The Emperor's Finest

NINETEEN

'PERIMETER BREACHED!' I yelled, opening up again with my laspistol, and wishing I'd replaced the powerpack while I'd had the chance. Jurgen flicked the selector of his lasgun to full auto, no doubt reflecting that if we didn't manage to check the creatures' headlong rush, running out of ammunition was going to be the least of our worries. The leading one fell under the hail of las-bolts, not a second too soon, still reaching out for me, and I swatted its wickedly taloned hand aside with the blade of my chainsword as I retreated.

To my horror, a babble of overlapping voices answered my warning, and the distant roar of heavy bolters echoing through the corridors from what seemed like every direction immediately confirmed my worst fears. It seemed the genestealers had merely been biding their time, building up their numbers at the limits of auspex range, before attacking in force.

'Multiple signals all round!' one of the Terminators confirmed. 'Closing fast.'

'Engaging,' another called, as I cracked off a fusillade of shots at the 'stealer bounding over the corpse of the group leader, seemingly fixated on ripping my spleen out. This time the las-bolts barely slowed it, and I parried the first slash of its talons with my chainsword, feeling the screaming teeth bite deep into chitin. I followed up reflexively, stepping inside the reach of its quartet of arms, and driving the tip of the blade up through its jaw as I did so, to bury it deep in the creature's brain.

'Commissar!' Jurgen fired another burst, slowing the next one as it lunged, and I pivoted aside, dragging the expiring 'stealer with me to impede the progress of its fellow, as the chainblade ripped free, bisecting its skull. 'This way!' He'd taken up a position defending the door we'd first entered the chamber by, guarding our line of retreat back to the Thunderhawk, and I made haste to join him, shooting randomly into the middle of the pack as I went. His lasgun barked again, then went silent. 'Sorry sir, I'm dry.'

Deprived of his covering fire I fell back on my duellist's reflexes, retreating step by step, parrying by pure instinct each blow that sought to eviscerate me. There was no time for thought, and if I tried I'd be dead. A couple of times I fired my pistol again, once downing another of the 'stealers with a lucky shot through the eye socket, but relying in the main for my survival on the well-worn blade in my hand. I've no doubt that the hours of practice I'd spent in the Revenant's tertiary training chapel, and my sparring bouts with Drumon, saved my miserable skin in those few frantic moments, the keen edge they'd imparted to my fighting skills making all the difference.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Jurgen's hand dip into one of his array of pouches, but, to my surprise and consternation, instead of the lasgun powercell I'd been expecting, he drew out a frag grenade. Before I could shout a word of caution he'd already primed it, only the pressure of his grip forestalling an explosion which would undoubtedly kill us both in so confined a space. Watching me intently, he retreated a step or two, into the corridor behind him.

Well, grenade or no, it still seemed a healthier place to be than the middle of a genestealer swarm, so I swung the chainsword in a last desperate arc, driving my assailants back for the space of a heartbeat, and scrambled through the portal myself, smacking the palm plate as I passed it. Not that closing the door had helped much the last time, but even a second or two's head start would be better than nothing, and after more than a decade of serving together I thought I had a pretty good idea of what Jurgen had in mind.

I was right. The second I reached for the door control my aide lobbed the frag charge he'd readied, and the metal slab slid smoothly closed just before it detonated. The dull thump of the explosion was followed instantly by a metallic clatter, like someone dropping a tray full of tanna spoons[121], as the hailstorm of razor-edged shrapnel shards pattered against the sheltering steel plate. (With any luck after passing through a considerable thickness of intervening genestealer.)

'Nicely done,' I congratulated my aide, and he nodded with quiet satisfaction. 'But what would you have done if they'd killed me before I got to the door control?'

'Hit the plate with my elbow,' Jurgen said, as incapable as ever of recognising a joke, and I nodded too, as if considering the matter.

'That would have worked,' I conceded. 'But I'm pleased I could save you the bother.'

'Me too, sir,' he agreed, snapping another powercell into his lasgun at last, and, sure that he was now able to keep the door covered in case of any more unpleasant surprises, I lost no time in following suit. According to the glowing runes in the butt which kept track of such things, the number of shots remaining were down to single figures, and I wanted a lot more than that in hand with 'stealers on the loose.

We waited tensely for a second or two, our weapons aimed at the blank metal slab, but if there were any 'stealers left on the other side capable of opening it to pursue us they had more sense than to try. When it became clear nothing was going to happen, I turned and began to lead the way back towards the Thunderhawk at a rapid jog. I must admit it crossed my mind to put a las-bolt through the palm plate, just to make sure we couldn't be followed, but reason prevailed over the impulse. I'd hardly be able to maintain my good standing with the Reclaimers if anyone survived the genestealers' initial onslaught, only to discover that I'd sealed them in with a slavering horde of ravening purestrains, and there was no guarantee that damaging the controls would secure the hatch in any case. For all I knew, the machine-spirit which had nursed this wrecked vessel for so long would react to such casual vandalism by opening it again out of pique, and the last thing I needed was provoking it into siding with the chitinous horrors. As it turned out, I was going to be grateful for my restraint sooner than I expected.

'Pull back,' Drumon's voice instructed in my ear, and I realised that only a handful of seconds could have passed since my first panic-stricken warning. 'Form up on this position, and we'll punch our way through to the docking bay.' A chorus of assent answered him, which I ignored; I wasn't about to put myself in harm's way again with a safe refuge a mere few minutes running time away.

Or so I thought, until a marked increase in the noise ahead drew my attention, and I beheld a sight which chilled me almost as much as a Valhallan shower. The Terminator we'd passed on our way in was backing towards us, firing continuously as he came, almost filling the passageway with the bulk of his armour. There wasn't a heretic's prayer of getting past him, although given that the strobing muzzle flashes of his storm bolter[122] were affording lurid glimpses of a mass of genestealers pressing him hard, I'd feel seriously disinclined to try. They were falling in droves, as you might expect, but for every one which went down, another would appear, bounding over the corpses of its fellows to charge straight down the barrels of his gun. What they were hoping to achieve by this was beyond me, at least to begin with; like the 'nids that spawned them, genestealer broods seem to regard individual members of the group mind as essentially expendable, but in my experience they only did so in pursuit of an objective. This seemed like a wanton waste of life, even by their standards.

'Back,' I told Jurgen, unnecessarily, as there was clearly nowhere else to go; not even an air duct we could have squeezed down at a pinch. He nodded, phlegmatic as always, and began jogging back the way we'd come.

As I turned to follow, the purpose of the brood mind's strategy became horrifyingly clear. The Terminator's weapon jammed, probably overheated by the constant firing; for a moment he struggled to clear it, then the leading 'stealer surged forwards, slashing with its talons. The Terminator stood his ground, trying to fend it off with the useless weapon, but the creature had an unbreakable grip on his arm. As he tried to tear it free with his other hand, a second one sprang out of the darkness, ripping open the ceramite protecting his torso as though it were paper. Before I could even think of trying to intervene, he was down, the tremors of his fall vibrating through my bootsoles, and I turned and ran, while the rest of the pack skittered and struggled to get past the bulky obstruction to dismember my aide and I.

No doubt warned by the echoes of my sprinting footfalls, Jurgen put on a burst of speed too, striking the door plate with his elbow as he passed it, and diving through the widening gap without slowing, his lasgun at the ready. No sounds of combat ensued, so I followed without hesitation, cracking off a few shots as I turned to close the hatch behind us. The bolts impacted on the snout of a 'stealer which had managed to get past the deceased Astartes and the tangle of its fellows still atop him, and got far too close to my unprotected back for comfort. It reeled from the impacts and lay thrashing on the floor of the passage, although whether I'd done enough to kill it I'll never know. The door slid closed, hiding the sight of the carnage beyond.

'We'd better get moving,' I said, picking my way through the chunks of genestealer decorating the room, a rather satisfying result of Jurgen's trick with the grenade. Now the creatures were dead, there seemed to be fewer of them than I remembered, although whether that was because the survivors had fled, or I'd simply been too busy for an accurate headcount at the time, I couldn't be sure. 'They'll be through at any moment.'

'Down here?' Jurgen asked, flashing his luminator along the passageway Drumon and the tech-priests had taken the first time we'd passed through the chamber. I listened for a moment and shook my head. An all-too-familiar scrabbling sound was echoing out of the darkness beyond the range of the beam.

'No,' I said. 'The 'stealers are ahead of us.' No doubt they were intent on slaughtering the salvage party at the moment, but I was certain they'd devote some of their attention to us if we were foolish enough to attract it. I hefted my weapons and struck the control plate of the sealed door opposite; we already knew the other exit led straight to more genestealers, so to my way of thinking this one was the best card in a rather poor hand. Despite my trepidation, however, the darkness beyond was reassuringly silent, so I lost no time in hurrying through; a moment later an increase in the ambient light levels, and a small but perceptible thickening of the atmosphere, told me Jurgen was at my shoulder once more, and I closed the portal again.

'Where are we?' he asked, flashing the beam of his luminator around our refuge. It looked like all the other corridors we'd seen so far, but that didn't bother me; I'd recalled enough of the internal layout I'd seen on the hololith display to remain confident of finding our way back to the hangar bay without too much difficulty, so long as there weren't too many genestealers around to get in the way.

I shrugged. 'Only one way to find out,' I said, leading the way into the darkness.

HOW LONG WE'D been wandering through the passageways I couldn't be sure, but it was certainly taking a lot longer to get back to the Thunderhawk than I'd expected. My innate sense of direction seemed to be working as well as ever, so I was pretty confident that I knew roughly where both we and it were relative to one another, but there was no getting around the fact that connecting the two points was a lot less straightforward than I'd hoped. I could still recall the images I'd seen in the hololith in reasonable detail, but the reality of the maze of intersecting passageways we found ourselves negotiating was considerably more complex than the clear lines of the diagram suggested. Some routes were blocked by debris, or unsafe decking, forcing us into time-consuming detours, while other routes were blocked by the echoes of an ominous scrabbling, which betrayed the presence of more genestealers lurking in the darkness ahead. Needless to say, I avoided these passageways entirely, even going so far as to retrace our steps for a while before turning aside, just to make certain we'd given these pockets of activity a wide enough berth to evade detection.

Just to complicate matters, it wasn't long before I realised that we'd passed beyond the section of the Spawn of Damnation I'd seen enlarged, so most of the corridors, ducting and cable runs we followed hadn't appeared on the reduced scale of the main map at all: the only things I could be certain of were that we were deviating ever deeper into the core of the hulk, and that we'd passed from the relatively easy going of the derelict we'd first boarded to more decrepit surroundings entirely. On a couple of occasions I even felt a curious sensation of momentary vertigo, as level decks suddenly became slopes, or vice versa, while my eyes stubbornly insisted that nothing had changed[123]. As you can imagine, this was particularly disconcerting when we were traversing sections of the wrecks which were out of kilter with one another in any case; a couple of times Jurgen and I found ourselves picking our way through clumps of defunct luminators protruding from the floor like rusting undergrowth, and realised we were walking along what had once been a ceiling before the warp had claimed whatever luckless vessel this was, and on one particularly unpleasant occasion we traversed a section of ship turned at ninety degrees from its neighbours, where corridors had become abyssal shafts, plunging further than our luminator could plumb, forcing us to scramble around them on narrow ledges which once had been thresholds.

Everywhere we went there were doors, too, although once we'd left the environs of the ancient derelict and the venerable machine-spirit standing guard over it, these had to be manhandled open or closed, with a fair degree of sweat and profanity. (The former predominantly from Jurgen, and the latter from me, although I must own that we each contributed liberally to both.) In the main we left the portals we'd passed through open, unwilling to take the time and effort required to shut them again, and reluctant to cut off a known line of retreat, although I was more than aware of the risk this entailed; you may be certain I kept my ears well open for any suspicious sounds behind us, and we halted on innumerable occasions to listen more carefully and discount the possibility of being followed. Most of the corridors we wandered down were, of course, lined with doors too, but mindful of the effort required to get into them, and spurred on by the worrying possibility that the Thunderhawk would depart without us, we were disinclined to explore any of the side chambers.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about our present circumstances was that I'd lost contact with Drumon and the surviving Terminators. My comm-bead was certainly continuing to function, if the faint wash of static in my ear was anything to go by, but the fragments of signal traffic I'd been listening to, hoping to keep track of their progress (and, by extension, the whereabouts of the greatest concentration of genestealers, or so I devoutly hoped), had been getting progressively fainter for some time. Now it seemed that the sheer mass of metal between us was preventing the relatively low-powered signals from getting through at all. I found myself wondering if any of our companions were still alive, and hoping so, although the last few garbled transmissions I'd heard had been less than encouraging. Certainly more of the Terminators had fallen, although some had linked up with Drumon by the time I'd lost contact. But from what I'd seen, their chances of making it back to the hangar bay through the labyrinth of narrow corridors were slender at best.

I was roused from my sombre reverie by Jurgen, who was walking a few paces ahead of me, sweeping his luminator methodically across walls, ceiling and floor, paying particular attention to any areas of shadow cast by protrusions or recesses. We'd both seen enough by now to be well aware of how readily the purestrains could conceal themselves, and were by no means sanguine about the possibility of sudden ambush.

'Wait, sir.' He held up a warning hand and advanced a few more paces, the beam picking out a huddled mass on the deck plates ahead of us.

I drew my weapons as it came more clearly into view. 'Is it dead?' I asked. The genestealer remained inert, instead of bounding to its feet and charging us as I would have expected, but I remained alert nevertheless. I'd never seen one asleep before, if they even did, and the middle of the corridor seemed like an odd place to choose for a nap to say the least.

Jurgen pulled the trigger of his lasgun, and the 'stealer remained where it was, despite the fresh crater which appeared in its misshapen forehead. My aide shrugged. 'It is now,' he said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

I listened to the echoes of the crack of the weapon's discharge fade away into the distance, rebounding into the labyrinth, and hoped it hadn't attracted any attention; but the damage was already done, if any had been, and chiding him would have been pointless at this juncture. Instead, I merely nodded. 'So it would seem.'

Emboldened, I approached the creature and examined it curiously. The wound Jurgen had inflicted had penetrated its skull, neat as you please, but that wasn't what had done for it. Its thorax was ripped open from the inside, in a manner I could recognise all too easily.

'That's a bolter wound,' I said, wondering how in the warp it had managed to crawl this far from the attacking Astartes before expiring.

My aide nodded. 'Old one, too,' he added, his face twisting into a grimace of distaste. 'It's getting pretty ripe.'

'It is indeed,' I agreed, the stench of decay belatedly reaching my nostrils through the nearer and more familiar odour of Jurgen. As he widened the sweep of the beam, I began to discern a spattering of dried ichor and viscera on the walls and the grating underfoot. 'And it was shot right here.' I indicated the traces left on our surroundings by the explosive projectile's detonation somewhere within the creature's chest cavity.

Jurgen nodded thoughtfully. 'You think there's another group of Astartes on board?'

'I doubt it,' I said, after thinking it over for a moment. It was possible that Gries had dispatched another team without telling me, but it hardly seemed likely. Getting our own group together had been an unholy scramble, and I couldn't see that he'd have had the time, even if the Reclaimers did have some clandestine business they didn't want to share with the rest of us. 'Why would they shoot their own CAT?'

Jurgen shrugged. 'Beats me,' he admitted. 'But why would a hybrid shoot another genestealer?'

That didn't make much sense either, and I shrugged in turn. 'We're missing something,' I said, edging gingerly around the repulsive cadaver. But there was no point worrying about it now. The important thing was to get back to the hangar bay and safety as quickly as possible. I hesitated for a moment, reorientating myself, and selected the next right-hand turning I could see, a few metres further on from where we stood. 'This way, I think.'

For once, it seemed, I was in luck. The corridor I'd chosen was long and unobstructed, and we made good time, despite the caution with which we continued to move. Though I carried on listening as assiduously as ever for the sinister skittering sound I'd come to know so well, there seemed to be a remarkable absence of genestealers in this part of the hulk, for which I gave continual thanks to the Emperor under my breath. Welcome as this unexpected development was, I must admit I found it vaguely disquieting. The only explanation which occurred to me was that Drumon and the Terminators were continuing to make a fight of it, and keeping the brood mind distracted. I couldn't see that happy circumstance lasting for much longer, if it was indeed the case, however, and made as much haste as possible, to wring the maximum advantage from the situation while I still could.

After a while I became aware that our surroundings were growing a little more distinct, the shadowy forms of struts and girders emerging out of the murk, and the outlines of piping and ventilator grilles becoming more clearly visible. I gestured to Jurgen. 'Kill the luminator,' I said.

He complied at once, plunging us into a darkness which seemed at first to be as profound as before. As our eyes adjusted, however, I found I'd been right, a pale glimmer of illumination seeping into our surroundings from somewhere up ahead. 'We need to go carefully,' I cautioned.

'Right you are, sir,' Jurgen agreed, holding his lasgun ready for use, and we pressed on, alert for any signs of ambush. So far as I knew, purestrain genestealers had no more need of light than the Astartes did, but some hybrids at least seemed more comfortable being able to see where they were going[124], and I could conceive of no other explanation of the lights ahead of us. We were a long way from our own party, if there was anything left of it at all, and the chances of a luminator system still happening to be functional aboard one of the derelicts after centuries of drifting in the warp without the ministrations of a tech-priest seemed vanishingly small. All my instincts were to turn back and avoid whatever might be waiting for us, but there was no sign of any immediate threat, and the Thunderhawk wouldn't wait forever. At least if something tried to kill us now we'd be able to see what it was, which in my experience is generally an advantage.

As I'd expected, the ambient light levels continued to grow as we moved closer to the source, the brightening glow leaking around corners and from side passages, until at last we came to a section of corridor where the luminators were functioning normally. As I stared around us, taking in our surroundings, a sense of disquiet I couldn't quite account for settled over me like the ever-present pall of choking dust. Wires were running from the glow-plates in the ceiling, linking them to one another, and down through a ragged hole in a nearby wall panel, beyond which they'd been crudely spliced into a thicker cable, which sparked and sizzled alarmingly.

'Tracks,' I said, stooping to examine them, but the dust had been kicked up too badly to discern anything other than the fact of considerable activity - something the repairs to the luminators had already been enough to tell me.

Jurgen edged past the hissing cable as though it might suddenly rear up like a serpent to strike at him, and I must confess I felt something of the same apprehension. This was clearly unsanctified work, with none of the amulets or prayers of protection a tech-priest would have put in place to make it safe, and the place positively crackled with the sour scent of danger[125]; I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stirring in response.

So pervasive, in fact, was the sense of some lurking threat in this unhallowed place, that the sudden sound of gunfire erupting from a nearby corridor came almost as a relief.

I HESITATED FOR a moment, torn, as so often in the course of my life, between the impulse to flee and the desire to discover precisely what threat I was facing. In truth, however, there was only one choice to be made, and I did so; on the battlefield it's the unexpected that kills you, and the best chance of safety I had was to find out what else was lurking in these corridors apart from me, a malodorous Guardsman, and an inordinate number of genestealers. I suppose I could have been influenced by the realisation that at least some of the shooting appeared to be coming from a bolter, which might mean the presence of more Reclaimers to hide behind, but in my heart of hearts I knew so convenient a development would be too much to hope for. Accordingly, I gestured for Jurgen to accompany me, and set off to discover what else the Emperor had placed aboard the Spawn of Damnation to make my life difficult.

Confident that the sounds of battle would mask any noise we might make, Jurgen and I picked up our pace, grateful for being able to see where we were going at last. The roar of gunfire grew louder as we got closer to its source, and I tightened my grip on my sidearm, snuggling the grip reassuringly into my palm. My recently acquired augmetics felt like a natural part of my body now, the forefinger resting gently against the trigger needing the merest flexion to spit death at whatever enemy had the temerity to present itself. In my other hand I held the chainsword, my thumb poised to activate the whirling blades at a heartbeat's notice. All of which may convey a little of what I felt at the time; although I was as loath as ever to go looking for trouble, I was pretty confident of being able to deal with any we might come across, especially if we could sneak up on it from behind. A notion, I'm bound to say, which I was soon to be disabused of.

The roar of weapons had increased in volume by now, and I began to pick out the sounds of several different kinds. The unmistakable sibilant bellow of bolter fire I'd already recognised, as I said, but behind and around it was a syncopation of stuttering slug-throwers, and the sharp bark of a shotgun or two. Something about the cacophony struck me as vaguely familiar then, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. There was another sound too, which surrounded and overlaid the others, an inchoate roaring like a deephive sumpfall[126], which I felt sure I ought to be able to identify, but which somehow continued to elude me.

'We seem to be coming to a hold or something,' Jurgen said, and I nodded, surprised. We'd passed through a few open spaces in our erratic progress, but the last really vast chamber we'd seen had been the hangar bay in which the Thunderhawk had docked; and the deeper we'd penetrated into the hulk, the more constricted our way had seemed to become.2 Now, though, the pattern of echoes indicated an open space far larger than any we'd so far come across, and I began to move more cautiously again. The passageway we were following seemed to be coming to an end, a rough rectangle of brighter illumination growing ahead of us, although as yet I had no idea what we'd find when we reached it.

As we did so, the noise, no longer attenuated by distance, battered at us like a physical force. I edged forwards a final pace or two, finding the corridor ended in a vertiginous drop, and glanced down, flattening myself against the last metre or so of the metal wall. My breath seemed to congeal in my chest, and I muttered a few expletives, in a combination I'd only previously heard in a gaming establishment when one of the patrons turned out to be carrying a few of his own cards for luck.

Jurgen was, as always, more succinct. 'Orks,' he said, as though they might somehow have escaped my notice. 'Thousands of 'em.'