[Imperial Guard 06] - Gunheads

by Steve Parker - (ebook by Undead)

  Destroying the brain will put most targets down for good!

  The ork in the poster was a damned sight smaller than any of the ones Wulfe had met, but there was no denying the artist’s talent. His or her work graced a number of other posters, too. Most were concerned with showing proper reverence to the Emperor and the authority of his agents, from the political to the theological. Others yet bore the seal of the Adeptus Mechanicus and offered concise reminders on the proper care and operation of standard-issue field equipment.

  It wasn’t that the troops needed reminding — their drill sergeants back on Cadia had seen to that with an abundance of cruel enthusiasm — but leaving the walls of an Imperial base covered in ork iconography, no matter how short the intended stay, was tantamount to heresy under Imperial Law.

  The mess hall was busy. The air was filled with the constant hum of conversation, and no one paid him much attention. Wulfe soon spotted van Droi at a table on the far left. The lieutenant was sitting with a number of officers from the other companies of the 81st Armoured Regiment. As Wulfe walked over to present himself, he noted how damned tired his company commander was looking. The others didn’t look much better. Golgotha hadn’t been particularly kind to any of them.

  “Sergeant Wulfe reporting as ordered, sir,” he said, saluting stiffly. The men seated around the table looked up.

  “At ease, Wulfe,” said van Droi around a mouthful of food. Wulfe glanced at the lieutenant’s plate automatically and saw a dark, thick slice of meal-brick. It looked hard and cold. So, he thought, the food isn’t any better. They’re on the same rations as us grunts.

  He took no satisfaction in the knowledge. He wouldn’t have grudged the lieutenant a better standard of fare.

  “Take a seat, Oskar,” said van Droi, indicating an empty chair at the corner of the table.

  Wulfe hesitated, looking at the other officers. Most were busy chewing or chatting to their neighbours. A few smiled at him or nodded. Wulfe recognised Captain Immrich among them, Colonel Vinnemann’s right-hand man, tipped to replace him if the old tiger ever got bored of his quest for vengeance.

  “I wouldn’t want to impose on the captain and his companions, sir.”

  “None of that, sergeant,” laughed Captain Immrich. “Sit down at once. Let’s not make it an order. You’ll find none of that classist crap at my table. Isn’t that right, gentlemen?”

  The other officers agreed, though some less readily than others. Wulfe bowed a little to the captain, and then sat down, stiff as a board. Immrich noted it, grinned and shook his head. “We’ve met before, sergeant,” he said, “aboard the Hand of Radiance. You remember?”

  “I do, sir.”

  “Just after that blasted mercy run we sent you on.” He turned to the other officers and added, “The Kurdheim affair,” before turning back to Wulfe. “Bad business that. You should never have been sent back out there with so little time left.”

  Damned right we shouldn’t, thought Wulfe angrily, remembering the men who had given their lives that day. Not that it was Immrich’s fault.

  The captain seemed to read Wulfe’s mind. Tremendous pressure from up top on that one. The damned Officio Strategos were adamant about it. Colonel Vinnemann objected from the start, but it was never going to count for much. Did those posthumous decorations ever come through for the other two? Medallion Crimson, second class, wasn’t it?”

  This question was directed, not at Wulfe, but at van Droi, who forced down a dry mouthful of meal-brick before answering.

  “Sergeants Kohl and Strieber,” he said, sorrow stealing across his face. “No medals. I must’ve pushed for them half a dozen times. Damned OS classified the whole operation Zenith Eyes Only. Officially speaking, it never even happened. All the normal channels are closed.”

  Immrich’s smile had vanished.

  “Damned Strategos have a lot to answer for,” he hissed. “How many Imperial heroes have died unsung on account of those pen-pushing bastards, I wonder. I’m sure Sergeant Wulfe here deserves a medal for what he went through.”

  “The captain is too kind,” Wulfe said absently. He was thinking, not of medals, but of the ghostly vision he had seen that day.

  What I went through, he thought? You don’t know the half of it.

  Another officer piped up, eager to guide the conversation in a slightly different direction.

  “Decorations aplenty,” he said, “when our General deViers gets his name in the history books, though, what?”

  It was Hal Keissler, a sturdy, heavy-browed lieutenant with deep-set eyes. He was commander of the regiment’s 2nd Company, Colonel Vinnemann’s number three man, and something of an occasional rival to Immrich. Wulfe wasn’t overly fond of him — the man’s love of extreme physical discipline bordered on sadism — but he knew him for a solid battlefield commander. The ribbons and tin on his chest had been earned fair and square, just like van Droi’s.

  Immrich laughed, changing his mood in short order. “We all know how much you and your boys love a bit of decoration, Hal. Tell you what, if you leave now, you could have The Fortress of Arrogance back here before breakfast. They might even give you a damned governorship for that.”

  The others laughed, and Wulfe joined in politely, though not loud enough to draw attention to himself. In his head, he was thinking, frak your bits of tin. If Strieber and Kohl couldn’t get theirs, why in the blasted Eye should anyone else? They served the Golden Throne with honour and courage. They gave their lives.

  As the officers embarked on a round of good-natured jibes, Wulfe leaned across to van Droi and said pointedly, “If you don’t mind, sir… What was it you wanted to see me about?”

  Van Droi had been chuckling at the banter of the other men. When he looked across at Wulfe, however, the humour quickly bled away from his face.

  “Markus is sick, Oskar.”

  “Rhaimes?” asked Wulfe, taken aback. His fellow sergeant had been goggled and masked last time they had talked, but he had seemed healthy enough.

  “He’s in a medicae bed right now. Held out as long as he could. He wanted to see his crew to safety, at the very least. It all caught up with him just as we came in.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “It’s the fines, mostly,” said van Droi. He sipped from his glass of water, and then placed it heavily on the table. “He’s having a bad reaction to the build-up in his body. Allergic, apparently. He can’t command anymore, not in his current state.”

  “How long will he be out? Days? Weeks?”

  Van Droi locked eyes with Wulfe. “I won’t sugar-coat it, Oskar. We’re not talking about recovery. We’re talking about death. You saw what happened to those lads who got sick on our way across the desert. You heard Colonel Stromm’s medics. Even with the facilities here at Balkar, Markus will die unless he gets off this planet soon. And he’s not alone. The beds are full of sick troopers.” He pointed at the back of Wulfe’s hand. “More to come, too. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed the colour change.”

  Wulfe looked down at his fingers. The reddish tinge was undeniable.

  “I don’t get it, sir,” he said. “Golgotha was a Mechanicus world once. They must’ve had millions of workers here. How did they manage?”

  “If I get the chance to ask them, I’ll let you know, sergeant. Maybe the planet has changed since then. Perhaps the factory-settlements were sealed somehow. I think most of them were in the polar zones, anyway. It hardly matters now, does it?”

  Wulfe couldn’t miss the bitterness in van Droi’s voice. Rhaimes and the lieutenant had been good friends for longer than Wulfe had known either man.

  “I’m sorry to hear about Rhaimes, sir,” said Wulfe. “I’ll offer prayers to the Emperor that he pulls through. With luck and a blessing, we’ll find Yarrick’s tank quickly, and the sick will be lifted out in time. I should visit him.”

  “No, Oskar,” said van Droi. “He doesn’t want that. Respect his wishes.”

  Wulfe couldn’t fin
d anything to say to that.

  “General deViers is expected tomorrow,” continued van Droi. “He’s flying in. According to Major General Bergen, he’s keen not to waste any time. The major general has been in regular contact with him via a cable-based communications system that the tech-priests set up. Didn’t quite get the gist of it myself, but at least it seems to be more reliable than the bloody vox. Anyway, the general wants all forward elements to be ready for deployment on his arrival. Gives you about fourteen hours, Wulfe. How serious are the repairs you need?”

  “She just needs a new radiator, new fuel lines, new filters, and a bit of love from the cogboys, sir. She’ll be good to go after that. I’d say eight or nine hours, give or take.”

  “Good,” said van Droi, “but it’s not just the condition of your tank that concerns me right now.” He stared at Wulfe without blinking. “Listen, I’m sorry to do this to you, but I have to pull Corporal Holtz off your crew.”

  Wulfe felt like he had been slapped in the face. “Holtz? You must be bloody joking, sir! He’s only just mastered the main gun. You already stripped Viess out. Now you’re reassigning his replacement? What’s it about?”

  “War is what it’s about, sergeant,” replied van Droi, suddenly brisk. “With Markus out of the game, you’re my senior man. You had better understand what that means. The crew of Old Smashbones came in as new meat before the drop. Holtz has plenty of combat experience and he’s worked his way up from sponson-man. Plus he’s a hard bastard. They’ll need someone like that to get them through.”

  Damn it, thought Wulfe, if I thought he was ready for command…

  “Put me in charge of Rhaimes’ crate,” he told van Droi. “I’ve got more experience. I can deal with a rookie crew. Put Holtz in charge of mine. He’ll be much better off with men he already knows.”

  Van Droi shook his head. “I’ve thought about that,” he said, “but, to be frank, Wulfe, your crew is unorthodox, and I’m being kind with my wording here. With you at the helm, they’re working out all right, but with anyone else…”

  “Unorthodox?”

  “For starters, you’ve got a driver most troopers still believe is cursed. They still call him Lucky Metzger. It’s damned hard to erase a reputation for being the only survivor on crew after crew.”

  “That’s all behind him,” said Wulfe. “His luck hasn’t killed me yet, has it?”

  “I hope it stays that way. But then there’s Siegler.”

  “What about him?”

  “Come on, Oskar. He’s damaged goods. You know what he’s like. As hard as it’ll be for a new commander to get used to him, it’ll be twice as hard for him if you leave that crew. The only reason he still functions as a frontline loader is the strength he draws from your presence. I honestly think he’d lose it under someone else.”

  Wulfe was quiet while he thought about that. Since the accident that had damaged his brain, Siegler had clung to Wulfe like a lifeline, a rock in a turbulent ocean, one of the few things that remained familiar to the man after so much about his universe had changed. What would he be like without his sarge to watch out for him? Van Droi was right.

  “I promise you,” said the lieutenant, “you’re getting the best gunner we could find from the reserve squads, a lad from Muntz’s platoon that I’ve had marked out for a while. Good scores on the ranges and I reckon he’s got the right stuff. He only missed out on a frontline posting earlier because of misconduct. Nothing serious, you understand. Commissar Slayte has given him the lash a few times for brawling, but you weren’t exactly an angel yourself at his age. You’ll like him.”

  Wulfe was still angry over Holtz being swapped out, but he was in no position to argue.

  “This trooper got a name, then, sir?” he asked.

  Van Droi sat back. “Most of the troopers call him Beans. Heard of him?”

  “Beans?” repeated Wulfe suspiciously. “Why the hell do they call him that?”

  “I think I’ll leave you to discover the specifics yourself,” said van Droi with a grin. “It’ll give you something to talk about. You’ll find him waiting for you at C-barracks. He’s expecting you. You’ll need to break the news to Holtz, of course.”

  “That won’t be pleasant,” said Wulfe darkly.

  “For you? Or for him?” asked van Droi. “Trust me, Oskar. Holtz will light up like Skellas Plaza on Emperor’s Day. Think about it. If he does well, he could make sergeant by the end of this bloody fiasco.”

  Wulfe had never considered Holtz particularly ambitious, but most troopers aspired to having sergeant’s stripes sewn onto their sleeves. It was more to do with the perks than anything else. Holtz would certainly enjoy the increased alcohol and tabac rations… if he made the grade.

  Having finished with Wulfe for now, Lieutenant van Droi was on the verge of dismissing him when a commotion erupted at a table across the room. A short, silver-haired, red-faced man in a colonel’s uniform stood and slammed his palms down on the table’s surface. His chair crashed to the floor behind him. “I will not hold my damned tongue, Pruscht. You’re not my senior officer. It’s about time someone spoke his damned mind around here.”

  There were five other men seated at the table. Four of them looked desperate to be somewhere else. The fifth was Colonel Pruscht, commander of the 118th Cadian Lasgunners. He was a heavy-set, dark-eyed man with a neatly trimmed beard. Calmly and quietly, he stood and addressed his angry peer.

  “Calm down, von Holden,” he said, hands raised in placation. “You don’t want trouble. Think of your men. You don’t want them to see you like this, do you? Let’s put this one down to strong drink and forget about it. We can’t have you talking like—”

  “Like what?” exploded von Holden. “Like someone with a bloody brain?” He spun and cast his bleary gaze over men at the other tables. “Who among you has the gall to deny it?” he yelled. “Where’s your damned integrity? You all feel the same. I know you do. Armageddon is where we should be, fighting where it counts, where we can do some bloody good. Not out here on this backwater. Men dying of dust and bug-bites and Throne knows what else. And all for a bit of scrap metal no one gave a flying damn about until now. It’s been forty blasted years. DeViers should—”

  “Should what?” demanded a sharp, clear voice from the door of the mess.

  Wulfe turned his head and saw Major General Bergen standing in the doorway flanked by two commissars. His heart skipped a beat when he recognised one of them: Commissar Slayte.

  Crusher!

  Some men in the regiment boasted that they were afraid of nothing, but they stopped boasting, all of them, when they met the man known informally as Crusher. He was the commissar attached to Wulfe’s regiment, and to say he was unpopular was an understatement of titanic proportions.

  By the Eye, thought Wulfe, that colonel has dropped himself right in it. Open dissent in front of commissars? I don’t want to be around for this.

  “Please continue, colonel,” said Major General Bergen, striding into the room, removing his cap and overcoat. The electric lamplight glinted from the medals on his chest and the golden boards on his shoulders. The commissars stalked silently forward at his flanks, like a pair of sleek attack dogs just barely held in check. “I’ll be happy to pass on any recommendations you or anyone else has directly to the general for his consideration.”

  Von Holden, his face turning redder by the second, stuttered and looked desperately at Pruscht for support. Pruscht, though, seemed to know better. He sat back down in his chair and sipped from his glass.

  With Major General Bergen in the room, Wulfe felt extremely self-conscious. This was no place for a noncommissioned man, despite Captain Immrich’s earlier welcome. It certainly wasn’t right for a sergeant to see a decorated colonel like von Holden being dressed down.

  But the dressing down never actually came. To everyone’s surprise, Major General Bergen walked calmly over to von Holden, picked his chair up from the floor, and politely invited the colonel to sit ba
ck down. Speechless, perhaps taking this for the calm before the storm, von Holden did so, all the while gaping at the higher-ranking man.

  Wulfe glanced discreetly at Commissar Slayte while this was going on, but the man’s face was emotionless and his gaze was fixed straight ahead. If he had noticed Wulfe and van Droi, he didn’t let on. Perhaps he was waiting for a cue from the major general, some sign at which he would pounce on Colonel von Holden and drag him away. The sign didn’t come, and the only movement Crusher made was the flexing of his metal fingers back and forth into fists. Wulfe knew that the action was habitual. The man probably did it in his sleep.

  Van Droi turned his attention back to Wulfe and said, “Best get yourself away now, Oskar. Go about the business we discussed.”

  “Right, sir,” said Wulfe. “Be glad to.” As he rose, he offered a quiet farewell to the other men at the table, “Have a good evening, sirs.”

  A few, Captain Immrich among them, smiled and nodded back. Wulfe saluted, turned, and walked out of the door, relieved to be away from the officers’ mess and the tension inside it. He knew there were some good men in the upper ranks, but they made everything so bloody complicated sometimes, not like the grunts. You could speak your mind among the rank-and-file. There might be the odd punch-up afterwards, but you didn’t have to worry about bloodlines, family honour and all that career lark, and the bond of brotherhood shared between the men of the lower ranks was one of those things that made life in the Guard more bearable. Wulfe had always thought so, until Lenck had shown up.

  Wulfe was torn over that one. The bastard had saved his life, but he was the antithesis of everything Wulfe valued and respected. He was a boaster and a manipulator. Wulfe could almost smell the cruelty within him. Sooner or later, there would be a reckoning between them. It was inevitable.

  Wulfe turned his mind to the new gunner, Beans. Was he as good a shot as van Droi said? Would he fit in with Metzger and Siegler? The lieutenant had a point; they weren’t the most typical of tank crews.