[Imperial Guard 04] - Desert raiders Read online

  A WARHAMMER 40,000 NOVEL

  DESERT RAIDERS

  Imperial Guard - 04

  Lucien Soulban

  (An Undead Scan v1.1)

  It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

  Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperors will. Vast armies give battle in His name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bioengineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants — and worse.

  To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

  PROLOGUE

  “There was, there was not…

  “All tales spoken from Tallarn fathers to their sons, and mothers to their daughters, begin in this fashion. It is a way of saying that, by the Emperor’s will, this story may or may not be true.”

  —The Accounts of the Tallarn by Remembrancer Tremault

  1

  There was, there was not…

  2

  The transmission fell like a carelessly discarded blade from the heavens, straight into his naked brain. The astropath’s muscles seized into hard cords, and his teeth snapped down, cracking the enamel. His skeletal hands gripped the cradle’s iron grasp-bars, cutting flesh with rust, and he bucked against the leather straps holding him fast. There wasn’t enough time to mouth a litany of protection or to will a psychic bulwark into place against the buckshot rain of thoughts. From the heavens, tonight, fell death, and visions of history undone and ghosts unmade.

  The warning chimes rang and the lume-tubes in the alcove washed the psyker in an infernal red light. He saw none of it; heard none of it.

  The psychic images slowed and then accelerated. They toppled and turned his mind inside out. He didn’t understand the visions, but they crucified his senses: faces he did not know, voices he’d never heard, yet each intimately familiar as a sort of déjà vu. In his mind, flesh unravelled and skin was spooled like string; mothers grieved over the bloodstained sand and stabbed each other in their lunatic grief; the foul miasma of discharged bowels, ozone and cordite filled the nostrils; a moon in the sky with eyes for craters drowned the stars with its black tears; an eagle caught in tar, struggled and dissolved.

  The astropath screamed. He saw himself seeing himself seeing himself, ad infinitum, like two mirrors facing each other with him trapped in the middle, and within the infinite reflections. He saw himself dying between the razor-edged flashes of the transmission, strapped into the cradle, his death echoed endlessly.

  A grey-robed tech-acolyte with the Adeptus Astra Telepathica ran down the narrow corridor with its exposed wiring and moisture weeping walls. He moved past the alcoves where astropaths sat in restraint bubble-cradles, up to the alcove marked “Socket 9:12” with its flashing red alarms. He checked the green-hued monitors that hung from the ceiling as the astropath struggled and bucked. On screen, his vitals sent out jagged peaks and troughs of activity. The echo-plasm box imprinted psychic visualisations that bled into one another and sent images into the vist-immateria plate. The fusillade of visions, however, came fast and hard, fusing the already grainy images into a horrid collage of blood and static.

  The tech-acolyte quickly punched the button below the wall-vox. “This is Tech-Acolyte Resalon on Providence Watch. Father Nuvosa, we—”

  “I know,” the impatient, metallic voice replied. “It’s a mortis-cry, relayed through the Torquadas Observium Array. A nasty one at that.”

  “The cogitator banks cannot process most of the images,” Resalon said. “It’s interpreting them as static. We’re losing the sanctity of the vision.”

  “Then filter it through the other astropaths. Let them pick it clean of chaff.”

  “The Emperor’s Will be done,” Resalon said.

  He studied the astropath. The restraints cut into the psyker’s flesh, but they were necessary so the astropath didn’t pull free the filaments plugged into his spine and helmet. Blood dribbled in fat droplets from under the astropath’s black sens-dep helmet, however, and although Resalon could not see through its poly-fibre surface, he imagined that the man’s nostrils and eyes were bleeding freely. He briefly wondered if the sens-dep helmets weren’t just designed to tune the world out, but to shield others from the horrors perceived by the psykers. Indeed, the other astropaths merely rested in their cradles, unaware that one of them was dying in agony.

  Resalon opened the echo-plasm’s control panel and drew out the red filament and tube bundle pinched with yellow parchment. He plugged the leads into the adjoining sockets and suddenly, four astropaths in their cradles seized and bucked against the mortis-cry.

  3

  “What do we have?” Tech-Father Nuvosa demanded. His winnowed frame rested at the centre of the room, his body plugged into a circular dais. The lower half of his body had been surgically amputated years ago, the metallic sacrum of his reinforced spine the platform’s socket that linked thought to the surrounding techno-artefacts. Slow-moving plates orbited him, each of them pulling streams of rune-code from the etherium.

  Tech-Acolyte Resalon was pale, his eyes sunken. He wavered on his feet, but he handed the flims-pic to Nuvosa. It was part image, part x-ray. “It’s the only thing the cogitators could translate,” he said. “Three astropaths dead… one we had to put down after he—” Resalon sighed. “The vision’s too corrupted by the psyker’s death.”

  Nuvosa studied the flims-pic. It was grainy… a tattered, blood-caked standard half-buried in sand among a sea of torn bodies. The shot caught the standard’s frayed edges in mid-flutter. Upon it, the double-eagle crest of the Imperium.

  “Where did the mortis-cry originate from?” Nuvosa asked.

  “A desert world in the Barrases System… Khadar. It’s in the underbelly of the galactic plane of the Ultima Segmentum. The transmission was an Imperium distress cry. The cogitators couldn’t identify the astropath that sent it.”

  Nuvosa’s eyelids fluttered briefly as he accessed the Administratum’s data-scrolls. The million-plus planet names were transmitted to the cerebra-ocular implant keyed into his occipital lobe. The names appeared only to Nuvosa, as scrolling ghostly runes. The search distilled it down to a thousand, a hundred, a dozen worlds, and finally to one. After a moment, his eyes shot up and he captured Resalon in his gaze.

  “That’s not possible,” Nuvosa said. “Khadar’s a desert planet, yes, but there’s no Imperial presence there. It’s not even settled. Khadar is uninhabited.”

  CHAPTER ONE


  “My tribe and I against outsiders, My brother and I against our tribe.”

  —The Accounts of the Tallarn by Remembrancer Tremault

  1

  Day Zero.

  The fleet of small ships drifted in the pitch of stars and held formation on approach to the system’s outer planet — a frozen ball of nitrogen and methane. Ribbons and spittle-threads floated around them, grey immaterium plasma ejected during the fleet’s explosive birth at retranslation from Empyrean space.

  Cruisers with gun-barrel bodies, frigates with flying ribbed buttresses, destroyers, transports and squadrons of patrolling Fury interceptors all orbited the heart of the fleet — the Defiant-class cruiser Oberron’s Flight with its carbon scorched prow and eagle figurehead.

  2

  Commissar Rezail stood at the ornate lancet window of his small cabin aboard Oberron’s Flight and soaked up the hum of the ship through his black boots. He stared out at the fleet, but could barely see the ships against the star scattered darkness. Only their blinking red and yellow beacons assured him of their presence.

  “Attention.” The vox-box crackled, and a voice echoed through the ship’s corridors. “This is the officer of the watch. We’re entering the Barrases System. We’ll anchor in three hours. Prepare for planet-fall.” The vox-box went silent.

  Rezail straightened his peaked cap and the high collar of his brown coat. He turned and faced the Tallarn Guardsman standing at attention, the one in the yellow tunic, leather boots and white cotton kafiya, wrapped loosely around his neck. The Guardsman’s skin was a sun-baked brown, which brought out the streaks of white in his peppered moustache. An ivory-handled dagger hung from his black leather belt. He stood in sharp contrast to Rezail’s pale skin and stocky, almost soft, body.

  “Sergeant Tyrell Habaas,” Rezail said. “As my aide, one of your chief duties will be to teach me Tallarn battle-cant.”

  “Yes, commissar,” Tyrell said, “but which one do you wish to learn? Tallarn has many tribes and tribal alliances. There are four battle-cants and many—”

  “High Cant… from your holy books.”

  “That is a language of nobles. Not many soldiers—”

  “They’ll learn. Which tribal alliance do you belong to?” Rezail asked.

  “The Hawadi. We number eighty-seven tribes.”

  “Your people are neutral?” Rezail asked, studying the densely clustered runes of the intelligence dossier.

  Tyrell wove his head a touch. “We are teachers and scholars.”

  “Yes,” Rezail said, motioning with the data-slate in his hand. “It says here that your tribe serves the Tallarn regiments as support staff. Why is that?”

  “We are respected by the others for our great learning. We arbitrate disputes. We mediate. We are trusted because we allow two sides to reach a truce without either losing face.”

  “Face is very important to your people.”

  “Of course. Without it we are dishonoured.”

  “And you are neutral in this conflict, between the Turenag and Banna alliances?”

  “Always.”

  Rezail considered his steps carefully. This wasn’t going to be easy. The different battle-cants were only a symptom of a larger problem facing the newly formed regiment. The Tallarn were a “passionate people” according to one scroll in the Stratum Populace dossier prepared for him by the Administratum, but in his experience, “passionate” was a bureaucratic cipher for “hothead”, and by that definition, orks were exceedingly passionate and exuberant.

  “In that case,” Rezail said, “I need you to teach me something… something called the promise of salt.”

  3

  The observation deck of the light cruiser, Blood Epoch, offered an unparalleled view of the surrounding stars. The striated green and white marble of a gas giant drifted by the port lancet windows, the last planet before Khadar swung into view. Prince Turk Iban Salid, lost to private thought, was barely aware of proceedings.

  Commissar Rezail stood on a rusting iron dais, coroneted by the system’s distant blue sun in the window behind him. As Rezail spoke, Tyrell stood by a window near the stage and spoke softly into the micro-bead, translating Rezail’s speech for those officers unfamiliar with the nuances of Gothic.

  “Five weeks ago,” Rezail said, “astropaths received a psyker distress cry… Imperial. It originated from the uninhabited desert world of Khadar.”

  Turk nodded automatically and cast a sidelong glance at the other high-ranking officer in the room, the ebony-skinned Nisri Dakar. Nothing short of Turk’s knife at his throat would bring Turk pleasure. Every centimetre of Nisri’s two metres disgusted him: his clean-shaven head demanded to be split, his thin body broken, his wiry muscles snapped, and his dark skin deserved to glisten with his blood instead of his sweat.

  “It is our glorious duty to establish a small garrison on Khadar, to investigate the source of the transmission.”

  Nisri nodded, but Turk noticed that he also listened with a half-cocked smile. He was no doubt pleased with his new posting.

  “Prince Iban Salid, who do you serve?”

  Turk started; he almost didn’t realise that Rezail was speaking directly to him in a broken Tallarn that fumbled over the guttural consonants. Turk straightened, immediately aware that all eyes were upon him. It electrified the room and set everyone on edge. He could see it in the darting glances, and in the hands that looped their thumbs on their belts, closer to their blades.

  “I war for the Emperor! All that is left of the 82nd Shaytani of the Dust wars for the Emperor,” Turk said.

  “Aya!” Turk’s officers cried out.

  “May His light bless our meagre lives,” Turk concluded.

  “And whose hand does the Emperor guide?” Rezail asked, again in broken Tallarn.

  “Yours,” Turk responded, but Rezail stared at him for longer than was comfortable. He gritted his teeth against the admission, but continued, “and our Iban Mushira — Colonel Nisri Dakar — our new commander’s. May his bravery lead us to victory,” and may the Saints take his eyes, he concluded silently.

  Colonel Nisri Dakar watched as Turk responded to the commissar. He watched how the commissar gestured to both men with his right hand.

  He understands our customs, Nisri thought. He isn’t showing favour by using the left hand to signify a lesser.

  Nisri despised Turk, who seemed lazy and dull with his squat body, his heavy muscles and the tan-brown touch of many suns. Turk kept his beard trimmed short, but there was cold calculating mischief in his black eyes.

  Although he delighted at Turk’s forced conceit, Nisri took care not to display it. He was the regimental colonel; he had to lead by example.

  “And you, Colonel Dakar,” Rezail asked, turning to Nisri. “Who do you serve?”

  “I serve the Aba Aba Mushira, the Emperor, in all things. I am His sword and He is my hand. All that is left of the 351st Derv’sh Blades of the Imperium submits to his will.”

  “Aya!” cried the officers of Nisri’s regiment.

  “And who do you greet as brothers in this room?” Rezail asked.

  Dakar smiled; the commissar already possessed the small tokens of Tallarn formalities, enough to tie his hands in honour and custom.

  “I share my salt with you, Commissar Rezail,” Nisri said, bowing his head, “and I share my salt with Iban Mushira, Battalion Commander Turk Iban Salid. May I prove worthy to lead him,” and may he prove himself unworthy to be led.

  Rezail nodded to his adjutant, who rushed forward and offered the commissar a worn leather pouch. Rezail opened the drawstrings and tipped the pouch. Nisri accepted the poured salt in both palms.

  “We are brothers in battle and we are both sons of the Emperor,” Nisri said, slowly spilling the salt to the ground. “Will you offer me the wisdom of your council?”

  “I will,” Turk said, accepting his share of the salt from Rezail and spilling it slowly. “Will you offer me the wisdom of your guidance?”

&nbs
p; “Indeed,” Nisri said.

  There was a slight pause; Rezail caught the translation of the exchange with Tyrell’s discreet assistance over the micro-bead. “I’ll leave you to prepare your men, then,” Rezail said with a simple nod.

  4

  Turk did not slow his clipped pace down the ship’s corridor, but Master Gunner Nubis caught up to him in a handful of long strides. Nubis glanced back at the officers following Turk, and they immediately fell back, offering them a moment alone.

  Master Gunner Nubis was a large man and he took up space in every sense of the word. His skin was the kind of deep ebony that space itself envied, while across his forehead rose the patterned scars of his tribe, made from rubbing ash into tiny cuts. Each signified a campaign won, a kill of prestige made. They were but a fraction of the scars on his back, most of them trophies belonging to the regiment’s lash-officer.

  “Now’s not the time,” Turk said, anticipating his friend’s grievance.

  “When then?” Nubis whispered, half-turning to address Turk. His voice was thick with the tribal dialect of the free-spirited Nasandi tribesmen. When he spoke, his accent added spice to his words. “When Nisri sends his men to slit our throats?”

  “We shared salt. Tradition is—”

  “Yes,” Nubis replied, “you shared salt while the commissar pressed a gun to your head.”

  Turk grinned. Nubis’ flare for the melodramatic always brought a grin to his face. “The commissar did not press a gun to my head. He, rightly, reminded us of our duty.”

  “Did we need reminding when the orks killed half our men?”

  “My men,” Turk corrected.

  “Your men, my friends,” Nubis said. “May their deaths honour the Emperor; they died doing their duty. To say we need reminding is an insult to their sacrifice.”