Iron Warriors 4 - Heraclitus effect by Warhammer

Author:Warhammer [Warhammer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE IMPERIAL BATTLESHIP sailed away from the Warbreed, its enormous bulk a slab of bristling, ancient metal as it plied its stately course through the stars, oblivious to the enemy that passed beneath it. Its name was a mystery, but the threat it represented should any of its surveyors, auspex or escorts discover them was very real indeed.

Ever since Cycerin had brought the ship through the gates of the empyrean, they had followed a stuttering course towards their target, avoiding patrol flotillas, system monitors and listening posts scattered throughout the system.

Now the image of the planet filled the viewing bay, a frigid white orb with ugly blotches of unnatural colour spread over its surface like liver spots on the skull of a withered old man. Honsou neither knew nor cared for its name. That it was known and valued by Ventris was all that mattered.

Honsou smiled as he watched the image of the bat-deship recede on the plotting table, his fear that the ship would discover them diminishing along with its engine signature. The strategium of the Warbreed was subdued, as though their Imperial enemies might somehow hear them from so far away.

They’ve missed us!’ breathed Cadaras Grendel, gripping the edge of the plotting table with white knuckled hands. ‘I don’t believe it…’

Honsou nodded and said, That was the last one. We’re inside their patrol ring now.’

Grendel smiled a predator’s grin and shook his head in disbelieving amusement. ‘Now all we have to do is worry about the planetary monitor ships. All it’ll take is one of them to get so much as a sniff of us and we’re dead.’

That’s why we have our guide,’ said Honsou, nodding towards the strategium’s prow.

Adept Cycerin stood before his iron lectern as always, his hands clasped either side of the newborn’s head, who knelt with his back to the monstrously transformed magos. Ardaric Vaanes stood a little to one side of the lectern, grimacing in disgust at the sight of the organic plugs Cycerin’s hands had become as they slithered within the back of the newborn’s skull.

The newborn’s skin rippled with a grotesque undulant motion as the bio-dendrites rooted around in his brain for the information they needed to survive this journey. His eyes fluttered behind tightly squeezed lids and his lips moved in a soundless mantra.

‘Does that hurt it?’ wondered Grendel.

‘Does it matter?’ countered Honsou. Ventris was here and he knows the deployment protocols of the ships and that means the newborn knows them. Maybe not consciously, but the deployments, the Veritas codes, everything. They1 re all in there. We need that if we’re to get close enough to do what we planned.’

True enough,’ agreed Grendel. Tm all for whatever gets us out of here in one piece.’

‘Likewise,’ said Honsou. Though a little risk is never a bad thing, eh?’

‘Sometimes I think you like risk too much.’

Honsou nodded and said, ‘You might be right. I remember Obax Zakayo said the same thing when we attacked the artillery battery in Berossus’s camp.’

‘Sensible man,’ said Grendel.

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