[Imperial Guard 06] - Gunheads

by Steve Parker - (ebook by Undead)

  He walked towards C-barracks, muttering to himself.

  “Beans. I hope it doesn’t mean what I think it does.”

  Wulfe found Beans waiting for him outside C-barracks with his belongings already packed into a canvas bag. He was sitting on a concrete step, smoking a lho-stick, and examining the red dust that had gathered under his fingernails. Wulfe automatically assessed him as he drew closer. Judging by his smooth, open facial features, Beans was young, no older than twenty standard most probably. His fatigues hung loose on a skinny frame. He had rolled the sleeves of his red field-tunic up to reveal heavily tattooed forearms but, if any of the tats were hive-ganger symbols from his life back on Cadia, Wulfe didn’t recognise them. That didn’t mean much, of course. There were literally tens of thousands of gangs in the vast, crowded fortress-hives where the men of Exolon had been raised.

  “You’ll be Beans,” said Wulfe as he stopped in front of the trooper.

  “Are you Wulfe?” Beans’ voice was high and he spoke with the soft, drawling vowels of a Kasr Feros man.

  “I’m Sergeant Wulfe, and you can call me sergeant, or sarge. If you call me anything else, I’ll break your teeth.”

  Beans stood up, dropping his smoke at the side of the step and crushing it under a booted foot. He was a good head shorter than Wulfe and had to look up at an angle to meet his gaze. “All right, sergeant. Throne above. I didn’t mean any disrespect, did I? Don’t want to get off on the wrong foot. I’m nervous enough already, by Throne.”

  Wulfe nodded. At least the trooper was frank. “Why do they call you Beans?”

  “It’s my name, isn’t it? Mirkos Biehn. Beans. See?” Wulfe let the relief show on his face.

  “What?” said Beans. “Thought I was going to stink up the air in your turret? Nah, it’s nothing like that, sergeant. Then again, I can’t promise I’ll be forest fresh all the time. I’m only human.”

  “I’ll make sure the rest of the crew don’t shoot you for your first offence,” said Wulfe. “To be honest, it stinks so bad in there when we’re on manoeuvres that no one would notice. You’ll learn to breathe through your mouth pretty quickly.”

  Beans looked horrified and Wulfe couldn’t help but laugh.

  “As for being nervous, Beans, don’t be. My lot look out for each other. It’s the first rule. You’ll be seeing proper combat on my crew. Make no mistake about that. But the lieutenant tells me you’re a good shot, and he thinks you’ll fit in well.”

  Beans brightened up on hearing this, as Wulfe had intended. “The lieutenant said that?”

  “He hasn’t picked out a bad gunner for me yet. Both of my last two went on to command tanks of their own. That could be you in a few years if you do right by me. Now, if that’s your bag there, pick it up and follow. We’ll drop it off at A-barracks on the way.”

  Beans hefted his bag over his shoulder and fell into pace at Wulfe’s side.

  “On the way where, sarge?” he asked.

  “On the way to see some orks,” Wulfe answered.

  Quite a crowd had gathered around the cages by the time Wulfe and Beans arrived. Troopers were jostling each other to get closer to the front where a couple of lieutenants from the 303rd Cadian Fusiliers were trying to keep order, largely in vain. Wulfe couldn’t see Metzger, Siegler or Holtz among the crowd, so he and Beans hung back until two other sergeants arrived and began shouting at their men. “Playtime is over, ladies!”

  “Back to the barracks! Double-time it, you lot!”

  About twenty grumbling men pushed their way to the back of the mob and split off from it. With their sergeants leading them, they jogged off down dark, sand-filled streets. Now, with fresh gaps opening in the crowd, Wulfe and Beans pushed forward, using their elbows and shoulders to gain ground.

  What a lot of fuss, thought Wulfe, to see monsters I’ve had more than enough of, but he kept pushing all the same, moving as if on autopilot.

  A few rows from the front, he found himself standing next to Siegler and Holtz.

  “There you are,” he said. “Where’s Metzger?”

  “Gone for a walk,” Siegler answered. “Said this was bloody stupid.”

  Wulfe turned to Beans and said, “Which should tell you that Metzger is the smart one.”

  “I resent that,” said Siegler looking genuinely insulted.

  “Me, too,” protested Holtz.

  “Don’t kid yourselves,” Wulfe told them with a grin.

  “Who’s the kid?” Holtz asked, turning a scowl on Beans.

  “This is Beans,” said Wulfe. “He farts a lot.”

  “Hey!” protested Beans, but he caught a look in Wulfe’s eye and laughed.

  “Holtz,” said Wulfe, “you and I need to have a word. Come with me. Beans, stay here with Siegler.”

  “Right, sarge,” said Beans.

  Wulfe and Holtz broke from the group around the cages and moved off to stand at the side of an old storage building. Together, they leaned back against the pitted sandstone bricks. Holtz reached into his hip pocket, pulled out a smoke and placed it between his lips.

  Wulfe decided not to mince words. “You’re getting your own command, Piter. Effective immediately. Van Droi thought I should tell you myself.”

  The lho-stick fell from Holtz’s gaping jaw to the ground at his feet.

  “You’re pulling my leg!” he said.

  “I’m not.”

  “By the Eye,” gasped Holtz. “My own crate? You mean that Beans kid is taking over on the main gun?”

  “Got it in one,” said Wulfe. “The lieutenant rates him. He scored high in the standard tests. Apparently he’s a good shot. But that’s not the point. This isn’t about Beans. It’s about you.”

  Holtz barked out a laugh. “There’s a hell of a difference between being a good shot on the practice course and being a good shot in combat. What if he gets the jinks?”

  It was a legitimate concern. Wulfe had known other crews that had taken on a new man only to have him suffer the jinks. It was a nervous condition characterised by sever twitches and spasms, and it seemed to be brought on by the noise of the main gun or the impact of heavy enemy fire on the tank’s armour. Once a trooper contracted the jinks, he was as good as useless on the battlefield. It took some men years to recover. Others never did.

  “You’re not listening, Holtz. Forget about Beans. I’ll deal with him. He’ll be fine. We’re talking about you. We’re talking about commanding a tank.”

  “What’s to say?” said Holtz. “Show me a man in this regiment who doesn’t want his own crate!”

  Something in Holtz’s voice didn’t manage to convince Wulfe.

  “Come on, Piter,” he said. “Some men are happier taking orders than giving them out. I sometimes wish—”

  “Which crate?” asked Holtz, talking over him. “And why now?”

  “It’s Rhaimes’ tank, Old Smashbones. She’s a good, solid machine. Hell of a service record. Rhaimes is sick with the fines. It’s serious. Van Droi is treating this as permanent. Says you might make sergeant if you do your duty.”

  Holtz bent down, picked up the lho-stick at his feet, blew red dust off it, and popped it back between his lips.

  Talking around it, he said, “Rhaimes. Damn. I’d rather be replacing someone else. His crew aren’t gonna like this much. Don’t expect I’ll get a very warm welcome.”

  “They’re a young crew. New meat. They didn’t have much time with Rhaimes, so you should be all right. Besides, they need someone with plenty of combat experience and the stones to get them through whatever’s coming. If not you, then who?”

  Holtz had no answer for that. He was too busy processing it all.

  “Anyway,” said Wulfe. “Your new crew is in A-barracks, so you won’t need to move your stuff far. General deViers is supposed to arrive tomorrow. You won’t have much time to get to know them before we roll out, so you’d best start now.”

  Holtz nodded, unable to hide a degree of nerves. The side of his face that looked lik
e hashed grox barely moved anymore, and showed little emotion, but Wulfe had had enough practice in reading the other half to know that Holtz saw the announcement for the mixed bag it was.

  “Just remember,” Wulfe told him, “you’ve been through much more than they have. You’re in charge. Tank men live or die by the decisions of their commander.”

  “No pressure, then,” Holtz replied with literally half a grin. “Only joking, sarge. I appreciate your confidence. If it’s all the same to you, though, I’ll head to the motor pool first. Make a bit of a farewell to Last Rites II and introduce myself to the new girl.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Wulfe, clapping his friend on the shoulder. He returned Holtz’s brief salute, and then watched him walk off in the direction of the motor pool, wishing him all the luck in the galaxy. Command was hard on any man, but far harder on those new to it. The lives of the crew and the survival of each precious war machine were heavy burdens to bear. Sometimes, Wulfe envied the men under his command. He remembered the freedom that came with being on the bottom rung of the ladder, of having someone else make most of your decisions for you. It was a good place to be when you had good officers. Wulfe trusted van Droi that way, and knew that van Droi, in turn, trusted Colonel Vinnemann, but the chain of command went much higher than that. Major General Bergen had a good reputation, but was it justified? It was hard to tell. Officers at such a senior level were so distant.

  All Wulfe could say for sure was that command would be hard on Piter Holtz. At least in the early days. He would sink, or he would swim. It was as simple as that.

  Wulfe walked back over to the soldiers jostling around the cages, noting how the crowd had thinned further now that others had begun drifting away. It took much less effort to get to the front of the crowd where he found Siegler and Beans talking animatedly about the creatures in front of them.

  The ferocity of the imprisoned orks was impressive given their pitiful condition. The two monsters sat in their steel cages, legs reduced to tattered stumps, bellowing and spitting at the smaller, weaker humans that surrounded them. Beans was stepping in towards the cages to get a closer look when Wulfe grabbed him by the back of the collar and said, “No you don’t, trooper. This is close enough.”

  The new gunner looked disappointed and perhaps a little angry, but he said nothing, merely stepping back into line with all the other men. From the same distance, Wulfe eyed the greenskins coldly. One was larger than the other, though not by much. Its skin was a darker brown, too. Both had the nightmare features that had been burned into Wulfe’s brain since his first encounter with their kind: tiny nose, deeply-sunken red eyes, wide jaws rimmed with razor-sharp fangs. Their hides looked as hard and coarse as an adult carnotaur’s, covered in red dust, lined with cracks. On their massive shoulders, great patches of dead skin were peeling away. They looked as dry as the desert.

  So Golgotha is not being particularly kind to them either, Wulfe thought, though I notice the blasted ticks don’t bother them. I wonder why.

  Wulfe’s first deployment as a tanker had been as part of the operation to defend Phaegos II against ork incursions from the Ghoul Stars. That was more than twenty years ago, a different time, a different segmentum, and here he was still fighting the same foe, still losing more friends to them each time they clashed. It sometimes seemed as if all mankind’s efforts, all the blood spilled, all the battles won, all of it might count for nothing at all. In galactic terms, had anything really changed? Had anything he had done ever made a blind bit of difference?

  Dangerous thoughts, he cautioned himself. If every Guardsman doubted the necessity of his actions, the Imperium would crumble and die. Of course he had made a difference. He had killed thousands of mankind’s foes in his time. If every man in the Guard accounted for the same number, the green tide would surely be overcome someday.

  Wulfe wanted to believe that, he really did, but it was a struggle. For every victory in the history books, how many losses went unpublicised?

  As he studied the darker of the two orks, his eyes locked with the creature’s. Immediately perceiving a challenge, it began roaring at him and hammering its head against the bars of its cage. It grunted and hissed and bellowed at him in what Wulfe supposed was the orkish language. Commissar Yarrick, the stories said, could understand this bestial gibberish, but Wulfe had never met anyone else who could. No one ever admitted as much, anyway. It was a horrible sound, something wild canids might make as they guzzled meat from a fresh kill, but there was definitely a syntax in there, however unrefined. Wulfe instinctively knew that he was hearing language.

  With the force of its violent motions, the dark-skinned ork’s wounds had begun to bleed again, but the flow was slow. The blood that oozed out was thick and sticky. Wulfe thought he understood why. It was the low availability of water here. It changed the blood of those that lived in the desert, making it clot far more quickly: a water-conservation mechanism, a survival mechanism, and that wasn’t the only gift the hard desert life had given the greenskins. These two orks were distinctly different from those he had encountered before. They were leaner, almost wiry by greenskin standards, though still far larger and more powerful-looking than any human. Somehow, they seemed faster and all the more deadly because of it.

  He was about to turn away, to lead Siegler and Beans off at last, when someone began shouting from the rear of the crowd.

  “Make way! Make way at once, you damned fools.”

  There was no mistaking the cold, crisp voice. Wulfe knew that it was Crusher even before he saw the stiff peak of the man’s black cap moving towards him over the heads of the others.

  Crusher violently thrust his way to the front row.

  “Commissar Slayte,” said Wulfe with a nod. “Come to view the exhibits?”

  “Hardly, sergeant,” hissed the commissar, clocking Wulfe’s stripes. “I’m here to put a bloody stop to this nonsense.”

  The commissar swept back the folds of his long black coat and drew a bolt pistol from the holster at his thigh. The motion was smooth, well-practiced. Wulfe knew what was coming. He stepped away.

  One of the lieutenants from the 303rd saw it coming, too. He protested. “Come now, commissar. You can’t mean to spoil the fun prematurely. It’s good for morale to see our enemies caged and helpless. You must agree.”

  Crusher didn’t even glance at the man. Instead, he took aim at the smaller, lighter-skinned alien, eased a black metal finger back on the trigger of his pistol, and loosed off a barking shot.

  Wulfe had been about to shout, “Stand back!” to Siegler and Beans, but it was too late. The bolt punched a coin-sized hole in the ork’s skull and detonated there, showering the closest men with a foul spray of blood and brain matter. The men behind them, shielded from the spray by their luckless comrades, laughed out loud. The headless ork body slid down to the floor of its cage.

  Seeing the slaughter of its foul kin, the darker ork began thrashing madly. Slayte calmly turned towards it and repeated the exact same procedure. Those in the front rows of the crowd pushed backwards. There was another loud crack as the bolt pistol fired and, again, the air filled with a bloody mist.

  Crusher holstered his pistol, turned and addressed all those present. “Damn your eyes, the lot of you. Have you forgotten the principles of intolerance set forth in the Imperial Creed? Perhaps the sting of the lash would help you all to remember.”

  The crowd parted wide for him as he stalked off, calling out as he went, “Suffer not the alien to live!”

  “Damn it,” said one of the lieutenants from the 303rd as he dabbed at his bloodstained tunic with a handkerchief. “Which regiment is that bastard attached to? I feel sorry for them.”

  “That would be my regiment, lieutenant,” said Wulfe grimly, “the 81st Armoured.”

  “Colonel Vinnemann’s lot?” asked the other officer. “Throne help you, sergeant. You’ve got a bad one there. Execute many, does he?”

  Wulfe shook his head. “He likes his punis
hments, does old Crusher, but the colonel can usually talk him down from a killing. The alternative isn’t much better, mind you. He gives out a hell of a beating.”

  “Is that why you call him Crusher?” asked the first man.

  “You didn’t notice, sir?” said Wulfe, surprised. “His hands. Augmetic replacements, both of them. He lost his organic pair to the jaws of a bull carnotaur some years back. Not that he complains. He caught a deserter back on Palmeros in the first months of the campaign and forced us all to watch the execution. The boy was nineteen. New meat. He saw his cousin get killed and lost it. Commissar Slayte crushed his skull with one hand. Broke it like it was an egg.”

  The officers from the 303rd both frowned and shook their heads.

  “Those boys in the 259th Mechanised aren’t going to be pleased,” said one. “They had the kill-rights to these two. They made the capture.”

  “Might as well disperse, you lot,” shouted the other to the grumbling crowd. “Nothing much to see now.”

  The troopers moved off trailing a palpable air of disappointment and resentment. For a short time, the imprisoned enemies had offered a distraction from the biting of the ticks and the coughing and sneezing caused by the dust. Wulfe stayed a moment longer, staring in silence at the headless alien bodies. Siegler and Beans waited for him a dozen paces away, also silent.

  It’s not enough, thought Wulfe. No matter how many we kill, it’s never enough. They keep coming. We send troops to purge them from one world, and another falls at our backs. Can we ever break the stalemate? Will we ever do more than just survive against them?

  He reached a hand up and stroked the scar on his neck. Where had all his faith gone? Aboard the Hand of Radiance, Wulfe had always turned to Confessor Friedrich for spiritual strength. There was a man he could talk to. Despite being a year younger than Wulfe, the priest had a calm wisdom about him that Wulfe envied, though he wasn’t prepared to drink quite as much as the priest did to achieve it. As he led Beans and Siegler back to the barracks, he considered seeking out the priest, but it was already late. He would have to wake his crew at sunrise tomorrow. General deViers wasn’t about to let them rest up. That was fine with Wulfe. The hardest part of any soldier’s life was down-time: too much time to think, to notice the little things. Typically stoic men would begin to grumble. Colonel von Holden was a stark example and he wouldn’t be alone. Dissidence was far from exclusive to the officer class. Fights would start breaking out. There would be more incidents of drunkenness. Some would turn to less legal distractions. Before you knew it, the commissars would be executing men left, right and centre.