Chương 81: Volume Two - Chapter Seventeen - From Below

It was still early enough in the morning that Sylvia was wiping her eyes clean. She was still presentable, of course. It behooved an officer of the Imperium, even just of the Planetary Guard, to be well-dressed and straight-backed. She reached up and adjusted her cap while walking into the shadow cast by the first wall. Her ears twitched, but she'd long since grown used to ignoring the discomfort that came from her hat pressing down on them.

The Guard didn't make too much effort to accommodate abhumans, even perfectly loyal ones like herself. It was a minor miracle that she'd even managed to rise as high as she did. Fortunately, other than the occasional visit from an ecclesiarch priest there to admonish and encourage the troops, she had little to do with the more... xenophobic side of things.

After that short battle the prior afternoon, she had the Eternal towed back to its berth, just in time for the Castlekiller Type IX Heavy Gun Emplacement to arrive, delivered on the back of a standard truck driven by one of her more veteran troopers. She had expected to have to grovel and plead for the Mechanicus to install the device, but that hadn't been necessary.

The magos had been quite excited to see archeotech, and had promised that the repairs on the rest of the Eternal would carry on at a faster pace, and that the pace may yet be even faster if there were more such devices to be found. She made no promises, but had hinted that maybe there was more in storage somewhere. A problem for later, because at the moment she was almost entirely out of points. 30, counting the ten that had appeared in her total on awakening as part of some sort of daily allowance. That was fine.

If the Eternal was better equipped today, she'd grab a few more kills. The Titan Machine Spirit Vyper had indicated that it would take ten thousand points to fully repair the Eternal. At the current rate, that was merely twenty days. Fewer if the knight became more operable between now and then. She slowed her pace down as she came into the hangar. Two things caught her attention immediately. First, there were more Mechanicus around the Eternal than she had seen previously.

The knight's Plasma Decimator was fully removed, and the shoulder about it had been replaced. The replacement was coloured differently, yellow and black stripes running across thick steel. Likewise, one of the armour panels above the Volcano Lance was replaced with a hazard-striped version as well. The new gun was firmly in place, with a half-dozen tech priests standing atop the Eternal waving incense burners while another placed a large set of seals onto the freshly-painted turret.

The Eternal was still far from battlefield ready. She saw wires dangling and armoured panels were stripped back here and there, revealing his complex innards, but there was a sense that things were progressing. The second thing she noticed was a House Mavrik knight sitting in a berth across from hers. House Mavrik was a rebel house. Their knight, a questoris pattern, was being tended to by a smaller group of tech priests, though it didn't look like it needed very much attention at the moment. The civil war...

strangely, she had almost forgotten about it. After their initial blow, the rebels had focused inwards. Things may be bad in the city at the moment. They weren't foolish enough to push too hard against those defending the walls. There was a sort of... truce between the rebels, the allies of House Krast, and the PDF. The Planetary Guard had few knights, but they did have plenty of tanks and enough men to drown any house that caused trouble.

The Guard was also entirely focused on the ork threat and wasn't picking sides. Whomever came out on top would negotiate with the Guard and that was that. It was... almost nice, in a way. Civility in a time of civil war. Ironic, perhaps. She turned her attention away from the House Mavrik knight and continued to walk towards the Eternal Pride. In theory, as long as she kept her head down and focused solely on the orks, then the rebels might well ignore her. In theory.

She wasn't sure if she liked her odds, but none of that mattered. She could see about revenge once the Eternal was returned to full functionality. Until then, she was the pilot of a limp knight, and that wasn't worth much.

"Magos Tech-Wright Eisle Tayer," she said as she came upon the man. He was staring at a dataslate held in place by a mechadendrite. Three younger, less modifies tech priests were standing before him. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Ah, Knight Nekoton. You have come to inspect the holy work?"

"Yes," she said simply.

"How goes it?"

"Well. The archeotech is of impressive make. We were unable to date it, nor recognize the pattern." She felt a cold shiver run down her spine, but the magos continued.

"It fit into place perfectly. The installation was one of the simplest in my career. Truly, a machine blessed by the Omnissiah. Once this conflict is over, the Mechanicus would be quite pleased with the right to study the gun and its systems."

"I'm certain that can be arranged," she said.

"Good. You will be thankful to note that mobility was restored. The Eternal Pride may walk once more."

"Truly?" she asked. That would be a great improvement. If she could move, then perhaps she could cover more than just her narrow section of the trenches. More mobility meant more dead xeno.

"Indeed. Though of course, the repairs are incomplete. I emphasized functionality of systems over complete repairs." She nodded once.

"I understand. Nonetheless, thank you, magos. I'm going to see what I can do with regards to the mobility systems. We might have something in storage for that. But... hypothetically, if you were able to obtain any part as though it were entirely new and in perfect condition, which item would be the next one that you'd want in order to bring the Eternal Pride back to full functionality?" The magos stared at her for several seconds, his mechanical eyes shifting in and out of focus.

He lowered his arms, then folded them before him in a casual sign of the cog.

"Given unlimited access to archeotech, then the first system I would replace on the Eternal Pride is its reactor."

"The reactor?" she asked. She wasn't even aware that it needed replacing.

"Indeed. The plasma core remains functional, and is capable of outputting up to eighty percent of its maximum capacity. However, that eighty percent is only thanks to surges in the core. Its stable output is closer to sixty percent. At the moment, without the additional drain from its Plasma Decimator, the Eternal Pride has a slight surplus in available power when idling. But it does not have motive capacitors to make use of this.

A replacement containment assembly, or an entirely new reactor, would permit us to restore power to the entirety of the Eternal Pride without risking catastrophic collapse."

"I see," she said.

"Perhaps something like the a Atomantic Reactor?" Magos Tech-Wright Eisle Tayer stared at her all the harder.

"Yes. Something of that sort would be very pleasant to work with."

"Good. Of course, it would be strange to simply stumble upon such a thing, but if one did appear, I imagine that some amount of discrete--" Sylvia flinched as someone ran towards her. She only calmed when she recognized them. MacDonald, her vox operator.

"Ma'am!" he shouted. There was a half-strength squad coming up behind him, more of her men. They should have been stationed by the entrance of the hangar, not within. This ground belonged to the Mechanicus, and they could be... tetchy about who entered their sacred space. Her squirehood, and her ability to act as active pilot for a knight gave her a free pass, but that didn't necessarily extend to her men.

"Yes?" she asked. He stopped, then saluted.

"Ma'am! Trench section 56 is being overrun."

"Pardon?" she asked. That was the area right next to their section of the trench. It was barely a klick away.

"The orks attacked early? The rebels? Infighting?" The vox-operator shook his head.

"Orks. Definitely orks. They came from underground, ma'am. And the orks are coming early. There are a lot of them."

"I see," she said. Sylvia spun around to face the magos.

"I need the Eternal ready, now. Macdonald, contact Morrison and Morgan. Tell Morgan that he's holding our part of the line. Morrison is to take a squad and reinforce the 56th. They came to our aid, we're going to return the favour."

"Yes ma'am."

"The knight can be made ready within the hour," the magos said.

"Sure," she said. Then she took a deep breath. Did she trust this man? Did she trust the servants of the Omnissiah?

"When I return, we may only have minutes to work on repairs. It looks like the orks have finally sprung their trap."

"Indeed. My acolytes will prepare to defend this sacred space. Though we are also prepared to evacuate, as is standard procedure. This wall has been lost to the xeno before, and retaken."

"Was installing the new turret easy?" she asked.

"Indeed. Very much so."

"Good. When I come back, be ready to install a lot more. And no, I won't be explaining that."