'Treachery is its own reward.'
- Callidus Temple proverb.
ONE THING I'LL say for the tau, they certainly know how to make an impressive
entrance. Shui'sassai was draped in a simple white robe, which made all the Imperial
dignitaries look ridiculously overdressed, and was surrounded by others of his kind
similarly attired. There was no mistaking who was in charge, though, as his charisma
filled the room, his entourage bobbing in his wake as he strode confidently across the
polished wooden floor towards Grice like seabirds around a fishing boat. I didn't realise
at the time how apt the mental image was, of course1
. What I did notice almost at once
was the bluish cast of his skin, and that of his compatriots, which I'd been led to
expect from Divas's gossip and the various reports I'd read. What I hadn't expected
was the single braid that grew from his otherwise hairless skull, plaited and
ornamented with ribbons in a variety of colours which contrasted vividly with the
plain simplicity of his garment. The meaning of the bizarre hairstyle sported by their
human dupes, which I'd noted many times since our landing, thus became clear to me,
along with the face paint the leader of the street gang had worn, and I found myself
suppressing a shiver of unease. If so many citizens had been influenced so openly by
these alien interlopers, the situation was dire indeed, and my chances of keeping well
away from trouble, problematic at best.
It reminded me of something else, too, and after a moment I recalled the decoration
Gorok the kroot had applied to the quills on his head. Clearly the races of the tau
empire saw nothing wrong in absorbing the mores and fashions of one another's
cultures, eroding their very identities in the name of their union, a notion any loyal
Imperial citizen would have regarded with as much horror as I did. I'd seen at first
hand what happened when traitors and heretics abandoned their humanity to follow
the twisted teachings of Chaos, and the thought of how fertile a soil the warp-spawned
abominations would find the Imperium if it were ever to become as unwittingly open
to alien influence as the tau and their dupes chilled my very soul. Shui'sassai's flunkies
also had their single tail of hair ornamented, though slightly less flamboyantly, and I
found myself wondering if the pattern denoted some subtle graduations of status
among them, or were merely intended to be decorative.
'Smug little grox-fondler.' Donali was at my elbow again, the words delivered through
almost motionless lips as he made brief eye contact with the xeno and raised his
wineglass in greeting. 'He thinks he's got the whole planet sewn up.'
'And does he?' I asked, more out of politeness than actually expecting an answer.
'Not yet.' Donali watched as the xeno delegation made its ritual greeting to Grice. 'But
he's certainly got the governor in his pocket.'
'Are you sure about that?' I asked. Donali must have detected something in my
intonation because his attention switched to me at once, a sensation I found mildly
disconcerting.
'You suspect he might be underÖ other influences?' he suggested, watching my face
for a flicker of reaction. Well, good luck to him - a lifetime of dissembling had left me
virtually impossible to read in that way. I indicated Orelius with a tilt of my head, he
was watching the exchange between Grice and the tau diplomat warily, trying not to
look as though he was paying it any attention.
'Our rogue trader friend had quite a conversation with His Excellency earlier this
evening,' I said. 'And neither of them seem terribly happy about it.'
'You've spoken to Orelius?' Once again, I found myself in the middle of a verbal
fencing match. Emperor's bowels, I thought irritably, doesn't anyone around here ever
say what they mean?
'We exchanged a few words,' I said, shrugging. 'He seems to think the shooting's about
to startó'
The bark of a bolt pistol going off echoed around the ballroom, and I dived for cover
behind an overstuffed sofa even before the rational part of my mind had identified the
source of the sound. I may not be a paragon of virtue, but I like to think my survival
instincts more than makes up for any moral shortcomings I might possess.
Donali stood, gaping, as the room erupted in panic and screams. Half the guests
started running in no particular direction, while the others stared around themselves in
half-witted stupefaction. Priceless crystal goblets shattered underfoot as drinks were
dropped and swords were unsheathed, and every kind of sidearm imaginable suddenly
appeared in hands on every side.
'Treachery!' one of the tau shrieked, glaring around itself and drawing some kind of
handgun from the recesses of its robes. Shui'sassai was down, thick purple blood
everywhere, and I knew from experience that he wouldn't be getting up again.
The bolter round had exploded inside his chest cavity, redecorating the immediate
vicinity with tau viscera, which I was mildly intrigued to note was darker in colour
than the human equivalent, something to do with the colour of their skin, I assumed1
.
'Kasteen!' I activated the combead in my ear. 'Where are you?'
'Over by the stage.' I lifted my head, scanning the room, and located her as she
scrambled up next to Amberley, who was gazing at the crowd as though mesmerised.
'Did you see where the shot came from?'
'No.' She hesitated a fraction of a second. 'My attention was elsewhere. Sorry,
commissar.'
'No need to be,' I said. 'You weren't to know this was going to turn into a warzone.' In
truth, that looked uncomfortably like what was happening. Practically everyone with a
ceremonial sidearm had drawn it in a panic-stricken reflex, except for Kasteen and
myself, and was looking for someone to use it on. Which meant identifying the
assassin would be virtually impossible by now.
'Gue'la animals! Is this how you respond to proposals of peace?' The gun-waving tau was
getting hysterical, swinging the weapon wildly. It was only a matter of seconds, I thought,
before he pulled the trigger, or, more likely, someone else shot him before he had the
chance. Either way, it was going to start a massacre, and I had no intention of getting
caught in the middle of it.
'Lustig,' I voxed. 'Jurgen. We're leaving now. There may be resistance.'
'Sir.' Jurgen's voice was as phlegmatic as ever.
'Commissar?' Lustig's was inflected with the query he was too well-trained to ask.
But I wasn't about to let the honour guard blunder into a firefight without warning. I was
going to need them if I expected to get out of here.
'The tau ambassador has just been assassinated,' I said. Then I cursed my own
stupidity. The channel wasn't secured, which meant every listening post on both sides
had probably picked up my transmission. Oh well, too late to worry about that now.
My main priority was getting the hell out of here in one piece. Unfortunately that
meant getting past the tau delegation, which looked like it was becoming a fire magnet
for every Imperial hothead in the room.
There was only one thing for it. With a curious sense of dÈj‡ vu, I strode forwards, my
hands held out from my sides, away from my weapons.
Please bear in mind that barely a minute had passed by this time, and the room, was
far from silent. Practically everyone was shouting at everyone else, and no one was
listening. The rest of the tau were babbling away in their own language. It sounded
like frying grox steaks to me, but the gist of it was obviously ''put that bloody thing
away before you get us all shot'' and the other guests were screaming ''drop it!'' at him
and each other. I realised that with the tangle of competing factions and interests in the
room there would be a complete bloodbath the moment anyone pulled a trigger.
Which was probably what the assassin was counting on to cover his tracks.
'Colonel. With me.' Kasteen could cover my back, at least. I saw her slip off the stage
and start towards me through the milling mob, Amberley had already disappeared,
sensible girl.
'You! You did this!' The tau stuck the muzzle of his curiously featureless pistol under
Grice's chin. The governor seemed to lose even more colour, if that were possible, and
spluttered incoherently.
'That's ridiculous! What would I have to gainó'
'More lies!' The tau shrugged off the restraining hands of his colleagues. 'The truth, or
you die!'
'This does not advance the greater good,' I said, echoing the words of the kroot. I
wasn't quite sure what they meant, but I hoped they had more resonance for the tau
than yet another variation on ''put it down before I shoot you'' which didn't seem to be
having much effect.
It worked better than I'd dared to hope. Every tau in the group, including the maniac
with the gun, stared at me with something I took to be astonishment.
Their faces are harder to read than human or eldar, but it gets easier the more practice you have, and
these days I can usually catch even the most carefully concealed half-truth.
'What the frak's that supposed to mean?' Kasteen subvocalised into my combead,
breaking through the crowd to stand beside me. I noticed with a flicker of relief that
she still hadn't drawn her weapons either, which was going to make things a lot easier.
'Warped if I know,' I responded, before stepping forward to where the xenos could get
a better look at me.
'What do you know of the greater good?' the tau asked, lowering his weapon a
fraction, but keeping Grice covered nevertheless. His companions hesitated, clearly
wondering if it was safe to disarm him yet. Grice obviously thought otherwise,
sweating more profusely than Jurgen reading a porno slate.
'Not much,' I admitted. 'But adding more deaths to tonight's piece of treachery won't
help anyone, surely.'
'Your words have merit, Imperial officer.' One of the other tau spoke up cautiously, an
eye on his gun-toting friend.
'My name is Cain,' I said, and a whisper of voices around me echoed it. 'That's him,
that's Ciaphas Cain.' The reaction seemed to bemuse my new friend.
'You are well-known to these people?'
'I seem to have acquired something of a reputation,' I admitted.
'Commissar Cain is well-known as a man of integrity,' a new voice cut in. Orelius was
edging his way through the crowd, flanked by his bodyguards. At a gesture from him,
they bolstered their bolt pistols.
'That's right.' Donali backed him up, taking the initiative back into official hands. 'You
can trust his word.' Which didn't say much for his skills as a diplomat when you come
to think of it, but then he didn't now me as well as I do.
'I am El'sorath,' the conversational tau said, extending a hand in human fashion. I took
it, finding it slightly warmer than I'd expected, something to do with the blue skin,
probably.
'Did your friendÖ?' I indicated the tau with the gun.
'El'hassai,' El'sorath supplied helpfully.
'Did anyone actually see who fired the shot?' I asked, directing the question to
El'hassai personally, as though we were simply having a normal conversation. A
flicker of doubt passed across his features for the first time.
'We were talking to this one.' The gun came up to point at Grice again. 'I heard
Shui'sassai say "What-" and then the sound of the shot. When I turned back there was
no one else there. It must have been him!'
'But you didn't actually see the murder,' I persisted. El'hassai shook his head, a gesture
I assumed he'd learned from his long association with humans.
'It could have been no one else,' he insisted.
'Did you see the governor with a gun?'
'He must have concealed it'.
True, Grice's overly ornamented robes might have concealed almost anything in their
voluminous folds, but I tried to picture this indolent lump of lard drawing a pistol,
killing the ambassador, and palming it again within a matter of seconds and fought to
keep a smile off my face.
'There are hundreds of people in this room,' I said calmly. 'Isn't it more likely that one
of them is responsible? Maybe a servant you simply didn't notice?'
'Vastly more likely,' El'sorath agreed, holding out a hand for the pistol. After a
moment, El'hassai capitulated, and handed it to him. A collective sigh of relief echoed
round the room behind us.
'This will be investigated,' Donali said, 'and the murderer brought to account. You
have my word.'
'We are aware of the value of Imperial promises,' El'sorath said, with the barest trace
of sarcasm. 'But we will make our own enquiries.'
'Of course.' Grice wiped his face with the sleeve of his robe, quivering like a plasmoid,
and failing to recover a shred of dignity. 'Our Arbites will keep you apprised of
everything we're able to uncover.'
'I would expect nothing less,' El'sorath said.
'We're in position, commissar,' Lustig said in my ear. Kasteen and I exchanged
glances.
'What's it like out there?' she subvocalised.
'Panic and confusion, ma'am. And there seems to be something going on in the city.'
'Perhaps you'd better return to your compound,' Donali suggested to El'sorath,
unaware of the ominous messages we'd been getting. 'My driveró'
'Wouldn't get fifty metres from the gate,' Kasteen put in. I switched frequencies to the
tactical net, as I was sure she had, and heard a confused babble of voices in my ear.
PDF units were mobilising in support of Arbites riot squads, and unrest was spreading
across the city like jam across toast.
'What do you mean?' Grice quivered, looking around for a flunkey to blame. Palace
security troops were finally beginning to deploy, guarding the exits, although I didn't
expect much help from them if they actually had to defend the place. Lots of
ceremonial gold armour which wouldn't stop a thrown rock, and old-fashioned lasguns
with the ridiculously long barrels I'd only seen before in museums, and which
probably hadn't been fired in the last couple of millennia.
'There are riots breaking out all over the city, Your Excellency.' Kasteen almost
sounded as though she was enjoying breaking the bad news to him. 'Mobs are
attacking the Arbites sector houses and the PDF barracks, denouncing the Imperium
for the ambassador's murder.'
'How could they know?' Grice blustered. 'The news hasn't had time to spread.'
For a moment I wondered if my ill-timed transmission to Lustig had been the cause of
all this, then common sense reasserted itself. There hadn't been time to disseminate the
information even if someone had been listening. There was only one possible
explanation.
'A conspiracy,' I said. 'The murderer had confederates who were spreading the rumour
even before he struck. This wasn't just meant to disrupt the negotiations, it was
supposed to signal a full-scale revolt.'
'More lies!' El'hassai had been quiet for the last few minutes, staring at the
ambassador's corpse as though he expected it to sit up and start giving us the answers.
'You think we'd sacrifice one of our own to seize control here?'
'I think nothing,' I said carefully. 'I'm just a soldier. But someone's orchestrating this,
Emperor knows why. If it's not your people, then maybe it's some Imperial faction
trying to smoke out your supporters here.'
'But who would consider such a thing?' Grice burbled. I glanced at Orelius, my
suspicions about him flooding back. The Inquisition was certainly ruthless enough,
and had the resources to do it.
'That's for wiser heads than mine to determine,' I said, and for a moment, the rogue
trader's gimlet eyes were on me.
'Our prime concern must be the welfare of your delegation,' Donali insisted. 'Can we
get a skimmer into the grounds?'
'We can try.' El'sorath was keeping it together, at least. He produced some sort of
voxcaster from the recesses of his robe, and hissed and sighed a message into it.
Whatever the response was, it seemed to satisfy him, and calm the others, even
El'hassai seemed a little less jumpy.
'An aircar has been dispatched,' he said, tucking the vox away. 'It will be with us
shortly.'
'And in the meantime, my guards will ensure your personal safety,' Grice said,
beckoning a few forward. The tau looked dubious at this.
'They were signally unable to do so in the case of O'ran Shui'sassai,' El'sorath pointed
out mildly. Grice flushed a darker shade of grey.
'If anyone has a better suggestion, I'd be delighted to hear it,' he snapped, grabbing a
large glass of amasec from one of the servitors which continued to circle the room,
oblivious to all the commotion.
'I believe the commissar arrived with an honour guard,' Orelius said. 'Surely a man of
his reputation can be trusted with so delicate a task.'
Thanks a lot, I thought. But with that reputation at stake, all I could do was mutter
something about it being an honour I didn't deserve. Which was perfectly true, of
course.
Donali and the tau were all for it, once the idea had sunk in, so I found myself leading
a small gaggle of xenos and diplomats out of the hall, and into the open air. Lustig and
the others came pounding up as we emerged, lasguns primed, and took up station
around us.
'Be on your guard,' Kasteen warned them. 'The assassin's still at large. So trust no one,
apart from us.'
'Especially the diplomats,' I added. Donali shot me a sharp look, and I smiled to
pretend I was joking.
'I don't like it here,' I said quietly to Kasteen. 'It's too exposed.' She nodded agreement.
'What do you suggest?'
'There's a shrubbery over that way,' I pointed, blessing the instinctive paranoia that
had had me looking out for boltholes on our drive in. 'It'll give us some cover at least.'
It was also out of the pool of light surrounding the house, less exposed to prying eyes
and sensor equipment.
So we scurried over to it, the troopers double-timing, and the tau keeping up with
remarkable ease. Donali kept up with difficulty, but managed to converse with
El'sorath the whole way, slipping between platitudes in Imperial Gothic and the
sibilant tau tongue for what I assumed to be remarks too sensitive for the likes of us.
Not that I had the time to eavesdrop on their conversation, even if I'd had the
inclination. Vox traffic on the tactical band was getting more urgent, the situation
deteriorating rapidly.
'The governor's declared a state of martial law.' I relayed to Donali, who took the news
remarkably well, only kicking two ornamental bushes to pieces before calming down
enough to respond verbally.
'He would. Cretin.'
'I take it you don't think that will be helpful,' I commented dryly.
'It's about as helpful as putting a fire out with promethium,' he said. Even I understood
the logic of that. The riots on their own were bad enough, but putting several thousand
PDF troopers like the ones I'd encountered in the Eagle's Wing on to the streets,
itching for an excuse to bust heads, was just asking for trouble. And that was assuming
none of them were secretly xenoist sympathisers.
'So long as none of the PDF trolls take it into their heads to attack the tauÖ' I began,
then trailed off, unwilling to complete the thought. The notion of the aliens being
forced to defend themselves, unleashing the wargear Divas had enthusiastically
described to me, was truly horrifying, because if that happened it was credits to carrots
we'd be mobilised to stop them. And, aside from my natural desire to keep as far away
from the killing zone as possible, I was by no means sure that we could.
'Our enclave is surrounded by agitated citizens,' El'sorath announced after another
brief and incomprehensible conversation on his own vox. 'But overt hostilities have
not yet occurred.'
Well, thank the Emperor for small mercies, I thought, and stepped aside to talk to
Kasteen, who was still monitoring the tactical net.
'There's a mob of rioters heading this way,' she said. 'And a PDF platoon with orders
to secure the palace grounds. When they get here it'll be bloody.'
I listened to the traffic myself for a few moments, overlaying the sitreps with my still
somewhat hazy mental map of the city. If I was right, we had barely ten minutes
before the slaughter began.
'Then let's make sure we're somewhere else,' I said. 'As soon as our little blue friends
are airborne, we're leaving.'
'Commissar?' Kasteen was looking at me, a little curiously. 'Shouldn't we stay to help?'
Help a bunch of gold-plated nancy boys hold a virtually indefensible fixed position
Sandy Mitchell ´For the Emperorª
against a mob of blood-maddened lunatics? Not if I had anything to do with it. But I
needed to put it a little more tactfully than that, of course.
'I appreciate the sentiment, colonel,' I said. 'But I suspect it would be very unwise
politically,' I turned to Donali for support, unexpectedly pleased that the diplomat had
hung around. 'Unless I'm misreading the situation, of course.'
'I don't think you are,' he said, clearly reluctant to agree with me. In his position, I
wouldn't be too happy to see the only competent soldiers in the vicinity moving
rapidly away, either. 'At the moment this is still an internal Gravalaxian matter.'
'Whereas if we get involved, we run the risk of bringing the rest of the Guard in
behind us.' I finished. 'Which would be just as destabilising as a tau incursion.'
'I see.' Kasteen's face fell, and I suddenly realised that she'd been hoping for a chance
to prove herself and her regiment. I smiled at her, encouragingly.
'Cheer up, colonel,' I said. 'The Emperor has a galaxy full of enemies. I'm sure we can
find one more worthy of us than a rock-throwing rabble.'
'I'm sure you're right,' she said, though still with a faint air of disappointment.
Well, she'd just have to get over it. I switched channels again.
'Jurgen. Get over here now,' I voxed. 'We're going to have to leave in a hurry.'
'On my way, sir.' The growl of an engine preceded him, the large military truck
ploughing parallel gouges in the immaculate lawn that would take generations of
gardeners to completely erase, he swung it to a halt beside us with his usual disdain
for the conventional use of brakes and gears.
'Good man,' I waved to my malodorous aide, who popped the cab doors, but kept the
engine running. Time began to drag now. Lustig had fanned the troopers out into a
textbook defensive pattern, making good use of the available cover, and I could see
that the two fire-teams had set up in mutually supporting positions as Kasteen had
intended. They looked tight and disciplined, their minds on the job, and with no trace
of the old rancour I'd half feared would surface the first time any of our troopers found
themselves in combat together.
Of course, they still had to face that ultimate test, but this was far more than an
exercise, and they were still responding well. I began to feel reasonably confident
about getting back to our staging area in one piece with them to hide behind.
'Listen.' Kasteen tilted her head. I strained to hear over the thrum of our truck's idling
engine, but failed to hear anything else for a moment, then I could distinguish it, the
faint susurration of a nullgrav flyer approaching at speed, the humming of its ducted
fans quite different from the powerful roar of an Astartes speeder or an eldar jetbike. It
was the first time I'd ever encountered tau technosorcery at first hand, and its quiet
efficiency was subtly unnerving.
'There.' Donali pointed, his outstretched finger tracking the curved metal hull as it
swept over us and swung around to align itself on the headlights of our truck. I
breathed a quiet word of thanks to the Emperor, even though I was sure he wouldn't be
listening, and turned to El'sorath.
'Bring them in,' I said, and watched while Lustig's troopers moved quickly and
smoothly to cover the area of lawn next to us. 'It looks safe enough.'
One day, I'm going to learn not to say things like that. No sooner had the words left
my lips, and the tau diplomat raised his vox to contact the pilot, than a streak of light
rose from the streets beyond the perimeter wall.
'Holy Emperor!' Kasteen breathed, and I spat out something considerably less polite. I
snatched the smooth plastic box from an astonished El'sorath.
'Evade!' I screamed, not even sure if the pilot spoke Gothic. Within seconds it was
academic anyway. The missile impacted on the underside of the vehicle, punching
through the thin metal plating, and exploded in a vivid orange fireball. Flaming debris
began to patter down around us, but the burning wreck of the fuselage carried on
moving, trailing down to impact harmlessly on one of the wings of the palace. As it
struck, tearing through the walls, it set off a secondary explosion, probably the fuel or
the powercells. The noise was incredible, making us flinch almost as though it were a
physical thing, and I was blinking the afterimages clear of my retina for some
moments to follow.
'What happened?' Donali stared in bewilderment, as screaming figures erupted from
what was left of the palace.
'More gue'la treachery!' El'hassai screamed, glaring around as though he expected us
to turn on him any second now. To tell the truth, it was getting more and more
tempting every time he opened his mouth, but that wasn't going to get my skin out of
here intact. My best chance of doing that depended on keeping Donali and the xenos
sweet.
'I'm inclined to agree,' I said, shutting him up through sheer astonishment. 'It seems
our assassin has confederates in the PDF'
'How can you be sure?' Donali asked, clearly not wanting to believe it.
'That was a krak missile,' Kasteen explained. 'We're the only Guard unit in the city,
and we didn't fire it. Who else does that leave?'
Well, too many possibilities for my liking, but there wasn't time to go into that now. I
cut into the tactical net, using my commissarial override code.
'Krak missile fired in the vicinity of the governor's palace,' I snapped. 'Who's
responsible?'
'I'm sorry, commissar, that information isn't available.'
'Then find out, and have the brainless frakker shot!' I was suddenly aware that my
voice had risen. Kasteen, Donali, and the little group of tau were staring at me, their
faces flickering yellow in the light of the burning palace. I hesitated, more considered
courses of action beginning to suggest themselves. 'No, wait,' I corrected myself, to
the evident relief of the unseen vox operator. 'Have everyone in that squad arrested
and held for interrogation,' I bounced off Donali's questioning look.
'We don't know yet if it was someone panicking, a deliberate attack on the surviving
tau, or just sheer stupidity,' I explained. 'But if it was an attempt to finish what the
assassin started, it might lead us to the conspirators.'
'If you are able to identify the assailants,' El'sorath nodded, the human gesture
strangely unsettling.
'If it is a conspiracy they'll have covered their tracks,' Donali predicted gloomily. 'But
I suppose it's worth a try.'
'What I don't understand,' Kasteen said, frowning, 'is why they didn't wait until the
aircar took off again. Surely if they wanted to kill the other tau, downing it on the run
in was pointless.'
'No, colonel. It was exactly the point.' Sudden realisation hit me like a punch to the
gut. One thing to be said for being paranoid is that sometimes you begin to see
patterns no one else can. 'Killing the ambassador was meant to make them run. The
mobs in the streets were meant to leave them with nowhere to go. They're supposed to
have only one option now.'
'Call in their military to extract them.' She nodded, following my chain of reasoning.
Donali put the last link in place.
'Bringing them into direct conflict with Imperial forces. The one thing we can't allow
to happen if we're to have any hope of avoiding a full-scale war over this miserable
mudball.'
'Then we must die,' El'sorath said, as though he'd been suggesting a stroll through the
park. 'The greater good demands it.' His companions looked sober, but none of them
argued.
'No.' Donali did, though, he wasn't about to have any little blue martyrs offing
themselves on his watch. 'It demands that you live, to continue the negotiations in
good faith.'
'That would be preferable,' El'sorath said. I was beginning to suspect that the tau had a
sense of humour. 'But I see no way to effect so desirable an outcome.'
'Colonel. Commissar.' Donali looked at Kasteen and me a moment after a sudden
sinking feeling in my gut warned me that this was about to happen. 'You have a
vehicle, and a squad of soldiers. Will you try and get these people home?' For a
moment, I struggled with the idea of the xenos as people. I suppose Donali's
diplomatic training made him think a little differently from the rest of us1
, but I
couldn't think of an excuse to refuse, try as I might. 'Not just for the good of the
planet. For the Emperor Himself.'
Well, I'd pulled that one on enough people in my time to be aware of the irony, but it
was an appeal I couldn't turn my back on without sacrificing my hard-won reputation,
and even though I'd be the first to admit it's completely undeserved, it's proven its
worth to me far too often to be casually discarded.
Besides, however unhealthy trying to smuggle a truck full of xenos through a city in
flames was likely to be, staying here to be caught in the crossfire between rioters and
the PDF looked like being a whole lot worse. So I smiled my best heroic smile, and
nodded. 'Of course,' I said. 'You can count on us.'
Sandy Mitchell ´For the Emperorª
Editorial Note:
Once, again, as we might expect, Cain's account of this crucial night's events is
completely self-centred and lacking in any wider perspective. I've therefore taken the
liberty of inserting another extract from Logar's history of the Gravalax incident, which,
like the one quoted earlier, provides a moderately accurate summary of the overall
situation despite his manifest shortcomings as a historian in almost every other respect.
Hopefully it may prove useful in placing Cain's narrative into some kind of context.
From Purge the Guilty! An impartial account of the liberation of Gravalax, by
Stententious Logar. 085.M42
With the advantage of hindsight, we can see how the conspirators had prepared the
ground carefully for their coup d'etat, spreading rumours of the assassination so far in
advance of its execution that few, if any, thought to demand proof of these claims
when the deed was actually accomplished. Tension between the loyal subjects of His
Divine Majesty and the turncoat dupes of the alien interlopers had by now become so
pervasive that only the tiniest spark was needed to ignite an inferno of lawlessness
which threw the entire city into disarray.
The greatest bloodshed of the night was to occur around the governor's residence, as
the heroic palace guard held off a rampaging mob of turncoats with the aid of the most
loyal cadre of PDF volunteers. Despite the appalling losses they endured, which were
exacerbated by the treacherous defection of those perfidious PDF units who turned
their weapons against their erstwhile comrades, these brave souls were able to hold
out until daybreak brought relief in the shape of a loyalist armoured unit.
By the cruellest stroke of irony, it was later to transpire that one of the guests at the
governor's reception earlier that evening had been none other than Commissar Cain,
the paladin of martial virtues against whom no enemy could possibly have prevailed,
but he had left shortly before the fighting broke out. This was a tragedy indeed, since
his inspiring leadership would surely have turned the tide of battle, routing the
unrighteous in short order! But alas, it was not to be, and those gallant warriors were
left to their own, far from inconsiderable, resources.
Elsewhere, the situation proved equally grave. Widespread rioting choked the city
centre, overwhelming the Arbites units posted there, until they had no option but to
call in PDF units for support. Some responded loyally, while others, perfidious as their
fellow traitors in the Old Quarter, revealed their true colours, turning against all that
they had professed to hold dear, the insidious influence of the alien corrupting them
utterly. Small wonder, then, that ordinary citizens took to the streets in their
thousands, incensed at the sheer magnitude of this betrayal, armed only with their faith
in the Emperor and such makeshift weapons as they could lay their hands on to wreak
bloody revenge on the traitors in their midst.
The worst of the fighting took place in the Old Quarter, as we have previously noted,
Sandy Mitchell ´For the Emperorª
and, predictably, in the Heights, the most poisonous nest of pro-alien sentiment in the
city, but in truth, no street was safe.
As the unrest continued, one question was paramount. Where were the Guard? Why
did the Emperor's finest continue to sit in their barracks and staging areas while his
loyal subjects bled and died in his name?
It was, and still is, clear that some hidden cabal was directing events, hindering the
decisive action the situation manifestly called for, in pursuit of their own selfish
agenda. In the years since, many theories have been put forward as to the true
identities of those responsible, the vast majority of them laughably paranoid, but a
careful sifting of the evidence can lead to only one conclusion, the unseen hand behind
so much mayhem and treachery is unquestionably that of the rogue traders.