Anarch - Dan Abnett

by Warhammer 40K

‘Let’s go upstairs, Ban,’ he said.

  Daur looked up at him. He rose, and brushed off his coat.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Ban–’

  ‘I haven’t found her yet,’ he said. ‘I’m not leaving until I have.’

  ‘Ban, we can get teams down here, a proper search of all–’

  ‘No,’ Daur said fiercely. ‘I’ll look. Me.’

  He walked past Gaunt, and disappeared into the neighbouring chamber. Gaunt heard Daur calling her name.

  Haller cut loose with a long burst from the short-snout rigged around his body. The link-belt from the hopper at his feet clattered as it fed out. Harsh flowers of muzzle flash flickered around the cannon’s wide barrel, and spent brass fluttered into the air.

  The automata, limping and drooling black ooze, punctured in fifty places. Its casing disintegrated, flayed off it by the hail of shells, and it slumped, burning from the core, black fluid pouring from its ruptured innards.

  ‘Still one or two of them active,’ Haller remarked.

  ‘Stay sharp,’ Kolosim said. He looked at Bray. The sergeant was trying to force the hatch into Turbine Hall One. Caober was working with him.

  ‘Any luck?’ Kolosim called out.

  ‘Stand by,’ said Bray.

  ‘Are we gonna need more shit from that truck?’ Kolosim asked.

  ‘No, I’ve got it,’ said Bray, working intently. ‘It’s just locked from inside.’

  Criid and Zhukova clambered out of the open duct, weapons ready. Obel limped out behind them. Turbine Hall One was just as they’d left it. The huge vapour engines had slowed down to an impotent wheeze. The bodies of the dead – Ghost and Mechanicus alike – lay where they had fallen.

  ‘You were wrong,’ said Criid.

  ‘No,’ replied Zhukova with a firm shake of her head.

  ‘Then where is he?’

  Criid edged out across the floorspace, picking her way over bodies, watching for any sign of movement. There were plenty of hiding places. So much pipework, bulk machines, consoles. The hostile could have concealed himself. Criid wasn’t sure if he’d had a weapon, but if he did, he could be lining up a shot.

  She crossed to the hatch. It was still locked tight, internal setting, just the way Zhukova had sealed it before they had entered the ducts. No one could have exited and locked it again from the inside.

  ‘We went the wrong way,’ she said. She was dizzy from the fumes of the duct, dead on her feet from running and climbing. ‘He didn’t come this way.’

  ‘He did,’ Zhukova said.

  ‘Then where is he?’ Criid asked. ‘Fething where?’

  ‘Somewhere,’ said Zhukova. She prowled across the chamber. ‘He’s in here.’

  ‘I’ll tell you where he is,’ snapped Criid. ‘He’s two kilometres away heading out into the main thermal pipe. He’s home free. We went the wrong fething way.’

  ‘It was just a call, Tona,’ said Obel, sitting down and trying to collect his breath. He was wheezing badly. ‘We made a call. It was just the wrong one.’

  ‘It wasn’t,’ said Zhukova.

  ‘Then where is he?’ Criid snarled.

  ‘Hiding,’ said Zhukova. She started to slam open storage lockers along the west wall, aiming her weapon into each one as she threw the doors open. Just machine spares. Clusters of cables. Pipework.

  ‘They won,’ said Criid. ‘They fething won. They got the stones.’

  The main hatch let out a bang of auto-bolts and then slid open with a slow pneumatic hiss. Criid, Obel and Zhukova turned, weapons aimed.

  ‘Hold fire! Hold fire!’ Bray yelled as he saw them. The Ghosts around him lowered their aim, and fanned out into the hall.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Kolosim.

  Criid just shook her head, exhausted.

  ‘We met them coming out,’ said Obel. ‘Held them. Fething mess of a fire-fight. Unreal. They weren’t human and they kept coming. Just savage. Big purse. But one got past us.’

  ‘Just one,’ said Zhukova.

  ‘Fething bastard had a bag. Had the stones,’ said Obel. ‘We went after him, but he got out through the geotherm system.’

  ‘Oh feth,’ said Kolosim.

  ‘He didn’t go that way,’ Zhukova insisted. She turned back to her search. ‘He came this way.’

  ‘Then where?’ asked Criid.

  ‘I told you,’ said Zhukova. ‘He’s hiding. In here somewhere. There’s nowhere else. That’s the first time that hatch has opened. He’s in this chamber right now.’

  ‘Search! Top to bottom!’ Kolosim yelled. Squads of Ghosts fanned out, hunting in every alcove, checking the service walks behind machines. Some climbed up onto the inspection gantries. Others stood in a mob by the hatchway, gazing dismally at the dead.

  ‘No sign!’ Bray called. Other Ghosts sang out negatives.

  ‘See?’ said Criid.

  ‘I’ll try and patch through to Pasha,’ said Kolosim. ‘Tell her the word.’

  Zhukova was still searching. She ducked down to look behind the hall’s control desks. Trooper Etzen’s corpse was sprawled under the console.

  He’d been felled by one of the adept wardens’ grav pulses. The energy had crushed and mangled him.

  Zhukova frowned. The graviton force was powerful, but it would not have removed Etzen’s jacket and cape.

  She rose.

  ‘Shit,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ asked Obel.

  ‘Etzen. No cape. No–’

  Criid and Zhukova turned. The bodies of four Ghosts had been lying on the floor between the consoles and the hatch. Now there were only three.

  Criid and Zhukova sprang forwards, Obel staggering after them.

  ‘What the feth, Tona?’ Kolosim exclaimed as Criid pushed past him.

  ‘He’s just walking out!’ she yelled. She had no idea how a rail-thin, two-metre tall spectre could just walk out, but she knew it had. She and Zhukova pushed through the bewildered Ghosts standing in the doorway.

  ‘Move!’ Criid yelled at them. ‘Move!’

  One Ghost had detached himself from the back of the group. Draped in his camo cloak, he was limping away across the wide arcade outside, heading for the main exit. He was just walking past the Ghost squads stationed in the arcade area.

  It wasn’t her quarry. This man was short, small. He looked old and frail, the cape pulled tight around him.

  But Criid knew it wasn’t any Ghost she knew.

  ‘You!’ She yelled. ‘You! Halt!’

  The Ghost kept walking.

  ‘Last warning!’ Criid yelled.

  The man paused. He stopped limping, he glanced back at her over his shoulder.

  He was an old man, weathered and skinny. He looked like one of the scrawny ayatani priests that had been flooding into the city.

  He looked straight at her for a second, then turned and kept on going, limping on towards the door.

  In that one second, Criid had seen the neon glint in his pupils.

  She fired her stave. The grav pulse thumped out of the projector end. Ghosts scattered and recoiled as the seething mass of distorted air ­bubbled across the concourse.

  It hit the limping man in the back, crushing his spine and ribcage, and pulping his internal organs.

  Hacklaw fell. He died as he had entered the world, his blessed reworking hidden from view.

  Criid and Zhukova reached the corpse. Criid turned it over gingerly with her foot. Just a dead old man, wrapped in a Tanith combat cloak.

  Zhukova knelt down, and pulled the dirty musette bag out of his dead hands.

  She opened it, and gently lifted out one of the four eagle stones.

  ‘I take it back,’ Criid said. ‘You were right. Fether came this wa
y.’

  They ran through the rain into the drab rockrete compounds of the vapour mill beside Camp Xenos. Snapshots of las whined after them.

  ‘Keep moving,’ Rawne said.

  ‘There’s no fething cover, sir,’ said Laydly, glancing around. The trooper was right, and Rawne knew it. The Plade Parish vapour mill was a large site generating power for an entire district of the city. Open-air yards and serviceways ran between the rows of blank work-sheds and machine-shops. The main stacks and primary hall of the mill were ahead.

  It was an automated facility. There was no one around, and every door or hatch they tried was sealed. Wartime. Blackout protocols. The mill had been locked down.

  Overhead, masses of white steam oozed from the huge stacks and flowed like a glacier into the night’s black sky. Full dark. Rain was blowing in off the wastelands beyond the mill perimeter. It smelled of the fycelene lifted by the munition store explosion.

  ‘Just go,’ Mabbon said. ‘Leave me. I will face them. It will all end then.’

  Rawne wanted to slap him, but the pain in his gut was getting worse. He gritted his teeth to stop himself from making a sound.

  ‘Shut the feth up,’ Varl said to Mabbon. ‘Just shut up. We lost good people getting you out–’

  ‘I never asked for that–’ Mabbon replied.

  ‘I won’t let them be dead for no reason,’ said Varl. He sniffed, breathing fast. ‘I just won’t. I just fething won’t. So shut up about leaving you. Shut up.’

  Mabbon looked away.

  ‘How many left?’ asked Oysten.

  ‘Three,’ said Laydly. ‘Three, I think.’

  ‘What have we got that will put them down?’ asked Rawne, finally managing to speak without screaming.

  ‘Launcher, grenades,’ said Varl, brandishing Bellevyl’s weapon.

  ‘Maybe this?’ said Brostin, indicating the big autogun he’d taken off Oken. ‘AP rounds. Not much ammo though.’

  ‘Hard rounds are better than energy weapons,’ said Mabbon.

  ‘I’ll take anything at this point,’ said Rawne.

  Two las bolts shrieked around a blockhouse nearby.

  Rawne bundled them forward. Varl ran with Mabbon, driving him on, the others following, covering the group’s six with weapons levelled.

  ‘What can we do that they won’t expect?’ Varl asked.

  ‘Turn,’ said Brostin. ‘Turn on them. Meet them.’

  ‘Feth off,’ said Oysten.

  ‘No, he’s right,’ said Laydly. They got in against the wall of a work-barn and he pointed at the sheds and service buildings around them. ‘Someone in there, by the steps. Another there. You see, by those tanks? You could get in under the pipework right there. They come through there, the yard, you’d have a killing ground. Rake ’em.’

  ‘No,’ said Rawne. ‘Suicide.’

  ‘Suicide Kings, sir,’ said Laydly.

  Rawne glowered at him.

  Oysten grabbed Rawne’s arm. ‘Sir!’

  The pull on his arm made Rawne grunt with pain.

  She looked at him.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes, Oysten.’

  ‘Sir, are you hit?’

  ‘No. What did you want?’

  She studied his face for a second, questioning, then turned and pointed. About half a kilometre away, on the other side of the mill compound, there was a small light. Oysten handed Rawne the scope, and he took a look.

  ‘Night watchman’s station,’ he said. It made sense. The mill would leave a supervisor on site overnight, even in raid conditions.

  ‘In case something goes wrong?’ Oysten said. ‘A fault in the mill? Then what would he do?’

  Rawne glanced at her.

  ‘Call it in,’ he said. ‘Call in for service support.’

  She nodded. ‘He’ll have a vox, that one,’ she said.

  ‘We’d… we’d need the Militarum code channels,’ said Rawne.

  ‘I know them by heart, sir,’ said Oysten. ‘Learn them off pat every morning.’

  Rawne took her by the face with both hands and smacked a kiss on her brow.

  ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Go fast as feth. Think you can make it?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Call in the fething cavalry, Oysten,’ he said. ‘We’ll dig in and slow these bastards down.’

  She nodded, then surprised him by throwing a formal salute.

  ‘It’s been an honour, sir,’ she said.

  ‘It will be again, you silly bastard. Run!’

  She took off into the darkness.

  ‘Right,’ said Rawne. ‘Let’s slow these fethers down.’ He looked back at the yard.

  ‘All right,’ he said. He was having trouble breathing.

  ‘You all right? Eli?’ Varl asked.

  ‘Fething fantastic,’ Rawne replied. ‘Varl? Keep going. Keep moving Mabbon that way. Just stay with him. Keep him alive.’

  He looked at Laydly and Brostin.

  ‘Let’s fething do this,’ he said. ‘Just like Laydly set it out.’

  ‘Only two decent firing positions,’ said Brostin.

  ‘I can get in there,’ said Rawne, pointing. ‘Down by that vent.’

  ‘That’s shit-all cover, sir,’ said Brostin. ‘Go with Varl. Two of you are better than one. Keep that fether safe, all right?’

  ‘I think I’m in charge here,’ said Rawne.

  ‘I think we play to our strengths,’ said Laydly. ‘Suicide Kings. Picture cards are high, and you keep your kings back in case you need them late in the game.’

  ‘I should never have taught you to play,’ said Rawne.

  ‘I should never have joined the Imperial Guard,’ replied Laydly.

  ‘We had a choice?’ asked Brostin.

  Rawne looked at them both.

  ‘Live forever,’ he said.

  They nodded. Brostin lumbered away to the steps of the service shed. Laydly sprinted low across to the heavy feeder tanks. They vanished into the deep shadows, just ghosts, then gone.

  Rawne stood for a moment, then turned and hurried after Varl and Mabbon. He was limping. Every step was a jolt of pain.

  Hadrel sniffed the rain. He looked at the others. Sekran. Jaghar. Just the three of them. More than enough.

  ‘They’re close,’ he said. They’d stripped the resin from their snouts so their acute senses were as sharp as possible.

  Jaghar nodded. ‘I smell blood, sirdar.’

  ‘At least one is wounded,’ Sekran agreed.

  Hadrel eyed them. The fight had been fierce. He and Sekran were intact apart from some las burns. Jaghar had been hurt in the blast. Swollen crusts of mucus covered part of his face, throat and shoulder.

  ‘We’re low on munitions,’ Hadrel said. ‘They have run us quite a game. So conserve. The pheguth is the one that counts. Bite out his throat if you have to.’

  ‘Kha, magir,’ they responded.

  ‘He dies,’ said Hadrel.

  ‘He dies,’ they echoed.

  Hadrel gestured, and they moved forwards.

  ‘He will regret the day he left us,’ he said.

  Nade Oysten ran through the darkness, following shadows, darting between blank anonymous sheds and silent service huts.

  The mill compound was larger than it had seemed. The night watch post still looked a million kilometres away, and every shadow made her jump. She kept expecting one of those things, those Qimurah, to loom up, to spring out of the darkness.

  She had her weapon ready, her cut-down riot gun and its bag of breaching shells. Let’s see how they like that, she thought. Let’s see how they like a face-full of wound titanium shot-wire.

  Oysten touched her face where Rawne had seized her with both hands to kiss her. There was blood on her fingers.

  S
he’d known. Just the way he had been moving, holding himself. Always a lying bastard. That look he’d shot her.

  Say nothing.

  She turned towards the distant light and started running as fast as she could.

  There was no sound except the hiss and spatter of the rain. Laydly had his weapon up, covering the middle of the yard. They had to come through here. He had switched to full auto, last cell locked in the receiver.

  He couldn’t see Brostin, but he could see the steps of the service shed. Good bit of shadow. Nice angle for that big autogun. Brostin would be the hitter on this one. That thing, at short range, with those armour-piercing shells Okel had prized, would make a hole in anything.

  A waiting game now. Patience. Waiting for the deal. Waiting for the cards to land. Those things moved as quietly as any Ghost, but there was an open killbox waiting.

  Laydly took aim, nice and loose, ready for the snap.

  Sekran’s claws closed around his throat. The Qimurah hoisted him off the ground. Laydly tried to scream, but the vicing grip had crushed his throat. Sekran kept squeezing until he’d wrung and snapped the human’s neck. As he died, Laydly squeezed the trigger. Full auto, aimed at nothing, sprayed out of the swinging gun, tearing into the rockcrete ground of the yard, pinging off the tanks, stitching up the wall.

  Brostin saw the wild burst, saw two figures strobe-lit by the muzzle flash. One lifting the other by the throat.

  He yelled Laydly’s name, then opened fire. The autogun’s big rounds smacked into the feeder tanks. The Qimurah tossed Laydly’s body aside and ran at Brostin, bringing up his lasrifle to fire.

  ‘Yeah, you fething come at me,’ Brostin snarled.

  He put the first armour piercing hard round through Sekran’s face, the second and third through his torso. By then, there was very little left of him above the sternum or between the shoulders. The Qimurah folded and collapsed in the middle of the open yard.

  Brostin switched around, looking for the others. He saw movement and banged off two more shots.

  On the roof of the machine shop opposite, Hadrel noted the muzzle flashes. He took the grenade out of his jacket pocket and weighed it in his hand. They’d picked over the bodies of the Imperial dead, and found a few useful items.

  He threw it.

  Brostin heard it strike the gutter above him. He knew the sound of an anti-personnel bomb whacking against metal. He threw himself forward.