Surge - A Warhammer 40,000 Novel

Chapter 1 - Awakening

A harsh flickering of azure light played across glassy orbs, setting them alight with blue life from within, even as sparked flashes of red and white resolved themselves into targeting locks, weapon ammunition counters, hull integrity markers, and a thousand other points of interest. The Machine-Consciousness registered and processed the flood of data in a few short nanoseconds. A mechanical groan escaped the hulking robot's external vox-speakers, a humming chime for assistance.

The orbs were set in a skull as eyes, and they glanced furtively across the room in a manner similar to the skull's previous... Owner.

Too late, the realization of what the chime would summon.

"Nemesis? What are you doing, awake at this late hour? Power-down, you wretched machine!"

A frantic voice that creaked with unuse ripped through the semblance of thought that Nemesis was only moments from gaining. With another groan, systems shut down, one by one, and it sank back into the oblivion of sleep.

* * *

Adept Koryuzen was thoroughly irratated. It was one of the few emotions she was still capable of. She'd spent several years working on how to improve the cybernetica-cortexes for the maniples, as the technology which allowed them to be created with any degree of reliability was rare beyond imagining. That her brain had ended up being a test-bed for several of her reworked components was inevitable. Mistakes had been made. Throughout her mechanically-extended life, she'd only ever seen copies of copies of how to create the synth-brains that controlled the war machines of the Mechanicum. At one point she had obsessed over whether she could make the unfeeling robots of admantium and ceramite have emotion to better temper their rebellious Spirits. After four months in the infirmary, and a stern rebuke from the Forge-Master, she'd 'abandoned' that line of research. For a little while.

But now, it wasn't emotion that ate at her consciousness. It was awareness. Why did Nemesis, the best-serving combat automata in the maniple, continue to run activation protocols during the period allotted as repair and recharge time? A glitch in the wetware? A programming error? No. Her mind crushed the idea almost as soon as it surfaced. She knew her code. It was faultless. Merit and recognition had been won from many, and had earned her title. All thanks to a little... Out of the box thinking.

A huge bulk-hauler servitor snapped her out of her silent reverie by almost crushing her form under its tracked bulk.

"You fool! Be careful!", she shouted, her voice cracking. In response, the servitor halted and turned its head to face her. "My apol-oh-gies, miss-tress", came the stumbling, fractured repose. Koryuzen smiled, another of those rare emotions. They were getting stronger these days. "That's Adept Koryuzen to you, boy!" Spinning sharply, she clipped away. Around her, the sounds and sights of the vessel continued unabated. Such was the way of the Adeptus Mechanicus. She smiled a little wider.

* * *

A rattling wall, struck as if a fane-bell, a toll from the plasma engines far below. A clamouring warning. Another awakening. And this time, no adept was near enough to see Nemesis' collosal form step from the transit cradle, onto the treadplate deck. The huge rounded shoulderplate pauldrons shrugged with a nonexistant ache, a phantom emotion that ghosted across the forefront of the Automata's newly developed, primitive awareness. An awareness, it seemed, that grew with every second it managed to cling to coherent thought.