THREE
With Cain playing vox-tag with the regiment's command center, I was stuck questioning the irritable little tech-priest. He wasn't irritating in the usual way that tech-priests are, constantly spouting their holier-than-thou nonsense and flaunting their superior understanding of technological lore. I probably would have preferred it over his 'you're messing up my concentration with your presence' attitude that he was giving me. Unfortunately, I still had more question for him but getting meaningful answers from him was like pulling teeth from an Ork. The simple questions like as 'how long have these incidences been happening?' and 'who has access to where the vehicles are kept?' were answered in a quick, terse manner by the tech-priest. My more detailed questions like the exact nature of some of the damage were met with deflection and dismissal; in the form of 'you couldn't possibly understand'.
"Look cogboy, I'm not asking for a ten-page dissertation on the theory of warp travel, I just want a simple overview," I reiterated for the fifth time in the conversation. Zalanskos had shifted the conversation across the garage (or was trying to get away from me) and was now trying to avoid talking to me by hiding in the partially-emptied hull of modified Trojan. Stubbornness decreed I not let him win so I simply stood over the hole where he was working in and waited for him to poke his head up, which he did every few minutes.
"And just because a las-cutter sounds like a lasgun doesn't mean you would have any clue what I'm talking about," he insisted when his head poked back up. Every time he popped up it was tempting put my boot on his face in a game of 'whack-a-dolt' but my better judgment cooled my temper. "Explaining this mess to you would be about as useful if you just looked at it for yourself!" he added before dropping back inside.
Crouching down, I lowered my head into the vehicle's hull for a brief moment. My bionic eye allowed me to see with a bit more clarity in the ill-lit confines of the Trojan. The vehicle had been modified with a heavy-duty laser-emitter in place of the front-mounted heavy bolter. It was likely used to cut through the foundry's heavy metal plating so it could then use its crane to clean up the debris. Judging by the scorching and blast damage, somebody had tampered with the las-cutter to cause a critical overload. I would hate to have been the one inside when it went off.
Now while most commissars and soldier's understanding of a laspistol, or laser weapons in general, is how to keep it clean, where the power pack goes, and which end you point, I had a far more thorough understanding of the hardware. A hotshot laspistol requires far more maintenance than its standard-power counterpart. As a result, people who use such weapons learn their weapons inside and out. I, personally, am capable of rebuilding my laspistols if given the necessary components and not just in an 'A goes into B' manner. A las-cutter operated on the same principles but simply on a larger scale so making sense of the mess I saw in the Trojan was actually a lot easier than Zalanskos had anticipated. "Umm, looks to me like somebody rewired the discharge generator to create a feedback loop that bypasses the heat sinks and dumps directly into the capacitors."
Right on cue, Zalanskos popped his head back up. I wished he had a more human face so I could have seen the stunned look in his eyes but I had only his bewildered silence to take satisfaction from. "You cheated. Who told you the answer? Is there somebody on your vox?" The tech-priest's disbelief was to be expected.
"My tutor had me dismantle and rebuild this laspistol until I could do it running eyes closed through the obstacle course," I explained as I tapped my prized hotshot laspistol. "I know my way around a laser weapon system."
"Interesting," he replied reluctantly as his bionic hand stroked his chin. "Not many people are blessed with knowing the secrets of the weapons they carry."
"I know the necessary rites of repair, maintenance, activation, calibration, reconfiguration, and even reconstruction," I said perhaps a bit too smugly.
"Perhaps you are not as stupid as I thought," he muttered. How flattering. "Still, it's an amateur's assessment at best but what can you expect from a meatsack?"
"Shut up cog-head."
We didn't say anything to each other for a while. He was content to work in silence and I couldn't think of anything to say that didn't start with my boot up his arse. It's like my father always told me, 'if you can't say anything without the overwhelming urge to shoot the person, then don't say anything at all.' However, I suspect my father never anticipated me becoming a commissar as my job often entailed shooting people while spouting pithy one-liners. Despite Cain's instructions to continue questioning the tech-priest, I had lost interest in any kind of interaction with the cog so I took a seat atop the Trojan and hoped that orders or Cain came soon. Aside from occasional mutterings from the tech-priest and my heels tapping against the side of the vehicle, all became quiet in the garage.
Unfortunately, while I had decided against further discussion, the tech-priest had become engorged with curiosity. After a few blessed minutes of silence, his head emerged from a small hatch on the side located directly between my ankles. "What sort of las weapon are you carrying to necessitate such knowledge?" he asked. Rather than explain myself, I figured it'd be faster and less taxing if I just simply showed him. I pulled out my hotshot laspistol and dangled it over his head for him to see. "Curious…" he said softly as a mechadendrite emerged from another opening and plucked the weapon from my hand. Normally I would turn my shock maul on anybody for taking a weapon out of my hand but tech-priests revered these sorts of things so I knew my gun was in safe hands. The mechanical claw gripped it tightly, rotating slowly so he could view it from every angle. His voltage-like humming intensified for a brief moment before he said, "Quality craftsmanship though I've made better. A few of these modifications could be more efficient and the weight could certainly be reduced."
"Are you offering?" I asked. I wasn't expecting an actual offer but I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity from a master artificer. My hope was that his disdain for his current workload would make him more willing.
"I'll build you a new one if you can get me out of this Omnissiah-forsaken pit."
"How willing would your brother be to letting you go?"
"It's one of those 'over his dead body' things unfortunately," he sighed as he returned my laspistol. He disappeared back inside the Trojan but continued the conversation. "Tell me Commissar, how much experience do you and your regiment have in dealing with Eldar?"
There was a question I was not very comfortable with answering. Admitting your lack of experience was always a bit…embarrassing for me. Being a new commissar is no less difficult than being a new recruit or a freshly-graduated junior officer – people expect you to know things and they become disappointed when you have to admit that your limited experience has left you clueless. Kriegans do not like letting people down; we avoid failure like it's a full-blown heresy. "I've…uh, only been with the regiment for a short time so I'm not completely familiar with their history," I answered while deflecting the topic away from me. "But our officers and soldiers have had prior encounters with Eldar forces in the past."
"I see…" was his response but I gathered from his tone that he had not been instilled with a sense of confidence in us. "And what exactly makes you people so certain there are, in fact, Eldar on Erebus?"
"Oh, that? It's a, um…a long story," I hastily replied in hopes of avoiding the issue.
Somewhere in all the layers of bionics and computer chips, I suspect that Zalanskos has a groxshit detector because he saw right through me. He emerged once more through a larger roof hatch near the crane, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the vehicle's roof. "I've got time," he said coyly.
I had to choose my words carefully to try and avoid arousing his curiosity further but I couldn't take too long or else he would be suspicious of my answer. "We…uh, found an item that we believe is connected to an Eldar that we have encountered in the past."
"What kind of item?" he asked suspiciously. Lying to people has never been a strong suit of mine. I have always been inclined towards the cold, hard cudgel of truth. People often responded well to logic and reasoning or, should those fail, threats of violence and blackmailing. He already knew I was trying to hide something from him and he wasn't going to stop prying until he found the truth. Cain was better at deflecting than I was and I soon wishing for his timely arrival. Alas, I was on my own and I eventually acquiesced.
"It…it was a flower…" I said in a near-whisper.
"A what?" he asked.
"A flower. We found a flower."
"Oh, well then hallelujah! Praise the Omnissiah that we have such watchful and vigilante soldiers standing guard!" Zalanskos began with his sarcasm dials cranked to eleven and arms outstretched towards the ceiling. "Emperor preserve us! The herald of the foul xeno has been discovered in the verdant bosom of the Magnoliophyta! What kind of tar-balling, unrefined, oil sludge is that? A flower? The most technological gifted species in the galaxy leaves a pollen-covered bug catcher as a calling card?" He was understandably annoyed but he didn't know the full significance of the flower, nor did he seem intent on letting me get to that point. "I can't believe you've got me worked up over that! Maybe you haven't noticed but we are on one of the most technologically advanced planets in the sector. We have eyes watching almost every inch of rockrete in this district. If there were Eldars creeping around in the shadows and through our camp, I'm pretty damn certain somebody would have noticed by now!"
Just then there came a sudden and loud crashing noise; the terrifying, bowel-loosening sound of plasteel being torn asunder by a powerful force. Our eyes raced to the far wall where we saw two giant hands piercing through the wall, bending back the plasteel as though it were warm rubber. The peeling sections of wall soon revealed a monstrous Eldar war machine. There was no mistaking its origin – Eldritch runes were carved into its white and green armoured frame. The first thought that crossed my mind, other than 'oh frak, we're all going to die,' was an almost staunch scepticism; as though my mind could not accept that something so lithe, so seemingly fragile, was ripping through the wall with absolute ease. Alarms began to blare but we were already well aware of the danger.
"Wraithlord!" I shouted needlessly as Zalanskos and I dove into the Trojan. It wasn't the most secure piece of cover but a second later shuriken fire began rattling against the hull so it was safer than out in the open. My comm-bead screamed to life with vox chatter. It became apparent that we were not the only part of the facility under attack. Through the chatter I heard a familiar voice calling my name.
"Commissar Abel, what is your situation? Report!" It was Cain and judging by his voice his situation wasn't much better than mine.
"I'm under attack from an Eldar wraithlord inside the garage. I've got the tech-priest with me but we're pinned down by shuriken fire," I answered. "What's your status and location?"
"I'm in the communication spire with Magos Aureus and Colonel Kasteen," Cain shouted before a series of explosions drowned out all other noise. "I count thirty-plus infantry plus a couple of transports. Captain Drusus and some tech-guards are fighting at the ground level to keep the Eldar out. Our chimera is inbound and I'm going to try and extract the VIPs." While I applaud Cain's tactical thinking and his willingness to hold back Eldar soldiers in order for Kasteen and the Magos to escape, this meant that nobody was going to come bail me out of trouble. Were I dealing with some infantry I wouldn't be quite so concerned. Infantry I could at least fight back against but a wraithlord was a heavily armed and armoured war machine and it seemed intent on my destruction. "Try and regroup with a squad of Skitarii or find your way to our position. I'm afraid there's nothing else I can do from here."
"Well I'll see what I can do," I replied and sighed heavily once I closed the line.
"We're doomed aren't we?" Zalanskos inquired.
"At least we've got some protection in here," I said. Unfortunately, I spoke too soon as a high-powered laser bolt suddenly punched through the Trojan, missing both of us by a narrow margin. "Please tell me the engine in this thing still works!"
"It should," Zalanskos replied as he clambered to the front of the Trojan and into the driver's seat. "But most of its sacred fluids have been drained. Operating the engine will cause the machine great pain."
Cautiously peering through one of the panel-less hatches, I saw the wraithlord had climbed in through the hole and was now on its way over to stomp us into a bloodstained metal pancake. The thought of pulling my laspistol out and shooting did cross my mind for a moment but I soon dismissed the idea as foolish. The war machine's armour was far too strong for my weapons to do any harm and the only thing I would likely accomplish would be to motivate it to kill us faster. At the moment it strolling leisurely towards us, though it took only a few of its massive strides to reach us. "We're all going to be in great pain if you don't get this bucket moving!" I shouted.
"Don't rush me!"
"I'm not, he is!" I replied as I watched the wraithlord raise a fist above its bulbous head. I was about to jump ship and leave the tech-priest to become one with his Machine God when suddenly the wraithlord let out a bizarre roar. It sounded enraged, yet it was muffled and raspy, like a phantom screaming in the night. It reeled back, clutching at its head for some reason.
"What in the warp is going on?" Zalanskos asked.
"Frak if I know but it's buying us time," I answered and shouted at him to get back to starting the vehicle. After a few more attempts, several strings of profanities, and few extra-long prayers to the Omnissiah, the Trojan's engine rumbled to life. Though there wasn't any need to remind him, I shouted at the coghead to floor it. Without the weight of numerous panels, several batteries, and parts of a laser assembly, the Trojan took off with a mighty lunge, which took me by surprise and sent me unceremoniously tumbling face-first into the floor. Nonetheless, it was better than being the toy in a wraithlord's game of 'kick the can.' The Trojan punched through the garage's main door and into the hazy streets where techguards and civilians were scrambling in all directions as they tried to make sense of the situation. Some of the soldiers were beginning to get organized into defensive firing lines and in the distance I could see silhouettes through the orange haze firing back at the techguards. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't run while others stood and fought but I had to help Cain and the others at the communication spire.
Unfortunately, we only got a few hundred meters away when the Trojan let out an unhealthy 'ka-clunk' sound. I was no engineer but that sound could be universally translated as a vehicle's way of saying 'go on without me.' The engine struggled loudly to stay alive but eventually it ground to halt and smoke began flooding the cabin. "That's all we're going to get out of this vehicle," Zalanskos said, stating the obvious. We had no choice but to proceed on foot. He reassured me that the communication spire wasn't too far from our current position and pointed it out to me. His definition of 'close' was different than mine since it was at least a few kilometres away. It was hard to gauge the distance due to the spire being partially concealed by the smog. The streets were gradually clearing as civilians took refuge inside the pre-fab units, leaving just the soldiers running in all directions. Judging by the sound of the gunfire, the town was being assaulted on several fronts, which meant the already over-extended skitarii were being stretched even further. As we raced through the streets, I could not help but wonder what was the purpose to all this. If the Eldar were behind the sabotage campaign then why suddenly switch to blatant offensive? Perhaps the Valhallans' arrival threw a wrench into their carefully constructed plan. If that was the case, then it meant they were going to be taking greater risks and we could use that to our advantage. That thought, however, relied on a number of assumptions that didn't necessarily apply to the Eldar – they do not necessarily respond to escalation in kind. Some might argue that is what makes the Eldar so cowardly…while a realist argues that's what makes the Eldar so dangerous.
My train of thought was interrupted by the roar of a heavy bolter. It was a reassuring sound and I instinctively began shifting my direction towards the source. It also meant I was running towards a firefight but that thought did not cross my mind until I found the source. It was our chimera, stopped in the middle of the street and firing its front-mounted heavy bolter at a building down the road. As the vehicle was under only small arms fire, I saw no reason why it would be stationary and that worried me greatly. I also noticed that the turret was likewise motionless with its barrel pointed off to its right. The troopers inside had exited and taken cover around the chimera, firing back at the enemy positions occasionally but often being forced to keep their heads down.
"That doesn't look good," Zalanskos commented.
"No shit! Soldiers don't climb out of a chimera without good reason," I replied.
"I meant none of the chimera's lights are on," he said. I had no noticed that fact as I had been concerned with the tactical overview rather than whether the vehicle's headlights had been left on.
I voxed ahead and alerted the troops to our approach. Fortunately, our avenue of approach kept the chimera between us and the enemy but I hurried across the open street nonetheless. Another fact that I had failed to notice was that only half the squad was present and the ranking soldier was the squad's ASL rather than its sergeant – a Corporal McTam. She was glad to see a familiar face though I detected a hint of disappointment that I was not the commissar they were hoping for. "I thought Commissar Cain wanted this chimera at the spire," I stated once I reached the corporal.
"The xenos hit it with some kind of grenade and now it won't start," McTam explained. "The sergeant tried to take his fireteam and continue on foot," she explained and directed my attention down the road where four guardsmen lay dead. "They got cut to ribbons once they were out in the open. Now Davis is inside trying to get the chimera started again but he doesn't seem to be having much luck." Luckily I just happened to have in tow a man who made his living dealing with machines. It didn't take much to convince Zalanskos to head inside; in fact, it didn't take anything because when I looked for the man, I was told he had already gone inside the chimera. Either he felt sympathetic towards the chimera (don't ask me how a person can feel sympathy for a machine, it's a tech-priest thing) or he just really wanted to get out of the firefight.
I tried to take a peak around the corner but the moment I did several guns opened fire at my position; even with aliens, the commissar's cap acted as a bullet magnet. "How long have you guys been stuck here?" I asked.
"Pretty much since the trouble started," McTam said after risking a brief glance at the enemy's position. "Right after we got off the vox with Cain, the xenos hit us and the chimera went dead. Since then they've only been making sure we stayed put."
"Bizarre," I muttered. They were in a superior position for launching an assault on ours – they had the advantage of elevation for a base of fire and plenty of cover to make an approach. Just then all the pieces fell together and an unsettling realization dawned on me. "The spire is their target," I said.
"Well Cain did say he was under attack," McTam remarked.
"Correct, but they're attacking all over the town, drawing defenders away from the spire. And here they are keeping us from getting to the spire as well. The spire has to be their main target."
"That doesn't explain why they aren't just killing us," she retorted but trying not to make it sound like she was complaining about that fact.
I could only hazard a guess as to why they were keeping their distance but I had a theory. "Well if I were attacking a numerically superior force with the aim to draw defenders away I would engage them just enough to keep them occupied so as to not risk losing what few soldiers I have."
It took a moment but after thinking it over the corporal understood what I was getting at and also what it implied. "Meaning…if we can hit them back, they'll probably lose their courage and back off." I nodded to the corporal. "Are you suggesting we rush them?"
I shook my head. "I would rather save that for a last resort," I replied. While it would have been the solution for most other commissars, I wasn't interested in throwing my life away over a few Eldars holed up in a pre-fab building. Plus we wouldn't last more than a second even with all the courage and zeal in the galaxy. Maybe if we were Astartes we could pull it off but we didn't have any suits of power armour at our disposal. I did, however, have another idea in mind. "Cog-boy, what's our status?" I voxxed.
"Almost all of the electronics are fried," Zalanskos replied with a great deal of frustration. "The engine can still run but without an outside power source I can't get the ignition rites started. I'm going to try and jury-rig something from some of the lasguns." I hadn't the slightest clue what the tech-priest was going to attempt but he was more likely to succeed than any of us.
"What about the turret? Can you get the heavy bolters back up?"
"The bolters themselves will function but without power the turret is dead weight," he reported.
"Any way to get it moving?"
"I could provide temporary power to the machine using my internal system but it will not last long." I didn't need it to last long; I just needed the gun pointed in the right direction. I told him to get it done and a few seconds later, the turret began to move once more.
"I want that building in ruins," I instructed. Pre-fab buildings weren't known for their structural integrity. They were meant to be transported easily, built quickly, and withstand the elements. Heavy bolter rounds, however, tore through it like a gaunt through a paper bag. The bolters swept from left to right, tearing the walls apart and knocking out the support columns. Soon the building was no longer capable of supporting the weight of the upper floors and the whole unit collapsed inwards. If there were any Eldar in that building when it fell, they weren't in the mood to keep us pinned down. It bought us the time we needed and gave Zalanskos the freedom he needed to head around to the front of the chimera so he could directly access the engine compartment. He was jury-rigging some sort of device that appeared to be made out of parts from a lasgun and other unidentified do-dads. None of us asked what he was doing exactly but he mentioned he was providing a new power source for the rites of ignition. According to the tech-priest, it would allow us to start the vehicle again but we wouldn't have any of the electronic support systems online and if we turned off the engine, we would be stuck again.
"Begin the ignition!" the tech-priest shouted to the driver inside. There was a bright flash from Zalanskos' newly-fashioned device and it caught fire a few moments later but it did what he had promised and the engine was roaring back to life.
"Everybody back inside!" McTam shouted as she waved us in. It was just in time too as the surviving Eldars began firing from a new position in a neighbouring building. The driver didn't wait for all of us to get inside before hitting the gas but we all managed to climb aboard. Shuriken fire rattled against the chimera and as the rear door began to close, a heavy burst of shuriken fire hit the closing door. The angle of impact deflected all of the enemy rounds straight into the passenger compartment. Cursing and yelps of pain echoed through the vehicle as the shuriken rounds bounced around in the interior, cutting and shredding anything caught in their path. Everybody in the vehicle got hit at least once and I got hit three times - twice in my left leg and once in my right arm. The ones to my leg were glancing hits; they stung but I would be able to run and fight. The one to my arm, however, tore through my upper arm and made it extremely painful and difficult to raise my arm. The medic, though winged in the thigh himself, immediately sprang to work patching up a nearby wounded private who had just lost two of his fingers to a stray round.
"Everybody okay?" I called out after examining the extent of my injuries. There was a series of grumbled acknowledgments but I noticed immediately that I didn't hear McTam's voice. She had been the last to enter and I noticed her leaning up against the side wall. "Corporal, you alive?" I asked as I grabbed her by the shoulder. Her body immediately collapsed into my arms. McTam had been hit only once but by the cruellest of fortunes, that one shot was right in the back of the head. It was barely even noticeable – a bloody line about an inch long concealed by tufts of hair. But there was no exit wound, which meant the shuriken bounced around the inside of her skull and turned her brain in a bloody porridge.
"Those frakking xenos!" One trooper stated so eloquently.
It was a sombre drive to the communication spire. Aside from the occasional grunt of pain as the medic moved from soldier to soldier, there was hardly a whisper from anyone inside the chimera. Death was commonplace in the Imperial Guard and everybody knows that the person standing next to you could be gone at any moment but even knowing that fact didn't always take the edge off; especially when the soldier's lifeless body was set down in the seat next to you. I had trouble taking my eyes off of her for some reason, perhaps because she was roughly the same age as me. She had joined the guard as soon as she could and joined the 597th during the latest batch of replacements; she earned a promotion during the liberation of Magnus Viridis and was described as having a natural flare for leadership. Her lieutenant said she probably could have become an officer in time, maybe even a company commander. Instead she would be sent back to Valhalla in a small metal box all because a door didn't close fast enough.
The silence was eventually broken when the driver informed me that we were almost at the spire. I told everybody to get ready to disembark and I headed to the turret to take a look. In the distance ahead I could see the battle raging on – it wasn't a sizable Eldar force attacking but they had the defenders outnumbered and at a major disadvantage. The Eldar forces had established their base of fire in a nearby building but their transports were flying rings around the base of the spire, blasting away at the defenders who had very little cover on their flanks. Judging by the scattered bodies outside the spire, the techguards had been pushed back into the tower and were fighting from a lobby section that extended out from the spire's main structure. Once we were a few blocks shy of our destination, I ordered the chimera to stop and we all climbed out, save for Zalanskos.
"We're going to continue on foot," I explained. "The tech-priest is going to find someplace to hide the chimera until we call him in." With two Eldar vehicles circling the spire, one of them would find our chimera if we drove right up to the spire and the last thing I wanted was our ride out of here getting blown up. Running was going to aggravate my injured leg but I wasn't about to complain openly, not when everyone else in the squad was not letting their injuries stand in their way. Even our eight-fingered trooper was eager to get back into the fight. Once again I alerted the defenders of our approach and after the Eldar transport made its pass, we dashed across the open streets to the spire.
Though we were only a handful of troops, Captain Drusus was glad to see us when we arrived. The giant of a techguard was the only person not readily standing behind cover. He held his ground near the front of the lobby, a heavy bolter strapped onto one of his arms laying down a barrage on anything that moved. The enemy weapons broke against his armour like water on rocks and only when the heavy weapons of the vehicles came into view was he forced to take cover briefly.
The situation in the lobby was eerily reminiscent of the situation when I first came across the chimera. The Eldar were well-entrenched in their position but were reluctant to try and advance on the defender's position. I was surprised they weren't making stronger use of their vehicles. It was almost as if they were keeping us contained. It couldn't have been a coincidence and it left me scrambling for answers.
"I'm hoping you brought a little bit more than just the lot of you," Drusus said as our squad took cover in the lobby wreckage.
"How about a rocket launcher and a chimera?" I replied and pointed to the trooper who carried the aforementioned heavy weapon. "Our chimera is close by and waiting for our call. Just point me to the VIPs and we can get them out of here."
"They're all that way," Drusus replied, pointing directly up. "They're still up in the main conference room. I'll vox them and tell them to get down here." I breathed a slight sigh of relief that we had arrived before anything terrible had happened. However, just as things were starting to look up, fate decided to take a shit in my porridge. "Strange…I'm not getting a response," Drusus said after a moment.
"Oh frak!" I cursed so loudly I'm certain everybody in the tower heard me. The realization had crashed upon me like an Astartes drop pod. "This is just another distraction!"
"Come again?"
"Those frakkers out there are just keeping you occupied while another team is up above killing everybody," I explained as I headed for the main lift (the spire was over twenty stories high, I wasn't taking the stairs). I motioned for a few of the Valhallans to follow me.
"Impossible," Drusus replied. "There's only one way up and nobody has made it past us."
"Trust me," I said as I stepped onto the lift, "they found another way."
Taking the lift was probably not the best move since anybody above would see us coming a mile away but the stairs would take too long and leave us winded by the time we reached the top. Given the choices, I was willing to take my chances with the lift. "How are you so certain this is a distraction?" one of the younger troopers asked me.
"Because that's what Eldar do – they distract you with the obvious and hit you where you're unprepared," I explained. "They're trying to cut off the head of this entire operation. I just hope Cain wasn't caught off-guard." We were quickly growing furiously impatient as we waited for the elevator to ascend, all while listening to a horrible rendition of Tchaikasky's masterpiece, 'The Emperor's Ascension.' If the composer could hear how they were brutalising his music, he would spin fast enough to set himself on fire.
"Are we there yet?" somebody asked, followed by an 'ow' when the soldier next to him punched him in the arm. As we neared our destination, the troopers behind me did a quick weapons check, as did I. With my right arm injured, I had to keep my laspistol in my left. I was a superb marksman firing with either hand but my right had always been slightly better and in the close quarters of these halls, I was uneasy not having a free hand if I needed to draw my shock maul in a hurry.
"Get ready," I said as the lift came to a halt. We all braced ourselves but when the doors parted, we discovered a silent hallway. Unfortunately, it was silent because the half-dozen combat servitors that had been left on guard were now scattered across the length of the hallway in many tiny pieces. It was a bad sign and we hurried on our way to the main conference room. We could soon hear the faint sound of a chainsword and our spirits lifted – it had to be Cain.
When we tracked down the source it was just as I had hoped. There was Cain, standing alone against the enemy with chainsword in hand. Around him were the bodies of more fallen combat servitors but what surprised me the most, however, was that there were no Eldar bodies; in fact, there was only one Eldar present and he was engaged in a chainsword duel with both Commissar Cain and Colonel Kasteen. The Eldar was no ordinary warrior – the body count alone attested to that. His eloquent white and green armour shimmered under the glow of the overhanging luminators, his elongated helm was peaked with a vibrant red plume, and his armour expanded greatly around the upper back and shoulders, as though he had some sort of backpack unit integrated into his armour. Whoever he was, his chainsword was as large as Cain's and he wielded it with similar proficiency. At first I thought it might have been him but it took only a moment to realize that this was an entirely different Eldar. Though helmeted, the malice of his gaze was palpable and he carried himself with the aggressiveness of a seasoned killer (as opposed to Kael, who always moved with calm, calculated grace and precision).
The Eldar warrior lashed back and forth between Kasteen and Cain. Kasteen's swings were barely hitting close and the Eldar was able to dance around them with ease. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the colonel but she was actually getting in Cain's way more than helping him, as the Eldar often used Kasteen as a buffer between him and the commissar. It was the same reason I rarely helped Cain in his fights back then – I couldn't keep up with him level of skill.
"Colonel!" one of our soldiers stupidly shouted, drawing everyone's attention to us. The Eldar pounced on that momentary distraction, swooping under Kasteen's blade before knocking back Cain's. The Eldar then spun about, smashing his chainsword into Kasteen's with such force that it sent it flying from her hand. The double-barrelled shuriken pistol he held in his free hand fired a burst, hitting Kasteen in the shoulder and upper chest, shredding flesh and bone with its razor-sharp projectiles. Then, using the flat side of his chainsword, the Eldar hooked onto Kasteen and pulled her around so that she was now between him and us.
"It appears that our time is at an end mon'keigh," the Eldar spoke as he kept the teeth of his blade close to Kasteen's neck. "I must admit, I have enjoyed our little dance. I rarely get the chance to fight an opponent who doesn't die in the first five seconds."
"Wherever you run Eldar, we'll find you," Cain said as he kept his laspistol aimed at his opponent. For a moment I wondered if Cain would try to take the shot. Perhaps if he were facing a human he would but an Eldar's reaction speed would ensure Kasteen's death if Cain pulled the trigger. He wouldn't risk her life like that.
"Short-sighted as always, mon'keigh. How do you hope to find me when you cannot even see the obvious truth?" the Eldar laughed boastfully. "You're obstinate leaders were warned and they have refused to listen. So now they have paid in blood. I suggest you take my advice and leave…while I am still feeling merciful. Otherwise you shall join that fool Aureus in oblivion. The Hounds of Erebus shall not rise again!" With that, the Eldar shoved Kasteen towards Cain. The moment the Colonel was clear we opened fire but even that was too late – the Eldar vanished in a blink of light.
"The Magos…" Kasteen grunted, as she stepped back from Cain's support. He knew what she meant and he rushed to the door that he had been defending. The medic I brought along rushed to Kasteen's side while I followed after Cain. He must have kept the Magos locked away in the conference room but if the Eldar have been using teleporters then everything he did could have been for nought.
As the door opened, a handful of Eldar warriors wearing the same wide-shouldered armour blinked out of sight. Blood stained the walls and bodies were strewn across the floor and broken furniture. And lying dead in a pool of blood and oil on the conference table was Magos Aureus. We were too late…