by Gav Thorpe
The Colonel calms down slighdy and we nose around the hab-pen. There are two small bedrooms off the living space, and they have their own ablutions area, complete with a basin and bathtub.
'Lucky bastards/ I say to Striden as he splashes cold water over his face. 'My barracks were never like this/
These are not barracks, Kage/ I hear the Colonel correct me from the front chamber. The second and third rings are the factory areas. This is where die civilians live/
'Civilians?' says Lorii, popping her head round one of the bedroom doors, a dark red floppy felt hat on her head.
"Yes, civilians/ repeats the Colonel. This is the capital city of Typhos Prime, it is not just a fortress. And take that stupid thing off!'
Lorii disappears again, muttering something about the hat suiting her. Loron, who's by the front door keeping watch, gives an urgent hiss.
'Someone's coming!' he whispers, backing away from the glass panel.
When a figure appears right outside the door, we bundle into one of the bedrooms, while the Colonel peers out through the living space. I can hear the front door opening and closing and die Colonel ducks back inside, face screwed up in consternation. It's strange to note how much more alive he seems to have become since we got inside Coritanoram. It's like this is the only thing he lives for. Perhaps it is.
The door to the bedroom opens and a plump, middle-aged woman steps in. Quick as a flash, Kronin grabs her from behind the door, clamping a bony hand across her mouth.
'And the Emperor sayeth that the meek and silent shall be rewarded/ he whispers gently into her ear. Her eyes are rolling left and right, looking at the strangers in her bedroom, terror in her mad glances.
4Vhat the frag do we do with her?' I ask the Colonel, as Rronin leads her over to the bed. He puts a finger to his lips and she nods understanding, and he lets her go. She gives a fearful whimper but doesn't scream.
We can't take her with us, and she'll be discovered if we leave her here/ says Lorii, eyeing our captive with a frown.
"You can't just kill her!' Striden exclaims, stepping protectively between the Colonel and the woman.
'She's already dead/ Gudmanz says quiedy in his grating voice. The Colonel looks at me and gives a slight nod. With his attention fixed on die Colonel, Striden doesn't see me cross to the side of the bed. The woman is also staring at the Colonel, probably wondering why a security officer is in her home.
I lean across die bed and before die woman knows what's happening I grab her diroat in bodi hands. She gives a stifled cry, and lashes out blindly, her fingernails clawing at my face. She writhes and squirms as I squeeze tighter, her eyes locking on mine, alternating looks of pleading and anger. I feel someone grabbing at my shoulders, Striden shouting something in my ear, but my whole universe is just me and the woman. Her thrashing grows sluggish and her arms drop to the bedclothes, which have been rucked up around her widi her struggling. Witii a final effort I squeeze the life out of her, her dead eyes looking at me with a mixture of confusion and accusation. I feel someone dragging die Navy lieutenant off my back, and I let go of her diroat slowly. I look down at her pleasant face, purple from die choking now, and I don't feel anything. No guilt or remorse.
Inside, another human part of me seems to die.
That was too extreme/ Loron says with a doubtful look, as I pull myself off the bed.
'Like Gudmanz said, she's already dead/ I tell them. 'They're all dead if we succeed, all three million of diem/
'What?' asks Lorii, walking over to the bed and closing the dead woman's eyes with her fingertips.
'We're not going to shut down the plasma reactors, are we, Colonel?' I say, turning to face Schaeffer.
'No/ he says simply, shaking his head.
'I'm not a tech-priest, but the hive I'm from ran on plasma reactors/ I tell them, flopping down onto a plastic chair in front of what looks to be a dressing table. 'Once diey start, you don't shut them down, it's a self-fuelling process. But you can make diem overload/
We're going to overload one of the plasma reactors?' asks Loron, turning on Gudmanz and die Colonel, who are standing by the door.
'All diree of diem, actually/ replies Gudmanz. They are omaphagically linked, if one of them fails, diey all fail/
'Call me stupid/ says Lorii, sitting on the edge of the bed, 'but I still don't tze where this is going. We kill the power by overloading the reactors, not shutting them down, so what?'
Gudmanz sighs heavily and lowers himself onto die bed next to Lorii, weariness in every movement.
'Let me try to explain in terms you might understand/ he says, looking at all of us in turn. 'A plasma reactor is, in essence, a miniature star captured inside graviometric and electromagnetic force walls. If you remove the Machine God's blessing from those shields, the star goes into a chain reaction, resulting ultimately in detonation. Three plasma reactors fuelling each odier's chain reactions will create an explosion roughly sixty kilometres in every direction/
'Nothing but ash will be left/ adds the Colonel, 'and at the heart, not even the ash will survive/
'Sounds like an extreme way to win a war/ offers Striden, who's not calmed down at all.
'It has to be done diis way. I will not tell you any more/ the Colonel says insistently. 'We must get moving, I want to find anodier terminal, so mat Gudmanz can check what the security teams are doing. I expert at least one body has been found by now, and I want to know if they suspect any kind of enemy infiltration. We will have to proceed even more carefully/
About half an hour later and we're walking along what appears to be a main thoroughfare across the factory area. Massive shuttered gateways fill one wall, indicating closed sites, to provide workers for the munitions works, I suspect. The ceiling and walls here are brick-lined rather than metal, but die now-familiar Typhon fondness for different colours in geometric patterns
can be seen in a huge mosaic that covers the floor of the twenty-metre wide passageway. Apart from Gudmanz who wears his robe as normal, tech-priests are a frequent sight around here by the look of it, we're dressed in civilian garb looted from the hab-pens where I strangled the woman. Lorii has a rather fetching light blue dress, and the hat she was so fond of, while her brother, Striden and myself are dressed in dun-coloured worker's coveralls.
The Colonel, rot his soul, managed to find what might have been a wedding suit or something, tight black breeches and a long-tailed dark blue coat. It's not as out of place as you might think, it seems the sort of outfit the higher-ranking civilians wear around here. Kronin found a rough-spun jerkin and some leggings that fitted his short, wiry frame and from the tools we found in that home, I guess they used to belong to a spanner-boy. We used to have them back on Olympas, well they still do I guess. Their job is to crawl into the bowels of machinery and tighten up gears and chains. It's a dangerous job, because you can't afford to stop the machines running, and you can easily lose a limb or your head to some whirling arm or pumping piston. One of the cruellest things I saw was to send in a couple of other spanner-boys to remove a body that was clogging up a transmission mechanism. Of course, during a full trade war, their job is the opposite - they sneak into the enemy factories for a bit of sabotage.
We're almost unarmed, we ditched our captured guns into a waste grinder in the hab complex. I've got a knife secreted in my coveralls though, I'm not totally defenceless. There's a lot more people around here at the moment. I think it must be a shift change, a klaxon sounded a few minutes ago and the streets, well I call them streets but they're just wide corridors really, are packed with the throng. I feel more at home here, underground. When I've been in other towns I always have the strange sensation that someone's stolen the roof. Being brought up on a hive makes you like that, I guess. We've split up a bit so as not to attract too much attention, after Gudmanz told us to keep heading anti-clockwise around the second ring.
Gudmanz found another terminal to plug into, and says that the security forces have been wi
ldly sending reports around. Some smart officer has realised there's a connection between the flurry of murders in the outer ring and the bloodstains
found near the gate to the next circle. There's also the question of the dead troopers at the gatehouse, and they've tightened up security on the third ring, the one we've got to get into next. Gudmanz assures us that there's a lot more through-traffic between the second and third circles, as they are both civilian areas, but if the guards are getting itchy, there could be all kinds of problems.
Strolling along with Striden, who's been in a silent, tetchy mood since I had to kill the woman, I catch snippets of conversations from the people around. Most of them are chatting about usual stuff - how the boss is having an affair with some wench from the factory floor, what the plans for the wedding will be, how the food in the factory kitchens has been getting worse lately. Day-to-day life that denies the raging conflict only a short distance away.
But they do talk about the war a bit, and that's what's started confusing me. They keep talking about the 'damned rebels' and 'traitor army' camped outside their walls. These people seem to think that we're the rebels, not them. They accuse the rebels, I mean the Imperium actually, of starting the war, of attacking without provocation. I'd ask the Colonel about it if I thought there was any point, but I don't reckon he'd give me a straight answer.
As the people around disperse a bit more, I catch a glimpse of Kronin ahead of us, looking like he's having an argument with a couple of the locals. He must have got separated from Loron, who was supposed to be looking after the headcase. Cursing to myself I hurry forward.
'Just asking for an apology, I am,' one of the factory workers is saying angrily, hands on hips. His face is pitted with burn scars and his head is beginning to go bald. Kronin's not a tall man, but he's still a couple of centimetres taller than this tiny fellow.
And all were blessed in the sight of the Emperor/ says Kronin, getting worked up, frustrated that he can't make himself understood.
'Stop saying that stuff/ the other worker snarls, "fou a preacher or something, you think?'
"Why don't we all setde down!' calls Striden as we jog up to them.
'Who the hell, off-worlder, are you?' demands the first, turning to confront us. His friend steps up next to him, offering support with his threatening posture. He's more my height,
and his thick biceps and solid forearms show he's no stranger to heavy manual labour. He looks like he can handle himself, but then again so can I.
'Bad news for you, if you don't frag off mis instant!' I hiss at them, squaring up to the pair of them.
"You're all the same, coming down here, to tell us how to run mem factories!' the second one says, pointing an accusing finger at me. Treats us like we just fell outta the sky, you do. 'Bout time somebody's put in their place, ask me/
I just laugh, I can't stop myself. It's so ridiculous, the irony is outstanding. I've fought in a dozen wars and now I'm about to get in a fight with a couple of factory workers because I talk witii an off-world accent. There's a manic edge to my laugh that makes them stare closely at me, suddenly wary.
'All mad, you are!' spits the first one, mrowing his arms up in disgust. 'All of you off-worlders/
'Mad enough/ I say, putting every ounce of menace I can into those two words. The tall one realises the threat isn't empty and grabs his friend by the shoulders, pulling him away. The short one keeps looking back at us, hurling abuse back at us, causing some of the passers-by to look.
'You!' I snarl at Kronin, grabbing the front of his coveralls and dragging him up to his toes. "You keep next to me and don't say nothing!'
Pushing the two other Last Chancers ahead of me, I cast one final look around. There's a security team, three men, walking further along the corridor, and I see a young woman hurrying over towards diem. I start to walk faster, trying to hurry but be inconspicuous at the same time, which is some feat I'll tell you. I hear a shout to stop from behind.
'Frag!' I curse, breaking into a run and grabbing the other two as I run between mem. 'Get your legs moving, we're in trouble!'
The past two hours have been the worst in my life. I've seen neither hide nor hair of the Colonel, Loron, Lorii or Gudmanz, and the three of us have been ducking and diving like mad as security teams poured into the factory area. At one point we rounded a corner and walked slap-bang straight into five of mem. Luckily, Kronin and me were quicker on the uptake and took them down wim only a short fight. These ones were armed as well, which was a first, carrying heavy automatic pistols,
which the three of us relieved their unconscious bodies of. Which all leads up to where I am now, crouching with a pistol in each hand at the top of a ladder while Striden and Kronin are behind me trying to prise the grille off a ventilation duct. It was a stroke of pure luck that we took the turning that led here, a district of abandoned factories. Another fortunate twist brought us to this air filtration plant, and from there it was an easy choice to decide to get off the streets for a while. We're not totally alone though, I can hear security men shouting to each other in the distance. I've got no idea what's happening outside, but I can see nobody's entered the building yet.
There's a clang as they drop the grille to the floor and I wince, wondering if anyone else heard it. Turning, I see Striden grinning back at me.
"You two in first, go left and keep heading that way, don't turn off at all until we can work out some kind of plan/ I tell mem, peering down the ladder again to check no one's nearby. The rockcrete-floored plant is as deserted as it was a moment before. Satisfied that it's safe, I push myself up through the grille and follow the other two.
'Frag it!' I shout, slamming my fist against the metal lining of the conduit. 'For Emperor's sake, give me a break!'
I slump to the ground, teeth gritted with frustration. For half an hour we've crawled along this duct, and when it widened out I thought we were getting somewhere. I was wrong. About twenty metres ahead of us, a massive fan is spinning, blocking any route forward. Crawling around in the darkness, never sure if you're going to pitch down some hole in the blackness, my nerves have started to jangle. And this is all I need, to have to backtrack a couple of hundred metres or so to the last turning.
Pulling myself together I stand up and walk closer to the extraction fan. It isn't going that fast, too fast to jump past though, and beyond its blades I can see an area that looks like the communal foyer of a hab area. Like most of Coritanorum, the area is tiled with different colours and shapes, a stark contrast to the grimy, dull metal of the hive factories where I'm from. I can see two children sitting in the middle of the open area, playing some kind of game with their hands. All in all, it doesn't look like an unpleasant place to be brought up, even with a war raging outside the walls. Studying the fan itself, it
seems to be made of some kind of ceramic, about twice as wide as my outstretched arms. There's a thin metal mesh on the far side, clogged up in places with bits of dirt and stuff, so I guess it's there to stop the fan being jammed.
'Back up a bit/ I tell the others as I pace back from the fan, drawing the pistols from where they're rammed into the belt of my coveralls.
'What are you doing?' asks Striden, looking at the pistols.
Taking the initiative/ I tell him, aiming both pistols down the duct. The muzzle flare is blinding as it reflects off the metal of the air shaft and the conduit rings with the roar of firing. As I hoped the fan shatters into shards which fly in all directions. With my ears recovering, I hear shouts from the end of the duct. I push myself forwards past the wreckage of the fan drive system. There's about two dozen people clustered into the communal area now, all looking up at me standing at the end of the duct, pistol in each hand. I kick out the grille, forcing some of them to jump back as it clatters to the ground.
'Anyone moves, I kill them/ I tell them, keeping my voice calm and steady. I mean it as well. I look down at their dumbfounded faces, and all I can see in my mind's eye are little pile
s of ashes. They're all dead if we succeed. They're walking corpses. Kronin and Striden crowd in behind me and I lower myself the couple of metres down the wall, whipping round with the pistols to make sure nobody gets too close. The two children are clinging to their mother, a slim young woman dressed in red coveralls, their eyes wide with fear. But they're not two children really, just two tiny, pathetic piles of ash. I hear the other two dropping behind me and Kronin steps up next to me, a pistol in his hand.
As we walk forward, the crowd parts around us, everybody's attention fixed with grim fascination on the strange men who have dropped into their lives so violently and unexpectedly. We've almost reached the corridor leading off from the happens when some idiot hero makes a lunge for Kronin's gun. The pistols in my hand spit death, flinging his ragged corpse into the crowd, who immediately break into hysterical screaming, fleeing towards the safety of their homes. Breaking into a run of our own, we huny off. I don't even spare a second thought for the dead man in the plaza.
* * *
Ditching the guns into a waste shaft - they'd be no use really and are far too conspicuous - we make Our way towards the next gate. Well, as far as I can tell, my sense of direction is somewhat turned on its head by the time spent in the air ducts. We come across some kind of market place, a huge open space full of stalls, many of which seemed to be closed down. I guess there isn't too much to sell really, as Coritanorum is under siege. An immense bronze statue, of Macharius I think, dominates the centre of the plaza, stood upon a marble pedestal a clear three metres taller than me. The place is quite busy though, and gives us plenty of cover to avoid the few guards prowling around, ducking into the crowds if they get too close. Most of the people around are women and young children, I assume the older children and men are working hard in the factories and struggling to maintain this huge citadel as the noose of the Imperial forces outside tightens even more. I wonder what the hell has happened to the rest of the Last Chancers, and I'd happily let them go off and finish the mission while we hole up somewhere. That isn't an option, though - unless I fancy being fried by a plasma explosion.