Salamander

Maintaining vigilance, they awaited the slow, inexorable process of the bulkhead opening.

Massive forge-engines loomed in the next chamber, banks and banks of pistons, foundries, kilns and smelting vats filling an expansive machine floor. Conveyors chugged with monotonous motion, steam spat in sporadic intervals from pipes and vents, unseen gears churned noisily.

It was a hive of industry, a slow-beating heart of metal and machines, oil and heat. Yet, for all its labours, the forge-engines had achieved nothing. The vast machineries were merely turning over and over, going through their production cycles bereft of raw materials. Spent bolts piled up on the floor beneath an array of heavy-duty riveting guns, their ammunition long spent; hammers pounded the vulcanised rubber tract of a running belt, their concussive force impotent without plating to beat; oil spilled across the deck and seeped down through cross-hatched grilles, no joints for the empty needle-dispensers to lubricate.

With no independent servitors in sight, no adepts to instruct them, the many and multifarious apparatus continued in their various indoctrinated routines uninterrupted. The only creatures in the forge were those servitors attached physically to the machines, but they too merely worked by rote, implementing their protocols like automatons. There was no evidence of crew or even skitarii armsmen or Martian praetorians, either - wherever the inhabitants of the Ark-class vessel were situated, it was not here.

'Tiberon,' barked Tsu'gan into the comm-feed, 'shut it down.'

The Salamander saluted and broke from formation, bolter held low and ready. He disappeared briefly amidst the forge-machines. A few moments later the machines slowed and began to power down, the din receding gradually into silence.

Brother Tiberon returned and rejoined his squad.

Dak'ir tested the reaction of a slaved servitor with the up of his chainsword, watching it slump back as if its invisible strings had been cut by the weapon's teeth.

'We must find out what happened here.' He looked to Pyriel for some guidance, but the Librarian was still and appeared pensive.

Instead, Dak'ir looked around and noticed a console independent of the forge-machines.

'Emek, see if you can access the onboard maintenance logs. Perhaps it will provide some clue as to what happened.'

Emek went to work again, using the surplus power available from the shut- down forge-engines to activate the console. Dak'ir at his shoulder, the other Salamander brought up more ship schematics, this time with maintenance logs appended alongside. He read quickly, assessing the information display and absorbing it like a savant. Emek's capacity for knowledge and aptitude at applying it was impressive, even for a Space Marine.

'Records are incomplete, possibly as a result of the damage sustained to the ship,' he said, whilst reading. Touch sensitive screens allowed Emek to call up specific decks and areas, digging deeper for answers as he zeroed in on the salient information the vessel did still possess. 'There's an alert for a minor hull breach to the aft, starboard side.'

'We entered via the port side,' muttered Dak'ir. 'How close to our current position is it?'

'Several decks - potentially an hour's travelling through the ship, assuming a clear route and walking speed. It's too small to be weapons damage.'

'An internal explosion?'

'It's possible…'

'But you don't think so, brother?'

'This ship has been drifting for a while, any incendiary reaction from inside would have occurred before now,' Emek explained. 'There is a fading heat trace associated with this breach, which suggests it's recent.'

'What are you telling me, Emek?'

'That the breach was caused by external forces and that we are not the only ones exploring this ship.'

Dak'ir paused to consider this then slapped Emek's pauldron.

'Good work, brother. Now find us a route through the ship that will take us to the bridge. We may need the

Archimedes Rex's

log to ascertain what tragedy befell them.'

Emek nodded and began examining the ship's layout in detail relative to the Salamanders' position in its bowels and the bridge situated in the upper decks.

'Brother-Librarian,' Dak'ir said to get Pyriel's attention after he left Emek to his task.

Pyriel faced him and his eyes crackled briefly with psychic power.

'So it seems we are not alone, after all,' he said.

Dak'ir shook his head. 'No, my lord, we are not.'

The Salamanders proceeded

with caution, following the route established by Brother Emek and inloaded to Brother Iagon's auspex. They passed through cargo zones, abandoned crew quarters and vast assembly yards fed by the forge-engines from below decks. The further into the ship they travelled, the more frequent the discovery of servitors became. Unlike those on the foundry floor in the bowels of the

Archimedes Rex,

these automatons were independent of engines or other machineries. Some lay slumped against bulkheads, others hung slack like wretched cybernetic dolls over benches or cargo crates, many were simply frozen stiff, locked in whatever perfunctory task they had been performing when the ship had been attacked. Whatever had crippled the Ark-class cruiser had acted swiftly and to devastating effect.

Despite its disrepair, the iron majesty of the Mechanicus still came through and intensified the deeper the Salamanders went in the ship. Symbols of the Machine-God were wrought into the walls, the holy cog of the Martian brotherhood prevalent throughout the upper echelons of the

Archimedes Rex.

Alcoves recessed into the walls punctuated regimental lines of bulkheads and were minor chapels of devotion to the Omnissiah. Incense burners hung from chains looped under the vaulted ceilings, emanating strange aromas reminiscent of oil and metal. Designed to appease and mollify the machine-spirits, these lightly smoking braziers were ubiquitous throughout the

Archimedes Rex's

many upper halls, chambers and galleries.

Skulls set into the walls were mistaken as some form of reliquary at first, but the circuitry and antennae jutting from bleached bone exposed them as cyber-skulls, the sanctified craniums of pious and devoted servants of the Imperium. The entire ship was a monolith of religio-metallurgic fusion, the spiritual alloyed with the mechanised.

Tsu'gan stooped over the collapsed body of a servitor. There appeared to be no external damage, and yet it was lifeless and unmoving. Its staring eyes, milky orbs of glass, were bereft of animus.

'No putrefaction, no decay of any kind,' he reported from the head of the group. Brother Honorious watched the dingy route ahead of his sergeant, flamer at the ready.

The ship's corridors had narrowed, becoming almost labyrinthine, devolving into a myriad of tunnels, conduits and passageways like the multitudinous neural pathways of a vast mechanised brain. Only Emek's route to the bridge had kept them on course. The Salamanders had to advance in pairs, one squad at the fore, the other guarding the rear. Tsu'gan had been quick to establish his dominance, eager for action, and taken the lead. Librarian Pyriel had seemed content to let him, occupying a position at the centre of the two squads. The longer they spent on the ship, the more seldom Pyriel spoke. He interrogated his psionics constantly, trying to ascertain some thread of existence of the other intruders on the vessel, but the machine presence on board, though slumbering or inert, was hindering his efforts.