Kill team, p.8
Kill Team, page 8
I spend another week in the infirmary, locked down on to that table. To make matters worse, we must have dropped into the warp because my nightmares start again. Pumped up on Alanthrax’s witches’ brew, my dreams are plagued by the dead from my past, just like last time. Men and women missing limbs, their heads sheared in half, entrails open to the world, wandering aimlessly around my bed, staring at me with accusing eyes. I feel like I’m in a waking nightmare, strapped up tight with those creatures circling around and around me. All the time, the two small children I saw in Coritanorum stand at the foot of the bed and just stare at me. Their eyes say it all. You killed us, they say. You burnt us.
I want to scream at them to leave me alone, that I was just following orders, it was them or me, but the lock on my jaw stops me. Not once does the Colonel visit me. Not while I’m awake, at least.
For that whole week it seems like I’ve died and gone to hell.
There’s suspicion and fear in the eyes of the team when I next meet them. It’s just before lights-down; they’re sprawled in their bunks chatting when I walk in to the dormitory. None of them says a thing and I stand there, feeling their eyes upon me. I look at Stroniberg, who meets my hard gaze without a trace of guilt.
I feel like an invader, such is their hostility.
‘Training will resume tomorrow,’ I tell them. None of them replies. I don’t blame them, I wouldn’t know what to say either. I turn and take a step towards the door to my chamber.
‘Excuse me, Last Chance,’ I hear Quidlon blurt from behind me. ‘Colonel Schaeffer said we were to assemble in the briefing room after breakfast tomorrow.’
‘The Colonel?’ I ask, turning around.
‘He carried on with the training while you were…’ Iyle leaves it unsaid. Strapped to a bed in case you turned into a raving lunatic and tried to kill yourself or someone else, is what he doesn’t say.
‘And what did Colonel Schaeffer have to say about me?’ I ask, suddenly worried. What’s to become of me, if the Colonel is taking direct control of the training again? I feel the horrid sensation of failure begin to well up inside me. He can’t have me shipped back to vincularum, not now we’re in the warp and underway I don’t think. But there’s bound to be a brig aboard the Laurels of Glory and he could just as easily have me banged up in there for the duration. Or perhaps he’ll just finish it, put a bolt through my head as an example to the others. They shake their heads or shrug in response.
‘Nothing, Last Chance,’ Tanya tells me. ‘He said nothing about you.’
‘Very well,’ I reply, keeping my voice level. ‘I want you all looking sharp tomorrow morning, now is the time we have to stay focussed and disciplined.’
I walk out and into my room. I hear them start to chatter again and I’m about to close the door when a random thought occurs to me. I stick my head around the doorframe.
‘Does Schaeffer have a name?’ I ask them. ‘Like the ones I gave you?’ They exchange glances, half-smiles on their lips.
‘Yes, Last Chance, he does,’ Quidlon tells me. ‘He said he is Colonel.’
Figures, I think to myself, nodding and closing the door. As I do so, I catch a snippet of what Trost says next.
‘We set a double watch tonight,’ he says to the others. ‘That psycho’s not coming anywhere near me while I’m asleep.’
At first I’m tempted to wrench the door open and pound the mouthy meathead into the deck for saying that, but I stop short. I sit down on my bunk and I can’t stop a smile creeping across my face. That’s one lesson they’ll never forget, I reckon. I lie down on my bunk and close my eyes, waiting for sleep and the nightmares to come again.
The next morning, the Colonel sends an armsman to wake me up early. I dress hurriedly and follow him up to Schaeffer’s chamber. He’s there waiting for me, immaculately dressed despite the early hour, clean shaven and bright-eyed. The armsman closes the door behind me without a further word.
The Colonel looks at me for a long, long time, his eyes unwavering, stripping away layer after layer of my soul. I begin to fidget under his gaze. The circular scar on the side of my head itches like mad and it’s all I can do to keep myself standing at attention and not scratch at it.
‘One more mistake, Kage,’ he says slowly, ‘and I am finished with you.’
I say nothing. There’s nothing to say.
‘I am watching you more closely than ever,’ he warns me, eyes not moving. ‘I will not tolerate the slightest slip-up on your part, nor the merest hint that your treatment was unsuccessful. Do I make myself clear, Kage?’
‘Perfectly, sir,’ I answer quietly, dread knotting my stomach. Now the pressure’s really on.
The briefing room is shaped like half an amphitheatre. Thirty metres across, it has a hundred stepped benches descending to a semicircular floor with a similarly shaped dais on it. There’s a table on the dais, a lumped cloth covering whatever is on it. The Colonel seems to fill the room with his presence as we enter, all of us focussing our attention on him as we walk down the steps to the lowest benches. The others stand to attention in front of their places, me to one side. The Colonel waves us to sit down and begins to pace up and down.
‘So far you have been training blind,’ he tells us, scanning his ice-cold eyes along the line. ‘Now we begin to prepare for the mission in earnest. It is our task to assassinate an alien commander who has been causing the Emperor’s servants considerable pain, and his own rulers at the same time. With their collaboration we will infiltrate his base and kill him.’
He pulls the cloth back off the table to reveal a scale model of a bizarre looking building. I’ve never seen anything so odd in my life. If I guess the scale correctly from the size of details like doors and windows, it’s a massive dome, probably big enough to house a small town. The Colonel removes the dome and places it to one side, revealing an open plan of the interior, divided into numerous large chambers, and beckons us over to look inside. The chambers look remarkably similar to the training bays. Some of them have small model jungle trees inside, one has a little replica of a beach, another what looks to be the outskirts of an Imperial city.
‘This is the target area,’ the Colonel explains. ‘The alien we are hunting is from a race who call themselves the tau. He has some unpronounceable heathen name, which I am assured by a lexist translates to something equivalent to Commander Brightsword. Now, this Brightsword virtually rules one of the tau worlds only a few weeks’ travel from the Sarcassa system that falls within the Emperor’s dominions. Over several years, Brightsword has been very aggressively sending colonising fleets into the wilderness space surrounding Sarcassa. We believe it is his intent to invade this system within the next two to three months. His superiors, the rulers of the so-called Tau Empire, very wisely wish to avoid a bloody and costly war with our forces and have agreed to this co-operative strike.’
He pauses to let the full weight of this settle in. These aliens, these tau, are helping us to kill one of their own commanders. Either they must be really scared of what we’ll do to their little empire if Brightsword goes ahead with his mad plan, or they really don’t have much sense of loyalty to their own people.
‘Excuse me, Colonel?’ Quidlon raises his hand slightly. ‘Why are the tau engaging in this mission with us, rather than simply removing Commander Brightsword from office, or perhaps covertly removing him themselves by other means?’
The Colonel waits a moment, probably while his brain catches up with Quidlon’s quickfire way of speaking.
‘Unlike our own great Imperium, the tau have no great Emperor to bind them together,’ the Colonel explains, lip curled in distaste. ‘They are godless, as far as we can tell, and have this strange concept which the tau call the “greater good”. Their empire supposedly sustains itself through harmony between all of its subjects, rather than by making the supreme sacrifices the Emperor asks of us.
‘As you might understand, with no such guiding hand, their empire is very fragile. Any hint that there are those not working towards this fictitious greater good undermines the whole basis for their society. They cannot admit to their citizens that one of their commanders is, in essence, a renegade. Similarly, they cannot risk being uncovered trying to assassinate that commander, for the same reasons. Thus, we have constructed a subterfuge that allows us, as outsiders, to kill Brightsword, posing as renegades rather than Imperial servants. We can show them official records and provide witnesses if necessary that will show that you are all military criminals.
‘That is another reason why I am using scum like you. A half-truth is always better than an outright lie. All of this means there will be no call for a response against our forces. No blame will be traceable to either the tau government nor the Emperor’s loyal subjects.’
‘Very neat,’ I mutter, not realising I’ve spoken out loud until the Colonel darts me an evil glare.
‘You have something to say, Last Chance?’ he asks scornfully, hands on his hips.
‘Yes, Colonel,’ I tell him, standing up straight and looking him in the eye. ‘Aliens killing aliens I can live with. Us killing aliens, I can live with. Aliens helping us to kill aliens makes me suspicious. Besides, Colonel, this whole thing reminds me of Coritanorum too much. All this infighting, I mean.’
‘Believe me when I say that this whole mission has been examined from every angle, by myself and others,’ he retorts, looking around at all of us. ‘We would be fools to trust the tau, you can be sure of that. However, the opportunity presented to end the threat posed by Brightsword, whom we believe is fully intent on and capable of taking Sarcassa, is too good to pass up. Therefore we will proceed, but with caution.’
He directs his attention back to the miniature building on the table and we close in again.
‘This is a barracks and training area, what the tau refer to as a battle dome,’ he informs us, leaning forward with his hands on the table. ‘It also serves as the headquarters of Commander Brightsword. Currently he is reviewing his forces on the newly colonised worlds around Sarcassa but he will be performing an inspection of his troops at this battle dome before he leaves to rejoin his fleet for the invasion. Before and after the parade he will be beyond the reach of both us and our tau allies, so we will strike when he arrives to perform the inspection.’
I, and a couple of the others, nod approvingly. Any kind of hit like this, and believe me I did a few back on Olympas during the trade wars, relies on surprise. I don’t know how paranoid and security conscious these tau are, but if we have people on the inside it shouldn’t be too difficult.
‘What are all these different areas, Colonel?’ asks Tanya, pointing at the various chambers.
‘The battle dome is a training facility, Sharpshooter,’ he replies. ‘Just as on this ship, each of these training areas represents a different type of locale, and can be modified to represent specific targets and objectives for an upcoming campaign. After our first diplomatic envoys to the tau reported on the efficiency of their tactics, we sent agents to observe their military facilities. On this vessel, and her sister ships, we have replicated the more laudable and practical aspects of their training methods. The tau have a somewhat lax attitude to the perils presented by over-reliance on technology, so the Adeptus Mechanicus have been unable to duplicate the more arcane and blasphemous systems employed by the tau. However, these ships represent the best training facilities we have currently at our disposal. Our tech-priests are currently reconstructing three of the training bays to represent the battle zone where we are planning to trap and kill Brightsword.’
He points towards an area at the centre of the battle dome which seems to be some kind of power system terminal surrounded by a wide concourse, perhaps a parade ground or embarkation level.
‘When the new training bay is complete, we will begin operational training,’ he continues, standing up straight. ‘Until then, we will go over the exact particulars of the mission using this scale representation of the combat zone and continue with your general training. Now, pay attention to the plan.’
Flash flares and detonations explode across the pale yellow floors and walls, blinding in their intensity and billowing a cloud of acrid black smoke through the doorway where I’m crouched, an autogun gripped in my hands. As I’ve done a dozen times before over the last two weeks, I dive forward into the gloom, rolling through the smoke to the other side of the corridor.
I ripple off a burst of fire down the smoke-filled tunnel, covering for Quidlon and Stradinsk as they dive after me, heading for the gateway a few metres behind me. I work my way towards them crouched on my haunches, emptying the rest of the magazine with short bursts of fire at the silhouettes of possible targets moving backwards and forwards through the smoke. Sheltering in the gateway, I pull out the mag and toss it away, smoothly pulling another from my weapons belt and slamming it home.
I begin to count in my head. After I reach twenty, I give the nod to Quidlon, who pulls a las-cutter from his pack and begins to burn his way through the armoured gate. Sparks dance around the gate alcove, falling onto my left arm and leg and spilling onto the floor. Rivulets of molten metal pour down the doorway and pool on the floor, cooling with a cloud of steam. I count to another twenty before leaning out of my cover and firing off on semi-auto for another five counts. I watch as Trost emerges from a doorway in front of me and dashes past, throwing himself in behind Tanya.
‘The door is open,’ Quidlon informs us, stepping back and delivering a sharp kick, knocking out a section of metal and leaving a space just high and wide enough to crawl through. Trost pokes his head through and then wriggles out of sight.
‘Clear on the other side,’ he calls back after a few seconds. I fire another burst down the corridor while Quidlon, then Tanya, follow the bomb expert, before turning and diving through myself. Pulling myself up on the other side, I glance around to check the concourse is clear of targets.
‘Cover smoke, Demolition Man!’ I snap to Trost, who pulls a grenade from the bandoleer across his chest, primes it with a thumb and then hurls it into the centre of the parade ground. It clatters to a stop almost exactly halfway between our position and the door to the control chamber of the travel station. A moment later bluish smoke gouts forth, quickly spilling across the wide area and obscuring visibility in every direction.
‘Let’s move,’ I say to Tanya and Quidlon, dashing out from the gateway, the others pounding across the floor behind me. Trost stays behind to cover the hole in the gate.
‘Movement, get down!’ screams Tanya, diving to the floor beside me. I drop and roll, noticing something moving in the smoke out of the corner of my eye. I hear the sharp crack of Stradinsk’s marksman’s rifle, followed by a scream of agony.
‘What the frag?’ I hear Trost shout.
‘Since when do targets scream?’ asks Quidlon from behind me. I get to my feet and dash over, keeping low, Quidlon just behind me. As I run through the smoke, I see something lying on the ground, a lumpen shape. As I get closer, I see it’s Stroniberg, laid flat out, legs and arms splayed wide. A puddle of blood oozes from under him. Bending over him, I see the bullet hole in his left cheek. I roll his head to the side and half his skull comes away in fragments. I feel something pluck weakly at my arm. He’s still alive!
‘H… hel… help me…’ pleads Stroniberg, eyes wide, tears streaming down his face and mixing with the blood seeping from his cheek. He coughs and spits, pieces of shattered tooth spraying bloodily onto his tunic.
Quidlon is on his knees, fumbling for the medi-pak strapped to Stroniberg’s left thigh.
‘It’ll be okay, Stitcher, it’ll be okay,’ Quidlon says, pulling his knife out and cutting the medi-pak strap and tugging the bulky pouch free.
I look at the side of Stroniberg’s face, or more precisely the gory, ragged remnants of it, and wonder what was going through his mind as he stood and watched that damn tech-priest digging around in my brain with a scalpel. Almost transfixed by the bubbling fluid spilling from the wound, I reach forward tentatively with a finger, and I’m about to prod the grey and crimson mess when Trost appears and grabs my wrist, pulling me away.
‘What the frag are you doing, Last Chance?’ he snarls at me, hate in his eyes. ‘You are seriously cracking up. You need to be put out of your misery!’
I slap his hand away and push him back, snapping out of the trance. I turn back to Stroniberg and crouch over him.
‘What should we do? Tell me what to do, Stitcher,’ Quidlon asks desperately, spilling bandages, needles, tourniquets and stimms from the medi-pak across the floor. ‘Stitcher, you have to tell me what to do, I don’t know what any of this stuff is for.’
‘G… green phial,’ the chirurgeon replies, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. ‘Need to… to drink it…’
Quidlon finds the phial and pulls the stopper out, pouring the contents into Stroniberg’s gaping mouth. The physician gags and chokes before swallowing it, frothy blood now leaking from his nose as well.
‘Pad… and bandage,’ Stroniberg gasps next, his hand flapping through the pile of stuff on the floor, using his touch to identify what he’s after.
‘We don’t have time for this,’ I say suddenly, standing up and pulling Quidlon with me.
‘What do you mean?’ Trost snarls hoarsely, a hand on my shoulder twisting me to face him.
‘We only have roughly five minutes before the target will appear,’ I tell him calmly. ‘Quidlon needs to lock down the rail carriage and Tanya needs to be in the observation tower for her shot.’
‘Stitcher will die if we leave him,’ moans Quidlon, looking back at Stroniberg who is staring up at me with a glazed expression.
‘You can’t save him,’ I say, staring back at him. ‘Let the butcher die.’
Quidlon stands there stunned; Trost looks like I shot Stroniberg myself.
