Straken

by Toby Frost

‘Snukkrut,’ it growled. Slower, more carefully, as if explaining something to an imbecile, it said, ‘Snik-rot.’ Then it lunged at him.

  Straken dropped down and grabbed his gun. The ork rushed him from the side, before he could aim. Straken swung his metal arm, but it dodged his fist. The ork stabbed at Straken’s throat, and he twisted aside and kicked its left leg. It stumbled, its own momentum against it, and Straken threw his weight into its back.

  The brute was knocked off balance. For a moment it stood silhouetted in the window, the city behind it, and Straken brought up his leg and stamped into its chest. The ork fell, snarling, down into the city below.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Snikrot,’ Straken said.

  Quickly, he reloaded his shotgun. He walked to the window with the gun raised, and carefully looked out.

  Snikrot had disappeared.

  He scowled and turned towards the stairs. It was time to finish this.

  As he reached the top of the stairs he heard boots running up towards him. Straken pulled the shotgun up, waiting for the figure to appear, but he knew it wasn’t Snikrot, and probably no ork either.

  It was Marbo. He ran into view, knife in one hand and ripper pistol in the other, his face set into a scowl.

  Straken lowered the shotgun.

  ‘What’re you doing here?’ he said.

  Marbo shrugged.

  ‘Did you see anything as you came in?’

  Marbo shook his head.

  ‘There’s an ork,’ Straken said, ‘the one that’s been scalping our people. I came down here to kill him. I lured him up here and threw him out the window. Now I’m going to finish him off.’

  ‘Right,’ Marbo said, approvingly.

  Straken hurried down the stairs. Marbo followed him, quiet as a panther in his wake.

  There was nothing outside. Straken walked out and looked up at the window. The ork should have landed where the two men stood, on the pavement. He crouched down and stared at the ground.

  A few spots of ork blood marked the pavement. Straken put out his metal hand and touched the stuff. He looked at his fingertip.

  Snikrot, Straken thought, that’s its name. He wondered why it had seen fit to let him know. Perhaps it was supposed to be an honour, or some strange gesture of mutual respect. No. That wasn’t the way orks worked. It was more likely that the monster wanted Straken to tell his men, to spread its reputation.

  He stood up. There could be no doubt that this was the beast that had been killing his people, the thing that mad Father Sarr had worshipped as an avenging angel of the Emperor. Well, Straken thought, you may have got away, but now I have a name for you. And I know that you can bleed.

  Killzkar was coming – the only question was when. The men trained, laid traps, prepared fire-points and ambushes. Straken had in mind a quick-moving, fluid kind of war. Strike, fight, fall back if in danger of being overwhelmed, reach the next point and repeat. A succession of fierce attacks, launched from strong defensive points, could wreak havoc with an enemy like the orks. The aliens would have to attack – the urge would be overwhelming – and when they did, Straken knew, they would suffer terribly for it.

  Except, of course, the defenders would sooner or later run out of places to fall back to. Straken stood in what he’d heard the militia calling the War Room: the upstairs level of the fortified enforcer station. Maps covered the walls, as well as the massive table in the centre of the room. Lavant, with predictable attention to detail, had made models of the higher buildings, to illustrate lines of fire. Straken was amused to see that he’d cut them out of old ration packs and cartons of Felix Lux brand lho-sticks.

  The room was empty and almost dark. Straken loomed over the city – almost his city now – and wondered where the fighting would take place. The only real entry point for the orks would be the main gate: no other entrance could fit a tank. Killzkar would enter Excelsis via the upper gate of the Mommothian Vault, and then Straken would let him in a little way, before springing his trap. The warlord would be dead within a few minutes of entering the city, his moment of triumph ended in a hail of rocket fire.

  Straken heard heavy boots, clumsy on the stairs. He looked round. A tall figure approached, still limping slightly. The leather coat was scuffed and the cap battered, but Morrell still looked every inch a commissar.

  ‘Good evening, colonel,’ Morrell said.

  ‘Commissar.’ Straken didn’t want to talk to the man. It didn’t matter what they went through together, the foes they faced or the odds they defeated. Morrell was still a leash, just like all his type. He might be better or worse than most, but he was a commissar, and that in itself tainted him.

  ‘Studying the terrain, eh?’ Morrell limped over and looked down at the map. ‘This must be how the princeps of a Titan must feel, gazing down over the city. It all looks much smaller from up here,’ he said, and he smiled, thinly.

  The expression looked wrong on his broad, boxer’s face. Straken ignored it.

  ‘You know, it seems like only a few weeks since we landed here,’ Morrell said. ‘How long has it been?’

  Straken said, ‘I thought you knew that. You keep records.’

  The commissar looked sour for a moment. Then he said, ‘Indeed I do. I find it easier to compile a report rather than rely on memory. It makes things more balanced.’

  And makes sure you don’t forget any of the juicy details, Straken thought. Nice to see you, commissar. Now get out and leave me in peace.

  ‘You’re observant,’ Morrell said.

  Straken looked up and focused his bionic eye on the commissar’s left pupil. ‘Comes with the job,’ he replied. ‘Listen, if you want to be useful, look at this. Here’s what we’ll be doing when the time comes.’ He swept his hand down the main boulevard of the vault, throwing a shadow over the map like a passing aircraft. ‘This is our main line of attack. We’ll need to use all the cover you’ve got. This is where the civilians will be,’ Straken said, ‘in support, like when we attacked the factories. I’ll put a few of my people among them, to make sure they stay put, but most of them will be local militia. They’re not bad, for locals.’

  ‘I’ll make sure they don’t run,’ Morrell replied grimly, staring down at the city.

  ‘I’m sure you will.’

  The commissar scowled. His mouth moved from side to side, as if chewing something bitter. Straken looked back at the map.

  ‘Keep it flexible, Morrell. If you’re getting shot up in the open, fall back to somewhere you can defend properly. The orks’ll keep on coming, and you’ll be able to kill a load of them. Then move up again. Do whatever’s needed to make them pay. I want them to be taking ten times the casualties we do. So no bayonet charges, no last stands unless you have to. Not unless I say.’

  ‘I understand.’ Morrell glared down at the map, then at Straken. ‘I know you don’t much like me, colonel,’ the commissar said. The bad light put deep lines on Morrell’s skin, and gave the impression that his eyes were far back in his head. ‘To be honest, I don’t really care. But you ought to be aware that I didn’t come here with the sole intention of sabotaging everything you do.’

  Straken was surprised. He waited.

  ‘I came here because I signed up for it. I have a job to do, colonel, just like you. And no matter how distasteful it may be to you, I want victory, just like you do.’

  Straken said, ‘Yeah. But I win battles by killing the enemy. People like you win battles by killing your own men. When you win them. You want to know how to make men fight? You don’t threaten them, or drive them forward like a bunch of animals. You lead them. You show them how it’s done.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t change that you’re here. Just don’t expect me to like it, commissar.’

  ‘That’s about the first thing they teach you in the Commissariat,’ Morrell replied. ‘You can expect anything from the Imperial Guard except to be liked.’ He was silent for a moment. Then he pointed at the map. ‘Tell me something. Killzkar is going to bring every greenskin
he can get when he comes here. Even if we do trap him at the gates, we are going to be massively outnumbered. Do you think we’re going to win this?’

  ‘Yes,’ Straken said. ‘I think we can win. But there’s a lot of things that could happen. If we get Killzkar, and if his troops turn on each other like I think they will, maybe. That means we’ve got to hit Killzkar and pull back to our defences as quickly as possible. Then we dig in and let the orks fight amongst each other. Whatever’s left, we clean up.’

  ‘There would be a lot of orks left.’

  ‘There will be.’ He sighed. ‘It’s a lot of “ifs”. But if you’ve got any better ideas, let me know.’

  ‘I’ll think about it. Goodnight, colonel.’ Morrell walked slowly back towards the stairs.

  Straken said, ‘Morrell.’

  The commissar stopped and looked round. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You said that you signed up for this. Do you mean you actually volunteered to come down here? With a Catachan regiment?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Damn, we must be getting soft. We used to scare commissars away.’

  ‘That’s precisely why I signed up, colonel. To see whether your reputation was deserved.’

  ‘And is it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Morrell said, and his face soured. ‘Every last bit.’ He turned and limped towards the door.

  ‘Don’t forget to put it in your report,’ Straken muttered. Commissars – all the same, every last one of them.

  An alarm rang. Straken jerked upright. For half a second he listened to the jangling noise, making sure that it was what he thought. Then he lunged towards the vox-comm.

  ‘Straken here. What is it?’

  Static raged in the comm-link. ‘Message in from the manufactoria, sir. They say to come at once.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’ Straken grabbed his shotgun.

  Morrell had frozen at the top of the stairs. ‘Straken! What in the Emperor’s name is that?’

  ‘What do you think? It must be orks. They’ve attacked.’

  He ran down the stairs, the commissar lurching after him like a clockwork toy. ‘Warp take you, slow down!’ Morrell yelled. Straken reached the bottom of the staircase and rushed out. The guards were already all set, hunkered down behind barricades. Two men ripped the cover off a heavy bolter while a third dropped behind it to man the gun. A young man with one ear consulted a cogitator just inside the door.

  ‘You want me to get more details, sir?’

  Morrell stumbled out of the enforcer station.

  ‘No,’ Straken said. ‘Let’s go.’

  With the commissar a step behind him, he strode over to the armoured car by the side of the road. He dropped into the passenger seat, and waited for Morrell to clamber in behind him. ‘The manufactoria,’ he told the driver. ‘And quick.’

  The car tore through empty streets, wove between barriers and long-abandoned vehicles. Soldiers appeared from behind barricades and at windows as they passed, saw who it was and quickly let them through, knowing better than to delay Iron Hand Straken.

  He sat in the passenger seat, almost hissing with annoyance. ‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered between his teeth.

  ‘Should we stop and tell them what’s happened?’ Morrell asked from the back.

  ‘I’ll give orders when I know what the hell’s going on,’ Straken snapped back. ‘Driver, can’t you go any faster than this?’

  The man accelerated and they turned out of the hab-zone into the wide tunnel towards the manufactoria. Men scrambled to open the gates in the metal wall and the car rolled through. ‘Take us up there,’ Straken said, pointing. ‘The comms station.’

  The car pulled up and Straken leaped out. The great yards of the manufactoria were almost empty, though the heaps of components that the orks had made were still standing. But as he ran to the comms office he heard yells and whooping, and he readied his shotgun and rushed on.

  Straken charged in, gun ready, and froze. Men stood around the communications gear, but they were cheering and laughing. The light of the auspex screens, normally eerie, made the room weirdly festive. A soldier noticed Straken and yelled, ‘The colonel!’ over the sound of celebration, and in a few seconds the men fell silent again.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Straken demanded. He glanced around, instinctively looking for trouble. ‘What the hell’s this?’

  ‘It’s the Navy,’ said Sergeant Halda. ‘We’ve made contact.’

  ‘The fleet?’ Straken took a step forward. Surely not. He forced down the sense of hope that was trying to rise in him. Maybe they’d read the sensors wrong, or picked up some other transmission. He strode over to the main console. A Catachan technician sat in front of the screens, looking bored and tough. Beside him stood one of the Dulma’lin engineers, watching the soldier as if afraid that he’d start breaking things.

  ‘It’s the Navy all right,’ the soldier said. He glanced round. ‘Sorry, colonel, I didn’t know it was you.’

  ‘Keep watching the screens,’ Straken replied. ‘What’ve we got?’

  ‘Standard coded signal, repeating on a nine-second loop,’ the technician said. ‘The code’s the first line of the Sanctus Imperator – that’s the same sign as our battlegroup.’

  Straken took a deep breath, tried to remain calm. The possibility, however faint, of getting out of here was suddenly real. The thought of getting away from Dulma’lin was wonderful. But Iron Hand Straken would never have left while there were orks to kill and a victory to win. He said, ‘What’re you waiting for? Hail them.’

  He leaned against the wall and waited while the comms men reeled out a list of numbers and codewords in Gothic. Static hissed over the speakers, followed by a garbled chatter of binaric. Straken stared at the speaker, his usual dislike of the Adeptus Mechanicus forgotten in the relief of hearing someone – anyone – from the fleet.

  He leaned in and took the comm-link from the technician.

  ‘This is Colonel Straken of the Second Catachan Regiment, acting head of operations on Dulma’lin, operating as part of the Ryza warzone force. Who am I talking to?’

  The binaric stopped abruptly. A buzzing voice replied, ‘Repeat your identification codes, Guardsman. You are not currently authorised–’

  ‘Just get me General Greiss. Now.’

  The voice broke off into a gabble of binaric. Straken muttered, ‘Throne-damned cogboys.’

  ‘This is Greiss. That you, Straken?’

  A cheer broke out among the men. Someone whooped, too damned close to Straken’s head. The civilian engineer grinned. Straken smiled. ‘It’s me, sir.’

  ‘Colonel, it’s good to hear your voice. You all right down there? What’ve you been doing?’

  ‘We’re fine, thank you, sir. We’ve been carrying out our mission – giving the orks hell.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Greiss said. ‘Emperor knows the rest of the army took a beating. The savants were saying you people would be finished down there, but I knew better.’ He chuckled. ‘Call me sentimental, but I’m glad to hear that the Catachan Second are doing what they do best.’

  ‘We’re born survivors,’ Straken replied. ‘But we’ve got trouble on the way. Thing is, we’ve been busy down here, and now every greenskin on Dulma’lin’s coming for us. Killzkar included.’

  ‘Then I’ve got news for you, colonel,’ Greiss replied. ‘Because we’re coming for them.’

  On the left, one of the Catachans punched his gloved fist into his palm. ‘All right!’

  One of the local techs reached into her overalls for a lho-stick. ‘Thank the Emperor.’

  ‘We got some help,’ Greiss added. ‘The High Praetor of the Purbech regiments is with us. I don’t know how well they fight, but they’re keen to get stuck in. We’ve got the onboard workshops working flat out to gear us up for planetfall. I reckon we’re going to need it.’

  ‘Yeah, there’re a lot of orks round here,’ Straken said. ‘And soon there’s going to be a whole load more. I figure t
hat we can take out Killzkar. With a bit of luck, they’ll start arguing once he’s gone. But it won’t be easy.’

  ‘The Emperor favours the brave, Straken. But save a few orks for me. I’m looking forward to paying Killzkar back for what he did to my army.’

  ‘We all are,’ Straken said, and he signed out.

  A collective sigh went around the room. ‘Well, what do you know?’ someone said. ‘Some genuine good news.’

  Straken stepped back from the vox. He felt the urge to grin with relief, but he fought it down. The Navy might be on the way, but that was no guarantee that they were saved. ‘Listen, all of you. Now you’ve got a job to do and a way out of here. So let’s get on with it. I want this line monitored day and night. Sleep beside it if you have to. In the meantime, we’re going into the main gates. Given that we’re expecting guests, we ought to lay on something special for them.’ He turned to the door. ‘As you were,’ he said, and as he walked out the celebrations began again.

  Straken stood outside the comms building and listened to the excited voices filtering out. He leaned against the wall, the shadows hiding him, trying to collect his thoughts. So, the Navy was coming back. He’d known that Greiss wouldn’t want to leave the Catachans, but he was still impressed: military necessity had a way of getting good men killed. You had to hand it to the old boy – he looked after his own. That, more than grand speeches or tactical genius, was what made good leaders, no doubt about it.

  Three soldiers jogged past, talking loudly. ‘Holy Throne! You hear the news? We might actually get out of this hellhole! Hey, friend–’ the nearest man called. Straken looked around and the man saw the right side of his face. The three of them straightened up and saluted. ‘Colonel. Sorry, sir.’

  Straken gave them a nod. ‘At ease.’

  ‘Sir, is it true? That we’re going home?’

  ‘Home’ seemed a strange description for a transport vessel, but Straken knew what they meant. ‘The army’s on the way,’ he replied. ‘But so are the orks. Keep sharp.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  They hurried inside, to join the comms men. No doubt, even on rations, they would find some way to celebrate. He remembered the illegal still that Morrell had discovered back on the Radix Malorum, and wondered whether someone had tried something like that down here. If they had, Straken thought, they’d learned their lesson, and kept it well out of sight.