[Imperial Guard 06] - Gunheads Read online

  The sleek aquila touched down in the early evening, alighting on the base’s small rockcrete runway without incident. The last of the day’s light was just visible as a ruddy glow in the far west, and the base’s floodlights were buzzing to life one by one. The lander’s boarding ramp had barely touched rock when the general strode down it and began barking orders. He was a thin man, taller than average for a Cadian, clean-shaven with pomaded silver hair and sunken cheeks. At ninety-one years of age, seventy-six of those spent in military service, he looked surprisingly young, no older, in fact, than sixty. The treatments and surgeries he had undergone to achieve this were both expensive and painful, but never unacceptably so.

  He was a man who placed a great deal of value on appearances, an attitude reflected in the tailoring of his immaculate uniform and in the polished sheen of the medals that glinted over his left breast pocket. His voice, when he spoke, was sharp and clear, and he had a tendency to emphasise certain words with little thrusts of his chin. The first order of business, he told his men, was a swift round of interviews and inspections, and no, they could not wait until the following morning.

  He initiated the inspections, beginning, significantly, with the massive tank-crowded motor pool and progressing anti-clockwise through each area in turn. After two hours spent marching around the base snapping out questions and comments, trying in vain to acclimatise to the thick, unpleasant air, deViers confided to his long-suffering adjutant, Major Gruber, that he was deeply impressed. Things had apparently been proceeding very well without him. With its high curtain walls, towers topped with Manticore and Hydra anti-air defences, and the broad, extended parapets boasting row after row of Earthshaker artillery platforms, Exolon’s new Army Group HQ represented a vital bastion of security on an otherwise hostile world. DeViers was quietly convinced that it would hold against even the most overwhelming ork siege. It would have to. In all likelihood, such an attack was mere days away. The Golgothan orks would have seen lights in the sky as the drop-ships had descended. Sooner or later, they would come to investigate. No matter how many came, the base could not be allowed to fall. It was the lynchpin of deViers’ whole operation.

  The plateau on which Hadron Base was being constructed measured over four kilometres in diameter and lay almost directly on the line of the equator. It had been selected on the basis of two critical factors. Firstly, with its sheer sides and few sloping access routes, it was, even without fortification, eminently defensible. Secondly, and more significantly, at a distance of some six hundred kilometres from the general’s ultimate objective, it was the closest suitable geological feature to the last known position of The Fortress of Arrogance.

  His base inspection over, deViers ordered a briefing session with his three divisional commanders, Major Generals Rennkamp, Killian and Bergen. It was deViers’ intention to keep the session short, for he had also arranged a rather splendid banquet to celebrate the auspicious beginning of his ground operation. This beginning, he felt, was marked, not by the descent of the first drop-ships, but by his own arrival planet-side, and he would not let the moment pass without some kind of commemorative function. After all, Operation Thunderstorm, as he so regularly reminded his officers, was a righteous quest the likes of which had rarely been seen in the recent annals of the Imperial Guard. Why should the end of its opening phase not be celebrated in good spirits?

  That was the plan, at least, but deViers soon found his good spirits dampened.

  “How many?” he hissed. His face was red with rage, and his fists were clenched on the surface of his desk. “Tell me again!”

  “Six, sir,” answered Major General Bergen. “Six missing, with a seventh discovered fifty kilometres to the northeast, spread across two-and-a-half kilometres of desert. All hands lost. Do you wish to hear a list of the individual elements?”

  “Of course I do,” snapped deViers. “Seven drop-ships on the first day. By the Eye of Terror!”

  Major General Bergen’s voice didn’t waver as he read off the list, but his tone was heavy and his face betrayed a grim mood. “Drop-ship E44-a, the 116th Cadian Lasgunners, companies one and two, killed on descent. Drop-ship G22-a, the 122nd Tyrok Fusiliers, companies one to four, missing. Drop-ship G41-b, the 88th Mobile Infantry, companies three and four, missing. Drop-ship H17-C, the 303rd Skellas Rifles, companies eight to ten, missing. Drop-ship H19-a, the 98th Mechanised Infantry, companies one to six, missing. Drop-ship K22-C, the 71st Caedus Infantry, companies eight to ten, missing.” Bergen paused for a split second before reading the final listing. The missing ship had been carrying some of his own tankers. “Drop-ship M13-J, the 81st Armoured Regiment, 10th Company, missing. No contact whatsoever from any of those listed.”

  General deViers listened quietly to all this, staggered by the blow his forces had taken just from landing on this damned rock. Thousands of men gone. It was outrageous. The last listing was a tank company? By the bloody Golden Throne! An entire tank company, lost somewhere out there in the desert, most probably killed in the crash. Filthy orks were probably looting the site even now. Men were one thing, and their loss was to be lamented, of course, but life was cheap in the Imperium of Man. There were always more soldiers to be had. That’s what the reserves were for. But tanks? Tanks were another matter entirely. There were no replacements waiting in the wings for the war machines that had been lost. Each tank put out of action left a gap that nothing else could fill. The strength of his armoured regiment was absolutely critical given the itinerant nature of the operation. With his mind firmly fixated on the negative, the general’s anger got the better of him. He leapt to his feet, throwing his chair backwards and banging his fists down on his desk.

  “It’s a damned fiasco! How could we lose seven drop-ships on the first day? Was it orks? Storms? What the heck are our naval liaisons saying about this? What about the Mechanicus? I want answers, damn it!” Veins bulged in his neck and his eyes looked ready to pop out of his head.

  The three officers seated before him remained as still as statues while their general raged. They had seen it all before, and with increasing regularity of late. They knew better than to interrupt him before his tirade had ended. Attempting to soothe him was just asking for trouble. When deViers finally did stop spewing fire and sank slowly back into his chair, it was Killian, the shortest, stockiest and, in the general’s eyes, least likeable of the three, who spoke up.

  “The tech-priests have a team out in the desert, sir. They’re studying the drop-ship in the north-east for the cause of the crash. No word yet, of course, since they’re out of vox range.”

  Killian winced as soon as he said this, realising immediately that he had just poured fuel on the fire. Predictably, deViers pounced.

  “Out of bloody vox range?” he roared, and launched into an entirely fresh diatribe. Imperial communications equipment, unreliable at the best of times in the general’s long years of experience, was almost useless on Golgotha. According to the tech-priests, there were profound levels of electromagnetic interference from the constant storms that cloaked this world. The Mechanicus contingent attached to the mission had promised a solution in due course, but, for now, communications at any range greater than a dozen kilometres simply degenerated into white noise. Clear communication at even half that distance required the expenditure of significant amounts of electrical power — more than was required to light the base for a whole day — and contact with the fleet in orbit was kept to an absolute minimum by sheer necessity. DeViers cursed and bellowed like a madman until he had spent himself again. It didn’t take long.

  Despite external appearances, he was still an old man, and the intensity of his outbursts quickly exhausted him. He knew he should work harder to control his temper. He knew, too, that it had been getting far worse in recent months. There was a time, he thought, when nothing fazed me. What changed? Why do I respond so violently these days? I can’t let the pressure get to me like this.

  He knew that shouting at his divisional comm
anders was poor therapy, and achieved very little. He would be relying on these men above all others in the days ahead. They would help him secure his prize, his legacy, his place among the good and the great. No, shouting at them didn’t help anyone. He forced his voice back down to normal levels. Ten minutes later, after a brief review of the schedule for their coming deployment, he dismissed them so that they might dress for the banquet. As the three senior officers stood and saluted him, deViers briefly considered apologising for his earlier explosiveness.

  No, he told himself. Let my anger stand as a message that I expect far better. I won’t have them thinking me weak.

  Weakness in any form was something Mohamar Antoninus deViers could not abide, especially his own.

  * * *

  The general stole an hour of sleep after the briefing, though it seemed to him that only seconds had passed before his adjutant shook him gently awake so that he might wash and dress for the banquet. Two hours later, he found himself standing at the head of a long krell-wood table in a bright, high-ceilinged room, ringing his goblet with a silver fork and asking his guests for their undivided attention.

  “Officers of the 18th Army Group,” he began, beaming at them with theatrical magnanimity, “and, of course, my other honoured guests, I thank you all for taking the time to attend. It’s only right that we celebrate. Tonight, we mark the true start of our holy quest with the best that our circumstances allow. Look at you; the Emperor must be gazing down on you with pride, seated here, dressed so smartly, so ready and willing to be about His divine work. He’ll be prouder still when we find our prize. What a moment that will be! One for the history books, indeed. I’m sure you’ve all dreamed of it as much as I have: the fame, the glory, Army Group Exolon recovering the legendary Fortress of Arrogance from right under the nose of the old foe. Yes! For ever after, men will read of our exploits with awe. Let none of you doubt that. There is no cause greater than that which inspires one’s fellow man.”

  He scanned the faces around the table, daring anyone to pay him less than full attention, and was pleased to see every eye, including several unblinking mechanical ones, turned in his direction.

  “We could not have asked for a higher honour,” he told them. “I’ve heard mutterings among the men, just as you have, talk of wishing to join Commissar Yarrick and our Cadian brothers on Armageddon. Such talk is to be expected. Exolon is, after all, a fighting man’s army, and our men want to make a difference. I appreciate their eagerness, for I too would see us lend Yarrick’s forces our much-needed strength sooner rather than later. But all things in their proper time. We can offer so much more by claiming victory here. Through the successful recovery and restoration of The Fortress of Arrogance, this army will provide our Imperial brothers — not just Cadians, but all men of the Imperium — with a renewed strength of purpose and determination that no amount of reinforcement could possibly hope to offer. The Fortress is not just another Baneblade battle tank, as you all should know. She is a symbol of everything the Guard stands for: of strength and honour, of courage and duty, of unbending resistance against the foul traitors and alien hordes that strive to wipe our race from the face of the galaxy. I say her recovery is long overdue. So, join me in a toast. Fill your glasses, all of you.”

  DeViers waited as his guests sloshed cool golden liquor into goblets of fine black crystal. They were senior officers for the most part. His three divisional commanders, having changed out of their field tunics and into their finest dress uniforms, all looked splendid. The gold accoutrements on their lapels and breast pockets gleamed brightly in the light of the overhead lamps. The other officers present were regimental commanders from the 8th Mechanised and 12th Heavy Infantry Divisions, some of them colonels, the rest majors. They had also smartened themselves up adequately, though more than a few bore grisly facial scars that somewhat ruined the overall effect.

  Even with their battle-ravaged features, they were far easier on the eye than the three hooded, red-robed figures that sat among them: Tech-Magos Sennesdiar, Tech-Adept Xephous, and Tech-Adept Armadron, the three most senior members of the Adeptus Mechanicus present at Hadron Base.

  DeViers had felt it only proper to invite them, absolutely certain that they would decline. He would not have asked them otherwise. Propriety had backfired on him, however, as all three had come. He still couldn’t understand why. They had expressly told him that they wouldn’t be able to eat the food his chef prepared. One of them — the perpetually wheezing, twitching Armadron — seemed to lack anything that even approximated a functioning mouth. From what deViers had glimpsed so far under that shadowy hood, it appeared that the adept’s entire head was encased in twin hemispheres of steel, absolutely featureless but for a single glowing green eye. In terms of aesthetics, the other two weren’t much better.

  Sennesdiar, the highest ranking of the three — though his robes bore no markings to denote this — was also the largest figure in the room, his misshapen bulk nearly twice the mass of anyone else present. His robes were perforated all across his back, allowing a number of strange serpentine appendages to fall all the way to the floor where they coiled around the legs of his chair, their metal segments gleaming in the light. Sennesdiar’s face — what little could be seen of it under his cowl — was grotesque, the flesh pale and bloodless, little more, in places, than flaps of skin stapled over dull steel, and his tiny mouth was a lipless slash that reminded deViers of nothing so much as a fresh stab wound. The effect was a mask that made a mockery of human features.

  The last of the three, Xephous, was no better. In some ways, he was actually worse, for his complex arrangement of mandibles and visual receptors gave him the aspect of a nightmarish biomechanical crab, and the intermittent clacking sounds that issued from him only added to the effect.

  By the Golden Throne of Terra, thought deViers, between the three of them, they’re enough to ruin a man’s appetite.

  The more human guests had filled their glasses and were pushing their chairs back so that they might rise to their feet for the general’s toast.

  DeViers turned his eyes away from the tech-priests, glad that the ever-considerate Gruber had seated them among the men at the far end of the table. Much nearer and, thankfully, much easier to behold, were Bishop Augustus and High Commissar Morten.

  The bishop, seated on the general’s immediate right, was a tall, almost skeletally thin man in his late seventies with a prodigiously long nose. His tanned skin shimmered with a coating of the most expensive and richly-scented oils, and precious gems glittered from the rings that graced each of his long fingers. Like the tech-priests, Bishop Augustus wore voluminous and finely made robes, though his were a dazzling white, symbolising a spiritual purity far beyond the grasp of other, lesser men. That was worth a laugh, thought deViers. If rumours about the bishop were true, he was anything but pure. On Cadia, he would have been publicly executed for his unorthodox predilections, but, perhaps, deViers told himself, the rumours were exactly that: idle rumours. The bishop was a fine conversationalist, already winning smiles and laughter from a number of the officers as they had listened intently to his anecdotes before being seated around the table. It was much more than could be said for his Martian counterparts.

  The high commissar, seated on the general’s immediate left, was a striking figure of a man, clearly of fine noble stock, dressed immaculately in his gold-braided tunic and black silk shirt. Such were Morten’s good looks that the only other man present whose features stood up to any kind of comparison was Major General Bergen, whom deViers always thought looked just as if he’d stepped straight out of a recruitment poster.

  As was only proper, High Commissar Morten had dispensed with his stiffened cap while at the table, but it was impossible to look at the man without seeing the ghost of it still perched firmly on his head, such was the strength of his identity. He was, in deViers’ opinion, the quintessential political officer. Unswerving and utterly uncompromising in his duty, he had served with the 18th
Army Group for the last eleven years and, though he and deViers had never developed anything that could be called a friendship, the general enjoyed the man’s professional respect and returned it in kind.

  The absence of friendship was no great loss. After all, deViers told himself, one must be careful around these commissars.

  All his guests were standing now, their eyes on him, goblets filled and at the ready. DeViers lifted his straight out in front of him, took a breath, and projected his voice.

  “To success, gentlemen,” he said. “To success and victory!”

  “Success and victory!” they replied with fervour. Excepting the Mechanicus, each of the guests threw back his glass and drank. When they had finished, deViers gestured them back into their seats, smiling broadly at them.

  Look at them, Mohamar, he thought, eating out of your hand. To success and victory, indeed, and to immortality, for I will have the glory I seek. And Throne help any bastard that gets in my way.

  Major General Gerard Bergen looked down at his plate with absolute revulsion. What the devil was this abomination? The starter had been bad enough — chilled bladdercrab with ormin and caprium — so obscenely rich that he’d felt his stomach churning, though the general’s other guests had seemed to enjoy it immensely judging by their praise for the general’s personal chef. Now the old man’s servants brought out the main course — quivering mountains of dark red meat that looked dangerously undercooked.