Dan Abnett - First and Only

The rating crossed his guard again, switching hands like a juggler, to the right and then back to the left, reversing the blade direction with each return. He feinted, sliced in low at Gaunt's belly with a left-hand pass and then pushed himself at the commissar. Gaunt stabbed in to meet the low cut, and caught the point of his silver blade through one of the perforations in the ceramic blade.

Instinctively, he wrenched his blade back and levered at the point of contact. A second later, the ceramic tech-knife whirled away across the Glass Bay and skittered out of sight over the cold floor. Suddenly disarmed, the rating hesitated for a heartbeat and Gaunt rammed his Tanith knife up and in, puncturing the man's torso and cracking his sternum.

The rating reeled away sharply, sucking for air as his lungs failed. The silver knife was stuck fast in his chest. Thin blood jetted from the wound and gurgled from his slack mouth. He hit the deck, knees first, then fell flat in his face, his torso propped up like a tent on the hard metal prong of the knife.

Gaunt stumbled back against the rail, gasping hoarsely, his body shaking and burning pain jeering at him. He wiped a bloody hand across his clammy, ashen face and gazed down at the rating's body as it lay on the floor in a pool of scarlet fluid.

He sank to the deck, trembling and weak. A laugh, half chuckle, half sob broke from him. When next he saw Colm Corbec, he would buy him the biggest—

The rating got up again.

The man wriggled back on his knees, rippling the pool of blood around him, and then swung his body up straight, arms swaying limp at his sides. Kneeling, he slowly turned his head to face the prone, dismayed Gaunt. His face was blank, and his eyes were no longer pleading and trapped. They were gone, in fact. A fierce green light raged inside his skull, making his eyes pupilless slits of lime fire. His mouth lolled open and a similar glow shone out, back-lighting his teeth. With one simple, direct motion, he pulled the Tanith knife out of his chest. There was no more blood, just a shaft of bright green light poking from the wound.

With a sigh of finality, Gaunt knew that the psychic puppetry was continuing. The man, who had been a helpless thrall of the psyker magic when he first attacked, was now reanimated by abominable sorcery.

It would function long enough to win the fight.

It would kill him.

Gaunt battled with his senses to keep awake, to get up, to run. He was blacking out. The rating swayed towards him, like a zumbay from the old myths of the nondead, eyes shining, expression blank, the Tanith blade that had killed him clutched in his claw of a hand.

The dead thing raised the knife to strike.

THREE

Two las-shots slammed it sideways. Another tight pair broke it open along the rib cage, venting an incandescent halo of bright psychic energy. A fifth shot to the head dropped the thing like it had been struck in the ear with a sledgehammer.

Colm Corbec, the laspistol in his hand, stalked across the deck of the Glass Bay and stood looking down at the charred and smouldering shape on the floor, a shape that had self-ignited and was spilling vaporous green energies as it ate itself up.

Somewhere, the weapons interdiction alarm started wailing.

Using the rail for support, Gaunt was almost on his feet again by the time Corbec reached him.

'Easy there, commissar…'

Gaunt waved him off, aware of the way his blood was still freely dribbling onto the deck.

'Your timing…' he grunted, 'is perfect… colonel.'

Corbec grimly gestured over his shoulder. Gaunt turned to look where he pointed. Brin Milo stood by the elevator assembly, looking flushed and fierce.

'The lad had a dream,' Corbec said, refusing to be ignored and looping his arm under his commander's shoulder. 'Came to me at once when he couldn't find you in your quarters.'

Milo crossed to them. 'The wounds need attention,' he said.

'We'll get him to the apothecarium,' Corbec began.

'No,' Milo said firmly and, despite the pain, Gaunt almost laughed at the sudden authority his junior aide directed at the shaggy brute who was the company commander. 'Back to our barrack decks. Use our own medics. I don't think the commissar wants this incident to become a matter for official inquiry.'

Corbec looked at the boy curiously but Gaunt nodded. In his experience, there was no point fighting the boy's gift for judgement. Milo never intruded into the commissar's privacy, but he seemed to understand instinctively Gaunt's intentions and wishes. Gaunt could not keep secrets from the boy, but he trusted him – and valued his insight beyond measure.

Gaunt looked at Corbec. 'Brin's right. There's more to this… I'll explain later, but I want the ship hierarchy kept out of it until we know who to trust.'

The weapons alarm continued to sound.

'In that case, we better get out of here—' Corbec began.

He was cut off by the elevator shutters gliding open with a breathy hiss and a choral exhalation. Six Imperial Navy troopers in fibre-weave shipboard armour and low-brimmed helmets exited in a pack and dropped to their knees, covering the trio with compact stubguns. One barked curt orders into his helmet vox-link. An officer emerged from the elevator in their wake. Like them, his uniform was emerald with silver piping, the colours of the Segmentum Pacificus Fleet, but he was not armoured like his detail. He was tall, a little overweight and his puffy flesh was unhealthily pale.

A career spacer, thought Corbec. Probably hasn't stood on real soil in decades.

The officer stared at them: the shaggy Guard miscreant with his unauthorised laspistol; the injured, bloody man leaning against him and bleeding on the deck; the rangy, strange-eyed boy.

He pursed his lips, spoke quietly into his own vox-link and then touched a stud on the facilitator wand he carried, waving it absently into the air around him. The alarm shut off mid-whine.

'I am Warrant Officer Lekulanzi. It is my responsibility to oversee the security of this vessel on behalf of Lord Captain Grasticus. I take a dim view of illicit weapons on this holy craft, though I always expect Imperial Guard scum to try something. I look with even greater displeasure on the use of said weapons.'

'Now, this is not how it loo—' Corbec began, moving forward with a reassuring smile. Six stubgun muzzles swung their attention directly at him. The detail's weapons were short-line, pump-action models designed for shipboard use. The glass shards and wire twists wadded into each shell would roar out in a tightly packed cone of micro-shrapnel, entirely capable of shredding a man at close range. But unlike a lasgun or a bolter, there was no danger of them puncturing the outer hull.

'No hasty movements. No eager explanations.' Lekulanzi stared at them. 'Questions will be answered in due time, under the formal process of your interrogation. You are aware that the bring of a prohibited weapon on a transport vessel of the Adeptus Mechanicus is an offence punishable court martial. Surrender your weapon.'

Corbec handed his laspistol to the trooper who rose smartly to take it from him.

'This is stupid,' Gaunt said abruptly. The guns turned their attention to him. 'Do you know who I am, Lekulanzi?'

The warrant officer tensed as his name was used without formal title. He narrowed his flesh-hooded eyes.

Gaunt hauled himself forward and stood free of Corbec's support. 'I am Commissar-Colonel Ibram Gaunt.'

Warrant Officer Lekulanzi froze. Without the coat the cap, the badges of authority, Gaunt looked like any low-born Guard officer.

'Come here,' Gaunt told him. The man hesitated, then crossed to Gaunt, whispering a low order into his vox-link. The guard detail immediately rose from their knees, snapped to attention and slung their weapons.