‘Obel to Pasha. Do you copy? Obel to Pasha.’
In the laboratory space, Konjic passed the vox-mic to Pasha.
Pasha took it.
‘Lunny? Is Pasha. Sorry, vox is being scrambled by whatever crazy has happened to our Mechanicus hosts. Konjic had to run re-routes, clever boy.’
‘We’re going in, major,’ Obel replied on speaker. ‘Not ideal circumstances–’
‘You do your best, Lunny Obel. Make Belladon proud.’
‘I’m from Tanith, ma’am.’
‘And where is that, these days, eh? Belladon will give you land and honour when you come home a hero. An adopted son. Do what you can. In five minutes, I start sending teams down from this end.’
‘We’ve locked ourselves in here, major,’ said Obel, his voice crackling with static. ‘What’s the situation?’
‘Is bad, sad to tell,’ she replied. She looked over at the door that led from the lab into the arcade. Spetnin had a squad there and two more outside, fending off anything that came close. She could hear the constant chatter of las-fire. ‘The Mechanicus makes deadly toys. Gun-servitors. Kill machines. Very bad. Also, the priests have gone insane. We are killing many, and so are they.’
‘We’ll be as quick as we can,’ replied Obel. ‘Can you contact the palace for reinforcement?’
Pasha grimaced. ‘I will try, Lunny. Now off you go. The Emperor protects.’
‘Obel out.’
Pasha handed the mic back to her adjutant.
‘Didn’t have the heart to tell him,’ she said. Konjic had been trying the Urdeshic Palace and high command channels for several minutes. They were all dead. It wasn’t just scrambling or interference. The caster display read all those sites as non-functional. She dreaded to think what might have happened.
She took a deep breath. All she could do was focus on the job at hand, the job the Lord Executor had given her.
Spetnin hurried over. He was bleeding from a scalp wound.
‘Well?’ she asked.
‘Almost an over-run,’ he replied. ‘All our companies inside the complex have been driven into pockets by the frenzy. The Mechanicus has run amok. But they’re making easy targets. It just takes a lot to kill them. Our casualty rate stands at about thirty per cent.’
‘Throne,’ she rumbled. That was hundreds of men.
‘Our big problem is going to be ammunition,’ Spetnin said. ‘We’re burning through it, and we can’t get out to resupply. Are we getting reinforcement?’
She shook her head.
‘Not from the palace,’ she said. ‘But we have four companies outside.’
‘Who are in a fight themselves,’ Spetnin reminded her.
‘They may be better off than us,’ she said. ‘They were ready for theirs. Konjic, please to see if you can raise Kolosim.’
On the scree around the approach road, the Ghosts were lighting up the night. Their position was holding, and they were answering everything the insurgents handed them with interest. Already, the fire rate from the Archenemy, invisible in the waste-ground on the far side of the highway bank, had begun to drop off. Kolosim reckoned that in another ten minutes the hostiles would run out of munitions, or the will to continue, or the Ghosts would have simply killed enough of them to break them.
He cracked off some shots himself, using a rockcrete post as cover, his cape drawn in around him to mask him in the night. Ripples of bolts were criss-crossing the highway, and the Ghost’s extended line was dancing with discharge flashes and the big fire blurts of the heavy support weapons.
His link crackled.
‘Kolosim, go,’ he said.
‘Pasha. It is shit-show in here. We’re going to need some help.’
‘Happy to oblige as soon as this breaks, major,’ he replied.
‘Make it fast, captain. We are running dry of ammunition. If you can get in here, bring plenty. And consider anything and anyone you meet who isn’t a Ghost a hostile. The Mechanicus has turned.’
‘They’ve turned?’
‘Bah. Long story. Just get in. But bring ammo, and bring things that kill hard. Tread fethers. Grenades. Crew-served units. All targets have a high stopping factor.’
‘Stay alive,’ he responded. ‘I’ll advise you as soon as we’re moving. Kolosim out.’
Kolosim ducked down and crawled through the rubble to Bray’s position.
‘Here’s a twist,’ he said. ‘We’re going in.’
‘Into the Mechanicore?’ Bray asked.
Kolosim nodded and quickly related what Pasha had said. ‘I want you to get at least a company strength ready to fall back as soon as this dies down enough.’
Bray nodded. He looked back up the approach road at the dark, grim bulk of the Mechanicus fortress, a grey monolith in the night.
‘Ironic,’ he said. ‘We thought our job was going to be defending that place. Not invading it.’
‘You know what ironic gets you?’ Kolosim asked.
‘No, sir.’
‘Fething nothing. Not a thing. This situation is ongoing and developing. I don’t much fancy assaulting a fortified location like that head on, but I’m not leaving Pasha and the rest to die in there. That’s over two thirds of the Ghosts.’
‘If we can get the main gate open, we might be able to use the transports to move munitions inside in bulk. Faster than carry-teams.’
‘All right,’ said Kolosim. ‘Clock’s ticking.’
The fire rate coming in at them suddenly dropped away to almost nothing. Just a few lone shooters continued to pink away.
‘The feth?’ said Bray.
Kolosim pulled his bead close. ‘Ghost formations, cease fire. Cease fire.’
Firing from the Tanith lines died back. An almost eerie silence settled over the nightscape, broken only by a few cracks and pops from persistent shooters and the distant grumble of heat lightning. A haze of smoke drifted.
‘I don’t like that,’ said Bray.
Kolosim didn’t either. He’d expected the attack to die away eventually, because the insurgents moved in small, mobile, ill-supported units and their ammunition was limited. But they hadn’t all run out all at once. This fire-halt was coordinated.
They waited. After an anxious minute or two, they heard the engine.
A cargo-6 was coming down the highway from the east, lights hooded. It was moving at a fair pace. Kolosim couldn’t see it clearly, but it looked like its cab windows had been plated with flakboard.
‘Crap!’ he said. ‘Oh crap!’
He knew what it was. The Sekkite insurgence had driven bombs into several targets during the long months of the Urdesh campaign. They were rolling something in now. The foot attack had been to keep the Ghosts in position. Now the kill thrust was coming.
A cargo-6 could carry about ten tonnes. If it was fully laden, and that load was thermite or D60, both of which the insurgents used, then it would level a couple of square kilometres around the approach road.
Several Ghosts had taken aim at the approaching truck.
‘No!’ Bray ordered. A stray shot would set off an unstable load. A tread fether like the one Chiria was lugging would certainly stop the truck, but the result would be the same. It was already too close. A blast would take half of the Ghosts with it.
‘Fall back?’ asked Bray.
Kolosim shook his head. There was no time. No one would get clear. Not even at a run.
He dashed down the line to Nessa.
‘Driver!’ he said, signing. ‘Driver or engine block! Nothing else!’
She nodded, and set her long-las, resting it on its folding bipod across the top of the boulder she was crouched behind.
The cargo-6 thundered closer, kicking up dust. It was running fast, and wavering across the centre-line of the highway.
‘Nessa?’ Kolosim urged.<
br />
‘I have to wait,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘It has to be side-on, or the round will go clean through to the back compartment.’
‘Shit!’ Kolosim hissed.
The truck came up the final stretch. Ghosts in the line nearby had ducked flat. It took the corner hard, tyres squealing, tilting hard on its suspension. Throne, it was loaded heavy.
Past the corner it began to accelerate up the approach road. It was almost level with them.
Nessa looked serene. She seemed to have stopped breathing.
Her long-las boomed.
The hotshot round went through the boarded side window of the cab. It must have delivered a straight kill to the driver, because the truck veered hard. Nessa ejected the cell, slammed home another, and fired again. Her reload cycle had taken less than a second. She didn’t even appear to aim the second time. She fired, and the second hotshot punched through the truck’s engine cover. Something blew out under the hood and the truck decelerated hard. Its motor was clattering and stricken. The truck came to a slow halt as its sudden lack of motive power worked with the incline of the approach road. It started to coast, then swung sideways and rammed a fencepost.
Kolosim had closed his eyes. He opened them. The truck had not detonated. Its front end was caved around the post. It started rolling backwards slowly, carried by its own weight on the slope.
‘Feth!’ Kolosim said.
The truck rolled silently, motor dead, and bounced off the approach road on the other side, rear axle down in the gulley.
Again, it did not go off.
Kolosim was up and running. So were Caober and Chiria, heedless of the fact that they were exposed with insurgents in range on the far side of the highway.
Chiria reached the truck first, and clambered into the back.
‘Chiria?’ Kolosim yelled.
‘More D60 than I ever want to see in one place again,’ she called back. ‘Shit.’
‘What?’
‘It’s on a timer.’
‘How long?’
‘You don’t want to know. Run.’
Caober had opened the cab door. The driver, a Sek packson, was dead behind the wheel. Nessa’s shot had entirely vaporised his head.
Kolosim got up into the back. His jaw dropped. He’d never seen so many boxes of D60. Maybe a tonne and half, plus some open crates of thermite mines. Chiria was hunched over them.
‘It’s pretty rudimentary,’ she said. ‘Impact trigger running the timed fuse. Very rough. Surprised they didn’t die rigging it.’
‘How long?’
‘You still don’t want to know.’
‘Stop saying that!’ he exclaimed.
‘Just cup your balls and pray,’ she said. She was good with explosives. If anyone could do it, it was Chiria.
‘Uh oh,’ she said.
‘What!’
She turned to look at him. A big grin split her famously scarred face. ‘We’re still alive,’ she said.
She tossed him the detached timer and firing pack. He caught it badly.
‘Feth you,’ he said. ‘I nearly shat.’ He kissed her on the side of the head.
‘Get off,’ she said.
They heard pops and cracks. The insurgents had started up again. It wasn’t as heavy as before. They had little left to deliver.
But they were aiming for the truck. They wanted to finish the delivery of their gift.
Kolosim jumped down out of the cargo-6. Las-bolts and hard rounds were clipping the road and gulley around him. He heard one slice through the cargo-6’s canvas cover.
‘Light ’em up! Make ’em stop!’ he yelled into his bead.
The Ghosts began firing, trying to drive the remaining insurgents down and keep them so pinned they couldn’t fire.
But shots were still coming in.
‘Over here!’ Kolosim yelled. With Chiria and Caober, he was already straining to push the truck out of the gulley. The nearest fire teams ran over to join them. One was hit in the back of the leg as he ran forwards. Someone stopped to drag him back to cover, yelling for a corpsman. The others came to Kolosim’s side, tossing down their weapons and planting their hands against the truck’s bodywork. Kolosim had fifteen Ghosts heaving on the truck with him. They got it bumped out of the gulley and back onto the road. Caober leaned into the cab to correct the steering while he pushed. Backs breaking, they began to roll it up the long slope towards the Mechanicore. Shots pinged and cracked down around them.
All they had to do was get it out of range. Push it up the slope. Just a hundred metres would be enough.
A hundred metres. Under sustained fire. Pushing a five tonne truck carrying a tonne and a half of high explosive.
The air in the ship was stale and humid. It had clearly taken damage in the past week, and major environmental subsystems had been taken off-line for repair. The sirdar passed through areas where the main lighting was out and red-lensed lanterns had been hung from the spars to provide temporary illumination. Oil, grease and waste water dripped through the decks and pooled under the walkway grilles. Some sections were closed off entirely. The sirdar heard the whine of power tools and the sputtering pop of welding gear. Several other sections were stacked with structural debris and baskets of broken plasteks and ceramite. Gangs of servitors and haggard human slaves were working to clear the detritus from the companionways and compromised compartments. Packsons and gold-robed crewmen roamed past.
The hissing whisper was everywhere. It scratched at his ears, and tugged at his brain. It was far, far louder inside the ship.
At most junctions and compartment hatches, the sirdar passed easily, unchallenged by the packsons posted at each way point. At one, an overzealous guard called out after him as he passed. The sirdar kept walking with confidence, as though he hadn’t noticed the cry, and the guard didn’t follow it up.
At another junction, he was stopped by two etogaurs who berated him for over a minute about the noxious heat aboard ship and the lack of circulating air. The sirdar nodded, checked his slate, and promised he would look into it directly.
Access was alarmingly easy. All that was required was confidence, the ability to look like you belonged there, and a few words of the language to get you past. Enough purpose in your stride, and no one gave you a second look.
And the Archenemy had no reason to be alert. They were in the heart of the Fastness, a secure location unknown to Imperial intelligence. The only Imperial humans in a radius of ninety kilometres were in chains.
The brig lay on the eighth service deck aft. Most prisoners were held ashore, especially those who had signalled they were ready to convert and accept impressment. Only the most significant and sensitive were chambered aboard the ship.
Like enkil vahakan.
The sirdar loitered in the shadows of a through-deck ladder well for a few minutes, and observed the operation of the brig access. There was an outer and inner cage, large and heavy sliding metal frames, and between them was a security post manned by two large packson watchmen. There was a small operations console built into the wall, a vox-link and security board, and a belt-fed Urdeshi-made .20 on a tripod, mounted to cover the inner bay of the brig block through the second cage.
While the sirdar watched, a damogaur and two packsons arrived, and gained access to the outer cage using a pass key. They talked briefly to the duty watchmen, who then used their own key to let them through the inner cage. A few minutes later, a different damogaur exited alone, locking the outer cage securely with his own key.
The sirdar followed him along the service deck to a traverse, waited while a detail of packsons hurried past, then called out a question to catch the damogaur’s attention. The sirdar left his body stuffed in a service locker.
The sirdar returned to the brig with the damogaur’s key.
Without hesitation, he let himself in.
The security watchmen looked up at him.
‘Desh arad voi toltoom,’ the sirdar said. More interviews.
‘Who?’ asked one of the watchmen.
‘Enkil vahakan,’ the sirdar replied.
The security watchmen hesitated. One said they hadn’t been notified. Nothing was scheduled.
‘He has set new questions,’ the sirdar replied with a shrug. ‘He wants them asked tonight. Are you going to be the ones who delay him getting the answers? It’s on you, brothers. I’ll just say you were doing your job.’
The watchmen glanced at each other. One got up, unlocked the inner cage, then slid it open.
‘The grace of his voice guide you and drown out all untruths,’ the sirdar said as he stepped through the cage. ‘I will not be long.’
The brig block was a stinking, infernal realm. It was lit by age-stained lumen globes set in iron cages, and the deck and walls had never been cleaned. They were caked with the residue of pain and suffering. Some of the cells in the block were unoccupied. Through the open hatch of one, the sirdar saw a man being tortured by the damogaur he’d seen entering the brig ten minutes before. His packsons, stripped to the waist, were doing the work while the officer stood on and watched, asking the same question over and over.
The man was an Urdeshi colonel, a high value prisoner. He was so far gone, he was no longer making a sound or even flinching as the packsons worked at his flesh with flat-wire knives.
The man’s eyes just stared out past his tormentors into the hallway, gazing at a freedom he would never know. He caught the sirdar watching him. Their eyes locked.
The man’s staring eyes twitched. His mouth moved, leaking slightly. He knew. He saw what every Sekkite aboard had missed. Despite the uniform and the hand-strap mouth, he saw the sirdar’s eyes. The expression there. The horror and the pity.
The sirdar hesitated. He wanted to go in, to lay vengeance on the officer and the two packsons. He wanted to put the Urdeshi out of his suffering.
He could not afford that kind of diversion.
Very slowly, he shook his head. Don’t.
Then he made the sign of the aquila.
The Urdeshi did not respond. He simply closed his eyes.
Anarch - Dan Abnett Page 27
