NOVEL WEB Chapter Twenty-Three
While Odhran prays, I quietly limp around the auto-temple, admiring the macabre and austere beauty of the frescos, carvings, and tapestries. Examples of important technologies lie in glass cases with holographic text popping up as I examine them, little labels and arrows pointing to specific points, often with an equation, rather than text. Fortunately I have E-SIM to explain why they are important, and better yet, understand them.
I was expecting nothing but guns and cybernetics, but the objects the mechanicus revere are far more comprehensive, like advanced cogitators, sensors, powerpack chemistry, or the DNA sequence for transhuman intelligence.
There are also objects that Explorator Epoloch299 discovered, like unusual mineral samples, a glass vase from a deceased, Dark Age of Technology human colony that is almost indestructible but no one knows why, and the core of a singularity power plant that is too tough to take apart, and too dense to scan, to see how it works. The only reason why it could be identified are the hazard warnings etched into its surface.
While I enjoy looking at these objects, it fills me with melancholy that so much has been lost, but hope remains, for if we built these things once, we can build them again.
After an hour of introspection, the Distant Sun lurches violently, the sudden movement overwhelms the artificial gravity, hurling me into a gothic pillar before it can correct itself.
I pick myself up and groan, “Aruna, what the hell was that?”
Aruna appears, floating on a projection of the Milky Way and repeatedly leaps between star clusters, “The Distant Sun is free!”
“What happened to the station?”
“It’s gone, dissolved by the warp, like disappearing between the frames of recordings, unmade as if it never existed in the first place.”
“Thank fuck I got off that thing.”
Odhran marches over, “Magos, what is going on?”
I hold up my hand, “Aruna please communicate with Sergeant Odhran as well and summarise the current condition of the Distant Sun and our local threats.”
Aruna sniffs, “If you insist, captain.”
The gentle hymns and chants cease and Aruna’s terrible voice croaks from the surrounding speakers, vibrating my bones and making me dizzy. A heavy presence fills the air and presses on my mind.
Sergeant Odhran stumbles slightly.
“The Distant Sun,” says Aruna, “is free, as are all the other void ships. The ork rok is turning to face us. The tyranid bio ships are waking up while the chaos destroyer has fired up its engines. The eldar ship remains still and unpowered, yet is unaffected by the warp’s caustic properties and violent denizens.”
“How about our passengers.”
“Aruna has lost sight of the tyranids because of sabotage and damage to internal sensors from previous conflicts. The mutant humans are seven hundred metres from the bridge and are tearing apart the ship searching for an oxygen pipe. A fifth of them have died, all to infighting.”
“Our shields?”
“Of our two main generators, one void shield is capable of 67% output, the other is offline. Internal void shields around key facilities and armoured bulkheads remain functional. Our integrated gellar field, the warp-bane hull, remains at 80%, our secondary gellar field has died.”
“Weapons?”
“Only the dorsal lance turret, an accelerated plasma beam weapon, is operational. The macrocannon batteries fire electro-magnetically accelerated explosive shells and require a crew to operate as the autoloader was disassembled for parts six centuries ago and no one on Belacane knows how to build a new one. The prow heavy lance battery was destroyed in the collision. 72% of defensive turrets remain operational.”
I say, “For now, get us as far from the other vessels as possible as fast as possible. We’ll clear our passengers, then once we’ve outrun them, we’ll drop from the warp to the closest planetary body Aruna can find and get the ship in order so we can return to Belacane.”
“Aruna is unsure it can escape the smaller ships. The iconoclast destroyer has a higher sustained acceleration of seven point two gravities, compared to our six, but the condition of their ship is unknown. The three kraken class tyranid frigates are about as fast as the Distant Sun but are capable of periodic boosts that can easily catch us and latch onto the ship. If they manage that, we are doomed.”
“Then redline the engines to destruction if you have to. It doesn’t matter if we’re slow after we’ve escaped.”
“Aruna complies. Aruna recommends the captain prepares for extensive apologies and maintenance to the machine spirits and for their bodies.”
“Get us out of this mess and I will bow to, and service, every major component on this ship, even if it takes me a lifetime.”
Aruna’s oppressive presence recedes slightly, “Oath recorded.”
“I don’t envy you, Magos,” says Odhran.
“Nor I, you, Sergeant Odhran.” I hold out my hand, “One final party?”
Odhran shakes my hand, “Agreed. Come, we shall hunt while you direct the vessel.”
I nod and we rush from the temple.
“Aruna, please direct us to the last known position of the tyranids.”
At each intersection, Aruna appears and points, then disappears. When we reach the internal railway, we stand in the six by two by three metre pod and it accelerates us through the ship taking us to #1/0/Q4 in under a minute. Unfortunately the rapid transit system only covers the back third of the ship as the rest was destroyed by demons.
While we head for the arboretum, I say, “Aruna, please calculate the optimal engagement pattern to extricate the Distant Sun.”
Sergeant Odhran ignores my conversation with Aruna.
“Target the tyranid krakens first, then the chaos iconoclast, and finally the ork rok. Ignore the eldar vessel.
Aruna’s voice broadcasts from my helmet’s vox, “The lance battery will punch through most armour and some shields, but the diameter of the damage it can inflict is relatively thin; the chance of hitting something important is low, so for lance weapons, targeting the biggest and most visible components of a vessel, such as weapons or engines, will give you the best result. As escape is our priority, the Distant Sun should aim for engines.”
“You have fire control, Aruna. Execute your recommendations.”
“Error... crew offline... manual mode engaged... main guns locked... Aruna did warn you, captain. Guns will remain locked until the Distant Sun is placed in auto-pilot. Even then, when no qualified crew are present, Aruna can only fire after it has been fired at. Aruna can also only manoeuvre to avoid collisions while in manual mode. The Distant Sun must also be taken out of low power mode if you wish to fire or manoeuvre with reasonable speed. While power can be restored quickly, it may result in hardware failure. Had you given control when requested, you would not be in this mess, captain.”
“Alright, you made your point, Aruna. I’m still concerned there are traps hidden by the previous owners of the ship and that changing the settings will activate them, so I’ll have to go sit on the command throne. Can you at least get us out of low power mode?”
“You cannot lie to a machine spirit, captain, even with partial truths. Engaging emergency start.”
A distant hum rattles through the hull. Nothing explodes, and we reach the arboretum, a xeno flora preserve, with thousands of different plants in massive glass terrariums arranged in a stadium sized room. The room is a riot of fabulous colours, though the air is sterile. It’s nothing like walking through a park, with all its scents and sounds.
Holographic info panels, like the ones in the auto-temple, light up the terrariums as my eyes sweep across the plants and I realise why they’re all behind glass. Every single one of these plants are lethal, from flesh eating spores and acidic pollen, to choking vines and explosive sap.
“Whatever you do, Odhran, do not break the glass.”
“I can read, Magos. No need to get nervous about a walk in the park.”
I point at a sixty metre tree in front of us, covered in sharp thorns, “You sure about that?”
Odhran swallows. Hanging from the tree are nine desiccated tyranids. The terrarium has been shattered from the inside. The tree is dead still. A presence tries to worm into my mind and I crush it. Fighting demons has helped me learn how to shrug off far worse.
“We’re done here,” says Odhran. His armour rattles a little as he shivers. “If you find the body of the idiot who had that tree brought on this vessel, let me know so I can give it a good kick.”
We turn around and leave.
“No problem. I can’t decide if that was anticlimactic or not.”
“I like a good xeno hunt just as much as every god-fearing member of the imperium, yet death is an easy currency to spend and I do not wish to have mine stolen by an immobile tree. That would be embarrassing.”
“Preaching to the choir there, Sergeant.”
“Never a good idea. They’re terrible listeners, they just can’t keep their mouths shut.”
I laugh, “I need to head to the bridge for a bit. Make whatever preparations you need for our last evictions while I pilot us out of here. The Distant Sun has been locked down by its previous owners and won’t do much without anyone sitting on the bridge.”
“Sensible.”
“Well, it’s causing problems now.”
“Then fix it.”
“There are many things I could say to that. None of them are polite.”
“Go, Magos.”
Well fuck off to you too, you giant bastard. I’m not going to say that to his face though.
Odhran steps into the transport pod and looks at me.
“I’ll get the next pod.”
He nods and the pod departs. I wonder what he is thinking. Do space marines dream of gene-modded sheep? I shake my head and step into the next pod and it whisks me close to the bridge.
I exit and run as fast as I can. Arriving at the bridge, I leap up the stairs three steps at a time and skid onto the chair. As my hearts thunder in my chest, the screens descend on their long arms and envelop me, bringing up scans and positional data of the enemy ships. There are no visuals as we are in the warp and I don’t want to go mad.
Unable to connect directly to the command throne without frying my brain, I take a minute to read through the information, letting it filter through the knowledge E-SIM forced into my head.
Directing Aruna, I bring the ship and turret in line with the closest kraken. Without the common anchor of the federation space station, the distance between us fluctuates erratically like a desert mirage.
Flicking through the different firing modes, I set the twin lances to fire a quarter second apart, so that the first shot can guide the second. I lean forwards and pull a keyboard towards me and type in the coordinates, an obnoxious beep and green text stating ‘Target Locked’ flashes over the wire frame depiction of the kraken.
“Fire!”
++The weapons are not voice controlled, Magos. That would cause all manner of disasters.++
“Ahem.” After searching the knowledge stuffed into my head, I push the screens out of the way and dash down the stairs to the weapons station. E-SIM highlights the controls I need and the order I should press them. I flick through them as fast as I can, then flip the cover on the final button and smack it with my palm.
There is no great rocking of the vessel or blinding flash of light, only a gentle ping and ‘Target Hit’ replacing ‘Target Locked.’ I gape slightly. How mundane! Weapons data floods onto an adjacent screen. The first shot severed a flailing tentacle at the back of the bio-ship, the second punched right through the kraken and out the other side. The Kraken is now accelerating 2% slower.
With so much of the Distant Sun unpowered, the lance battery is charging at a rapid rate. I’ll get a shot every six minutes once the reactors spool up to full power.
“Bring us up to full acceleration, Aruna. We’re getting out of here!”