First and Only

by Dan Abnett

  Corbec hadn't mentioned that he'd only selected Larkin because of his fine stealth abilities, nor had he made clear Gaunt's real reason for the raid: distraction, misdirection – and,

  like the Jantine, to promote the notion that was really happening aboard the Absalom was a mindless soldier's feud.

  Now, checking the long gun, Larkin seemed to relax. His only eloquence was with a firearm. If he was going to break ship-law, then best do it full-measure, with a gun in his hands. And they all knew he was the best shot in the regiment.

  They edged on into the Jantine barrack area. From down one long cross-hallway came the sounds of singing and carousing, from another, the dash of shock-poles in a training vault.

  'How far do we go with this?' Mkoll whispered.

  Corbec shrugged. They killed three, wounded two. We should match that at least.'

  He also had an urge to discover Rawne's fate, and rescue him if they could. But he suspected the major was already long dead.

  Mkoll, the commander of the scout platoon, was the best stealther they had. With Baru at his side, the pair melted into the hall shadows and swept ahead.

  The other three waited. There seemed to be something sporadic and ill-at-ease in the distant rhythm of the ship's engines as they vibrated the deck. I hope we're not running into some fething Warp-madness, Corbec mused, then lightened up as he realised that it may be Gaunt's work. He'd said he was going to distract and upset the captain.

  Baru came back to them. 'We've hit lucky, really lucky,' he hissed. 'You'd better see.'

  Mkoll was waiting in cover in an archway around the next bend. Ahead was a lighted hatchway.

  'Infirmary,' he whispered. 'I went up close to the door. They've got Rawne in there.'

  'How many Jantine?'

  Two troopers, an officer – a colonel – and someone else. Robed. I don't like the look of him at all…'

  A scream suddenly cut the air, sobbing down into a whimper. The five Ghosts stiffened. It had been Rawne's voice.

  SIXTEEN

  The Navy trooper kicked Caffran's fallen body hard and then swung his shotgun round to finish him. Weapon violation sirens were sounding shrilly in the close air of the Munitorium store. The trooper pumped the loader-grip and then was smashed sideways into the packing cartons to his left by a massive fist.

  Bragg lifted the crumpled form of the dazed trooper and threw him ten metres down the vault-way. He landed hard, broken.

  'Brinny! Brinny boy!' Bragg called anxiously over the siren. Milo raised himself up from under the artificer. The shot had exploded the vista-plate, just missing him. 'I'm okay,' he said.

  Bragg got the dazed Caffran to his feet as Brin slid the tile from the artificer slot.

  'Go!' he said, 'Go!'

  In under a minute, they had rejoined Dorden, helping him to push his laden trolley back out of the vault. By then, Munitorium officials and navy troopers wejre rushing in through the cage.

  Dorden was a master of nerve. 'Thank Feth you're here!' he bellowed, his voice cracking. 'There are Jantine in there, madmen! They attacked us! Your man engaged them, but I think they got him. Quickly! Quickly now!'

  Most of the detail moved past at a run, racking weapons. One stayed, eyeing the Ghost party cautiously.

  'You'll have to wait. We're going to check this.'

  Dorden strode forward, steely-calm now and held up his data-slate to show the man.

  'Does this mean anything to you? A direct authorisation from your captain? I've got a man dying back in my infirmary! I need these supplies! Do you want a death on your hands, because by Feth you're—'

  The trooper waved them on, and hurried after his comrades.

  'I thought this place was meant to be secure,' Dorden spat at the Munitorium official as they pushed past him towards the exit.

  They slammed the cart into a lift and slumped back against the walls as it began to rise.

  'Did you get it?' Dorden asked, after a few deep breaths.

  Milo nodded. Think so.'

  Caffran looked at the elderly doctor with a wide-eyed grin. ''There are Jantine in there, madmen! They attacked us! Your man engaged them, but I think they got him. Quickly!' ' What the feth was that all about?'

  'Inspired, I'd say,' Bragg said.

  'Back home, I was a doctor… and also secretary of the County Pryze Citizens' Players. My Prince Teygoth was highly regarded.'

  Their relieved laughter began to fill the lift.

  SEVENTEEN

  Corbec's revenge squad was about to move when the deck vox-casters started to relay the scream of a weapons violation alert. The dull choral wails echoed down the hallway and ''Alert'' runes began to blink above all of the archways.

  The colonel pulled his men into cover as figures strode out of the infirmary, looking around. Squads of Jantine guards came up from both sides, milling around as vox-checks tried to ascertain the nature of the incident.

  Corbec saw Flense and Brochuss, the Jantine senior officers, and another man, a hugely tall and grotesque figure in shimmering, smoke-like robes who filled him with dread.

  'Weapons discharge on the Munitorium deck!' a Jantine trooper with a vox-caster on his back reported. 'The Navy details are closing to contain it… Sir, the channels are alive with cross-reports. They're blaming it on the Jantine! They say we conducted a feud strike on Tanith-scum in the supply vaults!'

  Flense cursed. 'Gaunt! The devil's trying to match our game!' He turned to his men. 'Brochuss! Secure the deck! Security detail with me!'

  'I'll stay and finish my work,' the robed figure said in a deep, liquid tone that quite chilled Corbec. As the various menВ moved off to comply with orders, the robed figure stopped Flense with a hand to his shoulder. Or rather, what seemed more like a long-fingered claw rather than a hand, Corbec noticed with a shudder.

  'This isn't good, Flense,' the figure breathed at the suddenly trembling colonel. 'Use violence against a soldier like Gaunt and you can be assured he will use it back. And you seem to have underestimated his political abilities. I fear he has outplayed you. And if he has, you should fear for yourself Flense shook himself free and hurried away. 'I'll deal with it!' he snarled defensively over his shoulder. The robed figure watched him leave and then withdrew into the infirmary.

  'What do we do?' Varl hissed. 'Tell me we go back now,' Larkin whispered urgently. Another scream issued from the chamber beyond. 'What do you think?' Corbec asked.

  EIGHTEEN

  Sirens wailed in the normally tranquil strategium. Grasticus shifted in his cot-throne, wanding screens to him and cursing at the information he was reading.

  Gaunt and Zoren exchanged glances. I hope this confusion is the confusion we planned, Gaunt thought.

  Grasticus rose up on his elbows and bawled at the quaking Lekulanzi. 'Weapons fire on the Munitorium deck! My data says it's Jantine feuders!'

  'Are any of mine hurt?' Gaunt asked, pushing forward, urgent. 'I told you the Jantine were out for blood—'

  'Shut up, commissar,' the captain said with a suddenly sour look. His day had been disrupted enough. 'The reports are unconfirmed. Get down there and see to it, warrant officer!'

  Lekulanzi scurried out of the chamber. Grasticus turned back to the two Imperial Guard colonels.

  This matter needs my undivided attention. I will summon you when we can speak further.'

  Zoren and Gaunt nodded and backed out of the strategium smartly. Side by side they crossed the nave of the bridge, through the hubbub of bridge crew, and entered the lifts.

  'Is it working?' Zoren asked as the doors closed and the choral chime sang out.

  'Pray by the Throne that it is,' Gaunt said.

  NINETEEN

  They took the infirmary in a text-book move.

  The room was wide, long and low. The robed figure was bent over Rawne, who was strapped, screaming, to a gurney. A pair of Jantine troopers stood guard at the door. Corbec came in between them, ignoring them both as he dived into
a roll, his shotgun raised up to fire. The robed figure turned, as if sensing the sudden intrusion. The shot-gun blast blew him backwards into a stack of wheezing resuscitrex units.

  The guards began to turn when Mkoll and Baru launched in on Corbec's heels and knifed them both. Corbec rolled up onto his feet, slung his shotgun by the strap and grabbed Rawne.

  'Sacred Feth…' he murmured, as he saw the head wound, and the insidious pattern of scalpel cuts across the major's face, neck and stripped body. Rawne was slipping in and out of consciousness.

  'Come on, Rawne, come on!' Corbec snapped, hauling the major up over his shoulder.

  'We have to move now!' Mkoll bellowed, as secondary weapons violation sirens began to shrill. Corbec threw the shotgun over to him.

  'Take point! We shoot our way out if we have to!'

  'Colonel!' Baru yelled. Weighed down by Rawne, Corbec couldn't turn in time. The robed figure was clawing its way back onto its feet behind him. Its hood was thrown back, and they gasped to see the equine extension and bared teeth of the head. Fury boiled in the eyes of the man-monster, and violet-dark energy crackled around him.

  Corbec felt the room temperature drop. Fething magic, was all he had time to think – before a shot took the man-monster's throat clean away.

  Larkin stood in the doorway, the old rifle raised in his hands.

  'Now we're leaving, right?' he said.

  TWENTY

  Gaunt took the tile Milo held out for him. Then he shut the door of his quarters on the faces of the men crowded outside. Inside, Corbec, Zoren and Milo watched him carefully.

  'That had better be worth all that damn effort,' Corbec said eventually, voicing what they all thought.

  Gaunt nodded. The gamble had been immense. But for the Jantine's bloodthirsty and brutal methods of pursuing their intrigue, they would never have got this far. The ship was still full of commotion. Adeptus Mechanicus security details clogged every corridor, conducting barrack searches. Rumour, accusation and threat rebounded from counter rumour, counter accusation and promise.

  Gaunt knew his hands weren't spotless in this, and he would make no attempt to hide that his men fought back against the Jantine in a feud. There would be reprimands, punishment details, rounds of questioning that would lead to nothing conclusive. But, like him, the Jantine would not take the matter beyond a simple regimental feud. And only he and those secret elements pitched against him would know precisely what had been at stake.

  He slotted the tile into his artificer, and then set the crystal in the read-slot. He touched a few keys.

  There was a pause.

  'It isn't working,' Zoren began.

  It wasn't. As far as Gaunt could tell, Milo had indeed downloaded the latest clearance ciphers via the Munitorium artificer, but still they would not open the crystal. In fact, he couldn't even open the ciphers and set them to work.

  Gaunt cursed.

  'What about the ring?' Milo asked.

  Gaunt paused, then fished Dercius's ring from his pocket. He fitted that into the read-slot beside the one that held the crystal and activated it.

  Old and too out of date to open the dedicated ciphers of the crystal, the ring was nevertheless standardised in its cryptography enough to authorise use of the downloaded codes. The vista-plate scrolled nonsense for a moment, as runic engram languages translated each other and overlaid data, transcribing and interpreting, rereading and re-setting. The crystal opened, spilling its contents up in a hololithic display which projected up off the vista-plate.

  'Oh Feth… what's this mean?' Corbec murmured, instantly overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he saw.

  Milo and Gaunt were silent, as they read on for detail.

  'Schematics,' Zoren said simply, an awed note in his voice. Gaunt nodded. 'By the Golden Throne, I don't pretend to understand much of this, but from what I do… now I see why they were so keen to get it.'

  Milo pointed to a side bar of the display. 'A chart. A location. Where is that?'

  Gaunt looked and nodded again, slowly. Things now made sense. Like why Fereyd had chosen him to be the bearer of the crystal. Things had just become a great deal harder than even he had feared.

  'Menazoid Epsilon,' he breathed.

  A MEMORY

  KHEDD 1173, SIXTEEN YEARS EARLIER

  The Kheddite had not expected them to move in winter, but the High Lords of Terra's Imperial Guard, whose forces dwelt in seasonless ship-holds plying the ever-cold of space, made no such distinction between campaigning months and resting months. They burned two dan-towns at the mouth of the River Heort, where the deep fjord inlets opened to the icy sea and the archipelago, and then moved into the glacial uplands to prosecute the nomads who had spent the summer harrying the main Imperial outposts with guerrilla strikes.

  Up here, the air was clear like glass, and the sky was a deep, burnished turquoise. Their column of Chimera troop transports, ski-nosed half-traks commandeered locally, Hellhounds and Leman Russ tanks with big bulldozer blades, made fast going over the sculptural ice desert, snorting exhaust smoke and ice-spumes in their wake. The khaki body-camouflage from their last campaign in the dust-thick heatlands of Providence Lenticula had been painted over with leopard-pelt speckles of grey and blue on white. Only the silver Imperial Eagles and the purple insignia of the Jantine Patricians remained on the flanks of the rushing, bouncing, roaring vehicles.

  The Sentinel scouts, stalking as swift outriders to the main advance, had located a nomad heluka three kilometres away over a startlingly vivid glacier of green ice. General Aldo Dercius swung the column to a stop and sat on the turret top of his command tank, pulling off his fur mittens so he could sort through the sheaf of flimsy vista-prints the sentinels had brought back.

  The heluka seemed of normal pattern – a stockade of stripped fir-stems surrounding eighteen bulbous habitat tents of tanned mahish hide supported on umbrella domes of the animals' treated rib-bones. There was a corral adjacent to the stockade, holding at least sixty anahig, the noxious, hunchbacked, flightless bird-mounts that the Kheddite favoured. Damn things – ungainly and comical in appearance, but the biped steeds could run faster than an unladen Chimera across loose snow, turn much faster, and the scales under their oily, matted down-fur could shrug off las-fire while their toothed beaks sliced a man in two like toffee.

  Dercius slid his flare goggles up for a better look at the vista-prints, and winced at the glare of the open snow. Down on the prow of the Leman Russ, his crew were taking time to stretch their limbs and relax. A stove boiled water for treacly caffeine and Dercius's two adjutant/bodyguards were applying mahish fat to their snow-burned cheeks and noses out of small, round tins they had bartered from the local population. Dercius smiled to himself at this little thing. His Patricians had a reputation for aristo snobbery, but they were resourceful men – and certainly not too proud to follow the local wisdom and smear their faces with cetacean blubber to block the unforgiving winter suns.

  His face caked in the pungent white grease, Adjutant Brochuss slid his tin away in the pocket of his fur-trimmed, purple-and-chrome Patrician battledress and took a wire-handled can of caffeine up to the turret.

  Dercius accepted it gratefully. Brochuss, a young and powerfully built trooper, nodded down at the prints spread out on the turret canopy.

  'A target? Or just another collection of thlak hunters?'

  'I'm trying to decide,' Dercius said.

  Since they had left the mouth of the Heort eight days before, they had made one early, lucky strike at a camp of nomad guerrilla Kheddite, and then wasted four afternoons assaulting helukas that had sheltered nothing more than herders and hunters in ragged family groups. Dercius was eager for another success. The Imperial Guard had strength, technology and firepower in their corner, but the nomad rebels had patriotic determination, a fanatical mindset and the harsh environment in theirs.

  Dercius knew that many campaigns had faltered when the initially victorious forces had driven th
e natives back onto the advantage of inhospitable home turf. The last thing he wanted was a war of attrition that locked him here in a police action against elusive guerrillas for years. The Kheddite knew and used this beautiful, cruel environment well, and Dercius knew they could be hunting them for months, all the while suffering a slow erosion of strength to lightning strikes by the fast-moving foe. If they only had a base, a static HQ, a city that could be assaulted. But the Kheddite culture out here was fierce and nomadic. This was their realm, and they would be masters of it until he could catch them.

  Still, he reassured himself that Warmaster Slaydo had promised him three more Guard units to help his lantine Fourth and Eleventh in their hunt. Just a day or two more…

  He looked back at the prints, and saw something. 'This is promising,' he told Brochuss, sipping his caffeine. 'It's a large settlement. Large by comparison with the herder/hunter helukas we've seen. Sixty plus animals. Those anahig are big; they look like war-mounts to me.'

  'Veritable destrier!' Brochuss laughed, referring to the beautiful, sixteen-hand beasts traditionally bred in the stud-farms of the baronies back on Jant Normanidus Prime.

  Dercius enjoyed the joke. It was the sort of quip his old major, Gaunt, would have made; a pressure-release for the slow-building tension bubble of a difficult campaign. He rubbed the memory away. That was done, left behind on Kentaur.

  'Look here,' he said, tapping a particular print. Brochuss leaned closer.

  'What does that look like to you?' Dercius asked.

  'The main habitat tent? Where your finger is? I don't know – a smoke flue? An airspace?'

  'Maybe,' Dercius said and lifted the print so that his adjutant could get a closer look. 'There's certainly smoke issuing from it but we all know how easy smoke is to make. That wink of light… there.'