I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.
Inspired by the Dornian Heresy, by Aurelius Rex.
Unity
999.M41 – Mars
Five minutes to Light's End
Over two thousand kilometers to the south of Olympus Mons, an entire macroclade of the Martian Legiones Skitarii stood guard at one of the entrances to the underworld. More than twelve hundred skitarii of various types were arrayed in perfect formation, weapons held at the ready, while the heavy defenses that had been constructed over the millennia continued to keep watch over the tunnel that led into the Noctis Labyrinthus, gateway into the Haydesian Kingdoms.
The entrance itself was blocked by a five-meter thick circular adamantium door, connected to a system of pistons and gears that, while incredibly primitive by the standards of the Mechanicus, had the advantage of being completely disconnected from any network that those trapped on the other side could have attempted to hack in order to open it.
While most of the Red Planet's armies had gone to wage war in the Haydesian Kingdoms under the banner of the Martian Host, there remained a need to guard the entrances of this underground realm and prevent any of the hereteks and their creations from escaping. In another army, this duty would have been seen as an insult to those it had been bestowed upon – a way to deny them the chance to participate in the final, apocalyptic battles of the Lie of Iron, that would see Mars freed of the taint of Ruin forevermore.
But the skitarii were not blinded by thoughts of personal glory. All that mattered to them was to follow the Omnissiah's will as made clear by the Martian Collective and expressed through the voices of His tech-priests. They were, all of them, cogs in the Mechanicus' great engine, and they would not even consider bemoaning the task they had been given.
Already knowledge of the great victory scored by the Martian Host against the gathered forces of the Haydesian Kingdoms had reached the macroclade, spread by their tech-priest overseers so that they would know of the Mechanicus' triumph. Yet that triumph had not lessened their vigilance, for along with it had come the Collective's predictions that, as the Martian Host continued its relentless purge of the Red Planet's underground, it was inevitable that some of the hereteks would try to escape to the surface.
Rax-99, who by the grace of the Machine-God had been elevated to serve as Primary Alpha of the Skitarii Rangers maniples deployed, was not exactly "nervous". In truth, the skitarii could not experience such a state of being, and had been unable to for several decades now, since she had been chosen among the children of the Mechanicus' thralls to become part of the Skitarii Legions. But there was a sense of … trepidation, as she considered the tactical implications of what was transpiring on the Primary Forge-World.
Three sons of the Omnissiah had returned, after thousands of years of absence. And they had not gone to Terra, where the High Lords of the Imperium fussed over matters of influence and prestige : they had come to Mars, to help the Fabricator-General and the Martian Collective – hallowed be their circuitry – end a war that had bled the Adeptus Mechanicus' resources since the Time of Dividing itself, that which the Imperium called the Roboutian Heresy.
Until the arrival of the Primarchs in Olympus Mons and the marshalling of the Martian Host, Rax-99 had not known of the Lie of Iron. She had fought against the spawn of the Haydesian Kingdoms, but had not truly known the scale of the threat that lingered beneath Mars' sacred surface.
Now she knew, because she had been granted access to that knowledge by the towering leader of the macroclade. Surrounded by cybernetic guardians, the Emissary was huge. Their chassis was bristling with weapons and transmitters, and their presence flowed through the manifold of the entire macroclade, watching through the senses of every soldier of the Machine-God.
Rax-99 did not know the name of the tech-priest who was interred within the sarcophagus, who had made the sacrifice of separating themselves from the Collective in order to oversee the defense of this entrance to the Haydesian Kingdoms. They were simply called "the Emissary" over the noosphere, and that was more than enough.
The first sign of the attack came from the seismographs attached to the defense outpost. They picked up the vibrations indicating that a great many something were advancing through the tunnels. Rax-99 saw the data flow on her ocular display, and she felt something akin to worry as she noticed that whatever was advancing was making no effort to avoid the mines that the Mechanicus had placed as far down the tunnel as their servitors could go. It was as if the foe was simply throwing bodies at the mines until they were all gone.
The macroclade immediately went to top readiness. Weapons were heated in preparation for battle, and generators were set to higher settings. Catechisms of the Machine-God were recited in binary, investing the skitarii with the strength to do the Omnissiah's will. Rax-99 drew her weapons, checked the positioning and readiness of her command, and waited.
Something struck the gate from the inside, and the sound of the impact shook the dust-covered metal plates on which the macroclade stood. None broke formation, and none stumbled.
There was another, stronger blow, and the thick adamantium gate bent slightly outward. The third blow moved it slightly out of alignment – and the fourth ripped it out of its hinges. It fell slowly at first, before gaining speed and momentum and smashing onto the ground. While the gate was five meters thick, the hole it had been designed to block was ten meters high. The spawn of the Haydesian Kingdoms had to climb up to get out of the tunnel, but that didn't seem to stop them.
The macroclade opened fire as the first heretek soldiers came into view. Even as they unleashed the Omnissiah's fury upon His foes, their optics scanned the enemy and sent the data to their overseers for analysis. Queries into the database of known Haydesian heresies came up empty – whatever these creatures were, they had not been faced by the Lie of Iron's enforcers before. As the skitarii commander, Rax-99 was one of the first to receive the blessing of that precious data.
She saw them from a hundred different angles, along with the observations of the tech-priests. Like the skitarii themselves, they were unions of flesh and machines, but where the skitarii hid their remaining flesh under heavy robes designed to protect them from the Martian winds, the Haydesian troops were naked, their mortal flesh exposed to the merciless elements. Another difference was that there was no unity of design among the heretek constructs : each was different from the other, clearly born from a human template but with all manners of Dark Tech augmentation welded onto it. Arms and legs had been replaced by weapons, pistons and wheels; eyes torn from their sockets and replaced with many-faceted optics that gleamed with eldritch light; and their flesh was pale and crossed with black veins.
They came in as a tide, but there was a sense of purpose and blasphemous order to them. They didn't get in each other way, but moved with perfect synchronization instead. This similarity to the Skitarii's own unity of purpose and motion made their abomination all the more sickening.
Rax-99 could hear something, a monstrous signal coursing across the noosphere, running from one tech-abomination to another in an unceasing chorus. She closed her receptors to that malevolent tune, raising her defenses against noospheric intrusion and sending an order to her cohorts to do the same.
The Skitarii's rifles and the Mechanicus artillery took a heavy toll on the Haydesian horde, slaying hundreds before they were even able to return fire – but they kept on coming, and eventually they did begin to fire back. Plasma, lasers, and less identifiable projectiles flew into the ranks of the Omnissiah's army, tearing through hallowed armor and laying low the Machine-God's brave warriors.
With perfect discipline, the macroclade fell back in order, laying more fire into the enemy with every step. The outpost's defenses rained fire upon the tide of subterranean evil, and for a few seconds it seemed to Rax-99's calculations that the Haydesian horde could be stopped through sheer attrition, methodically slaughtered by the Holy Calculus of war.
Then it came. It leapt from behind the enemy lines, flying dozens of meters into the air and landing atop one of the outpost's towers with sickening fluidity. Within seconds, the tower was destroyed, and it moved to the next, and the next …
Less than a minute later, the outpost's defenses had fallen silent, and the Haydesian horde resurged, no longer held back by the Mechanicus' output of fire. Rax-99 sent a single order across the lines – they were to hold, and make the Haydesian bleed. Part of her was repulsed at the idea of spilling their unholy blood upon the sands of Sacred Mars, but needs must.
No sooner had she sent that instruction that it left the last tower it had destroyed and leapt into the air again, this time landing right in front of the macroclade. For the first time, Rax-99 saw it with perfect clarity, and couldn't help but think thatthis new blasphemy against the Machine-God wanted to be seen.
The construct was huge. It was made of a metal like none Rax-99 had ever seen – and in her decades of service to the Adeptus Mechanicus, she had seen many. Her augmetic eyes turned upward, and she saw … she saw …
A pale torso, branded with an eight-pointed star and stitched with two daemon-mouthed cannons. A delicate horn of pure ivory, rising above an eye-socket set within a black metallic patch and burning with crimson fire. A roaring, twisting chainsaw attached to an obscenely delicate arm. A sword held in a scarred hand, its blade burnt black by a fire that would, if given the chance, consume all that was true and pure among the stars.
Data flowed into Rax-99's mind, fed into the manifold from the Collective's own data-archives. Soul Grinder, it told her. One of the Ruinous Powers' greatest blasphemies against the Machine-God, surpassed only by the dread Chaos Titans themselves. According to the records, Soul Grinders were not supposed to be able to move like this one, but there was something … spindly about this one – like it was only half-finished, letting more of its core infernal essence seep through the unholy metal components that had been hammered into its Warp-born flesh.
It spoke, and its voice was like nails drawn on her very soul. Her vision swam as her optics glitched from the intrusion, the sheer violation of the creature's words.
"I am N'kari," it said, "and I hunger."
Despite herself, Rax-99's noospheric defenses wavered. The slightest trickle of the Haydesian's scrap-code signal leaked through, and she heard the words of the unholy chorus booming into her skull.
+++ We are the United. We are Many. We are One. Join us. Join us. Join us. +++
With a tremendous effort of will, she purged her data-banks from the infection before it could spread, triggering an overheating of the part of her own augmented brain that had received the signal. The world around her blacked out for a few seconds as she did so – and when her conscience rebooted, it was to find that the Mechanicus lines had been broken.
The Soul Grinder and the United – for that was what they were, she remembered that much from the communication if nothing else – were sweeping over the skitarii. Her soldiers were fighting back with the lack of fear typical of their kind, ready to lay low their lives in sacrifice to the Omnissiah, but it wouldn't be enough. Worse, she saw some of them being pulled down, their weapons kicked from their hands, and needle-like apparatus being brought down into their circuits. She heard them scream over the noosphere, and she heard those scream transmute from raw agony into …
… into the same signal she had burned five per cent of her brain to forget. Cold realization flowed through her mind, and she sent one last signal to her soldiers to shut down their noospheric ports completely – to sever themselves from the grace of the Machine-God that flowed through the sacred communion of soldier and priest, lest it be perverted to the use of the hereteks.
Though they were now alone within their own minds, the skitarii still fought bravely. Officers shouted their orders aloud in binary, resorting to the more primitive method of communication, but it wasn't enough. Led by the Soul Grinder, the United were slaughtering them by the hundred.
As she fired her weapon into the face of something with eight silvery limbs and a mouth of iron teeth, a horrifying thought struck Rax-99 like a thunderbolt. Immediately, that fear crystallized into reality as she saw several dozens of United swarm the Emissary of the Collective. Many were obliterated by the sarcophagus' defenses, but more and more kept coming. Retreat was impossible – if nothing else, the Soul Grinder had already proven to be more mobile than the Emissary's massive bulk could ever hope to be.
They wanted to infect the Emissary. They wanted to spread their "Unity" to one of the Cult Mechanicus' most holy and elevated scions.
Rax-99 could not allow that to happen. The very notion of these techno-abominations perverting the Emissary was already bad enough, but if they managed to use their blessed connections to the rest of the Collective … Even if the Collective's noospheric defenses managed to fight them off – which Rax-99 was certain they eventually would – the invisible confrontation could unleash unspeakable destruction across the entire Red Planet. Noospheric warfare was one of the most dangerous forms of conflicts to the Adeptus Mechanicus, and nowhere was it more so than here, on Sacred Mars.
Overriding her interdiction protocols, she drew her arc pistol and aimed it straight at the Emissary, forcing the weapon into overload. She wasn't sure even this would be enough to pierce through the Emissary's armor, but it seemed that the member of the Collective had seen her and understood her intent, for the sarcophagus' shields flickered off, and the heavy metal plates began to slide open.
Before any of the United could take advantage of the opening – or notice her and stop her – Rax-99 opened fire.
The bolt of azure energy burst from her gun, shattering it in her grasp, and struck true. The Emissary's systems were overloaded, and as the entire sarcophagus detonated in a sphere of bright light, she realized that the Emissary must have set the entire thing to self-destruct, and her shot had merely accelerated the process.
Something slammed into her back, and she was brought to her knees. She reached for hear blade, but her arm was suddenly severed at the shoulder by something that resembled an industrial saw. She forced herself back up and punched the United that had cut off her right arm with her left fist, sending it to the ground. Before she could do anything more, the Soul Grinder was on her, pinning her to the ground with its monstrous mechanical limbs. It leered at her.
"An admirable effort. But you will pay for that, little one. You could have been granted Unity, but for this, you will suffer."
"We stand for Mars," she said as the monsters circled around her. Her mechanical voice was flat, utterly lacking in panic. It did not betray the horror she felt, both in her meat-brain and in her cogitators. She could hear the United slaughter or convert the last of the macroclade, hear the transports retreating at full speed, carrying the handful of survivors north. Hopefully they would bring warning ahead of the horde -
Rax-99's thoughts were interrupted when the Soul Grinder buried one of its talons into her chest. She spasmed as the pain overwhelmed her suppressors, but did not cry out.
N'kari cocked its head, grimacing in hatred and spite.
"So you do," it acknowledged. "And now, you will die for it."
It took Rax-99 several minutes to die. As N'kari – who had once been a Keeper of Secrets, but had broken its oaths to the Dark Prince to be reborn as a Soul Grinder under the hands of the Masters of the Forge of Souls – had promised, she did pay for her defiance of the Slaaneshi Haydesian Kingdom known to itself and its neighbouring powers as the United.
Did she regret, in those final, agonizing moments, that she had used her last shot on the Emissary and not on herself ? Only the Motive Force knew.
The United set forth, marching, rolling, and clawing their way north, where Olympus Mons stood – and where, in its depths, the Martian Collective, which was linked to every servant of the Machine-God in the entire Sol System, awaited.
AN : Dark Mechanicum Borgs ! Woohoo !
This took longer to write than I thought, mostly because of IRL stuff that has kept me busy all of last week. Since I am (again, thanks to the current situation) on "vacation" this week, I am hoping to get a lot of writing done. I have found writing helps with the whole isolation thing.
More details about the backstory of the United will be revealed in the Angel War, but I felt this Interlude would be better from the POV of the Mechanicus forces.
The next Interlude is already done and will be published tomorrow. The one after that will take some time, as it is the final in the series and the most important to the continuation of the story.
I am currently struggling with the next chapter of A Blade Recast. I hope to brute force my way through the block today, but we will see.
As always, thanks for your support, and please tell me what you thought of this interlude and what it may imply for the future.
Zahariel out.
Next : Violators