Honour Imperialis - Aaron Dembski-Bowden

by Warhammer 40K

  A return call came in from a grouchy city administrator, woken from his bed and nursing a grudge that a seat on a rescue ship hadn’t yet been found for him. Hanrik conveyed the colonel’s request for more resources and, for the fifth time that night, was subjected to a tirade of protestations including a list of incidents with which the overstretched authorities were already dealing. He waited for this to subside before adding that medical supplies were also urgently required.

  Finally, it was all over. The confirmation came from a breathless PDF major, astonished that the remaining necrons had vanished before his eyes. Switching to the open channel, Hanrik heard the colonel ordering a grenadier squad forward to the generatorum with demolition charges. There were many requests for medical assistance, but he switched off the vox-caster before the bodies could be counted. He would have to face that final tally soon enough, he reasoned.

  He sat for a short while longer in the darkness, in the silence, composing himself. For Governor-General Hanrik, the real work was about to begin.

  The sun was up, though the sky was still grey. Hanrik hadn’t slept in almost twenty-five hours, hadn’t eaten for longer. He didn’t feel like doing either right now, but he needed a break, emotionally more than physically.

  He had spoken so many words of condolence that they had begun to sound hollow, meaningless to him. He had visited troopers in the bunkrooms that now served as medicae wards, had thanked them for their service and assured them that, through their efforts, a glorious victory had been won. He had argued with a Krieg quartermaster reluctant to expend resources on patients liable to die anyway.

  So few of his men had come back. Nor were there any celebrations.

  The Krieg returnees were even fewer in number, and comprised only the most wounded. Of course, they still had a line to hold, and so most of them had remained at the city’s edge. They had co-opted a few PDF men to assist them, a decision about which Hanrik had been neither consulted nor informed. This made it difficult to compile a list of the dead and offered false hope to numerous grieving relatives.

  Hanrik joined a table of weary officers in the temporary mess hall. He filled a dish with unappetising paste, which he pushed around listlessly with a spoon. It was Colonel Braun who first said what they were all thinking.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘I don’t mean to sound disloyal, but I wonder if it might have been better, if the Emperor might have been best served, by, well…’

  ‘You mean by leaving when the necrons demanded it,’ said Hanrik.

  ‘If we had been given the resources to fight them,’ said Braun, frustrated. ‘If the Departmento Munitorum had sent a larger force, more than four regiments… We’ve been sending civilians to the front line, for the Emperor’s sake!’

  ‘We have lost so many men,’ lamented the young, olive-skinned Major Hawke, ‘but these necrons, they have to be fought, I think.’

  ‘Fought, yes,’ said Colonel Braun, ‘but like this?’

  ‘I’m beginning to think Costellin had the right idea,’ said Hanrik. ‘Exterminatus! We’d have lost the planet, and Emperor knows we all detested the thought of that to begin with, but we could have wiped out the necrons in a stroke, without the loss of a single life – assuming, that is, that we could have evacuated everyone.’

  ‘There wouldn’t have been enough ships,’ another young major pointed out, ‘and where would we have gone?’

  ‘We should have demanded the ships,’ said Hanrik, pounding the table with his fist, ‘and a colony world to settle on. I blame myself. I allowed the Departmento Munitorum – no, I allowed the Death Korps of Krieg – to use us as an experiment.’

  ‘And what if,’ said a cold voice behind him, ‘in the time it took for an evacuation to be organised, the necrons had woken their forces and escaped from us?’

  Once again, Hanrik hadn’t heard Colonel 186’s approach. Nevertheless, bolstered by his officers’ support, no longer feeling so isolated, he stood and squared up to him. ‘And what have we achieved,’ he asked, ‘fighting this war your way? What did our people die for today? The destruction of one secondary generatorum, and what use is that if Costellin failed to reach the primary facility?’

  ‘We have dealt the necrons a blow from which they–’

  ‘That’s what you said after the 42nd fought them, but they came back stronger. The truth of it is, we don’t know the limits of the necrons’ self-repair capabilities. We don’t know how many more soldiers they can wake or… or fashion or bring in from elsewhere, but you don’t care about that, do you, colonel? You saw the smallest chance of glory, and the human cost of it meant nothing to you.’

  ‘What would you have me do? Withdraw my troops? Leave the necrons to you? Then the men who have given their lives so far will have done so for nothing.’

  ‘I just want you to… I’m the Governor of this world, and ever since you came here, you have ignored me, belittled me, ridden roughshod over my concerns.’

  ‘You place too much value on individual lives, Hanrik, those to which you can attach a name and a face. I am fighting for more than that, for the billions threatened by the necrons’ existence. If you can’t accept this, if you wish to file a complaint about my conduct on this world… that, of course, is your right.’

  ‘I will do that,’ said Hanrik belligerently. ‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do, as I should have done from the beginning.’

  ‘Just be careful,’ the colonel growled, ‘that our enemies do not use your weakness against you – and be warned that I will not allow that to happen.’

  Hanrik had sent the message.

  He had had no choice in the end. He hadn’t been able to sit by and do nothing, couldn’t have lived with the regret. Still, he felt sick to his stomach. He sat with his head in his hands, elbows on his desk, barely keeping his eyes open but knowing that now, more than ever, he had no chance of sleeping. Not until he received a reply.

  It came sooner than he had expected.

  There was a curt rap on his office door, and, without waiting to be invited, Colonel 186 entered. Immediately, it was clear that something was wrong. The colonel was flanked by two Krieg majors, who took up positions, standing to attention, against the back wall. ‘What is it?’ asked Hanrik, rising.

  ‘We have reason to suspect,’ said the colonel, ‘that there is a traitor among us.’

  ‘No. I mean, I can’t believe that. Who…?’

  ‘You came straight to this office after we spoke in the mess hall?’

  ‘Yes. Well, almost. I was waylaid by someone. A mother. Her son was fifteen years old when we sent him to war. He was caught in the blast of one of our own–’

  ‘You have not left this room in the past ninety minutes?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Why are you asking me these questions? What are you–?’

  ‘Did you send any messages during that time?’

  ‘I might have. Yes, I spoke to the Thelonius City administrator. He said the situation there is worsening. There have been… Some people, lower-floor dwellers, they’ve turned away from the Emperor. They have started to worship the necrons, can you believe that? Of course, I instructed that they be summarily–’

  ‘Anything else?’ growled the colonel.

  ‘I haven’t… No. Nothing else. I didn’t… I never sent that complaint, if that’s what you mean. I thought, perhaps I was being a little hasty, and perhaps… perhaps we can talk about it later, tomorrow, when things aren’t so… when we aren’t so tired.’

  ‘My vox operator detected a transmission,’ said the colonel, ‘originating from this room.’ Hanrik just gaped at him. He couldn’t have known… could he?

  ‘It was sent,’ continued the colonel, ‘over the PDF command channel.’

  ‘That’s… That channel,’ spluttered Hanrik, ‘is for private communications between my officers and myself. You have no right to–’


  ‘As I informed you when we first met, Hanrik, this world is under martial law. My law. That makes everything that happens here my business. It gives me the right.’

  He produced a data-slate and Hanrik took it, though it almost slid out of his nervous hands. He examined the slate’s contents, and a pall of dread settled over him. The words of the message were familiar to him, but he read them anyway, then read them again as a delaying tactic. ‘I am informed,’ the colonel prompted him, ‘that this message was sent at 09.13 this morning, in response to the one received at 09.46 yesterday.’

  ‘You knew about that? How…? You were waiting, weren’t you? Waiting to see what I’d do. But… the code in which I sent this message… You shouldn’t have been able to decrypt that code. How on Holy Terra…?’

  ‘That is hardly the issue here, Hanrik.’

  ‘No. I suppose you’re right.’ Hanrik sighed, defeated, sinking back into his chair. ‘I suppose you want me to explain… You must understand, colonel. Try to understand, please. Arex is the only family I have. I have devoted my life to… What use is the Imperium, what use are all our armies, if we can’t protect one girl?’

  ‘The Imperium can only endure so long as we stand together. That is why there are rules about collaborating with–’

  ‘Collaborating?’ cried Hanrik. ‘No, you can’t accuse me of… You’ve read this message, I was just… I was playing for time. I couldn’t call off the attack if I wanted to, you know that more than anyone does. I just thought, if I could make these people think… if I could imply that a deal could be reached, then perhaps… I couldn’t just leave her to die. She’s my niece, colonel. What would you have done?’

  As soon as those words left his mouth, he realised his mistake.

  Colonel 186 drew his bolt pistol, levelled it at the Governor-General’s head. ‘I gave you fair warning,’ he said quietly, and the last thing Talmar Hanrik saw in this world was the flash of that bolt pistol’s muzzle.

  Chapter Twenty

  Costellin woke to unexpected warmth and softness, and for a moment he couldn’t imagine where he could be.

  Had he been taken captive? It seemed unlikely, and anyway, the necrons would hardly have relieved him of his peaked cap, greatcoat and boots and set him to rest in a comfortable bed. He tried to move, but felt a sharp pain in his right side and the pull of a patch of synth-skin. The sensation reminded him of a recent, harsher pain, but the memories were jumbled. He remembered the climb up the mine shaft, straining himself to his limit, finding himself wanting. He remembered staring into the abyss, being caught from above by a pair of gloved hands, hauled up into the light.

  Then, a desperate chase…

  He was in a hab, little bigger than his office at the space port. He could see the guttering flames of candles, shadows against the wall. Rain beat against the window shutters. He lifted his head, laboriously, to find two figures, elderly women dressed in rags, dozing in armchairs. Sitting beside the bed, watching him impassively, was a skull-masked grenadier.

  ‘Did we do it?’ he asked weakly. ‘Destroy the generatorum?’

  The grenadier shook his head, and Costellin groaned and sank back into his pillows. Unconsciousness tried to reclaim him, but he resisted it. He remembered the spiders, with their green eyes…

  ‘How many?’ he asked. ‘How many of us made it?’

  ‘Two of us,’ said the grenadier, and Costellin realised that his eyes had closed, that the soldier’s voice was coming to him as if from the end of a long tunnel. ‘You and me, sir. We are the only survivors.’

  The second time he woke, one of the old women was bathing his brow. She had a round, matronly face and pockmarked skin. Costellin tried to thank her, but his throat was too dry to speak. She heard him croaking, and brought him a mug of cold water.

  They had run through the city, he and his grenadiers, separating into five squads in the hope of eluding their pursuers: skimmer-mounted necrons. They had been faster than the Krieg men, gliding unhindered across the clogged skyways, their cannon arms flaring. Almost fifty grenadiers had set out from the mine entrance. Less than thirty had made it to the generatorum, where they had found worse waiting for them.

  In his nightmares, he remembered:

  Mechanical spiders, the size of small tanks, scuttling out from the generatorum building. Like the pursuing necrons, they had floated above the ground, but their movements had been slower, more ponderous. Despite this, they had shrugged off the grenadiers’ hellgun fire and been on them too soon.

  The third time Costellin woke, the rain had stopped and the shutters were open a crack to allow in the daylight. He couldn’t see anyone, but he heard hushed voices. ‘–taking a dreadful chance,’ said the voice of his round-faced nursemaid. ‘They have left us alone so far, but if they learn we are sheltering their enemies–’

  ‘You can’t mean–’ Another female voice, unfamiliar to Costellin, so presumably belonging to the nursemaid’s sharp-featured friend.

  ‘May the Emperor strike me dead for thinking it, but–’

  ‘You heard what the one in the mask said. They are here to fight the necrons.’

  ‘Two of them, alone? If I thought they had a prayer–’

  ‘Do you think…? The paste we have found won’t last forever. Do you think, if we please them, they might feed us?’

  ‘I remember,’ said Costellin. He was sitting up in bed, sipping from the mug. ‘The soldier in front of me… A spider ripped out his throat. My pistol punched a great hole through its carapace. I thought it would fall, but…’

  ‘What are your orders, sir?’ The surviving grenadier was standing beside him.

  Costellin shook his head, tried to dispel the image of those multi-faceted green eyes swivelling his way. His side ached. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s evident that our mission here is done. Perhaps we should just–’

  ‘With respect, sir, is that really the case? The necrons don’t know we are alive, else they would have found us by now. It only takes one man to make it past them, with enough demolition charges to–’

  ‘You’re still carrying charges?’

  ‘No sir, else I would have continued to fight.’

  ‘I suppose I should be thankful you didn’t. You got me out of there, I assume?’

  ‘You were wounded, delirious. Sir, I realise the odds are against us, but if we don’t do this, if we can’t destroy that generatorum, then who can?’

  He had a point there. Certainly, the necrons would be ready for another approach through the mine tunnels. Even so, for two men to attempt what a hundred had already failed to do… ‘We can’t do anything,’ said Costellin, ‘without those charges. Maybe, if we could retrieve them…’

  The grenadier shook his head. ‘I tried, sir, before dawn. I got as close to the generatorum as I could, but most of our comrades were destroyed by gauss weaponry. I found only a few of their bodies intact, and unfortunately–’

  ‘They weren’t the ones with the bombs,’ Costellin guessed.

  ‘I did retrieve something of value,’ said the grenadier, and Costellin looked up hopefully. Then the Krieg man produced a small wooden box from the folds of his charcoal greatcoat, and the commissar knew what it must contain before it was opened. ‘Now, our fallen comrades will always be with us,’ said the grenadier, displaying a collection of bone fragments. ‘Their spirits will share in our victory.’

  ‘The women,’ said Costellin suddenly. ‘When I… The first few times I woke up, there were two women here.’

  ‘They took us in, sir. They are too frail to fight the occupiers, but they are resisting in their own way. They have been hiding out in this room since–’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘They went in search of food for us. They say the necrons are mostly ignoring the human survivors, which tallies with what we–’

  Co
stellin looked at the shelves above the tiny stove in the corner, saw them brimming with tubes of food paste. ‘We have to get out of here,’ he said urgently.

  They ran down eight flights of stairs before coming to a barricade that they couldn’t shift. Costellin needed a rest anyway, having exerted himself too soon. He sat on a step and studied the plan of the mine tunnels on his data-slate. ‘Obviously,’ he said, ‘we can’t go back to the entrance we came out of, but there are several more marked on here, and each must have its own store of mining charges.’

  ‘Can we find them?’ asked the grenadier.

  ‘Maybe. As we’ve learned to our cost, this map is hardly accurate, and it certainly isn’t to scale. We may have to rely on the wisdom of the natives, and pray of course that the necrons have left some of these buildings standing.’

  ‘The old ladies spoke of informants among the civilian populace.’

  ‘I’ll bet they did,’ said Costellin. ‘Even if that weren’t the case, we may have a great deal of ground to cover.’ He was already shedding his greatcoat and cap. ‘I think this is one mission best undertaken sans the benefaction of the Imperial aquila.’

  The grenadier stared at him in uncomprehending silence.

  ‘The uniform, Guardsman. You said it yourself, the necrons are on the lookout for soldiers, but civilians are beneath their notice. If we want the freedom to roam this city, and to ask questions of its people, then we cannot be soldiers any longer.’

  So, they searched a row of habs for clothes, finding long coats to conceal their body armour and weapons holsters. Costellin swapped his military-issue boots for a pair of shoes, but didn’t insist that his Krieg comrade do the same. His chainsword, he reluctantly left behind because it created too distinctive a bulge, though he concealed it beneath a floorboard alongside his cap in the small hope of returning for both.

  The grenadier kept as much of his equipment as he could, trying at first to don his coat over his backpack. He crammed his pockets with frag grenades, medical supplies, his lasgun maintenance kit, even his spare bootlaces and personal grooming kit. His bulky hellgun was a problem, but as the alternative was to leave him defenceless, they would just have to hope that no one looked too closely at his right leg.