“Yes, sir.”
Van Voytz shook his head. He seemed to bear no particular anger towards Ludd. It seemed more as if he were puzzled, disappointed.
Faragut was listening to the security channel traffic on his earpiece. “Sweep has now reached deck six and seven. Internal scanners still show no sign of the intruders.”
Biota muted the alarm blaring in the office. The hazard light panels continued to flash. Van Voytz was pacing.
“Sir,” said Ludd, suddenly and very quietly.
“What?” Van Voytz replied, looking round at him.
“I think you should remain very still, sir,” Ludd said, his voice trembling.
Ibram Gaunt, bearded, thin and dishevelled, had slowly risen to his feet from behind the high-backed chair. He was holding a chrome and silver ceremonial laspistol. It was aimed at Faragut, the only one of them with a drawn weapon.
“Lose your sidearms,” Gaunt said. “Onto that couch. Now.”
Ludd unholstered his laspistol and tossed it onto the couch. Biota took out his small service auto and threw it down too.
“I said lose them,” Gaunt told Faragut, his aim not wavering. Faragut’s gun was pointed at Gaunt.
“Don’t be a fool,” Gaunt said. “Do you really want to start a firefight in the presence of the lord general?”
Faragut slowly lowered his weapon and slung it onto the couch cushions.
Van Voytz took a step towards Gaunt.
“Ibram.”
“My lord general. Not quite the reunion I was hoping for.” The more Gaunt spoke, the more they could all detect the odd, alien cadence in his accent.
Van Voytz stared at Gaunt, bewildered. “Throne, man. What happened to you?”
“I followed your orders, sir. That’s what happened to me.”
“And those orders included holding me hostage with my own sidearm?”
“It was all I could find.”
“Ibram, for the love of Terra, put the gun down.”
“Only when I’m assured of my safety, and the safety of my team.”
“How could you doubt that?” Van Voytz said. He sounded hurt.
“Being herded up for summary execution at that processing camp didn’t help,” Gaunt replied. “Neither did having my honour and loyalty ignored. That boy there was the only one who had any faith at all.” Gaunt indicated Ludd with a nod of his head. “But I’m not sure I can even trust him now. We were put into a cargo pod, locked into a cargo pod, and brought here like animals.”
“There were security issues, colonel-commissar,” Biota said. “You must understand. You were brought here for formal identification and debrief.”
“Like animals, Antonid,” Gaunt replied. “By the time we were being unloaded, I didn’t feel I could trust anything or anybody. I had to make provisions for the good of my troops.”
“How did you get out of the pod?” Ludd asked.
“Does it matter?”
“It’s a fair question,” said Van Voytz.
“My men developed many skills on Gereon. Resistance tactics. I don’t think there’s a lock made that can beat either Feygor or Mkoll.”
“Where are your men?” Faragut demanded.
Gaunt seemed to smile, but the expression was obscured behind the caked, grey mass of his beard. His wary aim still favoured Faragut. “Hidden. Where no security sweep will find them. Hiding’s something else we’ve got very good at.”
“How can we resolve this, Ibram?” Van Voytz asked.
“Your word, sir. An assurance of safety for me and my team. I think you owe us that.”
Van Voytz nodded. “My word. You have it, unconditionally.”
There was a long moment of stillness, then Gaunt lowered the weapon, flipped it over neatly in his hand, and held it out to the lord general, grip-first.
Van Voytz took the pistol and put it down on the desk. Faragut hurled himself forward to tackle Gaunt.
“No!” Van Voytz bellowed. Faragut stopped in his tracks.
“I gave this man my word!” Van Voytz roared at him.
Faragut stammered. “Sir, I—”
Van Voytz slapped Faragut hard across the face and knocked him to his knees.
“I’m going to send a signal, Gaunt. All right?” Van Voytz said. Gaunt nodded. The lord general crossed to his intercom.
“This is Van Voytz on the command channel. Stand down general quarters and cancel the search.”
“Balshin here. Please clarify.”
“The situation is contained, commissar-general. Follow my orders.”
There was a pause. Then the vox crackled. “My lord, are you under duress?”
“No, Balshin. I am not.”
“Please, sir. I need the clearance.”
“Clearance is ‘Andromache’.”
“Understood. Thank you, sir.”
The hazard lights stopped flashing, and the distant howl of klaxons outside faded. Heavy bolts automatically retracted and the outer hatch of the general’s quarters opened. The escort detail stationed outside hurried in. Gaunt stiffened.
“Shoulder arms!” Van Voytz ordered, and the men did so immediately. Van Voytz pointed at Gaunt.
“Now salute him, damn you!”
They followed Gaunt down to the huge enginarium in the belly of the Leviathan. In every hallway they passed through, personnel turned to stare, some so bemused by what they saw, they quite forgot to salute the lord general. A tall, shaggy, filthy man in ragged, leather clothes, wrapped in the torn remnants of a camo-cloak, leading the supreme imperial commander, two commissars, an Imperial tactician and a vanguard of troopers.
The turbine hall of the enginarium was cavernous and gloomy, dominated by the vast whirring powerplants that drove the Leviathan’s systems. The air smelled of promethium and lubricants. Van Voytz ordered the tech-adepts and engineers out of the chamber.
“Here?” he asked, raising his voice above the machine noise.
“The heat and machine activity mask bio-traces,” Gaunt said. The best interference you can get when it comes to beating internal sensors. We learned that taking out a jehgenesh at the Lectica hydroelectric dam.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Van Voytz said. “I trust you’ll debrief fully.”
“Of course, sir,” Gaunt said, as if surprised there might be any doubt. He walked over to a wall-set vox, adjusted the dial to speaker, and said, “silver.” His amplified voice echoed along the engineering bay.
The Ghosts came out of hiding. It was unnerving to have them appear, one by one, out of shadowed cavities that didn’t seem deep enough to conceal a human being. The Tanith troopers didn’t so much emerge as materialise.
All of them were as underfed, grubby and ragged as their commander. Their eyes were bright, wary, cautious. Their beards and long hair were caked into dreadlocks with what looked like grey mud.
“Holy Throne,” Van Voytz said. “Major Rawne.”
“Sir,” Rawne replied, making an awkward salute as he came out into the light.
“And Sergeant Varl. Sergeant Mkoll.”
The two men also saluted as they came forward, Mkoll unwilling to look the lord general in the eye. The others approached. Van Voytz greeted each one as they appeared.
“Trooper Brostin. Sergeant Criid. Trooper Feygor. Vox-officer Beltayn. Scout-trooper Bonin. Marksman Larkin.”
Gaunt looked at Van Voytz, quietly impressed. “You… you know their names, sir.”
“I sent you and these soldiers on a mission we both thought you’d never come back from, Ibram. What kind of lord general would I be if I couldn’t be bothered to remember a handful of names?”
Van Voytz turned to face the group of tattered Ghosts. “Welcome, all of you. Welcome home.”
Two more figures emerged from the shadows.
“And these I don’t know,” Van Voytz said.
“Major Sabbatine Cirk,” Gaunt said. The tall, dark-haired woman stepped forward and bowed to the lord general.
“Cirk was a principal leader of the Gereon Resistance. She’s come with us to supply High Command with full intelligence concerning the situation on Gereon.”
“Welcome, major,” Van Voytz said. The Emperor protects.”
“And Gereon resists,” Cirk replied sardonically.
The other figure was abnormally tall and slender: a disturbingly tribal, grey shape in a long, feathered cloak, who seemed more uneasy than any of them.
“Eszrah ap Niht,” Gaunt said. “A warrior of the Untill Nihtganes, a Sleepwalker.”
“Welcome, sir,” Van Voytz said. The Sleepwalker made no movement or response. The skin of his thin, moustachioed face seemed to have been stained with grey clay, and oval patches of iridescent mosaics surrounded his deep-set, apprehensive eyes. Van Voytz glanced at Gaunt. “And he’s here because?”
“Because I own him and he refused to remain behind.”
Van Voytz raised his eyebrows. “Two are missing. Scout-trooper Mkvenner and Medicae Curth.”
“Last I knew, both lived,” Gaunt said. “But Mkvenner and Curth elected to stay behind on Gereon in support of the Resistance. Ana Curth’s medical skills were proving invaluable, and Mkvenner… Well, let me say briefly that Ven and the Sleepwalker partisans have become the elite commandos of the Gereon Underground.”
“You’ll make a full report?” Van Voytz said.
“Again, as I said, of course, sir.”
“Good.” Van Voytz stepped towards the Ghosts and shook each one by the hand, though he didn’t even attempt to take the hand of the mysterious tribesman. “I understand that your mission was accomplished… and more besides. The Emperor will never forget your efforts, and neither will I.” He glanced round. “Balshin?”
Lady Commissar-General Balshin came out of a nearby access, flanked by armed Commissariat troopers. More troopers, rifles levelled, surged in through the enginarium hatchways on all sides and formed a ring around the battered Ghosts.
“No…” Ludd gasped. Faragut began to snigger, despite his bruised cheek.
“Take them into custody,” Balshin said.
Gaunt stared at Van Voytz in furious disbelief. “You bastard. You gave me your word!”
“And it stands. And it will not be broken. I assure the safety of you and your team. But that is all. I attested to nothing more than that, Ibram. You threatened my life, the security of this HQ, and the very core of Imperial Command here on Ancreon Sextus. Take them to detention.”
The troopers closed in and began to manhandle the Ghosts away.
FOUR
09.01 hrs, 189.776.M41
Frag Flats HQ
Sparshad Combat Zone, Ancreon Sextus
Ludd walked into the small interview cell and heard the hatch lock up behind him. The cell was crude and stark: just scuffed bare metal and rivets, glow-globes recessed in cages, a small steel chair and table in front of the wire screen cage. Pict units mounted high in the corners of the cell recorded the scene from multiple angles. The air was stale and stuffy. On the far side of the wire screen stood another empty steel chair.
Ludd put the plastek sack he was holding down on the deck, took off his gloves, and laid them on the small table along with his data-case. Then he sat down, opened the case, and took out two paper dossiers and a dataslate.
A buzzer sounded and the door inside the cage opened. Ludd rose to his feet.
Gaunt entered, and the door closed automatically behind him. He glanced briefly at Ludd and then sat down on the empty chair.
“Commissar Gaunt,” Ludd said, and took his seat again so he was face to face with Gaunt through the wire screen.
“I’d like to begin by apologising,” Ludd said.
“For what?”
“You said yesterday, during the altercation in the lord general’s quarters, that you didn’t believe you could trust me any more. I want to assure you that you can. If I gave you any cause that provoked yesterday’s incident, I apologise.”
Gaunt’s hard gaze flickered up and down Ludd. “You locked us up in a cargo pod,” he said.
“In order to placate Kanow, who would have had you shot. Besides, can we start to be realistic, sir? You have served the best part of your career as a commissar and a discipline officer. Given the circumstances, would you have handled it differently?”
Gaunt shrugged.
“Let me put it more plainly. You encounter a dozen armed renegades. No idents, no warrants. Their story is difficult to believe. They are… not attired to regulations. Indeed, they are shabby. Barbaric. At the very least they have suffered hardships. Perhaps they have gone native. It is also entirely possible that they are tainted and corrupt. And they demand a personal audience with the most senior ranking Imperial officer in the quadrant. Do you not agree that any Imperial commissar would be duty-bound to exercise the utmost caution in dealing with them?”
There was a long silence. Gaunt shrugged again, and stared at the floor behind Ludd as if bored.
Ludd was about to continue when Gaunt spoke. “Let me put it plainly, then. You are a unit commander. Your team has been sent on a high priority mission behind enemy lines on the personal request of the lord general commander. The secrecy of the mission is paramount. Against the odds, after the best part of two years in the field, you get your team out again. Whole, alive, mission accomplished. But you are treated like pariahs, like soldiers of the enemy, mistrusted, abused, threatened with execution. Do you not agree that any Imperial officer would be duty-bound to do everything to safeguard his men under such circumstances?”
Ludd pursed his lips. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Within the letter of regulation law. Threatening the person of the lord general—”
Gaunt shook his head sadly. “I didn’t threaten him.”
“Please, sir—”
“I did not aim the weapon directly at him, nor make any personal threat against his life.”
“Semantics, sir. Regulation law—”
“I’ve fought wars in the name of the God-Emperor most of my adult life, Ludd. Sometimes regulation law gets bent or snapped in the name of victory and honour. I’ve never known the God-Emperor object to that. He protects those who rise above the petty inhibitions of life and code and combat to serve what is true and correct. I don’t much care about myself, but my men, my team… they deserve better. They have given everything except their lives. I will not permit the blunt ignorance of the Commissariat to take those from them too. I am a true servant of the Throne, Ludd. I resent very much being treated as anything else.”
Ludd sighed. “Candidly, sir?”
Gaunt nodded.
“You don’t have to convince me. But therein lies your problem. I’m not the one you have to convince.”
Gaunt leaned back in his seat, stroked his long, dirty fingers down through his heavy, woaded beard and then folded his hands across his chest, almost forming the sign of the aquila. “So what are you doing here, Ludd?” he asked.
Ludd opened one of the dossiers on the table in front of him, and weighed down the corner of the spread card cover with the dataslate. “There is to be a tribunal,” he said. “You, and each member of your team, will be examined by the Office of the Commissariat. Individually. It is being called a debrief, but there is a lot at stake.”
“For me?”
“For all of you. Lady Commissar-General Balshin suspects taint.”
“Does she?”
“Sir, it would be suspected of any individual or unit exposed for such a length of time on an enemy-occupied world. You know that. Chaos taint is a very real possibility. It may be in you and you don’t even know it. It might also—”
“What?”
Ludd shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Say what you were going to say.”
“I prefer not to, sir.”
Gaunt smiled. There was something predatory about the way the expression changed his face. Like a fox, Ludd thought.
“You’d prefer not to. Because you fear what you have to say migh
t enrage me. Or at the very least piss me off.”
“That would be a fair assessment, yes, sir.”
Gaunt leaned forward. “You know what a wirewolf is, son?”
“No, sir, I do not.”
“Lucky you. I’ve killed six of them personally. Say what you have to say. I’m big enough to take it.”
Ludd cleared his throat. “All right. You might be tainted with the mark of Chaos and not even know it. Furthermore, a subconscious taint like that might also explain your paranoia and your volatile, desperate behaviour.”
“Like waving a gun in Van Voytz’s face, you mean?”
“Yes, sir.”
Gaunt leaned forward a little further, and hooked his grubby fingers through the mesh of the wire screen. He glared at Ludd. His voice became a tiny, dry crackle. “So you think my mind might have been poisoned by the enemy, corrupted without me even knowing about it, and that’s why I’m a… what? A loose cannon?”
Ludd shrank back slightly. “You asked me to be frank…”
“You fething little—!” Gaunt snarled, and threw himself at the wire screen, his teeth bared.
Ludd leapt up so fast his chair toppled over. Then he realised that Gaunt was sitting back, laughing.
“Ludd, you’re too easy. Throne, your face just then. Want to go change your underwear?”
Ludd righted the fallen chair and sat back down. “That sort of display isn’t going to help,” he said.
“Can’t take a joke?” Gaunt asked, still amused with himself. “A little gallows humour?”
“No, sir,” said Ludd. Gaunt nodded and folded his arms, his amusement subsiding.
“And if I can’t,” Ludd added, “you can be sure as hell Lady Balshin won’t. Pull a stunt like that during the tribunal and she’ll have you ten-ninety-six in a flash.”
“I have no doubt. It was clear to me the woman had a little too much starch in her drawers.”
“Again—” Ludd began.
Gaunt waved a hand dismissively and looked away. “Ludd, you’re talking to me like you’re coaching me. Are you coaching me?”
“I’m trying to prep you for the examination, sir. Understand, the examination will be both verbal and medical. You will have to submit to all manner of analysis scans and investigative procedures. All of you will. Balshin will be thorough. The merest hint, be it verbal or physiological, that any of you are unsound… she will declare Commissariat Edict ten-ninety-six on all of you.”