This looked to be as close as we were going to get so we piled out of the groundcar and made ourselves ready. At the edge of the huge airstrip we could see a number of small flying vehicles. It was then that Anton mentioned something that I was sure was on all of our minds. ‘Can anybody here fly one of those things?’ Anton said. ‘Or is this the time that I begin my improvised pilot training?’
‘Both the inquisitor and I can do so,’ said Macharius.
‘I can too, sir,’ said Anna.
That ended all argument. It was now simply a case of moving downslope, passing the perimeter defences of the airfield and getting aboard one of those flyers. Easy, I told myself sarcastically.
‘We going through the wire,’ Macharius said. He brandished the chainsword that he had carried all the way from the cathedral just so that there was no doubt about how he intended to do that. ‘There are guard towers down there and there will be divination engines set to spot intruders.’
‘I can take the towers and override the systems, sir,’ said Anna. She seemed completely confident in her ability to be able to overcome whoever was guarding those engines, justifiably so, I suppose.
‘It would take too much time,’ said Macharius. ‘We need to go now,’
‘As you wish, sir.’
‘Can you shield us, high inquisitor?’ Macharius asked.
Inquisitor Drake nodded. Obviously, they trained inquisitors in more things than theology wherever he had studied. He said, ‘Stay very close to me, all of you. If you get beyond a few arms’ length, you will be out of the range of my protection.’
We stayed close to the inquisitor like we knew what he was talking about. None of us liked relying on psyker powers for our protection even if those powers were wielded by an inquisitor.
We began to move down the side of the hive, cautiously, looking for divination engines and minefields and all of the other things that you might expect to encounter around a military airfield in time of war.
If there were minefields, no one had marked them and I found myself becoming more and more tense with every step I took. Macharius led us to a spot between the guard towers. His keen gaze scanned backwards and forwards and I knew that he was looking for sentries patrolling the open space between those towers. I could not see any, but that did not mean they were not there. Perhaps they were standing, smoking, behind one of the pillars that supported the wire. Perhaps they had already spotted us and were lying in wait, weapons ready to open fire as soon as we got within range. It’s astonishing the things that your mind comes up with in situations like this.
We reached the edge of the wire and took up positions to cover Macharius in case anyone closed with us while he was cutting. He slashed through the wire with one sweep of the chainsword and then paused for a moment, listening.
If any alarm had been given it was not audible to us, but that did not mean anything. Somewhere, in some distant control bunker perhaps, a red light was flashing and alarms had started to sound.
Macharius gestured for Anton to go through. Anton did so and then the rest of us followed until only Macharius and I were left on the far side of the wire. I gestured for him to go ahead like some polite gentleman at the door of his club in the upper reaches of the hive. Macharius grinned and went through and I took a last look around to make sure that no one was creeping up on us from this side of the fence and then I followed him myself.
We began to move across the plascrete plain, moving closer to the flyers that Macharius had already picked out. They were small local transport models of a variant I was not familiar with. They were armoured though and they had turrets, which might well prove useful, providing no one was already in them and ready to shoot us down. It all seemed to be going too well. I thought for a moment that the luck of Macharius or the Blessing of the Emperor shielded us still. It was Ivan, as usual, who had to spoil things by pointing out that this was not in fact the case.
‘Watch out,’ he said, indicating off towards the control bunkers of the airstrip with the barrel of his lasgun. I immediately saw what he meant. From out of the central bunker, a number of wheeled vehicles had emerged and were moving in our direction as fast as they could be driven. Either the alarm had been given or someone had spotted us and mustered the guards. It looked like we were going to have a fight on our hands and it was not a fight that we could win.
‘Run,’ said Macharius, moving towards the nearest of the flyers.
I don’t think I have ever covered ground as quickly as I did then and I suspect that the same was the case for the others. Ground crew surrounded the flyer. They had been running checks on the systems and preparing the vehicle for flight. One of them looked at us and shouted something. Anton did not wait to see what would happen next. He pulled the trigger on his lasgun and burned the man down.
I heard the roar of machine engines close behind us and turning I saw the enemy vehicles were almost upon us. I aimed my shotgun at one of the buggies. The huge balloon tyre exploded and the vehicle skidded into another buggy with a crash of metal on metal.
Men screamed as they were crushed between the two. The others opened fire on us. We kept moving towards the flyer, shooting at the ground crew, even though they were not armed. None of us wanted one of them to get inside and disable the vehicle or even attempt a take-off before we got there. Sirens were sounding in the distance now and I could see the lights of more buggies coming closer.
We were within the shadow of the flyer when the rest of buggies rolled to a stop and disgorged their cargo of armed men. I counted at least twenty of them, all of them in the uniforms of the local defence forces. One of them was a priest of the Angel of Fire. I suspected that they were in every important, strategic location, overseeing the local warriors in exactly the same way as our commissars oversaw us. At the sight of that red-robed heretic, my heart sank.
The alarm had very definitely been given and if we did not manage to get away in this flyer, it was obvious that we were never going to manage to get away at all.
Macharius had already leapt on board along with the inquisitor, and the others were following them up the loading ramp. Only the Understudy and myself were on the ground now. I pumped the shotgun and aimed at the priest and pulled the trigger. He saw what I was going to do and raised his arms in a gesture that I am sure had some cryptic, mystical significance. He never got to complete it before something took his head off. I looked around and saw Anna standing there with that huge gun in her hand.
Whatever protected those heretic psykers from las-bolts clearly had no effect whatsoever against those high-calibre, sanctified slugs.
The guards kept coming closer. I kept shooting and backing away up the ramp on the back of the flyer. Metal flexed under my feet even as las-fire melted the metal of the walkway. The smell reminded me of the factorum workshops of my youth with their casting forges and sacrosanct welding engines.
The flyer began to move, taking off even with the loading bay open. I tumbled forwards and I felt the shotgun slip out of my grasp. I clutched it tight and then a claw-like hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me backwards with such a jerk that I almost fell over. The Understudy had caught me and was dragging me inside.
As ever, he ignored the shots of our enemies as if he simply could not see them. This time one of them hit him and I smelled burning cloth and burning flesh. He grunted but he did not scream and he kept pulling and I kept scrambling and then the loading bay ramp began to fold itself into flight position and the movement of its hydraulic systems tumbled us into the body of the aircraft.