The Beast Arises

‘Grand Master. This is Clementina Yendl of Red Haven, transmitting from Pavonis Hive. With me is Magos Biologis Eldon Urquidex.’ She gestured behind her. The figure nodded at his name. ‘I regret that this will be my last report. The Mechanicus know where the orks are coming from. They have had a good idea since Ardamantua at the least and probably before that.’ She glanced over her shoulder, then turned back, speaking more urgently. ‘My attempt to extract the magos and bring this information to you has failed. I can only hope this transmission reaches you before the Mechanicus shut down this section. Urquidex.’

The magos looked up sharply. The fear in his face defied the resolution quality.

‘Tell them what you know.’

He stepped forwards, then checked back as a phosphor flash lit up the background image and a loud bang crumpled through the audio.

‘They’re h—’

Koorland studied the frozen image in the data-slate: the magos looking over his shoulder in horror, the woman blurred in the act of aiming her pistol. He set the slate face down onto the large, figured wooden table, pushing aside the stack that had accumulated there over the course of the morning. Without the slightest change to his grim expression, he glared into the imagined distance.

The Cerebrium overlooked the Palace roofscape from the heights of Widdershins Tower, atmospheric and orbital craft crisscrossing the fortress skyline. Tech-crews hung in cradles from deltaform lifters in the mottled khaki of the Departmento Munitorum, servicing defensive installations that had not experienced proper maintenance since the last great programme of rebuilding instigated by Roboute Guilliman in the aftermath of the Siege. Pot-bellied troop transports shipped in Astra Militarum regiments from Triton, Ganymede, Venus, and from training bases throughout the system. Shining like a lake under sunlight undiminished by any semblance of an ozone barrier, armour units massed in the thousand-hectare rockcrete square of the Fields of Winged Victory. Lastan Neemagiun Veritus, the Inquisitorial Representative, had told him that the Emperor Himself had watched Horus Lupercal’s first landing boats come down from this very spot.

Koorland certainly felt something from the ancient Albian oak panelling and book-lined shelves. Power. Responsibility. An almost spiritual bond to his genetic heritage. But he had selected the room as his private study in large part for the view, an instinctual desire to take and hold the high ground.

Drakan Vangorich stood patiently, hands curled over the back of one of the twelve chairs tucked under the table, eyes narrowed against the sunlight streaming through the open shutters.

‘How long have you had this recording?’ Koorland asked.

‘Moments. I brought it to you as soon as I received it, lord.’

‘Your expediency is appreciated.’

‘I trusted you to do the right thing with it.’

‘Is there any more?’

‘What I know, you’ve just seen.’

Koorland clenched his jaw. If the recording had divulged the location of the orks then for the sake of unity he would have contented himself with that, and put the Adeptus Mechanicus’ actions down to simple heel-dragging. He would have dealt with them later, content in the knowledge that there might be a later. Now, that deal was off.

‘Is the Fabricator General still in the Palace?’

‘I believe that his personal shuttle departed from Daylight space port with his entourage about,’ Vangorich smiled thinly, ‘moments ago.’

Koorland sat back and scooped up another slate. It was one that he had already read and memorised earlier in the day, the sort of detail to which the human High Lords had likely never devoted themselves. He looked through it, thinking, without needing to read it again.

‘Some good news?’ asked Vangorich.

‘Astropath logs from Oort Base. Alcazar Remembered translated into the system two hours and fifteen minutes ago, immediately relaying a request to Mars for docking codes and emergency repair. A request that one hour and three minutes ago was granted with a berth cleared for them at Demus Manus port in the orbital ring. You have more than this one operative on Mars, I presume?’

Vangorich hesitated a moment.

‘Yes.’

‘Then activate them,’ said Koorland, tossing the data-slate into the pile. The Adeptus Mechanicus would give up the location of the Beast, one way or the other.

Mars — Pavonis Mons

Urquidex pounded his hands against the keypad and screamed into the receiver. The terminal was dead, remotely powered down. He bashed the keypad like an infant who had lost patience with a screen-locked data-slate and cried out in frustration. They had been so close. He spun around at the sound of a roughly human-sized metallic object hitting the floor, and flinched back against the console.

Clementina Yendl struck the attacking skitarii like a flurry of las.