‘Got it,’ said Larkin, locking up his scope.
Domor lowered his broom and murmured a silent prayer. Zered hooked his flamer head to his waist belt and, to Gaunt’s amusement, put his hands over his ears.
‘None of you were actually planning on living forever, were you?’ Larkin asked.
He took the shot.
There was a dull, distant boom. It was muffled, but big. It resounded through the thick, deep hull of the Armaduke.
In preparation seventeen, a dingy cargo hold space, Blenner heard it and looked up. Some of the Ghosts around him had also noticed the noise.
‘What the hell was that?’ asked Wilder.
Blenner looked at Ree Parday. She’d been looking pale ever since they’d kitted up earlier in the day.
‘Go ask, would you?’ he asked.
Perday jumped off the wheel arch of the Tauros where she’d been sitting and ran towards the main hatch.
Blenner looked around the chamber. Three companies of the regiment, including the marching band, had been placed as combat reserve under the command of Captain Obel, with Captain Wilder as his second. In full combat gear, they were standing to in the hold space ready to deploy as required. They had eighteen Tauros assault vehicles ready and laden with spare munitions, with further re-stocks prepared on cargo pallets. If the word came, they could deliver munitions by truck down the Armaduke’s main spinal to either of the lateral holds, and even cross into the Reach via the bore holes to support Strikes Beta or Gamma. Alternatively, they could transport the munitions to the main excursion to reload the Arvus lighters and other drop ships if Alpha needed reinforcement or replenishment.
The reserve unit was edgy, mainly because they were the only part of the regiment not directly deployed. Obel was sour – he’d drawn the duty by lot, and he wasn’t happy about it because he’d been hoping to lead J Company in with the Alpha run.
No one, especially Blenner, was surprised that the band had been grouped into the reserve section. If anything, Wilder was more pissed off than Obel. J Company had pulled an unlucky duty. Wilder’s mob hadn’t even been entered into the lottery. They’d been put in reserve, the assumption being they were only worth deploying in the fight if it was really necessary.
Blenner didn’t care. Waiting to fight was his kind of war, and he had no wish to see the band company trying to prove itself, even though it really wanted to. The results were likely to be messy and ultimately disappointing.
Blenner also wasn’t surprised to see that Gaunt’s boy, Chass, had been placed in reserve. That must have been a damn hard call for Gaunt. He wouldn’t have wanted to be seen to be showing any kind of favour, but how could he throw his son into the line when he was seriously undertrained? That was the card that Gaunt had played in the end, to justify his decision. Felyx was not yet certified at basic. His place had to be in reserve.
Sitting alone at the far end of the hall on the tow-bar of a Tauros, Felyx Chass looked even more unhappy about the arrangements than Wilder. Maddalena lurked nearby.
Perday returned.
‘Something explode?’ asked Blenner brightly.
‘It was the main airgates opening on the excursion deck,’ Perday said. ‘The first of the lighters are returning for restock. They want us to start shipping munitions down for loading.’
Blenner got up.
‘We’ve got a job to do at last,’ he called out. ‘Let’s look lively!’
Larkin’s shot was perfect. The frangible saline round punched clean through the firing mechanism, shattering as it did so and drenching the trigger circuit with a desensitising flood of salt water. It was anticlimactic: a little puff and a spatter of water.
Mkoll and Domor edged forwards across the decking. The rigged plates shifted and there was a click, but the pressure trigger was no longer connected. They approached the stacked drums, Domor sweeping for secondary triggers.
Once he reached the drums, Domor put down his broom, pulled on a pair of leather gloves, and dismantled the shattered trigger mechanism, gingerly sliding the core up out of the socket in the drum top. He tied off all the bare wires, taped them to prevent conduction, sprayed the interior of the socket with inert gel and insulated the internal plugs with petroleum jelly.
‘Safe as it’s going to be,’ he said.
Gaunt nodded. Mkoll marked the drums and the surrounding floor plates with red chalk to indicate a bomb made safe but still dangerous. They moved forwards. All of them had stripped off their clumsy rebreathers, preferring the mineral stink of the Reach’s dry atmosphere.
The service-way broadened. Domor’s scans detected a cavity ahead of them. Gaunt could feel cold air moving against his face.
The service-way ended in a hatch, followed by a brief section of some other corridor that had been brutally severed in some ancient time. Beyond that, the ground dropped away in a deep ravine, a metal chasm lined with compressed junk. A ragged metal bridge with partial handrails crossed the gap.
On the far side, there was a landing space, and then several spurs of corridors or tunnels.
‘Wait,’ said Domor. His auspex clucked every time he swept the bridge.
Mkoll got down and peered.
‘Big charge,’ he reported. ‘Halfway across the span, wired underneath.’
‘You see the trigger?’ asked Larkin.
Mkoll had his scope out. ‘Yes, but it’s a really bad angle. It’s facing away from us. I think it’s hooked to the bridge walkway. Motion detector.’
‘Let me look,’ said Larkin. He’d already reloaded. He got down on his belly at the lip of the chasm, and rolled on his side to squint along the underside of the bridge. He had to take his longlas off and hand the cased weapon to Zered because it was getting in the way.
‘Nice,’ he said. ‘Lucky I’m so good.’
He started to ready his rifle. He was sprawled in a position that looked both uncomfortable and less than ideal for marksmanship.
‘Let me tag it for you,’ said Mkoll.
‘Don’t bother,’ said Larkin. ‘Just hold onto my legs and stop me rolling, or I’ll fall right off this fething ledge.’
Mkoll knelt down and physically braced Larkin’s body. The marksman had to lie almost flat with his rifle under his chin and a foreshortened grip supporting the barrel. It was the posture of a stage contortionist. Gaunt felt his pulse rate rise again.
The rifle cracked, the sound of the shot echoing oddly down the gulf below them, a small sound in a vast space. Gaunt saw the impact, the spray of glass-like shards from the round casing, the mist of saline droplets.
‘Blew it clean out,’ said Larkin, getting up and ejecting the brass. He was collecting his cases, putting them in his pocket.
Sweeping as he went, Domor edged out across the bridge, checking for secondaries. From the look on his face, the metal structure felt none too secure. Cold air kept breathing up from below in gusts, as if the vast and crushed structure of the Reach were respiring. Each gust of cold air turned their breath to steam.
Domor lay down on his front, reached under the bridge, and disengaged the dangling firing pin. It was wet from the shot. As he brought it up, it slid from his fingers and fell away into the depths.
Everyone realised they were holding their breath.
‘It’s fine,’ said Domor sheepishly. ‘We didn’t need it.’
Reaching down again, he squirted gel into the pin holder and the wiring junctions. Mkoll marked the bridge with red chalk.
They crossed the bridge. It looked precarious, though Gaunt guessed it would probably take a light vehicle. Ahead of them, past some clutter and scrap metal, lay the three spurs. One was another service-way, the second led through into a dank vault that seismic action had split into three different levels. The third turned right and joined a rusted gantry that crossed a sunken chamber full of rotting and long-dead machines.