Mackenzie’s eyes bulged. “Well, I don’t have to wonder where troopers like Woods and Armstrong here learn their impudence!” he stormed. “I’ve had enough, Greiss. I’ve had enough of this attitude of yours—of having my every order questioned by you. As far as I’m concerned, you aren’t fit to lead a squad of dung beetles, and I’ll be saying as much in my report!”
Greiss drew his Catachan fang, weighed it in his hands for a second, then handed it to Woods.
“In the meantime.” Mackenzie continued, “you will consider yourself demoted to the rank of trooper. Guardsman Braxton will be my second-in-command for the duration of this operation.”
It was obvious from the paling of Braxton’s face that he was anything but happy with this sudden promotion.
Greiss shucked off his pack and rolled up his sleeves, slowly and deliberately. Mackenzie was still ranting as if he hadn’t seen what was coming. It occurred to Lorenzo that, had he been here, Dougan would have been the one to step in, to defuse the situation. But then, Dougan had always known what needed to be said, and how to make it sound polite and reasonable. No one would have thanked Lorenzo for interfering, so he held his tongue.
Greiss’ first punch took the commissar by surprise. It snapped his head around, staggered him and almost made him lose his balance. It wasn’t that Mackenzie hadn’t seen the signs, Lorenzo realised—it was just that he’d hardly been able to conceive of a subordinate actually striking him. Even now, his first thought was for his lost dignity. He was steadying himself, pulling himself up to his full, unimpressive height, drawing breath to remonstrate with Greiss, when a second fist connected squarely with his jaw.
This time, Mackenzie fell, flipping almost head over heels to land on his back, losing his peaked cap. Greiss planted his boot on the commissar’s chest and leered down at him. “That’s for what you said about Steel Toe!” Then he took his foot away and turned his back in a gesture of utmost contempt.
Lorenzo thought it was over—until Mackenzie did the last thing he had expected. He sprang to his feet, and with a speed and ferocity that Lorenzo would never have credited to him, he leapt at Greiss.
Greiss heard him coming and half-turned, as Mackenzie cannoned into his side. Jungle Fighters danced out of their way as they careened back and forth, shifting their grips on each other, each looking for a clear shot at the other. Greiss found one first, and delivered a punishing blow to Mackenzie’s stomach, which doubled him up and brought his chin within striking distance. Woods let out a passionate “Yes!” as a two-fisted uppercut left the commissar stunned and reeling. Greiss bore his opponent down into the dirt, but Mackenzie recovered and planted a foot in the sergeant’s stomach, flipping him over and away from him. Woods winced as Greiss landed hard—and then Mackenzie was on top of him, and it was all Greiss could do to fend off his punches.
The rookie, Landon, looked to Armstrong with concern in his eyes, but he just shook his head: No. We stay out of it.
Greiss had caught Mackenzie’s wrist in his left hand. He planted his right arm across the commissar’s throat, protecting his head from Mackenzie’s free fist with his elbow. He pushed up with both knees. Mackenzie’s eyes were almost popping out of their sockets as he fought to retain his position. He was good—far better than Lorenzo would have imagined—but Greiss was better. He knew his body, every muscle in it, like he knew his Catachan fang. He knew when to tense, when to push, when to shift unexpectedly so that Mackenzie reacted to an absent force and unseated himself.
Slowly, inexorably, Greiss gained the advantage, and their positions were reversed. Greiss had the commissar pinned now, his arm resting across Mackenzie’s windpipe, his eyes blazing with ruthless zeal as he pressed down hard. Mackenzie kicked and scrabbled at the arm that was choking him, but Greiss wasn’t giving a millimetre. “Braxton,” the commissar spluttered.
Braxton had almost started forward once already, but he’d been frozen by a glare from Storm. Now, he took Sergeant Greiss’ arms in a nervous grip, glancing over his shoulder as if he expected the rest of the Jungle Fighters to stop him. He was able to tear the sergeant away from his opponent only because Greiss chose not to resist him. He let Braxton haul him to his feet, then threw off the Validian’s hands and brushed himself down, glaring at the prone Mackenzie as if challenging him to a second round.
Mackenzie was having enough trouble trying to breathe. As soon as he could, he lifted a trembling finger to point at Greiss—a feeble attempt to assert some authority—and he wheezed, “I’ll have you court-martialled for this, Greiss. If you thought Trooper Dougan died an undignified death, just you wait. You’ll end your days in front of a firing squad! If we weren’t on radio silence, I’d be voxing a squad of Validians to come and collect you right now. And the rest of you… You just stood there and watched while this man assaulted a senior officer. You’ll pay for this, all of you. When I make my report, you’ll pay dearly. You’ll be an example to every damn Jungle Fighter in the Imperial Guard!”
Mackenzie picked himself up and marched into the jungle, with a curt order to the Jungle Fighters to follow him. Braxton looked around as if he wanted to say something, then thought better of it and hurried after his commissar. The others gathered their equipment, Myers and Storm hoisting Muldoon between them, and set off in their own time. Lorenzo caught the looks that passed between the others—Greiss and Woods in particular—and he suppressed a shiver.
Somehow, he doubted the commissar would ever make that report.
The going was easier than it had been the day before, and the squad made good progress though they were in sullen spirits. They were starting to get the measure of Rogar III. They knew which plants to avoid—and the flower sap they’d been careful to reapply to their skin kept the biting insects away. More jungle lizards tried to pounce on them from the trees, like the one that had attacked Mackenzie—evidently, this was their latest trick—but the Catachans were forewarned, and it became a sport to them to pick off the creatures with las-fire in midair. Myers was the champion of this game, of course.
Braxton broke the silence to express his admiration at the speed with which the Jungle Fighters had adapted to their new environment. It was an attempt to build bridges, but it fell on stony ground.
If there were any birds left in the vicinity, they were keeping a low profile. Lorenzo didn’t hear a single call. But the memory of the creatures that had pressed their attacks beyond death hung over the squad like a pall.
There was some good news, though. Muldoon had come round again, and this time he was quite lucid. Myers and Storm continued to support him for some time after he’d started to complain that he could walk unaided. They fed him simple questions until they were sure he was in control of his faculties. Muldoon had no memory of anything after he’d disturbed the hive, so Storm had to fill him in about his attack on Lorenzo.
“I can’t have been trying too hard,” he commented. “I seem to have left him in one piece.”
Lorenzo turned to him with a grin. “You’re just lucky I was going easy on you, because you were an invalid.”
“Ha! If I hadn’t been holding back, I’d have dropped you before you knew I was coming.” He was certainly back to his old self. He turned to Myers and Storm. “Seriously—Lorenzo here knocked me out all by himself?”
“Well,” said Myers with a grimace, “he did have help.”
Lorenzo’s stomach knotted as he remembered how Dougan had come to his assistance. “Yes,” he said numbly. “I had help.”
It was about twenty minutes after that, trailing a short way behind the others, deep in thought, that Lorenzo got the feeling he was being followed. He whirled around, and thought he saw a shape through the trees. A humanoid figure, just standing, watching. But as he brought it into focus, it slipped away like a shadow. Like last night’s blue light. Was he being tricked again?
He called out a challenge, which alerted his squad and brought them to a halt. He hurried up to where he thought the figure had be
en, his lasgun trained on a thorny bush behind which it could have taken cover. There was nobody there.
“Sorry,” he said. “False alarm.” The others accepted his apology, and moved on.
For Lorenzo, it wasn’t so simple. This wasn’t like last night—when, having snapped out of the blue light’s trance, he had seen so clearly what had been real and what had been an illusion. Perhaps something like the light was still working on his senses, because this time, he was certain that there had been something.
No, not just something. Someone…
He knew it didn’t make sense. He knew that, even without external provocation, the mind could play tricks. Especially the grieving mind. Especially the guilty mind. But, just for a moment as he’d glimpsed that figure, Lorenzo had been sure—as sure as he’d been of anything in his life—that he had known it.
He was sure he had recognised Trooper Dougan.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The jungle seized Trooper Woods without warning.
The red flowers were particularly prevalent in this area, and Lorenzo and his squad had been treading carefully. Woods was sharing a joke with Greiss, who was in a surprisingly sanguine mood, when his feet were yanked out from under him. The Catachans went for their weapons as their comrade dropped. Woods was on the ground, in the long jungle grass, and the red flowers were all screaming.
Lorenzo’s first thought was that he had been careless, stepped too close to the flowers—though he had to admit, that didn’t sound much like Hotshot. But Woods, he realised, wasn’t just being held, he was being dragged.
It wasn’t the flowers’ heads that had Woods, it was their roots. They had burst out of the ground, tangled themselves around his ankles—and they were grasping now for his wrists. They were coiling and writhing around him like living things, like serpents, striking when they sensed an opening. The closest troopers—Muldoon and Landon—had dropped to their haunches, knives drawn, but the roots were thick and tough. By the time Landon had drawn sap, and Muldoon had cut his first root through, ten more had erupted from the undergrowth to replace them. And the wailing flower heads were snapping at the would-be rescuers, straining at their stems.
Woods was pulled out from under Landon. The rookie lunged after him, desperate not to lose the root he had almost severed—and a flower head caught his finger. Landon fought to free himself, but the red petals held him as tightly as they’d held Greiss’ stick the previous day. Landon redistributed his weight, tried to gain leverage, and another flower opened its petals wide and clamped itself onto his left ankle. He was immobilised.
Muldoon had fared better, snatching his hand away from a similar attack—but by the time he and his night reaper resumed their work, Woods had been pulled another metre toward uncharted territory. The nearest roots had relaxed their grips now, having passed their captive on to those behind. They were rearing up, twitching from side to side as if on the lookout for fresh prey.
Woods had one hand free, and he was clutching at the undergrowth, at anything that might anchor him. After pulling up a third clump of weeds, he abandoned this plan and reached instead for his devil claw. As he tried to manoeuvre it through the living bonds that held him, a flower caught the blade and wrenched it from his grip.
“Hey,” called Woods, the strain in his voice belying his forced jovial tone, “a little help would be appreciated, you know?”
The entreaty was unnecessary. Most of the Jungle Fighters were on him, or struggling to reach him through the minefield of grasping vegetation. They were cutting, tearing, hacking, but Woods was still being pulled away from them. A root caught his free arm, and pinned it to his side like the other one. Now he was trussed up good and proper, like a fish in a net, hardly able to even struggle anymore.
Mackenzie was shouting, “Don’t just stand there, do something! Cut him loose!” as if it might help. Lorenzo was just watching, thinking… looking for a way, a safe path, to reach Woods through the press of bodies that surrounded him, realising that even if he could find one he would only be joining a losing battle…
He remembered the acid lake, and it occurred to him that the roots might be pulling Hotshot towards something…
Lorenzo bounded past his comrades, drawing his las-gun. He was surprised to find that Guardsman Braxton had had the same thought. They stood side by side, and scanned their surroundings, fingers uneasy on their triggers.
Lorenzo saw it first: an acid spitter, lurking in the heart of a flowering bush, almost totally concealed. It stiffened, as if sensing eyes upon it, and opened its mouth. He was sure it was too far away to reach him with its deadly spray—but instinct made him leap aside anyway, and push Braxton with him.
The spitter’s aim was perfect, its liquid plume sluicing into the dirt at just the spot where they had been standing. A few seconds later, and Woods’ head would have entered its range.
A dual burst of las-fire destroyed the acid spitter. Then, without having to confer, both Lorenzo and Braxton pointed their guns at the undergrowth in Woods’ path, and began to blast the flowers that waited there. The flowers’ siren wail went up an octave, becoming louder, more intense, more painful, and Lorenzo’s head began to throb. He could see black spots at the edge of his vision, and he knew the rest of his squad was affected too, because they were starting to reel and shake their heads and put their hands to their ears.
He kept on firing, because it was the only way to end it. Each time he incinerated a red flower head, its roots thrashed for a few seconds longer and then fell limp, but that dreadful sound never seemed to ease.
Lorenzo had to cease firing when he was too blind to aim properly, when the remaining flowers were too close to the prone Woods for safety. He was going nowhere now, the roots around him dead and blackened, but he was still firmly entangled. The other Jungle Fighters followed Lorenzo and Braxton’s lead, targeting the flower heads rather than their roots. They seized them by the red petals, holding their “mouths” closed, and sawed them from their stems. With each flower that died, more of Woods’ bonds fell loose, and finally he was able to tear himself free and stand, evidently in pain from the continuing screaming.
Mackenzie was feeling the worst of it, though. He was practically on his knees, his hands clasped over his ears, and Lorenzo was alarmed to see blood trickling through his fingers.
With Woods out of the danger area, however—and Landon freed now, along with Woods’ knife—lasguns could be employed again, and it wasn’t long before the final red flower was blasted to a cinder. Lorenzo closed his eyes and let out a long, shuddering sigh as he was soothed by a blessed silence.
“Well, that seals it,” muttered Greiss, when their ears had finally stopped ringing. “There’s something seriously nuts about this place.”
Donovits was sitting on the ground with his knees drawn up to his chest, his forehead shiny with sweat. “It’s as if evolution has been speeded up here,” he considered. “The red flowers couldn’t catch their prey any more, because the insects—and we—had learned to keep out of their way, so they evolved a means of bringing their prey to them. Likewise for the spitters, they’ve learned how to spit further. The different species are even working together—but all this should take generations. Instead, it’s happened in a few days. I’d say it was impossible, but we’re seeing it with our own eyes.”
Lorenzo felt that chill of the unnatural playing about his spine again. He didn’t want to hear this, didn’t want to believe, but he had no choice. “That’s why the birds and the lizards have been growing more hostile,” he said in a hollow tone.
“And changing their tactics.” Donovits confirmed.
“And why they only started calling Rogar III a deathworld a few weeks ago,” said Armstrong.
“I’d guess,” said Donovits, “that it was the arrival of the orks and the Imperium that upset the ecological balance here. Since then…”
“Rogar has been evolving ways to combat them.” Armstrong concluded the thought grimly. “Now, it’s
evolving ways to combat us!”
It took a moment for that to sink in, for the consequences to register with everyone, before Greiss put them into words.
“That means we can’t take a thing for granted,” he said glumly. “Soon as we think we know what a creature or plant can do, it’s likely to up and develop a whole new set of offensive capabilities. You need to stay on your toes, troopers.”
Mackenzie had been leaning against a tree, hands on his knees, getting his breath back, licking his wounds. Now he pushed himself up to an unsteady vertical. “You’re forgetting, Trooper Greiss, you don’t give the orders around here anymore.”
“Will do, sergeant,” said Woods as if the commissar hadn’t spoken.
“Too right, sergeant,” said Myers.
“Whatever you say, sergeant,” said Storm.
Mackenzie just scowled, and ordered them to get moving. He was no longer so keen, though, to lead from the front as he had been doing. He instructed Woods to take point in his place, and fell back to his more accustomed position among the troops. He saw that Greiss was regarding him through hooded eyes, and he said curtly, “I’m watching you, Greiss. One misstep and I’ll have you in chains.”
“With respect, commissar,” Greiss growled, “you might be better off watching your own back. The jungle’s a dangerous place—and if you get dragged away like Hotshot just did, you don’t want to be relying on an ‘undisciplined rabble’ to save your scrawny hide, now do you?”
He bared his teeth in a cruel smile.
They reached the river early in the afternoon.
Mackenzie looked pleased about this, as it suggested he had kept his squad on course despite Greiss’ reservations. “Five minutes, everyone,” he said magnanimously. “Fill your water bottles, wash up, whatever you feel you need to do. Just remember, this is the last known fresh water between us and the warboss.”
“You’re assuming it is fresh water,” said Greiss.
[Imperial Guard 02] - Death World Page 9