First and Only (19 page)

He longed for soil underfoot. For real air. For breeze and rain and the hush of nodding branches.

‘Corbec?’

He snapped to attention as Gaunt approached. Milo was a little way behind the commissar.

‘Sir?’

‘Remember what I was telling you in the bar on Pyrites?’

‘Not precisely, sir… I… I was pretty far gone.’

Gaunt grinned. ‘Good. Then it will all come as a surprise to you too. Are the officers ready?’

Corbec nodded perfunctorily. ‘Except Major Rawne, as you ordered.’

Gaunt lifted his cap, smoothed his cropped hair back with his hands and replaced it squarely again.

‘A moment, and I’ll join you in the staff room.’

Gaunt marched away down the deck and entered the main billet of the barracks.

The Ghosts had been given barrack deck three, a vast honeycomb of long, dark vaults in which bunks were strung from chains in a herringbone pattern. Adjoining these sleeping vaults was a desolate recreation hall and a trio of padded exercise chambers. All forty surviving platoons, a little over two thousand Ghosts, were billeted here.

The smell of sweat, smoke and body heat rose from the bunk vaults. Rawne, Feygor and the rest of the third platoon were waiting for him on the slip-ramp. They had been training in the exercise chambers, and each one carried one of the shock-poles provided for combat practice. These neural stunners were the only weapons allowed to them during a crossing. They could fence with them, spar with them and even set them to long range discharge and target-shoot against the squeaking moving metal decoys in the badly-oiled automatic range.

Gaunt saluted Rawne. The men snapped to attention.

‘How do you read the barrack deck, major?’

Rawne faltered. ‘Commissar?’

‘Is it secure?’

‘There are eight deployment shafts and two to the dropship hangar, plus a number of serviceways.’

‘Take your men, spread out and guard them all. No one must get in or out of this barrack deck without my knowledge.’

Rawne looked faintly perplexed. ‘How do we hold any intruders off, commissar, given our lack of weapons?’

Gaunt took a shock-pole from Trooper Neff and then laid him out on the deck with a jolt to the belly.

‘Use these,’ Gaunt suggested. ‘Report to me every half hour. Report to me directly with the names of anyone who attempts access.’ Pausing for a moment to study Rawne’s face and make sure his instructions were clearly understood, Gaunt turned and walked back up the ramp.

‘What’s he up to?’ Feygor asked the major when Gaunt was out of earshot. Rawne shook his head. He would find out. Until he did, he had a sentry duty to organise.

Six

T
HE STAFF ROOM
was an old briefing theatre next to the infir mary annex. Steps led down into a circular room, with three tiers of varnished wooden seats around the circumference and a lacquered black console in the centre on a dais. The console, squat and rounded like a polished mushroom, was an old tactical display unit, with a mirrored screen in its top which had once broadcast luminous three-dimensional hololithic forms into the air above it during strategy counsels. But it was old and broken; Gaunt used it as a seat.

The officers filed in: Corbec, Dorden, and then the platoon leaders, Meryn, Mkoll, Curral, Lerod, Hasker, Blane, Folore… thirty-nine men, all told. Last in was Varl, recently promoted. Milo closed the shutter hatch and perched at the back. The men sat in a semi-circle, facing their commander.

‘What’s going on, sir?’ Varl asked. Gaunt smiled slightly. As a newcomer to officer-level briefings, Varl was eager and forthright, and oblivious to the usually reserved protocols of staff discussions. I should have promoted him earlier, Gaunt thought wryly.

‘This is totally unofficial. Ghost business, but unofficial. I want to advise you of a situation so that you can be aware of it and act accordingly if the need arises. But it does not go beyond this chamber. Tell your men as much as they need to know to facilitate matters, but spare them the details.’

He had their attention now.

‘I won’t dress this up. As far as I know – and believe me, that’s no further than I could throw Bragg – there’s a power struggle going on. One that threatens to tear this whole Crusade to tatters.

‘You’ve all heard how much infighting went on after Warmaster Slaydo’s death. How many of the Lord High Militants wanted to take his place.’

‘And that weasel Macaroth got it,’ Corbec said with a rueful grin.

‘That’s Warmaster Weasel Macaroth, colonel,’ Gaunt corrected. He let the men chuckle. Good humour would make this easier. ‘Like him or not, he’s in charge now. And that makes it simple for us. Like me, you are all loyal to the Emperor, and therefore to Warmaster Macaroth. Slaydo chose him to be successor. Macaroth’s word is the word of the Golden Throne itself. He speaks with Imperium authority.’

Gaunt paused. The men watched him quizzically, as if they had missed the point of some joke.

‘But someone’s not happy about that, are they?’ Milo said dourly, from the back. The officers snapped around to stare at him and then turned back equally sharply as they heard the commissar laugh.

‘Indeed. There are probably many who resent his promotion over them. And one in particular we all know, if only by name. Lord Militant General Dravere. The very man who commands our section of the Crusade force.’

‘What are you saying, sir?’ Lerod asked with aghast disbelief. Lerod was a large, shaven-headed sergeant with an Imperial eagle tattoo on his temple. He had commanded the militia unit in Tanith Ultima, the Imperial shrine-city on the Ghost’s lost homeworld, and as a result he, along with the other troopers from Ultima, were the most devoted and resolute Imperial servants in the Tanith First. Gaunt knew that Lerod would be perhaps the most difficult to convince. ‘Are you suggesting that Lord General Dravere has renegade tendencies? That he is… disloyal? But he’s your direct superior, sir!’

‘Which is why this discussion is being held in private. If I’m right, who can we turn to?’

The men greeted this with uncomfortable silence.

Gaunt went on. ‘Dravere has never hidden the fact that he felt Slaydo snubbed him by appointing the younger Macaroth. It must rankle deeply to serve under an upstart who has been promoted past you. I am pretty certain that Dravere plans to usurp the warmaster.’

‘Let them fight for it!’ Varl spat, and others concurred. ‘What’s another dead officer – begging your pardon, sir.’

Gaunt smiled. ‘You echo my initial thoughts on the matter, sergeant. But think it through. If Dravere moves his own forces against Macaroth, it will weaken this entire endeavour. Weaken it at the very moment we should be consolidating for the push into new, more hostile territories. What good are we against the forces of the enemy if we’re battling with ourselves? If it came to it, we’d be wide open, weak… and ripe for slaughter. Dravere’s plans threaten the entire future of us all.’

Another heavy silence. Gaunt rubbed his lean chin. ‘If Dravere goes through with this, we could throw everything away. Everything we’ve won in the Sabbat Worlds these last ten years.’

Gaunt leaned forward. ‘There’s more. If I was going to usurp the warmaster, I’d want a whole lot more than a few loyal regiments with me. I’d want an edge.’

‘Is that what this is about?’ Lerod asked, now hanging on Gaunt’s words.

‘Of course it is. Dravere is after something. Something big. Something so big it will actually place him on an equal footing with the warmaster. Or even make him stronger. And that is where we pitiful few come into the picture.’

He paused for a moment. ‘When I was on Pyrites, I came into possession of this…’

Gaunt held up the crystal.

‘The information encrypted onto this crystal holds the key to it all. Dravere’s spy network was transmitting it back to him and it was intercepted.’

‘By who?’ Lerod asked.

‘By Macaroth’s loyal spy network, Imperial intelligence, working to undermine Dravere’s conspiracy. They are covert, vulnerable, few, but they are the only things working against the mechanism of Dravere’s ascendancy.’

‘Why you?’ Dorden asked quietly.

Gaunt paused. Even now, he could not tell them the real reason. That it was foretold. ‘I was there, and I was trusted. I don’t understand it all. An old friend of mine is part of the intelligence hub, and he contacted me to caretake this precious cargo. It seemed there was no one else on Pyrites close enough or trusted enough to do it.’

Varl shifted in his seat, scratching his shoulder implant. ‘So? What’s on it?’

‘I have no idea,’ Gaunt said. ‘It’s encoded.’

Lerod started to say something else, but Gaunt added, ‘It’s Vermilion level.’

There was a long pause, accompanied only by Blane’s long, impressed whistle.

‘Now do you see?’ Gaunt asked.

‘What do we do?’ Varl said dully.

‘We find out what’s on it. Then we decide.’

‘But how–’ Meryn began, but Gaunt held up a calming hand.

‘That’s my job, and I think I can do it. Easily, in fact. After that… well, that’s why I wanted you all in on this. Already, Dravere’s covert network has attempted to kill me and retrieve the crystal. Twice. Once on Pyrites and now here again on the ship. I need you with me, to guard this priceless thing, to keep the Lord Militant General’s spies from it. To cover me until I can see the way clear to the action we should take.’

Silence reigned in the staff room.

‘Are you with me?’ Gaunt asked.

The silence beat on, almost stifling. The officers exchanged furtive glances.

In the end, it was Lerod who spoke for them. Gaunt was particularly glad it was Lerod.

‘Do you have to ask, commissar?’ he said simply.

Gaunt smiled his thanks. He got up from the display unit and stepped off the dais as the men rose. ‘Let’s get to it. Rawne’s already setting patrols to keep this barrack deck secure. Support and bolster that effort. I want to feel confi-dent that the area of this ship given over to us is safe ground. Keep intruders out, or escort them directly to me. If the men question the precautions, tell them we think that those damn Patricians might try something to ease their grudge against us. Terra knows, that’s true enough, and there are over four times our number of Patricians aboard this vessel on the other barrack decks. And the Patricians are undoubtedly in Dravere’s pocket.

‘I also want the entire deck searched for hidden vox-relays and vista-lines. Hasker, Varl… use any men you know with technical aptitude to perform the sweep. They may be trying all manner of ways of spying on us. From this moment on, trust no one outside our regiment. No one. There is no way of telling who might be part of the conspiracy around us.’

The officers seemed eager but unsettled. Gaunt knew that this was strange work for regular soldiers. They filed out, faces grave.

Gaunt looked at the crystal in his hand. What are you hiding? he wondered.

* * *

Seven

G
AUNT RETURNED TO
his quarters with the silent Milo in tow. Corbec had set two Ghosts to guard the commissar’s private room. Gaunt sat at the cogitator set into a wall alcove, and began to explore the shipboard information he could access through the terminal. Lines of gently flickering amber text scrolled across the dark vista-plate. He was hoping for a personnel manifest, searching for names that might hint at the identity of those that opposed him. But the details were jumbled and incomplete. It wasn’t even clear which other regiments were actually aboard. The Patricians were listed, and a complement of mechanised units from the Bovanian Ninth. But Gaunt knew there must be at least two other regimental strengths aboard, and the listing was blank. He also tried to view the particulars of the
Absalom’s
officer cadre, and any other senior Imperial servants making the crossing with them, but those levels of data were locked by naval cipher veils, and Gaunt did not have the authority to penetrate them.

Technology, such as it was, was a sandbagged barricade keeping him out. He sat back in his chair and sighed. His shoulder was sore. The crystal lay on the console near his hand. It was time to try it. Time to try his guess. He’d been putting it off, in case it didn’t work really. He got up.

Milo had begun to snooze on a seat by the door and the sudden movement startled him.

‘Sir?’

Gaunt was on his feet, carelessly pulling his kitbag and luggage trunks from the wall locker.

‘Let’s hope the old man wasn’t lying!’ was all Gaunt said.

Which old man, Milo had no idea.

Gaunt rifled through his baggage. A silk-swathed dress uniform ended up on the floor. Books and data-slates spewed from pulled-open pouches.

Milo was fascinated for a moment. The commissar always packed his own effects, and Milo had never seen the few possessions Gaunt valued enough to carry with him. The boy glimpsed a bar of medals wound in tunic cloth; a larger, grand silver starburst rosette that fell from its velvet-lined case; a faded forage cap with Hyrkan insignia; a glass box of painkiller tablets; a dozen large, yellow slab-like teeth – ork teeth – drilled and threaded onto a cord; an antique scope in a wooden case; a worn buckle brush and a tin of silver polish; a tarot gaming deck which spilled out of its ivory box. The cards were stiff pasteboard, decorated with commemorative images of a liberation festival on somewhere called Gylatus Decimus. Milo bent to collect them up before Gaunt trampled them. They were clean and new, never used; the lid of the box was inscribed with the letters D. O.

Unheeding, Gaunt pulled handfuls of clothes out of his kitbag and flung them aside.

Milo grinned. He felt somehow privileged to see this stuff, as if the commissar had let him into his mind for a while.

Then something else bounced off the accumulating clutter on the deck and Milo paused. It was a toy battleship, rudely carved from a hunk of plastene. Enamel paint was flaking away, and some of the towers and gun turrets had broken off. Milo turned away. There was something painful about the toy, something that let him glimpse further into Ibram Gaunt’s private realm of loss than he wanted to go.