Kill team, p.1
Kill Team, page 1
WARHAMMER 40,000
It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
ONE
PROLOGUE
The air was filled with swirling grey dust, whipped up into a storm by a wind that shrieked across the hard, black granite of the tower. The bleak edifice soared into the turbulent skies, windowless but studded with hundreds of blazing lights whose yellow beams were swallowed quickly by the dust storm. For three hundred metres the tower climbed into the raging skies of Ghovul’s third moon, an almost perfect cylinder of unbroken and unforgiving rock, hewn from the infertile mesa on which the gulag stood.
A narrow-beamed red laser sprang into life from its summit, penetrating the gloom of the cloud-shrouded night. A moment later it was answered by a triangle of white glares as a shuttle descended towards the landing pad. In the bathing glow of the landing lights, technicians scurried back and forth across the pad, protected against the violent climate with bulky work suits made from a fine metal mesh, their hands covered with heavy gloves, thick-soled boots upon their feet.
With a whine of engines cutting back, the shuttle’s three feet touched down with a loud clang on the metal decking of the landing area. A moment later a portal in the side swung open and a docking ramp jerkily extended itself on hissing hydraulics to meet with the hatchway. A tall figure ducked through the low opening and stepped out on to the walkway. He stood there for a moment, his heavy dress coat whipping around him, a gloved hand clamping the officer’s cap to his head. With his back as straight as a rod despite the horrendous conditions, the new arrival strode across the docking gantry with a purposeful gait, never once breaking his gaze from directly ahead of him.
Inside, a black-clad guard saluted the man and without a word gestured for him to proceed into the open work iron elevator just inside the landing pad building. With a creak of rusty hinges the warden swung the doors shut and jerked a lever to start the conveyance descending with a rattling of chains and grinding of gears.
‘Which level is the prisoner on?’ the officer asked, speaking for the first time since his arrival. His voice was deep and quiet, the authoritative tone of a man used to being obeyed without question.
‘Level sixteen, sir,’ the guard replied, not meeting the piercing blue gaze of the officer. ‘One of the isolation floors,’ he added hesitantly. The visitor did not reply but merely nodded.
The lift rattled on for a couple of minutes, passing slowly down through floor after floor, an illuminated dial marking their descent. When it reached seventeen the guard hauled back on the lever and a moment later the shaft echoed with a screech of badly oiled brakes. The elevator shuddered to a halt a few seconds later.
The officer glanced up at the floor indicator, which now was shining through number sixteen.
‘The tech-priests promised to look at it, sir, but say they are too busy,’ the warden answered apologetically at the officer’s questioning glance. The prison guard was old and haggard, with thinning tobacco-stained white hair and an ill-fitting uniform. Coughing self-consciously the guard flung open the doors with more screeching and stepped out of the way.
The level onto which the tall man stepped was as round as the tower itself, heavy armoured doors spaced evenly around its wall. Everything was the colour of ageing whitewash, a pale grey stained in places with patches of reddish-brown.
‘It’s this one, sir,’ the guard said, walking around to the right of the elevator door when he realised the officer was waiting for directions. Another guard, younger and sturdier than the one who had been waiting at the landing pad, was standing by one of the doors, dressed in the same plain black uniform, a heavy cudgel hanging from his belt. The first guard led the officer over to the door and flipped down a small viewing window. The smell of stale sweat swept out of the small grille, but the officer’s face remained impassive as he gazed through the narrow slit. Inside, the cell was as bare as the hall outside, painted in the same drab colour. Only a few metres square, the room was illuminated by a single glow globe set into the ceiling behind a wire mesh. Its lacklustre yellow light cast a jaundiced tinge across the room’s occupant.
He was stretched out on the far wall, wrists manacled to the corners of the ceiling with heavy-linked chains. His feet were similarly restrained to the floor. His head hung down against his chest, his features hidden by a long, bedraggled mane of unkempt hair. He was clad in nothing but a rag about his waist, the dim light showing up his taut, sinewy muscles. His chest was criss-crossed with scars, some new, others years old. His arms were similarly disfigured, a particularly prominent slash across his upper right arm obscuring what was left of a tattoo. His left thigh was marked on both sides by large puncture scars from a wound that had obviously passed completely through his leg.
‘Why was he moved here?’ the officer asked quietly, his voice causing the prisoner to stir slightly.
‘In the first month he was here, he killed seven wardens and five other prisoners and almost escaped, sir,’ the older guard explained, casting a nervous glance through the slit and exchanging a look with the other guard. ‘The commandant has had him confined to isolation for the last five months for the safety of the other inmates and the guards, sir.’
The officer nodded and for a fleeting second the warden thought he saw what looked like a satisfied smile pass across his lips.
‘And his mental condition?’ the man asked, moving his gaze from the warden back into the cell.
‘The chirurgeon has examined him twice and has declared him psychopathic, sir,’ the guard replied after a moment. ‘He seems to hate everyone. He refuses to eat anything except protein gruel. The only time he allows us near him is when we take him down to the exercise hall. We can’t allow him in there with other prisoners though, and no one is allowed to carry anything that might be turned into a weapon in his presence. We learnt that when he tried to escape.’
The officer turned back, an eyebrow raised in query.
‘Nobody thought to count the spoons in the mess hall,’ the warden replied, ashen-faced.
The man turned his attention back to the cell once more.
‘Perfect,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Open the door,’ he ordered the younger of the two guards, before stepping back and to one side.
As the sullen, dark-haired warden did as he was told, the door screeching open, the prisoner looked up for the first time. Like the rest of his body, his face was a mass of scars. A long beard hung down over his chest. The warden’s look was returned by a venomous stare, hatred burning in the dark eyes of the inmate, a feral intensity shining in them. The second guard took up position on the other side of the prisoner, dragging his heavy club free and holding it easily in his right hand.
‘Now the manacles,’ the officer prompted.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, sir,’ the ageing guard replied with a startled look. The prisoner’s eyes hadn’t moved, continuing to burn straight through the warden.
‘S-s-sir?’ the younger prison official replied with a horrified stare. ‘Did you hear what he told you about this animal?’
‘He is not an animal,’ the officer snapped back. ‘The manacles.’
Visibly shaking, the white-haired warden crept forward and fumbled with his ring of keys. The other guard followed him, dragging his cudgel free from his belt. Hesitantly the crouching guard unlocked the left leg first, flinching nervously, expecting the foot to lash out at him. A bit more confident, he unlocked the other leg. He glanced up at the prisoner’s face, but the inmate’s gaze had not left the face of the other security man. Quickly he undid the wristlocks and took a few hurried steps back, ready to bolt.
The prisoner took a step forward, rubbing his arms to revive the circulation. Then, without a word, the inmate stepped to his left, his right hand lashing out, sending the maul spinning from the younger warden’s grasp, who yelped and clutched his broken wrist. The other guard stepped forward, but the prisoner was quicker, twisting on his heel to deliver a spinning kick to his midriff, hurling him back against the wall with a thud and a hoarse cry of pain. The guard with the mangled wrist had recovered now, but the prisoner turned his attention back to him, smashing rigid fingers into his throat then wrapping his arm around the guard’s neck in a headlock. There was an audible crack as the guard’s neck snapped, and the prisoner gave a satisfied grunt as he let the body slump to the ground. He took a step towards the surviving warden and was about to repeat the move when the officer stepped into the room.
‘That is enough, I think,’ the visitor said quietly, and the prisoner looked round, a wolfish grin of savage joy splitting his scarred face.
‘I’m fraggin’ happy to see you, Colonel,’ the prisoner said, laughing hoarsely. ‘Do you need me again?’
‘Yes, I need you again, Kage,’ the Colonel replied.
TWO
VINCULARUM
++The playing pieces are being assembled, the strategy is in motion+++
+++Time to prepare for the opening moves+++
It is with a mixture of relief and dread that I look at the Colonel. On the one hand, the fact that he’s here means an end to six months of misery and boredom. On the other, his presence means I could be dead any time soon. I’ve been hoping for and dreading this moment for half a year, torn between expectation and apprehension. All in all, I’m pleased to see him though, because I’d rather take my chances with the Colonel than rot in this damn cell for the rest of my life. He just stands there, looking exactly the same as he did the last time I saw him, as if he’d just come back in after a moment, rather than having abandoned me for nearly two hundred days to stare at four bare walls.
‘Get him cleaned up then bring him to the audience chamber,’ Schaeffer tells the guard curtly, giving me a final glance before turning and striding back out of the door.
‘You heard the officer,’ the warden prods me into life as I stand there staring at the Colonel’s retreating back. He casts a nervous glance at the corpse in the corner of the cell and takes a step away from me, his eyes wary, hand hovering close to the pistol at his belt.
I follow him to the lift, and wait there in silence for a few minutes while the elevator takes the Colonel back to the top of the tower. My mind is racing. What does the Colonel have in store for me? What’s the mission this time? Commander of the 13th Penal Legion, known commonly as the Last Chancers, Colonel Schaeffer led me and nearly four thousand others in bloody suicide missions across a dozen worlds last time around, and all to whittle us down to a few survivors. Would it be the same again? Was I going to spend the next two years being shipped from battlezone to battlezone, wondering every time if this was the fight that would be my last? To be honest, I don’t care one bit. If my time in this stinking prison has taught me anything, it’s that life on the battlefield, fighting for your life, is far more desirable to sitting on your arse for nine-tenths of the day.
I knew he would come back for me, though. He didn’t say anything when he left, but I remember his words when we first met, just over three years ago. ‘Just my kind of scum,’ he had called me. Shortly before knocking me out, I might add, but these days I wouldn’t hold that against him. He’s done a lot worse, to me and others.
With a shuddering clank the conveyor arrives and the warden ushers me inside. We rattle up a couple of floors to the wardens’ level where the washrooms are. I’ve never come this way before, for the last five months my washing routine has consisted of being hosed down with cold water every other day. I follow the guard without much thought, my mind still occupied with the Colonel’s arrival. It guarantees nothing but bloodshed and battle, but then that’s all the Colonel has ever represented. That and an unbending, uncompromising faith in the Emperor and unswerving loyalty to the Imperium.
I’ve always had plenty of faith, but it wasn’t until the Last Chancers that I realised my part in the grand scheme of things. I’m a murdering, cold-hearted bastard, I don’t mind admitting. But now, I’m one of the Emperor’s murdering, cold-hearted bastards and He has a use for me again. It gives me some small measure of satisfaction that although all I know how to do now is to cripple and kill and maim, I have a sense of purpose I never had before. It’s a cruel, hard galaxy out there, and if you’re going to survive you have to learn some cruel, hard lessons. I learnt them while four thousand other Last Chancers didn’t, and I’m still here. I figured all the time I was in that cell, remembering every battle, every gunshot and stab, that the Emperor and the Colonel weren’t finished with me just yet. I reckon neither will ever be finished with me, not even after I’m dead, I’m sure.
I pull off the rag and step into the showering cubicle. The guard turns the water on from outside and a scathing jet of hot water cascades down on to me from the grille in the ceiling. He tosses in a gritty bar of soap and I start scrubbing and scraping.
‘I need to shave,’ I call out over the splashing of water. The guard mumbles something back that I don’t hear over the water drumming off my head. ‘I said get me a blade, I need to get rid of this fraggin’ hair and beard!’
‘You’re not allowed sharp implements, Kage,’ the guard calls back. ‘I’m under orders.’
‘For Emperor’s sake, you sack of crap, I can’t go in front of the Colonel looking like a sodding beggar,’ I argue with him, stepping out of the cubicle. He retreats quickly. I point to the pistol and then the knife in his belt.
‘If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be a cooling body,’ I tell him with a smile. ‘Give me your damn knife before I come and take it off you.’
He unbuckles the sheath and tosses it over to me, looking ready to bolt at any point. The look of fear in his eyes sends a shiver of pleasure through me. What I would have done to have had a reputation like this a few years ago back on Olympas. It would have made things a lot easier for me growing up, that kind of terror.
I step back under the stream of water and lather the soap across my face and head, then pull the knife out and throw the sheath back out on to the tiled floor. I start with hacking off the hair as close to my skin as I can get it, dropping the ends in tufted lumps to swirl down and block the plughole in the floor. I then shave the beard off, scraping the knife across my cheeks and chin, removing a layer of skin at the same time. It stings more than a las-bolt wound, but I don’t mind. I rub my hand across the smooth skin, enjoying the sensation of cleanliness for the first time in ages.
My hair is a bit more difficult, but I eventually manage to cut all that off as well, leaving a few nicks and cuts across the back of my scalp where the angle was awkward. Hey, my face was ripped apart and put back together again years ago, so I’m never going to win any medals for looks anyway.
Satisfied that I’m as presentable as I’m going to get, I dry myself down with the coarse, scratchy towel proffered by the guard while he goes to fetch me something suitable to wear. He returns a short while later with standard prison fatigues – badly made grey, baggy trousers and shirt woven from raw linen, and a pair of ill-fitting laceless boots. I feel like a right idiot wearing these clothes, like a small kid who’s dressed up in his older brother’s gear. I follow the guard back up in the elevator for my talk.
The guard knocks at the door and the Colonel calls me in. Unlike the rest of the prison tower, the circular hall is decorated with a bright mural that runs continuously around its walls, depicting some Ecclesiarchy scene as far as I can tell. Some saint’s martyrdom judging by the final images which portray a man with a glowing halo being torn apart by greenskinned monsters which I take to be fanciful interpretations of orks. I’ve fought real orks, and in the flesh they’re even scarier than the grotesque parodies painted around the hall.
The Colonel is sat to one side behind a plain desk of dark, almost black, wood. A simple matching chair is placed across from him. The desktop is piled high with papers in mouldering brown sleeves tied with red cord and stamped with various official seals.
‘Kage,’ the Colonel says, looking up from the sheaf of parchments in his hand. ‘Sit down.’
I walk across and lower myself into the chair, which makes squeaking protests from its legs as I settle into it. The Colonel has turned his attention back to studying the documents he is holding. I wait there patiently. Locked up in that cell, patience was something I learned quite a bit about. The sort of patience I imagine a hunter has, waiting for his prey, sitting or lying there immobile for hours on end. The sort of patience that tests your sanity, the slow drifting of the hours and days threatening to unravel your mind. But I learnt. I learnt how to settle my thoughts, focussing them inwards: counting my heartbeats; counting my breaths; mentally going over a hundred rituals of weapons preparation and maintenance; fighting armed and unarmed combats with different opponents in the confines of my own head while my arms and legs were chained to the wall.
