Hero of the Imperium, page 29
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.
‘Not good,’ I said, a surprising amount of concern entering my voice. There was a lot of blood, but most of it seemed to be from superficial wounds caused by the shattered armour. Rather more worrying was the clear fluid mixed in with it. ‘I think his skull’s fractured.’
‘I think you’re right.’ She began administering first aid with a speed and competence I found astonishing. ‘Better call for a medicae unit.’
Cursing myself for my own stupidity, I activated my combead, realising belatedly that I’d be able to get a message through to Kasteen now we’d returned to the surface. To my astonishment, however, the command channels were choked with traffic, and I turned back to Amberley with the bitter taste of failure burning in the back of my throat.
‘We’re too late,’ I said. ‘It sounds as though the war’s already started.’
‘Then we’ll just have to stop it,’ she said, matter-of-factly, her attention still on Jurgen. At the time, still not realising his significance, I was simply grateful for her concern for his welfare, even as I found the time to marvel at her indefatigable spirit. If ever a woman seemed capable of stopping an all-out war single-handedly, it was her. I was just on the verge of replying when the wall blew in, throwing me to the floor yet again, and showering what was left of the elegant decor with rubble.
‘What the frak...’ I began, scrabbling for my fallen laspistol. I’d just managed to grab it when human figures in flak armour burst through the new gap, lasguns levelled. Behind them, I noted absently, someone was making a hell of a mess of the garden. I just managed to prevent myself from squeezing the trigger in the nick of time as I recognised the armour as Imperial Guard issue.
‘Stand up! Slowly!’ a familiar voice barked, then took on a tinge of astonishment. ‘Commissar! Is that you?’
‘Right now I’m not entirely sure,’ I said. Kasteen looked at me, for a long, searching moment, before taking in the dishevelled state of the inquisitor; then her gaze moved on and down to the prostrate figures of Jurgen and the governor. I indicated my aide. ‘He needs a medic,’ I said, then for some reason my legs gave way beneath me.
‘There’s no doubt at all, then?’ Kasteen had listened to our story in silence, or at least to as much of it as Amberley felt like telling her, and I’d spent the last half hour or so alternately nodding, saying ‘yes, really,’ and similar helpful remarks, and scrounging the largest mug of tanna leaf tea I could find. It was not the most obvious thing to find on a battlefield, you might think, but these were Valhallans after all, and it didn’t take me long to discover a fire-team brewing up once the immediate danger was past.
Broklaw was running around like the good second-in-command he was, detailing troopers to secure the perimeter and clear out the tunnels beneath what was left of the palace, and once I’d seen Jurgen safely on his way back to the aid station, I relished the chance to simply enjoy the feeling of sun on my face and the astonished realisation that, against all the odds, I’d survived again.
‘None,’ Amberley said. ‘The body’s all the proof we need. Grice was a ‘stealer hybrid, and killed the ambassador to try to provoke a war. All the death and destruction in the city was just part of the same agenda.’
‘Merciful Emperor,’ Kasteen breathed, appalled at the thought. ‘His own people, sacrificed in their thousands... The bastard.’
‘His own people were the genestealers,’ I said. ‘The rest of us, humans, tau, even the kroot, were never anything more to him than fodder for the hive fleets.’
‘Exactly.’ Amberley looked sober for a moment, before the familiar carefree smile was suddenly back on her face; but it was there with an effort, I found myself thinking. ‘And if we hadn’t kept our heads, things might have turned out very differently.’
‘They still might,’ I said, indicating the hulking figures of the tau dreadnoughts around the perimeter, and the curiously rounded vehicles hovering over the surface of the grass. Tau troopers were beginning to deploy from some of them, eyeing our own soldiers suspiciously, but so far, at least, the two forces were keeping well apart. ‘Can we trust them now we don’t have an enemy in common?’
‘For the time being, at least,’ Amberley said. She might have said more, but we were interrupted by a sudden shout from the direction of the ruins.
‘They’ve found some survivors!’ Kasteen hurried off, to where a small knot of figures was emerging from the wreckage of the palace. Amberley and I exchanged glances, an unspoken presentiment sparking between us, and trotted after her as best we could. Now we were safe the exhaustion of our exertions had crashed in on us like a landslide, and I felt my calf muscles cramping as I tried to keep up.
Even before we reached them I caught a glimpse of red hair, so it was little surprise to me when the search team (one of the squads from Sulla’s platoon, I seem to recall, but I couldn’t tell you which one) parted to reveal Velade and Holenbi, each supported by a trooper with an arm around the shoulders, holding hands like a pair of courting teeners. It’s no exaggeration to say they both looked like hell, but that’s precisely what you’d expect I suppose, their uniforms ragged, and bandages leaking blood where the squad medic had applied field dressings to the worst of their wounds. Holenbi stared at me in numb confusion, but that was nothing new.
‘Where did you find them?’ I asked the sergeant in charge, and he saluted me smartly.
‘Down in the tunnels, sir. Lieutenant Sulla told us to spread out and secure the perimeter below ground, and they were about half a klom in. They must’ve been in a hell of a fight, sir.’
‘Velade?’ I asked gently. She turned her head towards me, her eyes unfocussed. ‘What happened?’
‘Sir?’ Her brow furrowed. ‘We were fighting. Tomas and me.’
‘They were everywhere,’ Holenbi cut in, his voice distant.
‘Then the roof came in, and we lost the others. So we fought our way out.’
‘I see,’ I said, nodding slowly, and glanced across at Amberley. The same doubt was clouding her eyes, I could see. I turned back to the bedraggled troopers, then brought up my laspistol and shot them both through the head before either of them had a chance to react.
‘What the hell...?’ Kasteen shouted, her hand moving instinctively towards the bolt pistol on her hip until common sense reasserted itself and aborted the gesture. She glared at me, her jaw tight, and the troopers around us froze in shock, anger and confusion in their eyes. I had a sudden flash of déjà vu, an unbidden memory of the mess room aboard the Righteous Wrath. For a moment, I was horribly unsure of myself, afraid I’d made a terrible mistake, then I glanced again at Amberley for reassurance. She nodded, a barely noticeable acknowledgement, and I felt a little better. At least if I was wrong, an inquisitor was, too, which wouldn’t help much with rebuilding morale in the regiment, but at least I wouldn’t be the only one left feeling embarrassed.
‘I’ve seen this before,’ I said, addressing Kasteen directly, but keeping my voice loud and clear enough to be heard by everyone. ‘On Keffia.’ I took the combat knife from the sergeant’s harness and knelt beside Holenbi’s body, ripping one of the dressings away to reveal a small deep wound slanting up under the ribcage. I sliced it open, ignoring the horrified gasps from those around me, and felt around with blood-slick fingers. After a moment I found what I’d expected to be there, and yanked out a small fibrous bundle of organic material.
