For The Emperor, page 26
‘Emperor be praised!’ I breathed, my head still reeling with incomprehension, but grateful for this apparent miracle. I should have known better, of course; that moment of distraction almost cost me my life, and surely would have done if Jurgen hadn’t shouted a warning.
‘Commissar! Behind you!’
I turned, expecting another foe to be charging in, and swung the chainsword in a reflexive defensive pattern. That surely saved my life, for instead of a cultist or a purestrain, which would have been bad enough, I came face to face with a creature from the worst of nightmares. (Or, to be more accurate, face to belly, as it was at least twice the height of a man.) It was a twisted, grotesque, vast, bloated parody of a genestealer, and the whining blade bit deep into the arm which would surely have ripped my head off if it hadn’t been for Jurgen’s shouted warning. It howled then, in anger and pain, and I was fighting desperately for my life.
‘It’s the patriarch!’ Amberley yelled, as though I didn’t know; from the corner of my eye, I could see her levelling the bolt pistol, waiting for an opening, but I was blocking her shot. I tried to twist out of the way, leaving room for her to aim, but the flailing multiple limbs of my bloated antagonist had me boxed in, and it was all I could do to keep parrying frantically with the chainsword as it swung one talon-tipped arm after another at me. This, then, was the source of the cancer which had infected Gravalax, the centre of the brood mind which the cultists shared, the instrument of the will of the tyranid overmind which had sought to devour the sector unopposed by playing us off against the tau.
‘Die, damn you!’ I tried to bring my pistol to bear, but couldn’t spare the concentration from the more urgent requirement to stay alive for the next few seconds, my entire attention on ducking, blocking, searching for an opening–
Amberley’s bolt pistol barked at last, and for an instant I thought I was saved, but the patriarch fought on unharmed, and I realised she was keeping the cultists off my back. They were swarming out of the shadows now, desperate to help their sire, and closing fast. The only mercy was that the ones with guns couldn’t use them, for fear of hitting the monster I battled.
Sorel had no such inhibitions, however; a chunk of chitin on the creature’s head suddenly burst into bloody fragments, and it roared again, but barely staggered, its natural armour proof against a conventional las-bolt. It was momentarily distracted, though, and I was able to get a good cut across its belly at last. It staggered, thick, foul-smelling ichor beginning to leak from the wound, then came at me again with renewed fury. Seeing that the creature was invulnerable Sorel switched his aim, and began taking down the cultists who were trying to get to me, while Amberley continued to do the same.
‘Hold on, commissar!’ Jurgen was running down the stairs, his melta readied, and I prayed to the Emperor that he wasn’t going to try a shot from there as I’d never survive it. But he had more sense than that, at least.
‘Sorel!’ Amberley called. ‘Clear a path for Jurgen!’ The two of them began to concentrate their fire on the cultists between my aide and the desperate battle I still fought. I sprang back a fraction too late and felt talons scrape my ribs, ripping through the armour beneath my coat and burning like fire. I swore, and struck back at the thing, taking the hand which had wounded me off at the wrist. Ichor pumped from it like a fire hose, spraying me and everything else in the vicinity, and if anything, it redoubled its efforts.
I turned my head reflexively, trying to keep my eyes clear, and thus got a clear view of Jurgen as he raced across the floor towards me. For a heart stopping instant, I thought a couple of purestrains were about to eviscerate him, but for some reason they hesitated for a fraction of a second as they were about to close, and Sorel and Amberley dropped them both with well-aimed shots in the nick of time.
I turned back to the patriarch, encouraged by my success in wounding it, and swung the chainsword again. It never even flinched, batting the humming blade aside, and I ducked a wild swing of its lower left arm.
‘What does it take to kill you, you bastard?’ I snarled, carried away by my own anger and disgust.
‘How about this?’ Jurgen asked, appearing at my elbow. As he approached the creature, it staggered back, like the purestrains had done, momentarily disorientated, and he jammed the barrel of the melta into the wound I’d cut into its belly. As he pulled the trigger, its entire midsection flashed into steam and foul-smelling offal; it staggered back, its eyes glazing, and swung its head in confusion. Then, slowly, it toppled over, vibrating the stone floor with the violent impact of its fall.
‘Thank you, Jurgen,’ I said. ‘Much obliged.’
‘Don’t mention it, sir,’ he said, turning the weapon to seek other targets, but the cultists were scattering back into the shadows. For the first time, some of them gave voice, a keening wail that sent shivers down my spine. We sent a few shots after them, but I, for one, had had my fill of combat for the time being, and was more than happy to leave them for the follow-up teams. Without the patriarch to focus and direct them, they would be easy enough to pick off, but they would have to be eradicated eventually; otherwise one of the surviving purestrains would grow to take its place, and the whole vile cancer would start to take root again.
‘I thought you were dead,’ I said. Jurgen nodded.
‘So did I, to be honest,’ he said. ‘They were almost on us when the wall collapsed. Then I thought it might be just as thin on the other side, so I took a shot at it on the off chance.’
‘I take it you were right,’ I said. He nodded again.
‘Lucky, that,’ he said.
‘What about the others?’ Amberley asked, as we began to climb the stairs. Jurgen looked sombre.
‘Sorel made it through with me. We didn’t see what happened to anyone else.’ But then, he didn’t have to. They would have been overwhelmed in seconds.
‘Lucky you found us when you did,’ I said.
‘Not really.’ Sorel had come to join us as we reached the level of the gallery. ‘We found your tracks in the dust, and just followed along.’
‘How did you know it was us?’ Amberley asked. The marksman shrugged.
‘One pair of Imperial Guard boots, one pair of lady’s shoes. Didn’t need an inquisitor to work that one out.’
‘I suppose not.’ She looked at him with something like respect.
‘Once we heard shooting, we just moved to flank the position,’ Jurgen added. ‘Standard operating procedure.’
‘I see.’ She nodded, and pointed to the solid wooden door we’d reached at the top of the staircase. ‘Jurgen, if you’d be so kind?’
‘My pleasure, miss.’ He grinned, like a schola student picked out to answer a question he knows the answer to, and vaporised it with a single blast from the melta, along with a generous section of wall.
‘Emperor’s teeth,’ I breathed, as we entered the passageway beyond. It was paneled in burnished wood, a thick carpet on the floor, and delicate porcelain stood on occasional tables of unmistakable antiquity.
Bright afternoon sun stabbed our eyes through mullioned windows, and a dreadful suspicion began to form in my mind.
‘I think I know where we are,’ I said. Amberley nodded, her jaw set.
‘Me too,’ she said grimly.
The silence was shattered by the bark of a bolt pistol and Sorel fell, chunks of his brain spattering an expensive-looking tapestry and staining it beyond repair.
‘Commissar Cain. And the charming Miss Vail.’ Governor Grice was standing at the end of the corridor, gun held firmly in his hand, the air of vapid imbecility now totally dispelled. ‘You really are most annoyingly persistent.’
Editorial Note:
My apologies for this, once again – if it’s any consolation it really is the last time...
Extracted from Like a Phoenix From the Flames: The Founding of the 597th, by General Jenit Sulla (retired), 097.M42.
The renegades resisted doggedly, with a determination I could scarcely credit, and despite the faith I had in the women and men under my command, I must confess I began to doubt that our eventual inevitable victory could be won other than at a terrible cost in the blood of these noble warriors. The traitors had prepared their positions well, and we could make little progress other than by fire and movement, scurrying from one piece of cover to the next. I gathered from the transmissions I could overhear that I was far from the only officer who found these delays unconscionable. Colonel Kasteen had already requested support from one of the armoured regiments among the expeditionary force, and some vigorous debate ensued as to whether the tau would regard this as a provocation. Why anyone would care about the aliens’ feelings was beyond me, I must confess, but much of what had transpired since our landing had left me in a state of some confusion, and I comforted myself with the knowledge that my understanding was not a requirement in any case. Duty and obedience was enough, as it should be for anyone privileged to wear the uniform of the Emperor. In the event the lord general had acceded to her request, and the knowledge that a troop of Leman Russes from the 8th Armoured was on their way had bolstered the spirits of our heroic forces to no little degree.
In the meantime, we were still pinned here, and the certainty that our reinforcements, however formidable, were still half an hour away was, I must confess, taking a tithe of the exhilaration we might otherwise have felt. I had no doubt that we could hold on until relieved, but even with the spirit of the Emperor burning within us, it could prove to be a close-run thing if fate had any more surprises to throw at us.
It was while I was reflecting thus that fate did indeed surprise me, and in a fashion I could never have anticipated. My first presentiment was a vox message from Sergeant Lustig, the doughty leader of Second Squad, who broke into my command frequency with some degree of urgency.
‘We have movement on our flank,’ he informed me. ‘Tau units, closing fast. Requesting instructions.’ To his great credit, it must be said that, despite the trepidation he no doubt felt, his report was never anything less than wholly professional. A few more exchanges, equally crisp, flew between us, during which time we established the presence of a handful of battlesuits and at least one of the grav tanks our intelligence analysts had tagged ‘Hammerheads.’
‘Hold position,’ I ordered, despite the doubts which rose unbidden to my mind. Our rules of engagement had been clear, and despite the treachery we could no doubt expect from the inhuman, they had done nothing overt so far to break our incomprehensible truce. Lustig acknowledged, and we both waited tensely to see if the gamble we were taking with our soldiers’ lives would be won or lost.
I must confess that, for a brief moment as that sinister hull rose over the crest of the hillock of rubble my command squad had concealed itself behind, I had cause to curse myself for an overcautious fool; for as they came into sight, the cannon mounted atop it spoke, a thunderclap of sound which rolled over us like a physical wave, and I apprehended treachery afoot at last. But the ensuing explosion erupted in the centre of the insurrectionist fortifications, silencing their guns in a single display of sorcerous fury that left us all momentarily breathless.
The tank moved on, humming quietly with the energies keeping it aloft, and the battlesuits bounded after it, spraying the enemy positions with a prodigious amount of firepower. Rapid-fire plasma rounds burst and scorched among them, and salvos of missiles from the bulbous pods over the leader’s shoulders poured into them in rippling waves, bursting in gouts of flame and shrapnel, shredding and pulping the bodies of those who defied retribution. Bewildered as I was at this sudden turn of events, for I could conceive of no reason for the xenos to turn against their erstwhile allies, I still had no doubt of my duty.
‘Follow up!’ I ordered. ‘After the tau!’ Bounding to my feet I led the troopers under my command forward, towards the hole they’d punched for us through the enemy defences. ‘For justice! For vengeance! For the Emperor!’
SIXTEEN
Life’s so much easier when you’ve got someone to blame.
– Gilbran Quail, Collected Essays.
‘Traitor!’ Jurgen raised the melta and took a determined pace forward, placing himself between Amberley and myself and the turncoat governor. Grice winced visibly as my aide moved closer to him, although his ever-present bouquet was no stronger than usual so far as I could tell, then squeezed the trigger again. The bolt exploded against the oversized helmet protecting Jurgen’s head, flinging him backwards in a shower of shattered carapace; but thanks to the Emperor, or sheer good fortune, it hadn’t penetrated this time, the sturdy armour protecting him from Sorel’s grisly fate. He staggered back into us, and we both moved instinctively to catch him, dropping our weapons as we did so. My pistol and Amberley’s miniature bolter thudded into the spongy carpet, and my chainsword, still activated, spun into a corner where it began chewing energetically through the skirting board.
‘He’s still alive,’ I told Amberley, feeling for the pulse at Jurgen’s neck, and taking his weight fully into my arms. After all, I thought, if Grice fired again I should be all right behind that amount of protection.
‘Not for long, if you don’t keep him away from me,’ Grice threatened.
‘You’re one of them,’ Amberley stated flatly, as though this merely confirmed her suspicions. She took another step towards him, and Grice shifted his aim to cover her. I watched, with some trepidation, for although she was still protected by the miraculous displacer field, she had told me herself that it was not to be wholly relied upon, and even if it worked its magic again, her sudden absence would leave me wide open to a follow-up shot.
I sagged a little, as though Jurgen’s weight was greater than it was, and tried to work my hand towards the hellgun still slung across his shoulder. The governor grimaced, his mouth working in a manner not entirely human now I came to study it closely, and I berated myself for not having seen the truth sooner. The excessive bulk beneath his robes had not, as I’d assumed on our first meeting, resulted from over-indulgence and the commonplace inbreeding of most noble families,[57] but from a far more sinister source.
‘The brood will survive,’ he said. ‘A new patriarch will arise–’
‘But not in your lifetime,’ I said, swivelling the hellgun under Jurgen’s pungently damp armpit and squeezing the trigger. The supercharged las-blast screamed through the air between us, blasting a smoking crater through the left side of the governor’s chest, and for a moment I felt the exultation of victory. It was short-lived, however, because to my horrified astonishment he didn’t drop, just twisted aside with inhuman speed, and switched the aim of the bolt pistol back to me. Thick plates of chitin were visible beneath the ruin of his robes now, and a third deformed arm emerged from the rent in the garment. Through my nausea a sudden shaft of understanding lit up my synapses. ‘You were the assassin!’ I gasped.
A vivid mental picture of the events of that fateful night reeled through my brain. With a weapon concealed in that hidden extra hand, he could have shot the tau ambassador before anyone had even the faintest suspicion of his murderous intent, and whatever disarray withdrawing it might have left in his clothing would be put down to the turmoil of the moment. Certainly all I’d seen was two empty hands, and a hysterical El’hassai who, I must reluctantly concede, had been right all along.
‘What was your first clue?’ Amberley snapped, diving for her discarded weapon. I tried to take aim with the hellgun again, but the strap was tangled in Jurgen’s armour, and the dead weight of my unconscious aide was hindering me. As Grice’s bolt pistol came up I already knew I wasn’t going to make it.
Then, for a blessed second he hesitated, still moving with preternatural speed, and pointed the gun back at Amberley. I suppose he realised that she would get to her bolt pistol and drop him if he didn’t take her down first. I tried to shout a warning, but the first syllable of her name had barely made it through my horror-constricted throat before he fired.
The bolt detonated against the floor, twisting the gun her fingertips had almost reached into scrap and sending splinters of wood flying into the air, but once again, she was suddenly somewhere else. Some highly unladylike language and the crash of falling china a few metres further up the corridor told me that she’d collided with one of the little tables and its display of porcelain.[58]
Grice looked astonished just long enough for me to tug the recalcitrant hellgun around far enough to take another shot at him, which made a terrible mess of that tasteful wood panelling but unfortunately did nothing worse to the tainted governor. He turned, following the sound of Amberley’s landing, just in time to see her roll to her feet with the dextrousness of an accomplished martial artist.
‘Consider yourself relieved of your position,’ she said, pointing an accusing finger at him like a schola tutor admonishing an unsatisfactory student. He actually started to laugh, bringing the weapon round to bear on her again, when a bright flash erupted from the ornate ring I’d noticed at our first meeting. Grice staggered, falling back, and two hands went to his throat. The third continued to clutch his bolt pistol, which discharged again randomly as he sank to his knees. His face worked, as though gasping for air, and darkened with clotting blood. Pale yellow foam frothed over his engorging lips.
‘Digital needler,’ Amberley explained, stepping delicately over the now spasming corpse. ‘The toxin’s excruciatingly painful, I’m told.’
‘Good,’ I said, aiming a bad-tempered kick at the erstwhile governor, and hoping he was still conscious enough to feel it before he expired.
‘How’s Jurgen?’ She took the weight of his other shoulder, and helped me to get him laid out on the floor. I began to remove the remains of his helmet carefully.
