For The Emperor, page 19
‘It seems clear enough,’ Amberley said, consulting an auspex she’d produced from somewhere, and for a moment, I wondered what else the dark cape concealed. Nevertheless, the troopers debarked with commendable precision, covering each other as they moved. Kelp on point, while the others remained protected by the vehicle’s armour plate until he’d reached the cover of a nearby heap of rubble, then Trebek, who headed for a tumbled wall on the opposite flank. Once they were established, Velade followed, taking up a position behind them, then Holenbi, who, I noticed, picked a spot where he could cover her as effectively as possible despite leaving a small blind spot in his coverage of Trebek. After a moment’s hesitation, I decided to let it go just this once. After all, they weren’t the most cohesive team I might have wished for, and it could have been an honest mistake. Sorel swept the area with the targeter of his long-las, and raised a hand.
‘It’s clear, commissar,’ he said. ‘You can move.’
‘After you,’ I said. He shrugged, almost imperceptibly, and was gone, crouching low, hurrying over the uneven ground to a point about fifty metres ahead of Kelp, where a fallen structural beam lay across a tumbled internal wall. He scrambled up it, worming his way into a gap between the chunks of masonry, and froze, scanning the rubble around us through his magnifying sight. If I hadn’t been keeping an eye on him the whole way, I would barely have known he was there.
Amberley raised a quizzical eyebrow at me.
‘Wouldn’t it have been more prudent to have moved out while he kept you covered?’ she asked.
‘Any other sharpshooter, yes,’ I said. ‘But after what he said at the briefing–’
‘Better safe than sorry,’ she finished for me. I nodded, and indicated the open ramp.
‘Whenever you’re ready, inquisitor.’
‘After you,’ she said, and I almost missed the grin that accompanied her echo of my own words. I wouldn’t have been all that surprised if she didn’t trust me, mind you; I wouldn’t have trusted me either, but then I suppose I know myself better than most.
So I smiled in return, to let her think I thought she was joking, and dropped to the ground, my boots crunching on the scattered ash. Jurgen had left the driver’s compartment by now and I was joined by his odour, followed an instant later by the man himself. In spite of myself, my eyebrows rose.
‘Are you sure you’re not a little lightly armed for this?’ I asked, and a momentary frown of concern flashed across his face before he realised I was joking.
Like the rest of us, except for Amberley (for all I knew, she might just have concealed hers the way I had), he was wearing a carapace jacket, but in a reassuring nod to the Guard I knew, his was definitely one of the standard sizes – too big – although most of his kit looked like that at the best of times. He had a hellgun like the others, but it was slung across his shoulders. In his hands was the unmistakable bulk of a meltagun, a heavy thermal weapon normally used to give tanks a hard time in close terrain, which was about the only time you stood a chance of getting near enough to use one without being spread across the landscape. Emperor alone knew where he’d got it from, but it was a reassuring sight nonetheless. He shrugged.
‘I thought if we were tunnel fighting we might want to clear a path quickly,’ he said. Well, it would certainly do that, I thought, whether our path was blocked by rubble or enemy troopers.
‘Good idea,’ I said. On this kind of mission there was no such thing as overkill.
‘Did you remember the marshmallows?’ Amberley asked, appearing at my elbow. Jurgen looked a little worried.
‘I don’t think so...’ he began.
‘She’s joking, Jurgen,’ I reassured him. A slow grin spread across his face.
‘Oh, I get it. It’s a thermal weapon, and you toast–’
‘Quite.’ I turned to see Sorel signal the all-clear, and Kelp begin the next step in the complex game of leapfrog which would get us to our objective.
I’d half expected us not to find it, what with the building having collapsed and all, but Amberley’s auspex pointed us in the right direction, and after a few moments of alternately dashing forward, ducking for cover, and trying to keep an eye on five former mutineers I didn’t trust for a second, we assembled again in the shadow of a wall. Or what was left of one, at least.
‘It should be around here,’ Amberley said, sweeping the little instrument around so its guiding spirit could get a better view. Something on the readout seemed to satisfy her, and it vanished into the recesses of her cloak as deftly as it had appeared in the first place. She indicated a small heap of rubble, and smiled. ‘Under that, if I’m not mistaken.’
‘Kelp, Sorel,’ I said, indicating the debris, and the two men stepped forward, Kelp with a scowl and the sniper with his usual lack of expression. They slung their weapons and began the onerous task of shifting the rubble. ‘The rest of you keep watching our perimeter,’ I ordered, diverting their attention from the work. Somewhat shamefaced, Trebek, Velade, and Holenbi stopped gawping at the rapidly growing hole and resumed their guard duties.
‘Not good,’ I muttered to Jurgen. They shouldn’t have let themselves get distracted that easily, even if the inquisitor’s little gadget had assured them there were no hostiles in the area. He nodded.
‘Sloppy,’ he agreed, unconscious of the irony.
‘Is that what you’re looking for?’ Kelp asked, after a few more moments of heavy lifting. What looked like a maintenance hatch of some kind had been revealed, bent and twisted by the heat and the pounding it had received from the falling rubble. He wiped a grimy hand across his sweating face, leaving a streak of soot and masonry dust. Sorel, more fastidious, wiped his hands against the knees of his trousers.
‘I think so,’ Amberley said. Kelp nodded, grasped the handle, and pulled, every one of his overdeveloped muscles standing out as he strained against it. After a moment he gasped and let go.
‘We’ll need a demo charge to shift that.’
‘Maybe if I...’ Jurgen took a step forward, and aimed the melta at it. Kelp and Sorel scrambled back with almost indecent haste, and even Amberley looked a little disconcerted as she raised a hand to forestall him.
‘We just want the hatch open, not the whole building down.’
‘Right idea, though,’ I added, seeing his crestfallen expression. ‘Velade, Holenbi, front and centre. Five rounds rapid.’ The twisted metal flashed into vapour under the combined power of the hellgun volley, and I clapped Jurgen on the back encouragingly. ‘Good thinking.’ Which, by his standards, it had been.
‘Or that might do it,’ Kelp conceded, staring down into the darkened hole which had opened up at our feet. I aimed my trusty pistol at it, but it was a pointless precaution; anyone waiting in ambush would have been vaporised along with the inspection panel, and anyone outside the hellguns’ area of effect would have been shooting back by now.
‘Good.’ Amberley looked satisfied. ‘I was hoping they’d think this way down had been blocked off.’
I wasn’t about to take anything for granted, though, so I assembled the squad quickly.
‘Kelp,’ I said, ‘you’re on point.’ He nodded, but didn’t look happy. ‘Then Sorel, Velade, Jurgen, me, the inquisitor, Holenbi. Trebek has the rear.’ That ought to keep the biggest potential troublemakers as far apart as possible, and separate the two lovebirds just enough to keep their minds on the job instead of each other. I hoped. Amberley caught my eye and nodded. Good, she wasn’t going to undermine my authority by contradicting me.
‘Whatever happened to “ladies first”?’ Kelp grumbled, and dropped into the dank-smelling darkness below.
Well, it might have been a consequence of my upbringing, but the labyrinth of service ducts we found ourselves in felt almost reassuring. I was careful not to let myself get too comfortable, though, as in my experience complacency is just a shortcut to a body bag. No one was shooting at us, and the auspex, now back in Amberley’s hand, remained reassuringly free of hostile contacts.
Or, indeed, contacts of any kind. Our footsteps echoed back at us, despite every attempt at stealth, and the beams of our luminators picked out nothing more threatening than the occasional rodent.
After a while, I noticed that the dust in the corridor ahead of us was undisturbed, a thick layer which puffed up under our footfalls before settling slowly back down again. I felt the residue tickling my eyes and the back of my throat, and fought the impulse to sneeze.
‘This isn’t the way you came before, is it?’ I asked, and Amberley shook her head.
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I thought a detour might be prudent, given the welcome we got the last time.’
‘But you do know where we’re going, right?’ I persisted. She repeated the gesture.
‘Haven’t a clue,’ she said cheerfully. Something of what I felt must have shown on my face, because she smiled then, and qualified the remark. ‘I mean we should be heading roughly south-west, but all these corridors look alike to me.’
‘Then we need to bear off more in that direction,’ I said, indicating a side corridor that intersected the one we were in about thirty metres ahead.[42] Kelp flattened himself against the wall next to it, and signalled the all clear.
I was beginning to pick up a clearer idea of Amberley’s destination, which, despite her claims of uncertainty, she manifestly had. If I still had my bearings we were heading in the general direction of the old quarter, which made some kind of sense. The tunnels would be closer to the surface there, making them more accessible to whoever else was down here. Who they might be, and what they might be hoping to achieve was still a mystery to me, however.
We proceeded in silence for some time, until Sorel held up a hand, warning us to stop. Amberley and I padded over to join him.
‘What is it?’ I asked. Kelp’s face, a pale disc in the gloom, stared back at us, waiting for the signal to proceed.
‘Movement,’ he said, pointing away into the darkness ahead of us. Amberley checked the screen of her auspex.
‘Nothing on this,’ she said. I didn’t care what the box said. Techpriests might have complete faith in their machines, but I’d been let down by them too often in the past. Sorel had a sniper’s instincts, and was as much a survivor as me, and if he was feeling spooked, then so was I.
‘Kelp?’ I asked. The point man made a negative gesture. No contact.
‘I didn’t see anything,’ he added verbally.
‘OK. Proceed,’ I said. Then quietly I added to Sorel, ‘Keep your eyes open.’ He nodded an acknowledgement and moved out, his gun at the ready. The others followed, a little more nervous now, and I waited until they’d all passed before dropping into line behind Trebek.
‘Taking the rearguard now?’ Amberley asked, falling into step beside me. ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’
It was, of course, the second most dangerous spot in the column, vulnerable to being picked off by an ambusher or a pursuer. But if Sorel was right, the enemy was definitely ahead of us now. I shrugged.
‘As opposed to the position of perfect safety that you’re in at the moment?’ I asked, and was rewarded with another throaty chuckle, which lifted my spirits in spite of myself. The mood didn’t last long, though; as we passed the mouth of a service duct, I noticed the dust around it had been disturbed, and not long ago, either. I pointed it out to Amberley, my voice low so as not to alarm the others. ‘What do you make of that?’
The duct was a good two metres above the floor, but the dust beneath it showed only the marks of our own boots. My palms tingled, and I swept the beam of my luminator across the tangle of pipework that hung from the ceiling over our heads. It was possible someone had lurked there, but why had they moved just as we approached? And how had they got up there in the first place?
‘Remind you of anything?’ Amberley asked quietly. Now that she asked, it did – a maddening sense of familiarity that refused to gel. The only thing I was certain of was that it had been something bad, but with all the horrors I’d faced up to that point, it didn’t help much in narrowing it down. I was about to say something sarcastic to Amberley about another clue helping when my attention was firmly distracted.
‘Commissar.’ Kasteen’s voice hissed in my ear, hazed with static. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Barely,’ I said. The metres of masonry and rockcrete over our heads were attenuating the signal, and if we went much further, we would be out of contact entirely. ‘What’s happening?’
‘The governor has ordered the arrest of Lord General Zyvan!’ Even through the static the outrage in her voice was palpable. ‘And he’s demanding the Guard move into the city right away!’
‘On what charge?’ Amberley said. Whatever vox gear she had was evidently a little stronger than mine, because Kasteen recognised her voice.
‘Cowardice!’ Kasteen sounded even more outraged than before. ‘How he has the nerve–’
‘Will be determined by the proper authorities.’ Amberley’s voice was crisp and commanding now. ‘Until such time as that can be arranged the armies of the Imperium will remain under the command of the lord general, and if the governor objects to that, he is more than welcome to take the matter up with the Inquisition.’
‘I’ll relay that message,’ Kasteen said, evidently relishing the prospect of the governor’s reaction.
‘Colonel,’ I added, before she could cut the link. ‘What’s the situation with the tau?’
‘Grim,’ Kasteen admitted. ‘They’re still engaging PDF units all over the city. Civilian casualties are already up in the thousands, and we have rioters choking the streets. But so far they’ve held off from attacking us. If the lord general and the diplomats can buy us a little more time–’
‘They’ll have to,’ Amberley cut in. ‘Whatever happens, the Guard must not get sucked into an open war with the tau.’
‘Understood,’ Kasteen said. It must have been galling for her, though, and the strain was clear in her voice. Being forced to stand by and do nothing while an imperial city burned, and xenos massacred the citizens with impunity was probably the hardest thing she ever had to do.
‘Well, that’s something,’ Amberley said, as the vox link went dead. ‘At least there’s still hope.’
‘Hope for who?’ I asked, trying not to think of the civilians who, even as we stood here, were losing their homes and their lives. I’d be the first one to admit that I’m a self-centred hedonist, but even I felt a surge of sympathy for their plight.
‘For half the segmentum,’ Amberley replied, sounding suddenly weary, and for the first time, I had an inkling of the terrible weight of responsibility her calling imposed. ‘You need to focus on the big picture, Ciaphas. Emperor knows, sometimes that’s hard.’ Moved by an impulse I couldn’t explain, I took her hand for a moment, imparting what moral support I could through simple human contact.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But someone has to do it. And today that someone is us.’
Amberley laughed, only slightly forced, and squeezed my palm for a moment before letting go.
‘That was completely ungrammatical, you realise.’
‘Never my strong point,’ I admitted. It was strange, now I come to recall it, but her use of my given name seemed so natural I never thought to be surprised.
Shortly after that, we lost contact with the surface entirely. Or at least I did, and if Amberley was still able to get a signal through she wasn’t saying. Even though we were beyond all realistic hope of reinforcement in any case, I found the sensation profoundly dispiriting, and tried to concentrate on the job at hand. It was in one of these moments of distraction that I collided with Trebek, who had stopped suddenly in the tunnel ahead of me.
‘What is it?’ I asked, knowing that she wouldn’t just freeze like that for no reason.
‘I thought I heard something,’ she said. I cocked my head, listening hard, but couldn’t make out anything over the scuff of our footfalls and our breathing. We were moving stealthily enough – these troopers had been hunting tyranids less than six months before in conditions not dissimilar to this, don’t forget, and if there’s anything in the galaxy more calculated to teach you caution than that, I’ve yet to come across it – but the multiplicity of hard surfaces around us magnified every sound we made, however slight, with dozens of overlapping echoes. And, paradoxically, the quieter we moved the louder we sounded to our own ears, straining all the harder to hear over it.
So I issued the order to halt, and we waited tensely for the echoes to die away.
‘There,’ Trebek breathed after a moment. ‘Hear that?’
I could. It was the sharp crack of lasguns, and a similar, deeper note which sounded both familiar and slightly wrong. At the time I put it down to the echoes, but we were to discover the real reason soon enough.
‘Gunfire,’ I confirmed. ‘About half a klom that way.’ I indicated the direction without thinking, before realising it lay almost dead on to Amberley’s preferred route. Just great. Trebek looked a little puzzled.
‘Are you sure, sir?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said, before realising that no one else here would be quite so at home in these tunnels as me.[43] Valhalla has its cavern cities, of course, but they’re quite different to the average hive, with wide open spaces under well-lit roofs of rock and ice. It was perishingly cold too, the way the locals like it, but it takes all sorts to make a galaxy, and you can always turn up the heat in your hotel suite. (Not too much, though, as I discovered once, or you can end up with bits of the wall dripping onto your belongings.) Amberley took another look at her auspex, which was as quietly unhelpful as before.
