+++5.153.987.M41+++
+++Pellenne, Subsector Ossibus, Sector Askellon, Segmentus Obscurus+++
+++Zagreb Mining Complex, Mine shaft RUX-34+++
Lars looked over the damp pit where hundreds of miners were struggling with their equipment, carving rock and metal alike out of the earth itself. The shaft lay at the far east side of the Zagreb complex and it was one that had one of the highest humidities of the entire site. The machinery the workers employed here was more suited for the more arid conditions at the center and west of the complex, but he had been told by one of the lower ranking techpriests that the Adeptus Mechanicus deemed the higher humidity within the safe range of the primal and secondary efficiency-equation. And Lars suspected that even if it didn't, the magos of the isolated planet wouldn't find it easy to get his mechadendrites on better suited equipment. Lars could only praise himself lucky for his little job as overseer and not as a miner. He only had to take care he didn't slip on the damp, rocky underground, while the miners had to be careful not to pierce themselves with their mining equipment as it slipped on the wet stone.
His shift was nearly over and no major accidents had occured. It looked like everybody would go to their barracks quietly today. Which made him think of his assignment for tonight. He was about to approach his first techpriest here. It had taken Lars quite some time to identify one which had reason to be disloyal to the Adeptus Mechanicus, but this one had been placed here after he had cocked something up quite thoroughly. And now he was the overseer of the elevators at mine shaft KHU-02, doing a job that was assigned to techadepts or even common workers with a knack for machine spirits.
The shift signal blared over the shaft and Lars could see how several thousand workers started making their way out of the shaft. Lars moved to one of the entrances of the trainstation where most of them would be headed. The worker's barracks were a dozen miles to the west and there was a train that would take them. Coming at the steel tourniquets he was rejoined by another enforcer, an older man that reminded him of the late Svensson. Morgan was a pious follower of the Emperor and was one of the guys that was actually good at his job. Instead of reverting to violence for every little incident, he let his voice and stare do most of the work and kept his shock baton mostly hanging at his side. Although Lars enjoyed a good relationship with the man - it was hard not to like him with his somewhat sarcastic sense of humour - he hadn't had brought him in on his little recruitment scheme. He just didn't have the heart to take the man down onto a path of heresy.
As hundreds of wet and soiled miners passed him by, Lars was sunken in thoughts about his meeting with the techpriest. A sharp poke of Morgan in his side made him look up. "Looks like we have trouble on our hands, Christian. By the throne, I had hoped it would be an easy shift for a change." Lars looked past the man's pointing finger to the end of the station. He could only see some dust clouds and heard a few annoyed cries of some miners. "Let us hope nothing too serious." Lars replied, "Come on. Let's have a look."
Lars waded through the stream of workers before him, Morgan in tow behind him. As they approached over the rough and worn down rockcrete road next to the station, the yelling became more intense and Lars could discern some fine cursing from several miners. But the mass of miners that was still pouring into the railyard obscured the vision of the two overseers on whatever was happening further down the road.
"That doesn't sound too good, Christian. Hurry up, before it escalates. Taking apart a few hotheads is far easier than breaking up the entire morning shift as they start fighting amongst themselves!" Lars nodded his approval and quickened his pace, unholstering the shock baton and holding it over his head to make sure that the miners before him would make place. Although the miners were also hearing the shouting, the direct presence of the overseers was enough to make room and let them through. Morgan's small walkie vox unit crackled and beeped. Probably another duo of overseers reporting the disturbance and Lars could indeed see another set of shock batons above the dirty yellow helmets of the miners about thirty meters before him. Morgan didn't bother answering the vox. His own walkie could only receive. Lars hadn't offered to fix it because he didn't want to give away much about himself. And the Mechanicus didn't bother to replace halfbroken units.
They were now approaching the center of the disturbance and Lars could hear the noise of groundcar engines. Which was peculiar as only a very limited number of people in the Zagreb complex had access to this mode of transportation. As Morgan and Lars moved closer, they could see a clearing in the mass before them. Their fellow overseers had already reached it, since their shock batons were no longer visible. Then, suddenly, a series of shots were fired. Lars didn't recognize the sound, but the rhytm indicated a fully automatic weapon. And by the sound of it, it was a far heavier calibre than the regular autogun. The crowd around him exploded in panic with miners fleeing in all directions. Through the jumble of bodies, Lars caught a glimpse of two bodies laying on the surface. Their wounds were terrible, but apart from the timing of the attack, the shock baton that was laying next to one of the bodies made it easy enough to identify them as the two overseers who went in first.
'They are here for you Akira. Just like on Desoleum.'
"Run! Now!" Lars yelled over the noise of the fleeing miners. When he turned around to follow his own command, he could see that Morgan hadn't awaited his command and was already plowing his way through the mass. He yelled in return where they should go, but Lars didn't have the time to formulate anything coherent. The engines of the ground cars behind him were gunned and he could hear them approaching. Only seconds later, he could hear how a worker was run over, followed by more and more of the wet thumping noises of bodies being violently pushed aside or trampled. Which only served to spur Lars on. His heart was racing, but so were his thoughts.
'They know you're with the overseers. They know you were doing a shift here. And they know that your only way out is the train.'
Lars looked at the railwaystation. Most of the men and women around him were fervently fighting to get in and - Lars supposed - busy conquering a place in one of the carriages. There was no way the men that were after him would let the train leave. And as soon as they made it clear they were looking for the overseers... Lars could only imagine what would happen.
Before him, Morgan was doing exactly the same thing as the mass; trying to get into the railyard. Lars forced himself to catch him. "Not that way Morgan! Let's head south!" Morgan gave him a surprised look over his shoulder, but nevertheless changed direction. Still Lars' mind was racing. If they wouldn't find him on the train, they would look elsewhere. And everywhere they went where there would be other workers, they would be given up. So, Lars looked for a place where they would be truly alone. Which wasn't easy as thousands of workers were looking for refuge. The railyard was out and so was the mineshaft as a large part of the workshift had turned around and were looking for refuge in the tunnels and corridors. Then, Lars eye fell on the rusty watertower next to the cliffside. It would get them out of view and wouldn't be crowded with miners. With another shout, Lars redirected their course and ran for his life.
It had gone like Lars had expected. Another two ground cars had come in from the northwest and had stormed the maglev loc at the front of the train. There had been no remorse or hesitation from the men fighting their way to the control room of the heavy locomotive, although it had been less noisy since they were carrying needle rifles. The men who were coming in from the east were far more rowdy and Lars had spotted one of them carrying some kind of heavy bolter, an issue that should have been mounted on a pinacle on top of a Rhino. They had cut down several miners trying to get in the railyard, but they mostly lashed out when they got a lock on one of Lars' fellow overseers.
Morgan had started panicking and Lars had tried to calm the man down as best as he could. They were laying flat on one of the platforms interconnecting the service ladders leading to the top of the water tower, only partly concealed by the metal beams supporting the large iron tank at the top. The old man had had another fit when the thugs had activated the railyard loudhailer system. "We mean you miners no harm." a metallic sounding voice had echoed over the terrain. "We are only looking for your overseers. Surrender them to us and no harm will come to you. If you refuse, you will share their fate."
It had taken less than ten seconds before the first overseer had been thrown out of one of the cars. And less than a minute before they were all jousted out of the train. At least, Lars thought that they were all thrown out, because when they had all been killed, the armed men turned their attention to the mineshaft. They used the same trick and sure enough those overseers that had taken refuge in the mine shafts and were in the company of a bunch of miners were all turned over to be shot. The mine shaft was a far larger area than the railyard so the whole operation had taken more than an hour and Lars had had the opportunity to study the behaviour of the enemy.
They seemed to be highly profesionnal, not wasting time, ammo or effort on cruelty or torture. They didn't seem to particularly enjoy terrorizing the miners on the train or in the shaft. They were focused on one goal solely: killing every overseer present. But Lars knew better. They were looking for one overseer in particular. One of the thugs was carrying a dataslate and each time his companions brought him a body, he compared its face against a pict on his slate. Lars would bet all of his thrones that it was a pict of his face that the man was looking at.
"Looks like they are getting a bit frustrated." Lars whispered as he saw the man with the dataslate kick the last body that had been brought to him. It was the first thing he had said in over an hour. It surprised Morgan as he could feel the man laying beside him jolted a little. Luckily the man managed to keep his silence, but two minutes later, the man spoke up. "You know what's going on, don't you Christian?" "No. Why would you frakking say that Morgan? I can just see that this guy is getting pissed." The other man went silent, but after half a minute, he questioned Lars again. "Don't lie to me Christian. You knew what they were doing from the start. Has this anything to do with your extracurricular activities?" Lars slowly looked aside. "Shut up, Morgan... I've got no idea what they are doing here." Lars could see that Morgan didn't like his answers. "Frak you, Christian. It looks like they have every other overseer laying before them, face down against the rock. Only you and me remain. You're the new guy. You're talking to all kinds of people and you knew what was going on the moment they put down two of our colleagues."
Lars stared at the old man. Two grey eyes looked back at him from under two thick greyish eyebrows. The skin around his eyes was wrinkled from countless hours of watching the miners toil and sweat beneath him. On a little golden chain around his neck hung a tiny idol of the Emperor Saviour. Lars tried to determine where Morgan was going with this, because if he didn't shut up quickly, they might attract the attention of the kill squad below. The look he got from Morgan was partly exasperation and partly condamnation. As if the man couldn't decide whether he was mostly shocked by the killings or angry at the man that had brought these men to his mining shaft.
"This has nothing to do with the talks I had, but perhaps my past has caught up with me." Lars whispered. With a look on the golden idol, Lars continued. "I have prayed to the Emperor that I could leave my deeds behind me. And for a moment it seemed like He had heard me. But now, I think He's telling me I need to deal with my own mess. And I'm sorry that our friends and colleagues had to suffer for that. But don't deny me my chance to make it right with Him, now. So shut up and let me think."
Lars gave Morgan another firm stare and he could see that he had convinced him. Some sort of resignation fell over him and he redirected his attention to the scene below. Lars felt relieved and turned his attention to his problem. Armed with his shock baton and accompanied by a single ally, the tactical situation was pretty desperate for them. He had counted about twenty armed men and they were carrying better equipment than a HWMV squad. A look on his chrono learned him that the train was only supposed to leave now, so unless one of the techpriests in the railyard sign house had called this in to central command of the Zagreb complex, it would still take some time before they became aware of the current situation. And if these guys were any good, they had cut the hardline before doing their little show. Lars doubted these men would have been sloppy.
Still, if he wanted to escape - Lars had no intention of fighting these men - he needed to get backup as soon as possible. Rolling back on his side, he faced Morgan once more and whispered:
"Give me the walkie, Morgan."
"What?... You know the thing is broken."
"Just give it to me."
Morgan carefully detached the vox unit from his belt, making sure that the thing wouldn't fall down the metal stairs which would definitely give away their position. Lars took it and rolled on his back, already taking off the cover of the little apparatus. Once more he praised himself lucky that he had at least picked up a minimum of insight in the working of machine spirits back on Rexon. Without equipment it would be a pain in the ass to fix the little contraption, but it was his only way to get a signal out to command.
A quarter of an hour later Lars had managed to reconnect a few wires, but when he checked for a connection, he only got static. The men below had become more restless by the minute and when a few of the miners had come off the train and had started asking questions, they had been answered in bullets. Three more corpses didn't seem to bother them. Five minutes ago, they had gathered around the leader, who had started explaining another plan. Six of his men were now walking to the last carriage. The man with the heavy bolter and his autostabilizing harness, remained at a distance and kept the barrel of the fearsome weapon trained on the last wagon.
"Christian. You got to see this." Morgan whispered. Lars looked up from his work and squinted to see what was happening. The six thugs started shouting at one of the doors of the last carriage. After a minute or so, a line of twenty miners, of all ages marched out of the carriage and onwards to the service road before the railyard. At the same time, the man with the dataslate had switched the loudhailers back on. A shrill peeping noise echoed through the mining shaft and the large hall of the railyard. "Attention. Christian Haraldson. We know you are here and we know we haven't found you. We're giving you one minute to come out of hiding. For each minute that passes afterwards, we will execute one of the miners here. And as you can see, there are plenty of them!"
The leader cut the channel, resulting in another atonal noise blaring through the system and it seemed the mineshaft had never been more quiet. The men and women in the open mine shaft and on the train held their breath, almost as one. Only after half a minute or so the silence was broken by one of the miners that had been taken off the train by the thugs. The man had fallen on his knees and started pleading with one of the armed men before him. A casual backslap was all he got in return. Lars didn't dare to look at his colleague beside him, and continued to stare at the scene when Morgan spoke up.
"Christian. They are not bluffing. Get down there and end this." But Lars had averted his eyes from the scene beneath him and was working once more on the walkie. Morgan's tone grew angry. "You think they're bluffing? You stupid frak?" "Shut the frak up, Morgan or you'll betray our position." Lars whispered back. "I'm not going out there to be killed." Lars could feel Morgan's eyes burning on his face, but he didn't budge. The silence stretched on, until the sounds of fear and anguish came from the miners. Needle rifles don't make a lot of noise, but a couple of thousand miners seeing one of their own being executed before them, does. Lars could easily imagine the mixed feeling of fear and anger that was going through their ranks. Beside him, he could hear a gasp and a short prayer to the Emperor.
"If you're not going, I will, Christian." Now, Lars did look up from his work. He only had to reattach the battery. The beginning of a solution was upon them. "I'll go down, and tell them that you're not here." Morgan continued. Lars felt a new knot in his stomach. He laid a hand on Morgan's back. He opened his mouth to stop him. But the other man was already moving. Still, Lars tried to halt him. "They won't listen to you. They'll force you to tell them... You're... You're throwing away your life." Lars whispered hurried. "You're just scared that it won't work. Or that they'll find you once they see me." Morgan said, now looking down on Lars. He had a stern look in his eyes, but it faded as he took a step backwards. "It's alright Christian. I understand. But I can't let those people die."
Lars wanted to plea, convince him that it was no use. But the sound of the crowd anticipating another execution reached them at the same time. "If this doesn't work..." Morgan added, but he didn't finish and grabbed hold of the watertower's service ladder. Just before his head disappeared under the steel platform they had been laying on, he whispered. "If this doesn't work, I'm counting on you Christian."
Lars clicked the battery in place. 'A waste. A damned waste, Akira.' He pushed the send button of the walkie. 'If their new tactic wouldn't work, they would stop.' Lars whispered in the mouthpiece. "This is overseer Christian Haraldson, number 8556-9663, come in control." He rolled back on his belly to look at the scene below. Two corpses were laying down before the thugs. And it would only be moments before they would get Morgan in view. 'We had a solution ready. What a frakking waste Akira.' But as no reply came, Lars looked back at the walkie. He checked the channel. It was correct. "Control, come in." He tried again. No reply came. Below, Morgan stepped out from behind the watertower base. Lars checked the walkie unit once more. The send button, the antenna, the power signal, the frequency selector and finally the mouthpiece. Everything looked normal, except that the mouthpiece hung a bit loose. One of the thugs started shouting. Lars inspected the part from close by. The protective mesh around the wires to the mouthpiece had been torn. 'It never would have worked.' Desillusionised and trembling with disappointment and regret, he saw how Morgan closed the distance with his hands above his head. The needle rifles were aimed at him. The heavy bolter as well. The leader of the group held his hand up and checked the dataslate one final time. Morgan started shouting - Lars couldn't make out what - but the hand went down. The rifles went off and Morgan went down. 'Bastards... Stupid bastards.' Another hand signal and the man guarding the group of miners in the middle of the street, shot down another seven men, one after the other. The loudhailers tchirped and the monotone voice of the leader rang through the system once more. "Overseer Christian Haraldson. We know you are here. Having your friends tell us that you are not is a poor tactic. One for which these miners will pay for. We will now start executing these civilians each 30 seconds... Give yourself up and they will be spared."
Lars remained where he was. He had accepted that someone else would be paying the price. The steepness of that price, was not his to determine, but as the other men and women were given a neckshot, he could feel his heart ache each time a body hit the dirt. In under five minutes it was over. The thugs weren't even making an effort to respect the 30 second interval. The leader was getting more and more annoyed by the lack of results and when one of his men asked the obvious question as the last miner was executed, he was only rewarded with a scowling motion of his arm.
At this point, Lars half expected him to order another group of miners to be grabbed from the train, or to simply give up. Searching the terrain was hopeless. There were countless nooks and crannies where a person could hide, and although you needed to know your way around, it was even possible to slip from this mine shaft to another one via the subterranean network of tunnels. But the man clearly thought on a scale, bigger than Lars could imagine. The leader approached the man hauling the heavy bolter around and then used the loudhailer system to adress Lars once more. "You haven't complied with our wishes. I've tried to be reasonable. If you don't present yourself, we will open fire on the train."
Although Lars could see that dozens of miners were now scrambling to get out of the train, he knew it would be a massacre. And he had been willing to pay the price for his own safety and the completion of his mission. But with every step the man with the heavy weapon approached the entrance of the railyard, Lars' resolve took a hit. The man had taken up a position at the first platform, Lars could see from his elevated position and braced himself for the kick of the weapon, just when the walkie at his side crackled to life.
