Honour Imperialis - Aaron Dembski-Bowden

by Warhammer 40K

  Mortensen had no intention of engaging such groups: he was not here for a messy firefight. That meant wasting rounds and killing fellow Guardsmen – an eventuality he would rather avoid until it became unavoidable. Right now he needed information more than bodies and the officers’ mess afforded him opportunity to gather just that.

  The bulkhead was open and he could hear voices inside. The wall-hailer was a discordant play of insanity, Guardsmen yelling and shooting their elation back and forth across the unlocked deck-channel, with little in the way of tactical information available. The actual voices inside were harsh, yet quieter, and punctuated with occasional bouts of lazy laughter.

  Mortensen shot Sarakota a look; the sniper shot him back five fingers, then eight. He could count no more than five individual speakers, but it was hard to tell how many more might be present but silent. Holding his hand above one shoulder, Mortensen began to count his storm-troopers down.

  There were in fact eight, but as the troopers rushed the door, Mortensen found three of them splayed out across several mess tables, blind drunk. The silencers gaped their way in through the door, the troopers entering with smooth determination: Sarakota peeling left and Vedette right.

  A master sergeant – from his stripes and the staples across one mangled eye – was sitting amongst the officers’ benches, legs splayed, recounting some past heroism to a gathered audience of hivers, several of whom were clutching Volscian-pattern lasrifles.

  The soldiers were typical Shadow Brigade, with sloppy dress and scuffed boots, their arms and faces decorated with tattoos and studs denoting gang membership and House allegiance. They were born for urban warfare and had a natural affinity for merciless killing, but their mindset was all messed up with the complexities of hive loyalty and this didn’t sit well with the Imperial Guard’s mandate of a singular devotion to the God-Emperor and his representatives. Mortensen knew the patterns and the problems, hailing from a hive-world himself. It was exactly this, particularly the Volscian wearing of blood honour sashes, ornamentals and bandanas that Commissar Fosco had unwisely got into the minute he’d arrived on board Deliverance.

  The grizzled sergeant wore such drapery over his flak jacket and had his weapon stretched across the back of his shoulders, with his arms hung over the extended stock and barrel, as the Guardsmen passed several liberated decanters of amasec around.

  As Conklin held the door, the rest of the storm-troopers swept in, gabbling orders and savage warnings to the group. None of the inebriated Volscians actually got the stocks of their rifles off the deck floor and it was only the Shadow Brigade sergeant – his crooked face melting from mirth to fury – who actually made any attempt to bring his weapon to bear.

  The room slowed to a stand-off: Vedette, Pryce and Gorskii thrusting their barrels into the faces of the armed Guardsmen and Sass and Minghella securing the seemingly unconscious men on the tables. Sarakota had the master sergeant in his sights with Mortensen standing defiantly at the centre of the intrusion, his autopistol now lowered.

  As the barking subsided and the sergeant glared, Mortensen gave him the grim ultimatum of an uncompromising stare returned and deathly words.

  ‘I have no quarrel with you, brother,’ he addressed the hiver sergeant, ‘but if you do not immediately surrender your weapon, this next breath will be your last. Think about it.’

  The sergeant’s chest, the focus of Sarakota’s closing muzzle, momentarily froze. A ripple of defiance crossed the Volscian’s repulsive features, before softening, followed by the casual tossing of his lasgun onto the table. With a slovenly grin he leaned back, placing his hands behind his head. The remaining weapons clattered to the deck as the Guardsmen replicated the surrender.

  Mortensen nodded at Conklin who buried the grip of his weapon in the wall-hailer, smashing the vox to uselessness. In turn the corpsmen swept forward, scooping up the lasrifles, as Mortensen advanced, placing his own weapon on a nearby mess table.

  ‘Who’s in charge here?’ he asked the rebel Guardsmen.

  ‘I am,’ the sergeant leered.

  Mortensen spun, cog-hammer suddenly in his hand, and swinging for the sergeant’s face, tearing the smirk from it with the tool’s cruel claw. Blood sprayed the wall behind as the sergeant was torn from his chair and vaulted a nearby mess table, his jaw hanging off.

  The sergeant had been reaching for the hilt of a hive dirk, slipped into the leg of his boot. It seemed that the sergeant had no intention of being taken: seeing the Redemption Corps as the enforcers of Commissar Fosco’s justice. That alone made Mortensen uncomfortable – but he had a job to do. Grabbing the hive dirk Mortensen skipped up a bench and onto the table. Leaping down with purpose he landed amongst the rapidly sobering Guardsmen, snatching the nearest up by his short hair and wrestling him to the wall. Mortensen tossed Minghella his hammer before restraining the young Volscian’s forehead with one grimy hand. Mortensen slipped the narrow blade of the sergeant’s knife into the Guardsman’s mouth which was already open and full of panicked conciliations. Holding the knife in one white-knuckled fist Mortensen stretched the corner of the Volscian’s mouth as far as it would go without splitting.

  ‘Who’s in charge?’ Mortensen put to him dangerously.

  The Guardsman’s answer was immediate, if hampered by the presence of a blade in his mouth: ‘You are!’ This was echoed by others in the gathering. Pulling the blade from his mouth Mortensen positioned its tip carefully under the Guardsman’s chin, pinning his head to the wall. With his free hand he began the disconcerting process of unbuckling the belt holding up the Volscian’s fatigues. The wide-eyed Guardsman choked back a protestation as Mortensen’s own eyes flared.

  ‘I have questions. You have answers. If you don’t give me the exact answers I need, like your sergeant, you will not leave this room in one piece. Do we understand each other, Guardsman?’

  The Shadow Brigade soldier nodded. Mortensen mirrored the gesture.

  ‘Where are they holding Commissar Fosco?’

  The truth just fell out of him like vomit, sudden and involuntary.

  It seemed that the insurgent Volscians had set up their base of mutinous operations around the Regimental Armoury, the Shooting Range and Tactical Starboard.

  Mortensen wasn’t finished. With one hand he unthreaded the Guardsman’s belt and slapped it across one shoulder: ‘And who are “they”?’

  The hiver looked slightly surprised that the major didn’t already know but with a little knifepoint insistence he gushed forth as he did before, memory kicking in.

  ‘Guardsman Quoitz, Guardsman Remerez, Guardsman First Class Hecklenbrock…’

  Mortensen gave a nasty chuckle and tapped the tip of his blade on the Guardsman’s lips to shut him up.

  ‘No, no, no. Guardsman: who do I have to kill to get some peace and quiet around here?’

  The Guardsman stammered: ‘You mean, who’s in charge?’

  Mortensen gave a slow nod.

  The Volscian caught himself: ‘You are, sir!’

  Several of the storm-troopers couldn’t resist a smile. Mortensen took in the room.

  ‘New entry technique,’ the major jested. ‘Kick in the door and ask the Volscians a couple of difficult questions.’

  ‘Or not so difficult,’ Sass added.

  ‘Targets!’ Conklin hissed.

  The storm-troopers fell into a coordinated two-step sequence of securing their prisoners and covering the door. Sass and Minghella went down behind the mess tables, whilst Gorskii and Pryce put their detainees’ heads on the deck. Sarakota and Vedette swept forward, criss-crossing the mess doorway with their newly claimed lasrifles: all out of sight.

  Conklin opened the door wider – not wanting the squad to be trapped inside – and lay in wait behind, crouched with autopistol ready to kneecap the first unfortunate to enter the room.

  Mortensen moved his knife deftly
under the Guardsman’s throat and sidled the prisoner along the wall – the fatigues falling down around the Volscian’s ankles – and aimed his own pistol parallel along the wall.

  Heavy bootfalls filled the corridor, with some gasps and calls. A small crowd of Guardsmen thundered up the passage, met by several others coming the other way. It was hard to make out amongst the running and yelling, but someone definitely shouted ‘Found ’em!’

  The storm-troopers tensed, leaning into the doorway, fingers settled firmly over triggers.

  ‘In the galley and deep storage – got some of ’em trapped…’

  The throng hammered off down the corridor, mindlessly drawn to the site of the new information like a pack of dogs on a scent trail. Mortensen centred back in on his prisoner.

  ‘Okay, we are running out of time here, so I’m going to make it easy for you. I’m going to give you names, you nod. Captain Eckhardt?’

  A hesitant nod; like a considered betrayal.

  ‘Lieutenant Shanks?’

  A definite nod: nobody liked Shanks.

  ‘Isidore?’

  ‘Lieutenant Isidore is dead,’ the Guardsman informed them.

  Mortensen raised an eyebrow: dissension in the ranks, that was good.

  ‘Who else?’ he insisted. Eckhardt and Shanks couldn’t possibly have mobilised this number of men alone.

  ‘Sergeant Mako.’

  Mortensen pursed his lips. He’d heard of Mako: a real bruiser and lower decks troublemaker, with plenty of pull through his gang affiliations to bring Isidore’s men over to Eckhardt. He’d probably killed Isidore himself.

  Mortensen threw a glance at Conklin, who checked the corridor. The major rotated one finger and the storm-troopers began their retreat, slipping one by one, weapon last, out of the officers’ mess the way they had entered. Mortensen backed away from the Guardsman, allowing the Volscian a moment to collect himself. His hands moved up to his face, to check it was still there, but all he found were a few nicks where the major’s blade had caught him. Then he turned his eyes down on his fallen fatigues and his regimental-issue underwear. No sashes or adornments there.

  As Mortensen’s filth-encrusted face left the room he gave a grin, the whites of his teeth bright against the background of his grimy features.

  ‘See you at the court martial.’

  The major grunted. A court martial if they were lucky: most would be executed for their insubordination. As the bulkhead closed Mortensen found himself back out on the main corridor. He spun the bulkhead pressure wheel and handed the unfortunate Guardsman’s belt to Conklin: ‘Tie it off.’ The sergeant managed a wicked grin of his own before going to work on the wheel.

  To Sass the major ordered, ‘Get us to the Armoury.’ He doubted the corpsman had ever been down there but he knew he could rely on the adjutant’s almost photographic memory for such seemingly useless information as the deckplans for their own vessel.

  ‘The most direct route, or the long way round?’

  ‘And the long way entails?’

  ‘Maintenance ducts and vents.’

  Mortensen shook his head. The long way would undoubtedly be the stealthiest, but time was lives and if the men holding the galley were anything to go by, there was little time left. Besides, Mortensen had had enough of crawlspaces for today and he told Sass as much.

  The corpsman moved several places up the silently advancing column of storm-troopers and tapped Vedette – their current pointman – on the right shoulder, prompting her to peel off right at the next junction.

  As it turned out, Mortensen’s decision had been a mistake and the storm-troopers’ progress was slow regardless, running into group after group of gathered Shadow Brigade Guardsmen, forcing them to divert or hold fast in empty companionways and bunk-ups. The situation was rapidly tearing itself apart, with rebel soldiers now at each others’ throats as well as those of the loyalists. Beatings were rife and some sections of the barracks were shot up and in a state of ruin. Dormitory Section 6 was actually aflame, with someone still having the presence of mind to have sealed it off. Either way, Mortensen and his men were forced to go around, moving like soundless chess pieces, from strategic formation to formation, corner to corner, corridor to corridor.

  Vedette found a bruised and beaten Guardsman, sitting on his backside in the middle of the passage, cradling a laspistol. He looked up but barely knew where he was and the Mordian gave him a taste of her boot to seal the deal.

  Rounding a hazy apex, the corporal caught a bolt in the thigh, prompting the squad to drop and assume fire positions. Mortensen hauled her back, handing her over to Minghella and allowing Sarakota to push forward. The sniper turned his head, tuning into the shots and footfalls. Satisfied he reported that the pattern of fire was random and not actually aimed at them: Vedette had just got unlucky. The medic hastily patched up the leg, field-style, with the Mordian gnashing her teeth through his inspection and rapid dressing of the wound – angry at herself more than at Minghella’s attentions.

  In order to avoid the savage slaughter party taking place down the shot- and smoke-choked passageway Mortensen ordered a brief diversion through the ventilation floorspace. Sass assured them that the Armoury was a few minutes scramble from their present position, which was small enough to justify one more claustrophobic experience, and the major went to work tearing up a nearby floor panel with his all-purpose cog-hammer.

  While this was happening a Shadow Brigade officer ran up out of the murk at them from a different corridor. He was as surprised to see Pryce, as the storm-trooper was to see him: he’d been covering the angle and the Volscian was bare-foot, unarmed and had made little in the way of sound. He skidded to a stop on the grille floor, allowing the reality of the moment to sink in before about-facing and sprinting back up the corridor. The devout Pryce brought up his lasrifle to down the officer but Mortensen shouldered the lasgun aside, intent on conserving their ammunition. Finding one further use for the hammer he tossed it handle over head at the fleeing uniform. The heavy cog struck the Volscian down as it thumped into the back of his neck with sickening impact. The officer lurched, bouncing off the wall before tripping, rolling and coming to a full stop in an untidy heap by the other wall.

  Pushing Gorskii into the hole to rotate point, Mortensen shoved Pryce to the rear.

  ‘Assist Vedette,’ he barked at the trooper: the crawl wasn’t going to be kind to the Mordian’s bound leg, ‘and watch our backs.’

  Dropping in one at a time and disappearing into the floor, Pryce pulled the panel back over behind them. It wasn’t the rear they had to worry about, however. A few corners’ shuffle later, Sass directing the Valhallan through the maze of ducts, Gorskii had her own heart-pounder to contend with. Still, silent and lying in wait down one of the twilight sub-ducts, the glint of a galley knife came at her. Cutting her to the bone, the blade slid across one cheek, adding yet another horrific scar to her collection, before she got to grips with the wild arm that had thrashed at her in the confined space of the duct. With her rifle slung and little use in the confines of the vent she had been leading with her autopistol. Desperate eyes came at her from the dark and before she knew it she was in a full-scale murderous tangle with a Volscian, who had one hand around the handle of the knife and the other tightly wrapped around the silencer of her side arm.

  The scuffle continued with Sass abandoning his own weapon and trying to wrestle the knife out of the soldier’s spasming grip. Conklin jammed the barrel of his lasgun forward over the adjutant’s shoulder in an attempt to get a point-blank shot off, but Sass grunted something and pushed himself up on his knees, forcing the rifle up into the vent metal.

  Another hot slice across the forearm had done it for Gorskii, however, who brutally butted the soldier full in the face, painting his cheeks with her own blood. The pistol went awry and the soft thud of a silenced round plucked at the soldier’s forehead
. He went suddenly limp, resting against the duct wall before sliding backwards to reveal a bullet hole and a gore-smear that followed his descent.

  Sass pushed past the gushing Valhallan, who was now attempting to stifle the blood flow from her razored cheek. The adjutant checked the Guardsman for a pulse, but there was little hope: the auto round had blown the back of his head out.

  ‘Friendly down,’ Sass reported dourly, prompting Gorskii to peek from behind her bloodstained palms.

  ‘What?’ Conklin rumbled, already riled about his diverted shot.

  Sass jerked a thumb down the sub-duct from which the Guardsman had attacked them.

  ‘Galley. He’s a loyalist. Why would a rebel be hiding down here with a kitchen knife?’

  Sure enough the distant sound of sporadic las-fire and furious threats bounced up the sub-duct at them.

  After a moment to allow the realisation to sink in Mortensen simply ordered: ‘Push on.’

  ‘Boss, don’t you think we could–’

  ‘Take point, sergeant.’

  It would be easy to allow themselves to get pulled into the galley firefight, rushing to the aid of the pinned-down loyalists. Conklin clearly wanted to take it to them. Mortensen would give him his chance: where it mattered, however, down in the Tactical Bay.

  With the master sergeant’s boots behind it the screen at the end of the vent flew off and clattered to the Armoury floor. The insurrectionists were long gone – the sergeant had already checked – and so, as the Redemption Corps came to realise as they piled out of the duct, had the weaponry. Mortensen had hoped to bolster their own pitiful armoury, which as it stood amounted to little more than a few spent rifles and pistols packing a single clip of uniform requirement ammunition. The 1001st’s stocks had been completely ransacked, by rebels or loyalists or in all likelihood, both. Captain Eckhardt had not left sentries because there was nothing left to guard.