I holstered my pistol with what I considered to be a suitably theatrical gesture.
'No doubt this farcical situation has warped your judgement, along with your manners. When you calm down I'll expect an apology on her behalf. Failing that, I'm sure we can settle the matter quite amicably on the duelling field.'
If I'm honest, I didn't expect to be going so far as to call him out, but as so often happens in these situations my mouth gets ahead of my brain. The results were quite satisfying, in any event; he went several colours I had seldom seen in nature in rapid succession, and rallied as best he could. The troopers loved it, though, and I could tell it would be all round the regiment within minutes of our return that I'd challenged the pompous little squit to a duel over an insult to the colonel, and, by extension, the rest of us too.[99]
'Once this is over you'll have no time for duelling or anything else,' Beije snapped.
'Commissar.' Detoi's voice was a welcome distraction in my comm-bead. 'We need to decide what we're going to do. The heretics are still holding firm along the entire perimeter.'
'There must be a weak point somewhere,' I replied, noting with interest that Beije was surreptitiously retuning his own comm-bead to listen in. Try checking the schematics again. 'Maybe there's a cable shaft or an air duct we can infiltrate a kill team through.'
'I already thought of that,' the captain said. 'Everything's sealed tight.' He sighed. 'Barring a miracle it'll have to be a frontal assault. And it's going to be bloody.'
'I'm afraid you're right,' I said, my gut curdling at the thought. 'But we're out of alternatives.' I turned back to Beije and the Tallarns, my face as grim as I could make it. 'You heard that. We don't have any more time to waste on these ridiculous fantasies. If you're going to shoot us you'll have to do it in the back, and you'll be doing the work of the Emperor's enemies for them if you do.' It was a risk, I don't deny it, but I was pretty sure that taking that tack would disconcert a bunch of Emperor-botherers enough to shake their resolve. The sergeant, at least, looked as though he had enough sense to realise he was in way over his head.
I turned away, a little theatrically, the Valhallans at my heels. The Tallarns hovered uncertainly, looking to Beije for a lead and wincing visibly as Jurgen passed upwind of them. For a moment I tensed, anticipating a las bolt in the back and hoping the carapace armour under my greatcoat would hold, but they continued to hesitate just long enough for me to seize the initiative beyond all further doubt.
'If you want to face a real enemy and do His Majesty's work, you're welcome to join us,' I added over my shoulder. The Tallarns began to take a step forward, intent on following us, then hesitated, looking to Beije for a lead. The pudgy commissar looked after us, clearly at a loss and wondering how best to regain his authority.
'Go with them,' he snapped at last, petulanty. 'I'm not letting that posturing traitor out of my sight.'
'Good,' I said, wondering if I'd get the chance to nudge him into the line of fire before this was over. 'Let's get the job done before we convene the tribunal,[100]shall we?'
To my relief, Beije kept reasonably quiet while I consulted with Detoi, the two of us huddling over his data-slate while we tried to formulate a strategy for storming the heretics' makeshift stronghold.
'If we can breech the walls here,' I said, pointing out a workshop with a long expanse of steel hull plating in a patch of dead ground between two firing posts, 'we should be able to get inside before they respond.'
'Assuming they haven't thought of that and left us a surprise or two,' Detoi agreed. 'We'll concentrate our forces against their positions here and here. With any luck you'll be able to get your kill team into the dead ground while we're keeping their heads down.'
'How are you going to breech the walls?' Beije asked. 'Did you bring demo charges with you as well?' It was beginning to dawn on him that we were in deadly earnest and that we really were preparing to lay down our lives for the Emperor. Or quite a lot of other people's, anyway. I was going to stick close to Jurgen and hope that somehow we'd manage to escape the effects of whatever hellish sorcery the Slaaneshi were planning to unleash. That was why I was planning to go in with the assault team, despite the risk; that way seemed marginally less suicidal than charging a fixed position with Emperor alone knew how many fanatical heretics pouring fire into our ranks.
'Jurgen's melta,' I said. 'It'll do the job.' And provide the perfect excuse for him to be there, of course.
My aide nodded and hefted his favourite toy. 'That it will,' he agreed.
'Who are you taking?' Detoi asked.
I nodded at Grifen's squad, who were still eyeing the Tallarns with mutual distrust. 'Fourth squad, third platoon,' I said. 'I've done this sort of thing with them before.' Some of them, anyway. Only a few familiar faces were left from the group I'd led into the ice caverns of Simia Orichalcae, apart from Grifen and Magot. I caught the eye of Trooper Vorhees, who flashed me a grin, and returned to conversing in an undertone with Drere, his girlfriend, who had been badly chewed up by an ambull on that expedition but who'd survived (to my surprise, I have to admit) thanks to my decision to send back the wounded as quickly as possible. Since then Vorhees had considered me something of a hero, and I have to admit it hadn't hurt my standing with the regiment to seem so concerned with the welfare of the common troopers. (Which made the fact that so many of them were about to die uncomfortably ironic.)
'They're understrength,' Detoi said.
I nodded, conceding the point. 'Only by one.' Smith was still in the infirmary in Glacier Peak, and I have to admit to feeling to a momentary stab of envy at the thought. 'And they're here. Besides, Jurgen will more than make up the numbers.'
'Will one squad be enough?' Detoi persisted.
'They'll have to be. We'll need everyone else for the diversionary assaults if we're to have even a hope of getting away with this.'
'We're coming too,' Beije announced, indicating the Tallarns. 'I don't trust you and I'm not letting you out of my sight.' He smiled maliciously, turning my own words of a few moments before back on myself. 'Until we can convene the tribunal, of course.'
'Of course,' I replied, determined to seem unruffled, and turned back to Detoi.
'Have you been able to narrow down the objective at all?'
The captain nodded. 'My guess would be here.' He pointed out a chamber deep in the heart of sector twelve. 'The chapel of the Omnissiah. It's about the size you specified, and it's about as far inside their perimeter as it's possible to get.'
'Makes sense.' I nodded. 'If anything, profaning a consecrated chamber would only increase the power of their ritual.'
'And how would you know that?' Beije asked, glaring at me suspiciously. 'You seem very familiar with the secrets of warpcraft.'
'I've faced it before,' I said shortly, not wanting to recall those occasions or waste time recounting them. 'If you haven't, count yourself lucky.'
'The Emperor protects,' Beije countered. 'The pure of heart have nothing to fear.'
Which pretty much ruled me out, of course, but under the circumstances I thought a good strong dose of trepidation was the only sensible option in any case.
'Well bully for them,' I said, ostentatiously checking my weapons. I turned to Detoi, reluctantly about to give the order which would condemn so many brave souls to death.
'Better start pulling them back,' I began. 'We'll need about ten minutes to regroup, which should be long enough to get the assault team in position. After that you can start the attacks at your discretion…'
I was interrupted by a sudden tingling sensation which washed over my body like the moment before a thundercrack, and a feeling of almost intolerable pressure inside my head which left my ears ringing with tinnitus. Beije glanced around wildly, swinging his laspistol, looking desperately for something to shoot.
'Sorcery!' he gasped, his face draining of blood.
'Take cover!' I yelled to the troopers. The Valhallans did so with alacrity, long accustomed to trus
ting my paranoia in situations like these, and the Tallarns followed their lead after a moment's disorientation, recovering fast like the good soldiers they were. 'Enemy incoming!'
'Where?' Detoi asked calmly, with a disdainful glance at the other commissar.
'We'll see in a moment,' I said. I indicated an open area near the Slaaneshi defensive perimeter. 'Somewhere over there would be my guess.' I'd been close to teleportation fields a number of times over the years, and had even been through one on a couple of occasions during my time with the Reclaimers, so I'd had no difficulty identifying the unpleasant sensations which accompanied exposure to the fringes of one. It had to be an enemy making use of the arcane device; there was certainly no such thing in use anywhere in our makeshift battlefleet.
My guess was proven correct a moment or so later, as with a thunderclap of displaced air five crimson and black-armoured giants appeared more or less exactly where I'd anticipated.[101]My ears popped and cleared, the abnatural pressure created by the presence of so much naked warp energy dissipating as suddenly as it had come.
'Fire!' Beije screeched, waving his chainsword in the general direction of the Traitor Marines. 'Cleanse them in the name of the Emperor!'
'Don't waste the las bolts,' I said, and the crackle of lasgun fire from our lines (which had been almost entirely unleashed by the Tallarns in any case) dwindled to nothing. They were ineffective at this range, and the last thing we needed was to attract the attention of the Tainted Marines. 'We can use this.'
'Use it how?' Beije asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. I gestured at the World Eaters, who had unleashed a hail of bolter fire against the Slaaneshi barricade which had so frustrated our own efforts such a short time before. The cultists were falling, their return fire being shrugged off by the ceramite armour of the superhuman warriors who had so unexpectedly joined the fray.
'They're doing our work for us,' I pointed out, remarkably mildly under the circumstances. I turned to Detoi. 'Leave our people where they are, keep as many of the cultists as possible pinned at the other weak points. If any pull back to reinforce against the Traitor Marines, they can follow up and force a breech. Fourth squad with me, we'll follow these lunatics at a distance and get in through the gap they're making.'
I took a few cautious steps out of cover, prepared to dive back in an instant if any of the crimson giants so much as glanced in our direction, but true to form they ignored us, intent only on charging home against the Slaaneshi. Sure I was safe, I turned a disdainful look on Beije. 'Coming?' I asked. 'Or would you prefer to wait for the noise to stop?'
Without a backward glance, sure he would be goaded into following, I led the Valhallans in the wake of the Chaotic killing machines. To my silent relief, Grifen and her team took point, leaving Jurgen and I between the two fireteams, theoretically a little more protected from both directions. To be honest, I'd have preferred to put the Tallarns in front, where they'd catch the first fire from the enemy, but it was even more essential than usual to appear to be leading from the fore as my unmerited reputation would have everyone expecting. Besides, I didn't trust Beije any further than I could throw a baneblade, and the further away from me the conniving little weasel stayed the better I liked it.
A quick glance back confirmed that the Tallarns were double-timing in our wake, Beije huffing a little as he scurried to keep up, and then my attention was entirely on the Traitor Marines ahead of us.
'Golden Throne preserve us,' the Tallarn sergeant muttered. I could see his point. The World Eaters had reached the barricade, tearing it apart in their eagerness to reach and slaughter the cultists sheltering behind the makeshift barrier. As before, they seemed to disdain the use of their bolters once they'd closed, striking out with the peculiar chain axes I'd seen all too closely when their colleague had led the attack on our compound; wherever they went blood fountained and Slaaneshi cultists screamed ecstatically as they threw themselves forward to be slaughtered, hoping no doubt to take their assailants with them. 'They're not invulnerable,' I assured him. 'I've fought them before.' He nodded dubiously, and I noticed with a flare of malicious amusement that Beije was visibly smarting at one of his own troopers having his morale boosted by me.
'And kicked 'em good,' Magot added. 'Hand to hand. You stick with the commissar here, you'll be fine.' For a moment I thought Beije was going to spontaneously combust, but the universe isn't that helpful, and I had to content myself with the strangulated gurgle he was unable to suppress.
'Wait one,' I said, flattening myself against the storage tanks we'd sheltered behind before. 'Let's make sure they're through before we commit.'
'I knew it.' Beije smirked triumphantly. 'Cowardice, pure and simple. A true servant of the Emperor never hangs back.'
'After you, then,' I suggested politely. 'Show us how it's done.' I gestured towards the vicious melee continuing by the devastated barricade. The crimson giants had almost run out of degenerates to slaughter, but their enthusiasm was undiminished so far as I could see.
Beije licked his lips. 'It's your mission,' he said at last. 'Do as you see fit. It's all extra rope to hang you with.'
'Then let's wait until we stand a chance of completing it,' I said, checking my comm-bead to see what was going on elsewhere along the perimeter. The rest of the company were following their orders, so far as I could tell, successfully keeping the majority of the cultists pinned down and occupied. That was good; the more of them they kept busy the fewer there would be to get in our way, and hinder the World Eaters in their drive for the centre of this poisonous place.
The Tainted Marines weren't getting things entirely their own way, though. As I watched, one of the Slaaneshi, a youth of indeterminate gender dressed in flowing silks, flung him or herself at the leading giant, laughing hysterically, to catch the twisted parody of humanity's finest in what seemed like a lascivious embrace. The sight was so grotesque it was almost a relief when the hermaphrodite exploded in a rain of offal, taking the Marine with it, and I realised he or she must have had a demo charge strapped somewhere under that voluminous garment. The stricken Marine tottered and collapsed to the deck, where the clang of ceramite against steel echoed almost as loudly as the explosion.
From my time with the Reclaimers, I had expected the remaining World Eaters to break off once the last of the defenders was dispatched to administer the last rites demanded by the traditions of their Chapter[102] but instead they ignored their fallen colleague, no doubt carried away on a tide of bloodlust, merely continuing their berserk charge into the depths of sector twelve.
'Time to move,' I said, suiting the action to the word, and we moved out at a brisk trot. As we reached the tumbled remnants of the barricade, I couldn't help breaking stride to check for some sign of life, but where the servants of Khorne had been there was no hope of that; I glanced at the shattered corpse of the dead Marine and shuddered. Even in death it gave off a powerful aura of malevolence and dread. Beije, I was amused to note, was staring at it as though it were Horus himself risen from the dead.'Ugly frakkers, aren't they?' I said cheerfully, patting him on the back.
'Did you really kill one with a chainsword?' the Tallarn sergeant asked, a note of awe creeping into his voice. Behind him, I was gratified to note, his squad mates were looking quietly agog and trying not to look as though they were listening.
'These stories get a little exaggerated,' I said, confirming it in their minds and consolidating my reputation for modesty at the same time. 'But they're not quite as tough as they look.'
'I'm glad to hear it,' he said dryly.
We pressed on, following in the wake of the World Eaters. Their trail wasn't hard to track, being blazed in the corpses of the cultists who'd resisted them. At every fork in the passageways, every junction in the service tunnels, the path to our ultimate destination was clear to see.
'It's definitely the chapel,' I reported to Detoi, who in turn informed me that resistance was weakening in several places as cultists withdrew to meet the new th
reat. 'They're heading straight for it.'
The interior of the dredger was as big a surprise to me as the outside had been. I'd been expecting a maze of corridors, like the interior of a starship, but the passageways were as wide as city boulevards, and the ceilings so high that the rooms leading off them were more like small buildings. Indeed, it was only the presence of the luminators overhead and the subtle sense of enclosure no hive boy could miss which reminded me that we weren't still outdoors. Many of the street-sized intersections had been hastily defended, the bodies of variously-armed cultists lying around in varying states of disassembly, and the marks of bullets and las bolts clear to see on the walls and floor.
It was also apparent that the Traitor Marines, for all their martial prowess, weren't getting things entirely their own way. Even conventional weapons would be a threat to them in sufficient numbers, and the heretics they faced were able to marshal a few heavier pieces in support. To the eyes of experienced warriors, like the Valhallans and myself, and the Tallarns too I suppose, it was obvious that they'd been finding the going harder as they went, a plethora of small, minor wounds slowing them down.
'Wait.' Vorhees was on point at this juncture, and gestured emphatically with his hand to reinforce the hissed instruction over the comm-bead. 'There's movement ahead.' We closed up, moving cautiously over the intervening distance, to peer round the next junction. As before, there was a barricade there, hastily thrown up to meet the advance of the tainted supermen, and just as casually thrown aside. But this time one of the defenders appeared to be moving.
'A survivor,' Beije said. 'We can interrogate him and find out exactly what's going on around here.'
'Be my guest,' I said dryly, knowing better than to expect any useful information; torturing a masochist is singularly unproductive, as Zyvan's interrogators had already found out. But if he wanted to try, at least it would keep him out of my hair.
[Caiphas Cain 03] The Traitor's hand Page 25