[14]

168.738.M41

Velgrad

21:03 - 21:27 Local Time

Mission: Emergency building takedown of 1939 Saint Drusus Causeway.

Emergency tones caught me brushing my teeth. I spat, dropped the brush, and joined the others hurrying to the vehicle bay, putting my helmet on as I went. Surs started the briefing immediately, with little pauses as he got the information from his own vox before passing it on to ours.

"Rhino," he voxed instantly after the tone stopped, meaning that we were taking the Rhino armored personnel carrier, and likely wouldn't have any possibility of stealth. "Small building takedown. Enforcers were executing a capital warrant at 1939 Saint Drusus Causeway. One-story single-family hab. Low-density district on the south side. Iron perimeter fence, ten-to-fifteen meter garden. Two Enforcers were shot and killed approaching the gate. We are taking the structure. They are establishing the perimeter."

This would mean that they had sent a request, and Isela had approved it.

"Enemy is 1 to 5 armed criminals. There may be 0 to 5 noncombatants. Rules of engagement: if they are armed when you see them, kill. The objective is to secure the structure and all inside. Questions?"

By this point we were in the Rhino on the way. Surs was in there with us and the driver. Not one of our drivers—a soldier (Harald Jorg) on penitential loan from the planetary Army. It wasn't our Rhino, either, strictly speaking.

Even though Surs was just a meter away, we used the vox instead of shouting over the noise of the engine and the tracks.

"Weapons? Caliber?" asked Tara. "What caliber shot the Enforcers?"

Surs' face moved without sound in my helmet as he spoke to someone on a different net. Then:

"Lasgun, high power. They're saying they've also taken shots from… they can't decide, some firearm."

So at least two shooters, unless one man was switching guns. The lasgun would be the more serious threat.

"I want a pict," I said. "A blueprint, anything. Entrances. Windows. Descriptions. Hostages?"

"Working."

It was probably only a minute, but it felt like eternity.

"Windows on all four walls. Barred. Boarded over or curtained inside, but they have taken shots from them. Two doors, one front, one back." He passed me his data-slate and we all bent over it. It was a blurry aerial pict of a small house with a dilapidated garden and a fence or wall around it. As we looked, the machine-spirit filled in more detail and the image became sharper, then started to move. It traversed a short arc, showing three sides of the house before there was a strobing flash from a window and the view went wild for a moment before jumping back to the beginning of the video. The front and back door were both clearly visible for a second or two each.

"No hostages," said Surs. "Enemy haven't threatened anyone except Enforcers. Enforcers' perimeter is locking in now. Line of sight perimeter with long standoff. No other structures nearby. Farmland."

"There's just the fence," I said. "I want to go straight through it in the APC." I paused the video on the slate. I pointed at the visible side of the house. "Disembark there. Then move. We don't know if they have anti-tank."

"Shock litany?" asked Deacon Surs.

"Good. Yes. Explosive breach there, the corner. Single stack against the wall. Gwen, you cover this window and this corner. Verity, your gun on this corner. Tara, you set explosives to turn it into a corner-fed room. Rapid entry. Sweep and clear."

"Stun grenade first?" said Verity.

I stared at the frozen pict, thinking about it.

"Not unless we can't get through the breach. If it doesn't make a big enough hole, stun grenade and use it as a firing port. Clear from external and reassess."

"Contingencies?" said Tara.

"We can have the Rhino come around and ram the front door," I said. "Bypass this window and lead with stun grenades."

Gwen spoke up. "We should have the Rhino stay close in case we need it for evac, or if there's an injured noncombatant."

"Yes. No hostages… saints. Is there a…" I looked around for a second. "Everyone take a magazine of Whisper bolts."

They obeyed. I replaced my top right magazine. The Whisper magazines were lighter gray and had a cross-hatch pattern on the metal to make them easy to tell apart. The bolts aren't actually quiet like a whisper. They're "quiet" like hitting rockcrete with a brick. For a small building like this they would provide no meaningful stealth. Surs gave me a questioning look.

"I don't trust 'no hostages,'" I said. "No. 'No hostages' and then we're stuck with nothing but explosive rounds and we need to kill a man with a little child in front of him. No."

I resolved to make it a doctrine for us. Everyone always has one magazine of Whisper, just in case. I would ask Isela about it for the whole unit.

"Three minutes out," said Surs.

We went over the plan again, such as it was. Added a few more details. Selected, checked, and double-checked explosives from the Rhino's stores. Communicated with the driver. Surs talked and talked on the vox to the Enforcers, but couldn't get us anything else useful. The servo-skull was in the Rhino with us, and I commanded it to accompany us, but I didn't expect to use it. We would move too fast.

"Thirty seconds," said Surs. He switched channel and started chanting in simple plainsong.

Liturgical chants are supposed to be done with the natural voice. But there are exceptions for when people are trying to shoot you. I could hear his powerful baritone even over the engine noise—and then a fragment of a second later, the same voice from above and outside, blasting through the loud-hailers.

"The Emperor sees. The Emperor judges.

Stolen novel; please report.

Rise up, O Judge of all worlds,

And bless the guns of Thy Church, made holy to slay and burn.

The Emperor sees. The Emperor judges."

"Fence!" shouted the driver. There was a jolt and a prolonged screech. We all rocked with the impact. Another jolt, and then, a few seconds later, a halt. We got up, crouching under the cramped roof of the compartment, guns in low ready. Surs crouched low and continued chanting. I hit the rear hatch release.

"Let this place be consecrated to Thy wrath.

Let its ground be witness to the ruin of Thy enemies.

Let its walls entomb the wicked Thou hast judged within.

The Emperor sees. The Emperor judges."

He sang the repeated line with the same melody that it has in the common liturgy. Even though the enemy probably were not devout, they would have heard it a thousand times in that context.

A shock litany has two purposes. First is the obvious: to pray. But it is also a psychological weapon. We couldn't be stealthy, but we could cast terror and dismay before us. We wanted them to know who had come for them. Until now they had defied the Enforcers. Defied the civil authority.

We would see if they had the will to defy God.

We disembarked and took our position, pressing ourselves against the wall. The ramp rose and the Rhino roared back into motion. It should be repositioning for close support as needed. Tara started setting the breach. Surs' chant was gunshot-loud through the loud-hailer, loud even through the muting effect of my helmet. I could feel the wall vibrate with the sound where my shoulder pressed against it.

"We entreat Thy mercy on those who surrender and seek repentance.

For only Thy mercy may yet preserve them from death.

But if it is Thy will—let them damn themselves, and die by the gun."

"Ready to burn," said Tara.

There was a window in the middle of the wall. It was barred and nothing was visible through it but a faint light through thick curtains. But that didn't mean that a shooter couldn't be looking out. So we compressed back away from the breaching explosives, but didn't cross the line of the window. Verity, on point, only had about two meters of standoff, even with the four of us pressed against one another. Unarmored? Unthinkable. In power-armor? Good enough.

I did a silent check of Tara and Verity in front of me. Glanced back to Gwen, who was facing the other way, covering us against the window and the far corner.

"Go."

Tara hit the detonator. There was a brief pause, in which Surs started to sing again, "The Emperor sees—"

On our side, the shockwave knocked us each back half a pace. Dust and tiny pieces of burning scrap cascaded over us.

Inside, the shaped charges would be a hundred times worse. We could only pray that no one delicate and innocent was right on the other side.

Verity moved into the smoke and sifting bits of burning ash, working the breach. She must have liked what she saw because she made a little half nod to Tara, and said: "Going!"

Verity ducked and stumbled through. Tara moved to get her bolter into the breach and went after her a moment later. I reached back and thumped Gwen's thigh. "Moving!"

I stumbled through, too, ducking under the smoldering remains of a cabinet, kicking and tripping as I scrambled over a half-destroyed countertop and a ruined heap of dishes. I saw the handle of a pan sticking out of the far wall at head height. Merciful Emperor, to have spared us someone standing there. There was no one in the kitchen but us. Gwen came through behind me as Verity and Tara were already working the door, pushing forward, fast, efficient. I raced to support them.

This was a small structure with few rooms. We would work each one. Verity pushed past a door and covered the uncleared space ahead. Tara tried the latch and got ready to kick it in. I covered her and Gwen took the other angle. The door banged open into a bathroom with a pregnant woman and a little boy huddled in the back. "Don't move! Don't move!" but we were already moving on.

Next door. Bedroom. A man already kneeling with his hands up, an auto-rifle flung away. "Gwen, cover him."

On. T-intersection where the front and back doors should be. The first two doors had slowed us. I called a stop and prepped a stun grenade. We chased it in, Tara and Verity pushing up in parallel until they were almost facing one another, then splitting left and right so that they were back to back. I followed. There was barricade set up on both sides, but only one man. He had a lasgun at his feet and he was clutching his head and stumbling. His mouth was open but I couldn't hear if he was saying anything.

From outside, Surs: "The Emperor sees, the Emperor judges."

Verity hit him in the head with the butt of her bolter. It didn't look like he saw it coming. He went down in a heap. She kicked the lasgun into a corner. I paused to cuff him while Verity and Tara used the servo-skull after all. It threaded its dendrite under a door and showed an unoccupied closet, which they confirmed a second later. The last door was another small bedroom. I spent another stun grenade, but there was no one inside.

"Clear east side," I voxed. "Surs, did anyone get out?"

Surs replied, "Negative."

"Gwen, working back to you."

We worked our way back through the cleared space, recovered the lasgun, and finished working the bedroom that Gwen was covering. There was a closet, but it was empty. We cuffed the kneeling man and took the rifle.

"How many people?" I demanded.

"Two of us," he said. "And a woman, and a child."

A minute later, we had them in cuffs, too.

I voxed Surs. "Building secure. Four in cuffs."

We gave the scene and the guns to the Enforcers and the paperwork to Surs. May the God-Emperor bless and keep all deacons, now and forever.