Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 106
Severcole Vanderspeak leaned back from his desk and rubbed his eyes in weariness. A gritty tang lurked beyond the reach of his fingers, gnawing at the nerve roots like sand caught in a gear. His head throbbed too, and his throat was parched. Hour upon hour of sorting dire reports and urgent requests had taken their toll. The General was tired to the bone, and the prospect of sleep seemed further away than ever.
He dropped his hand and took in the staggering pile of reports yet to be read, covering his desk in a sea of scrolls, torn-off pages and quickly written notes. Missives from all along the front line, along with tallies of incidents in the Hive cities across Tellaris. Vanderspeak had teams of aides parsing the incoming data, dealing with myriad issues and only sending him the ones he absolutely needed to see, which was still more than he could handle. The rising tide of calamity could not be stayed, and he was but a small cog in Holorus Command.
A calloused hand picked up the next page. Laval grimaced as he peered at the scrawled writing, trying to make out the terrible handwriting. Next to him Baratel worked a data-slate, seemingly less cluttered save the Binaric reader had ten times as many communiques in its storage than were currently strewn over the desk. The three of them had been working flat out to triage the data coming in, and still couldn't keep up.
Finally Laval muttered, "Sector 83 reports a serious issue with… I can't make it out… it's either artillery shells or a seriously bad smell… it could be it's all gone to hell."
"Probably all three," Baratel grunted.
"Supply lines are breaking down everywhere," Vanderspeak lamented, "They must be running out of shells. This is a problem, if the front line can't get ammunition the Terrans will overrun us. Send it to the quartermaster's office, highest priority."
Laval inked a short comment on the back and placed it in a wire-frame tray at his feet, already overloaded with missives. Every half an hour a servant would come in and empty the tray, but they couldn't keep up. Neither could Vanderspeak. The reports betrayed a rising tide of disaster. Production lines were breaking down, supplies weren't getting where they were meant to be, shipping at the spaceport had stalled and the suicides among the military had increased above their already alarming high average.
Baratel looked up, "Perhaps you should make another speech."
"I've made dozens, across the line and for the propagandists, it's no good. A mere General can't convince the people we're not doomed. The destruction of the Shrine has struck at the soul of us."
Laval frowned, "What we really need is to hear from the High Plutocrat."
"No good, he's still indisposed."
Laval brow became a scowl, "Now of all times?! We need a leader who can inspire, we need someone who can get us back on our feet!"
Vanderspeak glared, "Careful, my father still rules Tellaris. To suggest someone usurp his authority is tantamount to treason."
Laval's eyes fell, "Yes sir, sorry sir."
Vanderspeak drew in a breath to remonstrate further, but his words were stopped by a faint noise. He frowned as his augmetic ears detected something, far too faint for human hearing but just on the cusp of his awareness. He held up a finger as his aides made to question, and then he heard it again. A distant snap-hiss, he'd swear it was lasgun fire save they were near the summit of Holorus Hive. Impossible, save he heard it a third time, this time mixed with the unmistakable sound of screaming.
Vanderspeak hit a rune on his desk, "Holorus command, this is Vanderspeak, report situation!"
"Hzzzzzzzzzz…" the vox-griller hissed in raw static.
"What's happening?" Laval blinked.
"Trouble," the General replied as he stood up and made for the door.
He stuck his head out into a broad hallway and found silence. That wasn't right, there should be servants bustling everywhere, instead there was nothing save emptiness and shadows. Vanderspeak's hand went to his holster and he drew his Inferno pistol. The weighty grip filled his palm as he charged the Melta flasks, readying the weapon to fire. Meant to punch through armoured vehicles it was still a ferociously potent personal weapon, few things indeed could withstand a hit from this.
"What are we expecting?" Baratel asked as the aides slipped out, drawing their laspistols.
"I don't know, but something is very wrong, we need to link up with the defence forces."
"If the comms are down then Holorus Command has already fallen," Laval noted.
"No warnings, no alerts, whatever happened hit so quick there wasn't time for an alert. I don't like this at all, keep your safeties off."
Vanderspeak moved down the corridor, keeping away from the walls. An amateur would hug them for cover, but he knew well how a bullet could travel, or a las-shot spray burning fragments from an impact site, a near miss could still be fatal. His tiredness was forgotten, adrenaline pumping through his veins, making his heart flutter. He walked quickly, scanning for threats but found nothing. The high levels of the spire were wood-panelled, somewhat rotten from years of neglect and many lighter outlines betrayed where ornate fixtures had been removed and sold off. The smell of the worn carpet had long been musty and tainted with mildew, but now he scented the awful tang of blood.
They stepped around a corner and found the first body. Laid out on the floor was a woman, a cleaning maid with long skirts and her head covered by a knotted scarf. She lay on the floor, eyes wide in terror. Vanderspeak instantly noted the puddle of vomit around her head and the claw marks ripped into the carpet. She'd died thrashing in agony, spewing up her guts and flailing at nothing, and yet there was not a wound upon her.
"She died running," Baratel noted.
"From what?" Vanderspeak asked, "Who killed her?"
Laval stooped to examine the body, "Unknown, but look at her neck, there's a tiny dart embedded in it."
"Don't touch it!" Vanderspeak barked, "It must be poisoned. A Needler of some kind, a particularly nasty one."
Baratel shuddered, "If I see who did this, I'm shooting first and asking questions later."
"Forget questions, just hose them with firepower," Laval grunted.
Vanderspeak led them on, heading down the passage the woman had fled from. A long corridor, narrow, one of the servant's ways, lacking any sort of cover. After a minute Vanderspeak frowned, the passage was long and there was no sign of the pursuer, if they'd fired down the length of this corridor then the shooter had superb aim indeed. Another couple of minutes later he grew worried, they'd passed the range of a Needler by a significant margin, no normal man could make such a shot with a mere pistol. Such keen aim implied a post-human eye… possibly even Transhuman.
They finally stepped out into a broad corridor, a main thoroughfare and found a scene of slaughter. Tellarite soldiers lay strewn everywhere, bits of men hanging from the walls. Entrails ran together on the floor and shorn arms still clung to their rifles. A platoon of soldiers had been taken apart, literally, hacked into chunks like they'd been dropped into a meatgrinder, their remains splattered everywhere without care. Vanderspeak had seen some awful things in his time, but this was another league entirely. His stomach cramped in an effort to empty its contents and he was heartily glad he'd missed several meals the last few days.
"No mere Needler did this," Laval gulped.
"A threshing machine couldn't do half as much damage," Baratel muttered.
"I see las-marks over the walls, they died shooting, but no traces of whoever they were fighting. The killer didn't miss a single shot. No mortal man could do this."
Baratel's face blanched, "You don't think… I mean the Terrans, they wouldn't… send a Space Marine into the hive?"
"God-Emperor preserve us," Laval hissed as he frantically aimed down the corridor.
"If a Raven Guard is loose in the spire, then we're in for the fight of our lives," Vanderspeak hissed.
There was nothing more to be learned here so they pressed on. A trail of destruction led the way, pockets of resistance utterly demolished along the concourse's length. Soldiers had been eviscerated, hastily thrown together barricades demolished and body parts left in grizzly displays. Vanderspeak tried to understand how this had happened and so fast, mere minutes had passed since the Holorus Command went silent. Routine protocols sent defence teams to preset positions if that happened, but the attacker must have bypassed a hundred layers of defence before striking. How had they penetrated so far undetected, how had they gone through so many men without leaving any trace of their identity? These questions made the General's bladder want to empty, conjuring pictures of a Space Marine charging at him, chainsword in hand. Vanderspeak had never seen a Space Marine save through a tank's pict-screens, the prospect of facing one in only his uniform seemed a laughably stupid way to de.
At a junction they found an intact body. An officer laid out on the floor, his power sword laying inches from a dead hand. Vanderspeak paused to examine the corpse, frowning in consternation. Unlike the others this one had not been hacked to pieces, but instead had five small holes in his tunic. Needle marks, but precisely placed over the heart. Vanderspeak thought it seemed wasteful to spend five shots when one would suffice, but then he spread his fingers over the wounds and noted they were placed like a hand's spread. Too small for a Space Marines' gauntlet, but he could think of no one else who could do this.
"You're still alive then?" a voice sounded.
Vanderspeak stood up in shock, "Who goes there?!"
"Don't shoot, I'm on your side," Von Tor said as the Disquisitor stepped from the shadows.
Vanderspeak grimaced, "I should have known you'd only slink out of your den after the trouble was past."
"I came as quickly as I could, but arrived just after. Good job I didn't move any faster, if I'd been here I'd be dead too."
"Did you at least see which way the Space Marine went?"
"Space Marine?"
"The carnage we've seen can only be made by a Transhuman."
"Maybe, maybe not. There are worse things in the galaxy than the Raven Guard."
Vanderspeak had no time for games, "We have to find him and kill him. Which way did it go?!"
Von Tor gestured with a bejewelled hand and the party set off. Vanderspeak had no idea what they would do when they caught up, anything that could go through platoons of armed soldiers so quickly wouldn't be troubled by four mortals with pistols, but it was his duty to try. He tried to map out the spire in his head and his worries deepened. They were on a direct line from the Holorus Command to the staff-officer's quarters, where the highest ranks of the Tellarite army rested. He extended the line in his head and his blood ran cold as he realised a complete circle of the spire would bring the killer to his quarters, and above this level was only the High Plutocrat's abode.
Vanderspeak gasped, "Holorus Command was taken out first, now the killer is mopping up the rest. It's going to kill everyone on this level."
"And above," Von Tor agreed.
"How did the killer get so deep without sounding an alert?"
"I have my suspicions," Von Tor grimaced.
"Tell me what have the Terrans sent against us!"
Von Tor's face grew stony, "Something I prayed never to face, something even Space Marines dread. The ultimate threat, used only in the most dire cases, where maximum collateral damage is required. This is no surgical incursion, it is a decapitation strike, to eliminate the entire upper echelon of the rebellion."
Vanderspeak had no idea what he meant but their advance had brought them to the killer at last. A pile of dismembered bodies lay outside a door, decimated in seconds. Beyond lay a refectory, where highborn officers enjoyed fines repasts in gentile company. Fine tables had been overturned, chairs smashed to kindling and paintings of worthies refashioned with sprayed blood. Oozing pieces of staff officers steamed in all corners, while whole bodies had been nailed to the walls with table knives and hearts had been stabbed through with forks. One General lay in quiet repose, his head neatly severed from his shoulders by a thin platter, thrown like a discus with the force of a cannonball. None of that compared to the killer though and Vanderspeak's jaw fell at the sight.
A thin revenant, clad in black neck to toe, every muscle lean but hardened as aged oak. A bulky backpack clung tight to the shoulders, with a multi-spectrum augur rising above. One hand bore a cumbersome twin-barrelled gun and the other had needle-injectors for fingertips, while a thin powersword hung at its waist. The helm was macabre, a polished skull within which eye-lens gleamed like hot coals, distilled hatred burning in pits of hell. The killer radiated lethality, the spirit of murder honed to the utmost degree and poured into a human-shaped mould. This was no man, it was the essence of slaughter made into flesh.
Von Tor hissed, "Throne, they finally sent one."
"What is it?!" Vanderspeak gulped as he gripped his pistol tight.
Von Tor answered grimly, "The ultimate sanction: an Eversor Assassin."