Cadia Stands Read online

  Once he’d got over his envy, he’d studied Creed and his tactics, and when they’d been in the same warzone, Bendikt had followed Creed’s career through memos and regimental dispatches.

  ‘How do you feel? I mean, you’ve been predicting this recall for nearly two years now,’ Bendikt said.

  Creed seemed impressed, but there was no joy for him in being right. ‘I have. You’re right. It would have been better if the recall had started two years earlier.’

  ‘And you were demoted for your troubles.’

  ‘Only pending investigation. Ryse – should I say, Warmaster Ryse – stuck by me.’

  ‘Is that because you saved the day on Relion V?’

  Creed laughed. His breath smelled faintly of amasec. Creed was also famous for his prodigious appetite for the bottle. ‘That’s probably half the reason. The other half is that Ryse is no fool.’

  There was a moment’s pause as Creed took in Bendikt’s uniform and regimental badge. ‘You must be Major Isaia Bendikt of the Cadian One Hundred and First. Twice awarded the Valorous Unit Citation. You have one of the most highly decorated tank regiments in the whole of Cadia. Between you, your crew has won six Steel Crosses, four Steel Aquila and the Order of the Eagle’s Claw.’

  Bendikt’s cheeks coloured and he didn’t know what to say. ‘Well, yes, sir. My regiment prides itself on its service to the Golden Throne.’

  The smell of amasec grew stronger as Creed leaned in and spoke to Bendikt in a low, confidential voice. ‘Did you ever think you would make it back to Cadia alive?’

  Bendikt knew the statistics as well as any other: half of all able-bodied Cadians left the planet to fight across the Imperium of Man but fewer than one in a thousand of those ever returned. He barely needed to think. ‘Never. You?’

  Creed pursed his lips as his knuckles whitened again. Night was falling on Cadia and the Eye of Terror was starting to glow. There was a long pause. Creed smiled. ‘Oh, I’ve always known that I would come back.’

  Bendikt did not know how to answer that. He looked down at their home world – grey and blue in the half-light of her sun.

  ‘And you really think Cadia is in danger?’

  ‘The utmost danger.’ Creed’s nostrils flared. ‘The whole sector has been under attack for years. Plague. Treachery. Heresy. We see all these proud defences, but Cadia is like a kasr whose walls have already been undermined.’

  Bendikt was lost for words again. They both looked up to the viewing dome above their heads. In the darkness of space they could see the turret lights of orbital defences, floating gun-rigs and the bright engine flares of patrolling frigates and stub-nosed defence monitors.

  ‘You really think so?’

  ‘I know so.’ Creed smiled humourlessly, and his eyes flickered briefly across the room to where a rather embarrassed-looking Ryse was trying to explain a joke to the Mordian commander. ‘Our enemies have planned for this for a thousand years. Maybe more. And we have grown complacent. Look. Ryse is more interested in little pleasantries with those dreadful Mordians than planning for the war. Cadian High Command is full of men like him. They have no idea how present the threat is. Even the High Lords of Terra suspect little, I guess. The Cadian Gate is in utmost danger and it is up to us – honest men like you and me – to ensure that she does not fall. Cadia cannot fall. She will not fall.’

  There was a long pause.

  Bendikt felt flattered by the word ‘us’, but he was shaken by the ominous warnings. ‘What can we do?’

  ‘We shall fight like bastards,’ Creed said. ‘And we have to be more devious than our foes.’

  Bendikt smiled. ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘Life in the Guard has taught me three things,’ Creed said. ‘Endurance, grit and the understanding that with faith and courage and good leadership, anything is possible.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  Creed gave him a long look and leaned in once more. ‘When I was young my drill sergeant had a favourite saying.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Hope,’ Creed said, ‘is the first step on the road to disappointment.’

  Two

  Fidelitas Vector

  Satellite Embarkation Hangars

  Tyrok Fields

  No one could remember the last time this had happened.

  All year, the huge, draughty, impersonal chambers of the processing satellites filled with tithes of Cadian Whiteshields who would be loaded onto the cavernous decks of troop transports and delivered straight into the hungry wars of the Imperium of Man.

  On Cadia, the rhythm of birth, training, conscription, graduation, embarkation and departure was as deeply felt and adhered to as the movement of the seasons from summer to winter, the rising of the sun, the fall of night.

  Now, that natural sequence of life had gone into reverse. Troop transports were arriving fully laden, not empty. Years of tithes were returning within months. Veteran troops numbering in their millions. It was overloading even the efficient Cadian administrators. Long queues of troop transports hung in patient orbit and even Warmaster Ryse’s personal transport, the Fidelitas Vector, had to wait for five days before she got her berth.

  ‘The loading officer sends his apologies,’ Warmaster Ryse’s adjutant stated as the Warmaster took in his brief breakfast of recaff, fried slab and a pair of freshly poached eggs. He picked up his silver knife and fork and began to eat. The brooding threat had made him hungry.

  The Warmaster ate his way through the five-day delay. Bendikt accepted any invitations he was given to Ryse’s banquets. He’d spent long enough eating ration-grade food and could not pass up the fine table that the Warmaster kept.

  Bendikt hoped to run into Ursarkar E. Creed once more, but he did not appear, and each time Bendikt made his way back to the troop decks after dinner with an air of disappointment.

  On the last night, Bendikt was sitting at a table making conversation with a pair of veteran warriors. The first, to his right, called Lynch, claimed to have led the campaign to wipe out the xenos race called brynarr. ‘They were not fighters,’ he said as the servitor refilled his glass with dark red wine. He took a sip and put the cut-crystal glass back down. ‘They were rather sentimental towards their pupae. It made them particularly easy to trap and kill. The survival instinct was not natural to them.’

  Bendikt nodded politely, as his eyes scanned the room for Creed’s distinctive shape.

  ‘Your name is Bendikt?’ the man to his left said, reading Bendikt’s place setting. ‘Are you one of the Kasr Tyrok Bendikts?’

  It was a question aristocratic Cadians asked him. ‘No,’ Bendikt said. ‘I was born in the sub-hab of Kasr Halig.’

  ‘The sub-hab?’ the man said in surprise.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And now you’re a major?’

  Bendikt did not think he needed to answer that question. His epaulettes spoke for themselves. The general, whose place setting said he was named Grüber, took a sip of wine. ‘How old are you, major?’

  ‘Forty. Terran standard,’ Bendikt said.

  ‘The same age as General Creed?’

  ‘Which General Creed?’

  Grüber gave a little snort of surprise as he cut the smoked fish in half. ‘Ursarkar Creed.’

  ‘I think there are two General Ursarkar Creeds.’ Bendikt took a sip of wine.

  Grüber could not tell if he was being mocked. ‘Ursarkar E. Creed,’ he said.

  Bendikt took a sip of wine. ‘Ah! Yes, of course.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘Very impressed.’

  ‘Really?’ Grüber said, and took another sip of wine. ‘I’ve always found him a little overrated.’

  Creed did not show up that night or any other. Bendikt made his excuses to Generals Grüber and Lynch and left early.

  He spent the last fu
ll day of waiting for disembarkation in Hab-Hangar 07-85, playing Black Five with a pair of captains from the Fighting Jackals, Cadian 883rd Rifles.

  The Fighting Jackals had got fat and complacent with their last posting on a settled world named Andromeda. Bendikt didn’t like being away from the front line, on principle. Downtime made men soft, and he’d found from personal experience that it gave men something to hope for: a life that they would never achieve.

  It was Bendikt’s duty to relieve them of their coin. In order to distract them he kept prompting the men to talk of Andromeda, but the more money they lost the less glowing their stories were. ‘Well,’ one of them said as he watched Bendikt shuffling the cards. ‘There’d been a regiment of Catachans there before us. They were still putting the place back together.’

  After an hour they were looking unhappy. ‘Another game?’ he suggested.

  They shook their heads. Bendikt tipped the coin onto the table and began to count it up. Not bad, he thought. This lot should keep him going for a few days in the bars of Kasr Tyrok. A spectacular night, if that was all he had.

  Bendikt slid the coins into his pocket, rose quickly and put out his hand. ‘Good luck.’

  Next morning shrill alarms rang out, and one by one, down the long hangar, the three rows of strip lumes flickered to life.

  ‘Moving out,’ Sergeant Tyson said.

  ‘About time,’ Bendikt said as he pushed himself up from his bed. Before him stretched half a mile of figures rising from their bunks, packing the last of their belongings into their backpacks.

  Tyson took in the empty bottle of Arcady Pride in the bin. ‘Good night last night, sir?’

  The memories of his celebration came back to him. Bendikt nodded. ‘Not bad,’ he said. He threw the sheets back and reached for his uniform. His flak armour on the bottom, Cadian drab jacket folded neatly on top. He was still a Cadian, even when drunk.

  ‘So, apparently, our orders have changed.’ Tyson offered the latest order sheet to him, but Bendikt wasn’t interested.

  ‘Does it say where we are going?’

  Tyson shook his head.

  Their orders had changed at least six times in the journey. They would be manning an orbital defence platform. They would be a mobile reserve. They would be the spear-tip of a massive armoured column and sent to the outer planet of Kasr Holn as a first line of defence. Bendikt sighed. Sounded like a typical military mess. ‘See if you can find someone who knows.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Tyson said.

  Bendikt was up and dressed when his Colour Sergeant, Daal, came forward smartly and saluted.

  ‘Everything packed and ready?’ Bendikt asked.

  Daal grinned. ‘In truth, sir, they’ve been ready since the recall.’

  It was true. As soon as they’d heard that they were returning to Cadia the men of the 101st had gone over their uniforms and equipment, polishing, repairing, sewing, fixing, sharpening, cleaning every button, web-pouch, blade, seam and item that they owned. It was all he expected. They were a crack unit. Elite of the elite. They barely needed leading, at times. They were like a sharp knife. All they needed was pointing in the right direction, and a little bit of pressure. They did the rest themselves.

  ‘Good,’ Bendikt said.

  Daal was so excited he couldn’t hold himself back. A few moments later, as they stood over the recaff pot, he said, ‘Gave second platoon a bit of a dressing-down.’

  Bendikt nodded but said nothing. His head was hurting less.

  ‘They got a little fresh last night.’

  ‘Me too,’ Bendikt said, and took a sip of the lukewarm recaff. This long into a voyage and the recycled water started to taste of oil and sterilants, and even with recaff this strong, you couldn’t mask the flavour. He put the cup down. He couldn’t drink any more of the stuff. ‘When’s our slot?’

  ‘Zero nine hundred hours, ship time,’ Daal said.

  ‘Is ship time synced?’

  ‘No. We’re six hours, fifty-three minutes ahead of planet time. Apologies from the captain. There was not time in the flight from the Mandeville Point… Haste and all that.’

  Bendikt nodded and looked at the empty bottle in the bin. Next drink, he thought, would be in the fleshpots of Kasr Tyrok. He could not wait.

  As debarkation alarms rang, the ballast deck lights of the Fidelitas Vector flickered on, illuminating thousands of tanks and support vehicles, parked and waiting. For the journey, their machine-spirits had been stilled, but as long files of marching Guardsmen moved slowly down towards the Troop Processor Alpha 4, the armour was loaded straight onto landers and ferried to the planet.

  The Fidelitas Vector trembled as vast decks filled with noise and fumes; Leman Russ tanks reversed towards the lander ramps, followed by vast tracked ammo carriers that creaked under the weight of man-sized Baneblade shells, armour-penetrating rounds and the massive, squat, building-levelling rocket shells for the Banehammer siege cannon.

  Ryse was the first to leave the ship, on board the governor’s personal barge, with his staff and the Sacramentum.

  ‘Like rats,’ Tyson said as they watched the governor’s barge diminishing towards the planet.

  The honour of following the Warmaster went to the Cadian 774th, ‘Titan Killers’, with their complement of three ancient Shadowswords. Next were the Cadian 993rd/57th, the ‘Bluecaps’, a thousand and ten veteran warriors who had spent the last three years fighting greenskins at close quarters on the jungle worlds of Semyon Prime.

  Bendikt’s 101st were scheduled to load onto a drop-ship late that morning, but their appointed time came and went while they were still waiting on the Fidelitas Vector. They were standing on a vast descent ramp, tilting steadily downwards to the loading decks.

  Bendikt kept checking his chronometer. He’d been in queues like this before, where the Administratum had cocked up titanically, and they’d spent days in the exit corridors, waiting for their slot to come through.

  ‘Looking forward to Cadia?’ Tyson asked.

  ‘Well, I think I missed out on the bars of Kasr Tyrok. But home. To be honest, no, not really.’

  His adjutant looked a little crestfallen.

  Bendikt sighed. ‘I’ll feel better when I touch down, I’m sure.’

  ‘Sure you will, sir.’

  Bendikt nodded. ‘Still the little worse for wear.’

  ‘I’ll get you another recaff, sir.’

  ‘Yes. Please do. And make this one stronger.’

  Bendikt was still waiting for his recaff when at last the queue ahead of them began to move, and the Guardsmen stood up and started walking. For two hours they filed down through long, wide access ramps, still fuzzy with promethium fumes, into the troop processing plant.

  It took three hours for their lander, a three-tiered ferry, to fill with their complement of inducted Guardsmen, tanks, ordnance and equipment, and then, with a dull metallic clang, the void-chambers were sealed, air-supply pipes and magnetic clamps disengaged, and the fat, ungainly landing craft fell towards the planet.

  The atmosphere inside the lander was cramped and close. There were no windows. Nothing but the hunched shapes of men and equipment, and an air of tense apprehension. For most of their lives, being in a lander meant a new warzone, and there was nothing within the crowded, stuffy interior to distract the mind. Most of his men sat in rows on the floor, their knees pulled up to their chins, heads bowed, helmets on, eyes shut.

  Bendikt’s stomach lurched as the lander dropped from the battleship towards Cadia, but then there was the sense of release and of falling. He felt he ought to see how his troops were doing, and pulled himself up with one hand on the metal wall.

  He made his way along the lines of waiting troops, swapping brief words with his men. He picked out one young lad. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Georg, sir.’

  ‘How lon
g since you left Cadia?’

  ‘A year and a half, sir.’

  ‘Bet you didn’t think you’d be returning so soon.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Got a girl back home?’

  Georg’s cheeks turned crimson as he grinned. ‘Well. Yes…’ He almost forgot to add ‘sir’. ‘She drew the planetary defence force.’

  Bendikt nodded. ‘Good luck,’ he said.

  Bendikt was about to pass on when Georg fumbled inside his coat and pulled out a well-thumbed pict of a young girl in Cadian drab, her hair tied back from her face. Bendikt took it. It was what you did when a man showed you his sweetheart. ‘She looks like a fighter.’

  Georg grinned. ‘She was, sir. Galina. Fought against the draft decision. Went right up to Cadian High Command…’ The sentence trailed off, and Bendikt finished it for him.

  ‘But there was nothing they could do.’

  Georg nodded. ‘Nothing.’

  Bendikt returned the picture. ‘I hope she’s not forgotten you.’ But then Creed’s words came back to him.

  Hope paved the road to disappointment.

  Last time the Cadian 101st had fallen planetwards they’d been rocked by flakk fire from the opposing greenskins. It had been a terrifying descent. But this time there was no thunder of war, no evasive manoeuvres, no ping of shrapnel ringing on the outer hull.

  They came in from the north, passing high over the ice-capped peaks of the Rezla Mountains and banking gently to the right. Slaved servo guns tracked the drop-ship as it burned off speed on a long descent over the northern polar regions, following the prescribed flight path that had been punched into the command consoles of its servitor docking crew.

  The descent took the best part of two hours. It was a long, slow parabola, and by the time the landing gear was engaged and they felt the lander slow to a hover before finally touching down, the men’s mood had turned almost jubilant. When the far doors opened, they started to laugh and joke and there was a great cheer when the vast landing ramps slammed down and the light and air of Cadia swept in.

  Bendikt stood on the top of the landing craft ramp and breathed deeply. Before him was the vast military transit camp that was Tyrok Fields.