Secret War: The Annihilation Plague (Part 2)

Chapter 9

Adelana tugged the book out of the returns cart but paused as she began to slip it onto the shelf. She turned to Seleen, who was taking books from her cart a few metres away.

'Hey, Seleen,' said Adelana.

'Yeah?' said the woman turning to her. 'How do you think Attelus...and the others are doing?'

Seleen smiled knowingly, 'Good question. He's probably doing something crazy dangerous and insane as normal.'

Seleen's words didn't bring Adelana any comfort, so she bit her lip and said nothing more as she placed the book back.

Attelus had no time to scream as he fell, as his guts seemed to drop into his toes and his heart lodged in his throat. He had less than a split second, according to Attelus' very rough calculations, a time his usual self would have no trouble with. But not now, not now.

With all his remaining strength, Attelus punched the blades into the wall, only a few centimetres from the edge. But it didn't stop him short as he'd hoped; the blades continued to slide down through the stone.

He cried out through clenched teeth as he scrambled to smash the other gauntlet into the wall, but his panic made him only flail out like a ranting child. But just as it came to the corner, the blades finally found purchase, and he stopped dead, his feet dangling over the sea of green hundreds of metres below.

And while all of this happened, the binging in his ears became faster and faster.

Snarling, he plunged his left gauntlet into the overhang, and while hissing, 'Come on, come on,' he waited for the blades to curl. It seemed like hours before they did, so he let himself hang out of sight and punched his right gauntlet up.

Then he waited, cursing and snarling through his constant gasping. The beeping from his micro-bead seemed to curl around his skull and inside his brain. He dearly wanted to turn the damned auspex off, but he needed it.

Eventually, the warbling began to slow down and, in all honesty, Attelus was more glad that it was disappearing than the fact the patrolling Sister was finally going away.

Groaning, he began to climb again; he couldn't let another second go to waste.

Attelus' legs almost gave way from under him when his feet found the walkway floor. But he managed to keep his feet, hunker down and wrap his cameleoline cloak around him. He couldn't believe it; he couldn't frigging believe he'd managed to make it!

He shook away his elation and blinked back his tiredness; Attelus then surveyed his surroundings. The walkway was a good five metres wide and made from rockcrete as he thought it would.

On the roof sat an empty landing pad, which he'd seen in the orbital picts and where he planned to make his incursion. The convent loomed overhead, further away from the wall than he thought. At least a good twenty metres.

With pained, numb fingers, he reached into a pouch on his webbing and slipped out his grapnel hook; then he realised his mistake; in his exhaustion, he'd forgotten about it until now. If he'd used it to ascend to the outcrop, it could've saved him a lot of trouble.

With a sigh, Attelus forced his body to move; he had to find a good place to ascend the convent without being spotted and maybe, just maybe, he might find a place up there to rest. Attelus had vastly underestimated how hard that climb would be, and he'd already thought it'd be horrific. He briefly considered using one of the stimm injectors in his pack but shook away the thought. It wasn't a combat enhancement stimm, just to give a short burst of energy and clear the head of the user. He only had six and using them when the real infiltration began, namely when he got inside, was wiser as he'd be far less likely to find a place to rest there. Attelus hadn't wanted to take them at first, but Enandra had outright ordered him to, and by frig, he was glad she did.