For The Emperor, page 20
‘If you say so,’ she said. After a moment, the firing stopped, and a deeper, more unnerving silence descended. We listened for a little while longer, but it soon became apparent that we would learn nothing more by remaining where we were, and Amberley urged us to proceed. Not having a plausible reason to go back, I agreed, and we moved on as before, though not without a considerable amount of trepidation on my part.
It was about five minutes later that Kelp, who was still on point, held up his hand and halted.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Bodies. Lots of them.’ Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but there were at least half a dozen spread out across the large open space which the corridor had eventually led us into. It seemed to be a junction point of some kind because a number of other tunnel mouths led away from it, to all points of the compass, and by my estimation it had been used for storage or something quite recently. About a dozen stacking units had been broken open, though what they had contained was now a mystery, and the smashed remains of a glow globe showed that someone had been working here not too long ago.
‘Recognise this?’ I asked Amberley, who was looking around with obvious signs of familiarity. She nodded.
‘This was as far as we got before,’ she said. ‘We came in through that corridor there.’ She pointed to one of the other entrances. ‘We took them by surprise, but there were more of them than we’d anticipated, and then the reinforcements showed up.’ I spotlighted the nearest corpse with my luminator, a stocky fellow in work overalls with most of his chest missing.
‘Was he among them?’
‘I wasn’t waiting around to be introduced,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think so.’ Her eyes glazed over for a second with the effort of recall. ‘Rakel was having some kind of seizure, and then she took a las-bolt to the stomach. After that it got a little confusing.’
The troopers were acting like proper soldiers, I noted absently, spreading out to secure our perimeter as best they could without waiting for orders, which was something at least, so I returned my attention to what the inquisitor was saying. This was the most she’d let slip about her previous excursion into these tunnels since we started, and I hoped to find out a little more.
‘What kind of a seizure?’ I asked. ‘Like the one she had when she saw Jurgen?’ Amberley shook her head.
‘No,’ she said slowly, ‘that was something quite different. I’m still not sure what it means.’ But she had her suspicions, I could tell, even if she wasn’t about to share them with me. She moved on rapidly, in a transparent attempt to change the subject, which vaguely surprised me, as I’d come to expect more subtlety from her than that. ‘We were standing over there.’ She pointed. ‘Rakel had been getting more agitated the deeper we came, sensing something, but not really able to tell me what it was. Then as we got closer to the people here, it got worse.’
‘They were psykers too?’ I asked, feeling even more uneasy, if that were possible. I’d encountered those before, and it had never ended well. Amberley shrugged, a delicate ripple of her shoulders.
‘Possibly.’ Whether she was uncertain, or just being non-committal, I couldn’t tell.
‘Sir. Inquisitor.’ Holenbi gestured diffidently from the side of one of the corpses. ‘I think you should see this.’
‘What?’ I moved to join him, Amberley at my side.
‘This one was killed by something else.’ He indicated the body, a young woman with a shaved head and a xenoist braid, who had apparently been eviscerated by a close combat weapon of some kind. I’d seen a lot of people killed the same way over the years, but the wounds the weapon had left were unfamiliar. That didn’t necessarily mean much, of course; there are plenty of ways of mounting a blade, but there’s usually a fair degree of consistency within a culture, and I hadn’t seen anything here which looked that unusual.
‘I’m still trying to work out what killed the others,’ I said. The wounds were too heavy for lasguns, even the hellguns we carried. I’d heard them being fired though, I was sure about that. By the insurgents, then; there were several lying around close to the corpses, so it didn’t need an inquisitor to join those dots.
‘It looks like plasma rounds to me,’ Jurgen volunteered. The doubt in his voice told me how unlikely he thought it, though; plasma weapons were big, bulky, and unreliable, and took an age to recharge between shots. You’d have to be mad to arm an entire squad with them. Not to mention being rarer than an ork with a sense of humour. ‘Plasma pistols, maybe?’
‘Maybe,’ I conceded. Those were even rarer, but suppose someone had found a whole cache of them from the fabled Dark Age of Technology? That would be worth going to almost any lengths to protect, wouldn’t it?
‘There’s... something else,’ Holenbi said, redirecting our attention to the dead woman. He looked a little green for a medic, I thought, then I noticed it myself. A large chunk of flesh had been ripped from her torso, as though by teeth.
‘Merciful Emperor!’ I made the sign of the aquila almost without thinking. I hadn’t seen wounds like that since my last encounter with the tyranids. Even then, though, a small dispassionate part of my mind recognised that this was different, something I’d never seen before. ‘What in the galaxy could do that?’
‘Whatever it was, it didn’t like the taste,’ Amberley said, directing her luminator beam to a detached chunk of bloody flesh lying a few feet from the corpse. Holenbi turned greener, and eating his discarded ration bar earlier turned out to have been a bit of a waste of time for him.
‘I’ve got movement!’ Sorel called from the entrance to one of the tunnels.
‘Are you sure?’ Amberley was looking at that bloody auspex again, and the screen was still blank. ‘I’m getting no human lifesigns at all.’
‘What about abhuman ones?’ I asked, and she shrugged.
‘It’s only calibrated for–’
A ball of light, eye-achingly bright, shot from the mouth of the tunnel Sorel was guarding, and exploded against an empty crate. Whoever the enemy was, they were upon us.
Editorial Note:
With the situation in the city deteriorating by the moment, Lord General Zyvan and the troops under his command were growing increasingly impatient to do something, notwithstanding the explicit instructions I had given to the contrary. Governor Grice’s heavy-handed attempt to seize control of the imperial expeditionary force had tried their patience to the limit, and, as a man of honour, Zyvan clearly felt the slight of the accusations levelled against him. His subsequent actions may therefore be understood, if not entirely condoned.
What follows is a summarised partial transcript of the meeting he held with the senior officers of the expeditionary force, taken from the hololithic recording made by the equipment in the conference room, supplemented by a few personal observations subsequently gleaned from some of those present: most notably savant Mott, who represented the Inquisition in my absence, Colonel Kasteen of the 597th Valhallan, and Erasmus Donali of the Imperial Diplomatic Service.
The lord general is clearly irritated at this point, but keeping his temper by focussing on the issue at hand. He begins by asking Colonel Kasteen to confirm the instructions I gave her over the vox link regarding the governor’s demands.
‘That is correct, sir,’ Kasteen replies, seeming cool and efficient despite being the youngest regimental commander present. Only someone very skilled at the interpretation of body language could detect her nervousness. ‘You have complete command of this army by the express order of the Inquisition.’
‘Good.’ Zyvan’s voice is clipped and decisive. ‘Then I propose to calm the situation by removing the primary cause of the problem.’
‘The inquisitor was also quite explicit that we cannot engage the tau under any circumstances.’ Kasteen is clearly nervous here about appearing to contradict her commander, but her sense of duty outweighs the prospect of any personal consequences – a commendable trait which stood her in good stead throughout her career. Zyvan concedes the point.
‘I wasn’t referring to the tau,’ he reassures her, and everyone else at the table. ‘I meant that cretinous excuse for a governor.’
There is general approval of this proposal. Several of the officers present suggest courses of action ranging from arrest to assassination. Eventually, the mood calms as Mott outlines the Inquisition’s position on the matter.
‘It does indeed appear that Govenor Grice is ultimately responsible for this situation,’ he agrees. ‘But there is still some ambiguity as to the degree of his culpability.’ He begins to quote legal precedent at length, until Donali, who is familiar with the savant’s peculiar mental processes, is able to steer him back to the topic at hand. ‘In short,’ he eventually concludes, ‘we would rather have him available to account for his actions.’
‘If the Inquisition wants him, they can have him,’ Zyvan says. ‘But in my opinion, his removal is a necessary prerequisite to restoring the situation to any kind of stability,’ Donali agrees.
‘The tau are also in agreement with this proposition,’ Donali adds, which throws the meeting into turmoil for a few moments until Zyvan is able to restore order.
‘You’ve discussed it with them?’ he asks.
‘Informally,’ Donali admits. ‘We still have a residue of goodwill, thanks to the actions of Commissar Cain, and I’ve been attempting to build on this. If we send troops to remove the governor, I believe they won’t interfere.’
‘Tell that to the PDF!’ someone shouts. ‘Or the civilians they’re butchering!’ Donali stares him down.
‘They recognise the distinction between us and the local militia,’ he says. ‘By their logic, the PDF attacked them first, so they’re fair game, and the civilians merely collateral damage. They can be persuaded that it’s in everyone’s interests to back off, I’m sure.’
‘I’d like to see how,’ Colonel Mostrue of the 12th Field Artillery cuts in. Mott begins to explain.
‘Tau psychology is very peculiar by human standards. They crave stability, and are terrified at the prospect of any loss of order. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that, for them, it’s as disturbing as we would find an eruption of Chaos.’ This casual reference to the Great Enemy creates considerable consternation. Zyvan restores order with some difficulty.
‘So you’re saying that the situation in the city right now is essentially their worst nightmare come true?’ he asks. Mott agrees.
‘Anarchy, rioting, civil war between rival imperial factions, nothing fixed or reliable. If someone wanted to goad them into reckless behaviour, they could arrange nothing better.’ A few of the more astute officers, Kasteen among them, pick up on the unspoken assumption behind those words.
‘If they’re so panicked and disorientated,’ Zyvan asks, ‘what makes you think they’d give us the benefit of the doubt?’
‘They have this dogma they call the Greater Good,’ Donali explains. ‘If we can promise them that the governor’s removal will improve the situation, they’re as bound to let us try as we would be to accept an oath sworn in the Emperor’s name.’ The audio recording is swamped for a few seconds by sharp intakes of breath, and mutterings about heathen heresies. Zyvan brings the meeting back to order.
‘Very well,’ he concludes. ‘Make overtures to them, and see if they’ll swallow it.’ Donali bows and leaves, making the sign of the aquila. Zyvan turns to Kasteen.
‘Colonel,’ he says. ‘The 597th have been more deeply involved in these events than any other regiment, and your commissar seems to have the confidence of the inquisition as well as the xenos. If we can cut a deal with the tau, you’ll supply the troops to carry the operation out.’
Kasteen salutes, looking stunned, and manages to respond in the affirmative.
TWELVE
My enemy’s enemy is a problem for later. In the meantime, they might be useful.
– Inquisitor Quixos (attributed)
I’m proud to say that, despite the suddenness of the attack, my intellectual faculties remained undimmed. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t dive for the nearest piece of cover the instant I realised we were under fire, of course. A level head is a fine asset on the battlefield, but not when it’s been shaped like that by a fragment of shrapnel. As I drew my faithful laspistol, the analytical part of my mind was already assessing the positions of the troopers, and the nearest lines of retreat, but my chances of making it to one of the tunnel mouths without being blown halfway to golden throne seemed on the slim side of pitiful, so I decided to stay put behind the nice solid piece of piping I’d found. More enemy fire was pouring in on us by now, and to my horror, I realised that Jurgen was right. These were plasma weapons we were facing, and even the heavy body armour we were wearing would be all but useless against it. I’d doused the luminator at once, of course, the others following suit, but the sun-bright flashes of the enemy weapons lit the space around us in a dazzling strobe that made my eyes ache.
A bolt of incandescent energy burst against the metal piping close to my head, just missing my face with a spray of molten metal. If profanity was a weapon our assailants would all have been dead in seconds at that point, believe me. Stray pieces of debris ignited from similar accidents, suffusing the chamber with a flickering orange glow that only intensified my sense of disorientation.
‘Jurgen!’ I shouted. ‘Can you get a shot?’
‘Not yet, commissar!’ He was tucked in behind a barricade of crates, the melta gun rested across it, covering the tunnel entrance. When they burst through he’d be able to catch them, but they didn’t seem in any hurry to assault us, probably anticipating just such a contingency.
‘I have movement,’ Sorel said calmly, sighting carefully down the barrel of his long-las. I noticed with some distaste that he’d concealed himself behind one of the corpses, lying prone and resting the barrel of the weapon across its chest as though it were a sandbag.
‘What are they waiting for?’ Amberley asked. ‘Last time they were on us like a rash by now.’ She’d taken cover behind an upturned table a few metres away. My palms tingled. In my experience, people didn’t change their strategies that radically, that quickly. Especially if they’d seemed to work the last time...
‘Kelp, Velade,’ I ordered. ‘Watch the cross corridors. They’re trying to flank us!’ Both troopers waved an acknowledgement, and began scanning the dark openings around us. I was suddenly uncomfortably aware of just how many there were to keep track of. Trebek and Holenbi kept their hellguns aimed at the entrance the enemy were firing from, sending an occasional las-bolt back in the vague hope of keeping their heads down.
‘I have a shot,’ Sorel said, his voice as emotionless as ever, and pulled the trigger. This one was undoubtedly effective, resulting in a screech of pain from deep in the tunnels that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
‘What the hell was that?’ Velade asked, her face ashen. I was equally shocked, I have to admit, but for a very different reason; even despite the echoes and the gunfire, I’d recognised it.
‘That was a kroot!’ I said, in stunned amazement. Now it was Amberley’s turn to look taken aback.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked. I nodded.
‘I’ve spoken to one.’ I expected her to query it, but instead she stood.
‘Cease fire!’ she yelled, with more volume than I would have thought her capable of. Although, come to think of it, her voice wasn’t as loud as all that. It was the authority behind it which made it cut through the noise, and the troopers responded at once, even though every instinct they possessed probably told them to keep fighting. Of course, our assailants were under no such inhibition, and the volume of fire continued to pour into our makeshift barricades with undiminished vigour. Despite having made herself the most obvious target in the vicinity, however, Amberley seemed quite unperturbed. (At the time, I wasn’t sure whether I was more impressed with her coolness or amazed at her recklessness, although, as I was to find out later, she had less reason to fear the plasma bolts than the rest of us. She could still have been hurt or killed, though, don’t get me wrong – they’re a tough-minded breed, inquisitors, make no mistake.)
She shouted again, her voice magnified by some amplivox device she produced from inside the robe, but this time, to my amazement, it was the hissing speech of the tau that came from her lips.[44]
I clearly wasn’t the only one to be astonished by this, as the incoming fire ceased immediately. After a tense pause, she was answered in the same tongue, and gestured to me.
‘Stand down and show yourselves,’ she said. ‘They want to talk.’
‘Or shoot us more easily,’ Kelp said, keeping his hellgun aimed.
‘They can do that anyway,’ I said. I gestured to the corpses surrounding us as I stood, flinching involuntarily from the anticipation of a plasma round impacting on my chest. Nothing happened, of course, and if I’d seriously expected it to I would have stayed huddled behind my nice, cosy pipes, and to the warp with the Inquisition. ‘These heretics were pinned down in exactly the same position as us, and they tried to make a fight of it.’
‘Can’t argue with that.’ Sorel stood, holding his sniper rifle by the barrel, arm outstretched from his body, making it obvious that he wasn’t going to use it. One by one, the others revealed themselves, stepping out from behind whatever concealment they’d been able to find. Kelp was the last to move, complying at last with ill grace.
‘Stay where you are.’ Amberley moved forward, taking up a station in the middle of the largest open space she could find, and reactivated her luminator. She’d been visible before, of course, silhouetted in the flickering firelight, but now, if the xenos intended treachery, she might just as well be holding up a sign saying, “Shoot me, I’m here!” Once again, I found myself marvelling at her courage, and having to remind myself that this attractive young woman was actually an inquisitor with far more resources at her command than I could begin to imagine.
