Imperial Glory

by Richard Williams

  ‘Run!’

  The helmet hit the branches and dropped onto the ground. With their natural thieving instinct, three of the gretchin sprang from the gun to grab it. The biggest of them smacked aside the other two, scooped it up and proudly planted the helmet on its head. As it jeered in triumph, the mega-bombard and the entire jungle around it exploded in fire.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fort Eliza, Tswaing, Voor pacification Stage 1 Day 18

  Corporal Gardner clicked the last catch of the autocannon into place and wiped the grease off his hands with a rag. He was putting the gun back to bed. It’d had a busy night. It had held the breach until the Valkyries had screeched down from above the black clouds. They annihilated the mega-bombard and everything around it in their first run and then set about the main body of the ork force still piling into the breach.

  The sudden attack from the air, coupled with the stubborn defence by the four companies that had stayed on the wall, had been enough to break the assault. The orks streamed away, back across the dead ground, into the cover of the trees. Gardner had carried on firing until the last body he could see stopped twitching.

  Even though the orks had gone, the companies remained at their posts. It was only after Major Roussell was finally convinced that the wall had been held that he ordered the reserve companies forward. There was to be no pursuit into the dark, unfamiliar jungle, of course, but they took control of the dead ground to burn the carpet of ork bodies that lay there. The soldiers of these companies, who had sat out the battle waiting on the second line, at least had the decency to look embarrassed as they passed the bloodied defenders of the western wall.

  Carson’s company was stood down and the men returned to their tents for the second time that night, but this time few could return to sleep. Instead, each man followed their individual rituals to calm themselves from the fire of battle: Frn’k ate, Mouse prayed, Booth drank the spirits from which he otherwise abstained, Prosser wept quietly, and Red collected up the property of the men who had died. Gardner stripped and cleaned his gun and planned how to kill Commissar Reeve.

  He had killed an officer before, Captain Blunder, though in that instance it had been an accident. All it had been was a simple salute, but that salute had given the sniper his target. Gardner had been lucky to have been under the scope of a marksman experienced enough to wait and pick his target, and then go to ground rather than blaze away to scrag a couple more before being picked off himself.

  The incident had taught him that the best weapon to use against one of your own was the enemy. He could imagine how it might easily be done to another of his unit; when fighting such xenos monsters as the crusade had encountered one depended so greatly on the support of those beside them that, should one of them delay even a second it might make the difference between life and death.

  But killing a commissar in such a manner was harder. Those commissars who chose to lead from the front did not last as long as Reeve had. He would stay close to the colonel and Gardner could not rely on the enemy to kill him there. He would have to do it himself.

  Even the thought of murdering a commissar was treason; worse, heresy, for they were the representatives of the Emperor’s will. Should a Commissariat interrogator pluck that thought from Gardner’s mind they would execute him for that alone. Such draconian measures were designed to instil terror, to ensure that a commissar’s personage be treated as inviolable by any and all who might question him. Gardner, however, found it liberating. If the punishment for the thought of the sin is no greater than the punishment for the sin itself, then there was nothing to be lost in its completion. He had thought it as soon as he recognised Reeve’s face the evening before. All that remained was the action.

  He would keep it simple. Simple worked. He would just walk up to him and then, with a single las-blast, there would be justice: justice for his brother and the hundreds others like him who were condemned after Cawnpore. He’d already filched a pistol for it. Couldn’t use a lasgun, no; it would be too obvious to hold. Reeve would be on his guard as soon as he saw it. But a pistol, he could just reach inside his uniform as though he were delivering a message.

  He zipped the autocannon back into its cover and stepped around the slumbering hillock of Frn’k whose lips were still smattered with food. He and Frn’k had been together for four years, since they had both joined the 11th after Charasia, and they had fought side by side ever since. But Gardner would not wake him up for this. He would not understand. In many ways ogryns were monsters, but in others they were children. They venerated commissars second only to the Emperor. Even after Frn’k saw what Reeve did to Ducky and Marble he still could not comprehend what had happened. He thought it some horrible mistake. He would not understand why Reeve deserved to die; he would only get in the way.

  Gardner stepped out of the tent, the pistol a reassuring weight beneath his armour. Reeve was here, Gardner could feel it. Mouse had told him that one of the Valkyries, instead of returning to Dova, had landed inside the camp. It had to be the colonel, come to inspect the battle-site and tear a strip off Roussell, and if the colonel was here, then Reeve would be here too.

  He walked through the camp, taking his time. Hurrying would draw the attentions of others. He reached the major’s tent in the centre. There were two sentries at the entrance and so Gardner held back, lingering in the darkness. Officers were definitely inside talking. He could wait. His stood and watched for a few minutes then he casually reached under his chest armour as though to scratch and stroked the hilt of the pistol.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ a voice said behind him.

  Gardner felt his breath catch. He turned quickly to see Carson standing there. Carson saw the moment’s guilt in Gardner’s face and the hand disappearing under his armour. He pressed against it and felt the object beneath. With a savage tug, he pulled Gardner’s hand free and yanked the pistol loose. He looked at it for a moment and then regarded the corporal once more.

  ‘He’s not there,’ Carson said at last. ‘Reeve’s still with the colonel at Dova.’

  ‘What’s that, sir?’ Gardner replied dumbly.

  Carson grabbed him by the collar, dragged him into the lee of a wares container and shoved him against the side.

  ‘I told you to wait.’

  Gardner grimaced. ‘How can I? How can I when we could bite it any second? We nearly died tonight. You, me, all of us. If I die and he lives…’ He let his bitterness hang in the cool night air.

  Carson had had enough. First, Marble and Ducky, then Van Am, then the attack and Roussell’s idiocy, his patience was worn out.

  ‘You sorry, selfish, son of a bitch!’ he whispered furiously. ‘You shoot him here? Now? They’ll take it out on the rest of us! I haven’t carried this company for ten years, just for you to get every one of them put up against a wall!’

  Gardner was no wilting violet, but he was still taken aback. Carson had never spoken to him, or to any other man in the company, in such a manner.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Shut your mouth! Listen to me. They know about your brother. If they don’t already, they’ll find out when he bites it. If Reeve dies then they’re going to come for you, and through you they’ll get us.’

  ‘They won’t–’

  ‘They will. So when he dies you need to be nowhere near him.’

  Gardner pushed himself free of Carson’s grip. ‘If I can’t go near him, how am I going to kill him?’

  ‘You’re not. We are.’

  Gardner hesitated.

  ‘This is one of those sacrifices, corporal, that has to be made for the men one serves beside. You and I, we both understand that.’

  Gardner nodded and did not resist as Carson led him out and pushed him away in the other direction. Carson watched him for a few moments to make sure he went and then doubled back, tucking the confiscated pistol away in his own jacket, ready for
the real fight.

  ‘I have no trouble hearing your answers, pilot, I have trouble understanding them,’ Roussell reiterated. ‘What do you mean when you say that it just ‘popped up’ on your targeting auspex?’

  ‘Exactly what I said, major,’ Flight Lieutenant Plant, who was not accustomed to being addressed so sneeringly, replied. ‘The location of the orkoid war engine appeared as a priority target as we were beginning our first run and we altered our attack accordingly. I presumed that it was someone here on the ground who had tagged it.’

  As the flight lieutenant spoke, Roussell noticed Carson slip in through the door. He ignored him; Roussell had deliberately invited only the company commanders to ensure that Carson did not attend, and yet the man had come anyway. Still, he did not want to have the further interruption of having a spat trying to get him out, he was having trouble enough with this debriefing as it was.

  It should have been straightforward enough. Roussell considered that it was quite clear that he had been responsible for the victory, he just wasn’t certain how. In past actions of a similar nature, he’d found it prudent to deliver the formal debriefing to his subordinates as soon as possible, to ensure that they were all aware of the official record and knew not to contradict it in their individual filings. Here he had been, all set to grant a measure of credit to the Valkyrie pilots for their assistance in chasing the orks away after the success of his plan to contest and defend the breach, when this dim-witted bluebell unveiled the mystery of the targeting coordinates. Roussell would not have cared, but if the pilot was going to file it to the colonel then the colonel was going to quiz him, and if he didn’t have an answer he’d look an idiot.

  ‘I have always encouraged my sub-commanders to exercise their initiative in battle,’ Roussell said smoothly. ‘I’m sure that there were several units who were placed and could have advised as to coordinates. Major Rosa?’

  The podgy artillery officer woke from his doze with a start. ‘Your observers would have been in place to “tag”’ – Roussell’s tone made clear his disdain for Navy slang – ‘this war engine, would they not?’

  Rosa readjusted his spectacles. ‘Yes, well, perhaps. But I must admit that with our heavier pieces back at Dova we were focusing on the ground outside the walls and the, er, softer targets there.’

  ‘You misunderstand, major,’ the flight lieutenant interrupted, not inclined to make life easy for Roussell. ‘To be clear for the record, we were not voxed with coordinates; it was a Navy signal direct from the target.’

  ‘That was us,’ Carson announced. ‘Two of my men, Sergeant Forjaz and Private Stones, volunteered to make a flanking excursion and take down the bombard. They transmitted the signal from its location.’

  A look of concern crossed the flight lieutenant’s face. ‘Did they survive the attack?’

  Carson turned to him. ‘Both men reported back a short time ago, alive and uninjured.’

  ‘They’re to be commended. They were just in time, we were only just able to divert from our initial–’ the flight lieutenant began, relieved, but Roussell interrupted, clearing his throat loudly. He wanted to shut up the Navy pilot before the topic of the first targets arose again. Now he knew that Carson had held the breach, he thought it wiser not to make the lieutenant aware that he had given that position as the original target. It would be an excuse for Carson to finally call him out and kill him as he’d done so many others.

  ‘If that’s all accounted for then? Let the record show the commendable actions taken by these two men who were under Major Stanhope’s command.’ There, Roussell thought, the matter was closed and he was safe.

  ‘Some of your time?’ Carson caught Stanhope as Roussell dismissed the assemblage. ‘In private?’

  Stanhope nodded wearily and led the way to his tent. ‘I’ll put a note in my filing,’ Stanhope began as they went, ‘to ensure that the colonel has an accurate account of who authorised the attack on the bombard and who led the company at the breach.’

  ‘Do not trouble yourself, major,’ Carson replied off-hand. ‘The colonel and Major Brooce are perceptive men. They will discern the truth.’

  ‘Still, for the record–’

  ‘Do you really think that I care what the record says about me?’

  Stanhope paused for a moment and regarded him. ‘No, I do not.’ They walked a way further and Stanhope began again. ‘This man Stones is something of a mystery. Boosting the signal of a hand-vox is one thing, but setting it to transmit a Navy targeting sign is quite another.’

  He noticed that then, Carson thought. He must not be on it at the moment. He was actually trying to be friendly. Collegiate. Obviously he thought that fighting side by side at the breach had drawn them together, that the two of them might actually confer and share command of the company. He was deluded, but Carson would hold his tongue until they were in private.

  ‘More than that, even,’ Carson said, keeping his tone even, ‘if you had heard Forjaz’s report.’

  Stanhope heard the touch of censure in the lieutenant’s words. He had not been there to hear Forjaz’s report; he had not even known whether the two men had survived or not until Carson announced it. He suspected he knew what Carson wished to talk to him about. He had witnessed it, they all had. It was not the way things should be done, but Stanhope was not going to hang him for it.

  ‘Your relations with the governor’s granddaughter are of no interest to me,’ he said as he entered the tent, ‘if that is your concern. Your appearance together at the call to battle was… unfortunate, but I’m sure that you will be more discreet in the future.’

  It was then that Carson decided to let Stanhope really have it.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about Stones. I don’t want to talk about Van Am. I want to talk about Ducky.’

  ‘Private Drake? What about him?’

  ‘What in damnation were you doing?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean: when you stood there and watched as Reeve shot two of my men.’

  ‘Take care as to your tone, lieutenant.’

  ‘I’ll take whatever tone I please with you, you washed up, clapped-out, pitiful excuse for an officer. What gives you the right? Eh? What gives you the right to sit out the rest of the crusade? To stand and watch while men of mine are crippled, not by the enemy, but by their own side? If this is how you treated your own men, no wonder they got murdered. Do it to your own command, but why did you have to come and take–’

  Carson felt the side of his face explode. He stumbled back, blinking in surprise. He focused and saw Stanhope standing there, fist still outstretched, knuckles white. Stanhope stood stock still for a moment. He had shocked himself with the punch; it was as if it had come from another person. It was that instant of delay before Stanhope’s fighting instincts kicked in that prevented Carson being knocked to the ground in seconds.

  Stanhope swung again, more deliberate, this time putting his weight behind it. Carson deflected it and tried to grab the arm, but Stanhope was still moving forwards and tried to ram his temple into Carson’s nose. Carson twisted his face out of the way and Stanhope’s crude head-butt smacked into his ear. Blessed Marguerite! Carson thought, he hadn’t taken the aloof Stanhope to be such a dirty fighter.

  The sudden panic lent extra urgency to Carson’s muscles. He grabbed the major around the head and punched him in the side of the neck, then felt the pain in his side as Stanhope tried to hit him in the kidney. Stanhope tried to yank free of the lieutenant’s grip, but Carson brought his other arm around, grasped hold of Stanhope’s hair and brought his leg up to protect his own groin and knee Stanhope in the face. Stanhope, with a rabid strength Carson hadn’t suspected he had, shoved them both forwards. With Carson off-balance, the two of them fell back, Carson’s knee raised, his foot pressing into Stanhope’s stomach. He kicked hard and Stanhope was fairly launched back across
the tent and stumbled to the ground. He grabbed the side of his bed to steady himself and readied for another attack when he saw the pistol in Carson’s hand.

  The two officers held position for a few moments, both of them panting for breath.

  ‘I wondered what it was going to take to get you to fight,’ Carson said finally.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Stanhope snarled. ‘That’s what you like, isn’t it? I’m not so addled that I don’t know your reputation, lieutenant. How many duels have you fought? How many men, how many imperial officers have you murdered with those guns? More than any single one of the enemy. More than Reeve even?’

  Carson’s expression froze. ‘Don’t you dare compare me to him.’

  ‘You’re right. Reeve kills men because he thinks that’s his job. You kill because you enjoy it. I saw it in you yesterday with Reeve’s ork. I can see it in you now. What would you have done? What would you have done if you had been there sooner? You couldn’t have done anything.’

  ‘I’d have stopped it.’

  ‘No, you couldn’t. You’re a second lieutenant and second lieutenants can do damn all. Twenty years, Carson, twenty years of fighting; your men love you, your commanders trust you, so why have you never been promoted to a rank where you can make a difference? It’s because when Ellinor’s fat fool of a son picked a fight with you, you wouldn’t walk away. And when he told you a time and a place, you met him there. And when his shot just creased your shoulder, you didn’t disarm him, you didn’t injure him, you shot him through the heart. People said you were proud. You’re not proud. You’re sick. You kill because you like it, but you killed the wrong man. And that’s why you couldn’t save your precious Private Drake last night.’

  Carson felt it now, he felt the urge come on him. His mind knew that this was lunacy, that he’d get put against a wall, but his blood did not care. All it could feel was the power, the power of having another life completely at its mercy, a hugely complex organism and the unique identity that it had developed which could be snuffed out by the slightest move from him. It disgusted his mind, but his blood called out for it. His whole body tensed with the effort of the struggle. But then his body betrayed him.