A lighter bumbled past at low level, heading for the ship. Mkoll kept his head covered under the lip of the tarp. The small craft was chased by a shadow that flickered across the working dock and then out across the shivering water. Daylight had gone. Above the mouth of the cone, the sky was a starless grey. The shadow had been cast by the banks of floodlights framed on the edge of the wharf. Mkoll had thought about a lighter or a small lifter, but he wasn’t sure where they were working from. A landing area would be guarded, and it was hard to be anonymous among a small crew.
He watched the lighter turn and settle, lights winking, into a hold cavity further down the flank of the immense ship.
More agriboats were coming in, chugging sideways into the next dock bay along with smoke spilling at water level from their straining motors. They were loaded with more mainland personnel, a few shivering prisoners, and some small artillery pieces with sacks on their muzzles and their split trail carriages closed.
The thousand whispers in his head welled up again like the dead channel of a vox. The voice was speaking, a droning hiss he could feel in his sinuses and jawbone.
I have some words for you too, he thought. I’ll say them in person.
Down below, another train of carts rattled across the rockcrete, the gangs steering them shouting and exchanging comments. Servitors dragged empty ones back to the barn from the hoist. One of the officers, a sirdar, spoke to a group of stevedores, then wandered towards the barn, marking items on a slate.
The sirdar entered the lamplit barn and instructed the servitors which load to move from the freight stacks next.
One of his men called to him. He finished what he was saying, and walked around the bale stack to find out what the man wanted.
There was no one there.
Mkoll dropped down behind him, and snapped his neck with a practised twist. The sirdar’s feet jittered, and then he went limp. Mkoll dragged him behind a heap of trench-wire spools, and stripped off his jacket, watching all the while to make sure no one was coming. A decent jacket, and better boots than the ones Mkoll was wearing, but the boots were a size too small. He took the jacket, the Sekkite helmet and the weapons belt, which had a single shoulder strap. The belt’s pouches were full of hard-round clips because the sirdar carried a long-nosed autogun. There were no las cells to fit the sidearm he already had. But there was a small vox handset, a short-range unit, and three small grenades. They were little silver cylinders. Two were marked with red dots, which he guessed meant smoke. The other, its casing slightly ridged, was marked with a black dot. Fragmentation. Anti-personnel.
Mkoll tucked the laspistol into the back of his waistband, then put on the sirdar’s undershirt and jacket, and buckled the weapons belt over the top.
He stepped back behind the wire spools. Two packsons from the labour crews walked past the freight aisle. Once they had gone, he put on the sirdar’s gloves and full-face helmet, gagging slightly at the touch of the tanned leather and the acid smell of the sirdar’s spittle. Then he picked up the slate and stylus.
The sirdar walked back out onto the dock. A work gang was waiting beside a laden row of carts. A hoist car was returning to dock level, jangling with empty carts.
‘Ktah heth dvore voi?’ a stevedore asked him as he walked past.
‘Nen, nen,’ the sirdar replied, busy looking at his slate. ‘Khen vah.’
A bare-chested packson lifted the hoist’s cage door, and the servitors clattered the empty carts out.
‘Kyeth! Da tsa herz! Kyeth! Kyeth!’ the sirdar said, sweeping with his hand to urge the gang to load.
The men started to wrangle the heavy carts into the hoist. One of the packsons looked at the sirdar.
‘Khin bachat Sird Eloth?’ he asked. Where is Sirdar Eloth?
‘Tsa vorhun ter gan,’ the sirdar replied. Gone to his rest.
‘Tyah k’her het!’ the packson scoffed. This early?
‘Khen tor Sird Eloth fagrah,’ the sirdar replied. Sirdar Eloth is a lazy bastard.
The workers laughed. They pushed the cumbersome carts up the fold-down ramp, cursing each other as they handled them into the cage. Another lighter warbled overhead, heading towards the cruiser. Its shadow chased across the dock.
Three servitors and two packsons got into the cage with the new load. One went to pull down the cage door.
‘Nen, coraht!’ the sirdar barked, raising his hand.
He stepped forward and jerked his thumb, ordering one of the packsons out.
‘Shet, magir?’ the man asked.
‘Hsa gor tre shet,’ the sirdar replied, stepping into the hoist in his place. ‘Voi shet tsa khen verkahn.’ I’ve got to go up. Go ready the next load.
The sirdar pulled the cage shut. The hoist began to rise, slow and ponderous, the steel hawsers squealing through poorly greased drums.
The packson with him in the cage said nothing. The three servitors cycled their systems in neutral, and flexed their manipulator arms ready to resume effort.
The hoist reached the loading bridge level, and stopped with a jolt and a thump of block-brakes. The packson slunked open the cage door at the far end.
The sirdar waited while the servitors rolled out the first of the carts. More servitor crews and a few sweating labourers took hold of them, steered them clear, and began to roll them across the bridge.
The sirdar stepped out of the cage. He checked off items on his slate. Two Sekkite officers stood nearby with an excubitor, discussing loading options. None of them acknowledged him.
The sirdar fell in step behind the rumbling train of carts and followed them across the bridge span.
No one challenged him.
The hold gates of the Archenemy cruiser stood wide open to receive him.
‘How do we open a door that isn’t there?’ Curth asked.
‘Maybe we don’t,’ said Laksheema.
‘Say that again,’ said Curth.
Laksheema raised her voice to compete with the steady whoop of the red condition klaxons.
‘I said maybe we shouldn’t, doctor,’ she said.
Curth shot her a foul expression.
Gaunt ran his hand along the old stonework.
‘Maybe we need a drill,’ someone suggested.
Gaunt looked around. Trooper Perday flushed.
‘I mean, like in the Reach, sir,’ she added, nervously. ‘You know, a proper breaching drill. Just thinking out loud…’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Is there a breaching unit in the palace compound?’ asked Gaunt. ‘A Hades?’
‘Must be,’ said Beltayn.
‘Think, think,’ Hark interrupted. ‘How do we get a fething Hades down here? Some of the halls between here and the transit grounds are too narrow, and there’s stairs–’
‘Go in from outside?’ Curth suggested.
‘Not viable,’ said Auerben. ‘Even if we could round one up.’
‘Agreed,’ said Sancto. ‘The thickness of the root wall. It would take days.’
‘And where do we drill?’ Auerben asked.
‘Someone find a fething plan of the undercroft level,’ Gaunt said to no one in particular.
‘Det charges,’ said Sariadzi bluntly.
‘Now, that’s better thinking,’ said Hark, nodding.
‘Stop,’ said Laksheema.
Everyone looked at her.
‘With respect, your debate assumes we want to open the undercroft,’ she said.
‘Feth you,’ said Curth.