Salkor looked upon the wide assembly of the Martian parliament. Hundreds of figures representing all the forges, and indeed the voices of the broader galactic Cult of the Machine were present, all array in small cubicles that provided no privacy, but rather simply served to give a small workspace for each to accommodate the often bulky assortments of cybernetics the Martian Priesthood bore. In many cases, representatives were not present in person and instead had a servitor bear a screen, hologram projector, or other means of display along with vox gear to relay their speech.


"Let the rite of percussive appraisal begin!" A tapping noise would come as mechanical fingers struck the foam upon the hundreds of microphones in the parliament, each followed by a quiet expression of "Testing, testing, testing, one-two-three...." the noise punctuated on occasion by random squeals as incense drifted into the devices.

“Have the spirits of the transmitters been sufficiently appeased?” The Fabricator-General asked, but the slightest of binharic whines through the air indicating the words had been outputted. 

“Yea and verily, o’ speaker.” Returned a servitor to his side.

“Very well. Before we begin, is all the roster present?” the question was redundant of course, the milliseconds of it ultimately a waste of time as a part of his heads-up display showed that indeed all nine hundred and seventy three figures scheduled to be in attendance were in fact present in one form or another. But it was tradition, and to brook the mere thought of violating it would cause indignant outcry and the pointing of plasteel fingers.

“Good. Today we mark the thirty-second plenary committee of the Martian plenary, which I now state to be in session.” A gong would ring at glass shattering volume behind him. “The occasion is a solemn one, and indeed one of emergency.”

“Get on with it!” a heckler demanded, a fact that was made all the more annoying as in the cybernetic communion of the hundreds of figures assembled there was no anonymity, yet Forgemaster Antares seemingly felt no regrets about his outburst as Salkor examined him with his ocular implants.

“On this day, an unacceptable attack happened.” A hologram activated behind Salkor and in front of the assembled parliamentarians. It displayed hundreds of missiles fired and laser countermeasures ineffectively attempting to destroy them. Although all present already knew of the attack, they nonetheless immediately broke out into bickering and accusations.

“Silence!” The Fabricator General demanded, flicking a wax-encrusted switch to deactivate the optic cables connecting individuals, such that any speech could only be made through analogue means and without private mutterings upon the noosphere. “I am ordained as servant of our Omnissiah to bring order to this madness. We are all aware of the tensions between different schools of our faith.” he said, not elaborating on the tense situation of the electro priests. 
“The violence that stems from it is unacceptable, however. Thus, while we will abide by all the laws and ordinances of this establishment and the red cloak, the right is waived by the commission to bring the perpetrators of this matter to justice.” He heard the gurgle of respirators and static of old synthesizers as again cries of protest came, but they were ultimately ignored.

“Thus we will begin with what is known. Magos Khur, the missiles fired upon the aircraft of the Corpuscarii pilgrims came from your Forge. The serial numbers and make and model inevitably match to Manufactorum IL-99. In particular, the photoreactive plasteel diamantine coating on the warheads is a known specialty of your forge. Do you have any comment?”

“I. AM. UNABLE. TO. SEE. HOW. THAT. INCRIMINATES. ME.” 

If Salkor had a lot more of his human biology from brain to respirators system, he would have sighed. The Magos used an ancient synthesizer that was an archaeotech pride of his, supposedly reliable enough to last many tens of thousands of years without any parts needing replacement. The trouble was, his pride and joy seemingly would take that long to construct paragraphs. “You are not incriminated, we simply need to know if any orders were placed that were suspect.

“I. KNOW. NOT. OF. ANY. SUCH. ORDERS.”

“Very well, then we will require a full listing of any and all orders for your surface to air and other missiles matching the remains we found for the last three years.”

“THERE. IS. NO. CONSTITUTIONAL. BASIS. FOR. SUCH.”

“In this emergency we have waived the requirement to only receive the exact work orders matching each serial number given that far too many of said serial numbers have not survived.”

More outcry, and now on somewhat expected partisan lines. The Fulgurites were eager to defend their little gun runner, while a great many Magoses were enraged at the precedent being set. If this was centuries ago, Salkor would understand. He absolutely would hate the rest of Mars to have a right to root around in his work. But, what other options did he have? This was the closest to a middle ground he could come to. 

“THIS. OUTRAGE. CANNOT. STAND.”

“No, but neither can we have your air-defence penetrating missiles used against fellow Martians. We are to be better than this, and yet we seemingly are not.” 

The bulbs that displayed the preparation of speech of Magos Khur’s synthesizer began to glow, but this was interrupted by a great shock that rattled the Parliament building.

All present immediately read hundreds of readouts, a servitor then unfolding a screen from a mecha-dendrite beside Salkor. “The entourage of Magos Loiy is no longer present. The entourage of Magos Khur is departing. The entourage of Magos Khur is no longer present.” it announced. That was certainly an understatement, as the site where several vehicles an dozens of Skitarii and attendants once stood was now ash. 

Salkor played back the footage of the servo-skulls that had observed them. It had taken mere milliseconds, but nonetheless there was a capture of the blue wave that fell from the sky. Dreamily, almost like a cloud the plasma had descended from the sky and turned the figures into nothing. A great many figures not part of either Magos’s party wwas caught and melted in part of entirety. 

To Salkor, this was an opportunity. “Magos Khur, if you would care to reveal information that would make you reasonably believe you are at risk, security may be provided for you and your forge.” He announced, quite satisfied with how this line of inquiry was going even if the sum total of disaster had only just doubled, perhaps tripled.