Chapter 14

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Three days before X day...

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'Kowalski' proved to be an extremely fast ship. Leaving Immaterium forty-three point and eighty-one hundredths of a standard hour later than the main convoy, the heavy transport cruiser, however, arrived first in high orbit of 140101-55524-R54024-52928P10.

"Nice ship, captain," Doturov said in a low voice of praise. "However, according to the maneuver decision, 'Kowalski' has yet to correct the gravity maneuver at the planet's smaller satellite."

"According to the official tactical sheet, our four plasma engines develop an acceleration of 3.35 g. However, in a test near Uranus, I passed the Jupiter with 3.92 g afterburner, two-hundredths of a second faster than the 'Secutor' light cruiser that accompanied us."

As requested, a recording appeared on the main holo-screen, judging by the metadata, made by the Imperial Fleet's 'Sekutor' itself. The auspices nonchalantly recorded the 'Kowalski,' lowering her bow relative to her acceleration vector and lifting her stern like an Eldar 'Sigil'. Trembling with every rivet and fluttering about thirty meters against the aft deck, she went farther and farther away until she was lost in the Milky Way.

"Your capabilities definitely inspire the crew and glorify Omnissiah not by word, but by deed."

"Our cruiser is the best ship to have come off the slipway of the Ring in the past five centuries. We are all proud to serve on it, and we praise Omnissiah and Mars tirelessly for this honor."

In many aspects, Doturov agreed with the Voidmancer. However... Imperial Fleet data regarding 'Kowalski' for some reason was missing in the data bank of the current operation Lexik Arcanus. In the part about the cruiser's testing, the only audiovisual files were present. A recording of the protocols. On it, the tech-priest Captain Vallièr, flashing a necklace of red lenses, told Navis Nobilite representative Alejandro Dodson that the test of the Kowalski had not even shown half its capabilities. Moreover, the captain boasted humanly that had the fast destroyers escorted 'Kowalski' the transport cruiser would have shown what she was really capable of, outrunning 'Hunter' or even 'Cobra'. But since it was common knowledge that their propulsion groups provided acceleration over 7 g, the Logis of Parliament labeled the captain's statement as blatant bragging and atavistic tribute to 'meat' origins.

However, judging by the remarks in the tactical form and the condescension of Vallier, the Logises was no less proud of the transport cruiser's marvelous machines - visible embodiments of the Gifts of Omnissia.

In the metadata of the Doturov files immediately appeared a code flag marker, which would have required the computing power of an entire hive city to decipher.

Active ed0c3fa - suspicious.

"Incomplete selectively entered data. The information is corrected to demonstrate Vallier's incompetence. How could something like this happen?' Monitor Malevolis was supremely intrigued, the good news is that the internal dialogue between him and Doturov could not even be recorded, much less intercepted. "Data compromised in the Ring's data banks is considered impossible."

"Apparently, the records were distorted during the tests, before the cruiser returned to Mars. But we'll find out, for sure."

"Not an easy task."

"Omnissiah is the Truth, and all information is a particle and reflection of Him. Information can be distorted, but it cannot be destroyed. Even single bits, collected at random, retain information about the source of origin. This means that parliament, one way or another, will gather comprehensive data on the asset that made the substitution."

"Techno-heretic? Sabotage?"

"Unlikely. It is more likely that the asset belongs to Temple of Vanos."

"In that case..."

"At this point, we will not waste resources on processing an identified incident. We will lose the necessary accuracy of the cognitive models if we consider, among other things, the possible costs of countering unlikely actions of the Officio Assassinorum. This task will be prioritized at the end of the current operation."

Perseus Theta refrained from a further argument, not because he was suppressed by the authority of the superior logis, but because Doturov was right.

I'll think about this [cruiser test mishap/causes/consequences] tomorrow, Doturov noted in his private log.

"I should check the readiness for the landing of Adeptus Mechanicus forces, required on 140101-55524-R54024-52928P10 Voidmancer-Captain Valler," he reported upon completion of this operation.

"Are you leaving 'Kowalski' already?" the captain asked.

"Unfortunately for the Ain Legion, no. There is an authorization from Fabricator-General Magnos Omicron to place twelve 'Warhound' of the Legion under my command."

The captain's optical sensors gleamed coldly in the shifting light of the holograms.

"Magos Militar Divisio will be furious," said Valier as a matter of fact.

"More than that," Doturov agreed.

"No," Magos Militar Fromm was adamant.

The other four senior officers of the legion remained silent.

"Under the circumstances, the Fabricator-General and the Mars Parliament made a timely and justified decision," Malevolis reported. "Your unwillingness to accept it is regrettable."

"I cannot allow the Militaris Ain Division to lose a third of its reconnaissance vehicles at a time. The Legion is heading for Sabbat Worlds, where it will operate independently and without regular support from the Forge. That is, any damage of any kind will prove critical and put the titan out of action for a long time. Actions in the highly urbanized industrial areas of the suburban Dworkin hive zone are themselves extremely difficult. The effectiveness of orbital surveillance is below acceptable limits and without reconnaissance vehicles adequate control of tactical units is impossible."

"Fabricator-General Magnos Omicron does not share such fears."

"The Fabricator-General is not in command of my Militar Division!" Fromm barked. "He supplies it and nothing more! I can't take orders like that as anything other than a betrayal. Or worse, a mistake."

"When I left Mars to carry out my tasks," said Monitor Malevolis after a lingering pause, "I was annoyed. The Fabricator General, I thought, was just taking up my time. And not only from me but also from himself. And the wasted time is an irrational waste of a scarce resource. Information that is not processed. Orders that are not given. Tasks that are not completed. After all, any Mechanicus will unquestioningly carry out the Omnissiah's instructions, isn't that obvious? I will now be forced to apologize to the Fabricator General for my faulty judgment."

"You don't share my belief, Logis." Fromm continued to stand his ground. "Do you find my choice of epithets too harsh?'

"I'm afraid, Magos Militar, you have a somewhat distorted view of the situation. Your legion has been in battle too long, and isolation affects the flow of information and the adequacy of assessment. Need I remind you, a senior officer of the Collegium Titanic, that the interests, trials, and tribulations of a single Militar Division are infinitesimal in the real threat of supply cuts to hundreds of besieged planets in the Sabbat Worlds?"

"When was the last time you were in combat, Logis?" Fromm answered question after question.

"What does this have to do with you not obeying Mars' orders?"

"The very direct. Please, Logis, answer me."

"I suppose you are well aware that I am a member of the Lexicon Arcanus of the Parliament. We don't usually get directly involved in combat."

"I am Magos Militar Divisio of the Legion of the Collegium Titanica Ain," the war machine lord listed with dignity. "It's been three hundred years. Perhaps I am not the best at the logistics part. I may not have studied the latest advances in global strategy well. But I am well versed in the nature of war, the doctrines of warfare, and the delicate relationship between the actions of the Venator and Myrmidon manipuli that determine the legion's effectiveness. Your order deprives me of three full-fledged Venato manipuli This is unacceptable!"

"Re-staff the Legion. Disband two Ferrox Manipuli, reduce four Venator units by one machine."

"Have you ever heard of the combat coherence of manipuli, Logis? I quote: 'Isolation distorts perception". Isolation means seclusion, detachment from the outside world, and you are partly right. But - and this is the most important thing - you have to keep in mind that there are several worlds, each subject to its own laws and conditions."

"Explain."

"Mars and the cares of Parliament are one world. The convoys of the St. Evisser Path, the battlefields of the Sabbat Worlds are another world, quite unlike Mars. In essence, you are completely isolated from the universe where the Legion of Ain exists. We are not adapted to operate effectively in the conditions that your order creates. This is an objective fact."

"Adeptus Mechanicus can and does adapt to any conditions. Humanity has had to adapt throughout our history to survive. And we, though the best part of the race, leading the others to future greatness, are still only a part."

"It takes time! A great deal of time. With the cost of our equipment, the goodness of the spirits of the machines, and the importance on the battlefield, the cost of making a mistake and losing every titan is absolutely unacceptable! Combat cohesion of groups can take years, decades, a process impossible to squeeze into the six months remaining before landing on Dvorkin. Neither the mind of the crews nor the Spirits of the Godlike Titans Machines can withstand it!"

"You grievously underestimate the flexibility and incredible strength of the Mechanicus armies. They can certainly withstand such tests with honor. Millennia of victorious campaigns against hordes of all kinds of opponents is a testament to that."

"As an occasional decision in the face of overwhelming influences, yes, perhaps. But I do not consider your whim to be the factor for which the rules and foundations consecrated over the centuries must be broken. The answer has been given, Monitor Malevolis, and that answer is no."

"Response recorded," the signal went off the air at the same time as the confirmation. "Magos Militar Divisio Fromm is suspended from command."

"Techno-heretic on deck!" cried Fromm. "Arrest!"

The five secutarii guarding the legion's command instantly raised their arc pistols as a unit. However, the barrels were pointed in the direction of the commander of the legion, now former.

"My orders have been coordinated with Adeptus Terra and confirmed by the Fabricator-General of Mars," Malevolis stated. "You forget yourself, Magos Fromm. The command of the Ain Legion rests with Grandmaster Stark. Magos Fromm will be landed on the planet. His actions will be reviewed by the Mechanicus tribunal within a reasonable time."

Grandmaster Stark exchanged short encrypted messages with the rest of the Legion officers and reported:

"We will coordinate a list of allocated under the command of Monitor Mallevolis 'Warhound' within three standard hours and submit it for approval. Nevertheless, I want to point out that for me, as commander of the Collegium Titanic compound, the most important thing is its maximum combat effectiveness. Some Magos are truly indispensable away from the worlds of Adeptus Mechanicus. The knowledge and experience of the Magos Militar Divisio in a future campaign is an indispensable resource."

Perseus Theta pondered. To cancel his own order was to show the haste in the decisions of the authorized representative of Mars. On the other hand, efficiency is paramount. Humans can put personal ambition above expediency, but the servants of Omnissiah never do.

"I would agree that the return of the Ain Legion to its permanent base should be considered a reasonable deadline," Theta said. "Upon completion of the campaign in the Sabbat Worlds. The tribunal will be organized by the Fabricator-General Magnos Omicron. The possible future merits of Magos Fromm shall be taken into account as mitigating circumstances in determining his guilt and degree of responsibility. In the name of Omnissiah!"

"In the name of God Machine!"

Eighteen hours later, Perseus Theta stood in the huge hangar of the planet's central port, dedicated to the needs of Mechanicus. The unloading of the twelve titans was nearing completion.

The dismissal of the crew of one of the combat vehicles caused the princepses to react similarly to Fromm's behavior, but this time it was Doturov who led the conversation. Perhaps that's why the result was less confrontational. The princeps and moderator eventually found humility and also agreed to go to the reserve, in case one of the crews might be lost while keeping the titan repairable - unfortunately, not a very rare situation for scouts.

The machine Doturov needed was in a separate section. Apart from the servitors, the only person on board was the tech-priest, who was bringing the machine's energy heart out of sleep mode.

"Lexik Arcanus, I don't understand - what is the point of landing a Titan that is devoid of the crew and cannot act? A Machine Spirit can't operate a Titan on its own."

Doturov, who shifted his personality back to the databank, responded not even technolinguistically, but through a primitive pictograph:

Watch.

In the next moment, the Litany of the God-Machine filled the space.

Very, very few people could sense - not even understand, but simply notice - the divine code, and Perseus Theta was one of them. Lines of ancient hexacode, sometimes almost in natural languages, filled the hangar space, penetrated to the very core of consciousness, filling the machine memory. Logis even attempted to comprehend the chanted algorithm, but could not get beyond the approximations of the distributed loads of the Holy Cyber Prophecies of Kleinrock. His mind was vainly picking up individual self-similar rivers of numbers, M/M/V time exponents, but the Truth was no longer whole. It fractured and eluded the imperfect mind of Perseus Theta, whose sub-processors choked, unable to process even a thousandth of the data that was thrust upon them.

It was some time before Logis Theta realized he had fallen to the steel floor, like a mechanical puppet, devastated, without power. Around him, the servitors whose primitive circuits simply failed to notice the digital Revelation that Doturov had seemingly bestowed upon all who were nearby, scurried obediently about.

The weight of his imperfection made Perseus want to cry out like Terran dogs for a moment. The ensuing realization of such a primitive impulse that desecrated the very essence of Adeptus Mechanicus put Logis in a long stupor. A less organized thinking apparatus would likely have been permanently incapacitated, but the Mars School of Logis taught its adepts the mysteries of an adequate description of states through tensor analysis under subliminal stresses. It took the mechanic a few minutes to break down the established topology of his mind and, with the aid of the blessed mechanisms of fuzzy logic, examine in isolation each node of the 'Perseus Theta' consciousness model in operation, bringing back clarity of thought. Simplifying the operation to an insulting primitive, we can say that Theta has 'come to his senses'.

And then he felt real, genuine terror.

The Titan standing before him was dead. Outwardly the divine machine, the physical embodiment of Omnissia's will - a small, insignificant part of His will - was the same as before, aboard the 'Kowalski. But. A particle of the Divine Will, a blessed gift of the Forge, embodied by hundreds of tons of sacred metal. A Will that glides through the onboard cogitators and systems, from the reactor logic controllers to the combat auspices sensors. The very essence of a battle Titan, so powerful that few can match and cooperate with it. It's all gone.

The Spirit Machine of the 'Warhound', the thing that turned dead iron into a child of Omnissiah, no longer existed.

Logis wouldn't be able to explain at this point how he realized it. He couldn't articulate what had changed in the info field. The onboard servitors were still plugged into their sockets, performing the proper rituals to bring the plasma reactor back to normal. The infodiodes at the princeps' throne signaled that the auspices had successfully passed the basic tests. The maintenance tech-priest - not the former crew, of course - was doing routine work on the turbo laser. But in a split second, the Titan was no longer the visible embodiment of God. He turned into an enormous walker, a senselessly overcomplicated wrench. A posthumous shadow of what he had been twelve minutes and forty-three seconds before.

Malevolis froze, unable to fully comprehend and perceive the monstrous sacrilege committed before his eyes. The infinite betrayal of the lamb, which is the machine spirit in front of Omnissiah.

"Connect the databank to the moderators consoles."

The instruction was repeated several times before the devastated Logis realized that Doturov was speaking to him through a closed encryption channel. And a few more incredibly long seconds to understand the meaning of the message.

"Why?"

Lexic Arcanus was patient because he understood well the suffering that filled Theta's soul. To realize that what had happened was not a sacrilege, a trampling on the foundations of the Mechanicus cult, but an act of true faith required flexibility of thought not constrained by the dogmatism of outdated interpretations or the emptiness of tradition. And, admittedly, the young Logis was still doing quite well.

"The universe does not tolerate emptiness, and the incarnation of God-Machine must not remain deprived of a spark of His will. Watch. Learn. Think. Execute."

The Martian servitors that had arrived with 'Kowalski' were fine-tuned, and their firmware interpreted even complex commands adequately. Two hundred and eighty-three seconds later a logis-operated forklift carefully placed the metal and plastic cube of the databank on the frontal slope of the Titan and secured it with electromagnetic clamps.

Logis Theta was so immersed in the Fuzzy Sets Litaire that he did not immediately notice the new request he received from Doturov.

"Do you understand what happened?"

"The Spirit of the Divine Titan 'Warhound' scheme Mars Type Four, code XVII-1441, name 'Kronover' was destroyed by the will of the Mars Parliament."

It took a few seconds for Perseus Theta's answer to contain not even a shadow of his worry and horror.

"How exactly?"

"Litany of God."

"Explain."

Logis had to spend another minute to reconstruct at least fragments of the algorithms picked up by his sensors overloaded Omnissiah code.

"Fractal method. Self-similarity of induced traffic in the data stream. Inconsistency of Titan's network elements with the generated model led to chaos in dynamic control systems."

"And?" Doturov's hexacode looked... approvingly?

"Application of the fractal theory instead of graph theory led to unjustified overloading of the model, and as a consequence, inconsistency of the results of the Spirit of the Machine representation with the real behavior of the network of onboard cogitators. Unsteady data flow with significant fluctuations in time... I have to do the math. I do not have enough capacity of my own to respond in a reasonable time."

"This is generally true. The necessary calculations were done before the Great Schism. I used the standard annihilation pattern."

The standard pattern of machine spirit destruction... It was so monstrous that Theta almost went into a new cycle of deep introspection and recovery.

"But why?!" Malevolis understood that it was not the cold logic of the Omnissiah way that ruled him now, but the animal nature of the human basis. And yet he could not contain his emotions.

"Why the need for such... destruction schemes?!"

"There are millions of Forges in the galaxy. Millions of worlds, day and night with signal, genome, and steel, praising the Trinity. Tens of thousands of Fabricator Generals lead their flock on the path of Omnissiah. But only one speaks for all Adeptus Mechanicus. One world. One path. One Fabricator General."

"One world..." Theta repeated.

"This is the real power of Mars. The unquestionable, unconditional, true power of the Temple of All Knowledge. We can crush any threat, destroy any techno-heresies, win any dispute. For we know their nature, their structure, their methods. Any, the most elaborate scheme of the enemies of Omnissiah will be but a travesty of its gifts. Everything that the distorted mind of heretics can create is already predetermined and counted, and therefore can be destroyed by the will of Omnissiah."

"I... I should think about it..."

"For a better understanding, familiarize yourself with the concept of the 'Simia Dei' from Ancient Terra history."

"Yes, I'll do it... But why?!" Theta couldn't stand it anymore. "Why was the Spirit of the Titan killed?"

"Only one consciousness should exist in one body. Any semblance of 'reflexes' would create unnecessary risks."

Around the Throne of the Princeps and the cockpits of the moderator scattered lights of the control panels and holographic monitors. The reactor was successfully launched.

"But for the tasks to come, this is the incarnation I need now. If it endures the trials, the Spirit of the Machine will be restored in it."

The electromagnets shut down at the same time as the moderator cables slipped out of the cantilever connectors. The cockpit covers fell with a rumble, covering the empty cockpit with hundreds of kilograms of flawless armor born in the smelters of Magnos Omicron. The databank cube collapsed with a rumble onto the concrete slabs of the hangar, empty and useless, stripped of its precious contents.

In the semi-darkness of the hangar, the greenish glow of the Kranover's eyes slowly flared.

"IN THE NAME OF ADEPTUS MECHANICUS AND TO THE GLORY OF THE GOD MACHINE!!!" Titan's binary roar echoed through the info field.

"In his name," Theta exhaled reverently, falling to his knees, realizing that he was now admitted to something beautiful, delightful in the perfection of truth.

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