The crone cackled code back at him before drifting absently into Gothic. ‘Only that she would have you know that the Titans of the Legio Fornax bring down the vengeance of the Omnissiah on the xenos vermin and, Machine God willing, shall burn them from the glacial surface of our world.’
‘I don’t mean to contradict the Ambassador…’ Savant Entaurii began.
‘Proceed,’ Phylax invited. The hololith magnified the Malleus Mundi forge-world. Even from orbit, the planetary damage was obvious and catastrophic. One-half of the planet had been torn up and reduced to berg-scattered slush. Mons temples and cryoforge clusters streamed black destruction and the glittering white surface of the ice world was clouded with the black murk of alien hordes, swallowing the world like a growing shadow.
‘They’re troop movements,’ Phylax said, understanding immediately what the siege-savant was attempting to communicate.
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘I suspect,’ the Fabricator Locum said, ‘that our own world appears similarly from orbit.’
‘I can bring up the…’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Phylax told Entaurii.
Altarius Phylax tried to reach out beyond the cold logic of his directives and protocols. This was not without difficulty, and felt vague and unnatural. Feel he did, however, and he found his way to a part of his humanity all but forgotten — the part that ached without reason for those lost to him and those he was losing. He allowed fancies and visualisations to sear sharply to focus in his mind. He dwelled on the dead — their corpses hacked to meat and wiring on the ice. He hurt for the living, those blankly processing their last orders and impulses under the barbarian invaders’ blades. He experienced a connection — something that didn’t require cant or code but travelled broad and far. A connection not only between himself and all Incusians, but also between the billion victims of the twin forge-worlds. The feeling was incredible and unpleasant. He indulged its overwhelming power a moment more before allowing the prejudice of his protocols their former supremacy.
‘Ambassador — Legio Fornax or not, I think that the Lady of the Furnace has to accept her forge-world is lost,’ Phylax said finally. The crone said nothing. The attendant magi and forge masters stiffened. ‘As must I.’
‘What do you mean, Lord Fabricator?’ the high logist asked.
‘I mean, it is time to let Incus Maximal go.’
‘The Lords Diagnostica will not sanction such an action,’ the high logist informed Phylax with cautious force. ‘They will speak against it at the machine altars. They will claim Incus Maximal as the Omnissiah’s sovereign territory and the Machine God’s subjects as the ordained defenders of such rites — to the last man and machine.’
‘This is not a cult matter,’ Phylax said simply. ‘Besides — as Fabricator Locum do I not speak for the Omnissiah on Incus Maximal?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Then it is decided. If I don’t act now — right now — there won’t be anyone left at the machine altars to preach to,’ Altarius Phylax said. He looked to Ambassador Utherica. ‘Perhaps our action might stir the Lady of the Furnace to similar mercies and to defy the will of her own Diagnosticians.’
‘You speak of mercy, my lord, a most illogical—’ the high logist began.
‘I speak of sense,’ Phylax interrupted, ‘common and good. A most Omnissian virtue, I assure you. The enemy have invaded. The enemy has succeeded. The Machine God does not demand the lives of all in order for such a precept to be accepted. Savant Entaurii?’
‘Yes, Lord Fabricator.’
‘I mean to evacuate all remaining Incusians from the forge-world surface. The Lords Diagnostica will be charged with the preservation of the machine altars and the transfer of technodivinity and knowledge contained within. The high logist and the congressium will begin ratiocinatia and matrices for a successful off-world evacuation of all surviving tech-priests, menials and technologies and constructs that can be transferred. Materiel is to remain. Skitarii forces are to disable or destroy what cannot be moved, upon withdrawal.’
‘Is that not blasphemy, my lord?’ Master Andromaq put to Phylax.
‘It would be blasphemy to allow the Machine God’s holy instruments and the spirits within to be scrapped and corrupted to alien purpose,’ the Fabricator Locum insisted. ‘I expect you to communicate such reality to your forces, Master Andromaq. It will lend them certainty and help them through their conflicting protocols.’
‘And from me, my lord?’ Entaurii asked.
‘A planetary exodus point, siege-savant,’ Phylax said. ‘A holdpoint through which to funnel fleeing forge-worlders.’
Entaurii nodded: ‘There is an auxiliary spaceport near the northern pole: the Lambdagard. It’s a freight station — largely automated — that is principally used for the storage and exportation of scrap and toxic materials.’
‘But the temperatures…’ Master Andromaq began.
‘The polar conditions will be a challenge even for native Incusians,’ Entaurii admitted, ‘but similarly so for the alien invader. The region has the smallest concentration of enemy forces on the planet.’
‘It sounds serviceable,’ the Fabricator Locum said. ‘Depots and storage terminals for waiting evacuees. Ice-strips for ferrying transports.’
‘But the deep cold, my lord,’ Andromaq pressed. ‘Think of the losses.’
‘They will be less than if we evacuate survivors through the xenos hordes,’ Phylax said. ‘I’d rather our people took their chances with their home world than with the enemy.’
‘Yes, Lord Fabricator.’
‘Siege-savant,’ Phylax ordered, looking to Entaurii. ‘You must now fight a rearguard action. You must order the Ark vessels Contrivenant, Archmagi Alpharatz and The Weakness of Flesh to risk low orbit and receive as many forge-worlders as they can from the pole. Find hump shuttles, freightskiffs, lighters: anything that can carry survivors. They must keep evacuating survivors from the Lambdagard for as long as they can. The congressium will consider how best to communicate our intentions to defending forces and the forge-world populace.’
‘What if the invaders hit the Ark ships?’ the high logist posited. Entaurii shook his head.
‘So far the aliens’ tactics have not run to anything approaching such complexity,’ the siege-savant informed him. ‘They want the planet. They want it by force.’
‘Three vessels will not be enough for your survivors,’ Ambassador Utherica piped up, morose and subdued.
‘And what would you suggest, ambassador?’ Phylax challenged. ‘I hope to the Machine God you’re right. I hope that the invader leaves that many forge-worlders alive.’
‘Use my diplomatic protocols,’ Utherica offered. ‘They carry the authority of an Archmagos or Collegia Imperatrix. Use them to order the factory ships, the frigate Ratchet and the Titanica temple supertransport Deus Charios off station above Malleus Mundi to participate in the evacuation.’
‘Ambassador, the Lady of the Furnace may still need those vessels,’ Phylax protested.
‘She will not,’ Utherica insisted. ‘The Lady will die on her forge-world, with her people. Her Diagnostica priests will not allow anything else. They lack your flesh-wisdom, Lord Phylax.’
Altarius Phylax nodded his appreciation.
‘We shall honour the Lady’s sacrifice,’ he told the ambassador, ‘and if I live to see the day, I will personally lead the effort to take her forge-world back from the xenos along with my own.’
The ambassador bowed her aged features and handed Borz Entaurii her protocols.
‘Where shall we go?’ the high logist asked.
‘Corewards,’ Altarius Phylax said. ‘We shall join forces with our brother priests on the forge-worlds of the inner segmentum.’
‘And if we experience failure there?’ the high logist pushed him.
‘Then, Omnissiah willing, to the forge-world principal,’ the Fabricator Locum told him grimly, ‘where we shall fight on the holy red earth of Mars itself. Pray to the Machine God that it does not come to that.’