Lavitor Fabrinus knelt before his altar in humble supplication. The oil-laced scents of holy incense pollinated the air from the censer that dangled from his wrist as the dim light of red candles danced to the tune of the exhorting litanies that flowed from his lips. His eyes were closed and his words were pure.
"O Blessed Father, your soul surrounds thy worthy vessel,
O Blessed Father, your power invests thy worthy vessel,
O Blessed Father, your hatred drives thy worthy vessel,
O Blessed Father, endow me with your strength so that I may wield thy worthy vessel."
They were not the usual words that belonged to that particular prayer, nor were they ones that Lavitor would have spoken amongst his brethren of the chapter or the Adeptus Mechanicus, but they were words that alighted his spirit more than any other. He gave the proper worship to the Omnissiah and the Machine God—for they were above all, of course—but Lavitor also believed that there were others deserving of his faith that would grant him and the divine machine spirit further prowess.
The chapter master tilted his head upwards toward the light of the chamber and allowed the glow of the lumens to spill over his face as his eyes remained closed. Sometimes he saw things behind those closed lids. Messages.
Blessed Father, show me the path to victory, he thought. The pulsing blotches of red, orange, yellow, and white that swallowed his vision flowed and coalesced into vague and unreadable shapes. Lavitor's brow creased as he tried desperately to make sense of them and, when he was ready to accept that the spirit of the Archangel would aid him naught on this day, he saw it.
A burning white fist. A symbol of strength, of vigor, of authority.
Of vengeance.
"Thank you, father," Lavitor whispered, then opened his eyes. He looked down and collected his omnissian axe from the altar. Its heft felt notably lighter—the holy spirit within now appeased.
In the corner of the chamber, an orange-furred simian creature noticed Lavitor's return to awareness and clambered down from his perch amongst the rafters with animal grace. The jokaero lumbered up to Lavitor and held out his hand, revealing the sculpted device of scrap and other metal baubles within.
"That is a very nice dolphin, Cercopes."
The jokaero formed his lips into a circle without showing teeth and took a few, rapid breaths—an expression of joy amongst his species, Lavitor had surmised.
Taking the small figurine, the tech-marine placed it amongst the other animals that Cercopes had crafted on the altar and stood, offering his arm. The ape-creature accepted it and clambered up and rested on the Astartes's shoulder.
The timing was fortuitous, as, just as the jokaero grew comfortable and began to draw forth tools and instruments from his belt to fiddle with, Lavitor's vox-comm chimed insistently.
"Yes, captain?"
"Chapter master, your presence is requested on the bridge," said Surt Melvern, his voice deep and guttural for a mortal. "I dare say the heretics have reached the end of the line."
-
When he reached the command deck of the bridge, he found Captain Melvern already standing at attention beside the throne, his Imperial navy uniform crisp and decorated with medals commemorating his skill and valor in past void campaigns. The tactical display already portrayed a projection of the planet the Night Lords had desperately run towards, the Gorgon's Manacles and the heretics' own despicable ship blinking outside the atmosphere of the world.
"Talk to me, captain," Lavitor said. Cercopes, easily bored by talks of void warfare, lept from his shoulder and went to one of the officer stations. It was equally likely that the primate would improve the machine for better efficiency and functionality or that he would reconfigure it into something else altogether that was neither helpful or relevant to the chamber they stood in. Lavitor ignored the creature's antics for now.
Melvern saluted then turned to the display. "The enemy made an immediate run for this orbital refinery here. We cut them off with a salvo of macro fire and they quickly took evasive maneuvers. I suspect this is what they wanted, however, as they are now using the planet itself as cover against us."
"Meaning we cannot give chase, as they would come back to the stations to either destroy or raid," Lavitor said. "But if we remain still, they can buy time to scheme further."
Melvern nodded. "My thoughts exactly, my lord. The planet has three plasteel refineries in upper orbit. From our current position, we can guard all three, but further deviation may give them an opening."
The chapter master felt the augmetics that now made up well over a third of his body tick and whir as he thought. "How much does this world contribute to the Imperium?"
Captain Melvern turned and repeated the question to one of his officers. The woman stood and saluted the two of them. "According to our databases, this world, Kleos, pays all tithes as expected. As a planet on the fringes of the Imperium, the cost is not very high for them."
"Do they provide a surplus?"
"No, lord. Their resources are always to the letter."
"Then the loss is negligible," Lavitor said. "Give chase."
A part of him felt sorrow for the people of the world below. They would likely suffer over no fault of their own, but because of what crawled from the shadows onto their doorstep. Sacrifices had to be made, however. The planet would recover and humanity would be safer with one fewer colony of the traitorous followers of Horus festering at the edges of the galaxy.
"You heard the chapter master!" Melvern barked. "Get to–!"
"Apologies, captain!" one officer said, abruptly standing. His hand was placed against the side of the headset he wore. The vox-operator, if Lavitor had to guess. "But we are being hailed!"
"By whom?" Lavitor narrowed his eyes.
The officer rapidly scanned the readouts of his cogitator. "By the Savory Wound, sir."
All eyes turned to Lavitor Fabrinus as he stood, face impassive and eyes narrowed. When he spoke, it resonated like an iron bell. "Belay previous order for the time being. I want to hear these wretches beg."
"Copy, my lord!" the vox-officer, Yeniy, Lavitor believed his name was, responded as he accepted the vox-link.
"Lavitor…" a voice said. It was tenebrous and primal, accented with the ancient tones of a planet and time that were long dead. It was the voice of a lion, prowling at the edge of your vision; waiting, waiting, waiting.
It set Lavitor's blood and oil aflame.
"Pyotr," he spat, hands clenching.
"Does it vex you that I continue to live after so many failures to end my life, cousin?"
"You are feces that has dried on the bottom of my boot. You are a mild annoyance until I get around to scraping you off."
The heretic chuckled. It sounded forced to Lavitor, but Astartes—even ones as vile and corrupted as Pyotr and his ilk—were not known for their mirth. "I am going to enjoy killing you."
Lavitor's cheek twitched at the words. "Did you hail us to prattle, or do you have a purpose?"
"I know you do not care for the refineries, Lavitor," the Night Lord said, his voice distorted by both the vox and some other, additional quality that the tech-marine could only assume was born out of the Warp-heresy that Pyotr committed to perversely imitate the blessings of the Machine God. "So let us make a deal, instead."
"I do not deal with the likes of–"
"Our vessel has enough armaments to level half a dozen cities. According to our auguries, that's over three million lives. Prove that you truly care about the humans you serve by trading their lives for ours. If we are permitted to escape, then we will not fire."
Lavitor Fabrinus would have laughed if he were not so enraged. It was always trading one evil for another with the heretics. The only victory was in their burning corpses.
Mercy is weakness…
"If the lives of millions is the cost to save trillions from your wretched debauchery across the galaxy, then so be it," Lavitor hissed. "I am not the one killing innocents, vermin-spawn. So, do not try to pose this dilemma as their deaths being at my fault. We both know that I am educated in the histories of your Legion. You have always been a brotherhood built on monstrosity masquerading as efficiency. You have always been a plague on the Omnissiah's grand vision. A superfluous part, at best. Never has your kind ever contributed to the good of the Imperium as a whole. A cog that spins and toils but accomplishes nothing but waste power and resources. You disgust me, you–"
"I've already made my stance on your ramblings clear, Lavitor."
The chapter master of the Ferric Sentries bit back a meaningless retort and forced his expression to remain composed for the sake of the mortals watching him. "And my stance on your 'offer' is clear, as well. I will see you soon, heretic. I wish to personally excise the tumor that you are from–"
"More aimless threats," Pyotr said, cutting him off yet again. "You talk far better than you fight. Perhaps that is why you have your own chapter and never acquired any true acclaim amongst your original lot of brothers."
More irritation bit at the nape of Lavitor's neck, but he held himself back. There was something wrong here. Respect was something that was nonexistent between Lavitor and Pyotr, but the latter was never one for… senseless goading. The Night Lord was notoriously forthright and even dogged. Lavitor was perhaps one of the more lacking Astartes when it came to understanding social dynamics amongst humans and even his own kind, but even he could see that for his enemy to have such a drastic shift was…
"Lord?" Melvern asked when Lavitor did not speak for several seconds. The chapter master held up a hand, eyes narrowed as he waited. Waited.
Waited…
"Like a child shouting into the wind," Pyotr said in response to a jibe that Lavitor never made. "How disappointed your Emperor must be."
"It's a damn pre-recording!" Lavitor snapped.
Officer Yeniy blanched, looking utterly surprised. "That can't be possible! The auguries state–"
Another officer abruptly stood, her eyes frantic. "Auspex readings have just picked up dozens of identifiable objects in trajectory of the planet's surface!"
There was a flash and the tactical hololith suddenly revealed a swarm of buzzing identifiers. Lavitor already knew what they were: Drop pods and thunderhawks.
-
"Are you sure this will work, brother?"
Pyotr ignored the question as their vessel hummed with power and rattled with momentum. He breathed slowly, his eyes closed behind his helm.
It was as if the motive force was taunting him, begging to be injected and laid bare before his surgical hands. Oh, the suffering he could wrack this machine with. Pyotr felt his mechatendrils twitch and writhe with barely-contained desire that paralleled his own to inject the cogitator control panel in front of him with each techno-virus that they carried within them. The lord discordant barely resisted for no other reason than his own self-preservation.
Pyotr hissed softly. He had been expecting this. The machine spirits of his augmetic limbs were as twisted as his own soul due to their purpose. They wanted him to feed his corruption, as they would benefit from it the same way a pack of hyenas benefits from a lion dropping dead under a hot sun. He had expected the influence to be severe, but had sorely underestimated the strain that three servo-limbs would have over him as opposed to his former singular.
"Brother?" Retrigan repeated.
"It will work," Pyotr said, forcing his eyes open before his lurking tormentor in the Warp had the opportunity to seize him yet again. "The recording did its purpose."
"Is that a fact or wishful thinking?" Taresh buzzed over the vox.
"Fact," Anras answered for Pyotr. The visionary's voice was completely without mockery for once. Pyotr turned his head to look at his brother curiously, but Anras sat rigid in his throne, his body language betraying nothing and his face hidden behind a ceramite helmet.
"It better be," Gyrthemar snorted. "I will follow you many places, brother, but if this one gets me killed before we even touch the ground then I will be waiting for you in hell with spear in-hand."
Pyotr ignored the chatter and, with fingers that only hesitated for a fraction of a nanosecond, reached out and took the vessel's controls.
-
Lavitor glowered at the projection in front of him.
He should have known better. He should have expected anything but a fair fight from the despicable sons of the VIIIth Legion. Trickery and cowardice was written in their very blood. He should not have been so foolish to expect otherwise from his enemy.
Riposte, chapter-master…
"Status!" the chapter-master barked. "I want to know how long those vessels have been deployed and when they'll reach the surface!"
The bridge flew into scrambling action that only looked aimless and disjointed to an outsider. To Lavitor, it was the scurry of ants working towards a common goal in harmonious disarray.
"I wager fifteen minutes ago, my lord!" the officer who had initially reported the drop pods declared. "Likely when we were intercepting their path to the refinery station."
Lavitor's eyes never left the display readouts. If the message Pyotr had sent for him was a pre-recording rather than his true presence, then that meant the heretic was aboard one of those vessels.
"They'll breach the upper atmosphere in under a minute, my lord. From there landfall would occur nearly as quickly."
They were on the darkside of the planet. If the pods and thunderhawks bit through the atmosphere, the Gorgon's Manacle's auspex would have difficulty pinpointing them. Lavitor would have to forgo thinning their forces before engaging in a ground assault. That was non-optimal.
"Are they still in range?" he asked.
A rapid fire of calculations and collaboration took place before an answer was quickly reported to Melvern.
"We can hit them with one volley before we lose range, my lord."
Lavitor frowned. Sensing the daunting weight in the air. Cercopes returned to Lavitor's shoulder and chittered in a manner that he probably thought was helpful.
One shot. A single shot. That would only take out a dozen or so targets. Against any other enemy that sort of attack would be laughable. But Pyotr and his band of degenerates were already weak, Lavitor could taste it. One shot would do. One shot was all he needed to tear out the monster's heart.
He just had to aim carefully.
-
"Forty-three seconds until brace," Pyotr said, using the readouts as a distraction from the itch to inflict and lap up the misery of machines.
"Why forty-three seconds?" Retrigan asked, a hint of amusement in his voice.
"Why does it matter?"
"It's a rather irregular benchmark to use, is all."
"I see little point in this discussion. It is a number. Nothing more."
"Yes, brother," Anras joined. "You would not question a bat as to why he flies. It is the same for Pyotr and irregularities."
There was a round of small chortling at the lord discordant's expense. Pyotr felt nothing at the small show of brotherhood. He almost regretted it.
"Thirty-six seconds."
An unnerving feeling came upon him then. They were reaching the break-point. If Lavitor had discovered his ploy and was aware of their presence then the coming moments would be when they would feel the force of his retaliation.
They just needed to survive a few more seconds.
-
The cloud of enemy indicators blinked mockingly at Lavitor as they slowly inched closer to the haze of the planet's atmospheric border.
"I do not question your will or your tactics, my lord," Captain Melvern said, an edge of hesitation in his voice, "but we must act quickly if you wish for us to fire upon them, sir."
Lavitor did not answer.
Seconds, he had seconds to decide.
Where are you, heretic? He asked himself, narrowing his eyes at the hololith.
-
The iron shell shuddered and Pyotr sensed more than saw the rest of his Claw cringe subtly. It was no more than a micro-adjustment in their thrones, but it was enough to tell him what they were thinking.
They expected something to go wrong just as much as Pyotr did. It was natural for the Night Lords to anticipate the worst. Only, they were typically able to do something about it whenever that occurred. Interred as they were, there would be little other option but to watch as their deaths approached.
"Twenty-two seconds."
-
Anything. Lavitor scanned the display and redouts with eyes he was not ashamed to admit were frantic for anything. Any indicator, any sign or misplacement that would betray the position of his most vile enemy.
Pyotr was a perverted mirror to the Machine God's teachings. His every action, his every breath spread taint and corruption upon even the most sacred of devices in the galaxy. He could not be allowed to live a moment longer. To do so would be as if Lavitor himself was indulging in such heresies and spitting upon the Omnissiah's feet.
The tech-marine closed his eyes and made a quick, silent prayer.
Blessed Father, guide my hand.
-
Pyotr could no longer help himself. He refused to give in completely, to totally lose himself to his curse, but he accepted a small indulgence. He needed it.
The machine spirit of the cogitator panel whimpered under his grip as he reached out with his metamechanical senses and squeezed. Not enough to torture, not enough to flay. Just enough to inflict a bit of pain, just enough to give him a taste of sensation once again. He could subsist on this, he could resist going further.
Lumens flickered and cogitator screens buzzed.
"Is all well, brother?" Retrigan asked.
"Yes. It is an old vessel, nothing more," Pyotr said. "Seventeen seconds."
-
When Lavitor opened his eyes, he searched with renewed zeal. The vile heretik would be forced to pay for his sacrilege. All that was needed was the right sign. And the Machine God always provided.
The chapter-master of the Ferric Sentries scanned the projection critically. Dozens of indistinguishable blips stared back at him like the many eyes of a colony of spiders. Lavitor grit iron teeth.
"Show yourself," he snarled.
"My lord," Captain Melvern said, growing impatient but not so much as to become obstinate. "We must–"
Lavitor silenced him with a glare.
More thoughts of the heretik filled Lavitor's mouth with bile. He had seen first-hand the havoc that could be wrought on a holy machine by such a force. He did not simply enslave the sacred forces, but inflicted them with a piece of his own darkness, forcing it to grow and fester like rot before Lavitor could save the precious technology. The Warp-touched Astartes's presence alone was enough that most auspex would…
Would revolt against him.
A grin spread across Lavitor Fabrinus's face as he scanned the indicators with renewed purpose until he found exactly what he was looking for.
One, singular identifier was different from the others—imperceptible if not sought out directly. While all of the pieces on the display flickered in steady unison as the hololith's machine spirit wavered and strained momentarily, there was one that stood out, that fuzzed and dimmed to its own beat. As if something within the true, physical object out in the void was minutely interfering with the scan.
"There you are."
-
Pyotr thirsted. He needed more. More. More.
The machine spirit of the control array cried out in a voice only he could hear. It begged and pleaded, unsure as to what it had done wrong after serving so well. Without proper instruments or rites, Pyotr was only able to do the equivalent of bruising the motive force, but that would do for now. He just needed… needed…
Such relief. Such pleasure. It was just a morsel, though. A scrap that did more to remind a starving man of his hunger rather actually abate it.
The mechatendrils twitched more insistently.
"Thank you for your misery," he whispered.
-
Lavitor Fabrinus highlighted the section of drop pod indicators that included the one Pyotr haunted.
"All weapons fire on these targets," he intoned.
"You heard him, fire!" Captain Melvern bellowed, marching up the command deck to bark movement into his officers.
Lavitor watched them work with satisfaction and felt an extended simian digit tap on his forehead. When he turned to regard Cercopes on his shoulder, the jokaero grunted with an upward lilt, as if asking a question.
"Yes, my friend. The heretiks will burn."
-
The mechadendrite arm inched its way to the nearest port on the control panel. Only the most feeble of resistances from Pyotr was keeping it from injecting his newest scrap-code virus into it. He kept telling himself to do so would mean death, but each iteration of the mantra became more and more hollow as he considered what a comfort it would be to feel again right before oblivion.
The mechatendril slid into the port and began to pulse.
"Pyotr," Gyrthemar asked, voice wary, "what are you–?"
His brother's words were interrupted by the sudden blaring of warning lumens and alarms in the cabin. Pyotr snapped out of his reverie just in time to see sigils blinking on the cogitator screens. It wasn't until he scanned the read-outs that he realized what an utter fool he had been to allow himself to grow so distracted.
"Brace for impact!" he shouted as he slammed down on the controls.
-
Identifiers of dop-pods on the tactical display fizzled out and died as they were hit by macrocannon fire from the Gorgon's Manacles. Each fading blip was another handful of heretics made dead under Lavitor's righteous fury.
It was a hailstorm of debris and detritus as each target was hit. Four drop pods burned out. Then seven. Then a dozen. Then Pyotr's. It was glorious.
Silent exultations to the Omnissiah and his Blessed Father spilled from Lavitor's mind as he turned to the bridge and its crew.
"Good work," he said, then looked to Melvern. "Have my thunderhawk readied and prepare the rest of the company for landfall."
"My lord?" Melvern asked. "Forgive any untoward assumption, but their forces are dismal. Would you not rather oversee the assault aboard the bridge rather than be on the front lines where you are not needed?"
Many officers froze and held their breaths. Such blunt words to an Astartes was a dangerous thing in most cases—especially when daring to insinuate that a mortal knew best where a member of the Ominissiah's chosen should be during a battle. Lavitor was not offended, however. The ship captain's candor was perhaps what he appreciated most about him.
"I know this heretik well, captain," Lavitor said as he turned away and began to make for the exit. "He's not dead until I see his corpse personally."