From Rask the major learned that the Commissariat had moved Fosco all over the sector: he was well known as an imperious tyrant and a bane to all who served with and under him. He’d declared the armed transport Achates and all on board her heretic and undeserving of the Emperor’s protection. He had been part of – and many claimed afterward, the cause of – the notorious Port Spiterri Revolt. The Jopall 44th Indentured; Colonel Da Costa’s First Moloch Rifles, the 201st Noctan Strikes, the Tallarn 800th (formerly known as the Abu al-Din Sunfighters); the last of the Gorgone Deepers: the list went on – all regiments to whom Fosco had been attached – all regiments whose commanding officers had appealed to the Emperor when they heard that the Commissariat was moving the volatile Fosco onto his next assignment. The First Moloch was notable as the regiment that during the Blight Wars lost more Guardsmen to Commissar Fosco’s battlefield executions than to the hrud infestation they were combating.
The relief of the regimental commanding officers was brief, however, as in each case a parting shot was delivered – often to the head – before Fosco and his staff were moved on to their next, ultimately doomed regiment. Fosco never saw a disciplinary committee (he was too well connected – although no one seemed to know how) but would occasionally take benediction leave amongst the lofty towers of St Guise – from where the Volscian 1001st had recently received him.
Vedette snatched up her belt and holster from where they were hanging on the bunk and tossed the major his own. Gone was the desperate fervour of the previous night’s embraces. Gone was Vedette the casual lover, and in her place was Corporal Vedette the professional.
As he caught the belt he went through the perfunctory motions of checking the autopistol’s clip and chambering the first round. He thumbed off the safety and grunted to himself: wouldn’t be needing that.
A sudden hammering from the corridor brought all three heads up in the cabin. Conklin threw himself from the doorway and across the passage, chunky autopistol clasped in both hands and aimed at the block bulkhead. Vedette went down on one knee in the cabin doorway, leaving Mortensen the fire arc above her head.
More hammering proceeded – the metallic clatter bouncing around the corridor as yet another untidy volley of las-bolts impacted from the other side.
‘Somebody wants in,’ Mortensen muttered.
‘It’s okay,’ Conklin assured them gruffly, ‘I’ve already locked it off.’
Vedette wasn’t convinced, not least by the way her master sergeant was tightly holding his own pistol on the doorway.
‘Until somebody hauls a plasma or a vape gun down there,’ the corporal corrected him.
‘Yes,’ Mortensen nodded, ‘we don’t want to be here when that happens. Fall back.’
The three storm-troopers backed away from the block bulkhead as an increasingly furious barrage of bolts was carelessly blasted at the pressure-sealed door. Vedette and Conklin held their weapons on the corridor in the event of a breach while the major fell into a sidle up the corridor wall to cover their backward advance in case they were cut off from the rear.
‘Can I take it all routes into the block have been secured, sergeant?’
Conklin chuckled nastily. ‘I hope you don’t think tipping you out of your bunk was my first priority, boss.’
Mortensen nodded in silent agreement. That was Conklin: provokingly proficient.
The trio backed out of the corridor and into a small apex that formed the hub of several troop block passageways. There Mortensen found the remainder of his storm-troopers: informally known amongst the other regiments as the ‘Redemption Corps’.
Diederick was a blasted and bloody mess on the floor, his ruptured gore spreading slowly out across the metal deck. Sergeant Minghella straddled the comms-officer, his head bowed and his chest heaving with the past exertion of keeping the trooper alive.
‘Rhen.’
Rhen Minghella contorted his already hideous, dogface features and wrapped his fleshy lips around a stream of ugly curses. The Corps medic pushed himself up from the deck and the body. His uniform was dishevelled and soaked through with his patient’s blood and not a little of his own.
Without looking at Mortensen he wiped the deep red of his hands down on the only part of his tunic that wasn’t bathed in bodily fluids.
‘I regret to inform you of Specialist Diederick’s untimely death, sir,’ he reported dourly.
Trooper Pryce jangled nearby as he knelt to close the storm-trooper’s glazed and lifeless eyes – his neck a nest of cords, chains and ribbons, each supporting some saint-adorned medallion, lucky home world charm or Imperial effigy. Pryce adored the creed and Mortensen often caught the soldier offering prayers to his God-Emperor, although the major suspected this was more out of a pleading desire to survive the horrific situations he was routinely plunged into rather than pious devotion.
Mortensen pursed his lips: he didn’t have time for the indulgence of one of his medic’s bad moods or lectures. ‘Vedette, watch the corridor,’ he ordered. The other two were being covered by Sarakota – who looked strange with a snub pistol in his hand instead of the anti-materiel length of his sniper Hellshot – and Gorskii, the Redemption Corps’ Valhallan demolitions man. Or more accurately woman, but it was hard to tell through the hair of her upper lip and the flash scarring that ran down one half of her face.
The Redemption Corps were a mixed group – from schola students to veterans: the best that being born on a dozen different worlds could offer. Each brought their own natural talents to Mortensen’s small, elite storm-trooper company, honed to zealous perfection in the sector’s various schola progenium institutions and drawn together to damn the enemies of the Imperium.
‘Conklin – what’s down here? We’re obviously going to need a little more than faith and thigh-huggers,’ Mortensen put to the sergeant, slapping his holster.
‘Orlop deck houses the sick bay–’
‘Medical is overrun,’ Minghella shot at them irritably.
‘…midshipman’s berths, some of the maintenance and ministration compartments.’
‘Gather what you can. Anything useful.’
Conklin went left but Gorskii put up one long-fingered hand.
‘Midshipman’s berths sealed from inside,’ she notified him in her Slavic drawl.
‘The crew won’t want any part of this,’ Vedette clarified.
‘No,’ Mortensen added, ‘this is Guard business. Pryce, go with him.’
Darting past an impassive Sarakota, Conklin and Pryce disappeared down the adjacent corridor. Appearing in their place moments later was Sass, emerging from his cabin – master vox carelessly thrown over one shoulder and headset held to one ear.
‘Captain Rask for you, major,’ Sass announced, not a little pleased with himself.
Mortensen took the headset and pressed the vox-bead to his grizzled chin.
‘Talk to me Tyberius – tell me I’m still dreaming,’ the major rumbled.
‘I wish you were,’ came the tinny reply.
The vox lent the voice a quality of great distance and detachment, especially as it was, bouncing around the metal walls of the block apex. There was also something smooth and well-worn in the captain’s tone, however – something familiar and business-as-usual about his manner.
Captain Tyberius Rask had initially joined Deliverance and Brigadier Voskov with the 1001st Volscian Shadow Brigade – a company he’d personally tithed and processed on Volscia. Despite not being a Volscian himself, Rask soon became a rising star amongst Voskov’s tactical staff – and through his keen understanding of the hive-world mindset and an ability to harness Volscian strength, he unleashed the 1001st’s natural talent for slaughter. It had been this success that inevitably threw Rask and Mortensen together.
As Voskov’s chief tactical officer, the captain inherited responsibility for Mortensen and his ‘Redemption Corps’.
Zane Mortensen was widely known as a difficult if ruthlessly effective officer – right down to his apocalyptic survival on Gomorrah, a frankly unbelievable service record and barrack room rumours of his supposed indestructibility. Rask should know: it was his current duty to dispatch Mortensen and his storm-troopers on the innumerable spearheads, infiltration missions and special operations that had earned Mortensen half such a reputation.
It was very much this status – as the unit’s strategist and the final voice they heard before being dropped into some deathworld hellhole or other – that as a routine, steadied nerves and lent welcome focus and direction to bloody, battlefield situations often bereft of such luxuries.
‘Is the ship secure?’ Mortensen asked. Gunfire exchanged on the bridge might end their journey through the empyrean pretty definitely – one stray shot into an essential piece of equipment like a Geller field runebank would be enough to seal the fate of every man on board.
‘The ship’s fine. Look, we haven’t got much time,’ Rask replied.
‘We have weapons fire on the barracks decks,’ Mortensen informed him. ‘Is the materium breached? Is it warp fever?’
‘It’s not immaterial exposure. It’s not a mutiny: fighting is restricted to the starboard barracks decks and some forward areas. Captain Waldemar thought it prudent to seal Guard habitation off – just until the stomach goes out of the ringleaders.’
Mortensen rolled his eyes.
‘Told you,’ Vedette added.
‘So it’s the hivers?’ the major put to Rask.
‘It’s the Volscians; affirmative.’
‘Are you telling me that naval security is just going to sit watching bulkheads while the 1001st tear each other up?’ Mortensen rumbled.
‘Guard business. Waldemar won’t order his men in until both weapons and the rebellion are put down. He won’t risk the ship.’
Mortensen nodded slowly to himself.
‘So who’s offering the resistance?’
‘Small pockets of Shadow Brigade soldiers, either too loyal or too frightened to join the action – most led by sergeants or the odd lieutenant.’
‘Are you in charge up there?’
‘The regimental command structure is intact: Brigadier Voskov and the senior staff are up here on the bridge. He’s put the 364th on high alert, and sealed off their quarters, just in case the dissention spreads. We’ve already had enough Volscians shooting at each other.’
‘Why do that when they can shoot at me and my men instead?’ Mortensen sneered moodily.
‘I don’t know,’ Rask countered. ‘I hear you’re a real hit with Gomez and the Second Platoon.’
‘Talking of creed-freaks, what about Pontiff Preed?’
‘Voskov sent him down to steady the 364th. Look, Zane, you have to understand: this is not a mutiny. Several Shadow Brigade officers authorised distribution of weaponry to their platoons and took hostages.’
‘Hostages?’
Rask breathed hesitation back across the channel before: ‘Regimental Commissar Fosco and his personal staff.’
Mortensen let the headset drop to his thigh and shook his head with venom. ‘Son of a…’ It was his turn to check Vedette: ‘What did I tell you?’
‘Look Zane – I’m sorry to do this to you – I know how you feel about the good commissar.’
Mortensen brought the headset back up. ‘You really don’t.’
‘And I don’t think that many of us up here would disagree with you my friend – but we’ve got a little problem called Tactica regulations. We’ve got to put this insurrection down: the Imperial Guard does not negotiate with insurgents. You know that. I need the rebel command structure neutralised. Only then will Waldemar send in naval security.’
‘And Fosco?’
‘Of course, the hostages are a consideration.’
‘So that bastard can wreak more havoc. If Fosco walks out of there, it’ll be all day firing squads.’
‘Zane – it’s either that or face one ourselves when we get to Spetzghast.’
‘Me and my men – we’re instruments of Imperial justice; the left hand of the God-Emperor, if you will – that I don’t doubt.’
‘Major, your loyalty to Emperor is beyond question,’ Rask assured him with the smoothness of an expert salesman. ‘That’s why I’m on a vox-set to you instead of conducting pointless negotiations with the hostage-takers.’
Mortensen’s bitterness had yet to find expression, however. ‘So Fosco stirs up the Volscian hivers with his brutal ways. They’re brutal enough and strike back. Now my men and I have to spill the blood of brother Guardsmen and clean up this mess. I don’t know. You reap what you sow. Somehow, I feel this was inevitable. The Commissariat need men of character, not cruelty: they should be amongst our best, not our worst. I mean – castration; servitude in perpetuis; tongue clipping – since when have these been a soldier’s punishment for anything? But I guess it saves the bother of actually having to organise the firing squads, with most of the punished choosing to swallow their side arms instead–’
‘Major Mortensen: like myself – you and your men have your orders.’
Rask’s flat ultimatum hung in the stale air of the apex.
Sarakota backed up a step, admitting his sergeant and Trooper Pryce. They carried between them an engineering tool crate that they unceremoniously emptied out on the metal floor beside Diederick’s body. As well as the servitor tool attachments and various blessing oils, Mortensen could make out some flashlamps, a few corroded power packs, a bundle of dirty rebreathers and a plasma welding torch. The major grunted.
‘Do we have a plan?’ he asked Rask finally.
‘You’re going to love it.’
III
‘This has got to be the worst plan I’ve ever heard,’ Wendall Conklin announced to anyone who would listen. ‘And I’ve heard some beauts.’
‘Help me with this, will you?’ Mortensen put to the master sergeant, as much to shut him up as anything.
Vedette was backing up with the plasma torch, after cutting a ragged hatch through the heavy metal decking. Lifting the solid slab of flooring clear with lungfuls of exertion, the two storm-troopers held it for the dangerous moments it took Gorskii and Minghella to get their fingers underneath the dead weight and help toss the improvised hatch aside.
Sass swept in quickly with a sparked flashlamp but was forced back by the liberated stench that rose like a physical force to meet him. It was an almost overpowering concoction of petrochemical smog and stale sewage.
Vedette’s handiwork had also cut free the top section of a rusted deck drain. Covering his nose and mouth with the cuff of his uniform, the major’s adjutant leaned back in with the lamp and flashed it both ways up the dribbling conduit. Satisfied, he pulled himself upright.
‘Good work,’ Mortensen muttered, going in for a closer look himself. Once again Sass’s arithmetical gifts had been a boon. With the most basic of descriptions Captain Rask could offer from the bridge cogitators and runeprints, the storm-trooper had located the pipe running underneath the cabin allocated to Pryce and Sarakota with little more than some grumbling and measured pacing.
‘We’re going to need the masks,’ Vedette ventured, abandoning the plasma torch.
‘I’d say,’ Minghella agreed, covering his mouth with his beret.
‘One of them doesn’t work,’ Conklin informed them.
‘Well, then I guess that’s yours,’ Mortensen returned. He looked up at Sass. ‘Leads to the bilge, you say?’
The adjutant nodded: ‘The bilge compartments run the length of the ship. If the data Captain Rask has given us is even half-accurate we should be able to access large areas of the lower barrack decks from down there.’
‘The plasma?’
‘Spent,’ Vedette confirmed.
‘We’d better hope for some kind
of maintenance exit on the other end,’ Mortensen mused miserably.
‘Looks like a squeeze,’ Minghella observed, his brutish features screwed up more hideously than usual.
‘Yes,’ the major agreed, ‘and it ain’t going be pleasant down there, so we’d best make it count on the other side.’ Climbing into the pipe, Mortensen knelt down in the shallow pool of stagnant bilge water.
His crisp blood stripe trousers soon became sodden with muck and oil. His autopistol sat in his belt and holster, which he’d piled on the deck beside the opening. Dumping the leather harness in the stinking slime at his knees, he added a ready sparked flashlamp and a cog-hammer he’d requisitioned from the tool crate. The wicked claw that adorned one end had appealed to the major immediately as a suitable tool for both clearing obstructions in the pipe and skull-hooking potential adversaries.
‘Any last words before we commit ourselves to this?’ Mortensen put to the rest of the gathered Redemption Corps storm-troopers. When no one answered he added grimly: ‘Any better ideas?’
More silence.
Taking this as a signal Mortensen slid the pile forwards through the chemical sludge and slapped on a bulky, rubber rebreather before lying bare chest down in the pipe with his arms forward. Using his elbows and toes he began to squirm bilgeward. He wasn’t ecstatic about sitting his side arm in petrochemical slime but without room to actually draw his weapon he thought it best to have it up forward where it could still give a good account of itself in the confines of the conduit.
Claustrophobic just didn’t seem to do the experience justice. Mortensen braced himself against the cold metal of the piping – flexing his shoulders and back muscles – but the drain was fairly unforgiving and appeared to respond by squeezing back. That wasn’t the worst of it. The rebreathers were largely ancient and cracked and admitted much of the stomach-churning reek they were meant to circumvent. A few metres into the conduit crawl the pipe filled with the wretched echoes of both Conklin and Pryce throwing up in their masks. After a cacophony of spasms and spitting Mortensen checked with the pair, but the master sergeant simply swore and informed his CO that the smell of vomit was preferable to what they were squirming through.
Honour Imperialis - Aaron Dembski-Bowden Page 26
