The Emperor's Finest, page 7
'I've just bought us a few more seconds,' I snapped. 'Don't waste them!' The light up ahead was bright enough to pick out our surroundings by now - more lichenous brick - and I could see the droplets of water thrown up by our feet as they slapped down in the thin film of moisture coating the tunnel floor. The air current was stronger too, and smelling fresher; we were almost out into the open air.
Abruptly we broke free of the tunnel, into a wide chamber, from which a number of passageways similar to the one we'd entered by led. Mira stopped, almost in the centre, illuminated by a wan shaft of sunlight, which struck highlights from the garish ornamentation on her tunic and her by now rather bedraggled coiffure. 'Frakking warp!' she said feelingly.
I was so surprised by the sudden barrack-room oath in the mouth of a lady of breeding that it took me a moment to register the reason for her outburst. When I did, I'm bound to confess, I felt like heartily endorsing it. Daylight and fresh air alike were coming from a metal grille in the ceiling, at least a metre above our heads, with no obvious method of getting to it, or through it even if we could.
'Up on my shoulders!' I said, stowing my weapons to free my hands and stooping to offer Mira a boost.
She looked at me as if I was deranged.
'I'm a chatelaine, not a carnival performer!' she snapped.
'You'll be a dead one if we can't get that grille open,' I retorted. 'Would you rather lift me up to it instead?'
Any verbal response to that being entirely unnecessary, she simply slung her lasgun across her back and clambered up to perch awkwardly on my shoulders, her legs dangling either side of my neck like an overstuffed scarf. I reached up to steady her, and she slapped my fingers away, almost overbalancing in the process.
'Keep your hands to yourself!' she squealed, in tones of outrage.
'I'm sure you're convinced you're the Emperor's gift to men,' I snarled, 'but believe me, a furtive fumble is the last thing on my mind at the moment. Get the frakking grille open!' The squad pursuing us was getting uncomfortably close by now, and although it was hard to make anything out with Mira's thighs clamped to my ears, I was suddenly convinced that I could hear movement down some of the other tunnels too.
'It won't move!' she called, an edge of panic entering her voice. 'It's been welded shut!'
'Oh, nads,' I said, the coin suddenly dropping as I looked up to see how she was doing, and picked out a couple of small stubs of metal on the rim of the grille. I'd seen identical protrusions not long before, where the ladder had been removed from beneath the trapdoor we'd entered the tunnels beneath the palace by, and I was suddenly prepared to bet a year's remuneration that a similar one had stood here not long before. 'We haven't been chased here, we've been herded.'
'What are you talking about?' Mira demanded, as I handed her down, with a considerable sense of relief. All that padding might be aesthetically pleasing, but it didn't exactly make her a lightweight.
'I mean we're trapped,' I said, with as much restraint as I could muster, and drew my weapons again. There was definitely movement in several of the tunnels, but I couldn't be sure which, and how great: the echoes were overlapping too much. If I could determine one that was clear, we might still be able to make a run for it, though...
Abruptly, that hope evaporated, as the rebel squad which had attacked us on the surface trotted into the chamber, their lasguns level. They were a couple of men short, though, which gave me a certain amount of vindictive satisfaction; if I was on my way to the Golden Throne, at least I'd be taking an honour guard with me.
Mira unslung her own weapon and brought it up, but I forestalled her with a hand on the barrel.
'Stand down,' I said. 'They obviously want us alive, but I'm sure they'll change their minds if you start shooting.'
'Quite right, commissar,' someone said behind us. The voice was vaguely familiar, but it wasn't until I turned and saw the sergeant of Mira's detail emerging from another of the tunnels that everything fell into place. He was carrying his lasgun too, with an easy confidence that told me he was perfectly willing to use it the moment he felt the need. There were another three or four familiar faces standing beside him, in the same ridiculous uniform, including our vox man, his backpack transceiver still in place. All were still carrying their guns, but the satchel charges had evidently been stashed somewhere else for safe keeping. Where the rest of the squad were, I had no idea, but strongly suspected they'd paid dearly for refusing to turn their coats. The sergeant and his cronies were looking decidedly the worse for wear, their flak armour scored and dented, their faces pained. 'Milady will be a great asset when she joins us, but you, in the heart of the Imperial war machine, will be a prize beyond value.'
'Dream on,' Mira said scornfully. 'If you think I'm going to betray my world and my father, you're even more stupid than you look.'
'You'll think differently when the brood takes you in,' the sergeant assured her, and a gush of ice water seemed to sluice down my spine. There were innumerable minor wounds among the turncoat soldiers, but all had sustained identical ones below the ribcage, marked by a trickle of blood, already clotting. I'd seen wounds like those before and searched the men's faces again. As I'd expected, they looked dazed and disorientated, but followed the lead of the sergeant. He alone seemed alert and in control, his own armour unmarred - a third-generation hybrid, then, or even later, able to pass fully for human.
Despite my mounting horror, I kept my voice steady, concealing the knowledge of what I'd deduced and looking desperately round the chamber for some avenue of escape. More people, or, to be more accurate, things that looked like people, were emerging into the light, from tunnel mouth after tunnel mouth, some armed, mostly not. Many bore visible traces of their inhuman heritage: some had an extra limb or two, tipped with razor-sharp talons, while others had skin thickened to natural armour, or were betrayed by nothing more than a subtle wrongness of posture, like Kamella, the joygirl who'd tried to bite my head off on Keffia.
'What are they?' Mira asked, curiosity and revulsion mingling on her face. 'Mutants?'
'The stories don't seem so far-fetched now, do they?' I asked, unwilling to reveal to the hybrids that I knew their true nature. I didn't know quite how concealing that knowledge would aid us, but I wasn't willing to concede any potential advantage, however small, over an enemy. One tunnel seemed to be open still, and I powered up my chainsword, nudging Mira towards it. Of course that was precisely what we were meant to do - I didn't need to be able to tap into the brood mind to know that - but pretending we were fooled, even if only for a few seconds, might just tip the balance back in our favour. It was an insanely slender chance, but it was only a few weeks since I'd taken a header through a necron warp portal, and compared to that, what I was contemplating looked positively sensible.
As I'd expected, the whole damned lot of them responded at once, taking a couple of steps forwards in eerie silence, tightening the cordon around Mira and me, while moving out of the tunnels and into the open space. Including, to my carefully concealed relief, the hybrid sergeant and his newly implanted squadmates.
'Follow my lead,' I murmured, certain that if I wasn't actually overheard, enough of the abhuman monstrosities would be able to read my lips and share the knowledge of what I'd said with their brood mates. 'Back towards that tunnel behind us. If any of them look like shooting, drop them first.'
Mira nodded, once, tightly, her posture stiff with nerves. 'Count on it,' she said, her voice hardly wavering at all.
'Good girl,' I said, keeping up the charade and feeling that a bit of quiet encouragement at this juncture would look appropriately commissarial. 'If they rush us, just hose them down on full auto.'
Which would probably be about as effective as giving them a severe talking to, if the mob I'd survived on Keffia was anything to go by. The brood mind doesn't care about a few losses, any more than a tyranid army does, but it's the sort of thing that would work against a mutant horde, and I was more interested in misdirecting the alien gestalt intellect facing us than giving sensible tactical advice.
It almost worked, too. We were just edging into position for my desperate gamble, the hybrid sergeant practically within reach of my humming chainblade, when I became aware of an ominous susurration in the depths of the tunnel behind us. I turned slowly to face it, Mira following suit, the pit of my stomach knotting. I knew that sound: a chitinous exoskeleton, moving fast.
I brought up my weapons, but before I could shoot, the ghastly form of a purestrain genestealer burst from the darkened portal and flung itself upon us.
SIX
AS SHE GOT her first sight of the xenos monstrosity, Mira screamed, as well she might; if I hadn't had an image to maintain I'd probably have done the same, but as it was, I took an ineffectual cut at it with the chainsword, diving to one side to get out of its way. By great good fortune, the movement got me closer to my real objective, but there wasn't any time to exploit the fact, as the creature turned, all four arms reaching out to eviscerate me. Mira pulled the trigger of her lasgun, unleashing a burst, and I flinched, anticipating falling to friendly fire; but she was aiming down the tunnel, from which another 'stealer emerged, seconds later, bearing down on her like a Chimera at full throttle. How many more of the things there may have been lurking in the depths below the city I've no idea, but fortunately the brood mind seemed to think that one each would be more than enough to implant the two of us with its taint. 1
'Drop your weapons,' the hybrid sergeant urged us. 'They won't harm you if you don't resist.'
'Yeah, right,' I said sarcastically, parrying the reaching limbs with my chainsword. It bit deep, shearing through chitin in a welter of flesh and ichor, which spattered liberally around the chamber, misting the faces of the nearest spectators. None reacted with the revulsion you'd normally expect, just continuing to watch in impassive silence, which in its own way was more unnerving than the creature in front of me.
'Just turn us into abominations like you 2 .'
The creature flinched, withdrawing the injured limb, and I rolled under another just as its fist closed in a grab, missing me by millimetres. The one closing in on Mira momentarily checked its charge too, as a rash of las-bolt craters erupted on its thorax, then came on again as her lasgun fell silent, its powerpack expended. With a shriek which all but ruptured my eardrums she flung the empty weapon at the onrushing monstrosity, hoping to achieve Emperor knows what. The 'stealer swatted the mass of metal aside in an eyeblink and it clattered to the floor nearby, where the watching hybrids ignored it.
'You couldn't just have reloaded?' I asked pettishly, finding myself close enough to slash at its leg as I tried to make distance from the one attacking me, and doing so with enthusiasm. Again, the blade bit deep, and it stumbled sideways, crashing into the other 'stealer, which was still lunging desperately in my direction.
'He's carrying the spare powerpacks!' Mira snapped back, taking advantage of the ensuing confusion to slip past the entangled creatures, and glowering at the sergeant as she did so. The crowd of hybrids began to close, moving forwards to narrow the arena we fought in, and I cracked off a couple of shots from the pistol in my hand, dropping the two nearest to the tunnel the 'stealers had emerged from.
Of course he was, I thought irritably. Nobles never carried anything for themselves; that's what servants were for. 'Pick the bloody gun up!' I shouted, as she almost tripped over the thing, and she scooped it into her hand again without slackening her pace. If she'd been issued with it, she should damn well look after it, so far as I was concerned 3 .
The purestrains were sorting themselves out and looking seriously hacked off by now, even more so than their kind usually did 4 . As one, they turned to stare at me, the brood mind no doubt perceiving me as the greater threat. Well, it had got that right, I'd seen bath sponges more menacing than Mira looked at the moment, and with nothing left to lose I did the one thing I hoped they wouldn't expect: charged both creatures, bellowing 'WAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!' as loudly and enthusiastically as the orks I'd seen far too much of on Perlia. As I'd hoped, it focussed all the hybrids' attention on the purestrains, so when I veered aside, leaving the pair of them leaping to attack the spot where I suddenly wasn't, and shot the sergeant instead, none of the creatures reacted for a crucial second, taken completely by surprise.
By the time the sergeant hit the floor, I was among the crowd hemming us in, swinging my chainsword in defensive patterns years of drilling and duelling had made so instinctive I was barely aware of them, reaping a rich and repellent harvest of severed appendages and spouting ichor. The newly implanted PDF troopers were still too dazed to react, going down without even trying to resist, and I felt a small qualm at that point, tempered with the reflection that it was not only my duty to purge them but a merciful deliverance too. As the vox op folded, his head flying off in a random direction, I let my pistol fall unheeded to the sodden rockcrete beneath my feet and grabbed the handset, praying to the Throne that it was still tuned to the same frequency as I remembered.
'Astartes! Help!' I just had time to bellow, before being borne to the moisture-slick floor by a tidal wave of malformed bodies. I did my best to resist, of course, kicking and flailing wildly with the chainsword until it was torn from my grasp, and probably biting too if anything came close enough, but it was hopeless; there were simply too many of them. For a moment I could see nothing but twisted faces, their expressions blank, still moving in eerie silence. No one screamed, shouted or swore at me, and that was the most disturbing thing of all. At least until they parted, and I found myself staring into the eyes of the genestealer I'd maimed.
There have been far too many times in my long and inglorious career when I've been convinced, with good reason, that my last moment had come, but few of them were accompanied by such a complete sensation of absolute helplessness. In almost every other instance I've at least had the illusion of being able to affect the outcome, seen some last, desperate gamble which ultimately paid off, but here there was nothing at all I could do, beyond writhing ineffectually and letting rip with a volley of profanity that would have made a Slaaneshi cultist blush. It didn't perturb the 'stealer, though; it just hissed through its thorax and opened its jaws unfeasibly wide, showing far too many teeth and adding a layer of sticky drool to the other unpleasant substances already ruining my coat.
Something moved in the back of its throat, and a thick, muscular tube emerged in place of a tongue. I flinched, anticipating the stabbing pain about to be inflicted on my chest, and, worse, the complete subversion of everything I was. Would I still feel like me at all in five minutes' time, and if I didn't, would I even care? I recalled the implanted troopers I'd known, and fought alongside, on Keffia. They'd seemed perfectly normal, giving no clue at all to their altered nature, until they'd revealed themselves by turning on us in the heat of battle against their brood mates. If I became like them, with the access I had to a Space Marine Chapter and the upper echelons of the Imperial Guard, the damage my altered self could do to the Imperium's interests would be incalculable. Rather more to the point though, I was perfectly happy with myself the way I was, and the prospect of being turned into a puppet of the tyranids by an overgrown cockroach was absolutely intolerable.
Abruptly, the creature looming over me jerked and shuddered, keening loudly, even over the stuttering crackle of a lasgun on full auto, as a rain of successive las-bolts chewed their way through its armoured carapace and began making an unholy mess of its innards. Taken by surprise once again, the brood mind lost its focus for a moment, and the myriad of hands and talons holding me slackened their grip.
That was the only chance I needed. Tearing free of them, I snatched up my weapons, which, praise the Emperor, still lay on the floor within easy reach, and turned to face my deliverer. I am, by nature, something of an optimist, but I'd never dared to hope that my message would be answered so quickly, if it even got through at all.
'What the hell are you still doing here?' I asked in astonishment, laying about me with the chainblade again and popping off random las-bolts, certain that in a crowd this dense they'd find some kind of mark.
Mira paused for a second, before ejecting the spent powerpack from her lasgun and snapping a fresh one in, whereupon she began firing short, precise bursts at the second 'stealer, presumably having discovered just how quickly staying on full auto would deplete it.
'Thank you for saving my neck, milady,' she said sarcastically. 'Oh, think nothing of it, commissar.' She was standing astride the sergeant's body, which at least explained where the reloads had come from. No doubt she'd carry her own from now on, if she still felt the urge to play soldiers.
'Run now, thanks later,' I said, cutting my way through to her side. 'But I'm definitely pleased to see you.'
'I'm flattered,' she said, backing towards the nearest tunnel mouth and continuing to pepper the purestrain with las-bolts. This one, however, was made of sterner stuff than its fellow and continued to advance inexorably, hopping awkwardly on its injured leg, no doubt aided by the fact that Mira kept having to shift her aim to keep the swarm of hybrids off our backs too. If the ones with weapons opened up we'd both be dead in seconds, but to my amazement and relief they continued to hold their fire, still believing that they had the advantage of numbers and could eventually take us alive, to become part of their conjoined mind. They were probably right about that too, closing in around us with a speed and precision I wouldn't have believed possible if I hadn't seen what they were capable of before, and as heedless of their own losses as the tyranids themselves. For every one that fell to our las-bolts and my whining chainblade, another would step in, and it could only be a matter of time before we were overwhelmed and brought down.
I shot another hybrid standing between us and the tunnel mouth, but even as I did so I could tell it was too late: that way out was blocked now, the silent crowd pressing in on all sides. For the second time in a handful of minutes, I was facing the imminent certainty of my own death - or at least the death of everything I defined myself by.
