Hero of the Imperium, page 24
‘What proposal?’ Kelp asked, an edge in his voice. Amberley stared at him for a moment until he subsided.
‘It appears our objectives are the same,’ she said. ‘So we’re joining forces. At least until we know what we’re up against down here.’
‘Makes sense,’ I agreed. ‘I’d rather have those plasma guns on our side than shooting at us.’ Now I came to look at one close up they were surprisingly compact, no larger than a lasgun, but the amount of firepower they could put out wasn’t to be sniffed at.
‘Team up with the bluies?’ Kelp was outraged. ‘You can’t be serious! That’s... That’s blasphemy!’
‘That’s what the inquisitor wants. Live with it.’ Trebek exchanged glares with him for a moment, until Amberley intervened.
‘Thank you, Bella. As you so helpfully point out, my decisions are not requests.’ She raised her voice a little, so all the troopers could hear. ‘We’re moving out. Anyone who objects is welcome to stay behind. Of course, the commissar will have to execute them before we leave to maintain operational security.’ She smiled at me. ‘I think it’s very motivating for people to feel they have a choice, don’t you?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said, wondering just how many more ways she’d find to surprise me before the day was over.
So we formed up, the tau leading, which was fine by me – let them soak up any fire from the ambushers I was sure would be lurking in the dark ahead of us – then our motley group of troopers. Jurgen took the whole business as phlegmatically as he did everything else, but I could see Kelp wasn’t the only one with reservations about our new alliance. Warp only knows, I had my share too, but then I’m paranoid about everything (which in my job is the only prudent state of mind.) Velade and Holenbi kept a wary eye on the xenos, particularly the kroot, which really spooked them. Hidden under their armour, and their faces concealed by helmets, the tau might almost have passed for human if it hadn’t been for the finger missing from each hand, but the kroot just looked like bad luck waiting for someone to happen to. Trebek professed to be entirely comfortable with the inquisitor’s decision, but I suspected that was more to bait Kelp than from any sense of conviction. Only Sorel seemed completely at ease.
I turned to Kelp as we began to file out of the chamber.
‘Coming?’ I asked, my hand resting lightly on the butt of my laspistol. After a moment he fell in with the others, his eyes burning, but I’ve been glared at by experts, so I just returned the favour and waited for him to blink.
To my surprise, Gorok joined me at the rear of the column, but then I don’t suppose there would have been much point in the interpreter being out of earshot of the monoglots. His companions were at the front, loping along next to the shas’ui, and as I watched their easy gait something struck me.
‘I can’t see a wound,’ I said. ‘Which kroot did Sorel shoot?’
‘Kakkut,’ he said, ‘of the Dorapt clan. A fine tracker. Died quickly.’ He seemed remarkably matter-of-fact about it. ‘Your marksman is commendably skilled.’
Sorel, overhearing, looked quietly pleased at the compliment.
We proceeded onwards and downwards in an uneasy silence, weapons at the ready, although truth to tell, I suspect both parties would have been just as happy to use them on each other than on the mysterious enemy we still seemed no closer to identifying. We were making better time now, though, the tau appearing to have some way of seeing in the dark. They certainly had no visible luminators, so I assumed the lenses on the front of their helmets enabled them to see in some way I couldn’t quite comprehend. The kroot had no need of visual aids of any kind, slinking through the dark as though they were born to it. Maybe they were, who knows.
A muffled whisper from the lead tau brought everyone else to a halt – or to be more accurate, the tau stopped, and the rest of us ran into the back of them.
‘What is it?’ I asked. Amberley listened for a moment.
‘Turn off your luminators,’ she ordered. I complied, but not without some misgivings. I didn’t trust our own troopers where I could see them, let alone in the dark, and as for the xenos... But she was an inquisitor after all, and I assumed she knew what she was doing.
I’d closed my eyes before dousing the light, so I knew they’d adjust quickly when I opened them again, but even so, the few moments it took were unnerving. I waited in the shrouding darkness, listening to the rapid beat of my heart, and tried to distinguish the other sounds around me: the scrape of boot soles against the floor, the muffled clinking of weapons and equipment, and the susurrus of a dozen pairs of lungs. The air felt warm and thick against my face, and I remember being obscurely grateful for Jurgen’s distinctive odour, which was no more pleasant than usual but at least felt reassuringly familiar.
Gradually, I began to distinguish shapes in the gloom around me, and became aware of a faint background glow in the distance ahead of us.
‘Lights,’ Jurgen whispered. ‘Someone’s down here.’ One of the tau said something in an urgent undertone.
‘There are sentries,’ Amberley translated quietly. ‘The kroot will deal with them.’
‘But how can they see?’ Velade asked, confusion obvious even in the undertone.
‘We don’t have to,’ Gorok assured her, and a swirl of displaced air at my elbow told me he was gone. With my eyes now adjusted to the darkness, I could see three faint shadows against the faint light in the distance, and abruptly, they vanished.
A moment later there were a few muffled cries abruptly cut off, the sounds of a scuffle, and the unmistakable crack of snapping bone. Then the silence descended again, to be broken by a muffled whisper from the tau sergeant.
‘All clear,’ Amberley assured us, and we scurried forward towards the light, which now seemed cosy and welcoming despite the potential threat it represented. It wasn’t all that bright really, just the first in a chain of low-powered glowglobes embedded in the ceiling with long stretches of shadow between them, but after the darkness it seemed positively effulgent.
Just beyond the first of them, a makeshift barricade had been erected across the corridor, which gave on to a slightly wider chamber beyond, narrowing the way to the width of a single man.
‘It looks like a checkpoint,’ Trebek said, and Kelp snorted loudly.
‘What was your first clue?’ he asked.
She was right, though, the obstruction was clearly meant more to regulate traffic than to keep intruders out; presumably that had been the job of the contingent further back, until the tau had relieved them of the responsibility. Otherwise it would have been sited with a great deal more care, and I mentioned as much to Amberley.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, which told me that whatever else they know, inquisitors tend not to think like soldiers.48
‘It’s in the illuminated area,’ I pointed out. ‘If they were seriously expecting intruders, they would have placed their pickets forward, in the dark, where their eyes would adjust and they’d be able to see down the corridor. As it is, they can’t see anything from here outside the pool of light.’
‘Which greatly assisted us in gaining the element of surprise,’ Gorok added helpfully. Reminded of his presence, I turned just in time to see him bend down and take a large bite out of the human corpse lying at his feet. Bile rose in my throat, and the troopers muttered anxiously, or vented expletives of disgust. Kelp started to bring his hellgun to bear, then thought better of it.
The tau, I noticed, all seemed to be looking somewhere else as their allies began their obscene meal, as though they were equally disgusted but too polite to mention it. Then, to my even greater surprise, Gorok spat the gobbet of meat out, and I was reminded of the similar thing we’d seen before. He rattled off something in his native tongue, and the other kroot dropped their potential snacks too.
‘What in the Emperor’s name was all that about?’ I whispered to Amberley, but she just shrugged.
‘Sorry, I don’t speak kroot.’ Gorok’s hearing must have been preternaturally acute, though, at least by human standards, because he answered me.
‘Tainted, like the others.’ He made a sound I took to be indicative of disgust.
‘Tainted, how?’ Amberley asked. Gorok spread his hands, a curiously human gesture for an alien, which I assumed he’d picked up from whoever had taught him Gothic.
‘It is the...’ He lapsed into kroot for a few whistles and clicks. ‘There’s no exact equivalent in your tongue which I know. The twisted molecules which replicate...’
‘The genes? DNA?’ Amberley asked. Gorok cocked his head on one side, apparently considering it, and asked one of the tau a question in that language. ‘Something similar,’ he said at last. ‘The tau know of it too, but not as we do.’
‘You’re trying to tell me you can taste their DNA?’ I asked incredulously. Gorok cocked his head again.
‘Not exactly. As you lack the ability, it would be like describing colour to a blind man. But I am a shaper, and I can perceive such things.’
‘And their genes are tainted.’ Amberley nodded to herself, as though it confirmed something she suspected, and a terrible realisation hit me. The nagging memories of some previous campaign, our conversation at the palace the first time we met; suddenly I knew what she expected to find down here, and it was all I could do not to turn on my heels and run, screaming, for the surface.
Editorial Note:
Despite my misgivings about the style, or, more accurately, lack of it, I feel it would be helpful to insert the only eyewitness account of the mobilisation of the 597th I’ve been able to locate at this point. Readers with a refined appreciation for the Gothic language may prefer to skip this section. For those of you who wish to persevere, my apologies.
Extracted from Like a Phoenix From the Flames: The Founding of the 597th, by General Jenit Sulla (retired), 097.M42
Imagine, if you can, the awful sense of futility which hung over us in those darkest of days. As the city we were here to protect burned around us, the flames of our impatience blazed no less furiously in our breasts. For here we were, sworn warriors of the Blessed Emperor, enjoined we knew not why to step back from the fray which every woman and man of us yearned to enter. Yet we stayed our hand, grim duty no less inflexible for being unwelcome, for had we not sworn to obey? And obey we did, despite the anguish we all felt at our enforced inaction, until at last the lord general gave the order to mobilise.
I think I can truly speak for all when I say that at the news that our regiment, newly born, all but untried, was to take the lead in this magnificent endeavour, our hearts swelled within us, borne aloft on the wings of pride, and a determination to show that the lord general’s confidence had not been bestowed upon us in vain.
As I led my platoon to our Chimeras, I could see the whole regiment lined up and battle-ready for the first time, and a sight to stir the blood it truly was. Dozens of engines rumbled, and our sentinels formed up alongside us. I noticed that Captain Shambas was smiling broadly as he checked the heavy flamer mounted on his doughty steed, and I paused to exchange a few words with him.
‘I love the smell of promethium in the morning,’ he said, and I nodded, understanding the urge he felt to unleash the cleansing fire of retribution against the Emperor’s enemies.
As I mounted my command Chimera and took my accustomed place in the top turret, I kept turning my head hoping for a glimpse of the legendary Commissar Cain, the man whose courage and martial zeal was an inspiration to us all, and whose dedication and selflessness had turned us from an ill-disciplined rabble into a crack fighting unit that even the lord general deemed worthy of notice; but he was nowhere to be seen, no doubt even then bestowing the benefit of his wisdom on those entrusted with ensuring our final victory. Indeed, as the Emperor willed it, I wasn’t to set eyes on him until that final climactic confrontation which lives on in the annals of honour to this day. At length, Colonel Kasteen took to her own Chimera, and gave the eagerly awaited order to advance.
A stirring sight we must have been as we moved out, to the cheers and envious glances of less fortunate regiments. Beyond the perimeter, however, I must admit that my spirits were somewhat dampened by the devastation which met our eyes. Hollow-eyed civilians gazed at us from the ruins of their homes, and curses and lumps of masonry were frequently thrown in our direction. Fruitless to protest that this wilderness of desolation was none of our doing, for they had every right to expect protection from the tau invaders, and we had left them bereft. Everywhere wreckage burned, and the bodies were scattered in profusion – many in the uniform of the PDF, some modified with strips of blue cloth to proclaim their allegiance to the alien despoilers. Naught had it benefited them though, and they had reaped the just reward of all turncoats; but whether at the hands of their more loyal fellows or the interlopers they had sought to appease, His Divine Majesty alone knew.
Of the tau themselves we saw little sign, save, on occasion, a rounded tank hull hovering ominously at the end of a street, or a swiftly darting dreadnought keeping pace with us for a block or two. For the most part, however, they seemed content to watch us through the eyes of their aerial pictcasters, which floated like flying plates above the rooftops or flitted around our vehicles like flies around grox. Had it not been for our orders, I’m certain that many would have been downed by our sharpshooters; but however intolerable they found this provocation, not one of our stout-hearted cohort broke faith by opening fire.
It was only as we approached the precincts of the governor’s palace that the resistance we’d expected truly began, and it was of a kind we were ill-prepared to face, and had no reason to expect.
THIRTEEN
‘Taking the long view is all well and prudent, but take care that you don’t become so preoccupied with it that you miss what’s right under your nose.’
– Precepts of Saint Emelia,
Chapter XXXIV, Verse XII.
We pressed on, even more warily now if that were possible, because it was obvious from the presence and layout of the checkpoint that we were somewhere deep inside the perimeter of the enemy encampment. The tau took the lead again, which was fine by me, as whatever sensor gear they had inside those odd-shaped helmets of theirs seemed a good deal more reliable than Amberley’s auspex. She’d consulted it a few more times since it had failed to detect our alien companions, but after Gorok’s announcement and my panic-stricken deduction of what we truly faced, I wasn’t expecting anything more from it. Of course, some of the enemy down here might still be sufficiently human to register on the thing, but I’d be a damn sight more worried about the ones that weren’t. So I relied on my eyes and ears, and dropped back far enough to voice my fears to Amberley where the others were unlikely to overhear us.
‘This isn’t what you were expecting to find, is it?’ I asked, trying desperately to keep my voice calm. Even so, it seemed to be rising in pitch to an alarming degree. Amberley looked at me with her usual appearance of cheery good humour, which I was beginning to suspect was as much a mask as my own attempt at professional detachment.
‘To be honest, no,’ she admitted. ‘I thought we were just after some run-of-the-mill insurrectionists when we came down here. If we’re right, this changes things a bit.’
A damn sight more than a bit so far as I was concerned, but I wasn’t about to be out-cooled by anyone, so I just nodded agreement as though I was considering our options carefully.
‘I can’t get a message back to command,’ I said. ‘We’ve come too deep.’ All I’d been able to raise on my combead for some time was static. I looked at her hopefully. ‘Unless you’ve got something more powerful?’
‘’Fraid not.’ She shook her head, apparently only mildly put out by the inconvenience. ‘So I guess we’re on our own.’
‘I could take Jurgen and backtrack a bit,’ I suggested. ‘Try to get a message through at least. The lord general should be informed of our suspicions right away. If we’re right, we need a couple of regiments down here, not half a squad and a handful of xenos.’
‘I appreciate the offer, Ciaphas.’ She looked at me with those wide blue eyes, a twinkle of amusement in the back of them, and I felt suddenly sure that she could read my true intentions with ease. ‘But at the moment, suspicion is all we have. If we’re wrong,’ and I hoped to the Emperor we were, ‘mobilising that number of troops would only undermine our truce with the tau.’
‘And if we’re right, chances are none of us will survive to warn him,’ I said. ‘I’ve done this before, remember?’
‘I’ve had a little experience with aliens too,’ she reminded me, and I suddenly realised I was all but arguing with an inquisitor. That was a sobering thought, and I shut up fast. Amberley smiled at me again. ‘But you do have a point. As soon as we have confirmation one way or the other, we’ll pull back.’ That was something at least. I nodded my agreement.
‘I think that would be prudent. Even with the xenos’ firepower we wouldn’t stand much of a chance otherwise.’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She smiled again, to herself this time, as though she knew something I didn’t. (Which she did, of course, but she was an inquisitor after all, so I guess she was supposed to.) ‘We might have a bit of an edge ourselves.’ She was glancing at Jurgen as she said it, and I remember thinking one melta gun wasn’t going to make all that much of a difference. But of course, it did in the end, and that wasn’t the edge she’d been thinking of in any case.
We’d gone on for maybe another three kilometres when the shas’ui held up his curious malformed hand for silence. Over the last couple of hours we’d become quite adept at reading the non-verbal signals of our alien companions, although none of us were really at ease with them. Kelp at least looked as though he was just waiting for an excuse to open fire, and much as I disliked the man, I had to admit that he probably had a point. Xenos were xenos after all, and even though we were supposed to be on the same side at the moment, I knew from bitter experience that any such alliances could only be temporary, and were liable to be bloodily severed without warning at any time.
