It took less than a minute to reach the top of the stairs but there was no sign of Sergeant Latheram and his armsmen. Kulik made towards the steps but Shaffenbeck grabbed his elbow and stopped him.
‘We need to wait for the armsmen, sir,’ said the lieutenant.
‘That could be another five minutes, we’ve got men fighting and dying right beneath our feet, man!’
‘All the same, sir, we can’t do anything for them yet, unless we want to join them in the Emperor’s locker box.’
‘This isn’t like you, Saul,’ said Kulik, pulling free his arm. ‘Never seen you back down from a fight, not in all the years we’ve served together.’
‘It’s the admiral, sir.’ Shaffenbeck looked away, ashamed.
Kulik knew the mannerism well; the lieutenant wanted to say something but considered it too far outside his remit to utter the thoughts.
‘Out with it, you know you can trust me, Saul. What about the admiral?’
‘I don’t trust him, not with the Colossus. He’s been acting odd ever since Lord High Admiral Lansung arrived. No, before then. This feud with Acharya, that’s what started it off.’
‘Price is a decorated and capable commander, lieutenant,’ Kulik said sternly. He saw a sudden fear in Shaffenbeck’s eyes. Not the fear of the physical but fear of reprimand, of failing in honour or duty. It softened the captain’s mood immediately. ‘There’s a lot at stake, you heard what Lansung told him. Price is under a lot of pressure.’
‘I think he’s buckling…’ Shaffenbeck let the thought drift away as boots clattered on the stairs above them, heralding the arrival of Sergeant Latheram and his armsmen.
‘Reporting as ordered, captain.’ The gaunt warrant officer snapped off a salute. ‘Got fifty men from the lance crews, sir, with shotters and boarding gaffes. Shall I lead the way, captain?’
Kulik could hardly refuse as the wiry man almost pushed his way past and shouted to his men to follow.
The armsmen of the Colossus wore the same deep blue as the officers, with red stripes on the legs and piping of the same on their plasteel-mesh-reinforced jackets. Their wore full-visored helms and rebreathers, and carried stubby shotguns and lascarbines — short-ranged but effective weapons perfect for the brutal and bloody work of shipboard combat.
Kulik started down the steps not far behind Latheram, with Shaffenbeck right behind him. The sergeant turned left at the bottom of the steps, heading aft, where the sounds of fighting were louder.
‘Captain, we have two more teleport registers close to your position. One astern of c-section, one in the prow sensor access tunnels,’ reported Lieutenant Cabriot.
‘Sergeant, we need to head for’ard. There’s another lot of greenskins attacking the sensor arrays. If they take them offline we’ll be blind and deaf.’
‘Right you are, sir,’ said the sergeant. He performed an abrupt about-face, power maul on his shoulder, pistol in his other hand. ‘This way, lads. Don’t dawdle!’
Flashes of gunfire shone from the bare bulkheads a couple of hundred feet ahead of the party — the watch lieutenants on each deck were issued with keys to the firearms lockers when a ship went to general quarters. There were sporadic snaps of laser fire, but far more bass cracks and bangs from the orks’ slug-throwers. Bestial growls and roars, punctuated by the wet slosh of blood, the snap of shattering bones and howls of pain, made Kulik glad he had listened to Saul and not dashed headlong into the melee.
In the light of the gunfight large, brutish shadows were thrown against the walls ahead. Kulik counted at least a dozen bodies strewn along the passageway before them, contorted and battered so badly they were barely recognisable as human. With a sinking heart the captain counted no orkish casualties amongst the dead.
‘Captain, the tech-priests have locked down the sensor chambers and secured the prow bulkheads, but they say that the orks have brought cutting gear with them. They’ll be through in a matter of minutes.’ Hartnell sounded calm enough over the comm, but Kulik could imagine the tension on the bridge. Fighting a battle was bad enough, but doing so while hulking alien brutes were rampaging through your ship — and capable of teleporting an attack seemingly at will — was probably testing the nerves of even the bravest officers.
‘Do you think they know what’s in there, sir?’ asked Shaffenbeck, looking paler than usual.
‘I hope not,’ said the captain. ‘Because if this is a deliberate attack to cripple our sensors, the orks know a whole lot more about our ships than I’m happy about.’
‘Best we stop them, eh, sir?’ suggested Shaffenbeck with a forced smile.
‘At the double, please, sergeant.’ Kulik tried to exude confidence with his voice but his words sounded slightly shrill. ‘Let’s kill these orks before they cut through into the sensorium.’
As the company broke into a run, Kulik and Shaffenbeck surrounded by armsmen and shotgun-wielding ratings, the captain’s hands started sweating profusely. It was odd, considering how dry his mouth had become.
They rounded a corner into the corridor leading to the first bank of scanners. Fortunately, for all their guile in targeting the ship’s engines and trying to disable the scanning array, the orks were not so advanced that they had thought of leaving a rearguard. In fact, only about two dozen of them had stayed with the spark-spitting cutters at the bulkhead outside the sensor chambers. Presumably the others, having safely delivered the cutting crew to their objective, were off looking for more butchery and fun. Kulik would have breathed a sigh of relief had he not been out of breath from the running; commanding a capital ship was not always the most physically taxing of jobs and though he had made efforts to stay in shape, age was catching up with him. A glance at Shaffenbeck showed that the first lieutenant was at least reddening in the face a little.
One of the orks glanced back at the sound of tramping boots and let out a noise somewhere between a cry of alarm and a whoop of joy. Responding, the other greenskins turned as the first armsmen opened fire with their lascarbines, filling the passage with red bolts of light and the scent of ionising air. A few orks fell casualty to the salvo, but a plethora of pistols and stubby-nosed automatic weapons rose like a thicket around the survivors. Kulik slowed his run as he stared into the multitude of gun barrels.
The clatter of the orks’ return fire combined with the boom of shotguns, deafening Kulik in the enclosed space. The captain fired his pistol into the face of an ork about forty feet in front of him. The las-blast ricocheted off the side of its head, leaving a scorch mark in its green flesh but doing no greater damage. Bullets screamed and whirred past Kulik — inches away, it felt.
Saul was yelling encouragement, urging on the ratings as more and more of them fell to the scything ork bullets.
‘Up and at them, men of Colossus!’ roared Kulik without really understanding what he was doing.
An armsman just in front of the captain fell sideways, his head and helmet scattering bloodily across the corridor. Two orks wielding the ramshackle cutting devices turned their equipment on the charging humans. Lightning arced, catching Sergeant Latheram and three more men in a tempest of black and green energy.
An unthinking rage fuelled Kulik as he thumbed the power switch of his sword. A flickering energy field flowed along the blade, casting bizarre, jolting shadows on the walls. A tiny, more rational part of the captain’s mind screamed in terror, but it erupted from his mouth as a wordless bellow of defiance.
Around their captain, long boarding pikes held level, the lance gunners charged too, driving the tips of their gaffes towards the greenskins. Shaffenbeck had his sword in hand, its blade the near-transparent blue of tempered plasteel alloyed with ardamite crystal threads.
One-on-one the men of the battleship would have been no match for the bestial greenskins, but as a mass they pressed in, following their officers, united in purpose and momentum. Years spent working the aiming gears and exchanging the energy cells of the immense lance cannons had made the ratings tough, muscled men, and with the force of desperation and the shout of their lord and master ringing in their ears, they drove home their spears with irresistible force.