Jurgen turned, seeing the man behind him pick up the pace, hoping to close the distance between them before he could bring the lasgun round to bear. He was a slight fellow, whose uniform hung oddly on him, as though it was a little too large for its wearer; which might have struck Jurgen as odd, if he hadn’t spent most of his life being issued with kit which didn’t quite fit. Imperial Guard uniforms only came in two sizes, too large and too small, a problem most troopers solved by swapping what they’d been given with others in their unit; an option Jurgen had never felt inclined to pursue.
The running man was carrying a weapon in his hand, a crude stubber, which he brought up and fired as he came. Jurgen didn’t flinch; the chances of hitting a man-sized target with a handgun while firing on the run were minimal, he knew, and his flak vest would probably hold even if the fellow got lucky.
Which he didn’t. A burst of lasgun fire from a stationary shooter, on the other hand, was a lot more accurate, especially if the shooter in question had spent years bringing down moving targets in the middle of a firefight.
Stubber man folded and fell, his torso pitted with the ugly cauterised wounds characteristic of lasgun fire, his pistol skittering away as his flaccid hand smacked against the ground. He was probably dead before he hit the ground, but Jurgen put an extra round through his head anyway. He’d seen enough people keep going on the battlefield by sheer willpower, long after they should have laid down and died, insulated by shock and a final adrenaline surge from the full effect of their mortal wounds.
As Jurgen ran forward, angling for a clear shot at the man behind the barrels, his boot kicked against the fallen gun, and he glanced down at it disdainfully. It was an old-fashioned slug thrower, crudely made, and clearly not standard issue, even to the militia of a backwater world like this one. No wonder its owner had missed him; it was beyond Jurgen why anybody would choose to use a weapon like that, instead of the lasgun he’d been issued with.
The man behind the barrels had no such compunction, it seemed, a hail of las-bolts chewing up the rockcrete footings of the storage blocks, gouging a line of splinters across the crates and the knifeman’s corpse behind Jurgen as he returned fire on full auto. That would deplete the power pack uncomfortably fast, he knew, but there was no cover he could take, and throwing himself flat to minimise his target profile would simply allow the hidden gunman to pick off an immobile target at his leisure. Better to advance behind a blizzard of suppressive fire, hoping that would be enough to keep his quarry’s head down, until he was able to get a clean shot at him.
The tactic worked better than Jurgen had dared to hope. The hail of las-bolts threw up sparks from the metal drums, punching dents and ripping holes in them with a clamour which would have struck terror into the heart of an ork. It certainly terrified the hidden gunman, who stopped firing to retreat behind the metal cylinders’ meagre protection, huddling in their lee.
Not that it did him much good. Liquid began seeping from the punctured drums almost at once, the thick, acrid smell of promethium lacing the air around them. As Jurgen continued to advance, firing as he came, either a spark from an impact or the heat of a las-bolt itself ignited the escaping vapour.
With a muffled whump, the whole stack exploded, making Jurgen stagger with the sudden wave of heat. He backed up fast as a lake of burning fuel began sloshing in his direction, scrambling over the crates which were already beginning to blacken in the intense heat, just as the blazing tide began to lap against them. From somewhere in the middle of the inferno, he thought he could hear a prolonged, agonised scream, which was mercifully cut short in a sudden secondary explosion.
Choking from the smoke, eyes streaming from the acrid fumes, Jurgen stumbled into the open, gasping for breath. A thick, dense coil of smoke followed him like a questing tentacle, but he ignored it, sweeping his immediate surroundings for any further signs of hostility. Attracted by the noise, a score or more of the local militia were running towards him, some carrying fire suppressors, others with weapons ready, no doubt under the impression that the rebels were attacking.
“You! Guardsman. Drop your weapon!” someone shouted, and Jurgen turned, prepared to fight his way out if he had to; but this time it wasn’t an option. Five troopers had their lasguns trained on him, and it was clear that these ones knew what they were doing. They were too widely dispersed to take down; if he tried, he’d only be able to get a couple of them before the others returned the favour. They were dressed differently from the others too, in body armour and full face helmets, unit insignia which meant nothing to him stencilled on their chestplates.
He knew what they were, anyway, he’d seen plenty like them in his time in the Guard. Provosts, or whatever they called themselves in the Helengon militia.
“Can’t do that,” he replied evenly. “It’s against regulations.” Imperial Guard troopers were responsible for their lasgun at all times, and although simply putting it down wouldn’t be a technical breach of standing orders, the next step would most likely be someone taking it out of his reach altogether. Even an ordinary Guardsman would find the threat of being disarmed well nigh intolerable, but for a commissar’s personal aide, it would be a mortal wound to his dignity. On the other hand, being shot five times at close range wouldn’t do a lot for it either. “But I’ll take out the power pack and stow it.”
“Good enough,” the squad leader agreed, after a moment’s hesitation. She raised her visor to look at him directly, then back to the column of smoke still billowing from between the warehouses. “Then you and I are going to have a little chat.”
“You’ve got no idea which unit they were from?” the provost sergeant, whose name had turned out to be Liana, asked, not for the first time.
Jurgen shook his head. “Never saw any patches,” he repeated, and shrugged. “Probably wouldn’t have recognised ’em if I had.”
“Probably not,” Liana agreed. “But they should have had something.” She gestured at the bustle of activity surrounding them. By now, over a hundred militia troopers had arrived to fight the fire, clear up its aftermath, and, in many cases, simply take advantage of the free entertainment. Every single one of them had insignia of some kind visible on their uniforms.
“These ones didn’t,” Jurgen insisted, mildly irked at having his word doubted. The commissar would have believed him at once. He glared balefully at the charred cadaver being carried past by a group of troopers who must have seriously annoyed a superior to be landed with that particular duty, and spat vehemently, to relieve his feelings. “Not that you could tell from that.”
“Special forces, maybe?” Liana speculated, at least willing to entertain the idea that he might not have been mistaken.
“They’d have had better equipment than a backstreet stubber,” Jurgen said, “and they’d have been better shots.”
“Good point,” the provost conceded, to Jurgen’s faint, and pleased, surprise. She turned to Sergeant Merser, who was hovering uneasily nearby, a data-slate in his hand. “Any luck tracing the lasgun one of them was armed with?”
Merser nodded, looking distinctly unhappy. “We managed to find a serial number. I would have thought the metal had melted, but the body…” he swallowed, turning another shade paler, “what was left of it, had fallen on top. Protected it a bit.”
“So who was it issued to?” Liana asked.
“That’s just it. It wasn’t.” Merser held the data-slate out, as though he expected it to snap at his fingers. “It’s listed as still in stores.”
“So it was pilfered,” Liana said, and Merser nodded unhappily.
“Looks that way,” he replied.
“Then we need to know who by,” Liana persisted.
“If we find out what’s missing, we should be able to deduce who’s responsible,” Merser said. “I’ll start going through the inventories.”
“We could start with yours,” Liana suggested, fixing the heavyset sergeant with a calculating look.
Merser flushed indignantl
y. “My records are fine,” he snapped. “What’s in the files is on the shelves.” He looked at Jurgen for confirmation. “He’ll tell you.”
Jurgen nodded. “Everything matched,” he agreed. He jerked a thumb in the direction of the latest corpse to be recovered, being dragged along in a tarpaulin by sweating, swearing troopers, leaving a faint trail of ash and flakes of charred meat in their wake. “And I’d have a roll call if I were you. Whoever’s missing’s probably them.”
“Good idea,” Liana concurred. “Then we can start chasing down their contacts. Wouldn’t be the first time a quartermaster started diverting stuff to the black market.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then.” Jurgen shouldered his lasgun, and turned away. “I’m done here.”
“Maybe you should stay,” Merser said hastily.
Jurgen turned back, surprised. “What for?” he asked.
“Yes, what for?” Liana turned a questioning gaze on the portly sergeant. “It’s not as though Gunner Jurgen’s a suspect.”
“Of course not,” Merser said hastily. “But he must have assisted the commissar in his investigations. Maybe he can spot something we might overlook.”
“Maybe he can,” Liana agreed, after a moment’s consideration. She turned to Jurgen. “Do you think you might?”
“Dunno.” Jurgen shrugged. “Worth a try, I suppose, so long as it don’t take too long.” In truth, his involvement in investigations generally went no further than processing the paperwork and shooting the occasional traitor who resented his unmasking, but an appeal had been made to his sense of duty, and he felt honour-bound to respond. It was what Commissar Cain would wish, he had no doubt.
“Right then,” Liana said, looking from one man to another, and wondering if she’d just made the decision to consign her career to oblivion, “might as well get started, I suppose.”
“What do you mean there’s no one missing?” Liana asked, handing the data-slate she’d just been shown back to the provost who’d brought it in to her office; a small cubicle on the western side of the militia barracks, which would have seemed crowded with only one occupant. Currently it had three, Jurgen observing from a corner near the window, which Liana seemed to like jammed open as wide as it would go. He had no objection to this, as it gave him a good view of the militia compound, and the city beyond, from which the occasional crackle of small-arms fire could be heard. The rebels were making a concerted attempt to hold on to the southern quarter, with the Imperial Guard equally determined to dislodge them, and show the militia how it ought to be done by breaking the year-long stalemate in a matter of days.
“I mean everyone’s accounted for, ma’am,” the provost said, and withdrew, a little hastily it seemed to Jurgen.
“Someone’s playing games,” Jurgen said. “Answering twice to cover for them.” A common enough dodge in the Guard, when troopers had overstayed a pass, or been too hungover to report for duty.
“Unless the men who attacked you weren’t soldiers at all,” Liana said thoughtfully.
“They were in uniform,” Jurgen objected.
“I went to a party dressed as an ork once,” Liana retorted. “That didn’t make me a greenskin.”
Jurgen nodded, the way he’d seen the commissar do while considering an unexpected suggestion, and tried to see what she was driving at. “You mean they were pretending to be militia troopers,” he said at last, reasonably certain he got it.
“That’s right,” Liana said, looking at him a little oddly. “Using stolen uniforms to get onto the base.”
Which sounded reasonable to Jurgen. If they could steal guns, they could steal uniforms just as easily. “If it was me,” he added, “I’d have set charges in the armoury as soon as I’d finished helping myself.”
“First thing we checked, believe me,” Liana assured him. “Nothing there.”
“Hm.” Mindful that he was a guest in her office, Jurgen spat out of the window, rather than letting the gob of saliva land where it would. “Even the rebels here aren’t up to much.”
If Liana realised that was a thinly-veiled criticism of the local forces, she was tactful enough to let it go. Instead, she looked thoughtful. “You’re right,” she said. “If rebels could sneak in and steal weapons, they’d definitely have sabotaged what was left so we couldn’t use them.”
Jurgen’s brow furrowed. “Who does that leave?” he asked.
“Gangers, I suppose,” Liana said. “Plenty of those around, carving up territories for themselves while the fighting keeps us too busy to rein them in.” She looked up, as Merser entered the office. “Any luck?”
“I can tell you the records are a mess,” Merser said. “Overstocks, items missing, half the inventories read like fiction ’zines.”
“No change there, then,” Jurgen said, shrugging. “Yours are the only ones I ever saw that tallied exactly.”
Merser flushed. “I like to pay attention to the details.”
“I noticed,” Jurgen said. He glanced at his chronograph, and stood. “I need to get back. Anything I can help with, contact the commissar’s office.”
“Of course.” Liana stood too, began to hold out a hand, then withdrew it hastily. “We’ll keep you informed.”
“Of course we will,” Merser added, standing aside to make room at the door. “Where’s your vehicle?”
“Came on foot,” Jurgen lied, and left them to it.
In fact he’d commandeered a motorcycle, which someone had been careless enough to leave unattended in the regimental motor pool, the better to navigate his way around the warren of streets surrounding the Imperial Guard deployment zones. He’d have preferred a Salamander, but he’d have had to divert around so much rubble if he’d chosen one that it would have all but doubled the distance he would have to travel.
After retrieving his mechanical steed, he coasted into the lee of a battle-damaged Chimera, which a party of enginseers were energetically reconsecrating, and waited a few moments.
As he’d expected, the distinctive figure of Sergeant Merser emerged from the building almost at once, at the closest to a trot he could manage. The heavyset non-com swung himself into the cab of a parked truck, against which a soldier with no visible unit patch had been lounging, and gunned the engine, while his companion scrambled up beside him. No sooner were they both aboard than Merser slammed the lorry into gear, roaring out of the yard as though half the daemons of the warp were after him.
It was almost too easy. After a quick conversation over his vox-bead, Jurgen opened the bike’s throttle, and set out in pursuit. He hung well back, keeping the luminator off, despite the rapidly gathering night, well able to judge the presence of any major obstacles in the carriageway by the intermittent flaring of his quarry’s brake lights. The risk of being spotted was minimal, he knew. Merser’s attention would be entirely on the road ahead, looking for a solitary pedestrian.
Before long, the lorry coasted to a halt at an intersection, where Merser paused, glancing up and down the converging carriageways. Nothing moved in either direction, except a Chimera patrolling the deserted streets. With nightfall came the curfew, and nothing would be moving now except military traffic. Nothing legal, anyway, but there was nothing to worry about. No one would look twice at a militia truck.
“Where is he?” his companion demanded, nursing a laspistol the armourer still hadn’t noticed was missing. “You said he was on foot.”
“He can’t have got far,” Merser said, still hovering indecisively. If he picked the wrong direction, the Guardsman would be safely back in the Imperial Guard compound, reporting to the commissar before they could double back and correct their mistake. Before he could make up his mind which road to take, a motorcycle roared up out of the darkness behind them, and parked, its engine revving, next to the cab.
Merser glanced down, and found himself staring along the length of a lasgun barrel, with a well-remembered face at the opposite end.
“I thought you’d leg it,” Jurgen remarked, conversa
tionally. “But I wanted to be sure. The commissar always likes to be sure, before he accuses anyone.”
“Accuses them of what?” Merser blustered, playing for time.
“Trying to kill me, for starters,” Jurgen said, as though that had been a perfectly reasonable thing to attempt. “You sent those frakkers after me, didn’t you?”
By way of an answer, Merser floored the accelerator. Jurgen debated pursuit for a fraction of a second, then squeezed the trigger of his lasgun instead. There was no way the cumbersome truck would be able to outrun the motorcycle anyway, so he might as well bring things to an end now. The hail of las-bolts shredded the lorry’s tyres, and he watched it veer off course and collide with a half-collapsed storefront with detached interest.
As it came to rest, amid a small landslide of displaced brick, the passenger door popped open, and the ersatz soldier bailed out, firing wildly as he came. He was no better a shot than his deceased companions, and Jurgen dropped him easily, without even bothering to dismount. As he swung his leg over the saddle, and began to walk towards the crippled lorry, the Chimera ground to a halt a few metres away.
“Took your time,” he said, as the hatch clanged open.
“What can I say. Traffic,” Liana said, which didn’t make much sense to Jurgen. So far as he could see, the streets were still deserted. She flung the truck’s tailgate open, and a cascade of ration packs spilled out onto the cracked pavement. “Looks like you were right.”
“Course I was,” Jurgen said. “Inventories never match up to what’s actually in stores. The only reason Merser’s would is if he was covering something.”
Liana nodded. “The way things are now, food’s like currency on the streets. Better. Him and his ganger friends must have been making a fortune.” She paused to glare at the sergeant, who was being prised, none too gently, out of the battered cab by a couple of her provosts. “He must have realised you’d spotted something was wrong, and sent his accomplices to keep you quiet.”
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