It was the best work Crezia and Antribus had been able to manage given the time and the resources available. Crezia had passionately wanted me confined to vital support until I could be delivered to a top level Imperial facility.
I'd insisted on being mobile.
'If we throw together repairs now/ she had said, 'it'll be worse in the long term. To get you walking we'll have to do things that no amount of later
work can repair, no matter how excellent.'
'Just do it,' I'd said. For the opportunity to reach Pontius Glaw, I'd happily sacrifice prosthetic sophistication. All I needed was function.
Barbarisater trembled in my right fist as it sensed a bio-aura, but I relaxed. It was Kara Swole.
She jogged back down the chasm towards me, dressed in a tight, green armoured bodyglove and a thick, quilted flak coat. She had a dust visor on, and a fat-nosed compact handcannon slung over her shoulder.
'All right, boss?' she said
'I'm doing fine.'
'You look…'
'What?'
'Pissed off.'
'Thank you, Kara. I'm probably annoyed because you and Nayl are having all the fun taking point.'
'Well, Nayl thinks we should tighten up anyway'
I voxed back to the second element of our force. In less than two minutes, Eleena and Medea had joined us. Along side them came Lief Gustine and Korl Kraine, two men from Gideon's band who had subbed as reinforcements, as well as Gideon's mercenary archaeologist, Kenzer.
'Moving up/ I told them.
You managing okay, sir?' Eleena asked.
'I'm fine. Fine. I just wish you'd…' I stopped. 'I'm fine, thank you, Eleena.'
They were all still worried about me. It had only been three and half weeks since the carnage at Jeganda. I'd only been walking for five days. They all quietly agreed with Crezia's advice that I should still be in the infirmary and leaving this to Ravenor.
Well, that was the perk of being the boss. I made the damn decisions. But I shouldn't be angry with them for worrying. But for Kara and Eleena's frantic emergency work on the pinnace, I'd be dead. I'd crashed twice. Eleena, the only one whose blood-type matched mine, had even made last minute donations.
Pulled apart at the seams, my band was pulling together tighter than ever.
'Let's pick up the pace,' I said. 4Ve don't want Nayl and Ravenor to have all the glory.'
After you, Ironhoof/ Medea said. Kara sniggered, but pretended she was having trouble with her filter mask.
'I can't imagine why you think you can get away with that nickname,' 1 said.
We heard the shuriken catapult buzzing again. It was close, the sound rolling back to us around the maze of die gorge.
'Someone's having a party,' said Gustine. Bearded, probably to help disguise the terrible scarring that seemed to cover his entire skin, Gustine was an ex-guardsman turned ex-pit fighter turned ex-bounty hunter turned
Inquisition soldier. He said he came from Raas Bisor in the Segmentum Tempestus, but I didn't know where that was. Apart from that it was in the Segmentum Tempestus. Gustine wore heavyweight grey ablative armour and carried a old, much-repaired standard IG lasrifle.
He'd been with Ravenor for a good many years, so I trusted him.
The whizzing sounds echoed again, overlapping with laser discharges.
'Ravenor's friends/ Medea said. None of us were comfortable about the eldar. Six of them had arrived on Gideon's ship as a bodyguard for the farseer. Tall, too tall, inhumanly slender, silent, keeping themselves to the part of the ship assigned them. Aspect warriors, Gideon had called them, whatever that meant. The plumed crests on their great, curved helmets had made them seem even taller once they were in armour.
They'd deployed to the surface with Ravenor, the seer lord and three more of Ravenor's band.
A third strike team of six under Ravenor's senior lieutenant Rav Skynner, was advanced about a kilometre to our west.
Ghul, or 5213X to give it its Carto-Imperialis code, was nothing like I had imagined it. It didn't at all resemble the arid world I had glimpsed in Maria Tarray's mind, the dried-out husk where primaeval cities lay buried under layers of ash. I suppose that was because all I'd seen was her own imagined view of the place. She'd never seen it. She hadn't lived long enough to get the chance.
