'Look!' said Betancore, pointing behind us. Beyond the shore and the retreating line of arches, three ominous dark shapes hung under the clouds, out over the sea. Two Imperial frigates and an old, non-standard merchantman, floating at grav-anchor. 'How did we not see them when we passed?' 'I don't know, Midas. I'm not sure of anything anymore.' When I turned back to the rest of the group, I saw Aemos unclasping his helmet.
Aemos!'
'Calm yourself,' he said, uncovering his wizened old head. With the wide locking collar of the suit around him, he looked like a tortoise, pushing its gnarled head from its shell. He raised his left arm and showed me the atmosphere reader. The lights were green.
'Human-perfect atmosphere/ he said. A little cold and sterile, but human-perfect/
We all unclasped our helmets and pulled them off. The chilly air bit my face, but it was good to be free of the suits. There was no scent to the air, none at all. Not salt or ammonia or dust.
We helped each other fasten our helmets to our shoulder packs. The booming was duller and more distant now it didn't have our hollow helmets to resonate through. We could hear each other's footsteps, each other's breathing, the suck and lap of the ocean. I could suddenly smell Bequin's perfume. It was reassuring.
I led the group on, and we climbed slowly into the rising land. Now free of the helmet, I understood our ponderous progress was a result of more than our heavy suits. It was somehow difficult to gauge distance and depth. We stumbled every now and then. The whole place was profoundly wrong.
We came upon them very suddenly. The sudden resumption of the vox-traffic was our only warning. Our speakers burst into life simultaneously.
'Run! Move up! Segment two!'
Where are you? Where are you?'
'Cover to the left! That's an order! Cover to the left!'
They're behind me! They're behind me and I c-'
A fierce hiss of static.
Ahead, coming down the ridges and slopes of the dark rise, we saw soldiers. Imperial Guard, wearing red and gold combat armour. Gudrunite riflemen.
'Cover!' I ordered, and we dropped down into the shelter of the rising dunes, readying weapons.
There were sixty or more of them, hurrying down the upper slopes towards us in a wide straggle, running. There was no order to it. They were fleeing. An officer in their midst was waving his arms and shouting, but they were ignoring him. Many had lost helmets or rifles.
A second later, their pursuers came over the rise and fell upon them from behind. Three black, armoured speeders in the livery of navy security, and a following line of thirty troopers in their distinctive black armour, ordered, disciplined, marching in a spaced line, firing their hell-guns into the backs of the fleeing conscripts. The landspeeders swept in low, drizzling the slopes with cannon fire. The shots threw up plumes of dust, and the mangled bodies of men. A second later and all three land-speeders passed over us at what seemed like head-height, overshooting across the ammonia sea and banking round to follow in on another pass.
Some of the Gudrunites were firing back, and I saw one trooper topple and fall. But there was no co-ordination, no control.
What the hell! Do we stay hidden?' gasped Bequin.
They'll see us soon enough/ said Fischig, sliding open the feed slit of his heavy stubber's box magazine.
The odds were terrible, and ever since the incident on the Essene, I'd had a morbid loathing of the black-clad troopers.
But still…
I pulled out my heavy autopistol and tossed it to Aemos, freeing my las-carbine from the fastener lugs on my pack. Bequin drew her own weapons, a pair of laspistols. Lowink and Midas had their firearms – a las-carbine and a Glavian needle-rifle respectively – already braced in their hands.
'Look to the troops,' I told Fischig, Lowink and Bequin. 'Do what you can, Aemos. Midas – the fliers are down to us.'
We bellied forward through the dunes, and then came up firing. Fis-chig's big gun smashed into the lip of the high ridge, kicking up dust, before he found range and demolished three of the stalking troopers.
