Straken

by Toby Frost

  Morrell ran his torch over the blades. The same thought seemed to have occurred to him. The commissar drew the torch-beam from the centre of the fan to the edge of the blade. ‘Rust,’ he said sourly.

  It could have been rust, Straken thought, that covered the cutting edge of the fan, just as it could have been decay of the blade that had left its edge bumpy and uneven. Morrell swung the torch down to something lying in the shadows by the side of the tunnel, spat back by the fan. It was a human arm. The torch lingered there. Straken kept his face calm, wondering as he did whether Morrell was watching to see whether he would flinch.

  Straken nodded to Sergeant Pharranis. ‘Keep the men back.’

  He walked to the fan. A metre or so behind the blades, there was a bewildering array of machinery. We’ll be walking into a turbine. Just what we need. Ah, what’s that?

  There was a pair of access doors behind the fan, no doubt to allow repairs on the mechanism. Straken took a deep breath and put his metal hand on the rotors. He gritted his teeth and pulled. Motors began to strain in his shoulder, and the soft whine of servos rose from his metal fingers. The rotor barely moved.

  There was a sudden blur of sparks to the right and a deafening clang. Straken jumped back as a chunk of the fan fell like a huge steel petal, its cut edge glowing. Morrell stood beside him, a power sword humming and glimmering in his gloved hand. The commissar swung the sword again, and a second fan blade crashed to the ground.

  Soldiers murmured further back down the passage. Morrell quietly deactivated his power sword and sheathed it. He smiled and stepped back, then with almost mocking graciousness gestured for Straken to go through the gap he had created. Straken looked at the rotor blade, the metal still glowing where the sword had touched it.

  ‘You go first, commissar. Pharranis, take the men through. Command squad, follow the sergeant – you too, Mayne. Spread the men out in tens and search the power station. If you see any orks, take them out – but do it quietly. Once the area is secured, sit tight. Do not advance beyond the perimeter, and don’t start shooting unless you’re attacked. Understand?’

  Pharranis nodded, the bad light catching on the stubble and scars on his bald head. ‘Yes, sir. How about you?’

  ‘I’m going to hurry the men on. The sooner we’re all in this city, the sooner we can get out.’

  Straken had always felt that the best way to lead was from the front, but there were exceptions. He waited by the fan as his men passed, urging them along, growling out encouragement and threats. ‘Move it, Guardsman,’ Straken snapped. ‘Sorristi, hold your gun like you mean it. You with the bolter ammo! You trying to catch flies? Then shut your mouth and pick up the pace!’

  The wind groaned down the tunnels as the storm hit home. The fan might not be in much of a state to spin any more, but soon the passageway would become a wind tunnel. Dust swirled around the soldiers’ boots. The wind would soon cover their tracks.

  The rearguard approached, still checking the way behind them. ‘Is that everyone?’ Straken asked, and when the men told him they were the last to arrive, he hurried back to join Pharranis and the commissar.

  The drab stone walls of a power station rose around him. Straken had seen plenty of buildings like this one before: Munitorum standard, a sprawling mass of blessed machinery inside walls that would suit a bunker. Those men not guarding the perimeter stood in the corridors, taking the chance to rest after the march. Pharranis and Morrell waited for Straken in a dark, miserable control room.

  ‘There’s no power, the screens are offline and the machines all look busted,’ Pharranis said, running a hand over his shaven head. ‘Looks like the orks came in, smashed the place up and stopped just long enough to dump in the stairwell.’

  ‘Then we move out. Let’s go.’

  ‘The walls are thick, colonel,’ said Morrell. ‘It could make a useful fortress.’

  Straken shook his head. ‘Yeah, but we need to keep flexible. Hit the enemy, pull back out of sight, relocate and hit again. That’s how we’ll be working.’

  ‘Whatever you say,’ Morrell replied, and he tugged his cap down.

  As they left the room, Pharranis tapped Straken’s metal arm. ‘Sir. One of the men found the staff for this place. If you’re wondering, they’re in a heap in the refectorum downstairs. Minus their heads.’

  ‘I expected as much.’ Then, raising his voice, ‘Guardsmen, look alive!’

  Straken left the power plant by the side exit. Two scout-snipers waited by the doors. ‘You won’t believe this,’ one of the scouts said, and Straken stepped out into the fields of Dulma’lin.

  He was in a gigantic cave. The roof, hardly visible in the gloom, was at least thirty metres overhead; mist swirled around the top of the cavern like clouds. Great opaque panels were set in the cave roof. Under them, huge mirrors and lenses had been rigged to amplify and diffuse the weak light. Several were cracked and broken, but the belts and chains between them still worked, and Straken could see the mechanism turning, as slow and inexorable as the hour hand of a clock. The air was damp but surprisingly cool and fresh. He wondered whether it was artificially treated.

  Something big and ray-shaped flapped out of the mist a long way overhead, banked in the air and disappeared back inside. Straken snapped alert and zoomed his eye in, feeling a slight pain in his head as the magnification boosted. The briefing had said that the native life was harmless. He hoped that was correct.

  Straken zoomed out and turned round slowly, taking it in, realising that the caves were large enough to create not just their own atmosphere but their own ecosystem.

  The power plant stood in what could only be described as a forest. The trees were white and fungal, planted in rows, their pale trunks splitting into rubbery-looking branches. Yellow fruit hung down. The ground was covered in a tangle of springy, spongy lichen. The vegetation looked as if the colour had been bled from it, like a faded pict.

  I can see why they wanted jungle fighters, Straken thought, and, with the wary skill of a man born on one of the most dangerous planets in the galaxy, he stepped into the trees.

  5.

  Strings of lanterns hung on cables between the branches, unlit. Straken doubted there was power to make them work. Besides, the Guardsmen were used to striking from the dark: on Catachan itself, the heavy foliage blotted out much of the sky.

  The trees smelt of earth and damp. The soldiers passed between the trunks like a rising tide, spreading and moving towards the entrance to the cave. Straken saw Halda, on his right, the colour sergeant’s bearded face scowling into the dark. He looked ready to fight, almost eager to stumble into the orks. Straken couldn’t blame him, but he wasn’t surprised that they had met no xenos so far. The orks would be in the city itself, where the opportunities for violence and looting would be so much greater than here.

  Mayne moved forward on the left so Straken would see him, and tapped his earpiece twice. Straken closed up and said, ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve got the vox signal back, sir.’

  ‘Good. Any news?’

  ‘Both teams are all inside. They’re on their way to the rendezvous point. Shall I tell them anything?’

  ‘No.’ Straken didn’t know whether the orks would bother checking for vox transmissions, but it was best not to risk it. The quieter and lighter you travelled, the greater the chance of getting the drop on the enemy.

  They walked on. One of dozens of linked caverns, he thought as he looked up. You’d need to watch the damp on conventional lasguns, although the carbines the Catachans used were designed to cope with humid environments. Tanks would be able to operate fine in a place like this, even if they did need to watch for rust. Flying machines were probably out – not that the orks wouldn’t try it – but jump packs were a possibility. Strange, he thought, but with enough guts and faith in the Emperor, humans could live anywhere – even on a jungle death world whose flora was ninety-six per cent poisonous to humans, and whose fauna was a hundred per cent predatory.
>
  A sudden noise came from above: a low, loud scraping sound, like oiled pneumo-doors sliding apart. Straken flicked his hand up, but the men had frozen even before he made the gesture. Light appeared and grew in the mist overhead, as though a saint were revealing himself before them.

  ‘What in the Eye is that?’ Halda whispered. ‘The sun?’

  ‘It’s dawn,’ Morrell said. He had pulled his leather sleeve back and was looking at his chrono. ‘At least, it’s that time…’

  An artificial dawn, Straken realised. There had to be a machine in the roof of the vault, somehow collecting and redistributing sunlight around the city. The light was not strong here – it must have to stay dim to allow the fungal trees to grow.

  He stared up, impressed, feeling the slight warmth on his face. By the Emperor’s light, he thought, mankind overcomes.

  ‘Move on,’ he said, and he kept walking.

  They advanced through five kilometres of trees, navigating by the cave roof and their compasses, before the call came down the line: they’d made contact with one of the other teams.

  A corporal ran down to find Straken, weaving between the trees. Straken followed him, Morrell at his heels.

  A road ran between the trunks, cleared to allow vehicles to harvest the trees. Five Catachans waited around the broken remains of a flat-bed trailer. Captain Tanner jumped down from the back of the trailer, a broad grin across his round face.

  ‘Good to see you, colonel,’ he announced. Tanner checked his chrono and gasped in mock alarm. ‘But how can this be? To think someone might reach the rendezvous before Iron Hand Straken!’

  ‘That’s enough, captain. You haven’t got as much extra gear weighing you down,’ Straken added, and Tanner managed not to look at Morrell.

  ‘Have you heard from Lavant’s people, sir?’

  ‘Not for a few hours. We’ve had trouble with vox reception. Mayne? Check Lavant’s position. So, Tanner, did you get the Sentinels through?’

  ‘No problem. Listen, the orks’ve been all over this place. We didn’t see any, but we saw plenty of traces. Boot prints, food stores smashed open – I swear, those animals’ll use anything as a latrine.’

  ‘Any corpses?’

  ‘Yes. No big battles, but – well, let’s say the locals didn’t last long.’

  Straken looked behind him. In the artificial sunlight, he could make out the towers of the power station rising above the pale forest. ‘We’ll use this place as a gathering point,’ he said, pointing into the trees. ‘Once they’re all here, we move north and hit the orks. Have your men get a roadblock ready, just in case, and get the Sentinels hidden covering the road. I want scouts mapping the area – in particular, I want every way in and out of here covered. Put up sentries and have some wires strung between the trees. You know what to do.’

  ‘Right. I’ll have them get on it.’

  Straken turned to Mayne. ‘Any news?’

  ‘Captain Lavant’s on his way, sir. He says he’s a kilometre and a half north of here, at the forest edge. He told me to say that he’s got a surprise for you.’

  ‘I don’t like surprises,’ Straken replied. ‘Not if it’s me on the receiving end, that is.’ Looking at Tanner, he said, ‘You coming to meet him, or am I going on my own?’

  Lavant was waiting in a wayside chapel at the point where the track from the power station met a wider road. A big statue of Saint Helena the Illuminator loomed over him. The saint carried a pickaxe over one shoulder. Her right arm was thrust out, brandishing a lantern, like the picture on Straken’s map. There was a rope around her wrist. A priest dangled from it, hanged.

  ‘Emperor protect,’ Tanner said quietly.

  Light glinted on lenses and a gun barrel up in the belfry. Zooming in with his bionic eye, Straken saw a sniper and a missile team hiding up there, covering him. A figure in the doorway briefly waved.

  Now there’s a man who takes no chances, he thought, as Lavant came out to greet him.

  Straken had forgotten how neat the man looked: his hair combed, his tidy little moustache, and his bandana tied around his neck. ‘Colonel,’ he said. ‘Captain Tanner, Commissar Morrell. I’m sorry we couldn’t meet somewhere more cheerful.’

  The commissar looked at the dead priest. ‘That’s no way for a priest to die,’ he said.

  Looking at Straken, Lavant said, ‘Looks like the orks thought it was fun to put him up there. Either that or…’

  Straken knew what Lavant meant, and reckoned that the others did as well. It would be a poor guardian of the Emperor’s flock who chose to hang himself instead of leading his congregation to either safety or a glorious death.

  ‘Cut him down,’ Morrell said.

  ‘The thing is,’ Lavant continued, ‘the greenskins may be using him as a marker. Much as I’d like to–’

  ‘Do it,’ Straken said. ‘Put him in the crypt. And rig up a couple of traps around him, just in case the orks decide to come back. I hope this isn’t the surprise you promised me.’

  ‘Emperor, no. We’ve met up with the local resistance – such as it is. Come on in.’

  The inside of the chapel was almost empty. Benches lay piled against the windows. Scraps of polished wood littered the floor. Chips of stone crackled under Straken’s boots. On the far wall, over a painting of the Emperor’s palace on Holy Terra, a symbol had been sprayed in red paint: a skull, its eye sockets slanted in anger and its lower half greatly elongated, tapering into fangs.

  ‘Here, colonel,’ Lavant said, pointing. ‘Meet Cordell Sark.’

  A young man sat on one of the pews, his hands clasped and head lowered, seemingly in prayer. He wore a hooded cowl over his jacket, giving him a monkish look. The lad turned at the sound of his name. His face was filthy but pale, the eyes wary and red-rimmed. Straken put him at about seventeen, but it was hard to tell.

  Sark stood up cautiously. He raised a white, scabby hand and pulled his hood back. His hair was short and badly cut, as if he had started to moult. The youth’s clothes were practical – Miner’s clothes, Straken thought – padded at the joints and so grimy as to look as if they had all been cut out of the same piece of brown-grey cloth. There was a pistol on his right hip, the grip wrapped with a rosary.

  ‘Are you Colonel Straken?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s me,’ Straken said, stepping forward.

  Cordell Sark stared at Straken’s bionic arm. ‘Thank the Emperor you’re here,’ said the boy. ‘Sir.’

  ‘I keep things informal,’ Straken replied. ‘Call me “colonel”.’

  ‘Are the Guard coming, colonel?’

  Straken nodded. The lad was a little stooped, as if braced to run away. ‘Yes. But not just any old Guard. We’re the Second Catachan Regiment, serving under General Greiss with the Third Ryza Warzone Fleet.’

  Sark sniffed and seemed to think it over. ‘And you’re here to rescue us?’

  ‘We’re here to kill a lot of orks,’ Straken said. ‘It comes down to much the same thing.’

  Lavant fished a crumpled pack of lho-sticks out of his pocket. ‘We had a talk on the way up,’ he explained. ‘There’s about fifty people hiding out west of here, in the mining district. Guild people, apparently.’

  ‘We’re the Greater Excelsis Sanctified Mining Guild,’ Sark said. ‘Biggest guild on Dulma’lin,’ he added proudly. Then he seemed to remember where he was. ‘Well, we used to be.’

  You probably still are, Straken thought. All the others will be dead by now.

  ‘He thought we were slavers,’ Lavant said. ‘Thought we were working for the orks, somehow.’

  ‘Cheeky,’ Tanner said.

  The grunt that Morrell made gave the impression that this would not have surprised the commissar at all.

  ‘Orks don’t work with anyone, son,’ Straken said. ‘They hardly work with their own kind.’

  He stepped back and raised his voice. ‘All right, soldiers, here’s the plan. Lavant – you, me and the good commissar here are heading off to meet these sur
vivors and find out what they know about the main gates. Take two sections along to cover our back. Tanner, head back with the rest of the men. Stay in the forest. Make sure it’s guarded but don’t dig in too deep – we’re here for a raid, not a siege. You,’ he added, pointing a metal finger at Cordell Sark, ‘are going to be our guide. I want everybody geared up and ready to go in three minutes, understand? Good, now move like you’ve woken up! Lavant, would you mind briefing Commissar Morrell on what you’ve seen on the way in? I think it’s important he gets the whole picture.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Lavant saluted and stepped over to Morrell. ‘Now, commissar, we moved in on a north-east bearing…’

  Straken leaned over to Tanner. ‘Outside,’ he said quietly, and they left the room.

  The hanged priest made a grim backdrop to their conversation. The sentries around the door did a good job of ignoring the corpse that dangled above their heads.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Straken said.

  ‘Now that the commissar can’t hear?’ Tanner smiled. ‘Fine. How’s it been with the leash?’

  ‘He’s been quiet,’ Straken replied. ‘Maybe our new commissar will get the hang of things. Shame he’s got no stealth drill. The man blunders about like a stuck grox.’

  ‘Commissars – all the damn same. I hate ’em all.’ Tanner’s hand came up and adjusted the dagger attached point-up to his combat vest. ‘Ah, you’ll break him in soon enough, same as the other ones.’

  ‘Anything bothering you?’

  ‘Not yet. That Sark kid seems all right, but if the rest of his people are like him they’ll be as much use as a penknife against a Catachan devil.’

  ‘I don’t want them to fight. They might have gear we can use, that’s all. What do you reckon to Lavant?’

  ‘He’s all right. Bit cautious, but all right.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ Straken looked back into the chapel. ‘What’s keeping you? Let’s move, gentlemen!’