From the deck far above, there were explosive bangs and the shriek of shearing metal. I could barely hear them above the mechanical din in the clamp chamber.
When the sighing and hissing of the massive pistons died away and the venting gases reduced to a sporadic gasp, I clambered up from behind the dampers. The entire architecture of the chamber had altered as the massive docking engines had switched from active to disengaged. Two troopers had been crashed by the heavy gear, another lay dead under a steam vent, braised in his armour by a rush of superheated steam.
I took up a fallen naval-issue autogun and retraced my steps.
By my count, there were still four loose and active. I came back along the inspection tunnel and re-entered the access-way. Warning lights strobed all along the passage and muted alarms still sounded. A figure suddenly appeared to my left. 1 wheeled around. It was Betancore. He was looking straight past me, one of his elegant needle pistols aimed straight at me. He fired it twice.
A distinctive stinging buzz resounded loud in my ears – and a security trooper at the far end of the passage staggered out of cover. Another shot and the man slammed over, feet out from under him.
'Came as soon as you gave the signal/ said Betancore.
'What's your tally?'
'Four, so far.'
'Then we're probably done. But stay sharp.' I smiled at myself. Telling Midas Betancore to stay sharp was like telling a dog to stay hairy.
'You're a mess/ he told me. What the hell happened?'
Blood ran down the side of my face from the reopened gash, 1 was moving awkwardly from the glancing hits to my shoulder and arm, and I was thoroughly smirched in machine oil from the docking mechanism.
'This wasn't an inspection. They were looking for me/
'Naval security?'
'I don't think so. They lacked precision and didn't know procedure/
'But they had kit, weapons – a Navy pinnace, Emperor damn them!'
'That's what worries me/
We went back to the airgate. An emergency shutter had come down to seal the breach when my makeshift undocking had torn the pinnace off the side of the Essene. Through side ports, I could see its grey hull skewed alongside us, still attached to the clamps by one of its own docking extensors, though that was badly twisted. Its integral airgate had blown on disconnection and at least the passenger section was open to hard vacuum. If the crew had survived, they would be in the foresection, though probably helpless. Glittering debris, scraps of metal plating and sheared sections of extensor hung in the void outside.
I checked Fischig. He was alive. His Arbites uniform was heavily laced with armour, but the short-range impacts had given him internal injuries; he was unconscious and leaking blood from the mouth.
Betancore found Maxilla beyond the shattered glass doors of the evacsuit-bay. He had crawled across the floor and propped himself against
a harness rack. From the chest down, his rich clothes were shredded and his legs were gone.
But then, from the chest down, he wasn't human.
'So my… bare facts are revealed to you after all, inquisitor…' he said, managing a smile. I imagined he was in pain, or shock at least. To control the sophisticated bionic lower body he had to have intricate neural linkage.
What can I do to help you, Tobius?'
He shook his head. 'I have summoned servitors to assist me. I'll be back on my feet soon enough/
There were many questions I wanted to ask him. Was his reconstruction the result of old injury, disease, age? Or was it, as I had a feeling, voluntary? I kept the questions to myself. They were private and didn't concern my investigation.
'I need access to your astropathic link. I need to contact battlefleet command and speed the closure of this matter. These men weren't a naval security detail/
'I'll instruct the bridge to provide you with the access you need. You may care to extract the inspection requests from my communication log/
That would help. I didn't think the high commanders of Battlefleet Scarus would take this lying down.
I was half-right, but only half. Within half an hour I was on the bridge of the
