Annihilation Squad, page 3
‘One thing, Kage,’ says the Colonel, and I turn back. ‘Bear in mind that the infirmary is not very well equipped, and the platoon is already at minimum strength after the incident with Morgan.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind, sir,’ I say with a nod before opening the door and stepping out. As I turn and close the door, I catch a glimpse of the Colonel leaning the chair onto its back legs, a satisfied smile on his face.
It’s two more days before Goran steps out of line again and gives me the opportunity to do what I’ve been wanting to do for the past six months. It’s evening meal, and his squad, under Sergeant Candlerick, is up on dinner duty. He short-rations Brownie Dunmore’s dish, and the heavy weapons man starts to complain. Although it’s slush, it’s the only thing we have, so I can see Brownie’s point. Don’t ask me why they call him Brownie, his real name is Brin. I should ask him sometime.
Anyway, things get a little heated over the counter, and Brownie ends up slapping his dish at Goran. Goran’s a big guy, nearly a head taller than me. He looms over Brownie and takes a swing with his heavy ladle, smacking Brownie straight across the face. As Goran leaps over the counter, scattering pans and dishes everywhere, I make my move. I ghost up next to Dunmore, nobody noticing me.
Brownie’s not seriously hurt, he’s just smarting. Goran swings the ladle back for another attack. Goran, who once battered one of his squad mates to death over a game of cards, knows how to use his size well.
So do I.
Stepping forward, I drive the extended fingers of my right hand into Goran’s windpipe, and he drops the ladle and clutches both hands to his throat. I drive my right boot into the side of his abdomen, low enough not to crack any ribs, winding him. My left hook catches him above the right eye. I don’t break his jaw or nose, but the blow opens up a cut that bleeds down his face. Roaring, he takes a swing at me, which I duck. Then I turn the move into a leg sweep that crashes into the back of his right knee, sending him tumbling.
I let him get up and take a couple of swings at me. His face is contorted with anger. He’s fast as well as big, and I have to stay on my toes, swaying back out of his long reach. Then I step inside his guard to hammer my right fist square onto his chin, driving his jawbone up into his face and stunning him. He swings another right at me, sluggishly this time, and I trap his wrist in my hands and twist. Pulling him towards me, I drive my left boot into his armpit and his shoulder pops like a cork.
A short strike to the back of his neck knocks him face down onto the metal decking. He lies there groaning, clutching his dislocated shoulder.
‘Fix him up,’ I say to Keiger, who’s proved the most adept at blood work. ‘Sergeant Candlerick, you will excuse Trooper Goran from heavy duties for the next two days.’
The platoon looks at me with a mixture of awe, shock and joy.
‘It’s time you all started acting like soldiers, not a pack of wild dogs,’ I tell them, walking to the door. I pull out my small book of regs and tear it in half. I can’t read it anyway; I always have to ask Lorii to find things for me. ‘I’m the top dog, and anyone who steps out of line from now on answers to me. You were convicted under Imperial law, but now you’re under Kage law, understand?’
They reply in murmurs, most of them are looking at the floor, avoiding my gaze.
‘I’ll think you’ll find a sling in the infirmary,’ I say to Keiger as I march smartly out of the room to the Colonel’s office.
Needless to say, the platoon is on its best behaviour for the next few days. Topasz manages not to steal anything, Goran gives me as wide a berth as possible, and I suspect that even Jueqna has stopped spitting in the gruel when he’s on food detail.
Riding the mood, I give them solid drill for the next two days, marching them up and down the training chamber, and getting the sergeants to bellow out the orders. I never liked square-bashing myself when I was a trooper, but now I realise it’s one of the best ways to show who’s in charge. I say a word, a sergeant shouts a command, and they do whatever they’ve been told to do. In battle, unquestioning obedience is essential for survival. No pondering the rights and wrongs, no wondering whether I’m right. They do what they’re told, because I’m in charge.
I exhaust them for the two days, drilling them until the sergeants are hoarse. I give them the next day as rest. Of course, with only half of them being able to bunk at any one time, they have to find their own diversions.
A lot of them sit in the mess, swapping stories. I remember doing that: telling the same old tales to the same people again and again, and listening to the same old tales from the same old people as if I’d never heard them. I listen to it all. I hear where they’re from, what they did before joining up, their first love, their first battle, the wound that still gives them trouble whenever it’s cold and wet. All of it is the same. I’ve met a lot of soldiers in my time, but underneath the skin, the uniform, they’re all pretty much the same. Even these wretches.
In fact, I’ve come to believe that the Last Chancers are probably the ideal soldiers. I can understand why the Colonel finds us so useful. Every man or woman who joins the Imperial Guard knows that they can never go home. They are shipped for months to a war on a world they’ve probably never heard of. They might carry the memories of their home world and their family, but the reality is that they will never see either again. A regiment that serves well, does its time, fights its campaign, is often allowed to retire with honours. Some make their home where they have fought; others join an explorator fleet and conquer a new planet in the name of Holy Terra and the Emperor. Those are the ones that survive, of course.
Us Last Chancers get to live if we do well. It’s as plain and simple as that. If we do poorly we’ll die in battle, and that’s the chance that every soldier takes. Our regiments aren’t even our homes any more. I have no idea where the Olympas 24th Lifeguard is now. They might still be garrisoning that backwater hole called Stygies where I ran foul of my sergeant, causing me to be where I am now. Perhaps Stygies was invaded, perhaps not. Frankly, I don’t give a damn.
All they have left is the Last Chancers, and the Colonel. No family, no friends, no home. Just comrades who would steal their teeth for a meal, or slice out their guts to look at the pretty colours. But they’re the only comrades they’ve got, and so they tell stories.
The stories the Last Chancers tell always have a final chapter. It always ends with what they did wrong, and how they ended up with the Colonel. Take Brin Dunmore, for instance. His sin was pride. He’s a top heavy weapons expert, trained as part of an engineer corps from Stralia. From heavy stubbers to lascannons and mortars, he can use them all. Problem is, he had to prove just how good he was. He took a bet that he couldn’t use an anti-tank missile to shoot down an airplane. He proved he could, but unfortunately the plane he shot was an Imperial Interceptor returning from a sortie. They threw him in the lock house faster than the plane came down. I really should find out why he’s called Brownie.
My musings are interrupted when klaxons begin to sound, reverberating off the metal walls. I leap to my feet and head out of the door towards the wardroom. The Colonel meets me halfway, his eyes dangerously narrowed.
‘Send the platoon to the armoury,’ he snaps. ‘Meet me on the upper deck.’
I don’t ask questions; I just turn and shout at the squad to move out to the armoury. I follow them down the spiral staircase to the deck below. Erasmus already has the doors open and is handing out lasguns and shotguns. I notice that the provosts are nowhere to be seen.
‘Gear up, Last Chancers!’ I shout, snatching a shotgun and a belt of shells from the back of the storeroom servitor. ‘Time to die!’
I reach the upper deck at the head of the platoon and hear shots roaring out and ringing off the walls. We’re halfway along the central access corridor that runs the length of the ship; it is about three hundred metres long. A few provosts stand at the far end, firing through the doors into the chamber beyond. There’s a bright red flash and one of them comes flying backwards, trailing smoking innards. He crashes some twenty metres in front of us, screaming his head off.
‘Keiger!’ I snap, dashing past the stricken Commissariat trooper.
The Colonel emerges from a side chamber just before I reach the double doors at the end. With him is Vandikar Kelth, one of the ship’s Navigators. He’s tall and thin, with the distinctive bulbous skull of a Navigator. He wears a silk scarf tied tightly across his forehead. He swishes past me in a skin-tight green suit under a white robe, and looks down the corridor.
‘What’s happening, sir?’ I ask over the shouts of the provosts and the cannonade of their shotguns.
‘It is Forlang,’ says Kelth, turning back to me. He is referring to the other surviving Navigator. The third that started with us, Bujurn Adelph, went crazy and threw himself out of an airlock six months into the journey.
‘Gone mad?’ I ask, glancing at the Colonel.
‘Worse,’ Schaeffer replies.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse inside the far chamber, which is the landing that leads up to the tower where the Navigators stay, doing whatever it is that they do to steer a ship through warp space. There are two provosts on the ground, lying in a crumpled heap, blood leaking from their visored helmets. Three of the ship’s crew are on the ground next to them, one of them a smouldering burnt husk, the other two missing limbs. I see Forlang standing at the foot of the steps. He’s naked, except for a few tatters of bloodied white robes that hang from bony protrusions jutting from his flesh. His fingers have fused into long claws; there are scraps of flesh hanging from their tips.
A provost steps into the breech and fires his shotgun, obscuring my view. A moment later the sound of lots of bones snapping at the same time echoes down the hall and the provost collapses, crumpling in on himself.
‘Possessed?’ I say, horrified, turning to Kelth. ‘How?’
‘Take it down,’ the Colonel says, ignoring my question.
‘Squad one with me!’ I shout, running down the corridor. ‘Squad two, covering fire. Squad three, ready for reserve or rearguard.’
I hear Kelth shouting something after me, but I don’t register what he says until I’ve burst into the room, the shotgun booming in my grasp.
‘Don’t look into his eye!’ the Navigator warns.
‘Don’t what?’ I ask, instinctively looking at the possessed Navigator’s face.
His mouth is open in a grin; blood is streaming from toothless gums. His eyes are deep red, the colour of fresh blood. It’s then I realised what Kelth had said. I always wondered what it was that navigators kept hidden under their scarves or bandanas. Now I know, and I wish I didn’t. In the middle of Forlang’s forehead is a swirling vortex, about the size of a normal eye, but it extends forever and into impossible depths.
To my right, Topasz screams. The sound echoes shrilly off the walls. There’s the sound of a lasblast and parts of bloody matter spatter across my face and arm as she blows her own brains out. Just in front of me, Goran falls to his knees as Forlang turns towards him.
A blast of rippling energy leaps out of the possessed Navigator’s third eye, enveloping Goran’s chest. His ribs splay outwards, tearing through the skin and flinging ruptured organs across the floor.
Forlang turns his eye on me.
I look straight at it, into that swirling maelstrom. I feel a hot wind on my face, and hear the sound of crackling flames close by. The vortex turns red. Steam drifts out of the impossible orb.
I look away and bring up the shotgun. Forlang’s face is twisted in a contortion of rage, which is replaced by a look of abject terror as I stare back at him.
‘The fires await!’ he screams at me, his voice unnaturally cracked and high-pitched. ‘Damnation will burn your soul!’
I pull the shotgun trigger and the shell takes Forlang square in the chest, knocking him to the ground. He gets to one knee and looks up at me.
‘It is not only the angel that ascends on wings!’ he shrieks.
‘Shut up!’ I snarl, hoping that the others think he’s raving.
I pump another round into the chamber and advance, shooting him in the chest again. Bone and muscle fly into the air, but still he’s shouting at me. Three more shells, the last into his face, stop him moving. He’s still not dead, though. I don’t know how I can tell, perhaps just instinct, perhaps something more sinister.
The Colonel appears next to me, bolt pistol in hand, followed swiftly by Kelth, who sweeps past and runs up the steps into the Navigator’s pilaster. He returns quickly with a black hood, which he pulls over the pulped remains of Forlang’s head.
‘He’s not dead,’ I say, and Forlang looks over his shoulder at me, his dark eyes glittering.
‘Yes he is,’ he says, standing up and taking a step towards us. ‘But the thing still dwells in the carcass.’
‘How do we destroy it?’ the Colonel asks.
‘We cannot, not here,’ says the Navigator. ‘I have a… a chamber, a special cell. I can keep it there until we jump back to the materium.’
‘Do you need any assistance?’ the Colonel asks, stepping towards the twitching corpse.
‘No!’ snaps Kelth, stepping in front of the Colonel and barring his way. ‘I will deal with this, do not interfere.’ The Colonel looks as if he’s going to argue and then turns away.
‘Notify me when you are done and I’ll have the bodies cleared away,’ Schaeffer says, looking at me as he walks out of the room.
‘Clear out, platoon,’ I say. ‘Last squad ready for roll call is on gristle duty!’
THREE
UNHAPPY ARRIVAL
More than ever, it’s a blessed relief to jump out of warp space. Warp travel is the most dangerous thing a man can do, so I give an even longer prayer than usual to the Emperor for delivering me safe and sound into real space. We still have no idea where we are, and the Colonel’s not forthcoming.
For another eight days we travel in-system, before the Colonel tells us to turn out for disembarking. We assemble in the docking bay, eager to find out where we are.
When the doors open, we walk across the threshold into a spacious airlock, and the ship’s boarding gates close up behind us. The air that comes in is fresh and chill, a welcome relief for the others. After a long wait, the inner doors open and the Colonel leads us in. Waiting for us is a commissar, peaked cap low over his eyes, a data-slate in one hand. He talks quietly with the Colonel for a moment, before turning and walking down the corridor. We trail after him, exchanging questioning glances.
We’re aboard an orbiting station of some sort, that’s for certain. The corridors are of dull, unpolished metal, and here and there are signs of fighting, with blast and burn marks on the floor, walls and ceiling. There are old bloodstains in the grain of the floor, though everything else is polished clean. Some of the corridors are crudely barricaded, and the occasional blast door dropped across our path means that the commissar often has to take us on long loops around the blockages to get where we’re going.
‘Hull integrity breaches,’ the commissar explains when he sees us looking at the blocked gangways.
I exchange knowing glances with the other members of the platoon, and we swap raised eyebrows and shrugs. It’s no surprise really; we were expecting a war zone after all. Judging by the time it took us to get here after dropping from warp space, this is near the outer edge of the system – wherever that is.
I see jury-rigged generators attached to cabling that spills from broken ceiling tiles, and along one stretch, broken fans clank against internal ventilators through shattered grilles. After a few minutes, the commissar opens a large double door emblazoned with the Imperial eagle, and we step into a low auditorium.
The commissar makes his way to the pedestal at the front while the Colonel waves for us to sit down at the benches. When we’re settled, Schaeffer joins the commissar.
‘Armageddon,’ the Colonel says, looking at each of us in turn. There are groans from some of the others. ‘Even out on the Eastern Fringe, you have heard what is happening here. To bring us up-to-date with the facts, Commissar Greyt has compiled a briefing.’
The Colonel looks at Greyt and nods, before taking a seat on the front bench next to Candlerick’s squad.
‘Three Terran years ago, the orks returned to Armageddon,’ the commissar says, glancing down at the data-slate. ‘Led by the warlord Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, a large invasion force comprising hundreds of warbands entered the Armageddon system. Aboard hulks and smaller vessels, they swarmed in-system, and were engaged by Imperial Navy warships. However, we could not prevent a mass landing. Sporadic reinforcements have arrived over the years, some of them destroyed, but others get through. We do not know how, but orks from hundreds of days of journeying around Armageddon are being drawn to this world.’
The Colonel stands up at this point, and turns to face us.
‘The surface of Armageddon is one large war zone,’ he tells us, one hand resting on the hilt of his power sword. ‘A hive world for several thousand years, Armageddon is a major manufacturing link in the sector, and its survival is paramount to neighbouring sectors. This is one of the largest military campaigns in recent history, and it is centred on this single system.’
He sits down again, and looks to Greyt to continue. The commissar pauses for a moment, to look at Schaeffer, before continuing.
‘As well as this recent invasion, our forces on Armageddon must contend with indigenous feral ork populations that have remained since the first invasion fifty years ago,’ he says, standing stock straight with his hands resting lightly on the lectern. ‘Located in the equatorial jungles and the mountain ranges, these tribes have forayed forth in considerable numbers to engage our reserves, hamper logistics and generally stifle our efforts to destroy the ork landing sites. One hive has been destroyed, the others are heavily contested.’
