'An echo?' Aemos whispered. 'Some kind of transmission anomaly caused by the atmosphere and the-'
'It's not a conversation I've ever had.'
Another boom of thunder rolled across the dry, softly lit shore.
After my estimated twenty minutes, we passed through what was suddenly the last arch. We all stopped. Ahead of us, the land rose more steeply, into hills and low ridges. The terrain there was darker, inhospitable. The overall radiance had dulled, and the sky was a deep green, oozing into blackness over the hills. There… there were more in the row!' Fischig exclaimed. 'More arches!' He was right. The octagonal colonnade had disappeared as we passed through the last arch. I stepped back through, imagining perhaps that from the other side the arches might reappear. They didn't. The booming continued. We set off towards the hills. Bursts of static hissed through our vox units. Transmissions/ said Lowink. He fiddled with his vox-channels. 'I can't tune them in, but they're chatter. Military. Back and forth.' Our quarry, perhaps.
'Look!' said Betancore, pointing behind us. Beyond the shore and the retreating line of arches, three ominous dark shapes hung under the clouds, out over the sea. Two Imperial frigates and an old, non-standard merchantman, floating at grav-anchor. 'How did we not see them when we passed?' 'I don't know, Midas. I'm not sure of anything anymore.' When I turned back to the rest of the group, I saw Aemos unclasping his helmet.
Aemos!'
'Calm yourself,' he said, uncovering his wizened old head. With the wide locking collar of the suit around him, he looked like a tortoise, pushing its gnarled head from its shell. He raised his left arm and showed me the atmosphere reader. The lights were green.
'Human-perfect atmosphere/ he said. A little cold and sterile, but human- perfect/
We all unclasped our helmets and pulled them off. The chilly air bit my face, but it was good to be free of the suits. There was no scent to the air, none at all. Not salt or ammonia or dust.
We helped each other fasten our helmets to our shoulder packs. The booming was duller and more distant now it didn't have our hollow helmets to resonate through. We could hear each other's footsteps, each other's breathing, the suck and lap of the ocean. I could suddenly smell Bequin's perfume. It was reassuring.
I led the group on, and we climbed slowly into the rising land. Now free of the helmet, I understood our ponderous progress was a result of more than our heavy suits. It was somehow difficult to gauge distance and depth. We stumbled every now and then. The whole place was profoundly wrong.
We came upon them very suddenly. The sudden resumption of the vox-traffic was our only warning. Our speakers burst into life simultaneously.
'Run! Move up! Segment two!'
Where are you? Where are you?'
'Cover to the left! That's an order! Cover to the left!'
They're behind me! They're behind me and I c-'
A fierce hiss of static.
Ahead, coming down the ridges and slopes of the dark rise, we saw soldiers. Imperial Guard, wearing red and gold combat armour. Gudrunite riflemen.
'Cover!' I ordered, and we dropped down into the shelter of the rising dunes, readying weapons.
There were sixty or more of them, hurrying down the upper slopes towards us in a wide straggle, running. There was no order to it. They were fleeing. An officer in their midst was waving his arms and shouting, but they were ignoring him. Many had lost helmets or rifles.
A second later, their pursuers came over the rise and fell upon them from behind. Three black, armoured speeders in the livery of navy security, and a following line of thirty troopers in their distinctive black armour, ordered, disciplined, marching in a spaced line, firing their hell-guns into the backs of the fleeing conscripts. The landspeeders swept in low, drizzling the slopes with cannon fire. The shots threw up plumes of dust, and the mangled bodies of men. A second later and all three land-speeders passed over us at what seemed like head-height, overshooting across the ammonia sea and banking round to follow in on another pass.
Some of the Gudrunites were firing back, and I saw one trooper topple and fall. But there was no co-ordination, no control.
What the hell! Do we stay hidden?' gasped Bequin.
They'll see us soon enough/ said Fischig, sliding open the feed slit of his heavy stubber's box magazine.
The odds were terrible, and ever since the incident on the
But still…
I pulled out my heavy autopistol and tossed it to Aemos, freeing my las-carbine from the fastener lugs on my pack. Bequin drew her own weapons, a pair of laspistols. Lowink and Midas had their firearms – a las-carbine and a Glavian needle-rifle respectively – already braced in their hands.
'Look to the troops,' I told Fischig, Lowink and Bequin. 'Do what you can, Aemos. Midas – the fliers are down to us.'
We bellied forward through the dunes, and then came up firing. Fis-chig's big gun smashed into the lip of the high ridge, kicking up dust, before he found range and demolished three of the stalking troopers.
Lowink's carbine cracked out, and Aemos fired the autopistol hesitantly.
Bequin was amazing. She'd used her time well during the thirty-week passage, and Midas had clearly instructed her carefully. A laspistol in each hand, she whooped out a battle-cry of sorts and placed careful shots that dropped two more of the troopers.
The troopers balked in their ruthless advance, realising the situation had suddenly changed. The scattering Gudrunites also wavered, and some of them, the officer included, turned and began to confront the killers. I had been counting on this. We couldn't take them alone. I had trusted that our sudden intervention might galvanise the guardsmen.
Still, many ran.
A fierce firelight erupted along the ridge between the halted troopers and those Gudrunites below who were turning to fight. Lowink. Fischig, Aemos and Bequin moved forward in support.
The landspeeders swept back, hammering the shore with shells.
Betancore dropped to one knee, raised his exotic weapon and fired. The long barrel pulsed and made a sound like a whispered shriek. Explosive splinters tore through the nearest speeder as it crossed down over us and it blew apart in the air.
Burning wreckage scattered across the sand.
I chased a second with my carbine. It was turning to present on us, and the turn made it slow. My shots missed or deflected from the armour. As its heavy cannon began to fire, pulverising the sand in a stitching row towards me, I shot the pilot through the face plate.
Still firing, it plunged suddenly and hit the beach fifty metres behind me. It bounced, shredding apart, struck again and crashed into the breakers in a spray of debris that threw up thousands of mis-matched splashes.
The third speeder turned in and made another pass, killing six more of the fleeing Gudrunites, who presented easy targets on the sand. Midas had
his weapon trained on it and fired as it passed over, missing. He fired again, striking its rear end as it burned away.
It kept going. Over the beach. Out to sea. I have no idea what he hit –the crew, the control systems – but it just kept going, on and on, until it disappeared from sight.
We pressed up the slope, in among the Gudrunites now. They were dirty and dishevelled to a man, none older than twenty-five. Seeing us and the damage we had wrought, they cheered,
