A Question of Loyalty
@40kartweek Chaos Week Day 7: Undivided Yesterday: Duality
Another couple of characters coming up in Project Resurrection. A Warpsmith reflects on conflicting loyalties within his warband.
[A Question of Loyalty on AO3] [My Works on AO3]
“Freedom is the only thing worth fighting for.” - Angron
“WHOM DO YOU serve?” Samn Tansek mused as he heaved on the haft of his greataxe Avetevos to lever open the crimson sarcophagus. Mechatendrils slid into the narrow crack he had opened and added their strength to his. “That is what they always ask me. I expect you get the same.” With a sickening crack of fracturing ceramite and a spray of amnion, the split armour plate was wrenched aside to reveal the wretched form of a mutilated space marine. Gurgling bubbles formed around the Iron Father’s skull, though it was impossible to tell whether he was trying to respond or merely suffocating. “The Emperor or the Machine God?” Tansek cocked his head to one side. “You do not believe the Emperor is the Omnissiah, surely?” Silence. “I thought not.” Tansek’s mechatendrils plunged into the remaining amnion, grasping appendages searching out the roots of the precious mind interface unit that linked the Iron Father to his walking tomb. The Red Talons had received a rich inheritance from their parent legion. “You cannot serve two masters, or so Mahr tells me. He has a certain point. That is how this whole affair started, after all.” There was a wet sucking noise as the MIU was wrenched from interface ports in the back of the Iron Father’s head. He convulsed violently, the stumps of his limbs flailing wildly. Surprisingly, his wheezing continued after the fit had subsided. Tansek tutted. “The dreadnought was a choice, then? Perhaps I will hand you over to Khiron and he can share his own views on the Deus Machina.” A stabbing pain shot through his skull and down his spine as the Butcher’s Nails bit. They didn’t like the idea of handing this prize over to the Crimson Priest of Sarum. The Nails urged him to claim the cyborg skull, and his grip tightened on Avetevos as he fought down the urge. “I am no-one’s slave,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Why serve even one master? We slaughtered millions to shrug off the Emperor’s yoke. Now Mahr serves the Blood God, Khiron the Machine, and Knox the dead ideal of our dying legion.” Lowering his servo-arm with care at odds with the crushing strength obvious in its brutal design, Tansek gently grasped the ragged half-corpse and lifted him dripping from his grave. The Moriturion brought the Iron Father level with his skull-masked face. He sighed. “Alas, we were created to be slaves, and the hardest chains to break are those we forge for ourselves.”