Secret War: Warhammer 40,000 by Ben Agar (reading eggs books TXT) 📖

"I...I'm sorry! Of course! Come in!" I stammered and stepped aside.

She stormed through the door, handing me my jacket on the way and rounded on me, making me flinch. "I was thinking about what you said, and you were right!"

"Uhm, I've said a lot. Can you please elaborate?"

"You said on the flier that once I knew the truth, it would give me purpose! A reason to live!" she snapped. "And you were right."

I smiled and laughed, and this caused her to hiss as though hurt and look away. "That'd be the first time in a bloody long time I was right, then," I said.

"I want to help!" she said. "I want to help stop this Etuarq, help make sure he can't do this again!"

"Okay!" I said as I laid my sheathed sword onto my bed and turned back her, slapping the sides of my thighs. "Talk to the Inquisitor; she'll have someone willing to help you, then."

"I want you to help me!" he said. "I want you to teach me!"

I furrowed my brow and looked at her sidelong, unable to hide my surprise; it was more surprising I didn't see this coming.

"I...," I said with a shaking voice. "I'm not qualified to teach you anything; I'm only an apprentice. I wouldn't be..."

"I saw you dodge bullets! I saw you deflect them with your sword!" she exclaimed. "Who else is more qualified than you?"

"I've never taught anyone about anything in my life," I said. "I can do that stuff, sure, but that doesn't mean I'm a good teacher."

"Then you'll learn!" she said. "Just like I will learn! I'm only here because of you! So it must be you who trains me! Please! You are partially responsible for the destruction of my world; you owe me this. You owe me!"

I flinched, hurt by her words and the truth behind them. I would've liked to teach her; I really would've...

"Why me?" I breathed.

"I already told you," she said hesitantly.

I looked into her eyes. "Is there, is there...another...another..."

Adelana met my gaze for a good few seconds, but her eyes widened, and she abruptly tore her attention away.

"I just need someone to teach me, and you owe me," she squeaked.

"Yes, yes, of course," I sighed and closed my eyes, once again feeling guilt hit me. I barely knew her, and Elandria wasn't long dead; what the hell was I doing?

"I should leave," she said and pushed past me, walking quickly toward the door.

"Adelana!" I said, causing her to stop and look back at me.

"I'll teach you," I said. "Starting tomorrow."

She smiled sadly and nodded, then went to leave again.

"Adelana!" I exclaimed again, and she halted. "I have to ask, how old are you?"

She furrowed her brow, bemused. "Nineteen standard. How old are you?"

"Twenty four standard," I answered, and her eyes widened with surprise.

"Really? You look seventeen or eighteen," she said.

I sighed. "Yeah, I get that quite a bit, anyway. I ask because you must know I've been training from when I was pretty much old enough to walk. So it'll take you a while to get up to my level."

"I understand," she said. "I have been studying to be in the Magistratum, so do have teaching in close quarters combat."

"And long-ranged combat?" I asked.

"Yes," she said with a slight nod. "I was third in my class at the shooting range."

I sighed and scratched the back of my head; damn it, everyone seemed to be a better shot than me. "I really, strongly suggest you get Hayden Tresch to teach you how to shoot better; that's just not me. I'm an average shot at the best of times."

She frowned and shrugged, "I was third at the range," she said again. "But I had an average of ninety-eight point five per cent. The two others higher than me were only point one and two per cent over me, respectively. Maybe I could teach you how to shoot, then?"

I smiled. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Will meet you at the training facility at 0800 hours tomorrow morning."

She smiled, nodded again, and left.

With a snarl, I sliced off the soldier's head, then impaled his ally through the chest. A third attempted a point-blank full auto flurry with his lasgun, but by the time he'd raised his rifle. I'd already darted in, cut it in two, then opened his throat with a diagonal slash.

Behind me, Adelana, Verenth, Vark and Helma slipped out of the cover of the two nearby outlets. Their hellguns fired flurries of laser down the wide, dirty brown corridor. The enemy soldiers took cover thirty metres away, cowering behind the outlets there.

"Cover me!" I shouted, then started sprinting forward, pulling out a frag grenade, pulling the pin, and throwing it into the left side.

The resulting explosion, followed by screams and the five others on the right leaned out, opening up with their lasguns.

I dodged and deflected the las-fire before darting behind the nearest outlet, throwing a knife a Microsecond before moving, which stuck fast into the eye socket of a soldier.

It'd allowed my friends to advance behind me, and withering hell gunfire strafed through the air followed by more screams.

I clenched my teeth and pushed my back against the wall. Three months! It'd taken the Space Marines three frigging months to finally give up searching for us in the solar system and leave into the warp. I knew they'd be tenacious but didn't expect it to take that frigging long. It was a harrowing, stressful game of cat and mouse we played; we'd almost been caught five times once a Space Marine craft had passed within two hundred kilometres of us. It was so close for void ships we may as well have been breathing down each other necks.

During that time, I'd tried to teach Adelana how to fight. Unfortunately, I didn't do very well at first, showing how to do techniques far too fast and expecting her to perform advanced fighting forms, which came to me as naturally as breathing. Still, for someone starting, it seemed almost impossible.

I'd tried to get teaching advice from Darrance, but he proved to be pretty damn useless in this regard. If he was upset, me a mere apprentice, was teaching someone, he didn't show it, and I hoped he'd keep it out of his report. I would've gone to Enandra, but she was busy with the whole business of keeping us alive.

Adelana had proven to be a pretty lousy close-quarters combatant, despite being surprisingly fit and robust. She was a Magistratum trainee, so she was used to a submission, grappling style. I used more of a striking style, so she'd had to start almost all over again. Adelana had also admitted privately she was thirtieth in her class, out of forty total.

Out of a moment's inspiration, a month in, I'd decided to used my father's teaching as a template. Despite his anti-social tendencies, he was a good teacher, and she'd improved more since then but was still far from being even below average.

But in contrast, thanks to her help, my marksmanship had improved somewhat.

Much to my surprise, Enandra's plan had gone exactly right. Once the Space Marines had left, we'd emerged from hiding, and as she'd expected, Torathe had been hiding as well, waiting for us. Finally, after a brief void battle, we'd been boarded.

We'd been ready; Enandra had briefed us fully before we'd dropped the stealth field, and we'd set up pre-built defences of shoulder-high flak board walls throughout the ship. The only danger was of Space Marines being on Torathe's craft, but Enandra had predicted there wouldn't. She'd believed that it was now personal between her and her former master, that his pride wouldn't allow their help in this fight. Also, he'd had the Astartes for so long they wouldn't agree to spare any more for any longer.

So far, that theory too had proven true; there were no Space Marines among the number of Imperial Guardsmen and navy personnel taking part in the fighting.

Vex had first hacked into their vox network and shut it down with some sort of virus or something. So, even outnumbered and taking numerous casualties, we'd pushed them back into their ship, leaving countless corpses in our wake. Enandra had surprisingly put me in charge of a kill squad consisting of Adelana, Helma, Torris, Verenth and Vark. I'd expected everyone but Adelana to resent me for this, but they'd quickly fallen in, following my orders without complaint and hesitation. It seemed finally being able to take the fight to those responsible for Omnartus' fate had allowed them to put aside their dislike of me for now.

I'd at first been hesitant for Adelana to take part in the battle; her training was far from even beginning in my eyes, but she'd insisted on fighting with a passion and fire, I couldn't even begin to deny. Besides, what she lacked in close combat ability, she more than made up for in skill in a firefight. This was a boarding action, and even though I'd never taken part in one before, I knew it'd be mostly close range and brutal.

"Clear!" I heard Helma call, knocking me from my train of thought, and I slipped out of cover.

Wordlessly we continued to cautiously, silently, professionally advance, from outlet to outlet, shadow to shadow. I led the way, sword held at the ready, but the power field deactivated. It wasn't long before we heard more running footfalls from around the next corner, and quickly I calculated it to be at least twenty pairs of boots. Karmen and the other in incorporeal psyker had gone forth first, using their abilities to shatter and destroy the glow globes throughout the enemy ship.

I sent Torris, Helma and Vark back behind an outlet a few metres back with quick movements of my hands. While me, Adelana and Verenth slipped behind the nearest, all of us dissipating into the shadows behind our cameleoline cloaks. Over the past few months, almost everyone had been hard at work training to fight and everything in between. Adelana hadn't excelled at much, but she'd done well at stealth. The others were trained by one of Enandra's men, and he'd taught them frigging well. Although I was sure both Vark and Helma had first-hand experience in commando tactics anyway.

We waited for the enemy to storm down the corridor; they'd heard our firefight, they were on the losing side, and there was a strong camaraderie among them. So they wanted to go to their comrade's aid as quickly as they could; this made them almost reckless, predictable.

They barely check their flanks as they passed us by and went to check the bodies of their dead comrades. I was right; there was twenty total a full squads worth. I raised the replacement autopistol, given to me by Enandra's armoury and blew a hole through the back nearest guardsman's head with a manstopper round. Then, seeing it for the signal, it was the rest of my Kill team opened up, catching them in a crossfire. They wore thick, grey flak armour, but it provided them with no protection from the highly penetrative hellgun fire. It was a slaughter; within a few seconds, they were dead or grievously injured.

I finished the last screaming survivor by stabbing him through the heart, and Torris approached me.

"Can't believe that worked," he said.

I shrugged and pursed my lips. "One thing you can always rely on is the idiocy of humanity."

He smiled grimly. "Yes, of course," he said knowingly.

I smiled back, knowing he meant me, but didn't care, then waved us onward.

We found the next corner in silence, and I peered around carefully, the coast was clear, and I signalled this. As part of the briefing, Enandra had provided us with the schemata of Torathe's ship, The Imperial Crusher; from this alone, it seemed that she'd been planning a confrontation with her former master for a very long time. I'd studied it well and had the printout in my pocket. But I didn't need it now. I