On Fire and Anvils.

For those interested, here is a snippet of my Black Library submission. This wont be the sample text I submit, but just something I wrote to get my head around the story.

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They were all dead, he was certain of it. His battle brothers moved amongst the bodies, checking each one for any sign of life. He knew it was a waste of time but he had ordered it anyway; they were honour bound now, he had given his word.

The memories of the descent from orbit flashed through his mind, the red tinted light in the belly of the thunderhawk gunship casting each of them in a macabre glow. He saw it as vividly as the first time it had happened, and he lingered on the memory of his second, Brother Promahn, taking his oath of moment. Returning to the present, he glanced down at the drake head drawn in ash on the back of his gauntlet, symbolising the unbreakable vow he had given in the gloom.

No, there was nothing else but this – he would not turn from this path no matter the cost. He would see this through to the end, wherever that led him, though the destination they were all hurtling toward gave him considerable pause. Nothing about this made sense.

There were scores of men and women in the mess hall, all clad in the red and ochre uniform of the Ymperia Planetary Defence Force, all dead by their own hands. The tables and pews had been pushed against one wall, leaving space for what looked like an impromptu mission briefing. Judging by the rank markings on their uniforms, the officers were all grouped together near what he was considering the front of the room, their subordinates facing them in ranks.

Every corpse showed a single point blank lasgun shot under the chin, with a cauterised exit wound at the top of the skull. This whole thing smacked of a ritual suicide, likely a sacrifice to one of the dark gods, if not for one, all important detail; there were no outward signs of taint. Though corruption ran deep, his instincts were telling him to discard the obvious, to dig deeper. He suspected that when he did, these men and women, these soldiers, would be proven pure.

So why had they killed themselves?

Running his gauntleted hand over his shaved scalp, his armoured fingers tracing the many scars of his honour branding, Brother Sergeant My’lon Y’bor turned away from the dead and strode out of the mess hall, Promahn falling into step beside him.

“My Lord, this does not sit right with me.” Promahn said, addressing his Sergeant with that strange appellation he always did, though Y’bor had never earned it. He had given up trying to correct his battle brother, and now merely ignored the esoteric nature of his oldest ally.

“I know what you mean, V’rin. This reeks of chaos – the signs are there, but the taint is not. I cannot shake the feeling that this is something beyond the obvious, something... more.” Y’bor replied, his heavy brow creased in a frown.

The two marines walked in silence for a while, each turning the situation over in their minds, each considering – then dismissing – the possibilities; it simply did not add up.

In time, their path lead them back to the command chapel, and the techmarine within. Adept Telamon was hunched over the command throne, his eight foot bulk dwarfing it as he reached beyond to the controls on the cogitation engine built into the pulpit standing before the throne.

+++Ah, brothers! I trust your search went well?+++ The techmarine said, his voice a deep scraping – like two automobiles colliding in slow motion – projected from the vox emitter grafted into his throat where his vocal chords should have been. His armour was a deep crimson, like dried blood, with only his left shoulder guard painted in the colours of his chapter, and his bionic augmentation was considerable. Telamon had taken to the cult of the machine much more eagerly than was normal for his fellows, and after a few hundred years served as a techmarine, there was little of his organic body remaining.

The inhuman appearance given to his human features by his augmentation made him look like a clockwork approximation of the human body, a fact only reinforced by the servo rig he wore on his back. Four adamantium servo arms extended from the bulky power pack like the legs of some giant parasitic insect, each ending in a tool integral to his duties. A cutting torch, and rivet gun, and two manipulator claws were accompanied by dozens of tiny, snake like mechadendrites – smaller versions of the mechanical limbs used to manipulate smaller machinery that could retract into the rig whenever they were no longer needed.

Telamon had always been strange, even for a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and to Y’bor he seemed more than a little detached from reality. It was almost as if he had forgotten how to be human over the centuries of replacing his organs and body parts with cybernetics, and could only manage an approximation of humanity based on observation of the un-augmented. Y’bor had little time for his insanities.

“No, it did not. We are no closer to finding the reason for this massacre than you are to finding the missing guardsmen.” He said, not bothering to hide his irritation at such a redundant question. If Telamon had noticed it – which Y’bor highly doubted – then he ignored it.

+++Regarding that, I believe I may be on to something. The systems here are encrypted with standard Adeptus Mechanicus protocols, but with the proper noospheric interface I should be able to bypass them. Alas, the lockdown status is restricting access to systems critical to my work.+++

“How long until you can break the encryption?” Promahn asked, shifting his armoured bulk from one foot to the other.

+++Considering the variables, my calculations – accurate to a nine point four three recurring percentile – predict– +++

“How long?” Y’bor interrupted, his irritation growing behind his burning red eyes.

+++An hour, maybe less. Thirty minutes perhaps?+++ Telamon said with a shrug, the mechadendrites extending from his servo rig mimicking the motion.

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Any thoughts?