Salvation's Reach

SEVEN Faces

Cavity 29617 was a hold space, a long and slightly irregular chamber that ran beside and under one of the main plasma engine housings. It was low priority, and had only the rudiments of light and atmospheric processing. From the junk and dust, it was an attic or basement – or whatever they called such things on starships – that hadn’t been used in a few centuries.

That suited Merrt.

Cavity 29617 was out of the way. It wasn’t one of the big holds reserved for training exercise and technique work, and it was far smaller than the hangar decks used for parade and mass drill. It was narrow and long, which gave him some range. It had a breeze running through it from the processor vents, which gave it a cross-draught and made it feel a bit like outdoor conditions. And no one went there, so no one could see him being useless.

Since his injury on Monthax, years of practice had failed to yield any results. Merrt had tried: he’d shown a persistence and resolve rare even by marksman standards. He had worked to rebuild his shattered skill.

The only thing he was sure of was that he should have given up trying a long time ago.

But Larkin, his old friend and rival, was in another of his mad moods. He had invested his manic attention in Merrt, and Merrt didn’t have the heart to let him down. He knew he would let him down, but he wanted to be seen to make an effort, so it didn’t seem like he’d just let it happen. A few dozen hours’ extra target practice, what could that hurt? It proved that Larkin was his friend, and he was willing to humour his friend’s confidence. It meant that when he finally had to say he couldn’t do it, he’d know that he couldn’t do it. He had proof. Evidence. He’d tried, so the failure was softened.

Merrt had the bolt-action rifle Larkin was using to train him and a box of shells. Larkin had yet to explain the full significance of the old mech weapons in terms of the mission profile. A longlas was a far superior weapon. Only a few people in the Tanith First knew what they were heading into and what they might be expected to do when they got there. Merrt knew Larkin himself only understood bits of it. Just enough to train specialisms.

The one and only thing everybody knew was that they were not heading for a happy place. The next mission was going to be damn hard work.

Merrt had lined up some old tin cups, pots and lubricant canisters as targets, and set himself up in a seated position, his back against the cavity wall to take his weight, the rifle braced across a stand he’d rigged from an old metal bench. He’d then adjusted and finessed the rest using a couple of the sand socks every marksman carried in his pouch. He had a simple optic scope for range finding, but he used it separately, lining up an angle then putting the scope aside to take final aim along the iron sights of the gun.

He allowed for air drift, and the rifle’s innate inclination to dip and rise on discharge. The weapon had a tiny left-hand bias, which Larkin had corrected for by adjusting the sights with a watch maker’s screwdriver. Merrt let his tension out, then let all the air in his lungs go, a long slow exhalation so that even the stir of respiration or the tremble of suspended breathing wouldn’t affect the aim. The only thing he couldn’t reduce was the infinitesimal quake of his heartbeat, so he timed to fire between beats. Beat… line up the shot… beat… check the line… beat… fire.

The shot echoed down the cavity. The round clipped the lip of a tin pot, and made it judder. He’d been aiming for a mark on the pot about a middle finger’s distance away from what he’d actually hit.

Hopeless. Fething hopeless.

To even be considered for a lanyard, he’d have needed to partially overlap the target spot.

‘That is a poor shot.’

Merrt jumped. It wasn’t so much that someone had surprised him, it was that someone so big had miraculously appeared in his line of sight.

He scrambled up, knocking over the stand.

‘Gn! Gn! Gn!’

Surprise gave way to fear.

The White Scar squinted down the range, then looked back at the human with the rifle.

‘Very poor,’ said Sar Af. ‘Pathetic. Why do you even bother?’

‘Gn… gn… gn…’

‘Speak up? Are you simple?’

‘I’m gn… gn… gn… practising!’

Sar Af frowned. He coughed, and then rubbed the tip of his nose with armoured fingers that could crush bone.

‘You will be here a long time,’ he said.

‘I’ve been here a long gn… gn… gn… time already,’ said Merrt.

Sar Af nodded. He held out his hand.

‘Give it to me.’

His voice reminded Merrt of Jago. Dry winds, gusting forlornly through dusty valleys. Sandstone eroded by the air. Merrt handed him the rifle.

Sar Af took it; a stick, a toy. He sighted down the barrel, holding it one-handed, as if to check the barrel was actually straight. The trigger guard was entirely too small for his fingers.

He handed it back.

‘I cannot use that. Shoot again.’

‘Sir?’

‘Again.’

Merrt reached to reset the stand and pick up the sand socks.

‘Do not bother with that. Just take a good shot from where you are. Just aim and shoot.’

Merrt slunked the bolt, ejected the shell case, took another round out of the box at his feet, and chambered it. He glanced at the Space Marine. The giant was simply staring down at him, impassive.

Merrt put the gun up to his cheek, chose a tin cup, sighted, breathed out, and fired. The shot clipped the cup hard enough to spin it off the block. It made several dull, hollow sounds as it bounced on the hold deck.

‘Still pathetic,’ said Sar Af. He looked at Merrt ‘Good enough for Guard fire on a field, I suppose, but not precise enough for anything else.’

Merrt didn’t know what to say.

The White Scar was still looking at him, but his mind was far away. It felt to Merrt like the Space Marine was precisely playing back at a painstakingly slow rate the memory of Merrt taking the shot so he could analyse it.

He stopped, looked back at Merrt, and then suddenly reached out a hand, grabbing Merrt by the jaw and throat. The hand turned Merrt’s head to the side. Merrt struggled and choked.

‘This jaw. This augmetic repair, it is your problem,’ said Sar Af. ‘You are being defeated by your own concentration. Your focus is so intense that as you fire the gun, it stimulates the neurodes in your jaw and you twitch.’

‘I gn… gn… gn… twitch?’

‘Just as you fire. Your jaw clenches.’

Sar Af let him go.

‘It is physically impossible for you to shoot well.’

Merrt swallowed.

‘Come back again tomorrow,’ said Sar Af.

The main refectory was in the mid decks. The walls and floor were plated with dull, galvanised steeling, and the metal tables and benches were bolted in place. There was a constant clatter of utensils and dishes against metal surfaces, and the air frequently fumed with steam from the galley.

Wilder picked at the slab on the plate in front of him.

Meryn sat down opposite. He had a covered dish of food and a tin beaker. Meryn drank the contents of the beaker in one swallow, then slid the empty beaker across the table to Wilder.

Wilder looked at the cup. Meryn took a fork out of his top pocket and began to eat.

‘How’s yours, Jakub?’ he asked, pleasantly.

Wilder didn’t reply. He picked up the empty beaker and looked in it. There was a little brown paper wrap in the bottom of the cup.

‘What’s that?’

‘Happiness,’ replied Meryn, still eating.

‘For me?’

Meryn chewed to empty his mouth before replying.

‘They’ll make our mutual friend Blenner happy, which is the same thing.’

Wilder put the cup down again as if he had no intention of touching the little bag of narcotic pills.

‘Where are they from?’

‘Costin,’ said Meryn.

‘He grows them on a special tree, does he?’

‘Do you want them or not?’

Meryn leant his elbow on the table, rocking the fork in his hand. He stared at Wilder, chewing another mouthful.

‘Do you know where we’re going?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Wilder.

Meryn sighed.

‘Yes, I suppose if I don’t get told, you certainly wouldn’t.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means some people get on and some don’t, Jakub. Some people enjoy favour. You were right, what you said to Gendler about Gaunt’s brat.’

‘Why would I have lied?’ asked Wilder.

‘No reason. Gaunt’s got my adjutant running around looking after the spoiled little brat. The kid’s no soldier. Not old enough. Doesn’t look like he’s done a hand’s turn in his life. Certainly never fought. He’d blow away if the Archenemy so much as farted. Got his own cabin, though.’

‘His own cabin…’

Meryn grinned.

‘Can you believe that? Gaunt pretends he wants him treated like all the others, like every common lasman, but then his psychobitch lifeguard – because every common lasman has a lifeguard, don’t they? Then his lifeguard says he can’t share a general billet with other men. Oh no. She insists. She needs him behind a door she can defend.’

‘She said this to Gaunt?’

‘Of course not,’ said Meryn. ‘She says it to me. See how he did that? He declares that we’re going to treat the brat like everyone else, then makes it my problem, so that the stink of favouritism doesn’t stick to him.’

‘What did you do?’ asked Wilder.

‘Gave him the small end cabin on the officer quarter block near mine.’

Wilder sat back, and sipped from his beaker.

‘Doesn’t that undermine Gaunt’s wishes?’ he asked.

‘Gaunt’s passive aggressive. He says one thing, but he means another. Come on, Wilder, you know how this goes. If I’d stuck to my guns and made the boy sleep in the general barrack, I’d have suddenly found myself getting all the shit details. It would have become E Company’s turn to hose out the latrines, or spearhead the next attack.’

‘So Gaunt gets his way and it looks like someone else’s idea,’ said Wilder.

‘You’re beginning to see the Imperial truth,’ grinned Meryn.

‘Why do you hate him so much?’

Meryn shrugged.

‘He killed my world. My life. That deserves payback, sooner or later. But it’s not that, so much. Everything I have, everything I’ve built up, I’ve made it for myself. Company command. Rank. Privilege. Influence. I did it all myself. I don’t get things handed to me. I’m not part of his inner circle.’

‘Who is?’

‘Kolea. Baskevyl. Mkoll. Even Rawne these days, because apparently Rawne left his balls behind on Gereon. I don’t owe Gaunt anything. He owes me everything. And he’s never going to give it, so I’m taking everything I can.’

‘What about Gendler?’

‘Gendler’s the same,’ said Meryn, cutting another mouthful with the side of his fork, ‘Gaunt took his life away. You have to understand, Didi was a rich man on Verghast. Up-spine. Noble blood. Lost it all in the Zoican War, family, property. And what choice did he get? Live in poverty in Vervunhive during the long years of post-war rebuild and deprivation, hoping that one day his legal claims for compensation might be heard in the assizes? Or take the Act of Consolation, where the dispossessed could join the Guard and start a new life?’

‘Gendler made his choice,’ said Wilder.

‘Yes, he did. He said goodbye to his old life, to what family he had left, and came to serve Gaunt. And has Gaunt ever recognised him? Seen fit to make him more than sergeant? Didi cut ties with his relatives forever, but Gaunt? They bring his fething son through the warp to be with him. He gets to bring his past with him. He gets to have a life. He gets to have a family. The Emperor’s Imperial Guard makes sure of that. We sacrifice so he gets to be what he is. It’s always about favour, Jakub, just like I said. It’s always about favour and who you know.’

Wilder thought about it. Meryn watched his face.

‘I know you feel it too, Jakub,’ said Meryn. ‘Just like us. Your brother. His command. His regiment. And look how they treat you. Like a joke.’

Wilder put down his fork.

‘Life’s unfair,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

‘Right. So you make it fairer,’ said Meryn.

‘How?’

‘Well Didi says we should kill Gaunt’s kid,’ said Meryn.

He smiled at the horrified expression on Wilder’s face.

‘Calm down. Didi’s just a bit angry. It’s the Vervunhive connection. Gaunt’s not even up-spine blood, and he gets noble favour. Seriously, it’s a joke. We’re not going to murder anybody. Didi had sunk a few. He was just being toxic. There are less dramatic things we can do that will be just as satisfying.’

‘Like what?’ asked Wilder.

Meryn nodded to the beaker.

‘You take those,’ he said, ‘you put them to work. That’s a start.’

He got up, stepped off the bench and picked up his plate.

‘Where I came from,’ he said, ‘men were raised as hunters. Hunters plan. They stalk. They take their time. You know what a hunter’s greatest weapon is, Jakub?’

‘No.’

‘Patience,’ said Meryn.

Eyes that were remarkably good copies of Trooper Pol Cohran’s watched the shift change at the deep hold containment area.

It had taken a few hours to find out where on board the prisoner was being held. The armoured well of an old battery magazine had been converted into a cell. That was smart thinking. The battery magazines had thicker walls than the discipline brig.

The enemy had placed security measures in the hands of a dedicated squad. The squad, first platoon of E Company, had been granted Commissariat S status. They were also regimental veterans, die-hard Ghosts, so there was little chance of co-opting or turning one.

Cohran watched from the shadows. He checked the approaches, the ways to and from the cell, the routines. Where did food come from? How was it brought? How many times a shift? What opportunities were there to intercept and tamper with it? At any time, there were four of the S Company guards around: two outside the hatch, two in the tank.

Cohran, at least the thing that was playing the role of Pol Cohran, was patient. Observation times were limited, because Cohran’s absence from the quarters deck would be noticed at certain times. He didn’t want to give up the identity. More particularly, he didn’t want the state of alert to be heightened because a trooper had gone missing.

But he was also keenly aware that his opportunities – and he had to choose one quickly – had fast-approaching expiry dates.

Blenner poured himself a second mug of caffeine and fantasised about slugging a dash of amasec in it. He had never been comfortable making shift, the day-less nights and night-less days, the dreams, the dislocation. He hadn’t been sleeping well. The prospect of days or even weeks more did not fill him with relish. Give him a nice world and a straight fight instead. Actually, the fight could belong to someone else. Just a nice world would do.

He took another disdainful look at the data-slate he had been reading from. Excerpted pieces from the service record of Novobazky, pulled from the regimental archive. Wilder had been right. Novobazky could certainly talk. For hours at a time. It was giving Blenner a headache.

He took a pill. There were only a few of them rattling around in the bottle now. He didn’t like to think of them as a crutch, but he really didn’t like to think of facing life without them.

‘You look terrible,’ said Fazekiel, sitting down at his table in the staff section of the refectory.

‘Is there no beginning to your charm?’ asked Blenner.

She grinned, and began to arrange the food on her tray. She’d made them serve items like slab and veg paste on separate dishes. There was a lot of fibre, and a large canister of thick grey nutrient drink rather than caffeine.

She saw Blenner staring.

‘Healthy mind in a healthy body,’ she said.

‘In an entirely miserable and deprived body maybe,’ he replied. He looked at her drink. ‘What’s wrong with caffeine? That stuff will kill you. And what’s with the separate dishes?’

‘I don’t like things to touch,’ said Fazekiel. ‘It’s messy and undisciplined.’

‘Really?’ Despite the hour and his heavy head, Blenner grinned. Luna Fazekiel was always immaculate. He’d never known anyone adhere to dress code so exactly, even by the demanding standards of the Commissariat. She was obsessively clean and punctual, obsessively regimented and organised.

‘Something funny?’ she asked. She was a handsome woman, and a highly effective commissar, but control smoked off her like blood fog off a power blade. There was no margin for error with her. No give. The troop mass saw that in her, and that’s what made them respect her.

‘No, no,’ he said.

‘Thought you’d be at the inspection,’ she said.

He looked up.

‘Weren’t you the one who postponed it?’ she asked.

‘Ah,’ he said.

‘Where is this trooper?’ asked Edur.

‘Sir, I don’t know, sir,’ replied Yerolemew, rigidly at attention.

Edur looked at Wilder.

‘Comment, captain?’ he asked.

‘The trooper’s absence is unauthorised,’ said Wilder, staring at the empty cot. In the hold space around him, the bandsmen of his command stood beside their made-up cots in perfect rows. He knew they would all have been looking at him if they hadn’t had eyes front.

‘There’s the absence itself,’ said Edur, ‘and then there’s your sergeant major’s ignorance.’

‘I think they’re connected,’ said Wilder. ‘If Sergeant Major Yerolemew knew where the trooper was, the absence wouldn’t be unauthorised.’

‘Don’t get clever, captain,’ said Baskevyl.

Wilder could see that Major Baskevyl was uncomfortable. From what he’d heard, the major was a fair man who was probably unhappy seeing the good name of Belladon put under pressure.

‘What’s the trooper’s name?’ asked Edur.

‘Cohran, sir,’ said Yerolemew.

‘I will issue a citation,’ said Edur. ‘It will be for both the trooper and–’

‘Cohran is shift-sick,’ said Blenner. He’d walked into the hall behind the inspection party.

‘It’s a bad case,’ he added. ‘Afflicted a lot of personnel this time out. You had a touch yourself, didn’t you, captain?’

‘Yes,’ said Wilder.

‘I signed a chit and sent Cohran along to the infirmary,’ said Blenner.

‘The sergeant major was unaware,’ said Edur.

‘Because I’ve only just done it, and I was coming to tell the sergeant major about it,’ said Blenner.

Edur stared at him for a second.

‘That’s the thing about surprise inspections,’ said Blenner pleasantly. ‘They don’t fall at neatly punctuated moments.’

‘Very well,’ said Edur. ‘Let’s carry on.’

The inspection continued for another forty minutes. When Edur and Baskevyl were gone, Blenner took Wilder to one side.

‘Find two or three troopers you can trust. That girl, for example. Get them to find Cohran.’

Wilder nodded.

‘You didn’t send him to the medicae, did you?’

‘No,’ said Blenner. He wrote out a permission slip, tore it off his workbook, and folded it. ‘Get this to him, and tell him where he was supposed to be. Fast. Then tell him to come and find me and we’ll make sure this never happens again.’

‘Thank you,’ said Wilder.

‘Don’t thank me. My neck’s on the line too.’

Wilder thought for a moment, and then took something out of his pocket.

‘I wondered if you could do anything with these,’ he said.

Blenner took the small bag of pills.

‘What’s this?’ he asked.

‘I found them,’ said Wilder.

‘Where?’

Wilder shrugged.

‘Could there be… more of them?’ asked Blenner.

‘Probably,’ said Wilder. ‘Troopers are always finding a way of getting their hands on stuff. I’m sure some might turn up again.’

‘I see,’ said Blenner. He looked at the little bag and put it in his coat pocket. ‘I’ll take care of it, captain.’

‘Good,’ said Wilder. ‘I thought that would be for the best. Just thought we should keep it quiet.’

They looked around as Sergeant Major Yerolemew approached them.

‘Begging your pardon, sirs,’ he said. ‘Message just received. ‘The full regiment’s to assemble on the main excursion deck in an hour. The commander’s going to address us.’

‘I suppose now we’re underway,’ said Wilder, ‘we get to find out where we’re going.’

‘I suppose we do,’ said Blenner.

There was great activity through the mid-decks of the ship as the regiment assembled for the address. At his bridge position, Shipmaster Spika watched his passengers bustling like hive insects through the oily tunnels and dank companionways. He adjusted settings and switched the pict view of several screens.

People intrigued him. People who didn’t live in the void, like he did, seemed so contained by the fabric of the ship, so penned in. They were cattle, being transported to market. They did not inhabit the vessel the way he and his crew did.

His seat was a worn leather throne mounted in a gilded carriage. There were two big banks of control levers at the end of each armrest. The mechanisms were so old that many of the levers had been replaced: new metal bars and handle-tops seam-welded onto the eroded or broken spurs of the originals. Even some of the replacements had begun to wear. Spika adjusted the levers and his chair, mounted on a long, gimbal-jointed lifting arm, rose up out of the upper deck platform and extended out over the vast bridge. From there, he could sweep down and observe main console functions over the shoulders of key officers, or loft himself up into the domed roof to study the hololithic star-map projection or converse with the twitching, harnessed navigator.

He’d been invited to attend the address. A note had been delivered from the colonel-commissar fellow. He wouldn’t attend. He knew where they were going.

Besides, the warp was rough and troubled. There was a lively tide and unusual levels of dispersion and turbulence.

He needed to be on the bridge, at his station, in case things got rough.

‘What’s going on?’ Elodie asked Daur, passing him in the bustling central line hall.

‘Review,’ he replied. ‘Address. We get told our destination.’

‘Really?’ asked Elodie.

‘This is the point of it all,’ said Daur. ‘The point where we commit. The real start of the mission. Look, I’ve got to get on and get G Company assembled. I’ll come and tell you everything later.’

‘Everything?’ she asked.

‘I promise.’

They moved off in opposite directions. Pol Cohran stepped out of the shadows of a colonnade arch and merged with the flow of hurrying figures, just another hustling trooper.

He’d heard what the captain had said.

We get told our destination.

Priorities had just changed again.

‘You. You there!’

Cohran stopped, and turned slowly. Some of the personnel passing him bumped against him. Twenty paces behind him, Commissar Edur was glaring at him.

‘Cohran? Trooper Cohran?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Come here, damn it!’ Edur snapped, indicating a spot on the deck directly in front of him. The river of people around them parted and found other routes to take. No one wanted to get in the way of an Imperial commissar, especially not one who was clearly aggravated. Furthermore, no one had seen the newcomer Edur raise his voice yet.

‘Right here, trooper!’ Edur ordered.

Cohran hesitated a moment longer. He weighed his options, and realised they all depended on him maintaining his deception. In full view like this, in front of dozens of regimental personnel, his options were drastically limited.

He walked back to Edur, and stood in front of him, hands behind his back.

Edur wrinkled a lip.

‘Under the circumstances,’ said Edur quietly, ‘I think an attitude of attention shows more respect.’

Cohran snapped to attention.

‘This isn’t the infirmary,’ said Edur.

‘Sir?’

‘I said this is a long way from the infirmary, trooper.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Your acceleration sickness got better then, did it?’ asked Edur. ‘You don’t look sick to me. Or did the grace of the beati and the God-Emperor shine forth upon you and heal you?’

‘May they live forever in our hearts and our minds, sir,’ said Cohran.

‘Watch your tone.’

‘Sir.’

‘Let’s see this slip, trooper,’ said Edur.

‘Slip, sir?’

‘Your chit, trooper. The permission slip Commissar Blenner gave you.’

‘I…’ Cohran began. He paused. ‘I believe I must have lost it, sir.’

‘Let’s go, trooper,’ said Edur. ‘This way.’

‘I’ve got to report for the review and address, sir,’ Cohran said.

‘Move,’ said Edur.

Edur pointed and walked Cohran off the central line hall into one of the transverse access corridors. Edur stayed close behind Cohran, a menacing escort. Two men ran past the other way, carrying a cargo crate between them.

‘I should go to the address, sir,’ said Cohran.

‘Enough, trooper.’ said Edur.

‘It’s mandatory. If I miss it, the captain will–’

‘I said enough. You’re already in trouble for not being where you were supposed to be.’

‘But, I–’

‘Seriously, how deep do you intend to dig your way into this, Cohran? Punishment squad deep? Flogging deep?’

More men went by in the other direction, hurrying, buttoning up their jackets.

‘I just went to the infirmary, sir,’ said Cohran. ‘I can’t miss the review.’

‘I’m about out of patience with you, Cohran,’ said Edur. ‘I think you’ll be looking at the inside of the brig for quite a time, while I fathom out why Commissar Blenner tried to protect you. People like you frustrate me, Cohran. If you’d just faced up when I confronted you, I’d have probably let you off with a citation. But this blather, this effort to wriggle out. It’s what dilutes the Guard, you hear me? It’s the kind of rot-thinking that eats out the heart of a good regiment. You’re a weak man, Cohran, and there’s no excuse for it.’

‘I’m sick, sir,’ said Cohran. He stopped walking.

‘You’re not sick. Get on.’

Cohran shivered and groaned, as though something unpleasant had just undermined him on a gastric level.

‘Cohran?’

‘I’m going to throw up…’ gasped Cohran. He turned and blundered off the transverse into the narrow access tunnel of a engineering inspection bay, clinging to the wall and heaving.

‘Cohran!’ Edur strode after him. His hand went to his holster.

Cohran had gone a short way down the dank metal tunnel. There was a purr of heavy machinery from the bay up ahead. The light levels were much lower than out in the transverse, where people were still hurrying by. Cohran leaned his forearm and his head against the machined metal wall plate, breathing hard.

Edur drew his pistol and aimed it at the side of Cohran’s head.

‘You must think I’m a Throne-damned idiot if you think I’m going to fall for this play-acting,’ he said. ‘This just escalated to serious charges, you worthless–’

Cohran snapped around. With a speed Edur could not explain or anticipate, Cohran’s raised hand caught his wrist, knocked the aim aside, and propelled Edur backwards into the opposite wall of the tunnel. He hit hard, grazing the back of his head and driving the wind out of his lungs.

Cohran reversed his turn, embraced Edur’s gun-arm, extended it, and then broke the wrist.

Edur howled in pain. Cohran took the pistol out of the limp hand and tossed it into the engineering bay behind him.

It was done. Pain-shock alone would floor the commissar and–

Usain Edur was a strong man. A deep sense of righteous indignation broke through his wash of pain and surprise. It was a reserve that had kept him alive on several battlefields, a focus that allowed him to push past the undermining fog of injury or confusion.

He threw himself at Cohran, leading with his left shoulder. They cannoned together, and Edur dragged Cohran along a section of wall plate, splitting his lip and gouging his cheek. Cohran barked out a snarl and drove his elbow back into Edur’s collar-bone. Edur smacked back against the opposite tunnel wall.

He came at Cohran again, leading with his good hand. Cohran had turned to square up, head down, fists raised. As Edur surged forwards, Cohran swung a punch that caught Edur across the ear and drove him sideways. He stumbled into the end of the tunnel wall, and staggered off it into the engineering bay.

Cohran came after him. He needed to control things again, quickly, before somebody passing along the traverse heard or saw what was happening. The bay was more out of the way than the tunnel. The purr of the machinery masked their sounds. A single servitor menial turned from an inspection panel to note the visitors to his workspace with uncomprehending eyes. Caliper digits flexed as it tried to process the interruption to its basic task functions.

The centre of the bay area was a deep through-deck shaft that accommodated the rising spire of an accumulator stack. The ancient brass rings and steel-cased capacitor rods whirred and rotated. Fronds of energy crackled down in the shaft below the iron handrail.

Cohran barged Edur across the bay and into the rail, twisting his back and damaging his lower spine. Edur cried out in pain, lashed out, and connected with his broken hand. The blow, to the forehead, was enough to make Cohran flinch backwards, but the pain from the grinding bone made Edur gag and slump, his eyes and mouth wide, gasping like a landed fish.

Cohran kicked him in the chest, then again in the face, smashing Edur’s head back so it bounced off the guardrail. Edur collapsed in an awkward heap against the rail, his legs bent under him.

Cohran stepped forwards to snap his neck and finish the game.

He stopped dead, looking down the snout of Edur’s pistol. Somewhere during the scramble, the commissar had got hold of it again. He was aiming it with his good hand, his broken hand curled like a dead fledgling against his chest. His head was swaying and blood was drooling from his mouth. He’d lost some teeth, and one eye was beginning to swell shut.

‘Little bastard…’ Edur slurred.

The surprise reversal made Cohran lose control of his face for a second. The features rippled.

‘What the hell are you?’ Edur asked.

It was enough of a distraction. Cohran punched, his fingers gathered into a beak-shape. The inhuman force of the blow demolished Edur’s face and exploded the nasal and brow bones back into his brain. The hand holding the pistol dropped heavily. Edur’s pulverised face bowed forwards as if in prayer. Blood pattered out of it in three or four separate streams.

Cohran straightened up. He could feel blood running from his own cheek and lip. He turned. The servitor had risen to its feet, agitated. Cohran stepped forwards, grasped it by its ceramite jaw and cranium, and snapped its neck. He broke off one of the servitor’s digital tools and used it to gouge out the unit’s optics and burn out its visual memory core.

Cohran looked around. He peered over the rail and saw the long drop into the gloom of the exhaust sump at the foot of the stack. Without prevarication, he tipped Edur’s body down the shaft, watched it tumble and deflect off lower guard rails and then disappear. He threw the servitor in after it.

He needed to get cleaned up. He needed to get to the excursion deck.

‘They’re present and correct,’ said Beltayn.

Gaunt nodded. He put on his cap, peak first, adjusted it, and took a calming breath. Then he walked in through the vast entry hatch. Beltayn fell into step behind him, with an escort squad from A Company led by Criid and Mkoll.

The Armaduke’s main excursion deck was a vast hangar space with a floor plan equal to several parade grounds set end to end. Light shafted down from the lantern arrays bolted in amongst the girder ribs of the roof. Large craft, such as troop carrier landers and cargo runners, had been towed to the far end, away from the forward space doors. Some were enclosed in cages of gantry scaffolding so that servitors and Mechanicus crews could work on their maintenance. Small craft – the lighters and shuttles – had been hoisted up into the rafters on magnetic clamps and hung overhead like hunting trophies. On the port wing-hinge assembly of one suspended Arvus, a two-headed eagle perched and glared balefully down at Gaunt as he advanced out into the open space of the deck.

The entire regiment had assembled on the principal landing platform. The troopers were wearing operational uniforms rather than formal dress, but the clothes and kit had been cleaned and prepared to the highest standards. They were arranged in company blocks, with their officers to the fore of each section. A cantilevered through-deck elevator had been raised to form a podium in front of them. Company colours were displayed: Tanith, Verghast, Belladon.

The retinue had been permitted to attend. They clustered around the doorway or filled the second and third tier galleries of the deck’s upper levels. As he walked out through them, Gaunt saw two faces he recognised: Daur’s girl, Elodie, aloof and vigilant; Maddalena Darebeloved.

‘No representation from the Adeptus Astartes?’ Gaunt asked Beltayn quietly as they walked.

‘They seem constantly occupied, sir,’ Beltayn whispered back. ‘It is reported to me that the Iron Snake spends all his time in relentless combat practice, and the Silver Guard does nothing but study schematic simulations.’

‘What about the White Scar?’

‘No one knows, sir. He seems to be roaming the ship.’

‘And no representation from Spika’s crew?’

‘I think they’re busy doing ship-y things, sir.’

They came out onto the main platform ahead of the review, and Rawne, his eyes front, barked out a stern order. The regiment seamlessly came to attention with one ringing clash. At this signal, Sergeant Major Yerolemew raised his golden pace-stick, and Trooper Perday tilted her head back, raised her helicon, and blasted out a pure, clean, solo fanfare.

Gaunt winced slightly. The playing was fine. In fact, it was perfect, and the sound remarkably uplifting. He just wondered when the Tanith First had become that sort of regiment, and when he had become that sort of commander. It had never been about ceremony.

He stepped up on to the elevated platform, made the sign of the aquila and told the regiment to stand easy.

‘With this new strength,’ he said, in a voice that was used to carrying effortlessly, ‘already welcomed into our fold, we stand together for the first time.’

His eyes drifted across the sea of faces. They were attentive and still, but only a few betrayed any emotion. Ban Daur could never hide that earnest hint of determination. Major Zhukova, a new face for Gaunt, was positively glowing with pride. There was something wry and mischievous in Hlaine Larkin’s eyes, and it was a distinctive and familiar as the ever-present hint of dissatisfaction on Viktor Hark’s.

Then there was Meritous Felyx Chass. He was in the front rank of E, behind Meryn, flanked by Dalin Criid. Dalin or Ludd had procured a set of Tanith blacks and a camo-cloak for him. He looked breakable and frail, like a child dressed up as a soldier. It was almost as if Dalin had brought his little sister out onto the parade ground. Chass looked a good ten years younger than the youngest members of the company.

With a slight pang and a curious sensation of surprise, Gaunt realised who Chass reminded him of. With that expression of resolution not to fail or let anyone down, Chass looked like a boy, the Hyrkan Boy, the cadet in the corner of regimental picts of the fighting Hyrkan 8th, standing between Sergeant Tanhause and Commissar Oktar.

‘We have embarked, and are underway,’ said Gaunt. ‘And, isolated by the shift, we no longer risk the dangers of loose talk in a home port. I can now tell you a little of the mission we are undertaking.’

No one moved, but he could sense their expectation.

‘From the accompany bonds, you know this endeavour will be direct and risky. We will be making a shipboard attack on an enemy facility. That facility is located in the Rimward Marginals, at a place called Salvation’s Reach. Specialism briefings will begin immediately after this address, and section leaders will be informed of specific mission requirements. We have, according to the revised estimate, about a week of lead time before we translate and begin deceleration approach of the target area. However, an estimated twenty-three hours from now, we will translate to effect a conjunction with other Battlefleet elements at Tavis Sun. This resupply is expected to last just a few hours, and is ship to ship. Unless this mission is altered or aborted, we will not see a friendly port until this work is complete.’

He raised his head slightly, regarding them all.

‘I expect only the very best of you. I can’t pretend I can guarantee you will all return. But I ask you the one question I have always asked you. Do you want to live forever?’

There was a sudden, rousing cheer of approval from the ranks, like a close shell-burst, that made the double-headed eagle up on its perch flap its wings.

‘Now get to your stations and begin preparation,’ said Gaunt. ‘Dismissed.’

As the congregation began to dissolve, Pol Cohran stepped out of the back rank of the band section and headed towards the nearest exit. A spray of synthetic skin had sealed his cuts and disguised the discoloration, but he had no wish to be in the company of others for longer than was necessary.

Now he had information, and it was essential he used it.

Beside the elevated platform, Gaunt turned to Hark and Fazekiel.

‘The men seem to be in good spirits,’ he remarked, watching them disperse.

‘They were inactive on Balhaut for too long,’ said Hark. ‘And the newcomers are keen to prove themselves.’

‘We are indeed,’ said Fazekiel.

‘By the way,’ said Gaunt, ‘where’s Edur?’

‘I haven’t seen him since the start of day-cycle,’ said Hark.

Vaynom Blenner walked into the infirmary section that had been reserved for the regiment’s use. There were another three infirmary units aboard to administer to the crew. This suite was old and poorly maintained. It was clearly a back-up facility. The chrome and stainless steel surfaces and wall plates were stained with limescale deposits and other, less appealing, residues. Autoclaves chugged like poorly maintained generator engines. The central examination room radiated into a ward, two surgical theatres, and some side chambers for storage and supplies, along with private office spaces for the medicae personnel.

There was no sign of anybody. Blenner walked into the ward. One cot was occupied. Trooper Fulch from N Company had torn his shoulder unloading munitions boxes.

‘Where are all the doctors?’ Blenner asked.

‘They were here just a minute ago, sir,’ said Fulch.

Blenner walked back out into the central examination room. Kolding suddenly emerged from one of the rear chambers. He was looking for something. He saw Blenner.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked.

Blenner stared back at the albino levelly.

‘Where’s Dorden? I deal with Dorden.’

Kolding stared back at him. His eyes were unreadable behind those damn tinted lenses. He was worse than that damn native partisan Ibram insisted on keeping around.

‘Dor-den,’ said Blenner, elaborately separating the syllables as though Kolding was a simpleton.

‘You’ll have to come back,’ said Kolding.

‘Throne I will! I want to see Dorden now!’

‘Kolding, what’s taking so–’

Curth emerged from the back with an urgent demeanour. She stopped short as soon as she saw Blenner.

‘Commissar.’

‘I want to see Dorden,’ Blenner said.

Curth looked quickly at Kolding. She took something out of a cabinet drawer and handed it to him.

‘Go on,’ she told him. ‘I’ll be right there.’ Kolding disappeared back into the rear of the infirmary.

‘That man needs training in interpersonal skills,’ said Blenner.

‘How can I help you?’ asked Curth.

‘And you need training in basic comprehension,’ said Blenner. ‘I want to see Dorden.’

He realised instantly that she wasn’t in the mood for playful scolding. Her mood was hard and prickly, even by Ana Curth standards.

‘There’s an emergency,’ she said. ‘He can’t attend you just now. How can I help you?’

Blenner pursed his lips. He wanted Dorden, but he quite liked the excuse to have to deal with her. His business with Dorden could probably wait.

He took the little bag Wilder had given him out of his coat pocket and tossed it to Curth. She caught it neatly, one-handed.

‘What are these?’ she asked.

‘That’s what I want you to tell me.’

She opened the bag, tipped a couple of the tablets out into her palm and squinted at them.

‘It’s a narcotic. Somnia. It’s a morphiac derivative. That’s a Munitorum pharmaceutical stamp. Where did you get them?’

‘They… turned up during a routine search. Are they strong?’

‘Pretty strong. I mean, I’d think twice about prescribing them. Effective, but addictive. I sometimes use the liquid version as palliative relief on very damaged patients.’

‘So, to ease their last hours?’

‘Yes. I’d have to have very compelling reasons to issue them otherwise. Perhaps to a patient in chronic pain who is allergic to safer compounds. You found one of the men with these?’

‘Yes. You missing them?’

‘I’d have to check, but I don’t think so. We carry such small quantities of this as standard, Lesp or one of the other orderlies would have noticed.’

‘There is an ongoing problem though, isn’t there?’ asked Blenner.

‘Yes, and we’re working on it. But it’s usually milder sedatives that are easier to misplace. Harder stuff like this is rarer. It could have come out of the ship’s supplies. Do you want me to ask the ship’s chief medicae?’

‘No,’ he said. He paused, and then repeated the word. ‘No, I just wanted them identified. Thank you.’

‘Well, if that’s all,’ she said. She clearly had somewhere else she wanted to be.

‘I’ll take them with me,’ he said, holding out his hand.

‘I should dispose of them,’ she replied. ‘Oversight of pharmaceuticals is a medicae responsibility.’

‘It’s still a discipline matter for now,’ he said. ‘I’ll need them back as evidence.’

She resealed the bag and tossed it across to him.

‘Thank you,’ he said. He thought about the almost empty bottle in his pocket, but couldn’t bring himself to front her up with the question. He didn’t want her knowing. He needed to speak to Dorden.

Blenner nodded politely and walked out of the infirmary. Curth issued a deep exhalation of tension and hurried away into the back rooms.

In the hallway outside, Blenner collided with the orderly, Lesp, who was rushing towards the infirmary, leading Ayatani Zweil by the arm.

‘Watch where you’re going!’ Blenner exclaimed. He shot a look at Zweil, expecting some cantankerous barb back. Blenner had been around the regiment long enough to know that the old priest’s mouth didn’t possess a safety catch.

The look on Zweil’s face took him by surprise. Care, anxiety, dread.

‘What’s going on?’ Blenner asked. His mind put the pieces together. An empty infirmary. Kolding and Curth trying to get him to leave. The orderly bringing the priest in a hurry.

‘Oh, Throne,’ said Blenner, and turned back, striding through the infirmary into the back room.

‘Wait. Please!’ Lesp called after him.

‘Vaynom, what’s-your-name, Blenner. Show some Throne-damned respect and don’t be an arsehole!’ Zweil yelled. They were both rushing after him.

Blenner burst into the back office. Curth looked up from a tray of instruments in surprise, and the surprise quickly turned to despair at the sight of him. Kolding was on the far side of the room, administering a shot of something.

Dorden had brought a trolley table over when he fell. Gleaming instruments lay scattered across the deck mesh. They’d made him comfortable with bolsters from the day bed, but they hadn’t dared lift him. He looked so thin and pale.

‘This isn’t the time,’ said Curth.

‘What’s going on?’ Blenner asked.

‘Could you give the medicae some dignity and leave, please?’ she said, coming over to Blenner. Lesp led Zweil past them to the old doctor’s side.

‘Yes, there’s no need for you to be here,’ said Zweil as he went by.

‘Is he dying?’ Blenner asked. Dorden was now partially obscured by the figures crouching around him. He hadn’t even seemed conscious when Blenner walked in.

‘You know he is,’ Curth replied quietly. He could see she was battling to retain her professional composure.

‘I mean now,’ said Blenner.

‘He’s been well for the last week,’ she said, her voice still low. ‘Amazingly so. But I think the stress of making shift has taken its toll. He collapsed just now. I think we can stabilise him and get him some bed rest.’

‘He shouldn’t have come on this mission,’ said Blenner.

‘It would have been crueller to leave him behind,’ Curth replied.

‘Should Gaunt know? I should get Gaunt.’

‘No!’ she replied, fiercely. ‘He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want a fuss. Let him rest!’

‘You’ve brought the damn priest to him,’ said Blenner. ‘If he’s come to administer the Imperial Grace, then Ibram deserves to–’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘Zweil’s his friend. He’s been supporting him through this. It seemed right to fetch him here. Gaunt doesn’t need this on his mind just now.’

Blenner swallowed.

‘I didn’t mean to just burst in,’ he said.

‘It’s all right.’

‘You could have said something. I do have a few circumspect bones in my body.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ she said.

‘I really should say something to Ibram,’ said Blenner. ‘If something happens, and he finds out I knew–’

‘Then you don’t know,’ said Curth. ‘You didn’t see anything.’

Blenner thought about this, and nodded. He turned to go.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

A tiny flash of surprise crossed her face, as if it never occurred to anybody to ask her that.

‘Yes, commissar. Now get along so we can work.’

Blenner left. Curth went to Dorden’s side.

‘I think he’s stabilised,’ said Kolding quietly.

‘You should take things more easily,’ said Curth.

‘Why?’ whispered Dorden. His voice was the vaguest whisper of dry leaves.

‘Because doctors make the worst patients,’ said Curth.

‘Actually, carnodons make the worst patients,’ said Zweil. ‘I knew a tamer, a circus man, worked the bag o’ nails on Hagia, and he owned this performing–’

He paused. He saw the looks he was getting.

‘However, for now, I will stipulate that doctors, in fact, make worse patients that carnodons.’

Dorden managed a tiny smile.

‘Even carnodons, let’s say, with infected gums that haven’t eaten for a week, and then you accidentally leave the cage door open…’ Zweil trailed off into a mumble.

‘Did I hear Blenner’s voice?’ Dorden asked.

‘He’s gone now.’

‘I don’t want a fuss,’ said Dorden.

‘He’s gone,’ Curth repeated. ‘He won’t say anything.’

‘Nothing to say,’ said Dorden. ‘I’ll be on my feet again in a moment. I’m just tired.’

Curth looked up and saw Lesp trying not to cry.

‘He probably wants his pills,’ said Dorden. His voice was so far away. He beckoned Curth closer with twig fingers. ‘He comes to me for a little tonic. To settle him. Make sure you look after him, Ana.’

‘I will,’ she promised. ‘But let’s look after you first.’

Close to the warp engines, the noise was immense. Everything, every surface, every wall panel, every tooth in a person’s head, vibrated at an ultrafast frequency.

Layers of armour plate and bulkheads secured the drive chambers. Some sections were sealed chambers where only conditioned servitors or crewmen in protective armour could venture during drive function. Hard, hot yellow light shafted out through the letterbox viewing slits of the reinforced hatches like the glow from a furnace room port.

Vast engineering spaces were filled with dripping, frosty coolant systems, or the black-greased pistons of circulation pumps and galvanic generators. In sooty caverns full of smoke and flame, ogryn and servitor stokers shovelled granulated promethium resin into the chutes of the combustion generators, the huge conventional turbines that ran the Armaduke’s non-drive systems. In other, cooler chambers, ancient and perfectly machined empyroscopic rotors spun along horizontal axes, maintaining the ship’s spatial equilibrium and helping to sustain the integrity of the Geller Field that protected the ship from the psycho-reactive fabric of the immaterium.

The creature with Pol Cohran’s face concealed the body of the engineering ensign he had just murdered in a tool locker, and entered the massive engineering chamber containing the Armaduke’s Geller field device. He’d had to kill three times to get this close. The ship’s drive sections were not specifically secure or patrolled, but access or activity by anyone who wasn’t officer class or engineering division was immediately noticed. The first crewman had died because he’d seen Cohran. His body was now incinerating in a promethium furnace and Cohran was wearing his grimy overalls. The second and third crewmen had died because Cohran had needed to extract deck plan specifics and information about the drive deck layout. One was now crumpled at the bottom of a coolant drain, and the other had just been hung by the throat from a hook between stoking shovels and furnace tongs.

Sound and vibration in the Geller field device chamber was oddly disconcerting. The air was dry, and there was a considerable static field that made his skin prickle. There were rubberised handrails around the chamber so that crewmen could earth themselves and not cause a shock or spark fire off the metal surfaces.

He could feel the throb of the machine in his gut, the pulsing of its operation in his sinuses and eyeballs. The device, a piece of technology vital to all warpship function, generated a subatomic field around the ship, a bubble of realspace that protected the vessel from the vicissitudes of the aether around it. Once the warp engines had breached the veil of the warp, a starship depended on its Geller field to insulate it from the lethal and corrupting touch of the immaterium by maintaining a psychic ward.

Cohran knew he was in a position to end it all. Sabotaging the Geller field device would take some doing, and would probably require the use of something explosive or combustible, but he was more than capable of procuring and using either. If he could collapse the Geller field while the Armaduke was still in the warp, then the ship would perish. It would be torn apart by the unreality storms of the raw aether, shredding in an instant. Either that, or the daemonic essence of the warp would find form and intrude into the ship, or the minds of the occupants. Unwarded, the ship would be vulnerable to the spawn of the Realm of Chaos, and everyone aboard would know only the extremity of madness before the Ruinous Powers devoured them.

Then everything would be gone and done, and finished, the pheguth and his treachery, the threat that treachery represented, this whole vainglorious undertaking. The creature wearing Pol Cohran’s face would have completed the mission he was charged to perform by his master, Rime, and his master’s master, the Anarch. He would have finally stopped the Imperial Guard’s determined efforts to deploy the pheguth Mabbon Etogaur against the armies of the Gaur.

But during his address, Gaunt had betrayed other secrets. The target was Salvation’s Reach. That intelligence needed to be communicated. More importantly, they were due to make conjunction at Tavis Sun. They would be rendezvousing with Battlefleet elements, possibly one of the considerable crusade fleet packs that were maintaining Imperial superiority in this part of the sector.

To destroy the pheguth and his handlers, and the Armaduke along with it, that was a victory. To achieve all that and cripple a Battlefleet division, that was a truly worthy opportunity.

A more subtle form of sabotage was needed. A more insidious piece of manipulation. His master had taught him well, trained him to improvise imaginatively in just such circumstances, to make the best use of elements at his disposal for the greatest effect.

Cohran opened the casing of the control circuits that governed the empyroscopic rotors.

He was not going to collapse the Geller field. He was simply going to alter its rhythm.

Something, somewhere, trembled.

‘What was that?’ asked Shipmaster Spika.

None of the bridge crew answered him directly. Copious quantities of data shunted through their connective links and displayed across the monitor plates. The air was filled with the dry scratchy voices of vox links talking to each other.

He’d felt a minuscule vibration, an almost subliminal palsy. It had come to him through the deck, through the data-stream of the ship, one tiny aberrant shudder in a constant vortex of noises and rhythms and pulses and information.

He consulted his data viewers and asked questions of his cogitators. Nothing seemed wrong, nothing out of place, not within the margins of operation, and certainly not given the temperamental and mercurial nature of an old warpship like the Highness Ser Armaduke.

Spika sat back and thought. It had probably been nothing, or a fleeting glitch that had corrected itself.

But it was a nothing he hadn’t liked at all.

Cavity 29617 was cold. Merrt had been waiting there for about half an hour, unwilling to practise or set up shots, unwilling to leave.

He sat at one end of the long chamber, arms hugged around the old rifle.

‘You are here. Good.’

Sar Af was standing behind him. Merrt got up quickly.

‘You gn… gn…. gn… told me to come back,’ he said.

‘And you have proven you can follow instruction,’ said the White Scar.

He reached out a hand and grabbed Merrt by the jaw and throat, turning Merrt’s head to the side. Merrt struggled again.

‘Let me gn… gn… gn… go!’

‘This jaw. It is definitely your problem,’ said Sar Af. ‘You are being defeated by your own concentration. Your focus is so intense that as you fire the gun, it stimulates–’

‘Yes. Yes! You told me all this gn… gn… gn… yesterday!’

Sar Af let him go.

‘It is physically impossible for you to shoot well.’

Merrt swallowed.

‘Again, you told me so yesterday. Did you ask me back just so you could gn… gn… gn… humiliate me?’

Sar Af stuck out his chin, as if considering a response. He turned away.

‘Set up a shot,’ he said.

Merrt stood for a moment, then picked up several tin pots and walked the length of the cavity. He set the pots out along the top of the block and walked back to where the Space Marine was waiting.

Sar Af had produced something from an equipment pouch. Merrt realised that it was a disposable shot injector just a second before the White Scar grabbed his head again and jammed it into his jawline, behind his left ear.

The pain was considerable. Merrt cried out and staggered backwards, his eyes watering.

‘What the feth are you gn… gn… gn… doing?’ he asked.

‘Just wait.’

Sar Af took the injector and tossed it away.

Merrt had a lancing pain in his ear and a horrible warmth spreading through the line of his throat and his jaw. He started to gag slightly as the numbness increased.

‘Attend to yourself,’ said Sar Af. ‘You are drooling.’

‘What have you gn… gn… gn… done to me? What gn… gn… gn… was that stuff?’

‘Muscle relaxant,’ said the White Scar innocently. ‘Quite powerful, I suppose. A tranquiliser. The sort of stuff a medicae would use for pain control. During an amputation, for instance.’

Clutching his throbbing, disturbed face, Merrt looked at the Space Marine in horror.

‘Pah, relax,’ said Sar Af. ‘I am not going to cut anything off. Not literally.’

Merrt tried to answer, but he only managed to make a deep and inhuman rumbling in his throat. His entire jaw and cheek was numbed and immobile. The lower half of his face was inert and paralysed.

‘The jaw,’ said Sar Af, gesturing towards Merrt. ‘That jaw of yours. It is the root of your inability.’

The Space Marine went over and picked up the old rifle. ‘You are being defeated by your own concentration,’ he said as he came back, as though he were repeating some litany lesson that needed to be repeated so that an unwilling student might eventually learn it.

‘Your focus is so intense that as you fire the gun, you twitch. So we need to remove the jaw from the equation. It cannot twitch if it cannot twitch.’

Merrt felt ill. The paralysis was so unpleasant that he felt he might be sick, except he couldn’t guarantee that his mouth would open to allow it. Visions of choking on his own vomit filled his head and made things worse.

‘Take the shot,’ said Sar Af, handing him the rifle.

Merrt glared back at him, hoping his toxic stare might communicate what his voice could not.

‘Take the shot,’ Sar Af repeated.

Merrt took a deep breath. He pulled back the bolt, took a round from his pocket, slipped it into the breach, locked the bolt back into place, then turned and lined up on the row of pots. A standing stance, unbraced apart from his own posture. No rest, no sand-sock, no tripod, no back brace: neither a recommended nor reliable position. He didn’t care.

‘Go on,’ said Sar Af. ‘Take the shot.’

Merrt settled his shoulders. He felt spittle on his lip, the dull throb of numbness under his ear. He took aim along the iron sights.

He breathed out.

He fired.