Part 3 (1/2)
The soldiers stood around the bodies after the killing was done. It was Kathur Reclamation protocol to speak short prayers for each of the fallen when time allowed. Captain Thade ordered his men on without a word. Time was not on their side.
The squad moved through a series of smaller chambers, each one a mosaic-rich tribute to Saint Kathura's deeds, paid for by hundreds of generations of pilgrims. Progress was fast until the squada's eleventh man, wheezing as he leaned upon an aquila-topped black staff, rasped the captaina's name.
Thade halted. a”Make this good, Seth.a”
a”I hear someone calling. Crying out, as if from a great distance.a” The sanctioned psyker wiped a fleck of foamy spittle from his lips with a trembling hand. His powers were erratic at the best of times, waxing and waning without his control. This campaign was a nightmare a- Kathur was wreathed thick in warp disruption, and the psychic toll on the Imperial Guarda's telepaths was immense. Five had died of embolisms in the weeks since planetfall, one of heart rupture, and a further two had fallen under possession by nameless horrors born of the warp.
a”Calling out to us?a” Thade asked.
a”I I cannot tell. There is something ahead.a” Here Seth paused to suck air through his teeth. a”Something powerful. Something old.a”
a”Primary threat?a” asked Janden. This was greeted by a short wave of chuckles from the gathered soldiers and Thade shaking his head. a”Not likely,a” he said.
The captain resisted the urge to sneer at the wheezing, thin-limbed psyker. Their eyes met and the gaze held for several moments. The captaina's eyes were the typical pale violet of the Cadian-born, while Setha's were a deep blue, bloodshot under the band of metal across his brow that sank cables into his brain to amplify his unreliable talents. a”Anything more specific?a” Thade tried to keep the dislike out of his voice and his expression. He was almost successful.
a”An agent of the Archenemy.a”
a”In the next chamber?a”
a”In one of the chambers ahead. I cannot be sure. The warp clouds everything.a”
Thade nodded, inclining his head and leading the squad on. a”Janden, what chambers are ahead?a”
The vox-officer consulted his data-slate, tapping a few b.u.t.tons. a”A series of purification halls. Pilgrims used them to bathe before being allowed entrance to the inner temple.a”
a”A bath house? In a cathedral?a” Zailen, the squada's weapons specialist, walked alongside Janden. The hum of his live plasma gun set the troopersa' teeth on edge. Thade felt his scalp p.r.i.c.kling, but fought down the sensation as he spoke.
It was Thade who answered. a”Saint Kathur, Emperor rest his bones, was famed for his purity. It makes sense those who came to see his remains would be required to ritually cleanse themselves.a”
Zailen shrugged and looked away a- a habit of his when he didna't have the words to answer.
Ahead of them, the great double doors leading into the purification chambers stood closed. Defiled engravings of female angels, carved of marble now stained with blood and body matter, stared down at the eleven men. Thade cleared his throat.
a”Trooper Zailen?a”
a”Yes, sir?a”
a”Open the doors.a”
a”Yes, sir.a”
Zailen raised his plasma gun and squeezed the first trigger. The baseline hum of the arcane weapon intensified in an angry whine of ma.s.sing energy. He breathed a quiet a”Knock, knock a” and pressed the second trigger.
The plasma gun roared.
CHAPTER III.
Count the Seven The Shrine of the Emperora's Unending Majesty Second Lieutenant Taan Darrick was having a bad day.
There were two reasons for this. The first and least important was more of a wearying ache than a real worry a- the 88th were mechanised infantry, and by the Emperor did Darrick hate having to walk everywhere. This monastery a.s.sault took a lot of foot-slogging, and while his fitness wasna't an issue it still irritated him that the regiment had been selected for this operation. Reinforce the idiotic Ja.n.u.sians on their vainglorious thrust into enemy territory? The fools had paid for it now. Sit in a d.a.m.n church and hold out for reinforcements? Ugh. It hardly screamed a”mechanised infantrya” to Darrick.
The captain, as the captain always did, took the orders without a complaint and made the best of a bad deal. But Darrick? Darrick was a complainer and d.a.m.n proud of it. He felt it gave him character in the stoic ranks of his fellows. It simply didna't occur to him that he was just being annoying.
The second reason for his bad day, and much more of a real problem, was the fact he was being shot at. Darricka's squad had met serious secondary resistance as they neared the top of the ma.s.sive bell tower. On Kathur, a”secondary resistancea” meant the enemy had guns, too.
Crouched behind a wooden podium once used by priests to lead choir singers, Darrick reloaded his lasgun, slapping a fresh power cell into the standard-issue weapon with a professional shove. A las-round scorched a black streak through the pulpit a handa's span from his left ear.
a”Wouldna't it be wonderful to have a little heavy support?a” he asked the soldier sharing his pathetic cover. The other Cadian grunted agreement as he fired around the podium. He was new to the squad, and found Darricka's endless banter distracting, not endearing. He was hardly alone in this opinion.
The enemy, ragged elements of the Kathur PDF picking through the bones of the monastery in disorganised packs, had entered the ancient chorus room at the same time as Darricka's men. A series of these same chorus chambers nestled atop each of the four huge spires rising from the monastery. The towers were crucial, both as a likely haven for Ja.n.u.sian survivors, and as the only decent sites Imperial forces could effect a supply landing for any regiment bottled in here for longer than they should be.
a”Ia'm good with a heavy bolter, you know,a” Darrick was opining to his captive audience now, and his squad shared grim smiles. The lieutenanta's declarations were punctuated by enemy fire cracking and pinging off the stone all around him. a”And I enjoy it. The kick of actually being able to shoot your d.a.m.n enemies without all this messing around, being denied any toys in case we mess up the architecture.a”
One of his men, Tomarin, grinned at Darricka's observations. a”Ita's a shame to be denied onea's pa.s.sions, sir.a”
a”That it is. That it is. Now, time to ruin some a.s.sholesa' days.a”
Darricka's rifle bucked in his hands with each shot, and each shot was a kill. You didna't train every day of your life from the age of six and miss too often. The second lieutenant had been firing the same rifle for thirty years, and while most junior officers withdrew more advanced arms from the officersa' a.r.s.enal upon achieving promotion, Darrick liked to stick with what he knew best. His one guilty pleasure was his never-ending supply of various grenades a- but they were in his storage bag back at the base. Along with heavy bolters and other support weapons of any significance, it was hard to justify taking grenades into a monastery when Kathur Reclamation objectives clearly stated the architecture of the shrineworld was to remain a”undamaged by reckless interferencea”.
Denied his favourite toys, Darrick scowled as he gunned down the unarmoured soldiers of the Planetary Defence Force. When the soldier next to him fell back with hole in his head, Darrick had to concede that some of the Chaos-tainted sc.u.m over there were truly wicked shots. He broke cover to crack off three more rounds, killing two PDF soldiers and taking another in the belly. That one would take a while to die, thras.h.i.+ng around on the marble floor and turning his blue uniform red.
Counts as a kill shot, he thought, smirking as he reloaded again.
Darrick tapped the little pearl-like vox-unit in his ear. There was a rata's chance in the Great Eye hea'd be able to make a break for his vox-officer, Tellic, who was pinned down across the room with most of the others in Darricka's squad. Las-fire flashed through the chamber in lethal strobes.
Range on the micro-bead vox was awful at best, especially when the stone walls played all h.e.l.l with the signals, but Darrick pressed the throat mic against his skin and trusted his luck.
a”Alliance to Venator.a”
Nothing. Not even static. Tremendous. Really, just delightful.
Darricka's luck was dry, and so was his patience. A quick kiss of the aquila necklace he wore, and the lieutenant broke into a crouching sprint away from the altar hea'd been hiding behind. Las-fire slashed past close enough to warm his skin, but either the Emperor chose that second to bless him with fortune, or the Chaos-tainted sc.u.m who could actually hit anything were busy shooting elsewhere. Whichever was true, Darrick leapt behind the paltry cover of a row of pews, kissed his necklace again, and came up firing on full-auto.
The tower-top choir chamber with its high domed ceiling and rows of pews now played host to a tune far removed from Imperial litanies and hymns. Lasgun cracks formed an incessant chorus to the infrequent percussion of heavy bolters hammering out their high-calibre rage. Explosive sh.e.l.ls from these smashed into the white marble walls and detonated, leaving head-sized chunks of stone blasted free. Rubble rained on the Cadians from behind their makes.h.i.+ft cover.
a”How come they get to shoot the place up?a” groaned one of the Guardsmen to his lieutenant, sharing the pathetic and disintegrating cover.
a”Because,a” Darrick faked a thoughtful expression, a”ita's more fun this way.a” Those words spoken, he rose, rifle in hand.
Darrick fired the last shot in his power cell right into the open mouth of a shouting PDF sergeant, and ducked back under cover. With a silent prayer to the Emperor as he tapped his micro-bead, he repeated the words he was getting b.l.o.o.d.y sick of repeating. a”Alliance to Venator.a”
a”Venator,a” Thade said, a”acknowledged.a”
As he spoke, he fired his bolt pistol into the face of a young plague victim, doubtless a pilgrim or an acolyte of the cathedral. Now faceless, the child collapsed. The captain stamped on its throat to make sure it wasna't getting back up, wincing as the spine gave way.
a”Talk to me, Alliance.a” He glanced around the pillared chamber, which was swarming with third-cla.s.s threats staggering this way and that, uttering howls and piteous little whines. More were coming through the great double doors at the end of the hall. a”Faster, Darrick, faster.a”