by Jo Zebedee
Turning from the rail, she put a hand to the console beside her, a bank of six circular glasses, each no more than eight inches across. A flick of a switch and a face appeared in one of the glasses. Ormuz recognised Lieutenant-Commander Voyna. Promoted only recently to commander, he still kept watch in the Registrations/Acquisitions department three decks below as lieutenant of battle order.
“What do you have for me, Mr Voyna?” the Admiral asked.
“We’ve identified her as Tempest, one of the first in her class. She’s dark, ma’am. There’s not been a peep out of her.”
“Where is Lieutenant-Commander Rinharte?” demanded the Admiral.
“We have a report from her department,” Voyna smoothly replied. “Tempest was not assigned to the Provincial Foot. To the best of our information, she was scrapped five years ago.”
Ormuz glanced at the Admiral. Voyna’s intelligence was not welcome. How could they estimate the Serpent’s strength if he outfitted himself with vessels no longer on the List? Their enemy could have hundreds of scrapped troop-transports, each one ready to carry soldiers to attack the Imperial capital. Ormuz said as much.
“The thought had occurred to me, Casimir,” the Admiral replied quietly. She raised her voice, “And prior to being scrapped, Mr Voyna?”
“The Imperial Skirmishers, ma’am.”
“Is there no good news?” The Admiral shook her head sadly.
“We can’t know the Skirmishers follow the Serpent,” Ormuz pointed out. “They may not know what became of their transport after she was sent to be scrapped.”
“Can we know who does follow the Serpent’s drum?”
“The Provincial Foot—”
The Admiral was not amused at his voicing the obvious.
“And the Imperial Housecarls. But we can discount them.”
“We can, can we? And why would that be?”
“They have no troops in the Imperial Army Abroad. They’re all on Shuto. The Serpent will use them to attack the Imperial Palace.”
“Then we certainly cannot discount them.”
Ormuz disagreed: “They’ll play no part in the battle we have planned.”
“But,” the Admiral added sternly, “win or lose that battle, we will still need to deal with them.”
As if conjured into being by mention of her name, Lieutenant-Commander Rinharte rose into sight. Stepping off the elevator platform onto the gallery, she tugged at the hem of her jacket. Ormuz watched her approach the Admiral and himself. She had plainly made good speed from her Intelligence Office three decks beneath them but not a single white hair was out of place, and her uniform was pristine and unruffled. Rinharte gave Ormuz a friendly nod and adopted an easy stance by the Admiral’s side. “Ma’am,” she said.
“Ah, Rizbeka. Seize Tempest for me. You will have a section, and Marine-Captain Kordelasz to lead them.”
Shock flickered across the lieutenant-commander’s face but was quickly quelled. She turned to go, although she had not been dismissed by the Admiral, but halted abruptly when Ormuz spoke up:
“Wouldn’t Major Skaria be a better choice to lead a boarding party?”
“No.” The Admiral’s voice was firm. “There is a mystery here, Casimir. Marines and mysteries do not sit well together.”
“But if there are troops aboard…”
“Rizbeka will handle them.”
“But—”
The Admiral jerked round and glared at Ormuz. “I will not have my orders questioned, Casimir. I have made my decision. Rizbeka, you are dismissed.”
Rinharte marched away stiffly but not before staring disapprovingly at Ormuz. He had shamed her, he realised belatedly. He had not meant to. But neither did he feel it fair to send her into a situation for which she was not trained.
“If you must object,” the Admiral remarked quietly, “do me the goodness of doing so in private. I will not have you embarrassing my officers.”
“I’m sorry.” The apology was directed more at Rinharte, although she had descended from the gallery and could not hear it.
The Admiral seemed to realise this. “You must leave the tactical decision-making to me, Casimir. This… alliance we have forged works both ways. You must have faith in my abilities, too.”
“I do,” Ormuz insisted. Of course he did. Doubt the Admiral? It was almost unthinkable. And he needed her.
But Rinharte was a friend and this mission was likely to be dangerous. No, not merely dangerous. A section of marines against several companies of Provincial Foot? Whatever advantage the marines had in boarding-action experience would count for little against overwhelming numbers.
“I very much doubt,” the Admiral said, speaking for Ormuz’s ears alone, “that Rizbeka will meet much resistance. The troop-transport is dark and that suggests she no longer carries the Provincial Foot.”
“It could be a trap,” pointed out Ormuz.
“Rizbeka will spot any trap.”
“Will she spot it in time?” The unspoken “to save herself” was unnecessary.
“I trust her abilities, Casimir. I did not make her my good right hand for nothing.”
Ormuz, who had trusted the wrong people time and again and yet asked people to trust him, said nothing.
CHAPTER SIXTY
From the control cupola, Rinharte watched the jolly boat approach Tempest. Standing behind the pilot, she peered through the scuttles at the starship floating before them. She was not familiar with the class since she had never served aboard an auxiliary. From sharp-edged vertical prow to flat stern, no superstructure, other than a small f’oc’sle containing the bridge, spoilt Tempest’s lines.
The Storm class troop-transport hung silhouetted against the vast and glowing brown orb of Kasukierto, the system’s gas giant. No lights showed along her length, which was unusual. The jolly boat drifted beneath the troop-transport’s hull and Rinharte craned her neck to look up at the underside. She saw battered hull-plates and the occasional marks of repaired battle-damage, proof the vessel had seen action. Ormuz had told her the Serpent was drawing his troops from regiments stationed on the edges of the Empire. If this ship had indeed bought the Provincial Foot to Linna, then here was evidence.
“Locked up tight,” the pilot murmured. “Ma’am.”
“The boat-deck,” Rinharte suggested.
A Storm class troop-transport carried two full-strength battalions and sufficient pinnaces to land its complement in a war zone. The boats were launched from the vessel’s boat-deck, situated in the prow and accessed via three wide hatches each on the port quarter and the starboard. Vengeful’s jolly boat rounded the stern of Tempest, passing across the dark maws of the drive-tubes. Rinharte peered into their depths but could see only shadows. Each drive-tube was large enough to take the boat with room to spare.
From the dorsal surface, the boat powered for’ards to the bow, coming to rest by the shutter across the boat-deck’s lowest portside access. If the Provincial Foot at the aerodrome had disembarked from this troop-ship, the crew had battened down hatches after their departure.
“We’ll send a squad in through the personnel airlock,” Rinharte said, pointing over the pilot’s shoulder at a small hatch beside the boat-deck access, “and they can open the boat-deck shutter.”
“If she’s powered down, you’ll have to open it manually.” The pilot glanced back at Rinharte. “There’s tools in a locker aft.”
Rinharte nodded and clambered down the ladder to the jolly boat’s troop compartment. Buckled into seats either side of the wide central aisle was one of the three sections of Imperial Marines serving aboard Vengeful. Although Marine-Captain Kordelasz normally spurned wearing a cuirass, for this mission he had decided armour was the better part of valour. He was not, however, wearing his air-hood. And the sight of air-hoods on the other marines caused Rinharte to come to an abrupt halt—twelve figures with canvas sacks over their heads, featureless but for glittering black goggles and b
reather grills. And black pill-box helmets. They had not been wearing them earlier.
Boat-Sergeant Alus, sitting opposite the marine-captain, was identifiable only by his size and the double knot insignia on his jacket sleeve. Rinharte turned to him:
“Get your squad prepped for a boarding action, Mr Alus,” she ordered brusquely. “You’re to enter the transport using a personnel lock, and then get the boat-deck hatch open.”
Alus rose to his feet. “Ma’am.” The marines by his side—Valka, Sniskutte and Tatakai—also stood. After outfitting themselves with boarding axes from the weapons-rack, they stumped aft to the boat’s lock.
The boatswain rose from his station at the approach of Alus’s squad.
“You’ll need tools,” Rinharte said quickly, before the marines crowded into the lock.
Alus turned, saw the locker beside him and wrenched it open. The boatswain swore under his breath as the catch tore loose.
Hung about with crowbars and locking-handles, the four marines squeezed through the hatch into the lock. The boatswain dogged it shut. Rinharte turned and headed back to the control cupola.
Five minutes later, she saw four green-jacketed figures sail across to Tempest. It was only when they landed feet-first beside the personnel hatch she could sort them by size and tentatively identify them. Watching them busy themselves with tools, she guessed Tempest was indeed powered-down. Why? she wondered. Was there no crew aboard?
There was something mysterious about this deserted ship floating in space. Perhaps it was indeed a trap.
A cloud of glittering crystals jetted from the open personnel airlock. Alus grabbed the jamb and pulled himself inside. His squad followed him and the hatch laboriously ground shut.
Rinharte leant close to the caster on the control cupola ceiling beside the pilot’s station. “Speak to me, boat-sergeant.”
“Ma’am. Nothing to report.”
“There’s no power aboard?”
“Dead as a rock, ma’am—Correction: we have some power. But all the main circuits are off.”
There was a moment of silence. Tatakai’s voice broke it: “Ma’am? We’ve got the inner hatch open. There’s four pinnaces in their cradles. Looks abandoned.”
“Be careful,” Rinharte warned.
“Looks deserted,” put in Alus.
“Then where are the crew? Someone flew her here, someone delivered the Provincial Foot to this system.”
“Don’t know, ma’am.”
“All clear on the pinnaces,” came Marine-Corporal Valka’s growl. “Battened down tight.”
“I don’t like it,” Rinharte told the jolly boat pilot.
“It’s certainly suspicious,” the pilot confirmed.
“Mr Alus, wait. I’m going to contact Vengeful. Don’t do anything until I report back.”
“Ma’am,” the boat-sergeant confirmed.
Rinharte twisted the selector until she was connected to Vengeful’s command circuit. Knowing a light would indicate her entry into the circuit on a console in the Signals Distribution Office, she said quickly, “Put me through to the Admiral.”
“Ma’am.” A click. Then the Admiral’s voice: “Rizbeka. There is a problem?”
“I’m not sure, ma’am,” Rinharte admitted. “Tempest seems deserted.”
“She was scrapped five years ago. Perhaps she finally reached her end.”
“It’s too neat.” Rinharte was thinking aloud.
She felt a touch on her hip and jerked in surprise. Twisting round, she saw Kordelasz on the ladder from the troop compartment. “What’s going on?” he mouthed.
“The troop-transport boat-deck is deserted,” she explained.
“Rizbeka?” demanded the Admiral.
“Sorry, ma’am. Marine-Captain Kordelasz has just joined me in the control cupola.”
He gave her a questioning look.
“Ma’am,” Rinharte said to the Admiral, “We’re going in. We’ll dock the boat.”
“Agreed, Rizbeka. Mr Kordelasz?”
“I don’t see what else we can do.”
The Admiral signed off. Rinharte clicked the selector back to Alus’s circuit and gave the boat-sergeant his orders: get Tempest’s boat-deck door open.
Ten minutes later, guide-lights above and below the boat-deck shutter sprung into life. The door began to lift, light shining beneath its edge. Rinharte saw the shimmer of the force-curtain and was grateful it still functioned. Once the boat-deck access was fully open, she ordered the pilot to take them in. Alus and Valka were there to attach hawsers and another of the squad operated the capstan which winched the jolly boat aboard.
Exiting the boat-deck via one of the three wide hatches in the aft bulkhead, Rinharte found herself in a vast space, dark and lifeless, huge buttresses climbing the walls on each side to meet overhead. She could not see the far end of the chamber, could see no more than one hundred yards in the light spilling from the boat-deck. The wooden decking underfoot was studded with sunken cleats and attachment-rings. Beside her, a light abruptly speared into the gloom and she turned and saw a marine—the size and single knot insignia identified Marine-Corporal Valka—lower his hand from a lamp he had fixed to his shoulder. More lamps burst into life, until the darkness ahead was stabbed with twelve bright beams. A shape loomed off to port, just visible in the wash of light from the combined lamps.
“That way,” Rinharte ordered, pointing at the shape.
The three boat-squads and the two officers moved forward warily. As they approached, their destination was revealed as a skeletal structure some three stories high. Canvas sides were rolled up to display an interior of wooden floors and bare posts. Open staircases zigzagged up each side. Rinharte recognised it as a barracks-block. Troopers would hang hammocks between the posts and let down the canvas awnings when they were allowed privacy. Each block held a company of around 150 soldiers. Non-commissioned officers bivouacked separately and the officers’ apartments were somewhere beneath their feet in the lower third of Tempest’s hull. Somewhere nearby would be the mess, an arsenal and a quartermaster’s store.
They reached the barracks-block and it was clearly empty. Kordelasz, sword in hand, ran lightly up the stairs to the topmost level. He looked down over the edge at those gathered below and called, “Nothing.”
“Any sign of recent use?” Rinharte asked.
The marine-captain laughed. “No. But if they decamped on orders, there wouldn’t be.” He disappeared from view and reappeared at the head of the stairs. He jogged down to rejoin them.
“Could you see anything from up there?” Rinharte asked him.
“There’s another block just over there.” He pointed starboard and aft with his sword.
“We need to find the arsenal,” Rinharte decided.
She looked back, saw the open hatch to the boat-deck, a rectangle of brightness in the bulkhead. To one side, a pattern of shadows resolved into a ladder running up to a catwalk some sixty feet above the decking. That way led to the quarterdeck and poop, where the bridge and crew quarters were located. They would need investigating. But for now the mystery of the missing Provincial Foot soldiers was more important. Rinharte found it hard to believe the Serpent had used Tempest to transport a single company. Even though the vessel was old and properly belonged on the scrap heap, it was still a waste of a ship.
Kordelasz set off at a fast march, heading into the shadows. Alus’s squad, at a gesture from the marine-captain, followed him. Rinharte briefly considered splitting up the remainder of the section but decided strength, not speed, was called for. She signalled for the remaining two boat-squads to follow after Kordelasz and Alus.
In short order, they found a further five deserted barracks-blocks, all in good order as if waiting for a company to come and inhabit them. Beyond the blocks sat the mess, chest-high partitions with fold-out tables and benches like a series of fences. The field-kitchen, which normally sat beside the mess, was not in its c
radle. No sign of the Provincial Foot’s vehicles had been found on Linna, so they had not brought any with them. And past the mess, at the foot of the bulkhead behind which were located the troop-transport’s topologic drive and drive-tubes, they found the arsenal, a squat steel bunker. They stood in a semi-circle about the sealed entrance, lamps shining on the armoured door.
“We’ll never get that open,” Kordelasz complained.
“It’ll be empty,” Rinharte guessed. “The Foot only brought what they needed.” She lifted her chin decisively. “We’ve seen enough. I don’t doubt the officers’ quarters will be the same. But where are the crew? Someone must have steered this ship here.”
They turned back and trudged across the great plain of the deck, contained within their own circle of light, aiming for that bright hatchway on the for’ard bulkhead. There was something oppressive about Tempest’s interior, something mysterious and haunted. Rinharte could not see the chamber’s boundaries and that weighed heavy on her. It was not fear, it was not worry. It was… a similar feeling to that experienced before going into battle against unbeatable odds. Trepidation.
Rinharte looked to either side as they marched. She was not expecting attackers from the shadows but she could not like the silence and emptiness. Occupied and well-lit, she knew, this place would appear very different.
Reaching the ladder leading up to the bridge, Rinharte ordered her troops. Alus’s squad led, followed by Rinharte. Kordelasz took position sandwiched between the last two boat-squads. In single file, they climbed the ladder, the marines’ boots heavy on the treads. One hand on the rail, her sword clutched tightly in the other, Rinharte followed Tatakai, grateful not to be trapped behind the overpowering bulk of Alus or Valka. She ascended steadily to the rhythm of the marines’ steps.
Lifting her foot for a step, she moved forwards and upwards… and stumbled forwards, catching herself before she bumped into Tatakai. They had reached the head of the ladder. Alus’s squad filed towards the nearest hatch. It was sealed but the lock-bars the marines had used to break into the troop-transport soon had it open. Sniskutte swung the hatch open and stepped inside.
