Astra Militarum
Page 24
The lot of them were the officers of Cadian High Command. They hadn’t taken to Creed any more than he had to them. He was too rough, was how they phrased it as they passed the amasec to the left. Too successful, more like.
Creed slammed an open palm down again. Neither of them spoke. The silence was marked only by the scratch of the seated data-servitor’s blunt metal quill writing out more reports of uprisings and more attacks by Anckorite forces – more mess for them to clean up.
‘And now Ryse tells me we need to end this campaign before I can get back to Cadia and High Command.’
Creed knocked his drink back, sat down and lit his lho-stub. He stared at the glowing data screen on the wall above the servitor’s head, which scrolled with unpunctuated lines of data: names of places, officers, reports, automated reminders, ship-to-ship transmissions. All the petty white noise of Imperial communications. Kell picked up a plan for a mooted defensive trench system on a planet named Atelier-888 and studied it.
Creed had the air about him of a man who was beaten, and Kell didn’t know what to say. Warmaster Ryse’s message had been clear. Defeat Luciver Anckor, with no more reinforcements.
‘What’s that?’ Creed said suddenly.
Kell looked up but the line of data had already scrolled down out of sight. Creed moved over to the dataport. He pressed buttons and cursed. ‘How do you work this thing?’
Kell gingerly turned a brass dial three clicks to the left, but nothing happened.
‘Servitor,’ Creed snapped. ‘There was a report of a ship just arriving in-system. Is it a military craft? Reserves, perhaps?’
Stranger things had happened. Ships got lost, delayed, diverted. Perhaps this was one of those. Cogs whirred in the metal parts of the servitor’s brain as its speech function warmed up.
‘Negative,’ it said.
‘Hostiles?’ Kell asked, his mind beginning to organise boarding parties, strongpoints, layers of defence.
‘Negative,’ the servitor responded. ‘Vessel is the Justicae Eternas. Prison barge. Crew, one thousand three hundred and seven. Indentured population at outset from Scarus Sector, twenty-five thousand, six hundred and eighty-three. Attrition rate estimated at 4.3 per cent per month of travel. Due to dock at Lost Hope–’
‘Impossible,’ Creed muttered, leafing through the pile of maps. He slapped the one he wanted with an air of triumph. ‘Lost Hope. Ice world. Uninhabited!’
Creed impressed Kell at moments like these. The knowledge he had was phenomenal. The cogs behind the screen whirred again as the servitor accessed its data banks. ‘Data incorrect. Penal colony on Lost Hope for one hundred and fifty years–’
‘A penal colony?’
‘Correct, servicing a promethium drilling station at the pole,’ the servitor said. ‘Administrators of House Kasky tithed to the Administratum…’ It droned on, reeling through lists of information that were no longer pertinent. Creed had what he wanted. He clapped his hands and laughed. ‘A penal colony!’
Kell didn’t know what was so amusing.
‘Jarran,’ Creed said, a grin on his face, ‘we’ve got an army!’ Kell’s expression must have spoken volumes. ‘Don’t worry,’ Creed said as he swept up the bottle of zubrodka. He swept Kell up as he thrust the bottle into his greatcoat pocket. ‘Come on, there’s no time to waste. And stop looking at me like that. I won’t put you in charge of training them. We need to see Captain Avery.’
Kell spat, and his spit froze in the air before it hit the ice.
‘Frekk, it’s cold,’ he muttered as he strode to the bottom of the landing ramp and looked around at the ball of ice and rock that was Lost Hope.
The landing zone was deserted. All Kell could see was a row of six vast rusted promethium tanks, wide puddles of oily slush where Adeptus Mechanicus tankers had landed to refill, and behind and about it all a bleak vision of white tundra, marked only by a few patches of dark pine forest where terraforming had achieved limited levels of success. He rolled his head back into his high jacket collar. He wore hostile environment thermals, but still the chill was like icy water on his scalp.
Creed appeared at the head of his honour guard as the landers’ engines powered down. ‘This is it?’ he asked.
Kell nodded. ‘Yes. This is it.’
Creed rubbed his gloved hands together and watched the first Chimera began to reverse down the landing ramp. He seemed unduly cheerful. ‘It’s not so bad.’
Kell had a sense of doom about this whole endeavour. He saw no point in putting polish on the proverbial. ‘This planet is a class-A frekkhole,’ he said sourly.
Creed took a deep breath and stalked off. ‘It smells just like Kasr Partox,’ he called back.
‘Kasr Partox is a frekkhole,’ Kell muttered, as he followed his commander.
There was no need for signposts. A single track led off through the plateau of dull grey ice. The place was deserted. Creed climbed into the lead Chimera with his personal guard.
‘Let’s go,’ Kell called out to the remaining troopers. ‘No point getting cold.’
Kell was the last to embark, and he stood on top of the Chimera, scanned one last time for stragglers then waved to the lander pilot preparing for take-off. He dropped into the Chimera turret, closed the hatch above him and shimmied into the front gunner’s seat, next to the driver, Blendal. He tapped the heavy flamer fuel canisters and nodded in approval. They were full.
‘Let’s go,’ he said. His tone conveying in no uncertain terms that Colour Sergeant Jarran Kell was in a bad mood.
‘It’s cold,’ Blendal tried after a few minutes.
‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ Kell said. He reached back and tried to loosen the ache in his shoulder, but beneath the hostile environment jacket he was wearing his carapace armour and he couldn’t get to it. ‘Is the heat on?’
Bendal flipped a couple of switches for show. ‘It’s at maximum, sir.’
Kell cursed silently and tried rolling his shoulder instead.
Trooper Agemmon crawled in from the back cabin. ‘So what are we doing here, sergeant?’ he asked.
‘We’re picking up penal troopers,’ Kell said.
‘How many?’
‘Ten thousand.’
‘You’re not serious,’ Agemmon said.
‘Yes, trooper, I most certainly am.’
‘We’re that short?’
Yes, Kell thought, and Creed’s got it into his head that Cadia is in danger. But his jaw remained shut and his face gave nothing away. He didn’t comment on things like that.
Agemmon puffed out his cheeks. ‘Think they’ll be any good? The penals?’
He withered under the look Kell gave him.
The prison governor’s residence was set in a low valley which offered a little shelter from the gales that plagued the planet. A simple barricade of ice and ditches formed a square about the prefabricated complex. From a single watchtower flew an aquila flag, and the banner of House Kasky: two white hands clasped in friendship. The metal struts of the watchtower had not been cleared of icicles for a month or more. The only sign of life was a flickering strip light and a plume of sooty black smoke coming from a heating duct. Kell had seen a number of complexes like this on far-flung worlds. They were all the same, designed to support life in the worst of conditions: a tiny top floor of hab units, with a vast system below the ice comprising of heating and ventilation works, store rooms, freezers and bunkers that could keep the inhabitants alive for decades.
Blendal pulled his Chimera up behind Creed’s. Kell was first out and into the biting air. He dropped onto the ice with a dull crunch, laspistol ready, while the other Cadians formed a semicircle about Creed as he strode down his vehicle’s ramp. The general seemed oblivious to the precision of the troops, but Kell was not. He watched each man and he was pleased, though he didn’t show it. They were, after all, men of
his own Cadian Eighth.
‘They should be expecting us,’ Creed said, pulling his greatcoat closed and starting up the broad rockcrete steps to the prefab doorway. As they approached, the blast doors gave a low sneeze of hydraulics and began to slide open. A tall woman stepped out. She wore a long coat of purple silk-velvet astrakhan shako. Behind her stood four penal guards dressed in heavy black greatcoats, with rebreathers and pump-action short-barrelled shotguns. Not very friendly, Kell thought, but he kept his mouth closed. The galaxy was full of populations who had spent too long in isolation.
‘Welcome to Lost Hope,’ the woman called out in an imperious voice. ‘I am Governor Irena Kasky, of the House Kasky.’
Kell saluted. He’d overheard enough of Creed’s communications to know that the Kaskys claimed to be descended from an ancient family of rogue traders. The sector was full of their scions. They bought up hereditary positions by the system-load. Why any of them would want to run a penal colony, Kell had no idea.
Creed saluted. ‘I am General Creed of the Cadian Eighth, commander of the Imperial forces in this sector.’
‘It is an honour, General Creed. Come inside.’ She stood aside to let the Cadians enter. Kell counted them all in, then looked up and realized she was staring at him. Or rather at his equipment. ‘Are all of those entirely necessary?’ she asked.
Kell never went anywhere without his power fist, laspistol and a brace of grenades. He shrugged. ‘The galaxy is a dangerous place.’
‘Clearly,’ she said. ‘This way please.’
Agemmon gave Kell a wink as if to say he had caught the eye of the local lady. The sergeant’s broad jaw betrayed nothing in return. He gave a slight inclination of his head.
‘Inside, trooper,’ he growled.
Kell kept his arms behind his back as they followed Governor Kasky down the corridor. The complex had the shabby, lived-in air of an Imperial troop carrier after a long warp jump. There was dust in the corners, water stains down the walls, and an old notice board with yellowed signs, long since out of date.
They stopped at what appeared to be Kasky’s office. Outside was a roster list, a poster of an Imperial Guardsman with the words Stay Alert, Stay Alive printed underneath, and a picture of Saint Celestine, which appeared, blasphemously, to have been used as a target for darts.
Kell sniffed, and Kasky’s cheeks coloured.
‘Shall we go inside?’ she said. ‘We can talk there.’
‘A good idea,’ Creed said. ‘Kell, with me.’
Kasky gave him a look. ‘Does he follow you everywhere?’
‘Yes,’ said Creed. ‘Yes, he does.’
The walls of Kasky’s chambers were hung with rich carpets, the floor was strewn with cushions, and one end of the room was given over to a vast bed. There was a silver ewer of water. She poured each of them a glass and handed them out. ‘It’s fresh,’ she said.
Creed waited for her to drink first. She did, ostentatiously. Kell refused, and stood smartly by the door as Creed pulled up an ornate velvet chair and started to talk in a low voice. It took about thirty seconds for Kasky’s voice to rise. ‘You want what? No. It is unacceptable!’
Kell couldn’t hear what Creed was saying clearly, but he could guess.
‘There are always problems!’ Kasky said. There was a long pause. ‘General Creed, my family has invested…’ she stopped and looked for the right words. ‘I… I have tithes to deliver. You cannot just come here and take my prisoners. I have my superiors too, you know.’
The general, evidently, was not budging. Kasky stood up and tried a different tack. ‘Can you even fit ten thousand prisoners on your ship? Oh.’ At last she said, ‘Not all the prisoners are fit. Some have gone, well, mad, during their incarceration. Maybe you should go to check on them. You would not want to take some of them on board any ship.’
Creed nodded and stood up, raising his voice for Kell to hear. ‘I understand. I am in a hurry, so I think the best thing is for us to go and sort through them. We would not want anything untoward to happen on ship, after all.’ He turned away from Kasky and winked at Kell.
‘Coats on,’ Kell said as he strode out. ‘We’re going to see the new recruits!’
There was a palpable air of disappointment as the men knocked back their cups of fresh water, but within a moment they had slung their lasguns and were standing ready at the door.
‘You will understand if I do not join you,’ Kasky said as they assembled just inside the entrance doors. ‘I need to communicate this information urgently to my family.’
‘Of course,’ Creed said. He gave Kell a look that implied that the less time they had to spend with Kasky the better.
‘There are guards at the hangars, about five kilometres away. They will meet you down there. They won’t be hard to find – there are only two roads on Lost Hope. Adel!’ she called. ‘Can you go with our guests and make sure they reach the hangars?’
Adel was a skinny man with patches of ginger stubble and pale blue eyes. He seemed a little giddy with the prospect of someone new to talk to. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Take them to the prison camp,’ ordered Kasky. ‘They want to sort through the prisoners for those suitable.’
The man put out a hand. ‘I’m Adel. I’m the plant chief.’ He nodded towards their Chimeras as the blast doors shut behind them. The vehicles were still wearing their mottled brown and beige desert camouflage from the Besana campaign. ‘Didn’t have time to whitewash them, eh?’
Kell had the suspicion that he was talking to an idiot. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘But then, we’re not expecting trouble.’
Adel laughed, ‘No, and why should you?’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Well, let’s get going.’
The prison camp was situated next to the promethium fields, where derricks were black against the sky and long, low hangars were half-buried with snow. Work seemed to have stopped for the day, and a company of about twenty guards were waiting around a burning barrel, hands outstretched or thrust deep into pockets. They were a hard-faced bunch with long knives, a variety of shotgun patterns, autopistols, rebreathers, and black shakos, which must have been a House Kasky thing. They gave their hands a last rub as they left the barrel and walked across to where the Chimeras were idling. Adel waved a brief greeting. He did not speak to them, but stamped his feet as he led them down the broad rockcrete steps to the first hangar doors and stopped before the interlocking steel blast doors. The black spray-painted lettering was flaking with the cold. Grubhut 01, it read.
‘You sure want to see them?’ he asked.
Kell nodded. ‘That’s why we’re here.’ He turned to the troopers. ‘Safeties off. Just in case.’
The doors rolled slowly back. The hangar stretched into darkness. There was no sign of the convicts. Adel banged on the doors with his electro-goad. There was a hollow metallic ring.
‘Up, dogs!’ he shouted.
There was no response.
Kell and Creed exchanged looks and together they strode into the hangar. The deeper they went the stronger the stench of sour, sweaty, unwashed bodies became. Someone behind them flicked a switch and lumen strips flickered to life overhead. The harsh light revealed a crowd of hundreds, crouching together for warmth. ‘They’ve come again,’ a voice said.
‘Shhh!’ said another.
‘Are those Guardsmen?’ asked a third. ‘Listen!’
Kell felt disgust. They’re barely worth shooting, he thought.
Creed stopped, hands on hips, and stared at them. His disappointment was palpable. He needed killers, not whipped dogs.
‘Look at you,’ Creed called out. ‘You have sunk as low as men can sink. And you will die here on Lost Hope, sooner or later. Like this. On this Emperor-forsaken hole. But I offer you a chance of redemption.’
There was a muted response. ‘Shh!’ one of the men said. ‘Listen!’
The heap of bodies began to break apart. One man came forward on his knees, tears streaking his face. ‘Take me from this hell!’ he hissed reaching for Creed. Kell drew his pistol, but Creed raised a hand. ‘Give me a gun and I will atone for my sins!’
Soon all those that could were coming forward on their knees. They were like animated corpses, shuffling forward into the light. They were not desperate, Kell thought, they were thankful. He felt his skin tingle. He’d seen Creed do this before, turn fleeing cowards into men who would take a las-round to the heart and still keep fighting. But always before it had been in the madness of defeat, with the ordnance exploding about them and the mad flare of las-fire strobing Creed’s ash-streaked face. But here, in this dark, cold, forsaken pit, men – starved, broken, inhuman – were lifting their hands up to thank him for the chance to die a glorious death. A death worth having.
Despite everything, Sergeant Kell felt pride.
Creed gave Kell a curt nod and lowered his voice. ‘We’ll take them all. Any who can hold a gun. Keep them here until the lander arrives. I’ll see what transports they have to get them all up to the space port. We’ll pack them in as tight as we need to. Burn their clothes, shave their heads, delouse them all. We’ll make sure they get a good meal.’ He paused. ‘I don’t like the way they’ve been treated here. I have a bad feeling about this place.’
Kell saluted.
‘Adel,’ Creed said as he marched out. ‘I’m going straight back to call my ship. Take Sergeant Kell to the other hangars. He will finish up here.’
They took the hangars in threes to get through them more quickly.
‘Make it look like you’re sorting through them,’ Kell said to Sergeant Tarloc, ‘but we’ll take the lot, unless they’re really mad. Don’t leave any here with these scum.’