Tallarn- Siren - John French Read online

  Gatt was babbling to Sabir and the others, voice loud and echoing off the rockcrete walls. Kulok moved past him and pulled Sabir to the side.

  ‘How is the seer?’ he asked.

  Sabir blinked. ‘The same as before, no change.’

  Kulok nodded to himself. There was something itching at the back of his thoughts. Something about the vox exchange on the surface that did not fit or feel right.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ asked Sabir, as Kulok moved away.

  ‘They asked,’ he replied. ‘They asked twice what his condition was.’

  He turned away before Sabir could reply. His feet carried him through the tunnels to the chamber where they had settled the astropath. The room had been intended as some kind of secure document storage. Metal-framed scroll racks lined the rockcrete walls, and a curation desk was bolted to one wall. The air was warm from the heat that bled through the wall from the main machine chamber. That was why they had chosen it. The astropath had been shivering since he had collapsed just after they got him to the shelter. Skin near blue, teeth chattering, it was as though he was outside in an ice wind rather than several metres below ground. They had wrapped him in blankets and put him in the warmest space they could find, but it had made no difference.

  Kulok closed the door and looked down at the old man. The astropath might not be old, of course. Perhaps he was no older than Kulok; he might even have been younger. There was just no way that you could think of him as anything but old, not when you looked at him – snow-white, liver-spotted skin hung in wrinkles from a narrow, hairless skull. Yellow teeth glinted from behind cracked lips. Empty sockets gathered shadows beneath a high brow. Skeletal hands locked in crooked fists beneath his chin. He had a name, according to Sabir; he was called Halakime. Kulok stared at the figure for several minutes before he was certain that the man was still breathing. Satisfied, he turned to pull the door open.

  ‘…an eye… of… night…’

  Kulok whirled at the sound of the voice. The astropath had not moved. Kulok stood, unmoving, the sound of his rising heartbeat the only sound he could hear. Had he imagined the words? Was it the voice of his own exhaustion that had spoken? He took a step forward.

  ‘…they see…’

  This time Kulok saw the old man’s lips move. He bent down. Hairs rose across his skin, and he felt something brush across his face as though he had touched a cobweb.

  ‘…endless dark…’ whispered the astropath. ‘It’s cold… The stars are cold…’

  ‘Can you hear me?’ he said, unsure of what else to say. ‘I am here. I am with you.’

  The old man grabbed Kulok so fast that he did not have time to move before a skeletal hand was locked around his wrist. Freezing pain poured up Kulok’s arm. He could not move. Blackness surrounded him and he could see stars, but they were moving, swirling like insects, and beyond them something dark and sinuous coiled, clicking and purring as it glided closer and closer.

  He wrenched free, gasping, and the chamber was there again. The astropath’s mouth was still moving, the empty eye sockets seeming to stare up at Kulok.

  ‘Dust…’ hissed the astropath. ‘Can’t you hear the dust blowing on the wind? So dry. So cold under the dome of night.’ The old man grimaced, and a sound that was half a cry and half a whimper came from his mouth. It was a sound of pain and despair so sharp and pure that it cut through Kulok’s fear and shock.

  He took old man’s hand in his. The fingers felt like ice, but this time there was no pain, and the room stayed fixed before his eyes.

  ‘I am here,’ he said, his voice low and firm. ‘I am with you.’ The astropath’s head twitched, and Kulok felt the withered fingers return his grasp. ‘I am here,’ he said again. ‘We are not alone. Help is coming.’

  Lycus rode in the assault carrier, feeling the tracks rumble over the ground, watching the dead land pass through a visual feed link to his helm. The tombstone silhouettes of buildings rose from the yellow murk and sank back out of sight to either side of the highway. They were moving down the main arterial route that crossed the northern districts of the Crescent City on an elevated spit of rockcrete and plasteel. Vehicles dotted the slim slicked surface of the highway, but they were few; there had been no time for panic when the virus bombs fell, no time for people to jam the roads as they fled. There were a few places where vehicles blocked their path, but the four tanks simply rode over them without stopping.

  A lascannon-mounted Annihilator rode in the head of the squadron. Behind it came the carrier holding Lycus and a section of troops. Third in line was the flak tank, its sensor dishes rotating and its cannon and missile mount twitching like the head of a hunting dog. Last was a Vanquisher, its long barrel swept behind it as it pushed through the fog. All of them were making best speed, engines roaring at the edge of tolerance as they plunged towards the heart of the city. They were exposed, but Lycus was hoping that the enemy did not know which direction they were coming from, and so would try and reach the censorium shelter before them rather than attempt to intercept. So far, that hope had been rewarded.

  Lycus blinked away the pict image from one eyepiece. Eighteen humans filled the compartment around him. Each of them wore bulky sealed armour coated in vulcanised rubber. Domed helmets enclosed their heads and locked into brass collar rings. Most of them carried short-barrelled volkite culverins, but two rested meltaguns on their knees. They were all breathing air from tanks on their backs, and their armour was designed to let them fight in the vacuum of space. On the surface of Tallarn, it might buy them a few minutes of life. Lycus wondered how long his own power armour would last against the corrosive air. Any breaches and the virus would get in. Even he could not survive that.

  ‘Marshal,’ said the voice of the lead tank commander, her voice clipped and efficient over the vox. ‘We are about to exit the highway.’

  ‘Confirmed, machine one,’ he replied and then blinked his vox over to squadron broadcast. Luminous digits counted down at the edge of his sight. ‘All units, objective is ten minutes at current speed, stand by for course change–’

  The missile struck the lead tank and ripped it in two. Fire and smoke punched upwards from the detonation. The wreckage tumbled on down the highway, shedding tracks.

  The carrier slewed to the side.

  The vox exploded with voices.

  ‘Evasive action…’

  ‘… jamming our auspex…’

  ‘Where did that…?’

  ‘Trying to get a lock…’

  ‘I read three aerial targets, descending fast…’

  Lycus blinked back to the image from outside of the carrier. Orange flame and black smoke coiled through the fog. The wreckage of the lead tank was closing to their front. Explosions flashed in its carcass as munitions detonated in the blaze. Beyond it, he could see the ramp sliding off the highway down into the fog.

  ‘Ram through it!’ shouted Lycus. The troop carrier’s driver did not hesitate. Power shuddered through the frame as the engines roared. The front of the machine hit the burning wreckage with a shriek of metal. The carrier bucked, momentum and power shoving it forwards as the bones of the burning tank raked down its side.

  ‘Incoming!’

  The shout from the flak tank reached Lycus’ ears the instant before a second missile struck the wreckage behind them. A fresh explosion lifted the back of the carrier off the ground.

  Lycus felt an instant of weightlessness, and then the machine struck the road. Force hammered through him. He heard muffled cries as the human soldiers slammed into the compartment walls.

  ‘All units, full speed,’ he called in the vox, ‘keep moving. Machine three, target status.’

  ‘I have three air units active,’ came the voice of the flak tank commander. ‘Two, possible Thunderhawk transports, dropping to surface in area of objective. Probable materiel deployment. Third is smaller, class uncertai
n, likely gunship. They are wrapped in sensor baffles.’

  Lycus felt himself bare his teeth. ‘Burn the enemy from the sky,’ he said.

  ‘I have a partial lock. Engaging with cannons.’ The fog flashed, and the rolling drum beat of the flak tank’s heavy guns rose to meet the growl of the engines. ‘They are evading. Transports have touched down on the surface. I have missile lock on the gunship.’ There was a pause that reminded Lycus of a marksman’s inhalation before a shot. Then a streak of fire leapt into the fog shrouded sky. ‘Missile loose.’

  ‘Time to objective, six minutes,’ called Lycus. The transport lurched beneath him as it gathered speed down the ramp. Fire flashed high above them, strobing then sinking through the murk in burning yellow streaks.

  ‘Kill shot,’ said the voice from the flak tank.

  ‘Take the transports as they lift,’ said Lycus. ‘All units, auspex to maximum, enemy units active on objective.’

  ‘What was that?’ asked Sabir looking up towards the ceiling of the shelter.

  No one answered. Gatt’s hands froze in the midst of checking the vox’s encryption settings. Another rumble trembled through the walls. Dust fell. Kulok felt an electric shiver circle his stomach. It was an old but familiar feeling. He had felt it when the bombardment had started, and before then in the years he had lost to the Great Crusade.

  ‘Start broadcasting,’ he said to Gatt without moving his eyes from the ceiling. ‘Make a connection, and find out how close the rescue force is.’

  Gatt nodded, but Kulok was already moving to the door. His skin was buzzing, his mouth dry, the taste of metal on his tongue and teeth.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Sabir.

  ‘To the airlock,’ said Kulok.

  ‘What? Why?’ asked Sabir, voice snapping with tension.

  Kulok did not answer or pause. He was already moving down the passage, dropping down the plasteel stairs to the level below, eyes fixed on his path. A cluster of survivors flattened themselves against the wall as he went past. Some of them shouted after him, but he did not slow down. He paused as he passed a hatch door covered in yellow hazard stripes. He shoved it open. Racks of shotguns and lasguns lined the walls, gleaming black. He pulled a shotgun down, scooped up a box of solid shells, and kept moving, shoving rounds into the breach.

  An unpleasant thought was emerging in his mind. He had been so relieved to make contact with other survivors that he had not thought whether anyone else had heard their signals. Part of him had assumed that whoever had murdered Tallarn was long gone, that they had left the corpse of a world to its fate. He had not seen any sign of anyone on the surface. When the other shelter had said to use encryption keys for the vox, he had barely registered the information. Now that fact screamed to him in time with the sound of his running feet.

  He reached the inner hatch of the decontamination lock. The entrance chamber was empty. None of the other survivors liked going near the exit. The bulk of the carrier he had used to go to the surface sat on the rockcrete. Decontamination fluid, rad-scouring and the toxic fog had reduced the surface of its hull to a mottled and pitted grey. The inner door loomed above him, a huge circular plate of plasteel over twice his height in diameter. Pistons gripped its edges, and pipes snaked from socks in its surface. A small porthole sat at its centre, set with glass as thick as the door itself. Kulok moved up to the glass and looked through.

  He did not know what he expected to see. He was not entirely sure what he was doing, just that he suddenly felt the need to stand here, on the border between the life below and the hell above. Gloom filled the decontamination chamber on the other side of the porthole. Another porthole sat in the outer door directly opposite the one in the inner door. It was smaller, barely a hand span across. Sickly yellow light trickled through that narrow gap. Kulok watched it, his hands clammy on the grip of the shotgun. The fog folded and lapped over the view.

  Something moved beyond the outer door. He squinted, breath held in his lungs. Was this them? Was this salvation? But then why had they not had vox contact yet? The shape grew in the outer porthole, casting its shadow through the murk.

  The sound of running feet and gasping made him turn from the view. Sabir stumbled into the entrance chamber. Kulok took a step towards the older man, but Sabir pushed him away. The prefectus’ face was red, his mouth wide as he sucked air and fought to speak.

  ‘Signal…’ Sabir gasped. ‘A signal… came through…’

  Kulok glanced back through the portholes. The angle was wrong, but he though he saw the light in the airlock chamber dim, as though something was blotting out the light from the outer porthole.

  ‘It’s them… the evacuation… force…’

  Kulok stepped closer to the huge door. He glanced at the airlock controls set into the wall beside the door.

  ‘They say…’ Sabir coughed, his body quivering as he gulped air. ‘There is…’

  Kulok hesitated, the weight of the gun in his hands suddenly seeming foolish. He stepped towards the control panel.

  ‘There is an enemy… and… and they… are…’

  Kulok froze. Beyond the porthole something blotted out the light coming from the outer door.

  ‘…coming.’

  Sabir trembled and slid onto his knees. Kulok took a pace towards the inner door. He was bringing his head to look through the porthole when something hit the outer door with a sound like the shattering of mountains.

  The lascannon beams reached through the building in front of Lycus’ carrier and tore it apart. Plaster and rock exploded with heat. Plasteel girders folded like reeds as the building twisted under its own weight. The carrier lurched to one side. Rubble and dust cascaded down into the road. The hull of the war machine rang with impacts. Dust drowned Lycus’ visual feed, and he blink-switched it to the carrier’s auspex. Waves of distortion blurred the display. Flashes of weapon detonations splashed amongst the static. The hull shapes of the Iron Warriors machines stood out like blade edges reflecting moonlight at night.

  Lycus’ squadron was rolling down a wide street. The shelter lay half a kilometre to their right. Rows of squat hab blocks ran along the road on both sides. The machine that had fired at them was running parallel to them, behind that screen of buildings. It was a Predator, one of a pair that the Iron Warriors transports had set down in the city before lifting off. Its twin was running with it, snapping out shots with its turret cannon and sponson guns. One road over again, the bloated bulk of an Iron Warriors Land Raider had vanished in the direction of the censorium shelter.

  From a purely kill-tactic point of view, that was not a good position for the Iron Warriors. They had dropped three tanks: two light machines, and a heavy troop carrier. The Land Raider had moved directly towards the shelter, leaving its two lighter kin to face Lycus’ squadron. The two Predators were fast killers in open terrain or with surprise or numbers on their side. In the graveyard of the Crescent City they had neither of those advantages. Lycus still had three war machines. Even the carrier he rode in carried twin lascannons, and enough armour to weather anything but a direct hit.

  Riding close behind the carrier was the flak tank. Its cannons were not designed to engage ground targets, but they fired high explosive shells at a rate that made design and accuracy irrelevant. Then there was the Vanquisher. It was an apex killer of its kind. Given time, the Iron Warrior tanks would die. But Lycus did not have time. The Iron Warriors lay between Lycus and the shelter. They only had to buy enough time for the Land Raider and its cargo to do their work. It was a game that Lycus had already played out in his mind, and seen that he would lose. That was not something he could accept.

  ‘Machine three,’ he said across the vox. ‘Static position. Fire sweep angles four-five through one-zero-three, immediate.’

  ‘Confirm,’ said the flak tank commander.

  ‘Machine four,’ snapped Lycus, ‘advance on cur
rent heading, fire-free.’ He held the connection long enough to hear the Vanquisher’s confirmation and then switched to the carrier’s internal vox. ‘On my command, turn hard right, maximum speed.’

  A second later, he heard the rolling roar as the flak tank opened up with its cannons. Halted in the middle of the road, its stabilisers extended, it was panning its cannons through a slow arc, punching shells through the skins of buildings into the road beyond. Lycus saw the splash of detonations as three shells hit one of the enemy Predators.

  ‘Turn now,’ he called. The human driver yanked the carrier to the right. The machine’s engine screamed as power surged into the tracks. Its nose hit the wall of the building just behind the flak tank’s fire. It punched through, rockcrete dust exploding around it, ramming through internal walls, stone slabs exploding under its tracks. Above it, the building began to fall floor by floor, dust and fragments spinning through the air. Lycus’ armour tensed as the shock waves rang through the machine. The troopers shook like puppets with their strings cut. Then the carrier hit the other wall and ripped through onto the road. Behind it, the building cascaded to the ground. A wave of dust rolled out, clotting the fog, rattling shards onto the road surface.

  Lycus blinked his visual feed link to the carrier’s infra sight. The world outside the tank became a painting in red and yellow on blue. They were between the two Iron Warriors Predators. Both machines glowed bright with engine heat. The turret of the nearest machine twisted towards the carrier, lascannons flashing white.

  The Vanquisher shell hit the side of the Predator’s turret and ripped it out of its collar. Smoke spilled out, bubbling with white heat. The second Predator was accelerating and turning, its turret tracking around to the carrier. The Iron Warriors inside would know that they could not survive this engagement, but they also knew that their sole task was to allow the Land Raider to reach the shelter. They would see that task done.

  The barrel of the Predator’s cannon turned towards the carrier. A shell hit the road beside its track. The Predator rocked as its gun fired again. The shell hit the carrier’s flank and ricocheted off. The sound smacked through Lycus. A sharp ringing filled his skull. The troopers in the compartment shouted in shock and pain.