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#Post#: 4979--------------------------------------------------
Jarosh the Techpriest - Victoria aut mors - Part 1 of 2
DIR By: Apothecary Meros
Date: May 28, 2016, 12:59 pm
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You could say I was hired to write this. Although that'd just be
a more glamorous way of me saying I had to write this in class.
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“I exist to serve.”
Jarosh never grew tired of the same dull phrase which erupted in
static from the lobotomised slave trailing behind his pearl
trimmed crimson robes. They arched around the bionic features of
his several century old complexion. Pipes and cables emerged in
bundles from his neck and arms, only to bury themselves within
the depths of his cloak once again. Each footfall brought with
it a deep clank from the soles of his iron boots which echoed
around the florescent lit hallway. The tough mesh beneath him
gave view to a bottomless void of control stations and banks
plasma generators – the heart and soul of his palace.
In truth his ‘palace’ was merely a fraction of the
superstructure which surrounded him and the immense power grid
humming peacefully beneath his cold metallic feet was one of
thousands. This Manufactorum as it was known, was quite
literally a well-oiled machine. He: the lowly priest, a single
pawn on the infinite chessboard of life and death. The slave
lurking in his wake was a billionth of the facility’s manpower,
and easily replicable. Jarosh knew that soon this one would grow
stale, and would end its putrid existence with a swing from his
two-handed powered battle axe. As long as there was crime, there
would be criminals. As long as there would be criminals, there
would be subjects to perform his surgeries on, to create his
legions of servitors.
“Go to the lower decks and take readings of the plasma reactors,
slave.” Jarosh grunted in annoyance. His temper was ever foul
like the dreary atmosphere which flared his nostrils constantly.
The nature of his surgeries meant the servitors never took
notice, and obeyed without question. Sometimes he envied them;
they couldn’t sense the rotting smell of their own reanimated
carcasses.
“Compliance.”
It stumbled away, fading into the shadows at the end of the
corridor as its dreary march faded into deathly silence. Now
Jarosh was alone. At least, visually, he was by himself. The
priest gazed an emerald eye lens skyward. A spherical camera
twitched and shivered with a near silent grinding of unseen
gears and motors. Whisked away on invisible rails, the camera
fled the harrowing stare from the priest to spy on other
acolytes. This pleased Jarosh, he was now truly alone. He
allowed himself the time to meditate and reflect on the
happenings of his previous shift. Instinctively, binary code
fluttered from the grille representing where his mouth should
be. In Gothic – a language loosely based on ancient ‘English’ –
the strings of code would read gentle litanies and prayers to
gods and ancient mythical lords.
To be specific, he prayed to the Immortal God-Emperor of
Mankind, sat upon the Golden Throne within the Palace of Terra,
built upon the sacred soil of the planet the ancients once
called ‘Earth’. The Emperor had ruled over Terra for millennia
past, his psychic essence guiding all loyal servants of his
Imperium to feats of unmatched glory against evil that would
seek to undo all of his hard work. It was the Emperor himself
who led the Great Crusade to unify the scattered colonies of a
ruined humanity under a single banner. Only the treachery of his
heretic son, Horus Lupercal, had felled the Emperor and left his
broken body to sit upon the Golden Throne for all eternity. The
Mechanicus, as it was and still is known, were divided on their
service to the Emperor or the traitors under the banner of
Horus. Justice was dealt in fire and blood when the loyalists
attacked – Jarosh was glad his bloodline stayed true to the
righteous path.
His prayers were directed also to the Omnissiah, the God of
machines. Although not a physical entity like the Emperor, the
Omnissiah was ever present in the souls of the machinery around
him. Jarosh, and the other priests who he served alongside,
called these souls ‘Machine Spirits’. It was their job to
appease the machine spirits, and ensure they performed their
duty. As well as this, their job meant that they oversaw the
construction and maintenance of every machine spirit in the
galaxy: whether it is the temperate raging spirits of a battle
tank or the methodical, gentle soul which took control over the
metal pinions where his legs used to be, it was the purpose of
his existence to manage them.
With a jerk of his head the monotone strings of 0s and 1s ceased
and the sound waves echoed back into the seeping quiet which
enveloped him. He swivelled his one biological eyeball down,
once again through the iron grated floor. He groaned as a spark
flew from one of the generators roughly twenty floors below him,
paired with a painful whirring from a malfunctioning piston. He
twitched; he felt the machine spirit’s pain as if it were his
own. He could hear its frantic call for aid. Only those born
from Mars with him had this understanding, this bond, with the
machines. He could bring some cock-eyed Catachan or one of the
numerous drunkards of Valhalla to the facility and they’d be as
ignorant as ever. Jarosh and his Martian kin had intellect far
surpassing the average human frontline soldier, although often
he had to admit his weapons training had been some many
centuries ago. His skills had gotten a little rusty after all
that time.
Giving in to its eternal screeching, Jarosh turned a corner
twenty metres down the catwalk to a service elevator. It
unnerved him, suspended in a wire cage above the infinite void,
it only took the cruel nature of gravity to pierce the dark veil
and drag him down to hellish doom. The broken piston began a
crescendo while the dingy elevator lowered him closer. It
aggravated him. He wishes the damn machines would fix
themselves. However, after a quick second of thought he came to
the conclusion that he’d prefer to keep the job he has fixing
them over the possibility of having half his brain removed and
ordered into manual labour while his skin and bones slowly
eroded.
That thought too sent a shiver down his spine.
The rickety structure opened up to a perilously thin walkway.
His robes teetered on the edge. He thanked the Omnissiah that
someone had the intelligence to install a guard rail, or else
accidental servitor casualties would be enormous. He stalked
past several functioning generators, unable to stop his natural
instinct to marvel at the intricate moving parts and the near
blinding essence of raw plasma energy, like a child with his
tiny nose pressed against the window of a toy shop.
His serene examination was broken by a screech of a loud
speaker, one of many thousands around the facility which spewed
propaganda and Imperial dogma by the hour. He braced and made
the sign of the Aquila – crossing his palms with interlocking
thumbs to create a wingspan across his chest, representing the
two headed eagle which branded every inch of Imperial space.
“Heresy grows from idleness.” sounded a zealous tone, one far
too joyful to be a live transmission. No, it was one of the many
recordings made by high priest Sachiel. From the pits of his
mechanical heart he snuffed a chirp of brisk laughter. He
sincerely doubted the high priest was being anything but idle.
He never came down to perform his duties, never wanting to brush
shoulders with those of a lower rank. Jarosh regarded Sachiel
with the same respect he gave the grime splattered across the
soles of his feet. Other priests in different departments such
as the ‘Minitorum Manufactorum’ and the ‘Magos Biologis’ felt
the same way about their overseer. Word of uprising, of mutiny,
was spread not so long ago – some four decades perhaps. However
it became apparent that when his rule is questioned, Sachiel is
as swift as the smashing pistons which Jarosh eyed in serene
captivation.
Twenty minutes passed and the generator began to hum gently in
tune with the remainder of its plasma fuelled choir. Millennia
ago, before the Horus Heresy and the Great Crusade which united
the galaxy, this job would have been done by mere mortals with
hard hats and hammers. At this point they would have departed to
consume a mixture of carbohydrates and proteins in various forms
to maintain their biological lives. Techpriests required no such
assistance. Jarosh, happy that the generator had not exploded in
his face and put the entire facility into lockdown, immediately
set about on another task of his never ending shift.
The swivelling camera drone span around to meet his gaze as the
mesh elevator doors shuddered wide. By now his crimson cloak was
oil stained and filthy. His mind had to work hard to repress the
images of Sachiel in his perfect golden threaded silk robes.
Jealousy was not meant for sons of the Omnissiah. At least,
that’s what he was led to believe. His train of thought was
derailed upon the arrival of clunky, irregular footsteps over
the metal flooring. The servitor had returned, its jumpsuit also
stricken with streaks of oil and a variety of coolant fluids.
“Report.” The priest grunted, allowing a second for the verbal
command to promote a response from the servitor’s simple
Logicator computer.
“Generator unit 55-3B, Sector 22A, fully operational.”
“Good, slave. Accompany me to the Assembly Line.”
“Compliance.” It paused, the lack of movement leading Jarosh to
suddenly believe the servitor has expired. To his short lived
relief, it spoke. “Operation Victoria aut mors is underway.”
Jarosh exhaled a cool wisp of air at the sound. Victoria aut
mors – Victory or death. Clearly another priest had intercepted
his servitor, thinking it belonged to one of the more radical
priests who wished to overthrow Sachiel.
Jarosh strolled into the gloom as his mind too was left to
wander in dark places. Sachiel was a tyrant, there was no doubt.
But he was ruthless, and that meant he was highly efficient.
Then again, it was not he who was doing the work. The
Manufactorum could work just as well without him. How satisfying
it would be to slice the high priest’s head from his shoulders
and bathe in the mixture of blood and oil which would erupt from
his stump neck.
A shrill bang of clashing metal drew Jarosh from his
bloodthirsty trance. The shaft of his axe had made a
semi-circular impression in the flooring. He shook his head,
silently praying for forgiveness. Bleak minutes passed of an
irregular pattern of the priest and the servitor marching around
the labyrinth corridors. Gunmetal grey and thick with plates of
adamantine steel, a blast door emerged. Yellow and black hazard
stripes appeared in the florescent light along each horizontal
side, with various runes welded in place to label the room
beyond.
‘Manufactorum Majoris’ it read. The largest and most vital area
of the facility lay just beyond this door. Here the
inconceivable volume of bullets and shells were produced in
droves, alongside the battle tanks and firearms which would
someday fire them. On any other day they would be shipped to
warzones far in the galactic east, such as the bastion world of
Cadia, or the alien ridden cities of Armageddon. Today, they
would be fired here and now whether he liked it or not. Victoria
aut mors was underway. Hastily plugging one of the many wires
trailing from his chest into the console near the door he
mentally typed the entry code. Hissing with decompression the
doors began to grind open.
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