Free Deathwing by Neil & Pringle Jones Page A

said sternly. ‘The heretics have begun a massive offensive right across Blue Zone. Still, the righteous will prevail. Within one standard day Divine Retribution will cleanse this whole zone with an orbital bombardment. We have been ordered to fall back.’
    ‘What?’ Krask was both frightened and bewildered. Nipper broke from his reverie. Anything that scared Krask terrified Nipper. He had never seen the sergeant display anything but laconic cool.
    ‘That’s madness,’ Krask muttered. ‘The whole reason for sending us into the jungle in the first place was to drive Governor Damian’s rebels out without damaging the witch-spore crop.’
    ‘That was before the full scale of the insurrection was realized,’ Borski said, almost gently. ‘We did not realize the cancer of heresy had spread so deep. We are not facing simply a rebel garrison but many of the native tribes of the interior. They’re armed and they’re allied with something dark and terrible. They bear its mark.’
    For the first time Nipper thought that he detected a trace of what might have been fear in the commissar’s voice. He thought back to the strange runes he had seen on the robot. He had heard stories, muttered tales, of daemons who existed in the dark between worlds and sought to undermine the works of the righteous. He had always dismissed them as stories to frighten children.
    Beside him Sal muttered. ‘It makes sense. Where better for them to strike than on the world where witch-spore comes from? Many latents would have their powers brought to the fore.’
    Nipper wondered what she was talking about. He knew that psykers were dangerous. The priests of the Imperial cult told everyone so. Only ones who had been bonded to the Emperor or who had undergone the terrible training to become sanctioned could be allowed to live. Could those who had not been bonded provide some sort of gateway for enemies of the Emperor?
    Nipper felt Sal nudge him in the ribs. She gave him a warning look. ‘You are on dangerous ground,’ she whispered. ‘Best to not even think of such mysteries.’
    Another more pressing problem struck Nipper. He addressed Borski. ‘Sir, if they are going to cleanse this place in twenty-four hours what will happen to us?’
    ‘We are ordered to fall back to Zone Amber.’
    Mikals reached out imploringly, eyes filled with pain. ‘Commissar, I am wounded. I will only slow you on the march. I have failed the Emperor. I seek atonement.’
    Borski looked down at him, cold eyes hooded. He nodded. ‘Very well. Soldiers outside, prepare to depart.’
    The guards left the hut. From within came the sound of a single shot. Borski emerged alone. ‘Now we must go,’ he said.
    ‘Zone Amber is fifty kilometres away. We’ll never get there before the bombardment starts,’ Nipper said.
    Borski showed his chilling smile. ‘Then we will die joyous in the knowledge that we have served our Emperor well,’ he said.
    W EARILY THE SURVIVORS pushed on through the nation-forest. Dawn had come, bringing a wash of green light down through topside. Nipper watched the endless tide of airborne spores rise on convection currents. Dazzling dragon-moths, long as a man’s arm, pursued shoals of glitterflies. Sometimes puff-balls would roll out onto the main branches they followed and Truk would kick them, laughing moronically as they exploded.
    Only Truk did not seem oppressed by their surroundings and the fact that they were twenty hours from being reduced to plasma by the orbital bombardment. Nipper wondered how he could ever have liked this place.
    It had all seemed so fresh and amazing to him six months ago: a riot of green life erupting across a continent. From the two hundred metre high banyan-like nation-trees to the triple-tiered ecology they supported, it had all been wonderful to a boy from the steel corridors of the hive-world of Thranx.
    He had marvelled at the differences between the layers. It had delighted him that topside, with its swinging