could, presumably in an attempt to prevent the xenos from seeing very much; although, given the condition of two of them, that wasn’t particularly rapid, and only El’hassai was well enough to sightsee in any case. Not that he seemed the remotest bit interested in doing so, dividing his attention more or less equally between his limping companion, and the one being carried as gently as possible by the most junior pair of Zyvan’s underlings.
‘I’ve seen happier cogboys,’ I muttered to the Lord General, heedless of the augmented hearing the skitarii probably possessed. None of them gave any sign of having heard me, they just went on chirruping agitatedly at one another in their teeth-aching private language, no doubt making sure that whatever blame might be going around for the debacle on the landing pad, it wouldn’t be alighting on them.
‘How could you tell?’ he riposted, with a sour look at our escort. ‘None of the ones I ever met could crack a smile without splitting their heads open.’
‘Wait here,’ Kyper told us, as we reached a pair of bronze doors roughly twice the height they needed to be for a normal man to enter, although I suppose those tended to be in short supply around here. He shoved the left-hand one open, just wide enough to slip through, and slammed it closed behind him with a boom which echoed uncomfortably around us, reminding me all too clearly of our shuttle’s terminal impact among the forges so short a time before.
‘I’ll do no such thing,’ Zyvan declared, his beard bristling, and strode forward to seize the handle. The skitarii moved to block him, and he glared at them, utterly affronted. ‘I’m the Lord-bloody-General of the Rimward Sectors, and I don’t wait for anyone. They wait for me!’
In the silence that followed, I distinctly heard the scuffle and click of sidearms being loosened in their holsters behind us, his aides having no option but to follow the Lord General’s lead. Any exchange of fire with the skitarii would have been suicidal, of course, they were all augmented to the gills, and I had no doubt that the hellguns they carried were the least of the lethal surprises they kept about their persons. Moreover, they were hardwired for combat, and would probably open fire purely by reflex the moment they felt threatened. Of rather more concern to me, however, was the fact that I was standing right between the two factions, in the perfect spot to be riddled by the crossfire. Definitely time to put a stop to this.
‘Perhaps we should simply withdraw,’ I said, stepping forwards to place a restraining hand on Zyvan’s arm, before he could shoulder the door open. I was certain that if he did, trusting in the authority of his position to protect him, the skitarii’s neural programming would interpret the movement as a hostile act, and they’d open fire as surely as heretics were damned. ‘If the Adeptus Mechanicus doesn’t want our help, we can use the resources we brought here in the defence of other systems.’
‘Don’t think I’m not tempted,’ Zyvan snarled, turning to address me directly. No one else could have got away with grabbing his arm like that, but the red sash gives you a lot of leeway[63], and, to my relief, it seemed he was in the mood to listen. ‘It’s still more than likely that the ’nids’ll just sail straight on past this pustule on the arse of the galaxy anyway.’
I tapped the comm-bead in my ear, through which I’d been monitoring our erstwhile pilot’s conversation with flight control aboard the flagship. Under less fraught circumstances, I’d have found it quite entertaining, as they hadn’t reacted entirely happily to the news that our shuttle had become an expensive pile of scrap, and we’d quite like another one as soon as they could manage it. ‘Then I suggest we return to the landing platform,’ I said. ‘A replacement shuttle’s on the way, and if we wait for it there, we can avoid any further unfortunate misunderstandings.’
At which point the door jerked open with quite unnecessary force, confirming my guess that at least one of the skitarii had been relaying our discussion to whoever was waiting inside. Kyper appeared in the gap, almost nose to olfactory sensor plate with Zyvan and myself, looking as agitated as possible with a face composed almost entirely of motionless ironmongery. ‘Lord General,’ he droned, standing aside and gesturing expansively with an arm which would have looked rather