Forge of Mars - Graham McNeill Read online

  ‘How are you doing this?’ she demanded through gritted teeth.

  ‘This?’ he said, gesturing to her with one of the stolen pistols. ‘These are the least of my order’s cantrips. But don’t worry, Mistress Aurora. If my employer wished you dead, it would already be so. Now, to business.’

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Hydraq, managing to pull himself onto his knees. Aurora watched the unfolding drama through her own senses and the compound eyes of her spy-fly swarm.

  She saw the bland-faced adept before her, but her swarm saw nothing, only her pistols apparently floating in midair.

  ‘That’s not the question,’ she said. ‘What are you?’

  ‘My name is Adept Nemonix, and I am a dataproctor currently in service to Archmagos Alhazen,’ said the adept, and Aurora fought to keep what he was saying in her head. His words squirmed around her skull, as though their meaning was so ephemeral that they could not be pinned in place for long.

  ‘You work for Alhazen?’ said Hydraq.

  ‘As do you now if you wish to live,’ said Nemonix.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Come now, Adept Hydraq, you know why. You saw what was on that cogitator.’

  Hydraq shook his head. ‘No, it’s impossible. The legends about Archmagos Telok are just that, legends. He’s long dead.’

  Nemonix spread his hands and shrugged, as though the truth or otherwise of Hydraq’s words were utterly inconsequential.

  ‘My employer believes otherwise,’ said Nemonix.

  The dataproctor’s head cocked to one side, as though listening to something only he could hear. He looked up and smiled.

  ‘Do you see that?’ he said, pointing to a pinprick of bright light crossing the sky, barely visible through the storm overhead. ‘That is cyclonic torpedo launched from an unregistered Deimos-pattern frigate in geostationary orbit with this exact spot. At its current velocity it will impact in ninety-seven seconds. You have that long to accept my employer’s offer of life.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what? Why should you choose life? A question better addressed to the technotheologians or, as I know how bitterly you despise them, Adept Hydraq, perhaps an Imperial preacher? Either way, time is running short for such deep questions of existence.’

  ‘Why do we get the choice to live?’ asked Hydraq.

  ‘Your existence or otherwise is of no interest to me, but you have been deemed useful and you have skills, which makes you desirable.’

  Aurora felt the binaric shackles holding her fast unbind her body’s augmetics. Nemonix reversed her pistols and held them out to her, handles first.

  Her optical threat readers said Nemonix was harmless, that she could kill him before he took his next breath.

  Her gut told her she would be dead before she could move so much as a muscle.

  ‘We accept,’ she said, taking and holstering her guns.

  ‘What?’ said Hydraq. ‘No!’

  ‘We accept,’ she repeated. ‘I am life-bound to you, Hydraq. You cannot die, and if the only way to keep you alive is to treat with Alhazen, then we’re doing it.’

  ‘A most excellent decision,’ said the dataproctor, looking up at the descending warhead. ‘Now I would board that very fine speeder of yours and get as far from here as possible.’

  ‘You’re letting us go?’ asked Hydraq.

  ‘For now, but a time of change is upon Mars,’ said Nemonix, retreating into the storm’s fury. ‘And when it comes you will be called. It will go badly for you to refuse that call.’

  And then he was gone.

  Aurora lifted Hydraq and all but threw him into the rear cockpit of the Merganser. She vaulted into the pilot’s seat, sealed the canopy and shut down the electrostatic field. Howling winds slammed the speeder as its gull-wings unfolded and it sped away.

  Barely had the inertia-couch gripped her when she rammed the engines out hard and the speeder surged from the crater.

  Aurora flew hard and low, keeping as many ridges, rocks and mountains between them and the incoming ordnance as was humanly possible.

  A second flash of detonation lit up the Martian desert.

  A radiant dome of white-hot vapour fire turned the interior of the Bouguer Crater and everything in it to molten glass.

  ‘What did we just agree to?’ asked Hydraq, his voice all but smothered by the force of acceleration.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘What did you mean about Telok?’

  ‘They think he’s coming back,’ said Hydraq.

  Dramatis Personae

  The Speranza

  Lexell Kotov – Archmagos of the Kotov Explorator Fleet

  Tarkis Blaylock – Fabricatus Locum, Magos of the Cebrenia Quadrangle

  Vitali Tychon – Stellar Cartographer of the Quatria Orbital Galleries

  Linya Tychon – Stellar Cartographer, daughter of Vitali Tychon

  Azuramagelli – Magos of Astrogation

  Kryptaestrex – Magos of Logistics

  Turentek – Ark Fabricatus

  Hirimau Dahan – Secutor/Guilder Suzerain

  Saiixek – Master of Engines

  Julius Hawke – Bondsman

  Abrehem Locke – Bondsman

  Vannen Coyne – Bondsman

  Ismael de Roeven – Bondsman

  Crusha – Bondsman

  The Renard

  Roboute Surcouf – Captain

  Emil Nader – First Mate

  Adara Siavash – Hired Gun

  Ilanna Pavelka – Tech-Priest

  Kayrn Sylkwood – Enginseer

  Gideon Teivel – Astropath

  Elior Roi – Navigator

  Adeptus Astartes Black Templars

  Kul Gilad – Reclusiarch

  Tanna – Brother-Sergeant

  Auiden – Apothecary

  Issur – Initiate

  Atticus Varda – Initiate

  Bracha – Initiate

  Yael – Initiate

  The Cadian 71st ‘The Hellhounds’

  Ven Anders – Colonel of the Cadian Detached Formation

  Blayne Hawkins – Captain of Blazer Company

  Taybard Rae – Lieutenant of Blazer Company

  Jahn Callins – Requisitional Support Officer, Blazer Company

  Legio Sirius

  Arlo Luth, ‘The Wintersun’ – Warlord Princeps, Lupa Capitalina

  Marko Koskinen – Moderati

  Lars Rosten – Moderati

  Magos Hyrdrith – Tech-Priest

  Eryks Skálmöld, ‘The Moonsorrow’ – Reaver Princeps, Canis Ulfrica

  Tobias Osara – Moderati

  Joakim Baldur – Moderati

  Magos Ohtar – Tech-Priest

  Gunnar Vintras, ‘The Skinwalker’ – Warhound Princeps, Amarok

  Elias Härkin, ‘The Ironwoad’ – Warhound Princeps, Vilka

  The Starblade

  Bielanna Faerelle – Farseer of Biel-Tan

  Ariganna – Striking Scorpion Exarch of Biel-Tan

  Tariquel – Striking Scorpion of Biel-Tan

  Vaynesh – Striking Scorpion of Biel-Tan

  Uldanaish Ghostwalker – Wraithlord of Biel-Tan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

  Binaric inscription on the Bell of Lost Souls.

  Tower of Heroes, Terra.

  The Telok Expedition: Declared lost with all knowledge: 383.M38

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  001

  Knowledge is power. It is the first credo. It is the only credo. To understand that fundamental concept is to possess power beyond measure. To harness fire, to shape the elements and bend them to your will. Such things as can now only be dreamed of by lunatics and the Machine-touched were commonplace in an age unremembered. What is now miraculous and divine, the preserve of the few, was once possessed by all. Yet understood by none.

  Woe to you, man who honours not the Omnissiah, for ignorance shall be your doom!

  The Great Machines of Old Earth were wondrous engines of creation whose power dwarfed that of any myth or legend. They shaped entire worlds, they drank the hearts of stars and brought light into the dark places of the universe. The techno-sorcerers who crafted them and wielded their power bestrode the world as gods.

  How far we have fallen.

  010

  Great void-born city of metal and stone, marvel of wonders never to be known again. You live in the depths of space, your sheet steel skin cold and unyielding. You are a living thing, a creature whose bones are adamantium, whose molten heart is that of a thousand caged stars. Oil is your sweat and the devotion of a million souls your succour. Creatures of flesh and blood empower you from within. They work the myriad wonders that drive your organs, feed your hunger and hurl you through the trackless wilderness between the stars.

  How far will you travel?

  What miracles will you see?

  The light of uncounted suns will shine from the glitter-sheen of your hull, light that has travelled from the past, cast by stars that are dead and stars in the throes of their violent birth. A mariner in strange seas, swept out among the glittering nebulae, you will see sights that no man can know, no legend tell or history record.

  You are living history, for you will venture farther and longer than any other of your kind.

  No grim ship of war are you, no lowly workhorse yoked to dull purpose.

  You are Ark Mechanicus.

  You are Speranza.

  You are the bringer of hope in this hopeless age.

  011

  The spirit of the Omnissiah flows in bright traceries of golden energy. It moves in the heart of every machine. It brings motion and heat, energy and light. It feeds the forges, it drives the engines and is the alpha and omega of all that is and all that will ever be crafted by the hands of Man. The soul of the Great Machine lives in cogs and gears, it flows through every cable, it infuses every piston and the thrumming heart of every engine. Without it, the universe would be a benighted, sterile place, devoid of light and existence.

  The God of All Machines is eternal and unchanging.

  It is the First Power; the power at the heart of all things.

  To know it is to be one with it, and to feel its touch is to be changed forever.

  Flesh fails, but the machine endures.

  That which was once encoded in the very bones of the ancient Men of Gold has been lost, perhaps forever. But perhaps not. Much has been forgotten that will never again be remembered, and the hidden corners of this dying galaxy have secrets left to whisper. Those with eyes to see and the will to search may find scraps of what the titans who shaped the galaxy to their every desire left in the ruins of their doom.

  The lost realm of Man once claimed the galaxy as its own, with lustrous eyes turned to those stellar realms beyond its haloed fringes, but such was not to be our species’s destiny. We reached too far, too soon, too greedily and were almost destroyed.

  By hubris? Or worse, by ignorance?

  Who can know? None remember the truth of what brought our race to the edge of extinction. Some claim the machines rebelled against their enslavement and turned on their makers, others that an emergent strain of psykers unleashed a cataclysm. Whatever the cause, it wrought more harm than anyone living could ever have imagined.

  We plunged from a Golden Age of technology and reason into an Age of Darkness from which there is little hope of escape. Forget the promise of progress, they say. Forget the glories of the past. Cling to what little light remains and be satisfied with its feeble illumination.

  The Adeptus Mechanicus rejects that paradigm.

  We are crusaders in the darkness, ever seeking out that which will bring back the light of science and understanding. That is at the heart of what we have lost, the capacity to understand and question, the vision to determine what we do not know and seek out answers.

  We have become enslaved by dogma, ritual and blind superstitions that place fetters on our ability to even know there are questions to be asked.

  I will ask those questions.

  I will not be enslaved.

  I am Archmagos Lexell Kotov, and I will reclaim what was lost.

  This is my quest for knowledge.

  Life is directed motion.

  Low-orbit traffic above Joura was lousy with ships jostling for space. Queues of lifter-boats, heavy-duty bulk tenders and system monitors held station in the wash of augur-fogging electromagnetics and engine flare from the heavier vessels as system pilots manoeuvred them into position for refuelling, re-arming and supply. Musters like this happened only rarely, and for two of them to come at once wasn’t just rare, it was a complete pain in the backside.

  The Renard was a ship of respectable tonnage, but compared to the working vessels hauling their monstrously fat bodies between Joura and the fleets competing for docking space like squealing cudbear litters fighting for prime position at the teat, she was little more than an insignificant speck.

  Roboute Surcouf didn’t like thinking of his ship like that. No captain worthy of the rank did.

  The command bridge of the Renard was a warmly-lit chamber of chamfered wood, bronze and glass, embellished with bygone design flourishes more commonly found on the ancient ships sailing the oceans of Macragge. Every surface was polished to a mirror shine, and though Magos Pavelka called such labours a waste of her servitors’ resources, not even an adept of the Martian Priesthood would gainsay a rogue trader with a Letter of Marque stamped with Segmentum Pacificus accreditation.

  Pavelka claimed it was the fragment of the Omnissiah that lived in the heart of a starship that every captain had to appease, but Roboute disagreed with Ilanna’s slavish devotion to her Martian dogma when it came to ships. Roboute knew you had to love a ship, love her more than anything else in the world. Flying sub-atmospheric cutters on Iax
as a youth had taught him that every ship had a soul that needed to be loved. And the ships who knew they weren’t loved would be cantankerous mares; feisty at best, dangerous at worst.

  Ilanna Pavelka was about the only member of his crew who hadn’t objected to this venture. In fact she’d gotten almost giddy at the prospect of joining Archmagos Kotov’s Explorator Fleet and working with fellow Mechanicus adepts once more. Perhaps giddy wasn’t the right word, but she’d voiced calm approval, which was about as close to excitement as a priest of Mars ever got in Roboute’s experience.

  ‘Update: berthing docket inloading from the Speranza,’ Pavelka informed him, speaking from her sunken, steel-panelled command station in the forward arc of the bridge. Holographic streams of binaric data cascaded before her, manipulated by the waving mechadendrites that sprang from her shoulders like a host of snakes. ‘One hundred minutes until our allotted berth is available.’

  ‘How much margin for error in that?’ asked Emil Nader, the Renard’s first officer, seated in a contoured inertial-harness to Roboute’s left as he kept them within their assigned approach corridor with deft touches of manoeuvring jets. Pavelka could bring them in with an electromagnetic tether, but Roboute liked to give Emil a bit of freedom in the upper atmosphere. The Renard was going to be slaved to the Speranza’s course for the foreseeable future, and his cocksure first officer would appreciate this free flight time. Like most natives of Espandor, he had a wild, feral streak that made him averse to unthinking obedience to machinery.

  ‘Clarification: none,’ said Pavelka. ‘The cogitators of the Speranza are first generation Martian logic-engines, they do not allow for error.’

  ‘Yeah, but the pilots ahead of us aren’t,’ pointed out Emil. ‘Factor in their presence.’

  ‘All vessels ahead of us are tethered; as we will need to be before we enter the Speranza’s gravity envelope. There will be no error margin.’

  ‘Care to wager on that?’ asked Emil with a sly grin.

  A soft exhalation of chemical breath escaped Pavelka’s red cowl, and Roboute hid a smile at her exasperation. Emil Nader never missed a chance to pick at Mechanicus infallibility, and would never resort to automation if there was an option for human control.