[Caiphas Cain 03] The Traitor's hand Read online

  'Very good, commissar.' He indicated the data-slate he'd brought in with the tea and placed on my desk. 'When you have a moment, there's a message there from the lord general.'

  Beije nearly choked on his tea as Jurgen and his aroma left the room.

  I nodded sympathetically. 'I'm sorry, I should have warned you. Tanna's a bit of an acquired taste.'

  'Aren't you even going to look at it?' he asked.

  I glanced at the screen. 'It's not urgent,' I assured him.

  Beije looked at me censoriously. 'Everything the lord general decrees is urgent.'

  I shrugged and spun it around where he could see it. 'He just wants to know if I'll be free for a bite to eat and a game of regicide after we land,' I said. 'I don't think it's very high on his list of priorities.'

  The expressions which chased themselves across Beije's face were priceless: shock, disbelief, naked envy and finally carefully-composed neutrality. 'I wasn't aware you were personally acquainted.'

  I shrugged again, as casually as I could contrive. 'We've bumped into one another a few times and we seem to hit it off. I think he just enjoys the chance to unwind with someone outside the chain of command, to be honest. Hardly fitting for him to socialise with Guard officers, after all.'

  'I suppose not,' Beije muttered. In truth, I suspect that really was the main reason Zyvan took an interest in my career and made a point of inviting me to dinner now and again.[11] He took another cautious sip at the tanna and regarded me through the steam. 'I have to say you surprise me, Ciaphas.'

  'How so?' I asked, denying him the satisfaction of showing any irritation at his use of my given name, and savouring the bitter aftertaste of my own drink.

  'I'd expected you to have changed more.' His chubby face took on a puzzled frown, making him look uncannily like a colicky infant. 'All those honours, the glorious deeds you've done in the Emperor's name…' Well actually they'd been done in the name of keeping my skin in one piece, but of course no one needed to know that, least of all Beije. 'I heard about them, of course, but I never quite understood how a wastrel like you used to be could have achieved half of them.'

  'The Emperor protects,' I quoted with a straight face.

  Beije nodded piously. 'Of course he does. But you seem especially blessed.' The frown deepened, as though he was about to bring up a posset of milk.[12] 'I know it isn't for us to question divine providence, but I don't understand…'

  'Why me?' I finished for him, and Beije nodded.

  'I wouldn't put it quite that way, but… well, yes.' He spread his hands, spilling tanna tea on his sleeve. 'You've seen so much divine grace, the hand of the Emperor has been extended to you so often, and yet you still have the same flippant attitude. I'd have expected more piety, to be frank.'

  So that was it. He was morally outraged that his old enemy from the schola had achieved so much success and glory while he was stuck in a dead-end posting with a bunch of Emperor-botherers as humourless as he was. Green-eyed jealous, in other words. I shrugged.

  'The Emperor doesn't seem to mind. I don't see why you should.' I sipped my tea and favoured him with my best open, friendly, frak off now smile. His mouth opened and closed a few times. 'Was there anything else?'

  'Yes.' He produced a data-slate for me to have a look at. 'Copies of the disciplinary proceedings against Trooper Hunvik.' The name didn't mean much until I read the charges at the top of the sheet and realised that this must be the man Magot had pounced on.

  'Assaulting a superior officer?' I asked mildly.

  Beije scowled. 'The… the soldier from your regiment was a corporal.'

  Funny how he couldn't bring himself to say ''woman'', I thought. Somehow that must have rankled even more than the simple fact that their regimental champion had been bested. I nodded. 'She still is.' His eyes narrowed as I continued to skim through the slate. 'I see you didn't apply the death penalty on that charge though.'

  'There were extenuating circumstances,' Beije said, a hint of defensiveness entering his voice.

  I nodded. 'Quite. Knowing Magot, she undoubtedly threw the first punch.' And probably the next couple too. Mari Magot was a woman for whom the word ''overkill'' was inherently meaningless. 'I trust the infirmary is making him comfortable?'

  'As much as they can,' Beije said tightly.

  'Good. Can't flog a man for brawling while he can't stand up, can you? Wish him a speedy recovery from all of us.' I downloaded the file to my desk, as though I could be bothered to read it, and added another to Beije's slate before handing it back.

  He glanced at it and his jaw knotted. 'That was how you dealt with it? Reprimanded and returned to duty?'

  I nodded. 'Magot's the new ASL[13]in her squad. They're just getting used to her. Reorganising them now, just as we're entering a war zone, would undermine their efficiency to an unacceptable extent.'

  'I see.' His eyes hardened. 'She's another special case.'

  'She is,' I agreed. Again I had no intention of telling him just how special she was, since the official line on the Simia Orichalcae fiasco was that it was a glorious though somewhat pyrrhic victory over the nasty grubby greenskins, and Amberley had made it very clear that the wrath of the Inquisition would fall on anyone who so much as breathed a word of what else we'd found there. And I knew her well enough to know that she never made idle threats. But the fact remained that Magot, then just a trooper, had walked through a necron tomb beside me and emerged from it at least as well-balanced as when she went in (however much that might have been). The Guard needed soldiers of that calibre, and if I had to bend a few regulations to keep them standing between me and whatever the warp might be about to vomit up at us, I'd make origami out of the rulebook without a second thought.

  'Then our business is concluded.' Beije stuffed the data-slate back inside his greatcoat, no doubt deducing a highly improper relationship between trooper and commissar which probably added to his evident jealously of me. (Completely erroneously, of course. For one thing, I've never been that stupid, for another, Magot's preferences ran in an entirely different direction, and most importantly of all I've only got room for one lethally dangerous woman in my life.)[14]

  'I suppose so,' I said, dismissing him completely from my mind. If I'd realised at the time how much animosity I was stirring up in him and by extension the Tallarns, I'd have been a great deal more diplomatic, you can be sure. However, I didn't, and the consequences of that conversation were still lurking some weeks in the future, so all I felt watching that shuttle depart was a sense of relief at the fact that I'd managed to avoid Beije for the rest of the voyage and was unlikely to ever have to set eyes on him again.

  But, as I've remarked on more than one occasion, the Emperor has a nasty sense of humour.

  THE FIRST STAGE of our disembarkation went as smoothly as a mouthful of fifty year-old amasec. We were the second regiment to be ferried down, and the dropships began loading troopers and equipment as soon as the Tallarns had cleared their holds. Within moments the hangar bay took on a reassuring reek of burned promethium as our trucks and Chimeras began chugging up the loading ramps, and the high space echoed to the profanity of NCOs doubling their squads into the passenger compartments. Sure that, as always, Jurgen had packed our personal possessions with his usual matchless efficiency, I found myself able to relax and enjoy the spectacle.

  And what a spectacle it was. For sheer impressiveness there's little to match the sight of a well-drilled Guard regiment on the move: almost a thousand people bustling around stowing gear, moving it, losing it, finding it again, and generally getting in each other's way in some arcane fashion which still lets things get done with almost superhuman efficiency. From the vantage point I'd adopted on a gallery overlooking the main hangar floor, I could see vehicles and troopers milling around on a vast plain of steel, receding almost a kilometre into the distance, where the dropships standing in a patient line were diminished by perspective so that the most distant were reduced to the scale of toys.[15]

>   'I've stowed our gear on the lead shuttle, commissar.' Jurgen's voice, preceded by his remarkable bouquet, broke in on my thoughts. I nodded absently. 'Thank you, Jurgen. Are they ready to depart?'

  'Whenever you are, sir.'

  'Might as well get to it, then,' I said, trying to still the faint flutter of apprehension which rose in my stomach. Here, in the belly of a star-ship, it was possible to believe in the illusion of safety, and once we hit dirtside we'd be twiddling our thumbs waiting for the war to start (or so I thought at the time). But I'd had too many vessels shot out from under me not to be aware of how vulnerable they'd be once the heretics' war fleet arrived and I knew my chances would be a great deal better on the planet below. I activated my comm-bead.

  'Colonel. I'm embarking now.'

  'Emperor speed, commissar.' Kasteen sounded distracted, as she was bound to be by now, juggling a dozen minor crises at once. 'See you on the downside.'

  'We'll be waiting,' I assured her.

  She or Broklaw would be on the last shuttle down, making sure the departure went smoothly, while the other would take the first one possible once the pressure began to slacken. (Protocol forbade the colonel and her number two to fly on the same dropship unless something went hideously wrong; otherwise it would only take one lucky shot for the enemy to effectively decapitate the entire regiment.) By long custom I would be on the first shuttle to land: partly because it fitted my reputation to appear to be leading from the front, but mainly because that would give me a head start in procuring the best quarters wherever we were going to be billeted.

  'Commissar.' Lieutenant Sulla, the most eager and irritating of the platoon commanders', saluted as Jurgen and I trotted up the boarding ramp. I returned it casually, threading my way between two rows of Chimeras which had been neatly parked and secured. Absently I noted in passing that they'd been turned to face the exit, ready for a rapid deployment, and nodded approval. If nothing else the woman was efficient.

  'This is a pleasant surprise.'

  'I might say the same,' I said, as diplomatically as possible. 'I thought fifth company was taking point this time.' Each of the four infantry companies would normally take it in turns to be first down, officially so that none of them would hog the glory of being first into combat every time, and rather more pragmatically so that none of them would suffer significantly higher attrition rates. That would be bad for morale and would degrade the unlucky company's overall efficiency as it absorbed a higher than average number of fresh recruits.[16]Third company, our logistical support arm, would normally wait until the landing zone was properly secured.

  Sulla shrugged. 'Something's gone wrong with their lander. Tech-priests are still taking a look at it.' I craned my neck past the line of vehicles, catching a glimpse of white-robed figures scuttling around through the open cargo door. 'It'll take forever to offload everything, so they're sitting tight until it's fixed.'

  'And this was the next shuttle due to go,' I finished. Sulla nodded eagerly. 'Lucky for us, eh?'

  'Quite,' I said, passing through the bulkhead and into the passenger compartment.

  Contrary to what you may be thinking, the first thing which strikes you on boarding a fully-loaded dropship is the smell. Having Jurgen around for so long had given me an unusual degree of tolerance for such things, but two hundred and fifty troopers cooped up in a confined space can thicken the atmosphere nicely, let me tell you. Especially when they're Valhallans in what to most people would be a mildly warm environment, and nervous to boot. As I walked up the aisle between the rows of seats and crash webbing I had to fight to keep my face straight.

  The second thing you notice is the noise, a murmur of conversation in which little or nothing can be distinguished, but which is loud enough to drown out anything being said to you unless you can see the lips of whoever you're trying to converse with. Nevertheless, I made a point of catching the eyes of a few random troopers as I passed and spouting off a few platitudes about honour and duty, and the mere fact that I seemed to be bothering started to spread little ripples of calm and reassurance throughout the shuttle like small rocks dropped into a pond. Wherever I looked I saw men and women holding on to their kitbags, checking lasguns and dipping into their primers for inspiration or amusement. A few hardy souls were slumped in their restraints, getting a little extra sleep, or pretending to, which I suppose is one way of keeping the gribblies[17]at bay.

  I managed to ditch Sulla as we passed her platoon and she dropped into her seat, and I settled into my own at the front of the passenger compartment, close to the door of the cockpit. I didn't anticipate having to go up there, but since our abrupt arrival on Simia Orichalcae I'd got into the habit of sitting close enough to the flight deck to be able to intervene in person if the pilot got jittery.

  'Commissar.' Captain Detoi, the company commander, nodded a polite greeting and resumed discussing administrative trivia with his subaltern. I returned it and fastened my crash webbing. A moment later a faint vibration transmitted itself through the hull and the frame of my seat and I aimed a reassuring smile at Jurgen.

  'We're on our way,' I said. He nodded, his knuckles white. There was very little in the galaxy which seemed to perturb him, but travelling by shuttle or atmospheric flyer most definitely qualified. I found it mildly ironic that a man who'd stared into the faces of necrons and daemons without flinching could be so thoroughly put out by something so mundane, but I guess everyone has their weak spot. Jurgen's was a tendency to motion sickness, which made itself manifest every time we hit atmosphere. Fortunately he generally breakfasted lightly before a drop, seeming to feel that throwing up in front of the rest of the troopers would undermine the dignity expected of a commissar's aide.

  The familiar lurching sensation in the pit of my stomach told me that we'd dropped clear of the troopship at last, and a moment later the main engines ignited, nudging me gently in the small of the back.

  With nothing better to do, I thought I might as well get whatever rest I could and closed my eyes, only to be roused a few moments later by what at first I took to be the usual buffeting which always shakes a shuttle entering an atmosphere.

  'Commissar.' Detoi was shaking me gently by the arm. 'Sorry to disturb you, but I think you should hear this.'

  'Hear what?' I asked, the palms of my hands beginning to tingle, as they often do when things are about to go horribly wrong. By way of an answer he tapped the comm-bead in his ear.

  'Open channel D,' he suggested. I raised an eyebrow. That was the Tallarns' assigned command frequency and normally we'd have no business monitoring it.

  'I wanted to know how their deployment was going, so they wouldn't be getting in our way once we got down.' Detoi seemed completely unabashed, clearly having formed as low an opinion of the desert fighters as the rest of us. At least they'd be stuck on the other side of the planet once we deployed, though, so that would be something.

  'And?' I enquired, retiming my own unit as I spoke.

  Detoi flipped a strand of lank blond hair out of his eyes. 'Most of them have cleared the starport. But the stragglers seem to have run into some kind of trouble.' By this time I was able to hear for myself and was forced to agree with his assessment. It sounded as though Asmar's command team and a fair few others were in the middle of a firefight. Who with, though, was anybody's guess.

  'Better prepare for a hot drop,' I said, and Detoi nodded. While he began issuing orders I retuned the comm-bead to the starport control frequency, which seemed to be choked with panicking voices.

  'Say again?' Our pilot sounded incredulous, always a bad thing in a Navy veteran with Emperor knows how many combat drops to his credit.

  A quavering voice, unsteady with stress, responded. 'I repeat, abort your landing. Remain circling until we know what we're dealing with.'

  'Frak off.' My relief at the pilot's pithy response was profound. If we followed that instruction we might just as well be towing a sign saying ''shoot me down now''. Our best chance was to hit the g
round fast, where we could deploy the troops and find something for them to shoot at.

  'You will comply, or face charges.' The voice sounded on the edge of breaking; no doubt whoever it belonged to was having a very bad day. Well tough, I was about to make it worse. I cut into the channel, using my commissarial override.

  'This is Commissar Cain of the 597th,' I said. 'Our pilot is acting with the full authority of the commissariat. We are landing, and any further attempt to prevent us from engaging the enemies of the Emperor will be regarded as treasonous. Is that clear?'

  'Absolutely,' the pilot agreed cheerfully. Words apparently failed the traffic controller, as transmissions from the tower suddenly went dead. 'Better hang on back there, we're going in hard and fast.'

  'Acknowledged,' I said, making sure my crash harness was fully fastened and cutting into the general comm-net to warn everyone else to take the same precaution. Jurgen was looking even less happy than usual, so I checked his too, just as the dropship lived up to its name and began a vertiginous plunge towards the planet below. 'Any idea what the problem is?'

  'The Tallarn command team and one of their platoons is pinned down here,' Detoi said, producing a data-slate on which a plan of the starport was displayed. 'They seem to have been ambushed as they left the main cargo handling area.'

  I studied the plan. It was a good site for an ambush, there was no denying that. The Tallarns were pinned between the perimeter wall and a complex of warehouses, which would split them up and force them into a series of freefire zones if they tried to break out. I tapped the line of the wall.