TWO
Typically when a woman wakes up and is greeted with the gift of a lone flower, it is considered a romantic gesture and the woman will usually be flattered by it. Rarely does a flower leave a person feeling a sense of dread or anxiety. That is unless the idiot suitor has accidentally picked a Catachan Death Blossom, a gift that would quickly leave the recipient writhing in painful convulsions prior to leaking every drop of their blood out of every orifice in their body.
I simply stared in stunned silence at the flower between my fingers. My mouth was agape, unable to find the right words - any words other than excessive, colourful cussing. I desperately wanted it to be some sort of cruel prank but there was only one other person in the regiment who knew of its significance and Watz wouldn't be that cruel…not if he had any aspirations of reaching retirement.
Finally, though, Cain spoke up. "I think that's the first time I've seen a woman react to a flower that way," he said almost jokingly. However, his twitching hands and the look of concern on his face betrayed the tone of his previous remarks. "Would you care to explain Commissar Abel?"
"Kael gave me a flower just like this back on Magnus Viridis," I said at last. Cain's frowned immediately upon hearing the name, he knew full well who the individual was and now he understood the reason for my reaction. The complete report on the events that transpired during the Liberation of Magnus Viridis was privy to only a handful of people in the regiment – namely the senior officers, Cain, and me (our aides also knew the truth but only bits and pieces of the full story). Outside that group, nobody was aware that the wiry scout we had recruited from the local populace was actually an Eldar rogue who had been manipulating everyone from behind the scenes in an attempt to purge all alien presence from the former Eldar world, all without any other Eldar having to go to battle. Due to our interference, however, Kael failed in his ultimate goal but he did not seem disappointed with the end results either. When we last spoke, he had promised that we would cross paths again soon and while I had no reason to disbelieve him, I had not expected it to be so soon. The flower was a signal for me that would go unrecognized by almost anyone else. Despite all the wishing and willing in the galaxy, I could not deny the truth. "He's here. He's here on Erebus and he walked right into my office."
"Is it possible he's out for revenge?" Cain suggested, to which I quickly shook my head. Revenge seemed…unlikely for reasons I could not quite pin down. If he had wanted me dead, he had plenty of opportunity before today to kill me so that couldn't be what he sought. But trying to figure out the motives of an Eldar was like trying to figure out those ink blots that psychiatrists use - it can be whatever you want it to be, and you could be giving your answers all day without ever getting a right answer, simply because there is no right answer. Only interpretations of of what you want to see.
Though it seemed unlike Kael, it was still possible that he planned to ruin our operations on Erebus in order to get revenge for us ruining his plans on Viridis. Personally, that didn't seem like a plausible idea since there wasn't much in terms of plans to ruin and his interference would at least give our troops something to focus on. If anything, that would make our deployment more tolerable. I could not see Kael exercising such poor judgment – he was too careful and methodical for that. This was an Eldar who plotted and prepared a planet's downfall over several decades. He wouldn't rush revenge if that was what he desired. My gut instinct told me that this couldn't be something so simple. "You know him best…what do you think?"
"Honestly, I don't know," I said with a quiet sigh. It's true that I knew Kael a lot better than I should know an Eldar but Cain wasn't aware just how much I knew. I never told anybody about the last conversation Kael and I had in the aftermath of the final battles. It was one of the very few honest conversations I had ever had with the Eldar in all the years I had known him. "Whatever he's up to, it'll be subtle. We'll need to keep our eyes and ears open for anything that doesn't seem to fit quite right. And there are never any coincidences when he's involved."
We also needed to inform Colonel Kasteen of this new development since this changed things completely. Keeping an eye out for traitors was one thing but xenos, especially Eldar, were far more devious and cunning. A human's movements can be predicted, their actions disseminated and anticipated, but an Eldar could shift paradigms so quickly you might as well try to predict the Warp. Unfortunately, my experience with Eldar at the time was limited to my dealings with Kael so I was hardly an expert on the subject. Broklaw and the surviving veterans of the former Valhallan 301st had experience fighting against the Eldar before the formation of the 597th so I expected the Major to have a lot to say on the subject. Fortunately, there was no need to hunt down the senior officers as the whole reason Cain had sought me out was because we had been summoned to a briefing by the Colonel. According to Cain, the Magos responsible for the recovery operations in the Styx territory was surprisingly eager to meet with us in order to discuss security matters. Cain noted some concern about the reason for the meeting as it meant one of two things: either the Magos was a control freak and wanted to make sure our troopers kept clear of his workforce; or there was a major security issue that we were about to be made aware of. Were it not for the lingering thought of Kael skulking in the shadows, I would have looked forward to security issues to break the monotony. Given ther flower, I was reminded of of my previous comment – there were no coincidences.
Rather than meeting Kasteen in her office, we met up with the regimental commander outside the field headquarters. A chimera was waiting on stand-by next to Kasteen, its engine already chugging away, so I got the feeling that we were going on recon as part of the briefing. She greeted us as pleasantly as one could muster when being steam-cooked inside your own coat. Like all the Valhallans, she wasn't comfortable in this level of heat and humidity but like any good soldier she said nothing of it. The effects were noticeable, though, as her movements were kept to a minimal and were somewhat lethargic. She was understandably eager to get us inside the chimera's drier and cooler interior. We were joined by a handful of troops to serve as escort while we were off base.
"So what's this all about Kasteen?" Cain asked once everybody was seated and had loosened their gasmasks (except for me as I perfectly comfortable with it on).
"The cog in charge, a Magos Aureus, said he wanted to meet with us as soon as possible," Kasteen answered. "He said it was urgent."
"Urgent as in 'the base is on fire' or urgent 'my recaf needs a top-up'?" I quipped. It wasn't uncommon for civilians to have starkly different sets of priorities but I figured a Magos would have good reason for summoning Imperial Guard when they had their own techguards to rely upon. "What does he need from us that he can't get from the Skitarii?"
"The civil war saw the Skitarii become fractured like the rest of the Adeptus Mechanicus here. And they're stretched thin enough as it is," Kasteen explained. "Still, he wouldn't tell me over the vox caster. He said something about avoiding raising alarm. I just hope it's a bit of over reaction by the top cog…"
"Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news Colonel but we might have Eldar on the planet," Cain broke the news. Kasteen stared at the two of us for a moment before asking us if we were being serious, to which we both nodded. She cursed quietly under her breath, which was to be expected, before asking how we knew. I explained the flower and its significance to her and she frowned bitterly the moment Kael's name was dropped.
"We'll increase patrols, post additional guards, and get more auspex scanners on the perimeter," Kasteen said decisively. Eldar were notorious for their sabotage campaigns, after all, and we had a field headquarters that wasn't entirely secured against skilled and determined enemies. We still didn't know if we were dealing with one Eldar or a whole army of them but we weren't about to take any chances. Personally, I did not suspect Kael would be leading an army; from what he said to me, I gathered that he was not on the best of terms with his leaders (I do not pretend to know what Eldar politics are like so I had no idea who he had his beef with and what it meant in the long run).
A short time later, the chimera lurched to a halt and the driver advised us to don our gasmasks once more. We filed out of the vehicle and back into the Erebiot haze. We had arrived at a gargantuan excavation site where hundreds of lifters, cranes, plows, and servitors were working tirelessly to clear away debris and expose long-buried passageways and corridors into the depths of the planet. However, instead of it being some sort of ancient ruin swallowed by time and sand, it was the remnants of a massive forgeworks that had been bombed into oblivion by our own navy. Once again, the flyboys made the mess that the folks on the ground had to clean up. The scope of the project was massive – the pit they had cleared away stretched several kilometres across in both directions and was several stories deep. Towers and scaffolding lined the walls and elevators large enough to carry baneblades ferried equipment and personnel to and from the surface. A small city of hab-shelters and pre-fab buildings surrounded the pit; it was strangely reminiscent of a frontier town in a post-apocalyptic sort of way. Masses of servitors teemed like insects at the bottom of the pit with directing tech-priests scattered throughout. Pounding pneumatic hammers, screeching grinders, churning engines, and crashing metal all merged together into one headache-inducing, ever-constant industrial groan that seemed to embed itself right into one's mind. It almost made me envious of the tech-priests, who could adjust their bionic ears to filter out all the noise.
"That's the biggest hole I've ever seen," I remarked.
"You should've seen the one we left on Simia Oricalcae," Cain jived.
"I heard you damn near blew up that whole planet."
"Not for a lack of trying."
I was about to ask where we were supposed to go from here but before I could a small precession of robed figures approached us. The parade contained a couple of Administratum adepts amongst several tech-priests, the former being easy to identify due to the different coloured robes and the use of gasmasks. It didn't take an Inquisitor to figure out that the man that everyone else followed like a vapour trail was the Magos in charge. He was wiry individual, hunched over slightly as though the mechadendrites attached to his back were proving too heavy for his aging body to handle (but that was unlikely since his body was mostly metal by this point). His white robes hung over his frame like a shirt on a wire coat hanger but even though the hood partially concealed his face, his glowing yellow optics were plain to see. What little of his face we could make out was the massive beard-like hanging of wires and cables that traveled down his face, chin, and neck before disappearing into his robes.
Kasteen, Cain, and I lined up as the parade came to a halt before us. The man in the lead took a few steps towards us while the others kept back, his arms opening wide as if to embrace us all at once. "Blessings of the Omnissiah be upon you," he greeted in an old, rusty tone. "I am Magos Aureus and welcome to my dig." He was remarkably cheerful for a tech-priest, especially a Magos (who I find tend to be on the stuffy side), but it was nice to be welcomed in a way that didn't involve incoming fire. There are no prizes for guessing whom the Magos approached and greeted first, bowing polite as he continued with his jovial greeting, "Commissar Ciaphas Cain…you do us great honour with your presence. And I must say that I am most relieved that you have taken the time to meet with us. The last bunch of Guardsmen that passed through here barely gave us the time of day. They were a bunch of ruffians if you ask me…if you're going to blow up half my district the least you can do is stop by and say hello once in a while."
"I'm afraid I can't promise to stop by and say hello very often but we should be able to avoid blowing up the other half," Cain replied. "Now you mentioned you had something urgent to discuss."
"Urgent?" Aureus repeated with a hint of confusion.
Just then, one of the Administratum adepts crept up behind the Magos and tapped one of the mechadendrites. "The Commissar is referring to those um…'problems' that your brother and Drusus kept mentioning." I quickly garnered the impression that Aureus wasn't the type of leader that personally kept tabs on every little detail carried out by his subordinates. Given the size and scope of the project, I could understand how it would be difficult to have kept track of everything going on. An efficient command hierarchy would allow the Magos to stay focused on the most important matters…or Aureus was a few chips short of a full motherboard. He seemed odd even for a tech-priest.
"Oh right, that little thing," Aureus replied as though he were just reminded to empty the trash bins. "And I almost forgot…this is Administratum Ordinate Anargyros. He helps me keep tabs on all the little things that go on around here so if you have any non-technical questions he'll probably have the answer to them."
Cain cleared his throat to get the Magos attention once again. "Not to sound hasty but that matter of urgency your assistant mention?"
"Of course, of course," Aureus said while nodding. "I should have expected that you would want to cut to the chase. What else can you expect from a 'Man of Action' such as yourself, hm? We should probably speak with my brother and Drusus in person. It'll give you a chance to get acquainted to – grease two cogs with a single lubrication!" The Magos motioned for us to follow along, though he only got about six feet before he stopped and looked to the precession of tech-priests and adepts. "Oh, um…don't need you lot. You can go do…uh, whatever it is that you do when I'm not around. Oh, except for you Anargyros, you can join us." The parade dispersed with barely restrained zeal, clearly relieved to no longer being required to stand around make the Magos look important. Part of me wondered if that was all they were for.
The Magos led our small party on a short walk through the pre-fab town, whose inhabitants didn't differ much from that any other town. I watched some workers mill about in a slow yet oddly organized and precise fashion and then I realized I was actually watching a bunch of servitors and not real people. It was hard to tell as everybody was draped in grubby, oil and dirt-stained robes and garbs and those that didn't have gasmasks had shawls to help keep dust from clogging…whatever it is that servitors have inside them. I assumed it was for the dust since the excavation work kicked so much of it into the air; the only other use I could think of was to keep the ugly contained since servitors often made even Ogryns look pretty in comparison. Eventually, the Magos led us inside one of the larger hab-domes, much to the relief of those of those not used to wearing gasmasks for extended periods. The cots, gun racks, and footlockers indicated that the hab-dome was being used as a barracks.
"Oh Drusie, I'm hooommeee," the Magos called out upon stepping into the main living area. He chuckled like adolescent juvie as he turned to the rest of us and quipped, "he hates it when I call him that."
My sense of respect for the man was gradually dwindling in face of his lack-lustre professionalism but that took a massive about-face when Drusus stepped out. Drusus was the ranking officer of the Skitarii forces on the dig site and the man was built like a tank…literally; with integrated bionic armour and weapons too. Aureus must have commanded a great deal of respect (and possessed solid brass bearings) to give annoying pet names to a guy with a chainsword built into his arm. The Skitarii officer was about the size of a suit of terminator armour and looked just as intimidating. "What is it Magos Aureus?" the Skitarii spoke, a slow and heavy tone that seemed to echo from within.
Quick introductions were made or I should say two of the three introductions were made quickly; Aureus' mighty neural engine sputtered and stalled when it came to recalling my name (which was probably never given to him in the first place) so I had to make my own introduction. "I was hoping you could enlighten our new guests as to that little situation you mentioned to me a few days back."
"I would hardly consider dead soldiers to be a…'little situation,'" Drusus replied with a hint of bitterness. Talk of dead soldiers, however, piqued our attention and left a bad feeling in my gut. Cain asked for further elaboration but Drusus did not seem overly distressed about it. "Ever since the war's end, we've been having trouble with looters from the vagrant plebeians. Normally a few shouts and warning shots keep them at bay but every so often a bunch of them group together and start getting bold. Four days ago I lost two good men while they were on patrol. It was…troubling."
"Troubling how so?" Cain asked, his tone hinting at growing concern. Cain was always the first to pick up on the subtle cues of more dire things to come so when he took notice, the rest of us followed suit. "And how were they killed?"
"I've lost troops in the past but it was during raids or in pursuit of looters. Patrols have never been targeted before – such changes in behaviour are not signs of good things to come. As for how they died, they were both killed with medium-sized bladed weapons from behind. They were likely ambushed."
Cain, Kasteen, and I all exchanged glances. The mere mention of Eldar had made us all wary of the possibility. From my years of experience, one of the Eldar's most potent weapons was that pervasive sense of paranoia and fear. It's not as bad as stalking through a thick jungle at night surrounded by Tyranids (thank you very much Tycondis IV) but the effects were significant. Every shadow looked like a scout; every breeze across your nape was a banshee about to stab you in the back; and every mystery reeked of psychic manipulations. The situation could very well have been as Drusus had described it but now Kasteen did not want to take any chance.
"I take it you haven't had a chance to investigate the area further?" Kasteen inquired.
"Negative. I don't have enough reserves to risk sending people that far out. My forces are already being bolstered by more combat servitors than I'm comfortable with." Cain commented that it was odd for a techguard to be 'uncomfortable' with the use of combat servitors but the captain's response mirrored my own sentiments on the subject. "Combat servitors are good for point defence and escort but they're useless for patrols, which is where most of my forces are allocated."
A combat servitor was little more than a walking, automated gun. Patrols needed critical decision-making skills but a servitor could only choose between 'kill' and 'don't kill' and even then it sometimes picked the wrong one. Kasteen was quick to point out that with the Valhallan troops now bolstering the defence her troops could run patrols into the more dangerous regions. She seemed eager to find any Eldar and flush them out. Cain suggested that she remain with Captain Drusus to continue discussing how to best maximize their combined forces while he and I went to speak with the other person the Magos had mentioned. A part of me still wishes I had stayed behind with Kasteen.
The other man that Magos Aureus had made mention of was his brother – a tech-priest by the name of Zalanskos Heffestis. Cain and I headed back into the shanty town along with the Magos and his aide but half-way through our travel, our party was intercepted by one of the Administratum flunkies from earlier. I didn't catch all of the conversation but the Magos had to speak with some of the other Magos from across the planet – a meeting that Aureus apparently forgot all about. I refrained from asking how somebody with chips for brains could forget anything, let alone something important. Since Cain and I were still on business, Aureus instructed the diminutive Anargyros to take us the rest of the way, which wasn't a big deal since Aureus didn't even really know where we were going in the first place (we were all following Anargyros to begin with). I wondered how the project managed to stay together with a tech-priest like that in charge since his aide seemed to know more of what was going on. Such roles are not uncommon in the Administratum but I had expected more from the Adeptus Mechanicus. Over the years I've learned that the Adeptus Mechanicus are just as human as the rest of the Imperium, at least when it came to acts of atrocity, madness, and idiocy.
The tech-priest we sought was eventually found in one of the many motor pools in the pre-fab town. Despite its size, only a handful of vehicles were actually present in the garage, most were out in the field. What few vehicles were present were in rough shape, most of the damage came about from expected wear-and-tear but as we passed by some heavy-lifters I noticed crude cut-lines along the side, as though somebody had removed a side-panel without the proper tools.
"So where is this guy?" I impatiently asked when our search through the garage did not turn up an immediate result. Little did I know that we didn't have to actually search for the man.
"There you are, you recaf-slurping little son of a bitch!" A shout suddenly echoed from behind us. Anargyros almost jumped out of his skin and were he not already a pasty shade of white he probably would have turned paler too. Emerging from behind a partially-dismantled flatbed, an irate tech-priest came stomping towards our guide. "I sent you three blasted requisition slates! Not one, not two, but three farking slates and you have the audacity to turn around and tell me to submit another one! I ought to carve out my order right onto your frakking skull!"
Bureaucracy – it brings out the best in all of us.
"I keep telling you the format you're using is outdated," Anargyros replied from the safety of behind Cain's back. The adept looked terrified but given how angry the tech-priest looked I couldn't blame him. Zalanskos wasn't a big fellow but like any tech-priest he had a bunch of mechadendrites swaying in the air. I counted three smaller, tendril-like arms connected at the waistline, along with two much larger arms that hung from a back-mounted unit not too unlike those of the enginseers in our motor pool. Two of the tendrils had grasping claws that were snapping constantly in Cain's general direction, to which the Commissar did not look very pleased about.
"Outdated? You change formats every other day without even telling us! I've have random-number generating cogitators that make more sense than you," shouted the tech-priest as he lunged for the adept.
"Gentleman, please," Cain interrupted, halting the tech-priest with an outstretched arm and pushing the adept back with the other. "I presume you are the tech-priest Zalanskos."
"Tech-priest?" he replied incredulously and seemingly offended. He was hard to read since he didn't have much of a face to read from. The whole upper-half of his head appeared to be biotically-augmented, though the hood from the trademark Mechanicus red cloak made it hard to determine the full extent. I was glad to see he had a mouth so I at least had something to punch if I got angry. "I am the Artisan Technicus, you ill-informed Neanderthal. And who the frak are you two?"
"Commissar Ciaphas Cain of the Valhallan 597th Ice Warriors," Cain began, "and this is Commissar Ariel Abel."
Zalanskos took a few moments to size the two of us up (though mostly Cain since I was almost a whole foot shorter than my counterpart). Blue optic lenses gazed lifelessly at us, accompanied by a bit of a humming that sounded more like a high-voltage line. "Guardsmen, huh? Are you people actually here to help for a change or should I just rig det-packs on all my vehicles and save you guys the trouble?"
"It depends on how much you continue to annoy me," Cain explained with a hand visibly placed on the butt of his laspistol.
Zalanskos frowned slightly but at least he seemed calmer as the tendrils withdrew and fell silent. "I take it you are here about the sabotaged equipment then?"
"You're certain it's sabotage?" I asked.
"That or a genetically-repressed primate with a plasma-cutter is opening up my vehicles are removing key components!" Zalanskos motioned for us to follow and he led us to one corner of the garage that had a dozen vehicles in various states of disassembly. Some had what appeared to be scarring in the bodywork from internal explosions, either from catastrophic mechanical failures or deliberate detonations. "At first it was just missing components – some connectors here, a motivator there, sacred oils replaced with faulty ones. It was basic stuff that would prevent the great machines from functioning. But my lackeys have been able to keep on top of those minor repairs so whoever was behind this decided to take it to the next level. Now it's even more vital components like pressure regulators and plasma coolant lines. Now instead of not starting, they frakking explode! It wouldn't be so bad if my underlings had more than two cogs to churn. I mean, look at this thing!" Zalanskos directed our attention to a front-end loader that had its engine completely dismantled and strewn across a section of floor. I imagined that it all made sense to the tech-priest but to me it looked like a random pile of metal bits and pieces. According to Zalanskos this was a tremendous offence to the great Machine God. "I could do a better job in half the time."
"Well why don't you?" I asked.
"And waste my valuable time? What do I look like?" he quickly replied.
"Um…a tech-priest?" My answer was met with a silent stare. If he had a brow he would probably be giving me his angriest glare but without those features it was little more than a blank stare.
"I am the Master Artificer Zalanskos Heffestis! Former care-taker of the dreadnaught Hercuel the Thunderfist! Creator of the Hammer of Ker'Abyss! I have enginseers to deal with these minor issues so that I can focus my genius on more important things – things that explode!"
"What is it with men and high explosives?" I remarked rhetorically. "Look around you Zalanskos - you don't need more high explosives."
The tech-priest scoffed at the notion. Apparently he was in the school of thought that one could never have enough explosives. "There is always a need for weapons. This planet might be in shambles but the galaxy is still turning and wars are still being fought. I could be out there…crafting weapons that make the very earth quake in response. But instead, my brother sees fit to waste my genius here as punishment…" Cain popped the obvious question as to what exactly he was referring to. Zalanskos let out a groan as he clearly did not enjoy having his 'precious time' wasted by our constant questions. "When the rebels dug into this area, the Imperial Navy needed a bomb delivery system that could deal with the reinforced rockrete and plasteel infrastructure. So, naturally, I designed one for them. I figured it was better for this place to be a smoking crater in the ground than turned to heresy by those rebels, am I right? Well, I might have slightly miscalculated the effective payload of the device by a bit…"
"By how much?" I asked.
"Six hundred and eighty-five point three percent. There was an unforeseen chain reaction," he replied with a barely concealed hint of pride. "Magos Aureus wasn't too happy about the result so now I'm stuck here cleaning up the mess. It was hardly my fault that my masterpiece worked better than I had anticipated. But you can't forge iron without crushing a few rocks, right?" It was hard to feel sorry for the guy despite his attempts to make it seem like he was the victim. And his appointment to this project just made me question the judgment of the Magos even further. However, I could hardly be one to criticize given the innumerable times that it has felt as though the Imperial Guard was being ordered about by bureaucratic idiots who couldn't tell the difference between the business end of a lasgun and their arsehole. There are still days where I am certain that it is the Emperor's will alone that keeps the Imperium from imploding from the ineptitude of its own leadership.
Now Cain, always one to keep the bigger picture in mind, decided that it would be best to start taking command of the situation. "Listen tech-priest, we're going to bring in some of the enginseers from our motor pool to take a thorough look at these machines. I can assign a few to help in the repair rites but they're going to analyze the damage in depth."
"I've looked at these machines quite thoroughly already! What do you think you're mere enginseers will discover that I didn't?" No surprise, Zalanskos was offended at the implication that he had overlooked something but Cain was not shaken by the tech-priest's reaction. Many would argue that irritating the high priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus was a bad idea but Cain was fearless in the face of all the enemies of the Imperium; he wasn't going to be intimidated by a tech-priest.
"Well did you take into consideration the possibility of sabotage by Eldar technology?" Cain replied.
"Eldar technology? What kind of idiot do you-" the tech-priest abruptly stopped mid-sentence and glanced over to the pile of mechanical bits scattered across the ground. "I hadn't thought of that. This changes everything." That came as no surprise to Cain or myself and I made sure the tech-priest was looking away before letting my eye roll. Cain instructed me to stay while he went and put in the call for some enginseers to be shipped over. I would have preferred to have gone with him, since I wanted to get as far away from Zalanskos as possible, but he insisted that I stay and continue questioning him. I had to trust that Cain knew what was best for the situation, even if it did involve me once again getting the short end of the stick. Once Cain was gone, the tech-priest began sifting through the scattered pieces with his mechadendrites. "So…uh, what made you people think Eldar?" he asked curiously, clearly unable to see a connection from his brief glances.
"It's a long story," I answered with the hope that he would not pry for further details.
"And you think they're behind all this?"
"It's still just a suspicion."
Unfortunately, we didn't have to wait very long before we got confirmation on that suspicion…