Baneblade

by Guy Haley

  Bannick was concentrating so hard on his feet, sure that any lapse would result in his immediate death, that he ran into the back of Ganlick.

  Ganlick pointed. The rear of the Chimera, canted at a forty-five-degree angle, protruded from the sand. Frantic banging came from within. The rear door ramp was part open. A hand waved in the air, ungloved and raw. Bannick grasped it.

  ‘Get back inside! Shut the door or you’ll all suffocate! We’re going to tow you out,’ shouted Bannick over the vox. A crackling greeted him, but the hand withdrew, and the door shuddered shut by a few centimetres, sand blocking its full closure.

  He and Ganlick were up to their knees now, the eddies caused by the slowly sinking APC dragging them under with it.

  Bannick flailed his way over to his fellow tanker, grabbing his shoulder, leant his face against Ganlick’s. ‘We don’t have much time, Ganlick, they’ll not get that door shut.’ Bannick glanced at the rivers of dust pouring inside.

  ‘Where do we attach this?’ shouted Ganlick. ‘The tow points are too deep under, I can’t fight it through.’

  Bannick ran his eyes quickly over the sinking vehicle. The top of the turret’s antennae array were slipping out of sight into the unrippled dust surface. Soon the whole thing would follow.

  His eyes locked with Ganlick’s. ‘Run it through the grab handles,’ he shouted.

  ‘They’ll never hold.’

  ‘They’ll have to. Give it to me.’

  Ganlick reluctantly handed the hook over.

  ‘Boost me up onto the roof, I can’t get up myself.’

  Up to their waists in the sucking dust now, Ganlick struggled to shove Bannick onto the Chimera. Bannick kicked off the sandshoes, and that seemed to help.

  After an exhausting minute, Bannick was atop the tank. Bending the cable into a loop as best he could, he pushed it through one of the four grab handles still visible on the vehicle’s angled sides, wiggling it frantically, working against both its own thickness and the friction provided by the sand. He tugged it through, pulling the hook against the handle, then thought better of it and wrapped a free loop of line round the hook. He then tugged as much slack in as he could through the handle, and passed the loop over the top hatch, and into another handle, then back over, digging dust out of the way to get to the third handle as it vanished into the red-and-grey desert floor.

  By the time he reached the last handle and passed the cable through one more time, only the top hatch and the very rear of the tank were still above the level of the dust. He looked behind the tank. Ganlick was up to his neck in it, one shoulder free, hand gripping the lip of the cracked back ramp.

  As quickly as he was able, Bannick grabbed at the hook and its loop of slack, and ran it under and over the cable criss-crossing the top hatch. Finally, he hooked the hook into the middle and closed its catch. He looked to Ganlick, who nodded.

  Bannick stepped back as far as he was able, sand and dust pouring over his boots. Three bursts on the vox. A moment of silence, then the cable leading back to the shore sprang free from the dust with a thrum. It quivered in the air, a shriek rising from the storm as it cut itself across the line. Distantly, Bannick could make out the roar of a powerful engine labouring.

  The Chimera stopped sinking, then, as the Atlas growled in the depths of the storm, it began to re-emerge.

  Bannick felt a surge of relief as the command tank’s aerials came back out of the dustpatch.

  He looked to Ganlick, and his heart turned cold.

  The motion of the tank was forcing the big man under the sand. Bannick dove backwards, landing hard on the Chimera roof.

  ‘’Lick! ’Lick! Take my hand!’ he pushed his arm out. The meaty fist of the second gunner sought his once, twice, failed. His head was disappearing.

  Bannick swore, thrust his outstretched arm into the liquid dust, found a gloved hand. Tugging with all his might, he guided it to the cable, helped the big man hook his fingers round it. But they were both weak, and Bannick did not know how long Ganlick could hold on, nor what forces were exerted on him by the sand as the Chimera was dragged free.

  An indistinct babble on the vox, a hiss. ‘Cut the rope,’ said Ganlick, distant, as if already dead, his soul carried away into the warp.

  ‘No,’ replied Bannick.

  Bannick inched forwards, grabbing with one hand at the web of cables he’d made, gripping Ganlick’s wrist as tight as he could, hoping he could hold on long enough, that the respirator could provide the second gunner with sufficient air to keep him conscious until they were free, but it was no good, Ganlick was being dragged under the Chimera as it was pulled back.

  With agonising slowness, the Chimera was tugged towards solid ground, still Ganlick clung on.

  ‘Colaron.’ The call of his name, the clarity of the voice cutting through the roar and fury of Kalidar, made Bannick start so hard he nearly let go of Ganlick.

  His head whipped round. There, standing in the air, unaffected by the storm, stood Tuparillio, unchanged from the day Bannick had seen him last, the day he had killed him.

  The phantom vanished as a screech of tortured metal rent the air. One of the grab handles suddenly gave. The Chimera lurched as cable spanged taut. A chunk of metal hurtled through the air, narrowly missing Bannick’s face as he was thrown free. He landed in the dust, and was immediately sucked into the sand. His legs felt as if they were locked in rockcrete.

  Ganlick’s hand slipped from the cable.

  He was going to have to cut the rope linking them.

  He reached for his knife, strapped about his waist, but by now the swiftdust was pulling hard, rushing to fill the void left by the departing APC, and he was in up to his chest. He could not get to his blade. Vainly he reached for the Chimera, but it slid by his outstretched fingertips.

  He sank deeper.

  His arms became pinned, the dust covered his chin.

  Grains of sand jostled with one another over his goggles, fighting to slay him. Bannick finally succumbed to panic, struggling against the sand as the roar of Kalidar’s angry magnetosphere howled in his ears through his vox headset.

  The swiftdust pulled him into the dark.

  Epperaliant thumped down onto the command deck from the central ladder, dust showering from his outer gear. He unwrapped the scarf from about his face, removed his goggles and rebreather and breathed in the tank’s thick fug as if it were as sweet as mountain air.

  ‘Exertraxes is secure, sir,’ he reported. ‘Valle has helped him, he’s chanting the liturgy like a priest in peril right now.’

  ‘The Leman Russ?’

  ‘They hauled themselves out, sir, it was close, but there have been no further losses.’

  ‘Except Ganlick and Bannick,’ said Cortein.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s no sign of them, sir,’ said Epperaliant.

  Cortein sat straight in his chair. Three men down on Mars Triumphant, with Vorkosigen riding a knife-edge of madness. Not good. Not good at all.

  He pressed the button on his vox horn. ‘Attention!’ he shouted, hoping to batter the voice of Kalidar aside with his own. ‘Cortein speaking. I’m taking command,’ he said. ‘I want regular sound-offs from each vehicle every ten minutes until we’re out of this mess. Keep an eye on your crewmates and squad members. If anyone starts to act strangely, restrain them immediately, no matter what their rank. Drivers to rotate every third hour. These measures are to continue until I say otherwise. Prepare to move out.’ His finger left the horn button. ‘Epperaliant, relay that by signal laser and signal lamp. I want the whole convoy clear on this.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Cortein looked to his instruments as Epparaliant sent out the orders, lost deep in thought, Ganlick and Bannick gone. He exhaled hard, sat up straight. Their mourning would have to wait. He had a job to do. ‘Outlanner,’ he said, ‘take us out of here.’

>   INTERSTITIAL

  ‘The Emperor does not forgive easily. Mercy is not His purview. Those that fall from His grace face a long and hard climb back into favour…

  ‘There is one sin that offends the Emperor more than any, and that is the rejection of duty. To reject the duty the Emperor grants to us all is the most egregious of all acts. To do so not only invites eternal damnation for the individual, but for each and every human soul that turns their back upon their allotted task, the burden falls harder upon those faithful who heed their calling. And thus the risk for all increases. To the individual, this may seem a small increment, a tiny drop, but hearken! Is not an ocean filled drop by drop?

  ‘Let it be known that for those who serve, the Emperor has nothing but love, that to give oneself wholly to the Emperor’s way, to trust in His judgement in His assignation of tasks for you, is the greatest act a man can perform. No sin is so grave, no crime so unforgiveable, that the stain cannot be wiped away by toil in the name of the greater glory of the Master of all Mankind. To you, delivered from the dark by the good offices of our Lord Solar, you who have dwelled so long without the light of our lord and saviour, there can be only one choice:

  Serve, serve, serve!’

  Ecclesiarch Ponpus Theriodes, prior to the

  Goodholme Burning, M41.

  INTERSTITIAL

  The lorelei has a melting point of 1137 degrees. It is smelted, purified first by manual scraping and then by rotation in a centrifuge. This process is repeated until a purity level of greater than 99 parts per 100 lorelei to other material has been achieved. The molten liquid is quickly cooled and processed into pellet form. The rapid cooling of the material prevents the reformation of the crystalline matrix that gives the lorelei its psychoactive properties, and so it is rendered safe for transport to other centres of manufacturing. Once delivered, the pellets are remelted, psychically cleansed, and cast into the desired shape. It is allowed to cool very slowly – it can take over a year to grow the finest psy-matrices used by the holy orders of the Emperor’s Inquisition, the Scholastica Psykana, and the Librarium of the Adeptus Astartes. Only then is it checked, rechecked, blessed and sanctified, before being employed in a manner befitting the purpose to which it is intended.

  An Introduction to the Arts of Psychoactive Crystalline Form, page 93, ‘Kalidarian lorelei’, by Magos Eko.

  Chapter 21

  Kalidar IV, Hive Meradon

  3343397.M41

  Blazing green eyes, a scarred head with wild plumes of crackling hair, rough hands. Something violent and questing pushing deep into his mind, tearing, ripping and pulling.

  Brasslock’s memory was disjointed, shattered by psychic aftershock. He did not know where he was. He would lose consciousness and awaken in the cell, seemingly lying there for weeks and weeks, floating on a sea of pain, sometimes becoming delirious, his mind full of visions of marching orks dressed in parodies of Imperial garb, profaning the name of the Emperor, scarring the souls of machines with their crude additions. The faces of his colleagues and friends, his enemies and rivals, the ork warboss and countless other foes poured through his mind.

  Once, he started awake. He was at a desk in the scriptorum adjoining the tech vaults of the scholam on Marcellus. The room smelled comfortingly of metal, rust, old paper and age-brittle flimsies, of film-fungus and degraded data crystal. He was a young novitiate and had yet to receive his first external enhancement, the scars above his new ingram still itchy. For several minutes he took in the sights of the room, and began to think that his career, two centuries of study and war, had yet to happen.

  Pain shattered the vision. Clumsy fingers of green fire scrabbling through his consciousness.

  Somehow he clung on to his personality, to his very soul, because through it all, close to hand, was the stranger from the cell. In the light, Brasslock saw that he was an officer, one from the Paragonian regiments, the stains upon his uniform a mixture of blood and oil. Brasslock stopped asking himself why the orks could not see him. He realised his mind was malfunctioning, already the bonds between flesh and machine in his skull were coming undone. It would not be long before the synapses of his brain began to unravel. The stranger’s presence was doubtless the first sign of that.

  Still, he took strength from the stranger, who silently urged him to resist.

  In the examination room, they tortured him in between bouts of psychic examination, burning and cutting what little remained of his flesh, running high currents through his components. Before, the pain they had inflicted on him had been a by-product of their childlike curiosity. Now they were trying their best to hurt him.

  His legs were wrenched free, the pain circuits of his gifts laid bare and attached to horrible machines. The agonies the mechanic and torturer inflicted upon him were as nothing compared to the pain and sense of violation from the acts of the ork they called Greeneye.

  When he came in, that first time, Brasslock thought he might die of fright. Greeneye was tall and gangly. His head seemed far too large for his scrawny body, a wild, straggly beard of crimson dangled from his jutting chin, similar hair, fine and artificial-looking, sticking up from all angles on his head. He carried a thick copper stave, chained to his wrist and leg, topped with the double-headed axe common to these orks. His uniform was a crazed motley of clashing camouflage schemes, a hat that looked like it had been take from the head of a cardinal crammed onto his crazy mop. Bells, also copper, jangled where he walked, and random cracks and sparks of energy shot from him, earthing themselves in anything that happened to be near.

  When he entered the room, the gretchin assistants of the two ork specialists slunk back, ears flattening against their heads underneath their fatigue caps. The orks themselves seemed cowed, behaving in a subdued way, as if they were seeking to placate the ork sorcerer.

  Greeneye himself was manic, cackling insanely, twisting his copper staff between his hands. Two stone-faced ork minders kept two steps behind him at all times, heavy clubs in hand, ready to strike should his powers run out of control.

  The ork witch drew near to where the remains of Brasslock were pinned, arms spread, to a tilted torture bench.

  Hello human, a voice sounded in his head. We are going to get to know each other very well, you and I. Mind to mind, without the interference of vocal chord and language, the ork expressed itself clearly, yet Brasslock could sense seething energies of great potency and violence behind its words. I’m the one in charge here. Shhh! The ork drew a finger across his lips and smiled wickedly. Don’t tell! It was me who wanted to come here, to Kalidar, for the crystals. The crystals give me power. Power to build a Waaagh! that no creature, man or ork has ever seen before. I will magnify the Mork-call, I will sing loud the shout of Gork through the green wyrd. This is what your Emperor does, with his light, with his fire. So shall I! A great green fire no ork will be able to resist, no ork will stay behind, a green tide, half the galaxy wide! The ork spread his arms and clacked his teeth. You have seen my Gargant? Seen its power? It is only the beginning.

  A flash. Brasslock found himself deep within the bowels of Hive Meradon, right at the bottom of the shaft. High above, a coin of light shone. Work teams of humans – highborn shackled next to mutant slave caste – orks and gretchin laboured hard on a monstrous machine. Despite its crude build, Brasslock recognised the machine as a psychic resonator, similar to those used to amplify the signals of astropaths in relay stations. Smelting machinery, taken from one of the hive’s factories, glowed red-hot two hundred or so metres away, clanking conveyor belts pouring unprocessed lorelei crystals into seven deep crucibles. Blistered men and women, many maskless, worked long poles like rakes, scraping impurities from the top. Goggled orkish overseers whipped and cajoled, as did other men.

  Always, there were those who were willing to betray their own.

  Ork mechanics oversaw the process, barking orders, pointing, working massive spanners to bolt t
he frame of the machine together, welding and riveting. Others, bigger, dress ornate and decorated with glyphs of axes and spanners, looked over the smelters, making sure no bored ork threw in a prisoner for their amusement and contaminated the crystal. Near the crucibles stood a large, ribbed vessel that could only be a mould, to shape the lorelei into its final form.

  But to do that, I need Gratzdakka, said Greeneye, and the vision melted away. And he wants your tank, your Lux Imperator, for himself. The ork pointed at the young officer. He cannot help you. But he can watch.

  ‘Now,’ said the ork aloud in shattered, throaty Gothic. ‘Hold still, ’cause this is really going to hurt.’ With that he reached forward a gnarled, scabby hand, placed it over Brasslock’s face and took a deep breath.

  Brasslock screamed as he felt the sinews of his mind forced apart.

  Time ceased to have any meaning shortly after. The chronometer in his eyepiece was dead, although the eye still functioned. The ork mechanic had been careful to leave Brasslock’s machine senses and organs more or less intact, as had the medical specialist with his organics. No point torturing him if he could not experience it, or if he died before they had the information. The ork witch never spoke to him like that again, only probed and probed and probed until Brasslock felt his skull would burst.

  Finally it stopped.

  He was back in the cell. Every nerve ending, every circuit, burned with pain. He was on his back, hand held crooked over his chest. His lungs wheezed and clicked. Supposedly good for a million breaths more, Brasslock sensed that they would not last long.