Legion (34 page)

Namatjira rose to his feet. ‘And which do you suppose it is, sir?’

Alpharius shook his head. ‘I make no guesses, lord, but there is one significant fact. It was the agent who first warned me of the Black Cube. But for that warning, we would all be dead.’

‘And this agent?’ asked Namatjira.

‘He was operating inside the Imperial Army in an extremely capable and efficient manner. He got remarkably close to the centre of things.’ Alpharius looked over at Chayne. ‘He slew one of your men, companion.’

‘Konig Heniker,’ whispered Chayne.

‘That’s right,’ said Alpharius. ‘That was one of the identities he adopted, at least. My operatives captured him on the last day of Nurth’s existence. He’s in my custody.’

‘Well,’ murmured Namatjira. He lit up a very careful and benevolent smile. ‘I feel my misgivings ebbing away. Thank you for your disclosure. This will, of course, remain entirely classified.’

‘I expect no less,’ Alpharius replied. He turned and walked towards the hatch. ‘I take it our conversation is done?’

‘One last thing,’ Namatjira called to him. ‘If the story is true, and this meeting takes place, I will, naturally, be there at your side.’

The Lord Commander didn’t wait to see how Alpharius might respond. He turned to the windows. ‘Oh, look. There they go!’ he cried out jauntily, and pointed. Bright sparks, like meteorites, had begun to sear down out of the carriers behind them.

Alpharius opened the hatch and left the lookout.

‘Dinas?’ Namatjira said. ‘In the light of the primarch’s comments, please re-examine all the data we have on Konig Heniker.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Namatjira took a sip of wine and tilted his head to one side reflectively, watching the drop-ships fall. ‘I believe it will be instructive to learn how the picture fills in now that we have more pieces of it,’ he said, ‘particularly in terms of the Astartes and their manipulation networks.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Chayne replied.

T
HE DROP
-
SHIP
lurched and fell. Metal spilling from the release claws showered backwards in a glittering tail behind it.

They began to pull two Gs, three. The airframe began to vibrate. Bronzi held out his hand and Mu took it. She squeezed it.

‘Here we go,’ Bronzi said.

FOUR

Orbital, Eolith, continuous

S
ONEKA OPENED THE
cell hatch and stepped inside. He put his satchel down on the steel table.

‘What? More cheese?’ asked Grammaticus snidely. He was sprawled on the cot, dispirited.

‘Get up. Quickly,’ Soneka said.

‘But we haven’t eaten our lunch,’ said Grammaticus.

‘Shut up and get up,’ Soneka told him. He looked back at the open hatch and the corridor beyond it. ‘Hurry.’

Grammaticus sat up, frowning. ‘What’s going on, Peto?’

‘Just follow me.’

Soneka turned towards the cell door and peered out cautiously. Grammaticus rose to his feet.

‘Peto? What is this? Has the primarch agreed to let me drop with him and—’

Soneka looked back, his eyes narrow. ‘Will you shut up? I’m doing what you asked. Keep a lid on it. Shere is everywhere.’

Grammaticus blinked in surprise. ‘Oh,’ he managed to say.

‘Just follow me and keep quiet,’ said Soneka. He opened the satchel over his shoulder and drew out a laspistol.

Grammaticus looked at the weapon as if he’d never seen one before. ‘Oh my word,’ he murmured. ‘Peto, Peto just stop for a moment and look at me. Look at me. Control word
Bedlame
.’

Soneka turned and faced him. His eyes were vacant.

‘What’s your name?’ Grammaticus asked.

‘Peto Soneka.’

‘What are you doing right now, Peto?’

‘Your bidding, John.’

‘Glory!’ said Grammaticus. He stepped back, his hand to his mouth, staring at Soneka. ‘I didn’t think it had worked,’ he said, laughing in surprise. ‘I really didn’t think it had worked. All those lunches, five months of casual lunchtime conversations, dropping a weighted tell word in, now and then. I thought you were resistant.’

Soneka remained blank.

‘Peto, I’m truly sorry to have abused you this way,’ said Grammaticus solemnly. ‘I want you to know that. We’re friends, I’d like to think. You have shown me great kindness. I hope one day, you will see the broader picture, and forgive me for doing this to you. Do you hear me?’

‘Your voice, I can’t fight it,’ growled Soneka, glassy-eyed. ‘Every day, I could feel you doing this, and I couldn’t fugging fight it. You took advantage of my disaffection. You’re a bastard, John Grammaticus.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. Can you get me off this barge?’

‘I can do my best,’ replied Soneka.

‘Thank you, Peto, thank you. Control word
Bedlame
.’

Soneka blinked awake and steadied himself against the cell wall. ‘What the fug was that?’ he asked. ‘I was dizzy for a moment.’

‘You were saying something?’ Grammaticus cued.

Soneka shook his head. ‘Come on, I was saying. We’ve only got a small window. The fleet is deploying.’

‘Already?’

‘Come on, John.’

They hurried down through the quiet detention block to the cage shutters. Soneka waved his hand and the cages withdrew.

‘What’s your plan?’ whispered Grammaticus. ‘How do we reach the surface?’

‘Drop-pod,’ Soneka replied. ‘They’re all primed and certified for the Legion’s landing. We’ll head for the bay on underdeck eight. I checked the deployment schedule, and they have been assigned for the second landing wave in six hours’ time, so it should be quiet. But there’s something we have to do first.’

‘What?’ asked John Grammaticus.

‘Something you’ll thank me for. Something I need to do,’ Soneka replied.

They turned onto the vast spinal corridor, and came face to face with a maintenance servitor. The servitor jolted, whirring as it studied them, upper limbs raised in query.

‘This section is monitored and private. Show me your authority,’ the servitor’s vox speaker rasped.

Soneka shot it through the head. The servitor issued a thready whine, and clattered sideways against the wall, smoke trailing from its exploded cranium.

‘Run,’ Soneka said.

T
HEY RAN UNTIL
they were hoarse and out of breath, and cut away from the main spinal corridor into a maze of sub-halls and gloomy compartments. The strips of mauve lighting made it feel like twilight in an empty city. No alarms sounded, but the air was pregnant and still, as if it was about to explode with noise.

‘Where is everyone?’ Grammaticus asked.

‘In the arming chambers, preparing for deployment,’ Soneka replied. He beckoned Grammaticus towards a heavy hatch shutter.

‘Here,’ Soneka said.

Grammaticus put his hand to his temple. An expression of pain, wonder and realisation filled his face. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I hear her.’

‘I know,’ said Soneka.

‘She
was
calling out to me, all the time, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank you, Peto,’ Grammaticus whispered. He looked as if he was close to tears.

Soneka faced him, and put a steadying hand on his shoulder. ‘John, listen to me, this will be a shock. The Alpha Legion interrogated her, and damaged her in the process.’

Grammaticus looked at Soneka. ‘I understand.’

‘I hope you do,’ said Peto Soneka, and waved his new hand in front of the shutter’s lock reader.

The hatch opened. In a corner of the small dark room beyond, something stirred and whimpered.

Grammaticus pushed past Soneka and crossed the room, holding out his hands reassuringly.

‘Hush, hush,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. It’s me.’

Snivelling and trembling, Rukhsana looked up at him, with wild eyes. She was pressed into the corner, her legs pulled in, and her arms wrapped around her body. Her robes were tattered. She looked at his face and cried out.

‘Rukhsana, Rukhsana, it’s just a beard. I’ve grown a beard.’

She put her hands over her eyes.

‘Rukhsana, it’s all right,’ Grammaticus whispered. He touched her gently, and she recoiled. ‘It’s all right,’ he repeated.

‘Please be quick, John,’ Soneka hissed.

Grammaticus embraced Rukhsana and rocked her. She buried herself against his chest and began to cry.

‘What the fug did they do to her, Peto?’ he asked.

‘They let Shere have her. He went into her mind, looking for you and for any information on the Cabal,’ Soneka replied. ‘The process shattered her sanity. She’s been like this since Nurth, five months ago. I’ve brought her food every day, and tried to keep her clean and healthy, but she’s little more than feral.’

‘Oh, Rukhsana,’ Grammaticus whispered, hugging the uxor to him and tenderly stroking the lank blonde hair that had once glowed like spun gold.

‘John, please, we haven’t got much time,’ Soneka urged. He stood in the doorway, watching the corridor outside. Grammaticus coaxed Rukhsana to her feet, and led her across the dark chamber, keeping her tight against his side.

‘I’ve got her,’ he said. ‘Lead the way.’

U
NDERDECK EIGHT WAS
an extensive space of industrial metal, thick pipe work, violet lighting and oily shadows. There was a constant background murmur of engines and the barge’s heavy atmosphere plants. Every now and then, a distant sound of tools or machine shop activity echoed back to them. So much pipe and duct work ran along the roof space, the access ways felt low and claustrophobic.

Soneka brought them to a long hallway that had eight massive blast hatches in its left-hand wall. Gigantic rotor fans turned lazily in the roof cage.

The identical blast hatches, each one large enough to accept a large transport vehicle, all stood open, waiting. They stopped outside the first of them, dwarfed by the hatch frame, and looked inside. Four armoured drop-pods sat in an oily black launch cradle, like bullets loaded into a revolver’s drum. The chamber was lined with greasy black hydraulics. Feed lines were attached to the pods, and steam wreathed up slowly from the cradle mechanism.

‘This’ll do,’ said Soneka quietly. He nodded towards the adjacent hatches. ‘They’re all the same, four in each.’

‘Whatever you say, Peto. This is your plan.’

Soneka led them over to the far side of the hallway. Rukhsana remained clenched against Grammaticus’s side. He watched as Soneka woke up a large cogitator system built into the bulkhead. Soneka called up several pages of data, touch flicking through them, moving from one menu to the next.

‘What are you doing?’ Grammaticus asked.

‘I’m checking that the navigation systems are programmed for the venue zone. Yes, that’s good. Set. Right, I just have to countermand the launch notice.’

‘What?’

Soneka gestured at the waiting pods behind them, and then carried on moving through screens and data scrolls. ‘When one of these launches, a notification will flash up immediately on the excursion monitor on the bridge. I’m cancelling that instruction. They’re going to know we’re gone soon enough, and it won’t take them long to realise a pod’s missing, but I’d like to postpone discovery for as long as possible.’

‘You can do that?’ asked Grammaticus, impressed.

Soneka smiled and held up his new hand. ‘They trust me, remember? They’ve given me the highest clearance, built in.’

‘More fool them,’ Grammaticus grinned.

‘This should only take a couple of minutes,’ said Soneka. ‘Down on the right, there’s a locker store. We’re going to need three sets of foul-weather gear. See what you can dig out.’

Grammaticus nodded and hurried to oblige, as fast as Rukhsana would let him. They came back after five minutes with a bundle of suits tailored to fit operatives. Soneka was ready.

Together, the three crossed back through the huge blast hatch and clambered into one of the pods.

Soneka waved his hand. The massive blast hatch began to close. Hazard lights started to flash around the chamber, and a low electrical hum filled the air, mounting in intensity.

FIVE

Eolith

T
HE FIRST THING
that hit them was the stench. It was vile and unexpected, like wet rot, like liquescent decay. It permeated the cold wet air. As soon as they had spread clear of the fumes from the howling drop-ships, it was all they could taste.

The Jokers ran forwards, fanning out across the slick, wet rocks. Some were gagging, or complaining about the reek.

‘Don’t be babies! Get on with it!’ Bronzi yelled. He sniffed. ‘Fug me, that’s awful,’ he said to himself.

The banner was up. The company was extending in a line away from the landing zone where the drop-ships waited, lifting spray from their idling jet wash.

Bronzi got his bearings.

They were in a flat-bedded valley between two lines of rock hills that were curiously regular, like plinths or flat roofed towers. It was cold, but the dampness was worse. The air seemed wet, less than rain, less than drizzle, just a swirling, particulate moisture. He could feel it on his skin like cold sweat. The Jokers were already soaked. Capes had gone lank, and armour gleamed with droplets.

The sky was low and dense with squally clouds. The terrain was grey rock, a hard stone rendered slippery by the accumulating wetness. The stone seemed to have a natural propensity to split and shear in quadrilateral plains, forming blocks and steps that looked unnervingly like they’d been cut by a stone mason rather than geology. Bronzi realised that the rock’s planar property explained why the hills looked so much like cubic buildings. He’d never seen such a geometrically rigid landscape. It was dominated by straight verticals, hard edges and flat surfaces. He felt like he was standing in the jumbled heap of some giant child’s building blocks.

To the west, more drop-ships were whining down out of the cloud cover. Tche signalled that the lokers were clear, and Bronzi sent an instruction to the pilots. Hatches began to slide shut, and ramps retract. The sound of the engines rose in pitch as the drop-ships prepared to lift off.

Bronzi moved forwards through his extending ranks, mindful of planting every step carefully. Underfoot, the flat stone felt as spongy as bone marrow. Cavities had filled with black water, like rock pools.