The Omnissiah's Chosen - Peter Fehervari Read online

  A hand grabbed his shoulder. ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’ cried Coyne.

  Abrehem looked for a way out. The collarmen and their mastiffs had all the exits covered, or at least all the obvious ones. There had to be a few they didn’t know about.

  ‘This way,’ said the man with the knife. ‘If you don’t want to get taken, follow me.’

  The man ran, but the ogryn grabbed him by the scruff of the neck as it dumbly watched the methodical subduing tactics of collarmen. Soft rounds slammed the ogryn, but it hardly seemed to feel them, and Abrehem rolled behind the grunting creature as it tried to make sense of what was happening and why these men were shooting it.

  The knifeman struggled in the ogryn’s grip, but he was as helpless as a child against its strength.

  ‘Let go of me, damn you!’ yelled the man.

  ‘Forget him,’ said Coyne. ‘There’s a back way out through the latrines.’

  Abrehem nodded and moved past the stupefied ogryn as a flurry of soft rounds battered the container wall next to his head. From the deformation of the sheet steel, Abrehem didn’t reckon those ‘soft’ rounds were particularly soft.

  Coyne pushed open the flimsy door to the latrines and was immediately flung back as a shock maul slammed into the side of his head. He dropped, poleaxed, to the ground. Abrehem skidded to a halt and tried to reverse his course. A crackling baton swung at his head, but he ducked and ran back the way he’d come. He heard the metallic cough of a shotgun blast and pain exploded in his lower back as his legs went numb under him. Abrehem crashed to the floor again, feeling twitching spasms of pain shooting up and down his spine.

  Mesh-gauntleted hands hauled him upright and he was dragged through the shattered remains of the bar, with its former clientele pleading, threatening and bargaining with the collarmen. Abrehem tried to struggle, but was held fast. Once the collarmen had you, that was it, you were bound to life aboard a starship, but that didn’t stop him from trying to beg for his freedom.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘You can’t... I have... permits. I work! I have a wife!’

  He blinked away static interference as they dragged him outside, the discordant wail of the sirens making him feel sick and the constant barking of the cyber-hounds setting his teeth on edge. The collarmen dumped him at the open doors of the growling volunteer-wagon, and fresh hands hauled him upright. His legs were still weak, but he was able to stand as a clicking bio-optic was shone in his eyes and overloaded his filters.

  ‘Exosomatic augmetics,’ said a voice, surprise evident even muffled by a vox-grille.

  ‘Tertiary grade,’ said another. ‘We can pull a full bio-ident and service history off them.’

  ‘Got it. Loader-technician Abrehem Locke, assigned to Lifter Rig Savickas.’

  ‘A lifter-tech with tertiary grade augmetics? Got to be black market.’

  ‘Or stolen.’

  ‘They’re not stolen,’ gasped Abrehem as his filters recalibrated. Three men in glossy black armour stood before him. Two held him upright. Another consulted a data-slate. ‘They were my father’s.’

  ‘He was bonded?’ demanded a fourth voice, heavily augmented by vox-amplification.

  Abrehem turned to see a magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, swathed in hooded crimson vestments, only the hot coals of a tripartite optic visible in the shadows. A black and gold stole with cog-toothed edges and a host of blurred numbers hung from his neck, and a heavy generator pack was fixed to his back. A haze of chill air gusted from its vents like breath, causing a patina of frost to form on the nearest collarman’s armour.

  ‘Yes, to Magos Xurgis of the 734th Jouran Manufactory Echelons.’

  ‘Then you might be useful. Bring him and do not damage his optics,’ said the magos, turning away and moving on down the ragged line of collared men and women, floating on a shimmering cushion of repulsor fields.

  ‘No, please! Don’t!’ he cried, but the men holding him gave his pleas no mind. A bulked-out servitor with piston-driven musculature hauled him inside the iron-hulled vehicle, where at least thirty other men were shackled in various states of disarray. Abrehem saw Coyne and Ismael trussed like livestock ready for slaughter. The ogryn sat with its back resting against the interior of the confinement compartment with a bemused smile on its face, as though this were a mild diversion from its daily routine instead of a life-changing moment of horror.

  ‘No!’ he screamed as the steel doors slammed shut, leaving them sealed in dim, red-lit darkness.

  Abrehem wept as he felt the engine roar and the heavy vehicle moved off. He kicked out at the doors, almost breaking bone as he slammed his heels into the metalwork again and again.

  ‘Won’t do you any good,’ said a voice behind him.

  Abrehem turned angrily to see the man who’d threatened Ismael with the knife. He no longer had his weapon, and his hands were bound before him with plastek cuffs. Like the ogryn, he seemed unnaturally calm, and Abrehem hated him for that.

  ‘Where are they taking us?’ he said.

  ‘Where do you think? To the embarkation platforms. We’ve been collared and we’re on our way to the bowels of a starship to shovel fuel, haul ammunition crates or some other shitty detail until we’re dead or crippled.’

  ‘You sound pretty calm about it.’

  The man shrugged. ‘I reckon it’s my lot in life to get shit on from on high. I think the Emperor has a very sick sense of humour when it comes to my life. He puts me through the worst experiences a man could have, but keeps me alive. And for what? So I can go through more shit? Damn, but I wish He’d have done with me.’

  Abrehem heard the depths of the man’s anguish and an echo of something so awful that it didn’t bear thinking about. It sounded like the truth.

  ‘Those things you told the regimental commanders really happened, didn’t they?’ said Abrehem.

  The man nodded.

  ‘And all that stuff on Hydra Cordatus? It was all true?’

  ‘Yeah, I told the truth. For all the good it did me,’ said the man, holding out a cuffed hand to Abrehem. ‘Guardsman Julius Hawke.’

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