Chương 197: Chapter One Hundred and Ninety-Seven

The flow of demons thickens as I approach the breach and I upload new, larger attack programs to the noosphere. The shaft fills with large jellyfish. Their tendrils stun and inject the multiple intruders with destructive code, then draw the demons into their bodies. Once their targets are fully contained, the jellyfish delete themselves, removing the demons from the noosphere. Progress slows as I struggle to upload enough attack programs with the low bandwidth connection.

My current connection was intended for monitoring and troubleshooting, not cyberwarfare. I consider breaking my restriction on vox connections to increase my bandwidth, but I decide against opening multiple fronts for now. I arrive at a rusted sewer gate. Iron bars, bent and torn, line the edge of the tunnel like jagged teeth. Demon-faced fog tumbles from the gate, spreading out into the shaft. A score of sinuous, humanoid demons stand on jagged disks.

Each disk has a large central eye and a trail of warpfire follows them as they circle the sewer gate, holding their champions aloft. The humanoid demons have multiple tiny heads that belch fog and flame into the shaft. At the ends of their arms are lobster-like claws wreathed in pink, greasy flames. These demons, Discs of Tzeentch and Flamers of Tzeentch, are lesser demons of moderate power.

Having only faced Chaos Spawn so far, I had believed that neverborn like this were restricted to physical forms within the Materium, and could not take form within the noosphere. I really should have expected such extreme versatility from demons following the Changer of Ways. Tzeentch is the ultimate shape changer and demons don't have real physical bodies. My form fuzzes slightly as I overclock the socket I'm connected to.

I step out of the stream of data, the space around me glowing with concealing runes, and float past the demons, remaining unseen. Touching my hand against the gate, I rebuild it. One moment it is a broken mess, the next it looks like an Imperial Guard tunnel with layers of armoured doors, automated weapons, and patrolled by garden gnomes. I quietly snicker at the silly sight and return the socket to its standard speed.

Realising they're cut off, the lesser demons spew fire and lash out with their tentacles at random, but none of them hit me. The defences on the rebuilt gate launch a torrent of destructive data, lighting up the shaft with powerful multi-lasers and las fire. The surrounding chaos spawn pour out of the mist, acting as a screen for the lesser demons. The sheer mass of the chaos spawn's data holds the defences back for several fractions of a second and for a moment I think they might hold out.

Then my harmonium program triggers, blasting the demons with Imperial chants and prayers from the vox casters embedded into the repaired port. The Chaos Spawn forms waver then they are swept away by the noise, leaving the lesser demons vulnerable. The Flamers throw up walls of fire, holding off the las fire. They're not struggling, but they have no remaining power to counter attack. The Disks move back and forth, making the demons more difficult to target.

With local demonic reinforcements cut off, my own attack programs, the gnomes and jellyfish, finally clear enough of the shaft for the Machine-Spirits to get the upper hand. They race up the shaft in a torrent of gold and silver light, trampling the Flamers and Disks, breaking up their forms into worthless bytes of data that tumble down the shaft and are cleansed by the ever present flow of motive force through the cogitators.

I absorb their meagre essence, my soul so large that I barely squeeze a couple of kills from them. Their dispersing bodies, however, recharge my batteries, replenishing the power I used to kill the elite Tyranids. I spend several minutes following the twisting tunnels of the noosphere, chasing down every breach until all seven of them are sealed, just as I finish my discussion with Bedwyr and the others. Bedwyr and the communications officer depart to carry out their part of the plan.

Kneeling before the altar-like control panel, I take a short break, running multiple diagnostics while my mechadendrites set out new candles and incense. I really hate dealing with demons. They are incredibly unsettling and I do not prevaricate with my prayers. In a rare show of faith I pray for all my worth to the Machine-God and the Emperor to keep my family, fleet, and I safe from the insidious corruption of the Warp. For a moment, something unfathomably large peers at me and I shiver beneath its attention.

My thoughts fill with steady ticking and the gentle hum of perfectly tuned machines. A drop of silver oil appears before my avatar in the noosphere, seemingly filled with an infinite number of tiny machines, and disperses into the control panel's systems, washing over me and all the Machine-Spirits within. The bone lining the shaft peels away, shifting into clear glass covered with tiny pinpricks of light in thousands of different colours.

The Machine-Spirits around me grow larger and more complex, their forms gaining greater definition. Some change from blocky creatures to high resolution images where every hair and scale is sharp and fluid. Others develop extra features, their forms folding in on themselves like endless fractals as their digital forms sprout more cogs, pistons, and mechadendrites. I am absolutely floored by this overt manifestation of the Machine-God. I have seen and read of the Emperor intervening multiple times.

There is also no end of so-called evidence for the divinity of machines with the texts I read on Distant Sun, yet not once can I recall having witnessed it myself. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I am also rather confused as I believed that the Machine God was the C'Tan imprisoned beneath Mars, but this seems like something entirely different.

My mind aches slightly as the Emperor's attention bears down on me, demanding answers but I have none and all I am left with is a sense of fear and loathing, one I am not entirely sure is my own. Opening my eyes, I gaze upon the control panel. It doesn't look any different to before, but the whole space beneath the fusion reactor has acquired a distinct aura of reverent calm and silence.

Even with the clash of weapons just beyond the door, it sounds more distant than it actually is, somehow deceiving even my advanced sensors. Contemplating this manifestation further will not aid me in my immediate goals. From within my sanctuary, I launch a war of my own, purging all hostile code from the machines within the genatorium. Once all the systems are secure I take a much closer look at all of the code, looking for ways I can turn off the power plants without killing us all.

I check the fusion reactors first. Fusion power is an immensely challenging technology, so the reactors are particularly difficult to sabotage. Be it igniting fuel pellets with lasers, or squeezing plasma with magnets, even the smallest mismatch in timing will stop the fusion reaction. It takes a lot of creativity to actually blow one up. You can damage them fairly easily by overloading the magnets and melting them, or messing with the cooling, but that doesn't make them explode.

They haven't been tampered with in such a manner either. I do, however, discover a small code that, had I found a way to trigger an emergency shut down, the thrusters would be triggered. While this is a way to clear and shut down the fusion reactor, it is rather unnecessary. Unwilling to take anything at face value, I spend two hours clearing the enginarium noosphere of Warp entities as well.

When I test the valves that control how much plasma is mixed with the reaction mass, I discover that they report as open, regardless of what I set them to. I suspect that they're jammed shut, and were the thrusters to fire, everything has been set up to build up and either backwash into the fusion reactors, or blow up the thrusters. Either way, considering where I'm standing, I would likely have been killed in the blast.

There isn't much I can do about it now and it's looking more and more like Dying Light will have to be scrapped, which would mean there was no point turning on the power in the first place. We could have just towed it! The atomic reactors also have an extra code linked to them should an emergency shutdown occur. Like the fusion reactors, they're also difficult to blow up. They only function so long as the working liquid is present.

Should it get too hot, there is not only an emergency pump, but also a plug that will melt, making all the liquid pour out, so long as there is gravity. Unfortunately, we didn't drill into the plug to check if it's actually made from what it is supposed to be made from, nor did we check if the emergency capacitors connected to the grav plates beneath the atomic reactors are actually connected, not just say they are.

During a test cycle of the emergency pump, the safeties functioned just fine, but the extra piece of code I found turns off the pumps when the reactors go critical, not when they're tested. The plasma reactors have also been sabotaged. The evidence is overwhelming that whoever set this up is determined to keep the ritual functioning for as long as possible, but at this point, I just don't see what they can achieve with their research when we're killing all of their creations.

So far, Alpia and the Navigators have managed to reduce the ritual's power by fourteen percent. The Heralds are holding their own. Casualties have reached twelve percent, though deaths remain below three percent. Raphael is still stuck outside the bridge. The Space Marines did charge the central cogitator, and once a third of their forces were inside the room, the Cultists shut the door, cutting off Verlin from most of his brothers.

With vox coms down, Verlin's fate is unknown and Balor is desperately trying to get the door open again. I receive a request for assistance and agree. I reconnect the genetorium's noosphere to the rest of the vessel and slowly start taking over the whole ship. I make some progress, gaining control of internal defences as I progress through Dying Light's systems, relieving some pressure on the Heralds and reducing the time it takes for the ritual unravelling groups to move through the vessel.

With the genetorium noosphere secured, and there being little point in trying to avoid corruption when I'm fighting it directly, I increase the number of connection points via vox and open up multiple noosphere fronts. Halfway to my destination, the Cultists up the ante and start powering the Nova Cannon. I run a quick calculation and swear. The Nova Cannon is aimed at the Receiving Yards and I can either stop the cannon, or help the Marines, not both.

Damage to the Receiving Yards will impact all the fleets in the Koronus Expanse for decades, and put my plan to take it over at risk. Xenos and Pirates will grow in strength and influence within the sector. Losing the Marines is bad, but failing to interrupt whatever the Cultists are up to is potentially a lot worse than a sector wide loss in naval power.

I have no way of actually knowing what the right answer is as I do not know if the ritual is a decoy and delaying tactic, or if it could wipe out the whole system. Knowing Tzeentch it's probably both. I consider consulting Rapahel, but foisting the decision off to someone else feels weak. Whatever I chose, and regardless if I succeed at my chosen option, millions, if not billions of people are going to die. Ultimately, victory over the Cultists now is more important than potential losses later.

A chance to finish off Bad Penny and end one of the major cults in the region is also valuable, especially as he is a demon that has tried to kill me twice, possibly three times already and has cults all over the Koronus Expanse and Calixis Sector. Unlike the bridge, the Cultists have not cut off the controls and I surge through the noosphere and force open the doors to the central cogitator.