The lift banged to a stop, shaking them against one another. Tash banged into Fane’s breastplate and she muttered a curse in some Tallarn dialect.
‘Keep sharp,’ Vaughn warned, and he hit the door button.
The door rumbled open and the team jabbed their guns into the aperture. Wordlessly, they scurried into the room, fanning out to cover the entire hall. Tash smashed the lift controls with her gun-butt and ran to catch up with the others.
The room was large, high-ceilinged, functional rather than sanctified. The metal walls looked scuffed and greasy. Four huge hoppers hung down from the roof, each three times Vaughn’s height. Only a glowing holo-image in an alcove looked more than just industrial. It showed a saint that Vaughn didn’t recognise giving a blessing, a power sword in her free hand.
They crept across the room, past the hoppers. No doubt they were for preserved grain or the like: even the pious had to eat sometime. The holographic saint cycled through her program, giving the same looped blessing as they hurried past, as if trying to mime a warning.
As they reached the door on the far side, Vaughn heard boots. He made a quick fist to halt the team, and they rushed to the door, two to each side. Vaughn glanced at Nietzin. Very quietly, the older man crouched down, laid his plasma gun on the floor and drew his knife. The sound of the boots rose, ringing on the metal floor, and a figure stepped into the room.
It was a girl, perhaps seventeen. She wore a wide-sleeved robe like a farm-worker’s smock, the hood down and the sleeves rolled up and pinned for practicality. She walked straight past them, muttering to herself as if trying to remember something.
She seemed extremely young to Vaughn – no, he realised, it was not her age as such, but the fact that she didn’t look very tough at all. He glanced left. Nietzin hadn’t moved.
Across the doorway, Fane waved his hand. Tash caught Vaughn’s eye and raised her eyebrows, as if to ask, Well, what now?
Fane pulled his knife. Vaughn raised his gun, took two long steps across the room and brought the butt down on the novice’s head.
She made a small Oof! sound from the air being knocked out of her. The girl dropped like a body cut down from a gallows.
‘Watch the door,’ Vaughn said. He crouched down and put his hand to the novice’s head. There was a little blood there, but no serious wound. He was surprised at how relieved he felt. When he stood up, Nietzin was looking at him.
‘Knocked out,’ Vaughn said, and Nietzin nodded as he sheathed his knife.
‘That was soft, old man,’ Fane said quietly. ‘You get soft, and then you get slow. You get slow, and then you get dead. Remember that.’
Nietzin stepped back. He had a family of his own somewhere, Vaughn knew. Harsek had rescued them from the same prison camp as Nietzin, making the old soldier his for life.
‘Tash?’ Vaughn said.
‘Sir?’
‘Gag her. Get her into the shadows. Come on, move!’
Tash pulled a couple of restraining ties from her pack. She looked only slightly older than the woman on the floor. Nietzin stooped to help her move the novice. Vaughn pulled his map out of his pocket.
‘Soft,’ Fane said as Tash and Nietzin laid the novice down.
‘If I want your opinion, I’ll let you know,’ Nietzin replied. ‘Let’s go.’
Below the storerooms, in a tiny chapel of its own, they found the cogitator. Saints and martyrs glowered down from the walls as if challenging the machine to betray them: there was no great love between the Sisters of Battle and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, whose cog-and-skull symbol stood out on the control panel.
‘You know how to make it work for us?’ Vaughn asked.
Nietzin smiled. A candelabra hanging down from the roof brushed his ruff of white hair as he approached the controls. He set his pack down and took out a small portable terminal, sheathed in red leather like an old book. ‘Data-djinn.’ He patted the terminal.
‘One of Harsek’s finest, I’m sure.’
Nietzin pushed wires into their ports. He mouthed a quick prayer. ‘And a little of mine. Forgive my less than total trust. Now, the machine spirits need to link...’
Vaughn stepped back and watched the chapel door. Nietzin knew his tech: it was detailed inquiry into old heretech that had got him sent to a penal colony in the first place. That and the things he’d started teaching his staff, ideas about free thought he’d learned from ancient, censored texts. But the old man knew his stuff. He’d soon have the facility under their–
A siren howled in the room above. Three pairs of eyes flicked to the roof. ‘Throne!’ Fane spat. The sound pumped on and on, a steady blast of sound.
Tash checked the settings on her gun. ‘That’s not good.’
‘That wasn’t me!’ Nietzin called over his shoulder. ‘We’re still making the connection. I just need a little while longer.’
‘You don’t have it!’ Vaughn snapped back. They know we’re here. They must have picked up the flyer, sensed us somehow. Maybe the lift was alarmed.
The siren roared on, muffled but furious, as if some monster was raging in the room above.
‘We’re in,’ Nietzin called. ‘The link’s sealing all emergency doors, cutting primary power to the defence lasers. It’s sending a message reporting fire in the dormitarium. That ought to confuse them. Right,’ he announced, pulling the terminal away, ‘The airlock to the cells is open.’ Nietzin pulled the plasma gun into his hands. If the siren bothered him, he didn’t show it.
Vaughn nodded. ‘Let’s go get our girl.’
They hurried down two flights of emergency stairs. As Vaughn stepped out, a figure leaned around a buttress, bolter in hand, and let rip.
The wall beside him cracked and as he dropped the shells detonated, blasting chunks out of the rockcrete. He fired, hit the woman’s shoulder and saw the beam ricochet off her polished armour. Something roared behind him, and a pellet of superheated plasma blew straight through the Battle Sister. She fell dead. No amount of faith could override a wound like that.
A narrow window let a slit of sunlight into the corridor. Vaughn stepped over, tilted his head and saw little dark figures spilling out of the buildings further up the ridge. Voices carried on the wind. They must have caught the Sisters at morning prayers, for most of them were running out of the domed chapter-house at the far end of the complex.
‘We’ll use the connecting tunnels.’ It’ll be murder, he thought, but preferable to what’s outside. He thought of the narrow walkways on the mountainside, the long drop into the canyon if he slipped, and reflected that he’d rather take a bolter round to the chest than fall into the abyss.
Together they ran into another storeroom. A hulking figure lurched out of the shadow, metal arms raised. Vaughn put three las-shots through its chest, and as it dropped he saw that it was just a menial servitor. They left it lying on its back, broken but still moving. Its legs still paced the air like a fallen clockwork toy, its bloodless head turning from side to side.
Vaughn stopped and looked around the corner. A vaulted corridor had been carved into the rock, twice his height and seemingly endless. He recalled the map and Harsek’s briefing. ‘This is it,’ he said. ‘The Custodium Penetentia is down here. Tash, have you got the things?’
She nodded. ‘Medicae’s all ready, sir.’
‘Good.’ He peeked around the corner again. Fifty yards up the corridor, a Sister ran from one side to the other, her robes flapping behind her. ‘This is going to get nasty,’ he said. ‘Follow me and keep going. And if you can avoid being taken alive...’
Fane loaded a fresh power pack.
‘Right.’ Vaughn took a deep breath. ‘Let’s go!’
He ran out. bent over to present a smaller target. Vaughn reached the far wall and threw his back against it as gunfire roared down the passageway. He raised his gun and sent half a dozen las-rounds back in return, hardly bothering to aim. A tapestry fell from the wall, smouldering. ‘Iconoclast!’ a woman screamed over
the gunfire. ‘Blasphemer!’
The vaults stood out slightly from the wall at the base. They gave about twelve centimetres’ worth of cover. The team worked their way forward, each firing across the corridor to pin the Sisters back up the corridor. The air was a lattice of bolter shells and searing hot beams. One of the Battle Sisters fell into the corridor clutching her gut and was dragged into cover by the ankles, howling as las-shots burned the floor around her.
Vaughn pointed. Ten metres further up, a doorway lead off to the right. ‘Down there!’
Tash was first. She sprinted out, weaving as she ran, and Fane and Nietzin covered her way with suppressing fire. Vaughn crept forward until he was nearly opposite the doorway, then leaped. He landed awkwardly, rolled and was inside.
Tash grinned at him. She was holding a grenade. She leaned around the doorway and hurled it back into the corridor. There was a loud, echoing bang. Plaster filled the corridor. Vaughn glimpsed a Sister carrying some huge gun, a heavy bolter perhaps, stumbling from the force of the explosion. Nietzin ran across the corridor and inside. Fane ducked in after him.
The room was little more than a landing over a set of stairs. They ran down the staircase into a bare, whitewashed room. A monitor unit stood at one end. Half a dozen screens flickered over the console, showing the cells of the penetentia.
‘You’re bleeding, old man,’ Fane said.
Nietzin ran a hand across his forehead. ‘A stone chip must’ve caught me. I’m all right.’
Tash was at the far end of the room, before a massive door. ‘Problem,’ she said, turning. ‘Bad problem.’
‘Like we didn’t have any before,’ Fane said.
‘The door to the cells is code-locked. We can’t get in.’
Nietzin cursed. ‘It must run off a different system to the main controls. Damn it!’
Vaughn glanced at the stairs. It would be a matter of seconds before the Sisters gathered their forces and resumed the attack. ‘Well,’ he snapped, ‘can’t you make it open?’
‘I’ll have to,’ Nietzin replied. ‘Otherwise we’re trusting on the Emperor to send us a miracle.’ His expression told Vaughn how likely he thought that would be.
There was sudden noise on the staircase. Tash ducked into the stairwell, and the flash of her lasgun turned the stairs into a blaze of strobing light. A voice cried out and an armoured body crashed against the wall.
‘There’s a load of them,’ Tash said. ‘It looks like they’ll – grenade!’
Something small and cylindrical bounced hissing down the stairs. Tash lunged, grabbed it, lobbed the cylinder back up the stairs and threw herself onto the ground. Vaughn ducked, raising his plated forearms across his face – and nothing happened.
Tash got up, blinking. Vaughn opened his eyes and saw a cloud of thick grey smoke spilling down the stairs. He smelt burning chemicals tinged with incense. The stuff seemed to clog his nose and mouth. ‘Smoke!’
He yanked his rebreather up, shoved it over his mouth. He saw Tash stumble back, retching as she pulled her mask on.
A buzzing, ripping sound came from above. Boots clattered on metal stairs. A Sister of Battle charged through the smoke like some furious spirit, holding a long metal shield in front of her. Nietzin’s plasma gun blasted straight through shield and woman, and the hail of fire from Fane’s lasgun tore the soldier behind her apart. Then a great bull of a woman, almost Nietzin’s height and far broader, rushed them. A brazier on her backpack threw coals out behind her; inscribed skulls hung around her neck. In her hands was a roaring chainsword more than a metre long.
‘Die!’ she bellowed. Fane leaped back, lasgun forgotten, grabbing for his lucky pistol. Nietzin peered down the plasma gun, struggling to get a sight.
‘Die, filth!’
The sword was too big for the room, perhaps too big even for her. She swung the blade as if to hurl it away, and Vaughn ducked low and the sword whipped over his head, smashing out half the monitor screens in a shower of sparks. The shock jarred the woman’s arms. She staggered back, swinging the weapon up like a fisherman hauling in a net. Tash dropped and rolled out of the way, and as the Battle Sister swung her ponderous weapon, Nietzin fired.
He missed her. The plasma shot caught the chainsword halfway down the blade and blew it apart. Fragments tore across the room like shrapnel. Fane dived onto the floor. Like a thrashing snake, the chain whipped through the air, hit the wall, flicked back and struck its owner in the thigh. She bellowed, dropped and Fane pounced on her.
The room was almost silent then. Fane looked up. His pistol, an ornate, flashing thing worthy of a hive-gangster, was pressed against the woman’s head.
‘You want me to kill her?’ Fane’s rebreather distorted his voice.
Beneath him, the woman struggled and gasped. Her own mask had fallen down, but she seemed at least partly immune to the gas. She was muttering between her teeth, snarling out some catechism that Vaughn couldn’t understand.
She didn’t look like any soldier he’d ever known. Back in the Guard, he had encountered occasional commissars with the rabid look that she now wore, like an enraged animal caught behind bars. But not many of them. The Sisters knew how to fight, he thought – they were experts – but they made him think more of lunatics than soldiers.
‘Not yet,’ he replied. He pulled his rebreather down. ‘We’ve got the prioress!’ he shouted up the stairs. ‘Stay back or we’ll kill her!’
The woman on the ground managed to control herself enough to speak. ‘I have no fear of dying,’ she proclaimed. Her voice was deep and loud, a preacher’s voice. ‘The Emperor shall shield me!’
It was the prioress herself. Vaughn glanced at the doorway. Tash was watching the stairs. A voice, surprisingly high and feminine, called down, ‘Touch the prioress and you’ll die!’
‘Tash?’ Vaughn said, ‘Throw me the cuffs.’
He looked down at the prioress. ‘Now,’ he said, snapping a pair of excruciators closed over her wrists, ‘it’s time to act like a martyr and endure.’
She was silent for a moment. All the rage seemed to have gone out of her. Perhaps, Vaughn thought, she was gearing herself not to dish out pain, but to receive it silently. ‘I did not expect to be taken alive,’ she said.
Fane shoved the barrel of his pistol into the flesh of her thick neck, and she pulled away from him; as much from his leering face than his gun. ‘Woman, who cares what you think? If I pull this trigger, your brain will be so much red mist, understand? All of your holy talk, it’s all the same to me. You don’t become a martyr unless you’re dead.’
‘Leave it,’ Vaughn said. He met the ex-ganger’s eyes for a moment, and there was something in them beyond casual viciousness and amusement in snuffing out life. For a moment Vaughn wondered if Fane had some deeper argument with the Ecclesiarchy. Whatever it was, it was getting in the way of the job. ‘Fane. I said leave her be.’
‘Whatever you say,’ Fane replied, making it sound a threat. He holstered the pistol and stood up. ‘Don’t think I won’t shoot you, holy or not.’
The prioress looked back at him as if he was not quite human. ‘You’ll burn,’ she replied, and the calm in her voice worried Vaughn more than her anger.
‘Go and help Tash cover the stairs,’ Vaughn said. ‘Well, what’re you waiting for?’
‘Right,’ Fane said. He sounded disgusted at having to obey.
Tash waited by the stairs, crouched down to get a better view. She would have looked sullen and morose even without the black soot across her eyes. She looked round, met Vaughn’s glance, then scuttled over as Fane took her place. Tash ducked down beside the prioress, tiny next to her armoured bulk, and reached into her pack.
‘Keep this woman away from me,’ the prioress declared. ‘She is... tainted.’
‘Sedative,’ Tash replied, filling a syringe. ‘This won’t hurt you, but it’ll slow you down.’ She pushed the syringe into the prioress’ neck. The woman simply glared at her, as if challenging her to do worse.
‘If it makes you feel any better,’ Tash added, ‘I don’t like you either.’
Vaughn looked at the prioress. ‘We need you to open the doors,’ he said.
The prioress shook her head. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ she replied. ‘What’s down there in the cells has to stay here. I suppose you’re looking for treasure,’ she added. ‘Relics to sell to some seedy prelate, or to melt down for gems. I can tell you that what’s down there won’t get you rich, that’s for sure. You’ll be lucky if she only kills you.’
‘A possible emergent psyker,’ Vaughn replied. ‘I know.’
‘You know?’ The prioress glared at Vaughn, as if her stare could burn him. ‘And you came to liberate her? She’s open to the warp. If a daemon was to possess her – Thor protect us–’ Understanding crept across her face. ‘You’re cultists, aren’t you? Servants of the Ruinous Powers.’ As best as she could with her wrists tied, she made the sign of the aquila across her chest. ‘Salvate me, Imperator.’
‘No. That’s not us.’ The accusation stung Vaughn. He knew about the renegades on Tranch and the Siege of Vraks, about the murders and rituals they were said to have carried out. The idea of being mistaken for such creatures disturbed him. ‘Listen to me. We’re not cultists and we’re not traitors. But we’re taking her with us, understand? I don’t care how much that seems like sacrilege to you. Once we’re gone you can atone for losing her all you need. But she comes with us, and that’s that.’ Vaughn drew his bolt pistol. ‘Get the doors open. Now.’
For a moment she looked uncertain, and then a sort of hard calm came over her features. ‘No.’
‘I’m warning you–’
‘You’ll get nothing.’ She raised her chin, as if she was about to spit. ‘You can do with me as you want. I belong to the Master of Mankind. Better that I should die a thousand times than let you in there. In the name of the saints, I shall endure as Lord Thor endured the agonies of Vandire–’
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