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  Myriad – Rob Sanders

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  Myriad

  Rob Sanders

  The Martian soil trembled. Beneath the Temple-Tarantyne assembly yards, something was rising.

  Once a glorious spectacle of magna-machinery and Titan production, the southern installation had produced the mighty God-Machines of the Legio Excruciata. Now its great production temples glowed with the unholy light of corruption. Chittering constructs went to work on towering perversions – looming monstrosities that should have been Warlord Titans but instead were metal monsters of daemonic infestation and heretek weaponry.

  Row upon row of such beasts stood silent in the storage precincts, waiting for the orbital mass conveyers that would take them to bulk freighters destined for the Warmaster’s forces.

  But those mass conveyors would not come.

  With the Forge World Principal blockaded by the VII Legion, nothing was leaving Mars. Like the monstrous tanks, fevered warrior-constructs and ranks of empty battleplate sitting in storage bays across the surface, the Chaos Titans gathered Martian dust.

  Dust that now rained down about the towering abominations as the bedrock quaked beneath them.

  A Warlord Titan was a walking fortress of thick plate and powerful shielding. As any who had ever faced such an apocalyptic foe understood, it had few weaknesses. As a former princeps of the Collegia Titanica, Kallistra Lennox had the distinction of both piloting and felling such God-Machines. She knew that one of the few vulnerabilities the Mars Alpha-pattern Warlord had was a weak point on its command deck, but the deck was almost impossible to reach for ground troops.

  Standing in the gyroscopic interior compartment of the Mole burrowing transport Archimedex, Lennox felt the adamantium prow drilling a phase-fielded tunnel through the Martian bedrock and soil, then finally breaking the surface into the assembly yards. While the large tunnelling vehicle emerged upright, like a rising tower, the crowded troop compartment maintained its rolling orientation within, which would make disembarkation a smooth affair. The princeps had directed the translithope to rise up next to a Warlord Titan identified as the Ajax Abominata. Loyal constructs had been watching the installation for weeks from the scrap-littered sides of the surrounding mountains. The construction of the Ajax Abominata was all but complete, although its armoured shell was still covered in a scaffold, complete with mobile gantries.

  It was a target ripe for sabotage – and the princeps knew exactly how to do it.

  Not that she looked very much like an officer of the Collegia Titanica any more. While she still wore her uniform amid scraps of flak and carapace, it was tattered and stained with oil. The black leather of her boots was scuffed and her gloves crudely cut to fingerlessness. She wore an eye patch where her ocular bionic had been torn out, and a short chain-blade sat heavy upon her belt where a ceremonial sabre used to hang. Grenades and hydrogen flasks dangled from a bandolier while in her hands the princeps clutched the chunky shape of a plasma caliver.

  ‘Stand by,’ she said, sternly.

  The loyalist Mechanicum cell to which Lennox belonged had been dubbed the Omnissian Faithful. Like all its adherents, Lennox was a Martian survivor. Left behind in the exodus to Terra, she had become a rebel on her own world. While the scrapcode tore through the Forge World Principal, corrupting everything it touched, there had been some Martians and constructs who had followed their instincts. As part of a disgust response – like a person making themselves sick after ingesting a toxin or poison – some true servants of the Omnissiah had had the strength to mutilate themselves. They tore bionics from their bodies, severed hardlinks and burned out wireless receivers. Ports and interfaces were gouged out, their bodies and minds cut off from the code-streams of the Martian networks. They had saved themselves from the infected data that brought madness, spiritual pollution and the warping of flesh and form.

  It was a corruption that had claimed nearly all who had not escaped the Red Planet, even the Fabricator General himself: Kelbor-Hal, now no more than a withered bundle of polluted workings. Like the magi below him and the constructs below them, he had become a slave to darkness. A puppet controlled by the renegade Warmaster Horus, light years distant.

  In the Mole’s troop compartment stood a motley collection of blank-faced adepts, battle-smashed skitarii, liberated tech-thralls, indentured menials, gun-servitors saved by their masters, vat-engineered work-hulks, harnessed ferals and bastardised battle-automata. All were pledged to the Omnissian Faithful but had needed a leader in the field. Someone of a tactical mind and destructive disposition to help the rebels in a campaign of sabotage and subversion.

  When Lennox had joined them, they had found just such a leader.

  ‘Ten seconds,’ the princeps told the rebel constructs about her. Her seconds, Omnek-70 and Galahax Zarco, waited either side of the bulkhead. Omnek-70 was skitarii – a Ranger who carried the length of a transuranic arquebus. Zarco, meanwhile, was a hulking enginseer who hefted a power axe in the shape of an Omnissian cog. Lennox listened for the sound of the drill and phase fields on different materials. She stamped on the deck.

  ‘Ratchek,’ she called to her former moderatii and the Mole’s goggled operator. ‘Kill the main drive. Open outer doors.’

  The layered bulkheads sighed hydraulically, and slipped aside to reveal the shadowy interior of the scaffold complex.

  Lennox nodded. ‘Go.’

  The structure was swarming with afflicted constructs going about their duties, and before long Lennox and her rebels found themselves fighting up through the blind spots and gauntlets of the scaffold interior. Meanwhile, heavily armed security forces – drawn from their perimeter posts by the Mole’s emergence – were running across the assembly yards and converging upon the Titan.

  The compartments and ladderwells of the towering complex were filled with the cacophony gunfire. The Omnissian Faithful had to make use of whatever untainted weaponry they could scavenge and could not afford god-pleasing uniformity. Laslocks blasted bolts across the darkness of the decks. Shells from stub-carbines tore up through catwalks. Arc rifles threw streams of lightning along gantries. Lennox anticipated the arrival of the rebels by tearing grenades from her bandolier and throwing them up through the ladderwells and into the levels above.

  The Ajax Abominata, even in the final stages of its dread assembly, was what she had come to expect from a corrupted God-Machine, swarming with twisted artisans prattling scrapcode and insanity.

  The rebels moved up at speed and with merciless gunfire delivered at point-blank range. The corrupted army of constructs tending the monstrous Titan were ill-equipped to repel such a direct attack. The assembly yard’s security forces and shock troops hadn’t entertained the possibility of an attack on Temple-Tarantyne coming up through the installation’s foundations. While they babbled and ran towards the towering scaffold, Lennox and her rebels hauled themselves up through the structure. Heavy servitors and cyborg corruptions shrieked as they were blasted aside. Chainblades opened up the traitor constructs in a fountain of blood and oil before sending them flailing off the scaffold’s edge.

  The rapid advance was not met without resistance. About them the very metal of the Titan’s outer hull and the surrounding scaffolding warped with daemonic presence. Infernal eyes opened in the walls. Hatches opened explosively to vomit acidic ichor or shoot grasping tentacles at the rebels. Deck openings became fang-lined mouths that cut insurgents in half. The fighting got close and tangled on a platform crowded with strapped-down stores and cargo ne
ts. They were rushed by servitors with black filth bubbling from their mouth-grilles and a fell light behind their eyes. Lennox ordered her expendable ferals with their limb-fused weaponry into the fray, supported by engineered hulks who tore the traitor servitors limb from corrupted limb.

  Higher up, the rebels became caught in a furious exchange of fire as a twisted member of the Titan crew took charge on the scaffold deck, joined by sentries running up the mobile gantries. The stairwell turned into a horrific kill-zone. Lennox didn’t have time or bodies to spare in pushing on through and so cut up through the mesh flooring with her chain-blade. Sending a small group up through the hole with Galahax Zarco, she watched the enginseer swing his power axe about him. With heavy footfalls he took apart possessed servitors and buried the crackling weapon in the Titan crewmember with a sickening thud. With the gauntlet broken, Lennox ordered the rebels onwards and upwards.

  The compartments about the Titan’s command deck had been locked off by the time the rebels reached it. Engineering constructs gargled corruption at them through the metal.

  ‘We don’t have time for this,’ Lennox said to Omnek-70 and Zarco. Levelling his arquebus at the doors, Omnek-70 punched round after transuranic round through the bulkhead and into the cavity compartment beyond. As the sound of the tainted constructs died away, the enginseer buried the crackling cog of his axe in one of the round-punctured doors and heaved it aside. Lennox slipped through, her plasma caliver hugged in at her chest.

  The compartment stank of corruption and was wreathed in a lead-coloured smoke. There were warped bodies on the floor with gaping holes through their polluted workings where Omnek-70 had shot them through. A tech-adept came at the princeps, wielding a heavy multi-tool like a club. Leaning into the kick of the caliver, she blasted the thing into oblivion, before turning to face another filth-spewing construct, burning it from existence.

  ‘Open it up,’ Lennox said to Galahax Zarco as they strode through the compartment and climbed up onto the outer shell of the Titan’s head. From there they could see many other Titans in the gloom of the colossal assembly yard. They were all in different stages of completion, some surrounded by warped scaffolding. Lennox looked down at the corrupted hull of the Ajax Abominata beneath her boots. The princeps could feel the suffering of the afflicted machine-spirit within.

  ‘Princeps,’ Omnek-70 called from the scaffold exterior, his optics whirring through different filters. He pointed out across the assembly yard. ‘The Ventorum is powering up.’

  Lennox grunted. The Warlord Titan Belladon Ventorum was one of the many God-Machines waiting in the assembly yard precincts for transportation off-world; and for a long time, judging by its relatively uncorrupted appearance. While most of its weaponry was too powerful to use without damaging the precious Ajax Abominata, its mighty gatling blaster was capable of turning the scaffolding upon which they stood into a blur of shredded scrap.

  ‘Enginseer, work fast,’ she called.

  ‘As fast as I can,’ Zarco replied. While a simple hatch, even a reinforced one, shouldn’t have been a problem for a priest of Mars, the corrupted metal sickeningly retracted from Zarco’s tools.

  As he finally forced the grotesque thing open, Omnek-70 pointed his arquebus down into the musty darkness of the bridge space. There was no crew on the command deck and Lennox didn’t have time for the intricacies of sabotaging such a complex machine. All she knew was that the most sophisticated piece of equipment on a Titan was the manifold interface and mind-impulse technologies that would link the crew to the machine. Zarco stood aside to let Lennox get past him to the hatch.

  ‘Pass them along,’ the princeps ordered, as her rebel followers formed a line.

  One by one they passed along the demolition packs they had carried with them. Zarco primed the timers before handing the devices over to Lennox, who dropped them down through the hatch.

  ‘Go!’ she called, moving the Omnissian Faithful off the Titan’s afflicted hull and back into the scaffold complex.

  A mobile gantry completed its ponderous swing into position, connecting with the scaffolding, and Lennox’s constructs began exchanging heavy fire with enemy forces running the length of the groaning platform. A tech-thrall exploded in gore and workings as the beam of some tainted weapon hit him. Servo-automata were blasted to shreds and gun-servitors received glowing auto-rounds to the head.

  ‘Get back!’ Lennox ordered, unleashing a storm of plasma up the ladderwell.

  She felt the metal of the walls about her retract and tremble with fury and pain as the plasma stream burned up through both opening and flooring to turn the deck above into a light storm. The half-bodies of smouldering constructs thudded down on top of them.

  A daemoniac artisan screeched at the rebels. ‘And you, afflicted thing!’ Lennox roared back, slapping another tri-flask into her plasma caliver and blasting a response. She felt the metal hand of Omnek-70 on her shoulder.

  It was time to leave.

  ‘Tactical withdrawal,’ she ordered, prompting a vat-engineered work-hulk carrying a heavy stubber to stream suppressing fire along the length of the mobile gantry, allowing the rebels time to slide back down through the lower decks. Throwing the caliver across her back on its strap, Lennox clasped the edge of a ladder with the inside of her boots and a loose-gloved grip. Sliding down through the corpse-strewn decks of the Ajax Abominata’s rig, she hit the bottom and got out of the way for Omnek-70 and the much larger Zarco.

  The ground floor was a storm of thin, dark beams and arc streams tearing through the scaffolding from reinforcements closing in from outside. The assembly yards were huge and it had taken the installation’s sentries some time to converge upon the Mole and the targeted Titan. The gunfire of Dark Mechanicum constructs cut through the jabbering scrapcode and klaxons shrieking across the assembly yard. As rebels stumbled through the lower level, many were cut down by infernal shock troops closing on their transport.

  ‘Ratchek, reverse drill,’ Lennox called to the moderatii as she hauled herself up to the scratched hull of the Archimedex. Slapping thralls and limping battle-automata in through the Mole’s hatch, Lennox felt the scaffold’s superstructure tremble.

  The explosives fired.

  The Ajax Abominata’s command deck exploded, blasting the head of the Titan into nothing more than shattered wreckage, raining flaming debris down through the scaffold rig.

  ‘Princeps,’ Omnek-70 said with a cyborg’s lack of emotion and urgency, and pulled Lennox towards the waiting Mole. She nodded. The mighty Belladon Ventorum was also sending quakes through the assembly yards with its every step, the monstrous Titan moving into position. The rebels’ work here was done. The Ajax Abominata would be going nowhere without a command deck.

  With Zarco and Omnek-70 in, Lennox stepped inside the transport and heaved the bulkhead shut.

  Safe once more below ground, the Archimedex nonetheless rocked with the quaking force of the explosions above as the Belladon Ventorum opened fire upon the scaffolding complex of its sister engine.

  Climbing down through the Mole, Lennox felt the rumble fade as they ploughed down through the bedrock to safety. Not even a Warlord’s terrible weaponry could reach them down here.

  It was a job well done. She had denied the Warmaster the Ajax Abominata, saving the countless loyalist lives that the monstrous machines would have claimed. She turned and hit the internal vox stud.

  ‘Ratchek, fire up the noospherics,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘Have Invalis Base advised – mission success. Tell them we’re inbound.’

  Lennox wiped down the squat barrel of her caliver with an oily rag, listening to the booming churn and scrape of soil passing along the hull of the Archimedex. It had been a couple of hours since they had left the Temple-Tarantyne assembly yards.

  Ratchek voice crackled over the internal vox. ‘We have a request for assistance.’

  ‘Who?’ Len
nox said, standing.

  ‘A scavenger party. Units Forty-Four-Torq and Scallion-Six-One.’

  Lennox knew Invalis Base routinely sent out teams to gather uncorrupted weaponry and equipment, but it was rare to see them this far out. ‘Where?’

  ‘The Autonox solar collection fields,’ Ratchek replied. ‘We’re coming up on their comm-signature now.’

  ‘What’s their problem?’ Lennox muttered. She wasn’t in the habit of exposing their position for scavengers too lazy to haul their finds back to Invalis Base, no matter how dangerous or essential their work was to the Omnissian Faithful.

  ‘Pinned down,’ the moderatii told her, ‘by troops tagged with idents associated with Kelbor-Hal himself.’

  Lennox nodded. While she was loath to interrupt their journey back to Invalis Base, it would be much worse to have affiliated scavenger parties captured and give up its location under binary-torture.

  ‘Tell them to await extraction,’ the princeps said. ‘Confirm their position, and prepare to surface.’

  Ratchek broke ground a little distance off the comm-signature. Leaving the burrowing transport, Lennox emerged into the Martian dusk, with Omnek-70 and Zarco. The three insurgents found themselves in the smashed and smouldering remnants of the Autonox fields. The vast solar array had suffered in the civil war, with many of the revolving panels a shattered mess and the collector stations decimated.

  Moving up with her plasma caliver, Lennox froze at the sound of a vehicle in the sky. Crouching behind a demolished solar panel, she reached out for Omnek-70 who passed her a pair of magnoculars. As she peered up through the wreckage and into the sky she could make out a grav-craft, billowing smoke. Its interior glowed with the horrid brilliance of corruption and its loudhailer barked scrapcode-induced madness. The symbol on the side of the hull was that of the Ordo Reductor.

  ‘It’s Gordicor,’ Lennox said to Omnek-70 and the enginseer. ‘Or his minions.’

  Successes like the one secured at Temple-Tarantyne had not gone unnoticed by the Dark Mechanicum. Accordingly, Kelbor-Hal had charged Magos Reductor Diemon Gordicor with locating saboteurs and seditious constructs. The execution squads of the Ordo Reductor were perfectly suited to hunting down and obliterating camps of hiding loyalists.