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Title:
The Traitor's Hand
Series: WH40K: Ciaphas Cain
#3
Authors: Sandy Mitchell
Rating: 3.5 of
5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 303
Words:
97K
From
WH40k.lexicanum.com/
Part
One
Aboard
the troop ship Emperor's Beneficence en route to Adumbria, Ciaphas
Cain is surprised to be hailed by an old acquaintance: Tomas Beije,
now regimental commissar of the Tallarn 229th. Cain remembers Beije
from the Schola Progenium as a sanctimonious prig, and is less than
pleased to see him, though he hides it with the skill of long
experience. Beije likewise fails to make a good impression on Colonel
Kasteen when they are introduced, as he is unable to hide his
incredulity that the Valhallan 597th has a woman as its commanding
officer.
In
the ship's main hall, Lord General Zyvan briefs the assembled command
staffs, explaining why they've been withdrawn from Kastafore with
unusual haste: a Chaos warband, calling themselves the Ravagers,
escaped an Imperial Navy trap in the Salomine system and their
projected course through the Warp will have them invading Adumbria
within the next few days. Zyvan's force is the advance guard, whose
job is to fortify and defend the planet as much as possible until the
rest of the task force catches up.
A
brief extract from Jerval Sekara's popular travelogue explains that
Adumbria is a tidally-locked planet: the side permanently facing the
sun is a baked desert, while the side permanently facing away is an
eternally dark icescape. The majority of the planet's population and
urban centers occupy the narrow twilight strip between the two zones.
During
the journey through the Warp, tensions run high between the Valhallan
and Tallarn Guardsmen; the Tallarns express a conservative disdain
for regiments that include women, and the Valhallans' response is
natural. Commissar Beije comes storming into Cain's office after the
Tallarns' regimental unarmed combat champion is sent to the infirmary
after a "friendly" bout with one of the Valhallans',
Corporal Magot. Cain breezily lets Magot off with a reprimand,
explaining that it would be unwise to demote her before her squad is
deployed to a battlezone.
In
private, Beije admits to Cain that he is surprised by how far Cain's
career has come since they last saw each other; he'd have expected
any Hero of the Imperium to have become much more pious to the
Emperor than Cain was at the Schola. Cain detects seething jealousy
under Beije's carefully civil words, and enjoys the moment to the
fullest, while maintaining his usual pose of modesty.
As
the 597th is disembarking to the surface, Cain accompanies the first
shuttle down, which happens to be carrying Captain Detoi's Second
Company, which includes the perpetually irritating (to Cain)
Lieutenant Sulla and her platoon. To their surprise, vox-traffic from
the surface warns that the Tallarns' command squad has come under
attack. To avoid the same ambush, Cain orders the shuttle pilot to
set down on the vegetable garden of a monastery abutting the
starport, and the company deploys behind the enemy forces with
gratifying surprise. Cain decides to join Sulla's platoon on the
flank, to keep her from doing anything impetuous (and hopefully avoid
the main action), but an unwary traffic praetor blunders on the enemy
position and flees back towards the platoon, leading a group of
pursuers. The Valhallans ambush them, and Cain is surprised at their
luridly-coloured and scanty clothes, and their surprising ecstasy at
being maimed by lasguns and chainswords. Just as the Valhallans are
mopping up, Beije roars up in a Chimera on the way to rescue his
Colonel, only for Cain to cheerfully inform him that everything is
under control.
A
brief excerpt from a history of the invasion explains the political
situation on Adumbria: the incumbent Governor died about a year
earlier, without leaving an heir, only a welter of squabbling noble
houses, with the leading Administratum representative acting as
Regent. This unstable situation only became worse when news of the
impending invasion arrived.
Part
Two
Zyvan
briefs the planetary government and the Guard commanders, saying
there is no doubt that a Chaos cult is active on the planet, likely
preparing the way for the Ravagers' arrival.
To
Cain's pleasure, Zyvan tasks him to stay in the capital and liase
with the local Arbites, while the rest of the 597th deploys to the
dark side of the planet. But danger refuses to leave him alone; a
cultist group pilots an aircar into the side of the hotel suite where
Zyvan has made his headquarters. A group of luridly-dressed cultists
attack, and Cain downs several of them with his chainsword. Then it
strikes him that the fight was too easy, and yells for the staff to
evacuate the building. Cain's first impulse is to follow them, but
his paranoia warns him that there might be a trap waiting outside.
Instead, he stays behind, and looks closer at the wrecked aircar,
recognizing a bomb. Sure that there isn't enough time left for him to
run, he demands a vox-link to a Tech Priest, who talks him through
defusing it.
A
(mercifully brief) extract from Sulla's memoirs details an early
skirmish on the ice side. While performing a routine check on the
perimeter sensors, her platoon stumbles across an unauthorized ice
crawler which opens fire on them as soon as they challenge it, and
their return fire causes it to explode spectacularly, revealing that
it was laden with illegal weapons.
Cain
visits the regimental headquarters, and he, Kasteen, and Broklaw do
their best to analyze the implications (since Sulla,
characteristically, didn't leave any survivors to interrogate). It
seems obvious that the heretics are smuggling weapons in through the
planetary starport, and caching them in hidden bases. When Cain
relays their deductions back to Zyvan, he is dismayed when the Lord
General comes to the same conclusion and encourages Cain to lead the
search of the likely spots on the ice side.
Kasteen
and Broklaw are skeptical at first, saying they don't have the time
or the manpower to search all the possible sites, but Cain, in a
flash of inspiration, narrows it down further by filtering out
seismic activity picked up by the sensors that they can trace to
local, innocent activities.
Leading
Sulla's platoon, along with the regiment's entire Sentinel troop,
they happen onto another crawler, which they neutralize and its trail
leads them back to the cultists' hideout, a prefabricated habitat
dome badly disguised (at least to an Ice Worlder's eye) as a natural
snowdrift.
Sulla
orders the platoon to assault the hideout, but Cain is squeamish at
the troopers (and himself) having to storm any of the entrance doors,
which are doubtless heavily fortified. He comes up with another
option: grabbing Sergeant Lustig's squad, he leads them to the wall
of the dome, and Jurgen creates a convenient entrance with his melta
gun.
Whatever
they were expecting to find inside the dome, they are all taken
aback: the interior is luxuriously furnished and decorated with loud
pornographic murals. Cain also notices a sweet, narcotic scent in the
air that brings back memories of the Slaaneshi cult he and Jurgen
encountered on Slawkenberg. Outflanking the cultists guarding the
doors, they are able to pacify it with minimal casualties. In the
center of the dome, Cain finds a hidden chamber, and inside are
dozens of dead bodies, mutated and warped by sorcery, and surrounded
by Chaos sigils. Cain shudders at the realization that some kind of
ritual has taken place.
Another
excerpt from the history elaborates that Cain's discovery increased
the fear of how deeply the cultists had infiltrated the planet's
population, although it would be some time before they showed their
hand again.
A
dispatch from Beije acknowledges Zyvan's order to search the "hot"
side of Adumbria for similar cultist hideouts, while making his
opinion clear that it is highly unlikely that heretics could be
operating under the noses of such pious servants of the Emperor as
himself and the Tallarns.
Cain
returns to Skitterfall (the capital), and Zyvan's Sanctioned Psyker,
Malden, reports on his examination of the cultist site. He recognizes
the signs of a summoning ritual, but there is no sign of a Daemon
appearing on Adumbria, so the purpose of the ritual is a mystery to
him. Meanwhile, Zyvan reports that there is no word from the rest of
the task force, so he has to distribute their available forces around
the planet, with their limited number of troop ships standing by to
ferry reinforcements around as needed.
Part
Three
In
his bunk at the headquarters building, Cain has a nightmare of Emeli
Duboir, who playfully warns him that she'll be coming back soon.
Over
breakfast, Cain receives a call from Arbitrator Hekwyn, who has
followed the trail of the smuggled weapons from Glacier Peak back to
a corrupt freight dispatcher. Under interrogation, the dispatcher
identifies his contacts among the cultists. Several of them own
warehouses which could easily be stockpiles for more weapons. Eager
to avoid anything really hazardous, Cain chooses to accompany the PDF
troop raiding one of the more innocuous names, a bordello owner named
Kyria Sejwek. He sells the idea to Zyvan by planting the suggestion
that Sejwek—given her profession—may have the closest connection
to the Slaaneshi cultists.
As
usual, serendipity makes a mockery of Cain's efforts to keep himself
out of trouble. As soon as the PDF Chimera approaches the bordello,
they come under fire, mostly from prostitutes wielding heavy weapons
with astonishing familiarity. Unfortunately, Jurgen takes Cain's
order to find the nearest cover as an instruction to drive the
Chimera straight through the bordello's wall. Cain reluctantly leads
a squad into the interior, dispatching the "joygirls" at
the weapon emplacements.
He is
stunned when Amberley Vail appears on the staircase, approaching him
with a coquettish smile. The PDF troopers are similarly befuddled,
even when "Amberley" reaches out and touches one, killing
him instantly. As soon as Jurgen reaches Cain's side, "Amberley"
disappears, to be replaced by the rather dumpy figure of Madame
Sejwek. With a sneer, Cain informs her that impersonating an
Inquisitor is a capital offense, and shoots her with his laspistol.
In the depths of the bordello they find another sacrificial chamber,
heaped with bodies. Grimly, he concludes that, as with Glacier Peak,
they have arrived too late to stop whatever ritual the cultists were
conducting.
In a
dispatch to the higher office of the Commissariat (which is never
sent due to the increasingly turbulent Warp currents around the
planet) Beije "regretfully" suggests that there may be
something suspicious, even sinister, about the fact that Cain has now
been on the scene of two cultist summoning rituals and, in both
cases, has arrived too late to do anything about them.
In
the next meeting of the command staff, Zyvan introduces his ship's
Navigator, Lady Gianela DiMarco, who informs them all that the Warp
currents are shifting in a way she's never seen before, and these
shifts coincide with the times of the summoning rituals. It seems
clear to her and Malden that the heretics are trying to do something
to the space surrounding Adumbria, but neither of them can say
exactly what. Before they can debate the matter any further, Zyvan
receives a message from the Navy pickets, informing him that the
Ravagers' fleet has arrived in the outskirts of the system. The
invasion has begun.
Although
severely outnumbered, the Navy picket ships give a good account of
themselves, managing to cripple or destroy the invasion fleet's
advance ships and delaying the Ravagers' landfall for a few crucial
days.
Cain
returns to the 597th at Glacier Peak, where Kasteen is grimly
assessing the odds: a Chaos invasion force is inbound, a daemon may
be running around somewhere, and an unknown number of well-armed
insurgents are hiding among the population, just waiting for the
Guard to turn their backs. Zyvan calls their headquarters to report
that the Tallarns did indeed find another ritual site (after
bothering to look for it, his acid tone makes clear). Unfortunately,
Malden and the other psykers were unable to examine the Chaos sigils,
since the Tallarns burned the site to the ground as soon as they
discovered it. Looking at the map of the planet, Kasteen notices
something that has escaped everyone else's notice: the three ritual
sites form a triangle bisecting the planet. If there is a pattern to
the sites' locations, they may be able to divine the site of the next
one.
Part
Four
The
Ravagers finally arrive, landing in a haphazard storm of shuttles
that is rather baffling to the Valhallans' tactical sensibilities. As
the perimeter companies begin to engage, Cain excuses himself from
the command center (which he's painfully aware is an inviting target)
and joins Detoi's Second Company, which is being held in reserve.
Naturally,
that is the moment when one of the shuttles comes down all but on top
of them, disgorging fanatics screaming "Blood for the Blood
God!" Given their preference to close range and use melee
weapons instead of their ranged arms, the Chaos soldiers are
contained and eliminated without much difficulty – at least Cain
thinks so until someone screams "unstoppable...!" over the
vox, and a squad disappears off the net. Lt. Faril sends in
reinforcements, which unluckily sweep Cain along with them as he is
trying to slip back to the command center. To his secret
astonishment, they are so cheered by his presence that they start
shouting his name like a battlecry.
Cresting
the ridge where the squad disappeared, Cain sees his worst nightmare:
a Khorne Berserker, a full-sized Chaos Space Marine of the World
Eaters Legion. Cain is about to turn and run, when the monster leaps
to avoid the flurry of lasbolts fired at him, and lands in front of
Cain. Cain's duelist reflexes take over, and he is able to parry or
evade the vicious swipes of the Berserker's chainaxe, and even scores
a glancing hit on his Power Armour with his chainsword. Cain buys
himself just enough distance for Jurgen to drop the Berserker with a
melta blast.
After
the initial attacks are repelled, Zyvan reconvenes the command staff
and analyzes the enemy's pattern. Cain realizes that they are not
facing an invasion as much as they are caught in the middle between
two feuding Chaos factions; he knows from hard experience that the
Ruinous Powers are bitter rivals with each other, and for followers
of Khorne and Slaanesh to be working together is virtually unheard
of. Picking up on his reasoning, Kasteen looks at the map and
realizes that the Ravagers weren't making a coordinated attack on the
Guard forces, they were trying to reach the ritual sites. Colonel
Asmar admits that he hadn't considered that possibility, but it could
be equally possible on the hot side. With a little luck, Zyvan
finishes, they can deduce the site of the final summoning ritual.
Part
Five
The
second enemy wave is launched at the planet. The Valhallan Guard
forces are hard-pressed, but Kasteen insists on leaving Second
Company aboard their one available drop ship, in case reinforcements
are needed elsewhere.
Cain
is unable to stop worrying over where the last summoning ritual will
take place. If Kasteen is right and the other three sites form a
pattern, then the fourth point will be somewhere in the equatorial
ocean. Cain asks the Arbites to check shipping activity in the area,
but Zyvan dismisses the theory; according to Malden, the ritual would
need to take place somewhere in contact with the solid part of the
planet.
While
driving around in a Salamander with Jurgen, trying to find the safest
spot possible, Cain is unlucky enough to happen across a corrupted
Leman Russ tank, butchering a squad of hapless PDF troopers with its
heavy bolters. Jurgen disables the tank with his trusty melta, but
the turret is still able to traverse, and starts turning toward the
dropship. With the surviving PDF troopers idiotically swarming over
the disabled tank, Jurgen is unable to take a second shot, so Cain
rushes them aboard the dropship and orders the pilot to lift off
immediately to avoid the tank round.
While
the shuttle is in a holding pattern above the battle zone, Arbiter
Kolbe calls with news; during their check on maritime traffic, they
lost contact with an oceanic dredger, a sort of floating manufactorum
designed to extract minerals from the ocean floor—physical contact
with the solid part of the planet. Cain immediately orders the pilot
to head for the dredger, while calling Zyvan over the vox. Zyvan is
unavailable, but Malden hears enough to confirm Cain's theory, and
warns that the ritual will likely take place in the next few hours.
In
private, Cain confides to his reader that he'd have liked nothing
better than to speed into orbit and grab the first warp-capable craft
available out of system; however, there was a void battle going on at
the moment, and he also knew from painful experience that there is no
hiding from some threats, especially Warp-based threats, and your
only hope of surviving one is to confront it before its purpose is
completed.
Arriving
on the dredger, Captain Detoi deploys the Second Company, though they
find the cultists heavily dug in. He and Cain conclude that they have
little choice but to order a direct assault, but they are interrupted
when a small courier shuttle touches down nearby. Beije marches out
accompanied by a squad of Tallarns, smugly declaring Cain under
arrest for desertion.
Part
Six
Cain
tries to talk sense into Beije, who scornfully replies that Cain
can't hide his cowardice behind his fraudulent reputation any longer;
he's been looking for any excuse to escape the main action, and has
hijacked a whole company of Guard soldiers to do so. In the midst of
this tirade, Beije makes the awful mistake of tossing in an insult to
the Valhallans' "petticoat Colonel", which trails off when
he takes in their murderous expressions. In a level voice, Cain says
that Beije is free to say whatever he wants about him, but Beije will
apologize to Colonel Kasteen or face Cain in a duel.
Seeing
that Beije's Tallarn escorts at least have some sense in them, Cain
insists that their mission on the dredger is in deadly earnest – a
fact which is reinforced when a force of five World Eaters teleport
onto the dredger and hurl themselves at the entrenched Slaaneshi
cultists. The defenses which presented such a formidable obstacle to
the Guardsmen barely slow the Traitor Marines down, and Cain, seeing
an opportunity, orders the squads around him to follow in their wake,
while Detoi keeps the rest of the company dispersed, keeping the
other cultist defenders pinned down. Beije orders his own men to
follow Cain, ostensibly to stop him escaping.
Traveling
cautiously along, they dispatch several wounded cultists, and
encounter one of the World Eaters, severely wounded. Seeing them, the
enormous figure rushes them with his bare fists. Again, Cain's
duelist reflexes take over, and he disables the World Eater with a
well-placed stab from his chainsword, through a rent in the ceramite
armour left by a cultist's krak grenade. The World Eater falls, and
Jurgen finishes him off with his melta. The Valhallans cheer, and the
Tallarns are awestruck; from then on, as far as they're concerned,
Beije is part of the landscape.
They
breach the doors of the dredger's chapel just as the cultists within
have completed their summoning ritual, and the daemon emerges from
the Warp: Emeli Duboir, no longer a mortal woman. She lazily tears
the last surviving World Eater in half, and sweetly informs Cain that
she is about to transform Adumbria into a Daemon World; half inside
the Warp, half out, a world remade to her liking and a conduit for
any number of daemonic hordes to pour into the Materium.
As
with their last meeting, she invites him to join her and enjoy the
sublime pleasures Slaanesh can offer. But Cain, whose
self-preservation has always outweighed his self-indulgence, replies,
"Frak this!" and charges. Under normal circumstances, Emeli
could kill him with a flick of her hand, but rears back in surprise
as her power is nullified by Jurgen's presence at Cain's side. With
her link to the Warp severed, the Guardsmen's weapons can actually
hurt her. But she lashes back, and the small wounds from lasbolts
aren't doing enough damage. Even a hit from Jurgen's melta that burns
away half of her face doesn't drop her, and she smashes Jurgen to the
ground in rage. Cain is defenseless, and she rises above him,
preparing to rip him to pieces.
Then
there is a hurricane of lasbolts, and she is torn apart and
disappears, either dead or banished. Cain turns and sees the
remainder of Second Company in the chapel, Captain Detoi cheerfully
explaining that he decided to bring them up when Cain didn't vox. One
of the few surviving cultists – who happens to be one of the
hopeful heirs to the Governorship from the aristocracy – says
defiantly that Slaanesh is eternal. Cain retorts that Slaanesh may
be, but he's not, as the cultists are marched out at gunpoint. Cain
turns to Beije, who has been practically rooted to the spot since the
Daemoness appeared, and says he looks forward to the tribunal.
Epilogue
After
the campaign on Adumbria is wrapped up, a tribunal of senior
Commissars is convened, at Beije's insistence, to assess the merit of
his charges against Cain. Cain prepares to meet his fate stoically,
even though he knows that reason and common sense are hardly the most
abundant qualities among the upper levels of the Departmento
Munitorum.
The
results are all he could have wished for; with the aid of some
information discreetly provided by Zyvan, the tribunal exonerates
Cain of all charges, and finds that his actions were heroic, and
probably crucial to the salvation of Adumbria. Then the Commissars
turn to Beije, and inform him that he is being charged with conduct
unbecoming his station, and stripped of his rank pending a more
formal court martial – which, if he's found guilty, will almost
certainly end in execution.
Cain
rejoins Kasteen and Broklaw outside the court room, and Beije
staggers out in a daze a few seconds later. Cain reassures him that
he will speak in his defense, testifying that his actions – however
pig-headed – had only the best intentions. Privately, Cain reflects
that as much as he detests Beije, shooting him is not going to do
anyone much good; and he would much prefer for Beije to owe Cain his
life for the remainder of their days.
Cain
politely asks Beije when they may meet for their appointment; Beije,
having seen Cain's skills with chainsword and laspistol firsthand,
offers a humble apology to Colonel Kasteen for any offense he may
have given, then makes as dignified an exit as he can manage (which
is not much). Cain, in a mood to celebrate, invites Kasteen and
Broklaw to see if one of his favorite restaurants in Skitterfall is
still standing.
So, here's a complaint that isn't directly related to the book. Why
do some of the book get the Full Synopsis Treatment, like this one,
and others are left to hang out like dirty laundry that nobody wants?
Where's the love from the Warhammer 40K groupies? Ok, I'm done with
that now.
I enjoyed this story and the short story I previously read, The
Beguiling, really helped me to know what was going on. The
vampiress from that story makes a comeback and appears to be a demon
in disguise or something. Whatever she is, she's bad news and while
she's apparently destroyed, I never believe anything of Chaos is gone
until I see the body burning. And even then sometimes I still don't
believe it :-)
There is another Commisar and he's a weak, by the book, selfish and
petty kind of guy. He's also inept and causes more problems than
anything. I was kind of hoping he'd get eaten, gruesomely, by the
vampiress, but no such luck. Sometimes it can be hard to be a reader,
you know?
While I enjoyed the short stories I read featuring Cain, he does much
better in a full novel. I zipped right through this and could have
read another for breakfast, but my iron will obviously kept me on the
righteous path of book rotation. Sometimes I'm so amazing that I
amaze even myself. Feel free to bask, there's no charge.
★★★✬☆
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