‘I’ll make that five,’ said Gaunt.
Spika nodded.
‘I will issue half hourly notices to that point,’ he said.
‘What does it look like?’ Gaunt asked.
Beside him, the Space Marine chuckled, as if the question was an idle whim.
Spika raised his eyebrows and called out to a deck officer. The realspace shutters covering the massive bridge ports rumbled open, and weak yellow light spilled in. There was nothing to see except a murky brown haze with a small bloom of light in its lower right corner, like a lens flare. White speckles, like grains of salt or flakes of snow, glittered past them, moving sternwards: a dingy emptiness where the frail available light looked like it was coloured with urine.
‘You see?’ asked Eadwine.
‘I see nothing,’ Gaunt replied.
‘My point precisely,’ the Silver Guard rasped, amused.
Spika reached out and adjusted some dials on his console. He barked another instruction or two to the observation and resolution officers at the sculptural cogitator stands below him.
A large, gridded sub-frame extended from the port sill to cover the bulk of the window space. It was made of thick armaglass, and inlaid with hololithic sensors and actuators. The frame was thick with armoured trunking and clusters of small repeater screens and secondary monitors. It lit, igniting a graphic overlay of luminous green across its grid, which quickly began to section and analyse. Bands of colour-coded sensory data spiked up the edges of the main grid and across the repeater screens. Columns of text data played out. Spika fine-tuned his controls, centred the main green crosshairs on the bloom of light, and began to enhance and magnify the area until the hololithic pict image filled the grid and blocked out the real view.
There was a little more detail. Magnified, the white bloom was a tangle of solids, rendered white by the reflected glare of the local star. It was still blurry and fuzzy, but Gaunt could see enough to tell it wasn’t a planetoid. There was no regular geometric form. It was like a knot, and skirts of tangled matter trailed out of it to a great distance, like the broken ring of a gas giant. The ‘snow’ effect was more intense on this image. There was a density of moving white specks, almost like static. The image resembled some pallid, flaking, submerged thing viewed under water that was thick with sediment and micro organisms.
‘That,’ said Spika, ‘is Salvation’s Reach.’
The Space Marine seemed slightly interested.
‘The specks?’ asked Gaunt. ‘Is that interference?’
‘Debris,’ Spika replied, shaking his head. ‘The debris field is exceptionally dense, and will grow denser the closer we get to the target. Our shields will bear a lot of it, but there will be manoeuvring, and that will degrade our approach time.’
‘Making us more vulnerable,’ said Eadwine.
Spika shrugged.
‘We will be visible for longer, yes,’ he agreed, ‘but the debris belt will also disguise us. If I do my job right, we can approach the main location and we’ll appear to be nothing more or less than another lump of tumbling junk.’
‘As we proceed from here,’ said Gaunt, ‘I’ll need eyes on this.’
‘Why?’ asked Eadwine.
‘I have operational command, brother-sergeant. As we progress with this raid, I want to be aware of all the information possible, interior and exterior. If the shipmaster identifies a threat, I don’t want to know about it later on.’
‘You’ll see it for yourself,’ said Eadwine. ‘The strategium will afford you quite enough–’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Gaunt, ‘you seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that I will be on the bridge during the attack.’
‘Of course,’ said Spika, ‘commanding the operation. I have a place prepared for you. Where else would you be?’
‘I will be leading Beta Strike from the front.’
‘You… you’re going in?’ asked Spika.
Eadwine made a sound that approximated laughter.
‘That has always been my practice,’ said Gaunt. ‘I will not send men in to do something I’m not prepared to do myself.’
‘No wonder Veegum liked you,’ said the Space Marine. ‘There is a spot for you on Alpha Strike at my side.’
‘Appreciated. But you know your business, and I know mine. Major Kolea and Major Baskevyl will lead the regiment with you at Alpha.’
‘And Gamma Strike?’ asked Eadwine.
‘Major Petrushkevskaya and Captain Daur,’ said Gaunt. He turned in his seat and pointed across the upper bridge area to the Tanith trooper waiting beside the main access hatch.
‘That’s my adjutant, Beltayn. I want him in my place here at the strategium, with access to your vox system.’
‘My vox heralds can communicate all data between us,’ said Spika.
‘I have no doubt, but I require you to allow Beltayn’s presence. If he translates an order to you from me, it carries my full authority.’
‘I understand,’ said Spika.
‘You should also have your armsmen stand ready,’ said Gaunt.
Spika frowned.
‘Very well. For a boarding action?’
‘Yes. But also for counter-boarding. We will be opening channels into that target. That means if things go wrong, they can get at us.’
Gaunt rose. The other two got up.
‘Let us prepare,’ said Gaunt.
Spika made the sign of the aquila.
‘The Emperor protects,’ rumbled Eadwine.
Gaunt walked off the bridge, Beltayn coming after him.
‘You’ll set up in there,’ said Gaunt. ‘He’s not the most accommodating person in the Imperium, but I’ve made it clear he has to cooperate. You have access. You relay everything. If he tries to fence you out, let me know and put me on speaker.’
Beltayn nodded.
‘Major Rawne and Major Kolea said to let you know that preparation’s begun, sir,’ he said. ‘We’re arming up, and the assault vehicles are being serviced in the through deck hangars ready for loading. There’s this to approve and sign.’
He handed Gaunt a data-slate.
Gaunt read it as he walked.
‘Well, that’s something to cherish,’ he said, authorising the document with a press of his biometric signet ring.
‘Captain Daur wonders–’ Beltayn began.
‘We’ll make time for it,’ said Gaunt.
‘Commissar Hark wants a word.’
‘I see him,’ said Gaunt.
Hark was waiting for them at the entrance to the spinal hallway.
‘What is it, Viktor?’ Gaunt asked.
‘We’ve uncovered a disgrace,’ said Hark. He had taken Gaunt to his quarters, where Ludd, Fazekiel and Rawne were waiting. It was quiet and private. The room was painstakingly neat and ordered, exactly the preserve one might expect of a man like Viktor Hark.
‘I hesitate to use the word “scam”,’ said Hark, ‘because that really doesn’t adequately express how monstrous this is. It’s an ingenious fraudulent scheme. I’ve no idea how long it’s been running. Possibly since before I joined the regiment. Possibly since the Founding.’
Gaunt read his way across the paperwork that Hark and Fazekiel had spread out across the desk. Some of it was torn, or very old. Several pieces were fresh print-out copies from archive sources. His jaw clenched.
‘We only stumbled across it by accident,’ said Hark. ‘Credit where credit’s due, Luna found it. It’s so insidious, it was nigh-on invisible.’