AS I'D ANTICIPATED, Torven and the Serendipitans were less than enthused by the tidings I bore, and the atmosphere around the makeshift conference table was distinctly frosty by the time I concluded my briefing. It was plain that all three of them shared my misgivings about the wisdom of boarding the Spawn of Damnation, and, as I'd expected, it was Duque who first put them into words.
'So what you're telling us,' he said slowly, 'is that not only are we prevented from destroying the thing by the presence of friendly units in the target zone, we can expect the genestealers to be handed a potential vector of contamination on a platter with a salad garnish?'
'Essentially, yes,' I told him, noting the restive fashion in which Torven and Kregeen shifted their weight on the benches as I did so.
'But I'm sure our gallant allies in the Astartes will take all due precautions.' Not for the first time, I found myself treading a delicate path between the conflicting agendas of the Reclaimers and the defenders of Serendipita. If I was going to turn this assignment into a comfortable refuge from a galaxy apparently hell-bent on killing me, I needed to keep both factions feeling I was more in sympathy with their point of view than the other.
'No doubt,' Kregeen said, in a voice which oozed dubiety.
'They should know what they're doing,' Torven said. 'They're Astartes after all. It's the cogboys that worry me. They seem so obsessed with the prospect of getting their hands on a stash of archeotech they're incapable of assessing the risk objectively.'
I couldn't argue with that, and I didn't have the heart to tell him that so far as I could see the Reclaimers were equally keen to go dashing off on a treasure hunt, so I simply nodded judiciously. 'They believe they can, of course, but I've yet to meet a 'stealer that'll back down and run away if you tell it its presence is a statistical fluke.' That lightened the mood, of course, as I'd hoped it would, as well as reminding them that I'd faced and fought the creatures on more than one occasion, and I followed up the advantage with a little careful morale-boosting. 'At least if anyone does fall prey to them, the damage ought to be self-limiting,' I added. 'Astartes and Mechanicus tend not to go in for large families.'
This time the witticism produced visible smiles, even from some of the aides, who generally seemed to feel that their chances of promotion depended on behaving as much like servitors as possible without a lobotomy.
'Quite so,' Torven agreed evenly. 'But the bulk of the Revenant's crew are ordinary men. If any of them should become tainted, and make their way to Serendipita, they'll start spawning hybrids almost at once.' This was true, of course, and I nodded reassuringly. 'Then it's fortunate that only Astartes and members of the Adeptus Mechanicus will be included in the boarding party. None of the Chapter serfs will be exposed.'
'Not initially,' Torven said. 'But you said it yourself, they intend to continue exploring the hulk for as long as it remains in the materium. That could be anything up to a decade, and a lot can happen in that amount of time.'
'And what happens if one of the Astartes does get implanted?' Kregeen asked. 'They don't have to father children to act in the interest of the brood mind, do they?' For a moment the image of the tainted PDF troopers who'd turned against Mira and I in the tunnels beneath Fidelis rose up in my mind, and I tried not to contemplate the havoc a similarly compromised Space Marine could wreak. Not to mention the prospect of an implanted Thunderhawk pilot smuggling a few purestrains on board, to cut a swathe through the crew, thereby seeding the nucleus of another genestealer cult in the heart of Serendipitan society.
'No, they don't,' I agreed, my resolve to get as far away from the Revenant as quickly as possible even stronger than before. 'I'll raise the possibility with Captain Gries at the earliest opportunity and let you know what precautions he'll be taking against it.' If nothing else, he was a realist, and I was sure he had contingency plans in place, even if they were just the same as the ones we had in the Guard: summary execution and burn the body. (Which was in fact the case: when I did eventually get the chance to raise the subject he became as close to agitated as I ever saw him, which I found strangely reassuring. Clearly he regarded the notion of losing one of his own to the brood mind as abhorrent as any mortal commander would have done [100]).
'That's all very well,' Duque said, 'but I'd rather take precautions of my own.' In the absence of a hololith, or pict screen large enough for us all to look at, he passed round a data-slate, on which a cluster of illuminated dots appeared, annotated with icons identifying them as the hulk, the Revenant and a dozen or so System Defence boats. 'I'm deploying the blockade in this pattern. Individual ships will rotate in and out, of course, according to operational requirements, refit and resupply, but the total number will never drop below this minimum.'
'It looks pretty tight,' I said, although my grasp of three-dimensional tactics was tenuous at best; one of the first things a good commissar (as opposed to the by-the-book martinets who'll execute a trooper at the drop of a hat, and like as not end up on the wrong end of a negligent discharge[101]) learns is when to dispense a few words of quiet encouragement. 'But won't committing so many vessels to this operation leave you overstretched elsewhere in the system?'
'We'll manage,' Duque said. 'We won't have much of a strategic reserve left, admittedly, but we can still respond to a greenskin raid effectively enough if we have to. And the genestealers are here now, so that's where I'm putting my ships. If the worst happens, we can still keep them from causing any harm.'
'Well, let's hope you don't have to,' I said, taking his meaning and nodding almost imperceptibly to let him know I'd done so. He'd positioned his ships where they could combine their fire against the Revenant if the worst came to the worst, and enough of the Reclaimers and their vassals were taken over by the brood mind to seize control of the cruiser. If it ever came down to it, the fight would be a bloody one, but the SDF would almost certainly prevail by sheer weight of numbers. 'I take it everyone else has been considering the worst-case scenarios?'
Torven and Kregeen glanced at one another, then nodded in unison, and I was pleased to see that they appeared to be working together reasonably well on this. 'We have,' Torven confirmed. 'The marshal and I are agreed that the existing contingency plans against an orkish invasion will prove sufficient if required.' So it seemed we were as prepared as we could ever be to defend ourselves against a strike force of implanted Space Marines spearheading a genestealer swarm: another possibility I devoutly hoped would remain purely theoretical.
'The trouble is,' Kregeen said, 'we've got no real idea of the scale of the threat. Best case, the Astartes and the Mechanicus really are as on top of things as they like to think, and we can let them get on with it knowing the admiral's blockade will be enough to do the job if they fumble. Worst case, it's all going to the warp in a sabretache, and we need to be ready to mobilise in a heartbeat.' She shrugged. 'So which is it?'
I adopted an expression intended to convey sober reflection. 'I don't suppose we'll know for sure until they've been over there,' I said, after pausing just long enough to give the impression I'd been mulling it over.
'Exactly,' Torven agreed. He leaned across the table towards me, as though about to impart a confidence he'd rather not have overheard. 'Which is why we'd all feel a lot happier if there was an objective observer attached to the boarding party.'
Duque and Kregeen nodded their agreement, and with a sudden thrill of horror uncannily reminiscent of my conversation with Mira, I realised what they were driving at. Nevertheless, I nodded again, as if I was seriously considering it.
'I could ask Captain Gries to let me tag along,' I said, which was perfectly true, I could; but I had about as much intention of doing so as going back to the orkhold to challenge the local warboss to an arm-wrestling match. 'How he'd feel about it, though...' I shrugged, to show I had no idea. Hardly a subtle piece of misdirection, I'm sure you'll agree, but it did the job. Everyone relaxed visibly, and although no one went so far as to pat me on the back, I was left in no doubt that a warm welcome awaited me on Serendipita.
'We couldn't ask for more,' Torven said.
I smiled, playing up to my reputation for modest heroism, as though being asked to take an insanely dangerous risk was merely routine (which, come to think of it, it more or less was by this point in my career), and glanced around the table. 'Then perhaps I'll have some more news for you when we meet on Serendipita,' I said. Whatever happened, this would be our last meeting aboard the Revenant: it seemed the parasites Mira had been herding had had enough of the Reclaimers' hospitality by now, a sentiment which I was certain was heartily reciprocated, or perhaps the governor just wanted his shuttle back. At any event, the delegation was due to depart the following day, and the military personnel along with it. (Apart from Duque and his people, who were hopping over to his flagship aboard an Aquila it had dispatched for the purpose, and which was rather pointedly timed to arrive several hours before the boarding party set off for the Spawn.)
Of course, despite the impression I'd gone some way to foster, I hadn't the slightest intention of attaching myself to what I was convinced was little more than a suicide mission. But, once again, I'd reckoned without
