Soldiers of the Imperium, page 88
How many more corpses would her conscience carry had the primaris psyker not been with her today? How many fewer dead cultists, bearing those strange, small wounds of a thousand flechettes piercing their bodies like flies?
The psyker walked unsteadily into the sunlight, leading a young woman slowly by the hand. Around her shoulders she wore the psyker’s tattered crimson cloak, and she bore an expression somehow even more empty than that of the weathered man beside her.
Slowly, Aerand limped towards them and reached out her hand.
‘Thank you,’ Kellipso muttered as he took the three black metal spheres from her grasp. ‘For seeing what I couldn’t.’ The moment the psyker had collapsed, his cloud of flechettes had returned to him, crawling over one another like a swarm of insects to re-form into these perfect spheres. Inexplicably, they bore no evidence of the transition. Not a single scratch on their immaculate surface. Not the faintest hint of blood.
‘And to you, lord psyker,’ Aerand replied. ‘For the same.’
Kellipso grunted in acknowledgement.
Aerand turned slowly to face the young woman. Behind her, a small huddle of Oureans walked, Vyse supporting a pair of youths with her arms. As Aerand’s gaze settled onto the woman, she felt a familiar wave rise up behind her neck.
The psyker took notice. ‘Please, do not look towards their futures. I know well enough what the Black Ships hold in store. It would do them no favour to bear that knowledge any sooner than they must.’
‘Not for them,’ Aerand replied softly. ‘For me. I would rather know what the Inquisition has in store.’
A look of confusion, then sympathy, from the psyker. ‘You mean to turn yourself in.’
Aerand nodded slowly. Twice since landing on this Throne-cursed planet, the warp taint on her had cost troopers their lives. ‘They deserve better,’ she whispered.
Kellipso stopped. ‘And you? What do you believe you deserve?’
‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘Whatever the Emperor wills.’
That earned her a nod, and the psyker began walking again. ‘And if the Emperor wills you to remain where you are? I’ve seen you lead, lieutenant, and I can promise you this – your soldiers will find no better commander than you.’ Kellipso glanced over his shoulder at Kobald and Vyse. ‘It is rare loyalty that inspires soldiers to risk their lives so. And I’m afraid that’s precisely what the Emperor needs.’
Aerand shook her head. ‘And how much of a risk is it to their lives to simply keep me near at hand?’
‘Less than if you leave,’ Kellipso replied. His gaze grew distant for a moment, as if he were struggling to find the words to say next. ‘And the powers within you are still young. They would not run unchecked beneath my careful eye.’
A look of confusion crossed Aerand’s face. ‘What are you offering?’
Kellipso shrugged. ‘The scholastica is not the only place for a burgeoning psyker to learn. I do not claim any special talents as a teacher, nor do I promise any certainty of the results.’
Aerand opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, she felt the clasp of a heavy hand on her shoulder. ‘Lord psyker, lieutenant,’ Sergeant Corwyn said. ‘Urgent vox from the colonel. Sounds like trouble back on the regiment’s end.’
‘Go on then, lieutenant,’ Kellipso replied, and for a brief moment his frown faded to something softer. ‘It appears your soldiers have need of you after all.’
GREEN AND GREY
Edoardo Albert
Tick, tick, tick.
That was what woke him. The regular ticking of cooling, contracting plasteel.
Tick, tick, tick.
He’d heard that sound before, growing up, the son of a tanker. He’d heard the sound during his training, when the squadron pulled up for the night, the tanks parked in rows ready for a pre-dawn start, their engines cooling, the cylinder blocks ticking out the day’s accumulated heat.
Tick… tick… tick.
The ticks were slowing down. The engine was near enough cold now. He could not remember command telling the squadron to make camp for the night.
His mind was fogged, as dull as the dawn on…
He could not remember where he was.
He could not remember who he was.
It did not seem to matter.
He began to drift.
It was the pain that dragged him back. As the tick of the cooling tank died away, it was replaced by a rhythmic pain, pulsing down from the front of his head.
He did not want to move but the pain forced his hand into motion. But as he tried to reach for his forehead, his hand stopped. There was something in the way. It felt firm but not metallic, with a lingering warmth.
He did not want to open his eyes to see what it was.
Lucius Stilo.
That was it. That was his name.
Lucius Stilo. Loader. Leman Russ Sancta Fide. Third Squadron. Fifth Alphard Tank Regiment.
He knew who he was now, but he could not remember where he was.
He still did not want to open his eyes.
Lucius Stilo would have drifted away then, if he had been able to, but the pain would not let him. It throbbed through his head, an arrhythmic counterpoint to the cooling engine.
The engine was quiet. Stilo knew that it shouldn’t be.
He still did not want to open his eyes.
But he knew he had to. It was his duty. He was a soldier of the Astra Militarum, a member of the Fifth Alphard Tank Regiment. Although his eyes were still closed, he could suddenly see his father leaning down to him, telling him, ‘Yes, it’s true, the Emperor protects, but first, the Emperor expects. Expects every man to do his duty.’
Stilo opened his eyes.
He opened his eyes to darkness.
But it was as if opening his eyes, even though they could see nothing, opened wide his other senses too. He could suddenly smell Leman Russ: the throat-clutching stink of human sweat, the acrid bite of the cannon propellant, the sulphur of the heavy bolter and, overlaying everything, the overwhelming smell of promethium. Although his lips were closed, he could taste it. Had the fuel tank ruptured?
‘The Emperor protects, but first the Emperor expects.’
The words sounded louder than memory, so loud that Stilo turned his head to see if there was someone speaking them in the tank. But the dark was Stygian: he could see nothing.
Without light, he could do nothing.
Stilo began fumbling in the dark. He was searching for the emergency lumens. His fingers found things, but he could not relate what he found to his training – everything seemed wrong, twisted somehow. Then he realised the problem: everything was twisted because he was lying on his side. Stilo turned his mental map through ninety degrees and as he did so, things began to snap into place. There, the bin for the armour-piercing shells; here the bin for high-explosive shells in between the chute for spent shell casings; and on his left, the bank of kill switches.
Yes.
And beneath the kill switches, another console for the backup systems.
First, second, third along.
Stilo pulled the switch.
The emergency lumens came on, red, lurid, pulsing. He could see.
What he saw was the face of his tank commander.
‘Captain Bartezko?’
Bartezko made no answer. He was hanging above Stilo, dangling in his webbing, the standard position for a tank commander going visual. His power sword hung from his belt. Bartezko loved his sword. It had been a gift from the corps commander for his bravery in the Battle of the Machengo Rift.
‘Captain?’ Stilo reached for Bartezko’s webbing and twisted it, so the tank commander’s face turned into view. What was left of it. The captain would not be giving any more orders.
‘Emmet, Vanhof. Klee, van Thienen.’ Stilo called out the names of the rest of the tank crew. ‘Emperor, let them answer,’ he whispered. But the names fell into the thick air and were swallowed. No one spoke, no one answered. The body of Captain Bartezko hung limp in its webbing. Stilo frantically tried to remember what had happened. The captain announcing he was going visual, clipping on his webbing, standing up, reaching for the turret hatch… There. That was when his memory whited out. Air burst, maybe? An ork shell exploding above the tank just as the captain unsealed the hatch, the shock wave thrashing Bartezko against it, then slamming it shut, the pressure change in the confined volume of the tank incapacitating – killing – the crew. Except for him.
‘Come in, Third Squadron. Do you copy? Third Squadron, do you copy?’
The voice, the first that he had heard since regaining consciousness, sounded thin and tinny and far away, but it was coming from the vox-panel. Turning from the corpse of his commander, Stilo twisted past scattered cases to the panel.
‘Third Squadron, receiving. Over.’
‘About time, Third Squadron. We’ve been trying to raise you for the last hour. Report.’
As the voice came through on the vox, Stilo fiddled with the controls, trying to turn it up so that he could hear better. Stilo touched his ear. His fingers came away wet and sticky. His ears were bleeding. The pressure shock of the air burst.
‘This… this is Third Squadron, Sancta Fide, sir. Loader Lucius Stilo reporting, sir.’
‘Put on Captain Bartezko.’
‘I can’t, sir. He’s dead. They’re all dead, sir, I’m the only one left.’
The vox went silent for a moment. Stilo heard the vox-operator whispering to someone.
‘The corps commander wants to speak to you, Loader Stilo.’
A different voice came through: warm and generous, the voice of a kindly, rich uncle.
‘Loader Stilo?’
‘Y-yes. Er, sir.’
‘I need you to call up the auspexes and give me a report.’
‘The auspexes are all dead, sir. Everything’s dead. The fuel tank’s ruptured. I’m standing up to my ankles in promethium. I don’t know what to do. You’ve got to get me out of here.’
‘Stilo.’
The name dropped into the loader’s increasing panic and stilled it, like oil on water.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The vox is working. Try to raise the auspex. You’re a tanker, Stilo. Act like one.’
‘I-I will.’
Stilo reached for the auspex panel. It was unresponsive. All its screens were blank. He banged on it in frustration.
‘Machine-spirits are temperamental creatures – hitting one rarely works. Try restarting it, tanker.’
Stilo stared at the panel in front of him.
‘I-I can’t remember what to do, sir.’
‘Remember your training, tanker.’
Stilo knuckled his forehead. ‘I-I can’t, sir.’
‘This is your first combat patrol, isn’t it, Lucius?’
‘Yes.’
‘No one wanted for it to go like this, but you’re still there, still alive. The Emperor protected you. Now the Emperor expects.’
Hearing the litany coming through on the vox, remembrance settled upon Lucius Stilo. His training took over, moving his hands over the panel, keying the relaunch sequence. The screens flickered into life.
‘They’re coming online, sir.’
‘Good, good.’
‘Frek! They’re all showing static.’
‘The sensor array must be damaged. Loader Stilo, I’m going to have to ask you to make a visual report.’
‘L-let me try again, sir.’ Stilo began keying the cut-out sequence.
‘No time for that. I must have a report. Now, tanker. Remember, the Emperor expects.’
‘Y-yes.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Sorry, sir. Yes, sir.’
Stilo looked at the body of Captain Bartezko, dangling in his harness, his face a livid red wound scored through with white lines of exposed bone, his power sword hanging uselessly by his side. The loader felt the physical revulsion of the living at the prospect of touching the dead. He was going to have to release the captain from the webbing so that he could get to the hatch.
‘Sorry, sir.’
Stilo unclipped the webbing. Bartezko’s corpse fell forwards, wrapping its arms around Stilo in the embrace of the dead.
The vox-channel was open. Stilo just about suppressed a scream and pushed the body aside so it flopped against the breech of the cannon, sprawling over it like a dead fish. Bartezko’s slack body slumped, slowly, before dropping down off the turret cradle into the pool of blood and promethium at the base of the tank.
The way clear, Stilo scrambled up to the turret hatch.
Skratch, skkkratch.
The noise came from outside, from the other side of the hatch.
Stilo’s hands froze in the act of opening the hatch.
Skkkkratch, skkkkkratch.
Something was outside.
It was the sound of nails on glass, of a knife scraping over plasteel.
Of claws scratching up the hull.
Stilo pushed the turret lock shut.
Bang, bang, bang.
The impacts were so loud that Stilo’s teeth rang in his skull. But this was not the sound of rounds bouncing off the hull of the tank.
Bang. Bang, bang.
Something was hitting it. Hitting it with a hammer or a rock.
‘Lucius, what’s happening? Report, Lucius.’
Stilo dived to the panel and turned down the gain.
‘S-something’s outside,’ he whispered. ‘It’s hitting the tank. You’ve got to get me out of here.’
‘Don’t worry, Stilo. Just hold on.’ The voice of the corps commander was barely audible over the sounds coming from outside the tank. ‘Try the auspex again.’
‘I-I don’t want to see what’s out there.’
Bang, bang, bang.
‘Try the auspex, tanker!’
Stilo mumbled a brief prayer to Sancta Fide’s machine-spirit as he keyed the restart again. It had been more hurt than him. As the screens lit up, the banging intensified, coming now from at least two different places on the hull: one set echoed down the battle cannon while the other was coming from the port sponson.
Despite the damage, the pict-feed from the outside red-lit, steadied, flickered, then the pixels slowly began to come together.
Bang, bang. Bang.
The screen cleared. Outside, Stilo could see a vast, dusty plain. Calleva. He remembered, now. That was the name of this Emperor-forsaken planet. The smoking shells of two other Leman Russ tanks told him that none of the squadron had made it to the extraction zone. The ground around them was gouged with craters; for once, the orks had managed to range their artillery. Far off, he saw the curving arch of the Infinity Bridge spanning the continental abyss, its curve as elegant as the drop-off to the shifting magma sea was sudden.
Even as he saw it, Stilo knew that was wrong. The bridge should have been blown by now. His squadron had been detailed to delay the enemy while demolition charges were set, then head to the extraction zone. Either the charges had failed, or the engineers had not made it to the bridge.
But that was for the brass to worry about.
Bang, bang, bang.
He still couldn’t see what was making the noise. Stilo tried tracking the pict-feed around, but it did not move. Whatever had killed Sancta Fide had broken the motors. It was only by the Emperor’s grace that he could see anything at all out there.
‘Report, Stilo.’
‘I-I can’t see…’
A face appeared in the screen, staring at Stilo. It opened its mouth. Its tusks and tongue were the only things that weren’t a livid, fungoid green. Then, it bit down. The sensor went dark.
Lucius jerked back from the screen.
‘Orks.’ He leaned over the vox, whispering into it. ‘Orks, outside Sancta Fide. They’re what’s banging and biting it.’
‘Orks loot as readily as they kill,’ said the corps commander.
‘I’ve got Sancta Fide locked down, sir. They won’t get in here.’
‘That’s good, tanker. What else did you see?’
‘What? Oh, yes. I’ll try to get another pict-feed running. But the plain looks clear, sir. Only ork I saw was the one trying to get in here. Surprised they’re not heading for the bridge.’
‘What? What did you say, Stilo?’
‘I’m trying to get another pict-feed up.’
‘No, no. The bridge. It’s still up?’
‘Yes, sir. It’s still up.’
‘Hold there, tanker.’
The vox went quiet. But outside the tank, Stilo could hear movement. Lots of movement. He fiddled with the auspex, switching to another sensor array, and the screens gradually cleared.
‘There’s… there’s dozens of them around me,’ he whispered into the vox. ‘Hundreds. If I keep quiet, maybe they’ll go away.’
‘Confirm, the bridge is not down.’
‘What?’
‘Loader Stilo, get visual on the bridge. Is it down?’
Bang, bang, bang.
Stilo started as the banging began again, flinching from the port sponson.
‘Stilo, confirm.’
‘Confirmed, sir. The bridge is still standing.’
There was silence on the other end of the vox, then Stilo heard the corps commander talking urgently to someone else.
Bang, bang, bang.
‘Throne, they’re trying to get in, sir. What should I do?’
‘Stilo, listen to me. Are any orks closing on the bridge?’
Bang, bang, bang.
They were hammering at the starboard sponson now. Creaking, groaning noises came from the plasteel, as if someone were trying to peel it off, layer by layer.
Stilo glanced at the pict-feed. The long plain that led to the Infinity Bridge lay there, dusty, bare and empty. ‘No, sir.’
