Gav Thorpe - 13th Legion

'If anyone can, it's us/ I assure her, scratching at an itch on my thigh caused by the coarse material of the white Typhon trousers.

'It's still not going to be easy taking mis place, even with the power down/ she says with a wry look.

'I've been thinking about that, and I don't reckon there'll be anything to take after we've done/ I reply, voicing a suspicion that's been growing in my mind since the Colonel outlined his plan.

'I don't get you/ she says with a little frown creasing her thin white eyebrows.

This idea about getting to the plasma chambers and shutting them down...' I start but fall silent when she gives me an urgent glance and tiien flicks her gaze over my shoulder along the main corridor behind me. I push myself off the wall and glance back. Walking towards us are three men, two of them in security uniforms that we've seen before - deep blue jump­suits, metal batons hanging off leather belts, peaked caps instead of helmets. The man between the two security officials wears a similar outfit, but with red piping running the length of his sleeves and legs. He carries a short cane under one arm, like a drill sergeant I guess, and his stern demeanour shows that he's nobody to mess with. As they walk past we fall in a few metres behind them. I slip a short-bladed knife into my hand, procured from a kitchen we raided for food last night, and we quicken our step. Looking around to check we're alone, we make our move.

The security man on the right, in front of me, hears our foot­steps and turns. Lorii and I pounce at the same time, my knife slamming into the left eye of the one who's looking back at us. Lorii wraps her arms around the head and neck of the other like a snake and with one violent twist and a hideous cracking noise, snaps his neck in two. The officer reacts quickly, lashing

out at me with his cane. It just brushes my left arm but must be charged or something, because it sends a shock of pain up to my shoulder. Lorii's in too fast for him to get a second blow, bringing her knee up into the elbow of his outstretched arm and chopping down on his wrist with her right hand, breaking his arm and sending the cane clanging to the floor. His gives a shout of agony and Lorii brings her left arm sharply back, slam­ming the outside edge of her hand across his nose, snapping his head back. His legs buckle as blood streams down his face and she lashes out with a kick that connects with his chin and poleaxes him to the ground, completely out of it.

We're just recovering our breath, wondering what to do next, when from the next side corridor appears a clericus, staring intently at an opened scroll in his hands.

'Frag!' I spit, and he looks up, eyes widening comically as he sees the two of us crouched over what looks like three dead security men. I go to leap after him but my whole left side is going numb with the shock from the cane and I slump to one side. The adept gives a shriek drops the parchment and turns to ran, but Lorii's up and after him, five strides from her long, slim legs propelling her right up to him. She leaps into the air, her right foot striking out, smashing perfectly into the base of his skull and pitching him onto his face as she lands lightly on her feet. She grabs his head in both hands, and as with the security guard, breaks his spine as if wringing the neck of some fowl for dinner.

Luckily for us nobody else comes along and we find an empty terminal room behind the first door we open. Piling the dead men inside, I shut the door and then ram the blade of my knife into the lock on the door, snapping it off with a twist of my wrist.

'Hopefully nobody'll be too bothered about getting in there/ I say as we grab an arm each of the officer and start dragging him along the corridor.

Those were some pretty special moves you had there/ I com­ment as we get to the junction, and Lorii peeks around the corner.

'Special training/ she replies, waving me on.

'What was your unit before you were sent to the penal battal­ion?' I ask, realising that everything we knew about the twins starts from after they were discharged.

'It was a special infiltration force. Fifty of us/ she tells me, returning to pick up her end of the unconscious Typhon offi­cer. 'I can't really talk about it.'

"Were you... special in that outfit?' I ask, picking my words carefully considering Loron's earlier warning about remarks concerning their outlandish appearance.

'Oh no/ she says, glancing at me widi a smile. "We were all like that. It was part of our unique, erm, preparation and training/

The feeling is returning to my left arm now and I heft die unconscious rebel over my shoulders and we run for it. We get to die door where the others are waiting and I knock on it widi my foot.

'Yes?' I hear the Colonel saying from inside.

'It's us, you stupid fraggers, let us in!' I snap tersely through die gap between the door and the frame, my face resting against the cold metal of the door, my shoulder beginning to ache from its oblivious burden. The door opens a crack and I barge it open, throwing Striden to die floor, a pistol in his hand. I unceremoniously dump the security officer at Gudmanz's feet with vocal relief, as Lorii kicks die door shut behind us.

This one do?' I ask Gudmanz. 'Cos if it don't, you can frag-gin' well get your own one next time!'

'He is alive?' the Colonel asks as a groan escapes our pris­oner's lips and he begins to move sluggishly.

'Oh, tiiat's not necessary/ Gudmanz assures us, laboriously kneeling down beside the prone traitor, his fingers doing some­thing to die man's neck mat I can't quite see. When the tech-priest has finished, our captive has become a corpse, his face flushed red with blood.

'What did you do then?' asks Striden bending for a closer look, curiosity and excitement flashing across his face.

'I merely manipulated the flow of blood in his carotid artery and jugular vein to create a haemorrhaging effect in his brain/ the tech-priest explains, in the same matter-of-fact tone I can imagine him using to describe how to operate a comm-link fre­quency dial. I give an involuntarily shudder and step away.

What do we do with him now?' asks the Colonel, still sitting where he was when we left a few minutes ago. Gudmanz looks at me as he pushes himself to his feet, joints cracking loudly in protest at this harsh treatment.

We need a saw of some kind/ he says, looking expectantly at me, withered head cocked to one side. 'Oh, bugger off/ I reply miserably.

Considering the trouble we had to go through to get everything Gudmanz wanted in die end, it might have been easier just to single-handedly storm die accessway. As we march purpose­fully up the main access corridor towards the two guards stationed by the portal to the next ring, I offer a silent prayer to the Emperor tiiat tiiis ridiculous scheme works. In the end we decided it would be best to break into an infirmary to get all the items on Gudmanz's list. The Colonel, Loron, Striden and me back-tracked to a traumarium a couple of kilometres back the way we came. We knew it'd be impossible to find any med­ical facility in the citadel tiiat wasn't crammed widi war wounded, and decided just to go for the nearest one. So it was that Striden was dragged by us, kicking and screaming enough to be heard across die system, into the infirmary, clasping his hands over his face.

'Plasma blindness/ the Colonel said curtly as the medicos clustered around.

I dropped Striden and made my way into the next room, where there's about fifty wounded soldiers, some of them in beds, most on rough pallets strewn across the floor. The ward stinks of blood and infection, tinged with die bitter smell of old hygienic fluids. Back in the other room, Loron covered die door into the medical centre. I didn't see what happened next, but the Colonel strode into the ward, a bunch of brass keys in his hand. He detailed me to dispose of the bodies while he fetched the surgical tools Gudmanz needed. I went back into the other room and saw Loron and Striden looking strangely at each other. I glanced down at the two dead medicos and see that tiieir faces are contorted as if shouting but can't find any otiier mark on them. I asked the other two what die Colonel did, but they refused, saying some tilings were best forgotten.