‘No one really knows, sir, but that’s what happened. Sergeant Major Yerolemew sent me up right away to appraise you, sir.’
‘Amber status is a hazard advisory…’ said Daur, mystified.
‘“Threat suspected”,’ Hark agreed. ‘But that’s a combat zone condition. This isn’t a combat zone.’
‘I think Rawne might disagree with that,’ said Curth.
Hark scowled. ‘Urdesh is,’ he said. ‘The fething palace isn’t.’
‘Luna’s not one to jump at nothing,’ said Curth.
‘No, she’s not,’ said Hark. ‘Nor one to get a technical definition wrong.’
‘Granted,’ said Daur, ‘but even so…’
‘Major Bask, he’s ordered the retinue out, sir,’ said Perday. ‘Personnel evac. They’re making their way up now.’
‘Luna and Bask don’t piss around, Ban,’ said Hark.
Daur nodded. ‘I’ll alert the palace watchroom. See if they’ve got anything. Then I’ll take this to Gaunt immediately. In person. Viktor, you go down and take a look. Report back to me.’
‘Of course,’ said Hark.
‘You think this is something?’ asked Curth.
‘I think someone’s got their shorts in a knot,’ said Daur.
‘But you’re taking it to Gaunt…’ Curth said.
‘Yes,’ said Daur, ‘because he’ll put a rocket up the Munitorum and get specialist crews down there to sort it out.’
‘If it’s just a circuit problem…’ Hark said.
‘We’re inside the void-shielded Urdeshic palace, Viktor,’ said Daur, ‘as you just pointed out. What else could it be?’
Curth and Hark exchanged uneasy glances.
‘Well, that’s why you’re going to check it out, isn’t it, commissar?’ said Daur.
Hark nodded.
‘I’ll be down as soon as I’ve spoken to Gaunt,’ said Daur, and hurried away.
‘There’s an officer’s mess on the third floor,’ Hark said to Curth. ‘Decent log fire, decent amasec–’
‘Feth that,’ she replied, ‘I’m coming with you.’
The beams of their stablights criss-crossed the walls as they moved into the darkness.
‘Gol, take the left there,’ Baskevyl instructed.
Kolea nodded, and moved through an archway with a team of troopers from V Company.
Baskevyl shone his torch around to the right. ‘Meryn?’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Move through the billets in that direction.’
‘Right,’ Meryn replied. He sounded reluctant. Baskevyl couldn’t blame him. The internal scratching was getting more intense, like a dry hum, a crackle. His own hands were shaking.
Meryn played his light around, picking out the faces of Leyr, Banda, Neskon and the E Company corpsman, Leclan.
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
Baskevyl could feel Blenner’s nervous presence at his elbow, even though he couldn’t see him.
‘We’ll follow the main tunnel down to the latrine area,’ he said.
‘Close up behind,’ Blenner said to the E Company men at their heels. ‘Where’s Shoggy?’ he asked. ‘Didn’t he go this way?’
‘I don’t know where the feth he is,’ said Baskevyl. He tried the micro-bead links several times, but there was some kind of interference pattern.
‘Domor? Domor, this is Blenner,’ he heard Blenner say behind him. ‘Report your location, Shoggy. Have you found the work crew?’
‘I’ve tried that,’ Bask snapped.
‘Just getting noise,’ Blenner muttered. Their voices in the small, dark space sounded dead and muffled. ‘Is that jamming?’
‘In here?’ Baskevyl replied. ‘I don’t know how that would be possible.’ The palace was the most secure Imperial site on the Urdesh surface, and its void shields were up. Furthermore, they were in a sub-surface level. The undercroft might not be the most salubrious area of the palace complex, but it was buried in bedrock and sheathed in foundation stonework metres thick. None of the Archenemy dispositions on Urdesh could get within kilometres of the Great Hill, let alone undertake the engineering efforts necessary to undermine the foundations without being detected.
But Baskevyl’s mind kept returning to two things: the weird acoustics that they were all experiencing, and the simple fact that Luna Fazekiel was trustworthy and meticulous.
Baskevyl called her name into the darkness. There wasn’t even an echo, just a dull silence. Then he called other names… Domor, Dalin… Yoncy…
Nothing.
‘Keep up,’ he said to the others.
‘Sir?’
Baskevyl looked back, shining his beam. It was trooper Osket.
‘What?’
‘Something’s up with the commissar,’ Osket said.
Baskevyl played his beam around. Blenner was leaning against the passage wall, breathing hard.
‘Vaynom?’
He got a light on Blenner’s face. Blenner flinched. He was sweating and almost panting.
‘Vaynom?’ Baskevyl said calmly. ‘Vaynom? You’re having a panic attack. Vaynom, just breathe with me–’
‘There’s no air,’ Blenner gasped. ‘There’s no fething air…’
‘Vaynom, breathe with me. Slow. Count of three in… Hold it, count of three exhale…’
‘This is death,’ Blenner gasped, his breathing painfully quick and shallow. ‘This is death. It’s fething death. It’s fething punishment–’
‘Vaynom, breathe. Slow. Slower than that. Now hold it. Fill your lungs.’
‘What did I ever do, Bask? I mean really,’ Blenner stammered. ‘I didn’t want it. Not any of it. Just wanted to mind my own business and–’
‘Concentrate on your breathing,’ Baskevyl said firmly. He gripped Blenner by the shoulder. ‘Come on. That’s better.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Blenner mumbled, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ said Baskevyl. ‘It happens to all of us. Just gets up in your head–’
He paused. Where he was gripping Blenner’s shoulder, it felt wet to the touch. He took his hand away and shone his stablight at his palm.
‘What is it?’ Blenner asked.
‘Oil, I think,’ Baskevyl replied. ‘There must be some on the wall. You’ve leant on it–’ He sniffed his hand.
It wasn’t oil.
Baskevyl pushed Blenner out of the way and shone his light on the wall. The wet spatters read only as black in the harsh glare. Baskevyl didn’t have to see red to know it was blood.
‘Are you hurt, Vaynom?’ he asked. ‘Are you cut or–’
‘N-no,’ Blenner replied.
Baskevyl ran his beam along the ground. More black spatters there, gleaming in the light.
‘Someone’s hurt,’ he said. Then he pulled his lasrifle off his shoulder, clipped the stablight to the under-barrel lugs, and brought the weapon up in a ready position.
‘Secondary order,’ he said.
‘I thought…’ Erish began.
‘What?’ Kolea asked.
The big V Company bandsman hesitated.
‘Just thinking out loud, sir, sorry. I just thought there was another room beyond this one.’
Kolea’s team was in one of the smaller billet chambers. Forty cots in neat rows, head-ends to the cellar walls. Kolea turned his stablight on the end wall.
‘There, you mean?’
‘Yes,’ said Erish.
‘You’d know better than I would,’ Kolea said. This was his first visit to the undercroft. Erish and the others had been down here for two days.
‘The layout’s really simple,’ said Kores. ‘Just a grid with…’
He paused.
‘What?’ asked Kolea.
‘I don’t like to say, sir,’ replied Kores awkwardly. ‘But Erish is right. I’d have sworn there was a door there. An archway.’