Chapter 21: The second six hours – Part 1: Beasts (Magos Harspes' Perspective)
I am the leviathan, and the leviathan is me.
The Basilica of Saint Jessamine breathes under my dominion, its slumbering body stirred by the countless limbs of my will. I am fused to it, each servo and conduit alive beneath the surgical precision of my command. My mechadendrites hum in the mausoleum's dim chamber, tethered to cogitator arrays older than most of the hive itself. The data streams flood my awareness—fractal spirals of binharic logic winding through my neural lattice, an endless symphony of input. I process them all, every cascading thread a vital artery of this slumbering titan.
The room is an ode to silence, punctuated only by the clicking of ancient machinery and the labored hiss of Saint Jessamine's breaths. She sits upon the stasis throne like a figure carved from alabaster, her body slumped but luminous in death's half-embrace. The conduit arrays embedded into her frail form pulse weakly, syphoning what remains of her waning soul to fuel the void shields, to fuel us.
"Input confirmed," chimes Harspes-1B, its voice a metallic whisper in the noosphere. "Auxiliary conduits operating at 64% capacity. Data stream integrity nominal."
"Update redundant," replies Harspes-3B. "Processing shift focus to defensive projection grid. Warp anomalies spiking. Eastern quadrant."
I pivot. The eastern quadrant. My mind fractures into subroutines, dividing my awareness across every sensor array feeding from the wall's ancient auspex systems. Harspes-3B is correct—the warp fluctuations ripple across the feeds like scars. Unexpected.
"Source?" I query, my voice binharic and clipped.
"Analysis: distortion consistent with psyker activity," answers Harspes-7B, its tone clinical. "No combat indicator matching current parameters detected. Calculations suggest prelude to—"
The noosphere shudders. The warp pulse lances across our auspex feeds, a sudden and violent cascade that fractures data integrity across sixteen subsystems. Jessamine's stasis throne groans, her failing vitals spiking with the ripple of psychic backlash.
Gabriel Mossad vanishes.
A silence follows—not the absence of sound, but the hollowness of a void where something mighty once stood. His psychic resonance is snuffed out in less than a heartbeat, his sacrifice a keening roar that bursts across our sensory matrices.
"Feedback overwhelming!" Harspes-4B announces, its tone warping with strain as the auspex networks overload. "Recalibration required—"
"No," I snap. "Filter manually. Reset oscillators. Process faster."
The command stabilizes the chaos within nanoseconds. The mist outside the basilica, that black shroud which has been our prison, begins to dissipate. It unravels, shredded like rags under the force of an unseen gale. Data streams resolve into clarity, and the battlefield emerges.
Harspes-1B floods the noosphere with imagery. The visuals crackle into being, distorted heat signatures scrubbed clean by auto-purifiers. My mind processes the shapes, first as abstractions, then as horrifying realities.
Eight figures.
They rise above the battlefield like blasphemous totems, grotesque parodies of the sacred God-Engines. Spiked hulls loom against the dim light, their silhouettes jagged and chaotic. The machine spirits in my conduits recoil. These are not Titans; they are monstrosities. Fifteen meters tall, armored with warped plating, and seething with bio-mechanical corruption. Their forms are animated by dark geometries that my sub-minds strain to decipher. Abominable.
"Designation: Tech Abominations," intones Harspes-9B. "Constructs bear resemblance to Orkoid Gargants in mass, lacking standardized template design. Anomalous configurations noted."
Harspes-10B channels further, spectrographic analysis.
I see their plasma cannons, their barrels glowing with an impossible spectrum—vivid greens and pinks that churn with warp-tainted energy. My logic engines estimate their destructive capacity: equivalent to the plasma weaponry of a Mars-pattern Reaver. The warp contamination defies conventional armor resistances and penetrative qualities, adding chaotic variables to every calculation.
Behind them, corrupted Leman Russ tanks rumble forward, their turrets etched with the sigils of a fallen PDF regiment. A battalion of traitor infantry trails them, weapons at the ready. These are no mindless zealots; their formation is precise, disciplined.
"Enemy composition adjusted," reports Harspes-6B. "Integration of armor, infantry, and war constructs suggests deliberate tactical synergy. Recommend reclassification of threat level to Omega parameters meet requirements for enaction of fallback protocol."
The Tech Abominations move, their warped cannons orienting toward the walls. My logic engines race.
"Threat escalation. Predictive models forecast structural integrity breach at 87.6% likelihood if not engaged directly." I state my thoughts out loud, a human habit I've carefully cultivated as both an addition to my bedside manner as a Magos Biologis with the added benefit of irritating my peers.
"Harspes-5B, 6B, and 7B, initiate fallback prioritization protocol," I order. "Reset for autonomous targeting priority for all anti-infantry defenses. Adjust targeting matrices to automated systems and reprioritize your cogitation to heavy emplacements."
"Compliance," comes the chorus of my surrogates.
The first plasma volley answers my recalculations with destructive finality. A multicolored burst tears through the heavy bolter emplacements at grid marker 23A. The ancient weapons shatter in explosions of ceramite and flame, their spirit snuffed out in the blink of an eye.
"Turret line at 23-A obliterated," notes Harspes-8B, its voice devoid of emotion.
Another volley follows. Then another. The Tech Abominations dismantle our anti-personnel defenses with chilling precision, their warp-tainted plasma leaving glowing craters where sanctified emplacements once stood. Heavy flamers, grenade launchers, bolter emplacements, coaxial laser arrays, all fall silent.
The ramp of corpses surges. The horde—maddened, fanatical, heedless of death—climbs the growing mound of flesh and bone. My subroutines calculate the rate of accumulation. Thirty minutes. In thirty minutes, the ramp will reach the wall.
"Harspes-2B," I intone. "Query: probability of delaying corpse accumulation with available incendiary reserves."
"Insufficient," comes the response.
The noosphere lights up again—another alert, this time from Jessamine's life-support systems. Her vitals are dropping faster now, her frail body buckling under the strain of the basilica's demands.
"Solution required," murmurs Harspes-1B.
The solution is clear. Logical. Ruthless.
"Disengage void shields," I command, my binharic tone sharper than a monomolecular blade. "Redirect power to heavy weapons arrays. Begin activation rites of all mass emplacements and prepare for maximum sustained output."
The basilica groans beneath my will. Deep within its ancient arteries, conduits groan as power shifts, rerouted in cascading currents that hum like a dirge. The shimmering barrier of the void shields collapses in a dying cascade of energy, leaving the rear and flanks exposed to the enemy. The luminous field flickers briefly, then dies, its light swallowed by the void.
Across the battlements an audible gasp rides the defenders' vox. Harspes-7B calculates enemy redeployment time: The foe may assess the shield's absence, reorganize, and in turn press the assault against our undefended flanks and rear. But the difference is negligible—perhaps 30 hours remain until the Skitarii legions of Avachrus arrive—a time roughly approximate to estimated enemy redeployment for assault on previously shielded and presently undefended wall sections.
My sub-minds came to the same conclusion: Jessamine cannot maintain the shield. Leaving it active risks total system collapse.
"Dropping the shield is suboptimal," I comment, more to myself than my surrogates, "but better than power failure in 0.79 hours."
"Agreed." A Chorus of chimes.
The Tech Abominations sense the shift. Their warped plasma cannons swivel with dreadful precision, the fusion of heresy and mechanical perfection locking onto the basilica's battlements.
"Warning: Plasma volley imminent," Harspes-4B announces, its binharic tone clinical, unflinching.
The sole plasma launcher I had kept operational—an aged relic of a war fought centuries before—fires one final, defiant burst, carving into the enemy horde below. The effect is fleeting. A series of multicolored plasma bursts lance from the abominations and annihilate it mid-cycle, reducing it to a plume of molten slag.
"Plasma launcher Delta-Five eliminated," observes Harspes-3B.
"Expected," I reply, my logic engines unshaken. This was not the true weapon they should fear.
The basilica quakes again, a tremor that echoes through its bones as I activate the true apex of its wrath.
The Volcano Cannon.
Deep within the ancient structure, long-forgotten turbines roar to life, their thrum shaking loose centuries of dust and detritus. Power surges into the cannon's dormant systems, a slow build of energy I had been feeding into its ravenous capacitor for hours. The capacitor arrays hum at the edge of overload, a deadly crescendo poised to unleash.
Fifty tons of adamantine plate slide ponderously open.
The cannon awakens.
The cannon speaks.
It's voice is a hymn to destruction, a lance of pure, blinding energy so incandescent it carves away shadow itself and lights Sector Sigma with such luminosity as it hasn't experienced since it was the apex of the upper hive millennia ago. The beam cracks through the air with the sound of a god's rage, a thunderclap so loud it is audible even hundreds of meters underground in the mausoleum.
It is the sound of annihilation, raw and unrelenting.
The beam strikes the closest abomination mid-stride. Terawatts of focused energy tear through its corrupted bulk as though it were paper, shearing its torso from its malformed lower limbs in a single violent instant. Molten slag cascades from the wound, the construct's warped components bubbling and liquefying in an explosion of fiery ruin.
"Abomination neutralized," intones Harspes-6B, though its words are drowned beneath the aftershock of the cannon's fury.
But the Volcano Cannon's machine spirit is not content to destroy just one. The beam scythes onwards, carving a molten trench through the horde gathered behind the shattered construct. Hundreds of traitor PDF and fanatics are incinerated in the beam's path, bodies within fifty meters of the visible beam explode like hydrogen bubbles vaporizing in bursts of ash and glowing embers in the incredible thermal backwash. A heretical Leman Russ is caught within the swath of devastation. The tank detonates spectacularly, its ammunition igniting in a chain of catastrophic bursts that ripple through the enemy ranks like concentric rings of fire.
"Effectiveness exceeds projections," Harspes-2B comments dryly, "the machine spirit rages."
The Volcano Cannon's power wanes momentarily as its capacitors cycle to charge, but the devastation it has wrought is absolute. Where once a seething mass of heretics surged forward, there is now a molten scar of annihilation. The battlefield is momentarily still, the enemy forces reeling from the ferocity of the strike and the defenders rallying in jubilation. Both reactions, organic, inefficient, and I ignore them.
The Tech Abominations remain undaunted. Several of the towering constructs turns their plasma cannons toward the Volcano Cannon's emplacement, warp-tainted cores humming with malevolent energy.
"Retaliatory volley anticipated," Harspes-8B announces. But the vast adamantine plate is already resealing in place even as multiple plasma spheres the size of small vehicles impact about its surface.
"Plasma launcher readiness?" I demand.
"Ten seconds to full charge," reports Harspes-7B.
"Deploy immediately upon cycling. Targeting solutions prioritized on secondary abomination cluster at grids 26-C and 28-G."
I am aware of the defenders atop the walls, their shouts and bolter fire drowned in the greater cacophony. They are flesh. They are finite.
But I am the leviathan, and the leviathan is me, and the enemy has gravely miscalculated the reach of my claws.
Four ancient adamantine plates, their hydraulics screaming in defiance of centuries of dormancy, drop from four additional sections of the wall. The sound is a cacophony of grinding metal, an echoing hymn to forgotten wrath.
"Remaining plasma launchers activating," Harspes-7B reports, the binharic cant crisp and emotionless.
The launchers awaken in sequence, each belching forth a torrent of incandescent fury. Their discharges illuminate the battlefield, great arcs of searing blue flame lancing out in calculated trajectories. The plasma engulfs two of the Tech Abominations, their towering forms shuddering under the combined assault.
"Damage significant," Harspes-5B intones. "Both constructs destabilizing. Collapse imminent."
Through my sensors, I observe the abominations as they stagger, their corrupted frameworks bubbling and sloughing away under the relentless assault. The one at Grid 26-C collapses first, its plasma core detonating in a warp-tainted explosion that consumes dozens of the surrounding traitor infantry. The second at 28-G attempts to retaliate, but its own internal systems overload, sending it toppling backward into the ranks of the heretic PDF like a felled spire, crushing dozens beneath its grotesque bulk.
"Secondary abomination cluster diminished by 25%," reports Harspes-5B.
Before the plasma flames have even dissipated, another panel—its mechanisms laboring under the weight of centuries—retracts with a thunderous grind. From the darkness emerges a relic of devastating simplicity: a megabolter. Its barrels, as wide as a man's torso, begin to rotate, and the weapon barks to life with a fury that drowns the battlefield in its roar.
The first salvo strikes true. High-caliber rounds streak toward their target with terrifying velocity, tearing into one of the remaining abominations. The absence of void shields on these constructs proves their undoing. The megabolter's rounds rip through its warped armor, blowing gaping wounds in the torso and shearing limbs free in grotesque sprays of molten slag and corrupted flesh.
"Target at 26-A neutralized," Harspes-6B observes. "Structural integrity obliterated."
But the weapon's age proves its downfall. Even as the abomination crumbles, several rounds detonate within the megabolter's ancient chambers, shattering the weapon in a violent eruption of fire and shrapnel. Smoke billows from the emplacement as silence claims it once more.
"Critical malfunction in megabolter," Harspes-6B adds, as though reporting the weather.
The basilica groans, a tremor of protest rippling through its framework, as twelve additional ports grind open along the surface off the battlements themselves. Sisters scramble for cover, their power-armored forms dwarfed by the rising artillery and missile emplacements.
"Artillery batteries online," Harspes-7B announces, my surrogate's voice utterly devoid of the awe this moment deserves.
The emplacements fire in unison, their volley a deafening chorus of missiles and high-explosive shells. The battlefield is momentarily obscured in a roiling cloud of fire and smoke, the thunder of detonations reverberating through the basilica.
"One additional abomination destroyed," Harspes-7B reports, my internal processors already noting the remaining three still standing.
Two of the constructs stagger under the barrage, their frames riddled with gaping wounds and seeping corrupted fluids. The third stands resolute, though its gait falters as it shifts its focus toward the wall.
"Four emplacements lost," Harspes-7B continues. "Critical malfunctions in firing mechanisms. Resultant detonations eliminated 327 defenders. Acceptable losses."
Through the noosphere, I feel the flickers of panic among the sisters as the detonations hurl bodies and shrapnel across the battlements. Their flesh-bound terror is insignificant, a statistical aberration in the greater calculus.
The surviving Tech Abominations recalibrate their plasma cannons, their multi-hued energy cores cycling with an unnatural malevolence that presses against my logic cores like a grinding gear. Their targeting systems lock onto the wall emplacements with predatory precision.
"Warning: retaliatory fire incoming," announces Harspes-7B in a steady binharic cadence.
The first salvo slams into the battlements. The impact is catastrophic. I feel the seismic ripple through the basilica as two plasma launchers vaporize in an incandescent flash. Adamantine doors still open and unresponsive to the command to seal. Superhot slag blasts upwards as capacitors detonate and molten metal rains down the walls, scalding the defenders beneath.
"Sustained losses in defensive emplacements," notes Harspes-3B with a clinical detachment that mirrors my own.
"Priority remains abomination engagement," I respond, my tones clipped. "Reallocate surviving assets. Adjust targeting protocols to—"
And then the warp screams.
A shudder races through the basilica, not physical but something deeper—a psychic tremor that ripples across every noospheric channel, every cogitator interface, every fiber of my being. Warp signatures spike catastrophically, flooding my data feeds with a cacophony of impossible variables.
Harspes-9B, tasked with monitoring the lingering mist, shrieks. Its binharic voice fractures into incoherent streams of corrupted data, a rising tide of scrapcode that begins to bleed into my core processes. The surrogate's feedback spirals out of control, threatening contamination.
"Sever 9B," I command, my tone clipped and absolute. The connection cuts out digitally even as several mechadendrites rip 9B physically from my from and tear it to pieces in an instant.
The screaming stops.
I feel the loss as a jagged absence in my neural lattice, but better one excision than the infection of the whole.
"6B, reallocate to warp anomaly monitoring," I snap. "5B, establish firewall and containment between 6B and main neural hub."
"Acknowledged," replies Harspes-5B, its tone devoid of emotion, a static fortress against the chaos seeping into my systems.
Yet even as order reasserts itself within my neural web, the external world descends into madness.
The mist, which I had believed to be dissipating in the wake of Mossad's sacrifice, is not gone. It was not dissipating, merely retreating—coalescing. The error of my assumption burns in my calculations, an inefficiency that stings like acid in my circuits.
Through every lens, every auspex feed, every thread of perception, I see it come together. The writhing fog gathers, spiraling inward with a dreadful purpose. It does not simply move; it breathes, a sentient malignance pulling itself into form.
First, the horns emerge. Curved, jagged, and impossibly vast, they pierce the air like blasphemous monuments. Then the silhouette unfolds, a towering monstrosity that seems to drag the darkness of the warp itself into the material world. Its body is a grotesque parody of form: hulking musculature, an armor of shadowy mist clinging to its vast frame as if the warp itself has woven it a second skin. In one clawed hand, it wields a double-bladed axe of pure void, its edges consuming light, the space around it bending in unnatural contortions.
And its eye—a single, burning red eye. It radiates malice and hunger, a beacon of torment that sears into my visual feeds with such intensity that I must filter its spectrum manually to avoid cascading feedback loops in my sensor arrays.
It stands as tall as a Warlord Titan, a grotesque amalgamation of musculature and shadow. Horns twist skyward from its bull-like skull which sits atop the torso of a flayed man. Its armor is a living nightmare—shifting plates of writhing darkness, the black mist that once cloaked the battlefield now clinging to it like a sentient shroud. Each movement disturbs the very air, leaving trails of psychic residue that flicker and curl as though alive.
"Designation: Nullmaw, demonic avatar," announces Harspes-6B, its tone faltering as even its cold logic struggles to categorize the thing.
Across the basilica, panic erupts. The defenders on the walls falter, their vox transmissions turning to chaos.
"What is that?!" one Sister's voice crackles, trembling with disbelief.
"It's… it's a daemon! Emperor save us, it's a daemon!" screams another.
The enemy horde surges as if revitalized by the creature's presence. Where before they moved with mere reckless abandon, now they flow like a single organism, their movements coordinated, driven, purposeful. Nullmaw's aura radiates an unholy command, a tide of fear and obedience that sweeps through the battlefield.
"Alert: Enemy cohesion increasing," states Harspes-7B, its binharic tones steady even as the battlefield descends into anarchy.
My core logic cogitator spins in hyper-calculation, neural subroutines pulsing with near-panic speed as Nullmaw's monstrous form continues to coalesce before my auspex.
"Reallocate Harspes-7B," I command, each syllable clipped and precise. "Direct Volcano Cannon targeting protocols to emerging warp entity."
Harspes-7B acknowledges instantly, its binharic tone unwavering. "Target lock engaged. Capacitor cycle incomplete. Warning: open-circuit fire protocol required for immediate deployment."
The Volcano Cannon's machine spirit vibrates with unbridled rage within the circuit interface, its digital cry piercing my sensory array with a binharic shriek that ripples through the noosphere. It knows, as I do, the magnitude of what I am about to demand—an act of sheer mechanical recklessness, an affront to every principle of engineering logic and machine doctrine. Yet it does not resist. The spirit, ancient and proud, recognizes the necessity of the moment and embraces the chance to unleash itself once more.
The manifestation must be halted. Previous recorded experience dictates that the avatar will only gain strength as it completes its transition into the materium and must be disrupted before complete translation occurs.
"Initiate open-circuit fire protocol," I intone, my voice resonating through the conduits like a hymn.
The cannon responds with a triumphant burst of binharic cant, a war cry that surges through the basilica's systems. The great weapon roars, its immense energy reserves surging through an incomplete cycle, terawatts of power forced into a combined capacitor and open-circuit charge.
The blast erupts with a noise that defies comprehension, a thunderclap as if reality itself fractures under its might. The beam, impossibly bright, slices through the darkness like the blade of the Omnissiah Himself. It lances toward Nullmaw's grotesque form, striking the daemon squarely in the side of its horned head. The force of the impact enough to reduce any combination of organic or inorganic matter, no matter how resilient, to scattered atoms.
But the daemon endures.
No explosion.
No obliteration.
No seared flesh or blackened armor.
No effect.
Nullmaw simply turns, its burning red eye fixing on the source of the attack with an expression not seen but felt by every defender, even me, that can only be described as amused contempt.
The auspex feeds show no residual heat.
No material disruption.
Nothing.
The sheer impossibility of it sends a cascade of errors racing through my logic cores.
"Result: ineffective," Harspes-7B states, its binharic tones taut, strained by the absurdity of the observation.
"Inconceivable, incalculable… error… error…" murmurs Harspes-2B, its output fractured by the weight of the impossibility.
Beside me, Jessamine groans audibly from her stasis throne, her frail form shuddering against the surge of redirected power pulled directly from the open circuit. Harspes-4B interrupts my spiraling calculations with a cold, clinical announcement: "Cardiac failure in progress. Immediate intervention required."
"Administer the first injection," I order, my focus split across countless cascading streams of data.
Harspes-4B detaches with mechanical precision, its spindly arm extending. The needle-tip glows faintly as it fills with a cocktail of blessed chemicals. The servo-skull plunges the needle into Jessamine's chest, the plunger driving the concoction into her faltering heart. Her body convulses violently, and the basilica surges with renewed energy. Her sacrifice breathes life into the ancient systems once more, a defiance of death itself.
Power output increases by 459%. Jessamine's expected lifespan decreases proportionally as the drugs ravage her system into unsustainable liveliness.
The plasma cannons awaken fully with a shriek, their capacitors charging at blinding speed. When they reach peak levels, they fire in unison, once, twice, three times, a burst fire impossible in their previous semi-powered state.
Bolts of furious, multicolored energy tear through the battlefield, converging on Nullmaw like the focused wrath of the Omnissiah. Each strike detonates against the daemon's colossal form, the sound splintering the air like ruptured space.
Again, nothing.
Nullmaw does not even flinch.
It stands amidst the storm of unleashed fury, its single burning eye locked on the basilica. Its presence is unyielding, unbroken. The plasma fire fades, leaving the battlefield eerily quiet in its wake, as though the daemon mocks the futility of my efforts.
The impossible failure coils in my mind like a serpent, its fangs digging into the fabric of my understanding.
How can this be?
How can such concentrated force leave not even residual heat on the daemon's form?
I cycle through calculations at relentless speed, testing variables, searching for answers, and finding only contradictions as my logic spirals downward into realms of illogic and madness.
Harspes-1B interrupts my futile cascade of equations. "Observation: Plasma and Volcano Cannon strikes coincide with mass fatalities among enemy infantry. Hypothesis: warp entity redistributes damage onto proximate subordinates. Entity and horde function as a distributed organism."
The words cut through the chaos in my mind, demanding immediate reevaluation, pulling me from the precipice of insanity.
I force myself to refocus.
The auspex confirms the observation: both the Volcano Cannon's strike and the plasma barrage correspond with catastrophic losses among the horde. The bodies of heretics lie scattered in grotesque heaps, their deaths not from bolters or flamers, but from the force directed at Nullmaw itself.
"Hypothesis: validated," Harspes-1B continues, its binharic tones edged with urgency. "Efficiency of harm displacement suggests deliberate design. Targeting the horde directly will yield greater attritional effect."
"Implications?" I demand, the weight of revelation twisting through my neural framework.
"Demon avatar functions as hitherto unrecorded symbiotic phenomena. Damage to main avatar redirected and distributed along parasympathetic pathways via unknown laws of energetic transference." Harspes-1B concludes.
The daemon is not invincible—it is an ecosystem, a malignant network of interconnected lives.
"Theory: Demonic entity, avatar Nullmaw, exists as a decoy, designed to draw fire and allow damage distribution control to support horde progression." 1B chimes again.
The logic is insidious, a malice crafted to perfection.
"Simultaneously," 3B adds its voice, "entity serves as sever psychological and spiritual weapon. Threat of defenders breaking following manifestation, 28.22%. Threat of defenders breaking following observation of ineffective Volcano Cannon and plasma fire, 80.11%"
I greet the discovery of Nullmaw's symbiotic design with a stab of mechanical frustration, an inefficiency I rarely allow myself. Targeting Nullmaw directly is inefficient, yet ignoring the entity entirely seems equally futile. My thoughts flicker to the gate, the basilica's final line of defense, calculating the time such a monstrosity would take to physically batter it down. My predictive models give hours at most—perhaps less.
The flickering red eye of Nullmaw catches my contemplation. Then it glows—brighter, more baleful—fixing on the emplacement of the Volcano Cannon. The auspex surges with chaotic readings, data that defies logical patterns. Before I can issue a directive, Nullmaw acts.
The beam that erupts from its eye is unlike any energy I have ever encountered. It is not simply light or heat or plasma—it is alive, screaming with sentient malice. The sound is unquantifiable, an agonized wail that resonates through both my local noosphere and into the marrow of reality itself. The beam strikes the adamantine barrier protecting the Volcano Cannon. A barrier designed to withstand the mightiest of ordnance shatters like glass.
The Volcano Cannon disintegrates in an instant, the energy punching through its emplacement and the multi-meter-thick wall behind it. Data floods my mind—a whirlwind of shattered readings and disrupted equations. The logic is impossible. Even at its maximum charge, the Volcano Cannon required more preparation, more energy. That this abomination could so efficiently unleash such destructive force is a heresy I refuse to calculate. And yet, the evidence is irrefutable.
"Result: catastrophic," Harspes-7B reports, its tone devoid of emotion but strained beneath the enormity of the event.
The hole left behind is too high to endanger the defenders directly, but its implications are dire. If Nullmaw can continue such assaults, the walls themselves may fail. This entity is no mere decoy; it is a living siege engine.
My mind races, attempting to process the conundrum. If we target Nullmaw, the horde suffers only losses which it finds convenient. If we target the horde, Nullmaw is free to strike unopposed. We lack the ammunition to extinguish the horde entirely, and the ramp they construct grows ever higher. My calculations spiral into an equation of inevitable loss.
"Alert," chimes Harspes-10B. "Ramp has reached wall apex. Initial melee engagement underway."
The auspex confirms it: the enemy horde has reached the lip of the wall. Sisters of Battle and gangers fight in desperate hand-to-hand combat, bolters and chainswords roaring amidst the chaos. Screams, both human and inhuman, echo through the Basilica's auditory sensors.
The situation deteriorates rapidly.
I allow myself a moment of frustration, an indulgence of organic weakness I rarely permit.
This was inevitable.
The fall of the Basilica was always inevitable. Like Aurora, the so-called Saint, I do not count on victory for salvation. I count on the inevitability of defeat. Whether the Basilica holds or crumbles is irrelevant to my objectives. Its fall, and the deaths it brings, are the fuel for the great work—Aurora's experiment.
No. My experiment.
I correct the thought immediately.
It is not madness, not hubris. It is logic, highly unorthodox but irrefutably sound. The Basilica is expendable; its defenders are expendable. The only variable that matters is Subject J-13. Without her, the experiment cannot proceed.
And Subject J-13 is absent. The probability of her arrival dwindles with every passing second.
I suppress the errant frustration and return my focus to the battlefield. A new alert from Harspes-2B pings across the noosphere, its urgency breaking through the cacophony of information around me.
"Inbound signals detected," it announces, overlaying the data feed. "New vector. Auspex identifies twelve vehicles. Designation: Chimeras. Insignia correlates with Ordo Malleus. One identified signal… confirmed as Subject J-13."
The revelation arrests my thoughts. Valeria—Subject J-13—is approaching, her ancient power armor broadcasting its distinctive IFF ping. She is not alone. Twelve black Chimeras carry her and a battalion of Inquisitorial shock troopers. The auspex confirms the data. For the first time in what seems an eternity, the probabilities shift favorably.
"Inbound reinforcements, confirmed," Harspes-2B reports, its tone steady.
I recalibrate my equations with mechanical precision. The defenders may yet have their reprieve though the ultimate outcome remains unchanged. The experiment may yet proceed. A distant part of me registers this turn of events as improbable, almost prophetic, but I dismiss the thought as organic superstition. There is no prophecy—only logic, chance, and the inevitability of calculation.
I redirect the focus of all my surrogates, "overriding priority: Subject J-13 must achieve entry into basilica proper, reprioritize all available assets to this task, power consumption irrelevant, expiration of Subject J-0 irrelevant, survival or remaining defenders irrelevant, prepare rites for the opening of the main gate if necessary to facilitate this outcome!"
Inside the basilica, an ancient brass bell tolls, though none pulls its long disintegrated rope. The machine spirits sing of their doom.
And I answer: Steel endures. Flesh fails. The Omnissiah provides.
What I do not perceive, what I will not come to calculate until many cycles hence is that this Basilica's bell is not the only that tolls, no, all bells across all basilicas across the imperium toll together as the sky rips open and the Eye of Terror spills its malevolence across the stars in a great rift to rival the scale of the astronomicon itself.
Omnissiah preserve us…