Chapter 3;
Rising
Grayson worked hard as he could day by day as the contents of the Castle Brian were rapidly cleared out of the vaults, he could have equipped multiple regiments from the contents of it, but most of it was being shared out with Ricol, or sold to help the Gray Death Legion rebuild. All of it under the supervision of the Legio Astorum. Mass excavators and dozers were lifted to the surface each day as the people beneath the Castle Brian increased in their activity. The one dark cloud hovering over the proceeds was the ComStar Precentor that was overseeing operations.
The nosy shit had been sticking his nose into everything unless specifically rebuffed. And so far, the idea of descending into the facility had been rebuffed at every turn by the Adepts in charge of managing the cretin. Unfortunately, their presence was almost forced for one primary reason.
They had convinced the Magos Dominus that they would benefit from access to the hypercomms and HPG stations. That outsiders might not find the trust they need to operate without a ComStar liason to help smooth out such communications, and help bring them up to speed on the powers that be.
A figure moved up behind him, imposingly large, whipcord lean and head trailing a nest of cables that seemed to almost move of their own accord, the remainder of his implants were buried under his clothing, a nobles finery if he had ever seen it. Next to him Lori had come with the Princeps Senioris. "Cain, to what do I owe the honour." He asked, only slightly sarcastically.
There was no answer for a time as Lori came to his side. "You played a crucial part in negotiating our settlement with ComStar and the other insect." There was no loathing laden in the word he used for the House Marik ambassador. Just a statement of fact, the Princeps considered the man to be entirely beneath him. A bug to be stepped, on so what could he think of a mere mercenary commander.
"It was my pleasure." He said, only mildly sarcastic and the man turned to look at him full on, and he saw none of the sneering at someone beneath him. He seemed to realise something in what he said as he looked at Grayson's expression.
He moved over and leaned on a rocky outcropping, melted from the blast of their plasma weapons. "You suspect I think less of you than I do of a lofty ambassador?" He asked and Grayson couldn't help but nod, he'd been at the receiving end of that before, "Why would I do that? You are a warrior, you go into battle in the closest thing to a Titan your peoples have been able to build you face your daemons, and you defeat them one way or another. I asked for a copy of the Gray Death Legion's records of battle, and though it took a bit to unveil the encoding used by your BattleRom technology, there is much to admire about you. You are the closest thing on this planet I have to an equal."
"And yet, by your tone I am not your equal?" Grayson bristled.
"No, you are not." Dominic said as he studied something about the landscape. The way he moved was strange, almost like the machine he had piloted when he was distracted, "That is no fault of yours, you have fought for less than a half decade and achieved much, I have fought for just over two hundred years."
"Bullshit." Grayson immediately declared. The look levelled at him tore at his doubt with taloned claws, the looks in his eyes were not those of a man who looked his years.
"I wish it was..." The horror and sadness in his tone was arrested quickly, "I've fought on more worlds, slain more enemies of Mankind than most could ever understand I, and my Legio, are walking instruments of genocide and xenocide, were you to take the blood from every enemy ever killed by the Sanguis Terrae you could fill a sea with it deep enough to submerge the Titan beneath. But the way of war is less familiar here. We will have to adapt." He stood, straightened and Grayson turned to see cyborgs coming towards them with rifles in arms. "Grayson, I need to ask how long until you have finished your salvage of the facility?"
"Three days according to my Quartermaster." He answered, "Why?"
The Princeps nodded. "Please withdraw everything within forty kilometres, a hundred would be better." And Grayson choked as he stepped back.
"Excuse me?"
"The Titan Barque is nine kilometres in length, we will be excavating it as soon as the facility has been cleared of everything you deem of value." The Princeps said as he called up a hologram from a plate he was holding. Their ship was the ridgeline, the Castle Brian had been, knowingly or not, built above what Grayson guessed was a the colossal cargo bay containing the Titans. "Additionally, once we activate the rites of lifting to get our vessel back into orbit, the main drives are likely to scorch this entire region as thoroughly as several nuclear weapons."
"... nine Kilometres?" Grayson said in mild horror. "And nuclear level destruction launching?"
The Princeps cocked his head, "It is no Battleship, though it is larger than a Grand Cruiser, and of course on the destruction, you try launching over fifty million tonnes of starship into orbit without it. I would wager you my own teeth you can't do it with less."
What the hell have I woken up.... Grayson wondered to himself. "I will... warn our people. I will also arrange for a vector into orbit cleared."
...
Precentor Martial Antonius Daviid paced his office as he pinched the bridge of his nose, the Primus, Julian Tiepolo standing near the desk, watching the pacing Precentor Martial with barely concealed annoyance. The failure of the operation to prevent the secrets of the Helm Memory core from escaping into the wider galaxy had revealed secrets that even ComStar had not been in possession of. And it was a hologram of those war machines that now sat in the middle of Antonius' desk.
"I want our 'ambassador' to be recalled, put up against a wall and shot for this travesty of an agreement." He said to the Primus. "TEN BILLION c-bills. Zero fee access accounts to HPG transmissions. And an agreement not to interfere with their business, and all in exchange for what? A vague promise for them not to operate against ComStar interests?"
The Primus' scowl betrayed that he was no more impressed than Antonius was with the situation. "They had their hand forced, they believed that a financial investment by us, to assuage their offence over their knowledge being stolen and used, was preferable to enraging the Great Houses by presenting them all with a bill and holding Terra responsible for such a threat. And most importantly, we have a committment to secure an HPG unit, as well as a permanent liason."
He forced himself to calm down, slowing his pacing. "And do you think our liason is going to have any real influence or power?" He said almost resigned.
That was unfortunately the core of the problem. They had managed to get a liason and his staff attached to the Legio Astorum, but how much influence they could functionally wield was a question that had yet to be answered. And then the door opened, without Antonius authorising it. The small woman was pale as chalk dust as she handed a disk directly to the Primus. With that said, she backed out of the office practically reeking of terror.
"What has her so bothered?" Antonius said, so surprised at her composure that he forgot to be enraged at the interruption.
The Primus frowned, and slotted the disk into a reader on the Precentor Martials desk, the hologram of the massive machine was replaced with footage....
+++
The Satellite's view was on the valley where the Castle Brian had been situated, and they both drew a deep breath as they saw the valley was no longer there, neither was the rocky outcroppings. Massive signs of tractor and excavator work surrounded debris, rubble, and a WarShip of unknown design. The satellites overlay changed placing a wireframe of the landscape as it had been, revealing the true depth of the scale to the two mortified observers.
It looked something like a League class WarShip mated with the one of a kind Enterprise class, but scaled up massively. Even as they watched the satellite footage the last of the megascale excavators and dozers were traced back into airlocks that looked small from this angle and distance but they were certain could have allowed the entire Legio of machines to march out line abreast. Lights began to snap to life all across its hull and the Satellite detected significantly spiking heat returns as the monsters generators went from whatever standby they had been on to full engagement and power flowed through the vessel like a Tsunami. Objects taken at first for dectoration began to move and their nature as turrets was exposed for all to see.
Then the ground cracked for half a kilometre in every direction, the cracks blazing with baleful white light before blasts of detritus and ejecta were pushed away from what couldn't have been anything less than colossal thrusters. Because it lifted from the hole it was making evenly, waves of energy crashing against the ground from systems that they couldn't identify. Freed from the ground, landing legs the size of entire towns began to retract into the hull, its nose began tipping back, aiming towards space. It's aft drives came to life to compensate for the tipping and it began to scoot across the landscape, searing a molten crater wherever its drive plumes touched. Thrusters flared and fired and they began to control its momentum as the nose continued to push even further towards vertical. It wasn't quite at vertical however when its main drives came to full life.
Fusion fire washed out the observation camera on the satellite with blinding fury as megatonnes of thrust per second were propelled from the fury of the ships drives as it accelerated towards the skies at a monstrous ten gravities. The landscape below ravaged by a plume of star hot plasma creating a boiling crater of molten magma ten kilometres wide before the searing beam of energy lifting the ship had lifted it high into the stratosphere. Raging firestorms spread out from the area of the vessels launch and when the blinding light finally faded to a hellish glow from the drives, the Satellite continued to watch the apocalyptic swathe of destruction below. The vessel continued up into orbit, its massive drives pushing it.
The Primus and Precentor Martial could only study the ships profile in a kind of mute terror, its flanks bearing the sigil of the Adeptus Mechanicus next to the icon of the Legio Astorum. Weapon emplacements that must have weighed as much as a McKenna Battleship turned to observe local space, thousands of smaller weapon emplacements were less active. And then the monster changed course, heaving itself through ninety degrees as its drives flared to full life once more for almost a minute as the ship circularised its orbit.
+++
"Fuck me..." Antonius said with a quaver of terror in his voice.
The Primus was as pale as the woman who had brought the footage. "That drive plume alone could have cut through any Warship we have..." He said as he went to the next part of the report. His breath caught. "Our analysts had been studying that for several hours before forwarding it to us, so they could present the most accurate information."
Antonius hesitated, waiting for the Primus to continue.
"According to analysis of this footage, as well as three other satellites that observed the launch event, the vessel masses no less than fifty five point seven nine million tonnes, its drives are capable of a minimum of ten gravities of acceleration,... and that, based on atmospheric effects on its launching, it also has some sort of energy shielding." He said, breathless.
"Primus, all due respect. But if you ever ask me to attack that thing, or its cargo, I will be immediately submitting my resignation." Antonius declared with horror colouring his tone.
