Old Soldiers Never Die - Sandy Mitchell Read online

  “We’ve taken a battering, all right,” Divas admitted soberly. “A cou­ple of the Vostroyan regiments are almost down to half strength, and the Twelfth is pretty stretched as well. Nothing like as bad as that yet, of course, but still...” He shrugged.

  “Has the fighting really been that fierce?” I asked, trying to remem­ber how much combat damage we’d passed coming in. A fair bit, of course, but all around obvious strategic targets, and no sign of the widespread collateral devastation I’d have expected to see if the Guard had taken anything like that much of a battering.

  Divas shook his head. “Some kind of local lurgi,” he said. “It hit the militia first, then started running through the Guard.” He looked as though he was about to say more, but before he could, Jona drew everyone’s attention back to me, with a wave of his hand.

  “Anyway, we got here,” he concluded, his breath and colour restored by a large mug of recaff and a sticky-looking pastry, the last traces of which he licked from his fingers before continuing. “Thanks to Commissar Cain,” at which point every face in the room turned in my direction.

  “I’m afraid the governor exaggerates,” I said, thereby consolidating the story nicely with my audience; with the possible exception of Mostrue, who’d never quite taken my reputation at face value, and had spent most of my time with his regiment trying to nudge me into harm’s way to test it for himself. “But at least I can hold my head up in this company now, having seen a little action on Lentonia.” I was rewarded, as I’d hoped, with a ripple of polite laughter.

  “You’re all to be commended for your efforts,” I said, feeling that if I’d been brought here to give them a pat on the back and make everyone feel appreciated, I might as well make a start on the job as soon as possible. Not to mention reassure the population that Lentonia was once again safely within the fold of the Imperium, so anyone harbouring heretical sympathies had better think twice about it.

  I filled a bowl with tanna and delivered it to Kasteen, thus bring­ing myself back into the governor’s orbit; along with that of most of the other Imperial Guard officers, who seemed even more keen to make her acquaintance than mine. (Which I could hardly blame them for, attractive women in the Imperial Guard being something of a rarity.)

  “Toren was just telling me about this mystery bug,” I said. “I take it that’s the real reason the militia are still confined to barracks?”

  “It is.” Jona nodded. “If we deploy them to keep the peace, before we’re sure who is or isn’t infected, it could get a foothold among the civilian population.”

  “Bioweapon?” Kasteen asked, an instant before I could; a malady which seemed to strike down soldiers while leaving most of the civilians untouched seemed a suspicious coincidence to me too.

  The colonel of one of the Vostroyan regiments shook his head, his extravagant moustache bristling. “First thing we thought of. But deploying something like that’s way beyond the insurgents” capabilities.”

  “Unless it was one of the Chaos cults,” I suggested. “Are any of them still active?”

  “Completely cleansed,” the colonel of the Tallarn regiment assured me, before adding, “we would certainly have spotted the signs if they weren’t.”

  “I’m sure you would,” I agreed. Tallarns are among the most devout followers of the Emperor in the galaxy, and if anyone could be counted on to detect traces of heresy, it would have been them.

  “So, an unfortunate coincidence,” I said, although my innate para­noia was still having a hard time accepting that, and kept worrying away at the matter despite my best efforts to get it to sit down and shut up. Which, I’m bound to say, failed; and, given how things were to work out in the end, that was probably no bad thing.

  Editorial Note:

  At this point one of the elisions typical of Cain’s account of events occurs, picking up the narrative again after a period of several days. The following extract may go some way towards remedying this deficiency.

  From The Liberation of Lentonia, by Jonas Worden, uncompleted manuscript.

  Despite his obvious reluctance to be separated from his regiment, Commissar Cain followed the path of duty, as I had no doubt he would once I’d got the measure of the man. I had harboured doubts before our first meeting, knowing how reputations can become exaggerated, but those had been laid to rest the moment I saw him bound from our immobilised car, resolutely determined to defend us from any further attacks without hesitation or thought for his own safety.

  Accordingly, though it clearly chafed him to be feted in public, and fritter away time he would have preferred to spend bringing the Emperor’s justice to those determined to prolong the conflict, he devoted himself to the ceremonial duties we concocted as doggedly as he would have done those on the battlefield.

  The stratagem was undeniably successful, although the situation it was intended to divert attention from went from bad to worse. Despite the best efforts of both medicae and magos biologis, no effective treatment for the virus which had struck down so many gal­lant warriors was found, the victims remaining either comatose or violently delirious depending on their level of sedation. Worse still, in spite of the rigorous quarantine to which all confirmed victims had been subjected, fresh cases kept occurring.

  A week after their arrival, only the Valhallan 597th remained free of the disease, and no one expected this happy state of affairs to remain for much longer.

  Editorial Note:

  At this point one of the elisions typical of Cain’s account of events occurs, picking up the narrative again after a period of several days. The following extract may go some way towards remedying this deficiency.

  From The Liberation of Lentonia, by Jonas Worden, uncompleted manuscript.

  Despite his obvious reluctance to be separated from his regiment, Commissar Cain followed the path of duty, as I had no doubt he would once I’d got the measure of the man. I had harboured doubts before our first meeting, knowing how reputations can become exaggerated, but those had been laid to rest the moment I saw him bound from our immobilised car, resolutely determined to defend us from any further attacks without hesitation or thought for his own safety.

  Accordingly, though it clearly chafed him to be feted in public, and fritter away time he would have preferred to spend bringing the Emperor’s justice to those determined to prolong the conflict, he devoted himself to the ceremonial duties we concocted as doggedly as he would have done those on the battlefield.

  The stratagem was undeniably successful, although the situation it was intended to divert attention from went from bad to worse. Despite the best efforts of both medicae and magos biologis, no effective treatment for the virus which had struck down so many gal­lant warriors was found, the victims remaining either comatose or violently delirious depending on their level of sedation. Worse still, in spite of the rigorous quarantine to which all confirmed victims had been subjected, fresh cases kept occurring.

  A week after their arrival, only the Valhallan 597th remained free of the disease, and no one expected this happy state of affairs to remain for much longer.

  THREE

  “Let’s hope that’s not a glimpse into our own future,” Kasteen murmured to me, with a jaundiced look at the row of coffins facing us in the chancel of the cathedral. I’ve never been one for Emperor-bothering myself, but I’d been dragged into enough places of worship in the course of my duties to appreciate the ornate grandeur of this particular one, the soaring arches of the nave meeting high above us, obscured by shadows and the rising clouds of incense, while icons of the Emperor and His blessed saints cluttered up every available surface. There were twelve of the polished wooden caskets in all, containing the mortal remains of an officer and a line trooper randomly selected from the casualties of each of the six regiments which had put down the rebellion, to be commended to the Golden Throne with all possible ceremony in symbolic appreciation of the sacrifice of all the fallen. Throne alone knew what had happened to the rest, although I strongly s
uspected that they’d been interred with more regard for speed than for the niceties.

  “Any illness in the 597th yet?” I asked, fidgeting on the ironwood pew, which was getting hideously uncomfortable already, and readjusting the scabbard of my chainsword for about the thousandth time, in a foredoomed effort to find a place where it wouldn’t dig into the tenderest part of my thigh. The Ecclesiarchy had been pre­dictably sniffy about the number of sidearms the congregation had brought in with them, but as they were as much a part of the dress uniforms as the braid and the hat plumes, they just had to lump it.

  To my relief, the colonel shook her head. I’d spent the last couple of weeks ricocheting around Lentonia shaking hands, inspecting troops, opening buildings, and, for a breath takingly tedious couple of after­noons, posing for a portrait, which mainly seemed to involve waving a floor mop around; the artist had assured me that it would be miracu­lously transformed into an Imperial standard by the time he’d finished slopping paint on the canvas, and I pretended to believe him. This was the first opportunity I’d had to talk to Kasteen in person, and, since nei­ther of us was particularly comfortable discussing sensitive matters over the vox, assess how matters stood in the planetary capital.

  “No telling how long that’s likely to last, though,” she replied, clearly expecting the worst.

  “Did you clear the camps around the landing field?” I inquired, hoping to move the conversation on to less depressing matters, and Kasteen shrugged.

  “Swept the ruins, but it was hardly worth the effort. Whoever was living there had already packed up and left.”

  “Or got eaten,” I suggested, and Kasteen frowned.

  “There was enough blood and bone around,” she agreed, not quite managing to hide her revulsion. “But they’ll be brought to account.”

  “No Khornate shrines, I suppose?” I said, still unable to credit that Imperial citizens could fall so far without a little nudge from the Ruinous Powers, and the colonel shook her head.

  “If there had been, we’d have burned the place out,” she assured me, and I nodded; I’d have expected nothing less.

  At which point the choir struck up the processional, accompa­nied by appropriately solemn music, and I stood gratefully, while what seemed like half the senior ecclesiarchs on the planet[10] filed in, enveloped in richly embroidered ceremonial robes. Behind them came the local notables, led by Jona, although I failed to recognise him for the first few minutes, as he’d been smothered for the occa­sion in enough over-ornamented fabric to weigh down an ogryn. Spotting me at about the same time as the coin dropped, he favoured me with a rueful grin, clearly uncomfortable, but determined to see his duty through.

  By this time the most absurdly overdressed of the Emperor botherers had broken free of the pack, leaving the secular contingent to seat themselves in the front row of the pews, while the remain­ing ecclesiarchs ranged themselves about the chancel according to their status and degree of involvement in the ritual. Once everyone else had settled, the presiding cleric favoured us with a self-satisfied benediction, and began to pontificate about the nobility of sacrifice with all the pompous sincerity of someone for whom that meant being a little late for dinner, rather than dying an agonising death on a far distant world in the hope that it might somehow make an incremental difference in the fight to throw back the tide of darkness poised to roll over us all.

  “I now call upon Commissar Cain to say a few words,” the prelate finished, having apparently exhausted his own supply at last, and I rose to my feet, conscious of the anticipatory murmur which rustled around the cavernous space. My feet echoed on the flagstones as I strolled forwards, trying to look both solemn and unhurried, feeling the pressure of two hundred pairs of eyes on the back of my neck as I did so. Not just them, either: a small constellation of servo-skulls was floating around the vaulting, carrying picters, intended to record my words[11] for posterity.

  “Thank you, hierophant...” I hesitated a moment, before continu­ing in response to Kasteen’s silently-mouthed prompt, “Callister. We who defend the Imperium with our lives, our blood, and our very souls, are fully aware of the destination to which the path of duty so often leads...” I broke off again, as a muffled scratching sound tickled my ear. It was barely perceptible, but it raised the hairs on the back of my neck even so; over the years I’d learned to distrust anything that sounded like stealthy movement, particularly if I was unable to get a line of sight on whatever might be causing it, and I had to consciously suppress the urge to reach for my weapons. I took a deep breath, hoping the unintended dramatic pause might be mistaken for a rhetorical flourish; not that it mattered anyway, the pict recordings would be edited before being disseminated to the local population, so I’d end up looking like a silver-tongued orator whatever happened.

  So thinking, I launched myself back into my prepared speech, minor variations of which had served me well at far too many simi­larly depressing ceremonies over the years, only to falter yet again. This time a loud thud echoed around the cathedral, and a ripple of puzzled expressions spread among the pews, turning rapidly to unease as the sound was repeated. Kasteen unfastened the flap of her holster, an example followed by many of the officers from the other regiments here to speed their comrades to the Golden Throne, and I found the urge to do likewise impossible to resist.

  “Commissar!” the pudgy prelate expostulated in horror as I loos­ened my chainsword in its scabbard. “This is a house of the Emperor!”

  “Then I’m sure He’d approve of us keeping it safe,” I riposted, in no mood to debate the matter. The scrabbling sound had grown louder, to the point where I could no longer persuade myself that it was merely harmless vermin in the heating ducts; by now the front few rows of the congregation were tilting their heads, plainly trying to pinpoint the source. The thudding had increased too, in both volume and intensity, multiple blows overlapping one another in a steady roll of drums, like a panicky heartbeat. What­ever the cause, it was clearly time to be somewhere else, although I could hardly cut and run in front of so many witnesses. Then inspiration struck. “Regina[12] !” I called above the hubbub. “Get the governor to safety!”

  “Everyone out!” Kasteen called, picking up her cue perfectly, and drawing her bolt pistol to emphasise the point. “Make for the doors in an orderly fashion!” Which, of course, civilians being civilians, might just as well have been ‘Mill around like panic-stricken sheep!’ Nevertheless, she and the other Guard officers managed to start herding the local dignitaries towards the exit, which was fine by me. True, the press of bodies in the aisle was effectively blocking me from making a run for it myself, but I’d been in enough places like this to be certain that the clergy had their own entrances and exits.

  “The back way,” I said, turning to Callister. “Now the governor’s safe, I need to get you—”

  “What’s going on?” Jona asked, materialising at my elbow, shrug­ging his encumbering vestments to the floor with every sign of relief. Beneath them he was wearing a shirt with frayed cuffs, and a pair of artisan’s trousers covered with pockets. “Are we in any danger?”

  Before I could compose an adequate response to that which didn’t include the phrase ‘halfwit’, ‘cretin’ or ‘death wish’, I was interrupted by the sound of splintering wood, and whirled to face the serried coffins behind us. The noise was unquestionably coming from that direction, and for a moment I found myself wondering what kind of vermin or parasite could have found its way into the tightly-sealed boxes to gorge itself on the cadavers within. But the reality was worse than anything I could possibly have imagined.

  With a further rending of wood, a Guard-issue combat boot smashed its way into view through the end of the nearest casket. Seeing it, the choristers around us promptly panicked and fled, with surprisingly melodious shrieks of primal terror.

  “It’s a miracle!” Callister genuflected towards the image of Him on Earth, and took a faltering step towards the flailing limb. “We have to help them!”r />
  “That’s not a miracle,” I said, dragging him back by the arm; the hierophant knew the way out of here, and I wasn’t going to let him get himself killed before he showed me how to find it. “Quite the reverse.”

  “Warpcraft?” Jona asked, sounding intrigued rather than frightened, and I shrugged, in as nonchalant a manner as I could, thumbing the selector of the chainsword to maximum speed. Jurgen’s pres­ence would have answered that question quickly enough, but the mere thought of his image being pictcast to the world alongside mine at so solemn a ceremony had been enough to persuade me to leave him back at the garrison. A decision I rued heartily now, as his peculiar talent for nullifying any warp-spawned influences in his immediate vicinity had saved my skin on more than one occasion.

  “Probably,” I said, hoping I’d be able to deal with the situation without my aide’s help for once. I tried to sound as if I knew what I was talking about. “But this is consecrated ground, so it’ll be weak if it is.” At which point the prelate looked happier, even if nobody else did. I flinched, as the crackling of breaking wood redoubled in volume, and the abused coffin started to fall in on itself; the others were beginning to look distinctly fragile too. I began hustling the dignitaries away, as best I could with a weapon in each hand. “Now we need to get you out!”

  He nodded, and turned to go, common sense finally overriding his old professional instinct to poke his nose into things, just as the nearest corpse flung the battered remains of its coffin aside and rolled from the bier supporting it, landing on the cold stone floor with a slap like a pistol shot. It lay still for a moment, incongruously clad in a neatly creased dress uniform, then thrashed its arms and legs as if trying to work out how to stand. I put a las-bolt into its chest as it clambered upright, but it rose slowly to its feet anyway, apparently unperturbed.