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Zeta-0-92, formerly a captain in the ranger corps of the Phaethontis-ϕ-23 Martian Legion, more recently in command of a clade of Serberys Raider scout cavalry, and most recently detached in disgrace to a newly-minted tech adept, was unexpectedly busy.
He and his master - she hated when he called her that, but protocols had thus far failed to produce a suitable alternative - had returned from an assignment gone both worse and immeasurably better than predicted, and plunged immediately into the deep, complex pool of politics and processing. His master had been cross-examined and tested ruthlessly while archives across Mars were scoured for any data that matched the precious STC patterns she had found. The data all agreed: the patterns were genuine and new.
That had been over a year ago.
The Mechanicus as an organization was old, older even than the Imperium itself, and steeped in tradition and ritual. Tradition required that the discoverer of any STC, even a fragment, was to be granted all honors and rewards worthy of the sacred find. Even a lowly adept too new to have a proper position within the cult hierarchy.
Magos Technicus Avidia Bato went on the record as obtaining two complete STCs, and on the unofficial record as the fastest rank progression the forge at Argyre Distal had seen in centuries. As buried as she was in the technical processes required of her, she failed to perceive a new danger. So Zeta-0-92, callsign Zee, addressed the issue himself.
The first incident was a not uncommon accident. A servitor modified for heavy lift capacity broke away from its projected route and speed constraints, and nearly ran them off of a walkway. The metal grating shook under their feet as the hulking mass of flesh and metal bore down on them, wielding a crate like a battering ram. Zee’s optics flashed over it, presenting firing patterns and analysis. Crate provides cover, unknown contents. Only targets are legs and top of the head. Unit is modified for lift, but unarmored. He whipped his head around, back down the walkway. Distance to next junction, eighteen-point-three meters. At magos’ known speed, two-point-seven-four seconds to reach. Servitor closing, estimated speed of seven-point-one meters per second. Acceptable.
“To the next crossing, quickly,” he said, keeping his eyes on the servitor. Avidia’s footsteps echoed down the mesh behind him and he followed. The servitor was moving faster than it should have been able to, but its sheer mass slowed it down. They stepped off onto the adjoining walkway, Zee staying between his master and the rogue unit, and watched as it cannoned past them, clanging down the walk.
“That was odd,” Avidia said, frowning after it. “The speed governors shouldn’t have failed like that.”
“It’s worse,” Zee said, optics cycling as the servitor clumsily slowed and turned, before coming back toward them at speed. “Permission to eliminate?”
“Granted, it can always be rebuilt.”
A shot from his galvanic rifle shattered the construct’s knee joint, pitching it forward on top of the crate. With the back of its head and neck exposed, his next shot blew out the bundle of cables and the control unit leading from the back of the skull. The servitor went slack as power shut down, sparks gently wafting from the socket.
Zee slung his rifle back over his shoulder, “It seems we require an alternate route.”
A further series of odd but explicable events plagued their next few months. Zee cataloged them all, keeping a tally behind impassive optics. Some were broad problems, such as damage causing a major water line to be contaminated, or the poorly-timed pulse from a power satellite, resulting in the high energy beam missing the collection dish and sweeping across their habstack of the vast forge. No one was killed, by the Omnissiah’s grace, but there were flash burns and blown circuitry everywhere.
Others were more…targeted. A shuttle carrying them and only them, piloted by a servitor, misidentified itself and was nearly shot down by automatic defensive weapons. Another time, automatic sensors had not detected them, thus failing to engage safety measures and sealing them in with a waking forge. That one Avidia had addressed, her incredible rapport with machine spirits bypassing the fault and getting them out.
All things that could be explained by simple failures or mistakes, if an unusual number of them.
The latest event, however, was different. Zee watched the corridor impassively. The faint flickering of the lights seemed random, but the pattern repeated every eighteen minutes. He turned his head, scanning both directions, but keeping an eye on a moving shadow that shouldn’t be there.
His hood, lined with a thin, conductive foil material, amplified incoming sounds and funneled them to his augmented aural receptors. Under the distant din of industry, the buzz of the lights, and the hiss of the air systems, he heard the faintest of shushing sounds, the sound of muffled footsteps on metal. He turned his head again, following the same pattern of movements he had maintained for the past three-point-eight hours. The shadow was closer, standing out against the regular flicker of the lights. His optics absorbed the image, automatically processing it as he turned again.
A shape resolved, slowly, small and hunched. Its shape bore no resemblance to the stealth units of the skitarii, but the careful, furtive movements matched. His cortical processors continued working on the image, adding layers every time his optics slid over it. The shape of a limb, the profile of a head turning to look over the shoulder, the faintest hint of Martian red, he slowly built up a picture of his quarry .
Such a hunter couldn’t be allowed to roam the forge, masking its signals. He detected no data streams from it, no idents, nothing. And it had spent the last two-point-four hours creeping toward him where he stood guard over his master’s latest meeting. The door behind him was sealed; the hunter couldn’t hope to get inside unnoticed. But it was perfectly placed for an ambush.
Zee considered his options. He knew the location and general shape of the hunter, but lacked the clarity for a guaranteed kill shot. There was no knowing what modifications it had, and Zee himself had been shot in the head and survived, so no assumptions could be made. He couldn’t allow it to close, and risk harm to Avidia, but once he fired on it, if he failed to kill it, it would come back with more caution. Another half an hour of collecting data, and the hunter was only ten meters away. It was still just a shadow, using some kind of distortion camouflage.
There was a gentle rise of noise in the back of Zee’s mind as the neural link connecting him to his master activated, “Zee, we’re almost done here. Ten more minutes, maybe, thank the Maker.”
“Acknowledged,” he returned. Decision time.
Cannot guarantee a kill, but can inflict major damage. If not killed outright, hunter unit will flee or move to attack. If it flees, further shots can be taken with increased probability of a kill. If it attacks, I will have at least two more seconds to fire before it can close. Likelihood of ranged weaponry is fifty-eight percent, but close combat is likely preferred. Possible trans-sonic weaponry, do not allow it to reach melee range.
He broke the pattern he had maintained for over four hours, turning fully toward the lurking shadow and raising his rifle in one smooth movement. Two gunshots ended the motion, followed immediately by a satisfactory burst of sparks and static. The shadow reeled back, its outline flickering wildly and granting him a view of the metal talons making up one limb. He saw a brief flash of flat, opaque optics, before the hunter turned to flee. As targeting systems readjusted, the hunter released a burst of static chaff, fouling Zee’s sensors. He fired again, trusting his instincts, and was rewarded by a muffled squeal before the hunter escaped.
“Zee?” Avidia’s voice came through again, alarmed.
“Wait one.”
He kept his station, rifle raised, for several seconds, all of his systems scanning. When he was confident it was gone and there were no more threats, he paced down the hall to where the hunter had been waiting. Microscopic wear on the floor, picked out as brighter marks against the metal, marked its path, and a splatter of spalling and fluids on the wall confirmed solid hits. Wounded, but still mobile, as he had feared. He looked down the way it had come and gone, and raised his internal alert status by one.
A few days passed without further incident as he saw Avidia to and from her many errands safely. The latest gave him time to himself, and time to handle an errand of his own. Avidia was sealed in an audience chamber with several archmagi, guarded by a full squad of the temple’s own skitarii. He would have preferred to stay himself, and he was certainly allowed to, but there was something he needed to take care of. The local skitarii understood, and gratefully accepted the data he provided on the rogue hunter unit.
Thus freed for several hours, Zee strode through the forge complex, and presented himself to the Alpha Senioris, the commander of all skitarii of the Argyre forges.
He stood rigidly straight, aware he was breaking protocol, but taking advantage of a loophole. He did not belong to Argyre Distal, or any others in the cluster of forges. His home temple was in the southern hemisphere. So by technicality, he was not under the command of Tyro-10 Adonia.
Skitarii were not connected to the noosphere in the same way techpriests were, but they had their own network for command and organization. Adonia’s presence in the network was overwhelming; she appeared to Zee as a vast node of data, fed by millions of lines coming to her from all of the skitarii under her command. The weight pressed down on him as she regarded him, all of his encoding and instinct begging him to flinch back, to kneel. But discipline and pride kept his back straight.
“Speak.”
“Alpha Senioris, this unit requests modification.” Under the press of her legions, all present in the room through her alone, Zee felt himself swept away. He was a weapon, a tool, one of billions, and he was blessed to be so. “This unit has recently encountered a use of static camouflage and scrambling, and requests upgraded systems to address the threat.”
Adonia didn’t move or blink, but he felt her reach into him, and he thrust the memories of the hunter to her. She watched it through several times in a few seconds, running analyses he couldn’t even comprehend. While doing that, he saw several of the data streams leading to her pulse rapidly.
“It is not one of my hunter units,” she said. She regarded him, reading his entire life and all his successes and failures. She read the situation, his fears, and his dedication to his master in an instant. “Your request for modification is approved. Report to bay 6-18a immediately. And captain?”
He froze in the act of bowing, “Alpha Senioris?”
“I will not have such a rogue in my temple. My skitarii will be watching, and I want all data you gather on it to aid our search. But I want you to kill it and bring it to me. Understood?”
“In the Maker’s name, Alpha Senioris.”
“Go then.”
A few hours later, with the side of his head and inexplicably part of his left leg tingling from the cortical upgrades, Zee returned in time to escort Avidia back to their hab. She glanced at him, curious, a few times as they walked. He knew she was aware his neuroware had been modified, but her persistent insistence on respecting his privacy kept her from asking. It was a baffling eccentricity for a techpriest to willingly forgo a source of data, but it wasn’t for him to question.
A very small part of him, buried with his gut instinct, appreciated the consideration.
“I was speaking with the commander of Argyre’s skitarii,” he explained, though she hadn’t asked. “Following up on the rogue unit that disrupted your meeting. Proper procedure is keeping the local forces informed.”
Avidia nodded, taking the opportunity he deftly offered, “And the surge in activity was an update to your detection systems? You had said it was using scramblers.”
Maker, but she was quick. “Correct. The Alpha Senioris deemed it an appropriate response.”
“Good. Let me know if you need any time to adjust-” she cut off abruptly with a sharp breath, one hand reflexively going to the side of her head.
Zee had his rifle in hand in an instant, new systems blossoming across his optics. In the blink of a lens he had located and identified every techpriest, menial, and servitor in their vicinity, and none showed anomalous behavior. He started to cycle the scans again, when Avidia put her hand on his shoulder.
“Sorry, it’s alright. But…are your network connections working?”
He paused and scanned the frequencies, “They appear to be, yes.”
“Mine…aren’t. Everything was normal and then the entire noosphere just vanished.” There was the faintest hint of fear in her tone, and it made Zee’s grip tighten until the rifle stock creaked. To be cut off from the noosphere was not only to be plunged into silence and ignorance, it was to be cut off from the Omnissiah. “Is such a thing possible?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so? No one else is reacting.”
She was right; everyone around them was going about their business, some with slightly worried looks at Zee’s obvious alertness.
“My systems seem to be fine,” she continued, “and I haven’t had any updates done recently that should cause anything unusual. But I don’t…” She trailed off, looking to him for answers.
Great Maker, the trust .
“Perhaps it is a question for Magos Hyde and Adept Issare,” he suggested.
Her expression cleared a little, “That’s a good idea, I can contact them from home.” She looked at him, narrowing her organic eye slightly, “But why them and not anyone closer?”
He scanned the concourse again, detecting nothing unusual. Nonetheless, he spoke through their neural link, “I have reason to doubt the motives of those around us.”
~
Avidia leaned back against the wall of the tiny lift car, looking past Zee’s shoulder to the tiny window showing Mars receding under them. “So this hunter unit wasn’t a fluke, and wasn’t the first, you think?”
“Correct. I have logged eight events that were explained as accidents but could nonetheless have been fatal. It is a higher-than-average number of incidents, according to records.”
“But why ? What have I possibly done to-oh. Oh.” She brushed her thumb across the bronze brooch in the shape of the Cog Mechanicus clasped to her mantle. It was a common enough accessory, but this specific one had been presented to her at the ceremony that elevated her so rapidly through the priesthood. “Resentment. Jealousy. Is that your thought?”
“It is. I had anticipated it, but hoped I would be proven paranoid.”
She laughed a little, as he had hoped, but there was fear and a faint sense of betrayal under it. They had been hunted before, the two of them, but…
“It is an ugly thing to learn that people who should stand beside you will instead stand against you,” he said quietly.
She was silent for a moment, thinking her own thoughts. “As long as you’re beside me.”
“As long as I live.”
“You didn’t feel or hear anything?” Galen Issare, Avidia’s long-time friend and source of irritation, pushed their stool back. “It just went dark?”
“Nothing that caught my attention, and I can’t even access any records. I don’t have augmented internal storage.”
“You need to fix that post haste,” they said, before turning on the stool to Magos Hyde. “Anything?”
“Yes, and luckily it’s an easy fix, if finicky.”
Avidia’s shoulders relaxed, “What is it?”
Hyde held up a dataslate with one of his mechadendrites, “An extremely targeted data pulse. It shut down the main receiver node in your brain. No damage, and I can reactivate it without opening up your skull.”
Galen turned around on their stool, resting their arms on the narrow back, “What’s the point of that, then? You’re sure there’s nothing else?”
“I’ll double check when I wire in, but doesn’t look like it.” Hyde’s lenses whirred as they swiveled back to Avidia, “I gather this only affected you?”
“As far as I can tell. No one else seemed to be reacting.”
He nodded and swung his gaze to Zee, “What do you think is the point of that?”
Zee’s shoulders shifted back, surprised. “I…am unsure, magos. Simple disruption of function. Shock, perhaps. The implication that they could target a vital system just as easily and stealthily.”
Hyde nodded absently as he handed Avidia a cable, “Temple or neck, whichever socket is preferable for you. I suspect all of the above.”
Galen looked back and forth between all of them, “That’s still a non-answer, though. Why would someone be harassing Avi?”
“Because large portions of our esteemed colleagues are fueled more by pettiness than the Motive Force,” Hyde said, dry. “And she now outranks a solid percentage of them.”
Galen opened their mouth and closed it again. “Oh. I see.”
“Look on the positive side,” Hyde said, slotting the other end of the cable into a port at his temple, “it does let you narrow down your suspect pool.”
Avidia twitched as Hyde activated the hard link and dove into her neuralware, but Zee came to attention, “How do you mean, magos?”
“You have to think about the politics,” he said, adjusting a diagram on his dataslate. “You can ignore two strata, the highest and lowest. The highest aren’t threatened by her; she has rank, yes, but not an especially high one, and not the resources to use it. Which is also why the lowest strata aren’t likely to be your culprits. Some will absolutely be angry about being bypassed, but they lack the tools to cause problems. Something like this is sophisticated work. One moment…” He tapped something on the dataslate and Avidia’s eye rolled back for a moment before she snapped upright with a gasp. “So that leaves the middle ranks for you to worry about.”
Zee put one hand on Avidia’s shoulder, steadying her as she unplugged the cable. “The largest group, I note, magos.”
Hyde smiled, “Can’t be easy, can it.”
The trip back down from Hyde’s lab on the Ring to their small hab was a quiet one, both of them absorbed in their own thoughts. Hyde’s logic was sound, and did agree with Zee’s analysis of the situation, but it brought back another puzzle that he hadn’t been able to solve.
As skitarii, Zee had inbuilt safety systems that would prevent him from firing on his own comrades or his masters. Counter-codes allowed for simulated combat, of course, but in a real situation he wasn’t certain he would even be able to disable or restrain. So far, all of the incidents had come as accidents or proxies, and not another techpriest in person. But if that did occur, he couldn’t come up with a solution beyond removing himself and Avidia from the situation. He would have to take such things as they came, and it made him nervous to not have a protocol ready.
In the dimness illuminated only by status lights and fuzzing screens, something changed. Zee felt it as an itch crawling up his back and inside his head. He held still, listening, waiting, trying to isolate the cause. Nothing was moving, and there were no out of place sounds. Avidia had requested only a small work space with attached living space for herself, far smaller than she could have commandeered, and Zee blessed the impulse. There just weren’t many places for something to hide.
Across the room, the one specialty accommodation grew brighter as a large pair of familiar optics clicked on. Dromas, Zee’s bonded cyberhound mount, lifted its head and seemed to sniff the air, picking up on his unease. Dromas and Skylax, Avidia’s hound, had a custom storage bay for their comfort, and also provided excellent home security. Dromas tilted its head, making a pneumatic sound, and the itch Zee felt grew stronger. His mind conjured up talons in the dark, reaching out for him, ready to tear his heart out and move on to his master. Every instinct roared that he wasn’t alone, and he whipped around with a combat knife in hand, sending his chair clattering.
The room was empty. No lurking shadows, nothing out of place. But the feeling didn’t abate. Something was wrong, something lethal. The room suddenly seemed so much larger, the short distance to the door - the open door, dammit - to Avidia’s bedroom feeling impossibly far. He could never reach it in time to save her.
Save from what ? His mind was racing, and he caught it. Accelerating processors trying to get out of hand and make him act irrationally slowed with a conscious effort. Still no visible danger. He walked quickly but deliberately to the door and looked in, trusting Dromas to watch his back.
The room was cool and dark, wanly lit by the false window she had built into the wall. It currently displayed a dim, dream-like image of a moon over a field. Zee scanned the small space with everything he had, verifying over and over that there were no intruders, no threats. Nothing was out of place. He listened to her steady breathing for a moment; he required no sleep, but she, relatively unmodified, did, and just didn’t have the time for as much as she needed.
His hand tightened on the door frame as he reached to quietly close the door. Whatever this danger that he perceived, it would not interrupt what little rest she was allowed. The metal door clicked shut, and Zee turned back to the main work space, searching again. There was something here, and he would find it.
In their alcove, the two hounds grew restless, their armor plates grating off of each other as they shifted, their optics darting around. They felt it too. The sudden, visceral feeling of being trapped. Whispers clawed at Zee’s mind, hissing that he was trapped, they were all trapped and the hunter was coming to finish the job. The hounds were on their feet, jostling each other. If they bolted, they would tear the room apart in their effort to get out.
But they could get out the door is locked and they could break it down.
Zee stopped his racing thoughts with another effort. Of course the door was locked. It was always locked.
From the outside from the outside you’re trapped-
Zee triggered one of his combat systems, and the chemical flood through his blood stilled the rising panic. Calm. Calm, and clarity. Seek and destroy. He held the phrase in his mind, against the whispers swirling around him. Some of it bled through to Dromas, and though the hound didn’t calm down, exactly, it used its weight to press Skylax against the wall, both for reassurance and to keep either of them from panicking.
Panic. Something inducing panic, even in machine spirits. Zee’s mind raced, properly accelerated by the combat stims and not the malicious hissing in the air. Code. There must be a code emitter somewhere.
The room was small, thank the Maker the room was small. Zee knew every inch of it, every piece of equipment, every power port, even the contents of the small trash bin. His optics flashed over everything, systematic and fast.
There.
It was relatively small, a humming box the size of his hand attached to the bottom of one of the rolling tool carts. It had been bolted on, and he hissed through his rebreather. The cart hadn’t left the room in months; someone had been in here with enough time to secure it. Shame and despair started to mix with the stims in his blood and he shut them off ruthlessly. No time. He tilted the cart, trying to get an angle on the object without dumping the tools everywhere. He managed to grasp it, and in one smooth motion tore it free from the bolts.
It had an emitter on one side, and it was much heavier than he had expected from the size. Once it was in his hands, he had the intense and unmistakable sense that he was holding a live bomb. He knew munitions, at least enough to disarm one. Half of the casing went flying and he stopped, staring.
Amid the components still producing that hissing code, louder now that it was open, he recognized the guts of a mindscrambler grenade. More than one of them. If it went off, the bioelectric pulse would fry everything in the room, and if it didn’t outright kill them, they wouldn’t survive for long when whoever placed it came to check.
The grenades had been wired into the emitter in a configuration wholly unfamiliar to him. Trying to disconnect them could set them off, and how much time did he have? There was no visible timer, and he wouldn’t know where to start trying to access a hidden one. Behind him, Dromas and Skylax made a rising whining sound; they were starting to synchronize with the code the thing was producing. Zee felt it reaching for him through his link to Dromas, and knew it would be doing the same thing to Avidia via Skylax. Looking around quickly, he spotted a pair of heavy metal cases, meant specifically to shield delicate equipment from the normal emissions of the forge.
He scrambled to his feet and yanked the nearest one open. He wasn’t sure what it contained, but he did know destroying it was an option of last resort. The second case was empty, thank the Maker, and he threw the device into it and slammed it shut. The sound dropped abruptly, and the hounds seemed to sigh. Zee almost did as well, but then he recognized, faintly, the sound of a timer counting down as the code influence over Dromas faded.
Four seconds.
The case might not contain it. The walls might not contain it. He didn’t know, and he couldn’t take the chance. He snatched the case off the bench and dropped it on the floor, throwing himself down over it. His heavy robes were designed to absorb harmful energies, and he made sure the case was firmly wrapped in the dampening fabric. Just before detonation, he shut all but his most vital systems down to protect them.
Zero.
An unusual sound filtered through his awareness. His systems were still coming online, but his reflexes kicked in first. When the hunter unit pried the outer door open, it was staring down the barrel of an arc pistol, aimed from between two bristling cyberhounds. Zee’s shot splashed against the door as it slammed shut again, and his arm dropped to the decking, where he was still curled around the case. The case, his robe, and his body had absorbed enough of the energy. From behind the closed bedroom door, he heard the tinny sound of an alert. Time to wake up.
“I’ve been thinking,” Avidia said slowly, keeping her eyes on the back of Skylax’s head as the hound paced along the track.
“As is your right and vocation,” Zee replied seriously, getting a laugh in return.
“But I don’t know how you’ll feel about it,” she continued. They were in a vast training facility used by the skitarii, working on Avidia’s riding skills. It was important for her to practice, and it also gave her time to slow down from the demands of her days. Several weapons teams were running crew drills on the other side of the space, and some larger pieces were standing in a line nearby, being ministered to by a small crowd of techpriests. Zee gave them a wide berth.
“Skitarii have safety protocols, I know, that prevent you from turning on each other or your techpriests. I was wondering if those could be…disabled.”
Zee nodded, angling Dromas to go around a munitions crate forming part of their improvised obstacle course. “There are counter-codes, but usually only a Magos Dominus would have them for the clades under their command, in the event that they need to engage with traitor forces. You wouldn’t have been given access to that; our relationship is very different to that of a Dominus and one of their officers.”
Avidia followed, hanging on to her saddle as Skylax made the turn and hopped over a pallet of ammo crates. She winced on the landing, bouncing uncomfortably. “Right, I meant more can those protocols be removed. Entirely.”
Dromas stopped dead for a beat as Zee’s full attention swiveled to Avidia. “Removed.” He kept his tone even, urging Dromas forward again to catch back up to Skylax.
“Yes. Just…” She waved her hand, encompassing the entire forge complex they were working in. “There have been an increasing number of ‘accidents’, and the obvious outright assassination attempts like that hunter. And other techpriests, in person, like that one asshole who just pulled a gun on me during a meeting.”
Zee made a disgusted noise, “Offensively poorly planned. The Archmagos isn’t known for having any patience with political jockeying.”
“I hadn’t realized he had quite so much inbuilt ordnance.”
“Nor did I. It was polite of him to offer what was left of your assailant as a personal servitor.”
“It was. But, that’s what I’m talking about. Were it anyone else, you could have taken the gun out of their hand before they even finished drawing it. But since it was a room full of techpriests, you couldn’t act beyond getting in the way of any incoming shots. I do not want you getting hurt or killed because taking a bullet for me was your only option.” She glanced sideways to glower at him.
Zee kept his eyes forward and firmly dismissed the memories of several such instances. “Though it seems like an extreme response, I admit the idea has appeal. I would also prefer not to be injured or killed, as it would negatively impact my ability to serve.”
Avidia’s shoulders relaxed a bit before tensing again as she wobbled in the saddle. “I think I expected you to be more opposed to the idea.”
Zee focused on the mechanics of riding for a moment before answering. Avidia had improved, but her stability was still mostly due to the inbuilt magnets keeping her in place. Thus why he was forcing her to practice with them disengaged. That she could have a proper conversation and keep her seat was a step in the right direction.
“I am…unsure if I am for or against,” Zee finally said. Here was an answer to his puzzle, but he wasn’t sure he wanted it. “The thought is unsettling, and there would be consequences. You would be seen as a radical, and there would likely be an accompanying increase in danger.”
She shrugged, “I don’t care if people think I’m crazy. My insistence on keeping live plants was enough to make them think that.”
“True, but those are an eccentricity, not a potential danger. And there are already concerns about your obsession with a particular skitarii.”
“As if every magos in the Imperium doesn’t have a project they obsess over.”
Zee chuckled, though there was a tiny flutter in his gut at being considered something worth obsession. “True, but it would raise valid safety concerns if it were to become known.”
She shrugged again, “More than half the priests have some kind of inbuilt weaponry that comes with them everywhere they go. Mine just walks beside me.”
Zee shifted in his saddle, taken by the imagery.
“But what about you?” she asked after another moment. “What would it mean for you?”
“I would become an anomaly among the skitarii. Even the highest of us are beholden to the lowest priest. We are a potent weapon, yes, but one that must have the surety of predictability. Our obedience is unquestioned; the weapon has no say in how it is used, but it cannot turn on the hand that wields it. To be able to do so would…” He trailed off, unsure.
Avidia turned her attention back to Skylax, sensing Zee’s unease. “I can withdraw the question.”
He shook his head minutely. It wasn’t something he had ever contemplated before. In all his simulations, his attempts to develop a protocol, he had never truly considered harming a techpriest. Perhaps other skitarii had, the highest echelon with an accompanying higher level of autonomy, but he couldn’t imagine ever doing so except in extremis. The priests of the Mechanicus were the physical and spiritual link to the Omnissiah; to harm or kill that link would leave the skitarii floundering and lost. It was unthinkable.
But.
“It…disturbs me,” he finally said. “It would feel like…possessing something I am not entitled to. I would fear making a mistake.”
She nodded slowly. Zee thought sometimes she understood his mind better than her forebears who used the neural link to its fullest extent. “It wouldn’t have to be lethal force,” she began, “but no, I understand. That would be a whole new responsibility. Are there other downsides I haven’t thought of?”
He tilted his head, thinking. “My continued function would rely on you. Very few other techpriests would be willing to have such a modified skitarii in their service, and it would be simpler to reduce my cognition and make me a line soldier or servitor rather than replace the safeties.”
Avidia grimaced, “I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t want you stuck with me if you’d rather be assigned elsewhere.”
He shrugged, “Immaterial. I have no such desire. But it is a consideration.” He tapped one finger on the saddle horn, an unusual expression of tension, “The safety protocols are likely very complex, and combine both hardwiring and encoded imperatives. Changing them would be…complicated.”
“And dangerous, I know. That kind of modification is way beyond me, but if anyone can do it, Galen and Magos Hyde can. But this is why I wanted to ask you.”
“I would like time to meditate on it. As I said, I’m not…necessarily opposed, but it needs careful thought.”
“Take your time. And Zee?” He glanced over at her. “You can say no. This is your choice.”
Blessed Omnissiah, that she could so casually say such things. What techpriest was concerned with the thoughts and opinions of their weapons? He felt her attention on him, and didn’t need to turn to know she was wearing a familiar tired, fond look. It bothered her that he was continually surprised by her regard, but taking it for granted as his due felt like slapping the gift away.
Another thought for him to wrestle with.
“I will give it my full attention. But speaking of attention,” he gestured at their practice space, “how do you feel about increasing our speed?”
That handily put the focus back on her where it belonged, and she grimaced. “I’ll try, but I’m engaging the magnets if I start to fly off.”
“Acceptable. Injury is to be avoided-” He cut off and looked down the range as one of the heavy weapons started to whine. The techpriests working on it hauled on the controls, and one started trying to work the traverse on the turret.
Avidia craned her neck, squinting, “What even is that?”
“It is a torsion cannon,” Zee replied, magnifying the view. His attention was drawn from the priests, several of whom were hurrying from other weapons to the active one, to the skitarii. They had stopped their drills and turned to watch, and he listened to the confusion and alarm through their network. No live fire exercises were scheduled for that day.
Zee got the familiar sinking feeling combined with a jolt of adrenaline. And the day had been going so well, too. Assessments ran across his vision automatically. The cannon was at the far end of the line of heavy weapons, roughly one hundred meters away from them. It was currently aimed slightly up, and the techpriests were trying to get it centered back on one of the targets. The targets, on the opposite side of the space, were a battered collection of roughly quarried stone blocks approximately the size of troop transports. Easy to cut to shape, plentiful, and capable of absorbing large amounts of fire. And, Zee knew from personal experience, quite satisfying to shatter.
“That can’t be good. That looks like something tripped the power; you can’t fix that just from the control panel,” Avidia said, watching the priests struggling with the bulky gun. “You need to get at the power source itself. They’ve got their hands full and everyone else is running, but they need help.” She shifted position and started to dismount.
With a wrenching thunk, the traverse let go and the cannon banged into a locked position facing toward them, the triple barrels crackling with malevolent energy.
Anchored by magnets, internal gyros, and decades of practice, Zee lunged out across the gap between the hounds and snatched Avidia out of her saddle and onto his. Dromas sprang from a halt to a full run, and he couldn’t have said who was more surprised, Avidia or Skylax. The other hound lurched after them after a stunned moment.
Perpendicular to the angle of the beam, turret mount unlikely to allow a full three-hundred-sixty degrees of rotation, get behind it. The hounds had barely taken more than a few strides before an alert came up, flashing his proposed escape route in red. If he was wrong about the turret and it had more range of motion, and it continued to track them, the beams would sweep across the other techpriests. Many of them were already scattering and seeking cover, but others were trying to get their assigned weapons out of the way and would undoubtedly be caught in it.
Can’t go forward. Backtrack, calculating…Negative. We would have to cross the path of fire. Time before the weapon fires…unknown. Torsion cannons have an unpredictable cycle between charging and firing, and the weapon’s condition is unknown. From a cold start, up to ten more seconds. If it was charged, any second now. Can’t risk. His optics darted around them. No acceptable cover nearby that wouldn’t be destroyed. No exits. Option: close, and get inside the weapon’s range. High odds of a miss, on the order of fifty-three percent, able to move to take control and safely shut it down. He shook his head, Negative, negative, gun is under the control of techpriests, cannot incapacitate.
Clinging to his side and part of his saddle, Avidia reached up and banged her fist on his armored chest plate. “Get to the nearest safety! We’ll take the chance!”
It wasn’t the proper override, but a direct command through a neural link was more than sufficient. The projected paths swimming across his vision coalesced into one flashing green line, and the hounds leaped onto it. Zee tightened his grip on Avidia’s waist, lifting her up so she could get a better grip. He sincerely hoped her immense tolerance would extend to his cavalier man-handling, and then that concern was blown away by the cannon firing and roaring through the space behind them. His fears were confirmed as the beams continued to twist and writhe in their direction, but quickly came to a halt as the turret jammed, at its maximum arc.
Two of the other heavy weapons in the row were solidly caught in the beams. Once locked, the barrels of the cannon began to turn, and the other guns were lifted off of their mounts and wrenched apart, sending a blizzard of shrapnel and energy bursts scattering all around them. Several other weapons were damaged, but thank the Maker none detonated.
Zee only stopped when he had to, punching the panel to open the blast doors. He looked back at the line of heavy weapons as the doors slowly ground open. The rest of the priests were converging on the two operating the torsion cannon with an intent that suggested they would be deploying more than strong language very soon. His optics zoomed in on the two culprits, assessing. One, the one who had been at the control panel, looked in shock and sagged back against the turret. Likely uninvolved, then. The other was staring at them past the crowd demanding to know what in the [hyperbolic expletive: anatomically impossible] they had been thinking.
The drilling skitarii had wisely gathered their equipment and fled, leaving the techpriests to sort it out amongst themselves.
Avidia was halfway across his lap, one of her knees hooked around the saddle horn. She looked back to watch the unfolding chaos, clinging to his shoulder. He felt her sigh, and she lightly knocked her head against his shoulder armor, “Stupid.”
He looked down, a little shocked, “Magos?”
“Stupid,” she repeated a bit louder. “I know perfectly well how many ‘accidents’ there have been, and yet I see a fucking cannon activate when it shouldn’t and my first impulse is to get closer to it. What was I even thinking?”
Zee urged Dromas through the open door, Skylax following. Emergency response teams hurried past them carrying medical supplies and fire suppressants. It was loud, and the likelihood of being overheard was low, but Zee nonetheless switched to their neural link. “You were thinking of your duty.”
“My duty isn’t to get myself killed.”
“Your duty is to the Omnissiah and his machine spirits. You saw the misuse and distress of a machine spirit, and you were moved to help. It wasn’t an incorrect impulse, the situation was just…not ideal. I don’t believe we could have reached it in time.” Even if they had, he would have been little help.
“Can I get back on Skylax now?” Avidia finally asked.
Zee contemplated the hallway. It wasn’t empty; it was rare to find unoccupied spaces anywhere in the forge. The halls and corridors of the habstacks were less crowded in general, but lightly bustling at all hours with residents coming and going. He stood guard outside one of the many chapels dotted across the forge. There were places of worship and dedication everywhere, from tiny niches and shrines in the walls to the towering cathedrals that could hold thousands.
This chapel was a small neighborhood place, with just enough space for a handful of people. Avidia was alone, taking the time for her rites and meditations. Zee had been carefully instructed that she did not want to be bothered or interrupted. Unless someone was dying or the forge was burning down, it could wait. Zee heartily approved, and gravely accepted this charge.
Another sweep of the hall, and he saw he was about to be tested. He had seen the hunter a few more times, lurking in corners and crowds, but it had fled their last encounter when it realized he could see through its camouflage. Now it was standing openly, boldly in the middle of the hallway. Zee turned to face it, rifle in hand. People in the district were familiar with him, and a few glanced sideways at him and hurried on their way. Right, they still couldn’t see it.
He was very conscious of the open doorway behind him. The chapel had no door, through the unquestionable logic that the Omnissiah’s sacred places must be accessible to the faithful at all times. Avidia would know the moment combat was joined, but by prior discussion, would remain in place until Zee gave the all-clear. There was only one entrance, and Zee’s official goal was simply to keep the hunter out. His personal goal, however…
His optics kept cycling, cleanly parsing the disruptive field surrounding the hunter, and a new option appeared on his HUD. He considered it for a moment, intrigued. It seemed Tyro-10 Adonia had wanted him to have every advantage against this thing. He activated it, and a burst of percussive code spat out of his vox. A few people jumped, and flinched again when the hunter’s camouflage melted away like static, leaving it visible to everyone.
One local that Zee knew, Logis Ikmenides, scowled at it. “What is your business here? I demand your designation at once.”
With a casual, almost contemptuous swipe, the hunter took his head from his shoulders. As the body collapsed to the floor, general panic spread. Everyone who hadn’t already fled did so. Zee and the hunter stood firm amid the flood, eyes locked. An emergency klaxon started to wail, red lights along the wall beginning to strobe. The temple’s skitarii would respond immediately, but it would still take them time to arrive. The habstacks rarely had dedicated patrols; he had a few minutes yet.
“Who are you?” Zee asked, his binharic voice sliding over the code keeping the hunter visible.
“Nonsensical query, no answer exists.”
“Why do you hunt this priest?”
The hunter considered him, its lenses cycling. So there was a mind in there after all. “Why do you defend it?”
“Because I must,” Zee replied, tightening his grip imperceptibly on his rifle.
The hunter made a rolling gesture with one limb, tipped in bloodied talons, “Yes. You understand.”
“I do, but you do not.” Zee’s rifle snapped up and he fired. The hunter failed to dodge in time and staggered, a gouge torn across its shoulder. Zee strode forward, firing again and again and driving it back. “I understand direct imperatives. You hunt because you are commanded. I am commanded to defend, yes, but I have chosen to do so as well.”
The hunter raised one arm to shield its face, “Irrelevant, no choice is required or offered.”
“Then let me offer you this. Do you feel this wrath? You dare, you dare to attack a consecrated priest, in a chapel, while she is communing with the Omnissiah. Did you think his fury would not turn on you? That you would be allowed to fulfill your imperative?”
The hunter made a cold buzzing sound, “Ensure the soul goes to him.”
“That was never in question,” Zee answered, emptying the rest of the clip into the hunter. It sagged back against the wall, smoke and sparks pouring out of its armor.
It must have been familiar with skitarii weaponry, because the moment his final shot fired, it lunged forward. One of its arms, the one with the talons, had been reduced to scrap, barely still attached. The other arm unfolded into a short blade, and with a whine that set Zee’s fused jaw to aching, was surrounded in a crackling energy field. Zee deflected the strike with his rifle and quickly reversed it, bashing the hunter in the head. The polished brass dented, but the rifle stock held firm. The hunter was smashed toward the floor, giving Zee time to drop the rifle and grab his knife.
As he had expected, the hunter was designed for close combat. Its blade slammed against his, the thick rubber grip on the hilt shielding him from the energy discharge. They twisted and spun around each other, sparks flying as both blades found their mark over and over. Zee lunged with his free hand and grabbed its damaged arm, ripping it off. The hunter twisted, finding its balance, but Zee stabbed the jagged end into its chest, making it stagger back. He started to follow up when the hunter raised its head. Zee’s stomach dropped as it broadcast an unmistakable override code. “Stand. Down.”
Zee felt his hand open, the knife clattering to the floor. His body no longer obeyed him, stepping back to an at-ease posture and freezing in place. The hunter slowly rose, taking its time and staring him down. It clicked to itself, tracing its blade across his chest as if deciding how best to carve him apart. Zee couldn’t even speak, trapped helplessly by unbreakable protocol that this thing should never have had.
The humming blade settled at his throat, whispering across the armor and seeking the weak point above his gorget.
“Hey!” a shout suddenly came from behind, and the hunter paused, leaning to one side to look behind Zee. Something impacted it right between the optics, leaving a small gouge on its face.
Zee felt a wave of fury pour into him through the neural link as an implacable command echoed down the hall and directly into his mind. “Kill it, Zee. Do not stop until the enemy is destroyed.”
Suddenly freed and buoyed by the heady fuel of divine wrath, Zee cannoned into the hunter, throwing it to the ground. Once down, it twisted violently, the crackling energy blade lashing against his legs. Zee felt one knee give out, unconcerned, and simply let himself fall on top of the hunter so he was straddling it. It was faster and more agile than him, but he was stronger and heavier. The humming blade was trapped between them, Zee’s robe absorbing and blunting the shocks.
There was a painful grinding noise and Zee grunted, lurching forward. The hunter had reversed the joints on both of its legs, kicking at his back. His data pack absorbed most of the impact, and alerts popped up in his vision. But it didn’t matter. This would be over before the damage was too severe. The hunter twisted, trying to free its blade, but Zee wouldn’t budge.
He slammed his fist into its head with the crunch of deforming metal, and grabbed on to it. For a brief moment, enhanced muscle strained against armor, and the armor gave first, crumpling in Zee’s hand. He tore away half the hunter's head and its body bucked, wrenching the blade free and driving it into Zee’s chest.
He threw aside the scrap metal, looking back down at the sparking wound. There was another layer of metal that his fingers simply scraped off of. Armored cranium, likely adamantium. Suggests little organic material remains, likely only the brain and spine.
Opaque optics seemed to glare at him as it hissed binharic curses, rotating its arm and twisting the blade. “Contingency activation, redesignate target.” Zee looked down as a clicking noise came from the hunter’s chest.
“Zee, it’s activated a self-destruct!”
Zee sighed. The hunter was armored, but not heavily, and the panels ripped open easily. The explosive was easy to spot; it was a standard krak grenade nestled among the wiring. As Zee’s optics darted over it, noting the similarity of the work he had seen in the mindscrambler grenades, he felt Avidia’s presence in his mind, and his attention locked on to a series of wires. His hand reached out, and as soon as he touched the correct wire, she let him go and he ripped them out. He suspected he only needed to remove the one, but he ripped out the entire bundle, partially gutting its chest cavity.
With the explosive contemptuously cast aside, he grabbed the hunter’s remaining arm and yanked the blade out of his chest. Twisting hard, he dislocated the limb and drove the blade into the assassin’s throat. He grabbed its head again, thumb cracking one of the optics, and, while twisting the blade, ripped its head off in one clean motion. The body spasmed under him, legs drumming against his back, until the power finally failed and it went still.
Zee reached to retrieve his knife, and saw the object that had hit and distracted the hunter for that one crucial moment. A polished brass brooch of the cog and skull, a few of the teeth dented from the impact, glinted against the dark floor panels. Footsteps approached from behind, and Avidia’s hand settled on his shoulder, her thumb tracing over a gouge in the metal.
“Status?”
“Chest has been punctured with increased stress on respiratory system. Will need to be addressed within twelve hours to avoid permanent damage. Moderate damage to data pack, left leg structural integrity reduced to twenty-one percent. Four armor panels need replacement, three more can be repaired.” He sighed quietly, “Greater concern: this hunter should not have been able to employ skitarii override commands.”
“No it shouldn’t. I don’t have those commands. That’s a potentially bigger problem, which, thankfully, I think we can hand off to someone more qualified.” She knelt down beside Zee, keeping her shoulder up against his, and poked at what was left of the hunter’s head. “I just want to know who sent it. Maybe…” As she was a magos, even if it felt like a technicality, she did have a higher clearance and access to information. The hunter, like everything within the forge, had an identifying electoo. Its identity had been wiped, showing no origin as either a citizen or a flesh-farm product. Everything else was encrypted beyond her ability to decipher.
She shook her head, “I can’t get any more out of it, at least not in the middle of the hallway. I saw Ikmenides back there; we should probably-” She was interrupted by the sound of running feet, and charmingly moved to put herself between the noise and Zee.
“Allies,” Zee said quietly, reaching for his dropped knife. He picked up the brooch as well, running his thumb over the damaged cog teeth. The Maker’s salvation, held in the palm of his hand. He passed it to Avidia, “Thank you for your timely intervention.”
“Of course. I know I promised to stay where you left me, and I’m sure you could have handled it, but…”
“I will make an exception this once.”
A squad of skitarii rounded the corner, weapons in hand. Zee raised one hand in the sign for all clear and they relaxed, though a few of them kept the hunter covered as they approached, and two split off to take care of Ikmenides. The squad leader surveyed what was left of the hunter, “Report.”
“Rogue hunter unit neutralized as per instruction from the Alpha Senioris,” Zee replied. He leaned on Avidia as she helped him up, “I am to deliver it to her personally.”
“And yourself to the repair bay,” the squad leader said, looking him over. She nodded politely to Avidia, “We can get him there, Magos.”
Avidia hesitated; he could feel her mind through the link. She had so much to do, and couldn’t afford the time, but he was her safety, and there was a sense of nervousness of being away from him. Under that was nervousness for him. Worry that he wouldn’t be taken care of properly.
“Skitarii care for our own,” he said. “I will be fine. But I can ask one of the others to escort you back home. Skylax will see you safely from there.”
She relaxed and nodded, sliding out from under his arm while another skitarii took him from the other side, “Take care of him for me.”
The squad leader bowed and one of her subordinates split off to escort Avidia. Zee watched as the others gathered the bodies of both the hunter and the logis, and let someone else take charge for awhile.
After the identity of the hunter’s master had been found to be not a single individual but a group of four technicus magi in moderately important positions, and that they had illegally acquired both the static camouflage and the skitarii command codes, the seniors of the Argyre forges decided things had gone far enough. There were protests that it was unnecessary concern for one low-ranked magos who had already received too much, but the protesters were soundly told to make their own history-changing discoveries, and put their energy to better use serving the Omnissiah and less their own bruised egos.
Not that the accidents entirely stopped, naturally, they just became more infrequent and harder to pin on anyone. Avidia continued to work hard, forcing some of her detractors to grudgingly admit that she was acceptable, if still a long way from truly earning the title. But at least it meant that Zee could safely reduce his internal alert status a step. He was also coming to terms with his newfound responsibility.
The override protocols built into skitarii were a safety measure, but had almost gotten him and his master killed more than once throughout their association. But the idea of entirely removing them still made him deeply uncomfortable. Magos Hyde and Adept Issare had, after much research, constructed a new contingency code that would automatically disable the safeties in the event of a life-threatening emergency. He could no longer be shut down or used against Avidia.
They returned to the skitarii training facilities regularly, with a gratifying lack of incidents, to continue working on Avidia’s riding skills. Zee had also decided that she needed proper firearms training as an alternative to throwing sacred objects at her enemies, as impressive as her aim might be.
One day they were in the process of clearing out as a few platoons were coming in for larger scale drills. Zee noted the quality of their weapons and armor, and identified them as elite veterans, likely the close-protection personnel for senior leadership. Avidia watched with curiosity from her perch on Skylax’s back, taking in the calm, precise organization as they sorted themselves out. She spotted something in the crowd, and Zee felt her hesitating for a moment before she made a decision and urged Skylax forward. Zee followed on Dromas, and realized Avidia had seen the distinctive demi-cog helmet crest that marks a skitarii commander. He realized belatedly that the noosphere would also show her the ID’s of everyone present, and further belatedly and with some trepidation that the commander she was approaching was the Alpha Senioris herself.
The Senioris’ bodyguards watched them approach, their hellguns in hand but not readied for use. Avidia stopped and dismounted a polite distance away, followed by Zee, as Adonia turned. Adonia’s helmet swiveled between them, pausing on Zee, “Ah, captain, so this is your magos.” She reached up and removed her helmet with the hiss of breaking seals, revealing a surprisingly human face apart from the ubiquitous optics and a binharic emitter under her jaw.
Avidia held out her hand, “Avidia Bato, an honor to meet you.”
Adonia was a monster, even among the skitarii, layers of steel covering a frame that could rival an Astartes. Her armored gauntlet closed around Avidia’s bare hand with utmost delicacy, “Tyro-10 Adonia, at your service, magos. I am pleased to see you giving your cyberhound the attention it’s due.”
“A combination of duty and pleasure, I admit, Alpha Senioris.” Avidia looked up - a novel experience for her - and reached over to put one hand on Zee’s shoulder, “I wanted to thank you in person for taking care of Zee, even though he’s not your responsibility. Your help saved both of us, and I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
Zee briefly felt like he had been stabbed again, the air rushing out of his chest.
“We are skitarii; we care for our own,” Adonia answered with the reflexive ease of a catechism. Then, to Avidia’s delight and Zee’s eternal mortification, her scarred face split in a broad smile, revealing metal fangs that likely made verbal speech difficult. “But you seem to have this one well in hand. I believe I can leave him in your capable care.”
Avidia squeezed his shoulder, undoubtedly aware of the embarrassment he was trying valiantly to suppress, “I’ll do my best, Alpha Senioris.”
Adonia bowed slightly, a low chuckle rumbling out of her chest, “I’ll hold you to it, magos. Come to me again if you have need of us, but if you don’t mind…” she gestured at the ranked soldiers behind her.
Avidia returned the bow, “Of course, apologies for keeping you.” Zee followed her back to the hounds in a daze. They mounted up and made it partially down the hall before she looked over at him, grinning and failing to completely stifle a laugh.
Zee took it in the spirit it was given, awash with affection through the neural link.
Oh Maker, you who give flesh and steel motion, you who forged our minds and souls in the image of your sacred spirits. Keeper of knowledge and font of power, divine architect, I beg you, let me keep her safe. Let me keep her safe.