Galiel bit her lip to stop an ungraceful sound as his mechadendrites grazed her spine, right where her cyber-mantle docks were. He knew she was sensitive there.

"Val, the Artisan! The Artisan is coming!" Her breathing grew shallow with fuzzy panic. What would happen if he caught them? They would be in so much trouble. Would she be excommunicated? Servitorized? Executed? No. No, that could not be. Not for something so minor.

A jolt, half-fear and half-arousal, ran through her body when her timid Noospheric whisper was answered in flesh-voice, muffled by the skin of her neck. She had not yet received clearance to add augmetics there, and he was taking full advantage of it. The crackling bolts of desire tumbling through their private Manifold link made her cheeks burn hotter and hotter.

"I don't care," Valacon breathed, his nose tickling her jaw. Somehow, his voice maintained its husky tone through the synthesized snarl of the rebreather. That was a new addition, fresh off the Ferrus Sanctum production lines. Its lab reports had sent her neuro-cogitators into a frenzy, and he decided to seize the opportunity to give her a 'closer look'.

"Val!" She switched to her flesh-voice as well, the harsh admonishment half-obscured by another moan.

Behind them, Classiari dashed across metal ramps, deftly pushing menials out of the way as their commands blared from chest-mounted vox-casters, "Clear the walkways! Clear the walkways! Artisan Ouden approaches! Clear the walkways!"

Adepts and full-fledged priests alike scurried down stairs and walls, the intelligent spirits of their servo-harnesses automatically grabbing at stabilizing anchors. The rails set along the ceiling began to rumble. Being caught in his way would be a reprimand at best and suicide at worst.

"He's almost here! Val!"

"Fine."

They hastily freed mechadendrites from their passionate entanglement, still twitching from sensory overload. Valacon let out one final gasp, perfectly synchronized with hers, as their interface dendrites disengaged from each other's MIUs. The overwhelming jumble of thoughts and emotions disappeared, replaced by the privacy of her own mind. It was already returning to its usual research task-list. He moved to the side, letting her push herself off the wall.

"Sometimes you worry too much, Galiel."

She only planted a quick kiss on his cheek in response, micro-erectors in their robes smoothing out the creases. Their ocular augmetics brushed together.

"Just saying, we won't have all this for very long. I've heard some of the older Skitarii talking, and they said that couples… relations like ours get very awkward once the… participants get to more senior ranks and the whole 'complete dedication to the quest' thing becomes serious."

She smacked him lightly with her servo-arm. "So you're saying you aren't dedicated to the Mechanicum?"

"It's not that. But you're planning to go into all this academic stuff, and they'll push the Pure Thought on you day in and day out."

"So you won't go through with the Rite if you were asked?"

"The Archmagos would never let me. He's very clear on it. Combat specializations have to keep their emotions."

Galiel crossed her arms across her chest. "So you're set on it, huh? Myrmidon?"

"Yeah…" He sighed. "You know the Archmagos is my idol, Gal. I'd never be here without him, and besides, the battlefield has always called to me. Becoming an Enginseer might have been just an experience opportunity for you, but this is where I belong. I know it."

She let her amusement be known with a facial expression: a smirk, switching seamlessly from binharic to Noospheric bleed as she sent him some null-value acknowledgement tags. Support and recognition. "Hey, it wasn't all bad. I met you here."

He sighed, reciprocating. "I know, and… just promise me you won't stop being… you, okay? I know a lot of the people around here think giving up all the human stuff is great and awesome. But the Archmagos always said that the sacred machine form is an extension of humanity, not its replacement. A synergized, superior whole. This body, this form, is holy as well."

Galiel lightly bumped shoulders with him as she walked past, their mechadendrites touching in another wordless greeting. "A doctrinal debate again? Are you referring to conversation #-212?"

He appended the save-file identifiers with his next message, "You're getting rusty already. Conversation #-213."

"Hope you get a potentia coil fracture, smartass." She sighed. "Look, we'll worry about all that later, okay?"

"What's the point of all these cerebral cogitators if we can't even predict a little?"

"It's the Mechanicum, Val. Every day is a new experience. Anything can happen. But I'm here now, and so are you. Let's drink it in while we can."

"Sure. But take two more blinks…" Valacon looked up, his hands forming the cog across his chest. "And suddenly you're in his place."

The contraption crawling its way across the ceiling was the size of an entire hab-block at the very least. Respectably sized Machine-Temples, construction equipment, defensive weaponry, specialized fabrication arrays, and even full-fledged crew quarters were arrayed all over its chassis, attended by swarming flocks of mechadendrites of every shape, size, and description. The hyper-efficient industrial capacity and material caches on this body alone were enough to meet the needs of a hive city district for a week straight. Everything from whining potentia coils to promethium furnaces belching smoke decorated it, intermittently revealed and hidden by venting and maintenance pathways as they powered the hungry machinery.

Galiel could not help but match Val's reverent sign. From where she was, the multitudes of servitors, automata, and Skitarii crawling all over Artisan Ouden's blessed form looked like ants. Mesmerized, she flinched when one of the massive augmitters on his underbelly spoke.

"Enginseer Galiel Tunakha, attend me."

Val shrugged. "Well, there you go. Duty calls. Bring me back some of his unguents. I hear they're really good for the joints."

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Galiel raised her head to the ceiling, allowing herself to feel the fine mist of sacred oils raining down from Ouden's machinery. "Just give me a boost, will you?"

"Take the catwalks."

"Come on! It's more fun this way!"

He did not reply, but the servo-claw at his waist shot out and grabbed her forearm. Made for tearing adamantine hulls apart, it tossed her halfway upwards with little difficulty. The healing alloys on her arm were already compensating for the stress fractures when her own servo-harness took over, manoeuvring tendrils grabbing bars and outcrops to propel her the rest of the way, aided by jetting thrusters. In a heartbeat, she was clinging to the forgemaster's side. One of the Skitarii extended a hand, helping her onto his dorsal side. It was mostly flat, except for a few diagnostics consoles, sensor arrays, and venting ports.

She felt her Noospheric space explode with authority signifiers as the Artisan linked to her. "Move to console six-six-nine. A fault has developed in sector two's hexamathic interfaces."

Where his binharic augmitters were crude and abrasive, meant to be heard above the din of the factory floor, his bleed was cool and data-rich, embellished with sophisticated crypto-ornamentation; it was the digital equivalent of a velvety baritone that would make the most conservative noblewomen on her world swoon and faint.

"Yes, Artisan."

Her haptic interfaces quickly adapted to his codebase, bringing up the input mechanisms as shimmering data-light. She watched the faults spread like webbed cracks through the golden flow. The code was masterful, even by her exacting standards. But the last attack on the ship's systems was not something out-of-combat security systems were fully prepared for. She set to work correcting it, switching occasionally to novabyte to roll back corruption in the underlying firmware.

"Your Techsorcist training is of great utility in this instance, Enginseer."

"I am unworthy of your praise."

"If my data-stacks remain uncorrupted, you almost achieved the historically highest score in the examination."

"Missed it by one point. Someone had misplaced the Thousand Treatises of Inquisitor Merkwood from the Librarium, and I could not access it for study as a result."

She felt his displeasure through the Noosphere. "A thoughtless destruction of priceless knowledge."

"It was found later. Apparently, Archmagos Aldren had borrowed it for some studies, minutes before my study period."

"He was also the one who vetoed your induction?"

"Yes."

She had been set to be inducted into the Inquisition as one of the most well-regarded Techsorcists of all time before the Archmagos had arm-twisted the sector's Inquisition presence into completing her training at a secret facility and returning her to the Mechanicus instead. Her score was quietly changed to a failing grade in the meantime. While she had resented it somewhat at the time, the rationale eventually made sense: her talents were wasted on the affairs of the wider Imperium. Most of all in the hands of those shifty Inquisitors.

Ouden maintained silence, letting her work. She exposed her MIU interface and plugged into his Manifold for the final, delicate repairs. This kind of fidelity was only reliably possible over direct, physical lines.

"I see you and Enginseer Valacon had another… rendezvous."

Her haptic controllers faltered in the middle of a hexamathic wave, sending errors darting through the systems before she recovered. "Artisan! I, uh…"

"Denial would be an inefficient waste of your processing power. My sensoriums can still smell your pheromone extrusions, and his code-spectre still lingers in your systems."

"My systems?"

"Your Manifold security routines require more polishing."

She ordered one of her chem glands to release a localized vasoconstrictor, attempting to conceal the growing blush across her cheeks. Unconsciously, an interface mechadendrite retreated into the tangle of instruments across her back. The one she reserved for Val. The one that had a small gold ring right below the connector, its micro-etchings matched with an identical one on his own.

"You have no reason to fear, Galiel. Your secret is safe with me, though a cursory trawl of my Skitarii feeds tells me it is one of the worst-kept ones aboard this vessel."

Galiel wondered if the increased vascular flow was hampering her augmetics, because she was certainly getting quite dizzy. She finished the final touches on the security systems and disconnected from the Manifold. "All done, Artisan."

"Satisfactory work."

Her neural circuitry thrummed with gratification systems at the compliment.

Ouden seamlessly switched back to the Noosphere. "I, too, was a young Enginseer once, just like you. Though this was when the Omnissiah's children still walked among us, and when the Beast threatened Terra. I was assigned to the Astra Militarum on Terra when the Orks attacked. The commissar of my regiment… she was a feisty little thing, always egging her soldiers on to make unsanctioned modifications to the designs. The most holy Mars patterns, no less. We butted heads often, and soon enough, that tension crossed over to something quite different. We had our own… torrid encounters, while the capital burned around us."

She detected a surge of amusement tags from him. "Of course, it could not last. She was detained and almost shot by her own superiors for deserting her soldiers. I begged and begged with my supervising Magos, until he pulled some strings and unleased a few digi-viruses into their systems. He managed to change her sentence to a transfer order."

Galiel wrung her hands. "Did you… see her again?"

"I did. Many years later, when I had already excised my desire for such things. Though by then, she was not her anymore. She was servitorization candidate 2213/0222/01."

"How?"

"She tried to replicate… our arrangement on a different campaign, with some other Enginseer. Only this time, the Officio Prefectus was not quite as willing to forgive and forget."

"Did she recognize you?"

"Would you? In any case, I had long abandoned any feelings I may have had for her. It was a flesh-vice, and few are as weakening as this malady of attachment to the flesh."

She nodded, slowly. "I understand, Artisan."

"Enjoy your time among the lower mysteries while you have it. We all did. But do not let it consume you. When the time comes, you have to be ready to move on. My Logi Analyticae all predict great things in your future, if only you can demonstrate your absolute devotion to the Omnissiah."

"I—"

He forestalled her with an interrupt tag. "Valacon is a dedicated and worthy member of the Mechanicum. Perhaps in the future, other compatibility parameters assumed, an arrangement can be arrived at. But, at least temporarily, Galiel, your paths must eventually diverge. Understand that to be fact."

"Yes, Artisan."

"Good. Now, on to the real business. You possess a specialization in the Divisio Xenologis?"

She stood up straighter. "Tier 2, Grade Primus."

"Adequate. The Skitarii vanguard force has sent back some insectoid machinery from the conglomeration. They do not match any of the entries in existing databases. Preliminary analysis by on-site adepts has claimed they were being used to exert bodily control on biological entities, including Astartes."

"Living or dead?"

"Unclear. Divisio Psykana analsyts have cleared the device for any Warp taint. The only possibilities that are practicable are undocumented archaeotech, or Xenotech. The latter is the purpose for which I require your services."

"Understood, Artisan. It would be an honour to work alongside you."

"Report to Laboratorium Alpha-Secundus whenever practicable within the next one hour."

"Understood."

"Splendid. Now, I have some updated work orders from the landing party to look over…"

She could almost hear his cogitators turning.

"Omnissiah, do they think resources grow on trees around here? Hmm, trees… Scheduler, make note to check on Arborium 3 for a status update on the ceramite-producing vegetation… Leman Russ parts… doable… More Plasma Calivers? Acceptable expenditure for Astartes…"

Galiel sighed and proceeded towards the edge. This audience was clearly over.

"Enginseer Galiel?"

She turned back, just in time to see a small pedestal rise with a bronzed vial atop it. Her olfactory sensors immediately identified the pungent material within. Val would be over the moon.

"Give Enginseer Valacon my regards, and feel free to use this if you wish to wrap up any more… equipment interaction tests."

"That's exactly what I'm going to log it as, sir. Thank you."

She grabbed the vial and took a flying leap to the floor below, before any of the wandering Skitarii could question her beet-red face.