‘Stay down.’
Arvo knew his surroundings. By instinct, he had committed every detail of them to memory. He also knew where each cultist had been when the lights went out. He edged out from behind the half-wall, keeping low to reduce the risk of friendly fire. Some of the cultists could be pinpointed by their gibbering and shrieking. They were sending entreaties to their vile deity. Arvo strained to block out the actual words. Words could be dangerous.
He came up behind a likely shadow. He slipped his axe haft around its throat and strangled him with it. The cultist had no time to squeal. The fight left his limbs and he dropped. Arvo was already seeking out his next target.
A knot of figures crouched behind a barricade of promethium barrels – empty, thank the Emperor. They had two guns between them. Their wielder’s faces, twisted by insanity, lit up with each shot taken. In those flashes, Arvo identified two other figures as cultists, four more as cringing hostages.
Stealing up to the group, he interposed himself among them. Only one cultist saw him, shooting him a suspicious glare. Arvo dropped his gaze as if cowed; just one more hostage. The cultist, he saw, was not quite as unarmed as he had appeared to be. He was wearing a belt hung with grey metal eggs, at least four of them. Krak grenades.
The cultist was muttering to himself, as if building his resolve. One last howl of rage before they die. In these urban surroundings, with so many innocents, he would cause devastation. Arvo had no choice. He lunged at the bomber, driving a fist into his stomach. It took two more punches to extinguish the fervour in his eyes. By then, his fellow decadents were alert to the enemy among them.
Arvo snatched a grenade and rounded on them. They weren’t quite ready to die yet, after all. They shrank from him, for a second, long enough for him to tackle the closest of them. He wrenched the cultist around into another’s sights as he fired. The cultist stiffened in Arvo’s arms and he threw the body into the others, at the same time wrenching the lasgun from its deathly grip.
The gun was local issue, lighter than Arvo was accustomed to. It felt good to hold it, all the same; like an extension of his self. His hands had felt empty for too long. He gunned down the remaining two cultists, unskilled combatants, with ease. Another ran up behind him, betraying his approach with a fanatical roar, and he spun – not fast enough to bring his gun to bear, but in time to snap his attacker’s jaw with its butt, driving bone through muscle.
A wave of concussive force blew him over. Arvo heard the explosion a fraction of a second later. He stayed down as flaming debris rained upon him. Another bomber! The blast had come from – he couldn’t get his bearings – his right. Where he had left Zanne.
He rolled to put out any flames before they took hold. Smoke was smothering his oxygen, making him miss his gas mask, blinding him further – but concealing him too. A cultist, with his back to Arvo, strafed the shadows with a lasgun indiscriminately. Arvo, in contrast, squeezed his trigger only once, punching through his target’s head.
Sensing movement to his left, he snapped his gun around. An Interior Guard trooper had him in his sights. Nice work, thought Arvo. He lowered his weapon and gestured to show he was an ally. The soldier held his fire. He motioned to Arvo to get down on the ground anyway. Arvo complied. ‘Thank you for your service, citizen,’ the soldier grunted as he took the lasgun from beside him. ‘We’ll take it from here.’
Arvo waited, but seethed impatiently.
There couldn’t have been many cultists standing. He had downed at least half of them himself, while the bombing had surely taken out more. Still, long minutes passed – interspersed with brief but violent outbreaks of shouting, scuffling and gunshots – before calm was restored. Then a lumen unit had to be found and kicked into sputtering action. Interior Guard troopers swept the area, prodding at every prostrate body, alive or dead, in search of enemies in hiding.
At last, the survivors, the innocent labourers in Arvo’s gang, were given leave to stand. Doubtless next would come the order to return to work, as soon as Maxtell’s replacement was established. In the meantime, they had a precious moment to process what had happened, deal with their shock and count their dead.
Some attacked their tormentors’ bodies, hacking them with blunt tools or tearing them apart with bare hands. It was a pointless kind of revenge, other than to vent their misery and frustration. Nobody tried to stop them. Arvo made straight for the wall behind which he had left Zanne.
The wall had been sundered in the explosion.
Zanne’s pale hand protruded from the debris as if she had fought her fate. As if she had tried to claw her way to freedom before the breath was crushed out of her. He took the hand between his own. It was cold. He had seen so many deaths in his short life, he told himself, so very many. Why did this one feel different?
Why was her life worth more than other lives?
So, do you? He recalled the very last thing Zanne had said to him. Do you understand? Her last question. Arvo answered her aloud, as if there was a chance she might hear him. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘I understand now.’
The sky was split by the shrieks of Imperial engines.
Sergeant Jarvan looked up, shielding his eyes, as the first ships hit Parius’ atmosphere, blazing gloriously. He shifted his gaze to the vast, straight lines of humanity stretched across the newly cleared assembly terrace on Hive Opus’ upper tier, and his chest swelled with pride.
He almost wished he was travelling to the stars with them. Almost.
Of course, their departure would leave the labour gangs shorthanded, but this couldn’t be helped. Parius Monumentus’ tithe to the Imperium was due and no allowance could be made for recent losses. The labourers who remained would just have to work harder, until their population was replenished.
Jarvan hadn’t witnessed the tithing ceremony before. He had just been promoted – for the second time in less than four months – after his predecessor was killed in a bombing attack. He strode along the endless ranks of young men, pausing to question some. He asked their names and how they felt about being chosen to fight for the Emperor, to which all but one professed to being suitably honoured.
That one gave his name as Arvo. The name, along with his pale, dull-eyed face, almost sparked a flicker of recognition in Jarvan. ‘Begging your pardon, sergeant,’ said the new recruit, ‘but I was chosen to fight a long time ago.’
Jarvan checked Arvo’s name on his data-slate. ‘So I see. The last draft overlooked you, so this time you volunteered for service. You achieved the highest scores of your intake in your selection tests – the best scores I have ever seen, in fact.’
‘I know my life’s purpose now,’ said Arvo.
Jarvan raised an eyebrow. ‘Pray tell?’
‘I was bred to fight and to die for Him.’
‘An admirable attitude.’
‘I shall face the Emperor’s enemies, therefore, without fear or doubt. I shall exchange this life He has granted me for the greatest possible advantage to Him. If I can only advance His cause in the slightest, then I shall consider my brief existence worthwhile. I shall do my duty – for what else is there, after all?’
‘What indeed?’ Jarvan smiled approvingly. He clasped his hands behind his back and moved on.
The first of the dropships was coming in to land, to gather up its complement of soon-to-be-martyrs. Jarvan had forgotten most of their names already, but he would remember one name for a time, at least – along with the question he had posed. The sergeant repeated it to himself in a thoughtful mutter.
‘Yes. What else is there, indeed?’
UNEARTHED
Rob Sanders
Taking his magnoculars, Kiefer took in a 360-degree sweep of the surrounding area. The once-lush fields that stretched for kilometres across the surface of Grendl’s World were now but dust and sand. Slender twisters made their way across migrating dunes, while swarms of off-
world vermin jumped and flew alongside the Inquisitorial column in great buzzing clouds. With nothing left to eat, the alien scourge that the Alpha Legion, led by the Traitor Sisyphon Vail, had introduced to this planet had resorted to feasting on each other, turning Grendl’s World into an infested dustball, trapped in a grotesque cycle of rampant reproduction and cannibalism. Kiefer pulled his headscarf across his mouth as the Salamander laboured up a dune and through a cloud of chittering insects.
‘I have a return, interrogator,’ Ipluvian~461 told Kiefer, his modulated voice rising above the Salamander’s gunning engine. The calculus logi was interfaced with the vehicle’s multi-spectral surveyor station, which dominated one side of the command bay. ‘Long-range augurs show a large structure, four degrees south-south-east.’
‘Confessor,’ Kiefer said into his vox-bead. ‘Can you confirm?’
‘Stand by,’ the priest returned, his voice a warping crackle over the channel. High above the column, Kiefer had given orders for the Internecia to hold station and provide support with the cruiser’s instrumentation. ‘Shipmaster Fairuza tells me orbital pict captures confirm the structure as a freighter.’
The interrogator leant across the twin-linked heavy bolters of the Salamander’s turret and banged his fist on the top of the driver’s compartment. Hatches popped and Kiefer found himself looking down at the Salamander’s driver and gunner. Sitting in the nest of levers was a goggled Guardsman, Khoga – one of Captain Sartak’s Attilans. Next to him, his shoulder nestled against the stock of the forward heavy bolter, was Kiefer’s servant, Fenk.
‘Four degrees south-south-east,’ Kiefer called above the Salamander’s roaring power plant. He gestured with a flattened palm. As Khoga hauled at the levers, the vehicle’s tracks churned in the sand. The Salamander turned on the top of a dune, before bouncing down the slope. Within moments, Captain Sartak’s barked orders had his Rough Riders and the Molidor Ogryn Auxilia changing direction to follow the command vehicle.
As the Salamander chewed its way through the wasteland, Kiefer peered through his magnoculars. Before long, blinking through the haze of dust and swarms of alien vermin, Kiefer saw the half-buried outline of a vessel.
‘All stop,’ the interrogator said, banging on top of the driver’s compartment once more. As the Salamander jerked to a stop, the Attilans formed a column of horsemen behind. The ogryns, barely breaking a sweat, ran up beside them – the abhuman warriors were taller than the Rough Riders on their steeds.
‘Can you identify it?’ Kiefer asked Ipluvian~461. ‘What do the auspex scans say?’
Interfaced with the surveyor station, the construct didn’t immediately respond as it concentrated on processing the incoming data.
‘Come on, hurry it up,’ said the interrogator.
‘A small system ship,’ the calculus logi said finally. ‘A pocket freighter.’
‘Crashed?’
‘Landed,’ Ipluvian~461 reported. ‘No doubt abandoned after the infestation took. It appears to be nothing more than a derelict.’
‘Entrances?’ Kiefer asked.
‘The ship has been mostly buried in the migrating dunes. The main cargo hold, however, is open to the elements. Might I suggest that to be the easiest way in?’
Kiefer bit at his lip in thought. They were hunting for the Alpha Legion. His old master, Godefroy Pyramus, had been drawn into an ambush and killed, and the darkness of the open hold screamed trap at the interrogator.
‘Easy isn’t always easy,’ he told the construct.
‘Indeed, my lord,’ Ipluvian~461 said. Kiefer didn’t have to explain his caution to the construct.
‘I need two riders,’ Kiefer called across to Captain Sartak, who drew up on his steed. ‘For a circle of the structure.’
Sartak gestured in mock confusion at the interrogator. The captain could understand Imperial Gothic perfectly well, but liked to make a show for his men. Similarly, the Guardsmen also pretended not to speak any language other their own. The Attilans’ pride in their culture ran deep. Kiefer made several circular gestures with his arm then stabbed a finger towards the downed freighter. Ipluvian~461 translated the order into the Attilan dialect.
As two of Sartak’s best riders trotted off, creating separate dust trails, Kiefer launched Xerxes into the air. The interrogator had had Ipluvian~461 attach a vid-caster and a small auspex array to the bird’s body. Kiefer needed eyes on the top of the half-buried crashed freighter. As the Rough Riders circled the derelict ship in opposite directions, the psyber-eagle soared overhead. Kiefer listened for the bird’s call – any indication of movement or a living presence among the crumbling architecture of the ship. He heard nothing, however.
‘Heat signatures?’ Kiefer asked. ‘Vox-transmissions? Electromagnetic spectra?’
‘Nothing,’ Ipluvian~461 confirmed.
As Sartak’s riders rode back to the column, Xerxes swooped in overhead. With a beat of its wings the psyber-eagle hovered and then landed on Kiefer’s outstretched arm. The Attilan riders exchanged brief words with their captain, which Sartak translated.
‘No signs of life or habitation.’
‘We must search the derelict,’ Kiefer announced finally to the Salamander crew and the Attilans.
Kiefer banged on the Salamander’s hatch again, and the driver gunned the engine. With the horsemen and ogryns forming a column behind, the command vehicle chewed up the deserted wasteland between the dunes and the derelict. Rounding the superstructure of the sand-covered freighter, the Salamander made for the open hold. As it did, Kiefer deposited Xerxes on the rail and took position before the turret. Resting his shoulder against the stock of the twin-linked heavy bolters, he aimed the barrels at the darkness within. Captain Sartak and his Rough Riders took position in two lines either side, while the ogryns milled around uncertainly, looking inside suspiciously.
‘Stay sharp,’ Kiefer said into his vox-bead, as the lamps on the Salamander cut through the dusty darkness of the hold interior. The interrogator found it difficult to relax. Every buried agri-complex and silo they searched felt like an Alpha Legion ambush waiting to happen. The sloping floor was made up of sand that had poured in through the open hold, but the Salamander, horses and hulking abhumans managed to negotiate the incline. The chug of the command vehicle’s engine and the heavy rattle of its tracks echoed about the chamber. Activating lamps on their saddles, a contingent of the Rough Riders urged their steeds carefully into the expanse of the hold. Other Attilans dismounted, leaving their hunting lances in their saddle sheaths. Clutching laspistols and lamps, they made their way across the large hold. Talking quietly to one another, they checked the corroded bulkheads and hatches.
The ogryns were blunt instruments, ill-suited for reconnaissance work. Hating enclosed spaces, they stared about the interior of the hold with brutish suspicion. On board the Internecia, the abhumans had been housed with the Attilan steeds on the livery deck. They stood in their squad, muttering, under the watchful eye of Captain Sartak, who coordinated the search of the hold interior from his saddle.
‘Logi,’ Kiefer said as the Attilans managed to fully crank open a bulkhead leading off the main hold. Ipluvian~461 stepped off the back of the Salamander and released several servo-skulls into the air. Hovering for a moment, the constructs shot off silently through the air, disappearing through the bulkhead.
‘Servo units away,’ the calculus logi said, retaking his position at the surveyor station. ‘Augurs and motion detectors engaged.’
‘Begin a scan of the structure,’ Kiefer ordered. ‘Any evidence of recent habitation or activity.’
As he stepped down, an Attilan replaced him on the turret heavy bolters. Nearby, Kiefer could see commotion, and approached. Several Rough Riders had climbed a large mound in the centre of the hold and called their captain across. It took Captain Sartak and Kiefer some to time to clamber up to reach them. The hill was made of hun
dreds of cargo containers, all piled in the middle of the floor, as if by a rough landing. Now in a pile of battered angularity on the floor of the hold, they had been all but buried in sand.
‘What have you found?’ Kiefer demanded.
The Attilans were gathered about an open container that had evidently once been pressurised. Kiefer leant in and immediately wished he hadn’t. The stench was unbearable. Within was crammed full of chitinous remains, the rancid corpses of vermin – the same swarming creatures that had laid waste to the agri world’s precious crops. In several more open containers they found the same pungent putrescence. Thousands – perhaps millions – of voracious creatures had multiplied before expiring.
‘A nest?’ Kiefer put to the Rough Riders. Captain Sartak shrugged with unsmiling disinterest. The two Attilans who had discovered the mound spoke quickly at their captain, however, and then at the interrogator. They were pointing out a container that appeared to still be intact. Kiefer nodded slowly. He began to understand what the Attilans were indicating.
‘Help me,’ he said and the three of them levered it open. Within was the same rotting mess as the others. Kiefer grunted. He could believe that the swarming insects might nest in the sheltered confines of the hold and the boxes. What he couldn’t understand was how they came to be sealed within pressurised containers.
‘Confessor,’ Kiefer said into his vox bead as he made his way down the mound of crates.
‘Yes, interrogator,’ Creech returned from the bridge of the Internecia.
‘I believe we have found the original source of the agri world plague. The pocket freighter appears to have been abandoned here intentionally. It was carrying the swarm in its cargo hold, to be released. The infestation was intentional. The Alpha Legion were here – and still might be.’
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