Planetkill (Warhammer 40,000) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Phobos Worked in Adamant

Robey Jenkins

The darkness in the deep stacks had a peculiarly tangible quality, Ghuul thought as he double-checked the holographic map. Whilst not even a glimmer of light could be detected by his image intensifiers, there was a sense that the memory of light was contained in the oddly-proportioned columns of the oldest stacks. So when the sweeping searchlights of the servitor team touched one, it seemed to glow the light back at them for a moment, its ragged outline momentarily visible, even after the searchlight had moved on.

Ghuul could imagine that it was the unspeakable power of the ancient data that lurked in the silicon hearts of the stacks that made them glow. The Nine had given him leave to explore the ancient alien relics only under sufferance. They were desperate and it was he, Ghuul, who held the key to saving them and everything on Celare Artem. The Planet Killer was coming, and if Ghuul failed then they would all die.

‘Movement,’ reported Moritz, bent over her motion detector.

‘Where?’ Ghuul whispered back, gesturing the servitors to stillness.

‘Straight ahead,’ replied Moritz, her pointing hand outlined in the glow from the auspex’s screen. ‘Stand back, archmagos. This is why you brought me, after all.’

Ghuul stepped aside as Moritz stowed her auspex and unslung the power axe from across her shoulders. The perfectly-tuned cutting blade glowed faintly in the dark. Moritz’s reputation in the skitarii – the Tech-Guard of Celare Artem – was built on a bloody foundation as one of the planet’s premiere duellists; it was why Ghuul liked her so much. Beside her marched a trio of unusually light-footed combat servitors, their arms swinging in unnatural arcs from the pendulum weight of the razor-sharp blades that stood in place of each hand.

Even as Ghuul was ordering his own guardian servitors into a defensive ring, Moritz cried out.

‘It’s here!’

Flashing into the path of the nearest searchlight beam, the ancient construct pounced with a vicious, white-noise snarl. It was arachnid in concept: as large as a man, with four slender limbs on each side. But the delicacy was an illusion as the front pair stabbed with lightning-swiftness through the thick chest armour of the first of the servitors. A second was swiping at the automaton’s back legs – too late! The spider-construct had leapt up and off the shoulders of its first victim to disappear soundlessly into the blackness above.

The remaining two combat servitors stood, arms raised in a defensive posture, without any sign of having noticed the sudden and brutal demise of their companion. Their mistress circled the dimly-lit space between the stacks, her weapon held ready. Ghuul could see the nervousness in her practised steps. Even inside his ring of bodyguards, he felt it too.

In an instant, all stillness ceased as the construct shot out from a fresh angle, arcing over Ghuul’s head to decapitate a second servitor. But Moritz had anticipated the creature’s arc of descent, sweeping her power axe up into an elegant sweep that sliced the creature neatly in two across its thorax.

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