She checked her unit was broadcasting the dead magos’ codes, opened the door and stepped out. She allowed the door to slide shut and fried its locking mechanism, then set out for the command deck.
Fabricator General Kubik surveyed the command deck of the Ark Majesty. Here was his kingdom in microcosm, and he was well pleased with its efficiency. Men, machines and blends of the two performed their duties to the ninety-fifth percentile of perfection.
‘Provide mark. Synchronise time between target system and Ullanor System,’ he commanded.
‘Yes, prime of primes,’ intoned a crowd of tech-adepts. Tasks ordinarily performed by hard-wired servitors were being undertaken by adepts. This was an operation too important to be trusted to the monotasked. An enormous brass-handed chrono ticked down to zero.
‘Artisan Trajectorae Van Auken, prepare for planetary teleportation,’ said Kubik. ‘The time of projection is closing.’
Van Auken had been a large man before his numerous augmentations — with them, his appearance evoked a mechanical bear. ‘The corpuscarii are ready, Fabricator General. They stand prepared to unleash their life force in the service of the Omnissiah,’ he answered with exaggerated humility.
Kubik favoured him with a nod. It had been Van Auken who hit upon using the cults of electro-priests. Their intuitive manipulations of the Motive Force had stabilised the meshing of Imperial and orkish technology. This one idea had cast down all remaining barriers to success. Their recent trials had worked perfectly. The Grand Experiment was an experiment no more.
The Adeptus Mechanicus were ready to move a planet. The chrono’s hands shifted closer to the instant of success.
A grand flotilla of ships crowded the command deck’s hololith. An endless stream of data poured through Kubik’s multiple intelligence cores, filling him to the brim with delicious knowledge. Most of it was ephemeral, pointless, adding nothing to the grand store of knowledge the Adeptus Mechanicus had. The gravitic perturbations inflicted upon the ships by close proximity to each other could easily be calculated using existing formulae, as could the energy output of the combined engines of the fleet, the effects on the remaining astronomical bodies of the system once Ullanor was removed and a million other readings. As such, it was all useless, but it would never be forgotten. For the time being Kubik enjoyed the rush of it, the way a man of more usual form enjoys the pleasure of hot water pouring from a cascade.
‘Imperial Fleet shall be at safe distance in six hundred hectoseconds, prime of primes,’ said the craft’s Artisan of the Vox. Half of what was said aboard was twittered quickly in binharic, the rest in lingua-technis.
‘Planetary teleportation beam is powering,’ said Van Auken.
‘Cut vox-traffic with Imperial craft,’ ordered Kubik. ‘Artisan of the Vox, you are our line of communication with the greater fleet. Let no event or word distract us from the Omnissiah’s holy work!’
The adept did as he was ordered, but the change in noise within the command deck was negligible. ‘Chosin and Ullanor will be at optimum alignment in two hundred hectoseconds.’
‘Fleet at safe distance in one hundred hectoseconds.’
‘Prepare to engage veridian plasma engines. Electro-priest manual regulator arrays on standby,’ said Van Auken.
‘Fleet at safe distance. Lord Protector Vangorich is making a speech, prime of primes,’ said the Artisan of the Vox.
Kubik hunched at the mention of Vangorich’s name, his mechanical appendages thrashing. ‘I do not wish to hear it. His speech is without purpose. The symbolic activities of the non-believer have no interest for me. Record it. Archive it. Add it to the sum total of all knowledge. We have work of our own. Extend matter collapse beam emitter.’
The ship quaked. Rumbling clanks echoed throughout. Displays ran red and green with swift lines of datacode.
A final, echoing clunk reverberated dully around the ship.
‘Beam emitter extended,’ came the report.
Kubik tensed. In response, his gravity chair rose a few centimetres from the deck. Success depended on timing. Ullanor had to be moved at exactly the right moment to displace the existing fourth world in the target system. Every datum he possessed predicted that the original fourth planet, Chosin, would enter into a disruptive orbit that would stabilise over time, allowing Ullanor to take its original orbital track. It was an immensely complex undertaking and its calculation had required the efforts of thousands of magi logis. The possibility of destroying Chosin completely had been raised as a simpler alternative, but discarded. Its destruction would have resulted in an asteroid field of huge destructive potential right in Ullanor’s path around its new star.
Every variable had to be correct. Ullanor’s velocity would not change when it was teleported, therefore it had to move at precisely the right time so that it would fall into orbit around its new star, and pass close enough to Chosin to knock it aside without hitting it. If a single calculation were wrong and Ullanor’s survival was detected, civil war was the likely outcome.
The risk had been calculated as acceptable. Kubik wanted the world for himself. Ullanor was rich with unclaimed alien technology. The acquisition of knowledge superseded all other considerations.
‘Prepare to fire,’ said Kubik.
‘Imperial forces signalling their readiness,’ reported the Artisan of the Vox.
‘Engage all reactors. Relinquishing the holy flow to electro-priests,’ said Van Auken.
The large chrono counted down to zero, its three great hands coming together and stopping with a final, metallic clunk.
‘Let the Imperial fleet see us bring armageddon down on Ullanor!’ ordered Kubik.
The ship hummed with the songs of praise of its myriad crew. Green light pulsed from the hololith. A wavering beam of bright green energy slashed across space, stabbing into Ullanor’s smouldering equator. It spread across the orkish capital world, consuming it with bright fire.
‘Atomic decoupling matrix stabilising. Subspace transportation in forty hectoseconds,’ said Van Auken.
The chatter of machines became synchronised as tech-priests input the bewildering results of the magi logis’ calculations. A rising howl built from the teleportation engines. In their galleries, electro-priests chanted melodic cant to swell the presence of the holy Motive Force. The Ark Majesty trembled with the power building within it.
‘Quantum disassociation achieved. Matter potential neutral. Engaging subspace teleport conduits,’ said another.
Dozens of hands and mechanical appendages depressed levers simultaneously, the singing of algebraical hymns rose in volume, lingua-technis bass overlaid with a high register of binharic informational pulses. The ship’s trembling became a quaking. A deep metallic hum joined the noise of machinery and tech-priests as the fabric of the vessel resonated in harmony to the prayers of its crew and the exertions of its devices.
‘Transmit,’ commanded Van Auken in lingua-technis, Gothic and binharic simultaneously. His mechadendrites speared from his broad back into a dozen ports arrayed around and above him.