Scars by Chris Wraight

Author:Chris Wraight [Wraight, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Omnibus
ISBN: 9781782512080
Publisher: BL Publishing
Published: 2013-10-23T07:00:00+00:00

The Word Bearers ship took a long time to subdue. None of the crew laid down to be taken prisoner – they just kept fighting until the end. When their lascarbines and autoguns gave out, they reached for curved knives. When those blunted, they clawed with their hands and teeth.

There was something particularly pathetic about watching a mortal try to dent ceramite with fingernails. Their fingers would shred almost instantly, leaving nothing on the armour’s surface but long stains.

For Xa’ven it had been a monotonous task, cleansing that ship. He had none of Henricos’s fury to drive him, just his old dedication to performing his duty diligently. He looked into the faces of those whom he had killed and saw ruined lives behind their eyes. Even as his bolter kicked or his gauntlets ripped, he wondered what must have taken place to fuel such zeal.

Hundreds died before the end. The bridge levels were cleansed first, after which the long purge down to the bilges began. Servitors, who would work on no matter who was in charge, were left alone. Senior mortal officers were taken alive and handed to Henricos, who fitted them with cortical dampeners. After that they were acquiescent enough, though the slack expressions on their faces were unsettling.

After Henricos had taken control of the Vorkaudar’s drive system, they blasted clear of the outpost on Miirl and back out into the void. The rendezvous with the Hesiod and the Sickle Moon passed off smoothly – the three ships made their way into the trackless depths and hung silently, invisible to all but the most powerful long-range augurs.

It would have been good to head back into the warp straight away, but the Stormseer needed answers. That, after all, was why they had waylaid the Vorkaudar in the first place.

So Xa’ven stood with Yesugei and Henricos in the bowels of the Word Bearers vessel. The vast chamber around them was perfectly circular, a vertical shaft that soared far above their heads. Words ran around the walls in unbroken screeds of flowing runes. Xa’ven could not read what they said. He doubted many could.

The light around them was lambent and uncomfortable, and it had no obvious source. Obsidian-black walls flickered as though licked by tongues of flame.

‘What makes this different to the others?’ asked Xa’ven.

‘It’s the biggest,’ said Henricos. ‘That makes it the most powerful.’

Yesugei nodded. His expression was bleak. ‘I can sense it.’

Xa’ven stared at the object of their attention. A giant machine rose up before them, over twenty metres high and more than thirty across. Its surfaces were covered in oily conduits and pipework. Grilles glowed with lurid shades – green, orange, blood-red. It hummed and growled, sending plumes of smoke spiralling up the shaft above, and organic splatters of dark liquid stained every opening. The floor around it was covered in bones. Whenever Xa’ven moved, he crushed another one.

‘Can you access?’ asked Yesugei.

Henricos looked up at the machine. Xa’ven could hear the whirr of his ocular implants running scans.

‘Maybe,’ he grunted.

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