Hellforged by Ben Counter

Author:Ben Counter [Counter, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

'We are born naked and defenceless, save for a shield around our souls that all humans are honour bound to maintain. That veneer of disgust, that armour of hate, is all that stands between us and the endless death of corruption!'

- Daenyathos, The Artemesion Campaigns

ANOTHER SHIP OF the Fleet Minor exploded, a brief nuclear flash sucked dead by the cold of the void. Glittering debris rained out from the place where the troop ship had been. Among the debris were the charred bodies of the tech-guard who had been stationed on the ship.

Asclepian Alpha was trailing ruined hull plates attached by blackened strings of vented plasma, one side of its hull stripped down to the personnel decks by the massive ordnance fired at it by one of the necron cruisers. Half its crew were dead, dissolved away in the blast, or thrown out into space when the decks decompressed. A skeleton crew and the escort ship's machine-spirit were all that were keeping it going, and it shuddered along on a wayward course as if its mind was crumbling, along with its hull.

The Mechanicus fleet was down three major ships and a few dozen of the Fleet Minor. The only equipment salvaged from the Ferrous was that contained in Magos Vionel's body, and, without the factory ship, the Mechanicus fleet lacked the capacity to refine fuel and produce spare parts in an emergency. With every auxiliary ship that died, the fleet became a little blinder to the space around it.

Magos Crystavayne, transferred by shuttle from the Defence of Caelano Minoris, entered the bridge of the Antithesis. The specimen vials hanging at his waist like a soldier's grenades clinked as he walked, and the caduceus embroidered on the hem and cuffs of his robes designated his role as a magos biologis. The command throne at the pinnacle of the bridge was empty, so Crystavayne reported to the makeshift briefing area where Voar had presented what little intelligence he had on the necrons.

Several tech-priests and senior menials were working in the briefing area, poring over countless tactical maps with compasses and quills, or flicking the stones across abaci to perform long strings of calculations.

'Where is the archmagos?' asked Crystavayne.

One of the tech-priests looked up from his map, on which he had already inscribed a web of arcs and angles. 'The archmagos has retired to his laboratory.'

'His laboratory?' retorted Crystavayne. ' We are at battle stations!'

'Nevertheless, magos, he has left fleet command with the bridge. He has requested the magi assist in maintaining evasive manoeuvres.'

'This is intolerable.' Crystavayne waved an impatient hand, its fingers tipped with syringes and the tip of a retracted bone-saw glinting in his palm. He was about to say more, but he bit back his words. A magos criticising a superior was on shaky ground as it was, and doing so in front of an inferior would certainly result in punishment. 'Then I shall assist him in his laboratory.'

'The archmagos has requested that he remain undisturbed, and has refused in advance any offers of assistance.

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