The Warmaster

Nine: Blood Price

The only sounds were the crackle of flames and the sigh of the fire suppression system as it struggled to activate. The corridor section was in a low-power state. Torn cables hung like ropes of intestine from the ­buckled ceiling panels. Sparks drifted.

The Archenemy raiders picked their way along, the soft glow of their visor slits flashing and darting. They were advance guard, the reavers who cut deep into a victim ship to kill any resistance ahead of the main force. They were more heavily plated across the chest, shoulders, arms and groin, the armour segments patched and las-scarred. Their weapons were clearance tools: shot-cannons, rotator guns, broad-snout laslocks and concussion mauls.

They made remarkably little sound as they advanced. Their long, filthy robes muted the sway of their under-mail, and the metal mesh of their gloves had been over-wrapped with rags. They communicated by gesture, and sub-vox squirts, the tiniest whispers.

They were good. Formidable. Stealthy.

Mkoll was impressed. He hoped he would be equally impressed with Captain Zhukova’s stealth skills as the raiders approached. They had wedged themselves into a maintenance alcove, a tight through-deck duct. There was barely room to breathe. There was just room to hide.

Both of them had a tight grip on their weapons, ready to move and fire. Mkoll had half an eye on Zhukova, ready to suppress any movement or sound she might make that would give their location away. She had controlled her breathing well, but her eyes were wide. She was scared. That was good. Scared was good. A soldier who claimed he wasn’t scared wasn’t much of soldier.

Watching the approach, Mkoll ran the numbers. He could see at least a dozen of the enemy prowling forwards, and they were spaced in a way that suggested they were the spearhead of an advance, not a discrete squad. That meant what? Thirty? Fifty? If they had any sense, they’d have heavier gunners and crew-supported weapons close behind. That’s the way the Ghosts would do it, and these devils seemed to have plenty of sense and plenty of skill.

Mkoll was good, but trying to tackle thirty plus of the enemy was suicide. If he’d had a few grenades to shock them back and scatter them, that might improve things. But grenades in a tunnel-fight were a bad idea. He’d deafen himself, blind himself too, probably. Any advantage the blasts would give him would be lost at once.

He saw one of the raiders gesture. They were opening side hatches and compartments as they advanced. Mkoll thought they’d spotted him and the Verghast woman, but they were moving to the other side of the corridor, approaching a compartment hatch eight metres down on the left.

One stepped in, and slit the lock-bolt off with a thermal cutter. Another wrenched the hatch open. It swung wide with a metal squeal. Mkoll heard a scream, a pleading voice.

The raiders fired booming scatter-shot blasts into the hatchway, then moved inside. More shooting, dull and muffled.

They’d found crew. Stokers probably, or artifice adepts, cowering in the only bolthole they had been able to find. They were systematically murdering them.

One broke free. A midshipman in a tattered Navy coat, wounded in the arm. He ran, screaming, into the corridor. One of the raiders waiting outside took him down with a shot cannon. The flash-boom of the weapon covered the grisly thump of the midshipman’s exploded carcass slamming off the corridor wall.

Zhukova glanced at Mkoll. Her eyes were wider. He knew the look. ‘We should help–’

Mkoll shook his head.

We can’t save them. At this rate, we can’t save ourselves. They’re going to find us any moment now…

Mkoll signed to Zhukova, You. Stay here. Wait.

She frowned.

He repeated it, and added the gesture for emphasis.

She nodded.

He could slip across the corridor to the bulkhead frame on the opposite side. If they were going to be found anyway, and they were, two shooting positions were better than one. They could lay down a crossfire, and cover each other’s angles. A better field of fire. She knew that. She knew there was no running away, and no point pretending they could remain undiscovered.

Mkoll prepared to move. The raiders were still busy clearing the side compartment. Their attention was directed. The poor souls getting butchered would buy Mkoll and Zhukova a moment’s grace to set up a better stand.

The raiders suddenly stopped their clearance work. Mkoll watched as they halted and, to a man, looked up. They seemed to be listening to something.

He tightened his finger on the rifle trigger. It was about to begin. They’d have to make the best of their poor positioning. If there was any grace in the galaxy, the Emperor would protect.

Protect them long enough to take down a decent tally at least. To make a good account, that’s all he could wish for now.

Mkoll heard the tinny, muted whistling of sub-vox comms. The raiders stiffened, and then moved away, fast, back in the direction they had come.

He waited. Was it a trick?

He waited some more. He heard nothing but the crackle of flames.

He moved to step out of the alcove. Zhukova grabbed his arm tightly. He looked back at her, made an open-handed sign of reassurance.

Mkoll slid into the open. He moved forwards, rifle at his shoulder, maintaining aim. There was no one around except the smouldering corpse of the hapless midshipman. Where the hell had they gone?

He glanced around. Zhukova was beside him, her carbine up at her cheek, matching his careful approach.

‘Are we clear?’ she whispered.

‘We’ll find that out,’ he replied.

He hadn’t thought much of her to begin with. The Verghast were good soldiers. They generally lacked the finesse of the Tanith, but they easily matched them in heart and courage. Some of the best soldiers in the regiment were Verghast. But Zhukova had struck him as too young, too pretty, too soft, too haughty. A classic example of the ambitious, well-connected, politically advanced Guard officer that Mkoll had encountered too many times in his service career. All words, all personality, all orders, expecting others to do the scut-work because they lacked the talent and fibre to do it themselves.

He had to revise that a little. She’d led from the front today, and not wavered. She’d kept her head together. And she was as resolved and silent as feth. Her looks belied the fact she was a first-class trooper. He thought it was a shame she’d ever got promoted. She’d have excelled in a field speciality.

‘Where did they go?’ Zhukova asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Mkoll.

‘They backed up fast,’ she said.

He nodded.

They reached the next transverse junction. Ahead of them, and to either side, the corridors were empty. Just debris, signs of damage,­ a few small fires.

‘Something’s going on,’ said Mkoll quietly.

They edged down the tunnel directly ahead. At the far end, blast doors had been buckled open. Smoke was wafting through the jagged gap. Mkoll put his back against the corridor wall and slid along it slowly, so he could maintain the best aim and angle through the twisted gap. Zhukova covered him from the other side, a few paces back. Perfect hand-off position.

Metal screeched. The buckled blast hatch bulged and tore in at them as something came through it, ripping the thick plating like wet plyboard.

Mkoll took his finger off the trigger at the very last moment. He was about to shout to Zhukova, but she was right in the zone, and shot off a trio of las-bolts at the centre mass of the thing coming through.

Then she stopped shooting.

Eadwine of the Silver Guard looked down briefly at the scorched shot marks on his torso plate. The bulk of him filled the ruptured doorway.

‘Unnecessary,’ he remarked, his voice a soft whisper through the helmet speaker.

‘M-my apologies,’ Zhukova replied, lowering her carbine. ‘Lord, I thought you were–’

‘Obviously,’ said Eadwine. He took two steps forwards. Each pace felt like someone had taken a door-ram to the deck. They heard the micro-whine of his armour’s power system as it flexed.

‘Nothing beyond?’ he asked Mkoll, towering over the Tanith scout.

‘There were plenty,’ said Mkoll, ‘but they retreated fast about five minutes ago. Heading this way.’

‘I met some,’ said Eadwine. ‘They no longer live. Others were moving rapidly towards the aft sections.’

‘What does it mean?’ asked Zhukova, daring to step forwards and approach the giant Adeptus Astartes warrior.

‘It means something is going on,’ replied Eadwine. ‘Something strange.’

Mkoll glanced at Zhukova.

‘Told you,’ he said.

‘Something’s going on,’ said Oysten, listening to the ’phones of her vox-set.

Hark and the Suicide Kings stood around her, watching.

‘And how would you define that exactly?’ asked Rawne.

‘Awry?’ suggested Varl.

‘It went quiet,’ said the vox-operator, ‘I mean really quiet, for a minute or two and then the transmissions restarted. They’ve gone berserk. No chatter discipline.’

‘We should get up there,’ said Bonin. Cardass nodded in agreement.

‘I believe you have particular duties here,’ said Hark, ‘and I believe Major Rawne shouldn’t have to remind you of that.’

‘I shouldn’t,’ Rawne agreed quietly. He was staring at Oysten. He was thinking, and that made him look more dangerous than usual.

‘Mach’s right though, inn’e?’ growled Brostin. The flame-trooper was sitting in a far corner of the brig, nominally watching the access shutter. His bulk overspilled the seat of his canvas folding chair. His greasy flamer kit lay around his feet, ready to uncoil, like a pet serpent.

‘Meaning?’ asked Hark.

‘If we’re dead,’ said Brostin, ‘if the ship’s dead, I mean… “spectacularly fethed”… then guarding wossname here is not so much a priority.’

He glanced at Mabbon.

‘No offence, your unholiness,’ he added. Mabbon didn’t reply.

‘If this is our last ditch, we should go down fighting like bastards,’ ­Brostin went on. ‘Give ’em fething hell as they choke us out, ’stead of skulking around in a fething prison block.’

‘To be fair,’ said Varl, ‘that’s what most of us have spent most of our lives doing.’

‘Not funny, sergeant,’ said Hark.

‘Sort of funny,’ said Mabbon quietly.

‘If we’re dead,’ said Bonin, ‘we should die with the rest. Alongside the rest. Fighting. Go to the Throne by giving a good account of ourselves.’

‘When have we ever not done that?’ asked Cardass.

‘And if there’s a chance we’re going to live through this,’ said Bonin, ‘then another company up at the sharp end has got to increase that hope.’

‘’specially us,’ said Varl.

‘They may need us right now,’ said Cardass. ‘We could be the strength that makes the difference.’

Hark looked at Rawne.

Rawne sighed.

‘We have a duty,’ Rawne said. ‘Clear orders to guard and protect. I’m not going to end my days defying an express fething order.’

He looked at Mabbon.

‘But we can work out how best to implement that order,’ he said. ‘Could be that the best way to protect our charge is to get out there and kill stuff a lot.’

‘You should make that your company motto, major,’ said Mabbon.

‘I want more intel,’ said Rawne. ‘I want to know how the situation has changed.’

Mabbon got to his feet off the metal stool they allowed him to sit on. Flanked by LaHurf and Varl, he shuffled back to the voxcaster, his shackles chinking.

Oysten nervously held out the headset. Mabbon shrugged and smiled back. His chained hands wouldn’t permit him to raise the headset to his ear.

‘Feth’s sake,’ grumbled Varl, and took the headset from Oysten. With a look of distaste, he pressed one cup of the headset to Mabbon’s right ear and held it there.

Mabbon tilted his head forwards, stooping slightly, and listened.

‘Busy… a lot of chatter…’ he said. ‘Oysten is correct. There is no discipline, and that is unusual. V’heduak sub-sonics and vox is usually ordered and economic. There is panic.’

‘Panic?’ said Hark.

‘We’ve kicked their arses, haven’t we?’ smiled Varl.

‘No,’ said Mabbon, still listening. ‘I can make out transmissions from unit leaders and command staff trying to quiet the panic. They are… they are repeatedly stating that the ship is taken, despite resistance, and that boarding forces should continue to their goals and complete objectives. They…’

‘They what?’ asked Rawne.

‘They say some unflattering things about their Imperial enemies,’ said Mabbon with an apologetic tone. ‘About how you are close to being crushed. I won’t translate. It’s just invective to stabilise morale.’

He listened some more.

‘But the seize units are in rout. They are breaking formation and falling back. They are abandoning their efforts to secure the ship. They… they don’t care about the ship any more. They care about… living. They are afraid of something.’

‘Us?’ asked Rawne.

‘No, major,’ said Mabbon. He stepped back from the vox-set.

‘They are afraid of the great destroyer,’ he said. ‘They are afraid of the Tormaggeddon Monstrum Rex.’