The Beast Arises

‘Launch will commence in two hectoseconds, Magos Laurentis,’ Zhokuv replied. Quivering metal appendages waved the unstable tech-priest aside and the dominus zipped to the main command station at the centre of the master deck. He settled his carry cradle into a socket where a more able-bodied leader might have placed a command throne. He had no physical need to see the screens and displays; he could monitor all of the feeds directly through digital translation. However, the symbolism of being at the literal centre of all of the martial activity was not lost on Zhokuv. If he had possessed a more traditional corporeal incarnation, this was where he would have sat.

A gaggle of servitors blurted out the latest status updates while more of their kind ambled forward and plugged the dominus’ thicket of external interface attachments into the sockets piercing the command station. Laurentis and Delthrak arrived just as he settled his systems into the embracing mecha-consciousness of the Cortix Verdana’s primary systems. Above him an atmospheric outlet puffed a mist of pungent sacred incense into the air, responding to his subconscious desire to exhale at length.

‘Phaeton Laurentis, one of only two witnesses to survive the denouement of the Ardamantua attack,’ the dominus said to Delthrak, turning a sapphire lens towards the tech-priest, in answer to his strategos’ earlier complaint. ‘Aside from the personal experience, Magos Laurentis is also a repository for all of the data related to encounters with the Veridi giganticus since the Ardamantua attack. I understand that your lack of induction through the Magi Militarum might impair your ability to understand some of my thinking, but in this case I would think my reasoning requires no justification.’

‘He is dysfunctional, of dubious sanity, dominus,’ said Delthrak. He glared at Phaeton. ‘Unreliable.’

‘Thank you,’ said Laurentis, taking no affront from his superiors’ discussion in his presence. ‘I have come to the conclusion that reliability is an overemphasised trait. The unreliable orks appear to be doing very well thus far, to the extent that the Omnissiah might learn much from them.’

‘He also blasphemes,’ Delthrak added. ‘He was almost disassembled, a blatant neovagris apostate. A corrupting influence.’

‘The magos’ unorthodoxy is one of his greatest strengths. He is irretrievably broken, but his insights into the waywardness of the Veridi giganticus behavioural model are essential integration material. Have you not assimilated his recent Treatise on the Notional Benefits of Wrongness?’

‘One of my most radical tracts.’ A grating sound which might have been a chuckle vibrated through Laurentis’ speaker. ‘Also my shortest. I shall perform a through-check study to see if there is a correlation between brevity and anti-hierarchal asceticism.’

‘The launch commences in one hectosecond,’ announced the dominus, cutting off any further response from his strategos. The alert passed through his system without effort, his meta-consciousness overridden by the automaton will of the Cortix Verdana. As Zhokuv uttered the words, binharic cant-code throbbed from interconsciousness and out through the massive starship, setting off alerts and status demands in a cascade effect. Two hundred and forty-eight servitors roused from dormancy at his call, secondary monitor systems on-lining as his crypto-engrams flowed into their machine bodies. It felt as though he multiplied, becoming a thousandfold incarnation of himself. ‘All stations on final alert for launch!’

Delthrak and Laurentis were arguing about something, but Zhokuv ignored them, letting their words fall into a temporary memory bank for later review while he focused his will on the final preparations for the scanning mission.

Blocky triangles of gunmetal and black, the data-gatherers sat on their launch catapults and awaited the last integration protocols for their human pilots. Mostly human. While cortical automata and servitors were useful for many tasks, it was near-impossible to replicate human ingenuity and intuition in an artificial spirit. Given the circumstances — a descent into the virtually unknown, looking for an as-yet-unidentified location — logic alone would not be able to highlight the location of the Great Beast.