by Xenos (lit)
fogged by ash dust. Pulling on our rebreathers, we stumbled through the murk.
I felt a jab of pain in my head. Deep, insidious, burning. Dazzo was reaching out with his terrifyingly potent mind, looking for us.
We stumbled through the smoke down an aisle between modular sheds whose windows had been blown out in the detonation.
The pain grew more intense.
'Eisenhorn. You cannot hide. Show yourself.'
I gasped as the pain took deeper hold.
Suddenly, it eased.
'Fischig! In here!'
I pushed him into an old stone outbuilding. I guessed it had once been a wash-house in North Qualm's more rural heyday.
Bequin was cowering in a corner, filthy, tearful. The sight of the Child of the Emperor Mandragore had sent her fleeing in blind panic. Like me, she had made the mistake of looking at the runes and marks on his foul, dazzling armour. Unlike me, she hadn't had the sense to look away.
She couldn't speak. She barely registered us. But we were back inside her muzzling aura and out of Dazzo's clutches for the moment.
"What now?' asked Fischig. They'll regroup quickly enough.'
'Midas is coming. We have to get back to the landing yard. It's the only area big enough for him to set down in.'
Fischig looked at me as if I was mad. 'He's going to fly into this? He'll be killed! And even if he does pick us up, they'll launch interceptors from the fleet. They'll launch them the moment he powers up for take off!'
'It'll be tight/1 admitted.
We dragged Bequin with us and moved out of the derelict wash-house. Outside, the settlement was still swathed in ash lifted by the blast. Fierce fires glowed in the smoke. Voices screamed orders and cygnids bayed. There was a deeper, furious bellowing too. I had a nasty feeling it was the Chaos Marine.
'Thorn attending aegis, main yard area/ I voxed.
'Aegis, main yard in three, the heavens falling/ So, they were on to him. The fleet had launched ships after the cutter.
We ran now. The smoke was slowly clearing.
A guard gang moved past us and we were forced to double back around. More guards blocked the next street.
'Through the buildings!' said Fischig.
We were behind a modular building, one of the newest and largest that Dazzo's unholy mission had set up. There was no door, but we scrambled up onto the low roof, pulling Bequin with us, and entered through a skylight.
The room we dropped into was carpeted and well furnished, an office or private study for one of the senior supervisors. There were racks of data-slates, and piles of charts and storage tiles. Several large travel trunks had been piled in one corner, with a cloak and two overcoats draped over
them. One of the new arrivals from the launch had left these things here and not yet unpacked them.
'Come on!' hissed Fischig, checking the door that led out of the office into the rest of the building.
'Wait!' I said. I cut the locks off the trunks with my powersword and threw the lids back. In the first, clothes, slates, a boxed lasgun, ornate and inlaid with the name Oberon. Other miscellaneous effects.
'Come on!' Fischig repeated, frantic.
Aegis, main yard in two/ crackled the vox.
'Eisenhorn? What are you playing at?' Fischig demanded.
These are Claw's things!' I said, searching
'So what? What are you looking for?'
'I don't know/ I turned to the second trunk. More clothes, some crude and unpleasant religious icons.
Fischig grabbed me by the shoulder. 'With respect, inquisitor, that would suggest this isn't the time to be doing it!'
We have to get out of here, we have to get the hell out of here/ Bequin murmured, her eyes darting back and forth at every sound from outside.
There'll be something... an edge, a clue... something we can use when we get out of here...'
We'll be lucky to escape with our lives!'
Yes!' I stared up at him. Yes, we will - and if we do, we'll want to continue our struggle against Glaw, won't we?'
He threw his hands up in despair.
'Please... please...' Bequin murmured.
Aegis, main yard in one/ crackled the vox.
The third trunk. A wrapped set of stainless steel surgical tools whose purpose I didn't even want to imagine. A small dice and counter game in a hardwood box. Clothes, more damn clothes!
With something solid wrapped in them.
I took it out.
'Satisfied?' asked Fischig.
I would have smiled if Locke had left me able.
'Go!' I said.
Beyond the stateroom was an outer annexe. More luggage trunks stood on the grilled floor, as well as wooden boxes draped in plastic.
'Don't even think about it!' Fischig snapped, seeing me look at the trunks.
Aegis, on site!' The vox-burst was partly drowned out by the vibrating roar of a powerful aircraft passing low and fast overhead. There was a chatter of small arms, the whip of las-rifles.
I led the way out of the annexe, through a hatchway that opened onto the landing yard. Figures milled around, mainly slave-guards and naval troopers, looking skywards and firing at the looming gun-cutter that banked overhead. On the far side of the yard, by the lowered ramp of the navy launch, Malahite saw us and shouted out. The men swung around, firing. Shots crackled around us.
Then I saw Mandragore, over to the right of the yard, charging towards us with a baleful howl.
'Back inside! Inside!' I yelled and the three of us tumbled back in through the door.
The outer wall of the building didn't stop the Chaos-beast. Neither did the hatch. Ceramite and steel shod fists tore the lightweight metal apart, twisted adamite support beams, punctured plastic panels like paper. Man-dragore's baying wail preceded him, shaking us to the core.
Bequin screamed.
The vilely misnamed Child of the Emperor exploded through the end wall of the annexe, white lips drawn back around pearl teeth as he hurled out noise from his augmented torso. The boltgun in his fist was enormous.
'Not a step closer!' I yelled. With one hand, I held the primed grenade up so he could see it.
He laughed, a deep, booming chuckle of contempt.
'I mean it,' I added and kicked the crate at my feet. It was laden with plastic wrapped tablets from the mine.
'One second fuse. Another step and all this will be gone.'
He faltered. Lord Glaw and several guards appeared through the shredded wall behind him.
'For pity's sake, do as he says!' Glaw barked.
With a growl, Mandragore lowered his boltgun.
'Back off, Glaw! Back right off and take them with you!'
'You can't hope to escape, inquisitor,' said Glaw.
'Back off!'
Glaw waved his men back and retreated. Mandragore backed out slowly, a growling hiss rising from his throat.
'Grab the crate!' I told Fischig. He slung his stubber over his shoulder and did as he was told.
We edged out into the smoky daylight. Fischig and I were side by side, and I held the grenade over the crate he was carrying. Bequin cowered behind us.
In the yard, Glaw was ordering his men back. There were forty or more troops; guards, naval troopers, supervisors. I saw Dazzo, Malahite and the rogue captain Estram among them. Mandragore did not back off as far as the others. He stayed to the right of us, his shimmering cloak drifting in the breeze, his armour gleaming. The growl continued to purr in his throat.
'Midas/ I said into my link, 'set down, hatch open.'
'Understood,' he replied. 'Be advised there are three navy interceptors inbound. Arrival in three.'
The gun-cutter swung in over the yard, casting a wide shadow, its thrusters lifting clouds of ash. As it came in to rest on its bulky hydraulic landing skids, the cargo ramp under the cockpit whined and lowered.
Slowly, we moved around until the cutter and the ramp were behind us. The assembled enemy watched us intently, weapons raised.
'A stand-off, inquisitor/ said Glaw.
'Get your men to lower their weapons. Even the ones I can't see. Don't even consider dropping me. Midas... train the wing cannons on myself and the chastener. If anything happens to us, open fire.'
'Confirm/
The powerful cannons in the wing mounts traversed to target us.
'Shoot us and the crate is vaporised/
'Weapons down!' Glaw yelled, and the troops obeyed.
'Now call off those interceptors. Order them right back to their carrier/
'I-'
'Now!'
Glaw looked round at Estrum, who started to speak into a vox link.
The interceptors have aborted their run/ Midas told me. 'They're turning back/
Very good/1 told Glaw.
What now?' he asked.
What now indeed? We had the upper hand for a moment: they didn't dare shoot or rush us, and Bequin was blocking Dazzo and any other psyker they had.
'An answer or two/1 suggested.
'Eisenhom!' Fischig hissed.
'An answer?' laughed Glaw. Some of his men laughed too, and Mandragore rumbled a snigger. I noticed Dazzo and Malahite were both unamused.
'This material is archaeoxenon, from an old saruthi site/ I said, lifting one of the ancient, unsymmetrical tablets from the crate in Fischig's grasp with my free hand. 'It clearly has value to you, because it must have value to the saruthi. You're recovering it for them in return for what?'
'I'm not about to tell you anything/ Glaw said. 'I'm not even going to confirm your suppositions/
I shrugged. 'It was worth trying/
'My question remains/ said Glaw. 'What now?'
4Ve leave/ I told him. 'Unmolested/
'So leave/ he said, with a mild, dismissive hand gesture. 'Put down the crate and leave/
This crate is the only thing that's stopping you from obliterating us. It comes with us, as insurance/
'No!' Dazzo cried, pushing forward. 'Unacceptable! We would lose it forever!' He looked at Glaw. This man is our blood foe. We could never recover the artefacts. Even if we agreed to safe passage, he would not honour a deal and leave them for our recovery/
'Of course not/ I said. 'Just as you would not honour any deal struck with me. It is a sad but true fact that no commitment or agreement of honour can be made between us. Which is why this crate comes with me. We have no other surety/
4Ve're not here to offer you surety, flesh-blister/ Mandragore said sonorously. 'Only death. Or if you're unlucky, pain and death/
'You should keep him out of the negotiations,' I told Glaw with a sideways nod at Mandragore. 'We are leaving with the crate, because you will destroy us otherwise.'
'No/ said Glaw. He stepped forward, pulling a lasgun from his coat. You are tripping on your own smooth logic, inquisitor. If we are to lose those artefacts for ever, I'd rather it was here, with your deaths as consolation. If you try to leave with the crate, we will fire anyway and damn the consequences. Set them down and I will give you ten heartbeats to leave.'
I could tell it was no bluff. They would go only so far to protect their trinkets. And they were not fools. They knew I would never return these items. Ten heartbeats. If we tried to board with the crate, they would fire at once. If we set it down... they would fire, but perhaps more hesitantly for fear of hitting the crate. And the cutter's guns were still a point in our favour.
'Back up to the ramp,' I whispered to Bequin and Fischig. Throw the crate down when I say'
Are you sure?'
'Do as I say. Midas?'
'Ready drive, ready cannons.'
'Now!'
The crate crashed over in the dust. The cutter's engines shrieked into power. They didn't wait ten heartbeats. The three of us were on the ramp, and the ramp was swinging shut under us, and the cutter was lifting around us. A fusillade of weapons fire hammered off the hull. The cutter's cannons roared.
The cutter swung hard about, and we tumbled as the deck pitched. Fischig cried out and fell on the ramp, spilling half out of the gently closing entryway. I grabbed him and hauled him inside before his dangling legs could be severed by the vicing ramp or shot by the enemy below.
We were away. I could tell by the angle of the deck and the vibration of the ship's frame that Midas was accelerating hard and keeping low, letting the landscape shield us from the ground fire. Alarm lights flashed in the crew-bay, indicating damage.
'Strap yourself in!' I yelled at Aemos, who was attempting to rise to assist us. 'Fischig, get Bequin in a harness! Yourself too!'
The chastener pulled the terrified girl across the deck and into a seat. I clambered forward, along the companionway, and up into the cockpit.
Midas was pulling on the controls, taking us higher. The blotchy landscape of Damask flickered past beneath us. I dropped into the seat beside him.
'How close?'
The fighters have peeled back, on a direct intercept course. They have altitude in their favour.'
'How close?'
'Six minutes to intercept. Damn!'
What?'
He pointed to the main tactical screen. Behind the smaller bright cursors, larger shapes were moving against the three-dimensional magnetic map of the planet's magnetosphere. Their fleet's moving too. The capital ships. And that's two more fighter wings launched/
They don't want us to get away, do they?' he added.
"With what we know?'
'They won't let us out of the system alive, will they?'
'Midas, I think I've told you the answer to that.'
He grinned, white teeth contrasting sharply with his dark skin in the cabin's half-light.
We're going to have some fun, then,' he decided. His bare hands, sparkling with the inlay of Glavian bio-circuits, darted across the controls, adjusting our course.
'Ideas?' I asked.
'A few possibles. Let me massage the data.'
What?'
Trust me, Gregor, if we've even a shred of hope of getting out of the Damask system alive, it'll be through skill and subtlety. Shut up and let me compute their speeds and intercept vectors.'
We took damage from the ground fire,' I persisted. That hopelessness was seeping into me again, the feeling of having no ability to influence the situation.
'Minor, just minor/ he said distractedly. 'The servitors have got it covered/
He made a course change. From the screen, I saw this brought us around almost side on to the chasing fleet components, drastically reducing their time to intercept and firing range.
What are you doing?'
'Playing the percentages. Playing safe/
The bright globe of Damask was dropping away beneath us, and we were driving out into planetary space beyond the highest orbit points at full thrust.
'See?' he said. Another light had appeared on the tactical screen, moving around ahead of us.
'Standard Imperial battlefleet dispersal. There's always a picket ship positioned on the blind side of the subject world. If we'd kept straight on we'd have flown right into its fire-field/
Lights flashed out in the void beyond the cockpit windows. The picket ship, a medium frigate, was firing anyway, running interference, driving us on.
'It's launched fighters/ Midas reported in a sing-song voice. 'Range in two. Chasers have range in four/
So matter-of-fact.
I looked at the power levels. Every one of the cutter's powerful thrusters was red-lining.
'Midas...'
'Sit back. There it is.'
'What is?'
The small moon was suddenly filling our front ports as we veered around. It didn't look that small. It looked like we were about to smash into it.
I blurted out a curse.
'Relax, dammit!' he assured me, then added, 'range in one.'
We dived towards the scarred, pocked lime-green rock that filled our vision at full thrust. Nose guns beginning to flash; six interceptors of the Battlefleet Scarus elite fighter school followed us in.
SIXTEEN
Void duel.
Betancore's last stand.
Traces.
The moon was called Obol, the smallest and innermost of Damask's fourteen satellites. It was a dented, irregular nugget of nickel, zinc and selenium, six hundred kilometres across at its widest dimension. Lacking atmosphere and riddled with cavities and gorges, it shone with a lambent green glow in the light of the star, ragged terrain features and craters thrown into stark relief.
I was forcing my mind to calm, forcing my pulse rate down. The old mind skills Hapshant had trained me in.
I focused on the data-file for Obol that I had punched up on the screen - nickel, zinc, selenium, smallest of fourteen - not because I wanted to know but because the facts would act as psychopomps, little fetishes of detail to occupy my mind and steal it away from the hazard.
I looked up from the glowing text bar. A jagged crater, vast enough to swallow Dorsay city and its lagoon whole yawned up at us.
'Brace yourselves/ Midas told us all.
Just a kilometre above, he executed his move. By then, we were deeply committed to Obol's gravity and diving at full thrust. There was no question of performing a landing, or even a conventional turn.
But Midas had been flying ships since he was young, schooled in the pilot academies of Glavia. By way of his inlaid circuitry, he understood the nuances of flight, power and manoeuvre better than me, and better than
most professional pilots in the Imperium. He had also tested the capabilities of the gun-cutter almost to destruction, and knew exactly what it could and couldn't do.
What worried me most was what he hoped it might do.
He cut the drive, fired all the landing thrusters, and pulled the nose around so that the cutter began to corkscrew. The view whirled before my eyes and I was flung around in my harness.
The spin seemed uncontrolled. But it was measured and perfect. With the landing jets driving us up away from the vertical, we fluttered, like a leaf, using the corkscrew motion to rob the vessel of downward momentum. Ninety metres from the dust of the crater floor, we flattened out, burning jets hard, white hot, and then arced around as Midas cut the main drive in again.
The ground leapt away under us, and we hugged across it, climbing in a savage jerk to skip over the crater lip.
