Текст книги "Deliverance Lost"

Автор книги: Гэв Торп

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

The Emperor stood, seeming diminished in size, but not presence, by the removal of his armour. Particles churned as smoke, forming insubstantial steps that allowed the Emperor to descend as effortlessly as a normal man walks down a flight of stairs.

The Emperor reached out a hand and Corax felt hot fingers upon his brow. Energy flowed through the primarch, knitting his shattered bones, stemming his pouring blood, healing wounded muscles and organs. The primarch gasped, filled with love and adoration.

‘Stand.’ Corax did as the Emperor commanded, his strength restored.

‘I am sorry, father,’ said Corax, dropping to his knees once more. ‘I know that your labours are important, but I have to speak with you.’

‘Of course you do, Corvus,’ said the Emperor. The majesty and power had gone from his voice, leaving only a tone of respect and admiration. ‘You have endured much to come here.’

Corax felt a hand on his arm and he straightened under the Emperor’s guidance. His father appeared less majestic, the light dimming beneath his skin, his face taking on the features of a normal man with brown eyes while long, dark hair flowed from his scalp.

‘Is this your true face?’ asked Corax.

‘I have no such thing,’ replied the Emperor. ‘I have worn a million faces over the millennia, according to need or whim.’

‘I remember this one,’ said Corax, dimly recalling a dream he had glimpsed when overcome by his wounds in the crashing Thunderhawk. ‘This was how you appeared to me when I was born within my pod.’

‘Yes, it is strange that you should remember that,’ said the Emperor. His expression became sterner. ‘What do you wish to ask of me, my son?’

‘The Raven Guard verge on being a spent force, but I would rebuild them if I had the chance,’ said Corax. ‘Yet I cannot spare a warrior from the fighting to come, nor the time to raise up a new generation of the Legion. I seek your permission to launch attacks against the traitors, to mark our final passing in the glory of battle.’

‘You wish to sacrifice your Legion?’ The Emperor seemed genuinely surprised. ‘In what cause?’

‘I do not do it out of woe but necessity,’ explained Corax. ‘I must atone for the failure at Isstvan, for it will tear me apart as surely as my wounds did, if allowed to fester in my heart. Forgive me, but I cannot defend Terra, idly awaiting my fate to come to me.’

The Emperor did not reply for some time, his brow creased slightly with deep thought. Corax waited patiently, eyes fixed to the Emperor’s face.

‘I concur,’ the Master of Mankind said eventually. ‘It is in your nature to cry havoc and wreak the same upon your foes. Yet there is no need for sacrifice. I am reluctant, but you have my trust, Corvus. I will grant you a gift, a very precious gift.’

Once more the Emperor reached out his hand and laid it upon Corax’s head.

FOR AN ETERNITY Corax was overwhelmed by the mind of the Emperor. An existence that had spanned more than thirty millennia tried to crowd into the primarch’s thoughts, sending pain searing through him.

In a moment the pain had ceased, the imprint upon his memories a shard of what had come before, the tiniest fraction of the Emperor’s being. Still reeling from the psychic onslaught, Corax wondered if this was how the astrotelepaths felt during the Soul Binding, their minds conjoined with the psychic might of the Emperor.

Flashes of new memories coursed through his thoughts, blocking out all other sensation, a succession of images burnt into his psyche. The primarch’s body quaked with the sensation, rebelling against the patterns and images thrust into his brain.

He could smell the tang of cleansing fluids, and hear the buzz of machines and the hiss of respiration devices. Corax glimpsed metal cylinders with glass viewplates, arranged in a circle at the heart of a clinically sterile chamber, a maze of wires and pumps and tubes splaying from each steel sarcophagus.

The primarch did not just see the scene, he was part of it, speaking to a white-coated technician in a language he did not understand. There were other orderlies, with cloth face masks and tight hoods drawn over their heads, their hands gloved in white.

Corax walked amongst the incubators, noting at a glance the digital displays plugged into each, satisfied with the life signs beeping and chiming from each device. He felt enormous satisfaction.

There was still much to do. The physical bodies were being nourished, their superhuman forms each developing over the genetic matrix inlaid inside each chamber. They were only empty shells though, and the greatest part of the project was yet to come. Their nascent brains were ripe for the template integration.

Even as he had these thoughts, Corax did not understand them. More arcane and technical phrases came to him, their meaning lost in the translation to his mind. Yet for all their complexity, the primarch felt on the verge of recognition.

Like his brothers, Corax’s intellect was as enhanced as his body and his brain was a vast repository of knowledge, both military and technical. There was something new in there as well, placed at the same time as the memories. In his mind’s eye he saw genetic splicing and hybridisation calculations, and understood now that the Mendelian eukaryotic genesis formula was the first ever successfully cloned human gene-code.

He understood the mechanics behind his own creation and marvelled at the ingenuity of the mind that had conceived of them. There were areas that were left blank though, intentionally he assumed. Details of the parts of the Emperor’s own genetic strand that were employed in the creation of the primarchs. Obviously the Emperor did not trust Corax that much.

There were other memories too: the dismantling of the laboratory after the strange warp phenomena that had swept away the incubators and scattered them across the galaxy. Corax saw it being reassembled in another place, far from prying eyes.

He knew where that place was.

CORAX REALISED HIS eyes were closed and opened them. The Emperor was watching him, waiting patiently for his son to explore the gift he had given him.

‘You have given me the secrets of the primarch project?’ said Corax, his voice a whisper of amazement.

‘The parts that were relevant to the creation of the Legions, yes,’ said the Emperor. He did not smile. ‘I must return to the webway, my absence will be sorely missed. That is all the help I can offer you.’

‘The webway?’

‘A portal into the warp, of sorts,’ said the Emperor. ‘This is my great endeavour. Beyond the veil of reality, the forces of the Imperium wage war with a foe just as deadly as the Legions of Horus. Daemons.’

Corax knew the word, but did not understand why the Emperor had used it.

‘Daemons?’ said Corax. ‘Insubstantial creatures of nightmare? I thought they were a fiction.’

‘No, in truth they do exist,’ said the Emperor. ‘The warp, the other-realm we use to travel, is their home, their world. Horus’s treachery is greater than you imagine. He has aligned himself to the powers of the warp, the so-called “Gods of Chaos”. The daemons are now his allies and they seek to breach the Imperial Palace from within. My warriors fight to hold back the incursion, lest Terra be overrun with a tide of Chaos.’

‘I still do not understand,’ admitted Corax.

‘You do not have to,’ said the Emperor. ‘Know only that my time is scarce and my power bent towards securing our ultimate victory over these immaterial foes. It is to you, and your brothers who have remained true to their oaths, that the physical defence of the Imperium must fall. I have shown you the way by which the Raven Guard might rise from the ashes of their destruction and again fight for mankind.’

‘It is an incredible gift,’ said Corax, ‘but even with this I am not sure what you intend for me to do.’

‘I have already informed Malcador of my intent and he gathers such aides and companions as you will need to recover the gene-tech,’ said the Emperor. ‘You asked me for help, but now you must help yourself. Rebuild the Raven Guard. Strike down the traitors and let them know that my will shall still be done.’

‘Yes, I shall,’ said Corax, bowing his head and lowering to one knee. ‘The Raven Guard will rise from the grave of defeat and bring you victory.’

‘I not only give you the gift of these memories and this technology, I place upon you the burden of its protection. You will have the power to create armies as I once did, and that in itself would be reason enough to jealously guard its existence. More than that, the gene-store contains the means to destroy what it created. That which I bound within the fibre of every Space Marine can be undone, unravelling their strength and purpose at a stroke.’

‘I understand,’ said Corax. ‘I will defend it with my life.’

‘No, you must swear more than that, Corvus,’ said the Emperor, his voice becoming aggressive, his words sending a surge of energy through Corax. ‘Swear to me that should our enemies learn of its existence, you will destroy it, and everything created by it. It is too dangerous to keep if there is even the possibility that Horus might take it. With its power he could unleash devastation even greater than you can imagine, and raise up such a force that no defence Rogal might build could withstand it. Swear that oath to me.’

‘I swear, as your son and servant,’ said Corax, trembling with the ferocity of the Emperor’s demanding voice.

‘Even if it means the destruction of the Raven Guard and all that you have striven to build?’ The Emperor’s words were like an implacable storm, pushing into Corax’s mind, demanding obedience.

‘Even so.’

The Emperor turned away and walked back towards the Golden Throne. The light consumed him once more, burning through his flesh, his robes forming the hard edges of armour. He stopped just before the throne and looked back at Corax.

‘One other thing, my son,’ he said, calmly and slowly. ‘The gene-tech is protected. Only I can deactivate the defences in person, but I cannot spare the time away from this place to do so. I am sure with the knowledge I have given to you that you will find a way through.’

Corax said nothing as an aura of golden light surrounded the Emperor, lifting him up to the seat of the Golden Throne. The Master of Mankind grew in stature once more, as armoured plates slid into place and his form was again encased in the golden aegis that Corax had seen on many battlefields.

The Emperor closed his eyes and with a pulse of energy that rocked the whole chamber, sparks flew and psychic energy danced, embroiling the seated figure in a storm of power.

CORAX CAME TO his senses, lying on a marbled floor with Dorn and Malcador bent over him, still not sure he believed what had passed. The memories were there, embedded in his brain, like a vault of treasures to be unlocked, and he clung to them as proof of the Emperor’s will.

‘Thank you, father,’ Corax said. He looked up at Malcador, who nodded in understanding.

‘You have been set a difficult task, Corax,’ said the Sigillite. ‘We should begin your preparations.’

STEAM AND OTHER vapours filled the sub-level chamber with distorting clouds and whorls of gas. The thump of heavy machinery made the whole basement shudder every few seconds, setting the cable bundles on the wall rattling and sending the glow-globes circling in eccentric orbits about their hanging wires.

It was certainly not the most pleasant location for a lair, and by far one of the noisiest Omegon had ever inhabited, but it served its purpose well. Situated below the forges of the Wellmetal district of Kiavahr’s largest city, Nabrik, the four adjoining rooms occupied by the primarch of the Alpha Legion were at the heart of the old industrial complex from which the technocrats had ruled the world before the coming of the Emperor.

These days the furnace rooms and manufactories bore the symbols of the Mechanicum of Mars, but for thousands of years before their coming, Kiavahr had been a powerhouse of weapons manufacture and shipbuilding. The old tech-guilds had divided their planet’s resources between them and each taken to themselves rulership of Kiavahr, trading very successfully with the few neighbouring systems that had been within reach during Old Night.

It had been a blow to the prestige of the tech-guild when Corax had led the rebellion of the mining colony of Lycaeus, Kiavahr’s largest moon; further insult had been added to this gratuitous injury when the Emperor had arrived and the tech-guilds had been sworn in as members of the Imperium. Had they known then that the Martians would dismantle their monopoly and re-order their society, the tech-guilds might have resisted further.

Omegon was pleased that they had not fought to the last. Enough of them remained alive, kept from death over the decades by inhuman augmentations and anti-ageing narcotics – many of them now illegal under the regime of the Mechanicum – that he had a ready core of resentment from which to recruit. He had been here for less than a hundred days and already he had established contact with three of the surviving tech-guild overseers. Progress had been swift, their agreement to cooperate in the liberation of Kiavahr quickly accomplished.

With the network of the Alpha Legion spreading across the forge-world, both in terms of Omegon’s own operatives and the agents of the tech-guilds, he was confident that the remaining five houses of the old rulers, those who had some surviving scion hidden away amongst the smoke and flames of the irradiated wastelands, would soon add their support.

Omegon had little interest in the freeing of Kiavahr from the Emperor’s clutches, except insomuch as it would inconvenience his enemies and prove to be the downfall of Corax. Though the Kiavahrans measured themselves amongst the highest in terms of technical accomplishment, they were in truth of only average ability and output in comparison to many of the Mechanicum’s forge-worlds. The primarch was ever quick to further inflate the bloated self-esteem of the tech-guilders though, and with promises and veiled assertions he had led them to believe that once they had thrown off the yoke of Imperial tyranny – he had used that phrase so often of late – the Kiavahrans would be the equal of Mars.

Sitting beneath a scalding hot pipe, nestled between a reactor feed core and a colossal drive shaft, Omegon opened up a tripod on the bare floor in front of him and set upon it a small communications device about the size of his fist.

He keyed in a sequence of frequency ciphers from memory – cracking the security protocols of the Mechanicum’s on-world communications network had taken him five whole days of calculations – and began to set up the signal. He routed the transmission through fifteen different sub-stations, bounced the carrier wave from two orbiting stations, established three dead-end backtrace locations, including one on Deliverance for his own amusement, and finally entered his personal command code check.

As Omegon worked, he felt a measure of contentment. While he had no preference regarding the existence or extinction of Corax and his Legion in themselves, their removal, and the securing of the Terran tech which the Cabal had assured they would come in possession of, would be a step closer towards achieving the aim of the twin primarchs. If Horus were to be given the greatest chance of success, the Emperor had to be isolated. In their death, the Raven Guard would provide further means for that to be accomplished.

Satisfied that only the most diligent search would indicate he was hijacking the constant datastream that criss-crossed the Mechanicum’s new estate, Omegon finally punched in the frequency address of Iyadine Nethri, his contact within the White Iron guild.

The communicator crackled for a while and then an affirmative beep told the primarch that the connection had been established. His eyes went to the small schematic readout on the front of the communicator, assuring himself that the transmission was free from monitoring. He pressed the acceptance key.

‘Councillor Effrit, I was expecting contact earlier.’ Nethri’s voice was muffled from the many layers of compression and encryption through which the transmission was being squeezed. ‘I hope that nothing is amiss.’

‘All is well,’ replied Omegon. His voice as it would emerge at the other end of the line would be nothing like his own, modulated and warped several times over to eradicate any trace of his identity. ‘I had to confirm certain orders and agreements.’

Omegon had not had to do any such thing, but was masquerading as an intermediary rather than the orchestrator of this particular coup-in-waiting.

‘We are ready to make our report to the revolutionary council,’ said Nethri.

‘Go ahead,’ said Omegon, smiling. He had created three different cells, one for each of the guilds already sworn to his cause, and while he waited, intelligence from the Alpha Legionnaires hidden in the Raven Guard had sent them on all manner of inconsequential missions and information-gathering expeditions. It was good to keep them occupied and distracted, and also necessary to test their competence and security procedures. So far his operatives had done well, and the Kiavahran authorities had no reason to suspect anything was wrong with their world.

‘The storage bays at Pharsalika have been emptied of their usual promethium consignments. We are investigating to what purpose. Coldron Diaminex has been promoted to Vice-Regent of the Augmetical Society. He was one of the most vocal political opponents of the Imperium before compliance.’

Omegon continued to listen as more pointless trivia was rambled out to him by Nethri, until one particular piece of information piqued his curiosity.

‘Please repeat that last section,’ he said.

‘Output from manufactorum thirty-eight has been re-routed to manufactorum twenty-six, councillor,’ Nethri said again.

‘Confirmed,’ said Omegon. Manufactorum thirty-eight had been employed since the coming of the Raven Guard in the construction of power armour energy conduits. That the factory had ceased production was intriguing, and ran counter to Omegon’s expectation. He would have thought that all elements of armour production would have increased since the massacre, but the opposite was proving true. For the last eighteen days, production was being scaled down.

‘Any reason given as to why this has happened?’ he asked.

‘We are not sure, councillor. There has been an increase in astrotelepathic traffic through the Cortex Spire, and I have heard gossip that a new armour design is being awaited.’

‘Understood,’ said Omegon. He checked the passive interference monitor again. There was still no sign the transmission had been detected. The primarch could not bring himself to listen to the rest of the agent’s interminable report and so asked for the only piece of information he considered pertinent. ‘What news of the Raven Guard? Is there any sign of Corax?’

‘There is no news concerning the usurper, councillor,’ replied Nethri. ‘Current reports show only those ships and personnel previously communicated to you. We have not heard of anything that would suggest when, or if, he intends or is able to return.’

‘Very well. Please submit the rest of your report by standard data packet. Ending transmission.’

He cut the link and set about dismantling the maze of communications loops and checks he had erected. While he did this, he used his Legion transmitter to contact Verson. The operative answered within moments.

‘We need an operative inside manufactorum thirty-eight,’ he said.

‘Understood,’ replied Verson. ‘I’ll have someone in place by moonfall.’

There was no need to say anything further and the communicator buzzed and fell silent.

Having completed his shut-down, Omegon dismantled the communicator and stowed it in a hip-sack that he slung onto his belt as he stood. He wore the red robes of a Mechanicum acolyte, and put on a silver and pearl mask to conceal his face before pulling up the gold-trimmed hood. Amongst a populace that contained vat-grown slaves, half-machine servitors and the augmetically-enchanced, Omegon’s size would not be worthy of remark. Even so, when forced to move openly, he travelled only during the ’tween-shift hours and through the areas of least traffic. It was better to be certain than sorry.

It was time to quit his uncomfortable environs and move on to the next safe area. Two days was long enough to be staying in one place. He already had his next location in mind.