'At ease/ he tells me as he stands up and begins to pace up and down behind his high-backed chair for a few moments, hands clasped behind his back. It's then that I realise this was the pose Poal was imitating earlier and I fight hard to hold back a smirk. He stops walking and looks at me sharply and I gulp, thinking for a second that he can read my mind.
Tyranids, Kage/ he says obtusely, pacing back and forth again, turning his gaze downwards once more.
"What... what about them, sir?' I ask after a moment, realising he was waiting for me to say something.
'Some of them may be in this system/ he tells me, still not looking at me, but from his posture I can tell that somehow every sense he has is still directed towards me.
'So there's probably nothing left for us to do/ I say boldly, hoping that perhaps we'd arrived too late, that for once we'd missed the batde.
That may be the case, Kage/ he says slowly, stopping now to look directly at me. We are here to ascertain why communication with our outpost on the third world has been lost. We suspect that a small scouting fleet from Kraken was heading this way/
As he turns to his desk to pick up a transparent copy of a terminal readout, I wonder who 'we' was meant to include. As far as I know, we're a bit of a rogue element really, bouncing about across this part of the galaxy and dropping in on any wars we happen to come across. I've not heard anything about who the Colonel's superiors might be, if he has any at all.
'Do you remember the first battle of these Last Chancers?' he asks suddenly, sitting down again, more relaxed than he was a moment before.
'Of course, sir/ I reply immediately, wondering what he meant by 'these Last Chancers'. 'I could never forget Ichar IV. I wish I could, and I've tried, but I'll never forget it/
He replies with a non-committal grunt and proffers me the transparency. It's covered in lines and circles, and I recognise it as some kind of star chart. There are tiny runes inscribed against crosses drawn in a line that arcs from one end to the other, but it might as well be written in Harangarian for all that I can understand it. I give the Colonel a blank look and he realises I haven't got a clue what I'm holding.
'It seems that defending Ichar IV was not necessarily the best plan in the world/ he says heavily, tugging the readout from my fingers and placing it in a vellum-covered envelope in the centre of his desk.
'Saving a hundred and ninety billion people was a bad plan, sir?' I ask, amazed at what the Colonel is implying.
'If by doing so we cause five hundred billion people to die, then yes/ he says giving me a stern look, a warning not to continue my train of thought.
'Five hundred billion, sir?' I ask, totally confused and unsure what the Colonel is talking about.
'When we broke the tyranid fleet attacking Ichar IV, much of it was not destroyed/ he tells me, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the polished marble of the desk, his black-gloved hands clasped in front of him. 'That part of Hive Fleet Kraken was simply shattered. Much of it we managed to locate and destroy while the tyranids were still reeling from their defeat. However, we believe a sizeable proportion of the survivors that attacked Ichar IV coalesced into a new fleet, heading in a different direction. It is impossible to say exactly where they are heading, but reports from monitoring stations and patrol vessels indicate that its course might lead straight into the heart of the sector we are now in - the Typhon sector. If we had let them have Ichar IV, we might have mustered more of a defence and destroyed the tyranids utterly rather than scattering them to hell and back where we cannot find them and it is impossible to track them down until too late/
'So instead of losing a planet, we could lose the whole of Typhon sector?' I ask, finally catching on to what the Colonel is implying. That's where five hundred billion people might die?'
'Now do you see why it is important that we know exactly where this hive fleet is heading?' he asks, an earnest look on his bony face.
'I certainly do, sir/ I reply, my head reeling with the thought of what could happen. It's so many people you can't picture it. It's far more than a hive, more than an entire hive world. Five hundred billion people, all of them devoured by hideous, unfeeling aliens if the tyranids couldn't be stopped.
The dream's slightly different this time: we're defending one of our own factories, against shapeless green men I've never seen before. They hiss and cackle at me as they charge, their vaguely humanoid bodies shifting and changing, covered with what look like scales.
A sound close by pulls me from my sleep and I glimpse a shadow over me. Before I can do anything something heavy falls on my face and pushes down over my mouth and nose, stifling me. I lash out, but my fist connects with thin air and something hard rams into my gut, expelling what little air is in my lungs. I flail around helplessly for another second; I can hear the other man panting hard, feel the warmth of his body on top of me. The cloth on my face smells rank with old sweat, making me want to gag even more.
Suddenly the weight lifts off me and I hear a shrill titter and gasp. I throw off the thing on my face, noting it's a shirt, and I glance up to see Rollis. Behind him is Kronin, a sock wrapped around the traitor's throat, a knot in it to press hard against his windpipe. The ex-lieutenant giggles again.
'And vengeance shall be the Emperor's, said Saint Taphistis/ Kronin laughs, wrenching harder on the improvised garrotte and pulling Rollis backwards onto the decking. Kronin leans over Rollis's shoulder, twisting the sock tighter, and bites his ear, blood dribbling onto his chin and down Rollis's neck as he looks up and grins at me. Rollis's face is going blue now, his eyes bulging under his heavy-set brow. I clamber to my feet, unsteady, my head still light from being choked.
'Let him go, Kronin/ I say, taking a shaky step towards them. Killing Rollis like this will just get Kronin executed, and me as
well probably. The Colonel's ordered it before; he won't hesitate to do it again.
'And the Emperor's thanks for those who had been bountiful in their gifts would be eternal/ he replies, a plaintive look on his narrow face, licking the blood from his lips.
'Do it/ I say quietly. With another pleading look, Kronin lets go and Rollis slumps to the deck, panting and clutching his throat. I put a foot against his chest and roll him over, pinning his unresisting body to the floor. I lean forward, crossing my arms and resting them on my knee, putting more weight onto his laboured chest.
You haven't suffered for your crimes enough yet, it's too soon for you to die/ I hiss at him. 'And when you do, I'm going to be the one that does it/
This is not a good idea/ Linskrug says, before he gives a deep sigh and takes a swig from his canteen. We're taking a quick rest break from the march, sitting in the jungle mud. All around birds are chattering, whisding and screeching in the trees. Flies the size of your thumb buzz past, and I bat one away that set-des on my arm. Who can tell what I might catch if it bit me. Other insects flit around on brighdy patterned wings, and a beetle bigger than my foot scuttles into the light on the far side of the track, three metres away. The air is sultry, soaking us in humidity and our own sweat, which pours from every part of my body even though I'm resting.
'What's not a good idea?' I ask with a sour look. 'Marching through this green hellhole, getting slowly eaten by flies, drowning in our own sweat and choking on sulphur fumes? I can't see why that's not a good idea/
'No, none of that/ he says, waving a dismissive hand. 'I'm talking about following this trail/
'Finding this trail is the only good thing that's happened since we made planetfall on this Emperor-forsaken jungle world/ I tell him bitterly, pulling my right boot off and massaging my blistered foot. 'It certainly beats hacking our way through the undergrowth. I mean, we've lost eight men already, in just fifteen hours! Drowned in swamps, fallen down hidden crevasses, poisoned by spinettiorns, infected by bleed-eye and the black vomit, bitten by snakes and birds. Droken's lost his leg to some damned swamprat-ming, and