by Gav Thorpe
Hoarse screaming up ahead snaps me out of my fatigue-induced sleepwalking.
'What now?' I ask sleepily when I reach the half-dozen Last Chancers clustered up ahead.
'One of die station's pickets/ the Colonel says. 'I have sent him back with the warning about the orks/ I realise diey were shouts of joy, not screams, but in my befuddled state I'd just interpreted them as more pain and misery for some poor soul.
'We're still going on to Epsilon, aren't we?' I ask hurriedly, fearing the Colonel might be about to order us to turn around and go back the way we came.
Yes we are. This has gone on long enough/ he reassures me, and for the first time I notice how thin and drawn he's looking.
There are massive dark rings around his eyes from the sleepless nights, and his whole body looks slumped, like the rest of us.
It takes another two hours' trekking before we reach the gatehouses. A small delegation of officers from the Kragmeer regiments waits for us. Their mood is grim, but they don't look too unkindly on us when, at a word from the Colonel, we fall to die snow a few metres away from diem, completely exhausted.
I don't hear what they're saying; my ears have been numb for the past few days, even with the fur-lined coat pulled protectively over my head. They seem to be having some sort of argument, and I'm wondering if diey've taken the same line as Greaves, accusing die Colonel of abandoning his command. I see Schaeffer shaking his head violently and point up into the sky. I hear a scattering of words, like 'siege', 'time', 'important', and 'orbit'. None of it makes any sense. One of the Kragmeer officers, bloody high-ranking by all the finery on his uniform, steps forward and makes negative cutting gestures with his hand before pointing over his shoulder back into die station. There are more heated exchanges and the Colonel turns on his heel and stamps over to us.
'On your feet, Last Chancers/ he snaps, before marching off, up die valley and away from die gates.
'Where the frag are we going now?' asks Poliwicz.
'Perhaps we're defending die shuttle pad?' Gappo guesses witii a shrug.
After the brief flood of energy once we knew we were close to Epsilon, my tiredness returns with a vengeance. My brain shuts down everydiing except the bits needed for walking and breaming for die trek up to the shuttie pad, and everydiing from the past couple of weeks condenses into a blurry white mess.
We reach the shuttle pad to find die gate closed. Peering through the mesh of the high fence, I can see our shuttle still out on die apron, kept clear of snow by the attendants.
That's a direct order from a superior officer/ I hear die Colonel say and I focus my attention back on him. He's standing at the door of die litde guardhouse next to die gate, and diere's a Kragmeer sergeant shaking his head.
'I'm sorry, Colonel/ die sergeant says, hands held up in a helpless gesture, 'but without die proper authority I can't let you take the shuttle/
My brain suddenly clunks into gear. Take the shuttle? We're leaving?
'Lieutenant Kage!' barks die Colonel and I quick march over to him, standing to attention as best I can. 'If diis man does not open diis gate immediately and clear die pad for launch, shoot him/
The Kragmeerite starts babbling somediing as I pull my pistol out and point it at his head. I really don't give a frag whedier I blow diis guy's brains out or not. For one diing, I'm just too tired to care. For another, if this frag-head is stopping me from getting off diis ice-frozen hell, I'll happily put a slug in his skull.
He relents under my not-so-subtle coercion, stepping back into the hut to pull a lever which sets die gate grinding open. Klaxons begin to echo off the hills around us, and people start scurrying from die hangars and work barracks.
We're leaving,' the Colonel announces, stepping dirough the gateway.
'Leaving?' Linskrug asks. 'Going where?'
You'll find that out when we get there, trooper/ the Colonel says mysteriously.
SIX
TYPHOS PRIME
+++ Operation Harvest complete. Preparing to commence Operation New Sun. +++
+++ There can be no more delays. New Sun must go ahead on schedule or all will be lost. +++
Compared with some of the places I've been with the Last Chancers, and considering that it's been torn apart by bloody civil war for the past two years, Typhos Prime seems very civilised. After touching down at one of its many spaceports, a Commissariat squad escorts us through busy city streets, with people coming and going as if there weren't battles being fought less than two hundred kilometres away. There are a few telltale signs that everything isn't as cosy as it seems, though. There are air raid warning sirens at every junction - huge hail-ers atop six-metre poles - and signs marking the route to the nearest shelters. Arbitrators patrol the streets, menacing with their silvered armour over jet-black jump-suits, wielding shock mauls and suppression shields.
As we pass along a wide thoroughfare, there are shuttered windows amongst the stores along both sides of the wide road. There are a few people around, swathed against the autumnal chill and damp in shapeless brown coats and thick felt hats, trailing brightly coloured scarves from their necks. A smog hangs above the city, visible over the squat buildings to either side, mixing with the cloud that stretches across the sky to cast a dismal gloom over the settlement. A column of Chimeras led by two growling Conqueror tanks, resplendent in blue and gold livery, grumbles past along the road, horse carriages and zimmer cars pulling aside to let them pass. In a reinforced underground staging area, we embark on a massive eight-wheeled roadster designed for long-haul troop movements, and the twelve of us spread out, trying to decide in which of the three hundred seats we want to sit. The Colonel parks himself up front with the driver, intendy ignoring us.
'Reminds me of tutelage outings/ jokes Franx. 'Head up the back where bad boys hang out!'
I'll take his word for it, I never had that kind of education. I was brought up as part of an extended family, with a dozen brothers, sisters and cousins, and my first memories are of chipping at slag deposits with a rusted chisel and mallet, trying to find nuggets of iron and steel. The roadster jolts into life, the whine of the electric engines soon being relegated to the back of my mind, out of conscious thought. Linskrag and Gappo join us and we sprawl happily, each across a three-wide seating tier.
This is a bit of a royal treatment, is it not?' suggests Linskrug, peering out of the tinted windows at the low buildings blurring past outside. A faint rain has started, speckling the windows with tiny droplets of moisture. 'It's much more what I'm accustomed to/
'He wants to keep us contained/ I point out to him. 'Of all the places we've been, this is the best one to get lost in. Billions of people live on Typhos Prime; a man could quite happily disappear here, never to be seen again/
'Hey!' whispers Gappo urgently from the other side of the aisle. There's an emergency exit down these stairs!'
We cluster round and have a look. It's true, there's a small door at the bottom of a flight of four steps.
'Reckon it's locked?' asks Franx in his now-familiar wheeze. I test the handle and it turns slighdy. I look at the others and grin widely. Gappo glances over the top of the surrounding seats and then crouches down again.
'No one's paying the blindest bit of notice/ he says with a smile and a mischievous look in his eye. 'I don't think anyone will miss us/
'We're moving at a pretty rate/ Linskrug says, pointing to the blurred grey shapes of the outside whizzing past the windows.
'Hell/ coughs Franx, rubbing his hands together with glee. 'I can live with a few bruises!'
I look at each of them in turn, and they meet my gaze, trying to gauge my thoughts. They know my track record on escape attempts, and how I keep nagging them not to get stupid. I guess I've been half-hearted in my own attempts to escape, because I think a part of me agrees with the Colonel. Perhaps I have wasted the opportunity the Emperor gave me, reneged on my oaths. I never intended to, of that much I'm certain, I joined up with the purest of intent
ions, even though I wanted
to get the hell off Olympas. But as they say, the road to Chaos is paved with good intentions. But then again, how much blood does the Emperor want from me? It's kind of a tradition that an Imperial Guard regiment serves for a maximum of ten years at which point it can retire, maybe returning home or going off to join the Explorator fleets and help claim a new world for the Emperor. A lot of them won't spend half mat time fighting. I've been up to my neck in blood and guts, seeing men and women and children dead and dying, for nearly three years now. Haven't I had my fair share of war? I think I have. I think I've made the most of my Last Chance. The Colonel's never going to let us live; he wants us all dead, that much I'm sure. I'll let the Emperor be my judge, when I die, hopefully in the not so near future.
'Frag, let's do it!' I whisper hoarsely before twisting the door handle fully The emergency exit swings open and I see the black of the road tearing past the opening. Somewhere at the head of the roadster there's a shrill whining. The door must have been alarmed. I take a deep breath and then drop out of the doorway feet first. Thudding down onto the road, my momentum sends me rolling madly, pitching me into a shin-high kerbstone. Glancing up the road I see the others bailing out after me, slamming uncomfortably to the ground. I jump to my feet and set off towards them at a run.
*We did it!' screams Linskrug, eyes alight with joy. There's a few people walking past on the pavement, swathed in high-collared raincoats. A couple turn to look at us. 'Schaeffer will never get that thing turned around in time to catch us/
Just then there's a screech of airbrakes and a black-painted armoured car slews to a halt in front of us, twin cannons on its roof pointing in our direction. A man jumps out of the back hatch, bolt pistol in hand, dressed in a commissar's uniform. His face is pinched, thin-lipped mouth curled in a sneer.
'Please try to run/ he growls as he walks towards us, bolt pistol held unwaveringly in front of him. 'It would save me lots of problems/
None of us make a move. Ten black-clad troopers pour from the armoured car, thick carapace breastplates over their uniforms, faces hidden behind dark visors. The Commissariat provosts have us surrounded in a couple of seconds and our brief moment of freedom is over. I take a deep breath, loving
the smoke-tinged air, the feel of the gentle rain splashing down onto my upturned face. I don't want to relinquish this feeling that easily. I can't believe the Colonel will have us in his grip again. I look at the provosts, at the bulky laser carbines pointed at us, and I wonder if we might not still get out of this. The four of us are hardened fighters. These guys are bully-boys, used to guardsmen being scared of them. But I can see their faces set grimly underneath the black visors of their helmets and I can tell they're not going to hesitate for a second. The commissar had the truth of it - they'd rather we tried something, giving them the excuse to open fire.
'I can't believe that Schaeffer had an escort following us/ Gappo moans as we're shoved into the back of the armoured car. We have to squat in the middle of the floor between the provosts, there's not enough room for everyone to sit or stand. The commissar leans down towards me and grabs my chin between a finger and thumb, turning my face towards him.
'I am sure Colonel Schaeffer will be very pleased to see you again,' the commissar says witii a cruel smile. Very pleased indeed/
Trudging through the mud, rain cascading off my helmet, I realise that perhaps Typhos Prime isn't so nice after all. The roadster dropped us off about sixteen kilometres from the front line, or where they think the front line is, leaving us to foot it the rest of the way. The war's dragged on for a couple of years now, ever since a first abortive assault against the rebel fortress failed, and both sides have drawn up trenchlines a few kilometres from Coritanorum's walls and have since tried to shell each other into submission.
Alongside us is a Mordian marching column, trying to look smart and trim in their nice blue uniforms. The effect is somewhat spoilt by the mud splashes, and the peaks of their caps are starting to lose their stiffness under the downpour of rain, drooping towards their noses in a pathetic fashion. They've steadfastly ignored us for the past eight kilometres as we sauntered forward alongside them. The Colonel didn't even bother shouting at us when Kyle tried to provoke them by calling them toy soldiers and officers' pets.
He seems very distracted at the moment, the Colonel I mean. Frame and I have agreed that this is what we've been building
up to, for a year at least, anyway. He's brought us here to do something particularly horrid, of that we're sure, but we can't suss what it might be yet. A dozen Last Chancers isn't a whole heap of a lot in a war where each side has supposedly already lost half a million men.
'Incoming!' shrieks Linskrug and a second later my ears pick up what the baron's sharp ears heard a moment earlier - the whine of an aircraft's engines in a screaming dive. We scatter, hurling ourselves into water-filled craters and behind rocks, peering up into the clouds for a sign of our attacker. I look astonished as the Mordians continue their formed march and then I realise that they won't break formation until one of their officers tells them to. I see a swathe of them knocked to the ground and an instant later the chatter of heavy guns can be heard. Glancing up I see the rebel stratocraft sweeping low, four flashing bursts along its wings showing where light autocan-nons are spitting out a hail of death. The Mordians march relentlessly on and the aircraft wings over and banks round for another pass. Once more the guns chatter and two dozen or more Mordians, all the men in two ranks of troopers, are torn apart by the fusillade.
'Get down, you fragging idiots!' screams Gappo, the first time I've ever heard him swear. The Mordians don't pay him any notice though and the aircraft makes another attack run, the trail of bullets sending up splashes of mud and water as the hail zigzags towards the marching guardsmen. It passes over the column and as it does so I realise with horror that it's heading towards us. Before I can react I feel something slamming across my forehead, pitching me backwards into the puddles and stunning me.
'Emperor-damn, we've got men down! Kage is down! The lieutenant's down!' I dimly hear someone screaming, Poliwicz by the broad Myrmidian accent. People splash around me, soaking me further, but I just lie there, still. Dead still. Two opportunities in one day must mean the Emperor approves.
I feel someone wiping the blood from my forehead and hear them curse bitterly - it's Linskrug. He grabs my arms and I try to go as limp as possible. As he folds my arms across my chest someone else pushes my helmet down across my face.
The Colonel's says we've got to keep going,' I hear Gappo shouting hoarsely, choking back a sob by the sound of it.
Sentimental idiot, I think to myself. Linskrug disappears and another shadow falls across my eyelids.
'Unto death, I shall serve him/ says Kronin. 'Unto life again, shall he serve the Emperor/
I wait until I haven't heard voices for a long time before opening my eyes. Darkness is falling and I can't see anyone around. The rain's still drizzling down from the overcast sky, but I pull off my flak jacket and fatigues, grabbing the uniform from a dead Mordian only a few metres away. It isn't an exact fit, but it'll do. Cramming the cap onto my head, I try to work out which way to go.
It's then that I see Franx, half buried in slick mud at the rim of the crater he was sheltering in. He hangs loosely over the edge of the shell hole, one arm outstretched. I can see three holes in his chest where the bullets from the aircraft hit him, and a dribble of blood from his mouth shows that they punctured his already overworked lungs. I pause for a moment, shocked that Franx is actually dead. He seemed unkillable, all the way through. And this is how it ends, a random victim of a rebel strafing run. No heroics, no glory, just a few bullets from the skies and it's all over. It saddens me, the way it happened, more than the fact that he's dead. He didn't have a chance. Not much of a Last Chance at all, taking on stratocraft. Still, I hope dying like this counts, and that his soul is safe with the Emperor. Poliwicz and Kyle are l
ying spread-eagled in another pool, not far from where I fell, their rain- and blood-soaked sleeves clinging tightly to their arms. Poliwicz has half his face blown away, shattered teeth leering at me from his exposed skull. At first I can't tell where Kyle's been hit and I roll him over, finding four holes through the back of his flak jacket, right at the base of his spine. They both look like they died quickly, which is a blessing of sorts, I guess.
Pushing thoughts of Franx and the others from my mind to concentrate on my own survival, I try to figure out which way we were heading in. The rain's obscured all the tracks, and I can see lights in almost every direction, so it's impossible to tell which way is the rear area and which way is the front line. Deciding that it's better to be moving than not, I pick a direction at random and start walking.
* * *
I've walked for about an hour in the gathering darkness of the night, when I hear voices nearby. Dropping to my belly, I lie very still, ears straining to work out which direction the conversation is coming from. It's just to my left and a little ahead of me. Moving my head slightly, I look in that direction. Sure enough, I can see a faint light of a cooking stove or something. I worm my way a little bit closer, and after about ten metres can just make out the outline of a couple of men sitting around a dimly glowing camp cooker.
'Emperor-damned rain/ one curses. 'I wish this Emperor-damned patrol were over/
You always moan 'bout the weather. Only another two days on this tour/ replies the other in a conciliatory tone. Then we can head on back to old Corry and rest up awhile/
'Still, trust us to draw a sentry roster that gets us four damned shifts outta three/ the other one whines. Their conversation drifts out of my thoughts as my subconscious tries to attract my attention with an important thought. 'Back to old Corry/ one of them had said. They must mean Coritanorum, the citadel under siege. And that means they're rebels! And here's me a few metres away in a Mordian, in other words loyalist, uniform! Oh frag, I've managed to sneak all the way through our own front line without noticing and now I'm at the traitor picket. How the frag did I manage that?