The Armour of Fate
(Guy Haley)
IT IS THE 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
YET EVEN IN his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battle fleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperors will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.
TO BE A MAN in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
The Armour of Fate hummed its secret tunes at all times, but they were most noticeable when all else was quiet, and nowhere was quieter on Macragge’s Honour than Roboute Guilliman’s scriptorium.
No such thing as a silent suit of power armour existed. Even the specially adapted battleplate of Primaris Reivers emitted a toothache whine. Power armour carried a compact reactor, which made a noise. Fibre bundles contracting in their sleeves of plasteel made a noise. Servo motors at the major joints that worked in concert with the bundles and with the wearer’s limbs… They made a noise. As did the cogitator unit, the pharmacopoeia, the recycling plant, the nutrient dispenser, atmospheric filtration system, vox-comms system, and all the other various, miniaturised artefacts that were crammed into its armoured shell. In the library silence it was aggravatingly loud, boring through Roboute Guilliman’s concentration as steadily as a worm spoiling an apple.
The primarch did not need to sleep. That was fortunate, because he thought it likely he would not manage with the sound of the armour’s workings buzzing through his skull. If he could lie down in it in the first place. It was bonded to him, impossible to remove, a situation he worked to remedy.
‘This armour is the work of genius, but it is damnably noisy,’ said Roboute Guilliman testily.
‘My lord?’ Captain Sicarius waited on him that evening, though he did not have to; Guilliman was more than capable of defending himself, and besides, Captain Sicarius could easily exempt himself from such duties. Nevertheless, he stood on guard by the entrance on the far side of the chamber, lost in his thoughts. Guilliman pitied the warrior. He had known Sicarius only a little before he vanished into the warp, but it was enough to notice that he had changed for the worse when he returned.
‘Nothing,’ said Guilliman. He tried to think. Upon a separate table set up in a recess, and crowding the shelves around it, was every work upon Adeptus Astartes power armour in existence, in multifarious formats. That subsection of his library alone was a trove of information any magos of Mars would kill to access, not that Guilliman would ever let such fanatics past the doorway.
Sheaves of blueprints were scattered across the desk in front of him. He spotted something of interest written on one and reached for it, gritting his teeth against the purring of the suit. He always reached with his right hand. The integration points for the Hand of Dominion on his left made picking anything up nigh on impossible, even with the over gauntlet and its underslung bolter removed. Day-to-day tasks such as this were a struggle. His armoured fingers pushed at slick plastek. Ceramite skidded across the papers, knocking them to the ground in wafting flutters.
‘Oh, for the love of…’ he grumbled as he bent awkwardly to pick them up. The Armour of Fate was bulky. As its waist joint prevented him from flexing his spine and reaching the floor, he had to kneel. He reached for the scattered flimsies. Fingertips failed to grasp the sheets, sending them fleeing in small armadas over the polished floor. He growled in frustration, abandoned his task and stood, drawing a curious look from Sicarius.
‘I have the manual dexterity of a Legio Cybernetica battle automaton!’ Guilliman said. ‘Created by the Lord of All Mankind, master of the greatest armies in the Imperium, and I cannot pick up a plastek flimsy.’ He glared at the offending articles. ‘My greatest enemy.’
There was a thoughtful quiet.
‘You are joking, my lord?’ said Sicarius.
Guilliman looked at Sicarius. He had to turn all the way around to do so. The pauldrons, ornamental wings and large halo mounted on his back made it impossible for him to see over his shoulder. At least he had stopped knocking into things. There was that.
‘By the Throne, why am I expected to be serious at all times? Yes, Captain Sicarius, I am making light of my predicament. During the worst of the Great Crusade, I was known to make the occasional jest. Even after Terra fell. I did not spend my entire previous life writing deep thoughts into little notebooks, but sometimes dared to enjoy myself. I suppose that was not recorded in the hagiographies.’
‘Humour is not something you are renowned for, my lord.’
‘My time in this new age has revealed that to me amply.’ Guilliman held up his right hand and clenched it. One could not form a fist properly in power armour. Fingers could be clenched to punch effectively, but they would not curl inward fully. Plates and soft seals got in the way, holding the digits slightly away from the palm. If he squeezed hard to make them nestle, the ceramite squealed against itself, and he feared that he would break it. His right hand did nearly close, but for his left hand, which was wreathed with power plugs and interface ports, there was no chance. The inability to clench his fists properly frustrated him more than any other thing. Even more than the itches he could not scratch, and the impossibility of bathing.
‘There must be another way,’ he said, spreading his fingers again.
‘You wish me to fetch your scribes to collect your papers, my lord?’
‘I do not wish for you to fetch my scribes,’ he snapped. ‘I do not wish to watch them pick up things for me. I do not wish to be so helpless!’ He raised the hand that wore the outer power fist assembly. ‘In this armour I can crush the skull of an ork warlord, but I cannot lift a cup of recaff, nor hold a pen.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘This armour has to come off.’
‘But…’ said Sicarius, his doleful manner broken for the briefest second by a hint of surprise. ‘You told me you would die if you tried.’
‘That was what I was told by the aeldari prophetess. That does not necessarily mean it is true. What do you think I have been doing in here these last weeks?’ He gestured at the piles of flimsies.
Sicarius shrugged. His armour too whined, causing Guilliman to grimace. ‘Studying, my lord. I do not question what.’ He paused again. ‘You spend a lot of time studying.’