Straken

by Toby Frost

  ‘Get up to the gates and have that banner unfurled. I want our army knowing it was the Second that did this.’ He glanced back at the watchers on the rooftops. One of them hefted a long sniper rifle. Straken wondered what it was that bothered Lavant about the snipers – did he have a rival in their ranks? – and turned away. There were more important things to worry about.

  The demolitions team were finishing their work on the gates when he arrived, running a complex, ancient auspex over the hinges. The device was covered in sacred text and trailed a purity seal like a tail. It chimed and the soldier wielding it stepped back. ‘All clear, sir.’

  Halda unfurled the standard, flicked out the pole, and the colours of the Second Catachan Regiment hung above their heads. Lavant slung his lasgun over his shoulder, tossed his lho-stick down and ground it out under his boot. Tanner ran up, slightly out of breath. ‘We’ve cleared a path through the main barricades,’ he announced. ‘The tanks’ll just roll over what remains.’

  ‘What about the commissar?’ Lavant asked.

  ‘What about him?’ Tanner said, smiling. ‘This is a Catachan operation, right?’

  The gate controls were mounted on a gold frieze the height of a man. It took two soldiers to work the levers; Straken’s map had said that the opening of the gates had been a ritual in itself. The troopers pulled a huge brass lever down, and the ground rumbled as the gates unlocked.

  Slowly, with a low groan like some vast animal coming to life, the gates to the city swung apart. Light flooded in from above. Straken winced and the contrast on his bionic eye compensated for the glare. He strode up the slope, flanked by his captains, the standard hanging above them. Behind them came the rest of the raiding party, eager to see their comrades arrive.

  Two hundred metres away, tanks rolled out of the whirling dust. They were silhouetted against the sun, but Straken made them out by their shape: the broad fronts of Chimera personnel carriers, flanked by slow, rumbling Leman Russ battle tanks, then Hellhounds, their stubby turrets dripping liquid flame. Pennants fluttered gaily over the vehicles, as if they were on parade. In the centre of the group rolled a huge Baneblade, over twice as wide as a normal tank and only just small enough to pass through the city gates.

  ‘Just in time,’ Tanner said.

  Someone cheered behind them. ‘Catachan Second, delivering the goods!’ a voice called out. Straken said nothing as he stared at the column, uneasy for a reason that he could not name. The tanks were on schedule, but somehow…

  At his side, Lavant lowered a pair of magnoculars. The captain’s face was blank, as if the expression had fallen off it, his eyes suddenly wide. ‘Emperor, no,’ he whispered, and as if waking he shoved the magnoculars at Straken. ‘Colonel, look!’

  Straken grabbed them, telling his bionic eye to zoom in. Fear rising in his chest, he raised the magnoculars as the men around him began to fall silent, one by one.

  Bodies dangled from the Baneblade’s gun. They swung as it rumbled towards them, like fruit on a shaken branch. They wore tank crew uniforms.

  Straken flicked the magnoculars to the right. A soldier had been strapped to the front of one of the Chimeras, upside-down, head lolling. Straken hoped he was dead. The next tank was missing its tread-guards, the one after it holed by a shell and daubed in red.

  Rocket buggies zipped out of the dust, running around the tanks like jackals following lions. A hatch opened in the Baneblade and a hulking figure scrambled onto the roof. It could not have been less than two and a half metres tall. The ork raised armoured fists and bellowed at the sky.

  Straken lowered the magnoculars. That’s our people, he thought, the words spinning through his mind. Those are our tanks. For a second he was dumbstruck, a simple Catachan soldier a billion miles from home, faced by a metal tide of orks – and then he was Colonel Straken again, old Iron Hand, and he knew what they had to do.

  ‘Fall back!’ he yelled. ‘Everyone, into the city! Tanner, pull your people back to the rendezvous point. Lavant, get those gates shut, now! Mayne, get on the vox and tell Zandro to pull the rearguard back. Everyone, there is an ork armoured column advancing on our position. We are under heavy attack. Fall back!’

  Morrell waited with the rearguard, a mile from the gates, quietly furious. No word had come through to confirm their success – at least, none that they’d bothered telling him – but the shooting had died to almost nothing now. He stood behind the cover of a ruined truck, bolt pistol still in his hand as he watched the road behind them for ork reinforcements, and tried to look as if he didn’t care.

  They’d played him for a fool. That was why they’d put him with the rearguard: not to keep order, but to make sure that he wouldn’t be there to greet the incoming troops. He had been sidelined. The gates would be open by now, and there would be no glory for Octavius Morrell.

  Morrell glared at the soldiers around him. They looked a quarter ork as it was, big men in customised, non-regulation gear. What more could you expect from a bunch of jungle savages? He cursed under his breath.

  They’d warned him about this, of course. He had known from the beginning that the Catachans were trouble: rowdy and impious, dismissive of anyone not from their miserable home world. He’d thought he was the man to instil some discipline. Morrell wondered how visible his rage must be. ‘Where’s the commissar?’ General Greiss would ask, and they’d reply, ‘Oh, he had to have a rest. It was all too hard for him.’

  Fifteen metres away, an ork groaned and rolled over onto its front. Its chest was a ploughed mess of exit wounds. The damned things seemed to be able to shrug off huge amounts of damage.

  Morrell aimed his bolt pistol without getting up, squinted down the sights and blasted the ork between the eyes. It flopped down into the dirt.

  It wasn’t as if Morrell were soft or stupid. Stupid commissars were either picked off by the enemy or their own men, and soft ones weeded out by their peers. Morrell had executed plenty of men when he’d been attached to the Field Police of the Krommenweld Ironhelm Dragoons. Admittedly, the dragoons had at least been pious, disciplined men. It was said that they smiled less often than their commissars – try saying that about the Catachans.

  There was a grim tension in the air. Soldiers watched the way behind them, hands ready on their lasguns. Ten metres away, a scar-headed trooper sawed a massive canine out of a dead ork’s maw. Savages, Morrell thought.

  ‘Fall back!’

  Morrell glanced round, squinting under his cap. A Guardsman raced into view, almost falling over as though he were running downhill. ‘Everyone, back!’ he cried.

  Morrell gritted his teeth and stood up.

  ‘Everyone back, now!’ the soldier cried, waving his arm as if throwing a ball. ‘Fall back!’

  Morrell advanced on him, disgusted. As he drew closer, he saw that the man was an officer – not just any officer, in fact, but that imbecile Zandro, the one who had kept him away from the gates, and suddenly rage swelled in him to rival his contempt.

  ‘Lieutenant Zandro,’ Morrell boomed, pulling his coat back as he approached the man, ‘you will return at once to your post. Your orders were to hold this position until relieved. In the name of the Immortal Emperor, you will obey those orders or face summary justice!’

  ‘Everyone back! The orks are coming!’

  Men were moving now, Morrell saw, preparing to fall back. One bad apple, he thought, remembering the doctrine of the Commissariat. One bad leader, and a whole army can be ruined.

  ‘You have one chance, Zandro,’ he called.

  The lieutenant glanced at him, as if he’d only just realised that Morrell was there. ‘No, listen, commissar. It’s on the vox. We’ve got to fall back. The orks’re coming.’

  ‘That’s enough! A few orks can’t–’

  ‘Listen to me! We’ve got to move! If you’ve got any brains you’ll come with us.’ Zandro turned to his troops. ‘Gear up, men, we’re falling back no matter what the leash says. Parnek, fetch that–’

  M
orrell shot him in the back. The bolt-shell detonated, blowing a hole in Zandro’s chest thirty centimetres wide. He dropped onto the pavement as if he’d fallen from the cave roof.

  ‘Cancel that order,’ Morrell said.

  Everyone was silent for a moment. The men stood before their commissar like figures in a tableau, frozen in place. Morrell did not move either: his pistol raised, he stood ready to fire again.

  ‘Son of a bitch,’ someone said quietly.

  Then there was sudden noise behind them. Morrell heard voices by the dozen and glanced round. Soldiers came streaming down the road, from the gatehouse. Guardsmen jogged back, gun teams carrying their weapons between them. They were followed by sergeants bellowing orders, dictating a rapid, measured retreat. A Sentinel lumbered behind them, almost at full speed.

  Morrell stood in their way as if he had walked straight into a procession. Some of them hurried past him, and it took several seconds for them to notice the body on the pavement, and several more to see the smoke coiling from the barrel of Morrell’s gun.

  ‘He shot him,’ voices said. ‘The leash shot Zandro. The commissar did it!’

  Morrell recognised faces among the men, the officers overseeing the retreat. He saw Lavant, his face etched with worry, and Straken, shouting commands, pointing. Good, Morrell thought. At least proper order would be restored. And then he spotted another face, and its eyes locked with his own. He looked at Captain Tanner, and saw horror and fury in equal part. Tanner’s eyes flared up with rage. He lunged forward.

  Straken’s metal hand dropped onto the captain’s shoulder. He barked something into Tanner’s ear – Morrell couldn’t tell what – and Tanner twisted away. He stormed aside and disappeared behind his men.

  ‘Move, commissar,’ Straken yelled. ‘Unless you want to fight the orks on your own.’

  ‘The army–’ Morrell began.

  ‘Dead,’ Straken replied. ‘All gone. Now move!’

  8.

  ‘Keep it going! You at the back – yes, you – pick up the pace or you’ll be on a charge. Macellan – put that lho-stick out. You’re a Guardsman, not a hab-worker on a Throne-damned break! Move it!’

  Straken hurried the men back towards the power station. They turned off the road and into the mushroom forest. He stopped at the edge of the trees, beckoning and shouting them on. The Catachans jogged between the white trunks, bulky with gear, their faces smeared with dirt. Keep them on the move, Straken thought. We can think how to fight back once we’re out of danger.

  Lavant stopped beside him. ‘What now, sir?’

  ‘Get the men back into cover,’ Straken replied. ‘Run wires between the trees. Get guns up on the power station roof with mutually supporting fields of fire. I want this cavern secured.’

  ‘It already is, colonel.’

  ‘Not to my standards, it isn’t. I want the men busy, you understand? No standing about, no whining. Working not shirking. Am I clear?’

  To Straken’s surprise, Lavant straightened up and saluted. There was something strange about the man, Straken thought, but there was no denying that he was a good soldier. ‘Very clear, sir. But, colonel–’

  ‘What is it?’ Guardsmen trooped past, lascarbines held across their chests. ‘Pick it up, people!’ Straken barked. He lowered his voice. ‘Make it quick.’

  ‘We’re on our own, aren’t we? The invasion’s over, right?’

  ‘No,’ Straken said. ‘The invasion isn’t finished until we are. Now get going and look like you mean business. And send that damned commissar down here.’

  Lavant disappeared into the dark. The men trooped past. An autocannon team carried their huge gun in pieces.

  Morrell strode out of the shadows as if they had created him. He seemed even more like a commissar than usual: his cap pulled down lower over his eyes than before, his shoulders more set, his arms folded as though he were about to dismiss a feeble excuse. ‘Colonel Straken.’

  ‘You killed one of my lieutenants back there,’ Straken said. ‘His name was Zandro, in case you didn’t know.’

  ‘I did. He was in dereliction of duty. He ordered a retreat without providing proof of its necessity. I was forced to carry out a field execution to prevent a rout. Regrettable, but–’

  ‘My men don’t rout, commissar.’

  ‘Anyone can rout, colonel. It’s my job to stop them. I was obeying Guard protocol.’

  Straken glanced at the men hastening past. Some glanced at him; despite the retreat from the city gates, they looked at him with no malice or resentment, not even any doubt. For now, he reflected. For many of them, it had not sunk in. They hadn’t seen the captured tanks rolling into Dulma’lin, the sure sign that the Imperium’s army had been crushed.

  One trooper, a tanned young man with dark, close-cropped hair, looked straight at Straken for a moment – and then his gaze flicked to the left, onto Morrell, and something more than disgust flashed in his eyes. The next moment he moved on, one man in a dozen platoons falling back to base.

  ‘Listen, commissar,’ Straken said. ‘Keep your head down and do what I say. I make the tactical decisions here.’

  ‘Of course. I wouldn’t want to intrude.’

  You already have, Straken thought. And ‘intrude’ is a pretty light term for it. ‘Good. You won’t be too popular, that’s for sure.’

  The commissar shrugged. ‘War isn’t a popularity contest, colonel. I didn’t come here to make friends.’

  ‘You don’t want to make enemies, either,’ Straken said, and he walked away.

  Twenty-three hours had passed since the planned rendezvous with General Greiss’s invasion force. Almost an entire day of defeat. First, the loss of one of the drop-ships, and with it a tenth of the force – the old priest back on the Radix Malorum would have called that an omen. And now this: the failure of the invasion. Standing in the shadowy corridor that led into the main hall of the power station, Straken squared his shoulders and tried to make his face show only calm determination. Then he strode out to meet the troops.

  The men waited in the main hall, packing it out. They stood against the walls six deep, the ones at the front sitting on the bare concrete. Their faces were tired and hard; they wanted good news but expected none.

  More soldiers filled the viewing gallery. Morrell stood up there in a space of his own. None of the men would go near him. He looked like a roosting vulture, Straken thought as he stopped beside his captains at the far end of the room.

  Civilians entered the hall, flanked by guards as though they were prisoners. First came Larn Tarricus, his bald head glistening. Behind him walked a woman in her mid-sixties, thin-faced and shrewd-looking. Her hair was long and white, and it gave her a feral quality. Straken couldn’t decide whether she seemed more crazy than she did tough. Then there was a little spectacled priest with a startled mass of thick black hair, and a solid woman in a local defence force cap, the aquila dirty and tarnished. She looked as if she had gained most of her combat experience while drinking in bars. The rest of the civilians – Tarricus’s allies and most trusted aides – were a ragtag bunch. One or two looked like born survivors, people skilled at hiding and making do. The others were like a random selection of the citizenry of any safe, civilised, hard-working world, if they had been rolled in dirt and badly fed for a few weeks.

  ‘Hardly a pack of killers,’ Lavant said. Along with Tanner, he stood at Straken’s side.

  The Dulma’lin contingent took up a space near the door. Straken gave them a moment to settle down, then banged his steel knuckles on the metal tabletop.

  ‘Quiet!’ Straken barked. ‘Pipe down and listen up.’

  He glanced around the room. Tanner’s eyes flicked to the gallery, to Morrell. He looked back down again.

  ‘Listen up,’ Straken called again. The mass of people made the bad acoustics worse, and he had to raise his voice to just under a shout. ‘For the benefit of the civilians, my name is Colonel Straken, and until I’m replaced or killed, I’m in charge of all
military operations against the orks in Excelsis City – and that includes you.’

  He looked around the room, at his own troops as well the civilians, meeting eyes until people glanced away.

  ‘First, let me tell you a bit about ourselves. We are the Catachan Second. We may not look like the toy soldiers you see on the Administratum vids, but get this clear – we’re about the hardest, toughest Guardsmen you are likely to see in your whole lives. If you’re wondering what Catachan is like, let me tell you that it kills half its population before they’re old enough to walk, let alone shave.

  ‘I’ve been fighting traitors and xenos for nigh-on thirty years now, and I’ve taken some knocks, as you can see. But I’ve handed them out as well. I fight fierce, and I expect you to do the same, no matter the situation. Let me be absolutely clear about this – I will not ask anyone under my command to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself. Understand?’

  He didn’t give them the chance to complain. They watched him now, some more wary than others, but all attentive.

  ‘I would expect any of you to tell me the truth, and I will extend you the same courtesy. So make no mistake, right now, we are knee-deep in ork-dung.

  ‘The army that came to liberate Excelsis City, and probably Dulma’lin, is either broken or in retreat. All contact with the army group has been severed. The best we can hope for is that it is regrouping somewhere on the surface and will return, at times unknown. I am going to proceed on the basis that it has been completely destroyed.’

  A noise came out of the civilians, somewhere between a sigh and a groan. Men exchanged glances. Someone cursed in the gallery. Straken heard the loud ptoo of a soldier spitting on the floor.

  ‘Our orders were to capture and hold the Great Gate. We did that, and now the orks will know that there is a sizeable force of people able to fight them in the city. They know that if they find us, they’ll get a fight out of it, and that means that they’ll come looking. Make no mistake, waiting this out is not an option.