The proximity detector attached to his armour gave its alert. Ragnar piked and twisted the throttles on the flight pack. In his peripheral vision he could see his comrades do the same. A moment later he braced his knees for impact. His boots grated on the hard surface of the asteroid. They were down.
The easy part was over.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The asteroid rotated below him. Its motion threatened to throw Ragnar off. He lifted his feet as the surface moved smoothly underneath him. He used the jet pack to move with slow controlled bursts. The others did the same. They resembled fish cruising along the bottom of an ocean.
In seconds they reached the point they intended to breach — a large window above the observation deck. From inside it would probably look more like a glass floor. The asteroid’s rotation would push people down towards the outside walls as it simulated gravity.
Torin slapped the thermal charge into place. They scooted away from the blast area, taking cover in the crevasses covering the asteroid’s rocky side. A moment later, a brilliant flash lit the shadows of the small canyon. Ragnar looked up and saw a glittering trail of crystal debris erupt. Air crystallised as it streamed into space. Plants and paintings and small pieces of furniture followed it.
They headed in. Ragnar increased the power of the jets to compensate for the outward rush of the gas. They could have waited for the decompression to be complete but time was precious now. Glittering contrails and earthshaking explosions told him that the courier had struck, taking out the comm-dishes and external defences.
Disorientation struck Ragnar as he piked through the blast hole. Suddenly up seemed down and down seemed up. He had gone from being on the outside to the inside of this hollow world and the two directions were now reversed. He somersaulted through the air and landed on his feet, hitting the restraint release button on the packs harness with one hand while drawing his bolt pistol with the other. Before it hit the ground, his chainsword was in his hand and he was moving along the corridor.
Men lay on the ground with blood pumping from their noses, ears and mouths. They writhed in agony as decompression ruptured lungs and eardrums. He swung his chainsword, not wanting to waste bolter shells to put enemies out of their misery. The temperature dropped rapidly. Warning runes flashed on the walls proclaiming danger to any survivors within.
Ragnar did not like this. The helmet constrained his senses. He had to rely on his eyes now. Hearing and scent, the Space Wolves’ primary sources of information, were useless when they were suited up. All he could catch was the sound of his breathing and the recycled stink of his own body. He glanced around and saw his companions moving into position, weapons drawn. Torin slung his heavy bolter over his shoulder as he fingered his utility belt for tools. Haegr brandished his enormous hammer.
For now, they were comparatively safe. Any foes would not yet have had time to suit up. Doubtless they were confused, unsure of what had hit them. Torin had moved to one of the internal airlocks. This was the risky part. If they wanted to take Pantheus alive they needed to get into the air-filled interior of the mansion. This meant using an airlock. Hopefully the confusion would help them, but things were still tricky.
Torin knelt by the door. He had a tool-kit in his hand and was swiftly stripping the lock’s external covering. At the point of decompression, all the doors had sealed automatically but they could still be manually over-ridden. In seconds there was another cloud of freezing air as the door slid open. Moments later they were inside and letting air cycle out. Now things were getting dangerous.
If anyone was monitoring the airlock system at that moment, their position would be given away.
Hopefully, anybody at the control altars had other things on their mind. They might construe one airlock opening as some sort of system failure, but even if they did so, it would still attract their attention. An airlock malfunction in any sealed environment always would.
At least he could hear now, as air rushed in to fill the lock. There was little space for four huge Marines along with their weapons in this small space. Once again it was made graphically clear to him why airlocks had such a well-deserved reputation for being death traps in boarding actions. All it would take would be one well-placed grenade and the four of them would be sent to Russ’s Iron Halls to await the Last Battle.
Ragnar found himself holding his breath, his eyes focused on the internal door. His weapon was at the ready. If someone was waiting to attack, he was certain he could snap off a shot before they could. His reflexes were far, far swifter than a normal human’s, except if they were on combat drugs. This thought niggled at his mind.
Air filled the chamber now. Green indicator lights showed that pressure had equalised. Torin opened the internal door. They were in. There was air here too, and sound carried well enough. Ragnar could hear the warning klaxon’s blare. Ahead of them lay a corridor and an elevator shaft leading upwards. Elevators were another death trap to be avoided. Ragnar unsealed his helmet and tasted the air. It was pure and breathable. His helmet would not have unlocked if it had not been.
A rush of unfamiliar scents hit him: purification essences, body odours, the never-quite extinguish-able sewage smells of humans in a sealed environment. He greeted them all like old friends, taking in deep breaths, and orientating himself. He felt immediately more confident and capable, the master of his environment. He clipped his helmet to his belt. His comrades had done the same.
“Avoid the elevator. There should be a maintenance ramp around the corner,” said Valkoth. His dark lean face looked grim and more pensive than usual. He held his bolter steadily though, and there was no sign of tension in either his stance or scent.
They moved off past the elevator, Ragnar in front, Torin at the rear, and the other two in the middle. Ragnar felt adrenalin flood through him, bringing a peculiar sense of joy. He might die here, but he felt fully alive, knowing each minute could be his last. A wave of scent warned him before he turned the corner that he would find humans there.
There was a group of confused men, running to their emergency positions. One of them shouted into an intercom, demanding to know what had happened. They all carried sidearms. Ragnar did not wait for them to see him. He pumped bolter shells into the leader, and watched the man’s head explode as if hit with a mallet. A second later Haegr stepped forward and reduced the rest of him to bloody shreds of red meat.
“What’s going on? Report!” demanded a voice from the other end of the intercom. Torin strode past and bellowed, “Hull breach, decompression, what the hell!” then he smashed the device with his gauntleted fist.
They raced up the ramp and entered a large open hallway. The wall hangings were luxurious. The lighting was dim and off centre. A great deal of religious imagery covered the walls: icons depicting the golden throne and the Emperor’s Slaughter of the Mutants. One could almost have mistaken this place for the monastery of a particularly sybaritic religious sect. Perhaps that was what it was. Ragnar was not impressed by this outward show of piety. He had seen the followers of darkness wear the cloak of holiness far too often in the past.
Ragnar noticed that he felt lighter as they rose. More and more scents filled the air, criss-crossing and fading as the fans mingled the odour trails. There certainly were plenty of men in this mansion, he thought. One of them appeared in the arched doorway at the opposite end of the hall.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked. Ragnar shot him.
They proceeded towards another ramp. More men appeared behind the first and a volley of fire from the Wolves took them down. Ragnar heard footsteps receding. Obviously someone was trying to get away. He must not be allowed to sound the alarm.
Ragnar sprinted forward, and rolled through the archway, coming up in a crouch, hoping he would be below the line of fire of any enemy. A man dressed in brown stood at the far end of the corridor. He was shouting something into another intercom. Ragnar took aim and fired. The man went down with a huge sucking wound in his chest. Another
shot smashed the intercom. Too late. The sound of the klaxon had become a jagged, rising wail. Ragnar surmised that this was a security alert.
“Looks like we’ve been spotted,” said Haegr from behind him.
“Really?” said Torin. “I would never have guessed.”
“Good,” said Haegr. “I never liked killing people who couldn’t fight back.”
“You’ll kill anybody necessary to get this job done,” said Valkoth. “Don’t you forget it!”
Haegr grunted. They moved onwards. All around them, Ragnar could sense the enemy mustering. The Wolves increased their pace. The faster they got away from the site where they had been spotted, the harder it would be for the enemy to use their superior numbers and their control of the facility against them.
As they rose towards the asteroid’s core, the displays of piety grew more luxuriant and profuse. Glass cabinets in the walls held relics marked by golden placards. In swift succession they passed the finger bones of saints, prophets and scholars, the death masks of Imperial heroes, a bolter that had been borne by Commissar Richter. All the relics shared one thing in common: they were connected with famous men who had hated deviants with a passion.
It was not something of which Ragnar would normally have disapproved. His entire upbringing and all his training had drilled into him the idea that the mutant was mankind’s greatest enemy. Strange, he thought, that now he was fighting in defence of those who many considered to be mutants. He pushed these thoughts to one side. He was coming dangerously close to the Sin of Relativism.
A wave of scent told him that doors had opened down the corridor. He whirled in time to see a group of armed and armoured men. Some had donned full-body armour, others were wearing military flak, and all carried lasrifles. Before any of them could fire, Ragnar opened up. His battle-brothers joined in. More men were cut down. Las beams splashed off the walls behind Ragnar, and blistered his armour. He ducked and weaved, trying to make himself a difficult target. In this narrow space, with a sufficient concentration of firepower, the enemy could not avoid hitting them.
A small egg-shaped object flew overhead from behind Ragnar. It bounced and rolled down the corridor into the chamber where the cultists lurked. A moment later an explosion smashed through the men. Screams and the scent of blood told Ragnar that it had even got those out of sight. They moved on.
A crackle of static in Ragnar’s earbead told him that the courier had managed to patch itself into the asteroid’s internal comm-net. He could hear a dozen voices gabbling away now.
“There are dozens of them!”
“Hull breached in three places.”
“Enemy sighted in quadrant four.”
“Have found bodies. Signs of mutilation.”
“I swear I saw Space Marines.”
“What?”
“What is going on?”
“Wolves.”
“Belisarius. It must be Belisarius.”
“The Emperor watch over you!”
Ragnar muted the volume in the earbead so that it did not interfere with his concentration. It sounded like the defenders were reeling in shock and confusion. Hardly surprising: the runes on his chronometer told him that they were barely minutes into the mission. Until now, many of the survivors would still be busy suiting up and trying to deal with the hull breach.
So far, so good, he thought, wondering exactly when things would start to come unstuck.
They found the door of Pantheus’s chamber sealed and locked down. He had obviously decided to barricade himself in until the source of the emergency was clear.
Ragnar looked at the portal. It was a heavy blast door with some sort of complex security lock. It would take heavy cutting gear to get through it. They did not have the gear. He patched into the comm-net. Voices told him that the enemy was starting to regroup and sweep the place for their foes. They obviously had not yet realised their comm-links had been breached so their progress could be monitored.
Valkoth looked at Torin. “How long?” he said.
“It’s an old design. Responds to digital code or eye-scan.”
“I did not ask what it was. I asked you how long to get through it.”
“Thirty seconds,” said Torin. He knelt with his tools and began to prod at the interior of the lock. Ragnar wondered where he had learned these skills. They had certainly not been taught during his training as a Wolf.
“Ragnar stop gawping at Torin and cover the corridor. Haegr you take the other direction. Maybe you could stow the hammer and use a ranged weapon for a change.”
“That’s hardly sporting,” said Haegr, clipping the hammer onto straps on his back harness, and drawing a pair of bolt pistols. Ragnar swung his attention to the corridor, keeping his bolt pistol ready for any foe that should appear. An enormous belch told him that Haegr was bored.
Ragnar tuned back into the comm-net. Their foes were closing in. Some of them had broken out heavy weapons. The fight looked like it was going to be a lot more difficult now. The real problem would be taking Pantheus out through a firefight. That was where they were going to need all their skill.
A whoosh of air told him the lock had given way.
“That was forty-five seconds,” said Valkoth.
“The mechanism had a booby trap attached and activated. I thought it better to take the extra time than to have the lock melt and take my hand off.”
“He couldn’t comb his moustache if he lost a hand,” said Haegr. “A tragedy.”
Torin was already in the chamber and covering it with his bolter. The furnishings were fit for a Navigator Prince. A massive mirror dominated one wall.
“He must be as vain as you, Torin,” said Haegr.
“But not as handsome,” said Torin, admiring his reflection.
“Less jokes, more speed,” said Valkoth. “Where is the bastard?”
He moved deeper into the chamber. A moment later he was reaching into a massive wardrobe and pushing aside a mass of heavy furred robes. Quickly he pulled out an enormously fat man. Ragnar recognised Pantheus from the intelligence briefings. He floated lightly in the low gravity of the core. Doubtless that was why he had chosen this place for his apartment.
“Not as handsome as me, but almost as fat as you,” said Torin.
“He lacks my rugged Fenrisian nobility,” said Haegr.
“Haegr cover the door,” said Valkoth.
“Good choice,” said Haegr. “Torin would spend too much time admiring himself in the mirror.”
Valkoth pinned Pantheus to the wall and inserted the muzzle of his bolter into one nostril. It was a tight fit. “Where do you keep your records?”
“The man’s fear was palpable but he controlled himself well. This is an outrage. I will lodge a complaint with…”
“You are exactly one heartbeat away from death,” said Valkoth. His cold smile revealed his fangs. There was nothing remotely human about his expression at that moment. Pantheus might well have been looking at some hideous legendary ogre. Valkoth’s scent told Ragnar that he was not going to kill Pantheus, but there was no way the merchant could know that.
He reached down towards his chest. Valkoth’s free hand caught his wrist. The merchant winced. “I keep my records in a memory crystal locket. I am not reaching for a gun.”
“It would be the last thing you would ever do,” said Valkoth.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Pantheus produced a glittering gem on a platinum necklace. Ragnar could sense the tension in his comrades ease slightly. They had been prepared to respond if the merchant had drawn a protective device. There was nothing threatening about him, particularly.
Valkoth took the gem and inspected it, dropping the crystal into a small scanner he produced from his utility belt. Runes showed it was safe and a data-source.
“And the rest,” said Valkoth. Pantheus nodded to the wall. It was a portrait of himself looking considerably younger and thinner. The apparition was so different it could have been another person.
“Open it,” said Valkoth. “No tricks or you die.”
The fear smell intensified. Here was someone who obviously believed the worst about the Space Wolves.
Pantheus walked over to the portrait and passed his hand over a series of runes. He muttered an incantation of opening under his breath. The picture slid aside. Treasure glittered within. Not just memory crystals but jewels of all sorts. The merchant kept a small hoard here for emergencies. Judging from the way Torin was sweeping it into a rolled up pillowcase it would soon be swelling the coffers of the Belisarians.
Valkoth passed his scanner over the pillowcase. It bleeped, and runes told of datacrystals there. It looked like they had got what they came for. Now all they had to do was make their way to an escape pod and rendezvous with the courier. Easy, thought Ragnar sardonically. He knew better. Things had gone too smoothly. They were bound to take a turn for the worse soon.
The sound of Haegr’s pistols blasting away told him he was right. Trouble had already found them.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Take it, take it all,” said Pantheus. “Just let me go.”
Valkoth smiled grimly. His drooping moustaches and long fangs made it look more like a snarl. “You’re coming with us.”
“What? Where?” The merchant looked ready to burst into tears. He hardly seemed like a deadly conspirator. Maybe he was just in shock. It was not every day four Space Wolves broke into your secure asteroid and abducted you from your sleeping chamber. It would be enough to unsettle most people.
“You’re coming with us. That’s all you need to know.”
“But my collection. I can’t leave all my precious icons.”
“They will be leaving you soon enough.”
“What do you mean by that?”