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.
And tiiat's how we get here, the Colonel dressed up in the security officer's uniform, boldly walking towards die two guards. They straighten up as they see us approach, exchanging a quick glance with each other. Neither of them says a word as the Colonel and Gudmanz step up to a red glass panel set into the wall on the right side of die door. Gudmanz is standing
between the guards and Schaeffer, hands held innocently behind his back, so that they can't see what I can.
The Colonel pulls the security officer's severed hand from the darkness of Gudmanz's sleeve and deftly fits the tube projecting from its sutured wrist into the intravenum Gudmanz inserted into his arm earlier. With his own pulse stimulating a fake heartbeat in the dead hand, the Colonel places it against the screen and a beam of yellow light plays between the fingertips, apparendy reading the pattern on the end of the fingers. The screen changes to green and a tone sounds from a speaker set in the ceiling. As expertly as he attached it, the Colonel dis connects the hand from himself and passes it back to Gudmanz.
The two security men salute as we walk through the opening gates, standing to attention with their laser carbines along the seams of their right leg their faces staring obediently into the middle distance. It's a position I learnt well when on garrison duty.
'Hurry up/ hisses the Colonel between tight lips when we're a few metres further down the tunnel. Walking next to him, I look over with a puzzled look. He notices my stare and glances down at his right hand before fixing his look ahead of him again. I surreptitiously look down and a lump appears in my throat when I realise an occasional droplet of blood is running down his wrist, gathering on his fingers and sporadically dripping to the floor. I glance back over my shoulder and luckily the two guards are still in their parade ground position, but it won't be long before one of them looks our way and sees the faint trail of blood on the metal flooring. We take the next quiet turning the first couple had some people in them, and break into a ran, sending Lorii ahead to check it out first. She comes back and guides us along a deserted route until we find an empty hab-complex. The floor is patterned with red and white triangular tiles, I guess the Typhons must really like triangles. The underground houses show signs of being in use, but no one seems to be around at the moment. Loron starts checking the twenty or so glass-panelled doors around the circular communal area at the centre of the litde complex, and die third one he tries is unlocked.
'I remember the days when you could leave your door unlocked without fear/ jokes Lorii.
Hurrying through, we find ourselves in a dining chamber, a small kitchen area at one end. There's more tiling on the floors and walls, in two different shades of blue. The Colonel rips the intravenum from his arm and flings it into a waste grinder beside the small cooking stove.
'I thought these were supposed to seal up without the tube inserted!' the Colonel barks loudly at Gudmanz, who flinches from Schaeffer's anger.
'There must have been some flow-back from the rebel's hand/ he explains with his hands raised slighdy in a placating gesture. They were not designed for this kind of procedure, please remember/
The Colonel calms down slighdy and we nose around the hab-pen. There are two small bedrooms off the living space, and they have their own ablutions area, complete with a basin and bathtub.
'Lucky bastards/ I say to Striden as he splashes cold water over his face. 'My barracks were never like
