by Guy Haley
‘He’s just a boy. He’s got no place aboard my tank.’
‘Your tank? The crewing of prime assets such as Mars Triumphant is of great interest to the Adeptus Mechanicus, honoured lieutenant, and we have selected this boy. Our prognostication savants suggest a match higher than the 79th percentile. Magi Rotar and Hammerweld have petitioned Honoured Captain Hannick, and he has acquiesced, accepting the judgement of the Omnissiah. Lieutenant Colaron Artem Lo Bannick is to be your new third gunner.’
‘Pressure at your behest,’ said Cortein.
‘I am but a humble enginseer, Cortein. But I submitted the initial request, yes.’
Cortein shook his head. ‘I wish you wouldn’t meddle, Brasslock. I need experienced crew, it’s bad enough with Marsello aboard, this…’ He consulted the file in his hand, ‘Bannick, he’s been in combat what, once? One does not just walk onto a super-heavy tank crew. It requires training, exceptional dedication and talent. And what will his commanding officer say? The boy’s a lieutenant. Becoming third gunner aboard Mars will be an effective demotion for him.’
Brasslock coughed his wheezing laugh. ‘He will keep his rank.’
‘Then he outranks everyone aboard but me; that is no fit position for a third gunner.’
‘Then order him to obey your subordinates. You lose your patience with me, Cortein, when I am but the messenger. Mars Triumphant itself approves of this choice. A great confrontation is coming, it feels it. This boy will help with that.’
‘I don’t want to hear any more of that, Brasslock.’
‘It informed me itself.’
‘Still pushing the line that its time is up?’
‘Affirmative. All the signs are there. You know in your heart that it is true. You listen, when you say you cannot hear.’
‘You’ve no idea what’s going on in my head, Brasslock. I could do without this.’
The enginseer chuckled, throaty machine grating laced with binaric chitter. ‘Take it up with Mars Triumphant if you will. If you do not believe me, consider this, skilled tank crew are at a shortage, he is one, and he has no tank. You yourself have often bemoaned the lack of suitable material for your successor. This boy has shown remarkable spirit. He took command of a leaderless rearguard unit. When he chanced upon your duel with the xeno engine he could have turned and run, but he did not. Furthermore, it was only his exemplary judgement and skill that enabled him to save your life, and the life of the holy Mars Triumphant, at all. For that we of Adeptus Mechanicus owe him a great debt. You would acknowledge yours if you were not so…’ Brasslock searched for the right word, emotional terms employed only unusually by such as he, cold cog and hot gear needing no such designations, ‘stubborn.’
‘That’s why he’s getting the lungwash eh? They usually only give that out to higher ranks. You whispered into a few more ears no doubt.’
‘My Biologian colleagues attached to the Medicae were only too happy to help.’ Brasslock bowed his ever-shrouded head. ‘It is such a great shame so many brave soldiers are denied this treatment, but alas, it is complex. That Bannick is receiving it at all should tell you of his exceptional talent. See, he bears the mark of the Machine-God.’ A metal tendril rose from beneath Brasslock’s robes and indicated Bannick’s cog medallion. ‘He has all the qualities necessary. Train him.’
Cortein knocked the file against his hand and exhaled hard. Brasslock was right, to an extent. The recent battle had ripped the reinforcing regiments to shreds. Troops that should have helped secure a swift Imperial victory had been fed into a trap. If Hannick hadn’t seen that too and ordered the withdrawal, they’d be looking at a full-scale evacuation – as it was they’d saved only a third of the troops committed to the battle. And now here they were, stuck right back where the Imperial army was before the reinforcements had got to Kalidar, the Imperials in Hive Modulus, the orks in Hive Meradon. I’m not surprised this war is going to the dogs, looking at the way these idiots are running it, thought Cortein. For a moment he longed to be back rooting out eldar pirates from the Indrani Agri-Cluster. But the Dentares campaign had come to a successful close, so here they were, shipped out, six months back to Paragon, a supposedly ten-month trip out to Kalidar that turned into a two-year ordeal. Three weeks in between with his feet on the ground of a home he’d never thought to see again. How much Paragon had changed, how much dirtier, how much more run down. The effects of nostalgia? he thought, or perhaps the whole universe really is going to hell… He flipped the file over again. It had so many official stamps on its crumbling card cover that it was nearly black. One of hundreds of thousands like it. He’d had to argue for ten minutes with a pasty-faced Munitorum clerk to get hold of it, then wait another half an hour while it was fetched from the depths of the company records; practically lightspeed for the Munitorum. Someone other than the tech-priests is pulling strings here. But Brasslock is right, he told himself as he read through a long list of training commendations, good personnel are few and far between. This boy’s record suggests he has potential. ‘Why does he have to be so damned young?’ he added aloud, and shut the casing of the file with a snap.
‘They are all young, honoured lieutenant,’ countered Brasslock. ‘And yet they serve.’
The hives of Kalidar were unlike anything Bannick had seen before. There were no hives on Paragon. Furthermore, the hostile surface of Kalidar would not permit the mountain-sized cities other hive-worlds possessed, with which Bannick was familiar from vidcast and book. On Kalidar, each hive centred on a shaft punched into the crust of the planet, a hole wide enough to swallow a cruiser. The better districts were a third of the way down the shaft, round the sides, their presence marked out by domed parks and palace-promontories extending into the void. The further one went up or down the shaft, the poorer the area, likewise the further away from it into the earth. The domains of the hivelords thus formed a toroid about the middle, a sealed domain of luxury denied the majority of the planet’s population. Industry was concentrated round the lip above and below ground, while deep down were the mines, workings following the veins of precious lorelei far out into the desert.
Hive Modulus was on the front line, the nearest of the world’s four human-held hives to Hive Meradon, which the orks had snatched from the defenders nearly three years earlier. Swathes of the upper levels of Modulus had been requisitioned by the Departmento Munitorum to billet the Imperial forces, its workshops given over to vehicle repair, yet Modulus worked on under the nose of the enemy, mining and processing Kalidar’s rare mineral wealth.
Bannick felt weak after his treatment, his lungs ragged, but had been ordered to report to 42nd regimental command to receive new orders immediately, and so he made his way on the city’s spiral uproad, which, with its downroad twin, formed an elegant helix inside the city shaft. Looking down from the road gave Bannick vertigo, so he kept to the inner pedestrian way, away from the harsh light of the sky above.
The road was heavy with traffic. Units of Guardsmen jogged past. Industrial wagons ground upwards laden with tonnes of ore or with the sand that needed to be dredged constantly from the lower levels.
But it was the work gangs of native Kalidarians that fixed Bannick’s attention. Every third hour a klaxon sounded and a hundred nondescript doors hissed open, disgorging workers for the shift change.
They went past Bannick in endless streams, their appearance shocking: pallid, slight beings, covered with sores. Most had their rebreathers implanted, their mouths hidden under oxidised metal. Cracked flesh surrounded these metal snouts, tubes that could be attached to nutrient packs dangled from them, the implants preventing the taking of solid food. Thick pipes ran over their shoulders to bulky cylinders upon their backs. They were bald, and nearly all showed the milky eyes of the blind, sight taken from them by Kalidar’s abrasive dust. With a jolt of shock Bannick saw that more than half of them bore minor signs of mutation and deformity: withered additional arms, twi
sted backs, crooked limbs, and worse. Revulsion filled him. They moved in human chains at a shuffling jog, left arm clasping the left shoulder of his fellow to the front, thin metal wires running through eyelets on collars to ensure they would not separate. The collars did not look as if they would come off. The workers were so emaciated he could not tell the women from the men, and their stench was astonishing.
Each work party, hundreds strong, was led by a pureborn overseer, better fed, better clad, the only Kalidarians Bannick saw on the road wearing goggles. Each carried a tall staff in one hand topped with a crackling prod, in the other they rang a bell, marking the steps of the workers with dolorous chimes.
‘Stand, wretch! Stand!’ the sharp discharge of electricity reached Bannick as he made another slow turn of the spiral road. A party of workers stood, heads bowed, while their overseer set to work on one of their number, collapsed on the rockcrete. ‘Stand!’
Bannick watched, the scene momentarily obscured by a road train rumbling up the carriageway. When he could see again, the overseer was stabbing at the worker upon the floor, each jab accompanied by a crack of energy. He turned to go, no concern of his, but a hand grasped his bicep, staying him.
‘Does it shock you, lieutenant?’ said a voice right in his ear.
Bannick turned to look into the face of a veteran of the Paragonian 23rd, one of three Paragonian regiments brought in from the Dentares warzone and shipped over with the two new raisings from their homeworld. He had a hard face. Bannick was cautious, he wore the markings of a peacekeeper, the Paragon regiments’ military arbitrators, and his eyes brimmed with hostility.
Bannick’s brow furrowed. ‘Why should it shock me?’
‘These workers, they can’t speak, can’t eat, most are blind,’ said the peacekeeper. ‘They neuter them, you know that? Does that not raise a little pity in you?’
‘Sir,’ said Bannick, standing tall, smoothing down his uniform. ‘Don’t tell me what to think. These workers are genetically impure, beneath human. What of it?’
The older man’s face grew harder still. ‘That may be so, but tell me, “sir”, is it any different for men of purer birth? What about on Paragon?’
Bannick inclined his head. ‘At home the workers are cared for as per the teachings of the Adeptus Ministorum. Alms are provided to the poor and those rendered unfit for work.’
‘Is that so? Is that so?’ the peacekeeper nodded in a way that suggested anything but agreement. ‘How many times did you go down onto the shop floor of your own clan workshops? What are you? A Bannick? I recognise the face. Do you think your folks back home treated their workers much better? My family worked hard, until a bad debt cast my father into the prison-foundries of our clan and me into the army. I went to visit my father once. Only once, I couldn’t stand it. It killed him soon enough. They aren’t much better than this, the debtors’ manufactoria, no matter what the clan lords might say about Paragonian virtues. What do you think happens to the likes of them back home? You ever recall seeing a man like that?’ He pointed out a man with a tiny head, almost conical, idiot eyes rolling in his face. ‘Or like that?’ Another, this one with miniature limbs halfway up his ribcage terminating in a pair of backwards feet. ‘Think on that. At least here these poor basdacks get to live. At home they don’t even drown them before they toss them into the incinerator. This is the way things are son. Live with it, and spare me your hypocrisy. Paragon’s no better.’
‘I could have you arrested for this,’ said Bannick, painfully aware still of the crackles of the prod. Surely, even for a debased creature like the mutant, enough was enough?
‘As a peacekeeper I have jurisdiction over you – those are the captain-general’s standing orders and as such they supersede anything you might have to say on the matter. Who do you think they’ll believe, a boy, an aristocrat’s brat, or a proven servant of the Emperor?’
The overseer had stopped thrashing the worker. He knelt down and roughly examined the prone man, then pulled a small pair of clippers from a pouch at his belt, and cut the worker free from his collar. He rearranged his blind slaves, rolled the dead man out over the road way, and pitched him down the central shaft. He returned to his troop, rang his bell three times, and the column set off again.
‘Now, do you have anything to say to me?’
Bannick shook his head.
‘Good lad, “sir”,’ said the peacekeeper. ‘Now on your way, and think on what you had, and how you got it, next time you dream of home.’
Bannick arrived at the 42nd’s regimental HQ five minutes early, but was shown in to see the colonel by his adjutant, a fussy little Guardsman, right away.
Colonel Sholana was short and dark with eyes of a piercing yellow. He came from some world Bannick had never heard of and had an accent he struggled to cope with. Detached from his original unit, Sholana had been put in charge of the Paragonian 42nd Armoured Regiment, there not being enough experienced Paragonian officers left from the Dentares veterans to spare in staffing the new raisings.
‘At ease, lieutenant. Come, sit down.’ Sholana gestured with a deep-brown hand to the chair before his desk. Bannick sat. ‘That’s better. I don’t stand much on ceremony. I find being cooped up in a tank quite restrictive enough without having everyone leaping to attention all the time, especially when we’re talking like now, in an informal little chat.’
Bannick said nothing. He’d heard mixed reports about Sholana’s informal little chats.
‘Will you be wanting a drink, lieutenant?’ asked Sholana.
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, perhaps it is a little early.’ He eyed the decanter of liquor on his desk suspiciously. ‘And I will admit, that although I find much admirable in the culture of Paragon, this… glice?’
‘Gleece, sir,’ said Bannick.
‘Gleece. Gleece. Yes. I find it not entirely to my taste. It is a little… thick, I suppose, yes. I rather prefer a good amasec. Still,’ he said brightly, ‘I suppose I will get used to it eventually, no? I won’t keep you, Bannick, so I’ll get right to the point. You’re to be transferred.’
‘Sir?’
‘The regiment is not in a good way. We lost half our personnel and a quarter of our fighting vehicles in the Kostoval Flats. Stragglers still trickle in, but…’ he raised his hands. ‘I trust you understand, this is all in the strictest confidence.’ The colonel spun his chair away from the desk, once the property of the refinery manager. The buildings of the facility protruded above the ground, and Sholana’s office had a good view out over the refinery’s topside grounds, cleared to provide a marshalling yard for the regiment. The green sky was clear and the window shielding was open, showing the red-grey deserts of Kalidar stretching away beyond the mass of buildings of Modulus’s surface town. Further out on a large section of desert bulldozed flat was the battlegroup’s landing field, cluttered with drop-ships, shuttlecraft and cargo lifters.
‘I have been a soldier for many years, Bannick. Morale. That’s the thing, low morale can kill a regiment more surely than a well-placed virus bomb, and the 42nd’s is at rock bottom. That’s one of the reasons I’ve given leave for this transfer to go ahead.’ He turned back to face the lieutenant, reached into a drawer in the metal desk and took out an envelope. He leaned forwards and handed it to Bannick.
‘It’s a shame to lose you. You showed real initiative out there, although,’ he chuckled, ‘if I were of another mind I could have you shot for ordering the rearguard to fall back, but I prefer to be… flexible.’ His grin broadened. ‘Do us proud.’
Bannick opened the envelope. Within was a sheet of onionskin paper, typed with his new assignment: the 7th Paragonian Super-heavy Tank Company. Bannick’s eyes widened. He looked to Sholana, his face questioning.
‘You understand, your new position will not be a demotion; although you will be fulfilling the role of third gunner, you will keep your rank of lieutena
nt. This, though unusual, is the quickest way to the command of one of those behemoths. They do that, you know, bring in new blood, select promising tankers, put them in a junior role, see if they’ve got what it takes.’ He wagged a finger. ‘You’re going places, lieutenant. Knowing that will give your comrades remaining under my command great cheer. Cortein’s a good man, bit of a loner, but I suppose you have to be to command a machine like that.’ He paused for a space. ‘You’ve also been put forward for commendation, by me. Congratulations.’ He shoved a small box across the table. ‘No time for ceremony, I’m afraid. Wear it with pride, eh?’
But Bannick was not listening. He was going to serve aboard a Baneblade.
The rest of what Sholana had to say washed over him. He found himself outside, clutching orders and medal in a daze. He fished out his aquila and cog from within his shirt and kissed both reverently in turn. Whatever he had done to deserve this chance at redemption, he swore in his heart not to let the Emperor down.
Chapter 8
Aronis City, The Sixth Moon of Paragon VI
2103395.M41
Bannick had only a few days until he was due to attend the Paragonian military academy; a few months later he’d ship out. Now was as good a time as any to tell his fiancée. He drew in a deep breath, and shook. In some ways, telling Kaithalar the wedding was off was far more terrifying than going to war. He rallied himself, and knocked on the door.
‘Come in!’ Kaithalar Beyn Lo Turannigen’s terse voice sounded from the other side of the ornate doors, their wood heavy with gilt plasterwork. Two liveried bondsmen swung them aside, admitting Bannick to the office of the Warden of Clan Turannigen. She stood behind a desk whose impressive size barely filled a corner of the massive room. The curtains were pulled against the eclipse’s wan day and the fireplace was filled side to side with burning logs, struggling to keep the chill of the Long Winter at bay. To one side of it stood the Steward of Turannigen, reading silently from a ledger, while next to him an enhanced savant burbled nonsense and accounting figures to no one in particular, piles of printed parchment piling up round his feet, issuing from the records unit embedded in his chest.
