Maretuka Naval Base
Knife ears protruded from a white face topped with streaming orange hair. Borne aloft in the centre of a mob rolling through Orsolya, a huge effigy bobbed. Seroni Bukharin, her chin in her hand, faced the telescreen embedded in her office's back wall showing an aerial view of the thousand-strong march. Flames licked the effigy's arms and soon it lay face down and set upon by knives, fists, and feet. The very worst of men, for all the galaxy to see. Seroni's chrono beeped and she swung around in her chair and unlocked her cogitator.
You have one-hundred and seventeen unread messages, this morning, Major.
Mm-hm, so let fly. Seroni picked up a handmade beanbag sitting amongst others in a shallow basket and worked her fingers in to the squishy balls held inside. Brown dregs clung to the bottom of her recaf mug, long since drained. Two squawks came from Seroni's office door.
"Yes?" Seroni held down a pressure switch in a recess beneath her desk.
"Ma'am, I do believe I am your first appointment."
"One moment." Seroni called up her calendar. Cocky one, aren't you. "Please confirm your name and time of appointment."
"Ushman, ma'am. My appointment is at nine."
"You're a little early, Specialist."
"I gambled my chrono away."
"You're only fifteen minutes out, so you're not totally adrift."
"My OC told me to count in my head. So, I did."
"Okay, come on in." Seroni released the door's locks and dropped her beanbag in the basket. "Good morning, Specialist."
"And a good morning to you too, Captain." An overage man wearing the PDF Squares pattern sauntered in, smiling, his hands in his pockets. Slicked-back, greying hair shone on his head and stubble peppered his jaw. A specialist's flash sat on his breast and his nametag read Ushman. "It was captain when we last saw each other, wasn't it?"
Seroni's fingers ran along the underside of her desk to a holstered pistol and tilted the muzzle towards Commander Sorge. "How long do I have?"
"Mmm… I'd give it two months before Feyn Ushman leaves the hospital. So, I guess specialists can be in two places at once." Sorge lifted a chair, swung it around, and sat down in front of Seroni's desk. "How is your new executive lifestyle?"
"Tell me what you want." Seroni killed the power to her screen one-handed.
Sorge stuck out his lower lip. "I didn't see the need to bring a gun. Yet, you bring one to bear on me beneath the desk." Sorge planted his hands on the edge of the desk. "Please, hear me out."
"I'll see you out."
"I'll see the Obrist here." Sorge cocked his head and grinned. "He's wondering whose skirts Seroni hides behind. It's Hanin now, isn't it?"
Seroni's jaw clenched. "Why do you do this, Commander? You make enemies of everyone you come across – those you are unable to swallow inside your pocket. Issues with trust, have we? Should we wind the clock back to adolescence and pick up the shrapnel garnered in childhood? An unloved second or third son clamouring for daddy's affection?" Seroni returned power to her cogitator's display and ran a search command. "Find, String, R. Sorge." Seroni stabbed Return. "Maybe there was no Mr and Mrs Sorge. Only the bark and the cane of the Schola Progenium and the creaking of leather and lashing of the whip. Sadist's delight."
Caution. To the user submitting the search. Your search is restricted as the requested item requires Karathia level clearance.
"What is Karathia level clearance?"
Sorge pulled his leg up under him. "…Does it matter? They're names chosen from a randomly generated list. Nobody knows what it is, only that it's not for the likes of you to know."
"And what don't I know about you?"
"It's better that you don't."
"Are you Naval Special Warfare Division? You and the other officer Barakat?"
"I'm the admiral's fixer. Orsolya is undergoing maintenance. Your talents would be welcome."
"You can have the ashes. Make merry over the xenos corpses hand in hand with the anarchists, you, the very worst of men."
"Seroni—" Seroni lifted a triangular nameplate and rapped the base against the desk's surface. "Excuse me—Hanin."
"Address the rank, please."
"Well, Major, we can keep this conversation between us or I can include the Obrist." Sorge's fingers tap-danced on the arm of the chair. "I am sure he would love a catch-up."
"Excuse me, Commander! Do the dictums of our betters mean nothing to you? After Cadia your conduct, and through you, the Obrist's, brought shame to Urgraf and the Imperial Navy. Commissions used to be for the brightest sparks of humanity. They are nothing but shrouds obscuring simple sadism."
"Cadia was where the enemy threw all pretence of restraint in to the Warp. They weren't looking to occupy and oppress but obliterate down to the last atom. That's the war we're fighting."
"No, you justify to yourself. Those people aboard the cruiser were entirely innocent. You do not slaughter the servants for the crimes of the king."
"Major, they will drown our worlds in fire one by one unless we pull our pants up at home and face them without fear of what's behind us. See past the means—learn!"
"You should have brought a gun."
"Still don't need one." Sorge cupped his chin in his hand and smirked.
"How long do I have?"
"There's no snatch team outside—swear to the God-Emperor! It's just two old acquaintances reminiscing."
"We were never acquaintances."
"But you do care about your acquaintances, don't you? Colleagues, friends, the man in your life…"
"There was never any question of my participation, was there? What do I need to sign?"
"It's off the record. I knew you'd make the right decision."
"…And is this in immediate effect?"
"Not especially." Sorge flicked a finger at the telescreen. "Say, you keep up with the news, don't you?"
"You know I do." Seroni powered the telescreen. You probably know when my time of the month is too.
"See that?" The aerial view of the protestors marching through Orsolya stabilised.
"I'm seeing it. Not quite understanding how we stop it."
"Look closer."
Seroni increased the telescreen's magnification. "Orsolyans unite against Xenos."
"Mm-hm. Slant-ears causing a stir."
"You call them that to their face, do you? No wonder they hate us."
"They call us worse. We are doing them a favour."
"How?"
"You are going to give the administration exactly what they want." A pointy-eared effigy rode atop shoulders. "There. The Butcher of Lutufeyo."
Orsolya
Soles clanged on rutted steps. Bright blue body armour emblazoned with the word Press bulked up Setsiba's torso. A woollen watch cap covered her ears and foam fingers plugged them. In front of and behind Setsiba, armed humans wearing plate carriers over dark clothing escorted her up a flight of stairs. At the head, a balled fist smacked a sealed door with a wheel lock. The wheel spun and the door squeaked inwards. Orange light poured in to the stairwell. Setsiba narrowed her eyes and turned her head away from the smoky haze clouding the pre-dawn sky.
"Ma'am?" Setsiba's escort took a hand away from his slung slugthrower and wagged two fingers. "Please."
Masked humans guarded a stationary column of boxy, four-wheeled vehicles parked in the glow of burning buildings. Armour-plating surrounded long-barrelled slugthrowers mounted in turrets and covered wheels.
"Ma'am?" Setsiba's escort opened a passenger door and stood by.
Setsiba ducked inside the compartment. "Oh!" Metallic cartridge casings cut in to her backside. The shoulders of Setsiba's body armour rose to chin height. Dirty fur lined the door panels and covered the dashboard in the front. Legs rose inside the turret ring. Green ammunition boxes lined a storage shelf behind her.
"Window up." A human wearing a skull-imprinted facemask sat in the seat across from Setsiba. Pink skin surrounded pale blue eyes visible beneath his cap. "Window up—don't look at me!"
Setsiba slid her window up. "Have you round-ears never seen a slant-ear before?"
"You make pretty stiffs," a human in the front said.
Stiffs? The vehicle jolted and rumbled forwards. Setsiba tugged her vest's collar down from where it had ridden up. In the corner of Setsiba's eye, the skull-faced human stared at her. The handle of a short sword stuck out from behind a row of full ammunition pouches attached to the front of his vest. Red lines criss-crossed the backs of his hands.
Fire raged inside buildings. Burst pipes left streets half-flooded. Loose cables dangled from powerlines. Shadows flitted through the haze. "What is our destination?" Setsiba adjusted her vest and leaned forwards. "Is it Avramides?" A cigarette glowed beneath the skull-faced human's mask. In the front seat, an olive-skinned human bare of mask slotted cartridges in to a magazine. "When I ask, no-one answers!" Setsiba's eyes found the skull-faced human. "You of the deathly face. Why the keen eyes?"
"There's your answer." The olive-skinned human in the front slid his full magazine inside a pouch upside down. "Never seen a slant-ear before."
"I've seen plenty. Even fought with some." The deathly-faced human fitted a quick-release buckle clipped to his weapon.
"Where?" Setsiba pulled on her collar. The deathly-faced human nudged his window down and flicked his cigarette out.
"James, my starter belt's sub one-hundred." A broad arm swung down from the turret.
"No names!" James lurched at the human standing in the turret. "Hoi, no names!"
"What, why?" An unmasked human wearing a ballistic helmet with an ocular attached stooped. Dark eyebrows jumped. "Oh, er, peace be upon you, lady xenos."
"And you."
James heaved an ammunition box down from the shelf. Metal rattled inside. "'Ere. Full fifty. D'you want to hand me your starter, Thay?"
"Tracer?" The human gunner Thay exchanged his ammunition belt with the full load.
"None."
"Is that how you did it on Cadia then?" The gunner bore the ammunition up in to the turret. "Blind both ways?"
"Were you at Cadia?"
James sorted the belt in to a long S-shape and tossed it on the shelf. He tilted the brim of his cap down further and brought his weapon's stock closer to his shoulder. Brakes squeaked and vibrations from the engine eased off. "Eyes up."
An onboard communications unit squawked. "There are barricades blocking the street ahead."
"Bull through?"
"Negative. Cars stacked on top of one another. We'll need a bulldozer."
"How did they stack cars on top of each other?" A human in the front passed a flat-screened dataslate to the driver.
"Pfft, power of hate gets you most of the way."
"How far out are we?"
Gloved fingers tapped the screen. "Two streets."
"Be a job to get this lot turned around—" Whipcracks shot past Setsiba's window. A wingmirror exploded. Setsiba hunched in her seat and brought her hand to her collar.
"Contact front. Contact front."
"Where?" Thay swung his turret around. "Where?"
"Oi, start shooting!" James booted his door open, spread his fingers across the gap between door and frame, and supported his slugthrower between his thumb and forefinger. "Thay!"
"I can't see any flashes."
"Eleven o'clock, eleven o'clock. Third floor."
"Find us another route. We're boxed in here!"
Single cartridge casings flew from James's slugthrower. "Thay, eleven o'clock!"
Fatter casings cascaded from the booming turret. Setsiba's hands flew up to her ears. Cracks distorted the windscreen. A rear bumper crunched against the vehicle's nose, jostling Setsiba and the others.
"Oi, is he fucking blind?" James canted his slugthrower and ejected a stuck casing. His door clanged.
"One o'clock. Shooters on the rooftops."
"One o'clock, Thay! One o'clock."
Steel ground against steel. Cartridge casings piled at Thay's feet and trickled down in to the footwells. Figures flashed past Setsiba's window. Automatic weapons stuttered up and down the column. A rocket whooshed through the smoke.
"RPG, fourth floor, eleven o'clock. Shift fire, eleven o'clock."
"Thay, shift fire! Eleven o'clock."
"Where'd these fucks get RPGs from?" James dropped an empty magazine, peeled open a pouch, and fed the reload in to his weapon.
"Out! James, throw me a—" A ricochet pinged down from the turret. A white-hot knife sliced Setsiba's cheek. She flinched and gnashed her teeth.
"Thay!" Thay slumped. James lunged at the human and lowered him inside the compartment. "Thay's down!" Thay's helmet clunked on the raised surface between Setsiba and James's seats. A gash carved out a grin in Thay's right cheek. James heaved an ammunition box from the shelf and set it between Thay's legs. "You! Find his tongue. Keep his airway clear." James unlatched the lid and carried the belt up in to the turret. His feet straddled Thay's convulsing chest.
"Urgh…" Setsiba twisted in her seat and reached for Thay's head. Her shaking fingers dipped in to the liquid blood welling in his mouth. Thay gurgled and the blood poured over his lips. The turret gun exploded in Setsiba's ears. Hot casings pattered her vest.
"How's he looking?" The olive-skinned human pulled the front passenger door to and released his magazine.
"He's been hit in the cheek." Setsiba's fingers clamped down on a squirming piece of flesh and drew it out of the airway. "Can you breathe? Can you breathe?"
"Ugh—ugh." Thay's head bobbed. Blood launched from his mouth and splattered Setsiba's vest.
"Get him bandaged up." A spent magazine flew in to the back. The human reloaded and unhooked a voice caster. "This is Youness. My gunner took a slug to the face, he is bleeding badly. Can we please back out before I take another casualty? Over!"
"We are still backing the softskins out of the street. Maintain defensive fire."
"Don't forget about us." Wheels spun and the vehicle in front rammed the bumper. Youness smacked the voice caster on the fur-lined dash. A casing hit Setsiba's neck and slipped inside her collar.
"Agh!" Setsiba tore at the clasps and shook her shoulders free. Blood welled in Thay's throat. "Breathe, breathe." Setsiba plunged her fingers inside Thay's mouth. Blood squelched and flowed freely.
"Out!" Metallic belts tumbled inside the compartment. "Throw me a belt!"
"Err…" Setsiba tumbled over Thay and reached for a rectangular container marked with yellow letters on the cargo shelf.
"Hurry, hurry, hurry!"
Red shone on green paint. Slick fingers broke the latch and flipped the lid open. "Here!" Setsiba slapped the belt in to James's hand.
"Hey!" A palm banged on Setsiba's door. "Hey!"
Setsiba pulled Thay's legs in to her seat and manoeuvred the rest of his body over and released the door. "Help him." Arms seized Thay's shoulders and guided him on to a stretcher. Setsiba slid out, still holding Thay's legs, and set them down. Slugs spat past. Automatics thundered and flashed in the haze.
"Take the front end. I'm gonna need you to lift." A helmeted human kneeled and gripped the poles. "Okay, three, two—lift!"
Setsiba straightened her knees. Thay bounced behind her. Humans dashed past her towards the head of the column. One danced on his heels beside the stretcher. "Thamer's been hit—goddamn!" The human surged in to the smoke after his companions.
"Friendlies coming in—!"
"Friendly!" Setsiba joined in.
All along the stalled column, humans hunched behind doors and within turrets returning fire. Casings glanced off Setsiba's chest. Slugs stitched patterns in the road and sparked upon armour-plating.
"Friendlies!"
"Friendly!" Propellant soured Setsiba's raw throat.
A canvas-roofed vehicle backed on to a T-shaped junction at the rear of the column. Thick tyres ground up loose dirt and gravel. Holes peppered the roof and the windows. "Hey, he needs surgical!" The human behind Setsiba shouted. A tailgate swung down and arms stretched out. Setsiba twisted and lifted the poles up on to the floor.
"How long?"
"What?" Setsiba got her palms beneath the stretcher and supported it on its way in to the vehicle.
"How long has he been bleeding out for?"
"Three or four minutes."
"Okay." A human kneeling over Thamer bit the cap from a pen and wrote on Thamer's forehead. Setsiba reached for the footplate. A boot slammed down on the edge.
"You're the ones what started this! Get out there and sort it out!"
"I'm the ambassador!" Hands seized Setsiba's waist from behind and hoisted her aboard.
"No!"
"C'mon, Chief Gevers, make the slant-ear walk."
Chief Gevers bundled the stretcher beneath his arm and prodded a finger at the humans in with Setsiba. "Don't argue with me." He slammed the tailgate in to place and ran off.
Eyes fixed on Setsiba squatting on the vibrating floor over Thamer. A human flicked cigarette ash at her. "What's his name?" A human kneeling by Thamer's head unzipped a first-aid pouch.
"Thamer." Setsiba's fingers came away from her cheek. Pink crystals clung to her dirty skin. "His name is Thamer." Flecks of spit pattered her shoulder.
Brunzmann Stadium, 06:50
Steam poured from the Wolfhound's Krupnok. Blood wet my ears. Screeching, smoking engines roared inside a tunnel leading in to the stadium. Wheels mounted a short ramp and gouged tracks in the green pitch. Tents filled fenced-off areas. Sentries stood atop lookout towers and shipping crates. Floodlights blazed. Displaced civilians filled cages on either side of the Wolfhounds, their fingers hooked through the fencing. Many held signs with names of missing written on them.
Light armour and softskins filled berths in the south-east corner of the stadium beneath the lowest tier of seating. The three Wolfhounds crawled in to the compound and parked in a circle. Rumbling ceased beneath me, doors opened, and Youness and Phang got out. Youness bent over his knees. Phang found my eye and muffled words poured from his mouth.
Spent magazines, empty belts, brass, and ammunition boxes lay amongst the grime coating the Wolfhound's interior. Blood stuck to the inside of Loay Thamer's helmet and glinted on the floor. I dropped the ceramite and unscrewed a bottle lid and splashed my face. Water soaked through my mask and dripped inside my collar. Phang rapped on the window and stuck his head around the door. "Huddle?"
Heads clustered together. I linked my arm around Phang's and Youness's and joined the huddle. Grime clung to cheekbones and dried blood stuck to nostrils. Volg carbines dangled in the centre. "We received contact heading in to Avramides, we responded with appropriate force, we disengaged successfully. Well done, to you all. Team Two's gunner took a round to the face, so he'll be departing operations. Cera, you'll be joining Youness, James, and me on the razz up to Avramides in Wolf Three."
"We going back up so soon?"
"Sooner the better, James. Stick on the fifty if you feel up to it. Otherwise, you're stood down. Team leaders, see to your admin."
The huddle dispersed. "Has anyone seen Chief Gevers?"
"No. Heiding and Coortland are missing too. Maybe they jumped on an earlier lift." Phang unfolded his collar and wrapped his sling around it. "I'm going for orders."
"Q." I came around to Phang's shoulder. "Find Thay?"
"Er, Youness, can you see to the ammo?"
"Hmm?" Youness's backside stuck out of the rear passenger door. "You know I have abandonment issues, Basam." Youness swept cartridge casings in to an empty ammo box and hurled them out of the door.
"Youness, they play on this pitch, you know!"
"It's fucked anyway." A second heap of casings flew from the Wolfhound. "Let the city deal with it."
"Let the slant-ear pick 'em up." I flicked a casing from my boot.
"Ahh yeah, our angel. Lucky she was smiling on Loay."
"Oh, Loay! You find him and you come right back here and tell Brother Youness he's okay."
"Alright, boet. We'll inform you quicksticks."
"Boet?" Phang tramped alongside me out of the compound, along tent avenues.
"Brother. Picked up some words wi' my gang in Espi. Got me inked and inducted and all."
"What were their names?"
"The Roaneks. I'll show you my ink if you're…"
"No, just… keep that to yourself."
"Uh?"
"Youness dealt with organised crime during his OSEC days. He's not keen on gangers."
"Mmm." I placed a drooping cigarette between my lips and passed an intact one to Phang. "The Neks would be loving this."
PDF sentries in full body armour and facemasks guarded a collection of white tents marked with a red Caduceus in the centre of the pitch. Phang and I dropped our half-smoked cigarettes in the road and ground them in to the muddy grass. "Casualty clearing?"
"What's it to you, contractor?"
"We're on CAP with Nine Div. A pal took a round to the face in Avramides."
"Headwounds only."
"Yeah, did you see our Loay? Bloody drowning in his own blood—a slant-ear carried him out of the shit!"
"Doesn't sound like a headwound to me."
Phang pushed his fingertip in to his scarred cheek. "You know, I classify this as a headwound. Fourteen years old, couldn't speak for seven months after. Loay will be lucky if he ever speaks again."
"We've got orders to shoot any man, woman, or child who forces entry."
"Yeah, you'd like that. Them that don't shoot back." I batted an open ammunition pouch on the trooper's chest. "Police your gear, ye slob. I could fuck you for that. And what's this—rust?"
"Aww, big, flapping tongue, little fella." The trooper's companion leered at me. "Could almost reach my cock if you stood on tiptoes."
"Nah, check that. My CQS could fuck you."
"Could fuck you for this…" Phang tapped the trooper's slung Kazalak underfolder. Rust coated the charging handle and the rifle's guts, naked without the receiver cover. "You're gonna want to have cleaned that by the time your sergeant major's finished with you. Believe you me, it's not worth throwing down with warrant officers. They will win."
The PDF pair parted. One fed the toggle on his ammunition pouch through the loop on the flap. Both kept their eyes on the turf. Inside the tent, sagging walls screened operating theatres from view. Head-cases, civilian and military, lay on stretchers. Grass stalks poked through the holes in rubber matting covering the floor.
"Loay?" Phang shifted his Volg around to his hip and got down beside a stretcher case covered in bandages from the neck up. "Yeah, it's you, Loay." Phang's hand snaked around Thamer's bandaged head. I backed away from Phang's murmurs and wandered along the rows of stretcher-bound. Noses and chins poked out of reddened bandages. Wispy ends fluttered around mouths.
"Iam Catumen." I whipped around and faced a curtain. "Iam Catumen."
Bright red hands trembled. Baggy trousers hung over scuffed shoes. The Zalilean ambassador hunched over her knees in a narrow slot between the curtain and the tent wall. Curly hairs stood on end. Dirty gauze clung to one cheek. "Zalilea-kotos, Zalilea-oraeos, amuriea-mure." Dark eyes climbed and found mine. Sharp eyebrows arched.
I grasped the curtain and walked it inwards. Light fell across the ambassador's face. She grimaced and twisted her head away. I fished out a water bottle and tipped it over the ambassador's hands. Pink water dripped between her fingers. "You remind me of someone I once knew." I set the bottle down, opened an aid pouch, and unwrapped a dressing. "She didn't flinch. She didn't fold." Blood soaked in to the gauze. The ambassador's eyes remained on the sodden dressing. "And how wrong I was about her." I turned the dressing inside-out and dabbed at the ambassador's other hand. "Little lies spawned bigger lies. Compulsive, innit? She wanted me to reassure her that what she was doing was normal. Me, the victim, tasting her poison." I rocked back on my haunches. "Y'know, I've pretended 'til now that I didn't remember all of what happened on Cadia." The pink dressing unravelled and fell to the floor. "I remember all of it."
The ambassador's fingers curled and her hands withdrew in to her lap. I wrapped the dressing in a ball and got up. "…They eat one another."
"What did you say?"
"Are you familiar with the Quoos-Shlaereen predator?"
"No." I switched my Volg to my right hip and kneeled.
"The Silent Death, as it was known, commanded the position of apex predator within the Bale Star System of the Khaanish Nebula. Once it had swallowed the Bale, it spread to new hunting grounds and began again. It wiped species from existence until there were no more species left to eat. Do you know what they did when their stomachs emptied? They ate one another." A cold smirk stretched across the ambassdor's face. "Now, so are you."
I yanked the curtain along the rail, blocking the ambassador and me from view. "I've eaten Ork, I've eaten Zeke, I've eaten Cadians. Eaten the very face off an Inquisitor." I loomed over the ambassador. "Don't you dare laugh."
"Who are you?"
I drew the skull over my chin and nose. "Quoos-Shlaereen." My hand closed with the ambassador's face and caressed the gauze on her cheek. "How come you're so thin on the ground? Been eating each other?"
"Never." The ambassador's head touched the tent wall. "Never a Zalilean."
"Who then? Tell me who you'd sacrifice to save your people."
The ambassador's trembling lips shone. "She brought great evil to our home."
"Who?"
"A ghost."
"Where did she come from?"
"The gutter—a cripple, a failure of a Ranger, a mother, a niece, an Eldar."
"Her name?"
"Izuru Numerial."
My chin drooped and sat on the edge of my plate carrier. "Hm."
"What is she to you…?"
I pushed down on my knees and straightened up. "Can you—your kind—raise the dead?"
"James?" Boots trod matting. "What are you hiding back here for?" Phang's head poked around the curtain. "Oh. Ambassador, I didn't realise you were here." I backed up from the ambassador and pulled my mask down. "Loay is on the recovery. He'll be out for a week or two. Do you want to come along up to the decks, see if the commander's around?"
"Mm." I shared one last look with the ambassador and headed after Phang. "Didn't know them lot could be dark like that," I said outside the tent. "Strange bunch."
"Yeah, it feels like we're the xenos now."
"Heh. Said the same thing to a pal o' mine."
"A good friend?"
"A Cadia vet." I hooked a finger around the damp edge of my mask and lifted it.
Cables, tied in bunches, criss-crossed the floor inside an observation lounge looking out across the stadium. Technicians and their AdMech counterparts wired up cogitators and display screens. Menials rolled a wheeled whiteboard against a long water tank housing marine life in the back wall. Holographic figures flickered inside a basin-like projector. Surrounding the projector was Sorge, Barakat, civilians, and officers in PDF Squares and navy grey. One older, scarred man wore a bright red beret screwed on to his grey head.
"O group in session, gents." An Armsman stepped in front of Phang and I. "Hold off for a sec."
"Lot of hats over there." Phang dropped a cigarette from a packet. "Puff?"
"Nah, I…"
"You kicking?"
"Err, Q…?"
"Hm?"
"I think I've seen a ghost."
"I have a solution to that. Shave all the hair off your head – eyebrows too – something that really turns her off, really repulses her. When she sees a bald, freak of a man your problems will be solved. No more clingy ex-girlfriend stalking your shadow."
The projector faded and the gathered civilians and officers dispersed; the red beret among them. Sorge, unshaven and wearing a PDF specialist's uniform, raised his hand and waved us over. Beside Sorge, Barakat – clean-shaven - wore his own uniform.
"What have you come as?" Phang's cigarette wagged.
"Lung Cancer." Sorge stuck a long cigar between his lips. "Nice seeing you lads here safe and sound. How soon can you head back out?"
"As soon as we've rearmed and refuelled, sir," Phang said. "We're down one man and Chief Gevers, Heiding, and Coortland are missing."
"Chief Gevers, Chief Heiding, and PO Coortland are on another job. Let me introduce you to our armoured liaison if he's… er…" Sorge darted away through the dispersing officers.
"Why's he a Spec-4?" Phang stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray sitting on a nearby desk. "Sir?"
"Err, I have no idea, Sarn't Major." Barakat unfolded an arm on a pair of pilot's shades and tapped the end on his chin. "Just got back to town myself. Air traffic is grounded and the trains aren't running. Madness. Hasn't been this bad since the invasion. Is that you hiding in there, James?"
Sorge returned with his arm around a grey-haired PDF officer wearing slip-on rank tabs on his shoulders. Spots dotted his flabby face and chins wobbled. "Boys. This is Major Attogoa of Armoured Combat Team Four. His Zarit 55s will be leading the assault in to Avramides."
Anything from the man himself? I popped a cigarette in my mouth. Damn it. I removed the cigarette and thrust it at Phang.
"Good lad." Phang's scar stretched.
"All my tanks will be provided free of charge—all my tanks." Silver teeth glinted. "They will shake the very foundations of Upper Gorev."
Not seen much from the Upper Gorites. I wonder if they know what's going on down here.
"Free of charge." Attogoa plucked the pilot's shades from Barakat's breast pocket and slipped them on. Phang and I glanced at each other.
"Any questions?" Sorge gesticulated with his cigar.
"Where is this combat team in relation to us, sir?" Phang unzipped a pouch on his plate carrier and took out a folded map. Attogoa flicked open a silver lighter and lit a gold-band cigarette. "Can we expect them soon?"
"Soon, soon!" Attogoa stuck a hand in his pocket and strolled after the other officers. On the way out of the suite Attogoa took a sandwich from a naval rating's plate, bit in to it then dropped it in a bin.
"Soon?" Phang's eyebrows jumped.
Sorge's teeth clamped down on cigar. He scowled. "…Soon."
Five bullet-scarred Wolfhounds idled ahead of thirty Hennus lorries parked in a column snaking back inside the one of the stadium's tunnels. Tattered canvas covered frames and cracks ran along windows. PDF troopers, packed inside the Hennus lorries, hung over the frames. Boots dangled over lowered tailgates. A lit cigarette was handed around. Smoke poured from each man's nostrils.
My mucky PDF boots perched on the furry dash in the front passenger seat of the point vehicle. My chin rested on the hard edge of my plate carrier. Static bled from the Wolfhound's 319. "James."
Izuru? My boots hit the floor andI lunged at the handset and pressed it to my ear. "Izuru?"
"Izuru Actual, this is Rhino Four. Arriving at your location imminently."
Youness stirred in the driver's seat. "James, that's not our callsign. Give me the—" Youness snatched the 319 from my hand. "Rhino Four, this is Wolf Three. Disregard our last. Our callsign is Wolf Three. We'll send a man down to guide you in. Over." My eyes flew to the central mirror. The ambassador's dark eyes fixed on mine.
"Roger. Out."
Youness replaced the handset on its hook. "James, you are no longer allowed to use the three-one-nine in this vehicle."
"Can I 'ave that in writing?" I dragged back the unwashed fringe creeping down my forehead.
"James, you're that man. Go find those tanks, please." Phang occupied the seat behind mine. "Try not to bring down Upper Gorev while you're at it."
Pins danced up and down my legs. My right eye twitched. My left eye wept. A curly-haired man in a black shirt and an olive-grey chest rig hopped down from a Wolfhound and approached me. His skin was the same shade as the ambassador's. That OSEC bloke. My eyes dropped and I sidled around the OSEC officer. "Can I talk to you? It's about the drones."
"Yeah, alright take it up with Q or summat. I'm not in charge."
"Who's Q?"
A PDF trooper leaning on a Hennus's flank blew smoke from his nostrils and tilted his head back. Dilated irises rolled upwards. I seized the fastenings on his flak jacket and jerked him forwards. Is he stoned? I glared at the grinning trooper and let him go. His companions lounged in and around the parked Hennus trading the offending cigarette. Fucking hell. Skinning up at a time like this! I passed by the offered drag.
A buzz shot through my soles. The intact windows facing the stadium's walls vibrated. Squeaks and rattles peaked above a throaty roar booming through the streets. A low-slung armoured vehicle rolled out of the street adjacent the south-east corner of the stadium and pivoted towards me. A crewman in a bone dome helmet stood, head, shoulders, and torso out of the cupola in the domed turret. He returned my wave and spoke in to the mic protruding from his helmet and the tank halted next to me. A white wolf's head painted on the turret stood out from the bottle green finish.
"Is this all there is?" The tank commander pointed at the headset fitted to his helmet and tilted his head side to side. "Get down." I plunged my finger at the road. "Get down!"
"Come." The tank commander beckoned. "Come."
I planted my boot on the tracks and lunged at a hold welded to the turret and clambered around .50-calibre ammunition boxes held in brackets beneath a Krupnok sitting on a pintle mount. "Is this all there is?"
The tank commander peeled his headset away from an ear. "Yes, yes."
"One tank?"
"Yes, yes."
"One?"
"Yes, yes." The tank commander ducked inside his cupola.
"Oi—" I lurched backwards and hit a drum bolted to the tail. Smoke gushed from exhausts and the roaring engine numbed my ears. A lamp post slouched beneath the tank's mudguard and laid itself beneath the churning links. I seized the Krupnok's spade grips and clung on. Bins popped and more lamp posts toppled. A burnt-out car chassis caved inwards. Stoned PDF slunk out of the tank's path. One tossed a can beneath the tracks.
"Who is Izuru?" Youness rested his wrist on the wolfhound's steering wheel. Ahead of us, the tank swung in to position in the van. "Does she live here?"
"Keep an eye on the PDF." I thrust my Volg inside the compartment. "They're all higher than the Emperor's throne."
"Hmm? What bit you, Boet?" Youness leaned across to me, a cigarette in his hand. "Speaking ill of the Golden Throne like that."
"Say you'd seen a ghost…"
"Well, I haven't."
"Nah, just think hypothetically for a second. Say you'd seen a ghost. That'd make you quit, wouldn't it?"
"Youness…" Phang's fingers pattered Youness's shoulder. "Get me Grukan Actual, please."
"Q, I'm rounding up the clean-heads and putting them in front of the tank. Are you good with that?"
"Yeah, speak to the platoon leader first." Phang dragged the coiled wire between the seats and tucked the handset in to his ear.
I jumped out and ran along the Wolfhounds to the first of the softskins. "Which one of you is in command? The platoon leader?"
"Ugh." A fat-lipped, podgy trooper folded a brown paper bag he was eating from and threw it in to the Hennus's cab. His equipment belt halves dangled loose beneath his flak vest and his ceramite balanced on the Hennus's headlight. A tattoo of six crossed arrows inside a black shield had been inked on his neck.
"Are you in command?"
"Ugh." The podgy trooper straightened a rank brassard on his upper arm. "Leshi-Serzhant Valcke." His words came out slurred.
"Okay, I need your—your platoon in front of the tank. In front, not behind."
The podgy trooper swung at a taller, older man with tufts sprouting from his ears. "Sta kraazer?"
"Err, my junior sergeant is asking what you want," said the taller trooper.
"I need the platoon – those not baked – to go ahead of the tank and protect it from RPGs."
"B—baked? You wish us to eat now?"
"No, I wish you to march in front of the tank. You march in front of the tank otherwise RPG, whoosh, tank, boom!"
"Nei, nei." Junior Sergeant Valcke's chins rippled. "Nei RPG boom."
"Okay, fine. Keep the bulk of the platoon in the four-tonners but send a section in front of the tank."
"Err, okay, let me confess with my officer." The taller trooper half-stooped and murmured to Junior Sergeant Valcke. Valcke rested his hands on his hips. Grunts slipped from his pursed lips. I tilted a chrono hanging from a loop on my vest. Come on, we're wasting time here.
"Okay, we send one squad to lead the tank."
"How many?"
"One, one."
"No, no, how many men?"
"Wie fiele?"
"Zib."
"Ten."
"Okay, ten men in front of the tank. Can we…?" I tapped the face on my chrono. "We go now."
"Eugh." Valcke hunched his shoulders and turned away.
"Yes." The other gave a thumbs up.
"Yes, now?"
"Yes, yes."
I slammed my door and worked the Volg's taut sling looser. "Couldn't understand a word out their sarn't's mouth."
"Cityspeak, James. It's the Lutu's first language." Youness twisted the starter on the dash and held it over the ignition. A red light came on and the engine hummed to life. The PDF squad filtered past the Wolfhound and rounded the tank's chassis. Neither Junior Sergeant Valcke nor his gangly companion were among them.
"Rhino Four, Wolf Three. Ready when you are."
"Understood. Follow my lead." Grey smoke coughed from the tank's exhausts and it crawled forwards.
"Does he know where he's going?"
"What was that, Q?" Youness flicked his cigarette out of his window and slid it up.
Phang slid his own window up. "Does he know where he's going?"
"He's following the PDF."
"James d'you want to stand up in the tank and guide them like Macharius?"
"Haha!" Youness hauled the wheel around. "Get the ambassador to do it."
Behind Youness, the ambassador sat silent in her own seat. A bright yellow megaphone rested in her lap. Loay Thamer's blood darkened her blue body armour. The digits on my chrono flipped up to and past ten o'clock. Smoke from burning buildings curled inside the open turret. The gunner let go of the Krupnok's grips and dropped inside the Wolfhound and peeled his mask away from his sweaty face.
"Man your weapon, Cera," said Phang.
"Eurgh, lofass…" Cera hooked his hands around the turret ring and climbed up.
"Rhino to Wolf. Barricade at the far end of the street. Are we to proceed first?" The tank halted at the turnout before the barricaded street and swung its turret to the ten o'clock position.
"Q?" Youness passed the 319 back to Phang.
"Wolf Three. Let the infantry move up first. Keep your dispersion and declare any possible threats. Over."
"Yesh."
"Gothic only."
"Does Rhino have comms with the infantry?" I dove at a tube lying in the footwell and peeled the paper away from coloured smoke markers. "Q?"
"Rhino, can you communicate with the infantry?"
"We have Spiro on comms, yes."
"That's their sergeant." My trouser pockets bulged with markers. "Keep her running, Yoo."
"James, what are you doing?"
"James, let the PDF do the work!"
Markers rubbing against my thighs, I bolted down to the first Hennus and hopped on to the running step and stuck my head in to the troop compartment. "The squad needs the 349 up there."
"Szto?" Junior Sergeant Valcke spat gum on the floor. His platoon's 349 unit sat in its carrier on the bench beside him.
"He ask you why."
"They can't communicate with the tank otherwise."
"Nrgh—I speak!" Valcke brandished his 349's handset. "I speak."
"You speak."
"I speak, yes."
"You speak Roaneks?" I rolled up my right sleeve all the way to the shoulder. Six crossed arrows covered a black shield. "Espiotis. Igal Harazi?"
"Harazi, yes-yes!" Valcke dived at me, seized my shoulders, and planted a kiss on my lips. "Roaneks!"
"Yeah, Roaneks!" My head jerked back.
"Harazi." Valcke, beaming, clamped down on my hand and jiggled it. "Igal Harazi."
"Harazi!" Another trooper rolled up his sleeve, exposing his own tattoo. Cheers broke out. Valcke continued to jiggle my arm.
"Now, how 'bout that vox?"
"Ha-ha!" Valcke's grin faded. "Cannot take…"
Strap taught against my shoulder, the 349 bounced around. Phang lowered his window when I drew alongside the Wolfhound. "Did you get it?"
"Not all I got." I spat on the road and worked my sleeve around my mouth. Ahead, Rhino idled at the street corner. Both turret hatches remained sealed. What a useless shower. I lobbed more spit at the ground and squeezed around the tracks. The squad crouched inside a garage looking out on to the street hugging their rifles and automatics to their chests. I wet my lips and whistled before coming up on the garage. "Friendly, friendly, friendly."
"Friendly."
"Present for you, lads." I swung the 349's carrier off my shoulder and set it down amongst the PDF. "Any Gothic?"
"I speak Gothic." A trooper squatting with an IM rifle between his knees and torso tilted the brim of his ceramite up. "Barom."
"Squad leader?"
"Ebron." Barom pointed out a trooper armed with an automatic rifle shaped similarly to a Kazalak and loaded with two magazines taped together. The sling held fast around Ebron's shoulder and his forefinger hooked around the trigger.
"Ebron. Ebron?" I held out the 349's handset. Ebron's head jerked around. Sweat sparkled on his upper lip. "Talk to the tank, yeah? Tank."
"Freitor?"
"Yeah." Ebron prodded a pair of thick glasses up his nose and took the handset.
"Okay?"
"Okay." Ebron jammed the handset under the rim of his ceramite. "Rhino, Rhino…"
Back atop Rhino, I banged my hand on the commander's hatch. A lock clicked inside and a fist drove the heavy steel upwards. "Ready?"
"Listir, yes-yes." The commander's smooth bone dome bobbed in the cupola. "Take." He squeezed another bone dome outside and set it on the turret. "Take the wire." The commander fed a jack on the end of a wire out of the hatch. I stuffed my cap behind my plate carrier and wiggled the bone dome snugly over my ears and tugged my mask up. A dangling socket fed inside the jack. "We talk, you listen."
"Roge." I coiled wire around my forearm and brought the slack over to the loader's Krupnok. Ebron's squad slunk from the garage. Muzzles passed across one another and each man followed closely in the other's footsteps. Tracks spun beneath me. God-Emperor, spread out on both sides at least. Growls escaped the shaking engine deck. I fished out a spent .50 casing, stuck it inside the action, and racked the bolt. Making it easy for them. I flipped the Krupnok's sight up.
Blackened hab walls overlooked a double-decker transporter lying on its side lengthways across the street behind overturned cars. Bunched together, the PDF squad hunkered around the barricade. Ebron pressed the 349's handset to his ear. "Ready, Rhino?"
"Make way. We will force a path through. Hold on, up there."
Now you're speaking Gothic! I held on to the Krupnok's spade grips and spread my feet. Ebron's men parted before the trundling beast. Wait, what? The slender gun tube began traversing. I yanked my wire loose and slipped down from the engine deck before the gun tube could swipe me off. It halted facing rearwards and only then did Rhino start to nudge the wrecks.
Heads poked out of intact windows in the upper levels. Civilians, young and old, gathered on balconies watching the slow rearrangement of the wreckage. I centred the Volg's glowing crosshairs on a middle-aged man in a string vest leaning on his folded arms on a fourth-floor balcony. "Raise your weapons. Watch those windows." The three PDF on my side of the street tucked buttstocks in to shoulders. "Higher. Watch your muzzles."
Grinding steel screeched in my ears. Frames crumpled and tyres burst. My companions flinched at the gunshot-like pops. Hundreds of faces gazed down on us. A stone landed in the road and skidded away. Flattened wrecks soon lined the sides of the street, leaving the transporter facing Rhino. What's the holdup? I dodged beneath the gun tube and bounded over to Ebron and Barom. "Hey, Boet, are we pressing on?"
"The—the tank is stuck…" Barom aimed the handset at the transporter. "It cannot move forwards."
"Can I talk to him?" I pried the handset out of Barom's hand. "Rhino, there's an audience gathering out here."
"Cannot move forward. The transporter will wedge itself even worser. Very bad."
"Maybe we…" Steel cables ran along Rhino's track guards. "Wait one. I've got an idea."
Inch by inch, Rhino hauled the transporter away from the wall. A hook held the taut, wavering cable on the frame. Swivelling, Rhino dragged the transporter lengthways down the street until it left a gap wide enough for the Wolfhounds and Hennus to pass through. The PDF and I unhooked the cable and ran it back to Rhino. Let's go. Let's go. I flicked two fingers forwards. On Rhino's opposite flank, Ebron stuck his head up and nodded.
Torn-up blankets and towelling hung over spiked railings surrounding a manufactorum with its front doors caved in and ground-floor windows smashed. Bright spray paint coated the broad Aquila emblazed on the façade. A yellow face grinned on the front gate post. PDF boots stomped the fallen gates in to the wet mud clogging the road. Rhino flattened them. A dog lay on its side inbetween rubbish piles burning in the street. Flies crawled across purple organs swelling from its stomach. A thick, pale liquid leaked from its eyes. Hairy nostrils twitched.
"I knew a reservist from Third Division, an older fellow who survived offworld tours and mustered out here. He said he never killed a single person in twenty-two years of service."
"Why?"
"He said he wouldn't kill another man so they put him on sentry duty."
"Sta?"
"Gothic."
"Sorry, go on."
"All he did was dogs. Sharper ears and noses than humans so what better sentries? Course, all he ever dreamed of after was dogs, dogs chasing him in the night."
I planted my arms on the Krupnok and laid my chin on them. "I couldn't kill a dog."
Rhino scraped around the manufactorum's east-facing wall and pointed towards the mid-morning light growing stronger the nearer it rolled to Avramides and the edge of Upper Gorev. Sinewy hounds snapped at carcasses dangling from hooks in a butchery. Fire roared inside a travel agency. Blackened paper scraps whirled from the inferno and plastered Rhino and me.
Hammers banged against Rhino's turret. "Rhino, contact, contact." I ducked behind the Krupnok and pressed the paddle triggers. Smoke blasted from the muzzle brake. Casings clinked upon the turret. Air was sucked from my lungs and my vision blurred.
"Where. Contact where?"
"Front!" My thumbs relaxed. "Tell Ebron we have contact front."
The squad hid inside shop doors and huddled behind collapsed walls thirty yards ahead of Rhino. Ebron, his back to a posterboard, plucked the 349's handset from the signaller cowering behind a fallen sign. "Rhino, we are pinned down here. Lay shells in to the buildings!"
"Spiro, we cannot see where the firing is."
I eased the Krupnok's sights across a pockmarked hab block, one of dozens clustered tightly together, towering over the street. Metal glinted in an ajar window. "Sixth floor, fifth from the left!" My thumbs touched the paddles. Chunks flew from the tower, leaving dinnerplate-sized holes in the outer wall. The Krupnok walked left to right then right to left across the entire sixth floor. Empty belt links dropped from the gun and shell casings scattered on ground.
Steam poured from the ribs running along the Krupnok's barrel. Grey smoke clung to the perforated hab wall. A white shirt, bloodstained, whirled on the end of a pole. "Target suppressed. Ready when you are—"
Glass shattered on the third floor. Muzzles lit up windows. Sparks rippled across Rhino's hide. "No, third floor, third floor!" I crouched behind the turret. Hydraulics whirred and the gun tube rose. Smoke blasted from the recoiling muzzle. A twenty-foot-wide chunk of hab exploded outwards and rained down on the street.
"Are we clear?" Ebron stuck his head up. "Rhino, are we clear?"
"You're clear, Spiro."
"Just keep that gun barrel above our heads." Ebron threw the handset back to his signaller and led his squad out in to the street. Sunlight warmed Rhino's back. Free from the artificial roof, the squad led the tank and the trailing vehicles up to the smoke-choked Avramides. One-hundred yards ahead thick ferrocrete pillars supported an elevated road. "Ariko Circuit, dead ahead."
I tilted the Krupnok up. "Let the squad know there are civilians watching us from the circuit."
"Spiro be advised, there are civilians on Ariko."
"Understood, Rhino. We watch your flanks, you watch Ariko."
That's it, boet. Let the confidence grow. I opened the Krupnok's feed tray and withdrew the half-spent belt. "Let's be bold. Lay a round above their heads." I broke a fresh ammunition box free from a bracket and replaced the old one.
"We can only shoot if shot at."
"Shame." I thrust the 50-cal casing in to the gun and racked the action. Rhino lurched forwards. The squad strode in single file along the lefthand side of the street and crossed side streets without covering first. Their muzzles pointed at the ground and swept across each other's bodies.
"Tell the squad to proceed down both sides of the road."
"They don't take orders from you, offworlder."
Took orders from you just fine. I held the Krupnok's sights on Ariko. Heads and shoulders poked over the barrier. An infant sat on a parent's shoulders. Little flags fluttered in the breeze. More civilians gathered at hab windows along the northward route. "There's kids up there." I lowered the Krupnok. "Tell the squad to fan out in to adjacent streets and look for and engage any anti-tank weapons they find."
"They don't take orders from you, offworlder."
I brought my foot forwards and kicked the turret dome. Bright pink tracer lanced across Rhino's bows scattering the PDF. "Contact, left. Contact, left."
"Spiro, contact on your left flank." Rhino's chassis rocked forwards and its gun tube traversed.
"Get yourself in order! Shoot back!" I walked with Rhino's turret and ended up with my heels hanging over the edge of the hull. A single trooper sat in the middle of the tracer-locked street holding a bleeding leg. "Rhino, co-ax, cover fire!"
Rhino's co-ax chattered. Tracer zipped both ways. I twisted the pin from a smoke grenade and bowled it past the wounded trooper. The seal popped and yellow smoke hissed free. "Help him. HELP HIM!" The squad hid around the street corners away from the tracer banging against Rhino's hide. "Rhino, tell Spiro they must return fire."
"What? Say again—"
I jerked the intercom free from my bone dome and slipped down from the hull. "Up—get up! Return fire!" Ebron shied away and wormed his neck deeper inside his flak jacket. I scooted over to the wounded trooper, my jack swinging around behind me. Rounds cracked overhead. The trooper's arm stretched out and his hand settled on my knee. "Get me a—"
"WHAT?" I dug my fingers in to the holds on the nape of his flak jacket and hauled him backwards. An IM rifle scraped across the road by the sling around the trooper's shoulder.
"I said get me a chaplain!"
"Stretcher! Ebron, stretcher."
"Mercy." A trooper carrying a folded stretcher on his back shrugged off his load and snapped the arms in to place.
"Okay, two for carry, one for security—clear?" I smacked Ebron's upper arm. "Make sense?"
"Yeah!" Ebron shouted back. "I'm s—I'm sorry."
"Nah, you're grand, boet! Get to shooting back."
Dirty yellow smoke shrouded the west-facing street. Sporadic bursts flew through it at Rhino and clanged on the hull. Inbetween short bursts, propellant seeped from Rhino's coaxial stubber. I planted a foot on a wheel and reached for a hold on the turret. Sunlight caught a helmet at the far end of the east-facing street in Rhino's blindspot. A figure stood in the open balancing a thin tube on his shoulder. Smoke jetted from a circular object rocketing down the street at me.
Steel shrieked and ruptured. The road slammed in to my bone dome. A figure flew over my head, seized my arms, and dragged me away from Rhino. Pins danced in my arms stretched high above my head. A smooth-contoured object hovered in the sky. A single, beady red eye fixed on me. Can I talk to you? It's about the drones.
Shapes circled above me. A hand loosened my chinstrap and worked the bone dome free. "—really not dead?" The damp mask covering my mouth and nose slipped down.
"He looks it."
"I thought dead bodies defecated."
"Eurgh." Frazzled wiring and white-hot metal soured my nostrils. "RPG…"
A PDF trooper sat me up against a wall just down from the stationary Rhino. "Want some?" Muffled words slipped through the trooper's mask. An uncorked water bottle bumped my plate carrier.
I pointed a limp hand at the street on the far side of Rhino. "RPG. Three o'clock. Got Rhino lined up."
"James?" Phang ran up. "Are you hit?"
"Are you listening to me?" I shoved Phang's hand away. "Nah, you lot don't take orders from me, remember?"
Steam hissed from Rhino's right flank. Beneath mangled ammunition containers on the turret, a bright dent shone between cracks in the smooth plate. "The damage looks superficial, sir," said a trooper manning the Krupnok.
"Hey, you alive down there?" I stuck my head in to commander's cupola. "Aw, God-Emperor—" I backed out and tugged my mask over my nose. "Oi, talk to me!"
Inside the smoky compartment, a pair of white eyes bulged from oil-stained skin. Blood eased from the tank commander's nose. "We are okay."
"Yeah? You don't look it."
"We are okay." The tank commander slumped on a seat. His head listed. Eyelids drooped. "Rhino is dead."
"Okay." I swung the hatch shut and pulled down my mask. "Eurgh, stinks in there."
"Here." Phang set a water bottle on the engine deck.
"Osir!" The gunner pivoted the Krupnok. "They have a prisoner!"
Ebron, Barom and two other troopers – each holding an arm or a leg – bundled the ambusher past Rhino, inside a collapsed building on the street corner, and dumped the squirming body in the rubble. Knees pinned the arms down. Ebron brought his boot down on the prisoner's genitals. Barom pried at the bootlaces and ripped the loose boots off.
"We should stop this."
"Let 'em have it, boet." Water poured between my fingers and dripped inside the grills covering the engine. I flicked my hand at my face and swiped the sweat away. "They need some release."
Taut rope creaked around a Zalilean's neck. Bare feet poked from a thin, summer dress clinging to a stiff body. Blue paint coated chipped toenails. North of the Ariko circuit, Zalileans hung from windows by their arms and legs.
Volg raised, I swept empty window frames and doorways on our right flank. Half of Ebron's squad kept to my trail and the other half followed Ebron along the left flank. Rubble formed a short slope leading through the blasted wraithbone wall ringing the Zalilean enclave. Crouched at the point where the wall ended, I pointed two fingers in the air. Ebron wiggled a flare pistol from a thigh pocket, cocked the hammer, and lifted the pistol above his head. A flare whooshed in to the sky and burst. Beneath a fizzing, crackling green orb, I led the PDF through the breach.
Smouldering wraithbone fragments, tarnished by dirt, gave off a gentle hum. Glass shards, wooden beams and stone chunks piled in the street, some simmering, some aflame. Ripped-up curtains and fabric screens flapped. Brown crystals stuck to walls peppered with bullet holes and dirtied by unburned gunpowder.
Shrill toots flew along the street. I dropped to one knee and raised a clenched fist. Opposite me, Ebron steadied the RPG slung around his back and got down on one knee also. My crosshairs snapped to a Zalilean in a holed nightshirt hobbling towards us. Toots came from a pipe flute stuffed in her mouth. Crystalline blood clung to her bruised legs and glinted on rounded tips cut in her ears.
I lowered my Volg and waved the others up. The Zalilean's pipe flute fell from her mouth and hung by a chain around her neck. Her knees folded and she collapsed in piles of torn-up clothing. I swept a thin curtain up from the rubble and spread it around the Zalilean's shoulders and pointed her at the breach.
Embers swirled inside a three-storey building topped by a sloping roof and bulbous domes. Double doors lay splintered on the short pathway. Two Zalileans wearing green plate armour hung by their wrists from chains looped over hanging baskets. Swollen purple skin covered eyes. Yellow lumps dotted their faces. Rags stuffed their mouths.
Ebron whistled from the mouth of an alley at the far end of the embassy. I signalled my group to halt and darted across to Ebron. Ebron's folded hands rested on the muzzle of his rifle. His chin touched his flak jacket.
Zalilean bodies filled the alley. Five feet high, the dead blocked the view of the street behind the embassy. Tiny hands and bare feet poked out of the pile. Flies crawled across yellowed eyes. I tugged my mask up and backed out. Ebron's shaking hands jiggled a cartridge around the flare pistol's open breech. I pried both from him and slid the cartridge in. The signal arced skywards and popped.
Above the roaring flames, an unnatural wailing drew closer to the embassy. I sat up in a broken-backed armchair tilted against a crumbling pillar. Ebron's men, sitting around me in a ravaged garden, reached for their personal weapons. I touched a finger to my lips and pointed at the squad's support gunner. You, with me. The gunner dragged his stubber's sling over his ceramite and brought the weapon over to the garden gate. I nudged the thin iron ajar and covered the gunner on his way through. Bipod legs settled on a low mound just outside the gate. Behind us, PDF scurried to the opposite side of the street and took cover. Ebron hunkered down beside the gunner and pressed the 349's handset to his ear.
Shapes drifted inside the smoke. The gunner's finger curled around the gun's trigger. I bent low to his ear. "Hold your fire. Hold your fire." To the PDF on the far side of the street, I bent my raised arm and chopped a hand up and down. The troopers took their cheeks away from their stocks and lowered their muzzles.
Zalileans trickled out in to the street. Those not supporting each other or cradling the few children among them clutched at their heads and tore their cheeks. Shrieks flew at us. Barom set his weapon down and covered his ears.
"Spiro from Rhino."
Ebron's hand clenched around the handset. His eyes fixed on the Zalileans. I stepped over the gunner's legs and took 349 from Ebron's grasp. "Rhino, send."
"Be advised, the element is close to your location."
"Our lady among them?"
"Yes."
"Keep her away from our location. We'll come to you."
"Spiro, I do not understand. Over."
"Stay away." I tapped the handset on Ebron's arm and left it with him. Zalileans trickled past my shoulders. An older female battered her hands on my plate carrier screeching in her own tongue. Children clung to sobbing parents. Ilic? I slipped through the crowd to a dark-haired child bobbing along in an adult's arm and sucking its thumb. The adult howled and lurched away. Korsarro? Another dark-haired child sat on a female's shoulders cuddling a soft toy. The female barked at me. Nostrils flared and chapped lips drew back from teeth. I swept my cap off and crushed it against my mouth. Ilic? Korsarro?
Brunzmann Stadium, 13:11
PDF and navy personnel clattered up and down the wide staircase climbing up behind the stands. Muddy bootprints trailed Phang, Youness, me, and the ambassador from the pitch. The staff officers and NCOs, crisply turned out in their spotless uniforms, pressed their backs to the railing and gawked at our dirtied clothing and the dark stains on the ambassador's body armour. Murmurs flitted after us.
Armsmen stood sentry outside the lounge. One thrust an arm at us. "You'll clear weapons before entering, gentlemen—" I shoved the arm aside.
"Okay, okay." Phang shunted a palm at the armsman and ploughed after me. "Youness, madam?"
"You cannot enter without—"
Youness caught the armsman by the shoulder and brought his hand against the armsman's breast. "Lemme tell you what sort of day we've had so far…"
"Ah, excuse me, sir!" The other armsman called inside the lounge. "Interlopers."
Lieutenant Commander Barakat swung himself from a lounge chair – one of a group arranged in a square – and waved us in. "Let them in."
Sorge and Barakat kept the company of other naval and PDF officers around a glass table supporting three uncorked bottles. Sorge, on Barakat's right, raised a glass to us. "And happy are we all to welcome you on your return, Madam Ambassador."
"There was a massacre in Avramides," I said.
"Hm." Sorge lowered his glass. "Are you certain?"
I stabbed the Volg's muzzle in to the chair's leather arm. Red liquid flew from the glass an officer sitting next to Sorge cradled. "Er, Richard, may I ask this man's removal?"
"You main't." Sorge looked up at Phang. "Sarn't Major?"
"There was a massacre in Avramides, sir."
"Did you see this yourself?"
"No, sir."
"Are there witnesses?"
"Out on the pitch, sir. Those we could move from the enclave."
"How many?"
"About a hundred and eighty, sir. We left forty VSIs behind."
"Don't tell me they're still rioting out there!" The officer next to Sorge mopped at the red stains with a cloth. "What's there to riot about?"
"Thanks for bringing this to my attention."
"Sir, the VSIs are P1 right now. They'll need winches if they hope to make it to Surgical."
"Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Sarn't Major. You did well out there."
"You promised us aid. From your ready mouth, you offered us protection." The ambassador moved between Phang and me and turned her nose down to Sorge. "Had you seen our homes, human, you might find less interest in the contents of the bottle. Stand up. Stand up."
Sorge tilted his glass back and set it on the table's edge. "Shall we step outside, Ambassador?"
The ambassador followed Sorge out of a sliding glass door on to a balcony. Her right arm folded in against the base of her spine and her hand closed to a fist. Barakat refused eye contact with any of us and scrutinised the pink remnants in the bottom of his glass. His companions snorted. Mutters circled the officers. More alcohol glugged from necks and glasses knocked together.
Water poured from a chugging dispenser shoved in a corner. I crushed a thin, plastic cup and dropped it in a bin. Youness and Phang leaned on either side of the dispenser. Sorge and the ambassador remained on the balcony. "Right." Youness drained his cup and threw it after mine. "No more shill-shall."
"Where are you off to?"
"To find Loay."
"Yoo, you've not been dismissed."
"I made my decision!" Youness got hold of his swinging Volg and swung his free arm at the officers and techs in the lounge. "More than anyone else in here is capable of."
"He's right, Q," I muttered. "Sorge in't worth a damn. And he knows a lot we don't."
"Never try to understand a commissioned officer, James." Phang bent for a refill. "I've dealt with second lieutenants all the way up to lord generals and they've all been wanting something from across my counter. I tell you, not one of them could keep the colour from their cheeks whilst asking me for the medium-sized prophylactics."
"Eh-heh." I clamped my hand over my mouth. "Medium-sized."
"Look at him." Phang nodded at Sorge leaning on the balcony. "Our medium-sizer. Bet he fucks with the lights on."
"Hurgh-hurgh." I wiped at my running nose. "Sarn't major has a sense of humour. If I got you home after a night out, what'd be in store?"
"It'd only be want-want-want from me." Phang shrugged. "I spend my career giving. I need something in return."
"Oi, they're done." I pushed away from the dispenser. The ambassador stepped back inside the lounge. Sorge slid the door shut behind her.
"Sarn't Major, would you escort Ambassador Galah-Shah downstairs? Ma'am, thank you for your time."
"Yes, sir. Ma'am?" Phang led the ambassador out of the lounge.
"Hold fire for a sec, James." Sorge bit on his thumbnail. "Just…"
"Don't fuck with us. I'm warning you."
"Listen, I had—" Sorge glanced at the nearby techs and their menials.
"Look, we can do this out here—" Sorge turned his back on me and moved behind a hanging screen. I swept around the front and followed Sorge inside a glass-walled office cleared of the previous owner's belongings and stuffed with a silent generator, military storage crates, and coat-racks. Opaque strips ran around the walls at chest and head-height.
"So." Sorge parked his backside on the generator. "I'll put your latest insubordination down to shock. But only once."
"Bollocks. You knew what had happened before we'd even left the stadium. We'd been—"
"—James, I make this as clear as I can, and much the same to the ambassador before you. We are rolling with the punch dealt. Very, very soon the administration up there in the clouds will wake up to what is happening and start swinging the hammer of blame. Whose head lies on the anvil, I have not the slightest but the cries of the pro-human, anti-xenos Spartacist league leave the administration with the perfect ammunition."
"Come down to me—no, no, speak to me on my level, sir."
"Now that you've called me sir…"
"Or I could just call you a cunt and walk out. Make this worth my while, sir."
Sorge shut his eyes. "So, walk."
"Leave the politics for officers, yeah?" I reached for the door handle.
"How far do you think a sergeant's annual will cover Mister Garst's surgery?"
My hand tightened around the cold handle. "Now, I'm getting it. Now, I see."
"You would be consigning your best friend to a lifetime of agony."
"No more on him. No more. Stand up."
"Okay." Sorge removed himself from the crate and keyed in the passcode. "Your next mission will not involve Warrant Officer Phang or Sergeant Sadoon." The lid opened and Sorge reached inside and brought out a leather case. "Your mission will unfold over three weeks and will involve no-one else but the persons stated herein." Sorge released the clasp holding the flap and tipped the contents out on to the office desk shunted to one side. Pens, a charger lead, a leatherbound dataslate and a roll of developed film landed on the desk. The roll bounced across the smooth surface and unravelled beneath the desk. I got down on the carpet and wound the film back up. Shipment #2247 Flight Plan… Seventy-five rocket-propelled grenade launchers… R. A. C. Sorge.
"The device is keyed to recognise your prints only." Sorge flipped open the cover and swivelled the slate around in his palm. "Ah, I'll have that roll, thank you."
"And the Zalileans?" I spun the roll around my forefinger.
"They and the other foreign consulates will be repatriated once the city's hounds have fed and the finger-pointers quelled. Leave the admin to the civilians, shall we say?" Sorge plucked the film from my finger and handed me the dataslate. "You have a working plan, a daily schedule, and a pre-set timetable. Take the rest of the afternoon to familiarise yourself with the details then report to your new station. Chief Gevers will brief you on-site."
My thumb hovered over the circular prompt at the bottom of the screen. "This is Vantorout's killer, isn't it?"
Sorge flourished a three-page document bound at the top corner. "She's too good to waste at a firing squad." The document slid over to me. A blank dotted line rounded off the third page. "Use whatever history you two have, any means, any methods, and make her mine."
My eyes crawled across the dotted line. Erect hairs tickled my collar. "Your nephew thought much the same." I swept the document up with the slate and stuffed them inside a pouch. "Carry on like this, you just might meet him." I left the office and shut the door on Sorge before he could reply.
Humans and Zalileans watched one another from their respective pens. Head lowered, I trudged along the rutted avenue separating the two. Fingers curled around iron links. Scored picts of missing persons pushed through the fencing. Rako and Imperial credits thrust at me. A dark-eyed Zalilean followed me behind the onlookers gathered at the Zalilean fence. At a gap between shoulders, Ambassador Galah-Shah laid a hand on the fence and stared at me. She put her first two fingers on her lips and blew.
"You want one of…?" I dug out my cigarette packet and slid one of my remaining few out.
"It's what you do afterwards, isn't it?" The cigarette wavered in the ambassador's hand. "After you've been witness to the terrible." A bright finger wavered beneath the glowing tip. The ambassador's cheeks bulged and she spluttered the cigarette out. "Gods, I had no idea how bad they—"
"Nah, me neither. S'pose it's because everyone else does it. Y'know, peer-pressure."
"Help us—" The ambassador coughed in to her sleeve.
"We got you out of Avramides. I ask you, you don't ask me. Tell me exactly where the off-worlder came from."
"Hirainn-iem?" The ambassador said to the Zalileans closeby.
"No, not like that. Gothic only."
"A moment of privacy—a moment."
"Tell me where exactly the off-worlder came from."
"I knew nothing of her before the Prophet's decree reached our ears. By then it was far too late."
"Too late?"
"Months overdue, a foreigner came begging at our door."
"Was she alone?"
"A relative accompanied her—an uncle."
"An uncle?"
"Alive or dead, I do not know. Your navy has his body at a holding facility or so your commander tells."
"Tells…? Lies is what he tells. More lies and half-truths than a poli—"
"—Politician, I know. They are truly the worst of the worst." The ambassador's fingers slipped through the fence. "Please, another."
"I could have one of the guys roll you one." I lit the ambassador another cigarette.
Smoke poured from the ambassador's nostrils. "Gods, no. That feels worse."
"Give it a few puffs."
"What is—" The ambassador coughed. "What is she to you?"
My jaw clenched. A tiny flutter took my stomach. My fingers settled on the fence. "I had a friend: Olen Azar. I had a friend: Callum Lorne. I had a friend: Cyrano Semirechye."
The ambassador's cigarette drooped. A lump travelled up her neck. "I had a friend: Kadri Marewica. I had a friend: Golam Ruuni. I had a friend: Renisia Ruuni."
"Please take these." I passed my three remaining cigarettes through the fence and placed my lighter in the ambassador's open hand. "I'm very sorry for your people's loss."
The ambassador's hand closed around the dull metal and she backed away. Her fingers slid down the fence. An older Zalilean limped over and hugged her. Others tottered out of tents. Arms wrapped around shoulders and heads came together. Humming rose from the swaying throng.
Purple leaves crunched beneath Izuru's feet. Sharp points pricked her skin. Golden sunlight whisked away the thin mist clinging to the forest floor and the little figure scampering around the curving boughs. I know your eyes. Dark hair bounced behind the child. I know your face.
A tiny face peeped out from behind a thick trunk standing alone in the centre of a glade. I see you. Soft blades tickled Izuru's soles. The face slipped behind the tree. Izuru ducked beneath a sagging branch. Where are you? Twinkling vines parted before her until she came upon the far side of the trunk and saw the empty glade. Child? A drop pattered Izuru's shoulder. Thick orange sap dripped from the tree above her head. Izuru spun and shrank back. Yellowy flesh peeled from a body embedded in the trunk. Sap oozed down a skull and fell from a hollow eye socket. Insects spilled from a snarling mouth.
Click-click. A grey panel faced Izuru. Pins flowed up and down her crossed legs. She swivelled and planted her feet on the padded floor. Light spilled from the tiny, circular chamber in to a windowless habitation unit. Within the shadows at the far end of the room, a human sat at a worktop holding a gun in his lap. "Why don't you sit down."
Arms clutched to her sides, Izuru took small steps over to a table halfway between the chamber and the worktop and sat in the only chair. A paper document and a pen occupied the surface next to a fruit bowl. The pen's nub extended beyond the housing. Chair legs clanged on the floor. Izuru's head twitched. Her eyes roved around the smooth surface and found the gun's small muzzle pointed at her.
"I remember the alley where we first met. Your voice turning my weapon, becalming a rough soul. I thought that was all for the better, you, your voice haunting my dreams." Izuru tore her eyes from the gun. A pale-skinned, blue-eyed human, one side of his bearded face in shadow, gazed at her. Thick lines cut between his brows and darker skin ringed his eyes. "That there is for you. Read it, sign it." Izuru laid her thumb and two fingers on the document and slid it over. "It grants amnesty for all crimes committed against the people of Orsolya." The human set the pen down above the document. "While binding you to contract."
Izuru peeled a page back. "I don't understand."
"This is your life. Without this, we cannot guarantee your safety."
"Safety?" Izuru's thumb tracked the final paragraph on the third page and came to rest on the dotted line. "Where in the House of Man can I ever be safe?"
"Choose life or choose your gods. They won't reject you a second time." The gun came forwards and touched Izuru's forehead. Izuru squeezed her eyes shut and brought her knees together. Her lips stretched across her quivering jaw and a tiny sob rose in her throat. "Sssh… you've been through a lot." A rough thumb caressed Izuru's wet cheek. Izuru inhaled and tilted her head back. The human's thumb travelled in a semi-circle down her cheek, around her chin, and came up to meet the shining tract crawling from her eye.
Izuru took up the pen and stabbed the nub in to the paper. Her left hand jerked up and down and left a broad scrawl. The pen fell from her fist and clattered on the table's surface. The human clicked the pen and swept it and the document beneath his arm. He tilted the gun away from Izuru and set the safety. "Where are the boys?" Izuru's head listed. Dry lips parted. "You have two sons, Ilic and Korsarro." Izuru's mouth hung open. "I looked for them in Avramides." The human pushed the stool back and stood. "There was a massacre."
"I blinked." Izuru rubbed her fingers beneath her wet nose. "You can't ever close your eyes around children, not even for a moment. I blinked. I blinked and they were gone." Izuru squidged the back of her hand against her trembling lips. The human, shrouded in darkness, turned away from Izuru and left the hab. A lock clicked behind him.