuation was a possibility, but readings did not suggest any mass withdrawal from the city. Another potential reason was to gain time for the preparation of fresh forces as yet unready.
This seemed a greater probability and Exasas examined it further, pausing other avenues of inquest. Posing the question to the antarithm circuits, the magos tried to position verself in the thought processes of the rebels. In reversed circumstance, what was the solution to the problem posed by an attacking Titan battle group?
An equally dominant response.
What weapons system was more dominant than a Titan battle group?
Monderas [alert]:
Target alarms blared across the Imperator and echoed through the noosphere from Titan to Titan, a ripple of activity that would have been taken for panic among living soldiers.
The transitory piece of orbital data from earlier surfaced through Exasas’ calculations, too late to be of use.
What Ghelsa had described as a ladder was just a series of square hooks fastened to the wall, each barely large enough for a hand or foot. Harkas crouched at the edge of the semicircular opening in the floor and looked up, his eyes flashing again as his augmented vision pierced the gloom.
‘It is empty,’ he declared. The inquisitor reached out a hand to the nearest hook, his jaw visibly clenched in pain.
A clatter from the direction of the chain conveyor announced the arrival of several hyperezia. Lantern beams swept across the twixt-deck, casting roving shadows. One of the lights passed across the two fugitives and a triumphant shout announced their discovery. More lamps flashed in their direction, bobbing as the guards carrying them ducked into the shallow space.
‘You’re too weak to climb,’ said Ghelsa, easing Harkas aside. She hooked two fingers onto a rung, locking them in place. She grabbed a handful of the inquisitor’s stolen robe and stepped across, bare toes finding purchase on another step. In situations like this, and when clambering to even more inaccessible locations in the downdecks, she was glad of her reinforced toes even though they prevented her from using footwear.
Harkas wriggled in her grip, making it hard to keep a tight hold. ‘Relax, I’ve carried heavier than you up and down these shafts.’
The inquisitor went limp as she pushed with her leg and swung her fingers up to the next hook. She found her rhythm almost immediately, quickly climbing while the shouts of the hyperezia increased below. The ladder space brightened and dimmed as they directed their lamps after their quarry, the light glinting from the rungs and Ghelsa’s exo-skeleton.
‘Where… are we going?’ asked Harkas.
‘Up,’ grunted Ghelsa, which was the only answer she had. ‘Let’s just get some distance and then we’ll worry about where next.’
Blinking, they passed into the lumen-glare of the duadekaz. The climbspace was at the end of an access corridor that ran to the central arterial route, which was thankfully devoid of occupants. Ghelsa did not look down, but knew that the hyperezia would not be far behind.
‘I’ll outpace them,’ she assured Harkas, continuing towards the entekaz – the eleventh level, as the tech-priests reckoned their numbering downwards from the holy decks.
‘Can you move faster than vox-waves?’
A high-energy bolt flashed down from above Az Khalak, slamming into the shields of the Hammer of Metalica, the foremost Reaver Titan. Its void generators already overloaded by the super-heavy tanks and incessant fire of smaller foes, the war engine had no defence against the orbital strike. Exasas registered the tremendous energy outflow – surmising a lance-weapon had fired – at the same instant that the beam split the Reaver in half from carapace to groin. So swift was the killing stroke that the reactor did not explode, but instead roiling plasma spilled like guts from the devastated Titan as it fell sideways, consumed by the fire of its own power source.
The death-shock resounded across the noosphere, silencing all traffic for several milliseconds.
Exasas, mostly disengaged from the dataflow, responded first.
Exasas [battle group/imperative]:
Gevren [rebuke]:
Exasas was about to respond that the moderatus prime had not foreseen the eventuality, but a general broadcast from the princeps senioris blanketed all other signals. Casus Belli’s rage flowed across the carrier waves with her words.
Iealona [general command/imperative/concept]:
The transmission ended with a monstrous swelling of noospheric pressure, culminating in a long blast from the Imperator’s war sirens. Its deafening mechanical roar echoed across the hills, the war sirens of the other Titans answering with their own cries for vengeance.
They reached level dekaz before noise and lights above them warned of waiting hyperezia where the ladder ended two levels above. Ghelsa leapt away from the wall, landing easily on the plate decking with Harkas still firmly in her grip. She lowered the inquisitor to the floor and sucked in lungfuls of air. While the exo-frame boosted her muscles it did nothing for her constitution – she had been rebuilt for strength, not endurance. The climb had left her heart hammering against her ribs, her chest heaving. Mostly the climb, she admitted to herself, still feeling the fizz of shock coursing through her.
‘We need to keep moving,’ warned Harkas, eyes shining as he scanned their surroundings.
Ghelsa moved to the archway where the shaft joined the main crew space. The eighth, ninth and tenth decks were a contiguous maze of walkways, ladders and stairs, built around the main power conduit that ran from the reactor up to the holy decks and akropoliz. Through the mesh of the decking she saw white-robed priests attending to the power relays, their bionics reflecting the amber glare of readouts and indicator lumens as the power output increased.
Around them bustled the duluz of the Cult Metalica, lifting bracing spars, carrying spare cabling up from the stores, attending to the other preparations for battle. The air was thick with sweat and humidity from the taxed heat exchanges. Pairs of small children darted around with cloths and buckets, wiping moisture from the rails and steps and drying off pipe housings, circuit plates and access ports in a never-ending struggle against corrosion.
Among the half-naked labourers drifted the epilekhtoz in robes of white edged with red, occasionally barking remonstration at some real or imagined laxity. Not full tech-priests, they were nevertheless natives of Metalica and hence considered superior in the eyes of the hierarchy.
Ghelsa strained for sight of a familiar face, but she did not often stray below deck eptaz. Even so, she knew the quickest way up to the akropoliz.
‘This way,’ she said, flicking fingers for Harkas to follow as she stepped out of the shaft. She headed left along a walkway and past the circular housing of the starboard gyro. Feeling the deck beneath her feet was a comfort, a reassuring touch after the preceding minutes of uncertainty.
‘When I get you to the akropoliz, I’m done,’ she told Harkas. She squeezed between a vertical pipe and the ferrocrete brace of an abdominal armour plate. ‘You should be able to find your own way to the God-decks from there.’
‘Of course.’ The inquisitor did not look at her as he replied, his attention drawn to something above them.
‘And then I suppose I’ll have to find somewhere to stay out of sight until you’ve done what you need to do.’
She pushed up a loop of flexible hose and ducked beneath it, holding it for Harkas to follow.
‘You know, when they’ll stop hunting me,’ she continued. ‘You’ll do that, right? You’ll call off the hyperezia?’
‘I would suppose so.’ He looked up again, brow creased. ‘There are a number of them stationed at a gateway on the deck above. We appear to be moving towards them.’
‘Damn.’ Ghelsa grimaced. She stopped and tapped a finger to the cog symbol in her forehead, a habit she had when thinking, as if she could make her brain work faster. ‘They’ll have a squad at the port stair too. This is going to be harder than I thought. Maybe we could scale the tertiary dampeners.’
As she spoke she led him out into the main concourse, stepping in behind a trio of tributai carrying coils of replacement generator cable. There were other tributai moving about their duties, but Ghelsa could not see any tech-priests nearby.
Harkas slipped a ring onto his left hand – a golden band with what Ghelsa first took to be a ruby, but then realised was a focusing crystal for a laser.
‘You have a digi-weapon?’
His glare warned her that she had spoken loudly. She glanced around nervously, trying to hide him behind her bulk. Nobody seemed to have heard among the constant clanking of the Titan’s motion. She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘What are you going to do with that? Why didn’t you use it on the hyperezia?’
‘To answer your second question first, I had to hide it to prevent confiscation,’ he said as they mounted a short flight of steps to a curving gantry around the central mass of the Titan’s main power conduits. ‘And you know the answer to the other question.’
She stopped, blocking the inquisitor at the top of the stairs.
‘You can’t kill the hyperezia,’ she said, remembering to keep her voice low despite a fresh surge of apprehension. ‘They’re not hereteks – they’re just doing what the tech-priests order them to do.’
‘You had no compunction when you struck them to rescue me.’
‘I wasn’t trying to kill them, and I wasn’t really thinking about it.’
‘If I fail, hundreds of thousands of the Emperor’s servants will be lost.’ Harkas moved to step around Ghelsa, but she barred his route. ‘This is an awkward time to have a moral quandary, Ghelsa vin Jaint. When the plot has been thwarted I will happily debate you on the subject of life’s value.’
‘And what about me? Am I expendable too?’
The inquisitor met her gaze and replied without hesitation. ‘Yes.’
He pushed past, but then stopped and looked back at her. His expression softened slightly. ‘These are the decisions I weigh every day, Ghelsa. I need you to trust me.’
Trust was earned, as far as Ghelsa was concerned, and Harkas had done little to deserve any so far. She wasn’t even convinced his name was Ossissiru Harkas. Even so, she had chosen to help him, and was committed to that decision.
A deafening reverberation drowned out all thought. The bass vibrations rattled Ghelsa’s teeth and had Harkas wincing. It lasted several seconds, echoing back and forth across the conjoined decks until it felt as if the monstrous noise had always existed.
‘War siren,’ Ghelsa gasped when the last echoes had eventually passed.
Part warning to the crew, part challenge to the enemy, the Casus Belli’s mechanical roar signalled imminent conflict. The deckspace was lit by a red haze as power relays burst into life. Pattering feet thrummed across the interior and tributai pushed past them – work gangs dashing to their final battle stations. The heat increased dramatically as the reactor courses flushed with power, clouds of steam rising through the decks followed by bursts of coolant leaking from ancient pipes.
