Hero of the Imperium, page 26
‘Good shooting,’ I said. He acknowledged the compliment with a nod, and turned to retreat.
He’d bought us some time, I noted with gratitude, the inferno blocking us off from our assailants, and consigning many of them to an agonising death. The most terrifying thing, though, was that they burned in silence, trying to walk towards us through the flames until their musculature gave out and they collapsed, consumed by the imperative to kill the swarm’s enemies no matter what the cost.
On the other side of the blazing barrier, the kroot were overwhelmed in seconds, despite their phenomenal skill in close-quarter combat, swinging the blades of their curious polearm/rifle hybrids to tremendous effect. But for every eviscerated cultist that fell, another stepped forward, and then the purestrains tore into them, and it was all over in less than a second. Gorok was the last to fall, standing alone and defiant on a pile of the dead, until a frenzied flurry of blows shredded his body in a shower of blood.
What happened to the tau I couldn’t see, but they’d stopped firing, so they’d either managed to disengage or they were all dead by now. My money was on the latter, but even if I was wrong we’d never be able to rejoin them now so the question was merely academic in any case.
I swear I’d only glanced back for a second, but when I looked round I was alone; the others had retreated as I’d ordered, but which of the half-dozen tunnel mouths they’d disappeared down was anybody’s guess. The terror of isolation gripped me for a moment, then I pulled myself together. The pool of promethium wouldn’t burn forever, and the cultists presumably knew this labyrinth well enough to circumvent it without too much difficulty in any case, so if I stayed where I was any longer, I was a dead man.
‘Jurgen!’ I shouted. ‘Inquisitor!’ There was no answer, so I picked the nearest tunnel, and started to run.
As I entered the welcoming darkness, the panic I’d tried to force down resurfaced, stronger than before, and try as I could to make myself slow down and get my bearings, fear had control of my limbs now. I ran as hard and as fast as I could, heedless of the dangers that might be lurking in the darkness around me, or the hidden obstacles which were likely to be lying in wait for an unwary shin or an ankle to turn, and didn’t stop until my breath was rasping my lungs like sandpaper and my legs had begun to tremble from the exertion.
Panting hard, I sat on a convenient heap of rubble, and tried to take stock of my situation, which was undoubtedly grim whichever angle I looked at it from. For one thing, I was still deep underground, in a labyrinth I didn’t know how to get out of, infested with slavering monsters. For another, the only allies I had down here probably thought I was dead, and even if they didn’t, they weren’t likely to waste any time searching for me. The information we’d gathered about the true nature of the threat gnawing away beneath our feet was too important to risk, and Amberley would insist on returning to the surface as quickly as possible to warn the lord general. At least, if our positions were reversed, that’s what I would have done.
On the plus side, however, I was quietly confident of finding my way back to the surface given enough time, provided I didn’t run into any more company on the way, and my solitude was a positive advantage in that regard, as a man moving alone will always be more stealthy than a group. Corridors like these had been my playground as a child, and I’d never quite lost the knack of finding my way around them; despite my panic-stricken flight, I still had a vague idea of which direction our compound lay and how far we’d come. In fact, if my guess about us being somewhere under the old quarter was accurate, I might even be closer to the surface than I realised. And once I’d made it back to the open air, returning to the compound shouldn’t prove at all difficult. (And in case you were wondering, the irony of genuinely experiencing what I’d briefly considered feigning the previous night wasn’t lost on me.)
Fleeing in terror, I’d just like to note in passing for those of you who have so far been lucky enough to avoid the experience, generally leaves you both hungry and thirsty. At least that’s been the case with me on most occasions, and I’ve done it frequently enough to qualify as something of an expert on the topic, so I hope you’ll take my word for it.
Anyhow, I decided to take advantage of this relatively peaceful interlude to replenish my energy, so I sat for a while longer sipping water from my canteen and chewing a ration bar, the flavour of which, as usual, hovered just outside the range of identification. The impromptu picnic raised my spirits somewhat, and I took advantage of the quiet moment to still the thudding of my heart and try to distinguish the sounds in the darkness around me. I briefly considered turning the luminator back on, but decided against it, as it would give my position away, besides which, my eyes had adjusted to the gloom as well as they were going to by now, and I could quite readily distinguish vague shapes of lighter or darker shadow. My other tunnel-rat senses had come into play too: I could tell by the echoes how close I was to a wall, for instance. I’ve often tried to explain it, but the only way you could really understand is if you’d spent a large part of your early life in the lower levels of a hive somewhere.
It was while I was gradually recovering my wits that I first heard the faint scrape of something moving in the dark. Now, I daresay most people’s reaction under those circumstances would have been to call out, or snap the luminator on, neither of which was a particularly attractive option given my current situation, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate. Besides, I wasn’t particularly concerned as to what it might be. As I’ve said before, the environment was one I knew well, and I’d be happy to match my experience of blind fighting in tunnels against almost any foe. I was also pretty confident that any ‘stealers or hybrids in the vicinity wouldn’t have bothered lurking either, just charged straight in, so I simply waited, and was rewarded a moment later by the faint skittering sound of a small piece of rubble falling away.
That was a sound I could identify with some confidence, and I concluded that I was sharing my refuge with some kind of vermin. (An accurate assessment, as I was soon to discover, but not quite in the way I’d imagined.) Before I could consider the matter further, however, I was distracted by a faint tinnitus in my ear, which gradually rose in volume until I was able to distinguish an almost inaudible wash of static. My combead was active, and that could mean only one thing – someone was transmitting on the command frequency reasonably close by. Moreover, there was only one person it could possibly be, a conclusion confirmed by the faint voice, unmistakably feminine, which ebbed in and out of audibility.
‘… can you hear… commissar… respond…’
The breath sighed from my lungs as relief punched me in the gut. They might have moved out, as the mission demanded, but it seemed they hadn’t given up on me entirely after all.
‘Inquisitor?’ I asked cautiously.
‘You wish.’ The voice was close and harsh, and if Kelp had been able to resist the taunt, the rifle butt which followed it would probably have stove my skull in. As it was, he’d been considerate enough to warn me, so I ducked it easily, and drove my fist into the pit of his stomach – which was still protected by his hardshell body armour, of course, so much good it did me apart from bruising my knuckles. (The real ones anyway, the augmetics were rather more robust than that.) He was still off balance, though, so I drove my hip in and tried to throw him, but he twisted out of the way just in time. For a big man he was a pretty fast mover, I’ll give him that.
A vivid memory of the brawl in the mess hall flashed across my mind, so I ducked again, and sure enough, he’d tried the same spinning kick he’d almost managed to bring Trebek down with. Advantage to me, I thought, that’ll teach you to play tag with a hiver in a tunnel, and I began to draw my chainsword to finish this quickly.
Consequently, I was completely unprepared for the low-level sweeping kick that followed, cracking into the back of my knee, and pitching me to the floor.
‘You were almost right,’ he sneered. ‘I am in a world of hurt. But it’s not mine, is it?’ He kept trying to kick me while I was down, but the armour under my greatcoat protected me for the second time that day, and the impacts against my ribs were merely annoying rather than crippling. Then again, I suppose he might have done a better job if he’d concentrated on what he was doing instead of talking about it. I stayed silent, masking all but my general position in the darkness, and rolled aside, drawing the chainsword at last.
‘If you’re going to fight, fight,’ I said, using the sound of my voice to draw him in, and mask the whine of the blade as it powered up. ‘Don’t make speeches.’ He must have thought he had me, because he charged in with a roar of triumph, striking down with the rifle butt at where he must have thought my head was, but I’d already moved by then, rolling aside and slashing at his legs with the weapon. I’d hoped to take the treacherous mongrel off at the knees to be honest, but the keening of the blade must have warned him, and he turned aside at the last second, so all I got was a good cut across one of his calves.
‘Emperor’s guts!’ It must have done the job though, because he was backing off, and the chamber was suddenly bright with half a dozen luminators, bobbing in hands or utility-taped to the barrels of hellguns.
‘Commissar.’ Amberley nodded to me, a casual greeting, as though we’d just met in the street.
‘Inquisitor.’ I rolled to my feet, advancing on Kelp, who limped backwards, his expression panicky. A trail of blood followed him. ‘Excuse me a moment. I’ll be right with you as soon as I’ve finished this.’
‘Stay back.’ He raised the hellgun, aiming it at my chest. Incredibly, he still didn’t seem to realise that I’d concealed armour there, or he’d have gone for a head shot I’m sure. ‘One more step and I’ll kill you.’ I stopped, still a couple of metres too far to finish him off with the chainsword, and he smiled maliciously. ‘Or do you still think you can do something from there?’ I shrugged.
‘Jurgen, kill him,’ I said. The expression on Kelp’s face was almost comical for the half-second or so that he still had one, then he exploded into a small pile of gently steaming offal. I turned to my aide, who was lowering the melta, and nodded an acknowledgement. ‘Thank you,’ I added.
‘You’re welcome, sir,’ he replied, as though he’d rendered me no greater service than pouring my tea, and I turned back to Amberley.
‘This is a pleasant surprise,’ I added, playing the unflappable hero for all it was worth. ‘I didn’t think I’d see you again until I got back to the barracks.’
‘Neither did I,’ she admitted, with a slight smile. ‘But I picked up the carrier wave from your combead, and we just headed in the direction the signal was strongest in.’
‘I’m glad you did.’ I glanced across to where Trebek was scraping a gooey piece of Kelp residue from her boot. Amberley’s smile broadened.
‘You seemed to have the situation well in hand.’ I shrugged.
‘I’ve faced worse odds.’
‘No doubt. But he did you a favour, in a way.’ I must have looked puzzled at that point, because she explained as though pointing out something obvious. ‘He made you a lot easier to find. Once we got close enough we just had to follow the noise.’
Her words hit me like a bucket of ice water. (Or a Valhallan shower, which I don’t recommend to the unwary, by the way.)
‘Form up,’ I said to the troopers. ‘We’re moving out.’
‘Just a moment, sir.’ Holenbi was rummaging in his medkit. ‘I’d like to get you patched up first.’ I swear that was the first time I realised I’d taken any damage from the scuffle, or possibly the firefight in the big chamber, my knuckles were smeared with blood. My first thought was that it served me right for punching a suit of carapace armour, but they hadn’t been skinned all that badly (and the augmetic ones not at all); most of it had come from the large graze on my forehead, which, now that I’d finally noticed it, had begun to sting abominably. I fended the young medic off as he sprayed it with something.
‘We don’t have time for that,’ I said. ‘If you heard something, you might not have been the only ones.’
That got them moving, let me tell you. The thought of facing another horde of hybrids and purestrains was enough to motivate anyone. We moved out in good order, though, I was pleased to note the surviving members of the team actually seemed to mesh together as soldiers should. Now Kelp was gone, the friction which had marred the mission since it started had dissipated, seemingly along with his molecules, and Trebek took point without needing to be ordered to. If she kept this up, I found myself thinking, I might even consider letting her have her corporal’s stripes back.
‘We were lucky back there,’ I said, falling in beside Amberley again. She raised an eyebrow.
‘How so?’
‘When they attacked before. Most of them went for the tau rather than us.’
‘And you found that curious?’ I nodded.
‘When I fought ‘stealers before, on Keffia, they didn’t prioritise. Just went for the nearest targets.’
‘Intriguing,’ she said. ‘Mind you, after that promethium tank went up they could only get to the xenos anyway.’
‘It was before then,’ I said. ‘Right at the start. They only seemed to come after us once we’d started to retreat.’
‘And you say this isn’t typical genestealer behaviour,’ she prompted.
‘Not in my experience,’ I confirmed.
‘I see. Thank you, commissar.’ She looked thoughtful, and, once again, her eyes were fixed on Jurgen.
We pushed on quickly, following a run of piping which seemed to be tending upwards, but I couldn’t shake the sense of unease that settled over me as we trotted through the dark. I’d suggested dousing the luminators again, but Amberley overruled me, insisting we make the best time we could, so I left my own off and hurried along at the rear of the group; that way I got the benefit of the others’ lights without making myself quite so obvious a target. I didn’t like it, though, my palms were tingling again, and my scalp crawled with the anticipation of a sudden shot from the shadows, or an eruption of purestrains from the darkness. One thing I’d learned from my previous encounters with the creatures, they were remarkably stealthy and preferred to strike from the shadows, as the Astartes I’d boarded the space hulk with had learned the hard way. The hybrids weren’t so worrying, their human genes making them both more conspicuous and easier to kill, even if they were able to use ranged weapons against us.
‘So far so good,’ Amberley muttered, which was tempting fate if ever I heard it. We’d been remarkably lucky so far, but I knew that couldn’t be expected to last.
‘They won’t be too far behind,’ I reminded her. In fact, given the speed at which they moved, I was vaguely surprised that they hadn’t caught up with us yet...
Sudden understanding hit me like a blow to the stomach. They didn’t have to comb an entire labyrinth to try and find us – they had sentries posted on the main routes in and out. All they had to do was wait, and reinforce their perimeter guards, and we’d walk right into them in our own good time.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘We could be running into an ambush.’ I thought rapidly, calculating our most probable position, and the distance we’d penetrated after finding the cavern full of the tau’s victims. We were still comfortably short, but–
The sudden detonation of a las-bolt ahead, blowing shards of rockcrete from the wall beside Trebek, derailed my chain of thought at once. I’d missed a trick; they were combing the corridors from their outer perimeter, tightening the noose around us–
‘Pull back! Consolidate!’ I yelled, as Trebek crouched low to return the fire. Running figures could be seen beyond her, picked out by the beam of the luminator taped to the barrel of her gun, and she squeezed the trigger, felling a young man in the uniform of the PDF. For a moment, I wondered if we’d made a horrible mistake, and were opening fire once more on our own allies, but some of the other figures beside him were unmistakably hybrids. One young woman, who might have been attractive if it wasn’t for the third arm growing from her right shoulder blade, tipped with a genestealer’s razor-sharp claws, flicked the tip of a xenoist braid from her eyes with the monstrous appendage (a surprisingly delicate gesture, I remember thinking at the time), and levelled the heavy stubber cradled in her other two hands. Before I could cry a warning, Sorel punched a hole through her head with his usual unerring accuracy. A second PDF trooper, his uniform embellished with a blue towel tied round his upper arm for some reason, cried out in anguish, dropping his lasgun, and cradled the body.
‘I don’t think we can, commissar.’ Jurgen was his usual phlegmatic self, seemingly as unconcerned as if he was asking me to approve a routine piece of paperwork. ‘They’re behind us as well.’ He was right, too, the sounds of scurrying feet echoing down the tunnel in the direction from which we’d come.
‘We have to punch through,’ Amberley said decisively. Velade and Holenbi nodded grimly to one another, and opened fire on the cultists in support of Trebek, hugging the walls to present the lowest target profile.
‘Better do it fast!’ I shouted. I’d shone my luminator back down the corridor, and my heart nearly stopped – instead of more ragged cultists, the narrow passage was choked with purestrains, jaws gaping, their teeth dripping slobber, as they charged forward at what looked like the pace of a landspeeder. I drew my laspistol and fired a futile volley at them. The lead one fell, and was instantly trampled to goo by the weight of the others as they ran right over it, the snapping of chitin and the squish of its bodily fluids turning my stomach. (And you really don’t want to know about the smell.) ‘We’re running out of time!’
