Predator, Prey Read online

  ‘Trib–’ the soldier began, before correcting himself. ‘Master Andromaq, of the Incunian Temple Praetoriax.’

  ‘Master Andromaq,’ Phylax acknowledged.

  ‘My lord,’ the master of skitarii said, ‘even allowing for strategic models and assembly line reinforcement, our losses are grievous. Many of our armoured and Kataphron contingents were lost during first contact at Freon-Astroika. Skitarii of the Phaedrik Tenth Denticle, and the artillery batteries of the Ballisteria Algistra, have been decimated at Hoarzengrad and the Novolaris trenchworks are overrun.’

  ‘Even the great war machine Ordinatus Incus lies in ruin on the Plain of Achromat,’ Siege-Savant Entaurii added.

  ‘Our numbers have been bolstered by the accelerated vat-production of gun-servitors,’ Master Andromaq admitted, ‘but the genetors are unhappy with the results. The demands of an expedited process have created a higher rate of failures and abominates. Beyond that, the munitiomats are barely configured and the enhanced infantry is fresh off the surgical slab.’

  ‘But we have veteran temple guard…’

  ‘The mainstay of our forces were garrisoned at each of the regional Mons-capitals,’ Master Andromaq told him. ‘Many of the forge temples crowning the cryovolcanoes were destroyed in the eruptions.’

  ‘Estimated operational capacity?’ the Fabricator Locum asked.

  ‘Twenty-two point six seven per cent,’ Andromaq said. ‘Estimated.’

  ‘With such a force, Master Andromaq, can you conceive of a defensive strategy or tactical advantage that might meet the demands of these extraordinary events?’

  ‘No, Fabricator Locum,’ Andromaq replied simply. ‘Complex tactics can be met with complex tactics. They create options. The Veridi giganticus restrict our responses with strategic simplicity. There are just more of them. Beyond a certain magnitude, the numbers will not be worked or contrived. In my opinion, we are beyond that point.’

  ‘Estimated planetary casualties?’ Phylax asked.

  ‘Eighty million,’ Phylax’s spindly high logist informed him, scuttling forwards. As calculus-principal of the congressium, he was best placed to make such an astronomical estimate. ‘And rising, Lord Fabricator.’

  ‘Has the congressium revised its statistical appraisal?’ Phylax queried.

  ‘Only downwards, my lord,’ the high logist replied. ‘As the full magnitude of the xenos invasion has been revealed to us, we have collated data and updated our recommendations. We submit for your consideration a revised estimation of zero point four per cent chance of victory.’

  ‘You are saying that we cannot repel this invasion.’

  ‘We’re saying that the Machine God’s servants on Incus Maximal cannot survive this invasion, my lord.’

  Altarius Phylax allowed himself a moment to process what his high logist was saying.

  ‘And of our sister forge-world?’

  ‘By the vast majority of comparative measures, data from Malleus Mundi tells us they are faring worse than we are,’ the high logist informed him.

  ‘Siege-savant?’

  ‘They have the Legio Fornax,’ Borz Entaurii said. ‘And what I wouldn’t give for their god-machines right now on our hallowed ice.’

  ‘Ambassador Utherica,’ Phylax called.

  ‘Lord Fabricator?’ a silver-skinned crone in dark robes said as she presented herself before him. Her aged face was overlaid with circuitry that glittered with tiny synaptic sparks.

  ‘Do we have word or cant from the Lady of the Furnace?’ Phylax asked the ambassador from Malleus Mundi.

  The crone cackled code back at him before drifting absently into Gothic. ‘Only that she would have you know that the Titans of the Legio Fornax bring down the vengeance of the Omnissiah on the xenos vermin and, Machine God willing, shall burn them from the glacial surface of our world.’

  ‘I don’t mean to contradict the Ambassador…’ Savant Entaurii began.

  ‘Proceed,’ Phylax invited. The hololith magnified the Malleus Mundi forge-world. Even from orbit, the planetary damage was obvious and catastrophic. One-half of the planet had been torn up and reduced to berg-scattered slush. Mons temples and cryoforge clusters streamed black destruction and the glittering white surface of the ice world was clouded with the black murk of alien hordes, swallowing the world like a growing shadow.

  ‘They’re troop movements,’ Phylax said, understanding immediately what the siege-savant was attempting to communicate.

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘I suspect,’ the Fabricator Locum said, ‘that our own world appears similarly from orbit.’

  ‘I can bring up the…’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ Phylax told Entaurii.

  Altarius Phylax tried to reach out beyond the cold logic of his directives and protocols. This was not without difficulty, and felt vague and unnatural. Feel he did, however, and he found his way to a part of his humanity all but forgotten – the part that ached without reason for those lost to him and those he was losing. He allowed fancies and visualisations to sear sharply to focus in his mind. He dwelled on the dead – their corpses hacked to meat and wiring on the ice. He hurt for the living, those blankly processing their last orders and impulses under the barbarian invaders’ blades. He experienced a connection – something that didn’t require cant or code but travelled broad and far. A connection not only between himself and all Incusians, but also between the billion victims of the twin forge-worlds. The feeling was incredible and unpleasant. He indulged its overwhelming power a moment more before allowing the prejudice of his protocols their former supremacy.

  ‘Ambassador – Legio Fornax or not, I think that the Lady of the Furnace has to accept her forge-world is lost,’ Phylax said finally. The crone said nothing. The attendant magi and forge masters stiffened. ‘As must I.’

  ‘What do you mean, Lord Fabricator?’ the high logist asked.

  ‘I mean, it is time to let Incus Maximal go.’

  ‘The Lords Diagnostica will not sanction such an action,’ the high logist informed Phylax with cautious force. ‘They will speak against it at the machine altars. They will claim Incus Maximal as the Omnissiah’s sovereign territory and the Machine God’s subjects as the ordained defenders of such rites – to the last man and machine.’

  ‘This is not a cult matter,’ Phylax said simply. ‘Besides – as Fabricator Locum do I not speak for the Omnissiah on Incus Maximal?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘Then it is decided. If I don’t act now – right now – there won’t be anyone left at the machine altars to preach to,’ Altarius Phylax said. He looked to Ambassador Utherica. ‘Perhaps our action might stir the Lady of the Furnace to similar mercies and to defy the will of her own Diagnosticians.’

  ‘You speak of mercy, my lord, a most illogical–’ the high logist began.

  ‘I speak of sense,’ Phylax interrupted, ‘common and good. A most Omnissian virtue, I assure you. The enemy have invaded. The enemy has succeeded. The Machine God does not demand the lives of all in order for such a precept to be accepted. Savant Entaurii?’

  ‘Yes, Lord Fabricator.’

  ‘I mean to evacuate all remaining Incusians from the forge-world surface. The Lords Diagnostica will be charged with the preservation of the machine altars and the transfer of technodivinity and knowledge contained within. The high logist and the congressium will begin ratiocinatia and matrices for a successful off-world evacuation of all surviving tech-priests, menials and technologies and constructs that can be transferred. Materiel is to remain. Skitarii forces are to disable or destroy what cannot be moved, upon withdrawal.’

  ‘Is that not blasphemy, my lord?’ Master Andromaq put to Phylax.

  ‘It would be blasphemy to allow the Machine God’s holy instruments and the spirits within to be scrapped and corrupted to alien purpose,’ the Fabricator Locum
insisted. ‘I expect you to communicate such reality to your forces, Master Andromaq. It will lend them certainty and help them through their conflicting protocols.’

  ‘And from me, my lord?’ Entaurii asked.

  ‘A planetary exodus point, siege-savant,’ Phylax said. ‘A holdpoint through which to funnel fleeing forge-worlders.’

  Entaurii nodded: ‘There is an auxiliary spaceport near the northern pole: the Lambdagard. It’s a freight station – largely automated – that is principally used for the storage and exportation of scrap and toxic materials.’

  ‘But the temperatures…’ Master Andromaq began.

  ‘The polar conditions will be a challenge even for native Incusians,’ Entaurii admitted, ‘but similarly so for the alien invader. The region has the smallest concentration of enemy forces on the planet.’

  ‘It sounds serviceable,’ the Fabricator Locum said. ‘Depots and storage terminals for waiting evacuees. Ice-strips for ferrying transports.’

  ‘But the deep cold, my lord,’ Andromaq pressed. ‘Think of the losses.’

  ‘They will be less than if we evacuate survivors through the xenos hordes,’ Phylax said. ‘I’d rather our people took their chances with their home world than with the enemy.’

  ‘Yes, Lord Fabricator.’

  ‘Siege-savant,’ Phylax ordered, looking to Entaurii. ‘You must now fight a rearguard action. You must order the Ark vessels Contrivenant, Archmagi Alpharatz and The Weakness of Flesh to risk low orbit and receive as many forge-worlders as they can from the pole. Find hump shuttles, freightskiffs, lighters: anything that can carry survivors. They must keep evacuating survivors from the Lambdagard for as long as they can. The congressium will consider how best to communicate our intentions to defending forces and the forge-world populace.’

  ‘What if the invaders hit the Ark ships?’ the high logist posited. Entaurii shook his head.

  ‘So far the aliens’ tactics have not run to anything approaching such complexity,’ the siege-savant informed him. ‘They want the planet. They want it by force.’

  ‘Three vessels will not be enough for your survivors,’ Ambassador Utherica piped up, morose and subdued.

  ‘And what would you suggest, ambassador?’ Phylax challenged. ‘I hope to the Machine God you’re right. I hope that the invader leaves that many forge-worlders alive.’

  ‘Use my diplomatic protocols,’ Utherica offered. ‘They carry the authority of an Archmagos or Collegia Imperatrix. Use them to order the factory ships, the frigate Ratchet and the Titanica temple supertransport Deus Charios off station above Malleus Mundi to participate in the evacuation.’

  ‘Ambassador, the Lady of the Furnace may still need those vessels,’ Phylax protested.

  ‘She will not,’ Utherica insisted. ‘The Lady will die on her forge-world, with her people. Her Diagnostica priests will not allow anything else. They lack your flesh-wisdom, Lord Phylax.’

  Altarius Phylax nodded his appreciation.

  ‘We shall honour the Lady’s sacrifice,’ he told the ambassador, ‘and if I live to see the day, I will personally lead the effort to take her forge-world back from the xenos along with my own.’

  The ambassador bowed her aged features and handed Borz Entaurii her protocols.

  ‘Where shall we go?’ the high logist asked.

  ‘Corewards,’ Altarius Phylax said. ‘We shall join forces with our brother priests on the forge-worlds of the inner segmentum.’

  ‘And if we experience failure there?’ the high logist pushed him.

  ‘Then, Omnissiah willing, to the forge-world principal,’ the Fabricator Locum told him grimly, ‘where we shall fight on the holy red earth of Mars itself. Pray to the Machine God that it does not come to that.’

  FIVE

  Eidolica – Alcazar Astra

  ‘Switch to infrared, brothers,’ Second Captain Maximus Thane ordered. With Chapter Master Alameda lost to the first enemy wave and First Captain Garthas coordinating defences from the tactical oratorium, Thane was the ranking Fists Exemplar officer on the bastion. As his auto-senses responded and a thermal filter dropped across his optics, the absolute darkness of the Eidolican night was transformed. Instead of the freezing blackness of the desert, Thane could spectro-differentiate the deeper blues of the dune horizon and the starless void above. The captain knew that distant stellar pinpricks were lost to the ugly irregularity of the attack moon hovering directly overhead. Cast in total ecliptic shadow by the Space Marine home world, the only evidence that the monstrous planetoid was there were the descent streaks of xenos-infested meteorites and thunderbolting assault boats.

  That was, until the first wave of attacks.

  Red dots of alien fervour appeared on the contrast line of the horizon. Isolated heat signatures marking the storming advance of vanguard hulks soon became a polychromatic nightmare that swallowed the false-colour cobalt of the desert. Even Thane and his Space Marine brothers – accustomed to the grandeur of the galaxy and a life of war – were surprised at the sheer number of invaders. The night desert was awash with xenos foebreeds: a deluge of enemy targets that confounded auspex and targeters with their swarming magnitude.

  The Adeptus Astartes on the ramparts stood in stoic silence as the enemy rampaged across the Akbar promethium fields. The orks smashed through radiance harvesters and enclosures of photovoltaic cells. They thundered through township after township, flattening worksteads, generatoria and battery silos before destroying the promethium wells. Through their optics, the Space Marines watched columns of white flame jet into the dark skies. The towers of fiery fury and the saturation of the sand with the drizzle of crude promethium did little to slow the alien monsters.

  The captain heard the clunk of armoured boots on the hull plating behind him and turned to see Mendel Reoch, Apothecary of the Second Company. On the blasted hull of the star fort and amongst the scorched ceramite of his brothers, the white paint of the Apothecary’s plate advertised itself like a dare to the enemy. Unlike the captain, the Apothecary had braved the Eidolican night without his helmet. What was left of a ruined mouth and jaw had long been fused into the ugly grille of a half-helm. A pair of bionoptics peered over the grille, glowing darkly like a pair of colour-tinted spectacles.

  ‘Won’t the chief need you in the Apothecarion?’ Thane asked his old friend.

  ‘If the Emperor’s work is accomplished out here,’ Reoch grizzled back through the vox-modulated grille, ‘then I shan’t be needed anywhere. Wouldn’t that be a treat?’

  ‘Not afraid of a little real work, are you, Apothecary?’ Thane teased grimly.

  Reoch drew his bolt pistol and looked down its sights at the deck.

  ‘There are labours,’ the Apothecary replied, ‘and there are labours of love. If you’re asking if I’d rather be in the Apothecarion sewing our brothers back together or taking the enemy apart out here, I shouldn’t have to answer you that.’

  ‘Both your knowledge and skill are welcome here, brother,’ Thane told him honestly. ‘Our guests, less so.’

  Reoch looked up from his pistol. The glow of his implant optics intensified as he seemed to see for the first time the advancing tide of targets washing up against the void bastion. The Apothecary grunted, as though disgusted at the inconvenience.

  ‘Don’t be discourteous now, brother,’ Reoch returned. ‘They’ll get the same welcome as any other species trespassing within the borders of the Emperor’s Holy Imperium: they’ll be shot.’

  A small cluster of Apothecarion serfs had followed their master out onto the bastion in their plain white robes. Reoch handed the lead servant the weighty pistol. ‘These sights need realigning,’ the Apothecary told him. ‘See to it, and this time do it properly. These damned creatures could have done a better job. Have no less respect for the instruments that take life in the field than those that preserve it on the apothecarion slab. I pray for
your sake that you have brought my reserve.’

  Another serf handed his master a second bolt pistol. Reoch fell to examining the reserve instrument before telling the servants: ‘Well, it will have to do, won’t it? It’s not as though the enemy will wait the time it will take you to perfect your duties. I will devise your corrections later – if I am alive to do so.’

  ‘Will you be needing us, Master Reoch?’ one of the serfs mustered the courage to ask. Beneath their hoods the servants had all been watching the darkness and listening to the cacophony of the monsters beyond.

  ‘No,’ the Apothecary told him harshly. ‘Only the Emperor’s Finest are required here. Report to the Chief Apothecary. Perhaps he can find you a mop and bucket for the blood. Now get out of my sight.’

  The serfs headed back towards the launch bays, leaving a weapon rack behind. The rack was laden with reserve magazines of bolt ammunition, simple gladius blades and the serrated length of the Apothecary’s chainsword. The mirrored finish of the weapon gleamed with clinical lethality. Reoch scooped the white dome of his half-helm from the rack and pulled it down over his bionics and scarred face-flesh. The half-helm gave a hydraulic sigh as it locked into place with the grille of its counterpart section.

  Captain Thane had had Brother Aquino request of the signum-tower array any reports of intercepted communications between enemy contingents or ground-hordes and the attack moon. There was naught forthcoming. The captain found this unsettling. Falling to the surface of Eidolica in brute clutches, descent survivors amassed in murderous throngs – before, like blood coagulating in the veins and organs of a corpse, throngs became mobs and mobs became clan swarms. The barbarians seemed to be guided by a common brutality or unthinking brotherhood. Without the aid of conventional communications, beasts that ordinarily would prey on one another with claw, fang and mongrel weaponry found each other across the black sands of Eidolica. They were drawn down on the Adeptus Astartes’ position, guided by some predacious, gestalt impulse.