With a little more space and room to breathe Minghella went to work on fixing Gorskii’s apparently vampiric face and checking the dressing on Vedette’s leg. Once again Conklin was on the door, closing it to a crack. He didn’t want to draw attention but also wanted enough of a gap to spot someone approach.
‘Well?’ the major asked gruffly.
‘Shooting Range; just out front here. Can’t see anyone – but I can hear a bunch of shots, so someone’s getting some practice in.’
‘Bottom or top?’
‘We’re at the bottom of the range.’
‘Sass?’
‘The Armoury and the Range are part of the 1001st’s Tactical Bay. If it’s anything like ours, it’ll be set up part gym, part CQ Tactical Training.’
Mortensen spat.
‘I’ll give you one guess where they’ll be holed up.’
The storm-troopers didn’t need guesses.
Eckhardt was no fool. He’d dragged his hostages to the one place on the ship that was designed to be difficult to breach. The Close Quarters Combat Tactical Training repro or CQ as the sergeants called it: essentially armaplas walls (to enable use of live ammunition without the danger of accidental injuries and fatalities), mocked up as a labyrinth of rooms and gauntlets for the training of close quarters combat and urban pacification techniques. The Volscian 1001st were essentially a hive-world garrison regiment and excelled at this kind of carnage. The Redemption Corps were not exactly amateurs either, but as every good Guardsman knew, it was easier to hold a strongpoint than to breach it: which was exactly the kind of logic Eckhardt was counting on.
Mortensen hovered by the door: ‘Okay – this is it. I’m not going to dip it in honey for you. Sarakota, Conklin and I will take care of the sentries on the Shooting Range…’
Minghella piped up. He usually did get extra crabby just before the real butchery began and the bodies started piling up – something to do with his Departmento Medicae pledge, Mortensen supposed.
‘How?’
‘I have no idea,’ the major told him honestly. ‘But when we do, you are going to rush the CQ and start taking it room by room, section by section until we find and plug the bastards. Now is that a great plan, or what?’
‘Well apart from being suicidal,’ Sass mused.
‘Suicidal is what we do, people. Perhaps we could concentrate on the positives.’
‘They won’t be expecting it,’ Vedette offered, getting to her feet and hobbling for the door.
Mortensen nodded his agreement, the tone sinking back to the dour realisation that the bolts were about to start flying. ‘Corporal Vedette, Sergeant Minghella: if Sergeant Conklin and I should fall, your orders are to complete the mission with whatever resources you have left at your disposal.’
Minghella glowered, an evil temper descending.
‘Is that clear?’ Mortensen turned and put to the Mordian.
‘Crystal, sir.’
V
The shooting range was a small nexus of activity.
Eckhardt had clearly left a group to hold the entrance to CQ, but inevitably the hours had dragged, the elation of their initial capture of Regimental Commissar Fosco had faded and the boredom had set in. At that point, the Shooting Range had beckoned.
The company captain’s own aide, Lieutenant Phant, was currently in a contest with a silver-haired Volscian, the two of them packing lasrifles; dared and cajoled by eight other Guardsman, who were splitting their attentions between demonstrations of marksmanship, injecting combat stimms and cross-talk from the portable vox-hailer they were struggling to keep on frequency.
Two of the target clamps hanging in the arc-lanes were no longer holding plas-lite silhouettes of generic enemy forms. Instead the targets had been decorated with the burned and blasted bodies of Piggot and Nordhoff, two of Commissar Fosco’s regimental aides.
The Volscians had been taking turns shooting at the bodies. The contest had been running for hours and in order to keep the bodies in one piece the hivers had been forced to strap them into extra flak jackets and reduce the power setting on their rifles.
As the seething bolts riddled the pair of corpses, Phant screamed his victory, generating a whooping response of mixed celebration and derision from his crowd of spectators. The end of the firing range was dark and unclear – hazy with smoke from the smouldering bodies. Only a fresh inspection of the mauled targets would settle it and the old-timer depressed the stud that operated the pulley system, dragging the dead weight of the bodies with some strain, up to the waiting contestants.
As the cadavers rocked to a halt, Phant once again screeched his callous merriment. Several witnesses closed in to examine the hammered flak, scorched flesh and ruptured organs, pointing at patterns in the marksmanship and arguing amongst themselves.
At that point Mortensen gave them a demonstration of his own.
The major and Sergeant Conklin had made further use of the vents to move between the Armoury and the Gallery: going up through the roof section of one and climbing down through the ceiling of another. During the Volscian reload, as Phant and his competitor exchanged taunts and mock aggression for the amusement of their gathered appreciators, the storm-troopers had climbed down onto the back of the target corpses at the far end of the shooting gallery. Concealed during the resumed contest, the corpsmen held on tight to the smouldering bodies as they had been winched back down for inspection. Pulling themselves up on the clamps, the two storm-troopers aimed their silenced autopistols over the shoulders of the shattered aides and blasted the marksmen off their feet.
As the shock wore off, the other sentries began to scramble for their own weapons. Conklin shot a third through the heart and a fourth in the throat, but Mortensen had to retreat behind Nordhoff’s body once again as the Guardsman hauling the portable vox produced a laspistol quicker than he’d anticipated and began simultaneously blasting and stumbling away. His attentions were soon split between the two bodies, causing Conklin to duck also, giving his rebel compatriots time to regroup and join in, slamming the bodies with bolt after bolt.
A fresh pattern of fire suddenly lanced between the two targets, originating from the darkened end of the arc-lane. Sarakota had dropped down from a separate ceiling vent further down the range and had been waiting in the shadows, moving slowly and close to the floor; head down, listening intently to the clicks, clunks and blasts of weapon use at the Volscian’s end of the shooting gallery. There he had waited for the major to spring the trap.
Now that the real shooting had begun, the Redemption Corps’ sniper was in his element. Of course, Sarakota was much more used to the bipod bulk of his anti-materiel Hellshot, but a Volscian lasrifle felt better in his hands than a snub-nosed pistol.
The first two were clean headshots in close succession: at that moment the hivers could barely comprehend that they were under attack from a third shooter. Snapping to automatic, the sniper drummed a generous blast into the vox-operator, who was trying to juggle the demands of firing and tuning at the same time: the first blast into his equipment, the second into him.
Swinging around on the target clamp and with the weight of Nordhoff’s body to counter-balance him, Mortensen’s toecap found the face of a Guardsman who, under fire from Sarakota, had unwisely moved forward to take advantage of the cover. The force of the kick flung the Volscian to the floor and his weapon across the deck. Mortensen let go of the target clamp and landed amongst his enemies on the range. Using the silencer of his auto-pistol he scooped an advancing bayonet aside as a Guardsman ran at him with his lasrifle. Producing the Volscian’s dirk from his belt he slashed him across the chest before dropping to the deck and slicing deep into the flesh behind his right knee. The Guardsman went down and Mortensen snatched up his bladed rifle.
A second burly Guardsman tried to rush him from behind but was plucked from his feet by Sarakota’s unswerving aim
. A third ran past, the piling bodies spooking his resolve, and was narrowly missed by a swipe from Mortensen’s bayonet. Stepping out from behind Piggot, Conklin finished him with a fully automatic burst of silenced fire from his side arm.
The only moving Volscian left was the soldier Mortensen had floored and disarmed. The Guardsman got shakily to his feet, running this way and that, his eyes fleeting from Mortensen blocking his way to Conklin looming over him, pistol drawn. His death came from Sarakota, however, courtesy of three las-bolts that pinned him to the range wall, two in the chest and one between the eyes.
It had begun.
Storm-troopers streamed from the Armoury, tearing up towards the entrance of the CQ, Vedette hobbling close behind and barking orders. Sarakota sprinted up behind her, the pair meeting Mortensen and the master sergeant by the improvised doorway. As ordered by the Mordian, the first group had already filed in.
Closer to the CQ it became apparent to Mortensen that something was burning: the coarse stench of promethium hung in the air and a thin column of smoke was drifting out from somewhere near the centre of the armaplas maze, reaching for the bay ceiling.
‘That doesn’t look good,’ Mortensen muttered, as much to himself, as he inserted a fresh power pack into his lasrifle. There was time for little more, however: his men had already encountered resistance.
The CQ was pure hell. From the sound of the gunfire the rebels numbered at least a platoon but it could easily be two.
Eckhardt held all the cards. He knew all the gauntlets and bolt-holes, all the dead-ends and bottlenecks, and although he couldn’t have anticipated the Redemption Corps’ attack – their stealth and sacrifices making for an assault that had more punch and initial momentum than it deserved – he soon bogged them down in the deadlock of room clearance, giving the captain’s gathered Guardsmen time to explore their advantages.
Mortensen didn’t have time for such luxuries as a stalemate. Without doubt Eckhardt would already have vox-recalled reinforcements from other areas of the Barracks to cut off the rear. The only way to end this was indeed as Rask had said, ‘to cut the head from the angry serpent’. And that meant pushing the boundaries and forcing the deadlock.
Room after room fell to the storm-troopers as the combination of guts, skill and drillwork conquered weak hearts holding strongpoints. Volscians died in their scores as doorways and thoroughfares became channels of light, energy beams thrashing at each other across the closed confines of mock streets and buildings: real blood spilt on a make-believe battleground.
As the Redemption Corps stepped through the carnage they scooped up Shadow Brigade helmets and flak vests from the dead and dying; weapons too were hoarded as power packs ran dry, so that soon each trooper was carrying two other rifles slung as well as the lasgun held in their cramped hands.
The injuries started to mount up also, impairing mobility less than might be imagined, since progress was already unbearably slow; but Minghella couldn’t get to anyone because without his additional firepower the gauntlets wouldn’t have been broken at all.
Conklin lost a couple of fingers to a gas-mask wearing, chainsword-wielding maniac who two seconds later was sitting in a mound of his own entrails: only then, after he tore off his mask did the storm-troopers realise that Sergeant Mako was dying among them. Moments later, Vedette took another bolt, in exactly the same thigh as the first, putting her arc of fire parallel to the floor for the following agonising minutes.
Pryce, miraculously, only lost an ear to a heavy bolter that the rebels had wheeled in to bolster a failing hold-point, when he should have lost his head. While the corpsman gave thanks to the Emperor, Sarakota took a stray round from the very same piece of equipment, as the thing minced up an armaplas wall he was using for cover. Gorskii and Mortensen both took shrapnel through their back armour, just to take the bolter, as the rebel Guardsmen tried to immobilise their lost field piece with grenades.
After turning the heavy weapon on the fleeing Volscians, allowing his messed-up squad time to establish a presence in the room, the major actually turned the remainder of the explosive ammunition on the adjoining wall. The ragged hole admitted his stumbling squad, with Minghella dragging both Vedette and Sarakota through. Luckily the heavy bolter round had passed clear through the sniper, but he was bleeding like a sack of wine and without kit or a spare pair of hands, the medic could do little to stop it. As a parting gift, fresh Guardsmen from the CQ hub, who were trying to push past their blasted, exiting colleagues, sent a volley of las-fire after the Redemption Corps, burying several bolts in Pryce’s side and shoulder.
Even with his mathematical abilities, Sass could little know the layout of the 1001st’s CQ. There were no schematics and even if there were, the Shadow Brigade sergeants probably changed it regularly. What there was, however, was a pattern. The Redemption Corps were so used to following the young Necromundan that they didn’t question his instruction to follow. Even Mortensen, in the searing heat of the battle, fell into line. With the flak in his back beginning to make itself known to nerve-sensitive flesh underneath, the officer probed the wound with blunt digits, finding a glowing shard of metal and plucking it from his flesh. With a grimace he tossed it aside.
Heaving Sarakota to his feet, the major dragged him through a series of ungarrisoned doorways and corridors. Across a mock street the squad came to rest in a long, oblong room where they unburdened their wounded and checked their weapons. Sass disappeared briefly into an adjacent room before bolting back in.
‘I think that the hub lies somewhere beyond that wall,’ he put to the shot-up squad. Humour was in short supply. Somehow they managed it.
‘You think?’ Conklin challenged, spitting blood.
Mortensen checked out the wall at the end of the street, the one his adjutant was alluding to. His mind whirled. He had seconds to make a decision or he and his men were dead. Rebel Guardsmen were already working their way through Sass’s evasion route.
He took in his corpsmen. If they had been an ordinary regimental squad they would have been declared combat ineffective rooms ago. Besides himself, only Minghella and Sass could walk unaided. He could only walk because he felt the white hot shards of shrapnel buried in his back – chewing up flesh and muscle with every movement – less so than Gorskii, who’d been hit in the same blast.
The wall was made up of several stories of armaplas, replete with sham windows. Windows had not been the Redemption Corps’ friend up until this point. An ambush had nearly cut them in half through a streetside corridor close to the CQ entrance and a shot from an itchy-fingered sniper at a small opening three rooms in had smacked Sass’s precious head into a wall. It would have taken it clean off if it hadn’t have been for the face guard on the Volscian Interceptor helmet he’d donned from a fallen hiver.
Suddenly Gorskii let out a rasping gasp, before toppling forward from her position on the floor. Minghella rushed over from where he had been tending Pryce’s wounds and rolled her over. She was sitting in a growing pool of blood, although it had been hard to tell with the amount of gore now splattered across the room. He rolled her back and put his ear to her mouth and chest.
‘Rhen?’ Vedette asked, gritting through the pain of her own injury.
‘Shrapnel must have pierced the heart; perhaps a lung also,’ he murmured and straddling her began to administer emergency measures.
Mortensen looked from the grim fury of Minghella to Conklin, burying his mangled fist under one arm, to Vedette, whose bright urgency cut through him. Looking back across the street he began to fancy that the shadows of renegade Volscians were gathering in the rooms they had passed through opposite.
Moments later Mortensen’s fears were confirmed.
‘They’re coming, major,’ Sarakota coughed, spitting bloody phlegm. Away from the overpowering sizzle of weaponry and screams he could hear the tap of tentative boots, as the rebels picked their way cautiousl
y through the passages.
‘Sergeant,’ Mortensen announced, ‘Vedette. I need every available Volscian in that street section: they’re already assuming attack positions.’
Conklin clumsily grasped his bloodied weapon. ‘Let them come and get it.’
‘I want you to wait.’
‘You want us to what?’ Vedette hissed through clenched teeth.
‘Let them pool; let them gather,’ he told them.
‘In numbers, they’ll overrun us,’ Conklin protested. ‘Bottlenecking them is the only hope we’ve got: you know that.’
‘No,’ Sass reasoned. ‘The only hope we’ve got is to get to Eckhardt.’
Mortensen threw his rifle to the adjutant and then, producing his autopistol, handed it to Conklin who stuffed it in his blood stripes bleakly: Mortensen was going to need both hands.
‘Bring ’em down on you. It’ll give me a chance. Then hold this room, as long as you can.’
Mortensen went to the doorway. It was the signal. The order had been given and the Redemption Corps began squirming through their own blood, setting up the angles and closing down the room with deadly, overlapping arcs of fire that covered all the doors and exits.
As for the major, he had his own fire arcs to contend with. Accelerating from the door in an explosive burst of speed he tried his best to offer the Guardsmen opposite little in the way of a target. They could little expect him to take such a bizarre action and were predictably slow to open fire, single shots sizzling the armaplas of the walls and floor about him.
He hit a top sprint just metres from the end of the street section, aiming for a corner where his speed would offer the best advantage. Leaping, he hit the opposite wall with the sole of one boot, bounding across the corner to the adjoining wall, where the toe of his other boot carried him a further few metres back across. Throwing up outstretched palms like grapnels, his fingertips found the fake, glassless windowsill.
Honour Imperialis - Braden Campbell & Aaron Dembski-Bowden & Chris Dows & Steve Lyons & Rob Sanders Page 29
