Commissar

by Andy Hoare

  He wished he hadn’t.

  Rotten had seen a lot of unpleasant things in his life; on his home world of Asgard and out in the wider galaxy in service to the Emperor. On the ocean world of Psamath, he’d seen a carnivorous sand clam bite Ranger Nandi in half, and on Klaranthe Station he’d seen an entire infantry platoon sucked into the cold void when a hangar bay integrity field malfunctioned. But both had been accidents, the sort of thing that just happened to the ‘poor bloody infantry’ in the course of their service to the God-Emperor of Mankind. What Rotten saw inside the Admonisher’s troop bay was different. It was a whole lot different.

  The tank had been overrun at some point in the uprising, its attackers swarming up and over its high sides to fall upon its passengers and crew. The battle must have been brief, though the rebels’ ire looked like it had been stretched out over several hours, the clavigers being subjected to a degree of cruelty that Rotten had never before seen, even in a galaxy of wanton savagery and bloodshed. He couldn’t even tell how many wardens had been caught within the vehicle, so mutilated and burned were their remains.

  Rotten turned away, fighting the urge to throw up.

  ‘Stank!’ a voice said in Rotten’s vox-bead, causing him to jump almost out of his skin.

  ‘Stank,’ the voice repeated. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Frag!’ Rotten cursed. ‘Who the hell is…’

  ‘Stank,’ the voice repeated. ‘This is Vahn. We have eyes on some sort of vehicle. You there?’

  ‘I’m there,’ Rotten gasped as he fought to bring his breathing and heart rate back to normal. ‘It’s a wrecked ‘monisher. Passing it now.’

  ‘Understood,’ Vahn replied. ‘Flint says to pick up the pace. How far to the terminus?’

  Squinting through his goggles, Rotten could just about make out the far end of the tunnel. ‘Another twenty minutes,’ he replied. ‘Moving out now.’

  ‘So,’ said Flint as he stared up at the structure coded Terminus R1. ‘How do we get through that?’

  Terminus R1 was in essence a huge revolving door, but unlike any Flint had ever seen, its four wings were made of heavy grade armaplas measuring ten metres to a side. Each of the four armoured wings was attached to and rotated around a central shaft, the entire assembly held within a tubular enclosure with an exit on either side. The terminus was large enough to allow an entire sub-shift of convicts or a single Admonisher to pass through, and because there was never an open path right through no one other than those permitted inside the enclosure could make a dash for freedom. Flint could well understand the function, but his question, addressed to Claviger-Primaris Gruss, was aimed at the fact that the mechanism was entirely immobile because its power source had been crippled during the uprising.

  Gruss turned his blank-faced visor from the terminus and his unseen gaze settled upon Flint. ‘We don’t,’ said the warden through his hard shell armour’s hidden phonocasters. ‘We go around it.’

  ‘How?’ said Flint, looking around the end of the tunnel for any sign of other passageways offering an alternative route. Lifting his data-slate and consulting Major Herrmahn’s tri-D map, he saw no obvious way around the terminus.

  ‘Not every route is marked,’ said Gruss. ‘I’m sure you can appreciate the need to keep certain access points hidden from the inmates, commissar.’

  ‘What about the main force?’ said Flint as Vahn stepped up beside him.

  ‘They’ll have the firepower to blast their way through, and they won’t be concerned with alerting the rebels to their presence,’ said Gruss. ‘We do not have such a luxury,’ he added.

  ‘How?’ said Vahn.

  ‘My men will lead the way,’ said Gruss, sidestepping the question.

  ‘Where?’ Vahn pressed, his voice a low growl.

  Gruss turned on Vahn and Flint saw the signs of imminent confrontation. Moving between them, Flint said, ‘Gruss, lead the way. Vahn, get your people ready. We have a mission to complete.’

  As Gruss stalked away to gather his squad, Flint turned on Vahn. ‘You need to drop the attitude, and quick,’ he hissed low so no one could overhear.

  ‘He’s the one with the attitude, commissar,’ Vahn replied, his voice equally low. ‘If we’re all such close friends now, why doesn’t he want us knowing where their secret tunnels are?’

  The same thought had occurred to Flint, but he needed the clavigers and the ex-convicts working together and so had to avoid fostering suspicion between the two groups. God-Emperor knows, he thought, there were enough reasons for them to be at each other’s throats and he had no desire to give them more.

  ‘Give him a chance, Vahn,’ Flint replied. ‘Old habits die hard. And besides,’ he added, ‘I’m keeping my eye as much on him as I am on you, got it?’

  ‘Down there?’ said Rotten, following the claviger’s directions into what at first appeared to be the gaping, shark-toothed mouth of an articulated waste compactor. ‘You can’t be serious?’

  ‘I’m serious,’ said the claviger, his mouth set in a smug grin that Rotten wanted dearly to punch right out. ‘It’s not like its powered up.’

  Rotten leaned forwards into the compactor’s mouth and looked down into its workings. The entire inner surface was lined with multiple rollers edged with a million tarnished metal teeth. When activated, he knew that the rollers would come together and the teeth start revolving, annihilating anything thrown down the chute from masonry to corpses. In fact, Rotten could swear there were scraps of dried flesh lodged inbetween some of the teeth, like bits of a gigasaur’s last meal. At present, the rollers were retracted into the chute’s wall, leaving a drop between them leading down into the darkness.

  ‘Not at the moment,’ Rotten muttered, leaning back and taking the rope line Solomon passed to him. He could hardly miss the expression of sympathy barely hidden on the Jopalli’s face. ‘How far down?’ he asked the claviger.

  ‘Only twenty metres or so,’ the warden replied. ‘Why?’ he added. ‘Scared?’

  Rotten sneered but held his tongue, making sure to memorise the claviger’s face. It would be terrible if the warden was nearby when Rotten’s carbine discharged negligently…

  ‘What’s the hold up?’ Rotten heard Vahn call from behind the claviger. ‘Rotten? You wimping out on us?’

  Ignoring the jibe and the leering grin from the warden, Rotten fixed the rope to a spar just above the lip of the waste chute and twisting it around one hand, tested it would take his weight. Satisfied, he edged into the gaping metal maw and set his feet on opposite rollers, the black throat of the chute visible between his legs as he looked directly downwards.

  ‘Twenty metres?’ he said to the claviger.

  ‘It’s twenty to where you want to go,’ the warden growled. ‘The chute goes further, but you really don’t want to follow it.’

  Rotten swallowed hard but was determined not to show the slightest degree of trepidation, not to a claviger at least. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’

  Pulling the rope through the compactor’s mouth, Rotten sent it plummeting down its shadowed throat. With the toothed rollers retracted the chute was a couple of metres in diameter; with them deployed it would be less than a millimetre. Securing the rope to a loop attached to his webbing, Rotten took it in both hands and began his descent, one foot at a time.

  Fortunately for Rotten, the teeth provided excellent purchase, and they weren’t sharp enough to trouble him. Yet, he could scarcely shake the thought of the rollers suddenly grinding to life and tearing his body to gristle as the chute contracted. He tried not to look at the teeth as he descended, especially at the debris lodged between them, yet he could hardly avoid catching the occasional glimpse. Most of the material was nothing more than long dried out scraps of food or torn ration wrappers. Yet, one piece looked like a man’s scalp, hair and bloody skin knotted together, and another like fragments of a jawbone, the teeth still affixed to a shrivelled length of gum.

  ‘God-Emperor on Terra,’ Rotten mumbled as he
sped up his descent, carrying himself past what he prayed was not the body part it looked like. ‘Beati Khalus and Sister Ebrina too…’ he added, invoking two of his world’s patron saints as he screwed his eyes shut. It was the body part it looked like.

  ‘Stop!’ the claviger up top called out, and Rotten halted, setting one foot on a roller on either side of the chute. ‘Twenty!’ the warden called down, his head and shoulders barely visible as silhouettes against the bloody red light far overhead.

  A burst of panic erupted in Rotten’s chest as he looked around for the side passage he was supposed to take. It wasn’t there – all he could see was the rollers lined with row upon row of metal teeth.

  The claviger laughed coldly, and Rotten knew with dread certainty what was about to happen. He screwed his eyes shut, praying it would be quick…

  ‘Behind you, you fenker!’ the claviger called out cruelly.

  Rotten’s breathing came hard and fast as he opened his eyes and slowly twisted around. Behind him, he saw the gaping mouth of a concealed side passage, its interior completely lost in shadow.

  ‘Hah!’ Rotten laughed, the relief welling inside him threatening to turn to maniacal laughter. Of course, he thought as he braced his hands gingerly against the rollers on either side and twisted his body completely around. At one point his boot slipped on a smear of fluid, but he caught himself before he could lose his footing. Having turned his body all the way around, Rotten stood over the chute facing into the side passage.

  Suddenly, he was less than keen to be out of the compactor’s throat, the side passage looking somehow even more threatening.

  ‘Stank?’ Vahn’s voice called out from above. Rotten glanced upwards, and although he couldn’t make out Vahn’s features he could tell it was him by his mane of dreadlocks.

  ‘Uh-huh?’ he called back, trying to sound as unconcerned as possible. ‘Here.’

  ‘You found it?’ Vahn called. ‘Gruss says there should be a passageway leading towards…’

  ‘Yup!’ Rotten called back, ‘I’ve found it.’ Taking a deep breath, he added, ‘Going in now.’

  The mouth was the entrance to one of the clavigers’ many hidden runs, the maze of secret tunnels they used to move about the penal generatorium without the need to enter the sealed carceri chambers, turbine chambers and cooling halls. The placement of the entrance in the throat of a waste compactor chute had ensured its continued secrecy, for not even the most desperate escapee would be insane enough to think of climbing into such a hellishly lethal place.

  The tunnel beyond the mouth turned out to be less shadowed than it had appeared to Rotten from the throat of the ‘pactor. As he advanced he discovered it was lit by low-level lumen bulbs that emitted a wan, sodium-yellow light just bright enough to allow safe passage. The tunnel was all but featureless, its sides cast roughly from poured rockcrete. Unlike so much of the complex’s interior, the floor was free of the ever present debris that littered most areas, and as Rotten trod silently along its length his passing disturbed a carpet of dust that had laid untouched for decades, perhaps centuries.

  Having pressed on another fifty metres or so, Rotten signalled that the route appeared clear, and the main body of the assault force began its descent, one trooper at a time. The clavigers came down first, their leader Gruss shouldering his way past Rotten to advance further along the tunnel. The Asgardian could tell that the claviger boss was jealous of the knowledge of the secret passages’ existence and would stubbornly guard the location of any other entrances.

  Next down were Vahn and the rest of the penal troopers, and Rotten saw straight away the pattern Flint had chosen. With the clavies down first and the provosts last, none of the former convicts would be tempted to leg it. Not that they had anywhere better to be, Rotten thought.

  Finally, the assault force was all safely down and Vahn clapped Rotten on the back as he overtook him. ‘Let Solomon take point for a bit,’ Vahn ordered, sensing the strain the descent had placed on Rotten’s nerves. ‘Farmer boy there could do with learning some new tricks,’ he winked.

  The first stretch of the passage proved so dusty that the troopers were forced to don their rebreathers. The Firstborn provosts carried theirs as standard issue, and the clavigers had full-face helmets with inbuilt filters they could wear. But not all of the penal troopers had brought such items along and so Rotten was afforded his first chance to act as unofficial quartermaster. Flint had seen him hand off a spare rebreather to the highest bidding of his companions, bartering against future rations and equipment issues, but had not reprimanded him... yet.

  The advance continued in single column, the tunnel too narrow for more than one trooper. Solomon took his turn on point, halting every now and then to train the high-powered scope mounted atop his rifle along the length of the tunnel ahead. Of course, such a weapon would prove useless were an enemy somehow able to jump out at Solomon from close range, and so one of Corporal Bukin’s provosts advanced just behind, his shotgun raised over Solomon’s shoulder.

  After an hour or so of tramping through the billowing dust of the secret tunnel, Gruss raised a clenched fist and Flint signalled the column to a halt. With a nod of his blank-faced visor, the Claviger-Primaris indicated a slight recess in the ceiling up ahead. Flint nodded to Solomon, then ordered two of the nearby regimental provosts to link hands and give the penal trooper a boost up to the small, metal hatch set in the recess. The provosts’ objection to aiding the former convict was plain to see, and Bukin was about to issue a complaint when the sound of gushing liquid sounded from above, beyond the hatch.

  Flint moved along the column until he was standing directly below the hatch. He listened intently as the sound of rushing water grew louder and he could make out solid objects bumping along the surface on the other side of the hatch. After a minute the sound receded, fading away to a low gurgling before disappearing entirely.

  ‘What’s up there?’ Flint asked Gruss. Though he guessed the assault force was below the target zone, Carceri Resurecti, the generatoria chamber in question was several kilometres to a side and they could be well off their intended course. And if they ran into trouble and had to call the main force forward prematurely, the chances of successfully linking up would be that much worse.

  Gruss didn’t reply straight away, but glanced at one of his clavigers as if seeking confirmation. Whatever passed between the two men, Flint couldn’t tune in to it. ‘It’s the sluice-weir below Resurecti’s primary cooling plant,’ Gruss answered, but Flint could tell something was wrong despite the distortion imparted by his armour-mounted phonocasters.

  ‘But?’ Flint prompted.

  ‘The generatoria systems right across the complex were shut down or crippled during the uprising,’ Gruss began. ‘The weirs below each cooling tower are there to siphon off the moisture that builds up as condensation when the systems are off line.’

  ‘That,’ Flint indicated the hatch, ‘Sounded like more than condensation.’

  ‘It was,’ Vahn interjected, shoving his way past the two provosts blocking his path. ‘I served three labour cycles in one of these chambers. These weirs can only handle a handful of cooling plants going down.’

  Flint looked back to Gruss and asked, ‘How many are down?’

  ‘All of them,’ Gruss answered.

  ‘Then the system’s overloaded,’ said Vahn. ‘The weirs are filling up too fast and backing up into the outflow.’

  ‘Which that hatch opens up into,’ said Flint.

  ‘Yes, commissar,’ Gruss replied. ‘This is but one of several hundred secret access points built to allow warden patrols to move around the various generatoria chambers without the convict-workers’ knowledge. Without such hidden locations, many of our duties would be all but impossible.’

  ‘Pretty good place to hide it, sir,’ Bukin interjected, chewing his unlit cigar. ‘Right underneath a river.’

  ‘Maybe too good,’ said Flint. ‘I’m guessing the channel’s rarely used. Regardless, we d
on’t have a choice.’

  Flint ordered the column to make ready, and just over ten minutes later the weir flooded again and the overspill drained away via the channel overhead. Flint estimated that a little under twelve minutes had gone by, and if the assault force was to avoid being caught in the open and dashed away that was the amount of time it had to get through the sluice gate and into Carceri Resurecti.

  As the gurgling overhead faded away, Flint said to Solomon, ‘Ready, indenti?’

  Solomon didn’t look especially ready, but he nodded nonetheless. ‘Ready, sir.’

  Why me, thought Solomon as the two provosts boosted him up towards the hatch. Why is it always me? His rifle slung over his back, he reached up with both hands and caught hold of the locking wheel in the centre. The wheel was cold and damp, and he braced his feet in the provosts’ cupped hands and twisted with all his might.

  A gush of stinging, chemical-laced water crashed down on his face and just for a moment Solomon thought he had opened the hatch too soon and brought death down on the heads of all his companions. Blinking as he gasped for breath, he heard the sound of the provosts below him swearing colourfully and he realised that the torrent had stopped as soon as it had started. The truth was, if the torrent hadn’t receded, he wouldn’t have been able to lift the hatch at all.

  As Solomon lifted the hatch on creaking, corroded hinges, a shaft of blinding light shot downwards into the secret tunnel, widening as he opened it as far as it would go. The hatch clanged against a rockcrete wall, and lifting his head and squinting into the light Solomon saw that he was at the base of the drainage channel, right up against one side.

  ‘I’m going up,’ he called down, and hauled himself painfully upwards. Blinking in the suddenly bright surroundings, he looked around. He was at the very base of a huge, circular chamber, the tapered vaults open to the sky hundreds of metres overhead. As his eyes got used to the brightness, Solomon saw that the motionless blades of the carceri’s scrubber bisected the circle of light. The glare was the morning sun passing directly through the small patch of sky, and it was reflected from the glistening, corroded surfaces of the tower’s interior walls. It was something of a shock to Solomon to realise that the force had been travelling throughout the entire six hours of Furia Penitens’ night cycle and the sun was up already.