Straken

by Toby Frost

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Pharranis said.

  Straken turned back. Mayne waited with the vox a little way back, crouched down. Morrell stood nearby, his arms folded and cap pulled down low.

  ‘We’ve got the entry point,’ Straken told him. ‘Mayne, get Tanner and Lavant on the vox.’

  Mayne passed the link over. Straken lifted it to his ear, heard the hiss of static and the low moan of wind.

  ‘Tanner here.’

  A fresh load of static further distorted the connection as Lavant’s vox came online. ‘This is Lavant.’

  ‘Listen,’ Straken said, ‘the map’s inaccurate. We’ve got an entry point here, but it’s too small and too steep to get the Sentinels through. I’m going to send some people inside and start securing it, but I need you both to look for another way in – a loading bay, something like that. I need you people inside the city as soon as you can. We’ll recce the area and set up a rendezvous point. Understand?’

  ‘Right,’ Tanner said. ‘Understood. Signing off.’

  ‘Good, get to it. Lavant, did you understand that?’

  Lavant’s voice was a little scratchy. ‘Yes, sir, I’m hearing you. One moment – one of the men is saying something…’ His voice became distant as he spoke to someone else. ‘Right, yes, keep looking.’ Straken waited. Lavant came back, louder. ‘Sir, one of the men thinks he’s seen something. Says there’s someone following us.’

  Straken grimaced. ‘Well, is there?’

  There was a pause. Something bumped against the comm-link at Lavant’s end. Straken could hear voices, but the words were too muffled to make out.

  ‘No, sir,’ Lavant replied. ‘Nothing confirmed.’

  ‘Then post sentries and get on with it.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I will.’

  Straken passed the vox back to Mayne. He could feel the first stirrings of worry, his body getting itself ready to fight, just in case.

  ‘Problem, colonel?’ Morrell asked.

  ‘No,’ Straken replied. He wanted to vent his irritation, but he was damned if a commissar would see him annoyed. He pointed to the entrance. ‘Get in there. Let’s move.’

  The slope was so steep that it was easier to slide down the concrete than climb. Pharranis had rigged two ropes to help them get down. Straken heard the hiss and soft thump of ten men going down the slope. A voice called up, ‘We’re in.’

  He looked at Mayne. ‘Careful with the gear, Mayne. Don’t smash my vox up.’ Straken climbed down, pushed himself off and slid down the smooth concrete on his metal side. His boots hit the ground and he came up shotgun-first, saw a wide, empty room like a grain silo, and noticed the soldiers who had preceded him watching the entrance. Halda landed beside him, the standard held tightly across his chest, then Mayne. The vox-trooper checked the comm immediately, and Straken thought about Lavant’s message. For a moment he wondered whether Lavant was up to the job, then he pushed the thought aside. There were more pressing matters.

  Morrell came down the slope upright, trying not to run. He stopped at the bottom, bolt pistol in his hand. He glanced around, as if daring anyone to say that he had looked awkward, then holstered his gun.

  They stood in a wide chamber, carved of some yellowish stone. It was twice man-height, about nine metres square. A stone aquila hung on the wall. It had been eroded down to a smooth bump.

  ‘It must be some kind of wind-trap,’ Halda said.

  ‘Feels like a Throne-damned tomb,’ a soldier said from up ahead.

  ‘Shut it,’ Pharranis snapped.

  Morrell drew his pistol. He clipped something under the barrel – Straken felt himself tense when the commissar played with his gun – and a shaft of blue light jabbed out from the weapon. ‘Enough idle chatter, Guardsmen,’ Morrell said. ‘We carry the light of the Emperor. If anyone should be afraid, it’s the xenos scum.’

  ‘I’ll take the front,’ Straken said. ‘Keep ’em moving, sergeant. I don’t want any bunching up. The last place we want to be fighting orks is here.’

  Two and a half kilometres north of Straken’s position, Piter Lavant stared through the gloom and tried not to grimace. Soldiers followed him, the straps on their packs flapping in the rising wind; he had to fight down the urge to start counting his men to make sure that none had been lost along the way.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘let’s keep it going.’ As one of the sergeants called out for the soldiers to pick up the pace, Lavant checked his map again.

  You had to be careful about these things. Moving several hundred men through enemy territory, into an occupied city… Almost anything could happen. He thought about the drop-ship they’d lost – a hundred men gone already, and by the Holy Throne, what a way to die. He hoped that the men couldn’t see how that made him feel. To Lavant, there were a billion ways for an operation to go wrong – and only one way for it to go right.

  A corporal called Newsen, one of his old demolitions colleagues, held the master map. Lavant had been careful to surround himself with a staff of old hands – only demo men knew the amount of care you had to take on missions like this. The casual bravery of the Catachans could easily become slapdash. Once you’d handled Munitorum explosives, you knew to take care.

  ‘Second team’s up to point four,’ said the vox-operator.

  ‘Point four,’ Lavant repeated, in case Newsen hadn’t heard.

  They walked on. Lavant checked the sides, paused to listen to the wind, then ordered his people to keep it tight.

  Up ahead, a man turned and made two quick sweeps of the arm. Lavant shielded his eyes as the soldier chopped and prodded the air. By Lavant’s side, old ‘Squareback’ Dhoi shifted his meltagun and said, ‘Vehicles, cap, a kilometre up. Civilian, look inactive.’

  ‘I see ’em. Dhoi, take charge until I’m back. Keep the men moving. I want this to go like clockwork.’

  Lavant ran forward, past loose groups of troopers and the low domes of the city’s edge. A couple of soldiers exchanged a comment he couldn’t hear and shook their heads.

  Four soldiers waited crouched up ahead. He recognised none of them. On the far left, looming out of the dark like some great hunting bird, a Sentinel strode along with the men, its armour piled with extra gear.

  ‘What is it?’ Lavant said.

  ‘Three vehicles, sir.’ The nearest man’s head was shaven, except for a dark stripe down the centre of his skull. ‘Crawlers, big things. They look all smashed up.’ The private pointed into the wind and Lavant saw three lumps ahead, almost invisible against the night.

  ‘I’ll check it. You two, come with me. The rest of you, move on.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  If there was danger, it was best to investigate it yourself, Lavant thought. He had learned never to use another man’s gun, or to rely on anyone he hadn’t tested before. Lavant set off for the crawlers, the two soldiers following.

  He reached the nearest vehicle, a red, angular lump of a thing, its paintwork already scratched by the wind. All six tyres were blown. High above him, the driver’s cabin was a smashed wreck.

  Lavant climbed up the little ladder. The cabin seemed to have been hit by a wrecking ball. The door was too buckled to open, but he knew that he would find nobody alive inside. He jumped down and ran to the rear.

  It was some sort of tanker. A massive hole in the back made him think of the times he’d set charges in water pipes. The hole stank of promethium.

  He scrambled up, flicked his torch on and glanced inside. Nothing at all. Lavant returned to his two guards. ‘It’s empty. The cabin’s smashed in.’

  ‘Orks?’ said the shaven-headed man.

  ‘Yes. They must’ve wanted the fuel.’ Soldiers moved past them, spread out in small groups. It was as though Lavant and the vehicles stood still against a tide. ‘Let’s check the others.’

  The two other machines were equally ruined. One was a two-man buggy, its rear left side crushed from above. Two wheels were cut away. Lavant ducked down and looked into the cabin, then moved on. Th
e third vehicle had been torn apart and looked like a skeleton. It seemed to have been some kind of armoured car, but the sides, wheels, engine block and cab were gone, scissored away with massive, shearing cuts. Lavant thought about the severed wheels on the buggy and the flattened cab and huge holes in the tanker. The wind moaned around the wreckage, as if to give voice to his thoughts.

  ‘They’ve got a walker,’ he said. He stared into the wind, half-expecting an ork dreadnought to come lumbering out of the storm. ‘A big one.’

  A soldier in a visored cap said, ‘Want me to trap the wreckage, sir, in case the greenskins come back?’

  Lavant shook his head. ‘No. I want nothing left behind. The wind’ll cover our traces – best not leave anything else. These trucks came out of a big entrance, big enough for the Sentinels. Keep going.’

  He had left Newsen in charge for too long. Lavant ran back to take control.

  Captain Tanner took the eastern group. He moved them up in a rough line, slanted to hit the city at an angle. They reached the city perimeter three hours before dawn was due.

  Tanner clambered onto a rockcrete dome and checked his optics. Further to the east, beyond the points where the city broke the surface, he saw the great fissures where the heat-sinks emerged. From here, they didn’t look like much, just cracks in the planet’s armour. But up close they would be chasms, unimaginably deep. Creatures clustered around the edges, long things like armoured snakes. He scrambled down and caught up with his men.

  Twenty minutes later, a runner came down from Fourth team. They had located an entrance big enough for the Sentinels.

  ‘Now that’s what I want to hear!’ Tanner said, and he followed the man through the wind.

  Lieutenant Zandro waited for him, crouching down to hide his outline. Forty-five metres on, a wedge-shape protruded from the ground. The flat end of the wedge was taken up by a massive pair of metal doors.

  ‘Cav,’ Tanner said, dropping down beside the lieutenant. ‘How goes it?’

  ‘Good thanks, Hal.’ The wind ruffled Zandro’s fair hair, and the goggles he wore made him look like a pilot just emerged from an open-topped groundcar. He had joined the regiment at the same time as Tanner, and was a month younger. ‘We’ve got an entry point.’

  ‘Nice work. Any movement?’

  ‘Nothing yet.’ Zandro turned to a private beside him, watching the doors through a pair of magnoculars. ‘Roose?’

  ‘Nobody’s home, sir,’ the man replied.

  Tanner nodded. ‘Let’s take a close look. Can your people give us some cover?’

  Zandro brought up ten troopers, including a sniper and a two-man mortar team. Wordlessly, they locked and screwed the mortar together, and adjusted the legs for range.

  ‘How far do you make it?’ Zandro asked.

  Tanner laughed. ‘You’ve always been the expert. You know what I’m like – if I can’t reach out and hit it, it’s too far away.’

  ‘Fifty-two metres,’ Zandro said. ‘No, fifty-one.’ The mortar clacked into position. Zandro suddenly leaned forward, shielding his eyes. ‘Did you see that, Hal? There’s something moving around in there.’

  Tanner frowned. ‘I didn’t see anything.’ He checked his lasgun. ‘Let’s take a look.’

  Straken walked down the long, high corridor, keen to press ahead. They had to go quietly, and not being able to shout the men on bothered him. Sometimes he felt as though his men would stop moving the moment he stopped barking orders at them, driving them forward with his voice. Now, in the cool dark of the venting passages, they were doing well enough. But he still felt the need to push them on, to reach the waypoints faster.

  The corridor reminded him of the Radix Malorum, waiting up in orbit for the signal to start landing troops. Soon the army would be starting out on the descent, ready to make planetfall. Straken imagined the drop-ships touching down, the tanks rolling in to take Excelsis City back the moment the Catachans opened the city gates. The armour would flatten the orks – that’d teach the damned xenos.

  ‘Colonel,’ Mayne said, ‘Vox from Captain Tanner.’

  Straken took the comm-link. ‘Tanner, what’s your position?’

  Tanner’s voice crackled out, loud and indistinct. ‘We’re in a side entrance ’bout ten kilometres down from you. It’s like a little road – maybe the locals use it when they want to take in the sights. We’re moving the men and our three Sentinels inside. I reckon about half my people are inside now. We did think–’ his voice broke into hissing static. ‘–someone moving around down there, but there’s nothing now.’

  ‘What’s that? You’re breaking up.’ Straken stopped, trying to get a better signal.

  ‘I said we thought someone was watching us from inside, but we’ve seen nothing yet.’

  ‘Keep moving. I’ll see you at the rendezvous point.’ Straken signed off and said, ‘Get me Lavant.’

  Mayne worked the vox controls. A new voice, faster and harder than Tanner’s, came on the link.

  ‘This is Captain Lavant, colonel.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘We’ve just reached the entry point, eight kilometres north-west of you. I’ve just got inside.’

  ‘Only just now? What the hell took you so long?’

  ‘I had to secure the area, sir. There’s a lot of debris. It looks as if the orks passed this way.’

  ‘Any sign now?’

  ‘No, sir. The place is empty. It’s some kind of garage – looks like they used it for truck repairs. It’s completely empty now, there’s nothing here bigger than a spanner. They must’ve taken the vehicles away.’

  Straken said, ‘Then what’re you waiting for?’ The comm hissed again. ‘Damn it,’ Straken said. He stepped left, heard the static die down, and barked, ‘Listen. The comm’s breaking up. Get to the rendezvous point and meet me there. We’ve got to go quietly, but we’ve got to go quick, understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Straken switched off the vox and didn’t curse, knowing that Morrell would be watching him. Lavant had a good reputation, but damn it if the man wasn’t taking his time. It was worse than excessive – it was un-Catachan. He quickened his pace, aware of the men still entering the system behind him. They were terribly vulnerable now, trapped in this stone tube. All it would take would be a few drums of promethium poured into the hatches, and an ork with a stick-grenade…

  Cave system four was the rendezvous, something called the Halacrin Fields. How you had fields in a place like this was anyone’s guess, he thought, suddenly angry. He didn’t know whether to distrust his map or the whole stupid-arsed underground planet. The sooner they got the gates open and flew the hell out of here, the better.

  Laden with gear, their leg-joints padded out and engines muffled, the Sentinels still set the garage booming with their tread. The pilots had broadened the walkers’ feet, Tallarn-style, but each footstep still sounded like a hammer pounding an anvil wrapped in cloth.

  Lavant walked through, flanked by his most trusted men. His eyes took in the open room, the pillars that would bring the ceiling down, the places where the cover was best and the structure weakest. You had to keep watching; almost any shadow could conceal an ork.

  He glanced back and saw that the men were moving in. Lavant glimpsed a figure in goggles, one of the regiment’s snipers, and his innards twisted. There were some people, even among his own unit, who he did not want to see. The man pulled the goggles off and wiped the lenses on his cloak, and Lavant looked away. It was someone else – not Serradus, stalking him.

  Calm down, he thought. That’s just your nerves talking.

  ‘Captain.’

  He turned. A soldier pointed to the wall, two and a half metres off the ground. Gant, one of the demolitions men, shone his torch on a wide circle of broken stone. It looked as if a battering ram had been swung into the wall.

  ‘You think the miners did that, captain?’

  Lavant shook his head. He looked down and saw wide black stripes on the ground,
curving away into the city. Tyre tracks.

  Gant said, ‘Could orks drive a human truck?’

  Lavant frowned. ‘They’d probably have to smash the cab open to get inside, but yes.’ He swallowed. ‘Looks like they’ve been looking for a ride,’ he said. He smiled grimly. ‘You’d have thought they’d bring their own transport.’

  Newsen stopped beside them. ‘Let’s hope the rest of their army’s this well organised,’ he said. ‘If the best they can do is steal a few tru–’

  ‘Movement!’ a voice yelled from ahead. ‘Movement!’

  Lavant whipped round, gun ready. Twenty-five metres ahead, something flitted between the pillars – too thin for an ork, perhaps, but some kind of lesser greenskin, maybe.

  ‘Flank him!’ Lavant snapped. He pointed down the chamber, left and right. ‘Five men either side. Gant, bring up that grenade launcher. We’ll flush him out.’ Men rushed down the hall, sprinting between the columns. Lavant raised his hand, turned it to get the Sentinel’s attention, then made a quick flicking gesture with his fingers.

  Boom! The Sentinel’s floodlights burst into life. A spindly, hooded figure stumbled and clutched its eyes. Two Catachans, huge by comparison, ran in. One swatted a gun from the hooded man’s hand and the second grabbed him from behind in a bear-hug, turned and threw him onto the ground. Lavant raised his lasgun and sighted the man’s head.

  On all fours, the man raised one hand against the light and cried, ‘Please, don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’

  The tunnel widened and soon other passages joined it, like streams running into a river. Forty-five metres further on, thin shafts of light radiated across the corridor. Straken boosted the image enhancement in his bionic eye.

  He was looking at a massive, multi-bladed fan. Light streaked through between the blades, but they were too closely packed for a man to pass through. The wind must come tearing down the tunnels and make the blades spin, he realised. This leads into a power station. The information in General Greiss’s database had said that there were reactors and heat-sinks further inside, but the wind clearly provided a useful top-up for Excelsis’s mining operations.

  Straken checked his chrono. In a few hours the storm would hit the city with full, skin-stripping force. The wind would come down here faster than a rocket, blasting them down the passage. And then the rotor blades would turn…