by Guy Haley
‘Fall back, fall back! Commando teams report demolition charges in place. Clear the area!’
Commissar Suliban and his remaining men clambered up the tank’s access ladders as it swung around and drove determinedly from the base of the redoubt. Turbines howled as the two Valkyries took to the skies. Men and machines moved quickly from the redoubt.
There was an explosion, a dull crump from deep within the redoubt. Fire spat from the firing slits of the fortification, a great eructation of it rushing from the top of the building, three storeys up. Fragments of metal and rockcrete pattered down everywhere. The complicated spire of the defence laser’s muzzle fell sideways, clanging from the top of the redoubt, then falling to spear the soft ground.
Their objective was fulfilled. The defence laser was down.
Righteous Vengeance squatted by the broken defence line. Files of captured soldiers marched past under the watchful eyes of Paragonians, hands on their heads. Jonas sat in a corner of the fighting deck of the Righteous Vengeance on a box of ammo, a flask of gleece Micz had produced from nowhere in his hand. The last members of his platoon were around him, those who could still walk and point a lasgun in the right direction. Medic Lo Turneric fussed around them all, dressing minor wounds and dispensing medication. Sixteen left altogether, only nine fit to fight. Jonas expected the tally of dead to rise as Kurillo, Corden and Stann succumbed to their wounds. The fighting deck, which had been cramped before, seemed open now that there were so few of them, and Jonas would have felt exposed if he hadn’t been so damned tired.
The peaked cap of Commissar Suliban emerged over the side of the tank. Suliban pulled himself over the edge, gleaming boots landing on the metal deck with an officious click.
‘Drinking on duty, lieutenant?’
Jonas shook his head. ‘We’ve officially been relieved, sir. We’re off back to base. Besides, you’ll have to forgive me. Twenty-five of my men have been killed or crippled these last few weeks, with more sure to join them. I’m feeling rather down about it. This helps.’ He raised the flask in a mock toast and took a deliberate swig. It was rough stuff, not as smooth as a good gleece should be, but right then, it tasted perfect.
‘Do not be defensive, lieutenant. If you are off duty, then as an officer you are entitled to a drink. The Emperor permits small mercies to his loyal warriors.’
‘That it, Suliban? None of your lectures, your roundabout repositioning of my words to make me feel like a hero?’
The commissar stared at him, unprovoked by Jonas’s insolence. He was quiet a space.
‘This war is over. You did as you were ordered. You deserve a rest, even from me.’
‘Why, you’re not going to tell me I’ve become a man are you, commissar?’
Suliban nearly smiled. Nearly. ‘I’ve watched many officers, lieutenant, and I have seen some become men in circumstances similar to this, but you’ve been one for quite some time already.’
‘Your health too, sir.’ Jonas took another drink.
Suliban put his hands behind his back and stared out over the boggy landscape. ‘Enjoy that while you can, lieutenant. Your capability or otherwise is of little consequence in the great plan of the Emperor. Guns. Guns and bodies to hold them, those are the pieces in our game of survival. The important fact of this engagement is that you’ll live to fight another day, and fight you will.’
Commissar Suliban gave a brisk salute that Jonas wearily returned, and stalked away.
Jonas finished the flask of gleece, the last on Gullen, for all he knew, and that meant the last he might ever see in his lifetime. He savoured it as he watched lance fire stab down from orbit. It was getting dark, and the first void shield flared spectacularly as it deflected the beams of light, glowing brighter and brighter, until it abruptly winked out, leaving after-images on Jonas’s eyes. The beams stabbed down. The next shield collapsed, then the next.
Jonas thought of home. What season was it now, he wondered? Paragon was so far away, he found it hard to picture the place any more. Here it was cold, still raining, but he had gleece and the Stormlord was warm beneath him as Navy bombers swooped in from the ships far above and brought the Gullen rebellion to an end.
Small mercies, indeed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Guy Haley began his career on SFX Magazine in 1997 before leaving to edit Games Workshop’s White Dwarf, followed by SF magazine Death Ray. Since 2009 he has been a wandering writer, working in both magazines and novels. He lives in Somerset with his wife and son, a malamute and an enormous, evil-tempered Norwegian Forest Cat called, ironically, Buddy.
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