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  Exodus – Steve Lyons

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  Exodus

  Steve Lyons

  There was fresh fruit in the governor’s palace.

  It lay in a bowl on a glass-topped table in the tiled reception area, each piece a ripe, unblemished specimen.

  The soldier had never seen such perfect fruit. He had never set foot in the governor’s palace before. Arch Teilloch was a private in the Home Guard, as his forefathers had been before him. At twenty-four years old, he had known no other life save this one of discipline and duty. He was here to escort a high-ranking clerk out of the building.

  The clerk was attended by numerous serfs carrying cases and pushing trolleys laden with crates. These were filled with data-slates, upon which vital records were preserved. The cases bulged with fine clothes or clinked with glittering trinkets, though the clerk seemed more protective of the latter.

  Teilloch’s squad, four-strong, encircled their venerable charge. Their booted footsteps rang off mosaic tiles to echo around flickering chandeliers. For all the urgent activity, Teilloch was struck by how peaceful this place was. The air was artificially clean and cool. Few people spoke, and only in reverent whispers. Not even the tremor he felt through the soles of his boots could disturb the pervading calm. The foundations of the palace were sturdy enough to absorb it.

  The travails of the past few months felt a long way away.

  Then, Teilloch stepped through a door – and the smoke, grit, heat and noise of the outside world struck him in the face.

  The sky was a bloody shade of red, shot through with sooty plumes from many fires across the city. A fleet of groundcars sat with engines rumbling, exhaust pipes pumping out more fumes. Beyond these, an angry mob strained against a line of Home Guard troopers in orange and blue.

  It was the job of Teilloch’s squad to get their clerk to a car. On Corporal Barnard’s orders, the four of them went ahead, descending a short, metallic staircase. On their helmets and flak jackets, they bore the impacts of eggs, bottles and other crude missiles. Teilloch could not understand the protestors. ‘Have we not all suffered enough,’ he complained to his nearest comrade, ‘without turning on each other?’

  Another bottle, half-filled with promethium with a smouldering fuse, sailed past his left ear. He saw it too late to duck and was lucky it hadn’t been better aimed. The bottle burst harmlessly against the wall. Troopers tried to fight their way towards the bomber, but the crowd closed ranks against them. A scrawny-looking private found himself dragged under, punched and kicked.

  Another, stronger tremor stole Teilloch’s footing. He stumbled down the last of the steps, turning an ankle under him.

  Some protestors, thrown by the quake, had burst through the Home Guard line. The soldiers responded, as trained, with lethal force. Teilloch heard the cracks of a dozen autoguns as Private Alvado – an older and more muscular man than he – helped him up. His ankle throbbed but wasn’t broken.

  They bundled their charge into his vehicle and slammed the door behind him. Barnard ordered his squad to stand sentry as the serfs loaded up their master’s luggage. Teilloch was glad that he had never earned his stripes. The crowd was louder and more defiant than ever. He felt as if their howls might split open his head. He wouldn’t have known what to do, had he not had orders to follow.

  Standing rigid, he closed his eyes for a moment. He tried to recall the cool peace of the governor’s palace, but already it felt like a dream of another world. He could not imagine fruit growing here.

  This was his home: a world badly wounded, crying out in pain and despair. A world, Arch Teilloch feared, that was entering its death throes.

  Katraxis was doomed.

  No one was saying it yet, at least in public, but Ven Mikkelson had little doubt of it. The Second Tyrannic War was over – but tendrils of the defeated Hive Fleet Kraken survived. One of them, lashing out vengefully, had struck this planet.

  The industrial part of the city was quiet, though vandals and looters had recently passed this way. Obscene graffiti, some of it blasphemous, defaced factorum walls. Glass crunched beneath the boots of a quintet of Imperial Guardsmen as they marched in double-time along the desolate streets. They were members of the Valhallan 132nd regiment. Ice Warriors, they called themselves, famed for their tenacity against overwhelming odds.

  They were running away.

  Konrad Ven Mikkelson, their sergeant, felt sick at the thought of it. The decision had not been his to make, of course, but this hardly made defeat taste any less bitter, as his disgruntled men kept reminding him.

  A voice crackled in his ear, requiring his location. He gave his coordinates and the voice sounded again: ‘You’re too far out, sergeant. The dropships are leaving at fourteen-hundred hours relative. They can’t wait for you.’

  ‘We’ll be there,’ he mumbled through his thick beard.

  They were cutting it fine – his own fault, he knew. There had been too many distractions. He had needed to know that, at least, he had fought as long and as hard as he could. To his men, he barked, ‘Pick up the pace.’

  He could hear a commotion ahead of them. Another distraction? People were running towards them, fleeing in terror. Some of them, seeing the Valhallans’ heavy greatcoats, rushed to them with pleas on their lips. They jabbered over each other, but one word came through extremely clearly.

  ‘Xenos,’ Guardsman Vilhelm repeated, his face twisting into a sneer. He hefted his lasgun, set his jaw and started forward.

  Ven Mikkelson stopped him. ‘No.’

  ‘But, sergeant, it sounds like another–’

  ‘I said no.’

  They had come in sight of a small temple. Like other devotional buildings, it was packed to bursting point, with a crowd yet straining at the doors. Among them, fighting had broken out. Ven Mikkelson couldn’t make out any details, but guessed what had happened.

  There were xenos on this world that looked like men.

  It was thought that they had been here for decades, even centuries, adapting, evolving. They had wormed their way into the heart of this society – far deeper than anyone had supposed. The Ice Warriors had been rooting them out for weeks, destroying scores of them. It hadn’t been enough.

  Another infiltrator, it seemed, had revealed itself. Or been exposed. Or an innocent man had been accused: someone bald and heavyset, most likely, as that was how the infiltrators tended to look.

  ‘We need to find a vehicle,’ said Ven Mikkelson. He led his squad towards a side street, leaving the problem behind. ‘Take your hands off me!’ he bellowed at a desperate woman who tried to hold him back.

  From the melee behind them rose a dreadful raucous shriek. ‘Sergeant!’ Vilhelm protested. ‘Surely no man could have made that–’

  ‘Ignore it.’ He had to force himself to speak the words. ‘What good would slaying one more monster do? Those people would only fall prey to the next one or the next. Or be broken by earthquakes, fried by solar flares, drowned by tidal waves. Or…’ He left other, worse possibilities unspoken. ‘We have our orders. We are to do nothing for them.’

  ‘The hive ship is on its way,’ agreed Guardsman Bullski morosely, ‘and we must be gone before it comes.’

  Vilhelm said nothing, still chafing against his sergeant’s decision. He was young, and hadn’t yet learned to temper his idealism with pragmatism.

  As fearsome as the men-like xenos were, they were only the scouts of a much larger, more terrible force – now mere hours away. Th
ese Ice Warriors knew what most of the natives did not: that a cold calculation of Katraxis’ worth had been made and no further resources would be spared to save it. The tyranids would have it.

  More screams – very human-sounding screams – pursued the running soldiers like accusing spectres. Ven Mikkelson hardened himself against them. ‘Keep going,’ he commanded. ‘We can say a prayer later for those who have perished today. It may be that they are the lucky ones.’

  ‘It is my duty to inform you that we face a terrible threat.’

  The message was being broadcast on all frequencies. It boomed out of speakers on those street corner posts that hadn’t been torn down and smashed. It rattled in the comm-bead in Private Arch Teilloch’s helmet.

  ‘Most of you know that xenos have been unearthed among us. Unfortunately, they have signalled to more of their deplorable kind.’

  Teilloch rode near the head of a slow-moving convoy on a Chimera’s hull. More troopers clung likewise to the vehicle or marched alongside it. The Home Guard had rarely put on such a show of strength. As they ploughed along the jammed streets, however, the mood of the protestors being herded aside grew uglier.

  ‘The tyranids are coming. It is their approach that has caused – somehow, through some sorcerous means – our recent manifold disasters.’

  Teilloch knew the voice of Governor Strawhagen, of course. Glancing back along the convoy, he could see the governor’s groundcar. It was sleek and silver, grander than the other vehicles, with blacked-out windows. Imperial flags fluttered proudly from each side of its hood.

  He had never yet seen his world’s commander-in-chief in the flesh. He might not have been chosen for his personal escort detail, but he felt honoured even to be this close to him.

  ‘I am assured, however, that mankind has met these abominations before – and triumphed gloriously over them.’

  ‘Then stay and fight!’ yelled someone, and the crowd roared its agreement. More cans and bottles were hurled, most glancing off the silver car’s ceramite plating. Teilloch looked out across a sea of angry faces, screaming and spitting insults. ‘Deserter!’ was the favourite among them.

  ‘We are relocating key personnel to other worlds – as a purely precautionary measure. The vital work of governance must not be interrupted.’

  Katraxis Port came into view. Its control towers and fuel pylons scratched the broiling sky. A ship was rising on a cloud of fire. Teilloch squinted up at it. ‘Is that an Astra Militarum transporter?’ muttered Private Alvado, beside him. ‘Where do you think they’re going?’

  ‘That is not for us to question,’ Teilloch rebuked him automatically. He pretended that the same question hadn’t occurred to him, too.

  The crowd here was denser than ever. People strained against the port’s perimeter fences. When they saw the convoy approaching, they eagerly switched their attentions to it, crowding around the leading vehicles. They placed their hands on the Chimera as if thinking to hold it back.

  Teilloch yelled at them to clear the way. One haggard-looking woman refused to do so. ‘What about us?’ she wailed at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘What about my children? What will happen to them?’ Teilloch was relieved that he didn’t have to answer her. He repeated his instruction, with an additional push for emphasis. The tearful woman spat in his face.

  Teilloch shot her in the shoulder.

  It was a reflex action; he hadn’t even thought about it. She reeled back, looking as surprised as he felt. She clasped her hands to her wound, blood welling between her fingers. He told himself not to feel guilty. He could have aimed for her heart. He would have been within his rights.

  Other troopers were already following his lead. They pumped bullets into the baying mob, aiming for the troublemakers, not always successfully. Some people, trying to escape, were thrust back into the line of fire by those behind them. The Chimera’s guns were pressed into service too – just its lasguns for now, and only sparingly because of the troopers in their way.

  ‘Civilians.’ Above the gunfire and screaming and engine drones, Teilloch heard Alvado’s breathy voice. ‘We’re shooting civilians.’

  ‘Law-breakers,’ he retorted. ‘They were warned to stay off the streets. In wartime, disobedience amounts to treason.’

  He spotted a young man amid the throng, hefting another bottle bomb. He snapped up his rifle and squeezed off another shot. He aimed for the shoulder again, but missed. A fountain of blood exploded from the bomber’s neck. He dropped his bottle, and promethium slopped from it and ignited. The flames caused panic as they caught hold of the bomber and leapt to others around him.

  The governor was still speaking, with a calmness that was admirable in the circumstances. His voice was drowned out, in Teilloch’s ear, by an urgent vox from a Home Guard senior officer. Strawhagen’s groundcar was under attack.

  A section of the crowd had surged forward and surrounded it. They were fighting its defenders hand-to-hand, denying them the use of their weapons. They were rocking the car on its axels, threatening to overturn it. Teilloch tried, but couldn’t get to them. There were too many rioters in his way.

  Someone snatched a gun from an overwhelmed trooper. He fired bullets into the silver car’s windshield until it shattered. Rioters swarmed over the groundcar’s hood. They plucked the terrified driver, in his neat black uniform and cap, out of his seat. They bloodied him and cast him aside.

  Two rioters wriggled into the car. A moment later, they leapt out through its doors, looking more aggrieved than ever – Teilloch couldn’t tell why. Another moment after that, they were dead, as the Home Guard began to re-establish control.

  In the meantime, the rest of the convoy had ground onwards. Other vehicles containing other dignitaries – one of them Teilloch’s venerable clerk – had made it through the spaceport gates.

  ‘I ask for your patience in the days and weeks ahead.’

  With the doors of the governor’s groundcar standing open, now Teilloch could see straight through it.

  ‘The road ahead of us will surely be long and difficult. I have faith, however, that the Emperor will guide us and protect us. Praise be to the Emperor!’

  The car was empty.

  Ven Mikkelson had found an abandoned vehicle: a groundcar with a crumpled fender, but Vilhelm had managed to get it started.

  The Ice Warriors drove for half a kilometre, then entered a residential district. Here, it seemed that every towering hab-block around them had disgorged its tenants onto the streets. The mood, so far, was more despairing than angry. Still, shell-shocked civilians in their way slowed them to walking pace. Some were howling, weeping, praying fervently. Others hammered on the groundcar’s windows, begging for hope that its occupants did not have to offer them.

  They came upon a tanker, overturned, blocking their way, in a spreading pool of volatile promethium. ‘I could try to squeeze past it on the footpath,’ suggested Vilhelm, but he sounded doubtful. ‘Otherwise, we’ll have to back up and find another way around.’

  Ven Mikkelson glanced over his shoulder. The crowd had closed in behind them again. He shook his head. ‘Kill the engine,’ he ordered. ‘Everyone out. From here on, we’re back on foot.’

  He checked the city map on his data-slate. By his reckoning, they still had time to make their rendezvous – just. ‘We’ve been to this area before,’ he said, recalling a recent xenos hunt. ‘I know a shortcut we can take.’

  He consulted his compass and led his squad back the way they had come, brushing off the wretched beggars in their path. He ducked into a winding alleyway between two buildings. Emerging from the far end, he was greeted by a scene of devastation.

  A week ago, there had been a powerful earthquake here. It had toppled several hab-blocks, which in turn had crashed into their neighbours. It had taken days for the dust to settle completely. A hundred city blocks had been razed to the ground. Th
e loss of life had been incalculable.

  The Ice Warriors picked their way across the rubble. It shifted treacherously beneath their heavy boots, exposing dusty, rigid, mutilated corpses. There were areas like this across the planet, of course – and worse. They had all heard reports of a whole city to the east, washed away by tsunamis.

  ‘All this destruction,’ Guardsman Bullski lamented, ‘before the invaders have even made planetary orbit.’

  They could make better progress now, at least. The disaster area was virtually deserted, but for a few sallow-eyed mourners. The tumult of the crowd behind these soldiers faded, and an eerie near-silence enveloped them. A light wind whipped about the Ice Warriors’ ears. It tasted of ash, but its cooling effect was welcome.

  A jagged shape rose gradually before them: a half-demolished cathedral, clearly more robust than the structures that had once surrounded it. Gilded oak doors had been torn from their hinges and shredded. The Ice Warriors passed through a creaking archway. They clambered over the shattered remains of marble pillars.

  Ven Mikkelson halted his squad. ‘Did anyone else hear that?’

  His four men answered in the negative. The sergeant swept his surroundings with narrowed eyes. Two sides of the cathedral were open to the elements. From the other two, the skeletons of blown-out windows glowered down at him.

  Perhaps he had imagined the scrape of a footstep. Perhaps it had been the sound of debris settling, or a foretaste of another quake.

  Ven Mikkelson’s instincts, honed by thirty years’ experience, told him otherwise. He could see nowhere for a lurker to hide, however. He signalled his squad to proceed, cautiously, along the path of the cathedral’s nave.

  As they neared the point where an altar must have stood, Vilhelm stooped to examine something underfoot. He teased a battered brass plate out of the rubble and brandished it proudly. It wasn’t the material value of the artefact that pleased him. ‘Look,’ he crowed. ‘The outline of the Imperial aquila, etched into the metal. It’s a sign! The Emperor is with us, even here, even–’