by Andy Hoare
His blade hissing in the damp air, Flint pounded towards the corroded structure the rebels were still emerging from. A dozen las-bolts lanced through the air as Karasinda covered his charge and another two rebels went down screaming. A moment later, Kohlz opened up too, his first shot decapitating a screeching rebel.
Flint reached the manifold at the exact moment a rebel propelled himself out and landed heavily in front of the commissar. This one must have been twice the size of his fellows, his chest and arms so massively over-muscled they reminded Flint of an abhuman ogryn. But the glint of oily metal augments in amongst the bulging musculature told Flint the man was no stable strain of mutant.
Flint skidded to a halt and brought his power sword up into guard position. The fighter leaned forward and roared, his mouth gaping wide as he bellowed an utterly incoherent war cry. Flint looked into his opponent’s eyes and saw nothing very much there. The mountain of corded sinew had been created purely as a fighter. Flint guessed it needed help just feeding itself.
‘Abomination,’ Flint growled as he sidestepped left to circle the monstrosity. ‘You are nothing natural, nor the work of the Omnissiah.’ A passage from the Dictum Commissaria came unbidden to his mind and he found himself reciting the opening lines of the Twelfth Absolution of Saint Jark. ‘From the work of the heretic, Emperor lend us strength…’
The monstrosity growled as if it recognised the curse levelled against it. It lunged forwards clumsily, a fist the size of most men’s skulls hammering through the air. The blow was clumsy and easily sidestepped, but had it struck home it would have pounded Flint’s body to paste.
‘From the horror of the beast of iron made man,’ Flint continued the Twelfth Absolution, ‘Let my heart be steeled…’
Flint allowed the creature to advance towards him as he backed away, drawing it into the open where he knew that Karasinda and Kohlz could intervene if he needed the help. His mind raced as he sought a way to end this, quickly. With the rebels in pursuit, he had no time to tarry in a pointless confrontation.
The monstrosity growled, baring teeth of rusted iron and pounded both fists down into the ground simultaneously. The rockcrete cracked, showering rank water and making the corroded manifold it had climbed through tremble.
Though he had to end this, Flint knew that one false step would see him dead.
‘Come on then…’ Flint snarled, looking to taunt the monstrosity into making a wrong move. He swung his power sword lazily as if to mock the muscled beast. A howl echoed from somewhere far behind and the beast glanced towards the sound. That was all the opening Flint needed.
Darting forward, Flint lunged with the very tip of his power sword and cut a long, if shallow wound across his opponent’s rippling chest muscles. The creature roared and stumbled back as the skin across its pectorals peeled backwards to reveal the glistening red musculature beneath. Simple enough to get inside the monstrosity’s guard, Flint thought, but the wound hadn’t slowed it in the least.
Quite suddenly, Flint’s enemy reversed its backwards movement and twisted its torso at the waist, bringing its right fist up as it did so and hammering the air with a piledriver punch that Flint only just avoided.
Ducking as the fist pistoned over his head, Flint raised his sword two-handed and drove it into the flesh of the beast’s forearm, using his enemy’s strength against it. The sword spat arcs of raw power as its generator shunted lethal energies into the blade’s edge and the beast howled as it pulled its fist clear. At the last, Flint reversed his grip and pulled the sword towards him, the blade slicing out through the creature’s wrist, its entire forearm cut in two and hanging in useless strips of ragged muscle.
The creature stumbled backward and slammed into the huge corroded manifold, making it tremble as if about to fall. It bellowed, but now its cry was not just of anger but of pain and sheer, dumbfounded incredulity that another being could make it bleed.
Shots sounded from somewhere behind and a part of Flint acknowledged that time was almost up. Karasinda and Kohlz weren’t far away, their weapons raised as they tracked enemies Flint himself couldn’t see. ‘Get moving!’ Flint ordered, then flung himself aside as the mountain of muscle and anger that was his opponent threw itself forward with both its arms raised above its head and its face a mask of inhuman rage. Flint knew in that split second that here was his chance, but if he mistimed his attack he would be dead, those arms, each as big and strong as a power lifter’s hydraulic claws, hammering down upon him.
He lunged, scything his power sword two-handed across the beast’s stomach. The flesh split as the power field parted molecules asunder. The creature staggered backwards as it voiced a scream like twisting, tortured metal. Flint gritted his teeth and drove the blade onwards, hewing muscle and bone until the creature’s innards ripped apart. Long, looping guts shot through with cabling flopped out at his feet and he sprung backwards to avoid the torrent of coiling viscera.
The monstrosity finally realised it was dead as it toppled backwards against the manifold. Sliding downwards, its head slumped against its massive chest and made one last huffing sigh.
‘Sir?’ said Kohlz. ‘What the crap was that…!’.
It took the commissar a moment to regain his breath, but when he did, he answered, ‘Something that had no business existing, Kohlz. Not even in a place like this,’ he added, looking around the hellish place. The portal to the sluice chamber was only a few hundred metres distant and he guessed that the rest of the column would be closing on it even now. An ululating howl from somewhere behind pressed home the urgency of getting a damned move on.
Flint soon found out that the clavigers had hung back. Rounding the base of a huge storage tank he found them as they guarded the flanks against potential attackers. Flint barely suppressed a growl as the thought crossed his mind that Claviger-Primaris Gruss may have waited, but he hadn’t intervened in a combat that could have cost the commissar his life.
‘Are you the last, commissar?’ Gruss demanded as Flint reached his position and stopped, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
‘Only recidivists and traitors behind,’ said Flint, looking past the chief warden’s shoulder to the huge armoured portal. His troops were visible as they secured the entryway, bright light shining through it. White light, Flint thought, realising that the chamber had been lit by harsh white daylight from above the last time they had travelled through it – how much time had gone by since then, he wondered…
‘Commissar?’ said Gruss, his voice metallic and distorted through his armour’s phonocasters. ‘Are you wounded?’
‘What?’ Flint said, the exertion of the last few days threatening to catch up with him. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, realising just why Gruss had asked. He was covered with the blood of the thing he had killed by the manifold. ‘None of it is mine.’
A few more minutes later Flint and his companions were walking through the great armoured hatch into the sluice chamber. At his back, Carceri Resurecti appeared to be coming alive with grim, shrill screams, some of anger and bloodlust, others of savage pain. The sound reminded Flint of his time fighting secessionists on the frontier world of Farout, where the enemy encampments were consumed by raucous anarchy each night. It was louder even than the nocturnal chorus of the death world of Chbal, where as a young storm trooper he had once been unfortunate enough to spend an entire terrifying month.
‘Taking it out on each other,’ said Vahn as Flint passed. The penal trooper was leaned against the inner wall of the portal, his face etched with weariness as he gazed back into the depths of the massive carceri chamber.
Flint grunted, distracted as he walked through the portal into the towering space of the sluice chamber. As before, it was illuminated stark white by a column of daylight shining directly down from the open space at the very top of the chimney-like interior. Just like before, the air was filled with the vile stink of billions of litres of polluted, irradiated water.
‘Kohlz?’ Flint called as he craned his ne
ck upwards and covered his face to protect his eyes from the glare.
‘Remember what Gruss said about the jamming nodes set into the generatorium’s structure?’
Kohlz hesitated, his brow furrowing, before he replied, ‘Yes, sir. He said he could deactivate them when we needed to transmit to the main force.’
‘You believe him?’ Flint said, lowering his voice so that none of the wardens could overhear.
‘Sir?’ said Kohlz, not getting it. ‘I don’t…’
‘What’re the odds?’ Flint pressed, weariness creeping into his voice. ‘How likely is it that if I asked him to deactivate the jamming nodes he’d find some excuse not to?’
Kohlz thought on it a second, then answered ‘I might take that bet, sir.’
‘I wouldn’t, dragoon,’ said Flint, his gaze searching the open space far above, before tracking downwards the two hundred metres towards the slimy bottom of the sluice channel.
‘Sir?’ said Kohlz, concern and confusion etched on his face. ‘What’s up, sir?’
Flint fixed his aide with an almost sympathetic stare. ‘How are you with heights, dragoon?’
‘Sir..?’
‘Sorry, Kohlz,’ he said to his aide. ‘Gambling’s against regulations.’
‘Unfortunately, commissar,’ said Claviger-Primaris Gruss as the sound of raging water grew in volume from the weir at his back. ‘I am unable to deactivate them. The rebels must have corrupted the machine-spirits, or aggrieved them in some manner…’
Flint and Kohlz caught each other’s eye and the aide’s discomfort grew. Flint took a deep breath as he scanned the chamber walls closely, studying the lurid streaks of corrosion and decay etched into the rockcrete. An ancient and rusted ladder was set into the wall, climbing upwards hundreds of metres, but to reach it one would have to cross the sluice channel, which was even now filling with surging waters as the overflow systems far below filled up.
Gruss followed Flint’s gaze. The commissar looked sharply away from the distant ladder towards the area where the secreted chute and the entrance to the hidden tunnel was located. Gruss took the bait.
‘We have no choice, commissar,’ the chief warden stated flatly. ‘We must extract via the infiltration route and summon the regiment in person.’
Yes, thought Flint, that would suit you nicely. But why? What was the Claviger-Primaris up to? Was he just trying to keep the 77th out of the penal generatorium to save face so that the eventual glory of retaking it would be his? Or was there something else at play, he wondered, something far darker…
‘We’ll have missed our chance by then,’ Flint snapped back, frustrated. ‘It’ll take hours to extract, and longer to lead the regiment back in. By that time the rebels will have scattered. Strannik won’t be where he was and we’ll have to track him down all over again. He’s got the entire installation to get lost in – we were lucky this time, but we might never find him again.’
‘Then I’m sorry for the wasted effort,’ Gruss replied, his phonocasters increasing in volume in order to be heard over the steadily growing roar of the rising sluice tide. As the three men looked on, the chemical sludge at the bottom of the channel swelled, objects that could only be bodies bloated with corpse-gas and pollution bobbing on the surface as the tide rose. The rockcrete platform they were standing on began to tremble, lightly at first, but soon building to something approaching a low-level quake. It was obvious this flood would be far more violent than the last.
‘It won’t be wasted!’ Flint shouted over the roar of water.
‘What?’ the chief warden shouted back, even his augmented voice all but swallowed up by the sound of the surging tide.
‘The effort won’t be wasted’, Flint shouted back, looking upwards towards the open top of the chimney structure. Both men followed his gaze as the waters broke, billions upon billions of litres of water surging down the sluice channel in a raging tsunami so loud that no more conversation was possible for the next few minutes. Uncounted items of debris were swept along in the torrent, bloated, decaying bodies intermingled with thousands of tonnes of rubble and other, unidentifiable waste.
As the waters finally receded, the worst of the tidal wave having passed, Flint smiled grimly, though not with any cruelty.
‘Sorry, Kohlz,’ he said to his aide.
‘No!’ protested Kohlz as the waters finally washed away, the bottom of the sluice channel glistening with millions of tonnes of stinking silt and garbage. ‘I can’t sir, I…’
‘You won’t be going up alone,’ Flint said, glancing around the faces of the other troopers. Every one of them looked away, distracted by something only they could see. In truth, he’d already chosen the troopers who would be making the climb with Kohlz.
‘Stank!’ Flint barked. ‘Front and centre.’
A groan sounded from behind and Trooper Stank pushed through the crowd, shouldering Solomon roughly aside as the gangly Jopalli tried unsuccessfully to suppress a chuckle.
‘Solomon,’ said Flint. ‘You too.’
Solomon’s face dropped and he turned white as his mouth gaped open. ‘You heard me, indenti,’ Flint growled. ‘The Emperor’s got a job for you. He’s got a job for all three of you. Now listen up…’
‘I really didn’t sign up for this!’ Trooper Solomon shouted back at Kohlz as he ploughed through the knee-high chemical filth at the bottom of the sluice channel.
‘We’ve been through this. You didn’t sign up at all,’ Rotten snapped back. ‘None us signed up for any of this crap…’
‘Keep it down,’ said Kohlz, his face flushed as he struggled with the heavy vox-set. ‘If the commissar hears you talking like that he’ll…’
‘I don’t care, ‘ Rotten replied petulantly as he struggled to pull one leg in front of the other, the sheer effort making him breathless. ‘A bolt-round to the head would be a welcome break from this.’
Kohlz grit his teeth and carried on, deciding not to waste breath bitching about the task the three had been given. Despite his outward stoicism however, Kohlz was seething inside. He’d served the commissar diligently since his arrival and this was his reward. Ordered to cross an eighty metre wide sludge flow, climb several hundred metres up a rusted ladder, then cling to the upper reaches of the cooling tower structure while attempting to operate the heaviest pattern vox-set manufactured in the entire sector. Solomon was right, he thought – he really didn’t sign up for this.
Since the last time the force had been this way, the channel had filled even deeper with chemical sludge dredged up from the outflows far beneath Alpha Penitentia by the sudden rise in water levels caused by the crippling of the air scrubbers across the entire complex. No one could say how many decades, even centuries worth of outflow had collected in the sinks and was now swelling to the surface, but the slime seemed to Kohlz like a gruel of congealing, decomposed matter distilled in a faintly-glowing suspension that must have curdled in the darkness far below for an age. The smell was so strong, so vile that even the Firstborn’s standard issue rebreathers could not keep it out, and they were designed to withstand the worst of the acrid, scorched metal stink of Vostroya’s polluted surface. The rebreather was constricting Kohlz’s breathing, making him even more light-headed with exertion. But he dared not remove it, for the stink bubbling up with his every step was so bad it made him gag even with the mask on. Without it, he knew he wouldn’t make it across.
‘Half...’ Solomon stammered before taking a gulping breath through his mask, ‘…way.’
Keep going, Kohlz told himself, his every step made leaden and slow by the constant sucking of the actinic chemical slime. He forced his head up as he ploughed on, making sure the three were on course for the ladder set in the rockcrete of the opposite wall. Locating the corroded rungs, he wondered again how the commissar could possibly be sure they wouldn’t come loose the moment any pressure was put upon them. Then an even worse thought struck him – what if they came loose when the three men were halfway up the wall…
‘I’m pashing well…’ Solomon started, breaking off mid curse. ‘Wait,’ he stammered. ‘What was…’
‘Get moving!’ Kohlz shouted as he realised what was happening. ‘The pressure’s rising. The intervals are getting shorter!’
Even before he could draw breath to bemoan this new twist of cruel fate, the rockcrete floor beneath the river of stinking sludge started trembling. Kohlz felt the stirring of titanic forces transmitted up through the ground and he knew that the next flood would be an order of magnitude worse than the last. Even as panic rose up inside, Kohlz heard the warriors assembled on the now distant platform at the top of the weir complex shout out. But he couldn’t hear anything of their words above the sound of his raging breath, the thundering of his blood and the rising torrent.
Kohlz swore loudly as he realised the mire around his knees was swelling with water, its consistency thinning as the waters rose up from the overflow sinks far below. Bubbles of acrid gas broke on the surface, splattering the three men with gobbets of reeking muck, and the surface shifted as the sound of a raging flood grew.
‘Seriously, guys!’ Solomon wailed. ‘We’re not gonna…’
‘Shut the hell up and keep moving!’ Kohlz yelled. They were closing on the opposite bank and the lowermost of the corroded metal rungs was in sight.
As the sludge thinned to a luminescent gruel the going got easier and soon the three men were splashing desperately towards the ladder. Even as they closed on it, a great roar went up behind them…
The iron gate slammed shut with a deep, resounding crash and the dozen warriors who’d pushed it too heaved on the huge bolt mechanism, locking the gateway shut.
‘You think that will keep them out, sir?’ Bukin asked Flint with evident scepticism.
‘No,’ said Flint, his answer making Bukin grimace as he chewed on the sodden remains of his cigar. ‘But we’ll be gone long before they break through.’
