Blood Gorgons - By Henry Zou Page 0,76

ways, for Vigoth himself was old. He remembered a time when the Blood Gorgons had roamed freely. There had been no limits, not physically, nor of time in their immortal age, nor of law or code to restrain them. It was precisely that which made 111

them Blood Gorgons. It raised them above the loyalist Slave Marines who were no better than menial servants of the enthroned Emperor.

There were others within the coven who shared his views: Nabonidus, for one. They had scryed. They had cast the bones. They had prayed to the gods.

Picking up the Ophidian tablet, Vigoth traced the rune with his fingers. The serpentine lacuna was a portent of cycles, resembling a snake devouring its own tail. It symbolised destruction and the rebirth of history. Muhr would be a new beginning. But to create anew, Muhr would dismantle the old. Vigoth feared for the old with a deep conviction.

AUTOLOADERS CLICKED ON cyclical. He swivelled, and the paralysed bulk of his lascannon arms tingled gently where machine fibre was sutured to flesh nerves.

His name was Gunner‐156X, but the maintenance slave jokingly referred to him as

‘Sternface’.

The world outside was boundless and black, impossible for him to understand.

Cocooned against the universe, human eyes attuned to nothing but signature scans.

He locked onto a target, a sudden blip on the auspex. He framed it under target lock for a brief second, and then it was gone.

Wires thrummed and electricity coursed through his veins. His focus was singular. In the distance, he heard the deep throb of celebration as the Blood Gorgons revelled. There was the sound of the ship’s auspex systems sweeping the regional asteroids, bypassing debris and the looming nearby moons. He heard all these things, but his focus remained singular.

Gunner‐156X was a gun servitor. His sole reason for existence was the functioning las blister 156X, a six‐stack lascannon turret. A tiny pore on the oceanic hide of the Cauldron Born. He was hard‐wired, his fleshy torso plugged at the hip into a swivel turret and his arms amputated by the triple pod lascannons affixed to his shoulder sockets.

There. A target again.

Multiple targets.Sizeable threat.Cruiser‐sized craft and shoals of escorts. A swarm of unknown predators encircling the leviathan bulk of the Cauldron Born.

With a domino effect, defence blisters and lance ports all reported the same active reading. The entire starboard sector came alive with warning.

Gunner‐156X suddenly felt alive. This was the only time that he remembered the human concept of excitement. He swivelled his las‐stack, locking onto the approaching fleet. They were too far away for him to see, but he could feel them like cold pricks on his skin from the ship’s hardplugged monitors.

++All automatic defences stand down. All automatic stand down++

Gunner‐156X paused. His muscles twitched. Where the locking clamps of the turret connected to his shoulders he itched. He waited for the override authorization.

++Defence system down. Authorisation: Lord Anko Muhr++

Muhr…

Gunner‐156X brought up his memory banks. Muhr was the master now. He knew this had not always been the case. There had been another, but the information had been blanked out. Changed. His machine mind could never bring up that data again.

++Authorisation cleared++

As the unknown fleet lurked closer, Gunner‐156X powered down simultaneously alone with all the ship’s defences.

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THE FLEET OF Opsarus stole upon them suddenly, ambushing them from behind the flare of a gas giant. Skulking cruisers of rusted white, great shambling things, drifting together like listless corpses. They entered the Cauldron Born’s docking bays without challenge.

No strike fighters were scrambled to intercept the intruders even as eight Light‐class cruisers berthed themselves inside the Gorgons’ fortress. Neither did the space hulk’s lance batteries and gun towers and defence blisters fire upon them. The alarms within the docks did not sound. Void seals did not activate to trap the invaders within the exterior bulkheads.

Most Blood Gorgons, lost within the depths of their delight, did not know what had occurred. Many were still pleasure‐drowsed and heavily intoxicated. After all, Lord Muhr had granted them permission– nay, he had encouraged it.

WITHIN EIGHT MINUTES of landing, squads of Plague Marines prowled the lower decks of the floating fortress. The cruisers disgorged almost five full companies of Plague Marines and several regiments of Septic infantry.

Reports were mixed as to what followed; there was considerable confusion. There were a minority of squads who had remained vigilant in the wake of Sabtah’s death, Muhr’s dissenters. They engaged the invaders in a brief, sporadic firefight in the Maze of Acts Martial and the slave barracks of mid‐level 42. Other reports