1_For_The_Emperor

by Sandy Mitchel

  'No they're not/ Jurgen chipped in helpfully, blissfully unaware of my frantic 'shut up!' hand gestures as he shaded his eyes for a closer look. 'They're gen-estealer hybrids. We saw plenty just like them on Keffia, and…' His voice trailed off lamely as he finally turned his head in my direction, and saw the expression on my face.

  'And we wiped them all out/ I finished, trying to sound decisive and confident. Kelp's jaw clenched.

  You knew/ It was a flat statement, an accusation, and the others all hung on his words. You knew what was waiting down here all along, and you led us right into it to get slaughtered!'

  'No one's getting slaughtered unless I do it/ I snapped back, realising that if I lost the initiative now I'd never regain it, and that would mean the end of everything - the mission, me, Amberley, and probably Gravalax too, although the welfare of the planet wasn't exactly at the top of my priority list. This is a recon mission, nothing more. Our objective was to identify the enemy, which we've done, and get back to report that information. We're pulling back to the surface now, to call in reinforcements, and we'll only engage in self-defence. Satisfied?'

  He nodded, slowly, but the truculence remained on his face.

  Works for me/ Sorel said. Velade, Trebek, and Holenbi nodded, following his lead.

  'Not for me/ Kelp raised his hellgun, aiming squarely at Amberley. Sibilant whispers of consternation rippled through the tau, but the shas'ui gestured the ones who'd begun to raise their weapons to stand down, and to my relief, they complied. The last thing we needed now was to start killing each other; there were plenty of 'stealers around to do that job, and attracting their attention was right up there with challenging an ork to an arm-wrestling contest so far as really bad ideas went. 'I'm out of here. And I'll kill her if you try to stop me/1 reached for my pistol, but she shook her head.

  'No, commissar. He's not going to shoot, are you, Tobias?' She tilted her head towards the bustling throng of half-human monsters below. 'The noise would bring them all running, and you wouldn't get a hundred metres before they ripped you to pieces.'

  The same thing would apply to my sidearm, I realised, as I let it slip back securely into its holster.

  'You'll never get away with this/ I said levelly, absurdly conscious of sounding like a character in a holodrama. A sneer of derision crossed his face.

  'Like I've never heard that before.'

  'Get out of here.' Amberley's voice was stiff with contempt. 'I've no use for cowards. You had a second chance, and you pissed it away' For the first time, a flicker of unease moved across his face, and he took a step backwards.

  'You'd better hope the 'stealers find you first/ I added, with all the bravado which comes from issuing an empty threat you know you'll never have to back up. 'Because if I ever catch up with you, you're in for a world of hurt.'

  'Dream on, commissar. I've taken my last order from you.' He looked at the others, hoping for some show of support, but they just stared back, their faces set. I was surprised, I don't mind admitting it, but when you came down to it, they were still soldiers of the Emperor before anything else. After a moment, Kelp stepped back into the shadows and turned, and we heard the sound of running feet receding down the tunnel.

  'I reckon I've still got a shot/ Sorel offered, raising the long-las and sighting carefully in the direction of

  the sound. 'And this thing's silenced.' I shook my head.

  'Let him go/ I said. 'At least he's still good for drawing their fire/ The sniper nodded, and lowered his weapon.

  'Your call/ he said.

  Amberley was still engaged in earnest conversation with the tau, though how she was hoping to retain their confidence after this was beyond me, so I did my best to rally the troops with a few quiet words of praise for their loyalty.

  'The shas'ui is saying it would be most prudent to divide our forces again/ Gorok translated helpfully. Big surprise there, I thought. If I was the shas'ui and I'd just seen one of our allies pull a gun on his commander, I'd be having second thoughts about our little arrangement now too.

  'We both need to report this to our own forces/ Amberley said, breaking off just long enough to meet my eye, then returning to her sibilant dialogue.

  'No question of that/ I agreed. 'So what's taking so long?'

  'The tau were unaware of this ability of the creatures you call genestealers/ Gorok said. 'They knew them only as a warrior form of the tyranid overmind. Your inquisitor is attempting to enlighten them as to their true nature/

  They're infiltrators/ I explained. They worm their way into a planet's society, and weaken it from within before the hive fleets arrive. Wherever they go they sow disorder and anarchy.'

  Then they are indeed a potent threat/ the kroot agreed.

  'Sir/ Velade whispered urgently, trying to attract my attention. I turned towards her, and she gestured down towards the chamber floor. 'Something's happening down there.'

  'Time to leave/ I said, tapping Amberley on the shoulder. She glanced up at me and nodded.

  'I think you're right/ One of the hybrids, an ugly fellow who might have passed for human in a bad light if it wasn't for a complexion which looked as though he'd recently showered in acid, was running into the chamber. He was carrying something under his arm, and after a moment I realised it was the head of the kroot Sorel had shot.

  'Oh frak/ I said. They were on to us now, and no mistake. As he moved further into the cavern, more and more of the cultists stopped what they were doing and crowded around him. The most eerie thing about it was that none of them said anything, just clustered together in silence and stared at the grisly trophy.

  'What are they doing?' Trebek asked quietly.

  'Communicating/ Amberley responded, turning to lead us back up the corridor we'd entered by.

  'They've all got this hive mind thing, remember?' Velade was tense but determined. 'You just have to shoot the big ones/

  'It's not like the tyranid overmind/ Amberley said. They're all individuals. They're just linked to each other telepathically, at least up close/

  'Like psykers/ Jurgen added helpfully.

  'I hope so/ Amberley said, though what she meant by that I still didn't know at the time.

  'Pull back slowly/ I ordered. 'They haven't noticed us yet. We've still got time to make it back to the surface before they realise where we are/ And we probably would have done too, if it hadn't been for the bloody kroot.

  'They taint the flesh/ Gorok said. And they must not taste ours/ Before I had a chance to react, or even realise what the hell he was on about, he shouted something in his own tongue to his compatriots.

  My bowels froze. As that avian screech echoed round the chamber, every head turned in our direction as though tugged by the same string. I was uncomfortably reminded of a Hydra battery coming to bear. Uncounted eyes stared at us for a moment, then they broke and ran, as Gorok and the other kroot aimed their long-barrelled weapons at the centre of the group and opened fire.

  'What the hell do they think they're doing?' Holenbi asked.

  Who cares? Run!' I ordered. Looking back I could see they'd felled the hybrid carrying the kroot head, and another volley pulped the trophy to mush.

  I'm still not sure why that was so important to them. All I can assume is that they'd grasped some of what Amberley had been saying about the genesteal-ers' peculiar ability to overwrite the genetic code of their victims and had thought possession of the severed head would have let them infect other kroot in

  some way. Palpable nonsense of course. Genestealers need live victims to infect so that when they have children of their own, they unwittingly spread the taint, but I suppose it got mixed up in some way with their religion, or whatever else it is that makes them go around chewing lumps out of corpses. At the end of the day a xeno's a xeno, and who knows why they do anything?1

  One thing I was sure about, though, was that the tau were as surprised as we were. The shas'ui was shouting something I could make a pretty good guess at the gist of without an i
nterpreter, but the kroot weren't listening, and he gave up in favour of trying to organise his own squad. Not a moment too soon either, because the amount of noise from the corridor we'd entered by told me we were about to have company.

  A volley of plasma fire from the tau guns ripped down the corridor, almost blinding me with its brightness, and I turned away. We wouldn't get back out the way we'd come in, that was for sure, and our only hope was to move off along the gallery and hope to find a clear route through one of the other tunnel mouths.

  Incredibly, the enemy kept coming, although I half expected that after my adventures on Keffia, where they'd just kept leapfrogging the pile of their own

  1 For a rather more accurate and informed analysis of kroot psychology, see Zigmund's Warriors of Pech: The Savage Sophisticates, which is readily available from the restricted stacks of any Ordo Xenos libram.

  dead in their eagerness to close. A ragged volley of las-bolts and autogun fire thundered in reply, and one of the tau went down, his armour shredded by multiple impacts.

  'Tell them to pull back before they're slaughtered,' I said to Amberley, and she nodded before shouting something in tau. Not that I cared, of course, but the longer the xenos kept firing the further away we'd get. I hoped.

  'There's another tunnel up ahead/ Velade called excitedly, then turned back to face us, raising her hellgun. I flinched, anticipating treachery after all, but the high-powered las-bolt went wide of us, impacting on the thorax of the first of the enemy to emerge from the tunnel behind us.

  'Emperor's bowels!' Trebek said, following suit. My heart froze with terror. I'd seen too many, on Keffia, and as part of the screeching mass of a tyranid army, to mistake it for anything else.

  A purestrain genestealer. One of the deadliest creatures in creation. And it wasn't alone.

  FOURTEEN

  Never take a gamble you're not prepared to lose. - Abdul Goldberg, rogue trader.

  My order to pull back had bought us a little time, at least. The horde of mutant crossbreeds vomited out of the tunnel between us and the tau, forcing the two parties apart, taking punishing casualties, but still laying down a withering volley of fire as they came. I recognised the tactic from the cleansing of Keffia, and Jurgen evidently, did too, as he raised the melta before falling back. The blast of superheated air roared against my face, vaporising the oncoming stealer and chewing a chunk out of the front few ranks.

  The firing continued, with las-bolts and bullets chewing up the masonry around us, and I felt a

  sudden blow against my chest. I glanced down; a las-bolt had impacted against the borrowed armour beneath my greatcoat, and I blessed the foresight that had impelled me to requisition it. We were all shooting continuously now, the troopers retreating in good order by fire and movement, much to my relief. Amberley had produced a bolt pistol from the depths of her cloak, and wielded it with a skill no less greater than my own, bringing down two more of the bounding monstrosities with carefully placed shots. The explosive bolts detonated inside their chitinous shells, blowing their thoraxes to bloody mist.

  'Keep your distance!' I shouted. The hybrids were hoping to pin us, allowing the purestrains to close, and if that happened it would all be over. They bounded forward eagerly, claws scything, and if you think that's not intimidating to a man with a gun, then all I can say is count yourself lucky you've never been close to one. I was there when the Reclaimers boarded the Spawn of Damnation,1and saw the purestrains which infested it tearing open their Terminator armour as though it were cardboard to get at the Astartes within. After that you can be sure I never wanted to be within arm's length of those killing machines again. And since they

  1 A space hulk which drifted into the Corolian Gap in 928; Cain was liaising with the Astartes Chapter in question at the time, as a member of the Brigade command staff, and went in with the Imperial Guard unit detailed to mop up after the initial Astartes assault.

  have four of the damn things, that can be harder than it sounds.

  "той don't have to tell me twice!' Trebek placed a couple of accurate shots, downing a purestrain and a hybrid with a flamer. Thank the Emperor she'd spotted that, I thought, or it would have been the end of us for sure. Sorel followed up, putting a round through the promethium tank, and the width of the gallery erupted in flame.

  'Good shooting/ I said. He acknowledged the compliment with a nod, and turned to retreat.

  He'd bought us some time, I noted with gratitude, the inferno blocking us off from our assailants, and consigning many of them to an agonising death. The most terrifying thing, though, was that they burned in silence, trying to walk towards us through the flames until their musculature gave out and they collapsed, consumed by the imperative to kill the swarm's enemies no matter what the cost.

  On the other side of the blazing barrier, the kroot were overwhelmed in seconds, despite their phenomenal skill in close-quarter combat, swinging the blades of their curious polearm/rifle hybrids to tremendous effect. But for every eviscerated cultist that fell, another stepped forward, and then the purestrains tore into them, and it was all over in less than a second. Gorok was the last to fall, standing alone and defiant on a pile of the dead, until a frenzied flurry of blows shredded his body in a shower of blood.

  What happened to the tau I couldn't see, but they'd stopped firing, so they'd either managed to disengage

  or they were all dead by now. My money was on die latter, but even if I was wrong we'd never be able to rejoin them now so the question was merely academic in any case.

  I swear I'd only glanced back for a second, but when I looked round I was alone; the others had retreated as I'd ordered, but which of the half-dozen tunnel mouths they'd disappeared down was anybody's guess. The terror of isolation gripped me for a moment, then I pulled myself together. The pool of promethium wouldn't burn forever, and the cultists presumably knew this labyrinth well enough to circumvent it without too much difficulty in any case, so if I stayed where I was any longer, I was a dead man.

  'Jurgen!' I shouted. 'Inquisitor!' There was no answer, so I picked the nearest tunnel, and started to run.

  As I entered the welcoming darkness, the panic I'd tried to force down resurfaced, stronger than before, and try as I could to make myself slow down and get my bearings, fear had control of my limbs now. I ran as hard and as fast as I could, heedless of the dangers that might be lurking in the darkness around me, or the hidden obstacles which were likely to be lying in wait for an unwary shin or an ankle to turn, and didn't stop until my breath was rasping my lungs like sandpaper and my legs had begun to tremble from the exertion.

  Panting hard, I sat on a convenient heap of rubble, and tried to take stock of my situation, which was

  undoubtedly grim whichever angle I looked at it from. For one thing, I was still deep underground, in a labyrinth I didn't know how to get out of, infested with slavering monsters. For another, the only allies I had down here probably thought I was dead, and even if they didn't, they weren't likely to waste any time searching for me. The information we'd gathered about the true nature of the threat gnawing away beneath our feet was too important to risk, and Amberley would insist on returning to the surface as quickly as possible to warn the lord general. At least, if our positions were reversed, that's what I would have done.

  On the plus side, however, I was quietly confident of finding my way back to the surface given enough time, provided I didn't run into any more company on the way, and my solitude was a positive advantage in that regard, as a man moving alone will always be more stealthy than a group. Corridors like these had been my playground as a child, and I'd never quite lost the knack of finding my way around them; despite my panic-stricken flight, I still had a vague idea of which direction our compound lay and how far we'd come. In fact, if my guess about us being somewhere under the old quarter was accurate, I might even be closer to the surface than I realised. And once I'd made it back to the open air, returning to the compound shouldn't prove at all difficult.
(And in case you were wondering, the irony of genuinely experiencing what I'd briefly considered feigning the previous night wasn't lost on me.)

  Fleeing in terror, I'd just like to note in passing for those of you who have so far been lucky enough to avoid the experience, generally leaves you both hungry and thirsty. At least that's been the case with me on most occasions, and I've done it frequently enough to qualify as something of an expert on the topic, so I hope you'll take my word for it.

  Anyhow, I decided to take advantage of this relatively peaceful interlude to replenish my energy, so I sat for a while longer sipping water from my canteen and chewing a ration bar, the flavour of which, as usual, hovered just outside the range of identification. The impromptu picnic raised my spirits somewhat, and I took advantage of the quiet moment to still the thudding of my heart and try to distinguish the sounds in the darkness around me. I briefly considered turning the luminator back on, but decided against it, as it would give my position away, besides which, my eyes had adjusted to the gloom as well as they were going to by now, and I could quite readily distinguish vague shapes of lighter or darker shadow. My other tunnel-rat senses had come into play too: I could tell by the echoes how close I was to a wall, for instance. I've often tried to explain it, but the only way you could really understand is if you'd spent a large part of your early life in the lower levels of a hive somewhere.

  It was while I was gradually recovering my wits that I first heard the faint scrape of something moving in the dark. Now, I daresay most people's reaction under those circumstances would have been to call

  out, or snap the luminator on, neither of which was a particularly attractive option given my current situation, as I'm sure you'll appreciate. Besides, I wasn't particularly concerned as to what it might be. As I've said before, the environment was one I knew well, and I'd be happy to match my experience of blind fighting in tunnels against almost any foe. I was also pretty confident that any 'stealers or hybrids in the vicinity wouldn't have bothered lurking either, just charged straight in, so I simply waited, and was rewarded a moment later by the faint skittering sound of a small piece of rubble falling away.