The Greater Good Read online

  Both warships assigned to what was euphemistically referred to as ‘diplomatic protection duty’ were stationed several kilometres from the orbital, due to the high concentration of debris still clustered around it. The cloud of detritus was so dense, in fact, that nothing much larger than an Aquila could approach the void station without being pounded to pieces; accordingly, as we approached the huge, and somewhat battered structure, our transport bobbed and weaved like an inebriate, as the pilot was forced to make constant course corrections to avoid a collision.

  ‘That’ll take some clearing up,’ Jurgen commented, peering through what seemed to me under the circumstances to be a pitifully thin sheet of armourglass at the spiralling chunks of jagged metal beyond. Many were rimed with frost, where some residual atmosphere had frozen around them, and I tried not to think too hard about the explosive decompression that had undoubtedly accompanied its deposition. Finding myself morbidly wondering how many of the motes of flotsam catching the light of the sun rising from beyond the edge of the world below were the cadavers of those too slow to have reached the closing bulkhead doors, I nodded, hoping a little conversation would distract me[21].

  ‘I imagine it will,’ I agreed. I’d been in two minds about bringing him, but was grateful by now that I had. His recovery was almost complete, and if the niggling little voice in the back of my head was right and the tau were up to something underhand, there was no one I’d rather have watching my back. Besides, he’d been grumpy enough about being left behind for my little chat with Zyvan and Donali; another perceived slight would have prolonged the sulk for weeks. ‘But at least it’ll make it hard for anything to sneak up on us.’

  ‘Anything big,’ Jurgen replied, after a moment’s reflection. ‘But it’d make it really easy to slip one of those drone things through without anyone noticing. Auspex’ll be well clogged.’

  ‘Quite so,’ I said, not best pleased to have been handed something else to fret about. Offhand, I couldn’t see any reason the tau would bother to do something like that, of course, but then I suppose that would have been the point. ‘Can you see the void station yet?’

  Jurgen shook his head. ‘I thought it was on your side.’

  ‘Your side was my side a minute ago,’ I reminded him, just as the pilot tucked us into another roll, this time around a larger than usual piece of junk, which looked as though it had once been a pressure vessel from a fabricatory, or possibly a storage tank for liquids of some kind. Either way, it was longer than our Aquila, and eclipsed the sun for a moment. When the light returned it was from a new and unexpected angle, dazzling me. As I blinked my eyes clear, the orbital finally came into view.

  I’d seen plenty of similar structures over the years, of course, although since our crippled starship had glanced off the anchorage above Nusquam Fundumentibus in its headlong plunge to the surface, the sight of one always brought with it a momentary surge of unease. I waited for the unwelcome sensation to pass off as it usually did, but the sense of disquiet refused to leave me, and after a while I realised it wasn’t going to. Not until I had a much better idea of what was going on, anyway.

  ‘It’s a bit of a mess,’ Jurgen said, unconscious as always of the irony; but on this occasion I had to concede that he had a point. The tau had attempted to board the orbital during the first wave of their initial attack, hoping to deny the SDF the chance to resupply and refit there[22], but had underestimated the defenders’ resolve: vastly outgunned, and faced with certain annihilation, the captain of the last surviving gunboat rammed the primary docking arm, reducing both it and his vessel to high-velocity shrapnel and taking a respectable tally of tau Mantas with him[23]. The resulting mess had forced both sides to abandon the structure, although I gathered that the tau had been making diligent efforts to repair it prior to their unexpected offer of a ceasefire.

  As our shuttle drifted closer, the full magnitude of the damage the void station had suffered became progressively clearer. What had appeared from a distance to be nothing more than minor blemishes on the hull gradually grew, revealing themselves to be vast chasms torn or burned through the sheathing metal, or blown out by internal detonations. Through these jagged rents the equally ragged edges of interior decks could be seen, the damage going deeper than our running lights would penetrate.

  Uncountable firefly sparks moving in and around these stricken areas puzzled me for a moment, until, as we approached the small lighted region on one edge of the city-sized structure where warmth and air awaited us, one drifted close enough for me to recognise it. It was a smooth-sided drone, of the kind I’d become all too familiar with on the battlefield, although this particular specimen was equipped with a welding torch instead of armament; it floated past the viewport, followed a moment later by a couple more, carrying girders and flat sheets of construction material in articulated manipulator arms.

  ‘That must be where we’re going,’ I concluded a few moments later, spotting a bay door cranking open to admit our approaching Aquila. The habitable zone stood out clearly now, enough to discern a few details even from this distance: the warm, golden lights blazing from viewports and docking bays standing in stark and poignant contrast to the dark, dead bulk of the station to which it clung. Welcoming as it looked, I still felt a shiver of apprehension. Smooth, curving, tau-constructed surfaces clung to the solid Imperial structure beneath like fungus to a decaying tree trunk, where the xenos had repaired and replaced the original architecture, tainting it with their inhuman presence. Clearly they’d intended to stay, claiming the entire orbital for their own, before whatever it was they were concerned about had prompted them to sue for peace on the very threshold of victory.

  There was little time for such dispiriting reflection, however, as before long we were on our final approach, the great portal looming up to swallow our tiny shuttle. The hangar beyond was absurdly large for so modest a vessel, it having been intended for heavy lift shuttles capable of lugging a Titan around[24], and able to accommodate several at once to boot, so the Aquila seemed dwarfed by the cavernous space surrounding us. A few moments later the hull reverberated to the clang of our landing gear making contact with the deck, and the whine of our engines died away.

  So great a volume took several minutes to pressurise, and I spent the time gazing at our surroundings as best I could though the haze of frost which formed instantly across the viewport as the thickening atmosphere met a hull chilled to near absolute zero by the vacuum of space. The tau renovations didn’t seem to have spread as far as the interior of this particular hangar, and I took heart from the familiar sturdy girderwork surrounding us, the oppressive sense of wrongness I’d felt at all those smooth curves clinging to the surface of the station receding a little. There was even an Imperial aquila dominating the far wall, its spreading wings poised to enfold the vast chamber in the protection of the Emperor.

  About a dozen other shuttles stood in serried ranks nearby, the Imperial ones close to our own, while the unmistakable rounded hulls of their tau counterparts were stationed on the opposite side, ironically appearing to receive the benediction of the Imperial icon behind them. Through the gradually melting rime obscuring the viewport I could see movement, which at first I ascribed to vacuum-hardened servitors tending the air pumps, or perhaps simply wandering vaguely in search of the cargoes they used to lug about. But as the temperature rose and the armourglass cleared, their true nature became apparent. Void-suited Guardsmen, their heraldry and the hellguns they carried marking them out as members of Zyvan’s retinue.

  ‘The Lord General must be here already,’ I remarked, confirming my guess almost at once as I caught sight of his personal shuttle, half-hidden behind an adjacent Arvus, and Jurgen nodded.

  ‘And he don’t trust the xenos any more than we do,’ he added, with every sign of approval.

  ‘I think that’s mutual,’ I said, catching a glimpse of similar movement among the xenos shuttles across the wide expanse of clear decking between us. ‘They’ve posted guard
s too.’ The armoured figures seemed unusually squat for tau, and a moment of further observation revealed the reason. ‘Demiurg, by the look of them.’ Which finally confirmed the long-standing rumour of a contingent of the blocky xenos accompanying the tau fleet.

  ‘Doesn’t matter who they are,’ Jurgen said, reducing the political complexities to their most basic as readily as he usually did. ‘If they get in the way they’re kroot fodder.’

  ‘Quite so,’ I said, hoping it would turn out to be that easy. Then the hiss of the pressure seal breaking informed me that the atmosphere was now dense enough to breathe, and that it was time to disembark. I adjusted the angle of my cap to one I hoped my reception party would consider appropriately heroic, and began to descend the ramp.

  FOUR

  Outside the confines of the shuttle, the hangar seemed bigger than ever, a bleak metal plain stretching into the distance for roughly a kilometre[25], unrelieved by anything other than the occasional protruding fuel line or deactivated loader. The residual chill, which had seeped in along with the vacuum accompanying our arrival, hardly made the place seem any more welcoming, although Jurgen seemed happy enough with being able to see every breath we exhaled.

  After exchanging salutes and a few words with the Guardsmen we’d observed through the Aquila’s viewport, my aide and I began to trudge towards the hatchway they’d indicated, leaving them and their opposite numbers to glower at one another across the echoing void.

  Even though I knew there was little risk of active hostilities breaking out before we reached it, the veteran storm troopers assigned to Zyvan’s personal guard being far too disciplined to start anything, I must confess to feeling a distinct sense of relief as we approached the airlock set into the wall ahead of us[26]. The demiurg could be touchy, especially if the tau weren’t around to keep an eye on them, and standing around in the open made me feel dangerously exposed even at the best of times.

  The temperature rose to more comfortable levels almost as soon as the hangarside door thudded closed behind us, which improved my mood no end, although my renewed equanimity lasted no longer than the time it took for the further door to open. Instead of the solid metal bulkheads I’d been expecting, the walls of the corridor beyond were of smooth, blue-white polymer, reflecting the pale refulgence of tau luminators. Clearly this part of the station was firmly in enemy hands.

  ‘Commissar Cain?’ A young woman in a pale-grey kirtle was waiting for me, an elaborately braided scalplock reaching halfway down her back. If anything, her appearance was even more disconcerting than the decor. ‘The other delegates are waiting for you in the conference suite.’ Her Gothic was flawless, though marred by the peculiar lisp with which the tau inflected it.

  ‘Then I must apologise for my tardiness,’ I replied, masking my discomfiture with the greatest of ease. If nothing else, I’ve had plenty of practice of doing that over the years. In truth, though, I was profoundly shaken. I’d known intellectually, of course, that the tau had annexed a number of human worlds in the last couple of centuries, and that their inhabitants had embraced the insidious creed of the so-called Greater Good, but I’d never thought to meet one of the heretics in the flesh, unless it was at the business end of a chainsword.

  ‘No apology is required,’ the woman said, with a courteous inclination of her head. She was damn good at her job, I had to give her that. She hadn’t even blinked at her first sight of Jurgen[27]. ‘Please follow me.’

  ‘With pleasure,’ I assured her, with rather more gallantry than accuracy, as I fell into step at her elbow. Were the tau hoping to put us at our ease by her presence, or was it supposed to rattle us, leaving us more inclined to make an error? Either way, I was damned if I’d give them the satisfaction of reacting in any way other than the appearance of perfect calm. ‘May I present my aide, Gunner Jurgen?’

  ‘Of course.’ She nodded at him, as though I’d just introduced an item of furniture. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance.’

  ‘And you are?’ I asked, convinced now that she was as practised a dissembler as I was.

  ‘Au’lys Devrae, Facilitator of External Relations.’

  ‘Tau personal name, Imperial family one,’ I said. ‘Interesting combination.’

  ‘Quite common where I come from,’ she assured me, with a smile most men would have taken for genuine. ‘A blend of both, to remind us of the Greater Good.’

  ‘And where would that be?’ I asked, trying not to sound as though I meant to earmark it for virus bombing. Clearly her home world was well past due for liberating, although whether a population where heresy had taken such firm root could ever be guided back to the light of the Emperor seemed a moot point to me.

  ‘Ka’ley’ath,’ she said, before apprehending the name meant nothing to me. ‘Our ancestors called it Downholm[28],’ she added helpfully.

  ‘Still doesn’t ring any bells,’ I admitted. While we’d been talking, we’d progressed deep into the heart of the station, finding the same patchwork of tau and Imperial systems wherever we went, which I suppose applied to Au’lys too.

  ‘It’s a big empire,’ she said, failing to take offence, and provoking the first genuine smile from me; but I suppose most of its denizens must have been ignorant of just how small and insignificant the tau holdings were compared to the scale of the Imperium, or they would never have dared to challenge us in the first place[29]. ‘Just through here.’ She gestured to a doorway, no different to my eyes than any of the others we’d passed, apart from some inscription in the blocky, rounded sigils of the tau alphabet.

  ‘You’re not joining us for the briefing?’ I asked, and the woman shook her head.

  ‘I’m no warrior,’ she told me, with a hint of amusement. ‘I happened to be on my way up here, so I offered to escort you.’

  ‘For the Greater Good,’ I said dryly, but she only nodded, either missing the sarcasm or choosing to ignore it.

  ‘In a small way,’ she agreed. ‘But I was also curious to meet some of our kindred from beyond the empire. There are stories, of course, but you never really know how true they are.’

  ‘Then I hope we lived up to your expectations,’ I said, doing my best to hide my amusement.

  ‘You certainly did,’ she assured me, although for some reason she seemed to be looking at Jurgen as she spoke, then she ambled away down the corridor without so much as a backward glance.

  ‘Heretic,’ Jurgen muttered, the minute she was out of earshot, fingering the butt of his lasgun as though tempted to use it.

  ‘Quite,’ I agreed, envying him his uncomplicated response to things. The encounter had disconcerted me more than a little, and I still couldn’t shake the conviction that that had been precisely the point. I took a deep breath, adjusting my face, and approached the door Au’lys had indicated. ‘Come on. Let’s find out what all this is about.’

  Au’lys had called the room a conference suite, but it was like none I’d ever been in before. There were aspects of it I recognised, of course, like the softly glowing hololith display suspended in the air, but the image inside it was crystal sharp, instead of wavering like the ones I was used to, and the edges formed a perfect sphere, instead of hazing away in a diffuse blob. It took me a moment to pick out the projection unit from among the other mechanica ranged about the room, as there was no sign of the tangle of power cables and optical links I would have expected, nor of any tech-priests ministering to it. The hololiths I was used to needed constant adjustment, anointing, and the occasional devotional kick to remain focused. It also didn’t help that everything looked the same: flat, glossy surfaces mounted at an angle in rounded lecterns, with glowing runes appearing and disappearing on them pretty much at random.

  The biggest surprise was the absence of a table, which would have formed the focal point of any Imperial conference chamber. Instead, it seemed, we were expected to perch on round, padded seats, which were scattered around the carpet like fungus erupting from a lawn. About a dozen of these were occupied, by roughly
equal numbers of humans and tau, with about half as many again left vacant. All the humans I could see, sitting or standing around the periphery, wore Imperial garb, so I assumed any other turncoats among the xenos contingent were being kept tactfully out of sight.

  Leaving Jurgen to join Zyvan’s bodyguard, and investigate the refreshment table on my behalf, I claimed a seat between Donali and the Lord General, who smiled at my attempt to perch on the blasted thing without slithering off.

  ‘They’re comfortable enough, once you get used to them,’ Zyvan assured me, before wobbling a bit himself, and glancing sardonically at Donali. ‘So I’m told.’

  The diplomat, of course, looked perfectly at ease, but since he’d spent half his life liaising with the tau, he’d had plenty of time to get used to their peculiar taste in furnishings. He inclined his head in greeting. ‘Commissar. We were beginning to think you’d got lost.’

  ‘I had an excellent guide,’ I assured him. ‘Au’lys Devrae. I take it you’ve met?’

  ‘Our paths have crossed,’ Donali said blandly.

  ‘And you never thought to mention there were human traitors among the invasion fleet?’ I asked, perhaps a little more bluntly than was polite. This was evidently news to Zyvan, as his eyebrows rose quizzically, and he gazed at the diplomat in a fashion most men would have found intimidating to say the least.

  ‘She isn’t attached to the fleet,’ Donali explained. ‘I gather there are humans under arms among the empire’s forces, just as there are vespid, kroot, and others, but they wouldn’t be deployed against the Imperium[30]. They fear the resulting bad feeling would impede efforts to find a diplomatic solution here.’

  ‘To say the least,’ I agreed. The abhorrence most Guardsmen felt for traitors and heretics would make it almost impossible to rein them in.

  ‘But there are humans here?’ Zyvan persisted.