Vainglorious, page 27
‘Of course,’ I said, bowing to the inevitable. If I’d known how long it was going to be before I took up that appointment, and the horrors I’d have to face before I did, I suppose I might have protested a little more, but I already knew it wouldn’t make any difference. I sighed. ‘When do we start?’
Amberley smiled again, the one I always liked to think was real, and slipped an arm around my waist. The stars beyond the viewport shone hard and cold, but for a moment I felt neither of those things.
‘The morning will do,’ she said.
[Though Cain continues for several more paragraphs, these concern themselves entirely with matters of a personal nature unconnected with events on Eucopia, so I have chosen to terminate his account at this point.]
NOTES
[1] From which we may infer that this portion of his memoirs was composed shortly after his arrival there, before his relatively peaceful retirement was interrupted by the second siege, in which he was to play so pivotal a role.
[2] An Imperial Guard garrison system, devoted entirely to the resupply and redeployment of Astra Militarum assets.
[3] The task forces being assembled there typically included a number of Naval vessels, for escorting troop ships or engaging whatever spaceborne assets the enemy might have available wherever they were going.
[4] By which he means the primary planet, which, in common with practice throughout the Imperium, is regarded as synonymous with the system as a whole. In reality, many of the facilities are located on other planets, asteroids and void stations, particularly those tending to the swarms of starships arriving and departing constantly, and those specialised assets best kept as far away as possible from the ordinary line troopers, such as sanctioned psykers, penal battalion holding pens, abhuman auxiliaries and the like.
[5] A courtesy title bestowed on particularly long-serving or otherwise notable members of the Commissariat. Cain was, of course, entitled to use it himself, but disdained to do so – either out of genuine modesty, or because seeming to be so bolstered his reputation more than accepting the honour would have done.
[6] The symbol of a commissar’s office.
[7] A faintly disparaging term for members of the Adeptus Mechanicus common among the Imperial Guard, derived from the cogwheel symbol of their calling.
[8] Not without some justification, it must be said.
[9] Not quite, though many of my colleagues are of such a mind, and given the number of existential threats to humanity needing suitably qualified servants of the Imperium to combat, it’s not an impression we’re particularly keen to dispel in any case.
[10] The two most pressing tactical problems in the Damocles Gulf at the time; although other xenos threats, such as the orks and aeldari, couldn’t be lightly dismissed either.
[11] The oldest Imperial records list Coronus as a desert world, with no substantial bodies of water to speak of, although it was officially reclassified as garrisoned in the middle of M39, since when the amount of infrastructure has expanded exponentially.
[12] The Armageddon-class battle cruiser serving as Zyvan’s flagship at the time. His habit of commandeering whichever vessel seemed most suitable for a given campaign, rather than having a vessel permanently assigned for his personal use, probably accounted for his remarkable longevity in the role of highest-priority target for whichever enemy was currently being engaged; by the time they worked out where he was, he’d already moved on to a different ship.
[13] Something of an exaggeration, as the Eastern Arm contains a great deal more than the Damocles Gulf and its adjacent subsectors, which marked the limits of Zyvan’s remit.
[14] Close-range gun batteries, intended to shoot down fighters and incoming missiles before they get close enough to inflict any damage.
[15] Two shots in quick succession.
[16] In other words, most of the time.
[17] Particularly in complex tunnel systems, a legacy of his early life on an as yet unidentified hive world.
[18] Since the Church of the Omnissiah provides for most of the needs of its adherents, very few of them go in for much in the way of personal property.
[19] In fact the formal declaration of purpose, and granting of an Imperial Charter to the Adeptus Mechanicus for exclusive rights to the system and all it contained, was dated 79.872.M39, but I suppose he was near enough.
[20] The Mechanical Perfection, an Adeptus Mechanicus vessel on which Cain had taken passage. From the fact that he says nothing about the voyage itself we can safely assume that it passed without incident, or indeed amusement, something acolytes of the Omnissiah place a very low priority on.
[21] That sort of thing being something of an occupational hazard for a roving inquisitor, especially when you try to flush out the heretics by letting them think you’re on to them already.
[22] Jurgen was an ice-worlder, serving originally with the Valhallan 12th Field Artillery until being assigned as Cain’s aide.
[23] As opposed to the local year, the period of Eucopia’s orbit.
[24] The most highly ranked tech-priest on the planet.
[25] At least in a fashion overhearable by Cain – they could quite easily have been communing with one another, or the shrine’s machine-spirits, through inbuilt vox-units the entire time.
[26] In other words, pretty much any tech-priest in the Imperium.
[27] Though possibly more in the literal sense, of being widely believed but without foundation, than Clothier intends to convey.
[28] A Valhallan beverage to which Cain was inexplicably partial – I’ve heard it described as an acquired taste on many occasions, but still have no idea why anyone would wish to do so.
[29] Cyber Altered Task unit, a small, self-propelled mechanical device generally used for a single specialised function too simple to require the services of a dedicated servitor. They tend to proliferate around Adeptus Mechanicus shrines, as many magi seem to construct or modify them as recreational projects, with finding a useful task for them to do once they’re completed being something of an afterthought.
[30] Presumably this only refers to the servitors, unless some of the vehicles in question were walkers, like the Imperial Guard Sentinels Cain was familiar with.
[31] Possibly a museum, or a chapel of some kind; a distinction not always immediately obvious in Mechanicus facilities.
[32] Something not entirely confined to the Adeptus Mechanicus, in my experience.
[33] The Imperial Guard regiment with which he had the longest and closest association, prior to his attachment to the general staff.
[34] From The Precepts of Saint Emelia, a work which, rather surprisingly, Cain was familiar enough with to have transcribed several of its passages into his commonplace book.
[35] Though it seems clear from Cain’s description of his walk to the command chapel that, as an honoured guest, his quarters were in the heart of the shrine itself rather than the living area set aside for the general workforce.
[36] They probably wouldn’t have been all that much help even if he had been able to read them, given the propensity of tech-priests to replace their original eyes with augmetic ones capable of seeing much further up and down the spectrum; at best the unmodified see only about a third of the signage in most Mechanicus facilities. Which can be rather inconvenient if you’ve drunk too much recaff in the early stages of a visit.
[37] Only the t’au seem to have mastered the ability to mass-produce plasma weapons light and reliable enough to be issued to their ordinary line troopers as a matter of course.
[38] Not something I imagine he’d have done as a matter of course, but no doubt he’d inspected more than his fair share of field kitchens in the course of his career.
[39] Nomenclature of rank within the fighting forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus varies at least as much as it does within the Astra Militarum, pretty much every forge world or significant shrine having their own ideas on the subject – not to mention force organisation. Though Cain doesn’t go into much detail about the military assets of Eucopia, it’s safe to assume Norgard was responsible for at least a legion, or the rough equivalent of an Imperial Guard battalion.
[40] Clearly exaggeration for humorous effect, as his position on the lord general’s staff, not to mention his status within the Commissariat, gave him almost unlimited access to whatever files he wished. The inclination to peruse them, on the other hand, was very rarely evident.
[41] Or a few members of it, to be more precise.
[42] Not entirely fair: according to Yanbel, the tech-priest attached to my personal staff, they vary some of the parameters each time in an attempt to isolate the cause of a problem, such as a burned-out relay or the wrong kind of votive candle being lit on a control lectern. Though to the uninitiated, I suppose, it does look as if they’re just going through the motions.
[43] Even the Inquisition has very little idea about this, beyond whatever clues the Ordo Malleus may have in their records of the abominations unleashed by the corrupted magi in the service of the Great Enemy, although doctrinal differences are no doubt as pervasive and bitterly contested in the Adeptus Mechanicus as they are in the Ecclesiarchy.
[44] During the defence of Fecundia, to which he’s already alluded.
[45] Cain’s period of secondment to the Chapter left him acquainted with their iconography and practices to a far greater extent than most non-initiates.
[46] The Reclaimers seem to possess an unusual number of the ancient Corvus-pattern helmets, conferring them on members of the Chapter who distinguish themselves in some way as visible marks of honour.
[47] Like most Space Marine Chapters, the Reclaimers probably have almost a thousand battle-brothers under arms at any given moment, although since they’re widely dispersed in units ranging from companies down to individual detached squads, often operating independently for years at a time, their exact numbers are hard to determine – even by their own Chapter Master.
[48] Jurgen was technically still a serving member of the Imperial Guard, but his ambiguous status as a de facto representative of the Commissariat as well allowed him a degree of discretion as to which code of conduct he was required to follow under any given set of circumstances. Having a fairly straightforward approach to most areas of uncertainty, he generally resolved the paradox by adhering to whichever protocol seemed the most advantageous to him at the time.
[49] Or perhaps not. The number of outsiders who have spent a prolonged period of time aboard a Space Marine vessel isn’t particularly large.
[50] A dialect known to its speakers as binharic, which, despite centuries of determined, if not obsessive, study by the Ordo Dialogus, remains utterly and frustratingly opaque to outsiders.
[51] Presumably intended to accommodate visiting Space Marines, as if Morie had found it too cramped to traverse comfortably Cain would almost certainly have had something trenchant to say about the matter.
[52] The more comfortable ones, anyway. Most, in fact, are utilitarian in both nature and design, tending to plain dark colours, or simply bare metal where exposure to the local environment is unlikely to result in significant corrosion.
[53] Other than it not being a heavily armoured gun platform intended to be flown with near-suicidal recklessness, of course.
[54] Cain remarks elsewhere in his memoirs that the Reclaimers seem to venerate the Omnissiah to a far greater extent than most Space Marine Chapters, but whether the Machine-God is the main focus of their faith, or seen simply as an aspect of their primarch or the Emperor Himself, only their initiates really know. The Ordo Hereticus may have their suspicions, but so far have seen no reason to act.
[55] Hardly surprising, as the Adeptus Mechanicus tend to standardise pretty much everything they can in the name of resource management… before their most senior acolytes proceed to tinker with it in a variety of inventive and life-threatening ways.
[56] Presumably in response to his instructions over an internal vox-link – an augmentation favoured by many tech-priests, which the rest of us find distinctly unnerving, since it’s impossible to overhear whatever they might be saying about us behind our backs.
[57] Clearly, perhaps, to a man who had spent most of the preceding seventy years either in, or in close proximity to, a warzone; Vorspung, having spent most of his life in the service of the Machine-God, may have retained the pious hope that most things could be fixed.
[58] Indeed it does. Ask any inquisitor. Just be sure you’re prepared for the answer, as some think actions speak louder than words.
[59] Quite correctly.
[60] Hardly a surprise, as if there’s one thing the Adeptus Astartes are good at, it’s responding to an unexpected threat.
[61] Well it would, wouldn’t it?
[62] As I’ve had occasion to remark in other parts of his memoirs, Cain seems never to have noticed, or cared about if he had, the difference between craftworlders and their webway-dwelling kin, only the latter being known to raid for slaves as well as resources. Although, to be fair, since both were equally keen to kill him in most of his interactions with them, it may well have seemed to him to be a distinction without a difference in any case.
[63] Cain is, perhaps, being a little unfair here, since, as one of the incredibly rare individuals immune to psychic influence, Jurgen would be effectively undetectable to anyone tainted by the warp; indeed, many of the so-called ‘blanks’ are afflicted with something akin to negative charisma, rendering them less likely to be noticed even by the rest of us.
[64] If any had been present in support of the Reclaimers on Fecundia, the fact had evidently slipped his mind.
[65] Most Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes are responsible for the guardianship of their home worlds and associated systems, which are considered under their jurisdiction rather than that of the usual Imperial institutions such as the Administratum, the Adeptus Arbites and the Ecclesiarchy. A few have holdings somewhat greater in extent, encompassing several inhabited worlds, stellar systems or both, the largest and most famous of which is, of course, the Realm of Ultramar.
[66] For Cain, this is a remarkably trusting assumption; most Space Marines’ ability to recognise signs of heresy is limited to sticking their heads up to see where the bolter rounds are coming from. Which, to be fair, is pretty much the only indication they actually need.
[67] Actually a strike cruiser: although given the rarity of battle-barges themselves, even the most lavishly equipped Chapters only being able to maintain one or two of these gigantic transport and assault craft, Cain can be forgiven for mistaking their name for a generic term for Space Marine vessels – an error he makes on more than one occasion in the course of his memoirs.
[68] Not to mention obtaining it in the first place.
[69] The subtler ones, anyway – there are always a few who’ll kill everything in sight just to be on the safe side, even in the Ordo Xenos, let alone the Hereticus, who like to be thorough, and the Malleus, who don’t dare not to be.
[70] Because by the time a hidden Chaos cult became enough of a nuisance to attract the attention of the Adeptus Astartes, it wouldn’t be so much a shadowy conspiracy as a planetwide insurrection.
[71] Of no interest to most of them, anyway. The few exceptions are eccentric, to put it mildly, perhaps because many of the products of a mekboy’s foundry only appear to work because the wielder believes they will, which does interesting things to the sanity of a tech-priest determined to unravel their secrets.
[72] The Reclaimers strike cruiser aboard which he’d spent some time during its eventful voyage in search of the space hulk Spawn of Damnation.
[73] Given the secrecy most Adeptus Astartes Chapters maintain about their traditions and practices it’s hard to be sure, but this would seem to be somewhat unusual. Most Chapter-serfs appear to be aspirant recruits to the ranks of the Space Marines themselves (those who failed to make the grade during the selection process while still distinguishing themselves sufficiently to be offered the chance to serve the Chapter in a supporting role) so would certainly be familiar enough with most weapons to use them effectively. Very few instances of them being routinely armed by their patron Chapter are on record, however, other than the serfs of the Bone Knives, who carry weapons openly, and often get the chance to use them while carrying out their logistical support duties just behind the front line.
[74] Morie’s extensive genetic modifications making him immune to having his DNA overwritten by the ’stealers.
[75] If Morie disagreed with this assessment, Cain doesn’t mention the fact; although given the handful of Space Marines actually present on Eucopia, he may simply have concurred.
[76] A superficially flippant observation which may well have a grain of truth in it; the question of how aware those unfortunate enough to have been implanted with ’stealer genetic material actually are of being a part of the broodmind remains an open one. The current working hypothesis of the magi biologis studying the question on behalf of the Ordo Xenos essentially boils down to ‘your guess is as good as ours’, but with rather more polysyllabic jargon.
[77] Ha!
[78] Technically, as the aide of a commissar, Jurgen had access to anything which fell within the Commissariat’s remit. In practice, he had access to anything which wasn’t nailed down, and a few things which were if something had been left lying around to remove the nails with.
[79] Yes and no. Some Space Marine commanders value subterfuge and diplomacy at least as much as their bolters, although superior firepower still tends to be the first solution they think of to any given problem.
[80] Which was less populated, with correspondingly fewer installations to secure.
[81] Not a military specialty much in demand among the forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus, it must be said.
