The Subsector Project

Caomer Subsector – Ederon – 736.M41

  Obelmedha stood in silence, the soft hissing of hydraulics, the muted tones of servitor-slaved workstations in the sanctum the only evidence of activity. The room was not lavishly appointed, shuttered between multiple secondary command galleries within the citadel’s central spire cluster. Despite hosting the beating heart of the station in the Citadel-master’s personage, it was evident that he valued function over beauty, a facet of his humanity she had always appreciated.

Yet even in function, there is always beauty, and in beauty there is the potential for danger. Crevices and gantries, frames and sills, buttresses and carved edifices of ancient saints, servo-skull roosts and the coiling cabling which fed the cogitators and life-support systems alike.

The techpriestess could feel them all, despite being disconnected from her interface station she nevertheless retained the sensation of the citadel around her. She could sense the ebb and flow of energy, from the subtle machinations of its void shield generatorium to the flickering of the lights on the TL003 storage room antechamber. The thrum of life, too, was there in the tramp of boots and the organic waste recycling system, but to that she paid less heed.
The Citadel-master ruled, that was true. He held the power of the High Lords in his palm, and so far from their sight his authority over Ederon and the gateway system’s immediate surroundings was absolute. But Obelmedha lived for the citadel. She could embody its every conduit to an extent he could never aspire, wield its weaponry and dispatch its denizens with an efficiency he did not fully appreciate. Her blood was its blood, its conduits were her conduits.

Through the citadel, she could feel the presence of an interloper. She knew how long it had waited, almost invisible above her, still as a stone, silent as the endless night of the void beyond the hull. She was content to allow it to listen, to wait, but no longer.

“Reveal-al yourself, space marine.” She stalked back to the dias where the command thrones were stationed. Moving with the practiced serenity that put Abdos so at ease, and which her fellows so discounted.

A flicker in the darkness, and a shape materialized from the darkness of gantries and snarled cabling above, landing in a crouch. It barely made a sound as it stood. The techpriestess’ optical sensors scanned, ratcheting through various settings to compile a complete dossier on the intruder.

The Astartes stood slowly, viewing her with eyes of deepest red. It loomed over eight feet tall, fully armored in scorched, battered ceramite painted dark in black and shades of blue. Despite its beleaguered appearance, it kept a noble countenance, prayer scrolls and trophies draped from its pauldrons, framing a single symbol: a lidless eye of burnished bronze. A veteran, of that she felt certain. Despite their rarity, a brief consultation of her cogitation banks confirmed what she already knew- such a space marine was a lethal threat. Diplomacy preferred.

“I greet you, servant of Mars.” The voice was practically a growl, vox-speakers evidently in the midst of a slow failure due to lack of maintenance. Obelmedha could hear the servos in the marine’s armor, the fitful operation of its power-pack as it guttered and struggled to function.

“And you, penitent.” Despite herself, the techpriestess could not hide her interest, more towards the armor than the geneforged creature within. Doubtless, the biologis would give much to study its internals, but she scorned such areas of inquiry in favor of the blessed machinery within her expertise. The ceramite had clearly been unable to undergo true reforging in a crucible of the Omnessiah for at least the hundred years since the chapter’s banishment, and she was astounded at the resilience of the machine spirit. The space marine made a noise, which she determined, after searching her social schematic manifold, was a chuckle, unexpected for a creature like this.

“I am a penitent no longer, techpriest. I reject the label.” The giant made no move in her direction, but she had no reason to doubt his ability to do so faster than she could react. She could tell he was armored in amalgamation- pieces of several different armorsets evident to her augmetic eyes -yet unless his powerplant gave out, he would be none the slower for it. The work was clever, scrappy in lieu of the resources so long denied to the marine’s chapter.

“Ah.” She paused for a moment before inclining her head. “Then, I greet you, space marine.” This elicited a nod, slow and deliberate. It did not serve the Omnessiah to offend those who might seek to decommission you, after all. “Tell me, why are you here instead of docking-ing bay OB019 with your cohort of arriving brothers?” She rattled the location data off easily, her unmatched connection to the citadel giving her certainty where rote knowledge failed. She kept her tone light, as always, sedate and relaxed, yet she felt as tense as a coiled spring.

“Once, I served as the vanguard to my chapter, a guide on the path to educate the unworthy.” The space marine’s voice was steady, deep as stone in a way no vox could disguise, but Obelmedha could not miss the bitterness in his tone. “The tenth company is gone, all save for me. The future of the chapter eviscerated in a thousand engagements, by blade, by bolt shell, or by elevation before their time.” Ruefully, he swept his gauntlet before him, encompassing not only the techpriest, but the whole of the station in a single gesture. “Yet I am still called to the vanguard, to serve the chapter however I may, lest we ever be caught unawares by a threat of deceit and treachery.” The vox speaker hissed with the pronouncement of his vehemence.

The space marine’s helmet snapped back to Obelmedha’s cowl, fixing her once again with blood red lenses. It was her turn to feel observed, scanned to her very core by the inhuman creature’s vision.

“Tell me, techpriest, would you engage the auto-destruct? Could you bring yourself to fulfill your master’s last command if my brothers were to strike him down?” Obelmedha had been asking herself the same question. To do so would be to sever a part of herself, to destroy a symbol of the machine god’s perfection so far from Mars.

For an instant, she hesitated.

“I hope we shall not need to-o find out.” She stated matter-of-factly, but she knew in her core that to do such a thing would be a great blasphemy. Would it really be the lesser of two evils compared to allowing heretics to befoul the citadel’s workings?
“To ‘find out’, then. That is my purpose here, as it is everywhere.” The space marine slowly, deliberately, reached to his helm. The seals hissed loudly, protesting against their release and sticking against one another before he pulled it free.

The marine’s face was gaunt, haggared and bone-pale from lack of sun, and scarred by the long years of his chapter’s exile. It spoke of restless decades, of desperate conflict in the dark places of the galaxy, and blood splattering in an arterial spray. His hair splayed in dark rivulets, long and unkempt as he shook it out, rolling his shoulders as if to loosen himself from long sleep. He grimaced before elaborating.

“The Emperor provides glimpses, distant reflections of the future, but to assume we know his intent is to invite damnation.” Obelmedha watched the space marine affix his helm to a looping cord of some organic origin, rather than the magnetics she would expect to secure it to his thighplate. Her fingers itched to open his armor, to flay its machinery and repair the defects, sanctify it with censer and oil.

“A more appropriate purview of Inquisitors-ors and their scholam, no doubt.” The space marine had forgone his armored helmet, and made himself vulnerable to conventional destruction. A ploy? She did not know, but beneath her robe, secondary limbs hummed, prepared to press her integrated weaponry into action. The Astartes nodded his head, face stoic and unreadable to her eyes.

“Hence my presence- I am he who gives certainty, who separates the truth from the fallibility of those who claim to see.” Ever slow and deliberate, the space marine drew a short sword, barely a knife in his hands, and began to scrape it against the outside of his forearm, a shiny section indicating that this was not a rare occurrence.

“Yet we do not know the outcome-ome of the Citadel-master’s meeting with your kind.” Her nervousness was replaced with certainty. A binary outcome, significantly more comfortable.

“And we shall not, until their rendezvous is complete, or one party has been annihilated.” The space marine shrugged, the movement massive in his armor. “I do not believe we shall be brought to blows, my ilk who walk the path have not foreseen it, and for all their flaws I tend to believe their words when it comes to matters of blood.” The rasp of metal on metal punctuated his words, doubtless intended to put her on edge, regardless of his honeyed assurances. Yet Obelmedha did not adjust her respiratory rate, such tricks would bear no fruit on her person.

“Then we are in a liminal space-ace, an interstitial location between life and death until the Omnessiah decrees.” She settled on standing next to her command throne, not bothering to connect lest it slow her assault on the veteran.

She stood, as he did, prepared.

“Until then, we wait- for whatever end approaches us.” The space marine smiled, a languid expression which broached no question as to what fate he believed he would bring her if they were destined for combat. “I cherish this time with you, as I have the last nine standard solar days I have waited. In the last hundred years, I have seldom had the luxury of tarrying in the presence of uncertain allegiance.” His smile softened, a most human expression for one of his type, and for a moment Obelmedha hoped she would not have to reduce his head to slag. “I find it quite charming.”

The two waited together, in silence, for the call. Death waited with them, an uncertain companion for an uncertain future.