Sarring gave Diez a pointed look.

  Diez held up his index finger, indicating she should wait a moment, and attempted to contact them.

  ‘We’re here,’ Sarring grumbled to Diez. ‘Where in the hells is Bellum?’

  ‘Iron Zero?’ Fennech requested again.

  ‘Bellum Company reports they were forced to divert, ma’am,’ Diez relayed. ‘They redirected around heavy fighting – three Chimeras bent. They’re sending their mounted forces to reinforce us, dismounts trying to drive a wedge for them through the enemy.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Five minutes?’ Diez said uncertainly. ‘Give or take.’

  Sarring cursed. ‘Relay that to Commissar Fennech,’ she ordered. ‘Damn it. Five minutes is too late. Tell Bellum to push into the capitol building as soon as they get here. Fragging Bear ­Battalion’s all over the place…’ she muttered. ‘What happened to Pugna Company?’

  Diez scrolled through information charts on his slate. ‘I don’t know, ma’am. I haven’t got anything from them since we crossed into the city. I’ve been trying to contact them–’

  The entire squad jolted forward as Zoldana rammed Bear through the capitol building’s southern wall. An ionic column crumbled atop the vehicle as the crash hurled chunks of rockcrete and marble bursting into the corridor beyond.

  ‘Sorry,’ Zoldana called out over the inter-vox.

  ‘Forget it,’ Sarring interrupted. ‘Everybody get up!’

  Goshtelo and Zoldana laid down a blanket of fire, searing through the enemy within the capitol as they attempted to flee down the corridor, multi-laser fire and heavy mass-reactives cutting men down as they ran.

  ‘Yeah!’ Temmet whooped. ‘Save some for the rest of us, G!’

  ‘Ignore him, G,’ Sarring said. ‘If you have the chance to kill everybody in this building before we dismount, do it.’

  Goshtelo cackled.

  ‘Sergeant,’ Sarring called. ‘Back us out a bit and drop the ramp. Diez, on my order, give the rest of Impetus the command to dismount and get in.’

  The squad moved into position as Zoldana lowered the ramp. Outside, Rilisian troopers were already streaming around Bear to get in through the hole the transport had punched into the wall.

  ‘What the hells is this?’ Sarring asked, gawping at the troopers as they flowed around the transport. She turned to Diez. ‘Did you give the order to dismount?’

  Diez shook his head. ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘Commissar Fennech, what’s going on?’

  ‘Three squads from Impetus did not wait for the order to–’

  ‘Damn it, we’re going to be at the back!’ Sarring growled. She pointed at a sergeant running past with his squad and snarled, ‘Stop!’

  The sergeant, wide-eyed, reared back as if he’d been shot. Several members of his squad piled into him, nearly knocking him forward into the commander.

  ‘Make way, dammit! I need to get through!’ Sarring turned to her squad, drawing her laspistol as she started down the ramp. ‘Come on!’

  Entering the building against Bear’s right flank, Sarring discovered that the corridor was completely bottlenecked with friendly troopers. She tried to pick her way through the milling crowd, but it was slow going. Most of them simply stood about idly, a few chatting. Some looked warily at the enemy corpses strewn bloodily about the floor. None of them made any headway.

  Sarring pressed her back against the wall as she checked the ammunition for her laspistol, an old trick she had learned to distract herself from acting out of anger. She glanced down the corridor, her view completely obstructed by the densely packed troopers. Her curse was drowned out by the thunder of an artillery volley outside that dropped a shower of plascrete dust on their heads. Getting anywhere fast, including out, if it came to it, was impossible.

  She pushed her way through the press of grimy bodies, smelling the reek of sweat-stained fatigues of troopers who hadn’t been able to wash in weeks. After forcing her way forward for a few more yards, she became frustrated and pulled up Diez, who was struggling through the press half a yard behind her.

  ‘Put out an all-call to Impetus. Tell the squad commanders to get these idiots up against the wall – squad to a side, stacked up alphabetically, I don’t care. We can’t get anywhere with them standing around stopping up the damned place.’

  Diez nodded and raised the handset to his vox-caster to transmit, then stopped short, listening to an incoming transmission.

  ‘Ma’am, they think they’ve found the target.’

  ‘What?’

  Diez continued to listen. ‘Someone said General Hurdt is located behind the door at the end of this hall, but it’s sealed. They want to go in.’

  ‘Why would Hurdt be down here?’

  Diez shrugged. ‘They sound convinced, ma’am.’

  Sarring gritted her teeth and took a deep, exasperated breath – this was what command of the Astra Militarum’s ash and trash looked like.

  ‘Tell the squad commanders to get everybody up against the wall. Then have the point squad clear the door and wait until we’re ready to go in.’

  Diez relayed the command and listened to the acknowledgement. ‘They’re clearing the door, ma’am.’

  Sarring’s right eye ticked. ‘What? No. Tell the point squad to stack up and wait before entering so we can coordinate, make sure the way in is clear. They need to wait. Who’s in charge of that squad?’

  Diez licked his lips nervously. ‘Sergeant Daffern, ma’am.’

  ‘Oh. Damn.’

  Sarring had served with Sergeant Daffern for seven years. She knew the man as a proficient administrator, with a solid grasp of regulation and procedure – not the best she had seen, but good enough. Truthfully, Sarring believed Daffern was more interested in maintaining his physique than doing his job.

  Sarring was certain the sergeant wouldn’t know to check for booby traps, let alone how to breach and clear a room.

  She felt the explosion rather than heard it, a concussive blast that roared down the hallway, given greater potency by the tight confines of the corridor. Sarring instinctively raised her augmetic arm, shielding her face from the detonation as she twisted sideways to present her bionically augmented left side to the hail of shrapnel and fragments of armour and body parts scything through the air. Before her, the force of the blast knocked troopers over like ninepins. Sarring lost her footing, collapsing backwards onto the sprawling Diez.

  A cloud of dust and smoke fogged the hallway, choking and blinding. Sarring felt a sensation in the upper part of her throat not unlike being throttled as the filters placed there during her reconstruction cycled into place, separating air from the roiling fug of particulates all around. She breathed through her mouth, powdered plascrete gumming her tongue. The chalky flavour, combining the mordant tang of explosive residue and the coppery taste of blood, nearly made her gag. Blind, eyes burning, she fumbled for her goggles, hastily wiping her eyes several times before lowering them into place. It took many long, teary blinks to clear her vision – and made no difference in the haze.

  The audial receiver in Sarring’s left ear returned to life with a brief screech and a pop, having automatically cut out in the explosion. She struggled to listen, but it felt as if her brain had just somersaulted in her skull. Sarring’s right eardrum had ruptured, stabbing blade-like pain into her ear canal, throbbing in time to her heartbeat. With the implant in her left ear, she heard the screaming of the wounded and dying alloyed to coughing and cursing, calls of dismay and confusion, and the fading echo of the explosion ringing from the walls.

  Gritting her teeth as she struggled to shake off the concussion, she turned to Diez to issue orders, hoping that would give her focus.

  ‘Situation report!’ Sarring barked, the filters giving her voice a peculiar, almost vibrato resonance.

  Diez cradled his head in his hands, moaning and coughing. Blood flowed from both ears, soaking into the dust that coated his skin and the collar of his flak vest.

  ‘Diez?’ Sarring called. She jostled his shoulder to get his attention.

  ‘Diez!’

  Squinting up with panicked, tear-filled eyes, Diez gestured frantically at both his ears, flapping his hands as if he were trying to fan air into them.

  Sarring snatched the handset.

  ‘Any station, any station, this is Iron Zero. Situation! What casualties?’

  Multiple broadcasts rippled across the vox-network as various stations stepped on one another, rendered incoherent by panic and desperate for information.

  Sarring pulled Diez closer and hit the command override switch on the vox-caster.

  ‘All stations, this is Iron Zero. If you are not a zero element or occupying, get off my net.’

  The link immediately fell silent.

  ‘What elements on vox?’ Sarring asked. Troopers filtered up behind her as she spoke into the handset. Her command squad picked themselves up from the ground. Sarring began to push forward into the fog of dust, stepping over the fallen troopers collapsed in the corridor as she dragged Diez by his vox-rig.

  It got worse as she progressed further up the hallway. Shell­shocked troopers, coughing on dust that blanched them ghost white, gave way to troopers with progressively more severe wounds as she advanced. Closer to the doorway, more than a dozen corpses lay on a carpet of blood interspersed with disarticulated appendages and broken weapons and armour. Sarring could not hope to identify Sergeant Daffern amongst the dead nearest the door, which had itself been blasted into a broad hole in the wall and through the ceiling above.

  ‘Iron Zero, Cold Steel Zero.’

  ‘Gunvaldt,’ Sarring breathed with a sigh of relief as the Death Korps commander’s voice hissed from the vox. ‘Where in the hells are you?’

  ‘Outside target area, Iron, but Bellum Company’s got the way in bottlenecked.’ Gunvaldt’s voice fizzed with static. ‘Setting up perimeter around target area to make sure nobody gets out.’

  ‘I confirm, Cold Steel,’ she said. ‘Prepare to send up your Two-Hundred-and-Twenty-Second and Extremis companies to backfill Bellum if the main assault looks like it’s going to fall through. Break. Bellum, what are you doing?’

  ‘We’re behind you, ma’am, but Impetus has the entrance to the capitol all stopped up,’ replied Captain Grosht, former commander of the Mordian 832nd, now Bellum Company commander. ‘Apologies for being late. What was that explosion?’

  ‘Booby trap, heavy casualties. Displace, go around the capitol and come in from the other side, Grosht. You’ll not get in this way. Coordinate with Cold Steel Zero while you’re at it.’

  ‘I confirm, Iron Zero.’

  Back to the wall, Sarring inched towards the gaping hole so that she could try to see what lay within the room beyond. She readied her laspistol and drew her power sword. A mechadendrite power conduit spooled from its housing in her left tricep, snaking down her sleeve to couple with the blade’s pommel. Energies played over the blade as the sword ignited, its glow washing out in the haze of dust.

  As she was about to peer around the corner, a hand from behind tugged gently on her right arm. Trooper Yues, blood soaking down his dust-white cheek where shrapnel had lodged beneath his left eye, pulled Sarring away from the opening. He gave Sarring a nod, the pilot light of his heavy flamer glowing blue in the haze.

  Sarring stepped back as Yues spun round the corner and washed the room in burning promethium, but there was no need – piecemeal corpses littered the floor, victims of their own trap, now crackling away as the jellied fuel consumed them. Either they had built the explosive too strong or they had misjudged the Rilisian troops’ lack of competence and assumed they would stop to clear the door. Sarring assumed a combination, heavily weighted to the latter.

  A bolt weapon’s report echoed down the stairwell entrance at the far end of the room, followed by the rippling crackle of las-fire.

  ‘Any station this net, Iron Zero,’ Sarring called. ‘Identify who is fighting in the upper storeys of the capitol.’

  ‘Iron Zero, this is Commissar Fennech.’ The commissar’s transmission was punctuated by the bark of his bolt pistol from above. ‘Impetus Zero and I entered the capitol from an alternate location during the bottleneck. We have encountered heavy resistance on the third storey.’

  Sarring’s command squad entered the room behind her, once a vestibule to the inner offices. Ahead, Yues led with his heavy flamer, Sarring and Diez just behind him, with Temmet, Rawl and Arys following. A squad followed, and Sarring indicated they cover the hole in the ceiling. She heard the report of las- and stub-fire open up outside, muted through the wall of the building.

  Grosht and Bellum had contacted the enemy on the opposite side.

  ‘Hold position, commissar,’ Sarring ordered. ‘We are coming to reinforce.’

  ‘Negative,’ Fennech replied. ‘We have located General Hurdt and are pursuing.’

  ‘Commissar!’ Sarring shouted into the vox as she darted low across the vestibule, dragging Diez by the cord of his field phone. ‘Fennech! Wait, dammit!’

  She received no further word beyond the percussive report of Fennech’s bolt pistol two storeys above.

  On the far end of the room, a hatch of battered plasteel led to a stairwell, wheezing partially open and shut on malfunctioning hydraulics. Through the haze, Sarring could make out heavy-gauge steel railing and rockcrete steps. Yues entered the stairwell and looked as far up as he could, covering the stairs with his heavy flamer.

  Enemy stubber fire chattered from above, striking the floor around Yues. One shot glanced from the flak pad on his right shoulder, pitching him sideways, while another skipped down his armour’s front, striking him in the left side of his abdomen. He released a gout of flame up the stairwell as he fell backwards out the door, past Sarring and Diez. Suppressive fire from the floor above scattered the squad following Sarring’s, sending the Rilisians scrambling for cover and leaving the command squad exposed.

  Sarring rushed into the stairwell, found a target two levels above and fired, striking one trooper in the stomach. Behind her, Diez fired two shots, dropping another combatant and wounding a third, who reeled out of sight.

  A moment later, a frag grenade dropped down the stairwell. Sarring pushed Diez against the wall, turning her augmetic left side towards the grenade and ducking her head as she shielded him.

  Sarring’s refractor field flashed, taking the brunt of the explosion, the bubble of force slowing and redirecting much of the shrapnel as the grenade exploded. Her augmetic leg and shoulder caught the worst of it, shredding her overcoat and trousers. Shrapnel struck her helmet, and a few fragments slashed into the rear of her right thigh, slicing into the meat beneath, though the field blunted the force of the debris enough to render it painful, not fatal. She spun about rapidly and shot the bastard who had dropped the grenade full in the face with her laspistol.

  She turned to Diez, who gaped at her in shock. Satisfied that the vox-operator was uninjured, Sarring spared a glance at Yues, who lay outside the stairwell on his back, being treated by Arys. Las-fire from the squad in the vestibule behind her cracked into the enemy above. Sarring bolted up the stairwell, hoping the others would follow her lead.

  Rapidly clearing the door on the level above and unwilling to take time to fight the insurgents who engaged the squad on the floor below, Sarring continued up the stairs to the third storey. There, she found the two she and Diez had killed as a survivor attempted to flee through the door. The rebel collapsed into the room beyond as Sarring shot him in the back with her laspistol.

  Still picking themselves up from Fennech’s assault minutes before, the enemy in the room were unprepared for a second wave. Sarring cut down the two nearest the doorway with her power sword, shearing off the head and right shoulder of one and severing the arms of another mid-bicep. Behind her, Diez and Rawl charged in with bayonets. Grasping the regimental standard in his left hand, Temmet sprayed the room with his lasgun one-handed.

  The room they fought in was like the vestibule downstairs, situated two storeys up on the opposite side of the building from it. A bank of shattered windows lay along the left side, facing east. Outside, huge and red, rose the lazily climbing sun, occluded by the haze of smoke which clung to Vytrum like a shroud. Corpses in Rilisian uniforms lay sprawled across the floor in pools of blood, two of them burst from the inside out with the unmistakable violence of a bolt weapon. Fennech and his squad had moved on, continuing their pursuit of General Hurdt.

  More enemy infantry stormed into the room from an outer corridor, lasguns flaring as they fired on the move into Sarring and her squad. One of them, an officer by his tattered leather greatcoat and blood-spattered cream trousers, came at Sarring with a long-bladed combat knife, slashing at the colonel’s chest. Blocking with her left arm, Sarring caught the blade between her augmetic forearm and bicep. With a quick twist to the right, she pulled the weapon from her opponent’s grasp. Sarring’s riposte sliced into her assailant’s head below the left ear and exited just above his right, the sword’s energised blade cutting neatly through his skull in a spray of blood, sending the top of his head flying.

  Despite their relative lack of training and experience, instinct, rage and pain drove Sarring’s squad forward into the enemy. Sarring hoped it would be enough to get them through this. Behind her, Diez stabbed his prone opponent repeatedly with his bayonet. Temmet reeled, right arm limp from a gunshot wound to his forearm, his lasgun fallen to the ground. With a snarl, the colour bearer kicked his opponent, skewering him on the standard’s ferrule one-armed. He stabbed again, blood gurgling out around the wound as he jammed the spike up through his adversary’s diaphragm.