‘It reminded me of something,’ said Gandorin. He glanced at the surviving psykers, haunted, and received nods of agreement. ‘But I am not sure what.’
‘I do not know,’ said Adarian, ‘but I concur. The Great Beast, we felt it, just for an instant. An incarnation. A conquering spirit given giant form. All that it is to be an ork, made flesh. Nearly overwhelming.’
‘But you resisted,’ said Thane, regaining his feet. He looked at the others that had countered the ork insurgence. ‘You fought back.’
‘It met something more savage,’ Thorild growled. He tapped his chest. ‘Something in here it wasn’t expecting, a little gift of my Fenrisian heritage.’
‘I followed your call,’ said Gandorin. A brief smile. ‘Your howl was louder.’
‘What of the city?’ The question came from Odaenathus. The others had descended to the floor of the hall and waited just behind Thane and Koorland.
‘Gorkogrod,’ said Adarian. ‘We all saw it. A towering edifice, dedicated to the essence of orkdom. The Great Beast is there, I am certain.’
‘Where?’ asked Koorland. ‘Where is this “Gorkogrod”?’
‘I cannot say,’ said Adarian. The other psykers shook their heads and frowned.
‘Which part of the sun blinds you when you look upon it?’ explained Gandorin. ‘The assault was both like a lens, and diffused. We have learnt nothing in return for the losses we have suffered.’
This sombre news was greeted with silence. Thane looked at the Librarians who had been slain. Good warriors, taken from the service of the Emperor in the worst circumstance — by the hands of their battle-brothers.
‘We must shut down all psychic activity across the fleet,’ said Koorland. ‘If this was a deliberate counter-attack, the orks may target our Navigators or the primaris psykers of the Astra Militarum.’
‘There are means and places for such precautions,’ said Thorild. ‘Librarius sanctums. Navigator safe-chambers. Of course, some might not be willing to go into isolation.’
‘We will not offer them the choice,’ Koorland said quietly.
‘And the astropaths,’ added Odaenathus. ‘This close to Ullanor, we cannot risk any psychic pollution, even if the orks do not intend it.’ He looked at the corpse of Vaniel and shook his head. ‘If the will of an Adeptus Astartes Chief Librarian is not strong enough to resist, perhaps even being soul-bound to the Emperor is no defence against the rage of the Great Beast.’
Thane had not thought it possible for the mood in the hall to get any grimmer, but he discovered he had been wrong.
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.’
‘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.