First and Only Page 18

  Grasticus wanded another screen which allowed him direct observation of his beloved navigators, husks of men wired into their shrine, set in an alcove a few marble steps down from the main bridge. Their chanting voices sung him the Immaterium co-ordinates and their progress, forming them into a data-plainsong which resonated a pale harmony through his mind. He listened, understood, was reassured. There was a slight course adjustment which he relayed to the senior helm officers. The Menazoid Clasp was now just two day-cycles away. The ether showed no signs of storm fronts or Warp-pools, and the signal from the Astronomicon beacon, whose psychic light guided all ships through the Empyrean, was clear and clean. Blessed are the songs of the Navis Nobilite, murmured Grasticus in his thick voice, pronouncing part of^the Navis Blessing Creed, for from them shines the Ray of Hope that lights our Golden Path.

  Grasticus frowned suddenly. There was an uproar outside his hardwired womb. Human voices raised in urgent conference. His flesh-heavy brow furrowed like sand-dunes slipping, and he wanded his throne to revolve to face the arched opening to the strategium.

  'Warrant Officer Lekulanzi,' he said into his intercom horn, hanging on taut brass wires from the vaulted roof, 'enter and explain this disturbance.'

  He dropped the storm shield guarding the entry arch with a flick of his wand and Lekulanzi hurried in, looking alarmed. The warrant officer gazed up at the obese bulk in the hammock-like throne above him and toyed with compulsive agitation at the hem of his uniform and his own facilitator wand. He seldom saw the captain face to face.

  'Lord captain, a senior officer of the Imperial Guard petitions for audience with you. He wishes to make a formal complaint.'

  'An item of cargo wishes to complain?' Grasticus said with slow wonder.

  'A passenger,' Lekulanzi said, shuddering at the direct sound of the captain's seldom-heard voice.

  Grasticus brushed the correction aside as he always did. He wasn't used to carrying humans. Compared to the beloved God-Machines it was his given task to convey, they seemed insignificant. But the humans had liberated Fortis Binary, and the Tech-Priests had sent him and his ship to assist them. It was a kind of gratitude, he supposed.

  Grasticus disliked Lekulanzi. The whelp had been transferred to his command three months earlier on the orders of the Adeptus after Grasticus's acting warrant officer was killed during a Warp-storm. He doubted the man's ability. He loathed his spare, fragile build.

  'Admit him,' Grasticus said, diverted by the unusual event. It would make a change to speak to people. To use his mouth. To see a body and smell its warm, fleshy breath.

  Colonel Zoren entered the strategium flanked by two navy troopers with shotguns. The man's face was marked by a bruise and a dressed cut.

  'Speak,' said Grasticus.

  'Lord captain,' the soldier began, uttering in the delicious accent-tones of a far-worlder. Grasticus hooded his eyes and smiled. The noise delighted him.

  'Colonel Zoren, Vitrian Dragoons. We have the privilege of transport on your great vessel. However, I wish to complain strongly about the lack of inter-barrack security. Feuding has :v?gun with those uncouth barbarians the Tanith. Their commanding officer struck me when I approached him to complain about several brawling incidents.'

  Through his data-conduits, Grasticus felt the waft of the psychic' ^jth-fields that layered and screened his strategium. The man was speaking honestly; the Tanith commander – a… Gaunt? – had indeed struck him. There were lower levels of inconsistency and falsehood registered by the fields, but Grasticus put that down to the man's nervousness about approaching him directly.

  This is a matter for my security aide, the warrant officer here. Shipboard manners and protocol are his domain. Do not trouble me with such irrelevancies.'

  Zoren cast a look at the agitated Lekulanzi, who dearly wished to be elsewhere.

  Before either could speak, a new figure marched directly into the strategium, a tall man in the long coat and cap of an Imperial Commissar. The troopers turned their weapons on him reflexively but he did not even blink.

  'Lekulanzi is a fop. He is unable to perform his duties, let alone command peace on this ship. You must deal with it.'

  The newcomer was astonishingly bold and direct. No formal address, no humble approach. Grasticus was impressed – and wrong-footed.

  'I am Gaunt,' the newcomer said. 'My Tanith barracks have been raided and attempts have been made on my own life. Three of my men are dead, another critical and another missing. I mistook Zoren and his men as the culprits, hence my assault on him. The guilty party is in fact the Jantine Regiment. I ask you now, directly, to confine them land put their commanding officers on report.'

  Again, Grasticus felt a hint of deceit in the flow of the astropathic truth-fields, but once more he put this down to the disarming awe of being in his presence. Essentially, this Gaunt was reading as utterly truthful and shamelessly direct.

  'You have men dead?' Grasticus asked, almost alarmed.

  Three. More urgently, I require your authorisation to admit my medical officer to the stores of the Munitorium to obtain medical commodities to save my injured soldier.'

  This insect is shaming me! In my own strategium! Grasticus thought with sudden revulsion.

  His mind whirled and he shut out sixty percent of the dataflow entering his skull so he could concentrate. This was the first time in a dozen years he had to deal with a problem involving his cargo. Passengers! Passengers, that was what Lekulanzi had called them. Grasticus writhed gently in his throne. This was unseemly. This was insulting. This matter j should have been contained long before now, before cargo was damaged, died, before complaints were brought to his I feet.

  He raised his facilitator wand and flicked it at a hovering plate. He would not lose face before these walking flesh worms. He would show he was the captain, the lord captain, I and that they all owed their safety and lives to him.

  'I have given your medical officer authority. He has my for— I mal mark to expedite his access to the stores.'

  Gaunt smiled That's a start. Now confine the Jantine and punish their officers.'

  Grasticus was amazed. He raised himself up on his ham-like elbows to study Gaunt, hefting his upper body free of the leather for the first time in fifteen months. There was a squeak of sweat-wet leather and a scent of stale filth wafted into the air of the strategium.

  'I will not brook such insubordination,' Grasticus hissed, his cotton-soft words spitting from the loose folds of spare flesh that surrounded his small, glistening mouth like curtains on a proscenium arch. 'No one demands of me.'

  'That's not good enough. Don't belabour us with threats. We require action!'This from Zoren now, stood side by side with the hawk-faced Gaunt. Grasticus reacted in surprise. He had thought the Vitrian more subdued, more deferential, but now he too challenged directly. 'Contain the Jantine and curtail dieir feuding or you'll have an uprising on your hands! Thousands of trained troopers, hungry for blood! More than your trooper details can handle!' Zoren cast a contemptuous glance at the navy escort.

  'Do you threaten me?' Grasticus almost gasped. The very thought of it. 'I will see you in chains for such a remark!'

  'Is that how you deal with things you don't want to hear?' Gaunt snapped, pushing aside a trooper to approach Grasticus's throne. The trooper grappled with the larger commissar but Gaunt sent him sprawling with a deft swing of his arm.

  'Are you the commander of this vessel, or a weak, fat nothing who hides at its heart?'

  Lekulanzi fell back against the wall of the strategium, aghast ;»»•'*в– hyperventilating. No one spoke to the lord captain like that! No one—

  Grasticus writhed ever-upwards from his bed-throne, sweeping the hovering plates aside with his hands so that they parted and cowered at the edges of the chamber behind him. He glared down at the Guard officers, rage rippling through his vast mass.

  'Well?' Gaunt said.

  Grasticus began to bellow, raising his thick, swo
llen voice for the first time in years.

  Zoren cast a nervous glance at Gaunt. Weren't they pushing the lord captain too hard? Something in Gaunt's calm reassured him. He remembered the elements of their plan and started to send his own jibes at the captain in tune with Gaunt's.

  Gaunt grinned inwardly. Now they had Grasticus's entire attention.

  Outside the strategium, on the lower levels of the high-roofed, cool-aired bridge vault, the senior helm officers looked up from their dark, oiled gears and levers, and exchanged wondering glances. The basso after-echo of their captain rolled out of the armoured dome. The lord captain was clearly so angry he had diverted his attention from most of the systems temporarily. This was unheard of, unprecedented.

  A detachment of ship troopers milled cautiously outside the door-arch of the strategium. 'Do we enter?' rasped one through his helmet intercom. None of them felt like confronting the lord captain's wrath. They pitied the idiot Guard officers who had created this commotion.

  Gaunt did not care. This was exactly what he had been after.

  FOURTEEN

  Chief Medic Dorden led his party in through the armoured hatchway of the Munitorium depot deck. Flanking him, Caffran, Brin Milo and Bragg formed a motley honour guard of uneven height for the elderly medico.

  They entered a wide bay that smelled of antiseptic and ioni-sation filters. The grey deck was dusted with clean sand. Dorden consulted his chronometer.

  'Cometh the hour…' he said.

  'Come who?' Bragg asked.

  'What I mean is, it's now or never. We've given the commissar long enough. He should be with the captain now,' Dorden said.

  'I still don't get any of this,' Bragg said, scratching his lantern jaw. 'How's this meant to work? What's the old Ghostmaker trying to do?'

  'It's called a diversion,' Milo said quietly. 'Don't worry about the details, just play along and act dumb.'

  'Not a problem!' Bragg announced, baffled by Caffran's subsequent smirk.

  Beyond metal cage doors at the end of the bay, three robed officials of the Munitorium were at work at low-set consoles.

  There were at least seven navy troopers on watch around the place.

  Dorden marched forward and rapped on the metal grill. 'I need supplies!' he called. 'Hurry now; a man is dying!'

  One of the Munitorium men got up from his console, leaving his cloak draped over the seat back. He was a short, bulky man with physical power under his khaki Munitorium tunic. Glossy, chrome servitor implants were stapled into his cheek, temple and throat. He disconnected a cable from his neck socket as he approached them.

  Dorden thrust his data-slate under the man's nose. 'Requisition of medical supplies,' he snapped.

  The man viewed the slate. As he scrolled down the slate file, the troopers suddenly came to attention and grouped in the centre of the bay. Milo could hear the muffled back and forth of their helmet vox-casters. One of them turned to the Munitorium staff.

  'Trouble on the bridge!' he said through his speaker, his voice tinny. 'Bloody Guard are feuding again. We've been detailed down to the barrack decks to act as patrol.'

  The Munitorium officer waved them off with his hand. 'Whatever.' The troopers exited, leaving just one watching the grille entry.

  The Munitorium officer slid back the cage grille and let the four Ghosts inside. He eyed the slate before directing them down an aisle to the left. 'Lord Captain Grasticus has issued you with clearance. Down there, chamber eleven. Get what you need. Just what you need. I'll be checking the inventory on the way out. No analgesics without a signed chit from the warrant, no purloining.'

  'Feth you,' Dorden said, snatching back the slate and beckoning the others after him. 'We've got a life to save! Do you think we'd waste time trying to rustle some booty?'

  The official turned away, disinterested. Dorden led the trio down the dark aisle, between racks of air-tanks, amphorae of wine and food crates stacked up to the high roof. They entered a junction bay in the dark depths of the storage holds, and through several hatches ahead saw the vast commodity stockpiles of the huge ship.

  'Medical supplies down there,' Caffran said, noting the white marker tags on one of the hatch frames.

  'There's a console,' Milo said, pointing down another of the aisles into a dark hold. They could see the dull, distant green glow of a Munitorium artificer. Dorden glanced at his chronometer again. 'Right, as we planned. Five minutes! Go!'

  With Bragg at his heels, Dorden strode into the medical supply vault and started pulling bundles of sterile gauze, jars of counter-septic wash and packs of clean surgical tools off the black metal shelves. Bragg requisitioned a wheeled cargo trolley from an alcove near the door and followed him.

  Milo and Caffran slunk down into the darker chamber, and the boy swung onto the low bench-seat in front of the console. He fumbled in his pocket and produced the memory tile that Gaunt had give him, gingerly fitting it into the slot on the desk-edge of the machine. Two teal-coloured lights winked and flashed as the artificer recognised the blank tile. His hands trembled. He tried to remember what the commissar had told him.

  'Will this work?' Caffran asked, pulling out his blade and watching the door anxiously.

  The Munitorium data banks were slaved directly to the ship's main cogitator. Remembering Gaunt's instructions piece by piece, Milo entered key search words via the ivory-toothed keyboard. The banks had full access to the ship's information stockpile, including the security clearance Gaunt's artificer lacked.

  'Hurry up, boy!' Caffran snapped, edgy.

  Milo ignored him, but that ''boy'' nagged him and made him unhappy. His trembling fingers conducted his way across the worn keys into new levels of instruction that glowed in runic cursors on the flat plate of the console, just as the commissar had laid it out.

  'Here!' Milo said suddenly, 'I think…' He awkwardly touched a rune-inscribed command key and the console hummed. Data began to download onto the blank tile. Gaunt would be proud. Milo had listened to his arcane ramblings about the use of machines well.

  In the medical store, Dorden looked up from the cargo trolley he was filling and glanced once more at his chronometer. Bragg watched him, cautiously. 'This is taking too fething long!' Dorden said irritably.

  'l can go back—' Bragg suggested.

  'No, we've not got everything yet,' Dorden said, searching the racks for jars of pneumeno-thorax resin.

  Milo's fingers hovered over the keys. 'We've got it!' he exclaimed.

  Caffran didn't answer. Milo turned and saw Caffran frozen, the blunt nose of a deck-shotgun pressed to his temple. The Imperial Navy trooper said nothing, but nodded his helmet-dad head at Milo, indicating he should get up from the bench rapidly.

  Milo rose, his hands where the trooper could see them.

  'That's good,' the trooper said through the dull resonator of his headset. He pointed the muzzle of his gun at where he wanted Milo to stand.

  Caffran slammed back, jabbing his elbow at the trooper's sternum, aiming for the solar plexus in one desperate move. The fibre-weave armour of the trooper's uniform stopped the blow and he swung around, smashing Caffran into the wall-racks with an open hand.

  Milo tried to move.

  The shotgun fired, a wide burst of incandescent fury in the darkness.

  FIFTEEN

  As they waited in the shadows, they noted that the Jantine had been issued with the finest barrack decks on the ship. The approach colonnade was a spacious embarkation hall, wide enough for the bulkiest of equipment. The glittering wall-burn-eraxast long purple shadows across the tiles.

  i ivo Jantine Patricians in full dress armour, training shock-poles held ready, patrolled the far end. They were exchanging inconsequential remarks when Larkin appeared down the colonnade, bumbling along as if he'd missed his way. They snapped round in disbelief and Larkin froze, a look of horror on his leathery, narrow face. With an oath, he turned and began to run back the way he had come.

  The two guards thundered af
ter him with baying blood-cries. They'd gone ten metres before the shadows behind them unfolded and Ghosts emerged, dropping stealth cloaks and seizing them from behind. Mkoll, Baru, Varl and Corbec fell on the two Jantine, struck with shock-poles and Tanith blades, and dragged the fallen men into the darkness off the main hall.

  'Why am I always the fething bait?' the returning Larkin asked, stopping by Corbec, who was wiping a trace of blood from the floor with the hem of his cape.

  'You've got that kind of face,' Varl said, and Corbec smiled.

  'Look here!' Baru called in a hiss from the end of the hall. They moved to join him and he grinned as he pulled his find from the corner of the archway the Jantine sentries had been watching. Guns! A battered old exotic bolt-action rifle with a long muzzle and ornately decorated stock, and a worn but serviceable pump stubgun with a bandolier strap of shells. Neither were regular issue Guard pieces, and both were much lower tech than Guard standard-pattern gear. Corbec knew what they were.

  'Souvenirs, spoils of war,' he murmured, his hands running a check on the stubgun. All soldiers collected trophies like these, stuck them away in their kits to sell on, keep as mementoes, or simply use in a clinch. Corbec knew many of the Ghosts had their own… but they had dutifully handed them in with their issued weapons when they'd come aboard. He was not the least surprised that the Jantine had kept hold of their unrecorded weapons. The sentries had left them here as backup in case of an assault their shock-poles couldn't handle.

  Varl handed the rifle to Larkin. There was no question who should carry it. The weight of a gun in his hands again seemed to calm the old sniper. He licked his almost lip-less mouth, which cut the leather of his face like a knife-slash. He'd been complaining incessantly since they had set out, unwilling to be part of a vendetta strike.

  'If they catch us, we'll be for the firing squad! This ain't right!'

  Corbec had been firm, fully aware of how daring the mission was. 'We're in a regimental feud, Larks,' he had said simply, 'an honour thing. They killed Lonegin, Freul and Colhn. You think what they did to Feygor, and what they might be doing to the major. The commissar's asked us to avenge the blood-wrong, and I for one am happy to oblige.'