Herald of the Stars: Chapter Twenty-Nine (Patreon)

The next morning, I sit on the bridge command throne and watch the screens. Quaani stands next to me. Both of us are smiling.

Landing on a planet is a mundane, though complex, procedure in the Imperium. I am incredibly excited. This ball of mixed ice and minerals represents survival and the chance for a better future.

Quaani points at the largest screen showing a top down view of the site. The image is meshed from multiple servo-skulls, floating human skulls fitted with sensor suits and small manipulators. The view reminds me of real time strategy games from my youth, a deliberate choice to help me better understand what is going on.

Two hundred servitors are working on the site, marching across the surface driving thick plasteel rods into the ice, with chunky equipment, then spraying insulation onto the ground and topping it with ferrocrete.

“What’s the surface for? Isn’t that ice really hard already?”

I nod, “While all the shuttles we have can repeatedly land wherever we need them too, each launch degrades the surface, which in turn ends up in the engines or jammed in other equipment. A better surface now means less maintenance later. The less we have to do, the more we can lift to orbit.”

Quaani chews his thumb, “That’s the last of our fuel and building supplies though.”

“Not really. Each launch returns with more fuel that it burns.” I point at a screen to my left. “See that one? Those servitors are cutting blocks of the frozen atmosphere and creating a spiral tunnel. It’s the same size as the corridors of the Distant Sun. We’re actually on top of a mountain, so we won’t have to dig more than a couple hundred metres. That will get us the fuel, chemicals, and rock we need to extend our operation and reinforce the tunnel.”

“OK.” Quaani’s shoulders drop and he takes his thumb from his mouth. “What’s that?” He points at a screen in the top left.

A rectangle, two hundred and twenty metres long and sixty wide, is being assembled in orbit from pre-fabricated pieces. It is integrated into a thin frame seven hundred and eighty metres long and three hundred and forty metres wide.

“That’s a gravity lift and a platform to hold all our materials. It’s directly above the ferrocrete foundation for our main spaceport on Mote. It will reduce how many flights we have to make to orbit, though the shuttles will still have to bring resources from around the planet to the spaceport. Reducing our reliance on the shuttles reduces our points of failure too.”

I cobbled the gravity lift together from the gravity plates in the subdecks in damaged parts of the ship. Traversing those parts of the ship during fast manoeuvres will be lethal until I can replace them.

“I get it. Why bother with flights though? Just get the rhino’s to tow the ore across the ice.”

Tapping my finger against the arm of the throne, I hum. “It will be a pain to set up the routes as that ice isn’t solid everywhere; we will need to reinforce it to take the weight. Unlike the launch platform and groundside depot, I don’t know if the labour roads require will save us time in the long run. It depends how close the sites are to the main port. It might be better to move the orbital platform if we have to move a lot of heavy materials from one location, but that would disrupt everything else. Roads are worth looking into though, Quaani. If it’s worth doing, I will.”

Quaani shrugs, “What about grav sleds or trains for the more distant mines?”

“It would compete with the materials for the mobile shipyard.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t be discouraged. It’s good to ask questions and I’m happy you’re trying to think of solutions. Give me your wildest idea!”

“Use the main lance to melt roads from orbit.”

I smirk, “Alright.”

“Wait, what? You actually agree? Can I fire it?”

“Yes and yes. Give me two months to alter the hardware and run some tests and we’ll see if your idea is viable.

Quaani pumps his fist, “Awesome! Thanks, Aldrich.”

“Don’t get your hopes up too high. We have two working lance batteries right now and the macro cannons are uncrewed; if I have to make too many modifications to one of the lances to get your idea to work we won’t be doing it as I don’t want to make our ship even more vulnerable. Who knows what might turn up after detecting our lance fire?”

“Aw, that’s boring.”

“I promise you’ll get to blow something up, even if it doesn’t involve firing the big guns.”

Quaani pouts, “Fine.”

I ruffle his hair and he knocks my hand away with a smile.

A message shuffles to the top of my queue, “The chop-shop monkey has found something good. Want to take a look?”

This particular machine spirit never speaks and all its messages are sent through a convoluted string servitors and other machine spirits in little animations. I call it Iwazaru but it ignores me when I do.

Shuddering, Quaani shakes his head, “I’ll stay here.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame you. Iwazaru’s facility is unpleasant. Message me if you need anything.”

“I will.”

With great distaste, I enter the crew reclamation facility. Even after two and a half years, the facility is still stuffed to the roof with frozen bodies, though now they are all in black bags, rather than stuck together, and all the corpses on the ship are here apart from the five space marines.

Thirty servitors labour over the conveyors dismantling bodies for their implants. The operation is incredibly delicate and has more in common with an archeological dig than a butchers.

Tiny lights flash instructions on the floor in lingua-technis and I follow their direction to a small workshop. There, a monkey sits on a servo skull in a white lab coat. A stethoscope hangs around its neck and a cleaver is embroidered on the back of its coat. Gold jewellery hangs from its neck and wrists while implants dangle from the harness over its chest and from its belt.

It waves its hands at a pair of servitors and his fingers flash in sign language. I notice the data stream he sends to the servitors, but I can’t track the one it sends to me showing its pseudo-holographic representation.

Without E-SIM I am certain it is almost impossible to communicate with it.

“Greetings, Magos! Thank you for visiting so promptly,” it signs.

It points at a work bench with a cloth over it a servitor reaches over and removes the cover with a dramatic flourish. Beneath are two gleaming mechadendrites, cable-like manipulators with fine tools one end that can be grafted to power armour or implanted into the user.

“Now, this one couldn’t find the exact origin of these two specimens and suspects they came from far beyond the Calixis sector. These mechadendrites are specialised in manipulating nanites and are used in the construction of master crafted bionics, the sort even an inquisitor has to call in a favour to requisition.

“Normally, they would be paired with a nanite forge, a delicate implant that replaces most of the chest cavity, to manufacture the nanties it uses, but E-SIM told this one you don’t need that part so it has been sent to your laboratory for analysis with two more of these ‘nanyte lathes’. Just give me the word and this one would be happy to install them for you.”

The machine spirit licks its bloodstained teeth.

“Thank you, machine-spirit, for these blessed gifts. Would it be possible to install these on some power armour?”

“They’re far too delicate to be used in battle, but they could be grafted onto a servo-harness if you absolutely have to.”

“Well, I don’t want to attach too many bits to myself. I have to wear so many hats that I need to swap my equipment frequently. It would be better to have multiple harnesses with different mechadendrite loadouts that I can attach to dragon scale power armour than to undergo surgery every time I need a new spanner.”

The machine-spirit scowls then moves its fingers rapidly, “Possessing multiple suits and harnesses is an inefficient distribution of resources. If you must, shove the nanyte lathe in an armoured compartment. You will need two ports on your back so you can feed the nanites from your body into the mechadendrites and some modifications to the power armour and harness for the same reason. This one will present E-SIM with the data you require.”

“Wonderful. Please add the data from all the armour and servo-harnesses you have recovered with your recommendations.”

“This one obeys.”

“How goes the rest of your work?”

“Thirty nine thousand two hundred and fifty-four bodies remain. This one estimates five years and two months of labour are required to recycle the crew.”

I frown, “That would mean we are missing forty percent of the bodies from the original crew, servitor, and skitarii complement.”

“The fighting rendered many of the bodies and their implants below recovery thresholds. Some were also lost on the federation station.”

“You’re not hiding bits for your collection are you?”

“This one would never!” The machine-spirit waves its hands wildly. “Not even scrap code could force this one to hide the labours of the Omnissiah.”

“Well it doesn’t matter. I’ll find all the secrets when the Distant Sun is refitted.”

The machine-spirit snorts.

“Thank you for your dedication. Please let me know if you find anything else interesting.”

“Request logged.”

I leave the crew reclamation and return to the bridge. Quaani has snagged my throne, though it is inert to him. I push him to the side so I can still use the throne, but don’t kick him off. Even then, there is still plenty of space for the both of us.

Over the next week, the launch pad comes together and the servitors dig down to the mountain top. With the foundations in place, I travel with Quaani to the surface on the thunderhawk with mining equipment and the other machinery we require to move and refine resources.

The ramp descends and I step onto a new planet for the first time. I pump my fist and the mechadendrites on my servo-harness mimic me. My dragon scale armour, a light-weight power armour, protects me from the unforgiving void. I pat my hellfire pistol and smile.

I had to add a power pack to its back as I don’t have a potentia coil, an advanced magneto-hydrodynamic generator implant, that powers mechanicus gear and implants for most tech-priests. Without it, I’ll only get twelve hours from the suit.

I don’t have a cyber mantle either, a series of ports and supports implanted to the chest and spine that is normally required to interface with dragon scale armour and many other mechanicus devices. E-SIM can emulate one though using the electoos beneath my skin and the machine integration module in my skull

“You’re being silly,” says Quaani over the vox. He clatters down the ramp dressed in a custom pressure carapace, a black, armoured space suit. A small jump pack is strapped to his back and a laspistol is holstered to his chest. He grips a force stave, a weapon for psykers, in both hands.

“This is my first trip to another planet, why wouldn’t I be excited?”

“Who’d have thought the mighty Magos Explorator was a feudal world reject.” Quaani looks up at the empty sky and shudders.

“I’m from a,” I pause, “civilised world. At least, it was one when I left.”

“Really? Which one?”

“That’s a secret.”

“It’s a dumb secret.”

I shrug and pat the frame of the thunderhawk, “Thank you for the lift, Mr Cygnus.”

We step away from the thunderhawk and walk to the tunnel entrance at the edge of the ferrocrete platform. Arvus lighters descend and join the thunderhawk. Servitors spill out of them and unload heavy equipment.

“Let’s check out the tunnel,” I say, “then we’ll have landed on a new planet and climbed the tallest mountain on it in one day.”

“OK.”

We descend into the tunnel. The deeper we get, the slower Quaani becomes.

“What’s the matter?”

As the cutting face becomes visible, Quaani halts. The servitors do too. Over a hundred turn in sync to face us. A great metaphysical weight presses down on us. Wisps of smoke and shadow rise from the suited servitors forming horns on their helmets, each one a different shape from curls to antlers, and rough or sleek.

Quaani grabs his head and screams. His staff tumbles to the floor.

A thousand overlapping voices force themselves upon my mind.

“Hello, Aldrich. It was thoughtful of you to drop by.”