by Darius Hinks
Eskol slammed the doors and fell back across the floor of the mine, laughing hysterically. Ghadd managed to stay upright by leaning against one of the iron roof supports, but his laughter was just as uncontrollable. Both the troopers lowered their lasrifles as they rocked back and forth, howling with mirth.
‘Rattus rattus!’ cried Eskol. He was a brute, over six feet tall and built like an armoured groundcar, but, for a moment, Llourens was reminded of the boy she grew up with.
‘Rattus rattus!’ howled Ghadd. He was the opposite of Eskol – almost as slight as Llourens and not much taller. With a hunched back and spindly frame, he was the living embodiment of their regimental nickname, the Grave Rats.
‘For the twelfth,’ he said, drawing a flask and handing it to Llourens.
She removed her mask to take a swig and heat blossomed in her chest. Not the lethal heat of radioactive clouds, but the good, invigorating heat of brandy. ‘Rattus rattus,’ she muttered, grinning at the inanity of what she had just done. To be so ridiculous, even for a moment, was a kind of escape.
‘Did they see you?’ asked Eskol, his voice still shaking.
‘The ancients?’ Her heart was racing and she could not entirely hide the tremor in her voice, but she tried to sound dismissive. ‘What does it matter? They were ignoring us centuries ago, when we were actually worth fighting. They’re certainly not interested in me.’
Eskol gave a groan of mock concern and threw one of his arms over her shoulder. ‘I’m interested.’
She punched him, hard, in the stomach and he fell away, bellowing with a mixture of laughter and pain. His lasrifle clattered across the shattered floor and Ghadd had to leap forwards to stop it falling through an opening. The loss of a weapon was a capital offence. None of them liked the idea of facing a commissar when they returned to the Kysloth barracks.
‘Let’s get moving,’ Llourens said, checking that her suit was properly fastened. ‘I need to talk to Captain Elias about this. If they keep attacking that ridge, there will be even more cave-ins. The ancients might not care about us, but they’re doing a good job of making these tunnels unusable.’
They all became more sober as they considered what they had seen over the last few days.
‘Three cave-ins in as many miles,’ said Ghadd, shaking his head. ‘If things carry on like this, the barracks will end up cut off from the rest of the mines.’
They fell quiet for a moment, all trace of humour gone. All of them knew what that would mean for the garrison. If they could no longer reach the promethium deposits, they would no longer be able to fuel their generators. Without generators, they would die.
‘Let’s get back to Kysloth,’ said Llourens. ‘Perhaps I can make Captain Elias listen this time.’
They climbed easily down into a lower tunnel, slipping through rents in the old mine shafts and sliding down the rusted remains of ventilation pipes. A series of crooked galleries and burned-out mines unfolded before them. To an off-worlder it would have seemed an impassable maze, but this was the only world they had ever known and they traversed it easily and quickly.
As they descended, the tunnels became lighter rather than darker. Veins of promethium ore leaked cool, blue light up through the vertical shafts. It glinted in the lenses of their rebreather hoods, lighting up the faces painted on their masks – stylised, white rats.
The heat grew more fierce as they descended, too, but they kept up their pace and soon returned to their prize. No one ever ventured out this far east from Kysloth, but Llourens felt a glimmer of guilt as she saw the unattended ore-hauler. It was only a small mine trolley, but it was laden with promethium barrels. She should not have left such a treasure unguarded, but Eskol knew she could not resist a challenge. They had been listening to the moronic manoeuvres of the ancients for days, unable to sleep because of the endless pounding of their guns. Llourens was tormented by the fact that the ancients were killing them without even realising, so she had jumped at the chance to show her disapproval, even in such an absurd way.
They checked the fastenings were all intact and then carefully placed their shoulders against the back of the wagon.
‘Careful over this next gallery,’ rumbled Eskol. ‘It’s not stable since that last cave-in. See how it slopes to the side now? It could give way at any time.’
The journey had been tortuous. Once-familiar stretches of mine had been altered and weakened by the tremors caused by the ancients’ manoeuvres on the surface. They had to tread with far more caution than usual, unsure which floors would hold and which would not. A mistake would be fatal. One sudden jolt would be enough to ignite the whole load and there was enough unrefined promethium in the barrels to rip a hundred-yard hole in the mine.
They trudged on, steering the trolley around holes in the floor and back onto its tracks.
‘I know you think I’m too good for you,’ muttered Eskol as he took the whole weight for a moment, straining as he lifted the cart over a shattered beam. ‘But I would be prepared to lower my standards.’
He glanced sideways at her as he lowered the cart. ‘You’re not entirely ugly.’
Usually, Llourens would have replied with a barbed comment, but the humour was strained and she could think of nothing funny to say.
‘For Throne’s sake,’ said Ghadd. His face was just inches from Llourens’ and she could see his scowl of concentration through the lenses of his goggles. ‘Leave it. If she tries to hit you, we’ll all end up as meat paste.’
The final approach to the Kysloth barracks was the most dangerous. They wheeled the trolley into the next chamber and reached the remains of a narrow chute. The lift cages had collapsed centuries ago, but the engineers of the Sabine 12th were an ingenious lot and they had rigged up a system of pulleys and gurneys. Iron cables hung down into the brightness, fastened securely to a jerry-rigged headframe – a pyramid of metal struts, twenty feet tall and welded into place at the top of the shaft.
‘Is it still sound?’ asked Ghadd.
‘It will have to be,’ replied Llourens.
The three troopers hardly dared breathe as they fixed the cables to the sides of the trolley, locked the pulley and gently pushed it out over the void.
The cables held and Llourens grinned. She looked at Eskol and Ghadd and saw from their eyes that they were smiling too.
‘Who gets to ride?’ asked Eskol. One of them would need to descend on the trolley so it could be unfastened when it reached the next tunnel.
‘You’re too fat,’ said Ghadd. ‘Think how much blubber you’d generate if it went off.’ He stepped towards the gently swinging trolley. ‘Besides, I have a feeling–’
The mine shook, as though it were laughing along with them. They all froze as another grinding tremor echoed through the tunnels, scattering chunks of plascrete across the floor and agitating the dust into a series of little tornados.
For a moment, none of them spoke, staring in silence at the promethium tanks, waiting to see if they would explode.
The tremor died away and the tanks remained intact.
Ghadd backed slowly away from the trolley. ‘That one sounded different,’ he whispered, as though even a raised voice could be enough to kill them.
Llourens looked up the shaft into the rolling shadows. ‘Something landing on the surface, maybe?’
‘Ancients?’ asked Eskol. His tone of voice made it clear that he did not think so.
‘What else could it be?’ asked Ghadd, looking at Llourens.
‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘It must be the ancients.’
The other two stared at her, then looked up into the darkness.
‘You’re crazy,’ she muttered, but she was just as intrigued as they were.
There was another moment of expectant silence, then she shook her head and sighed, looking up the shaft. ‘Let’s take a quick look from one of the upper galleries. We�
��ll have to be quick though. We’ve spent too long in the upper tunnels already. I don’t want to end up pushing two glowing corpses back on this thing.’ She nodded at the trolley. ‘We’ll need to get this back on the tracks. We can’t leave it swinging about like that.’
There was another low rumble, gentler than the first but enough to make them back away until it ceased.
‘Definitely on the surface,’ said Ghadd, his eyes gleaming behind his mask. ‘The first sounded like something landing and the second sounded like it lifted off again.’
‘The ancients don’t go about on the surface,’ said Eskol.
He was right. Apart from their deranged aerial bombardments, the ancients only ever emerged from the very lowest levels of the mines. They rose like the revenants they were, from some subterranean pit even deeper than the deepest mine shafts.
‘Quickly then,’ said Llourens, feeling a strange pulse of excitement.
They hauled the trolley gently back onto its mangled tracks and Ghadd used a few of the cables to fasten it in place for extra stability. Then they grabbed the cables and climbed silently up into the blackness.
The Sabine 12th had no need for maps or schematics. They knew every cut and pump station, every mangled cage for miles around the Kysloth barracks. They vaulted confidently up through the pipes and pulleys, clambering over charred rock and rusted chains as they raced for the upper levels.
Llourens waved for silence as they entered a factorum near the top of the mine complex. They were still a few dozen feet below the surface, but close enough for their rad-suits to bark warnings.
‘We must be quick,’ she muttered, more to herself than the others. What am I doing? she wondered, tasting that familiar burned plastic smell of the Morsusian air. It was risky in the extreme to come so near the surface a second time. One strong gust of ionised air could rip through their suits. If an ash storm kicked up, they would be dead in seconds.
She unclipped her magnoculars from her belt and hurried through an old warehouse. There were remnants of crates and workbenches scattered across the floor and everything was draped in a pale robe of ash.
Eskol and Ghadd unslung their lasrifles from their backs and kept them trained on the large double doors at the far end of the warehouse.
Something moved in the shadows and the Grave Rats whirled around, levelling their guns at the source of the sound.
A grotesque shape lumbered into view. It was roughly humanoid, but freakishly misproportioned – a giant, over seven feet tall, so powerfully built that it made even Eskol look slight. Its shoulders were unnaturally broad and its arms were like a pair of thick, iron cables. The creature was naked but for a loincloth and its flesh was a purple mass of scar tissue. Every inch of its skin was rippled, a glossy record of horrific burns. Despite its charred skin, the creature stood proudly, exuding a fierce vitality. Its face was dominated by the strangeness of its eyes. They were disproportionately large and completely colourless – two white orbs, rolling in a nest of angry, ruddy scars.
Llourens and the other two laughed with relief and lowered their guns.
‘What’s an ogryn doing up here?’ said Ghadd, looking around for more abhumans.
Eskol grimaced and gently steered Ghadd away from the creature as it sniffed the air and stepped a little closer to them.
‘Maybe it heard the same thing we did?’ he suggested.
The creature followed and the three troopers backed away.
‘Don’t let it touch you,’ growled Eskol, gripping his lasrifle.
‘Just keep moving,’ said Llourens, placing her hand on his gun and lowering it again. ‘It has no business with us.’
‘Who knows what their business is?’ muttered Eskol, but he did as ordered and continued on towards the doors, throwing the abhuman a warning glance as he left.
Llourens led them into the cellars of a long, narrow chamber. It was a changing house, one of the buildings where the ogryns used to don their mining gear. The cellar walls had caved in long ago and they were able to cross its entire length by clambering over the downed walls.
‘It’s following us,’ said Eskol, waving back the way they had come.
Llourens looked back and saw the ogryn stepping slowly through the ruins, stooping to fit its massive frame through the same gaps they had climbed through. It was still sniffing the air, tilting its head from side to side as it walked, like a dog hearing the call of its master.
‘It can’t do you any harm,’ she snapped, irritated by how nervous Eskol always got around abhumans.
‘Unless it touches me,’ he muttered.
‘Relax,’ said Ghadd. ‘I met a woman in Kysloth who–’
Eskol raised an eyebrow.
‘Not that woman. I spoke to a woman who once spent two months working right next to an ogryn. She never came down with any kind of rad-sickness.’
‘Rubbish,’ replied Eskol as they reached the end of the room and stopped. ‘When did you ever speak to a woman?’
Llourens gave a despairing sigh then nodded to the hatch overhead. ‘I’ve been out there once today. I’m damned if I’m going up again.’ She held out her magnoculars.
Eskol and Ghadd stared at each other in silence. Then Eskol grabbed the magnoculars and hauled himself up the rungs of the iron ladder that led to the hatch overhead. He paused on the top rung and adjusted the fittings of his suit and hood, then waved the other two back. As he looked down, he caught sight of the giant abhuman. It had crossed the chamber and was looking up at him.
‘Don’t let that near me,’ he growled. Then he turned back to the hatch, shoved it open a fraction and looked out through the magnoculars.
‘Ash clouds,’ he muttered.
‘Get down!’ snapped Llourens and Ghadd simultaneously.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I don’t mean a storm. It’s… Something has kicked up the ash. Something has–’
‘Throne of Terra,’ he said, his voice oddly tight.
‘What do you see?’ asked Ghadd.
‘Too long!’ cried Llourens, unnerved by the fear in Eskol’s voice. She hauled him down, leapt up the ladder and closed the hatch.
When she dropped down, Eskol was sitting on a pile of sacks, looking dazed.
‘What did you see?’ asked Ghadd, all trace of humour gone from his voice.
Eskol shook his head.
‘Hey!’ snapped Ghadd. ‘You saw something out there. What was it?’
Llourens remained quiet. She could see the fear in Eskol’s eyes and her curiosity suddenly vanished. She didn’t want to know what he had seen on the surface.
‘Star Warriors,’ said a voice. It was a low, guttural growl, as though a large animal were attempting to use words.
Llourens turned to the ogryn in surprise. ‘Star Warriors?’ Llourens did not understand the words, but the reverence in the ogryn’s voice intrigued her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Sergeant!’ hissed Ghadd, shaking his head.
Llourens blushed behind her mask and nodded, backing away from the creature. Discourse with an ogryn was strictly forbidden, and for good reason. Ignoring the risks of rad-sickness, the ogryns’ mutations were a barely tolerated deviation. In previous generations there had been pogroms and purges. There were too few humans left alive now for such luxuries, but she was committing an act of heresy by addressing the creature.
‘Let’s go,’ she muttered, shocked by her own behaviour. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking,’ she added, looking back at Ghadd.
He shrugged and gave her an awkward smile, but they both knew she had crossed a line.
‘What did you see?’ she asked Eskol again.
Eskol shook his head. ‘Giants.’ He nodded at the ogryn. ‘As big as that thing but dressed in suits of armour.’ He looked up at Llourens, his eyes strained. ‘I’ve never seen anything like them.’
; ‘Star Warriors,’ growled the ogryn, turning to leave. ‘Sons of gods.’
‘You left it behind?’ Captain Elias leant back in his chair, looking at Llourens with an expression of baffled amusement. ‘An entire trolley of fuel tanks?’
She nodded, sensing Eskol and Ghadd shuffling awkwardly either side of her.
Captain Elias whistled. ‘Impressive,’ he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘You have excelled yourself, sergeant.’
The captain’s chamber resembled the back office of an abandoned museum. The walls were hung with what looked like an entire armoury. Ceremonial sabres, arranged in fans, sat next to obsolete lasrifles and medals in display cabinets. It must have once been an impressive collection but now, like everything else on Morsus, it was draped in ash and dust. The captain’s uniform was as faded and stained as the rugs that hid his splintered floorboards. There was a window directly behind his desk, housed in an elaborate golden frame, cast in the shape of heraldic beasts and snapping banners, but the gilt had peeled away and everything was tinted with the harsh, phosphorescent glow of promethium ore.
‘Sir, we had to return as fast as possible,’ she said.
Captain Elias raised an eyebrow. ‘You had to return as fast as possible, without the thing you were sent to find.’
She struggled to hide her frustration. ‘Tunnels are collapsing right across the mine, sir. If we don’t do anything soon, there will be no safe route to the promethium stores. We’ll be trapped in here.’
Captain Elias leant back in his chair and waved his hand vaguely at the square outside his window. Lines of troops were marching back and forth in a desultory, sloppy mockery of a parade. ‘We must not rush things, sergeant. The regiment has not been on the offensive in any of our lifetimes. I’m waiting to discuss tactics with the general when he returns to Kysloth.’
Llourens had heard this answer several times over the last month and she felt like slamming her fists on the desk. She bit back an angry reply, and kept her voice calm as she continued.
‘There was something else, sir. We saw something out there.’ She hesitated. ‘Have you ever heard anyone speak of Star Warriors?’
