The Beast Arises

For Van Auken, it was a reminder of a power and potency to be studied and harnessed. For if the greatest weapons of Terra’s Emperor had failed — the gene-heirs of warriors who had fought the renegade Warmaster’s forces on the walls of the Imperial Palace — then truly the capabilities of the savage enemy race warranted further study.

When the first of the Adeptus Astartes died, the laboratorium went into overdrive. As the life signs flatlined, priests and medicae servitors swarmed about the subject. Frantic magi were up to their elbows in gore. Metal receptacles clanged as slab servo-pincers extracted shards of frag and fat bullets, depositing them in rapidly filling scuttles. Surgeomats administered synthetic infusions and stimulants directly to the hearts. The second Space Marine swiftly followed his brother, splitting the magi and servitors between the hulking patients.

The laboratorium should have been clouded with regret and high emotion. The loss of any subject on the surgical slab would have prompted such reactions from common Imperial medics and planetary doctors. The significance of the event should have raised the emotional stakes higher. Before the priests’ eyes and augmetics, the last of the honoured Imperial Fists Chapter were breathing their last. Bleeding their last. Feeling their last.

The laboratorium was crowded with priest-subjects of the Adeptus Mechanicus, however, for whom such emotions were meaningless. Their fight for life was a battle with the inevitability of ignorance. If the Adeptus Astartes died then opportunities would be missed, data would be incomplete and further researches impossible. The best the Omnissiah’s servants could summon was the barest suggestion of professional remonstration. Even in failure, however, the Machine God’s acolytes reasoned there were opportunities to learn and make improvements. Autopsies could still reveal secrets of value to the Grand Experiment.

With two of his patients falling victim to the wounds that they had suffered on Ardamantua, Magos Urquidex brought all of his assistants about the remaining subject. The laboratorium was a cacophony of offered opinions, binary cant, suggested surgeries, the whine of las-scalpels and auspectoria alarms. As the Adeptus Astartes’ life signs faded, the frenetic activity intensified. The subject went into arrest. Tests became increasingly savage and invasive. Brutal cybernetic transplants were attempted. Blood fountained at the laboratorium ceiling.

‘We’re losing the subject,’ a magos physic announced.

As the Space Marine’s life signs evaporated and biological death was confirmed, the procedures doubled in their bloodthirsty desperation. By the time the priests and servo-cybernetica had finished with the Space Marine’s engineered form, it looked like he had been turned inside out. Most of his organs were outside of his body and the protective cocoon was now a shredded and gore-soaked sheath.

‘That’s it,’ Eldon Urquidex said finally. ‘Summon the magi concisus: the holy work of the subjects’ design and genetic workings should be honoured. Last rites should be issued before autopsy is conducted.’

Taking surgical towels from a servitor, Urquidex looked up through the armourglass of the observation bubble as he cleaned the worst of the gore from his hands and appendages. ‘Record the time, date and location, accounting for galactic drift and chrono-dilation. Nobody will ever know, but we just slaughtered the last of the Imperial Fists on our surgical slab.’

‘Again, magos,’ Van Auken told him, ‘you must learn to govern your sentimentality. Fellow magi and adepts. Your exemplary efforts have been noted in the mission log. You are dismissed.’

As the laboratorium emptied of Adeptus Mechanicus personnel, Urquidex and Van Auken continued to stare at one another.

‘What did we learn?’ the artisan trajectorae demanded.

Urquidex deposited his stained surgical towel in an incinerator chute. ‘That the Adeptus Astartes’ chemical therapies and implants were doing a better job of preserving the Imperial Fists than our surgeries, infusions and cybernetic transplants.’

‘You think me wrong to insist on your efforts?’

‘Absolutely,’ Urquidex told him. ‘And I would like my objection noted in the log.’

‘Entered already,’ Van Auken said. ‘But I wonder, who are you more concerned for? The subject on the slab, or yourself and your failure to save him?’

‘I’m sure that I don’t comprehend your meaning, artisan-primus.’