[Dark Heresy 02] - Innocence Proves Nothing

by Sandy Mitchell - (ebook by Undead)

  Greel’s dossier on his target had been thorough, though mercifully brief; although he’d been telling the truth when he told the franchiseman he could read, Kyrlock had neglected to add that it was a skill his life as a Secundan peasant had left him with little time or inclination to hone. Being able to make out the warning signs around the Gorgonid, and the occasional baronial proclamation, had been enough intellectual exercise for him up until now, and the effort of scanning the sheets of paper, with their minuscule print, had left him with a faint headache, which the fresh night air was beginning to dissipate at last.

  Well, cool air, at any rate: he didn’t suppose it would taste particularly fresh anywhere in a hive city like this one.

  According to the information he’d been at such pains to decipher, Dylar lived in a far more affluent district, almost a kilometre downhive from where he was standing. There were transport networks he could have used, looking rather like the cable cars which had linked the various levels of Icenholm back on Sepheris Secundus, though on a much bigger scale, but Kyrlock decided not to avail himself of them; not while he was descending, at any rate. He’d spent long enough cooped up on the ore scow getting here, and relished the chance to stretch his legs properly again. Besides, he’d lived in the wilderness long enough to know that you could only really get the flavour of a place by feeling it beneath your feet. This environment might be new and strange, but he was sure he’d be able to master it before too much longer; after all, his life might depend on it.

  A short distance ahead of him a huge staircase fell away to one side of the road like a petrified waterfall, soaring across a vertiginous gap to a street about twenty metres away and twice that below; dozens of people were ascending and descending it, and a couple of bush meat stalls were doing reasonable business on the wide landing about halfway down.

  Well, down was the way he wanted to go; calm and unhurried, he started to descend.

  Hive Sibelius, Scintilla

  257.993.M41

  The shrine of the Omnissiah had been everything Vex could have hoped for: a haven of logic and order, in sharp and welcome contrast to the swirling maelstrom of disorganised humanity in the hive outside. He’d entered the precinct unchallenged, the white robe of his calling mingling with the others moving around the premises with evident purpose, and he’d had to exert a modicum of reason to remain focused on the purpose of his visit instead of becoming distracted by the dazzling examples of the Omnissiah’s bounty displayed about the imposing entrance hall.

  Gaining access to the archives had been a mere formality; after a quick exchange in binary, the callow technographer manning the altar of information had directed him to the appropriate vaults, and left him to his own devices. That had been a welcome surprise: Vex had expected to repeat the ritual of identification he’d had to undergo on his previous visit, some years before, but the Machine-God had smiled on him, and the security protocols still recognised his biometric parameters.

  His researches into the provenance of the peculiar artefact had been fruitless so far, although he had to confess to enjoying them; he’d examined a good deal of arcane lore, and even been permitted to handle a few so-far unclassified fragments of revenant technology, which the custodian of the vaults had assured him almost certainly pre-dated the Heresy, if not the Imperium itself.

  He’d had a little more luck in his secondary goal of trying to find traces of Tonis’ mentor, the mysterious Magos Avia. The magos had indeed been following a line of research which tended to suggest that the artefact had been in his possession during the occasion of his previous visit, and that he’d been as much in the dark about its origin and properties as Vex currently was; even more so, in fact, since the Angelae already knew that it could affect psykers in some fashion, a fact Avia had evidently discovered somewhere else in the decades between consulting the records here and forging an alliance with his ill-fated protégé.

  There seemed little point in lingering, but Vex remained anyway, reluctant to depart; the old hunger to discover one more fact, to make one more connection, was on him, and he continued to work at the data lectern he’d found, sifting through the mountain of information one dust mote at a time.

  Keira wasn’t sure how long she’d been waiting, but the passage of time didn’t matter in any case. Nothing did, beyond the calming mental discipline of watching, immobile, from her vantage point in the shadows. For the first time in days she felt truly at peace, the storm of confusion which had ruffled her composure for so long replaced by the reassuring certainties of instinct and action; even the reflection that her life was on the line, with death a more probable outcome than survival, carried with it the comfort of the familiar.

  She heard the approaching vehicle long before she saw it, the growling of an engine approaching along a road most of the locals shunned; though broad, and well paved, it led to the postern gate in the wall of the Tricorn through which those suspected of heresy, or the assistance of its perpetrators, were taken to be interviewed. A few of them even returned the same way, their innocence established to the satisfaction of the interrogator assigned to their case, although all would be profoundly affected by the experience. Most, however, remained inside the bastion for the rest of their lives, which, on the whole, tended to be short.

  As the transport came into view, Keira could feel the Emperor smiling on her again, His approval of her plan more than evident. Why else would He have arranged things so that the snatch squad approaching were driving a modified civilian vehicle, like several she’d ridden in herself on the occasions she’d been operating out of the Tricorn?

  Externally, it looked like nothing more than a battered utility van, indistinguishable from thousands of others in this sector alone, with twin rear doors giving access to an enclosed cargo compartment. The right front grimeguard was painted in ochre primer, the rest in grubby white, and the logo of the florist’s shop to which it ostensibly belonged was beginning to flake away.

  Internally, Keira knew, it would be very different. Techpriest acolytes would keep the mechanical systems at the peak of efficiency, and thick armour plate would protect both the crew compartment and the box in the back where the suspects rode, chained to steel mesh benches, and surrounded by wards designed to dissipate any warp-spawned powers they might possess. Fortunately, she didn’t need to get through the armour plate to get the result she wanted.

  The tiny crossbow was already in her hand, the string drawn back and locked. Normally she wouldn’t have considered wasting a quarrel on so solid a target, but she wasn’t out to destroy it; just inconvenience the crew a little. If she missed her mark, they’d never even know she’d been there.

  But she wasn’t going to miss, she knew that, just as surely as she knew that faith in the Emperor was the path to redemption. The shot felt right, and she took it, her finger tightening on the trigger before her conscious mind had even registered the fact. The thin dart struck the metal mesh covering the air intake, and penetrated, lodging itself deep in the guts of the engine.

  As the van got nearer, the steady growl deepened in pitch, and it began to lose speed, moving forwards in a series of increasingly violent jerks. If she correctly remembered what Vex had once told her, the quarrel would have jammed the fan keeping the engine cool, and once it stopped, the mechanism would rapidly overheat.

  Time for the next part of her plan. Moving rapidly, as the crippled van was almost abreast of her hiding place by now, she pulled up the sleeve of her synsuit, and drew her sword. A single stroke was all it took to open up a shallow gash in her forearm, which wouldn’t affect her fighting ability if she turned out to need it, but provided enough blood to smear the bright metal in a convincing enough manner. She added a few patches to her face and bodyglove too, then ran out into the road.

  She’d timed it perfectly, which she took as further proof of divine approval, arriving in the driver’s field of view just as the abused engine finally coughed and died.

  “Inside! Quickly!” Keir
a shouted, brandishing her bloodstained sword in one hand, and her rosette in the other; reassured that the apparition facing him was another Inquisition operative, the driver bailed out of his cab, a heavy-calibre autopistol held ready for use. He kept her covered in any case, Keira noted approvingly, while a second acolyte, a vulpine-faced woman with hard eyes, remained behind the armoured door, her lascarbine seeking a target in the shadows beyond. “They’re right behind me!”

  “Who are?” the man demanded, making sure he got a good look at her rosette. Forged ones weren’t exactly common, but had been known, although the difference would be immediately obvious to anyone familiar with the genuine article.

  “You think I stopped to ask their names?” Keira asked, with waspish incredulity. “Heretics, four or five of them, all armed. They had a wyrd with them too. He must have jinxed your truck before I cut him down.”

  “It did just stop for no reason,” the woman agreed. She was wearing a comm-bead, and tapped it. “This is Sharyn. Contact with solo acolyte, possible heretic band pursuing. Vehicle disabled. Requesting backup.” She listened for a couple of seconds, then nodded curtly. “They’re on their way,” she said, glancing at her partner.

  “Good.” He nodded too, his eyes on Keira. “So who the hell are you?”

  “Vanda Shawn,” Keira said, reverting to an alias she’d used once on Quaddis, and which she was sure no one here would have heard of. “I was just on my way in to report, and ran across the pack laying in wait for you. Who’s in the back worth rescuing?”

  “Throne knows.” Sharyn scanned the shadows uneasily. “Just the usual scofflaws so far as I could see.”

  “We can sort that out later,” her partner said. The postern was opening even as he spoke, and a squad of storm troopers boiled out of it in skirmish formation, fanning out to secure a perimeter around the stalled truck, their hellguns at the ready. “Let’s get the meat in for processing before their friends take another crack at us.”

  “Not much chance of that now,” Sharyn said, apparently a lot happier behind a screen of Inquisitorial troops than exposed in the middle of the street. A second squad had followed the first, breaking down into individual fireteams, to advance up the alleyway Keira had appeared from in short bursts of alternating movement, while their comrades kept them covered. “Not if Vanda got the wyrd. They’ll have been counting on him to give them an edge.”

  “So you say,” the man said, apparently unconvinced. He unlocked the rear doors of the van, and threw them open. “Heretics are insane by definition. I wouldn’t put it past them to have a go anyway.” A blast of foetid air, redolent of fear, sweat and worse swept over them. Evidently several of the prisoners had been unable to control their bladders, and at least one had soiled him or herself in their terror. “Everybody out. One wrong move and I’ll shoot the lot of you.”

  “What’s up, Kal?” A pair of guards armed with shotguns and shock mauls were seated reasonably comfortably on the ends of the benches closest to the doors, training their weapons on the widening gap. They both relaxed when they recognised the driver, although Keira was pleased to note that they kept a wary eye on her. Both were wearing carapace body armour and storm trooper-pattern helmets with integral respirators, although whether that was for additional security in case of an attempted breakout using chemical weapons or simply due to the stench she couldn’t have said.

  “Ambush, apparently.” Kal gestured impatiently towards the open gate. “If you want to debate it, let’s do it inside.”

  “Sounds good to me.” The guard who’d spoken before unlocked the chain securing the prisoners’ shackles to the bench on his side of the van, and after a moment’s hesitation his colleague followed suit on hers. He manhandled the first prisoner to his feet. “Out.” The man took a hesitant step, hindered by his leg irons, and, like all the others, unable to see through the thick grox-hide hood covering his head. “Faster than that.” The guard shoved him hard in the small of the back, and he fell out of the van, landing with an audible smack on the rockcrete roadway, unable to break his fall with his hands manacled behind him. Although most of the others merely stumbled as they disembarked, several of them fell too; one of them, a young woman in a satin gown, the quality of which marked her out as a member of the aristocracy, cracked her head against the kerbstone as she went down, and lay inert for a moment, evidently stunned, until the female guard goaded her into motion again with the shock maul.

  “Come on, up, you dozy bitch.” Seizing the opportunity, Keira grabbed the dazed debutante, yanking her roughly to her feet, heedless of the hysterical sobbing behind the muffling hood. “Get moving.”

  The stratagem was working, just as she’d hoped; the confused mass of prisoners was being driven towards the open gate like grox to the slaughter pen, and she was right in the middle of the group. The encircling storm troopers were pulling in to form an escort around the inchoate mass, their attention still focused outwards in anticipation of an attack, and the effort of herding the blind, shuffling captives was keeping the guards from the van too busy to bother her with any further questions. Kal even glanced in her direction with a brief nod of thanks before moving in to separate a couple of prisoners who’d collided, threatening to bring the whole sorry cavalcade to a halt.

  Their storm trooper escort hurried them through the outer door in a matter of moments, then redeployed to cover the return of the scout detail. Keira glanced around. She knew the layout of this entrance well, having delivered her share of recidivists to the oubliette on previous tours of duty at the Tricorn, and abandoned her whimpering charge in the middle of the floor without a second thought. The guards were still distracted by the business of counting heads and preparing their prisoners for processing, while the storm troopers’ attention was directed outside, and the gatekeepers were too busy booking in the new arrivals to take any notice of one of the escorting acolytes.

  Perfect. A handful of strides took her to a small side door leading directly to the interrogation suites, generally only used when time was of the essence in an investigation, and a suspect needed to be put to the question immediately. The soundproof door thudded closed behind her, cutting off the echoing babble of the gatehouse, and she padded down the connecting corridor, sheathing her sword as she went. From here on, she simply had to look as if she belonged, which wasn’t difficult; this was a part of the Tricorn she knew well.

  The Emperor continued to smile on her; only a couple of the suites were in use, judging by the volume of screaming, and she passed through the rest of Information Retrieval without meeting anyone she knew. A well-remembered door led to the main courtyard, and a few moments later she was comfortably lost in the throng of other acolytes going about their business.

  Dusk was falling in earnest by this time, and Keira picked up her pace a little, hurrying towards the looming bulk of the south tower. She’d been lucky so far; now things were about to become really difficult.

  * * *

  Perhaps this hadn’t been such a good idea, Drake thought, leading the young pilot’s stumbling steps up the boarding ramp of the grounded shuttle. The ale hadn’t been that strong, he was certain, and the Cloudwalker had definitely been watching his intake: nevertheless, Barda was legless. He must have less of a head for alcohol than Drake had realised.

  “Are you going to be all right?” he asked, steering Barda towards his bedroll, and the pilot nodded, grinning broadly.

  “Never better. Need the head, though.”

  “Well you can sort that out for yourself,” Drake told him, and sat in a nearby seat while his young charge disappeared into the small washroom at the rear of the passenger compartment. Come to that, he was feeling a little light-headed himself, which seemed strange; he definitely knew he’d only had a couple. Well, three. The one he’d bought at the bar, and the two extra rounds the barmaid had brought over to their booth.

  Barda was still busy, and, judging by the sounds emanating from the tiny chamber, was liable to remain so for som
e time. Drake settled back in his seat with a contented sigh, and thought about the barmaid. A bit old, maybe, thirty standard at least, but a nice figure nevertheless. If he hadn’t been babysitting, he might have tried his luck there. That smile when she turned away the last time, that had been the next best thing to an engraved invitation. Almost like a piece of home, too; redheads were quite common on Sepheris Secundus, but he’d hardly seen any since he’d arrived on Scintilla. Not since…

  “Oh, nads,” he said, suddenly feeling very sober indeed. A pin-sharp fragment of memory was floating on the surface of his mind: the hall in the Tricorn where Horst had received the box from Inquisitor Finurbi. The team leader had glanced up from the counter, and for a fraction of a second had made accidental eye contact with a woman a few paces away. A redhead.

  He reached for the comm-bead in his ear. “Mordechai,” he began without preamble, “I think we have a problem.”

  Sixteen

  Hive Sibelius, Scintilla

  257.993.M41

  The main hall of the Ordo Malleus tower was the same size and shape as the one Keira was familiar with in the redoubt of the Ordo Hereticus, but the crowd of bustling acolytes she’d expected to find there was largely absent. She’d tensed inwardly as she passed the outer guards, feeling the sanctioned psykers scratching at the surface of her mind, but the blocking techniques she’d been taught at the Collegium had repelled them as she’d hoped; all they’d been able to pick up was a litany of devotion to the Emperor, hardly the thing a heretic would have had at the forefront of their thoughts.

  The towering figures of the Grey Knight Astartes flanking the main entrance were another matter, and she observed them covertly as she passed, alert for the faintest flicker of movement which might betray their intention to attack. They were more colourfully armoured than she’d expected, holy images and bright crimson purity seals encrusting the smooth ceramite, and their Chapter badge, a book pierced by a dagger, was bordered in red on gilded shoulder guards. The bolters they carried were twin-barrelled, even bigger and more intimidating than the ones she’d seen in the hands of the Sororitas, and she felt a warm stirring of righteousness as she pictured the havoc they were capable of wreaking on the Emperor’s enemies. Despite her apprehension, none of the towering warriors moved a millimetre, but as she passed them she could feel their scrutiny, and a faint chill seemed to follow her into the depths of the citadel they guarded.