Dan Abnett - First and Only

'It must be quite a book,' Caffran said, sardonically.

'It is,' Zogat replied with a dismissive shrug.

'So do you commit it to memory or carry it with you?'

The Vitrian unbuttoned his flak-armour tunic and showed Caffran the top of a thin, grey pouch that was laced into its lining. 'It is carried over the heart, a work of eight million characters transcribed and encoded onto mono-filament paper.'

Caffran was almost impressed. 'Can I see it?' he asked.

Zogat shook his head and buttoned up his tunic again. The filament paper is gene-coded to the touch of the trooper it is issued to so that no one else may open it. It is also written in Vitrian, which I am certain you cannot read. And even if you could, it is a capital offence for a non-Vitrian to gain access to the great text.'

Caffran sat back. He was silent for a moment. 'We Tanith… we've got nothing like that. No grand art of war.'

The Vitrian looked round at him. 'Do you have no code? No philosophy of combat?'

'We do what we do…' Caffran began. 'We live by the principle, 'Fight hard if you have to fight and don't let them see you coming.'

'That's not much, I suppose.'

The Vitrian considered this. 'It certainly… lacks the subtle subtext and deeper doctrinal significances of the Vitrian Art of War,' he said at last.

There was a long pause.

Caffran sniggered. Then they both erupted in almost uncontrollable laughter.

It took some minutes for their hilarity to die down, easing the morbid tension that had built up through the horrors of the day. Even with the bombardment thundering overhead and the constant expectation that a shell would fall into their shelter and vaporise them, the fear in them seemed to relax.

The Vitrian opened his canteen, took a swig and offered it to Caffran. You men of Tanith… there are very few of you, I understand?'

Caffran nodded. 'Barely two thousand, all that Commissar-Colonel Gaunt could salvage from our homeworld on the day of our Founding as a regiment. The day our homeworld died.'

'But you have quite a reputation,' the Vitrian said.

'Have we? Yes, the sort of reputation that gets us picked for all the stealth and dirty commando work going, the sort of reputation that gets us sent into enemy-held hives and deathworlds that no one else has managed to crack. I often wonder who'll be left to do the dirty jobs when they use the last of us up.'

'I often dream of my homeworld,' Zogat said thoughtfully, 'I dream of the cities of glass, the crystal pavilions. Though I am sure I will never see it again, it heartens me that it is always there in my mind. It must be hard to have no home left.'

Caffran shrugged. 'How hard is anything? Harder than storming an enemy position? Harder than dying? Everything about life in the Emperor's army is hard. In some ways, not having a home is an asset.'

Zogat shot him a questioning look.

'I've nothing left to lose, nothing I can be threatened with, nothing that can be held over me to force my hand or make me submit. There's just me, Imperial Guardsman Dermon Caffran, servant of the Emperor, may he hold the Throne for ever.'

'So then you see, you do have a philosophy after all,' Zogat said. There was a long break in their conversation as they both listened to the guns. 'How… how did your world die, man of Tanith?' the Vitrian asked.

Caffran closed his eyes and thought hard for a moment, as if he was dredging up from a deep part of his mind, something he had deliberately discarded or blocked. At last he sighed. 'It was the day of our Founding,' he began.

FIVE

They couldn't stay put, not there. Even if it hadn't been for the shelling that slowly advanced towards them, the thing with Drayl had left them all sick and shaking, and eager to get out.

Corbec ordered Sergeants Curral and Grell to mine the factory sheds and silence the infernal drumming. They would move on into the enemy lines and do as much damage as they could until they were stopped or relieved.

As the company – less than a hundred and twenty men since Drayl's corruption – prepared to move out, the scout Baru, one of the trio Corbec had sent ahead as they first moved in the area, returned at last, and he was not alone. He'd been pinned by enemy fire for a good half an hour in a zigzag of trench to the east, and then the shelling had taken out his most direct line of return. For a good while, Baru had been certain he'd never reunite with his company. Edging through the wire festoons and stake posts along the weaving trench, he had encountered to his surprise five more Tanith: Feygor, Larkin, Neff, Lonegin and Major Rawne. They'd made it to the trenches as the bombardment had begun and were now wandering like lost livestock looking for a plan.

Corbec was as glad to see them as they were to see the company. Larkin was the best marksman in the regiment, and would be invaluable for the kind of insidious advance that lay ahead of them. Feygor, too, was a fine shot and a good stealther. Lonegin was good with explosives, so Corbec sent him immediately to assist Curral and Grell's demolition detail. Neff was a medic, and they could use all the medical help they could get. Rawne's tactical brilliance was not in question, and Corbec swiftly put a portion of the men under his direct command.

In the flicker of the shellfire against the night, which flashed and burst in a crazy syncopation against the beat of the drums, Grell returned to Corbec and reported the charges were ready; fifteen minute settings.

Corbec advanced the company down the main communication way of the factory space away from the mined sheds at double time, in a paired column with a floating spearhead fireteam of six: Sergeant Grell, the sniper Larkin, Mkoll and Baru the scouts, Melyr with the rocket launcher and Domor with a sweeper set. Their job was to pull ahead of the fast moving column and secure the path, carrying enough mobile firepower to do more than just warn the main company.

The sheds they had mined began to explode behind them. Incandescent mushrooms of green and yellow flame punched up into the blackness, shredding the dark shapes of the buildings and silencing the nearest drums.

Other, more distant rhythms made themselves heard as the roar died back. The drum contraptions closest to them had masked the fact that others lay further away. The beating ripple tapped at them. Corbec spat sourly. The drums were grating at him, making his temper rise. It reminded him of nights back home in the nalwood forests of Tanith. Stamp on a chirruping cricket near your watchfire and a hundred more would take up the call beyond the firelight.

'Come on,' he growled at his men. 'We'll find them all. We'll stamp 'em all out. Every fething one of 'em.'

There was a heartfelt murmur of agreement from his company. They moved forward.

Milo grabbed Gaunt's sleeve and pulled him around just a heartbeat before greenish explosions lit the sky about six kilometres to their west.

'Closer shelling?' Milo asked. The commissar pulled his scope round and the milled edge of the automatic dial whirred and spun as he played the field of view over the distant buildings.

'What was that?' Zoren's voice rasped over the short range intercom. 'That was not shellfire.'

'Agreed,' Gaunt replied. He ordered his men to halt and hold the area they had reached, a damp and waterlogged section of low-lying storage bays. Then he dropped back with Milo and a couple of troopers to meet with Zoren who led his men up to meet them.

'Someone else is back here with us, on the wrong side of hell,' he told the Vitrian leader. 'Those buildings were taken out with krak charges, standard issue demolitions.'

Zoren nodded his agreement. 'I… I am afraid…' he began respectfully, '…that I doubt it is any of mine. Vitrian discipline is tight. Unless driven by some necessity unknown to us, Vitrian troops would not ignite explosions like that. It might as well act as a marker fire for the enemy guns. They'll soon be shelling that section, knowing someone was there.'