The repentant shuffled up the mine shaft with a barrel to his spine. She activated the suit lights so that he would not slow her further with any misfooting. She taught him a basic hymnal that had been denied to him and he sang it in a mewling whimper over and over. Jakada continued to scan for any signatures. When they finally reached lumen bulbs and rockrete walls, the workers had been stripped, chained, gagged, and rounded up to await processing. The repentant’s eyes were scalded by the artifical light but he did not miss a note of his hymnal. Perhaps there is hope for him yet.
The Dogmata nearly tripped over her vestments the way she skipped to meet the Zephyrim.
“Is this it?” she asked, “Was calling him a snake and a daemon an underhive metaphor? He looks pretty humany and… fleshy to me. Not very fearsome.”
“No, the Sugilite escaped. Its methods were as the Novitiate said. This one here claims he was denied the light of the Emperor and wishes to repent with a life in service.”
“Yes. Though that he still draws breath is answer enough, I need to log a statement: Does the Zephryim deem him worthy.”
“I do,” said Go Soo-Hee. The Dogmata’s pause and tilted head almost made visible the data packet being streamed with her thoughts. Whatever ethereal interface she engaged with, the communication was punctuated by a binharic chirp.
“Statement logged and transmitted. The sisterhood will process him appropriately. On our end, we have detained and interrogated the dissidents. They have confessed much; if their word is to be believed, the daemon’s taint has spread beyond these mines. If the Legatine is willing, we would be grateful for your continued assistance in uprooting the dissidents.”
“If the Legatine is not, Jakada would inform me. This place is the last known location of the Sugilite. It is the only lead we have, and I hope it would not abandon its work so easily.”
“You… hope? Oh, to catch it, of course.”
“That. Yet if the daemon abandons its flock then that would tell us it has a different objective in mind. A hypothesis I hope is not reinforced. The sooner it is dead, the better.”
“We will give you express notice of any information regarding the Sugilite during your stay here my lady. If it remains, it will be smoked out with all its heretical followers.”
A lockdown that encompassed Bukhan was initiated: whether at work or in their homes, all were to remain in place. Production and shipment were halted as part of the purported inspection taking place. Civilian vox channels and datastreams were commandeered to further broadcast the lockdown.
The enforcers maintained the lockdown across public areas and housing blocks. They corralled stragglers and vagrants who were still outside to make their way to a building even if the occupants had to be compelled to quarter them. After that, any who disobeyed the lockdown would be detained as a criminal. This way they kept most of the population in check.
The defense force assisted with the inspections of the manufactorums. It was one thing for the workers to skim loose coin or nick scrap metal; so long as production was unaffected, their overseers would act with discretion. What could not be tolerated, however, were defects in production. Most of the inspections turned up faults that were within expected margin of error. What crossed the threshold into sabotage were faults attempting to cloak themselves under that margin of error: reports and logs that were tampered with to mislead; requests for maintenance and replacement parts misplaced and delayed, lacing drinks with laxatives and sedatives; servo arms left unlubricated. Individually they would be beneath notice, but today every error was a confession that saw whole factorum floors rounded up for processing.
One menial realized the inspection for what it was and confessed his guilt by attempting to escape. His experience navigating the gantries and catwalks was not enough to explain how he slithered from the grasp of the enforcers all the way to the landing pad. He used a makeshift pistol he stowed to hijack an arvus lighter and began his ascent, unaware that his scent was already caught.
He did not rise far when ceramite boots planted on his cockpit. This one had been named by the repentant as an agent of the Sugilite meant to gather other dissidents. Jakada marked him by auspex long before inspection began. Go Soo-Hee had her powerpack replaced with a jump pack, a greater encumbrance that endowed her with flaming wings which her neura-linked thoughts used to land on the aircraft mid-flight.
Before he could think to shake her, a low energy plasma blast evaporated the bullet-proof plastele to open the way for a bolt shell to evaporate the hijacker. Jakada jacked a cable into the Lighter’s controls that allowed him to interface with just the dexterity required to set the bird down—without its landing gear, yes, but the chassis was unharmed-ish.
The novitiates and their superiors had the task of raiding abandoned mines where dissidents thought to hide. Noxious fumes flushed them out the tunnels; whether they came to the surface to fight and be gunned down in the killzone or surrender and face judgement would be their last choice, as their lives were forfeit the day they turned their backs on He on Terra. Either way, their bodies were rounded up for processing. Their hideouts were excavated of the tools and manifestos they would use to carry out the uprising they prophesied. That prophecy died in fire.
With inspections done, and the main batches of dissidents rounded up, the rest of the populace was targeted to shake loose any more malcontents. The daemon had planted its seed across the region. There were millions of bodies and only so many thousands of enforcers to sift through them. The decree was thus:
ATTENTION CITIZENS OF HIS HOLY IMPERIUM
DISSIDENTS OF THE DARKEST HERESY ARE AMONG YOU
THEY INTEND TO SUBVERT ALL HELD SACRED AND DEAR
BUT FEAR NOT
HIS SERVANTS HAVE EXCISED THE MOST CONCENTRATED POCKETS OF VILENESS
NONE ARE BEYOND HIS SIGHT
NONE CAN ESCAPE HIS WRATH
ASSIST HIS SERVANTS IN METING OUT HIS JUSTICE
EXPOSE DISSIDENTS AMONG YOU
FOLLOW THE SLIGHTEST HINTS OF SUSPICION
PROVE YOUR DEDICATION AND LOYALTY
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
That was enough to turn the population upon each other. Parents and children. Employer and employee. Master and servant. Neighbor and stranger. As ordered, faithful servants noted minor oddities that snowballed into suspicions that blazened into accusations. Anything that warranted attention warranted investigation. Anything that warranted investigation was already guilty of passively sowing disharmony.
Peculiar behavior or a change in routine: those that started sampling new restaurants everyday; those that gathered strange trinkets; those that ambled aimlessly into the late night; those that shirked prayers daily and routine; those that spoke of strange dreams. Physical deformities and failures that betrayed inner corruption: those who were dexterous only with, or including, the sinister hand; those with sores and blisters on and around their lips; those expressing, in thought or action, detrimental lethargy; those that were unwilling or incapable of producing or rearing children; those that allowed their hair to grow to excessive length.
Perhaps many more common criminalities were swept up in the tide. Perhaps some saw opportunity in accusing those who they held a grudge against. Perhaps some were even innocent. That was not what mattered. What mattered was that all knew whose authority was to be feared. What mattered was prying the wicked from every crevice and hole they slicked into. What mattered was seeing justice done. Justice was done when the guilty were punished.
The engineseers processed detainees as if they were any other material brought on a conveyor belt.
The petty criminals and saboteurs were the most numerous. These were interrogated by the enforcers until they confessed to their guilt. Those that did not confess to their guilt were charged with failure to confess guilt as well as attempted deception of an enforcer. Their sentence was death. In the coming weeks, public excutions would be a common sight across Bukhan. Cadets and novitiates manned firing lines that fusilladed convicts in the middle of markets. Street corners were lit up by fires that engulfed criminals nailed to the stake. Bridges were adorned with the hanged who would remain there until their necks rotted enough for the ropes to chew through. The punishments were staggered to provide fresh examples every other day. Those that were not due for execution in the near future were sent to penal colonies around Ulsa where they would labor in menialisms on the barest subsistence until they were needed to assist in live fire training or as bait for witchbeasts.
The dissidents, the traitors, the heretics, those were kept by the enginseers. They had no lapse in judgement or succumb to mortal folly; they turned their hearts against him, they chose damnation, and damnation they would have.
They were stripped bare and branded with bright iron that scarred to the bone. Flesh still sizzling, they were herded into freezers to await processing. What little strength they had to resist was sapped by chill that left even the most calloused and corded muscle quivering and numb. Their only reprieve was when the doors opened to let in warmth and let out the next batch. They prayed they would be part of the next batch to be released, for anything was better than cold that torturously burned inside and out. The freezers were emptied out over hours and the last batches were frozen stiff and starved. They were tossed out onto metal gratings and prodded forth with shock goads to their spine.
The frost that encrusted their joints melted just in time for them to reach the conveyor belt but they were too numb to run or struggle as they wished to at the sight of the blooddrenched contraption. Glowing green eyes peered out from the dark hoods of the enginseers that tightened the leather around their neck, wrists, and ankles to strap them onto plastek, their backs soaked by warm red. Like this they could hardly move their limbs, only uselessly writhe, wiggle fingers and toes, and see a preview of what was to come from the corner of their eyes.
First were the baseline necessities. Mechadendrites and servo arms attached to the ceiling descended. A whirring saw blade extended to the head, the screaming making it all the easier to slice off the mandible and tongue. Nothing in the way now, a claw ripped out the esophagus and vocal cords. In their place, a nutrient tube and vox hailer were implanted. The nutrient tube was simple enough to pierce into the stomach so that nutrient paste could be deposited the way one fed fuel into tubing. The vox emitter had a more precise procedure to ensure the wiring connected to the nerve fibres. There was one minor error in which the machine spirit, no doubt exhausted from its labor, sawed enough to unhinge but not sever the mandible of the last subject, rectified by the engineseer who tore it free.
Next were the attachments selected as needed. Recent events saw a labor shortage in the mines and manufactorum and so the attachments were selected to address the demand. Hands were severed to make place for drills and lasers as they would never have need to accomplish anything else ever again. Arms were cut at the shoulder, and metal girders grafted across the torso, to make way for rigs capable of lifting and pulling greater loads. Feet were replaced with iron plates that could better withstand jagged rock and acidic chemicals. Stimulants were injected to keep the subjects from passing out from shock.
The final touch was to ensure absolute obedience. They were still conscious but to weak to move at all. Precise needles pierced into their brains to remove unnecessary functions and replace them with cogitation wiring. Once the wiring came was woven into nerves and glials, they would receive and follow the commands given to them. Whatever thought or desire remained within them would not reach their limbs as their body now obeyed will beyond their own.
For the enginseers and sisters, augments were a way to be closer to a perfect form, a blessing from Him to enhance the capability of the human body. For those like Jakada, to serve even in death after their mortal flesh had long withered away, was a greater honor than any burial. No such thing was here. To become a servitor was a fitting punishment for those who thought themselves beyond his light. Life was a privilege gifted to mankind by the Emperor in a galaxy of death and darkness just as a sun brought warmth to otherwise cold planets, a feeling they experienced in the freezer. Just as He labored for them, their purpose was to labor for Him. If they would not serve with their heart and soul, then their heart and soul could be discarded, for all that was needed was their body, even then, sometimes only the brain was needed. No matter what, they would serve.
Yet even for those who turned from Him, the Emperor’s infinite compassion and mercy provided a path for redemption for those worthy and willing to accept penance.
Normally, to be worthy, one must have proven their faith in Ecclesiarchy before their lapse. Take the parable of Yugyeom. Yugyeom was once a probationer of great acclaim and humble origins. Though he was born in the mist-wreathed heathen villages of Namche, it took only a passing glance of a Sister at an infant age for him to realise his voice and song were for the Emperor. When his family moved to Wirye to work in the vineyards, anytime he was not in the fields he was in the local church, absorbing from the preachers and the probationers, until one day his voice enraptured the whole congregation and drew the attention of house Valeria. From there he was uplifted from his family to service in His choir as he toured for years across Wirye from the chapels to the churches. He was brought up to Hanyang where his song healed the sick and cleansed taint, then to Ulsa where his resonance oiled cogs and aligned gears, until he finally arrived in Gyeo. When the Canoness was in attendance to hear his vaunted hymns, she realized on the first note that He himself sang through Yugyeom. To safeguard His mortal vessel, Yugyeom was to be inductied into the choristers to preserve his voice as it was.
It was here that Yugyeom faltered. With the seductive whispers of a traitorous sister, who had certainly laid undetected for years for that very moment and purpose, he stumbled off the path set for him. With her assistance, he attempted to leave Gyeo by disguise and stowing away on rail. When they were captured, she was executed in the field, burnt alive under a dozen flamers, and he begged for forgiveness. Besmirched as he was, His true vessel could not have been nothing less than spotless, but still his years of saintliness had to be weighed. So it was that, instead of induction into the choristers, he was interred among the ranks of the penitent engines. He was entombed in a chassis within which he would be able to stew on his sins in silence, darkness, and pain. When a time of great need came, his chassis would be attached to a war machine which would be driven by his need for forgiveness until he finds redemption in sacrifice.
The repentant that Go Soo-Hee plucked from the mine cavern was not entitled to such honor yet was nonetheless granted mercy by His will and as such was worth a similar chance for redemption. For wretches such as him, they would undergo a procedure to become an arco-flaggellant. Instead of the mass production of a conveyor belt, the repentant was restrained on an operating table. The genetor-specialized engineseer would be assisted be hospitallers and observed by those still in training. A frail body under delicate procedure demanded the dexterity of fingers.
Over weeks of nutrient overload, hormone injections, and anatomic grafting, the malnourished miner was grown into a slobbering hulk. A pacifier helm was riveted into his skull and reached wires into his brain to directly stream to his mind all the teachings and scripture he had been denied. The helm made him passive as they removed his hands at the wrists to make way for thick, coiled metallic whips that brimmed electricity when activated.
The repentant would be transported to Nusa to be put in storage alongside other flagellants and penitent engines, all awaiting their day of redemption when they could kill and die for the Emperor’s forgiveness.
