Demolisher, p.4
Demolisher, page 4
Behind Chalenboor came other crewmen from Second Squadron, carrying cans of fuel or boxes of spare las cells. Verro recognised Taldya Besteri, Resolute’s diminutive driver, and Might of Antiquity’s sponson gunners, Lyrence Ghorl and Septimaria Musael.
‘Nix!’ he exclaimed. ‘Where–’
A shell whistled overhead and detonated away in the smoke.
‘Dreg me, close one!’ Nix shouted. ‘Try harder, you mutie duct-squirmers! You couldn’t hit the dreggin’ mountains!’
Garret saw several nearby soldiers smile at her bravado. Others scowled. He was amongst the latter group.
‘Where in Cadia’s name did you run off to? The sergeant sent me to find you.’
He regretted his tone immediately. Nix’s expression darkened. She had been in a foul mood more often than not in recent days, worse since Vaslav left. Verro recognised belatedly that his friend had been enjoying a rare spell of relative cheer that he had just doused. As more wounded were carried past on stretchers, bloodied and groaning, he couldn’t entirely bring himself to feel sorry.
‘I told you, yeah? Went back for somethin’. Ran into this lot gettin’ their kit together, figured we’d go nickin’. Didn’t know I needed your say-yes.’
‘The Munitorum quartermasters are in the hangar already,’ said Verro. ‘Our mission’s priority, Nix. They’ll make sure we’ve got all the fuel and ammo we need.’ He knew he sounded lame and querulous. It was common practice amongst Imperial Guardsmen with any experience to liberate a few extra clips of ammo and cans of fuel wherever possible. Nothing brought a sudden and tragic end to a mission like finding yourselves low on either, as the crew of Steel Tread had learned mere months before.
‘Even I doubt that, and I used to be Munitorum,’ said Gunner Musael. She glared at Verro through her heavy eyeglasses, cheeks flushed. The former scribe had been pressed into active service during the desperate defence of Mandriga command and had turned out to be more useful with a heavy bolter than an auto-quill. It didn’t mean she enjoyed soldiering, of course.
‘Just… Can we just get back?’ Verro asked. ‘The sergeant’s not happy, and Tread’s nowhere near ready to move yet thanks to this shelling. I just… You could have been killed. Throne, I could have been killed looking for you.’
‘Worried for all of us, or just your fellow Giant-killer?’ asked Driver Besteri. Verro shot the tiny woman a sour look, which she returned with interest. To his surprise, Chalenboor laughed bitterly.
‘Yeah, wouldn’t want to lose one of us heroes,’ she sneered.
‘I was worried about all of you,’ Verro insisted. His words lacked conviction.
‘We ain’t Giant-killers, mate,’ said Chalenboor. She pushed past him and headed for the hangar with Besteri, Ghorl and Musael in tow. ‘We ain’t special. We don’t need everyone lookin’ our way. Don’t matter what Preacher says. Nobody’s special. Nobody’s heroes. We’re just soldiers tryin’ not to die, yeah?’
Verro hurried to keep pace with her. Shells whooped and thumped in the middle distance, causing them to flinch.
‘You liked that nickname, Nix. When we first got it, you were joking about it.’
She glared. ‘I thought it would go away. Rep of the cycle, someone else is the big noise ’fore you know it. Didn’t think the dreggin’ name would stick, did I? People lookin’ at us different. Expectin’ something.’
‘It’s something to be proud of,’ he said sadly. Her scowl only deepened and they marched on in silence. At least she was safe, thought Verro. For now, anyway. If he was honest with himself, his own mood hadn’t been the brightest of late.
They had survived Operation Jotunn. They had killed the mutant Knight that had hunted them across the Mandriga Delta, and which stalked them still in the worst of Verro’s dreams. For Throne’s sakes, they had killed Baraghor the arch traitor! The commander had all but died guiding a missile down on the bastard, while the rest of them had been bare minutes from getting dragged out of their tank and torn limb from limb by traitorous Spinebacks.
In the immediate wake of that battle, the relief of living to draw breath had been enough.
As days passed, though, and the commander recovered, and Steel Tread was repaired and repainted, Verro had felt dissatisfaction festering. At first he felt ashamed at his ingratitude, so much so that he’d barely been able to look himself in the eye when he shaved. The thin face that had stared back at him hadn’t seemed his own, dark skin creased with new worry lines, glance full of questions. The God-Emperor had spared them. They were fêted by the rest of the regiment as good-luck charms. So what was wrong with him?
Gradually, disappointment in himself had transformed into disappointment with their lot. Verro felt cheated. Surely they had done enough to earn an easier posting, rear-line duties or a spell in reserve? Something to show command’s gratitude for their frankly exceptional efforts. Even as he appreciated how absurd the idea was, he couldn’t shake the sense they should have been treated better.
He’d tried to talk to Nix about it. Her own disposition was souring, however, and she’d contrived to turn it into a row. Frustrated, Verro had confided in Moretzin just a few days ago. It hadn’t been the same. He knew she’d tried to understand, but the loader was a fundamentally accepting soul. Her resilience stemmed from a core of resolute fatalism that an idealist like Verro couldn’t match.
And so, mood dark with thunderheads of worry, he trailed Nix and their comrades through the war-torn encampment, with the promise of more ill will ahead. He heard the hammer beat of explosions, freighted with death, each one causing them to duck, and cower, and hasten their stride.
He felt the mountains looming at their backs, felt their malevolence.
Verro resolved to have one last go at apologising to Nix as the hangar hove into view. The words died in his throat.
Commanders Etsul, Gelt and Vaslav stood at the entrance ramp, made small in the shadow of an enormous Rogal Dorn battle tank. The war engine was larger than even Steel Tread. Its matt-black hull bristled with firepower. Its turret was up-armoured, mounted an intimidatingly large oppressor cannon, and boasted two hatches. Standing proud from one of these was a figure Verro recognised from propaganda picts and crudely rendered posters.
‘Throne. That’s the Eagle Adamant,’ he said.
‘Think she’s coming with us?’ asked Ghorl in a hushed voice.
‘I rather think we’re going with her,’ replied Musael, sounding awed. ‘God-Emperor, to think we’re escorting someone that important.’
‘Dreggin’ great,’ growled Chalenboor, though she showed enough caution to lower her voice. ‘More special people. What a privilege.’
With that she strode on towards the hangar. Verro, more troubled and miserable than ever, followed.
CHAPTER THREE
HELIOS MISSION CLOCK
05:00 hrs
Etsul stood in the stirrups of Steel Tread’s cupola as the tank crawled up the perilous roadway. She was, for once, glad of the modifications accommodating her augmetic leg. They involved the fitting of a mag-plate to which she could lock her metal shin so the weight of it didn’t fray the stirrup. The additional tether felt reassuring beside the gulf yawning mere feet beyond Tread’s left track unit.
‘Mountains,’ she muttered. ‘Tanks and mountains. Naturally.’
Five hours had passed since they had left Camp Soliq. They had made good time and gone unchallenged, and she didn’t trust it one bit. Etsul smiled to think what her lost and lamented friend Horathio Aswold would have made of her pessimism.
Her convoy had first looped south, out of the range of shelling from Hive Joragh, skirting the marshes and ruins east of the camp. A squad of Geskan Rough Riders mounted on two-man Aquilus warquads led the way, Scout Lieutenant Roak commanding them from his Salamander. Behind followed Resolute and several Chimeras, then Steel Tread and Commissar Holskein’s intimidating Rogal Dorn tank, which Etsul had discovered laboured under the ominous moniker of The Piper. At the column’s heart rolled Omicron Five-Nine’s modified Atlas recovery vehicle, a pair of lumbering Asclepian-pattern support crawlers lugging fuel and ammunition, and a Taurox attached to Tomaszyn’s armoured infantry and packed with cold-weather gear and additional rations. Gelt’s Might of Antiquity followed with the rest of the 156th’s Chimeras. Roak’s second pack of Geskan quads ranged behind as rearguard.
The going had been easy at first, following a rutted road whose verges were lined by black-burned undergrowth. In places the eclipse storm had caused marsh waters to swamp the road. In others the ferociously persistent greenery had sent vanguards of thorned creepers and roots out to reclaim it. Neither difficulty slowed them. They passed other loyalist units regularly: here a battery of Cadian Bombards rolling towards the front under infantry escort; there a supply column of cargo-8 trucks hurrying to provide resupply, or evacuating wounded to the command facilities at Mandriga North.
Around noon they rumbled past a marching column of Tsegohan Harbourers, the stoic infantry headed by regimental drummers and banners bearing stylised depictions of war galleys at sail. Etsul felt fierce pride and not a little nostalgia at the sight of her former countrymen. If she hadn’t felt Commissar Holskein’s eyes boring into her through the hull of her tank, she might have halted to exchange words with the Tsegohans’ commanding officer. As it was, she contented herself with drinking in every detail of their uniforms and faces as they passed, and promised herself she would stand in the Emperor’s sight to beseech good fortune and safe voyage as the old ways demanded. This she did shortly afterwards, under the pretence of scanning the terrain from her cupola as the column entered the woodland carpeting the foothills.
As they wound their way up the forested hillsides and moved through the shadows of overgrown menhirs, they saw less sign of loyalists. Gunnery Sergeant Grieger had remarked upon the clusters of Imperial structures crouched overgrown and neglected amidst the woods, but no one knew anything about them and so quiet had fallen across the internal vox once again.
After the foothills came the mountain slopes and the dubious roadways crawling up their flanks. Here, at last, progress slowed as Etsul had expected. And so, as their column ground its way up a cracked roadway with a sheer drop on one side and an unyielding wall of stone on the other, she had forced herself to rise from her cupola again and get a sense of things first-hand.
Etsul stared down on the lowlands they had left behind. From here the sprawl of Camp Soliq was visible, orderly lines stark against the marshland and scrub surrounding it. Anaemic sunlight glinted from the watery ribbons of marsh, making them pale mirrors. Other Imperial encampments, battery positions and fortifications were visible, stretching away west along the front line into the grey haze of distance. Looking north and refocusing the magnification of her augmetic eye, Etsul took in the mud-and-wire expanse of no-man’s-land that lay between the Imperial front line and the heretic defences around Hive Joragh. The distance was too great to make out detail, but she had a sense of polluted canals with ferrocrete banks, spiked fortifications hunching like monsters, and a miasmal haze that danced with weird colours. Muzzle flares and the tiny red flowers of explosions speckled that region, showing where Imperial and traitor forces clashed as clearly as any map rune. Etsul was momentarily grateful that she and her command weren’t leading the charge into whatever horrors awaited down there.
She felt guilty at the thought. Determined to banish it with duty, Etsul unhooked the vox-mic from its housing inside the turret.
‘Column commanders, this is Helios Primus. Status report,’ she voxed over the task force command channel. Voices sounded through her ear-bead, gratifyingly prompt.
‘Helios Secundus, status green, first lieutenant,’ reported Vaslav.
‘Helios Tertius, green, sir,’ said Gelt.
‘Helios Quartus, First Platoon green across the board, sir,’ replied Lieutenant Tomaszyn.
‘Present and correct, sir,’ said Lieutenant Roak after a pause.
Etsul couldn’t help remembering her own annoyed embarrassment when Vaslav had picked her up for issuing Tsegohan-standard orders upon first taking command of Steel Tread. However, the spectre of Holskein loomed behind her. She sighed. She would have to hope that Roak, too, was mindful of the lord commissar listening at the vox. Etsul had no idea what it would take to draw the ire of the Eagle Adamant, but she had no intention of letting anyone fall foul of the commissar for something as needless as sloppy command jargon. She switched to Roak’s direct channel.
‘Cadian phrasing while you’re attached to this task force, scout lieutenant. All above board and by the primer, please.’
Roak’s reply was a study in tonelessness.
‘Understood, sir. Helios Quintus, status green, sir.’
‘What news of the road ahead, scout lieutenant?’
‘Vanguard report about another mile of this, sir, then the road curves right, up through a cutting and away from the drop. Gets steep for a spell, sir, but at least it widens out and takes us up towards the Belfry. Sorry, Vox-shrine Halo Eighteen, sir.’
‘Excellent, thank you, scout lieutenant. Your diligence and that of your riders is appreciated.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ he replied.
As she switched vox-channels, Etsul thought ruefully that she had no idea if Roak had been offended in the first place, let alone whether she had then succeeded in mollifying the man. Tsegohan culture was emotionally demonstrative. The longer she commanded soldiers from other worlds, the more she rued the fact that few cultures were as empathetic as hers.
A chime from her ear-bead told Etsul she had established a connection to Omicron Five-Nine.
‘Enginseer, how fare your charges?’ she asked. ‘Can the Asclepians handle this? Scout Lieutenant Roak says we’ll be hitting steeper terrain ahead, but a wider roadway.’
‘Helios Sextus, confirmation and gratitude, first lieutenant,’ said Five-Nine in his deep, rumbling voice. ‘The Asclepian patterns retain two point six feet of clearance at the narrowest extent of the roadway. This is ample for the requirements of their servitor pilot-units. Observation: they in fact match the width of Lord Commissar Holskein’s Rogal Dorn to within an inch. I would advise greater concern about the unaugmented spatial awareness of the lord commissar’s driver within these parameters.’
The thought made Etsul’s stomach lurch. She chided herself to remember that the Rogal Dorn was heavier and bulkier than the Leman Russ variants she was used to. Unfortunately the skill of Holskein’s driver was a factor she couldn’t control. At least their route had been preordained by Soliq’s strategos, she thought sourly. They could hardly blame her if their chosen route put the precious Eagle Adamant in peril.
‘Thank you for your advice, enginseer,’ she said.
Etsul took a breath before switching channels again and waiting for the connection chime. Back at Camp Soliq, Holskein had spared her officers few enough words. A sparse greeting, an admonition to remain humble and faithful, and an assurance she would be observing their conduct. She had made no effort to converse since, and Etsul was tempted to reciprocate. Then again, what if that was seen as negligence on her part? She suspected she was going to get heartily sick of second-guessing her every command decision before this mission was over.
The response chime took a long time coming. When it did, a voice spoke in Etsul’s ear, pre-empting her.
‘This is Captain Vatik. Is there a problem, first lieutenant?’
Etsul paused, somewhat taken aback.
‘No, Captain Vatik. No problem. I am simply conducting an all-command status check, which includes your vehicle.’
Static crackled in her ear.
‘You are escorting the lord commissar, first lieutenant, nothing more. The Piper is not part of your command structure. You will refrain from non-essential communication. Clear?’
Etsul kept a tight lid on her feelings as she replied.
‘Clear, Captain Vatik. Helios Primus out.’
Not wishing to look at the black battle tank to her rear, Etsul unlocked her shin from the mag-plate, dropped back into her bucket seat, and shut the hatch above her with a clang.
Another hour crawled past. The column scaled ever higher into the Cyclameia Mountains. Sergeant Grieger saw to the distribution of ration bars amongst the crew and rotated them on a half-hour rest cycle. Etsul kept an ear on the vox chatter of her task force, allowing the familiar patterns of order and response, check-in and confirmation to calm her temper. Most of her attention was on her dataslate, and the accompanying command-level information scrolling across the tactical screen to her right. She had read and reread the same intelligence repeatedly, determined not to let any detail slip past her. The weight of expectation demanded no less.
Sliding the dataslate back into its pouch, Etsul closed her eyes and took deep breaths. It’s just another mission, she told herself. It’s just command. Yes, you’ve got more lives depending on you than normal, but you know how to do this.
Her finger hovered over the rune that would open a vox-channel to Vaslav. Etsul found herself needing to talk things over with her old gunnery sergeant. He would understand, she knew.
No, she resolved, pulling her hand back. He’s got his own tank to worry about, his own crew. That’s plenty. He needs to look to you for reassurance, not the other way around.
‘I know you’ll make us proud,’ said her mother in the recesses of her mind. The echo made Etsul sad. That voice of memory had been fading these past months, becoming indistinct from her own. No Medoch left, either. The last of the fiery Tsegohan spirit was drunk and gone. Would she eventually lose everything Tsegohan? Would Croatoas take it from her?
‘Oh enough of this maudlin nonsense,’ Etsul snapped at herself, glad that the din of Steel Tread’s power plant made any words not uttered over internal vox inaudible. It was time to stop dwelling in the past. With this thought foremost in her mind, Etsul keyed into the tank’s internal vox, intending to check on her crew. Instead, she found herself listening to the tail end of what old Commander Masenwe might have termed a spirited exchange of viewpoints.
