Sandy Mitchell - The Emperor's Finest

Most common was the scuttling of vermin, running for cover at the approach of light and noise, but occasionally the scuffling was louder, indicating a human presence. Invariably these would be fleeing too, however, rather than advancing to contact, which meant they were civilians, with an understandably cautious attitude to men with guns. Whether they were artisans, trying to keep the fractured infrastructure of the city from falling apart completely, or merely the luckless dispossessed endemic to large-scale civil disorder, desperate or fearful enough to attempt to find some kind of refuge down here, I had no idea. They weren't shooting at us, and that was all that mattered to me.

'We're here,' Mira said at last, and I checked my chronograph, wondering what sort of progress Gries and his squad were making. From what I'd seen of them, I'd have laid pretty fair odds that they'd reached their objective by now, and were making short work of it. Once again, I found myself reaching for the comra-bead which would normally have been sitting in my ear, and rueing its absence. It had, of course, occurred to me to scrounge one from the command bunker, but such refinements appeared to be lacking among the Viridian PDF. The best they could offer me was a bulky portable voxcaster, which was currently bouncing along on the back of its operator. Stopping to use the thing would have taken up time we could ill afford, however, so I'd had to resign myself to remaining out of touch for a while longer, and trying to ignore my misgivings as best I could.

'Good,' I responded, surreptitiously checking my slate to see where ''here'' actually was. It turned out to be a sewer, running directly under the piazza the rebels had decided to use as an artillery park, and I began to get the first inkling of a battle plan. A little late for that, you may be thinking, and you'd probably be right, but I'd been bounced into this fool's errand by circumstance, not choice, and I hadn't had much of a chance to think about anything much, beyond the most immediate concern of ensuring my own survival. I beckoned the vox man forwards, and he came to join me, unclipping the bulky handset as he did so.

'Cain to Astartes,' I said, praying to the Emperor that the frequency I'd been given was correct, and keeping it short in case we were being monitored. 'In position. Query yours.'

'Engaging,' Gries responded, to my relief. 'Resistance light. The Thunderhawk will commence diversionary attacks in two minutes.'

'Thanks,' I replied, taking in the single squad of troopers accompanying me, and the distinctly unmartial figure of Mira, who was listening intently, but who, for once, seemed able to resist the temptation to shove her oar in, thank the Emperor. 'We're going to need all the help we can get.'

'Leave this channel open,' Gries said, then cut the link at his end.

'What did he mean by that?' Mira demanded, as if I knew the answer and was merely withholding it out of pique.

I shrugged. 'Probably wants an accurate position fix for the Thunderhawk, so we don't end up on the wrong end of some friendly fire,' I hazarded. Considering the amount of concentrated lethality that the gunship represented, it seemed a reasonable precaution to me. I turned to the sergeant in charge of the squad, whose name I didn't know. Mira hadn't bothered with introductions, if she'd even considered the men under her nominal command as individuals in the first place. 'We'll need to get up top and find out exactly where the artillery pieces are. With a bit of luck we can use the demo charges to collapse this tunnel underneath them, and cripple the battery without having to fight our way through the sentries.'

'If they're parked close enough to it,' the sergeant agreed, homing in on the weak spot of the plan without undermining my authority by actually stating it, like efficient noncoms [16] Non-commissioned officers. have been doing since humanity first swung down from the trees on Holy Terra and started hitting one another with rocks.

'Let's hope they are,' I said, 'or we'll just have to do this the hard way.'

From my time with the 12th Valhallan [17] The artillery unit he was assigned to at the outset of his career. I knew that each artillery piece would probably be fully crewed, plus a few sentries, logistical support personnel and a handful of junior officers and noncoms to make sure the conscripts shoved the shells in the breach the right way round. Given that we already knew, from the orbital picts, that there were five Basilisks in the battery, that meant anything from thirty to fifty men. Although I'd be happy enough taking on odds of three or five to one against mere PDF mutineers with proper Guardsmen behind me, the troops I had now were probably little better in quality than the ones we were facing. And that was without taking Mira into account, who was probably worth an extra squad to the enemy just on her own.

'Well there's only one way to find out,' she said, starting up the ladder leading to the manhole cover above our heads before I could stop her. Having already seen enough to know that remonstrating with her would be pointless, and shooting her would be out of the question close enough to the enemy for an alert sentry to hear, I'd just have to go along with it for now.

'Wait here,' I instructed the sergeant, who seemed more than happy to comply. 'Check the charges while I'm gone.' There was no point in having the whole squad blundering about up there, when I was sure Mira could attract the attention of the enemy perfectly well on her own. I could hardly leave her to her own devices, however, so I clambered up after her, having waited a moment to make sure that her emergence into daylight wouldn't be followed at once by a barrage of lasgun fire.

It wasn't, so I stuck my head cautiously out of the hole, finding myself in a street which looked much the worse for wear: the buildings on either side of it were pockmarked and perforated by the prolonged and indiscriminate use of heavy ordnance, while the carriageway a few metres ahead had been comprehensively blocked to traffic by the rusting hulk of a burned-out Chimera. Taking advantage of the cover it afforded, I popped up out of the hole like a sump rat scenting a fresh corpse, and scuttled into the lee of the derelict vehicle.

'Where are the others?' Mira asked, from roughly the level of my knees, having gone prone under the raised dozer blade for extra protection, the first sensible thing I'd ever seen her do. Her lasgun was unslung, aimed back at the manhole, evidently intended to cover my advance, and I breathed a silent prayer of thanks to the Golden Throne that she hadn't been spooked enough to pull the trigger.

'Down the hole,' I said quietly. 'I told them to stay put.'

'You did what?' She stood up and glared at me, the effect somewhat spoiled by the thick coating of grime now adhering to her jacket and the knees of her trousers; at least she'd blend into the background a little better now, which was something. 'We need them with us!'

'Did you ever go stalking on these hunting trips of yours?' I asked.

Mira nodded, sullenly. 'Of course,' she said, having the common sense to keep her voice down too, which was a welcome surprise.

'And did you have a demi-score of troopers crashing around the place while you did?' I asked reasonably.

Mira shook her head dismissively. 'Of course not, it would have frightened the game away...' Then the coin dropped. 'I see, of course. We're going to need to move quietly.'

I shook my head. 'I'm going to need to move quietly,' I said. 'You stay here, in case I need covering fire.'

I'd be the first to admit that taking the risk of scouting the enemy positions myself, instead of letting Mira get on with it, seems a little uncharacteristic, but I had sound enough reasons at the time. Firstly, I'd had more than enough practice at sneaking around in the immediate vicinity of the enemy without being spotted, whereas Mira's alleged stalking skills were an unknown quantity. Secondly, thanks to my time with the 12th Valhallan, I knew enough about artillery to assess just how big a threat the battery really was once I got a decent look at it, whereas the most useful thing Mira was likely to report was that the Basilisks were a horribly unfashionable colour. Thirdly, thanks to my innate affinity for underground environments, I'd know instantly, just by looking, how close they were to the sewer line, and where best to place the charges to cause the maximum amount of subsidence.