Straken

by Toby Frost

  It stopped three metres away and tossed the gun down. The piggy little eyes were like an afterthought in the lumpy green meat of its face. The ork did what Morrell had been dreading, and its eyes moved down to his leg.

  The ork laughed. Morrell hadn’t known they could do that. It took a step forwards, up to his side, and lifted its boot to stamp on the commissar’s broken shin.

  Morrell raised the bolt pistol and pumped two rounds into its chest. The sound utterly cleared his mind, banished the pain. The ork staggered back, its ribcage suddenly open to the world. Morrell lifted the gun a little, sighted it and blew out the alien’s brains.

  A second ork appeared in an archway twelve metres away. It saw Morrell and ran out, either to avenge its comrade or loot its corpse. Morrell fired two-handed, squinting down the barrel. The shell missed but smashed a lump of stone from the wall beside it, and the beast flinched out of view. Morrell knew that he would feel no pain while his pistol kicked in his hands.

  There were two frag grenades on his belt. He’d pull the pins before they reached him. A third ork ran in from the left and, despite his thinking, Morrell’s leg seemed to scream with pain as he twisted round to shoot at the alien. Morrell’s bolt knocked the brute onto all fours, and his second shot caught it straight between the eyes.

  And then they were coming from all sides, rushing in like a tide. Morrell swore and shot down another ork trooper, blew an arm off a fourth and realised that he was almost out of ammunition. The world swung in his vision like a ship in a gale. A fifth ork, big enough to be an officer, lumbered forward, and its head exploded. Morrell fired again, but the hammer clicked on nothing. A voice cried, ‘The commissar!’ The magazine dropped out of Morrell’s pistol, and as he reached for a fresh clip, the blackness welled up and the world capsized, pitching him into dark waters below.

  13.

  Greiss stood by the window as he sipped at his amasec, waiting for the warmth of the liquor to spread through him. A third of the window was taken up by the great blue sphere that was Purbech Alpha, a mass of roiling sea three times the size of Holy Terra. Construction yards and Naval bases hung in high orbit around the planet, much like the dock to which the Radix Malorum was now attached.

  Down there, he thought, were the vehicles, the troops, that they needed – not just to retake Dulma’lin, but to avenge the ruining of Greiss’s army. Perhaps they would even find men alive on Dulma’lin. Greiss had spent the last few months trying not to hope.

  How long could one docking sequence take? Scrollworked hands crawled around the face of the ancient clock mounted on the far wall. The porcelain face was yellowed and covered in fine cracks like veins. Everything looked old and broken to the general, himself included.

  Four hours ago, the Radix Malorum had drawn alongside the Purbech orbital dock, and the docking clamps had boomed against the warship’s hull. Outside, the Adeptus Mechanicus were about their work, scanning the hull, performing rites and anointments, rituals of disembarkation. And to think that I am in charge of this army, Greiss thought, taking another sip. None of us is in charge of anything. Consider yourself in control, and there will always be something to trump you, some other factor to ruin your plans… We are all in the Emperor’s hands, he told himself. From the lowest common soldier lying in the infirmary, all the way up the chain. Let us hope He is feeling merciful.

  He heard noises outside the room and flicked round. Nork’s voice was low and surly. ‘You go in then. But I’m watching you.’

  The doors parted and the ship’s chief enginseer stood in the doorway. Magister Senex was human in shape, but the smooth grace to his movements spoke of heavy bionics. He slid into the room with a soft whine of hydraulics.

  ‘The rituals are complete. The airlock awaits you, general.’

  ‘About time, too. Have you any idea how long I’ve been waiting?’

  Something huffed under Senex’s hood. ‘Air particles suggest some time, with considerable anxiety. I would advise against finishing your drink, general. For a man of your body mass, it could seriously impair your functionality.’

  Greiss hadn’t much wanted to polish off a whole glass, but now he made a point of doing so. Before the alcohol could hit him he said, ‘The airlock, then.’

  The walls grumbled with the racket filtering up from the ship’s workshops: even while docked, the tech-priests were labouring to repair the tanks and landers that had managed to escape the disaster on Dulma’lin. All the better for it, Greiss thought. The more armour of their own they could provide, the more likely that the army group’s request for support would be taken seriously. Without their own weaponry, they risked being treated like refugees.

  Greiss, Senex and Nork Deddog squeezed into the lift. As the mechanism rattled around them, Senex gave his report. Less than a tenth of the heavy weaponry remained. If the ship’s repair bays continued at their current pace that would rise to seventeen per cent by the time they returned to Dulma’lin – assuming that it was tactically viable to do so.

  ‘Of course it’s viable,’ Greiss snapped, trying not to think of his fellow Catachans. ‘What about the men?’

  The men had fared better, Senex added, without a great deal of interest. Of course, there were casualties, but about sixty per cent of the troops were at operational quality. If he wanted any more information on them, he would need to check with the medicae. Mere flesh was not the province of the Mechanicus.

  The doors slid open. Senex’s deputy, Arris, slid over to join them. Rumour had it that Arris had started off as female, before ‘improving’ herself in the name of the Machine-God. If anything, she made Greiss even less comfortable than Senex.

  They stepped out into the grand airlock-atrium, the Radix Malorum’s welcoming suite for dignitaries and high-ranking officers. Three of Greiss’s colonels waited in dress uniforms, including Frayling. Twelve soldiers stood to attention in a row beside the airlock doors; a squad of storm troopers waited out of sight, a standard precaution. A pair of gilded servitors stood in alcoves, ready to offer wine to the arrivals. It was sophisticated but not decadent, Greiss thought. Hopefully, it would give the impression that he was not desperate for help, but had come to welcome the Purbech regiments into his glorious crusade against the orks. Hopefully.

  ‘Everybody ready?’ Greiss asked. Men nodded. ‘Open the airlock.’

  Straken took the calendar off the wall and flipped it over. ‘There’s a surprise,’ he said, looking at the new picture. ‘It’s all about mining.’ According to the calendar, it was six standard weeks until the festival of the blessing of the drills, whatever that was. More importantly, it was nearly six months since the operation to free Dulma’lin had begun.

  He stood in what had formerly been a central enforcer station, a grim bunker-shaped lump in the middle of the hab-district. Apartment blocks surrounded the station, the roofs now permanently manned by lookouts and missile teams. There would be no repeat of the ork raid on the vox tower, prompted by the death of Father Sarr; this time they would see the orks coming from a kilometre away, jump packs or not.

  The power station was now the Catachan supply base, their rallying point in case they were driven back. Although it still held their equipment and vehicles, as well as being the main medical station, the move to the enforcer building marked a change in the operation. The Catachans were advancing into ork territory.

  Straken heard boots behind him and looked round. Piter Lavant entered the room, thumbs hooked over the waistband of his fatigues. For once the captain looked pleased instead of worried.

  ‘Good news, colonel. We’ve got the main avenues into our territory wired. Most of the narrow streets are barricaded off. It’s like a fortress down in the hab-zones.’

  ‘Good. Make sure you’ve got some decent marksmen on watch, in case the orks start using copters again. We don’t want the greenskins jumping over our defences. And make sure we’ve got places to fall back to – the top brass may love a last stand, but I don’t. Keep it flexible, L
avant. I don’t care what the Uplifting Primer says, I want none of this standing around in lines waiting to be shot.’

  ‘Yes, sir. You know what they say in the Catachan Fourteenth? You can’t see your Primer once the trees close overhead. Colonel Carroway used to say it all the time.’

  ‘Carroway says a lot of stuff.’ Straken glared at the calendar. ‘We need to take this fight to the orks, take the planet back. We’ve got the bases and the gear to do it now, provided we work fast. We need to send people into the engineering area and take control of the manufactoria there, once and for all. The Emperor only knows what the orks are doing down there – probably turning our tanks into those lumps of unholy junk they like to drive.’ Straken stepped back and looked down the length of the command room. He flexed his metal arm, listening to the tiny drone of servos. ‘Lavant?’

  ‘Colonel?’

  ‘Check our food and ammo stocks.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Make a full inventory. And fetch me the maps. I’m going to come up with a plan for taking the engineering caves.’

  The great brass doors hissed and rumbled apart. Behind them was the station vestibule. It was no less ornate than the Radix Malorum’s welcoming suite, but furnished in a very different style. The walls were patterned with smooth swirls of green glass, in imitation of waves. Silk tapestries hung like paintings, showing stylised lancers impaling leaping xenos sharks. It looked coldly elegant.

  Rows of soldiers stood around the walls. They wore tall red caps and white shirts decorated with ornate stitching. A neat, white-haired man in a green frock coat walked between them, a servo-skull bristling with scanners hovering over his shoulder.

  ‘General Greiss, I presume? Welcome to the Purbech orbital dock. I am Hubrik Art’Aren, Arch-Factotum, counsellor and amanuensis to His Lordship High Praetor Osh’Preen. Please, do follow me.’

  Greiss stepped out of the spaceship. Art’Aren’s servo-skull flicked a sensor beam over him, and he blinked as the light passed his eyes. Nork growled, and Greiss feared that the ogryn would snatch the skull out of the air and crush it in his fist.

  In the centre of the vestibule, stone maidens cavorted around a fountain. The fountain activated as they approached, its water tinted a lurid shade of blue. ‘This way, please,’ Art’Aren said, gesturing towards a pair of doors turquoise with verdigris.

  They entered a comparatively small chamber, little more than twenty-five metres square. Paintings depicted mermaids and fishermen with tridents. Lamps glowed from the walls behind thin screens of liquid, giving the impression of water rippling around the room.

  ‘This is a very traditional style,’ Art-Aren said, motioning Greiss towards a throne-like chair. ‘We Purbech have been a seafaring people for six thousand years. That picture there depicts an ancient folk story: the dolphin represents–’

  ‘Very pleasant,’ Greiss said. ‘I take it you received my message?’

  Art’Aren paused. ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘I’ll be honest with you, the orks hit us hard. The xenos ambushed us as we were setting down.’

  Art’Aren nodded sagely. ‘Always a vulnerable time.’

  ‘We need to take Dulma’lin back, and fast. The orks down there have access to an entire world’s supplies – add to that the tanks we had to leave behind when we pulled back, and the potential for the enemy to rearm themselves before moving on to Ryza is enormous.’

  ‘Indeed so. Your request has been passed to the Third Council of Hetmen for consideration. From there, if it is found to have merit, it will be forwarded to the–’

  ‘Wait a moment. If it’s found to have merit?’

  ‘Of course. These things need to be considered carefully. One does not deploy an army like that of the High Praetor lightly.’

  ‘Listen, sir.’ Greiss lowered his voice, forcing the counsellor to lean closer. ‘The High Praetor is an officer of the Imperial Guard. His forces lie within the greater Ryza warzone. As a result, as part of the ongoing crusade against the orks in this sector, he is liable to be ordered to assist by the acting warmaster. In other words, when the warmaster calls, the High Praetor comes running.’

  Art’Aren tilted his head, weighing up options. ‘And do you have such an order?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Greiss stopped, bony hands clenched behind his back. He reminded himself that there was nothing to be gained from choosing to let his anger show. The fountain tinkled merrily. ‘How long is this likely to take?’

  ‘I’ll get you an interview with the High Praetor within the week. I’ll make sure he sees the documentation. Then… Well, it won’t be easy, but if we push things through – you’ll get a decision in about a month.’

  ‘A month?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Art’Aren’s eyes moved from Greiss to the ogryn standing behind him, and he swallowed. ‘A few weeks, at most. And in the meantime I’ll ensure that you and your deputation are treated as honoured guests. All luxuries will be made available to you.’

  He smiled, bowed and walked away. As Greiss watched the counsellor depart, it occurred to him that the only luxury he wanted now was time.

  Gunfire banged and rattled in the city. Lasguns answered, hissing like sizzling fat. For a moment there was silence, and then a single, grunting cry.

  Captain Tanner lowered his magnoculars. ‘That’s the last of them.’

  Straken stepped away from the railing. They stood on the roof of the enforcer building, looking across the hab-blocks. The front of a shopping arcade gaped at them, the doors hanging open. Anything of use in the place was now stashed in the basement of the station they occupied, its cells piled up with cans of food and spare ammunition.

  It had been a swift and brutal fight. The hab-blocks to the north of the cavern had been crawling with orks, and although disorganised, the enemy had put up a fierce struggle. Ever since the battle at the temple, the orks had kept up a constant pressure on the Catachans. The aliens were still ferocious, but they seemed more cunning than before. Straken’s men ambushed them, set traps, picked off scouts and stragglers. They feigned retreats and encircled the orks that came after them. The xenos had died in great numbers, and continued to do so, but it seemed only to encourage them. Perhaps they were driven mad by the smell of blood, Straken thought, even if that blood came from other orks.

  ‘They keep trying, though,’ Straken said. ‘Guess they can’t resist it.’ He glanced at his chrono. ‘Better not keep Lavant waiting.’

  ‘He’s here?’

  ‘He will be. Can you imagine him showing up late?’

  Lavant was waiting downstairs. The Catachans had cleared the third floor to use as a command centre – with the cogitators and filing cabinets pushed aside, there was enough space to set up a detailed map. Lavant had laid out cards on the map as though he were playing some strange new version of Heretic’s Wake, each decorated with symbols drawn in pencil.

  ‘Right,’ Straken demanded, ‘what’ve you got for us?’

  ‘Clan markings,’ Lavant replied. ‘We’ve found them in territory we’ve taken off the orks, either on banners or sprayed on walls. It looks territorial.’

  Straken nodded. There were half a dozen designs, all variations on the same theme: skulls. ‘I’ve seen that before. The Death Skull tribe.’

  Tanner lit up a lho-stick. ‘But different squads. Like gangs in a hive.’

  Lavant pointed. ‘Exactly. I reckon that’s why we’ve not had a full-on attack since we took out Samoth Sarr. There’s no centralised leadership in the hab-caverns any more.’

  Straken zoomed in on the bits of paper. Seeing their base symbols sent a rush of contempt through him. Filthy animals, he thought, scrawling over the city as if they could parcel it out between them. He glanced at Tanner. ‘That sound right to you?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so. I’ve not really been checking to see what sort of orks they are – Throne, I’d kill all of them given the chance – but yes, now you mention it.’ Tanner took a slow drag on his lho-stick.


  ‘Maybe,’ Straken said. ‘But who knows how the orks think? I’m not sure I want to know,’ he added, more to himself than to the others. ‘Thing is, we’ve got them divided now. Here’s what we’re going to do. Each of you will take a hundred men, the toughest you’ve got, and I’ll do the same. We’re going to sweep through what’s left of the hab-caves and take out every last stinking ork. We’ll go through every block, every apartment, search every room and wipe them out completely. Leave none behind, and take this district for ourselves. Then we’ll be all set to hit the manufactoria.’

  Lavant raised a hand. ‘Colonel. There’s something I need to raise with you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ammunition. I checked our supplies, like you said. We’re running low.’

  ‘How low?’

  The captain opened his hands. ‘It’s hard to say. We’ve not got much ammo for the heavy weapons – there’s about six hundred rounds for all our heavy bolters put together. We’re virtually out of krak missiles for the Sentinels. We’ve got plenty of mortar shells – the local defence force had a cache – and we can improvise flamer fuel without much difficulty. But it’s the lasweapons that bother me. We’re running out of power packs.’

  Straken said, ‘Make sure nobody throws a power pack away when it runs out. We can charge them by putting them in fire.’

  Tanner nodded. ‘Oldest trick in the book.’

  ‘I know that,’ Lavant said. ‘But there’s only a certain number of times you can recharge a power pack like that before it breaks entirely. What I’m saying is that we can’t fight this war indefinitely. We have to beat the orks, and soon – while we still can.’

  ‘You know,’ Straken replied, ‘this may surprise you, but I wasn’t planning to sit on my arse eating mushrooms in some Throne-damned cave for the next ten years. Listen,’ he added, ‘I hear what you’re saying. But that’s all the more reason to get these hab-caves cleared so we can take the manufactoria. That’s where the orks took our tanks. We hit the manufactoria, and we can salvage some proper heavy weapons.’