Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [101]
In aesthetics, perhaps it would not appeal to a poet or a painter. But that was hardly the point. In power, it would appeal to any general in the Imperium. It was a triumph of design and intent, a glorious success in mankind’s quest to master a greater ability to destroy its enemies.
The great construct consisted of a strong, three-sectioned base that held up a weapons platform on gantries and struts. Atop the platform was the weapon itself. Jurisian considered each aspect of the war machine in turn, silent in its deactivation.
From the front, Oberon was as wide as two bulky Land Raider battle tanks side by side. Its length was fifty metres in total, giving it the appearance of a land train, long and segmented. Immense to say the least, it was of approximate size to a towering battle Titan lying on its back.
The war machine’s base was divided into three sections – a helm segment, the drive module, with a reinforced cockpit chamber; a thorax section next, pinned under the weight of massive metal stanchions; lastly, an abdomen segment, bearing the same weight as the section before. Each of these base sections was bulked up further by side-mounted power generators, shielded behind yet more armour plating. These, Jurisian knew, were the gravitational suspensor generators. Anti-gravitational technology on such a scale was no longer heard of in the Imperium, except for the deployment of war machines of this calibre.
These generators’ rarity made them the most precious thing on the entire planet, bar nothing.
The stanchions and gantries supported the colossal weapons platform, which in turn housed dozens of square metres of energy pods, fusion chambers and magnetic field generators. It was as if an industrial manufactorum had been installed on the back of a column of tanks.
These generators would, if active, supply power to the land train’s weapon mount: a tower of a cannon forged of heat-shielded ceramite and joined to the forward power generators. Coolant vents ran the length of the cannon like reptilian scales. Like parasitic worms, nests of secondary power feed cables hung from the barrel, while industrial support claws held the weapon in place.
A nova cannon. A weapon used by starships to end one another across the immensity of the void. Here it was, mounted on priceless and infinitely-armoured anti-gravitational technology from a forgotten age.
‘Titan-killer,’ the Master of the Forge whispered.
Jurisian reverently stroked his gloved fingertips down the drive section’s metallic skin, feeling the thick armour plating, the chunky rivets… down to the miniscule differences in the layers of adamantium: the tiniest variations and imperfections from its forging process hundreds of years before.
He’d withdrawn his hand, and that was when he’d laughed.
Oberon, the Death of Titans. It was real. It was here.
And it was his.
He gained access to the forward command module through a ladder leading to a bulkhead that required opening manually. Once inside the powerless cockpit chamber, Jurisian spared a glance for the winches, levers and black, blank screens along the drive console. It was all new, all alien to him, but nothing he considered beyond his intuition and Mechanicus training. Another bulkhead barred his way to the second module. With the Ordinatus powered down, this one also required him to manually turn the iron wheel on its surface.
The door squealed open with the reluctance of an unused airlock. Jurisian’s gaze pierced the blackness beyond with aid from his helm’s vision filters. It was confined and claustrophobic, despite there being little in the module beyond armoured pods fixed to the walls that housed the power generators for the anti-grav lifters, and crew ladders leading up into the main generatorium on the platform above. Jurisian ascended, opening another two bulkheads as he rose through the support gantries.
The innards of the platform-top generatorium were familiar enough in their cluttered, industrial layout. He