“Obviously, for reasons of secrecy, there is a limit to the details I can give you at this stage as to the specific operational aspects of our mission on Seltura VII,” Lieutenant Vinters said. “What I can tell you is that we have been sent to help suppress a mutiny among elements of the local PDF and restore the legitimate government to power. If Intelligence is to be believed we can expect heavy resistance on the part of rebels. We are the Imperial Guard, gentlemen. We will prevail. Of course, we may take it for granted we are likely to experience some hardships at first — not least in matters of acclimatisation to local conditions.”
Acclimatisation, thought Larn, that’s half my problem. The warp sickness is bad enough but it feels to me like it should have been lights out hours ago. Larn knew that in order to acclimatise their body clocks to the thirty-hour day/night cycle of their destination world, the light-cycle in the parts of the ship inhabited by his regiment had been altered accordingly. Even after weeks now of living by the new cycle, Larn was still finding it difficult to adjust. He felt time-lagged, in the grip of constant fatigue, as though his body was wondering why it was still awake. As hard as the warp sickness was to endure, Larn found the strange sleep rhythms he was now forced to live by made his sleeplessness infinitely worse.
“But as I say, gentlemen,” Vinters said, “we are Guardsmen and we will prevail. I know this is to be your first campaign. Be assured, your commanders have faith in you all the same. Now, I think that covers everything. If you have any questions you may refer them to your sergeants.”
With that, the lieutenant pressed the remote device once more, causing the image on the pict-display to fade away to darkness as the assembled Guardsmen rose and filed silently from the room. Though as Larn walked away with the others, he found himself wondering how well Lieutenant Vinters really knew the character of the men under his command.
For, from among all the men in the company, who in their right mind would ever dare refer a question to Sergeant Ferres?
“You call yourselves soldiers?” Sergeant Ferres yelled, his voice echoing stridently off the bulkhead walls of the loading bay. “I’ve seen higher lifeforms sticking to my father’s arse after his ablutions. Now, attack that blockhouse like you mean it or I’ll make the whole lot of you sorry you ever crawled from your inbred mothers’ idiot wombs!”
Five hours had passed since the briefing. Five hours which Larn had spent in one of the troopship’s loading bays with the rest of his platoon, experiencing the latest training regime to issue from the febrile mind of Sergeant Ferres. All around them rectangular shapes had been painted on the metal floor. Shapes representing the imaginary outlines of bunkers, fixed emplacements, and blockhouses, on which the Guardsmen were expected to hone their skills in close tactical assault. Despite the hours spent already in conflict with invisible enemies, Sergeant Ferres seemed far from happy.
“Keep crouched as you ran,” the sergeant yelled, running alongside Larn and his fireteam as they assaulted another non-existent objective. “There’s lasfire and shrapnel whistling all around you. Keep crouched and stay in cover if you don’t want to get hit.”
To Larn, the whole thing seemed like madness. Even accounting for his normal fear of the sergeant, as they raced from one imaginary target to another it was all he could do to stop from bursting into laughter. The only thing that stopped him was the expression on Ferres’ face. Whatever Larn and the others might think of the folly of spending five hours attacking the outlines of imaginary buildings full of invisible enemies, it was clear that to Sergeant Ferres it was no laughing matter.
“Faster,” Ferres shouted, his voice so shrill it seemed on the verge of breaking. “I want you to clear that blockhouse room by room. No quarter to the enemy. No survivors. For the Emperor!”
Reaching the outer wall of the blockhouse Jenks took point while the others covered him, kicking in an imaginary door in time for Leden to throw an imaginary grenade into the room to kill the imaginary enemies inside.
“Halt!” the sergeant screamed, spittle spraying from his mouth with the force of the command.
In an instant, Larn and the others froze where they stood. Then, unsure what to do next, they watched as Sergeant Ferres marched past them towards the blockhouse. Stepping carefully into the blockhouse as though he picking his way through a splintered doorway only he could see, Ferres advanced into the centre of the imaginary room before bending forward to wrap his fist around some imaginary object. Straightening his back, he turned and walked towards Leden, his fist held knuckles down in front of him at waist height as though he was still carrying something there.
“What is this, Leden?” the sergeant asked, indicating the invisible object gripped in his fist.
“I… I don’t know, sergeant.” Leden replied, jaw sagging open in confusion.
“This is the grenade you just threw into the blockhouse, Leden,” Ferres said. “Now, can you tell me, what is wrong with this grenade?”
“Umm… I don’t know, sergeant.” Leden said, shrinking down into himself as he answered as though melting beneath the hot glare of Sergeant Ferres’ eyes.
“What is wrong with this grenade is that its pin is still in place, Leden,” the sergeant said. “And the reason I know the pin is still in place is because when you threw it, you didn’t remove it. Now, tell me, Leden: what use is a thrown grenade that still has its pin in place?”
“I… I… didn’t think I had to remove the grenade pin, sergeant,” Leden said, his voice trailing away to nothing as he realised what he was saying. “It is only an imaginary grenade…”
“Imaginary? Not at all, Leden. I assure you, this grenade is quite solid. Here, let me show you,” the sergeant said, suddenly balling his hand into a fist and punching Leden in the stomach. The air exploding from his mouth, Leden fell to his knees. Then, Ferres turned to face the others.
“There,” he said, holding the imaginary grenade up in the air for them all to see it, “You see I was right — this grenade is just as solid as my fist. As solid as the door of this blockhouse, the walls of the emplacement, even the plasteel of that bunker. The next man who dares even to suggests to me that these things are not real and solid will get the same as Leden just got, but worse. Now, I want to see you attack that blockhouse again. And, this time, I want to see you doing it like Guardsmen!”
At that, the sergeant screamed the order to attack. Chastened by the example of Leden, Larn and the others hurried to assault the blockhouse once more while Leden painfully pulled himself to his feet and came to join them. So it continued, with assault after assault on imaginary buildings and invisible enemies, as Sergeant Ferres moved from fireteam to fireteam to inspect their labours. Larn felt himself growing more and more tired as his sleeplessness took its toll until at last, after hours more of manoeuvres, the sergeant finally called a halt to training and dismissed them. So tired by men, Larn was sure he knew what it meant to be a dead man walking.
INTERLUDE
A Day in the Life of Erasmos Ng
“Coordinate: two three three point eight six three nine,” the voice blared into Erasmos Ng’s ear as he dutifully typed the number 233.8639 into the cogitator before him. “Coordinate: two four two point seven four six eight. Coordinate: two three eight point five nine six one. Correction: two three eight point five eight six one. Further coordinates pending. Wait.”
With that, the voice in his earpiece fell abruptly silent. Granted brief respite from the endless stream of numbers that assailed him every minute of his working life, Erasmos Ng turned his tired eyes to gaze at the cavernous interior of the room around him. As ever, Data Processing Room 312 was a hive of mindless activity as a thousand other bored and dispirited souls just like him went about their labours. Here, numbers were crunched, data entries updated, reports filed, then collated, then cross-indexed — all amid a constant din of clattering type-keys and whirring logic-wheels that put him in mind of nothing so much as the sound of an insect army on the march. Still, he realis
ed it was a spurious analogy. The labours of insects at least served some useful purpose. While he had long ago begun to doubt that what went on in Room 312 served any purpose at all.
“Coordinate: two three five point one five three zero,” the voice in his earpiece crackled into life again. “Coordinate: two two two point six one seven four. Coordinate: two three six point one zero one five.” And so on, ad infinitum.
Resuming his task with a weary sigh, as he typed the new set of coordinates into the cogitator, Ng found himself reflecting sadly on how often the shape of a man’s life came to be dictated by the happenstance of birth. If he had been born on another planet he might have been a miner, a farmer, or even a huntsman. As it was he had been born on this world — on Libris VI. A world whose only industry of note resided in a single enormous Administratum complex the size of a city — one of many thousands of such complexes the Administratum maintained across the galaxy. Lacking other prospects, like his parents before him Erasmos Ng had entered Imperial service, becoming just another small cog in the vast bureaucratic machine responsible for the functioning — smooth or otherwise — of the entire Imperium. A selfless and noble calling, or so they told him. Though, as with so much else he had been told in his life, he no longer believed it.
“Coordinate: two one eight point four one zero zero,” the voice — his unseen tormentor — said, his tone smug and mocking even through the static. “Coordinate: two two one point one seven two nine.”
Now, at the age of forty-five and with thirty years of mind-numbing tedium behind him Ng knew he had risen as far in the Administratum hierarchy as he was likely to go. Specifically, to the heady heights of Assistant Scribe, Grade Secundus Minoris. A records clerk by any other name, condemned to spend every day of his life hunched over the cogitator at his workstation in Room 312. His appointed task: to type into the cogitator the never-ending series of numbers spoken to him by the disembodied voice over his earpiece. A task he performed seven days a week, twelve hours a day, barring two permitted fifteen-minute rest-breaks, a full half-hour for his midday meal, and a single day’s unpaid holiday every year on Emperor’s Day.
Beaten down by the bleak dreariness of his existence, Erasmos Ng found he had long ago stopped caring what purpose his labours served. Instead, for thirty years now, he had simply performed his allotted task, repetitively typing coordinates into the cogitator again and again and again, no longer caring what - if anything — they meant. A lost soul, adrift in a dark and endless sea of numbers.
“Coordinate: two three three point three three two one,” the voice said, grinding his soul down a little more with every word. “Coordinate: two two three point seven seven one two.”
Then, just as he finished typing a new set of coordinates into the machine, Erasmos Ng abruptly realised he might have made a mistake. That last coordinate - was it 223.7712 or 223.7721? But long past giving a damn one way or another he simply shrugged, put it from his mind, and went on to the next one. After all, he consoled himself, it hardly really mattered whether or not he had made a mistake. He had long ago realised his labours, like his life, were of no importance.
And, in the end, they were only numbers…
CHAPTER FOUR
22:57 hours Imperial Standard Time
(Revised Real-Space Close Planetary Approximation)
Curious Orders and Unwelcome Destinations — Exhortations to Duty and Unanswered Questions — The Lander and Intimations of Falling
Magnified by the enhancement devices cunningly hidden in the transparent surface of the forward viewing portal the planet looked huge and foreboding, its red-brown bulk reminiscent of nothing so much as an enormous globule of half-dried blood. As he stood watching it from his usual vantage on the bridge of the troopship he commanded, Captain Vidius Strell found himself briefly pitying the men who would be forced to make planetfall there. Poor devils, he thought. I have seen a lot of planets, absolute hellholes some of them, but there is something about the look of that damn place that makes you think landing there wouldn’t be pleasant.
“Captain?” he heard the voice of his first officer, Gudarsen, behind him. “Navigation Liaison reports we are currently fifteen point three five minutes from reaching orbit. Gravitational conditions normal. All systems running clean and smooth. We are green for go, Captain. Request permission to relay the order to launch control to prepare a lander for planetary descent.”
“Permission denied,” Strell said. “I want you to check the confirmation codes on that last astropathic message again, Number One. Then, report back to me.”
“Aye, sir. Understood,” Gudarsen replied, before bustling energetically away with what seemed to his captain a commendable eagerness to follow his instructions.
Left to his thoughts once more, while around him the crew of the command bridge went about their duties, Strell again turned his attention to the planet looming ever larger through the viewing portal. As he did, he wondered if the disquiet he felt gazing at the world before him had less to do with anything sinister in the appearance of the planet itself and more to do with his puzzlement at the orders that had brought them to it. His ship, Inevitable Victory, had been en route with escorts and another thirty troopships to the Seltura system when they had received orders to break convoy and proceed here alone. It had been only a small detour requiring no more than a four hour jump through the warp, but the precise nature of the mission they had come here to perform was enough to have the Victory’s captain grinding his teeth in frustration.
A single company, thought Strell. Why in the name of the Divine would Naval Operations Command divert an entire starship just to drop a single company of Imperial Guardsmen on some backwater, Emperor-forsaken world?
Aggravated by the thought, Strell cast an ill-humoured eye over the printout of the ship’s transport manifest held in his hand until he came to the listing for the offending company. 6th Company, the 14th Jumael Volunteers, Company Commander: Lieutenant Vinters. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the company’s listing on the manifest. Nothing to explain why he and his crew had been diverted from their duties and the protection of the convoy to ferry two hundred men to a planet that, in galactic terms, might as well be in the middle of nowhere.
Perhaps there is more to this than meets the eye, thought Strell again. Perhaps the manifest listing is only a cover, and they are special troops on a secret mission. Why else would we have been sent here? The only other reason could be if some mistake had been made but the Imperium does not make mistakes. Yes, a secret mission. It is the only explanation that makes any sense…
Satisfied at last that he had found the answer, Strell turned to see Gudarsen hurrying towards him once more, holding the text of the astropathic message gripped tightly before him.
“All confirmation codes read correct, captain,” Gudarsen said. “The specifics of our mission are confirmed.”
“Very good. You have my permission to relay instructions to Launch Control to prepare a lander for launch. Oh, and Number One? This is strictly a ‘drop-and-depart’ mission. Tell Liaison to have the navigator plot a new course for Seltura III. Once the lander has dropped its passengers planetside and returned to the ship, I want us to underway within the hour.”
“Orders received and understood, captain,” said Gudarsen, ending with a standard phrase of acknowledgement as he hurried away to carry out his duties. “The Emperor protects.”
“The Emperor protects, Number One,” Strell echoed, already turning to redirect his gaze towards the planet once more as he waited for the lander to be launched so he could watch its descent.
Yes, he thought. A secret mission. That’s the only thing it could he. If Operations Command has decided we are to be denied information as to the nature of that mission, so be it. It is like they used to teach us in the scholarium. Then, he allowed himself a small smile of nostalgia as his mind turned to the half-remembered wisdoms of long ago days. How did it go now, he thought. Ah yes, it was something like:
“Ours is not to reason why.”
“Ours is but to do and die.”
“It is better to die for the Emperor than live for yourself!” the vox-caster screamed, drowning out the sound of trampling feet and shouted orders as the men of 6th Company ran through the troopship’s cramped corridors towards the launch bay. “The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Imperium! If you want peace, prepare for war!”
The vox-caster blared on through the bowels of the troopship, on and on in a pre-recorded loop of exhortations to duty, as Larn ran stumbling with the others under the weight of the heavy pack on his back. Barely three hours had passed since Sergeant Ferres had at last relented and dismissed them from training to return to their quarters. Three hours since, exhausted, Larn had finally been allowed to go to sleep. Only to be roused blearily from his slumbers two and a quarter hours later by the wail of sirens as Sergeant Ferres had ordered the men of the platoon from their bunks and told them to make ready for a planetary drop.
“Be vigilant and be strong!” the vox-caster shrieked ever louder, harsh echoes rebounding from loudspeakers set in the metal walls and ceiling all around them. “The Emperor is your shield and protector!”
[Imperial Guard 01] - Fifteen Hours Page 4
