Star Of Damocles by Andy Hoare

Author:Andy Hoare
Language: eng
Format: MOBI, epub
Published: 2012-11-13T22:30:50.556000+00:00

Korvane passed from this area into one far more crowded, yet thankfully far less unsavoury. The vast, central cargo areas of the Rosetta had been turned over to a number of Imperial Guard units, amounting, so General Gauge had informed him, to something in the region of five thousand combatants and a similar number of support personnel. A wide companionway ran the length of the vessel's spine, passing the vast bays in which the troopers were housed. The huge interlocking blast doors had been raised and the entire area was a hive of unfamiliar activity. Korvane saw one cargo bay given over entirely to rows of sleeping mats, so many that they stretched off into the distance along the entire length of the vast space. He had passed another bay in which the troopers practiced unarmed combat, several thousand warriors paired up, sparring with one another, all with blood-streaked faces and swollen lips. Assorted hangers-on, the regimental train as Gauge had called it, were to be found at every turn. Every regiment of the Imperial Guard relied on them as much as they did upon the Officio Munitorum. Lay armourers offered to service faulty weapons or patch up worn armour, cooks and peddlers plied their unsavoury wares, and sultry women offered other, vital services to the trooper keen to divest himself of what little funds he held.

Korvane was at once intrigued and repulsed by the spectacle of the Imperial Guard having taken over several decks of his vessel. Intrigued, for they had brought with them an almost entirely self-sustaining economy, complete with its unique cultural and societal mores. Repulsed, for he saw that outside of the disinterested and detached officer cadre, thugs and hoodlums ran this micro-society, with no regard for birth or rank. Korvane himself had been raised in the most rarefied of atmospheres, at the Court of Nankirk, where he had studied under the most refined of tutors. To him, these men and women inspired revulsion, and he would not be able to rest until they were off his ship.

Feeling his gorge rise, Korvane closed his fist over the small package he carried in his coat pocket. Pain shot the length of his arm, the lingering effects of the injuries he had sustained in battle against the tau at Arrikis Epsilon. He need only bear it a little longer, he told himself, striding on through the crowded decks as crewmen halted to stand to attention in his wake.

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