Duty Calls, page 31
To my surprise, it seemed, a few of the Sororitas still survived, small pockets of resistance within the convent flaring briefly before being overrun and swamped, while a pitiful handful were attempting to follow Eglantine’s battle plan, forming up alongside the Rhinos that had borne them to temporary safety in a last-ditch attempt to stem the tide. My eyes were drawn briefly to a convoy of fast-moving dots approaching from the direction of the town, which proved, as our widening spiral took us over them, to be a dozen trucks packed with PDF troopers from the garrison we’d intended to visit that morning, apparently as intent as ever on following the Sisters’ lead. They’d be far too late to reinforce them, though, of that I had no doubt.
I was right. As we passed over the remains of the convent for the last time the few remaining Battle Sisters were finally overwhelmed, falling to the jaws and talons of the tyranids, holding the last scraps of ground they could to the very end. No doubt the PDF, and Emperor alone knew how many other innocent bystanders, were about to share their fate.
‘On my mark,’ Amberley said calmly, and the voice she’d been speaking to before crackled confidently in my comm-bead.
‘Still standing by, inquisitor. You appear to be clear.’
Amberley shrugged. ‘Then fire,’ she said simply. I tensed, wondering what new danger she’d perceived, and waited for Pontius to trigger the lascannons again, but for several seconds nothing seemed to happen.
Suddenly, without warning, ravening shafts of energy blasted down from the sky above our heads, slamming into the ground just ahead of the tyranid advance. A plume of vaporised rock and chitin rose into the air, and our sturdy little shuttle shuddered as the shockwaves from the disrupted atmosphere battered against it. Jurgen swallowed hard.
‘They’ve missed!’ I said, in stunned disappointment, and indeed for a moment or two it seemed that the lance batteries of the starships in orbit had done just that, merely clipping the leading edge of the swarm instead of blasting straight into its centre as I would have expected. Amberley grinned at me.
‘You think so?’ she asked, an edge of amusement in her voice. A second later the rest of the flotilla’s firepower opened up too, dazzling my eyes as their heavy beams struck the site of the convent, evaporating buildings, and scouring the entire location down to the bedrock beneath. The remainder of the swarm began to mill around uncertainly, the directing intelligence severely disrupted by the holes being punched in it.
‘Briskly prepped!’ Zemelda said in awestruck tones, which I took to indicate approval. Amberley nodded, as a complete slice of the plateau sheared away and began to fall into the depths, disintegrating as it went, so that after a moment it was hard to tell which spinning fragments were boulder, and which were wildly flailing tyranids. A moment later the barrage ended, and I just caught a final glimpse of the PDF trucks slithering to a baffled halt on the new and still molten rim before Pontius turned us towards Principia Mons and they disappeared from sight beyond the frame of the viewport.
‘Quite satisfactory,’ Amberley agreed. ‘We’ve got the shadowlight back, Killian’s dead, and so is anyone else who knew about it.’ She grinned happily at me. ‘Apart from us, of course.’
‘Of course,’ I said, wishing the idea didn’t leave me feeling quite so uncomfortable. Amberley smiled again, and handed me a goblet of amasec, which I downed rather more rapidly than such a fine example of the distiller’s art deserved.
‘It would have been nice if we’d had the chance to interrogate Metheius properly, but at least we got copies of his research data,’ she added. She looked speculatively at the ominous black case, lying in the centre of the table between us. ‘Now we’ve found a few more artefacts on Perlia, perhaps we’ll get a better idea of what this thing’s supposed to do.’
‘Perhaps you will,’ I agreed, thinking with some relief that I’d never set eyes on the infernal thing again. (Something I was completely wrong about, of course, but at the time I was still blissfully ignorant of the galaxy-shaking events lurking in wait for us all at the turn of the millennium.)
Amberley nodded thoughtfully. ‘So what are you going to do now?’ she asked.
I shrugged. ‘Go back to the regiment I suppose. We’ll be here for a while mopping up, and wherever there are troopers there’s bound to be work for a commissar.’ A fresh thought suddenly occurred to me, and I sighed with irritation. ‘Jurgen,’ I added, ‘make a note to contact the PDF on Gavarrone, and reschedule our visit of inspection.’
There was no real point to the errand now, of course, as I already knew I didn’t have to worry about any further assassination attempts, and their willingness to engage the tyranids alongside the battle sisters had resolved any lingering doubts about hybrid infiltration, but cancelling it without an obvious reason would only lead to questions, something I was sure Amberley would be less than pleased about. I contemplated the mountain of paperwork that would ensue from this unexpected delay, and sighed again. A familiar odour manifested at my shoulder.
‘Very good, sir,’ Jurgen said, holding out the decanter. ‘Would you care for another drink?’
I smiled lazily. ‘You just read my mind,’ I told him.
‘I hope not,’ Amberley said, with an uneasy glance at the shadowlight.
[Which isn’t quite true, as anyone less likely than Jurgen to develop psychic abilities probably doesn’t exist, and I was well aware of the fact at the time. Nevertheless, on that note of somewhat strained levity, this extract from the Cain Archive comes to a natural conclusion.]
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sandy Mitchell is a pseudonym of Alex Stewart, who has been working as a freelance writer for the last couple of decades. He has written science fiction and fantasy in both personae, as well as television scripts, magazine articles, comics and gaming material. Apart from both miniatures and roleplaying gaming, his hobbies include the martial arts of Aikido and Iaido, and pottering about on the family allotment.
For Hester: Chaos incarnate
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2007 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Clint Langley
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FOOTNOTES
[1] Cain and the 597th had stumbled across a necron tomb on the ice world they’d been sent to defend from an orkish incursion. It’s a testament to Cain’s considerable resourcefulness that so many of them survived the experience.
[2] A common characteristic of iceworlders, who, in the nature of things, tend not to get out much, at least if they can avoid it.
[3] Or occasionally in person.
[4] Like many provincial worlds, Periremunda had only one resident representative of the Adeptus Arbites, charged with overseeing the work of the local law enforcement agencies.
[5] The planetary capital. Technically the somewhat unimaginative name referred to the plateau on which the city was built, but since the equally dully named Principia Urbi had sprawled out to encompass most of it, the two had become virtually synonymous. If Cain was ever aware of the distinction, he makes no mention of the fact.
[6] Kilometres; a common Valhallan colloquialism that Cain had picked up, among others, from his prolonged association with the natives of that world.
[7] So much so that the prohibition was flouted several times by local civilians, until a ‘warning shot’ downed an aircar full of city aldermen returning from a banquet at the halls of the Fabricator’s Guild, fortunately without doing serious injury to anyone of consequence. After that, it seems to have been followed to the letter.
[8] Which implies that, despite his assertion to the contrary, he probably at least skimmed through the briefing materials on the voyage out from Coronus.
[9] The gardens of the governor’s palace: unusually, these were divided into an inner garden, to which access was strictly limited to members of his household, and an outer park, open to the citizens of the city on festivals and holidays.
[10] Cain alludes in many places throughout the archive to having been native to a hiveworld, but precisely which one remains obscure.
[11] Jurgen had been serving with the 12th Field Artillery when Cain first acquired his services, so his military rank was that of gunner rather than the private or trooper more common among the line regiments of the Imperial Guard.
[12] The local name for law enforcers. As has been noted elsewhere the accepted nomenclature for such officials varies widely from world to world, and like many seasoned travellers Cain often refers to them simply as Arbites, despite the fact that they’re merely subordinate to the Adeptus rather than true members of it. In this case, however, as he usually does when he has contact with actual Adeptus Arbites functionaries, he is precise about the distinction.
[13] The regular call sign for the arbitrator’s personal vehicle on Periremunda. Somewhat theatrical, but under most circumstances it was a pretty dull little world, so I suppose the justicars couldn’t be blamed for trying to make a routine chauffeuring job sound a little more interesting.
[14] A space hulk Cain boarded with the Reclaimers Astartes Chapter, while serving as the Imperial Guard liaison officer to them during the Viridia campaign.
[15] The armourer of the Reclaimers, who seem to have considered Cain as close to a friend as was possible for anyone outside his Chapter.
[16] So he says. I recall a distinct resemblance to a stuffed fish for quite some time.
[17] Actually, I only ate two, and they weren’t that large to begin with. And I’d expended a lot of energy; cleansing a genestealer nest can really take it out of you.
[18] A mildly disparaging nickname for techpriests and enginseers common among the Imperial Guard.
[19] Cain’s not exaggerating here. Jurgen was a blank, one of those incredibly rare individuals with the innate ability to nullify any psychic or sorcerous influence in the vicinity. It was Rakel’s reaction to their initial meeting on Gravalax that first brought his gift to my attention.
[20] Not as such, but as most of my fellow inquisitors will undoubtedly agree, the nature of our work tends to bring us into contact with a higher than average proportion of people whose view of the galaxy is somewhat unconventional.
[21] Which Cain presumably overheard on his comm-bead.
[22] The planetary capital of Gravalax.
[23] One of the orders minoris, which split away from the Order of the Sacred Rose in the latter part of M39.
[24] Although in my experience gratitude for our efforts isn’t exactly common.
[25] At which point a lesser woman might be tempted to say ‘I told you so.’
[26] Cain had presumably heard the story from the survivors, as these events took place before he joined the regiment. Anyone wanting a fuller account of them is referred to chapter eighty-seven of Arten Burrar’s The Abominable Chitin, cited earlier.
[27] Third Company was the regiment’s logistical support arm, made up mostly of transport, medicae, sapper, and other specialised units. Though just as capable of fighting as any other troopers at a pinch, they would only be deployed in the front line in the direst of emergencies.
[28] The version most widely used by the chaplains of the Imperial Guard is the abbreviated twenty-two verse one, as services in the field tend, of necessity, to be as brief as possible.
[29] As opposed to Darien High, the orbital part of the starport facilities.
[30] The gas bag keeping the dirigible aloft would have been subdivided into several compartments, so that it would remain in the air in the unlikely event of one or more being accidentally torn.
[31] A newsgleaner hanging around on the pavement outside.
[32] Extremely unlikely, knowing Kasteen, although anything she did have to say in response to such a question would certainly have been unsuitable for publication.
[33] In this instance it hadn’t proved necessary.
[34] Like many regiments with extensive experience of urban warfare, the 597th routinely divided its squads into two fireteams of five troopers each.
[35] The fringe of cometary debris marking the nominal boundary of a solar system.
[36] A hymn invoking the Emperor’s protection in times of peril; somewhat mawkish to modern tastes, but still popular among the pious of a traditional disposition.
[37] Quite probably; the human brain operates on minute electrical impulses, so it’s perfectly possible that his masking field would also affect anything electronic in the vicinity.
[38] He didn’t.
