Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 55
Rare were the days when the poisonous clouds of Xibalba parted enough to glimpse the stars beyond, but the storms had spent their fury and in random places the heavens parted to reveal the universe in all its glory. Blasted landscapes of acid-etched rock were exposed to direct sunlight, causing the strange mosses and lichen that evolved to survive the toxins to sprout thin leaves and drink in the precious light. Sinkhole cities were elevated above the dim illumination of artificial glowglobes, the citizens gazing at the distant openings above their heads in awe. The spaceports rolled back their acid-proofed shelters with haste, determined to exploit this opening, giddy at the prospect of flying without laborious hours of scrubbing ammonia from engine intakes afterwards.
The PDF didn't greet the sight with such enthusiasm. Hanging over their heads was the majestic jewel of Marajo, the bountiful world a vision of fecundity. Sweeping oceans, soaring mountains and wide plains of crops. As close to a paradise as man could dream, barely spoiled by the industrial spawls that were cities. Different as night is to day from this blighted land the PDF stood on, though Xibalba was nothing but an oversized moon, not a world proper.
Marajo however was a planet in turmoil, the Ork menace had invaded with full fury, Greenskin invaders laying waste to that paradise with wanton cruelty. Armies from across the Boscage gave battle to the Xenos. Regiments of human soldiers from every world, the Skitarii of Alar-Median and the Smoke Jaguars themselves. Despite the feuds and grudges that divided them every lord of every world knew the Orks would overrun them all if not stopped at Marajo, and so they sent their armies to save their neighbour. Nobody on Xibalba believed they would receive the same boon. If the Greenskins turned their attentions to this bitter moon nobody would be sent to stop them. So the PDF prayed to the Sun-Emperor that the Orks would ignore Xibalba in favour of richer prey. Far and wide men gazed up with awe and dread, but to Methuselah it was merely aggravating.
"Get those slaves back to work," he growled.
Magos Tvos nodded his cowled head, "Of course, you there! Get them digging now!"
"But..." a foreman protested.
"Do as I command," Tvos ordered, "You do not wish for your master to be forced to... encourage you."
The workers swiftly returned to their digging, terrified at the prospect of the Bronze Beast becoming angry. Their fear of his retribution should have pleased Methuselah but he had long since outgrown such states of being. Happiness, rage, despair, these were mostly hormonal in nature, produced by chemicals in the brain. He had reworked his physiology so many times that such considerations were long gone, now his emotions could only be regulated by the chemicals fed into his body.
The Bronze Beast stood on a hillside, glaring down into the dig site. He had swapped out his coarse robe for a rubberised shawl, hanging awkwardly over the clanking backpack secured to his spine. Constantly it worked to cleanse his blood, balance his humours and harmonise the many alterations he had wrought in his own frame. Other things had changed though, he bore a lighting claw on his right hand, a marvel of Archeotech with its own internal generators and an underslung flamer. A rebreather hung around his neck, in case the toxic clouds returned, even with the improvements he had fashioned into his lungs there was no point taking chances. The last thing changed about him was the pair of white hands dangling from his hip, Engar's hands, taken as insurance against escape during Methuselah's excursion. He'd taken the Astartes' feet too, but they didn't look so impressive to the rabble.
Tvos sniffed, "I still do not understand why you want me to uncover this facility."
"There are many secrets to be learned," Methuselah replied.
"Knowledge of the ancients is treasured indeed, but I am a Magos Biologis. There are savants more expert in this field than I."
"But they report to Alar-Median, they cannot be trusted to keep their mouths shut. You on the other hand will not spill my secrets, not to them. If they discovered you still lived, you would be a servitor soon after."
The threat was not idle. Tvos was a renegade, chased from the Forge-fanes for his deviant experiments. The Bronze Beast had helped the Magos disappear, vanishing into the murky criminal underworld that he ruled with an iron fist. It had not been charity, Methuselah had taught himself much of the genewright's art, but Tvos' skill was unmatched. Yet even the greatest artist was nothing without the right tools. For this reason they were digging in the wastelands.
In the pit a structure was emerging, brought into the light of day by scratching shovels and pickaxes. Square in shape, with right-angled corners and straight walls. Unmistakably human in origin, nothing else could be so stark, but predating the Great Crusade by many millennia. It had lain undisturbed for epochs of history, buried in volcanic pumice spewed by one of the countless eruptions from Xibalba's volatile core, but Methuselah had found it. Now he only had to break inside.
"This would go a lot faster with digging machines," Tvos noted.
"The workers will suffice," Methuselah grunted.
"Flesh has its uses, but the machine is blessed for a reason."
"Spare me your religious doggerel, the slaves will complete the task, or taste my wroth."
"It is inaccurate to call these work-units slaves." Tvos corrected.
But Methuselah snorted, "They are what they are, do not hide truth behind a false seeming, that was the Imperium's mistake. I do not lie about being other than what I am, nor the galaxy's harsh reality. Conquest is conquest, even if you call it 'Compliance', a slave is a slave if he is not free. Freedom must be bought in blood and sacrifice. These wretches have done neither, not as I have. I have earned my freedom by the deeds of my own hand and the right to exploit the weak as I see fit. The freedoms of others have no merit unless based on strength."
A stir in the workforce as a lithe woman walked among them. She was in a tight bodyglove, her flawless features hidden behind a rebreather. She had left adolescence behind, flushed with the vigour of youth and the confidence of one who had reached the peak of her beauty. She oozed sexuality, but men shuddered and turned away at her passing. She was as flawless in body as in face, and yet no man would lay a hand on her. She radiated nothingness, the soul-crushing miasma of despair only a Pariah could generate.
"We have found a hatch father!" she called as she bounded up the slope.
"Well done Athaliah," Methuselah allowed, "But we are not inside yet."
"Just blow the doors with some melta charges and be done with it. I miss watching your guards exercise in the yard."
Methuselah reached for a control at his waist and carefully upped his dose of Blue. The backpack bubbled as it fed increasing doses of calming drugs into his bloodstream, keeping him from ripping Athaliah limb from limb. The vagaries of the young were boundless, but this one was supremely arrogant and entitled. His own fault, Methuselah lamented, he'd spoiled her rotten, but then she was a unique creature: irreplaceable... for now.
"Come, let us examine our find," Methuselah commanded. With a brisk step he led the trio down the slope, passing cowering workers as they shovelled broken pumice into carts and dragged it away from the emerging structure. The Bronze Beast moved around the building till he found the hatch, a plasteel door half-unearthed. Such a plain barricade, for such a remarkable find.
"Get it clear, now!" he barked.
The workers fell it to work but Athaliah sniffed, "Father, why are you carrying those severed hands?"
Methuselah replied sternly, "Make the rabble fear you and you don't have to rip their heads off one by one. It saves time."
"That sounds like the Smoke Jaguar," she snorted, "We should slit that sneaky cur's throat."
"First I must examine his gene-seed!" Tvos protested, "The Smoke Jaguars have refused to allow the Adepts of Alar-Median to collect their tithe, as is proper."
Methuselah however snorted, "You won't find much of interest. The Legionnaires Astartes were the mass-produced cannon fodder of the Great Crusade. Easy to make, quick and disposable, thrown at every Xenos Empire encountered, to drown the foe in blood. But at least they had the right idea when it came to aliens, it was only when they encountered human worlds that they went soft. Domination, integration, preservation... they should have exterminated every culture they found. Compliance, the very word is an insult."
While they talked the workers had cleared the hatch and stood aside as Methuselah stepped forward. He activated his lighting claw with a clenched fist and struck the hinges off the hatch, then drove the fingertips of his other hand into the joins. The metal had been sealed fast for tens of thousands of years, the locks were intact and the frame had warped as the building settled. None of that mattered, with one heave the Bronze Beast ripped the door away, tossing it aside like it was a twig. It slammed into the powered pumice, sending workers scattering as he ducked his head and stepped within.
Light flowed around his body as he surveyed the interior, finding a collection of curious artefacts. Strange devices lay silent in rows, glassic cylinders filled with stale liquids and dissolved biological matter. Silver webs hung from the roof, shaped into crowns made to slip onto heads and large thrones lined the far wall, decorated with injection armatures and bio-feeds to sustain experimental subjects.
"What is all this?" Athaliah asked as she followed him in.
"The wonders of a forgotten age," Methuselah replied.
"Looks worthless to me," she sniffed.
"Looks can be deceiving, do not touch those crowns, or the thrones."
Methuselah fiddled with his belt, adding more Green to his blood. The elixir was his own invention, sharpening his awareness and elevating reasoning. It was used sparingly, mania was a troubling side effect, but for the moment he needed his scientific curiosity to become dominant. He waved across the room, "This region of space was once ruled by a human enclave of perilous ambition and devious intellect. They developed weapons of fell repute, conquered their neighbours and crushed rival enclaves, but unfortunately they dared to peer into the Warp. They thought to harness its might for their own ends, and as always happens, it consumed them. Still their relics remain, the fruits of their scientific genius waiting to be harvested."
Tvos edged into the room, "I see such wonders, this cogitator is beyond the finest Magos' skill to construct. These gene-samplers, this DNA weaver, a gene-splicer... oh Omnissiah, such wonders."
"Touch nothing Psykanna-related," Methuselah warned, "We will not engage with the filth of the Warp. The rest is yours to claim. Athaliah will help you load it onto the Cargo-8."
"I am not a pack animal!" she protested, "Get some workers to do it."
"Do as I say," Methuselah growled, "It is time to give our fellows their due reward."
He left the pair to sort through the outpost as he stepped outside. The workers cowered before him, but dared not run. Wise of them, he could run them all down with ease, but they clung to the hope of his mercy. Red or Yellow, he spent a second pondering, both had their merits but he went with Yellow. Rare was the day he could allow himself to experience joy.
Methuselah addressed the workers with a smile, "You have done me a great favour my friends. This means more to me than I can say, I am touched by your dedication and grateful for your hard labour."
"Are you going to let us go free?" a shivering man begged.
Methuselah's smile widened, "Freedom is for the strong... but I'm afraid to say you are all just so weak."
Before they could grasp his intent he swept his arm about, triggering the flamer under his claw. A noxious plume of black fire erupted, bathing the crowd in umbral flames. A toxic formula derived from his own blood, corrosive as much as it burned. The workers flailed in agony as they were plunged into a hellish inferno, flames clinging to their bodies even as the corrosive effects ate away at their skin and bones. They tried to scream but fire rushed down their throats, burning them from the inside out, even as their outer forms dissolved. They died painfully, every instant a torment beyond the ken of men, death a mercy when it came.
Methuselah swept his arm about again, and a third time, making sure he missed not a one. Wicked chuckles slipped his lips as he murdered his own men, becoming a hearty laugh as the Yellow filled his bloodstream. He had chosen wisely he decided, laugh while you kill, so had said some Primarch or another, they'd got that right at least. A man should find joy in his work after all.