Tallarn- Siren - John French Read online

  ‘Marshal?’ came the voice again, and the chamber door hinged inwards. The human who stepped through was shivering despite the warm air. The man’s face was pale under a shaved scalp, his uniform ill-fitting and stained with dry sweat.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lycus.

  The aide stopped where he was and began twitching his weight from foot to foot. The man was coming down off a stim high. Lycus had noticed that a lot of the officers in the Rachab fortress had taken to using narcotics to counter the effects of fatigue.

  ‘The governor militant requests your presence,’ said the aide, carefully.

  Lycus watched the aide try to remain still, and then stood. His armour hummed to full life as he moved. His bolter came up with him and clamped to his thigh with a snap of magnetic force. He moved towards the door. The aide followed.

  ‘Where is the governor militant?’ asked Lycus as he ducked through the door.

  ‘In the main communication hub,’ said the aide, running to keep up. Lycus looked around at the man as he strode on.

  ‘The signal arrays have heard something,’ said the man. ‘Something new.’

  ‘Again,’ said Kulok, raising his voice over the growl of the vehicle’s power plant.

  Gatt shook his head and gestured at a gauge beside the drive column.

  ‘The power reserves are almost empty. We are draining the fuel.’

  The suit muffled Gatt’s words. Even through the internal vox, he had to raise his voice to be heard over the rumble of the carrier’s engine. The machine was a big beast with high sides and a blunt nose painted in white and blue. The rest of its slab metal hide had been a pale grey, stamped with the emblems of the Crescent City’s administration. It had been intended as an emergency transport for officials in the case of a mass riot. Its colours had reflected that purpose: a bold statement of authority in the face of anarchy. The heraldry had not lasted long after they reached the surface. After a few minutes of rolling through the fog drowned streets, Kulok had noticed grey sludge running down the glass of the vision slits. The air was dissolving the paint as it passed over them. He had not mentioned it to Gatt; the boy was rattled enough already.

  Kulok looked at the fuel gauge. They had drained the power reserves, and now were running everything off the engines. Most of the main tank was gone, and they would have to use the reserve to get them back to the shelter.

  ‘There is enough,’ he said. ‘Keep transmitting.’

  ‘What if we get lost?’ asked Gatt. ‘What if it takes us more fuel to get back than it took to get here?’

  Kulok looked at him for a long moment. He had stopped the carrier on top of a hill. Where exactly in the city they were, he was not sure – possibly in the foot hills close to the Dawn Tower. They had moved through streets heaped with slime, sliding and skidding every few meters. The buildings had loomed through the fog, glass clinging to the empty eyes of windows. He had thought he had recognised a water fountain, its tiered pools brimming with black water. Twenty years he had walked the streets of the Crescent City, from the sprawl on the slopes of the mountains to the river forks. He knew its smells, and the feel of its stones beneath tyre and foot. But the Crescent City no longer existed. The buildings and streets no longer formed a city; they had become something else, a tangle of monoliths set to watch over the dead. The route back to the shelter only existed as set of memorised landmarks and distances in Kulok’s mind. If they ran low on fuel, or if he forgot the route, then they would die on the surface.

  ‘Send one more transmission,’ he said. ‘Then we move out.’

  Gatt looked at him, suddenly uncertain as Kulok sat back in the drive cradle.

  ‘One more?’ asked Gatt. ‘If no one has heard us yet–’

  ‘Just send it,’ said Kulok. If the boy was looking to protest again, Kulok did not see. He had closed his eyes, feeling the big frame of the carrier shake around him as the engines turned over.

  ‘This is the Crescent City censorium shelter. Please respond. We require assistance and evacuation. Survivors include senior administrators,’ Gatt paused. Static buzzed over the open vox. ‘Look, we have an old man dying, and the rest of us aren’t far behind. He is an astropath, not that that will make any difference, because you can’t hear this. There is no point to the message. You aren’t there! No one is there!’ He stopped. His finger still held on the transmission key for a second, then he released it. The static died. He turned to look at Kulok and shrugged as though to pre-empt whatever rebuke was coming.

  Kulok met the boy’s eyes. They were hard with defiance behind the fogged eyepieces.

  ‘Alright,’ said Kulok softly. ‘Alright…’ He reached out and punched a control. The engine noise cycled down to silence. ‘We wait an hour,’ said Kulok, ‘then move.’

  ‘Why wai–’

  ‘I need to sleep,’ said Kulok, voice hard. Then he shook his head and turned away to pull himself out of the driver’s cradle. ‘I need to sleep.’

  He lay down in the crew compartment. The light coming from the armoured view slits was grainy yellow. He rested his head against his hands and closed his eyes. Sleep drifted up into his thoughts, filling his head with memories of clear skies and swift water.

  ‘Can you hear that?’ asked Gatt.

  Kulok sat up, his half formed dreams fading slowly. He glanced at the vox transmitter, but it sat silent. Gatt was sitting up, head tilted to the side. Kulok blinked, opened his mouth… and heard it.

  A thin, high wail slid into his ears. On and on it rolled ululating up and down, each note sliding to the next in drawn-out rhythm. For a second he thought it was coming from inside the carrier, but it was coming from every direction, seeping in through the hull and his suit. After a long moment he gave a cold bark of laughter. Gatt twitched his head towards him.

  ‘It’s the city’s attack alarms,’ said Kulok. ‘The power to them must still be running. They are still sounding the warning.’

  Gatt shivered, but said nothing. Kulok settled onto the floor of the crew compartment and closed his eyes again. Around him, the sound of sirens stretched out into the dark behind his eyes, and dreams of the dead city came to claim him.

  The adepts and officers turned to look at Lycus as he entered the command chamber. He ignored them, crossing the space with fluid strides. A pillar of machinery thrust from the centre of the floor, hung with cabling and tended by two enginseers. The room smelt of human sweat and ozone.

  This was the true heart of the Rachab fortress, and the centre for the war of vengeance against the Iron Warriors. Buried under the mountains to the north of the Crescent City, the Rachab was vast. Its vaults extended down to the root of the mountain range and spread through the rock in a warren of caverns and tunnels. It had been used as the seat of the Great Crusade in this volume of space, but dust and silence had gathered in its halls before the Iron Warriors had come. Now atrocity had given it new purpose.

  A few of the officers exchanged glances, a few others just stared at him. Dellasarius stood beside the stack of machinery at the centre of the chamber, his aides and senior officers clustered armour him. He turned to look at Lycus and gave a small nod. Some of the officers around the governor militant hesitated in the middle of saluting. Dellasarius’ greeting – both curt and familiar – confused them. Most of them were unseasoned, and strung out by the demands of the last few weeks. These were the commanders of soldiers left behind by war and history, flotsam generals now called to lead in a war that seemed already lost. Most were already confused by the presence of a transhuman in their midst. Lycus’ nebulous level of authority within the leadership of the loyalists was not helping.

  Lycus pointed at where a green transmission light pulsed on the bronze communication dais. ‘When did the transmission come in?’ he asked.

  ‘We picked it up forty minutes ago,’ said a red-robed adept in a dead machine voice. ‘It could have been transmi
tting longer. The transmission is poor quality. The probability is that they are using limited range equipment beyond its ordained rating. Transmission ceased ten minutes ago. We have a vox capture of the full duration of the transmission.’

  ‘Put it on speaker,’ said Lycus. An officer in the crimson uniform of the Tallarn Governance Command glanced at Dellasarius from her place beside the communications dais.

  ‘Put it on,’ said the governor militant. The voice filled the chamber a second later.

  ‘This is the Crescent… censorium… respond… Assistance…’ Static wailed and chopped through the voice. Lycus could hear the tiredness in the words – a young male human, twenty years perhaps, wrung out and talking by rote rather than from hope.

  ‘He just repeats the same message,’ said the officer. She was called Sussabarka, Lycus recalled.

  ‘You have composited a meaning?’ asked Lycus.

  ‘They claim to be transmitting on behalf of the Crescent City censorium shelter,’ said Sussabarka. ‘They are asking for assistance and evacuation of a dozen administrative personnel, senior personnel to be precise.’

  ‘What was the size of the censorium shelter?’ asked Lycus.

  ‘Small,’ said another officer, eyes darting to Lycus and away. ‘It was a bolt hole built in case of civil unrest. It could house fifty at the most, but it’s not equipped for prolonged use under these… conditions.’

  ‘Does it have any strategic reserves or capabilities?’

  Sussabarka shook her head. ‘None.’

  ‘It is a burrow built to make the great and the good feel safe,’ said a cold voice.

  Every one of the officers turned to look at Dellasarius. The governor turned to Lycus, one grey eyebrow arched above his eyes. ‘It was pointless and is worthless.’

  ‘Then why summon me?’ asked Lycus.

  The recorded voice of the transmission cracked and spat through the silence.

  ‘…City censorium… please…’

  ‘Because of the last thing included in the transmission before it went off air,’ said Dellasarius.

  ‘Survivors include…’

  Lycus held Dellasarius’ gaze, and for the first time noticed the glimmer of fire in the pale eyes.

  ‘…include…’

  The governor gave a small nod, and the ghost of a smile brushed across his wasted face.

  ‘…an astropath…’ said the voice from the static.

  Kulok started the carrier’s engine, and the sound of the sirens vanished. Vibration kicked through the machine’s body. He had slept for… He did not know how long he had slept for, and in most ways that mattered, it did not matter at all. Night was beginning to creep across the city. Beyond the view slits, the fog shimmered through decaying colours. That was not good. He ran through the landmarks that would lead them back to the shelter. He hoped that he could still find them in the failing light. Gatt sat beside him, hunched and silent. Lycus paused, the engine rumbling through his bones.

  ‘Gatt,’ he said. The boy did not move. ‘Try the vox again.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Gatt.

  Because we are going back to die in a stinking hole in the ground, thought Kulok. Because someone else must be out there. They must. He spoke none of his thoughts.

  ‘One last check,’ he said.

  Gatt was still for a long moment then gave a gesture that was half a nod and half a shrug, and pulled himself back over to the vox transmitter.

  ‘Alright,’ said Gatt.

  ‘Did you respond?’ asked Lycus.

  The officer called Sussabarka shook her head.

  ‘Not at first,’ she said. ‘The signal was poor quality and in clear. There seemed no point in responding to–’

  ‘People who were going to be dead soon,’ said Lycus, his voice emotionless.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Sussabarka.

  ‘But after that final transmission?’

  ‘We attempted to establish signal conjunction,’ answered one of the tech priests. ‘But could not locate the transmission. The highest probability is that they ceased transmission.’

  ‘And that could mean… several things,’ said Dellasarius carefully.

  The lights blinked on the communication dais. The recorded voice had unwound into a dull hiss of static. No one said anything. No one needed to say anything. An astropath could mean that a message could be sent to other loyalist forces. Tallarn’s plight, and the presence of the full might of the Iron Warriors, could be a secret no more. It was a slim hope, a strand hanging by a single word spoken by a voice that might now belong to a dead man.

  ‘This is the Crescent City censorium shelter,’ said Gatt, then paused, breathed slowly and continued. ‘Can anyone hear this?’

  A gust of crackle came over the vox as Gatt released the transmission key.

  Kulok waited.

  Nothing. Just the hiss of machine silence. After a long moment, he nodded to Gatt.

  ‘We are moving,’ he said, and engaged the engine. Gears meshed, and the machine lurched. A dark numbness was spreading through him, pulling his thoughts down into a toneless void.

  The vox crackled, and Gatt reached for the power switch.

  ‘…Crescent… shelter…’

  The voice reached through the static. Gatt’s hand froze. Kulok twisted in the drive cradle.

  ‘…hear… respond…’

  Gatt did not move, transfixed by the sound coming from the speakers.

  ‘…confirm…’

  ‘This is the Crescent City shelter,’ said Gatt at last, and there were tears in the boy’s words.

  ‘We hear you, Crescent shelter,’ said the comms officer. ‘Your location is confirmed. Prepare for relief force. Short-range communication will be on frequencies daleth-sigma-two-one, redundancy chi-four-seven. Use encryption key listed on magenta code key for all future comms. Confirm and list back, Crescent shelter.’

  Lycus listened as the shaking human voice listed back the details. Static bubbled up every few words, and it took several passes to be certain that both sides of the transmission had understood.

  ‘Wait for us, Crescent shelter,’ said the comms officer at last. ‘We are coming. Out.’

  Lycus waited for the signal noise to fade, and then turned to Dellasarius. ‘You had already decided on a course of action?’

  The governor militant nodded. The rest of the human officers were watching silently, some busying themselves with minor tasks, others standing with stiff formality as the military ruler of Tallarn and the Marshal of the VII Legion spoke.

  ‘If they do have an astropath, this one action could change the course of this battle.’

  Lycus gave a single nod. ‘I will lead the ground operation.’

  ‘Thank you, Marshal Lycus,’ said Dellasarius. ‘If you succeed, Tallarn will owe you a great debt twice over.’

  Lycus shook his head. ‘Service, loyalty, honour, these are both the debt and the payment.’

  Dellasarius bowed his head briefly.

  Lycus turned, his thoughts shifting between calculations and threat assessments.

  The Crescent City censorium was fifty kilometres from the Rachab’s southern foothill entrance. In clear conditions, with Legion war machines, that distance could be crossed in under an hour. But he did not have the strength of his battle-brothers with him.

  ‘Four vehicles, your fastest based on balance of ordnance, armour weight and reliability. Two main battle tanks, an assault carrier, and a machine with sky cover capability. A squad in environmental armour, void hardened if available. Your best crews and soldiers, experience and fortitude weighted over rank. All ready to move out within ten minutes.’

  Dellasarius flicked his eyes at the officer called Sussabarka.

  ‘Make it so, brigadier.’

  She saluted, but paused, frowning.
/>   ‘Is there a problem?’ asked Dellasarius.

  ‘You have no capacity for evacuation of those in the shelter.’

  Lycus looked at her and nodded. ‘That is because we are not going to evacuate them,’ he said.

  Sussabarka looked at him, and he saw realisation harden in her eyes.

  ‘The signal we heard, and those that we exchanged with the Crescent shelter, they were in clear…’ she said.

  ‘We are not alone,’ said Dellasarius, ‘and if we heard them, there is a chance, a very good chance, that our enemies did too.’

  ‘And if they did, they will be coming,’ said Lycus. ‘They will be coming to silence this one chance we have to send word to those loyal to the Emperor. Speed and strength, those are the only things that matter now. Our objective, and our only objective, is to reach this astropath. No matter the cost.’

  ‘They are coming,’ said Gatt, as soon as the inner door on the decontamination lock opened. Sabir and a cluster of the other survivors were waiting for them. Gatt bounded towards them grinning, eyes dancing with exhaustion and adrenaline. ‘They are coming for us, a full relief force.’ Sabir frowned and looked past Gatt at Kulok.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Kulok as he sealed the hatch. He felt strangely empty. He had not expected to feel like this, but then had he expected to really make contact with anyone? Was it just a drive to survive, so deeply rooted in the meat of his species, that had pushed him on out beyond the edge of hope? Now, with the promise of rescue a reality, he did not know how to feel, and every thought rang hollow in his head.