Nemesis

‘Fourteen forty-nine.’ Tariel answered automatically, his chronoimplant already synched to the Dagonet clock standard.

‘There’s six of us,’ the Garantine went on. ‘Each has destroyed rulers and broken kingdoms all on their own. How hard could it be to add some fuel to this little blaze?’

‘And what about the Dagoneti?’ Soalm demanded. ‘They’ll be caught in the crossfire.’

The other assassin looked away, unconcerned. ‘Collateral damage.’

‘What is the local time?’ Iota said again.

‘Fourteen fifty. Why do you keep asking–?’ Tariel’s reply was cut off by a flash of light in the distance, followed seconds later by the report of an explosion.

‘What in Hades was that?’ said Kell. ‘The… communicatory?’

‘A power generator overload. I made it look like the commoner freedom fighters did it,’ said Koyne. ‘We couldn’t afford to leave any traces. Or survivors.’

The Garantine’s grin grew even wider. ‘See? We’ve already started.’

TEN Matters of Trust / Breakout / False Flag

1

‘Don’t run,’ snarled Grohl. ‘They see you running and they’ll know.’

Beye shot him a narrow-eyed look from beneath her forage cap. ‘This isn’t running. Believe me, you’d know if it was running. This is a purposeful walk.’

He snorted and clamped a hand around her arm, forcibly slowing her down. ‘Well, dial it back to a meander. Look casual.’ Grohl glanced around at the marketplace stalls as they passed through them. ‘Look like you want to buy something.’

At their side, Pasri made a face. ‘Buy what, exactly?’ asked the ex-soldier, her scarred nose wrinkling.

She had a point. Most of the stalls were bare, abandoned by owners who were either too afraid to leave their homes, or lacking for produce to offer after the nobles had instituted martial law and imposed checkpoints on all the out-of-city highways. Beye couldn’t help but glance over her shoulder. In the distance, what had once been a precinct tower for the capital’s regiment of Adeptus Arbites was now wreathed in thin smoke. The crossed-out Imperial aquila on its southerly face was visible through the haze, and the harsh croaks of police sirens wafted towards them on the wind.

‘Don’t stare,’ Grohl snapped.

‘You want us to blend in,’ she replied. ‘Everyone else is staring.’ Not that there were many people around. The few daring to venture out onto the streets of Dagonet’s capital kept off the rubble-strewn roads or minded their own business. No one assembled in groups of more than four, fearful of the edicts that threatened arrest and detention for anyone suspected of ‘gathering for reasons of sedition’.

Beye almost laughed at the thought of that. Sedition was the act of treason against an existing order, and if anything, she, Grohl, Pasri and the handful of others were the absolute antithesis of that. They were the ones championing the cause of rightful authority, of the Emperor’s rule. It was the noble clans and the weakling Governor who were the rebels here, rejecting Terra and siding with…

Her eyes flicked up as they passed into a crossroads. There on the island in the centre of the highway, a statue of the Warmaster stood untouched by the street fighting. He towered over her, standing tall with one hand reaching out in a gesture of aid, the other holding a massive bolter pistol upwards to the sky. Beye noticed with a grimace that votive candles and small trinkets had been left at the foot of the plinth by those eager to show their devotion to the new regime.

Grohl paused at the intersection, rubbing at his thin beard, his eyes flicking this way and that. Finally, he made a choice. ‘Over here.’

Beye and Pasri followed him across the monorail lines towards an alleyway between two shuttered storefronts. She managed not to flinch as a patrol rotorplane shrieked past over the rooftops, klaxons hooting.

‘It’s not looking for us,’ Pasri said automatically; but in the next moment, Beye heard a change in the aircraft’s engine note as it circled, looking for a place to put down.

‘Are you sure about that?’

Grohl swore. This entire operation had been a cascade of errors from start to finish. Firstly, the man who was meant to drive the GEV truck did not arrive at the rendezvous, forcing them to improvise with rods and ropes to hold down the steering yoke and throttle – because of course, Grohl would never have considered sacrificing himself for the cause on a target so ordinary. Then, at the approach, they found the barricades placed by the clanner troops had been moved, making their straight shot at the precinct doors impossible. And finally, as the payload of crudely-cooked chemical explosives had at last detonated in a wet blast of noise and light, Beye saw that the damage it inflicted on the building was superficial at best.