[Narrative] The Wound in the World

It was a poetic name for a volcano. The Wound in the World. An inexplicable rift in a planetary crust, nowhere near any cause understood by common or esoteric geology. It made the name of the way-station, informal though it was, into an even more gratuitous act of bathos.

Why the station was called Dead Leg, nobody was entirely sure. This did not stop its brace of lay-mechanics from speculating, of course: anything to fill the time. The junior, round-faced and twenty-something and probably going to be there forever, opined that it was to do with the distance: that they were so far away from anywhere else that there was nowhere to go when you arrived but back. The senior, taller and leaner and a little older, early thirties if he was a day, took the tack that it was an implied sentence: a posting here suggested exactly what the priesthood thought of you, your prospects, and your chance of ever becoming an enginseer.

"You know," the junior lay-mechanic said as they went through this argument for the forty-eighth time in a month, "you know the only reason they don't get servitors to do this job is 'cause you have to make an effort programming a servitor."

"That isn't it at all, and also shut up," said the senior lay-mechanic. "The reason servitors can't do this job is because this job requires judgement, decision-making, responsiveness to emergent situations and - look, something might go wrong out here, and it needs human oversight. Lex Mechanicus, one point seven percent minimum, etcetera."

"Right. Something might go wrong," said the junior, overlooking the blatant misapplication of doctrine - it wasn't worth the argument. "And you'd get to save the day and be inducted in the field - no need for seminary. No opportunities to chant 'I'm a little cog boy, round and round I go' when you..."

"That was an allergic reaction! Something in the incense. It was contaminated. But - yes. Is that so bad? I just need one chance to show what I'm capable of. One backwash, one catastrophic failure cascade, one alien invasion..." 

The derrick slowed for a moment, then resumed motion with a deep, flatulent squelch that demonstrated exactly what the junior technician thought of that.

"There's nothing here, mate. Nothing here but us, an automated pumphouse, and fourteen bloody miles of pipes and turbines. By the way, the lagging's come off on 485 again, if you fancy a walk."

"I happen to be the senior technician at this station: I shall be the one who determines when we re-lag our pipe."

"And?"

"Might as well."

They were halfway across the section when it happened. Something corkscrewed out of the night air, moving at a velocity frankly uncalled as it jinked around jets of uncontained steam from the struggling Pipe 485. It was vaguely crescent-shaped, about the size of a large motorcycle, and flew four metres over both lay-mechanics' heads, sweeping on toward the horizon leaving a luminescent green trail behind it.

"ALIENS!" crowed the senior technician, grabbing the magnifiers from around the junior's neck and squinting through them.

"Like hell." The junior snatched back his magnifiers, and considered the horizon itself. "Where'd it even go?"

"Now listen here. I will be calling this in, all right? This is the moment I've been waiting for all my life. I could be about to save the world, and... what are you gawping at?"

The junior lay-mechanic was looking over his senior's shoulder, mouth open, and not even pretending to listen. The crescent-shaped vehicle was coming back. It hadn't disappeared - somehow, it had U-turned while travelling just shy of the speed of sound, and was almost on top of them, engines silent - what was even keeping it aloft? It was some sort of jetbike, but running on antigrav rather than raw thrust.

It was definitely alien, though. No Imperial technology was that sleek, that un-ornamented with scrollwork, dedication or ceremonial skull, or that silent. Also, it was being driven by a metal skeleton with eyes the same incandescent green as the engine. That was a giveaway.

The two prongs at the front of the vehicle sparked and did something complicated and electrical. The senior technician, caught in the rays, never stood a chance. For a moment, as the beams pinned him, he was made entirely of light: and then, he was dead.

Azhad the Acended, Keeper of the Sempiternal Tome, hung in the air, balanced atop his serpentine tail, and looked out over the "oil field". The humans' technologies for extraction and distillation hadn't been worthy of his attention; in truth, neither had the volcanic deposits themselves, as anything other than materiel. After all, the necrontyr had transcended the crude mechanics of combustion-based power when the universe was young, and while the striations of black carbon would be welcome, they were also in the way.

He wouldn't have thought to try this particular approach, but of course it hadn't been his idea. He could see her down there, with her attendant macrocytes, directing the swarm of scarabs triangulating likely locations to start the real work. A geomancer. 

Zanatek was her name, Sentinel of the Gate Eternal was her title, and she hadn't been with them since the exodus, although she'd taken the copper and violet since they'd made their accord. She had been the jailer of the Mourning Sun, the architect of the prison-world on which Azhad's overlord had been... discombobulated. It had been Zanatek, not some ghost of a forgotten phaerekh, who sent the distress call when she found the keystone stolen from its tomb.

She was... good. Azhad hated to admit it, but after a sweeping gesture of her tremorstave had toppled the humans' crude pumping mechanism and opened the way for more sophisticated apparatus to descend, he was in no position to deny the facts. Besides, she'd made him a more than worthy gift. The triad of canoptek wraiths hung behind him, the curve of their beetle-back carapaces matching the scoliotic stoop imposed by his own.

He'd have liked to bring more, but speed and secrecy were the order of the day. The Supreme Overlord hadn't instructed this mission - not in so many words - and, if they knew about it, would probably object on the grounds that unleashing shards of star gods as an act of dramatic repudiation was dishonourable. 

Kopekh that was called the Shrouded, nomarch of lost Mer'thyr'od, Bane of the Talassari, didn't know about it either. Kopekh didn't know about much of anything at the moment - just the endless rounds in the sparring chamber, honing his martial discipline and preparing his more personal revenge. Victim of the same delusional values that afflicted the Supreme Overlord, but in Kopekh's case, violent resurrection trauma had sharpened his sense of honour into something very much like madness.

And while the despotek Teznet that was called the Loyal, Voidlord of the Vassal Dynasties did technically know about it, he didn't know anything that the hierotek circle didn't want him to know, and was currently turning an extremely blind ocular, minding his own business in the outer atmospheric reaches of the gas giant below-and-above, hanging in the far horizon.

In short, this endeavour was... off the scriptures. It was, in the collected opinion of the expedition's crypteks, better to ask forgiveness than permission, and better to earn forgiveness through a demonstration of results.

Just their own assets: immortals loyal to the circle, deathmarks loyal to their paymaster, and canopteks to which the concept of loyalty was an innate function of their synthetic minds. They'd had to use Teznet's outriders as scouts, though, and those had proven a weak link. It was probably no matter of concern, but Azhad would have preferred it immensely if they'd found the other human. Survivors, in his experience, made the workplace untidy.