by Dan Abnett
‘We need to find shelter,’ said the driver. They could tell he was beginning to panic. The stink of his sweat in the cab was unbearable.
‘Keep driving,’ said Fazekiel.
There was a flash.
The street ahead, thirty metres away, vanished in a blinding cloud of light and flames. Then the sound came, the roar, then the slap of the shock wave. The transport shook on its suspension. Debris cracked and crazed the windscreen. Baskevyl shook his head, trying to clear his ears. Everything had become muffled, the world around him buzzing like a badly tuned vox.
‘The feth was that?’ he heard Domor say.
The street ahead had become a crater, deep and smoking. Outflung rubble was scattered everywhere. The buildings on one side of the street were ablaze, flames licking out of blown-out windows. On the other side, the front of a hab block had simply collapsed, exposing layers of floors like some museum cross section. As Baskevyl watched, an anti-sniper curtain, on fire, broke from its moorings over the street and fell, billowing sparks.
There were bodies everywhere. Bodies of pedestrians who had been rushing to nowhere, and were now not rushing at all. Debris had killed some, mangling them, but others had been felled by the blast concussion. They looked like they were sleeping. Pools of blood covered the road surface and gurgled in the gutters.
‘Where’s the driver?’ Fazekiel asked, dazed.
The cab door was wide open. The driver had bolted.
‘Can you drive?’ Fazekiel asked Baskevyl.
He nodded. He was still hoping that the ringing in his ears would stop. He got into the driving seat, and fumbled to find the engine starter.
‘We’ve got to turn around,’ said Domor. ‘The whole fething street is gone. We have to back up and turn.’
‘I know,’ said Baskevyl. He was pushing the starter, but the engine wasn’t turning. He thought the driver had stalled the transport out, but maybe they’d taken damage.
He fiddled with the gears in case there was some kind of transmission lock-out that prevented engine-start if the box wasn’t in neutral. He pushed the starter again.
He could hear a pop-pop-pop-pop.
Was that a starter misfire? An electrical fault?
‘Get out!’ Domor yelled to them.
Baskevyl could still hear the popping, but his finger was no longer on the starter button.
It was small-arms fire. He was hearing small-arms fire.
A moment later, they heard the slap-bang of the first rounds striking the bodywork.
Colonel Grae told Hark that the site was called Station Theta, apparently one of several anonymous safe house strongholds Guard intelligence controlled inside Eltath. Intelligence service troopers in body armour opened the gates and ushered the Chimera into a fortified yard behind the main building.
Hark got out. The raid had been under way for a while, and the skies were florid with fire-stain. Through the razor wire on the wall top, Hark could see enemy aircraft passing overhead, heading to the apex of the city.
‘This is bad,’ he said to Grae.
The colonel nodded.
‘No warning this was coming,’ he said. ‘Nothing on the watch reports of this magnitude. We had no idea they had moved principal strengths so close to the city limits.’
Grae looked at his detail.
‘Get Major Kolea inside, please,’ he said.
‘I should rejoin my regiment,’ said Hark. ‘With this shit coming down, they’ll be mobilising.’
Grae frowned.
‘True,’ he said, ‘but I don’t like your chances. It’s all going to hell out there. Maybe when the raid is over…’
Hark looked him in the eye.
‘I said I should,’ he said, ‘not I would. I’m not leaving Kolea here. Not even with you, though you seem sympathetic. The Ghosts are big boys, and they have good command. They’ll be all right for a while.’
‘As you wish,’ said Grae.
‘You’ll get me use of a vox, though,’ said Hark. ‘So I can get a message to them?’
‘Of course.’
They walked into the blockhouse, following the guards as they escorted the silent, solemn Kolea. There was a holding area and a loading dock. Hark saw side offices filled with cogitators, planning systems and vox-units.
‘Where is everyone?’ Grae asked.
Hark knew what he meant. He had expected to see the place in a frenzy of activity. This was an intelligence service station in a city under assault.
‘Where’s the head of station?’ Grae called out. ‘Someone find me the head of station or the rubrication chief!’
A couple of troopers from the detail moved forwards to look. Grae led the main group through a station office and down a hallway to the situations room.
The console station in the situations room was active, chirping and buzzing, but it was unmanned. A tall figure stood waiting for them in the centre of the room.
She turned to face them.
‘Inquisitor,’ Grae said, startled.
‘Colonel Grae,’ said Laksheema. ‘Did you honestly think that you could disguise your movements and deceive me?’
‘I was… merely taking Major Kolea into custody, as we agreed,’ said Grae.
‘This is not what we agreed,’ said Laksheema.
‘This is her, is it?’ Hark asked Grae.
‘Yes,’ said Grae.
For a moment, Hark had thought Grae had walked them into a trap, that he’d been playing them all along. But from the look of dismay on his face, it was evident that his part in delivering them to Inquisitor Laksheema had been unwitting.
‘The intelligence service is extremely proficient,’ said Laksheema, ‘but it is an amateur operation compared to the omniscient surveillance of the Holy Ordos. You’ve made a fool of yourself, Grae. Inter-departmental rivalry is ridiculous and counter-productive. I will be speaking to your superiors.’
She looked at Hark.
‘You are Viktor Hark?’
‘I am,’ said Hark.
‘You are known to me from the files,’ she said. She took a step towards Kolea, and waved the intelligence service guards surrounding him out of her way.
‘And Gol Kolea. Face-to-face, again.’
Kolea said nothing.
Laksheema eyed him with curiosity. She tilted her head, and her gilded augmetics caught the light.
‘With respect, ma’am,’ Hark said.
She looked at him sharply.
‘A phrase which always means “without any respect at all”, commissar.’
‘True enough,’ said Hark. ‘What do you want with Kolea? I am here to watch out for his welfare, and I intend to do everything in my power to do that.’
‘You have no power at all,’ she replied. ‘However, unlike Colonel Grae, I see great benefit in inter-discipline cooperation. You will assist me in learning the manner of truths from Major Kolea.’
‘Like what?’ asked Hark.
‘Major Kolea clearly has a connection of some sort to the so-called eagle stones,’ she said. She looked at Kolea. ‘Don’t you, Gol? We will explore that connection.’
‘Will we?’ asked Hark.
‘Yes,’ said Laksheema. ‘And let us first consider this. The city is under attack. It has been a safe stronghold for months. Now, suddenly and without warning, it is the focus of a major assault, one which we did not see coming. And, just days ago, the major here, and his regiment, and the secrets they guarded, including the eagle stones, arrived in Eltath. Do you not suppose the timing is significant? Do you not imagine that the Archenemy of mankind is descending upon us to get the stones back?’
Night was falling, and the rain was still beating down hard. A minimum number of lamps had been lit at the K700 billet because of the danger of air raid. The void shield of the Urdeshic Palace, a dome of green light just visible through the filthy air, was still lit. The waves of enemy aircraft had finally stopped coming about an hour before, but the shield was still up. Areas of the city on the s
lopes of the Great Hill glowed amber in the gloom: blocks and streets turned into firestorms by bombing overshoot.
Outside the wash house units behind the billet, people were still queuing for the mandatory anti-bac showers Commissar Blenner had ordered. V Company had already run through shower rotation, and were supervising the civilian queues. E Company was lining up to use the blocks of grotty wash houses on the east side. The rainy air smelt of counterseptic gel and carbolic.
‘I don’t want to do this,’ Felyx whispered to Dalin. ‘I don’t have to. I don’t have lice.’
‘Everyone has to,’ said Dalin. ‘Blenner ordered it. Instructions from staff command, he said.’
‘Dalin–’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll use the block on the end. There are only four stalls. I’ll cover the door while you’re in there, make sure no one else comes in.’
‘This is stupid,’ said Felyx.
‘What’s stupid is us not telling anyone,’ said Dalin. ‘Then we wouldn’t have to go through this pantomime.’
‘Don’t start on me.’
The group ahead of them was waved over to the left-hand shower block by Trooper Perday.
‘Next group,’ she called.
‘We’ll take the right-hand block,’ said Dalin.
Perday frowned.
‘It’s the commander’s son,’ Dalin whispered to her with a meaningful look. ‘A little privacy, all right?’
Perday nodded.
‘Understood, Dal,’ she said. ‘On you go.’
Dalin and Felyx walked across the puddled cobbles to the end block. A couple of E Company troopers followed them.
‘Use that one,’ Dalin told them. ‘Only two of the stalls are working in here.’
They reached the door of the end block. It was a grim, tiled chamber with four curtained brick stalls. The place reeked of mildew. A couple of troopers were exiting, towels around their necks.
‘Go on,’ hissed Dalin. ‘Get in there and be quick. I’ll watch the door.’
Felyx glared at him and stomped inside. Dalin heard the pipes thud and water start to spray. He pulled the wooden door to and waited.
‘Trooper?’
Dalin turned. It was Meryn.
‘You done yet, trooper?’ Meryn asked.
‘No, sir,’ said Dalin. ‘I’m just…’
‘Is it full in there?’
‘No, sir. Uhm, Trooper Chass is in there. I was just watching the door. Giving him some privacy.’
Meryn nodded.
‘I want to know where the transports are,’ said Meryn. ‘They should be here by now. Seeing as how you’re still dressed, run up to the gate and ask if they’ve seen anything inbound.’
‘Oh. B-but–’
Meryn frowned at him.
‘That’s a fething order, Trooper Criid,’ he said.
‘Of course.’
‘Come on,’ said Meryn, smiling slightly. ‘I know you take your duties seriously. This’ll take you five minutes. Don’t worry. I’ll watch the door and keep precious Trooper Chass safe.’
Dalin hesitated.
‘Get the feth to it!’ Meryn barked.
With a sigh, Dalin turned and began to run down the breeze-way towards the yard and the gate.
Meryn leaned back against the shower block wall and folded his arms. Gendler and Wilder appeared out of the shadows.
‘Get on with it,’ said Meryn, ‘and make it fast.’
He walked away.
‘Keep watch,’ said Gendler to Wilder. He pushed open the door and stepped inside.
The ragged curtain was drawn on the end stall. Gendler could hear water hissing.
He approached the curtain, and drew his straight silver.
‘Hello, Felyx,’ he said.
There was a long pause.
‘Who’s there? Who is that?’
‘I just want a little chat, Felyx.’
‘Is that you, Gendler? Is it? I know your voice.’
Gendler smiled.
‘Yeah. It’s time to have a little chat with your Uncle Didi.’
‘Stay out! Stay the feth out!’
‘Oh, that’s not very friendly is it, Felyx,’ said Gendler. He poked the tip of his knife through the curtain at the top, near the middle of the rail, and ripped it down, cutting the old curtain in half.
He expected to find the boy cowering inside. He didn’t expect Felyx to come flying out at him like a fury.
Something sliced into Gendler’s shoulder and he yowled in pain. Instinctively, he lashed out, swatting the boy aside with the back of his fist. Felyx lurched hard to the left, cracked his head against the side wall of the stall, and collapsed in a heap. His straight silver clattered from his hand onto the tiled floor. The water started to swirl Gendler’s blood off the blade.
Gendler stood for a moment, breathing hard. The bastard had knifed him in the shoulder. Blood soaked the front of Gendler’s uniform. Little bastard! It hurt like a fether!
Shaking, he looked down at the unconscious boy. He hadn’t meant to hit him so hard. The boy had cracked his head on the bricks, and blood from the wound was spiralling into the stall’s drain plate and soaking the grubby towel that the boy had half wrapped around himself–
‘Holy gak,’ Gendler breathed.
Not a boy. Not a boy at all.
‘What have you done?’
Gendler looked around. Wilder had entered the shower block. He was staring in shock at the crumpled, half-naked body on the tiles.
‘Oh, shit, Gendler! What have you done?’
‘The little brat went for me,’ said Gendler. ‘Bloody stuck me. I’m bleeding!’
‘Fething Throne, Gendler,’ said Wilder. ‘She’s a girl. It’s a girl.’
Wilder looked at Gendler.
‘What the feth do we do?’ he asked, panic rising. ‘You have just dropped us in so much shit.’
‘We… we say she slipped. Slipped in the shower,’ said Gendler. ‘Yeah, she slipped. We found her. We helped her.’
‘You gak-tard! What will she say?’ asked Wilder.
Gendler thought about that for a second. Then he knelt down, wincing from the pain of his stab wound, and put his hand around Felyx’s throat.
‘Nothing,’ he said, calmly. ‘She slipped and she fell and she died.’
‘Throne, Gendler!’ Wilder gasped.
Gendler’s knuckles began to tighten.
There was a spitting hiss. Gendler tumbled back as if he’d been hit with a mallet. He landed sitting up, with his back to the brick wall. An iron quarrel was lodged in his chest.
Eszrah Ap Niht stood in the doorway, his reynbow aimed.
‘Touch her not, soule,’ he growled.
Gendler coughed blood.
‘You feth-wipe,’ he gurgled. He wrenched his sidearm from its holster, and aimed it at Ezra.
The reynbow spat again. The quarrel hit Gendler in the middle of the forehead, and smacked his skull against the bricks. He lolled, head back, staring at the ceiling with dead eyes.
Jakub Wilder wailed in dismay. He pulled his sidearm.
But Ezra had already reloaded. The quarrel punched through the meat of Wilder’s right thigh in a puff of blood, and dropped him to his knees. Wilder squealed, and tried to aim his weapon. Ezra dropped another iron bolt into his bow, and fired again, quick and methodical. The quarrel hit Wilder in the shoulder of his gun-arm, spun him sideways off his feet and sent the pistol skittering away across the floor. Wilder lay on the ground, sobbing and moaning, blood leaking out onto the tiles.
‘The feth is going on in here?’ Meryn yelled as he and Blenner stormed in. They looked at the bodies on the ground in dismay.
‘Feth…’ Meryn said.
‘They would to kill her,’ said Ezra.
‘It’s a fething girl!’ said Meryn.
Drawn by the commotion, people were crowding around the door outside. Meryn turned and yelled at them.
‘Out! Get out! Get out now!’ he bellowed, driving them back, and
slamming the ratty wooden door shut.
He looked at Ezra again.
‘Are you… are you saying Gendler and Wilder attacked this… attacked this girl?’
Ezra nodded.
Meryn glanced at Blenner. Blenner was shaking. He could see the frantic desperation in Meryn’s eyes.
‘That’s… that’s actionable, isn’t it, commissar?’ Meryn said. ‘Gross assault? That’s summary, right there!’
‘I…’ Blenner began.
‘That’s right, isn’t it, commissar?’ Meryn urged.
‘Feth… Meryn, please…’ Wilder moaned from the floor. ‘For pity’s sake, help me…’
‘I’m right, aren’t I, Commissar Blenner?’ Meryn demanded. Blenner could read the message Meryn was sending him, the message blazing out of his eyes. Shut this down. Shut this down before Wilder sells us out too. Shut this down and keep this contained.
Vaynom Blenner’s sense of justice crumbled beneath the weight of his fear. Somewhere, during that, his heart broke.
He drew his sidearm.
‘Captain Jakub Wilder,’ he began. His voice sounded very small. ‘You have shamed the honour code of the Astra Militarum with actions base, vile and cowardly.’
‘Oh, no,’ Wilder cried, trying to rise. ‘Are you bloody kidding me? Blenner, no! No!’
‘By the authority of the Officio Prefectus,’ said Blenner, ‘punishment is immediate.’
Jakub Wilder started to scream. Blenner shot him through the head. Blood flecked the walls. His body fell hard on the tiles.
Meryn looked at Ezra.
‘Good work,’ he said. ‘Very good work, Ezra. Thank the Holy Throne you were here.’
‘Gaunt, he told me to watch his child,’ said Ezra.
‘Well, you’ve served him well,’ said Meryn. He stooped to recover the laspistol Wilder had dropped. ‘Very diligent. Really, thank Throne you were here. The Emperor protects.’
Meryn fired Wilder’s sidearm three times, point-blank, into Ezra’s upper back between the shoulder blades. Ezra fell without a sound.
Blenner stood and stared with his mouth wide open.
‘What a mess, eh?’ Meryn whispered to him, putting the gun down beside Wilder’s lifeless right hand. ‘Ezra saved the girl, but Wilder shot him, so you had to execute him.’