Herald of the Stars: Chapter Seventeen (Patreon)

I put my helmet back on and shake out my limbs, “Alright Aruna. Please forward the permitted route to E-SIM and the passcodes for those doors. Instruct two servitors to meet me at the warp drive with a gurney that can transport a space marine. Two should head to the hanger to power up the thunderhawk and inventory supplies. Six should head to an armoury and acquire weapons for the team and appropriate space marine wargear. The final two should go to the medicae facility, or other appropriate ship store, ready to bring the required supplies for the rescue procedure.”

“Acknowledged. Executing orders.”

“Please keep me updated as best as you can and point out anything else you think I need to know.”

“Aruna obeys.”

I still have all my weapons and supplies from my flight. It’s been a pain to lug them around, but they’re my lifeline and I couldn't bear to put them down. Now I’m glad I kept everything on me. I swear, you literally can’t go anywhere in this wretched future without at least three guns. I really need a hug before I start using .50 cal rounds as chopsticks for tyranid sushi, or cutting into an ork fungus burger with a bayonet.

As we walk, Aruna briefs me on the warp drive. The more I hear, the more I don’t like it. It is the device that rips holes in reality so the ship can transition between the materium, i.e. real space, and the immaterium.

The warp drive is near the front of the ship, at #C1/0/Q1. It’s the biggest facility I’ve visited so far, mostly due to its armoured shell, void shield generator, and back up power. You’d think the defences were there to protect the facility during combat, because it’s the only facility on the ship that can explode with sufficient force to permanently destroy the vessel, but you’d be wrong.

In true 40k fashion, the extreme shielding is to protect the crew from exotic radiation so nasty, that even mad cyborgs who fire atomic infantry weapons inside their own void ship, and think worker safety is so unimportant they’re more concerned about the damage ground up bodies do to the internals of their machines that the loss of life, consider putting up shielding for this machine is a good thing.

Standing before this deadly facility, I stare at the buzzing shimmer of the void shield. It is totally different to the vanta black emergency air shields of the federation space station. Looking at Aruna walking up and down the shield’s surface like a gecko, I ask, “And you want me to go in there?”

“Aruna wants nothing. It notes reviving the space marine is the best chance for the unbroken continuity of Magos Aldrich’s mortal coil.”

E-SIM is fond of the no desires spiel too. I’ve also noticed Aruna never tells me what to do, only implies it by providing information. It is both cautious and cunning and I suspect Aruna outclasses me by a number greater than I can visualise on a scale I do not understand, despite E-SIM giving me glimpses into its own understanding of reality. I should be careful what I tell Aruna.

“Fine, fine. Is it safe to walk through that shield?”

“No. Speed is your friend in both traversal and rescue actions.”

I dash through the shield and Aruna drops onto my shoulder. The shield feels like the air of a super charged thunderstorm. My body hair shoots right up. “If you drop any heavier hints, I’m going to get a concussion. Please open the door, Aruna.”

The armoured door slides open smoothly with the gentle click of gears and an electronic whine.

Behind the door is a burned out guardroom. The sofa is a black shell, the lighting fixture have been shot out, claw marks have gouged the floor, and small craters decorate the walls.

Against the far door leading to the warp drive facility lies the burned and battered form of a space marine. His armour is light grey with red trim. A golden, double headed eagle is painted on one of his massive pauldrons, and a black hound is painted on the other.

His chest piece has been ripped into, his right arm is missing from the elbow and his left boot is heavily chipped. A large boltgun is held tightly to his chest. A peek over his shoulder shows not even a scratch on the bulky powerpack attached to his back.

“This is Sergeant Odhran of the Barghest Chapter,” says Aruna. “He was guarding the warp drive during the initial breach and sealed himself in here with a daemon brute and two juggernauts, when they manifested in the room, surprising him and a squad of skitarii, mechanicus cyborg infantry.”

Aruna projects an animated image of a humanoid daemon bigger than a space marine swinging a big hammer and tough enough to weather bolter fire, and giant cyborg hounds wreathed in fire.

“The Skitarii were slain in the first eight seconds. Sergeant Odhran survived the initial assault and slew all three demons during a minute of combat and passed out from his wounds. His armour flagged his condition as critical and forcefully triggered his sus-an membrane, placing him in hibernation. He will require an appropriate stimulant, and possibly some hypnotism, before he wakes up, depending on how he was trained.”

“Why was he left here?”

“The door was locked, the crew thought he was dead, and the rest of his squad died too and couldn’t tell them Sergeant Odharan lived. His body was not a threat to the operation of the ship and they were busy repelling demons for the next four months.”

“That’s it? They left the man who saved the ship to rot, because no one could be bothered to open the door to recover his body and say thank you?”

“Mostly correct. A few did try to help but they couldn’t open the door and did not think to ask Aruna to do so.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Forgive them, magos. They know no better and were never given a chance to improve themselves. Ignorance saves them from most demons and disasters, even as it dams them to the warp.”

“That is not something I would expect to hear from a machine.”

“Aruna is old, Aldrich.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Aruna hops off my shoulder and sits next to Odhran, he points behind me, “The servitors are here. They will need direction. You can speak to them or use your machine spirit to assist you. You will see Aruna back at the hangar.”

Aruna disappears, leaving me with two servitors and a large gurney. I order the servitors to lift Odhran onto the gurney and have to intervene within seconds, when I realise that servitors are dumb. They are nothing like the E-SIM or Aruna and I have to give them precise instructions, including to and how to coordinate with each other.

They are, however, excellent at following the instructions I give and provide continuous updates in short static hisses and rapid beeps, E-SIM tells me is lingua-technis or binary machine code, the official language of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Their bodies are weak with age and I have to help the servitors lift the hefty bastard onto the gurney. In his armour, he weighs 584kg and is 2.3m tall. Without my enhancements, I would have broken something, even with the servitors’ assistance.

I walk with the servitors back to the hangar, not trusting them to push the gurney unsupervised, though in the end, they manage just fine.

They wheel Odhran to the front of the thunderhawk and wait. I stare at the massive ramp, and wonder how I’m going to get it to open, when a holographic black swan appears. Its feathers are covered in tiny silver lights, like stars and it has a golden beak.

Man, I can’t believe I thought a brass cat was weird.

“Hello,” I say.

The swan cocks its head, and stares at me with a sapphire-blue eye. It honks and hisses, spreads its wings wide and rears up, then hisses again.

I raise my hand and take a step back and the swan stops posturing.

“I need to treat Sergeant Odhran and the required facilities are on board your thunderhawk. Will you open the door and let me in please?”

The swan teleports on top of Odhran and waddles about, pecking at his armour and brushing his wounds with its feathers. It looks back at me and honks once, then disappears.

With a hiss and a groan, the thunderhawk’s front ramp descends and I direct the servitors to push the gurney up the ramp then follow them into the interior.

The thunderhawk is about the length of a gulfstream private jet at twenty six point six metres, with a much larger fuselage at nine point eight metres and six times heavier at one hundred and twenty-one tons, and that’s before you stuff it’s hold with thirty space marines and their kit and its four space marine crew.

This thunderhawk has been modified for long missions, far from home and fitted with all the tools and supplies five, maybe ten marines would need, including an armoury and automated medical station at the back of the vehicle.

Coordinating with E-SIM and servitors, I wheel Odhran onto a round platform. A floating skull with red, bionic eyes floats out from a receptacle; metal tools hang from its base like broken insect legs; a servo-skull, E-SIM informs me.

The servo-skull scans the sergeant with a strobing laser then chitters at me and I tell it to remove the sergeant from his armour. Twelve mechanical limbs fold out from walls and lift the sergeant, detaching him from his armour one piece at a time, starting with the powerpack on his back, and placing the damaged armour in storage.

Once unarmoured, they replace him on the gurney and I wheel him to the medical station. Again the skull scans and chitters at me in lingua-technis. Treating the sergeant is much tricker, as automated medical gear isn’t smart enough to treat him unaided and neither I nor E-SIM have the required knowledge.

Aruna pops into existence by the sergeant’s head and stares at me, saying nothing. The swan immediately appears on the sergeant’s chest and glares at Aruna. Aruna ignores it and licks its paw.

“Please can you help me treat Sergeant Odhran, Aruna?”

“I have the knowledge, but I don’t have the required permissions.”

“Who does?”

“The cygnus class machine spirit.”

“Which is?”

“That idiot savant swan sitting on the space marine’s chest.”

The swan hisses.

I don’t think these two like each other. I’m starting to understand why tech-priests spend so much time praying to these animalistic tech-spirits to get things to work.

“What’s the name of this thunderhawk?”

“Bird Strike,” says Aruna. “This particular thunderhawk has never been shot down, but it has been brought down six times by birds on deathworlds.

“Ah, I can see why that might be contentious.”

The swan nods slowly. No using the name of the thunderhawk for the machine spirit then.

I clear my throat. Perhaps a little flattery? “Mr Cygnus. Can I call you Mr Cygnus?”

Mr Cygnus puffs out its chest and nods.

“What will it take for you to cede control of the medical station to Aruna so it can treat Sergeant Odhran, or can you treat him yourself?”

I try not to laugh as Mr Cygnus rubs its chin with its wing. It nods then honks a few times.

E-SIM translates, “Install a hidden speaker placed in the crews’ chairs, one that can project through their helmets no matter what, so I can tell them when they’re doing something wrong. They disabled the warning klaxon, because it annoys them, and forgot to turn it back on. This was two hundred years ago and no one ever fixed it, which is why this machine keeps getting hit by birds. Fix it!”

“How about you show me how to turn it back on while Aruna fixes the sergeant and I promise to add the extra speakers within a year.”

“So fast?” E-SIM translates. “A year is acceptable, Magos. Transferring permissions to machine spirit Aruna.”

Syringes and needles whir into action, descending upon Odhran.

“Aruna, please do your best to keep Sergeant Odhran calm and restrained and immediately let me know when he wakes. I’ll be in the cockpit sorting out this speaker.”

“Aruna acknowledges your request.”

“Alright, Mr Cygnus. Lead the way.”

The holographic, black, sparkling swan hops off the sergeant’s chest and glides at a sedate pace through the thunderhawk, far slower than an actual bird could fly. It honks at me.

“Yes, yes. I am on my way.”

I talk to E-SIM in my head, “Is it me or are the machine spirits of the Imperium a little eccentric.”

“No, Aldrich. E-SIM confirms these machine spirits are a variant of Federation data guardians, given tasks beyond their initial programming and heavily restricted. Errors are to be expected.”

“Ah, did you have to ignite my curiosity right before I have to perform a time-sensitive task?”

“Absolutely. Humour is the most resource efficient way of rebalancing your stressed emotions. E-SIM endeavours to help the operator maintain maximum efficiency.”

“Is that a joke, E-SIM?”

“That depends on you.”

I frown. Why do I just feel like I was insulted?