by Guy Haley
Whatever had inflicted this wound on the surface of Kalidar had been enormous; the ring range about the Basin towered high still after a million years of erosion. Polikon had found a cleft, a canyon blasted by unnumbered sandstorms through a weakness in the stone. Its sides were rippled and it hooted and whooped in the storm. At the end of the canyon-pass came the descent, a fifty-degree path of rock and sand. The men were unnerved by the voice of the canyon, its eerie song adding to the dread anticipation of what awaited them within the basin itself.
The lorelei visions, the ghosts of Kalidar.
Bannick’s eyes struggled to make sense of what he saw through his pict-feed. The air was a shifting mosaic of sand streamers, the landscape beyond it tilted and jumbled rocks worn smooth as eggs. The chart desk at Cortein’s station showed the situation as best it could, but without direct satfeeds and orbital locators it was impossible to trust it. The maps it ran from may or may not have been accurate, and they could not be sure of their position. Right now it was about a kilometre off, said Cortein, but they could all see the steep escarpment around the basin, an endless sea of sand. Epparaliant, meanwhile, followed a rough chart made by Polikon.
‘Sir.’ Epparaliant looked concerned. ‘According to Polikon’s charts the path narrows to less than twenty metres ahead. There’s a tilt of fifteen degrees to the right on it. It’s going to be dangerous.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know. Hang on, this is going to be real tight.’ Outlanner’s voice was strained.
‘Steady as she goes,’ said Cortein.
Bannick held his breath as they approached the narrowing, a featureless sheet of tilted rock. Mars Triumphant shifted up jerkily as it breasted the lip of it, treads scrabbling on the stone. Outlanner eased the tank forwards. Hitting then passing a point of equilibrium, Mars Triumphant fell slowly forwards, skidding sideways as it did so.
The crew were thrown to the side. The tank slipped on, its path lubricated by the rivers of sand poured over it from the desert above. Mars Triumphant juddered sideways, tracks squealing, closer and closer to the edge of the path. Outlanner swore fluently as he wrestled with the Baneblade. The vehicle did a slow turn and came to a rest.
Bannick took a look out of one of the right sponson bolter cameras and experienced a rush of vertigo. The right side of Mars Triumphant hung over nothingness.
‘Throne,’ whispered Meggen, catching sight of the display.
The engine turned over quietly. Metal ticked and creaked at the unusual distribution of the super-heavy’s weight. The wind howled louder.
Cortein punched his vox. ‘Stop the convoy. Exertraxes, call a halt! I repeat immediate halt!’
Epperaliant franctically worked the signal pulse, passing the information behind. Too late. There was a clang and Mars shifted further, lurching dangerously on the precipice.
‘Hard contact,’ said Epperaliant calmly.
‘What are they doing?’ growled Cortein. He punched the vox again. ‘Back up, back up now, tank five!’
A rumble of static. Words. ‘Ne… …ive. We… r… gro… ed.’
‘Dammit! Listen to me,’ said Cortein. ‘Outlanner, hold position. Vorkosigen.’
‘Sir?’
Bannick could feel the tech-adept purposefully not looking at him. Once the story came out of his assault on Bannick, Cortein had put him on immediate report. He’d be fortunate to escape with his life when they returned.
If they returned.
‘We need more traction,’ said Cortein. ‘Give it to me.’
‘I can up the reactor output, adjust the drive mechanism to increase the torque on the engine, sir. It’ll be an increase of…’ he went over some calculations, referring to multiple instruments as he did so. ‘Five per cent or so, sir.’
‘Better than nothing. Do it.’
There was a burst of vox, a rush of horrendous interference. Epperaliant winced and began trying to isolate a signal. ‘It’s Exertraxes, sir, he suggests he send the Atlas forwards to help pull us out backwards to try another path.’
‘That an order?’
‘No, sir, it’s a suggestion.’
Cortein thought briefly. ‘No. Tell him there’s not enough room for them to start dancing tanks round each other,’ said Cortein. ‘Outlanner?’
‘We’ll never get the Trojans and supply trailers back up, and there’s no telling if any path would be better than this one. We’re nearly there. I can do this, I am sure of it.’
Epperalient scanned forwards on the map. ‘He’s right, honoured lieutenant. We’ve only a hundred metres of path left to go. Once we get over this, we’ll be running on easier ground, I say it’s worth the risk.’
‘Relay a negative then, commsman. Bannick, keep an eye on our right.’
‘Sir.’ Bannick could not tear himself away from the terrifying pict view.
‘Ready?’
‘Ready,’ said Outlanner.
‘On my order,’ said Cortein. ‘Three, two, one… Now.’
Outlanner gunned the engine and engaged the drive units. There was a squeal of metal on rock. The tank, with more traction to its right, spun towards the edge again. Bannick grabbed onto his station in anticipation of the fall.
‘Got you!’ said Outlanner’s crackling voice. The tank lined up obliquely with the path, both tracks on hard stone. Mars Triumphant suddenly lurched forwards, Ganlick cursing as he banged his head on the demolisher cannon breech, Outlanner expertly shifting power back and forth between the left and right drive wheels until the Baneblade was back in the centre of the path.
Tank five was not so fortunate.
As the Baneblade crawled forwards millimetre by millimetre, the crew watched tank five on Mars’s aft screen. Smoke poured from the stacks on its engine, flat ribbons of black carried horizontally off by the gale.
‘You’re overgunning your engine! Power down, man, power down!’ shouted Cortein. Epperaliant hammered out a semaphore on the signal laser.
‘Ca… n… ion’ came a panicked voice.
Tracks spinning, tank five skidded backwards and sideways. Panicked shouts came over the vox, broken by Kalidar’s own scream. Slowly it slid, treads spinning ineffectually, first one track, then the other, the driver desperately trying to mimic Outlanner’s success and failing. The Leman Russ hit the edge, the front of the right track going out over the precipice. The shouts and orders emanating from tank five became ever more desperate. The roar of its struggling engine fought high of the storm. A bang sounded as the whole of the right track unit went over the edge, crashing the hull into the rock.
‘Dammit!’ yelled Cortein into his vox horn. ‘Turn off your engine! Deactivate now! Shut it down!’
The driver of the tank either never heard or was too panicked to pay attention. Both tracks spun wildly, right-hand unit treading air. Tank five shifted further and further off the road. On the vox they heard the vehicle’s commander bellowing to the driver to stand down. Too late, the tracks disengaged. Tank five hung for a moment, before pitching sideways and falling from the path, the shouts of its crew turning into screams.
The loud, metallic bangs of its progress down the mountainside fought with the wind, grew distant and indistinct, then stopped.
Silence fell.
The wind blew on.
Silence reined on the command deck. To lose men that way seemed worse than in battle, somehow.
‘Poor basdacks,’ said Raggen. Meggen made the sign of the aquila. Bannick muttered a quick prayer, commending their souls to the Emperor. Epperaliant spoke urgently into the vox. ‘Tank five! Tank five! Come in! Come in!’
‘Anything?’ asked Cortein.
Epperaliant turned away from his station and shook his head slowly.
‘That’s a loss we can ill afford,’ muttered Cortein. ‘Outlanner, get us off this mountain. Vox ahead to Polikon if you can, commsman. Get him
to drive round and see if there are any survivors. And tell the rest of them to take it slowly! I don’t want to see any more men die today.’
INTERSTITIAL
‘Thou shalt not sully the shell of the divine engine.
Thou shalt not sully its mechanism.
Thou shalt not countenance the use of sullied components.
Thou shalt not be complicit in the sullying.
Thou shalt destroy the sullied.’
Adeptus Mechanicus cant
Chapter 19
Kalidar IV, Hive Meradon
3339397.M41
Brasslock’s struggling cranial implants allowed him to keep track of the time, a chronometer ticking on remorselessly within the lower left field of his remaining ocular implant. Without it, he would have had little idea how many days had passed. Food was delivered sporadically, if at all, and when it came it was rancid, doled out by cackling gretchin who spat in it and dropped it upon the floor, or by terrified human slaves. The light in the room never changed, nor did the air.
They came for him at the start of the Kalidarian night, two brutish orks, bigger than any he’d seen yet, clad in thick plates of armour decorated with garish camo patterns and glyphs of crossed axes and stylised, howling maws. He shrank away as best he could, but they hauled him off the floor as if he were a child and dragged him out of the prison cell. He resolved to die nobly, for any further tampering with his machine gifts by the ork specialists would surely kill him, and he was determined not to give them the satisfaction of seeing him break. Nevertheless his heart quailed when they approached the examination room.
They passed it without slowing.
He was too surprised and relieved to be afraid, and thanked the Omnissiah and Emperor in equal, fervent, measure.
Brasslock was dragged along corridors and up stairways he had not seen before, the service ways of a large complex.
Up one stairwell, through a door, then into what had been a richly appointed corridor. Toppled offworld furnishings and objets d’art from across the galaxy lay about, smashed into pieces, the soiled carpet was scattered with bones and filth, the walls daubed with crudely realised ork ideograms, candelabra hung with grisly trophies.
Brasslock recognised a palace when he saw one. There were few men in the Imperium who could afford such luxury.
He was dragged onwards, past broken transport ways and ballrooms turned into barracks for ork troops, from where smells of roasting meat and screams came intermingled. Past shattered windows looking upon gardens made wasteland by war, along a processional route studded with lines of spikes upon which were impaled the rotted bodies of militia soldiers. Always they were in the shadows, intermittent fires or buzzing vacuum bulbs dotted here and there, the power out in much of the building.
Then to a great cavern, whose armaglass wall lay in pieces on the ground amidst burnt-out vehicles and charred corpses. His implant whirred its iris tight shut against the sudden return of light, although the storm made a drab day.
Up steps, patterned carpets soaked brown with old blood, through massive doors rent by explosion into a hall, once the throne room of a hive governor, now the lair of the ork conquerors of Meradon.
The room was crowded with enormous orks, bigger than any two of their common troopers put together. All were dressed in filthy uniforms draped with braid, high-peaked caps upon their tiny craniums, parodies of Imperial uniforms, like apes on parade.
Scurrying lesser greenskins and human slaves ran to and fro, bringing food and drink to ork nobles lounging on broken human furniture too small for their bodies. With horror, Brasslock saw free men here too, not slaves, armed, walking warily in between the orks. Pirates, mercenary scum. A smattering of other xenos there were also, some in chains, living trophies bruised and torn, others clearly in the pay of the greenskins.
They stood talking at one another, men, aliens and orks, in the harsh, guttural tongue of the greenskins. Occasionally, two orks might shove and gesticulate angrily, hands straying towards blades, but it stopped there. All, no matter how large they were, or how decorated their uniforms, were cowed by the being sat at the end of the room.
Upon a throne fashioned from skulls and helmets, before a great, curved window that allowed views from the very top to the very bottom of the conquered Hive Meradon, sat the Arch-Skarlord Gratzdakka Wur Mekdakka, the king of Orktown.
The Arch-Skarlord was as big as an alpha ambull, muscles like anvils rippling under its well-tailored uniform: long coat, high cap, boots polished to a mirror shine. A rack of medals to shame a warrior-saint sparkled on its chest, gold rings covered every finger. The ork warboss’s face was long, with a massive jaw full of yellowing fangs. Its skull, like those of all orks, was low and small, brows heavy, cheeks high and pronounced. Its forehead sloped back sharply, and yet in the caverns of its eye sockets red glimmers hinted at a brand of feral intelligence. A feather sat incongruously in the band of its peaked cap, its sabre-teeth were capped with precious metals, and a necklace of similarly decorated fangs was slung about its neck, a heavy, vulgar pendant bearing the crossed axes of its clan hanging in the middle of the chain.
Mounted behind were two enormous power axes, identical, crossed above his throne, a variety of helmets, including those of the Adeptus Astartes, strung between. Banners of every kind were arrayed either side of it – Imperial from a dozen different military organisations and a score of worlds, orkish types of every kind, alien flags of obscure origin. Gretchin servants, similarly uniformed to their master, were ranged about him, fanning him, feeding him, shining his boots. The ork king idly cuffed one away, and stuffed food into his mouth, his cunning eyes never leaving Brasslock as he was brought towards him. Either side of the throne stood two massive bodyguards, caps with shiny peaks pulled hard down over their eyes, standing motionless, their power axes tall as they were, crusted with old blood.
It was before this creature that Brasslock was thrown, his damaged legs shoved under him so he was knelt upon the floor.
A gretchin standing on the skull of an unidentifiable creature leaned in close to its master, long fingers cupped round its mouth, whispering. The warboss gave a curt nod.
Gretchin hauled at a long chain, pulling a nearly naked, hairless fat man to his feet from behind the throne. He wore a collar about his neck. The lesser greenskins prodded him forwards. The warboss gestured with a claw, nodded. The man shuffled forwards, flesh wobbling.
‘WaaskruzdreknakaaGratzdakkaWurMekDakkagrubgrubnardeffskragnaffgulgul,’ said the warboss, its voice so deep it made Brasslock’s bones vibrate.
The fat man looked upwards and drew breath. ‘My lord and master, the great Arch-Skarlord General Gratzdakka Wur Mekdakka, king of Hive Meradon, Conqueror of Kalidar, the mighty, the powerful, the foe-bane, the git-kicker, would speak with you.’ The man’s voice stridulated, the voice of a eunuch. A large gretchin hissed at him, yanked at his chain and gestured for him to go on. ‘I am Dog. I will speak for the general. I will translate.’
Another stream of rumbling, barbarous syllables poured from the ork.
‘My master commands that these gifts shall be yours.’
Gretchin servants came forwards with a torn tapestry wrapped in a bundle, and tipped its contents onto the floor. All gaudy objects, some priceless, some junk, the orks having little idea of human concepts of value. Three terrified women in tattered finery were dragged in chains from the back of the room by an ork in a leather smock. The greenskins understood certain human traits, at least.
More orkish, Dog translating, bored eyes cast up to the ceiling. ‘And he will see to it that you are restored to your former functionality, only much improved.’ A gaggle of ork mechanics in the crowd guffawed, one tipped a salute at the enginseer. ‘You will be the envy of your mekboy friends.’
Further harsh ork words.
‘You must tell him the workings of this mighty tank, and all this will be
yours,’ translated Dog.
‘But not my freedom?’ croaked Brasslock.
‘No, never that,’ replied Dog, and his face betrayed a hint of sadness.
The warlord spoke, so then did Dog.
‘As you can see, we are not as other orks. We understand. We plan, we fight good, we fight better than other orks because we think. We work and fight with others, for more victory, more teeth, and more fighting. Our machines are the best. Our boys are the best. We take your tanks and make them more powerful. We respect you as favoured foes. I, Gratzdakka, offer you the chance to join my mekboys. War and gold will be your forever reward,’ said Dog, speaking over the warlord’s rumbling offer. The warlord raised a hand and beckoned to the two ork minders. They hauled Brasslock to his feet, his legs jamming and clicking in protest as they dragged him to the window displaying the shaft of Hive Meradon. Gratzdakka spoke again.
‘But first, you must fix this, and fix it good,’ said Dog.
A massive mechanic came close to Brasslock, its stink choking the enginseer’s artificial olfactory bulbs. With a look of pride, it pointed down to the plaza below the window.
‘Mekgramekamek,’ it said proudly, unfolding a long arm to indicate the plaza below, its hot, malodorous breath washing over the enginseer.
There, surrounded by industrious greenskins of all sizes, cloaked in scaffolding, sparks spraying as thick plates and other orkish improvements were welded and hammered into place, was imprisoned the Shadowsword, Lux Imperator.
Brasslock looked back to Dog, to Gratzdakka. Lines tracked across his vision as his remaining eye malfunctioned. ‘I… I cannot. I cannot do it. I will not. I refuse.’
Dog sighed. ‘You should have agreed.’ He began to address Gratzdakka, but the huge greenskin stood up from his throne, towering over everything else in the room. It strode over to the enginseer, shoving Dog to the floor as he came. The translator slave scuttled back to lurk amongst the warlord’s gretchin.
The two ork minders stepped back warily, releasing Brasslock who sagged halfway to the floor on his damaged legs. Gratzdakka came to stand over Brasslock. It regarded the human, fists on its ape-like hips, for a few moments. Standing there, legs too short for its body, dressed in imitation Imperial gear, the ork would have been ridiculous, funny even, if it weren’t a monster from wildest nightmare.