Defender of the Imperium Omnibus, page 57
Thus it was, to my own vague surprise, with something approaching a light heart that I hopped down from the Chimera with Jurgen, who was still lugging his beloved melta around despite its weight, and made my way up the steps of the terminal building. Faril gave us a cheerful wave of farewell from the top hatch, where he’d planted himself the moment Jurgen had boarded the vehicle in my wake, and chugged away to look for something to kill.
‘Who goes there?’ A couple of PDF troopers, dressed in clashing lilac and puce fatigues, which even a Slaaneshi cultist would consider in screaming bad taste, aimed shaky lasguns at me. I tilted my head a little, allowing them the best possible view of the profile most favoured by the printsheets I’d seen.
‘Commissar Ciaphas Cain,’ I told them grandly. ‘I’d like a word with your commanding officer.’ The troopers lowered their weapons, and began conferring with several of their fellows who had emerged from the wide bronze doors behind them, which were decorated with aquilae intertwined with what I took for native avians and a crude-looking flying machine or two, and through which a wide, marble-floored concourse was visible. At least that’s what I discovered once I’d ventured inside. From out here there was precious little sign of any floor space at all, practically every square centimetre of it appearing to be occupied by makeshift bedrolls and listlessly slouching civilians.
‘It’s him. It really is,’ I heard one of the troopers muttering to his companion, before turning to the nearest of the newcomers. ‘Don’t just stand there, get the lieutenant!’
‘Much obliged,’ I said, reaching the top of the flight at last, and trying not to pant audibly as the designated trooper scuttled away. The one who’d sent him, who turned out to be sporting a lance corporal’s single chevron, waved vaguely in what he no doubt fondly imagined was a passable salute. I returned it crisply, and smiled in a friendly fashion. ‘Can you fill me in on the situation here?’
‘Well, we’re just sitting tight, sir,’ the man said, clearly at a loss as to how to respond, ‘in case the tyranids attack.’ He tried to look a little more martial. ‘We’re not afraid to get stuck in, you know sir, but them in charge said to leave it to the Guard while we look after the refugees.’
‘Quite the best thing,’ I assured him, nodding gravely, and pleasantly surprised to find that my head wasn’t throbbing quite as much as I’d expected afterwards. ‘These people are the future of Periremunda. They have to be protected at all costs.’
‘I hadn’t really thought of it like that,’ the fellow said, straightening visibly as some unsuspected residue of soldierly pride reasserted itself. Unfortunately the effect was rather spoiled a moment later as he got his first clear sight of Jurgen, and his mouth fell open like a startled squig. By that time, though, we were past the sentries and into the terminal itself, so any second thoughts he might have been having would have been far too late.
The interior of the building was, by any standard, a dismal sight, despite the garish fashion in which most of its occupants were dressed. Not as bad as some I’ve witnessed, of course, but pathetic enough: hollow-eyed men and women bent under the weight of unbearable loss, apathetic children too bored and hungry to do much more than sit and whine instead of enjoying their carefree years as they should have been, and, permeating everything, the endless echoing roar of hundreds of voices no one was listening to. The smell was almost as bad as the noise, even my years of Jurgen’s near constant companionship having done little to prepare me for such a concentrated dose of pungent humanity.
As I advanced into the tiny area of clear space around the door, through which the ever-present wind and a few flakes of snow were drifting, I was struck by a sudden blast of heat, the press of so many bodies more than capable of overcoming Hoarfell’s frigid climate. Most of the troopers I’d seen outside were sitting in front of a makeshift barrier separating this tiny cleared zone from the main concourse, apparently constructed from furnishings removed to make room for more of the ubiquitous bedrolls that carpeted the chill stone floor; desks, still bearing the sigils of one or other of the aerial transport companies that used to run regular services to other plateaux, a bench, and a recaf machine long since drained of the beverage it had once contained. Two of the PDF men were flanking a kind of gate made from the back of a cargo pallet, their lasguns held idly in their hands. From the way they kept scanning the crowd, rather than looking outwards for any sign of the tyranids, I suspected that they were more fearful of trouble from that quarter than anything the xenos might do.
And with good reason, I thought. The stench of desperation was almost as powerful as that of unwashed bodies, and I began to realise that Kasteen was right to be concerned. It would take very little to turn this sullen mass of humanity into a rampaging mob little better than a horde of orks, and if that happened a couple of lasguns would be no protection at all.
I had little time for such dispiriting musings, however, as a slightly overweight young man in the same lurid uniform as the rest of the PDF rabble was making his way through the crowd as quickly as he could, which wasn’t very. He kept mumbling apologies as he dodged round the ragtag civilians packing the place out, instead of using his elbows and the authority of his position like a real officer would have done, and I began to see why he’d been saddled with this thankless task. No doubt his superiors thought he was the least likely junior officer to be missed in the front line.
‘Commissar, it’s an honour.’ He raised his voice to greet me while still some distance away, and a few of the nearer civilians turned to look in my direction. As they did so, recognition sparked on their faces, along with something that made my blood run almost as cold as the snow outside: a renewal of hope. Before my horrified eyes the whisper rippled outwards, more and more faces turning in my direction, all clearly believing that my unexpected arrival heralded some kind of deliverance from the echoing limbo to which they’d all been confined for so long. As soon as they realised that I couldn’t provide it, things were liable to turn pretty ugly.
‘Lieutenant,’ I returned, projecting as much easy confidence as I could. When all else fails, I’ve found, stalling for time never hurts. At the worst it gives you a chance to look for the nearest exit, and draw your weapon first if you have to, and if you’re really lucky something unexpected happens that you can take advantage of. ‘I hope you don’t mind me dropping in like this, but I heard these people were stuck a little closer to the action than seems entirely safe, and thought there might be something we could do about it.’
‘I hope there is,’ the chubby young officer said, looking almost as hopeful as the crowd beyond the barrier, which was drifting closer as we spoke. The troopers at the gate fastened it behind him, and tried ineffectually to wave them away. He said something else as well, but my attention was momentarily distracted by Sulla’s voice in my comm-bead.
‘Squad five, respond.’ There was an uncharacteristic edge to her voice, and after a moment of hissing static, an uncertain voice replied.
‘Five two responding. We’ve lost contact with team one,81 lieutenant. It may be a vox glitch, but…’
‘Fourth squad to sector five.’ Irritating as I invariably found her company, I have to admit that Sulla reacted with commendable speed. ‘Possible lurker, so move with caution. Marskil, hold position and stay alert.’
‘Confirm,’ the corporal responded, sounding highly relieved, and a moment later Grifen’s familiar clipped tone acknowledged the order too.
‘On it, lieutenant.’ The palms of my hands began to tingle again. If the ’nids had managed to slip behind our lines, or an undetected genestealer brood infiltrate the city, the densely packed crowd around me would attract them like orks to gunfire. Perhaps I’d be better off taking up the plight of the refugees with the local justicars, wherever they were quartered.
‘We’ll do everything we can, of course,’ I assured the lieutenant, as though I’d heard what he’d said and gave a frak about it. I tried to recall the tactical maps I’d looked at aboard Faril’s Chimera. Where in the warp was sector five anyway? Would trying to slip away just land me in the middle of another ’nid swarm, or a pack of genestealers?
‘We’d really appreciate that,’ the young officer told me, nodding earnestly. ‘You can see for yourself that conditions here are far from ideal.’ That earned a ripple of ironic laughter and a couple of catcalls from the audience we’d attracted, but to my relief none of it seemed overtly hostile. I knew just how easily that could change, however. Time for a bit of the old Cain charm, I thought, and turned to address the civilians directly.
‘Citizens of Periremunda,’ I said, raising my voice without apparent effort so that it cut through the babble of the crowd as easily as the noise of a battlefield. ‘I can assure you that you haven’t been forgotten, and neither has the tremendous sacrifice you’ve made in abandoning your homes for a short while to allow us to concentrate our forces more effectively against the tyranids. My presence here today should convince you of that. But I must ask you to remain patient for a little while longer. Even now the battle’s raging to cleanse your world of the xenos taint.’
I couldn’t have timed it better if I’d tried. Outside the massive building someone screamed, a short, choked-off cry of pain and terror, echoed a moment later by a second voice, with only a single lasgun shot between them.
I whirled around, galvanised by adrenaline, fear and old reflexes combining to override the momentary surge of nausea that accompanied the movement. I was staring at a walking nightmare, looming twice the height of a man, slashing and tearing with its claws and talons, the thin film of slush outside reddened with the shredded remains of the corporal who’d greeted me and the trooper who’d accompanied him.
‘Fire!’ I shouted, drawing my weapons without thinking, and discharging a shot from my laspistol, while the PDF troopers stood around uselessly, paralysed by shock. The towering horror seemed to shimmer as it moved, and my las-bolt gouged a harmless chunk from a pillar supporting the portico. ‘Protect the civilians!’ Not that I gave a flying frak about them, of course, but if anything was calculated to get the PDF off their collective arses and shooting at the bloody thing it was probably that. I was right, too. The chubby lieutenant drew his sidearm at last, and the troopers finally snapped out of their stupor and started blazing away at it, to no real effect that I could see.
‘Hold still, frot it!’ Jurgen muttered at my side, trying to get a clear shot with the melta, but the lictor moved too fast, and the PDF kept getting in the way. Behind us the civilians scattered, howling in panic, and very sensible of them too in my opinion. A couple more of the luridly uniformed militia went down, spraying blood and entrails, and the chubby lieutenant’s head bounced on the marble close to my boot, leaving a long, discoloured streak across the opalescent stone.
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ I told my aide, unable to keep a touch of asperity from my voice, but as ever he remained immune to sarcasm.
‘Almost got it,’ he assured me, firing the heavy weapon at last, and vaporising a waste receptacle, a drinking fountain, and a hideously ornamented tub apparently intended to contain plants of some kind. Fortunately he managed to clip the lictor as well, charring the scything talon and rending claws on its left side into useless chunks of barbequed meat, despite its rapid evasion. That wasn’t enough to kill it, of course, but it was certainly irritated. Screaming with rage it charged straight at me, bursting into the building and forcing me back against the PDF’s makeshift barricade before I could get off another shot with my sidearm.
Cursing, I evaded its first rush as best I could, angling towards the side with the now useless limbs, and slashing at the steaming chitin with my chainsword. Jurgen had baked it nicely, it seemed, ichor and noxious streams of liquefied tissue leaking around the cracked plates of its hide, and the screaming blade bit deep, opening up a long slash across its flank. I knew better than to expect that to finish it though, and ducked, just as it whirled around and slashed at my head with its surviving scything claw.
‘Back away, commissar!’ Jurgen urged, unable to fire again for fear of hitting me, and I cannoned into one of the piled-up desks, the blood pounding in my ears. If the blasted barricade hadn’t been in the way I’d have stood half a chance, getting a decent hack at the thing’s back as it barrelled on past me to start gorging on the civilians, but that wasn’t going to happen now. Hemmed in by the pile of detritus, it could only be a matter of moments before I ended up as messily dead as the PDF troopers.
Suddenly, to my relieved astonishment, the thing staggered back, the fringe of tendrils hanging from its face twitching in agitation. For a moment I assumed that Jurgen’s peculiar gift had somehow come to my aid again, but there seemed no reason why he should be affecting it; he certainly seemed no closer to either of us than before.82 Then, trying to concentrate on my immediate surroundings through the haze of nausea that seemed to be closing itself around my synapses, I became aware of something going on behind me.
The civilians, as I’ve said, had scattered as the feral monstrosity first burst into the terminal building, but now, if anything, their cries of panic seemed to be intensifying. Risking a quick glance over my shoulder, which left my head pounding from the sudden movement but which somehow cleared it at the same time, I saw the crowd breaking and flocking to the sides of the concourse instead of getting as far away from the lictor as possible, which had been their first, and entirely understandable, impulse. Something else had them spooked, at least as much as the monstrosity I faced, and my first thought was that more ’nids had appeared to flank us. If true, that would hardly have been unexpected, lictors tending to attract other predators in their wake once they locate a sufficient number of victims to make a concentrated attack worthwhile. But instead of a tide of gaunts, or purestrain ’stealers, I was confronted with something even more terrifying.
A trio of the refugees was advancing through the parting crowd, ignoring everyone else completely: an old man, a young woman, and a teenage boy. The woman and the boy were horrifying enough to behold, their eyes blank, and the hair around their heads waving wildly as though caught in a gale that no one else could feel, but the old man was a thousand times worse, levitating across the floor on bolts of lightning, which sparked and crashed around him. Cackling maniacally he flung out a hand, and the eldritch discharge enveloped the lictor. The creature reeled back, shrieking, and after a moment the girl muttered something, conjuring a bolt of seething plasma out of thin air. With a feral grin on her face she sent it spinning across the concourse with a flick of her wrist, to burst against the pile of furniture I was cowering behind.
‘Avaunt, witch, in the name of the Emperor!’ A balding middle-aged man in the robes of a minor ecclesiarch stepped out of the crowd, brandishing an aquila, his voice echoing resonantly around the concourse as he began to chant the rites of exorcism. The boy turned his head, an expression of contempt on his face, and stared at him as though the man was something he’d just found on the sole of his shoe.
‘What’s the Emperor ever done for us?’ he asked, and the ecclesiarch fell to the floor as though punched in the face, writhing and screaming like a man possessed. ‘Only the True Powers can save us now.’
Panic-stricken, I glanced from one menace to another; the lictor, still wreathed in eldritch energy, striking out at random in its agony, and the trio of psykers, approaching me inexorably. At least the ’nid was out of the fight for the time being, however temporarily, so I fired at the nearest witch. The las-bolt burst against the old man’s shield of lightning, and he cackled again, clearly no saner than the average Chaos cultist.
‘This is Cain,’ I voxed frantically, shifting my aim just as the girl flung another bolt of warp plasma in my general direction. I ducked, and it impacted on the bellowing lictor, making it stagger. It might have killed the thing altogether if the ethereal discharge still crackling about it hadn’t absorbed some of the energy, but that’s Chaos for you. Even when they’re trying to co-operate, its acolytes tend to tread on one another’s toes. ‘The ’nids are inside the terminal! Psykers too!’
I cracked off a shot at plasma girl, and she staggered, a bloody wound opening up on her torso. I expected her to fall, but the arcane energies she was manipulating seemed to be sustaining her, and she merely smiled grimly, conjuring another of the hellish bolts out of thin air. As I ducked back into cover the boy caught my eye, our gazes locking, and a tidal wave of despair flooded through me. There was no point in fighting any more, that much was obvious. Their victory was certain, so was that of Chaos, and it was only a matter of time before the forces they served swept forth from the Eye of Terror to expunge the Imperium from the stars as though it had never been. Even the Emperor would fall, his soul shredded to sate the obscene appetites of daemons...
For a hideous, endless instant, I felt myself teetering on the brink of insanity, then my tenacious survival instinct kicked in, and I fought it, as hard as I’d fought for my soul on Slawkenberg. The Ruinous Powers hadn’t managed to claim it then, despite their worst efforts, and they wouldn’t now, damn it.
I drew in a deep breath, headily redolent of Jurgen, and snapped back to myself, suddenly aware that my aide had joined me behind the fused and melted remains of the pile of furniture that offered us the only shelter in sight, unslinging his lasgun as he did so, clearly reluctant to use the melta again with so many innocents in the way. The impossible nightmare the young psyker had somehow planted in my mind began to dwindle away, rapidly becoming as intangible and meaningless as any other dream does on waking.
‘Liar!’ I roared, and the youngster’s eyes widened in shock, an instant before a vengeful las-bolt from my pistol spattered his brain, along with the taint of Chaos that permeated it, over both his companions. The priest went quiet too, apparently no longer under the dreamcaster’s baleful influence, although whether he eventually recovered his wits I have no idea.
