'Sergeant!' she yelled, raising echoes which chased their way down the tunnels. 'Where are you?'
'Quiet!' I said, the absence of the squad we'd left here beginning to register for the first time. 'Something's very wrong.'
'I can see that,' she said pettishly, the beam of her luminator sweeping round the tunnel at random, which was no help at all. At least there were no visible signs of recent combat, which I supposed was something. 'They should have been waiting for us.' The full seriousness of the situation still seemed not to have registered with her; it was a minor annoyance, on a par with being kept waiting by a tardy chauffeur, that was all.
'We need to get moving,' I said. Whatever had happened to our companions was a mystery which could wait until later. 'That squad will be down here after us at any moment.' As if to punctuate my words, something rattled down the rungs of the ladder, and I started to run down the passageway without further thought. 'Grenade!' I called back over my shoulder.
Fortunately, Mira was fast enough on the uptake when it mattered, and was hard on my heels when the frag charge exploded, peppering the stonework around where we'd been standing a moment before.
'You just left me there!' she squeaked indignantly, once the echoes had died away enough to hear her.
'I warned you,' I snapped back. 'What more do you want? ''Ladies first'' doesn't count on the battlefield.' And a good thing too, if you ask me, otherwise we'd both have been shredded.
Mira stared at me, her mouth working, but stunned into silence for the first time since I'd met her. While my momentary advantage still lasted, I grabbed the barrel of the lasgun[19], and doused the luminator.
'And keep that frakking thing turned off,' I added, 'if you want to get out of here alive.'
I braced myself for the argument I was certain would follow, but our adventures so far seemed to have convinced Mira that playing soldiers was a lot more dangerous than she'd bargained for, and she contented herself with muttering something that sounded like ''peasant''. All in all, I've been called a lot worse in my time, and could certainly live with that.
'Come on,' I said, taking her arm and leading her down a side passage which I could sense nearby from the altered pattern of echoes around it. I suppose it was possible that our pursuers might have given up after chucking their frag grenade down the manhole, but if I was as determined to see someone dead as they seemed to be, I certainly wouldn't be taking anything for granted at that point.
'Where to?' Mira asked, keeping her voice down at least.
'Wherever this leads,' I replied, resisting the temptation to shrug, which she couldn't have seen anyway. There was a faint current of air, which meant that it must come out in the open eventually, or at least connect to somewhere that did. Then I caught the unmistakable sound of running feet in the passageway we'd just left behind us, and tightened my grip on her bicep. 'Freeze.'
At least she had the gumption to comply with that, and we remained immobile as the slapping bootsoles got louder, accompanied by a rising glow, which seeped into our refuge - though not, fortunately, far enough to reach our position. If any of the troopers chasing us had bothered to direct a beam along the side passage they would have nailed us for sure, but luckily they seemed convinced we'd stuck to the main tunnel, and could be caught up with if they just ran fast enough. As the glow and the hurrying footsteps faded away, Mira let out a sigh of relief and sagged against me.
'Who were those people?' she asked.
'I've no idea,' I told her, happy to let her remain there for a minute or two, while I got my bearings and my breath back. Sure we'd eluded our pursuers for the moment, I pulled the slate out of my pocket and checked Orten's map, being sure to keep my back between the passageway behind us and the faint glow of the pict screen. Mira's face shimmered out of the darkness, as she leaned forwards to look at it.
A few seconds' scrutiny was enough to identify the side passage we'd taken refuge in, and my spirits began to lift, at least a little. We hadn't come far, and if we could follow the draught I still felt against my face to the surface, we would come out close enough to the Astartes to link up with them.
'We have to go back,' Mira said, a worried frown just visible on her face as she studied the pictscreen. 'This passage is heading completely the wrong way.'
'It's the right way, if it's taking us away from those troopers,' I told her shortly. 'They'll realise we've given them the slip at any moment, then they'll double back.' This clearly hadn't occurred to her.
'But what about our own people?' she asked. 'Shouldn't we try to find them?'
I shook my head, forgetting the gesture couldn't be seen in the darkness. 'There's no point,' I told her bluntly. 'Something must have happened to them, or they'd still be waiting when we got back. Best case, they spotted some rebels trying to escape along the tunnels and are still trying to chase them down.'
'And worst case, the mutineers found them first,' Mira concluded.
'Right,' I said, not wanting to think too much about that. There was too big a contradiction here, between the disciplined, coordinated troopers who were pursuing us, and the disorganised rabble who'd fortuitously got in their way just when they had us cold.
'Then let's get on with it,' she agreed. 'Can we use the luminator again?'
After a moment, I agreed, reluctantly. We'd make precious little progress without it, the governor's daughter lacking my feel for the labyrinth we'd found ourselves in, and I didn't want to still be here when the squad we'd eluded came back to check the side tunnels. 'For the moment,' I said. 'But keep listening out. The moment we hear movement behind us, I want you to douse it. Clear?'
'Pellucid,' she said, and clicked it on again. The beam revealed the same age-worn brickwork that I'd seen in the main sewer, its surface moist and slick with lichen, although the branch passage we'd entered seemed to be a storm drain rather than a cloaca, to Mira's evident relief. The trickle of water under our boots was clear, and noticeably less odiferous than the stream we'd so recently left. 'What's that?'
'Nothing good,' I said, stopping to examine the patch of lichen she'd spotlighted. It had been scraped by something, which had left parallel grooves of visible brickwork. I spread my fingers, barely able to span them. 'Are there any stories of mutants living down in the tunnels here?'
'Of course.' Mira began to laugh, before realising I wasn't joking. 'There are always stories about the undercity. I doubt there's anywhere in the Imperium which doesn't have its folk tales.'
Well, she was right about that, which didn't mean there wasn't a germ of truth in at least some of them. There was no point worrying about it though: the soldiers behind us were real enough, and anything else we might run into was only a potential threat. I gestured ahead of us, into the darkness. 'After you,' I said.
'I thought you said ''ladies first'' didn't count on the battlefield,' Mira said, moving off, with a grin in my direction.
'It does when you're carrying the light,' I told her, making sure I hung back enough to take advantage of my black coat in the darkness. A faint alteration in the pattern of echoes tickled the edge of my awareness, and I urged her on, picking up my own pace as I did so. 'Better get moving. They're coming back.'
Mira needed no further encouragement and broke into a trot, her lasgun held ready for use. I followed, my own weapons readied, hoping I wouldn't need them, but rather suspecting I would before too much longer.