Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

‘Sounds about right to me,’ I said. The population of the orbitals was just a drop in the bucket156 compared to the thirty billion or so distributed around the hives on the surface, but the role they played in Ironfound society was of an importance out of all proportion to their limited numbers. If I were Fulcher I’d be just as eager as he seemed to be to make sure no lingering sense of grievance at being abandoned by the surface dwellers was left behind once the war was over, as that sort of thing can snowball terrifyingly quickly, especially when the grudge is being held by people with their hands wrapped around your economic jugular. The last thing the Astra Militarum needed was to see off the eldar, only to be called back here in a decade or two to put down a popular uprising aboard the orbitals. ‘But it’s a much bigger target than the gig,’ I continued. ‘If we lift at the same time, with any luck it’ll attract enough of the eldar’s attention for us to sneak through while they’re otherwise occupied.’

‘A sound suggestion,’ Mott concurred, ‘which would raise the probability of us reaching the orbital unscathed to almost eight point seven per cent.’

‘Great,’ I said, wondering if it was too late to develop an unfortunate case of something mild but sufficiently debilitating to require being left behind on the ground, but by now that really wasn’t an option. Not if I wanted to maintain my fraudulent reputation, not to mention avoid the inevitable unpleasantness which would ensue if I disappointed Amberley. ‘I feel better already.’

Mott nodded. ‘Whereas,’ he continued, ‘if we remain in the centre of the group, and its fighter escort, the probability rises to something on the order of forty-eight per cent.’

‘Really?’ I said, unable to keep a soupçon of astonished surprise from inflecting my voice, despite my best efforts. I’d faced far worse odds than that and lived to tell the tale,157 and felt a momentary surge of something dangerously close to optimism before I belatedly registered the rest of his comment. ‘What group and fighter escort?’

‘The other freighters making for the orbitals,’ Pelton said, strolling up to us with Defroy trotting a little anxiously at his heels. ‘There are about thirty leaving the hive for Skyside Seventeen at the same time. And General Porten’s found a squadron of Lightnings to provide a bit of cover.’

‘Then we’ll definitely take advantage of it,’ Amberley said, decisively. She tapped her comm-bead again. ‘Pontius, slight change of plan. We’re waiting–’ she glanced expectantly at Defroy, who, fortunately, grasped the situation at once.

‘They should finish loading in around twenty minutes,’ he said, sweating only about as much as people usually did when they were being noticed by an inquisitor. ‘This is the last load, and all they need to do is drive into the hold and secure the trucks–’

Amberley cut him off with a nod, and returned her attention to her vox-bead. ‘–no more than twenty minutes.’ Overhearing, Defroy began to look a little panicky. I certainly wasn’t going to envy the troopers under his command for the next quarter of an hour or so, that was for sure. ‘There’s a relief convoy heading in the same direction as us, so we might as well use it for cover.’

‘As you wish, milady,’ the pilot acknowledged, sounding a little disappointed at the prospect of having to make far fewer evasive manoeuvres than he’d been expecting. I didn’t know Pontius all that well, having met him on only a few occasions, and most of those as a disembodied voice from the flight deck, but I’d been aboard things he’d been flying often enough to know that his approach to piloting wasn’t that far removed from Jurgen’s approach to driving. Amberley seemed to have acquired his services in much the same haphazard fashion as the rest of her entourage (among which I included Jurgen and myself, at least in this context) – apparently from the Navy where, I gathered, he’d been something of a fighter ace, and still relished the chance to match reflexes with an enemy pilot whenever possible.158

‘I’m surprised to find you supervising a job like this in person,’ I remarked conversationally, trying to put Defroy as much at his ease as possible. Being around Amberley tended to rattle people, and rattled people make mistakes. Something I’m never keen on when I’m liable to be getting shot at soon, and other people’s mistakes could impede my ability to get out of harm’s way.

Defroy shrugged. ‘The governor likes people to notice who they’re supposed to be grateful to,’ he said. ‘Besides, the shipment will have to be guarded at the other end, and the planetary defence force have their hands full at the moment.’

‘That they do,’ I agreed, having seen as much for myself all too recently.

Defroy shot me an appraising look. ‘I must admit, I’m surprised to find you here too, commissar. Don’t you have a firing squad or something to organise back at your regiment?’