by Gav Thorpe
'Do you know what happens to someone who gets caught in the noval centre of a plasma warhead explosion?' Gudmanz asks nobody in particular as he hauls himself up the slope of
another impact crater, his robes covered with flecks of grey ash. We all shrug or shake our heads. Gudmanz bends down and grabs a handful of the dusty grey ash and lets it trickle through his fingers with a cruel, rasping laugh.
'You don't mean...' starts Lorii and then she groans with distaste when Gudmanz nods.
'Emperor, I swallowed some of that!' curses Loron, spitting repeatedly to clear his mouth.
'Silence, all of you!' barks the Colonel. We are almost at the gates.'
I step through the small portal into the left watchtower with lasgun ready. When I'm inside I understand how the Colonel could lead us through the gate with such confidence. Inside the tower men and women are strewn haphazardly across the floor and up the spiral stairs, their faces blue, contorted by the paroxysms of death.
'Airborne toxin, I suspect/ mutters Gudmanz, peering closely at one of the bodies, a young woman perhaps twenty years old, dressed in a Typhos sergeant's uniform.
'From where?' Striden voices the question that had just popped into my head.
'Keep moving,' the Colonel orders from further up the stairwell. When we reach the top, the whole upper level is a single chamber. There are gunslits all around, and a few emplaced autocannons, their crews lying dead beside their guns.
'Gudmanz/ the Colonel attracts the tech-priest's attention and nods towards a terminal in the inner wall, facing away from the gate. The tech-priest lurches over and leans against the wall. He reaches up and pulls something from behind his ear. It's like a small plug, the size of a thumbnail, and as he pulls it further I see a glistening wire stretching between it and Gudmanz's head. Punching a few runes on the terminal he inserts the plug into a recess in the middle of the contraption and closes his eyes. The display screen flickers into life, throwing a green glow onto the ageing tech-priest's craggy features. A succession of images flickers across the screen, too quick to see each one individually but giving an overall impression of a map or blueprints. Then a lot of numbers scroll up, again too fast to read, a succession of digits that barely appear before they are replaced by new data. With a grunt, Gudmanz steps back,
the plug being ejected from the port and whipping back into his skull.
'Just as well that I checked/ he tells the Colonel. They have changed some of the security protocols in the inner areas and remapped the plasma chamber access passages/
'You have a map of this place?' asks Lorii in amazement. 'How can you remember all that information? This place is over forty kilometres across!'
'Subcutaneous cerebral memograph/ Gudmanz replies, tapping an area of his skull just above his right ear. They did not take all of my implants/
'I'm not going to even pretend I understood a word of that/ I butt in, 'but I take it you have an exact copy of the latest schematics in your head now?'
That is correct/ he affirms with a single nod before pulling his hood up over his head. I turn to the Colonel.
'He mentioned plasma chambers, Colonel/ I say to him. 'VniaX are we actually going to do here?'
'Coritanorum is run by three plasma reactors/ he explains as everyone else gathers around. 'We will get into the primary generators and disable them. Every system, every defence screen and sited energy weapon, as well as many of the major bombardment turrets, are linked into mat power system/
'I can see mat/ agrees Lorii. 'But how do we get in?'
The Colonel simply points to the nearest body.
'Getting into the next circle is going to be harder/ Gudmanz warns the Colonel.
With our stolen uniforms, chosen to fit us better than my scrappy attempt with the Mordian outfit, getting around hasn't been too difficult. Everybody seems to take it for granted when an officer and a bunch of guardsmen, accompanied by a tech-priest, walk past. They've been on a war footing for two years now, I suspect the security is a little bit lax. After all, nobody would be stupid enough to come in here without an army. Except us, of course.
With their extraordinary hair concealed beneath Typhon Guard helmets, and their faces partially obscured by the high collars of the blue jackets, even Lorii and Loron have gone unnoticed. I'm not sure what uniform die Colonel procured for himself, but it seems to be one that makes the Typhons look
the other way lest they attract his attention. It's black, without any decoration at all, and I wonder if it isn't some local branch of the commissariat. Even in stolen domes he's managed to come up as someone everyone else is scared stiff of. Typical. With his camo-cape discarded, Striden is revealed as a skinny young man of about twenty, almost painful in his lankiness, though he doesn't walk with the gawkiness you might reasonably expect.
I'm beginning to understand even more now about how impossible it would be to take Coritanorum by open attack. Even if a sizeable enough force could gain access, the layout of die lower levels is roughly circular, a series of four concentric rings according to Gudmanz. Each is only linked to die next by a single access tunnel, which are on opposite sides of each ring so that to get from one to the next you have to get around half the circumference of die ring. The builders even made the air ducts and power conduits circular, so there's no quick route dirough there eidier. It's taken us a day and a half just to get around the outer circle. We grabbed a few hours sleep in an empty barracks block during the morning, and it's about midday now, and we're in a small chamber leading off from the passageway that goes to the next security gate.
'What do we need to do?' asks Schaeffer, dragging a chair from behind a chrome desk and sitting down. The plain, white room is bare except for the desk and chair, obviously disused now.
*We have to get one of the security officers - a senior one, I mean/ Gudmanz tells us. The Colonel looks over at me where I'm lounging against the wall.
'Kage, take Lorii and get me a senior security officer/ he says, as calmly as if asking me to pop out and get him some fresh boot polish or something. Lorii and I exchange glances and head out of the door. The corridor smells faindy of disinfectant and gleams brighdy from a recent cleaning. The main tunnel is quite high and wide, its rhombic cross-section five metres tall and ten metres wide at die base widi gradually sloping walls. Every surface is sheathed in shining metal panels, like steel planks, riveted into the naked rock. A few people go this way and that, paying us almost no attention at all. Most of them are guardsmen, but the odd Administratum scribe goes past now and then. Lorii and I wander along the corridor a bit until we
come to a junction, much narrower and leading off in a curve to our right. We lean against the wall and start chatting, eyes looking over each other's shoulders for a sign of someone who might be the sort of man we're looking for. To everyone else, we just look like we're loafing, merely off-duty guardsmen passing the time.
'Do you think we can pull this off?' Lorii asks, keeping her voice low, a gentle purr in fact.
'If anyone can, it's us/ I assure her, scratching at an itch on my thigh caused by the coarse material of the white Typhon trousers.
'It's still not going to be easy taking mis place, even with the power down/ she says with a wry look.
'I've been thinking about that, and I don't reckon there'll be anything to take after we've done/ I reply, voicing a suspicion that's been growing in my mind since the Colonel outlined his plan.
'I don't get you/ she says with a little frown creasing her thin white eyebrows.
This idea about getting to the plasma chambers and shutting them down...' I start but fall silent when she gives me an urgent glance and tiien flicks her gaze over my shoulder along the main corridor behind me. I push myself off the wall and glance back. Walking towards us are three men, two of them in security uniforms that we've seen before - deep blue jumpsuits, metal batons hanging off leather belts, peaked caps instead of helmets. The man between the two security officials wears a si
milar outfit, but with red piping running the length of his sleeves and legs. He carries a short cane under one arm, like a drill sergeant I guess, and his stern demeanour shows that he's nobody to mess with. As they walk past we fall in a few metres behind them. I slip a short-bladed knife into my hand, procured from a kitchen we raided for food last night, and we quicken our step. Looking around to check we're alone, we make our move.
The security man on the right, in front of me, hears our footsteps and turns. Lorii and I pounce at the same time, my knife slamming into the left eye of the one who's looking back at us. Lorii wraps her arms around the head and neck of the other like a snake and with one violent twist and a hideous cracking noise, snaps his neck in two. The officer reacts quickly, lashing
out at me with his cane. It just brushes my left arm but must be charged or something, because it sends a shock of pain up to my shoulder. Lorii's in too fast for him to get a second blow, bringing her knee up into the elbow of his outstretched arm and chopping down on his wrist with her right hand, breaking his arm and sending the cane clanging to the floor. His gives a shout of agony and Lorii brings her left arm sharply back, slamming the outside edge of her hand across his nose, snapping his head back. His legs buckle as blood streams down his face and she lashes out with a kick that connects with his chin and poleaxes him to the ground, completely out of it.
We're just recovering our breath, wondering what to do next, when from the next side corridor appears a clericus, staring intently at an opened scroll in his hands.
'Frag!' I spit, and he looks up, eyes widening comically as he sees the two of us crouched over what looks like three dead security men. I go to leap after him but my whole left side is going numb with the shock from the cane and I slump to one side. The adept gives a shriek drops the parchment and turns to ran, but Lorii's up and after him, five strides from her long, slim legs propelling her right up to him. She leaps into the air, her right foot striking out, smashing perfectly into the base of his skull and pitching him onto his face as she lands lightly on her feet. She grabs his head in both hands, and as with the security guard, breaks his spine as if wringing the neck of some fowl for dinner.
Luckily for us nobody else comes along and we find an empty terminal room behind the first door we open. Piling the dead men inside, I shut the door and then ram the blade of my knife into the lock on the door, snapping it off with a twist of my wrist.
'Hopefully nobody'll be too bothered about getting in there/ I say as we grab an arm each of the officer and start dragging him along the corridor.
Those were some pretty special moves you had there/ I comment as we get to the junction, and Lorii peeks around the corner.
'Special training/ she replies, waving me on.
'What was your unit before you were sent to the penal battalion?' I ask, realising that everything we knew about the twins starts from after they were discharged.
'It was a special infiltration force. Fifty of us/ she tells me, returning to pick up her end of the unconscious Typhon officer. 'I can't really talk about it.'
"Were you... special in that outfit?' I ask, picking my words carefully considering Loron's earlier warning about remarks concerning their outlandish appearance.
'Oh no/ she says, glancing at me widi a smile. "We were all like that. It was part of our unique, erm, preparation and training/
The feeling is returning to my left arm now and I heft die unconscious rebel over my shoulders and we run for it. We get to die door where the others are waiting and I knock on it widi my foot.
'Yes?' I hear the Colonel saying from inside.
'It's us, you stupid fraggers, let us in!' I snap tersely through die gap between the door and the frame, my face resting against the cold metal of the door, my shoulder beginning to ache from its oblivious burden. The door opens a crack and I barge it open, throwing Striden to die floor, a pistol in his hand. I unceremoniously dump the security officer at Gudmanz's feet with vocal relief, as Lorii kicks die door shut behind us.
This one do?' I ask Gudmanz. 'Cos if it don't, you can frag-gin' well get your own one next time!'
'He is alive?' the Colonel asks as a groan escapes our prisoner's lips and he begins to move sluggishly.
'Oh, tiiat's not necessary/ Gudmanz assures us, laboriously kneeling down beside the prone traitor, his fingers doing something to die man's neck mat I can't quite see. When the tech-priest has finished, our captive has become a corpse, his face flushed red with blood.
'What did you do then?' asks Striden bending for a closer look, curiosity and excitement flashing across his face.
'I merely manipulated the flow of blood in his carotid artery and jugular vein to create a haemorrhaging effect in his brain/ the tech-priest explains, in the same matter-of-fact tone I can imagine him using to describe how to operate a comm-link frequency dial. I give an involuntarily shudder and step away.
What do we do with him now?' asks the Colonel, still sitting where he was when we left a few minutes ago. Gudmanz looks at me as he pushes himself to his feet, joints cracking loudly in protest at this harsh treatment.
We need a saw of some kind/ he says, looking expectantly at me, withered head cocked to one side. 'Oh, bugger off/ I reply miserably.
Considering the trouble we had to go through to get everything Gudmanz wanted in die end, it might have been easier just to single-handedly storm die accessway. As we march purposefully up the main access corridor towards the two guards stationed by the portal to the next ring, I offer a silent prayer to the Emperor tiiat tiiis ridiculous scheme works. In the end we decided it would be best to break into an infirmary to get all the items on Gudmanz's list. The Colonel, Loron, Striden and me back-tracked to a traumarium a couple of kilometres back the way we came. We knew it'd be impossible to find any medical facility in the citadel tiiat wasn't crammed widi war wounded, and decided just to go for the nearest one. So it was that Striden was dragged by us, kicking and screaming enough to be heard across die system, into the infirmary, clasping his hands over his face.
'Plasma blindness/ the Colonel said curtly as the medicos clustered around.
I dropped Striden and made my way into the next room, where there's about fifty wounded soldiers, some of them in beds, most on rough pallets strewn across the floor. The ward stinks of blood and infection, tinged with die bitter smell of old hygienic fluids. Back in the other room, Loron covered die door into the medical centre. I didn't see what happened next, but the Colonel strode into the ward, a bunch of brass keys in his hand. He detailed me to dispose of the bodies while he fetched the surgical tools Gudmanz needed. I went back into the other room and saw Loron and Striden looking strangely at each other. I glanced down at the two dead medicos and see that tiieir faces are contorted as if shouting but can't find any otiier mark on them. I asked the other two what die Colonel did, but they refused, saying some tilings were best forgotten.
And tiiat's how we get here, the Colonel dressed up in the security officer's uniform, boldly walking towards die two guards. They straighten up as they see us approach, exchanging a quick glance with each other. Neither of them says a word as the Colonel and Gudmanz step up to a red glass panel set into the wall on the right side of die door. Gudmanz is standing
between the guards and Schaeffer, hands held innocently behind his back, so that they can't see what I can.
The Colonel pulls the security officer's severed hand from the darkness of Gudmanz's sleeve and deftly fits the tube projecting from its sutured wrist into the intravenum Gudmanz inserted into his arm earlier. With his own pulse stimulating a fake heartbeat in the dead hand, the Colonel places it against the screen and a beam of yellow light plays between the fingertips, apparendy reading the pattern on the end of the fingers. The screen changes to green and a tone sounds from a speaker set in the ceiling. As expertly as he attached it, the Colonel disconnects the hand from himself and passes it back to Gudmanz.
The two security men salute as we walk t
hrough the opening gates, standing to attention with their laser carbines along the seams of their right leg their faces staring obediently into the middle distance. It's a position I learnt well when on garrison duty.
'Hurry up/ hisses the Colonel between tight lips when we're a few metres further down the tunnel. Walking next to him, I look over with a puzzled look. He notices my stare and glances down at his right hand before fixing his look ahead of him again. I surreptitiously look down and a lump appears in my throat when I realise an occasional droplet of blood is running down his wrist, gathering on his fingers and sporadically dripping to the floor. I glance back over my shoulder and luckily the two guards are still in their parade ground position, but it won't be long before one of them looks our way and sees the faint trail of blood on the metal flooring. We take the next quiet turning the first couple had some people in them, and break into a ran, sending Lorii ahead to check it out first. She comes back and guides us along a deserted route until we find an empty hab-complex. The floor is patterned with red and white triangular tiles, I guess the Typhons must really like triangles. The underground houses show signs of being in use, but no one seems to be around at the moment. Loron starts checking the twenty or so glass-panelled doors around the circular communal area at the centre of the litde complex, and die third one he tries is unlocked.
'I remember the days when you could leave your door unlocked without fear/ jokes Lorii.
Hurrying through, we find ourselves in a dining chamber, a small kitchen area at one end. There's more tiling on the floors and walls, in two different shades of blue. The Colonel rips the intravenum from his arm and flings it into a waste grinder beside the small cooking stove.
'I thought these were supposed to seal up without the tube inserted!' the Colonel barks loudly at Gudmanz, who flinches from Schaeffer's anger.
'There must have been some flow-back from the rebel's hand/ he explains with his hands raised slighdy in a placating gesture. They were not designed for this kind of procedure, please remember/