Duty Calls, page 19
‘We’ve got by far the best survival rate of any of the Guard regiments,’ I said, which happened to be true. The Harakoni had taken a real mauling that morning, and I’d found myself wondering briefly how their young commissar had fared. I didn’t even want to start thinking about the PDF. There was no doubt that Zyvan’s strategy was effective, but it left under trained and ill-equipped militia units holding the line against the tyranid horrors until the real soldiers could get there, and there was no doubt at all that the price they were paying was a heavy one. If the peculiar topography of their homeworld hadn’t made it impossible I’ve no doubt that many more of them would have broken and run than actually did.
Since they had nowhere to go in any case, and were fighting for their homes and loved ones, which I’ve observed time and again will make even the meekest civilian stand his ground like a Terminator, they remained at the front, and died in droves. Even allowing for our own people’s remarkable ability to engage the chitinous nightmares and emerge unscathed, these battlezones sounded extraordinarily unhealthy places to be, and I resolved to stay as far away from them as I could, at least until the spores started falling, and I couldn’t avoid the ’nids wherever I was.
Luckily no one had challenged my assertion that my place would be at the regimental headquarters when that ghastly prospect occurred (where, of course, I’d have a full company of troopers to hide behind), and that traipsing off on one of these periodic hit-and-run raids made it all too possible that I’d be wrapped up in what amounted to a glorified skirmish when the sky started falling. From years of practice I’d managed to sound a little wistful as I’d pointed this out, contriving to give the impression without actually saying so that I’d have liked nothing better than to charge off to face an endless tide of malevolent chitin, but my sense of duty was strong enough to override such a selfish impulse, leaving me no alternative but to skulk around our heavily fortified compound drinking tanna and generally getting underfoot while the troopers got on with defending the civilians like they were supposed to.
‘So far,’ Kasteen said, looking around us, her expression dour. Whatever doubts she might be feeling, this was no place to discuss them. The command centre was swarming with men and women going about their regular duties, and we both knew morale wasn’t going to be helped if they got even an inkling that the senior command staff was less confident of our ultimate victory than we appeared. By mutual, unspoken agreement we began to walk towards the staircase leading up to the gallery where her office was. ‘But we still have to face the hive fleet. That’s going to be a very different game.’
‘True,’ I said, standing aside to let her mount the stairway first, ‘but our reinforcements can’t be far behind them.’ My attention was quite pleasantly distracted for a moment by the callipygian spectacle ascending past my eye level, and as I placed my foot on the lowest tread I couldn’t help tilting my neck back a little to continue appreciating it for a moment longer.
Minute as it was, that movement was to save my life, as without it I’m sure I’d never have noticed the faint flicker of motion high in the girders supporting the roof. My first thought was that a bird of some kind had entered the vast enclosed space through the massive doors at the far end, which, as usual, had been left open to admit a howling draught and the occasional flurry of snow so essential to the Valhallan notion of wellbeing. That didn’t seem terribly likely, though, as the constant noise would have prevented any self-respecting avian from roosting comfortably, and if there was such an intruder it would almost certainly have left some trace of its presence on the room below. The palms of my hands began to itch, and, mindful of my recent experience with the psyker assassin, I craned my head for a better view, wondering where the hell Jurgen had got to now that I really needed him.
‘There’s something in the rafters,’ I said, drawing my laspistol, and trying to focus on the faint impression of movement in the shadows over our heads. Kasteen glanced up too, and reached for her sidearm. Around us I could see little ripples of alarm and consternation, most of the troopers on vox and auspex duty glancing at the lasguns resting against their control lecterns. Whatever the thing was, it was small, and I found myself reminded all too vividly of the spore mines that had attacked us in Hell’s Edge.
‘I see it too,’ Kasteen said grimly, aiming her bolt pistol. Then her gaze skittered off to one side. ‘And another one.’
‘Arm yourselves!’ I called, although the advice seemed somewhat superfluous by now, all the troopers I could see with a weapon having them to hand already. Then, as if suddenly becoming aware of our scrutiny, the mysterious intruders swooped to the attack.
‘What the hell?’ Kasteen said, surprised, as they came into view for the first time. An echelon of servo skulls, five in all, was dropping towards us, and her aim wavered indecisively. She turned to a loitering enginseer, his face predictably blank beneath the cowl of his Adeptus Mechanicus robe, and glared at him. ‘Who let those things in here?’
‘They’re nothing to do with us,’ the techpriest assured her, in the level voxcoder drone of so many of his kind. Something whirred behind his eyes, as he appeared to focus on something the rest of us couldn’t see. ‘The idents don’t match any of the local Mechanicus shrines–’
Whatever else he might have been about to tell us was lost in the sudden bark of what sounded like a bolt pistol, and his torso disintegrated in a shower of blood and shrapnel, which no doubt had been part of his augmetic systems before the explosive projectile had rearranged them. I returned fire at once, and I wasn’t the only one. Every trooper in the hall who could grab a weapon opened up on the macabre intruders like a bunch of drunken aristos on a shooting party who’d just caught sight of a flock of widgeon. The skulls were hellish fast and agile, though, jinking through the barrage of lasbolts like those flying platter things the tau use when they’ve got more sense than to stick their own heads over the parapet. Only one went down, smacking into the rockcrete floor with enough force to shatter bone and weapon alike.
‘Keep firing!’ I shouted unnecessarily, and the troopers complied with a will. I scurried into cover behind the staircase just in time, another couple of bolter rounds exploding against the metal mesh where I’d been standing an instant before, while Kasteen, her retreat cut off, sprinted upwards to the gallery, shooting as she went. She didn’t manage to hit anything, but the stray rounds from her bolt pistol punched a constellation of miniature stars in the roof of the command post, and the leading skull veered away from the fusillade of explosive projectiles.
I expected at least one of the swarm to turn on the colonel now that she was exposed on the narrow walkway outside her office, even though she’d ducked behind the balustrade to take as much advantage of the available cover as she could, but they all ignored her, dropping past the level of the mezzanine, and with a thrill of horror I realised that every single one of them was heading straight for me. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for the sheer volume of fire making them evade as they came, they would have been nose to nose with me by now. (Well, strictly speaking none of them had noses any more, but you know what I mean.)
There’d be plenty of time to worry about what it all meant later. Right now my priority was survival, and I studied the airborne assassins carefully, searching for any kind of weakness. Two of them appeared to have bolt pistols built into them, the barrels protruding grotesquely from between their teeth like inside-out suicides, and if they hadn’t been forced to dance around to make themselves harder to hit, with the inevitable deleterious effect on their own accuracy, I have no doubt that I’d have shared the fate of the luckless enginseer. A third had a chainblade humming away beneath it, apparently in the fond hope that its gun-slinging brethren would have been able to keep me busy long enough for it to part more than my hair, while the fourth seemed to be completely unarmed for some reason.
That was the one. If it wasn’t carrying a weapon, it had to be there to direct the others. Taking careful aim I steadied my arm against the metal of the staircase, thankful yet again for the augmetic fingers that let me hold my laspistol more firmly on target than even the most skilled duellist could have managed, and squeezed the trigger.
To my immense relief the shot struck home, and the bone casing shattered, spilling lumps of auspex gear and the sensorium array attached to it across the floor. By some strange freak of chance the tiny antigravity unit that had kept the skull aloft shot upwards, still functioning and no longer weighed down by its payload, to shatter one of the skylights over our heads and vanish into the thin grey murk that kept Hoarfell almost perpetually wrapped in its chilly embrace. Looking up after flinching instinctively away from the shower of broken glass rattling against my refuge, and the flurry of snow that followed it, I tried to acquire another target, only to find the specimen with the chainblade swooping at my head.
I reacted at once, drawing my chainsword by reflex, not even consciously aware that I was doing so until I’d batted the thing aside. It bounced off one of the girders supporting the gallery, an ugly gash along its jaw where my blade had bitten deep into the bone. By sheer luck I seemed to have severed the power cable leading to its lift unit, and it lay inert on the rockrete, buzzing angrily and attempting to saw its way through the floor, until a couple of troopers put it out of its misery with a flurry of well aimed lasbolts.
The two gun-skulls hovered uneasily, apparently unsure of their target now the hunter unit that had led them to me was out of commission, and so many other people in the vicinity were popping off rounds at them. After a moment of frantic bouncing around, which enabled them to avoid vaporisation by something approaching a miracle, they suddenly turned and shot upwards, disappearing through the hole in the skylight.
‘Someone really seems to have it in for you,’ Kasteen remarked, descending the staircase again, somewhat gingerly as she tested the treads where the bolts had struck. ‘First an invisible psyker, and now this.’ She stared at me quizzically, the curiosity she was too polite to express openly all too visible on the faces of the troopers surrounding us. Suddenly becoming aware of their scrutiny, she gestured abruptly to the nearest non-com. ‘Sergeant, get this mess cleaned up.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He saluted smartly, and began rounding up everyone who hadn’t taken the hint and found urgent business back at their assigned station quickly enough. ‘You and you, get a body bag. The cogboys’ll probably want to organise some kind of send off for Sparky, so we’d better keep him fresh.’ It seemed our erstwhile enginseer had been popular enough among the troopers to have acquired a nickname, which vaguely surprised me. Struck by an afterthought, the sergeant called the solemn faced troopers back as they turned to comply. ‘Better get a mop as well, he’s leaking a bit.’
‘They’re determined, all right,’ I said, replying to Kasteen. I glanced at the hole in the ceiling through which the automated assassins had fled, an uncomfortable thought forcing its way to the forefront of my mind. ‘They must be to have found a way through our security here.’
‘We’ll find out how they managed it,’ the colonel assured me grimly.
I nodded, trying to look calm and analytical. ‘No doubt we will,’ I said, ‘but those things can infiltrate almost anywhere.’ Come to that, the ones that had retreated could come back for another go pretty much whenever they felt like it. My only option seemed to be to get the hell out of there before they rallied and tried to complete their programmed assignment, and as I glanced around the command centre the perfect bolthole seemed to present itself. ‘Whoever’s behind these attempts on my life must know I’m here, and they could try again.’
‘Let them,’ Kasteen said, as though looking forward to taking out another would-be assassin in person. ‘I’ve no objection to helping traitors commit suicide.’
I smiled, in a self-deprecating manner. ‘I appreciate the sentiment, Regina, but you’ve got far more important things to worry about than ensuring my safety. Our overriding priority is the defence of this planet, and another attack on our headquarters could undermine that, perhaps fatally.’ I paused, timing it just long enough to underline the seriousness of our responsibility. ‘I’m not willing to risk compromising the operational effectiveness of the regiment just to keep myself out of harm’s way.’
‘What have you got in mind?’ Kasteen asked, no doubt impressed by my dedication to duty, and veiling her concern behind a thin façade of brusque efficiency.
I gestured towards the status board I’d noticed before. ‘We’ve got two platoons sitting out at the aerodrome. I’ll go and join them for the time being.’ Whoever sent the servo skulls could turn our headquarters upside down searching for me, so far as I was concerned. Chances were they’d never think of looking among such a small detachment, and even if they did, I’d still have around a hundred troopers to hide behind.
Kasteen nodded slowly. ‘Makes sense,’ she conceded. She paused. ‘Anything else we can do before you leave?’
‘Get a complete pict record of those servo skulls,’ I said, indicating the debris of the battle, ‘and have it downloaded to a data-slate. I’ll take it with me when I go.’
‘I see.’ Kasteen looked thoughtful. ‘Do you really think you might be able to get some idea of where they came from by examining the picts?’
I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said slowly, ‘but I know a woman who can.’ After all, it was her fault in the first place for sticking me in front of the pictcasters, and giving every halfwit insurrectionist on the planet the impression that I was gunning for him in person, so it only seemed fair that she keep them off my back now. I was right too, this would all turn out to be a result of her activities on Periremunda; but in a manner which, at the time, I couldn’t possibly have guessed.
EDITORIAL NOTE:
The following, mercifully short, extract fills in a brief elision in Cain’s own account of events. After some deliberation I’ve decided to include it purely for the sake of completeness. Readers preferring to skip it are at perfect liberty to do so, if not actively encouraged.
From Like a Phoenix on the Wing: The Early Campaigns and Glorious Victories of the Valhallan 597th by General Jenit Sulla (retired), 101 M42
It will come as no surprise to those readers who have followed my account of the heroic exploits of our regiment thus far to hear that the women and men under my command were as eager as ever to confront the monstrous enemy we faced, not least because our gallant comrades in First Company had already been fortunate enough to drive back the inhuman horde on no fewer than three occasions. At last, however, Second Company was placed on standby, ready and waiting to respond to the call to arms, and to our barely concealed delight Third Platoon was one of those selected to wait at the starport in Darien in anticipation of an immediate departure to wherever we were needed to deliver the Emperor’s vengeance to the scuttling hordes that dared to pollute his most blessed demesne.
I would be somewhat lax in my duties as a chronicler of events, however, if I failed to admit to a degree of trepidation underlying our eagerness to engage the tyranid swarms. For all too many of us, the last time we’d faced these vat-spawned monstrosities had been a nightmare of slaughter in which we’d lost friends and comrades in uncountable numbers, and despite the unshakeable resolve our faith in the Emperor conferred upon us the memories of Corania remained fresh in our minds. Therefore the news that we were to be joined by none other than Commissar Cain was as welcome as it was unexpected, every woman and man of us determined to prove worthy of the leadership of so stalwart an example of the military virtues.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘Fascinating,’ Lazurus said, his metallic face flickering in the portable hololith aboard third platoon’s command Chimera. I’d arrived at the aerodrome around half an hour before, no further threats to my life having manifested in the interim beyond Jurgen’s habitually uninhibited driving style. After negotiating the obstacle course of the landing field at his usual breakneck pace he’d hurled our Salamander up the loading ramp of the nearest shuttle with almost as much alacrity as we’d boarded Amberley’s Aquila, much to the consternation of the rapidly scattering troopers left on guard around the base of it.
Only as he brought us to a halt next to the Chimeras already parked in the hold, their noses angled towards the exit ramp for a rapid deployment, did I realise that their markings were those of third platoon, and my heart sank. Lieutenant Sulla was trotting across the cargo bay towards us, positively bristling with the disconcerting enthusiasm she habitually displayed at the prospect of getting into action, and I began to wish I’d told Jurgen to head for the other aircraft instead of simply getting us under cover as quickly as possible. Lieutenant Faril, the officer in charge of fifth platoon, was a good deal less impulsive, and I’d have stood a much better chance of staying in one piece surrounded by the troopers of his command. Sulla was just as likely to take it into her head to order a suicidal charge at the nearest hive tyrant as stay comfortably behind cover potting away at it from a safe distance, and for some reason the troopers under her would just follow her into the fray, screaming their lungs out like maddened orks, and probably reducing the thing to bloody chunks before it even got over its astonishment at their temerity[66].
