Astra Militarum

by David Annandale, Justin D Hill, Toby Frost, Braden Campbell (epub)

  Tarloc nodded, and led his two men off to see the last batch.

  ‘This is the Corrections unit,’ Adel said as he led them to the last structure, much like the others but about half the size. There was a single door, set into the blast shutters. Adel tapped a code into a datapad and the door unlocked. He motioned the Guardsmen to go in. Troopers Hesk and Luord went first, and Tarloc followed.

  Hesk hit the lumen switch, and the lights came on from the back, revealing a long chamber of cages. ‘They’re all empty,’ Tarloc said, turning back.

  Adel was standing in the doorway, leaning casually against the doorpost. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Funny that.’

  ‘Where are the penals?’

  Adel grinned. ‘I think you killed them,’ he said. ‘On Besana.’

  Tarloc glanced at Hesk and stepped forward to shove Adel out the way, but Adel lowered his shotgun from his shoulder to point straight at Tarloc’s face.

  ‘Quit frekking around,’ Tarloc said.

  ‘Don’t give me orders,’ Adel said, and fired. Point blank, both barrels.

  Sergeant Tarloc was dead before he hit the ground. Trooper Luord left a long red smear down the hangar door. Hesk lay on the ground, moaning in pain. He had been hit in the side of the face. Adel walked casually up and kicked him hard in the ribs. Hesk glared up at the man, his one good eye filled with anger and hatred. He tried to reach for his fallen lasgun, but Adel kicked it away.

  ‘No, no, no,’ he said as if he were scolding a naughty child. He put the barrel of his gun to the side of the Cadian’s head and fired.

  Adel was whistling as he arrived at Grubhut 07. His men were wiping their long knives clean.

  ‘Done?’ he called out. They pointed down to the floor where three Cadians lay, freshly butchered. Their blood was bright against the snow, the red puddles already freezing. ‘Good work,’ Adel said, and climbed up towards Grubhut 06. He hummed as he went, resting his shotgun on his shoulder and reliving the moment he had shot the Guardsman in the face, relishing the look on his stupid face when he knew he was about to die. He grinned. He liked killing.

  ‘Got them?’ he called out as he rounded the corner. There were five dead bodies lying on the ground. They were laid out as they had been killed, arms and bodies twisted and bloody and broken. Adel looked again. The dead men were not Cadians. He barely had a moment to curse before a hand clasped his shoulder and spun him around.

  His attacker headbutted him, slammed him against a wall, kneed him in the crotch, then slammed him against the wall again, a hand so tight about his throat he could barely breath. His nose felt broken, and he gagged on blood as he spat out two teeth. As he blinked away tears, he looked into the indigo-blue eyes of a Cadian. And not just any Cadian, but Colour Sergeant Jarran Kell.

  The Cadian ground out the words between clenched teeth. ‘What the frekk is happening here?’ He let the pressure off a fraction. ‘Do you know what happens when I turn this thing on?’

  Adel looked down and saw that it wasn’t just a hand clamped about his throat, but Kell’s power fist. He kicked out at his attacker and then felt a sudden searing pain as the power fist’s energy field was activated and his neck fried and came apart.

  The stench of cooked skin and blood filled Kell’s nostrils. He let Adel’s smoking body drop to the floor.

  Drusus and Odwin had secured the open hangar doors. ‘Anything?’ Drusus said.

  Kell shook his head and wiped the gore from his face onto his sleeve. His carapace armour had saved him but the shotgun blasts had torn holes through his extreme hostile environment suit and he was losing heat fast.

  ‘Here they come,’ Agemmon hissed. Kell could hear the prison guards laughing and chatting as they ambled up the slope. ‘Lots of them.’

  Kell and his men exchanged glances. ‘Come!’ the sergeant said. ‘To the Chimeras.’

  As the prison guards came around the corner, Drusus slammed the Chimera into full forward and Odwin, in the front gunner’s seat, mumbled the prayer of Righteous Flaming and squeezed the trigger. A great gout of burning promethium blazed towards the traitors. They didn’t stand a chance. The Chimera rumbled over their burning bodies, and Kell, in the turret, tracked those few who had escaped.

  The multi-laser whined as the batteries charged. Kell was almost casual about it. He sniffed, aimed, fired. Fist-sized holes were seared through each fleeing man.

  ‘Got them,’ Kell voxed. ‘I’m going to check on the others.’

  Kell’s face was grim when he returned.

  ‘All dead,’ he said, pulling a less damaged hostile environment jacket on. He dropped down through the turret. ‘Right, let’s get the hell out of here and find out what’s really happening on Lost Hope.’

  They found the remains of Creed’s Chimera at the top of the slope. It had fallen into the ditch at the side of the road and tipped onto its side. It had been shot up badly, by an autocannon judging from the damage.

  Kell knew what happened when heavy calibre rounds penetrated armour like this. They filled the cabin with molten shards of metal and toxic smoke. It got messy. He peered in through the open top hatch. Jeorg and Fresk had been torn apart. Their blood and guts had frozen to the metal. Poor frekkers. They hadn’t stood a chance.

  Blendal was in the front. His head had been shot away. Resko had crawled clear. His throat had been cut, and he had bled out into the snow. There was no sign of Creed. Kell looked about him. The white tundra was blank, silent and empty.

  Odwin called out, ‘Sir. I found this.’

  It was a thin piece of cloth scrawled with glyphs. Kell recognised them.

  ‘Anckorites,’ he cursed.

  ‘The general?’ Agemmon said.

  Kell shook his head. ‘He’s not dead,’ he said. ‘He must be over there,’ he said and strode towards the Chimera. There was only one ‘there’ to speak of.

  Drusus climbed back into the driver’s seat.

  ‘So, we attack the governor’s residence? Just the four of us?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kell said, closing the top hatch. ‘Just the four of us. They won’t know what hit them.’

  Ursarkar E. Creed shivered. He was a child again, sitting by the fireside on Cadia, inside his father’s sheiling. Winter had come. The auroks were grunting in their pens as they chewed through the loads of leaf-hay he had helped his father cut in the summer. There was not enough to feed the herd. His father blamed the weather, his mother the spirits that howled through the pylons. His sister said nothing. Ursarkar was seven and he shivered. He didn’t know who to blame.

  ‘Son, come!’ his father said. His sister gave him a look, but Ursarkar did not need the warning. He had seen how much his father had drunk. He followed the old man’s gaze. Above them, the vast, dark purple and green bruise of the Eye of Terror had risen high in the sky. He did not need to point, but gripped his son’s shoulders too hard, and said simply, ‘I fought there.’

  Ursarkar bit his lip to stop himself wincing. He looked up. It did not seem possible to leave the world and travel into the stars and fight.

  ‘I fought in the stars. I was a Cadian Shock Trooper.’

  Ursarkar turned and looked up into his father’s eyes. Dark and unsure, almost guilty, they brimmed with tears for a moment. He wiped the tears away before they could betray him.

  Ursarkar put his hand up and touched his father’s face. ‘I will fight there too,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ his father said, but he sounded distant. The world went dark and there was a scream. His father and the shieling were gone. The screaming went on. It was his own voice, calling on the shooting to stop.

  He was lying under a bed, rockcrete dust in his nose, his mouth, his eyes. He gagged and coughed. His ears were ringing from the explosions. He could not move. There was a weight on his leg. It was his sister. Her eyes were open and staring. Blood trickled from her nostrils.
The sight of her dead face shocked him back into understanding, with a sudden terror, that he was eight again, in Kasr Gallan.

  The realisation clutched him like a cold hand. Cultists were padding through the ruins, sniffing for survivors, mumbling their prayers, their sacrificial knives dripping blood. He knew he must not move. He must make no sound. He could not help his sister.

  He did not know how long he lay there before he heard the crunch of a footstep entering what remained of the room. A heavy footstep. He held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Step by gritty step, the footsteps crossed the room towards him. Great black-booted feet, larger than seemed possible for a human. He did not dare even breathe as the metal frame of the bed was lifted back. He risked a glance.

  Above him stood a giant, dressed in gleaming black power armour and swathed in cream-coloured robes that hid his face. He held a pistol in one hand. He reached down and pressed the pistol into Creed’s hand. It was a laspistol. Then the warrior spoke to him in a voice that was deep, ancient and lonely…

  Creed woke with a start before he heard the words. Not that he had ever forgotten them. He looked around. It was dark and cold, and deathly still. He was at the bottom of a crude shelter, a rough roof of pine branches above his head. His hands were bound. His head ached.

  A man squatted over him. Not the armoured warrior of his dream, but a common man: skinny, shaggily bearded, thin, curious. The distinctive blue number of a convict was tattooed across his forehead. The man motioned Creed to silence with his finger.

  Creed nodded and looked about him. There were twenty more men, shaggy, crouching low to the ground, three of them carrying lasguns.

  He pulled himself up into a seated position and remembered what had happened. He had been sitting in the front of the Chimera, smoking and looking forward to planning the next campaign against Luciver Anckor’s fortress on Grettel, when the cabin was suddenly full of smoke and ice and bits of what turned out to be Blendal’s head.

  Creed had kicked open the Chimera’s top hatches, and hauled Gismar out. He was moaning, and it was clear from the bone sticking through his fatigues that his shin had been broken in the crash. Creed was about to start cutting the cloth away to set it straight when he saw dark shapes loping over the ice, shaggy fur capes and prayer strips flapping behind them. Harsh voices whooped and called out to their gods.

  Trooper Gismar was solid, reliable. Creed had seen him lose a hand on Besos Nine and still hold a gun emplacement against the greenskins. ‘If this is the end, Gismar, there’s no one I’d rather have by my side,’ Creed said.

  Gismar had laughed. ‘Don’t let Sergeant Kell hear you saying that, sir,’ he had croaked. Together they’d put up a stout resistance, but it was clear they were trapped and outnumbered. Creed fired three shots off behind them. They were returned. The Anckorites were working their way around them. There was nothing else for it. He had to think of Cadia, and if he was going to go he’d have to go now. Creed looked about. If he ran along the ditch he might just make that stand of trees.

  ‘Go!’ Gismar hissed as he reloaded. ‘I’ll hold them off.’

  ‘See you on Cadia,’ Creed said, looking into Gismar’s face. Another one he would always remember.

  Gismar looked up and smiled. His spirit was going home first, faster than any starship. He saluted with his bionic hand. ‘See you on Cadia, general.’

  The Anckorites shouted to one another as Creed burst from the ditch fifty yards away and dashed hard and low for the trees. The cold was raw in his throat. His legs pumped. Las-rounds lanced about him. One went through his greatcoat wings. They fizzed in the cold air about him. But he had grown up on the frigid moors of Cadia, and this felt like his home turf as he outpaced the Anckorites. He threw himself into the trees and rolled to the side, keeping the trunks between him and his pursuers.

  He had easily outpaced them, and when he was clear Creed started looking for a way of surviving the night. He had been making this shelter when he had heard a footstep, and turned just in time to see a club descend towards his head. And now here he was, trussed up like a beast ready for slaughter. His captors were a gang of escaped convicts, each with a blue tattoo across their foreheads. The man who squatted next to him stared at his uniform and the name badge sewn into his left breast: Creed.

  ‘You’re not one of them,’ the man said finally.

  Creed shook his head. ‘I am not.’

  ‘When did you come to this planet?’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘I saw your lander. It was a blue star in the sky. Two hours before darkness.’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Were the other landers yours as well?’

  Creed’s mind raced. What other landers?

  ‘No,’ he said.

  There was a pause. The man had been through Creed’s pockets: the contents lay on the ice between them. Ration packs, lho-sticks, a folded map, and his whiteshield cap badge. Creed’s pistols were missing.

  The man followed Creed’s eyes. ‘You are a Guardsman,’ he said.

  Creed nodded.

  ‘Which regiment?’

  ‘Cadian Eighth.’

  ‘Never heard of them.’ The man took one of the ration bars and took a bite. He chewed slowly, savouring the flavour. ‘I was Guardsman once.’

  ‘Which regiment?’

  ‘Vostroyan Firstborn.’

  ‘Never heard of them,’ Creed smiled.

  The man gave a low laugh. ‘I like you. Are there more of you?’

  ‘More of me? I hope not. I landed with twenty men though. My ship is in orbit and I have thousands there. If I can talk to them I can help you all.’

  The man put up a hand. All Creed could hear was the low moan of the wind through the trees, the lonely howl of some hunting beast, and then the distant crack of exploding sap. The mans seemed satisfied.

  ‘Who are you?’ Creed whispered.

  ‘I am a dead man to my people, my planet, my regiment. Here I am Convict 92497759. But once men called me Sergeant Leder. You think you can help us?’

  Creed nodded.

  The man held Creed’s gaze. He seemed to be thinking. At last he took out his knife and bent over Creed to cut his ties. He helped Creed stand. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘You should meet the others.’

  Darkness thickened about them as they trekked through the forest. They walked for nearly an hour. The only sound was the scrape of boots on ice and low voices as they checked the way. Creed was shivering despite his hostile environment suit. The cold was so intense it went straight through to the bone marrow. Leder suddenly stopped at the base of a fallen pine. ‘In here,’ he said.

  The opening was dark and damp. Pine roots brushing against his face. Creed bent down and as he pushed along the short passageway a fine sprinkle of dirt fell down the back of his collar. At last he stepped out into an open chamber and straightened. A smoky tallow flame burnt in the centre of the ice cave.

  Creed smelt hot broth, stale sweat and heat.

  Leder stood up. ‘I have brought someone,’ he announced. ‘He comes from the Imperium. He wishes to speak to us all.’

  They abandoned the Chimera two kilometres from the governor’s palace. Kell led Agemmon, Odwin and Drusus across the ice fields. They were quiet, determined. When they sighted the hab complex Kell squatted down, laid out the plan, then said simply, ‘Understand?’

  The three shock troopers nodded.

  ‘Right,’ Kell said. ‘Move out.’

  The watch tower still appeared to be deserted. They moved with a quiet discipline, covering each other, kneeling, checking they had not been spotted, hurrying on. They dashed across the last stretch of open ground and slid down behind the perimeter bank. Kell peered over the top. He was tormented by the idea that Creed was in there and was pushing them along at a ruthless pace.

  All clear, he motioned. They
scrambled up, crossing the last thirty feet and ducking down by the side of the buildings. Kell led them along the walls to a hooped metal ladder. He kept his power fist beneath his jacket to stop the batteries from seizing up with the cold. In a moment they were up amongst the lumps, vents and chimney stacks of the hab-complex. At last Kell found what he was looking for. He knelt down, used his hostile environment mitten to dust off the snow and grinned.

  Generatorium.

  He had to take off the mitten to clamp a melta bomb in place and set the timer.

  ‘Right,’ he said, leading them a little way off. He took out his chronometer and counted down quietly. ‘Five, four, three, two…’ The melta bomb blew.

  He pulled his power fist out of his jacket. It fizzed ineffectively. The battery had run low. Odwin shot Drusus a worried look.

  ‘Frekk!’ Kell counted to ten and tried once more. The power unit sparked one, two, three times, and at last the fist was coated in a crackling blue light. He plunged it down through the melted hole and peeled back the frozen sheets of metal, widening the breach. He kicked the last panel out. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

  They nodded.

  Kell went first, dropping down through the hole.

  ‘Why should we help you?’

  The voice rang out through the ice cave. A figure strode towards Creed. His fingers were black with frost bite, one of his eyes was a mess of scar tissue and an ugly scar ran from forehead to jaw. The other eye burned with hatred as he spat out words.

  ‘I was sent to this hell for the sins of our commanders, who were cowards. Do you know what they did to us here, the House of Kasky? Their men cut symbols into our flesh. They fed us on our own raw dead. The things they did to us were inhuman. Look at my brother.’ He pointed to one man in the corner of the room. His eyes had been torn out, and his face had been carved with grotesque glyphs and symbols. ‘That is what they did to us. So why should we help the Imperium who put us here?’

  Creed’s greatcoat hung from his shoulders. He was impassive as the man paced towards him. When he spoke his voice was low and resonant. ‘Because I need you. Because the Imperium needs you… and because I can free you.’