Fallen Angels

by Mike Lee

  Kohl stared back at Vardus. ‘Above and below simultaneously?’

  Vardus nodded. ‘They’re moving quietly. Might be a pair of patrols.’

  Suddenly, Askelon pointed across the cavernous space. ‘I can see movement on the opposite gantry-way!’ he said quietly. ‘They’re carrying something.’

  Nemiel felt the hairs on the back of his neck go up. He looked down at the assembly room floor. Magos Archoi was standing there, surrounded by a circle of bemused rebels. The traitor’s hooded head was tilted upwards, looking directly at him.

  ‘They know we’re here!’ he cried, drawing his crozius from his belt. ‘It’s a trap!’

  Lasgun fire erupted from the gantry-way on the opposite side of the building; red bolts hissed through the air, gouging craters from the permacrete wall in a string of sharp thunderclaps. A heavy bolter began to hammer away, spitting tracers across the intervening space in a series of measured bursts. Rounds struck many of the hanging chains, splitting their links and dumping their grisly cargo to the ground. Nemiel fired a burst in the direction of the heavy bolter and activated his vox-bead. ‘Invincible Reason, this is Brother Nemiel!’ he cried. ‘Can you read me?’ He was answered with a rising screech of static. The Redemptor went through a score of frequencies and got the same result. Archoi’s traitors were jamming the vox-channels.

  Fire erupted from the stairwell behind Nemiel. Autoguns clattered and lasguns spat bursts of light at Marthes and Vardus, who responded with a brace of fragmentation grenades. Marthes levelled his meltagun down the stairs and fired a howling blast, then ducked out onto the gangway. ‘There’s a platoon of skitarii coming up the stairs!’ he shouted.

  Dark figures were rushing at them along the gangway from the far side of the building, firing bursts of lasgun fire as they advanced. Kohl and Ephrial exchanged fire with them, dropping several with well-aimed shots. A burst of heavy bolter fire answered them, stitching the two Astartes with a stream of shells. Both warriors staggered beneath the hits, but their armour turned aside the blows.

  ‘Marthes! Put a shot on that gangway!’ Nemiel yelled as he leaned over the thin metal rail and levelled his pistol at Magos Archoi. The traitor didn’t even flinch as the Redemptor laid his aiming point at the centre of the darkness beneath his hood and let off a burst. The shells flew straight and true – and detonated harmlessly against a force field just a few scant centimetres from their target. The officers with the magos drew laspistols and returned fire, striking Nemiel once in the leg and abdomen.

  Marthes shouldered his way onto the catwalk and fired his meltagun at the distant heavy bolter. The microwave burst struck the weapon and the gangway beneath it and superheated the metal in a split second, vaporising them in a fierce concussion and hurling burning skitarii to the assembly floor below.

  ‘We’re cut off!’ Kohl shouted as he picked off another of the charging skitarii. ‘Where do we go from here?’

  Nemiel glared down at Archoi. Several metres away, one of the burning skitarii had become entangled in one of the chains on the way down, and now he thrashed and twisted in the air as the flames consumed him. On impulse, he holstered his pistol. ‘Follow me!’ he said, then put a foot onto the rail and leapt into space.

  The thin metal of the railing bent beneath his full weight, throwing him off balance, but his leap carried him far enough to reach one of the grisly, corpse-strewn chains. He grabbed hold with one hand and slid partway down its length before the slippery metal snaked out of his hands. Nemiel fell the remaining few metres and landed atop the lead siege gun. A tech-adept rose up beside him, raising a crackling arc-torch, but he may as well have been moving in slow motion. The Astartes smashed the traitor aside with a sweep of his crozius and began to run along the downward-sloping hull towards Archoi and the rebel officers.

  ‘For the Lion!’ he roared, raising the crozius aquilum high as he launched himself at the traitors.

  SIXTEEN

  WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS

  Caliban

  In the 200th year of the Emperor’s Great Crusade

  GENERAL MORTEN SHIFTED uncomfortably in the shuttle’s oversized jump seat and tried to conceal the scowl on his face by pretending to study the view beyond the small window at his left. ‘If I could perhaps get some idea of what it is you’re looking for, I could arrange for a presentation from the garrison’s senior officers.’

  ‘That would defeat the purpose of the inspection,’ Zahariel replied from his seat across the shuttle’s passenger cabin. ‘In fact, it would be best if the troops never knew I was there.’

  ‘Very well,’ Morten rasped, though Zahariel could see that his weathered face was still troubled. The Terran officer stared out the window for a moment more, debating what to say next. After a moment, he drew a deep breath and said, ‘You asked me to inspect the troops at Northwilds to provide a cover for your own activities.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Zahariel admitted. He didn’t want to lie to the man any more than he had to. ‘We’ll part ways once the shuttle lands, and it’s likely I won’t be returning with you back to Aldurukh.’ He spread his hands. ‘I regret that I can’t be any more candid, but this is Legion business. I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Morten said readily, but there was no mistaking the wary look in the old general’s eye. For a brief moment, Zahariel wondered if there was something that the general was hiding but he quickly dismissed the thought with a flash of irritation. He had no reason to distrust Morten, Zahariel reminded himself forcibly. The man was, by all accounts, an honourable and dedicated soldier, and had every reason to wonder at Zahariel’s request for an unannounced inspection of the garrison at the Northwilds arcology. The fact was, Zahariel couldn’t afford to make his presence known to the local troops or the Administratum officials struggling to maintain order across the arcology’s war-torn sectors; it would lead to pointed questions that he could ill afford to answer.

  The last thing he wanted was for General Morten – or worse, Magos Bosk – to learn that a member of the Legion was meeting secretly with rebel leaders in the midst of the most hotly-contested population centre on the planet. It was unlikely that either of the Terrans would take the news well. As much as he hated the idea of concealing his actions, Zahariel was forced to admit that, when it came down to it, Morten and Bosk acted in the best interests of the Imperium, not Caliban itself.

  Shafts of late afternoon sunlight slanted through the window to Zahariel’s right as the military shuttle began a wide, diving turn towards their destination. The Librarian craned his neck to peer out the window to the northeast, where the arcology rose sharp-edged against the backdrop of the weathered mountain range further north.

  The Northwilds arcology had been built according to the standard Imperial template; it was an irregularly-stepped pyramid that, even still in its initial stages, was five kilometres wide at its base and rose more than three kilometres into the cloudy sky. Narrow streets radiated away from the arcology across the plain, surrounded by hundreds of smaller buildings that had yet to be subsumed by the structure’s ever-expanding footprint.

  Each arcology was constructed in a similar fashion on newly-compliant Imperial worlds: first would come the labourers and their families, relocated by the tens of thousands from towns and villages all over the hemisphere. They would be resettled in a town at the site of the new arcology, which would spread outward in all directions as its population swelled. Then, once there was a large enough labour pool that had been sufficiently trained to begin work, the digging of the arcology’s foundation would begin. The structure would grow in stages, expanding outwards, upwards and downwards at the same time. Little by little, the arcology would swallow up the town, its residents progressively reassigned to districts inside the structure itself. The population would continue to grow as well, along with the civil services and bureaucracy that went along with it. In theory, the population and organisational growth would match the growth of the structure so closely that
by the time the structure was complete, the arcology would be fully populated and self-sufficient. Of course, such things rarely ever went precisely according to plan.

  ‘How many people are at Northwilds these days?’ Zahariel asked.

  ‘You mean civilians? About five million, all told,’ Morten replied. ‘About a quarter of that are Imperial citizens from offworld: Administratum officials, engineers, industrial planners and the like.’

  Zahariel consulted facts and figures committed to memory before leaving Aldurukh. ‘A stage one arcology is built to support twice that number,’ he observed. ‘So half of the structure is still unoccupied?’

  Morten shrugged. ‘The Imperium’s industrialisation plan calls for twenty stage-one arcologies across Caliban, but the planet’s population won’t be able to support that for some time yet.’

  The Librarian frowned thoughtfully. ‘That seems like a great deal of extra work. One would think that they would build new structures as needed, rather than all at once?’

  Morten spread his gnarled hands. ‘Who can say? The Administratum has its reasons, I don’t doubt.’

  ‘How is the population distributed throughout the arcology?’ Zahariel inquired.

  ‘We’re keeping the natives penned into the lower levels,’ the general rasped. ‘The garrison, the Administratum infrastructure and the offworld residents are housed on the upper levels, where we can keep them secure.’

  Zahariel gave the general a flat stare. ‘Natives?’ he said.

  Morten’s scowl vanished. ‘My apologies, sir,’ he said, straightening in his seat. An embarrassed flush began to spread up his thick neck. ‘Just a figure of speech. I meant no offence.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ the Librarian replied coolly. ‘How are you managing to provide basic services to the population?’

  Morten drew in a quick breath. ‘Well, I won’t deny it’s difficult. The lower levels bore the brunt of the riots, so a lot of the infrastructure was damaged. We’re sending in work teams every day with armed escorts to perform repairs, and we’ve set up medicae facilities at strategic points to care for the injured.’

  ‘So how much of the lower levels are without light or running water at this point?’ Zahariel asked.

  ‘Only about twenty per cent,’ Morten said. ‘If we can keep any more full-scale riots from breaking out, we can knock that number down even further in the next couple of weeks.’

  Zahariel nodded, keeping his face impassive. Twenty per cent without power or water meant roughly a million people trapped in the dark, shivering in the cold and living off military ration packs for the better part of a month. ‘Is there no way to relocate the affected residents to another level?’

  Morten’s craggy brows went up. ‘Sir, you must be aware that an unknown number of the natives – excuse me, citizens – are also likely members of the rebellion. It’s much more sensible from a military standpoint to keep them isolated and restore service to them than turn them loose in another part of the arcology where they can cause more mischief.’

  Zahariel turned back to the window and breathed deeply, biting back the outrage he felt. ‘Is this sort of tactic normal when dealing with civil unrest?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Morten replied. ‘You’ve got to get it through their heads that when they destroy Imperial property they’re only going to make their lives harder and more miserable. Sooner or later the lesson sinks in.’

  And how many rebels do you create in the process, Zahariel thought?

  The shuttle had descended to about two thousand metres by this point, and its turn sharpened as it came in for its final approach. Zahariel saw plumes of smoke rising from the arcology’s flanks near ground level, suggesting that the populace was far from learning General Morten’s brutal lesson. He was shocked to feel a perverse sense of pride at the thought.

  They continued their descent, passing below fifteen hundred metres before the shuttle pilot pulled up the nose of his craft and flared his thrusters for a vertical landing. The transport touched down on a broad landing pad, one of dozens that jutted from the arcology’s northern face, with scarcely a jolt. Morten grunted in satisfaction as he unbuckled his safety harness and climbed wearily to his feet.

  ‘My inspection will likely take the better part of three hours,’ he said to Zahariel. ‘Do I need to stretch it out further?’

  ‘No need,’ Zahariel replied. He had yet to climb from his seat. ‘If I’m not back by the time you are done, return to Aldurukh without me. I will arrange for my own transport.’

  Morten paused, as though he wanted to inquire further, but after a moment he mastered his curiosity and gave the Librarian a curt nod. ‘I’ll bid you good luck then,’ he said, then turned on his heel and headed for the exit ramp.

  Zahariel listened to the clang of the general’s boots as he descended the ramp. One of the shuttle pilots passed through the passenger compartment, headed aft to check on the shuttle’s engines. He waited a full minute more, then rose to his feet and pulled off his plain, white surplice to reveal a black body glove beneath. The rebel leaders had agreed to the meeting only on the condition that he come unarmed and unarmoured. The stipulation surprised and irritated him; did they imagine he would call for a parley with treachery in mind? He’d swallowed his aggravation and agreed nonetheless. There was too much at stake to haggle over such trivial details.

  The Librarian reached into an overhead locker and drew out a neatly-folded bundle of cloth. Zahariel unfurled the heavy cloak with a snap of his wrists and drew it about his shoulders. When he closed the clasp, the cloak’s cameleoline outer layer activated, matching the grey hues of the compartment in less than a second. He drew the cloak’s deep hood over his head and headed quickly to the ramp.

  Outside the shuttle the air was cold and brisk, with a strong wind blowing down from the mountains. Tattered streamers of smoke curled around the lip of the landing pad; he grimaced as he caught the mingled smell of ash and melted plas. Across the pad, a deep alcove led to a pair of blast doors that gave access to the arcology itself. A shuttle technician stood near the alcove, his back to Zahariel as he tried to wrestle a heavy refuelling hose from a recessed bay set into the pad itself.

  The Astartes moved swiftly across the pad, the faint sound of his footfalls lost in the idling whine of the shuttle’s engines. He passed the technician close enough to touch him if he’d wished; the man glanced up irritably as he felt the wind of Zahariel’s passage on his neck, but his gaze swept right past the Librarian without registering his presence.

  Clutching the cloak about his broad frame, Zahariel entered the broad, shadowed alcove and paused beside the blast doors. As near as he could reckon, he had six hours before the rendezvous on sub-level four.

  He turned to a maintenance access hatch, situated at the side of the alcove to the left of the blast doors. The hatch swung open noiselessly, revealing a cramped space lit with dim, red utility lighting and crowded with high-voltage conduits and data trunks. A narrow set of metal rungs led upwards and downwards into darkness. Before he’d left Aldurukh, Zahariel had memorised a circuitous route through the arcology’s maze of accessways that would give him the best chance of reaching the rendezvous point unobserved. He’d need every bit of those six hours to make it to the meeting on time.

  The Librarian stooped his shoulders and squeezed his way into the human-sized space, then pulled the hatch shut behind him. Darkness closed in on all sides, heavy with the scent of lubricants, ozone and recycled air. The hum of distant machinery reverberated through his bones.

  With a deep breath, Zahariel began his descent into the depths.

  SIX HOURS AND ten minutes later, Zahariel was crouched in the shadows at the mouth of a maintenance access corridor. Just a few steps away, a metal catwalk ran along the high wall of one of the arcology’s many generator substations. From where he crouched he had a good view of the rendezvous point on the generator floor, six metres below. Something was wrong.

  The time f
or the rendezvous had come and gone, and the rebel leaders were nowhere in sight. Instead, Zahariel saw a pair of men in utility coveralls waiting at the designated spot. One man puffed worriedly at a clay pipe, while the other tried to calm himself by cleaning his grimy nails with the point of a small knife. They looked like just another pair of generator techs stealing a few minutes’ break away from the watchful eyes of their boss – except for the cut-down las-carbines hanging from their shoulders.

  What had happened to Sar Daviel and the rest? Why had these two men been sent in their stead? Now, after ten minutes, the men were growing restless. No doubt they were coming to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to appear either.

  Zahariel gritted his teeth in irritation. He could let the men leave and try to follow them back to their superiors, but there was a significant risk that he could lose them in the arcology’s labyrinthine passageways. That left him with only one viable option. The Librarian took a few, deep breaths, calling on his training to calm his mind and focus his thoughts, then he rose from concealment, took three quick steps and vaulted over the side of the catwalk.

  He landed with scarcely a sound, not three metres away from the two rebels. The man with the knife let out a startled squawk and recoiled from the Astartes, his eyes widening in fear. The pipe-smoker whirled, following the other man’s startled gaze. To his credit, he kept his composure much better than his companion.

  ‘You’re late,’ the rebel said around the stem of his pipe.

  ‘I didn’t come here to meet with you,’ Zahariel said coldly. ‘Where is Sar Daviel?’

  The two rebels exchanged nervous glances. ‘We’re supposed to take you to him,’ the pipe-smoker said.

  ‘That wasn’t what we agreed upon,’ Zahariel said, a shade of menace creeping into his voice. The knife-wielder blanched, his grip tightening on the handle of his tiny penknife. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, the Librarian might have been tempted to laugh.

  The other rebel plucked the pipe from his lips and gave a disinterested shrug. ‘Just doing what we’re told,’ he said. ‘If you mean to parley, then follow us. If not, well, I expert you know the way out.’