cursing at the information he was reading.
Gaunt and Zoren exchanged glances.
I hope this confusion is the confusion we planned, Gaunt thought.
Grasticus rose up on his elbows and bawled at the quaking Lekulanzi. ‘Weapons fire on the Munitorium deck! My data says it’s Jantine feuders!’
‘Are any of mine hurt?’ Gaunt asked, pushing forward, urgent. ‘I told you the Jantine were out for blood–’
‘Shut up, commissar,’ the captain said with a suddenly sour look. His day had been disrupted enough. ‘The reports are unconfirmed. Get down there and see to it, warrant officer!’
Lekulanzi scurried out of the chamber. Grasticus turned back to the two Imperial Guard colonels.
‘This matter needs my undivided attention. I will summon you when we can speak further.’
Zoren and Gaunt nodded and backed out of the strategium smartly. Side by side they crossed the nave of the bridge, through the hubbub of bridge crew, and entered the lifts.
‘Is it working?’ Zoren asked as the doors closed and the choral chime sang out.
‘Pray by the Throne that it is,’ Gaunt said.
Nineteen
THEY TOOK THE infirmary in a textbook move.
The room was wide, long and low. The robed figure was bent over Rawne, who was strapped, screaming, to a gurney. A pair of Jantine troopers stood guard at the door. Corbec came in between them, ignoring them both as he dived into a roll, his shotgun raised up to fire. The robed figure turned, as if sensing the sudden intrusion. The shotgun blast blew him backwards into a stack of wheezing resuscitrex units.
The guards began to turn when Mkoll and Baru launched in on Corbec’s heels and knifed them both. Corbec rolled up onto his feet, slung his shotgun by the strap and grabbed Rawne.
‘Sacred Feth…’ he murmured, as he saw the head wound, and the insidious pattern of scalpel cuts across the major’s face, neck and stripped body. Rawne was slipping in and out of consciousness.
‘Come on, Rawne, come on!’ Corbec snapped, hauling the major up over his shoulder.
‘We have to move now!’ Mkoll bellowed, as secondary weapons violation sirens began to shrill. Corbec threw the shotgun over to him.
‘Take point! We shoot our way out if we have to!’
‘Colonel!’ Baru yelled. Weighed down by Rawne, Corbec couldn’t turn in time. The robed figure was clawing its way back onto its feet behind him. Its hood was thrown back, and they gasped to see the equine extension and bared teeth of the head. Fury boiled in the eyes of the man-monster, and violet-dark energy crackled around him.
Corbec felt the room temperature drop. Fething magic, was all he had time to think – before a shot took the man-monster’s throat clean away.
Larkin stood in the doorway, the old rifle raised in his hands. ‘Now we’re leaving, right?’ he said.
Twenty
GAUNT TOOK THE tile Milo held out for him. Then he shut the door of his quarters on the faces of the men crowded outside. Inside, Corbec, Zoren and Milo watched him carefully.
‘This had better be worth all that damn effort,’ Corbec said eventually, voicing what they all thought.
Gaunt nodded. The gamble had been immense. But for the Jantine’s bloodthirsty and brutal methods of pursuing their intrigue, they would never have got this far. The ship was still full of commotion. Adeptus Mechanicus security details clogged every corridor, conducting barrack searches. Rumour, accusation and threat rebounded from counter rumour, counter accusation and promise.
Gaunt knew his hands weren’t spotless in this, and he would make no attempt to hide that his men fought back against the Jantine in a feud. There would be reprimands, punishment details, rounds of questioning that would lead to nothing conclusive. But, like him, the Jantine would not take the matter beyond a simple regimental feud. And only he and those secret elements pitched against him would know precisely what had been at stake.
He slotted the tile into his artificer, and then set the crystal in the read-slot. He touched a few keys.
There was a pause.
‘It isn’t working,’ Zoren began.
It wasn’t. As far as Gaunt could tell, Milo had indeed downloaded the latest clearance ciphers via the Munitorium artificer, but still they would not open the crystal. In fact, he couldn’t even open the ciphers and set them to work.
Gaunt cursed.
‘What about the ring?’ Milo asked.
Gaunt paused, then fished Dercius’s ring from his pocket. He fitted that into the read-slot beside the one that held the crystal and activated it.
Old and too out of date to open the dedicated ciphers of the crystal, the ring was nevertheless standardised in its cryptography