‘We’ll never do it silently,’ said Mkoll.
‘Quietly, then, and quickly.’ He looked back at Mabbon. ‘Will there be defences? Things that we can’t handle?’
Mabbon shook his head.
‘Some of the things the weaponwrights craft here are so volatile they have to be kept inert for fear of inter-reaction. The Reach’s principal defence has always been its inaccessibility.’
Gaunt looked over at Mkoll. The chief scout had finished briefing the men. He gave Gaunt the nod.
Gaunt signed execute.
Three prongs moved forwards, fast and quiet. Mkoll led one, Rawne the second and Bonin the third. They ran down a long, paved hallway with towering walls the colour of mud, and under the broken stained glass dome of a large circular chamber that rivalled many temples. The floor was littered with fire-burns and blackened rubbish. This area of the Reach had been deliberately designed and constructed. Compartments and rooms had been cut and dressed with stone, decks had been paved or bound in iron. On the walls, strange murals had been painted: abnormal views that were barely intelligible and curiously disturbing. They seemed to be views of alien landscapes or records of macabre ritual ceremonies. Gaunt felt as if they were invading a cathedral precinct, a cathedral precinct that smelled like a library and a machine shop and a latrine and that had been buried deep underground, lit by the ruddy glow of simmering lava.
The college of heritence was a trio of long, high halls, linked end to end, with a series of side chapels and annexes to either side. Its floor was hammered copper, and its walls were carved ivory inlaid with silver threads and bio-organic mechanisms. Strange objects stood in alcoves or on bench consoles. There were shelves of books and data-slates. Some of them had been chained down or welded shut. A vast and ornately carved bank of wooden pigeonholes along one wall contained millions of hand-numbered scrolls. Larger devices, some partly disassembled, lay in the side bays and machine-shop chambers, shrouded by mirror-glass screens and silk canopies. The copper floor was blanketed with junk and salvage, like a garbage dump.
The Ghosts rushed the area, entering from three sides. A weaponwright, his head braced and held painfully erect in a frame of wire and brass, lifted his gaze from the cogitator he was dismantling at a bench and looked at them. His fingers had been amputated and tools implanted in their place. Machine oil trickled out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Voi shet jadhoj’k?’ he asked, perplexed by the appearance of people he didn’t recognise.
Mkoll put his dagger through the wretch’s heart.
Other weaponwrights nearby, looking up from their study or delicate manufacture, were killed quickly with blades. Others got up, and made to run or cry out. The first shots were fired: quick bursts of las that cut robed figures down. Bonin hit one who fell and overturned his work bench. Delicate wirework creations, glassware and brass instruments crashed onto the copper floor. The acolytes and servitors assisting the weaponwrights were distressing confections of machine skeleton and grafted human meat, fused through an amalgam of augmetics and artificial tissue. The Ghosts shot them too. They died with shrill, squealing cries. Some tried to scurry away or raise the alarm. They fled in every possible direction through the long, bizarre halls of the college.
Strike Beta was thorough.
Several Sons of Sek appeared at the far end of the first hall, disturbed by the cries. Varl killed one, and Cardass clipped and then finished a second before serious gunplay could begin. A third ran for cover and began to return fire. His head vanished in a pink mist.
Larkin had made the shot from the main entry. He hadn’t even had time to take out his longlas and put away his rifle. He had simply slotted a hard round into the old gun’s breech. Forty-three metres, a target moving into partial concealment.
‘Who says I’m tired?’ he muttered.
Inside five minutes, the Ghosts had the college area secure.
‘They will now know we’re here,’ said Mabbon.
‘Of course,’ Gaunt noted.
‘Simply from the cessation of activity and processed data,’ Mabbon added. ‘But with the primary raid going on, I’d say we have half an hour before they properly realise they have a second crisis on their hands.’
‘Let’s get to work,’ said Gaunt. ‘Mkoll, bring the transports up as close as they can come. Bring the empty crates in. Two squads. Rawne, set up a perimeter. Etogaur, tell us what to take, and how it should be correctly handled. The rest of it we burn. Then we get the feth out.’
‘But we do burn it?’ Brostin asked.
Gaunt nodded.
‘Just checking,’ said Brostin.
The eight Tauros vehicles rumbled into lateral sixteen and drove through the bore hole into the Reach.
Inside, the rate was slower. They were following the route that Mkoll had marked out, picking up his chalk marks with their headlamps. The ship’s artificers had moved in after the troops and cleared some areas, but space was still tight in places. Where devices had been secured, the drivers had to use extra care not to snag or disturb the packed explosives.
Blenner rode in the first Tauros. He felt the sweat on his back, smelled cold air and exhaust fumes. It was times like this, he thought to himself, when a bottle of sugar pill placebos just didn’t cut it. Where was that nice medicae Curth when you needed her?
‘Easy, easy,’ he urged Perday. Her hands were clenched on the wheel, her eyes wide with concentration and tension.
Two vehicles back, Felyx held onto the cabin cage with one hand and cradled his lasrifle in the other. The empty carry crates rattled in the back of the vehicle.
He was actually doing something, for the first time in his life. He was engaged in an activity that could lead anywhere, and that his mother couldn’t absolutely control with her power and money.
Now it was happening, he wasn’t sure exactly what he thought of it.
‘My arm’s too big,’ said Mklaek.
‘That’s fantastic,’ Banda replied through gritted teeth. Sweat was beading her face. Her arms were beginning to shake through the strain. ‘I can’t hold this much longer, and I can’t lift it any higher.’
‘I just can’t get my arm in under the plate far enough to reach the wire,’ said Mklaek. He looked at Criid. There was panic in his eyes.
Criid got down on her knees beside Banda, pulled off her gloves and rolled her left sleeve up. Her arm was more slender than Mklaek’s. She had a better chance than either Leyr or Chiria.
‘What do I do?’ she asked, gently sliding her hand in under the heavy metal plate.
‘Find the wires,’ said Mklaek, ‘without pulling them out. Gently.’ His hands were bunched tightly together, fingers interlocked, as if he was praying all the while he watched her.
‘Go really slowly,’ he implored her.
‘I am going really slowly,’ Criid replied, reaching further.
‘Not too slowly,’ Banda grunted. ‘I can’t do slowly.’
‘Holy feth,’ Leyr said to Chiria.
‘I can’t look,’ said Chiria.
‘I’ve got them. I’ve got wires!’ Criid said. There was no way to reach in and see what she was doing at the same time. She was groping under the metal slab blind.
‘All right,’ said Mklaek, nodding. ‘Trace them up to the slab. Up. Do it really gently. You do not want to pull anything out by accident.’
‘All right,’ said Criid. She bit her lower lip in concentration.
‘Don’t follow the wires back to the firing cap,’ said Mklaek. ‘Go up.’
‘Yes, I understand what “up” means!’ Criid said.