‘What is the Mechanicus building?’ Vangorich demanded.
‘We don’t yet know, my lord,’ Yendl admitted, ‘but much of the data sent back to Mars from the secreted outposts and signum-stations focuses on the teleportation and vector technologies that the xenos use to transport their attack moons over sector-spanning distances.’
‘Kubik wishes to learn the heretical secrets of this barbaric technology?’ Vangorich said, before once again allowing his mind to dwell on the politics. ‘Perhaps the Inquisition’s interest in Kubik is less collaborative than the Fabricator General conceives.’
‘My lord,’ Yendl continued, ‘with respect, you are not thinking broadly enough. We believe that the Fabricator General’s interests lie not in what is best for the Imperium — but what is best for the Mechanicus. Kubik does not wish to learn the secrets of the xenos tech in order to destroy it or defend against it. He wishes to utilise it. Replicate it. Embrace its potential.’
‘You’re saying that…’
‘I’m saying, my lord, that in the event of a threat to the inner core, to the Sol subsector — from the invader or anything else — he means to remove Mars from the path of annihilation.’
‘Move the planet?’ Vangorich said, his mind struggling with the enormity of the proposal.
‘Save Mars,’ Yendl said, ‘and leave the Imperium to the ravages of the enemy.’
‘Does he have these secrets?’
‘Unknown, my lord. But if and when he does, beyond the defensive capabilities of such secrets, such techno-heretical wonders would make the Martian forge-world an intolerable weapon.’
‘Agreed,’ Vangorich said finally. He turned with the intelligence log under one arm and ventured soberly back up the colossal ramp.
‘My lord,’ Yendl called after him, after a moment of reconsideration. A little way up, the Grand Master of Assassins turned. ‘Understand, sir, this is speculation. We have no direct evidence of the construction of such a heretical abomination.’
Vangorich cast his eyes bleakly across the sleeper cadre.
‘Red Haven: Priority Primus,’ the Grand Master said to them. ‘Find some.’
TEN
Ardamantua was a gravity-churned mess, a mass grave that had suffered tectonic upheaval. An aftermath of fresh earth and rotting bodies. It was fascinating.
Artisan Trajectorae Argus Van Auken was standing in a craterous hollow swarming with Mechanicus menials and seisomats taking readings and feeding the data back to the survey brig Subservius, which held position in low orbit above the expedition. Magi astrophysicus bombarded the ruined structure of the Ardamantuan crust with magnasonic arrays and powerful pulse-scanners, the dishes and receivers of which were directed down into the ground.
As soon as the distress calls from the surface had faded and the colossal xenos attack moon disappeared — which had happened as swiftly as the abomination had arrived — the Subservius had returned. Argus Van Auken had come back at the head of a small army of data-ravenous priests and adepts, all intent on understanding the mechanics of the catastrophe. They busied themselves with experimentation and observation, all the while trampling xenos corpses — both common Chromes and Veridi giganticus — and the shredded remains of Mechanicus support staff, and the shattered yellow plate of fallen Imperial Fists, into the disturbed earth.
Only knowledge mattered. The xenos cadavers were fearfully imposing, even in death. The honourable Adeptus Astartes — torn to pieces in the enemy deluge — deserved better. Argus Van Auken was incapable of such distractions, however. His work benefited from a lack of such sentimentality. Some might describe it as a disability. Others, a superhuman ability. It had been Van Auken’s cold logic that had held the Subservius on station, pursuing its observation protocols when lesser adepts like Magos Biologis Eldon Urquidex had urged the artisan to return and interfere with unfolding events. Perhaps it had been Urquidex’s devotion to the science of the living that had burdened the priest with such weakness. Urquidex had watched the data-streams of doom return from the planet’s surface. He saw an Adeptus Astartes Chapter on the brink of annihilation. He saw the physical perfection of the human form and a rich genetic history of conquest and supremacy on the cusp of extinction. He gave in to his baser, organic impulses and requested of Van Auken a last-minute retrieval.
The request was denied — and as the expedition’s second-ranking priest, Urquidex received a citation for modus-unbecoming from the first. Van Auken reminded his colleague of the Third Law of Universal Variance: the Bystander Paradox. Urquidex had replied that they called it a paradox for a reason.
The alien Beast had unleashed its savage supremacy on Ardamantua and all those upon its surface. None had survived. Only the data — pure and true — remained. It was Van Auken’s responsibility to see that the information found its way back to Mars where it might aid the Fabricator General in his service of the Machine God’s will.
Striding through auspexmechanics and oscillamats that were monitoring the structural damage to the planetary depths, Van Auken ascended the hollow’s slopes to find that Urquidex’s survey crews had planted electrostatic rods in the mulched earth. About the artisan-primus, fields of static electricity had raised the dead. Hulking greenskin corpses were drifting a few feet above the ground on the crackling field, making examination of the bolt-ravaged specimens easier for the magos biologis and his genetor tech-adepts. The Beast’s work on Ardamantua had been so absolute in its ferocity that there were no other remains to examine. The Space Marines and accompanying Adeptus Mechanicus personnel of the Ardamantuan purge had been hacked and blasted to pieces. The monsters had been possessed of a bottomless ferocity that seemed to infect the creatures even down to their diminutive slave and vermin forms.
Knocking the monstrous bodies into a telekinetic tumble, Van Auken’s spindly form passed through the levitated carnage. But for the electromagnetic dampeners built into his torso, the artisan also would have floated effortlessly across the tormented earth. Skitarii from the Epsil-XVIII Collatorax stood sentinel among the sea of bodies, with their galvanic rifles cradled in bionic limbs. They had been assigned as expedition security and for use as execution squads, putting down monstrosities that had not quite bled their formidable life away on the battlefield. Alpha Primus Orozko saw the approaching artisan-primus and marched to meet him.
‘With me, magister, if you please,’ Van Auken requested. The officer said nothing. Orozko wasn’t much of a communicator, favouring binary for orders and transmissions. He simply fell in line behind the ranking priest.
‘Magos,’ Van Auken said as he entered a foil laboratory- pavilion. Neither Eldon Urquidex nor his surgeons and samplers looked up from the gargantuan carcass of the ork they were dissecting on the static field. Slabs of flesh and labelled alien organs floated about them. ‘Magos,’ the artisan-primus repeated. ‘My teams have all but completed their documentation of the damage inflicted by the alien weapon.’
‘And…?’ the barrel-bodied Urquidex said, not taking his telescopic eyes off the brain of the beast he was carving up with a digit-mounted las-scalpel.
‘The enemy’s mastery of gravity manipulation and teleportational vectors is considerable,’ Van Auken said, his understatement devoid of wit or passion. The priest paused; his colleague had a habit of soliciting information when he should be delivering it. ‘The gravitational aftershocks began to subside after the weapon removed itself from the system. Its disruptive influence endures, however, fading incrementally. It will be some time before gravito-planetary equilibrium is fully restored to this world.’