155.738.M41
Velgrad
04:10 - 04:39 Local Time
We made our reports periodically, but saw nothing to trigger the conditions Isela had set for going early or postponing the assault. No lights or movement in the visible part of the target structure. That was about half of the south courtyard, most of the roof, and the south facing wall of the building. The closer half of the courtyard was obscured by the perimeter wall.
We hadn't seen anyone go in or out of the target all night. I called it in.
"Tall South overwatch. All quiet. No change."
Deacon Surs was sitting in a blacked out armored truck a mile away. He confirmed the transmission. Twenty minutes to H-hour.
The other elements called in. Spaced out, not in a rush.
"North Screen, in position. Power hub ready. All quiet."
"Entry 1 at 1-alpha. Ready."
"Entry 2, 2-alpha, ready."
Finally, Superior Isela's voice came over the command channel. "Five minutes. Pray and make ready. Go on my command."
It felt like an hour. Tara and Verity were staring half past, half through their scopes, set up a little bit back from the edge of the roof. I was off to one side, using my helmet's slight magnification. All quiet. Nothing moved.
"Power hub, go," Isela voxed.
All the lights went out. A few dim emergency lights popped on a few seconds later, bright as day in our low-light vision.
"Entry 1, go. Entry 2, go."
A few seconds passed. The brief blue-white glow of a melta-gel breach lit up the ghostly camouflaged shapes of the six women on Entry 1 on the south side. The same thing would be happening on the north, where I couldn't see to support.
More silence. The only movement was ours. Entry 1 stacked on the door. Up on the rooftop, we held our guns on the corners and windows they couldn't watch. Motion above the target structure caught my eye, but it was the servo-skull, cruising across to Entry 1 to thread its optical dendrite through the door and give them a view inside.
"Command, Entry 2. The door is bricked up. We can't tell how thick."
Isela: "Copy 2. Go to your contingency. Remain external, north side."
"Command, Entry 1. We see a stablight moving in the hallway. Breach is ready."
"Copy. Go."
A few seconds later, the bang of a breaching charge and the brief thunder of a bolter shattered the quiet. Entry 1 flooded in through the splinters and dust, and was lost to my sight. My heart was pounding. I breathed slowly to make it slow down. About twenty seconds passed. I heard the crackle of a low-caliber automatic weapon and the louder reply of a bolter. No hostiles spilled out through windows or the rooftop hatch. No vehicles came swerving into view. No hidden servo-drones rose into the night.
The two assault elements reported sporadically. From what I could piece together, Entry 1 had killed at least one person and taken several prisoners. Entry 2 had been able to clear several rooms through exterior windows, and they took another prisoner who tried to climb out through one. I wondered at that. None of our enemies in the hab had seemed to even think about surrender.
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Then: "Command, Entry 1. Hostages."
Entry 1's leader was Sister Lena. She voxed: "At least two hostiles with human shields. They fell back west. Lost contact."
"Copy 1. Isolate and complete clearance."
"Stand by." A few moments passed. "Affirm. Clear this level. There's a hatch. I think there's a cellar or basement. I'm bringing the servo-skull to peek."
There hadn't been anything on any of the picts or maps about a cellar. I imagined traps and tunnels and forces slipping around into cleared space and breathed deeply again to slow my heart.
Entry 1 reported at least two male hostiles and a mixed group of men, women, and children prisoners. Guns to heads, human shields, but no sign of enemies escaping down a tunnel into some rat's-nest hell, and no sign of bombs, thank the Emperor.
I wondered at the hostages, too. Not that it was stupid and self-defeating if they wanted to live. Stupid is normal. But it didn't fit. It wasn't like the hab. The enemies there had been evil in their way, but no hostages, not then, even in a hab full of people, families, children.
Isela asked if Entry 1 could kill the hostiles without killing the hostages. Bolter shells don't just overpenetrate. They explode. They could use weapons taken from the enemy. Would they trust them, when centimeters meant life or death?
I thought about our long-las's variable settings. The lowest setting is meant to make the charge pack last longer, but it also doesn't overpenetrate at all.
I called in. "Command, Tall South. We have the two long-las rifles."
Isela didn't reply for a long time. I could imagine her thinking about all the things that could go wrong with a mission with a degraded base of fire. Or how taking a long weapon into a tight space went against all good sense.
"Lower them with a rope on the west side of Tall South," she said.
Part of me felt cheated. Like they were my weapons, so I should get to put them to use. I told myself not to be an idiot. Tara and Verity unslung the rifles and made them safe. We tied a rope through the slings and lowered the rifles to the street. Two women from Isela's reserve came around the target structure and crossed our covered space to grab them. We watched them follow Entry 1's path back into the target structure. We still had our bolters. Good enough.
Isela delegated dealing with the hostages and hostage-takers to Sister Lena in command of Entry 1. Lena must have tried to talk to them because nothing happened for a few minutes. Four minutes later, we heard the pop of a stun grenade and a brief crackle of small arms fire, distorted by coming from indoors. Another minute of silence.
"Entry 1. Building secure. We… send a stretcher. One hostage is dead. Send a stretcher, we can save this other one."
"Any of ours hurt?"
"Negative."
"Confirm all secure?"
"All secure."