Perhaps it was just the quality of the light, but Wulfe thought the lieutenant looked terrible. He had never seen him like this before, so gaunt and tinged with red. His concern must have shown on his face, because van Droi suddenly stood up a little straighter, fixed his cap lower on his brow and said, “You don’t look so hot yourself, you know.”
Wulfe winced. “I’m sure I don’t, lieutenant. Sorry.”
Van Droi waved the apology off.
Wulfe gestured around at the strange metal buildings. He didn’t like the angles, the proportions, the lines. They didn’t look like any Imperial buildings he had ever seen, and that made them wrong.
“What the devil’s going on, sir?” he asked. “We weren’t told anything about underground cities and alien races, excepting orks, that is.”
Van Droi nodded. “No, I wasn’t told about any of this either. To be honest, Oskar, I don’t think the higher-ups expected this. General deViers was furious when The Fortress of Arrogance wasn’t where it should have been.”
“Is it supposed to be down here somewhere? Or are we just improvising?”
Van Droi frowned. “According to the tech-priests, their little ritual in the valley was some kind of communion with the Machine-God. They claim this route will take us directly to the objective. The general’s buying it. He wants us to push on, despite the circumstances.”
“You ever met a general that didn’t want that?”
Van Droi grinned. “Not that I remember, no.”
When Wulfe spoke again, he was suddenly serious. “Listen, sir. I have to ask you something. I hope you won’t take offence.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“It’s about Palmeros.”
Van Droi looked immediately uncomfortable, but he said, “Go on.”
“We were talking about it in the officer’s mess back in Balkar. You remember, sir. The day we lost Strieber and Kohl…”
“The canyon,” said Van Droi, not meeting Wulfe’s gaze. “Lugo’s Ditch.”
“Right,” said Wulfe. “Well, sir, things happened there… Things that I couldn’t come to terms with at the time. I’m afraid I omitted them from my report, sir. I’m not sure if—”
“We don’t need to do this, Oskar,” van Droi interrupted. “I’ve never pushed you on what exactly happened out there. If you hadn’t omitted certain things, I would have done it for you. I’ve seen some things in my time, let me tell you, things that beggared belief. High Command doesn’t thank you for reporting things like that.”
Wulfe knew van Droi was being deliberately vague, trying to offer him a nice safe exit from the topic, but he had already committed himself.
“I saw the ghost of Dolphus Borscht in Lugo’s Ditch, sir. I saw him standing on the highway as real as you are right now. He told me to stop the tank. And if I hadn’t listened to him, my crew and I would be dead right now.”
Finally, it was out. The words hung in the air like ghosts themselves, hovering between the two men.
“Damn it,” hissed van Droi. “Don’t ever say that out loud. You want other people to hear?”
“Did you know, sir?” Wulfe demanded.
“Of course, I knew, Oskar. I’m not a total idiot. It wasn’t hard to put it all together. But for Throne’s sake, you’ve got to keep it to yourself, man. If the commissar ever finds out…”
“Someone would have to tell him first, sir. Someone like Corporal Lenck, perhaps.”
“Lenck?” asked van Droi. “Are you saying he knows?”
“I can’t be sure,” said Wulfe. “Just something he said to me last time we clashed.”
Van Droi actually looked hurt for a fraction of a second, but he recovered well. “He didn’t find out from me, sergeant, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Wulfe shook his head. “I wasn’t thinking that, sir. Not really. But I had to ask.”
“Listen, Oskar, Lenck might be less of a problem if you hadn’t started some kind of damned vendetta with him the moment he joined the regiment. If you’ve got something on him, something that I should know about, don’t keep it to your bloody self. If you don’t, you need to accept that he’s a Gunhead now. We stick together. It’s the only way any of us will get through this alive. For the Throne’s sake, man, he saved your life.”
“Duty, sir,” said Wulfe. “I’d have done the same under the circumstances.”
In truth, he still wasn’t sure he would have.
“That doesn’t change the facts, Oskar. Lenck has more than proven himself worthy of being among us. He might be a bit of a rogue, but he’s done a damned fine job with that crate of his, and he manages a difficult crew. For the sake of the mission, will you put your personal differences aside and act like proper bloody soldiers?”
Wulfe grumbled to himself, but finally he said, “I’ll try, sir. Since you asked.”
Van Droi looked pleased. He straightened his jacket and said, “Unless there’s anything else…”
“Nothing, sir,” said Wulfe.
“Right. I’d better get moving,” said van Droi. “General deViers is having a war council, and I expect Immrich will have fresh orders for the regiment when it’s done. Get some rest while you can, Oskar. And some rations while you’re at it. I can’t say when we’ll be leaving this unholy place, but Throne willing it’ll be soon.”
“Yes, sir,” said Wulfe. He saluted, and received one in return before van Droi turned smartly and marched off towards a column of parked Chimeras.
And get some rest yourself, thought Wulfe with genuine concern. You really look like you need it.
General deViers had ordered a cordon set up around his Chimera. He didn’t want the rank-and-file getting too close to the meeting he had called. Kasrkin troopers from Colonel Stromm’s 98th Regiment were positioned in a wide circle, hellguns in hand, told to keep everyone below the rank of lieutenant out.
They were Kasrkin. He knew they could be trusted.
Bergen stood with Killian and Rennkamp at the front of a small crowd mostly comprised of regiment and company level officers, adjutants, executive officers and, at the very front, positioned somewhat separate from the others, the three senior representatives of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
DeViers stood atop the back of his Chimera so that all the officers could see him. He looked, to Bergen, like a vulture on a branch glaring fiercely down at the three tech-priests, who observed him impassively with lidless mechanical eyes. If the general had thought taking an elevated position would rob Magos Sennesdiar of some of his dominating presence, or would force him to acknowledge his proper place as a mere accessory to the expedition’s true leader, he had been wrong. The hulking, red-robed figure of the magos still cast its powerful aura over the proceedings.
“How do you answer that?” deViers demanded. He had just charged the Mechanicus with conspiring to lead the expedition force here for purposes outside the primary mission objective. As one, the crowd of officers edged forward a little, eager to hear the magos’ answer.
“The accusation is false, general,” boomed the magos, “false, but understandable. Your view of matters is being coloured by frustration and, perhaps, by the loss of so many men. The Mechanicus is not offended. We guided you to the last reported location of The Fortress of Arrogance. It was not there. You asked us to aid you in finding its new location. We are doing so. That our path led us to the discovery of Dar Laq is coincidence, nothing more.”
“And you expect us to take you at your word?” asked deViers.
“We were attached to the 18th Army Group to provide assistance to you. We have done little else. The Fortress of Arrogance is a sanctified machine. It was fashioned by us. Its machine-spirit is revered by us. We seek its recovery as much as you do, but with one small difference. We of the Mechanicus do not seek any kind of glory in recovering the tank the way you men of the Imperial Guard do.”
DeViers looked to be on the verge of being personally affronted by that remark when Rennkamp stepped forward and addressed the ma
gos. “Then you won’t object if we leave this Dar Laq place at once, magos, since further investigation of this place is irrelevant to our mission?”
The magos turned and fixed his lenses on Rennkamp, who suddenly looked a lot less confident than when he had spoken. “It would be most regrettable to leave Dar Laq without taking the opportunity to conduct a study of its mysteries, major general. There are gravity fields affecting the upper reaches of the chamber, though no grav-generators can be detected. There is the metal all around us. It is of a composition so far unknown to the Imperium. Its potential value can barely be estimated at this time. These are only the most obvious examples of what Dar Laq might offer us. Its existence was rumoured for thousands of years. Might we not conduct an analysis while the troops are being fed and the vehicles prepared for the next stage of their deployment?”
“This is no mission of discovery, magos,” said General deViers gruffly. “Our rations are running low. Our fuel is limited. Our numbers, I’d rather not talk about. The Mechanicus may return to this place on its own damned time. For now, the secrets of this place will have to remain just that.” He raised his eyes from the magos and searched the group of officers, quickly finding the face he sought there. “Ah, Marrenburg. Have your scouts found a way out yet?”
Colonel Marrenburg stepped to Bergen’s side, looked up at General deViers and said, “They have, sir: a tunnel the exact size and gradient of that which we descended. The air currents suggest it leads back to the surface on the far side of the Ishawar range. I have a Sentinel unit scouting it out right now, sir.”
“Excellent, colonel. Keep me apprised.”
There was a sudden metallic screech from one of the magos’ adepts, which was immediately answered by a similar screech from the magos. Sennesdiar then said to deViers, “General, my adept, Xephous, wishes to address you. Will you hear him?”
DeViers looked impatient, but he said, “Very well.”
The clacking, chittering form of Adept Xephous stepped forward, and, in an absolute monotone, said, “With respect, general, are we not allowing our distrust of things alien to hasten our egress from this place before time? Our back is protected by the collapse of the tunnel behind us. The orks cannot, and in all probability would not, follow us down here. Might we not take this chance to effect maintenance on our vehicles, to tend to our wounded, and to recover our strength for the battles that must surely lie on the other side of this mountain?”
The general’s expression said he saw the validity of the adept’s comments. Bergen, too, saw the sense in what Xephous had said. Looking around at the other officers, he saw them nodding.
“Fine points, adept,” said deViers at last. “Of course, I wasn’t born yesterday. Do you suggest this for the benefit of the operation, or to allow you and your Martian brothers a window of time in which to conduct some limited study?”
Xephous was on the verge of answering when Magos Sennesdiar emitted a short burst of noise. The adept bowed and stepped back. It was Sennesdiar who spoke in his place. “My adept makes his point for both reasons, general. Our enginseers will take care of vehicular maintenance. My adepts and I will conduct what research we can while your medicae perform their duties and your troopers prepare for what lies ahead. Clearly it is in both our interests not to rush headlong from this place.”
“Do you know what lies ahead, magos? deViers asked sourly. “Did your ritual offer any clues to that?”
“Only that The Fortress of Arrogance awaits us, general, and it is no great feat of predictive power to say that the orks will not give it up easily.”
Bergen watched deViers closely. He saw a look of resolve harden on his face. The magos had chosen his words well, hitting the general where he was weakest, telling him his prize was still within reach. Perhaps it is, thought Bergen. But I still contend that the tech-priests led us here deliberately for their own ends.
After the meeting, with the other officers dispersing to issue new orders to their troops, Bergen took his adjutant, Katz, aside.
“I haven’t called on your special talents for quite a while, my friend. But I think it’s about time you got some practice in.”
Katz grinned. “You want me to follow those tech-priests, don’t you, sir?”
Bergen patted Katz on the upper arm.
“Don’t let them see you,” he said and turned to march back to Pride of Caedus.
Katz watched him go for a moment, and then turned in time to see the three red-robed Martian priests moving off into deep shadow at the edges of the Cadians’ lamplight. They were moving north along the cavern wall with a definite purpose, heading deeper into the jumble of alien structures.
Katz hurried after them, looking forward to employing his Emperor-given gifts again after so long.
“Don’t let them see me?” he muttered to himself. “You’re having a laugh, boss. No one sees Jarryl Katz unless he means them to.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Darkness held no fear for Lieutenant Katz, even in an alien place like this. Shadows hid few secrets from him. The tiny, sophisticated mirrors implanted at the back of his eyeballs allowed him to see perfectly well in anything but the most absolute blackness. The three tech-priests he was following didn’t seem to be having any trouble either, of course. Katz guessed they could see in a variety of spectrums. He knew it would take all his expertise not to be spotted by them, but the thought of such a challenge didn’t make him anxious. It excited him. It had been too long since he’d had a chance to track a worthy quarry.
Katz had served as Bergen’s adjutant for over a decade, hand-picked by the man himself, and few who looked at him would have guessed he was any more than a boot-polishing, shirt-pressing lackey. It suited him and the major general both to perpetuate such an illusion. Would anyone have believed even half the things he had seen and done? Not a chance. His history was far from that of a typical Cadian soldier.
Katz had been specially selected for sniper training barely a month after he had joined the Whiteshields. He had been in his mid-teens, but already his sharp eyes, steady aim and cold composure marked him as a young man of great potential. From sniper school, he had been inducted into a special reconnaissance commando program so classified that it didn’t appear on any Munitorum listing, one of a number of black projects ordered by Cadian High Command and funded directly by the planetary government. Most of the other trainees had been drawn from the ranks of the Kasrkin, and they were anything but kind to the precocious youngster in their midst. Katz had learned his lessons the hard way and, in due course, proved himself the equal of the older men, earning their respect and, in some cases, their jealousy. It was as part of that program that his eyes had been augmented. Throne, had it really been twenty-five years ago?
He almost snorted out loud at the speed with which those years had seemed to pass: all those missions deep behind enemy lines; all those figures, human and alien both, that he had lined up in his sights, only to watch them topple lifelessly at the next squeeze of his index finger on that little curve of metal.
Things are much different now, he thought. But I wouldn’t change it even if I could. I wouldn’t go back. What would the major general do without me?
Katz was fiercely loyal to Gerard Bergen. He was proud of having been chosen to guard his life, for he judged Bergen a far better man than those around him, and it wasn’t easy to be a good man when you were under orders from a soulless pig like Mohamar deViers. Whatever Bergen needed, Katz would do. Right now, that meant following the tech-priests.
Up ahead, the robed and hooded trio screeched something to each other in that infernal machine language of theirs, and Katz scolded himself for allowing reminiscences into his mind while he was en mission. Perhaps his skills had dulled with time.
With the light from the Cadian vehicles well behind them, the shortest of the tech-priests, the one with a face like a metal crab, pulled a small, pulsing electronic device from the folds of his robe. Katz soon got the impression that t
he device was guiding them somewhere. He saw them consult it several times and alter their course through dusty alleys lined on either side with towering hulks of dark metal.
He was concentrating so hard on his quarry that he didn’t have time to wonder at his surroundings. The major general said it was alien, but ancient and long abandoned. That was enough for Katz. Like his own past, it was best not to dwell on it. The moment was all that mattered.
As the tech-priests shuffled on, he followed with all the stealth at his disposal, moving deeper and deeper into the derelict underground city, getting further and further away from the Cadian camp. They were heading northwards, and Katz soon began to wonder when they would stop. Surely the chamber didn’t extend much further. They had already travelled over a kilometre in the dark.
insisted Xephous.
They stopped at the base of a great crumbling tower. Sennesdiar looked up, and, in infra-red, noted the ornate black cogs and carved metal beams that were visible where large curving sections of the outer shell had fallen away.
The adept pointed at one particularly large metal plate on the ground in front of him, and together the three tech-priests moved to lift it. It would have taken a dozen men significant effort, but, to the priests of the Machine Cult, it was an easy matter. Their mechadendrites snaked forwards from their backs, and, with a casual gesture that bordered on contempt, they flipped the heavy plate of alien metal aside.
[Imperial Guard 06] - Gunheads Page 29