lips. Mikhaelev, in contrast, held himself rigid, contained, and betrayed no reaction to his blessing at
all. Beside him, Anakora reacted to the priest’s touch with a little shudder, and a single tear dripped
from her down-turned eyes.
Then it was done — and, with a final nod and a munificent smile in Steele’s direction, the priest
ambled away. The colonel took a deep breath as his moment of peace ended and he prepared to get
back down to business. He nodded at his sergeant, to indicate that it was time — and Gavotski
stepped forward, cleared his throat and addressed the squad.
“You may have heard the name Confessor Wollkenden,” he said. “You may have heard that he
came here to Cressida a month ago, to minister to its people, to help them resist the corruption of
their world. You may also have heard that the confessor is one of the finest men the Imperium has
bred. It is thanks in part to his leadership that the war in the Artemis system was won.”
In fact, Steele hadn’t heard Wollkenden’s name before this morning, and he doubted whether
Gavotski had either. He had been left in no doubt, however, of the stock placed in him by the
Ecclesiarchy, that they considered him a virtual saint.
“Three days ago,” Gavotski continued, “the confessor was en route to an outlying settlement to
the north of here, intending to make contact with a group of loyalist resisters. His shuttle came under
fire. A vox-message from its pilot confirmed that an emergency landing had been made, and that
Confessor Wollkenden was alive. The message was interrupted. There has been no word since then.
The area in which the confessor’s ship came down was a forest, until it fell to Chaos forces three
and a half years ago. Since then, of course, conditions on the ground have changed considerably.
Intelligence is sparse, but we know that there has been a great deal of glacial activity in the area,
which has rendered much of it almost impassable… Almost.” At this, Gavotski gave the Termite a
proud pat.
“Of course, it is possible that Confessor Wollkenden is dead. Our job, comrades, is to find out
for sure, and, if he is alive, to bring him back. The Imperial Guard cannot spare the resources for a
full-scale search and rescue at present — and it is felt anyway that a stealthy extraction has more
chance of success. That is why Colonel Steele and I are taking only one squad through the glaciers,
and it is why each of you has been chosen: because your respective commanders tell us that you are
the best the Valhallan 319th has to offer.”
“Pardon me, sergeant,” said Trooper Borscz, “but are we to understand that Colonel Steele is to
lead this mission?”
“That is correct, soldier,” said Gavotski. “You have a problem with that?”
“No, sergeant.” In fact, Borscz seemed positively enthused by the idea, and he looked at Steele
with admiration blazing in his deep blue eyes.
The colonel cleared his throat, and said, “There is one thing that Sergeant Gavotski has not yet
mentioned.” It was the first time the troopers had heard his voice, and each of them became visibly
more attentive. “You are aware,” said Steele, “that Cressida is being evacuated. What you have not
been told, because this information is strictly need-to-know, is that an Exterminatus order has been
signed.”
Palinev gave an audible gasp, but the others absorbed the news silently, grimly.
“Naval warships are on their way,” said. Steele. “Cressida will be virus-bombed from orbit,
completely sterilised. As a world still rich in mineral resources, it is hoped that some day it can be
recolonised. Until that day—”
Gavotski finished the thought for him. “The Chaos forces may have won this battle,” he said,
“but they will not live long to enjoy their spoils.”
“All of which,” said Steele, “means that we have a deadline. I was told this morning, in no
uncertain terms, that the virus bombing would take place in forty-eight hours’ time, whether we, or
indeed Confessor Wollkenden, were still on Cressida or not. A little over three hours has passed
since then.
20
“Gentlemen and lady, I suggest we get the Termite loaded up. The chrono is already ticking.”
21
CHAPTER FOUR
Time to Destruction of Cressida: 44.49.09
“You should not have come back.”
The passenger compartment was raucous with the roar of the Termite’s engine and with the
chatter of ten Ice Warriors, packed together in the confined space, getting to know one another,
assessing each other’s strengths. Still, Blonsky’s voice cut across the noise, and brought the chatter
to a halt.
“You should not have come back,” he said again, and his angular face was set into a stony
scowl, his dark green eyes piercing his victim.
Pozhar had been telling the tale of how he had found himself behind enemy lines, and of his
heroic return — although privately, Gavotski thought he might have exaggerated some of his more
remarkable feats. The young trooper was cut off in mid-flow, and he didn’t know what to say, he
just gaped at his accuser.
“Your chances of survival were minimal,” said Blonsky, “and if you had been killed it would
have been by a shot to the back: a senseless death, and a dishonourable one in the Emperor’s eyes.
He had carried you to the enemy’s heart. Instead of thinking of your own survival, you should have
used your chance to strike at that heart.”
“But… but I did survive,” said Pozhar. “I survived, and I brought back some civilians, and…
and some vital information about troop movements in the underhive.” He stole a sidelong glance at
Steele, presumably to see if he agreed with Blonsky’s assessment. The colonel’s expression,
however, remained neutral.
“I don’t think it’s helpful to talk about what might have been,” Gavotski said. “As Trooper
Pozhar has proved, his situation wasn’t hopeless. He was able to come back to us, to fight another
day in the Emperor’s service.”
Emboldened by the sergeant’s support, Pozhar rounded on Blonsky, and said, “Anyway, how
long do you think I’d have lasted, surrounded by traitors, if I’d started shooting? How many do you
think I’d have taken down? Five? Six? I killed three times that many before morning rations, and I’ll
do the same tomorrow, and the next day. That’s how I serve the Emperor! How about you, Trooper
Blonsky? How many kills have you claimed today? Do you really want to talk about whose life is
the more valuable?”
Blonsky’s stare didn’t waver. “You should not have come back,” he repeated with the
unshakeable conviction of a witch hunter.
The Termite gave a judder, and Grayle, seated at the controls, called back over his shoulder,
“We’ve just left the hive, sir. No sighting of the enemy as yet.”
“How do we stand on that escort?” asked Gavotski.
“Looks like we can expert two Chimeras to meet us,” said Grayle. “Still waiting for a vox from
Ursa Platoon to see if we can make it three.”
“You clap eyes on the enemy, Grayle,” said Barreski, “you just point me in their direction. I’ll
show them we don’t need bodyguards!” He was stationed at one of the six hull-mounted flamers,
squinting along its barrel, making minute adjustments to its sights. His enthusiasm was appreciated,
but Gavotski knew that the Termite was not built for combat. It didn’t have the firepower. That was
why they had left the hive by an eastern gate, from a zone relatively untouched by the battle to the
north. For the first leg of their journey, they would be travelling above ground, and they hoped to
22
avoid the battle altogether. Due to pressure of time, however, they couldn’t give it as wide a berth as
they would have liked.
“If we do come under attack,” said Borscz, “I would rather get out there and trust to the strength
of my own two hands than suffocate or freeze to death in this tin can.” He did look uncomfortable,
his massive frame sandwiched between Barreski and Anakora. However, as one of the first troopers
into the Termite, Borscz appeared to have chosen his seat purposely to avoid having to man a
flamer.
“You would agree with me, I think, my friend,” he continued, leaning forward to give Palinev an
overly familiar pat on the shoulder. The force of the blow almost knocked the smaller, slighter man
to the floor. “As a scout, you must rely on your own abilities to stay silent and hidden, yes? Not
much use to you inside a great clunking machine.”
“You are joking, right?” said Barreski. “Without machines, our ancestors would never have won
the Great War. It was machines like this one that turned the tide, and allowed them to drive the
filthy orks from our world.”
“The machines would have been little use,” Borscz countered, “without good, strong men inside
them. It is not in the machines that our ancestors found the will to defeat the invaders, Trooper
Barreski, but rather in their own beating hearts.”
Anakora played little part in the conversation. She had introduced herself to the others, given
accurate but short answers to their questions about her war record, but that was all. She was acutely
aware that they were all here because of their proven expertise in their fields. She had no right to sit
among them.
Few Valhallan women served in the Imperial Guard. With so many men being marched off to
war and so few returning, they had the vital and valued task of replenishing their world’s population,
of birthing and raising the next generation of Ice Warriors. This, then, was the life Anakora had
expected to live, the life that had been shot to pieces by a few cold words from a disinterested
medic.
It had taken her a few days to come to terms with the news, to accept that her life had no purpose
any longer. Even one-time friends, even family, had looked at her with contempt, seeing her as a
burden, a drain on their society. But far worse than that were those few who did understand, and
whose looks were laced with pity.
There had been no compulsion on Anakora to join up, not ostensibly. But she had soon seen that
she had no choice. The worst sin you could commit as an Imperial citizen was to serve the Emperor
to less than your full ability, and there was only one way left in which she could serve.
She had expected to find basic training a struggle. She had just kept her head down and tried to
get through it, her only goal not to embarrass herself beside men who had spent their lives in
preparation for this. She had worked hard, steeled herself to appear as tough and as stoic as any of
them, and no one could have been more surprised than Anakora when she had passed out with
honours.
Still, she had felt she was faking it, bluffing her way through a world in which she did not
belong, and she had known that her first battlefield would find her out. Fifteen hours, that was the
average life expectancy of an Imperial Guardsmen, though for an Ice Warrior it was a little more,
maybe seventeen. Anakora didn’t expect to last that long, but if she could claim just one kill, take
one heretic down with her, then she would have balanced the scales and justified her fleeting
existence.
Four years later, she was still here, and she didn’t know why.
She should have died on that first battlefield. She should have died in the underhive, a couple of
hours ago. She should have died so many times, on so many worlds — but most of all, she should
have died two and a half years ago, on Astaroth Prime.
23
Astaroth Prime… A hellhole of a world, with lakes of fire and molten rivers; a world on which
no Guardsman accustomed to the sub-zero temperatures of Valhalla should ever have set foot; a
world to which a company of Ice Warriors had been sent anyway, to deal with an incursion by their
oldest enemies, the orks; a world on which that company of Ice Warriors had been massacred.
In her brightest hours, Anakora tried to imagine that she had been spared for a reason, that the
Emperor had had a higher purpose in mind for her. In her darkest, she forever relived that moment
when a fellow trooper, a good comrade, had thrown himself in the path of an ork axe to save her.
Her record showed that she was a survivor, and in the Imperial Guard that ability was as highly
prized as it was rare. Anakora knew the truth. She knew that she had not survived so long through
her own efforts. She had survived because someone had taken pity on her, had thought her in need
of protection.
So, now she had been pulled from another suicide mission and given this chance to survive
again, precisely because of her record thus far. She couldn’t help but wonder if this might be the
time her luck ran out at last, the time that everyone would see through her.
Anakora looked forward to the release of death. Her only fear was that, when she died, she
would take the rest of her new squad with her.
Mikhaelev joined in with the general chatter. He concurred with his new comrades that the Chaos
forces didn’t know what was about to hit them, that Confessor Wollkenden was as good as rescued.
He kept his true feelings to himself.
He was worried. Behind the false bravado, he thought, they all were. Well, perhaps not Pozhar
or Borscz — they both seemed like the kind of Guardsmen who lived only to die, the perfect
brainwashed soldiers. It would not have occurred to them to question their orders, to wonder if their
lives might have been put to better use.
Mikhaelev asked himself those questions. He stewed over the details of his briefing, the logic of
staking ten lives on the faint chance of saving just one. If Confessor Wollkenden was so important,
why did the Inquisition care so little about him? Why couldn’t the virus bombing they had
authorised be delayed a few days for his sake?
He couldn’t speak out, of course. Even if some of the others, these relative strangers, agreed
with him, they would not dare to confess to it. No, the floor would be held by the likes of Blonsky,
spewing his accusations, insisting that to doubt one’s leaders, even if they were only men, was to
doubt the Emperor. Just as those same leaders would want him to think.
Not that Blonsky would hear him, of course. No, as soon as he opened his mouth, he knew that
Steele or Gavotski would do their duty and shoot him dead.
So, he kept his own counsel, said what he was expected to say, and did what he was told as if he
was the perfect brainwashed soldier too. And the fact that he was here, in this Termite, in this squad,
was proof that he had played that part supremely well.
