The Beast Arises

The Cortix Verdana hung like an inverted pyramid in orbit over Ullanor. The Adeptus Mechanicus war-forge bristled with weapon turrets and gun decks, but it was the activity in its eight flight bays that was the focus of attention. The strategium was abuzz with clattering, chattering servitors, the air thick with sacred incense issuing forth from the environmental systems in preparation for the massed launch, touching the air with the mixed scent of oil and perfume.

Gerg Zhokuv had been installed into his primary motor array, a sprawl of jointed limbs and coiled wires that gave him the freedom to move about the vast strategium deck via overhead magnetic runners. The hum of his perambulations heralded his arrival at any particular station, prompting the tech-priest overseers to sharply deliver their reports without need for request.

Bursts of machine-intelligible vox-code mixed with lingua-technis, the high notes against a background symphony of droning and whirring cogitators, metriculators and logistographs. The bubble of phageolinear pipes keeping the servitors alive was nearly lost in the hiss of hydraulics from augmented magi and the crackle of static-filled vid-screens awaiting active livefeeds from the drop-craft about to descend into Ullanor’s murky atmosphere.

‘Where is the magos veridi-exactor? I demanded his presence seven hectosecs ago!’ Zhokuv’s voice snapped mechanically from two hundred speaker grilles across the strategium, momentarily blotting out all noise.

‘He is en route, revered Spear of the Omnissiah,’ Magos Delthrak replied from a few paces behind the dominus. Zhokuv’s chief strategos was a bear of a man. His red robes barely contained the mountain of flesh and bionics within. Muscular bulges and angular jutting edges distorted the heavy fabric. The tread of metal-shod feet set the deck plates trembling with every step. Two finger-thin tentacular mechadendrites whirred out from niches between his shoulders. They gesticulated in agitation. ‘He has reached the logical limit for useful competence, dominus. I am unsure what role you foresee him adequately fulfilling. Why even have him brought forth from the datacores of Pavonis Mons?’

‘This is why I am the dominus and you are the strategos,’ rasped Zhokuv, his voice emitting from the personal address system mounted into the cradle holding his pteknopic jar.

‘I am the Barbarian’s Advocate, mighty Sun of Vengeance. It is my duty to test your theories. You should not take my disagreements personally.’

‘I do not. Your role I accept. We should ever guard against self-replication and self-verification. Your unbridled enthusiasm for your duties, on the other hand…’

A piercing siren and flashing amber lights announced the opening of the grand doors of the strategium. Each door weighed several tonnes, constructed of layered plasteel and adamantium, able to withstand atomic attack and the heaviest melta blasts. Immense engines built within the doors themselves growled into action, sliding open the massive portal. It was rare for them to operate. On this level alone there were six other smaller entryways into the strategium for the regular coming-and-going of tech-priests and menials, not to mention elevators, conveyors and two staircases linking the master deck to the other parts of the immense command core.

Against the white lumen glow beyond the doors a small figure appeared. It stood lopsided on three spindly legs, a barrel-shaped body and upper limbs currently hidden in the voluminous folds of a tech-priest’s robe. A head, or what was left of one, topped the bizarre torso. As the outlandish figure moved into the strategium, light glinted from a single natural eye set into what had once been the man’s forehead, surrounded by metal reinforcements, data-gathering spines and sensor globes.

The tech-priest stopped. His head rotated left and right several times and then his focus latched on to the dominus. He surged closer in a series of unbalanced bursts, skidding to a halt every few strides before propelling himself forward. Stopping a few metres from the overlord of the Cult Mechanicus forces, the tech-priest unfolded two crane-like arms and dipped bodily in an approximation of a bow.

‘Magos dominus, profound apologies for the tardiness of my response.’ The tech-priest’s voice was artificially modulated, the bass intonation strained through mechanical processors. ‘My navigational banks were uploaded with inaccurate charts of the Cortix Verdana. I had to inquire as to the correct route to the strategium several times. I hope I have not missed anything.’