Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

‘Pointy-ears,’ Jurgen growled, all but inaudibly, and I nodded, responding with a few words of caution, almost as quietly as he’d spoken, hoping I’d still be heard by the others without giving our position away to the approaching eldar. As it turned out, though, I needn’t have worried; their attention was entirely on the local troops they were engaging, and any noises we might have made were being drowned out by the sounds of their own weapons.

‘Wait for it,’ I murmured, ‘wait for it… Fire!’

A withering barrage of las-bolts, pistol bolts and the actinic flare of the melta scythed out ahead of us, felling the scurrying eldar, who had no chance to register our presence or retaliate before they were mown down – which might strike some of you as a trifle unsporting, but which was fine by me. Still is, come to think of it; they’d have done the same to us in a heartbeat if they’d had the chance. One, a little luckier than the rest, survived long enough to bring his shuriken launcher round towards the general direction the barrage of fire had come from, only to be felled by a pistol bolt which detonated inside his helmet, pureeing his head, before he had the chance to pull the trigger.

‘Good shot,’ I said, unsure whether Amberley or Pelton had made the kill, and the former arbitrator accepted the compliment with a modest nod, slowly becoming more visible as the approaching light grew in intensity. There appeared to be several luminators fixed to the barrels of lasguns being carried, so far as I could tell behind their dazzling flare, by close to a full squad of the local defence force.

‘Who goes there?’ their leader called, a hint of nervousness trying to elbow its way past his business-like tone, and I was pleased to note that the front rank of troopers kept us covered as we emerged into the light. True, we’d just gunned down their enemies, but I wouldn’t have assumed our good intentions if I were in his shoes either. For all he knew we might have been a displaced scavvy gang, with designs on their weapons and ration packs.

‘Commissar Cain,’ I said, stepping forward fully into the light where they’d get a good look at me and, with any luck, not take too much notice of my companions. I gestured in Jurgen’s direction, reflecting that once they caught sight of him, none of the others would make much of an impression by comparison. ‘And my aide, Gunner Jurgen. We’re on a recon sweep, with a special ops team from our regiment.’ All right, the inquisitor and her retinue didn’t look much like any Guard troopers I’d ever seen, but Amberley’s dark grey bodyglove and the soberly hued utility clothing of her acolytes made them look similar enough to have possibly been in some kind of uniform intended to be used down holes like this, and I was pretty sure the sergeant in charge wasn’t going to be too familiar with Astra Militarum protocols anyway – especially as pretty much every regiment in the Guard has its own way of doing things.

I glanced at Amberley as I spoke, receiving an almost imperceptible nod, which reassured me I’d done the right thing in not revealing her true identity. No doubt the news that an inquisitor was active on Ironfound had spread through the ranks like a dose of the pox, but no one had to know just where she was and what she was up to.

‘Commissar.’ A young corporal, who looked about twelve to my jaded eyes, but was probably at least twice that, saluted smartly. ‘No one told us you were down here.’

‘That was the idea,’ I said, smiling confidentially. ‘If I’d gone through channels I’d just have been shown what the rear echelon chair warmers wanted me to see, instead of finding out what things are really like at the sharp end.’ Which was the right thing to say, of course. Long experience had shown me that the best way to get the squaddies on your side was to imply, without actually saying so, that you were more concerned about them than the officers further up the command chain.

‘We’re holding our own,’ the corporal told me, with a glance at the four eldar corpses on the floor at his feet, ‘but we’re grateful for your assistance all the same.’

I smiled again, calibrating it for just the right amount of warm approval. ‘Not that you seem to need it,’ I said. ‘But I’m pleased to have seen for myself that nothing I’ve heard about the fighting spirit of the…’ I squinted at his unit patch, which fortunately was perfectly visible from this angle, ‘Midfoundry Twenty-Third has been exaggerated.’ Which was true enough, as I’d never even been aware of the regiment’s existence before. Nevertheless, the implied compliment had the desired effect of boosting the morale of everyone present, who seemed to inflate a little at having been singled out by a Hero of the Imperium for their exceptional devotion to duty.