‘My window upon the world below,’ the man said, approaching slowly. ‘The science is all tau of course. We get most of our surveillance feeds from drones, although you wouldn’t recognise them if you saw them. Drone tech is outstandingly flexible and a spy drone can be smaller than the human eye.’ He smiled again. ‘On occasion we’ve actually replaced the human eye with a drone and left the recipient none the wiser.’
Iverson touched his own optic uneasily, but the man shook his head. ‘No, don’t worry. Your augmetic is clean, Iverson.’
‘You are Sky Marshall Zebasteyn Kircher?’ Iverson asked, gathering his thoughts. He already knew the answer, but the question had to be aired. Protocol and the moment demanded it.
‘I am.’ Kircher stopped a couple of metres from Iverson and straightened up. ‘I take it you’re here to serve the Emperor’s Justice?’
Iverson regarded the man he had come to kill. He had imagined his nemesis in many shades of corruption: a seedy, silk-tongued despot sagging with depravity, his uniform ripe with garish epaulettes and empty medals. Or a haggard ghost who kept to the shadows and whispered tormented riddles, all the while secretly longing for his own doom. Or perhaps a granite-faced egomaniac cut from the true military block, his eyes burning with fervour as he declaimed his creed. The galaxy was rife with tyrants, but their cancer always seemed to follow the same old strains of self-congratulation, self-loathing or self-deception.
Yet this man is none of those things.
Kircher was broad shouldered and muscular in the manner of a middle-aged soldier accustomed to hard exercise, although Iverson knew he must be over a century old. Doubtless he had availed himself of juvenat therapies to hold back the years, but there wasn’t a trace of vanity about him. His square, businesslike face was free of wrinkles, but otherwise untouched by cosmetic enhancements. His nose had been broken and set askew, like an off-kilter sundial at the centre of his face. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he was straight-backed and sturdy, lending him a quietly imposing air. The dignity ran through to his uniform – a modest tunic and cap devoid of any ornaments save the silver Skywatch badge. He looked more like an NCO than the governor of a world, yet there was a pervasive, muted authority about him.
You’re not what I expected, Zebasteyn Kircher.
‘Why?’ Iverson asked. It was a simple question that encompassed so much. Like his first question it needed asking.
Kircher didn’t show a trace of fear as he stared past the barrel of Iverson’s gun and looked him in the eye. ‘Because it was necessary.’
‘That’s not good enough.’
‘No? I’ve just confessed that I’ve betrayed the Imperium. Surely that’s all the justification you need, commissar?’ Iverson said nothing and Kircher nodded. ‘No… no, of course it’s not. For any other man of your creed it would be more than enough, but not for you, Holt Iverson. You see, you have become addicted to truth and you crave answers. Am I wrong?’
You think too much for a commissar. How many people have told me that down the years? How many of them have I failed?
‘Furthermore you are incapable of denying a manifest truth, no matter how much it may torment you,’ Kircher went on. ‘I think it’s your Arkan heritage showing through. For all your training and indoctrination, that troublesome, dissenting blood won’t let you sleepwalk through life.’
‘This isn’t about me.’
‘I disagree. At this particular moment in time it is precisely about you.’ Kircher shrugged. ‘After all, you’re the man pointing a gun at my head. You have the power to end me if you so choose. I’d say that makes you very significant indeed.’
‘Are you Abel?’
‘What?’ For the first time the Marshall seemed wrong-footed. He frowned, looking genuinely puzzled. ‘No, I’m not Abel. Why would you think that?’
‘It’s the only answer that makes any sense,’ Iverson said emphatically. ‘Who else would have the authority to bring us this far? Who else could have cleared out the guards so I could walk right in here? Abel can only be you.’
Kircher nodded slowly. ‘I see your logic and there is certainly a mystery here, but why would I assist my own assassin?’
‘Because I am not your assassin – I am your judge. And you want to be judged.’
The Sky Marshall considered this, his wide-set eyes bright with thought. Finally he shook his head. ‘You are mistaken, Iverson. I do not wish to be judged. I have already judged myself and continue to do so every day of my life.’
‘So you think you’re innocent?’
‘No, not innocent, but simply necessary.’ Kircher sighed. ‘As I have already said, that’s what this is all about – not honour or justice or any such rousing virtue – just plain necessity.’
‘Betraying tens of thousands of Imperial lives was necessary?’
‘To preserve hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions more? Absolutely.’ Kircher waved a hand around the room, indicating the flow of information. ‘The carnage on Phaedra is nothing beside the horrors to come if this war is allowed to spread across the subsector.’
‘So you and your xenos friends decided to play us for fools and cap things here?’ Iverson said bitterly. ‘And never mind all the lives you threw into the meat grinder.’
‘You still fail to grasp the wider picture, Iverson. This region is a buffer zone between two embattled giants. Neither the Imperium nor the Tau Empire can spare the resources to fight this war on a system-wide scale – not when there are so many greater threats elsewhere, but equally neither side can be seen to back down.’
‘You’re telling me the Imperium is party to this heresy?’
‘My remit for the war came directly from the High Council of Terra,’ Kircher said quietly. ‘They tied my hands from the outset. I confess there was a time when that appalled me.’ He searched Iverson’s face. ‘Don’t tell me you’re honestly surprised by this.’
No, I’m not surprised, Iverson realised sadly. I’m not surprised by any of it.
‘But you decided to take things further,’ he said with growing certainty.
Flanked by the two surviving Zouaves, Cutler stepped up to the bridge bulkhead. The massive hatch was sealed tight. ‘Open it,’ he snarled at the tau strapped to his back, ‘or I’ll throw you to the Hells after your lapdogs.’
‘The tau do not have a concept of Hell,’ O’Seishin said in a brittle voice. ‘I have already explained this to you, Ensor Cutler.’
Lieutenant Hood limped up alongside them, smelling of burnt meat. ‘A few of ’em slipped away in the chaos, but the corridor’s ours, colonel.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘It cost us though.’
‘Every step of this journey has cost us, Hood.’ Cutler reeled against the hatch as another wave of nausea hit him. He was drenched in sweat and blood now – so much of both he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. ‘It’s eaten us away… piece by piece…’
That is enough, Whitecrow! Skjoldis berated him.
‘No, it’s not enough. It’s never going to be… nearly… enough,’ he muttered through harsh gasps. Then he punched the hatch hard, drawing more blood. ‘Open it!’
‘You are correct,’ the Sky Marshall said without hesitation. ‘I took things much further. And I regret none of it.’ He clenched his fists, as if to reinforce his thinking. ‘The Imperium can’t last, Iverson. It is a brutal, multi-headed leviathan forged for war, but despite the billions of souls that feed its engines, it is running down.’ His voice rose with passion as he found his stride. ‘Corruption and infighting have become endemic to its machinery. Ignorance and spite have become its orthodoxy. Shackled by fear, humanity tears itself apart from the inside out while it fights a thousand wars on a thousand fronts! Even the reprieve here is just a stopgap until the Imperium can spare the resources to prosecute this war to the full.’ Kircher shook his head in disgust. ‘I suspect the Imperium
had a purpose once, but now it’s nothing but a vicious relic.’
‘What about the Emperor?’ Iverson asked.
‘The Emperor?’ Kircher seemed surprised by the question. ‘Who can say what He really stands for after all these millennia. Like His empire He might have meant something once, but now…’ He snorted dismissively. ‘Frankly I’ve had my fill of serving a corpse that won’t die. Humanity needs a fresh perspective if it is to survive.’
‘So you’ve bought into the tau and their Greater Good?’ Iverson said tightly.
‘I have not bought into anything,’ Kircher snapped. ‘I have chosen to use my intellect to find the best of all possible paths!’ He calmed himself with a visible effort. ‘But yes, the Greater Good has merit. It cultivates a mature humility in its followers, a rationality that puts our own fixations with honour and glory to shame. Mankind is an ancient race, yet we behave like feral infants beside the tau.’ He shook his head. ‘We have to grow up before the galaxy gives up on us.’
Iverson felt the electric wasp in his optic stirring awake and suddenly he remembered the most important question: ‘What about Ysabel Reve?’
‘Who?’ The Sky Marshall seemed nonplussed.
‘Commissar Cadet Ysabel Reve. Did you send her after me?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Kircher shook his head ruefully. ‘Even I can’t keep tabs on everyone. Who is Ysabel Reve?’
‘She’s dead,’ Iverson said.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kircher said carefully. ‘Was she was important to you?’
‘I killed her.’
‘And you regret this?’
‘Should I?’
Kircher’s eyes narrowed as he considered it. ‘Was her killing necessary?’
Not right or wrong… The wasp in Iverson’s skull was flitting about angrily… Not just or unjust… Hunting for a way out… Merely necessary or not...
‘Is that all there is to it?’ he asked hollowly.
‘No, but everything else is suspect,’ Kircher said, his eyes bright with conviction. ‘To prosper we have to strip away the delusions of emotion and morality and work with the facts. That’s the core philosophy of the Greater Good. It is a path focussed on hard reality rather than fluid ideals. A path we can build upon.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’
‘Because you were right,’ Kircher said with wonder, as if he had only just realised it himself. ‘You are my judge, Iverson. I didn’t seek you out, but here you are regardless – a sharp mind with a gun pointed in my face. Perhaps there’s an opportunity in that.’
‘You expect me to spare you?’ Iverson’s face twitched as the wasp burrowed through his brain, triggering strange synapses. ‘You expect me to turn a blind eye to this heresy?’
‘I expect you to think,’ Kircher urged. ‘Consider the horror you’ll set loose if you end this stalemate.’
‘I am an Imperial commissar.’
The Sky Marshall’s eyes bored into him with an iron will. ‘That is a lie, Holt Iverson. Whatever you are, you stopped being an Imperial commissar a long time ago.’
And I cannot deny a manifest truth.
The bridge crew didn’t put up a fight. Fragile, pale-skinned men and women in smart naval uniforms, they backed away from the intruders with raised hands and lowered eyes.
‘Where’s the captain?’ Cutler demanded. With his blood-drenched axe and rawhide jacket he knew he must look like the worst kind of pirate to them. Seeing their terrified expressions he wanted to laugh aloud, but if he did that something might break inside him before he was done here.
‘I’ll ask nicely one more time. After that I’ll get mad.’ Cutler hefted the axe meaningfully. ‘Where in the Hells is the captain?’
‘Kill me and millions more will die,’ the Sky Marshall said. ‘Justice demands it, so justice is blind.’ He stepped forward so the barrel of Iverson’s gun was touching his forehead. ‘End this ugly lie and begin an infinitely uglier truth. Honour demands it, so honour is monstrous.’
Iverson held the gun rigid as thoughts flashed and faded across his mind like dancing fireflies. Kill him and be damned? Spare him and be redeemed? Or is it the other way round? Redeemed or re-damned? Where were his ghosts when he needed their counsel the most? He glanced past the Sky Marshall, searching for Bierce or Number 27 or even Niemand. Hoping for Reve… He saw the Fire Warrior. The tau hadn’t moved at all during the confrontation, but he was watching them intently.
He’s waiting for my choice.
And then the choice was taken away. Moving with a swiftness that belied his years, the Sky Marshall flung up an arm and caught Iverson’s wrist in an iron grip. The gun fired, but Kircher had already sidestepped with the grace of a dancer. He twisted and the pistol slipped from Iverson’s numbed hand. Kircher didn’t pause for a moment. Using his fists like pistons he lashed out with almost inhuman speed, pummelling Iverson’s face and chest. The commissar staggered back, but Kircher followed remorselessly, battering him like a threshing machine until he fell.
‘I’m sorry,’ the Sky Marshall said as he stepped away from his prone opponent. ‘I wish I could have let you choose, but there’s too much at stake to gamble on your sanity.’ He was breathing hard, as if the sudden violence had drained him. ‘For what it’s worth, I believe you would have done the right thing, Holt Iverson.’
The Fire Warrior appeared at his shoulder, holding Iverson’s pistol. Kircher acknowledged the tau with a nod. ‘Kill him, shas’el.’
The xenos shot Zebasteyn Kircher through the eye.
‘The captain is gone,’ a skinny naval lieutenant said. ‘He disappeared decades ago. He never saw eye to eye with the Sky Marshall.’
‘I like the man already,’ Cutler said. ‘Right, forget the captain. You boys can do the job, right?’
‘The job?’ the lieutenant stuttered. ‘What are you asking me… sir?’
‘Fire up the engines. We’re leaving.’
‘Leaving?’ The officer’s eyes goggled in confusion.
‘Clearing out from Phaedra,’ Cutler said. ‘The way I see it, this ship’s a symbol of everything that’s wrong here, so I’m taking the symbol away.’
‘But that’s impossible,’ the lieutenant was outraged. ‘The Requiem of Virtue hasn’t flown since the war started.’ There were murmurs of support from his fellow officers. ‘You’ve seen the state of her. She’ll probably disintegrate before we break out of orbit.’
‘I’m not telling you to break out of orbit, boy. I’m telling you to break out of space,’ Cutler said cheerily. ‘Let’s do this like we mean it, eh?’
‘You want us to enter the warp?’ The officer’s outrage had slipped into outright terror. ‘That’s suicide! I don’t even know if the ship’s Geller fields are still functioning. Without them we’ll be eaten alive!’
‘You are insane, Ensor Cutler,’ O’Seishin said, but there was no strength in his protest. He sounded resigned to his fate.
Gunfire exploded somewhere outside.
‘The blueskins are back!’ Hood yelled from the doorway. ‘And they’ve brought along a whole brigade of Skywatch cronies!’
‘Well, I guess we’re done talking,’ Cutler said and shot the skinny lieutenant. He grinned at the man’s shocked comrades. ‘Now, who can fly this hellfired ship?’
‘I am disappointed in you, human,’ the Fire Warrior said, standing over Iverson. ‘I chose you for this task because you are a commissar. I expected you to execute the traitor on sight.’
Iverson looked up from the Sky Marshall’s crumpled body and met the alien’s gaze. ‘Who are you?’
‘I am Shas’el Aabal, acting commander of the Fire Caste on this world,’ the tau said proudly. ‘I am also the one you know as “Abel”.’
Iverson shook his head, trying to focus. ‘I was sure it was Kircher. Why would you bet
ray your own kind?’
‘I have not,’ the xenos said coldly. ‘I am loyal to the Greater Good, but the Water Caste have made a mockery of this war. O’Seishin’s “experiment” must not succeed.’ He indicated the Sky Marshall. ‘The chaos you have sown here will prove your species is too dangerous to be trusted. When reports of this mutiny reach the Tau Empire this travesty will be ended.’
‘You want the war to spread,’ Iverson said with growing understanding.
‘I want the war to be prosecuted by warriors, as was decreed by the enlightened ones,’ the tau said. ‘The Greater Good will not prosper through conspiracies and lies.’
Iverson chuckled, low and bitter.
‘This amuses you?’ the tau asked coldly.
‘Don’t you see the irony?’ Iverson smiled sourly. ‘You’re a schemer too, Abel. Maybe the biggest schemer of them all.’
‘It was…’
‘Necessary?’ Iverson shook his head. ‘You know, I don’t think you blueskins are nearly as enlightened as you pretend to be. In fact I’d say you’re much like us.’ To his surprise Iverson found this casual heresy amusing.
‘We are nothing like you, gue’la!’ Abel spat. ‘The Tau’va elevates and unites us.’
‘Only when your precious Ethereals are around to keep you leashed,’ Iverson mocked. ‘When they’re away things start to fall apart, don’t they?’ He frowned, intrigued by the idea. ‘Why is that? What kind of a hold have the Ethereals got over the rest of you?’
‘You know nothing about us.’
‘And how much do you really know?’ Iverson urged, following the shadowy intuition through. ‘I’ll wager you’ve actually enjoyed being free of them here.’
‘Be silent.’ Abel levelled the gun.
‘It’s a lie,’ Iverson said with sudden certainty. ‘The Greater Good, under all the fine talk and sparkle, it’s just another lie.’
Abel fired just as the world was wrenched out from under them.
‘We have to cut the engines!’ a crewman yelled as the bridge quaked. ‘The ship’s tearing itself apart!’ There were calls of agreement from his comrades so Cutler shot him, then shot the man next to him, just to be sure. The sounds of battle in the corridor were getting closer, the gunfire punctuated by desperate yells of fury and pain. Time was running out.
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