Ironically, this meant they were fleeing into danger.
The main air raid was concentrated on the Great Hill. The cloudy skies above were backlit by flashes and blinks of light and fire as the Archenemy attacked the shield. Some sections of the enemy air mass had peeled off, choosing to strike at other targets in the city, strafing and unloading sticks of bombs. The constant drumming thump of anti-air batteries across the city was relentless. From the cab of the Munitorum truck they had commandeered, Baskevyl could see the glow of street fires in neighbouring blocks. The sky was stained amber.
They had come to a halt again. Traffic choked the street ahead. Transports were lined up, stationary, drivers arguing. On the pavements, tides of people hurried northwards, some pushing their lives in hand carts and barrows.
‘Back up,’ Fazekiel told the driver. ‘Go around.’
‘Where exactly?’ the driver complained.
‘Down there. That side street,’ she told him.
‘That’ll just take us back towards the harbour,’ the driver said.
‘At least we’ll be moving,’ Fazekiel snapped.
There was a sucking rush as an enemy aircraft passed overhead. A moment later, the jarring crump of detonations shuddered from no more than three streets distant. Grit and scraps of papery debris drizzled down on the road, and people screamed and hurried for cover.
‘Moving is good,’ said Domor.
The driver put the truck in reverse, swung the nose around, and edged down the sharp incline of a narrow side street. Pedestrians had to get out of the way. They yelled at the truck, and beat on its side panels. Baskevyl wasn’t sure if that was anger at the imposition of letting the truck pass through, or desperate pleas for help.
He glanced at Fazekiel. They’d been on the road for two hours, and seemed no closer to the billet. It felt like a year had passed since they had set out for the ordos stronghold that morning.
Baskevyl wondered if they should just stop. Stop and find cover. Stop and find somewhere with a voxcaster or some communication system. He wanted to warn Gol what was coming his way. He had a sick feeling it was already far too late.
At the bottom of the side street, the driver turned left, and they rumbled along the service road of a hab area. They passed people hurrying to nowhere, people who didn’t turn to give them a passing look. Anti-sniper sheets and curtains, tapestries and carpets, flapped overhead like threadbare parade banners.
Up ahead, a truck had broken down and was half blocking the service road. The engine cover was up, and people were working on it. The driver had to bump up on the pavement to try to ease around the obstruction. People shouted at them. Some clamoured for a ride.
‘Hey,’ said Domor. He slid down the cab’s window and craned to listen. ‘That’s artillery.’
Baskevyl could hear the thumping, sporadic noise in the distance. Heavy shelling. That was a worse sign. If the artillery belonged to the enemy, then it meant they were facing a land assault too, one that was close enough to hear. If the artillery was Imperial, it meant that there were enemy targets close enough to warrant a bombardment.
‘We need to find shelter,’ said the driver. They could tell he was beginning to panic. The stink of his sweat in the cab was unbearable.
‘Keep driving,’ said Fazekiel.
There was a flash.
The street ahead, thirty metres away, vanished in a blinding cloud of light and flames. Then the sound came, the roar, then the slap of the shock wave. The transport shook on its suspension. Debris cracked and crazed the windscreen. Baskevyl shook his head, trying to clear his ears. Everything had become muffled, the world around him buzzing like a badly tuned vox.
‘The feth was that?’ he heard Domor say.
The street ahead had become a crater, deep and smoking. Outflung rubble was scattered everywhere. The buildings on one side of the street were ablaze, flames licking out of blown-out windows. On the other side, the front of a hab block had simply collapsed, exposing layers of floors like some museum cross section. As Baskevyl watched, an anti-sniper curtain, on fire, broke from its moorings over the street and fell, billowing sparks.
There were bodies everywhere. Bodies of pedestrians who had been rushing to nowhere, and were now not rushing at all. Debris had killed some, mangling them, but others had been felled by the blast concussion. They looked like they were sleeping. Pools of blood covered the road surface and gurgled in the gutters.
‘Where’s the driver?’ Fazekiel asked, dazed.
The cab door was wide open. The driver had bolted.
‘Can you drive?’ Fazekiel asked Baskevyl.
He nodded. He was still hoping that the ringing in his ears would stop. He got into the driving seat, and fumbled to find the engine starter.
‘We’ve got to turn around,’ said Domor. ‘The whole fething street is gone. We have to back up and turn.’
‘I know,’ said Baskevyl. He was pushing the starter, but the engine wasn’t turning. He thought the driver had stalled the transport out, but maybe they’d taken damage.
He fiddled with the gears in case there was some kind of transmission lock-out that prevented engine-start if the box wasn’t in neutral. He pushed the starter again.
He could hear a pop-pop-pop-pop.
Was that a starter misfire? An electrical fault?
‘Get out!’ Domor yelled to them.
Baskevyl could still hear the popping, but his finger was no longer on the starter button.
It was small-arms fire. He was hearing small-arms fire.
A moment later, they heard the slap-bang of the first rounds striking the bodywork.
Colonel Grae told Hark that the site was called Station Theta, apparently one of several anonymous safe house strongholds Guard intelligence controlled inside Eltath. Intelligence service troopers in body armour opened the gates and ushered the Chimera into a fortified yard behind the main building.
Hark got out. The raid had been under way for a while, and the skies were florid with fire-stain. Through the razor wire on the wall top, Hark could see enemy aircraft passing overhead, heading to the apex of the city.
‘This is bad,’ he said to Grae.
The colonel nodded.
‘No warning this was coming,’ he said. ‘Nothing on the watch reports of this magnitude. We had no idea they had moved principal strengths so close to the city limits.’
Grae looked at his detail.
‘Get Major Kolea inside, please,’ he said.
‘I should rejoin my regiment,’ said Hark. ‘With this shit coming down, they’ll be mobilising.’
Grae frowned.
‘True,’ he said, ‘but I don’t like your chances. It’s all going to hell out there. Maybe when the raid is over…’
Hark looked him in the eye.
‘I said I should,’ he said, ‘not I would. I’m not leaving Kolea here. Not even with you, though you seem sympathetic. The Ghosts are big boys, and they have good command. They’ll be all right for a while.’
‘As you wish,’ said Grae.
‘You’ll get me use of a vox, though,’ said Hark. ‘So I can get a message to them?’
‘Of course.’
They walked into the blockhouse, following the guards as they escorted the silent, solemn Kolea. There was a holding area and a loading dock. Hark saw side offices filled with cogitators, planning systems and vox-units.
‘Where is everyone?’ Grae asked.
Hark knew what he meant. He had expected to see the place in a frenzy of activity. This was an intelligence service station in a city under assault.
‘Where’s the head of station?’ Grae called out. ‘Someone find me the head of station or the rubrication chief!’