Choose Your Enemies, page 25
‘Welcome to Skyside Seventeen, inquisitor,’ he said, his voice quavering no more than people’s generally do when they’re not quite sure whether you’re going to shoot them or not. ‘To what do we owe–’
‘It’s not an honour, and you don’t owe me anything,’ Amberley said, cutting him off before he could get into the sort of rambling, cliché-ridden speech reluctant spokesmen tend to go in for, her voice growling like a Space Marine through the suit’s external speakers. ‘I need up-to-date schematics of the whole orbital, in as much detail as you can manage. My savant will know what to look for.’ Servos whined faintly, like summer insects, as she gestured Mott forward. The visor of her helmet was down, concealing her face, so only I was able to picture the mischievous grin I was certain lurked just behind the mask.
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ The aristo seized on the implied dismissal with alacrity. ‘If you’d care to come with me…’ he said, turning to Mott.
‘Not particularly, but the sooner I obtain the information, the sooner we can conclude our business,’ Mott said, adopting a rather less affable air than usual. He gestured to Vekkman, whose brown robe had probably let him fade far enough into the background to escape the notice of most of the assembled dignitaries entirely up to this point. ‘You too.’
Vekkman nodded, and fell into place at Mott’s side as the savant strode away in the wake of the nervously scurrying spokesman. We’d spent a few minutes discussing how best to get him out of the hangar and free to follow up his leads in the docking bays without being noticed, and acting the part of a minion seemed the best bet.
As soon as they’d gone, Amberley turned to the next in line, a middle-aged woman in the plainer garb of a senior Administratum functionary, who turned a distinct Jurgen-ish shade but, to her credit, stared up at the blank features of Amberley’s helmet as though looking her straight in the eye. ‘You. Where are the military people?’
The bureaucrat swallowed. ‘They’re all rather busy at the moment, inquisitor. Our senior commanders were invited to join us, of course, but regretfully declined the honour of meeting you, as they felt the security of the orbital came first.’ Which was quite diplomatically put, I thought.
‘Good. They were right,’ Amberley said, and the collective sigh of relief from the assembled functionaries practically blew my cap off. She stood aside a little, to bring me out from behind the shadow of her power suit, and everyone duly gawped at the Hero of the Imperium. ‘I’m sure you know Commissar Cain.’
‘We know of him, of course,’ the woman said, the reflexive pedanticism of a true bureaucrat apparently unquashed even in the presence of an inquisitor, ‘although none of us, I believe, has had the honour of making his acquaintance before now.’
‘My loss, I’m sure,’ I said, smiling affably, in a manner calculated to put everyone at their ease – or as close to it as possible while they were facing a power-armoured agent of the Inquisition backed up by a group of acolytes with visible guns, anyway. ‘I’m here to inspect your defences, and congratulate your local commanders on the splendid job they’re doing in holding the enemy at bay. Things would be a lot grimmer down on the ground if it wasn’t for their efforts, I can assure you.’ Which, of course, was the perfect line to take. Amberley had intimidated them, and now I was flattering them, at least by association, so between us we could mould them like a potter kneading clay.
‘Of course.’ The bureaucrat nodded eagerly, before her expression went back to one of apprehensive uncertainty. ‘That might take a little while to arrange, however.’
‘That’s quite all right,’ I said, although normally anyone making excuses like that would be getting pretty short shrift from me. One of the privileges of wearing the scarlet sash is that it lets you barge in anywhere, whenever you like, at least if you can claim some kind of military connection. Right now, though, I was perfectly happy to give the local militia a chance to hide any evidence of slack discipline, pilferage from the stores, or general incompetence of any kind; I had a different target in mind. If Defroy really was our heretic traitor, I wanted him where I could see him, preferably at the business end of my laspistol. ‘I take it I can leave the preparations in your capable hands?’
‘Indeed you can, commissar,’ the woman agreed, colouring slightly for some reason.[172]
‘Splendid,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, I’ll check in with the commander of the governor’s household guards. If you could point me in the direction of wherever they’ve docked?’
‘Of course.’ She gestured towards the portal through which Mott, Vekkman and their reluctant guide had disappeared a few moments ago. ‘You’ll need the pneumatic at the end of the corridor. They’ll be in sector cerulean taupe, in the third tier docking bay.’
‘You seem very certain of that,’ I said, keeping my tone conversational despite a shiver of unease. ‘Given the number of vessels which have just docked.’ She might have the same kind of augmented cerebellum that Mott did, of course, but so far had shown none of the tendency to compulsive loghorrea that I associated with that kind of enhancement. Any normal person shouldn’t have known that without looking it up.
‘If it’s anything to do with the governor, that’s where it’ll be,’ the woman assured me. ‘The nearest docking bay to his Skyside estates.’
‘Of course.’ I nodded, a fragment of memory seeping into my skull. Herren had referred to it in passing, trying to track the eldar Vypers which had so unexpectedly saved my life. ‘And we are in…?’
‘Sector vermillion beige,’ she said. ‘Everywhere’s colour coded, so you should find your way without too much difficulty.’ She looked at me speculatively. ‘Unless you’re colour blind?’
‘I don’t believe so,’ I said, with a smile I thought an appropriate response to the laboured attempt at humour. ‘I should be fine, unless you’ve got a sector beige taupe. I’ve always had trouble telling those two apart.’
‘I think everybody does,’ the woman said.
I turned to my aide, who was looking as healthy as he ever did now we were no longer being bounced around like a pea in a can. ‘Jurgen?’
‘Is he with you?’ The tone of surprise in the bureaucrat’s voice was unmistakable. ‘I thought he was one of the inquisitor’s people.’
‘My personal aide,’ I said, ‘and a credit to his uniform.’ Which, admittedly, was stretching it a bit, especially since clothing didn’t so much fit him as hang around in his general vicinity.
‘Ready when you are, sir,’ Jurgen assured me. He had the melta slung across his shoulders for ease of carrying but, I was pleased to see, kept his lasgun where he could swing it round and open fire with it at a moment’s notice.
‘Then we’d best get on,’ I said, making a show of bowing formally to Amberley. ‘By your leave, inquisitor.’
‘By all means, commissar,’ she responded, the hint of amusement at the charade colouring her voice audible only to me (and possibly the members of her warband, who also knew her well).
Leaving the docking bay, Jurgen and I found ourselves in a wide, stark corridor, both sides of which were lined at intervals by heavy pressure doors leading to hangar bays like the one we’d arrived in. Well over half of them were empty, the parked ships in the occupied ones lonely and abandoned, save for the occasional enginseer performing routine maintenance on them, or bored-looking crew members keeping a desultory eye on their charges. Usually, no doubt, the wide passageway we walked along would have been crowded with shuttle crews leaving or returning to their ships, dock workers hustling cargoes in and out of the bays, along with the odd servitor to handle the heavy lifting, trollies and grav-sleds trundling down the marked lane in the middle of the floor and, almost certainly, the occasional low life keeping an eye out for something to pilfer. The relatively few people we did meet seemed intent on their own business, although a few turned to watch us go past, their eyes apparently caught by the unusual sight of my uniform, or the weapons Jurgen was carrying.
‘I suppose this must be the pneumatic whatsername was talking about,’ I said, as we came to the end of the corridor after several minutes of walking. I’d been fairly certain we were going in the right direction, as variously coloured arrows adorned the walls at intervals, and there hadn’t been anywhere else to go in any case. Now the passageway opened out into a large, circular chamber, where others joined it; the space was crowded with a number of metal tubes of various diameters which pierced the floor and ceiling, like a necron’s idea of a forest. Some were wide enough to have parked a small vehicle in, no doubt intended for the efficient movement of cargo, while others were evidently for the use of passengers.
‘This one, I think, sir,’ Jurgen said, indicating a medium-sized one decorated with several arrows, all bisected along their lengths into two colours. One did indeed look bluish and greyish, which I supposed was close enough to cerulean taupe.
‘Only one way to find out,’ I said, jabbing at the rune to open the thick, curving door. For a moment nothing happened, then a loud rumbling shook the metal tube. As it died away, the door slid open with a faint hiss, admitting us to a cylindrical inner chamber. I stepped inside, finding a panel mounted on the wall next to the doorway, with a number of arrows inset in it, their particoloured decoration matching those on the outside to which Jurgen had so recently drawn my attention. The next step was obvious, so I prodded the blue and grey one and hoped for the best.
The door clanked closed, sealing with a thud, then the whole contraption shifted, with a loud hissing noise as the air pressure built up on one side. Then, with a lurch – and a surge of acceleration which left me feeling as though my kneecaps were suddenly level with my ears – we were off, bouncing and rattling so much I began to feel nostalgic for the dogfight we’d so recently come through. It seemed to me that we jolted through several junctions and changes of direction, but the internal grav-plates kept us orientated in the same plane throughout our journey, so it was hard to be sure. All I could be certain of was that it only took about five minutes to reach our destination, and we arrived there with a sudden jerk which almost dislodged the cap from my head.
‘I suppose you’d get used to it,’ Jurgen commented, his usual phlegmatic demeanour now well and truly restored, and I nodded, adjusting my headgear to a more dignified position.
‘I imagine you would,’ I agreed, although if I lived around here and I had the time, I’d probably walk as much as I could. Before either of us could comment any further, however, the door of the capsule hissed open, and we were struck by the noise and bustle of a busy commercial docking zone. ‘Looks like the right place, anyway.’
Jurgen nodded, and we stepped out of the transport tube with, I must confess, a certain sense of relief, at least on my part. It was one of several, at the confluence of a quartet of corridors far wider and higher than the one we’d walked down after leaving the hangar bay in which we’d arrived, all of which were full of traffic. Some of the tubes were larger than any we’d seen before; as we stepped hurriedly aside, a lorry growled past us and on through the open door of one of these, in which it parked. A moment later the door hissed closed, and it was whisked away Emperor knew where.
‘That looks like one of the trucks Pelton got a lift with,’ Jurgen remarked, and I nodded, having come to the same conclusion – which was confirmed almost at once, as a new capsule arrived in place of the recent departure and disgorged another utility vehicle displaying the gubernatorial crest. This one was riding noticeably higher on its springs, indicating that its load had been delivered and it was on its way back for another.
‘This way,’ I said, setting out after it through the maelstrom of people, servitors and vehicles arriving and departing all around us, mostly heavily laden. If this wasn’t where the majority of the relief ships had ended up, it was clear that a reasonable number had docked in this part of the orbital, and the supplies they’d brought with them were now well on the way to where they were supposed to be. Most of them, anyway; some degree of pilferage was inevitable, but I saw a fair number of blue-and-gold uniforms keeping an eye on things, so at least that would be kept to a minimum.
Despite the confusion surrounding us we managed to make reasonable progress through the crowd, which parted with gratifying ease, possibly because of the visible weapons we carried, and possibly because most people tended to give Jurgen a wide berth whenever they could, even at the best of times. That made it easy to keep the truck we followed in sight, and mark which hangar it disappeared into even at a distance of over a hundred metres.
In most respects, the docking bays and their servicing corridors were pretty much identical to the ones we’d so recently left, other than their far greater size. Even so, the huge transport vessel almost filled the one to which it had been assigned, the engines of the trucks scuttling up and down the loading ramps creating so many echoes it felt like walking into a tympani.
‘There’s Commander Defroy, sir,’ Jurgen said, pointing a grubby finger, and I nodded, setting out across the deck plates towards him, my aide, as always, at my side. ‘Who’s he talking to?’
‘I can’t tell at this distance,’ I said, narrowing my eyes in an attempt to make it out. Whoever it was, they were wearing the blue-and-gold uniform of a household trooper, although something about their posture seemed subtly wrong. Their bearing looked distinctly unmilitary, not nearly deferential enough for someone addressing an officer of Defroy’s exalted rank, and they were holding their hellgun as though they barely knew how to lift it, let alone use it.
‘It’s one of those guards who nearly missed the shuttle,’ Jurgen said, his voice freighted with scorn. ‘Did you ever see such a disgrace to a military uniform?’
‘Not that I can recall,’ I said carefully, reflecting that, as usual, Jurgen and irony wouldn’t recognise one another if they were formally introduced. He was right, though; now he came to mention it the fellow did look vaguely familiar, even though the slightly oversized helmet he was wearing obscured most of his features. ‘But no doubt Defroy’s straightening him out.’
‘Looks more like the other way round to me,’ Jurgen said, with a trace of puzzlement, and once again, I was forced to agree; the sloppy soldier was talking now, with some vehemence, but instead of reacting angrily to such a blatant display of insubordination Defroy was merely nodding. ‘Perhaps you should show him how it ought to be done.’
‘Maybe I should,’ I agreed, although the little tickle of paranoia which has done so much to keep me out of trouble[173] over the years was urging me to be cautious. We were here, after all, because I wasn’t sure how much we could trust Defroy. If he was part of a Chaos cult we needed to proceed carefully, without tipping our hand, and appearing to question his fitness for command wouldn’t sit too well with that.
‘Commander.’ I raised my voice above the cacophony with the ease of years of practice, and lifted a hand in greeting. Defroy and the trooper broke off their conversation, both turning to look at me with expressions of bemused surprise. ‘I trust you came through the engagement unscathed?’
‘Yes. Yes, we did,’ Defroy said, adjusting rapidly to my presence. ‘No one hurt, apart from a few bruises.’
‘And your cargo?’ I asked. ‘Any problems with that?’
‘All delivered safe and sound,’ the trooper said, cutting in with a disregard for the military protocols which elicited a sharp intake of breath from Jurgen – for whom they were tantamount to the word of the Emperor Himself – and which, I must confess, took me somewhat by surprise as well. There was something familiar about his voice, however, and I hesitated, trying to place it, rather than jumping in to reprimand him at once. The fellow went on. ‘Food supplies are being offloaded now, and transferred to the warehouses.’
‘Which just leaves a few things to take to the governor’s estate,’ Defroy said, in the sort of voice people use when they’re trying to hint that the person they’re talking to should be quiet and frak off now, without saying so in so many words.
‘Like what?’ I asked, feeling a distinct sense of unease. ‘I thought this was supposed to be a purely humanitarian effort. Apart from the booby traps, of course.’
Defroy nodded. ‘Yes, that was a surprise. No one on the governor’s staff had been told about that.’
‘Not even me.’ The trooper lifted off his helmet, and smiled a greeting. ‘I’m still not sure whether to congratulate them on being able to keep a secret so well, or be miffed with them for keeping me out of the loop.’
‘Perhaps a little of both, your excellency,’ I said, keeping any astonishment I might feel at suddenly finding myself face-to-face with the governor from becoming visible. ‘After all, under the circumstances, they might very well say the same.’
Fulcher nodded. ‘Quite so,’ he agreed, with a faint air of self-satisfaction.
TWENTY-FOUR
‘The governor’s here?’ Amberley said, her puzzlement and irritation audible even over the vox-link. ‘What the hell for?’
‘Security, Defroy says,’ I told her, the scepticism I felt seeping into my own voice despite my best efforts to report back as neutrally as I could. ‘Since their investigation’s still stalled, and no one’s managed to work out how the assassin got into the governor’s mansion on Ironfound yet, they decided to move him to his Skyside estate.’
‘Why wait so long, then?’ Amberley asked – rhetorically I hoped, as I hadn’t a clue myself. ‘And running an enemy blockade to a void station smack in the firing line seems a peculiar way of trying to keep anyone safe.’
‘That was Fulcher’s idea, apparently,’ I replied, trying not to think too much about the ‘smack in the firing line’ part of what she’d just said. ‘The last place anyone trying to target him would think to look, or try to get to.’ I glanced around, making sure Defroy and Fulcher were still both out of earshot, which fortunately they were, being engrossed in conversation again at the foot of the heavy shuttle’s loading ramp. The steady stream of trucks rumbling up and down it had diminished to a trickle by now, although they were still making enough noise to afford me the opportunity to contact Amberley with little chance of being overheard. Even less so with Jurgen standing watch behind me, his presence obvious even out of my line of sight.
