Mechanicum

Verticorda returned his attention to the pathway, negotiating the last three hundred metres bathed in a cold sweat. He let out a long, shuddering breath as he took his first step onto the surface of the Olympus Mons caldera, enjoying the strange new sensation of mud sucking at his feet.

By the time the Knights reached the base of the cliff, the enormous craft had landed, its gargantuan bulk surely offset by some dampening field to prevent it from collapsing under its own weight, or sinking deep into the Martian surface. Roiling clouds of superheated steam and condensing gases billowed outwards from the ship and as they swept over Ares Lictor, Verticorda smelled the scents of another world: hard radiation, the ache of homelands long forgotten and thin, achingly cold, mountain air.

He told himself it was ludicrous to sense such things from a ship that had just made the fiery descent through a planet's atmosphere, yet they were there as plain as day.

'Spread out,' said Verticorda. 'Flank speed.'

The Knights loping alongside him moved into a combat spread as they strode through the hot, moist mists. Verticorda felt no threat from the unknown craft, yet decades of training and discipline would not allow him to approach it without taking precautions.

At last the mist thinned and Verticorda pulled up as the enormous golden cliff of the vessel's flanks rose up before him like a mountain freshly deposited on the planet's surface. Its scale was awe-inspiring, more so than even the fastnesses of the Titan legions or the data mountains of the Temple of All Knowledge.

Even the mightiest forge temple of Mondus Gamma on the Syria Planum paled in comparison to the scale of this vessel, for it had been fashioned with deliberate artifice and not the combined forces of millions of years of geological interaction. Every plate and sheet of the enormous vessel was worked with the care of a craftsman, and Verticorda struggled to think of a reason why so many would labour for so long and with such devotion to ornament a vessel designed for travel between the stars.

The answer came a moment after the question.

This was no ordinary vessel, this was a craft built with love, a craft built for a being beloved by all. No ordinary man could inspire such devotion and Verticorda suddenly felt an overwhelming fear that he was in the presence of something far greater and far more terrifying than anything he could ever have imagined.

A shrieking blast of steam vented from the ship and a colossal hatchway was limned in golden light. Huge pneumatic pistons - larger than a Titan - slowly lowered a long ramp, easily wide enough for a regiment of gene-bulked Skitarii to march down in line abreast. The ramp lowered with no sign of strain on the vessel, and the brightness within poured out, bathing the Martian landscape in a warm, welcome glow.

Verticorda twisted Ares Lictor around on its central axis, and felt a shiver travel the length of his spine as he saw the entire rim of the volcano's crater lined with onlookers. With a thought, he increased the magnification through the viewscreen and saw thousands of robed adepts, menials, tech-priests, logi and workers gathered to watch the events unfolding below.

Crackling, voltaic viewing clouds coloured the sky behind the crowds and flocks of servo-skulls buzzed overhead, though none dared approach within the swirling electromagnetic field that surrounded the craft.

The huge ramp crunched down and Verticorda squinted into the light that blazed from within. A silhouette moved within the light, tall and powerful, glorious and magnificent.

The light seemed to move with him and as Verticorda watched the figure descend the ramp, a shadow fell across the surface of the plain on which the craft had landed. Though he was loath to tear his gaze from the magnificent figure, Verticorda looked up to see a convex ellipse of darkness bite into the glowing outline of the sun.

The light from the storm-wracked skies faded until the only illumination came from the figure as he stepped onto Martian soil for the first time. Verticorda knew immediately that the man was a warrior, for there could be no doubt that this sublime figure had been made mighty by battle.

Verticorda felt the collective gasp from the thousands of spectators in his bones, as though the very planet shuddered with pleasure to know this individual's touch.

He looked back down and saw the warrior standing before him, tall and clad in golden armour, each plate wrought with the same skill and love as had been lavished upon his vessel. The warrior wore no helm and was fitted with no visible breathing augmetics, yet seemed untroubled by the chemical-laden air of Mars.

Verticorda found his gaze dwelling on the warrior's face, beautiful and perfect as though able to see beyond the armoured exterior of Ares Lictor and into Verticorda's soul. In his eyes, his so very ancient eyes, Verticorda saw the wisdom of all the ages and the burden of all the knowledge contained within them.