“Yes, sir,” nodded Stavin. He plucked a frag grenade from the fixings on his belt.
Karif took the grenade with a grin. “This is the Emperor’s work, by Throne! How’s your throwing arm, Stavin?”
“I’m sure it’s not as good as the commissar’s, sir.”
“Patronising, but well said. Let’s find out. I’d say two of these ought to clear those fools right out. Think you can put one right in amongst them?”
“You point, I throw, sir.”
“Right then,” said Karif. “Pull that pin and get ready. Throw on three.”
Stavin nodded. Both men pulled the pins from their grenades. “One…”
Side by side, they stepped out of the alley and into the street. “Two…”
Karif leaned back, careful not to tense, but to keep his muscles loose. “Three! Damn all traitors to the warp!”
Whipping their arms forward, Karif and his adjutant hurled their grenades towards the unwary enemy squad. Some of the rebel soldiers spotted the motion, but it was too late. Both grenades landed within metres of each other, close to the enemies’ feet.
“Good throw,” said Karif as he shoved the young trooper back into cover. The grenades detonated with a sharp boom, sending a shower of snow and icicles down on them from the rooftops above.
Loud screaming filled the air. Those few rebels who hadn’t been killed outright by hot shrapnel fell to the snow with gushing wounds. “Move up,” said Karif, and he broke from cover to sprint towards the wounded men.
“No mercy, boy,” he called over his shoulder. “The graveyards are full of merciful men.”
Stavin pounded up the street after the commissar, skidding to a stop when they reached the wounded rebels on the ground.
Together, the commissar and his adjutant fired lasbolts into the writhing bodies at their feet. Each shot silenced another howling man.
It was murderous work. Karif couldn’t deny it. He wondered how Stavin felt about it. To the young soldier’s credit, he’d done exactly as ordered at every turn.
“Don’t you dare pity these men, Stavin. They turned from the Emperor’s light. They put themselves above every other man, woman and child in our great Imperium. Never forget that.”
Stavin nodded silently.
Karif turned from the smoking bodies and looked up the street to where Kabanov’s squad still huddled behind their covering wall, harried by the bolters and stubbers at the roadblock on their west side. The colonel was poking his head out, trying to see just what the hell was going on, but his tall fur hat confounded him, announcing his every movement.
“Colonel,” voxed Karif, “your south flank is secure, sir.”
“About bloody time,” the colonel voxed back. “Now move up that street and flank that khekking roadblock, if you would, commissar.”
“You’re welcome,” grumbled Karif to himself. “Come on, Stavin. It seems even the famous White Boar needs someone to save his backside now and then.”
So far, so good, thought Sebastev.
The diversion had begun. Repeated las-fire sounded from the far side of the relay station, answered by the chatter of the east-facing heavy stubbers. As Sebastev had fervently hoped he would, the rebel sergeant became flustered. Loud booms joined the sounds of las- and stubber-fire. Troopers Ulyan and Gorgolev were using the few grenades they carried to draw the attention of the relay station’s defenders.
It worked.
At the sound of the explosions, the rebel sergeant became convinced that the Vostroyan attackers had circled east and were throwing themselves into a full assault against the east side. He ordered all but two of his men to follow him and took off at a run.
“You ready, scout?” Sebastev asked Aronov.
“Ready, sir. First man to the door gets a case of the good stuff, right?”
“Right,” said Sebastev as he raised his bolt pistol. “I’ll pay for it myself when we get to Seddisvarr.” All along the street, hidden behind stone walls, his squad crouched ready to rush the building.
Sebastev’s pistol barked and spat a brass shell casing, and the Vostroyans exploded from their cover, zigzagging as they ran forward, desperate to throw off the guns.
Sebastev sprinted hard, not daring to glance left or right to see how his men were doing. He saw muzzle flashes flicker out of each of the dark apertures positioned high in the relay station walls. “Khekking run!” he yelled at his men. He put everything he had into pumping his legs, powering forward as fast as he could. His muscles started to burn, and the cold air rushed into his lungs, making them feel like they were on fire.
The stubbers sent a blizzard of shells whipping down around him, but nothing hit. There was no pain, no battering impact. Then someone to Sebastev’s left cried out. Sebastev couldn’t look round. Pausing for just a moment meant certain death.
“Keep moving!” he bellowed. In his peripheral vision, he saw a number of troopers moving forward, outpacing him in their race to the safety of the relay station’s walls.
Torrents of lead continued to pour from the stubbers. Bullets churned the snow and bit into the frozen rockcrete beneath. Some of the shells punched into living meat. Screams sounded from Sebastev’s right. Someone behind him shouted, “No!”
Five metres! Four… Three…
Sebastev passed under the stubbers’ field of fire, moving so fast he couldn’t stop. He threw himself down onto his right side, skidding to a stop just as one of the remaining rebel guards fired off a las-bolt at him. The bright beam scorched the air above him, missing by centimetres. Sebastev looked over in time to see Aronov impale the offending rebel on his long knife. The man was still screaming when the big scout hoisted him into the air with his free hand and yanked his knife out. That cut the scream short.
The crack of a lasgun marked the death of the other rebel that had been left to guard the entrance. Sebastev rose to his feet and brushed the snow from his coat. He looked back at the street they’d just crossed. Two fresh bodies lay bleeding on the snow. One of them was still moving, still groaning, calling out weakly for help. It was Blemski, a young trooper from Fourth Platoon.
Trooper Rodoyev, also from Fourth Platoon, followed Sebastev’s gaze and saw his comrade lying wounded out on the street. He dropped his lasgun and made to rush to his friend’s aid, but Aronov’s massive hand caught him by the wrist. “Don’t be a fool, trooper,” hissed the scout.
“Aronov’s right,” said Sebastev. “The guns will chew you up the second you run out there. Blemski wouldn’t want that, and I can’t lose another man. Think about it.”
“But he’s not dead, sir,” said Rodoyev through gritted teeth.
Perhaps Blemski heard those words because, at that moment, he struggled to his knees, fighting the agony of the horrific injuries he’d sustained. The movement was enough for the rebel stubbers. They spat another stream of shells. Blemski’s body shuddered as it was chewed apart by a score of impacts. Then it fell forward on the blood spattered snow and lay perfectly still.
Rodoyev howled. His face reddened and his eyes bulged. He snatched up his lasgun. “Where are they? I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them all.”
Sebastev grabbed him by the collar and hauled him downwards so that they were almost nose to nose. “Pull yourself together, Firstborn. I need you in control of yourself. If you can’t give me that, you’re no damned—”
Sebastev broke off in mid-sentence. He could hear orders being shouted from the other side of the relay station. The rest of the rebel guards were coming back.
“To the corners, all of you,” he hissed, letting go of Rodoyev. His men rushed to either edge of the building, some following Sebastev to the north-east corner, the others moving with Aronov to the south-east.
When the rebel guards appeared, the Vostroyans gave them time to commit themselves. When the rebels were halfway around, beyond easy reach of any solid cover, Sebastev gave the order to open fire.
Bright beams stabbed out, punching holes in the thick, quilt
ed coats of the rebels and cutting deep, charred pathways into their flesh. Screams filled the air. Bodies crumpled to the snow, some thrashing in pain from wounds that weren’t immediately fatal.
“Move up and put them out of their misery,” ordered Sebastev. He threw Rodoyev a pointed look. “Remember that you are Firstborn, not torturers. You’re here to represent the Emperor. I want the wounded rebels dispatched quickly. No toying with them. Firstborn fight with honour.”
As his men moved forward to do as he’d ordered, Sebastev walked back around to the west entrance of the relay station. It was sealed tight from the inside. He was standing in front of the door when Aronov joined him.
“Are they dead?” asked Sebastev.
“Aye, sir.”
“The door is sealed. Any melta-charges left?”
“I haven’t got any,” said Aronov, “but I think Rodoyev and Vamkin are still carrying, sir.”
“Rodoyev… is he all right?”
“They were good friends, sir. He took Blemski under his wing when the lad joined Fourth Platoon. Both men were from Hive Slovekha.”
Sebastev thought of Dublin and Ixxius. He remembered watching Dubrin’s life ebb away as he lay on a stretcher. He remembered seeing Ixxius’ body disintegrate in a burst of shrapnel from an ork grenade. “Understood,” he said to Aronov, “but the time for mourning is after the battle. Words from the White Boar himself.”
Aronov nodded. The others joined them at the entrance. There was a fierce look in their eyes, a look of absolute focus on the work in hand. It was just what Sebastev wanted to see.
“Get a melta-charge on this door,” he told them. “Once we’re in, we move in pairs, sweeping each level. The gunners are still inside. We’ll make them pay, by the Throne. But there may be others, comms officers and the like. Keep your eyes open. They know we’re coming in, so no mistakes. Watch each other’s backs. Are we clear?”
“Clear, sir,” said the troopers.
“Like good rahzvod, sir,” said Aronov.
CHAPTER NINE
Day 687
Nhalich, East Bank — 11:21hrs, -20°C
Kabanov stood in Reivemot Square. It was a terrible sight. The corpses of good men, men of the Sixty-Eighth and 701st, lay in heaps like stacked timber. The Danikkin rebels had stripped them of anything useful and piled them up. Now the bodies were frozen together, as cold and hard as blocks of ice. His heart filled with anger and regret as he looked at them. He ordered Sergeant Breshek to organise a search of the corpses, looking for Commissar-Captain Vaughn and Major Galipolov. He was sure they lay somewhere in the square, but it was still hard to believe that these uncompromising men were truly dead. The remains of a statue that had once been dedicated to the Emperor stood in the centre of the square. Who knew what it was supposed to be now? It stood headless, limbless, wrapped in razorwire and splashed with vivid red paint. A dedication, perhaps, to that misguided notion of independence that had brought war to this world. Some damned fool rebel had written DIA – No Emperor, No Slavery in the same red paint on the base of the statue.
The occasional crack of lasguns still sounded in the air as Fifth Company troopers continued to discover and eliminate rebel stragglers hidden in buildings on this side of the town, but the greater part of the fighting was over. Nhalich East was back in the hands of the Firstborn, for now. Kabanov could do nothing about that part of the town that sat on the west bank.
No matter what we achieved today, he thought, the DIA has taken control of South Varanes, the orks are dominating in the north-east, and Fifth Company has little hope of getting back to the relative safety of our own lines. By Holy Terra, have Lord-Marshal Harazahn and Sector Command completely forsaken the Twelfth Army? General Vlastan may be unsuited to this campaign, but one can hardly lay all the blame at his feet. In his own way, he must be struggling as much as we are.
Vostroyan squads moved through the town, herding frightened groups of Danikkin civilians into temporary containment facilities. They’d be locked up until it was decided what to do with them. Many had been killed during the battle, but there had been little need for more slaughter once the town was properly secured. The survivors simply had nowhere else to go. Nhalich might be a battle zone, but it was the only shelter for many kilometres. The nearest town had been Korris until Fifth Company sappers had razed it.
Kabanov wondered how much damage the power plant explosion had done to the orks. How many had survived? Would they follow Fifth Company out here?
With the losses we took today, he thought, we couldn’t hold this town for a full hour. The headcount isn’t in yet, but I saw enough men fall in my proximity to know the numbers aren’t going to be good. We won, and the regiment lives on, but only just. If there are over a hundred men left by the time the headcount comes in, I’ll be genuinely surprised.
A light snow was falling. Tiny flakes alighted on Kabanov’s hat and cloak, becoming invisible against the thick, white fur. Around him, Lieutenants Maro and Kuritsin, Father Olov, Enginseer Politnov, Commissar Karif and his adjutant stood awaiting orders and surveying the activity in the square. Sergeant Breshek’s squad searched the bodies methodically. Kabanov didn’t envy them their grim work.
A voice crackled over the vox. “This is Captain Sebastev. The relay station is secure. I repeat, we have the relay station.”
Kabanov lifted a finger to his vox-bead, hit the transmit stud and said, “Colonel Kabanov here, captain. Message received. We’re on our way.”
“Very good, sir,” replied Sebastev. “We await your arrival. Sebastev out.”
Kabanov turned to the others. “Gentlemen,” he said, “let’s not keep the captain waiting.”
Sebastev stood under the buzzing lights of the relay station’s basement, bolt pistol drawn. The gun’s muzzle was trained on a man dressed in black, a rebel officer, who sat on the floor, back pressed to the cold, stone wall.
To Sebastev’s left, banks of security monitors hissed and crackled, leaking acrid, blue smoke into the air. The rebels charged with protecting the relay station had been supervised from this room. They’d all been killed when Sebastev and his men had stormed the building. Only one man remained alive. Sebastev didn’t plan to leave him that way for much longer, but he wouldn’t execute the man before Colonel Kabanov gave his permission. There’d be an interrogation first.
Trooper Aronov stood behind Sebastev, also looking down at this killer of Vostroyan Firstborn. The other troopers had been posted to defensive positions around the building, but Sebastev knew from voxed reports that the fighting on this side of the river was essentially over.
Trooper Rodoyev had needed to be physically wrestled from the room after rushing forward with his knife drawn, yelling that he would flay the prisoner alive. He was outside now, posted to the east entrance. Sebastev was torn between Fifth Company’s current lack of manpower and his need to see Rodoyev disciplined. The man was setting a bad example for the other troopers and he couldn’t go unpunished. Sebastev decided he’d consult with Commissar Karif on the matter when they both had time. Other matters took precedence.
The body of Trooper Vamkin lay in a corner of the basement, another man lost in the effort to secure this place. As Vamkin had entered the room, the rebel officer had surprised him, stabbing him once in the stomach with a wickedly serrated blade. The knife had been coated with a deadly neurotoxin. Vamkin’s lungs had stopped working almost immediately. He’d died of suffocation long before he could bleed to death.
Trooper Petrovich, a scout from Second Platoon, had been following right behind Vamkin. Petrovich, who’d lost an ear in a knife fight a few years back, was well known for his cool head. He’d shot the enemy officer in the thigh, crippling him and sending him to the floor, but sparing him to face the colonel’s wrath.
For his part, the rebel seemed strangely unconcerned that he’d been taken alive. He sat nursing his wounded leg, occasionally raising his eyes to meet Sebastev’s gaze. There was something in his look that disturb
ed Sebastev greatly, but it was impossible to define. Sebastev felt deeply uncomfortable around the man. He wished Colonel Kabanov would hurry up.
The captive was dressed surprisingly similar to an Imperial commissar. He wore a long, black coat with gold brocade and buttons. His face was clean-shaven. The greatest visible difference was in his headwear. While commissars across the Imperium proudly donned the peaked, black cap of their station, these rebel officers wore tall, pointed hats that swept backwards like the dorsal fin of some sea mammal or shark.
How will Commissar Karif react when he sees this man, Sebastev wondered? I’ve heard a lot about them but, to my knowledge, this is the first time a so-called officer-patriot of the Danikkin Special Patriotic Service has been taken alive. They usually take suicide capsules prior to capture. Why didn’t this one do so when we took the building?
The men and women of the Special Patriotic Service were hated and feared by their own people. Here was an agent of the secession whose task it was to purge Imperial loyalists from the populace, and to ensure absolute dedication to Lord-General Vanandrasse among the forces of the Danikkin Independence Army. They were reputed to be masters of torture and intimidation.
Not only do they look like commissars, thought Sebastev, but they share much of the same remit.
To some extent, however, the limits of their authority differed. The Danikkin officer-patriots had power over both civilian and military conduct. The history of their organisation, going back only a few decades according to Imperial intelligence reports, was bloody and brutal.
Booted footsteps sounded on the ferrocrete floor. “Cover him, Aronov,” said Sebastev. Aronov raised his las-gun. Sebastev holstered his bolt pistol, turned, and saluted Colonel Kabanov. Kuritsin, Maro, Politnov and Commissar Karif filed into the room.
“Solid work in taking this place, captain,” said Colonel Kabanov. “I had no doubts whatsoever that you’d manage it. Now tell me, who do we have here?”
[Imperial Guard 03] - Rebel Winter Page 15
