Criid assessed the chamber quickly. It had clearly once served as an overpressure gallery to regulate geothermic flow at times of peak output. The remnants of huge ceramite gates stood halfway down the gallery. They had long since fused to immobility, but their purpose had been to stem or even shut off magmatic flow and geothermal pressure. Urdesh’s geothermic system was thousands of years old. Long ago, it had been a subtle system, expertly managed and regulated by dynast technicians who could acutely gauge, direct and govern the natural power.
Those delicate archeotech mechanisms had long since fallen into disuse. Now Urdesh’s power grid was an open network of tunnels that either fed or did not. Power modulation was done by the individual sites – the forces and facilities like EM 14 – that tapped into it.
But this now-defunct gallery had advantages. More space, more range. There was cover at their end, and further cover and firing positions provided by the open gates and the high rockcrete ledges. Criid could see the open mouth of the duct at the opposite end. That’s where they’d be coming from. It was the only vent out of the duct network serving the Gnosis Repository area.
That is, she hoped it was. If the adepts had lied to Pasha, if Zhukova had read the plan wrong, if there was another, redundant and disused spur they didn’t know about…
‘They’ve got to be close,’ she said to Obel. ‘Let’s make it here. It’s the best option we’ve seen.’
‘The only option,’ said Larkin.
Obel threw quick hand signs – defensive positions, here. The Ghost squads behind them began to fan out into the gallery, taking up firing positions around the duct mouth using the ends of the rockcrete revetments as cover. Mkhet and Boaz set up the .20. Lugging the support weapon and its firing stand all the way from the Turbine Hall had left them almost dead on their feet from heat exhaustion. Other squad members had carried the ammo boxes. Falkerin and Cleb prepped the two satchels of tube charges, and Ifvan handed the primed sticks out. In the tight confines of the chamber, explosives would be a last resort, and Criid made sure everyone understood that.
Lubba checked his flamer.
‘Keep it tight in here,’ Obel advised. ‘Backwash could cook our own people, especially if they’re up on the overlooks.’
Lubba nodded. He lacked Aongus Brostin’s gleeful love of fire, but he understood flames and flamers. He’d been a flame-trooper since he joined the regiment, and Larkin had once described him as ‘Brostin without the, y’know, nutso pyro aspects.’
Jed Lubba was a big man. Most flame troopers were. It took bulk and core strength to heft a full-size flamer-unit around all day. He was sweating profusely, his jacket off, his vest dark with sweat.
‘Nice and tight, sir,’ he promised.
Larkin and Okain clambered up the moulded foot-holds at the end of the revetments to reach the inspection walk, one on each side.
‘Feth, it’s high,’ Larkin complained once he was up.
‘Quiet,’ said Criid.
‘And narrow,’ Larkin added. He eased his way along, carrying his precious long-las carefully, and took up position at the top of the left hand gate, in among the rusted gears that had once opened and closed it. Okain had already set up on top of the right hand gate. Other Ghosts clambered up after them, taking up precarious firing positions along the ledges, some on their bellies. Obel wanted to maximise the number of guns they could bring to bear. Maggs and Zhukova picked their way along the channel, heading down to scout the remainder of the gallery and listen at the far-end duct.
‘This is recovery?’ Obel said quietly to Criid.
‘This is stopping them,’ she replied.
‘But they’re carrying the things,’ said Obel. ‘Gaunt wants the things, right?’
She nodded. ‘But he doesn’t want the bastards to have them. So if it comes to a choice, better no one gets them than they do.’
Lunny Obel didn’t look sure.
‘Pasha didn’t specify,’ he said.
‘I don’t think she knows either,’ said Criid. ‘Our orders were to secure and recover. That idea went up the wall. So now it’s recover or deny. Look–’
She dropped her voice low, and turned him aside.
‘Honest to Throne, I don’t rate our chances here. Just thirty-one of us, no support? These hostiles were cutting through skitarii fifteen minutes ago. We’ll be lucky to hold them. If we’re really lucky, we smoke them. Just pour it on. If there’s anything to recover after that, hooray for us. Bottom line, they don’t get past us with the stuff unless we’re all dead.’
‘These things are important, aren’t they?’ Obel said. ‘These eagle stone things?’
‘Feth knows why,’ she replied. ‘But yes. Clearly. They’ve sent in elites to get them. So if we have to destroy them to stop them taking them, so be it.’
Obel shook his head.
‘Hey,’ she said, nudging him. ‘Come on. Lunny? They’ve sent in elites, Gaunt’s sent us. The Lord Executor, no less. So what does that make us?’
‘Elites?’ Obel asked with a tired grin.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It makes us suckers and las-bait. But at least I made you smile.’
‘Feth you, Tona,’ he chuckled.
‘Sir!’ Sergeant Ifvan hissed.
Okain was hand signing from his position.
Maggs and Zhukova were returning down the channel. They were moving fast, dodging and sprinting along the dirty, uneven bed of the gulley.
Primary order, Obel signed.
Corrod raised his hand and the Qimurah halted. He peered ahead at a pale disc that showed where the duct opened into some grander chamber.
He looked at the detailed plans Ordinate Jan Jerik had given him.
Hacklaw glanced at him.
‘Damogaur?’
‘We’re approaching the gallery,’ he said. Hacklaw nodded. He remembered it from the way in.
‘If they’re smart and diligent, this is where they’ll try to stop us.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s the point I’d choose,’ Corrod said. He looked at the chart again. ‘Wide enough to deploy, tight enough to defend.’
‘I doubt our Imperial foe has the wit or ability to get a force down here fast enough,’ said Hacklaw.
‘And that is why we have been at war with them for ever,’ said Corrod. ‘That sort of thinking. We underestimate them. Our foe is smart and diligent. They sent soldiers to recover the stones. They wouldn’t have sent just anybody. Special troops. Trustworthy elites.’
Hacklaw nodded, chastised.
Corrod looked back at the duct mouth. He squinted, his neon-bright eyes searching. The vents were dulling his reworked senses badly. The mucosal resin excreted to protect his lungs from heat burn was clogging his normally hyper-sharp gifts of smell and taste, and the general heat elevation was making it hard for his eyes to detect human heat tracks.
But he could hear. The soft but urgent drumming of human hearts, elevated with tension. The skitter of loose stones. The clink of metal as clips were gently slotted into receivers.
‘They are there,’ he said.
‘We cannot go back,’ said Ulraw. ‘They will have secured the other end by now.’
‘I said nothing about going back,’ replied Corrod. ‘We are Qimurah, brothers. We ascend always. We follow the song of his voice.’
‘We rush them?’ asked Hacklaw.
‘Yes,’ said Corrod. ‘We will lose some. That is the price. But they will not be prepared for our speed or our fortitude. Remember why our magir wrought us thus?’