Hero of the Imperium, page 23
‘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.
‘Something’s moving,’ Sorel said. Thanks to his sharpshooter training, he’d kept his eye on the tau position ever since he’d first spotted them, even despite the order to disengage. As I strained my eyes through the murk, and the drifting smoke which was beginning to make them itch and to catch at my chest, I could see vaguely humanoid figures begin to take form.
At first, there were only the tau, their distinctive fatigues and hardshell body armour dulled with black and grey camouflage patterns ideally suited to blending into the shadows of this dusty labyrinth. Their faces were obscured by visored helmets – ocular lenses where the features should have been – which gave them a blank, robotic look. That brought back uncomfortable memories,45 and I shuddered involuntarily. Usually, even xenos have expressions you can read, but those impassive visages gave nothing away about either their mood or their intentions.
Behind them padded a trio of kroot, three faces I would have been quite happy to have had obscured. As they entered the cavern, one of them sniffed the air, its head turning in my direction, then to my distinct unease, walked directly towards me.
Amberley continued to hiss and aspirate at the tau, one of whom had stepped out at the head of the half-dozen troopers. I conjectured, rightly, as it later turned out, that this was the leader of the group. I knew nothing of the language, of course, but I’d heard enough of it spoken to realise that things weren’t going well.
‘Inquisitor?’ I asked, raising my voice slightly and trying to sound calm as the kroot padded closer, ‘is there a problem?’
‘They seem reluctant to trust us,’ Amberley said shortly, and returned to the negotiations.
‘Anything I can do to help?’ I persisted. The kroot was almost on top of me now, and I couldn’t help noticing the combat blades attached to its peculiar long-barrelled weapon were stained with blood. A vivid mental picture of the eviscerated woman we’d discovered, and how those wounds had been caused, rose up in my mind.
‘None of them speak Gothic,’ Amberley snapped, not needing to add, ‘so shut up and let me get on with it,’ because her tone did it for her.
‘Then how were they expecting to interrogate any prisoners?’ Velade asked, before reaching the obvious conclusion, and trailing off with a sudden ‘Oh!’ of realisation.
‘That would be my function, should the situation require it,’ the kroot said, in the familiar combination of clicks and whistles I’d heard before. ‘I’m pleased to find you in good health, Commissar Cain.’
Well, you’re probably thinking I’m pretty dense not to have recognised Gorok straight away, but you should bear all the circumstances in mind. It was dark, we’d just been in the middle of a firefight, and why in the galaxy should I have expected him to be there in the first place? Besides, unless you’re very close to them, kroot look remarkably alike. At least with orks you’ve got the scars to help tell them apart, in the unlikely event that you’d ever have to.
His use of my name had an immediate, and somewhat gratifying, effect on the tau, whose heads snapped round to stare at me. Then the leader turned back to Amberley, and asked something. Gorok made the peculiar clicking laughter-equivalent I’d heard before.
‘The shas’ui is asking if it is really you,’ he translated with evident amusement. I gathered that ‘shas’ui’ was some sort of rank, roughly equivalent to a sergeant or officer, and he meant the tau in charge.
‘I was the last time I looked,’ I said. Gorok clicked again, and translated the remark into tau, which he seemed to have mastered as thoroughly as Gothic. (I found it curious that so feral a creature should appear to be so educated, and questioned him about it later. He claimed to have learned both during his career as a mercenary in order to facilitate negotiations with his employers. Needless to say, I found the notion that he’d served alongside imperial troops somewhat hard to believe.46)
Amberley said something, apparently confirming my identity, and the shas’ui looked in our direction. His next words were clearly addressed to me. I bowed formally to him.
‘At your service,’ I said.
‘He states that your service to the greater good is remembered with gratitude,’ Gorok translated helpfully. ‘El’sorath remains in good health.’
‘Pleased to hear it,’ I said, tactfully refraining from hoping out loud that El’hassai wasn’t. Amberley seized on the opening, and began speaking rapidly again. After a few more exchanges, the tau fire-team, or ‘shas’la’47 as they called themselves, withdrew to confer together in muttered undertones. Quite pointless really, as only Amberley had a clue what they were saying and she’d already heard it, but it was an oddly human gesture which I found vaguely reassuring.
‘That was a lucky break,’ she said. ‘They weren’t inclined to believe me at first. But apparently they think they can trust you.’
Well, more fool them, I thought, but of course I had more sense than to say it out loud. I just nodded judiciously.
‘That’s all well and good,’ I said. ‘But can we trust them?’ Amberley nodded slowly.
‘That’s a good question,’ she said. ‘But right now I don’t think we’ve got the option.’
‘Begging your pardon, miss,’ Jurgen coughed deferentially to attract her attention. ‘But did they happen to mention what they’re doing down here?’
‘The same as us,’ Amberley said. ‘Following a lead.’ My paranoia started twitching at that one, you can be sure.
‘What kind of a lead?’ I asked. But it was Gorok who answered.
‘The intelligence reports provided by Governor Grice, as he agreed after the assassination of Ambassador Shui’sassai, made mention of a violent pro-Imperial group meeting in these tunnels. It was felt that further investigation was merited.’
‘Did they indeed?’ Amberley looked thoughtful, and in a way which boded ill for the governor.
‘I take it that this is the first you’ve heard of it,’ I said. She nodded.
‘You take it correctly. But it’s not entirely out of the question that such a group exists.’ Her eyes went back to the dead woman with the xenoist braid, and clouded thoughtfully.
‘I don’t understand,’ Jurgen said, frowning with the effort of concentration. ‘If the governor knew about something like that, why tell the tau and not the Inquisition?’
‘Because the tau could eliminate them for him without having to admit to his own weakness in allowing such a group to get established,’ I suggested. Amberley nodded.
‘Or to consolidate his position with the xenos if he really was planning to hand the planet over to them.’ She shrugged. ‘Doesn’t really matter. Incompetence or treachery, he’s dead meat now whatever his motives.’ The casual way she said it dripped ice water down my spine.
While we were talking, the tau had concluded their own deliberations, and came over to join us, the other two kroot in tow. The shas’ui said something, and Gorok translated it.
‘Your proposal is acceptable,’ he said. ‘It would appear to serve the greater good.’
