by Dan Abnett
Bedlo tossed the weapon back to Mallet.
“If that’s the best you can do, we need a more reliable weapons supply,” he said.
Mallet started to strip the las down, again, squatting on his haunches. The boy, Tilson, closest to him shuffled sideways, widening the gap between them. The movement wasn’t lost on Bedlo. Trust wasn’t at a premium, it was non-existent.
Mallet didn’t listen as Bedlo went through the motions.
“Command,” he said, raising his index finger as the two new boys watched. “Disperse,” two fingers together, the way a child might make a finger-pistol. “Attack,” a flat hand thrust forwards. The instructions weren’t complicated, but new recruits were always a liability, whether they were young and keen or young and scared, and they were always young.
The perimeter check only took Wescoe a matter of a couple of minutes. There was only one entrance/exit point a couple of hundred metres from the room where the boys were being put through their paces, and a couple of blind corridors to the left and right of the practice room. She was good in the dark, used to it, and didn’t resort to using the lamp-pack that she carried in her webbing. She very soon wished that she had.
Wescoe checked the entrance, ducking to left and right, her long-las raised at her shoulder. There was nothing. She turned, hugging the left-hand wall to her back, the first blind corridor coming up twenty metres away on the right. Then she saw it, a narrow, intermittent beam of grey light. Her hands tensed slightly around the las, and her pupils dilated a fraction as the corridor darkened again. There was just a chance that a glow globe had flickered spontaneously, but the building had been disused and derelict since it had come under heavy fire during the war, years ago, and it seemed unlikely to Wescoe.
“Voi shet—” she heard, cut off, and followed by a scuffling sound and a series of thuds. Someone else was in the building. Her cell was not alone.
Wescoe let out the breath that she realised she had been holding, and switched to the right-hand side of the corridor, as the light seemed to have come from the dead-end on the left. She knew that the passage was barely ten metres long before it was cut off by an impenetrable barrier made of the rubble that was all that remained of that wing of the old building. If she had to engage, she had better be fast and efficient. The enemy was right on top of the cell; only a few metres and a bad plascrete wall separated them. A split second later, she was aiming her las into the dark mouth of the blind corridor.
Mallet lifted Bedlo’s lasrifle to check its heft, and thumbed the sight.
They all heard the noise on the other side of the wall. Tilson winced at the sound of the alien tongue as the enemy shouted out, and they heard the scuffling thuds of clumsy bodies. Mallet knew that the enemy was no longer imaginary. He didn’t speak, but he was off his arse and onto one knee, braced in the entrance to the room, almost before they heard the shots fired, and well ahead of the boys properly registering that they were under attack.
He had Bedlo’s weapon in his hand, so he fired it. Brak!
Even after stripping it down several times, Mallet didn’t trust the lasrifle, so he kept firing it, wild in his right hand while his left went straight to a pistol at his hip. Before Bedlo had turned to shout an order or find a weapon, Mallet was already letting loose an uneven volley of mismatched shots.
Bedlo dropped, flat to the floor, stalling for time he didn’t have.
Tilson, squatting next to him, was staring at him, eyes wide, a hole in his throat. Bedlo listened for a split second to the odd brak of his secondhand, twenty-second-hand, lasrifle. Mallet was doing a job covering them. Then he looked up to see the other boy, Shuey. The little pute had found a gap behind Mallet and was bracing himself against the rock-hard mercenary, using the older man’s shoulder to steady his aim. They half-stood like some bottom-heavy, two-headed creature, three weapons between them, firing at an enemy that Bedlo still hadn’t seen.
Bedlo rolled onto his back and took hold of the improvised flamer that had been assigned to Tilson. He rotated and flipped, and, still flat on his belly, opened up with a splutter of fuel that had begun as promethium, but which had been spent and then filtered, cooled, refined back to low-grade, secondary-use liquid fuel, before being spent again, filtered, mixed with the bio-pute that came off the old hops and rehashed as semi-demi domestic fuel-oil. He didn’t hold out much hope.
The flamer spat a spray of greenish, cloudy liquid, but didn’t catch. Bedlo triggered the igniter, but it was out of synch with the fuel delivery system, such as it was, and clicked uselessly.
Bedlo took a moment, and listened to the weapons discharging. He could hear Mallet’s side arm and the distinctive sound of the old lasrifle, and he could make out the slower, but steady report from Shuey’s weapon, an old Guard-issue las that had belonged to some uncle or other; contraband from a long-lost war that they all still seemed to be fighting, and his passport into the cell. There was no other sound.
In the moment that Bedlo was taking to assess their situation and gauge the danger they were in, Mallet shifted his aim by precisely sixty-two degrees, and ignited the semi-demi with a round from the gakked las.
Bedlo stood, faster than he thought was possible, and then felt like a fool when the ignited fuel produced only a dull yellowish flame and a slow trickle of blackening smoke. It’d leave a scorch-mark on the floor if it was allowed to burn for long enough, but not much else. In any case, it was too little, too late. The battle was already over, and the flamer had played no part in it.
Bedlo held his closed fist in front of him: the signal for cease-fire.
Mallet and Shuey held their weapons, but did not fire again, and the dingy space was quiet. Whoever, whatever, had started the firefight had stopped almost before Mallet had engaged.
Mallet looked at Bedlo.
“Boss?” he asked.
“Where’s Wescoe?” asked Bedlo.
“The broad?” asked Shuey.
“The broad,” said Bedlo, crossing to the threshold to check out the results of the attack.
He returned a moment later, carrying the long-las that had belonged to Wescoe, arguably the most useful member of the cell. He’d never called her “the broad” to her face, but that’s what she was, a dangerously efficient killer old broad with more experience than they’d ever live long enough to rack up between them, except perhaps for Mallet. In his other hand was the autopistol belonging to the excubitor that Wescoe had taken out right after he’d shot Tilson in the throat.
Bedlo and Mallet examined the scene. She had died defending them, but had taken at least one of the three enemy guard with her. Their bodies lay beyond the entrance to the practice room and scattered in the mouth of the blind corridor. All the bodies were riddled with shots, and it wasn’t clear who was responsible for the kills, but it didn’t matter. A trail of blood led out towards the exit point, and it was clear that at least one guard had retreated, wounded. Bedlo gestured at the dark stains.
“She dealt with the immediate threat,” he said, “but he must’ve had a buddy.”
“Why didn’t she just—?” began Shuey.
“Just what?” asked Bedlo. “What would you do stuck with a psychopath and a couple of boys?”
“And you… Boss,” said Shuey defiant behind his blushes.
They all heard heavy footfalls approaching, maybe a couple of hundred metres away. Bedlo gestured behind him and they retreated back into the practice room. Bedlo turned and scooped up a tarpaulin that was bunched up against the foot of the wall behind them. He took his boot to the plasboard, and, once Shuey realised what he was doing, he joined in. Two hefty kicks each, and the false wall collapsed, allowing the resisters access through the derelict building and into the sinks. Wherever they trained, they always established a way out. It was one thing planning a skirmish or an attack, having a goal in mind, but no one wanted to get caught on manoeuvres with their trousers down and no back door.
“Haul arse, you stupid pute!” yelled Bedlo, no
t bothering with hand signals.
Mallet, guarding the entrance, fired a series of shots into the dark corridor, and then turned swiftly and followed Shuey and Bedlo out through the hole in the wall.
Two occupation guards in mismatched, incomplete fatigues and body-armour elbowed each other and tripped over the excubitors’ bodies as they struggled to get to the resisters, but they were too late. They looked down at Tilson’s body propped against the wall, dead, but upright, and then turned and walked away, apparently satisfied, the expressions on their masks unchanging.
Bedlo, Mallet and Shuey split up to regroup another day, two men down, and two weapons up, and the odds still stacked against them.
“Logier,” said the old man, acknowledging the stilt-man as he sat facing the other way and began to dismantle one of his prosthetics, obsessive about maintaining them in pristine condition. “Ozias,” said Logier.
The two men had known each other for Logier’s entire life and for half of Ozias’. Logier was the son of a friend and colleague, long dead. They understood one another beyond being comrades, friends or allies, and they trusted one another, at least enough to use their names. Ozias had been running the agri-cell since the first threat of attack by the Archenemy eight years before; he had field-control of the low drinking hole, and had recruited the woman who ran the place to keep tabs on the traffic of information for him. The agri-workers would not fight the war; that job was left to the PDF and to a couple of regiments of Imperial Guard caught in the crossfire when they should have been on R&R. Ozias knew that reinforcements would come; that when the Warmaster became aware of the connection, of the precious resources, when he knew why Reredos must be defended, he would send more troops.
“The chips?” asked Logier.
“The priest has them,” said Ozias. “He didn’t pass them.”
Logier turned, and the two men looked at each other for a moment before Logier turned away again.
“We don’t know why,” said Ozias. “He was slow to evacuate after Calvit gave up the chips, probably trying to resuscitate him.”
“The Emperor protects,” said Logier, returning to the task of maintaining the hydraulics in his shins. “I’ll go to him,” he offered, after a moment. “I’ll make sure the chips get to the hive-cell.” Ozias slumped a little lower in his seat. “I wouldn’t ask,” he said. “I’ll go,” said Logier. “Yes,” said Ozias.
Ozias caught the eye of the woman at the counter, drained his beaker slowly, picked it up, and returned it, without looking at her again, or turning to check on Logier.
It was done.
Ayatani Perdu was not comfortable in the no-man’s-land between the hive and the agri-galleries, but he always found himself there when they were most at risk. He’d been assigned this room two years ago, and used it whenever things got tough in the hive. It was bigger than the other rooms he used, and was part of an old warehouse complex. He knew how the rooms and corridors of the building connected, and how they’d been modified as the building had fallen into disrepair. It had only one storey, and no windows, but the ceiling was high and his voice echoed slightly in the space. The room was closer to the galleries than the hive, but patrols and glyfs were fewer and further between, here, and the boys that transported information were safer, for the most part. It didn’t matter; he used the safest rooms available, and preached his sermons just the same.
There were half a dozen of them in his congregation, again, no more, no less. The vacancy had been filled, and the most active resisters, or those most in need of his ministrations, had taken their places. They had collected in a small group at the far end of the room, not attempting to fill the space.
Perdu felt the chips in the palm of his left hand inside his glove. The right glove was a ragged mess with two fingers missing and was good for very little; it didn’t keep him warm or dry and it wasn’t safe for concealment. The skin that had been so quickly eroded from his fingers by the purple mucus was growing back warm and too pink, and he covered it as best he could with old bandages—washed and reused a hundred times, yellow and fraying, but better than the alternative—and with the half-eaten glove.
“The Emperor protects,” he said, low and breathless. He did not want the prayer to end, not knowing what would come after it.
A man at the back of the group coughed, a new man. No one looked at him, but the congregation melted away without a word to their priest, without a murmur or a question, without a suggestion that they were aware of the recent death or of the replacement congregant. They had done what they needed to do, had set up contacts and passed on information, all without fanfare and with absolute discretion. Perdu bowed his head, unwilling to meet the gazes that did not rest on him. He looked down at the stilt-man’s shins, at the gleaming hydraulics, obsessively cleaned, pristine, as if new. No new augmetics had been issued since the invasion, but these didn’t look eight years old.
“You still have the chips?” asked Logier.
“I…” began Perdu. “A man died,” he said.
“You know the drill,” said Logier. “We pass information to you, and you pass it to the boy—”
“So that he can get killed, too,” said Perdu. “That isn’t good enough, any more.”
Logier turned from the priest, and crouched, drawing a stiletto from a sheath concealed in his shin. He made a casual hand signal, hoping the priest would understand. The stilt-man had heard something. The enemy was close.
Perdu dropped to Logier’s left and behind him, and felt his way along the wall into the darkest crevice of the long room, careful not to turn his back. He was crouching in the corner, low on his haunches, but strong in his stance, when he felt something touching his arm. He put out his hand and took hold of the small, cold grip of a weapon that Logier handed to him. His eyes had adjusted to the low light levels and he could see Logier, who appeared to have a lasrifle raised at his shoulder, the stiletto, a bayonet, affixed.
He looked down at the firearm in his hand. It was small and neat, and well cleaned, a defensive weapon, useful at close quarters.
There was a thud, and the thwoom of burning fuel as the room lit up orange and red from the light of a flamer. Still, Perdu couldn’t see the enemy. He watched Logier as the stilt-man darted towards the entrance and fired into the narrow gap between battered wall panels where no door had ever stood. The cacophony from beyond suddenly separated into various sounds in Perdu’s mind, each one crisp and complete, and readable: the weight of a boot hitting an earth floor, the click of a thumb against a trigger, the slow exhale of a sniper taking his shot, the feed mechanism of a misshaped autogun as it struck home, the odd grunt of the enemy.
The enemy, thought Perdu. One enemy. He took several awkward steps, long, but close to the ground, his centre of gravity slightly lower than it would have been had he been standing, and placed a hand on Logier’s back.
Krak! Krak! Logier fired two more shots into the breach, sending ancient plascrete dust cascading from the makeshift walls with a sound like pouring sand.
Perdu thrust an arm over Logier’s shoulder so that the stilt-man could read his signals without moving. The priest pointed at the breach with a single finger and then held that finger upright in front of Logier’s chest. There was no direct line of sight between their position and the enemy’s. There were two of them, and only one opponent.
Thwoom! and the room was lit up anew. The flame hit nothing. It scorched the earth floor of the room a little, crystallising particles and making them glow red, but Perdu and Logier were out of the line of fire, and there was nothing else to burn.
Krak! Krak! Logier returned fire.
Perdu counted to three, rose to his full height and, in one motion, crossed to the right of the breach, Logier’s side arm raised in two hands in front of him. Logier followed Perdu’s lead, stepping forwards as Perdu fired his pistol across the breach, not attempting to engage the enemy.
When Logier stepped into the gap and turned, he was face-to-face with his
assailant, less than a metre away, looking the startled foe squarely in his gummed, bloodshot eyes. This one wasn’t wearing a mask. He carried a flamer high on his long back, cradling the business end under his arm while he brought the autogun up to firing position. His torso was naked, the grey skin slick with sweat, and spreading sores clustered around the plugs that sat high up on either side of his chest. Logier took in the entire scene in a split second. He didn’t shoot.
Perdu heard the stiletto bayonet entering enemy flesh once, and then again. He heard the wet sounds of evisceration, and heard the thud of a hard body falling.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Logier, stepping back through the breach, and Perdu followed without thinking.
“Can I trust you?” asked Perdu when they had cleared the area and he was sitting in a room in a hab somewhere; he didn’t know where. Logier laughed.
“We’re long past trust, priest,” he said. “You don’t know my name, and I don’t know yours, but we have business together.”
“I won’t pass the chips to a boy and risk getting him killed,” said Perdu.
“Then you’d better be up to delivering them,” said Logier. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to take them from you after that little fiasco.”
“Occupation forces are everywhere,” said Perdu.
“Everywhere you are,” said Logier. “You didn’t pass the chips because of them, and they knew where you were again tonight. I’ll pull the plug on this if I have to. I’ll abort. How do I know they’re not onto you? How do I know you’re not a collaborator?”
“I’ll do it,” Perdu insisted between gritted teeth.
“This isn’t a game,” said Logier, standing to take a dish from a small neat woman who was working at an ancient stove at the far end of the room, too close not to hear what passed between them.
“Can I trust her?” asked Perdu, gesturing towards the woman.