Blood Cries for Blood - James Peaty Read online

  ‘That’s an interesting theory, but we would have uncovered this a long time ago.’

  Yedas slowly slipped his hand back into the pocket of his duster.

  ‘When have the Enforcers ever seen beyond the end of their nose?’

  Klimt’s head was beginning to throb.

  ‘No, you’re wrong.’

  Yedas’s face darkened. It was almost as if his patience in indulging Klimt was visibly at an end.

  ‘Have you ever considered that it may be you who is wrong?’

  Yedas pulled his pistol and fired at his former partner.

  Klimt had been watching Yedas’s hand for the last minute. It enabled him to evade the shot. He hit the iron grille floor with a thud.

  Drawing his own sidearm from its holster he tried to return fire, but it was kicked from his hand before he could cock or load.

  The echo of the pistol smashing against metal took an eternity to die away. When it did, Klimt was faced with the snubbed barrel of Yedas’s pistol pressed into his face.

  The older man looked down at Klimt with an expression that seemed peculiarly pained as his grip on the trigger tightened.

  Klimt closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

  ‘Freeze!’

  Klimt opened his eyes again and saw Sacris standing behind Yedas. The younger Enforcer had his pistol pointed at the back of Yedas’s head. His face was hard and focused.

  ‘Put the gun down!’

  Yedas threw the pistol to the floor in front of him.

  ‘I’m arresting you for the murder of Governor Schaar.’

  Klimt repositioned himself on his haunches and moved to pick up Yedas’s pistol.

  ‘Raise your hands above your head,’ Sacris barked loudly.

  As the older man raised his arms, he twisted and moved with a speed that Sacris was unprepared for.

  Unencumbered by body armour and using his still formidable reflexes, Yedas disarmed Sacris and had the younger Enforcer’s firearm at his head before Klimt could lift the gun from the floor.

  Yedas held Sacris tight as he sneered at both Enforcers.

  ‘And there I was thinking that the quality of recruits had reached an all-time low with your generation, Klimt.’

  Klimt looked up from his position on the floor. He held Yedas’s pistol limply at his side. Raising the gun from the shadows, Klimt fired two shots from the pistol in his hand.

  Sacris screamed. The bullets tore through both his legs, just above the knee.

  Yedas was frozen to the spot.

  As Sacris slumped to the floor, it gave Klimt just enough time to fire off another shot.

  The bullet tore through Yedas’s left shoulder. The older man was knocked back onto the floor. Klimt tried to fire again.

  Clik!

  The clip was empty.

  By the time he had scrambled back and found his own pistol in the shadows, Yedas was gone. A trail of blood and his abandoned duster the only sign of his ever having been there.

  Klimt - keeping low to the ground -moved over to the downed Sacris. Quickly binding the younger man’s wounds with strapping torn from Yedas’s duster, Klimt helped Sacris over to the alcove where Scabus Jenk had hidden ten years before.

  * * *

  AS HE MOVED through the hungry darkness of the power station, following the trail of blood that Yedas had left behind, Klimt continued to duck as bullets ricocheted against the railings.

  Kneeling close to the floor, Klimt heard a familiar clicking sound echo across the cavernous hall.

  Yedas’s gun was empty.

  Klimt slowly rose to his haunches and continued onwards.

  Moving along the walkways, Klimt approached the open furnace of the secondary core. The heat from the core was intense and it burned furiously through the grille under his feet.

  It was above the core that Klimt finally found Yedas.

  He had left the walkway and was clambering across the gap between the north and south gantries. The only link between the gantries was via five parallel platforms that hung from the plant’s roof over the bubbling secondary core. This was the only route to escape via the North Entrance.

  Holstering his pistol, Klimt jumped over the side and onto the first unstable platform. The platform moved significantly with his added weight, but he held onto the chains that attached the platforms to the pulleys in the roof and secured his footing.

  The two men were half-way across the gap when they met face to face again.

  Yedas turned as Klimt lunged for him. Deflecting Klimt’s blows with his forearm, the older man knocked his former partner to the floor. As Klimt rose to his feet, Yedas pulled a knife from his boot and slashed him across the chest.

  Klimt fell to the floor, bleeding and exhausted.

  ‘You’re a disgrace to the Enforcers, just as this planet is a disgrace to the Imperium.’

  Klimt looked up at his former partner. He felt pity for him, but as he pulled his own blade from his gauntlet and plunged it into the side of Yedas’s knee, he could only think of survival.

  He turned it twice before letting go.

  Yedas fell backwards in agony, his own knife falling from his hand as he grabbed at the small blade that was embedded almost to the hilt into the side of his knee.

  As Yedas lay there, Klimt slowly rose to his feet. He pulled his pistol from its holster and pointed it down at Yedas.

  He hesitated for a moment and then lowered the gun.

  Leaving Yedas writhing on the floor, Klimt jumped back towards the relative sanctuary of the adjacent platform and raised his pistol to the roof.

  Yedas could see his former partner’s intention and looked at him with pleading eyes.

  Klimt remained firm.

  ‘Give my regards to Governor Schaar.’

  He fired twice at the pulley supporting Yedas’s platform and watched as Yedas fell towards the molten core below.

  Falling backwards onto the metal platform, for a moment Klimt allowed himself the luxury of closing his eyes.

  It had been a strange day.

  * * *

  SAFE IN THE alcove, Sacris looked down at the communicator in his hand. As he dialled the fortress’s frequency, Sacris composed an entire transcript for the disciplinary hearing he was convinced he would now be facing.

  The phantom hearing concluded with Sacris being found guilty of gross incompetence and sentenced to penal servitude for the rest of his days.

  Sacris was already mining with the other Chem-Dogs on the deadmoons of Savlar when he felt a gun barrel press against his cheek.

  Not daring to look around, Sacris was convinced that this time he was finished. He was surprised therefore to hear a familiar voice whisper into his ear.

  ‘Turn that off, or I’ll shoot you.’

  It was Klimt.

  ‘You look terrible,’ Sacris ventured as he switched off the communicator.

  Klimt didn’t respond.

  It was Sacris who finally broke the silence.

  ‘Was Yedas telling the truth?’

  For the first time in a decade, Klimt didn’t have an answer.

  The silence spoke volumes.

  * * *

  HIS LEAST FAVOURITE section of the Enforcer fortress had always been the medical bay. Even though it had been remoulded and remodelled twice since he had been stationed here, a change in equipment and decor did not remove the antiseptic smell that Klimt always associated with death.

  The one time he’d been required to stay overnight in the bay he’d discharged himself within an hour of his arrival. Yedas had laughed at him then and said…

  But that was in the past now.

  As Klimt turned the corner into the main ward he was struck by how many Enforcers had been hospitalised during the riots. It was estimated that a quarter of the force had been injured and about one hundred had lost their lives. He didn’t even want to think about how many civilians had been injured or killed, but surveying the scarred and blackened city this morning he knew the pro
gnosis was not good.

  ‘Hey, Klimt!’

  Klimt turned sharply. It was Sacris. The younger Enforcer smiled at him. Considering that he was in traction with two broken legs from the gunshot wounds that the older man had inflicted upon him, Klimt felt that was generous.

  Klimt stood at the edge of the bed.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Well I won’t be joining a dance class anytime soon, but other than that…’

  Sacris looked over at the Enforcer in the next bed. Bandages covered him from his head to his feet. He’d been set alight by a group of thugs during the riot. The medics didn’t anticipate he’d make it through the night.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Klimt could see that Sacris, despite his upbeat exterior, had been changed by the experiences of the last few days. Where he was once eager and bright eyed, he now carried the dulled colouration of a veteran. For Klimt it was like looking into a mirror.

  ‘How did your meeting with the Majore go?’

  ‘Interesting.’

  After Klimt had brought Sacris back to the Fortress he’d demanded a meeting with his superior straight away. The Majore wasn’t prone to being ordered around, especially during a crisis, but when Klimt hinted at its nature he quickly found time to see him.

  The Majore sat stoney faced as Klimt told him everything. When he’d finished his superior leaned forward on his elbows.

  ‘Never speak of this again.’

  The story that had already begun circulating in the press was that Scabus Jenk - a known criminal with links to both organised crime and various loyalist secessionist groups - had acted alone in assassinating Governor Schaar.

  Despite this, in some quarters whispers of a conspiracy had already begun to gain currency. There was nothing anyone could do to stop the apocrypha of idle gossip that would grow around this subject. Klimt was glad he wouldn’t be around to see it escalate.

  ‘What time does your transport leave?’ Sacris enquired.

  ‘In an hour.’

  Sacris looked disappointed.

  ‘After everything, I thought you might stay.’

  Klimt shook his head.

  ‘Well, good luck.’

  Klimt smiled. ‘You too.’

  He extended his hand to Sacris. The younger man took it and shook it firmly. As he withdrew his hand he felt Klimt slip something into his grasp.

  Opening his hand, Sacris looked down and saw Yedas’s necklace sitting in his palm.

  He looked up, but Klimt was already gone.

  Placing the chain over his head, Sacris lay back onto the pillow. The weight of the necklace around his throat was uncomfortable, but something would not allow him to take it off.

  * * *

  AS KLIMT LOOKED down at Persana from the air for the last time he felt a sense of sadness for the planet below and for the future it would have.

  Already, transport ships containing battalions of Imperial Guardsmen were massing in the upper stratosphere, preparing to descend upon Persana and begin the liquidation of the secessionist forces once and for all.

  Turning away from the window, Klimt tried to settle down for the long journey ahead. He gave up after five minutes.

  Staring once more at the eternal blackness of space, one phrase kept echoing through Klimt’s mind. It was, he thought, the only thing of any value he’d learnt from his time on Persana.

  Everything changes in time.