Empire of the Fallen, page 30
‘Oh shit,’ Smith said as he reached the same conclusion.
They had downloaded Yano’s consciousness into the body of Anmet vos’Shan.
‘What?’ Seka asked.
‘Kilo One. They’ve put him in the body of the kaygryn equivalent of Jesus Christ. This moron thinks it’s the Second Coming.’
‘Oh shit,’ Yano said, in his first breach of comms protocol, ‘they think I’m vos’Shan!’
‘He is confused,’ Lyra found herself saying to the priest. ‘He cannot remember how he came to be here.’
‘What are you doing, Lyra?’ Yano snapped.
‘Shut up!’ Smith snapped back.
The priest nodded knowingly, excitedly. ‘It is to be expected. How long have you both been here?’
‘I… I don’t know. There was bright light and then… this. Here. Kurwen… I do not remember it as part of the Empire. We found ourselves in the woods nearby, with no memory of how we got here. The last thing I remember is…’ She pretended to think, squeezing her eyes closed. ‘The last thing I remember is cold temple walls, black stone and then… oblivion.’
‘All right, don’t oversell it,’ Smith said dryly.
But sa’Vah was leaning forward excitedly. ‘The Prognosticators were right… by the saints; it is vos’Shan, returned to us on the eve of Reclamation! I must speak with him. Bless you, child, bless you!’
The priest stood, gathering his robes up about him, and hurried out the room.
‘Keep it nice and vague, Kilo One,’ Smith was saying to Yano. ‘You don’t remember anything. You’ve just been washed up out the sea. Let’s keep it prime-time holodrama amnesia all the way, until we can glean more.’
‘Fuck you both,’ Yano hissed.
‘Focus!’ Smith snapped in reply.
*
Jesus Christ on a bicycle, Yano thought as he searched the room for any kind of escape. Suddenly, the air seemed stifling and hot, his fur a thermal cloak in the height of summer. He missed good old-fashioned human sweat.
Seconds later, the priest was there, gingerly stepping across the threshold, displaying an exaggerated deference which in other circumstances might have been amusing. Yano was just thankful for the micro-comlink. If he had not heard the priest’s conversation with Lyra, he would have been baffled beyond measure.
Provincial idiot, Yano thought, eyeing the kaygryn with disdain. This might work for the yokel god-botherers out on the fringe, but I’ll bet the high priests on Myaxomon won’t be so easily fooled. Damn it, Staerck! We should have just lidded this idiot and bugged out.
‘I am—’
‘Anick sa’Vah, High Priest of Kurwen and voice of the shen’ah,’ Yano said in a hammy, theatrical voice. ‘I have seen it.’
‘Goddamn it, Kilo One, take this fucking seriously!’ Smith shouted over the comlink.
The priest’s eyes widened. ‘How could you know?’ he asked breathlessly with the same wonder as a child witnessing its first magic act. ‘It is you, isn’t it? Ashan returned on the eve of Reclamation!’
‘I don’t remember,’ Yano said, forcing back his incandescent rage and concentrating on all the lives that depended on him not being a petulant git. ‘All I remember is the Zecadach… and then being here, in this place. It’s been so long… I do not recall Kurwen.’
‘Nor would you, Ashan,’ the priest said sympathetically. ‘It has only been part of the Empire for a century, whereas you… you have not been with us for a thousand years!’
Yano had to stop himself rolling his eyes. If a kaygryn had attempted this trick in the UN, they would have found themselves in an EFFECT substrate on Pinnacle wired up to Clairvoyant with a data sponge needle hovering above their left eye socket within ten minutes flat.
Pious morons. These creatures do not deserve our galaxy.
‘I am frightened,’ Yano said, drawing on his best acting abilities. Being a member of the diplomatic corps had helped. ‘Everything seems so different. My memory… I cannot recall anything.’
‘Good,’ Smith said, ‘good. Let the information come to you.’
‘The priest from Hayisa said you spoke like our forefathers… your accent and dialect; both are so old, so archaic… Forgive me, Ashan, I do not wish to speak out of turn, but… we have been waiting for you, searching for you since the Prognosticators predicted you would return.’
‘It is OK,’ Yano said, trying to enhance his mystique without sounding like one of Smith’s prime-time holodrama bimbos. It was surprisingly difficult. ‘I think—ah!’
‘What is it?!’ sa’Vah asked, hands outstretched, his face a rictus of concern.
Yano inspected his thumb. He had contracted a large splinter from one of the wooden chairs. It protruded from the end of the fat brown digit, and he winced as he extracted it. Clear fluid—which Yano quickly realised must have been the perfluorocarbon blood substitute they had imbued the revived kaygryn bodies with—welled from the wound and trickled down his thumb.
sa’Vah’s gaped, astonished, any lingering doubts obliterated by the apparent miracle. ‘This is too much for me,’ he said, wringing both pairs of his hands. ‘The shen’ah must be informed. We must go to Myaxomon! This is a glorious moment—the Prognosticators were right, just as they were about the end of the crusade fleets! The Conclave Ascendant must speak with you, and, and… the Emperor himself!’
‘Bingo,’ Smith said.
Oh buggering shit, Yano thought.
With a reverence that bordered on embarrassing, a phalanx of laser-halberd-wielding guards escorted Yano and Lyra back through the building and out on to the landing pad from which they’d arrived. Instead of the functional military/police cruiser, however, there was now a floating barge, a sleek, ornate space plane that reminded Yano of the extravagant diplomatic yachts they used to fly around the galaxy.
There was a second honour guard waiting for them on the embarkation ramp, this collection of soldiers having foregone the halberd in favour of sub-machine-gun-sized flechette rifles—the apparent intergalactic standard of counterboarding weaponry. Their polished armoured pressure suits gleamed white in the hot evening sun, and their white cloaks fluttered gently in the breeze.
Impressive, but dismally impractical in zero-G, Yano thought wearily.
‘Try and look around as much as you can,’ Smith was saying in his earpiece, ‘get a sense of the technology.’
But there was little opportunity. The interior of the ship was much more spartan than the exterior, and Yano was given the impression of a panicking crew yanking off dust covers and firing up engines for a ceremonial craft that they’d had no cause to use for years.
sa’Vah ushered them both aboard and into comfortable chairs, and they strapped themselves in. Yano had already expressed a strong desire not to speak for the duration of the journey, and the High Priest of Kurwen had thus far honoured that wish, despite his clear preference to the contrary.
‘All right, we’re going to lose you on comms shortly,’ Smith said. ‘Gremlin is back with me now. There’s a ship waiting for you in orbit. We’re going to piggyback off its trajectory and follow you to Myaxomon. We’re confident that we can follow you, but in the event that we lose you, continue with the mission and assume we’ll not make contact again—’
‘You,’ Yano clicked two hands’ worth of fingers at a waiting member of their honour guard.
‘Yes, highness?’ the kaygryn bowed, clearly overawed at being summoned.
‘The galactic co-ordinates for Myaxomon. Show me.’
Yano ignored the looks he received from both Lyra and sa’Vah, and gazed intently at the holo produced by the soldier. A string of numbers and letters appeared as well as astrographic diagrams of local zodiacs.
‘Yes…’ he said distantly, smiling. ‘I remember… I remember home.’
‘Nice touch,’ Smith said, ensuring the images were captured from Yano’s corneal implants.
‘Be careful,’ Seka added.
The doors closed and sealed with a hiss, and the engines rumbled into life. A few moments later, the familiar feeling of G-forces pressed Yano into his seat—followed by, a few minutes after that, the even more familiar feeling of free fall.
‘Okay,’ Smith said, his voice crystal clear now that the intervening atmosphere of Kurwen was out the way. ‘We’re going to be right behind you. Don’t panic, all right?’
Yano gripped the chair arm rests as their space plane docked with the larger ship.
Here we go, he thought.
‘All right,’ Smith said. ‘Going dark. See you on the other side.’
IX
RECLAMATION
‘The general who advances without coveting fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do good service for his sovereign, is the jewel of the kingdom.’
THE FORLORN HOPE
‘We would all do well to die two or three times in service. It really gives you a sense of perspective. I’ve been declared TKIA six times throughout my career. I’ve never been happier.’
Lieutenant Colonel Julian Grisham, 606th Vargan Rifles
Gia slept fitfully in a prefab bunk filled with snoring marines, still wired on stims despite the relaxants suffusing her bloodstream, waiting for the shout from 3 Platoon as they stood an uneasy watch in the dark.
She slipped in and out of consciousness, never fully awake, never fully under, the type of unfulfilling sleep she achieved on Reya Vasar when she was ill. Those without the benefit of the immune system the UN provided to its citizens at birth, with its many billions of smart virus-killer nanobots, were loathsomely susceptible to common infections, and Gia had spent her fair share of nights on Reya Vasar locked in the hot, sweaty grip of a fever dream.
It was Reya Vasar which she dreamed of now. The atmosphere in this part of Cicero was disturbingly similar, with its cloying, moist air and steaming emerald plains of vegetation, and her memories, those which she had done her level best to forget, thrived on it like mosquitoes on blood. She dreamed of her mother and father and classmates at Ruestock, and her heart ached with desperation. She dreamed of Zasha and Gol and Khasan too, and free fall, and Vonvalt, and the invasion, and killing yen’Ghadri. The experiences, so many filled with violence and death, had been crammed into such a short space of time in her life. She’d gone from contemplating a future on Reya Vasar—lamenting a future on Reya Vasar—to being the object of love and admiration of hundreds of billions of humans for executing yen’Ghadri. Now here she was on a far-flung UNAF outpost, working for the same people who half a year ago she would have said were responsible for the death of her entire world.
Her eyes, gummy from the air inside her Mantix helmet, finally fluttered open at dawn. Others in the module were stirring. She checked her HUD for anything non-urgent, but there was little except a few cursory updates. Sector patrol was due with the Fleet Bulletin later that morning; Gia hoped, like the rest of the company, that there was still no sign of the Imperial fleet.
She stretched her muscles out, the servos of her Mantix whining with the movement. She’d been wearing it constantly since she had arrived the previous morning, as tactical doctrine dictated, but she would have given anything to get some natural air flow against her body.
‘All right, 1st Platoon, get some chow and get ready to saddle up. We’ve got some fireworks and resupply at eleven hundred, so it’s gonna be all hands to the pump,’ Rolan Hachiro’s voice crackled over the comlink. Affirmatives, jokes and insults followed over the wideband.
Gia ran a stim, feeling another layer of artificial energy suffuse her body, and pulled a foil-wrapped brick of flavoured rations from a crate at the end of her bunk. She grabbed the small device that would connect with her Mantix via a small feeding tube and liquefy the brick, thereby enabling her to eat without removing her helmet, but she quickly put it back once she saw she was the only one doing it. A few of the marines sniggered at her.
‘Raman,’ someone said, and she turned. Waterman was standing next to the bunk, chewing through the thick, nougaty bar, the gorget seal of his helmet around his forehead.
‘Hey,’ Gia replied.
‘Fletch is OOA,’ he said, gesturing at his arm as though Gia had forgotten watching it get cut off. ‘Christen will be fine. Squad’s down to six. Just lettin’ you know. Any questions, you can ask me.’
‘Thanks,’ Gia said gruffly. She wasn’t as timid as some of the other CROs who’d joined with her. Thanks to yesterday’s action, she had already earned a solid reputation among the company.
‘You heard?’ Koios said slightly breathlessly, appearing next to Waterman.
‘Heard what?’ Waterman asked.
‘It’s all over the net: indigos are here, tearing through cob country. Word is Folhourt’s about to fall.’
Gia’s eyes widened. The other marines in the module, perhaps ten, stirred. A few calls of ‘bullshit’ hung insincerely in the air.
‘Only going on what I heard,’ Koios said. ‘Check the net for yourselves.’
‘No, don’t check the net for yourselves,’ Hachiro said, entering the module.
‘Officer on—’
‘At ease,’ Hachiro interjected impatiently. ‘We do not deal in rumours, only in facts. Sector patrol is due insystem this morning. The Fleet Bulletin is gospel. FIDs provide the only rumours you need to worry about. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, sir,’ came the responses.
‘Good. Dog One, a word.’
Gia, Waterman and Koios followed Hachiro outside into the compound. Overhead, the sky was streaked with low cloud, bellied with red light from the early morning sun. Gia looked around to see 3 Platoon standing to on the walls. Tension saturated the air as much as the humidity.
‘Christen got it good yesterday. He’ll be fine, but you’re a man down already with Fletch and we’re not getting any more CROs for at least a week,’ Hachiro said. ‘We’ve patched up the wall at Dog Two, but I want you to keep your eyes peeled. We have a couple of their charged blades now. I’ve spoken to Sigurd and he is happy for us to have them. Raman, I saw you use one yesterday and you did a fucking good job with it. Waterman, you’re a big fucker and you’re standing right here so you can have the other one.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Waterman said.
‘Don’t thank me. I’ve probably just killed you both. Kilos here are using personal force shields now, as we saw yesterday. Sigurd is going to address the company about it this morning, but be under no illusion: there is very little we can do at range against these kags, and not much more we can do in CQC. We have no orbital and these two blades are about the only things that we know can penetrate. That means you’re my point people. Green?’
‘Yes, sir,’ they both replied.
‘All right. Sorry, Koios, I didn’t need you after all,’ Hachiro said.
‘I was beginning to wonder,’ Koios replied.
‘You two get over to the armoury and start swinging those things around. With any luck, we’ll bag ourselves a few more blades by the end of the day. You can bet your asses we’ll be in for some action once our resupply shows up.’ Hachiro nodded to them. ‘Any questions?’
There were no questions.
‘All right. Dismissed.’
They made their way to the armoury as ordered, relieving the quartermaster of the two charged blades. They were each a metre long, matte black and so vanishingly sharp they looked as though they could slice through a dropped silk kerchief. Down the blunt edge, a pair of fine silver-coloured filaments ran to a block of electronic components that made up both the guard and pommel. Sensibly, no-one had tried to tamper with either.
‘Looks pretty fucking sexy, doesn’t it?’ Waterman said, inspecting the blade.
‘Hm,’ Gia replied. She pressed a small button on the side of the block of machinery and an almost imperceptible whine sounded as the blade’s charge activated.
‘Fuck! Careful!’ Waterman hissed.
Gia waved the blade back and forth, and the smell of ionised air filtered through her Mantix helmet. The provar had been issuing similar blades to their own soldiers for years, but compared to the Imperial weapons, they seemed clunky and retrograde.
‘Back to swords and shields,’ Gia said, unable to take her eyes of the blade. ‘I feel like we’ve just stepped a thousand years back in time.’
Waterman didn’t say anything. Above them, the sky’s morning clouds had thickened to a solid haze of white, and a thin drizzle of warm rain filled the air. The compound around them, all crates and grey concrete and prefab modules, acquired a glossy slick of rainwater.
They practised with the blades for thirty minutes, as the one-man-on, one-man-off changeover began between 1st and 3rd Platoons. When it came to Dog One’s turn, they joined up with Tan, Koios and Caradoc, and mounted the firing step. Ahead, the forest looked dark and empty as it always did. The area remained stubbornly deadzoned, and any attempts at LRIS or CODOR penetration met with failure.
‘They could be a hundred metres away and we wouldn’t know,’ Caradoc murmured, looking out across the cratered no man’s land surrounding Hermit. Some of the trees on the edge of the clearing still smoked from where the Hydra incendiaries had hit the day before.
Gia toggled through the various VL and non-VL spectrums and other enhanced optics via her Mantix visor, but it was more out of habit than anything else. There was nothing to see. After a few minutes, she sat down on the step, her back resting against a diamond hard cover, and inspected the charged blade.
‘That’s a pretty toy,’ Aker’s voice sounded over the comlink.
Gia looked up and searched for Aker using her IHD tag. The NCO was standing in the centre of the compound, leaning against a stack of ammunition crates.
‘Charged blade,’ Gia said. ‘The only thing that seems to get through their shields.’
‘OC is going to address everyone on that in a few minutes. Changes to tactical doctrine.’
