Chapter Text
Lieutenant Kata Szabo opened her eyes.
Her body ached. Sweet Emperor, she felt worn out. When was the last time she'd slept? She couldn't remember. Even the nap she'd just taken felt like it hadn't taken the edge off.
Her headset was squawking, and she blinked sleep away, tried to focus, grabbing for the helmet and fumbling to put it on.
"- wake up, Limorta, there's hostile movement. Enemy troops are attempting a counterstrike. Search and destroy."
Limorta?
Szabo fumbled at the vox panel before her, trying to cycle channels. She didn't recognise 'Limorta' as a callsign. It was an action that made her pause, though, as something else struck her.
This wasn't her usual seat. And the controls were all different.
The Leman Russ battle tank that she and her comrades crewed was like a second home to her. They'd been familiar before the war, but in the long, agonising weeks since the invasion began, they'd lived inside her metal walls. The thrum of her engine felt like a second heartbeat, the blocky controls almost part of her hands. Lucky 17. She'd lost track of how many foes they'd dispatched together, how many traitors had been torn apart by shell and bolt, her armour scarred and scorched but never penetrated…
…so why was she in a vehicle she didn't recognise?
For the first time, she looked around the cabin. Taking in familiar forms. There was Sergeant Maria Vass, her second and the tank's main gunner, passed out inside the turret ring. At the front was Sergeant Eva Miksa similarly asleep across the drive controls, snoring quietly. At the rear, huddled against the engine of the vehicle was the mechanical form form of Adept Beatrix Nemes, curled up in her red robes.
Her headset was squawking again, but she ignored it, reaching out to shake Vass's arm. "Maria. Wake up. Wake up!" she barked.
The gunner jerked, slamming her head against the hull with a yelp, likely only saving herself from a concussion by virtue of her helmet. "Fuck!" she groaned. "I'm here, I'm here! What's…" Then she trailed off. "The fuck's going on?"
"I don't know," Szabo said tightly. "Do you recognise this cabin? What is this thing?"
Vass pursed her lips. Glancing around. "Spacious," she opined. "And I've got more guns than usual up here. Ain't no Russ, I know that much. Hey, NEMMY!"
"Do not call me that," came an aggravated, synthesised voice. "The correct form of address is…"
Nemes sat up, looking around, a faint whir sounding from her bionic arm as she leaned on it. "Lieutenant? What has happened? Where is Lucky 17?"
"Who stole my baby?!" came a distressed voice from the front of the tank, as Miksa also awoke. "What the fuck is this?"
"I don't know," Szabo snapped. "We all woke up like this. Focus. Does anyone have any idea what this vehicle is?"
"The engine is unfamiliar to me," Nemes said unhappily. "All I can discern is the name 'Limorta' across the casing."
Limorta.
"They were calling for Limorta over the vox," Szabo said. "If that's us… they said there was a counter attack! Get it together, ladies, can we make this machine sing?"
"I will attempt to rouse the machine spirit," Nemes said dubiously. "With any luck it will respond to the standard incantations."
"I don't know what these guns are," Vass said, her head vanishing up into the turret. "But I've got a lot of them. And I'm not seeing a loading feed, so… guess you're spared that duty, el-tee."
Madness, Szabo thought grimly. We don't even know our capabilities and we're supposed to engage the enemy? By the Emperor's will…
She picked up her abandoned headset, flicked it on again. "This is Limorta… I think?" she said. "Warming up now. Command, none of us remember how we got here -"
"Your questions can wait," a voice replied, and Szabo felt a shiver run down her spine. The speaker was a woman, but there was something about the voice that made her skin crawl. "Right now we have work to do and enemies to kill. Check your auspex, you'll recognise your location. There are enemy scout vehicles probing the area. Take them out."
"Yes, ma'am," Szabo replied. "By His will." She muted herself, and with no small relief felt a throbbing growl run through the tank around them as the engine fired up. "Good work, Nemes. Miksa, take us out."
***
Eva Miksa had been driving vehicles for most of her life. She'd been in the cabs of the big cargo haulers as a child and the moment she was tall enough to reach the pedals, she'd been helping move them.
There was something about a big truck that felt alive to her. Like the machine spirit spoke to her, the roar of its engine like the growl of an animal, every twitch and vibration resonating into her bones and letting her feel their mood. When she'd been conscripted into the Planetary Defence Force, they'd quickly put her on logistics - and then, deciding haulers were a waste of her talents, into tanks.
She still remembered the visceral thrill, the feel of raw power the first time she took the controls of a Leman Russ. If the haulers had been workhorses, Lucky 17 had been a bloodthirsty stallion, barely restrained. There was a sting in her chest, wondering where her precious baby was. Surely this new thing, this 'Limorta', would be a pale shadow.
The fuck are these controls? No wheel, no steering column, just a couple of joysticks? I don't know what any of these do!
Ok, cool it. Ain't a thing made I can't drive. Maybe… ok, got it, right joystick has a twist function… kinda like the cargo lifters, weird.
She leaned forward, pressing her eyes to the periscope - and yelped as her entire chair tilted, shoving her forward, her head being encased in some kind of padded casing.
"Miksa?" she heard from behind her, as lieutenant tight-ass heard her cry. "You all right?"
Despite her initial panic… she wasn't falling. The sense of instability, of being trapped, faded as she realise she was being cradled, lying on a padded cushion that she'd dismissed before, the seat above her keeping her secure and locked in place. The controls had shunted with her, and while it felt weird to be almost kneeling down to drive… it was oddly comfortable.
"I'm good," she called. "This thing is fucking weird. Ok, let's see…"
The view through the periscope showed what seemed like the interior of a collapsed warehouse. A good place to hide. And as she twisted her head, the view shifted as well. Amazing. And there wasn't even any of the vehicle blocking her view.
Experimentally she nudged one of the joysticks, and Limorta jerked forward. Instant acceleration, easily negotiating some fallen debris, crushed under their tracks with a faint sound of tortured metal. A twist of the joystick, and the machine spun on the spot with an odd jerkiness.
It reminded her of something, but there were orders being barked.
"Take us out. Nice and easy, we don't know where the enemy is," Szabo growled. "Right turn when we hit the street, then advance to the plaza."
"Yes, ma'am," Miksa grunted. Easy. "Hey, Nemmy, there something wrong with the drive train? Why's our movement so jerky?"
"No anomalies in the engine," Nemes replied, her voice clipped. "I speculate the error lies between the controls and your seat."
"Fuck you too," Miksa laughed. Fine. Every machine has its quirks. Maybe you just don't like going slow? Is that it, babe?
She pushed the joystick forward more, and she felt the machine accelerate. Still there was that weird jolt, that faint instability that was vaguely familiar.
But there was power. A sense of weight. And not just the weight of a hauler, an unwieldy beast of burden that could crush the unwary if you lost control, but the weight of a predator that wanted to kill.
It sent a shiver down her spine.
And a voice whispered in her ear. "You like how I feel? You've finally found a ride that can match you?"
Miksa frowned. …wouldn't be the first time I imagined my tank talking to me, she thought after a moment. Emperor save me, some of the conversations I had with Lucky 17…
"I know," Limorta purred, and Miksa felt another shiver run down her spine. "The filth you whispered to that tank. But Lucky 17 had nothing on me."
A twist of the controls, and the tank rammed through the twisted, broken doors of the warehouse like they were paper. A vibration surged through the hull, and Miksa bit her lip as it travelled through her cradle and into sensitive places.
You're going to get me in trouble if you keep doing that.
Limorta just laughed, and Miksa tried to focus, twisting her controls to spin and begin advancing as directed.
***
Maria Vass felt deeply uneasy.
Nothing about all this made sense. She'd always been accused of being too smart for her own good, and years of insubordination charges attested to how little people wanted someone who questioned orders in the military. It's not like she wanted to cause trouble, but… when her superiors were clearly making stupid decisions, it was hard to stay quiet.
It was lucky she'd found Szabo. Or that Szabo had found her. Another woman with a brain - and, if she was honest, more than her. Enough to know when to shut the fuck up.
If the first thirty-odd years of life hadn't taught her that, she probably wasn't going to get the hang of it.
And the fact was, even with how pressed the PDF was… sending out a lone tank to try and hold an entire sector seemed like insanity. The kind of weapons the heretics had… one misjudgement and they'd all be dead, and they didn't even have support to spot or shield. Not to mention she had no fucking clue what this vehicle was, or how any of the array of weapons worked.
"Kata," she hissed. "Kata, we're so exposed it's not even funny. Do you have any friendlies on the scopes?"
Szabo set her jaw, glancing over. "A few, but deployment is weird. I think we must've missed a lot. It's like we managed to push into no man's land, but then got flanked out and we're the rear guard."
"Why don't we remember anything? Kata -"
"Have you figured out our weapons?" Szabo interrupted.
"I think so," Vass said reluctantly. "Main cannon looks like a standard heavy pounder, like on Lucky 17. Coaxial autocannon array for suppression and lighter targets. Some sort of flamer for close-in targets. All turret mounted, so I'll be managing all of them. I'm not sure how we reload though. We're not short on firepower."
"Maybe some kind of autoloader system?" Szabo asked dubiously. "This machine seems a lot more advanced than anything I've seen in the garages."
"This is crazy," Vass insisted. "We're being hung out to dry. If -"
"Contact," Szabo snapped. "Two hundred metres, bearing 259, Sentinel!"
Contact!
Vass shoved her paranoia out of her mind. The enemy was here, and she had a job to do. "Bearing 259!" she echoed, wrenching her controls. The turret rotated, and she pressed her eyes to the gunsight, scanning for… there!
The scout walker seemed to have spotted them, as it was turning to bolt. Not even bothering to fire, although the multilaser strapped to its nose likely wouldn't do much to a heavy tank.
Come here, you bastard. The main cannon would probably be overkill. But the autocannons… she'd done a duty cycle manning a Hydra some years ago, and she had a healthy respect for what heavy calibre kinetic rounds could do to a squishy target. Squeezing her controls, guiding the reticule over the fleeing walker, and then…
The snarl that echoed through Limorta as the autocannons opened up sent a thrill through Vass's chest, and she watched as the Sentinel staggered, battered by the torrent of shells. One of its legs locked up, and she adjusted her aim before firing another burst, turning the lightly armoured cockpit into a shredded ruin. "Sentinel down, scratch one," she said. Feeling…
…just a trick of her harness and the feedback of the weapon fire. Surely. For a moment it had almost felt like there was someone touching her. Her heart was thumping from adrenaline.
"Two more!" Szabo called out. "Miksa, pull us into a better firing angle!"
Vass wrenched the levers controlling the turret, turning to track the new movement. She gritted her teeth as the jolting movement of Limorta threw off her aim, but she took her time, locked in, waited until the reticule was in place, and -
Again the snarling thud of twin autocannons echoed. Multilaser fire scorched out towards them in panicked retaliation, but Vass didn't let herself worry about it. Just feeling a breathless thrill that caught in her chest as first one Sentinel and then the third were torn apart to disciplined volleys of fire.
Something prickled down her spine, and she swore she could feel hot lips pressing against her neck. The ghost of a whisper of praise in her ear…
Focus, Maria! she thought. But now she was remembering the last time she was on leave, a dark room, the soft, warm hands of that cute new girl in Logistics all over her…
FOCUS!
"But you deserve to be rewarded for doing such a good job," a ghostly voice hummed. "You're never truly appreciated, are you Maria?"
With a colossal effort of will, Vass managed not to whimper. Why was the memory not going away? She was in battle! But it was so vivid, so all-consuming, so easy to imagine that there really were fingers sliding down her stomach, rubbing teasingly between her legs, the heavy fabric in the way just turning the sensation maddening rather than blocking it…
"Two more kills," she croaked.
***
Tech Adept Beatrix Nemes was having a minor crisis.
This wasn't unusual - a fact that she usually tried to conceal behind bad temper. The industrial accident that had claimed her arm, scarred her face, burned out her vocal chords and destroyed much of her nervous system had brought her life to an abrupt halt. She couldn't remember the moment when the power surge had torn through her flesh, but as she'd been informed that extensive surgery and cybernetic implantation were the only way she'd ever be functional again… it had felt like her world had crashed down around her.
She was lucky, she knew. The vast majority of those who had suffered such a catastrophe would have been left to rot, if they'd survived at all. But the Adeptus Mechanicus had deemed her mind promising enough to be worth saving, and so… she'd been inducted into the cult of the Machine God. She'd come to understand a truth she'd already known on some level, even before the accident. The weakness of flesh. The superiority and immortality of metal.
She was…
Happy was the wrong word.
She couldn't remember ever having been happy.
But there was a satisfaction, a relief, in having been saved. In having set foot on the path to leaving behind the weakness she had been born with.
The anxiety of doing so was illogical human sentiment, as her mentor reminded her often. The fear and regrets were merely the remnants of trauma and should not be paid heed. Her biochemistry imbalances could be solved with appropriate injections.
But they still filtered through sometimes. And especially since the invasion, and she'd been transferred to aiding the PDF. Going from factory maintenance to vehicle repair, and then as casualties mounted and keeping tanks running became imperative… on-board engineer.
It didn't leave a lot of time for her own maintenance. And these stupid, aggravating fleshy women who didn't have a care in the world and thought nothing of their own fragility, and who made her think of what could have been -
But for once, it was not the stresses of war or her own personal crises that was causing a flood of unwanted hormones and misfiring neurotransmitters.
What are you? she thought. And why won't you talk to me?
The engine powering Limorta was clearly powerful. It throbbed and growled, and she could feel the heat radiating off of the casing. She'd followed the standard incantations and rituals to awaken the machine, and it had responded, but…
No readouts. No displays. Barely even dials. Just… a connection socket.
You should never plug into an unfamiliar machine without the proper rituals, unguents and preferably a few more decades of experience than she had.
But they were in the middle of battle, and she absolutely needed to be able to interact with and monitor the engine.
"Nemmie!" barked Miksa. "Why am I still jolting when we move?!"
She hated that nickname. It was so casual. So undisciplined. So… organic.
Her hands were shaking. Not even the purity of metal able to restrain her anxiety, her metal arm twitching in sympathy. Unacceptable!
Nemes grabbed her artificial wrist to steady it. Taking a slow breath, wincing at the blurt of static that came with it, and then pulled out the cable embedded there. Fumbling to slide it into the socket.
Omnissiah protect and forgive me.
A press of a switch, the sudden flow of data and -
She gasped, dizzyness flooding her body and making her slump against the engine cover. The machine spirit surging through her implants, overwhelming her as she struggled to maintain control. It was powerful, relentless, and for one horrific moment she imagined what might've happened if her implants were more extensive, if it could have invaded and consumed her mind as well - but it still felt like her arm had been plunged into steaming hot water. Heat, heat everywhere, and even though her numb fingers confirmed that her bionic was as cool as ever… she felt herself starting to sweat.
Focus! Separation! We care for the engine, we are not the engine itself!
"Adept?" she heard the lieutenant say dimly. "Are you all right? Nemes!"
"I am… fine," Nemes rasped, her synthesised voice buzzing with static. "The machine spirit is… aggressive. I will adapt."
Great engine Limorta, I beseech you to tell me what ails you. Provide me with your diagnostics.
If anything, the heat intensified. It wasn't real. It was just sympathetic reaction, the weak flesh unable to interpret truth and thus conjuring a false experience. But she felt hot, not just in her arm, a rolling wave that spread through her organic, scarred, broken meat-self. Even her dead nerves managing to conjure something.
"Since you ask so nicely…" a purring voice said in the back of her skull.
It made her jolt. Machine spirits did not speak with such clarity, but… sometimes the human mind could conjure such interpretations. To help process the immortal machine.
The torrent of binaric code flooded her, overwhelming her. With no screen, no way to view, she felt helpless, but… she had to persevere, to find the sense amidst the flood. She had to… feel.
It was already making her feel how it did. She just needed to open her mind. To embrace the connection, to peer into the nature of being tank rather than human. For a dizzying moment, she felt herself leave her body. Her sweaty, lying meat and blood forgotten in favour of hard steel and promethium. The squat, solid body, the bulky turret that tracked and hunted for targets. The tracks, the tracks, Miksa wanted to know what was wrong with the tracks…
Madness. She had to go deeper. None of this made sense. The components just did not fit together how they should, no axles or drive shafts or -
- and then she was blind. A blind thing of metal with a fiery heart, her every movement guided by the meat-things within her, and as Miksa pushed the controls, she felt her LEGS MOVE, she had LEGS -
"It's a WALKER," she blurted with a binaric screech as she wrenched herself out of the dizzying vision. "We're in a walker! Quadrupedal!"
"Come back," Limorta teased. "Did it scare you that much? To be a thing of metal, bound to the commands of others? An obedient pet?"
Instinct was screaming at her to unplug. That she was unworthy, that if she remained connected this machine would destroy her.
But she had a job to do. A duty to perform.
A body to share.
***
Szabo stared at Nemes, but the tech adept had slumped again. Whatever she was doing with the machine was clearly draining her, but… as antisocial and bitter as the girl was, she knew her work.
"A quadrupedal walker?" she echoed. "Miksa, confirm?"
The hull of Limorta shifted around them.
"I've run a Sentinel before, never something with four legs," Miksa replied. Her voice sounded strained for some reason. "But… that would fit. Yeah. Agile thing. I've got full three-sixty motion. El-tee, what are we driving?"
"I don't know," Szabo said tightly. "Nothing I've seen in the PDF with four legs."
"Or this weapons array," Vass put in. She sounded like she was trying to control her breathing, and Szabo felt a chill run down her spine, some instinct telling her that something was very wrong.
Szabo flicked on her vox. "Command, this is Limorta. Scratch three Sentinels, continuing patrol. What are we driving? We can't figure it out."
"Focus on your mission, Limorta," the purring voice of command replied. "You've killed some of the enemy already, you can handle it. Keep moving and stay alert. There'll be more. This might be a sneak attack. You need to hold our flank."
Szabo gritted her teeth. "Acknowledged, Command," she growled. What the FUCK? Keeping us in the dark? This is getting ridiculous!
"Nothing?" Vass asked quietly. "Kata… what's going on?"
"I don't know," Szabo muttered back. "Are you ok? You're sounding tense."
Vass flushed. "Just… distracted," she said. "Imagining things. I've got my head in the game, I swear."
Szabo eyed her for a moment.
She was the oldest of the Lucky 17 crew. Pushing late 30s, and most of it spent in service of one kind or another. Infantry, in the beginning, back before the PDF had been forced to become more than just a parade routine. Then, when the damned pointy-ears had started nosing around, and there had been a call for more people to crew the vehicles that were being clawed out of mothballs left behind the Guard and never requisitioned… she'd tried out for it. Turned out there was enough crossover between keeping a bunch of scared footsloggers in line and getting pissy tankers to work together that she'd been good at it.
She'd seen people come and go. Some finishing their service, some transferring… some dying. But she was proud of her crew here. Miksa was a bratty firework, Nemes was an unmitigated bitch and Vass had no social skills, but she cared for them all. Saw the good hearts and dedicated if troubled souls in all of them.
Maybe it was some displaced maternal instinct. Whatever it was, it was screaming right now. They were all in trouble, all acting oddly and she couldn't figure out what was going on.
"You don't get distracted in the field," she hissed. "Maria. Come on. Talk to me."
Vass flushed deeper. "I just… I'm horny for some reason," she muttered, refusing to meet her eyes. "I'm trying to ignore it but it won't go away."
Szabo forced a laugh. "Save it for when we get back to base, ok?"
"Yes, ma'am," Vass agreed. Then she straightened sharply. "Movement, I see movement!"
The lieutenant snapped her gaze to the auspex, eyes flicking over the scanner. "Infantry!" she confirmed. "Whole pack of them, right on top of us! Must've used the ruins to get close! Miksa, spin us around!"
Limorta lurched into motion as Miksa wrenched her controls. The walker scuttled to face the new threat, and Vass grabbed her own levers to guide the turret into position. "They've got missiles! Gonna flame them out -"
"Vass?" Szabo demanded, as the gunner froze. "Talk to me, Vass!"
"False alarm," Vass said with a shiver. "They're friendlies. PDF uniforms. Emperor save me, I nearly killed them all."
Szabo grabbed the vox again. "Command, you didn't tell us there were friendly infantry here!"
"There aren't," Command said sweetly. "
Vass gasped. "BRACE!" she shrieked.
Limorta jolted violently as something slammed into her hull and detonated. Szabo gripped tightly onto her chair, a thousand things flicking through her mind.
"Miksa, evasive! Vass, take them out, now! Nemes, damage report!"
The concussive snarl of the autocannon echoed, as did the gutteral roar of a flamer bathing the area in burning liquid. "More missiles!" Vass shrieked.
"Minimal damage," Nemes reported, sounding like she had been shot. "Glancing hit only, armour intact."
"Get us into cover, out of the plaza!" Szabo ordered.
"Moving!" Miksa confirmed. Another explosion and a crash, and Szabo glanced at the auspex, seeing a nearby building collapsing. A near miss. "In cover. We've bought a couple of minutes. El-tee… were those… friendlies?"
"Vass, are you sure those were our uniforms?" Szabo asked urgently.
"Yes," Vass said tightly. "Same fucking blue we're all wearing. Fucking heretics have their stupid purple shit. I can ID a target, Maria. We just got friendly fired."
Szabo looked around at her crew. Nemes shivering, staring into nothing. Miksa leaning back from the pilot's cradle, begging for answers. Vass trying to suppress a panic attack.
But the only thing that Szabo could respond with was a question that had been on the edge of her mind since she woke up and looked around their surroundings.
It hadn't clicked before, because it was patently absurd. And yet.
"I don't see a hatch," she said quietly. "How do we get out of this thing?"
"You don't," came the voice of command. Not from her headset, but from all around them. A deep, purring rumble that felt like claws down her spine. "Not until the job is done. You will fight, Lucky 17. You will fight, and you will kill. If you do, you will be rewarded. If you don't… your own comrades will destroy you. Make your choice."
Szabo felt her chest tighten. Seeing and sharing the pure horror of her crew as they stared at her.
"This is a heretic vehicle," she breathed. "And we got conscripted."
"Make your choice," 'Command' repeated smugly. "Kill or be killed. Welcome to Limorta."