Mars.
Fabricator General Kelbor-Hal looked down from Olympus Mons. The vast forge complex extended beyond the horizon: towering manufactories, refineries, machine shops, primary hangars, and worker hab-blocks, covering nearly ten thousand square kilometers.
Within the great forge-city, billions of Tech-Priests ruled all aspects of Mars, from the Fabricator General to the Skitarii.
The largest structure on Olympus Mons was the Temple of All Knowledge, a towering pyramid of pink and black marble.
Its apex, a dome of gleaming blue stone and a cluster of steel spires, pierced the sky, constantly venting toxic fumes into the atmosphere.
At the base of the Temple was a wide gate, flanked by pilasters of marble, engraved with millions of mathematical formulas and proofs, many of which Kelbor-Hal had discovered himself.
He should have been proud of his unprecedented achievements. No predecessor had discovered more technology. His reign had seen the longest period of production quota growth in the Mechanicum's history.
Kelbor-Hal, his body composed of 87.6 percent augmentation, lacked the capacity for pride and most other emotions. But he still felt anger.
Below him, billions of faithful had worn grooves into the stone of the Omnissiah's Way.
They hoped their prayers would attract the Machine God's attention and grant them favor.
Many of them believed the Omnissiah was a tangible being, the golden figure who had come to Mars two centuries prior.
The False God had enslaved the Mechanicum of Mars with lies.
A burst of binary static from a black robot behind him made Kelbor-Hal turn, looking at the four figures approaching on a dais.
The black robot was a gift from Archmagos Lukas Chrom, years ago. Its synthetic skin made it indistinguishable from a human.
Chrom's talent for automation and artificial intelligence allowed him to perfectly recreate anything in plasteel.
Besides Chrom, his two other confidants were Melgator, in the dark robes of an envoy, and Urtzi Malevolus.
The fourth was Regulus, who had entrusted his forge city and all his assets to Kelbor-Hal before departing on the 63rd Expedition Fleet.
Regulus bowed deeply, the metal numerals on his Mechanicum icon clicking.
"Fabricator General may the current in your forge flow through my limbs and into my engine, nourishing my form."
"Regulus, I thank you for honoring my forge." After accepting the compliment, Kelbor-Hal asked in binary.
"What news do you have of the Warmaster?"
"Much has changed since the Emperor left the Great Crusade. New powers have emerged from the shadows, offering assistance to those with foresight. Horus Lupercal is now an ally of our Mechanicum." Regulus said.
Old resentments surfaced in Kelbor-Hal's memory buffers.
"I have heard such words before. Over two centuries ago, when Photikodia brought that filthy human tribal leader to my forge, I was forced to kneel before him."
"The tyrant promised us equality in his great conquest. He promised all technology would be ours. Where are his promises now?"
For centuries, the Mechanicum had waged war against the barbarian tribes of Terra. Expedition fleets had recovered precious ancient technical secrets.
The Emperor possessed technologies lost to time yet refused to share them. Martian soldiers fought alongside his armies, only to be given the illusion of equality.
The Emperor had offered peace on equal terms, while hiding the dagger of an ultimatum.
Kelbor-Hal understood: Join me, and I will take only what I need. Refuse, and you will be destroyed.
"We provide the war machines for the Emperor's armies. What has He given us?"
"Can Horus give us more?"
"The Warmaster will give us true equality." Regulus said.
"He promises to withdraw all non-Mechanicum forces from the Forge Worlds."
"He will purge the garrisons of the Shadow of Order stationed on Xana, Incaladion, Valia-Maximal, and other Forge Worlds, including their neighboring moons and Ramillies-class starforts."
"These are indeed fine gifts." Kelbor-Hal said with satisfaction. "What does the Warmaster want?"
"As always, your questions cut to the chase."
"The Warmaster needs you to ensure you control all of Mars, to crush any resistance, and ensure his cause is unimpeded."
Envoy Melgator stepped forward. His chained, black cloak whispered against the floor.
"The great Warmaster, praise be to His name, has already made many demands of us, and we have fulfilled them."
"Weapons and supplies have been prioritized for the Expedition Fleets He favors, and deliveries delayed to those He dislikes."
"We have built Abyss-class battleships for Him, the first vessels to mount plasma lances."
Images of the massive, sword-shaped warships flashed through the minds of Kelbor-Hal, Chrom, and Malevolus.
"Even with such powerful weapons, they still have flight decks. These are vessels of a new age, far surpassing Gloriana and Emperor-class ships."
"They also carry psychic jamming devices, which can disrupt enemy Navigators' senses."
"The Warmaster now demands more. We must wage a true civil war. What will He give us in return?"
Chrom, larger than Malevolus, was wrapped in a deep red robe, his broad-shouldered form.
The pipes and cables around his torso connected to a hissing power pack, like wings on his back.
His human face had been replaced by a grinning, skull-like iron mask, wires dangling from his chin. Red light pulsed in its eye sockets.
"How do we know we are not simply replacing one tyrant with another?"
"Will the Warmaster provide STC templates?"
"We have already begun implementing the plan. We cannot abandon it simply because we fear the heat of the fire." Malevolus used bronze for his mask, with three green eyes.
His robe was made of vulcanized rubber, thick and durable, with a huge power pack on his back, his bulk supported by suspension units.
"Great rewards come with great risks." Regulus's robed form swelled.
"The Warmaster offers us something more precious than STC templates. All restrictions on forbidden research will be lifted. All the tyrant's shackles will be broken."
"I have brought the instructions to open the Vaults of Moravec."
"If you agree to the Warmaster's proposal, I will open it."
"And if we refuse?" Kelbor-Hal asked.
"I will erase the method from my memory. The Vault will be sealed forevermore." Regulus replied.
"But you will agree, will you not?"
"Yes." Kelbor-Hal said.
...
In the darkest vaulted hall beneath Olympus Mons, four figures descended through a maze of tunnels.
The tunnels, thick with two centuries of undisturbed dust, branched into the darkness, carved into Mars's bedrock.
Regulus led them through long corridors, around corners, into a hall of echoes, with dozens of tunnels leading to the unknown.
He did not stop, choosing the seventh tunnel on the western wall, leading them further, through dusty crypts, empty cells, and rooms piled with skulls.
They passed through a great hall, and Kelbor-Hal saw dust-covered books, chained archives of forbidden knowledge, and rusted, colossal automata.
"This is the consequence of treating technology with contempt. This is the inevitable consequence of the tyrant ordering the Vault s of Moravec sealed."
"Every time I look at this, I become more certain that our path is correct. We must accept the Warmaster's gift."
Chrom and Malevolus voiced their agreement. Their positioning matrices confirmed they were precisely nine hundred and thirty-five meters beneath Mars's surface.
A memory surfaced in Kelbor-Hal's mind: two centuries ago, walking this same path with the tyrant.
The tyrant had forbidden any record of the route to the Vault. Kelbor-Hal, of course, had ignored the command, secretly activating his map-caching memory.
But upon returning to the surface, he found the cache held no record, as if nothing had happened.
"The Mechanicum never deletes data," he had said to the tyrant, his voice seething with anger.
The tyrant had shaken His head. "The Vaults of Moravec must never be opened."
"Kelbor-Hal, swear it to me."
For two centuries, every remote sensing probe he had sent into the tunnels had found nothing, as if the Vault had vanished.
Now, at last, he could savor the sweet victory of defying the tyrant.
What kind of being would forbid an organization sworn to protect technology from studying the lost mysteries that could create a glorious future?
To deny something its value is to violate all laws of nature and mechanics. Logic dictated that the Vaults of Moravec must be opened.
"We have arrived."
Regulus's words brought Kelbor-Hal back from his memory cache.
He found himself in a circular hall, one hundred and thirty meters in diameter, glowing with light from an invisible source.
The walls were machine-polished rock, with a polished, reflective quality like burnished metal.
A leaf-shaped archway stood in the center of the wall, with a numeric keypad and a wheel.
Regulus walked to the door. "Moravec was called a warlock, you know."
"The ignorant mistake advanced technology for sorcery," Malevolus sneered.
"Moravec was not only a man who surpassed all others in technological advancement; he was the leader of the Synod of the Singularity."
"The Synod believed a technological singularity was possible. They believed they could create a consciousness far surpassing humanity through technology." Chrom said.
"I know. The Omnissiah's arrival was his final prophecy before his disappearance." Melgator said.
"But he failed." Kelbor-Hal said.
"He did not fail. He succeeded and that made him dangerous." Regulus said.
"To whom?" Kelbor-Hal asked.
"The Emperor." Regulus said.
"He forged a pact with the ancient powers, who are now the Warmaster's allies."
"Moravec combined human science with primal forces, creating technology far more advanced than anything any forge could command."
"What kind of technology?" Kelbor-Hal pressed.
"Machines empowered by the Warp. Technology unbound by the laws of reality. The power to reshape the galaxy according to your will!"
"Open it!" Kelbor-Hal commanded.
"The instructions to open the Vault are complex. Listen carefully." Regulus said, unleashing a torrent of binary code and meaningless, chaotic technical data in a complex pattern.
Kelbor-Hal and the others listened intently, etching the data into their memory caches.
Regulus spoke so fast they could barely keep up; the data so complex their logic engines were pushed to their limits.
Despite the chaotic complexity, as Kelbor-Hal loaded the data structure, he noticed a discordant note in the binary algorithms.
Errors and deviations appeared in the code, mutating into a new, terrible, unnatural form.
Scrapcode.
It howled in his environmental sensors, beginning to infect his other subsystems.
"The code—it's corrupted."
"Not corruption." Regulus said.
"It is free from the laws of reality. It carries the scent of the Warp. It will open your senses, allowing you to perceive the true form of the galaxy."
"It hurts———it burns like fire." Chrom said, in pain.
"Yes, but only for a moment." Regulus smiled.
"You will be reborn."
Kelbor-Hal felt the scrapcode invade his systems like a virus. His internal protection subroutines and Aegis barriers could not stop the infection.
He felt the dark code burrowing into him. His small organic parts trembled at its touch, but his core was filled with ecstasy.
The visual and audio systems of the three flickered and went grey, adjusting to the new reality they perceived.
Static blurred their vision. A vast, impossibly distant ocean roared against their acoustic sensors.
Their internal geiger counters detected rising radiation, but its form was unknown to them.
Their chromatographic analyzers identified compounds they could not name.
As secondary systems overloaded, a hazy mist escaped them.
Their vision finally cleared, and they saw the door to the Vaults of Moravec standing open, glowing with a shimmering, iridescent light.
Their newly awakened senses felt the terrible power of what lay within, the whispering energies of powers beyond reality, speaking of long-forgotten secrets.
"Do you feel it? This power?" Regulus asked, his voice no longer pure binary, but a beautiful scrapcode of discordant noise.
"I feel it." Kelbor-Hal said.
"I feel it surging through my systems, like an elixir of life."
Melgator's dreadlocks of skulls trembled, the child-like skulls glowing.
"We are reborn!"
"We are no longer the Mechanicum. We are the Dark Mechanicum!"
With his words the scrapcode transmitted information through cables stretching across tens of trillions of kilometers.
Like wildfire, it began spreading throughout the systems of Mars.
....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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