Dawn of Fire : Avenging Son by Guy Haley

Author:Guy Haley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-10T07:24:46+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

REBIRTH

METHALON FOG

AREIOS AWAKES

Space around the Zar Quaesitor was alive with ships. As Vitrian Messinius’ transport approached, shuttlecraft were exiting the Ark Mechanicus in long streams, bearing away Cawl’s new-made technological wonders to destinations all over the gathering fleets. He was accepted without delay, though not welcomed. Once aboard he inloaded the contents of the dataslate Guilliman had given him to his battleplate, and let it guide him through the ship.

The Zar Quaesitor was so huge, and so crammed full of unexpected passages and spaces that it would have been easy to lose his way to his destination. He took a grav-train deep into the immense ship, passing columns of armoured containers heading out on the opposite track, with long runs of flatbed trucks carrying tanks, attack craft, and open racks bearing weapons and armour. Frames with a hundred Primaris suspension pods apiece raced by in a blur.

When he alighted, he saw awoken units trooping by. All these were of the bloodline of Dorn, and wore the Imperial Fists livery and heraldry, albeit with novel unit markings, and over the clenched fist of the ancient Legion was painted a pale grey chevron. Each group was at company strength, fully armed and armoured, led by servo-skulls, and followed by servitor-piloted supply trains. The sons of Dorn were passing through gates guarded by a Knight of House Taranis, but no matter how many marched under its skull-faced vigil, there seemed to be more to come. Klaxons rang every other second, while booming vox-announcements echoed down enormous transitways.

He left the train at a major nexus. Winding his way through the crowds, Messinius followed the cartolith away from the main arteries of the vessel, and into its cargo holds, where giant haulers were being loaded by lifter trucks, and personnel of the Departmento Munitorum, Guilliman’s new Logisticarum and the Adeptus Mechanicus shouted, swore and hurried to get their precious cargo off to war. As he went deeper, he passed into the deserted stretches, where immense holds were voided of everything. His map sent him through one of the great stasis chambers. Cargo lifters sat idle. Loading bay doors were closed. Only plugs in the floor and ceiling, and loops of cabling neatly tied marked where thousands of suspension pods had stood. Methalon fog from emptied caskets drifted over the decking, rising as high as Messinius’ breastplate. He pushed through it, forcing the vapours into curling waves.

At the centre of the hold, the action of the Zar Quaesitor’s atmospheric circulation systems gathered the fog into huge banks. Messinius’ armour warned him of dangerous dips in temperature. A mortal human would have succumbed to hypothermia in minutes there. Cold gripped his ceramite, seeping inwards to chill his flesh. Frost, first of water vapour, then of gas frozen out of the ship’s air mix, gathered on his battleplate, and his reactor rumbled into a higher output mode. The fog rose high over his head, forcing him to rely solely on his auto-senses. His heart rates rose. Against his will, his heightened senses strained, anticipating attack at any moment.

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