[Gaunt's Ghosts 05] - The Guns of Tanith

  A WARHAMMER 40,000 NOVEL

  THE GUNS OF TANITH

  Gaunt’s Ghosts - 05

  (The Saint - 02)

  Dan Abnett

  (An Undead Scan v1.1)

  It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day so that he may never truly die.

  Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants — and worse.

  To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

  “Late in the sixteenth year of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, Warmaster Macaroth’s incisive advance on the strategically vital Cabal system, which had been so strong and confident in its initial phase, juddered to a halt. Three-quarters of the target planets, including two of the infamous fortress-worlds, had been taken by Imperial Crusade forces and the occupying armies of the Chaos archenemy routed or put to flight. But, as many Navy commanders had warned, the push had overreached itself, creating as it did a salient vulnerable on three sides.

  “Orlock Gaur, one of the arch-enemy’s most able warlords, making good use of the vicious loxatl mercenaries, drove an inspired counter-offensive along the advance’s coreward flank, taking in quick succession, Enothis, Khan V, Caius Innate and Belshiir Binary. Vital supply lanes, especially those providing fuel resources for the stretched Crusade fleet, were cut. Macaroth’s valiant gamble, which he had hoped might win him the campaign outright, now seemed foolhardy. Unless fresh supply lines could be forged, and new fuel resources made available, the hard-won Cabal Salient would crumble. At best, the Imperial advance would be forced into retreat. At worst, it would collapse and be overrun.

  “Warmaster Macaroth hastily redeployed significant elements of his spinward flank in a make or break effort to open up new lines of supply. All those involved knew the outcome of this improvised action would certainly decide the fate of the Cabal Salient, and perhaps the war itself.

  “The key target worlds were the promethium-rich planets of Gigar, Aondrift Nova, Anaximander and Mirridon, the forge world Urdesh, Tanzina IV and Ariadne with their solid fuel reserves, and the vapour mills of Rydol and Phantine…”

  —from A History of the Later Imperial Crusades

  PROLOGUE: STRAIGHT SILVER

  COMBAT DISPERSAL DROGUE NIMBUS,

  WEST CONTINENTAL REACHES,

  PHANTINE, 211.771, M41

  “I don’t think any of us knew what we were getting into. Feth, I’m glad I didn’t know what we were getting into.”

  —Sgt. Varl, 1st Team leader, Tanith First

  A choke-hold was the last thing he expected.

  Trooper Hlaine Larkin landed with a jarring thump in a place so dark he couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. He immediately got right down like the colonel had told him in practice. Belly down.

  Somewhere in the dark, to his right, he heard Sergeant Obel scolding the men in the fireteam to hug cover. That was a joke for starters. Cover? How could they find cover when they couldn’t even see the arse of the man in front?

  Larkin lay down on his front and reached about until his fingers found an upright surface. A stanchion, maybe. A bulkhead. He slithered towards it, and then unshipped his long-las from its soft plastic cover. That he could do by touch alone. His fingers ran along the nalwood furniture, the firing mechanism, the oiled top-slot ready to take his nightscope.

  Someone cried out in the darkness nearby. Some poor feth who’d snapped an ankle in the drop.

  Larkin felt the panic rising in him. He pulled his scope from its bag, slotted it into place, popped the cap, and was about to take a look when an arm locked around his throat.

  “You’re dead, Tanith,” said a voice in his ear.

  Larkin twisted, but the grip refused to break. His blood thudded in his temples as the choke-hold tightened and pinched his windpipe and carotid arteries. He tried to call “Man out!” but his throat was shut.

  There was a popping sound, and illumination flares banged off overhead. The drop area was suddenly, starkly lit. Pitch-black shadows, angular and hard, stabbed across him.

  He saw the knife.

  Tanith silver, straight, thirty centimetres long, hovering in front of his face. “Feth!” Larkin gurgled. A whistle blew, shrill and penetrating.

  “Get up, you idiot,” ordered Commissar Viktor Hark, striding down the field line of the bay with the whistle in his hand. “You, trooper! Get up! You’re facing the wrong damned way!”

  The roof-lamps began to fizzle on, drenching the wide bay with stale yellow light. In amongst the litter of packing crates and corrugated iron, soldiers in black combat fatigues blinked and got to their feet.

  “Sergeant Obel!”

  “Commissar?”

  “Get up here!”

  Obel hurried forward to meet the commissar. Behind Hark, harmless low-pulse las-fire flashed in the gloom.

  “Stop that!” Hark yelled, turning. “They’re all dead anyway! Cease fire and reset your position to starting place two!”

  “Yes, sir!” a voice floated back from the enemy side.

  “Report?” Hark said, looking back at the red-faced Obel.

  “We dropped and dispersed, sir. Theta pattern. We had cover—”

  “How wonderful for you. Do you suppose it matters that eighty per cent of your unit was facing the wrong way?”

  “Sir. We were… confused.”

  “Oh dear. Which way’s north, sergeant?”

  Obel pulled his compass from his fatigues. “That way, sir.”

  “At last. Those dials glow in the dark for a reason, sergeant.”

  “Hark?”

  Commissar Hark snapped to attention. A tall figure in a long storm coat walked across the bay to join him. He looked for all the world like Hark’s shadow, drawn out and extended by the bad lights.

  “How do you think you did?” asked Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt.

  “How do I think I did? I think you slaughtered us. And deservedly.”

  Gaunt covered a smile. “Be fair, Hark. Those men there are all behind cover. They’d have soon realised which way was up if that’d been real las-fire.”

  “That’s generous, sir. I figure it a good seventy-five point win to the passive team.”

  Gaunt shook his head. “No more than fifty-five, sixty points. You still had an opening you could have used.”

  “I hate to correct you, sir,” said a tall, lean Tanith in a camo-cape
who wandered casually out of Obel’s lines. He was screwing the top back onto a paint stick.

  “Mkvenner?” Gaunt greeted the grim scout, one of Sergeant Mkoll’s elite. “Go on then, disabuse me.”

  Mkvenner had the sort of long, high cheek-boned face that made everything he said seem chilling and dark. He had a blue half-moon tattoo under his right eye.

  Many reckoned he looked a lot like Gaunt himself, though Mkvenner’s hair was Tanith black where Gaunt’s was straw blond. And Gaunt was bigger too: taller, wider, more imposing.

  “We heard them drop in during the blackout, and I got five men in amongst them.”

  “Five?”

  “Bonin, Caober, Doyl, Cuu and myself. Knives only,” he added, gesturing with the paint stick. “We splashed a good eight of them before the lights came on.”

  “How could you see?” asked Obel plaintively.

  “We wore blindfolds until the lights went out. Our night vision was adjusted.”

  “Good work, Mkvenner,” sighed Gaunt. He tried to avoid Hark’s stern look. “You had us cold,” said Hark. “Evidently,” replied Gaunt.

  “So… they’re not ready. Not for this. Not for a night drop.”

  “They’ll have to be!” Gaunt growled. “Obel! Get your sorry excuses for soldiers up into those towers again! We’ll reset and do it over!”

  “Yes, sir!” Obel replied smartly. “Uhm… Trooper Loglas snapped his shin in the last exercise. He’ll need a medic.”

  “Feth!” said Gaunt. “Right, go. Everyone else, reset!”

  He waited for a moment as medics Lesp and Chayker carried the moaning Loglas out of the bay. The rest of Obel’s detachment were clambering up the scaffolding of the sixteen metre tall drop towers and recoiling the rappelling cables, ready to resume drop positions.

  “Lights down!” yelled Gaunt. “Let’s do this again until we get it right!”

  “You heard him!” gasped Larkin. “It’s over! We’re going again!”

  “Lucky for you, Tanith.”

  The choke-hold relaxed and Larkin fell sideways at last, panting for breath.

  Trooper Lijah Cuu stepped over him and sheathed his silver blade.

  “Still, I got you, Tanith. Sure as sure.”

  Larkin gathered up his weapon, coughing. The whistle was shrilling again.

  “Fething idiot! You nearly killed me!”

  “Killing you was the point of the exercise, Tanith,” Cuu grinned, fixing the flustered master-sniper with his feline gaze.

  “You’re supposed to tag me with that!” Larkin snapped, nodding at the unopened paint stick hooked in Cuu’s webbing.

  “Oh, yeah,” marvelled Cuu, as if he’d never seen the stick before.

  “Larkin! Trooper Larkin!” Sergeant Obel’s voice sang across the bay. “Do you intend to join us?”

  “Sir!” Larkin snapped, stuffing his long-las back into its cover.

  “Double-time, Larkin! Come on!”

  Larkin looked back at Cuu, another surly curse forming in his mouth. But Cuu had disappeared.

  Obel was waiting for him at the base of one of the towers. The last few men were clambering up the scaffold, encumbered by full assault kit. A couple had stopped at the foot of the tower to take sponges from a water can and smear away the tell-tale traces of red paint from their fatigues. “Problem?” asked Obel.

  “No, sir,” said Larkin, adjusting the sling of his gun-case. “Except that Cuu’s a fething menace.”

  “Unlike the actual enemy, who is soft and cuddly. Get your scrawny butt up that tower, Larkin.”

  Larkin heaved himself up the metalwork. Overhead, the lighting rigs were shutting off, one by one.

  Sixteen metres up, there was a grilled shelf on which the men were forming up in three lines. Ahead of them was a scaffolding arch that was supposed to simulate the size and shape of a drop-ship’s exit hatch, and which led out to a stepboard ramp that someone had dryly named “the plank”. Gutes, Garond and Unkin, the three point men, were crouching there, drop-cables coiled on their laps. One end of each cable was secured to locking damps on the gantry above the plank.

  “In line, come on,” Obel muttered as he moved down the fireteams. Larkin hurried to take his place.

  “Dead, Larks?” asked Bragg, making space for him.

  “Feth, yes. You?”

  Bragg patted a red stain on his tunic that he hadn’t managed to sponge out. “Never even saw ’em,” he said.

  “Quiet in the line!” barked Obel. “Tokar! Tighten that harness or you’ll hang up. Fenix… where are your fething gloves?”

  The last of the lights were going out. Down below somewhere, Hark was blowing his whistle. Three short bursts. The two minutes ready call.

  “Stand by!” Unkin called back down the waiting rows.

  Larkin couldn’t see the men on the neighbouring towers. He couldn’t even see the towers themselves. The gloom was worse than even the most moonless night back on Tanith.

  “Make way,” whispered a voice behind them. A hooded flashlight cast a small green glow and showed another man joining them on the tower shelf.

  It was Gaunt.

  He moved in amongst them. “Listen up,” he hissed, just loud enough for them all to hear. “I know you’re new to this drill, and that none of you like it but we’ve got to get it down by the numbers. There’ll be no landing at Cirenholm. I can guarantee that. The pilots are first class, and they’ll get us in as close as possible, but even then it might be a lot further than sixteen metres.”

  Several troopers groaned.

  “The drop cable’s thirty metres,” said Garond. “What happens if it’s further than that sir?”

  “Flap your arms,” said Gaunt. There was some chuckling.

  “Hook up and slide fast. Keep your knees bent. And move. The drop-ships can’t stay on station any longer than is absolutely necessary. You’re going out three at a time, and there may be more than one man on a cable at any time. When you reach the deck, move clear. Is that a bayonet, trooper?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Put it away. No fixed blades until you’re down, not even in the real thing. Weapons on safety. If you’ve got folding stocks, fold them. Get all your harness and webbing straps tight and tuck them in. And remember, when the real thing comes, you’ll all be in gas-hoods, which will add to the fun. I’m sure Sergeant Obel has told you all this.”

  “It tends to sink in when you repeat it sir,” said Obel.

  “I’m sure it does.” Gaunt took off his storm coat and his cap and buckled on a hook-belt. “Loglas is out so you’re a man short. I’ll stand in.” He took his place in the number four slot of the right hand squad. Hark’s whistle wailed out one long note. Gaunt snapped off his lamp. It was pitch dark.

  “Let’s go,” he hissed. “Call the drill, sergeant.”

  “Over the DZ!” Obel instructed, now speaking via the vox-headsets. “Deploy! By the front! Cables out!”

  “Cables away!” chorused the point men in the dark, spilling their lines down expertly from the plank. They were already hooked up.

  “Go!”

  Larkin could hear the abrasive buzz of the cables as they went taut and took the weight of the first men. “Go!”

  Drizzles of low-pulse fire twinkled in the darkness below. Larkin stepped up under the arch, holding the tunic tail of the man in front. Then the man was gone.

  “Go!”

  He groped for the line, found it and snapped his arrester hook around it. “Come on!”

  Larkin pulled his harness tight and went over into space. He swung wildly. The hook bucked and whined as its brake disk clamped at the cable. He could smell nylon burning with the friction.

  The impact seemed even harder than the last time. The deck smacked the wind out of him. He struggled to release his hook, and rolled clear just before the man after him came hissing down.

  He was on his belly again, like last time. His shoulder nudged a hard surface as he crawled forward and he moved his back
against it. Where were the flares? Where were the fething flares?

  His long-las was out of its cover, and the scope in place. Someone ran past him and his vox ear-piece was busy with man to man signals.

  Larkin sighted. The night scope gave him vision, showed him the world as a green, phantom swirl. The enemy gun flashes were hot little spikes of light that left afterimages on the viewfinder.

  He saw a figure in cover to his left, down behind some oil drums.

  It was Mkvenner, with a paint stick in his hand.

  “Pop!” said Larkin, and his gun fizzled a low-energy charge.

  “Feth!” said Mkvenner, and sat back hard. “Man out!”

  Flares burst overhead. Crackling, blue-white light shimmered down over the DZ.

  “Up and select!” Obel ordered curtly over the vox-link.

  Larkin looked around. They were in place, facing the right fething way this time.

  Men moved forward. Larkin stayed put. He was more use to them static and hunting.

  He saw Bonin stalking two of his team and popped him out of the game too.

  Flash charges went off down to Larkin’s right. The bay rang. Some of Obel’s squad, along with men from the neighbouring tower, had engaged full-on with the passive team. Larkin heard the call “Man out!” five or six times.

  Then he heard someone cry out in real pain.

  Hark’s whistle was blowing. “Cease! Cease and stay put!”

  The lights came on again, slowly and feebly.

  Hark appeared. “Better. Better, Obel.”

  The men began getting up. Bonin moved past Larkin. “Nice one,” he said.

  Gaunt walked out into one of the pools of light. “Mkvenner?” he called. “Score it up.”

  “Sir,” said Mkvenner. The scout looked unhappy.

  “You get tagged?” Gaunt asked.

  “Think it was Larkin, sir. We got about thirty points that time, all told.”

  “That should make you a bit happier,” Gaunt said to Hark.

  “Medic!”