The Cost of Command Read online

  The end was near, that much was obvious. One arm hung limply at his side, but his other fist backhanded a charging ork with casual ease, crushing its bestial features to bloody ruin. ‘Dorn and the Emperor walk with you,’ he voxed, and opened his hand.

  The grenade fell with what seemed to Lanthus to be agonising slowness, while Caromort struck out again and again with grim determination. He was an Astral Knight, and would die on his feet. Preoccupied with their efforts to bring him down, it was doubtful that any of the greenskins even noticed the danger.

  Then the grenade detonated, and the haze of promethium vapour in the air ignited in a fireball which swept the length of the convoy. Lanthus staggered from the blast, even with the protection of his power armour. When he looked again, the whole right side of it was scorched back to bare ceramite, blackened with smoke.

  Caromort’s icon was gone from the tactical display, and the road between the buildings was a billowing inferno as far as the eye could see.

  Everyone had expected Aldwyn to take Caromort’s place, and no one had been more surprised than Lanthus when Captain Galad announced that he was to be promoted to sergeant instead.

  ‘Do you doubt you can do it?’ the company commander asked bluntly, reading the momentary hesitation on Lanthus’ face before he accepted the honour of leadership.

  ‘With the help of Dorn and the Emperor,’ Lanthus said, before honesty compelled him to add, ‘but I thought you’d choose Aldwyn.’

  ‘Aldwyn wouldn’t have thought twice about accepting,’ Galad agreed. He paused for a moment. ‘Which is why I chose you instead. You think before you act.’

  It was advice he’d taken to heart in the weeks that followed. The campaign against the orks remained a grim and murderous business, every metre of the world regained and paid for in pain and blood. Even the arrival of a couple of brigades of Imperial Guard, hastily shipped in from neighbouring systems, made little difference that Lanthus could see. Though the steady influx of Guardsmen gradually tilted the balance of the war in the Imperium’s favour through sheer force of numbers, there were still too many objectives the Astral Knights could hope to take in the face of the greenskins’ dogged resistance. The newly rechristened Squad Lanthus found itself facing an apparently inexhaustible supply of enemies.

  Then, without warning, everything changed. The war reached a tipping point, and Lanthus found himself charged with bringing it to a swift and victorious conclusion.

  The sun was westering, painting the sky over the shattered hive the colour of blood, when Lanthus got the orders which were to lead him ultimately to the duelling ground.

  ‘The greenskins are retreating,’ he told his squad, re-engaging the general vox circuit. For the last few minutes he’d been linked directly with Captain Galad and was still assessing the information he’d been given during the briefing. The captain’s words had been supplemented by a barrage of images and data files, which his helmet spirits had dutifully tagged and made ready for access. Even while he’d been assimilating this wider strategic picture, however, he’d continued to hold the tactical readouts in the periphery of his consciousness, aware of where every member of Squad Lanthus was.

  They’d not been idle while his attention was diverted, continuing to drive the greenskins back from the hallowed ground of a ruined shrine to the Emperor with dogged, righteous fury. Fragments of the visage of Him on Earth could still be seen gazing down from niches in the collapsed walls at the stone corpses of Emperor and saints alike, shattered on the unforgiving ground, or by the brutal spite of orkish weapons fire.

  ‘These ones aren’t.’ Aldwyn didn’t flinch as a volley of stubber rounds rattled from the pock-marked rockcrete around them, a few ricochets whining from his armour. He turned to face the incoming fire in a single fluid movement, sending a short burst from his bolter through a window from which the stained glass was long gone, reduced to prismatic shards littering the ground at their feet. ‘We can flank them with Combat Squad Two, if one lays down covering fire for us.’ He started forward as he spoke, already snapping a fresh magazine into his weapon.

  ‘Wait,’ Lanthus said. Part of him shared Aldwyn’s burning desire to shed orkish blood in vengeance for the blasphemous vandalism surrounding them, but engaging the greenskins among the rubbled walls of the hab zone might let a few escape their deserved retribution, slinking away through the maze of devastation like the cowards they were. ‘Hold fire. They’ll think we’re out of ammunition, and move to close.’

  ‘Even orks can’t be that stupid,’ Beves said, readying his missile launcher. He’d integrated well into his new squad, Lanthus thought: he followed orders quickly, showing commendable initiative, and the older battle-brothers trusted his judgement. When they returned to Obsidia another recruit would be assigned to bring them up to full strength, and it would be time for him to relinquish the heavy weapon.

  ‘These ones are,’ Aldwyn replied, as a howling mob of greenskins erupted from the partially-collapsed building opposite, and began charging across the rubble-strewn carriageway towards the beleaguered shrine. ‘Good call, brother-sergeant.’

  ‘Let them get well into the killing ground,’ Lanthus said. It still felt strange to be addressed by his rank, especially by Aldwyn, with whom he’d served the longest. Certain that the entire mob was now out in the open, he gave the order. ‘Fire!’

  Seven bolters opened up as one, tearing simultaneously into the left and right flanks of the onrushing horde. Those in the centre came on faster than ever, brandishing their ugly blades, and firing indiscriminately at the suddenly visible Astral Knights. Lanthus felt his index finger ache with the urge to trigger his own weapon, but suppressed the impulse, knowing he’d be better employed assessing the tactical picture.

  ‘Prius, to the left.’ He directed the fire with the skill and precision of an orchestral conductor. ‘Beves, their centre.’ Frag charges burst in the middle of the mob, tearing the front rank to pieces.

  Within seconds it was all over, the boulevard littered with dead and dying greenskins. Lanthus turned away from the carnage, the defeated enemy already dismissed from his mind.

  ‘Where are the greenskins retreating to?’ Aldwyn asked, resuming the conversation as though the orks had never interrupted.

  ‘They’re pulling back into the main hive,’ Lanthus told him. No potential threats appeared in his helmet display, and he lowered his bolter. ‘Fortifying the central spire to stand a siege.’

  ‘That’ll take some cleansing,’ Aldwyn said thoughtfully. ‘There must be thousands of greenskins in there by now.’

  ‘Tens of thousands,’ Lanthus agreed, ‘and a hundred of us. Captain Galad’s moving the whole company up for the final assault. Enough battle-brothers to sweep it from pinnacle to sublevels.’

  ‘If they can get in,’ Aldwyn said, studying the topographical files Lanthus was casting to everyone’s helmets. ‘Those gates would need a Titan to breach them.’

  ‘Our squad won’t be going in through the gates,’ Lanthus said, highlighting a small section at the foot of the outer curtain wall. ‘The Techmarines have found a route in through the manufactory waste ducts. Once we’re inside, we’re to open the gates then blow the control chapel to make sure they can’t be closed again.’

  ‘Won’t the greenskins be waiting for us?’ Aldwyn asked. ‘They might be stupid enough to charge down our guns, but it’s not like them to leave a potential infiltration route unsecured.’

  ‘The ducts are full of toxic sludge,’ Lanthus pointed out, ‘which would kill even an ork in seconds. We’ll be completely submerged in the stuff as we pass through the sump. It would never occur to them that a strike team could get in that way.’

  ‘Some of these substances are corrosive,’ Beves said, his helmet spirits highlighting a few of the compounds in the long list of pollutants appended to the briefing document. ‘They won’t have time to damage the ceramite
plating of our armour much, but they’ll degrade the joints and seals in a matter of minutes.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to be quick,’ Lanthus said. ‘Once we’re through, we’ll be able to clean the worst of it off.’

  ‘In ork blood, with any luck,’ Aldwyn added.

  This close to their objective, the central spire of Hive Capital seemed to blot out half the sky, a stark silhouette of greater darkness wiping the heavens clean of stars.

  The colossal smear of shadow wasn’t entirely dark, however: flickering sparks of orange flame were speckled across its face, as though its brutish inhabitants were trying to replace the purer lights of the heavens which their refuge now concealed, intermingled with the brighter pinpoint glare of luminators. Those would mark the guard posts, or areas where the hive’s resources were being looted, but the reason for the fires Lanthus could only guess. Perhaps they were for warmth, or had simply been set to gratify the orkish lust for destruction.

  A few metres ahead of the Astral Knights, the mouths of the outfall pipes gaped in the darkness, viscid liquid seeping from them like pus from an infected wound to pool in the sluiceways that were supposed to carry them away. Lanthus jumped over the low parapet, expecting a splash as he landed, to find his bootsoles impacting on a dry, crumbling surface instead; the rockcrete channels had been shattered by conflict and neglect.

  A moment later Aldwyn vaulted down to join him, landing a few metres closer to the outfall with a liquescent smack. Wary of losing his footing in the slippery sludge pooling beneath the pipe, he placed his feet carefully, testing the solid surface beneath it before trusting it with his whole weight.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ Lanthus said, striding past him through the puddle of filth to take up position at the head of the column. Aldwyn moved aside with a faint air of surprise, but Lanthus was determined to lead from the front. There would only be room inside the pipe for one man at a time, and he wanted to see whatever they ran into for himself, instead of relying on voxed reports and images.

  At first, the going wasn’t too bad, despite the ever-present risk of losing their footing in the gradually deepening sludge. Every so often the pipes constricted, or the Astral Knights were forced to worm their way around tight corners never intended to be navigated by anything larger than a monotask servitor, and at times Lanthus’ armour scraped against the sides as he pushed his way forward. Nor was he the only one: the whole squad’s way was marked by periodic bursts of sparks as ceramite met corroded metal. Each time a short-lived constellation flared and died, he braced himself, anticipating the sudden combustion of the gasses filling the tight metal tube, but the Emperor was with them, and no explosion came.

  It took no more than the thirty minutes he’d estimated to reach the surge chamber marked on the plan he was following, and he stopped abruptly as soon as the tunnel mouth opened out ahead. ‘Wait,’ he ordered.

  There was no light at all this far from the open air, too little for the helmet spirits to intensify, and the cold, dank walls held no residual heat for them to use instead, but with no chance of the enemy being able to see them, he’d felt no qualms about kindling his luminator some time before. As the beam swept around the echoing rectangular space, he realised he’d stopped just in time: another step, and he would have tumbled headlong into the deep pool of sludge below.

  ‘We’re at the sump,’ he said, staring at the scum-flecked tank. ‘Auspex view, and keep close to the man in front.’ A ripple of acknowledgements ran around the vox circuit.

  Certain that his squad would be right behind him, Lanthus stepped off the lip of the tank, the foul semi-liquid closing instantly over his helmet. He could see nothing, feel nothing, except the sticky resistance of the sludge; then his feet touched the bottom, and he began to move forward, following the icon in his auspex display which marked the pipe leading deeper into the hive. Faint currents tugged at his awareness, although whether they were caused by convection, chemical reactions within the toxic soup, or by the passage of his battle-brothers forging through it in his wake, he couldn’t tell. All he could be sure of was that, one by one, the rest of Squad Lanthus were plunging into the pool and plodding after him.

  Nearing the far wall, he held out his hand, his gauntlets scraping across the rough surface of rockcrete pitted and scarred by the corrosive action of the waste. Mindful of the damage it would be doing to the seals of their armour, and the concomitant need for haste, he felt around for the mouth of the pipe feeding the sludge down from the heart of the manufactory. For a moment he failed to find it, then realised it had been sealed by a metal grille, which hadn’t been marked on the plan they were following.

  ‘Hold your positions,’ he voxed, groping in the suffocating darkness for a handhold. Then he got a purchase and pulled, exerting all the superhuman strength conferred by the Emperor’s blessing. Servos whined in his power armour, adding its strength to his, and, with a muffled grating sound, the lattice of rusted metal came slowly free. He shuffled aside as far as he dared, and dropped it, to settle slowly in the murk. ‘Obstruction cleared,’ he voxed. ‘Move on.’

  This pipe seemed narrower than the other, although whether it really was smaller, or had simply been constricted by centuries of coagulation, he couldn’t tell. When, at last, his head broke the surface again, it took him a moment to realise the fact. He stood, wiping as much of the muck from his visor as he could, and looked around.

  ‘We’re through,’ he said, as, one by one, the members of Squad Lanthus rose from the mire. He checked the tactical display, and swept his luminator beam around the wide metal space enclosing them. It was roughly spherical, stalactites of congealed filth clinging to the overhanging walls, and a metal ladder leading to an inspection hatch about halfway up one of the curving sides. He clambered to the top, not without difficulty, as the narrow rungs had been intended for users of normal stature rather than the superhuman frame of one of the Emperor’s blessed. ‘Douse the lights.’

  As his squad complied, he tripped the latch, and pulled the door open. It resisted a moment, then came reluctantly in a shower of rust and detritus, and with a howl like a heretic being put to the question. He waited a moment, but no greenskins came running to investigate the noise, and he lowered his bolter as the rest of the squad followed him through the hatch. Wide service tunnels curved away in both directions, following the equator of the tank, their outer walls pierced by radial corridors every forty-five degrees. Dim luminators flickered in the ceilings every few metres, still functional, by the grace of the Emperor; they’d make better time by their light, but would be more visible to prowling orks too.

  ‘There are two routes to the gate controls from here,’ Lanthus said, transmitting the map to the other helmet displays as he spoke, both potential pathways clearly marked. ‘Aldwyn, take Combat Squad Two to the right. I’ll take One to the left.’

  ‘That should double our chances of getting through,’ Aldwyn agreed, and trotted away into the shadows, four battle-brothers at his heels.

  ‘I’m picking up movement,’ Prius said, from the mouth of the other tunnel.

  ‘Confirmed.’ Lanthus checked his own tactical readings. ‘Single heat source, large.’ Too big to be an ork. He wiped the encrusted filth from his bolter, reciting the litany of armaments. ‘Have you got a visual?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Prius said, ‘but it’s closing fast.’ The blip was almost at the first junction in the labyrinth of service tunnels. Prius would get a clear line of sight within seconds. ‘Ready to engage.’ He raised his bolter, sighting along it, waiting patiently for a target.

  ‘Fire at will,’ Lanthus said. He would have preferred to have moved a little closer to their objective before the shooting started, but at least if they attracted the orks’ attention it would give Aldwyn’s team a clearer run.

  ‘We can circle back and assist,’ Aldwyn offered, having monitored the vox traffic.

  ‘Keep going,’ Lan
thus instructed, barely waiting for Aldwyn’s acknowledgement before turning his attention entirely to the matter at hand.

  ‘I can see it,’ Prius said, his voice taking on a hint of surprise. ‘It’s a beast of some kind.’ He pulled the trigger of his bolter, eliciting nothing more deadly than a muffled click. Before he could clear the faulty round from the chamber, something huge and vaguely spherical came howling out of the darkness, barging him aside in a welter of claws and fangs.

  Lanthus reacted instantly, sending a hail of explosive bolts towards the onrushing creature, distracting it from the prostrate form of Brother Prius. Most of the rounds missed the fast-moving target, but a couple impacted on its back, gouging bloody craters which should have felled a lesser creature. This monstrous beast only seemed enraged, however, turning and charging at Lanthus.

  ‘Beves, krak rounds,’ Lanthus ordered, leaping aside in the nick of time. The creature seemed to consist mostly of a gaping, razor-fanged maw, on two legs thicker than a Space Marine’s waist. Thick scales armoured its bloated head and vestigial torso. He fired another burst, chewing bloody lumps out of the monster, but nothing vital had been hit, and it turned to charge again. ‘Kurtin, see to Prius.’

  ‘Krak,’ Beves confirmed, already swapping magazines with precise, economical movements. Expecting to be facing orks, he’d preloaded the missile launcher with anti-personnel warheads instead of armour-piercing rounds. Kurtin, about to fire, lowered his own weapon, and hurried over to his fallen comrade.