Defender of the Imperium Omnibus, page 16
At that point, of course, the Imperial High Command had no idea of the significance of the titanic explosion their analysts had noted, but it was enough to persuade them that something unusual was going on in the deserts of the east, and they began to look out for further signs of activity there. They were not to be kept waiting for long.
THIRTEEN
To my mingled surprise and relief, there was no sign of pursuit, the reasons for which became obvious after I’d slogged my way to the top of a sand dune and trained the amplivisor back the way we’d come. The explosion we’d touched off as a parting gift to the greenskins had only been the beginning. The blazing promethium gushing from the ruptured storage tanks had ignited everything flammable within reach, which in turn had spread to other caches of volatile substances, ammunition, and Emperor alone knew what else. Even at this distance, the faint concussion of secondary explosions as something else cooked off or burst into flame rumbled on like distant thunder, making me feel unaccountably nostalgic for the sights and sounds of the 12th’s artillery park. Not the least of which would be a nice hot mug of tanna, I thought.
‘They won’t be coming after us tonight,’ Tayber commented, appearing at my shoulder and raising his own amplivisor to check out the inferno in the distance.
I blew on my hands and rubbed them together, the desert chill striking hard even through the weave of my greatcoat, an ironic contrast to the conflagration in the distance.
‘I hope not,’ I agreed. ‘But we’d better post sentries all the same.’ Few of the civilians we’d picked up were in any condition to travel far, and I chafed at the delay that imposed on us. So far as I was concerned, the further away we got from the rapidly combusting town the better. Nevertheless, I masked my impatience with the ease of a practiced dissembler. If the worst came to the worst, I could always make a run for it while the greenskins picked off the easy targets. That reminded me, time to keep the good sergeant on my side. ‘How are the refugees holding up?’
‘About as well as you might expect,’ Tayber hedged. ‘Better for some food, of course.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ I said. The first thing I’d done was organise a meal for everyone, or to be a little more accurate about it, got Jurgen to organise one, as it had occurred to me that our guests hadn’t been properly fed for weeks, and at least if they were kept occupied filling their faces they weren’t likely to wander off or otherwise get in the way. That in itself could be a problem, of course. The supplies we’d packed on the buggy might have lasted Jurgen and me for months on our own, and would have kept Bravo squad fed for a couple of weeks, but now we had almost a hundred extra mouths to feed, and that meant we were in deep trouble. ‘The problem’s going to be keeping them fed.’ I indicated the desert sand surrounding us. ‘This is hardly the terrain for living off the land.’
‘Not really,’ Tayber agreed, looking a little smug. ‘But there might be a couple of sandsiders58 among the civilians. I’ll ask around.’
‘Good,’ I said, wresting the initiative back. ‘And while you’re at it, see what other skills you can find. Most of these poor devils could do with seeing a medicae, although I don’t suppose we’ll be that lucky.’ Tayber nodded once, briskly, and I carried on. ‘Our main priority, apart from supplies, is going to be transport and defence. See if anyone’s had any kind of combat training, or failing that been out hunting, anything like that, and arm them. Have a word with Jurgen about the spare lasguns we packed, and make up the numbers with the ork stuff if you have to. If it turns out we really do have enough warm bodies to mount a credible defence, split them into squads and put one of your troopers in charge of each. And we could really do with someone who knows how to keep these piles of junk running.’ I looked at the half dozen or so trucks and buggies we’d acquired, parked in a rough circle to form the best defence we could, and shook my head. ‘That really would be a miracle.’
‘Something the Omnissiah has been known to provide on occasion,’ a new voice said, and I turned my head slightly, noticing the young woman standing a few paces behind Tayber for the first time. Her features were pinched with starvation, like all the other poor wretches we’d saved, but her eyes were still lively and humorous in the flickering light from the burning town. It tinted her hair and complexion, which I was later to discover in daylight were both startlingly fair, a dull orange in colour, a hue which also patinated her stained and grubby robe and flashed from the cogwheel on a chain around her neck. Even though we’d never met before, there was something vaguely familiar about her, and as she took a step closer, holding out a hand, I realised she bore more than a passing resemblance to the sergeant. ‘Enginseer Felicia Tayber, at your service.’
‘Tayber?’ I enquired, raising an eyebrow at the sergeant as I took the hand the woman was proffering. It was cooler than I expected, calloused from the handling of tools, and as far as I could tell completely original. But then tech-priests didn’t tend to go in for all that wholesale replacement of organs with augmetics stuff until they’d risen a great deal further up the hierarchy. Tayber looked mildly uncomfortable, although the ruddy light from the inferno in the distance meant I couldn’t tell if he was blushing or not.
He coughed. ‘My sister.’
‘I see,’ I said, beginning to suspect that his determination to save the civilians hadn’t entirely been motivated by taking my orders too literally. I’d never be able to prove it, and I needed him if I was going to get back to the regiment in one piece, so I decided to let it go. I turned back to the woman. ‘It seems we both have a lot to thank your brother for.’
‘I’d say that remains to be seen,’ she replied, a hint of a smile beginning to form on her face. ‘I’ll have to take a look at those things first.’ She turned her head, taking in the nearest ones, and looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘That truck with the yellow skull thing painted on, it’s definitely got something wrong with its transmission.’
‘You can tell that from here?’ I asked, wondering if her eyes were augmetics; although they looked real enough. The few tech-priests I’d encountered up to that point (and most of the ones I’ve met since, come to that), liked their enhancements to be obvious rather than counterfeiting the natural organs they were replacing, apparently feeling that the less human they looked the closer they were getting to the Machine-God.
Felicia shook her head. ‘I was riding in it. And my arse is still numb.’ A mechadendrite emerged from a fold of her robe, and plucked one of the spare ration bars (which up until then I’d completely forgotten about), from my pocket. She grinned, unwrapping it with her natural hands, and began chewing the thing with relish.
‘How long have we got until we move out?’
I shrugged, taken completely aback. ‘Dawn, I suppose.’ I glanced at Tayber, and he nodded confirmation.
‘About six hours,’ he said.
‘I’d better get started, then.’ Felicia waved cheerfully, and started down the dune in a cascade of fire-reddened sand. ‘There must be some tools around here somewhere.’
‘Ask Jurgen,’ I said. If anyone could find what she needed it would be him. I turned to Tayber. ‘Your sister,’ I said slowly. ‘She’s not exactly a typical tech-priest, is she?’
The sergeant looked vaguely embarrassed. ‘She likes tinkering with things. Always did, that’s how we knew she had a vocation. She used to spend all her free time at the Mechanicus shrine meditating on machine parts.’ His expression softened, recalling happier times, and I had to remind myself that the two of them were probably all that was left of their entire family. ‘We were so proud when she took holy orders. But she didn’t do well at the seminary.’
‘I find that hard to believe,’ I said. I’ve always been a good judge of character, perhaps because masking my own has made me so adept at reading others, and it had struck me that Felicia would throw herself wholeheartedly into whatever she undertook. That, it turned out, was the problem.
Tayber shook his head. ‘She never quite grasped the theological side of things, a bit of a handicap if you want to get on in the Mechanicus. So they told her she’d just have to settle for being an enginseer all her life.’
‘There are worse things to be than a good enginseer,’ I said. ‘The Guard would fall apart without them.’
‘I know.’ Tayber shook his head regretfully. ‘And she seems happy enough. It’s just a bit of a shame, that’s all.’
‘We all serve the Emperor the best we may,’ I quoted, as though I thought it was a profound insight rather than something I’d found inside a cracker once,59 and Tayber nodded.
‘Then I guess I should start organising some militia squads,’ he said.
To my vague surprise, I was able to grab a few hours sleep after that, waking to discover that the orks had unaccountably failed to massacre the lot of us during the night, and that things were beginning to look a little more organised. Jurgen pushed a mug of recaf and a slice of salt grox in a bun into my hands, and I ate the hot snack gratefully. The sun was only just above the horizon, and the desert air still felt chill.
‘They’re waiting for you, sir,’ he informed me, as though I had the faintest idea of what he was talking about, and I nodded, sipping the bitter drink, and warming my hands around the mug.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Who? And why?’ Fortunately my aide had seen me through sufficient disorientated mornings, sometimes augmented by hangovers, to take my evident incomprehension in his stride. I accepted a second mug of recaf and tried to chase the cobwebs from the corners of my brain.
‘Sergeant Tayber,’ he elaborated. ‘He’s got a report about the defence arrangements. That tech-priest lady. She wants to talk to you about the vehicles. One of them’s had it, apparently, and she wants to strip it down for spares. And a couple of the civvies who think they might be useful and want to volunteer for stuff.’
‘I see,’ I said, marginally wiser than before. ‘And did any of them confide the nature of the stuff they wanted to volunteer for?’
Knowing Jurgen he would have been politely obstructive until they told him, and the fact that he hadn’t continued to be so was a fair indication that they could indeed be of use.
‘There’s a man called Ariott, thinks he might be able to help out on the medical side.’ My spirits rose. If true, that was good news indeed. ‘And a roadworker, Kolfax, spent a lot of time in the desert before the greenies arrived, says he knows a bit about the conditions out here.’
‘That could be useful,’ I agreed.
I straightened my cap, and brushed as much sand and macerated ork as I could from my greatcoat. ‘Let’s see what they have to say.’
It was, by and large, surprisingly constructive, although getting to meet them was harder than I’d anticipated. I made my way through the swirling crowd of refugees, who for the most part were beginning to stir, with a vague sense of unease. As I passed by, almost without exception, they turned to look, murmuring among themselves, an expression I can only describe as awestruck crossing their pinched and filthy faces. The smell, I’ll gloss over, other than to mention that for almost the first time since I’d met him, I had to glance over my shoulder to check if Jurgen was still there.
‘Commissar!’ A woman of indeterminate age, but probably relatively young given that she’d evidently been healthy enough to survive weeks of captivity by the orks, flung herself at my feet, almost tripping me with what would have been a perfect tackle on the scrumball pitch. ‘Emperor bless you forever!’
‘Blessed be the name of the Emperor!’ a goodly proportion of the idiots chorused in response. I tried to detach her as gently as I could.
‘Thank you,’ I said, my jaw knotting with embarrassment. ‘That’s very kind. Bless you too.’ I shook her off at last, leaving her sitting on the sand in slack-jawed ecstacy.
‘A benediction,’ she said. A group of refugees a little less addled than the rest moved in to take care of her. I shook my head.
‘I’m just a soldier,’ I said. ‘If you want one of those you should find a priest.’ Luckily the convoy seemed mercifully light on Emperor-botherers, which was the first bright spot I’d been able to find in this whole sorry mess. Unfortunately, this apparent display of modesty was enough to precipitate a chorus of praise and approbation, which seemed to be drawing in every man and woman in the convoy with nothing better to do, which, of course, was just about all of them. In the end, to preserve my sanity, I just raised my hands for silence, more in hope than expectation, if I’m honest. To my surprise, the whole reeking rabble fell silent at once.
‘You do me too much honour,’ I said, wanting nothing more than to get away somewhere I could finish my recaf in peace and try to work out what to do next. ‘If there’s any credit to be given, it should be to your own PDF soldiers.’ Let them go and bother Tayber; all this was his fault anyway.
Unfortunately, as usual, the more I tried to play down my own part in the previous night’s events the more I consolidated them in the minds of my audience. (Something which I suppose I should have anticipated, having done so many times on purpose. I can only presume that fatigue was dulling my wits at the time.) A cheer went up, which I was only able to silence by raising my hand again. ‘I’ve got to go now, and do, um, military stuff,’ I said lamely. ‘Enjoy your breakfast.’ As I’d hoped, the prospect of food was enough to divert their attention away from me, and I made it to where Tayber and the others were waiting, in the lee of one of the trucks, without further incident.
‘Commissar.’ The sergeant saluted, more for the benefit of the civilians present than because protocol demanded it I suspect,60 and I returned the salute crisply. It wouldn’t hurt to impress them with the seriousness of the situation, or try to look as though we knew how to deal with it.
‘Sergeant.’ I nodded too, just for good measure, and sat on a convenient crate. There were several scattered about, drawn into a rough circle, and most of them were occupied. Either Jurgen had been his usual helpful self, arranging them in advance, or the little group had congregated there to make use of them. Tayber sat too, on a box of ration bars (which had already been opened judging by the way the civilians’ jaws were working, and I resolved to keep a closer eye on that side of things. All right, they were starving, so they could hardly be blamed for snacking all the time, but things were crucial enough on the food front already, and there was no point in making it worse.) The only one still standing was Felicia, although she looked surprisingly relaxed. It was only after some time that I realised she was leaning back on the mechadendrite, using it as a makeshift seat, something I was to discover over the course of our association that she habitually did. It connected at the base of her spine, like a prehensile tail, so was ideally suited to the purpose.61 I nodded a greeting, and she grinned at me, clearly in her element after a night spent poking about in the innards of the ork machinery.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘We don’t have much time. Sooner or later the greenskin survivors are going to recover enough to pull out, or another group will pass by here on their way into the town. Either way we’ll be frakked.’
‘If there are any survivors…’ a balding man in a tattered Administratum robe put in, and the other civilians nodded.
‘There are always survivors,’ I told him. ‘And even if there aren’t, you assume it. Complacency now will get everyone killed.’ They all looked suitably chastened, and the Administratum drone nodded again.
‘Very prudent,’ he said. I glanced round at the other civilians in the group. One was dressed like an artisan, and just had to be Kolfax, while the other wore the tattered remains of a knitted jacket with well-worn leather patches on the elbows. Clearly, captivity among the orks hadn’t had quite such a catastrophic effect on his wardrobe as everyone else’s. Nevertheless, he exuded an air of dependability and general concern, so I marked him down as the medicae Ariott. Which left the question of whom, precisely, I was talking to. I glanced at Jurgen, raised an enquiring eyebrow, and my aide shrugged, clearly at as much of a loss as I was.
‘I wasn’t aware that we had any representatives of the Administratum with us,’ I said smoothly.
Tayber looked faintly abashed. ‘Sorry sir,’ he said. ‘I should have informed you. But it seemed best to let you sleep.’
‘Very considerate,’ I said. I turned back to the balding little man in the tattered robe. ‘As you’ve probably gathered,’ I said, ‘I’m Commissar Cain.’
To his credit, he actually smiled. ‘I don’t think there’s anyone in the convoy who doesn’t know that,’ he said. ‘I’m Scrivener Norbert. Your sergeant seemed to think I could help.’
‘Did he?’ I asked, allowing the faintest hint of scepticism to enter my voice. Norbert didn’t seem to take offence though, which was another point in his favour, just stretching the smile a little wider.
‘Whether I actually can has still to be determined.’
‘Right.’ I nodded, deferring the matter for the time being. ‘First things first.’ I looked at Tayber. ‘Defence.’
‘We’ve got eighteen bodies who know which end of a gun’s the front. Three PDF troopers, five tribunes,62 nd the rest just play with weapons as a hobby.’ He frowned, and looked a little dubious. ‘Or that’s what they claim. At least a couple of them are gangers if you ask me.’
