“Care for some hot caffeine, sir?” asked the trooper a little nervously, eyeing the bright golden
glyphs on Bergen’s collar and the bands at his sleeve.
Bergen smiled.
“Are you sure it’s hot, son?” he asked. There was no steam rising from the flask’s open lid.
The trooper nodded earnestly. “My sergeant says it’s the atmospheric pressure, sir. Stuff doesn’t
steam here. Not at normal temperatures, leastwise. He says if it’s steaming, it’ll put you in the medblock
with burns. Can’t pretend as I understand it myself, but I’ll take his word for it, sir. He’s a
smart one, is my sarge.”
Bergen smiled, but refused a cup all the same. Any more caffeine tonight and he wouldn’t sleep
at all.
“What’s your name and outfit, son?” he asked.
“Ritter, sir. Two-one-five-three-five. With the 88th Feros Artillery.”
32
“So these are your guns?” said Bergen, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder.
The little trooper looked proud. “Sure are, sir. Proper beauties, ain’t they? I’m hoping to crew
eventually. I’m just support right now, though.”
“They’re not half bad, private,” said Bergen, glancing over his shoulder at them. “Not bad at all.
You must be proud that your regiment is part of this operation. One for the history books, this.”
“I suppose so, sir,” said Ritter. “I mean, I just go where the regiment goes. So long as me and
my mates are together, I don’t mind where. The air here stinks a bit, though. And… well, there’s no
girls except them Medicae nurses. And it’s only the officers have a devil’s chance with any of that
lot, isn’t it? Even the rough-looking ones.”
Bergen laughed. “Glad you’ve got your priorities straight. A man has to keep things in
perspective, eh?”
“Too true, sir.”
“Well, you’d best get back to it. I bet some of your mates could use a good shot of caff to keep
them awake. Keep your chin up, soldier.”
“Right, sir,” said Ritter. “Thank you, sir.” He fumbled with the flask and cups for a moment so
that he could throw up a stiff salute before moving off to serve the gun crews he so hoped to join.
Bergen watched him go and then started walking anticlockwise along the wall in the general
direction of his quarters, gesturing for the men he passed not to rise on his account. Talking with
Ritter had lightened his mood. There was an undeniable value, he believed, in taking the time to talk
with the rank-and-file. Their answers were often refreshingly honest, unshaped by the hidden
agendas that tightly governed the words of most career-minded senior officers. Some of the younger
troopers were blessed with a shining optimism — born of blissful naivety, he supposed — that he
couldn’t ever remember having possessed. Perhaps it was a class thing. Until the day he entered
cadet school, his family, saints rest them, had worked tirelessly to prepare him for a life of war. The
old phrase “harder than a Cadian grandmother” was born of fact, as the network of deep scars on his
back attested.
As he walked further along the wall, his thoughts shifted to General deViers, and the upturn in
his mood was suddenly reversed again. Mohamar Antoninus deViers. Alarm bells had been ringing
in Bergen’s head for months. There were no two ways about it, the general had been swiftly losing
his grip on reality since the destruction of Palmeros.
It should have been the old man’s crowning glory, the Palmeros campaign. He was long overdue
for retirement and, if he had only managed to turn back the orks and save the majority of the
planetary populace, he would certainly have received the coveted Honorifica, and would probably
have been granted an Imperial title. Lord General Mohamar deViers: that would have gone some
way towards satisfying his lust for fame. Instead, Ghazghkull Thraka had smashed the planet apart
with seventeen massive asteroids, killing billions of loyal Imperial citizens and wiping a civilised
world from the star-charts. DeViers had been forced to pull out fast with none of the everlasting
glory he had anticipated. Perhaps he had imagined that the Palmerosi people would build statues in
his honour. Yes, thought Bergen, he would have been looking forward to that.
Without victory, there were no statues.
Humiliated, the old man had scrabbled for another cause and, in his desperation, had settled on a
hopeless one that other, more wily generals had manoeuvred carefully to avoid: a half-mad recovery
mission that Sector Command promised would earn the general his place in the history books.
What wouldn’t the old man sacrifice, Bergen wondered grimly, for something like that? He was
the last of his line. He’d said it himself. His obsession with leaving some kind of legacy had put the
entire army group at extreme risk.
Bergen’s steps grew heavier as he began his descent from the high battlements eager to return to
his quarters. The walk had done its job. Tiredness settled over him like a heavy blanket. As he
trudged down one of the southeastern stairwells, boots ringing on the metal steps, he cast his mind
33
back to the briefing session earlier that day, and the words the general had offered before dismissing
his three divisional commanders.
“Expect a fight when you get to Karavassa, Gerard,” deViers had said. “You can be sure that
every damned outpost that Yarrick established during the last war has been infested with the
buggers. They’ve had plenty of time to dig in, by Throne. Let’s hope all that time has made them
soft and complacent. Regardless, I know you’ll get the job done. I must have secure supply lines
before I set out to claim the prize.”
“You still insist on taking to the field in person, sir?” Bergen had asked, knowing that it was as
futile as ever to argue, but ploughing ahead anyway. With a glance at Killian and Rennkamp, he’d
added, “I think all three of us would counsel you against it. It’s an unnecessary risk, to say the
least.”
“There’s nothing unnecessary about it!” deViers had barked, and Bergen had thought another
volcano of anger was about to erupt. But it hadn’t. Instead, deViers had simply shaken his head and
said, “Things of value demand risk. If the damned Munitorum thought I was too precious to risk,
they wouldn’t have sent me out here, would they? But that’s beside the point. I’ve prayed for
something like this to come my way, Gerard. I deserve this chance. It’s my destiny to recover that
Baneblade. And if any of you think I’m going to command from the rear on this one, you’re bloody
well out of your minds.”
Well, one of us is definitely out of his mind, Bergen thought as he recalled the conversation, but
I’m pretty sure it isn’t me.
He reached the rocky surface of the plateau, increased his walking pace, and soon spotted his
quarters up ahead — a low, two-storey prefab that he shared with Colonels Vinnemann, Marrenburg
and Graves. He was looking forward to slipping between cool sheets. Such comforts would be just a
memory once he was on the move.
Tired as he was, though, his mind still churned.
He knew that thousands of men would die in the coming days. Given the unexpected drop-ship
losses, it seemed all too likely that over two thousand already had. There would be worse to come.
Golgotha would see to that. Scores of men had already reported to the med-block and they hadn’t
even left the plateau yet. For some, it was the fines — particles of red dust so small that they could
penetrate the cell membranes of the human body. The medics said there was little they could do
beyond prescribing anti-toxic medication, but the real solution was to get off this blasted planet. The
medicines induced short-term vomiting and cramps. Then there were the dannih — small chitinous
bloodsuckers with powerful tripartite jaws. They seemed to get everywhere, even inside machines.
If a man tried to pull one from his skin while it was feeding, only the fat red body would come
away. The detached head would then burrow down into his flesh dispensing anti-coagulant, homing
in on major arteries. A man could bleed to death if he wasn’t careful. It was a powerful deterrent
against interfering with the creature’s feeding cycle. The only way to get rid of them without this
happening was to douse the afflicted area of the body in strong alcohol, an unhappy solution on two
counts. Firstly, troopers didn’t much like the idea of wasting their coveted liquor on shifting
stubborn ticks, and, secondly, dousing oneself in alcohol was never a good idea. A handful of the
heavier smokers had already discovered this first-hand.
There were other challenges, too. Aside from the dannih and the fines, there were numerous
minor conditions related to atmospheric pressure, allergies, the unusual but breathable composition
of the air, and all the problems caused by living at a constant gravity of one-point-twelve gees. It
seemed to Bergen that Golgotha was waging its own war against the Cadians, and the orks hadn’t
even got started yet.
Bergen had never been a dour man by nature. Quite the contrary, in fact. He had, in his days as a
cadet, been selected to feature in a short series of Cadian propaganda and recruitment films, such
was his natural warmth and appeal. But, as he opened the door to his quarters and saw Katz
34
snoozing in a chair by his desk, he decided there were three things about which he was depressingly
certain.
The first was that his commanding officer was coming apart at the seams. DeViers had lost his
way. A powerful aura of desperation hovered around him, and it heralded disaster for the 18th Army
Group and everyone attached to it.
The second was that Exolon would never find the famous Fortress of Arrogance. Holy icon or
not, the orks had enjoyed thirty-eight years in which to strip it down to its bare nuts and bolts. If
there was anything left of it at all, it would be unrecognisable. No, The Fortress of Arrogance was
little more than a carrot dangled in front of the Munitorum’s nose by the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Whatever interest they had in returning to Golgotha, Bergen would wager it had little to do with
finding Yarrick’s cherished tank.
The third and last thing, the thing that worried Bergen most of all, and the thing that he was
convinced of above all else, was simply this: unless the Emperor Himself descended from the
heavens to offer them His Divine Protection, not a single man in his beloved armoured division was
going to make it off this blasted world alive. The cards were stacked against them like never before.
Millions of men had died in the Golgothan War all those years ago. Now, like those men, the fate of
Bergen’s troopers would be written in the blood-red sand.
He’d fight it all the way of course. He swore it. He had been born and raised to fight, and there
was nothing he wouldn’t do to see his men through this.
I’ll go over the old man’s head if I have to. Killian and Rennkamp will back me up. Together,
we’ll go to Morten and…
The thought went unfinished. Tiredness crashed over Bergen like a tidal wave and he fell back
onto the bed, asleep before his head hit the pillow.
* * *
Elsewhere on the base, about a kilometre west of Bergen’s quarters, the three senior agents of the
Adeptus Mechanicus had returned to their apartments and were being attended by a flock of child
like slaves. True children would have perished very quickly in such a place — the pungent
chemicals that misted the air would have dissolved the tissue of their lungs — but these were not
true children. They had once been so, long ago, before extensive surgeries had converted them into
ageless amalgams of flesh and metal like the tech-priests they served, though far less sophisticated.
Their brains had been cruelly cut, rendering them incapable of independent thought, and their voices
had been silenced forever. Their only function was to obey and, as such, they were beyond sin,
beyond mischief or evil. Perhaps in recognition of this, their creator had crafted bronze masks for
them, faces frozen in beatific smiles, like half-living sculptures of holy cherubim.
They clustered around their masters, disrobing them, removing peripheral devices, pulling dataplugs
from flesh-sockets. Then they helped the tech-priests into a deep circular tub filled with a
thick, glowing, milky substance that cast its light up to the metal ceiling. When this was done, the
cherub-slaves retreated to shadowy alcoves set in the walls. There, they deactivated, and became
like dolls at rest in upright coffins.
Apart from the area lit by the glowing pool, the Mechanicus quarters were dark and foulsmelling.
To the tech-priests, these things mattered not at all. The darkness hid nothing from
augmetic eyes that could see in many spectrums of light. The smells registered only as lists of
airborne compounds in varying concentrations, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, simply there.
Wading to the far side of the small pool, Tech-Magos Sennesdiar submerged his misshapen,
patchwork body all the way to his neck. Adepts Xephous and Armadron followed suit, and the
glowing liquid within the tub bubbled and churned like hot soup.
It was Armadron who broke the silence. His words, when he spoke them, were delivered in the
same chalkboard screech he had used at the general’s table. <Should the general host such an event
35
again, I shall formally petition you, magos, that I may be excused. The experience was disagreeable.
The ecstasy those men displayed in the consumption of organic compounds was disturbing to me.>
The tech-magos answered with his own condensed, high-pitched burst. <Though it was centuries
ago, adept, you once ate as they did. You have transcended such weaknesses, and may glory in that,
but do not forget the past, most especially your own. Those men require our guidance, rather than
our disdain. They cannot comprehend the glory of the Omnissiah as we do.>
Armadron did not reply, a sign that he was reflecting on his superior’s words.
<I, too, magos, wish to abstain from such events in the future,> said Xephous. His mandibles
clacked together loudly at the end of his burst, something Sennesdiar considered an unworthy habit.
<I calculated a three-point-seven-nine per cent chance that the matter consumed at the table would
lead to one or more of the guests suffering a parasitic infestation of the lower intestine. Yet, you
would not allow me to alert them. I find your reasoning most difficult to process. Do you wish them
