Choose Your Enemies, page 22
‘Maybe neither,’ I said, turning in response to a familiar odour, and gratefully accepting a steaming bowl of tanna from my aide. ‘Whoever sent that assassin after me must have had some access to the governor’s household. Maybe even a position in it where they can pull rank on the Ironfound Defence Force. Perhaps it’s time we checked in with Defroy about how his enquiries are going.’
‘Good point,’ Amberley agreed, nodding thoughtfully. ‘Flicker, go and chase him up. Try not to scare him any more than you need to.’
‘Right.’ Pelton nodded, and adjusted the fall of his jacket to make the bulge of his holstered bolt pistol a little more visible. ‘I’ll have a word with Clarys while I’m at it, too. The local plodders might have dug something up as well, even if they don’t recognise its significance.’
‘Have fun.’ Yanbel looked up as the former arbitrator left the room, then returned his attention to the spirit stone still clasped in his mechadendrite. He’d spent the last half hour or so poking and prodding at it with a variety of things that buzzed, hummed and beeped, with every sign of enjoyment, in so far as a tech-priest would ever admit to experiencing so human a sensation.[149] Every now and then he peered at it closely, although what he expected to see eluded me.[150] After a while he dropped it among the others Mott had collected from the dead scavvies, with something approaching a shrug. ‘Can’t tell a thing from it, sorry. Or any of the others. But if it’s any help, they all seem to be identical to the one the heretech smugglers had.’
‘Heretech smugglers?’ I asked, intrigued. I’d gathered that Amberley had been led to the webway portal in the underhive in the first place by an investigation of some kind, but she hadn’t mentioned any of the details, and I hadn’t bothered to ask, on the entirely reasonable grounds that if she’d wanted me to know she would have told me. That and the fact that we’d been rather busy at the time, what with all the eldar, daemons and heretics trying to kill us.
Zemelda nodded, spraying a few previously overlooked crumbs as she spoke. ‘Small-time dishrags dealing t’au toys to the chinless,’ she said disparagingly, which I interpreted as a relatively insignificant operation[151] supplying a few xenos trinkets to the local aristocracy, a few of whom would always place novelty above common sense and the preservation of their souls.
‘Which we rolled up quite easily,’ Amberley said. ‘The real surprise was finding a spirit stone among the Imperial artefacts going the other way.’
I felt my brows knitting themselves into a puzzled frown. ‘Why would the t’au want an eldar spirit stone?’
Amberley shrugged. ‘Why wouldn’t they? They collect all kinds of stuff from other races. Even the orks, who don’t have anything worth taking in the first place.’
‘They may not have known what it was,’ Yanbel reminded her. ‘The smugglers didn’t.’
‘Fair point,’ Amberley agreed. ‘But that doesn’t mean the buyer was equally ignorant.’
‘And the buyer was?’ I asked, to show I was paying attention. Probably a t’au, or one of their client races, and thus well out of reach of the retribution they deserved,[152] but in my experience a polite show of interest always went down well when an attractive woman was showing off her intellectual superiority, and occasionally paid dividends.
‘Somewhere out-system,’ Zemelda said, a trifle indistinctly, clearing the last of her plate. She flinched slightly as Jurgen materialised at her shoulder and took it from her, disappearing in the general direction of the kitchen, and everyone’s breathing became a little deeper.
Yanbel nodded. ‘We never got the chance to follow that up,’ he said. ‘It seemed more important to find out where it came from.’
‘Good call,’ I said feelingly, and Amberley nodded, looking a trifle smug.
‘Which took us through the webway to Drechia,’ she finished. ‘And the rest you know.’ At least as much of the rest as she felt like telling me.
I nodded. ‘Sounds like the trail’s cold anyway,’ I said. ‘Whatever ship the stone should have left on will be long gone by now.’
‘The Eternal Faith, outbound for Gravalax,’ Mott said, wandering into the room with a mug of recaff, his eyes unfocusing for a moment as he accessed the memory. ‘Docked at Skyside Seventeen, third largest of the orbital docks, population seventeen million two hundred and thirty-eight thousand, external docking facilities for four thousand three hundred and two interstellar vessels, of which an average of eighty-five per cent are occupied at any one time, each served by shuttle pads and hangar bays with a combined capacity of–’
‘So it’s big,’ Zemelda said, getting to the point a little more quickly than the savant.
‘Very much so,’ Mott agreed, apparently unperturbed at being cut off so unceremoniously.
‘The orbital docks,’ I said slowly. ‘Wasn’t that where Vekkman said the Slaaneshi cult was most active?’
‘He did.’ Amberley nodded thoughtfully, apparently reaching the same conclusion that I had. ‘Perhaps the spirit stone wasn’t going all the way to Gravalax after all.’
Mott sipped at his recaff. ‘Skyside Seventeen was one of the orbital facilities on Inquisitor Vekkman’s list of possible centres of cult activity,’ he said. ‘Making it considerably more likely that our investigations are linked after all.’
‘Perhaps they are,’ Amberley admitted, somewhat grudgingly. ‘I suppose we should talk to him again, then.’
‘And Jurgen and I should rejoin our regiment,’ I said, with a little more reluctance than I’d allowed for. Hunting for heretic cults has never been a favourite occupation of mine, and going after this one would mean running the gauntlet of the eldar currently infesting the upper atmosphere to boot. All in all, I’d be better off in the command centre, dispensing morale-boosting platitudes and keeping as far away from the fighting as I could. On the other hand, leaving Amberley and her team to it while I beat an expeditious retreat would deprive me of her company, and the knowledge of whatever threat the heretics presented. The eldar I’d pretty much got the measure of by this time, and as I’ve often observed, it’s what you don’t know that’s liable to kill you.
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ Amberley said, which pretty much decided the matter. I’ve never been able to refuse her anything, which may well have been true even if she hadn’t been entitled to have anyone who sufficiently annoyed her recycled for servitor components. What she really meant, of course, was that she didn’t want to lose Jurgen, whose unique talent would come in extremely handy if the heretics turned out to have a rogue psyker or two among them, something depressingly common where Chaos cults are concerned. And something I’d positively have welcomed, if I’d known how things were actually going to turn out.
‘At your service, as always,’ I said, as gallantly as I could, and probably not fooling anyone for a moment, least of all Amberley. I tapped my vox-bead. ‘Regina,’ I began, ‘it looks like I won’t be rejoining you for a while…’
TWENTY
Say what you like about the Inquisition – and plenty has certainly been said over the years[153] – they can certainly get things done. Within a couple of hours I found myself standing in one of the hangar bays on the highest level of the spire, poised between Fulcher’s mansion below and the not-quite vacuum of near space above (and to the sides if you’re going to be pedantic about it). We were in one of the larger commercial bays, although only three of the spaces marked on the floor (and partially obscured by scorch marks) were occupied: one by a shuttle the size of a drop-ship,[154] and two of the others by much smaller craft, which looked all the tinier for being loomed over by their titanic neighbour. One I’d seen a few times before, its sleek hull bearing the crest of the noble house Amberley’s favourite cover identity ostensibly belonged to, and effectively concealing the impressive array of lethal weaponry it carried. The other was an Aquila, as nondescript as most of its kind, apart from the holes in its hull to which a covey of cogboys were tending. Sparks were sputtering somewhere below the rents in its outer plating, which, combined with the number of fluids leaking from it, inclined me to remain as far away from the crippled vessel as possible.
‘Something gave that a pasting,’ Jurgen remarked, his usual aroma even more marked than usual, a sure sign that he was contemplating our imminent flight with the amount of enthusiasm he normally displayed for taking to the air. For once I was inclined to agree with him, the tight knot of tension forming in the pit of my stomach giving an extra twist as I tried not to picture the weapons which had made such a mess of the Aquila being turned in the direction of Amberley’s gig.
‘Our ship’s a lot tougher than that,’ Amberley said, with a faintly amused glance in my direction, no doubt divining the tenor of my thoughts.
‘Ready whenever you are, milady,’ the familiar voice of her personal shuttle pilot echoed through the vox-receiver in my ear, and Amberley nodded, with a hint of impatience.
‘We’ll be boarding any time now, Pontius. Just waiting for Flicker.’
‘Be right with you,’ Pelton’s voice cut in, right on cue. ‘Just coming into the hangar.’
‘Finally,’ Zemelda added, though not over the link – noticeably more testy since the analgesics had begun to wear off.
I turned towards the personnel door by which we’d entered the echoing vault of the cargo bay, intended for the use of crews and the occasional passenger, only to find nobody there apart from the demi-squad[155] of blue-and-gold-clad household guards slouching around trying to look as if they knew which end of their hellguns to point forwards. Their presence had come as no surprise this close to the gubernatorial mansion; indeed, I’d have been astonished if they hadn’t been there, although what use so few of them would have been against an eldar attempt to invest the summit of the spire was beyond me. Hold the xenos off for the handful of seconds it would take them to die in the attempt, probably, while Fulcher was whisked off to safety somewhere.
‘He’s over there,’ Rakel said, pointing, from the other side of our group, about as far away from Jurgen as she could get while still remaining in earshot. Since this was uncharacteristically short, pertinent and unburdened with peculiar metaphor – not to mention delivered in a voice which could strip the enamel from your teeth – I found myself turning in the direction she’d indicated. Somewhere in the middle distance a convoy of battered utility trucks was entering the hangar bay and rumbling towards the heavy cargo shuttle squatting on its pad.
‘Can you sense his presence?’ I asked, feeling faintly uncomfortable at the idea.
Rakel stared scornfully at me. ‘I’ve got eyes,’ she said. ‘And he’s waving.’
‘Second truck, sir,’ Jurgen added helpfully, and I squinted in the direction of the oncoming vehicles, finally spotting a civilian in the cab of the one he’d indicated. Everyone else in the convoy seemed to be wearing the blue-and-gold uniforms of Fulcher’s gubernatorial troops, and I must confess I felt a momentary panic at that sudden realisation, wondering if the eldar were about to breach the spire and these were hastily despatched reinforcements for the token guards I’d noticed before. A second or so later, though, reason reasserted itself and assured me that Kasteen or Broklaw would have voxed a warning long before the eldar got within striking distance of where we stood.
‘That’s a lot of cargo,’ Yanbel remarked, before returning his attention to the trio of heavy servitors trudging towards Amberley’s garish passenger shuttle laden with boxes and crates, stuffed with Throne knew what. Most of it, I strongly suspected, would turn out to be lethal, or otherwise useful in the hunting of heretics. The largest one – twice the size of the others and festooned with prayer slips hoping to attract the favourable attention of the Machine-God – I was certain contained Amberley’s precious suit of power armour, and felt considerably relieved that she would be taking it with us. Not quite as relieved as I would have been to have seen her wearing it, as there’s precious little in the confidence-boosting stakes to compare with a well-nigh invulnerable Valkyrie blazing away with a storm bolter standing between you and harm’s way, but under the circumstances I’d take what I could get.
‘Yes, it is,’ Amberley said thoughtfully, and tapped her comm-bead. ‘Flicker. What’s in those trucks?’
‘Relief supplies,’ Pelton’s voice replied, and her eyebrows rose a fraction, in carefully modulated surprise. ‘I interrupted a briefing at the mansion when I went to talk to Defroy. The orbitals only have limited food reserves, so the governor’s ordered supply runs to supplement the rationing.’
‘A token effort, with the maintenance of civilian morale as its primary objective, I strongly suspect,’ Mott put in, ‘given that, even fully laden, it would require several thousand flights of a vessel that size a day to keep a population of seventeen million adequately fed, not to mention that the attrition rate from enemy action would–’
‘You might very well think that,’ Pelton said dryly, ‘but I couldn’t possibly comment.’
‘Sounds about right to me,’ I said. The population of the orbitals was just a drop in the bucket[156] compared to the thirty billion or so distributed around the hives on the surface, but the role they played in Ironfound society was of an importance out of all proportion to their limited numbers. If I were Fulcher I’d be just as eager as he seemed to be to make sure no lingering sense of grievance at being abandoned by the surface dwellers was left behind once the war was over, as that sort of thing can snowball terrifyingly quickly, especially when the grudge is being held by people with their hands wrapped around your economic jugular. The last thing the Astra Militarum needed was to see off the eldar, only to be called back here in a decade or two to put down a popular uprising aboard the orbitals. ‘But it’s a much bigger target than the gig,’ I continued. ‘If we lift at the same time, with any luck it’ll attract enough of the eldar’s attention for us to sneak through while they’re otherwise occupied.’
‘A sound suggestion,’ Mott concurred, ‘which would raise the probability of us reaching the orbital unscathed to almost eight point seven per cent.’
‘Great,’ I said, wondering if it was too late to develop an unfortunate case of something mild but sufficiently debilitating to require being left behind on the ground, but by now that really wasn’t an option. Not if I wanted to maintain my fraudulent reputation, not to mention avoid the inevitable unpleasantness which would ensue if I disappointed Amberley. ‘I feel better already.’
Mott nodded. ‘Whereas,’ he continued, ‘if we remain in the centre of the group, and its fighter escort, the probability rises to something on the order of forty-eight per cent.’
‘Really?’ I said, unable to keep a soupçon of astonished surprise from inflecting my voice, despite my best efforts. I’d faced far worse odds than that and lived to tell the tale,[157] and felt a momentary surge of something dangerously close to optimism before I belatedly registered the rest of his comment. ‘What group and fighter escort?’
‘The other freighters making for the orbitals,’ Pelton said, strolling up to us with Defroy trotting a little anxiously at his heels. ‘There are about thirty leaving the hive for Skyside Seventeen at the same time. And General Porten’s found a squadron of Lightnings to provide a bit of cover.’
‘Then we’ll definitely take advantage of it,’ Amberley said, decisively. She tapped her comm-bead again. ‘Pontius, slight change of plan. We’re waiting–’ she glanced expectantly at Defroy, who, fortunately, grasped the situation at once.
‘They should finish loading in around twenty minutes,’ he said, sweating only about as much as people usually did when they were being noticed by an inquisitor. ‘This is the last load, and all they need to do is drive into the hold and secure the trucks–’
Amberley cut him off with a nod, and returned her attention to her vox-bead. ‘–no more than twenty minutes.’ Overhearing, Defroy began to look a little panicky. I certainly wasn’t going to envy the troopers under his command for the next quarter of an hour or so, that was for sure. ‘There’s a relief convoy heading in the same direction as us, so we might as well use it for cover.’
‘As you wish, milady,’ the pilot acknowledged, sounding a little disappointed at the prospect of having to make far fewer evasive manoeuvres than he’d been expecting. I didn’t know Pontius all that well, having met him on only a few occasions, and most of those as a disembodied voice from the flight deck, but I’d been aboard things he’d been flying often enough to know that his approach to piloting wasn’t that far removed from Jurgen’s approach to driving. Amberley seemed to have acquired his services in much the same haphazard fashion as the rest of her entourage (among which I included Jurgen and myself, at least in this context) – apparently from the Navy where, I gathered, he’d been something of a fighter ace, and still relished the chance to match reflexes with an enemy pilot whenever possible.[158]
‘I’m surprised to find you supervising a job like this in person,’ I remarked conversationally, trying to put Defroy as much at his ease as possible. Being around Amberley tended to rattle people, and rattled people make mistakes. Something I’m never keen on when I’m liable to be getting shot at soon, and other people’s mistakes could impede my ability to get out of harm’s way.
Defroy shrugged. ‘The governor likes people to notice who they’re supposed to be grateful to,’ he said. ‘Besides, the shipment will have to be guarded at the other end, and the planetary defence force have their hands full at the moment.’
‘That they do,’ I agreed, having seen as much for myself all too recently.
Defroy shot me an appraising look. ‘I must admit, I’m surprised to find you here too, commissar. Don’t you have a firing squad or something to organise back at your regiment?’
My smile became a little more fixed. ‘I have a great many duties to my regiment,’ I said carefully. ‘One of which is liaising with other Imperial authorities when required.’
