‘I am cognizant of the details, Sergeant Dagotal.’
Xi-Nu 73 was a stick-thin being, human only in the loosest sense. His red robe flapped in the heated wind, revealing an augmented body of lustreless iron bound together by industrial cabling. His arms, which he now raised in order to lower his hood, were a skeleton’s limbs constructed from contoured armour plating, ending in bronze hands with too many fingers. His face, such as it was, appeared from the lowered hood as a mess of thin wires and a noisy respiration mask, with no other discernible features beyond the green eye lenses that formed a triangle’s cardinal points.
Xi-Nu 73 had been human once – almost a century ago in the short, fragile two decades after his birth. Like all of the Mechanicum of Mars, he’d had to endure those early years living in a shell of warm meat and wet blood, until he gained the skill to purify himself.
He’d improved himself a great deal since then.
The tech-priest stood by the Mechanicum lander’s cargo ramp, overseeing the ungainly march of several towering figures. Each one was clad in dense armour plating painted in chipped coats of crimson. They stood almost five metres tall, their mechanical joints not even attempting to mimic human motion. The first two down the clanging ramp were gangly Crusaders, their long bladed arms swinging as their shoulders rocked side to side in awkward motion. Circuitry, thick and crude, was etched along the arm-swords’ edges, linking the blades to power generators in the robots’ bodies.
–Sanguine– said the first, vocalising in tinny machine tones, –standing ready–.
–Alizarin– the second intoned, –standing ready–.
The third figure to stomp down the ramp was twice the width of the first two, bulky where the Crusaders were gangly, great fists of riveted metal fused to form siege hammers. Even more than its kin, it reeked of greased machine parts and the earthy scent of lubricating oils. The Cataphract-class machine was hunched, made dense by sloping armour, and moved with even less claim to grace than the others.
–Vermillion– it droned as it clanked in line with the Crusaders, –standing ready–.
Xi-Nu 73 turned his eye lenses to regard the last machine emerging from the lander’s hold. This one seemed a compromise between its construct-kin, almost human in its posture and gait, armoured with thick plating and bearing weapons for arms. A third cannon rose from its shoulder, with ammunition belts trailing down its back, dreadlocks of bronze shells rattling with each step. Dagotal knew each of Xi-Nu’s wards, familiar with them from twelve years of sharing battlefields. This last was a Conqueror, and the primus unit of the group. It wore a Legion banner over its shoulder, and its armour plating was etched with Colchisian runes.
Several of the Word Bearers saluted this last robotic warrior. It didn’t acknowledge them.
–Incarnadine– the Conqueror declared in a voice devoid of personality, –standing ready–.
Xi-Nu 73 turned to the gathered Word Bearers, his eyes refocusing yet again. ‘Greetings, sergeant. Ninth Maniple of the Carthage Cohort, awaiting orders.’
Argel Tal hit the ground running, the boosters on his back cycling down as he ran. Both blades were sheathed; in his fists, a richly-inscribed bolter bucked with each fired shell. He took refuge with several of his warriors in the lowest level of a glass tower, shooting out of the stained glass windows. Whatever patterns the coloured glass once held were gone, smashed through by Word Bearers needing clear lines of fire.
The Obsidian in the street outside dwarfed them all, liberally blasting the road with streams of electrical force from its featureless face. Argel Tal reloaded, and as he slammed a fresh magazine home, he had a momentary glance of a glass shard by his boot – a fragment of the stained glass window showing a figure in golden armour.
Dagotal Squad was running interference, weaving between the artificial’s insect-legs, veering and jinking to avoid its lethal arcs of fire. Bolter shells hammered into its joints from where Torgal’s men took what cover they could find, but their efforts were little more than an irritant.
‘Xi-Nu 73,’ Argel Tal voxed. ‘We’re in position. Make this fast.’
‘Acknowledged, Seventh Captain.’
They came from behind the construct, emerging from a subsidiary road. Sanguine and Alizarin stalked forward first with all the grace of stumbling beggars, their movements a stark contrast to the liquid grace of the enemy machine. Lascannon fire streamed from the shoulder mounts of both Crusaders, carving searing scars into the Obsidian’s skin, the sludge-gleam of melted glass bright against the black. Their arm-blades came up on clanking, motorised hinge joints, slicing down to chop at the construct’s legs.
Recognising this new threat, the Obsidian span to face the Mechanicum war machines. It turned into a barrage of gunfire, shoulder-mounted heavy bolters punching shards from the construct’s face and torso with a torrent of explosive shells. Incarnadine, regal in form compared to its brothers, tracked every movement made by the enemy machine. It didn’t cease fire, even for a second. Nor did a single shot go wide.
The Obsidian’s storm-stream wasted itself, blasting up at the sky as the Mechanicum robotics knocked it off-balance.
The Cataphract-class Vermillion, as bulky as an Astartes Dreadnought, was an altogether more ponderous engine. Stocky and lumbering, it closed the distance as the Obsidian sought to right itself on its four remaining legs. Siege hammers swung in, meeting alien glass with a thunderclap’s refrain. Four legs became three – the glass machine crashed to the knees it had left.
‘Finish it,’ said Argel Tal. His jump pack burned again, groaning as the engines drew breath.
‘By your word,’ came the vox-replies.
The swords came free in smooth pulls, and Argel Tal let a short burst of thrust carry him skyward. Even prone, the Obsidian offered no purchase. As the Word Bearers came down in its back, most elected to hover, burning their jump jets rather than standing upon the thing’s body. Swords clashed and carved, but only Argel Tal’s empowered blades inflicted significant damage, sending shards of dark glass flying with each hack.
Even as it died, the Obsidian dragged itself across the street, a grasping hand reaching for the closest true threat. Incarnadine stepped back, autocannons laying into the outstretched hand, shearing fingers from the fist. Behind the Imperial war machine, Xi-Nu watched with unwavering attention, occasionally adjusting dials on his chestplate for reasons none of the Word Bearers had ever discerned, despite a decade of fighting by his side.
When the Obsidian lay still at last, Argel Tal and Dagotal came over to the tech-priest. The downed enemy construct had a shapeless resemblance to a melting ice statue, its body ruined by a thousand bullet impacts, blade cuts and lascannon beams. Both Word Bearers crunched closer on the glass shards lining the road.
‘Greetings, captain,’ said Xi-Nu 73. ‘Ninth Maniple of the Carthage Cohort, awaiting orders.’
Cyrene paused Argel Tal’s retelling with a hand on his forearm.
‘You used artificials yourself?’
He’d been expecting this. ‘The Legio Cybernetica is a treasured facet of the Mechanicum. The Great Crusade leans heaviest on the Legio Titanicus for their war engines, but Cybernetica plays its role among the noblest Astartes Legions. Their artificials are robotic shells housing machine-spirits. Cybernetica tech-priests engineer organic-synthetic minds from biological components.’