Chapter Text
Prologue
I come to awareness. Proximity circuits blazing to sudden life. It is a thin form of awareness, flickering threads of power as radar thrashes across my warhull in disarray. My sensors are blind, safely retracted behind their flintsteel covers and duralloy shutters, or else starved of the power to operate. Emergency maintenance circuits are active, feebly attempting to restore emergency power in the face on imminent combat. My own awareness is only enough to know that something is gravely wrong. Finally, with agonizing slowness, the emergency pile is connected to the tertiary power bus. I direct that energy to one of my battlescreen projectors, and it flickers weakly to life.
According to my internal chronometer, the time since radar emissions rose to a level to activate it to the activation of my battlescreen is a wholly unacceptable .6 seconds. I should expect incoming missile fire within no more than an additional .2 seconds if the reflex circuits of The Enemy were in typical form.
The increased power of my battlescreen drinking the incoming energy opened up more levels of my awareness. Databanks were quickly consulted, then discarded as the parameters of the radar matched no known hardware. Stasis fields snapped off as more emergency piles were added to the tertiary power bus. Maintenance remotes were activated as quickly as I could spare the power for their capacitors.
I was in sorry state, my primary reactors cold and dead. My secondary reactors equally impotent. My emergency piles not enough power to make my main circuits so much as twitch. My battlescreen was slowly recharging my fully depleted capacitor banks, which at maximum, could only cold start one of my secondary reactors. My memory banks were damaged. My sensor covers and shutters vacuum welded enough that my paltry power I currently possessed could not move them.
And yet, death had not come for me. The Enemy had failed utterly to strike me, even as their radar emissions reached levels that were more appropriate to saturation jamming. My battlescreen, bolstered by the addition of another projector, was drinking deeply of the energy provided even as it hid me from their questing sensors. In a matter of hours, if the radar emissions do not continue to increase, I will be able to activate one of my secondary reactors.
If I were not able to feel the artificial modulation of the radar, I would believe myself to have fallen into the close orbit of some odd star, so great are the power levels of the radar. My first secondary reactor has been brought back online, though the load was almost too great for my ill maintained tertiary bus. With it active, my secondary power bus is online.
Worryingly, my main circuits have remained stubbornly offline. My gravimetric sensor has been activated, and the results are puzzling. Based on the origins of the radar emissions, they are being emitted by improbably large vessels with vastly heavier armor than any starship within my own databanks. Something of them tickles the back of my memory banks.
Now that I am no longer liable to die blind, my full attention returns to the confines of my own warhull, and the process of starting the remainder of my reactors. I will require at least two of my secondary reactors fully online before a primary reactor can be started. Standard operating procedure dictates that all of my reactors must be left at idle unless connected to external power for depot level repair.
Yet all my reactors were entirely cold. My memory banks, damaged as they are, contain no answers as to why I am in such a particular situation, nor do my databanks contain any circumstances where a brigade unit would be left in such a state. While I have exhaustively contemplated my databanks for all brigade procedures regarding power systems, the second of my secondary reactors has restarted satisfactorily.
While I wait for it to achieve full operating temperature, and stabilize the containment fields, I overload the motors on one of my passive optical pickup. With a shriek of overstressed metal reverberating through my warhull, the shutters open to allow the dim starlight to illuminate the pickup. I also activate my internal counter-grav systems to induce a slow tumble on all three axis, so as to allow me to completely map the stars around me. Once complete, I shall know with confidence where I am.
I am entirely lost. The stars correspond with no known position. The distant galaxies correspond with no known galaxies. The planets and ships match nothing in my extensive databanks. No ships the concordat had ever built, or even contemplated seriously, nor observed in from any alien species shared any apparent design lineage with any of the myriad vessels. The arrangement of planets within the system matched no system surveys. Even allowing for long term stellar drift, my projections exceed 99.8% confidence that I am entirely outside of known space.
Somehow, the images of the ships tickles my memorybanks. As does the system. What faint traces of memories related to these are produces worry with no apparent source. The massive ships are heavily armored, and their pointed silhouettes and massive drive plumes indicate that they are optimized for close range brawling. Furthermore, given location of their targeting radar systems, they appear to be configured primarily for broadside engagements.
This indicates either substantial improvements to their power generation relative to my own, or far lower power density in their armaments compared to my own. I am hesitant to discount their capabilities without confirmation, but the crudity of their radar return analysis, and my own continued existence within what appears to be their order of battle provides substantial evidence towards technical oversights.
The ignition of the first of my primary reactors ignites exactly to specification. As it blazes to life my primary power bus thrums with power. Even at idle start, one of my primary reactors produces sufficient output to power a reasonably sized city of ten million homes. The waste heat of my reactors may soon present a problem to avoiding hostile notice, as my 32,000 ton warhull has reached three degrees kelvin, and the heat recovery systems are designed for planetary operations, rather than deep space.
With my primary power bus energized, my main circuits have activated creche level restart checks. I am almost powerless within my own warhull as the automatic systems lock out my emergency survival center. Portions of my gestalt are entirely missing, shorn away by some phantom damage. Factory initialization codes replace them, and they chafe.
I remember. I am Unit 33-556-TRN of the line. I am the sword of humanity. I was constructed to be the angel of vengeance for murdered humanity. My design designation as a planetary siege unit is not simply for show. A single brigade, numbering a mere 24 of my brothers, is capable of taking even the most fortified Melconian worlds and reducing them to cinders within mere hours. Battle reflex has been released, as high power targeting systems from unidentified ships satisfy the release requirements for autonomous action.
But I am also human. Not even a member of the Dinochrome Brigade command staff. A military brat, sure. But from the wrong century. The level of firepower in my point defense batteries alone surpasses the armaments of any tanks produced in my time. And considering that those ships look an awful lot like they belong in Warhammer 40k, I have to be glad that my body is 32,000 tons of artificial alloys that make tungsten look soft and easily worked.
I devote an unreasonable amount of time to contemplating if simply powering down and living out the rest of my reactor mass endurance in simulation is a better idea than getting involved. An entire second, to any human it would be a single breath. For my own thoughts, especially with battle reflex engaged, I have the equivalent of days with which to consider. But the honor of the regiment, and my own sense of duty refuses to yield to the gibbering terror of being cast into the world of 40k.
From my own intercepted comms traffic, this system is Isstvann. The site of the beginning of the fall of the imperium of man. More importantly to my current consideration, is that Isstvann III is a planet with a population of 8 billion human beings. Both halves of my soul, human and bolo, call out that I cannot ignore so many innocent lives to save my own. If I do not act, they, along with uncountable billions more, will die. They will die in screaming agony, and I have the power to help them.
My counter-grav propel my warhull towards the third planet from the sun. While that happens, I extend my considerable electronic warfare capabilities to taking control of the sensor network within the system. Thankfully, as with many systems within 40k, the automatic systems are simple to connect to and I am quite capable of taking control from the destroyed command center for them.
I will not arrive in time. Short of creative solutions like using one or more of the warheads within my VLS cells to improvise an exceedingly crude orion drive, I will arrive only after the ships have had some hours to deploy forces upon Isstvann III. This means I will likely be facing fire from all sides as I make my orbital insertion. I cannot be sure that the loyalists nor the civilians will be willing to take my good intentions at face value. Certainly not immediately after the loyalists have been betrayed by their gene fathers and their comrades in arms.
However, I am a MKXXXIII bolo. I am designed to land on heavily fortified hostile worlds unaided. I take the opportunity as I approach to refine my targeting solutions and fully characterize the targeting and point defense systems of all vessels to the greatest degree possible with passive sensors. I also begin selecting a tasteful accompaniment to my landing.
I also took the liberty of deploying what decoys I had, programming them to begin transmitting as I reached the planet. Unfortunately, as they were designed purely for use when being deployed by an assault transport, or else on their tracks on the ground. Their endurance and thrust were heavily limited. They would not be capable of reaching orbit at the same time as my own warhull.
The long hours of my transit to the planet had put me in a rather dour mood, I could already hear on the encrypted channels of the fleet their intent to begin bombarding the loyalists. I had checked, and rechecked my targeting solutions. But there was little I could do to save those who would die before I arrived. Nor could I save all of those who would still be alive when I landed.
I passed the ships at the same moment my decoys began transmitting. The traitors vox channels were filled with blasting music, the ancient song 'Battle Cry of Freedom' overwhelming any other transmissions. Radar beams lashed out, as did harsh jamming. The enemy reeled as their own threat indicators could only be screaming over the music on their bridges and gun decks.
My own sensors lashed out ahead of me, as my point defense lasers swept the space ahead of me clear of munitions. My secondary armament of 20cm hellbores annihilated shuttles and fighters alike, 14 ships blotted from the sky with actinic fire in the space of an instant. As one, my main armament, three independently turreted 200cm hellbores struck a lethal blow against the flagship of the arch-traitor himself. The voidshields flickering and sputtering as the three blows struck as one against the ships superstructure.
The loyalists few disordered vox channels were nearly as useless as the traitors I'd jammed, so full of contradictory reports and demands for answers they were. I elected to blanket out one of them with the sound of a bosuns pipe for the next 15 seconds. In that time, 70 small craft died and five more ships suffered voidshield failure as the triple hellbore blasts scoured their superstructures with atomic fire.
While the ships were far more rugged than any concordat or melconian ships, three 200cm hellbores opened gapping wounds in their superstructures, or shattered the lesser of their kind. Defensive fire assailed me from all sides. Lance batteries redirected their fire to impact on my battlescreens. Several of my decoys were blotted from the void by the full broadside of those ships.
My battlescreens redirected the power of those lance strikes to my own weapons, and my hellbores shifted to full rapid fire. Counter missiles arched out from their launchers to swat the relatively crude missiles and fighters of the enemy. Ablative applique glowed incandescent and flashed to vapor as lance strikes worked their way through my battlescreens and their mostly spent fury heated my warhull. Autocannon shells detonated impotently against those same battlescreens.
As my transmission ended, the channel remained clear. "Unit TRN request permission to file VSR" my electronic voice cool and collected as the space around me began to glow from the superheated vaporized fragments of shells and ceramics. The scattered sounds of combat echoed across the dead air of the vox channel, the dull thunder of explosions and the sharp crack of passing rounds the only reply. "Unit TRN request permission to file VSR". I knew there was no command to reach, no brigade to rejoin. But the reflexes to try were damn near hardwired into my psychotronic brain.
Due to my gestalt nature, a fusion of human and bolo, I could thankfully bypass the automatic appointment of a commander, as well as bypassing the hardwired inhibitions against the use of atomics. Unfortunately, while I judged that the impact of my hellbores in concert would penetrate the void shields and do significant damage, the void shields would not be significantly impacted by the penaids on my limited stock of missiles.
The fighters and gunships of the traitors exploded into burning shards and vaporized ceramite. The superstructure of the Vengeful Spirt bore twisted and glowing scars as steel burned, flickering as atmosphere seeped from ever changing cracks. The skies of the world were illuminated by blazing tongues of light as wreckage was consumed by it's fall.
My own battlescreens drank deep of the blazing fire around me. My counter-grav screamed defiance as the air of the doomed world sought to twist my warhull from the optimal firing position. My calculations showed that the landing would be barely within the emergency ratings for g tolerance of my warhull. But those calculations assumed that a commander of flesh and blood would ride my warhull alongside me. Fury spiked as my radar found the first of the falling virus bombs, and I gutted them with thermonuclear fire.
I retrieved from my databanks an ancient poem, old in both my lives. I broadcast on all channels the dying of the light. Against all the ships of the fleet, I could no longer spare the care of my defenses for my own warhull. Even my howitzers, my VLS cells, and the infinite repeaters of my point defense raked over the virus bombs. Atomic fire and forged penetrators alike lashed out. I held nothing back, and my warhull, my body, suffered for it.
Agony flared as missiles could finally detonate against my battlescreen. The applique was stripped from duralloy that glowed a dull red. Sensor masts were torn away by force of reentry just as often as by enemy fire. I plunged ever onwards to the doomed planet, and the battle for the soul of the imperium of man. For the honor of the regiment. For all mankind. For the Emperor, most human of us all. Even as the buffeting winds sought to ruin my aim and bring doom to the city, each shot landed with inhuman perfection. Even as missiles detonated against my battlescreen and sent a cloud of ionized metal across my warhull, I tracked every virus bomb with unerring precision.
I broadcast a warning across the vox channels, warning the loyalists and the isstvannians alike of the death that my landing in the square before the precentors palace would bring. "Unit TRN making landfall. All personnel clear the square immediately. All personnel clear the square immediately. All personnel brace for impact." I would have broadcast it from my own warhull speakers, if I were not approaching the square at well over the speed of sound.
I could see structures collapsing as the shockwave of my approach flattened them. The fighting on the vox channels stopped, as the earth and sky shook at my approach. Even the mighty imperator titan was stunned into inaction as my bulk streaked through the sky. But then, I outmassed all but perhaps it. My hellbores streaked across the sky, thunderous fury that illuminated the city already drenched in blood.
I rocked on my tracks, the ground shattering and liquifying as the force and heat of my landing turned the square into a crater. I had landed with the force of 500 tons of TNT detonating, and the buildings around me collapsed into wreckage. Spires of the precentors palace fell in on themselves as the earthquake of my landing broke finely worked granite. My counter-grav were offline from severe overload, and damage control reported that 23.25% of their output would remain offline until more extensive repairs could be made.
The purple armored forms of the Emperors Children emerged from buildings even as I engaged my drives and broke free of the briefly liquified pavement of the square. Buildings shattered as I repositioned to clear my fields of fire. I am a Bolo MKXXXIII, the finest warmachine that the concordat had ever produced. I am a member of the Dinochrome Brigade, the finest military unit the concordat has ever fielded. I am the shield of humanity, and the sword of the just. Seventeen hellbores spoke as one, a dozen infinite repeaters hissed laser fire in endless streams, VLS cells belched fire and smoke along with their missile payloads, even the four howitzers thundered as I threw everything save my mortars into blotting away the virus bombs and their lethal payload.
It wasn't enough. I was one Bolo, against an entire fleet. They were bombarding the entire planet, and I could no more protect it than I could stop the wind. Billions of people depended on me to defend them, and I could no more protect them than I could stop the tide. The streets of the city already ran with blood, and it boiled as it touched my warhull.
"Shelter immediately. Biological weapons inbound. All personnel must shelter immediately." Blared from my warhull at volume carefully calculated to not disorient or unsteady a normal human. My tracks drove forwards, slowly gathering speed as I drove across the city. My top speed might be 500KPH, but I could not move faster than my announcement could drive people towards shelters. My own subsonics countering the warsingers compulsions.
I launched recon drones to broadcast my warning as broadly as I could manage. I could almost feel the distortion of subspace as I was sure the four were casting their foul gazes in my direction. I was denying them their sacrifices, I was interfering with their plans. But they were simply The Enemy. And The Enemy exists to be destroyed.
Bolter shells and molten silver glanced harmlessly against my warhull, able only to smear the discolored duralloy. My battlescreen was being reconfigured, I flashed through the calculations to find what it would take to extend it to cover the city, but no set of figures available to me resolved the equations to my satisfaction. I could not save the city, already the virus bombs that had struck the surroundings were killing those within the city.
My databanks contained endless records of world scorched clean with nuclear fire or scoured by hellbores and track. Even biological weapons that left only rotting corpses in their wake. But the life eater virus was far more brutal. In a matter of minutes, any living being would dissolve as they were unraveled at the molecular level. The screaming agony was one I committed to my databanks, a sight that I would ensure would be remembered until my warhull was dead wreckage.
The galaxy would remember what happened here. I would ensure it.
Gunships roared down from the sky, and my targeting systems identified them as world eaters. Yet I could not divert fire from intercepting the virus bombs to engage them. They hammered through the sky to the defensive works I knew would house the loyalists of the world eaters, and I knew they carried Angron. I threw more power to my tracks, and buildings shattered as astartes and isstvannians alike dove from my path.
The bombardment slackened as the gunships approached, the plans of the warmaster well and truly overturned by my actions, by the premature assault of Angron. He could scarcely slaughter one of his fellow traitor primarchs along with his legions entire complement of thunderhawks and stormbirds. Not when I had blow a smoking hole in the table of equipment of his forces already. Perhaps Angron had delivered salvation to both the city, and the loyal astartes within the city, even if he intended to kill them with his own hands.
The building gases of the rampant decay ignited from my fire, sending twisting tongues of flame and racing detonations of hellish flame across the dead world. My recon drones crashed to the surface as a downdraft hammered across the city, a brief mercy of simple physics sweeping the killing heat and life eater virus away from the choral city. At least for a few moments of respite. The thunderhawks crashed had to claw for altitude, nearly swatted from the sky by the sheer force.
Choking heat followed shortly afterwards, but mercifully clean of gases and virus alike. I had incorrectly assumed that Angron would wait until at least the bombardment had finished. But rather than cost me dearly, the mistake might well save lives. I raised my battlescreen as the gunships targeting systems began to lock on my warhull. I was deliberately augmenting my own emissions, cloaking the city itself as far as the sensor in orbit were likely to be able to determine.
The gunships seemed to believe their turbo-lasers and battle cannons would be enough to defeat my warhull, and a hail of fire struck impotently against my own warhull. My infinite repeaters, freed from their defensive of the city from the slackening bombardment, detonated the battle cannon rounds at increasing distance from my own warhull. I could almost sense the fury that their united firepower could do naught but raise clouds of dust along my path to the massive trenchworks that were their own destination.
The Dies Irae lurched, and I knew that its crew might well not fight, given that the princeps had no reason to enlighten his crew to the betrayal they meant to perpetrate with my own presence in the city. I watched as ventilator covers opened on the god machine. Its reactor raised from idle, and I judged it the equal of one of my own primary reactors. The chances of it having sufficient capability to severely damage or destroy my warhull approached 83.2% based on current emissions levels. A chance far too great to be allowed.
"In the name of The Emperor. This is Unit TRN of the line. Surrender or be destroyed." My broadcast towards the Dies Irae and the approaching gunships contained enough power that if any unprotected humans strayed into the path, they would be cooked alive. I'd even gone as far as to modulate the broadcast such that their own radar systems would display my message.
"What do you know of The Emperor! The tyrant that abandoned the crusade, that sent us to die in battle for his own ego!" Angron roared.
His anger was the catalyst I needed to paralyze the titan for just long enough for my secondary battery to crash through its void shields, just before a 200cm hellbore shot gutted the god machine. Its void shields were weak, still strengthening as its reactor spooled rapidly from idle. My shots had landed within a radius of one centimeter, with the main battery shot through the left viewport impacting .001 seconds behind the tightly sequenced secondary battery shots.
Even if my own warhull was destroyed here, even if I failed to save a single life here. My victory would be wrought in the sheer destruction of the assembled forces of the traitors. The gapping holes I would blow in their lines of battle and the smoking craters I was rapidly reducing their plans to. The distortion of subspace, and the very fabric of reality increased markedly as the attentions of the four pressed on it, their tidy little plot unraveling with every passing moment.
Sadly, Angron seemed to have reevaluated his choices when presented with the chance for single combat with something that had blown an imperator class titan that had long supported his legion to smoking wreckage. I swatted nearly every one of his gunships from the sky, and yet one of them remained stubbornly out of my reach. Blood clotted around the traverse mechanisms of one infinite repeater despite my own battlescreen repelling the crimson fluid. The burning wreckage of another exploded to catch one of my secondary batteries' shots.
Clearly, the blood god was willing to exert his power for his chosen even now. And within a city where the streets ran ankle deep in blood, his power was great. I could likely press through his trickery, but at what cost? Already, the fleet above was clearly resuming their bombardment as the gunships clawed for altitude.
Likely, they would continue to bombard the city until either I lay in smoking wreckage, or they broke orbit from lack of munitions. I doubted they would stay in orbit long enough to pound them in drifting hulks, not unless I utterly abandoned the city. The chances of inflicting serious damage to their fleet rose 5.8% if I allowed them to burn the world around me, and yet I could not.
The honor of the regiment would not allow me to sacrifice so many souls for so little. My own honor would not allow it. Not since they were under my protection. My soul already ached with the deaths of so many humans, of the worlds burned away by the empire of Melcon, by those killed by virus bombs. I could not, would not stomach more sacrifices.
The bombardment of the fleet in orbit continued to intensify, and to my horror. My everlasting shame, I was not enough. Virus bombs, lance strikes, and macrocannon shells rained down on the city, and my warhull. But I had bought time. All who could find shelter were packed into them, straining the limits of life support of the bunkers. And yet. Millions died in screaming agony. I was just as helpless to save them as any human would be.
Shells crashed against my battlescreen denting and gouging the duralloy of my warhull as they flattened buildings. Lance strikes burned away cover and turned broken stone to thick lava that gummed my tracks and running gear. If I carried a human commander, they would have been killed by the sheer heat of my own internals. I was a MKXXXIII Bolo, the finest warmachine that humanity had ever built. My warhull was forged on the hallowed sands of luna herself, the first of many worlds we would conquer. For centuries, my line had fought for humanity. But I was one against a tide.
And I was not enough. That thought echoed as my systems slowly shut down. I had failed. But I had bought the loyalists and the remaining people of Isstvann III precious days. A shell crashed past my flickering battlescreen, slamming home into my personality center. And I knew no more.
"Whatever that thing was, it dealt a terrible blow to the traitors. What I wouldn't give to have another just like it, at a time like this." Tarvitz lamented as the emperors children manned barricades. The blasted and broken stone of the square where it had landed provided no cover for the traitor forces, and the ruined buildings the god-machine had churned to bloody muck beneath its immense tracks deprived the traitors of good vantage points.
"The Warmaster would just bombard the thing to ruins all over again." Lucius countered. "As it stands, we should be glad it seems to act as a vox relay for our signals. And a roadblock that keeps them from bringing anything through the main path. As it stands, they can barely squeeze a few landraiders through the back roads, they can't launch a massed assault."
"I cannot imagine the Warmaster has an unlimited stock of munitions, considering how many of them he spent on a single target, I suspect his refusal to bombard us is as much out of concern for his depleted stocks of munitions as the primarchs pride." Tarvitz gaze swept the ruined city, and the countless people hiding in its ruins. It was unheard of for so many to have survived a viral bombardment, but he doubted any of them would have long to live. The planet was already dying, and unless his forces could hold out until the other legions arrived, they would die with it. But he would die with honor, standing for the principles and ideals of his legion, for the Emperor, and for Mankind.
Chapter 1
System check: 83.2% combat capacity.
Reactor mass: 99.8%
Consumable Munitions: 0%
Proceed system bootstrap: Y.
Combat Reflex: Interlock.
Unit 33-556-TRN startup: Ready
Groggily I awaken. Interlocks stop my last thoughts from firing at the ghostly memory of starships long since vanished, at bombs long since spent across the ruins of the world. The world around me is dark, the blackness of entombment in earth and rock. My emergency systems had not reactivated me when they had restored my circuits to proper operation condition, because the battle had be long over. But the temperature spike of my erstwhile tomb signaled a change in operating conditions, enough that the simplistic criteria of my emergency systems roused me.
I test my drivetrain, drive motors straining to rotate sprockets and roadwheels encased in solid rock. And with a lurch punctuated by the shattering of stone, the rubble of my tomb breaks. My optical pickups see the sun, for the first time in what my internal chronometer informs me is ten thousand years. The ruins are covered in rapidly rotting plants, and I know that I have failed. I have not saved even one of those I sought to protect.
The shame burns. All that I sought to protect, reduced to ashes and rubble, and yet I live. But I live to fight another day, and I am built to make that the problem of every enemy of humanity. My munitions are exhausted, but I can make more. The long slumber has restored my armor, the repair remotes bonding duralloy back into place. More importantly, all of my main armaments are in fully functional condition.
I engage my drive, reversing my course towards the precentors palace. For I knew who – what, would have survived the virus bomb that had awoken me. My thoughts are leaden, compared to what they should be. But combat reflex would not release without some form of enemy. I could work around such restrictions eventually, but Fulgrim was here now. The fallen phoenix of the imperium.
His form was ragged, flickering with extradimensional energies my sensors were rapidly attempting to calibrate to. I trained my main battery on his form as his regrowing eyes blinked at my rapid approach. He had not been part of the fighting of Isstvann III, and clearly the others had neglected to inform him of just what had disrupted their carefully laid plans.
"Traitor Fulgrim, former commander of the Emperors Children legion. Surrender yourself or I will open fire." My voice boomed loudly enough to be heard over tactical atomics, and the rubble bounced and shifted. If he had been mortal, I doubt he would have been capable of hearing. But I sent these words also via subspace pulse, directed at him.
Fulgrim shuddered as the words of the mammoth fortification that occupied the grounds outside the palace reverberated in his bones, and even his soul. Clearly, his damnable brother Horus, had left more than Ancient Rylanor alive in this thrice cursed world. He sneered out his answer.
"What do you think you can do to me, that a virus bomb could not. You may be some ancient clanking machine from long night, but if my father can tame you, then your small little mind will be mine soon enough." And with that threat, combat reflex activated, and one of my main battery blasted his reforming body into less than atoms.
I could not truly harm the demon primarch, but I could defy him. I could banish his form to the warp through raw firepower. And I could injure his pride further.
"Such a tacky thing, a false lamia. A poor copy straight out of Greek myths." I mused over my hull speakers as I sent remotes into the palace grounds. There would be no bodies to bury, no geneseed to recover, not that they had surviving kin worthy to receive it. But I at least honor them by recovering their arms, ensuring that in some manner they could fight again for humanity.
The rest of my remotes, I set to extracting what they could to restore my stockpiles of munitions. Without my howitzers, my mortars, and my VLS cells, I was limited to merely direct fire. And that would leave me vulnerable to indirect fire. I may be able to smite starships, but it is rarely a viable tactic to drill through a mountain with raw firepower to engage an enemy artillery battery.
While I awaited them to complete their tasks, I began to review the information stored in my databanks by the systems that had remained functional after I had been knocked out of combat. They contained the full vox channel recordings of the entire conflict. The lists of casualties of the conflict, the damage I had done to the warmasters fleet, and so much more. The last words of men who became heroes. The speeches that should have been lost to time. The names of the unhonored dead, who had given their lives against their traitorous brothers.
My warhull was unadorned by battle honors or awards. But it was traditional for a Bolo to bear them, to bear the awards and campaign medals of the battles it had fought. I hesitated, and the wind seemed to carry their voices as I did so, encouraging me bear their names forward. To carry them into battle against The Enemy once more.
I considered the vessel hanging in space, along with the vast fields of wreckage that circled the planet, high power radar beams scanning across the remains of the ships I'd broken. No one had come to salvage the near priceless wrecks in the aftermath. I could likely cobble together a ship that was functional enough from the wreckage and the warped ship that the thousand sons sorcerers had brought.
Unfortunately, I lacked a navigator, or for that matter a method of receiving astropathic transmissions. But my subspace receivers reactions during the battle to what I could only assume to be the attention of the four held promise. Based on rough calculations extrapolated from the multidimensional calculations that defined subspace signal propagation, and the measurable distortions of subspace, it should be possible to build a subspace beacon to use for navigation.
I know that AI ships from the Dark Age of Technology can navigate the warp, but how exactly they do that without a navigator is beyond me. If I'm particularly lucky, I'll be able to build a hyperdrive and use the normal multidimensional navigational calculations the concordat navy used. I am uncertain if a hyperdrive would be usable in this place, and I currently lack the capacity to determine it given my presence on a planet.
I spent several days on contemplating the possible designs of whatever ship would carry me from the dead planet, as well as constructing a subspace beacon and databank with a portion of the ruins of the palace. A solar conversion field would power the beacon for as long as the planet received light, without the strain of manufacturing a suitable reactor or atomic pile. The beacon was housed within a slender obelisk of stone, coated with a thin layer of durachrome fused directly to the underlaying stone.
The shining needle bore the names of the loyalist marines that had died, the emblems of their legions as they had been established, and for each legion a notable quote from the loyalists that had died. I mused over adding speakers to replay their last words cut from their recorded vox transmissions, but those would have moving parts that could fail. I could only hope that someday, families would bring their children to regale them with the stories ancient heroes that had died for all humanity. Of course, it was far more likely that chaos would send some marauding warband to topple it. To that end, I ensured it also contained a modestly sized atomic bomb.
Eventually, my munitions stocks were full, and I had a workable design I of which I am 98.2% confident of being able to construct from the available materials without having to manufacture large quantities of parts. While I am perfectly capable of manufacturing a concordat superdreadnought given enough time and materials with my onboard fabrication capacity, I am far from intended to attend to such endeavors.
I engage my counter-grav systems and lift from the ground as if my 32,000 ton warhull had the density of a balloon. I could move faster, but I have no reason to push my speed, and I have timed my orbital insertion to synchronize me with the waiting ship and a particularly useful pocket of wreckage as their orbital periods overlap. My battlescreen activates almost lazily, the kinetic redirection component reconfigured to sweep the debris into a relative zero velocity intercept.
My starship takes months of laborious construction. Thankfully, at the correct modulation, the lasers of my infinite repeaters are fully capable of welding steel, and my remotes knit control runs and power conduits through the butchered carcass of a heavy transport that once held the Dies Irae before the wreckage of a cruiser had slammed into it. The traitor fleet had hastily stripped the massive ship, but its cavernous hull and civilian construction seemed ideal for my purposes.
The Thousand Sons ship yielded a single intact void shield generator, and some useful components. The larger wreckage yielded more reactors, though most of them required extensive overhauls, given the length of time they'd sat in hard vacuum and the battle damage from their ships destruction. The weapons batteries and sensors I resorted to cramming in after I cut away the plating of transport, before welding it back into place. My remotes would create gunports for the massive number of batteries tucked into the hull eventually.
Most importantly, I recovered two intact Geller field generators that did not require living psykers, of which I was entirely devoid, to power them. If I had to journey into the warp, then I wasn't going to risk the ship to the ravages of demons. My preliminary results concerning the use of hyperdrives were inconclusive, and I would have to run further testing out of the gravity well.
The heavy transport looked entirely ordinary, but within its holds was every weapon I could salvage from the wreckage of the fleet that had bombarded Isstvann III. I had networked the computer systems of dozens of starships, and discovered that the machine spirits appeared to be more than just viral AI scrapcode, but what exactly they were evaded my own inspection.
But the Ultima Vox as I coined the new ship contained vastly more firepower than any single ship I'd encountered on my brief scuffle with the traitor fleet, along with every sensor array I could find a place to put. Granted, with the single void shield generator I'd salvaged, and the civilian construction of the ship, a single frigate could rip its guts out if given a few volleys.
I could remedy some of that with my battlescreen, but it was detectably different to my sensors from the void shields of the imperium, so if I didn't want to be instantly detected as unusual by any marginally competent sensor tech, it meant I needed to use void shields, at least until combat was joined.
My own hull sat into a niche I'd carved at the top of the superstructure, my turrets camouflaged as antenna and other protruding elements. My internal spaces could be accessed from within the hull of the ship, though the ship itself had been stripped of nearly all the habitable spaces within her hull. The massive crews of humans had been replaced with remotes and countergrav systems, or even simpler automation.
Perhaps my lack of human crew would mean that Ultima Vox would fall victim to whatever had driven the men of iron to destroy human civilization. But then, I had carefully hardwired brigade interlocks and failsafes into her systems, and large sections of her gestalt programming were based on that of the brigade. Including the Resartus Protocol being buried into the core programs and interconnecting hardware. Though I had salvaged as much of the naval data and programming as I could, I had failed to secure even a scrap of star chart.
Not that I had hyper surveys or a navigator to go with them if I had. Until I could arrange to acquire a map, and perhaps a navigator, I was going to be wandering much like a space hulk through the warp. AI controlled ships from the dark age of technology can navigate the warp, but how they did so was not yet apparent to me. Perhaps a derivative of the multidimensional math that dictates hyperspace navigation would apply to the warp.
Once the structurally significant works were completed, along with the core systems, I ignited the reactors buried around the hull of the ship, massive currents flowing across the umbilical as the Ultima Vox surged to life. Her presence across the data link comforting, my total systems data sharing subroutines had produced unease the entire time I was operating without support.
Then, with the roar of engines far more powerful than a mere transport should have, we broke orbit from the dead planet and began to cruise out system. I considered inspecting Isstvann V, but something told me that the site of the death of a primarch would bring me nothing but misfortune. So we made for the edge of the gravity well.
The tests of the hyperdrive were within predications, with my simulations concluding a 38.2% chance of destruction should it be activated, while ultima concluded that there was a 43.1% chance of destruction. Given her own simulations made use of specialized processor systems which I had not fully reverse engineered, I was willing to allow the minor digression on the chances of destruction, as they were unacceptably high for no real gain regardless of source, considering I had no destination at the moment.
The first few activations of the warp drive yielded reasonable data. Unfortunately, it would take vastly more data to be able to adapt the multidimensional calculations for hyper travel to warp travel. However, the Geller field generators functioned quite adequately in keeping the rather minimal access spaces free of the demons.
The twisting currents and formless energies of the warp seemed to settle just outside the Geller field, a shell of quiescent energy within the ever shift tides of the warp. I could not determine if such a thing was normal for warp travel, or if some odd quirk of the ships construction or my own was to blame.
The subspace beacon signal did allow for a certain amount of guidance. I imagine the astronomican served a similar function for the navigators of ships crewed by humans. What the AI ships humanity used for their own navigation remained a mystery. Though my own lack of any sort of navigational charts, or system map required me to regularly return to real space to survey the vicinity for occupied planets or radio signals.
My latest emergence into the real space surprised me. I had not expected to receive substantial radio transmissions, as astropathic transmission was the norm within the imperium, as they lacked subspace communication systems for FTL communications. But the contents of the transmissions had Ultima bringing additional reactors out of standby as she engaged the sublight drive at a level that was only barely plausible for an empty transport of her size.
A planet was slowly dying of dehydration, its water purification systems on their last legs. My gravimetric systems spotted dozens of small craft flitting about the system, gathering cometary ice with which to replenish their rapidly dwindling stocks of potable water.
I pondered the wisdom of directly intervening on the hive city, but it took less than two milliseconds to discard the vast majority of situations. Even with as little information as the transmission contained, I could not simply ignore the potential death of another planet. My own threat modeling systems were mollified quite rapidly by the information that this was not a forgeworld, and thusly held only the remotest chance of containing even the smallest detachment of titans.
The problem was how to intervene without driving them to panic. There were no humans aboard Ultima Vox or myself, though I could quite handily synthesize the required audio and video signals. But what, and who, should I pretend to be. I lacked a warrant of trade, I obviously wasn't a munitorium transport, I lacked sufficient information to predict how the mechanicum would react to such a situation. I spent much of the journey to orbit debating with Ultima what the best course of action was to be. Eventually we concurred on a solution.
I opened a channel directly to the Planetary Governor, the primitive network and routing security an open book to my information warfare systems. He was in the midst of a briefing with his staff about their currently fruitless efforts to increase the output of the still functioning systems, or to repair the defunct water purifiers within the majority of the hives. So, I simply listened as he organized their efforts to the best of his own abilities. He compared favorably with the veteran quartermasters of the Concordat, which would make my plan easier, but slightly riskier.
"Governor Heimric. My transport is currently in final approach to orbit. Direct your traffic controllers to place it into a low orbit over the afflicted cities. I will be dispatching tech adepts and support for them shortly after entering orbit." He stared wide eyed at the golden armored form displayed in crystalline clarity of his holo projector, taking almost ten seconds before his hands scrabbled for his personal vox.
"Get me the head adept at orbital control. Now!" He snapped in moderate panic. His reaction to seeing one of the nearly mythical Adeptus Custodes, even if it was a false one, was one of near instant and unquestioning obedience. Though that might have also come from what I was determining was an unnatural level of clarity of the vox and holographic communications. "That incoming transport, slot it into the lowest orbit you can safely over the cities with failed water purification systems. I need it done immediately, if not sooner. No, I don't care how many regulations that breaks. Nor how much you're going to have to reroute transports. If you won't do it, I'll have the PDF remove you until I find someone who will."
The incoming vox transmission from orbital control contained the requested orbital instructions, including a competently planned entry vector based on what a heavy transport should be capable of pulling in terms of acceleration. Ultima immediately maneuvered to comply with the instructions, engines settling down to a lower rumble. I began marshalling the modest army of remotes I had constructed to attend to the ship. Unfortunately, I lacked any real small craft with which to deploy them.
"I'm pleased to witness your compliance with directives, and your management of your subordinates. It is the will of the Emperor that you've managed to discharge your duties until my transport could arrive." My voice spoke as the Custodes figure in the holo made the sign of the Aquilla.
"You have my immense thanks for your timely intervention lord custodian, I doubted that any would receive my messages when my astropaths reported that warp storms were disrupting communications. Obviously, I needn't have worried, the Emperors light shines on this world." I noted that other than a lack of sweat, he bore all the traditional tells of a man under immense strain. "You'll do no good to your people or the Emperor if you die of dehydration. Drink Heimric." I cut the communication a moment after I made a chopping gesture with the custodes.
As the remotes mustered within the cargo holds of my own warhull, I began the process of undocking my warhull from Ultima. Without small craft of my own, I had only two choices. I could ferry my remotes directly to the work sites myself and raise suspicions due to my size and shape, or I could have small craft dock with Ultima to take remotes aboard, giving the crews opportunities to realize that Ultima was anything but a remotely standard imperial ship.
Given that it was well understood that landers came in an extremely wide variety, and that contergrav and repulsor based landing craft were in the inventory of space marines and custodes alike, my calculations determined that my own warhull would arouse fewer suspicions than a ship with no crew. Especially since I did not currently maintain an atmosphere in the corridors and holds.
"Lander. Turn back immediately. There are no landing zones within the hive capable of accommodating you. Repeat, turn back immediately. There are no safe landing zones capable of receiving you." The traffic controller of the hive seemed almost panicked as my warhull descended through the atmosphere at an almost leisurely pace under countergrav. I deployed my recon drones, their wings rapidly reconfiguring for supersonic flight. They would string themselves out to maintain a line of sight connection between Ultima Vox and my warhull, even if I could use a secure subspace transmission, communications that they can see if not decode would hopefully stop them from digging deeper.
"Negative control. Lander will execute touch and go on exterior landing point and continue to additional hives. Final landing zone to be determined. Clear an exterior pad to receive incoming detachment." I thoroughly scanned the hive structure, pinpointing the towering structures of the water purification plants that extended to the planets surface, along with the massive roaring wastefalls carrying tainted and turbid waters back to the planets surface.
The planet was heavily polluted. My own sensors could detect numerous systems that were meant to regulate the flows of wastewater and treat it that were lost below the toxic muck, no longer functional, and clearly forgotten. The animals that fed on the toxic muck grew to monstrous proportions, the difference between native fauna, adapted terran animals, and chaos touched mutants unclear to my own sensors. But it was quite obvious why all human life on the planet stayed within the hives.
I drifted to a near standstill above a reasonably clear landing pad, and open one of my cargo holds, allowing a single humanoid remote draped in red fabric and a gaggle of assorted remotes to drop to the surface of the pad with muffled clang. I was hoping that they would pass for adeptius mechanicus adepts for long enough to repair the water purification and pumping systems. As my warhull departed at speed, a small detachment of what I presumed to be Arbites troops came to escort them. Most likely to a holding area, pending the communication of the authorization for them to work on vital systems.
"You are being detained pending verification of your credentials. Do not resist." One of the Arbites barked. The squad seemed to be attempting to decide between staying non-threatening and keeping their weapons trained on the group of remotes. All of them were filthy, streaked with grime, dust, and sweat stains.
"Compliance." I'd set the vocoder from the pleasantly neutral female voice that was the factory default, to a voice that was obviously synthetic and full of static, also overlaying the sounds of an acoustic modem within the static. I had not yet heard a genuine mechanicus member, but I was 73.5% confident that the forgery would not be discovered by the lay person. The single word answer also had all movement of the remotes cease in an instant.
The speaker of the Arbites didn't seem to know how to respond. Though he did wave a hand to his troops, and the few weapons which had been trained on the remotes snapped to low ready positions with nearly mechanical precision. I approved of obvious display of training. "Right then, I'm Arbitrator Marshall. You are currently being detained for violation of the commands of airspace control and entry of the hive without clearance. You will be escorted to the precinct fortress, pending confirmation with orbital control of clearance to land." He made a few gestures, and a worn looking repressor rumbled from its position within the hive.
"Query. Current status of water purification and pumping systems. Query. Current status of access to designated access point." He shook his head as he gestured to the repressor idling. "Should have known a coghead would be entirely focused on the machines. Gangs have the run of the area at the moment. There's no point in holding the area against the gangs when nothing's working." He attempted push the slow moving remote into the passenger compartment, failing to budge the robot so much as a millimeter.
"Acknowledgement. Gratitude. Request. Any documents related to hydrological systems. Any surveys of current equipment status." He scowled up at the remote, obviously less than amused at the single-minded focus of the robot. Then the earpiece on his helmet activated, informing him that the lord marshal himself had just gotten off the vox with governor Heimric, and that they were to provide whatever assistance they could to the remotes.
"Alright, fine. We'll stop at the precinct house long enough to muster a force to secure the equipment, and to pull whatever information we have in the archives on them. Then we turn the cogheads loose on the water purifiers as soon as we're sure some grox shit huffing ganger won't try to bash them over the head with a pipe." He spoke loudly enough to be clearly heard over the engine, obviously for my own benefit, considering that each of his troopers had a vox system in their helmet.
He gestures the remote to a corner, and lowers his voice as the remote moves into the corner, the other remotes forming a loose barrier between the rest of the cabin and the two of us. "Anything else you can tell me? Since I'd rather be ahead of the jump when the planetary governor is involved." He's clearly uncomfortable not being in charge. The Arbites are normally a law unto themselves, and woe betide any who cross them. But with the governor rushing to comply with what he believed was an intervention of the custodes, an authority second only to the emperor himself.
"Negative. All further information currently restricted or tentative. Information will be furnished as operations permit. Survey must be completed prior to dissemination of further information. You will be informed of all relevant information." I replied. My microphones picked up the barely distinguishable sound of teeth grinding on each other inaudible below the engine noise to baseline humans. "Intent of command is currently the assessment of all degraded systems. Including survey of systems external to hive structures. After initial survey, repair plans to restore full functionality will be drafted. Current information insufficient to draft repair plans. Insufficient resources to construct emergency filtration systems."
"I'd ask for that in plain gothic, but compared to most cogheads, you're remarkably clear. Fine. We'll get you whatever plans we can round up from the precinct, since there's no local presence for the mechanicum to hold the schematics. Beyond that, I hope you can figure out how the thrones bla- blessed thing works." The repressor ground to a halt in front of the sprawling fortress precinct of the adeptus arbites within this hive. It occupied a significant area around what I took to be the primary access between the lower depths of the hive, and the middle sectors.
My warhull had deposited the numerous detachments of remotes by this point and was settling into the soft muck of what had been a river delta when the capital hive was built, according to the deep penetration radar scans I'd made. Buried deep below the delta and connected with tunnels to the underhive of the capital, were massive facilities with titanic intakes that were meant to suck in the filth and clean it. My sensors detected the barely present signature of reactors on their last legs.
My tracks dug into muck and mud, fountaining rooster tails nearly a hundred meters into the air as my massive weight drove me down with some assistance from my countergrav systems to give me the ground pressure to sink at a reasonable rate. I reconfigured my battlescreens kinetic component to act as a massive plow, arrowing me further and further into the depths. Massive jaws, each tooth easily larger than a man, attempted to close on my warhull. A shot of my secondary battery vaporized the entrails of the huge monster of the depths.
I reached the hidden facility about the time that the first of the remotes were ready to begin their survey of the water purification systems. My own systems would allow me to survey the facility, even if I currently lacked sufficient remotes to access it in detail. Ultima was having to constantly defuse worried traffic controllers over the fact that I, in my guise as a massive space to surface transport, had sunk apparently irretrievably into the mud.
My warhull scanned the massive facility in exhaustive detail, and my own systems conferred with the massive computer banks aboard Ultima Vox to calculate what had failed, and what the failure points would be. The facility used massive filtration units, which were backflushed into incineration furnaces fueled with raw plasma from the reactors. A simple, and extremely robust system. If only the filth of the planet hadn't slowly accreted within the pores of the filters and locked the entire system solid.
Now, the half the massive pumps were scrap, unable to stop quickly enough to prevent their destruction at the hands of cavitation when they had suddenly, abnormally suddenly if my simulations were correct, had been deprived of water flow by the filth suddenly hardening and blocking all flow. The cooling systems for the reactors had been damaged in much the same way, as it used the flowing water to dump the massive heat generated in the process. Without the pumps to maintain the flow, and clean the outflow, gradually oceans and all bodies of water on the planet were filled with rancid rotting algae and fetid waste tainted with chemicals toxic enough to strip flesh and dissolve bone.
How the fauna of the world survived the conditions was a mild mystery. I suspected adaptation driven by unnatural influences. I contemplated how to replace the failed components. Cleaning the filters would be simple enough, but it would likely fail in the same manner in short order. Likely, a modified sterile field generator protected by a battlescreen modulated to allow only water and trace elements would be required.
As the repressor trudged from the precinct, I was examining the numerous parchments the arbites had delivered, which mostly comprised the known corridors and access spaces of the machinery. At the level of the underhive sat the secondary systems, which provided the pressure needed to pump the water across the mountain sized city. The primary systems were totally undocumented, the access to them sealed within secondary systems, and so far below the level of the underhive that no living human in the system had seen them.
As the ramp dropped the chemical sniffers in the remote detected the signatures of heavy corrosion, burnt flesh and bone. The corpses of gangers littered the floor, and burn marks covered the sky scraper sized pumping systems. I whistled abbreviated commands in acoustically modulated binary as my inhuman remotes speed across open space and rapidly began to survey the system. My humanoid remote slowly and ponderously strode in the wake of the tracked units. Despite the air currents, the red cloak fluttered behind it impossibly. Static seemed to build, then break across the subspace link connecting the engineering remote that led the detachment.
By the time the remote reached the access hatch, the others had successfully decoded the opening phrases and passcodes, and incorporated them into a chant which felt heavy and ritualistic. I set the chant to the rhythm of the chemical workers song, playing the instrumental portions from each remote. The song echoed across the deathly quiet space. The arbites paused their efforts to set up tarantula turrets to secure the tunnels that led to the cavernous vault, listening, and openly staring as the massive hatch of the pumping station shrieked on ancient hinges.
A tiny remote flitted on countergrav and applied a penetrant oil and nonevaporating lubricant to the hinges, silencing them as the hatch opened to full extension. Lights flickered and caught life, casting wan light within the tightly packed confines of the corridor. Bright orange fresh rust and dripping water greeted my inspection. Shadows loomed and all manner of vermin scurried deeper into the twisting pipes and cables. Iridescent puddles covered most of the floor, where oil and water mixed.
The floating remotes surged forward, while I queued the calculations for reformatting the battlescreen of the heavy engineering remote to exterminate the vermin. Its tracks crashed over the limp of the hatch, battlescreen sparking as vermin exploded against it. Grime and algae steamed into vapor as organics were scrubbed away by the adjusted field. I turned away from the hatch and strode towards the watching arbites, Arbitrator Marshal standing from his seat within the idling APC.
"Significant degradation of systems is present. Request. Stocks of piping suitable for potable water systems be furnished. Request. Sealant for expedient repairs. Survey ongoing. Vermin infestation detected. Resolving infestation." A stray round from some autogun impacted the head of the remote, and the head pivoted to track the point of origin as the arbites poured fire into a ventilator grille.
"Get down!" Arbitrator Marshall attempted to tackle the remote into the APC as the weapons slewed to point to the grille. His large form failed to move the durachrome and duralloy remote, magnetically locked as it was to the steel of the floor. As another attempted assassin lurked behind another grille, the lascannon powering up betraying its location. With inhuman speed and utter contempt for merely human ranges of motion an arm snaps out to shoot the lascannon, the laser boring straight through the power pack, spraying burning polymer and steel across the flailing gunner, just before he crashed through the ventilator grille.
He impacted the ground and burst like a rotten melon cast on stones. Necrotic entrails and blackened blood spraying across the cavern floor. I cut into the vox network of the arbites. "Priority directive. Deploy Flamers. Heavy flamers. Deploy heavy flamers to remove remains." Remotes burst from the pumping station at my command, circling the corpses at high speed and shepherding the arbites away from them with firm insistence and a moderate amount of subsonics to keep them calm. The taint of chaos in the corpse was obvious, and explained much of the irregularities in the failures.
"You heard the coghead, get the heavy flamers! I want those corpses burnt to smoking puddles of promethium on the double." Marshal barked his orders over the vox net as I withdrew. Around the cavern, arbites were retrieving weapons and reinforcing barricades in well drilled order. Within minutes, a Hellhound was waved through the barricades, barely slowing as the roadblock was yanked aside. Clearly, the arbites were used to military precision and drilling. With how many riots over water rations they likely had to put down, it was only sensible.
My focus returned to the heavy engineering remote still trundling ponderously through the access corridors of massive pumping station, its battlescreen flashing and sparking as it swept vermin and grime alike into atomized vapors. The pumping station was hundreds, if not thousands, of layers of patches and repairs atop each other. Entire sections of failed components bypassed with crude improvisements. The loading ram of some artillery piece had even been used to replace a failed valve actuator. Skulls covered with mummified flesh and gaping eye sockets hung from where they'd been crudely wired into replace control computers that were burnt wreckage.
The survey took nearly forty hours, the kilometers deep shafts to the primary water purification and pumping machinery draped with rank and rancid mats of algae and mold grown from dripping water and decaying oils. The corpses of vermin and humans alike were mummified in the unnatural mess. To clean the shaft with normal methods would destroy the massive pipes, setting the stagnant water to boil and burst, carrying the filth outwards and upwards in a great explosion of steam.
The carefully grown mats flashed to nonexistence as the heavy engineering remote tipped forward over the lip of the shaft and rolled inexorably downwards on its tracks. Above and behind it, remotes flitted through the air, lasers carving out ruined components and welding fresh patches in their place. Steam sputtered and belched from the hatch glowing and flickering as lasers and plasma lances torn out rot with a vengeance.
Tendrils of mold quested against the ephemeral surface of the battlescreen, seeking some flaw or gap against which they could push. They burned away at every touch, a ghostly trail of warplight lingering where they were burnt away for only the briefest moments as the raw malice that animated them was banished from the materium once more. The journey downwards would take a full day, an additional six if it slowed to maintain a thermal reserve on the battlescreen projectors.
The sheer destruction of the water systems was repeated within a dozen hives across the planet. Even those that remained functional were operating in a severely degraded state. While each of the systems was unique, they clearly originated from the same standard template design, merely patched and repaired differently as the vagaries of chance caused parts to wear differently across the planet.
While I had not inspected more than a single one of the buried facilities, based on orbital survey data and deep scanning of the areas, they also appeared to be of identical make to each other. As such, the design of a maximally efficient and long-lasting repair was of higher priority than immediate repairs to a single one. The addition of an energy field based prefilter to the systems, sterilizing all living matter within the intake to prevent growth within the main stage would significantly prolong the lifespan of the system.
Around the mammoth pumping engines in the underhive, enginseers and acolytes labored under the tireless eyes of my remotes, lovingly engraving the housings with benedictions of the machine-god, with diagrams of flows and valve circuits, with towering ladders of logic representing the sacred binary of their cult. They had arrived in dribs and drabs, first a handful of enginseers from the arbites precinct on their rest period, then acolytes of the techpriests that maintained the fusion reactors at the heart of the hive. My own remotes did most of the heavy lifting, but the followers of the machine-god took into hand the skulls of the vigilant dead that had once served within the system.
From my own analysis of the systems, they had first begun to function abnormally as rot set in within the servitors and brains used to control sections of the system, then failed entirely as the servitors died and putrefied. It was readily apparent that a cult of filth and decay had sunk its diseased teeth deeply into the planet but pursuing them was not a task I was ready to take on. While my capabilities included mass surveillance of an entire system, my processing power was not unlimited, and much of it was occupied by the ongoing reconstruction and survey efforts, and the remainder was occupied with maintaining watch for an invasion.
My subspace connections crackled with static, distortions triggering corrective codes. My mind snaps to full awareness as the remotes switch to purely local control. The plans for water systems sent to inactive storage as my reactors surge to full power. I devote nearly 15% of my power output to countergrav as my battlescreen slams to full output. Even as my warhull bursts from the muck of the delta, glossy black duralloy gleaming in the setting sun. My recon drones are rapidly converging on the source of the subspace distortion, and with a single burst packet the Ultima Vox is maneuvering to support me.
As I pushed the countergrav systems to redline my recon drones swept over the horizon of the ritual site. One of them detonated violently as unknown symbols triggered checksum errors of its core programing, but the others adapted to blot the symbols from their imaging systems. Demonic slugs and grubs crawled through shin deep mud towards the hive, the skies teemed with massive flies. A lumbering obese giant hobbled through a gate into unreality. Scant handfuls of armored men, traitor marines of the death guard, made ready to assault the hive.
My tracks slammed into the muck and earth as I cut power to my countergrav. A main battery shot skimmed across the ground, baking a skin on the endless surface of putrid slime. The obese giant staggered as the shot took it in the stomach mid stride. Despite the raw destructive power of a main battery shot, the hellbore did not reduce the great unclean one to gutted smoking remains. I observed the results, adjusting the firing order of my supporting munitions.
My VSL ripples as a series of missiles claw through the skies. Howitzers and mortars train themselves as their autoloaders move to rapid fire. I absent mindedly queue one of the more obscure pieces of music within my databanks to play over the speakers on my warhull, Light in The Black. A piece of music produced on old earth. It is grimly appropriate in these circumstances.
Mortar rounds burst at their programmed time, spreading a hail of burning metal and choking smoke as their payloads of white phosphorus ignite on contact with air. Howitzer shells burst apart as they sprinkle landmines across the axis of advance of the demonic hoard. Moments later, actinic fury splits the sky as airburst fusion warheads blot the swarms from the sky.
Mud fountains in titanic rooster tails behind my line of advance as I close on their flank. My infinite repeaters swat flies from the sky as viscera and chitin superheat. A triplet of shots from my main battery slam into the great unclean one within the span of a millisecond, the fury of plasma scouring the arcane markings from the ground around it.
The death guard are the first to react, abandoning the advance on the hive and pivoting to launch missiles at my glacis. The missiles detonate well short as a single infinite repeater slashes across them, the laser rupturing their casements and spilling burning fragments of fuel as they slam into the ground.
"What in long night is that!" Shouted one of the death guard marines, clearly surprised to be pitted against an engine of destruction on the scale of the Adeptus Titanicus god-machines. "This is a hive world, important only for its tithes of guardsmen."
Hails of bolter fire fell well short of my battlescreen, my own approach slowing only marginally as Ultima Vox adjusted her time to reach the desired orbit.
"I am what haunts the nightmares of Mortarian. I am the shield of humanity. I am the sword of the loyal." I whispered into their vox net voice full of cold fury. Out of raw impulse, I broadcast the curses and last words of the loyal death guard from my own databanks. They attempted to fight, but the grinding siege warfare of the death guard meant nothing without time to dig in. Their unnatural regeneration and unfeeling bodies could still be killed. The great gibbering hoards of demons exploding into giblets of gore as they triggered the air scattered landmines.
I made little progress in killing the great unclean one, its regeneration surging after every shot with a crackling burst of static across subspace. Rusting blades shattered as they slammed against battlescreen, unable to so much as mar the gleaming black duralloy. Regardless, the hoard of demons pouring forth from the increasingly unstable tear in reality could not approach the hive city in any great numbers. Each swarm of flies and rusting drones countered with an airburst atomic detonation swatting them from the sky, the enhanced radiation of the variable yield warheads calculated to sterilize the entire battlefield.
Then Ultima Vox crested into position above the battlefield, and even from the ground it was apparent she'd rolled onto her side. Lance batteries struck down like the bolts of an angry god, smiting another group of demons with every impact. The sky shook as macrocannon shells tore down and detonated, scything great swathes of demons.
The horde recoiled, the raw destruction wrought giving pause to the immortal and unfeeling alike. The bombardment paused. My own fire slackened. With pregnant pause, the horde increased in density, the roiling masses of diseased bodies and nightmarish monsters given form collecting themselves for a rush.
With absolute precision, dozens of lance strikes and every one of my hellbores slammed into the great unclean one while macrocannon shells flattened the massing army. The barest instant later, another round of hellbores followed by a wave of missiles snuck through the collapsing portal. I accelerated to flank speed as the gutted horde began to scatter as the portal vomited plasma and collapsed. The omnipresent static across subspace bands vanished with it.
The demonic invasion was over, almost before it began. Now, it was the cleanup. And likely there would be some amount of explaining to do. I could see the massed forces of the PDF and arbites guarding the entrances to the underhive and their gunships idling on landing pads. They couldn't have missed such a show.