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  At least in the abstract; preventing a war wasn't going to do me a damn bit of good if some xenoist rioter stove my skull in with a paving slab this

  evening, so I was alert for any potential threat as we made our way through the troubled city.

  'Left here/ Kasteen was guiding Jurgen with the aid of the tactical net, hoping to avoid the worst of the trouble. We passed a couple of street brawls, but the worst of the rioting appeared to be happening elsewhere.

  'So far so good/ I said, tempting fate once more, and, typically, fate obliged. As we turned out of the alleyway into one of those broad thoroughfares which had so excited my unease on the journey into the city from the starport, I could see figures up ahead through the windscreen. Metal barrels had been pushed into the roadway, forming the spine of a makeshift barricade, and fires had been set inside a couple of them.

  'Roadblock/ Jurgen said unnecessarily, and glanced at me for orders.

  'Ease off/ I said, considering the situation. 'No point drawing their fire unless we have to/ Figures were moving slowly towards us, lasguns levelled, silhouetted against the firelight. I squinted, trying to identify them. They wore plain fatigues, of a colour I couldn't quite identify in the yellowish glow, but which looked grey or blue, and light flak armour of an even darker shade1.

  1 Cain's memory might be playing him false here, as the standard uniform colour of the Gravalaxian PDF was actually magenta, with terracotta body armour. On the other hand, he might just have been confused by the firelight affecting his colour perception.

  'PDF/ Kasteen confirmed after a moment listening to the tactical net. 'Loyalist, supporting the Arbites.'

  'Thank the Emperor for that/ I said, and voxed Lustig. They're friendlies. Apparently'

  'Understood.' The sergeant's voice was calm, picking up on my qualification, and I was pretty sure the troopers would be ready if we turned out to be mistaken. Call me paranoid if you like, and I'll cheerfully admit to it, but I didn't get to an honourable retirement by having a trusting nature.

  A single figure was stepping out in front of the truck now, a hand raised, and Jurgen coasted to a halt. I straightened my uniform cap, and tried to look as commissarial as I could manage.

  'Who goes there?' He was young, I noticed, his face still pitted with acne scars, and his helmet looked too big for his head. A lieutenant's rank insignia had been painted in the centre of it, clearly visible; typical PDF sloppiness. The last thing you want in a firefight is an obvious sign saying, 'Shoot me, I'm an officer.' But then no one in the PDF ever really expects to go into combat, unless they make the grade the next time the Guard come recruiting, and that hadn't happened on Gravalax in generations.

  'Colonel Kasteen, Valhallan 597th. And Commissar Cain.' Kasteen leaned out of the cab window to talk to him. 'Order your men aside.'

  'I can't do that.' His jaw took on a stubborn set. 'I'm sorry.'

  'Really?' Kasteen looked at him as though she'd just found him on the sole of her boot. 'I was under the impression that a colonel outranks a lieutenant. Isn't that so, commissar?'

  'In my experience/ I agreed. I leaned past her to address the young pup directly. 'Or do you do things differently on Gravalax?' He paled visibly as I raked him with the number two glare.

  'No, commissar. But I've been ordered not to let anyone past under any circumstances/

  'I think you'll find my authority supersedes any orders you may have been given/ I said confidently. His jaw worked convulsively.

  'But the rebels are in control of the next sector/ he said. The tau are leaving their enclave-'

  'Lies!' El'hassai jumped up on the flatbed behind us, now clearly visible to the young lieutenant and his PDF troopers. I was really beginning to suspect that the hotheaded tau had some sort of death wish, and one I'd be happy to grant if he carried on like this for much longer. They remain behind the boundaries we agreed!'

  'Bluies!' The lieutenant swung his lasgun up to cover us. Behind the barricade his men did the same. To my intense relief Lustig and his troopers kept their cool, keeping their own weapons lowered, or there would have been blood spilt within a heartbeat. 'What's going on here?'

  You don't have the security clearance to know/ I said calmly, hiding my jangling nerves with the ease of years of practice. 'I'm ordering you in the name of the Commissariat to let us pass/

  'Traitors!' one of the PDF trolls shouted. 'They're xeno-lovers! Probably stole the truck!'

  'Check with your superiors/ I said, calmly as before, loosening the laspistol in its holster below the level of the window. The Guard liaison office will confirm our identities.'

  'Yes.' The young lieutenant nodded, trying to sound resolute, and wavered the barrel of his lasgun between Kasteen and me, unsure of which one of us to threaten. 'We'll do that. Right after you hand over the bluies/

  'String 'em up!' someone else yelled, probably the same idiot who'd shouted before. The tau began to look agitated.

  The xenos are under Imperial Guard protection,' I said levelly, taking heart from his obvious indecision. 'And that means mine. Stand aside in the Emperor's name, or face the consequences.'

  I suppose I was to blame for what happened next. I'd got so used to being around Guardsmen, who accepted my authority without question, that it never even occurred to me that the young lieutenant wouldn't back down. But I'd reckoned without the PDF's relative lack of discipline, and the fact that to them a commissar was just another officer in a fancy hat. The fear and respect that normally goes with the uniform just wasn't there so far as they were concerned.

  'Sergeant!' the lieutenant turned towards one of the troopers outlined by the firebarrels. 'Arrest these traitors!'

  'Lustig,' I said. 'Fire.' Even as I spoke I was levelling the laspistol. The lieutenant's eyes widened for a fraction of a second as he began to turn back to us, the glint of vindictive triumph giving way to a momentary panic, and then half his face was gone as I squeezed the trigger.

  I've killed a great many men over the years, so many that I lost count about a century back, and that's not even taking into account the innumerable xenos I've dispatched. And I've barely lost a night's sleep over any of them. It's usually been them or me, and I don't suppose they'd have been unduly troubled if things had gone the other way. But the lieutenant was different - not an enemy, or guilty of a capital crime - just stupid and overeager. Maybe that's why I can still picture his expression so vividly.

  The troopers in the back of the truck raised their lasguns, snapping out a burst of rapid fire while the PDF were still in shock. Only a few had time to react, diving for cover as the bolts burst around them, and Jurgen floored the accelerator.

  %Varp this!' Kasteen ducked as a lasbolt from the defenders scored the cab door beside her, and drew her bolt pistol.

  Take them all/ I ordered. If there were any survivors, they'd be on the vox net in moments, betraying our position to whoever might be listening, and marking us as a target to be hunted down by either side. I was within my rights, you understand, they'd refused a direct order, which was more than enough reason for any commissar to have done the

  same, but I couldn't help thinking of the lengths I'd gone to in order to avoid executing the five troopers aboard the Righteous Wrath who deserved it far more than these fools had.

  No matter. Jurgen floored the accelerator and we burst through the barricade, a tardy PDF trooper falling beneath our wheels with a scream and an unpleasant crunching sound vaguely reminiscent of someone treading hard on a thin wooden box. The first line of barrels scattered like skittles, spinning away across the thoroughfare, clanging into the sides of buildings and inflicting severe dents in the bodywork of the groundcars parked nearby. By the time they stopped moving, most of the men opposing us were already dead. Whatever skills they'd acquired in basic training were pitifully inadequate in the face of veteran troopers who'd fought a hive fleet and survived. A few tried to stand their ground, snapping off hasty and badly aimed shots before the superior marksmanship of
the Valhallans blew bloody, self-cauterising craters through heads and body armour. A muffled curse over the vox link told me that one of the troopers had been hit by the ragged return fire, but if she was able to swear like that it couldn't be all that serious.

  'Hold on, commissar.' Jurgen gunned the engine, and a jolt bounced through the truck as he knocked one of the burning barrels in the second rank aside. It spilled, blazing promethium spreading across the road behind us, consuming the bodies of the dead.

  'Runner.' Kasteen tracked her target with the bolt pistol and fired. A thin trail of smoke connected the barrel with the back of a fleeing PDF man, punching through his body armour, and exploding in a rain of blood and bowel.

  'Nice shooting, colonel.' I tapped the combead. 'Lustig?'

  'That was the last one, sir/ he said flatly. I could tell how he felt. Gunning down a virtually defenceless ally was hardly the blooding any of us would have chosen for our new regiment. But it had been necessary, I kept telling myself.

  Any casualties?'

  Trooper Penlan caught a ricochet. Just minor flash burns.'

  'Glad to hear it/ I said. I hesitated. I needed to say something now, to maintain morale, but for once in my life my glib tongue had deserted me. Tell them… Tell them I appreciate what they just did/

  'Yes sir/ There was an unexpected note of sympathy in the sergeant's voice, and I realised that I'd said the right thing after all. They knew what was at stake here as much as I did.

  We were silent for a long time after that. There was nothing to say, after all.

  I'd hoped that distressing incident would have been enough of a blood price to see our mission through, but of course, I'd reckoned without the insensate mentality of the mob. The divisions between the loyalist and xenoist factions had had generations to

  fester here, and the animosity ran deep. As we came closer to the tau enclave, we began to see signs of bloody faction fighting that would have looked less out of place in the underhive than the prosperous merchant city we were driving through. Bodies were lying in the streets, or, in a few cases, hung from luminator poles, loyalists and xenoists alike, but most of them were in no condition to determine allegiance, or, for that matter, very much else. Kasteen shook her head.

  'Have you ever seen anything like this?' she asked, more in shock than because she expected an answer. To her visible surprise, I nodded.

  'Not often.' And then only in the wake of a Chaos incursion or an ork attack. Never inflicted by ordinary citizens on their neighbours. I shuddered, reflecting on how close to the surface of the mundane world such savagery lurked, and how easily everything we fought to defend against it could be swept away if it wasn't for the ceaseless vigilance of the Emperor.

  'Disturbance up ahead, commissar/ Jurgen said, easing up on the accelerator again. I peered through the windscreen. A baying mob filled the street, milling around a high wall with a huge bronze gate in the centre of it, blocking the thoroughfare. Even without the distinctive curving architecture I would have been sure we'd reached our destination.

  The perimeter of the tau trading enclave,' El'sorath confirmed when I retuned my combead to his portable vox. 'But gaining entry may prove problematic'

  'Problematic be warped,' I snapped undiplomatically. I hadn't come all this way and shed all that blood to be baulked this close to our goal. 'I'll get you in there if I have to throw you over the wall/

  'I doubt that gue'la muscles are sufficiently well developed/ the tau responded dryly. I'd been right, he did have a sense of humour. 'An alternative strategy would be preferable/

  'I have a plan/ Jurgen offered. I stared at him in surprise. Abstract thinking was never exactly his forte.

  A particularly devious one, no doubt/ I said. He nodded, immune to sarcasm.

  'We could go through the gate/ he suggested. Kasteen made a peculiar noise, halfway between a snort and a hiccup.

  'We could/ I agreed. 'Except that there's about a thousand rioters between us and it/

  'But they're all xenoists/ Jurgen said. 'So they'll just let us through, won't they?'

  Well, they might have done, I thought, if we weren't wearing Imperial Guard uniforms and driving an Imperial Guard truck. But then again…

  'Jurgen, you're a genius/ I said, with a little less sarcasm than before. 'Why frak around when the direct approach might work?' I voxed Lustig and El'sorath again. 'Can we get the tau somewhere visible?'

  In a moment, the xenos were standing, flanked by the troopers, and El'sorath was hissing away on his vox again. Jurgen slowed the truck to a crawl, and blew the horn loudly to attract the crowd's attention.

  A few heads turned in our direction, then more, as a sullen groundswell of hostility began to build. A couple of rockcrete chunks bounced from the windscreen, leaving small starred impact craters in the armourglass. Kasteen wound her side window up, clearly deciding that Jurgen's body odour was better than concussion, at least for a short while.

  'Whenever you're ready/ I suggested, thankful I wasn't out in the open in the back of the truck. Maybe this wasn't such a brilliant idea after all, I found myself thinking.

  'Please desist, for the greater good.' El'sorath must have had an amplivox function built into his 'caster, because his voice rang out across the crowd. To my amazement they complied, falling silent and parting in front of us. I contrasted it with the response of the crowd in Kasamar,1 who'd charged our lines with berserk fury as soon as the Arbites commander had tried to address them, and wondered at the degree of influence the tau were able to wield over their supporters and one another.2

  Jurgen rolled the truck to a halt in front of the huge gates, ten metres high and wide as the thoroughfare they blocked, just as they began to swing open. Eerily, they were completely noiseless, or at least so quiet I could hear nothing over the murmur of the

  1 A minor civil insurrection, at which Cain had been present a few years before.

  2 Still a subject of great interest to the Ordo Xenos, although investigation of this phenomenon remains frustratingly difficult.

  crowd and the throbbing of our engine, even after Kasteen and I had disembarked to see our guests safely home. I noticed she breathed deeply once her boot-heels hit the rockcrete.

  'What's that?' Lustig's voice crackled in my ear. Something small and fast swooped down from over the wall, heading in our direction, then several more, wheeling and diving like birds.

  'Hold your fire,' I said hastily, fighting the urge to draw my own weapon. They're still on their side of the line.'

  Well, technically, at least. They were still above the slope of the wall, even though they'd passed the crest. I tried to focus on the nearest one, but it was small and fast-moving, and all I got was a vague impression of something resembling a large platter with a rifle slung underneath it.

  'A courtesy/ El'sorath assured me, hopping down from the flatbed with remarkable dexterity. To ensure your departure goes smoothly/

  Well, there was more than one way to take that, of course, but I chose to interpret it as a guarantee that the crowd would continue to behave themselves.

  'Much appreciated/ I assured him, as the rest of the xenos clambered down and began trooping into their enclave. Armed warriors in body armour came forward to meet them, their faces hidden inside blank-visaged helmets. I caught sight of something else moving behind the gate, and turned my head for a better look.

  'Dreadnoughts/ Kasteen breathed. They were certainly large enough for that, but they moved with an easy grace far removed from the lumbering war machines I'd encountered before. Their lines were angular, topped off with headpieces which resembled the helmets of their line troopers, but the resemblance ended with their size, towering at least twice the height of an ordinary tau.

  'Just battlesuits/ El'sorath said, with a faint trace of amusement. 'Nothing special.'

  Kasteen and I glanced at one another. I couldn't make out much detail at this distance, but they were clearly heavily armed, and the idea of facing a foe that fielde
d such things as a matter of course wasn't exactly comforting. I began to suspect that this was precisely the impression we'd been meant to get.

  'I'm sure they're not/ I said, radiating an easy confidence I didn't feel, and enjoying the momentary flicker of doubt in the xeno's eyes.

  'Go with your Emperor, Commissar Cain. You have our gratitude/ he said at last, and followed his friends inside. The gates began to swing closed.

  'Time we were gone/ I said, hoisting myself back into the cab. Kasteen decided to ride in the back this time. Can't say I blamed her after getting the full benefit of Jurgen, so I suggested the wounded trooper Penlan rode back in the cab with us instead.

  'Better safe than sorry/ I said, 'until we get back to the medicae at least/ So, despite her understandable reluctance, I was able to replace my human shield and enhance my reputation for concern about the troopers under my command at the same time.

  And we'd succeeded in doing our bit to prevent a full-scale war from breaking out, which was no mean feat, so all in all I could have been forgiven for feeling a little smug as we made our way back to our own staging area. So why, instead, did I keep thinking about the PDF troopers we'd been forced to kill, and wondering whose plans we'd derailed by their sacrifice?

  SEVEN

  The gratitude of the powerful is a heavy weight to bear.

  – Gilbran Quail, Collected Essays

  Dawn broke at last across the wounded city, columns of smoke cracking the porcelain blue of the sky above the compound as the sun rose higher and ceased to echo the glow from the scattered fires, and my mood remained foul all morning. To my relief, we'd managed to make it back without having to shoot anyone else, apart from a couple of looters who'd been so high on some vicious local pharmaceutical they hadn't even realised the truck they were trying to hijack was full of armed soldiers until after they were dead, and all I wanted was a