Anarch

Fifteen: Into Fire

Zhukova gestured, and Criid moved the fire teams forwards. The air in the vent stank of sulphur and it was so warm and close, it made their lungs tight. All of them were streaming with sweat.

The entire environment felt toxic in the worst way. Every now and then, a rank breath of air would rumble along the duct from far below. Criid kept expecting a super-hot vent of gas to come boiling up and roast them where they stood.

‘Down from here,’ Zhukova said. A wide vertical duct connected to the horizontal one they had been following. Rusted grip rails ran down one side, for use by servitor work crews. The drop glowed with bio­luminescent algae.

‘You sure?’ asked Obel.

Zhukova had been tracing the pattern on her palm with her index finger. She coughed and nodded.

Maggs peered down the drop.

‘Straight down?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said Zhukova. ‘Fifty metres or so. It meets the main thermal outflow. We can intercept the hostiles.’

‘How do we get the support weapons and flamers down that?’ asked Ifvan.

‘Carefully,’ said Criid.

She swung over the lip, got her feet on the first grip rail and looked at them.

‘Come on,’ she said.

Pasha stopped pacing. She looked over at Spetnin at the arcade hatch.

‘It’s getting quieter out there,’ he said. ‘No more assaults in the last few minutes.’

Pasha nodded. ‘We’ve given them long enough. Ready up. We’re taking that Gnosis Repository.’

Her squads prepped weapons. Pasha re-checked the antique sleetgun she had spent the last few minutes examining. She was confident that she understood its function. She’d taken a satchel of shells from one of the skitarii corpses. She was going to need decent stopping power.

At the compression hatch, Mora’s squad was ready, lined up for fast assault. At her nod, Ludd punched the hatch key.

The compression hatch sighed on its hydraulics and opened.

The Gnosis Repository was quiet. The bodies of their dead lay where they had fallen. Mora’s team led the way, moving quickly, weapons hunting for movement. Elam’s first squad followed, with Ludd. Pasha led the third assault element inside.

Nothing moved. No fire came their way from the ducting network at the far end.

Ludd glanced into the open crypt-safe.

‘Etriun,’ he said.

Pasha glanced in at the versenginseer’s corpse, face up on the crypt floor. Her brow crinkled with distaste.

‘Keep moving,’ she instructed.

Mora’s squad approached the Repository’s far end. Steam guttered from several sub-ducts that had been forced to release pressure. The heavy lid of the main down-duct had been forced, and lay on the deck. Broken locking bolts were scattered on the ground around it.

Pasha pushed forwards and leaned over to peer down the duct.

‘Feth’s sake,’ said Elam. ‘Don’t just go sticking your head in there!’

She regarded him sarcastically.

‘Head still attached,’ she told him, gesturing to her neck. ‘The enemy is in there, and running. I pray to Throne that Tona and Lunny have got their strength down in front of them. We box them in like rats in a pipe. So, Asa, I am going to stick more than just my head in there.’

She heaved herself out onto the duct’s access ladder, a metal frame that ran down into the darkness below.

‘You coming,’ she asked, ‘or have I got to do this alone?’

A light rain had started to fall out of the low, ink-black sky. Behind them, the last crackle of exchanged fire with the insurgents echoed from the end of the approach road.

Bray signalled, and the first of the squads moved out, running low and quiet across the rockcrete apron towards the gatehouse. Chiria and Haller brought up the rear, lugging a .20 and ammo box between them, moving at a shuffling trot.

Bray threw a stop signal, and tossed a rock towards the gatehouse. It clattered across the open yard, in range of the gatehouse sensor net.

Nothing stirred. No lights kicked in, no hum of auto-aiming weapons.

The place was dead.

Bray let his breath out. If the gatehouse had been live, it would have probably stopped them cold. Cracking that kind of bunker was tread-work. Besides, if the gatehouse had opened up, the slaved weapons in its embrasures would easily have had enough reach to hit the bomb truck they pushed up out of range of the insurgents behind the highway rise.

They moved in. Bray waited, edgy, as Mkoyn burned through the outer door’s lock with a cutting torch. He toed open the heavy door, the lock mechanism still glowing and dripping gobs of molten steel.

The Ghosts made entry, clearance style.

Gatehouse command was dead, and so were the two Urdeshi Steelsiders in it. The whole place was torn apart by intense gunfire. The walls were peppered with blast holes, and the floor was covered in drifts of spent brass. Smoke fumed the air. Monitor screens hung, shattered and crazed. Those still linked and functional displayed dead-air feeds. A noxious smell wafted from dead things caged in each of the bunker’s gun embrasures.

They checked the bodies. Both Steelsiders had been riddled with bullets at close range. The smashed ruin of a gun-servitor lay near the door. One of the dead automata’s cyclic cannons was still rotating, a dry, grinding whirr. It had emptied its entire munition canisters.

Chiria set down the heavy .20 and relieved one of the dead Urdeshi of his .30 short-snout, strapping the hip-mounted onto a gyro-stable body-frame.

‘Easier to carry,’ she said. Haller nodded, and secured the other short-snout. They straightened out the fat, armoured feed belts. The slaved auto-hoppers were dead too, but Chiria found the release catches and lifted the hoppers from their mountings. They were heavy, but she and Haller hefted them up like buckets.

Bray moved through the inner door and entered the walkway across the ditches. Rain pattered down, jingling the chain mesh. He led the fire team advance. There was a caged inner run beyond the ditches. The meshing here had been torn down.

‘Something was penned here,’ said Mkeller.

Bray nodded. Whatever it was, it was loose.

Trooper Armin called to Bray there was something on the ground near the door to the main wall. It looked like a large dog. They approached carefully.

It was a bio-mech thing, a quadruped defence servitor of canine build. What organics it possessed had originally been human. The sight of it disgusted them both.

It was sprawled on its side. They could tell it was still alive, though its vitals were collapsing.

‘Shot?’ Armin asked.

Bray shook his head. Thick black mucus was welling from the creature’s steel jaws, and films of it crusted the thing’s eyes. Its systems had crashed. It had been compromised and corrupted, and that corruption was now killing it.

Bray keyed his bead.

‘Bray to Kolosim.’

‘Go.’

‘We’ve reached the inner gate. The place is dead. No contacts. Can confirm signs that the Mechanicus elements turned. Probably some kind of mechanical infection. I don’t know the right word, but it got in their system, drove them mad, and then shut them down.’

‘Dead?’

‘Looks like it, sir. Burned them out really fast, but they went down feral. No signs of gunfire from inside.’

‘How long to main entry?’

Bray and Armin tried the massive blast door. It was sealed tight.

‘Three, maybe four minutes to cut an entry.’

‘Copy that. Get it done.’

Behind the transports on the approach road, Kolosim looked at the men behind him ready to deploy.

‘Move up,’ he said. ‘Bray’s about to let us into the place. It’s gone quiet, but stay sharp.’

He turned to look at EM 14.

‘Let’s go,’ he ordered.

Behind him, two full companies of Ghosts began to advance on the gatehouse.

Eli Rawne’s plans always erred towards the simple. Life had taught him that much. The more moving parts, the more chance there was for something to go very wrong. He liked lean plans that were supple enough to absorb nasty surprises.

His plan for Camp Xenos had been so lean, there wasn’t a scrap of body-fat on it. Get in, grab Mabbon, get out. But life, or some great external power that Rawne didn’t choose to believe in, was laughing at him from the void. It had other ideas.

He’d been anticipating Sekkite insurgents or, at the very worst, packson units. He’d chosen to move light, with just one section, to make the most of speed.

The things he was facing instead – ‘Qimurah’, the pheguth had called them – were the sort of freaks that made that Great External Power In The Void positively hoot with glee. The Great External Power In The Void wasn’t something Rawne had any plans to get to know on a personal level. For a start, the Great External Power probably had a face like a grox’s puckered arse. But sometimes – times like this – Rawne felt a burning desire, like an ingot of foundry-fresh steel sinking deep down in his gut, to meet that laughing fether face to face and have words.

Strong words. Strong words punctuated by straight silver every time Rawne made a salient point.

With Varl and Brostin in tow, he’d barely got Mabbon into the main guardhouse when the yard-front area lit up. Cardass called out four shooters, minimum. They were pinned down. Their transport was sitting in the yard, near the gate block. Just thirty metres, but the rockcrete yard was wide open all the way. It might as well have been parked on Balhaut.

Rawne reviewed his situation fast. Most of the Camp Xenos garrison had been dead by the time he’d arrived. He’d lost several good men of his own just getting inside. In the time it had taken him to secure Mabbon, Troopers Okel and Mkfareg had been butchered too. Oysten, his adjutant, had also taken a hit. She’d survived, but the las-bolt had destroyed her vox-caster set.

That meant no warning was getting out. No message to Pasha that the frighteningly resilient things currently killing his men were also probably coming for her. In larger numbers.

It also meant there would be no calling for help. Oysten was pissed off about it. If there had been time, Rawne would have enjoyed seeing his normally meek and precise adjutant getting riled.

‘I’d just got that fether tuned up!’ she snarled. He helped her pull the smashed vox-caster unit off her back. More shots ripped in through the windows and outer door.

‘It seems your exit route is blocked?’ Mabbon asked.

Rawne glared at him.

‘Strangely enough, prisons aren’t built with multiple exits,’ he replied.

He signalled Brostin forward to join the Ghosts defending the front of the guardhouse. Varl was sticking tight beside the pheguth.

‘We could do with another shooter, you know?’ Varl said to Mabbon.

‘I don’t want a gun,’ Mabbon replied.

‘Not really your choice,’ said Rawne, snatching fire through a window slit.

‘Oddly, it is,’ said Mabbon. ‘I’ve been a prisoner for too long. Colonel, how many years has it been now? And every day, you and your Ghosts actively preventing me from having anything, anything at all, that could remotely be used as a weapon?’

‘I let you keep your mouth, didn’t I?’ Rawne spat.

Trooper Kaellin uttered a grunt as a well-placed las-round found his forehead and threw him back from the window slot. He was dead before he hit the floor.

Rawne cursed. The Archenemy were incredibly effective, and his team were penned in a target building that was being demolished around them one las-bolt at a time. The Suicide Kings, his fine first section, had been reduced to eight: him, Oysten, Varl, Bellevyl, Brostin, Cardass, Laydly and LaHurf.

End of an era. End of the infamous Kings. He was damned if this was how he was going to go out.

Then again, he reflected, I’m probably long since damned anyway.

‘I told Sergeant Varl this, and I’ll tell you too, colonel,’ said Mabbon. ‘It’s me they want. They don’t care about you, except to kill you on their way to me. Let them have me and spare–’

‘No.’

‘Rawne–’

‘No, Mabbon,’ said Rawne. ‘I’ve got orders. A duty. And duty only has two endings. Accomplishing it or–’

‘I know the other one,’ said Mabbon.

Rawne got in beside Laydly, who was burning through his ammo at another of the window slots.

‘Cardass says four,’ said Rawne.

‘That’s what I count, sir,’ said Laydly. ‘One on the roof of that bunker there. Two in the blockhouse beside it, the other one up by the gate–’

A burst of las bracketed the slot. Laydly stopped pointing, and he and Rawne ducked. Rockcrete chippings and metal fragments rained down on them.

‘You’ll have to take my word on the last one,’ Laydly said.

‘What did that bunker look like to you?’ Rawne asked.

Laydly shrugged. ‘A silo, maybe?’

‘That’s what I thought,’ he replied. Xenos was a prison, not a fortress. It wasn’t designed to keep attackers out, it was designed to keep people in. Vital elements, like the guardhouse and any garrison areas or arsenals would be securely distanced from the cell block compound.

‘Bellevyl!’ Rawne called out.

Trooper Bellevyl was holding another window slot several metres left of Rawne.

‘Sir?’ the Belladon called back.

‘Think you can lob one onto that bunker?’

Bellevyl pulled a face, assessing his very limited angle of fire.

‘Dunno, sir,’ he said.

‘Let me re-phrase,’ said Rawne. ‘Lob one onto the bunker, Bellevyl.’

Bellevyl nodded. First section, B Company – the Suicide Kings – were Rawne’s personal squad. Every Ghost in it had been hand-picked by him. In the early days, they’d all been Tanith, because Rawne had nursed an antipathy to any new influx from Verghast or Belladon. But he had mellowed. Skill-sets and raw talent mattered more to him than some notion of loyalty to a world that no longer existed. That, and the fact that so many of the original Tanith in first section had been smoked over the years he’d needed replacements.

Like the First’s scout cadre, B Company first section followed its own rules. It was part of the privilege of membership. Rawne allowed greater discretion in weapon choice. He liked the idiosyncratic adaptability of variety. The Suicide Kings went to work packing a range of firepower normally found in elite storm troop platoons. Okel, Throne rest him, had carried a large calibre autogun that chambered armour-piercing rounds. Conglan, now dead out on the yard somewhere, had favoured a hellgun. Oysten, along with her vox-caster, lugged a stock-less riot gun and a bag of breaching shells. Cardass carried a box-fed .20 stubber with a pump shotgun cut-down bolted under the primary barrel.

LaHurf and Bellevyl had standard pattern lasrifles like Varl’s, but both had increased the carry-weight by a third through the addition of under-barrel grenade launchers.

Bellevyl slotted in a chunky krak grenade and lined up at the slot, scooting around for the best angle. Heavy enemy fire kept licking at his position, making him duck.

‘Take your time,’ Varl said. ‘No fething rush.’

The ceiling collapsed.

A Qimurah dropped down onto them in a shower of flakboard and masonry debris. He landed on LaHurf, breaking both of the man’s legs. LaHurf was still screaming when the Qimurah struck him with a fist-full of talons. The blow lifted LaHurf off the ground, spinning him in mid-air, blood jetting in all directions from his torn throat. He landed hard.

The Qimurah reached for LaHurf’s weapon.

Ignoring the tight confines, Cardass opened up across the room with his .20. The deafening hard-round burst tore chunks out of the Qimurah’s chest and shoulder, and threw him against the guardhouse wall. Despite severe wounds that would have killed a standard human instantly, the Qimurah lurched forward again with a roar, neon blood pouring from his injuries, and opened fire with LaHurf’s weapon. Bellevyl was killed at his window slot. Oysten was winged. Cardass was hit in the left hip, and overbalanced.

Brostin hit the Qimurah in the side of the head. He was using one of his flamer tanks as a club. Two blows knocked the creature down, and Brostin kept beating, slamming the heavy metal cylinder into its skull over and over again.

‘There,’ he said, finally tossing the tank aside. It was slick with neon blood. The Qimurah had nothing left above the neck except a spatter of yellow paste and bone shards. ‘Knew there’d be more than one way to kill these bastards with a flamer.’

Oysten was already up, blood oozing from her shoulder. She and Rawne ran to Cardass.

‘I’m all right,’ Cardass said. He wasn’t. His hip was a ragged mess. Oysten reached for field dressings, but Cardass told her where she could stick them. He heaved himself back to his window slot and started to fire his stubber again.

Varl had dashed across to Bellevyl’s position.

‘Sorry,’ he said to Bellevyl’s corpse. Varl felt bad about it. No man deserved to be mocked the instant before his death. Varl set down his own rifle, and hoisted Bellevyl’s. He checked the grenade was still set in the tube launcher.

‘Call it! Bunker?’ he asked, peering out of the slot.

‘Would you?’ Rawne shouted back. Prolonged bursts of fire were striking the guardhouse facade.

Varl angled the gun and fired the underbarrel. It launched the grenade with a sound like an ogryn hawking into a tin spitoon. The grenade sailed up and out, described an arc across the contested yard, and landed on the bunker roof.

It exploded with a fierce sheet of flame that was entirely consumed a second later by the detonation of the bunker itself.

Rawne had been right. Camp Xenos kept its munition store away from the main buildings.

The blast was considerable. It battered the gate area, swallowed their transport in a shock of expanding flame, and blew out the blockhouse beside the bunker. A cone of fire lifted off the bunker site, blooming out into the night sky like a mushroom cap. Debris rained down. They could hear secondary pops and bangs as stored munitions and power cells caught and cooked.

Something landed in the yard along with the debris from the blockhouse. The Qimurah, one of the shooters using the blockhouse as cover, had been cut in two. He was scorched and dripping yellow fluid. His head lolled, and he began to drag his upper half across the yard towards the guardhouse with his spasming hands.

‘Kill it!’ Rawne told Cardass.

‘He’s been cut in half–’

‘Does he look dead?’ Rawne asked. ‘He doesn’t look dead to me.’

Cardass angled his .20 down and raked the clawing mass with stubber fire until it stopped moving.

‘Move!’ Rawne yelled. ‘We’re out now!’ The blast had killed one for certain. Maybe more. Whatever their losses, the Qimurah squad had been blinded and rocked. They had a moment of opportunity.

Varl grabbed Mabbon. ‘Truck?’ he said.

‘That’s gone,’ Rawne replied. ‘Head for the wire and out.’

Varl bundled Mabbon through the door. Laydly followed, then Oysten. Brostin grabbed Okel’s big autogun and ran out after them.

Rawne looked at Cardass.

‘Judd! Now!’ he barked.

Cardass smiled.

‘You need covering fire, sir,’ he said. He locked eyes with the colonel. Rawne knew what he actually meant was I can’t walk. Hip’s gone. I’m bleeding out and there aren’t enough of you to carry me and stay functional. This is where you ditch me.

‘Cardass–’

Cardass ignored him, lining up his .20.

‘Covering fire in three,’ he said. ‘Two…’

Suicide Kings, Rawne thought. Like the old card game. It had seemed like a clever name once.

He ran out across the yard after the others, his head low. There was burning debris everywhere. Cardass’ heavy fire ripped from the guardhouse window slot and punished the gate and the front of the blazing blockhouse.

Varl had reached the fence. High chain wire and a ditch separated the prison’s front yard from the perimeter of the neighbouring vapour mill. The mill loomed, pale in the night, exhaling huge, crawling plumes of white steam from its stacks.

The night was cold. They had the heat of the flames behind them and the night breeze in their faces. The bunker blast had taken down several sections of the security fence. Varl led the way, scrambling over the flattened fencing.

Rawne was last to arrive. Las-bolts whipped around him as he ran. He fell.

He tried to get up. Behind him, a Qimurah was walking slowly out of the inferno of the blockhouse. His blistered form was still on fire, and a splinter of roof spar had impaled his chest. He was firing his lasrifle from the hip, as if that was the highest he could raise it.

Rawne heard the rattle of Cardass’ stubber. A sustained burst of fire knocked the Qimurah back into the flames.

Brostin grabbed Rawne’s arm and dragged him to his feet.

‘Come on, chief,’ he yelled.

‘All right,’ said Rawne.

‘You sure?’ Brostin asked.

‘Yes,’ said Rawne. He decided not to mention the las-round that had gone through his abdomen. He could feel the blood running down his thigh and into his groin.

They headed for the fence.

Behind them, Cardass’ weapon fell silent. Gunfire from the remaining Qimurah warriors chased them into the night.

‘This isn’t a rescue,’ said Mkoll as the third stasis tank finished draining.

Milo nodded.

‘I understand,’ he said.

‘What is it then?’ asked Mazho.

‘An opportunity,’ said Mkoll.

Colonel Mazho was the first prisoner Milo had insisted on releasing. He was a stocky, middle-aged officer from the Urdeshi Fourth Light ‘Cinder Storm’ who had been assigned to the Saint as military liaison by high command after her arrival on the forge world. He’d served with her ever since, which made him enkil vahakan. He and Milo had been captured together.

‘How did that happen?’ Mkoll had asked.

‘Oureppan,’ Milo had told him. ‘The Saint had achieved a miracle at Ghereppan. The Archenemy was reeling. She became convinced that Sek was located nearby. Oureppan. A place called Pinnacle Spire. So we went in fast, so as not to lose momentum. It was a trap.’

‘A trap?’ Mkoll had asked.

‘For her. A warp vortex. He wasn’t really there, you see? He was projecting himself using psykers. Well, the trap failed. She survived. The vortex destabilised. The blow-back hurt Sek, I think. Hurt him badly. And we were too close. We were pulled through to his side. Blink of an eye, and we were aboard his ship.’

The last of the nutrient suspension flushed from the third tank. Mazho was sitting on the rusted deck trying to shake off the raw ache of stasis shock. He was peering around, half-blind and dazed. He finally reached into his tunic pocket and pulled out a pair of rimless spectacles. One lens was cracked. He’d lost just about everything except his ragged Urdeshi fatigues, but somehow his spectacles had survived.

He got up to help them as Mkoll opened the third tank’s hatch. It took all three of them to drag out the body inside. It was a massively heavy dead weight. They laid the body on the deck, and Milo pulled the vox-plugs out of its temples.

‘Pain goads,’ said Mkoll. ‘They weren’t going to take any chances.’

They looked down at the body. Kater Holofurnace, of the Adeptus Astartes Iron Snakes, had been stripped of his plate armour and left in its ragged underskin, a tight mesh bodyglove. The armour had not been removed efficiently, and many of the inter-cutaneous plugs and anchor points had been damaged. The Snake’s body had been studded with steel spikes, each one staked into a major muscle group or joint. The spikes were pain goads designed to paralyse and incapacitate. Each one had a small rune glowing on its head.

Holofurnace moved his head and uttered a low groan. Fluid ran from his mouth, and his eyes blinked open, glassy.

‘He’s immobilised,’ said Mkoll. He drew his skzerret.

‘You going to end his pain?’ Mazho asked.

‘Of course he isn’t,’ said Milo.

Holding the serrated edge of the blade flat, Mkoll began to lever the goads out of Holofurnace’s flesh. As each one came free, a shudder of pain ran through the Space Marine. Blood and other bio-liquids ­dribbled from each wound. They reminded Mkoll of the stigmata he’d heard some sacred beings displayed.

It was going to take a while. It took effort to dig each goad free and pull it out. Mkoll took the laspistol from his waistband and handed it to Milo.

‘Watch the hatch,’ he said.

‘How long do we have?’ asked Mazho.

Mkoll didn’t reply. Mazho limped around the chamber and peered into the other tanks. Two of the other prisoners were comrades from Oureppan, both men from Mazho’s command. They hadn’t survived the vortex intact. It was not possible to free them from suspension. Mazho turned away and closed his eyes.

‘Who are you?’ Mazho asked.

‘That’s Mkoll,’ whispered Milo from the doorway.

‘The Ghost?’ Mazho looked intrigued. ‘Brin’s told stories about you.’

‘They were all true,’ whispered Milo.

‘So how many of you are there aboard?’ Mazho asked.

‘I told you this wasn’t a rescue,’ said Mkoll, plucking out another goad.

‘How many?’

Mkoll looked at him. Something in his eyes made Colonel Mazho recoil slightly.

‘Just me.’

‘How did you get here?’ Mazho asked.

‘Pure blind chance and an obstinate nature,’ said Mkoll.

‘I’ll bet,’ whispered Milo.

‘Do they know you’re here?’ Mazho asked. ‘Are they looking for you?’

‘Stop with the questions,’ Holofurnace growled. He opened his eyes and looked up.

‘Mkoll,’ he said in a low voice.

‘War brother,’ replied Mkoll, nodding.

‘Come to kill me?’ asked Holofurnace.

‘You’d be dead,’ said Mkoll, yanking the last goad out of the Space Marine’s torso.

Holofurnace laughed, but the laugh turned into a wince.

‘Pain goads,’ said Mkoll, moving down to the legs. ‘I’ll have the last of them out in a few minutes. Then some feeling might return.’

‘I’m not sure I want it to,’ said the Iron Snake. He sat up.

‘Already?’ said Mazho, amazed.

‘Pain focuses the mind,’ said Holofurnace, flexing his hands.

‘Doesn’t it just?’ replied Mkoll.

Holofurnace held out a huge hand to Mkoll.

‘Give me that,’ he said. ‘I’ll finish it.’

Mkoll handed him the dagger. Holofurnace leaned forwards with a grunt and started to hook the goads out of his paralysed legs.

Mkoll rose.

‘What did you mean when you said opportunity?’ Mazho asked, rising too.

‘I’m here by blind luck. You’re here by bad luck. Luck alone led me to you,’ replied Mkoll.

‘Not sure it was luck,’ whispered Milo. ‘The influence of the Beati flows–’

‘Not here it doesn’t,’ said Mkoll.

Milo looked at him.

‘This ship is sitting at the heart of the Archenemy’s primary stronghold on Urdesh,’ said Mkoll. ‘The enemy is here in brigade strengths, all around us. The nearest Imperial force is ninety plus kilometres from here, and no one on our side knows of this location.’

‘So we’re behind enemy lines, cut off, without support?’ asked Holofurnace, yanking a goad out of his knee. ‘In the heart of a nest of devils?’

‘The odds are not in our favour,’ said Mkoll.

‘Is there a way out?’ asked Mazho.

‘No,’ said Mkoll simply.

‘So all that matters is what we do while we’re here?’ asked Milo. ‘What we accomplish before they find us and take us out?’

‘Yes,’ said Mkoll.

‘And you’ve already decided what that could be, I’m guessing?’ said Holofurnace.

‘Yes,’ said Mkoll.

The Iron Snake pulled out the last of the goads, and hauled himself to his feet. He grimaced as locked muscles eased and flexed. He got upright, then immediately slumped, leaning hard on the hatch door of his tank. Mkoll darted to support him and stop him toppling.

‘Thank you, brother,’ said Holofurnace, his voice laced with pain. ‘I’ll be myself again in a moment, I promise.’

‘Lean on something,’ growled Mkoll through gritted teeth. ‘You’re too fething heavy to hold upright.’

Holofurnace chuckled, and shifted his weight, getting a better grip on the rim of the heavy hatch. Mkoll straightened up.

‘So tell me,’ Holofurnace said.

Mkoll frowned thoughtfully.

‘We have three choices,’ he said. ‘One is to try and annihilate this stronghold from inside. I think finding the means to do that will be near impossible. The second is more viable. We try to commandeer a communications station or similar. Get a message out. Alert crusade command to this location in the hope that air strikes or orbital bombardment can level it.’

‘That works,’ said Holofurnace. ‘Astartes code can verify us and emphasise the significance of our signal. If high command isn’t asleep at the helm, fleet elements could have this site triangulated and locked in seven or eight minutes.’

‘Loss of this stronghold would cripple Sek’s efforts on Urdesh,’ Mkoll agreed. ‘So that strategy has a lot going for it.’

‘What’s the third idea?’ asked Mazho.

‘Sek,’ said Mkoll. ‘He’s the key. Whatever damage the crusade does to his armies, they will continue to be a threat all the while he’s alive. And he’s here. On this vessel.’

‘But a fleet strike–’ Mazho began.

‘There’s always a chance he could escape,’ said Holofurnace.

‘He can’t escape if he’s dead,’ said Milo.

‘So if we can only attempt one thing, and we want it to have the ­maximum effect…’ said Mkoll. He let the rest hang, unsaid.

No one spoke for a moment.

‘Whichever we chose,’ said Mazho, ‘we’re dead.’

Mkoll looked at him.

‘You need to grasp, sir,’ he said, ‘that we’re dead already.’