[Rogue Trader 02] - Star of Damocles

by Andy Hoare - (ebook by Undead)

  Brielle would have to wait, he thought, standing to address the council.

  “It’s this way,” Brielle said, her voice hushed, but urgent. “Three blocks in from the primary conduit.”

  Brielle scanned the dark corridor ahead of her, satisfied that the way was clear, for now at least. She turned her head to the figure trailing her, the man who had got her mixed up in the affairs of the tau back on Mundus Chasmata.

  “This had better be worth it, Naal. If anyone catches us I’m not sure even my father can protect me.”

  “My lady,” Naal replied, “please, rest assured my masters will reward you for your aid. The prisoners are senior members of their caste, and what they know of the Empire cannot be allowed to fall into the crusade’s hands.”

  Brielle paused, momentarily paralysed by the weight of her actions. She was faced, as she had been so many times before, with awful duplicity. She knew that the crusade had embarked upon an evil folly of epic proportion, its course set upon the destruction of a culture it had no knowledge of. She, however, did have some knowledge of the tau, and was rapidly coming to the conclusion that they offered far more even than life as a rogue trader held for her. Yet, she was born and raised a scion of a mighty dynasty, and loath to throw away millennia of prosperity, and the status that came with it.

  “I understand that, and I agree that Grand and the cardinal must not be allowed to do to the other prisoners what they did to the first.” She felt her gorge rise as she pictured the tau prisoner after his interrogation, and recalled the inquisitor’s scathing rant about the tau race. “If the inquisitor could extract that much information from just one prisoner, I dread to think what he might find out from all of them.”

  “Quite so, my lady,” replied Naal, “and I offer you my personal thanks for your aid.”

  Brielle did not reply, concentrating instead upon negotiating the warren of tunnels leading to the detention block. This section of the station was at present ill-lit, the tech-priests having shut down entire swathes of the station’s systems while they installed generatoria of more appropriate, human-made, design. Brielle had noted how the station was already beginning to feel like a man-made, rather than alien-made, installation. Formerly bright-lit passages were now dark. Where the air had been filtered and clear, now holy incense circulated through the conduits, and where clean lines and unadorned surfaces met the eye, crudely draped cabling snaked along tlie walls, votive parchments fluttering in the camphor scented breeze.

  She continued down the corridor, indicating with a glance that Naal should follow. The pair walked openly rather than sneaking in the shadows, yet neither wanted to be noticed. Brielle knew that questions would be asked were she to be observed and reported on. She also knew that Naal would be arrested instantly were he to be questioned by one of the Guard provosts or munitorum bully-boys who maintained order on the station. Naal had no official standing in the crusade, no provable rank or identity, and so would come under grave suspicion were he to be found in the vicinity of the detention block. Brielle knew that even her influence would do little to aid Naal should he be caught. She had already decided what she would do were that to happen, though she had yet to admit it fully to herself.

  The pair came to a junction, and Brielle peered around one corner, while Naal craned his neck around the other. “All clear, my lady,” Naal said, awaiting her lead. Funny, Brielle mused, that Naal, human envoy of the tau and therefore traitor to his race, should continue to address her in so formal a manner. They had shared the risks of battle at Arrikis Epsilon, and she had shared her bed with him many times since, yet still he maintained the role of servant or advisor, exactly the role he had performed under his previous human master, the traitor Imperial Commander of Mundus Chasmata.

  “Which way, my lady?” Naal asked. Brielle knew that he was fully aware of the route to the detention block.

  “This way,” she nodded to the left. “We’re on top of the conduit now, so get ready.”

  Brielle saw Naal pat a concealed weapon under his left arm. Brielle drew her own, a laspistol of archaic design and priceless heritage, checked the charge, and returned it to its holster. She would rather settle this by stealth and subterfuge, but if she had to resort to violence she would do so. It was, after all, for the greater good, she mused, setting off along the corridor, the entrance to the detention block visible at its end.

  “Thank you gentlemen,” General Gauge said, standing as the last of the councillors completed his address. “Now, onto the real meat of the matter,” he said, activating a stud on his console, raising a triangle of three large pict screens from the centre of the table that flickered into life as they rose. “Strategy.”

  The general looked around the table, his scarred face turning to each councillor in turn. Lucian had heard the tales of how those scars had been attained, though he scarcely believed that a man could survive some of the encounters the old Catachan Guardsman was said to have won.

  “Our plans to this point have assumed a jump off point here,” he said, pointing to a region of local space displayed on one of the screens. “The fleet crosses the Gulf and musters here,” he continued, pointing to another grid, “ready for further action. Comments?”

  “That plan,” Lucian spoke up before the likes of the cardinal could interrupt, “assumes we face no more than a handful of occupied and defended systems. I still say that if we go in all guns blazing and find ourselves up against well-defended systems we will have the worse of it.” Lucian saw the cardinal bristle at his words, but continued, “We must offer them terms the instant we cross the Gulf, and give them the impression we’re just the spearhead. Then, they’ll be ours.”

  Cardinal Gurney surged to his feet. “Nonsense! To show them mercy is to admit weakness, and thereby to blaspheme the Emperor! I will have no part in a scheme to pacify, where our mission is to decimate.”

  “And pray remind me,” Lucian replied, feeling his blood rise, “where in our charter does it state we are to exterminate the tau out of hand?”

  “I care not for legal niceties, Gerrit,” the cardinal spat back. “I can see no other course, and believe such an action would be entirely justified and ratified.” The cardinal looked pointedly towards Inquisitor Grand as he said the last, who nodded almost imperceptibly by way of affirmation.

  Lucian had wondered at what point the cardinal would play his best card: his alliance with the inquisitor. He doubted that this was the last time Gurney would do so. Lucian had gone up against some powerful enemies before, from Imperial Commanders to retired High Lords of Terra, but had yet to cross swords with the Inquisition. He knew that to do so was madness, for the inquisitors had the licence to perform any act in the name of the Emperor, to command entire armies and to order the destruction of worlds. That Grand was apparently so subtle in exercising his power spoke to Lucian of a greater game, perhaps one in which the inquisitor was but the pawn of higher members of his order. Whatever the truth, Lucian resolved to tread carefully, to engage only the cardinal in open dispute.

  “Gentlemen, please,” growled the general, “we agreed at the outset that we would resolve the issue upon crossing the Gulf, for we have no idea what lies beyond it. The tau might only occupy a single system, in which case we can expect little trouble. They might occupy more, perhaps as many as five, but as yet we simply do not know what we face.”

  “This is indeed the case.” Magos Jaakho stood as he spoke, the general sitting in response. “This entire region is anathema to my order, for it bears no resemblance to the surveys submitted when last an explorator fleet passed through.” Lucian had read of that last survey, which took place almost six millennia past, but had yet to hear the magos speak of it.

  “If it weren’t for the stringent rites and procedures of my order, I would have concluded upon my arrival that those ancient charts were incorrect, for they bear no resemblance to what we see here before us.” The magos indicated one of the pict screens before the council with a sweep of
his arm, a metallic finger emerging from a voluminous red sleeve to point out the swirling eddies of stellar matter that made up the entire region. Within that cauldron of stars lay the Tau Empire, and before it, the Damocles Gulf.

  “According to the records in my possession, this region should bear no significant dissimilarity to any nearby cluster. Yet, it seethes with energies the natures of which I can only guess at. I would cross the Gulf, and discover what lays beyond, tau or no tau.”

  “Well said,” said Lucian, seizing the half of the statement he agreed with. “If we exterminate the tau we may never know what’s behind the phenomenon. No doubt they have studied the matter in some depth.”

  The magos nodded, giving Lucian some hope that he might have swung the explorator lord to his point of view, and in so doing, against the cardinal’s.

  “So then,” Lucian said, “can we agree that upon crossing the Gulf, the fleet is to muster as previously agreed, whereupon the council will convene to decide the next course of action?”

  The cardinal fixed Lucian with a venomous stare. “What possible course of action could possibly face us, other than war?”

  “I fully expect war,” Lucian replied, his voice low and dangerous. “I am prepared for it, but I also wish to be prepared for what comes after it.”

  Gurney smiled, his face taking on the leer of some daemonic gargoyle. “What comes after, Gerrit? Nothing comes after. All that will remain of them, of the tau, will be bones and ashes.”

  Lucian shook his head in silent disgust, looking around the table to judge which councillors might share his views. He saw that some might. General Gauge, Admiral Jellaqua, noble and honourable warriors both, appeared uneasy at the cardinal’s words. Lucian judged the White Scars Space Marine to be a man of honour too, as intolerant of aliens as any of his brethren, but not a mass murderer in the sense advanced by the cardinal. He was less sure of others, and saw that he faced an uphill struggle to persuade any onto a course from which they might all prosper, and away from one in which the cardinal’s hellfire and brimstone would lead to nothing but death.

  Lucian’s glance settled upon the figure of Inquisitor Grand, who was conferring with the council orderly, his manner both threatening and surreptitious at once. Taking a deep breath, Lucian went on.

  “Council members, I am, as you know, the son of a great line of rogue traders. My family and a thousand others have penetrated the outer darkness for millennia, pushing back the frontiers of the Emperor’s domains, bringing lost worlds back to the fold of humanity, and exploiting all we encounter for the ultimate benefit of all mankind.” Lucian saw the cardinal smirk at this, but carried on anyway. “We do so not by launching ourselves at any and all foes we encounter, but by measured conquest. Those we cannot conquer, we exploit, one way or another. I tell you, we must accept the possibility that the tau might prove too proficient a foe to crush so easily. If we are to have war, a reasoned war with a profitable outcome, then I pledge my support wholeheartedly. But if we are to slaughter these aliens for no reason other than their existence, at the cost to ourselves, I fear we might pay. Then I cannot, in all truth, promise my unqualified aid.”

  Silence followed Lucian’s address, and he sat once more, content that he had spoken his mind truthfully. Whether or not it would sway any of the council remained to be seen. Lucian turned to his son, and saw that Korvane was intently watching Inquisitor Grand, his expression glowering yet unreadable. Even as Lucian looked to the inquisitor, Grand stood, nodded briefly to the council, and left the chamber without a word. Perhaps Grand feared that Lucian had swayed the council, and had left before that power could be mobilised against him. Perhaps not, Lucian mused, for the affairs of inquisitors were best left well alone.

  Brielle’s heart raced as she approached the armoured portal, the entrance to the detention block. A heavy, circular door, tau iconography stencilled upon it in blocky white text, barred the way. The passage was dark and they were alone, and for that Brielle was thankful.

  “Is it locked?” Brielle asked Naal as he appeared at her side.

  In response to her question, Naal consulted a spartan console beside the door. He nodded. “It is, my lady, from within.”

  “What now then? Can you get it open?”

  “Yes indeed,” Naal grinned, producing a small device of obvious tau manufacture from his jacket. She watched as he placed the device, which was no larger than his hand, against the door console. It adhered to the wall instantly. Lights began to blink across its slab-like surface, at first in apparently random fashion, before taking on a steady sequence. The screen upon the device’s surface lit up, and Naal stepped back with evident pride.

  Brielle looked to Naal, and then to the device. She stepped in closer, pushing her way in front of him to look upon the small pict screen. She saw what it showed, and turned her head to kiss Naal upon the cheek.

  The viewer showed the scene on the other side of the portal, the device evidently having achieved communion with the station’s native security net. Brielle knew that the tech-priests had yet to fathom the workings of the tau command and control network, and had been more concerned with superimposing their own machinery on the station than with shutting down the old. She was grateful, for it gave her an edge, and a chance of success.

  Brielle watched a scene that she guessed was captured by a spy lens in the chamber beyond. The entire station was covered with the small, unobtrusive devices, and this room was no exception. It showed two munitorum guards, both female, both tall and broad, and both armed with shock mauls and protected by the heavy, interlocking plate of carapace armour. They were not the sort of women she would want to pass time with.

  “This device communes with the entire station logister network?” Brielle asked, turning her head to look up at Naal, who looked over her shoulder.

  “Yes, though the tau terms for what you describe differ significantly.”

  “Fine,” Brielle said. “We need to distract them, activate an alarm elsewhere to draw them away long enough for us to get in. Can you do that?”

  “I can, my lady,” Naal replied, reaching around Brielle’s shoulders to operate the device. Brielle watched as alien characters appeared on the viewer, Naal working his way through a series of menus and submenus, until he had located the function he sought.

  “I have access to the master security net,” he said. “From here I can trigger any alarm in the station. Which would you have me activate?”

  Brielle smiled demurely, a sudden thrill coursing through her as she considered the mischief she could wreak with but a single command. She could trigger a core reactor leak alarm, and cause every soul on the station to abandon ship. She could trigger fire retardant in the council chambers; the possibilities really were endless.

  But, she knew she had a task to fulfil, and could not risk discovery for so trivial a prank, though the thought of some of the pompous buffoons on the council soaked in foam did have a certain appeal.

  “We need to activate something low level and nearby, something that’ll get their attention, but no one else’s.”

  She watched as Naal scrolled through a long list of functions. Stopping, he asked, “Localised conduit overheat?”

  “So long as it’s just this compartment. We don’t want the entire deck to evacuate. And make sure the threat is coming from our side of the door; we don’t want them plundering right into us.”

  Naal smiled, accessed another sub menu, and nodded. “I can activate the alarm in such a fashion that only the guards will hear it. I’ll make it appear as a precautionary, yet mandatory alert so they don’t spread panic wherever they evacuate to. That should give us the time we need, my lady.”

  “Do it.”

  Naal activated the alert function, and switched the viewer back to the scene within the detention block. She watched as the guards’ heads turned sharply, though she could not hear what they heard. The women looked to one another, and one shrugged, her lips moving in speech.

&nbs
p; “Move, you witless bitches,” Brielle muttered, suddenly uneasy that the guards might decide it was more important to stay at their posts than to answer the alert.

  Then, just as Brielle was considering increasing the alert level, she saw the guards shoulder their mauls and leave, exiting the detention block through a far exit. Brielle breathed a sigh of relief and turned around to face Naal.

  “Come on then,” she smiled. “Open the door and let’s get on with it.”

  “My pleasure,” Naal answered, activating the armoured portal, and detaching the control device.

  Brielle moved to one side of the opening as the huge door swung inwards, peering through cautiously. The sound of the alarm came from within, its tone shrill and insistent. Naal pocketed the device and followed Brielle’s lead, peering from the opposite side of the opening.

  “All clear, my lady,” he said. “Do you wish me to enter first?”

  Annoyance flared within her at the suggestion that she might not be as capable as he was at dealing with whatever might await them through the portal. She drew her laspistol and stepped through the opening before he could do so himself.

  The detention block was as dark as the passages through which they had approached it, though Brielle was struck by an air of oppression as soon as she entered. The clean lines and unadorned surfaces of the original tau structure were here, as elsewhere, subverted by the presence of man. She saw that the block was not originally intended as a prison, and doubted that the tau even had much use for such institutions. It had plainly served as some form of storage facility, the tech-priests having crudely welded great iron bars across the bays, each of which radiated out from the area in which Brielle found herself.