Kill team, p.10
Kill Team, page 10
‘Yes, and tiptoe along the threads of a spider web as well, captain,’ the inquisitor replied, his voice suddenly harsh and ominous, no trace of the previous smile. He pointed his cane at Destrien. ‘Remember that you are not to speak of the detail of your orders to anyone, anyone at all, until you are en route to the target. Once there, you will open the second set of sealed orders and follow them to the letter. Is that absolutely clear?’
‘To the letter, lord,’ Destrien parroted heavily.
‘Good.’ The inquisitor’s smile had returned as easily as it had disappeared. ‘Now, I must be on my way. I wish you Emperor’s speed and good luck, captain.’
FOUR
RETURN
++The signs are clear, the Blade inverted is revealed+++
+++It is imperative that he arrive. He is the key+++
The Colonel watches us impassively as we file into the briefing auditorium, standing behind the model of the tau battle dome, arms crossed. We stand to attention by the lowest bench and wait for him. With a nod he directs us to sit down and begins to pace back and forth across the dais, hands behind his back.
‘As you are no doubt aware, we left warp space yesterday,’ he announces, glancing at us from time to time as he strides to and fro. I had noticed that my warp dreams didn’t come last night, and I’d guessed that was the reason. ‘We are here to rendezvous with the vessel that will take us into tau-controlled space. This vessel is a tau warship, and under the guise of a diplomatic mission we will enter the Tau Empire and make contact with our allies in the tau government. Whilst aboard the tau ship we must, at all times, be on our guard. The crew of the ship are not privy to our scheme and must totally believe our subterfuge. If they become suspicious of our motives, then the whole mission is placed in jeopardy. I will give you each individual briefings as to your assumed identities before we embark the shuttle for transfer.’
He pauses for a moment, scratching his ear with a thoughtful expression and looking at us sternly.
‘The tau will be watching us closely,’ he warns us. ‘Firstly, even if they believe everything they have been told, I am sure they will be under standing orders to study and observe us at every opportunity. Secondly, the growing tension around Sarcassa, and the rebellion of another renegade called Farsight, mean that the tau are very much on their guard at the moment. They are expecting an escalation of hostilities between their empire and the Emperor’s servants soon, but we must do nothing to precipitate that. You will be on your best behaviour and act according to your roles as members of a peaceful delegation.’
I smile inwardly at the irony of this statement. I’ve spent the last few months training these people to be the hardest, most ruthless killers they can be, and now we have to try and hide that from the tau. It won’t be easy. I’ve done a fair amount of this sneaking around in the past, and the Colonel’s right. One slip up and your days are numbered. The fact that it’s a tau ship picking us up is also an eye-opener. It shows that our accomplices within the Tau Empire must be pretty important. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad. On the plus side, they should have the muscle to make sure we can get everything done. On the down side, I’ve never known such people to fire straight. There’s always a hidden motive somewhere.
The whole deal smells a little too clean for my liking. I’ll be keeping my eyes and ears open, make no mistake. So will the Colonel, I’d happily bet. He’s no stranger to this type of thing either. I mean, the whole Coritanorum mission was us fighting for the Inquisition, and a more slippery, manipulative and untrustworthy bunch doesn’t exist. That said, I’d rather have them on our side, all things considered.
‘Kage, I will be speaking to you first. Report at the start of the next watch,’ the Colonel tells me, interrupting my thoughts. I guess he wants to give me the low-down on the others, as well as my own story.
I knock at the door and hear Schaeffer call me in. As I step inside, I’m surprised to see two armsmen flanking the Colonel’s desk. Eyeing them suspiciously, I step inside and close the door behind me. They look like standard armsmen, carrying shotguns and wearing their black uniforms and dark-visored helmets. I have no idea why they are here though. The Colonel seems to read my thoughts.
‘They are here to make sure you do not do anything rash,’ he explains, glancing to his left then right and then looking back directly at me.
‘Why would I do that, Colonel?’ I ask hesitantly, totally confused.
‘You are not going on the mission, Kage,’ he tells me bluntly.
‘Not… not going?’ I stammer, my mind whirling. ‘I don’t understand, sir.’
‘It is obvious that you are no longer mentally capable of performing in the mission I have planned,’ he states coldly. ‘Another episode like the one in the training bay would destroy any cover story we may be travelling under. You are too much of a risk.’
‘No, this isn’t right,’ I say back to him. ‘I can do this, better than any of the rest. You can’t just get rid of me!’
‘I can and I will,’ he says calmly. ‘The penal colony Destitution lies in the system where we are meeting the tau. You will be transferred by shuttle to an intrasystem vessel and be incarcerated there until such time as I need you again.’
‘You can’t do this!’ I scream at him, taking a step forward. The armsmen take a protective step towards me, raising their shotguns and I back off. ‘You can’t lock me up again! If I’ve got problems in my head, it’s because of what you’ve done to me! You’re the one who’s been fraggin’ with my brains for the last three years. I don’t deserve this, I’ve worked fraggin’ hard whipping that bunch out there into shape. Emperor damn it, you know I can do this, and you know what going back to a cell will do to me!’
‘I have made my decision, Kage,’ he says sternly, standing up. ‘Either you accompany these armsmen to the shuttle bay, or I will have them shoot you right here and now. Which is it to be, lieutenant?’
I stand there, my emotions swaying between murderous anger and crushing sorrow. How could he do this to me? How long has he intended this to happen? A thought strikes me, making the blood boil in my veins.
‘You organised the meeting with the tau in a penal colony system,’ I snarl at the Colonel, pointing an accusing finger at him. ‘You planned this all along. Drag me along for the training and then dump me. You ungrateful bastard, don’t you care at all?’
‘I never once said that you were going to participate in the actual mission,’ the Colonel replies evenly, like that’s all the justification he needs.
‘I bet you didn’t,’ I hiss.
‘Now, Kage, do you walk out of that door, or do these men open fire?’ he says, locking his gaze to mine. Without a word I spin on my heel and slam open the door. I turn back just before I’m outside.
‘This mission will fail,’ I tell him slowly. ‘It will fail because I’m not there to pull you out of the fire, and not one of the scum that’ll be with you gives a damn.’
The armsmen swiftly follow me out as I stalk down the corridor. The anger is welling up inside me, I want to lash out. I want to hit someone, something. What I really want is the Colonel’s throat in my grip as I squeeze the last breath out of him. The desire to kill burns through me; I’m actually gnashing my teeth in frustration. It’s all I can think about, every muscle in my body is tensed. Six months I was in that cell. Another three months I’ve been on this ship, sweating blood to train that team. And for what? To rot in another jail somewhere? To slowly go mad with it, to know that I was almost there, fighting again, doing my part for the Emperor. And Schaeffer just snatches it away from me, just takes it away like he had planned all along.
He said he needed me, but that was just a lie, wasn’t it? He didn’t need me, I was just useful. I just saved him the hard work. Now that’s done, he doesn’t give a damn, doesn’t care a bit that I’m gonna end up clawing my own eyes out or smashing my brains out on a cell wall, cursing his name with my final breath. And all the while, he’s off on the mission getting the glory that should be mine.
I can’t let him get away with this, it just isn’t right. I stop, panting heavily and balling my hands into fists.
‘Keep moving, Kage,’ one of the armsmen tells me, his voice muffled by his helmet. I round on him, ready to punch his lights out, but the other reacts quickly, smashing the butt of the shotgun into my midriff. His second blow smashes across my forehead and I spin dizzily to the floor.
‘Said we shoulda done this straight off,’ the other says, clubbing me in the back of the neck.
I come to my senses inside the shuttle. Not the plush shuttle we were on earlier, but a standard transport with wooden benches and canvas harnesses lashed to the ceiling. My wrists are manacled together by a length of chain, which passes through an eyebolt obviously recently welded to the decking. My legs are secured the same way, the heavy locks weighing down my ankles. The safety harness is strapped across me as well, pulled painfully tight across my shoulders, groin and stomach. My head pounds and my gut is sore, and I can feel dried blood just above my right eye. Sitting opposite me are the two armsmen, their shotguns held across their laps. They’ve got their helmets off and are chatting quietly. The one on the left is quite old, his short cropped brown hair greying at the temples, his face lined by the hard years in the navy. He’ll be the tough bastard who knocked me out. The other is younger, perhaps in his mid-twenties, with the same short crop style to his blond hair, and clean shaven cheeks. His blue eyes dart back and forth between me and his shipmate, and it’s him who notices I’m awake. He gives a nod to the other guy who looks over at me.
‘Awake now, prison boy?’ the older one says with a gruff laugh. ‘Shoulda come quietly, boy.’
I just stare sullenly at him and he shrugs. I sit there in silence while they continue talking about their stupid little lives, my mind beginning to tick over. There’s absolutely no way I’m going back to prison. It really would be the death of me, and I’d rather die trying to get out than spend another day alone in a cell.
But even if I could somehow escape, and that’s a bloody big if, where would I go, what would I do? I’m stuck on a shuttle heading for another ship which is heading to a penal colony. Somehow I think freedom would be short lived down that route. And even if that wasn’t the case, and I could go anywhere I wanted to, I still don’t know what I would do. Go to an agri-world and raise crops or grox herds? I don’t think so. Become a preacher in the Ecclesiarchy like my dead comrade Gappo? I reckon a month of listening to the monotonous dronings of some fat cardinal would be enough to make me want to crack some heads.
I could hire myself out as a bodyguard, join some pirates perhaps, or become a mercenary. That wouldn’t be so bad, in itself, but what would be the point? Hijacking freighters and kidnapping are low, even for me, especially since I should be on a mission that’s vitally important to the defence of the Emperor’s realm. Emperor damn it, I saved an entire sector, I’m a fragging war hero by all rights, and now the Colonel is just shipping me off and forgetting about me.
My anger starts to rise again, thinking about the cold-heartedness of it all. The Colonel betrayed me, good and simple. But there’s a part of me, a part that’s growing bigger the more I think about it, that says I should prove the Colonel wrong. It’s the same part that made me go back for him in Coritanorum. I’ve never told him that I was just seconds away from leaving him to roast in that fireball, but he must’ve guessed as much, he’s a shrewd character. What thanks do I get for it? None at all. But it’s not about getting thanks, is it? I knew he wouldn’t be grateful when I did it, but I still did. And it’s not about being a hero. I’ll leave that to the likes of Macharius and Yarrick and Stugen Deathwalker. I’m not a hero, I’m just a soldier.
That’s the whole point, though, isn’t it? I’m just a soldier, and the Colonel isn’t even giving me that. Well, damn it, I’ll show him the kind of soldier he’s created. A resolution begins to build inside me, a cool determination that’s totally different from the burning anger I felt earlier. I’m going to prove to the Colonel just how good a soldier I am, and just how valuable I am to him.
A plan begins to form in my mind.
I’ve been awake for a couple of hours when the opportunity presents itself. I’ve spent all that time going over what I have to do in my mind. Using the techniques I learnt in that cell, I focus my thoughts on every part of the plan in turn, analysing it, trying to see what will go wrong, coming up with answers to questions that crop up in my mental dry run. There’s still a few details which I’ll have to improvise, but I figure if I can take over the shuttle and get it back to the Laurels of Glory and demand that the Colonel takes me on the mission, he can’t fail to see how good I am.
So when the younger of the two armsmen pulls off his restraints and leaves the room, I put my plan into action. It’ll be easier this way round, I reckon, so at least that’s a break to start with.
‘Hey, navy boy!’ I say to the older guy left. ‘Your company so dull, you’re driving your shipmates away?’
‘Shut your mouth, guardsman,’ he mutters back, trying to ignore me.
‘You know, I once gutted an ork who looked a bit like you,’ I carry on with a laugh. ‘Except the ork was better looking and smarter. Smelled better too, I reckon.’
‘You talk a lot for a boy strapped to a bench, soldier,’ the armsman says threateningly. ‘Perhaps I should just push your teeth in right now.’
‘Nah,’ I sneer back. ‘You better wait for your friend to get back first. You’ll need his help like you did back on the ship. I would have kicked your face in so far you’d be able to see out your arse.’
That gets the best reaction yet, his face going a livid red.
‘Unless you want to be eating soup for the rest of your short, sorry life, you shut your damn mouth, boy!’ he shouts at me.
‘I’ve heard about you navy boys,’ I carry on relentless, smiling like an ethershark. ‘You couldn’t break wind, let alone my face. The only reason you made armsman is that you enjoy slapping other men around. Happens a lot, I hear.’
‘Why you…’ He’s speechless now and rises to the bait like a dream. He puts the shotgun to one side and unstraps himself, before snatching it up again and stomping over in front of me. He pulls back for a swing, but as it comes in, I sway to my left, avoiding it thanks to spending the last hour gradually loosening my harness. It clangs against the bulkhead behind me and jars his arms. There’s enough play in the chain around my legs to get a good kick in behind his left knee, causing him to buckle. As he stumbles forward, I grab the shotgun in both hands and ram it back into his face, smashing his nose to a pulp and loosening his grip on it. A quick twist crashes the butt into his cheek and sends him tumbling to the deck. I stamp my foot on his neck to trap him there and wedge the barrel of the shotgun between my legs, up against the side of his face. Now all I have to do is wait.
‘What’s your name?’ I ask him conversationally, trying to avoid thinking too much about how hopeless this whole situation probably is. I keep the shotgun pressed to his face with one hand while I unstrap my harness.
‘Frag you,’ he curses out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Listen,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t really want to blow your brains out, and if you’re smart you’ll just do what you’re told and you’ll live to tell your shipmates about how the psycho Kage hijacked a shuttle you were on. You can leave out the part that has me overpowering you while chained down, if you like.’
‘You’re a really funny guy, do you know that?’ he replies sarcastically. ‘No way are you gonna take over this shuttle, there’s another six armsmen on board, plus the pilot and co-pilot.’
‘You don’t think I can do it?’ I say, giving him a prod with the shotgun. ‘If you behave yourself, you might live to eat those words rather than a mouthful of shotgun shell.’
‘Killing me won’t help you escape,’ he says defiantly.
‘Not yet, but it would make me feel a hell of a lot better about myself,’ I laugh back.
‘Just where do you think you’re gonna go with the shuttle, even if you do pull this off?’ he asks. I reckon he’s talking to try and keep me distracted, so I humour him.
‘Well, I figured on going back to the Colonel and giving him another chance,’ I tell him in all seriousness.
‘Hah!’ he sneers. ‘Schaeffer’s gonna have you shot as soon as he sets eyes on you. You’re a hell of a lot dumber than even I thought.’
‘So dumb I’m the one sitting here with the gun pointed at you, instead of the other way round,’ I point out, pressing down on his neck with my foot and making him wince. ‘I guess that really puts you far down on the brain scale.’
‘You got lucky, that’s all,’ he replies, meaning it.
‘Funny, the more fights I get into, the luckier I get,’ I laugh, bending forward and patting him on the head in a patronising fashion. ‘You’d have thought it’d have run out by now.’
‘It’s about to…’ the armsman crows as the clump of boots resounds from the adjoining corridor. I sit back and look towards the doorway. A moment later, the young armsman enters, and the astonished look on his face is so funny I grin.
‘Back so soon?’ I ask pleasantly. He glances at me, then his shotgun lying on the bench opposite, a good five or six strides from where he is. ‘Even the Emperor’s vengeance doesn’t act that fast,’ I warn him.
‘Wh… what do you want?’ he asks, taking a step back.
‘First off, you’re gonna take two steps towards me away from that door,’ I tell him flatly. ‘Then you’re going to take the keys off your belt and toss them over to me.’
