Benhadad watched Seraphine sweep into the room, her titan crew trailing her like ensorcelled suitors.
The briefing room was a circular chamber haphazardly lit by floor lights. The ship’s astropath was ensconced in the centre, his skeletal form pierced by the needle spikes of neural enhancers and cognitive Fiction: Anamnesis
ANAMNESIS
TRAGEDY HAUNTS A TITAN LEGION IN THE AFTERMATH OF A WAR AGAINST THE ORKS
amphetamechs. Hashmallim was already at his post, attended by a coterie of neo-cybernetic offi cers. Benhadad and his retinue, the bridge crew of the Canis Indomita, took up their ritual positions.
Benhadad was tempted to smile as he greeted Seraphine, but his innate sense of decorum kept his face neutral. She had few such inhibitions and grinned broadly as she approached.
The Cyberwolf’s heraldry was clearly visible on the gorget round Seraphine’s neck. She wore her machine-link wiring like silver dreadlocks and was garbed in the shapeless black robes she had favoured since becoming princeps of the Cyberwolf. It did little to hide her lithe grace.
‘So glum, Ben,’ said Seraphine. ‘You weren’t always so.’
She ran a hand over his head and he felt the tingle of electroneural contact as her fi ngers brushed his skull ports. It was an oddly intimate gesture. Benhadad felt his crew bristling at the act, particularly Ophan. He knew Seraphine did it deliberately, just to rile them, just for the hell of it.
‘We have kept you too long from battle,’ said Benhadad. ‘You yearn for the machine. I can tell.’
Seraphine’s grin deepened and Benhadad saw something feral in her expression.
‘We’re not meant for space, Ben. We were built for striding the battlefi eld, sowing fi re and terror. Damn right I can’t wait for landfall.’
‘Then perhaps we can get on,’ interrupted the astropath from his comms pit. Benhadad saw annoyance written on the psyker’s face. If the honoured princeps were going to break with protocol, then so was he. The assembly took their positions.
‘Princeps commanding,’ said Benhadad,
‘decode ident eight oh eight six, interrupt fi ve.’
The astropath’s body went limp, as if he had been switched off. Benhadad became alert as the astropath started his telepath-trance.
‘Transmit Ringfi re adeptus alpha alpha, conduit choir Accatran, receptor Thirteenth Titan Carrier, vocal input Grandmaster, T, W, Legio Destructor, decode on receipt, princeps, Canis Indomita, Legio Destructor, princeps, Cyberwolf, Legio Destructor, fi delity ninety-fi ve percent, received segment three three nought ano four nought millennium forty-fi rst, class three temporal indicator, duration twenty-fi ve seconds.’
The astropath’s voice switched timbre, as if he were performing a poor impersonation of the legio’s grandmaster.
‘Is this man on...? Ahem. Princeps Benhadad. Princeps Seraphine.
Proceed thirty light-years from station to planet Bromos.
Planet is infested and Ocanan Phalanx Troops report destruction of their orbital support. Assist extant Imperial Guard
forces in extirpation of ork presence. Ensure destruction of stockpiled munitions and exorcism of xenotech. Glory to the Omnissiah, etcetera, etcetera. Send acknowledgement.
Nex magna!’
# Fiction: Anamnesis
Benhadad felt the titan interlink surge through his mind - a mass of energy jabs and electrochemical impulses. He was sinking deep into an ocean of millennia-old memories, numbed by data ice. He detected the ghost of a presence, transient wisps of thought, down in the dark, fragmented cortices of the stack.
Complete dislocation abated as Benhadad felt other minds join his own. Energy spikes levelled off as Ophan inserted as weapons moderatus.
Sensory flood receded as Baalist inserted as tactical offi cer. Benhadad regained some semblance of control as their minds began to work in concert, taming and controlling the steel beast that was the Canis Indomita.
‘Disengage motor suppression interlocks,’
commanded Benhadad. His voice sounded tinny and distant to his own ears.
‘Too soon,’ countered Ophan. ‘You feel a little groggy, princeps.’
‘I’m getting synaptic feedback static,’ said Baalist.
Benhadad could see the control cabin again, lit by the intermittent blink of control runes.
He could feel its tight confi nes, and the close proximity of his crew. He heard the dull clanks of the bulk lifter disengaging its mooring arms.
‘Negative on enemy presence, princeps,’ said Baalist. ‘Bringing up full occipital sensor feed.’
Benhadad felt a bracing fl urry of information gust into his mind. He saw beyond the machine, into the billowing, earth-hued gases of Bromos’
atmosphere.
‘Disengaging motor suppression interlocks,’
said Ophan.
Something felt wrong... off. Benhadad took a step forward. He felt unsteady, and the titan swayed slightly.
Baalist was the new cog in the machine, a replacement after the death of their last tactical offi cer. Benhadad experienced data fl ashback, memory silt dredged up from the titan’s ancient storage stacks. A leviathan data-spirit stirred within the machine, a cascade of mecha-neurons that threatened to subvert the tactical systems. Benhadad suppressed it, forcing his own will, his own mind, onto the cognitive imprinters. The Canis was in testy mood.
Generations of crew had etched their personalities onto the Canis Indomita, writing their lives randomly over the animal-like core that sustained the titan. The machine hadn’t made its mind up about the new crewman, yet. Baalist had been tested and trial runs had indicated compatibility, but there was something about the battlefi eld that changed the thought processes of the Canis. Benhadad believed it would work out, given time.
‘You look a little drunk, Ben,’ said Seraphine.
The voxsignal was coming in from the Cyberwolf. Benhadad could feel the tremors of his packmate’s footsteps as it moved off at speed. Seraphine was in her element, off the leash. He wondered if she had heard the rumours that the technoshamans were watching her. He wondered if she would care.
‘Cerebral rebalance,’ commanded Benhadad.
He felt Ophan’s mind take up the strain, their minds linking closer than they’d ever done before. Benhadad felt Baalist’s frustration and shame, but there was little that could be done.
His bridge offi cers were control conduits, but as princeps Benhadad sat at the apex of the mind link. For all intents and purposes, he was the titan, and he needed to keep a clear head.
The Canis Indomita stepped out from under the shadow of the bulk lifter. Swirling fogs of brown gas washed over them, lit by lightning fl ashes.
Words were largely superfluous, thought passing between them unbidden. They said them anyway. It was just part of the Canis’ ritual of operation. Benhadad liked it. It asserted their humanity.
‘Increase external auspex gain,’ said Benhadad.
‘We’re at maximum passive,’ reported Baalist.
‘Communications?’
‘We’re getting atmospheric discharge interference, princeps. Range will be low.’
‘Seismic augurs?’
‘Residual input from multiple subduction zones.’
‘How about weapons, Ophan?’
‘Power plant nominal. Turbolasers online.
Promethium magazine at one hundred percent capacity. Void shields will be charged in one minute thirty.’
Fiction: Anamnesis
Benhadad set the Canis loping forward and even the bulk of the giant lifter faded from sensors at a depressingly low range.
‘Where’s the damn muster point?’ said Benhadad.
‘Forty degrees to port, three hundred metres,’
said Baalist.
‘Multiple contacts,’ said Ophan, ‘Chimera class personnel carriers. At least we’ve found our support infantry.’
Benhadad slowed the titan, sweeping the ground ahead with sensors to avoid treading on anything important. The squawk of a voxsignal sounded in Benhadad’s consciousness with the carrier marker of Accatran Skitarii - Hashmallim, the patient Skitarii commander who had been walking in the titan pair’s shadow for nearly a hundred years.
‘Where’s the Cyberwolf?’ asked Benhadad.
‘Can’t get a vox ping,’ replied Ophan.
Benhadad could feel the other titan padding around through the Canis’ seismic sensors. He lifted a giant foot and stamped the ground, no doubt setting the Chimeras rocking on their tracks. The Cyberwolf turned and moved into vox range, but only to the very edge. Seraphine, always pushing the limit.
‘Hasmallim, report,’ commanded Benhadad.
‘We are assembled, princeps,’ said Hashmallim.
‘My Skitarii will be confi ned to the Chimeras whenever possible. As if this poisonous miasma wasn’t enough, an acid storm is moving in.’
‘Ha! The planetologists inform me that this is the temperate season. Has contact been made with the Imperial Guard?’
‘Hazterrain Sentinels were dispatched to the Imperial Guard Ocanan 1st’s last recorded command post, but they have not returned. Xi Company have located a downed tank carrier to the East of our location. The site has been heavily looted.’
‘How long has it been since we last had contact with the Ocanan’s?’
‘It has been eight months and three days sidereal time since last contact.’
‘The Warhounds will advance to the command post. Follow at a discrete distance, commander.
I don’t want to find myself tripping over anyone.’
‘As you command, princeps.’
Benhadad disconnected and switched to the titan-encrypted channel.
‘Cyberwolf, assume drogue, echelon left.’
‘My weapon load would be better on point, Ben,’ replied Seraphine.
‘No. I will set the pace. Keep formation - I can’t see beyond a hundred metres in this muck.’
Benhadad led the titans forward at moderate speed. They moved over a lightning-scorched plain, kicking up a tonne of dusty rock with each step. Electricity discharged through air heavy with poisonous metals, throwing fog shapes into existence and creating sensor ghosts. A
lightning strike hit the ground, fl inging rock into the air and making the Canis reverberate with the sonic shockwave.
‘Ground’s getting softer,’ said Baalist.
‘Raise suspensor yield ten percent,’ said Benhadad. ‘And keep an eye on it. If we trip or sink, the nearest titan recovery team is a light-year behind us.’
‘Raising suspensor yield. Reassigning delta auspex array to geological interpolation.’
On a whim, Benhadad checked the target auspex by sight and found Seraphine within a quarter metre of doctrine position. Showing off.
There were whispers about her command of the Cyberwolf. Princeps were supposed to command the titans, not let the titans command them. The legion’s relationship with the machine spirits was fraught with hidden dangers. He was thankful that he had yet to hear darker whispers, of machine possession, of dreaded Abominable Intelligence.
He had tried to warn her. She had laughed it off and chided him.
Benhadad saw the ground ahead darken noticeably through the brown brume of the atmosphere, felt the timbre of the seismic feedback become more dissonant. He slowed the Canis as the rocky terrain splayed out before them.
‘Cyberwolf, all stop, but hold formation.
Sending sensor feed.’
Fiction: Anamnesis
Seraphine would see the data feed and interpret it as he had. They waited a few moments in silence for the Chimeras to get into comm range.
‘Commander, Skitarii.’
‘Hashmallim here, princeps.’
‘We have a large boulder fi eld ahead, impass-able to tracked vehicles. It isn’t on the map.’
‘Offi cial planetary charts predate the Great Crusade, princeps.’
‘There are mountains to the East, so follow the fi eld counter-clockwise. The Warhounds will advance through it directly to target and scout the Guard position, before circling back to rendezvous with you.’
‘Understood, princeps. If you see an ork, stick the Omnissiah up its fundament.’
Benhadad smirked at the old aphorism, a traditional and sacrilegious saying of Accatran’s eccentric military. The smirk was out of character and he shook his head free of it. The response was not his. He felt a hint of Ophan in it.
By will alone, Benhadad moved the Canis Indomita into the boulder fi eld.
#
Benhadad dug the Canis’ foot claws into rock as the titan threatened to topple. He guided the warmachine over the uneven ground, using giant boulders as steppingstones.
The progress of the titans across the rock
jumble had been swifter than he had hoped, a testament to the experience of their princeps.
He felt something from Ophan, a premonition that preceded the formal feed from her targeting augurs.
‘Anomaly, forward, port 15 degrees, 28 degrees declination,’ she reported.
‘Signal stop.’
Benhadad zoomed in on an optical, picking out a slab-sided rock with a chunk blown out of it.
‘Lightning strike?’
‘Artillery,’ said his weapons moderatus and he felt as well as heard her certainty.
‘You should take a look at this, Ben,’ said Seraphine.
The Cyberwolf transmitted images of a crevice between two rocks. They showed a downed, one-man hazardous terrain walker. The Sentinel had been smashed to the ground, its internals, lifesupport and pilot strewn out in a bugsplat smear.
Benhadad felt data movement down in the depths of the Canis’ stacks. Something brushed his mind like a shark bumping the underside of a boat. He purged the feed lines with a light cerebral fl ash and it was gone.
‘Resume advance, weapons free.’
As they neared the edge of the boulder fi eld, Ophan spotted another Sentinel, its cab laid open like a burst can.
Benhadad was caught off guard when the Canis growled. But it was just a fi gment of his imagination - gas rattling from exhaust vents.
‘Hashmallim’s Sentinels found ork,’ muttered Benhadad.
‘Or ork found them,’ said Ophan.
The sky rumbled with earthquake intensity and acid sleet began to drop from the heavens.
#
‘Senses sharp,’ commanded Benhadad. ‘We’re approaching the command post. Cyberwolf, tighten formation.’
The falling sleet had done nothing for the range of their sensors.
‘Ground underfoot looks like impact ejecta,’
said Ophan.
‘Confi rmed,’ said Baalist. ‘We’re approaching a crater lip.’
Benhadad guided the Canis down the ridge, causing a minor landslide of steaming, sodden earth. The ground in the crater was spongy, a result of impact liquefaction. Benhadad felt confusing seismic echoes as the Cyberwolf stumbled into the crater after them.
‘I’m reading a massive energy signature,’ said Baalist.
‘We’ll do a visual pass, keeping it to starboard.
Weapons, stay ready. Tactical, I want a full auspex sweep. Cyberwolf, form column, take drogue.’
Fiction: Anamnesis
Benhadad urged the Canis Indomita into a trot, ploughing through the fog of atmosphere and tainted water.
‘Dump fort!’ reported Baalist, and Benhadad’s vision was fl ooded with image scans of orks in shapeless environment suits scrambling to their gunnery positions. Dump forts were typical ork contraptions, combining two functions with brutal simplicity. Dropped from orbit as gravity-fed projectiles, their spent forms retained enough integrity to function as crude fi rebases.
Light-flashes freckled over the fort as the Cyberwolf rotated its torso to a lateral position and fi red its megabolter. A dangerous tactic when moving at speed and something only a master Warhound helmsman could pull off.
‘Cease fi re, Cyberwolf,’ Benhadad snapped.
‘Just poking the nest, Ben.’
‘Measuring heavy energy shielding,’ said Baalist, ‘Double digit void-levels.’
‘Targets recorded and locked,’ said Ophan.
In a few moments they were out of sensor range and lost again within the swirling miasma.
‘Time to use this muck to our advantage,’ said Benhadad. ‘Cyberwolf, echelon left. Watch my back, Seraphine.’
Benhadad rotated the titan’s torso and began a circling course round the fi xed target. Return fi re was desultory, the environment masking even the bulk of the titans.
‘When you’re ready, weapons moderatus.’
Benhadad felt Ophan’s mind slip into engagement mode as she angled the turbolasers at the fort.
‘Secondary cogitators estimate twelve shots to overload the shield,’ said Baalist.
‘Then one more for luck,’ said Ophan. The turbolasers discharged at her command, just another fl ash on a world lit by lightning. They counted down the rounds in perfect mental harmony.
‘Reactor core temperature rising,’ said Baalist distantly. ‘Heatsinks saturated. Recommend ceasefi re.’
Ophan let off one more blast.
‘Bombardment complete,’ reported Ophan.
‘Lets do another recon pass-,’ began Benhadad as the proximity alarm sounded. The Cyberwolf passed within a whisper of their fl ank, loping toward the orks, already emitting the Chant.
‘No more dancing, Ben,’ said Seraphine, ‘time to take the fi ght into their faces.’
Benhadad began to rebuke her, but his tongue was stayed by an electro-adrenaline rush. His crew’s thoughts echoed Seraphine’s, and more, so did the ancient instincts of the Canis Indomita.
‘Bring us about, fl ank her and prepare to give covering fi re. And begin the Chant.’
External loudspeakers fi tted to the titan’s hull
began blasting out the words in unison with the Cyberwolf. Nex magna. A High Gothic translation of a phrase the legion had stolen from the orks. It was the battle cry of the Legio Destructor and they blasted it at the orks like it was any other weapon: big death, Big Death, BIG DEATH!
The two titans picked up speed. Benhadad watched as Seraphine attacked. Her megabolter chewed up infantry and outriders while her plasma blastgun turned gun mounts into glowing slag.
The Canis’ void shield fl ashed as something big brushed it with a grazing miss.
‘Report,’ commanded Benhadad.
‘Artillery round,’ said Baalist uncertainly.
‘Trace back trajectory. Ophan, can you give me something to punch open that fi rebase?’
‘Hopsplat round,’ said Baalist, ‘Can’t pinpoint the launch platform.’
‘Primary heatsink is saturated,’ said Ophan,
‘but we can pump supercoolant through the promethium tank heat exchangers as long as we don’t hold onto it too long.’
‘Cyberwolf, stand back to overwatch position,’
said Benhadad, and their packmate peeled off to give them a clear shot.
Ophan fi red the turbolasers. A rapid volley of energy beams punched through the fort’s armoured hide. At Ophan’s unspoken word, Benhadad guided the Canis into range of Fiction: Anamnesis
their secondary weapon and Ophan began unloading great gouts of burning promethium into the structure.
‘Magazine depletion at forty-fi ve percent...
sixty...seventy-fi ve...ceasing fi re.’
Gelatinous fire poured down through the dump fort, consuming anything it came into contact with. Ork munitions began to touch off, blowing chunks of metal into the air.
Benhadad felt feint tremor on the seismic sensors. On the insubstantial ground of the crater, it was a feather-light impact signature that a less experienced princeps would not have been able to place.
Ork gargant.
Ophan had already raised the turbolasers.
‘Contact, fi ring!’
Less than a second passed between detection and the weapon discharge. The target was an invisible mass hidden by fog, but Benhadad felt an icy dread lance through the neural array from Ophan.
‘Where’s the Cyberwolf?’ he demanded.
‘We hit them,’ said Ophan, her voice dry.
But there was conviction in it, reinforced by certainty in her mind.
‘They’re on overwatch station,’ stated Benhadad. ‘We’re out of comm range. Move us towards the overwatch point.’
Ophan turned in her seat and looked at him, a mix of emotions contorting on her face.
Ophan turned in her seat and looked at him, a mix of emotions contorting on her face.