[Rogue Trader 02] - Star of Damocles

by Andy Hoare - (ebook by Undead)

  “I would suggest,” replied Lucian, also addressing the council as a whole, “that the best way to find out might be to ask one.”

  Another ripple of comment passed around the table, this time more urgent in its tone. Lucian saw that Inquisitor Grand was looking right at him, his hooded face making his expression entirely unreadable, only his frowning mouth visible in the shadows.

  “You are suggesting,” the cardinal replied, once more addressing Lucian directly, “that the pure form of Man should be sullied in body and soul by contact with a living, breathing alien?”

  “If the crusade might benefit from doing so, and if the Emperor’s cause might be furthered, then yes,” said Lucian, looking the cardinal straight in the eye. “That is exactly what I am suggesting.”

  “Ware the fore!” called Sarik, ducking behind an outcropping of rock, and resisting, barely, the urge to laugh out loud for the joy of battle coursing through his veins. A mighty explosion sounded a second later, the heat of the melta charge he had just planted evident even through his armour and from behind cover. He had led his squad across the cratered plateau, glorying in the fact that he had done so before the Iron Hands had even disembarked. Now, he would lead his brother Space Marines in an assault against the enemy bunker complex.

  “With me!” shouted Sarik, rising from his position and striding into the smoke of the explosion. Through the enhanced vision granted him by the systems in his helmet, he saw that the armoured door had been reduced to glowing slag by the miniature nuclear charge he had placed against it, providing a way in to the tau command centre. Sarik’s squad would be the first into the bunker, the glory of victory would belong to the White Scars.

  Sarik passed through the rained bunker entrance and slowed to allow his squad to catch up with him. He trained his bolter at the darkness before him, his suit’s systems detecting no life forms within the shadows.

  He opened his mouth to issue the order to advance, when he heard a high-pitched whine pass mere centimetres from his head. He turned, catching sight of a blue flash illuminating the shadows further down the corridor. It was the unmistakable signature of a weapons discharge, Sarik was sure of that, but despite that, he had no clue as to what type of weapon was being fired.

  “Squad!” he called. “Target ahead. Overwatch.”

  Another whine passed dangerously close, but still the war spirit in Sarik’s armour could not identify the position of the firer. He ducked back, but too late, as a mighty impact struck the armour of his right shoulder. He stifled a curse as the reactive actuators compensated for the impact. He was not hurt, but still he could not locate his foe.

  “By the Great Khan,” he swore, releasing the catches that secured his helmet. The air of Sy’l’Kell greeted him as he lifted the helm, the smell of cordite and smoke filling his nostrils. He strained his eyes to pick out his attacker, and was rewarded with a brief glimpse of movement amidst the smoke.

  He raised his bolter and fired two shots the length of the corridor. Sparks flew where the bolts struck, followed an instant later by two muffled explosions as they detonated within their target. But where Sarik had expected to hear the wet thump of a body hitting the ground, he distinctly heard the crash of a solid object falling, followed by a small explosion.

  Seizing the initiative before any more foes could zero in on his position, Sarik rose and charged down the corridor, knowing that his brethren would follow his lead. The smoke parted as he reached the end of the low, dark corridor, and Sarik saw that he had come to a junction at its end. Burning scrap was scattered across the floor, the remains of a flat, dome-shaped machine with twin weapons mounted beneath. Sarik saw instantly why his suit’s war spirit had been unable to detect an enemy.

  “Squad, disengage target acquisition. Use your own senses, not those of your armour.” Several of the Space Marines removed their helmets as they took up position around their leader, while others spoke words of command that would render their armour’s targeting systems dormant until revived. “The enemy are using thinking machines to fight us, and they barely show up on autosenses.”

  Such a thing was anathema to the White Scars, indeed, to all Space Marines. They were a warrior brotherhood, fighting and bleeding and dying together. To rely on a machine to do one’s fighting was a blasphemy against their warrior honour, as well as against the religious dogma of their Chapter.

  Sarik kicked the sputtering remains of the tau fighting machine, contempt writ large across his face. “Brothers, we seek the tau leadership. I think they have need of a lesson in honour.”

  “Which man here,” asked the cardinal, addressing the entire council, “would consort with xenos?”

  Lucian looked around the table, noting that none of the council members would answer a question so obviously weighted to implicate any who did so. If the cardinal can play that game, then so can I, thought Lucian.

  “Which man here,” Lucian asked in reply, “would throw away a chance to know more of his foe, that he might defeat him all the more decisively?”

  At that, Lucian saw a number of heads nod in thoughtful agreement. Admiral Jellaqua and General Gauge were unashamed in their agreement, while other council members were more subtle and cautious, restricting their gestures to slight nods.

  The cardinal saw this too, Lucian noticed, and evidently decided to change his tack.

  “Gentlemen. I would point out that I could settle this matter entirely, and I would not need your permission or assent to do so.”

  “Explain,” said the Magos Explorator Jaakho, the first time a council member other than the cardinal or Lucian had spoken up.

  “By all means,” replied Gumey. “I could simply order the world below us virus bombed. Believe me, I would do so.”

  “How?” replied the magos explorator, his voice mechanical and grating. “How do you come to have such devices?”

  Though the tech-priest’s voice was almost emotionless, Lucian caught the edge to it. Little could cause excitement in a senior adept of the Machine God, for they surrendered much of themselves in their integration with the mechanisms of their calling, merging and becoming one with the great cogitation banks with which they communed. A virus bomb, an example of high technology proscribed by ancient decree and available only to the very highest of authorities was just the type of thing to gain a reaction from such as he.

  Lucian saw the answer coming, and looked to the cardinal’s left, to Grand, as Gurney replied.

  “There are those of the council who agree with my position,” stated the cardinal. Lucian saw that the inquisitor was looking right at him, the effect made quite disconcerting, because Grand’s eyes were still obscured in shadow.

  “My lords,” Lucian addressed the council, let us not be drawn into rash, unilateral action. “Let us stand united in our efforts to prosecute the crusade, for is that not the task the High Lords have set us?”

  He knew even as he spoke that he had made an enemy of the cardinal, and must work to draw the non-aligned members of the council to a new faction of his own creation.

  “With me!” Sarik called, launching himself through the wreckage of the final armoured barrier between him and the inner command centre of the tau bunker. Even as the smoke cleared and his brothers crashed through behind him, he saw that he had reached the final phase of the mission.

  Sarik and his brother Marines had fought through the winding corridors of the complex, facing and destroying more of the machine-warriors as they penetrated deeper. They burst into a massive chamber, its walls stark white and illuminated by the blue light of a thousand data screens. One such screen dominated the far wall, a massive projection plotting the course of the battle as it raged all around the plateau.

  Silhouetted against that huge display, Sarik saw what he knew instantly was the alien he had come to kill, the head that when decapitated would spell the death of the entire body.

  Attendants wearing oil-stained jump suits and bearing all manner of alien tools surrounded a
mighty suit of armour far larger and more bulky than the armour worn by the White Scars. More accurately, Sarik saw, the figure did not wear the armour at all, but had climbed within it, to act not as a wearer but as a pilot.

  Their task complete, the attendants stepped away from their leader. Relishing the thought of the upcoming duel, Sarik stepped forward, waving his brethren back as they went to follow. An unspoken understanding had, somehow, made itself apparent between the two leaders. Perhaps the tau did know of honour, Sarik thought, stowing his bolter and drawing his chainsword.

  The tau commander drew himself to his full height, ignited his suit’s jets and leapt to the floor before the Space Marine. Only ten metres separated the two warriors, affording Sarik a view of the weapons his adversary carried. He saw instantly that the tau was equipped for a ranged fight, apparently lacking any form of weapon that could be used in a melee.

  “Man,” the tau said to Sarik’s surprise, “though we may be enemies, I am duty bound to offer to you our friendship. We need not fight, you and I. What say you?”

  Though taken aback by his enemy’s question, Sarik answered in the only way he could. “Tau, we are foemen. If you wish to surrender, that choice is yours.”

  The square device atop the tau’s armour, which Sarik took to be some form of armoured sensor block, dipped, perhaps in sadness. “You misunderstand me, human,” the tau replied. “I do not offer you my surrender. I offer you my friendship and that of all the tau. You must join us, or we must fight.”

  It took Sarik a moment to assimilate the alien’s words, for no foe had ever asked him to surrender and to join him. Such a thing was utterly unthinkable, the very notion causing Sarik to bristle in anger.

  “If you truly expect me to throw down my arms and join you, then you do not know honour after all,” said Sarik, thumbing the activation stud on the grip of his chainsword and causing it to growl into angry life.

  “I do not ask you to throw down your arms, for I, like you, am a warrior and know well what that would mean. I offer you common cause. If you join the Tau Empire then you may fight for a cause truly worthy of your life. Join the Tau Empire, and we might fight together, not against one another!”

  “You insult me with words, xenos,” spat Sarik by way of reply. “Enough with words. Now, we fight!”

  “I move,” Lucian addressed the council, “that we vote on this issue.”

  “And what motion would you table? asked Sedicae the Navigator, surprising Lucian and, it appeared, the rest of the council by choosing to speak up at this time.

  “I ask that the council moves to delay any use of the cardinal’s ultimate sanction,” Lucian replied, aware that the cardinal seethed with anger as he did so, “until such time as the situation on the ground is fully resolved.”

  “What right have you to naysay me, rogue trader?” growled the cardinal, his tone dangerous and his bearded face scowling.

  “It is my right as a member of this council, should another member second me,” replied Lucian, knowing full well the gamble he was initiating.

  The council knew the gamble too, so it seemed, for a tense silence settled on the chamber as each councillor considered his position. Lucian had taken a huge risk in calling for a vote, for should no other councillor second the call, then he would be humiliated, entirely isolated and devoid of power or influence. Furthermore, the councillor that seconded his call would be setting himself up against the cardinal as surely as Lucian had. A successful councillor might gain unimagined power, but a defeated one might be lucky to come out alive, so brutal could the power play become.

  “I will second the Lord Arcadius’ call.” Lucian let out a silent breath of relief, seeing that it was Admiral Jellaqua that had spoken up. “If for no other reason than to settle this issue and move on to more pressing matters.”

  Lucian nodded his thanks to the admiral, before addressing the council. “I call then for a vote, on the issue of the enactment of the ultimate sanction against the taking of enemy prisoners. Gentlemen, please cast your votes.”

  Lucian smiled to himself, pleased that he had worked the issue of taking prisoners into consideration, setting it up as the natural opposite of the cardinal’s stance. And in his mind, it was, for if the cardinal convinced Grand to virus bomb Sy’l’Kell, then the taking of prisoners would be a moot point, and the crusade would be throwing away potentially vital intelligence.

  The council’s etiquette stated that the member nominated as chairman for the session should vote first, the voting passing around the table clockwise. The cardinal was the chairman. “I vote against the motion,” he growled.

  “As do I,” stated Inquisitor Grand, his voice dry and sinister, little more than a whisper emanating from the depths of his hood, but plainly audible.

  “I vote,” said General Wendall Gauge in his no-nonsense, gravel voice, “for the motion. Arcadius has the truth of it.”

  Lucian nodded his thanks to the general, and looked to the next man along.

  “I hardly need to do so,” said Admiral Jellaqua, “or I would not have seconded the call to vote, but I too vote in favour of Gerrit’s motion. In war, one must marshal one’s resources and know what weapon to use when. I believe it wise to capture and interrogate an enemy. It is not ‘consorting with xenos’, it is common sense.”

  Lucian savoured the outrage the cardinal fought so hard and unsuccessfully to contain, but knew better than to celebrate just yet.

  The seat to the admiral’s left, belonging to Captain Rumann of the Iron Hands Chapter, was unoccupied, the Space Marine being otherwise engaged with his role in the planetary assault in progress below. That meant that Lucian was the next in line to vote. He said simply, “I vote in favour.”

  To Lucian’s left was the empty seat belonging to Sergeant Sarik of the White Scars. It was a shame the Space Marine was absent, Lucian thought, for he suspected Sarik might have voted against the use of the virus bomb, even if he would have no great desire to interrogate prisoners.

  The next councillor along was Jaakho, the Magos Explorator. Lucian counted two votes against his motion so far, and three for. He had no idea how the Magos might vote. A long silence preceded Jaakho’s answer, punctuated by the slow wheeze of his augmetic systems and the rattle of the many pipes and cables draped from the facemask hidden beneath his red hood.

  “I must,” the Magos stated at length, “abstain from this vote.”

  Lucian waited for some explanation from the tech-priest, but soon realised that none would be forthcoming. Jaakho’s reasons for voting for or against any of the council’s actions appeared to be couched in an entirely unreadable logic, one that Lucian believed was divorced from the reality in which he lived.

  The next councillor to vote would be the Navigator, Pator Sedicae. As with Jaakho before, Lucian could not predict how the Navigator might vote, for he appeared to judge matters entirely by the unknowable concerns of his kin. The Navigators, as with the Techno Magi, moved in their own circles, and their ways were frequently alien and arcane to other men. The thought occurred to Lucian that Sedicae might feel the same about the circles in which rogue traders moved, so perhaps there was some possibility of finding common ground and of working towards an alliance.

  The Navigator visibly gathered his thoughts, before casting his vote. “On behalf of the Navis Nobilite,” he said, referring to all of the Navigator Houses, of which he was the head of just one, “I too must abstain.”

  Lucian was not entirely surprised to hear the Navigator’s vote, though he could not help but feel mildly disappointed. He looked at the two remaining councillors yet to cast their votes, cold doubt rising within him.

  Praefect Maximus Skissor stood to deliver his vote, Lucian’s view of the man plummeting even further. Skissor cleared his throat as he straightened his robes, before raising an ancient data-slate and lifting a tattered feather quill to its surface.

  “I, Praefect Maximus to the Damocles Gulf Crusade, do hereby exercise the right and res
ponsibility entrusted to me.” Skissor allowed a pregnant pause to drag on, apparently blind to the hostile glances that various councillors, not least among them Lucian, were casting his way.

  “I choose to abstain.”

  Lucian felt a cold sweat appear at his brow, but refused to let his discomfort show.

  “I believe,” the Praefect continued, “that to actively seek out tau prisoners to interrogate would be to create a line of communication between the aliens and ourselves. This I believe to be tantamount to recognising their empire and its right to exist. The purpose of this crusade is to challenge the tau, not to talk to them. Having said that, I believe it is my duty to consider how the tau might be of use to us, and I believe that to exterminate them would be to throw away what advantage we might gain by doing so.”

  Lucian resisted the urge to rise to his feet and berate the councillor. Did he really believe his own nonsense? No, Lucian realised, that little speech was intended to bolster the Praefect’s position, no matter how it sounded to the remainder of the council.

  Looking across at the last councillor still to cast his vote, Lucian realised that he had, in all likelihood, lost this battle. The cardinal sat at the head of his faction, which included Inquisitor Grand, and, Lucian was sure, the logistician-general, even though Stempf had yet to cast his vote. Lucian could count on Jellaqua and Gauge, but with the abstentions and absences, it looked like that would not prove sufficient.

  It was no surprise to Lucian then when the logistician-general cast his vote against the motion, putting the result at three for, three against and four abstentions; not enough to carry the vote.

  Hot pain flared across Sarik’s chest as high-velocity impacts cratered and buckled his power armour. The alien spoke no more, but would fight, that much was clear. Sarik offered a brief but heartfelt thanks to the Emperor that the ceramite armour was proof against the alien weaponry, for now at least.

  Wasting no more time, Sarik launched himself at his foe, seeking to get within the tau’s guard, from where the alien’s weapons would be useless and his own lethal.