Dan Abnett - Eisenhorn Omnibus

'I have nothing to hide/ he hissed. 'I fancied you and I had become… if not friends then decent acquaintances at least this voyage. I have shown you hospitality and freely given information into your confidence. I am hurt that you still suspect me/

'Suspicion is my business, Maxilla. If I have wronged you, my apologies/

'Nothing to hide!' he repeated, almost to himself, and led me off the bridge.

A navy pinnace, matt-grey and deep hulled, drew alongside the massive Essene and clamped itself to the fore starboard airgate. Maxilla and I were there to meet it, along with Fischig and two of the ship's primary servitors, spectacular creations of gold and silver machine parts.

I'd summoned Fischig on the basis that if the sight of an inquisitor would help, then an Arbites chastener would do no harm either. Betancore was instructed to keep everyone else with the cutter.

The gate-locks cycled open and the hatch jaws gaped, exhaling torrents of steam. A dozen large figures emerged through the haze. They were all dressed in the grey and black body armour of naval security, with the crest and sector-symbol of Battlefleet Scarus displayed on their chests and gold braid edging their epaulettes. All were masked in form-moulded ceramite helmets with lowered visor plates and rebreathers. They were armed with compact, short-frame autoguns.

The leader stepped forward and his men grouped behind him. They didn't form a neat echelon. Messy, I thought, casual, lacking the usual drilled discipline of the infamous naval security arm. These men were bored and going through the motions. They wanted this formality over and done too.

Tobius Maxilla?' barked the leader, his voice distorted by his mask and vox-amplified.

'I am Maxilla/ said the ship's master, stepping forward.

'You have been notified that an inspection of your vessel is due. Furnish me with crew lists and cargo manifests. Your full co-operation is expected/

At a nod from Maxilla, one of the servitors moved forward on silent tracks and handed the security detail's leader a data-slate with the relevant material.

He didn't look at it. 'Do you have anything you wish to volunteer before the inspection begins? It will go easier for you if you make submissions of contraband.'

I watched the exchange. There were twelve troops, hardly enough to search a ship the size of the Essene. Where were their servitors, their scanning units, their crow-bars, multi-keys and heat-detectors?

They had no way of knowing who I was from my appearance, but why had they not remarked on the presence of an Arbites?

My vox channel was set to the cutter's. I didn't speak, but I keyed it three times. A non-verbal part of Glossia Betancore would understand.

'You haven't yet identified yourself/ I said.

The lead security trooper turned to look at me. I saw only my reflection in his tint-coated visor.

What?'

'You haven't identified yourself or shown your warrant of practice. It is arequirement of such inspections.'

'We're naval security-' he began angrily, stepping towards me. His men faltered.

You could be anybody' 1 pulled out my Inquisitorial Rosette. 'I am Gre-gor Eisenhorn, Imperial inquisitor. We will do this correctly or not at all.'

You're Eisenhorn?' he said.

There was no surprise in his voice at all. A tiny thing to notice but enough for me.

The warning was already rising in my throat as their guns came up.

EIGHT

A dozen killers.

The procurator.

Grain merchants from Hesperus.

Maxilla uttered a yell of disbelief. The leader of the security detail and two of his men opened fire.

Their compact autoguns were designed for ship-board fighting and zero-gravity work: low velocity, low recoil weapons that fired blunt-nosed slugs which couldn't puncture a hull.

But they were more than capable of shredding a man.

I threw myself sideways as the first shots spanged off the deck or left ugly metal braises on the wall. In seconds, it was utter chaos. All the security troopers were firing, some on semi-automatic. Smoke filled the air and the airgate chamber was shaking with muzzle flashes and gunfire.

One of Maxilla's servitors was decapitated and then punched into spare-part debris as it turned towards the attackers. The other tried to move to shield Maxilla, but more shots tore out its tracks and its torso.

Two shots ripped through my trailing coat, but I made it to the doorframe behind us. I yanked my stub-pistol from its holster.

Fischig had drawn his own sidearm and was blasting away as he backed towards the door. He dropped one of the troopers with a tight group of shots that sent the man flying in a puff of blood. Then Fischig was lifted off his feet by a hit to the stomach. Doubled over, he tumbled into the corner of the chamber and lay still.

Maxilla roared and raised his right hand. A beam of searing light spat from one of the ornate rings and the nearest trooper exploded, burned down to scorched bone and ragged armour in his midsection. As the smouldering ruin crashed to the deck plates, the man behind him caught Maxilla in a chasing arc of automatic fire and blasted him backwards through the glass doors of an evacsuit-bay.

The rest were charging my position. I braced and fired, placing a shot that shattered the visor of the first approaching security trooper. He fell on his face.

The stub-pistol, designed for concealment, had a four-shot clip and I had a spare magazine in my coat pocket. Seven shots remained and there were still nine of them.

At least the stubber had stopping power. The clips only held four shells because they were high-calibre solids, each the size of my thumb. The short, fat muzzle of my stubber barked again and another trooper spun sideways.

I backed down the corridor, hugging the wall. The access-way to the air-gate was a wide, cable-lined passage, octagonal in cross-section and lit only by deck lights. The troopers' slow, buzzing shots hissed down the hallway at me. I fired back again, but missed my target. A salvo of rounds blew out a power relay on the wall nearby in a shower of sparks. I ducked away into shadows, and found the latch-handle of a shutter in the small of my back.

I turned, pulled it free and threw myself through it as a blizzard of shots impacted along the access-way wall.

On the other side of the shutter, I found a narrow inspection tunnel for the airgate's main docking mechanisms. The floor was metal grille, and the tight walls were thick with networks of cables and plumper hydraulic hoses. At the end, a bare metal ladder dropped down through a floor-well or up into an inspection shaft.

There was no time to climb either way. The first trooper was pushing through the shutter and raising his weapon. I shot down the length of the tunnel and blew out his chest-plate, and then jumped off the grille into the ladder well.

Five metres down, I slammed into a cage-platform. There was only red auxiliary light down here. The troopers' visors had vision amplifiers.

I was down in the guts of the vast docking clamp now, crawling between huge greased pistons and hydraulic rams the size of mature bluewood firs. Gases vented and lubricant fluids drizzled amid dangling loops of chain. The throb of heavy-duty compressors and atmosphere regulators filled the air.

I got into cover. All four red tell-tale lights on the stubber's grip were showing. I ejected the disposable plastic clip and slid the fresh one into place. Four green lights lit up in place of the red ones.

There was noise from the ladder-well. Two bulky dark shapes were moving down, backlit by the light from above.

Their visors had heat-enhancement too. That was clear the moment they both started firing at my position. I buried myself behind a piston unit but a round ricocheted off the oily metal and slammed into my right shoulder, driving me forward against the deck. My face hit the grille, and it reopened the gash in my cheek, popping out several of the butterfly clips that were just beginning to get the torn flesh to knit back together.