Fictionmessiah22 - In The Shadow of The Imperium Chapter 11.3

The world ending battle went on for an hour. An hour of epic combat between titanic war machines worthy of a tale. A sight that would leave any imperial citizen in awe.

Tobren spent most of it belly-aching.

“Dull bulbs the lot of ‘em,” he said, taking a sip from a canteen of something that smelled like fermented prometheum, “this fight is probably going to cost their families a hundred crew-servitors at least. Definitely the ones manning the shields when one of them finally manages to cut through their voids.”

The earth shook as one of the giant warriors sidestepped a blow and shouldered checked another to land a hit of his own, sending dunes collapsing in sandy waves.

“And all of this,” Tobren raised his canteen at the carnage, “over some vapid noble woman. No offence milady.”

“None taken, does this happen often?” Selena smiled leaning against Jarek, both of them seated in the sands protected by Tobren’s void stakes.

Jarek found them interesting—the void stakes—their song was different from the void shields of the Eternal Vow. its hum was much lower, almost squeaky in comparison. That was not the only melody that Jarek could hear. Even from this far out, the raucous symphony of the two battling war-machines was a wonder to witness, the sheer complexity of the systems at play, the depth and ingenuity of its engineering, the horrible drumbeat of war.

Incredible.

It made him miss his Leman Russ.

Though there was something ugly about their songs, a low keening wail, the same oily scream that manned Tobren’s knights but instead of two to each suit. There were thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of servitors manning those Titans, far more than there should have been. The mystery tickled at Jarek's thoughts, but something else held his attention.

…the sky.

It was so blue.

He had seen it in picts and pict-feeds, but none of them had captured the beauty of it. The vastness. The sheer… impossibility of it. How could there be no ceiling? There was always a ceiling. Jarek knew why intellectually; he could have given a lecture on the atmospheric physics and chemistry at play, but knowing wasn't the same as experiencing. You could quote the schematics of a cruiser all day, but it wasn't the same as sitting in its command throne.

Jarek was sitting in that throne for the first time, and the sky held him captive, it trapped him in its cerulean depths leaving only a small part of his attention free to listen in on Selena's subtle interrogation of Tobren.

“Often enough to make trade through the Dust Bowl a shit-show, excuse the coarse language, milady,” the merchant replied after another sip of his canteen.

Selena waved him off.

“I would think using such war machines to settle petty disputes would be a bit wasteful don't you think?”

Tobren gave her a queer look.

“It’s just a knight duel, sure for working men like myself that’s good money being wasted on nothin’, but at the end of the day it's just a pair of youngsters having it out.”

“I see, and how many knights does the average house have around here.”

“Your average Knight House? Just one, but this is the Ferric Reach milady, their hundred of thousands of knight houses not to mention the real nobles, they can have dozens of knights, a couple high knights and even a sovereign.”

That was enough to get Jarek’s attention.

“Wow,” Selena whispered, her awe not wholly manufactured and Jarek couldn’t blame her.

Thousands of Titans? Potentially hundreds of thousand? On one world?

Where in the Emperor’s name had they landed?

“A bit sheltered aren’t you? or you're from a frontier Spire?” Tobren asked.

“Frontier actually,” Selena said, tapping her hell pistol, assuming that the fringes of any society would require weaponry, by the way Tobren nodded, her guess landed, Jarek held a sigh of relief.

That seemed like a pointless gamble, Jarek sent a glance at Selena whose smile hadn’t faltered. He hoped this didn’t represent a pattern.

There was a crash and a thunderous wrench. Jarek directed his attention back to the battle. The two titans stumbled away from each other, both of their voids destroyed, an ocean of red pouring down from holes in their torsos that glowed with heat. A smell carried on the air from those burnt holes. The smell of burning human flesh.

It was a draw.

“What did I say?” Tobren tsked, “millions of tallies! Up in smoke!” he sighed as he got to his feet, going about the business of deactivating the void shields and gathering the stakes.

Soon after they trooped back into the vehicle and before long they were speeding into the desert once more, leaving two dead giants in their wake.

Part way through the journey Jarek abandoned his seat at Selena's side to go scrounging through the things Gunthar had gathered for his tools. He had fixed those tools himself and they had been gifted to him by his teacher. There was no way he was losing them.

Thankfully they were on his tool belt where he left them, all there and largely intact, there were a few bent or beaten up but he could fix them easily enough. Staring down at those tools, an ache settled in his chest.

He ran his thumb over the one that began the set. His sonic spanner was still in working order with not a component out of place, it even still had the chip in its body from when he had banged it while rummaging around the guts of his tank. In that moment it struck Jarek that he might never get to drive that tank, despite hours spent fixing it he might never see it run. He pressed the sonic spanner to his forehead and sighed as that ache intensified.

‘What troubles you?’ Lirael’s voice rang in his head.

‘I… I’ve been trying not to think about it, but if we’re really stranded I might never see my teacher again… I might never see Binny.’

Jarek held his sonic spanner in white knuckled grip, every word hammering home the reality of his situation.

‘Jarek that will not be the case, you will find your way back to them,’ Lirael assured.

‘The witch is not wrong, you have proven yourself much too capable for distance to be a true hindrance,’ Corvinius said.

Jarek took in their words and got to work stitching the tears in his tool belt, he hung it across his torso when he was done. It was too large to be worn as a belt in his human form.

‘Thank you,’ he told them, having taken the time to gather himself

‘You welcome,’ Lirael replied.

‘I simply stated the truth, your thanks are unnecessary.’

Jarek huffed a laugh at Corvinius’ reply and began walking back to his seat on to be blocked off by the smiling visage of Inquisitor Criastus.

“There you are darling. Found what you were searching for?” Selena said, walking up to him and taking his arm again, maintaining her facade.

Jarek shook her off.

‘He can’t see us, this is unnecessary,’ he sent her telepathically.

“What’s the matter darling?” Selena asked her face the picture of a scorned lover.

‘And you know this, how?’ she sent.

‘Technomancy. There are no pict-recorders or vox-thiefs, we are alone.’

“Really?  if we are truly alone…” she whispered, walking up to him in a sensual glide that had Jarek leaning back, but that image was broken by the touch of her hellpistol against his abdomen. Jarek tensed.

‘Who are you exactly?’ she questioned and this close Jarek could tell that her eyes actually glowed when she channeled her powers.

‘I will answer your questions. The threats are unnecessary,”

she pressed the hell pistol deeper into his flesh as a response. Jarek frowned but answered.

‘My name is Jarek Voss, I was born on the flagship of the Dimaris Crusade,’

‘That explains the Black Templar that protects you, but I would have heard of a noble house Voss if there was one associated with such a storied Chapter’

‘You know every noble house in the imperium?’

‘No of course not but you aren’t a noble.’

Jarek didn’t respond to that.

‘Your diction shows an education, and there is something of a noble bearing to you but you are no aristocrat, not even one raised in seclusion. These hands,’ she sent, her free hand dragging across his rough palm, over crags and scars and old plasma burns, ‘are not those of a noble, not even one that was raised as a warrior, these are workers’ hands,’ she sent, her fingers now digging into his palm.

‘So I will ask again, who are you, lest I name you a traitor,’ the last word was hissed with a venomous vitriol that would have taken Jarek aback, had she been speaking of anything else.

‘Traitor?’

For a brief moment all that Jarek had experienced ran through his mind. The fights, the pain, the loss, his distant love that he might never see again because of his sacrifice. All his sacrifices and she dared impugn on his honour

‘My name,’ Jarek began, leaning forward close enough for Selena to realise he stood considerably taller than her, ‘is Jarek Voss.’

The pistol remained pressed against his stomach, yet now it felt less like a threat to him and more like a precaution for her safety. Jarek didn’t care.

‘I have fought and bled for the Imperium. I have done so beside His Angels. I have watched men die at my command and slaughtered hordes of xenos scum with my own hands. I have stood before the horrors of the Warp and I have stood within His light.’

That light stirred at the memory. Warm brown bled from his irises until molten Imperial gold stared back at her.

‘You know little of me, Inquisitor, but if you would know anything, know this: I am no traitor.’

Selena stared into those glowing gold eyes and slowly, her pistol returned to her side. A wide smile spread across her face.

‘Lord Jarek, I think we’re going to get along just fine,,

Then she turned and stalked off, a considerable sway in her stride. Jarek watched her go, taking a brief moment to restrain his temper.

That woman was trouble.

He was reminded once more of what Gunthar had said. About how dangerous she was. Jarek had known of the inquisition, as all citizens of the imperium knew them. As the shadowy hand of the emperor that lived amongst his people, but he didn’t know much beyond that. His education under his teacher had been largely technical and religious, the bureaucratic and political state of the imperium at large was not something he had much knowledge on.

Thankfully he was not alone.

‘Can she be trusted?’

‘No’

The answer was echoed by both Corvinius and Lirael.

Jarek sighed. Yes, that was what he was expecting.

He continued after her into the main fuselage of the skiff.

He had barely taken his seat again when the vehicle came to another stop.

“Another duel?” Selena asked as Tobren came from the cockpit. The merchant smiled at them.

“Not at all, I just thought you’d like a good look at where you're headed. Oh and here,” he said, throwing a bundle of clothes he had brought with him at Jarek.

“You're a big lad, so it might be a bit tight, but I imagine you want to keep your modesty when we get to the Reach.”

“Thank you, Tobren,” Jarek said, unravelling the bundle of clothes and pulling on the dark shirt that lay within, as well as pulling on the pair of roomy shorts, ignoring Selena’s looks of disappointment as he covered up.

“You said you wanted us to see where we’re going?” Selena asked and with a silent signal from Tobren’s augments the doors of the dune treader hissed open to reveal a stunning view.

They had come to a stop on a hill, not a dune, a hill of solid dirt and from the foot of that hill spanned out hundreds of miles of vibrant farm land. Threaded between that farm land was a network of stone roads meandering through the land all of them converging on paths that lead to the same destination.

Jarek laid eyes on that destination and forgot to breathe.

Towering spires of steel and glass pierced the heavens above a city so vast that for several heartbeats he mistook its distant districts for the horizon. Structures of every colour and shape crowded together beneath them, joined by colossal elevated causeways along which streams of vehicles moved like blood through arteries. Above even those roads, airborne craft travelled in invisible lanes between the spires, hundreds visible at any given moment.

Yet even that was not what caught Jarek's eye.

Islands floated above the city.

Actual islands of earth and stone hung unsupported in the blue, some kilometres across, their undersides trailing machinery and gravitic emitters while palaces and fortresses crowned their upper surfaces. Gardens spilled across their edges in curtains of green. Towers gleamed beneath the sun. They were monuments to wealth so extravagant that the nobility of Ferric Reach apparently considered the ground beneath their feet beneath them as well.

“Welcome to the Ferric Reach,” Tobren said, with a warm smile at their awed looks, “now sit back down so you can see it up close.”

The doors hissed closed and it went screaming down the hill toward the city.

“We’re getting to the gate,” Tobren called back, and they leaned forward to peer through the windshield.

A massive wall loomed in the distance, hundreds of metres high and built from the earthy darkness of rockcrete. A colossal gate broke the otherwise unbroken expanse and, arrayed before it in two orderly rows, stood not four, not eight, but sixteen Titans. They stood like invincible sentinels, casting colossal shadows over all who stood before them.

Rather than slowing as they approached that massive gate, the skiff picked up speed.

“Brace yourselves!” Tobren called.

Jarek and Selena gripped their seats while the Space Marines locked their armour and mag-locked their boots to the hull.

Then, with a swooping sensation in his stomach, Jarek found himself airborne. The skiff gained altitude rapidly, arcing through the air until it was on a parabola that ended at the top of the superstructure. As they crested the parapet, Jarek heard something beneath the roar of their engines.

Void shields.

Massive ones.

Their deep hum stretched across the entire wall and continued far into the distance, beyond even the reach of Jarek’s senses.

The ship’s vox crackled to life.

“Designation and business?” came a monotone voice from the other end, carrying the tinny, emotionless quality that could only belong to a servitor.

Tobren rattled off a long string of numbers before continuing.

“As for business, I’m here to purchase and transport parts for the Elm’s Spire Merchant Alliance.”

“Designation and business approved. Welcome back, Merchant Tobren.”

The transmission ended, and the skiff immediately began descending down the other side of the wall.

Then they were within the city.

Ferric Reach was nothing like anything Jarek had ever seen before.

The hustle and bustle of the streets alone was spellbinding. Jarek was used to the press of bodies and the steady tramp of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people moving about, but aboard the Eternal Vow there had always been a unity of purpose to it. Every soul aboard was part of the grand endeavour that was sustaining the ship that sheltered them. Every corridor led somewhere for a reason, every labourer had a task, every machine served the greater whole.

Here, there was no grand purpose. At least, no conscious one.

People moved according to their own whims and needs. They went where they willed, stopped where they pleased and gathered in great, shifting crowds without any central authority directing their movements. It gave the city a vibrancy that was equal parts terrifying and exhilarating to witness, and that was merely what Jarek could see upon the surface.

Beneath it lay another world entirely.

The noosphere.

Technology was as deeply entwined with the functioning of Ferric Reach as it was with any voidship, and all those machines required coordination. Not merely the machines, either. Messages flew across unseen bandwidths spanning thousands of miles, carrying mountains of information both mundane and vital: business transactions, personal correspondence, bureaucratic instructions, machine commands, advertisements, warnings, requests and countless things Jarek could not identify before they disappeared into the torrent.

All of it joined the wild cacophony streaming into his psykic senses.

It would have been beautiful—and to some extent, it was—but as incandescent as the song of the city might have been, beneath it lay the oily moaning of an ocean of tortured voices. There were an uncountable number of them, more than Jarek would have thought possible to gather in a single place.

Yet even among those oily wails, there were voices that did not moan with pain or despair despite being undeniably servile in nature. They did not sound happy, precisely, but there was something different within their song. A certainty. A sense of purpose. A strange sense of—

“Well, this is my stop,” Tobren announced as his skiff came to a halt and the doors slid open, to reveal a towering building with the skull and cog of the mechanicum in bold on its face. “I’ve got business to attend to, and sadly, it’s private business.”

“That’s understandable,” Selena said with a smile. “Thank you for all your help regardless.”

“You’re welcome, milady. Best of luck to you and your man.”

They disembarked and unloaded their possessions. Once everything was safely on the ground, the gravity winch disconnected and reeled itself back into the skiff. Tobren gave them one final wave from the cockpit before disappearing into the traffic to conduct whatever business had brought him here.

Jarek watched him go with some reluctance. He had been very kind to them , Jarek would not soon forget the man.

“Wait here. I’ll go in,” Selena said, turning towards the building.

“By yourself?” Jarek asked.

“It’s my ship, isn’t it?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

Jarek nodded. Fair enough.

He watched her disappear into the building with her pet Haemonculus trailing behind her. Jarek stared after her for a moment before his attention wandered to Varek.

More specifically, to his armour.

Jarek had never encountered another Chapter of the Emperor’s Angels before.

“Do you have a question, young lord?” Varek asked.

“I’ve never seen Space Marines other than Black Templars. Forgive me for asking, but what Chapter are you from?”

Varek stared at him long enough that Jarek began to assume he would not answer.

Then the Astartes spoke.

“I am a Captain of the Raptors, a Chapter descended from the White Scars, but the colours I bear are not those of my mother Chapter. I currently bear the shield of the Deathwatch, a brotherhood of veterans charged with slaying xenos threats to the Imperium.”

“That must be a great honour.”

“It is.”

“Indeed,” Gunthar added.

The two Space Marines shared a long look before exchanging a small nod of mutual respect.

“So you have a great deal of experience battling xenos?” Jarek asked.

“I have served the Deathwatch for nine decades.”

Nine decades.

That was a long time, Jarek supposed, but then again, the Eldest had been almost ten thousand years old. By comparison, a century suddenly did not seem terribly impressive.

“Do you have much experience with greenskins?”

“Some. Enough to know that the Waaagh! you described was an extremely unusual one.”

“Unusual isn’t the word I would use,” Jarek muttered, an ember of black hatred burning within his heart.

“Regardless of the descriptor we choose, it must have been an impressive kill.” Varek nodded towards Gunthar.

“Indeed, but it was not mine,” Gunthar replied.

Varek tilted his head before slowly turning towards Jarek.

“You?”

“It was hard-fought,” Jarek admitted, resisting the sudden urge to squirm beneath the Astartes’ scrutiny.

“Still, an honourable kill, young lord.”

“Thank you, Lord Varek.”

“I am no lord. Merely one of the Emperor’s many weapons.”

Jarek tilted his head at that. It was not how he had come to see Space Marines. Gunthar made no comment, but Jarek found himself unable to leave the statement alone.

“Wha—”

“Now all we have to do is acquire the parts you need to fix it,” Selena announced, her return cutting off their conversation.

Jarek turned towards her and noticed several men fastening grav-emitters to her vessel. A moment later the craft lifted from the ground and was carried through a set of enormous shutters that had opened along the side of the workshop.

“How can you be sure I can fix an Eldar craft?”

“My ship hasn’t truly been an Eldar vessel in a very long time. Too many repairs. The chassis might still look Eldar, but most of the internals are Imperial by now. I had to barter a few things to pay for storage in the meantime, something I discussed with Tobren earlier. You would have known that if you’d managed to look away from the city for more than five minutes.”

She had been discussing that with Tobren?

“Sorry, I—”

“You’ve never seen anything like this before, have you?” Selena asked, interrupting him.

Jarek glanced past her towards the incredible skyline.

“Never,” he breathed.

“Neither had I until my thirteenth standard year.”

Jarek looked back at her.

“You?”

“My father is a Rogue Trader. Obviously I would be void-born.”

“Your brother did not hold a very high opinion of the void-born.”

Selena snorted.

“That’s funny?”

“I find it hilarious how many of my siblings are so desperate to be ‘real nobles’.”

“Rogue Traders aren’t nobles?”

“Not really. There will be time to explain that particular mess later. Right now, I need to acquire some Tallies unless you feel like sleeping on the street.”

“Is there any way I can help?”

“No. This will require subtlety,” Selena said. “Draevith and I will handle it. Varek will remain here to protect you.”

And watch him.

That part went unsaid.

Jarek merely nodded.

“No objections to being monitored?” Selena asked, apparently surprised by his lack of protest.

“You want to return to the Imperium. I don’t intend to do anything that might compromise that.”

“So docile.” Selena smiled. “No one would suspect you had such a temper.”

“I don’t have a temper.”

Selena released a bell-like laugh as she walked away, her slender form and Draevith’s many-limbed silhouette soon disappearing into the crowd.

“Well,” Jarek said once they were gone, “now what?”

“Now we wait,” Varek rumbled.

Jarek found one of the many industrial crates lining the street, took a seat and proceeded to do exactly that.

Or at least he tried.

It was not long before a sound reached his ears.

Faulty machinery.

They were standing outside a mechanic’s workshop, so the sound itself was hardly strange. What was strange was that it was not coming from the workshop. It was approaching them from farther down the street.

An older woman eventually came into view, supporting herself with a metal cane as she limped painfully through the crowd. She wore sturdy but well-aged clothing, and her face was pinched with discomfort every time she placed weight upon one leg.

The grinding mechanical song was coming from inside that leg.

Jarek was already on his feet before he had consciously decided to move.

“My lord?” Gunthar questioned.

“She’s in pain.”

Jarek did not stop.

“Excuse me, ma’am.”

The woman glanced up, annoyance flashing across her features at being accosted by a stranger. It disappeared almost immediately when she noticed the two towering Astartes following behind him.

“Can I help you, sir?” she asked cautiously.

Jarek stopped before her and tilted his head, listening to a sound only he could hear.

“There seems to be a problem with your upper mind-impulse plugs.”

She blinked.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Something is wrong with your leg,” Jarek clarified, already reaching into his tool belt and retrieving his sonic spanner.

“I know that, sir, but there isn’t—”

Her voice died as her gaze settled upon the tool in his hand.

Jarek finally realised how this must have looked.

“Forgive me for my forwardness. If you don’t want me to—”

“No!”

She snatched his hand.

Before Jarek could react, the woman bowed her head and pressed her forehead reverently against the electoo tattoo upon his arm.

“Please help me, Your Holiness.”

Jarek blinked.

Then he looked around properly and noticed the Mechanicus iconography scattered throughout the district. Even if the average person did not appear particularly devout, it seemed the faith of the Machine God occupied a position in Bellatorian society similar to that of the Imperial Creed elsewhere. The electoo upon his arm therefore proclaimed him to anyone who recognised it as a priest of their faith.

Even if he was only a neophyte.

“All right, ma’am. This way, please.”

Jarek guided her towards a collection of empty crates beside the road and helped her sit. With her permission, he lifted the hem of her skirt enough to reach the augmetic leg beneath, located the appropriate access panel and carefully pried it open with his sonic spanner.

The problem was embarrassingly simple.

A component had been knocked out of alignment. A press, a twist and a flick were enough to return it to its proper position. Jarek resealed the access panel and rose to his feet.

The woman remained seated for several seconds, staring down at her leg. She bent it experimentally. Straightened it. Placed her foot against the ground and slowly stood.

“There,” Jarek said.

“Thank you, Your Holiness. Please, take this donation.”

Her eyes briefly flashed yellow.

Jarek felt a burst of encoded data strike his noospheric aura before settling somewhere within it. He blinked as he instinctively deciphered the encrypted token.

A Tally.

Apparently his technomancy came with some form of data storage.

His teacher would have loved to hear about that.

Jarek shook off his surprise and attempted to return the Tally, only to discover that the woman was already striding away with considerably more confidence than she had possessed a few minutes earlier.

Then the crowd swallowed her.

Or, more accurately, she was pulled back by the crowd.

A crowd that had not been there before.

Dozens upon dozens of dirty, hopeful faces stared at Jarek, and from nearly every one of them came the distinctive melody of faulty machinery.

“Your Holiness! Please, take a look at my arm!”

“Your Holiness, my eye! Please heal my eye!”

“Your Holiness!”

“Please, my daughter’s implants—”

The burgeoning crowd surged towards him, every person carrying some ailment of their own.

Jarek had the distinct feeling that he might have made a mistake.

Then he looked at their faces.

He raised one hand, stopping Gunthar before the Black Templar could begin bodily clearing the crowd away from him.

“Okay!” Jarek boomed, his voice carrying over the clamour and earning immediate silence. “Form a queue! I’m seeing you one at a time, and anyone caught cutting or pushing goes straight to the back of the line!”

The supplicants scrambled to obey.

Jarek sighed, rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

A/N: Welcome to Ferric Reach! The setting for another section of the story, but don’t worry, I won't leave you in the lurch regarding the wider universe and the repercussions of Jarek’s actions and existence. These things will be looked at in the next chapter.

Regardless, have a nice whatever time it is wherever you are, and tell me what you think.

Selena: