Anarch - Dan Abnett

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘Would you?’ Rawne shouted back. Prolonged bursts of fire were striking the guardhouse facade.

  Varl angled the gun and fired the underbarrel. It launched the grenade with a sound like an ogryn hawking into a tin spitoon. The grenade sailed up and out, described an arc across the contested yard, and landed on the bunker roof.

  It exploded with a fierce sheet of flame that was entirely consumed a second later by the detonation of the bunker itself.

  Rawne had been right. Camp Xenos kept its munition store away from the main buildings.

  The blast was considerable. It battered the gate area, swallowed their transport in a shock of expanding flame, and blew out the blockhouse beside the bunker. A cone of fire lifted off the bunker site, blooming out into the night sky like a mushroom cap. Debris rained down. They could hear secondary pops and bangs as stored munitions and power cells caught and cooked.

  Something landed in the yard along with the debris from the blockhouse. The Qimurah, one of the shooters using the blockhouse as cover, had been cut in two. He was scorched and dripping yellow fluid. His head lolled, and he began to drag his upper half across the yard towards the guardhouse with his spasming hands.

  ‘Kill it!’ Rawne told Cardass.

  ‘He’s been cut in half–’

  ‘Does he look dead?’ Rawne asked. ‘He doesn’t look dead to me.’

  Cardass angled his .20 down and raked the clawing mass with stubber fire until it stopped moving.

  ‘Move!’ Rawne yelled. ‘We’re out now!’ The blast had killed one for certain. Maybe more. Whatever their losses, the Qimurah squad had been blinded and rocked. They had a moment of opportunity.

  Varl grabbed Mabbon. ‘Truck?’ he said.

  ‘That’s gone,’ Rawne replied. ‘Head for the wire and out.’

  Varl bundled Mabbon through the door. Laydly followed, then Oysten. Brostin grabbed Okel’s big autogun and ran out after them.

  Rawne looked at Cardass.

  ‘Judd! Now!’ he barked.

  Cardass smiled.

  ‘You need covering fire, sir,’ he said. He locked eyes with the colonel. Rawne knew what he actually meant was I can’t walk. Hip’s gone. I’m bleeding out and there aren’t enough of you to carry me and stay functional. This is where you ditch me.

  ‘Cardass–’

  Cardass ignored him, lining up his .20.

  ‘Covering fire in three,’ he said. ‘Two…’

  Suicide Kings, Rawne thought. Like the old card game. It had seemed like a clever name once.

  He ran out across the yard after the others, his head low. There was burning debris everywhere. Cardass’ heavy fire ripped from the guardhouse window slot and punished the gate and the front of the blazing blockhouse.

  Varl had reached the fence. High chain wire and a ditch separated the prison’s front yard from the perimeter of the neighbouring vapour mill. The mill loomed, pale in the night, exhaling huge, crawling plumes of white steam from its stacks.

  The night was cold. They had the heat of the flames behind them and the night breeze in their faces. The bunker blast had taken down several sections of the security fence. Varl led the way, scrambling over the flattened fencing.

  Rawne was last to arrive. Las-bolts whipped around him as he ran. He fell.

  He tried to get up. Behind him, a Qimurah was walking slowly out of the inferno of the blockhouse. His blistered form was still on fire, and a splinter of roof spar had impaled his chest. He was firing his lasrifle from the hip, as if that was the highest he could raise it.

  Rawne heard the rattle of Cardass’ stubber. A sustained burst of fire knocked the Qimurah back into the flames.

  Brostin grabbed Rawne’s arm and dragged him to his feet.

  ‘Come on, chief,’ he yelled.

  ‘All right,’ said Rawne.

  ‘You sure?’ Brostin asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rawne. He decided not to mention the las-round that had gone through his abdomen. He could feel the blood running down his thigh and into his groin.

  They headed for the fence.

  Behind them, Cardass’ weapon fell silent. Gunfire from the remaining Qimurah warriors chased them into the night.

  ‘This isn’t a rescue,’ said Mkoll as the third stasis tank finished draining.

  Milo nodded.

  ‘I understand,’ he said.

  ‘What is it then?’ asked Mazho.

  ‘An opportunity,’ said Mkoll.

  Colonel Mazho was the first prisoner Milo had insisted on releasing. He was a stocky, middle-aged officer from the Urdeshi Fourth Light ‘Cinder Storm’ who had been assigned to the Saint as military liaison by high command after her arrival on the forge world. He’d served with her ever since, which made him enkil vahakan. He and Milo had been captured together.

  ‘How did that happen?’ Mkoll had asked.

  ‘Oureppan,’ Milo had told him. ‘The Saint had achieved a miracle at Ghereppan. The Archenemy was reeling. She became convinced that Sek was located nearby. Oureppan. A place called Pinnacle Spire. So we went in fast, so as not to lose momentum. It was a trap.’

  ‘A trap?’ Mkoll had asked.

  ‘For her. A warp vortex. He wasn’t really there, you see? He was projecting himself using psykers. Well, the trap failed. She survived. The vortex destabilised. The blow-back hurt Sek, I think. Hurt him badly. And we were too close. We were pulled through to his side. Blink of an eye, and we were aboard his ship.’

  The last of the nutrient suspension flushed from the third tank. Mazho was sitting on the rusted deck trying to shake off the raw ache of stasis shock. He was peering around, half-blind and dazed. He finally reached into his tunic pocket and pulled out a pair of rimless spectacles. One lens was cracked. He’d lost just about everything except his ragged Urdeshi fatigues, but somehow his spectacles had survived.

  He got up to help them as Mkoll opened the third tank’s hatch. It took all three of them to drag out the body inside. It was a massively heavy dead weight. They laid the body on the deck, and Milo pulled the vox-plugs out of its temples.

  ‘Pain goads,’ said Mkoll. ‘They weren’t going to take any chances.’

  They looked down at the body. Kater Holofurnace, of the Adeptus Astartes Iron Snakes, had been stripped of his plate armour and left in its ragged underskin, a tight mesh bodyglove. The armour had not been removed efficiently, and many of the inter-cutaneous plugs and anchor points had been damaged. The Snake’s body had been studded with steel spikes, each one staked into a major muscle group or joint. The spikes were pain goads designed to paralyse and incapacitate. Each one had a small rune glowing on its head.

  Holofurnace moved his head and uttered a low groan. Fluid ran from his mouth, and his eyes blinked open, glassy.

  ‘He’s immobilised,’ said Mkoll. He drew his skzerret.

  ‘You going to end his pain?’ Mazho asked.

  ‘Of course he isn’t,’ said Milo.

  Holding the serrated edge of the blade flat, Mkoll began to lever the goads out of Holofurnace’s flesh. As each one came free, a shudder of pain ran through the Space Marine. Blood and other bio-liquids ­dribbled from each wound. They reminded Mkoll of the stigmata he’d heard some sacred beings displayed.

  It was going to take a while. It took effort to dig each goad free and pull it out. Mkoll took the laspistol from his waistband and handed it to Milo.

  ‘Watch the hatch,’ he said.

  ‘How long do we have?’ asked Mazho.

  Mkoll didn’t reply. Mazho limped around the chamber and peered into the other tanks. Two of the other prisoners were comrades from Oureppan, both men from Mazho’s command. They hadn’t survived the vortex intact. It was not possible to free them from suspension. Mazho turned away and closed his eyes.

  ‘Who are you?’ Mazho asked.

  �
�That’s Mkoll,’ whispered Milo from the doorway.

  ‘The Ghost?’ Mazho looked intrigued. ‘Brin’s told stories about you.’

  ‘They were all true,’ whispered Milo.

  ‘So how many of you are there aboard?’ Mazho asked.

  ‘I told you this wasn’t a rescue,’ said Mkoll, plucking out another goad.

  ‘How many?’

  Mkoll looked at him. Something in his eyes made Colonel Mazho recoil slightly.

  ‘Just me.’

  ‘How did you get here?’ Mazho asked.

  ‘Pure blind chance and an obstinate nature,’ said Mkoll.

  ‘I’ll bet,’ whispered Milo.

  ‘Do they know you’re here?’ Mazho asked. ‘Are they looking for you?’

  ‘Stop with the questions,’ Holofurnace growled. He opened his eyes and looked up.

  ‘Mkoll,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘War brother,’ replied Mkoll, nodding.

  ‘Come to kill me?’ asked Holofurnace.

  ‘You’d be dead,’ said Mkoll, yanking the last goad out of the Space Marine’s torso.

  Holofurnace laughed, but the laugh turned into a wince.

  ‘Pain goads,’ said Mkoll, moving down to the legs. ‘I’ll have the last of them out in a few minutes. Then some feeling might return.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want it to,’ said the Iron Snake. He sat up.

  ‘Already?’ said Mazho, amazed.

  ‘Pain focuses the mind,’ said Holofurnace, flexing his hands.

  ‘Doesn’t it just?’ replied Mkoll.

  Holofurnace held out a huge hand to Mkoll.

  ‘Give me that,’ he said. ‘I’ll finish it.’

  Mkoll handed him the dagger. Holofurnace leaned forwards with a grunt and started to hook the goads out of his paralysed legs.

  Mkoll rose.

  ‘What did you mean when you said opportunity?’ Mazho asked, rising too.

  ‘I’m here by blind luck. You’re here by bad luck. Luck alone led me to you,’ replied Mkoll.

  ‘Not sure it was luck,’ whispered Milo. ‘The influence of the Beati flows–’

  ‘Not here it doesn’t,’ said Mkoll.

  Milo looked at him.

  ‘This ship is sitting at the heart of the Archenemy’s primary stronghold on Urdesh,’ said Mkoll. ‘The enemy is here in brigade strengths, all around us. The nearest Imperial force is ninety plus kilometres from here, and no one on our side knows of this location.’

  ‘So we’re behind enemy lines, cut off, without support?’ asked Holofurnace, yanking a goad out of his knee. ‘In the heart of a nest of devils?’

  ‘The odds are not in our favour,’ said Mkoll.

  ‘Is there a way out?’ asked Mazho.

  ‘No,’ said Mkoll simply.

  ‘So all that matters is what we do while we’re here?’ asked Milo. ‘What we accomplish before they find us and take us out?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mkoll.

  ‘And you’ve already decided what that could be, I’m guessing?’ said Holofurnace.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mkoll.

  The Iron Snake pulled out the last of the goads, and hauled himself to his feet. He grimaced as locked muscles eased and flexed. He got upright, then immediately slumped, leaning hard on the hatch door of his tank. Mkoll darted to support him and stop him toppling.

  ‘Thank you, brother,’ said Holofurnace, his voice laced with pain. ‘I’ll be myself again in a moment, I promise.’

  ‘Lean on something,’ growled Mkoll through gritted teeth. ‘You’re too fething heavy to hold upright.’

  Holofurnace chuckled, and shifted his weight, getting a better grip on the rim of the heavy hatch. Mkoll straightened up.

  ‘So tell me,’ Holofurnace said.

  Mkoll frowned thoughtfully.

  ‘We have three choices,’ he said. ‘One is to try and annihilate this stronghold from inside. I think finding the means to do that will be near impossible. The second is more viable. We try to commandeer a communications station or similar. Get a message out. Alert crusade command to this location in the hope that air strikes or orbital bombardment can level it.’

  ‘That works,’ said Holofurnace. ‘Astartes code can verify us and emphasise the significance of our signal. If high command isn’t asleep at the helm, fleet elements could have this site triangulated and locked in seven or eight minutes.’

  ‘Loss of this stronghold would cripple Sek’s efforts on Urdesh,’ Mkoll agreed. ‘So that strategy has a lot going for it.’

  ‘What’s the third idea?’ asked Mazho.

  ‘Sek,’ said Mkoll. ‘He’s the key. Whatever damage the crusade does to his armies, they will continue to be a threat all the while he’s alive. And he’s here. On this vessel.’

  ‘But a fleet strike–’ Mazho began.

  ‘There’s always a chance he could escape,’ said Holofurnace.

  ‘He can’t escape if he’s dead,’ said Milo.

  ‘So if we can only attempt one thing, and we want it to have the ­maximum effect…’ said Mkoll. He let the rest hang, unsaid.

  No one spoke for a moment.

  ‘Whichever we chose,’ said Mazho, ‘we’re dead.’

  Mkoll looked at him.

  ‘You need to grasp, sir,’ he said, ‘that we’re dead already.’

  Sixteen: Close Quarters

  Mkoll buckled the sirdar’s helmet back on. He glanced at the other three, made the Tanith hand-sign for mute, and walked off along the brig.

  The interrogation he had observed on his way in was finished, and the cell door locked. He wondered if the Urdeshi colonel inside was still alive.

  He hoped to the Throne he was not.

  The two packson watchmen were still on duty in the security post. One opened the inner cage to let him through. The other stood leaning on the back grip of the sentry gun.

  The packson with the key remarked that the sirdar had been a long time.

  Mkoll replied that the best work often took a long time.

  ‘Harneth den voi?’ the packson asked. So you got what you wanted?

  ‘Den harnek teht,’ Mkoll replied. Everything it was possible to get.

  With an open palm slap, he rammed the pain goad into the key-holder’s solar plexus. The man’s entire system shut down. His mouth opened to voice the unthinkable agony that was screaming through his nervous system, but his vocal chords and lungs no longer worked.

  He buckled to the deck. The other watchman turned from the sentry gun in surprise as his comrade collapsed. Mkoll was already on him. The skzerret went in between his ribs.

  Two kills, three seconds. No sound.

  Mkoll used the watchman’s key to reopen the inner cage and dragged both bodies through. He stood in plain sight at the end of the brig corridor and made the hand-sign for clear.

  Milo and Mazho hurried down to him. Holofurnace followed, limping.

  ‘Uniforms,’ Mkoll said.

  Milo and the colonel stripped the packsons of their kit and pulled it on. The fit was poor, but it would have to do. Mkoll went back into the security post, and searched the area. Both packsons had been armed with old Fleet-pattern lascarbines, which were hooked on a wall rack. Mkoll took them down and checked them. Decent weapons, short-pattern for use in shipboard environments. The packsons had kept them clean and in good order. The more disciplined, Astra Militarum-style regimen observed by both Sekkite packs and the Blood Pact had some benefits. Milo and Mazho would have spare clips in the over-rigs of the uniforms they were acquiring, as well as ritual daggers. As they entered the cage in uniform, Mkoll tossed a carbine to each man.

  ‘Carry them down, over the crook of the arm,’ he said. ‘Packsons don’t shoulder weapons.’

  Milo nodded.

  Holofurnace appeared.r />
  ‘No disguising me,’ he said.

  Mkoll knew there wouldn’t be. Most of what would follow was going to be improvisation, though Mkoll had talked them through a few basic plays.

  Holofurnace took the big Urdeshi sentry gun off its tripod. It looked like a regular autogun in his paws. He picked up the ammo box and made sure the belt between box and weapon was slack enough not to jam with any sudden movement.

  Mkoll opened the outer cage.

  ‘Someone will soon spot that the brig watch is unmanned,’ said Mazho. He was having difficulty getting his spectacles to sit comfortably inside the stolen helmet and its ghastly mouth-guard.

  ‘The plan isn’t perfect,’ Mkoll replied. ‘Sooner or later, someone is going to spot that not everything on board is the way it should be.’

  They moved through the ship, rising to deck seven and then six. Mkoll led the way, and every time he heard movement or spotted personnel approaching, he signed to the men behind him, and Holofurnace pulled himself into cover: a bulkhead, a through-deck well, or an inspection bay. As soon as the contact passed, Mkoll moved them on.

  At a junction on deck six they had to wait for almost fifteen minutes while work crews and servitor gangs moved machine parts through on trucks. Once it was clear, they hurried on, through a compartment airgate, and followed a shadowed walkway that ran along the side of a large processing bay. In the harshly lit space below them, they saw gun-crew servitors loading huge munition shells into the bare-metal clamps of conveyer trains. Tall figures in dappled golden gowns supervised the labour, shouting instructions through hand-held vox-horns. As each half-tonne shell loaded, the automated track rattled forwards and lowered them into deck shafts where they descended on hydraulic rotators into the autoloader magazines on the battery deck.

  Mkoll and the others watched for a moment from the shadow of the rail. The enemy warship still had fight in it.

  Mazho looked at Mkoll with one eyebrow raised. Mkoll shook his head. Due to their sheer size and power, shiftship munitions were remarkably stable and inert until selected for use. They could waste hours trying to force a shell to detonate, and even then there was no guarantee of a cascade in the magazines.