Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

Pelton shook his head. ‘Not seeing it. She’s a plodder, but she gets things done. They managed to recover the air car, and what was left of the driver.’ Which wasn’t liable to be much after a fall of several kilometres. ‘The local shrine of the Omnissiah were able to perform the rituals for a successful genetic match. Your assassin turns out to have been a local ganger, with no links to the governor’s household.’

‘Gangs have been known to front for heretic cults before now,’ Vekk­man said. ‘Round them all up for questioning.’

‘Already done,’ Pelton told him. ‘As I said, Clarys gets results. Even if they’re disappointing.’

‘No heretical tendencies among the gangers, then,’ I said.

‘None, according to the interrogators,’ Pelton confirmed. ‘It seems to have been a simple hit for hire.’

‘Let me guess,’ Zemelda said. ‘None of them know who paid.’

‘You guess right,’ Pelton agreed. ‘They all swear on the aquila that the only one who knew was the trigger man, and since he’s just a stain now, he’s not telling.’

‘Have them turned over to our own interrogators,’ Amberley said. ‘They’re probably not lying, but if any are we’ll get to the truth a lot faster than the Beetles.’ She glanced at Vekkman, already taking his acquiescence for granted. ‘If that’s all right with you, of course.’

‘By all means,’ the Malleus inquisitor agreed. He glanced at Rakel, who was slumped in her chair, eyes glazed, muttering to herself. ‘I don’t suppose your psyker could just lift the information we need from what passes for their minds, could she?’

‘No,’ Amberley said shortly. ‘It doesn’t work like that. Not for her, anyway.’

After that there was no more time for idle conversation, because the eldar attacked, and everyone was too busy trying not to become reacquainted with their breakfasts to continue with it.

Editorial Note:

As Cain – quite understandably under the circumstances – is quite sparing in his account of how the blockade was run, the following extract may go some way towards filling in the gap.

From The Eldar: a History of Their Presence in the Ultima Segmentum, and Some Musings Upon Possible Means of Their Eradication, by Baltazar Thromp, 997 M41

The stalemate in space and the upper atmosphere was eventually broken in the most unexpected of ways, with the announcement by Governor Fulcher that Ironfound was to come to the aid of the orbital habitats, the residents of which had, quite naturally, been more than a little concerned at finding themselves not only facing the xenos interlopers directly, but cut off from their brethren on the surface to boot.

Never before in the history of Ironfound had such a logistical challenge been contemplated and met,164 but the shuttle crews of every hive were eager to volunteer, heedless of the risks involved in running the eldar blockade. Suffused with righteous patriotism, compassion for their spaceborne compatriots and faith in the Emperor’s protection,165 they came forward in numbers even the most optimistic proponents of the plan had failed to foresee.

This turned out to be something of a two-edged sword. On the one hand, the more vessels in the relief effort, the greater the chances of any given one evading the depredations of the eldar pirates became – but on the other, the larger the flotilla, the harder it became for the escorting fighters to protect them all.

Inevitably there were casualties, with almost fifteen per cent of the relieving vessels either destroyed or so severely damaged they were forced to break off and return to the surface, while only about thirty per cent of the remainder reached their destination entirely unscathed. The rest, however, battered but undaunted, forged on through the worst the enemy could throw at them, delivering not only much-needed comfort to the Skysiders, but a distinctly unwelcome surprise to the eldar as well.

Twenty-two

Our first intimation of trouble was a lurch which all but shook the fillings from my teeth, followed by the voice of Pontius in my vox-bead, sounding remarkably calm under the circumstances. ‘Hang on, it’s going to get rough.’