‘It seems the Emperor has intervened,’ said the primarch, directing his gaze towards the Custodians.
Arcatus and his warriors remained poised. Corax motioned for his Raven Guard to lower their weapons, some of them doing so only reluctantly. The primarch turned his attention back to Arcatus, who stood down his own men after a moment.
‘Wait!’ said Corax. Suddenly weapons were raised again. Behind the primarch, Nexin had taken a step towards the opening. The magos stopped and looked back to see the scowl on the primarch’s brow.
‘Apologies, Lord Corax,’ said the Martian, with a deep bow. ‘You will lead. I will follow.’
Alpharius lingered a moment as Corax and the others headed towards the vault. He stopped Balsar with a hand on his arm.
‘That was not the will of the Emperor, was it?’ Alpharius said.
‘I do not know what you mean,’ replied the legionary. ‘It is forbidden for me to use my powers. I was not relieved of my oath.’
‘But still,’ said Alpharius. It seemed unlikely that the Emperor had intervened on their behalf, having not made his presence felt throughout the tortuous journey through the death-traps. It had to have been Balsar’s doing. ‘That wasn’t really the Emperor, was it?’
Balsar said nothing and left Alpharius to fall in behind the departing primarch and commanders. Alpharius could not tell whether Balsar was lying or not, though there had been no trace of deception in his voice. He felt tense at the thought of psykers using their powers again, and equally disturbed by the idea that the Emperor had perhaps witnessed what went on and intervened on Corax’s behalf. No amount of deception would protect him if one of the former Librarians decided to delve into his mind, despite the precautions taken by the psykers of the Alpha Legion to shield his mind from casual inspection. The threat of psychic discovery had always been present, but the realisation that such a warrior was in Alpharius’s squad was a more distinct worry.
If the Librarians returned, his task would become a lot harder. He would have to watch his thoughts as much as his deeds and words.
THE MAIN VAULT was a circular room, with a domed ceiling carved into the naked rock. There were several other doors leading from it, but it was the contents of the central chamber that dominated Corax’s thoughts as he stepped across the threshold. He could not recall any defences in this inner sanctum though he had a flash memory of a final failsafe – any interference with the outer door would have seen the contents destroyed by a fusion charge set underneath the vault. Perhaps it was the presence of this memory that had stopped the primarch ordering the cutters and drills brought forth, though it was only now that the dire consequences of such an act were clear to him.
His misgivings about the events that had just transpired evaporated, replaced by satisfaction, curiosity and a sense of awe. Here was the Emperor’s laboratory, where it could be said the Imperium was truly created. This was the birthplace of the primarchs.
Everything was pristine, environmental regulators and stasis fields maintaining the facility in the exact condition it had been left. The air was clean, every surface brightly scrubbed. A large device sat at the heart of the room, dormant for the moment but riddled with energy cables and pipes, not dissimilar to the machinery Corax had thought he had glimpsed around the Emperor’s Golden Throne. It reached to the ceiling, covered with glass-panelled openings that showed hundreds of dials and phials, tubes of coloured liquids and touch-screen interfaces.
Under the direction of Agapito and Arcatus, the Custodians and Raven Guard fanned out, securing the other doorways. The Emperor’s memories were hazy on what lay behind them, but Corax had a dim recollection of vast generators, freezing chambers, databanks and room upon room of cogitating machines.
Thick cables coiled out from the central machine, snaking across the plainly tiled floor to twenty other devices, arranged in a circle around the chamber. Corax recognised them immediately: the incubators of the primarchs. They were empty of their artificial amniotic fluids, their glass cases raised open. Where lights had flickered, gauge needles had wavered and monitoring systems chirped and beeped, now there was lifelessness and silence.
Magos Orlandriaz started gasping and muttering, wandering from one machine to the next with wide eyes. Corax smiled at the almost childlike delight with which the tech-priest was drawn from one sight to the next, occasionally pausing to place a reverent hand on a piece of technology, often stopping to gaze dumbly at something suddenly revealed to him.
Each of the incubators was numbered on its side. Corax quickly sought out number 19, his own chamber. He realised something was wrong as he approached. The incubator was incomplete, its insides missing like a tomb with no coffin within. Only the casing and outer protective canopy remained: a mess of cables and pipes lay loose at the bottom of the shell, disconnected.
He remembered the cracked and broken machine that had been found beside him beneath the glacier. For years, long and lonely years, he had wondered about that machine and its purpose. Only when the Emperor had come to Deliverance had the primarch learned what he was and how it was he had awoken on that strange, desolate moon.
Corax still vividly remembered that meeting. Laying his hands upon the incubator chamber brought it back to his thoughts.
‘SCANNERS HAVE PICKED up an object moving towards the main dock,’ reported Agapito, standing at one of the scanner arrays. The youthful freedom fighter was wearing the black trousers of a guard, the jacket that had completed the disguise discarded once the tower had been opened to the guerrillas. A curving slash was slowly forming a scab across his bare chest and his left arm was wrapped in a fresh bandage. ‘Trajectory implies a landing pattern, but it is impossible to say what sort of craft.’
The main tower was still heavily damaged and in disarray from the fighting. Corvus’s followers manned the stations as best they could, but the equipment was barely functioning and most of them were working from guesswork rather than training. That anything had been detected by the shattered scanner array was remarkable.
The bodies of those who had worked here before had been removed, but there were still bloodstains on the grille of the floor and brushed metal consoles; cleaning up the detritus of revolution was low on Corvus’s list of priorities whilst there remained men alive on Kiavahr who opposed his rebellion. Many of the screens and keypads were shattered from weapons fire and exposed wiring burst messily from larger rents in the equipment banks, but power had been restored and a few crackled with life under the nurturing of Corvus’s most technically gifted followers.
The defence turrets that littered the immense spire of the main guard tower were definitely operational. The revolutionaries under Corvus’s command had ensured they had been taken intact, as their leader had instructed.
‘Bringing the weapons systems to lock-on,’ announced Branne, standing at the firing console. Like his brother, he showed the wounds of war, sporting a graze across his cheek, a patch of blood matting the light scattering of downy hair on his chin.
The tower rumbled as immense turrets moved into position, targeting their mass drivers towards the incoming vessel. Branne looked expectantly over his shoulder at the revolutionary leader, tousled hair falling over his youthful face.
‘Shall we fire?’ asked Branne.
‘No,’ replied Corvus.
He stood at the armoured window of the control room looking out into the darkness. Kiavahr was waxing towards full, looming large behind the mineworkings and crane gantries on the horizon. From this distance it looked the same as ever, but Corvus knew that below the welter of swirling red clouds the planet was in turmoil. He fancied he could still see the aftermath of the atomic detonations unleashed by the mining charges his forces had dropped down the gravity well to the import station below, but it was just a fancy.