Kill Team, page 25
‘Do it,’ I snarl. ‘Kill me, you don’t need me for this mission, I’m just going to be babysitting Quidlon and Tanya, and they can take care of themselves. I’ve done my part. You could have had me killed any time over the last four years, any time at all. And you’ve had justification. You could have killed me after you caught up with me and the rookies on Typhos Prime, but you let them persuade you otherwise.’
‘They were threatening to kill me if I did,’ he tries to argue, but not too convincingly. The Colonel’s never been too good at lying. Not telling the whole truth, he’s got plenty of practice at that, but outright lies? No, he just can’t pull it off.
‘They wouldn’t have, despite what they said,’ I tell him, bringing my hands down and pointing accusingly at me. ‘You could have killed me then, you could have left me for dead when we got lost in Coritanorum. You could have killed me after I murdered those Typhon officers and you found me drunk to the world, but no, you decided to wait until I woke up and then offer me another last chance, knowing I would take it.’
‘What do you want me to say, Kage?’ he asks, holstering the pistol. ‘That I need you on this mission in case it all goes wrong? That is true, I do need you as my back-up. You are without doubt one of the best soldiers I have ever met. But that is not what you really need from me. You want me to carry on punishing you, because that is what you deserve. You know it is true. This is not about redemption, this is about punishment. You had your chance to get out of this forever, but you threw it away because you still feel guilty. You have felt guilty all of your life, Kage, and you want me to feel guilty for you. You want me to put you through hell so that you can hate me, so that you do not have to admit that everything you are trying to prove to me is in fact something you need to prove to yourself.’
‘I’m a lying, cheating, murdering son of an ork,’ I laugh at him. ‘I was a bastard even before you got hold of me. What makes you think I feel guilty about anything I’ve done?’
‘It is not what you have done that plagues you, it is what you did not do,’ he says to me, striding up and standing full in my face. ‘You are right, you do not give a damn about those people you have killed, you do not care about the misery you have brought others. But you do know that perhaps, if you had not been so selfish and obsessed with your own survival, more of the Last Chancers might have made it out of Coritanorum alive.’
‘You never intended any of us to survive, you or Oriel,’ I accuse him, stepping back from his intimidating presence.
‘Where was your sacrifice when it was needed?’ he continues relentlessly, stepping forward again, my personal judge and jury. ‘Every night you ask yourself if you could have saved them. Do you think you could have saved Franx if you had not played dead in that air attack? Would you have steered Gappo away from that minefield if you had not been trying to desert? Why did you sweat blood on Kragmeer to save Franx? Was it because you felt he was better than you? Do you hate yourself because all of those people who died deserved to live more than you did? That is why you are Last Chance. That is why you need me to punish you, because yes, you are a loathsome, selfish, cowardly piece of filth who the Emperor should have killed. But for your life you do not know why he has not, and instead has taken away everyone you once knew, except me. I am the only thing you have left, Kage. I am not a memory and I am here to tell you that you do not walk away from me when I am talking to you. Nothing has changed, you are still scum and it is still my duty to save you from yourself.’
I just laugh out loud. A good hearty laugh from the gut, making my jaw ache. The Colonel stands there, looking at me with a quizzical stare, one eyebrow raised. I manage to get myself under control. A couple of the others start to come over, but when they see the Colonel, they back off again.
‘Yes, Colonel,’ I reply, saluting smartly, even as I try to stop smirking. ‘If you have finished being a sanctimonious son of a bitch, sir, I would like my squad to fall in for inspection.’
‘Carry on, Lieutenant Kage,’ he says with a nod, the formality restored. My thoughts are jumbled as I walk away, feeling his piercing gaze on my back, but they soon clarify when I start shouting orders at the others.
Oriel turns up about midday and tells us to pack up and clear out. The mission is going ahead here and now. Without comment we get ready, do our last weapons checks, pack our ammo up and leave the rest. Having sleeping rolls and camp burners will only weigh us down, so we head off light. We exchange brief waves of farewell with the kroot, who are also getting ready to leave. Oriel leads us unerringly through the streets, avoiding the worst crowds of the alien quarter, taking us up past the space port. He points to a tau ship standing on the apron, a gleaming white shuttle decorated with large tau symbols in red. That’s Brightsword’s transport; he’s already headed to the battle dome for the inspection.
The inquisitor leads us away from the space port and we see another dome, out in the desert, linked to the city by a single gleaming silver rail. As we get closer, I see bullet-shaped carriages slipping back and forth along the rail and realise it is some kind of locomotive.
‘That is how we will gain access to the battle dome,’ he tells us, pointing as one of the transports zooms past. ‘The training drill you performed on the Laurels of Glory represents the zone of action once we are inside the dome. Trost’s demolitions will provide the distraction we will need to infiltrate the central complex where the power relays are situated. Once there, Quidlon, Tanya and Kage, rejoined by Trost, will cut the power to the outer entryways and the rail system, cutting the dome off from the outside. The Colonel, Moerck and I will sweep O’var out of hiding, into Tanya’s sights. She kills the commander, and we exit again through the rail terminal. Strelli, there is a shuttle some five kilometres or so to the sunward of the dome, out in the desert, which you will go to.’
‘When you activate this you should be able to see the shuttle.’ The inquisitor passes Strelli a small cylinder with a brass rune etched into its base. ‘Fly back to the dome to pick us up. Once we’re on board, we will return to our ship in orbit. I have spoken to Coldwind and he assures us that the chain of command will be uncertain for a while following Brightsword’s death, and he will do what he can to increase that confusion.’
‘That’s all well and good,’ says Tanya, watching another transport bullet speed out of sight, ‘but how do we get on one of the trains?’
Quidlon curses gently and continuously under his breath as we lower him down into the hole. Oriel assures us that the power relays for the travel rail are buried here, and Quidlon simply needs to temporarily cut the power, bringing one of the carriages to a halt. We take the train, switch the power on and ride it all the way inside the fortified dome. Sounds good on paper, but judging from Quidlon’s swearing the practice is a little more difficult. It also took us the best part of an hour to find one of the power conduits, sneaking amongst the desert dunes in case a fire warrior saw us from one of the passing carriages and became suspicious. After a while, he emerges, blinking in the bright light after spending several minutes in the small opening we found after levering up a panel situated a couple of hundred metres from the rail.
‘I think the power will shut down for several minutes,’ he tells us, dusting himself off and putting some oddly-shaped tools back into his pack.
‘You think?’ Moerck barks at him.
‘I don’t know how tau timing systems work, they don’t even use seconds and minutes, so I’m having to guess,’ he moans back, obviously aggravated. ‘I couldn’t even read the labels on all the switches and terminals, so think yourself lucky I’m not a fried mess right about now.’
‘So we manage to stop one of the carriages. What then?’ asks Trost.
‘I say we kill everybody on board,’ I tell them, looking around for disagreement.
‘Last Chance is right,’ Trost agrees. ‘Half of us each side, attacking from the front and back. We storm the place, shoot anything that moves and then wait for the power to come back on. These things don’t have drivers, it’ll take us right in there.’
‘Demolition Man, Kage and Sharpshooter are with me,’ the Colonel orders us quickly, glancing down the line towards the city where a dazzle of sun on metal indicates the next transport. ‘The rest of you with Oriel. Keep low, shoot at chest height, that way we should avoid killing each other.’
‘First in, with a grenade,’ I suggest, pulling a frag charge from my belt. ‘That’ll take most of them out in such a tight space.’
The Colonel nods and Trost chucks one of his frag grenades to Oriel, who passes it to Strelli.
‘Why do I get to go in first?’ he whines, holding out the grenade for someone else to take.
‘Because we can always walk out of there if we need to, Flyboy,’ I tell him bluntly.
‘Oh, gonna walk up to orbit are we?’ he says bitterly, spitting on the ground and stalking away.
Oriel and the others cross the rail and wait on the other side a couple of hundred metres further up the route. We don’t try to hide; as far as I know, there’s nothing the tau on board the fast-approaching land shuttle can do to stop even if they did see us.
‘You are in first, Demolition Man,’ the Colonel says, pointing at Trost. ‘Then Last Chance and myself. Sharpshooter, you stay here and take out any targets that present themselves at the windows.’
I can see the carriage approaching now, slowing down as it nears us, carried forward by momentum rather than power now that it has moved onto the section cut off from the energy grid. Like I said, it’s bullet-shaped, about twenty metres long, with a row of narrow windows roughly two thirds of the way up the side. There are no obvious wheels, it glides soundlessly above the rail. It goes past us still moving quite quickly but slowing, and as we run after it, it settles down onto the track, its lower parts carving furrows into the sand, braking it even more quickly.
At the back of the carriage is a small triangle of steps leading down to either side. I point Trost to the right hand flight and he nods, hefting a grenade in his hand. Tanya peels off to our left, diving prone and taking up a firing position along a sand drift. The hatchway at the top of the steps opens and the door hisses upwards. A tau in a fire warrior’s uniform sticks his head out and the Colonel fires, the bullets impacting into the alien and flinging him backwards.
With a skill born of years of practice, Trost lobs a grenade straight through the opening and there’s panicked shouting from inside. The detonation blasts out the back five windows and hurls a body out of the door. About two seconds later an accompanying explosion takes out the front half of the train. Trost reaches the steps first and throws himself up, firing with his lasgun as he jumps inside. I go in next, firing the autogun to the right, one-handed, pulling myself through the hatch with my spare hand. Glass crunches under my feet and I see tau bodies strewn all over the benches that run the length of each side of the transport. One or two move and we fire into them, and I hear the Colonel jump up behind me, his autopistol at the ready.
The others burst in from the front and we stand there looking at each other and the three dozen or so corpses lying between us. A few more start to come round so we begin the grisly job of executing them all, pulling off their helmets and putting a round into every single head. Tanya joins us, but keeps her finger away from the trigger of her sniper rifle.
‘Let’s clear some space,’ I hear Oriel say, as he grabs a corpse by its legs and begins to drag it towards the door. As I grab another under the arms and heft it up, a humming begins beneath my feet and I feel the train start lifting off the ground again. Hurrying, we grab bodies and push them out of the doors, watching them tumble helplessly into the dust and sand as the train picks up speed.
‘Won’t someone see them?’ Tanya asks, putting her hands under the armpits of one of the fire warriors.
‘We will be inside and the alarm raised by the time that happens, Emperor willing,’ Moerck points out.
‘How long until we get there?’ asks Strelli, helping Tanya lift up the body.
‘Ten, fifteen minutes at most, judging by our acceleration and the time it’ll take us to brake to a stop,’ Quidlon says, peering through one of the shattered windows.
‘Forget the rest, get ready,’ Oriel says, slamming a fresh clip into his pistol and cocking it. It reminds me of the first time I saw him, in the plasma chamber of Coritanorum, two smoking autopistols in his hands. He’s assumed the same cockiness, the same confidence and air of control. There’s no doubt at all he knows what he is doing – that if any of us will get out of this alive, it’s him.
‘When we start to slow down, jump for it,’ the Colonel tells Strelli, pushing him towards the back doorway. ‘Head for the shuttle but give us at least one hour before you deactivate the stealth field, because when you do the tau will know it is there. After that, get to us as quickly as you can.’
‘Where’s Coldwind?’ the pilot asks, a bit of a strange question at a time like this.
‘His part in the mission is over. He’s not even going to be at the battle dome,’ Oriel replies from up front, waving Strelli to get out. I stand at the top of the steps as he climbs down towards the speeding ground. I give him a thumbs up and he lets go, pushing himself off to one side with his legs. I see him land and roll. A moment later and he’s on his feet.
He stands there and waves. As we carry on, I watch him, still standing there, making no effort that I can see to get to the shuttle.
The next few minutes pass in silence as we all watch the battle dome rise further and further out of the sands as we get closer. It’s big, bigger than I imagined it would be when we were training back aboard the Laurels of Glory. I reckon it must be as least three, maybe four kilometres across at the base, dwarfing anything we saw back near the space port. Even the battle dome on Me’lek was only half the size, though I guess they had a lot more of them there.
I feel the locomotive decelerating quickly now. The dome’s just a few hundred metres away, and I get ready, crouching down by one of the broken windows, the autogun warm in my hands, all thoughts of Me’lek put to the back of my mind. Trost jumps for it a hundred metres shy of the black hole that swallows up the rail, and heads off to the right, pulling charges from his pack. I check the autogun one last time and rest it on the sill of the window.
‘Last Chance,’ Quidlon says to me, a worried expression on his face. ‘I’ve been thinking: we’re about to take on a whole army, just the handful of us I mean. How are we supposed to beat a whole army?’
‘Inquisitor?’ I call out to Oriel at the front of the coach. ‘How many are we gonna be facing?’
‘Coldwind says it’s just Brightsword’s own hunter cadre and one other cadre left here,’ he tells me, looking back down the carriage at us. ‘About a hundred, maybe a hundred and twenty warriors.’
‘Small change, Brains,’ I say to Quidlon, grinning. ‘Coritanorum, now that was a real army we took down, thousands of them.’
‘How did you do it?’ he asks, subdued for a change.
‘Short answer or long one?’ I say to him, peering out of the window. The opening in the side of the dome gets closer and closer. The white dome itself gleams in the strong light, dazzling against a pure blue sky.
‘I think we’ve only got time for the short answer, Last Chance,’ Tanya says from the opposite side of the aisle.
‘Take them on in small lumps,’ I laugh, feeling very calm. The throbbing in my head begins to subside as I settle down. It’s like everything from the last few months focussing in to me, that out-of-body feeling I’ve had before. The rapture I told Tanya about earlier, the feeling that something else is inside my body.
Everything goes dim for a second as we pass inside the dome, but I realise it isn’t really dark, the yellow lighting is simply nowhere near as bright as the harsh glare outside. In a moment we’re through the gateway and entering the terminal. Long boarding platforms run the length of the track on each side, with wide archways at regular intervals. There are a few tau fire warriors stationed there and I can imagine their surprise as the train glides gently to a halt, its windows smashed.
We don’t give them a chance to react.
I rise up slightly, still with the autogun on the window frame, and open fire with a short burst, gunning down the nearest tau, the bullets kicking across his stomach and chest, ripping chunks out of his armoured breastplate. The Colonel aims low at another, the row of bullet impacts from his pistol stitching a line along the wall before kneecapping the warrior. Oriel is jumping through the door, firing as he leaps, scoring a cluster of perfect hits on the helmet of a third warrior.
I propel myself out of the back door and roll left to the opposite of the now-stationary carriage, using its back end for cover. A fire warrior turns to run through one of the archways, but I get a bead on him first, the shots taking him high in the back and pitching him forward. He rolls and clambers to his feet, still alive and kicking, and returns fire with his bulky carbine, chewing a massive chunk out of the side of the train and forcing me to duck back.
Glancing out, I see Quidlon fire from inside, his fusillade of las-bolts slamming into the fire warrior and spinning him down again.
Just then, a dull boom sounds from our right, Trost’s charges going up. A piercing wail fills the air as warning sirens screech into life.
‘Make for the power complex!’ the Colonel bellows, following Oriel and Moerck out of the other side of the station in search of Brightsword. They have to flush the commander out into the open so that Tanya can get her shot. I silently wish them the protection of the Emperor.
Quidlon and Tanya join me in the nearest archway. It all springs back to life, the hours and days and weeks spent on the Laurels of Glory. It’s just how the training bay was set up. We go through this arch, take the next doorway on the left, three doors to the right down the corridor and across a jungle arena. On the other side are two more doors and then we’re into the central plaza, the power facility and armoury entrance.
