To Speak as One - Guy Haley Read online

  ‘Are they?’

  ‘They have allowed a full augur sweep. No interference on the macro or micro levels.’ Gamma sounded disappointed.

  ‘In that case, we shall keep this cordial, for the time being. Be alert to any attempt to infiltrate the base while we are communicating.’

  ‘I am receiving another hail from the ship, lord inquisitor.’

  ‘They can wait a little longer,’ said Cehen-qui. ‘They will not consider leaving empty-handed. If Cawl is true to his reputation he will take the aeldari witch. Xenic guard to battle stations. Prime defensive weapons batteries. Activate internal defences.’

  Cehen-qui pointed at the comms station. ‘Prepare to open channels in three minutes. Let them see the weaponry of this station awake, then we shall find out how brave they are.’

  ‘Only a fraction of it is operable,’ warned Valeneez.

  ‘It will be enough,’ said Cehen-qui.

  Primus paced the short distance between the 0-101-0’s principal hololith pit and Qvo’s command cradle.

  ‘They are stalling for time.’

  ‘They are,’ said Qvo, busy with some esoteric task.

  ‘They are not answering our requests for contact,’ said Primus.

  ‘They are not.’ Qvo moved from one bank of instruments to another.

  ‘They will be powering their weaponry,’ said Primus.

  ‘They are powering their weaponry,’ said Qvo distractedly.

  ‘Then what are we waiting for?’ said Primus.

  ‘Really, Primus,’ said Qvo. ‘You may prefer frontal assault, but sometimes it pays to be cunning.’ He blurted a jarring stream of binaric at one of his followers. The priest, a box with a fringe of flailing metal extrusions, responded in kind. ‘Of course they are stalling for time. Of course they are making a show of strength. We shall show ourselves to be unconcerned. Meanwhile, I am making use of the time to infiltrate their cogitator systems with subversion code script that will make your task a great deal easier.’ Qvo’s voice rose in exasperation. ‘So if you please, allow me to concentrate. Thank you.’

  ‘I should be going,’ said Primus.

  ‘Yes.’ Qvo peered at a screen. He frowned. ‘That’s looking about right.’ He pushed a plunger down with his humanoid hand while a dozen other stick-thin metal limbs jabbed at the keys of an input device. ‘Very good. You can go. They will not see you. I have made sure of that.’

  ‘I have been alive for millennia,’ said Primus. ‘I am tormented by such boredom and despair, I sometimes cannot think, but I do not wish to end my time by being obliterated in the void because of one of your mistakes.’

  ‘There shall be none,’ said Qvo.

  ‘Good,’ said Primus. ‘Because if there is, I shall find a way to exact revenge upon you.’

  The big Space Marine struggled around the data-posts and draping cables of the command sphere, and exited.

  Qvo rolled his eyes and continued with his work.

  ‘Magos Qvo.’ Adept-Dialogus Kurubik addressed his lord from his bronze speaking trumpet. ‘The Inquisitorial facility has indicated that they are ready to begin communications.’

  ‘Aha!’ said Qvo. ‘Excellent. Let’s have him then, this inquisitor who likes to keep the servant of the Prime Conduit waiting.’

  The hololith blinked. A figure appeared in full over the pit. The hololith was presented solely in shades of orange, but Qvo’s internal mechanisms provided life-true colours to the projection. The inquisitor wore a startling white jacket and gloves, blue trousers piped with grey, high boots, a lot of brocade and many metal badges. His hair was meticulously arranged. He was handsome, with a single scar on his cheek that Qvo suspected had been deliberately left in place for effect.

  ‘Greetings!’ Qvo said loudly. ‘I am Qvo-87, servant and confidant of the Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl, Prime Conduit of the Omnissiah and foremost practitioner of the Machine-God’s mysteries. I believe you have something that my lord desires.’

  The inquisitor gave no name. ‘He shall not have it. The prisoner you desire is in the custody of the Ordo Xenos.’

  ‘Then we find ourselves at odds,’ said Qvo.

  Primus passed across the gap between the 0-101-0 and the dungeon. His armour spirit broadcast anti-augur obfuscation noise. He had his reactor and systems down at the lowest possible settings. Qvo’s infiltration codes kept the station’s augurs from picking up this fleck of man-shaped metal, so Primus was to all intents invisible to machine senses, and so small and insignificant against the great emptiness of the void it was unlikely any human eye would see him either.

  With Primus’ radiation vents shut to keep his thermal profile low, there was nowhere for his reactor’s energy to go but inward. An internal thermometer rose steadily in his retinal display. His altered physiology had a broader thermal tolerance than a standard human’s, but he was not immune. A chronograph ticked down above the gauge. Fifteen minutes, eleven seconds until internal temperature became dangerous. He was already perspiring profusely. Sweat stung his eyes and pooled around the soft seal collar of his undersuit.

  He couldn’t let that distract him. The psyker on board the ship was looking for him. He felt its attention sweep across the stars like a searchlight. He must maintain a perfect psychic cloak at all times, for even when the psyker’s inner eye was looking elsewhere, his unshielded soul would burn bright, drawing them inevitably to him.

  The psyker was looking everywhere for him. The inquisition were not stupid. They suspected infiltration.

  ‘But so it must play out,’ Primus said to himself.

  The station loomed ahead. Primus had shoved himself off with his feet. His aim had to be perfect. He could not risk a burst from his stabiliser jets to correct his course. If that became necessary, he would have to choose between discovery or overshooting the station completely.

  He was near enough now to see automated guns tracking back and forth. Their single red targeting eyes passed over him, not seeing him. He breathed shallowly nonetheless, although the idea of them hearing him was ludicrous.

  He had no idea why he was so tense. Qvo was irritating him more than usual. Being with Qvo was not overly different to being with the magos himself. There seemed to be no escape from Cawl.

  He lost sight of the shape of the station. It became a huge metal cliff adorned with blindfolded angels and windowless arches. The speed of his approach appeared to increase the closer he got, now he had a reference point for his progress. He lifted his feet and activated his mag locks. His feet hit the hull hard. He was thrown forward, and had to swing back his arms violently to counteract his momentum.

  Primus checked his equipment was still attached to his belt, then stepped around.

  The hull there was two hundred feet tall. Dozens of decks were contained inside. He had a long search ahead of him. He called up the station’s cartolith. The nearest airlock was thirty yards above.

  Feet locking jerkily to the plasteel hull, Primus made his way upwards.

  ‘You must give up the prisoner,’ said Qvo, for the sixteenth time. He had tried every modulation of the human voice he could. None had worked. Nor had logic, or emotive pleas. Inquisitor Cehen-qui remained immovable.

  ‘The prisoner is a high-ranking xenos of a power in active opposition to the Imperium of Man,’ said Cehen-qui. ‘It falls within the purview of our ordo to interrogate him and decide upon the correct usage of any information that might be yielded from that interrogation. You cannot have the alien, not under any circumstances.’

  ‘I will not leave until you have given it up,’ said Qvo.

  ‘If you do not, we will be forced to regard your trespass in our orbit as an aggressive act. We will open fire upon your ship.’

  ‘That would constitute a direct act of war against the Adeptus Mechanicus,’ countered Qvo. ‘There will be severe repercussions.’
r />   ‘If anyone ever gets to hear about it,’ said Cehen-qui. ‘And you will be dead whether they do or not.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about either of those things,’ said Qvo. ‘I am the servant of the Prime Conduit of the Omn–’

  ‘By the Emperor, the lord of all the galaxy, you are a tedious creature,’ said Cehen-qui.

  ‘Perhaps we should resolve this face-to-face?’ said Qvo. ‘It may go more quickly. If I could but present the lord primarch’s documents to you so you may see their authenticity…’

  ‘You must think I was born outside the Emperor’s Light if you think I’ll fall for that trick. Of course I will not agree to meeting you. Either on your ship or on mine. You are going to leave, immediately. You have two minutes to power your drives and move off, or we will open fire.’

  The hololith blinked out.

  Qvo sighed. ‘Tricky, tricky, tricky.’

  ‘You can’t have thought it would be easy, magos,’ said Loseol-Azeriph, the 0-101-0’s arch-belligerus.

  ‘No, no, I didn’t,’ said Qvo. ‘It would be quite dull if it were.’

  ‘Then your orders?’

  ‘Bring the shields up. Ignite our main drive, take us out from the station. We’ll make them think we’re on our way.’

  ‘Then we can open fire?’ said Loseol-Azeriph with relish.

  ‘Then we can open fire. Power our weapons as soon as the void shields are active. Secure targeting locks on all their active weapons batteries. Come about, and attack.’

  Primus crept as well as an eight foot tall warrior in power armour could through the station. His suit was of the Intercessor type, tooled for direct confrontation rather than stealth, yet he moved quietly enough. The sigh of his motors and muffled tread did little to penetrate the dungeon’s sepulchral silence. It was a quiet that went beyond the material realm. A heavy weight of suffering smothered all sensation. The pain and sorrow of the creatures once incarcerated there steeped the fabric of the place. Primus passed along many corridors, each one lined with dozens of cells. He peered into a few through the viewing slots. A significant proportion contained age-yellowed bones. The variety of beings was astonishing. But though the creatures were different, their lingering imprints were the same; each and every cell shared the same psychic taint of despair. These last occupants had been left to their fate when the dungeon was abandoned. Primus was so old his emotions were worn away to stubs, but the atmosphere of the place got to him even so.

  The tremor of a weapons strike on shields made him pause. Qvo had begun his attack. Further strikes followed. He was going to have to be quick.

  He dropped his psychic mask a moment to let out his mind, searching for the greatest concentration of souls. He found two, one up in the hub, the other not far distant. At the second he felt the strange psyker’s presence, and it felt him.

  Throwing off stealth, Primus hurried towards his target.

  Loseol-Azeriph’s mechadendrites clicked in and out of interface sockets all over his vast, cathedral-organ operations station. Lines of data text were reflected in each of his six eyes.

  ‘I regret to inform you, Magos Qvo, that although their void shields have collapsed, the Ordo Xenos dungeon will withstand our weapons for several days.’

  The 0-101-0 trembled under return fire. Void discharge lit up the command sphere in violent purples and greens.

  ‘Now now, we don’t want to blow it up,’ said Qvo. ‘You’re too eager for destruction.’

  ‘Forgive me, my lord,’ said Loseol-Azeriph. ‘One loses oneself in one’s specialisation.’

  ‘Praise the Machine-God that it is so,’ said Qvo. ‘Current status of enemy weapons, if you please, Loseol.’

  ‘Eighty per cent reduction in destructive capability. Their guns outnumber ours, but they are very much outmatched by our targeting speed and prioritisation protocols. I have taken the liberty of removing their voidward weaponry first. They are toothless.’

  ‘You are enjoying yourself.’

  ‘I shall answer affirmatively to that,’ said Loseol-Azeriph gladly.

  ‘Then might we approach?’ asked Qvo.

  ‘In complete safety.’

  ‘Engage main engines, quarter speed. Bring us back towards the dungeon, and prepare to launch boarding craft.’

  canted the box of wires and nerves in fluid Qvo called Sixer.

  ‘I concur with the magos-transmechanic. Quarter speed is insufficient for a ramming run,’ said Loseol-Azeriph. ‘The tonnage of the station is in excess of ours by a factor of three hundred. We shall die, broken against their higher mass.’

  ‘We’re not going to ram it, Loseol,’ said Qvo with a gleeful grin. ‘We’re just going to give it a little push. The dungeon is falling into the world it orbits anyway. Let’s help it along. That will keep their eyes off the ball, as I believe people used to say a very long time ago.’

  The station was under heavy attack, and so Primus approached his target openly. Light bursts from hotshot lasguns blasted at him down the narrow approach way. Their overpowered beams punched smoking craters into his grey ceramite, but failed to penetrate. He replied with his bolter, cutting down three men in a single burst. He walked into the crossroads they were covering, and came into view of a tripod-mounted heavy bolter sheltered behind a barricade of rusted boxes to his right. His battleplate and his psychic senses warned him before it opened up, and he stepped back as a swarm of large-calibre bolts screamed down the corridor.

  He would save his psychic strength. Mundane methods of death were called for. He pulled out a frag grenade from his bandolier, flicked out the pin and tossed it around the corner, angling it perfectly so that it bounced from the wall and came down behind the barricade. As soon as it exploded, he strode forward. Shouts came from his left. Half a dozen men in heavy carapace were coming at him. Bolts from his gun drove them into cover. The magazine ran dry and he ejected it one-handed, raising the other hand to call upon the warp.

  A barrier of purple fire roared across the corridor. The foremost troopers were caught and screamed as the uncanny flames ate into their bodies. The rest were driven back.

  The station shook to a direct hit. Then another, then several more. Primus recognised the shock patterns of Mechanicus assault boats boring through the hull.

  Qvo had sent in his tech-thralls.

  Primus pressed on.

  ‘I can’t believe they’re doing this! Bring the damn thing down!’ shouted Cehen-qui apoplectically.

  ‘The men are trying, my lord inquisitor,’ said Valeneez calmly. ‘We cannot penetrate their shields. The full weapons grid of the station is non-functional due to neglect. What might we had, we have now lost.’

  ‘My lord, we have reports of hostile forces upon multiple decks,’ said one of Cehen-qui’s technicians.

  ‘How many are close to the prisoner?’ asked Cehen-qui.

  ‘Some fifty or more, my lord. More assault boats are coming. The main vessel is not slowing.’

  ‘Then shoot it! Shoot them all.’

  ‘By the Emperor, they’re going to ram us!’ shouted Valeneez.

  A heavy impact rocked the station, sending Cehen-qui staggering. He stared with disbelieving fury at the Adeptus Mechanicus ship. The vessel’s flat prow nosed against the hub, the tail swinging from side to side as it adjusted its position to stop itself from slipping free. The hub vibrated as the ship pushed against it. Metal creaked as, slowly, the station began to move towards its host planet.

  The vessel sparkled under a constant rain of fire from the station, but none of the weapons were powerful enough to break the void shields.

  ‘Oh, my lord!’ Callow squeaked.

  ‘How long do we have?’ asked Cehen-qui.

  ‘Time to planetary impact is deceptively short,’ said Gamma. ‘Once Otranti has us i
n its grasp, we shall accelerate rapidly. I calculate not longer than three hours.’

  ‘What about our ship?’

  ‘Undamaged,’ reported one of his men.

  ‘They are giving us a way out,’ said Valeneez. ‘Clever.’

  ‘Will you stop praising them!’ Cehen-qui swore. ‘Prepare to evacuate. Get the prisoner ready. They’ll never chase down an Inquisitorial cutter.’

  Primus came within a hundred yards of a raging battle waged between demi-men and Inquisitorial shock troops. He passed them by, his powerful mind clouding their perceptions. The sounds of shouts and the crack of las-beams receded, and he reached a T-junction. To his left, towards the hub of the station, was the greatest concentration of troops. They clustered around their sleeping prisoner, waiting for their enemy, their minds filled with fear and thoughts of duty.

  Primus brought up a cartolith. A red dot pulsed half a mile away in the opposite direction. Quietly, he stepped into the corridor, and turned right.

  Cehen-qui blasted a cyborg warrior at point-blank range. There was so little human left it was practically a servitor. Whoever this Qvo-87 was, he had no skitarii troops to call on, only the dregs of the Adeptus Mechanicus military. The machine-man died in a spray of oil and brain matter. The storm troopers pushed on ahead, shooting more of the clumsy foe with characteristic efficiency. Gamma marched with them, remorselessly gunning down the servants of his own cult.

  Cehen-qui reached the cell of the prisoner. The fighting moved away, and he whistled impatiently up the corridor.

  ‘You can come out now!’ he shouted.

  Valeneez emerged from a side door. Callow cowered in his shadow.

  Cehen-qui holstered his bolt pistol and looked at the door to the cell. Active psychic wards gleamed on the metal. ‘Open it.’

  Valeneez came down the corridor, taking out a bunch of data wands as he came. He employed the keys in a strict sequence to deactivate the door’s defensive measures, and it opened with a warning fanfare. Chilled nitrogen billowed out, clearing to reveal a small room with a clear methanol suspension tube at its centre. Within was the spindly form of a naked male aeldari. His hands and feet were bound in all-encompassing manacles. His was head locked into a psychic cradle.