[Gaunt's Ghosts 07] - Sabbat Martyr

  Even so, ninety-six armsmen, who had spent the last half hour fighting for the very life of the Navarre, were locked out and voided to their deaths by the drastic manoeuvre.

  The Troubadour slumped away from the frigate, spilling material and debris. It dropped away towards the glinting shoals of pilgrim ships in the high atmosphere.

  As its engines ignited, the Navarre came nose up, and turned away from the bright planet below it.

  Wysmark co-opted fire control to his console, and tasked the Navarre’s batteries. When the actuality sphere gave him solution, he fired.

  The Navarre blew the tumbling Troubadour into a billion glittering fragments.

  “Sir! We need to get into the fleet formation!” Kreff stammered, getting up. He was astonished at the captain’s brutality. Crewmen had just died, unnecessarily. Wysmark ignored him, but the Navarre was coming around nevertheless.

  Kreff joined his captain at the master console, reading the display. Enginarium to full motive, shields up, weapons to power…

  And a red light Kreff didn’t recognise.

  Kreff flinched back as he realised it was a drop of blood on the console, underlit by an enginarium rune.

  Another drip fell next to it.

  Blood was running out of the captain’s left tear duct.

  The buzzing was back, so loud, so very loud—

  “Captain?”

  “Firing solution, please, exec.”

  “Firing solution?” Kreff recoiled in dismay. The Solstice, the Navarre’s sister ship, was rolling into view ahead, side on as it faced the incoming enemy.

  “Now, if you please, Kreff!”

  “Sir, it’s one of ours!”

  The knuckles crushed his nose and made him bite through his lip. Crying out in pain and spitting blood, Kreff fell sideways.

  “Captain!”

  Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing…

  The Navarre lurched as its main lances fired. The beams, on full load, cut through the Solstice’s flank plating and opened its inner decks to space All two thousand metres of it crumpled like metal foil and tore apart A moment later, its reactors went up. Where the Solstice had been, only a white hot blast radius remained.

  The expanding Shockwave hit the Navarre bow-on. The ship bucked and threw like an unbroken steed. Kreff hit the deck for a third time.

  Prone, he looked up at Wysmark. He had been with the captain for ten years, ten years of loyalty and love. Blood was dribbling from Wysmark’s nose and eyes, and his expression was oddly slack.

  He was no longer the officer Kreff had followed into the mouth of death and back too many times to count.

  Kreff fumbled with his uniform’s holster and pulled out his service pistol.

  Wysmark, without looking, had already produced the compact auto-mag anchored under the master console. He pointed it down at Kreff and fired, his attention on the main screen all the while.

  The first shot smashed Kreff’s pelvis. The second broke three ribs and ruptured a lung. The third pulped Kreff’s right ear and spanked off the deck plating.

  Gasping in pain, sobbing in ragged breaths, Kreff lay on his back in a widening pool of his own blood. He raised his service pistol in a shaking hand and shot Wysmark in the side of the head.

  Wysmark swayed. The impact of the round rocked him. The left side of his skull burst outwards, and bloody tissue dripped onto his braided collar.

  He fell over to his left, hard.

  “Help me! Help me!” Kreff gasped. Ensigns and servitors ran over to him, picking him up.

  “Navarre to Omnia Vincit! Navarre to Omnia Vincit?” Kreff yelled into the vox.

  “The Solstice… is gone…” Valdeemer stammered.

  “Gone? How?” Esquine demanded.

  “The Navarre… it fired on her. Direct, sustained hit to midships.”

  “Heretics have taken the Navarre. Emperor protect us!”

  “What are your orders, sir?” Velosade asked.

  “Cleanse my ship,” said Esquine. There were furious tears in his inlaid eyes.

  “Firing solutions! The Navarre,” Velosade bellowed.

  The side batteries of the Omnia Vindt lit up and stayed lit. The Navarre’s shields soaked up the merciless bombardment for several seconds, swirling and coruscating like molten glass. Then they began to buckle and fail. The Navarre heeled over, its hull shredding and burning. Its gravitic assemblies shut down and it started to fall, stern-first, into the gravity well of the planet. A vast internal explosion disintegrated it before it hit the atmosphere.

  On the Navarre’s bridge, Executive Officer Kreff was still trying to raise the Omnia Vindt on the fleet channel as he died.

  The debris from the Navarre rained down towards the surface of Herodor, becoming meteors in the upper atmosphere.

  One of those meteors was a standard pattern escape pod. It rocked and tumbled violently, rattling and vibrating as it plunged.

  The two runt psykers were wailing in terror, flinching at every lurch. The big man in green silk robes murmured soothing words of reassurance and comfort to them as if they were his children, his massive tattooed arms holding them tight.

  “Almost there,” said Pater Sin. “Almost there…”

  “You ready for this?” Mkvenner asked lightly.

  Gol Kolea straightened the front of his fatigue jacket and nodded. Side by side, they walked in through the entrance of the Tanith billet.

  The dawn call had sounded some minutes before, and the troops were rousing. Water pots were clattering onto stove rings, and men were dressing.

  It was exactly the same as every morning in the Guard, simple routine. Only the place — a scholam by the look of it, Kolea thought — was different.

  It made him smile.

  “Morning, Gol,” said Obel, wandering past. Kolea nodded. No one gave him a second look. News hadn’t reached here yet.

  He wandered down the rows of bunks, looking around, hungry for the sight of familiar faces. There was a little ache in the back of his heart that some faces wouldn’t be there. Muril… Piet Gutes… Try Again Bragg…

  “This one’s yours,” said Mkvenner.

  Kolea stopped, and sat down on an unmade bunk. His pack was there.

  He looked up at Mkvenner. The lean Tanith gazed down at him and shook his head. “A night I won’t forget. A favour I intend to repay.”

  “No need, Ven.”

  “You saved my life,” said Mkvenner. “You’re going to have to make it up to me.”

  Kolea smiled.

  “I’ll see you later, Kolea,” said Mkvenner, and moved off through the dorm.

  Kolea sat for a moment as the bustle went on around him. Then he took off his jacket and undervest and opened his pack to find a fresh shirt. The weight of the plaster effigy in his jacket pocket made him remember it was there He took it out, looked at it for a moment, and stuffed it down inside his pack for safety.

  He found a folded vest and shook it out to put it on.

  “Know how to dress yourself, do you, gak-head?”

  Kolea looked up. Cuu had been walking by, dressed in his undershorts, fresh from the shower block. He had a towel over his shoulder. The painfully white, unhealthy skin of his scrawny, corded torso was covered in crude tattoos. He sneered at Kolea.

  “Want me to help, gak-head? Want me to help you dress, you pathetic gak-head?” Cuu’s voice was low but sharp. “Want me to wipe your arse for you too? Sure as sure you do.”

  He laughed.

  “You must have got away with murder while I was absent,” said Kolea softly.

  “Huh?”

  “You always were a little shit, Cuu, but bullying a brain-damaged vet? Where the gak is your sense of regimental honour, you insidious pus-ball?”

  Cuu’s eyes and mouth opened very wide. He took a step back. The area immediately around them had fallen very quiet.

  Kolea rose to his feet. He towered over the trooper, and his naked torso and arms were massive, especially next to Cuu’s bony f
rame.

  “You-… you…” Cuu stammered.

  “Yeah, me. I’m back. Now run away before I break your rodent neck.”

  Cuu ran.

  “Sarge?” Lubba said, getting up off his bunk. He was staring at Gol, blinking fast “Sarge?”

  “Morning, Lubba. So, how’s it going?” Kolea said lightly, sitting back down.

  Whispers were spreading, voices talking fast.

  “Gol?” Corbec said, appearing from the row end and walking towards him. Mkvenner was with him.

  “Hello, sir.”

  Corbec shook his shaggy head. “Gaunt told me about what went on, but I was keeping it to myself until… until… feth! What happened?”

  “Well, it’s a funny thing…” Kolea began. The rest of his sentence was lost beneath the crushing pressure of Corbec’s bearhug.

  “I get the impression his return has been popular,” said Dorden. Zweil made a chuckling sound and nodded. The doctor pushed Zweil’s chair down the aisles between the rows of vacated bunks towards the mobbing, clamouring concentration of troopers in the centre of the billet chamber. Kolea was at the heart of it, laughing and chatting, answering the barrage of excited questions as best he could.

  Everyone was there, morning drill forgotten. Somebody had ordered in boxes of hot loaves from a nearby bakery, and sutlers had arrived with wheeled barrows laden with heated caffeine urns.

  No, not everyone, Dorden noted. Away through the rows of bunks, he saw Lijah Cuu, getting dressed. Every now and then Cuu looked up as laughter rose from the throng.

  “So tell it again…” Varl called. “You did what?”

  Kolea shrugged. “I don’t really remember. I was worried about Ven, and someone had said the baths healed all wounds.”

  “That’s what they say,” Lubba nodded, solemnly.

  “And she healed you?” asked Soric.

  “I guess so. Actually, I think she healed Ven. I was just in the way.”

  The Ghosts laughed.

  “Do you hear me complaining?” asked Mkvenner.

  “Will she heal me?” Varl asked, tapping his augmetic shoulder.

  “Not a chance, Ceg. She only cures the deserving.”

  More gales of laughter.

  “What about me?” asked Domor.

  “You’re as bad as Varl, Shoggy,” said Kolea. “And besides, you wouldn’t be without that enhanced vision now, would you?”

  Domor shrugged. “The Emperor protects,” he admitted.

  “What about me?” cried Larkin from the back.

  “I dunno, Larks. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Where do we start?” blurted Bonin. The crowd broke up in guffaws again.

  “Will she cure me?” Chiria asked quietly.

  Kolea looked down at her scarred face. She’d never been pretty, but he knew the scars on her face were the worst thing that had ever happened to her. He sighed.

  “Who knows? I’ll ask her.”

  Chiria smiled. Nessa put her arm around her.

  “I guess you’ll be wanting your platoon back, Gol,” Criid said.

  Kolea shook his head. “I see you’ve been doing a fine job, sergeant. It’ll be an honour to serve.”

  There were cheers and whoops of affirmation. Criid blushed, and Caffran looked at her with a proud smile.

  “I need to thank you, though,” Kolea said as the noise died down.

  “Me?” asked Criid. “Should be the other way around. You’ve saved me twice now, and the first time got you… hurt.”

  “Maybe But the second time got me cured.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t remember much about it, as you will no doubt appreciate, but when I picked you up in that street, you had this… this effigy thing in your pocket. A plaster bust. Fething awful thing, it was.”

  Criid nodded. “An old guy gave it to me. A pilgrim. It was out in the Glassworks. He was trying to thank me for looking after him.”

  “I found it. It reminded me… reminded my thick head, as was. Made me think about the Saint and how she cured people. I think that’s what made me take Ven to the balneary.”

  “You kept going on about the fething thing,” Mkvenner confirmed.

  “It’s yours anyway,” said Kolea, looking at Criid. “I was just looking after it.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t want it. Gakking eyesore. Just glad it had a use.”

  “I would like to see it, if I may,” Zweil slurred. The mob parted politely to admit the doctor and the old man he was pushing in the chair. Zweil sat at a strange angle, half his face curiously limp.

  “Of course, father,” said Kolea.

  “I normally wouldn’t bother over such trinkets,” Zweil said, carefully enunciating every word, “but my brethren demand that every last detail surrounding a palpable miracle be scrutinised. It is the holy order of things.”

  “It’s in my pack,” Kolea said. He looked round at the troopers.

  “I’ll get it, sarge,” said Criid. She disengaged herself from Caffran’s firm embrace and pushed away through the crowd.

  “So, what did it feel like?” called Feygor through his throaty, monotone vox-box. “Did it hurt?”

  “What?”

  “The miracle, you feth.”

  “Yes,” said Zweil, nodding. “What did it feel like, Gol?”

  “I was wondering that myself,” added Dorden.

  “Well…”Kolea began.

  Behind her, they were laughing and shouting out. Criid moved down through the rows of empty cots. She could feel the smile on her face. It wouldn’t go. Kolea was back. Kolea was back! This had to be about the best day of her life, ever. Right up there along with the day she made sergeant and the day Caff told her he loved her.

  She’d missed Kolea so much she hadn’t realised, and she knew all too well she owed him everything. She’d have been dead on the streets of Ouranberg but for him.

  She found Kolea’s bunk and was digging through his pack. Everything was so neat and precise, everything folded and pressed. Kolea would gakking hate her for the mess she was making.

  There was no sign of the effigy. She up-ended the pack and spilled its contents out onto the mattress. Clothes, ammo packs, a shaving kit, a boot-blacker, a pack of cards, a clutch of hololithic prints stuffed into a yellowing envelope.

  And the effigy. Ugly gakking thing. The garish paint job was worse than she remembered.

  She put it to one side, and began to repack Kolea’s kitbag. The photo-prints fell out of the old envelope as she picked it up.

  She looked at them.

  A man. A woman. A young boy. A baby. Group shots, individuals. A father holding his newborn. A mother and her kids.

  The man was Gol Kolea. Younger, true. Cleaner. One of him dressed as an ore-face worker.

  She stopped dead.

  Though they were years younger, she recognised the faces of the children. Dalin and Yoncy. And the mother. She’d only known the mother for a few brief minutes. In carriage station C4/a, Vervunhive. Criid had tried to help her with her toddler and her baby-cart. Then the shells had started to fall.

  Gak! She’d seen this woman die, this woman in the pictures. The mother of the children Criid now counted as hers.

  What the hell were the pictures doing in Gol Kolea’s p—

  “No,” she said. “Holy Emperor, no!”

  She got up and fell over, pulling the open pack down off the bunk. Kolea’s stuff fell out onto the floor. She started to scrabble around, collecting them up and pushing them back into the bag.

  An alarm started to sound, so loud, it made her jump.

  “Sorry to break things up, ladies,” Rawne cried, sounding anything but sorry. He pushed his way through the throng of Ghosts around Kolea. Klaxons were bleating.

  “Time for work. The archenemy is orbital and inbound, and we’re expecting mass ground assault in the next hour. Get dressed, get kitted, get ready and get moving. If you’re of a faithful disposition, ask the God-Emperor for his blessing.
If you’re a layman, put your head between your legs and kiss your fething ass goodbye. This is it. The real thing.”

  The crowd of Ghosts broke up immediately, troopers running to their bunks, struggling into clothes, prepping weapons.

  “Bad as that?” Corbec asked, coming up alongside Rawne.

  “Worse than you can possibly imagine,” replied the major.

  On they came. The Incarnadine, the Cicatrice, the Harm’s Way. Running side by side like hunting dogs, angling in at twenty degrees to the plane of the ecliptic. And the Revenant? Where was that?

  Flanking in from sunward, obliterating pilgrim ships. It had already incinerated all the transports in the relief convoy.

  Esquine tensed. This was still manageable. This was still a tactical possibility. He had three ships. The Omnia Vincit was a vastly powerful flagship. The Laudate Divinitus was also capable. The frigate Glory of Cadia ought to be up to the mark.

  Their commanders appeared before him on the deck of the strategium, red-shot holoforms.

  Captain Cask of the Glory.

  Captain Massinga of the Laudate.

  “The Emperor who gives us life also trials us now,” said Esquine.

  Both holoforms nodded.

  “The odds are not impossible, though they are against us. Massinga, the Revenant is yours. Take it to hell with all hands.”

  “I will, fleet captain.”

  “Cask, with me. We take this fight to the heart.”

  “The Emperor protects,” crackled Cask’s holoform over the vox.

  “Attack speed!” Esquine commanded.

  “Attack speed!” Velosade relayed across the strategium.

  Valdeemer leaned back against a bulkhead. His heart was thumping.

  The gigantic capital ship Omnia Vincit, flanked by its much smaller sister the frigate Glory of Cadia, powered away from the chilly light of Herodor towards the trio of archenemy warships.

  Beside them for a while, the heavy cruiser Laudate Divinitus turned away to port, and lit up its thrusters as it burned down towards the Revenant.