//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: A Foul Light Shines // by Karazor //------------------------------// Chapter Four The bridge of the Lux Foedus was caught in a voidsman’s nightmare. Sonorous alarms tolled out in a host of different tones and rhythms, warning of engine failure, power system failure, void shield failure, structural failure, atmospheric venting, Warp incursion, fire… virtually every conceivable mishap that could befall a starship of the Imperium of Man. The plainsong of the bridge servitors told any listener capable of interpreting it about crew casualties, reduced hull integrity, and a litany of other failures and damages too minor to merit individualised alarms. “Where are we?” Lord-Captain Anderocus asked, leaning over his helmsman’s shoulder and gazing at a flashing bank of warning lights and malfunction indicators. “Unknown, Lord. Auspex arrays detected a habitable world, but their machine-spirits rebelled shortly thereafter, and they’ve refused all of my requests for more data. I was able to nudge us into orbit, but there wasn’t time for a detailed inquiry. We could be anywhere.” The Lord-Captain nodded, turning to his second-in-command. “Eudaros, any word from the Navigator?” Captain Eudaros, the large, heavyset man with the florid complexion that ran the ship when Anderocus was busy, shook his head. “No, sir. From what we can tell, her Sanctum is intact, but vox-lines between there and the bridge have failed.” Eudaros mopped at his jowls with a handkerchief, scowling at the banks of flashing red and amber lights. “Along with every-damned-thing else.” Anderocus turned to the junior tech-priest stationed on the bridge, who currently had his upper torso buried in an open service panel. “What is working, Acolyte?” “I have managed to persuade the emergency vox-repeaters to lend us their service. Apart from that and the lights, lord, there appears to be little still functioning.” A spark erupted from whatever the Mechanicum acolyte was working on. “I am attempting to restore hardline vox-linkage with the enginarium; Magos Tersiaard is undoubtedly working to ease the ship’s suffering, and he would certainly have more information for you than I do.” Anderocus nodded, turning to issue further orders to the bridge crew. Eudaros was already contacting what stations he could with his commbead, making use of the emergency repeaters. The Lord-Captain was left with little to do apart from overseeing his subordinates and presenting an inspiring mien for his crew, a regrettably common occurrence in the Rogue Trader’s nascent career. Eudaros finally finished a preliminary assessment, and stepped close to address the Lord-Captain in an undertone. “I couldn’t reach much, sir; hull’s interfering with the vox something fierce, even with the emergency repeaters. And reports from those I could reach aren’t good.” “Tell me.” The Lord-Captain braced himself. He hadn’t held the Anderocus Warrant for long, a scant decade and a half, and this had been easily the worst disaster he’d encountered since succeeding his father. “All right, sir. Enginarium seems largely intact, though it looks like vox-lines are cut. Crew’ve already seen servitors working to repair it, so Tersiaard’s probably still kicking.” Eudaros snorted. “Not that a little thing like a warp storm would put that old monster down.” The two shared a bitter smile. The Mechanicum Magos had been aboard the Lux Foedis for far longer than either of them had been alive. Frightening and dangerous though he often was, he’d proven astoundingly hard to kill over the centuries of his life, and he was utterly dependable in a crisis such as this. “Engines are offline, but that seems to be a problem with the control runs, rather than the engines themselves. Munitorum’s on lockdown, but it didn’t blow, thank the Emperor, and the guns are all inactive anyway, so the lockdown’s not hurting us. Fires all over the starboard side and the gunnery crews for the starboard batteries are completely gone, far as I can tell. Port batteries are in better shape, some damage to the macrocannons, but the crews are still mostly alive and the guns look to be mostly still functional. Serious depressurization of a lot of the starboard compartments, from epsilon 16-starboard all the way up through rho 13-starboard, including both starboard holds. The hull armour reads as compromised in that area, too; must have taken a helluva tap.” Anderocus winced. The Lux Foedis, as flagship of a powerful Rogue Trader dynasty, was a warship in all but name, effectively equal to one of the Imperial Navy’s battlecruisers in strength and resilience. Indeed, prior to being acquired by the Anderocus dynasty and partially refitted to haul cargo, she’d been an Overlord-class battlecruiser in service to Battlefleet Ceresius. Compromising the massive, meters-thick sheets of adamantine alloy that armoured her over so large a stretch of her hull would have required apocalyptic amounts of energy. Eudaros caught the wince, nodding grimly. “Aye, sir, that’s a dockside job at the least, and we’d best avoid having anything hostile to our starboard ‘till it’s done. The Lux is as naked as a joygirl on that side for now, poor lass. But that’s not the worst of it.” Closing his eyes, the Lord-Captain simply said, “Tell me.” “The Gellar fields are out. Failed just as we left the Immaterium. Thank the Emperor they held on as long as they did, but there’s Warp-touched all over the bloody ship; we’ve lost a lot of crew to them, sir. Commander Seria’s troops have already purged most of them, but there’s a nasty concentration in the port-six lander bay that she’s trying to flush now. The minders had to put down almost the entire astropathic choir, too; I think we’ve only got one left.” The heavyset captain shook his head. “Throne, we’re lucky the minders were so quick. Warp-touched crewmen are bad enough, but when an astropath goes bad like that…” He shuddered. Eudaros had served in the Navy for decades before entering the employ of Anderocus’s father; it was likely he’d seen what happened when the Warp overwhelmed an astropath. “Any word from the Navigator?” The Lord-Captain asked. “Not yet. I had one of the firefighting teams check the Sanctum. It was intact, but they couldn’t get a response from Navigatrix Daniella.” Eudaros shrugged. “Crewmen don’t like to stay close to the Sanctum, so I doubt they tried for long, but they did attempt to contact her.” Anderocus sighed, nodding. The tall, spare, dark-haired man rubbed his forehead wearily. He wanted to make checking on the Navigator a priority; with the Gellar fields failing when they did, her direction to exit the Warp had unquestionably saved the lives and souls of every man and woman still alive aboard the Lux Foedis. On the other hand, though, there were a thousand things that urgently needed to be done, and with the crew’s fear of the Navigator it would require either an officer or one of the ship’s tech-priests to open her sanctum, and they would all be urgently needed in other areas. “Eudaros, you said Seria was in contact?” The captain nodded. “Very well, keep trying to reach the other crew elements; I’m going to check in with her.” The heavyset officer moved off, and Anderocus tuned the commbead in his ear to his household guards’ command frequency. “Commander Seria, this is Anderocus. Respond, please.” “Lord-Captain? It’s damn good to hear you’re still alive, sir. Team six, get that stubber set up!” Seria’s harsh voice was hashed with static, and Anderocus could hear a chorus of shrieks and screams in the background overlaid by the rapid crack of lasgun fire and the thunder of heavy weapons. He could also hear Confessor Deumos’s stentorian bellow as he chanted one of the Rites of Detestation. No surprise that he’d be there; the tough old priest had started as a chaplain-militant in the Arbites and had gone on to serve with the Guard. He liked to be in the thick of the action. “Bit busy here, sir.” “Can you give me a status report? Have the Warp-touched been contained?” “I think so, for the most part. We’ve… Throne, here they come again! Dedris, now dammit!” Anderocus heard the deep whoosh of a flamer over the open link. “Good man! We’ve got the biggest concentration contained here, sir, enfilade right, third squad! and my troops have already swept most of the ship. There are a few smaller concentrations, but they’re contained, and I’ll take care of them as soon as we’re done here.” Seria kept squads of armsmen stationed throughout the Lux Foedis for just this sort of occasion, but even so, to have the ship swept so quickly was remarkable. “Can you give me an estimate on how many crew we’ve lost?” Seria’s troops were equipped with boosted vox sets, and had military-grade gear coordinating the squads that would undoubtedly be far superior to the emergency repeaters Eudaros and Anderocus had to rely upon; she probably had a better idea of the damage the Lux Foedis had sustained than anyone on the bridge. “Throne, sir, fifteen thousand at least. Between the damage and venting my hunter squads reported, and the damned Warpspawn rampaging around, it wouldn’t shock me if we were down twenty thousand or more.” She paused, and her voice was even harsher when she continued. “I’ve lost over two hundred of my armsmen, too, including one of my best squads. Team six, suppressing fire, eleven o’ clock!” Golden Throne! Even Seria’s more optimistic estimate was almost a fifth of the crew! That was going to seriously slow the repairs they needed to make, and the ship was going to be operating at significantly reduced efficiency until they could make port. “Very well, Commander, keep me…” Anderocus was interrupted by sudden blast of static over the bridge speakers, followed by a flurry of incomprehensible Mechanicus chatter. “...informed, and report when the incursion is contained.” The Lord-Captain switched his commbead off, refusing to be flustered by the sudden blast of noise. Turning to the Tech-Priest who had been working to restore the vox, he barked, “Report, Acolyte! Does this mean you have made progress?” “The acolyte’s report is unnecessary.” The cold, metallic voice booming from the bridge vox-units was unmistakable, unique even amongst the Lux Foedis’s Tech-Priests. “He has served the Omnissiah adequately, soothing the machine’s hurts and restoring my ability to speak with you.” “Magos Tersiaard, you live.” Anderocus had mixed feelings about that fact. “An accurate statement. The ship’s machine-spirit is grievously wounded, Lord-Captain, worse than I have seen in three hundred years, and it will require a great deal of work to persuade it to serve us again.” The ‘us’ in that statement represented one of the problems Anderocus faced when dealing with the ancient Mechanicum Magos. Tersiaard invariably behaved as though he and the Rogue Trader were at least peers, and he occasionally behaved as though the ship belonged to the Magos, and Anderocus were the subordinate. The Rogue Trader lord had to be extremely careful when dealing with Tersiaard; the Magos was extremely highly placed in the Mechanicus hierarchy, and worse, he had been aboard the Lux Foedis for almost six centuries. The Magos knew the ship’s systems intimately, and Anderocus feared that if the tech-priest were sufficiently angered, the ship itself would act on his behalf. While Anderocus couldn’t afford to let Tersiaard push him around with impunity, he had to be very careful when and how he could push back. “Magos, I am attempting to assess the condition of the Lux Foedis. What knowledge can you contribute?” He knew he sounded stilted, he always did when talking to Tersiaard, but the Magos never seemed to notice. Or possibly he noticed, and simply didn’t care. There was a short pause, and the Lord-Captain heard a few of the alarms shut off. “The ship’s condition is grave.” Tersiaard finally said. “The plasma reactors rebelled, perhaps outraged by the nearness and turbulence of the Warp, and they had to be temporarily lulled to sleep so their fires could not slip their chains to ravage the rest of the vessel. Life sustainers are currently inoperable, as they have been starved of power with the reactors’ dormancy, though the ship’s current atmosphere should sustain the crew for hours yet. The dearth of power has caused widespread system failures; both primary and secondary engines are inactive, the macrobatteries and lance turrets are silenced, and the void shields are down. There will also be myriad minor problems that will require Mechanicus attention before the ship consents to move or fight again.” Anderocus tried to hide his dismay, but the Magos wasn’t finished. “In addition to the structural damage you have doubtless already been apprised of, the warp engines and Gellar field generators have suffered multiple catastrophic failures; it would seem they sacrificed themselves in an attempt to save the other systems from the fury of the storm. Both systems will require extensive reconstruction and reconsecration before they are again ready for service. Finally, my servitor stocks have been depleted. I suspect, given the circumstances, that a number of crew-serfs have sustained sufficient injury to make them effectively useless; I request that such individuals be sent to the enginarium for servitor conversion to replenish the servitor supply.” Anderocus balked. There was silence on the bridge, save for Eudaros muttering about “Mechanicus ghouls” under his breath. The Lord-Captain rubbed his chin in nervous irritation, finding his voice again. “Magos… we may have lost as much as a third of the crew. Your request can not be fulfilled at this time; I can’t spare any significant number of the survivors without further compromising the efficiency of the ship!” “I am not requesting anyone be tithed who possesses a valuable skill. Simple crew-serfs are all I need. A servitor cares not about its origins, be they humble or exalted.” Tersiaard’s voice remained flat and cold, as it always was. “Additional servitors will be required for many of the more perilous repair tasks. Without them, my work will be slowed significantly, and I am likely to lose many of my acolytes. Serfs are far easier to replace than enginseers.” “Even regular crew-serfs are in short supply, Magos. Every voidsman I give to you is one less to fulfill the ship’s needs!” “Servitors are in short supply as well, Lord-Captain.” Tersiaard replied. “Our need for them is more immediate than our need for serfs. However, in deference to your authority, would you be willing to allow my tech-priests to collect only the dying and irreparably crippled? Those may suffice to our needs.” Anderocus was glad that Tersiaard hadn’t simply threatened to take the crewmen he wanted. Then again, Tersiaard rarely threatened, he simply acted, and the Lord-Captain worried that the Magos would do exactly that if he was refused. The tech-priests and combat servitors under Tersiaard’s control were an extremely formidable force; Anderocus had asked Commander Seria to write up a report of the comparative strength of his armsmen relative to the Lux Foedis’s Mechanicus contingent when he’d first appointed her. Her conclusions had been… worrisome. Though the crew would be deeply disturbed, now was not the time to force a confrontation with the Magos. “Very well, Tersiaard. You may have the crippled and the dying, but no more. Do not waste their sacrifice.” “I would never commit so hideous a sin as waste, Lord-Captain.” Was there a hint of menace in Tersiaard’s cold, level voice, or had the Lord-Captain imagined it? “Inform the medicae. My tech-priests will collect the tithe shortly. If the Omnissiah wills it, I should have the plasma reactors’ health restored to minimum operable levels within the hour, and the life sustainers restored to function shortly thereafter.” Anderocus buried a sense of relief. “And what of the Warp engines? The Gellar fields?” “Those and the main engines will take a great deal of time and succor to fully restore. As well as materials and resources. Is there a world near our location?” “We are orbiting one, though we have yet to assess its character. If we are fortunate, it will be a forge world, and have the parts we require.” There was a brief pause before Tersiaard responded. “It is not a forge. I have increased the repair priority of the auspex arrays; they should find you worthy of their aid shortly after the life sustainers return to function.” Anderocus wondered how the Magos could be so certain that they were not orbiting a forge. Granted, it was extremely unlikely, but it was very rare for the Magos to make such a definitive statement without backup. A question to ponder later. “Hopefully, the world is sufficiently developed to supply us with the parts we need.” There was almost, almost a hint of scorn in Tersiaard’s voice. “The manufactory bays are undamaged, Lord-Captain. Even if they cannot supply us with parts, all I require are base materials and time. With that, I can construct everything we might need. Thanks to my efforts over the centuries, the Lux Foedis is largely self-sustaining, so long as my contingent is mostly intact.” “That may be the first good news I’ve received yet, Magos.” Anderocus rubbed his forehead, trying to ignore the tech-adept’s boast. “Once the auspex arrays are repaired, we can discern whether the world below us is inhabited. If it is, I would appreciate your company in our landing party; you know better than any of us what materials we might need.” “Very well, Lord-Captain. I shall await your summons.” There was a click of the vox channel disconnecting. Anderocus sighed with released tension. Dealing with Tersiaard was always… hazardous. He didn’t think he’d made any mistakes this time, but with Tersiaard, one never knew. He and Eudaros returned to coordinating the repairs. It wasn’t until the vox network was back online thirty minutes later that the Lord-Captain learned of the mistake he’d made. Tersiaard’s tech-priests had indeed collected the crippled and dying from the medicae, dragging them away screaming to be converted into lobotomized cyborg laborers. Ten minutes later several squads of combat servitors had lumbered into one of the crew bays and shattered the right leg of every crew-serf housed there, while the unarmed menials had clawed at the bulkheads in a desperate attempt to escape the heavily armored cyborgs. The tech-priests had followed, and had “collected” over four hundred additional crewmen. Anderocus’s angry protest to the Magos had been met with a simple, flat reply. “The Machine required additional servitors. Those serfs were crippled, and they were duly collected as a Mechanicus tithe, as we agreed.” Anderocus had furiously forbidden Tersiaard from attacking crew, but the damage had been done.