Deathwatch by Steve Parker

Author:Steve Parker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2013-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

15

The flashlights of the enforcers cast broad beams through the glittering, frost-filled air. Neither Varlan nor her trusty aides needed much light themselves – even the darkest shadows surrendered detail to their top-of-the-line augmetics – but the enforcer squads Lord Sannra had ordered to escort her would have been as blind as earthworms down here without their gear. It was a flustered Sannra, too, who had ordered the railways cleared so that several Viper LAVs[20] could push deep into the mines unhindered, carrying Varlan and her escort. And here they were at last, in the very hall where Ordimas had witnessed the ceremony of the strange and seedy cult.

No bodies, no lit lamps, no sign that anyone had been here recently save recent ash in the wall sconces and braziers, and a profusion of tracks on the icy stone floor. Yes. Lots of foot traffic. Oroga was crouched over, studying it while Myrda stood watching Varlan’s back, her awareness electrically charged to every sound around them. Both the twins were on code orange, ready to respond to any threat.

Oroga looked up and nodded at Varlan.

The tracks are recent, then. They fit Ordimas’s experience exactly.

Varlan’s gaze moved to the black mouth of the tunnel that led away from the rear of the hall’s elevated stage. It was along that tunnel her answers lay.

Looking at the stage, she shuddered, remembering all too sharply the sights she’d seen through Asset 16’s opticom.

Here. It all happened right here.

Footsteps sounded behind her, and Varlan turned to find Lieutenant Borges approaching, breath misting from the muzzle filters of his rebreather. He stopped a few steps in front of Myrda, who had automatically positioned herself to block his approach. ‘You were right, ma’am,’ he said, speaking past the deceptively slim bodyguard, voice muffled by his apparatus. ‘Recent activity. Too many tracks to make head or tail of.’

Varlan removed her own rebreather to reply. She needn’t have, but the strap was pulling painfully at her hair and she wanted to adjust it. The next breath was icy sharp in her lungs, but not intolerable. The powered thermasuit the enforcers had lent her kept her body at a steady temperature, but that too bothered her. It felt close and hot, even in the airy, ice-rimed hall. The control module was belted at her lower back. In a moment, she decided, she would ask Myrda to adjust it.

‘I did not expect to find anyone here, lieutenant, but you will take the matter more seriously now, I presume.’

The officer stiffened. ‘I assure you, ma’am, I never take my duties any less than that. As I told you, this section of the Underworks has been abandoned for centuries. It was listed as stripped and locked down. Only a mine administrator or a tech-priest could have reopened it.’

‘Then a mine administrator or a tech-priest is clearly part of the insurgency.’

‘Insurgency? Come now, ma’am. Surely this is just a group of religious nuts who’ve breathed in a little too much soledite dust.’

‘How many people have been reported missing in the last year, lieutenant? How many of those resurfaced soon after.

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