The Hunt for Vulkan Read online

  As Honour’s Spear descended, the details of the structures became clear. Towers that Thane had taken for manufactoria were single machines, thousands of metres high. Some rotated around each other in a slow, majestic dance. Others were the pistoning ribs of an inconceivably gigantic beast. They connected to the monstrous buttresses and vaults of the manufactoria proper, of the habs for tens of millions of servants of the Omnissiah, and of laboratoria the size of hives.

  ‘How will we find our quarry in that?’ Abbas asked.

  ‘The terrain is not unknown to me,’ Aloysian said quietly.

  ‘I hope we will not have to seek him,’ said Thane. ‘I hope he will be brought to us.’

  ‘A faint hope,’ said Aloysian.

  Thane made no answer. Below, the immensity of the Pavonis Mons complex stretched its iron claws upwards.

  The gunships and transports came down at the edge of the space port at the base of the south face of the mountain. Alarms wailed from the towers of the port and the spires of the complex spilling off the slope and onto the surrounding plain. The Thunderhawks disgorged troops and vehicles, then rose to fly overwatch for the company. Thane organised the deployment with an eye to a maximum display of power. The battle-brothers marched at the head of the column. The Rhinos, empty except for their drivers, brought up the rear. In between came the tanks: Land Raiders, Predators, Vindicators and Whirlwinds. There was the strength here to flatten a city, and there was more to come. But Pavonis Mons was more than a city. Thane hoped the initial threat would be enough. He would escalate it as required, though he hoped he would not have to do so.

  But Aloysian’s logic was sound.

  The column rumbled away from the space port. It followed the main transport avenue running from the space port to the Tharsis Gate. Embedded in the immense walls encircling the base of the volcano, the Tharsis Gate was the primary access point to the Pavonis Mons complex, both above and below the surface of Mars.

  Cathedral warehouses and cloud-piercing manufactoria lined the avenue’s sides. Webs of monorail tubes ran overhead, forcing the Thunderhawks higher. Ochre dust blew down the canyons between the structures. A sea of Mechanicus serfs and monotasked servitors parted ahead of the Fists Exemplar, a thousand thousand pedestrians and transports funnelling into cavernous cargo and work bays, or melting into narrower streets held in perpetual night by the shadows of the towers. From the jutting rise of the complex came an angry red glow. Cataracts of molten ore fell hundreds of metres from spouts to receptacles. Thane gazed at what he had come to bend to his will: a great mechanism, too large for the eye to encompass, too powerful for even its operators to comprehend. A mountain of metal and stone rumbled and groaned.

  And it cried out.

  The sirens whooped, Mars warning of invaders, Mars preparing for war. At the other end of the avenue, where it opened up into the kilometres-wide Square of the Infinite Reach before the Tharsis Gate, Thane saw the Mechanicus forces gather, and then move.

  ‘Where did they come from?’ Raalega asked. The Tharsis Gate was shut fast.

  Aloysian spread his servo-arms, taking in the industrial sprawl on all sides. ‘From everywhere,’ he said. ‘There are thousands of concealed access points just in this quadrant. The Mechanicus will reach what must be held, and provide no route for the enemy. So Mars will always be defended.’

  The two forces came together in the Square of the Infinite Reach. Electro-priests and skitarii walked just ahead of Kastelan robots and their datasmiths. The robots were lumbering monsters, twice the height of their controllers. Their forms had a kinship to Space Marine power armour, but their heads were smooth eggs of metal, faces replaced with grey plates. Huge cannons rose over the metal skulls from the carapace: incendine combustors. Their power fists crackled with red and blue energy.

  On the flanks rolled servitor tanks. The Kataphron Destroyers and Breachers were tracked behemoths, built up around things that had once been human. The only remnants were the shaved heads, snarling, bestial, pallid and blank-eyed, attached to machinic torsos wielding cannons and hydraulic claws.

  Onager Dunecrawlers clanked up along the road at the rear of the column. Insectoid limbs carried reliquary hulls armed with eradication beamer cannons. The Dunecrawlers swivelled their weapons back and forth, aiming over the Mechanicus. Some were monitoring the Space Marine tanks. Others were tracking the movements of the gunships.

  More forces were joining the Mechanicus column. Thane saw individual units emerge from manufactoria and hatches opening and closing in the surface of the roads and the square. Aloysian was correct. For the Adeptus Mechanicus, the terrain was porous, offering innumerable means of closing with an enemy. But to the foe, the ways would be shut or death traps. There was only one entrance that might conceivably be stormed and secured: the Gate.

  The Tharsis Gate was a hundred metres high and wide, and at that it was half the height of the wall. An engraving of the divided skull of the Cult Mechanicus occupied the Gate’s entire surface. There was no seam, no sign of whether it parted down the centre or rose into the wall. Thane bore no illusions about opening it from the outside. The Fists Exemplar would have to pierce it.

  The Mechanicus column grew as it advanced. It was a mechanised serpent of crimson robes, crimson plate, articulated metal limbs, pulsing energy and coiling mechadendrites. There was so little of the human in the display before Thane that war seemed not unthinkable, but inevitable. He thought of what Koorland had told him of Fabricator General Kubik: that the High Lord appeared to regard the ork attack on the Imperium with the detachment of an outside observer. He spoke as if Mars were not threatened, as if the orks were more fascinating than dangerous, and as if the Cult Mechanicus had an alliance of convenience with the Imperium, and nothing more.

  At this moment, Koorland’s concerns had the ring of grim truth.

  The Fists Exemplar and the Mechanicus stopped with less than fifty metres between them.

  ‘Point-blank range,’ Abbas voxed over a private channel.

  ‘Yes,’ said Thane. At this distance, the combined fire of the two armies could leave nothing but a huge crater. They were edging towards a catastrophe beyond war. ‘We must tread carefully.’ He switched to the command network. ‘We are not here for battle,’ he said. ‘Keep that foremost in your minds, brothers. There will be no weapons fire without my express command. The situation is fragile. We will not be the ones to engage first. But we will complete our mission.’

  ‘Chapter Master,’ Abbas said, ‘does the Mechanicus understand the concept of the bluff?’

  ‘Do you think that’s what we’re doing?’

  ‘No. But I hope our opponents are.’

  At least Abbas had not used the word enemies.

  From the towers of the manufactoria, and from the Martian war machines, vox-casters spoke from all sides. They surrounded the Fists Exemplar with the inhuman tones of Van Auken. They were the voice of a single priest, and that unity, amplified hundreds of times, gave the artisan the same authority as if he had been Mars itself.

  ‘In the name of the Omnissiah, go no further. Turn back now.’

  If there was something Thane could count on in the present volatility, it was the precision of Van Auken’s words. He had never known an adept of the Mechanicus to use language carelessly. Van Auken had commanded, but he had not threatened. He was reserving a small space for manoeuvring.

  Thane would have to make him back up. He used his vox-grille to speak, to broadcast his response to the Mechanicus warriors and to Van Auken. ‘We have our orders. They are the same as yours, from the Lord Commander of the Imperium, and in the name of the Emperor. Release Eldon Urquidex to our custody.’

  ‘In the name of the Omnissiah, go no further. Turn back now.’

  The perfect, mechanical repetition. It might as well have been a recording. Thane knew it wasn’t. Perhaps all Van Auken had left was escalation
. As did Thane.

  ‘Chapter Master,’ Aloysian voxed. ‘Is one magos worth the cost we are facing?’

  ‘Would you abandon our mission?’ Thane glanced to his left. The Master of the Forge was in the front line, a visible reminder to the Mechanicus of the fused alliance between Mars and Terra.

  ‘I am not suggesting dereliction,’ said Aloysian. ‘I am weighing the consequences. Which would cause more damage to the Imperium – the loss of Urquidex, or war on Mars?’

  ‘Your logic is faulty, Master Aloysian. The information Urquidex possesses may outweigh any disaster here.’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘No. But we know our orders. We know our oaths of moment.’

  Aloysian was silent.

  ‘I appreciate your situation,’ Thane said. ‘But…’ He trailed off and waited.

  Aloysian grunted. It was a very human sound, a rare expression of emotion from the Techmarine. ‘I know what I am,’ he said. ‘I am Adeptus Astartes. I am an Exemplar. My duty is clear, Chapter Master.’

  ‘I have no doubt it is. I will still spare us war if it is at all possible.’

  Aloysian shook his head. ‘It will not be.’

  Still, I will act as though it is, Thane thought. ‘This confrontation is senseless,’ he boomed to the Martian warriors. ‘We all serve the same Imperium. We all serve the Emperor. Will you turn your back on the Imperium in its moment of peril? I will not believe this of the priests of Mars. And now we will pass.’

  He began to walk forwards. ‘A steady advance,’ he ordered the company. ‘Slow. Give them time to move back. Weapons at ready, but do not address targets. We go forwards, we do not stop, but we do not fire. Acknowledge.’

  Clicks came back to him over the vox.

  The Fists Exemplar advanced. The space between the forces shrank.

  Van Auken watched the vid-screens and hololith tables. He was in a command centre below the surface, near the core of Pavonis Mons. The screens covered the walls. Feeds updated themselves every second. Targeting data from the Dunecrawlers changed as they tracked gunships and tanks. An auspex-mechanic sat before each column of screens, summarising and condensing the slivers of situation into bursts of code, their signals running through the cogitators and into the Artisan Primus’ mechadendrites plugged into the master console. Moment to moment, he had a near-total awareness of the entire territory running from the space port to the Tharsis Gate.

  ‘They are advancing,’ transmitted Sicarian Princeps Tynora 7-Galliax.

  ‘I am aware of this development.’

  ‘Understood, Artisan Primus. The delay between the situational change and your orders prompted my erroneous conclusion.’

  It was possible to discern a veiled insult in her explanation. Van Auken ignored it. ‘Do not allow them to pass.’

  ‘What means are authorised?’

  ‘The mass of our forces. Do not engage.’

  ‘Unpredictable contingencies raise the likelihood of combat to near-certainty.’

  ‘The Adeptus Astartes are highly disciplined. The possibilities of intemperate error are concomitantly reduced.’

  ‘Accepted without optimism. Query: is the risk an efficient use of resources?’

  ‘We have not yet ascertained the degree of the heretic Urquidex’s knowledge. Once the full extent of the damage has been ascertained, he will be mind-wiped. The Adeptus Astartes may claim him at that point. Until then, his threat outweighs all others. Premise: the Fists Exemplar are also fully conscious of the consequences of war. Their data is also incomplete. They can conceive of no escape for Terra from the orks. Theorem: conflict here while orks are over Terra will be avoided as an absolute evil.’

  ‘Counter-hypothesis,’ said 7-Galliax. ‘Lacking alternatives, they will stop at nothing.’

  ‘Possibility evaluated and dismissed,’ Van Auken said.

  He watched the two forces come together. With all the variables clamouring for his attention, there was no room for doubt.

  The Mechanicus closed ranks. There were only a few metres between Thane and the line of skitarii.

  ‘They don’t want to let us through,’ said Abbas.

  ‘We shall have to convince them otherwise,’ replied Thane

  The solid wall of Fists Exemplar closed the gap. The Adeptus Astartes towered over the skitarii vanguard troops. The armour of these warriors was heavy by Mechanicus standards – they were more substantial and less insectoid than many of their comrades. They were still dwarfed by the Space Marines.

  The Fists Exemplar did not pause. They pressed forwards, steady and inexorable as the tide. Thane kept his bolter against his chest, barrel angled up. He was not attacking, simply advancing. Skitarii rifles were pointed at him. He pushed into the barrel of the vanguard warrior before him. He took another step, forcing the other to choose between taking a step back, firing, or engaging in melee combat. The skitarius stepped back. So did the rest of the line. The Fists Exemplar moved forwards again.

  Then a command must have been issued. The retreat halted, the Dunecrawlers, Breachers and Destroyers manoeuvring to form a wall of metal. The Fists Exemplar could overwhelm the skitarii physically, but they would not be able to push past the Mechanicus heavy armour without using their own.

  The chances of avoiding war shrank still further.

  Thane had no choice; the mission demanded he advance. He decided to take the risk of raising the stakes. He would make those augmetic eyes blink yet.

  He raised Weylon Kale on the Alcazar Remembered. ‘Shipmaster,’ he said, ‘begin the drop.’

  ‘So ordered, Chapter Master.’

  ‘They have the physical mass to force us back,’ 7-Galliax reported.

  ‘Hold as long as possible,’ Van Auken said. ‘When the heavy armour comes into play, fire warning shots.’

  7-Galliax’s reply was cut off by a binharic squeal from one of the auspex-mechanics.

  Van Auken processed the data. He felt stirrings of something that went beyond concern. Auto-regulators sought to contain the disruptive effect of his nervous system’s injection of adrenaline. ‘Correction,’ he said to 7-Galliax. ‘We have detected launch flares from the Adeptus Astartes battle-barge. All units begin warning fire. Do not hit the Adeptus Astartes. Be prepared to fall back and establish barrage fire that they cannot cross.’

  The Fists Exemplar slowed. They leaned into the skitarii, their block of strength edging closer and closer to outright combat, but they did not train their guns. The tanks rolled up behind them.

  Aloysian said, ‘Stalemate is inevitable.’

  ‘It won’t last long,’ Thane answered.

  ‘That is the source of my concern.’

  ‘Patience, Master of the Forge. Look to the skies.’

  The streaks of the drop pods appeared a few moments later. They cut through the Martian atmosphere like bloody claws. There were four of them, carrying the rest of the veteran company’s strength to the field.

  In the next instant, the Mechanicus forces began to shoot.

  ‘Hold fire!’ Thane shouted over the vox. Trigger discipline held, long enough for the Space Marines to realise the energy beams were passing overhead. ‘The...’ He caught himself. He had almost said the enemy. ‘The Mechanicus seeks to intimidate. We are not at war.’ Broadcasting again, he called to the skitarii and tech-priests, and to Van Auken, wherever he was. ‘We are not at war,’ he repeated. ‘Do not force a battle none of us would choose. Be one with us. Be one with Terra and against the orks!’

  The only response was continued fire. It turned into a canopy of devastating energy. Even perfect precision could not stop it from shearing the facades of buildings. Rockcrete disintegrated. No wreckage fell. The sheer volume of the destructive beams took everything they hit apart at the molecular level.

  The strobing flash of the beams played havoc with Th
ane’s optics. He blinked off the filters and kept pushing, driving the skitarii vanguard back towards the wall of their heavy armour. He looked up to the sky, and through the interweaving beams he saw the drop pods hurtle to the ground, coming down behind the Mechanicus forces, between them and the Tharsis Gate, catching them in a vice. Thane heard the impacts, felt the shake in the pavement. He felt the pressure mount on Van Auken.

  The disaster, when it happened, seemed inevitable, an event every soul on Mars should have predicted. Thane saw it unfold with sickened dread and helplessness. Two of the Dunecrawlers rotated their hulls to send their fire over the drop pods. They did so as the last of the entry vehicles came down a few seconds behind the others. What happened was chance, not error. The terrible alchemy of war.

  Because this was war. It had been from the moment Koorland ordered the Alcazar Remembered to Mars.

  An eradication beam struck the final drop pod. It vaporised the outer shielding. The drop pod’s retro thrusters exploded. Thane saw the flash, the billow of flame, and the pod tilt over. Off course, it fell to the east beyond his sight, behind the canyon walls of the manufactoria. The crash of its landing was deafening.

  ‘Hold fire!’ Thane ordered. ‘Hold fire!’ The company obeyed, but he didn’t know if the Fists Exemplar in the fallen pod were alive, and if they were receiving. The proximity and intensity of the energy beams was interfering with vox-traffic. The voices of his brothers were disappearing in storms of static and dropped audio. He heard nothing from the damaged pod.

  And then there were more explosions. There was bolter fire. A rocket slammed into the hull of a Dunecrawler.

  No, Thane thought, despairing. The worst was unfolding. His wounded brothers thought they had come under attack and were responding.