EIGHTEEN
MY INITIAL IMPRESSION, as my boots first echoed on deck plates half as old as the Imperium[113], was, surprisingly, one of peace. The venerability and size of the cavernous hangar bay lent it something of the air of a cathedral, and although I've never had much time for the songs and pongs[114], I must admit to finding such places pleasantly tranquil on the few occasions I've had reason to enter them. The ceiling was high and devoid of the curving buttresses I'd have expected to see supporting it aboard a Navy vessel, but the bas-relief aquila on the far wall, looming over everything, was reassuring enough, even though it had been rendered in a fashion which made it look as though it was floating without sufficient support for its weight. The air was musty, of course, but no worse than one would expect to find on the lower levels of the average hive, and I found the spurious sense of familiarity which that imparted to our surroundings was also helping to put me at my ease a little - at least as much as was possible under the circumstances.
'This isn't so bad,' Jurgen said, producing a luminator from somewhere among his collection of utility pouches, and snapping it onto the bayonet lugs of his lasgun. The external lights of the Thunderhawk were still burning brightly enough to render our immediate surroundings clearly visible, but he swept the shadows in the corners methodically nevertheless, and I nodded, commending his caution.
'So far, so good,' I agreed, unfastening the flap of my holster and loosening my chainsword in its scabbard. The Terminators trotted forwards to secure our beachhead, their weapons at the ready, and I relaxed a little; nothing was going to get past them without being noticed, and raising an unholy racket in the process. To my surprise, however, instead of taking up firing positions to cover the door leading from the hangar to the Stygian gloom of the corridor beyond, the hulking figures passed straight on through it and disappeared.
'Where are they off to?' Jurgen asked, sounding about as puzzled as I felt.
'Fanning out to cover our line of advance to the cogitator banks,' Drumon said, looming over us as he approached. 'There are a number of cross corridors intersecting with our optimum route.'
'Good idea,' I agreed, remembering the tangle of ducting and passageways projected in the hololith. There were far too many opportunities for ambush for my liking, and it made sense to plug as many of them as possible with sentries before the main body of the expedition departed the hangar bay. 'Wouldn't want to find a horde of genestealers charging up your... aah, magos. Got everything you need?'
'I believe so,' Yaffel confirmed, rolling up with his servitors, and a gaggle of red-robed acolytes, in tow. Most of them were lugging more junk than Jurgen, although what purpose it served was way beyond me. The only thing I recognised for certain was the bolter Drumon was carrying, and, with a sudden thrill of apprehension, it dawned on me that, apart from the Techmarine, Jurgen and I were the only people in sight holding weapons. 'We won't know for certain until we reach the sanctum, of course, but we've been able to anticipate most contingencies.'
'Apart from having to fight your way out,' I said. 'Don't you think a few guns might be advisable?'
'The risks are negligible,' Yaffel assured me airily. 'We're still getting no sign of movement from the CATs, and in the unlikely event of a dormant genestealer or two reviving inside our perimeter, I'm certain the Terminators will be able to keep them away from our party.'
'Our party?' I echoed, masking my horror as best I could. 'I was under the impression Jurgen and I were along merely as observers.' A responsibility I'd been intending to discharge from the safety and relative comfort of the Thunderhawk's passenger compartment, well away from any genestealers that might be lurking in the vicinity.
'What better opportunity to observe, then?' Yaffel asked, as though bestowing an enormous favour. 'You can monitor the communication channels just as effectively through your comm-bead while you accompany us, and see the recovery operation at first hand while you're about it.'
'A chance not to be missed,' I agreed, masking the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach with the ease of a lifetime's dissembling. He still seemed dangerously sanguine about the chances of a genestealer attack to me, but at least we'd have a squad of Terminators to hide behind, and from what I'd seen of the ease with which they'd cleansed the nest under Fidelis they wouldn't be got past easily. I could still have refused to go, of course, but that would have meant sacrificing a measure of Drumon's regard, and with it my undeserved standing among the Reclaimers. So, as ever in that kind of situation, I resolved to simply make the best of a bad job, and be prepared to make a run for it at a moment's notice.
As it turned out, though, my fears appeared to be unfounded, at least to begin with. After leaving the docking bay we made surprisingly good time, the corridors free of clutter and detritus for the most part, although the occasional ceiling panel had fallen, and some of the deck plates were sufficiently corroded to present a trip hazard to the unwary. In one or two places there were signs of more serious obstruction, but these had been removed from our path by the vanguard of Terminators, and no serious obstacles to our progress remained.
The only other sign that our companions had come this way before us was the channel of disturbed dust along the centre of the passageway, and the occasional cyclopean footprint, picked out by Jurgen's luminator. His was the only one kindled, leaving the echoing darkness to wrap itself oppressively around us. I had no problem with this: our environment was sufficiently close to the underhives I'd grown up in for all my old instincts to have returned, the way sounds rebounded from the surfaces surrounding us and the feel of stray air currents against my face more than compensating for the lack of light, and I was perfectly happy not to be making myself an obvious target by carrying one. Drumon, I was sure, had no need of a luminator to find his way in any case, his helmet being stuffed with artificial senses to supplement his own, and no doubt the tech-priests had sufficient augmetic eyes and the like between them not to bump into things and each other too often.
We came across one of the Terminators within a few moments of setting off, his back to the corridor, facing one of the side passages, his twin-barrelled bolter aimed down it in a reassuringly steady grip. As we carried on past him, Drumon pausing to exchange a few words with his comrade, I realised for the first time just how bulky the heavy armour was; even the Techmarine looked relatively slight standing next to it. The Terminator, by contrast, filled almost the entire width of the narrow passageway, the hunched shoulders rising up behind his helmet brushing against the ceiling, and for the first time I began to wonder if perhaps we'd have been better off with a lighter, more nimble escort. If the worst came to the worst, these lumbering behemoths would block the constricted corridors like corks in a bottle. I don't mind admitting that chills of apprehension chased one another down my spine at that thought, my morbid imagination being able to picture the consequences of being unable to shoot past our guardians, or dodge round them to flee unhindered, all too well.
'Any signs of movement?' I asked, as I came abreast of his back, and the Terminator responded at once, his voice echoing slightly in my comm-bead as it overlapped with the one issuing from the external speaker of his armour.
'A few faint auspex returns, very tenuous,' he told me. 'No visual contact.' Which pretty much confirmed my earlier guess about the sensorium links in his helmet.
My palms began tingling again. 'How distant?' I asked.
'They're reading at about three hundred metres,' he told me, apparently quite unconcerned. 'If they're there at all.'
'Just auspex ghosts,' Yaffel said confidently. 'Nothing to worry about.'
'Ghosts?' Jurgen asked, sounding mildly curious, and no more perturbed than usual. 'Are the wrecks haunted?' He swung his luminator around for a moment, as if hoping to find the shade of some long-deceased crewman dripping ectoplasm on the bulkheads.
'It's a theological term,' Yaffel explained patiently, 'for a false reading, which looks like a genuine trace. Even the most conscientious of machine-spirits will sometimes be mistaken, or perhaps be moved by a sense of mischief inappropriate to the sanctity of their task.'
'Or perhaps there really is something out there,' I said, drawing my laspistol. The gesture may have been futile, but the weight of the weapon in my hand felt comforting, and I stretched my senses, listening intently for sounds of scrabbling in the dark.
'If there is, it'll just be vermin,' Yaffel assured me easily, with a faintly supercilious glance at my drawn sidearm, 'or cables moving in the air current from the recirculators.'
'Vermin that's spent countless generations exposed to the warp?' I wondered aloud. 'Emperor alone knows
