'Anybody still got a flamer?' I shout out, casting my gaze over the few dozen of us left, keen to grab the offensive while we still have the chance. 'Repentance' Clain, murderer of seventeen
women, steps forward, the ignition flame on his weapon burning with a piercing blue light in the gloom of the god-plant's bowels.
'Burn a way out!' I snarl viciously, pointing vaguely in the direction where we came in. Repentance gives a grim smile and jogs up to the receding walls. With a torrent of flame that hurts my eyes to look at he opens up, the flammable liquid splashing across the leaves and branches, turning them into an instant inferno. He blasts gout after gout of fire into the retreating vegetation, the whoosh of the flamer accompanied by the crack of burning branches and the staccato popping of exploding seed pods. The leafy wall draws back even more rapidly, trying to get away from the deadly flames. The rest of us join him, firing our own weapons around the flames, forcing the god-plant to open up even further. After we've blasted our way a good hundred metres clear of the chamber, there's still no sign of the men who were cut off, presumably they're already dead.
A few tendrils half-heartedly snake towards us from the ceiling, but the Colonel easily hacks them apart with his power sword. Slowly but steadily we push forwards, the god-plant relenting before our ferocious attack, closing behind us but too far away to be dangerous. I don't know how I can tell, but the god-plant seems to be getting more and more desperate, something in the uncoordinated way it flings biting leaves at us, something about the gradually yellowing, sickly colour of its foliage. We press on, letting the flamers do the work.
The air is filled with the stench and smoke of burning plant, choking me and stinging my eyes as I stumble after the flamer teams. Franx is coughing up so hard now that Poal and one of his men have to carry him again. The green light, tinged with sudden bursts of red and yellow from the flamers, is making me feel sick as well. For what seems like half a lifetime, we push our way forwards through the depths of the god-plant, fending off its ever weakening attacks. I feel the ground rising and I realise we are starting up the ridge. I'm surprised by how far this thing extends, how long we were wandering around inside it, oblivious to the peril as it let us get closer and closer to its centre, where I suppose it thought we would never escape.
It's with a shock that we burst through onto the open rock of the ridge. Glancing behind me, I see the others come
stumbling out, some turning around to open up with a fusillade of lasfire to drive back the god-plant's alien limbs as they creep towards us. Gasping and cursing, we haul ourselves up the rocky slope. There's no other vegetation around, obviously devoured by the god-plant to make room for itself.
After a few minutes we're far enough away, half way up the ridge, the going a lot easier witiiout the twisting confines of the god-plant's outer reaches to ensnare and misdirect us. I turn and look back and I can see the god-plant contracting. Its outer edges are a sickly yellow colour by now, looking like grass in a drought. It leaves bare, grey dirt in the wake of its retreat, drained of all nutrition.
'Sergeant Poal/ I hear the Colonel saying behind me as I continue to stare at the plant monstrosity, 'get your comms-operator to call down the shutties, and order a bombardment of that... thing.'
It's the first time I've ever heard the Colonel almost lost for words. Dragging my gaze away from die strange beast, I push myself a few more steps up the ridge to stand next to the Colonel. Hopkins is diere, blood pouring down from a cut above his right eye.
'Well, that was something,' the lieutenant pants, gazing in amazement at die god-plant.
'What die hell was it?' Franx asks, flopping down exhaustedly on a patch of mud in front of me. Omers are collapsing around us, staring vacandy at the sky. Some fall to their knees, hands clasped in front of them as they offer up thanks to the Emperor. The Colonel steps forward, gazing intentiy towards die god-plant.
4Vhatever it was/ he says widi a hint of satisfaction, 'it is going to be dead soon. I am tempted to request diis whole world be virus bombed, just to make sure/
^Vhat did you do, sir?' Hopkins asks, dabbing a cuff gingerly to the cut on his forehead.
'Frag grenades/ the Colonel replies, breaking his gaze from the view to look at the lieutenant. 'I have heard tales of such symbiotic creatures, diough I have never heard of them taking plant form. They lie dormant for centuries, perhaps even millennia, until tiiey can ensnare an alien mind. They form a link witii their victim, somehow using their intelligence. Captain Nepetine seemed the conduit for that connection, so I blew
him apart with fragmentation grenades. I think we were right at its centre, the damage we did was considerable/
He looks over all of us, before fastening his gaze on me.
"Those we left behind were weak/ he says sternly. 'To give in to alien domination is one of the greatest acts of treachery against the Emperor. Remember that well/
I remember how close I came to succumbing and say nothing-
It's with a good feeling in die pit of my stomach that I look out of the shutde window as we roar up into the sky of False Hope. Out of the window I can see a raging fire, setting light across hundreds of square kilometres of jungle. Another bright flash descends from orbit into die ground with an explosion as our transport ship, the Pride of Lothus, fires another shot from its plasma driver into the god-plant.
'Burn, you alien piece of crap/ I whisper, rubbing the fresh scabs on my neck. 'Burn!'
THREE
BAD LANDINGS
The feeling in the cell is even tenser than normal. Everybody's shaken up by what happened on False Hope, the memory of our fellow Last Chancers being eaten by the god-plant fresh in our memories. To make matters even worse, there's been no sign of the Colonel for the past three weeks. Talking to the ratings, it seems he disappeared on a rapid transport two days after we left False Hope orbit, taking Hopkins with him.
Not wanting to think about the future, determined to leave the past behind, I try to lose myself in the day-to-day drudgery. I've had to reorganise the men again: there are only forty-seven of us left. I've made an ad-hoc command squad out of Franx, Kronin, Gappo, Linskrag, Becksbauer and Fredricks. The odier men are organised into four squads, with Poal, Donalson, Jorett and Slavini as the sergeants. Everyone's getting really shaky now; I need the calmest heads in charge if I'm ever going to survive this whole mess. With less than fifty of us left, we're a below-strength platoon, not even a full company of men. There's an unspoken feeling floating around the unit, a feeling that the end is getting very close. Roughly three thousand nine hundred and fifty Last Chancers have died in the past two and a half years, I can't see forty-seven of us surviving the next bat-de. Not if the Colonel comes back.
The thought of the Colonel's not returning doesn't leave me too optimistic either, I can't help feeling he's dumped us. There are too few of us to do anything useful that I can think of. I mean, given time the Departmento Munitorum can muster regiments numbering thousands of men, so what can four dozen Last Chancers do? In my gossiping with the ratings I've also learnt that we're heading to a system called Hypernol for re-supply. On the face of it, diere seems nothing particularly odd about that. On the other hand, I can remember some of the
men, dead now, who had been drafted in from a penal colony in die Hypernol system. The Colonel leaving and us being shipped to a penal colony - coincidence? I don't mink so. He's left us to rot, I'm sure of it.
I'm not the only one to add two and two. As usual, Franx and Gappo are sitting with me during the sludge-eating gala they call meal time, a few cycles after dropping back into warpspace, some three weeks after leaving False Hope.