You see a lot of death in the AM. It's inevitable – all part of the job. I remember once, we were put in the vanguard of a relief force, sent to help a Vostroyan armoured group break out of an encirclement. I was just a trooper back then – still learning the trade. The commander, like a fair number of other AM brassies, thought that being rescued by what he called "a mob of traitors, murderers, thieves, anarchists, disbelievers, and gang-whores" was tantamount to a personal insult to himself and his men. Instead of co-ordinating with our plan, he launched an attack and tried to break out on his own.
That night, an entire hillside was lit by the burning hulks of his tanks. The gunfire, the screams, the death and carnage had all stopped. The enemy withdrew. And all that was left were the silent flames licking into the air. The morning afterwards, we picked our way through the wreckage. By that evening, we'd forgotten all about that Vostroyan tank commander, and his ignominious death. I don't feel some sense of spiteful delight at what happened, just indifference. It's the way you survive in Death Row. If you start to care, then you start to crumble inside; and then the barrel of your laspistol starts to look a little too friendly. I've seen that happen too many times.
So, as I walked through the remnants of Cable Company, I didn't look for survivors. The officers – the black-hat included - were having an emergency meeting, which is usually brassie-talk for panicking and trying to work out whose fault the drekking mess was. Like I said, indifference is usually the best course of action. Cable was dead. Some of the more optimistic troopers – the ones who hadn't been beaten into cynicism and apathy yet – were trying to force open some of the doors of the Valkyries. I saw Blackeyes looking in their direction.
"They're dead," I said, in a low, calm voice. "You don't need to see their bodies to know that."
Blackeyes nodded, but kept shooting looks towards the troopers. The exit ramp opened with a shriek of grinding metal, and charred bodies began to spill out. The troopers leapt back with shouts of disgust and dismay.
"It gets easier," I said to Blackeyes.
Telling truth, I was half-reminding myself of that fact. It gets easier. It gets easier to watch the brassies waste people's lives because they forgot to bomb the drekking anti-air towers before landing us in what amounts to an airborne cargo-hauler with a few guns welded on the side as an afterthought. To the brass, that's just a couple of hundred ex-gangers that went down in flames. They'll be marked in a ledger, and requisition forms will be sent off to Weissar to have another couple of hundred ex-gangers drafted up. To me, that was a couple of hundred other people that could have gotten shot instead of me. My chances of survival had just been cut by a third, and it wasn't making me feel great about things. That being said, of course, most of the brassies – in my experience - typically start their battles by culling a chunk of their army just to get us in the mood for a fight.
"Could be worse," Surt said, carrying his heavy flamer as if it were no more than a bag of highly-volatile dirty laundry.
"Yeah," Jammy said. "Could have been us."
"We'll pour one out for the poor bastards later," Smiler said, in what I can only assume was the first time he'd ever felt the tinges of emotion in his life. "Let's get this drekking mess sorted out, then we can get out of here."
"Think the stormtroopers got hit?"
"Here's drekking hoping," Butcher said. "Still reckon they'll try and shoot us on sight."
"The stormtroopers aren't our concern," Smiler snapped back at him, clearly intent on crushing the pangs of emotion under a mountain of shouting our orders, shouting at us for being bad soldiers, and generally shouting anything else that popped into his mind.
While the brass tried to work out what in the name of the Emperor was going on, and seemed to have agreed that this was probably the Navy's fault – which is usually a good line to take in most situations – we'd been left to our own devices. We were meant to be standing-at-ease, but nobody in Death Row ever took that order seriously. Most of the squads and platoons had coalesced into knots of chattering troopers. There was probably about as much smoking drifting into the air from us as there was from the burned-out Valkyries of Cable Company. Smiler stood apart, waiting for the brass to tell him what to shout at us.
High above us, the spires and peaks of the prison loomed overhead. Gargoyles lurched out from the walls, their ugly faces leering down towards us. I lit one of my few remaining lho-sticks and regarded them for a moment, wondering which drekking genius of an architect thought this was the kind of building that should be used for a prison. It looked like a cathedral, and I was half-expecting the great iron-banded doors to swing open, and a procession of priests to emerge in a cloud of incense and chanting. My moment of reverie was broken when Pockets suddenly sidled back into the group. It took me a moment to work out that I wasn't going blind or losing my memory from the concussion, he'd simply run off at the first instance to try and loot whatever he could from the nearest Valkyrie.
"All drekking blown to scrap," he whined to Butcher. "Not a thing worth saving."
"You two still owe me my stash back," I said. "So don't drekking die today."
"I'll get it back, don't worry!" Pockets said. He was using the voice of someone who's suddenly remembered that he had a debt to pay, and the creditors had both guns and size on their side. "Tell you what, Smokey, I'm sure there's a lovely little prison commissariat in there. We'll take a detour, won't be ten minutes. We'll have your stash back and more besides."
"Yeah, and then we'll all sit around and have some drekking teacakes," I snapped at him.
"Will you lot shut it?" Smiler shouted back at us. "You're supposed to be preparing to engage the enemy."
"Just having a little chat about tactical analysis of the situation," I said.
"I have ears, Corporal. If you don't want to get shot by a stormtrooper, or me, then no drekking looting."
Pockets put up a hand. "I thought you said you could only hear out of one ear after that time Blackeyes lobbed a grenade into the trench you were trying to clear out."
"I didn't know he was in the trench," Blackeyes muttered.
"If you did, I reckon he wouldn't be here," I said, grinning.
Blackeyes smiled at that, then it dropped back into a stoney grimace. Blondie was heading for us.
"We're moving in. We'll leave a platoon here as a reserve – it's the best we can do."
"Please be our platoon," Jammy muttered under his breath.
"We'll be taking point," Blondie said. "I want your squad in as soon as we open the doors."
A chorus of moans and sighs went up from around me. Smiler's eye started twitching as he went into full NCO Parade Ground Mode, reeling off the Tactica Imperium at a volume only matched by the speed at which he delivered it at.
"First squad on the left hand door; second squad on the right hand door. Prepare for close-quarters fighting. Sweep area and cover flanks. Secure any entryways and exits. Is that understood, troopers?"
I swear, Smiler even thinks in shouts. Of course, we'd heard this all before, and done it more times than we could count. Bonuses of growing up in a hive-mine tend to include understanding the nature of close-quarters fighting. Now we were actually getting into the meat of the operation, troopers were taking extra precautions. Bayonet sheaths were unclipped; brass knuckles were slipped into easily-reached pockets; fresh lho-sticks were slipped behind ears. I heard the wet splash and retching of someone chucking up their guts. There was a ripple of dark laughter as Chunks came back from a Valkyrie, after he inevitably lived up to his nickname.
I led my fireteam up to the door. The rest of the company had taken cover. Across from me, I could see Pockets inching his way backwards until he bumped into Chunks at the back of Smiler's line. Smiler stared implacably back at me. It's hard to know what's going on in his head. Maybe he was mentally shouting a prayer to the Emperor. Maybe he was afraid, just like the rest of us. I certainly was. I didn't want to go through a drekking door and straight into a likely well-prepared enemy position, to be gunned down doing a drekking policing job. My hand ached and twinged painfully as I gripped the hellgun tighter. But there I drekking was – never mind the concussion and the broken hand.
Smiler held up a hand, then dropped his fingers, one-by-one. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
We shoved the doors open, hellguns sweeping left and right, searching for targets. Blood was pounding in my ears; every breath rasped out of my throat. I heard the shrieking howl of las-fire and something off to my left exploded into flames. I kept searching, tracking objects, assessing, moving on: desk, stairs, door, door, door, desk, terminals. I shrank back into the corner by the door, kept the hellgun trained, raised. Surt stomped past me, the pilot light of his heavy flamer flickering and burning an intense blue-white. One-by-one, Blackeyes and Jammy booted open the doors, stepped back, hellguns up and ready to fire. Nothing.
Silence fell down over us, only broken by the faint breeze twitching at scattered papers and tattered purity seals fixed to the wall. A door creaked, swinging on its one remaining hinge. I took in the entire space: three doors leading off to one side; another door leading off in the corner, with a charred, smoking hole next to it; a grand staircase; a desk littered with the debris of administratum work; a small shrine to the Emperor in a corner. There was no sign of anyone – no bodies, no blood. It was as if they'd all just vanished in the middle of their day.
"Clear," Smiler shouted.
The rest of the platoon stormed through the open entryway, and started to set up firing positions.
I lowered my hellgun, breathing hard. Adrenaline was thundering through my veins. Only as it began to fade did the headache return, and my hand started to twinge on the hellgun. Smiler waved us over. He was glowering at Trigger, one of the troopers in his fireteam. Trigger, for her part, was doing her best to stumble through an explanation of sorts. I nudged Chunks.
"What happened?"
"Trigger swears she saw something."
"Anyone else?"
"No. Just her."
Smiler gave Trigger a parting glower, then went off to check in with Blondie.
"I'm telling you, Smokey, it was right there!" Trigger said, pointing in the direction of the smoking hole in the wall.
"What was there?"
"I don't know – something! Weird blue-purple kind of thing. Lots of teeth."
Trigger has her ups and downs. On the one hand, she's always keen to get on sentry duty, largely so she can set a vertiable minefield of traps to catch whoever she reckons might be after us; on the other hand, she has the itchiest finger in the entire regiment. As far as we can tell, she's nearly shot most of us at one point or another; and we've all periodically wondered if she should have been sent off to psych-eval a long time ago. As far as my own thoughts go, given that the brassies all seem as mad as drunken mine-rats, I think she's probably due a fast-track promotion to Lord General.
"Anyone got ideas for weird, blue-purple thing with lots of teeth?" I asked the squad at large.
"Bugs?" Butcher suggested.
"Knowing our luck, it will be," Jammy said. "Drekking infestation of 'nids. That's all we need right now."
"Trigger, did you definitely see something?" Surt asked. Butcher leant over and lit a lho-stick off his flamer's pilot light.
"I'm telling you, I saw something." Trigger's eye started twitching.
"But you definitely saw something. Not like that time you saw a mob of infiltrating orks?"
"In her defence, Catachans can look like orks in the dark," I mused. "Let's assume there's something going on here, until we know there's not. Stay away from any vents. When we move, I want Surt up front, and Jammy on rearguard."
"Are we all quite done with our drekking tea party, here?" Smiler shouted, by way of greeting.
"Well, we were just about to break out the biscuits, sir," I said, "But we can put that off if you like."
"You are too drekking kind, Corporal Strauss," Smiler said. "We're moving on. Fourth platoon will stay behind to keep this area secure. This is our fall-back point if anything goes to drekk."
"We're still rescuing the Sisters, right?" I said.
"Our platoon is."
"One platoon, for a whole cell block?"
"I didn't realise you had suddenly been promoted to the officer corps, Corporal Strauss." Smiler snapped at me. "By all means, please inform me of your masterful strategic plan."
I shrugged.
"Just what I thought. Now, get moving."
I lit a lho-stick and started to chivvy the others towards the door. The packet rattled as I shoved it back in my pocket, reminding me just how low I was running. Four. I could get by on four lho-sticks, right? With a potential infestation of bugs scampering around in the vents. Sure. I could survive on four – I'd probably be sliced into meaty chunks before I finished the pack. Adding to the mood of general bad luck, Thorpe came striding over with a stupid drekking grin on his face to inform us that he'd be coming along with us. Really, life in the AM, it's to die for.
The cathedral-esque theme of the building had been carried into the cell blocks, because this was the Imperium of Man, and that's just how our architects seem do things, apparently. The heavy wooden doors stood ajar, and peering inside I could see what looked more like a confessional booth than any prison cell I'd ever been in – which is far more than my fair share. Each had a prayer book inside, most of them torn to shreds. The papers were scattered into the corridor, defaced in shaking hands or simply torn apart. As we rounded the first corridor, we found our first corpse – or, what was left of it.
The wardens weren't arbites – they wouldn't lower themselves to this kind of dull drekk – but they wore similar black carapace armour. A broken shotgun lay next to the pulped mass that had once been a warden, the stock coated with dark, dried blood. More blood than looked capable of fitting inside a person lay in a sticky pool around the body. None of us gave him a second look, really. He was dead, and we'd just seen much worse outside. We stepped carefully, not out of respect for the dead, but on account of the blood, which is generally drekking difficult to clean off your boots. More corridors, more bodies. None of the escaped prisoners. We skirted around any air ducts that looked large enough to hold any of the slavering, toothy, nightmare-creatures the bugs use, with one of us always keeping overwatch on it as the others went past.
"This is getting on my drekking nerves," Butcher muttered to me, as we sighted down a corridor.
It wasn't just Butcher. Trigger looked like she was sweating from the effort of resisting shooting at something. Her finger was so tight around her hellgun's trigger that it must have been an Emperor-given miracle the gun never went off. Every time Thorpe and his ogryn minder went past us, Blackeyes started fiddling with her combat knife. The tension would probably kill us before we'd even seen any of the prisoners. Nobody spoke. The air felt heavy and stale; it was like breathing in our rations. I was beginning to get light-headed and dizzy, the maze of identical corridors, the harsh, flickering tube lights, not to mention the drekking concussion, were taking their toll.
After what seemed like hours, we finally started hearing noises. Screams, shouts, laughter, creaking doors, rattling chains. Even at the thought of contact, the relief in the whole platoon was palpable. A degree of chatter started up again, then swiftly died away. The noises were drifting closer. Barely noticable at first, then growing louder with each passing second. The lights above us shattered, glass rained down, the doors rattled on their hinges. Blondie shouted for us to ready weapons and take up firing positions; Smiler bellowed a mixture of orders, curses, and prayers. The comm-bead in my ear was going haywire with a mixture of buzzing static, ordinary vox-traffic, and what sounded like hysterical laughter.
The daemon crawled through the doorway. An enormous, twisted, writhing mass of flesh. Arms, legs, heads, skinless muscle, bloody chunks of bone, all jumbled together with random bits of metal – manacles, black segments of carapace armour, even the broken bits of riot shotgun poked out. Dozens of eyes stared out blankly. A pair of vestigial wings flapped uselessly as it surged forward like a bloated centipede. It was as if the bodies had been smashed to pieces and then glued back together with whatever was lying around. A score of mouths opened, and then screamed in what I can only imagine was sheer agony.
Well, at least it wasn't drekking tyranids.