He pulled the docket clear and poured the contents out onto the floor. The top sheet was a medical report. It was obviously new; it had nothing on it since a week before, nothing he did not already know. Behind it, though, was his service record, with his number at the top. He picked it up and began to read. Name: Stones, John. Rank: Private, Grade Primus.
And that was it. Every other section, every other page, was entirely blank.
Cloud Hills, Kandhar
Carson and Red met the officers from the 29th early in the morning in a wooded grove in the lee of one of the hills. There was no other place to go where they could not be seen.
As the two parties came closer, Red muttered to Carson. ‘I reccied the woods already, sah. Nothing. You’ll be alone.’
The officer in the lead, Captain Ross, saw them approach. ‘A colour-sergeant?’ he said, talking of Red, but goading Carson. ‘Could you really not persuade a real officer to stand by you?’
Carson would not normally have wasted a second on such a jibe, but today he wanted to relish this. He could feel the fluttering in his body. The anticipation. This might be his last time for a while.
‘A staff lieutenant and a quartermaster?’ Carson retorted, noting the insignia on Ross’s companions. ‘Could you really not persuade a real soldier to stand by you?’
Ross gave a chuckle that had no trace of humour and started to shuck off the heavy winter coat he was wearing.
‘Your chaps got off pretty lightly so I hear. What was the bill in the end?’ he asked Carson.
‘Fifteen in the company,’ Carson replied, ‘about a hundred for the Eleventh overall.’
‘Sounds like you were a bit careless with your platoons, eh?’ Ross said, but Carson knew that he was in no position to stand upon his high horse this time.
‘Heard you got a bit of a bloody nose yourself,’ Carson replied, keeping his tone light and well-mannered.
‘Took us by surprise with that sally at Thal, is all. Caught us out of position. Eighty per cent across the Twenty-Ninth.’
‘Bad luck.’ Carson said, but Ross waved it off.
‘It was the ones that broke who got it.’ Ross said with a smile of vindication. ‘My chaps held together. Wasn’t so bad for us.’
‘There’s a bit of gold piping to it though,’ he continued. ‘There’s not much of the Twenty-Ninth left; it means that Command is going to sit us down and send back our colours.’
Carson scoffed openly at that. ‘They’ll just merge you with another regiment and send you on to the next one. Just as they’ve done with all of us a dozen times already.’
Ross curled his face in a grin. ‘That’s not what I hear coming out of Command. Word is that the Twenty-Ninth is being set for garrison duty.’
‘Garrison duty…’ Carson could not believe it was being considered.
‘That’s right. The colours go home. I stay here. Twenty-five years, twenty years on this crusade and five before that, and after all that the Guard and I are finally saying goodbye. Might be the Eleventh as well. But your lot still have some fight in them, don’t they? Should have been smart like me, Carson, and been a bit less careful with your men.’
Carson had no response to that.
‘Let’s get to it,’ he said, unbuttoning his jacket and throwing it down onto the ground.
The quartermaster cleared his throat. ‘I believe, sirs, that I’m required at this time to ask you to confirm that you are acting of your volition and both intend to proceed.’
‘I do,’ Carson said quickly. The fluttering was in his blood now. The familiar excitement pulsed around his body.
‘Oh yes,’ Ross confirmed.
‘Very well,’ the quartermaster sighed. ‘On your honour, sirs.’ He set off out of the woods; the other officer followed. Red hooked Carson’s jacket up off the grass and went after them. Carson and Ross were finally alone.
‘So this, dear friend,’ Ross said, ‘will be our last time. No holding back, eh?’
Carson could not have agreed more. ‘No holding back.’
A few minutes later, Carson emerged from the woods. Red handed him his jacket and Carson gave him a curt nod of thanks. The other two officers, pale-faced, went to collect their friend’s body.
News of the death of Captain Ross came as little surprise to his fellows in the 29th. Carson’s reputation as a duellist was well known, infamous even. It was his duelling, or at least one particular duel in the first year of the crusade, that had finished his career and consigned him to live out the rest of his career at his present, lowly rank.
Ross had already walked out with him three times, each time coming back wounded and defeated, but still nursing his grudge against the deadly lieutenant of the 11th. At least, his fellows said, this last time Ross had done the decent thing and waited until the end of the campaign.
In past times, twenty, fifteen, even ten years before, the officers of the 29th would have felt slighted at such a defeat. A deadly feud might have erupted, more duels might have been fought, more officers incapacitated or killed. But now, here at the end, none of them was willing to pick up Ross’s cause. Strangely, the idea of confronting a man who had survived two decades of war across the most lethal battlefields and shooting him dead for the sake of honour was less appealing at their age than it had been in their youth. They were tired and they had had enough.
The 29th was struck off the order of battle, their colours were returned home to form the core of a new regiment in a future founding. They were settled on Kandhar, there to keep in check the native human tribes liberated from the Karthadasim. The officers of the 29th and the other garrisoned regiments soon established themselves as the new noble elite of the world and began indulging in the rewards peace offered, that so few of them had survived to enjoy.
And the same fate should have been awaiting the long-serving officers and men of the 11th as well, if there had been any justice in the galaxy.
Chapter Two
Imperial cruiser Relentless, Kandhar low orbit
There was no justice in the galaxy, Colonel Arbulaster decided. If there had been then he would not have been rousted from the midst of the victory celebrations, then forced to endure an hour’s shuttle journey into orbit, and all on the general’s whim.
He stepped onto the hangar deck and was greeted by a young Navy officer. Arbulaster hid the scowl of annoyance he had been wearing ever since he’d received the general’s summons behind his bushy moustache and wearily returned the youth’s salute. He introduced himself as acting sub-something or other, but Arbulaster never had much patience for the titles and ranks of the Imperial Navy. As far as he was concerned, as the colonel of a Brimlock regiment, the only ranks he needed to know were those of ship’s captain and higher.
The youth led him off the hangar deck, making polite small talk as they went. Arbulaster limited his responses to small affirmative grunts as he fought down the nausea caused by the flight and his preceding celebratory excesses. He resisted the urge to plug his ears against both the youth’s chatter and the deep-pitched, omnipresent pulsing of the engines which churned his stomach.
They arrived on the command deck and the background pulse became a cacophony created by the constant chatter of the hundred or so crew crammed into the area, all punctuated by a diverse succession of trilling alarms, all obviously routine given the lack of interest the crew appeared to show. Arbulaster did not know how the Navymen could stand it. Every centimetre of space on the deck had a purpose; it was packed with consoles and arrays, some sunk into the floor, others climbing into small towers. The walls themselves were covered by bank after bank of logistician and cogitator rows, all appearing to be frantically busy even though the ship, as far as Arbulaster could tell, wasn’t doing anything. The bridge itself arched over the width of the deck and above it hung the Imperial Aquila, its sculpted wings just as wide as the bridge itself,
keeping watch over them all.
The youth asked him to wait and then excused himself. Arbulaster paused a moment and then took a few steps over to one of the more reflective consoles. Whilst trying to maintain an air of interest in the crewman’s operation, he surreptitiously checked his appearance. Hang the inconvenience of the early reveille, if he had been brought here for the reason he expected then it would all be worth it. The rumours had been rife amongst the regimental commanders: the general was standing the Brimlock regiments down; assigning their old, tired Guardsmen as permanent garrisons to the worlds they had won. His days in this seemingly endless crusade, the magnum opus of Lord-General Ellinor, were done. He had survived. He had survived.
His men would live out their days here on these fringe-worlds and help bring them into the Imperium. Arbulaster, however, was going home.
‘Arb!’ a familiar voice called to him. It was Colonel Thabotka, descending from the bridge, a hand outstretched in salutation.
‘Good morning, colonel.’ Arbulaster forced a smile and returned the greeting.
‘Is it morning?’ Thabotka replied breezily. ‘I can’t tell a thing aboard these crates.’
Arbulaster was glad that the ship’s captain was still up on his dais and out of earshot of that last remark. Thabotka was not a Brimlock officer. He was, in Arbulaster’s opinion, with his manners and his casual familiarity, not a Brimlock officer in almost every respect. Instead, he was from Hellboken, one of the dozen other planets which had contributed Guardsmen to the crusade. Despite this, and even though they were of equal rank, Arbulaster knew well enough to treat him with a great deal of courtesy, for Thabotka was on the general’s staff. It was they who were making the decisions on which regiments were staying and which were fighting on.
‘Listen, Arb,’ Thabotka continued blithely, ‘the general’s real wrapped up right now; these negotiations have been nothing but delay after delay. I’m here with his regrets, but so you don’t have a wasted journey, he’d like me to have this chat with you instead.’
‘Of course,’ Arbulaster replied. He felt his chest tighten. Thabotka was the kind of man who would begin by saying how much he liked you, and finish by sticking you a task as rotten as a gangrenous leg. He was more than a staff colonel, he was the general’s personal enforcer. When there were rewards and medals to be given, the general appeared. If an unpleasant conversation was to be had, he sent Thabotka.
They left the command deck behind and adjourned to one of the chambers set aside for the general’s use. One corner of the cabin had a pict viewer playing the latest transmission of the Voice of Liberation with its regular thundering denunciation of the crusade’s foes. The rest of the wall-space was festooned with trophies of animals and xenos. In different circumstances Arbulaster, a game hunter himself, would have been most interested in examining them more closely. As it was, he kept his attention fixed upon Thabotka.
The staff colonel muted the pict viewer, picked up a small case of lohgars from the desk and offered one to Arbulaster. Arbulaster picked it up and caught a strange scent from it.
‘Exotic, isn’t it,’ Thabotka remarked. ‘You know where it’s from?’
‘No,’ Arbulaster said as he accepted Thabotka’s light.
‘It’s from right here. From right on Kandhar,’ Thabotka said. ‘Turns out the humans have been growing it here ever since the Great Crusade. Before that even. Even the Karthas liked it.’
Arbulaster grunted. ‘Hard to imagine us all sitting down with the xenos and sharing a puff.’
Thabotka gave a chuckle, both friendly and insincere. ‘I like you, Arb. It’s always a pleasure when our paths cross.’
Arbulaster stayed quiet as Thabotka lit his own and carried on, chewing the words out with the lohgar still in his mouth. ‘The general needs you to do him a favour, Arb. He needs you to do the whole crusade a favour.’
Arbulaster didn’t dare draw breath.
‘You ever heard of Voor?’
‘No,’ Arbulaster replied.
‘No reason you should.’ Thabotka continued. ‘Never heard of it myself until a few days ago. Pioneer world. Colony set up about a century ago, sent out from Frisia. Mostly uninhabited. Turns out, though, that we may have left a bit of a mess there.’
‘Have we ever even set foot on it?’
‘Didn’t need to. An orkoid ship, or rok or whatever they call it, crashed there about a year ago. The general reckons it’s probably a leftover from that ork armada which crossed our path back in ’56.’
‘I thought Ingertoll and the Navy got ’em all?’
‘So did I, Arb. So did the general. But with Ingertoll and his staff biting it in the fight, who did we have who knew for sure? Captain Marcher says that the Navy knew. He says the Navy reported to Command. Maybe they did. Back then all I know was that every single eye at Command was focused on Cawnpore, Carmichael and the 67th.’
‘I wasn’t there,’ Arbulaster said quickly. ‘The Eleventh was fighting on Ordan for most of ’56.’
Thabotka chuckled again. ‘You know, Arb, of all the Brimlock officers I’ve met, I’ve never met one who was on Cawnpore. I find that a truly amazing coincidence considering how many Brimlock regiments we sent there.’
Arbulaster bristled at that. Rank had its privileges, but he could not remain silent at Thabotka’s insinuation.
‘I am certain that you have access to my service record if you doubt my word, colonel.’
Thabotka held up his hand in mock defeat. ‘Of course, of course, Arb. Never doubted you. Never doubted you at all. And that’s why the general trusts you with this Voor business. There’s probably nothing to it. Command reckons that none of the orks even survived the crash. You’ll just need to head over, fly the colours, let these Voorjers feel protected.’
But his reassurances fell on deaf ears. Arbulaster knew that Crusade Command was notorious for filling their briefing dockets from the closest source of information to hand. Arbulaster had seen dockets chock-full with detailed information about tithing, imports and exports and the names of long-dead governors, whilst only vaguely alluding to certain facts, such as the planet’s highly toxic atmosphere, freezing temperatures, constant darkness, perennial monsoons or tunnelling hyper-predators.
‘If none of them survived, why isn’t Command leaving this to the local PDF?’
‘They don’t have them. No PDF. No Administratum. No arbitrators. Not even an Ecclesiarchy mission.’
‘Nothing?’ A suspicion slid into the back of Arbulaster’s mind. For a world, even a colony, to have no trace of the Imperial institutions had a most definite implication.
‘That’s right, Arb. Appears our Voorjers are very keen on their independence.’ Thabotka’s stress on that last, near treasonous word was unmistakeable. ‘But the general is a generous man, so he’s going to give them exactly what they’re asking for. And that brings me on to the other favour you can do him.’
Arbulaster climbed on board the shuttle taking him back to the planet’s surface and back to his regiment. He held his orders, both sets of them, and also a listing of the officers and men who were being reassigned from other regiments to replace his losses. He had not glanced at it yet, and even if he had, the names of Major Stanhope and of Private ‘Blanks’ Stones would have not yet meant anything to him.
Troop ship Brydon, transporting Brimlock 11th en route to Voor
Blanks had come to miss his paranoia. The unnerving fiction that everyone had been out to get him was starting to feel strangely preferable to the truth that everyone, absolutely everyone, was entirely uninterested in him. The men of the second platoon of Carson’s company were not malicious, they were simply unrelenting in their apathy towards him. He hadn’t needed to have picked up his nickname from the blank pages of his service record; it could easily be used to describe the expression in the face of every man in the platoon to whom he started speaki
ng.
The mystery of his service record had at least been resolved. Apparently, his had never made it to the medicae station, but the officials had filled one in for him as a placeholder while waiting for a reply from Crusade Command. As soon as that had come in, they brought it to his bedside. Blanks had read it carefully. It was the typical banal record of a soldier who had fought for nineteen years and yet never been promoted. There was a list of campaigns, a smattering of minor disciplinary matters, a single limp commendation and that was all. What a great disappointment it had been to have the great question of one’s life answered and to be revealed as such a mediocrity.
He had stopped causing trouble then, and when he was finally discharged with orders to report to the 11th, he went without a fight.
He no longer even felt bitter towards his platoon-mates. He had started to understand what they had gone through during the crusade, what he must have gone through as well, but with the blessing that every trauma, every stain on his memory had been wiped clean. When he had first joined the platoon, he had put his kit down on an empty bunk, only to have the man on the bunk above scream at him to get out of his mate’s place.
Blanks had got up and the man had instantly fallen back to sleep. He would have no recollection of the incident in the morning. Blanks had eventually found space at the far end of the room near the ogryn, who appeared to have attached himself to the platoon. No one slept there except Gardner because of the smell. And, he learned later, no one ever slept in the empty bunk below the man who screamed at him, because his mate had been hit by an eldar needle-shot on Azzabar that had burned him alive from the inside.
The subsequent days in the Brydon’s hold had been little different. The company had a regular routine of drill, exercise, meals and rest. Blanks followed along as best he could. A trooper named Mouse introduced him to the gambling games they played, to fill up the empty time in the evenings. The other troopers took an interest in him long enough to win his back-pay, and then they closed their company to him again.
Imperial Glory Page 3