Commissar

by Andy Hoare

  ‘Skane?’ Flint called out. ‘Solomon’s telling the truth. He hasn’t sold you out. We’re here to restore order.’

  ‘Then step forward, where I can see you,’ said Skane, though Flint could tell the man was still expecting a double-cross. ‘Nice and slow.’

  Holstering his bolt pistol despite Bukin’s disapproving look, Flint stepped out around the two convicts and started up the tunnel towards Skane. As he did so he pulled his night vision goggles down around his neck and straightened his peaked cap.

  ‘Commissar…’ Skane snarled. Though the other man was silhouetted against the opening of the tunnel and his features cast in shadow, Flint could see his face forming into a bitter scowl. ‘Your type don’t help no one,’ he barked.

  Another shot was fired somewhere outside in the carceri chamber, and the sound of angry shouting drifted in to the tunnel. ‘Sounds like your people are dying out there, Skane,’ said Flint. ‘I’m here with the 77th Vostroyan Firstborn; I’m here to help.’

  Skane’s eyes bored into Flint’s, the man’s hatred of commissars was clear to see. Obviously, he had been on the wrong end of commissarial justice at some point, probably accounting for his presence in the penal generatorium. The man’s eyes darted back towards the tunnel mouth at the sound of the shouting, and Flint could read his desire to aid his companions.

  ‘Help who?’ said Skane, forcing Flint to suppress his rising frustration at the man’s bloody-mindedness. The shouting outside was getting louder and more urgent, as if a pitched battle was reaching a tipping point.

  ‘I’m not here to haul you off to the stockade, Trooper Skane,’ said Flint. While not totally sure that the man had been in the Imperial Guard, he had to try something. ‘You’re not on any charge. I can see you’re not a rebel, and it’s my duty to persecute those who are.’

  Moments of silence punctuated by the sounds of distant battle followed, before Solomon spoke up. ‘He means it, Skane. It’s the only way. We don’t have any other choice.’

  ‘Okay, commissar,’ Skane said as he lowered his firearm. ‘What happens now?’

  Flint let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. ‘You tell me what we’re up against, and we go make a difference, trooper.’

  ‘Corporal,’ said Skane, his eyes locked on Flint’s. ‘I was a corporal. 99th Elysian.’

  ‘Bukin?’ Flint hissed at the provost. ‘Arm Corporal Skane’s men.’

  ‘Sir?’ the chief provost said, a protest forming.

  ‘Share out your side arms,’ Flint ordered.

  Kohlz was the first Vostroyan to obey, unholstering his laspistol and passing it butt-first to the nearest convict-worker. The man reached for the weapon, uncertainly at first, then as his hand closed around the grip, with conviction. But Kohlz held on to the weapon for a moment, before Flint nodded and he released it in to the man’s possession.

  With obvious reluctance, Bukin unholstered a bulky autopistol from his belt, one of three side arms the provost carried, and handed it to a nearby convict. Within moments, Bukin had cajoled his fellow provosts into relinquishing their own personal weapons, and the convicts were all armed.

  Skane nodded his thanks to Flint, and edged towards the tunnel mouth. Flint followed, and for the first time was afforded a view of the interior of one of Alpha Penitentia’s mighty generatoria chambers.

  Lifting his gaze from the floor towards the distant, haze-shrouded vaults, Flint saw that the chamber was impossibly vast. But he didn’t have time to take in the full extent of the architecture, as the sound of another shotgun blast snapped his attention back to ground level. He was peppered with rockcrete shrapnel, and as soon as the powder-haze had cleared he located the firer.

  ‘Who the hell is that?’ growled Flint as he ducked back into cover. The biggest man Flint had ever seen was crouched in a nook forty or so metres down the wall from the tunnel entrance, his shotgun, obviously taken from a warden, raised before him.

  ‘That,’ said Skane, ‘is Arnil Khave. Biggest, ugliest Catachan you’ll ever see, and that’s saying something.’

  The Catachan swung his weapon around towards a massive and unidentifiable piece of machinery and unleashed yet another volley. A shower of sparks erupted from the machine as hundreds of metal shotgun pellets struck what looked like some form of engine casing. Flint heard shouts from behind another, similar piece of machinery, and guessed that several more groups of convicts were pinned down by the Catachan’s fire.

  ‘Who’s he firing at,’ Flint shouted back to Skane. ‘Yours?’

  ‘Mine is one of three groups making for that vestibule portal,’ he pointed towards a distant section of wall made indistinct by the smoky haze that seemed to cling to the chamber floor. ‘He’s firing at Vendell’s lot.’

  ‘And the third?’ said Flint, raising his voice as the Catachan bawled an order to an unseen underling.

  Skane didn’t answer. ‘Tell me, corporal,’ Flint ordered.

  ‘Vahn,’ he said. ‘He’s what you might call our leader.’

  ‘But?’ Flint pressed.

  ‘He should have got here before us,’ Skane said. ‘Before both of the other groups. But Vahn’s not here, and he is.’ Skane emphasised the subject of his statement with a nod towards the Catachan. Now things were starting to make some sort of sense, thought Flint, in a chaotic sort of way.

  ‘This Vahn; you think he’s sold you out?’ asked Flint. ‘You think he’s bought his freedom and you’re the blood price?’

  Anger flashed across Skane’s face at so overt an explanation of what might have happened, but it was replaced a moment later by bitter resignation. ‘I’m not saying he has,’ Skane began. ‘But this doesn’t look good.’

  ‘No,’ said Flint. ‘It doesn’t. But regardless’, he continued, looking out towards the huge mass of geotherm machinery. ‘We need to extricate the other group and get everyone back to base.’

  ‘Listen up,’ Flint addressed both the dragoons and the convicts. ‘This is what we’re going to do.’

  ‘Move!’ Vahn hissed urgently as the Catachan fired another volley towards Vendell’s hiding place. Vahn’s group was still too far away from the action to intervene, and closing on the ambushers would mean crossing the open chamber floor and exposing themselves to the Catachan’s fire.

  That wasn’t an option.

  Vahn ushered Becka and the rest towards a mass of corroded pipe work that sprawled across the ground, reminding him of an abattoir floor.

  Angry shouts sounded from behind the cover where he knew Vendell and at least half a dozen of his group to be taking cover, followed by more from behind other scraps of corroded machinery. Vahn moved quickly and by the time he reached the mass of twisting pipes had almost overtaken the convict in front.

  ‘What now?’ asked Becka as she peered cautiously over the pipe. ‘We’re still too far away.’

  Vahn rolled over onto his front and lifted himself up on both arms so that he too could see the action. Becka was right; they were still too far from the action to intervene and too far from the vestibule portal to escape. To make things worse, the enemy had the firepower, and was using it to pin the escapees down. Ultimately, Vahn knew that Vendell’s group would be outflanked and exposed to a lethal crossfire; it was only a matter of time.

  ‘Hang on,’ Vahn told Becka as he squinted into the haze that half obscured the scene. Part of it was the smoke of gunfire, but without the air scrubbers the vast carceri chambers were filling with condensation. Thick white clouds were gathering in the vaults and creeping fog cloaked the ground. The air felt damp and oppressive, like a thunderstorm was building up.

  ‘Maybe we could use the fog,’ Vahn said, half to himself. ‘Head to the left and cross the floor under cover of the haze.’

  ‘That’ll bring us up behind the Catachan,’ said Becka, a nasty glint in her eye.

  ‘We deal with him, then link up with Skane in the tunnel mouth. Cross towards the portal and round up Vendell’s mob on the way, deal
ing with any more of Strannik’s scum as we go.’

  ‘Catachan’s the deal-breaker,’ said Becka. ‘Won’t be no pushover.’

  ‘No one ever said breaking out of an upsilon-grade Munitorum installation would be easy,’ Vahn grinned.

  ‘Go!’ Flint hissed, patting Bukin on the shoulder as he moved out at a stooped run followed by his provosts.

  The provost section crossed fifty or so metres of hazy, yet open ground before the Catachan fired. Flint had timed his order to coincide with the enemy reloading his weapon, and Bukin’s group had almost reached the cover of a large thermal transfer mechanism before the Catachan was able to fire again.

  The ground at Bukin’s feet erupted in a hail of dust and shrapnel as hundreds of shotgun pellets tore into it, the provosts charging through and throwing themselves behind a huge, cog-toothed brass wheel. One didn’t make it, his broken form reduced to a torn, ragged mess by the blast. As Bukin ducked into the cover, he spun as a rebel convict appeared twenty metres away, firing his Mark III from the hip. The blast threw the rebel backwards and left only a fine red mist floating in the air where he had been. A moment later, another rebel appeared, and this time three of the provosts opened fire as one, scattering the bloody chunks that had been their target across the wall behind.

  ‘Go!’ Flint shouted to Skane and the recently armed convicts. The instant they appeared in the open the Catachan stood and levelled his shotgun right at them. Bukin and his companions fired from between the cogs of the huge gear wheel, peppering their target’s cover with a churning storm of pellets and rockcrete shrapnel. The Catachan ducked back into his nook with an audible curse, and Bukin’s group waited on overwatch for him to show himself again.

  ‘Our turn,’ said Flint, raising his bolt pistol in one hand and drawing his basket-hilted power sword with the other. He activated the blade’s lethal power field with a flick of his thumb, tasting the bleachy tang of ozone as the air around the sword burned. Flint stepped out of the tunnel mouth, feeling instantly incredibly vulnerable.

  ‘Sir!’ a woman’s voice shouted from somewhere along the wall behind him. Her tone was so sharp Flint responded on instinct, ducking down and throwing himself against the rockcrete. An instant later, a bolt of searing lasgun fire burned the air not a metre from Flint’s head and a figure he had not even seen dropped heavily to the ground.

  Turning back, Flint saw Karasinda lowering her lasgun, a wisp of vapour wafting from the barrel as the heat of the discharge bled into the damp air. Before Flint could thank her, she turned and jogged after Bukin and the other provosts.

  ‘Putting the combat into combat medic, eh sir?’ Lhor said as he caught up.

  Flint ignored the comment, too intent upon facing the Catachan.

  ‘Vendell!’ Flint heard Skane bellow across the hazy chamber floor. ‘Move!’

  Hearing Skane’s order, the Catachan peered out of his cover. Seeing what was happening he bawled for his followers to attack and then ducked back into the nook before the provosts could open fire. While Skane and his convicts were heading west along the chamber wall towards the vestibule portal, Flint and the heavy flamer team were heading east, towards the Catachan, covering the escape and hoping to deal with the enemy leader.

  The white smog beyond the Catachan’s hiding place grew dense with grey shadows, and Flint knew that more rebels were closing in, as he had expected them to. ‘Get ready,’ he growled, patting Lhor on the shoulder.

  More shouts rang out from behind the various oversized machines around the chamber floor as Vendell’s groups coordinated their dash for freedom with Skane and Bukin’s. Flint didn’t turn, but kept his bolt pistol trained on the nook where the Catachan was still sheltering.

  After a few more seconds the first of the grey shadows resolved into a solid figure. It was a rebel convict, wearing fragments of glossy black hardshell torn no doubt from the body of a slain claviger-warden. The man was wielding a length of serrated iron bar. Lhor grimaced in disgust at the sight of the cruel weapon, and raised his flamer, but Flint warned him off. ‘Wait.’

  A few seconds later, more rebels emerged from the smog, each carrying an improvised weapon as cruel and inventive as the first man’s. They saw Flint and immediately recognised him as a commissar, breaking into a chorus of hateful invective that echoed around the entire chamber.

  ‘Now,’ said Flint.

  ‘With pleasure, sir,’ said Lhor.

  A jet of chemical fuel arced from the nozzle of the heavy flamer, igniting into blinding orange fire as it passed through the hissing pilot flame. Intense heat erupted all around, and even though Flint was standing on the other side of the weapon’s business end he felt the exposed skin on his face singed by its force. Lhor had set the valve to fire a long, narrow blast, and the flames lanced through the smog, parting it before enveloping the lead rebel in burning fuel and transforming him into a raging column of fire, his rapidly disintegrating form collapsing to the ground. The man hadn’t even had time to scream.

  Lhor cut the roaring flame off as the survivors faltered, some backing off into the all-enclosing smog.

  ‘Stand!’ the Catachan bawled from cover. ‘Or I’ll kill you myself!’

  ‘Easy for him to say,’ Lhor drawled, preparing to fire a second burst.

  Seeing that Skane’s group were all clear, Flint decided it was time to get moving after them. ‘One more blast,’ Flint ordered. ‘Just to put them off following.’

  A second lance of flame arced outwards, Lhor washing it left and right to catch as many of the rebels in the snaking burst as possible. Even over the roar of the weapon’s discharge and the stink of its promethium fuel, Flint heard the banshee wail of burning men and smelled the stink of roasting flesh. Even for a battle-hardened commissar, some things were hard to watch, but he forced himself to continue aiming his bolt pistol at the Catachan’s position.

  He was glad he had, as the huge rebel leader powered out of his hiding place with his shotgun raised and unleashed an un-aimed blast towards Flint and his companions. At the very same instant, Flint fired his pistol and both attacks hit home at once.

  The Catachan’s volley blasted one of Lhor’s fellow logistics troops to the ground as dozens of pellets tore into his right arm and shoulder. Flint’s bolt shell grazed the Catachan in the meaty flesh of his upper left arm, but it exploded too late to inflict its full potential of damage. The Catachan was so tough and heavily muscled that he fought on, bellowing a curse at Flint.

  Backing away, the Catachan raised his shotgun one-handed, his wounded arm hanging limp at his side. Flint lined up a second shot, this one aimed straight at his enemy’s head, when the man spun on the spot and fired his weapon into the smog to his left. Flint’s aim was spoiled, but Lhor was ready to fire again.

  ‘Hold fire!’ said Flint.

  ‘I have them, sir,’ Lhor complained, his face now blackened and sooty from the heavy flamer’s backwash. ‘I can take the whole khekking lot!’

  ‘I said hold,’ Flint repeated as the Catachan retreated into the smog, treading through the smouldering remains of his dead followers and scattering still-burning cinders across the ground. One more shot boomed out of the fog, this time muted by the heavy moisture in the air. The grey figures the Catachan had been firing at emerged to Flint’s right, improvised weapons raised two-handed and eyes wild with a mixture of battle-lust and terror.

  Lhor swept the heavy flamer back and forth, ready to incinerate the newcomers, but he held his fire as ordered.

  Flint switched aim and pointed his pistol at the nearest figure. It was a woman, her clothes little more than rags stitched crudely around the curves of her body. She wore heavy, knee high combat boots and a rebreather obscured the lower half of her face. She raised both hands as she skidded to a halt on seeing Flint.

  A second figure emerged beside the woman, this one clad just as roughly and sporting waist-length dreadlocks. He however did not raise his hands, and Flint brought his pistol to bear on the man’s f
ace.

  ‘Vahn?’ Flint called out, judging by his bearing that this was the leader of the third group of refugee convicts.

  The two shared a quizzical glance as more convicts appeared behind them, spreading out but obviously nervous that more rebels would soon descend upon them.

  ‘Guard?’ said the man, flexing his grip on the iron bar he held in one hand.

  ‘Vostroyan 77th,’ said Flint as the sound of running footsteps rang from the fog beyond, soon accompanied by angry shouts. ‘Your men are safe.’

  Vahn nodded towards Lhor and the huge weapon he was still pointing towards the convicts. ‘You sure about that, commissar?’

  ‘Stand down,’ Flint ordered Lhor. ‘Get moving.’

  ‘We’re leaving, Vahn,’ Flint called. ‘If you want out, now’s your only chance.’

  Vahn and the green-haired woman exchanged words too quietly for Flint to overhear, then he waved the rest of the group forward. Satisfied that all of the convicts were moving, Vahn jogged after them, and soon the entire force was moving back towards the tunnel entrance. There, Flint ensured that his entire infiltration party was accounted for, including the man wounded by the Catachan’s shotgun blast. Vahn gathered his convicts, ordering them to follow their liberators. Flint could scarcely miss the tension between Vahn and Skane, but the two men appeared to reach an unspoken agreement that whatever recriminations would be voiced would have to wait until they were all clear of the penal generatorium.

  With the dozen dragoons and the three-dozen or so convicts moving away down the tunnel towards the vent, Flint was the last to leave the carceri chamber. With one last look, he cursed the place, knowing it was just one of twenty such chambers, all of which would be swarming with murderous rebels. This, he knew, was just the beginning.

  ‘Welcome to Alpha Penitentia, commissar,’ said Vahn over his shoulder as he marched away after his companions. ‘Welcome to hell.’