[Imperial Guard 04] - Desert raiders Read online

  Kamala smiled and her face seemed to blossom. Turk almost gasped at the sudden and honest beauty in her features.

  “Perhaps,” she said, “but your men fear me as much as the Turenag. I’ve seen them ward themselves when I pass.”

  “Our fear is respect. You could have a place of honour among my people, a consort to the Orakle perhaps?”

  “And the blood spilt between our two people?”

  “What the sand drinks, the Banna still remember. I won’t deny that.”

  “As do the Turenag. Oh trust me, I know,” Kamala said. “It’s all I can see on everyone’s mind.”

  “How close are we?” Turk asked softly, taking a step inside, the tent flap kept open by the whisper of his fingertips. “How close to bloodshed?”

  “Very close. I can taste iron on the winds. The men would gladly spill their enemies’ blood.”

  “Who will start it?”

  “It has started already,” Kamala said, her smile retreating. Her eyes seemed to fall away.

  “What of you, then?” Turk asked. “Where do you stand? Should I fear you?”

  Kamala smiled, the question anticipated. “You already fear me, sir,” Kamala said, each word spoken with some pain. “But Banna or Turenag, I serve the 892nd. I serve the Emperor to my dying thoughts.”

  “Thank you,” Turk replied. “I’ll expect your report in an hour.”

  5

  Day One: Hour Nine.

  The camp was only hours old and still in turmoil when the planet’s whispers turned into a steady howl that drove thick drifts of sand across the dunes. The horizon was already a deep orange, a sure omen of the storm’s power, and the fleet had stopped the supply drops for the night. The Guardsmen didn’t have time to erect storm walls or to dig trenches; instead, they lashed down the supply containers using gas-powered nail-pumps to secure the cargo netting before running for cover. The dozen or so vehicles were already parked at the foot of the plateau, facing away from the storm, and several platoons lay sheltered behind their treads.

  Colonel Dakar tightened the kafiya around his face and adjusted his blast-oculars. He stumbled towards the command Chimera, which had already extended its snort mast high into the dusty air. If the storm buried the vehicle under a lake of sand, the collapsible snorkel tube would be the only thing saving the crew from certain suffocation, and it would indicate to other Guardsmen where to dig. Nisri grimaced and entered the coffin. Being buried was the worst part of these storms, if one discounted being caught outside by the flaying winds. Nisri silently wished his own men good luck tonight, and hoped the storm would take some of Turk’s soldiers.

  6

  Major Wahid Anleel trudged through the maze of cargo containers, pulling at locked doors and cursing a dozen epithets against the storm. Anleel’s men, 1st Company, were scattered somewhere in these stifling steel boxes. The storm, however, tore at his clothing and threw drifts of sand at his feet. He needed shelter, and he needed it now.

  Anleel spotted a raised snort mast in the near distance. All Tallarn regiment containers were equipped with such devices, and functioned as emergency shelters. Unfortunately, the regiment’s new quartermaster had only opened and unloaded a handful of containers before the storm had overtaken them.

  Anleel stumbled towards the cargo container. Half-buried metal crates lay scattered outside its door, probably supplies thrown out to make room for more refugees inside. A black, carbonised flash mark from a laspistol marked the demise of the door’s missing padlock: not the quartermaster’s standard key, but Anleel was grateful for someone else’s initiative. He touched the door and yelped at the nasty jolt of static electricity. His entire arm jerked and cramped. He shook his hand, freeing it of the tingling.

  He opened the door, and then quickly shut it against the protest of the winds outside and the huddled men inside. With a grateful gasp, he removed his oculars and kafiya.

  “You’re not one of us,” a voice said.

  Anleel spun around and put his back to the door. He faced two-dozen men, all unfamiliar to him, all hostile, all rival tribesmen belonging to the Turenag. Some had drawn their long scimitars.

  “You’re not welcome here, dog,” a voice said from the darkness. “Leave while you have the legs for it.”

  “The storm outside—” Anleel said, stammering. “You cannot refuse a man protection from the desert — Colonel Dakar and Battalion Commander Iban Salid… they shared salt.”

  “That is why we’re letting you leave alive.”

  Anleel studied their faces before pulling his oculars back down and yanking the kafiya over his face. He backed out of the door, pushing against the drifts piled against the container, and vanished into the howling storm. He was completely turned around, uncertain which direction offered safety. His best hope was to stay near the cargo containers. He stumbled away, one arm against the corrugated walls as a guide.

  A flash of light pulsed by Anleel and was swallowed by the storm. He barely had time to turn before a second laspistol beam caught him on the shoulder and cooked the wound. Anleel tried to scream, but his kafiya slipped off his chin, and sand rushed in to choke him. Two more shots punched him in the chest, both white hot, both cooking and cauterising flesh, muscle and bone.

  Anleel collapsed face first into the sand. Two Guardsmen swathed against the storm grabbed him by the armpits and pushed his body over the plateau’s edge. The wind and sand took care of the rest.

  7

  Captain Ber’nam Toria of C Platoon was exhausted. He was searching for Major Anleel, who’d failed to report back to his company. When Anleel was nowhere to be found among the containers, Toria ventured down to the base of the plateau to search the vehicles. Foolish of him, he knew, but the storm made vox chatter impossible, and now he was alone, lost and turned around, his compass useless.

  Toria’s legs were iron bundles. The fatigue settled in with a deep ache that burned at the wick of his muscles. His shins sank into the loose sand, and it was growing harder to pull them out. He’d heard something about the properties of the desert, how the sandstorm generated an electric charge. He didn’t understand mechanical crafts, specifically why they affected his compass or the voxes, or even friction, but he was told they did. So there he was, in sand drifts that seemed more liquid than solid as they almost parted beneath his feet. It cost him more in energy to pull his feet out than it did for his weight to push them down.

  In the distance, over the howling winds, a crack of electricity snapped and lit the murky air. Captain Toria had never seen lightning without storm clouds, and the notion that air could generate a charge from nothing frightened him. He stumbled forward, crying out for someone, anyone. More electricity bit at the air in the furthest glooms, coming from the same direction as the last two blasts of lightning.

  Toria hesitated. It was hard to think; the fatigue had numbed him, and even the storm’s sting was too distant to wake him. He shook his head. “Think,” he muttered. “Why would lightning strike the same area?” Something was attracting the electricity, something constant in the storm. It was his only landmark. Static lightning be damned, Toria didn’t intend to drown in this dusty sea. He lurched forward, burning through the last rush of adrenaline, forcing his feet to make one step after another.

  Too far, it was too far. Toria stumbled and fell forward. The sand swallowed his arms past the elbows. His knees sank and dragged him down to his waist. His face hovered centimetres above the sand, his strength fading, his leverage gone. He tried pushing up, but he sank further. He cried out, but the winds smothered his voice. The struggle to be free pulled him down another deep centimetre. He fought harder, panic overtaking reason, rational thought all but gone. Toria grunted and whined like an animal facing death.

  Another few centimetres, and Toria would be drinking sand. His limbs quaked at the exertion, and he moaned softly.

  “In or out, boy?” a voice asked, shouting over the wind. “I can push you in if you’ve surrendered; make it easier
for you to die.”

  “Help,” Toria shouted. He could barely see the man out of the corner of his oculars, but he struggled against the sand.

  “Out it is.” Someone’s arm looped under Toria’s armpit and struggled to pull him up. “Work with me, boy, I’m too old to lift you.”

  One arm came free, and then another. In a moment, Toria was standing again, his heart pounding and rattling his senses. His vision swam with fatigue, and the head rush almost tipped him over again. He allowed his rescuer to pull him along.

  Moments later, they arrived at a full-track lorry that was buried up to its lower road wheels in sand. A faint bluish light flickered and jumped at the treads, sprockets and rollers; the static electricity was expending itself, the sand no longer as frictionless. The man pushed Toria up the access steps despite the minor jolts that shocked them both. Toria collapsed in the cabin’s seat while his rescuer sat in the driver’s seat. The engine was running and the air gauzers cleared away most of the interior dust.

  “Thank you,” Toria managed, stripping off the kafiya and leather chamfrom wrapped around his helmet. He was olive-skinned, his nose aquiline.

  His rescuer nodded. “You’re lucky I saw you,” he said tapping the night vision periscope attached to the ceiling before unwrapping his kafiya. He was old, with a full growth of frosted hair that glowed against his nutmeg dark skin and elaborate, looping tribal scars spread across his chin.

  A jolt shot through Toria. His rescuer was Turenag, his markings those of one of their chief tribe, the D’Shouf.

  “You’re Turenag,” Toria said.

  “I couldn’t tell which tribe you belonged to,” the man admitted. “But, curse my father for raising me right, I would have saved you either way.”

  “I thought all Turenag blood ran hot at the thought of killing us.”

  “Not mine,” the man said. He leaned in close, the glimmer of a mischievous smirk on his lips. “My blood is ice cold, boy. Would you care for a sip?”

  Toria smiled despite himself. “No,” he said, drawing up his canteen, “I have my own water.” He tilted the bottle towards the D’Shouf tribesman. “Not as cold as yours, though. Have some.”

  The old man shook his head. “Thank you, no.” He revved the engine of the lorry and pushed the steering lever forward. “I have to keep her out of the sand. Another minute and I wouldn’t have seen you at all.”

  “Captain Toria, 1st Company, C Platoon.”

  “Captain Qal Abantu, Armoured Support.”

  Toria grinned. “We have armoured support?”

  Both men started laughing.

  “Barely, boy,” Abantu replied, “barely.”

  It was the last thing Toria heard before he fell fast asleep.

  8

  Day Two; Hour Ten.

  The storm was a day old and still pitching its fit. The interior of the command Chimera had grown stale and humid on body sweat, and a crackling voice filled the interior. From the wash of hard static, a few words floated through the cacophony.

  Immediate — Forced — Althera Beta — 892nd — Orbit — Weeks.

  One of the two auspex operators continued fiddling with the knobs on the vox, trying to fine tune it. The voice was heavily distorted, the bursts of static haemorrhaging through the signal.

  “Can you decipher it?” Nisri asked.

  Corrupted — Anchor — More — Hives — Sector Lord.

  The operator shook his head. “It’s the storm. She dirties the air and wreaks havoc with communications.”

  “I’ve heard worse,” the other operator replied. “On Canimos Prime, the static discharge was enough to kill a man. But, this is the best we can get, sir.”

  The vox warbled in response.

  Alert — Command — Light of — Unable to — Estimated, two—“I’ve heard that before,” the fair-haired Sergeant Raham said, straightening up in his seat. “That sentence fragment, I heard it before.”

  “Confirmed, sir,” one of the operators replied. “The transmission is looping.”

  Supplies — Time — Munitorum — Location — Convine.

  “I heard Convine,” the second operator said. “Isn’t that a hive?”

  “I heard hive mentioned before,” Raham said.

  “Why would they be sending us a looped transmission?” Nisri muttered.

  Expedite supplies — Weigh — Unable to — Two.

  “They may have been trying to reach us for several hours, sir,” the second operator replied. “The interference varies. This is the clearest window we’ve had in a few hours.”

  “Fine,” Nisri said, annoyed. “Keep listening, start piecing the transmission together. Raham, I need your ears on this.”

  Nisri and Raham gathered around the vox-caster while the two operators collected message strings and transcribed them to a data-slate. The words slowly clustered together into sentences.

  Alert ground forces Khadar, 892nd Command.

  They switched words out…

  The Convine Manufactorum Hives on Althera Beta have turned against the Light of the Emperor.

  …and back in again, like a grammatical puzzle.

  All Imperial forces required to respond by order of Sector Lord General Behemot.

  The sentences flowed together…

  Fleet immediately weighing anchor to respond to call.

  …some more easily than others…

  Unable to send more supplies for the time being.

  …until finally, the truth stood out.

  Will request Departmento Munitorum expedite supplies to your location, estimated, two months.

  Nisri’s eyes widened. “When was the message sent? When?”

  The operators scrambled, trying to find a time-stamp in the transmission.

  “About seven hours ago,” one replied, “probably more.”

  “Transmission source confirmed to be a satellite relay,” the other responded.

  “That puts them outside the system,” Raham said.

  “They’ve already left,” Nisri said, falling back into his seat.

  “But it’s only two months,” Raham replied. “They sent us enough supplies for that.”

  Nisri shook his head. “They sent us the wrong supplies, sergeant, and the storm prevented them correcting their mistake! Get me the quartermaster on vox. We need to find out how much trouble we’re in.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “The Greedy pray for what they do not have.

  The Blessed pray for what was given them.”

  —The Accounts of the Tallarn by Remembrancer Tremault

  1

  Day Three.

  The desert seemed renewed, the passage of the 892nd brushed away by the winds and new coats of sand. On and around the rocky island, Guardsmen were busy digging out vehicles and cargo containers. The rosy hued plateau rose a dozen metres from the dunes on its east side, while on the west, a large dune had pressed against it, forming a ramp for treaded vehicles to traverse. The plateau’s roof was a hundred metres in diameter, and the highest one the Guardsmen could reach among the many scattered throughout the region. A tall pole already stood at its centre, the newly minted double-headed eagle banner of the 892nd.

  While the men worked in groups that were exclusively Banna or Turenag, they sang songs, each trying to be louder or more insulting than the other. Naturally, they weren’t vulgar or deliberately demeaning, but they said enough to hint at a slur. The Banna’s songs praised the Emperor and the Transmitter of His Word, the great Orakle, while the Turenag sang of their love for the Emperor alone and of the perils of following false gods.

  The remaining vehicles were clustered around the command Chimera in the shadow of the plateau. Colonel Nisri Dakar sat with his men upon a mottled tan Hellhound, while Lieutenant-Colonel Turk Iban Salid stood with his at the treads of a tan Chimera. Commissar Rezail and Tyrell Habass, stood off to the side, at the open ramp of the command Chimera.

  Captain Ural Kortan, Quartermaster of the 892nd, had noticed
the commissar’s adjutant dropping sodium and potassium powder into the commissar’s canteen earlier. Heat exhaustion, Kortan surmised, given the commissar’s pale, sweaty complexion. Kortan, standing in the open circle between the vehicles, continued with his report to the command staff and ranking officers. He motioned to the data-slate for emphasis.

  “We were sent supplies we didn’t need,” Kortan replied, “inflatable rafts, carbon-filtered rebreathers, five full pallets of green vehicle paint… I can continue,” Kortan said, shrugging.

  “Fine,” Nisri said, rubbing his scalp hard. “What do we have that we can use?”

  “We have enough rations to last twenty-three days, and water for twenty-five.”

  “Ration them both out,” Nisri said. “That’s a meal per soldier, per day, two for the sick. We’ll switch to night operations to stave off dehydration. Sergeant Ballasra?”

  “Um, yes,” Ballasra said, stroking his white beard. “By your will and the Emperor’s providence, my squad can see what the desert provides.”

  “Very well, search the area for edibles, preferably something more appetising than sand. Duf adar Sarish,” Nisri said, turning his attention to the stable master. “We may need to slaughter some of the animals if they cannot graze, or if there is no water for them to drink.”

  Sarish scowled, but he nodded. Turk and his officers straightened; they seemed ready to say something, but Nisri was quick to interrupt them.

  “Which of your men do you recommend to help Sergeant Ballasra,” Nisri asked.

  Turk bit his lip for a moment, before nodding to the olive-skinned man next to him. “Captain Toria and his men are fine trackers and hunters.”

  “The same Captain Toria that Captain Abantu saved?” Raham asked.

  Of Nisri’s men, all but Captain Abantu chuckled at the jibe, but Nisri silenced them with a harsh glare. He was not pleased, his look cruel, like the drawing of an assassin’s blade from its sheath. Even Raham reddened and looked away.