[Imperial Guard 03] - Rebel Winter

by Steve Parker - (ebook by Undead)

  “Naturally, captain,” replied Karif. In truth, his mind was firmly fixed on the weather outside. He was disturbed to find just how much he dreaded re-emerging into the freezing cold. He was somewhat concerned, too, by his impulse to take Stavin under his wing.

  Careful, Daridh, he told himself. It was your kindness to Breggius’ boy that got you shipped out here in the first place. Where does it come from, this need to look after them? Who looked after me when I was that age? Ah, but perhaps that’s it.

  Lieutenant Kuritsin hit the cold seal rune, opened the door of the dugout, and ushered the commissar and his new adjutant out into the cold. Karif threw the captain a salute before he stepped out into the howling wind and snow. He drew his cloak tight around him, sinking his chin into the thick fur. Lieutenant Kuritsin stepped out last, closing the door of the dugout behind him. Karif heard the hiss of the cold seal as it re-activated.

  So that’s Grigorius Sebastev, he thought. That’s the man to whom my fate is bound. Emperor above, did you have to make him such a bad-tempered little grox? I’m eager to see how he interacts with other officers at the briefing.

  “Follow me, commissar,” shouted Kuritsin over the noise of the wind. “Let’s double-time it so you don’t catch your death.”

  Karif nodded, and he and Stavin fell into step behind Kuritsin, moving north up the trench with some haste. They bent almost double against the whipping snow, eager to get to shelter as soon as possible.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Day 681

  Korris Trench works — 19:09hrs, -29°C

  Cold air scythed through the war room as the door was flung open. Lieutenant Maro of the colonel’s personal staff limped through, and pulled his scarf down to reveal a round face with a clipped brown moustache. His cheeks had been pinched red by the cold. “Stand to!” he called. The pistons in his augmetic leg hissed as he stepped away from the door.

  The assembled men pushed their chairs back from the long, central table and stood, snapping to attention with crisp salutes.

  Colonel Kabanov hurried inside, his shape lost in the thick folds of his white fur cloak. He stamped the snow from his boots and shook it from the top of his hat. “At ease, all of you,” he said after a brief but sincere salute of his own. Then he shuffled forward, moving straight towards the nearest of the room’s thermal coils. “Talk amongst yourselves while I get some heat back into me.”

  A stream of officers and command-level personnel entered the room behind him, eager to get out of the punishing winds. Last to enter were the servants of the Machine-God. Tech-priest Gavaril and Enginseer Politnov swept into the room like shrouded ghosts, and sealed the door firmly shut behind them. The machinery that sustained their ancient bodies clicked and hummed as they turned their cowled heads to greet the others.

  The newly arrived officers from regimental HQ hung their hats and cloaks on wall pegs and took their seats. Soon, Colonel Kabanov was the only man still wearing both his hat and his cloak.

  I suppose I’d better take them off, he thought.

  Turning from the heat of the coil, still rubbing his hands together, he said, “I don’t suppose there’s a pot of ohx’ on, is there? I could use a cup.”

  He grudgingly removed his outdoor gear, revealing a pristine formal jacket of bright Vostroyan red trimmed with white and gold. In truth, the jacket was far too ostentatious for the occasion, but it was well made and warm and, for these reasons alone, he’d put his modesty aside, adding another valuable layer of insulation against the deep winter.

  Captain Sebastev’s adjutant, Lieutenant Kuritsin, stood from his place at the table and moved to a cabinet in the far corner to fix a steaming mug of ohx’ for the colonel.

  “If there’s any going about, lieutenant,” added Kabanov, “you might put a little shot of rahzvod in it. Do an old man a favour.” The men chuckled. More than a few drew Guard-issue flasks from their pockets and offered them to the lieutenant, but Kuritsin had already unscrewed his own flask. Kabanov saw him pour a generous measure of the strong Vostroyan liquor into the mug.

  Good man, he thought. A dash of that will do the trick.

  The war room filled with low chatter as officers from different sections of the trenches discussed the day’s defensive actions. Two men were notably absent: Lieutenant Nicholo of Fifth Company and Lieutenant Vharz of the Tenth. Nicholo looked set to recover given time, but Vharz had met his end. As the uninformed were told of this, the tone of the conversation changed, and the mood in the room became sombre.

  It will get a lot worse before I’m through, thought Kabanov. May the Emperor help you in particular, Sebastev, because you’re going to need it.

  Lieutenant Kuritsin crossed the room and presented Kabanov with a mug. “Thank you, lieutenant,” said the colonel with a smile. “There’s nothing like a hot drink on a night like this, eh? So long as there’s a drop of the liquid fire in it.”

  Kuritsin grinned. “You’re not wrong, sir.”

  The ohx’ was thick and salty, just as it was meant to be. The drink’s proper name was ohxolosvennoy, but no one ever called it that. It was a staple on Vostroya, cheap and easy to make. In its dry form, it was simply powdered grox meat with a few added stimulants and preservatives. Workers in every factorum on Vostroya swore by ohx’. It was the only way to get through double shifts. On Danik’s World, the Firstborn drank prodigious amounts of the stuff.

  Kabanov sighed happily as the hot liquid warmed his belly. Low enough not to be heard over the general hum of conversation, he said, “Fifth Company did well today, soldier, holding back the greenskin filth. You and your men did the regiment proud. The late major’s faith in the captain is vindicated once again. Don’t tell the captain I said so. His head will swell and his hat won’t fit anymore.” The two men shared a quiet laugh, while Sebastev, busy conversing with other officers around the table, sat oblivious to them.

  Kabanov nodded towards the far corner of the room where a small group of commissars conversed around another of the room’s thermal coils.

  Not one of them had removed his black cap.

  The shadowy group reminded Kabanov of nothing so much as a flock of giant crows, the kind he’d seen gather to feast on the dead in the aftermath of so many battles. He immediately felt a twinge of guilt at the comparison. Commissar-captain Uthis Vaughn, the regimental commissar, was a close personal friend. Despite the man’s intimidating public persona, Kabanov knew him to have a wonderful sense of humour, a deep appreciation of art in its many forms, and a frustrating talent for the game of regicide. He was the best player Kabanov had met in all sixty-eight years of his life. But it wasn’t Vaughn the colonel was concerned with. “How about the new man, lieutenant?” he asked Kuritsin. “How are you getting on with Ixxius’ replacement?”

  Kuritsin shrugged and, with his voice barely more than a whisper, said, “It’s early days yet, sir. The man seems to be a fearless fighter, at least. He literally threw himself onto the orks today. Unfortunately, he threw himself onto the captain first. He’s lucky the orks took the brunt of the captain’s rage. I’d say they’re not off to a very good start.”

  “And you expect more trouble between them?” asked Kabanov reading the lieutenant’s expression.

  “I’d say they have very little in common, sir. The commissar seems a very proud man, a man of fine breeding and aristocratic ancestry. I’m sure that the reputation of the Schola Excubitos on Terrax is well earned, but that’ll carry little weight with the captain. You know what he’s like with the proud ones, sir.”

  Kabanov frowned and stroked his long white moustache. “Perhaps you could caution the captain, lieutenant. He mustn’t underestimate Commissar Karif. Commissar-Captain Vaughn considers his posting to Fifth Company a most perplexing turn of events. The man is an unknown quantity.”

  “How so, sir?” asked Kuritsin. “Didn’t the commissar-captain request a replacement after Ixxius was lost?”

  “He did, but, at the last possible moment, the postings
were changed. Commissar-Captain Vaughn was expecting another man entirely.” Kabanov leaned close and added, “According to Vaughn, Karif’s record is conspicuously impressive. He’s been decorated for success in some very high profile campaigns. Foremost among his achievements, so I’m told, is the Armoured Star for a pivotal action on Phenosia.”

  If Kabanov remembered rightly, and it was difficult to be sure after a lifetime of trying to stay current on the Imperium’s countless wars, Phenosia had been won back at great cost from the forces of the dreaded Traitor Legions.

  “If that’s true, sir,” said Kuritsin, “it begs the question: why has the man been shipped out here, of all places? And to a mere company-level commission? It seems most irregular, sir.”

  “I’d hazard a guess that our new commissar recently made a powerful enemy, lieutenant.”

  “I hope it’s just that, sir.”

  Kabanov raised a querying eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “I wouldn’t like to think that it was anything more sinister, sir. Captain Sebastev isn’t very popular with Twelfth Army Command.”

  I know, thought Kabanov. If General Vlastan didn’t owe me his life twice over, he’d have bounced Sebastev back down to sergeant the moment Dubrin breathed his last. The idea that some grant from the Barony of Muskha, of all places, has been given a company command… Now it seems the general’s patience has run out. He’s been listening to the wrong people. I can’t shield the captain anymore. The politics in Seddisvarr are out of hand, but if they think I’ll just drop the man like a hot ingot, they don’t know the White Boar, by Terra.

  Colonel Kabanov realised with a start that he’d drifted off into his own thoughts. The lieutenant was staring at him, waiting patiently. “Sorry, lieutenant, old men like me have these moments.”

  “Not so old, sir,” replied Kuritsin with a grin and a shake of his head, “and still the best of us by far.”

  Kabanov was caught off-guard by the look of admiration in the lieutenant’s eyes. Hero worship: he’d never gotten used to it, though he’d had to endure it since winning his first regimental combat tournament. He’d earned his nickname during that contest.

  By the Throne, he thought, that was fifty years ago.

  At least his time away from the frontlines didn’t seem to have impacted on his reputation among his men. Clearing his throat, he put a hand on the young officer’s shoulder and said, “It’s time we got this briefing started. Call this lot to order for me, lieutenant.”

  “At once, sir,” said Kuritsin. He turned to face the crowded table and called out, “To order, Firstborn. Colonel Kabanov will begin the briefing.”

  The younger man moved off to take his seat, and Colonel Kabanov stood alone, scanning the faces of his patient officers.

  No more procrastinating, Maksim, he told himself.

  Sebastev was glad he was sitting down when the colonel gave them the news, because he could hardly believe what he was hearing. The words stunned him. It was a bloody disaster. That was the only way to put it. Twelfth Army Command’s gross mismanagement of the Danik’s World campaign had now cost them an entire regiment of men and a vital beachhead in the north-east. The Vostroyan Firstborn 104th Fusiliers had been decimated. Over two thousand souls had been lost defending the city of Barahn against the concentrated might of the Venomhead clan. Warp blast and damn the orks.

  But if the news itself was grim, the implications were even worse.

  Someone a few seats to Sebastev’s left banged a fist on the table. The hololithic projector studs set into the surface jumped, and bands of static rippled across the ghostly green projection of the Danikkin landscape that floated before them. Sebastev’s eyes were fixed on the glowing three-dimensional representation of Barahn. Even now, as the officers of the Sixty-Eighth sat in silence with their jaws and fists clenched, hordes of filthy orks were ransacking the city, stripping it of anything they could use to fabricate their shoddy war-machines, enslaving or murdering anyone they found alive.

  Sebastev had seen what ork slavers would do. Though the ork intellect was universally denigrated, he’d worked enough reconnaissance in his past to know better. He’d seen greenskins threaten to devour captive children, forcing their parents to work themselves to death. He’d watched laughing gretchin torture innocent men and women to instil fear and obedience in the enslaved. He remembered, too, the Marauder air strikes he’d guided in to deliver the Emperor’s justice. He’d known that, given the choice, the enslaved would gladly give up their lives to ensure the destruction of their captors.

  Old memories mixed with fresh anger and made his blood surge. He fought to stay in control.

  Most of the officers in that room were looking at the map, giving thanks for the range of high mountains, the northernmost extents of the Varanesian Peaks, which separated the fallen city from the town of Korris by almost three hundred kilometres of difficult terrain.

  So far, the Sixty-Eighth had only ever had to contend with roaming bands of ork scavengers or, like today, war-bands that spilled over the mountains from the battle in the north-east. Even so, the number of orks in the region and the frequency of attacks had been increasing. Despite the losses they were surely taking, it seemed as if the ork horde was actually gaining in size, strength and ambition. It didn’t make sense.

  Since taking Barahn in the opening stages of the Twelfth Army’s eastern push, the 104th Fusiliers had suffered the brunt of the ork attacks. Twelfth Army Command had believed the city’s defences to be far beyond the greenskins’ siege capabilities. What fools! Sebastev would have wagered every bottle of rahzvod in Korris that the men assembled tonight felt the same guilt that he did twisting their guts.

  “Now that the orks have pushed through our northern line,” said Colonel Kabanov, breaking the silence, “the entire Valles Carcavia is open to them, from its easternmost mouth all the way to the outskirts of Grazzen in the west.”

  The colonel lifted a light quill and inscribed a small circle on the projector’s control tablet. A circle of light appeared on the shimmering holomap, circling a riverside city about one hundred and fifty kilometres west of Barahn.

  “There’s no doubt,” continued the colonel, “that General Vlastan’s tactical staff will be expecting to stop the ork advance at Grazzen. The Thirty-fifth Mechanised Regiment is stationed there. They need only fall back to the west bank and destroy both the city’s bridges to prevent the orks from advancing into Theqis. The river Solenne is over two kilometres wide at its narrowest point, and runs so fast and deep that even our Chimeras can’t ford it. Without the bridges here and here, the orks will have no way across.”

  “Meaning that they’ll turn southwards and crash down on us like an apocalypse,” said a gruff voice. Sebastev looked across the table at Major Galipolov, commander of First Company. “When they hit the banks of the Solenne and find themselves checked, they’ll turn and follow it all the way down to Nhalich, isolating us and cutting off our supply lines. Isn’t that right, colonel?”

  What supply lines, thought Sebastev bitterly? With things the way they are out here, would we even notice?

  Colonel Kabanov nodded, his face grim. “I’d call that a certainty, major. With these changes to the campaign map, Korris sticks out like a grot’s nose. But I’m afraid the orks are only half of the problem. It pains me to say it, but I’ve more bad news. Listen up.”

  All eyes rose from the holomap and fixed on the colonel as he said, “At daybreak this morning, armour columns from the traitor-held towns of Dura and Nova-Kristae laid siege to the town of Ohslir. The 212th Regiment fought back, but their defences were overcome. This is the first direct offensive action taken by the Danikkin Independence Army in over a hundred days, and the timing can’t be a coincidence. The possibility that they received real time intelligence from observers at Barahn is something I find both significant and disturbing, especially since our own comms have proven so damned unreliable.”

  The colonel suddenly looked over at the at
tending members of the Cult Mechanicus. He bowed by way of apology and said, “Of course, I meant no offence.”

  “None taken, colonel,” said Tech-priest Gavaril. His voice crackled from a sonic resonator sunk into the pale flesh of his chest. “We are in agreement.”

  “The machine-spirits are discontent,” added Enginseer Politnov. Unlike Tech-priest Gavaril’s, the enginseer’s mouth moved as he spoke, but the sound was exactly the same, toneless and electronic. “More obeisance must be made. More obeisance!”

  “Indeed,” said Colonel Kabanov. “We ask much of the Machine-God.”

  “Wasn’t any support sent out from Helvarr?” asked the Eighth Company commander, Major Tsurkov. “Surely the 117th were sent east to flank the rebel armour? Didn’t Major Imrilov send out a call for emergency support?”

  The question had occurred to Sebastev, too. Tank columns from Helvarr could have reached Ohslir in just a few hours, but had they been sent out to help?

  “No support was sent,” said Kabanov darkly. “From what I understand, storms over Theqis prevented Twelfth Army Command communicating with our bases in the south until it was too late. We didn’t receive news of the attack until the relay station at Nhalich was finally able to boost the signal to our array. The 212th took heavy losses, but I’ve been told that a few companies did manage to escape under the leadership of Major Imrilov. As far as I know, they’ve joined up with the 117th at Helvarr.”

  Old Hungry will have a fit, thought Sebastev. I wouldn’t want to be Imrilov the next time they meet.

  On the hololithic map, Kabanov again drew a small circle of light, this one marking the town of Ohslir. “With the campaign map altered so dramatically, we are extended well beyond our lines of support. With Ohslir under their control, it’s a fair bet the Danikkin Independence Army will strike out for Nhalich next. So, if the orks don’t cut Korris off, the rebels will certainly try.”

  Major Galipolov leaned forward on his elbows, tugging a waxed end of his grey moustache, and said, “It’s a classic pincer, only each claw belongs to a separate beast. If the dirty xenos were anything but orks or tyranids, I’d suspect some kind of collusion with the rebels. The timing of this DIA push can’t be a coincidence, but, given that we’re talking about orks here, the notion is preposterous.”