Tallarn: Executioner

Home > Other > Tallarn: Executioner > Page 5
Tallarn: Executioner Page 5

by John French


  'This is Lantern. We hear and see you. Identify yourself.'

  For a second there was nothing, and then the voice came back.

  'Rashne, my name is Rashne'. She could hear the tremble in the words.

  It's them, she thought. It's the scout and I almost ordered them dead.

  She glanced back at the auspex, the heat markers of the dead flickering in the green swell of static. No sign of Silence. Perhaps the seals had failed on their machine. Perhaps they were somewhere out there beyond auspex range. Perhaps the fog...

  She shut off the train of thought.

  Two enemies dead - maybe - for the loss of half her squadron. Somehow, she had never thought her first engagement would come down to such a cold equation.

  But it did not matter. Not now. It was a long way back to the shelter complex, and what remained of her squadron needed to be far away and fading in the fog before more Iron Warriors came for them. She thumbed the external transmission button.

  'Rashne,' she said into the vox. She noticed that her voice was still calm and steady. It did not feel like it belonged to her. 'We are coming to you. Move to flank us when you see us, and stay so close that you can see the serial numbers on the hull.'

  'All right,' said Rashne. 'All right.'

  'Good. And use your call sign. Out.' She switched to the internal vox. 'Mak, get us moving. Left, forty degrees.'

  Makis called in acknowledgement, and she felt Lantern's engine gun to full life as they came about.

  We have slain angels and lived, she thought, and began to let out a long breath.

  The Predator cannon round hit Lantern as it was turning, and blew the left sponson off in a shriek of shearing metal.

  'There you are,' said Brel, his eyes steady on the auspex as the enemy flared red with heat. 'Jallinika, target is right flank, twenty degrees and coming closer. Take the shot as soon as you can see its back. Cal, power us up and take us straight forward, on my word.' He paused. Around him his machine and crew were waiting: Jallinika with her eyes pressed to the firing sight, Calsuriz with his hand on the ignition, Selq holding the next round for the main gun.

  So still, he thought. All of them so still.

  The enemy was accelerating forward from where it had folded itself into a pocket of interference. He could try and take it now, but the angle was not optimal, not for a machine kill. That and he had to be sure that it was alone. The Lantern was taking fire. He could hear the boom and smack of the enemy Predator's cannon. The Lantern was slewing around as it tried to turn its frontal armour to meet the enemy.

  'Smart move,' Brel muttered to himself. A flattened boom rang through the stillness. The enemy had fired again. The Lantern was trying to turn, but the Predator was faster and would be behind her again in a few seconds.

  Tahirah tried to breathe. Alarms were lighting with the howl of the engine. Udo was screaming into the vox. Dozens of thoughts crowded her mind.

  Where did they come from? They have us cold. Nothing we can do. Where were they? Has the hull lost integrity? We are going to die now. They were trying to get behind us. We have to turn. We have to return fire. We have to—

  Something hit the front armour with the force of a Titan's kick, and Lantern rang like a gong. Tahirah's head slammed into the cannon mount. Blackness bloomed at the edge of her vision. Then the machine slewed and the force whipped her backwards like a ragdoll. There was blood on the inside of her eyepieces. Her ears were ringing, her skull filling with darkness.

  'No!' she shouted, but the Lantern was pulsing with wild alarm light, and all she could hear was Udo screaming that he could see something.

  Please, she thought, though she did not know to whom she was pleading. Not here. Not now.

  'Now,' called Brel. The Silence roared as it came to life. Stillness became the bone-rattling scream of metal moving against metal, of engines breathing fumes and power. They ground forwards, slow at first then faster. The turret traversed, with a hiss of motors and bearings. The enemy had seen them and was slowing, turning to meet this new threat.

  'Got you,’ said Jallinika, and Brel could hear the smile in the words. 'Firing.'

  The Vanquisher shell hit the Predator on its rear plating and lodged inside in the blink of an eye.

  The Predator detonated. A fire cloud expanded through the fog, scattering chunks of armour. The turret lifted from its back like a leaf in a gust of wind. For a second, the fog was smeared the colour of blood and molten iron. Then the fire curdled to black smoke over the tank’s carcass.

  Brel blinked and nodded to himself.

  'Come into formation with the others.'

  After a second he flicked the external vox live.

  'Lantern, this is Silence,' he said.

  A burst of curses filled his ears. For some reason it made him smile. After a few seconds a lull came. He clicked the vox open again.

  ‘Lantern, this is Silence. You are very welcome.'

  The Iron Warriors had thought the battle done. In the long weeks since the virus bombardment their forces on Tallarn's surface had seen no sign of any survivors. Their first battle losses corrected that understanding. Their response was to pour more forces onto the planet's surface. Dark-hulled macro-landers sank into Tallarn's atmosphere to dump armoured vehicles onto the sludge-covered plains.

  Typhon siege tanks, Sabre hunters, Land Raiders, Predators, and Fellblades rolled from the landing grounds, gouging trenches in the sludge. These were the vehicles of the Legiones Astartes, crewed by Iron Warriors sealed in atmosphere hardened armour. Beside them came detachments of Mechanicum war engines, Legio Cybernetica maniples, and the war machines of half a dozen human cohorts bonded to the IV Legion. Tens of thousands of vehicles spread out from a dozen dropsites across Tallarn's two main continents.

  It was a force that had broken enemies of many times their number, but in truth it was only a fraction of the Iron Warriors' might. Much remained aboard their ships, but there was no error in the Iron Warriors' calculations; they would end what upstart life remained on Tallarn. That was beyond doubt.

  Iron Warriors signals ran across the surface, scratching on the dead wind, blowing and clicking across ruined cities and sludge plains. The signals rose from the block-sided landing craft of the invaders, and scattered to the sky and the ships that waited above. Buried in their shelters the survivors listened. Arrays trawled the air, catching rattling snatches of code, and taking them beneath the earth to where men and women sat hunched in the half-darkness, listening to the signals scratch and whine. They did not know what the Iron Warriors were saying, but they knew that it meant that the enemy had come in strength.

  The defenders' own signals, carried on buried cables beneath the cities and under mountains, went unheard by the invaders. A few amongst the leaders of the scattered shelters spoke of waiting, of surviving beneath the earth in silence. The survivors were alone, they argued. They had no way of calling for help, even if there was help that could come to them. Better to be still, to hope that the enemy would pass on and leave the dead world they had made. But more were the voices that said that the invaders must bleed no matter the cost.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Contamination

  Sides

  Guilt

  The klaxons stopped screaming. A second later, the light in the decontamination chamber turned a cold blue.

  Like water under the sun, thought Akil.

  'Come on,' he said to Rashne, forgetting that the boy could not hear him. The scout machine was powered down, the internal and external vox dead, he moved to where Rashne sat and tapped him on the arm. Rashne's head came up slowly, and Akil noticed that the eyes behind the lenses took a moment to focus. Akil raised a thumb, and pointed to the machine's rear hatch. Rashne turned his head to look, and then scrambled towards it. Akil followed, reaching for the release handle.

  He paused, waiting for the double siren blare that would mean it was safe to unseal the tank. Rashne started slapping the metal of the hatch and rockin
g backwards and forwards.

  The signal sounded and Akil pulled the handle. The hatch hissed as it opened and blue light spilled in. Rashne pushed the door wide and shot out, trailing his air bottle behind him on its rubber tube. Akil stepped out.

  The chamber beyond was a vast cylinder, its walls ribbed with concentric metal rings wide enough to encircle three tanks abreast. Nozzles studded the walls, still dripping cleansing fluid. Metal grates covered a void that extended beneath the floor, and behind them great blast doors shut out the world above. In front, more blast doors waited.

  On either side of the scout vehicle, the crews of Lantern and Silence pulled themselves out of their machines. Lantern's left sponson was a twisted mess of metal, its gun ripped away, the empty gunner's alcove exposed.

  Someone died there, Akil realised. He stared for a moment, then looked away quickly.

  Thick, colourless liquid dripped from the tracks and hulls of the three tanks. High-pressure hoses and rad-beams had washed over them, stripping everything toxic from their hulls and killing anything organic. The tanks were now clean enough that the crews could come out from their sealed guts, but there was still a risk; the tanks would need another decontamination cycle before they could be allowed back into the shelter itself. The crews would leave the chamber, and the rotating ring-collars would blast the tanks again, this time with a stronger dose of rad and chem. Nothing could survive that.

  At least, that was the theory. This was the first of the doors back into the underworld from the hell above, but it was not the last. They had to pass through another set before they could remove their suits. Then they would be treated to the same decontamination process as the machines. After that they could be declared fit to breathe the same air as the rest of the shelter complex.

  Akil began to move towards the small accessway to the side of the blast doors.

  The cry of alarm was muffled, but he still heard it. He turned. Beside him the crews of the other two tanks had gone very still. Rashne was on the ground, his hand around the back of his head. For a second he thought the boy was having a seizure. Then he saw what whoever had cried out had seen.

  Rashne was not having a seizure - he was pulling the hood of his enviro-suit off.

  Akil had taken two steps towards the boy when the rubber collar came loose. He went still. Rashne knelt on the floor, gasping as he breathed the free air once more. His thatch-blond hair was matted and sweat beaded his forehead.

  Akil watched, his own breath still in his mouth as Rashne sucked down great lungfuls. The boy looked up, his eyes blue and bright. He smiled, and took another breath. Nothing happened. Rashne began to stand unsteadily.

  Sirens howled. Red lights flashed, staining the wet vehicles crimson. Rashne yelped and half fell, his hand flying out to the hull of the scout vehicle to catch himself. Akil stepped forward, reaching to grab the boy, but Rashne pushed himself back up. His gloved hand came away from the surface of the machine. Akil could see the sheen of moisture on the fingers. The boy was not looking at him - Rashne brought his hand up and wiped the sweat from his eyes. It was a gesture as unconscious as the beating of a heart.

  Akil's hand closed on Rashne's arm. The boy turned to look at Akil. His mouth opened.

  Blood poured from Rashne's eyes. Pustules bloomed across his face, burst and grew, eating into his flesh in widening craters. Dark tendrils spread across his skin as blood clotted to black slime. Akil felt the boy's arm go soft under his grip. His hand opened and Rashne fell to the ground like a bag of offal.

  Akil felt himself fall, and the vomit rise in his throat. The sensation was oddly distant, as if he was observing it in someone else, as if his mind had retreated to a place where the present no longer belonged to him. He heard himself trying to scream. He saw himself hit the ground, and felt arms wrap around him and drag him across the floor towards the small door in the side of the chamber.

  Behind him, the dissolving body of Rashne lay in the pulsing red light.

  'This might go better if you give us the room,' said Brel to the rest of them. Jallinika and Calsuriz were already standing, their muscles tense as though they were about to snap. 'That means you all get out,' he clarified.

  He brought his hands up to rub his eyes as the bunk room emptied around him. He waited until the sounds of scraping boots and muttering faded, and the door clicked shut. He looked up.

  Tahirah stood, her eyes bright and hard, arms loose by her sides as if she was keeping them deliberately under control. Fury radiated off her. Brel looked away and let out a long breath. He had only been out of decontamination for an hour and he could already feel the pain soaking into his head again. His tongue and saliva tasted of tin, and the buzz of the lumen strips in the cramped bunk room made him want to close his eyes. He wanted very much to not have to talk, to just be able to sit quietly and listen to his crew bicker around him. He did not want this.

  'Lieutenant,' he said carefully.

  'Stand up,' she said quietly, and Brel heard the tremble of anger in her voice. He stood, blowing out another breath.

  'Salute,' she said. He saluted, carefully, without show. 'Again,' she said. He saluted again. She took a step forward. Brel knew it was coming.

  I should just ride it, he thought. Take the licks and move on, roll with the current and feed off the bottom.

  Tahirah took a breath.

  'If you ever—'

  'I don't care,' he said in a blank voice.

  He looked up. Tahirah had frozen, her mouth open as if he had punched her in the gut and she couldn't breathe. He watched the shock and rage flow across her face.

  'I—' she began again.

  'I don't care what you are going to say about what I did out there. I don't care that you are my squadron's commanding officer - I don't care about what happened. I'm sorry that you do, but you will have to settle for that.'

  He turned and sat back down on the edge of his bunk. Tahirah looked as if she was trying to climb back up the mountain of her anger. Brel sighed.

  'Trust me, I can understand. One machine, one gunner and one kid too stretched out inside to keep his hood on in primary decontamination. That's quite a load for someone to take, and so I understand that in your head coming to chew me out was about the only thing that you feel you can control.' He paused and nodded, half to himself and half to her. 'But I don't care. My crew doesn't care, and if you want the truth, no one else cares. All they care about is if they are going to come out of this alive or not.'

  Tahirah's jaw was working, as though she was struggling to form what she wanted to say. Her skin had gone very white, the blood drained away. Her pupils were black pinpricks.

  Her hands are shaking too, thought Brel. She must be half my age and here she is probably a twitch away from hitting me. He shook his head, and reached under the bunk. Tahirah tensed on the edge of his sight. He brought the bottle out slowly, shook it once so that the clear liquid within sloshed against the glass.

  'Truth,' he said, producing a pair of tin cups and pouring a measure into each. He held one out to Tahirah. 'It always tastes bitter.'

  Tahirah took the cup but did not drink. Brel took a swig from his own, and felt the liquor roll like fire down his throat. Tahirah looked at her cup for a long moment, and then raised it to her mouth. A second later her eyes began to water and she tried to suppress a cough. Brel almost laughed.

  Tahirah snorted, and stepped back to sit on a pressed metal chair.

  'I read your records,' she said, and took another sip. Brel raised an eyebrow.

  'They actually still have records here? Thought they would have lost them by now.'

  'Medical mainly, but there was a service list attached.'

  Brel rolled his cup between his hands and avoided her eye.

  'By my reckoning this would be what, your twelfth war?'

  'Thirteenth, actually,' Brel replied, still not looking at her. 'They didn't count the Halo Margins. No one likes to remember a farce followed by a defeat. Not in the Great
Crusade.' The grafted skin around the back of his head and down his arms was starting to itch again; it always did when he thought about the past. 'Because it's not your own,' Fastinex had joked when Brel had told the loader about his flesh grafts itching. His mouth twitched for a second. Twenty years since that fat bastard caught a ricochet, he thought, and still his dumb face makes me smile.

  'I found a list of decorations and citations too. Even a couple of recommendations for promotion. Then you wind up here, and... nothing. Not even a record of reprimand.'

  'Forgotten, that's what we are. You must have noticed.'

  'Not any more,' she said. Brel remained silent. 'They are raising more units. Command has put the order out - every piece of machinery is going to be armed, and every person that can breathe recycled air is going to fight. Not just volunteers, anyone who is fit enough to ride a machine is going to be trained. They want us to strike back.'

  Brel laughed before he could stop himself.

  'Is that funny?' Tahirah asked.

  'Yes,' nodded Brel. 'In a way, it is the most hilarious thing I have heard in years.’ He put the cup down and poured another thick measure into the bottom. 'No one cared about this place, not even when the rest of the Imperium started busting itself apart. Now one side has decided to reduce it to slime, and we are putting men and women in war machines who will die in seconds' He smiled. 'Yeah, funny.'

  'It's their home.'

  'Was their home. I doubt they would want to live there now.' He took another gulp and rolled his neck to release the tension in his muscles. He looked up at Tahirah, his face an impassive mask to her glassy-eyed anger.

  'You cold bastard.'

  'Tastes bitter, like I said.'

  'We need to fight with everything we have. The traitors—'

  'What?' he said, and grinned again without humour. 'You think that the higher-ups here on Tallarn are pulling together because they believe in one ideology over the other? All they care is that the one side is trying to kill us and the other is not. Which side are we on, anyway?'

 

‹ Prev