Yarrick by David Annandale

Author:David Annandale [Annandale, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782510055
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2013-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Desperate Glory

1. Behriman

He lay on the floor of his cage for another hour, listening to the clangs and snarls and wails that filled the air of the space hulk. He thought about the conversation he had just had with Sebastian Yarrick. He thought about how he had brutalised the bodies of others and his own spirit in the service of a greater mercy. He had carried the burden of this duty so long that he could barely remember his life before his capture. Now that weight was at last about to be lifted from his shoulders. He allowed himself a single, body-shaking sob.

2. Rogge

The commissar spoke. The prisoners listened. Rogge listened. His soul burned with purpose.

Yarrick didn’t orate as he had when he first arrived in their midst. He didn’t draw the orks’ attention. He spoke quietly, to one small group at a time, and what he said spread in whispers during the shifts until, Rogge was sure, every human in the hold knew, word for word, what the commissar had said. Yarrick spoke of war. What Rogge heard, what he was sure all heard, were words of hope. They were going to be leaving this hell. The breakout was imminent.

3. Yarrick

‘Where do we go?’ Rogge asked, his eyes bright with fervour.

‘The Inflexible,’ I answered. I gestured to Polis.

The little man nodded, and continued to nod while he spoke. ‘I have been past the Inflexible three times during the last eight shifts, during which time I walked 20,235 steps, including the return trip, which ended the shift…’ He caught himself, closing his eyes tightly with the effort. ‘The Inflexible does not appear to be significantly damaged or fused beyond basic docking apparatus to this construct.’ He clamped his mouth shut so tightly his teeth clicked, and he stopped talking. Purpose was mending him.

‘And we have our pilot,’ I said. Vale nodded.

‘What if he’s killed?’ someone asked from the deeper shadows of the cage.

‘I can fly it,’ Rogge answered.

That surprised me. He was a tanker, not Navy. ‘Since when?’ I asked.

He gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘Since home. My father’s private yacht.’

‘Hardly the same thing,’ Vale protested, offended.

‘No,’ Rogge began, ‘but the basic principles–’

‘Are sufficiently similar,’ I broke in, ending the argument. ‘A pilot is a pilot, and a ship is a ship.’ If Rogge’s privileged background proved useful, then we were the better for it. ‘At the start of the next shift,’ I said. ‘That’s when we hit them.’

There was no cycle of night and day in the hulk, just perpetual grimy twilight lit by torches, flickering glow-globes and filthy biolumes. We didn’t have the luxuries of such concepts as ‘morning’. People just rested as well as they could until it was time to work again. And no one could be said to be alone when one could barely move for the crowding. All the same, I was given a form of privacy as everyone in the cage fell into uneasy dozing. Everyone but Castel, who was still jumpy after her latest stint amidst the horrors of the ork surgeries.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.