Ludd had the rank, of course. He was more like the father they were both trying to impress.
‘Are you all right?’ Dalin asked Felyx.
Felyx nodded, but it was clear he was hurt.
‘He was knocked off his feet by the violence of the retranslation,’ said Ludd. ‘I found him unconscious. That locker had fallen on him.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Felyx. ‘Just dazed.’
‘He was out cold,’ said Ludd.
‘We should get him to the infirmary,’ said Dalin, worried. ‘Gaunt would–’
‘The ship’s overrun,’ said Ludd. ‘We have no idea which decks the enemy has seized. Movement without decent force strength would be a bad idea. I decided it was better to look after Felyx here until the emergency passed.’
‘I have E Company on hand–’ Dalin began.
‘Good. Then secure the aft hatches and cover the rear hallways. That’s the direction they’re coming from.’
Dalin hesitated.
‘Come on, trooper,’ said Ludd.
‘Was that an order?’ asked Dalin.
‘Yes,’ said Ludd. ‘Meryn not with you?’
Dalin shook his head.
‘Then it’s your day of glory, trooper – you’re in charge. Get those hallways blocked. Barricades, if you can. The main spinal here runs straight down to the retinue holds, and there are women and children there who need protecting.’
Dalin nodded.
‘If you’re sure you’re all right?’ he said to Felyx.
‘Yes. Go.’
Dalin nodded, and went out.
Ludd closed the door behind him and looked back at Felyx.
‘You’re not going to tell him, are you, Nahum?’ asked Felyx.
‘What?’
‘What you saw when you found me–’
‘I didn’t see anything,’ said Ludd.
‘I’m serious, Nahum. No one can know. No one knows except Maddalena. No one can know–’
‘Calm down,’ said Ludd. ‘I didn’t see anything.’
‘We should check it,’ said Baskevyl. ‘Shouldn’t we? We should check it.’
Shoggy Domor shrugged.
‘I suppose so, Bask,’ he replied.
Baskevyl and Domor had advanced their companies – D and K respectively – into the vast hold and cargo spaces of the Armaduke’s low decks. The ship’s intervox was dead, but patchy back and forth using the company vox-sets had established that they’d been boarded, and that the boarders were coming in through the aft quarters, especially the engine house. A few unreliable sources said that a massive firefight was already under way in the engine house block, and from the smell of smoke on the dry air, Baskevyl tended to give that story some credence. Other sources had suggested the boarding forces were cannibals. Void monsters, hungry for flesh. Bask was happy to dismiss that as scaremongering, though he had been alive long enough to know that the horrors of the galaxy usually exceeded a man’s worst imaginings.
His company had formed up with Domor’s, more by accident than design. The plan, such as it was, was to move aft incrementally until they made contact with the enemy. As far as Bask knew, six companies were making their way aft from the billet decks. He and Domor had decided to take the belly route through the cargo spaces while Kolosim and Elam took theirs along the main transits of the upper decks. ‘Thorough coverage,’ Ferdy Kolosim had called it. It made sense. No point marching to the engine house only to find that the cannibal freaks had taken the bridge by moving through the holds. Elam had advised checking every compartment as they came to it. Boarders might be holding out in ambush squads. Worse still, they might have found other entry points and be swarming in unnoticed.
Bask and Domor, spreading their squads through the massive and labyrinthine hold area, had checked each chamber and compartment they passed.
They had reached hold ninety.
‘We should check it,’ Bask said, as if to convince himself. He and Domor looked at the security seals that Commissar Fazekiel and the shipmaster’s officers had placed on the hold’s locks. Hold ninety was where they had stored all the material and artefacts recovered from Salvation’s Reach during the raid, inhuman artefacts taken from the sanctum of the Archenemy. Fazekiel had compiled the inventory, and standing instructions were that the material remained sealed and untouched during the return trip, ready for immediate transfer to the highest authorities.
That was before the ship had fallen out of the immaterium and rolled to a dead, hard, helpless stop.
‘Maybe we should just leave it alone,’ said Domor. ‘I mean, that stuff… It’s bad stuff, isn’t it? Fething evil Archenemy stuff.’
‘Yeah,’ Bask nodded, ‘but important enough for us to retrieve it all. Gaunt says it could be vital to the war effort. That’s why we brought it all back with us. If they’ve cut through an inner wall…’
Domor shrugged.
‘Cordon here!’ he called out. ‘Rifles ready!’
Chiria and Ewler brought a fire-team up close, aiming at the hatches.
Domor pulled out his straight silver, and sliced off the first of the seals. Then he took cutters to the locks. Bask took a pry-bar from Wes Maggs. As soon as Domor was done, Baskevyl levered the hatch’s heavy locator bolts free.
They opened the hatch.
‘No power,’ said Domor, looking in.
‘Yeah, but do you see anything?’ Bask asked. Domor’s eyes, a complex set of augmetic mechanicals, whirred and clicked as they searched the darkness.
‘I think some of the boxes have spilled,’ he said. ‘Some of the crates.’
‘Boss?’
Baskevyl turned. Wes Maggs, his company’s lead scout, had found a junction box in a shuttered alcove nearby.
‘We got emergency lights here,’ he said.
‘Throw them,’ Bask nodded.
The interior lights came on with a dull thump. Blue emergency light shone out of the open hatch.
Baskevyl picked up his lasgun.
‘Let’s take a proper look,’ he said, ‘then we seal it up again.’
He and Domor entered hold ninety, followed by Fapes and Chiria. The materials had been packed into plyboard crates and lashed onto metal shelves. Each carton had a small label, an inventory number, and stamped warnings about tampering and removal. Fazekiel had been thorough.
Two shelves had collapsed during retranslation, and their cartons were spilled out on the deck. Bask saw clay tablets, some whole, some broken, among the packing beads, along with data-slates, small statues and beads, and old parchment scraps. Just some of the unholy treasures they had risked their lives liberating from the Reach’s college of heritence.
‘We should clean this up,’ said Domor.
‘I don’t want to touch it,’ Bask replied.
‘Well, we can’t just leave it like this if it’s so valuable,’ said Domor.
‘I think we should. We don’t know what goes where. There’s no one in here, so I say we lock it up tight again. When this mess is over, Gaunt and Hark can come down here with the inventory and sort it out.’
Domor nodded. He looked relieved.
‘Sir?’
Bask turned. His adjutant, Fapes, had moved into the next bay.
‘Some more have come down in here,’ Fapes called. ‘I think you should see this.’
Baskevyl and Domor went to join him. In the second bay, three more cartons had shifted off the shelving and spilled on the deck. More scrolls and old books, and some noxious looking specimen jars. Baskevyl didn’t want to consider what might be in them.