[M] Penitence - IC

[Azazeal849]

Rated M for violence and distressing themes.
Potential strong language and drug references


LINK TO OOC (http://role-player.net/forum/showthread.php?t=73387)

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All credit for this banner goes to F.O.E (www.role-player.net/forum/showthread.php?t=66169)


Ad Mech Waystation 9794
2 weeks after the Saros Station incident

The dreams of an ordinary man (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJw5NzrLHz4) can be a mysterious and occasionally frightening landscape. The dreams of a madman, more so. On a desolate plain of scarred, rust-coloured rock, two figures stood side by side next to a tomb of cracked and greying marble. Together, they looked towards a glassy, red-tinted horizon obscured by a haze of smoke and windblown ash. One of the figures was hunched and misshapen; blue-skinned, horned, barely human. The other was horribly scarred across one side of his face, his ragged cheeks drawn tight in a broken-mirror smile. He was looking at something beyond the plain of smoke and ash, and what he saw amused him.

"She's coming." said the Smiler. "Tenacious, isn't she?"

In the waking world, they had thought themselves safe after they had made their jump into the warp, in complete defiance of the mechanicus defined separation zones. The etheric backlash as they had torn their way out of reality had destroyed two docking transports, and bathed Jupiter's upper atmosphere in a warp flare that would have scoured a continent clean of life on any inhabited planet. They however had survived, the Changer smiling on them right up until the point that Alicia Tarran had somehow followed them through the breach in her own commandeered fighter, riding out the ectoplasmic shockwaves and hanging tight on their tail until she had been able to ambush them as they broke back into realspace. Instead of simply reorienting themselves at the waystation and diving back into the warp, they had been forced to make an emergency docking. The five tech priests and three astropaths crewing the station had been easy pickings, but the inquisition agent pursuing them would not. No doubt she was lining up for her own docking even now.

"Why did you tell Marc we were on Marioch?" the Blue Devil snarled. His voice was the jagged screech of sandpaper dragged across metal. "Did you not think he'd pass it along to her?"

"Marc amuses me," the Smiler shrugged by way of answer. "And so does Alley."

"We have to kill her!"

"The third might not like that." said the Smiler, and his rictus grin wavered a little as he glanced towards the decaying tomb beside them.

"It's too dangerous to do anything else." the Blue Devil argued.

"Perhaps. But she can be broken first, I guarantee it. She has information we need."

The Blue Devil exhaled in a menacing hiss. "Very well. You will have your chance. But if we have the shot, I will kill her."

The Smiler gave a high, cold laugh. "You won't get the chance."


+ + + + + +

Inquisition Fortress, Holy Terra
10 weeks after Saros

For the private study of an inquisitor quartered within the vast conclave on Holy Terra itself, the room was surprisingly austere. Crenshaw knew that this was the product of preference rather than design, because there were naked hooks on the walls where fine pictures and tapestries had once hung. Only a bronze Aquila idol remained as ornament, and even that had been removed to the sill of one of the diamond-grated windows. Beyond the window were great pyrocumulus thunderheads, thrown up by Terra's cracked and bleeding plates. They lashed down at the wounded landscape outside the fortress with intermittent whips of white lightning.

The furniture in the room was purely functional - cabinets of files, a table piled high with dataslates and info-crystals, and a free standing holo-projector that was currently cycling through possible warp routes back to the Malfian sub in Calixis. A man and two women stood studying the hololith. One of the women wore simple trousers and a tunic belted with Ovigor hide, and had a stern, exotic face with a square jaw and perceptive, almond-shaped eyes. An interrogator's rosette was proudly pinned at her chest. The other woman was taller, sandy tanned, with her long hair woven into a pleat. She was dressed in simple void-crew's overalls, as if she had just transferred down in a shuttle, though she was wearing what looked like a ministorum skull-and-sunburst around her neck.

The man was tall and sparsely built, and he dressed in nondescript grey, accentuated by his thinning grey hair and the grey stubble that shadowed his hollow cheeks. His eyes too were grey, but sharp and hard, like chips of flint.

"How long did D'Lane say we had?" the man asked in a flat, gravelly voice, seemingly ignoring Crenshaw's entrance.

"He wasn't sure." answered the woman with the priest's necklace. "The Tarot indicated a month, perhaps two. Not long."

The man hissed through his teeth, still glaring intently at the hololith. "Not long, right enough. Let's hope he was also right about the tribunal reconvening soon."

"D'Lane's usually trustworthy with his predictions." offered the stern-faced interrogator.

The man's cheek twitched. "I trust the Tarot. I don't trust him. As far as I'm concerned, the fact that that psyker has a soul to channel the Tarot with is his one redeeming feature." He turned, folded his arms, and regarded Crenshaw for the first time. "No offence to present company."

The two men regarded each other for a moment. Crenshaw had heard a few things about inquisitor Feyd Lucullis - some from Machairi, some from other agents scattered about the Malfian sub, and little of it pleasant. An occasional colleague of Sidonis and his protégés, but otherwise stubbornly independent, Lucullis' insular mode of operation left a vacuum of details that had been filled with rumours of varying likelihood. Some said that he was secretly a psyker; others that he was just preternaturally good at detecting lies. Some said that he had executed thousands of heretics but never an innocent; others that he had raised a penitent into his service but declared her damnatio memoriae on her own homeworld. Some said that the steel-grey eyes that were looking at Crenshaw now were not his but those of an executed cult leader, which he had implanted so that he could observe the universe from a heretic's point of view. Others insisted that it was not the eyes he had taken from the heretic but his right hand, so that it could do good in death as it had never done in life. Others still maintained that the hand was just a clone graft he had had made, after burning the original to remove any possible taint it had contracted from once picking up a daemon weapon. If there was any surgical scar on the inquisitor's wrist, however, it was hidden by the cuff of his jacket.

Lightning flashed, and for a moment the windows on the west side of the tower blazed white. The thunder came a moment later, rolling like a distant drum.

"I know why you're here, major Crenshaw." inquisitor Lucullis said neutrally. "Alia sent you ahead to poke around the Telepathica databanks on Saros Station, and then here to try and find out what I'm going to do with her old master's agents."

Crenshaw cocked an eyebrow. That was, almost exactly, what he was here for. The Saros incident, occurring as it did so close to Holy Terra, had been subject to almost total information lockdown. Alia Machairi had only been informed about it several months into the investigations that followed the incident, and even then only because the conclave wanted to task her with something that had come to light after her former mentor's death. When she had heard that some of her former operatives were among the accused, she had panicked about the Necron chip lying dormant in agent Sonder's head and had contacted Crenshaw - the only person outside her own circle who knew about it. Luckily for her, Crenshaw had already been in the segmentum Solar, albeit dodging mechanicus reprisals after that debacle on the Ampoliros.

"I could deny that." Crenshaw said mildly, "But I feel it would be more productive to ask how you came to that conclusion."

The corners of the inquisitor's mouth twitched slightly. Crenshaw wouldn't have called it a smile, because Lucullis did not seem the sort of man who took to smiling often. The lightning flickered again, throwing long shadows across the bare walls.

“I know you’d come," Lucullis said, "Because Alia never does anything the straight and honest way. That's not a criticism mind, but it is a recognisable pattern.” He paused. "You throwing your weight around with the telepathica on Saros didn't go unnoticed, and you wouldn't have asked to see me if she hadn't put you up to it. She believes I owe her a favour, no doubt."

"Most people seem to." Crenshaw observed dryly.

The right conclusion, but the wrong deductions. the blank major thought. Lucullis had apparently guessed that Machairi wanted her agents spared, or at least given a reprieve until she arrived, but he seemed to believe that her motive was simple sentiment. Or perhaps possessiveness - Crenshaw would not have been surprised if Lucullis held the same skeptical opinion of Machairi as her long-dead rival, Schafer.

"Although for now," he continued, "I would settle for knowing what you are going to do with the accused agents."

"The trial is still ongoing, major." Lucullis replied.

"Then I would ask what you want to do with them."

"What I want to do with them doesn't really matter, major - at least not enough to swing the difference. The vote also rests with four other inquisitors, who I'm forbidden to talk to until we've finished analysing the evidence and made our separate verdicts. And before you ask, no I cannot delay the verdict until Alia arrives. Even if I could, I have business to attend to that does not involve her accused agents."

He turned back to the hololith for a second, and cancelled the display by swiping his hand back and forth through the image. It flickered and died, and the projector whirred as it ejected a data wand that Lucullis handed to his interrogator.

"Alia will have to pray that the warp tides favour her and bring her to Terra in good time." Lucullis said, his voice low and even. "I can't and won't subvert the fair justice of this tribunal on her behalf. But."

He wheeled slowly around to face Crenshaw once more.

“I do have an idea of what the conclave plans to task her with when she arrives. As such, I’ll tell you what I can do."

Crenshaw remained studiously silent, his hands clasped behind his back.

"There was another survivor from the station, who was deferred to me for sentencing two days ago." Lucullis revealed. "He has information that I suspect Alia might need in the near future."

Crenshaw's eyebrow flickered a second time as Lucullis' flint eyes switched towards the woman with the priest's necklace.

"Raeden?" the inquisitor prompted, and the sandy-skinned woman nodded once before crossing to the table and pulling a cardboard dossier out of the mess of dataslates and memory crystals. She carried it over to Crenshaw and handed it to him with another nod. Crenshaw delicately flipped the folder open with his fingertips, and spent a handful of heartbeats silently skimming the contents.

"Just let me be clear on one thing, major." Lucullis broke in. "Make sure Alia understands that if she does not have him executed at the end of the investigation, then I’ll seek her out and do it myself. This man does not deserve to live.”

Crenshaw raised his gaze. "I have to ask, inquisitor. You count a soul as a redeeming feature, but what use is a soul that belongs to a man like this?" Crenshaw had seen souls attached to some of the worst abominations man could imagine. Have you ever heard of a replicant, inquisitor?

He saw the priestess frown, while Lucullis himself gave another twitching un-smile.

"I said my astropath's soul was his redeeming feature, major. I never said it was yours," His eyes dropped to the folder in Crenshaw's hands. "Or his."

Crenshaw gave an ambiguous grunt, and flipped the dossier closed once more, looking at the name stencilled on the front of the rough paper binder. The name read Merle Carson.


+ + + + + +

Holy Terra, 3 months after Saros

The vaulted hall was made of cold, unforgiving stone; the air full of cloying incense and the whir of grav-suspensors as mechanical censor-cherubs covered in synthskin flitted between the walls. Quill skulls with golden callipers weaved between them, hovering like grinning spectres above the heads of the assembled tribunal. Dozens of inquisitors from the ordos Solar, Ixaniad and Calixis were arrayed with their attendants around the chamber, though only five formed the panel of judges. Those five sat in a wood-panel box atop a high plinth, their hands resting on the bannister rail. Golden aquila flags hung down the front of the plinth, almost brushing the floor. In a separate pulpit set below and to the right of the inquisitors, a grey-bearded confessor with a black cloak draped over his red robes sat mumbling prayers, reading from the book before him with a silver rod shaped like an accusingly-pointing finger. Lower still and directly across from the inquisitors was an armaglass dock, surrounded by a ring of guards in ceremonial plate armour. Inside the glass cage were six figures, chained to each other and to steel rings on the floor by heavy linked manacles. The six wore brown penitents' robes, their foreheads marked by crude aquilas formed from streaks of ash - a simple V for the heads, and a horizontal line beneath for the wings.

Marcus Black stood with his head bowed, his vision almost obscured by the outgrown, unwashed hair that fell into his eyes and over the ash aquila burning his forehead. He could feel three months of grease and grime smothering his face, and a straggling growth of beard itched his jawline. He stared down at his hands, and at the acid-etched hexagrams that covered his manacles. His wrists were bruised purple beneath the heavy iron cuffs. His fingernails had barely begun to grow back, the beds still raw and red beneath their simple antiseptic bandages.

Although his work in the inquisition had covered investigation and interrogation, Marc had never conducted anything beyond Second Action processing. Now he knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of the Third Action, and that was more than enough. To think that the inquisition had nine Actions that they could call upon for prisoner processing. Nine! Marc had only been witness to the higher Actions twice before: the first time, he had been too busy pulling Kally up off the waterboarding table to deal with the people responsible. The second time, after seeing the vivid recordings of what magos Brunswick had done to McKenzie, he had crushed the tech priest's larynx with his own hands - and that had been before they had discovered he was an informer for Emerald's rainbow.

On the slab himself, however, he had seldom felt anything beyond a pathetic sense of fear. They had questioned him, beaten him, then questioned him again to see if he changed his story. Eventually, subject by subject, the tortures had stopped - except for one. Every time he admitted to not knowing where Arcolin was, the hood had come down and the water had flooded his nasal passages even as he instinctively tried to close off his airway. Who knew that water could burn like fire?

Despite everything, he had been lucky. Some of his companions had been subjected to even higher Actions.

On Marc's right was Ella Seren, her own head bowed in meek surrender. A psychic null collar was fitted around the young astropath's neck, which had rendered her blind and forced one of the guards to pull her by the arm up the steps to the dock. On Marc's left was his sister Kelly; dark haired like him, empathetic, calmly rational - and, right now, shivering. Marc would have held them both, as much for his own support as for theirs, if only his hands hadn't been manacled. Kally and Vincent were seemingly a world away on Kelly's other side. Vincent was silent, the fight seemingly gone from his single baleful eye. On Ella's right, Gavin was the only one of their group who had been granted the luxury of sitting, and even then only because he had no legs to stand on. He had been manhandled up onto a hard wooden stool by the guards, where he now sat trying to curl himself up to the point that he might disappear.

A break in the confessor's droning prayers and the sudden silence that followed caused Marc to tentatively raise his eyes. Looking up at the judges' plinth, he saw that one of the inquisitors had stood up. The inquisitor was a lean, grim man in his late fifties, with a shadow of stubble darkening his ascetic face, and thin grey hair that was beginning to recede around his temples. He held an unfolded scroll in his hands and he was dressed in black, white and grey - all the colours of truth.

"The court recognises inquisitor Feyd Lucullis of the ordo Ixaniad, who speaks for this tribunal." boomed a robed adept who stood at the foot of the Aquila-draped plinth. The silver vox grille in front of his mouth sent the words echoing around the vaulted ceiling of the chamber, scattering the censor-cherubs. Marc's chest tightened, a sick lurch dropping through his stomach as his heart pounded against his throat.

"Of treason against the God Emperor," the inquisitor called Lucullis read out in a strong, toneless voice. "We find the defendants...not guilty."

Marc blinked in shock. For an awful moment, he thought that he had misheard.

"Of sedition against His holy Imperium," the inquisitor continued, his face neutral. "Not guilty."

Marc felt his shoulders sag, and he didn't particularly care who saw it.

"Of insubordination to your lord inquisitor," the inquisitor's voice rang out once more. "We absolve you."

"Ego vos absolvo." intoned the confessor sitting below the plinth, raising one hand towards the dock and marking the heads and wingtips of a holy Aquila in the air.

"Of the murder of Imperial servants, we absolve you."

"Ego vos absolvo."

"Of the theft and destruction of Imperial property, we absolve you."

"Ego vos absolvo."

"Of consorting with xenos, we absolve you."

"Ego vos absolvo."

Marc found that the inquisitor on his high plinth was blurring away from him, and he realised that he was crying. He looked left towards his sister, who was standing with her lips parted in numb shock.

"Of sheltering an enemy of the Imperium," Lucullis read out. "We do not absolve you."

In that instant Marc was pulled up short, his trembling sense of relief quashed as the hard, cold spike of fear returned.

Inquisitor Lucullis continued to look down at them expressionlessly. "Sidonis, Irons, the heretic Emerald, and the creature known as Juno are dead." he elaborated. "The heretic DeRei, however, is not. We therefore reinstate you as agents of the Emperor's inquisition and task you with the penitent duty of hunting down this heretic. When DeRei's soul is rendered to the Emperor for judgement, your own souls shall be released. You are to be put into the trust of the late Immanuel Sidonis' former acolyte, inquisitor Alia Machairi. She will oversee your penance and grant your absolution upon its completion."

Marc dared to look up once more, and saw a familiar olive-skinned face, with a blade of a nose and sharp, dark eyes, looking back at him from among the ranks of watching inquisitors.

"You are free to go." he almost didn't hear inquisitor Lucullis say.


+ + + + + +

Alia Machairi was almost as surprised by the decision as the six poor wretches in their armaglass cage. She had known that something more than the division of her late mentor's assets was afoot when she received a personal summons to Holy Terra, but she had not expected to see so many faces that she recognised. Some like De Shilo and Lucullis she knew from the ordo Calixis; others by reputation as formidable players in the segmentum Solar. Javaer, Reiker, Corbold...there were some influential names here.

It was a testament to lord Sidonis' massive political power that so many of his colleagues from the northern arm were here, even though they stood on Terra: the very heart of the imperium and the God Emperor's own soil. Indeed, the new lord inquisitor who had replaced Sidonis in the Ixaniad sector had set to breaking apart his predecessor's assets so that others couldn't accumulate the same kind of power. But if Machairi had raised an eyebrow at the names on the panel of judges, she had been shocked to find out the names of the six accused. Five of them had served with her before, several years ago when she was still aspiring to her current rank. That seemed to be the logic behind the final and greatest shock: that they were now her responsibility.

Alia Machairi hadn't gotten to where she was today by letting her discomfort show easily. Standing just over six feet in flat heels and a floor-brushing gown made of silver and blue gossamer, she turned briefly away from the six penitents towards her own retinue to weigh their reactions. Machairi had a network of contacts, informers and favours numbering in the hundreds, but her own permanent staff was small and close-knit. Dependable, grizzled Tomas Prinzel and soft-spoken Solvan Belannor had been with her from the start - the one trenchant and erudite, the other patient and eloquent, both tirelessly dutiful. Beside them was investigator Hybrida, another resourceful old hand, and it was a testament to the gravity of the situation that even he wasn't cracking jokes. Beside him was sister Sapphira in her dove-grey robe, a permanent attachment to Machairi's retinue in all but name. All of Machairi's core henchmen knew the penitents from their grueling mission together on Hercynia, but it was Sapphira's reaction that Machairi was watching most closely.

No, Machairi reminded herself, not quite most. Standing apart from the others, by choice as much as by the unsettling aura he projected, was major Martin Crenshaw. Machairi had worked with the relentless Telepathica commander many times since Hercynia, and he had been invaluable in prising information about the incident on Saros out of his own colleagues, who owned half of the station. But this was the first time that the major and Kally Sonder were back in the same room - and under the worst possible circumstances.

Machairi had called in other favours besides Crenshaw before her three-month pilgrimage to Terra. She had had a feeling that she would need their influence to sway the various warring institutions that kept humanity's cradle wrapped up in red tape. Josiah Wuziarch - a broad-featured, almond-eyed arbitrator who had been her contact to the adeptus arbites during her previous work on Marioch - was her link to the trial's evidence files. Secutor Vizkop, an old and valued ally from past days, was her link to the mechanicus.

There had been other survivors of the Saros Station incident, and some had not been involved as deeply as the six penitents. One had been trialed and sentenced a month before the others, and Machairi had pulled all the strings she could to get him remanded to her custody. Machairi had expected the new mission, even if she hadn't expected the six penitents to be a living part of it. The seventh penitent was Merle Carson, formerly in the employ of the traitor Emile Emerald. A condemned heretic twice over, Merle was still alive because of what he had seen in his former master's employ. He knew Arcolin DeRei - and perhaps he knew what the escaped heretic would do next. Machairi did not look forward to meeting him.

Gauging her agents' reactions, Machairi offered them all a silent nod. Simultaneously, the armaglass cage was opened, the warded shackles clicked apart, and the armoured guards stood back to allow the six penitents a clear path towards Machairi and her retinue.


+ + + + + +

After the verdict

Crenshaw made his way down the ribbed arches twisting away from the judgement hall, being careful to keep his stride even. Alia had been tactful in her suggestion that he should retrieve the penitents' equipment, but he was not inclined to give away how glad he was of an excuse to be elsewhere after the verdict. Kally Sonder was of course one reason. The other was the murderous look that Jenkins had been giving him as Kelly Black helped him down the steps. That the scrawny machine empath had developed a spine over the last few years was neither good nor bad in itself, but a psyker who suddenly showed no fear of his former handler was an extreme warning sign in Crenshaw's experience.

As the corridors curved away through the warren of the inquisition fortress, bringing Crenshaw past silent statues and judgemental carved skulls, he eventually found himself in the atrium of the vault levels. Alia would have sent word ahead, and so he was not surprised to see one of Lucullis' two primary agents waiting for him. It turned out to be the missionary, Raeden - conspicuous in the cargo trousers and thick-soled boots that were visible underneath her belted ministorum robe, as if she expected to be dumped outside in the Terran wastes or some other wilderness without notice. She was toying with the skull-and-starburst icon that hung round her neck as she contemplated a painting that dominated the atrium wall. The painting showed the Emperor and his winged angels at the Council of Nikaea, passing the judgement that would set ten thousand years of imperial policy.

"Suffer not the witch to live?" Crenshaw commented as he stopped next to the painting.

The priestess turned her head to acknowledge him, dropping her necklace to link her thumbs in the sign of the Aquila. "Only if they can't be saved. Good to see you again, major Crenshaw."

Crenshaw inclined his head. "Raeden."

"I'd rather not the surname." the sandy-skinned woman replied, twisting her mouth at some memory that Crenshaw was not privy to. She hitched up a slight smile, despite the nearness of Crenshaw's blank aura. "Kim or Kimmie is fine."

"Kimmie then." Crenshaw nodded, choosing the more colloquial of the two to test the veracity of her attempt at warmth. "Am I being snubbed?"

The missionary cocked her head to one side. "Excuse me?"

"I would have expected the inquisitor's second to keep his appointment. And I would have further assumed that that second would be his interrogator."

"Erdene is briefing the rest of the team for the journey back to the Malfian sub." Kim replied. Her tone was still soft, but Crenshaw could see that he had nettled her slightly. "Breathing time is something none of us get very often."

She was being vague, and Crenshaw could approve of that - after all, who knew who might be listening even in the corridors of inquisition headquarters on Holy Terra. Especially in the corridors of inquisition headquarters on Holy Terra. Still, it wasn't difficult to surmise that their mission was urgent, given Lucullis' impatience to be away the previous week.

"I will not delay you further, then." he said with the tiniest of nods, and together they turned towards the adamantium blast doors that barred the doorway. As they approached, a pair of guards in identity-stripping suits of power armour smashed the butts of their halberds against the ground. The powered blades at the tops of the weapons sparked into blue-white life, and a pair of bolter turrets mounted above the door arch ratcheted in their direction.

"Clearance." one of the faceless guards snarled through their vox grille.

"Kimberley Raeden," Kim answered for them. "Authorisation level blue, agent tag seven-two-nine-six-lambda, retrieving equipment from holding bay twenty-two eta, on behalf of inquisitor Feyd Lucullis."

The guard turned their helmeted head slightly, Kim and Crenshaw's faces reflected in its ruby eye lenses as verifications were fired back and forth through the vox net.

"Proceed." the guard said after a handful of heartbeats. "You are also clear to release subject xi two zero."

Crenshaw knew who subject xi two zero was. Of course Lucullis wouldn't officially release Merle Carson into Alia's custody until after the verdict; it would look too much like showing his hand on the judicial vote, and the grey bastard seemed to be nothing if not a stickler for the rules.

"Ave imperator." Kim nodded as the guards stepped back. The hiss of their power halberds deactivating was lost against the squealing grind of the blast doors swinging open.

"It must have been a relief." Kim said a few minutes later, her dark eyes on Crenshaw as she pressed her palm up against the gene-lock that had been temporarily programmed to accept her prints. The metal locker unbarred itself with a thud that reverberated down the long rows of storage lockers. "The verdict, I mean."

Crenshaw rubbed his tongue against one of his back teeth, and delayed his answer on the pretext of looking round for eavesdroppers. Their only companions in the aisle were a blank-faced transport servitor and a hovering servo skull. The skull had two bulbous cameras in place of eyes, but no audio recorders - designed to monitor the agents' progress inside the vault rather than to snoop on their masters' secrets.

"I have to confess a certain satisfaction that mine and Alia's time here was not wasted." Crenshaw said at last. "And what were your feelings, Kimmie?" he added, to arrest the knowing smile that was threatening to creep up the young missionary's face.

Kim nodded. "From what I read, I thought they deserved to live." she said frankly. "I knew that I was right when Lucullis decided he would vote that way. He's nothing if not impartial."

"Do you believe all sins can be forgiven?" Crenshaw probed as he pulled out the rail-loaded tray within the locker. Kally's signature bolter lay disassembled on the rack next to a bullpup lasgun and a brutal-looking Tallarn autopistol. He brushed his fingertips lightly over the stock of Kally's bolter.

Kim considered. "Almost all. Some only the emperor can judge."

She picked up a synthetic eyepiece with pict stealers and anti-psychic circuitry woven behind the lens; the false augmetic that Marc had used to complete his tech-menial disguise on Saros Station. She turned it over in her hands, looking at the device with interest.

"I haven't seen anything like this before." she said. "Who made it?"

"And what about blanks like me?" Crenshaw pressed, smiling as he ignored the change in subject. "As your lord Lucullis astutely pointed out, I have no soul for the emperor to judge. Does that then mean that I am free from morality?"

Kim put down Marc's eyepiece and frowned at him. "No. And you don't believe that either, otherwise you wouldn't be where you are right now. But for the sake of argument..."

She stepped back and allowed the transport servitor to gather up the released prisoners' equipment, using delicate metal callipers to transfer them into a set of six foam-filled briefcases.

"We leave an imprint this side of the grave too, on the people we know and the people we serve. Our duty to the Emperor extends to them as well."

Crenshaw could not be sure, but he thought that somehow Kimmie Raeden wasn't quite matching the kind of quiet assurance that father Bellanor was so good at. Either his blank aura was still unsettling her, or she didn't quite believe what she was saying. Strange, to think of a priest who wasn't certain of themselves. Especially for one of the young ones, who in Crenshaw's experience were usually the most firebrand, before the weight of the galaxy wore down their enthusiasm. Then again, on the other hand, Crenshaw had seen his fair share of overly-certain fools, across the ministorum, the inquisition and his own adeptus telepathica.

"An interesting argument." he admitted, cocking a dark eyebrow. "Especially if you were unlucky enough to serve someone like Carson." He got the put-out expression he was hunting for, as Kim realised that he was more interested in testing her than genuine debate. Knowing he would get no more valuable insight from this tack, he added, "Who I suppose we had better go and fetch."

If the vault was softly, clinically lit, then the holding cells had the aggressive brightness of a dissection theatre. They had to travel twenty levels below ground, through two more checkpoints and a crackling psyoculum gate, before they reached the level they were searching for. The rooms were soundproofed, but every now and then the crash of an opening door was accompanied by incoherent screams and pleading as a prisoner was dragged into an interrogation cell, or by a wet, muffled sobbing as they were dragged out again. Having served on the black ships Crenshaw was long inured to the sounds, though he noted his companion's pale face and taut neck muscles with interest.

"I will still be lobbying inquisitor Machairi to have Carson terminated as soon as he is turned over to our custody." he commented as they continued down the white-tiled corridor.

"I can understand that point of view." Kim replied, neutrally.

"Obviously you can not, Kimmie, otherwise you would be asking your own inquisitor to do the same. This man's continued existence is dangerous."

"Lucullis still thinks he might have some intelligence value to your lady Machairi. Grant him that chance for redemption, at least."

Crenshaw fixed her with a sceptical look. "Based on the file we have both read, I do not see much chance for redemption for Carson."

"If you'll forgive the presumption, major, is your opinion biased by the fact that he nearly killed Kally?"

Crenshaw ran his tongue along his back teeth a second time. Kally again - this was getting tiresome. And this time she was only partially correct.

"Actually no." he said, half truthfully. "In the main, my concern is for lady Machairi."

That part wasn't a lie. Beware the daemon at your back.

A door was hauled open by another guard in faceless black armour, and Kim and Crenshaw looked upon a tiny cubical cell that was nothing but bare hexagram-etched steel, spotted with rust and the occasional spatter of darker red. The only furniture was a reeking slops bucket, although the corners of the ceiling mounted black vid-recorders and contrasting white punisher sirens. The dispassionate eyes of the vid-recorders were trained on a waxy-skinned figure dressed in filthy overalls, who sat slumped against the walls with his arms wrapped around his knees. The arms were muscular, and criss-crossed with faded ganger tattoos. His square jaw was covered with scraggy salt-and-pepper stubble, the same colour and length as the hair that was receding from his weathered head. He was rubbing at a scar on his left palm when the door squealed open. Despite old scabs and the dark circles of sleep deprivation that ringed his eyes, Merle Carson somehow managed to grin as he raised his gaze to the door.

"Well shit." he smiled, his eyes flickering over Crenshaw before shifting to roam up and down Kim. "What do we have here? I don't suppose this is a threesome?"

[dakkagor]

+++Kally+++

Kally was ready now. She was ready to die.

Kally lay on the floor, curled into a ball. The cell was cold, and her robes where thin, and in this fetal position, the pain ebbed slightly. The door opened and she roused herself, not wanting to be lying down when they pulled her out for interrogation. That led to beatings, or worse. The light outside her dark cell was nearly blinding, and she raised a hand reflexively to her eyes.
“We do not have much time, Agent Sonder”
The figure was wearing red robes, edged in a black cog design. His limbs hissed as he moved into the room, and he shut the door behind him as he entered the cell. Kally got an impression of weight, and restrained power, from his quick, efficient movements.
“Your message, via Tech Priest Zerlinda Ghast and other interested parties, reached us. I am Agent Rho, and I serve the Lords Dragon. The code word is ‘Miscreant’. What do you have to say to the Mechanicus before your death at the hands of the Inquisition?”
Kally told him everything. Everything she was meant to say. Every location, every world, every tomb, everything. Even as she did, she felt a weight on her shoulders, a weight she had borne since Makita hive, a weight she didn’t even know she had carried, lift from her shoulders. At last, the message had been delivered to one meant to hear it.
The agent had offered her a clean death, a paltry reward for her service, but the only one he could give. She had refused. She wanted to be there for the others, at the end.
When he left, for the first time in a month, she had slept well. The interrogators never asked about her visitor. She assumed, like Vizkop, he had his own tricks to get in and out of Inquisitorial fortresses as needed. Or maybe she had hallucinated the whole encounter. After what had happened a few weeks ago, it was a distinct possibility.

Kally was ready to die. She didn't look at the others, she just kept her eyes forward, her shoulders back. She breathed through her nose, and out through her mouth, doing her best to calm her thundering heart. The collar that dampened her powers bit into her throat with every breath, every slight movement. It had been set that way, another torture. A constant reminder she was within their power, completely. Her feet ached, her shoulders ached, her eyes ached. Her hair clung to her head, limp and filthy, three months too long. At least she still had her nails.

More than anything, at that moment, she wanted to hold Marcs hand.

"The court recognises inquisitor Feyd Lucullis of the ordo Ixaniad, who speaks for this tribunal."
Kally closed her eyes, and bowed her head. At last. She was ready to die.

"Of treason against the God Emperor," the inquisitor called Lucullis read out in a strong, toneless voice. "We find the defendants...not guilty."
Her eyes snapped open in shock. She looked up, then to her fellows in the box. Marc was stunned, Kelly was agape.
"Of sedition against His holy Imperium," the inquisitor continued, his face neutral. "Not guilty."
Kally wavered where she was standing. She forced herself to breathe.
"Of insubordination to your lord inquisitor," the inquisitor's voice rang out once more. "We absolve you."
Was this really happening? Was this a dream, a stunt to trick them? They had done similiar things to her before. Her eyes darted around the room. She couldn't believe it. But it seemed real enough.

"Of the murder of Imperial servants, we absolve you."

"Ego vos absolvo."

"Of the theft and destruction of Imperial property, we absolve you."

"Ego vos absolvo."

"Of consorting with xenos, we absolve you."

"Ego vos absolvo."

Kally felt weak, her knees nearly giving out from under her as the wave of relief washed over her. After everything they had pulled out of her, every indignity and torment, they were getting off the hook. Maybe the Emperor gave a frak about them after all. She realised that she may have been ready to die, but she was damnably willing to live as well.

"Of sheltering an enemy of the Imperium," Lucullis read out. "We do not absolve you."

Kally snapped her head up, and swallowed hard, feeling the collar bite.

Inquisitor Lucullis continued to look down at them expressionlessly. "Sidonis, Irons, the heretic Emerald, and the creature known as Juno are dead." he elaborated. "The heretic DeRei, however, is not. We therefore reinstate you as agents of the Emperor's inquisition and task you with the penitent duty of hunting down this heretic. When DeRei's soul is rendered to the Emperor for judgement, your own souls shall be released. You are to be put into the trust of the late Immanuel Sidonis' former acolyte, inquisitor Alia Machairi. She will oversee your penance and grant your absolution upon its completion."

Kally looked to the others, and then followed Marcs gaze.

“Holy Throne.” She muttered. A few familiar faces waited in the gallery.

One in particular had been on her mind for nearly three months.

"You are free to go.”

+++Tomas+++

"Looks like the family is about to grow a few members." Tomas offered. He didn't envy the poor bastards. Three months in Inquisitorial custody was enough to break almost anyone, barring a few legendary exceptions. They certainly looked broken. Marc and Kally had looked close to collapsing as the sentence was passed. Poor Gavin barely looked human, curled up as small as he would go, missing his legs. Ella and Kelly looked pretty bad, and even Vincent looked like he finally had had the fight beaten out of him. He looked to Alia, and realized she was as surprised as he was at this turn of events. Some significant strings had been pulled here, but to what end?

"The old bastard has left a hell of a mess. With your permission Inquisitor, I'll arrange for a lighter to get us and the. . . penitents to the Tiercel as soon as possible. Most of them would probably appreciate medical attention, and being shot of this damned place."

He cast a glance over at Solvan and Sapphira. Those two would have their work cut out for them in the weeks ahead. They would be key in helping the agents put themselves back together after what they had been through.

And there was still the matter of Merle and their own new additions. He would have sooner flushed Merle out an airlock than put up with his foul mouth a moment longer. He was glad the talkative scummer wasn't here right now, because he doubted he'd have much of anything to say that he would want to hear. Josiah, an Arbitrator, had been a new addition to the team, and one that Tomas had not really approved of, though he hadn't raised it with Machairi. Glabrio was a good man, once you got past his quirks, and he thought that two Arbitrators on the team was one too many.

That left Vizkop, back after years of hunting his elusive heretek enemies. Vizkop had a different face, different armour, and that had unnerved him. He was almost a new person, until you talked to him. He had been wondering what could have caused such a drastic change. Was it injury, or part of some new attempt to get closer to his marks?

Going to be interesting with that many personalities on board.

He fell into the front of the rough group as they left, shield at his side and sword belted to his hip. As oathsworn bodyguard to Machairi, he had been allowed some considerations in his attire for attending.

[Thrannix]

Solvan had prayed many times in his life; too many to count in fact. Early in his career he had slowly began to pray as an exercise in routine and repetition, forgetting about the significance behind the act. Empty words from an empty soul, he would later say. The incessant, monotone vomiting of scripture from the court's confessor reminded him of such times. But Solvan had changed, and for the last twenty years he had developed a fervor he had never experienced before. But very few times in those years had he prayed like today.

Perhaps it was the setting, a déjà vu of his sister’s trial. Tribunals would always carry a mixed concoction of emotions for the old priest. He believed he had grown accustomed to them; his duties to Machairi often brought him inside such halls, to the point of almost forgetting the root from which his unease sprouted. But today, unlike many times before, he cared for the defendants kneeling in the penitent’s cage.

He had fought beside them; shared the scars of a grueling mission in which many good people had died. He had counseled and provided spiritual guidance to some. He considered them, as any confessor worth his salt would, part of his flock, despite not seeing them for years - and despite one of them being a hard-headed, insufferable, cynical blasphemer - it didn’t release Solvan from his duties as their confessor.

But deep down he had faith that the Emperor’s Justice would prevail. His eyes remained fixed on the former agents as his lips moved, emitting barely a whisper while his right hand clutched the Golden Aquila on his chest, its wings against his palm almost drawing blood.

------

"The court recognizes inquisitor Feyd Lucullis of the ordo Ixaniad, who speaks for this tribunal."

Emperor may you bless with wisdom the minds of those about to dispense justice in Your name, so that they may speak with Your voice.

Of treason against the God Emperor," the inquisitor called Lucullis read out in a strong, toneless voice.

Take away the veils that their imperfect humanity may have brought to their eyes, that they may see the evidence before them with Your divine clarity.

"We find the defendants...not guilty.

May the innocent be granted freedom, may the guilty be granted mercy through repentance and contrition, may the unrepentant face Your eternal wrath and be cast into the fire.

"Of sheltering an enemy of the Imperium," Lucullis read out. "We do not absolve you."

May Your will be done this day, oh Emperor, though sacrifice and sorrow it may bring I shall accept it, for my faith in You is stronger.

Inquisitor Lucullis continued to look down at them expressionlessly. "Sidonis, Irons, the heretic Emerald, and the creature known as Juno are dead." he elaborated. "The heretic DeRei, however, is not. We therefore reinstate you as agents of the Emperor's inquisition and task you with the penitent duty of hunting down this heretic. When DeRei's soul is rendered to the Emperor for judgement, your own souls shall be released. You are to be put into the trust of the late Immanuel Sidonis' former acolyte, inquisitor Alia Machairi. She will oversee your penance and grant your absolution upon its completion."

"You are free to go." he almost didn't hear inquisitor Lucullis say.

Imperator Vult

------

Now that Solvan could finally take his eyes away from the penitents, he glanced at Alia. He could tell she wasn’t expecting any of this. There had been no time between the trial's notice, their arrival and the verdict to perform much of the string pulling, information gathering or favour collecting that his mistress had been hoping for. Even if there had been, with the seriousness of the charges pressed against Kally and the others there was very little they might have been able to do.

As the cage opened and the shackles were removed, there was an awkward silence in the tribunal. Hardly used to scenes of absolution, and much more prone to different forms of immediate and exemplary punishment, there was a mix of unresolved tension in the air from the anticlimactic ending. But the ones most clearly taken aback were the now-released penitents, who were staring doubtfully in Alia’s direction.

Solvan stood up, wearing his bishop’s ceremonial robes in rich red and white, all silk with embroidered details in gold and silver. It was his usual clothing in such official instances. He gave a knowing look at Tomas, who was already preparing transportation, then gestured for Sapphira to follow him if she wished. The spectacle couldn't have been easy for the Sororita. The bishop walked towards the penitents, descending from the gallery where Machairi's retinue had sat overlooking the trial. On his way there he grabbed the arm from a court staff attendant.

“I will need your cape, my son.” the bishop said, startling the man who was still gazing at the wretches in the cage.

The man looked puzzled. Clearly his first thought was to tell the priest to sod off, since the old bugger had enough clothes to be comfortable despite the cold that permeated the stone hall. But after quickly realising the bishop’s rank, he decided that it was more prudent to just pass the cape and go about his business. Solvan took the garment and continued his way to the group of malnourished, dirty and beaten human beings.

When he reached the group, Solvan didn’t share any words. What could words hope to achieve against months of torture, of defilement, of humiliation?

The bishop went to Kelly first. She stood so still that if not for the trembling one might have thought she was a statue. Solvan removed the burning ash from her forehead with the palm of his hand as he whispered.

"You have recieved the Emperor’s Justice, let no other judge you but Him."

Kelly Black blinked, seemingly focusing on him for the first time. Usually so erudite and perceptive, all she managed was a shaky nod. Solvan wrapped the guard's cape about her shoulders. Facing the teary-faced Marc, he silently nodded and offered a sad smile as he repeated the process to take away his ashes. Marc mumbled something too faint for the bishop to hear and dropped his gaze.

Solvan pointed at the collars around Kally, Gavin and Ella, addressing the guards. "You heard the verdict, they are free. Remove those as well."

The one with the keys grumbled something containing the words unnatural freaks, but nonetheless began taking off the devices as Solvan removed Kally’s and Gavin’s ashes. Kelly, who seemed to have recovered enough to move, quietly disengaged herself from underneath her brother's arm to help the two of them down the steps.Kally took the key from the surprised goaler once Gavin and Ella where unlocked.

"Can't take it off yet." She croaked. She looked at Gavin and Ella. "For them. I can manage."

The bishop smiled at her with a hint of admiration in his eyes and patted her shoulder.

As Solvan faced the astropath girl named Ella, he reflected that she was the only one he didn’t know. But nonetheless she had been given to Machairi to reach absolution, and by extension he was now her confessor. The young woman was scrawny and almost albino-pale, and she looked especially fragile and disconnected after being released from her null collar. Solvan could see she was trying to gather her wits, though the way she clutched blindly to the handrail told him that she wasn't yet in a condition to regain her psychic sight.

“Can you walk, child?” he asked softly, to warn her of his presence before removing her ashes. Her blind eyes switched in Solvan's general direction, and she nodded weakly. Solvan didn’t have another cape, so he decided to take off his own and placed it on Ella's back.

"I'm sorry." the astropath said as she shuffled a half-step along the handrail, "I can't see you..."

"I've got you." Marc said as he appeared beside them, although he had to cough and repeat himself before his voice was strong enough to be heard. Ella evidently recognised it because she reached out, her hand groping the air for a second before finding his arm.

Solvan turned to the group once more, hesitating for a moment.

"I'm sorry we couldn't meet again under happier circumstances. But the worst is now behind you." He said finally. "Now, follow me."

[Cfavano]

Inquisition void-runner Tiercel, in orbit above Marioch
Six months before Saros Station

The legend went that Marioch had been brought into the Imperial fold during the Angevin Crusade, after St Drusus had rid the planet of a vast three-headed serpent. The planet had made precious little progress towards civilisation since then, but from orbit it certainly looked like a realm fit for a monster: all ice-locked mountains, dustbowl deserts and sweltering jungle. The only imperial authority to speak of existed in the starport capital that had expanded as far as its island fastness would allow, and the rest was all quasi-independent fiefdoms carved out by various rogue-trader prospectors over the centuries. This decentralised model had nearly cost them dearly, when the megalomaniacal rogue trader Melredius Nibenay had declared Marioch his own personal empire and swept through the uncoordinated defences of his fellow lords. Nibenay had been both powerful and ambitious, with the ear of the subsector governor and even a hand in the creation of the subsector's elite rapid reaction force. Now however he seemed to favour new allies, because several Chaos cults had risen up in his support, and one of Nibenay's last acts of the war had been to summon a daemon. Unfortunately for him, the daemonhost he created then went on a rampage, killing Nibenay and most of his senior staff. Reinforcements led by the very RRF he had helped to create did the rest.

Machairi and her former mentor Sidonis had responded to the daemonic incursion simultaneously, though Sidonis had only stayed long enough to spirit away the possession victim for processing before leaving his protégé to conduct the rest of the post mortem. Unfortunately, the daemon's efficient coring out of Nibenay's organisation had left Machairi with fewer leads than she would have liked. So, she had turned to the ordo famulous for the histories of all the trader houses on Marioch, to her inquisition contacts on Tephaine for the precise nature of Nibenay's relationship with sub governor Tierce, and to the small arbites precinct on Marioch itself for all its records of local cult activity. The latter was why she stood waiting now at the airlock of her personal void runner.

With Solvan, Tomas and Sapphira all already planetside, it was Glabrio Hybrida who stood beside her, his bulky regulator's armour contrasting sharply with the inquisitor's layered indigo gown. Glabrio's roguish features were oddly taut. The ex-regulator, usually full of cutting sarcasm and self-aggrandising one liners, seemed almost nervous at the prospect of meeting a still-serving member of his former organisation.

"Don't worry Glabrio." Machairi reassured him with a flicker of a smile. "He's only our arbites liaison. No-one's replacing you."

Or so she says. This new man. Their new team member. Wuziarch, a man with almost as many years of field experience as Glabrio had been alive. It left an odd feeling in his stomach. Despite his ongoing service to the Inquisition, those five long years of his life, he still hadn't forgotten his roots.

Perhaps it was time to let go. He shouldn't worry. Local liaisons were apart of the job, temporary allies. A necessity to their investigations and a tool in case it went hot. Yet, there were odd familiarities, a sense of Déjà vu. Red flags (at least to him) had appeared all over the mans profile.

Wuziarch's missions, were all strikingly similar. Be it coincidence in the fact that they both once shared the same parent organisation, or his Ladies meddling.

In Machairi's experience, the arbites made for great riot police but poor investigators. Their methodical, highly visible method of investigation was excellent for policing Imperial institutions, but less so the slippery underground networks that the inquisition often had to deal with. When Glabrio still didn't smile, Machairi cocked a teasing eyebrow at him.

"Besides, even if he does stay I'm sure you're the better dancer."

"Oh, is that the way of it? Just another one of the Lady's playthings?" returned Glabrio, with feigned accusation.

A small smile managed to creep across his face and a sense of relief flushed over him. It was a small thing, though he was entirely thankful for it. He shook his head; pondering the thought. When was the last time they danced? She had seemed so surprised the first time she saw him, when he had managed to draw information out of trader Veiss.

The airlock cycled, the panel by the door turning green. With a hiss of equalising air pressure, the airlock door rolled back and admitted a short, compact man in heavy carapace emblazoned with the fist and scales icon of the arbites. He still wore his helmet, so that Machairi and Glabrio saw themselves reflected in his night-black visor.


+ + + + + +

The walk through the airlock felt like the longest walk Josiah Wuziarch had ever taken. He was walking away from the last 30 years of his life, a life he bled for. To say he was wracked with emotions was an understatement, but he was an Arbiter, a personification and executor of Imperial Law, emotions always had to come secondary. Though, the physical pain was much harder to suppress. He was walking with a visible limp, and only up and moving because he had an auto-injector under his armor keeping him dosed with painkillers. But the medicae told him he'd make a full recovery in a few months, so at least it wouldn't be like this forever.

"Arbitrator Wuziarch." Machairi greeted the new arrival, stepping forward and holding out a long fingered hand for him to shake. "I'm inquisitor Alia Machairi, and this is one of my chief investigators, agent Glabrio Hybrida."

Josiah limped toward her, holding in a wince as he shook her hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Inquisitor. Agent Hybridia.

"Pleasure's mine." Glabrio welcomed, before he too extended a hand.

"So, you're a regulator." began Wuziarch as he took Glabrio's hand, before he added: "It's reassuring to see a fellow arbiter among the welcoming party. Your job is an important one in the service of the Law. Men and women like you head into the monsters' nests and dispense justice directly. I served in that manner for many years before I joined the inquisition. I'm sure we can swap stories over recaff and fried dough rings later."

Wuziarch dropped Glabrio's hand, brushed past the investigator and winced as a sudden pain lanced through him; an old ailment. At the corner of his eye he could see Glabrio track his every movement. He had heard it.

"Was a regulator." corrected Glabrio. More for himself than Wuziarch - he needed the reminder. "I'd rather not have the sweets, it'll go straight to my thighs! Jellybean?"

He produced a packet of brightly coloured sweets from a webbing pocket, and a tolerant smile from the inquisitor told Josiah that this was apparently some sort of in-joke.

"Yes, thank you." Josiah said. He took one when it was offered, and then ate it. "It's quite good, perhaps you have just turned me on to something new."

He paused, shifting his weight on his weary legs.

"But if I may make a request, mayhap we can move this discussion to somewhere where we can sit and eat something more substantial? I haven't eaten in twelve hours, and have been on my feet for almost as long."

Machairi raised an arm to indicate the short section of grey steel hallway before the transfer corridor joined the void-runner's spinal hallway. "Of course. This way."

The Tiercel had the same muted gunmetal and ceramic interior that was typical of imperial ships, but instead of hard angles the interior hallways were rounded, and the door portals curved. The primary deck held navigation, data uplinks and conference rooms, while the deck below consisted of a small galley, training hall and enough cabins to quarter 20 agents. It was down the polished stairway that Machairi led the two men, towards the mess hall. Behind them, towards the stern of the ship, a heavy thrumming indicated the engines, fuel cells and power generators that took up nearly half of the vessel's length. There a lone, insular tech-priest tended to the ship's systems, and above that an even more insular navigator held his quarters, with its vast transparisteel iris dome that looked out over the running lights and falcon-shaped Gellar projectors.

"They sent you straight from a duty shift?" Machairi inquired, raising an eyebrow at Josiah's obvious fatigue as she spun open the bulkhead lock that led into the mess hall.

"Yes, a requested shift, though, that was only about eleven of the hours. The rest of the time was spent in physical therapy. I felt I was losing my edge; idle hands, and all that." Josiah followed Machairi into the galley.

The hall was empty but not spacious, even though the chairs and the self-service cooking equipment had been tidied away. The wall of the galley facing the outer hull was curved and painted in smooth white ceramic, broken by a row of flat screens and occasionally by a circulation grate or the nearly invisible outline of a maintenance hatch. Behind the wall was a crawlspace full of pipes, cable flats and fibre-optics, and beyond that solid armour, but the vid-screens were linked to cameras on the outer hull and alleviated claustrophobia by providing the illusion of windows.

"Help yourself." Machairi offered, indicating one of the compact kitchen units. "Don't worry, the selection is actually better than it looks. I don't coop my agents up in here for week-long warp journeys without at least some decent food to compensate."

"Thank you." Josiah quickly threw together a sandwich, some potato crisps and a glass of water, into which he dissolved some electrolyte powder from a tear-pouch stuffed into his webbing. It turned the water a greenish yellow.

"I can understand," he said as he finished. "No one likes being in the warp with only ration blocks. It's hard enough to eat them when you're not having warp-related nausea."

Glabrio had brought over chairs for them all, and Machairi had already smoothed her gown under her legs sat down. After getting his food, Josiah joined them at the table and belatedly removed his helmet. He ran a hand over his revealed head - square-jawed, wide-cheekbones, with dark almond-shaped eyes. The surgical scars on his scalp were still visible, but his hair had been growing back, and stood about a quarter-inch in length.

"Throne, it feels good to finally be off that planet." He began eating, but stopped after he swallowed his first bite. "I assume you have questions. So please, do not let me stop you. I may be tired, but as agent Hybrida can attest, the Law never sleeps."

Inquisitor Machairi delicately crossed her legs and laid her hands in her lap as she regarded Josiah.

"Very well. As you know, the daemon annihilated Nibenay's inner circle so effectively that it's difficult for my team to find witnesses to the real scope of his activities. The one subject who might have been of use to us is in the custody of Lord inquisitor Sidonis, who is otherwise uninterested in my investigation."

Glabrio knew that his mistress was severely chafing at her former mentor's actions - heading on to the next big crisis now that the perceived threat was passed, and leaving others like Machairi to pick up the pieces - but she kept all trace of it out of her tone as she spoke.

"So, I'm starting with Nibenay's cult allies. I need the arbites records of any and all heretical activity on Marioch between Nibenay's first arrival and his uprising."

"Well, I'll make sure to put in a request for them. With what I pulled not that long ago it shouldn't be too hard." He ate a bit more. "We should find out as much as we can about this incident as we can before the trail goes cold, even now it cools. Cultists are like vermin. They can and will hide in every crack and crevice they can find."

"True enough." Machairi agreed neutrally. "What were your personal experiences during the rebellion?"

At that moment, a chime sounded from the vox receiver that Glabrio had placed on the table. It was a link to Machairi's agents on the surface, whose own long wave vox was beamed to the Tiercel's sensor mast, decrypted, and then by the magic of mechanicus engineering streamed straight to their personal communicators.

"Inquisitor," sister Sapphira's voice sounded clearly from the projector mic. "Sapphira here."

"Go ahead sister." Machairi replied, holding up an apologetic hand towards Josiah.

"Ma'am, a sister superior is requesting the pleasure of your company."

"The Famulous? Already?"

"No ma'am. She's from the order of the Silent Vigil."

Machairi's eyebrows flicked upwards at the unfamiliar name. "I'll be right there." She tapped the terminate rune and rose gracefully to her feet. "Sorry gentlemen, if you'll excuse me. Glabrio, I'm sure you can take it from here."

Offering Josiah a brief nod and a smile, she glided out of the mess hall.


+++++++

It had been several months since then, and Josiah had grown accustomed to his new position, making new allies, and generally continuing to learn. Prior to the case, he had gotten the files for the penitents that used to work with Alia, and he read them thoroughly. It surprised him that loyal servants would do something so clearly treasonous, but, upon receiving the whole story, he realized that they had been doing what they thought was right, and personally, he could not fault them for that. Professionally, however, of course he could. However, the extenuating circumstance could not be denied, and, seeing as how they are his fellow employees, having them executed would not do well.

After the procession had passed by him, he had gotten up, and stood with his shotgun in his hands, though pointed down, taking up the rearguard. In most cases, holding a weapon in a house of law was odd, or outright illegal, but an Arbiter was allowed to open carry anywhere, as they have Authority over everyone in the Imperium...other than the Inquisition, so an Inquisitorial agent who is an Arbiter has even more authority. Josiah was silent as he walked with the procession, it was not the time to speak then, maybe afterwards.

[Atrum Daemon]

Standing on the sideline to the tribunal, Vizkop had time to reflect on the past years as the opening sermon droned on and on. A lot had happened in the five years since Hycernia. To all of them. For Vizkop, those five years of hunting had done a lot. More than ever, his official records had a lot of sealed, redacted, or just straight omitted details. Killing cyborgs, hunting hereteks, almost finding a lost treasure trove of ancient technology. All in all, he had no complaints. Certainly none when he initially received the message from now-Inquisitor Machairi, a deserved promotion if he had ever seen one.

It had been four weeks ago, still several days before Machairi would be prepped and ready to leave Marioch for Holy Terra, and the frustration had been evident in her tightly pressed lips. It had been the better part of a year since Machairi and Vizkop had spoken, nearly five since their separate masters had set them on diverging missions, but the inquisitor had changed little. Now in her early forties, she was showing little sign of fatigue on her long oval face save the slightest crow's feet at the corners of her sharp brown eyes.

Vizkop on the other hand had a new face. That had made his initial meeting with the Inquisitor quite the moment. The tech-assassin's sharp and noble visage from Hycernia had been replaced with hawkish features, respectable lines, and deep set eyes that cast a permanent shadow over his bionic gaze. Needless to say, the inquisitor had not exactly recognized him when he removed his helmet at their meeting.

"Throne!" he remembered the inquisitor cursing mildly, as her arched eyebrows raised in surprise. And then she had smiled. "How are you?"

How are you? A rather inane, human question. A more efficient one might have been to ask about the progress of his latest mission, and a more pertinent one to inquire about the story behind his radically altered features. Both might have seemed more appropriate when dealing with the average member of the mechanicus. But instead, how are you - the kind of thing an unaugmented baseline human would ask of an old friend.

It was considerate, and calculatedly so. Very Alia Machairi.

“I can't complain,” Vizkop answered, a small smile playing over his features for a brief moment. There had not been a lot to smile about the past few years. “Well, I can. But I won't. I wouldn't want to bore you with the details of my hunting trip.” Hunting trip. That was one way to put it, to be sure. It seemed he still had to adjust to holding normal conversations with a trusted person. He was thankful that he was at least speaking plain Gothic and not the Xanith ganger slang he had grown up using, and tended to default to when he was alone for long periods. Returning to something familiar in the absence of anything else. His peers would likely label that as “quaintly baseline.” But, baseline humanity was something Vizkop had always attempted to preserve in himself.

“And I would return that same question to you, Inquisitor,” he said, trying out her new title. It did not leave an unpleasant mouth feel. A good sign.

Machairi's smile turned wan. "I'm afraid it could be better. I've just received an astro that lord Sidonis is dead. There was some sort of incident on Saros Station over Jupiter, and the suspects are already on trial."

"And that isn't...good?"

"Not really." Machairi fished a file folder out of the sheaf of papers on her desk and handed it to Vizkop. "Look at the names."
Vizkop did so, and saw five that he recognised - charged with treason, sedition, and a host of other serious crimes.

The names were troubling immediately. Vizkop had worked with all but one of them before. “I get the feeling there's more to the story than just these files.”

Vizkop had been doing his job for the majority of his life and had developed what he considered a healthy distrust for the “official story” when it was handed to him. He was not making a decision one way or another as to the guilt of the accused, he just wanted as many of the facts as possible.

“More so when considering the fact that they still live." he mused. "I wouldn't have expected field agents to be given anything resembling a trial. Especially with these kind of charges against them. So how can I help?”

Machairi smiled again, approvingly, but it melted off her face almost immediately.

"There's little to no chance of me getting there in time to affect the outcome. I need your help, and I need the Lords Dragon."

The inquisitor exhaled a slow breath and threaded around her desk before sitting down in the high-backed chair. She gestured for Vizkop to take the seat opposite, then laced her fingers together.

"I'm about to tell you something that only three people in the whole Imperium knew before today. Since the incident on Solomon, Kally Sonder has been carrying something in her head. Something very valuable."

Vizkop's eyes narrowed. "Like what?"

"A map. Pembroke put it there when he still had some control over the C'tan shard possessing him. A map of every Necron tomb world in the galaxy. That's the kind of information that could either save the imperium or damn it, and I didn't trust it in Sidonis' hands. The inquisition doesn't know about it." She pressed her lips together. "Or at least they didn't before her arrest."

The inquisitor sat back in her chair, her fist pressed against her mouth.

"You need to understand, Vizkop - there's every chance they're going to execute her. I need someone to get to Terra ahead of me - if we can't save Kally, then perhaps we can save Pembroke's map. But I need someone I can trust to keep the information - someone who's far removed from Imperial politics. Someone like the Lords Dragon."

She studied Vizkop gravely, rubbing a fingernail against the ball of her thumb as she gauged his reaction. Vizkop blinked and adjusted in his seat slightly.

“That's...” he let out a heavy sigh and shook his head, “that's a lot to take in, Alia.” His tone was grave and the assassin took a few deep breaths as he processed everything.

"I'm sorry for only telling you this now, but it was too dangerous to have it any other way."

“But it does answer a few questions too perfectly,” Vizkop admitted with a smirk. “You are what we'd call in my days running in gangs back on Xanith a dedlas. Best translation I can give into Gothic is 'dangerous one' - we used it to refer to those types you didn't underestimate or screw about with.”

A smirk tugged at the corners of Machairi's lips. "I'll take that as a compliment."

Vizkop's own smirk turned into a genuine smile for a moment before melting back into neutrality. “And here I was hoping for a nice little catching up chat. Well, I don't work for the Dragons any more, but I do know an agent of theirs who owes me a favour, who regularly operates beyond the Calixis Sector. I don't know his name and he doesn't know mine - it's better that way - but I can reach him through a proxy via a third party by way of...well you get the idea. What exactly does he need to do? Assuming the map is implanted on a data chit, does it need to be removed? And what does he do once he has it? Deliver it or dead drop? Whatever you need, he will do.”

"It's...not a data chit - at least not in the traditional sense. It's a xenotech microchip, almost too small to show up on bioscans. Hopefully Kally still knows how to access it. If not..."

Machairi left the alternative of having to cut the device out of her former agent's head unspoken.

"I get the feeling that the more instructions I give, the more I'll restrain your agent when he reaches Terra and finds out what's actually going on. But I can tell you a way to let Kally know he's a friend. If your contact can get there in time, Kally and I agreed a code word just before she delivered her final report on the Hercynia operation. Tell your agent to tell her that the code word is miscreant."

Machairi leaned forward in her chair, her eyes fixed on Vizkop's own.

"Once he has the information...or the chip itself...tell him to store it in the securest vault he knows of. We'll figure out what to do with it then."

The weeks since his meeting with Machairi had been a tense period of waiting. An hour after he had sat down with her, Vizkop had sent the message to his contact's web to get the operation moving. The next day he received a confirmation ping. He had lucked out and the agent was already in the Sol system. He heard nothing else for three weeks until he got a message confirming the package was secured and containing the encoded coordinates of the location it was locked in. He was able to rest easier after that, until it was time for the tribunal.

He stood in his most ceremonial red robe trimmed in gold tread for the occasion. He was not normally one to stand on ceremony, but such a tribunal with such powerful people present was an occasion that warranted a bit of dressing up. With his new face, he needed a way for the penitents to recognize him. He settled on his previous generation helmet, knowing they would recognize the cross-shaped vizor. The interface was no longer perfect, but he did not need it to be to witness the verdict.

"The court recognises inquisitor Feyd Lucullis of the ordo Ixaniad, who speaks for this tribunal."

Vizkop's breath caught in his chest. The moment he had been anticipating and dreading was upon them.

"Of treason against the God Emperor," the inquisitor called Lucullis read out in a strong, toneless voice. "We find the defendants...not guilty."

Vizkop let out the breath he had been holding slowly rather than in a gasp of shock.

"Of sedition against His holy Imperium," the inquisitor continued, his face neutral. "Not guilty."

His breathing came easier as the words began to sink in.

"Of insubordination to your lord inquisitor," the inquisitor's voice rang out once more. "We absolve you."

"Ego vos absolvo." intoned the confessor sitting below the plinth, raising one hand towards the dock and marking the heads and wingtips of a holy Aquila in the air.

"Of the murder of Imperial servants, we absolve you."

"Ego vos absolvo."

"Of the theft and destruction of Imperial property, we absolve you."

"Ego vos absolvo."

"Of consorting with xenos, we absolve you."

"Ego vos absolvo."

'This is almost too good to be true,' Vizkop thought, checking some internal diagnostics to make sure he was still of sound mind.

"Of sheltering an enemy of the Imperium," Lucullis read out. "We*do not*absolve you."

'Never mind. There it is.' Vizkop closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief, his entire body relaxing from its rigid state.

The rest of the tribunal passed in a blur of noise, Vizkop's senses righting themselves when the prisoners were properly released. He watched Bishop, a man aged before his time by monstrous xenotech, stride toward the penitents and be as a balm to the abused and shaken human beings. He remained as impassive as ever, offering those he knew a small yet reassuring nod of his helmeted head. When the retinue moved out, he moved among them with his arms folded within the billowy sleeves of the ceremonial robe.

[Azazeal849]

THREE WEEKS LATER

Prospect, House Vaeger fiefdom
Marioch

The wind had picked up (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFcfj6rQq9M), driving a blinding assault of dust and sand down the main street. Most of the windows had been shuttered for the evening; closed eyes in the weathered, scarred faces of the prefabricated buildings that made up the frontier town of Prospect. The hum of generators and the chugging of the vast hydrofrac derricks, each one stamped with the silver gryphon of Trader House Vaegar, was still audible despite the wind.

Sister Shirin, of the order of the Silent Vigil, pulled her light fabric chador closer to protect her face from the dust. As she crossed the street, hunched against the wind, she looked like any other cloaked serf hurrying home before the storm hit. Her sisterhood was of the militant orders, though over time their modus operandi had adapted beyond the battlefield. Trading their enamelled power armour for the clothes of common citizens, they went among the masses to watch for the long-awaited Enemy whose prognostication had spurred their order's founding.

Shirin knew that she was being followed. She could hear the men's footsteps through the wind, even though all three were trying to move quietly. Her sororitas combat training was enough to handle three. As they followed her into a cramped alleyway between two habs, she stopped and turned as if only just noticing them. She was confronted by the sight of three tall men bundled up in dust cloaks, their faces half hidden so it was difficult to tell if they were members of the Librarian Cult she had been assigned to watch. They appeared young - it was possible that they were simple street thugs. Prospect and the surrounding towns certainly did not lack for such.

The sister gasped and let one tanned hand flutter upwards to her throat. "Leave me alone!" she implored the three men, deliberately affecting a stammer. "I'm a loyal servant of the Emperor!"

The three men regarded her coldly. "And that's why you have to die." one of them growled.

Shirin took a deep breath. Not common thugs. But did they know who she was, or were they just out for an opportunity to indulge the base violence that their evil gods craved? She would need to leave one alive to divine the answer.

"Look," she quavered, groping for the purse on her belt and stumbling a few steps towards the men to move herself into position. "Please...I have money..."

The sound of boots crunching against hard-packed dirt made her snap her head round to look over her shoulder. Three more of the cultists had appeared, blocking off the opposite end of the alleyway. Six - the odds were no longer in her favour. Her heart rate began to rise for the first time. This was not a fight that she could win. Slipping a hand into the pocket of her robe, Shirin squeezed the tiny activation rune of her signal transmitter.

A spiritu dominatus, Domine, libra nos. she prayed silently as the six men rushed towards her.


+ + + + + +

Inquisition void runner Tiercel
In orbit above Baraspine, Adrantis sub-sector

Ella Seren awoke with a start, gasping down a ragged lungful of air. She had been dreaming of a red-lit corridor on Saros Station; of the force gladius in her hands leaping upward of its own accord to catch the warp lightning of three Gnosis guardsmen, of her hands feeling like they were blistering and peeling into charred husks as bolts of overpowering force coiled and lashed around her blade. She remembered the blade turning outwards and the bolts rushing back upon their own casters, their vivid red soul auras bursting into white shards as they were agonisingly burned from the inside out. Ella tried to sleep as little as possible when they were in the Warp - it always gave her horrible dreams, usually based around her own worst memories. After three weeks of that she had been almost dead on her feet, but even here in realspace the nightmares had found her.

Her world was black now, even with her eyes open, and she fought down a twinge of fear until she calmed her mind and brought her warp-sight back into focus. Slowly, the familiar misty shapes of her cabin furniture resolved out of the darkness - dimly glowing where they had recently felt the warmth of human contact; faded grey and almost invisible where they had not. Ella was glad to see the shapes. For weeks now, she had thought that she might never be able to see again. It had taken her three days to get her warp sight back even after the null collar had been removed, and she was afraid to lose it again at any moment. Perhaps it was vanity - after all, an astropath didn't need eyes of any kind to send or receive their psychic messages - but she would be unable to read the Tarot without help, would be next to useless in a fight even with Suffolk's force gladius, and more personally she would never see her friends' faces again. She had gotten so used to simply knowing their feelings through their auras that she feared for how little she might glean from just their voices.

She could not have been asleep long, because the battered old music caster beside her bed was still playing, reeling through the hymns of Terra's own ministorum choir stored on her plugged-in data wand. The choir's arrangement of Parthamen's First was interrupted by a discordant buzz as someone outside her door mashed the caller rune. The terse sound went on for slightly too long, suggesting that it wasn't the first time that the visitor had pressed it. Perhaps that was what had woken her.

"C-" Ella croaked, and found her mouth too dry to speak. Feeling around for the almost warp-invisible glass which sat beside the music player, she swallowed water and tried again. "Coming!"

She pushed her recently-sheared hair across her head to stop the strands from tickling her blind eyes, and grabbed the brighter haze of the astropath's robe that she had folded over her desk chair. It was green, she knew, although its warp-echo appeared gold as she bundled the garment over her head. The soft fabric was comforting against her skin. Shrugging her shoulders until the robe sat properly on her skinny frame, she cinched the belt around her waist and then groped for the door control wand.

"Come in!" she called as the door lock disengaged with a click.

A figure made of yellow fire tinged with hard grey ducked through the door portal, an aura that she recognised instantly as her former handler Marc. His aura flared with momentary amusement as he looked at her.

"Come here." he said, not unkindly, before wetting his hand under the sink tap and flattening down the short hair at the back of her head. Evidently some of the white-blonde strands had been left standing up from her accidental nap.

"Thanks." Ella said, feeling her cheeks flushing slightly. "Are you alright?"

She regretted the automatic question almost immediately, as she saw Marc's psychic avatar turn dark blue and then blazing red, laced with white. His aura had been full of destructive emotion lately; always in the same pattern - some unseen memories triggering shame, and that shame almost immediately flashing into anger, over and over again. It was getting better with the intensive counselling that Machairi had insisted that they all attend, but Ella could only hope that it was enough.

Marc was standing close enough for her to see the rippling flames that made up his face bite their lip. "I've been better." he admitted, in what Ella hoped was enough trust to tell her the truth, rather than simply because he knew she could read his emotions. His head turned towards the music player on her bedside table. "Sorry, do you mind if I turn that off?"

Ella shook her head, brushing her hair across her forehead again. Marc crossed her cabin in three long strides and cut off the song in the middle of its swelling chorus of ave, ave Imperator.

"I haven't heard that song in a while." he admitted as he removed Ella's data wand and carefully replaced its cap.

"Why not?" Ella asked, sitting down on the bed and hoping to distract Marc away from whatever dark thoughts kept haunting him.

"Parthamen's home planet went dark about a decade ago." Marc replied as he took a seat of his own in the chair by Ella's desk. "When the Navy arrived to investigate, they found 95% of the population dead."

Ella, who had been completely oblivious to the news, winced. "What happened?"

"No-one knows." Marc shrugged, his voice grave. "Apparently almost all the survivors had something in common in that they were either deaf or sufferers of amusia, but every last one of them was too insane to explain. The song fell out of favour pretty quickly after that."

Ella considered for a moment, picking at the cuff of her robe. "Just because it's associated with something like that, doesn't mean the song itself is tainted."

Marc paused reflectively. "I hope that's true."

Ella guessed that his thoughts had wandered back to the trial, and felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. She decided not to avoid the issue for a second time, and instead she said, "I knew they'd let us go."

Another brief ripple of humour danced through Marc's aura. "I envy you sometimes, Ella. You're always so certain about everything. How do you do that?"

Ella hesitated, slightly thrown by the question. "I..." she began, and decided to return the same honesty that Marc had offered her. "I guess it's because I'm soul bound. I've seen the Emperor."

Every astropath she had spoken to described the binding differently, but none came out of it the same. It was oddly personal, and not something that Ella had shared with many people who hadn't also undergone the trial. She wasn't even entirely sure why she was sharing it now. But they had been through hell since Teleostei, and she wanted to help Marc - just like she wanted to help his sister Kelly, and Gavin, and Vincent. She even wanted to help Kally Sonder, if only she could come within three metres of the woman without feeling like her heart was being ripped out of her chest. Every one of them, everyone who was left from the group who had treated her normally enough to throw something as simple as a birthday party for her on the way to Saros.

"It hurt." she went on. "Well, no, it was agony - but somehow it was beautiful too. And it was like he touched my mind and left something there. Some sort of connection. Whenever I read the Tarot I can sense him there, behind the astronomicon. I can't fail Him when he's right there watching me."

Marc listened silently with his chin resting on his clasped hands, his subdued aura indicating that he understood something of the gravity of what she was telling him.

"You've never failed yet." he said quietly, in a tone that suggested he wished he could say the same of himself. His aura flared red again. Before Ella could think of a reply, Marc pushed his hands into the arms of Ella's chair and rose. "Come on, we need to find Kelly and the others. Machairi wants us up top."


+ + + + + +

Above the wide arc of the viewing window, the dirty brown globe of Baraspine shone in the reflected light of the system's distant sun. That light in turn reflected off the inner faces of the ugly, lumpy ring of steel and adamantium that formed the planet's orbital hub. Clusters of sensor masts, solar collectors and docking ports stuck out at irregular intervals like the cancerous growths of a diseased tree, while fat wallowing trade vessels and smaller system shuttles flocked and pecked around it. It gave the distinct impression of being soldered together from scrap and broken-down satellites, and perhaps that was even partially true. Built, rebuilt and extended over who knew how many years, the mismatched orbital ring was known as the Agglomeration, or more often simply the Glom.

One of only two hive worlds in the region, Baraspine was the jump-point hub that linked together much of the Adrantis sub-sector. It was a strategic position that generated steady profits for the oligarchs of the Glom, though precious little of it trickled down to the planet below. Now that a Baraspine-born lord held the sector governorship, various traders had even lobbied to have Baraspine designated the new subsector capital more than once - something which sat extremely poorly with the current rulers on Tephaine. Inquisitor Machairi was no stranger to the Glom, having used it as a staging point several times in her career. Busy and poorly regulated, it was the easiest place in the galaxy for someone to arrive in-system, jump ship and quietly disappear into any part of the subsector they chose. Arcolin DeRei might have smuggled himself aboard a sprint trader, gone to ground on Baraspine itself, or he might even still be on the Glom waiting for them.

Beware the daemon at your back. Machairi thought grimly, remembering her conversation with Crenshaw as she unclasped her hands from behind her back and returned to the cabin's conference table.

"More wine?" she offered her guest, indicating the ornamental carafe that sat alongside a water jug and several pots of recaf.

"No, thank you." came the low, slightly gravelly reply. "The Emperor did not intend me to indulge myself while my sisters are going missing."

Machairi inclined her head respectfully, resumed her seat and folded her hands, facing the older woman who sat across from her. The canoness commander had a square, saturnine face with thin creases between her eyebrows and at the corners of her dark brown eyes, but no smile lines. Machairi could not see the colour of her hair, because it was hidden beneath a black rousari headscarf edged in white, but she imagined a similar age-streaked colouration. The sister's cloak was black and white too - the heraldry hinting at her order's origin as a branch of the Valorous Heart sept.

A penitent order, Machairi recalled, and a suspicious one. They still considered themselves to be paying off the blood debt of the Apostasy, and were firm believers that no-one could be trusted with too much power. The Silent Vigil order had been wary of lord Sidonis, and it was not until she had earned her own rosette that Machairi had been able to establish a rapport with them - and even then it had been largely sister Sapphira's intervention that had swayed them.

Once contacted, however, the Silent Vigil were no mean ally. They were based on the medieval world of Coseflame; purity in simplicity, or so they said - Machairi knew that it was more a case of making their small commandery easier to overlook. Their titular vigil took the form of scores of sisters working covertly across the Adrantis sub, smuggled offworld every year alongside Coseflame's ore tithe. A local intelligence network that maintained a healthy distance from Adrantis politics was a godsend to any inquisitor who could earn their favour. Machairi had first worked with the Vigil proper during the Marioch inquiry, where the order had mobilised its fighting strength too late to help with putting down the uprising, but had seeded agents on the world to guard against any future heresy.

"The sooner we find this heretic the better." the canoness observed, steepling her thin fingers. "My sisters are reporting rising tensions across the sub. Rumours came out of the Glom of a serious security breach in holy Sol itself, and faith in the imperium has suffered as a result. The Famulous have called in additional advisors for the government, and the Hospitaller have increased security at their facility on Reth."

Machairi could guess who might have started those rumours. Her lips pressed together in a thin line as the doors to the observation deck whispered open and her agents filed in. The Black siblings looked subdued, although the penitent Merle was grinning nastily as Josiah shoved him into his seat.

Beware the daemon at your back. Machairi thought as her hard brown eyes met Merle's furtively darting ones. She resisted the urge to rub her arm where the dead man's switch for Merle's collar nestled, monitoring her own heartbeat in case she wasn't fast enough to trigger it manually. She wasn't about to telegraph to the heretic where it was.

"Agents." she nodded to the group, serious where once she might have offered them a warm smile, "This is sister Kiana, canoness of the Silent Vigil."

"Imperator benedicite." the canoness intoned solemnly, signing the cardinal points of the Aquila before sweeping her hand outwards in blessing. Her slightly narrowed eyes appraised the team over the steam rising from the untouched recaf pots, lingering for a moment on Sapphira, then on Solvan. She cocked an eyebrow at Machairi.

"May I assume that the new faces know of our work?"

Machairi nodded. A primer on the Silent Vigil had been among the documents she had given the Saros survivors to read during their journey, in between the intensive counselling sessions she had mandated with Solvan and Sapphira.

"I'm afraid I have bad news for you." sister Kiana told the group. "I understand that some of you were acquainted with Alicia Tarran before you were separated during the Sarus Station incident."

"That's right." Marc spoke up. His jaw was clenched tight, telling Machairi that he had picked up the significance of sister Kiana's words. Were acquainted, not are acquainted. He knew what was coming.

"Her ship's been found." Kiana went on gravely. "The one she fled Sol with when she went chasing after DeRei. It was docked at a mechanicus waystation on the edge of the Ixaniad sector."

[Cfavano]

Inquisition void-runner Tiercel,
En route to Adrantis sub-sector, sixth day of Warp travel

There were no truly quiet places on a starship, but the conference room at the ship's prow was the next best thing. Here, the noise from the engines, generators and coolant circulators at the rear of the ship were minimised. The vid screens that served as proxy windows were disconnected for warp travel, but instead they were projecting a panorama of a breathtaking nebula. Marc and Kelly Black had taken up two of the seats near the bottom of the long, polished conference table, opposite the high-backed chair usually occupied by inquisitor Machairi. Fresh from the Tiercel's training suite, they had slung their kit bags over two more of the free chairs, Marc's with his used gym towel poking out of the open zip. They sat in silence, keeping each other company while they tried to read through one of the primers that inquisitor Machairi had given to them.

Kelly looked up from her dataslate to see Marc still staring at his own, one hand tapping the scroll runes while his head slumped against the other. Clean again and with his hair cut, her brother almost looked like his old self. Almost, but not quite - the grey hairs that speckled his jawline had been shaved away, but there were still flecks of white at his temples, and removing the beard only served to highlight the fact that he had lost weight around his face. He spent a lot of his spare time in the ship's variable-gravity gymnasium now, trying to regain his former strength. Kelly expected that he felt vulnerable; she knew that she did. She had been almost shocked at how badly her own health and fitness had deteriorated over three months in the cells. Of course, getting their bodies back into shape was only attacking part of the problem. You didn't just bounce back from three months at the mercy of inquisition explicators.

Don't think about it. she told herself sternly, but of course it was no good. Once the memory surfaced it stuck, going round and round in her head like a destructive feedback loop. Her usual ability to rationalise always seemed to desert her. Solvan had told her to focus on something external, which wasn't always easy, and Sapphira had told her to ping her comm if she ever needed her, but she had done that once today already. Gavin and Kally needed Sapphira's time too. On her better days, when she could muster some perspective, Kelly had tried to be her friends' rock as well. But at times like this she didn't feel much capable of helping anyone.

Almost subconsciously, Kelly raised her hand to her mouth and started tugging at one of her already-ragged nails with her teeth. Marc looked up, and saw her doing it. "Don't." he told her quietly.

Kelly's first impulse was to snap at him for the unnecessary reminder, but she managed to fight it down.

"It'll get better." her brother reassured her. "We're safer now, and I know how strong you are."

The rational part of Kelly's mind believed him, but somehow her nod was still apathetic.

"Have you seen Kally lately?" Marc asked, changing tack.

"Not since breakfast." Kelly admitted. He was trying to distract her with something else, she knew, and what's more he had worked out that she responded better to other people's problems than her own. You're a sleekit bastard. But thank you.

"If she's no out and about, she probably wants to be alone." she said reasonably. "We already check in on her often enough. And she's got Sapphira and Solvan looking out for her too. We've just...we've got tae believe that she'd talk to us if she needed to. You ken she doesn't like to be crowded though. You shouldnae smother her."

Both of the Black siblings started slightly at the noise of the sliding doors whispering open. A strike of steel-capped shoes against the deck announced arbitrator Wuziarch stepping through into the conference lounge.

"Hiya Jo." Kelly greeted the arbitrator, slipping back into standard Gothic and managing to smile, but keeping her mouth tightly closed. She didn't like showing her teeth any more - her gums had receded slightly after three months without proper attention, and they still had a habit of bleeding no matter how carefully she brushed them.

"Sorry." Marc added as he let his dataslate flop down onto the conference table. "Do you need the room?"

"Well, not really. If you're busy." Josiah replied as he stepped in. "Though, in a way, it's good that I bumped into you both. I haven't really had time to get to know you."

He sat down in one of the unoccupied seats.

"Lady Machiari spoke very highly of you, and since we're to work together, I find it's always beneficial to interact before the bullets start flying. So, is there anything you'd like to ask?" he finished, as he clasped his large, weathered hands on the table.

Kelly glanced at her brother, agreeing with the sentiment but surprised to hear it coming from a usually-aloof arbitrator. She saw that Marc's face had gone oddly blank.

"Yes, I think I have one." he said, his voice low. "Whose idea was it to take that Carson bastard with us?"

Oh hell. Kelly thought.

Josiah laughed. "Fok me if I know. You seen that spugg's file? If it were up to me, I'd have put a bolt in his brain years ago. In fact, I had a hard time finding laws he didn't break, do you have any idea how hard that is? There are over forty thousand laws, not counting planetary, system, subsector, and sector ones. Honestly, being near him sickens me, and it's not just because of his poor hygiene. I mean, Throne, I've seen full-blown heretics with shorter rap sheets."

Josiah rested his head in one of his hands.

"But he has information that the Lady thought would be useful. So, he has a stay of execution." He rubbed his eyes. "Be honest, has the Lady employed anyone like him before?"

"I wouldn't know." said Kelly, carefully. We haven't worked with her in four years. And people can change in that time - especially if you give them a rosette.

"Not if she had any sense." Marc added, his voice a low growl. "Let me tell you about an interrogator called Van Der Mir, who kept another useful heretic around because he believed in always honouring his deals. This heretic's interference was partly responsible for our home hive getting burned to the ground. Four years later he was involved in the uprising on Marioch, which killed a quarter of a million people including the family of someone I called a friend. Not long after that, he worked with a possessed rogue trader who nearly made it to Holy frakking Terra. Along the way he murdered a friend of mine and a commander I respected. Van Der Mir forgave him all that, and after the frakking idiot got himself killed, the heretic paid him back by making a run for it, killing another one of our friends in the process." His voice had risen. "Just so you know, this is the heretic we're chasing now!"

"Marc!" Kelly hissed, raising her eyebrows sharply at her brother.

Marc paused, swallowed. "So forgive me," he said thickly, "If I'm a bit frakking sceptical of keeping Carson around. For all we know, he was part of the force that stormed the Mooncalf and butchered Walt's family. And exactly what useful information could he possibly have on Arcolin?"

"Because he knows how Arcolin thinks. He may also have overheard what Arcolin is planning, but he hasn't mentioned that."

Of course he hasn't, Kelly thought. Then we'd have no more use for him.

"My condolences for the loss of your friends." Josiah said. A complicated expression passed over his face. "I know how you feel. In my thirty years in the arbites, I have buried more friends than I can count; many died pointlessly. On my world we have a saying, 'set a thief, to catch a thief', which might be justification as to why Machiari would work with scum like Carson. If it's any consolation, I am not as forgiving as Van Der Mir, and if Carson steps a toe out of line, I will not hesitate to blow his fokking head off." Josiah said, hopefully reassuringly.

"Good." Marc said, flatly.

"Things seem to be getting a little heated. How about we go back to my quarters? I've got a bottle of something strong that might help."

"Thanks," Marc said, pushing back his chair and picking up his kit bag, "But no."

Kelly fought the urge to curse as her brother offered Josiah a curt nod and swept out of the room. "Some other time, perhaps." she offered the arbitrator conciliatingly as she grabbed her own rucksack and followed. Lengthening her stride, she caught up with her brother in the arterial corridor.

"You shouldnae have done that." Kelly warned him.

Marc exhaled down his nose, in what might have been bitter amusement. "There's a lot of things I shouldnae have done. I shouldnae have told Alley about Arcolin being involved with her family's deaths on Marioch. I should have known she'd go rampaging after him. Emperor only knows where she is the now."

He flexed his hand, forming a fist.

"I shouldnae have decided against putting a bullet through Arcolin's face, regardless of what Van Der Mir said - then Kepler might still be alive. Frakking hell, if I'd kept looking for him properly after Solomon then Frank and Kadath might still be here as well, and Alley might still have her parents. It might even be that whole shit-storm on Teleostei never happened and none of you had to go through that."

He bit down savagely on the end of the word, then swallowed as he realised that he had gone too far.

"Sorry."

"It doesn't matter." Kelly said, although it emphatically did. She sighed, trying to order her thoughts. Why can I do this for someone else's problem but not mine? "Look...what might have happened doesn't matter. We cannae bring Frank and the others back, but we can do this in their memory."

Marc shook his head. "I wish I could say I wanted something that noble. All I want is revenge. I'm sick of letting traitors live." His fist clenched again. "And that includes Carson."


+++++




"Well, isn't that good, then?" Josiah said. "At least, then you have an idea of where she might be, if you were looking for her." Josiah had had his hands full watching Merle for the past few hours. Not that Merle had tried running off, but rather, it was simply frustrating to be around him, and more than once Josiah had had to smack him across the back of his head with the butt of his autogun. Josiah had dealt with my criminals in his time, but Merle just had to be smug about how Josiah couldn't arrest him. It was enough to drive a man to drink. "So," Josiah continued, "Where do we go from here?"

[Azazeal849]

At the meeting, present

"Well, isn't that good then?" Josiah said. "At least then you have an idea of where she might be, if you were looking for her?"

"Unfortunately they didn't find your friend." the canoness replied, looking solemn. "Only her armour, and a lot of blood - some of which the magi identified as having Tarran's gene markers. The station's control hub had been gutted by fire, and the stores were ransacked."

"Alley wouldn't leave her armour behind." Marc murmured.

"They found no bodies - Tarran's or the crew's. Our working theory is that your heretic," Kiana's mouth pinched up slightly, as if the very word tasted wrong. "dumped them in deep space, or something worse."

Something like anger passed across Marc's face, and next to him the astropath Ella seemed to flinch in sympathy, her blind eyes twitching towards him.

Across the table, Kelly Black winced. "Alley deserved better than that." she said.

"I'm sorry for your loss." Sister Kiana laced her thumbs in respect, forming the sign of the Aquila, and inquisitor Machairi silently followed suit. "The martyr's blood is purest of all, and I will pray for captain Tarran to find her way to the Emperor's table."

"The best offering we can make in her name is DeRei's head." Marc growled.

"Who was all the way out there looking for her?" Vincent asked in a rasp, squinting down the table at sister Kiana. His augmetic hand was flexing in response to restless nerve impulses - open, close; open, close.

"A Grey Knights task force out of Titan, hard on the heels of your friend. The justicar contacted us before dispersing his men to comb the system. Unfortunately, the astro didn't reach our convent until two days ago."

Despite the null halo still stubbornly secured around his neck, Gavin's eyes seemed to flash as Kiana mentioned the Grey Knights. His pale hands clenched into fists. Kelly Black was the first to notice - she whispered something to the scrawny psyker, and put a hand gently on his wrist. Slowly Gavin's hands uncurled, revealing bloody crescents where his ragged nails had dug into his palms.

"The waystation lies astride one of the primary jump points between Ixaniad and Adrantis." Machairi put in, elaborating on Sister Kiana's report. If she noticed Gavin's reaction, she elected not to comment on it with the team and the canoness present. "If DeRei didn't double back towards Sol, then it's highly likely that he headed onward to Baraspine."

"I have sisters undercover on the Glom." sister Kiana added, folding her hands. "They are looking to trace his movements as we speak, although the trail is likely cold by now. But I've recently been given reason to believe that your target may have returned to his old haunts on Marioch."

She raised her clasped hands to rest them under her chin, causing her loose black sleeves to slide down towards her elbows. Her arms were a faded tan, and crossed with what looked like faded scars.

"There has been a spike in suspicious activities around the Vaeger fief. Specifically, potential Tzeentchian activity." She unlaced her hands and signed the aquila again, warding off the bad luck of speaking one of the Great Enemy's names aloud. "I understand that your target once owed his allegiance to that ruinous false god. I had three sisters in the town of Prospect, monitoring the cult. One of them transmitted an emergency code yesterday, and neither I or her sisters on station have heard from her since."

Kiana signed another aquila, and again Machairi followed suit.

"So," Josiah continued, "Where do we go from here?"

"It's a possible lead." Machairi frowned, rubbing a nail against the ball of her thumb. "But I don't have many agents left on Marioch. With the main perpetrators of the uprising dead and all the dead-ends since, it's losing priority. But me and the Tiercel are still relatively well recognised there, and any cult that just uncovered a spy will be on the lookout for any kind of official Imperial authority. We might have to arrange for an alternative transport."

[Azazeal849]

Inquisition void-runner Tiercel
En route to Baraspine

A heavy sigh, almost a growl. "What do you want, Alia?"

With frown lines prematurely carved into his terracotta skin, interrogator Schafer looked older than his 41 years. Sapphira recalled that some of Sidonis' personnel referred to him as the Old Man, though never to his face. His crinkled eyes and pressed dress uniform in no-nonsense black gave him an instant air of authority, and his rough voice commanded respect.

Interrogator Machairi cocked her head. "Can't I wish a partner well before they head off on assignment?"

Machairi was the taller, her height emphasised by the elegant fall of a fern-green, bias-cut gown which brushed to just below her knees. The heels of her long boots brought her up to a full head higher than Schafer, and Sapphira wondered if it was deliberate that she stood close enough to force him to tilt his head back to look her in the eye. She was four years younger than Schafer, olive skinned and vital, with her dark hair twisted info an elegant pleat.

"We're not partners, Alia." Schafer said, shaking his head. "Even you should know better than to try and bullshit me with that one."

Machairi shrugged her shoulders, her face hardening. "If two interrogators can't come to each other with information, whose fault is that? I didn't come here for the pleasure of your company, Javid. I came to warn you."

Schafer folded his arms, his booted feet firmly planted on the grey metal of the hanger deck. The two interrogators formed a rocky island in the middle of a sea of crewmen, servitors and tech-priests, who surged to and fro preparing for the transfer to the Navy frigate Excubitor.

"What kind of warning, Alia?" Schafer asked guardedly.

Machairi exhaled down her nose, looking down as she ran a thumb over the tips of her fingernails before raising her gaze back to Schafer. "Don't tell me that you didn't find it strange that Lord Sidonis remanded no less than four of the Makita set to your team, when he normally doesn't give a damn about keeping agents who know each other together? When one of them has only just been released from extended interrogation on the Sons' battle barge? Didn't you think it was odd that he assigned a sister and a mechanicus secutor, both independent authorities, to your Venatora squad at exactly the same time? Don't you sense that Sidonis might be playing some sort of political game here?"

Schafer didn't move. "Political games are your trade Alia, not mine. Sidonis has given me four new agents to watch, and that's all either of us need to concern ourselves with. If they aren't suitable, I'll send them back. If they learn the ropes and prove themselves, then I'll accord them the same respect as the rest of my team."

"Are you sure you can trust the rest of your team?" Machairi pressed, her eyes narrowing in disapproval. "When you'll be swanning off to Sancta Heroica before you head back to Venatora and even meet half of them?"

Schafer scowled at the jibe. Everybody knew that Machairi preferred a small, close-knit team; investing personal time in her agents until she could trust them implicitly and had their staunch loyalty in return.

"I already know Sapphira." he countered. "And I respect her. She's already had contact with Black and Sonder. And as for swanning off," His lip curled back into a snarl. "I'm supervising a net across four systems to try and sting this bastard xenotech-smuggler. I'm focused on the mission instead of trying to score political points, Alia. Maybe that's why Sidonis picked me for this job and not you."

Machairi looked at him as if he had physically slapped her. "You always were a blunt fool, Javid."

Schafer terminated the conversation with an angry jerk of his head. He stiffly signed the Aquila. "Hail to the Emperor, Alia."

Machairi crossed her own hands, returning the devotional gesture without warmth.

"Don't look so worried, sister." a warmer voice suddenly spoke behind her, as Lord Sidonis' two protégés went their separate ways; Machairi moving at a brisk, agitated pace, Schafer practically stalking.

Sapphira turned to see the welcomely familiar smile of Arval Clement, Schafer's favoured void pilot. Clement was a wiry man, with a shaven head and face, his white smile contrasting against his nut-brown skin. Standing in his dark grey crew's overalls, the pilot's stance was easy even as he watched his interrogator's stormy departure.

"I get the feeling that interrogator Machairi doesn't trust me very much." Sapphira observed.

Clement shrugged, waving an airy hand. "All interrogators are like that until they get to know you." He brushed his hand lightly against Sapphira's back as he nodded towards the primary airlocks leading to the cargo and crew decks. "Come on Sister, the Excubitor won't be on station for another six hours yet. Take your mind off it and come and have dinner. I'll pay."

Sapphira chuckled, as she often did when Clement's easy-going conversation lifted her spirits. "Is this a date now?"

Clement flashed another one of his easy smiles as they began to walk, leaving the ringing industry of the docking bay behind them. "Well, first and foremost it's to make sure that you eat, which I haven't seen you do since you got back from the Sons frigate with Sonder and Black. But I will admit that it's been on my mind for a while, and this seems like as good an excuse as any."

Sapphira opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again.

"Oh." she finally said.

There was a knock at the door.

Perched on the end of her bed with her chin in her hands, Sapphira twitched in surprise as she was jolted out of the memory. Her fingertips probed her throat, where the lathe blade now wielded by Kally Sonder had left a thin, fading scar. Being back with the penitents had gotten her thinking about old missions and the long-dead people she had fought alongside. Not all of them were memories she really wanted to dwell on.

She rubbed her face with her hands as the cabin fell back into focus around her, with its small bookcase and its ornate little shrine at the foot of the bed. A silver menorah stood beneath the idol of the Emperor, some of its sockets empty, others filled with incense candles with carefully-carved initials on each. J.Sc; A.C; J.Sh; S.T; A.E.S; A.S. Javid, Arval, John, Seb, Aleks, Abdur. She had considered adding more - for the casualties of Saros, for the penitents' sake.

She pointed her control wand at the cabin door to de-magnetise the lock, and a moment later it slid open to admit Glabrio in casual trousers and shirt, unbuttoned to his breastbone. The Shift 3 bells had chimed less than five minutes previously - he clearly wasn't wasting any time.

"You ordered room service?" he said, leaning one arm against the doorframe and offering Sapphira a rakish grin.

Sapphira rolled her eyes, but she smiled. "You look good out of uniform." she complimented the investigator.

"I'm insulted." Glabrio quipped, with a mock frown, "I try to look good all the time."

Sapphira smiled again and jerked her head to call the ex-arbiter over to the bed where she was sitting, pointing her control wand to lock the door behind him. What she and Glabrio had was much shallower, much more rigidly defined than what she might have had with Clement, but she considered that an advantage.

"Oooh, you're tense." Glabrio commented as he settled down behind her and began working his thumbs into her shoulders through the thin material of her dress.

Sapphira wriggled her shoulders and settled into a comfortable position. "So do something about it." she challenged him.

Glabrio gave a confident chuckle. Sapphira closed her eyes, tilting her head to the side and letting out a soft mmm as Glabrio traced a line of kisses down her neck. She snapped her eyes open again as the pager on her bedside table buzzed, rattling loudly against the glass surface. She pulled away from Glabrio, who gave a grunt of surprise, and groped for the pager to turn it over and look at the name on the liquid crystal display. It said Kelly.

"I'm sure it can wait." Glabrio said airily.

Sapphira pressed her lips together. "No it can't." she told him sternly, and tipped the pager screen towards him as she stood up.

"Ah." Glabrio said as he saw the name on the LCD.

"Sorry. Are you free at the end of shift 3?"

"I've scheduled PT with Tomas and Josiah." Glabrio replied, with a mild grunt of irritation.

Sapphira shrugged. "I'm sorry. It's important."

The investigator pushed his hands into the mattress and levered himself up to follow Sapphira out of the door.

"Alright," he nodded, squeezing her shoulder. "Go and do what you do best. I'll see you later."

After they had parted ways, Sapphira headed down the Tiercel's spinal corridor to Kelly's cabin near the stern. She took a moment to check her hair in the mirrored chrome of the door, pushing a few wayward strands that Glabrio's nuzzling had dislodged back into place. The secrecy was ironic, given that Kelly had been the first one urging her into something like this, all those years ago on Hercynia. Machairi knew of course, and so did Tomas and Solvan - she wouldn't have concealed a conflict of interest that big from her close team-mates - but she had not thought it prudent to tell Kelly and the other penitents just yet. She didn't want to give them even more to deal with.

Kelly's door wasn't locked. Inside the small cabin was brightly lit, and immaculately tidy, as if the younger Black had wanted to impose order on her surroundings, or simply to distract herself with some mundane task. The desk was clear and the bed neatly turned down, but Kelly herself wasn't sitting at either of them. She was slumped against the wall next to the bed, dressed in simple void overalls and with her black hair slipping out of its ponytail. Her eyes were red against her pale face, and her hands were wound tight together in front of her mouth. Even clasped, Sapphira could see that they were shaking.

"I'm sorry, Saph." Kelly said as soon as Sapphira entered the room. Her voice was a dry croak. "It's just..."

"It's alright, don't apologise." Sapphira said earnestly. "I told you to page me if you ever needed me and here I am. You're alright now, I've got you."

She offered Kelly a hand and helped her up onto the bed before sitting down next to her. She noted that the other woman's hands were icy cold, and that one of her nails was bleeding again. Oh, Kelly.

"Another flashback?"

Kelly nodded stiffly. "The frakking shift-change alarm set it off. The chimes are exactly the same as the ones they used in the cellblock on Terra."

Sapphira shook her head sharply, annoyed at herself that they had wounded her friend by missed something so basic. You idiot, Sapphira! Such an obvious detail! She felt a sympathetic pain in her stomach, and a familiar sensation of guilt.

"I'll speak to the inquisitor." she said at once, with a nod of understanding. "She can have the tech-priest change them. You should have said something earlier."

Kelly sighed, rubbing at the bridge of her nose with one hand. "I didn't want...I hate being helpless, Saph. Plus, you know, I'm always supposed to be the logical one..."

"These things aren't rational." Sapphira soothed. "You're not doing anything wrong, and it's not weakness."

"I just want it to stop, Saph." Kelly whimpered. "Like I said, I hate feeling so bloody helpless. That was the whole reason I went into verispex; give people some closure they wouldn't have otherwise gotten, some control."

"I could spend an hour listing off the names of all the people you've helped." Sapphira said. "And my name would be first. I know you're stubborn about accepting help; I've seen you react when the other lab-techs tried it, or Emperor forbid your brother."

Kelly took a shuddering breath, pressing her hands together as if in prayer and resting her face against them.

"I'm worried about him too, Saph. The first few days he was breaking down in tears, but now he's just angry. Like, constantly on edge. And Gavin as well, he's..."

Sapphira cut her off gently. "I'm not here to worry about Marc or Gavin right now, Kelly. I'm here for you."

Kelly nodded weakly.

"I can't help worrying about them." she said after a moment, haltingly. "In the cells...the explicators always made a point of telling me what they were doing to the others. Sometimes they'd play back vox records." She shivered at the memory. "You never expect to lose people - Sandra, Frank, everyone on Saros...it was so sudden I almost didn't have time to process it at first, but when they keep it hanging over you like that...bloody Throne, that's different."

"They're all safe now." Sapphira reassured her friend.

"No they're not." Kelly shook her head, and twisted her hands in her lap. "We're still not absolved. Which means the conclave is still watching us. I think Wuziarch is too, whether Machairi knows it or not."

"She doesn't." Sapphira said firmly. "Because I don't. I'll let her know."

Kelly sighed, and sat in silent thought for a moment.

"I was 3 years old...12 standard," she said eventually, her voice quiet but calm. "When the plague made it up the spire, into the planning office where mum worked. She came home with a cough, but we didn't know anything was wrong until the next morning she couldn't get up. She took two weeks to die after the plague set in." She shook her head. "That was about the average, once it got into your lungs. Long enough to know it was coming and start dreading it; not long enough to come to terms and accept it."

She went quiet for a moment, staring at her hands.

"You know Saph, one of the things losing a parent when you're young teaches you is that people make empty promises. Everyone says if you ever need me or if there's anything I can do, but most of them don't follow through with it. It helps you to recognise the people who do - the ones that matter."

She raised her head.

"You've always been one of those people, Saph, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Especially how you carry on with us as if it hasn't been 4 years...and as if we hadn't been up in front of a frakking inquisition tribunal."

Sensing the change in her friend's mood, Sapphira shuffled closer and pulled Kelly into a hug. Kelly returned it, holding Sapphira tight.

"You would not believe how much a bit of normality can help." the sister answered after a moment, then exhaled a quiet chuckle. "As far as normal applies to our job at any rate."

Kally took another ragged breath. "See, it makes sense when you say it."

"That's because I'm outside your head." Sapphira replied, seriously. She drew back from the hug, but kept her hands on her friend's shoulders. "Stay focused, Kelly. One day at a time, one little task at a time. You'll beat this. I know you will."

Kelly nodded, with a flicker of a smile. "Alright, I'll do something normal. I'll go find Kally and see if she's up for kickboxing."

Sapphira briefly closed her eyes in glad relief when she saw the smile. "Are you sure?"

"Certain."

It was Sapphira's turn to offer an earnest smile. "You know what, I'll come with you."

[Atrum Daemon]

It was rare form for Vizkop's door to be unlocked. Normally, he valued complete privacy to prepare himself mentally and spiritually but the past years had...altered his thinking a bit. In the middle of meditative exercise, the last thing on his mind was entertaining any visitors. His mind was clear, helped by a mix of the methodical motions he was going through and the perfectly tuned chords of Holtzmann's Seventh Movement. He was not dead to the world, though, and his ears were open for the buzz of the caller rune.

The room itself remained as spartan as when he arrived, holding none of his personal belongings aside from a large travel bag and a long, metal case. The large weapon cabinet and full wardrobe he had possessed on his last outing with Machairi were missing and safely stored in one of Vizkop's safehouses. He had come straight from his last hunt and there had been no time to change his gear. After the pronouncement of the penance, though, he was relieved his hunting gear was still with him. Though this time he was helping in the hunt of a man instead of a cyborg.

Josiah was originally unsure why he was paying a visit to Techpriest Vizkop, but, regardless of affiliation, he was still a member of his team, and he should be at least become acquainted. Maybe they could even get along. Lady Machiari only had good things to say about him, after all, so, only time could tell.

When he arrived at Vizkop's quarters, he stood in front of the door for a few seconds, and psyched himself up before he pressed the call rune. "Here goes nothing."

Vizkop paused in the holding of his pose at the sound of the door buzzer. He lowered the volume of the music box and walked over to the door. Opening the door, Vizkop certainly did not look like a typical techpriest. The only red on him was the bright red sash around his waist as he was only dressed from the waist down. The bionic arms he wore were clearly military-grade augmentations to someone of Josiah's experience and a good deal of the flesh on his torso had the waxy look of synthetic skin. At such close range, the bionic nature of Vizkop's outwardly natural-looking eyes was visible in the way they glimmered. “You are...Josiah, yes,” Vizkop said. The man stood in a particular way Vizkop had come to associate with Arbitrators and they had been briefly introduced before going to the tribunal. “Come in.”

The assassin decided that being polite was the best course in such confined space. He stepped away from the door and over to a table, pouring some water from a metal pitcher into a bland metal cup.

"I apologize for appearing with such little notice, Techpriest Vizkop, but I was...'in the neighborhood', as they say, and thought I should pop in." He entered at Vizkop's motion, and sat at the table where the water was. "Thank you." He said.

Vizkop nodded and poured the cold water over his head before grabbing a towel and giving Josiah a proper look over as he dried himself. 'Well he carries himself like an Arbite,' the assassin thought.

Josiah was dressed in exercise attire, as if he recently came from the gymnasium, yet on the clock it was approaching what was supposed to be midnight. "We were only introduced briefly, but before we truly work together, I feel we should get to know each other better, wouldn't you agree?" Josiah gestured to the table's other chair for Vozkop to sit down.

"Lady Machiari spoke very highly of you, in fact, ever single member of her retinue, even the penitent, got nothing but the highest praise." He as as he tilted his head slightly to the side for a second, and then drank some of the water after absentmindedly sniffing the cup. Vizkop would have been able to tell that this was just an automatic reaction, something done subconsciously. "That means one of two things. Either you are all really that good, or she is just really easy to impress. Honestly, I believe it is the former."

“Praise, huh,” Vizkop said with a slight smirk tugging at his lips. “Well I can say, from my own observations, that the team is good at what they do. Though I can't say anything for how they've performed in the last five years. I'm an on and off member. Though you probably already know that from records that Inquisitor Machairi keeps.”

Vizkop tossed the towel aside and walked his things. He returned to the table with a series of cases and a large revolver, the cylinder popped out to leave no question that it was unloaded. “So is that all you wanted?” Vizkop asked, sitting at the table. “Or were you more looking for a one-on-one about my previous activities?”

He produced a squared piece of cloth from one of the smaller cases and rested the gun on it. Intoning a small binary prayer, he dripped a small amount of a clear and pleasant scented oil on the trigger and hammer of the weapon.

"Well, I'd like to know more about you and what you do. Certainly, you are no normal Techpriest, none like I have ever encountered, always crying 'tech-heresy this' and 'praise the machine that', with more metal than flesh, speaking only in binary, even doing so during open conferences with non-Mechanicus allies." He said, as he put down his glass. "And also I have something for you." He took out a small device resembling a flashlight, with a mount that allows connection to a rail on a weapon. "As you are the team's only Techpriest, I thought it fitting that you got a new piece of tech first, so you can give it the a-ok from the Mechanicus that it is able to be used, considering it is not an STC-based device. I made it myself."

Vizkop raised an eyebrow, gaze flitting between the device and Josiah. “I'm gonna politely decline. I have no use for such a device with any of my equipment. Such small things are too basic and innately unoffensive enough to worry about people crafting them and I've never been one to do much ordaining or other of the more...overtly spiritual aspect of my faith. My path took a few different turns which don't include giving flashlight attachments the 'a-ok.' As for what I do... I am a weapon of the Omnissiah, to put it in the simplest of terms. I hold the militant rank of Secutor within the priesthood, though my activities are generally more akin to assassination and covert operations. Lately I've been on a...hunting trip of sorts. I was finishing up my last outing when I received the message from Inquisitor Machairi asking for my help. Tell me, investigator, have you ever hunted a cyborg?”

Josiah thought for a moment, "Yes, I have. On my homeworld, one of the major gangs were the 'metal heads', and their thing was that they were addicted to augmentation, so there'd be guys with more metal than flesh, with chainsword arms, shoulder mounted lasguns, sub-dermal armor, you name it. Because of their...proclivity, they were rather violent, and for nearly two decades, they had an iron grip on floors 23-32 of Hive Delta. We were finally called in when a group of them attacked a schola progenium and kidnapped several students to hold for ransom. We eliminated them to a man, or we believed to. By then, the membership was nearly a thousand strong, large enough to be classified as a 'rebellious element'. It was not an easy fight, mind you. We had to bring in a bunch of heavy weaponry, and even then quite a few Arbitrators died." He said, finishing his story and putting the device away. "We never did figure out how they got all their augs, and they weren't the cheap ones, these were really good, however, the serial numbers were filed off. Some of my superiors suspected the local Mechanicus priesthood, but we were never able to prove it." He finished his water and put the cup down. "So, an assassin, no wonder you keep yourself so fit. I've interacted with a few Death Cult Assassins, and my old boss once used the services of a Callidus. Strange, she was."

“Not quite what I meant,” Vizkop said with a wry smile. “And I can say with confidence that I am unlike any death cult. What else do you want to know, investigator?”

"I'll be frank," He said, sitting forward. "I'd like to learn from you, if I can. Not that I'm not already very good at what I do, but one of my Instructors at the Schola told me that 'the true master is the eternal student'. I have seen helmet and servo-skull vids as well as read after-action reports of your missions with the Lady. It is without a doubt that I say that you are the most skilled and lethal combatant that works with her. I'd like to learn some of that. Is that a request you can fulfill? I promise I am a very apt student."

“I will also be frank,” Vizkop returned. It struck a wrong chord with the assassin the way Josiah simply discounted the extreme lethality of the rest of Machairi's team. “I have no intention or desire to teach anyone anything. The skill set I have is not something for an outsider to know. Now how about we re-direct from these dangerous waters and return to a safer topic in which we discuss, in more detail, the suspicions leveled against the Mechanicus branch on your homeworld.”

"Alright then," Josiah said, backing off. "Well, after it was taken down, we, of course, examined the bodies and the augs. Now, we expected these guys to have low-grade augmentations sloppily done by back-aley surgeons, which is what is normal for gangs, but these..." Josiah shakes his head and remembers, "These were of a whole different league. Sure, there variations, some were of the type I described, but, well...I'm going to assume you know the different grades of augmentations; basic, alpha, beta, delta, with delta being extremely rare and of very high quality. On average, the bodies had mostly at least alpha, with quite a few having beta, or even delta, and of types not commonly available like refractor field generators, and whole arms replaced with flamers and I even personally took down one that somehow had a multi-melta. You can't just buy this on the street. When we reached the inner sanctum, we took down the leaders, and what freaked me out was that all of their augs were delta grade." He stopped for a second to remember some more.

"Now, as I told you, the serial numbers were all filed off. That is a crime in and of itself, but what lead us to suspect the Mechanicus was the skill that the augs were implanted with. I'm sure you've seen the work of street docs, the nerves clumsily connected, the joints having a tendency to lock up, but...I shit you not when I say that these augs couldn't have been implanted any better, if not for the obvious difference between flesh and metal, you would not have been able to tell where one ended and one began, and in action, they moved with the fluidity of natural joints. When we brought this to the local priesthood, suffice to say the Magos was indignant and extremely offended that we would even think to make the connection. I wasn't in the room, but from what I was told, he ranted for nearly a half hour, before telling my Commander and I to leave. This, obviously, was very suspicious, and the very next day, a representative arrived to collect all the evidence we gathered, as the Mechanicus was launching its own investigation, and we should go back to tracking down petty thieves."

"Officially, that was when the investigation ended, but what really stood out was a manifesto that was found in the inner office of the gang's leader, a man named Albertus. It detailed a shipment that arrived not a week previously, and other papers detailed a trade that occurred. Instead of names, account numbers were used, and they were traced to off-world bank accounts, and were linked to several notorious smugglers. These smugglers were notorious for their suspected involvement in the smuggling of xenotech. Do you see where I'm going?"

“I'm not big on guessing games or assumptions,” Vizkop said. “Please continue.”

"Now, as I stated before, we never could prove this, but before the AdMech shut us down, the most logical theory was that someone, or a group among the local priesthood was working with this gang to procure xenotech, and in exchange for this heretical contraband, were supplying the habit of these aug junkies with, well, augments. Furthermore, add with how vehemently the Magos defended himself, and likely, this went all the way up to him. But we could never prove it. I was not around when the priesthood released the results of their 'investigation'," He continued, making air quotes, "But I did manage to contact a friend, years later while working under another Inquisitor, and the Magos's investigators had declared that there was no connection and the Magos had Lobbied for the sealing of all of the files and the ship that was carrying the Arbite investigatory team bringing the evidence back to the vault just so happened to be attacked by pirates, and the entire ship was destroyed and all hands were lost, this also resulted in all the evidence being destroyed." Josiah steepled his fingers as he stared ahead. "I don't know about you, but I don't believe in coincidences." Josiah looked at his chronometer "Oh dear, I've been talking for nearly three-quarters of an hour. I'm sorry. If you're busy, I can leave."

“That would be best, I think,” Vizkop said with a small nod. “We've taken up enough of each other's time.”

"I apologize for taking up your time," Josiah said standing up and preparing to leave. When he got to the door, he turned around. "One more thing, Vizkop. I like you, you seem very open-minded. I have told that story to four tech-priests before you, and each time they flipped their lids. You however, did not. Either, you have a better grasp on your emotions, or, and I believe that this is true, you are capable of thinking beyond what the AdMech says to think. It will be a privilege to work with you. Goodnight." He left after he finished, and the door shut behind him.

“Absolutely ludicrous,” Vizkop said with a roll of his eyes once Josiah was out of his room. With a sigh, he lit some strong smelling incense and moved to the next step of the cleansing ritual. He had not believed a word of Josiah's story.

Meeting Room of the Tiercel, At Present

“It might be worth it to look into any surveillance footage from the waystation,” Vizkop offered. “Mechanicus waystations, especially, are generally notorious for what most call an overabundance of security. There's a chance they got something that can give us some clue.”

[Azazeal849]

"It might be worth it to look into any surveillance footage from the waystation." Vizkop offered. "Mechanicus waystations especially are generally notorious for what most call an overabundance of security. There's a chance they got something that can give us some clue."

Sister Kiana studied Vizkop for a moment, as if sizing up this agent of a parallel faith. "The main cogitators were wiped, and the fire in the control hub reportedly damaged a lot of the solid storage, but I will pass your suggestion to the justicar. Perhaps when his techmarines arrive, they can recover something of worth."

Machairi nodded in agreement, and tapped her nails gently against the table top. "Let's hope they don't take too long. I need all of you who are cleared to work to proceed to the Glom and requisition us a transport as quickly and quietly as possible. Make sure you check our prospective conveyor's credentials thoroughly. Tomas will have command."

She tilted her head towards Prinzel, offering the soldier-scholar a trusting nod.

"If the incident on Marioch is a lead on DeRei, then good. If not, then at least we've stopped a cult. Marcus?"

Marc looked up sharply at the mention of his name. He had been staring at the recaf pots, his fingers curled into tight fists on the table top. "Yes ma'am?"

"We're not going to mourn captain Tarran until we find out what really happened on the waystation. There's still a chance that she may be alive somewhere."

"Yes ma'am." Marc said again, his face artificially neutral.

Machairi appraised him for a moment more before she seemed satisfied, and folded her hands as she looked back to Tomas. "I'm planning to contact governor Tierce and put out a subsector-wide warrant for DeRei's arrest. If nothing else, it'll stop him from being able to operate openly. And if he sees that the order originated from the capital on Tephaine, we might lull him into a false sense of security thinking that we're looking in the wrong place. I will follow you to Marioch after you report in on the situation there."

Sister Kiana massaged her chin, thoughtfully, and her crinkled eyes wandered over to Ella. "You. Astropath. Come here."

Ella's blind hazel eyes turned to land on Kiana without focusing. The scrawny young woman hesitated for a moment, and tugged at the sleeve of her green robe before standing up with obvious trepidation.

This seemed to amuse Kiana. "Have you ever worked with the Sisterhood before?"

"Er...yes, actually." Ella replied, finding her voice. "Sisters Rose and Jennifen, from the hospitaller. About a year ago."

The canoness glanced towards Sapphira, sharing what might have been an almost conspiratorial look. "Well, child, I don't know what your experience with my fellow sisters was like, but I can assure you that you have nothing to fear from me. My order was founded based on the visions of an astropath like yourself, and we wouldn't be able to maintain our network without the help of such holy messengers. Though of course, we have a little help beyond the adeptus telepathica."

She reached into a pocket of her loose, white-edged robe, and drew out something small and silver and faceted.

"Do you know what this is?"

"That's an animus vox." Vincent wheezed.

Kiana blinked at the battered mercenary, evidently surprised. "Correct. The technology of an astropath's throne array, miniaturised and portable. The mechanicus do not give many of these out, nowadays. Lady Machairi has its twin."

She held the device out, the small rune-etched cube balanced on her palm. A small loop at the centre of one face formed the anchor for a delicate silver chain, which pooled around the cube in the cup of Kiana's palm. Ella reached out and picked it up, rather gingerly, as if the tiny object was made of glass. No doubt the unassuming device was radiating potently to her warp sight.

"Thank you." she said solemnly.

"I will give you a data crystal penned by our astropath primus." Kiana continued as Ella unspooled the silver chain and hung it carefully around her neck. It snagged for a moment on the interface plug at the back of her neck, making the astropath wince briefly as she tucked the cube away inside the collar of her robe. "Most psykers can master the device in a day or two, so you should have the hang of it by the time you reach Marioch."

Ella nodded several times, as if to reassure the canoness that she would rise to the challenge.

Machairi pressed her long-fingered hands into the table, as if to stand. "The sooner you can get to Marioch, the better. Any questions?"

[dakkagor]

+++Tomas+++

Before the meeting

He had been forewarned that they were a few days from the Glom. Which meant he had an unpleasant job to do.

He had invited them to his quarters, which had a door to Machairi's at his insistence. From her side, it was concealed, but when she had guests, he would wait at it, ready to burst in from his room if anything happened. This was the same. Something he did to protect her.

Solvan had arrived first, and they had talked about much of nothing, mainly Adrantis Sector history, old wars and long dead saints they had read about. He had opened a good bottle of Amsec, one he had taken with him from the True Bane, which seemed appropriate. Solvan had spotted the third chair and glass immediately, and Tomas thought he knew what was coming. So they had talked about other things instead.

About fifteen minutes after Solvan arrived; there was a polite tap on the door, and soon after Sapphira stepped into the room. She paused as saw Tomas and Solvan already seated, and her friendly smile dwindled away as she registered their reserved expressions and the open bottle of quality alcohol.

“Sister, please, take a seat.”

He only used her title when it was work. He hated this. Hated that he had to ask these questions.

Sapphira slowly nodded and grimly pursed her lips as she sat down. The Sister regarded her colleagues and friends with guarded expectation, and Tomas hated that as well. She must have known this was coming. He poured her a drink and sighed.

“Sorry to drop this on you. I thought we had a few more days, but the navigator tells me we caught a strong current and beat his estimate.” He paused. “I won't dance around it. I need your assessment on the Penitents.” He held up a hand, forestalling them both. “And not their combat readiness, or their psychological fitness. I've been reading your reports to the Inquisitor already, and I know she's immensely proud of the work you've done. They couldn't have asked for better people, better friends, to get them through this.”

He refilled his glass and Solvans.

“I need to know, are they a threat to Inquisitor Machairi?” He looked them each in the eye briefly before carrying on. “When the old man went down, I had to start thinking about the political side of what happened. Why did we get them? Is this a long term plot to pull Machairi down, and ensure that all legacy of Sidonis is wiped from the galaxy? Stranger, pettier things have happened in the Ordo. Perhaps they are being set to watch us, or sabotage us from within. They might not even know they were doing it. With the kind of Psykers you can find on Terra, such a thing is more than within the reach of the Inquisitors behind that damned trial. So, are they compromised? Is there any chance, any at all, that they could be carrying some kind of programming, maybe as part of a mind wipe? Did any of them make a deal for their collective freedom?”

Solvan eyed Tomas and Sapphira running his hand over his beard for a moment before answering.

"Pragmatically, yes the chance could exist for such a plan to be in place. But, if that is the case I would think it a poorly conceived one."

The bishop looked at the golden liquid swirling in his glass.

"As you said the bargaining chip must be the well-being of the others, yet they are all released to our custody. A clever schemer would have arranged for them to be separated leaving under his or her own care a few key members to ensure the assassin does the deed. Now they are together and could decide to take the risk of not following the arrangement despite the threats. After all they did go after their commanding Lord Inquisitor, if that isn't a suicide attempt of a mission I don't know what is. And yes there could be psychic programming which they might be unaware of, but such things often leave scars in the psyche that are hard to miss. I have seen nothing but the usual trauma effects that can be expected from their ordeal."

Tomas looked at Solvan. He knew, knew in his bones, that this was difficult for them. These people would have seen deep, psychological wounds bared to them, maybe after days of teasing the Penitents out of whatever defensive shells they had constructed. He was asking them to now consider these people as a hypothetical threat.

“I concur with Solvan’s assessment. Without someone retained as collateral, then there is little else a hypothetical assassin could be leveraged with. Normally family would be another consideration, but that would only impact Kelly and Marcus through their father.” Sapphira cradled the glass in her hand and sighed. “The simple truth is that the penitents are each other’s family and closest friends, and they are essentially all that they have left.”

They were all well aware of the penitent’s personnel files and their mournful family dynamics. Kally and Vincent’s families had predeceased them by decades, and Ella’s were safely presumed so after the incident on Sancta Heroica. Gavin and the Black siblings had family, but that was hardly any better. The psychic’s family hadn’t hesitated to disown him once his mutation was discovered, and neither Marc nor Kelly had seen their father Varrius since they left Solomon. Before events had spiraled out of control on Teleostei there had been intermittent communication between them, at least as much as was possible for a mid-hive enforcer and his children who were in Inquisitorial service.

“Vincent is the one I am most concerned about. He's a deadly fighter, and would make an excellent assassin, especially with what he knows about explosives and heavy weaponry. He's also mercenary, and fearsomely loyal to the others. If someone offered him, and the rest, an out in return for Machairi’s head on a metaphorical pike, I don't doubt he would have taken it.”

"With Nyl I have yet to achieve any significant progress." Solvan sighed with sadness in his voice. "Our relationship has been rather less than cordial since Hercynia. I think Sapphira would be a better judge of character for him. Yes he definitely could do anything for the other Venatora agents, but for what it's worth, my gut tells me he isn't an assassin."

“I must confess that I have never had much insight into what motivates Vincent, and what little I do have is years old and without months in Terra’s dungeons - or the penitence. That alone has robbed him of his usual hard edge, but I expect he will come around when we are on the ground.” Sapphira shook her head with the hint of a smile. “I am actually looking forward to Vincent calling me an uppity, over-involved bitch with conviction again, as then we will know that he is back in form and on the mend.”

Tomas turned to face Sapphira, smiling slighty at the comment. He was well aware of how 'Irrascible' the old mercenary was. “The other, best option for a hidden assassin would be Sonder. She's tenacious, competent and highly motivated, with a broad skill set. Her mind can't be read, but it is possible to do a limited reconstruction of a Blanks psyche with the right drugs. However, considering her background, I'd rate her as less of a threat. That tenacity makes her difficult to break down, difficult to win over.”

He paused, then ploughed on. “Ella, Gavin and Kelly would make good double agents. All of them have access to data that could be passed back to a rival Inquisitor, though Ella not as much. And then there is Marc. They had his sister. They had his friends, good friends. He's done something similar in the past, and the Inquisitor he used to work for was on that damn council.”

He shook his head.

“I don't want to believe it of any of them. If you two tell me they are safe and clean, this will be the last time I talk about it, and I'll be happy to have them all on the team, even that inveterate drunk Nyl. But if you have any doubts, any worries. . . now is the time to tell me. Before its too late.”

Solvan took a moment before speaking, his eyes wondering across the ceiling. "I agree that Sonder has been through many trials and has come out strengthened by them. I have no reason to suspect her, from our conversations she seems to be recovering well, almost unnervingly so."

“Kally is a tough woman, the toughest that I have ever met, and I am not surprised in the least that she seems to be in the best shape of the group. My only concern about Kally is Crenshaw. We need to know if their past, and however fleeting history, will be an issue both for her and the team.” Sapphira’s tone betrayed how reluctant she was to have to pursue that dialogue, even if she was resolved to have it. “Kally and I have not spoken about him, but they have obviously been avoiding one another. We all know requires a considerable effort on this ship, but I will make certain their paths cross before we reach the Glom.”

There was a momentary flicker of guilt across the Sister’s eyes as she stared down into her drink.

“I had noticed that the two kept their distance. I was wondering however, if that might be because they didn't want to give us gossiping wives anything to talk about.” Tomas mused on that moment of guilt slipping past the facade. Perhaps it was a solidarity thing with Kally. The two seemed like close friends to his eyes, and in his own conversations with the penitents Sapphira seemed highly regarded by Kally.

“Ella is an unlikely option due to her being soul bound to the God-Emperor, which would make tampering with her impossible beyond the worst of the Ordo’s means. If anything I believe that she would have been kept for examination after her atypical phenomenon on Saros.” Sapphira’s expression crinkled slightly with distaste as she glanced at Solvan and Tomas. “Thankfully that was not the case.”

Sapphira paused and thoughtfully tapped her fingers against the glass.

“I would not consider Gavin as a suitable candidate for an infiltrating assassin. Physically he is in the weakest condition of the penitents and he has yet to remove the null halo. I honestly cannot tell if Gavin is afraid of other psykers or his own abilities.” The Sister frowned at the options she presented. “I believe Gavin’s experiences on Saros and Terra have broken and hardened him in equal measure. Perhaps the only person who I have seen extract an almost functional conversation out from him is Kelly.”

"Kelly has, as always, too gentle a soul for inquisitorial work. I have yet to end my assessment of the damage brought to her by our overzealous colleagues." Solvan's voice had stayed leveled through the conversation, but at this point anger could be clearly felt in his voice for a moment. "But for that same reason I don't believe her capable of such double crossing. If you remember she couldn't keep simple stealth protocol back on Hercynia because her conscience got the better of her."

"Marc has the drive and the stomach for such work and he could go to extremes to protect his sister that is true." Solvan took a drink from his glass and chuckled. "But he is too righteous for his own good. He is more likely to try to find an alternative plan and make an even bigger mess of things. Plus, if there is one living being Marc wishes to see dead in the whole universe that is Arcolin DeRei, and Alia is his best chance to see it done."

The bishop tilted his head slightly.

"At the end of the day Tomas, we cannot give you the certainty you ask for. But I have faith that they do not represent a threat to Alia and that we have received them as a blessing of sorts. I pray that we are up to the task of helping them heal their wounds and gain atonement."

“Very well.” Tomas nodded. “Perhaps its just an old soldiers paranoia making a blessing look like a trap. Not all good news is enemy action, after all.” He refilled everyones glasses. “A toast then, to the return of old friends.”

Currently

"Let's hope they don't take too long. I need all of you who are cleared to work to proceed to the Glom and requisition us a transport as quickly and quietly as possible. Make sure you check our prospective conveyor's credentials thoroughly. Tomas will have command."

Tomas smiled. "I'll be handling the back end and managing the purse strings for our little field trip. I'll be relying on all of you to find the leads. I'm confident that between us, we can find this bastard and put a stop to him once and for all."

[dakkagor]

+++Kally+++

Leaving Terra

“Well, shit, if it ain’t the wrench wench herself!”

“Holy throne, you lived?” Kally looked up from where Sapphira had strapped her into the shuttles acceleration seat, genuinely surprised through her exhaustion. “No frakking way! I thought I had sorted you permanently.”

Merle Carson’s cheerful smile at Kally only broadened as his attempted murderess recognized him. He was clearly delighted that she had not forgotten their brief and wildly violent acquaintance. Crenshaw was directly behind the convict as he strong-armed his prisoner forward towards an acceleration seat. The Major’s expression was studiously impassive, but his un-powered maul out and ready by his side.

“It sure weren’t for a lack of you tryin’, but as you can see,” Merle demonstratively rattled his manacles and shrugged, but his smile wavered as Crenshaw shoved him forward. “I live a charmed fuckin’ life.”

“Next time, I’ll be sure to finish you off.” she shrugged. “No hard feelings?”

“It ain’t my feelin’s that’ll be hard, girl. Our last romp was fun.” The convict’s grin returned and took a turn for the sleazy as his eyes ranged over Kally as he remembered their last encounter. (http://role-player.net/forum/showthread.php?t=18352&page=14&p=713467&viewfull=1#post713467) “I’m lookin’ forward to gettin’ my mitts on you again. I’ll take-”

Crenshaw roughly turned Merle around and caught him in the abdomen with a solid, well-practiced strike from his un-powered maul. He shoved the choking convict into his acceleration seat, and Merle grunted as his head banged off the head rest. Crenshaw stowed his weapon before he synched the restraints tightly across Merle’s chest and then mag-cuffed his wrists to the arms rests as he groaned. The Major wordlessly observed the hunched convict with a faint expression of contempt before brushed off his uniform cap and sat down next to Kally, only briefly sparing her a glance as he clipped himself in.

“Fuck me.” Merle muttered. No sooner had he heard the telltale click of metal and the standby chime sound, the convict straightened himself in his seat. “A man only goes hittin’ another man like that when their disagreement is concernin’ his woman.” Merle’s cruel blue eyes narrowed at Crenshaw before they flicked suspiciously over to Kally. “Now you ain’t been steppin’ out on me, have you, sweetheart?”

“Let me set a few misconceptions you have straight, frakhead." Kally spat back. "Firstly, we are not a 'thing', you are someone I didn't quite kill. Throne willing, I'll get to fix that little mistake on my part. Second, my name, for the record, is Kally Sonder. Thirdly, you don't know a throne damned thing about me, and what you think you know is not your business. Remember that and we will get along just fine.”

Merle snorted and bared his teeth as he relaxed back into the acceleration chair, or relaxed at least as much as he could with his restraints. He regarded Kally with a cocked head sideways in consideration for a moment before he leaned towards her, without any hint of emotion. When the convict spoke, his voice was not much more than a rough whisper that only Kally and Crenshaw could hear.

“Your parents were Jonas an’ Marta, an’ they knew there was somethin’ wrong with you from birth. They kept cartin’ you off to the hacks passin’ for docs in the Sinks, prayin’ for someone to figure it out. Not a one of ‘em was even fit for treatin’ Guardsmen, but they went on keepin’ on with the testin’ ‘cause there ain’t no better mark than the fuckin’ desperate. Your daddy started takin’ all the overtime an’ extra shifts he could, but vent cleanin’ ain’t exactly healthy even if it pays well for straight work. He never stopped until the very end, all ‘cause those ‘specialist treatments’ weren’t cheap an’ you were his sick little girl. You were six when he kicked off ‘cause of the rust lung.”

Kally fell silent. Her hands were on her knees and her nails where digging into her legs so hard her knuckles where draining of colour as she stared at Merle like he had grown a second head. She had almost forgotten those early years. Almost. All the poking and prodding. All the blood tests. The constant whispered prayers. That was why she was scared of needles. How did he know all that? She hadn't told anyone. They hadn't even brought it up in interrogation.

Crenshaw’s eyes narrowed and locked on the convict as he spoke. He spared a cursory look away from Merle down the bay towards the others, who were as yet unaware of the situation developing at the furthest end of the shuttle. Now was not the moment for an incident. The Major barely turned his head toward Kally and murmured. “Agent Sonder, you need to ignore him.”

“Your momma tried holdin’ everythin’ together, but ain’t no way a widow was gonna get out from under on all those debts that’d been rackin’ up, even with offerin’ it all up. She went lookin’ for an escape from grievin’ the lost love of her life, an’ the shit situation she were stuck in, however briefly. The beatin’ an’ blamin’ started with the cheap amasec, an’ only kept on gettin’ worse as she got turned onto the harder junk to drown it all out. You finally made a runner at eight, an’ ‘til you started bein’ a baby ganger at twelve, you were only the copper’s books for vagrancy, beggin’ an’ thievin’.”

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't you dare frakking cry Kally Sonder. Her face had drained of what little colour it had and her jaw was clenched. She tried to furiously hold back the tears. Now she was safe, now she was out, in this shuttle, heading to Machairi's ship, she could feel herself emotionally untensing, relaxing, starting to process everything. And this frakker was jabbing in the knives just as she was hitting her most vulnerable.

Crenshaw watched Kally out of the corner of his eye. His false teeth clacked softly as slightly his own jaw tightened sympathetically, and he leaned towards her as closely as the acceleration seats would allow. “Agent Sonder, you need to tune this out.”

“Yea, momma dearest never went makin’ the effort to have you come home. Not that you did either, ‘cause you hated the bitch, all while bein’ blind to her pain. Tragic, but ain’t it an inconvenient fuckin’ truth that you’re more like her than not…at least when sharin’ the junky needle habit. Momma ‘cause she felt guilty about givin’ you life, an’ you ‘cause you almost had it taken away while shootin’ it out at thirteen. If that weren’t ironic enough, you kept stimmin’ up an’ stimmin’ up for decades, all despite hatin’ needles. Now that probably kept you from takin’ too much…unlike momma, who oh-dee’d when you were sixteen. She took one helluva last trip out as she was chokin’ on her own puke…that’s after they eventually wheeled her outta that decrepit shithole you once called home.”

“Shut up.” She whispered. She couldn't handle this. Not now. She needed to get somewhere, unpack, breakdown. She knew it was coming. She just didn't want to do it here at the goading of this shitbag. How did he know all of that?

“Agent Sonder! Look at me!” Crenshaw tersely hissed at Kally as he directly faced her. Damn you. The Major thought as after a moment of hesitation he placed a hand on her arm. His expression hardened as he felt the tension of her muscles as Kally clutched her knees. “Do not respond to this scum. Do not oblige him with the reaction he desires.”

“Speakin’ of shitholes you’ve lived in, you kept sinkin’ down into it like the rest’a us native under-trash. Remember dodgin’ the fuck ass Arbites on their cullin’ sweeps an’ then murderin’ those who escaped for the damn few kernels in the shit before they could do likewise? Happy, happy memories. Now you would’a kept on sinkin’, maybe even gettin’ close to reachin’ my level, but then you went an’ got pinched by the ay-ay-tee. Some two-bit psyker figured in a second what all ‘em scammers couldn’t as they stole your folk’s pot to piss in. Word is you ain’t got a soul, sweetheart.”

“It all could’a gone a whole lot dif’rent for you if that legal wyrd hadn’t fucked up, an’ had you tossed out on, what I’m visualizin’ was, your tight young ass...but I’m guessin’ you’re probably thinkin’ about how you could’a properly gotten it in from tall, dark, an’ soulless over here fifteen years ‘fore he went an’ finally punched that v-ticket for you…an’ how you two could’a been regularly screwin’ since.”

Crenshaw was rendered speechless as his jaw clenched. His expression tightened as he turned his eyes away from Kally and back towards Merle. The Major’s hand slid off her arm as he slowly eased away from her to wordlessly regard the convict with a cool gaze. Merle had intently stared at Kally as he recited her traumatic history from memory, but he broke it to offer Crenshaw a slyly knowing wink.

“So, uh, yea, I know every-throne damned-thing about you, Kally Sonder.” Merle announced, before he exhaled deeply into a chuckle. The convict grinned as he leaned toward her and raised his eyebrows speculatively. “Now how’s about we keep on moseyin’ down excruciatin’ memory lane, sweetheart?”

“SHUT UP!” She screamed. She unclipped from the seat, surged to her feet and lunged for him, ready to beat Merle into silence. He didn't move, and barely flinched as she got in two good swings. Merle just let her hit him, as did Crenshaw before he rose from his crash chair and put a pair of gentle hands on Kally’s shoulders to pull her away from the convict. She tensed, turned to him, the tears flowing freely now.

“We need him alive, Kally.” Crenshaw quietly said although his voice said otherwise. There was a slightly uncomfortable tension in his expression as he held Kally in his arms and briefly met her eyes.

She blinked her eyes clear and turned to look back at Merle. He was smiling. Smiling a big shit eating grin. Merle had done it. Broken through her barriers, got past her every defence, and stabbed her right in the heart. She turned away and saw that everyone, everyone was staring at her. Even the Inquisitor. The collar bit into her throat as she wished she could crawl down a hole and die of shame.

Merle’s rumbling laughter broke the awkward silence as it echoed through the shuttle compartment. His nasty smile only widened as he drank in the dark and judgmental looks being shot at him by the other operatives. The convict’s amusement tapered off as he spat blood on the decking from his split lip, but the grin remained as he casually waived at them with his shackled left hand.

“Hello friends. Now seein’ as we so rudely ain’t been introduced, the name’s Merle Ray Carson. It’s so fuckin’ nice to meet y’all, an’ I’m lookin’ forward to gettin’ all acquainted with y’all,” Merle tapered off somewhat distractedly while he shamelessly eyed over Sister Sapphira as she walked towards him, “an’ in every kind’a way.”

“Come. You know that she has this under control.” Crenshaw murmured in Kally’s ear as he felt her re-tense at Merle’s hardly subtle statement of intent. The Major shifted his surprisingly gentle hold on Kally to wrap an arm across the back of her shoulders and guide her by the hand further away from Merle and the others. Behind them the convict gave a seedy wolf whistle as the Sister stopped next to him.

“Well, hello nurse. I was plannin’ on gettin’ real nicely acquainted with you, darlin’, if only to find out what you’re hidin’ under there.” Merle sucked in a breath through his teeth as he stared lustfully at her figure, obscured as it was by her order’s robes. Only then did the convict see the injector of kalma in Sapphira’s hand, which caused him to glance up at her mildly repulsed expression. He forced a lopsided grin as he met the cool steel of her grey eyes. “I suppose you’re gonna give me a little prick, huh?”

“That’s correct, and it’ll be my pleasure to do so.” Sapphira admitted as she uncapped the one shot disposable injector and stepped in closer towards Merle, who futilely tried to shift away in spite of his numerous fetters. He shivered slightly at the physical contact when Sapphira seized his arm to hold it steady as she prepared to sedate the convict. Merle desperately tried to lean forward and lick the exposed skin of her pale arm as the sleeve rode up slightly, which made the Sister pull away sharply.

“An’ it’ll likewise be mine when I’m givin’ you a big prick later!” Merle chuckled as his threat, which gave way to a yelp as Sapphira simply lunged forward to stick the needle in and inject him. The convict struggled against his bonds and the chemical rush, and managed to slur out some last objections - even as the dirty ice of his blue eyes began to fog over and he slumped in his seat. “You… fuckin’… bitch…”

Crenshaw wordlessly eased Kally into her new seat, and for a moment the Major simply observed her as the tension in his jaw returned. Crenshaw exhaled quietly down his nose as he went down on a knee before Kally. He placed his hands on her slumped shoulders, and with gentle pressure he rolled them back so that she sat with her back straight to the chair. The Major then cupped her chin in both hands and slowly tilted hear head up so that their eyes met - her teary brown to his searching hazel. She let out a long, shuddering breath.

"I'm fine." She whispered. "I'm fine."

After a long hesitant pause, in which it seemed as if he might speak, Crenshaw’s thumbs slowly followed along the path of Kally’s tears and lightly brushed them aside across her cheeks. The Major’s teeth clicked softly as he traced the scar around her left eye as his hands pulled away. Crenshaw stared at the re-positioned Kally, with her head up and shoulders set, and slowly nodded to her in approval as he snugly fastened her into the acceleration seat. He stood and then took the chair next to Kally, which obstructed any line of sight that she would’ve had to Merle, and secured himself for the overdue launch.

Earlier

The Tiercel was a small ship, mainly engine, and that didn't leave a lot of space for finding places to be alone. Major Crenshaw had made it a point to know of and inspect every secluded location years ago, on his first voyage aboard Alia’s vessel. Over the last half hour he had systematically checked them all except the final one. It was wedged between the warp core and discharge vane, and thanks to its low ceiling it was little more than a hot, dark, and claustrophobic alcove.

It was also deadly to anyone other than a Blank when the engine activated to hurl the Tiercel into and out of the warp. Crenshaw knew that alone made it the likeliest hideaway for his target, which was why he had purposefully saved the dangerous oubliette for last. From a distance the Major saw the door was sealed rather than locked as it was meant to be, and he could hear someone vigorously working out even through the heavy airlock. He listened for a moment before reluctantly cycling the hatch.

“You could have asked for a sparring partner.” Crenshaw called out as he observed the woman he’d been looking for. Kally had set up a punching bag, and was seemingly doing her best to kill it with her bare hands and feet. She paused at his intrusion, and then rested against the bag.

“I came down here not to be bothered, Martin.”

Crenshaw gritted his teeth and crossed his arms as he regarded Kally. She was sweating profusely, and he noted that the water bottle sitting on a bag nearby was already empty. Her knuckles, even wrapped in boxing tape, where bloodied. Between that, and her bedraggled hair, hard breathing, and sallow complexion, it was obvious that Kally had been down here in this sweat box longer than was healthy even for her.

He also noted the tone of her voice. It was aggressive, mean, and dangerous. The look from her, before she fell back into her stance and started working the bag again, was a clear signal that she didn't want to hear the conversation that was coming. He hardly wanted to have it himself – yet never the less they were both here, and it was going to happen.

“Right now you should be talking to Sapphira.” Crenshaw levelly stated. “The Sister requested that I find you.”

“Really?” Kally grunted. “I must have lost track of time.”

The bag swung and the chain creaked as each word was punctuated by a savage blow as Kally furiously attacked it - and ignored him. It was clear that no matter how severely she battered the bag, she was doing worse to herself. Crenshaw’s scarred cheek twitched as a spike of anger shot through him as he watched her self-flagellation. What little patience the Major had in this moment was broken as he briskly stalked towards Kally, and nearly threw her off balance as he caught her left arm in mid-swing.

“Enough!” Crenshaw barked as he yanked her around to face him. Kally tried to step back, but he saw that she didn't have the strength to escape. He doubted she would have let him catch her like that, or at least allowed it so easily, and not without what he would expect to be a vicious contest. She fought harder against the Silver Prophet. The Major’s face darkened at that unwelcome reminder of their brief past as he realized how weakened she was by her extended stay down here in the cramped and sweltering darkness.

“You could have collapsed down here and died!” The Major snarled at Kally, and another infuriated surge hit him when she showed no reaction to that thought. “Oh, so you do not care?” Crenshaw pulled her around and stabbed his free hand at the airlock. “Would you care if one of your baseline friends had been killed coming down here looking for you?!”

Kally swallowed hard, looking at the door. Something, real fear or even guilt perhaps, flashed over her face at the thought and she switched her gaze to the deck.
“I. . .I don’t know. . . I. . “ she mumbled.

“Then what exactly are you trying to prove down here?!” Crenshaw shouted into Kally’s face as he grabbed her by the shoulders and roughly shook her.

“I'm not trying to prove anything!” She shouted back, snapping out of what ever had just latched onto her. “I'm coping just fine! I don't need any help!”

“Groxshit!” Crenshaw snapped, and realized this was going to take some tough love. He met Kally’s eyes with a hard look as he processed that errant thought. Love. No. This is not love. Not even tough love. I am simply speaking candidly to her one blacksoul to another. The Major clenched his teeth again, and rocked Kally one last time even as he relaxed the vice-like grip he’d initially clutched her with. “Fine people do not lock themselves away and work themselves to death!”

“I can handle it!” she wavered. “I can handle it!” she repeated, with more confidence, breaking free of his hold. “I'm coping, and they have enough to worry about with the others.”

“Martyrdom is a self-indulgent waste for our kind.” Crenshaw countered with an irritated edge, and relentlessly followed after her as she stepped away to retrieve her kit bag. “We both know that you are coming apart at the seams, Agent Sonder!”

“And you always know best, don't you Major Crenshaw!” She threw the bag to the floor, which spilled its contents on the deck. “Throne frakking damn you! You were right all along!”

“What do you mean?” Crenshaw asked as the harsh bite had dropped from his voice. By comparison the question sounded almost gentle, and the Major even took a step back to give her some space. Kally’s prickly defenses had been overcome and he was about to find out what this was about. He was not certain either of them were truly ready for that entailed.

“Do you know. . .Do you know what they did to me?” She pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “I felt like I was coming apart! It was a hundred times worse than anything Strelilov could cook up. It was sick! It was wrong!” She staggered back a step, meeting his eyes with a look of near total vehemence. “And the only two things going through my mind, the whole damn time?”

Crenshaw’s eyes stayed with hers as he maintained his silence as he listened to her, almost a model of composure – almost. It was only betrayed by the slight tension of his jaw as it tightened with the expectation as to where Kally’s confession was headed.

“Firstly, that for nearly a decade, I've worked for these monsters, willingly!” She looked away from him. “And the second was that, on Hercynia, I should have taken you up on your offer to get out. Do you know what that is like? To think that I was doing it to myself, because I hadn't taken you up on your stupid offer! How could you have gotten me out while I was working for that Fracker Sidonis?” She turned and kicked the punching bag, hard. The blow tore the bag out of its improvised mounting and sent it thudding into the floor. “How? I worked that over in my head, again and again. It was almost worse than what they were doing to me. Thinking I shouldn't even have been there, knowing that it wasn't a viable way out. Thinking about where I should have been, could have been, torturing myself when they weren't doing the job all because of some pillow talk from a one night stand!”

Crenshaw was so intently focused on her that the pistol came from nowhere, and for a second he thought that she was going to turn it on him before Kally turned the gun on the bag. She worked the trigger, pumping round after round into the bag until it was spread across the room, before with a disgusted grunt, tossing the laspistol into the wreckage. It was only then that Crenshaw realized his instinctive and well-honed reflexes had failed him - he had not even reached for his own sidearm.

“Throne. . .fracking. . .damnit.” she managed, gulping in breaths of air. “That was the last one on this Emperor cursed tub.”

Crenshaw contemplatively worked his tongue around his prosthetic teeth as he regarded her. After a lingering pause, the Major exhaled deeply down his nose as he reached his decision. “My offer stands, Kally.”

Kally looked sideways at him, still breathing hard. “You can't be serious.”

“I am deadly serious.” Crenshaw softly responded with the expression to match.

“You're serious?” She gestured around herself. “I'm a frakking mess. I can't sleep thanks to the nightmares, and I can only barely pretend to be human when I'm running an adrenaline high from combat. I wouldn't blame you for running a lightyear in the exact opposite direction.”

“If you want to get out, Kally, I will attempt to get you out. There is always a way.” Crenshaw said levelly as he circumvented her doubts and completely bypassed detailing his own predicament – now was not the time, and she had somewhere to be. “I do have one condition, though.”

Kally nodded. Crenshaw could see that Kally was at the end of her reserves, and he glanced away.

“Go talk to Sapphira, and Solvan. They want to help you, and they can, and will.” Crenshaw declared as he turned aside to give Kally a clear path to the airlock. “We can talk about a future once you are better.”

She nodded again, and then stepped past him towards the door.

“Martin.”

He grimaced slightly as he turned towards Kally, and she caught him by the front of his fatigue shirt. She pulled him down so that her lips were locked onto his. Crenshaw’s tension only increased before yielding to the moment with a deep sigh, and he lightly placed his hands on her waist. Their lips and bodies were barely touching as Crenshaw and Kally held one another and then reluctantly pulled apart.

“Thanks, Martin.”

“Yeah.”

Later

Kally was running, feet pounding the treadmill as she jogged in time to the music blasting through her headphones. The gymnasium on the Tiercel was small, but decently equipped. Kally felt confident enough, having talked and prayed with Solvan, to risk the gymnasium in down shifts, when it was quiet. She was giving the others space, she didn't want them to worry about her.*
According to Solvan she was doing well. That was good. She wanted to do well, to put this behind her, to move on. So later in the ships evening she came down here and ran until she was exhausted. Once she could barely keep walking, let alone running, she would shower and then collapse into her bunk, and sleep better than she had in a long time.

Even with the headphones on, she heard the door to the room open and close. Someone in heavy boots had stepped into the gymnasium and stopped. Kally quickly ran through who it could be. Not Marc, or Tomas. Marc would try to engage her in conversation that was still too awkward and painful for her, and Tomas would just walk past her to the practice cage with nothing more than a courtesy nod and a few words of encouragement on her current run when he couldn't sleep. Not Glabrio either. They had run into each other a few times, and so far he had actually been pretty nice, in a no-pressure-just-here kind of way. They had even had a friendly conversation about the various pistols they used and preferred, when Hercynia had come up. Too quiet for Vizkop. He seemed to deaden the air around him, and he was one of the few people Kally felt confident could sneak up on her undetected.

The footsteps, the presence, was too heavy for any of the other women on board. Either Merle, who was generally confined to quarters, or his handler.

She sighed and unhooked the headphones, tinny Makitan Dust Core wafting into the air as she kept running.

“Can I help you?” She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw that it was indeed the new Arbitrator, Josiah. She hadn't shared a single word with him so far. She turned back to the machine and focused on running, waiting to see if he had anything to say.

"Just coming in to exercise, Miss...Sonder, was it?" Josiah said as he got onto an exercise machine near her, and put down his bag. It was, in fact, right in front of her treadmill, it was one of those multi-part weight machines. It was angled so that, while he exercised, he could look at her. He set the weight to 23 kilograms, and after taking off his shirt to reveal a grey a-shirt, he grabbed the overhead bar and began working out. "Bit late to be exercising, Miss Sonder. Couldn't sleep, I take it?" With how the machines were placed, he was fairly close to her, close enough to be affected by her aura, yet, either it didn't affect him, or he was really good at hiding it. Either way, it would show that he's worked with untouchables before, and long enough to become acclimated to it. "If I might ask, what is that sound? It sounds like a street brawl turned into music."

“Uh huh.” Kally kept running for the moment. “It’s Dust Core. Sapphira found a copy of it a few years back and kept it for if we ever met up again. Its music from my home hive, the one that got glassed from orbit.”
She eyed him carefully. What was he trying to prove, exactly, by working out right next to her? She shook her head and started to turn the running machine off, letting the machine slow down so she could do the same. Her legs burned from the exertion and a cold shower waited so that she wouldn't cramp up.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I'm sure that it's not as bad as I described it as, I've just never heard of it," He said, as he let go of the machine. He reached into his bag and pulled out a plastic bottle of brightly colored liquid. "Here, catch," He said, as he had suddenly tossed it at her. It was a gesture of friendship, but also to test her reflexes. "You need to keep hydrated, or you'll get a cramp. Why don't we talk a while. I haven't really met you, outside of a file."

She snorted in amusement, and sat down on a bench nearby. “Who said anything about being offended? Its just music.” She stared at the ceiling briefly, the bottle remaining in her hand unopened. “If you want to talk, you'd best start. If you've read my file, you know I'm not the most social person on board.” She gestured to her collar. “I'm guessing yoou have questions about something. So ask away. Unless you'd rather cuff me and drag me down to one of the interrogation cells in the hold?” She put the bottle down next to her, unopened. “That’s generally how it goes between Hive Scum and Arbitrators”

"Heh, sorry, I'm not in the mood for 'fun' right now," He said, joking about her last comment. "It's not really that I have questions, I just want to get to know you. I know that being an untouchable means that, well, generally people tend to keep their distance, but I find that untouchables like yourself are not only very interesting, but can be very good friends if someone just tries. I'm not like most people you've met," He said, as he turned to her. "I've been working with untouchables for the past fifteen years, and was the temporary guardian of a preteen one named Alissa for two. I'm acclimated to your aura, even if you shut your collar off. Miss Sonder...Kally, if I may. How about we get a drink sometime?" He asked, which could be construed as him asking her out...on a date.

Kally blinked for a second, her face set.

“Well, Josiah. That's a very generous offer, and. . .”

She suddenly burst out laughing.

“Shit, I'm sorry. I just. . . really? You go on about how 'different' you are from all the other boys and the very next thing to fall out of your mouth is how you want to stick your dick in me? Did that line work on that little kid too?”

She stood up, arms crossed.

“Lets be clear here, Arbitrator Wuziarch. My name to you is Agent Sonder. I do not need your faux understanding, or your pity sex. Out in the field, you watch my back, and not my ass, and I will do you the same courtesy. And something else. If you make a move on Kelly, Sapphira or, Gods help you, Ella, then you won't have to worry about that shitbag Arcolin popping your head off with his dick-replacement rifle, because I will find you first. And then I will kill you, slowly, painfully. You've read my file, so you should know.”

She unfolded her arms, and retrieved her kit bag from the floor.

“I am very, very good at that. Have a good evening, Arbitrator.”

With that she turned to leave.

"You too, Agent Sonder." He waited until she left, then took out a notebook and wrote Kally Sonder, self-destructive, Overprotective of fellow female team members, feisty. He stopped and thought for a moment tapping the notebook with the pen a few times, before continuing, Has attachment issues. He closed the notebook and put it away, before he grabbed the bars of the exercise machine and kept working out.


Now

Kally had stayed quiet so far, looking over the presented briefing materials. She silently mouthed some of the longer words, brow furrowed as she mentally picked them apart phonetically. Why these people couldn't use simple Gothic was beyond her. She had approached Machairi briefly before the meeting to bring Josiah to her attention, and knew that she owed the lady Inquisitor a longer, more in-depth conversation about certain things.

She raised a hand to get the groups attention.

"We should look into the drug trade on the Glom. Arcolin had equipment made out of flect shards, equipment he lost prior to Saros. He might have tried to buy materials to build replacements."

She paused, thinking through what to say next.

"We should also get some equipment. Arcolin is a top notch sniper, and that rifle of his is deadly out to extreme range. We need a counter-measure if we run up against him without being able to close to close range first. I've been thinking about that, and a standard infantry Autocannon, with the fire-rate restricted, should be able to match that rifle for range and hitting power. And with his armour, we need as much hitting power as possible."

[Atrum Daemon]

Earlier; Within the Tiercel

Vizkop finally found his way to the gym aboard the ship. Until that evening, he had confined himself to his room for exercises. But his usual routine could only take him so far. Good exercise was hard when your limbs were bionic. He set his sights on a treadmill and his mind on some good cardio. Earbuds went in and the music pounded into his brain as he started to get moving. The music was noise and anger wrapped in an even electronic beat. The noise reminded him where he came from. Kept him grounded.

Kally stepped into the small gymnsium a quarter hour later, in her own workout clothes. She paused for a second on seeing Vizkop on the single treadmill, and for a second it seemed like she might retreat from the room before she breathed deeply, set her shoulders and made her way to the rowing machine in the corner.

“Hey” she nodded as she walked past, before pausing. Her own music player was already hooked to her sweatshirt, the earbuds draped round her collar. “I was meaning to ask you something. . . unless you'd prefer not to be bothered.”

Vizkop blinked once when he registered he was being spoken to. Pausing the machine, he pulled out his earbuds and fixed his gaze on Kally.

“Vas gad, Sondar?” The words left him before he caught himself. A relic of the past, a dialect for a gang of dispossessed and angry kids. The music did its job a little too well sometimes. “I got time. What did you want to ask, Sondar?” he asked, correcting his mental space back to mainstream Gothic.

Kally blinked at the odd dialect, and smiled. “Well, its more of a favour, actually.” She tossed her kitbag into a corner and leant against one of the machines, facing Vizkop. “I got most of my gear back intact except for the weapons. I got everything reassembled and working except for the bolter.” She ran a hand through her hair briefly and looked away. “I can't figure it out. Most of the time I can't get the mags to fit. Then when I can, it won't fire. I'm probably lucky I haven't blown my fingers off so far. And I've tried every litany I can remember, used all the proper tools. I've been struggling with the damnable thing for days.” She shrugged her shoulders. “If you could take a look at it, I'd really owe you one. If you can't get it working, its not a big problem. I saw a nice drum fed naval shotgun in one of the lockers I can use in a pinch, but that guns been with me since I started working for the Inquisition. I'd hate to be the person responsible for removing it from service.”

“I can take a look at it, yeah,” Vizkop said with a short nod and a slight smile of his own. “Sounds like you may have just fit one or two of the smaller pieces in the wrong way. Bolter's can be rather...difficult to work with at the best of times and I'd rather not see anyone subjected to the endless verbal chastisement of a Magos.”

He gave her a quick once-over and by all accounts she seemed fine physically. But that was not where his concern lay at the moment. “So other than dealing with what sounds like a particularly persnickety boltgun,” he said, deciding to try his luck and broach the subject, “how are you holding up?”

“Me? Oh, you know.” She paused. “Some days are good, and some days are bad. Some nights I can't sleep unless I've worked myself into exhaustion. I'm coping, which is the main thing. I blamed myself at first, over some stuff I had to work out with Crenshaw, but mainly, its been Solvan who's helped me pull through this time.” She smiled. “That man listens like a sponge drinks water. Can't help talking to him about anything that might be giving me grief.” She rubbed at her arms, suddenly awkward. “But hey, look at you. New gear, new face? What brought that on?”

A small smile graced his features and he was relieved that she was at least talking to someone. “What this?” he asked, pointing to his face. “Just...part of the job, really. Certainly not the first time. This one's the...eighth face I've had. And the gear's for hunting. A very particular game in the form of cyborgs. You know, those guys that get too many aguments too fast or don't get the right therapy to cope and go a very dangerous kind of crazy. A lot of em go on nasty killing sprees before they're put down. But it's all part of the bigger game of rooting out heretek's and removing them from the galaxy.”

“Eight faces?” Kally's hand unconsciously drifted to her own face. “I don't think I could hack that. Even the idea of losing my hair on Venatora wigged me out.” she laughed. “I guess that has to sound pretty vain, considering the line of work we are in.”

He paused for a moment as the topic made him mentally zip back to the previous night for a moment and caused his curiosity to peak. “Which reminds me, has that oddball Arbite talked to you yet? What's his name...Josiah!”

“Josiah? Don't get me frakking started.” Kally made a sour face and bent to pick up her kit bag. “That guy is full of groxshit. Gave me some kind of line about working with Pariahs before and how that made him 'different' and then he goes and makes a pass at me. Typical frakking Arbitrator if you ask me, high on the smell of his own boot polish and convinced that he's good enough to shine the Emperors balls.” She breathed out through her nose, visibly calming herself. "But, I tend to be pretty biased towards Arbitrators. I lost a lot of friends to them over the years."

She checked over the machine she was about to use, before looking up at Vizkop quizzically.

“He's new, right? Whats your take on him?”

“I think 'full of groxshit' hits the nail on the head,” Vizkop said with a grin before walking over to a resistance weight machine. “I don't have a very good opinion of Arbitrators in general, either. And right now, I have no faith in Josiah. He came to me last night to talk, probably getting a read on me. Says he wants to learn from me since he's got me pegged as 'the most skilled member of the team.' Never had someone try to stick their tongue up my ass like that before. He ended up feeding me this ludicrous story about taking down a gang of tech-heads on his homeworld. Straight faced told me that these guys were getting supplied with military-grade augs with filed off serial numbers. Shit like full-arm weapon replacements. You know, the stuff you don't just stick on a baseline. And that they gang itself was over a thousand members strong before they were stamped out. He strikes me as a total punk who wants to talk himself up. Hard to believe he's been with the Inquisition for a little over thirty standard years.”

Vizkop was enjoying the conversation. It was refreshing to really talk to another human being. Especially since he found Kally Sondar had a particularly entertaining view of things. He was not about to turn the topic down the road of “I know what you're going through” to try to be that guy. Sure, they both had their share of mental and emotional scars he was sure. But the differences between those scars were enough that he was not about to try to play the sympathetic card.

“Thirty years?” Kally shook her head with a snort of laughter. “Maybe the old geezers gone nuts, then.” She finished calibrating the rowing machine and climbed into the seat, giving the cord an experimental pull and wincing slightly. “Damn shoulders” she muttered under her breath before turning to face Vizkop again. “Or, he might be a con artist? You might know the type, has access to files above his paygrade and starts making alterations to his own slate to make it look good.” She started working the machine, building up slowly and ignoring the occasional twinge of pain from across her shoulders. It was an old wound and not going away any time soon. “And he's been coasting ever since?” Kally settled into a comfortable rhythm, a bit slower than her normal routine. She still wanted to talk to Vizkop, and was enjoying the rare chance to talk to the Mechanicus agent when his guard was somewhat relaxed.

“That would not surprise me if that were the case,” Vizkop said, beginning to work with the machine and gradually increasing the weight load. “I legitimately wonder if he's seen half the action his file claims he has.”

He kept an eye on one of his neural diagnostics displays, waiting for the readout to tell him when he reached the maximum strain limit for the bionic arms. “Because if he has, it causes me to wonder what kind of baggage he's carrying,” Vizkop went on. “I only have limited experience with cultists, but if Arcolin is anything like some of the others of his particular brand of foulness, the ones without good holds on themselves will become liabilities. I'm no psycho-analyst, but I can say I feel confident in the rest of the team handling that. And I cope well with my own. But a guy like Josiah? Based what I've observed so far I doubt it would take much to crack him.”

Kally was silent for a while, working the machine and thinking. “I don't know about us Penitents. This is personal for Marc, I think he'll do just about anything to get hold of Arcolin, and Arcolin knows that. He's not a berserker, he's a manipulator and a liar, one whom isn't afraid to say or do anything to get what he wants. And I think after Saros he's probably got all our buttons mapped out.” She fell silent again for a while. “So, if you get the shot on him, don't spare our feelings over it. Plug the frakker and be done with it.”

“I'll blast him in half if I get the shot,” Vizkop replied, a half-grin forming on his face. “I've seen this team handle some pretty outrageous things. Just gotta keep our heads on straight and we'll come out the otherside all right enough. Hopefully no more damaged than before.”

The Meeting

“That's not a bad idea. And if needed, I can provide a secondary counter-measure,” Vizkop added. “As long-range support, keeping Arcolin busy shouldn't be a problem. The rifle I am blessed to carry is a modified Xanith-pattern AMR so his armour shouldn't be an issue. Even if I can just get a glancing shot, he's loosing a limb.”

Everything Vizkop had read and heard about Arcolin De Rei told him that any confrontation would not be easy and that the threat level would always be maximum. It was both a sobering and comforting thought at that moment. Sure it was easy for him to talk about shooting Arcolin, but the hardest part was always getting the shot. And Arcolin was no cyborg. Vizkop was not yet sure if that was a good thing or a bad one.

[Thrannix]

OOC: Huge thanks to Az and Dakka for all their amazing work! =)

Kelly, 1st Meeting

He had decided to perform his mandatory counselling meetings with the penitent agents in the privacy of his chambers instead of using one of the much more formal, and therefore colder, official rooms that could be found on the ship. He could have gone to the chapel, but it was hard to find it completely empty for long enough time to perform such intimate work.

Kelly sat across the table from him, her gaze lost somewhere on the chamber floor, avoiding direct eye contact. Her hands sat uneasily in her lap. Solvan noticed that her nails were bitten raw, and the one on her right index finger had dried blood at the edges.

The first reunion was usually the hardest, he knew that. The wounds still fresh, the pain too recent, the mind and spirit wished to forget about it, too let the horror sink to the depths of the mind and, hopefully, lose it as someone might lose a gangrenous limb. But that never worked, it might dull the agony for some time, but it would resurface eventually. Nonetheless forcing the victim to relive the trauma could be just as bad; a delicate approach was of utmost importance.

"How are you, Kelly?" the priest asked.

"If you don't wish to talk that's alright." he added after a few seconds of silence.

"No, I do." Kelly insisted, quietly. She heaved in a deep breath, and let it out.

"I..." she began, and faltered. Solvan couldn't fail to take note - the Kelly Black he had known had seldom been lost for words, be they humorous, insightful or cutting. Kelly took another breath.

"It...varies, father." she managed, looking up at Solvan for a moment before her eyes dropped back to the floor. "Sometimes I feel almost normal, and sometimes..."

She raised her hand with its chewed and bloody nails and made a spinning gesture next to her temple.

"Sometimes it just goes round and round in my head and I can't stop it."

Solvan didn't need to ask what the it going round and round in her head was. Kelly took another, slightly shaky breath.

"Right now, I'm okay."

Solvan smiled a sad smile.

"I understand, and I wish I could tell you that there will come a time when it will seem like it didn’t happen. But I would be lying."

He paused.

"What I can promise you, Kelly, is that it does heal. And I know healing seems impossible now, but it does happen. Eventually only a scar will remain, but it won't hurt; it will be a part of who you are, but it will not define you."

"And the first step in that long path." Solvan said gently rising Kelly's chin so that she would look him in the eye. "Is for you to realize you have nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to make you avert your gaze from an old friend. The Emperor has no use for shame, only courage and determination. And I know you have both in ample supply."

Kelly looked up and managed a shaky smile, although her lips stayed tightly pursed. "Thanks father. I was never quite sure what you really thought of me after Hercynia."

She paused, twisting her hands in her lap.

"I worry about the others as well, father. Kally's always preferred to deal with stuff on her own...but Gavin's not in a good way. I want to be able to help."

"I know you would Kelly, and that speaks volumes of your generosity. But you don't need to do anything out of the ordinary right now. Just do as you always have, be their friend, their family, they need that just as much as you need it."

Kelly nodded acceptance. "There's also Marc..." She broke off, uncertainly. "I know he's always been a bit...ruthless when someone's hurt people he cares about, but this thing with DeRei seems worse."

"And who could blame him?" Solvan countered, "After all the heretic has done?"

It was true that Marc's anger at DeRei was, for the moment, beyond what Solvan thought Marc was able to boil up. That hate in and of itself wasn't a problem. In fact, it could be commendable or even encouraged when someone like DeRei was involved. The trouble Solvan saw was that it might cloud Marc's judgement, when reasoning and a cool head were two of the deadliest weapons the man had at his disposal.

"Still, you are right to worry. Obsessing on revenge is to be avoided, and you can be sure that I'll do everything I can to help him as well. But I would consider it a more worrisome symptom if he didn't think about DeRei at all."

"He's thinking." Kelly said quietly. "I can guarantee you that."


--------------------------

Vincent, 5th meeting

Solvan slowly tapped the table with his fingers as he returned the bloodshot stare that a cross-armed Vincent was giving him. The stubble of the man's hair was growing back over the knife tattoo on his scalp, black and grey, making his head as if it had been scorched by fire. Solvan sighed.

"You will have to start talking eventually, Nyl." the priest warned tiredly. "At first your mutism could have been attributed to deprivation from alcohol or the recent crisis you all went through, but it is getting ridiculous. You may not like me, but if you ever want to go back to the field you need to talk to me."

He paused.

"Also, you have been refusing the sleeping pills prescribed to you by Sister Sapphira. Now I'm no expert, but I can see you certainly could use them. Is this the latest stage of that self-destructive attitude that had you chasing cirrhosis one bottle at a time?"

Silence. Vincent's gaze wandered to the varnished table top.

"Emperor’s sake man. Say something, anything. I'll settle for some blasphemy even." Solvan said to the ceiling as he took a deep breath and ran a hand through his beard.

Vincent raised his gaze. One eye was corpse-white, the other grey and bloodshot. "Hail to the motherfokkin' emperor." he growled weakly. "Will that do you, preacher man?"

When Solvan didn't answer, Vincent brought his fists down on the table. The heavy augmetic that had replaced his left arm dented the wood with a splintering crack.

"I'm not takin' those fokkin' pills, Belannor." he snarled. "Whatever you and Sapphira's expert fokkin' opinion might be. And for your information, I've not touched a drop since we left Terra. And not just because Lady fokkin' Machairi has been tryin' to keep it hidden from me either. That smarmy bastard Wuziarch invited me back to his cabin for a drink last week and I turned him down. Ja, I wouldn't drink with that guy if he was offerin' the Emperor's own holy pisswater, but that's beside the point."

“That’s more like the Nyl I remembered.” Solvan answered drily, trying not to show how glad he was for Vincent to open himself up for interaction, however aggressive an interaction he was willing to have. "Congratulations on resisting the temptation of alcohol. But I wonder if you would do the same if say... Kally offered the same invitation?”

Vincent made a dismissive noise. "Nice of you to assume that Kally Girl still wants anythin' to do with me, Belannor, but the answer'd still be no."

“I see." Solvan continued, eyeing the medicae notes on his desk, "Well, now that you are talking, what nightmares are you running from Nyl? Why do you refuse to sleep? Daemons haunt us not only in the warp, but also in our own mind. What burden do you carry to require this particular bit of self inflicted punishment?"

Vincent gave a harsh guffaw of incongruous laughter. "You're barkin' up the wrong fokkin' tree, preacher man. It ain't sleep I'm avoidin'. It's Sapphira and her Emperor-damn sedatives."

"You need to stop functioning like this," Solvan countered sternly. "Like some terminally ill patient waiting for someone to turn off the switch. I remember you from Hercynia, the only moments I saw you truly alive were the ones you got closer to danger and getting yourself killed."

"Watch it, priest." Vincent growled, his mismatched eyes narrowing.

"I wonder Vincent," the bishop stared unblinkingly at Nyl, "if the tribunal had sentenced you to death, would you have been relieved?"

Solvan heard the gears in Vincent's bionic arm grinding together, clenching the hand into a fist as if he was contemplating driving the metal claw through the bishop's face. A moment later there was another whir, and the claw opened.

"Alright, Belannor." he rumbled softly. "I'll lay it out for you, if only to stop you pontificating with your flawed fokkin' assumptions. I ain't going to preach to you about the Ork invasion of Delphi, or my time in the Guard. I know you've seen some fokked up shit of your own in your time. You know what war does to people, especially if it's the only life they know. So after Solomon, when Lawrence fokkin' Van Der Mir asked us all to sign up with the inquisition I thought why not? What else am I gonna do?"

The ex-Guardsman sat back, his muscular frame eliciting a protesting creak from his chair.

"Then it turns out to be even worse a snake-pit than I was warned about, and lord motherfokkin' Sidonis is actively lookin' for excuses to have us killed, and your lady Machairi shot down any chance of leavin' when she screwed over Klimment. So ja, I wasn't in the best of places on Hercynia. But I had Kally Girl an' the kids to look out for, an' that was somethin' at least. It's been a long while since then, though."

He fixed Solvan with his one good eye.

"Now Frank's dead, an' Gene's dead, an' the kids ain't really needed my help for years now. And ja, I know that that's half down to the drink an' everythin' else I've been self-medicating with, as you so cleverly pointed out. That's why I ain't touchin' Sapphira's pills or anythin' else. Three months cold turkey in an inquisition cell is a hell of a fokkin' wake-up call, but I don't want to slip back into old habits. I ain't much use to lady Machairi any more, but if I'm wasted I'm no use to anyone."

Vincent contorted his face and sniffed, angrily snorting back what might have been tears.

"So in answer to your question, Belannor: ja, I would have been relieved if that prick Lucullis had said 'guilty'. But he didn't. And so I'm askin' you to clear me for duty so I don't end up hittin' the bottle again. Because the only other option is I'm goin' to get my old Accatran from the armoury and blow my fokkin' head off with it."

Solvan was taken aback by the sudden show of emotion, together with the threat of suicide. Flashing in front of his eyes was the memory of Abdur; the young Tallarn who had killed himself during their mission on Hercynia, a death the bishop considered to be one of his great failures as a confessor. It was the bishop’s turn to slam his hand on the already beaten table.

“Don’t you dare entertain such thoughts, damn it!” the priest took a deep breath to calm himself, immediately regretting losing his cool. “I swear to the Emperor, Nyl, the only way any man can be truly useless is by walking down that path.”

He took a breath.

“I’ll tell you what we are going to do. You will stay sober, you will come to these meetings, you will talk to me, you will pray with me, you will attend mass..."

Vincent rolled his good eye and grimaced as he opened his mouth to protest.

"Yes you will! I don't care if you hate it or if you don't believe half of it. It is about the symbolism, the sacrifice and about showing me, and more importantly the Emperor, that you are willing to mend your spirit as well as your body. Do that and you will have my clearance to deploy by the time we get to our destination."

"You always were a prick, Belannor." Vincent grumbled. "But alright. If it gets me back on duty then I'll try it your way."

He pressed his hands into the splintered table, rose, and turned towards the door. Before he reached it he stopped, and turned to look back at the spider-webbed dent he had left in the bishop's furniture.

"Sorry about the table." he muttered, and slumped out of the room.

-------------------------------------------------

Kally, 10th meeting

Solvan opened the door so Kally could enter the room. He noticed the young woman was looking much healthier; her gaunt features after the months of imprisonment had been replaced with renewed muscle mass. She was clearly keeping busy in the training cages and eating enough. All were good signs that reassured him on his assessment. He might have not noticed such changes in the past, being too focused ignoring the sense of unease and gut sickness the blank produced, but he had grown increasingly accustomed to Kally's aura effects.

"Tea again?" Kally asked glancing at the steaming cups on the table. "Not that I'm complaining, but I much preferred when our chats happened with stronger stuff around."

The priest smiled as he sat down remembering one of their last conversations they had shared after their mission on Hercynia.

"Sadly such beverages are forbidden in these official instances, we wouldn't want someone to doubt my state of mind and, by extension, my report that you are ready for field deployment once more." He said lifting a file from his desk and showing Kally the last page.

"Just needs the seal and signature, which I hope to get done after this meeting. After that, well, I may break protocol for some celebratory drinks." He gave her a complicit wink before drinking some of the tea.

"So, any particular subject you would like to discuss today?" The bishop asked while fidgeting with his ring.

“I can probably think of a couple of things.” She smiled. Despite her initial reluctance, she had enjoyed these talks with Solvan. She found something soothing in his whole attitude, like they had all the time in the universe to talk things through. She lifted the cup and took a sip. “Much as I prefer stronger stuff, I think I'm going to have to steal a crate of this from you.”

"I'd be delighted, hard to find young people appreciating a warm cup of tea. Too much focus on recaf and alcohol in this line of work." Solvan commented with enthusiasm. Kally smiled, looking down into the dark drink.

She put the mug down, sighed. She wanted to ask about the others, know how they where doing so she could be there for them. But she knew that Solvan wouldn't answer that question, would subtly redirect her. And he was right to. It wasn't her business.

“When I was a kid, I was part of this gang in the Makitan underhive. They took me in when I was pretty young, and their leader, Salt, was good to me, all things considered. Since running away from home it was the closest I came to a family. She taught me how to shoot, how to fight with a knife or my hands, how to scav. They always joked I was her creepy shadow, because I followed her everywhere. She taught me loyalty, as well. 'You got to look after the juves when I'm gone' she would say. 'You know where most of them are coming from.. You give a frak about it.”

The priest left his cup on the table and locked his fingers over his lap. Kally had talked about many things, but her childhood with the gang she had only touched tangentially, as an accessory to other stories, never going too deep into the subject. Therefore Solvan was intrigued by this blunt beginning.

She took another sip of tea, looking thoughtful. “I remember when Salt died. It was a hit, at a dust-club we used as a base. The music was so loud, we missed the first gunshots. I was meant to be one of her escorts, and I only realised there was a problem when Stitches slumped over at the table. I went to push Salt to the floor and it was already too late. A shot went straight into her chest and she fell from the chair with this damned stupid look on her face, like she was surprised and angry that a barmaid had spilled a drink down her top.”

She swilled the drink around. “Of course, with Stiches out, and Salt breathing through a hole in her chest, her days where numbered, and so where mine. I just remember this red haze settling and pulling two pistols, and opening fire full auto. The idiots had stood around a few seconds too long to make sure they did the job, and I caught all three of them, and some civilians behind them. Then I hauled Salt clear through the kitchens out the back.”

“When I propped her up in the alley it was already too late. They used these kind of fragmenting auto-rounds, laced with toxic waste from some throne forsaken radpit. The wound was already septic, and it had gone right into her lungs. She was dying in my arms and there was nothing anyone could have done.”

She finished the drink and poured herself another.

“She met my eyes, just before the end. She looked me right in the eyes, clear as day, and she said 'Scalps, the light's so beautiful.' and then she was gone. Like someone just switched her off.”

"It's never easy to lose a comrade, even less so a mentor and a friend. But I have to ask, who is Scalps? It's the first time you mentioned that nickname." Solvan interjected for the first time through Kally’s retelling.

“Oh, heh.” Kally blushed. “Well, lets just say when a skinny little juve makes it back to your hideout after a gunfight with a knife bigger than her and a rivals head in tow to prove she did the deed, it tends to make their rep one way or another.” She smiled, somewhat wistfully, before returning to the original story.

“Anyway, after that, I wasn't too popular in the gang. The next leader, Wrench, was pissed at me, but I was Salts favourite so getting rid of me immediately wouldn't have looked good. It didn't matter in the end. We got hit by the Arbitrators three weeks later and I got swept up for psyk-screening, and that was that.”

“I always wondered what she meant by 'the light'. I always reckoned it was just some hallucination, just something her brain told her as it died from poison and lack of oxygen.”

"That's one possible explanation, yes." The priest admitted. He knew the medicaes non official explanations for such near death occurrences. "Others might say she saw the light of the Emperor at the end of her mortal life."

Solvan took another sip from the tea.

"I suppose we will get our answer when our time comes." He said matter of factly, not willing to force either explanation on Kally. She nodded in response.

“About two months in. . . about two months in they killed me. Accidentally. A drug was meant to bring me round after being dosed with some kind of xenos-toxin, and I reacted very badly. I heard them talking it over later: full cardiac and pulmonary arrest, and they kept me going with chest compressions for two and a half minutes. During that time, I was, by some definitions at least, technically dead. They didn't work on me for a week afterwards, just to make sure they didn't accidentally kill me again.”

“And I saw the light she saw. I think you where right, back on Hercynia. Because I couldn't have been projecting my aura while I was that far gone. I was about as dead as I could get without being actually, completely gone, and I saw something waiting on the other side. And it scared the crap out of me.”

"The idea of facing the God-Emperor of Mankind shouldn't be an easy thought for anyone but the saints." The bishop said almost prayer like, rising an eyebrow, surprised at Kally's experience.

“I've killed a lot of people Solvan. A lot of people. I haven't always been on the side of the angels either when I've been doing that killing. And lets be honest, at least some of the people I've killed while on missions where loyal Imperial citizens. Doing their jobs, as they saw it, just that their jobs got them in my teams way and it was my job to get them out of the way again, any means necessary. That last mission on Saros was a fracking slaughter-house, and a lot of that rests on me and the teams actions. I have a lot of blood on my hands. Am I meant to be happy that in the end there is some grand judgement waiting, or scared because of what I've done? What is Him-on-Earth going to think when I finally arrive in front of his throne, hands dripping in blood?” She shuddered. “In that glass box I was ready to die, I was resigned to it. Now, with all this. . . bloody time to think, I'm not so sure.”

Solvan brought his hands together and touched his lips with his fingers before answering.

"What you must understand, Kally, is that the Emperor’s judgement upon our death isn't a simple arithmetic exercise were your good deeds are weighed against the evil ones, such as a simple human mind would."

"I like to think that the Emperor sees the whole tapestry that is our lives, with all the limitations, obstacles, temptations, failings and victories that conform our existence."

"From where you started out one would have said that you were doomed to a life of crime and drugs at best, eventually if the Emperor was merciful you might have died from an overdose of stimms and narcotics. But somehow you managed to rise into the rank of the Inquisition, enforcing the Emperor’s will. It was a hard and long road, but you endured, and you somehow managed to reach this point with a good heart inside your chest."

“Thanks” Kally smiled ruefully. Solvan was never afraid of complimenting someone, she had found, but Kally always found him to be sincere in his words. If he said it, he meant it.

"And do you think that your bloodied hands aren't worthier in His eyes than the unsullied, manicured nails of some rich coward who spent all his life doing nothing for his fellow men? How much more blood would have been spilled if not for your intervention? How many aboard this very ship wouldn't be here if not for you? How many more deaths would have been mourned if you hadn't stopped Sidonis?"

“I. . hadn't seen it like that.” She nodded. “The end justified the means, at least that time.”

"We must all face our final moments with a healthy amount of fear, that is true. Fear that we didn't have more time to fight for Him, fear that we leave our duty unfulfilled, fear that our comrades and friends will have to fight on without us. But not fear of the judgement itself."

"We cannot change the past, but we can strive to improve our lives with each step forward, that tomorrow we can be better than what we are today. We must have faith that the Emperor is wise as he is just, and those who are loyal to Him will not be cast away."

"In Saros you were going against a possessed Lord Inquisitor while infected with an incurable, deadly disease. Yet, against all odds here you are, alive and well and with the chance to achieve complete absolution to boot. For someone who says she's afraid of the Emperor’s light you sure seem to be touched by Him."

Kally laughed at that. “Worrying about this kind of thing has to seem pretty stupid after going through all that.” She shook her head, smiling. “I guess, it depends on how you look at it. It was easy to feel cursed, thanks to this” she waved her hand in the direction of her collar, as she often did when talking about her pariah nature. “But without it I don't think any of us would have survived Saros.” She nodded. “'Tomorrow we can be better than what we are today.'” She looked at the document waiting for Solvan’s stamp of approval. “Thank you for these talks. Really. If it’s alright with you, I'd like to keep doing them even after I get the all clear. They've really helped with, well, with everything.”

“You have nothing to thank me Kally, only the Emperor. And I’d be glad to continue these talks as well.” Said the priest smiling warmly as he placed his rubric on the paper and a wax seal with his rings inscription next to the signature.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

--------During the Debriefing--------

"Excuse me, Sister." Said Solvan creasing his brow, "But when you say a spike in activity possibly related to the Ruinous Powers, what do you mean specifically? What sort of signs and omens are we talking about?"

[Thrannix]

Error.

[Azazeal849]

(OOC - Some quoted text has been abridged to save space)

"There has been a spike in suspicious activities around the Vaeger fief. Specifically, potential Tzeentchian activity." She unlaced her hands and signed the aquila again, warding off the bad luck of speaking one of the Great Enemy's names aloud. "I understand that your target once owed his allegiance to that ruinous false god.

"Excuse me, Sister." said Solvan, crossing his brow. "But when you say a spike in activity, what do you mean specifically? What sort of signs and omens are we talking about?"

Kiana offered Solvan a stony expression. "Well as you know, father, Marioch has been under scrutiny by both my order and your lady inquisitor since the heretic Nibenay made his power play. We were not naïve enough to believe that all Chaotic influence on the planet had died with him. We have been watching a number of gangs, protest groups and private societies - several of which have recently sprung up in house Vaeger's holdings."

"Why this particular house's?" Kelly asked.

"Likely due to Vaeger's rather disposable attitude towards its serfs. The serf groups are not in themselves suspicious, though such conditions have historically provided a breeding ground for heretic ideologies. I have already petitioned the Sisters Famulous to insinuate an advisor into the Vaeger court, but any changes they can affect will take too long to be useful in averting our current...problem."

The canoness frowned deeply.

"Given that they are primarily serf groups or even local gangs, we do not believe it likely that House Vaeger itself is directing their activity. However there have been warning signs, particularly in one of the groups located in the town of Prospect - closed off premises, coded letters, and most recently several members were seen exchanging coded greetings associated with Tzeentchian cults in the Markyn Marches. I had three sisters in the town, monitoring the cult. One of them transmitted an emergency code yesterday, and neither I or her sisters on station have heard from her since."

...

Machairi pressed her long-fingered hands into the table, as if to stand. "The sooner you can get to Marioch, the better. Any questions?"

Kally raised her hand to get the group's attention. "We should look into the drug trade on the Glom. Arcolin had equipment made out of 'flect shards - equipment we took off him prior to Saros. He might have tried to buy materials to build replacements."

"Good thinking." Machairi agreed.

Sister Kiana nodded, resting her chin on her clasped hands. "I will set one of my sisters on the Glom towards the purpose while you travel to Marioch. Emperor willing, we will have some answers by the time you arrive."

Kally paused, thinking through what to say next. "We should also get some equipment. Arcolin is a top-notch sniper, and that rifle of his is deadly out to extreme range.

"He was arbites-trained, and they do all of their work in urban environments." Marc put in, offering his experience from the Makita hive enforcers. "So he'll be good at medium range; perhaps less so at extreme range and general fieldcraft. Of course, I can't account for any extra practice he might have done with Emerald, since he was the one who gave him that rifle to begin with."

"He wasn't so shit-hot on Teleostei." Vincent grunted. "He missed Taymor - and he missed sheriff Stewart, even if he did blow Frank's throat out in the process."

Marc didn't say anything, but his jaw clenched.

"If needed, I can provide a secondary counter-measure." Vizkop added. "Even if I can just get a glancing shot, he's losing a limb."

"That sounds good to me." Marc growled, with a pitiless look on his face.

"That will do, Black." Machairi said, calmly but firmly, and rose from her seat. "I will give you all an hour to make final preparations. After that, it's over to you. Imperator vult."

"Imperator vult." sister Kiana echoed, lacing her thumbs together. "By your leave, inquisitor, I will return to Baraspine and begin our data-mining on the orbital hub."

Machairi responded with a courteous bow of the head as her agents filed out. She watched Merle, sullen and silent as he was guided through the door by Josiah's hand on his shoulder. Beeare the daemon at your back.

"Josiah?" she called out as the room cleared. "A word."

Josiah halted, turned, and made his way back around the table. Machairi paused until Sapphira had taken up Josiah's duty and pushed the heretic out of the room before she spoke.

"Josiah." she began, clasping her hands behind her back as she looked down at the smaller man. "Vizkop has told me that you approached him in his quarters and tested his reactions. Father Belannor tells me that you have done something similar with agent Sonder and the Black twins."

Her face hardened.

"I commend your vigilance, arbitrator, but this stops now. I am not Lord Sidonis. I do not set my agents to shadowing each other. He might have thought it a precaution, but the paranoia it caused was poison for his teams' integrity and efficiency. I need my agents and the penitents to trust each other, and they cannot do that if they still feel themselves to be on trial."

The inquisitor paused again, and folded her arms.

"Confine your attentions to Carson, Josiah. I need someone I can trust watching him. But if I hear of you endangering my team's integrity again, it will be you in chains. Is that understood?"

She held the arbitrator's gaze for a silent moment.

"Good. Dismissed."


+ + + + + +

Vincent’s one good eye was narrowed watchfully as he loomed a few paces behind the prisoner’s shoulder. Merle, who was eating alone as per Machairi’s orders, studiously ignored him. The chain that bound his wrists and ankles together chinked as he picked apart his food. Every now and then he would look around the mess hall languidly, as if he was blithely appreciating the large space he had to himself. Vincent watched him like a hawk eyeing prey, waiting for some word or action that he could use as an excuse. Josiah had already given Merle one black eye, and Vincent had volunteered to cover the arbiter’s guard duty in the hope of giving him another, during the short span that Josiah was away interrogating the local precinct.

A whir and a clunk signalled the door to the mess hall opening, and Vincent turned to see Machairi and Crenshaw step through the rounded door portal. The inquisitor was dressed in a maroon gown embroidered in gold thread; the major in his typically dour black fatigues.

“Well shit, I wasn’t expectin’ company.” Merle piped up in a seemingly cheerful tone, putting down his plastek fork. “Now I ain’t exactly a connoisseur of fine dinin’, but this here is good. You make it yourself? Always appreciated a woman who was good in the kitchen. Or did you have your rent boy there cook it up for you?”

Vincent was no fan of Crenshaw’s, but it was a good enough excuse. He cuffed Merle with his augmetic hand, hard enough to send his chest and forearms crashing hard into the edge of the table.

“Wanna be keepin’ your trained ape on a tighter leash, now.” Merle snarled at Machairi, his chains rattling as he rubbed the back of his neck. The jovial expression had fallen off his face like a mask as he scowled around his black and swollen eye.

“Time to move out, Vincent.” Machairi said, studiously ignoring the prisoner as she fixed her dark eyes on Vincent.

"So what do we do with this grox-fokker?" Vincent queried.

Machairi spared Merle a brief glance. "We keep him locked up here on the Tiercel. When you find a ship, we keep him locked up on that. The only thing we need him for is any information he might have on Arcolin's plans."

"Sorry to piss all over your assumptions,” Merle growled. “But I have been in a motherfuckin’ cell for the past three months. What in that mighty inquisitor’s brain of yours makes you think I know more’n jack shit about Arcolin's plans? "

Machairi looked sidelong down at him, as if properly noticing him for the first time. "I wouldn't be so flippant about it.” she said levelly. “That thought is the only thing keeping you alive."

"Alive.” Merle sneered, and made a show of holding up his chained hands. “Lemme tell you something, lady – you an’ the soulless wonder followin’ you aroun’ like a li’l lost puppy dog. As long as I'm alive, I'm gonna be doing everything in my motherfuckin' power to hurt you and your people, by any means I can dream up."

"And why would you do that?" Machairi asked mildly.

"Because I can."

Vincent grabbed the back of Merle’s head with his augmetic hand, servos grinding as he gripped, and slammed his face into the table.

"You should be worried about what I can dream up, you ugly little fok." he snarled as the remaining contents of Merle’s plate went scattering across the white ceramic of the table.

Machairi raised a hand, gently. As Vincent stepped back, she planted her fists on the edge of the table and loomed forward towards Merle, meeting his eyes with all the warmth of a firing squad sergeant sighting down their lasgun barrel.

"I'm going to be frank, Carson. You're a dead man walking. Crenshaw wants you executed, Lucullis wants you executed, and I agree with them both. Whatever time you have left is entirely dependent on how useful you can be in telling us about Arcolin's MO while you were serving together under Emerald."

Merle stared her down with simmering animosity.

"You should just have him killed now and be done with it." Crenshaw advised when he and Machairi stood on the Tiercel's elegant bridge, watching the team disperse into the docking bay through the airlock cameras. "He is a security risk, a venomous distraction for your agents, and precious little else."

"Lucullis didn't release him to me for no reason." Machairi answered, folding her arms. Her forehead creased as she frowned at nothing in particular on the humming pict-monitors.

Crenshaw rotated his head to the side, cocking an eyebrow at her. "Have you considered that he might have had an agenda in doing so?"

A smile tugged at Machairi's mouth. "Feyd doesn't have agendas. He doesn't care enough what other inquisitors think. He probably wouldn't have agreed to see you on Terra if he hadn't promised me a favour after Soryth."

Crenshaw gave an amused grunt. "I am always intrigued by your ability to make promises and deals work for you, Alia. I always used to consider them antiquated and overly-emotional."

Machairi mirrored Crenshaw’s head turn, the glow of the pict-sceens playing across the side of her face. "But when so much of the imperium rests on deals between a few powerful people, not unimportant."

"True."

"You need to use promises and deals a lot more in the Hereticus.” Machairi mused as she went back to watching the screens. “I've noticed that since I transferred."
Crenshaw’s jaw flexed slightly, as if he was chewing his tongue. "I would agree with your assessment that they are traditionally the most...ideologically diverse of the ordos."

"That reminds me,” Machairi observed. “How did your mission with Drake turn out?"

"Candidly?” Crenshaw cocked his head slightly to one side. “Rather boring. He was too much of a firebrand. I hear he got himself killed a few months ago, in that botched attempt to retake Coreltis."

"Imperator educabit eum de tenebris." Machairi replied dutifully, marking the Aquila across the front of her dress.

"I cannot say that I am inclined to mourn many hereticus inquisitors. Two of their agents on the Ampoliros turned out to be cultists, and then there was the small matter of inquisitor Yannick throwing me to the proverbial cyber-mastiffs during the cover-up."

“I heard.” Machairi nodded seriously, before showing a flicker of a smile. "On the upside, that did leave you in just the right place to help me gather information on Terra, which puts you under my protection."

Crenshaw did not seem to appreciate the gentle teasing. "Just try not to mention the Ampoliros incident too loudly around Vizkop. Or sister Kiana."

"Major," Machairi said in feigned reproach. "Do I tell you how to do your job?"

She offered him the reassurance of a gentle raise of her eyebrows before she turned back to the screens. There was a pause as she watched her team go their separate ways; Vizkop and Gavin to the machine temple, Kally and Vincent to the arms dealers, Solvan and Marc to the pleasure districts that trader types tended to frequent after a gruelling voyage through the unpredictable warp. She frowned again.

"If I were to admit being uneasy about sending them off alone, would you think less of me?"

Crenshaw clasped his hands behind his back. "I would not. It is entirely logical."

Machairi turned to face him, mirroring the gesture. "Keep an eye on Kally and the others for me while you're on Marioch. And keep two on Carson."

"Now you are telling me how to do my job, Alia." Crenshaw observed mildly. "Josiah knows his business, and Vincent makes for a reasonable redundancy in a pinch. But if you really want to reduce the risks, have Carson executed. Any information he might have is not worth the damage he could inflict on the team - especially the penitents."

Machairi let out a slow breath. "Keep him isolated. I'll make a judgement after I get back from meeting governor Terce on Tephaine."

Crenshaw fixed her with an intense stare. "Beware the daemon at your back, Alia."

A muscle in Machairi’s cheek twitched at the mention of the reading she had first heard five years ago, at the conclusion of her mission on Hercynia. This time, she did not smile and lightly dismiss the warning.

"I don't plan to turn my back on Carson." she said at last.

Crenshaw held her gaze for a moment more, searchingly, and then nodded. "If you will excuse me, Alia, I have an appointment to keep at the telepathica eyrie. I will see what they know."

Machairi returned the nod. "Look after yourself, major. See you in a few days."

"Emperor willing, Alia."

[kardar233]

The Glom sprawled over Baraspine's murky skies like scum on a sewage tank. Over thousands of years of habitation it had fattened itself, consuming less tenacious space stations, satellites, and ships too foolish or feeble to escape. Vessels hung in its patchwork arms, reflecting its unsavoury legacy; the Glom's ancient shipyards had played host to smugglers, bandits, corsairs and worse since before the Imperium had deigned to colonize Adrantis, and that flow of morally questionable characters showed no sign of stopping. Attempting to enforce Imperial law on the station had driven many an arbitrator to Abstraction, and nowadays its demolition was only rejected on grounds that "those whoreson Rogue Traitors would just build a new one someplace we couldn't watch." In the modern day, the Glom's twisted spine served as a haven for types who flouted Imperial law just as casually as their precursors did, dealing in any imaginable vice or murderously illegal good the buyers wanted and the sellers could provide, so long as the price made it worth it. It was an environment of thieves and cutthroats, every inhabitant constantly searching for their next mark or their next "honoured customer", their knives concealed by grimy masks or impeccable tailoring but always itching to come flashing out and let their owners' true natures show. The only people who thrived there were those clever and strong enough to swim the sea of sharks.

The perfect place for Lady Shipmaster Theodosia Prince.

She strode the machine-scrubbed central thoroughfares of the Glom with lazy confidence, her ruby-red dress swirling around her in counterpoint to her precisely measured pace, while the Arthashastra waited untended in the primary docks with the air of a sated carniv. Theodosia wound through the streets, ignoring the pitches of black-frocked salesmen and well-appointed hustlers, and swept through the doors of a small manor house. Her quarry stood to greet her, his ample stomach brushing against the long table he was seated at.
"Lady Prince, always a pleasure, I've ambull steak in Estufagen-"
"I'm sure you understand I have other businesses to tend to, Aurelius."
He winced imperceptibly under Theodosia's wintry smile, but rallied, beckoning a partially-augmetic server whose integrated tray bore twinned fluted glasses and hypodermic applicators. "Just vice then," he said, offering her the choice. Long-fingered hands brought a flute of tawny liquid to Theodosia's mouth and she took a long draught, savouring the smoothness of the provided drink.
"Reth amasec, late fourth, with a splash of, hmmm, Solomon Rookery White Gyn."
Aurelius Iax nodded enthusiastically, the crystal in his left eye socket twinkling rainbow colour with the motion. "I find it opens the flavour... Your palate is admirable, milady, especially considering your..." Theodosia's eyebrow arched as she reached for the injector, and Trader Iax busied himself with the same, backing away from the suddenly thin ice he had found himself on.

In near-unison the lady and the gourmet applied their injectors, the vibrant blue fluid working its way into their bodies in a jet of pressurized air. Theodosia leaned languidly back into her chair and voiced a husky chuckle as she saw her host's pupils dilate; she didn't quite comprehend just why the portly man insisted on a new drug each time she visited, as it impaired his ability far more than it did hers. Controlling the flush of whatever substance he had settled on that day, she made the first move. "The artifacts are in Arthashastra's third portside bay. Three hundred thousand."
A slight sputter emitted from the head of the table as Aurelius choked on his drink. "Two hundred thousand, madam, for the last deliverers I had-"
"And the reason you came to me, Iax, is because every one of your smugglers have ended their journeys in chastisement cells. I've heard one was arco-flagellated, even. Three hundred thousand." Hunching back into his chair, the rotund trader nodded agreement, and Theodosia's expression softened, favouring him with a small smile. "Come now, Aurelius, you're quite aware that my price is well worth it for your peace of mind. I always deliver, and your profit margins are more than vast enough to absorb my costs." His smile slipped back at the mention of his ample profits, and he nodded in agreement.

The Lady stood, drawing her host's eyes to her figure, and made to leave. "Oh, and that new recreational you picked out is quite nice. Do send me a case." Her smile followed her out.

The Glom's merchant promenades made way to murkier streets, framed by Dreamstimm parlours and other purveyors of constrained pleasures. Newer visitors to the Glom often found themselves patronizing these dusky avenues, and not for their advertised services; it seemed to be a constant in the minds of every newcomer to the darker trades that business should be executed solely in smoky private rooms, and her quarry seemed to be no exception.

Theodosia slid sideways from the main street into a sheltered side path and paused to work. As with any resource, the Rogue Traders of the Glom made use of the station itself, though few did so quite as literally as the Lady Prince. The patchwork abomination of the Glom's computer systems informed her that a particular group of fourteen happened to be making their way through the Aegetus Iulia, and with a quiet thanks to whichever piece of the station's tortured machine spirit provided that information, she moved on. Her stride acquired something of a spring as she moved into position. Even in a Rogue Trader's life, the opportunity to deal with the Imperial Inquisition on your own terms came rarely, and Theodosia was looking forward to it.

She paused before the final corner. Steady hands tugged on the dress, refined her appearance, settled with a deep breath.

The Lady Prince appeared out of the gloom and a rakish grin formed on her lips. She stood with the air of someone about to get familiar with a new and interesting set of toys, a statuesque figure both sultry and mischievous, and each agent caught a glimpse of her green-eyed gaze assessing them before moving on. She spoke, her voice low and faintly husky, hints of amusement and curiosity, with an undercurrent of hunger for a new challenge. "Hello, ladies, gentlemen... not-so-gentle men; I'll take the liberty of welcoming you to the Glom. I've word of an interest in movement to Marioch on your part, and I've a ship, a willingness, and... a certain curiosity about you. I'm the Lady Shipmaster Theodosia Prince, and you are quite the interesting set of characters."

[Cfavano]

"I understand, Lady Machiari. I apologize for any damage I may have caused. Old habits die hard, though I make no excuses. It may have been because I was pushed on you, but that is no reason for that. I will cease those actions." He nods, and turns to go. But then he stops.

"One more thing, My Lady. I am very good at 'being someone else', and have never operated in this sector before. If you need someone to go undercover, send me. I have an entire footlocker dedicated to disguises and false identities, even a small machine that can create custom prosthetics and masks to alter my appearance. Of course, the team may use it as well. Something tells me that if DeRei has as much history with you and the team as from what I've heard, he might have people looking out just in case you do come after him. It's what I would do, anyhow." With that he left.

[dakkagor]

+++Aboard the Tiercel, before deployment to the Glom+++

"You'll all be glad to know, I kept it all very simple. Nothing complex, just a nice easy story of dead masters and skilled operators striking out on their own."

Tomas had everyone gather again in the meeting room a few hours after the initial briefing. Now he was handing out slim dossiers, each with a few sheets of plastek credentials. When Vince opened his he raised a scarred eyebrow.

"Bonded Janissaries of the Archcourt Sancteum?" He waved the printed license, stamped with the stylised Ecclesiastical Eagle and the ducal signet ring seal in blood red meme-wax of Archbishop Wender Fray. "How did you get these so fast? These come from Malfi."

Tomas shrugged, a wry grin on his face. "Funny story, actually. Turns out I had a few friends in their administrative staff at the Archbishops palace who I knew from my old regiment."

"Wait, your regiment never disbanded" Kally put in, raising her eyes from her own ID.

"Exactly. So, in return for keeping my mouth shut about their. . .dubious legal status that would see the pair of them Auto-Excommunicated and then strapped into Penitent Engines for their trouble, they handed me a stack of blank, pre-stamped documents for a rainy day. These aren't faked in any way, they are all quite real, the perfect cover identities."

"Who are these guys, anyway?" Kally asked. "I've never heard of them."

"In short, then, you can buy a mercenary license from the Ecclesiarchy on Malfi, and in return for a tithe of ten percent of your earnings to the Church, you are promised, in perpetuity, a Plenary Indulgence. The code of the Bonded Janissaries encourages a high degree of loyalty to their employers, and in the loop holes, a willingness to turn a blind eye to their employees own 'indiscretions', after all, your soul is safe. Rogue traders love these guys, and snap them up whenever they start looking for work. Its a combination of discretion, experience and devotion that it turns out money can buy."

Vince chuckled, and Tomas allowed himself a smile. These documents represented the last two thirds of them he had available, and would likely ever see again. They where a display of trust to the Penitents and a gift, in a way. He wanted to show that they were now part of the team.

"Most of them never make it of Malfi or out of the sub. They work for the Ecclesiarchy garrisoning important locations and augmenting Soritas bodyguard detachments. Most of the high ranking priests come from Malfi's noble families, which have a vicious culture of vendetta, and off-world mercenaries who owe the purity of their souls and their continued paychecks to the Church are one way to guarantee safety."

He sat down back at the table and brought up a hololith image in the centre of the table. A figure, a broad shouldered, bald man wearing brocade and a naval officers uniform, slowly rotated in the flickering green light.

"Before we were Janissaries, we were servants of this Rogue Trader. Captain Devra Flavius. Not really much of a Rogue Trader in all fairness. His family were granted the license about five hundred years ago as some kind of Administratum ruling, and a bulk freighter to back the writ. They generally pottered around the Adrantis sub, playing the local commodities market. Devra, however, took the bulk trader on a gamble to a dead world, and lost his right arm, right leg and right eye. But he came back with a hold full of Archeotech he sold to the Mechanicus, got himself some new limbs, and bought a new ship, a sleek little frigate, on a Mechanicus advanced line of credit. That was the high point of his career, luckily for us. He built a small private army, and set off to find more Archeotech, with a small gaggle of Mechanicus Explorators in tow. For about twenty years he dug around in dead ruins and abandoned star systems, only finding enough to keep his mercenaries paid, but not enough to keep his Mechanicus backers paid off. When the troubles hit Marioch, he lost his family holdings and his fortune. The Mechanicus chose that moment to collect. Poor sap had become addicted to augmetics after his brush with death, and the Mechanicus took back the frigate, took his bulk trader, and when that wasn't enough to balance the books, took his masterwork replacement organs and limbs."

He paused, letting people catch up. He thought he saw Vizkop give the hololith a thoughtful, knowing look, but the moment passed. Something to ask him about, perhaps.

"After that, his little mercenary army got sucked into the fighting on Marioch. Most of them are dead, and your identities are those we feel confident wouldn't be missed in the scuffle, and far enough down in his organisations food chain that the few surviving officers and bridge staff that made it into Rogue Trader employ won't have a reason to recognise you. Thank the throne that he had face concealing helmets for his guards. From there the story is simple. You fled the system on a Pilgrim ship, made it to Malfi as a group, and paid for your Indulgences like good little soldiers. Then you came to the Glom to look for high paying work."

He turned off the hololith, and sat back in his chair.

"I've arranged for a bulk lifter from a water tanker, coming in from the Malfian sub, to pick us up discretely from the Tiercel and get us aboard, all bribes paid in full. Even if they do talk, they will only know that we are deserting form the employ of a Rogue Trader, and not leaving on an Inquisitorial mission." He patted the dossier in front of him. "I believe that these cover stories will stand us in good stead on Marioch, as well as the Glom."

"But how do they help us find transport to Marioch?" Marc asked. "Mercenaries don't get to set course headings"

"True" Tomas nodded. "We have some options there. The first is that we, oh humble Janissaries of a dead master, know of some tech the Mechanicus didn't get their mechandrites on, hidden in a vault on the Flavius estate. That should entice most Rogue Traders to head to Marioch, and spend plenty of time digging around in the ruins. The next option is that we discretely drop cover and 'request' the assistance of the trader in question. It will depend on the character of whoever approaches us first. This cover should present us plenty of choices in that regard."

He stood, and looked at his wrist chrono, making some mental calculations.

"The water tanker will be coming in to dock in about six hours, give or take. That's five hours for you to pack your gear and be ready to deploy. Bear in mind that whatever you leave behind will not be available later, but also your cover stories don't allow a lot of leeway. So exotic or organisation specific equipment" his eyes flicked over to Josiah briefly "like that pair of Cyber Mastiffs will have to stay behind."

Josiah stood up, "Tomas, I would disagree. There is no reason to leave my mastiffs behind. I have had them for many years, and they have more than earned their worth. I do not know on how many undercover operations you have gone on, but, it is easier to explain having a pair of cyber-mastiffs than one would think. They aren't as rare or exotic as they seem, I have had to go up against them enough to know. Sure, while not every two-bit mercenary outfit can afford one, there are many that can. So, if you will reconsider, that would be much appreciated. I know I may seem to be unreasonable, but allow me this."

Tomas blinked in surprise at this outburst. For a second, the Imperial Guard officer wars with the Throne agent over the correct response. Tomas paused, gathered his thoughts, noted the sudden silence in the room and the daggers being stared at Josiahs back from the Penitents, then responded, with a measured and even tone that covered the sudden spike of anger that had surged through him.

"Be that as it may, I have never seen them in service to any one but the Arbites" he lied smoothly. "They are bulky, require maintenance and draw all the wrong kind of attention. Questions will be asked. I chose Flavius for a specific reason: his links with the admech and addiction to Augs help shore up Vizkops, Gavins, Vincents and my own cover stories: all of us have augmetics of one sort or another." He tapped his bionic eye with a fingernail for emphasis. "Gavins psyker nature does not need to be advertised, leaving Kally as the only outlier"

"Thanks. I think" muttered Kally. Tomas shrugged apologetically.

"We will be a group that draws attention, yes. We will be well equipped, obviously skilled and seasoned, with good credentials. But there will be a point where any perspective employer, especially on the Glom, especially a Rogue Trader, will start to be suspicious of the deal we are offering, if it looks too good to be true. If they even suspect for an instant that we are more than we seem, they could be scared off, and the same will be true on Marioch. That place is a vipers pit of paranoia."

Josiah stared down Tomas. "I can tell, looking at you, that there is no way I can change your mind, so i will save us both the trouble and stop arguing. But what I can offer, and I informed Lady Machiari of this, is I have a synth-skin prosthetics printer among my effects, allowing us to enhance our disguises if need be, even going so far as to being able to make colored contacts." Josiah sits back down, "That will be all," he finished.

Tomas met Josiah's gaze evenly and without flinching, not affected by the Arbites attempt to intimidate him in the least. "Then liaise with Sapphira on its use, please."

"Dismissed."

[Thrannix]

"Hello, ladies, gentlemen... not-so-gentle men; I'll take the liberty of welcoming you to the Glom. I've word of an interest in movement to Marioch on your part, and I've a ship, a willingness, and... a certain curiosity about you. I'm the Lady Shipmaster Theodosia Prince, and you are quite the interesting set of characters."

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lady. Let me thank you for your welcome." Solvan said almost without pause from the Rogue Trader's unexpected entry, as he talked he stepped ahead of the group.

A part of Solvan's mind had enough time to give thanks for the way in which age cooled down the humors that might have boiled the blood of a younger man when faced by such an apollonian figure of a woman, allowing him to keep his wits about him. With that thought a momentary memory of his younger days spent in excess and pleasure rather than his sacred duty stung at his heart for a second before being shoved aside and forgotten.

Solvan had heard of Theodosia before and even if only half of it was true she might be just what they needed.

The Emperor provides.

"And may I say you are as well informed as you are beautiful? We are indeed in search for discreet and expedite transportation to Marioch."

"But I’m sorry, my lady, how rude of me to talk business before proper introductions. I'm August Harak..."

Theodosia's smile broadened and a touch of colour made its way to her cheeks. "You're too kind, Master Harak. If your companions are just as charming, this will be quite an enjoyable voyage. Might you capitalize on your advantage and introduce your rather eclectic team?"

Solvan proceeded to make a quick introduction of the team's undercover identities.

"We are Bonded Janissaries who..."

"Oh, really?" Asked Theodosia mischievously. "And who was your former employer?"

Solvan feigned a moment of doubt with a hesitant glance towards the rest of the group.

"Devra Flavius." He said flatly. "Ugly story, I'm sure you have heard some of it. I assure you our papers are in order and will be available for your inspection should you ask for them after we agree the terms."

"Mmmhmm, a terrible shame, that was. I will want to take a look at those documents, they're quite pretty pieces of stationary. And you are the leader of this picturesque group?"

"I carry the authority to negotiate and fulfill whatever deal we strike. For the moment I'm afraid that is all I will disclose, you surely agree that one can never be too careful." The undercover priest explained apologetically.

"As for deal striking," Solvan said glancing at two drunks beginning a scuffle down the alley, "perhaps you might know of some place more private where we might continue this conversation?"

Theodosia chuckled indulgently, favouring Solvan with a look that clearly said 'silly boy'. "Well, it was your idea to go traipsing through the 'Getus, the seediest (and smelliest) area of this station. Honestly, every Glom newcomer thinks our dealings are done in this... artistically arranged pile of shit. Come on; there's a spot a few turns from here, in Defense 22-1, where the drinks are better and the architecture is less depressing." Assuming their assent, she turned and led the way.

The dimly-lit, red-tinted corridors of the mid-bulk transporter Aegetus Iulia passed through a carved-out airlock frame into a broad tall thoroughfare. Tiered marble-white buildings extend balconies over the street, their rounded arches and bright columns seeming almost alien to Imperial sensibilities. Theodosia played remembrancer as she led them over the transition. "Long before the Imperium came here, humans had colonized Adrantis and built quite a bit of infrastructure here; it was all empty when we Rogue Traders arrived, so we made it our own. This is Defense 22-1, one of their ancient space stations that form the core of the Glom. We call it that, because the Mechanicus numbered it 22-1 in their artifact census," she explained, "and because that writing," indicating six-foot high, swirling lettering etched deep into the gate headspace, "looks something like 'Defense'. This street is one of the business avenues, and it has some of the Glom's better restaurants. We tolerate the Iulia so close to an upscale area like this one because, well, we like to keep our vices nearby."

The Lady Prince turned, walking backward to face the team, and her gaze settled on Marc. "On a more personal note, you'd do well to follow your elder's example, handsome; flattery will get you anywhere." She gave him a teasing grin before turning back.

"I think she likes you." Said the bishop with an amussed smile and gave Marc a patting on the shoulder before whispering, "send the message."

Solvan hurried his pace to catch up with the Rogue Trader while Marc sent the information about Theodosia and her ship so the rest of the team could gather any information they could find.


Her path brought them to a moderately sized restaurant fronted with a Cyprian façade displaying bright whites and subtle blues in keeping with the station's style. She swept in past delicate paintings and fine sculpture and made for a room situated past the central area, while staff quietly scrambled to accommodate her.

Theodosia pushed open finely carved double doors to reveal a comfortable lounge area sized for a single group, and looked back over her shoulder at the attending staff. "Get us some of the seventy-eight Sepheris raenka, a few amasec for the different palates... and some of that Solomon Rookery White Gyn."

Drinks in hand, the Rogue Trader followed her guests into the sitting room and poured herself a mixed glass, leaving bottles and glassware on the table for the others to self-medicate as she sipped, relaxed, and settled into the seat at the head of the room.

"You're quite a collection, I have to say. Guardsmen, law enforcement, hive ganger, and Sister, hmmm, Hospitaller, unless I miss my guess," Theodosia observed dryly, nodding to each in turn. "It must be quite the tale of how Devra collected you all, and I must imagine the rest of your crew are even more unconventional, else they'd be treating with me instead."

"So what brings you Marioch-bound?"


Solvan examined a couple of bottles and chose the raenak, he serve it in a decanter and then into his glass. He took a drink and was glad to see that the temperature of the liquid was just right.

The first half hour or so of the meeting was a game between Solvan trying to gauge Theodosia, trying to determine if she could be trusted, while feeding her as few of their prepared backstory as possible. On the opposite side the Rouge Trader was playing a similar game, and not badly Solvan had to admit. But he didn't mind, the bishop was mainly stalling for time.

[Cfavano]

“No, arbitrator Wuziarch, I do not recall anyone by the name of DeRei causing trouble on the Glom.”

The intelligencer was a severe, belligerent man with curly black hair and a hawk’s beak of a nose, and he frowned at Josiah as he gave his answer.

“Besides, do you think we have the resources to keep tabs on every petty criminal in this cesspit? I barely have enough men to keep eye on the most dangerous three smuggling rings, and nowhere near enough informers.”

He swept an arm over his paper-festooned desk to make the point. Around him, the tiny precinct house was full of the sounds of whirring cogitators, shuffling papers and ringing vox lines. A dozen men and women in black arbites uniforms went to and fro, trying to maintain some sort of order in the chaos.

The intelligencer tucked his hands into the armpits of his starched black dress shirt and frowned again. “Just why does your inquisitor Machairi want with this man DeRei?”

His eyes dropped to Wuziarch’s chest as the dataslate in his webbing pocket buzzed and lit up. The decryption djinn unscrambled a terse message, bearing agent Black’s ident tag.

Possible transport – rogue trader Theodosia Prince, ship name Arthrashasta. Request 360 background check.

Josiah tapped the dataslate to clear the message and returned it to his webbing.

"DeRei is a heretic and a traitor, and has been involved in the near-deaths of two entire planets." he said, leaning forward. "He presents a clear and present danger to the Imperium, and must be stopped. That is why we are looking for him. He is clever, perhaps going under an assumed name. He may have been headed for Marioch. Has anyone entered the Glom recently that raised any flags at all, I am asking."

The intelligencer shook his head, his lips pressed together in a stern line.

"Practically everyone who moves through the Glom raises a flag. The trouble is gathering enough enough evidence to legally detain them under the lex imperialis. As for Marioch, there have been dozens of outbound flights in the last month. Traders, cogboys, imported labour...even a delegation for the subsector governor."

Josiah clasped his hands together. "On a more personal note, DeRei was an arbiter who betrayed the law. That, in and of itself is enough to warrant going after him."

The intelligencer's eyes visibly widened. For a moment he was silent, chewing his tongue and balling his fists.

"This man was what?" he asked dangerously.

Traitor arbites were rare, but when they did happen they were a stain upon the entire organisation. Josiah knew that he had the man's attention.

"Anything strange or unusual happen? Any upsurge in cultist activity?"

"The intelligencer shook his head again, more forcefully than before.

"We've never detected any organised apostate presence on the Glom, thank the Emperor for small mercies. There's rumours of them down on the planet, lurking in the wastes, though that's never been confirmed. If it was, I daresay the provost marshal would lead the purge himself."

He looked down again at the photo of DeRei that Josiah had given him, this time regarding the gaunt face and its scar-distorted smile with far greater venom.

"I'm sorry that I can't give you any leads on this...traitor." He all but spat the word. "But I relish the thought of you bringing him to the Emperor's justice."

"I thank you for your time, Intelligencer," Josiah said. "When I deal with DeRei, I will do my best to inform you. One more thing, and this is not connected to DeRei, but may aid in my investigation."

As Josiah continued, he became more relaxed.

"Theodosia Prince, a rogue trader. I'd like to know about her, and request copies of any files you have on her, if that is not too much to ask.

"Prince?" The intelligencer folded his arms and leaned his shoulders up against the wall. He narrowed his eyes at Josiah as he searched his memory. "Tall lady? Built like a Guardsman, likes to wear red?"

Josiah shrugged. "She has a ship called...the Arthrashasta."

"That's her." the intelligencer nodded. "Yes, I remember her, though I don't have any files on her."

"Why not?"

The senior arbitrator exhaled down his nose. "Because she's not a criminal. When she checked in at the Glom about a month ago, the customs officers clocked her unloading some sort of xenos archeotech, but she claimed it was for the magi on Perinetus. I went down their personally and checked out her story, but some senior cogboy swore by it, and when I looked at her warrant of trade she had full licence to carry it, along with three or four other things that would see most traders arrested on the spot."

The intelligencer fixed Josiah with his steely gaze.

"Now don't get me wrong, I don't trust any of those egomaniac rogue traders to be good and faithful servants of the Emperor. But by the lex imperialis she hasn't committed any crime, and for me to arrest her without cause would be a sin up there with Horus."

The intelligencer pushed off the wall and aggressively signed the Aquila to dispel the evil that might be called by speaking the Fallen Angel's name aloud. He signed it in the Markayn fashion, slashing his hand between his collarbones for the eagle's heads, and then below his shoulders to mark the wingtips.

"Yes, I could check the authenticity of her trade warrant more thoroughly, but rogue traders get precious about their rights, and I'd be fighting an army of lobbyists the entire way. Moreover, the Emperor would never forgive me if I turned out to be wrong, and so wasted time I should have been using to crack down on slavers and Spook-dealers. Bottom line, arbitrator Wuziarch, my personal feelings about her are irrelevant without proof, and I've got significantly bigger fish to be frying here on the Glom."

"I thank you for your time, Intelligencer. I will leave you to your work. The Emperor Protects." He made the sign of the Aquila after he rose, and shook the man's hand. He quietly left the office. Before he returned to his companions, he typed up a return message on his slate.

No leads on DeRei, if he's here or was here, he was in so deep he did not gain the notice of the Arbites, though they are overworked. No cultist activity on the Glom either.

On Price, Arbites do not have a file on her, save for her checking in last month. Shipment of Xenos Archaeotech for the Magi on Perinetus, had all paperwork, and Priesthood confirmed. Has caused no waves since then, and seems legit. Suspicions raised, what kind of Rogue Trader is this clean? Either someone new, or someone with a lot of discretion. Either way, she seems usable.

He sent the message

[Atrum Daemon]

By mechanicus standards the temple was tiny; a simple cube perhaps five metres along each dimension. Although small, it was elegantly constructed. The low drone of a single lock-jawed vox servitor was sufficient to fill the room, but audio-receptive cables laid into the walls drank in the binary hymnals and translated them into pulses of light, which were sent dancing through the interlocking cog filigree that covered the walls and ceiling. Stacked in front of the walls were rows and rows of cogitator monitors, all tended by a single tech priest who drifted from one to the other with the vox servitor shuffling in his wake. Two trios of spindly, jointed claws protruded from the short sleeves of the priest’s robe, weaving deftly around each other as they operated the cogitators’ touchscreen interfaces.

Hearing the door to his temple slide quietly open, the priest turned his cowled head sharply towards the disturbance, only to visibly relax when he saw that Vizkop also wore the red livery of the Martian church. With a series of clicks, he brought the manipulator spikes of his six arms together to form a cog circle in front of his chest.

“Welcome brothers.” the priest said with a bow. Beneath his hood he was broad-featured and sanguine, his olive skin turned iridescent by the dancing hymn-lights. “Forgive my use of flesh-voice, but I am not yet blessed with the augmetics of communion. Enginseer Brandt at your service. I tend the spirits of docking arm 3-12.”

Behind Vizkop, Gavin stomped through the door on his wheezing bionic legs. He seemed to be keeping a reserved distance from enginseer Brandt and his attendant servitor. At the same time, an encrypted signal pulsed through to Vizkop’s internal antennae, carrying Marc Black’s ident code.

Possible transport – rogue trader Theodosia Prince, ship name Arthrashasta. Request 360 background check.

“Hail, Enginseer Brandt,” Vizkop said, returning the sign of the cog. It was not often anymore that he put on any Martian livery beyond a simple sash. But he still kept a few things among his affects should the need arise. “I am Secutor Vizkop. I am here to request access to the temple's databases.”

"Secutor?" Brandt repeated unnecessarily, his controlled voice still laced with hints of awe and fear.

In a flash of binary coding, his rank and military authorization levels joined the dancing hymnals. The Secutor was not in a mood to play games with the enginseer. Not only did he want to do a full back check on Rogue Trader Prince and her ship, but also run various sweeps for any other activity possible connected to the quarry they were chasing. “I won't interrupt your work for long. I simply need a few analysis checks. And if you don't mind...”

With a simple request to the vox-servitor, the hymnals changed to a different set and the colors and patterns of light changed.

Enginseer Brandt hurriedly shuffled back out of Vizkop's way.

"I assure you that you will find no fault in my tending of the spirits, lord secutor." he ventured, evidently worried that the checks Vizkop intended to make were of his own work.

Beneath the banks of cogitator screens were interface ports for tech-priests blessed beyond the simple implants of enginseers, and with the twist of a mechadendrite Vizkop was connected. He was pleased to note that Brandt had not been lying - the ships in the local docking hub were all being berthed and serviced smoothly, the records were well organised and the spirits of the fuel and power distribution systems were placid. The local network extended only over docking arm 3-12, but through painstaking splicing and cross-wiring the mechanicus had formed a coherent mainframe across the Glom's disparate modules, and the guardian programs for the wider network bowed aside in the face of Vizkop's authorisation codes.

A ship by the name of Arthrashastra was berthed in the primary hub, and an impressive ship it was. Regarding it through the eyes of external sensors and picters studded across the Glom's blistered surface, he could see that it was no wallowing bulk trader, nor a small and sleek raptor like Machairi's own Tiercel. It didn't have the broad, imposing trireme form of an Imperial warship, but there was something of the same aesthetic about it. Tall, narrow and flat sided, it had the aspect of a blade pointed towards the heart of the docking hub. A closer scan of the vessel's flanks bore out this martial appearance, showing the silent teeth of lance batteries jutting out of the middle decks - an aggressive armament for a civilian ship of its size.

Calling up shipping logs and docking manifests, Vizkop saw that the slumbering predator was an infrequent visitor to the Glom, having been active on and off under various masters down the centuries, though all under the Prince family name. Attending the ship upon its latest arrival was a communique tagged with the ident of the mechanicus priests at the Kormisoshi dockyards - who apparently took care of the ship for the Prince family inbetween voyages. It warned their brothers on the Glom not to bother the ship's spirit too deeply during their benedictions, because its ancient security djinns were overly aggressive towards MIU uplinks not bearing Prince gene-markers. No doubt a paranoid ancestor of lady Theodosia had demanded extra protection against mutineers, probably from some rogue maverick magos, and no-one had since figured out how to undo the damage they had caused.

The spirit of the Arthrashastra certainly seemed guarded and insular; coiled in on itself like a viper, eschewing all but the most necessary communion with automated refueling and loading systems. Vizkop ran simulations in his mind, weighing his top-tier cracker routines against the defenses that might have been installed by a gifted and possibly slightly heretical magos. Hunter-seeker algorithms...chameleon encrypters...neurofeedback generators...

He had an answer for just about every possible defense the machine spirit could have, but his own risk assessment still told him that an attempt to commune with the spirit without masking his gene-markers as a member of the Prince family was unwise. He had other methods, of course, that did not need him to be linked. He had been gifted a few override bugs that would allow him access to all of the ships systems from any hardpoint cogitator within and there was always the option of sacrificing a poor-performing adept so he could see exactly what the spirit of the Arthrashastra did to kill unwanted guests. He pushed the latter from his mind as quickly as it came. The ship was sound and all of it's credentials were in order. He could tackle the obstacle of the machine spirit later.

He dug a bit deeper into the information net to see what he could get on the ship's current master: Theodosia Prince. Apparently she had turned up at the Glom for the first time a couple of months ago, carrying some xenos archeotech that should have gotten her arrested. The arbites appeared to have investigated but not prosecuted, and the artefact had been sent off without further incident to some magos on Perinetus. The Black siblings will want to take a look at her warrant of trade...maybe even Gavin or Ella too. He nodded to himself - it wasn't much, but Even the smallest of details could give them a leg up if she decided to try anything clever.

The data was enough to work with for the time being. He had a good understanding of her ship and could devise ways to tackle it should he need to commune with the spirit to access anything. The little bit about the xenotech was intriguing and a potential tool to be used. He wondered if Josiah had found anything about it in the arbite records. He might check.

“Impeccable organization, Enginseer Brandt,” Vizkop said as he disconnected from the network. “You do this temple and the Omnissiah proud. I must take my leave now.”

He bowed, interlacing his fingers to make the sign of the cog, before turning on his heel and heading out with a nod to his comrades. With sure footsteps, they began to trace their way through the Glom to the rendezvous point with the rest of the team.

[dakkagor]

“So we going smoothbore, or rifled?”

Kally looked over the weapons on offer, before bending down and experimentally hefting the barrel of a Tronsvasse Autocannon 50. She had modified her equipment loadout in agreement with Tomas: her boltgun had been pared down to its basic loadout (Machairi didn't have access to the same spread of specialist munitions anyway), and instead of the carapace, she was wearing standard guard flak. With Sapphira's help, a temporary tattoo weaved down her arms and across the scar on her face, a blue tribal design from Iocanthos that matched her assumed back story of a ghostflower warrior picked up from that feral world. Vincent meanwhile was a Guard cast-off - it was difficult for him to try and pass as anything else - though he had dropped his Delphic-style Accatran lasgun for one of the long-stock, rotary-mag shotcannons favoured by the Daargardi hive defenders. Though Daargard lay far to the galactic east, Vincent had served alongside one of their regiments for long enough to convincingly mimic their mannerisms. From what Crenshaw had told her, Kally understood that they were a sour, reactionary bunch; made so by recent mutant uprisings, xenos infiltrators and, apparently, one rather infamous raid by a Night Lords kill-team. She recalled that Marc had taken a similar disguise as one of the humourless Dargaard hive vigiles, with the same prominent genepure badges and anti-mutant glyphs etched on his equipment. The cover had precluded him from carrying on as Ella's direct handler, which meant that Glabrio had gotten the job.

“I suppose dead is dead," she went on, "But still, I think you can make an argument both ways. Rifling gives us a bit more accuracy. Smoothbore gives us penetration, so we can take some through-cover shots.”

She put the barrel back down on the trader's tarp, sat back on her haunches, and resumed looking over the spread of equipment, most of it PDF surplus with a few stolen items thrown in for good measure. She waited for a response from her partner and frowned when he remained broodingly silent.

“I was also thinking about getting some nice holes drilled in my skull by that preacher down on corridor five, so the evil spirits can escape my brain and the Emperor's light can enter my soul. After that I was planning on shooting up a nunnery and kicking you out an airlock. Thoughts?”

"No need to get sarcy." Vincent growled at her. He lifted his gaze from the autocannon to a phosphor shell he had picked up and rolled it between his fingers, gauging it against the quadruple-tube of his shotgun's underslung magazine. "The neighbours are more likely to be hiding behind somethin' than standin' off a couple of thousand metres, in my experience. We might take one of each, just in case we want to do some long-range overwatch. But you don't need me to tell you that."

It was the same frustratingly businesslike tone he had taken with her after the briefing, which was the first time they had actually spoken since the start of the voyage.

"We got any of these for a Garda pattern?" Vincent grunted, turning back to the shotcannon shells.

The merchant nodded and ducked back into the hollowed out escape pod that served as his back of shop. Kally turned to look over a partially disassembled Eschaton autocannon that she suspected had once been mounted in the turret of a Vandire medium tank.

"No way are we going to be able to haul two of these frakkers around with us." Kally felt increasingly frustrated by the conversation. Really the artillery was irrelevant; with such small margins of capability between the different makes and models, it barely mattered which piece they chose. But she had hoped to draw Vincent out of his shell a touch, find out what was going on in his scarred skull. But so far she had had no success. She returned her gaze to the Tronsvasse 50 as the merchant returned with a box of heavy shells in hand.

"That one, and three drums for it." She stood, hands on hips, as the merchant handed the box of shells to Vince and then ducked back into the back. "Look, Vince.”

She paused, unsure how to continue. Suddenly she found herself in deeply unfamiliar territory. Provided he wasn't in a mood to avoid conversation with everyone entirely, Vince had never been an effort for Kally to connect with - she and he had always tacitly understood one another. She wanted to break through to him, get him to talk - hell, even him taking a swipe at her would have been better than this. It felt like he was a million light years away.

“On Venatora you said the scars fade, that it gets easier.” She smiled, remembering that evening when she had lamped Marc and spent several hours on watch with that freaky little psyker girl. “You were right, of course.” She paused again. “If you want to talk, I'm happy to listen. Any time.”

Vincent sniffed a deep breath, and snorted it back out.

"Ja, they fade." he agreed softly. "As long as you don't keep piling more shit on top of them."

He huffed again, his hands resting on the merchant's tarp - one leathery flesh, the other matte-black metal.

"I appreciate the offer, Kally-girl. 'Specially after the lousy way I've been actin' these last few months. But this is one load of shit I don't want you to have to deal with as well."

"Grox shit." Kally said flatly. "There's only six of us left out of all the old crowd and your plan's to try and take on the universe by yourself? After everything we've been through?"

"Listen, hive rat." Vincent growled testily, "I don't get on your back about you and Crenshaw. Don't get on my fokkin' back about this."

Kally winced. “Alright, alright. I get the point.” She shook her head. “Anyway, its feral inbred to you right now, remember?”

"Alright, sorry, that wasn't fair." Vincent admitted quietly. He sighed, and pushed off the tarp. "If you really want to help me, Kally-girl, keep me away from the drink."

“Really?” Kally met the dark look from Vince and nodded. “I can do that. Hell I'll . . .”

There was a buzz from both of their pagers. Kally pulled hers out and frowned as she read the message.

Possible transport – rogue trader Theodosia Prince, ship name Arthrashasta. Request 360 background check.

“This is going to have to wait.” She sighed. “Alright, you haul our purchases back to the lodgings and I'll start asking questions.”

“You shouldn't be wandering alone.” Vince retorted as he shouldered the big cannon.

“I'm going to be hitting bars Vince. If you are going clean thats the last place you should be.”

Vince scowled, but nodded in agreement. As she turned to leave, he said. “I reckon he would of liked this piece Kally girl.”

Kally turned back, and looked the autocannon over again, briefly confused. “Who?”

“Gene. Its a good choice.”

Kally nodded. “I think you're right.” She smiled. “Take 'Gene' back to the lodgings. I'll see you later.”

Vince chuckled, and Kally started to jog to the lower decks. She would need to work fast if she would get any information from the local scum on Theodosia.

[Azazeal849]

"Hello ladies, gentlemen...not-so-gentle men." Theodosia's eyes roamed over the group - Vince in the black fatigues of a discharged Guardsman out of Dargaard, complete with gene-pure stamps defying the mutant underclass of that dismal world; Marc in the black overcoat of the hive vigiles who earned their keep brutally suppressing those same mutants; Kelly playing the part of a bespectacled logistician who managed the payment of the group's contracts.

...

"On a more personal note, you'd do well to follow your elder's example, handsome; flattery will get you anywhere." She gave him a teasing grin before turning her back.

"Try me again on a better day." Marc responded coolly.

Theodosia's good-natured pout lasted a moment and dissolved as she turned away, though the slight furrowing of her eyebrows remained.

Solvan frowned with her. Marc's Dargaard accent was perfect, though Solvan wasn't sure that the taciturn demeanour of a Dargaardi vigile was entirely an affectation. He couldn't help but notice the gulf between the unforcedly terse answer and the more approachable manner he had associated with Marcus Black prior to the Saros incident. Not only was it less helpful for gaining the trust of potential informants, it spoke of the former agent's ongoing impatience to get at DeRei. It had been the same in the armoury before they disembarked, where Solvan had not failed to notice Marc deliberately picking up the heavy, brutal autopistol that had belonged to a murdered colleague, instead of his own las that had been retrieved from the inquisitorial vaults.

"I think she likes you." the bishop said, covering his thoughts with an amused smile and giving Marc a pat on the shoulder before whispering, "Send the message."


+ + + + + +

Sapphira rubbed her thumb and forefinger together, thumbing an imaginary set of rosary beads as she watched Ella converse with the green-robed astropath who had been shuffling his hunchbacked way up to the Glom's telepathica eyrie. They had been making discreet enquiries after some of inquisitor Machairi's traditional contacts, but the Emperor did not seem to be with them and so far they had found none of them to be on the Glom at this particular time. Turning her head towards Glabrio, the sister noticed that he was observing himself in the mirrored wall of one of the up-market eateries that flanked this curve of the Glom's inner arc. The ex-arbitrator was clearly enjoying himself on this particular undercover operation; he had adopted the eclectic armour and the swaggering air of a career mercenary, complete with a peaked commissar's cap that he cheerfully claimed to have stolen whenever one of the passing citizens stopped to stare. He had Ella's force gladius scabbarded at his hip, less eyebrow-raising than if the astropath herself was carrying it, but still within her easy reach if anything untoward happened.

"You do know you look ridiculous, right?" she smiled at Glabrio as he caught her eye in the mirror. Sapphira herself had opted for a conservative medicae tunic suit, with heavy makeup concealing the worst of the small shrapnel scars she had picked up all those years ago on Venatora.

Glabrio rakishly adjusted his commissar's cap. "It's not my fault you lack imagination."

Sapphira felt her eyebrows shoot upwards, but then rallied with a nasty little grin as a particularly un-sisterly thought came to her. "So I lack imagination, hmm?"

Glabrio caught her expression, and her tone, and noticeably winced. "I frakked up there, didn't I?"

Sapphira offered him the tiniest nod.

"I don't suppose you'll forget that will you?"

Sapphira shook her head.

"I'm going to regret that later, aren't I."

Another slight nod.

"Damn."

Sapphira allowed herself a secret smile, but let it fall and returned her focus to the mission as Ella came trotting back over to offer them pursed lips and a shrug. In disguise like the rest of them, Ella was wearing a read velvet gown instead of the green robe associated with astropaths indentured to the official adeptus branches. Her rank and status were told instead by the gold wireframe eye that formed the clasp of her belt, and the strip of red silk that was tied over her eyes.

"No luck, I presume?" Glabrio asked.

Ella shook her head. "I'm afraid not."

Sapphira suddenly felt her pocket communicator vibrate, and pulled it out to see a message rune blinking. As she read it, she felt her spirits lift slightly. But the Emperor provides. she thought.

"Marc's found something." she told the other two.


+ + + + + +

"You can contact your friends without being secretive about it, Mr Keller." Theodosia said, speaking Marc's cover name teasingly as she cocked her head in his direction. "I won't be offended."

"I'm just informing the rest of our group that they can stop looking for other couriers." Marc replied as he slid his PDA back into the breast pocket of his black vigiles overcoat.

It was partially true - though he was also acknowledging Vizkop and Josiah's reports, and another from Crenshaw. The major had been pulling rank down at the station's Telepathica eyrie, and had discovered nothing irregular in lady Prince's communiques - other than that she had once tipped off the authorities about the illegal cargo of a fellow trader who had insulted her. There were also no suspiciously encryption-heavy astros. Of course, the major had barely needed to stress that any incriminating messages Theodosia might have sent would hardly have been passed straight into the hands of the Imperial AAT.

"Here's some of them now." Kelly added, pointing with her borrowed logistician's stylus.

The team craned their necks, to see Sapphira, Glabrio and Ella threading their way across the marble plaza towards them. Despite her red silk blindfold, it was very evident that Ella was staring at Theodosia.

"Sorry we're late." Glabrio greeted the group cheerfully, "I hope we didn't miss anything good?"

"Well hello there." Theodosia purred. "No need to apologise, it's better to arrive late than to arrive ugly after all." Her eyes roamed up and down the two. "And I'm pleased to say that neither of you have anything to worry about in that department."

Against her pallid skin, Ella's blush was extremely noticeable.

"When the others arrive," Kelly said, tapping her stylus against her tunic. "Would it be possible to request a tour of your ship?"

Theodosia responded with a rakish grin. "I thought you would never ask."

As Solvan and Theodosia set about settling their bill, Theodosia leaving the bar staff a generous tip despite the already steep price of the bill, Ella dropped back a couple of steps to sidle over to the others who were still seated.

"What's the matter?" Marc murmured, picking up on the astropath's nervously pursed lips.

"It's her aura." Ella whispered back. "At first I thought she was a psyker, but I think she might have recently taken Spook."


+ + + + + +

The interior of the Arthrashastra was a patchwork of differing aesthetic styles, evidently a product of the preceding captains Prince decorating their favourite areas of the ship after their own personal tastes. They passed corridors of ivory, a stargazing gallery made entirely of glass, and even a small prayer room stripped back to austere grey steel. Despite the eclectic décor, the ship as a whole somehow still conspired to be elegant. When they reached the command deck, it turned out to be a sweeping semicircle of polished oak and brass, edged with carved rosewood columns that divided up the various control stations. The dirigarium station took the form of an archaic spoked wheel, reminiscent of some ancient sea vessel, and the command interfaces were of a similar primitive elegance. Brass dials, glass-fronted gauges and gleaming silver switches adorned every control panel. The pendulum of a brass chronometer ticked back and forth above the darkened viewscreen that stretched the full arc of the bridge.

The stately quiet served to highlight something that had become more and more apparent to the team as they were led through the ship. The bridge, like the halls and galleries of the decks below, was empty. Aside from the occasional silver-masked servitor trundling back and forth on inspection and maintenance duty, the ship did not seem to include a single living crewman.

"The old lady is almost entirely automated," Theodosia explained as they looked around. "Although most of the systems can be operated manually if the fancy takes you. I wouldn't advise any of you trying it though - the old lady can get very particular about her pilots, and she's been waking up on the wrong side of the bed for the best part of ten thousand years." She encompassed the bridge with a sweep of her hand, before pressing her palms together. "As such it's just you, me and the servitors. And I can assure you that anything that happens here on the old lady stays here on the old lady."

She offered Glabrio a wink.

"Not even an astropath?" Ella asked, running a hand along the polished banister as if feeling for the psychic fingerprints that previous visitors had left behind.

"I get by hiring them for single messages at planets and waystations." Theodosia shrugged, "Not that I would mind having one as company. They have such a singular point of view of the galaxy." She caught herself and smiled. "I'm sorry, you'll have to pardon my choice of words."

"Surely you have a Navigator?" Marc frowned.

"The old lady's nav cogitator dates all the way back to the Dark Age." Theodosia said, patting the command lectern fondly. "I'm sorry to say I don't have the faintest idea how it works, but it's neither broken down nor failed me yet, and I daresay I've saved a small fortune in Navigator's salaries."

"Warp travel without a Navigator?" Kelly said in disbelief, looking like she wanted to sign the Aquila across herself against even the idea of such a risk. "The Ad Mech would offer you a small fortune to take a look at that cogitator."

"And the Navis Nabilite would set an assassin on you." Marc added seriously.

Theodosia gave the Black siblings an impish grin. "From what I have read about my ship's previous owners, both of those things have happened." Her smile turned reassuring, and she caught Kelly's eye. "Don't you worry, lady logistician; Arthashastra is a lucky ship."

"No crew is good for security." Vince murmured to Kally out of the corner of his mouth, as Theodosia glided away to show Solvan and Glabrio the ship's gold leaf dedication plaque. Marc had peeled off to examine the trader's charter, proudly framed in an alcove on the back wall behind a thick pane of armourglass. "Though I'm not happy at trusting our warp jump to some fokkin' cogitator."

[dakkagor]

Kally

"No crew is good for security." Vince murmured to Kally out of the corner of his mouth, as Theodosia glided away to show Solvan and Glabrio the ship's gold leaf dedication plaque. Marc had peeled off to examine the trader's charter, proudly framed in an alcove on the back wall behind a thick pane of armourglass. "Though I'm not happy at trusting our warp jump to some fokkin' cogitator."

"Yeah, but be fair. Neither of us understand how a Navigator works, so what you're saying is I don't trust this thing that I don't understand, over the thing I do trust, but also don't understand."

Vincent growled and cuffed Kally round the back of the head with his flesh and blood arm, causing her to playfully wince and laugh. She shrugged her shoulders and walked to look over to one of the armoured portholes and stared out at the Glom, thinking. A half hour of talking had revealed what they now knew for sure: Theodosia's ship was heavily automated. Kally hadn't been able to find even a hint of any crew in the short time available to her, not a trace, not a rumour, but plenty of rumours about why this sleek little frigate had no crew. Like Vince, she had reservations, but they where about that lack of a human element. Someone surrounded by utterly loyal machine spirits was more difficult to intimidate than someone relying on fearful, fallible people. Waving a rosette in the face of crew round here was pointless. If they used this ship they would be at Theodosia's mercy.

Unless Vizkop could pull something out of the bag, of course.

She tapped on the hull and hummed to herself, counting the visible vox-thiefs and imager capture devices. She had been spotting the devices since she boarded, and she doubted that the ones she could see where the only ones.

Nope, did not like this. At all. But she wasn't seeing a lot of choice in the matter at this point.

Tomas

This was looking good. In fact, he was tempted to encourage his team mates to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak, and close the deal. The internal security was going to be a problem, of course, but nothing Vizkop couldn't handle with some help from himself and Marc. And they still had the option of breaking cover, as the information from the others seemed to indicate, that for a Rogue Trader at least, Theodosia was trustworthy.

He silently signalled his approval to Solvan and Marc. Yes, time to seal the deal and get this underway.

[Azazeal849]

Deep space trader Arthrashastra
En route to Marioch

Lady Prince's writ of trade was a work of art, and the alcove that held it no less impressive. The gold-leaf frame edged a thick pane of armourglass, and from the way the alcove's interior lights flickered slightly against the parchment and its velvet backdrop, Marc could tell that there was a small refractor field built into the recess as well. The charter was held taut by delicate silver pincers, the ink and wax seals as vivid and fresh as if the document were brand new instead of likely a thousand years old. There was no way of telling without one of Kelly's carbon-dating kits, and Marc suspected that trying to remove the document from its alcove would set off more than just an alarm.

"Do you think this is a wee bit over the top?" Kelly asked as she carefully adjusted the focus on her picter.

"No," Marc growled in response, "I think this is a sensible precaution."

"Asking to do a full check of the charter would be a sensible precaution. This is just running the risk of antagonising Prince."

"Vizkop's busy planting his sleepers in the ship's cogitator the now." Marc argued. "He can wipe any security footage of us being up here."

He didn't envy Vizkop that job. Marc didn't know much about inquisition cracker routines except that they worked - and that they were grounds for major diplomatic incidents if the mechanicus proper got a hold of them - but Vizkop had built up a picture of the Arthrashastra as a nasty little snake; bound up in venomous coils of encryption and ready to strike back with lethal force at any machine spirit that tried to disturb it. Perhaps even at any human interface, despite the ad mech creed's insistence that humans should govern machines, and never the opposite. Marc had to wonder if anyone who didn't make more serious efforts to rectify such a system was either dangerously paranoid, or had something to hide.

"Though," He softened a little. "I do feel a bit bad for talking Ella into being our distraction."

Kelly gave him a sceptical expression. "Ella's a big girl. If she couldn't handle it she'd have said so."

Marc couldn't argue with that. She's barely 5 and a half, he thought, converting Terran years back to the familiar and much longer Solomon years in his head, And she's had to deal with all the same shit as us. If anything, she's handled it better. He wouldn't have minded staying on as her warden, as much for his own support as for hers, if their cover stories had allowed it.

"Alright." he said as he lowered his own small auspex picter and slotted it back into his coat's inside pocket, "I think we've got everything we need. When Ella gets back I'll have her send it to sister Kiana so she can pass it on to the ordo Famulous on Tephaine."


+ + + + + +

Ella was nervous, and even though Theodosia's dose of psyk-enhancing Spook should have worn off several hours ago, she was uncomfortably aware of her own volatile aura. And then, she remembered that Theodosia could probably read her face just as easily. She was glad that Theodosia's gleefully probing conversation gave her another plausible reason to fidget.

It wasn't that she wasn't enjoying herself, distraction or not - the amasec was sweet and spicy, the plush armchairs were comfortable enough to curl up and sleep in, and although the wall art and hololiths were mostly wasted on her hazy warp sight, she could guess that they were exquisite. Theodosia herself was great company, even if she seemed inordinately interested in Ella's love life. Ella had tried several times to steer the topic of discussion towards the questions she really wanted to ask, but Theodosia was both a deft conversationalist and perversely persistent.

"You know," Theodosia said, and Ella could see the amusement flickering through her jade-green psychic avatar. "Adorable as it is, you don't have to blush every time I pay you a compliment."

Of course, that just made her blush again. "I'm sorry." she smiled shyly, "I'm not exactly used to it, that's all." She thought back to the surprise birthday on the Mooncalf, an age ago now, and how she had blushed scarlet for most of the first ten minutes.

"All I'm saying, my dear," said Theodosia, gesturing airily with her glass, "Is that being a psyker in no way precludes you from being desirable."

Ella sighed, thinking back to the unpleasant space journey from Weldar with hundreds of superstitious pilgrims crowding the holds and commissar Schenke as her only ally.

"I think you fundamentally misunderstand what it means to be a psyker around regular Imperial citizens." she replied, turning grim. "Back on the Reward, the closest thing I got to propositions were rape threats."

"Oh." Theodosia said.

The trader's aura visibly cooled, fizzing with streaks of awkward mauve that made Ella instantly regretted her blunt choice of words. She tried to smile, to keep herself from grimacing, and sipped her drink.

"The adeptus are better educated, surely?" Theodosia ventured, her glowing avatar shot through blue with sympathy.

Ella thought of Schenke, then Marc, and then of sergeant Kazic, who had been her handler during her brief tour of duty under the ill-fated inquisitor Suffolk. "Some of them are more at ease with us than others." she answered carefully.

Theodosia's avatar flickered with something like its old mischief as she cocked an eyebrow. "There must have been someone then. Even if they're not making the first move, I refuse to believe you astropaths are all dead from the neck down."

She's relentless. Ella thought, and couldn't help smiling. "Well," she admitted, shyly, "There was one girl in the Psykana."

"A girl, you say?" Theodosia replied with a flicker of interest.

"Yes." said Ella, self-consciously. She drew her legs up onto the armchair and hugged them to her chest, realising that Theodosia had put her off her guard. She had forgotten that there were worlds in the Imperium where such admissions were frowned upon, even unlawful - she seldom thought anything of it because her harder-to-hide status as a psyker usually elicited a far more universal reaction. All the shame and self-doubt from her early teenage years came flooding back with uncomfortable sharpness.

"Don't look so worried, kitten." Theodosia said, sounding apologetic. Her aura radiated an empathetic yellow. "You won't be getting any judgements from me. Was this while you were training on Terra?"

Ella nodded.

"I see." Theodosia said, and a conspiratorial air returned to her voice, if not to her aura. "What was her name?"

Ella uncurled slightly from her defensive ball. "Raeni. We were maybe fifteen or sixteen? She broke it off a year later when she was picked for the adeptus astronomica." She looked down thoughtfully.

"It wasn't meant to be, then?" Theodosia asked soberly.

Ella considered. Like all astropaths, she wasn't the same person she had been before her soul-binding. Raeni's training in the choir temples had no doubt changed her as well. Even if she was still awaiting her turn to ascend into the light of the astronomicon, Ella somehow doubted that Raeni would appreciate a distraction from her holy calling.

It suddenly occurred to her that during her dutiful focus on reading her Tarot cards, she had never once been tempted to pause and listen, to see if she could pick out Raeni's song amongst the astronomican power being directed down into her cards by the Emperor's thoughts. Was she more dutiful, more convicted since her soul binding? Yes. But she had also read the Tarot out of concern for friends - Schenke, Marc, Jansen...but never Raeni. Why hadn't she even thought about it until now? Was the separation between her life before and after the Binding so stark? She hadn't considered it before.

Her discomfort must have shown on her face, because it was mirrored in Theodosia's psychic avatar.

"I'm sorry." the rogue trader said, "I probably shouldn't probe old wounds, should I?"

"No, it's fine." Ella replied thoughtfully, gazing vaguely off to one side, where the amasec carafe glowed a faint, swirling orange to her warp sight. She shrugged. "I guess people change, that's all."

"That they do." Theodosia mused, and raised her glass. "To future prospects then? I'm sure a pretty little kitten like yourself will have no trouble." She paused for a second to swirl her cup, the faint psychic imprint of the drink diffusing and then disappearing into the glowing green of her avatar as she swallowed. "And as for the close minded - well, if you'll pardon my vulgar language, frak them."

Her tone was light, but some of the fire seemed to have gone out of her aura. Ella considered. Having a trader's charter thrust on you after a chance biometric test - was that something akin to a soul binding in terms of uprooting your former life? Or was there some other change she still wasn't seeing? Theodosia's frayed avatar radiated something like aimlessness, but at the same time had the bright vitality of someone who was enjoying themselves for the first time in ages. She was still scrutinising the older woman's aura, trying to tease back the layers, when something tubular and solid black swam across the front of her view; something with enough psychic potential to send shockwaves rippling across her warp-vision.

"Throne!" she exclaimed, jerking back in her chair in spite of herself, "What's that?"

"Don't you recognise it?" Theodosia said teasingly, as she unstoppered the vial she was holding and carefully pipetted a single drop into her glass. "It's Spook."

"Spook?" Ella repeated in an alarmed tone.

Theodosia's aura rippled. "Now Ellla," she chided her with a hint of humour, "Don't start being boring now. I looked up some more of the stuff before we left, because I rather enjoyed being able to read the moods of your friends while we talked. It was almost synesthetic, seeing this kind of halo around them all. I remember yours was this lovely white with a kind of pink edge. Some of your friends have some demons though, don't they? Mr Thrannis looked like he was bleeding dark smoke, and Mr Keller was all shot through with this painful-looking blue and red."

"All of Flavius' men have seen things." Ella said quickly, despite being surprised at how closely Theodosia's interpretations of Vincent and Marc matched her own. "But that's not the point. Spook is dangerous, whether you're a psyker or not."

"Bless you, Ella." Theodosia said fondly, "I'm sure they tell plenty of stories in the Scholastica Psykana to warn you off it. No doubt some of them are exaggerated to make sure you behave yourselves. I've known people on the Glom who take it, both safely and otherwise, and I assure you I am aware of the risks."

Ella opened her mouth to argue.

"I'm not saying," Theodosia cut her off. "That you're not the authority on the dangers of psychic powers around here." Her tone was soothing as she leaned forward to gently squeeze Ella's small hand in her own. "I know you are. I'm saying that I can handle it. And it's not just for fun's sake, either. I have a lot of enemies in my line of work, particularly on Marioch - if I run into any of them I want to be able to have the right instincts about what they're doing."

Ella stared down Theodosia's psychic avatar for a long moment, and knew from the flecks of stubborn red shooting through it that she wasn't going to be able to change her mind with further argument.

"Fine." she said, "But at least let me help."


+ + + + + +

The Arthrashastra's warp cogitator might not have inspired the same confidence as a traditional navigator, but if their lady host was to be believed they were making good time through the empyrian. With only a day left before their scheduled arrival, Glabrio Hybrida did not believe in wasting valuable training time. The Arthrashastra came complete with a hololith firing range to rival the ones in any arbites precinct house, though by the loud reports that greeted his ears as the door slid open, someone else had beaten him to the idea. As the bullets vaporised with a spitting crackle against the refractor fields cloaking the back wall, he spotted lady Prince and Ella standing at one of the booths.

The rogue trader was dressed in a form-fitting jumpsuit, her hair tied back to accommodate her ear defenders. She was saying something to Ella that made the astropath giggle shyly and rest her fingertips against her cheek. Glabrio raised an eyebrow while lady Prince turned to stand side-on with one hand casually behind her back, the other aiming a sleek pistol down-range. The mouth of the gun lit up with flashes of burning gas as she fired another quick volley of shots at the hololith targets weaving back and forth. They all flashed red and flickered out in turn, while the spent bullets fizzled against the safety fields on the walls. As the slide of her gun clicked empty, Theodosia gave herself a satisfied nod and raised the gun to her lips to blow away the wisps of powder smoke curling from the muzzle.

"You know it's really bad practice to point a gun anywhere near your face." Glabrio called out, "Even an unloaded one!"

Theodosia did a double-take in his direction, and for a brief moment a look of mortified embarrassment crossed her face before she regained her usual composure. Ella laughed, and offered Glabrio a cheerful wave. Theodosia pulled her headphones down around her neck and strode across the firing range to intercept Glabrio, one foot crossing the other in elegant steps.

"My humblest apologies, Mr Voss." she smiled, using Glabrio's cover name. "I'll try and put safety before style in future."

"No apologies needed." Glabrio replied airily, and offered Ella a nod as she trotted over to join thrm. "Old habits ingrained by ball-busting instructors die hard, that's all." He squinted down at Theodosia's empty pistol. "Genofonia Foundries? DX-228?"

Theodosia's eyes lit up, impressed. "Correct. Do you shop there too?"

"I used to have a young friend who told me about them." Glabrio grinned, remembering Lia on Hercynia. "Also, all of Genofonia's weapons have those trademark starburst trigger guards."

"I have to say, Mr Voss." Theodosia said, tilting her head and letting a delicate frown crease her features. "I was rather upset that your commander didn't tell me until this morning that you and your fellow Janissaries were actually on a mission for the imperial inquisition. I could have been a lot more help to you. I have an armoury that I could have put at your disposal, not to mention a rather splendid drop-ship with enough firepower to level a city block."

"I appreciate the offer," Glabrio shrugged apologetically, "But our mission on Marioch needs to be on the down low." He paused. "Though come to think of it, a heavily armed drop-ship might come in handy later. Where is it?"

"Keeping safe with some of my other non-standard toys at the Perinetus shipyards. Perhaps I'll go and fetch them while you're being all cloak and dagger on Marioch."

"That would be excellent, thank you."

Theodosia gave him one of her trademark impish grins as she slid a fresh magazine into the grip of her pistol with a snap. "But I'm still not shooting with you, Mr Voss. Not until you apologise for so rudely keeping me out of the loop. I had gotten it into my head that we were friends and everything."

Glabrio shrugged again. "Captain Tomas would say it's for your own protection, not bringing you into an incriminating circle before we're safely in the warp, on an empty ship where no-one can hear us."

Theodosia grinned slyly. "Or so no-one could hear me selling your secret. I'm not a fool, Mr Voss. Anyway, I signed a contract to provide you transport all the way to Marioch to do the Emperor's work. Don't you trust me?"

"Hey, we paid you an extremely competitive price to take us there." Glabrio replied, cocking an eyebrow. "And as for trust, I believe Vizkop caught you using the ship's cogitators to calculate probabilities for you during our poker game."

"My clever plan, foiled by a watchful tech-adept." Theodosia grinned. "Consider yourself lucky I didn't manage to talk Mr Hanak into playing strip poker."

"In which case, I wouldn't trust you not to deliberately lose."

"How dare you." Theodosia retorted, pouting playfully.


+ + + + + +

Prospect, House Vaegar fiefdom
Marioch
36 hours later

The sun was setting behind the apartment block, so that the building's long shadow fell across the shuttered library complex across the road. The third floor hab provided a perfect view over the construction barriers into the building itself, while in the distance behind it the floodlights were beginning to switch on around the hydrofrac derricks to signal the start of the night shift. Sister Mahin maintained her vigil at the window, while sister Pari stood at the other end of the flat, leaning her elbows on the blistered paint of the balcony railing and watching the hooded and cloaked workers trudge past below. They jostled along the street, on their way to or from another gruelling work day on House Vaegar's extraction plant. A gust of wind cycloned up between the buildings and plucked at the sister's robe. Sister Pari liked the traditionalist garb that still dominated these parts of Marioch; it was comfortingly similar to the headscarves she and the rest of the Vigil wore in the convent back on Coseflame. She chided herself for the thought almost immediately - there was no time for self-indulgent reminiscing when sister Shirin was still missing, and with the inquisition task force arriving they were finally in a position to do something about it.

Spotting a pair of faces that matched the last of the picts she had been provided, she pushed off the rust-streaked iron railing and turned back into the flat, closing the patio door behind her. "Sister," she called softly to Mahin, "They're here."

Sister Mahin turned and nodded. Where Pari was pale and nondescript beneath her headscarf, Mahin's face was round, warm-brown and inviting. It was difficult for anyone who didn't know her for what she was to instinctively trust her, and that was even more valuable than sister Pari's ability to blend forgettably into a crowd.

No sooner had Pari detoured through to the living area to inform the other agents, who had arrived in ones and twos over the previous shift changes, then she heard the prearranged triple knock on the front door of the hab.

"Mr Hanak and Mr Thannis, I presume." she said as she opened the door, using Solvan and Vincent's cover identities. She linked her thumbs across her chest and bowed briefly to them both before letting them in and closing the door behind them. "The others are through in the lounge." She offered the two men a fleeting grin. "Sorry about the mess."

Vincent grunted as his grey eye roamed across the spartan furniture, the peeling wallpaper and the faded grey carpet. Empty plates and mugs were balanced haphazardly on tables and windowsills, but the dull scene stood in contrast to the meticulously cleaned and freshly anointed comms equipment that was laid out near the window, drawing power from a humming portable generator. From his seat at the table, Marc offered Vince a nod before going back to reassembling Kadath's old Tallarn auto, racking the slide and sighting experimentally at the floor with the unloaded weapon. Vincent returned the nod coolly as he hung up his dust-cloak and stripped off his gloves to reveal his bionic left hand, while Solvan slid his kit-bag to the floor and unzipped it. Instead of a rig-worker's overalls, he pulled out body armour and a selection of las weapons. As the rest of the team filed through from the hab's communal area, sister Pari took a seat opposite Marc and folded her hands over the chipped plywood table.

"Sorry for the hold-up." Vincent said as Ella trailed in last, pushing her deck of crystal Tarot cards back into her shoulder-bag. He gestured to the window where Mahin had pulled up her chair with his organic arm. "For the benefit of us latecomers, I assume that boarded-up building is our target?"

Sister Mahin nodded, offering her magnoculars to Vincent so that he could examine the weathered front of the library with its dog-eared Aquila posters pasted to the walls and front door.

"They front it as a scripture interpretation class." the sister explained. "Exclusive membership, naturally."

Vincent chuckled humourlessly. "A Creed study group? That's not very original. Have you had to deal with many cults around here recently?"

Over at the table, sister Pari rested a freckled cheek on a small fist. "No, though there's enough unrest to spark them. After Marioch and Siculi, and then your heretic leaking word of the incident in Sol...people in this sub are losing faith in the Imperium's ability to protect them."

"Obvious question." Vincent asked as he adjusted the zoom on the magnoculars. "But what makes you think that's their base camp? We'd look fokkin' stupid if we just raided one of their meeting rooms and tipped them all off."

"They closed for renovations three months ago." said Mahin. "All the building contractors are members of the group, and they haven't been doing much work." She pointed towards the laydown area round the back of the building, where piles of timber and bricks were stacked up, unused. "We've tried sending a fly-drone inside, but the signal cut out as I was piloting it through the keyhole - something jammed it."

Vincent cocked an eyebrow at Gavin.

"I could locate and suppress the device." the scrawny psyker replied, adjusting his glasses. "But that would entail a risk - that is to say, a dangerous probability - of the occupants noticing that their machine has suddenly stopped working."

Vincent hmm'd an acknowledgement. "And I don't suppose Blondie could get a look in for us either?"

Standing up against the far wall, Ella shook her head. "I can just about see to the outer rooms from here if I stretch myself, but not all the way inside."

"Do you spy through people's walls often?" Theodosia interrupted casually, giving Ella a sly look from her seat by the window.

Ella giggled slightly and shook her head. "No." she said firmly. "But I took a walk past the building with Glabrio about ten minutes ago to get a better look, and there's one man sitting reading near the front door, and three more in a sort of kitchen area, cooking up enough food for maybe twenty people. But I couldn't see anything at all around the basement. It was all just a haze."

"There's probably hexagrams painted all over the stairwells." sister Mahin said, raising her eyebrows at Vincent. "Awfully knowledgeable about psychic countermeasures for a Creed study group. And awfully anxious not to have those countermeasures seen by anyone who comes wandering through the main floor."

"But," Pari added, hefting a vox-player up onto the table and setting it down with a thud. "We did get this from a las-microphone, and a few more like it over the last week."

As she hit the playback key, a heavily muffled voice could just be made out saying, "...cause the Blue Devil wills it, that's why!"

"That's Arcolin." Marc said, nodding darkly at sister Pari. "Blue Devil was the name he used back on Solomon. Whoever's in there are working for him, or at least with him."

"They definitely know something." sister Pari agreed. "And hopefully that includes what happened to sister Shirin."

Both sisters made the sign of the Aquila to ward off evil omens.

"I've just got one concern." Kelly put in, folding her arms. "What if this is just a deliberate lure to let Arcolin know who's following him? Unless sister Shirin stumbled across something really significant, his cultists took one hell of a risk by attacking her."

"We'll know more once we've got some prisoners to interrogate." Mahin replied. "Emperor willing, she's still alive."

Sister Pari produced a building plan, and spread it across the table for the others to gather round and inspect.

"The building's an old library." she began. "Two floors; ground floor and a basement level, plasterboard interior walls. Front and rear exits and an additional fire escape on the east side, next to the kitchen. They banned public access when the construction work started, so if they really are heretics then you can assume anyone inside is a target."


+ + + + + +

Kadath's gun was heavy in Marc's shoulder holster as he waited by the construction barriers, away from the dim pools of orange light cast by the dust-clogged streetlights. Kally, Gavin and Kelly crouched beside him, and he could feel Vincent's eyes on his back as the old ex-Guardsman covered them from the apartment window with his heavy autocannon. It was dark and the library was unlit apart from a few phosphor lamps above the doors, but Vincent's night-vis goggles should have allowed him a clear view of the building's courtyard and roof. Ella was with him, ready to provide a second avenue of communication if the jamming got too heavy for the voxes. With any luck this would be a rapid in-and-out strike, and anyone left to wonder would be led to believe that Trader House Vaegar had pissed off one of its competitors enough to warrant a petty terror attack on its most profitable holding.

"We're in place." Glabrio reported from round the back of the building, his voice crackling through the microbead in Marc's ear.

"I have eyes on the fire escape." Crenshaw confirmed a moment later. "You are clear to move."

Marc squeezed through the gap between two of the flakboard barriers and started walking towards the pool of light that demarcated the sand-blasted front door.

"Can you still hear me?" he murmured, testing the vox as he walked.

"Faintly." sister Mahin's voice replied. "The jamming's getting thick. Try cycling to narrow band 3."

Marc glanced at his wrist-chron, and used the movement as an excuse to tap one of the winding buttons twice. The vox pickup nestled in his ear adjusted accordingly. "Better?"

"Better."

Pacing up to the door, Marc noticed a tiny sliver of metal lying where it had fallen on the doorstep. "Found your fly drone." he commented, stooping and transferring the tiny silver and plastek insect to his pocket. "Doesn't look like anyone noticed it, at least."

"Thank the emperor."

Not yet. Marc thought grimly as he raised his fist and hammered twice on the door. Almost immediately he heard someone stirring inside, and after about half a minute there was a sequence of clicks and clacks as the door locks were disengaged. A shaft of light fanned open across the courtyard as the door was opened by a pale man with shaggy black hair, dressed in the dun-coloured robes that were popular with civilians in this part of Marioch. The interior behind him was an open corridor, with a chair set back in an alcove where the man had evidently been waiting to play gatekeeper.

"I'm sorry, we're closed." the gatekeeper said in accented Marioch gothic, squinting at Marc. "Unless you're here with the delivery?"

Taking a calculated risk, Marc nodded. "It's out the front."

The gatekeeper glanced at his wrist-chron, and his face cycled through a recognisable pattern from surprise to suspicion to studied neutrality. He no doubt thought he was hiding it better than he was, because he smiled and reached out to shake Marc's hand. The left one, Marc noted - it seemed to be the way they did things on Marioch.

"Perfect." the gatekeeper said. "Nice to meet you, mister...?"

"Keller." Marc replied. As he accepted the other man's handshake, the gatekeeper very conspicuously placed his thumb over the top of Marc's knuckles. Looking down, he returned the smile as he clasped his other hand over the gatekeeper's wrist. Surreptitiously rolling back the loose sleeve of the man's robe revealed a circle of dark ink against the white skin of his wrist - something that looked vaguely like an eye.

Whatever coded response the gatekeeper was expecting, he obviously hadn't received it. He didn't bother to try and extricate himself under some pretext and run to warn the others. He simply turned his head over his shoulder and opened his mouth to shout an alarm.

Marc drew Kadath's pistol, raised it to the gatekeeper's ear, and shot him through the head. The loud bang of the Tallarn auto echoed off the building walls as pieces of the gatekeeper's skull showered the corridor behind him.

Up in the apartment, sister Mahin cursed under her breath and signed the Aquila across her chest. "Go!" she urged the team on the ground over the vox. "Go, go, go!"

[dakkagor]

Kally was up and moving with the gunshot, reflexes primed and ready.

"Remember we need prisoners." Tomas firmly ordered in her ear over the squad channel, though she imagined she could hear a twinge of anger behind his commanders tone. "Kally, you are on point for the basement assault."

"Confirmed." She responded as she booted the front door open and stepped into the corridor over the slumping, headless corpse. She was a little surprised that Marc had gone for a cold blood killing, but then again. . . She gestured to Marc to take the right hand see through doors as she stacked up next to the door on the left. She had the suspicion that someone was moving on the other side. Her old hiver senses. A vibration in the floorboards, a subtle shift in the air.

"You saw the tattoo. . ." Marc began as Josiah rounded the corner behind his riot shield. Before he could finish, the door flung open and the person she had sensed stepped through the threshold, holding a PDF autogun. Kally lashed out with her boot into his knee from the side of the door, and heard a satisfying crunch as he stumbled and his face twisted in surprise and pain. Before he could recover and bring the autogun round on either of them, Kally had slammed the stun portion of her swords guard into his gut, dropping him to the floor twitching and unconscious.

"One prisoner near the entrance" Kally calmly reported as she leaned round the lintel and swept her laspistol over the room beyond. Clear. She bent down and policed the weapon, cutting it in half with the energised edge of her sabre just forward of the trigger guard.

[Cfavano]

Outside by the back entrance, the team waited. Josiah had his shock maul in his weapon hand, and when he heard the gunshot, he swung it with all of his strength at the door handle. The wood splintered under the force of the impact, and with a crunch, it was breached. After that, he brought his shield to bear and quickly swapped his maul for his bolt pistol. He made sure to watch his corners as he made his way forward, having taken point for his team mates. He moved like a well-oiled machine, obviously used to doing things like this, his Arbites training and experience taking over.

They went through several rooms, empty and deserted, before meeting up with the rest of the team. "The back rooms were clear, deserted even." He said, as he shifted to cover the door the room the crazed gunman came from after kally took him down.

[Azazeal849]

"Anyone down there's going to know we're coming." Kelly warned as she ducked into the flat and stooped to cuff the unconscious man on the floor. Gavin was close behind her, bionic legs grinding.

"Two in the kitchen." Crenshaw reported over the vox as the sounds of a brief struggle filtered through the walls.

Marc frowned as he craned his head round the doorframe and peered through the glass interior door into the seemingly empty room beyond. "Ella counted three not that long ago."

He nodded to Solvan before shouldering open the door.

[PaintSerf]

Major Crenshaw broke from the cover of a shrouded bundle of lumber, and kept his now insignia-less suppression to the fore and squared to the side door. Mindful of over-penetrating the plasterboard interior with other friendlies breaching, Crenshaw holstered his bolt pistol and opted for his maul as he closed in on the library. He thumbed the activation rune and cranked the maul’s power moments before he bashed open the handle, pulverizing the locked knob and splintering the door almost in half. Crenshaw heard alarmed shouts as he shouldered his way through and brought his shield to bear.

"Two in the kitchen." Crenshaw reported over the vox, calm as can be as his critical hazel eyes rapidly assessed the situation. The heretics had evidently been tasked with meal preparation, at least before the gunfire caught them by surprise and occupied their attention. They were entirely unprepared for the kitchen door’s sudden and violent explosion inwards, and they reacted accordingly with terrified panic.

One of the cultists, a somewhat paunchy middle-aged man with a stylishly curled moustache, yelped like a scaled feline and wildly swung at Crenshaw with the weapon in his hand. His colleague, a fit younger man with a distinctly less impressive moustache, shrieked in agony as he was caught by most of the boiling soup stock. He upended the kitchen table as he collapsed to the floor and began writhing as he tried to clutch at his scalded back. What little found its correct target splashed off the slab of Crenshaw’s shield as he bulled his way towards the would-be aggressor, who screamed incoherently as he lashed out with the now empty pot while desperately trying to back away towards the exit.

“Mediocre.” Crenshaw opined as the cookware bounced off the ceremite with a dull thunk. He retaliated in kind with the suppression shield.

There was a crunch of bone and a muffled shout of pain that turned into a keening wail as Crenshaw triggered the strike plate. He kept the drive up and smashed the seizing man into the primer-coated plasterboard, which caved in underneath the force until Crenshaw deactivated the shock mechanism and stepped back. The cultist remained propped up momentarily by the ruined section of the wall, shaking as the raw voltage wracked his body, before he started to fall forward. Crenshaw violently smashed the man to his knees with a blow to the abdomen with the shield’s reinforced edge, and then completely knocked him to the stained checkerboard linoleum floor with blow from his maul’s pommel.

“Subjects are pacified, and one conscious.” Crenshaw reported, remembering Prinzel’s orders as he glanced back to see Sapphira holding the other heretic at gunpoint. The Major reset his shield towards the door leading into the interior, and his tongue flicked across the back of his teeth before he voxed. “I would advise that shields lead the way when we breach the cellar.”


+ + +

Sapphira followed through the door after Crenshaw’s breach and rapidly cleared the threshold, sweeping her shotgun across the small kitchen with practiced efficiency. While the major violently subjugated the active cultist, Sapphira honed in on the one accidentally decommissioned by his fellow. The Sister kept her gun trained on the heretic as advanced towards the sobbing and whimpering man, and as a precaution kicked aside few pieces of loose cutlery that could be lunged for.

“Down! Stay down, and keep your hands in the air where I can see them!” Sapphira ordered in the local Low Gothic, deliberately affecting a rough accent from a foreign trader’s fiefdom. “Now! Do it, now!”

"Ella counted three not that long ago."

“I’m on it.” Sapphira murmured on the team vox, albeit after she lashed out to kick the cultist in his burnt back as a distraction. The man obligingly howled in agony and thrashed around before Sapphira choked and pinned him down with muffled him by pressing the sole of her boot against his throat. The Sister coolly stared down at her prisoner’s pained and watering eyes, her own hard and remorseless, as she slowly increased the pressure until she removed her foot and stepped back.

“I ask and you answer, promptly and honestly, or else I demonstrate on you how surgical I can be with this.” Sapphira explained, with unfeigned sincerity, and pumped the slide for emphasis as she kept the heretic in her sights. “There were three of you in here! Where is the other?!”

[dakkagor]

“I would advise that shields lead the way when we breach the cellar.”

"Well volunteered." the microphone was muffled for a second. "Ella is scanning for our missing target. With three captures we can start being a little more aggressive. Only take prisoners if its low risk, otherwise kill on sight."

Kally stacked up across from Marc and nodded fiercely, grinning. She had missed this.

"Next room looks clear."

[Azazeal849]

“I ask and you answer, promptly and honestly, or else I demonstrate on you how surgical I can be with this.” Sapphira explained, with unfeigned sincerity, and pumped the slide for emphasis as she kept the heretic in her sights. “There were three of you in here! Where is the other?!”

"Alright, alright!" the younger man squealed, looking terrified as he scrambled back to his knees beside the cooking unit, his hands up either side of his head. "He went to take Ryad his dinner, he's..." Mid-sentence, he lunged forward and tried to grab Sapphira's shotgun.


+ + + + + +

"The fourth man's in the records office, ahead of Marc and Kally." Ella whispered, from her kneeling position next to Tomas. Her eyes were screwed shut with the effort of extending her psychic vision bubble. Normally ten or twenty metres was all she could see, and willing the fog beyond to take on corporeal shape was a battle. Luckily the man was a bright yellow pinprick against the dull translucence of the walls and furniture. The psychic feedback howling around the house was an unwelcome drain on her concentration, and she gritted her teeth against the bursts of anger and shock and other extreme emotions that were now swirling around the building. She could taste blood and metal and gunpowder as a phantom sensation on her tongue.

"Tell them to be careful." she added as she watched Marc's bright spectre and Kally's painful black vortex barge through the grey haze of the adjoining room and pivot to check their corners. "He just pulled a pistol from a drawer. I think he heard them. He's taking cover between the filing cabinets, third on the right."

[dakkagor]

Tomas nodded gravely. With Ella scouting a lot of the dangerous variables in storming a building disappeared. He would make sure to thank her for her efforts in the debrief.

"Marc, Kally, next room, on your right, one armed assailant in cover, third filing cabinet. Target is alert. Be careful."

+++++

"That's got to be Ella talking" Kally smiled as she and Marc moved up to the next door.

Marc nodded, and gestured for Kally to get the door. She pushed it open and ducked back behind the wall, and was rewarded with a hail of low velocity autogun shells that tore the flakboard door to shreds and puffed plaster dust into the room.

"Ripper clip" Kally muttered before returning fire, laying down a hail of las shots that blasted craters in the plaster walls inside and scored burns in the cabinets and desk as Marc carefully lined up his shot. Three heavy rounds later and the target fell from behind his cover dead, his chest ripped apart.

"Got him." She leaned back round the doorframe and scanned the room. "Not too much damage to the furnishings either."

[Cfavano]

Josiah moved up with Crenshaw, and holstered his pistol before he took out a choke grenade. "Crenshaw, I have a plan. Before we go down, we toss in a few chokes to loosen 'em up, then advance with our shields locked, forming a moving wall, and then bash a path for the rest of the team." Josiah said, fixing his helmet-mounted rebreather system, the helmet sealing with a hermetic hiss.

He advanced to the door, taking the standard Arbites Breaching position, holding his 'nade ready. "Let's give them a breath of fresh air," he said, and if they could see his face, he'd have been grinning.

[Atrum Daemon]

Vizkop brought up the rear behind Crenshaw and Sapphira, sweeping into the kitchen revolver in hand. He had brought his rifle, which rested in a rig on his back, more out of habit than out of need. He gave a quick look to the man Crenshaw had knocked out before focusing his attention to Sapphira and the young man she was questioning. In an instant, he saw the cultist's intention. The tensing of the muscles, the slight flicking of his eyes to the shotgun the Sister held. He sprang into action a half-second before the cultist and got to his mark just in time. He caught the cultist in the chest with a boot and slammed him to the floor before introducing the kid's nose to the barrel of his gun. “Such a disobedient child,” the assassin said softly to the youth, “I will remove one of your feet in a very unpleasant manner if you try again. Now answer her question properly. Be a good boy.”

His thumb lovingly pulled back the hammer on the revolver so the cultist could hear every click of every mechanism.

[Azazeal849]

"Let's give them a breath of fresh air." Josiah said, and if they could see his face, he'd have been grinning.

Crenshaw placed his own shield against the door to bolster the protection offered by the flimsy wood, and pulled it open with his free hand. Josiah thrust his tower shield into the gap, and almost immediately felt a jarring impact as a hail of solid slugs battered into the metal. Looking through the armourglass window he saw a stairwell leading down, the walls and steps covered with hexagrammic symbols that seemed to have been carefully stencilled in silver paint. Two hunched figures were hugging the walls at the lower landing, their faces masked by balaclavas. Ejected shell casings pinging off the floor added a counterpoint to the bullets sawing from their short-stock assault rifles.


+ + + + + +

His thumb lovingly pulled back the hammer on the revolver so the cultist could hear every click of the mechanism.

The would-be hero looked like he was about to spit more defiance, until a series of sharp gunshots sounded through the nearby walls.

"Got him." they heard Kally say over the vox, her voice rendered tinny by the jamming. "Not much damage to the furnishings either."

"Fourth man down." Marc added a moment later. "Ground floor's clear."

"What the frak do you...!" Vizkop's prisoner began to shout, only to be interrupted by the rapid thwak-thwak-thwak of a rotating wing aircraft suddenly roaring into position outside.


+ + + + + +

"What in the warp?" sister Pari hissed under her breath as she swung her magnoculars round and saw a black talon-shape swoop down towards the library. It heeled over and came to a hovering stop above the courtyard, thunder-loud, searchlight switching left and right. Pari recognised it as one of the Cadian pattern ornithopters that had been freshly imported by the Marioch PDF.

"Overwatch to team!" she reported, clawing for her vox headset, "Be advised, be advised! PDF 'thopter over your station!"

A series of rappel lines spooled down from the flanks of the ornithopter, and figures started dropping like black metal beads down the ropes. The figures were men in camo-darkened carapace armour, and they brought their lasguns up fluidly as they landed. Two dropped to their knees as they heard the gunshots ringing from inside the building, and another started snapping hand signals.

"Hell of a fokkin' coincidence." Vincent snarled at Tomas, swinging his autocannon round on its bipod to point down towards the courtyard. "What's the call, boss?"

[dakkagor]

Ella let out a shuddering breath as she reeled her mind back into her own body, confining the dim sphere of her warp-sight once again to the room around her. The newcomers were angry torches against the aching red of the death-enveloped building. Their wills were iron-hard and razor-sharp.

"I can't tell if they're here for us or the cultists." she said quickly, her blind eyes opening wide as she turned towards Tomas, "But they mean business."

One of the soldiers had his hand to his ear, as if voxing for instructions. Others were bringing forward grenade launchers and breaching shotguns.

He nodded, biting his thumb as his mind tore through his plans and options. Battlefield logic. The choice between bad and worse. Tomas had, as he saw it, three courses of action.

Option 1: Open fire on the PDF troopers, eliminate them, get what they came for and then relocate to a secure location.

Option 2: Retreat, likely under fire, with what ever prisoners and intel the team could gather up in the next 30 seconds.

Option 3: Break cover and try and get the situation under control using their rosettes and writs. Solvan had one on the ground, and he had one up here. They could also use Theodosia to strong arm, potentially.

Option 3 was largely a wash, but still the best initial course of action if Theodosia was successful. As Vince had pointed out, it was a hell of a coincidence that less than five minutes after their assault, the heretics had gunship support. However Theodosia could break cover and provide some level of disruption, perhaps.

The one thing he was not going to do was back out this close to getting what they needed to find their quarry. If this was a trap, then his team would fight their way out of it, he had faith in that.

Heh. His Team.

"Gavin, jam the copters' comms, now." He pulled his rifle up to his shoulder and sighted down on the officer issuing orders. "Theodosia, be a dear and try and get them to back down. Kally, Marc, join Jo and Crenshaw and get that basement cleared now."

He tracked the officer as more men deployed, and gritted his teeth.

"Everyone else, prepare to repel an assault and keep Gavin covered. Vizkop, if we can't get them to back down kill the copters engines. At that point, Vince, use the autocannon." He turned the mike off and turned to Sister Pari.

"Pack it up, full raze. We are not going to stick around here."

[Azazeal849]

One of the soldiers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlpE6oqvVhI) had his hand to his ear, as if voxing for instructions. Others were bringing forward grenade launchers and breaching shotguns.

"Gavin, jam the copters' comms, now." Tomas pulled his rifle up to his shoulder and sighted down on the officer issuing orders.

"I've got you covered." Kelly assured the machine empath, pulling her laspistol from its hip holster.

"Kally, Marc, join Jo and Crenshaw and get that basement cleared now."

"Aye sir." Marc voxed back as he straightened from the dead cultist he was policing. The slain man's wrist bore the same eye device as the gatekeeper but he didn't look old - late twenties at most. The heavy sidearm he had dropped went into Marc's empty shoulder holster as the agent offered Kally an affirmative nod.

Back in the entrance hall, the fire from the two cultists at the bottom of the stairwell slackened as Josiah rolled a hissing CS canister down the stairs. One of the men tried to pick the cylinder up, but coughed and fell back instead. The other man fired off a last burst that raked the top edge of Josiah's shield, before crabbing left and barging through a set of double doors.

"Stairwell clear!"

"Goggles on." Crenshaw warned Marc and Kally curtly as they reappeared. The two agent scrambled for their airtight night-vis, relying on the filtration plugs in their noses to ward off the worst of the lachrymator chemicals. Crenshaw and Josiah were already advancing down the stairs.

"We'll watch your backs." Glabrio said, motioning to himself and Solvan.

Marc looked down the corridor towards the main door. "Not from here. It's too exposed - anyone coming in the front door will have a clean sweep of the hallway."


+ + + + + +

Vizkop could draw one potential clue from the situation - from their prisoner's baffled reaction, he had not been expecting the PDF.

“Gavin!” the tech-assassin hissed into the vox. “Meet me near the kitchen. We have an interloping air support vehicle to deal with.”

The 'thoptor had to be dealt with as quickly as possible. Vizkop left the would-be hero in Sapphira's care, uncocking the hammer on his revolver and pulling out his modified datapad. He keyed it on and began cycling through his insurgency programs. He needed Gavin's special gifts in order to disrupt the PDF vox line while he invaded the system and subdued the machine spirit within. He could invade through the vox line the 'thoptor had with the troops on the ground and establish his own ghost link after the vox was cut. If he could force the vehicle into a landing and keep it grounded, he could even the odds a bit.


+ + + + + +

Tomas saw Vizkop's work as a series of involuntary twitches from the PDF troopers, flinching as the tell-tale feedback of his attack code squealed through their vox beads. He saw the man in his sights exchange slashing hand gestures with his colleagues. Then he looked up at the 'thopter as the flyer's engines abruptly changed pitch. Tomas could imagine the pilot's vox-spat curse as a look of dawning horror crossed the face in his scope. Very clearly, he heard the soldier shout "Cover!"

One of his hair-trigger soldiers opened fire on reflex, a bright beam of las searing through the kitchen window a split-second before the glass shattered into pieces. A sharp thud followed, a moment before Vincent snatched at the trigger of his autocannon and raked a killing arc across the courtyard. The man with the grenade launcher spun backwards, leaving a mist of red in his wake as his companions scattered.

In the kitchen, Vizkop's augmented senses tagged the blurring grenade and slowed it to an almost beautiful slow-motion tumble as it came spinning in through the broken window.

Tomas could hear screams from the apartments below his. One of the PDF was pointing up at the hab block, shouting to his companions as they ran for the cover afforded by the rear side of the library. The thopter was yawing in the air, slowly losing height. Its double tailplane demolished part of the construction fence as it crunched to an inelegant rest on the tarmac, power-cut rotors still whickering like an angry hornet. This was counterpointed by a violent sting of light a moment later when the barrel of a multi-las protruded from the side door and sprayed a fan of crimson beams up the side of the hab block.


+ + + + + +

Josiah and Crenshaw took point with shields locked together, storming down the stairs into the thick white smoke that had been left by the gas grenade. Marc and Kally followed a step behind them, weapons levelled. The gas cloud began to prickle and burn on Josiah's exposed skin, but his gas mask kept his breathing level and his eyes clear.

As he reached the landing, leading with his shield, he saw that the glass panes of the double doors to his right had been taped over, the black plastic carefully stencilled with more warding hexagrams. As he pivoted towards the door, it exploded with holes as someone on the other side let rip on full auto. Splinters pinged off Josiah's shield and he felt a sharp pain in his upper arm as his shoulder pad cracked under a bullet impact. Beside him he heard Crenshaw stumble back a step and curse under his breath.

[kardar233]

Theodosia reclined in the apartment Tomas and the Famulous sister had commandeered for the operation, her feet resting up on the low table in the centre of the main room as she watched Tomas work the vox and sipped amasec from a small flask. She'd insisted that she be allowed to at least observe the team's operation and had been slightly surprised that Tomas acquiesced.

In deference to the undercover nature of the operation she had downgraded her choice of wardrobe from her favourite dazzling red dress to a somewhat more demure number in black, which managed to make her slightly less conspicuous. Slightly. Her Genofonia semi-compact sidearm had disappeared into the dress's folds as they deployed.

She lounged for a while, listening to Tomas' vox and noting the surprisingly small amount of mayhem the team was stirring up. The Famulous sister, Pari, didn't seem to be in any mood for a chat, so Theodosia just observed.

Then the sound came, rhythmic wingbeats that left the windows shuddering, and Sister Pari rushed to the window. Theodosia drained her flask and made it to the vantage point just as PDF troops started dropping out of the ornithopter, and cursed silently. You were surprised at the lack of mayhem, Dos, and so you invoked all kinds of mayhem. Police your internal monologue better.

She turned to the captain. "Tomas, I can-" "Theodosia, be a dear and try and get them to back down." She grinned for a moment. "Right on."

Reading the PDF's vox code from Tomas' monitor, she punched it into her own hand vox and turned back into the living room, engaging it just as Vizkop's feedback squeal ended. "Stand the fuck down right now!" She cut over the squad vox with a tone of unquestionable command and her voice cracked like a whip. "This is the Rogue Trader Theodosia Prince and those are my personal armsmen you're firing on. Stand down right now or you'll be in shit so deep you won't see the sun for the rest of your life!"

[Thrannix]

Marc looked down the corridor towards the main door. "Not from here. It's too exposed - anyone coming in the front door will have a clean sweep of the hallway."

Solvan shrugged and followed the rest of the group. "The quicker we clean up the basement the less time we have a back to keep a look out for."

He had kept himself at the back of the action until now, mainly because he was notoriously lame at getting live captives and more prone to leave enemies generously spread over a wide area in messy chunks. So he had swallowed all his righteous indignation until now. Emperor damn him if he left without sending a couple of this human wastes to their final judgment.

Josiah felt a sharp pain in his upper arm as his shoulder pad cracked from a ricochet, and beside him he heard Crenshaw stumble back a step and curse under his breath.

"Excuse me. Elderly people first." Solvan grumbled stepping to the front and towards the door, badly aimed shots flaring harmlessly off the aura of his rosarius as he stepped out of the cover from his teammates' shields.

And forth onto the darkness we shall bring Your light. Let evil wither and burn under its radiance.

He slammed his thunderhammer against the center of the double doors. After being already weakened by the shooting the doors shattered into a hail of shrapnel that sent the heretics inside ducking for cover for a few precious seconds. One of them, to slow to react, was caught by a deformed doorknob right in the eye, the unexpected projectile went out of the back of the heretic's skull with a splash of gore and bone pieces.

The priest stepped into the room and immediately turned left and caught another enemy as he tried to bring his weapon to bear, his hammer glancing the enemy's right shoulder and crushing it into its owner's thorax who dropped with a wet gurgle.

A third enemy, his gun clicking empty before being dropped, jumped onto Solvan’s back grabbing his thunderhammer's handle and wrestling it against the priest's neck choking him. The man was big and strong, the bishop struggled to get free as both fell to the ground behind a cabinet, his opponent pressing his knee against the Solvan's back to keep him pinned. The handle closed his traquea shut and his vision began blurring.

Before Solvan could fall unconscious he manage to unholster his blessed autopistol and fired it over his shoulder five times, leaving him almost deaf from his right ear and burning wounds on his neck and jaw from the proximity of the shot. The heretic screamed and the priest felt the pressure of the handle being released.

He coughed and breathed heavily turning to confirm the heretic was dead, with two gunshots to the neck and one to the cheek. He spat blood on the corpse and stood up rubbing his neck that was starting to bruise.

Good thing Tomas isn't here, he thought smiling, getting jumped by this scum like a bloody rookie and almost getting strangled with my own weapon, disgraceful, he would never let me live it down.

[Cfavano]

Josiah cursed as the bullet hit him, yet he continued. He wasn't injured, and he had felt worse. As Solvan paved the way, he and Crenshaw secured the room. Josiah called out to Crenshaw. "Secure a door." Josiah went up to a door, kicked it down, and tossed another choke into it, before advancing behind his shield with his pistol. He opened fire on any silhouettes he didn't recognize. He heard the thumping of the ornithopter's blades, and only hoped that his support were handling it while he was down here.

[PaintSerf]

"Well volunteered. Ella is scanning for our missing target. With three captures we can start being a little more aggressive. Only take prisoners if its low risk, otherwise kill on sight."

“Gladly.” Crenshaw confirmed as he heard the brief commotion behind him, and saw the conscious heretic was in capable hands of Sapphira and Vizkop. He rolled his shoulders and advanced to the basement door, and appropriated the favorable position to the left. From there Crenshaw knew that he could initiate the breach, control the push pace, and retain use his dominant hand in combat. Whether or not that disadvantaged Josiah hardly mattered to him so long as that other shield remained moving.

"Crenshaw, I have a plan. Before we go down, we toss in a few chokes to loosen 'em up, then advance with our shields locked, forming a moving wall, and then bash a path for the rest of the team."

“Uh-huh.” He grunted, and graced Josiah with a deadpan aside glance. Major Crenshaw was a well-seasoned veteran, and he hardly needed the other shield bearer’s tedious and irrelevant reminder of basic breaching technique. It was hardly the moment to upbraid Josiah, but Crenshaw would make certain that it would come later.

"Let's give them a breath of fresh air.”

So Alia’s newest acquisition was that sort of Arbitrator. How fantastic. Crenshaw merely rolled his eyes as he killed the maul’s power field and mag-locked it against the inside of his shield. He braced the ceramite slab against the basement door as quickly confirmed the condition of his goggles and filtration plugs. Once his environmental protection was secured, Crenshaw caught Josiah’s attention and started down a hand count before prying open the door to a rattling welcome of automatic fire.

"Kally, Marc, join Jo and Crenshaw and get that basement cleared now."

"Goggles on." Crenshaw warned Marc and Kally curtly as they reappeared.

The major spared either penitent another moment’s thought, as he knew that they knew their business. Instead he pushed his shield against Josiah’s to set the advance in motion. He detached the maul and powered it back into the lethal range as the gunfire tapered off. No sooner were they advancing down the corridor when another torrent of bullets shredded the door and clattered into the shield wall.

“Shit!” Crenshaw hissed under his breath as he was knocked back a pace by the sledgehammer blow. Merely keeping his footing forced Crenshaw to fall out of sync with Josiah and break the shield wall. The major repeated the curse as Solvan slipped through the gap and smashed open the door with his thunder hammer as his rosarius crackled from deflecting otherwise potentially fatal shots. Crenshaw shifted to keep the two penitents behind the bulk of his shield while they advanced in the priest’s wake.

Crenshaw barged open the burst remnants of the door with his shield, as he continued to keep Kally and Marc relatively covered as they cleared the threshold. Once they had cleared the immediate vicinity, Crenshaw closed the distance to Solvan. The old priest had evidently had a life or death moment in those few seconds between knocking his way through the door and the other’s arrival. Crenshaw once again dialed back the power as he locked the maul away in favor of detaching his bolt pistol.

“I would expect such heroic behavior from the Arbitrator, Belannor.” Crenshaw mildly commented as he stood sentinel in-front of Solvan as the old priest regained his feet.

It was impossible for Crenshaw not to notice the sheer quantity and quality of the basement’s hexagrams. His eyes were also drawn warily to the few warded doors which were also padlocked shut, and that made Crenshaw frown contemplatively. In his personal experience, what was discovered behind locked and warded doors was seldom either safe or wholesome.

"Secure a door." Josiah went up to a door, kicked it down, and tossed another choke into it, before advancing behind his shield with his pistol. Crenshaw’s prosthetic teeth clacked faintly at the presumptive order as he maintained cover for the breach team, his bolt pistol’s predatory green targeter swepting across the corridor.

“There it is.” Crenshaw grunted, off vox and as much to himself as Solvan, before he tersely countered. “Maintain vox discipline and hold on breaching the padlocked doors. They will keep until we are cleared down here and Kally or I am present.”

[Atrum Daemon]

In the kitchen, Vizkop's augmented senses tagged the blurring grenade and slowed it to an almost beautiful slow-motion tumble as it came spinning in through the broken window.

With his senses already overclocked to interface with the dataslate, Vizkop perceived the launcher grenade tumbling almost serenely through the air. He was also able to spot the delay timer and his mood brightened. He could save that. With his mind overclocked, he did the same to his limbs as secondary actuators kicked in and began spinning. He dented the floor as he kicked off into the air moments after the round passed through the window, spinning as he went. The spinning would seem silly to anyone who did not know how Vizkop operated, did not know that he hardly ever did anything out of hand. The spinning was a calculated part of his plan, absolutely needed to remove the explosive.

He span once, twice, snatched the grenade from the air, and as he faced the ceiling for the third time sent the grenade firing back out of the window. He promptly crashed into the floor as his overclocked brain and limbs returned to normal. He felt the toll immediately, breathing hard as steam rose from his helmet thanks to the heat generation.

[PaintSerf]

Gavin followed into the library’s main entrance after Marc and Kally, Kelly Black alongside him. The pysker had drawn his laspistol as soon as the gunfire started, and he kept it cradled at the ready. The practiced weapon familiarity may have appeared out of place, at least to those unfamiliar with his service history with Task Force Carbon and AAT. However neither were door-breachers by any stretch of the imagination, so they held back until the all clear was sounded.

"Fourth man down." Marc added a moment later. "Ground floor's clear."

“I will disable the jammer.” Gavin advised as he holstered his pistol, and idly scratched his neck where the absent null collar normally rested. His voice was hollowed and worn out, the damage done on Saros only exacerbated by his time within the Inquisition’s cells. At least he’d begun to regain weight and rebuild muscle mass, albeit not enough to yet wear his recovered suit of old IST carapace.

With a rattling exhale tinged by weariness, Gavin cast out with mind and was rewarded almost immediately with the grating static melody of the jammer. It was active and within close proximity, hidden away within a cabinet drawer in the file room. The psyker thumped over to the device’s hidden location, which required him to step over the dead cultist. He stood unaware and unconcerned within the corpse’s expanding blood pool as he and pried open the door and regarded the disruption device.

Gavin mentally shushed as he narrowed his focus down onto it and rested a hand, which slowly closed around the jammer like a vice, as he began to smother the device’s machine spirit. Its discordant techno-wailing was diminished by choked out protests that went unheeded. However intent his focus on trying to nullify the counter-measure’s existence, even Gavin’s narrowed band of psychic potential could not miss the sudden and belligerent arrival of the ‘thopter’s predatory avian war-machine spirit.

Gavin kept the jammer stifled under psychic pressure as he divided his attention, so as to hear how they were going to react to this unexpected and unwelcome development. The psyker has his suspicions as to what role would be expected of him, and the device would be best served un-nullified. He was not at all surprised when Tomas Prinzel confirmed his suspicions with the task assigned to him.

""Gavin, jam the copters' comms, now."

"I've got you covered." Kelly assured the machine empath, pulling her laspistol from its hip holster.

“I know, Kelly Black.” Gavin quietly replied with a note of reciprocal assurance, strained as it was by his psychic concentration. He knew that she sincerely meant what she said in a positive way, and he made the effort for her to know that he knew. “There is nobody I would rather usurp a vox with.”

“Gavin!” the tech-assassin hissed into the vox. “Meet me near the kitchen. We have an interloping air support vehicle to deal with.”

“We are on our way.” Gavin breathed. He clenched both eyes shut and smacked his palm against the jammer, momentarily dazing the already tormented machine spirit. He reached into the cabinet and recovered the jammer. Ice had rimed around the boxy device as its signal lights continued to flash with distress under his continued psychic pressure. “Guide me, Kelly. Please.”

Gavin barely felt the woman’s supporting arm as she ushered him towards the kitchen, but he remembered how steady she’d been on Saros and Hercynia before that. He trusted her to protect him, even if that was from himself. Gavin sent the majority of his psychic potential soaring from the library towards the looming ‘thopter, instinctively honing in on the vehicle’s vox apparatus. His psychic presence slipped into and curled around the machine’s communications sub-system, and with his attention divided Gavin was forced to tune out the PDF soldiers' clipped transmissions.

Distantly he heard Kelly’s voice and felt a squeeze on his arm, and trusting that they were there he slumped down onto his artificial knees. The psyker deposited the device on the ground and kept it pinned with an open palm. Gavin took a deep breath as his is other hand shot out towards the ‘thoptor as if in a mirrored image. With a conscious exertion of will the psyker brought the two oppositional machine spirits towards one another. When both hands interlaced, Gavin exhaled deeply and snapped his eyes open as he fled the machine war he’d instigated.

“The soldiers will not be heard.” Gavin assured through the vox, and disengaged it before speaking aloud – oblivious to anyone else in the kitchen. “They are fortunate not to be alone with their screams.”

---

"Alright, alright!" the younger man squealed, looking terrified as he scrambled back to his knees beside the cooking unit, his hands up either side of his head. "He went to take Ryad his dinner, he's..." Mid-sentence, he lunged forward and tried to grab Sapphira's shotgun.

Sapphira took step towards the cultist as she reflexively swinging her shotgun around, ready to smash the shoulder stock into the man as he charged. No sooner had she started to pendulum the stock forward, Sapphira abruptly arrested her motion as Vizkop darted in from her peripherals put the would-be hero down with a boot to the chest. The Sister merely cocked her head to the side as she considered the Secutor, although she was hardly about to make a precious complaint about his intervention.

We’re on the same team, and lone wolves get killed. Sapphira softly exhaled and relaxed her tensed pose, subconsciously thumbing the aquila on her palm as she made a quick benediction. Hail to the God-Emperor, Javid. The Sister quickly refocused on the mission as she walked up next to the Secutor and loomed down impassively at their captive prey.

“Such a disobedient child,” the assassin said softly to the youth, “I will remove one of your feet in a very unpleasant manner if you try again. Now answer her question properly. Be a good boy.”

“You decide how much you’d like to suffer before you give us what we want.” Sapphira calmly stated, and then joined Vizkop as she pressed a boot down to firmly pin one of the cultist’s outstretched arms.

"What the frak do you...!" Vizkop's prisoner began to shout, only to be interrupted by the rapid thwak-thwak-thwak of a rotating wing aircraft suddenly roaring into position outside.

"Overwatch to team! Be advised, be advised! PDF 'thopter over your station!"

Sapphira suppressed her sigh of disappointment and frustration as she stared down at their lucid captive, who seemed to be as surprised as they were by the PDF’s unexpected arrival. Although the Sister knew that hardly was any proof, as in her experience heretics were often blindly ignorant in many ways beyond their spiritual degeneracy. Regardless of why ‘thopter appeared, or who sent the PDF, it was about to terminate the field interrogation before it properly began. She knew she would need to act quickly.

“Where is the woman that you abducted?” Sapphira sharply asked, and she trained her weapon on the captive’s head as Vizkop moved away.

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” The cultist desperately tried to plead. “Look, lady, I’m just-”

"Everyone else, prepare to repel an assault and keep Gavin covered. Vizkop, if we can't get them to back down kill the copters engines. At that point, Vince, use the autocannon."

“About to tell me what you know, or else I’ll show you how serious I am when I give my word. Hand first.” The Sister levelly told the cultist. To prove her point, and attempt to expedite an answer, Sapphira lowered the shotgun’s barrel and rested it lightly against the man’s fingers on his pinned hand.

“He told us to, he told us to!" The man almost whined with alarm, and Sapphira was quite certain of whom this he truly was. However the cultist’s validation of that suspicion would be appreciated.

“And where is he?” She tersely prompted. He only grimaced and whimpered in distress, which made her lean on her shotgun. The man yelped in pain as his fingers were crushed, but did not answer. Sapphira see the terrified expression on his face, and she was certain that this heretical wretch considered her the least of his worries. He feared the Blue Devil more, at least for the moment.

Sapphira knew she did not have the time to break the heretic now, and nor did she want to have him as a wild card in the seemingly inevitable fight with the PDF. She sighed as she shifted the shotgun to rest against the cultist’s throat. With one hand Sapphira rifled through a hip pouch as she crouched down over the man. The Sister produced a disposable kalma injector and unkindly thumped it into his arm.

“We’ll continue this conversation later, heretic.” Sapphira hissed as she depressed the needle, and watched as the terror in his eyes glazed over into serene numbness. With the cultist rendered docile, the Sister stepped back and then roughly goaded the captive out of sight from the breached door behind a refrigeration unit, its scant cover better than most of the kitchen’s limited options.

Sappphira darted back towards her fighting position of choice; an old and robustly built industrial mixer. She exchanged a brisk and passing nod with Kelly as she hustled in with Gavin on her arm. The psyker clearly in the middle of a psychic exertion, and Vizkop was also likewise engrossed with his data-pad. The Sister had faith that both men would find a way to handle the unanticipated aerial threat, and she hunched into cover with her weapon trained on the door to keep them covered while they worked.

“They are fortunate not to be alone with their screams.” She glanced over to share a look with Kelly, who was crouched down next to Gavin. The moment quickly passed as Vizkop’s own success was announced by the distressed note in the ‘thoptor’s engine and the gunfire started outside.

Sapphira’s eyes widened as the window blew in and she recognized the muffled note of a launcher. She reflexively hunched low into her ad hoc cover, but it was all for not. No sooner had Sapphira blinked then Vizkop crashed seemingly inexplicably to the floor. There was an explosion outside, and the Sister was rather certain she had not imagined the Secutor spinning through the air. However it had all happened so quickly that she could not be completely certain of anything, other than now was absolutely not the time to process what she may or may not have seen.

“Overwatch, where are the PDF going to breach first?” The Sister voxed as she re-levelled her shotgun at the broken kitchen door, her eyes fixed on it as she called out. “Secutor Vizkop, what’s your status?”

---

Merle remained slumped and shacked in his chair by the door as the raid team moved in on the library, broodingly sullen and silently bored as his manacled and tattooed hands fidgeted. From right to left underneath Merle’s knuckles was boldly spelled in faded ink ‘Gene Pure’. It was an old testament to his hate fueled youth before he diversified his outlets for aggression. The fingers on his right hand tapped a slow and steady rhythm on his knee. The fingers on his left kept compulsively curling, dragging along the rough palm into a fist, before they released and repeated.

With his obligation of providing what information he could was done, Merle occupied his time by watching the others in the room from his well-positioned chair. Occasionally the convict would stare covetously at Theodosia’s flask, and his gaze only intensified when she raised it to her lips and drank. However most of Merle’s unsavory attention was focused on Sister Mahin. The Sister had taken responsibility to guarding him and covering the apartment door with her laspistol. The convict’s lips curled appreciatively as his cruel blue eyes meandered over the Sororita, and it was clear that Merle’s approval was not because of her calling as a woman of faith or as warrior of the Imperium.

Once the raid was launched, and the gunfire started, Merle leaned forward with elbows on knees as he strained to hear the vox. The convict’s bruised and weathered face scrunched into a feral grin as he listened to the unfolding situation down below. Merle chuckled darkly with each complication no matter how promptly the operatives resolved them. He stopped once his ears picked up the rapid thwak-thwak-thwak of a rotating wing aircraft as it came in fast and low over the apartment building, and then began to howl with laughter.

"Overwatch to team! Be advised, be advised! PDF 'thopter over your station!"

“Well, ain’t this some shit predicament we’ve gone and stepped into? I’m thinkin’ this cunnin’ plan y’all had is well and truly fucked. Now as for how fucked,” Merle shot a nasty grin at Mahin. “I’d say almost as much as your missin’ girly-friend’s been gettin’, cutie.”

Mahin reacted as he expected, but he vastly underestimated how fast the woman was as she closed the distance between them. Merle grunted as his reality became a blinding white flash of pain as she efficiently worked him over with her pistol; correcting his presumptions about her strength. The Sister doubled him over with a smash to the temple, and then floored him on the reverse with a pistol whip. Merle tried to speak as he stared dazedly up at Mahin before she took his breath away, with a decisive kick to the abdomen. That kept him down and silent while Tomas called the play.

"Everyone else, prepare to repel an assault and keep Gavin covered. Vizkop, if we can't get them to back down kill the copters engines. At that point, Vince, use the autocannon."

“Hey, Ser Prick!” Merle hoarsely shouted at Tomas as he struggled to sit up straight, his efforts hobbled by Mahin’s correction and his fetters. “How’s about cuttin’ me loose, huh?” The convict rattled his manacles for emphasis. Despite the most recent well-earned beating, a bloodied grin was spread wide on Merle’s face. “Y’all are gonna need all the killers you got for sortin’ out these fuckers, and if I ain’t nothin’ else I’m that!”

“You’re also condemned heretic whose soul will be tormented by daemons for eternity, wretch.” Mahin spat contemptuously as she dutifully traced the aquila points with her free hand. The Sister unwaveringly kept Merle in her pistol’s sights with the other.

“So I keep gettin’ told.” Merle growled lowly through clenched and bared teeth, the edge of tension unmistakable. There was genuinely serious expression of doubt that flickered on his face, which lingered momentarily before Merle hitched up a broken and cheerful grin as he stared at Tomas.

“Look, you ain’t really got a fuckin’ choice here. Dawdlin’ is only makin’ it likelier that someone y’all actually give a shit about buys it.” Almost as if to emphasize his point, retaliatory fire from the PDF ‘thopter smacked into the apartment floors below them. The condemned man laughed along with the screams as he broke into a sing-song routine. “Tick, tock, tick, tock! Someone’s on the death clock!”

Merle chuckled as his gaze shifted to Nyl, and his grin only widened as he hollered to be heard over the autocannon. “Hey, Vinny, who’d you like to see get zotted first? I’m bettin’ you like to see soulless wonder, the righteous and ragin’ old cock, or our naughty, naughty nurse all gettin’ theirs!”

[dakkagor]

+++++

Tomas gritted his teeth as he ducked down from his window perch. Lasbolts blasted into brickwork and the window frame, sending gobbets of molten lead and plastek past him while releasing puffs of vaporised dust. But that wasn't why he was gritting his teeth. He was gritting his teeth so that he didn't respond to Merle's goading. He'd been called much worse things than 'Ser Prick' during his tenure in the guard, and he still held to the belief that no-one swore like a guardsman when their blood was up. But, damn him, Merle knew how to mash peoples buttons for maximum effect.

He reached up and fired his lasgun blind, spraying a fan of ruby bolts into the soldiers below.

“Overwatch, where are the PDF going to breach first?”

"The back door!" He yelled, and fired again.

"Mahin, if Merle says another word or gives you any trouble, gut shoot him!"

+++++

Kally stepped behind Crenshaw and gave his shoulder a tight squeeze. She hoped it conveyed at least some of what she was thinking.

"You're ok, no hits got through." She said as she checked his armour for breaches. "Josie, wait up."

She stepped up to the Arbitrator with a sigh and removed her collar. Instantly the room began to feel muggy and unpleasant as she started to focus on her breathing, a smooth cycle of inward and outward breaths as she put into place the meditative techniques she had learned. Her aura strengthened and she saw Solvan twitch away from her reflexively.

"Now you can start kicking down warded doors."

[Thrannix]

“I would expect such heroic behavior from the Arbitrator, Belannor.” Crenshaw mildly commented as he stood sentinel in-front of Solvan as the old priest regained his feet.

Solvan picked up his warhammer and rested it over his shoulder.

"A little ambitious stunt I admit. But you can't leave all the work to the youngsters.” He said with a smirk. “Otherwise, before you know it, you are left behind at HQ or whatever place they figure is a safe place to leave the old fart to drool."

“That would be an exceptionally undignified end.” Crenshaw agreed as his eyes narrowed on the padlock.

The priest followed Crenshaw's gaze towards the hexagrams on the padlocked doors and made the sign of the Aquila, sharing the Major’s apprehension, his mind hurting just by staring at the twisted markings.

“Maintain vox discipline and hold on breaching the padlocked doors. They will keep until we are cleared down here and Kally or I am present.”

Not tearing his eyes from the hexagrams Solvan took his flask filled with holy water, unscrewed the tap reverently and dipped his index in the liquid as he approached one of the warded doors.He heard Crenshaw audibly clear his throat as he took a step forward.

"Shall I repeat myself louder for you?" The Major asked.

"Don't worry Crenshaw, I'm not opening anything, I'm not that senile." Solvan said licking his lips. "Just testing the quality of the warding on these mystery doors."

His wet finger touched the door a couple of inches above the hexagram and left a drop of holy water trembling on its dry surface while his mouth whispered a prayer of protection.

The bishop stepped back as the liquid trickled down towards the edge of the marking. When it touched it the substance, Solvan wasn't such a fool as to hope it was paint, it boiled and bubbled, rotten fumes escaping towards the ceiling with a sound that could have been a scream.

Solvan gave the Major a look that needed no words to convey his thoughts.

"Kally, whenever your ready." The priest said into the vox.

Kally stepped behind Crenshaw and gave his shoulder a tight squeeze. She hoped it conveyed at least some of what she was thinking.

As she let go of her collar Solvan couldn't help to take a step back, not that it helped much with the nausea, headache and general feeling of sickness. But the effect on the room was clear, the hexagram stopped hissing from the holy water.

"Now you can start kicking down warded doors."

"Gladly." Said Solvan with a grimm look on his face.

Flicking the activation rune of his thunderhammer he spared a glance towards Crenshaw and Kally as he placed himself to the door's right side.

"I smash it open, and you go in with your shields, I come in behind you and hit whatever is still standing." He swallowed the bile rising to his mouth from Kally's Pariah effect and shook his head trying to focus, cold sweat on his forehead.

Crenshaw nodded and the priest swung his hammer into the first padlock, shattering it along with half the door, hexagram included

[Azazeal849]

“Secutor Vizkop, what’s your status?”

“We need to do something about that multi-las in the ‘thopter.” Kelly said anxiously, ducking down from the window.


+ + + + + +

"Where are they?" Vincent grunted to Ella as he picked himself and the autocannon up off the floor. He kept low, not wanting to present the thopter gunner with another target through the smoking ruin of the window.

"Gathered round the rear of the building." Ella replied with a cough, one hand still over her head as she hugged the floor. A scything beam of las had carved a gash through the brickwork over her head, and her robe was showered with plaster and dust. In the lower floors of the hab the shouts had reached the stairwell, as some of the unfortunate inhabitants bolted. Excellent cover to extricate the team, if they could move without being cut up by the multi-las.

“Overwatch, where are the PDF going to breach first?” Sapphira voxed.

"The back door!" Tomas yelled, "Mahin, if Merle says another word or gives you any trouble, gut shoot him!"

He fired again, and this time was answered by a sustained burst from the ‘thopter’s multi-las, which hissed as it demolished the wall. Sister Mahin dropped to the floor, as did Merle, taking the chair he was cuffed to with him.

Vincent cursed and abandoned his attempt to swing his autocannon up to point through a football-sized hole in the brickwork. Tomas threw himself backwards just in time, blinding white lines seared across his vision. One of the threads of sun-hot light went through sister Pari as she crouched by the door, stuffing the last of the vox equipment into one of the kit bags. She let out a soft gasp of surprise and toppled over, clutching at the charred hole in her stomach.


+ + + + + +

Solvan coughed and breathed heavily, turning to confirm the heretic was dead with two gunshots to the neck and one to the cheek. He spat blood on the corpse and stood up, rubbing his neck that was starting to bruise.

"Perhaps I have spoken too soon.” Crenshaw opined, off vox and as much to himself as Solvan, before he tersely countered. “Maintain vox discipline and hold on opening the padlocked doors. They will keep until we are cleared down here and Kally or I am present.”

“Got it.” Marc nodded. By Ella’s count, there might still be a dozen men down here. “We can clear the outside corridors then hit the main rooms from both sides.”

Kally stepped behind Crenshaw and gave his shoulder a tight squeeze. She hoped it conveyed at least some of what she was thinking.

"You're ok, no hits got through." She said as she checked his armour for breaches. "Josie, wait up."

She stepped up to the Arbitrator with a sigh and removed her collar.


+ + + + + +

"Stand the fuck down right now!" Theodosia cut over the squad vox with a tone of unquestionable command, her voice cracking like a whip. "This is the Rogue Trader Theodosia Prince and those are my personal armsmen you're firing on. Stand down right now or you'll be in shit so deep you won't see the sun for the rest of your
life!"

A number of confused queries shot back and forth across the vox, the most discernible of which was "Who the Horus is Theodosia Prince?" followed by a more authoritative voice barking, "Rotate vox, channel 6."

The same voice remained on the line as the others blipped away one after the other. The man's anger was clearly roused, and he was biting down at the end of each word.

"Trader Prince, check your frakking fire. This is a
government-sanctioned counterinsurgency op. If you're not working with
the bastards in that building, then leave now or you and your men will be considered targets!"

"Pilot says the frakking vox on the 'thopter's out!" she heard another voice spit faintly in the background.

“Breach or abort?” another asked sharply.


+ + + + + +

Marc quickly leaned round the corner of the corridor, ducked back, then crabbed across to the opposite wall with Kadath’s pistol held forward in both hands. As he did so he heard running footsteps, and a gangly man in a simple vest and cargo trousers rounded the opposite end of the corridor, a short-barrelled autopistol in his hand. He didn’t even notice Marc at first as he ran for one of the small study rooms that lined the outside of the cramped hallway. He was half-turning towards the agent as Marc’s own pistol barked thrice in quick succession, sending the man tumbling back against the wall. Advancing, Marc paused to swing his gun into the small room the cultist had been running for. The single study desk and chair had been removed from the room, and replaced with a wooden crate that had already been opened. The crate contained neatly stacked flak vests, although they showed signs of being rummaged through, and an arbites-grade suppression shield was propped up against the wall.

“They’re storing supplies down here.” Marc reported into the now-clear vox as he resumed his advance, glancing into the other side rooms as he passed them. Several seemed untouched behind the thin glass strips that windowed the doors, while one was padlocked shut and had been blacked out with tape. It was marked with an anti-psychic hexagram, like the one near the stairwell. As per Crenshaw’s advice, he left it be.

“Watch out for body armour and riot shields.” he added as he turned the next corner. Along the inside wall was a set of glass doors leading into the library proper; along the outside were male and female toilet blocks.

“Okay, I’ve got the back exit covered.”

"Secure a door." Josiah called out as he went up to the corresponding door opposite the front stairwell. He kicked it down and tossed another choke grenade through it, before advancing behind his shield with his pistol. He registered an open plan library space divided by long bookshelves, before las began hissing from the aisles ahead of him and bullets spat from somewhere on his right. They were aiming low, and he grounded his shield to protect his legs, crouching behind it as he swung his pistol right and opened fire on the silhouette he didn't recognise. His arbites bolt pistol fired with a deafening bang-whoosh and the shooter wheeled backwards with a scream, spraying an arc of ruptured flesh into the air as he fell. The lasfire from ahead of him tapered off, and he heard coughing and cursing as the gas grenade took effect in the confined space.

“Back door!” Josiah heard someone shout in heavily-accented Mariochi.

“Forward!” contradicted another, “The only way you’re getting to the stairs is through that motherfrakker!”

A large rectangle loomed through the smoke, and Josiah saw a man with a suppression shield just like his own running straight for him, two half-blinded men with laspistols rushing behind. The man with the shield let out a yell that was part warcry and part scream as he barrelled into Josiah.


+ + + + + +

Flicking the activation rune of his thunder hammer, Solvan spared a glance towards Crenshaw and Kally as he placed himself to the locked door's right side.

"I smash it open, and you go in with your shield, I come in behind you and hit whatever is still standing." He swallowed the bile rising to his mouth from Kally's pariah effect, and shook his head as he tried to focus, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

Crenshaw nodded and the priest swung his hammer into the first padlock, shattering it along with half the door, hexagram included. The tiny study room beyond had been stripped of its furniture, but instead it was full of weapons. Belts and magazines of ammunition were stacked beside two missile launcher tubes and what looked like a battered old meltagun. A faded cloth sheet had been thrown across another crate of ammunition, and on top of it was something bundled inside an old jumper. When Kally stepped forward to unwrap it, she found a small leather-bound book.

[dakkagor]

"I've got something" Kally held up the book like a sump scorpion, before she carefully opened it. The pages where covered in a random, darkly inked scrawl to her eyes, but some of the runes looked familiar from her training back on the True Bane. She knew more than she would have liked about the four, as part of her anti-psyker training. There was annotations on a few pages, which seemed to be more identifiable. She picked the jumper back up and quickly wrapped the book in it again, before turning to the others. Moral Threat she thought to herself. Good thing I don't. . .

She caught that errant thought and frowned.

"I'd best keep hold of this one, just to be safe." she nodded to the other door. "Lets crack that one and get out of here."

+++++

"Hold fire and stay down!" Tomas yelled to Vince. He cast a desperate glance at Theodosia and then crabbed over to Sister Pari and hauled her back into cover, throwing his back against a wall that hadn't been blasted down yet and pulling the Sister alongside him. The smell of blood and burned flesh, the weight of a potentially dead comrade in his arms triggered a pile of unpleasant memories in him that he beat back down. He placed a pair of fingers on her neck and to his surprise and immediate relief, found a thready pulse. But he doubted his basic knowledge of triage would be enough to keep Pari alive for more than a couple of hours. He needed Saphirra. He got to immediate work with what he had to hand, plugging the wound as best he was able.

[Cfavano]

As the man with the shield rushed him, Josiah put all of his weight behind his shield and slammed back, at an angle. Luckily, the heretic did not know the proper way to balance the shield, and the weight quickly unbalanced him, and caused him to knock over the one behind him. Quick as a flash, Josiah raised his pistol, and with another deafening report, ended another life of sin. The two others, half-blind and half-suffocated, were not quick enough and with two more shots their lives ended as well.

This brought his kill count to four. Four heretics ended. It was a good start. He kept his guard while he went deeper into the library.

[Azazeal849]

"What's our extraction plan?" Vincent growled to Tomas, as he commando-crawled over to sister Pari's kit bag and pushed it across the debris-strewn floor to sister Mahin. "Unless the PDF are completely fokkin' incompetent they'll have a backup team, who've probably noted the vox failure and are on their way right now."


+ + + + + +

Marc strafed to the opposite side of the hall, opening up Crenshaw's line of fire as the major rounded the corner ahead of him. A few moments later there was a bang as the door to the main library crashed open. A young man skidded forward on his knees as a bolt round blew his chest out against the wall. Two other men came stumbling out after him, arms thrown over screwed-shut eyes, weapons forgotten. A bracketing salvo from Crenshaw and Marc sent them tumbling to the floor.

"Three down." Marc voxed to Josiah as a thinning cloud of choke gas came billowing out of the door to close around the dead men like a shroud.

"Main area's clear." came the reply.

"I'll clear the toilet blocks." Marc told Crenshaw, and pointed behind him. "There's another locked door in the corridor back there."

He caught the gas grenade that Crenshaw threw him with his free hand, pulled the pin and kicked open the door of the men's block to toss the canister through. He repeated the process with the women's block and then stood back to cover the doors as Crenshaw and the others pressed on round the corridor.

"Not to put too fine a point on it." Glabrio voxed conversationally from the ground floor. "But are you people nearly done down there? We've got a multi-las in the downed 'thopter and a squad of angry PDF who aren't going to vacillate forever."

Kally, Solvan and Crenshaw were already at the second locked door. Another blow from the bishop's energy-sheathed hammer sent it bursting into pieces with a flash like a lightning strike. As the light faded, an awful smell assaulted the three agents' noses - barely filtered by their chemical plugs. The small warded room had been emptied of its desk and chair, and instead lined from floor to ceiling with plastek sheeting. In places, the sheets were spattered red. The only contents of the room were a trio of lumpy black bags, tied shut. More red was oozing through the bottom of the high-density plastek, and pooling in the folds of the sheets that covered the floor.

"Toilet blocks are clear." Marc said as he ran up behind them, wiping dust and chemical buildup from the lenses of his goggles. He halted sharply as he looked past Kally's shoulder and saw the room beyond. "Oh bloody frakking hell."

[dakkagor]

Three bags. Either six or nine. Knowing Arcolin, nine.

She had seen this before. This was a ritualised murder from the Makitan underhive, used by the worst cults and the Narco gangs that aped them.

Kally stepped forwards into the room, sheathing her sword and pulling out a sharpened Cadian combat knife. She knelt down next to the bags, and on a hunch, pried open the ties of the middle one. When she opened it the offal smell hit her hard, cutting through the flugs and making her momentarily gag. It was raw, fresh. Sister Shirin's face, one she had seen only in briefing documents before now, stared back at her with empty eye sockets and a forever screaming mouth that seemed to be drowning in blood. No teeth. She opened the bag a little wider and counted the parts. Three, including the head. Significant pre-mortem bruising. That made nine, across the bags, and the cuts and segmentations matched exactly with what she remembered from long ago briefings on the True Bane, and her own experience in the depths of the Makita underhive.

They cut her apart and put her in bags, one piece at a time. Specifically to send us a message and let us know that Arcolin is here, waiting for us. It was all a trap.

Someone behind her might have retched. She ignored it, and sealed it back up before activating her comms. The sisters blood was warm on her fingers.

"Sister Shirin is confirmed KIA." She stood, leaving the bag behind. "Her body is non-recoverable."

"Then got out of there and meet at Rally point 3" Tomas came through the team comms. "we'll meet you and the prisoners there for debrief."

She nodded and unslung her boltgun from her shoulder.

"Lets get this over with."

+++++

Tomas turned to Vince, a dour look on his face. "That's our cue to pack up too. Help me with her."

Between the two of them, in a low crouch, they dragged Sister Pari towards the door. Merle was being moved, at gunpoint, by Mahin, and Theodosia was bringing up the rear. Ella had been loaded with packed up gear that could be salvaged, and Vince had mostly dissembled the autocannon to carry with him.

"We'll circle around and away from the gunfight, get away from the op zone and then head back to the rally point and wait for this to die down." He shook his head as he shouldered open the door, pistol in one hand and Sister Pari on his other arm. Vince nodded, but didn't look convinced. "Whatever else we do, we need to get away from any search the PDF launch looking for us and any other cultists. Thankfully I know their search patterns, so avoiding them should be easy."

[PaintSerf]

"What's our extraction plan?" Vincent growled to Tomas, as he commando-crawled over to sister Pari's kit bag and pushed it across the debris-strewn floor to sister Mahin. "Unless the PDF are completely fokkin' incompetent they'll have a backup team, who've probably noted the vox failure and are on their way right now."

"We'll circle around and away from the gunfight, get away from the op zone and then head back to the rally point and wait for this to die down." He shook his head as he shouldered open the door, pistol in one hand and Sister Pari on his other arm. Vince nodded, but didn't look convinced. "Whatever else we do, we need to get away from any search the PDF launch looking for us and any other cultists. Thankfully I know their search patterns, so avoiding them should be easy."

Merle shook his head and scoffed at the plan. He had remained silent since Tomas’ earlier order for Mahin to shoot him if he spoke, as the convict wasn’t about to test whether or not the Sororita would follow through – he knew she would. Feeling compelled to offer his opinion; Merle glanced over his shoulder at Sister Mahin and raised his manacled hands so she could see.

“Don’t go shootin’ me in the back now, cutie. I’ll be tryin’ to save your girl’s life by tellin’ Ser Prick over here that his plan is a fuckin’ stupid plan.” Merle turned back around and spoke at the back of Tomas’ head. “That’s a fuckin’ stupid plan, Ser Prick. Y’all are as good as punchin’ the li’l mouse an express ticket to the Emperor’s table or whatever. Like as not you’re gonna be sendin’ some or all of your folks for the forever dirt nap as well.”

“And you’ve got a better fockin’ idea, shitbag?” Vincent growled.

“Look, Vinny.” Merle sighed forbearingly. “Escapin’ this ain’t some eternal fuckin’ mystery of Mankind like the female orgasm. If Ser Prick here has the testicular fortitude to unchain me, which I’m doubtin’ ‘cause I’m mostly sure the li’l guys are missin’ in action, I’ll get to hijackin’ that damned ‘thoper and so we can be usin’ it to fly the fuck outta here like we stole it…‘cause I’ll have stolen it.”

Merle paused both in conversation and stride, his eyes narrowed as even he was caught off guard by his own vocalized slap-dash train of through. Mahin’s frim shove to the back brought the convict around.

“Anyway, anyone here really thinkin’ the li’l mouse over here’s gonna be makin’ it through all that runin’, hidin’, and waitin’? Or that she and those culties you captured ain’t gonna be slowin’ you down? Plus the large group of armed people y'all got will be drawin’ a fuck load of attention, but that ain't gonna matter 'cause you ain’t gonna be able to ‘circle around and away from the gunfight’,” Merle sneeringly copied Tomas’ accent as he quoted him, “’specially when the PDF are knockin’ at the back door and gettin’ ready to start pushin’ in your shit. Oh, yea, not to mention you still ain’t accounted for the fuckin’ multi-las!”

“We cannot trust you.” Mahin reasoned, correctly, her las still levelled at her prisoner’s back.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Merle snarled, almost shouting as he turned to glare over his shoulder at the Sister. “I'm wearin' a fuckin’ bomb around my fuckin’ neck! And this fuckin’ asshole has the fuckin’ detonator to it!” He sharply turned back around to stab his manacled hands at Tomas, actually shaking with impotent agitation at his predicament. “If that ain’t the fuckin’ basis for some fuckin’ trust, then I don’t fuckin’ know what the fuck to tell you! Fuck!”

Merle seethed for a moment and then spat on the ground. He took a deep breath to calm down as he stared at Tomas. “Tick, tock, Sister Pari’s on the clock and the cavalry is most likely a comin’ in hot. Now what’s it gonna be, Tommy-boy?”

---

"The back door!" Tomas yelled and Sapphira lowered her aim from the door frame. The howling of the ‘thopter’s multi-las echoed through the vox as its shots tore through Tomas’ position. She quickly made an aquila in prayer for the overwatch team’s safety, as their distraction was the only reason that cannon had yet to strafe the library.

“We need to do something about that multi-las in the ‘thopter.” Kelly said anxiously, ducking down from the window. The Sister agreed and did a quick mental inventory, immediately discounting herself, Kelly, and Glabrio as potential solutions the ‘thopter problem. They were massively out ranged by the multi-las, and there was precious little cover between them. That meant only Vizkop or Gavin amongst those not committed to the basement raid.

“Gavin?” Sapphira questioned as she tucked her shotgun close and shifted position over to Secutor Vizkop at a low hunch. The priest of Mars was breathing hard as steam rose from his helmet. She frowned as she assessed the situation, not entirely sure of what Vizkop had done to be in this condition or how to further assist him.

“No. I am maintaining the ornithopter’s vox silence, as well as working on disrupting their squad level communication.” Gavin directly responded. The psyker had not shifted from his kneeling position, although Sapphira could clearly see that he had resumed his psychic efforts. Outside the duel between the ‘thopter’s multi-las and Vincent’s autocannon ended with the latter’s fire dying off first.

“Okay. Shit.” Sapphira exhaled tensely as she shared a pensive glance with Kelly. They had no direct options to resolve their predicament with Gavin occupied and Vizkop seemingly incapacitated. With no other options available, Sapphira defaulted to her Hospitaller instincts and crouched down by Vizkop’s head, but she refrained from touching him and kept her shotgun out of sight. The last thing that Sapphira wanted to do was provoke a pre-programmed defensive response from a Mechanicus assassin.

“Secutor Vizkop, its Sister Sapphira.” She spoke calmly and clearly as she leaned over Vizkop, so that he might see her if for some reason he could not hear her. “Is there any way I can assist you?”

---

The bishop stepped back as the liquid trickled down towards the edge of the marking. When it touched it the substance, Solvan wasn't such a fool as to hope it was paint, it boiled and bubbled, rotten fumes escaping towards the ceiling with a sound that could have been a scream.

Solvan gave the Major a look that needed no words to convey his thoughts. Crenshaw matched the look and gritted his teeth with a soft click of his prosthetics.

"Kally, whenever your ready."

The Major expected what would come next and swapped his bolt pistol in preference for the maul, as he tested his shield arm by rolling the shoulder. It ached after the close range jackhammer of automatic fire he’d soaked with the shield, and he knew it would only be worse later. Kally stepped behind Crenshaw and gave his shoulder a tight squeeze which made him tense. The Major met Kally’s eyes, and his tension barely lessened at the meaningful look she was giving him.

"You're ok, no hits got through." She said as she checked his armour for breaches. He wordlessly nodded as Kally moved away. Now was not the time. The Major looked over and met eyes with Solvan as he placed himself to the locked door's right side. Crenshaw anticipated what the priest had in mind and took position on the opposite side of the frame.

"I smash it open, and you go in with your shield, I come in behind you and hit whatever is still standing." He swallowed the bile rising to his mouth from Kally's pariah effect, and shook his head as he tried to focus, cold sweat beading on his forehead. Out of difference to Solvan’s presence Crenshaw refrained from releasing his own limiter as he nodded and the priest swung his hammer into the first padlock, shattering it along with half the door, hexagram included.

Once again the Major barged through the door with his shield, maul at the ready as he quickly assessed the tiny room and saw that it was full of weapons. Belts and magazines of ammunition were stacked beside two missile launcher tubes and what looked like a battered old meltagun. Crenshaw cocked an eyebrow at that, which only rose higher as Kally stepped forward to unwrap a small leather-bound book. He mag-clipped his maul back to the shield and frowned slightly as she cautiously flipped through the pages.

"I'd best keep hold of this one, just to be safe."

“That would be prudent, and speaking of,” Crenshaw activated his vox as he un-holstered his bolt pistol and turned into the hallway, shield leveled and ready, “Black, check fire, we are inbound.”

Crenshaw led the way around the opposite side of the corridor towards the rear door that Marcus had covered. He warningly toggled his lumen strip to clue their approach as the door suddenly burst open. Crenshaw tracked and fired which blew a young man forward on his knees as a bolt round blew his chest out against the wall. Two other men came stumbling out after him, arms thrown over screwed-shut eyes, weapons forgotten. A bracketing salvo from Crenshaw and Marc sent them tumbling to the floor.

"Three down." Marc voxed to Josiah as a thinning cloud of choke gas came billowing out of the door to close around the dead men like a shroud. Crenshaw angled his shield towards the door and advanced with pistol levelled.

"Main area's clear." came the reply.

"I'll clear the toilet blocks." Marc told Crenshaw, and pointed behind him. "There's another locked door in the corridor back there."

“Okay,” Crenshaw acknowledged as he once again holstered his bolt pistol to prepare for another breach. The Major pulled a gas grenade off his belt and tossed it to Marcus with a nod, before he unlimbered his maul and led the advance towards the final room.

"Not to put too fine a point on it." Glabrio voxed conversationally from the ground floor. "But are you people nearly done down there? We've got a multi-las in the downed 'thopter and a squad of angry PDF who aren't going to vacillate forever."

“We are breaching the last room now.” He advised a moment before Solvan’s hammer smashed in the door and he cleared the ruined threshold. Crenshaw pulled up almost immediately due to the smell, and grunted apprehensively when he saw the only contents of the room were a trio of lumpy black bags, tied shut. More red was oozing through the bottom of the high-density plastek, and pooling in the folds of the sheets that covered the floor. He had a fair suspicion of the contents.

"Toilet blocks are clear." Marc said as he ran up behind them, wiping dust and chemical buildup from the lenses of his goggles. He halted sharply as he looked past Kally's shoulder and saw the room beyond. "Oh bloody frakking hell."

“Quite.” The Major flatly agreed as he locked his maul one last time, as he turned and brushed past Kally as their paths crossed in the small and bloodied confines. Crenshaw’s free hand settled on Marcus’ shoulder, and he firmly pushed the investigator back into the hallway with an intently serious look. “However it is quite finished and we need to be as well. Take one last pass and try to salvage some workable evidence, the faster the better.”

The Major turned Marcus and gave him a prod in the back towards the main chambers. He glanced back into the room at Solvan as he yanked free the carry strap for his shield and yoked it across his body. Crenshaw had an idea of what the old cleric would insist on even with details about the ‘thopter impediment being voxed. He tilted his head as his fingers drummed against his carapace thigh plate.

“I have an exit strategy in mind. Do what you must, Belannor, but make it quick.”

With that the Major turned and sprinted through the corridor back to the armory. Crenshaw kicked and pushed aside stacks of ammunition to excavate meltagun that he’d noticed earlier. He scooped the battered old weapon into his arms and it an attentive once over before activating its power. The meltagun hummed throatily as it awoke and Crenshaw activated his vox and hustled back to the stairs.

“Status update on that ‘thopter. I have acquired a meltagun if we need to make another door.”

[kardar233]

"Trader Prince, check your frakking fire. This is a government-sanctioned counterinsurgency op. If you're not working with the bastards in that building, then leave now or you and your men will be considered targets!"

Theodosia stared at her vox for a moment, struck temporarily dumb by the man's thoughtless insistence that they evac while under suppressing fire. From his troops. And then had the gall to tell them to check their fire. He was also foolishly (and irritatingly) confident in his bargaining position, which meant that the chance of getting concessions from him was going to be very low.

Before she could choose the right colourful expletive to convey how much of an arse the man was being, broad beams of coherent light sawed through the wall towards their position. Theodosia threw herself flat to let the multi-laser's sweep pass over her, and as it passed her she heard the distinctive sound of evaporating flesh. Checking behind her, she saw the hole gouged out of Sister Pari's torso.

She crouched low under the line of melted holes to the supplies they had brought with them and dug for a moment before turning back and hurling a box of medical supplies to Tomas. As they worked, she half-listened, catching pieces of Tomas' plan. Then, the counterpoint: "That’s a fuckin’ stupid plan, Ser Prick." Despite the gravity of the situation, she couldn't help but let out a low chuckle when Merle's gravelly voice sounded out and promptly dissected the plan, but her levity died quickly.

You've got to do something, Dosi. She hadn't properly chided her internal monologue for taunting St. Murphy yet, but now was not the time. What do you do best? She smiled to herself, just a little. Cut the knot.

Her hand snaked out and she grabbed the lasgun Tomas had left by his desk; an old Accatran Mk. III wire-stock, never intended to be used except as a prop to lend credibility to his ex-Guard disguise. She turned it, checked it, and worked the action as she stood to peer out of the gash in the apartment wall.

She raised the lasrifle, took aim and fired, a trio of lasrounds raising welts on the thopter's surface. Too high, she thought with a grimace, blaming herself for the miss. She re-aimed, hearing the multi-las track back towards her, took up the slack in the trigger, breathed out, and fired.

The trio of las-bolts tore through the multi-laser's power feed linkages and the weapon abruptly died, its muzzle still glowing red-hot from the near-continuous fire. Theodosia threw herself down out of sight, let the lasrifle drop and reactivated her vox. "Stop shooting, soldier. We're moving out, but if you force us to fight you, we will. It'll be bloody on both sides and won't those cultists' friends get a chuckle out of watching us kill each other? Hold your fire and let us exit, and there'll be no more blood today."

[Azazeal849]

"Sister Shirin is confirmed KIA." Kally stood, leaving the bag behind.

Up in the apartment, Tomas and Theodosia saw sister Mahin's warm face twist into something between pain and rage before she could internalise it.

"Can you bring her back?" she voxed, the anguish in her voice obvious.

"Her body is non-recoverable."

Mahin paused. "Understood."

The sister's face slowly returned to its deceptive neutrality, but her eyes were still glistening.

"Captain?" She addressed Tomas, even though she wasn't misguided enough to look over her shoulder at him instead of keeping her eyes on Merle. "Keep a hold of sister Pari. I want her alive. You hear me, sister?" The emotion in her voice was still obvious as she fixed her wire-tense expression on the back of Merle's head. "You're alright. You're going to be alright."

"Get out of there and meet at Rally point 3." Tomas ordered through the team comms. "We'll meet you and the prisoners there for debrief." He had the distinct feeling that sister Mahin wanted them alive as well.


+ + + + + +

Theodosia threw herself down out of sight, let the lasrifle drop and reactivated her vox. "Stop shooting, soldier. We're moving out, but if you force us to fight you, we will. It'll be bloody on both sides and won't those cultists' friends get a chuckle out of watching us kill each other?

The PDF sergeant hesitated, suspiciously. "How did you know the men in there were cultists?"

"Hold your fire and let us exit, and there'll be no more blood today."

There was another pause as her opponent weighed his limited options. "Very well, trader Prince. But you'll be hearing from us. This is Marioch - Adrantis subsector jurisdiction. Our planet and our problem to solve. We didn't need your help when Nibenay turned traitor."

The vox cut off with a disgusted spit of static as the PDF commander ended the conversation.

The meltagun hummed throatily as it awoke and Crenshaw activated his vox and hustled back to the stairs. “Status update on that ‘thopter. I have acquired a meltagun if we need to make another door.”

"Dosi hit the power feed on the multi-las." Vincent reported, as if the impressive shot had been just business as usual, "It's down for now but I'd still use the front door. PDF shouldn't give you any trouble."

"Just a friendly warning." Glabrio's voice chimed over the sisters' vox set. He was still using the PDF frequency. "I wired grenades to the doors."

Tomas had his doubts that the ex-arbiter had actually had time to rig up such a trap, but at least it might dissuade the PDF from entering the library for a little longer. Sister Mahin was reciting the fidae imperialis in a low murmur as they pushed down the stairs. Several of the apartment doors off the stairwell were standing wide open, simply left as the occupants fled the building. A single grey-haired resident with a plaster-casted leg remained on the landing after being abandoned by the others, and he stared wordlessly at Tomas and the others as they bolted down the stairs. As they reached the street outside they saw knots of people crouching hesitantly behind vehicles and concrete walls, unsure what to make of the recent commotion. One woman in a black rousari ran forward when she saw Tomas carrying the injured Pari, but recoiled in shock when she saw the gun in sister Mahin's hand, pointed at Merle's back.

"There." Mahin said. Tomas thought he saw her cuff angrily at her eyes with her free hand before she pointed it at a battered grey hauler van wedged into one of the alleys between the hab blocks.

"Where are you, kids?" Vincent growled into his mic as Tomas slid sister Pari off his shoulders and laid her across the back seats of the van. The movement probably wasn't doing the sister any good, even after they poured coagulant powder into the collapsed hole through her abdomen. The tiniest whimper slipped through the sister's gritted teeth as Tomas and Ella slid in beside her. Vincent hauled Merle into a seat, Theodosia slammed the front passenger door behind her, and Mahin took the wheel.

"Mobilising now." Marc's voice snapped back, the vox punctuating his anger as it carried the sound of car doors slamming. "I've got picts of the weapons, the bodies and the locked rooms to give us something to work with, but..."

"Aye, it's not much to go on." Kelly added - although she sounded calmer, her frustration at being forced to leave before they could properly appraise the scene was still evident. "Our best leads are probably the weapons and that book Kally picked up."

"And whatever these three have to say." Glabrio chimed in as he finished zip-cuffing the kalma dosed prisoners in the third getaway car.

The van's engine growled to life as Mahin floored the accelerator and slewed them out onto the main street. As the team tore away towards the safety of the rendezvous point, a sweeping searchlight some way behind them heralded more PDF 'thopters converging on the library.


+ + + + + +

The Arthrashastra
Three hours later

"Those PDF shouldn't have been there." Ella opined, a pensive frown on her face as she felt her way around to one of the lounge chairs ringing the observation deck. The soft lighting provided by the standing lamps seemed sombre rather than soothing.

The one factor that had gone unambiguously in the team’s favour was the planet’s lack of orbital assets, which had allowed a fairly clean getaway in a servitor-piloted shuttle that Theodosia had called down. Now back on the Arthrashastra, Sapphira had rushed sister Pari to the ship’s medicae lab, attended by a trio of nurse-servitors buzzing like vultures around the gurney. Glabrio and sister Mahin were securing the prisoners in makeshift cells, leaving the rest of the agents to take stock of the mission’s outcome.

“Someone could have tipped them off.” Marc agreed. He was scowling from beside the door, his arms folded and his shoulders slumped against the wall. “But they must have been waiting for the call. No-one could organise a strike that quickly. I’m guessing the PDF had been monitoring that cult almost as long as the Vigil had.”

“Or they were monitoring the Vigil.” Vincent growled, as he watched Josiah push Merle down hard into one of the chairs and unceremoniously cuff him to the armrest.

Kelly shook her head, her elbows on her knees and her clasped hands held against her lips. Like the rest of them, she looked drawn and in need of sleep. “I don’t know – the PDF mentioned the cultists by name, but they didn’t mention the sisters once.”

“I want to know how Arcolin got all that fancy fokkin’ ironware to them.” Vincent nodded towards the unloaded meltagun that Crenshaw had just placed on the round ceramic table in the centre of the room. Next to it was Kally’s book, which Solvan had carefully wrapped in strips of prayer-embroidered silk, doused in holy water for good measure.

"Now if this ain’t all somethin’." Merle chimed in as he slouched in the chair that Vince had all but thrown him into. "The high an’ fuckin’ mighty Inquisition, sittin’ here an’ mentally masturbatin’ after all’s said an’ done."

He used his uncuffed hand to make the corresponding wrist-shaking gesture.

“Frak off, Carson.” Kelly said, shaking her head. “Shirin just got hacked into pieces and Pari got shot.”

“Aye, and the bastards who ordered both are still running around free.” Marc growled quietly.

Merle exhaled down his nose. “Kind’a sad, in a fuckin’ pathetic sort’a way, but havin’ to play with yourselves should’a been expected when y’all went an’ finger fucked instead’a screwin’.” He tutted and wagged a finger at the agents. “Always be screwin’ if y’all have the advantage an’ the opportunity.”

“Shut up, you miserable little fok.” Vincent warned him through gritted teeth, his mismatched eyes looking past Merle to Josiah, as if hoping that the latter would draw his stun baton. “If you keep provin' you've got nothing to offer besides bein' a disruptive asshole, I give you a week before Machairi presses the button.”

“An’ I don’t give a heavin’ shit what you’re thinkin’, Vinnie.” Merle countered, ignoring him aside from a dismissive jerk of his thumb as he looked at the other agents. “What jerk-off over here went an’ forgot was that I was freely offerin’ up my services back there, with surprise screwin’ the ‘thoper. I maybe could’a kept some of crew alive an’ we could’a been skinnin’ answers outta them right fuckin’ now.”

Emerald’s former leg-breaker let out a wistful sigh.

“Ser Prick Tommy di'nt take me up on that, but he should’a – I’m kind’a experienced at all'a that.” He wore a crooked smile as his eyes roamed around the group, finally fixing on Theodosia and offering her an unsubtle wink. “God-damn, but I’m all kinds a pent up an’ frustrated over here. No booze, no smokes, and I ain't fucked an’ / or killed somethin’ since the Mooncalf. Now that ain’t no way for a man to be livin’ his life.”

The air cycling through the chamber seemed to cool, as several of the former penitent agents stiffened at the mention of the Mooncalf. Emerald’s vessel had been boarded and destroyed when the possessed Sidonis arrived at Saros earlier than they had expected; Dr Taymor, Eileen Ryobi and several of the team’s other friends had been among the slain.

Vincent was the first to speak, his voice a dangerous rumble. “Say that again, you piece of shit?”

Merle met his gaze defiantly. “Did I fuckin’ stutter?”

“Leave it, Vince.” Kally interrupted, picking up the cultists’ notebook from the table. Not sparing Merle the jolt as she stalked over to him and clicked her limiter off, she shoved the book into his chest. “Here. These notes, look familiar?”

Merle coughed, and gave an involuntary shiver as he shook off the initial shock of Kally’s anti-psychic aura, but he managed to smile.

“My li’l scummer girl, still playin’ rough.”

He pulled the silk bindings off the leather cover and dropped them carelessly on the floor, before settling the book on his leg. He used his left hand to turn the pages, despite it being the one cuffed to the chair arm.

“Now ain’t that terrible.” he said, shaking his head sombrely. “No tits in the whole damn thing, an’ there ain’t even a doodlin’ of a cock or nothin’!”

“Your juvenile preferences aside,” Crenshaw said with a bored arch of his eyebrow. “Does the handwriting of the annotations look familiar?”

Merle mimicked the eyebrow raise. “On Mr. E’s crew we weren’t exactly the stayin’ up all night, piggin’ out on sweets an’ braidin’ one another’s hair type’a outfit. Unlike you tender li’l pussies.” He glanced in Solvan’s direction, and seemed disappointed that Sapphira wasn’t also present. “Now we might not’a been readin' each other’s diaries, but yeah, I’d say that looks like Arcolin's handwritin' to me.”

Marc pushed off the wall. “If it's all the same to you, I'll wait for the prisoners to corroborate that.”

“Damn right you should!” Merle slammed his free hand on the arm of the chair and laughed. “Keep listenin’ to Uncle Merle and you’ll be goin’ places in no time, kid!”

[kardar233]

Back on Arthashastra

Theodosia had kept fairly quiet during their escape, with the exception of some small grumbling about having a proper dropship to extract with next time. On the shuttle, she'd made some communications to Arthashastra which had meant a gurney and servitors arrived immediately for Sapphira and the wounded Sister. Then, she'd led the remaining team to the observation lounge and commandeered the fanciest chair and a bottle of amasec from the rack beside, refilled her flask, and made herself at home.

“Someone could have tipped them off.” Marc agreed. He was scowling from beside the door, his arms folded and his shoulders slumped against the wall. “But they must have been waiting for the call. No-one could organise a strike that quickly. I’m guessing the PDF had been monitoring that cult almost as long as the Vigil had.”

Theodosia shook her head slightly as she let her hair back down. "Ever since the uprisings the Marioch PDF have had rapid response forces ready to go at any hour, no matter how unpleasant. They wouldn't have needed to have advance warning to respond with timeliness, just an alert."

“I want to know how Arcolin got all that fancy fokkin’ ironware to them.” Vincent nodded towards the unloaded meltagun that Crenshaw had just placed on the round ceramic table in the centre of the room.

She nearly choked on her drink at the scarred man's statement. "Seriously? You've got the money you've got whatever you like in whatever place, if you happen to be acquainted with an arms dealer of any skill. It's easy to get things where you want them if you're willing to pay, and it seems the enemy does."

“Ser Prick Tommy di'nt take me up on that, but he should’a – I’m kind’a experienced at all'a that.” He wore a crooked smile as his eyes roamed around the group, finally fixing on Theodosia and offering her an unsubtle wink. “God-damn, but I’m all kinds a pent up an’ frustrated over here. No booze, no smokes, and I ain't fucked an’ / or killed somethin’ since the Mooncalf. Now that ain’t no way for a man to be livin’ his life.”

Vincent was the first to speak, his voice a dangerous rumble. “Say that again, you piece of shit?”

Merle met his gaze defiantly. “Did I fuckin’ stutter?”

Theodosia tapped a button on her armrest and a servitor trundled in with another bottle and a scanning auspex. She picked up the auspex and started to slowly turn the wand around the room, the scan beeping slowly but steadily (accelerating slightly as it passed Vizkop) as she looked at Merle, meeting his eyes. "It's a shame you can't have some of this fine amasec," she said, holding up the bottle and almost sounding sorry for him, "or play strip poker with the pretty men-" nodding to Glabrio and Marc "-and beautiful women-" letting her eyes play over Ella "-around here."

As the wand turned a circle and pointed towarsd herself her left hand shifted slightly, popping the auspex's power supply just out of socket. She feigned puzzlement as the auspex's scan beeps slowed and died, then glanced down at the screen. Her eyebrows arched in surprise. "Wow, Merle, I didn't think the giveafuckometer went that low."

She leaned back in her chair, set the prop down to the side and took another swig from her flask. "If each of your operations are going to be as exciting as that one, I'm going to suggest we stop by Kormisoshi so I can get some proper transport on- and off-world."

[Azazeal849]

She nearly choked on her drink at the scarred man's statement. "Seriously? You've got the money you've got whatever you like in whatever place, if you happen to be acquainted with an arms dealer of any skill. It's easy to get things where you want them if you're willing to pay, and it seems the enemy does."

"I was thinking," Vincent grunted, "More of which crooked trader are we going to have to ice this time. After Veiss, Haarlock and Emerald, I'm getting really fokkin' sick of 'em. No offence."

"How much would one of those dealers charge for a covert delivery?" Marc asked Theodosia. "I wouldn't expect a cultist on the run to have easy access to a whole lot of cash up front."

[Cfavano]

"You'd be surprised," Josiah said, finally having spoken up. "I've seen less clever and resourceful criminals be even better connected than this. I once chased a human trafficker across three systems, and every time we got close, he always had some new hired guns to face us. A couple of times, they even had some armor on them, including an actual Vendetta. Don't ask me where he got it, we never found out. But, suffice to say, I do not think it would be wise to underestimate him. We should always assume that he will be ready to meet us, and that his goons will be well-equipped. Someone does not become as prominent as him without having enough resources to weather this shit-storm that follows in his wake. At least, that's my take on it."

[PaintSerf]

She leaned back in her chair, set the prop down to the side and took another swig from her flask. "If each of your operations are going to be as exciting as that one, I'm going to suggest we stop by Kormisoshi so I can get some proper transport on- and off-world."

Merle’s battered and bruised face, still untended from Sister Mahin’s pistol whipping, had scrunched as he as he wordlessly observed Theodosia’s performance. It was only when the ship-mistress attempted to move the conversation forward that Merle let his true reaction show. The convict laughed, hard and humored, and pointed a belaying finger at the ship-mistress as he caught his breath.

“Woah, bitch, you hold the fuck up right there. You ain’t flittin’ over into talkin’ about your damn toy collection without us goin’ over how badly you just done an’ fucked up right here.” Merle’s expression was almost serious as he spoke, almost. The slight quirk of a grin undercut any sincerity. “I all but went spellin’ out my predilections, an’ got these delectably broken li’l basket cases all considerin’ who I might’a met an’ what I might’a done to ‘em, you decide to degrade all of these shiny an’ do goodin’ heroes of the Imperium down to nothin’ but raw meat for my voracious imaginin’, as if I weren’t doin’ that already to pass the fuckin’ days away.”

Merle snorted with irritation at own predicament before the curl of his grin widened further. “If that weren’t bad enough, an’ damn stupid enough on your end, you doubled down at bein’ an ignorant cunt with that cute show playin’ at about how ain’t nobody givin’ a fuck what I done, which seein’ as you missed it, is fuckin’ funny as fuck as some of ‘em are obviously tryin’ like hell not to go pushin’ out a Squiggoth sized shit of rage ‘cause they’re givin’ so many fucks thinkin’ about what I could’a done to their dear an’ dead ol’ pals.”

Merle paused and bemusedly shook his head at Theodosia. “That ain’t nothin’ more than some bad fuckin’ manners from you as a hostess, Dosi-Doe. They’re gonna kill me no matter what, so I might as well be an asshole to ‘em, but you ain’t really got an excuse for even bein’ an accidental prick to ‘em." He chuckled delightedly and clapped his free hand against his thigh. "I mean, shit, you’re doin’ my fuckin’ job for me right now!”

[dakkagor]

Kally snatched the book back from Merle and shut it again.

"Your input has been invaluable again Merle. I'll recommend higher quality bullets for your firing squad."

She turned to Josiah, exasperated, and tightly controlling the anger building in her gut.

"Arbitrator, can you please escort this sump scraping back to his room, so we can actually get on with a debriefing? I'm pretty sure he has nothing useful left to add."

She dearly wanted to do more than that. A laspistol was strapped to her thigh. One quick draw, pull the trigger. . . The Inquisitor would chew her out, sure. But it wasn't like she hadn't been chewed out before.

[Thrannix]

Solvan had been silent as he watched the room contents with raging hatred in his heart. The sheer disgust of the Sororitas' desecrated body had made him forget the sickness from Kally's pariah effect.

“I have an exit strategy in mind. Do what you must, Belannor, but make it quick.”

The priest turned to look at the Major and nodded solemnly.

Solvan would have wanted to give a proper sermon along with the proper honours a martyr of the Emperor deserved. But time and duty had no deference for such sacred needs. This wasn't the first time he had to put a valiant soul to rest in such hurried manner, and the knowledge that it wouldn't be the last pained his old heart.

He took each foul smelling bag with haste, but still with delicate movements. He placed the contents together in the center of the room and took out his hand-flamer, igniting the pilot light.

"Glorious Emperor, may you receive into Your warm embrace the soul of Sister Shirin."

The priest pulled the trigger, burning promethium washed out consuming the butchered corpse.

"May she be awarded everything in death, for she sacrificed everything in life for You, Oh Emperor."

The priest ignored the pain of the rising heat that registered on the skin of his face and hands.

"Her body was defiled, her bones broken, her blood taken. But her immortal soul remains untainted and pure, through her sacrifice, in the face of Your light."

The bishop turned his palms towards the ceiling.

"And may You grant us, in Your generosity, the opportunity to avenge this woman, Your martyr. That the evil beings who did this may know pain unending and despair without measure when faced by Your wrath."

With that he turned away from yet another sorrowful pyre in his life just in time to hear Kally's exchange with sister Mahin.

"Her body is non-recoverable."

Mahin paused. "Understood."

"I have performed the last rites for Sister Shirin and purified her remains with cleansing fire." Solvan added, his voice hard. "She is with the Emperor now and her body is safe from further sacrilege."

--------------- Aboard the Arthrashastra ---

“Now we might not’a been readin' each other’s diaries, but yeah, I’d say that looks like Arcolin's handwritin' to me.”

Solvan ignored the rest of Merle's incessant regurgitation of filth and retrieved the book from Kally, stopping to pick the wrappings from the floor and folding it again over the tome. He still didn’t understand why Alia didn’t request the man’s vocal cords replaced by a vox grill with remote deactivation as he suggested.

For Solvan the man would have been just another annoying loud mouthed scum. But for most of the rest of the team the emotional involvement was too deep and worsened by their recent trauma.

In the absence of Arcolin, Merle was the only target for their collective frustration and rage. Having to keep him alive on top of facing his endless verbal abuse wasn't helping them either. Which only made Solvan's work with them all the harder, particularly with Marc and Vincent.

That actually made the priest very angry. But for the time being he wouldn't grace the bastard by showing it. He did allow a thin smile to form on his lips at Theodosia's clever response and Kally's admirable restraint.

"I'll have to read this in detail then." He said tiredly looking at the book.

He turned to Theodosia and Crenshaw.

"I'll need a sealed room for this, only one door. Major, I’ll need you to be present."

“Of course.” Crenshaw agreed with a slight incline his head. The Major stood and adjusted his weapon belt as he regarded the tome in Solvan’s hand.

After some worried looks thrown his way he merely shrugged.

"For all we know Arcolin left this book as a trap for us to find. I'm just minimizing the risk if that is the case."

He stood to leave.

"We will keep the vox open to share the findings."

----------------

Crenshaw stood in silence watching Solvan filling the table’s surface with prayer extracts and protection runes on the table before placing the book at its center.

Solvan turned and handed Crenshaw his blessed autopistol, the Major took it after an almost imperceptible instant of hesitation and checked the ammo clip showing holy inscriptions in silver on every slug. Crenshaw gave a shallow nod of approval as he inspected the weapon and reloaded it. He lowered pistol to his side, finger against the trigger guard as he glanced at Solvan and released the safety.

"In case things go south. One of the reasons I asked for your presence and not Kally's." The bishop said matter-of-factly, making sure the vox was still off. "She might... hesitate. You will not. Also, I have no intention to burden her with being my executioner. I'm guessing you wouldn't want that either."

“No.” Crenshaw admitted after a moment as he flexed the fingers of his right hand. “If you had you not asked I would have insisted that I accompany you for precisely those reasons.”

Solvan nodded. "That's good to know."

The bishop brought his attention back to the book unwrapping it slowly. He felt the effect of Crenshaw's limiter going offline and took a deep breath. He activated the vox again.

"We are starting." He announced.

Solvan began reciting a prayer, shielding his mind as best he could and began turning the pages.

Reading any twisted text related even tangentially to the dark powers was in and of itself a dangerous proposition.

Depending on the tome and how it was crafted just looking at it could send weak minds into madness. Which seemed unlikely in this case since Merle's insanity didn’t change much by staring at it. Others could be more elaborate, having convoluted chains of words throughout the tome that, once triggered, could end up in all kinds of messes, up to the reader being possessed.

At first glance it didn’t strike Solvan as a particularly powerful tome. The materials weren't of the quality nor degenerate origin one would expect. Also, the cultists had done their own annotations on the sides and corners of some pages. They would have never dared to do such a thing to a truly rare and powerful artifact.

Solvan still felt his head hurt mildly just by reading the dark symbols, his fingers itched slightly at the touch of the thing, blood bumped against the back of his eyes, but little else apart from such discomforts. His right hand made annotations from time to time on a piece of parchment.

"Anything useful?" Marc's inpatient voice came through the vox.

"A lot of the writing so far is just lists of potential targets for terrorist or guerrilla attacks. Mostly infrastructure related. Mining operations, transport hubs, storage facilities that handle the exports in the spaceport, water treatment plants, and so on and so forth. I’m transcribing it so you can take a look at it afterwards. At a glance no single target stands out as particularly crippling."

He frowned worriedly.

"There are details about guard numbers and shift hours. Along with blind spots of the security and defense perimeters of all installations. Also production yields, worker force, yearly balances, transaction details, pending repairs and much more. I find it hard to believe that these heretics gathered all this intel without some inside help. Either from the government, important traders or both.”

The voice of Ella cracked through the commlink.

"Any mention of… denizens of the warp?"

Solvan skipped several more pages skimming over the content before stopping and frowning.

"Here's something.” The bishop could see from the corner of his eye Crenshaw shifting his weight to the other leg and taking the autopistol into a steady two handed grip in front of him.

“It speaks rather vaguely about allies from beyond reality that have supernatural powers. Yet there is no mention of the word daemon or any daemonic true names that would be required for a proper invocation. It goes on to speak of spiritual powers similar to the one wielded by the holy astropaths, but details on how to obtain them are absent.”

He gave a sigh filled with a mix of relief and disappointment as he closed the book and ran a hand over his face rubbing his eyes.

“It’s mostly gibberish. Some book to give to the members of the cult and impress them, make them think they actually got something dangerous. I’m done translating the useful info. Can I burn the damn thing now?”

“That would be prudent.” Crenshaw advised as he came forward and placed a hand on the blasphemous tome as he spoke on the vox. “This could have been worse. When I saw those warded cells, I halfway expected that DeRei had taken a page from his old patron Nibenay’s grimoire.” He raised a speculative brow at Solvan. “Of course we cannot yet rule out that alternative.”

[PaintSerf]

"You'd be surprised," Josiah said, finally having spoken up. "I've seen less clever and resourceful criminals be even better connected than this. I once chased a human trafficker across three systems, and every time we got close, he always had some new hired guns to face us. A couple of times, they even had some armor on them, including an actual Vendetta. Don't ask me where he got it, we never found out.”

“You callin’ yourself clueless, Josey?” Merle gasped in mock surprise and chuckled. “Well, shit, now say that it ain’t so!”

“But, suffice to say, I do not think it would be wise to underestimate him. We should always assume that he will be ready to meet us, and that his goons will be well-equipped. Someone does not become as prominent as him without having enough resources to weather this shit-storm that follows in his wake. At least, that's my take on it."

Crenshaw had sat silently through Josiah’s recollection as he listened and worked his sore right arm through the motions. His expression was impassive to the discomfort, although it betrayed a slight tinge of tedious irritation as the other man spoke. The Major ceased his experimental stretching and spoke as the Arbitrator concluded.

“DeRei is an avowed heretic with known involvement in the incidents on Solomon, as well as those on Marioch, and Teleostei as a contributor to the Rainbow conspiracy. The majority present here have personal experience from at least one of these scenarios, or have had the opportunity to read into those case files.” Crenshaw finally spared Josiah an askance look. “Let us review the core details from that knowledge against what we discovered from this raid.”

“In the months since his escape from the Sol system, DeRei has once again returned to Marioch, founded a clandestine cell, and managed to source an atypical quantity of military grade equipment for them. He then activated that cult to abduct and torture an ostensibly undercover Sororita operative from an Order with connections of Inquisitor Machairi, and purposefully sacrificed them to a retributive action so that Sister Shirin’s mutilated body would be discovered in a manner attributed to cultist factions from the Makitan underhive. The dual purpose of disposal was a ritual offering and threatening message to the authorities, and the most consistent practitioners of this method were those of the Changer with associations to the Blue Devil - otherwise known as former Arbitrator Arcolin DeRei.”

The Major laid out the background and facts without emotion and little inflection.

“My own take on it, Arbitrator Wuziarch, is than anyone who underestimates this heretic is an incompetent unworthy of their entrusted responsibilities. There is also no reason to assume that DeRei will be ready to meet us, as it is obvious that he will be. The targeted references to his Solomon origins were intentional, as he wanted us to know that he knows his old enemies are in pursuit of him.”

“Yea, sunshine’s kinda’a convoluted prick like that.” Merle opined with a sage nod.

---

Kally snatched the book back from Merle with some effort as he refused to easily open his left hand as he clutched the chaotic tome. The irony of his knuckles tattooed PURE was almost painful. With a final yank Kally tore the forbidden text away from the convict’s shackled hand, and he grunted with discomfort as the metal roughly scraped at his weathered skin. He recoiled away from Kally’s aura and hunched over his latest injury as she closed the book.

"Your input has been invaluable again Merle. I'll recommend higher quality bullets for your firing squad."

“Copyin’ sugar momma on how to win friends an’ influence people ain’t the way to somethin’ done, sweetheart.” Merle commented as his pained expression became conspiratorially coy and sleazy.” Or someone, seein’ as Dosi-Doe’s wastin’ her time playin’ the long con at politely gettin’ into li’l miss psymail’s panties.”

Merle’s eyes knowingly flicked over to Ella and perfectly retraced the route Theodosia’s took when she demonstratively objectified the astropath for his benefit. The convict turned to the trader and mouthed you fucked up, and offered her another unsubtle wink before he grinned and suggestively waggled his eyebrows as he glanced up Kally as she turned to Josiah, exasperated, and tightly controlling the anger building in her gut.

"Arbitrator, can you please escort this sump scraping back to his room, so we can actually get on with a debriefing? I'm pretty sure he has nothing useful left to add."

“An’ I’m pretty fuckin’ sure you’re dead fuckin’ wrong, you fuckin’ muto bitch,” Merle tensely growled as he stared venomously at Kally as she stepped back, “’cause that smilin’ sonofabitch weren’t just waxin’ on all poetic only about Marioch. Now, knowin’ him as we all know him, I’m doubtin’ that he was reminiscin’ about all that gash he’s got stashed on the side at every port he's been callin’ at since y'all let him get to escapin' from that crap pile y'all crawled outta 'fore it got glassed to nothin'.”

[Atrum Daemon]

Vizkop remained the quiet one during the meeting aboard the Arthrashastra. His brain had cooled from the overclocking by the time they extracted and he was giving it time to properly recover. Merle, however, was making that difficult with his constant and vulgar shrieking. The assassin was doing his best to tolerate Merle's presence, but he could not overlook the adverse affect it was having on the majority of the team. Merle had been implicit in the series of events that saw the penitents arrested and now he was a proxy for the barely-contained aggression boiling below the surface. Vizkop would rather they never bring Merle into the field and just leave him in a deprivation chamber until such a time as he was needed. To Vizkop, Merle was not a human being deserving of the reasonable treatment he was getting. He was a tool that needed to be treated as such. His proximity to the team made Vizkop worry. Worry that his words might dig deep enough to make someone like Marc would make a mistake.

The assassin kept his silence about his opinions on the prisoner and simply rolled his eyes behind his helmet at his antics. But, he had to admit that a part of him was curious enough to want to pick the prisoner's brain about a few things. But at the same time, he had no desire to be in that kind of situation with someone like Merle.

His gaze shifted slightly to the vox and his mind danced to Major Crenshaw. There was a delicate matter he needed to discuss with the man. The kind of thing that had the potential to be a real ass-biter if he did not get on top of it and shove his meddling foot between Crenshaw and the Mechanicus along with everything else acting as barriers. Now was not the time for that. Not with everything as tense and with everyone so high-strung.

[Azazeal849]

Subsector Governor Terce's imperial palace
Adrantis capital world Tephaine

The governor's audience hall was a riot of colour; all veined stone, intricate draperies and huge, photo-realistic paintings honouring the former rulers of Tephaine. The early evening light was reflecting off the sea of cloud beyond the spire windows and filtering gold through the transparent armourglass. It reflected from the diamonds and rubies that festooned the hive nobles jostling for position around inquisitor Machairi. Despite the manoeuvring, they still managed to give her a respectful berth. Machairi had deferred to the fashions of the local nobility with a red off-the-shoulder sari similar to the ones worn by the court ladies around her, though the rosette pinned over her heart marked her as an outsider even more than her olive skin among the pale Tephaine hivers.

Up at the front of the oval hall was a tiered semicircle of thrones for the council, centred on a high-backed seat that had clearly been reworked to resemble a Navy admiral's chair, and seated in it was a governor who looked like he was trying hard not to appear thoroughly agitated by the courtly proceedings.

Machairi wondered at governor Terce's choice of a public audience, rather than a more private meeting. The open venue both leveraged and diminished her power. He couldn't invite disaster for himself by publicly refusing an ordo request, but nor could Machairi make any obvious threats. It was a diplomatic move, and she wondered if it had really been Terce who had thought of it. He was a Navy man, nominated for the governorship because of his heroism during the Baraspine War rather than any particular political acumen. As Machairi understood it, he deferred to his advisory council on most non-military matters.

Those advisors were seated around the governor now, and she knew all six by name if not by agenda. To the governor's left was Spire Treasurer Rosaegen; to his right, Chancellor Souvage. Standing behind the governor's either shoulder were chiselled men in slab-like armour, modular assault cannons held diagonally across their chests. The soft blue lights of implants glowed at their temples. Machairi recognised the men as soldiers of the Nebula corps, the lifeguard unit that her agents' lost comrade Alicia Tarran had once belonged to. From what Machairi had read, the Nebulas were the governor's attempt to use the best weapons and cybernetic enhancement to create his own pocket space marines - not unlike Lord Sidonis' defunct Task Force Quasar. The coincidental reminder of her corrupted mentor left a bad taste in her mouth, though just what - if any - imperial and mechanicus laws the governor was breaking with his pet project was not something she intended to get sidetracked by. Still, it entertained her to wonder what Vizkop would say if he were present.

Looking at the governor, she saw a swarthy, craggy face half hidden by a greying beard, which matched the salt and pepper of his hair. When she had first approached the semicircle of thrones that formed the council seats, he had fought past his obvious boredom to offer Machairi a smile, accompanied by a precisely-measured officer's bow.

Machairi considered herself good at reading people, and normally she would have been almost certain that such a welcoming smile was fake. People who were used to dictating over whole star systems rarely reacted well to someone whose judicial authority exceeded their own. Terce however had the look of a man who could never be anything other than frank, although he could clearly choose whether to be polite or cold when doing so.

Machairi was confident that governor Terce would grant her request. She was fairly sure that if he disliked courtly proceedings and displays of high imperial authority, he disliked insurgents even more. From her reading of the man's history, she knew of a particularly ambitious rebellion on the agri-world Siculi some years ago; which had begun with the kidnapping of the governor himself during a state visit, and hadn't ended until the bloody destruction of the rebels' mountain-heart fortress, in return for the loss of a third of the governor's vaunted Nebulas. She watched the governor as he leaned forward to speak.

"I agree with you that this individual must be caught." Terce said with a slow nod. His voice was a low bass-baritone; soft now, but it was easy to imagine him barking out orders from the deck of an imperial cruiser. "But I'm wary of a sector wide warrant. In my experience, spreading bad news too soon and too widely can cause unnecessary panic."

"I'm not suggesting that you portray DeRei as a harbinger of Horus." Machairi said calmly, carefully marking the Aquila across her chest against the archenemy' name. "Just a dangerous man, association with whom will bring damnation."

Still, the governor appeared uncertain. His eyes darted right towards the hive chancellor. Chancellor Souvage was a tall, spare man with thinning grey hair and an unfortunately frog-like face, and unlike the governor he had been glowering at Machairi since her arrival. Machairi paid it no mind for now. As a rule, she preferred to be both liked and obeyed by the people she dealt with, but on a first meeting she would settle for obedience. She watched as the chancellor leaned over towards the governor's ear.

"When the inquisition comes calling." he murmured, too low for the rest of the court to hear, but just loud enough for Machairi, "It's usually best to give them what they want."

A smart man, whatever his opinions of me. Machairi reflected.

Governor Terce pursed his lips, then nodded quietly to himself.

"Alright, inquisitor." he said at length. "I'll have the justice minister draw up your warrant. But I still caution against creating any more unnecessary unrest when we don't yet know where this man is. With a whole subsector to hide in, he'll be a needle in a haystack."

Machairi smiled at that. "Thank you for your concern, governor. But needles in haystacks are the inquisition's speciality."


+ + + + + +

The Arthrashastra
En route to Marioch jump point

Merle Ray Carson inhaled sharply, as his eyes snapped open in the darkness.

“Oh fuck me.” he whimpered.

He lurched upright with a snort and a rattle of chains as he began to emerge from his latest kalma-induced haze. He could still feel the bruise that Sapphira's hypodermic had left in his neck. There were millions of brain-altering substances in the imperium and Merle Carson liked to think that he had tried most of them; but he was getting sick - homicidally sick - of being artificially pacified by that self-righteous Hospitaller woman.

“Fuck me.” the convict groaned again into his hands as he rubbed his face. The palm of his left hand was burning like a motherfucker. Ever since he had nicked his hand on that grinning bastard's glass cloak, it had itched intermittently. He supposed that a grain of the glass had gotten lodged under the skin, because he could feel something hard when he pressed down on his palm. Odd that the tiniest things could become the biggest bastard annoyances. For some reason, the old wound always hurt worse during Warp travel. Perhaps they were in the Warp now, although he couldn't be sure - from his own perception of time he thought that they should still be on their way to the jump point, but that anally-retentive arbitrator or the shaved ape Vincent never told him anything, and it was difficult to get the ship's bearings from his sealed-off, windowless cabin. The fact that his vision was swimming certainly didn't help.

He groaned a third time. I don’t know shit.

“You’re mostly correct there.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Merle snarled aloud.

“Since the fate of your life and soul rather depend on what I have to say,” the gratingly familiar voice said mildly, “I would suggest that you listen.”

“I said shut the fuck up, Arcolin!” Merle shouted.

The convict’s eyes snapped open again, and he dug into them with his knuckles despite the renewed throbbing it set off from his left hand. He had suspected for a while now that the episodes he had been having since they warped away from Terra were down to the queen-bitch inquisitor lacing his food with narcos. Perhaps the two-faced little slut had got tired of waiting and was getting Sapphira to slip them straight into his kalma doses.

“So y’all are goin’ for the skull-fuck dope, huh?" he shouted at the empty room. "Well, that ain’t gonna work, you fuckin’ cunt!” He ground his knuckles into his eyeballs again, until his vision was swirling with painful red starbursts. “So you can suck my...oh.”

He broke off as he let his hands fall and his vision swam back into focus. A formless blue mass was standing in the centre of the room, looking down at him. As he blinked his eyes back into focus, the mass became a blue bodyglove, wrapped around a tall, muscular frame. Pale skin contrasted with black hair that was bound back in a ponytail, and a familiar set of scars pulled one side of the man's face into a familiar grin. Merle remembered Arcolin's eyes being a cold ice-blue, but the man standing before him now had no eyes - only two slivers of red-tinged glass that reflected tiny mirror-images of Merle, curled wretchedly on the floor next to his bunk.

“Woah, shiiiiit,” Merle said slowly, coughing. “I must really be fuckin’ trippin’ balls if I’m seein’ that bitched-up mug you got goin’ on again.”

He caught himself, and scowled.

“Ah damn, an’ here I am, even talkin’ to you, you piss-swillin’ whoreson culto douchebag. Don’t know why, ‘cause you obviously fuckin’ ain’t an’ can’t be here.”

The mirror-eyed Arcolin didn't speak, and didn't move. He just looked down at Merle, grinning mockingly.

“Yeah, an’ ain’t that a damned shame too?” Merle ranted at the apparition. “’Cause if you really were here, I’da allowed you to slob on my knob for a bit after knockin’ your teeth out, so I wouldn’t be goin’ at that ass raw.”

He mustered the energy to spit at the apparition's feet. He noted vaguely that the phlegm was laced with blood.

“Don’t want it bein’ said that I weren’t at least tryin’ to be accommodatin’.” he went on. “Just don’t be expectin’ a reach around, though. It ain’t like I’ll be romancin’ you.”

“Your threats against me are as impotent as you are.” Not-Arcolin cocked his head, the mirror eyes turning down a little to somewhere around Merle's waist. “We both know about the pharmaceuticals that Sister Sapphira laces your food with.”

Merle felt uncomfortably like he had been punched in the stomach. “How…”

“I’m right here with you.”

Merle realised that his concentration was slipping, and balled his fists angrily. “Grox shit! You can’t fuckin’ be here, an’ you ain’t fuckin’ here!”

He flailed one arm as he half-rolled towards the locked door. He wondered if there was a microphone hidden somewhere in the room, or a vid-recorder. No doubt Sapphira was outside that door right now, listening to him and pissing her silken undergarments with laughter.

“You stupid bitch!" he roared at the closed door. "I know the fuckin’ game y’all are playin’, you stuck up whore! You thinkin’ these skull fuck drugs are really gonna make me talk about this bastard, you pious li’l slut?!” He spat again. “Well, that ain’t gonna happen, fuckers! Not without you makin it worth my while!”

“Your captors have nothing to do with me.”

“Then, damn it, I’m havin’ a fuckin’ flashback!” Merle rationalised, refusing to look at Not-Arcolin and his dead, reflective eyes. “Yeah, yeah, that’s fuckin’ it! You’re just some lingerin’ dope flare-up from when I was really hard-hittin’ it. Shit, man, but those were the good times.”

He raised his head. Somehow, Not-Arcolin was back in his sight-line, standing silently in front of the door. Merle crabbed back a short distance and blundered into one of the steel bed supports with a thump. His hand...his hand was on fucking fire.

“Yeah," he told himself. "Fuck, now we’re startin’ to make some sense. Ha! You know, of all fuckin’ times...ah, but this ain’t my first time spiralin’ out.”

Now Not-Arcolin was sitting on the bed, staring quietly down at him.

“Keep on breathin’, Merle. You just gotta tune that fucker’s voice out an’ ride this shit on out, boyo. You been here before, an’ it ain’t gonna be the last fuckin’ time.”

“I’m not a mere chemically induced apparition in your addled and ravaged mind.” Not-Arcolin told him from the far corner of the room.

“Yes, yes, you fuckin’ are!” Merle raved. “You can’t fuckin’ be here, ‘cause if you were Ser Prick would’a blown me - an’ not in the way I’d be contented with! So, no. You. Ain’t. Here.” He slammed the palm of his left hand into his head, not sure which of the two was hurting worse. “Now fuck off, Arcolin!”

“I never said that I was Arcolin DeRei.”

“Uh…”

Merle looked down at his burning left hand, at the letters P-U-R-E tattooed across the knuckles. Gene Pure, when you put it together with the inked letters on his other hand - a relic of his hate-filled youth in a mutant-infested underhive.


“I only said that I’m right here with you,” said Not-Arcolin, “And I’m far worse than that mere pawn. In fact, if the opportunity presents itself I plan to break him for his hubris, and you will assist me.”

"Well who the fuck are you, then?" Merle yelled, twisting both hands into his salt-and-pepper hair and digging the nails into his skull.

“Witness.”

Merle's left hand gave a particularly sharp throb. He jerked his hands away from his head with a yelp, and somehow found that he was holding another head, the ragged edges of its neck dribbling blood into his lap. It was thin, angular, milk-white, with ears that swept upwards into tapered points. Its eyes were red glass.

"Mal?" Merle gaped, too shocked to even drop the head.

"I liked the taste of Arcolin's flect blade." the severed head told him, blood bubbling around its lips. "I don't like it so much now."

Merle heaved the head across the room with an oath. Mal'lyk was dead. He didn't even have a head, severed or otherwise - Merle had seen the Sons of Plutarch terminator crush it into paste against a tunnel wall.

"Hell fuckin' no." Merle protested weakly. There was no thump of Not-Mal'lyk's head striking the far wall; the head had simply vanished, although Not-Arcolin was still observing him quietly from beside the door. "This ain't happening."

"Believe me, I'm just as upset as you are." said Not-Arcolin. "Having the bad luck to be trapped in that glass, and now trapped in you of all people. You have no idea how hard it was, keeping my head down with Malfallax around, and then all those pious idiots on Terra. But fate is fate, and it will not be denied."

“W-wh-wha?” Merle's jaw didn't seem able to work properly. “What the fuck!”

“Your misbegotten species once had a saying: the devil is in the details.” Not-Arcolin grinned wider, his mirror eyes glinting. “In this instance, the appropriate word would be daemon.”

Somehow, Merle found his feet. He staggered towards the door and slammed both his fists against it. "Sister! Hey Sister! I know you're out there you fuckin' cunt! Open the door. Lemme outta here right fuckin' now!"

Not-Arcolin laughed - the same cold laugh that Merle had occasionally heard coming from the real Arcolin, and which had always given him the urge to knock the grinning bastard's teeth down his throat. Right now though, as he tried to muster the will to even raise his fists, his legs gave out under him instead.

"You don't actually believe," Not-Arcolin chuckled, "That she's out there do you? Or that she'd listen to you even if she was? You worked with a possessed man twice. The Imperium doesn't forgive that kind of stupidity."

As Merle observed his own slack-jawed face in Not-Arcolin's eyes, the shards of red glass seemed to widen, jerking and stuttering outward with a sound like cracking ice. Merle's own reflection grew bigger along with them, and he reeled forward as he felt his sense of balance leave him, as if he was being drawn down into the expanding images. The reflections filled his vision, only now he wasn't on the floor of his cabin, but shackled to a chair in a bare-steel room lit by migraine-bright lights. Across from him was a slender woman with olive skin, broad cheekbones and slanted almond eyes - one of the interrogators working for that prick Lucullis.

"Why the hell am I even here?" he heard himself shouting at the woman. "Get my boss on the horn, toots. Sidonis! Lord inquisitor Sidonis! He'll sort this shit an' get your bony ass straightened out! Hell, I'd even pay to see that twice!"

"Immanuel Sidonis is dead, heretic." the interrogator said calmly, her gothic tinged with a clipped Atillan accent. "He was dead before you even met him."

"The fuck you talkin' about, bitch?" Merle ranted at her.

"He was possessed by a daemon on Teleostei. In fact, the same daemon that infested the body of Emile Emerald. Your other former employer, who is also deceased."

Merle stopped in his tracks. "Uh...what?"

"You were complicit in trader Emerald's criminal enterprise, and you are also guilty of treason against the Imperium. How long were you aware of trader Emerald's spiritual corruption?"

Although somewhere at the back of his mind Merle knew that this was just a memory, the sick lurch he had felt in that moment was somehow just as real.

"Oh fuck me." he blurted, before the vision exploded like a glass sculpture hit by a bolter round.

"That said," Not-Arcolin continued as he leaned his shoulders back against the wall and folded his arms. "I will give you a polite warning not to go squealing to Machairi and her henchmen about me."

Despite his burning hand, his reeling head and his pounding heart, Merle found the defiance to snarl at the daemon.

"An' what if I do, huh, you hallucinogenic piece of melted shit? The fuck are you goin' to do?"

Not-Arcolin gave a small grunt that might have been a laugh, his asymmetrical face twitching. A dull whine intruded on the edge of Merle's hearing, rising in pitch and volume. It grew louder and louder, until finally it was an all-consuming barrage of white noise. Merle's hands went to his ears, and he screwed his eyes shut against the painful auditory assault. The whine became a screech of displaced air as the Sons of Plutarch terminator squad burst into existence in the centre of the cargo bay. The thunderclap of their arrival became a hammering of bolter fire and the shriek of plasma and graviton weaponry. A Quasar trooper's blue optic light shattered as his head burst apart from a bolter round, and a stormtrooper firing a stripped down multi-las from an overhead gantry was sent spinning back and lost from view. One of the terminators vanished in a white glare as a plasma bolt burned through him, but another hunched behind his crackling tower shield, stormed forward and swatted the defenders responsible aside with a flash like a lightning strike. Merle was up and running with the rest of Sidonis' stormtroopers and agents, chuckling to himself as he took cover behind the terminator with the storm shield. The terminator was cursing loudly as enemy fire lashed against the shield, battering him back a step as the built-in refractor field sputtered in protest. Another sweep of the terminator's thunder hammer and the incoming fire abruptly vanished. The terminator stomped onward, a hunched killing machine of white war-plate and grinding hydraulics, and Merle followed at a crouching run.

Two of the Mooncalf's defenders were still alive in the wake of the terminator's rampage, though one was missing an arm, and the woman beside him was coughing up bloody clots of her lungs. Merle levelled his stub pistol and casually fired into the woman's chest.

It was like being kicked in the sternum. Merle's breath left his lungs in a gasp as he felt something rip through his chest, something hot and liquid filling his lungs. He drew in a breath to scream, and stopped when he realised that he could draw breath. He wanted to gasp, to cough out a virulent curse, but he couldn't stop himself from approaching the armless man.

"Please..." the defender burbled through grey lips. "Please..."

"If you insist." Merle shrugged, and a rattling roar filled his ears as his chain-axe swung down.

This was worse, much worse. Merle felt his entrails liquify, his abdomenn torn to shreds by the chewing teeth of the chain-blade. He felt the metal grinding against his ribs, splintering through them. Merle wanted to scream, but his teeth were locked together in a grimacing smile as he drove the axe deeper, and the agony didn't stop until the armless man finally died with a long, twitching shudder.

Sidonis' agents were ahead of him. The storm squad carried on forward as they reached a fork in the corridors, but Merle broke right. He knew this ship.

"The frak are you going, Carson?" one of the stormtroopers shouted as Merle peeled away from the group.

"The med-lab's this way." Merle grinned. "Much less fuckin' risky fightin' targets who can't fight back."

"No!" the real Merle shouted in a sudden panic, knowing what was coming. "Fuck no, not there! Not! Fuckin'. There! I'm fuckin' beggin' you!"

Merle reeled, and found himself mercifully back in his cabin. The mirror-eyed figure staring down at him was now a middle-aged woman, blood dripping from her face, and the sleeve of her torn blouse hung loosely over an arm that ended at the elbow.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Merle asked the apparition weakly.

Merle blinked, and now it was himself staring down at him with red mirror eyes, leering the same defiant look that he had given inquisitor Machairi.

"Because I can." Not-Merle said.

Merle Ray Carson inhaled sharply, as his eyes snapped open in the darkness.

“Oh fuck me.” he whimpered.


+ + + + + +

Two hours later

Everyone was subdued as the team gathered in the observation gallery on the ship's dorsal deck. Their eyes were not on the starfield beyond the metre-thick windows, but on Ella, who was hunched in the middle of the group of grim faces. The astropath sat cross-legged on the sofa, her hands cupped around the animus vox that sister Kiana had given her. The tiny silver cube was glowing brightly, and there was a static sensation in the air that reminded the team of the astropathic relay stations that dotted the imperium, frequent calling points for inquisition agents reporting back to their handlers. For those ignorant of how the arcane device worked, it wasn't easy to know if the animus vox was transmitting anything beyond their voices. More than one hoped not, given the obvious tension in the room. Recent outbursts were still simmering, and keeping Ella free of their blank aura might not have been the only reason that Kally and Crenshaw were standing back at the edges of the room.

"There was...an incident with the PDF." Marc was reporting, his eyes on the glowing cube in Ella's hands. Ella's own eyes were scrunched shut in concentration, a frown creasing her pale forehead. "It's a good thing we were able to talk to them from the safe distance of orbit, but we had to blow our inquisition cover before Vaeger's ship would stop pointing its lance batteries at us."

"I suppose that doesn't matter so much now." Machairi's level contralto resonated from the cube as if it were a simple vox caster, though there was a hint of another voice behind it, almost like a whispered echo. The psychic echo might have been coming from Ella, or from whatever psyker Machairi was enlisting, or perhaps from somewhere else entirely.

"Let's just say we're not the most popular with the Marioch PDF at the moment." Marc admitted. "Or with house Vaeger."

That was something of an understatement. The PDF commander's response had been vehement. Two of my men are DEAD because of your interference, agent! This is OUR planet, this is OUR problem to solve! Not that you've done shit for us recently! Where were you when Nibenay turned traitor?

"Hmmm." Machairi sighed contemplatively. "What about the prisoners?"

"Sister Mahin had plenty of time to interrogate our cultists." Marc said, his expression hardening. The cultists were plainly ignorant cat's paws with little useful information, but they were still willing insurrectionists who had planned to murder Imperial citizens. "Apparently the last time they actually saw Arcolin was several weeks ago - he's been delivering remote messages to them since. The order to execute sister Shirin arrived a few hours before we did, but I'm still trying to work out how he knew we were coming. Ella managed to auto-séance the proxies he was using."

"So you've dismantled his network on Marioch?"

"We forwarded the details to the Marioch PDF. They hate us but they hate the cultists more, so they should take care of it. Vizkop and Gavin traced the middlemen's original comms to a sprint trader in orbit...and the anonymous tip that mobilised the PDF. The ship was the Kulvard Sunrise, owned by a captain Danilov out of Solomon."

"Your old homeworld." Machairi observed. "And DeRei's."

"This Danilov might be a new ally or an old one - we never did solve the mystery of how Arcolin got off Solomon after Makita Hive. I checked the records, and Danilov broke orbit yesterday, bound for Baraspine."

Machairi hmm'd again. "Well, the good news is that governor Terce approved the subsector-wide warrant, which should make it easy for the authorities on the Glom to detain this trader as soon as he docks. Sister Kiana will be waiting for you there. Depending on the warp tides, I should arrive shortly after."

While the team talked, Merle skulked sullenly at the back, flanked by both Josiah and Vincent. He was being unusually quiet - suspiciously quiet, the team might think, if they hadn't been ignoring him like a piece of shit on their boot-soles since Kally's spectacular outburst. Maybe the tall investigator bastard with the hawk eyes but shit for brains would think something was up, but he seemed far too busy flip-flopping between raging at Arcolin and casting concerned glances at Kally. Merle was genuinely impressed that he didn't somehow mix the two up and go raging at his team-mates and mooching over Arcolin. Crenshaw was the only one who had glanced Merle's way in the last sixty seconds, with a predictably venomous look. If Merle didn't know better, he would have accused the blank of being insecure about Merle stealing his little scummer fuck-buddy. Then again, planting the idea of something going on between her and Marc might have more traction. He briefly contemplated accusing him of it anyway, and if the rise he got out of the major would be worth the inevitable punch in the gut.

"He's a colossal hypocrite, I'll give you that." said a voice at his ear.

Josiah had deliberately fixed Merle's cuffs too tight, and the convict had lost most of the feeling in his hands, but he could still feel his left palm burning. He glanced slowly to his right, and saw a second Crenshaw leaning up against the door, one foot flat against the carved wood, arms casually folded. He was observing the team's conversation with glinting flect-mirror eyes.

"I suppose you have heard about all the grief he gave Kelly Black over her attack of conscience on Hercynia?" Not-Crenshaw stated, turning his broad, blunt face towards Merle. "And all that time he spent drilling into poor Gavin that they were all cogs in the Imperial machine and nothing more? Did you know that he also nearly damned the whole planet because he could not pull the trigger on his soulless sweetheart when he probably should have done? All those indigens, and even two of his own blanks; oh yes, he could murder them without a second thought, but not Kally Sonder."

Not-Crenshaw grimly shook his head, with a pitiless scowl that perfectly matched ones Merle had seen the real Crenshaw give.

"But you should see what other secrets he is hiding, down where no psyker can probe him. I could talk at length about his stint with inquisitor Drake, or what he did aboard the Ampoliros - now that would really upset Alia's Silent Vigil friends."

Merle didn't know what the apparition was talking about, and he had little patience for it. He curled his hands into fists and looked away, but Not-Crenshaw was already waiting for him, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, just behind the real Crenshaw's seat.

"But I think his most interesting secret," Not-Crenshaw went on, looking down at his counterpart with his red-mirror gaze, "Is his lineage. You will recall that a lot of the blanks swept up by the Telepathica are disowned or orphans, but did you know how this particular orphan lost his parents?"

Not-Crenshaw didn't smile, but his lip curled just enough to give the impression of one.

"Have you ever heard of the Temple Tendancy, Merle? I am sure that Alia has."

In the hope that it would convince the apparition to go away, Merle opened his mouth. But as soon as he did so, his palm gave an especially powerful throb, strong enough to send a knife of pain shooting up his left arm and into his chest.

"No, that would be far too simple." the daemon chided him. It had taken on the face of Gavin Jenkins, with its glass eyes burning behind the scrawny psyker's wire-frame spectacles. "That is to say, inelegant, and not to mention problematic for you to explain. I would suggest you think a little harder, penitent Merle Ray Carson. I'm sure, as in reasonably confident, that there are other people in this room who want to see major Martin Crenshaw dead, especially after recent revelations regarding his...ah...intimacies with agent Kally Sonder. Psykers are so...unpredictable."

Merle looked over at the real Gavin Jenkins, who was sat sullenly in an armchair that was far too big for him. The pale, bald psyker was curled in on himself like a nervous animal. No - not nervous, Merle corrected himself as he looked at the psyker's eyes; watchful. There was significantly less fear in the pale psyker now than there had been on Teleostei. Of course, Merle thought, wondering if the daemon was fucking with him a second time, Gavin wasn't the only psyker in the room. His bloodshot eyes wandered over to Ella, who was still sitting cross-legged on the sofa, channeling Machairi's voice through that little trinket of hers.

"What, her?" said the daemon in a quiet, feminine voice. Not-Ella hugged her skinny arms over the front of the dark tunic dress she was wearing as she followed Merle's gaze. "No, I think she's too dutiful for something like that. She's an interesting one, though. I remember a mad old priest who got it into his head that she was destined to send some vital astro at some pivotal point in history."

The petite apparition shook its head almost self-consciously, and reached up to brush its fringe out of its red glass eyes.

"He believed in it enough to send his two sororitas bodyguards to protect her instead. I can only speculate on how much she was secretly enjoying that."

Not-Ella turned her head to look at Theodosia and lingered there for a moment, letting out a slightly ragged sigh.

"Maybe he was right. Though she's missed a few opportunities, hasn't she. Aurelias Prime, that planet she was originally slated for? They could really have used a miracle astro when Chaos forces boiled out of the woodwork last year - even if your old employer Emerald made a good profit laundering weapons off the militias there out to Teleostei." Not-Ella paused, scratching her cheek. "Come to think of it, even her homeworld - that grim sociopath Lessus might not have burned Sancta Heroica if he'd received a little more notice and been able to stop that daemon. But I suppose we can't change that now. Shame about her family; I don't think anyone's had the heart to tell her."

Not-Ella looked at Merle and grinned impishly. "I think I've given you enough to work with, yes?"

Merle was in no mood for games. "Fuck off." he growled under his breath.

"You say something?" Vincent growled threateningly, causing several other team members to look in his direction.

"Josiah, remove Carson if you would." Tomas suddenly said, from his seat on one of the overstuffed couches. "There's a sensitive matter I need to discuss with the inquisitor."

"A sensitive matter," Merle parroted, baring his teeth and shrugging off Josiah's hand as it gripped his shoulder, "You know it's fuckin' rude to be talkin' about someone rather than to them, Sir Prick."

Josiah seized Merle's shoulder again, harder this time, and his so-far-inactivated shock maul dug hard into the convict's ribs.

"Or were you wantin' to sweet talk the ol' lady?" Merle asked over his shoulder as he was manhandled through the door. "You should let me stay for that, Tommy! I could give you some tips that might have you standin' a fuckin' chance, you limp-pricked grox chaser!"

"Charming, as always." Machairi commented dryly over the animus vox, as the door hissed closed.

Tomas rested his chin on his clasped hands.

"As you can probably guess, we still haven't made any progress with Merle. The stubborn bastard is just acting out of spite at this point. I want to discuss further options with him if we are going to get anything useful out of him at all."

[dakkagor]

+++++

"If you arrive before us Ma'am, you should wait until we have the team back in place before entering the station or visiting the surface. Its possible, if unlikely, that DeRei is trying to get us split up so he can attack an isolated handful of us without support. He definitely is aware that some of the people pursuing him are the Penitents."

Tomas was sitting on one of the overstuffed couches, resting his chin on his clasped hands.

"We still haven't made any progress with Merle, by the way. The stubborn bastard is just acting out of spite at this point. I want to discuss further options with him if we are going to get anything useful out of him at all." He thought back to the incident earlier, and grimaced.


+++++


Kally's eye twitched as she faced away from Merle. She tensed, and exhaled, and both Marc and Vincent caught the cue that violence would be imminent. They both began to rise from their chairs but weren't fast enough to intervene as Kally spun on her heel, lashing out with the edge of her boot in a side kick that sent Merle and his chair tipping over.

She pulled her laspistol in the next movement and dropped down next to him. As Merle opened his mouth to curse, scream or perhaps just moan in pain, Kally jammed the barrel of the pistol past his teeth with jarring force. The weapon went so deep into his mouth Merle started to reflexively gag.

"That's Agent Muto Bitch to you, deadman." she hissed, before leaning in close and meeting his gaze. "You know, I don't think you know shit about Arcolin. So here's the new deal. I'm going to blow your fucking brains out on Theodosia's lovely carpet. Then I'm going to find Crenshaw and we are going to fuck each other’s brains out, and just as I have a screaming orgasm I'm going to think of the moment I spattered your groxshit filled skull across this fur rug, and it is going to be amazing. It’s just a pity I can't record it to replay this moment on a lonely night between missions."

She leaned in, smiling, twisting the pistol around in Merle's mouth to get her point across.

"So the second to last thing that's going to go through your brain is going to be the thought of me and the major having a real good time, and the last thing is going to be a pulse of coherent light."

There was the click of a laspistol being primed. Kally frowned.

"Agent Sonder, let him go. Right now. And put your throne damned collar back on."

Tomas had his pistol drawn, levelled, safety off. Marc, Vincent and Josiah were all standing, hands near weapons. Ella had shrunk further into her chair and Theodosia was staring wide eyed at the exchange. Gavin stared intently at his mechanical feet with a faintly disgusted expression and Vizkop had stepped back from the unfolding situation, staying neutral.

Looking at them all, Tomas was not confident he could resolve this peacefully.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Kally snarled. Tomas noted she hadn't turned away from Merle. "You, of all people, can't be insisting we keep this waste of protein alive. He's dead fucking weight! A Throne-damned liability! We should fucking kill him and ditch his body out the airlock." She chuckled, and a genuine shiver travelled up Tomas spine. "Or we can save on ammo and send him straight out the door."

"With respect sir." Marc put in stiffly. His right hand was hooked around his belt - not hovering over his hip holster, but not exactly far away from it either. "I agree with Kally. He's been out of contact with Arcolin for longer than we have. I can't think of any intel he'd have on his plans that's worth the risk of keeping him around. Never mind worth the frakking aggro."

Ella and Theodosia had both gone unnaturally rigid in their seats. With the astropath, Tomas couldn't be sure if it was fear or the prelude to some unexpected psychic manifestation. Theodosia was even less predictable.

"Agent Sonder..." Josiah spoke up suddenly behind Tomas, "Don't do anything rash." His voice was calm and even. "Believe me, if I had my way, I'd put a bolt in his head myself. However, it has been decreed that he is more useful to us alive, and while I cannot claim to know Lady Machiari as well as you, I do not think she is the type that would keep a shitbag like him alive beyond his use. He may still have information that is of use, information he cannot give if he is dead. You do want to catch DeRei, right? If Merle dies now, we may lose the only link to him we have."

The arbitrator edged closer to Kally; one hand up toward her, and one hand near his bolt pistol. Kally’s gazed flicked briefly to Josiah, then her free hand drifted to her other, holstered pistol. Her intent was clear. If Josiah got any closer he would be catching a lasbolt.

Tomas put a hand on the arbitrator's shoulder and gently pulled him back. Josiah's deliberately antagonistic relationship with the penitents was the last thing he needed.

Tomas assessed the situation. If it did dissolve into a shootout, he fully expected Marc and Vince to turn on him and Josiah at that point. Merle continued to make gagging noises as Tomas mentally rifled through what he knew of the penitents. If Solvan or Crenshaw were here, he could hope to diffuse the situation with their help, but with them looking over that cursed tome...

He glanced to Vizkop. Vizkop still stood to the sideline of the whole situation, watching from behind his impassive helmet. The ad-mech assassin seemed unsure if such action was the best course for dealing with Merle. Tomas could see his logic; the prisoner had been pressing all kinds of personal buttons and Vizkop held a shadowed doubt that he ever expected someone to react in this way. Or maybe he did. Maybe this kind of situation was just the thing the walking bomb wanted. For the moment, however, Vizkop seemed content to stand at the side with his arms crossed and watch.

Kelly silently edged in front of her brother, her arm held out across Marc and Vincent's chests. Her eyes were fixed on Tomas; wide, eyebrows high, pleading with him. Everything stood on a knife's edge at that moment, and the tension in the air was thick enough to taste.

"Machairi..." Tomas began, following on from Josiah's lead.

"What about her?" Kally interrupted. "What, she'll execute me for killing this sack of shit? Don't think so. I can withstand a bit of chewing out when we get back. He's dead anyway."

"Think about the mission!" Tomas shouted. "He's the only living link to Arcolin." He moved slowly closer and got line of sight to Merle. "Give him a chance to give us some information, in return for his life. If it's something we can use, we keep him alive, otherwise...” He looked meaningfully at Merle. "Then you can do whatever you like with him."

Kally paused. She looked up to Tomas, frowning, before turning back to Merle.

"Well, how about it chuckles? You got anything to say to save your sorry ass?" She clicked the safety off her own steelburner, and in one swift motion, pulled it from Merle's mouth. The convict immediately began to violently cough and wretch as he rolled onto his side and greedily sucked in air.

After a few moments of heaving and shuddering, Merle propped himself up on his left forearm, tattooed with five loops of barbed wire in mismatched ink. He spat on the carpet and brushed the back of his free hand across his mouth as he glared at Kally.

"First words out of your shithole had better be some intel," Kally warned him. "Or you're dead meat."

“I’ve got somethin’ for you alright.” Merle growled as he continued to stare down Kally. She could see the permutations of profanity cycling behind his eyes, though he kept them to himself as his gaze shifted to the pistol held by her side. “Sunshine spent a helluva lott’a time playin’ with his cold, hard, an’ metal Lady rather playin’ with an actual warm an’ soft lady…”

The convict trailed off for a moment before he licked his lips and sighed.

“So, yeah, makin’ y’all sit an’ watch Frankie Priest bleed out weren’t really an’ accident, Vinny. An’ considerin’ the conditions on that soppin’ wet cunt of a rock?” He spared the grizzled mercenary a particularly nasty little grin. “Even y’all gotta admit that’s kinda is some shit-hot shootin'."

A popping sound accompanied Vincent cracking the knuckles of his still-human hand. "That ain't intel."

"It would be if y'all 'd be lettin' me finish, Vinny." Merle snorted humoredly as he brought his unshackled hand to his forehead and gouged his fingers into the split at his hairline. The convict growled through gritted his teeth as he forced more blood to trickle down his bruised face. His teeth were fiendishly bared in a feral grin as he tore his fingers free from the wound and coquettishly waggled them at the group, without a care for where the flicked blood went.

“Gettin’ my head whacked by all’a y’all thin-skinned softies could be why I weren’t rememberin’ to be mentionin’ that li’l detail when y’all were talkin’ to the grand ol’ broad. But what the fuck’s your excuse for not speakin’, kid?” Merle cocked his head curiously at Marc. “It ain’t your tongue they was tearin’ out.”

Tomas' eyes switched towards Marc. He had read most of the investigator's notes that had become inquisition property after Saros, including the vox logs that he had recorded in characteristically stream-of-consciousness fashion. He remembered the one that had touched on Franklin Priest's death clearly.

"If Van Der Mir told us the truth, then there's two possibilities. Emerald set Arcolin up above the landing pad to kill us, or to kill villicus Stewart who was coming to meet us." A click, as the vox recorder was switched off and then switched on again. "Likewise we still can't be sure if it was Taymor or us again he was aiming for at the medicae spire." Click. "Sidonis passed information to Emerald, but when? Walt reckoned it would take at least 24 hours to set up the shot." Click. "For now I'm leaning towards Stewart being the target. We still don't know how much autonomy Emerald gave Arcolin, but if he was after us...one sniper shot seems a really shite way to waste your element of surprise." Click. "Arcolin's dangerous, and he's not stupid. But he does think he's smarter than he is. He over-complicates his plans. If he hadn't tried to plant evidence back in Makita, I wouldnae have locked on to him as quickly as I did. So...was Frank the target? Was he just trying to frak with us?"

Click.

"You don't focus on making your enemy suffer at the expense of killing him. I won't be making that mistake."

If Marc was remembering the same thing, he concealed it behind a stony mask. Looking at Merle past his sister, the agent's face was carved from sharpened flint.

"I've done a lot of interviews where the subject blew smoke instead of answering a question." he said in a glacial voice, "Arcolin used to do it, and now you're doing it."

“I see all that time in the enforcers is really payin' for its fuckin' self.” The convict chuckled, and slyly grinned as brushed his thumb along his own dirty and unkempt nails. “Any-hoo, back to the fuckin’ matter at hand. I’m sure y’all remember that Smiley’s been goin’ through the friends an’ acquaintances like shit through a ripper-jack since snipin’ your ol’ buddy-boss. Now one of y’all smarty-pies might’a noticed that since butcherin’ Major Mukaali-jockey, the blue balled jerk-off’s taken to leavin’ dead bitch-don’t-y’all-wish-y’all-were-here-in-time callin’ cards.”

Merle lazily dragged a bloody finger along the luxurious carpet for each victim. The convict affected a tone of bored detachment as he tallied up the dead.

“El-tee tight-ass, Cap’n pussy-cat, an’ Sister body bags, all of ‘em sent with love an’ care from your boy Arcolin.”

“Get to the fokkin’ point, shitbird.” Vincent seethed through clenched teeth at Merle’s derogatory and unwelcome references to Franklin Priest, Major Al-Omar, Lieutenant Kepler, Captain Tarran, and Sister Shirin. There was a mechanical whine as the ex-guardsman’s cyber fist curled, and his one eye stared murderously down at the convict as he concluded his ghoulish display by bisecting the previous hashes with a fifth and final horizontal kill mark.

“My fuckin’ point, Vin,” Merle lowly growled, as he turned back and reciprocated the hateful glare, “Is that y’all were shit-head stupid enough to let the queen bitch of this here outfit go screwin’ off all by her lonesome when y’all are huntin’ an expert fuckin’ marksman that’s on a kick of killin’ your women-folk, an’ not a one of y’all has a damned idea of where the rat bastard’s at or when he’ll be turnin’ up next. At least ‘til the bodies start bein’ stacked an’ hacked up again.”

The convict snorted with amusement, and smiled broadly at the assembly.

“Now ain’t y’all gonna feel like a proper bunch’a assholes if he went drillin’ your boss lady right ‘tween her eyes, or goes carvin’ her up like an Emperor’s day feastin’?”

Tomas narrowed his eyes, but couldn't resist answering the accusation, if only to calm the agents around him.

“Unless Arcolin has some friends on Holy Terra, and more specifically, the tribunal, there is no way he can know about this team's involvement. The Penitents, perhaps. But not the inquisitor. And no matter how good a shot Arcolin is, he would struggle to shoot anyone through the hullplate of a frigate.”

“I’ll bet you’d like to be keepin’ your li’l lady tucked away. Hell, I’d do the same damn thing.” Merle’s lips twisted into an ugly smirk. “But that don’t much seem like her style, Tommy - an’ you sure as shit ain’t man enough to be keepin’ her on lockdown like that. It also ain’t like somethin’ bad can go happenin’ to a ship.”

The convict took a moment to theatrically cough Mooncalf into his fist, before he cleared his throat and chuckled as he weighed up Tomas.

“You know, seein’ that you don’t seem to given to thinkin’ out how shit’s actually workin’, I’m bettin’ that it’d blow your fuckin’ mind if she got her fuckin’ mind blown outta the back’a her skull while we’re all here havin’ some quality makin’ nice an’ bondin’ time.”

“The inquisitor can look after herself.” Tomas responded, his voice icy and calm. “She wouldn't have made the rank otherwise.”

“No doubt. An’ no doubt now she’s got you an’ her other bitch-boy Crenshaw sharin’ her old kneepads.” Merle bluntly deadpanned, before he apathetically shrugged. “Okay, so maybe it ain’t a hundred percent that Sunshine’s got a bead on your inquisitor. But considerin’ how things are progressin’ so far for all’a y’all on team goodie-two-shoes, would it be a fuckin’ surprise? Oh, an’ speakin’ of surprises!” Merle excitedly clapped his hand against his thigh and pointed towards the penitents. “That Sidonis guy all’a y’all sad sacks used to work for? He put out a fuckin’ contract on you boys an’ girls from Solomon, an’ Mr. E took the job, so we were supposed to be killin’ the whole shittin’ load of y’all.”

"Van Der Mir told us that already." Kelly pointed out.

Vincent looked from the tense-faced verispex to Merle, and stretched out a feral grin. "Strike two, grox-fok."

If Merle was thrown off his game, he didn't show it. He wagged a dismissive, blood-stained finger.

“I know it's hard but don' be shootin' your load too early now, Vinny. I ain't finished. Given that wrinkly an’ withered murder hard on the ol’ bastard had been slow-jerkin’ for all’a them years, he was quite fuckin’ accommodatin’ when it came to coughin’ up the intel on you tools…an’ it ain’t like we didn’t do our own due God-Emperor damned diligence with some independent fuckin’ research. So if I can be rememberin’ all’a the juiciest of details from Venatora...”

Merle noisily sucked on his lower lips as he desirously fixated on Kally’s hips before slowly progressing to her eyes. He favoured her with a sleazy wink, and smiled as he took in the others.

“Y’all don’t think Smiler, with his own fuckin’ murder boner for y'all, would’a been rememberin’ that y’all were workin’ for Alia there while she was still workin’ on suckin’ that promotion outta Sidonis’ cock? An’ considerin’ that her hot ass haughtiness is the only one of his bitches to still be breathin’…it wouldn’t exactly be a great fuckin’ leap, particularly the way that fucker goes about thinkin’, that she’s holdin’ your leashes. That’s probably worth goin’ an’ doublin’ down on, seein’ as he seems to be expectin’ all’a y’all to be after his skinny ass like a shower gang at scrubbin’ time.”

Merle cackled mirthfully as he rolled onto his back, resting on his elbows as he exhaled a sigh.

“Shit, but ain’t it kinda funny that y’all wouldn’t’ve had a fuckin’ clue where to start lookin’ for Sunshine, an’ would’a still been sittin’ an’ holdin’ each other’s dicks on Terra, if he hadn’t gone an’ been an arrogant sonofabitch that led y’all to his ol’ stompin’ ground on Marioch. An’ here I am, the dead man walkin’, who can be offerin’ direct fuckin’ insight from listenin’ to his shit-crazy rantin’ an’ schemin’…an’ the friggin’ brilliant damn plan from the great constipated thinker is to kill me ‘cause y'all saw him last?” Merle craned his neck to hone in on Marc. “You even got the teensiest scrap of dignity left to be embarrassed by that nonsensical shit that’s dribblin’ outta your mouth, boy?”

"All I'm hearing." Marc replied levelly. "Is that you haven't yet offered any of this direct fucking insight you're claiming."

Merle clenched his teeth and started to shake. After a brief struggle he finally burst out in a howling peal of laughter which wracked his body. The convict let out a series of barking coughs and brushed aside a tear from the corner of his eye.

“Y’all ain’t really never ever been that competent, have you? I mean, seein’ as Arcolin’s been playin’ all’a y’all chumps an’ chumpettes like a fuckin’ fiddle from the start…an’ y’all have been dancin’ to his crazy tune, an’ you keep fuckin’ up an’ lettin’ that slippery little shit slide right through your soft little fingers at every damned opportunity from Solomon to Saros.”

“That wasn't our choice.” Kally muttered. “Trust me, if we had the choice, he would be just as dead as you're going to be.”

“Oh…but all’a y’all had your fuckin’ chances at knockin’ off Smiler already, sweetheart,” Merle countered with a sneer. “An’ before any of his crap with the Rainbow an’ everythin’ else could’a ever happened. He dropped a shittin’ overheatin’ plasma pistol on you, an’ you had him dead to fuckin’ rights in your crosshairs…an’ you didn’t pull the damned trigger.”

His eyes flicked from Kally to Marc.

“You knew that he was a culto from the start…but you simply never manned up an’ pulled the fuckin’ trigger, you fuckin’ pussy.”

Merle coolly regarded Vincent in turn.

“An’ last an’ most certainly least…you took the shot, but you royally screwed that pooch from here to Elysia an’ back again. Vintage fuckin’ Vinny, eh?”

“You see, sweetheart, you always got a fuckin’ choice when it comes to killin’.” Merle mansplained to Kally, and he chuckled dryly as he eased flat onto his back with both arms behind his head.

"You could have killed him and all." Kelly broke in suddenly, looking at Merle with neutral eyes. She edged away from Marc towards Kally. "You hated him enough, and you had plenty of time when you were working together under Emerald, after your stint in the gangs, and the Guard, and the fighting pits. Aye, you know us and we know you Merle Carson. Hail to the Emperor."

She took another step to bring herself next to Kally and squeezed the other woman's arm, not flinching despite the full force of her pariah aura.

"I am never, ever going to hold Kally or Vince or Marc responsible for what Arcolin did. The only killing choice that matters right now is what's going to happen to you."

Merle casually crossed one ankle over the other, seemingly completely at ease despite the manacles that bound him to the upended chair he’d been kicked out from

"Sure," he said as he eyed Kally up yet again. “Now Agent Muto Bitch could go on an’ blow my brains out, an’ then go off with her boyfriend an’ screw each other’s brains out." He met Kally's eyes. "An’ if you do, I want both of y’all to be makin’ damn well sure that it’s a real good fuckin’ time, ‘cause I want you to be rememberin’ that spine-tinglin’ an’ toe-curlin’ nut bust.”

The slightly distant look in Merle’s eyes left little doubt that he was imagining the scenario that Kally had earlier described.

“’Specially when you get to realisin’ that by indulgin’ your over-emotional li’l woman self an’ blowin’ my brains out, you’ll have well an’ properly fucked all’a y’ friends as much as that limp-dicked bastard you’re so damn sweet on, by killin’ your best asset at figurin’ out what Arcolin’s got planned next. So, uh, yeah, I’m gonna say that I’m worth a li’l bit of aggro.”

Merle glanced aside at Tomas with a shit-eating grin of insufferably smug proportions, and roguishly waggled his eyebrows at the armsman. “You want me to keep on goin’ on, Ser Prick?”

“That’s quite enough.” Tomas began. “Sonder. Sedate him. That's an order.”

Kally grabbed Merle by the chin, digging in her nails and forcing his head back before jamming a syringe of kalma into the scummer's neck.

“Josiah, take the prisoner back to his cell, and get Sapphira to tend to his wounds. No one is to be alone with him for any length of time while he’s conscious and undrugged.”

"He's afraid." Ella said quietly, speaking for the first time. "Underneath it all, he's terrified."

"Because he knows he's got nothing useful to give us." Marc opined, looking from the astropath to Tomas.

"I said, enough."

Tomas breathed out through his nose.

“No one is to be alone with Merle, ever, from now on. I don't care how much of a poisonous shit-stain he is, or how much he riles you up. He is our prisoner, and we will act with the professionalism that the inquisition demands. So we keep him alive until he has outlived his usefulness, and not a moment before.”

Tomas glanced over to Kally, who was standing over the now-quiet scummer as Josiah began to unshackle Merle from the chair.

“Agent Sonder, once you have calmed down we will talk. Everyone else, we will take this opportunity to report back to Inquisitor Machairi and update her on our progress." He scanned the group. "Twelve standard hours. Once you have all had a sleep cycle and a calorie break. Dismissed.”

He watched as Merle was dragged away, and then made a point of watching as the agents filtered out in ones and twos. After they had left he pinched his nose, breathed in once, and then out again in a deliberate, slow rhythm. He set his shoulders and marched to his quarters. A calorie break and some sleep sounded good right about now.


+++++

Kelly Black fell in beside Kally, lengthening her stride to keep up with the blank's rapid, angry stalk.

"So," she began as Kally stopped to mash the button of the inter-deck elevator. The verispex agent wore a smile that wavered somewhere between nervous and relieved. "That could have gone better...or a lot worse. Still, maybe leave out mentioning screaming orgasms in front of the whole team next time, ae?"

"Well, I need to give you lot something to gossip about, don't I?" Kally blushed. "The walls here are properly soundproofed, so you wouldn't have known otherwise."

Kelly stared at her for a moment, then snorted a breathless laugh that dissolved away some of the tension that Merle and Tomas had left her with.

"I'm not sure Crenshaw will see it quite that way." she giggled as the oval lift doors slid smoothly open. As the two stepped inside, her smile withered. "Don't let that bastard rile you up, Kal. Ella's right - he's terrified. He's utterly helpless and he's desperate for any sort of way to take some power back, even if it's just goading you into hitting him. But you need to be careful."

"I am c-"

"I know you are." Kelly soothed, raising her hands. "I'm talking about the way he nearly had us at each other's throats just now. Tomas had a gun on you."

”I'm pretty certain that Tomas wasn't going to pull the trigger.” Kally looked away, suddenly unsure. “Like, 70% sure.”

Kelly leaned back against the mirrored wall of the lift, rubbing the bridge of her nose. After a moment.

"Just remember that Tomas isn't Sidonis, and he isn't Van Der Mir either. The second Merle becomes a real threat, he'll blow his head off. We need to trust him."

She stepped forward again and gently took Kally's hands.

"And trust me." she said, with another wavering smile. "No-one in their right mind would say you cannae look after yourself, but I've got your back."

Kally looked down at their clasped hands as the lift decelerated, and adopted an arch expression. "I'm not inviting you to a threesome."

"Frak off!" Kelly laughed, and slapped the other woman's arm.

Kally smiled back, a genuine smile. “I do trust you. Thanks Kelly.”

"No bother." Kelly reassured her as the chromed oval doors slid open and she stepped out. "Catch you at dinner? I'm going to bash through P.T and then find Vince and Marc, and I guarantee he's going to be trying to work instead of resting."

She squeezed the blank's arm and disappeared down a branching corridor as Solvan and Crenshaw rounded the corner ahead of Kally.

- - -

Solvan heard the satisfying sound of the airlock sucking out the air from the disposal chamber behind him indicating that the ashes of the cursed book Arcolin had left for them were finally off the ship.

The old priest silently thanked the Emperor the book hadn't contain any real danger. But he wasn't a fool, he was sure sooner or later in their chase of Arcolin they would be forced to face the daemonic, he didn't relish the thought.

Major Crenshaw, now walking by his side, had diligently stayed with him through the obligatory cleansing rites and burning that ended in the book's disposal. He had returned the blessed auto – with safety on and a cleared chamber - only after the rites had been completed and the venerable priest had recited the Emperor’s Prayer in full within the influence of his blank aura.

As they made their way back to the living area Solvan put his dark thoughts aside and regained his usual demeanor.

"I miss the days when our worst troubles were xeno manufactured clones, crooked planetary governors," the priest commented with levity glancing briefly at Crenshaw, "arrogant Telepathica majors meddling with our business..."

The Major hummed with muted amusement as he glanced askance at the priest.

“I too fondly remember that time of grindingly futile conflict, treasonously avaricious and whiningly entitled rogue traders,” Crenshaw favored Solvan with the faint trace of a smile as he retaliated in kind, “duplicitous and self-important Throne Agents…”

"Ah yes, where would the Imperium be without those?" Solvan answered with a chuckle.

The Major’s eyebrows twitched upwards fractionally.

"So, how are things between you and our favourite ex-redhead?" The priest asked smiling.

“Only the tips were red on Hercynia.” Crenshaw corrected, and immediately frowned as Solvan’s smile broadened. He exhaled softly with irritation that Solvan’s conversational trap had lured him back into the minefield of a subject that was Kally Sonder and himself.

That was carless, to be caught out by such a minor and operationally inconsequential detail. Truly shameful.

“I have assisted with Agent Sonder’s recovery where I could, and kept my distance when otherwise I would have been a distraction or a hindrance. So things between us, as you so eloquently phrased it,” Crenshaw spared Solvan a cold glance, “have remained strictly professional since Terra.”

Solvan knew that the Major was indeed one of the beneficial influences as far as Kally's healing went. But that was exactly the reason for the priest to try and make sure how committed Crenshaw really was with her, a walking cane that breaks at the wrong time is useless despite all the apparent help it gives up to that point.

“And before you mettle any further, Belannor,” Crenshaw interjected. He caught Solvan’s reflective glaze and cautioned him with a warning finger. “That is how it shall remain between us.”

"Right, well, once you get past denial my offer to officiate a blank marriage is still standing, just so you know."

Crenshaw abruptly halted and spun to face Solvan with raised brow incredulity, as if he’d heard the old priest casually blaspheme the Emperor or declare his intent for retirement. The Major regarded Solvan with a pointed what the frak stare. His momentarily riled expression quickly morphed into wordless, narrow-eyed scrutiny of the other man.

Solvan managed to keep his poker face for a few moments before he started laughing. This time the Major did not share in his companion’s mirthful display.

"Would be nice to break the hasty field funeral routine though, plus it would give some of my most insufferable colleagues a well-deserved fit."

The mischief in the priest eye's as he spoke was all genuine.

“If you are so desperate to break up the monotony with matrimony, why not solicit our other colleagues?” Crenshaw challenged, and defiantly folded his arms across his chest. “I can personally vouch for how insufferable most of them are.”

"Ouch, hit a nerve didn’t I?" Solvan eyed the Major’s defensive posture with a raised eyebrow.

“I will allow that we have an effective partnership while in the field.” Crenshaw tersely admitted. “However that is hardly a defining criteria for marriage in the more reasonable of Ministorum approved planetary cults. I also know that you, Father Belannor, are usually not one for such fringe standards. Otherwise you would have already confirmed one rather complicated group wedding.”

The Major indulged in a slight smile at that thoroughly unlikely mental image.

"I knew you could build something akin to a sense of humor between your acidic cynicism and cold assertiveness." The priest joviality left him for a second. "Plenty of room left for improvement though."

“Trying to pad your commission by closing Kally and I, chief business prospector Belannor?” Crenshaw regarded Solvan with arch suspicion as the old priest chuckled obligingly. “I am curious, is there a secret contest amongst the clergy as to who can marry the oddest couple?”

Crenshaw frowned thoughtfully as he pointed and waived a confirming finger at Solvan.

“Allow me to return the favor of an unsolicited opinion.” The Major’s tone briefly became less than amicable with that barb. “Wed the odd couple and end the in-house uneasy arrangement between Ministorum and Administratum.” Crenshaw spared the priest a knowing look. “I can only imagine how delighted Sister Sapphira would be if you suggest that she marries Hybrida - who by now must finally be ready to settle down and make her the one and only woman in his life.”

"First. Don't make a living out of matchmaking, you're terrible at it. At least as far as marriage material is concerned.”

The Major casually shrugged his acquiescence and agreement.

"Second. The marriage jab was merely a way of making you mentally chew on an issue. Trust me I wouldn't need to do it if you were a little more talkative when it comes to your personal life, but as it stands I need to work on mainly hunches, guesswork and sledgehammer subtlety.”

“What little I have of a personal life is as dangerous subject to broach as my professional life. You may briefly pry, Father Belannor, but I would advise that you progress with caution.” Crenshaw mildly warned. He invitingly gestured for Solvan to continue with a neutral visage. “Now, if you would kindly get to the point you are determined to make.”

“If I couldn’t handle dangerous information I would make for a lousy confessor, don’t you think?” The priest left the question hanging. The Major silently made a prompting glance at his watch, and after a moment Solvan shook his head and carried on. This wasn’t the purpose of their discussion.

"The point is the issue of your relationship with Kally, and despite all your talk about professionalism and neatly defined areas of interaction - I'm not buying. You care for her, why else would you have helped her in her recovery when you are usually as empathic as a dead fish? I'm quite certain you haven't been holding Marc's hand telling him everything will be all right."

“First. You chose to reference hands with Agent Black and wanted me to chew over my relationship with Kally.” Crenshaw smiled widely at Solvan. It was as genuine as half the teeth he exposed. "I knew you could develop something akin to adroit callousness between your thoughtfully reasoned suasion and palpably genuine concern."

The Major frowned thoughtfully and glanced at his colleague. "Plenty of room left for improvement though.”

Solvan couldn’t help to raise an eyebrow and show the hint of smile in the corner of his mouth at the quick turnover of his own phrase.

“Second. It has been four years since we met on Hercynia, which if you recollect involved my rather brusque introduction and abrupt separation. It has taken substantial collaboration these past years to allow us to have such effortless conversation.” The Major briefly underscored his point with a pointedly sardonic raised eyebrow. “That is an opportunity I have obviously not had with the penitents, and as you well know most of them I had less than amicable moments with – and then there is Jenkins.”

Solvan nodded with a sour look on his face remembering the rough moments of their first mission with the Major tagging along.

“That may be so. But, as far as Alia’s team is concerned, I would like to believe that inquisitorial agents are made of sturdier stuff and should be able to see beyond our selfish sense of pride and be able to recognize valuable allies despite their people skill limitations.” He sighed. “Jenkins, as you said, is a different matter I’m afraid. But that is wood for a different fire, as my father would say.”

“It is not my intention to push where I would be unwelcome.” Crenshaw questioningly cocked his head at the priest. “I had assumed that you would have understood my rationale, Belannor.”

“Oh, I do understand. But the thing is, you clearly aren’t unwelcome as far as Kally is concerned. And my incentive is that unresolved or ignored emotional conflicts within a team tend to choose horrible timing to cause trouble."

The Major merely listened to Solvan without comment.

"Plus, if you admit to yourself that you have feelings for her, then your relationship with the team, with Alia and with the Inquisition changes in a way you probably don't find very comfortable."

Crenshaw blankly regarded the priest, and then sighed deeply with tension as he pinched the bridge of his nose and began to laugh. It was a hard, hollow, and humorless noise – but unlike many of the Major’s emotive gestures, and it was an undeniably genuine as it was fleeting.

“Solvan.” Crenshaw levelly said as he dropped his hand and fixed the priest with a speculative gaze. “Did you honestly believe that I had not already considered those uncomfortable variables?”

“I bet you have, you are an intelligent man. Sadly, intelligent men are their own worst advisors on some specific problems, sometimes a little outside perspective can be of use. But I’ll stop being a pest now." Solvan's voice became suddenly tired as the priest shrugged and they began walking again. "My job includes being nosy and inappropriate at times. But I do appreciate and thank you for the help you have given Kally."

Solvan turned and met Crenshaw's eyes.

"Just... Don't mess it up."

“And I would caution you to do the same, Belannor.” Crenshaw neutrally advised. “I am not saying that your advice is invalid,” He paused momentarily, “or that assessment of Kally and I would be strictly incorrect.”

Crenshaw’s false teeth clicked softly as his jaw clenched with that minor conceit.

“Kally has progressed well under your supervision. She obviously holds you and your counsel in high regard, and that is why I am against your borrowing from Sapphira’s tactica primer on well-intentioned manipulation. You and the Sister’s imperative should be to continue assisting Kally as she recovers, and ensure that she is well as possible after her ordeal.”

Crenshaw steadily met Solvan’s eyes with rare sincerity.

“Leave whatever may or may not develop between us, between us. Kally and I shall have a talk when she is ready.”

“I want her to make a full recovery Crenshaw, I don’t want her as well as possible. I don’t want her functional on the surface, but horribly damaged inside, she has lived so many years of her life in that state she might not know the difference.”

Solvan’s voice took the tone he often used during his sermons during mass, matching Crenshaw’s sincerity, his eyes unblinking.

“I want her to be healed, even strengthened by the ordeal. And on this mission that healing could succeed or fail miserably. The same goes for all the penitents, my duty to the Emperor is to give Him back His agents, nothing less will suffice. And to achieve that I will use every tool and weapon available to me to get them, and her, there. Anything less would be betraying the trust she has given me as her confessor. I understand your position, Martin, and I pray to the Emperor you understand mine.”

Crenshaw evenly kept Solvan’s gaze, although his expression momentarily flickered into grimace as the venerable priest concluded. He fractionally inclined his head towards Solvan as they rounded the corner, and abruptly halted at the unexpected sight of Kally Sonder framed in the lift doors.

“Ah.” The Major murmured. His brow furrowed slightly as he saw the gleam in her eye. “Damn.”

---

She walked up to the pair, and favoured them both with a grin.

“So, how did the reading go? No complications you say? Great! Solvan, could I monopolise the Major’s time for the next few hours? I'm certain he would be more than happy to talk your ear off later but I need him for something right now.”

Solvan’s eyebrows slowly upwards and Crenshaw’s teeth softly clicked together. The two men of the galaxy exchanged a comprehending glance. They both opened their mouths to respond to Kally.

“Oh, I forgot to mention that Marc needs you for something. Very important. Can't remember what it was exactly, something about getting a clue, taking a hint? Something evidence based. You know that Marc, always such a detective!”

“I will see to Marc.” Solvan dryly replied. He traced the Aquila points, and made meaningfully pointed eye contact with the Major as he departed for the lift. “Kally, Crenshaw, may the Emperor be with you.”

“He’s not invited either…” Kally muttered as she watched Solvan retreat, through the smile that stayed up until the moment the elevator doors slid closed.

“Kally…” The Major started with a cautioning edge to his voice, a placating hand raised. It didn’t work. She turned on Crenshaw and slammed him up against the wall, kissing him savagely and cutting of his complaints.

“My room. Right now. No excuses.”

“Kal-” Crenshaw tried to say again as he made to step away. Before the Major could escape, or much less finish his thought, Kally roughly shoved him back against the wall and silenced him with another firm kiss. He kept his lips pursed as he tried to turn away from the amorous onslaught, but the other blacksoul persistently kept contact against his resistance.

“I said no excuses.” Kally snarled. She clutched a fistful of Crenshaw’s fatigue shirt and tried to haul him down the corridor. The Major staggered forward a few steps before he could set his feet in place. He strained to lean back against Kally’s hold to create some separation between them.

“I do not-” Crenshaw barely managed as Kally’s other hand darted out to grab his hair and yank his head down. The Major stifled a grunt as she forcefully kissed his mouth again, and none too gently tugged at his lower lip with her teeth. Crenshaw’s brow was tensely creased as he tried to firmly push Kally away.

“Want to hear it.” Kally bluntly finished his sentence. Her hand dropped down from the Major’s hair to loop around his waist. She pulled harder on Crenshaw’s uniform, and kneed the back of his leg while she put her bodyweight into the other blank in an effort to drive him towards where she wanted him.

“My room. Right now.”

“No!” Crenshaw shouted.

His elbow thumped back into Kally’s stomach, and the blow was enough to knock her off balance with an exhaled grunt. The Major escaped her encircling arm, but not before Kally reflexively lashed out and struck his face as they broke apart with a tear of fabric. Buttons from Crenshaw’s shirt clattered softly to the deck as they stared at one another.

“What? Why?” She threw up her hands. “I thought you wanted this. I thought you wanted me!”

Crenshaw rubbed where he’d been stricken while staring appraisingly at Kally for a long and hard moment. He closed his eyes and exhaled softly, the tension seemed to drain from his body. Kally paused, noticing a subtle shift in his posture. For the first time, she thought she had managed to make Crenshaw actually mad as his hazel eyes flicked back to hers. They were as warmth less and dispassionate as any apex predator with its quarry in striking distance.

“If that is what you want.” Crenshaw said with a dangerous quietness. “Okay.”

Before she could react, Crenshaw had grabbed Kally by her gunbelt and yanked her against him. Their lips smashed together as he gave her a cold, demanding, and furious kiss. The Major’s hands briefly synched the belt painfully tight, before he deftly unfastened the strap and hurled it – and Kally’s pistols – aside. The belt clattered to the deck well out of Kally’s easy reach with Crenshaw right on her.

“Ok, I get it.” Kally placed her hands on Crenshaw’s shoulders, and tried to push away.

She gasped as Crenshaw grabbed her ponytail and pulled her head back, planting another hard, relentless kiss as he dragged her towards the corridor wall. With a grunt she broke away, digging a thumb into Crenshaw’s wrist to break his hold on her hair. She held up her hands in surrender as soon as Crenshaw let go, only for the Major to grab her wrists, mirroring the same technique she had used, and then pinned her arms to her side and stole one more harsh kiss as he pushed her against the wall so hard it smacked her head and sent the breath whistling out of her nose.

“Is this truly what you want from me, Kally?” Crenshaw levelly asked, as if he were not forcibly restraining Kally in place. The Major stared into her eyes with searching intensity that was with odds the collectedly neutral expression he’d worn throughout his aggressive advances.

She was silent, staring back unflinching. Crenshaw noted she was grinding her teeth together, somewhere between frustration, confusion and anger.

“No.” She breathed out at last. “No, that's not what I want.” She tried to rally, and took a more professional tone. “That. . . I was out of line. I shouldn't have done that. Sorry, Major.”

Crenshaw immediately released his hold on Kally’s wrists and backed away from her with opened hands. He retreated from her personal space fully back to the middle of the corridor. The Major’s tightly composed fury dissipated, and morphed into a severe frown after their sudden and unexpectedly rough encounter. For a moment Crenshaw closed his eyes, before he scanned the hallway in both directions. Only once he was certain they were alone did the Major finally look back at Kally.

“I do not accept your apology as it is unnecessary. You are not to blame. Not even slightly. Okay?” Crenshaw calmly stressed, with what seemed to be unfeigned sincerity. He pointedly made eye contact with Kally, and silently held it until she acknowledged it with her own wordless nod. The Major repeated the gesture, and then appraisingly tilted his head at the lift. “I presume our resident unflushed piece of shit in human form was being provocative again.”

“Yes.” She growled. “I shouldn't be letting that frakker get to me, but he did it anyway. Again. So here we are.”

“I see.” Crenshaw said firmly, as a glint of calculating malevolence flared in his eyes as he glanced aside. The Major cleared his throat as the moment passed and her turned back to regard the other blacksoul. “When we are alone together you do not need to address me by rank, Kally. We have never had a strictly professional relationship – or ever will after the experiences we have shared together.”

The Major paused and gave Kally a meaningful look.

“One of which I still consider pleasantly memorable.”

“Damn straight you should.” Kally responded. The Major hummed amusedly, and offered the hint of a genuine smile at her prompt and confident reply.

“Goading the Silver Prophet into punching me halfway across the Uru is a surprisingly close second.” Crenshaw countered. There was a mischievous flicker in his eyes as he tilted his head to concede the point. “Although I know which one I would prefer to have an encore of.”

The Major’s humor dissipated as he folded his arms across his chest and considered Kally.

“I do want you.” Crenshaw admitted as his scarred cheek twitched briefly. “However, what I want in this instance is irrelevant. You - and you alone - decide when you are ready for us.” The Major’s teeth clicked together on us. He lowly exhaled after a moment of silence and gestured differentially towards her. “Take as much time as you need or want, Kally. No pressure or rush from me.”

Kally raised an eyebrow, before glancing away. “I . . I appreciate that. Thanks, Crenshaw.” She looked to the deck. “You're not so bad yourself, you know. Despite everything, I'm still glad I ended up on Hercynia.”

The Major glanced aside as well, his mouth quirked into a mildly dubious frown as Kally voiced her opinion of him as not so bad. His tongue worked against the back of his false teeth as he considered her words, obviously deliberating whether or not to refute her allegation.

“I am glad as well.” Crenshaw allowed as he absently rubbed his stricken jaw. “I most likely would be dead – or worse - had you not been there.”

The two blacksouls slowly met one another’s eyes and stood in wordless silence.

“You may yet come to wish that I was dead, Agent Sonder.” Crenshaw opined, his words filling the mildly awkward void as he clasped his hands behind his back. Kally knew that this was the Major speaking from the self-confident tone and posture, despite his disheveled appearance from their brief scuffle. “You will report to the gymnasium in fifteen minutes. No excuses.”

“And why’s that?” she crossed her arms and leaned back against the corridor wall, eyebrow raised.

“You had wanted to monopolize my time for the next few hours, and so you will.” Crenshaw definitively stated. “It is obvious you have some pent up energy at the moment, and physical training done to my standards will resolve that issue.” The Major fractionally shifted an inquisitive brow. “That is unless you are not up for that challenge?”

“Ready, able and willing.” She responded with a wolfish grin.

“We shall see.” Crenshaw mildly retorted as he pointedly brought up his wrist and checked his watch. “You now have thirteen minutes, Agent.”

“That's not nearly enough time for a shower and kit change . . . ”

“Ten minutes.” The Major promptly corrected. He met Kally’s eyes with the faintest suggestion of a playful smile, before his face smoothed back into a professional mask. “I did say no excuses.”

“Fine.” Kally’s grumbled, her lips pursed into a challenging grin. “We’ll do this your way.”

She turned; eyes narrowed at him with the promise of vengeance, and pelted down the corridor. She barely slowed to recover her gun belt as she ran past, which the studiously appraising Major must have noted as he called after her with a parade ground snap.

“Be advised, on time is the same as being late.”

Kally deftly made an insulting hand gesture from Makitan underhive back at Crenshaw. She darted around the corridor to the sound of Crenshaw’s amused snort.

[Atrum Daemon]

Aboard the Arthrashastra – In Transit

<Root access. Command code: Dragonslayer.>

The blurt of binary came from the internal speakers installed in Vizkop's voice box. Vocal recognition granted him access to the sealed files on his data pad. Most of the files were comprised of his personal notes on the various missions he had undertaken with some sensitive information scattered throughout. If one did not know how to look, they would never find it. But, Vizkop was not checking up on that information. He was simply adding a new log entry about the current mission. The business with Merle had gotten him thinking, causing his mind to wander to a difficult choice he made a few years back...

His eyes snapped open in the wake of the blast. He had been out of the danger radius, but the shockwave had still knocked him for a loop. He watched the mushroom-shaped cloud reach its apex, knowing that hundreds of thousands of lives had just been ended in a blinding flash. The most extreme of measures had been enacted and Vizkop had to wonder if it had been the work of a desperate but loyal governor who had seen no other option or that of a madman simply reveling in such mass death and destruction.

“Quite the show isn't it?”

Vizkop spun around, pistol raised at the source of the question. His eyes narrowed beneath his helmet as the figure came out of the shadows. A thin, almost skeletal body (mostly artificial sheathed in high-grade synthetic skin) garbed with a long coat of shimmering fabric stepped into the light, hands raised. The strange coat and the odd devices strapped to his wrists. Vizkop knew this man to be designated a heretek of the highest degree. And his name was Iscariot. “I assume you have a reason I should not put you down here and now?” Vizkop asked.

“One that you can't argue with,” Iscariot said with a nod. “A way off this dead rock.”

“Why do I need you to get off-world?” Vizkop asked, clicking the hammer of his pistol back.

“Hey, let's calm down!” Iscariot said quickly. “The only way off this planet now is the starport. We have a much better chance of getting there together. Plus, I doubt you can fly a starship out of here by yourself, assassin.”

Vizkop grimaced beneath the helmet, angry with how right he was. He had some experience flying military craft in the vein of gun-cutters but he could not pilot any kind of space-worthy vessel. Iscariot was a renegade of many talents and he had no doubt the heretek had a way to fly a ship off-world to one of the vessels in orbit. Vizkop let the rational part of his brain override his emotional response to such a monster standing before him and lowered the gun.

“You're right,” he said.

“Thought so. So! Shall we work together? I have a rough idea of what you are and you surely know me. So, us two of such dubious talents should have no trouble getting out of this mess if we work together. At least until we're out of it.”

“Fine,” Vizkop said curtly. It would be easy to watch his every move. And once they were safe, he could take him into custody.

Vizkop shook his head as the memory faded. The whole mess had shaken out bad and he had lost track of Iscariot once they had made it onto a merchant ship. He underestimated him just enough that he slipped away. And that metaphorical deal with the devil he made to get off that world itched at his mind. He had seen cruelty chasing Oswin. But working tensely with Iscariot, the man suspected of being Oswin's “mentor,” Vizkop had seen something very different. Something insidious and dark. The soul of a man forced to learn to survive on the run had been bared to him and he was more sure now than ever that such a man would do whatever it took to keep living. He doubted that Merle had any kind of end goal in mind, but the Secutor could not help think back on that given the situation with the heretic.

He finished his log entry and locked the data pad again. He set it down and leaned back in his chair, fingers interlacing behind his head as a soft sigh escaped him. He thought about locating Sapphira to get the load off his mind. She had proven trustworthy before when he spoke of his past plus he thought she might want to know that he had fully recovered from his overclocking.

[Azazeal849]

"You're dead, Carson." Vincent whispered to Merle as he was dragged past him and out of the room. "That's the last time I'm letting you get away with messing with Kally-girl's head. You hear me? I'll kill you."


+ + + + + +

"We still haven't made any progress with Merle, by the way. The stubborn bastard is just acting out of spite at this point. I want to discuss further options with him if we are going to get anything useful out of him at all."

"And you're certain that he does in fact have any more potential use to us?" Machairi pointedly asked. There was silence from the glowing cube in Ella's hands as the inquisitor paused, reflectively. "Perhaps a U-turn on his eventual execution would open him up. Letting him believe he's forced me into a humiliating climbdown will no doubt appeal to his sense of self-importance. Draw up an official-looking inquisitorial pardon to wave in front of his face."

Marc opened his mouth.

"Agent Black." Machairi went on, as if she had expected the coming objection. "Will you and Glabrio please have Ella inform the relevant authorities that the pardon is to be pre-emptively considered null and void."

Marc blinked, then looked irritated, but managed to keep it out of his voice. "Yes ma'am."


+ + + + + +

Start of crew shift 1, the next day

Marc pulled the lever (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQcNiD0Z3MU) on the hot water dispenser and watched it splash into his mug, dissolving the recaff granules heaped at the bottom. The boiler rumbled quietly as it refilled. The chronometer on the wall was ticking over to 6am; dawn over the emperor's palace, by the Terran clock that most void-ships used. Marc's body clock was still working on Marioch eastern time, but even by that reckoning it was still the early hours of the morning.

Marc wasn't in the mood to sleep. He was outraged, angry and frustrated, and so he was doing what he usually did in those situations: he threw himself into his work with cold determination. The desk in his cabin was already piled with dataslates and shorthand notes, regarding everything from the cultures of Marioch and Baraspine to the testimony sister Mahin had extracted from the three cultists. Arcolin was leading them along; taunting them with dummy cults and dismembered bodies - and when they finally caught up with him Marc wanted to be as ready as possible to pay the bastard back in full.

As he pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to massage away the dull ache between his eyes, he heard the door to the empty mess hall swing open. He half-turned to see Ella stepping into the small galley that adjoined their cabins - an officers' luxury by the standards of any Imperial ship. The petite astropath was still in the dark tunic and black tights she had been wearing earlier, which told Marc that she probably hadn't been to bed either.

"You couldn't sleep either, ae?" he said, managing to raise a slight smile. He reached into a filigreed wood cabinet for a second mug. "Recaff?"

Ella's blind eyes flicked up from the centre of Marc's chest to his face. "Tanna, please. Recaff gives me the shakes. Actually I was looking for you."

"What for?" Marc asked as he went about retrieving one of the muslin sachets of tanna leaves and pouring more hot water.

Ella toyed with something she had been cupping in her right hand, which turned out to be the deck of plasti-crystal cards that never seemed to be far from her possession. "I did another reading, and I think it's trying to tell me something about Alley Tarran."

"Alley?" Marc repeated, wrong-footed. He put the mugs down.

"I drew the knight of adeptio." Ella explained, "Which always used to be captain Tarran's card. And it was paired with the 3 of Discordia, which means that she's lost."

Marc leaned back against the counter, picking at the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt. Alley was still missing, and after what they had found of sister Shirin, he feared the worst. When he answered, his tone came out more coldly than he had intended. "With the greatest respect, Ella, no shit."

"No, no," Ella said quickly, hugging her elbows. "It doesn't necessarily mean dead. Well, it can, but it also might mean that she's in trouble and needing our help. Not to get your hopes up too much, but..."

She trailed off, looking uncomfortable; as if the conversation wasn't going the way she had hoped. Or perhaps, Marc thought, she was just reading the agitation in his aura. As soon as he caught himself at it, he felt guilty.

"Sorry." he said, sighing, "I'm being a prick. Thanks for telling me. If your cards are right then the plan's the same. Get to Baraspine ASAP and help."

Ella nodded, looking a little less worried as he handed her the mug of tanna. She slipped her cards back into the pocket of her tunic and wrapped her hands around the cup. "I'll let you get back to work. Don't keep at it for too much longer."

Marc chuckled humourlessly, and pinched the bridge of his nose again. "I'll try."

His slightly raised mood didn't last much longer than it took for Ella's quiet footsteps to fade down the corridor, blurring away into the steady thrumming of the ship's engines. He leaned back against the counter, his recaff temporarily forgotten. It steamed away on the ceramic worktop, slowly cooling as he brooded over what Ella had told him. Alley probably having been killed on that ad mech waystation was bad enough, but if she was still alive...

She would have contacted us by now if she could. And sister Shirin was still alive until a few hours before we arrived. If he's done anything to another one of our friends, I'm going to stick my thumbs in his eyes and crush them back into his brain.

He was still standing at the counter when Kelly padded into the kitchen a few minutes later.

"Hey Marc." his sister said tiredly, lapsing into the Solomon gothic of their homeworld.

"Heya Kel." Marc answered, moderating his tone to make sure he didn't make the same mistake with his sister as he had with Ella. "How're you feeling?"

"I just got up. My body clock's frakked." Kelly smiled wanly. "Let me guess, you havenae even slept yet."

Kelly would have chided her brother for his obsessive working, if work wasn't the exact thing on her own mind. After the mission to the surface, with all the drama since, she felt like she hadn't gotten much productive work done. She had sat down with the pict captures from the basement to try and glean what she could, but a picture of one of sister Shirin's maimed hands had left her shaking. Usually she could focus past whatever horrible remains had been left at a crime scene, but the ripped-out nail beds reminded her too much of the inquisition cells on Terra. She had focused on her breathing, the way Sapphira had taught her, and within a few minutes she had been herself again - but she still hated the way the dark memories would lurk at the back of her mind, just waiting for a trigger. Her eyes drifted down to her brother's hands, the fingertips still plastered over to protect his regrowing nails.

"Kel." Marc said quietly, putting his hand on his sister's arm. Kelly realised that she had her finger in her mouth, and was tugging at the cuticle with her teeth.

"Thanks." Kelly said, and hurriedly changed the subject as she started making herself a tanna. "I'm gonnae sit down and have another look at the cultist weapons before Vizkop gets up. There's nothing more I can tell the team about poor Shirin."

Her thoughts turned to sister Mahin. No doubt the undercover sororita was more resilient than any of them beneath her placid exterior, but Kelly couldn't help wondering how she was taking the events on Marioch - especially with sister Pari still under Sapphira's intensive care.

Marc shook his head, suddenly angry. "He told his men to do that to Shirin because he knew we were following." he said quietly. "What kind of psychopath does that? Who tortures someone just to get to us?"

His fists were on the counter, clenched.

"What if he did the same to Alley? I'm gonnae rip his frakking throat out."

Kelly swallowed. "You need tae watch this, Marc."

Marc turned his head to look at her. "Watch what?"

"I ken it's hard, but Arcolin wants you to get angry. Don't let something you hate turn you into something you're not."

"I'm not." Marc replied, in the kind of knee-jerk denial that Kelly had thirty-odd years experience in observing from him. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, and thought.

"I didnae tell you the whole story about how Gavin and me survived the skitarii on Saros, did I?"

Marc paused and quietened. "We didn't exactly have time. I mind how shaken you looked though."

Kelly took a breath to order her thoughts, swirling the tanna around in her mug.

"We were cornered, but Gavin lashed out. He...he just snapped. He was just, crushing their augmetics with his mind. And all the while he was laughing."

Marc blinked. "Gavin?"

"Haven't you noticed that he's been different since Saros?"

Kelly remembered the high, breathless sound of Gavin's laughter as he pointed his arm towards one of the crippled Gnosis guard and closed his fist, and she remembered the answering howl as the guard's eye implants exploded in a shower of sparks.

"Gavin." Kelly had snapped at him, as she stared open-mouthed. "Gavin, listen to me. You need to stop."

She remembered the sudden taste of copper in the air, and the sound of distant screaming that hadn't been coming from the tortured skitarii.

"Gavin, you need to stop and get back in control right now!"

Gavin had rounded on her, something dancing behind his eyes that might have been witchfire or simple rage.

"Don't talk to me about control, agent Kelly Black!" he had shouted, spit flying from his mouth. None of his usual stammer was in evidence. "You're a hypocrite! You and the whole of the emperor's holy inquisition! You demand control from people like me, when it's really you who control everything I do! What am I to you?"

Kelly's eyes switched from Gavin to the skitarius, who was weeping oil and blood from his shattered bionics, and back again. "You're a friend." she told him gently.

"No I'm a weapon! That's why you want control. You want your weapons to be reliable. Well here I am, a weapon!"

He slowly rotated the wrist of his outstretched hand, and there was a crunching noise from inside the crippled guard's chest cage. The skitarius coughed and went limp. Kelly looked at the walls of the corridor, and saw rivulets of blood oozing out of the metal. She fumbled for her laspistol, and held it forward in both hands.

"Gavin..." she said, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice, "Please."

Gavin turned back from the now-still skitarius and his crushed brethren, and laughed again as he registered the weapon pointed at his chest. "Crenshaw always said a gun barrel would be the last thing I would see. But I didn't think that it would be yours, agent Kelly Black."

Kelly couldn't help but notice that he hadn't tried to disable her laspistol. "I don't want to kill you." she said, quietly. "Please don't make me."

Gavin gritted his teeth. There were spots of blood at the corners of his eyes. "Hypocrisy again. I've seen enough agents plead not to make them pull the trigger on their pet psykers."

"We're not all like Crenshaw. Come on Gavin, you know me."

"Do I?"

Kelly shook her head; lips pursed, eyes glistening. "Do you remember Rakosu? The kids, and the servitors? Please don't force me into another choice like that. Please don't make me hurt you."

Gavin blinked at her. For a long moment, he was silent. Kelly didn't see him move, but the high pitched ringing in her ears began to fade, and the blood running down the walls began to congeal. Gavin laughed again, but quietly this time.

"Now I'm the hypocrite. If you truly don't want to pull that trigger, then I'd be forcing you the way I've been forced most of my life."

Kelly lowered her gun barrel slightly. She dropped one hand from the grip, and held it out instead, palm towards Gavin.

"It's alright." she said gently. "I don't blame you."

Gavin seemed to deflate. The coppery taste on Kelly's tongue evaporated, and the corridor was still and quiet.

"You're a good person, agent Kelly Black." Gavin said, hesitance returning to his voice. "I...I apologise."

"I can see why you kept that one quiet." Marc murmured as she finished recounting the story.

"I dinnae blame him for snapping." Kelly said, watching her brother intently. "The point is he came back."

Marc was silent for a moment. "If he hadnae...would you have pulled the trigger?"

Kelly chewed the inside of her cheek.

"You gonnae answer the question, missy?" drawled a voice from the door, in Spire 13 gothic that was mangled with an unwelcomely familiar Gunpoint argot. "I'd be pure ragin' not to hear the end ae the story."

Marc and Kelly both snapped round, Marc nearly sending his recaff mug scattering across the floor. Merle Carson leaned his head and shoulders around the door frame, and smiled at the two agents' obvious surprise.

"In case y'all are wonderin'," he said, switching back to Imperial standard, "I picked it up off'a some desperate women in the Decker hive refugee camps, when their mouths weren' full anyways." The convict's harsh eyes flared slightly with amusement, and he raised his eyebrows at Kelly. "Jus' think, you might'a easily been one of 'em princess, an' doin' it for food rather than fun."

Carson leaned one tattooed arm on the doorway, a pair of handcuffs dangling from the wrist. He raised his eyebrows at the Black siblings. "Now, what was all that about nearly shootin' Gavin? Don' be tellin' me that both of y'all have useless trigger fingers?"

Kelly took a step forward, away from the counter. Marc eyed the convict darkly, and squeezed a button on the side of his wrist-chron to activate the built in vox bead.

"Vince, Josiah?" he asked, raising his wrist to his mouth without taking his eyes off Merle. "Where the frak are you guys? Carson's slipped his cuffs. He's in the galley on deck 3 portside."

"Your pair of power-trippin' goons forgot that ever since that chrono-gladiator bastard smashed up my hand in the fightin' pits, I can pretty much pop that thumb in and out on demand." Merle explained, opening and closing his free hand for the agents' benefit. He cocked his head at Kelly. "Which is a trick I'd be happy to show y'all princess, if you ever get lonely an' frustrated one night."

"What are you doing here, Carson." Kelly replied, regarding the convict stonily.

Merle waved his left hand carelessly, the cuffs jingling as they dangled from his wrist. "Nothin' sinister." he said, and then chuckled at some joke the Black siblings weren't privy to as he crossed over to the fridge and opened it. "I just fancied myself a drink, is all."

While the convict's back was turned, Marc touched the signet ring on his right hand and gave it a quick twist. He exchanged a look with Kelly, who nodded.

Merle pulled out a bottle and cocked his head at Marc, who was still giving him a look that could have burned through adamantium.

"Why?" he went on. "You plannin' on tryin' to take me down, kid? I think we both know which way that shit'll go down."

"You're right." Marc agreed, flexing his hands open and closed. "But the trouble is, the CQC they teach us in the inquisition has about a one-in-four chance of being accidentally lethal. And since Machairi and Prinzel want you alive for a bit longer, I'd rather wait for Vince to get here with a stun-baton."

"Still finger-fuckin' when you should be screwin'." Merle said, sounding almost disappointed. He wedged his bottle against the edge of the counter, and struck it hard with his palm so that the cap popped off and went tinkling away across the floor. "I gotta ask, does the pussy gene run in your family or somethin'?" He looked at Kelly. "I mean, sorry precious but we all know you're too soft for this job - it ain't no secret how you gone messed up on Hercynia."

"I'd do the same thing again today." Kelly said firmly. "And I'm proud I can say I'm still that person instead of someone like you."

"Someone like me?" Merle put his hand to his chest in feigned shock and laughed. "Here's the funny thing, princess. I probably understand those kids on Hercynia much better'n you an' your l'il bleedin' heart. Now I know y'all said you know about me, but no inquisitor's file'll tell you about the underhive I grew up in. Know where I got these?"

He put down his bottle and thrust his clenched hands towards the two agents. The words Gene and Pure were tattooed across his knuckles.

"My home hive had a real bad mutant problem - somethin' to do with the cursed foundations the city was built on, or so they said. Gangs o' those muto freaks used to roam the streets at night, kickin' in doors and eatin' anyone they found inside. I remember some girl screamin' while they chewed on her legs; didn' go quiet 'til they'd finished off her arms too. You'd think the high an' mighty imperium would'a done somethin' about it dontcha, what with all their kill the mutant, purge the unclean tub-thumpin'. But those nobles up in their ivory towers didn' give a shit, left us to sort it out all on our lonesome. Fuck me but I used to love runnin' with the purge gangs, takin' a bit'a revenge on those freaks. Not jus' the Biters, mind, anyone we came across who didn' look right; even some of those mutants who jus' wanted to keep to themselves. We'd kill 'em all an' kill 'em slow, an' if they were young an' pretty we'd fuck 'em first."

He shrugged at Marc and Kelly's hateful expressions.

"Yeah, I can see you pair'a lawmen fuckin' scowlin', but that's the ugly side'a people that comes out when your precious imperium doesn' give a shit, which it never does 'cept for the lucky few like you an' your circle-jerk buddies. That's why you guys can keep on smackin' me around all y'all want, cos I've already lived through shit you prissy cunts could never fuckin' dream of. An' you think those kids on Hercynia were any different?"

He tilted his bottle pointedly towards Kelly.

"Jus' what do you think you were achievin', runnin' out in front'a those gun-servos an' nearly gettin' all your friends killed? Savin' a couple of scummer kids? How d'you think they'd turn out if you had saved 'em, eh? Here's a fuckin' hint, precious, it wouldn't be like my li'l ganger girl or the naughty nurse. They'd be turnin' out jus' like me."

Kelly shook her head. "First rule of the enforcers, Carson. You only punish people for what they do. Not what they might do, not what they intend to do."

"Intend." Merle repeated with an ugly smirk, "I bet your intentions were good too, eh? See, the way I see it, intent ain't nothin' but a guilty conscience runnin' up the white flag an' grabbin' its ankles to take a fuckin' from pride."

He leaned his elbows back against the counter and sipped his drink, placing the bottle down with a clink and looking at Marc.

"So in answer to your question, kid, no I don' think your l'il sister would've pulled the trigger, even if it meant chicken-boy was gonna rampage across the whole station an' kill every last damn one of your friends."

Merle looked round as a sound of running footsteps echoed down the hall. He let out a sigh, took a last swig from his bottle, and belched. "An' here comes the fuckin' cavalry."

The cavalry turned out to be Vincent, a sparking stun-baton in his hand and a murderous look in his good eye.

"You kids alright?" he growled to Marc and Kelly, who nodded. Vincent turned and glared at Merle. "We're going to have to find some better cuffs for you, grox-fokker."

The stun-baton burst off a rain of sparks as he swung it down into Merle's leg, and the convict yelped as he collapsed. Vincent gave him another blow to the shoulder, and then a superfluous third to the back of his neck, before locking the convict's arms and forcing them into another, tighter pair of cuffs.

"I'da come quietly if you'd just fuckin' ask me, you trained ape!" Merle spat at him as he was hauled to his feet, his right leg still wobbling from the stunner impact. "Still, whatever it takes to make you feel like you're actually fuckin' worth somethin'!"

Vincent hit him again. Merle managed a laugh that was half a pained, hacking cough.

"See, kids." he told Marc and Kelly through gritted teeth. "I ain't worried - y'all can't kill me." He fixed Marc with an ugly little smile. "Deal's a deal, amirite?"

Marc couldn't help gritting his teeth at the deliberate reminder of Van Der Mir and his self-defeating sense of honour. He knew what Merle wanted him to think. And here I am, standing by and watching Tomas make the same mistake.

He looked at his sister, whose neck tendons were standing out taut.

"You okay?" he asked her as the sounds of Merle being dragged away receded down the corridor.

"I'm not afraid of him." Kelly said stiffly, staring at Merle's abandoned bottle. "Was that paralytum you had loaded?"

"Aye." Marc lied, and twisted his ring to line the miniature injector back up with its default reservoir before carefully folding away the tiny needle that was still sticking out of it. The ring did indeed carry a dose of paralytum, but if Carson had tried anything, he had loaded it with a far more lethal cocktail - etum omega.


+ + + + + +

Baraspine, two days later

A day's head start meant little compared to the vagaries of the warp - it could have been enough for the Kulvard Sunrise to slip through their grasp, or even for them to have overtaken the trader en route to Baraspine. It was with some trepidation that the team waited as the Arthrashastra shuddered out of the warp, cast off the last grasping fingers of corposant, and opened the eyes of its auger scopes.

"The Sunrise is docked at the Glom." Theodosia reported as she bent over one of the bridge's oak and brass panels. Then she chuckled. "And it may be relevant that the defence monitor Ordus Saether is docked alongside it."

When the team disembarked at the Glom and pushed their way onto the number 8 docking arm, they found their way blocked by lines of black -and-white hazard tape stamped with the fist and scales of the adeptus arbites. Two enforcers in red-edged cloaks guarded the corridor, and Josiah recognised the hawk-nosed intelligencer directing a knot of verispex agents in the background. On their side the docking bay was relatively clear, though opposite them a line of arbitrators were sparking up their shock mauls and threatening a crowd of excitable onlookers to keep back. The Kulvard Sunrise loomed above them like a beached whale, so huge that only its slab-sided prow was visible beyond the lines of transparisteel windows. The team were debating whether to use their inquisitorial authority to push through, when a quartet of women peeled off towards them out of the steady flow of traffic jostling forward from the circular docking corridors. They wore understated black headscarves and simple robes embellished with ivory fleur-de-lys. An ageing woman with a square, solemn face and sharp brown eyes led them.

"I wouldn't bother, if I were you." said sister Kiana.

The three other sisters stopped half a pace behind the canoness, hands folded. They were the picture of sororitas solemnity, though the team spotted the cuff of an armourweave bodyglove beneath one of the sisters' loose sleeves. These attendants were bodyguards in disguise.

"My entourage and I were performing reconsecration rituals on the hulls of the unloading shuttles." Kiana went on. "When this defence monitor pulls in with that cargo ship in its grav tethers. And then the arbites came bursting into the docking hub with a warrant for the captain's arrest, citing some astro they had received."

The canoness somehow gave the impression of a smile despite her grave expression.

"Most unfortunate. He is with the arbites now, so I can only pray for their judgement to be sound and just."

"And just how hard would it be to get access to that judgement, sister?" Marc asked, folding his arms across the front of his Daargardi storm-coat.

"Very hard I should think, unless someone like a full inquisitor were to personally intervene." Kiana shrugged and made the sign of the Aquila as Marc and Kelly exchanged a glance. "May we be of further service to you, sirs?"

"Well," Glabrio put in, apparently enjoying the charade, "It just so happens that our current captain has a very old and very beautiful landing craft that looked like it could use a dust-off. If you're reconsecrating hulls I'm sure she'd be grateful."

"As the Emperor wills." Kiana nodded, and fell in behind Glabrio, next to Ella in her teal gown as they all reversed their direction away from the impounded Kulvard Sunrise.

"An impressive conveyance you've chosen." Kiana commented once they had passed through the docking umbilical to the Arthrashastra and were safe from any possible intrusion by eavesdroppers, vox thieves or spy drones. Her sharp eyes switched left to regard major Crenshaw. "Major, is there somewhere we might talk in private before I brief the rest of the agents on our findings?"

Crenshaw, in his starched field-grey uniform, halted and cocked his head at the canoness.

"As you wish, sister." he said indifferently, and raised an arm to indicate the corridor branching off to the left. "My quarters are along here and up one deck, and I can assure you that they are quite secure."

"That will serve. Agents, I beg your indulgence. This won't take long."

Crenshaw had appropriated one of the more austere cabins on the Arthrashastra, which opened into a small work area with a desk and cogitator terminal, separated from the sleeping quarters by a closed door. A small alcove in the bow-facing wall denoted a prayer space, although the threadbare kneeling cushion was folded away and the shrine above it was conspicuously empty.

"I would ask you to pray with me, major," Kiana said, squinting at the neglected alcove as Crenshaw closed the door and stood with his back to it, hands clasped behind him. "But I understand you prefer actions to words."

"You can say that we prayed, if it suits your purposes."

"I have a feeling that your colleagues wouldn't believe me. And I dislike telling lies that no-one will believe."

The old sister folded her hands over the fleur de lys clasp of her belt and pivoted to face Crenshaw.

"I will see to it that the results of captain Danilov's interrogation find their way from the arbites straight to you. I just hope that you are more diligent in dealing with heretics on your own vessel, major."

Crenshaw pointedly raised an eyebrow. "I assume that you are not referring to the cultists we apprehended on Marioch."

"I am not. But since you bring them up I'll ask. How did they die?"

"Not elegantly."

Among the many bespoke modifications made to the Arthrashastra by the Prince dynasty and their dubiously orthodox tech-priests, plasma monitoring station number 35 stood out. The control systems had been stripped out, and several airtight doors fronted by transparisteel windows had been cut into the tungsten pipes that ran vertically up through the chamber from the diverter manifold. There were scorched-black floor grates at the lips of the doors, but no handholds, and the doors locked from the outside. Evidently, it had not been designed with maintenance of the fusion chamber's diverter pipes in mind.

Tomas had planned to simply have the three cultists spaced, but sister Mahin had been eager when Dosi mentioned the alternative, and almost everyone in the team had felt it fitting that the sister should have the final say. The cultists, no tech-adepts, had not realised what was going on until Crenshaw, Josiah and Vincent had started manhandling them towards the open doors.

"Hey!" the youngest of the three had shouted in his stilted Marioch gothic as he stumbled onto the grate and fell against the inside wall of the pipe, "What is...? Wait! Wait! You said you'd let us go if I told you everything! You said you'd forgive us!"

"I can forgive you." sister Mahin had told him, her terracotta skin stretched tight beneath her headscarf. "The emperor cannot."

The cultists voices were cut off as the airtight doors closed and the three guards spun the wheel locks. There was a crackle from the vox speakers set around the corners of the room as Crenshaw paced over to a small control console and activated a microphone above the leftmost execution chamber. The major leaned into the vox stalk as Vizkop ghosted around the three pipes, checking the thick containment tubes that surrounded them.

"Do you have any last words?" Crenshaw asked coolly.

The first cultist, whom Crenshaw recognised as the one Kally had subdued at the stairwell door, was silent - resignation, the major had though at the time, although perhaps it had been one last act of defiance. The second man, the young one, had been far less dignified.

"Please....mercy." he stammered through the vox link as soon as it activated. His hands were splayed against the transparisteel window, his eyes fixed on sister Mahin. "I didn't touch her, I swear. I swear!"

Crenshaw was sure that he had been telling the truth; between them, Mahin, Marc and Glabrio had been a masterclass of bargaining, threats and psychological manipulation, more than enough to tease any lies out of a single weak-willed cultist.

Moving stiffly, almost like a sleepwalker, sister Mahin had walked over to the vox station and gently motioned Crenshaw aside.

"So." she had challenged the cultist, "You just stood back and watched?"

"I didn't know!" the cultist sobbed. "I didn't know she was a Sister, I swear!"

"Would that have made a difference?" Mahin said in a thick voice. No trace of the mild demeanour she had presented on Marioch was in evidence. "You didn't know Shirin the sister, who saved 50 hostages on Baraspine, pulled me to safety from a burning vehicle, and was awarded the Sable Heart by canoness Kiana herself. Very well. So let me tell you about Shirin the person, who was always the first to take the new recruits under her wing, who always turned aside any praise as just doing her duty, and used to be able to talk for hours about everything from the saints of Calixis to the best way to cook Reth silverfins."

She looked the cultist in the eyes as he stared back, his jaw working silently.

"That's who you stood back and let your friends kill. How dare you ask for me to spare you the Emperor's justice now?"

"Please..." the young man's voice crackled weakly through the speakers, "Please..."

Crenshaw cut off the microphone with the flick of a switch, leaving only the dull thud of the cultist smashing his fists against the window. His mouth was open and screaming, but the sound failed to penetrate the thick transparisteel. Crenshaw flicked another switch to let Mahin repeat his request for last words to the man in the third tube. The third cultist was possibly the least impressive of the three - thickset, running to fat, his moustachioed face still black beneath both eyes where Crenshaw's suppression shield had broken his nose - but his voice was steady.

"You won't hear me beg." he stated over the vox. "My cause is just. It's right there, in the Creed's own scriptures. The Emperor will descend upon the planets of the galaxy on fiery wings, and he shall bring about great change. The faithful will be resurrected in the manner that they lived, and I have done His work."

"And you really believe what you did to Shirin was His work?" sister Mahin answered him, her small hands pressing into the metal of the command lectern.

"The Blue Devil told us so." the cultist said calmly.

"The Blue Devil abandoned you." Mahin countered. "He set the PDF on you before he left to try and cover his tracks."

"Abandonment, defeat, death...these words mean nothing in the plans of the ever-changing." The cultist smiled. "The faithful shall have their reward. In the name of..."

Mahin killed the intercom before he could speak the blasphemous name, but she couldn't stop the cultist from holding his straightened hand up to his heart, and curling his finger and thumb into an eye.

"Reward," Crenshaw heard Marc growl behind him as as Mahin turned away from the dark show of faith. "Aye. You'll have it."

"The reactor's primed." Theodosia said, looking subdued despite her customary elegance. "I'll let the sister give the word."

"Do it." Mahin said at once.

Beyond the windows, the second cultist was still shouting silently. A soft thunk indicated the vox mics withdrawing into the protective cases of the exhaust pipes, and then all three men flinched as the louder, rattling hum of a magnetic containment field established itself.

"Plasma channel secured." Vizkop reported, reading the dials of Theodosia's console over her shoulder. Crenshaw expected that she would have offered the tech-priest a playful rebuke had the situation not been so serious. "Spinning up emergency fusion generator."

Her eyes still fixed on the cultists, sister Mahin folded her hands over her chest and began to murmur a prayer. The first cultist had screwed his eyes tight shut. The second was clawing at his own head. The third, staring fixedly back at Mahin, opened his mouth as if to let loose a mighty shout.

"Venting plasma." Vizkop stated.

The windows in the pipes suddenly flared with white light. For an eyeblink the three cultists were visible as shadowed afterimages, like photo negatives on a half-processed pict. Then they were gone, and there was only roiling plasma surging through the tubes.

"A spiritu dominatus," sister Mahin whispered, "Domine, libre nos."

She turned away and left the room before Theodosia had even begun shutting down the reactor, one hand massaging her temple through her headscarf. Crenshaw could not have sworn that he didn't see her eyes glistening.

"Hmm." sister Kiana opined as Crenshaw surfaced from his reverie. "A few less heretics to worry about, then - but a poor exchange for one of my sisters."

"To die is our duty," Crenshaw shrugged. "All of us, in the end."

"Perhaps." Kiana allowed. "But I can't help but notice that the other heretic on your crew has not died, major. And he does not enjoy the same suspended sentence as your other penitents. So I have to ask, who is lobbying for Carson's continued survival...and why?"

Crenshaw exhaled a long breath, humming low in his throat. "The short answer, sister, is that agent Prinzel is still hoping for actionable intelligence on DeRei. But perhaps you are asking the wrong question. Perhaps, rather, we should ask why Carson was made available to Alia to begin with."

Kiana finished signing the aquila with her thin hands, to ward off the ill omen of the two heretics' names, and rested her dark eyes on Crenshaw. "Would you have a theory about it, major?"

"I might." Crenshaw said, with an indulgent smile. "What do you know about inquisitors Lucullis and De Shilo, sister?"

"I know De Shilo operates in the Markyn Marches, and Lucullis in Ixaniad. I know that they both arbitrated at your penitents' trial."

Crenshaw nodded. "Lucullis is the man who gave Carson to Alia."

When he refused to elaborate more, Kiana patiently inquired, "And so De Shilo's relevance is...?"

"Dependent on what you can tell me about him." Crenshaw said, neutrally.

Kiana gave him an appraising look. "Doubtless there is more hidden away in the archives on Coseflame, but from memory I know that he was involved in the Makita hive incident, and appointed to oversee the resultant quarantine. He successfully defended it against a Necron incursion about a year after the initial incident."

Crenshaw cocked an eyebrow. "Necrons? Interesting." He made a mental note to mention it to Machairi the next time he saw her in private. He had a feeling that he had finally solved the mystery of the Necrons' real interest in Kally, all those years ago on Hercynia.

He did not relish communicating that information to Kally herself.

"What was the xenos interest in Makita?" he probed, wondering how much knowledge had spread following the penitents' trial, and how fast.

"We don't know." Kiana answered, innocuously enough - but Crenshaw was left to wonder if this was the truth or an indication that the canoness and her order were more wary of Machairi's organisation than they let on. Beware the daemon at your back, Crenshaw thought grimly, remembering Alia's expression when he had last voiced those words aloud.

"But," Kiana continued, the lines around her saturnine mouth deepening, "I can tell you that De Shilo held a grudge against Sidonis if their lack of direct meetings during the quarantine are anything to go by."

Crenshaw nodded, matching the sister's frown. "I can understand a degree of resentment for being pulled off a case when Sidonis' handling of it resulted in over a billion deaths."

Kiana folded her thin hands into the sleeves of her sororitas robe. "And so your working theory is that he might have been equally suspicious of his protege, providing a motive to leave her with Carson? I can assure you that a number of people back on Terra are asking questions about why she did not have him executed."

Crenshaw smiled thinly. "And that is before we consider the possibility that Carson was mind-scrubbed or otherwise programmed with some sort of subconscious trigger."

Kiana shook her head. "You said it was Lucullis, not De Shilo who handed Carson over to you? That man dislikes petty politics. He wouldn't have aided De Shilo in such a venture."

"Unless he did not know - or perhaps he even suspected. Ensuring Carson was transferred to his own jurisdiction denies De Shilo the chance to implant him. Unless, of course, he was already too late."

"De Shilo does not strike me as a petty enough man to condemn Machairi by simple association, especially when Sidonis is already dead." Kiana pointed out.

Crenshaw smiled slightly. "As much as I respect Alia, her impressive ability to win friends and influence people could easily be interpreted as the kind of empire-building that made Sidonis too powerful. So perhaps De Shilo's reasoning is practical rather than petty."

"Which brings us back to your colleagues' reasoning for keeping Carson alive even now."

"I can assure you that some of my colleagues," Crenshaw gave a grunt of humour as he stressed the sister's wording. "Would much rather he be terminated - though not because of De Shilo and Lucullis."

"I am curious; what is your opinion on the matter, major?"

"Curious." Crenshaw repeated with a smirk. He very deliberately walked away from the door and stood for a moment facing the empty prayer alcove. His hands remained clasped behind his back. "That almost sounds like an accusation, sister."

The lines around sister Kiana's mouth deepened again. "Major Crenshaw, I just lost a sister on Marioch. Another is still in a medically induced coma, and yet another is in self-imposed penance to try and clear her thoughts. I take the protection of my sisters seriously...and those of other orders no less so. For instance, I have heard disturbing things about a sister Elaine and a sister Ilanna of the Ardent Blood order. Things concerning their deaths aboard a missing Black Ship named Ampoliros."

Crenshaw was silent for a long moment.

"Ah." he said at last.


+ + + + + +

The cold, soundproofed metal of Crenshaw's cabin door separated Sapphira from the two inside. It had not been hard to guess that the one place on the Arthrashastra Crenshaw considered to be secure was his own quarters, and Sapphira had things of her own to discuss with canoness Kiana - preferably in private. She was acutely aware of the ridiculous turtleneck she was currently wearing; a necessity to hide the love bites on her neck from the canoness. Given that she had made the mistake of telling Glabrio where she was going just before their latest session, she was almost certain that the rotten, sugar-addicted little bastard had done it on purpose.

Apparently she was not alone who wanted to unburden her soul to the canoness; a tap of light footsteps announced sister Mahin following her round the curve of the floodlit corridor, a loose robe fluttering around her ankles. With the Marioch cell compromised and no further need of disguise, sister Mahin had taken to wearing a coal-black sororitas abaya for the journey back to Baraspine. Glancing down at the spy-trained sister's measured steps, Sapphira wondered if Mahin was only making noise to politely signal her presence.

"Sister Sapphira." Mahin acknowledged with a nod as she approached.

"Sister Mahin." Sapphira returned the gesture of respect. "Are you feeling any better?"

Mahin thumbed the string of prayer beads looped around her belt. "I'm not sure yet. I assume you're here to see the canoness? I'll find time later."

"No, it's alright." Sapphira said quickly, standing aside.

Mahin shook her head. "No, I have a feeling that the canoness will want to speak to you first."

"She will?" Sapphira asked, a little forebodingly.

Mahin smiled. "Our Sisterhood might be alone in the imperium in having subdivisions that aren't a cause for strife. A sister is a sister. That's all that matters."

Am I still a sister though? Sapphira wondered. It was a thought that sometimes kept her up at night; being caught in an uneasy limbo between the Hospitaller and the inquisition, having been an effectively constant secondee to Machairi's retinue for the last four years. Granted, she hadn't had much choice but to transfer to the newly-minted inquisitor after Sidonis had fed certain information to Franklin Priest. He knew full well that Priest was the type to hold a grudge. He knew that he'd block my application to join his team with Kelly and Kally and the others.

Sapphira couldn't deny that Machairi had been tactful in never requesting her permanent transfer, thus letting her keep her sororitas identity and rank, but the sister had sometimes wondered if Machairi secretly doubted her loyalties as a result.

She's been wary of everyone since Crenshaw said he had a psyker prophesy for her.

Solvan had hinted at the possible source of Machairi's worries when she had brought her thoughts to him, but the priest had been reluctant to elaborate. Nevertheless, Sapphira could definitely imagine canoness Kiana feeling the same way about her split loyalties, psychic prognostications or no.

Mahin saw the hospitaller's expression and raised a small smile. "Don't look so worried, sister. I expect that the canoness just feels protective of your physical and spiritual health on such a dangerous mission, separated from your sisters."

That's exactly what I'm afraid of. "All of us are at risk." Sapphira said evasively. "Marioch proved that."

Sister Mahin's eyes flickered downward, just for a moment. "For what it's worth, I believe you're in safer hands than I would have expected, sister. At least, if your inquisitor's team is any indication. They have been uncommonly generous in offering their time and support after what happened to Pari and Shirin."

"Let me guess." Sapphira said with a slight smile. "Either Kelly, Solvan or Glabrio."

"All three." Mahin admitted, "And perhaps more surprisingly, your chartered trader."

"Theodosia?" Sapphira said, raising her eyebrows. "When?"

"Right after the executions. She seemed to want to warn me." Mahin adjusted her headscarf. "She was rather sweet actually, beneath the rakish swagger. But I got the distinct feeling that she has has some experience of revenge herself that she was projecting, given how self-hating she sounded when she claimed I wouldn't like what I'd become if I let myself do these things."

"It's not an uncommon side effect." Sapphira observed carefully.

Mahin wasn't fooled. "The satisfaction of retribution was the emperor's, not mine." She rolled a prayer bead between her thumb and forefinger. "In truth, sister, the only thing I feel is Shirin's loss."

There was a pause.

"Although, do you know what the last thing your trader asked me was?"

Sapphira cocked her head. "What?"

Mahin raised a smile. "So what is the best way to cook Reth silverfin?"

Sapphira had to smile at that. She turned towards the door as she heard movement on the other side, muffled by the metal.

"And I'll thank you to leave my bolter where it is, Sister." the major said, almost offhandedly, before he bowed and turned on his heel. Sapphira saw him give sister Mahin a passingly curious glance before he marched away up the corridor, leaving the sisters to their business.

"Your patience for a moment longer, sister." Kiana told Mahin, who nodded as the canoness closed the sliding door behind them. Kiana turned to face Sapphira with a whisper of her black robes, clasping her hands in front of her. "I hope you are not in the business of petty theft, sister."

"No, canoness." Sapphira replied, neutrally. "The major is just somewhat sore over a past incident. I was well within my rights to take back a sisterhood issue bolter. And I gave it him back." Eventually. she added silently, and tried to keep any sense of satisfaction from creeping into her expression as she remembered Hercynia.

"Is that so." said Kiana. Sapphira couldn't tell whether the older woman was agreeing, disapproving, or even gently mocking her. The canoness unclasped her hands and motioned with thin fingers towards the neglected prayer alcove in the corner of the room. "I do not believe that the major's altar has seen much prayer lately, and that should be redressed. Would you join me, sister?"

"In prayer for guidance?" Sappira queried.

"For forgiveness." Kiana corrected her. "Heretics still run free, evil men still oppress the faithful. And our penance for the Reign of Blood is never over, sister. Once a penance is complete, there is a chance that the original sin will be forgotten."

Sapphira knew that the Vigil stemmed from the notoriously penitent Order of the Valorous Heart, but all the same she was left to ponder the insinuations behind the canoness' words as they quietly knelt. Sapphira murmured through her prayers, pulling out her rosary chaplet and thumbing through the beads as she counted them off.

Immortal Emperor, condemn me not if I forget or fall into error.

That fiasco with Carson had been an error, no matter how cathartic it had been at the time. She had wanted Kally to knock the bastard’s teeth out. It twisted Sapphira’s gut that it had only landed Kally, Gavin and Kelly in a worse place than they had been before, and she bore responsibility for not stopping it.

Have mercy on me. she prayed, For you are my protector. Help me against those who stand against faith.

She began to pray for her friends as well. On the eighteenth catechism for absolution, she heard Kiana's own voice fall silent. Sapphira closed her hand around the chaplet as she completed her final prayer. Kiana was sitting back on her heels, waiting patiently for her fellow sororita to finish.

"And incidentally," the canoness said, reaching over to gently thumb the cuff of Sapphira's turtleneck jumper. "Take that silly thing off, sister. For one thing it isn't your colour. And for another I'm old, not senile."

Sapphira felt the blood rush to her cheeks, and she couldn't help cringing as she pulled the garment over her head, with reluctant slowness. She was still blushing as she folded the turtleneck awkwardly over her lap, and stared down at it rather than meet the canoness' eyes.

"Look at me, if you would sister."

Sapphira reluctantly raised her gaze, still feeling like a novice who had been caught creeping into the convent kitchens after curfew. As she had expected, Kiana's eyes were narrowed at the incriminating bruises on her neck. And yet, there was a twitch to the canoness' thin lips that was almost knowing.

"Lady Machairi's investigator, I presume." Kiana said.

Sapphira cringed again, wondering just how long ago the canoness had worked out her supposed secret, and if others beyond Machairi's inner circle might have done the same. She didn't trust her voice not to crack or squeak, and so she just nodded.

"I apologise, sister." Kiana deadpanned. "The Vigil trains its sisters to be rather unfairly good at reading people. Your attempts to be discreet when you first visited the Glom probably wouldn't have aroused suspicion from most people."

Sapphira coughed awkwardly to clear her throat. "What...um...what is your opinion of my choice, canoness?"

To her utter surprise, Kiana chuckled. "We humans have evolved as imperfect creatures, sister - but each and every one of us can still serve the Emperor. Even sisters are entitled to their human impulses, so long as they don't affect our duty to Him on Terra." The older woman's downturned mouth softened into an almost warm smile. "And I will not insult you by suggesting that that is the case." The smile dropped a little. "But you should exercise caution with those human impulses."

Casting her mind back to what she had been told of the Teleostei incident, Sapphira wondered if Kiana was familiar with those same files, and if she knew of all the trouble that Walt and Julia's relationship had caused. Something told her that she almost certainly did. Sapphira was aware that Julia Taymor had been a former sister herself, and she was nobody's fool. She remembered very clearly her first, frank conversation with Machairi on the matter. The inquisitor had fixed her with one of her appraising looks, told Sapphira candidly what Glabrio was like, and asked if she was comfortable with handling the lack of strings in the long term. Having done a lot of soul searching before daring to bring her request to the inquisitor, Sapphira had answered yes. She still remembered Machairi's ambiguous smile.

I'm glad you told me, sister. Now go and enjoy yourself.

Sapphira could never have imagined such a response from her old sister superior. It was tempting to blame Kally and Kelly for urging her on at every possible opportunity after Hercynia, but Sapphira was well aware of the different standards that applied between the sisterhood and the inquisition, and indeed the wider Imperium. As Kiana had said, they were all imperfect humans. But some of us are held to higher standards than others.

"If I may reverse the question, sister." Kiana probed. "What is your opinion of the other members of lady Machairi's retinue? Are you comfortable working alongside them?"

"Yes." Sapphira replied, nodding assertively. In truth, her permanent assignment to Machairi's team upon the latter's promotion had been Sidonis' manipulation rather than her own choice. Now that she knew how much the late inquisitor lord had hated the Makita survivors, she understood how Franklin had gotten hold of her full service history. I was supposed to judge them, and I didn't come up with the judgement he wanted. I even befriended them. Sidonis must have hated that.

Old Franklin Priest had been one to hold a grudge, and the revelations within that document had been enough to close any chance of her continuing to work with Kally and the others when they were reassigned to Priest's team. They had remained with Sidonis, while Sapphira, Glabrio and the others made the transfer to the newly-minted inquisitor Machairi. Even though she knew now that she had been used as a pawn, Sapphira did not feel trapped or resentful. She cared for Glabrio, and Solvan, and Tomas, and she respected Vizkop despite the differences in their faiths. Even Crenshaw was bearable enough. In any case, a hospitaller's duty was to serve - whether that be in a field medicae or as a Throne agent in all but name.

"You say the other members, canoness." Sapphira said. "I am not technically a member of Machairi's retinue. I am an attaché, like Vizkop or Crenshaw. I am still a sister of the adepta."

"I know." Kiana said, almost soothingly - as if she had detected a hint of conflict in Sapphira's words that even the sister herself was not consciously aware of. "And so does lady Machairi."

Sapphira was not as comforted by those words, and she wondered if that was the intent. While her dynamic with the inquisitor was professional and respectful, she had sometimes wondered if it was truly as warm as Machairi's personal investment in her other agents. She wondered now if Kiana, with her professed ability to read people, had noticed it too. She wondered if the canoness could also divine the reason for Machairi's reservation, something which despite the years had continued to elude Sapphira herself. Because I used to work with Javid, perhaps? she thought, shifting uncomfortably. Or...?

"Your inquisitor knows the worth of promises." Kiana went on. "And I'm sure she knows the value you place on your promises to the sisterhood."

Once again, Sapphira sensed a double meaning. She remained silent, facing the canoness.

"I know that our alliance with lady Machairi was largely down to your hard work, sister." Kiana said, inclining her head. "But you must remain vigilant, even around allies. There may yet be heretics in your midst."

Heretics, Sapphira noted. Plural. Not just Merle. The branching orders of the Valorous Heart were known for their repentant streak – but also for their suspicion of people who claimed to know the Emperor’s will and make judgements on His behalf. People like the inquisition.

"The penitents are not heretics." she said, more firmly than she had intended. "I have appraised them, and so have Tomas and Solvan. We all concur. They are pure."

"I am not talking about the penitents." Kiana said gravely, her square face returning to a stony stare that made Sapphira glance away in spite of herself. "I trust your judgement sister, and so rather than tell you I will let you draw your own conclusions. Search your ordo's archives for information about a black ship named Ampoliros."

Ampoliros? Sapphira thought, and opened her mouth to voice the question. The canoness, however, pressed her hands against her knees and slowly rose to her feet, her black robes cascading downward. Sapphira realised that her audience was at an end. She felt a dry thumb touch her forehead as Kiana reached down and traced a V for the two heads of the Aquila, and then a horizontal line for its wings. She raised her head slightly to meet Kiana's eyes, trying to hide the confusion on her face, and then realising that it was probably futile to try.

"Be vigilant, sister." the canoness urged her a second time. "Emperor go with you."

[Azazeal849]

He finished his log entry and locked the data pad again. He set it down and leaned back in his chair, fingers interlacing behind his head as a soft sigh escaped him. He thought about locating Sapphira to get the load off his mind. She had proven trustworthy before when he spoke of his past plus he thought she might want to know that he had fully recovered from his overclocking.

A soft chime brought his attention back to the data pad, as an elegant pattern of code streamed across the front of it. Hidden in the pattern was a familiar cypher, a signal to provide the countercode that would turn a meaningless pulse of data into information that even most archmagi were not privy to. Vizkop did so, and saw the code shift and morph to form a multi-dimensional dragon's head, before it melted into a simple, concise message from an old contact on Mars.

Ave Omnissiah, Dragonslayer.

Grey Knights analysis complete on waystation 9794. Intercepted communications indicate significant fire damage to security storage media. Partial vid-feed recovered, described as showing inq. agent Alicia Tarran (96.7% identity confirmation) moving through station. Report specifically notes that she is without her power armour at time of recording. Assumed contact with heretic DeRei not recorded. Grey Knights note a large pane of warp glass was discovered in the control hub, apparently transmogrified from one of the cogitator display screens. Warp glass was subsequently nullified by squad justicar. Lords Dragon in agreement that affronts to waystation 9794 spirit must be punished. Full co-operation of local assets with your investigation authorised.

Message ends.


+ + + + + +

"The gallery is secure, canoness." one of the abaya-clad sisters reported, sliding the compact auspex deftly back into a pocket of her sleeve and standing back.

Kiana acknowledged the sister with a nod as she resumed her post at the ivory sliding doors. The other two flanked the chair where the canoness sat, facing down the long hardwood table towards the panoramic art-screens on the far wall. Kiana's slightly narrowed eyes hovered over Vizkop as the silence in the hall resumed.

"You'll forgive me, secutor." she began. Everyone in the room knew well enough that the Dragon Order operative could have scanned the room for bugs in half the time it took for the sister to do it manually. "But we prefer to make our own checks. My order is of the Valorous Heart, and we tend to trust no-one."

Near the bottom of the table, Ella toyed subconsciously with the animus vox necklace that Kiana had given her. Theodosia was conspicuously absent from the meeting, excluded until the Vigil were satisfied with what their ordo famulous sisters made of the charter Marc had sent them.

"I will be brief, agents." sister Kiana continued, steepling her pale fingers on the table in front of her. "My sisters on the Glom looked into the illegal drugs trade as agent Sonder suggested, and uncovered a handful of 'flects in the possession of a minor house trader with family holdings on the Glom."

"That was quick." Marc observed.

Kiana smiled thinly. "The Emperor granted us a stroke of luck, I will admit. The trader obviously didn't know what she was dealing with, otherwise she wouldn't have opened one in such a public place. The soporific effects are somewhat...obvious. Moreover, she gave a description roughly matching your target for the man who sold them to her. Allegedly, he tried to swap the warp glass for 25mm rifle rounds before she insisted on paying Thrones."

"25mm?" Marc mused, remembering a bullet they had dug out of a shuttle's hull back on Teleostei. "Well it's the right calibre for an exitus rifle even if it's probably not the right material."

"More'n material, kid." Vincent grunted. "Exitus rounds are supposed to have phase cores or guiding spirits or some other sorcerous shit in 'em. Arcolin ain't gettin' his mitts on them unless he's plannin' on raidin' an assassin temple. But a solid tungsten bullet worked just fokkin' fine on Frank."

The ex-Guardsman rested his lips against his mechanical fist, and to everyone's surprise took out a small Aquila icon that might have come from Solvan's religious impedimenta, turning it over and over in his other hand.

"Where's the trader now?" Kelly asked.

"We had her mind-scrubbed and put under surveillance." Kiana answered, turning to regard the former verispex. "In case DeRei tried to contact her again."

"Hold up." Marc rejoined, looking up at Kiana. "Arcolin sold the trader the flects? Where's he getting them from? There's been no trade to speak of since they cracked down on the smugglers in the Markayn Marches, and you can't just grow them."

"If you have any contacts in the ordo malleus, I suggest you use them." Kiana opined, delicately marking the Aquila over the front of her robe. "In any case, as of today, we can surmise that your target was not planning to come back to the Glom - or else he suspects that we're watching it. I found out that the Kulvard Sunrise put a shuttle down to Baraspine, less than an hour before we tipped the Navy to impound it on its way to the out-of-system jump point. Since DeRei was not found aboard the Kulvard, we assume that he has gone to ground on Baraspine."

She let the team digest the information for a moment as she reached into a hidden pocket inside her sleeve for a small, portable holoprojector. A tap of an activation rune produced a thin beam of light, which fanned out to project a pre-loaded map of Baraspine's southeastern quarter. Like much of the planet it was an ugly, pockmarked landscape of sand-weathered rock, dominated by the skeleton of an ancient prefab city. The southeastern settlements had long been abandoned in the face of the relentless glass storms, with the colonists moving to the more sheltered eastern basin settlements that had eventually grown into hive Alda. Plenty of ghost stories surrounded the abandoned prefabs, as well as rumours that they now served as hideouts for outcasts and malcontents fleeing hive Alda - though anyone desperate enough to try that would have to have taken heavy environ suits with them, or else succumbed quickly to the smog-polluted air and the flesh-stripping glass storms.

"Judging by the shuttle's re-entry course, it landed somewhere in this region." Kiana said, rising slowly to her feet and stepping round the table to point at a reasonably flat area of ground near the north of the map.

"What are those?" Marc asked, nodding towards a trio of rune markers that were blinking red in a rough triangle around the abandoned city.

"This is where the situation becomes delicate." Kiana replied. "Subsector governor Terce has been wanting to regenerate his homeworld's planetside economy for some time now, and several mechanicus survey teams have been enlisted to look into possibly reclaiming the ruins. The latest one put down from a Navy frigate just yesterday, with a high ranking member of the sub-governor's cabinet in tow."

"I take it security is tight then." Marc guessed, crossing his arms as he leaned back thoughtfully in his chair.

The canoness nodded her scarf-covered head. "It would not surprise me if the Navy have already scrambled Lightnings to seize DeRei's shuttle."

"We could signal the frigate." Kelly suggested, "Coordinate a search."

"I don't know." Marc frowned, "After the welcome we got from the PDF on Marioch, maybe we should focus on finding Arcolin before they do."

He turned to Ella, who was seated on his opposite side.

"Ella, do you think you could do a reading for us, pinpoint where the bastard's hiding?"

Ella opened her mouth to answer, but at that moment there was a musical chime from the ivory door. One of the sisters guarding it glanced at the control panel and its tiny pict screen.

"It's trader Prince." she reported, though everyone present could have already guessed the fact. The only other crewmember not present already was Merle, and the scummer was safely confined to his cabin.

Tomas shot a questioning look at sister Kiana. The canoness reached out to deactivate the hololith and nodded. At Kiana's signal, the sister at the door tapped the control panel to admit Theodosia. The rogue trader was once again dressed in vibrant red, her blonde hair piled atop her head in a simple but elegant knot. She offered Ella a wink before speaking.

"Evening, all." she said, with a knowing smile directed at sister Kiana. The canoness returned her gaze with a neutral expression and a measured dip of the head. "Pardon me for interrupting, but I thought you might want to know that the frigate in orbit just launched five drop ships."

"Five drop ships?" Vincent repeated, "The Navy usually sends an echelon and an AEWAC, so that could still be sixty or eighty marines. A fairly fokkin' serious landing party."

"Not marines." Theodosia said mildly. "The drop ships were marked with Nebula Corps icons - the sub governor's own RRF."

Marc frowned, thinking back to an incident on a landing pad back on Teleostei. The only thing that took Alley down fast was the Quasars. "We might want to bring a few neutron beamers."

Theodosia gave an almost mischievous smile. "Think bigger, Mr Keller. I have a particular drop-ship in mind."


+ + + + + +

The wilderness beyond Baraspine's towering primary hive was barren, desolate and hostile. A chemical smog thrown up by hive Alda's foundries was channelled down through the intervening hills to blanket the craggy rockflats around the abandoned city, shrouding it in caustic mist. Every now and then a gust of wind would spring up, stirring the grey haze that clung to the silica landscape and dislodging small particles of glass to hiss and rattle against the team's environment suits.

Ella was concerned, and it wasn't just because of the reading she had done just prior to the team's departure. Laying down her cards in a line of five, she had drawn the Four of Adeptio; the card that until recently she had always considered to be her own personal signifier. It represented learning, striving - and sometimes, as she suspected now, hunting. It was paired with the Six of Monasteria for discovery and revelation.

We will find what we seek.

The second pair contained what Ella thought was a warning: the Eight of Discordia, the great enemy's favoured number in the suit most often associated with bad omens, meaning a dangerous foe. Alongside it had been the Ace of Adeptio, its single silver Aquila turning its twin heads left and right against the blue suit background. The opposing gazes represented choice, and a crucial one.

It was put into context by the final card, the Seven of Monasteria, inverted. The seven halos on their red field described things old, decrepit and abandoned, and Ella was certain that could only mean the dead city on Baraspine. She didn't know what the choice meant, but the rest indicated finding an enemy...or at least being led to one. And this dead city was the key to both.

She had insisted as much to the team even though the signs upon arrival were far from auspicious. According to the intercepted chatter of the drop ship pilots, they had found the shuttle from the Kulvard but it had not contained any crew beyond a mind-wiped servitor pilot. It had, however, been packed with several crates of las weaponry. Things were looking increasingly bad for the apprehended trader Danilov, but Arcolin himself remained unseen. Marc had wondered aloud if Arcolin had ever been on the shuttle at all - he would either have had to have made a grav-chute jump, or else made extremely quick progress away from the shuttle before the drop ships touched down next to it - but Ella was convinced that her cards were telling her that Arcolin was somewhere on Baraspine.

Merle, of course, had sneered when he heard that. Against protests from both Marc and Kally, the scummer was with them once again; Tomas having insisted based on his unintentional utility at their last meeting.

Ella tried to push the worries to the back of her mind, and focused instead on the Harlequin card in her hand. She cupped her gloved hands around the card to protect it from the elements as she turned a slow circle, the glass sand crunching under her feet. On the bright warp-image of the card's face, the shadowy xenos with its rictus grin suddenly flared bright as she completed her turn.

"Down there." she said, "Definitely."

"Place looks pretty dead." Marc replied, frowning behind his carapace visor at his PDA screen and the vid-feed it was receiving from the tiny drone he had set to orbiting the derelict listening post. It was a great rockrete brick of a building, as long and as tall as a sizeable warehouse. The radar dishes had been removed from the roof of the structure in the exodus, leaving rusted steel tripods in their wake. The frames had been corroded through by the chemicals that now saturated Baraspine's air, and the savage storms had all but stripped away the mechanicus iconography on the walls. The only entrance point in the slab-shaped building was a circular door, with a crenelated cog frame that had been left pitted and green by the corrosive atmosphere.

"He might have trapped the front door," Marc offered, looking up from his PDA as he guided the drone in another orbit of the dead building, "I suggest blasting a hole in the wall."

"Better make it quiet, or very quick." Vincent opined, as he scanned the horizon through the infrared mag-scope fitted to the top rail of his sited autocannon. "That squad of Nebulas is turning back this way. Fokkin' hell, but they look like walking tanks. I'd forgotten how big Tarran used to look in that armour of hers."

Marc's lips tightened at the mention of Alley, and Ella winced in sympathy as she saw the familiar stab of blue and red shimmer through his psychic avatar. She put away her cards, and dropped her hand to the hilt of inquisitor Suffolk's force gladius, scabbarded tight against her hip.

[dakkagor]

It feels like a gakking trap.

Kally was on point. Her stormtrooper carapace had been chemically treated by Vizkop to protect it against the caustic atmosphere, the normal synth-silk underlayer replaced with a heavy charcoal and lead laced suit that the carefully dipped and repainted carapace plates where bolted and screwed too. It smelt strange, itched in all the wrong places and was bulky. But it was better than the rashes this place would give you.

Kally had been outside the walls of her home hive only twice, both for bounties. She hadn't enjoyed either time out in the desolate wastes, but now, this place achingly reminded her of home.

She shook her head and ploughed on, wading through a silica drift as they approached the old structure. That building screamed trap to her. Difficult to enter, difficult to leave, with those big bastard augmented troopers on their tail.

"He might have trapped the front door," Marc offered, looking up from his PDA as he guided the drone in another orbit of the dead building, "I suggest blasting a hole in the wall."

"Better make it quiet, or very quick." Vincent opined, as he scanned the horizon through the infrared mag-scope fitted to the top rail of his sited autocannon. "That squad of Nebulas is turning back this way. Fokkin' hell, but they look like walking tanks. I'd forgotten how big Tarran used to look in that armour of hers."

"You remember her ploughing through that wall? It was ferrocrete and she went through it like spit-board" Kally offered over the comms. She trudged up to the edge of the building, looked the walls over.

"Come on, talk to me."

She wiped away a good length of the grime covering the outer wall with her gloved hand, placed her helmeted head against the concrete, and rapped on it with her knuckles. No good, too muffled.

"Hold up."

She pulled the helmet clear and clipped it to her belt, and ignoring the acrid stench of the pollution and chemical smog, placed her ear flat against the wall, and tapped again. She repeated it a few more times, before finally setting on a spot a half dozen yards from the main entrance.

"Here. Sounds like an empty room, big enough for us to get in. Vince, chuck us the det-tape."

She started to work, quickly applying a metallic foam from her kit as she used a generous amount of the guard issue det-tape to outline a door that a single person could duck through.

"Lucky for us, this stuff is fairly quiet and quick. Though it does go off hot, so watch yourselves stepping through. Any metal in these walls will still be hot enough to melt straight through your armour for a few minutes after the burn."

She stepped back and admired her handywork, before turning to the team and smiling in her helmet.

"Fire in the hole."

[Azazeal849]

She wiped away a good length of the grime covering the outer wall with her gloved hand, placed her helmeted head against the concrete, and rapped on it with her knuckles. No good, too muffled.

"Nothing on my motion detector." Marc offered as he put his back to the wall next to Kally, dropping one hand from his autogun and turning his wrist to examine the suspect screen.

"I can't see anyone." Ella added, brushing a thick-gloved hand against the concrete. "And it's not fuzzy, like if there was psychic shielding."

"Hold up." Kally said.

She pulled the helmet clear and clipped it to her belt, and ignoring the acrid stench of the pollution and chemical smog, placed her ear flat against the wall, and tapped again.

"Here. Sounds like an empty room, big enough for us to get in. Vince, chuck us the det-tape."

While Vizkop and Vincent provided overwatch with their heavy weapons, Kelly and Gavin with them, Marc and Glabrio took a knee ten metres back from the wall. There was a click of gun stocks against armoured pauldrons as both men trained their weapons.

"Fire in the hole."

At first there was a hiss, then a white flash and a waterfall of sparks. The wall caved inwards in just a few seconds, the rockrete turning white and crumbling away to leave a smoking hole. Josiah and Crenshaw were first through, thick soles crunching over the red-hot debris. Their heavy suppression shields knocked chunks out of the embrittled rockrete as they passed. Solvan and Tomas were through next, and then Ella, Kally, Marc and Glabrio. Sapphira hung back, keeping Merle on a tight leash.

"I think it's safe to say we've got something." Glabrio commented as he and Marc snapped left and right to check their corners, muzzle lights playing across the walls. The abandoned listening post should have been stripped bare, but it wasn't; a number of derelict power generators still stood rusting, and stacked between them were metal crates.

As soon as he said it, he heard a grinding whir, and the ragged hiss of old hydraulics. At the front of the group, Crenshaw saw a pair of ruby-red lenses flicker into life in front of him. Another pair stuttered to his right, and then another.

A rusty howl filled the chamber as something lunged out of the machinery and knocked Solvan onto his back with the force of its charge. Solvan saw a long, angular face made of segmented steel, piston jaws gnashing as they closed around the haft of his thunder hammer and tried to chew through it into his face. One of the construct's eyes was blinking faultily, but the serrated tungsten teeth now six inches from his face were terrifyingly functional.

Snaps of gunfire rattled as the team opened fire, and Tomas' power sword flared white in the gloom, followed a moment later by Ella's force gladius.

"Ella!" Marc warned as another pair of eyes glared into life. The agent pivoted round with knives of white fire stabbing from the muzzle of his autogun. "Behind you!"

His bullets raked a stippled line across the floor, but missed the darting metal quadruped as it bounded from its corner. Ella stumbled back and her short blade swept a white contrail through the air, the gladius yanking her arm with it as it swatted the leaping construct aside. The construct skidded away in a rain of sparks, knife-like toe claws scrabbling at the floor.

"Cyber mastiffs!" Glabrio belatedly identified their attackers. His shotcannon thundered in sharp barks.

One of the cyber mastiffs lunged at Tomas. Another leapt on Josiah from behind as he whirled round to assist. Its toe-blades clawed furrows in his carapace armour, raking for purchase, its steel weight dragging the arbitrator to his knees. Its jaws closed around the plate between his shoulder and his neck and began to bite down with crushing force.

[PaintSerf]

"Hold up." Kally said.

Crenshaw silently ground his prosthetics together as Kally pulled the helmet clear and clipped it to her belt, and ignoring the acrid stench of the pollution and chemical smog. The Major’s was certain his audio receptors acquired Sister Sapphira’s muted sigh of disappointment as Kally placed her ear flat against the wall, and tapped again.

"Fire in the hole."

…

At first there was a hiss, then a white flash and a waterfall of sparks. The wall caved inwards in just a few seconds, the rockrete turning white and crumbling away to leave a smoking hole. Josiah and Crenshaw were first through, thick soles crunching over the red-hot debris. Their heavy suppression shields knocked chunks out of the embrittled rockrete as they passed.

Crenshaw tightly swept his section with the thin green beam of his targeter, and advanced when not immediately uncontested by hostiles. He kept his shield squared towards the warren-like maze formed by the peculiarly abandoned generators and the stacks of anonymous crates. The Major naturally assumed the responsibilities of lead shield as he crept ahead of Josiah, to clear the breach and allow the other throne agents to follow through and complete the sweep of their immediate area.

"I think it's safe to say we've got something."

“Contact.” The Major simply voxed as he saw a pair of ruby-red lenses flicker into life in front of him. Another pair stuttered to his right, and then another. Crenshaw did not wait for the threats to announce themselves as his targeter reflexively settled between the first illuminated lenses. His bolt pistol barked thunderously in response to the sudden howling that echoed through the chamber. Intermingled with the bolt’s characteristic explosive booms was a metallic crumpling note and the distinctive blurt of a static error alarm as the pair of red lights winked out.

The second construct barreled into Crenshaw before he could re-adjust his aim. The Major took the charge on his shield with a loud and hollow clack of metal against ceramite. He grunted curse as the impact force set him back a pace and knocked shield into his outstretched arm. It sent his bolt pistol clattering away and took another step from him. The construct hauled up to lunge again, and Crenshaw took the opportunity to take his shield in both hands and bash it as he triggered the shock plate.

There was a yelp of static from the construct, and the Major pressed his advantage to step forward and thrust the mechanical attacker away from him. It tumbled back and impacted against one of the weathered generators will a hollow bell toll of metal. Crenshaw made to reach for his power maul, but what reprieve he’d managed to gain was cut short as the third assailant charged into him as the second had. The Major staggered back another step and clearly saw the threat for what it was.

The cyber mastiff reared up on its hind legs and clamped its teeth onto the upper rim of his shield, its blade tipped paws scraped against the shield’s curved ceramite surface. Crenshaw matched the constructs’ deep and low growl of worn and untended servos as he fought against the violent shakes of its angular head to keep his shield and position. The Major was so committed to fending off the third mastiff that he was caught entirely off-guard by as another one of the neglected hounds attacked.

Crenshaw barked out his breath as a blunt force smashed into his armored abdomen. He staggered back even further and inadvertently planted the shield as he was forced to a knee. The Major sharply glanced down to see the mastiff he’d shot, as the mechanical creature crossed its forelegs behind his knee. The construct’s eye-lenses had been blown out and its muzzle was considerably crumpled, yet the bellicose machine spirit kept it in the fight. The blind and toothless hound once again thumped its mangled head into Crenshaw’s side. It took all of the Major’s physical effort to simply hold on against the onslaught.

The cyber-mastiffs were not so figurative after all. Crenshaw inexplicably thought back to his earlier comment while in conversation with Alia while being battered and shaken back and forth by the hounds. His position had rapidly become untenable, and by the sounds of sheer pandemonium from behind there was unlikely to be an intervention. The irony of that was not wasted for a moment on him. Oh illustrious Emperor on Terra, how you have always had a bastard sense of humor at my expense.

No sooner had that blasphemous thought crossed the Major’s mind when he heard the low pitched growl of another cyber-mastiff, and the clatter of blades on concrete. Through his body torqueing scrum with the constructs, Crenshaw could see the last of the pack – the hound he’d struck with the shock plate – unsteadily rise to its feet and face towards him, obviously making ready for the pack’s kill.

Now this is a predicament.

[dakkagor]

Tomas had set up the room just so. His desk was cleared. A crystal decanter, purloined from Theodosia and filled with a good quality Sacra, rested with two tumblers on an ivory tray. The chairs where straight backed, wooden framed, leather clad things, nearly drowning in fur rugs from exotic xenos beasts. When he had been in the guard, he hadn't seen a Generals quarters as well appointed. The Casterian regiments may have had Nobles at every rank, but the Casterian culture of Noblesse Oblige informed a certain austerity and willingness to share the hardships of the common troops. After all, all stood equal before the Emperors sight in the end. Plastek and metal camp chairs and tables, in the same leaking tents used by soldiers to bivouac, had been used for the officers mess, with only a few comforts of home, the occasional throw rug or tapestry, donated by officers from their own kit. Even the Colonels command tent had been more austere and grounded than this opulence. But he supposed that was the difference between being a Guardsman and a Rogue Trader, or even an Inquisitorial agent. He sat down behind his desk, checked his chrono.

The knock on the door was exactly on time. He briefly wondered if she had been waiting outside with her own chrono.

“Enter.”

The door swung open and Kally stepped through. Tomas had stripped down to his fatigues and a heavy pair of marching boots, the only clothes he really felt comfortable in any more. His laspistol was strapped to his waist, again as much a concession to his comfort as from any actual need. Kally was wearing her bodyglove, hair pulled back in a tight pony tail, and she was moving stiffly. She stood at attention just inside the threshold, looking as sober and controlled as any soldier he had ever dressed down. He thought she would have made a bloody good guardsman, if things had been different.

“So, I take it you generally had to deal with Schafer when getting a dressing down.”

She nodded sharply. “Yes sir.” She didn't look at him, but stared straight ahead. He sensed she had more to say and gave her the space to say it.

“I . . . am sorry for how I acted. It was unprofessional. I offer no excuses for it. I won't let it happen again. I will accept any punishment you deem necessary.”

Tomas sighed.

“Sit, woman. And pour yourself a bloody drink.”

A look of surprise and anger crossed her face, and Tomas couldn't help smiling at how easy she was to emotionally read. He supposed it was came from her blank nature. She wore her heart on her sleeve because she had never been close enough to people to learn how to keep such things in check.

She sat, and uncorked the decanter before taking a quick smell, then gingerly put it down.

“Sorry, Sir. I'm going tee-total for the moment.”

Now that was a surprise. His own personal assessment had been that Kally Sonder worked hard and then played hard, and that always included drink.

“May I ask why?”

Fidget, glance to the left. Something personal, then.

“Its for Vince. So he's got someone else he can drink with who doesn't drink.”

Tomas leaned back in his chair and smiled before getting to his feet.

“Theodosia also gave me some ploin juice.”

“Thank you sir, that sounds fine.”

He retrieved the bottle and placed it on the desk before sitting again. Kally poured herself a glass and took a sip.

“Oh! Its quite sweet.” she took another sip, and made an appreciative 'hum' noise. “Its actually really nice.”

“Glad you approve.” he chuckled. “We drank gallons of the stuff between deployments. Meant to be full of vitamins you don't get in standard shipboard pap.”

“I don't think I've been subjected to much bad food during void transit." Kally mused, "I'm guessing the True Bane's cafeterias served better food than Guard transports, then?”

“It did, that’s for sure. Say what you want about Sidonis, Emperor rest his soul, but his agents never wanted for anything.”

Tomas sensed that he had convinced Kally to lower her guard a few degrees. He mixed himself a drink, part sacra and part ploin juice, and took a sip from it himself as Kally refilled her glass.

“So, your apology. I'm afraid to say, Agent, that I find it disingenuous. While I don't doubt that you do feel bad about the incident, I do doubt its your behaviour towards the prisoner that you have apologised for, which was the point of this meeting.”

Kally went to say something, but he held up a finger.

“Now, normally, if this was Solvan you would talk a lot, and he would listen. He would ask questions to draw you out of your defences and get you to open up. He is very good at that. I'm not. So I'm going to talk a lot, you are going to listen, answer my questions to the best of your ability in a concise manner, and then we will discuss a way forward. Agreed?”

“Yes sir.”

“Right.” He nodded. “Agent Sonder, first, let me say that I think you are one of the best agents I have ever had the honour to serve alongside. Your service record, while not impeccable, remains extraordinary. You have a reputation amongst Machairis circle for being the toughest person they know, and its well earned. You know your craft, and you have a list of secondary qualifications as long as my arm. Frankly, if things had been different after Saros you would be hailed as a Hero of the Inquisition for going head to head with what was left of the old man and the daemon wearing him like a greatcoat. So, my question is this. Bearing all that in mind, all the things you've seen, how in the damned Eye is Merle Carson getting to you at all?”

She was quiet for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip. Tomas sipped at his drink and waited patiently.

“Because he's a lot like me. He's a scummer who crawled his way over broken bodies to a better life. I look at him and I see how I could have ended up, and it frightens me.”

“I'm certain that’s not all of it.”

“He knew things about me. Things I was certain nobody knew. And I was exhausted after Terra. It was taking everything I had to not just break down then and there as it was.”

“Then his claim to have been briefed on you all was not an idle boast.” Tomas paused, mulling that over. Machairi had guessed that Sidonis did not share all he knew, even with his trusted Interrogators. Arguably standard operating procedure in the Inquisition, but still no good for building loyalty or trust. That Malafax had received that information and used it against his opponents was worrying. Perhaps more worrying was who had that information now. Personnel files, full of dirty secrets, on every agent that had passed through the old bastards service. and now at least some of that information was in the foetid mind of avowed heretic Merle Carson.

“How far did they push you? On Terra?”

Kally sucked in a breath, and her gaze flicked to the floor.

“Action seven.”

Action seven! Action seven was about as extreme, about as far, as he had ever seen anyone go aboard the True Bane. At action eight and nine they started psychically killing your personality, layer by layer, memory by memory, excising everything that resisted and everything that made you an enemy of the Inquisition until you where just left as a mouth and brain that answered questions and a hand that signed confessions. Action seven, was the stage where they just went for pure, unfiltered psychological trauma. At that point a competent Interrogator would have enough information to break your psyche by exposing it to the worst, buried fears and memories of the subjects mind. It was the point the gloves came off, and they squeezed you for whatever you had left after actions one to six. But it required a psyker for its most effective techniques. It was also dangerous, not just for the prisoner, but also for the interrogator. A psyker would be exposing himself to the very worst elements of the subjects soul. Strelilov was a genius at action seven, but, they had always suspected his cruel streak, vindictiveness and sadism had been a mental 'contamination' from some degenerate mind.

Tomas had suspected they had pushed a few of the Penitents that far. He had, after all, made it his business to read every report submitted by Solvan and Sapphira on their progress and recovery. But here was the confirmation. He silently cursed the interrogators on Terra, seemingly for the hundredth time.

“They used drugs.” Kally continued, unbidden. “Don't even know half the things they used. But it was. . . it was horrible. And then having that bastard throw all my old wounds at me, it was just too much.” Her hands clenched. “He needs to die. Him, and that frakker Arcolin. They are as bad as each other and they both need to die.”

“You worked with Arcolin, three times no less.”

“Under duress! The second time the lives of my friends where on the line, and the first time, none of us knew what he was! We don't need that. . . that poison in this team! Everyone has gone through enough without having Merle rubbing salt in the wounds!”

“And if I ordered you to work with Merle? On a mission?”

Kally stared at him, teeth gritted.

“I would do it. But as soon as I had the chance, I'd shoot him in the back and claim it was an accident.”

He nodded. He appreciated the honesty, at least.

“Perfectly understandable. And for the record, not going to happen. We will be shortening his leash, and as soon as I am sure he has nothing left to add, he's done. I promise.”

“Thank you.” She didn't sound that happy about it. But Tomas let that slide.

“Look, I could assign you a punishment duty, if it would make you feel better, but I don't feel its really necessary. You're right, you and the others have been through enough. Take the rest of the day off, relax an inch and get your humours balanced. Stay clear of Merle in the future, and ignore him if you can't. Let me and the rest of Machairis team handle Merle. You and the Penitents, focus on killing Arcolin and getting that black mark of your records.”

“So, no punishment then?”

Tomas hummed, thinking that over. “Well, I did ask Theodosia to provide a list of dirty, unpleasant maintenance jobs she would like to see completed. If you want to spend the rest of the day cleaning vents, that can be arranged.”

An odd look passed over Kallys face.

“Honestly, something to take my mind of things and keep me focused would be appreciated right now.”

“Alright.” He took a dataslate out of his desk and slid it across to the agent. “For pulling a weapon on the prisoner, and placing your team into a position of jeopardy and internal conflict, I am putting you on cleaning duty for the next 8 hours. I expect those vents to be spotless, Agent Sonder. Myself and Trader Theodosia will stage an inspection.”

She took the pad, looked it over, and then stood, making the sign of the Aquila over her chest.

“Yes sir, spotless Sir.”

“That's all agent. Dismissed.”

She nodded sharply, then turned on her heel and marched out of the room. Tomas relaxed in his chair a bit, and took another sip of his drink. The next interview would be much more difficult, and much less pleasant.

+++++

Tomas had set up the room just so. There was a ceramic bottle on the steel, bolted down table. Next to it sat two ceramic mugs, and a box of good cigars. The room had otherwise no accoutrements apart from his chair, the subject's chair (which was, similarly to the table, bolted into place) and a single lumen strip for lighting. He had a pistol in a holster that was genelocked to his, and only his, grip. Finally, he had a few sheets of paper. A rather thick wedge of a personnel file, and a smaller, more ornate sheet with fine calligraphy and a blood red meme-wax seal.

The door fairly slammed open and Josiah manhandled Merle into the chair despite the convict's protests. Working quickly, the arbitrator secured him to the chair with chains, giving him enough give to reach halfway across the table, shift around in his chair, and little else. With that completed, Josiah did as he was instructed to previously, at great length, and retired to one corner of the room.

Merle looked at Tomas sullenly, his lips curling into a sneer as he looked over the items on the desk.

“What's the plan, Ser Prick? Plannin' to have a friendly ol' drink with Uncle Merle, swap ol' war stories an' masturbate each other to sleep?”

Tomas raised an eyebrow, and then chuckled.

“Two out of three isn't bad, I suppose.” He took the bottle and filled a cup. “It's Gorsk white gyn. Your favourite, if your file is to be believed. I had a bottle handy to strip mudtape and grease paint from my equipment, but I'm told its fairly drinkable.”

He filled his own cup, and held both of them up. Merle's eyes followed the cup and then glanced to the bottle.

“How long has it been since you've had a drink? A month? Two? Longer?” He put the cups down, just out of Merle's reach. Predictably, he snatched for them, only to brush them with just the tips of his fingers and snarl in frustration. He glanced up to Tomas with a look of hatred before slouching back into apathy.

“I'm betting, longer than that.” He drew out a field knife and cut open the box of cigars. “Smell that.” Tomas paused to take a good whiff of the box with a contented smile. “Good tabac from Ministeria. Picked these up from the Glom for a pretty penny.” He pulled out one of the cigars and rolled it between his thumb and index finger. “I've got another box in reserve for when we find Arcolin and put him in his grave. But I could bear to part with this spare.” He moved his hand and tapped the ceramic bottle. “And this. For the right person.”

“If you think I'm goin' to talk for a bottle of drink and some cigars, you're dumber than you fuckin' look, Ser Prick.” The sneer was back. The convict leaned forwards. “I know that all that's keepin' me from the grave is what I know. Soon as y'all are done with me...” He made an explosion gesture with his hands, either side of his head. “No more Merle Carson.”

“True. True.” Tomas nodded and looked apologetic. “However, I, and the inquisitor, are open to discussing a change in circumstances for you. We are running out of time, and out of options, before Arcolin commits a major travesty. You and I both know this.”

Merle looked at him, then glanced to Josiah.

"And you and I both know that even he's not that simple." said a man as he squatted down next to Merle and rested his arms on the steel table. He had Tomas' build and Tomas' voice, and Merle didn't need to glance sideways at his face to know that the eye that wasn't cold augmetic was made from murder-red flect glass.

“I have something here that you might want to read." the real Tomas stated neutrally. "I mean, if you can read.” He slid the ornate piece of paper across the desk, pinning it to the steel surface with his splayed fingers.

"Careful now." Not-Tomas advised, leaning across the table to scrutinise his counterpart. "He won't buy that you'd accept this out of hand, but calling bullshit right now won't get you anywhere."

The daemon looked down at the piece of paper, and Merle followed his gaze. Then he looked back at Tomas. “A pardon? That bitch you're bangin' finally come around to ma charmin' personality then?”

The ugly sneer was back, Tomas noted. “A pardon for every crime since you left the Merov Penal Legion and entered the employ of that idiot rogue trader Emerald.” he smoothly ignored the barb and continued. “You'll be thrown back into the penal regiment system and become someone else's problem, for as long as you last. For you, the clock will be wound back, so to speak.”

“Fuck that, Ser Prick.” Merle leaned back in his chair and made a gesture that was considered obscene subsector wide. “I ain't swappin' one hangman with no balls for another hangman more than willin' to pull the trigger.”

Tomas raised an eyebrow. “Really, Merle. I thought you where smarter than that.”

“Then why don't you explain it to me, you fuckin' poof.”

“It's simple.” Tomas leaned forwards, lacing his fingers together and resting his elbows on the desk. “Once Arcolin is run to ground, you are done. And if this operation goes sideways, for whatever reason, yours will be the first body to hit the floor. There is no way out for you here. But, if you are back in your element in a penal legion, I would imagine it would take you less than a month to slip your new leash and be on your merry way.”

"Imagine that?" Not-Tomas commented, stroking his short beard and turning to raise his eyebrows at Merle. "Then it would be just you and me."

And there it was, Tomas thought as he looked at the convict. The hint of doubt and fear as realisation dawned in his eyes that yes, this was a chance. Not much of a chance, but a chance none the less. If Tomas had blinked he would have missed it, but Ella was right: Merle Carson was scared, and Tomas Prinzel knew how to read and motivate scared men.

“Say I take this offer." Merle growled. "What then?”

“First, you provide us a full written report on Arcolin, with every detail, no matter how small. You continue to provide...on-site expertise. And you keep your fucking mouth shut around the penitents, and reel in your fucking attitude.” Tomas honestly didn't believe he could correct Merle's attitude, but he sincerely hoped he would spend less of the next few weeks talking and deliberately riling his agents. “Do that, and I might be able to slip a few creature comforts your way next time we hit port. Otherwise... ” he mirrored Merle's gesture from earlier, miming his own head exploding. “No more Merle Carson.”

"And there we see it." Not-Tomas nodded to himself as he pushed his palms into the table and stood, walking slowly round the steel fixture to stand looking down at his oblivious other self. "Our white knight isn't so white as he pretends - although I won't insult you by suggesting that you hadn't already figured that out."

The apparition folded his arms, thoughtfully.

"He's not bluffing, you know. Yes, he might have all the right war wounds - bionic eye from heroically fighting a genestealer cult. Bionic lung and heart from taking a bullet for his dear lady..." He paused and glanced round at Merle. "Don't look at me like that. They're not fucking. Although I'm sure the thought has crossed lady Machairi's mind on a few lonely nights. It'd be interesting to see if his honour held up if she ever did crack one day, hmm?"

Not-Tomas shook his head and chuckled.

"No. Amusing to hypothesise, but no leverage there, I don't think. I rather think going down that route would lead to no more Merle Carson. This is, remember, a man who has gunned down no less than two Imperial commissars. That's two more than even you, which is somewhat impressive. So much for Casterian honour."

Merle sifted in his seat, curling and uncurling his fist. He had his own opinion of Casterian honour. He had crossed paths with them once before, and even given one of the pretentious bastards a well-deserved red smile.

Tomas watched Merle carefully, watching him debate it and weigh up his choices. He was hoping against hope that Merle had misread him from the start. Everything about this interview had been staged to reinforce Merle's one view of him: that Tomas was soft, and honourable. Regrettably for Merle, he was neither.

“Alright." the convict growled. "I reckon I can drink to that, Ser Prick.”

Tomas smiled widely, but not warmly. He slid a cup of engine coolant masquerading as good alcohol across to Merle and raised his own cup.

“To Arcolin's well deserved end, and your continued health.”

++++++

I hate fighting these things.

Tomas dropped his sword into a low, two handed guard and met the lunging cyber mastiff with braced feet. The rusted little monster met his blade and he shoved it aside, sending it skittering across the floor and kicking up clouds of toxic dust. He reversed his grip, and swung the power sword down two handed as the mastiff regained its feet and lunged again with the single minded tenacity of all mechanicum combat machines. His blade slammed into and through its metallic skull in a shower of sparks, lodging for a moment and causing the hateful things servos to whine in protest as it struggled to advance against his levered weight. With a grunt he kicked the mastiff free, and then with an upwards blow sent it slamming into an old generator. Before it could rise, he punched his blade, two handed, into the screeching horrors chest, ramming the blade through and through, piercing the lump of organic brain hiding behind sheets of armour and plastek. Amniotic fluid splashed and sizzled onto the floor and the room would have stunk of boiled, rancid flesh if any of them removed their masks to smell it. He pulled the blade clear with another grunt, ignoring the protest from his knees at all this sudden work. He stepped back, wanting to glance around to assess the situation, but another of the monsters leapt from the shadows. This one was in better condition, landing on his chest and knocking him onto his back, knocking his blade to the side with the weight of its charge. He got the blade round and deactivated in time, bracing it two handed as he jammed its edge into the scissoring jaws that came for his lightly armed throat.

A Casterian blade is not an elegant weapon, despite what the officers say. It is little more than an hardened, razor sharp pry bar. It allows a range of manoeuvres that allow you to knock down an armoured man, and then kill him through his protections weak points. Just because it has a powered edge, those manoeuvres are not invalidated. Emperor forbid, if you ever fight someone in power armour, these techniques will give you a key advantage. They will, in fact, save your life.

The dry words of his Regimental duelling instructor entered his mind as he held the beasts hydraulic jaws away from his face. With a roar he twisted his upper body, flinging the cyber-mastiff to the ground on its side. With a savage kick he sent it sliding away from him and scrambled to his knees. He met its charge with the point of the blade, jamming the finely balanced weapon down its throat as he reactivated its power field, skewering its battery pack in an explosion of toxic chemicals that left the servitor limp and dead.

+++Kally++

She brought the bolter up and fired unbraced. The recoil kicked her in the shoulder like a mule, but the bolts flew true. The mastiff that had lunged for her caught one in the shoulder, one in the right foreleg and a third in its motorised jaws. In the confined space the explosion of the bolts was shockingly loud, and Kally's armour was peppered with micro shrapnel as the bolts detonated and tore open armour, exposing circuitry and dessicated organic components. She lashed out with her armoured boot and sent the reeling mastiff to the floor, before pumping another brace of shots into its exposed belly. Horribly, it still seemed to be somewhat functional, as its jaws worked and its smashed legs kicked randomly, but it was obviously out of commission for this fight. Kally ignored it and turned to see Crenshaw under pressure from three Mastiffs. She snapped up her bolter and tracked onto the one about to charge, planting a bolt at its feet in a shower of ferrocrete dust.

“Over here you ugly frakker! I'm the one you want!”

It swung its head to face her, and for a second the old fear of these monsters welled up inside her as she remembered the people she had watched be torn apart by these machines. With a low mechanical growl, it reassessed its targeting priorities. It turned its attention from Crenshaw and started to charge her.

She pulled the trigger, feet planted and properly braced. Four bolt shells slammed into its armoured frame and tore it limb from limb in an explosion of tainted oil and rancid flesh. Her boltgun clicked empty, and she dropped it to the floor and drew her powersword and a laspistol, wading in against the remaining pair attacking Crenshaw.

[Atrum Daemon]

Ave Omnissiah, Dragonslayer.

Grey Knights analysis complete on waystation 9794. Intercepted communications indicate significant fire damage to security storage media. Partial vid-feed recovered, described as showing inq. agent Alicia Tarran (96.7% identity confirmation) moving through station. Report specifically notes that she is without her power armour at time of recording. Assumed contact with heretic DeRei not recorded. Grey Knights note a large pane of warp glass was discovered in the control hub, apparently transmogrified from one of the cogitator display screens. Warp glass was subsequently nullified by squad justicar. Lords Dragon in agreement that affronts to waystation 9794 spirit must be punished. Full co-operation of local assets with your investigation authorised.

Message ends.

Vizkop leaned back again, smiling broadly at the news. It was quite fun to have friends in high places all over the galaxy. With the news from the waystation, his righteous indignation was on the rise. Cogitator screen turned to warp glass was an affront to the spirits of the station and the Omnissiah. He could not help feeling pleased that his relationship with the Dragons had not soured too bad. DeRei was dangerous, of that he had never held any doubt. The pane of warp glass had him very concerned. If one had been made, he could be certain that others had been made as well. Warp glass could be put to many uses and none of them filled Vizkop with good feelings.

In the Hall

"You'll forgive me, secutor." she began. Everyone in the room knew well enough that the Dragon Order operative could have scanned the room for bugs in half the time it took for the sister to do it manually. "But we prefer to make our own checks. My order is of the Valorous Heart, and we tend to trust no-one."

Vizkop offered a gracious nod at Kiana's words. Truthfully it did not bother him much. If Sister Kiana wanted to be cautiously paranoid and only trust her own, that was her prerogative. As the briefing began, Vizkop listened with interest and honed in on the mentioning of Arcolin and flects. It could be no coincidence that warp glass had been found on the waystation and now Arcolin was bartering flects away for rifle rounds.

"Hold up." Marc rejoined, looking up at Kiana. "Arcolin sold the trader the flects? Where's he getting them from? There's been no trade to speak of since they cracked down on the smugglers in the Markayn Marches, and you can't just grow them."

“I have a theory,” Vizkop said once the reflective silence set in. “A pane of warp glass was found on waystation 9794. That pane might have been part of a pair before the one was spirited off the station.”

Baraspine

Vizkop blocked the chemical stink coming off his treated suit from his mind as he adjusted his rifle to a more comfortable grip. He most certainly did not like the unwelcome extra weight of the chemically treated suit with it's ballistic lining. But, it was necessary for proper protection as he tended to gravitate away from carapace plating.

He wiped grime from the scope of his rifle and scanned the area again. If there was anything Vizkop could be said to get “generally tech-priesty” about it would be the Xanith-Pattern AMR he carried. It was not too far out of the realm of possibility that he had named it. From the advanced recoil compensator stock to the flared muzzle that aided in mitigating the flash from firing, the rifle was an elegant example of high-quality Mechanicus engineering that was typically only found on Forge Worlds. He had dulled the normally glossy black surface of the weapon for the mission as well as chemically treated it against potential corrosion. His normal tactic of hooking the weapon to his hemlet display through a smartlink had been decided against due to the possibility of the polluted atmosphere interfering with a fully digital aiming display.

What he most certainly did not like the look of were the power armour-clad Nebula troops. His experience hunting cybernetic abominations told him the weapon in his hands was capable of punching through the layers of armor they were wrapped in, but in those numbers the odds would be against the team in a firefight. And Vizkop tried to avoid going into fights with the odds against him if he could help it.

“I don't like this at all,” Vizkop said from his position near Vincent as the team breached the building and moved in. “I don't like getting bad feelings like this on ops.”

[Cfavano]

Josiah had let is guard down, for an instant, but that was all it had taken. As he went to aid his compatriot, he had been pounced on. It just haaaaad to be cyber mastiffs. But, at least he had much experience with them, having owned a pair for quite some time. It clamped down hard, but, luckily for him, it had not been taken care of, and it's jaws were weaker than what it should have been. While he could feel the pressure from the bite, and knew it would, eventually bite its way through, it lacked the raw power to do it instantly. It gave him time.

He managed to shake it off , long enough to right himself and it lunged at him once more. Josiah caught it's jaws with his armored arm, and, wincing through the discomfort, reached with his hand under its lower jaw. He felt it biting down, harder and harder on his arm, and if he did not find it soon, would crush his arm. But then, his fingers got purchase on a very small switch, and he flipped it. All at once, the entire thing shut down, and fell to the ground with a clatter. It wasn't completely deactivated, but was in power saver mode, and could, in the future, have information extracted out of it. That done, he turned his attention, and his maul, to the final ones remaining.

[Azazeal849]

“I don't like this at all,” Vizkop said from his position near Vincent as the team breached the building and moved in. “I don't like getting bad feelings like this on ops.”

Vincent cackled, slapping the barrel of his heavy stubber with a gloved hand. Vizkop noticed that he had stencilled a knife into the stock of the weapon. He couldn't see the ex-Guardsman's face through his visor, but from memory picts he noted that the knife matched the tattoo visible beneath the stubble of Vincent's receding hairline. More crudely painted along the length of the stubber's barrel was the name Gene.

"Vizkop, bruh?" Vincent offered, "It's when you're not getting bad feelin's that you need to worry."

He settled back into his watch, aiming through a natural firing slit between the rocks. The Nebulas were sweeping the broken ground to the south of them, moving in loose pairs.


+ + + + + +

Marc's bullpup autogun snarled, bursting sparks around the head and torso of the onrushing mastiff. He swore colourfully, in coarse Solomon gothic, as the machine carried on and bulled into him like a steel pile driver. He crushed the mastiff's head aside with the butt of his gun, cracking the stock, but the mastiff's jaws found purchase and pulled him round, spinning him to the floor. Something kicked him hard in the side - probably one of the mastiff's bladed toe-claws - as he tried to wrestle his gun back from between the construct's teeth. He groped for Kadath's pistol, and pulled it from its hip holster just as he heard the scope of his autogun crunch beneath the mastiff's fangs.

Marc turned his hand and fired into the machine's torso; once, twice, and again. The recoil torqued his wrist hard enough to make him bark in pain, and the shots would probably have deafened him if he hadn't been wearing his helmet, but even the Tallarn Auto's thumb-sized manstopper rounds didn't seem to kill the construct. It let out a static snarl, thrashing its head and tearing the autogun out of Marc's other hand. It shook it like a dead rabbit before casting the bent firearm aside, sending it clattering across the rusty floor. Marc put his shoulder into the mastiff and knocked it over onto its side. Its blade claws scrabbled at the carapace covering Marc's environment suit, gouging away the dustbowl camo and kicking the breath from his chest.

I need something that'll go through it. Marc thought frantically as he looked at the coin-sized holes his pistol had left in the mastiff's underbelly, either missing vital systems or simply not penetrating the servitor's layered armour. I need a...

A bright line bisected his vision as something fizzing and ice-blue cut down through the mastiff's torso. The servitor bucked in a spasm of misfiring hydraulics, then went limp. The glowing line withdrew upwards, and Marc realised that a petite figure was standing over him, a force gladius reversed in its small hands.

"Ella!" he breathed, laughing in relief. "Thanks. How did you know where to hit it?"

The gladius underlit Ella's pale face through her visor, the blue glow dancing in her blind eyes.

"The organic bits glow more." she replied, shrugging inside her heavy exo-suit, though her surprised expression made Marc wonder if the sword itself hadn't also had something to do with guiding the blow.

"I thought we were supposed to be looking after you!" Glabrio grinned jovially as he panned his shotgun around, lowering it as he found no more targets in the the immediate area.

"Marc, Kally!" Kelly hissed through his vox earbead, "What's going on in there?"

"A few mechanicus guard dogs." Marc growled back, as he retrieved his autogun and grimaced pessimistically at the tooth-dented barrel. "Nothing we couldn't handle."

"Says you who nearly got your arm ripped off." Glabrio quipped.

"Are any of them still working?" There was a scratching sound over the vox as Kelly stood up. "Gavin and Ella might be able to pick something out of their memories about when Arcolin was last here."

"Something's wrong." Ella murmured as she turned a circle in the middle of the room. Inquisitor Suffolk's gladius had faded to an inert grey in her hand.

"What?" Marc asked.

"Everything's too...dark. No-one alive has been here in years."

"It's hidden." Marc insisted, "There must be something."

Ella shrugged helplessly. "I don't understand. I can't see any human contact at all..." She stooped and splayed a gloved hand over one of the destroyed cyber-mastiffs.

Glabrio broke the lock on one of the crates with the butt of his shotcannon, and hauled off the lid.

"What the frak is this?" he exclaimed as he looked down at what appeared to be cogitator parts and spools of fibre-optic cable.

[dakkagor]

Tomas leaned over and swept over the boxes contents with a stablight. He frowned, working through the implications of what his team was telling him.

"Not good." He turned to the others. "Split down into two man cells. Sweep this entire building, and leave nothing uncovered. Josiah, Vizkop, work on that mastiff Josiah recovered until Gavin gets here. See if you can't get it to talk to you, and if not, prep it for travel back to the dropship." He walked over to the breach and looked out into the chemical dunes. The whole set up felt awfully familiar. "Sapphira and myself will secure Merle here as an impromptu staging area. Move like you have a purpose agents, we don't have much time."

[PaintSerf]

The Sister directed her charge into the abandoned facility after the initial breach team. Merle’s shackled hands were clasped behind his head, and true to Tomas’ orders Sapphira had the convict on a short leash as she dominantly held the chain between his cuffs. She leveraged Carson’s height over her against him, so his back was uncomfortably arched. Merle had complained the entire time like the stubborn and ill-tempered animal she knew he was. However her revolver, pressed firmly against where his kidneys were, had kept Merle absolutely compliant as he was awkwardly goaded forward.

"I think it's safe to say we've got something."

Sapphira tugged on Merle’s chain to turn him as she glanced aside at Glabrio, and the convict grunted as he was forced to shuffle along. Merle began to utter an obscenity, but was cut off as Sapphira pointedly ground the barrel harder against his side. His wordless growl at the Sister was drowned out as a rusty howl filled the chamber as something lunged out of the machinery and knocked Solvan onto his back with the force of its charge.

The Sister sharply yanked down harder on the convict’s fetters. Merle was forced to widen his stance for balance, and he was torqued back far enough so that his head was almost on her shoulder. Sapphira ignored his barked curses at her as she tried to draw a bead on the inhumanly agile hounds as the bore down on her teammates. It was a difficult enough task, compounded by Merle as he struggled against her control. His urgent nudges for attention against the Sister was throwing off her aim.

“Hey! Hey, darlin’!” Merle shouted. “How’s about you an’ I go slinkin’ away together?” The convict craned to turn his battered face towards Sapphira. From her peripherals, the Sister caught the glimmer of gold from Merle’s recently acquired teeth. They stood out sharply from the bruised and swollen mess that had been left of his mouth and lower jaw from Kally’s brutal underhiver punishment ritual. In spite of the pain he must have been in, Sapphira heard him chuckle as he smiled at the unexpected ambush. “This merry li’l outin’ has gone to the fuckin’ dogs.”

“Good idea.” The Sister earnestly replied as she released her hold on the convict.

Merle’s expression of surprised relief lasted until the moment that the Sister’s knee collided with his groin from behind. The angle was bad and both participants wore thick environmental suits, but Sapphira’s less than loving tap elicited a strangle choke from her victim. Sapphira followed through with her lunge to shove Merle from behind with her whole bodyweight. Merle staggered forward with a pained, raspy exclamation as he was catapulted forward into the chamber and the scrum. The convict grunted as he slammed into the hindquarters of the cyber-mastiff attacking Solvan and hit the floor.

“Oh fuck me!” Carson cried as he reflexively kicked the hound, which sharply disengaged from Solvan with a grinding of teeth against hammer haft. The servitor emitted a low, static laced growl as its animalistic mind gauged the hostile threat posed by both prone men.

Sapphira took advantage of the distracted hound and steadily emptied her revolver’s cylinder into the now stationary construct. The specialist amputator rounds were designed to inflict catastrophic soft tissue damage, the results of which Sapphira had made a point to stress in clinical detail to Merle as she assumed responsibility for him. While mhich was wasted on the mostly mechanical target, the contact explosive component was not. After the first two bullets the servitor was staggered sizeways before her first topped the construct onto its side. The Sister kept on the offensive as Solvan regained his feet.


+ + +

Crenshaw grunted as the blinded mastiff bashed its head into his side again, and gritted his teeth as the other hound persisted in trying wrench the shield out of his hands. The Major pulled his shield in closer as he endured their efforts, and kept his attention firmly locked on to the third creature. His left hand dropped to the maul’s grip as the construct hunched lower. Both hunters were ready to strike, and both of them were caught off guard by the bolt round that exploded at the mastiff’s feet.

“Over here you ugly frakker! I'm the one you want!”

The Major and the hound mirrored one another as they turned their heads and growled lowly at the unexpected intervention. The sight of Kally Sonder with her bolter at the ready was not an unwelcome one to Crensahw. He promptly switched his focus back to the other constructs on him, and simply released his grip on the shield as Kally’s bolter fired. The mastiff tore it away with a predatory snarl, and violently rattled it as Crenshaw cleared his maul from its belt loop and activated it to maximum.

The blinded hound turned towards the sudden crackling sound as Crenshaw brought the powered weapon in at a horizontal swipe. Crenshaw pivoted at the waist as he pushed the maul forward with his free hand and it smashed into the mastiff’s already deformed head. Its static yelp of alarm was promptly cut short as the maul’s destructive energy cracked apart the metallic casement. The servitor’s preserved biological matter was promptly cooked, pulped, and vaporized into a stinking fog by the powered field.

Crenshaw stood straight and kicked aside the robotic canine’s twitching corpse as he started to circle around the last operational servitor. Suddenly alone and outnumbered, the hound growled and bellied lower to the ground as its head flicked back and forth between the two encroaching blanks. The Major held up his offhand to forestall Kally’s advance as he slowly stepped towards the cyber mastiff. Crenshaw dialed down the maul’s power to shock as he crouched lower, and bounced the weapon’s head against the ferrocrete with a shower of sparks.

“I am here for you!” Crenshaw challenged construct as he stared into its lens-plates. He took another step forward and double cracked the maul against the ground. “Come and have a taste!”

The Major got what he provoked as the cyber-mastiff as it responded with a rusty bark, toe claws scraping as it charged. Crenshaw wordlessly sidestepped and lunged at the servitor with his maul braced horizontally. He caught the hound’s teeth with the haft as it leapt at him, and was almost instantaneously spun sideways and dragged to his knees by the construct’s momentum. It began to violently buck and shake the Major down as its clawed paws gouged and kicked his armored chest plate. Crenshaw splayed his legs for balance and gritted his teeth as he fought to keep the hound steady.

Kally stepped up to servitor, and spun her blade one handed before slamming it into the Mastiffs neck. Its servos whined as the lathe blade ground through armour plate and metal musculature, before Kally gave the blade a savage twist, popping the Mastiffs head from its shoulders in a spray of hydraulic fluid. As it staggered backwards, suddenly blind and weapon-less, she snap drew her steelburners and emptied a powercell worth of shots into its torso, blasting it apart.

Crenshaw collapsed forward as the servitor’s mechanical resistance suddenly disappeared. His maul crashed down into the ferrocrete and pulverized another divot with a sparking flash. It continued to flare for a second before Crenshaw terminated the energy field. Crenshaw took deep breaths through his mask as he remained slumped, halfway leaning on his unpowered weapon as he recovered. After a moment the Major slowly and stiffly moved into a more composed upright position.

“I appreciate your assistance, Kally.”

"No problem" She smiled under her helmet and held out a gloved hand to Crenshaw. She playfully added. "Though next time, don't bite of more than you can chew"

“Bite off more than I can chew, hmm?” Crenshaw said as he cocked his head at Kally and pointedly clacked his prosthetics, but grunted humorously as he was hauled back to his feet, “I suppose that you should have offered that advice on Hercynia.” The Major glanced aside at his fellow blacksoul, their hands momentarily remained clasped together. “Not that I would have taken it.”

“You always did strike as me as stubborn.” She chuckled. “Must be why I like you.”

“I do appreciate a worthwhile challenge.” Crenshaw admitted, before he conspiratorially leaned in. “Although that bodyglove was also highly compelling reason. You did wear it rather well.”

“Thanks, though I did always like a man in uniform. And out of it, come to think of it.” She coughed awkwardly, suddenly aware of her tone and the glances from a few of the team. “Anyway, we should get back to it.”

“We should.” Crenshaw agreed. His voice returned to professionally neutral voice after he cleared his throat, perhaps somewhat uncomfortably at the attention he and Kally had. The Major subtly squeezed her hand as he released it and stepped away to recover his bolt pistol and suppression shield.

"Split down into two man cells. Sweep this entire building, and leave nothing uncovered.”

“Shall we?” Crenshaw offered as he gestured with a tilt of his head further into the building.


+ + +

"Are any of them still working? Gavin and Ella might be able to pick something out of their memories about when Arcolin was last here."

Gavin knew that Kelly’s suggestion had not been an idle one and that Tomas was hardly about to countermand his minder’s offer. The psyker wordlessly eased out of his kneeling position as he took his cue from as she stood. However he did not wait for her to begin trudging off towards the derelict building, but Gavin could hear Kelly Black’s footsteps in the wasteland behind him. They were measured enough to allow him some space and allow her to be close enough. Just in case.

“Josiah, Vizkop, work on that mastiff Josiah recovered until Gavin gets here. See if you can't get it to talk to you, and if not, prep it for travel back to the dropship."

“Of course, of course.” Gavin sighed to himself, and acknowledged Tomas’ unstated order with an affirmative vox blip.


+ + +

[Merle’s reaction to Solvan’s termination of the cyber-mastiff]

"Sapphira and myself will secure Merle here as an impromptu staging area. Move like you have a purpose agents, we don't have much time."

“What the fuck, you fuckin’ bitch!” Merle shouted at Sapphira as he finally found his anger and voice again. “You could’a fuckin’ gotten me killed!”

“I know, and it was a risk I was willing to take.” Sapphira genuinely assured the condemned man. The depth of her disgust and loathing towards Merle Carson’s continued existence was unambiguous in her pitilessly cold grey eyes. “It’s a risk I’ll always be willing to take, heretic.”

“What kind’a grox shit is this, Ser Prick?” Merle growled at Tomas. “We struck a fuckin’ deal, an’ I distinctly fuckin’ remember that bein’ a fuckin’ robo-doggie chew toy weren’t a part’a of that God-Emperor damned-”

“Blasphemy will not be tolerated.” Sapphira interrupted, and objected to with a solid kick to Merle’s ribs that doubled him over. The Sister deftly emptied the spent brass from her revolver’s cylinder, reload, and had the pistol levelled back at Merle’s face by the time he glared back up at her. “Understood?”

“Yea, I’m gettin’ the fuckin’ idea.” Merle lowly snarled as he stared pure, unadulterated hate right on back at the Sister. After a moment his eyes flicked back to Tomas. “I’m guessin’ you ain’t about to be reprimandin’ the holier-than-thou whore for almost gettin’ me killed, huh Tommy?”

[Atrum Daemon]

"Vizkop, bruh?" Vincent offered, "It's when you're*not*getting bad feelin's that you need to worry."

He settled back into his watch, aiming through a natural firing slit between the rocks. The Nebulas were sweeping the broken ground to the south of them, moving in loose pairs.

Vizkop could not help but give a small laugh at Vincent's words. “I'd say you're right,” the assassin said with a nod. “Guess I've gotten too used to workin solo gigs where I can have everything go perfect.”

“Josiah, Vizkop, work on that mastiff Josiah recovered until Gavin gets here. See if you can't get it to talk to you, and if not, prep it for travel back to the dropship."

“Duty calls,” Vizkop said, breaking his posture and moving away from his position toward the facility. He hoped there was enough of the mastiff left for him to examine.

Vizkop was pleasantly surprised to find a fully intact mastiff that had only been powered down. The brain was still active, but he did not want to risk powering it back up. He examined the head of the hound before taking out his modified data pad and keying it awake. He was able to remotely access the cogitator functions of the mastiff's brain. Some of his peers might be appalled that he would do such a thing with no prayers or incense. But the argument as to whether or not tools like cyber-mastiffs should be given the same respect as a machine-spirit was on-going. Vizkop, at that moment, was of the opinion that he had no time for frivolous ceremony. He needed answers.

He bypassed the security around the mastiff's memory banks with ease. The pack had belonged to an Enginseer Koskynen. She had trained and maintained the pack like any devoted owner would. Nothing exciting there. He dug deeper and found the last activation before the team's breach. The pack was last awake fifty years previous when the listening post was locked down. Koskynen had set the pack to guard the post with the promise she would come back. How sweet.

“Nothing too impressive within the mastiff,” Vizkop reported. “The pack belonged to an Enginseer Koskynen. She left them here fifty years ago when the tech-priests abandoned the post. They were set into a low-power scan mode to guard the post. I can dig deeper if needed, but I'm not sure I'll find anything useful. The mastiff itself is undamaged. If desired, I can wipe the preset protocols and owner imprint if anyone wants an attack dog.”

[Thrannix]

It happened so fast Solvan didn’t even realize at what moment he managed to get his hammer in the way of the mechanical jaws.

The smell of steel and oil filled his senses and sweat bead his forehead as his muscles tensed and groaned fighting the mechanical dog's frenzy attempts at biting off his head.

He was far too concentrated trying to stay alive to see what was happening to the rest of the team, but from what he could hear it wasn't good.

The problem was he was losing. His arms couldn't put up against the weight of the robotic hound much longer, his left arm, wounded in his duel with Haarlock all those years ago, was already shaking unsteadily and slowly being pushed down. He was pinned, with no room to maneuver and with no effective weapon to use. Even with his Rosarius the situation was grim.

“Oh fuck me!”

The priest heard the distinctive voice of Merle cry out as the prisoners’ body crashed into the mastiff as he fell to the ground after Sapphira’s kick. The hound released the hammer’s haft, sparks igniting at the grinding of metal as the teeth slid sideways before the thing’s jaw finally opened.

The bishop quickly rolled to the side, flicked the activation rune on his thunder hammer and was on his feet in one fluid movement. He went for the mastiff that was still reeling from Sapphira’s suppression fire, but despite the amputator rounds raining on it the mastiff seemed determined on chewing up Merle who was still sprawled on the ground.

For the shortest of moments, as the mechanical hound closed on Merle through a cloud of fire and sparks, the bishop felt the enthralling temptation of letting the mastiff reach Merle, to allow the thing to take at least one bite off of the insufferable heretic. Plus, the scum could still provide information with a missing limb or two. But, sadly, such decisions weren’t for him to decide and he was already moving with his weapon rising above his head.

When the bishop’s weapon came crushing down on the mastiff’s head the beast was an arm’s length away from Merle’s panicked expression, after the characteristic boom and electric fluctuation from the hammer’s discharge the hound’s upper half was left a tangled mess of twisted metal encrusted to the floor, one red cracked eye that fell right on Carson’s lap was the only thing that remained of its head.

“I have to say, Sapphira.” The priest told the sister with a smile. “That is the best use we have gotten out of Carson yet.”

“I’m guessin’ you ain’t about to be reprimandin’ the holier-than-thou whore for almost gettin’ me killed, huh Tommy?”

“Keep it up Carson, I’m sure insulting the Sororita in charge of your well-being will do wonders to improve your survival odds.” The priest said coldly to him not waiting for Tomas to answer. “And do consider that perhaps, next time, I won’t get there in time. I’m old after all and my speed isn’t what it used to be.”

[dakkagor]

“I’m guessin’ you ain’t about to be reprimandin’ the holier-than-thou whore for almost gettin’ me killed, huh Tommy?”

“Keep it up Carson, I’m sure insulting the Sororita in charge of your well-being will do wonders to improve your survival odds.” The priest said coldly to him not waiting for Tomas to answer. “And do consider that perhaps, next time, I won’t get there in time. I’m old after all and my speed isn’t what it used to be.”

Tomas rolled his eyes, a motion which was thankfully concealed behind his rebreather equipped helmet.

"Sapphira, if you could manage to keep Merle mostly alive while he is in your custody, I would appreciate it. I will have to insist on holding out for 90% intact I'm afraid."

He gestured for Merle to be brought over and gestured to the crate of raw materials they had found.

"Fibre optics. Cogitator parts." he played his stablight over the components as he listed them. "A mechanicum listening post guarded by a significant pack of Cyber Mastiffs, but otherwise seemingly long abandoned. Start telling me anything you know. Or anything we should be looking for if we want to pick up Arcolins trail."

“Nothing too impressive within the mastiff,” Vizkop reported. “The pack belonged to an Enginseer Koskynen. She left them here fifty years ago when the tech-priests abandoned the post. They were set into a low-power scan mode to guard the post. I can dig deeper if needed, but I'm not sure I'll find anything useful. The mastiff itself is undamaged. If desired, I can wipe the preset protocols and owner imprint if anyone wants an attack dog.”

Tomas winced at that. With the reading from Ella now coming up blank, it was suddenly looking like they where in completely the wrong place. Not that he would admit that just yet.

"Good job Vizkop." He turned and nodded to the Tech assassin. "Pass it off to Josiah, he can deal with the wretched thing as he sees fit."

[Azazeal849]

“I have to say, Sapphira.” The priest told the sister with a smile. “That is the best use we have gotten out of Carson yet.”

“The role of terrified bait does become this miserable wretch.” Sapphira agreed. She graciously tilted her head toward Solvan while her eyes locked on the convict.

“I’m guessin’ you ain’t about to be reprimandin’ the holier-than-thou whore for almost gettin’ me killed, huh Tommy?” Merle growled.

“Keep it up Carson, I’m sure insulting the Sororita in charge of your well-being will do wonders to improve your survival odds.” Solvan said coldly to him, not waiting for Tomas to answer. “And do consider that perhaps, next time, I won’t get there in time. I’m old after all and my speed isn’t what it used to be.”

“So…you want me worryin’ like when you’re feelin’ the need to piss or shit?” Merle sneered bitterly.

"Sapphira," Tomas broke in, "If you could manage to keep Merle mostly alive while he is in your custody, I would appreciate it. I will have to insist on holding out for 90% intact I'm afraid."

“That’s unfortunate, sir." Sapphira said, without taking her eyes off the convict. "However I can manage.”

Tomas gestured for Merle to be brought over and gestured to the crate of raw materials they had found.

"Fibre optics. Cogitator parts." he played his stablight over the components as he listed them. "A mechanicus listening post guarded by a significant pack of Cyber Mastiffs, but otherwise seemingly long abandoned. Start telling me anything you know. Or anything we should be looking for if we want to pick up Arcolin’s trail."

“Yeah…” Merle looked thoughtful for a moment, and then snorted down his nose. “Did’ja think of lookin’ somewhere where that fucker’s ever actually been? I’m guessin’ that ain’t nobody been in here for decades, seein’ how it’s a dusty an’ neglected this hole is.” He turned to offer Sapphira a sneer, baring his gold teeth. “Which I’m figurin’ ain’t too dif’rent from the gran’ ol’ broad’s cun-”

Merle’s latest insult turned into a pained shout as Sapphira stomped on his calf, and at the same time yanked violently backwards on his manacles. The convict briefly collapsed to his knees, before he was driven face first into the crate by a blow from the Sister’s armored elbow. While he was keeled over, Sapphira sharply kneed Merle four times in his exposed gut – and then slammed the crate shut on the scuffed dome of his threadbare environmental suit for good measure. Merle moaned a curse as he slumped to the ground.

Sapphira exhaled the breath that she’d been holding as she turned to face the others. She’d learned of the heretic’s repeated slights towards the Silent Vigil after the fact, and so had availed herself of the opportunity for a measure of retribution as soon as it presented itself. Sapphira inflicted one blow for each of the Sisters from the Marioch cell, and another for Sister Kiana. Smashing the crate shut on Merle had been entirely for her benefit.

“That was a medically necessary procedure.” the sister stated, almost glibly. “Our prisoner was choking on an obscenity.”

Behind her, Glabrio chuckled.

“Nothing too impressive within the mastiff,” Vizkop reported. “The pack belonged to an Enginseer Koskynen. She left them here fifty years ago when the tech-priests abandoned the post. They were set into a low-power scan mode to guard the post. I can dig deeper if needed, but I'm not sure I'll find anything useful. The mastiff itself is undamaged. If desired, I can wipe the preset protocols and owner imprint if anyone wants an attack dog.”

"Shotgun." Glabrio called cheerfully. "I've always wondered if you can use jelly beans to train those things to roll over."

"Good job Vizkop." Tomas turned and nodded to the tech-assassin. "Pass it off to Josiah, he can deal with the wretched thing as he sees fit."

“I’m thinkin’ you’re gonn’a need to fuck this one too, Josey, since it ain’t like you’re gonn’a bag a proper bitch in this crowd.” Merle dragged himself to his feet, blinking away the disorientation caused by the impact to his helmet, though his arm was still curled protectively around his abused stomach. "That mutt ain't gonna do you much good unless y'all are plannin' on usin' it as a distraction. Your boy Arcolin spent some time honin' his long range game after Emerald bought him a big, shiny exitus to compensate for that chronically limp prick o' his."

Glabrio looked up sharply, and frowned behind his visor. "You know, if you'd told us that earlier you might've saved yourself a few blows to the head."

"Y'all ever considered that all these unwarranted blows to the head is why I didn' remember it until now, dipshit?" Merle snarked back. "If this gearhead's shit heap has anythin' to do with Arcolin at all, I'd be guessin' he's standin' off about a half mile lookin' to pop all'a y'all asses when y'all came lookin'."

He staggered upright against the crate and looked over to where Ella was stooped over one of the dead cyber-mastiffs with Gavin, Marc and Kelly. The two psykers had their hands splayed over the mastiff's ruined chassis, while the Black siblings offered support.

"But," Merle continued, "Since that ain't happened already, an' again I'm just spitballin' here, but maybe y'all should be thinkin' that your precious li'l pet psyker may have fucked up her reading."

He banged his gloved fist against the crate to attract the group's attention.

"You hear me, blondie? Why don' y'all just admit you fumbled this like a schoolgirl givin' her first handjob!"

"Shut up." Sapphira snarled at the convict, kicking him to the floor again. "If those Nebula soldiers out there hear you, I'll be repeating the tactic with the mastiffs and throwing you out in front of them first."

Merle gave a grunt of pain, which turned into a ragged chuckle. "Course, no offence intended Sister. I'm bettin' that unlike miss psy-mail here, you was a natural fuckin' talent, an' jus' got better with age." He craned his neck back towards the group in the corner. "Hey Ella! Quit blue-ballin' this bunch'a sorry assholes an' admit that you jus' ain't gonna deliver. You weren't much fuckin' use to Aurelias Prime, an' you didn't do shit for Sancta Heroica either."

Ella, who had automatically looked up at the sound of her name, blinked her blind eyes warily at Merle.

"Ignore him, Ella." Marc warned. "Carson, you shut the frak up."

"Hey I think this is somethin' the l'il fraudster deserves to hear, kid." Merle countered, "An' maybe you do too, unless you've been keepin' it a secret from her this whole time? Aurelias Prime, the place our favourite l'il warper was supposed to have ended up; if she'd been there doin' her job instead of tryin' to kid you bunch'a rent boys that she knows how to Tarot, maybe they'd be gettin' some timely reinforcements instead'a bein' up to their balls in cultists. Proper fuckin' nutcases, or so I heard off Emerald - make your boy Arcolin look like a pussy, never mind you lotta sad sacks."

The convict hauled himself up onto one knee.

"An' when some inquisitor prick blew the absolute shit outta Sancta Heroica, I hear his excuse for that exterminatus was we came too fuckin' late. A good ol' astropathic warnin' might've saved a whole lotta lives there, not to mention whatever two hivers got drunk enough together to decide to spawn that pale l'il freak."

He fixed Ella with an expression of false sympathy; lips pursed, one eyebrow slightly raised.

"Still, can't be helped now, amirite? Es tut mir Leid, l'il orphan Ella."

The astropath looked lost as she stared back at him, lips parted mutely. "What?" she said after a moment.

"That's enough of your poison." Sapphira hissed at Merle, and struck him over the shoulder with the butt of her revolver to send him crashing to the floor with a muffled yelp.

"Did you know?" Ella asked Marc quietly, turning towards the investigator and staring at the centre of his chest as if searching his aura.

"No." Marc replied sharply. "Listen, if he's telling the truth then I know it's a lot to process, but right now we have to-"

"No, it's alright." Ella cut him off. She was staring at the ground. "I'm...fine. I'm actually fine." She twisted her hands and one went to her helmet, as if instinctively trying to tug at her fringe until the glass barrier stopped her. "That's what's wrong. I don't..."

She glanced at Theodosia, as if seeking the rogue trader's help.

"Sugar momma ain’t the one to be lookin’ at, baby dyke.” Merle chided through clenched teeth, as he nursed his injured shoulder and directed a filthy look at Sapphira. He gestured vaguely towards the non-penitents from his hunched heap. “Go on an’ ask ‘em, ask the bitch-queen’s travellin’ harem of cocks an’ cunts here if they didn’t fuckin’ know ‘bout any’a that shit.”

[dakkagor]

Tomas sighed, and crouched down in front of Merle, his hand hovering over the detonator strapped to his wrist. There was a warning tone as the device armed.

"One more word, Merle Carson, and I'll do something you won't have a chance to regret. Now shut your mouth."

He stood again, looking down at Merle. This was getting beyond a joke. Any time he opened his mouth it was proving to be a complete pain, and even Tomas's reserves of considerable patience were being worn down.

"If there's nothing else, then we should clear out before things get problematic. Sometimes leads don't work out, that just the way this game is played." He looked over to Ella and smiled in a way he hoped was reassuring, before remembering she was blind. "Pack it up people."

[Azazeal849]

"If there's nothing else, then we should clear out before things get problematic. Sometimes leads don't work out, that just the way this game is played."

He looked over to Ella and smiled in a way he hoped was reassuring, before remembering she was blind. Either way, it didn't seem to help much.

"Pack it up people."

"Aye sir." Marc answered in a low voice, gathering his equipment while his sister helped Gavin to his feet. "Vince, what's the script with those Nebulas?"


+ + + + + +

Only Vincent's duty on overwatch was preventing him from climbing down to the listening post and unloading his rotary Garda shotgun into Merle's face, Tomas' orders be damned. As it was, however, he had bigger problems.

"Turn around, you bastards..." the ex-Guardsman urged under his breath.

He was talking down his scope, to a pair of Nebula commandos who were still moving obliquely towards them, chameleoline-coated armour rippling as they shifted between dappled rocks. Vincent cursed when one of the armoured figures turned its head towards the listening post and seemed to stare for a long moment. Without any apparent communication or hand signals, another pair peeled off and began to follow the first towards the building. They were moving at the same cautious advance as before; not visibly alerted.

"I'm not up for another cluster-fok like last time." Vincent murmured as he pressed his eye to Gene's scope and activated his throat-mic. "Hey guys, finish up in there right now. Some of the Nebulas are-"

The nearest Nebula was only scanning the horizon in his general direction, but he turned his armoured body faster than Vincent would have thought possible. The ex-Guardsman would have cursed if he had had the time - the Nebula must have spotted him through the gaps in the rocks he was using as a firing slit. That was an impressive ocular sensor suite, and likely some very impressive neural augmentations as well.

The huge modular rifle in the Nebula's hands swung round and spat a bright flash from its muzzle. Vince heard a round whistle past him, a crack of stone, and then a savage impact snapped his helmeted head to one side. The bulky guardsman slumped forward, toppling his autocannon off its bipod mount.


+ + + + + +

"Vince?" Marc queried into his vox pickup. He repeated the guardsman's name again, then swore.

"Don't!" Kelly cautioned Glabrio as the ex-arbiter flattened himself against the wall, next to the smoking hole Kally's breaching charge had left; ready to spin out and take overwatch. "If they're still coming from the east they'll have a clear shot at the wall."

"Smoke grenades?" Glabrio suggested, palming one.

"Dosi?" Marc continued, clicking a full magazine into Kadath's Tallarn Auto, "If that lander of yours has an autopilot, now might be a good time for the heavy support."

He pressed his spy drone between thumb and forefinger to activate it and cast the tiny silver insect towards the breach Glabrio was covering.

"Six." he reported as he glanced down at his sleeve-auspex and switched from its motion sensor to the drone's vid-feed. "No, wait, eight. Leapfrogging this way, moving in pairs. Two heading up to the overwatch point...Vincent's not moving."

"Is he alive?" Kelly urged her brother.

Marc chewed the inside of his cheek, cursing under his breath. "I cannae tell."

Glabrio stooped to toss his smoke grenade through the crumbled hole in the wall. At the same moment, a tight grouping of fist-sized holes punched themselves through the rockrete, exactly where his head had been a moment before.

"Microwave band optics." Glabrio cursed as he scrambled away, "Stand back from the walls!"

Outside, there was a whoosh as the smoke grenade began to throw out a pall of white fog and red-hot particles.

Marc's auspex chimed as the Nebulas outside got close enough to register on its motion sensor. Damn, they're fast. And then he remembered. Jetpacks.

"Incoming." the investigator warned. He took cover next to Kally behind a crate full of cogitator parts and levelled his gun at the wall, eyes darting between his auspex feed and his gunsights. He remembered vividly from Teleostei how people in Nebula armour could make their own doors. His grip tightened around Kadath's pistol as his heart began to hammer and red spikes crowded the edge of his vision. Kadath, Alley...maybe even Vince now! Arcolin's a dead man, and these bastards are next!

[kardar233]

+++ Aboard Arthashastra +++

She'd made the announcement the day before that Arthashastra's armouries were open to the team, but given the insular and heavily-armed nature of Inquisition agents in general she hadn't actually expected any of them to take her up on the offer.

So when Theodosia strolled into the ventral starboard armoury to prepare for landing, it came as quite the surprise to see Vincent Nyl appraising a wall of her weaponry with the same air as a sommelier choosing which vintage to open.

His eyes cut to the side as the door slid open, and he grunted recognition of her as she stepped past him to open her personal weapons locker. She equipped herself quickly, not lingering on her gear, but stopped when Vincent's gravelly voice broke the silence.

"What the fok is that thing? I want it."

Dosi looked down at the weapon (http://i.imgur.com/KuMEoct.jpg) she held; a cut-down carbine built to be used as a pistol, its only adornment a two-lobed magazine squatting heavily under the gun. Her eyes flicked back up to him and she grinned playfully.

"Get your own, big guy. By which I mean, spend favours, pull strings, and mortgage your three remaining limbs for a Genofonia custom job. I got this built because I wanted something as a trademark to use when things got... messy."

She grinned, warming to the topic and gesticulating with her free hand, though the weapon remained safely aimed down. "I wanted to name it, but I haven't thought of a good one yet. Maybe Mercator Honorem? Or The Gun Is Up Here? Or-"

A growl from Vincent, voice now raised in irritation, cut her off. "How about you call her the Pretentious Bitch?"

Silence reigned in the armoury for a few long seconds before it was shattered by Theodosia's laughter. She bent double, her mirth ruining her usual dignified posture. "I love it! It's the Pretentious Bitch."


+++

As Arthashastra hit Baraspine's atmosphere, Theodosia led the team to one of the hangars on the starboard side, one that had remained quite impervious to any exploratory members of the team ever since they had stopped by to retrieve her landing ship.

It now opened with a touch of the Trader's long fingers, revealing the squat, blocky machine inside.

A Caestus Assault Ram (http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/space-marines/caestus3.jpg) rumbled menacingly before them, its blocky nose, stub wings and colossal mass bringing to mind a brutish beast, one beginning to tire of waiting. The mounting point where the craft's signature magna-melta once sat instead contained a full-size Avenger bolt cannon, its cavernous barrels emphasized by the toothed jaws of a predator painted around them. Stylized lightning tracked back along the ram's chassis, transitioning into roaring tongues of flame wreathed around the craft's massive engines.

Across the flank, the nameplate simply asked: So What Is That 'Subtlety' Thing, Anyway?

When Josiah saw the large vehicle, he blinked several times, to make sure he was not dreaming. When he realized that it was, in fact, really there, only two words came out of his mouth; "Well, shit."

Vizkop chimed in just after. "Well. All right. This is certainly not the first thing that comes to mind when one hears 'landing craft.' But it is a fine craft and certainly has its charm, Lady Theodosia. You continue to surprise."

“Oohh kay then.” Muttered Kally, incredulous as she itched inside her armour. “Question. Why do all Astartes gunships look like someone took a brick and nailed some steel sheets to it?”

“Because the Astartes never do anything subtly.” Tomas responded, giving Theodosia a sidelong glance. “Before you say anything.” He held up a warning finger to the Rogue Trader. “I don't even want to know how you got hold of this. We are all better off not knowing, infact.”

Dosi smiled placatingly at Tomas. "It fell off the back of a truck," she claimed, and then she led them into the belly of the beast.


+++ Baraspine surface +++

As soon as she stepped out of the landing craft, Theodosia's flattering, skirted enviro-suit shifted, blending with the outlands' chemical smog. She remanded control of her prized dropship to its servitor pilot; she'd piloted them down herself, of course, though she had to refrain from having too much fun with it considering that her passengers had a pressing need to be functional in the immediate future.

The servitor pilot took the ship up and over a small ridge to hide, its air-starved engines whining softly to imitate an Arvus' thrust signature. "Well, this is a particularly unpleasant dust zone," she remarked to no one in particular. "You boys take me to all the nicest places."

Dosi hung back as the team breached, picking a little gingerly over the white-hot chunks of ferrocrete left behind by the door-melting entrance. She was peering into the darkness, a slight frown on her features, when red eyes lit and their owners attacked. Making use of her height to see and shoot over the others, she drew Pretentious Bitch and opened up into the charging cyber-mastiffs, the closed-bolt clatter ringing loud against the mastiffs' growls. Her targets' armoured plating held well against her fire, but she steered bullets into exposed innards and vulnerable points, helping to slow and weaken them. As the fight ended, she looked to the side and was surprised to see Ella standing over a bisected attack servitor, force sabre in hand; she favoured the younger woman with an impressed grin.

She felt somewhat out of place as the team searched for clues, just standing 'watch' in the room they'd designated as base. It gave her another wonderful opportunity to experience Merle's vitriol, however, and so she tuned him out, watching the agents' reactions instead of subjecting herself to the raw bile.

"No, it's alright." Ella cut him off. She was staring at the ground. "I'm...fine. I'm actually fine." She twisted her hands and one went to her helmet, as if instinctively trying to tug at her fringe until the glass barrier stopped her. "That's what's wrong. I don't..."

She glanced at Theodosia, as if seeking the rogue trader's help.

Theodosia turned towards Ella and bit her lip, gathering her thoughts. She opened her mouth to speak but stopped as Marc's voice raised in urgency, calling Vincent's name. She keyed her suit vox with a preprogrammed code, pre-empting Marc's comment to her, and settled in to make ready.

As their assailants closed in, she slid into a covered corner, hoping Ella would follow her example. Her shoulders hunched slightly as Marc's auspex beeped proximity warning...

And an armoured form burst thunderously through the northern wall, catching Marc and Kally uncovered as it entered from their flank, its heavy rifle lifting to take a lethal snapshot.

Three shots rang out, far smaller in sound and calibre than the Nebula's weapon. They pounded not into the soldier's impervious armour but into the weapon; each successive shot striking different pieces of the same weld line on the upper receiver, driving pieces into the bolt assembly. Immediately understanding the state of their weapon, the Nebula dropped the rifle, turning to this new attacker and moving to draw their sidearm in one swift motion.

But by then, Theodosia was already moving. She'd dropped Pretentious Bitch with its barrel still smoking from the burst. Then, she'd bolted into a sprint from a standing start, reaching the armoured figure in three smooth strides. Her lead foot planted and she struck the Corpsman's elbow with the full weight of her body behind her palm, the force striking at an angle to the armour's servos and sending her opponent's hand away from the sidearm hanging menacingly at their hip.

The simple dynamics of the body turned the soldier's torso towards her, momentum they were not wasting. Two lightning-quick myomer-assisted punches sped in her direction; she leaned to the side, then to the other twisting her shoulders slightly, and both strikes slid past just millimetres from her face. The other hand swept in from beneath, so she stepped inside the strike and directed another palm-shove to the shoulder, preventing the attack from coming around and pushing her opponent further off-balance.

Another flurry of strikes forced her to back away, brushing potentially lethal hits to each side with her forearms, an elated grin on her face. A lightning-fast pair forced her to lean to her left far enough to disrupt her own balance, and in the heat of the moment she slipped her left hand into the deep folds of her skirts, brought out a bulky handgun (http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/metalgear/images/6/69/MK23_SOCOM.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090226063046), and fired one shot into the outside of the armour's knee joint.

Their knee servo suddenly destroyed, the Nebula soldier found themselves forced to compensate with muscle and myomer, their centre of gravity shifting back with the motion. As the soldier compensated, the lady stomped, turning the motion into a forward surge where her right foot planted just behind the Nebula's own and her upwards strike struck the chin of the armour.

Lifted just slightly off the ground, a touch backwards and with one leg removed from play, the Nebula hit the ground with a thunderous crash. As it fell, the victor slipped the soldier's sidearm from their leg holster and covered the grounded warrior with it, the weapon in her other hand aimed at the hole made by the Nebula's dramatic entrance.

A few seconds of silence passed before a figure appeared at the hole in matching armour, rifle hanging loosely from a sling and a massive Brontian longknife attached to its belt, its hands empty and hanging loosely by its sides. The visor depolarized, revealing a woman's face, skin the colour of half-burnt wood, flinty eyes looking oddly friendly. She turned her head to the woman standing over her comrade and smiled.

"Heya, Alley."

The victor let the pistols drop as her shoulders squared and a slight smile spread over her face. "Hey yourself, Kirabo."

[dakkagor]

"Hey! Hey full metal bitch!"

Kally surged to her feet past a confused Marc and shoved Rogue Trader Prince/Alley/whoever the frak she was to one side, before levelling her boltgun square at the Nebula troopers face. She was practically shaking from a combination of anger and fear. The idea of losing Vince, after all the shit they had been through, was simply not acceptable. It didn't fit anywhere into Kally's acceptable view of the world. Vince was simply too stubborn, too much like old bootleather, to be taken out, even by Nebula shocktroopers.

"One of you bucketheads just shot my friend out there, who if he's not dead is probably dying of toxic shock! Call of the damn assault and let me and Sapphira get to him! Throne damn it we are on your side!"

She risked a glance to the woman she had just displaced. Later. Questions later, once they where sure Vince was still mostly in one piece. She refocused her gaze on the Nebula trooper.

"Call it in! Now!"

[kardar233]

She refocused her gaze on the Quasar trooper.

"Call it in! Now!"

The armoured Nebula Corpswoman shifted only mildly as Kally shoved a boltgun in her face, hand moving just a bit closer to the broad blade sitting at her hip. The holographic display on her chest had lit, and now showed GySgt. Jensaa Kirabo. She looked straight through Kally for a short moment, then tilted her head to the side and spoke through her vox and through the armour's speakers.

"Tyria, medicae for the overwatcher MacLaughlin winged."

[Azazeal849]

"Go." Marc urged Kally, grabbing the blank by her shoulder. "We'll take care of this, go and help Vince."

Pushing through the breach and back up the hill through the dissipating smoke, Kally pounded to a stop at the team's overwatch point. Two more Nebulas were on their way up, and they paused to watch her pass through matte visors with their bulky rifles lowered. The other four Nebulas were standing off at the cardinal points of the abandoned listening post

Vincent was slumped on his front next to his overturned autocannon, and she could see blood spattered across the inside of his visor. The upturned side of his sealed helmet had a sizeable dent in the armaplas beneath the painted camo, where something had ricocheted into it hard. Looking up, Kally could see the pulverised rock that the bullets had cannoned off.

20mm, I'm willing to bet. If that had hit him dead on...

It didn't bear thinking about as she stopped down next to her friend. His eyes were closed, but to her relief she could see breath misting the lower rim of his visor.


+ + + + + +

"What are you doing here?" Kirabo asked the erstwhile trader Prince as the latter held out one hand to her fallen partner. The Nebula stood with a whir of protesting servos, their blown knee joint still malfunctioning. "Why didn't you contact the Revenant and let us know you were planetside?"

Theodosia gave her a sarcastic look, before Marc interrupted.

"No, wrong question." the investigator said, holstering Kadath's pistol as he stepped forward. His face was hidden behind his carapace visor, but the consternation in his voice was evident.

He looked at Theodosia Prince for a long moment, trying to see past the dyed, grown-out hair and what he now realised were tinted contact lenses. She carried herself differently, and she seemed to have undergone surgery on her cheekbones, but...

"Alley?" he gaped. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"I tried to give you a hint." Theodosia said, falling into a slightly awkward stance. Her voice had dropped back down half an octave, and lost its regal Tephaine accent.

Marc heard a shuffling of boots against steel behind him, and turned to see Ella retreating towards the wall, fighting her hands and looking at the ground guiltily.

"That reading I told you about in the kitchen..." she began in a small voice.

Marc's jaw dropped behind his visor. "You knew?"


+ + + + + +

Aboard the Arthrashastra
En route to Baraspine

Ella was comfortable, but she wasn't relaxed. She and Theodosia sat side by side in an amiable silence, curled up on an overstuffed velvet sofa while one of Theodosia's old-fashioned records played through a brass horn. Theodosia as usual was sipping her preferred mix of amasec and Solomon Rookery, but Ella had made significantly less progress with her own glass. She cast a sidelong look at Theodosia, whose jade-green psychic avatar was edged with a soft, comfortable sunset colour. Her own hands, folded in her lap, flickered a troubled white. Aside from a brief flutter of pink when Theodosia had touched her hair and suggested she grow it, they had stayed that way since the debriefing.

Why did you just sit there, Dosi? she thought in frustration. Why didn't you tell them?

She had given Theodosia time, assuming that the rogue trader needed to find her own time and place, but after Carson had taunted the whole team with the subject and Theodosia had remained utterly silent, she couldn't keep quiet any more.

The antique stylus-player on Dosi's table was still blaring out Master Donehu's Aurelian suite; an opera written to commemorate a crusade by an astartes chapter whose name Ella didn't recognise. The current movement was a busy orchestral piece full of syncopated drums and female choir voices, intended to evoke an Eldar assault against a mechanicus forge gate.

Ella swallowed a large gulp of her drink, which burned her throat as it went down, and finally resolved to take the plunge.

"Do you mind if I turn that off?" she asked.

Theodosia grinned. "Oh thank the Emperor. I always thought that these bombastic pieces were something that traders like me were mandated to own, rather than something I actually liked."

She shifted slightly so that Ella could get up, and the young astropath padded over to the gramophone and lifted the needle to bring quiet to the room. Ella took a deep breath.

"I can't stop thinking about what Merle said at the debriefing."

The green flames that made up Theodosia's face rippled, and her aura shimmered blue. "Aww, kitten. Don't tell me you let what that worthless piece of grox-shit said get to you."

Ella shook her head. "Not to me, to the others. When he was taunting them about Kepler and Shireen, and Alley Tarran."

Theodosia sat forward and folded her hands under her chin. "What's done is done." she said carefully. "Sooner or later, we all have to come to terms with it." Her avatar glowed prettily as she smiled. "You're a good soul, Ella, to care about your friends so much."

"But why didn't you say anything?" Ella pressed. She paused for half a heartbeat and then added, "Alley?"

The smile and the poise evaporated from Theodosia's aura, as abruptly as a candle being snuffed out. As she wrapped her arms around herself she seemed to shrink, until the 6-foot-4 shipmistress looked even smaller than Ella. The bright green flames dancing around her aura faded and guttered out, revealing an avatar like old, cracked jade lying beneath.

"How..." the trader asked, in a voice that was deeper and more hollow than Theodosia's had ever been. "How long have you known?"

It took Ella a few moments to reply, her frustration evaporating as she stared at the change one simple name had wrought. She almost wanted to reach over and take the other woman's hand, but the pain-filled stabs of soul fire bleeding off Alicia kept her back.

"A couple of days into the journey to Marioch." she said at last. "I...I didn't really take a good look at your aura when we were on the Mooncalf, or back on...you know, back on Saros. So it took me a while."

"Please Ella..." Alicia begged, the cracks in her aura flaring a desperate blue. "Please don't tell them."

Ella still didn't understand. She twisted her hands. "But they think you're dead, Alley."

"Please, let me be Theodosia a little while longer. Just a little while."

Ella hesitated. She could tell from the intensity of Alicia's aura that this was important to her, but it still seemed bizarrely selfish.

"They care, Alley." she argued gently, sitting back down on the edge of the sofa.

Alicia's aura rippled. "Do they?"

"Yes, they do. Marc especially. I think he blames himself."

A complicated series of emotions dominoed through Alicia's psychic avatar.

"The others are mourning you too." Ella pressed. "I saw it in their auras when that...when that bastard Carson brought you up."

She saw Alicia flinch slightly, perhaps at the idea of the team mourning her. And then, a hopeful look ghosted across her avatar's face.

"Maybe I could..." Alicia said slowly, "Maybe you could give them a reading...something to let them know that Alley's alive without linking her to Theodosia?"

Ella shook her head at the idea. "I've never flat out lied about a Tarot reading, Alley. I'm going to tell them."

"Ella, no!" Alicia half-shouted as the astropath began to rise from her seat. "Please...just let me explain why."

Ella froze, debated with herself for a moment, then slowly sat back down, biting her lip. "I need you to give me a really good reason, Alley."

To Ella's surprise, Alicia reached out her hand, but before she could raise her own to take it Alicia aborted the gesture, her arm dropping silently back to her side.

"As Theodosia they treat me like a person, not a weapon." Alicia explained quietly. "When I'm...when I'm her they play games with me, laugh at my jokes...they look at me like a person."

"Why would you think that?" Ella asked, gently. "You're not just a weapon."

"Really?" Alicia answered in a hollow voice. "Ever since I saved the governor on Siculi, the entire sector has had me up on a pedestal. And don't get me wrong, I appreciate their respect, but I didn't want to be worshipped. It was almost as if no-one thought they could talk to the Hero of Siculi about normal human things any more. The inquisition was different, and the same. To Sidonis, I was a pocket astartes to wheel out whenever he needed to crack heads. Even the team...they never made the effort to get to know me."

"It wasn't your fault." Ella said. "It's a busy job. I mean, I don't know any of them that well..."

"Well enough for them to throw you a party." Alicia pointed out, and although there was no malice in the words it still shamed Ella into silence. "I get the feeling that when they looked at Alley Tarran, all they saw was this."

She held out her hands again, both of them this time, palms turned towards Ella.

Ella saw the colour fade out of Alicia's hands, leaching them to a dull grey. She could see fragments of memories shedding away from them - a spark of Alicia using her hands to mix drinks, a frizzon of the thrill she felt when she wrapped them around the controls of a landing craft, or used them to cheat at cards. Ella even thought she glimpsed the soft tingle of Alicia's fingers stroking through her own hair, though she couldn't be sure that that wasn't just a projection of her own thoughts.

As the green joys bled away, the hands of Alicia's avatar hardened into something like blades.

Only good for killing people. Ella realised. She wanted so badly to make Alicia see that that wasn't true that this time she really did reach out and try to take her hand in hers, but where Theodosia might have accepted the gesture, Alley shied away.

"I'm..." Ella stuttered, feeling awful. "I'm sorry, Alley. I didn't know."

Alicia sighed. "No, I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound like my problems are worse or more important than yours. I knew psykers had it hard, but..."

Ella shifted uncomfortably, remembering the things she had inadvertently blurted out to Alicia about her time among the passengers on the Greed's Reward, and her brief but unpleasant stint under the eye of sergeant Kazic.

"Look, it doesn't matter." she said, trying to brush away the line of conversation before it led back into uncomfortable territory for them both. "Alright, I'll do it. I'll tell them I made a reading which told me Alley might still be alive."

"Thank you." Alicia said, quietly but sincerely. "But...there's something else you need to tell me, Ella. What happened to them - to Marc and Kally and the rest? They seem different since Saros."

Ella pushed her fringe across her forehead, nervously. She got the feeling that it was something her fellow penitents wouldn't want her to share, but...but can I really keep quiet now, after telling Alley that she needs to talk to them?

"They took us back to Terra." she began slowly, taking a deep breath as nightmares she had hoped she had buried came creeping back around the edges of her mind. "They handed us over to the inquisition's interrogators..."

It took her a while, and several pauses to take a shuddering breath, but if it was painful for her, the effect on Alicia was catastrophic. She wanted to stop and spare Alicia the knowledge, but the other woman pressed her, even as something inside her aura shattered into shards of rage and guilt.

Ella knew the pattern - the tortured wash of red and blue. It was the same thing she had seen in Marc.


+ + + + + +

"Don't blame Ella for it." Alicia admonished Marc. "It was my idea. I wanted to help but...not as Alicia."

Watching Alicia Tarran now, Ella saw the beautiful bright green aura fade once again to a resigned, worn jade, and something in the trader's chest throbbed like the pain of a phantom limb. Still, a glimmer of hopeful green remained; maybe, Ella thought optimistically, Alley had believed her when she told her that the team would be glad to see her. Once they got over the shock at least, she conceded, watching Marc's avatar shimmer coolly as it turned back to face Alicia.

"I still don't understand." the investigator said, "How did you get off the ad mech waystation? And where did you get a frakking trade warrant?"

[dakkagor]

Pulse good. Breathing ragged, but there.

Her first instinct was a simple one. Hoist Vince onto her shoulders and walk him back to the abandoned mechanicus outpost, out of this dust, so they could get his suit open and check him. But that much blunt trauma to his head. . .what if there was damage to his spine? His suit could be the only thing saving him from permanent paralysis. Moving him could make things a lot worse.

"Saph." Kally said over the open comms. "Vince is stable for now, but I need an expert opinion on what to do next."

"I'm coming" came the response, though it was slightly distracted. Kally looked up from Vince, and down the slope back towards the building, starting to work through the last two minutes. Could it really be Alley? Somehow, miraculously back from the dead? Kally had never managed to have many interactions with Alley. Too little time, worlds of experience difference between them. She had respected the other woman as someone who knew her business, and wasn't a complete bitch about it like some people she could mention. Occasional drinks together in the True Banes common rooms, but always as part of a crowd, and Kally didn't generally inflict herself on big groups of soldiers trying to relax.

She refocused on Sapphira slogging through the dust towards her, and waved an arm to draw her attention. She played through the various scenarios, and found one immediately she disliked intensely, but doubted that Marc would be able to think of it after all these years. She keyed her comms to Vizkops channel.

"Vizkop." She paused. "Can you scan her? For . . ."

She didn't believe it was possible, but it didn't hurt to be paranoid.

[Cfavano]

mistake, nothing to see here, Citizen.

[PaintSerf]

Tomas sighed, and crouched down in front of Merle, his hand hovering over the detonator strapped to his wrist. There was a warning tone as the device armed. Sister Sapphira obligingly diverted her aim from the prisoner to accommodate Tomas’ proximity to him. However she kept a watchful eye on the shackled heretic, particularly on his hands in case he tried to foolishly reach for a weapon off Tomas.

"One more word, Merle Carson," Tomas stated bluntly, "And I'll do something you won't have a chance to regret. Now shut your mouth."

The convict glowered but wordlessly nodded, with a hard glare at Tomas as he pulled away. Merle twisted his mangled mouth into a closed lip smile and presented his middle fingers to Tomas in a petty act of compliant defiance. Tomas studiously ignored him to rally his agents for their withdrawal, and Merle grunted with irritation as he lowered his hands and shifted to be flat on his back.

The convict casually rolled his head around to face Sapphira, who was an infinitely more attractive outlet for his attentions than Ser Prick. His eyes lazily meandered their way up the Sister’s armored legs to settle lingeringly on her hips. Since she was directly responsible for his present…performance issues, Merle had often turned his vivid imagination towards her uses for venting his pent up frustrations.

Knowing that Sapphira wouldn’t turn away from him, no matter what obscene act he decided on, Merle inhaled deeply and grabbed his crotch with his right hand. The convict hummed lustily and smacked his lips and rattled his chains as he adjusted himself through his suit. Merle’s eyes flicked up to hers once his sightseeing prospects limited by the Sister’s body armor and equipment. He smiled sleazily at her.

The Sister’s scarred features were a wall of stony neutrality, and her bewitchingly stormy eyes were keenly searching rather than smolderingly disgusted. Her revolver had been re-levelled at his head, and Merle immediately noticed the slight quiver of tension in her trigger-finger. The convict’s face lost its humored mask as he returned Sapphira’s look for a long moment. He chose to wink at her knowingly.

Sapphira’s eyes narrowed, and her hand steadied almost instantly.

Well, shit. Merle’s breath caught in his throat as he figured where this was all about to go…until someone killed Vinny Nyl for him. Normally he’d be pissed by that kill-theft, but in the moment it was the favour of a lifetime. The Sister’s bearing subtly shifted from murderous to clinical as her aim lowered and her posture fractionally relaxed.

Saved by the fuckin’ bell fo’ sure. Bitch was gonn’a bump me off! Merle exhaled slowly with relief before he winced at the flare of pain in his left palm. The unwelcome cackle of Arcolin DeRei echoed at the back of his mind as his hunch was confirmed by his… He froze on that word and shuddered. It weighed in on his hesitance with another burning pulse, and Alia Machairi’s rich peal of mirth at his expense. Merle shivered again with fear. He’d never heard the queen-bitch laugh.

“Get up, heretic.” Sapphira sharply ordered, as she glared down him with a furrowed brow.

Merle squinted as he forced a smile. He was sure that her consternation was due to the inbound Nebula heavyweight shit-kickers. Now that's bad fuckin’ news, but sometimes you take the bad with the good…and Vinnie the ape dyin’ alone with his sad sack friends unable to help him is some damn good news.

The convict mulled over that delicious thought. Merle petulantly folded his arms across his chest and shook his head at Sapphira's order to rise. He choked down an audible curse through gritted teeth as the Sister gifted him with a motivating boot to his ribs.

“Up. Now.” Sapphira tersely commanded. She reached down for his chains, but took a precautionary step back to cover him as the convict lunged forward with his shackled hands.

Merle stared fixedly at Sapphira in defiance, until he grunted and collapsed back onto the ground. He clutched his abused abdomen, but in spite of the pain Merle spared a hand to gesture at their surroundings and then at the melta breached wall. It ain’t how I’m wantin’ to see you exposed, my li’l holy whore…but it’ll do ‘til when I’m gonna be havin’ ya my way, slut. The convict’s chuckled low and raspy in his throat as his battered mouth curled into a vicious, gold tinted smile at the Sister.

“I’ll generously call you a human shield, scum.” Sapphira hissed as she stepped forwards to loom over Merle. He snorted at her comprehension of the situation, and took advantage of the Sister’s proximity to crane his neck and stare longingly at the apex of her thighs. The convict licked his lips desirously.

Glabrio stooped to toss his smoke grenade through the crumbled hole in the wall. At the same moment, a tight grouping of fist-sized holes punched themselves through the rockrete, exactly where his head had been a moment before.

Merle barked out a shout of pain as Sapphira crouched down and smashed her armored knee onto his hands. He began to buck underneath the Sister’s impromptu pin, and escape was not his only objective. She was so close and Merle was desperate to wriggle his numb fingers free and take his liberties with her where he could. Maybe the distraction would even get the bitch killed. Sapphira however never broke her intense look at Glabrio, and she violently ended Merle’s struggles by slamming her revolver’s barrel into the convict’s throat underneath his explosive collar.

"Microwave band optics." Glabrio cursed as he scrambled away, "Stand back from the walls!"

Merle coughed and spat up blood tinged phlegm across his visor. It was probably only his suit’s thick-banded neck seal that had spared him from a crushed larynx. Merle’s head lolled and he saw the swishy former-Arbitrator shoot a cock-sure grin at Sapphira as he retreated. The Sister’s own tension eased somewhat, and it was sensation that Merle would’ve thoroughly enjoyed had he not been busy choking. His efforts were further complicated as Sapphira shifted her bodyweight onto the revolver. Merle wheezed as his head was forcibly canted to the side. The convict could see Sapphira’s laspistol in profile from the corner of his eye, as she covered the breach. Engraved on the side was some foreign script initialed J. S.

Through his hazy vision, Merle saw missy Black haul her crippled pet psyker by his arm into cover. That freak was probably warping, as he looked more constipated than usual. Almost as much as the soulless bastard over there, covering his fuck-buddy’s ass with his bolter-bitch cock-compensator.

The convict gasped in a breath as the northern wall caved in and Sapphira snapped up her pistols.


+ + +

Major Crenshaw immediately turned to address the Nebula as it breached, his bolter locked on and loaded with kraken bolts. Firing on pure reflex, his first shot struck the Nebula's bracing arm, detonating hard enough to crack the reinforced carapace and jolting the Nebula's aim to one side. Together with another salvo from Crenshaw's right which blew out the bolt mechanism of the Nebula's rifle, it almost certainly saved Kally and Marc from death at the hands of the flanking Nebula.

Crenshaw didn't have time to muse over the providence or else the phenomenal aim of the second shots. As the other bolts of his first salvo impacted the wall, blowing out a shower of rockrete and spinning shards of rebar, he tracked and re-centred his aim - only to have Theodosia leap across his line of fire and engage the Nebula in hand to hand. The major swore colourfully as he pulled his shot.

A few seconds of silence passed before a figure appeared at the hole in matching armour, rifle hanging loosely from a sling and a massive Brontian longknife attached to its belt, its hands empty and hanging loosely by its sides. The visor depolarized, revealing a woman's face, skin the colour of half-burnt wood, flinty eyes looking oddly friendly. She turned her head to the woman standing over her comrade and smiled.

"Heya, Alley."

"Hey yourself, Kirabo."

Kally was there a moment later to break up the cosy reunion. "One of you bucketheads just shot my friend out there, who if he's not dead is probably dying of toxic shock! Call off the damn assault and let me and Sapphira get to him! Throne damn it we are on your side! Call it in! Now!"

The armoured Nebula Corpswoman shifted only mildly as Kally shoved a boltgun in her face, hand moving just a bit closer to the broad blade sitting at her hip. The holographic display on her chest had lit, and now showed GySgt. Jensaa Kirabo.

"No hasty movements, now." Crenshaw cautioned. He looked like he was speaking to Kally, but his bolter's aim was still squarely on the faceplate of the Nebula whose hand had drifted towards her knife. It wasn't exactly pointing away from the newly-revealed Alicia Tarran either.

"Tyria, medicae for the overwatcher MacLaughlin winged."

"Go." Marc urged Kally, grabbing the blank by her shoulder. "We'll take care of this, go and help Vince."

Crenshaw held his aim for a moment longer before dropping his bolter down to a ready rest, de-escalating the situation and allowing Marc a moment to voice the questions they were all thinking. Crenshaw himself, however, had several more - and he planned to independently corroborate them before he accepted the rather shocking new turn of events.


+ + +

Sapphira watched Kally leave with half an eye still on the recalcitrant Merle. The part of her that duty and sororitas training couldn't overrule more worried about her friend than about the Nebulas. She didn't know how close Kally's relationship with the newly-revealed Alley Tarran had been, but she knew how deeply the blank cared about Vincent, and how she was liable to react if the Nebula's shot had proved fatal. Sapphira knew that she had to get outside right now, as much for Kally's sake as for Vincent's.

I just need to be rid of this heretic...

As if reading her mind, Glabrio appeared beside her, drawing the sister's attention with a light touch to the back of her arm.

"I've got this." the regulator assured her, his face easily confident behind his unpolarised visor. "You go and do what you do best."

Sapphira thanked him with a smile that managed to be warm despite the underlying tension, and gratefully stepped away from Merle. She traded the Spartax forged laspistol for her diagnostic tablet, stooping to retrieve it from the bag that she had unceremoniously dropped at the beginning of the firefight.

"Saph." Kally said over the open comms. "Vince is stable for now, but I need an expert opinion on what to do next."

"I'm coming."

She thought she heard Merle giggle to himself at her phrasing, and it was followed by something that sounded rather like Glabrio's armoured boot landing a kick.

"Thank you." she said, sucking on the inside of her cheek.

Glabrio chuckled slightly, and offered her a hand up with his free glove. Sapphira accepted it, pausing to give the regulator's strong fingers a surreptitious squeeze. Looking past him, she found her eyes drawn to the group that had formed by the second impromptu breach. She spared a glance between Ella and Alicia; the astropath was looking uncomfortable and apologetic, while the ghost from her friend's past looked like she was trying to gauge the team's reactions. Neither were able to prevent a stab of anger from rising up in Sapphira's chest.


+ + +

Merle watched intensely as Sapphira ducked out of the melta-charge hole and hurried away up the slope. The naughty nurse evidently thought she was being discreet when she had squeezed Glabrio's hand and smiled in that trusting way, but Merle would have been surprised if it had fooled anyone beyond those terminally oblivious pricks Tomas and Marc. Still, he didn't need another painful throb from his hand to know that it was interesting.

As much to test the regulator as to confirm his already well-entrenched suspicions, Merle raised his eyebrows at Glabrio, jerked his head towards the hole Sapphira had vanished through, and made an obscene gesture with one finger and the curled thumb and index of his other hand.

Glabrio's deadpan expression was no doubt meant to be another masterclass of obfuscation, and Merle would have cackled aloud if he had been inclined to press his luck. Instead, he gave the humourless arbitrator a double thumbs up, and raised another questioning eyebrow as he held up three fingers to suggest Glabrio, Sapphira and himself.

Glabrio hooked his boot under the cuff chain and kicked it to bring Merle sprawling at his feet. He leaned his foot down hard on Merle's arm and pointed the muzzle of his shotgun meaningfully at Merle's scrabbling fingers.

"I'd cease and desist if I were you." the regulator informed Merle, in an almost bored tone. "Not to boast, but Sapphira's not the only surgeon with a shotgun on this team."


+ + +

Gavin wasn't taking apparent friendlies for granted any more, not after everything that had happened. He had reined in his curse, sharply, once Kally approached Kirabo, anxious not to get his mind caught up and dragged down into the spiralling anti-psychic vortex that formed the blank's soul. As she moved away however, he tentatively reached out again and probed the spirit of Kirabo's armour. It was a strange and disconcerting chimaera of energies, thrown together by the unrelenting genius of a magi cabal that clearly had limited regard for mechanicus tradition. Beneath its bulletproof plates the suit's servos and myomer bundles had the explosive power of a feline predator, while the jetpack thrusters had the bounding spirit of a starving greyhound and the multi-spectral auspex suite glowered like a buzzard searching the ground for prey. No, Gavin decided - not like a buzzard, more like a whole pack of wolves; the whole Nebula squad were MIU linked, sharing each other's vision, sighting down each other's gun barrels.

The suit hummed with aggressive power, and Gavin saw the golden energy spider-webbing through Kirabo along the lines of her Glavian-style neural interfaces. Stimm injectors hovered eagerly at the soldier's neck and wrists, ready to boost her cognition and reaction speed with a satrophene mix so corrosively powerful that a second set of dedicated purge injectors stood ready to flood her system with the antidotes.

The psyker wound down his unwelcome power and considered the theoretical options for exploiting the Nebula’s technology. Termination of jetpack in midflight. Saturation of Glavian neural wiring. Chaining off the drug injectors. Gavin acknowledged the possibly horrific damage potential with a slight nod.

While Gavin's attention was on the Nebula gunnery sergeant, Marc's was squarely on her newly-unmasked compatriot.

"Alley?" he gaped. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"I tried to give you a hint." Theodosia said, falling into a slightly awkward stance. Her voice had dropped back down half an octave, and lost its regal Tephaine accent.

Gavin squinted at the rogue trader, trying to see something that he recognised beneath the silky rogue-trader veneer that he had become accustomed to, but it was of limited use - he only knew of Alicia Tarran distantly through her friend Kylara, Gavin's former ASL back in Carbon, and Kylara hadn't exactly had a huge amount of time for Gavin. Nevertheless, her name was still etched into the graceless armour plates of his bionic legs, alongside the rest of his former companions. He presumed that they were all dead now - on the Mooncalf if not before.

Dead...just like almost everyone I've ever known.

There was a shuffling of boots against steel, and Gavin saw Marc turn to see Ella retreating towards the wall, fighting her hands and looking at the ground guiltily.

"That reading I told you about in the kitchen..." she began in a small voice.

Marc's jaw dropped behind his visor. "You knew?"

Gavin could almost see the bond of trust between the two agents straining, like a wire under tension, poised to snap and whip back to draw blood from the both of them. Gavin had not interacted closely with Ella, but between her dutiful manner and the implicit purity of the soul-binding, it had never occurred to him to think of her as a liar. After all, Gavin knew only too well what happened to psykers who lied to their handlers.

And their shipmistress, Theodosia Prince, aka Alicia Tarran - it seemed that there really might not be anyone he could truly trust. My parents, the girl back home, my so-called colleagues... Gavin mused bitterly. Which of the others is just waiting to reveal a dead man's hand?

He clawed at the sleeve of his environment suit, pressing down hard on the shallow scar where he had tried and failed to slide a knife into his own wrist. It hurt, and the pain was a cold comfort.

Beside him, Gavin heard a squeak from Kelly's suit glove as she nervously flexed her fingers, picking unconsciously at the barrier of her helmet seal as if she wanted to bite through the glove and get to the nails beneath. Gavin hadn't failed to note the stress tic that his friend had developed since Terra, a painful mirror of his own coping mechanism.

The realisation snapped Gavin out of his self-pitying fugue. He remembered, with regret, his outburst at Kelly and the others right after Carson had effortlessly gotten under his skin. I told them I could handle him - straight after commander Prinzel ordered that no-one be alone with him, and straight after they all warned me not to, even if they really did need some time alone, away from Carson's poison. Gavin would have never been able to heal with Crenshaw looming over him, and he had tried to remove the same barrier for the three women. Idiot! Thinking of Crenshaw brought a twist of rage to Gavin's stomach, almost murderous in its intensity.

He was right - that was the worst thing. Carson might be evil, but everything he said was true. Even Kally Sonder smashing out his teeth couldn't change that.

And yet, despite Gavin's self-destructive stupidity, Kelly had been the first one to forgive him. True to her nature, she had applied her logical talents to the most compassionate course and immediately gathered up Solvan and Sapphira to make sure he was alright.

I opened the door, all ready to apologise, and before I could open my mouth the first thing she told me was that it was okay. Gavin had to wonder sometimes if Kelly Black wasn't a latent psyker herself.

Trust.

He turned awkwardly towards Kelly, feeling the obvious tension that was both her own and for her brother. In a move that took all of his stunted emotional courage, Gavin stopped clutching his scarred wrist and instead reached out to lightly brush Kelly's arm. She tensed a little, as if startled. Then she seemed to focus, and she turned to offer Gavin a silent, meaningful nod.


+ + +

"Check Vincent's suit for breaches." Sapphira instructed Kally through the vox as she scrambled up the hill.

"Can't see any." the blank replied after a moment, her voice still obviously tense.

Sapphira nodded quietly to herself as she climbed. Perhaps all might yet be well, and a catastrophic outburst from Kally and Marc had been averted. Still, the sister worried about the ramifications of the other new development, as she turned her mind to Alicia. She still wasn't sure how the penitents were going to react. Not to mention what Carson might know, and what might happen if he tries to stir up any shit between them.

Sapphira felt her hand drift towards her holstered laspistol, brushing the embossed Aquila above the grip. She could feel the tiny grooves of the double-headed eagle's wings even through her environment glove. The sister was uncomfortably aware that she might need to terminate Carson against Machairi's orders; an instinct she had come a hair's breadth from acting upon before the sudden Nebula attack. She was beginning to agree with Marc that any intelligence the convict might hold wasn't worth the risk of his continued breathing.

She was almost glad to be away from the listening post, removed at least temporarily from the burden of choice. She hoped that cooler heads than hers would prevail.

"What condition is he in?" she asked as she scrunched over the loose stones at the plateau of the overlook. Kally was ahead of her, next to Vince who was still lying motionless on his side. Sapphira could see that the side of his helmet was deformed inward. It reminded her of Arval Clement, lying semi-conscious in a crippled void shuttle back on Venatora with a similar blunt-force impact to his protective helmet. It was a comparison that she really wished she hadn't drawn at that particular moment.

"Here." Sapphira ordered briskly, hoping that her businesslike tone would benefit them both as she set down her medicae satchel next to Kally. "There's a fold-out litter in the main pocket. Assemble it for me please."

After Kally had retrieved the expanding stretcher and set to work, Sapphira rummaged through the bag herself for a neck brace.

"Vincent is alive and stable." she voxed to Tomas and others as she completed a fast, practiced scan of Vincent's injuries, his vital signs and his reaction reflexes. "But I'm going to need a sealed environment to crack open the suit and do any work on him."

As she eased the neck brace into position, she saw the former guardsman's eyelids flutter behind his blood-speckled visor.

"Don't try to move, Vincent." she told him, putting a hand on the agent's wrist. That he was awake was a good sign, but with his armoured environment suit still on she couldn't check for blood clots or other equally dangerous complications around the impact site. "Can you tell me how much pain you're in? Can you feel your hands and feet?"

Sapphira's vox bead whispered with static, and Vincent's initials briefly flashed against the transmitting icon on her HUD.

"Say again, Vincent?" the sister asked.

"Belannor." Vincent rasped weakly. "Want Belannor."


+ + +

Major Crenshaw watched the exchange between Alicia and gunnery sergeant Kirabo, noting their obvious prior relationship. He recalled eidetically the details of Tarran's file, the ones that hadn't been locked out under Sidonis' personal seals at any rate, and those were essentially a black box now since the old bastard had designed the keys himself and taken the access combinations to the grave with him.

He knew that Tarran had had an exemplary record in the Nebula rapid reaction force, and had spearheaded the attack on the heretic fastness on Siculi after they had had the temerity to take sub-governor Terce hostage. That mission had made her a living legend among the Adrantean population, despite the heavy losses the Nebulas had sustained in the process.

The imperium needed its heroes and saints, Crenshaw knew, but he also knew that martyred heroes were entirely more convenient than living ones. They could still be inspiring, and they could be rewritten to suit present circumstances, all without the unpredictability that living cult-of-personality figures had been known to generate.

The major also didn't fail to note the contrast between Alicia's dauntless military pedigree and the rather more world-weary figure she was cutting right now. Between her surgical shot on Marioch and now taking another Nebula in full armour out of commission, Theodosia Prince evidently retained Alicia's marksmanship and hand-to-hand proficiency. But she had seemed far more animated during the pedestrian activities of the team's down time, something that the major did not think had been an act. And yet the obvious question still presented itself: what about Theodosia did the penitents' former comrade consider so much more important than her real identity?

"Don't blame Ella for it." Alicia admonished Marc. "It was my idea. I wanted to help but...not as Alicia."

"I still don't understand." the investigator said, "How did you get off the ad mech waystation? And where did you get a frakking trade warrant?"

Crenshaw listened carefully for Alicia's answers, while keeping his eyes locked steadily on the former rogue trader's face. He wasn't just watching for flickering, tell-tale changes of expression; he was also noting the marked and deliberate changes to her face - the longer, blonde-dyed hair; the false hazel lenses of her eyes; the subtle surgical rearrangement of her cheekbones. Between that and her newly-developed Spook habit, Crenshaw wondered what else might have changed in those last three months.

The major tensed his jaw, grinding his artificial teeth together in silent discontent. He had to play this correctly, with so many of Alicia's old 'friends' on hand.

Sapphira is usually the one who handles these kind of delicate standoffs.

"I will point out." the major stated, his eyes roaming from Alicia to Marc to the fully armoured gunnery sergeant Kirabo. "That Alicia Tarran is, or at least was, on the trail of the heretic Arcolin DeRei. As you may know, gunnery sergeant, DeRei is wanted by the inquisition and currently subject to a subsector-wide warrant. What you may not know is that he has a history with Tarran and several other inquisition agents, and that his stock in trade is a distasteful habit of making personal attacks against his enemies.”

[dakkagor]

"What condition is he in?"

"Its blunt force trauma." Kally said, her voice on the edge of panic. "I. . .I can't tell without taking off the suit. He isn't responding."

"Here." Sapphira ordered briskly, hoping that her businesslike tone would benefit them both as she set down her medicae satchel next to Kally. "There's a fold-out litter in the main pocket. Assemble it for me please."

"Got it." Kally felt almost immediately relieved that Sapphira had taken control of the situation. She retrieved the litter and snapped it together, recalling training on the True Bane to make the process automatic and mechanical.

"Vincent is alive and stable." she voxed to Tomas and others as she completed a fast, practiced scan of Vincent's injuries, his vital signs and his reaction reflexes. "But I'm going to need a sealed environment to crack open the suit and do any work on him."

"Working on it." Tomas responded tersely over the vox.

"Don't try to move, Vincent." she told him, putting a hand on the agent's wrist. That he was awake was a good sign, but with his armoured environment suit still on she couldn't check for blood clots or other equally dangerous complications around the impact site. "Can you tell me how much pain you're in? Can you feel your hands and feet?"

Sapphira's vox bead whispered with static, and Vincent's initials briefly flashed against the transmitting icon on her HUD.

"Say again, Vincent?" the sister asked.

"Belannor." Vincent rasped weakly. "Want Belannor."

Kally felt her blood run to ice water in her veins. She shuffled over to Vince and grabbed his left hand, squeezing it hard.

"You don't need Belannor because you aren't going anywhere, you hear me? We are going to get you off this frakking rock and we are going to fix you, ok?"

+++++

"As much as we all want answers, they are going to have to wait." Tomas addressed Alley and the Nebula troopers. "I have an injured man who needs urgent evac. Alley . . . Trader Prince. If you still want to help us, we need to get Vince back to your ship as quickly as possible."

He turned to Bellanor and squeezed his old friends shoulder. Vince had transmitted over the squad vox.

"Go. Quickly."

[kardar233]

As Kally exploded, the team stared, and Marc dithered, Alley extended a hand to her erstwhile opponent and helped them up. She leaned in close under the pretext of handing back the pilfered pistol, speaking quietly and with a gently chiding tone. "Been skimping on your practice, Callisto?"

The armoured figure's reaction was impossible to read, but her response came quietly and haltingly, despite the Tephaine noble diction. "It has been... a little difficult to find a suitable practice partner since your departure... milady." Alley gave Callisto a Look, but there was no sharpness to it. As she stood, Callisto subtly slipped into a position that would allow her to bodily shield Alley from the team with one quick step.

Alicia stood next to Kirabo mostly facing her team, her posture and glances towards them betraying nervousness. Seeing this, Kirabo addressed her directly. "Gotten all soft without Lieutenant de Sade running your training regimen?" The jab provoked a thin smile. "Not too soft to drop the good Lady Neravan, Kirabo." Alley paused for a moment. "Have you been keeping an eye on Drifter?"

Kirabo laughed quietly, the sound contrasting with her rough speech. "Running a grocery store, if you can imagine that." Alley's smile grew just a bit wider at that. Despite the banter, Kirabo's eyes never strayed from Crenshaw and Gavin.

There was a shuffling of boots against steel, and Gavin saw Marc turn to see Ella retreating towards the wall, fighting her hands and looking at the ground guiltily.

"That reading I told you about in the kitchen..." she began in a small voice.

Marc's jaw dropped behind his visor. "You knew?"

Alley spoke up, to intervene before my selfishness broke something further. "I asked her to pass you a hint and keep it quiet until I could set up my dramatic reveal." She put on a playful smile to hide the twisting worry in her stomach, a shadow of Theodosia's grin. Marc rounded on her, just as she'd hoped.

"I still don't understand." the investigator said, "How did you get off the ad mech waystation? And where did you get a frakking trade warrant?"

She tried to collect herself as Marc continued. Just plant yourself, empathizing but solid, like you've shown everyone every day of your life. The emptiness in her chest ached but she forced herself to respond. "I got off the same way I got on, the ship I'd commandeered, but the bastard ran before I could drop him properly. The warrant... was a bit of a surprise."

"I will point out." the major stated, his eyes roaming from Alicia to Marc to the fully armoured gunnery sergeant Kirabo. "That Alicia Tarran is, or at least was, on the trail of the heretic Arcolin DeRei. As you may know, gunnery sergeant, DeRei is wanted by the inquisition and currently subject to a subsector-wide warrant. What you may not know is that he has a history with Tarran and several other inquisition agents, and that his stock in trade is a distasteful habit of making personal attacks against his enemies.”

Kirabo waited just a couple of moments after Crenshaw's statement to reply, her tone cool and cutting. "Awfully polite of you to talk like Alley's not around, cell-keeper." Her eyes flicked over to Alley. "Personal attacks, heh. How much of him did you have to break before he shut up?"

Alley smiled with a little bit of heat behind it, one hand clenching for a moment. "Six ribs, and he had a couple metal ones, broke one of those too. He's very lucky he doesn't have a lung on his left side or it would be made out of bone shrapnel right now."

Kirabo's gaze cut back towards Crenshaw. "It's kind of funny hearing talk about-" Callisto shifted just a minuscule motion and Kirabo cut off abruptly. She paused a moment, then continued in a warmer tone, previous acridity forgotten or at least tamped down. "Alley, why don't you bring one of our people with you? You know Callisto's been missing you pretty bad."

Alley bit her lip for a moment, but was interrupted. Tomas addressed Alley and the Nebula troopers. "I have an injured man who needs urgent evac. Alley . . . Trader Prince. If you still want to help us, we need to get Vince back to your ship as quickly as possible." She flashed the man a faint smile and spoke into thin air, the powerful microvox in her mastoid carrying it outwards. "Sapphira, my lander's just setting down by you, there's a med kit on the wall. When you get to the ship, the landing bay's right next to a fully-stocked med bay." The faint smile flickered out again at Kirabo. "My idea." The smile left her as she looked down, her voice once more carrying over the vox. "Emperor guide your hands."

[Cfavano]

Many things happened very quickly. They were attacked, but Josiah's ever vigilant reflexes kept him safe, and it was over almost as quickly as it began.He milled about as everything calmed down, feeling generally out of place. He hadn't known these people very long, but it seems like they know each other almost as well as family. But the fact that Theodosia prince was not who she said she was apparently...that was disconcerting.

[Atrum Daemon]

“Oh, fun.”

Those were the only words out of Vizkop's mouth once everything went belly up. Vizkop was in the process of reacting when his attention was diverted to one Nebula trooper making an accelerated line right for him. The words left the assassin seconds before the armored fist impacted his head and sent him sprawling. The Nebula was afforded a moment of satisfaction before Vizkop sprang to his feet, the T-shaped visor of his helm glowing an ugly shade of red. A loud binary screech let out from him as he shot forward, blades extending from his arms and slicing at the armored trooper. The Nebula barely avoided the twin blows, but his weapon was sliced into two pieces by the scissoring blades.

The maul was more a large baton, but the shock field it was encased in was enough to protect against the power fields of Vizkop's blades. Trusting if he could match the assassin for speed, of course. Vizkop became a whirling death-machine, his brain kicked over into the battle implants which heightened his perception and reactions. The compensators in the Nebula armor let the trooper keep up with the assassin but only just. The fields sparked against each other again and again before Vizkop's blade snaked through and bit into the Nebula suite, strange noises of what have been satisfaction leaving his vocal implants.

The trooper tried his best to turn the moment to his advantage and manage to land a solid blow on his foe's body with the shock maul. The impact was jarring, even through the armor, and whatever he hit was certainly not flesh and bone. Vizkop's reaction was immediate, despite the crack formed in his sub-dermal armor, and he grabbed the wrist mount of the armor. His free hand curled into a fist, blade retracting, and slammed home into the elbow of the armor. While he did not shatter the arm within, the armored joint was certainly destroyed by the impact of the bionic fist.

In that moment, everything stopped. Stand down orders were given and Vizkop and the trooper removed themselves from each other. The assassin's visor returned to it's neutral blue and he offered the trooper an appraising nod before sweeping off to join his team, breath catching ever so slightly from the damage done to his ribs. His head tilted slightly as Kally came in on comms.

"Vizkop." She paused. "Can you scan her? For . . ."

“On my way,” Vizkop replied.

His modified auspex was out when he knelt by the now revealed Alley and gave her the most thorough scan the program allowed. “Well,” he said with the negative chime sounded, “aside from the suite of military-grade implants, she's human. And I'd say not lying about being a Prince. With her MIU she could easily remotely summon servitors and access ship systems as she has been doing. And given that the ship possesses one of the most intimidating security suites I've seen in a while, the fact that she's not a brain-dead husk leads me to believe her gene-markers match those of the Prince family.”

He fell quiet after his report, stepping aside and watching the rest of the events play out stoically.

[Azazeal849]

"Alley, why don't you bring one of our people with you? You know Callisto's been missing you pretty bad."

Marc shook his head. "I don't think that's practical." he stated, although his tone indicated something more like no frakking chance.

"Sapphira, my lander's just setting down by you, there's a med kit on the wall. When you get to the ship, the landing bay's right next to a fully-stocked med bay." The faint smile flickered out again at Kirabo. "My idea." The smile left her as she looked down, her voice once more carrying over the vox. "Emperor guide your hands."

"I'll take charge of him, sister." Solvan spoke up over the vox, limping slightly and using his deactivated hammer as a crutch as he crossed the room. "The team needs their best medic, and I know enough to be able to get by with the help of the med-servitors."

He stopped next to Tomas, regarding him with cool eyes.

"Besides, if you'll humour me a little Tom, Nyl is in some ways my spiritual responsibility."

Tomas turned to Bellanor and squeezed his old friend's shoulder. "Go. Quickly."

"Emperor watch over you all." Solvan said quietly, lowering his head and signing the Aquila towards the team before limping hurriedly outside.

Marc reached up to unseal his helmet and haul it away from his head. His face was drawn and jaw-locked with tension as he brushed the damp hair away from his face. He turned his green eyes on Ella, who was still fidgeting nervously.

"How long did you know?" he asked her quietly.

Ella gnawed on her bottom lip. "Not at first. Alley's...changed a bit." She spread her thin hands, helplessly.

Marc turned as he heard Alicia sigh heavily. The rogue agent's face wasn't accusing, just neutral. "Tell me honestly Marc, did you ever see me as anything but a weapon?"

"Of course I did!" Marc snapped.

Even as he said it though, he remembered himself and Ella crouched amid their disintegrating cover, the burning wreck of the Bliskiriner at their backs and the Gnosis Guard blocking the corridor ahead. The hexagram rune inside his false mechanicus eyepiece was sufficient to stop the battle psykers from probing his mind, but nothing like enough to halt the bio-electric storms jousting from their fingertips.

As bolts of actinic lightning cracked over their heads, and as Jansen reeled back and fell in a reek of burnt flesh and ozone, Marc had scrambled for his vox. The team's frequencies were flooded with shouts, curses and screams as Kally and the others did battle with Malfallax - only a few levels away, and yet it might have been half the galaxy for all Marc could do to help them. The incoherent transmissions told him that Irons was dead, that the C'tan shard inside her was running rampant and twisting the gallery around them into a broken mirror nightmare.

And over it all, Kally had suddenly shouted: "Arcolin, take the frakking shot! Arc-" A momentary, lethal pause. "Wait...shit! Where the frak has he gone?"

And that had changed the whole game.

Marc had been watching the entire time for DeRei to make his move, and in that moment when Kally shouted for her suddenly absent fire support, he had known instantly where the cultist had gone, and what he was planning. With Lawrence frakking Van Der Mir and his insane deal no longer there to protect him from the team, Arcolin would be taking the first opportunity to slip away to the hanger deck and escape. Marc was about to die, Kally and Vincent were possibly about to do the same, and Arcolin DeRei was going to run free amid the destruction.

The only one still in his way was Alley, still powering through the mechanicus opposition towards the upper deck. As Kadath's pistol clicked empty for the final time, Marc had jabbed his vox rune to filter Alley's private frequency. He had been holding back the information that Arcolin had gleefully imparted to him - back in the Mooncalf's mess hall, during the calm before the storm as they cruised into orbit above Jupiter. He had wanted to spare Alley the pain of reopening old wounds, but nothing less was going to stop their old enemy now.

"Alley, Marc!" he had shouted over the furious, blitzing explosions of the Gnosis lightning, as it stripped away the walls and floor of the mezzanine. "Arcolin's making a run for it! He'll be heading for the hanger bay!"

"Let him go!" Alley's voice had protested, the words punctuated by the thumping chatter of her autocannon. "The team need my help!"

Marc remembered his thought process with the razor clarity that near-death experience brought. And it hadn't been Alley deserves to know. It had been Arcolin can't escape.

"Alley, listen!" he had snapped. "Arcolin was on Marioch, he was Nibenay's contact! He's the one behind the cultists who murdered your parents!"

Marc didn't hear her response, because at that moment the vox had squealed with static overload, and a bright glare had filled the burning corridor. But not from the Gnosis Guard - from Ella.

Marc had been turning that decision over and over in his head since Saros. Even if Ella hadn't saved them by pulling out inquisitor Suffolk's force sword and torching the Gnosis Guard with their own lightning, he knew it had been a bad call. I put killing Arcolin before Alley's feelings, potentially even before Kally and Vince's lives. And Alicia was right - he had treated her exactly like a weapon, to be pointed and shot at their Tzeentchian nemesis.

He turned his gaze away from Alicia, staring guiltily at the wall.

I have to make it worth it. That bastard has to die, but I'm the one that has to do it. No-one else in the firing line.

"Listen, Marc..." Alicia began, folding her arms. "I needed the cover to avoid scaring Arcolin off before I could find him. I didn't receive any astros from any of you. And yes, I was a bit pissed at you when I figured out why you dropped that bomb on me when you did."

She saw the stony expressions from Crenshaw, Tomas and Josiah, and stopped.

"You know, you're right, this isn't the time. We should be going."

"Once again," Crenshaw broke in dryly. "While it pains me to advocate for Horus, I will point out that we still have nothing beyond your word and fallible human senses that you are who you say you are, captain Tarran."

Vizkop's modified auspex was out as he knelt by the now-revealed Alley and gave her the most thorough scan the program allowed.

“Well,” he said with the negative chime sounded, “Aside from the suite of military-grade implants, she's human. And I'd say not lying about being a Prince. With her MIU she could easily remotely summon servitors and access ship systems as she has been doing. And given that the ship possesses one of the most intimidating security suites I've seen in a while, the fact that she's not a brain-dead husk leads me to believe her gene-markers match those of the Prince family.”

Crenshaw listened in silence to the tech-assassin's assessment, and then hmm'd.

"We still have no insight into her mind and soul for corruption that may have occurred during her encounter with DeRei. And that possibility needs to be treated with reasonable suspicion until an astropath can be brought in."

Ella opened her mouth, but Crenshaw cut her off before she could speak.

"An impartial astropath." he clarified, giving the young psyker a withering look. "Who can give an unbiased assessment as a matter of team and mission safety. Unfortunately we are not operating in a vacuum here, and the inquisition - that is to say, the Sol System inquisition - is watching everyone involved with this mission. On that basis, I suggest that we make our work unimpeachable."

Kirabo glanced at the Nebula called Callisto, noting something in her partner's expression. "If you're not taking Callisto or me with you, Alley," she broke in, her sternly neutral look returning at Crenshaw's mention of the inquisition. "Then I'm going to have to strongly advise you put these civvies on the shuttle up as well."

"It would be extremely optimistic of you to assume that is going to happen." Crenshaw replied bluntly.

Kirabo's dark eyes narrowed. "Tierce sent us here with his personal authority, and the whole Dead City's in lockdown until we're done."

That may have been her stated reason, but the way she glanced at Crenshaw made it clear that if one of her own wasn't there to watch Alicia's back, she was extremely unhappy with the idea of the major watching it for her.

Alicia raised her eyebrows in surprise. "The governor sent you personally? He must think it's important."

"Important enough to give us this as a token." Kirabo said. A holster compartment pistoned out of the thigh plate of her armour, and she drew out a carefully-machined smoking pipe that appeared to have been hand-tooled out of a piece of starship hull plate. Stamped into the metal of the bowl were the initials TT. Subsector governor Thomas Tierce.

"Who is this government official he's so keen to find?" Kelly Black asked, folding her arms. Her unspoken question, of course, was what Arcolin wanted with the man.

Kirabo shot a questioning glance at Alicia before deigning to reply. "Adept Primus Arcturus Zhang. He has been overseeing an infrastructure development survey across the sub. We found his vehicle abandoned in grid 4-20, with significant las damage, but no sign of the adept and his crew. We're assuming that he was taken hostage. We've identified two possible sites of suspicious activity within the city and we're going to hit both of them in the next hour."

"Was he not travelling with an escort?" Marc broke in, returning to the conversation after surfacing from his reverie.

"The mechanicus were supposed to be providing security. Though he was travelling with a handful of scribes and bodyguards. Here's the profile, if you're interested."

Kirabo tapped the side of her helmet, and a hololith mounted to the side of her visor projected a rectangular image into the air before the team. Five portrait boxes at the top of the image showed picts of three men and two women, with brief biographical statistics scrolled out below in glowing green script. Adept Zhang was a cleanshaven, flat-featured man, and his entourage either sported cranial bionics or the visible neck-seals of carapace armour.

"Oh bloody frakking hell." Marc said, stifling a hysterical laugh. "You have to be joking."

Kirabo glowered. "What? What are you talking about?"

Marc pointed to one of the men in armour. "That's Arcolin DeRei."

Staring out of the hololith at the team was a familiar, woefully asymmetrical face. He was smiling blandly, as if he could see the team's reactions, and the scarring on his cheek turned the benign expression into something disconcerting.

Kelly cursed under her breath. "Josiah, didn't you say the arbites on the Glom mentioned an Imperial official visiting Marioch?" She looked at Kirabo. "Did Zhang visit Marioch before he came to Baraspine?"

Kirabo raised an eyebrow, and nodded. "He was looking into further development of the central belt."

Kelly nodded. "He must have been giving Danilov orders from remote after he and Zhang left, gotten him to activate the cultists once he was offworld. He probably also told him to shuttle down those weapons for whatever he's planning here."

Marc exhaled. "So Arcolin was never in the shuttle. And interrogating Danilov could well be a waste of time."

Kirabo slapped the Nebula called Callisto on the shoulder, and wheeled to turn out of the half-demolished building.

"We need to move now." the team heard her say into her vox as her visor polarised to reflective black. "Get on the orbital vox. Get them to astro governor Tierce and tell him that Zhang's delegation was possibly infiltrated. Request an order update."

There was a roar of jetpack thrusters as the Nebulas outside executed a long, low jump to regroup around Kirabo, and together the eight Adrantean soldiers began sprinting away south.

"This...might be it." Ella said, turning awkwardly to face Tomas. After Merle's revelation and the team's reaction to Alicia, she seemed reluctant to offer any further input to the discussion. "My reading...it said if we came here we'd be led to DeRei."

Marc shook his head. "They Nebulas are going the wrong way. If Arcolin has cults here, it's entirely possible he set them up as the same paper tigers he used on Marioch." The investigator paced back and forth, cradling his carapace helmet. "He also knows we're coming, so he'll have tried to set another trap. I'm guessing at this vehicle Kirabo mentioned. He'll know the Nebulas have already searched it, so they won't be back to disturb him. He also knows we'll want to check it out anyway. I bet he's waiting out there, set up in a sniper's nest just like on Teleostei."

"It would fit our renegade's pattern." Glabrio said, reaching into a pack on his belt thoughtfully, before popping the visor of his helmet and tossing a brightly-coloured jellybean into his mouth. "It might be worth doing a recce of the area since the Nebulas were kind enough to let slip the grid reference."

"What if he's not there and the Nebulas find him first?" Kelly asked.

"Then when the lady gets back we trump the governor's fancy pipe with the governor's fancy signature on an inquisitorial arrest warrant." Glabrio countered cheerfully. He hefted his shotgun and looked questioningly at Tomas. "What's the call, boss?"

[dakkagor]

Tomas nodded at Glabrio.

"I agree with your read of the situation. We don't lose much if we check out the vehicle, and potentially wrap this whole thing up in a pretty bow if we've read Arcolin right."

He paused, looking the team over.

"But we do this right. No hot heads, no heroics. We play it carefully, thoroughly, and with the knowledge that this is a trap. Because the funny thing about traps is that if you know you are walking into one, you can often turn it around on the person who set it."

He smiled wickedly.

"Lets go get the bastard."

[Azazeal849]

The Dead City outskirts
One hour later

There were still several hours of daylight left (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tadcx4Cl-C8), but the lowering sun had already turned the horizon a brilliant, fiery red; a sure sign that dust particles were building up in a high-pressure system to the west and that another glass-storm was imminent. For now, the wind was confined to small, stirring eddies that shifted the silica grains around the team's feet.

The sand-blasted shell of the city reminded Kelly Black of Rakosu, the forsaken Hercynian city with its broken-finger high rises clawing at the sky. It also reminded her of Venatora, the burning capital eerily back-lit by its void shield while buildings crumbled and heaved firefly clouds of sparks into the sky. And it reminded her of the twisted piles of metal and concrete which had been left after the Makita bombardment, the wreckage half-sunken into a plain of vitrified glass that had replaced the hive's desert foundations. All different and yet all the same - all completely ruined, but with just enough recognisable features to tell you that people had once lived there; people who were now displaced or missing or dead. Kelly realised that she had seen too many ruined cities in her time with the inquisition.

Compared to Rakosu and Makita Hive, the Dead City seemed to have gotten off relatively lightly after its would-be colonists had given up and left. The glass storms had punched out windows and stripped walls back to bare brick, but the basic structure of each building was still intact. Desert grass was sprouting up on the sheltered sides of some prefabs, and the roofs of some of the flimsier buildings had caved in, but others remained almost untouched, as if the years since the abandonment had simply passed them by. Kelly could still identify a large hospital complex, the only building in the immediate vicinity that was more than two stories high. The angular, red-painted medicae helix had faded to the same rockrete grey as the rest of the building, but the embossed sigil was still identifiable.

"There it is." Marc said, lowering his magnoculars from his visor and passing them to Kally.

Kelly tapped the focusing rune on her own set and followed Marc's pointing finger, until she picked out the roasted shell of a vehicle lying in the middle of the arterial road. The road ran east to west through the district, and had originally been planned to join a highway connecting the Dead City to hive Skaltine. Adept Zhang and his survey team must have opted for the simplest route, the one least weathered and least buried by glass-drift. The burned out vehicle was an all-terrain mechanicus rover, with six articulated wheels and an enclosed cabin which had been riddled with las-fire. A body was hanging half out of the lander's open side-door, and another was sprawled on the road outside.


Kelly tapped the zoom again, trying to get a closer look at the corpses. The suit of the one on the ground had been ripped open by whatever had killed him, and around a ragged hole in his sternum the whole chest was dark with livor mortis. Cadaver no more than 12 hours old; fell prone after lethal wound, was turned supine several hours later.


"Someone turned that body over." she said, "Probably the Nebulas trying to identify it. They've definitely been and gone. And Arcolin might have had several hours since to set up, if he's here." She nodded to herself. "Like Prinzel said, we should watch for booby traps."


Glabrio gestured towards the hospital. "That's where a police sniper would set up. Nice and high, dominant view of the road and the ambush site. Plus it has loads of windows; difficult to pinpoint where a shot came from."

"I can't see any holes in the rover big enough to have been Arcolin's rifle." Kelly murmured, her magnocs still held up to her visor. "But that just means he didn't fire on the vehicle in the initial attack. He might have wanted to avoid hitting Zhang, or maybe he just left his cultists to do it."

Marc nodded at his sister's analysis.

"I could fly the drone round the hospital," he suggested, "But I'd need to get closer to keep a signal. Or we could use Alley's lander as hard cover, but if Arcolin sees that he might decide he's outmatched and bolt."

He scanned his head left to right across the deserted buildings. The wind was moaning softly through their empty windows.

"Wish we still had Vince and his autocannon, so we could get two avenues of overwatch." he murmured, turning to Kally. She knew how to sneak around in urban environments better than anyone. "What do you reckon? See any ways in that'll keep us out of sight of the hospital?"

"Secutor, do you think you'd be better joining the assault or hanging back with that rifle of yours?" Sapphira asked as she kept her watchful eyes locked on Merle.

"Exercise caution with that rifle of yours." Crenshaw interrupted. "We need to take DeRei alive, or at least still in a condition to speak."

Marc looked round sharply. "Since when was that the script?"

Crenshaw spared the agent a forbearing gaze. "While the cult on Marioch was clearly fodder, that does not mean that DeRei might not have more effective assets that he has been able to mobilise in the last four months. And unfortunately, we will need to know if that is the case before we kill him and whatever mad plan he thinks he is following."

"Hey. You." Glabrio said, aiming a kick at Merle. The convict was slumped sullenly against a glass-stripped wall, his battered mouth shifting as he irritably tongued his false teeth. "Any insights you can give us towards taking this frakker down in time to be back for dinner?"

Merle grunted absently as he viewed the ex-arbiter through the grubby helmet glass of his suit. The convict’s eyes grazed vaguely beneath Sapphira’s belt line, before he licked his lips and offered Glabrio a suggestively sleazy wink. He chuckled indulgently at their impassive reactions as he turned to Tomas, wordless as he stared at the team leader with his head cocked and brows raised expectantly.

Tomas huffed an angry breath down his nose at the petty technicality-lawyering over his last order. "You may speak."

Merle shuffled across to lean against the same tumbled prefab wall where Kally, Gavin, and the Blacks were crouching, and peered along the arterial road. Lampposts either side of the highway had twisted back and fallen under the glass storms, like trees before a hurricane. The convict encroached far closer than was necessary to Kelly as he craned to see, and she promptly shoved him away.

"Don't even try." Marc growled, as the investigator stepped in and yanked him back.

“Y’all can’t blame a guy for tryin’.” Merle shrugged as he wiped the dust from his helmet. He scratched at the dried phlegm on his visor, until he remembered that the stain was on the inside. He grunted in annoyance and tilted his head around so he could squint at the still-distant hospital.

"But," he considered, shifting round to look at Glabrio, "Now that yah mention it, this is remindin’ me of a time Emerald sent us all down to Weldar for some R an' R. I found this medicae facility in the Twist ghetto of the undercity - the doc'd had enough fuckin' dignity to pack up an’ be takin’ his trade elsewhere, so the mutos moved in an’ turned it into a brothel. Now I hate the bad-genes as much as the next emperor-lovin' imperial, but as I was tellin’ the precious girlie an’ boy detective here a whiles back, I ain’t exactly against havin’ myself some strange strange now an’ again…which has got me rememberin’ this one sweet l'il number the baby dyke over there probably would’a creamed her jeans for - all mutos together, amirite?"

He waved towards Ella, who since the listening post had been hanging back from the conversation in chastened silence. He received another kick from Glabrio for his trouble.

"Fascinating." the regulator said dryly. "But if we could get to the point, please."

"I thought y'all would appreciate a bit'a colour, chuckles." Merle said, adopting a mock hurt expression. "Shit, since y’all are into sparin’ talented mutos, than fuck readin’ the Tarot, bein’ a soulless cock or cunt, an’ whatever the shit fancy feet is, ‘cause this mutie had a tongue that was about a foot long!"

Merle’s manacles clicked as he tried to spread his hands and demonstrate. The convict’s eyes were intensely distant for a moment before he groaned and leaned back against the ruined wall.

"She ended out bein’ a stuck up l'il bitch though…which’d be makin’ her a typical twat, twist or not. Well s’cuse me for thinkin’ some lice-infested l’il hooker workin’ the ass-end’a the hive would’a been gladly takin’ whatever pocket change she got offered, considerin’ I could’a jus’ taken what I wanted. I even sweetened the damn deal by throwin’ in a half a pack o' mints, ‘cause you'd think she'd appreciate 'em for keepin' that un-fuckin’-real tongue o' hers fresh after suckin’ off all’a that nasty muto dick.”

Merle’s face scrunched with disgust as he paused to glance sympathetically around the team.

“Apparently fuckin’ not, as this uppity slut weren’t havin’ it an’ she lost her shit. I respond by voicin’ my legitimate fuckin’ complaints ‘bout the unacceptable lack of customer servicin’, an’ these fuckers had the damned nerve to be throwin’ me outta their establishment for makin’ a scene! Now I was'n' gonna take that fuckin’ disrespect lyin' down, an jus' my luck as what's paradin’ down the road but a shittin’ cult a Redemptionists, all ridin' a righteous hard-on for purgin' the muto freaks in the next district."

The convict slapped his leg and chuckled.

"They were all even fuckin' dumber than you lot, ‘cause would y'all believe all it took was the hate ink on my fuckin' knuckles to convince ‘em that I was Brother fuckin' Merle outta Aurelias Prime? Shit, didn’ need nothin’ fancy like a new face or trade warrant to con those pricks." He glanced slyly in Alicia's direction. "But, anyhow, we burnt all’a the scummy twist pimps an' their stuck-up trash-gashes outta that shithole the same night. Ended up havin' to kill all’a ‘em culto killjoys too, ‘cause it seems they weren' too pleased when they heard me rantin' 'bout those muto bitches deservin’ it for not puttin' out, an' the shit quality o' their pisswater beer..."

"What does this have to do with Arcolin?" Sapphira broke in sharply.

Merle shrugged. "Nothin'. Like I said, the hospital jus' reminded me o' that medicae whore-house on Weldar is all." He offered her a broad grin. “Yah know, naughty nurse, since y’all are all but lezzin’ out with Kally, I’m wonderin’ if you’d'a gotten freaky with the freaks rather than burnin’ ‘em alive...”

"Sir," Sapphira bluntly addressed Tomas. "It would seem that the convict has run out of actionable intelligence to give us. I suggest pulling the trigger now to avoid a security risk during the upcoming assault."

"Wait, wait!" Merle howled, flapping his manacled hands at Tomas. "Alright, fuck! Y'all need'a get a sense of humour an’ have a screw or somethin’. I’m bein’ serious, here. Y’all need to kick back, relax, an’ get the fuck over yourselves. Otherwise all'a y'all will end up bein’ moody cunts like the constipated kid-detective here..."

He gave Marc a disparaging glance.

"Now. Y'all are lookin' at the hospital windows, but all the time he was with Emerald, Smiley liked to sit up on the roof when scoutin' an' snipin’ with his cock-compensatin' rifle. A'course, I never asked him what he was scopin’ out when he was up there playin’ with himself for hours an' hours on end. But, I don’ think he's a normal, well-adjusted enough sort' a guy like the rest'a us to have been peekin’ into ladies' bedroom windows."

The convict shook his head disapprovingly and shifted in his seat against the wall.

"He probably liked it 'cause from there he could make a shit-quick getaway with the grav-chute on that fancy Jakara suit o' his." The convict sneered nastily at Kally and the other penitents. "Certainly fuckin' worked for him at the Teleostei landin' pad, an' takin' that shot at Taymor's office, an' in waltzin' into the Green Zone to put a red smile on the ol' mukaali-fucker Al-Omar."

[dakkagor]

"What do you reckon? See any ways in that'll keep us out of sight of the hospital?"

Kally mumbled assent and scooted away along the wall, magnoculars dipping to her chest or rising back to her eyes intermittently. She largely tuned out everyone else as she thought through the scenario. She hated this place. It didn't feel right, the sounds, the feel of the concrete. The whispering sand seemed to drown out all the old buildings.

Clever bastard. You know anywhere else, this terrain would give me an advantage.

"He probably liked it 'cause from there he could make a shit-quick getaway with the grav-chute on that fancy Jakara suit o' his." The convict sneered nastily at Kally and the other penitents. "Certainly fuckin' worked for him at the Teleostei landin' pad, an' takin' that shot at Taymor's office, an' in waltzin' into the Green Zone to put a red smile on the ol' mukaali-fucker Al-Omar."

"Clever." She muttered. She hadn't considered a grav-chute. Frakking risky way to get down a building, when one errant gust of strong wind would see you smeared across the landscape. But Arcolin would trust to luck.

She retrained the magnoculars to the top of the building. Kally thought she caught a flicker of movement up there that made her tense, every muscle screaming at her to duck. But as she focused she saw it was a hunk of plastek wrapped around a rusted antenna, fitfully snapping in the breeze like a tattered flag.

Medical sheeting, maybe even a bit of a body bag she thought morbidly. Body bag. . .

She switched her gaze to around the hospital.

"There."

She was looking at derelict building, located a street away from the hospital. It was weathered into an unrecognisable grey block, but it still had its tall chimneys and shuttered doors.

"Crematorium and medical waste disposal. Separate building, linked by a service tunnel." She passed the magnoculars back to Marc, and pointed the building out as the group looked it over. "It will link to the hospital basement. We can use an elevator shaft to rope up to the roof."

"He might have had time to trap that route." Glabrio offered.

"He might. Glabrio, if you were storming a building, name the first four places you would hit it from."

The Ex-Arbitrator paused.

"Roof via gunship, fast rope. Hit a back entrance with shields, under smoke screen. Front door, same drill, maybe as a diversion."

"And the fourth?"

"Maybe try for a mid-story window, zip line from a nearby building. So you think he's trapped all those routes?"

Kally nodded. "I think he's trapped all those routes, the vehicle outside, the slumped over building next door and the roof. You can turn all of those into little daemons gardens with some simple prox-fuses and frags. But the crematorium got sealed up, as would have the morgue it links too, and the basement. Four, maybe five locked doors, plus this frakking glass sand? Yeah, I bet he's written it completely off. But look."

She pointed to a nearby church, that hunched over the crematorium, only a few stories tall and missing all its glass.

"That ugly thing is blocking most of the sand. See the build up on its windward faces? I think the basement will be about, what, a quarter full? You can wade it." She nodded, mostly to herself. "Yeah. It will be slow, but eminently doable. Have a team on standby out here in case he detects us and bolts. They have easy pot shots if he is using a grav chute to make a quick descent."

And I'm willing to bet, if he knows its us coming for him, there is no where he would rather be than up there, waiting for us.

[Azazeal849]

There was a metallic clunk, and then the ratcheting chi-chi-chi-chink of chain links being dragged across metal as Crenshaw pulled the cut chain away from the door handles. A thin beam of light shafted into the empty room as the doors cracked open.

Tomas, Glabrio and Josiah led with their shields, resting their weapons across them as they checked left and right, and then swept the floor for trip-wires. The stab-lights on their gun rails and suit helmets criss-crossed in the air, casting white circles across faded signage and the bare brick of the walls.

Glabrio snapped a hand signal, and took a pace into the corridor beyond the sealed doors as Sapphira, Kally and Ella moved up behind the three men.

"You're clear." Ella whispered, one hand on the hilt of her force gladius and the other feeling her way along the wall. Untouched for decades, the faded psychic imprint of the building was little more than a darker grey against the fog of her warp-sight. "Arcolin hasn't been down here. No-one has."

Kally strained her hiver's senses as the team advanced. It was absolutely quiet, so that even her colleagues' carefully-placed footsteps seemed too loud. Every now and then, they would scrunch over a patch of glass granules dusting the floor. Somehow, the glass storms had penetrated even down here, forming grainy films near the elevator shafts and pooling around clogged air vents. There was actually less of it than she had expected.

"This only goes up as far as the ground floor." Glabrio observed as he boosted himself up on Tomas' hands, and popped the emergency hatch in the ceiling of a derelict lift to peer up into the gloomy shaft above. He detached a magnetic grapnel from his belt and fired it up the shaft. The soft gasp of the gravitic impeller was followed by a clunk as the magnet head struck the top of the shaft and locked itself in place. Glabrio waited for Tomas to follow suit before slinging Crenshaw's suppression shield across his back and securing the grapnel launcher to the webbing over his sealed armour. At the tap of a button, the carbon fibre ropes began to spool back into their launchers, hauling both men up towards the next level. They halted at the closed elevator doors above, swaying back and forth for a moment while Glabrio unlimbered his shotgun. Tomas put his feet against the wall, dug his gloved fingers into the gap between the unpowered doors, and hauled the dead metal back on its runners.

Again the sound seemed far too loud even to the agents still waiting below, but nothing untoward happened as Tomas and Glabrio swung out onto the hospital floor. They detached their grapnel launchers from their webbing harnesses and tossed them back down to their comrades below, before taking up guard position.

"Watch the elevator cables." Glabrio murmured across the vox as the rest of the team copied their ascent, two by two.

When they reached the top, Kally and Josiah found themselves in a wide corridor running clean through the centre of the hospital. Wooden doors with tarnished plaques led off to the left and right, no doubt into wards and equipment rooms, while every twenty metres or so a larger set of double doors marked another corridor leading deeper into the building.

Along the corridor to their right was a set of bar-push double doors with a dusty fire exit sign above, secured shut by a padlock and chain. A crude barricade had been set up a few metres back from the exit, consisting of a trio of rust-spotted gurneys blocking the corridor. A mirror that looked like it had been unscrewed from a bathroom wall had been propped up on one of the gurneys, facing the chained and locked fire exit.

"There's...something wrong with it." Ella whispered as she unhooked herself from the mag-grapnel and stepped up beside the others, following Kally's gaze with her blind hazel eyes. "It's..."

"Don't look at it." Sapphira advised, grabbing the astropath's arm and physically spinning her away from the makeshift trap. The tainted glass was facing away from them, but she didn't know if Ella's warp-sight would be more or less susceptible to its effects, and she didn't want to test the theory.

"Is he making 'flects now?" Glabrio wondered aloud, huffing down his nose in disapproval. "Yo, Viz, didn't you say something about him doing that back on Waystation 9794?"

He listened to the secutor's response across his vox bead, and Alicia's corroboration.

"How in the warp does he do that?" the ex-arbiter mumbled uneasily. "Actually, I don't want to know. I'll sit down and read about it afterwe've wrung him for intel and ventilated him."

Josiah took point as they advanced, switching off his gun-light as they emerged from the gloomy corridor into the natural light of a reception hall. Daylight was streaming in through the empty windows, and the wind was moaning around the vaulted ceiling. All the chairs and cogitators at the reception station had been stripped out, leaving just the curved marble desks. The sand-notched balcony of a mezzanine floor hung above Josiah, and behind that stood a pair of wide doorways. The sign above one indicated a pharmacy, while the other one might have been a shop or perhaps a small cafe. Both entrances were blocked off with corrugated steel shutters, which were now streaked with grooves of rust.

As he entered the vaulted reception hall, Josiah tracked right towards the blown-out glass doors that fronted the hospital. A thin layer of sand had blown through, forming an ovoid tide-line across the floor. Here and there, weeds were growing up between the cracked tiles. Josiah's sharp eyes quickly identified the trip wires that had been stretched in front of the doors, and either side of the entrance were two paint cans that looked like they might have been crude nail bombs.

Glabrio silently pointed at a set of arrow signs mounted on the wall, and then at the opposing corridors that branched away from the reception area.

"We can try another lift shaft," he suggested, "Or we can take the stairs all the way to the top. Might be quieter, and we'd be less vulnerable than if we were roping up."

"Someone was here." Ella advised, turning a slow circle with one of her hands outstretched, before focussing on the stairwell. Against the inert grey of the neglected walls, the psychic afterglow of recent human contact was unmistakeable. She could see footprints leading up and down the stairs, burned into the steps like fiery glyphs, and another dull glow amongst the distant haze of the mezzanine balcony.

"Marc." Sapphira whispered into her own vox, "Do you have a visual on the roof yet?"

Marc was crouched in a storm-gutted hab, which sat above what had once been a small shop. He was switching periodically between looking down at the auspex on his arm and peering through the window with his magnocs, spotting for Crenshaw. The major had dragged an empty bedframe up to the window and rested Gene across it, covering one arc of their target building with Vincent's weapon. With their line of sight angled down the arterial road, they had an unobstructed view of the hospital's upper floor windows, though not its roof. Marc would have preferred to have Vince himself covering Kally and the others, but he contented himself with the knowledge that Crenshaw was just as proficient with the heavy weapon as he was with the bolter and suppression shield he had temporarily loaned to the assault group.

Marc paused before replying to glance behind him. Merle was slumped next to a broken-in section of wall plaster, hanging limply from the manacle which Crenshaw had cuffed to an exposed feeder pipe within the wall. His eyes were glazed over with kalma - Sapphira had insisted on sedating the convict in case he presented a sudden threat during the operation, and Crenshaw had instantly volunteered to guard him.

"Drone's up." Marc answered Sapphira, glancing down at his auspex again and trying not to grit his teeth. If it had been up to the investigator, he would have been up their with the assault team, but Tomas had overruled him. Ella could do the same job as his auspex, the captain had argued, and moreover he knew that Marc took the vendetta against Arcolin too personally - more so than Vince or Kally. Angry people make mistakes, and mistakes get people killed. Marc was angry, but not as angry as he would be if Kally and the others ran into trouble and he wasn't there to help.

He tried to push the thought from his mind as he studied the dusty auspex screen on his forearm. His spy drone was flying in a pre-set pattern around the hospital, spiralling steadily closer to the roof. Marc tapped the control pad above his wrist, cycling through visible, infrared and ultraviolet spectra from the tiny construct's vid feed. From his bird's eye view of the roof, he could see glass-clogged air vents, and rusted scaffolding that had originally held either a vox mast or a satellite dish. But he wasn't interested in inert metal. He was looking for body heat; pings of movement; human-sized concentrations of water that would trip the drone's microwave scanner. He was looking for-

"Frakking son of a bitch!" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-nLADWb4kw) he cursed suddenly, still on the line to Sapphira as he looked again at the irregular piles of sand that had built up across the flat roof. "He's there, near the southwest corner of the roof! Under some sort of camo blanket, must be heat-masking!"

At a second overwatch point, five hundred metres away, Kelly and Gavin straightened, and the crumbled bricks under Gavin's hands began to crackle and blanch with a rime of ice as he focused towards the hospital, searching for the target.

At a third hideout, Vizkop shuffled slightly away from Alicia as he swung the barrel of his heavy weapon round. They had made the slow, circuitous journey to a communal hab overlooking the third side of the hospital, and like Marc and Crenshaw they had set up on the upper floor. Inside they had found scraps of bedding and an empty, rusted camp stove - evidence that people perhaps still lived in the Dead City, but the wretched nomads had been long gone by the time the team had arrived. Vizkop could see the metre-high wall that surrounded the hospital roof, sand-blasted and crumbled in places, but he did not have a clear shot at the southwest corner. However, as he attempted to compute a firing solution, his bionic eyes suddenly tagged a flicker of movement in a hab window some distance behind the hospital.

"We're moving in." Sapphira confirmed grimly as the assault team sprinted up the narrow stairwell that led up to the roof exit. The metal door had a vertical bar for a handle, and opened inward.

"Wait!" Ella hissed as they approached it. "There's another trip mine on the other side!"

[dakkagor]

The breach team was quickly decided, Tomas with his storm shield was on point. After all the previous missteps and near misses, this was now a point of pride for him. His decision, his responsibility, his head on the block with everyone else. Josiah and Glabrio made up his left and right side, both with Arbites issue suppression shields. He still wasn't entirely sold on Josiah, but there was no-one he would rather have beside him than Glabrio and his cool confidence and dry wit.

Behind came Kally, with her boltgun and a determined look on her face. He watched out of the corner of his eye as she methodically checked her equipment, from the pistols strapped to the small of her back to the boltgun in her hands. Sapphira was bringing up the rear, with a bolter borrowed from Crenshaw. She was as methodical as Kally, checking not just her weapon but also her medical gear. Finally, wedged between the shields, was Ella, their human auspex and blood hound. If their mark had taken the time to trap the approach, Ella would be more valuable than their shields and armour in keeping them safe.

They circled round, letting Kally lead as she followed her keen underhive senses through long abandoned arcades and streets. Finally, they dashed from a crumpled retail packet in pairs, making it to the large, verdigris doors of the Mortarium.
“All clear.” Ella whispered. Tomas nodded, and gestured to Kally to get the lock. She drew her sword, and jammed it between the doors with a screech of powerfield cutting into metal. With a grunt she sheared the lock, and the chains on the other side, and Josiah and Glabrio kicked the doors open, sweeping in with weapons up and stablights on.
“No one has been here in years.” Ella confirmed as they moved in to the building. This was the administration wing. Desks and old cogitators stood shrouded by dust sheets, and looming over the room was a statue of Rogal Dorn, wearing his mourning shroud. The legend went that Dorn was the one to recover the Emperors mortal body from his final confrontation with the Arch Heretic. Both Tomas and Sapphira reflexively made a small bow to the statue as they passed under its piercing, solemn gaze.
“Stair well here.” Kally called. As a team, they moved down the stairs, until they reached the mortuary itself.

“Looks like Kally was right.” Glabrio pointed to a map, bolted to the wall at the bottom. “There’s a corridor that runs directly under the road to the hospital. Leads from the morgue itself, just up ahead.”
“Right.” Tomas nodded. “This was well worth the effort, then. Lets keep moving.”
The morgue was similarly locked, and easily opened. It was a large vaulted space, lined with row upon row of small steel doors, dark as deep space and cold as tundra. Some equipment, similarly covered by dust sheets, lingered in corners. Tomas immediately spotted the doors they needed and lead the way. As he prepared to crowbar the doors open with his sword, he caught Kally out of the corner of his eye. The agent had stopped dead in her tracks and was staring at one of the slightly open drawers. Even under her heavy armour Tomas could tell she was struggling to breath.
“Agent?”
Sapphira moved to Kally's side and gently placed her hands on her shoulders. He couldn't hear what was said between the two, but he saw Kally nod vigorously a few times before she set her shoulders and took point again. As Sapphira went to pass him, Tomas caught her shoulder.

“Can she handle this?”
“She's fine.” She shrugged of the hold, and watched Kally move down the service way towards the hospital. “It was a flashback, to something that happened on Terra.”
Tomas looked around the cold, sterile, dead room, with its dozens of steel drawers for the storing of corpses, its equipment under funeral shrouds and the sand shifting around their feet.
“This was a mistake. We should have had Crenshaw on the team.”
“She can handle it.” Sapphira insisted. “She is up to this.”
“I hope you are right.” He muttered as they moved into the service way.

++++++
"How long do you think he's been here?" Sapphira asked. Sapphira, Kally and Glabrio had broken away from the pack on Ella's suggestion. They had found a sleeping area. A small stove sat in one corner and scattered over the floor where empty ration tins, and sheets of old yellowed paper scrunched into balls. Ragged plastek sheeting had been set up to keep out the worst of the sand, and a guard issue sleeping bag rested on bundled piles of bed sheets.

"Swanky." Kally muttered. She bent down and picked up a pair of tins, before methodically peeling the labels off and pocketing them in her webbing. They might say something about Arcolins movements.

"A while, for sure." Glabrio responded to Sapphiras question. He bent down and picked up what was once an archived medical report, obviously left behind when the hospital was abandoned. On its plain back, spidery hand writing meandered.
"I'm sorry, I need you to believe me, I am doing the RIGHT THING" he read. "You have to believe that, that they will all burn, burn and burn and die screaming, twisted and burnt, fire is the great changer, fire will consume them, fire will take them, he will take them and burn them and change them from alive to dead."

Kally snatched the paper from Glabrios hands and scrunched it up, before tossing it to the floor.

"Be more careful." She growled, before nodding her head towards the sleeping bag. Scattered besides it were shards of glass.
"Used up before we got here." Kally reassured the Arbitrator, who was looking in dismay at all the scattered sheets of paper. They all had the same spidery writing scrawled over them.

"Has he lost it?" Glabrio asked, looking the place over again, noting the stretcher covered in gun cleaning equipment and cases of ammunition.
"He was always insane." Sapphira responded. "Only a mad man makes pacts with the ruinous powers."
"He can make his favourite drug for himself now." Kally said, staring at the spent shards. "And there is not a lot else to do here but set traps, eat bad rations and get really high."

She stalked over to the bed and bent to pick something up. It was faded, a little dog eared, propped up on an empty ammo can. A picture of an up-hive family wearing distinctly Makitan clothes. A young boy, in the middle of the photo, looked sternly directly at the camera.

"None of us can go home, can we Arcolin?" she whispered as she recognised her quarry. "And whose fault is that?"

++++++

As they advanced, they disarmed the traps. Rather than take the elevator again, they moved slowly and methodically up the stairs, Josiah, Glabrio and Tomas on point, Ella slightly behind.

He's here. Kally tightened her grip on her boltgun. He's here, and we are going to get him. At last.

Kally had kicked the pane of warp glass apart, with her collar off. It was satisfying. Not as satisfying as doing the same to Arcolin, but the day was young. This was so close to resolution she could taste it.

As they reached the door and stacked up, Ella spoke up.

"Wait!" Ella hissed as they approached it. "There's another trip mine on the other side!"

“No way to get to it from here.” Josiah chipped in. “We could blow out the wall and trigger it with the bolters though.”

“We could.” Tomas admitted. “Gavin, do you have a fix on us? Can you see this bomb?”

“I do.” Gavins voice came through a burp of distortion and white noise. Kally wondered if the frail psyker was using the comms normally, or just talking through them using his powers. “I mean, I can see you Agent Prinzel. Ella is mistaken, to say, its not a trip mine. Its wired to the door handle. And it feels. . .off.”
“Flects.” Tomas growled. “Can you disarm it?”
“I cannot. That is, it can't be safely disarmed from my position. I can trigger it remotely.”
“On my mark, pop it Gavin.”
He turned to the team behind him.
“We shield wall up, five paces back. Kally is through first, uncollared, to neutralise any flects. I follow her directly. Glabrio, Josiah, swing right and get behind the big air conditioner unit and set up covering fire for the snatch. Sapphira, Ella, hang back here and provide fire support."

There where nods, and the sounds of weapons being primed. Kally fiddled with her neck and removed the ornate collar and took her place, hunkered down behind the shields. The stairwell fell quiet again as they settled into formation.
“Gavin?” Tomas was looking intently at the door, hands clamped tight around his sword and shield.
“Yes sir?” He sounded distant and breathless, focused somewhere else.
“Mark.”

The blast rattled their teeth, metal and glass shards shredding the door and knocking lose the old ceiling plasterboards, covering them all in a sheet of white powder that plunged from the ceiling in clumps. Kally was on her feet immediately, uncoiling from her crouched position like a spring, and met the damaged door with her shoulder. Its hinges gave way to the impact and it folded outwards, tearing free of its frame as Kally surged onto the rooftop with the team following behind her at a dead run. She had her sword and a pistol ready, and immediately spotted the huddle of camouflage material.
You're mine, frakker!

[Azazeal849]

“I do.” Gavins voice came through a burp of distortion and white noise. Kally wondered if the frail psyker was using the comms normally, or just talking through them using his powers. “I mean, I can see you Agent Prinzel. Ella is mistaken, to say, its not a trip mine."

Kally noted that she might normally have expected a bit of self-deprecating humour from the astropath at this point, but Ella was clearly still not willing to push her luck - she didn't reply, except for her blind eyes flickering away from her team-mates towards the wall.

"Its wired to the door handle. And it feels. . .off.”


+ + + + + +

Kally surged onto the rooftop with the team following behind her at a dead run. She had her sword and a pistol ready, and immediately spotted the huddle of camouflage material.

You're mine, frakker!

The huddle shifted, revealing half a face in profile beneath the fabric. It was the silvered, leering half-mask of a Jakara suit, which gave way to pale skin and black, raked-back hair as the head completed its turn towards them. To Kally's satisfaction, the face bore a look of surprise. A moment later, however, it lit up in an expression of delight.

"Hello, clever girl." Arcolin DeRei grinned at her.

Arcolin had half-twisted towards the door when it had suddenly exploded. Now he completed the move, rolling away from his bipod-steadied exitus rifle. As he did so his hand grasped the stubby sub-machinegun hanging from a shoulder strap, and swung it up towards the breaching agents. The autogun let out an angry, buzzsaw rattle as it scythed a wide arc across the team's ankles.

[PaintSerf]

“We shield wall up, five paces back. Kally is through first, uncollared, to neutralise any flects. I follow her directly. Glabrio, Josiah, swing right and get behind the big air conditioner unit and set up covering fire for the snatch. Sapphira, Ella, hang back here and provide fire support."

Sapphira wordlessly nodded as she toggled the fire-selector on Crenshaw’s bolter to standard rounds, and wrapped an arm around Ella’s shoulder and pulled her away as Kally reached for her collar. She guided the young astropath back down a few stairs and settled her down so that she’d be behind the shield wall and below the roof door’s landing when the heretic’s trap was detonated.

“Stay down, and be sure to keep your sight up as Kally’s aura will have passed the flects when we clear the threshold.” The Sister advised as she hunkered down in a braced crouch next to Ella.

“Mark.”

“Ave Imperator.” Sapphira softly exhaled, keeping her mouth open as the explosive went off.

The blast rattled their teeth, metal and glass shards shredding the door and knocking lose the old ceiling plasterboards, covering them all in a sheet of white powder that plunged from the ceiling in clumps.

The Sister grabbed Ella around the waist and hauled the astropath onto her feet as leapt out of her crouch. Sapphira hustled them up the stairs before releasing the girl and cradling her one time bolter in both hands as she strode purposefully towards the door. She could already see the other agents silhouetted in the frame, for a moment trapped in the unenviably vulnerable fatal funnel, as they charged out onto the roof and towards Arcolin DeRei.

Sapphira almost made it through the threshold herself as their quarry grasped the stubby sub-machinegun hanging from a shoulder strap, and swung it up towards the breaching agents. The autogun let out an angry, buzzsaw rattle as it scythed a wide arc across the team's ankles. She came up sharply and thrust out her off hand to push Ella aside into the nearest corner, and all but body check and pin the astropath as she followed her into the limited cover.

“Get low!” She shouted, and her words as much for the other agents as they were for Ella.

The Sister spun back around to lean out the stairwell threshold and aim down the bolter’s sights. Sapphira’s line was clear as the team had either planted their shields or broken for cover, and appropriately enough her first clear and live glimpse of the heretic DeRei was in her crosshairs. Sororita instinct warred with Inquisitorial obligation as she hesitated for a moment before pulling the trigger.

+ + +

“On my mark, pop it Gavin.”

Crenshaw rolled his shoulders and mentally set aside the flare of agony from his muscles, abused as they were after the struggle with the mastiffs. He flexed his finger against the trigger guard before once again settling into the autocannon’s stock and tracking the scope back towards DeRei’s position based of Marc’s spy drone information. The Major slightly ground his prosthetics together as he awaited Prinzel’s breach signal, and as he suspected what the deployment order was with those damned flects in play.

It should have been me first through that door, not her.

“Mark.”

The Major barely blinked as the detonation shockwave as it tore the silent city, and his eyes never strayed from the autocannon’s scope as his finger dropped to rest against the trigger itself. No sooner had the wind torn away the explosion’s rumble then the sharp staccato of an automatic carry over from the hospital’s roof to the abandoned hab-hideout.

“Kally!” Marc exclaimed as he stared intently at his monitor, the signal feed delayed slightly.

Crenshaw inhaled deeply at the other man’s words, and a moment later he recognized the rapid and thunderous booms of his own bolter. His experienced ears could tell that the amount of bolts that Sapphira was sending down range had to be a suppression fire pattern, which meant the heretic was yet un-subdued and likely mobile. The Major almost toggled his vox and reflexively barked an order his former adjutant into action, before he caught himself and refrained.

“Tell your sister to have Jenkins target his suit!” Crenshaw tersely growled without looking at Marc. “Do it, now!”

[Azazeal849]

“Get low!” She shouted, and her words as much for the other agents as they were for Ella. Ella grunted in pain as Sapphira sandwiched her against the wall, but again she seemed hesitant to offer her team-mates anything except compliance.

The Sister spun back around to lean out the stairwell threshold and aim down the bolter’s sights. Sapphira’s line was clear as the team had either planted their shields or broken for cover, and appropriately enough her first clear and live glimpse of the heretic DeRei was in her crosshairs. Sororita instinct warred with Inquisitorial obligation as she hesitated for a moment before pulling the trigger.
The bang-whoosh of the gyrojet shells was followed by a sharp explosion as one struck the gun in Arcolin's fist, blowing it into a shower of metal confetti. Arcolin yelped a surprised oath as he continued to roll away, the rest of Sapphira's three-round burst blasting craters in the roof concrete behind him. The cultist rolled onto his front, the camo cape sloughing away from the blue metal of his Jakara suit as he pushed up into a run.


+ + + + + +

“Tell your sister to have Jenkins target his suit!” Crenshaw tersely growled without looking at Marc. “Do it, now!”

Marc's opaque visor twitched in Crenshaw's direction for a brief moment before returning to the window. The Chinese Whisper of commands was a delay, but trying to get Gavin to take an order directly from Crenshaw was worse, and if nothing else Marc grudgingly trusted the major's instincts in the heat of combat.

"Kel." he voxed across the team link. "Gavin needs to shut Arcolin's suit down!"

Behind the shelter of the crumbled tenement block, Kelly voxed back an affirmative.

"Gavin." she told the psyker, pausing in her watchful scan of the perimeter to check on her companion. Gavin's pale face was drawn taut, but he nodded. "Can you target his suit, shut it down?"

The psyker nodded again, his fingers clenching around the frost-covered bricks of the wall.


+ + + + + +

Arcolin sprinted for the wall that edged the roof, but then he stumbled as the whining myomer bundles of his Necromundan suit abruptly changed pitch. A salvo from Kally's bolter caught him in the back, striking the bulky power-pack and sending pieces of the integral grav-chute spalling off in a rain of sparks. The impact pitched the cultist onto his front.

"We've got him." Glabrio warned. He, Tomas and Josiah converged on the cultist as he skidded to a stop a few paces short of the wall. "Arcolin DeRei," he announced cheerfully as he advanced, bracing his shield and raising his sparking shock maul. "You are one ugly frakker and I'd rather not have to look at you any more. By authority of the lovely inquisitor Machairi, you have the right to black out and come quietly."

He swung the maul in a coruscating arc, but as he did so something red and glassy flashed from a sheath at Arcolin's hip and dug itself into the elbow of his descending arm. Half of the glass blade snapped off, leaving the tip buried in the gap between the carapace plates. Glabrio dropped like a marionette whose strings had been suddenly cut, spasming violently.

[dakkagor]

"Hello, clever girl." Arcolin DeRei grinned at her.

Arcolin had half-twisted towards the door when it had suddenly exploded. Now he completed the move, rolling away from his bipod-steadied exitus rifle. As he did so his hand grasped the stubby sub-machinegun hanging from a shoulder strap, and swung it up towards the breaching agents. The autogun let out an angry, buzzsaw rattle as it scythed a wide arc across the team's ankles.

Tomas reacted before he even thought the whole sequence through, stepping in front of Kally and dropping to one knee to bring his shield in contact with the ground. Bullets flashed and popped in bursts of white light as they met the conversion field of his storm shield and fell to the ground, energy consumed and transformed into harmless light. Kally brought herself up short behind him and with a yell, fired her boltgun. A salvo from Kally's bolter caught him in the back and she grinned as the grav chute was ruined beyond use.

Then the pair were up and moving again, closing the noose.

"We've got him." Glabrio warned. He, Tomas and Josiah converged on the cultist as he skidded to a stop a few paces short of the wall. "Arcolin DeRei," he announced cheerfully as he advanced, bracing his shield and raising his sparking shock maul. "You are one ugly frakker and I'd rather not have to look at you any more. By authority of the lovely inquisitor Machairi, you have the right to black out and come quietly."

He swung the maul in a coruscating arc, but as he did so something red and glassy flashed from a sheath at Arcolin's hip and dug itself into the elbow of his descending arm. Half of the glass blade snapped off, leaving the tip buried in the gap between the carapace plates. Glabrio dropped like a marionette whose strings had been suddenly cut, spasming violently.

"Frak!" Kally yelled, and threw herself towards Glabrio. She landed on top of him and prayed that her aura would cancel out the worst of the effects. Her hands clasped around the flect blade, and with a searing pain as the razor sharp glass cut through her gloves, yanked the vile weapon clear and tossed it aside.

Tomas kept closing, the shortened blade lashing out for his head. Even as he raised his shield to block, Arcolin stepped back and away.

He's fast, and he knows he can't risk the blade against a powered field or he'll lose his last defensive option.

Josiah closed from the other side, and the two men, shields razed, boxed him in against the precipice. Arcolin weaved his weapon back and forth in lazy arcs, and the two agents realised that it would only be a matter of time until they looked at the tainted glass and were disabled.

Tomas realised with a moment of despair that his training had not prepared him to fight this kind of powered armour opponent. Most armour focused on boosting strength and survivability, at the cost of movement and agility. The Jakara suit was the inverse: Arcolins duelist reflexes were significantly augmented by the suit, making him serpent fast, but it was armour protection only equivalent to light carapace. If either he or Josiah could get in a strike, the fight would be over.

But getting a blow in without getting struck in return was near impossible.

He risked a glance at Josiah, who returned it with a grim nod. He had come to the same conclusion. One of them was going to take a hit taking him down.

"High road?" Josiah offered.

"Gladly." Tomas replied.

They both attacked together, Tomas swinging down with his blade over the top of his shield, Josiah dropping to one knee and sweeping his power maul in a low arc.

Arcolin stepped into both attacks and then stumbled as if a great weight was suddenly layered over his entire body. With a look of surprise, he tumbled to the ground as Josiah's blow took his legs out from under him. Tomas corrected his swing, his powered blade instead carving through the flect blade and severing it from its crude hilt, sending it tumbling over the edge of the ruined hospital.

Arcolin hit the ground, hard. As he tried to rise Josiah brought his maul down again, and knocked him cold.

"Commander Prinzel, I have disabled the heretic, that is to say, his hive suits power source. He should be much easier to apprehend without it."

Tomas watched as Josiah expertly gathered up the heretics arms and cuffed him.

"Good job Gavin." He couldn't help but laugh. "Though next time, give us a bit of warning." He lowered his guard and turned to look over Glabrio. Kally had dragged him to one side and propped him up against an old air conditioner unit, and was staring at him intently while patching the wound in his arm.

"Sapphira, one casualty, minor wounds. Everyone else, we have the frakker."

[Jarms48]

"He's been up and down here a few times recently." Ella whispered, hovering her gloved hand over the bannister, and then drawing it back as if stung as the imprint set a peal of mocking laughter echoing through her head. She pointed shakily at the doors on the landing. "He's been prowling around the mezzanine too."

If I was a megalomaniac, what would I do? Thought Glabrio, as his gaze moved from the nail bombs to the elevator doors, before finally settling upon the stair. Make the elevator some kind of giant dead fall trap for starters. Take the elevator to the top floor, disable the cars safeties, rig some kind of pressure sensors to the shafts doors. Probably set on some kind of delay, let us get into position to rope up, then bang. Elevator comes crashing down, takes us out...

He doubted that Arcolin would have had all of the necessary equipment to rig up such a trap, but the open stairwell still seemed more appealing. He raised a hand, and gestured towards the stair, before moving out himself. His steps were cautious, his eyes peeled for any nasty surprises. He'd shouldered his shotgun and opted to keep his borrowed suppression shield ahead of him, as a just-in-case. He paused; the glint of a wire caught his eye as he turned the first stair. Glabrio crouched low, placed his suppression shield in front of him and traced his free hand a hair above the wire, following it.

The wire travelled across the stair in front of them, disappeared behind one of the support columns of the handrail and continued to climb above them. At the top of the stair, dangling behind an old light fixture, three spherical objects clung to the end of the wire. Grenade bouquet. Glabrio reached for his defusal kit, placed it on the stair next to him and pulled out a pair of clippers. He brought it to the wire.

Come on Hybrida you can do this, no quick movements, no unnecessary pressure. Dexterous hands, you have that. With the utmost care he clipped the wire and let it fall limp to the floor.

“If anyone wants to try and retrieve those grenades, be my guest. We could use them.”

The ex-arbiter kept his back to the wall, pushed up the flights, his movements slow and calculated. His gaze moving across everything, trying to catch anything amiss. A pool of sweat steadily grew across his brow, his free hand through reflex alone brushed effortlessly across the faceplate of his mask in an attempt to remove the moisture. He had to blink, the sweat falling into his eyes.

“The stairs, Ella. What do you see?” Pressed Glabrio. “Traps?”

Ella drew her hand along the stairs handrail. Her eyes shut. She could feel Arcolin's presence. See his prior movements.

“I can see something. He's crouching, installing some device.” Her voice was hushed. Her hand trembled, pins-and-needles drawing across it.

“Stop!” She exclaimed, the pain and panic thick in her voice.

Glabrio paused. Took a step back. He couldn't see anything.

“There's a laser sensor, about two metres in front of you. Coming from... there.” Ella rose her hand and pointed to an old ventilation grate.

“How do we get rid of it?” Asked Glabrio.

"Stand by." Gavin interjected through the crackling vox. The scratchy quality of his voice not only due to the psychic interference.

There was silence, and then a few moments later the former-regulator noticed a light dusting of ice crystals inexplicably and almost gracefully descend out from the rusty grate. Several heartbeats after that Glabrio saw the laser sensor suddenly appear at about waist height as Gavin tampered within the device, before the beam flared slightly and as rapidly winked back out of existence. Lady Machairi's investigator pursed his lips and rocked on the balls of his feet as he expectantly waited for the psyker's vox call.

"Disarmed." Jenkins' voice softly snapped over the line. The only hint of his completion was the lazy trickle of melt water draining down the wall from the vent, and the psyker's word that the trap was indeed incapacitated.


* * * * *

"We've got him." Glabrio warned. He, Tomas and Josiah converged on the cultist as he skidded to a stop a few paces short of the wall. "Arcolin DeRei," he announced cheerfully as he advanced, bracing his shield and raising his sparking shock maul. "You are one ugly frakker and I'd rather not have to look at you any more. By authority of the Imperial Inquisition and the lovely inquisitor Machairi, you have the right to black out and come quietly."

He swung the maul in a coruscating arc, but as he did so something red and glassy flashed from a sheath at Arcolin's hip and dug itself into the elbow of his descending arm. Half of the glass blade snapped off, leaving the tip buried in the gap between the carapace plates. Glabrio dropped like a marionette whose strings had been suddenly cut, spasming violently.

He could see the maw of the warp. A spiral of raw, unadulterated energy. Pulsing with power. He tried to close his eyes, but the vision brushed aside the mere mortal barrier. He felt pain, his nose started to bleed. There were whispers, calming, enchanting, promising him everything and nothing. He was swimming in a pool of raw emotion. His body was carried away by the current. He could feel everything, every emotion came to him in physical form. In the form of his friends, his family, his lovers.

"Frak!" Kally yelled, and threw herself towards Glabrio. She landed on top of him and prayed that her aura would cancel out the worst of the effects. Her hands clasped around the flect blade, and with a searing pain as the razor sharp glass cut through her gloves, yanked the vile weapon clear and tossed it aside. Under her Hybrida had fallen limp, he had passed out.


* * * * *

"Good job Gavin." He couldn't help but laugh. "Though next time, give us a bit of warning." He lowered his guard and turned to look over Glabrio. Kally had dragged him to one side and propped him up against an old air conditioner unit, and was staring at him intently while patching the wound in his arm. The investigator had regained consciousness and seemed no worse for wear beyond the expected consequences of having his arm impaled, although he was blinking more than normal and seemed visibly shaken. He was breathing heavily as Kally unstrapped the vambrace plate of his carapace and snipped away his sleeve.

"Throne." Glabrio muttered, flinching slightly at Kally's pariah touch as she clapped a dressing from her pocket medikit onto his arm, and began to wind a gauze around it. Dark, veinal blood quickly soaked through to stain the white cloth. "That was both discourteous and disconcerting."

A show of the ex-arbitrator's customary humour was enough to allay Tomas' fears for the moment.

"Sapphira, one casualty, minor wounds."

The sister came jogging forward to check and finish up Kally's bandage work. Tomas noticed that she had her heavy revolver out and in her hand, and apparently Glabrio noticed it too.

"Really?" the investigator complained, but Sapphira's expression was stony as she dropped to her knees beside him.

"Kally, could you stand back for a moment please." the sister said tautly. "Ella, if you wouldn't mind?"

"Sorry..." the astropath told Glabrio quietly, and Tomas saw her grimacing uncomfortably behind her visor as she stripped off her gloves and laid her small hands gingerly on Glabrio's wounded arm. Her blind, unfocused eyes flickered back and forth.

"I can't see anything wrong." she said, slightly hesitantly.

"Apart from the great big wound that hurts like a motherfrakker, I take it?" Glabrio answered, testily. He rolled his arm, testing it, the sting making him flinch. He removed his helmet and drew his fingers under nose. He couldn't feel anything, no blood. Fukking flects.

Sapphira visibly untensed, and holstered her pistol before nodding to Tomas.

"Everyone else," Tomas voxed, allowing himself to relax finally. "We have the frakker."

[Atrum Daemon]

The search for a secure place to set up shop had not been too arduous. This was a wheelhouse Vizkop was comfortable in. Something he had grown far and away used to the past few years. Of course, he had become accustomed to operating in such circumstances alone. Now he was saddled with baggage. And it was the baggage everyone was suspicious of, to boot. He had to remain focused and sighted down his rifle, which left him open to just about any surprise attack the augmented warrior-woman could think of. The assassin was not comfortable with that in the slightest.

Even so, he still found himself a comfortable and advantageous spot to peer out of. He opted out of attaching the scope to the Xanith, choosing instead to hook it into his helmet and add the scope functions to his HUD. A simple mental nudge activated a few of his deeper implants that allowed him to properly split his attention to focus on multiple things. Such things were usually favored by priests who did a lot of system management work so they could multitask at optimal efficiency.

He set the rifle up and adjusted himself ever so slightly to find the most comfortable way to hold himself. But Alley's presence was proving a rather regular distraction. The shifts in her posture, the changes in her breathing, all of it was bothersome white noise Vizkop was trying to block out.

“If it's any consolation,” he said shortly after the team had discovered a few traps, “I'd rather you be down there with them, too.”

Vizkop swept the area, eyes sharp for any interlopers who might try to intervene. His view of the target building was partially blocked, though he could send a round through the building blocking his full view if needed, but he could still provide area surveillance and track Arcolin should be make a break for it. He paused in his sweep when something caught his eye. He zoomed in, target systems tagging the life signs.

It was a person. They were covered by a flak coat and bandages wrapped their hands. A visor and balaclava obscured their face as well. They were observing the area much like he was but doing so with binoculars. The sight intrigued the assassin and he began to run through the possibilities of what the person could be doing. It could just be a curious local peeking at the activity. But it could also be one of Arcolin's associates keeping watch. A third option was that the person belonged to a third party waiting for the outcome of cornering the heretic.

"Everyone else,"*Tomas voxed, allowing himself to relax finally.*"We have the frakker."

Vizkop's tension let up slightly, but he did not move from his spot and remained zeroed in on the watcher. “Acknowledged,” he voxed back. “Team, be advised. We have a watcher. Human in a flak coat and bandages. Watching with a set of binoculars. Can't determine purpose from here. I have a clear shot if the variable should be removed.”

[Azazeal849]

"Everyone else," Tomas voxed, allowing himself to relax finally. "We have the frakker."

There were brief acknowledgements from the team, and Marc's was accompanied by a sharp crack that might have been the agent striking his armoured fist against something in triumph.

Vizkop's tension let up slightly, but he did not move from his spot and remained zeroed in on the watcher. “Acknowledged,” he voxed back. “Team, be advised. We have a watcher. Human in a flak coat and bandages. Watching with a set of binoculars. Can't determine purpose from here. I have a clear shot if the variable should be removed.”

"One of the wastelanders?" Marc suggested. "Sounds like he's dressed to survive out here. Is he armed?"

"Negative."

"They might be just an innocent bystander." Kelly's voice cut forcefully across the vox. As the rising breeze began to patter shards of windblown glass against the building where she and Gavin were hiding, the former verispex chewed the inside of her cheek, remembering the Hercynia mission with painful clarity. "We're not opening fire without provocation."

"Of course not." Crenshaw's voice countered mildly across the vox link. "The shot might draw attention."

Only Gavin saw Kelly scowl, but the other agent took what she could get even if the reasoning wasn't the one she had wanted.

"We'll regroup with you in the hospital." she advised. "The storm's coming in fast."

Tomas could hear the wind picking up, and a steady hail of silica particles rattling against the windward side of the hospital. Turning his gaze to the wall that protected the roof, he saw chips of glass skittering across the top of it to land around the team's feet. The polluted horizon had turned dark, and the great grey-brown cliff of a storm front was bearing down on the dead city.


+ + + + + +

The team had taken absolutely no chances. Josiah had selected a secure, thick walled operating theatre with only one way in or out to serve as Arcolin's prison. Vizkop had made a thorough appraisal of Arcolin's half-masked Jakara suit, and then without a word, extended his arm blades and hacked the priceless artefact to pieces. The exitus rifle had been deemed salvageable, although not until it had been taken apart and disseminated among various members of the team. Kally and Crenshaw had systematically combed the hospital for more flects, and taken the precaution of removing anything made even partially of glass from all the rooms surrounding the operating theatre.

Even in the middle of the abandoned hospital, they could hear the wind roaring. Ella had contacted Machairi and been advised that the Tiercel had broken out of warp, and was making full burn towards Baraspine orbit. But with the glass storm now in full force, the agents would have to wait before any airborne extraction could be safely launched, whether it was from the Tiercel or Alicia's own Arthrashatra. And so the agents had hunkered down and fortified Arcolin's hideout into one of their own.

It was going to be a long, tense wait. While the others patrolled the outer corridors or saw to Merle and the injured Glabrio, Alicia strode brusquely up the hallway that led to the operating theatre and pulled the door open with a jerk.

"The others are on their way." she told Josiah, who was standing guard. The arbiter had insisted on taking guard duty over his traitor counterpart, and was no doubt burning to report his capture to the precinct on the Glom. He nodded tightly as Alley closed the door behind her.

Arcolin raised his head as he heard Alley approaching. He was cuffed hand and foot to a steel chair, and beneath his open shirt a pair of wires trailed from an interface socket set into his pale but muscular abdomen. The wires snaked across the floor and into a bulky, rust-streaked promethium generator that was grumbling away in the corner of the room. The machine was likely decades old, and even the mechanicus hadn't seen fit to retrieve it when the hospital was abandoned; still, the oil in the tank was not quite dry, and with a little coaxing from Gavin the old generator had rumbled back into life.

It had been on Marc's suggestion that Josiah and Tomas had hauled the generator up to the holding cell. It had taken both men to lift it, but that was the intention. After hearing the story from Marc and Kally about how Arcolin had been fitted with augmetic lungs following a melta wound back on Solomon, Sapphira had pulled the bionics' internal power sources from a sedated Arcolin and, under Vizkop's direction, wired him directly into the generator instead. The heretic wasn't going anywhere - at least, not if he was planning on living for more than thirty seconds.

After the heretic's narrow escape on Waystation 9794, Alicia took a certain satisfaction from the team's precautions. Perhaps the smile had shown on her face, because as he met her eyes Arcolin chuckled quietly.

"Alicia Tarran." he addressed her softly. His return smile was almost sad, but rendered ugly by the twisting scars that covered the left side of his jaw. "Or is it Theodosia Prince now? I can use that if you prefer."

Alicia twitched, nettled. A part of her dearly wanted to be able to retreat back into Dosi's carefree mindset, even though that was impossible now.

Shirin died because of the last thing I did as Alley Tarran. she reminded herself, savagely. He got inside my head. Don't make the same mistake twice.

"I thought I saw some actual good in you on the waystation." she growled, advancing on Arcolin. "I almost hoped that you would continue that and be better without the obsession of Marc nearby."

She stopped a pace in front of him, and drew the heavy Nebula-issue pistol from her hip. For a moment there was silence, broken only by the ominous rumbling of the generator.

"But I was wrong. You're a murderer and a heretic traitor, and for once I think Marc has the right idea. It's safer to hunt down your cultist friends after you're dead."

She raised the pistol to point between Arcolin's eyes, the muzzle hovering six inches from his skull. Arcolin didn't reply; instead, to Alicia's consternation, he closed his eyes, leaned forward against his restraints, and pressed his forehead against the mouth of the gun.

Alicia hesitated; chewed her tongue. Just as her finger was re-tensing on the trigger, there was a sound of purposeful footsteps from the hallway behind her. She jerked her gun up and away just in time, turning to face the door as Glabrio came hurrying in, followed by Vizkop, Kally, Marc and Kelly.

As soon as they appeared Arcolin seemed to reanimate, his eyes lighting up. His smile returned, more maliciously gleeful than the one he had given to Alicia.

"Ella's just gotten off the animus vox." Kelly told Alicia. "Machairi reckons she'll be able to launch a shuttle some time in the next hour."

"If I may," Arcolin put in, cocking his head in Kelly's direction, "I wouldn't have minded if you had waited until after the storm to make your attack. We might be speaking somewhere far more comfortable."

Glabrio huffed down his nose. The ex-arbiter was still missing his right sleeve and vambrace, and his arm was stiff from the dressing wrapped round his elbow.

"Maybe," he admitted, "But we did kind of want to have an urgent word with you. You did try to kill us after all."

Arcolin shrugged, rattling his manacles. "Well, I don't generally set traps just to hone people's observation skills."

"We're going to need answers from you." Marc said simply, his face a stony mask. While he spoke, he began stripping off his carapace gloves. "Your cult's plans, and what they want with adept Zhang."

Arcolin blinked at him. "Spoilers Marc!" The heretic shook his head and laughed to himself. "Then again, I do feel like I should pay something back, now I know so much about you." His grin widened. "Down to that UV tattoo of a sand shark Kelly's got on her leg. Or that guy in Sidonis' verispex division she hooked up with for a while. And you Marc, weren't you seeing that acolyte tech priestess for a couple of months? Of course, they're both probably dead now, after the Sons bulldozed most of the True Bane..."

Marc stepped forward, toying with his signet ring, before swiping a punch that caught Arcolin hard in the side of his neck, just below his jaw. The heretic reeled to one side until his manacles restrained him with a sharp snap. Arcolin curled back his lips and cricked his neck from side to side.

"How very unprofessional of you, Marc. You shouldn't let a heretic like me get to you."

"I'm not." Marc said coldly, carefully folding down the injector needle sticking out of his ring. On Arcolin's neck, a tiny droplet of blood welled up from the pinprick wound, bright against his pale skin.

"Veritas." Marc explained as he flexed his impacted hand. "Drugs have never been totally reliable for getting information out of people, but this is one of the better ones. You see, Arcolin, we already know Emerald and Sidonis told you all about us. We've been through this I-know-you-know spiel once already with Merle, and it loses a bit of its impact the second time round.

"Merle?" Arcolin repeated, still flexing his neck uncomfortably. His eyes seemed to clear a little as he focused on Marc, and the mocking smile dropped away from his face. "You should kill him. I'm serious. Like, right now."

"Oh, we plan to." Glabrio broke in, raising a dark eyebrow. "You get to decide when, because the moment we no longer need him is the moment you tell us what the hell you're planning."

Arcolin looked curiously at Glabrio; blinked; chuckled. "Tut tut. Spoilers, guys."

Marc toyed with his ring. "We'll see. I'll ask you again in five minutes when the drug kicks in."

Arcolin leered at him. "I strongly suspect you'll have to kill me. I know you want to."

Without a word, Marc crossed over to the chugging promethium generator and yanked down on the main starter lever, causing it to cough and die. As the pistons inside the metal slab whirred to a stop, Arcolin twitched forward slightly. His eyes widened.

"Don't test me, Arcolin." Marc warned as the heretic's mouth and chest jerked, trying to work a diaphragm that would suddenly neither inhale nor exhale.

There was a clunk and a rattle of spark plugs as Kelly ran forward and slammed the starter lever back into position. The generator coughed back into life, and a few seconds later Arcolin heaved in a tortured breath. Before the heretic could speak, Kelly had seized her brother's wrist and dragged him out into the corridor.

"What the frak, Kel?" Marc rounded on her, infuriated, as soon as they were out of earshot of Josiah by the door.

"You know what." Kelly snapped back at him. "We need to keep this professional and get it right. We don't even know how many lives might still be on the line."

"We need to get the answers out of him as quickly as possible." Marc countered, "So we can frakking execute him."

"That wasn't getting answers." Kelly replied vehemently. "You didn't even wait for the veritas to kick in. That was just making him suffer and you know it." Her tone softened slightly. "Let me do it. We can pick his story apart and get to the truth a lot quicker than trying to beat it out of him."

"I don't remind you how to do your job." Marc snarled.

"You're right. And I shouldn't have to remind you how to do yours."

Marc exhaled, gritting his teeth. "Alright. You lead, I'll follow."

"No." Kelly said, shaking her head. She tugged at the open neck seal of her environment suit, uncomfortably. "Look. You help me out when I'm not in a safe state. Well, I'm telling you you're not safe now. Look what he makes you do."

"What, you mean the generator?" Marc began, raising his hands to argue.

"Frak the generator." Kelly snapped impatiently. "What about Alley? You didn't tell her about Marioch until shit went down on Saros. You didn't drop the hammer about Arcolin and her parents without a plan in mind, I know you didn't."

Marc recoiled, stung. His mouth worked silently for a moment.

"I wanted her on side, yes! I didn't want her to go haring off after him right then! It was a mistake!"

Kelly scrunched her eyes shut and sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Exactly." she said, looking up earnestly at her brother. "So don't make another one now. Let the rest of us handle this."


+ + + + + +

"You know who we are." Kelly began, placing the small datapad down flat in her lap and glancing at Vizkop to check that the secutor had begun recording. She looked back at Arcolin. "And you know why you're here."

"Where's Marc?" Arcolin asked, neutrally. His pupils were dilated - a sure sign that the veritas truth serum was in his system, though how far they could trust the drug Kelly wasn't sure. "I want to speak to him."

"He's on watch." Kelly answered simply. "And this is your chance to give us your version of events." She glanced at Kally, seated next to her. "For example, Kally found your notes down in the mezzanine. Who were they for?"

Arcolin looked from Kelly to Kally - and then up at Alicia, who unlike the other two women was standing silently at the back next to Vizkop. "Someone who's dead." he said flatly.

"And you said they'd burn." Kelly continued. "Who were they, and why did you want them dead?"

A glint crossed Arcolin's eyes, and he smiled a broken-mirror smile. "You didn't read it properly, Kelly. I didn't say dead, just change."

[dakkagor]

"Changed, dead, what does it matter? None of that is going to happen now."

Kally leaned over Arcolin and smiled meanly.

"I should have shot you when we went in for that Rogue Trader Emerald and his freak show. I should have definitely shot you on the Mooncalf, and I really, really wanted to shoot you on Saros."

She stepped back, resting a hand on her holstered pistol.

"I'm going to resist that urge for a little while, though. Call me sentimental for the old days. So one scum to another, why should we be killing Merle 'Right now', beyond the fact that he's a sad sack of tainted fluids someone should have killed years ago."

She sat back down and visibly relaxed, leaning back on the chair.

"Because, I doubt he's any more dangerous to us than the nutjob who holed up in an abandoned hospital in an attempt to lure us into a kill zone, and failed miserably."


++++++

Tomas grunted as he pulled the door closed, then shoved the metal desk up against it. He stepped back and admired his handiwork in the lower level. For the past hour he had been shifting furniture into barricades, sealing of the path they had used to enter the hospital in the first place, and resetting some of the traps to cover the stairwell. They couldn't rule out that Arcolin had reserves waiting in the wings, waiting to swoop in and either rescue him or kill them. Outside, even down here, he could hear the wind moaning against the building, and it seemed like the whole structure was shaking around him. Shaking his head, he began to trudge back up to the others and activated the squad comms.

"Tomas to the team, the lower levels have been sealed. How are we doing on resetting the traps?"

As he slogged up the stairs he listened to peoples reports. It had been a long day, and it wasn't over yet. Some stray thought made his left hand stray to the small radio device in his webbing, and he briefly rubbed his thumb over the casing of the switch.

Soon we'll be done with you. That will be a weight of everyone's shoulders.

[Azazeal849]

"I should have shot you when we went in for that Rogue Trader Emerald and his freak show. I should have definitely shot you on the Mooncalf, and I really, really wanted to shoot you on Saros."

Arcolin looked at her, and then at the floor, saying nothing. She stepped back, resting a hand on her holstered pistol.

"I'm going to resist that urge, though. Call me sentimental for the old days. So one scum to another, why should we be killing Merle 'right now', beyond the fact that he's a sad sack of tainted fluids someone should have killed years ago?"

She sat back down and visibly relaxed, leaning back on the chair.

"Because, I doubt he's any more dangerous to us than the nutjob who holed up in an abandoned hospital in an attempt to lure us into a kill zone, and failed miserably."

Arcolin raised his head. "You were coming after me. You and Marc wanted me dead since Makita burned - before that, even, in Marc's case. What was I supposed...?"

He twitched and shook his head, a pained expression eclipsing his features.

"No. You're right. You know what, you both have the right. But you need to...you need to understand. Do you even know who...what you're killing for?"

His head snapped round, his dilated pupils focusing on Kelly.

"You know. You've seen what the Imperium does, to guilty and innocent. It...you've seen what it asks its people to do. I did all of it, I fought and killed and burned for it. I did what I was told, fought for its greater good until I came apart.""

"Can you tell us what you're fighting for now?" Kelly asked him without breaking eye contact, steering the conversation back towards the information they needed.

Arcolin shook his head. "Nothing! No greater good, no grand plan to tell me why it had to happen. Why I had to burn them. I burned them..."

"Who did you burn?" Kelly asked gently.

The heretic shook his head again, more violently, his eyes screwing shut for a moment. He opened them again and stared at the two women.

"I shouldn't have been there - even with all the strings the drill abbot pulled with the cardinal. It's in the codes...arbitrators aren't supposed to serve on their birth world, no matter how stretched the local forces are. But I still tried to do my duty - I tried."

Arcolin's head dropped, staring at the power cables trailing from his chest. When he raised his gaze, his eyes were glistening.

"When you're called to destroy a heretic house, root and branch... it shouldn't matter who they are, even when you see your family's name on the execution warrant. I did my duty, I did what the Imperium asked... I went to the top spire and killed House DeRei. Men, women, children... they all burned."

The heretic's neck muscles twitched, as though he were struggling to swallow, and a spasm of agony twisted his scarred cheek.

"I burned my own family, and I knew I was a monster." His gaze tracked up to fix on Kelly, desperate and plaintive. "You... you and Marc, you're good people. You wouldn't do that..."

A heavy explosion struck the building, reverberating through the floor and shaking motes of dust and plaster from the ceiling


+ + + + + +

"The storm is abating a little." Crenshaw commented as he scanned their surroundings. "We may be able to pack up and leave ahead of schedule."

Watching the south side of the building from another part of the silica-carpeted outer corridor, Sapphira lowered her magnoculars. The opaque clouds of glass hurtling through the streets below did seem to be dying down, and she could see some of the nearer buildings once more. The administratum office across the road was re-emerging from the storm, although it had suffered considerably worse than the hospital or the cathedral. The roof was now just fishbone rafters, and the glass storms had abraded the carvings and reliefs above its doors into dull blurs.

She saw movement (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sano2wGHeNU) inside the broken shell of the office. Figures swathed in flak-coats, balaclavas and sand goggles were clambering amongst the ruins. They looked like the observer Vizkop had glimpsed earlier, but these ones were clearly armed: lasguns, chainswords, a breaching hammer - Sapphira even spotted bandoliers of grenades and what looked like a plasma gun. Oh shit.

"We have company." she warned.

A black dart shot from one of the office's ground floor windows, drawing a fizzing trail of white sparks. A mistake, Sapphira thought incongruously, You open fire with small arms first, to hide where the heavy weapons are shooting from. An eyeblink later, the missile struck the southern wall of the hospital with a shuddering impact, blasting out a shower of plaster and brickwork. The dust and smoke from the explosion were instantly whipped away by the storm, and then the figures in the ruins were up and moving towards their newly-created breach.


+ + + + + +

"What the bloody hell was that?" Kelly asked, dropping her clipboard and reaching for her sidearm as she rose from her chair with a jerk.

Arcolin blinked rapidly, and when he looked up at Kelly and the others he was smiling, almost apologetically. "You should have shot that observer when you had the chance. You didn't think I was out here alone, did you?"

"Missile impact on the ground floor south side." Crenshaw reported sharply through the vox. "I estimate twelve armed hostiles advancing."

"Another dozen approaching the main doors." Glabrio's voice answered.

"Clear west side for now." Marc interjected. "Ella and me are on our way down to you."

"We are going to need more." Crenshaw opined clinically. "Vizkop, Kally, I strongly recommend that you get over here right now."

"Go." Kelly urged. "I'll watch him. Alley..." She hesitated, turning to their returned comrade. "You stay here with me."

Alicia opened her mouth to protest. "I can..."

"It'd be best if you stay." Kelly repeated firmly.

Alicia twisted her mouth as she drew and cocked her oversized pistol, aiming it squarely at the impassive Arcolin. "Alright."

[Jarms48]

"Alright," Glabrio began as he rapidly made a turn down the stair. "This is what we're going to do, the culties are going to be in for a fukking surprise as they come running through the front door. We didn't take to disarming those nail bombs, either they'll think we had, or Arcolin never told em'. Boom."

Glabrio punctuated the explosion with his hands.

"That'll slow them down, might put them into disarray, at worst send them scurrying for cover. They'll be hard pressed to find some, as you're aware, the old shops have their shutters closed and the furniture around the reception hall has, thankfully for us, been removed. That leaves them with the old marble reception desks, allowing us to take advantage of this and prepare our own firing lanes from above. We take position along the mezzanine or stair, the latter giving us an avenue of escape and allowing us to make a fighting retreat. You can be the judge of that."

"The mezzanine will allow us to get the drop on them, if we hold back, stay prone and then let them come to us. Then we pounce." Answered Josiah.

"Word from on-high suggest we got about a dozen soft, little culties coming at us." He pointed a finger to towards the roof, gesturing for the rest of the team. "I bet they won't expect to be running headlong into a pair of hard bastards like ourselves, armed to the teeth and armoured in full-body carapace."

Glabrio rose a hand, counted his fingers as they made their way down to reception. A quick equipment check. They stopped as they reached the mezzanine, they took position along the rear wall and laid down low, waiting. It was quiet, save for the wind rushing about the ceiling above them. The silence was broken as the window shattered, the dust and sand kicked, showing the traces of las-fire. Bolts impacted the rear walls below in a fusillade. Shadows crept across the sand struck floor, followed by muffled voices and footsteps. Three cultists, covered glass-storm survival gear and armed with assorted las-weapons, broke the threshold their weapons swept from left to right. Their movements, full of caution and nervousness, their green nature evident.

The lead cultist hit the wire, he stopped, glanced down and realised his mistake. His mouth parted, trying to telegraph the danger, but to no avail. The nail-bombs detonated, releasing their shrapnel. The lead cultist was thrown back, his form a sick mess of burnt flesh and cloth, muscle torn apart by heavy-duty nails. The other two weren't as lucky, flechette left them bloodied and mortally wounded, but alive. Screaming, their weapons fallen to their sides, and their hands clutched to their wounds. Behind them their peers shouted and swore, before a pair of metallic objects bounced off the reception floor and detonated, filling the room with grey-white smoke.

Glabrio could hear running, the footfalls of several cultists, and the comforting whispers as they dragged their comrades back outside, and out of the line of fire. Glabrio turned to Josiah and nodded. The investigator stood up, primed a pair of frag grenades, and stepped closer to the railings.

"Oi! Culties! You've walked away from the light of the Emperor, accepted the powers of the ruinous gods, thus I, as a protector of Imperial values and law, have sentenced you to die." Announced Glabrio.

He let loose with his grenades, and tossed them blindly into the smoke. Josiah rushed to the opposite end of the mezzaine and started laying down fire. Another pair of screams answered them, before falling silent. The smoke began to clear, the culties found their targets and sprayed them with las-bolts. Glabrio ducked low, grasped for his, borrowed, suppression shield. Las-blasts bracketed the plasteel, the metal discharging electricity as its electro-shock unit worked. Glabrio unholstered one of his sidearms, his hand held around the side of his protective shield, only providing the cultists the smallest of targets, and fired.

Josiah flipped his autorifle to full-auto, his auto rounds found their mark and dropped a pair of cultist who's attention was focused on the ex-arbiter. Josiah crouched behind his suppression shield, slapped his rifles ejector and let the spent mag fall to the floor. He reached into his webbing and slammed a fresh one home. The arbiter reached for his vox unit.

"Team, Josiah. We've engaged hostiles in reception hall, seven contacts down." Reported Josiah. His eyes caught a glint of metal in the air, before landing on the floor near Glabrio.

"Grenade!" Called Josiah.

Glabrio's training took hold, he turned about, placed the shield between him and the grenade. It detonated, sending him back and to the floor. Winded and groaning, but unhurt. Glabrio sighed, and slowly brought himself back to his feet. They're going to pay for that.

[Azazeal849]

Winded and groaning but unhurt, Glabrio sighed and slowly began to bring himself back to his feet. They're going to pay for that.

An arbiter’s sixth sense tingled through the back of his neck, and he turned to see a figure loomed behind him. Somehow, one of the cultists had made his way up the stairs to the mezzanine level. He was wielding a wrecker servitor’s impact hammer in both hands, and what little Glabrio could see of his face beneath the rebreather and sand-goggles was twisted with hate. Glabrio had a bare split second to haul his shield around and brace before the heavy piston swung down and discharged its pneumatic force into the centre of the borrowed weapon. The shock generator crumpled in a blow-out of sparks, and the residual energy of the impact was sufficient to crush the shield back against Glabrio, and send the investigator himself reeling back against the balcony balustrade.

A lasbeam cracked off the marble, bursting a fist-sized chunk out of the stone mere inches from Glabrio’s elbow. The ex-arbiter wondered vaguely what Crenshaw would think of him damaging his borrowed suppression shield, as he shoved the weapon forward to clear space for his pistol, and received another bone-jarring blow from the impact hammer in response. A lasbeam hit the carapace plate covering his back, battering him back in the opposite direction. Lasguns and solid sluggers were banging off from seemingly every direction.

Cursing, Glabrio dropped to one knee, angling his shield over him and hooking his pistol hand out to fire. The cultist was already swinging for him, but at the last second Glabrio saw him flinch and screw his eyes shut, a muffled cry of pain filtering through his rebreather. His impact hammer fell wide and pulverised the balcony floor. A moment after that, a large-calibre bullet struck the back of the man’s head. The front of his skull burst outwards and went flying over Glabrio. The grisly missiles sent flecks of blood and grey matter showering over the investigator, and only the glass of the cultist’s goggles stopped his eyeballs from doing the same.

As the body sprawled over Glabrio and rolled limply aside, the investigator saw a second cultist lying dead further down the mezzanine, with two familiar figures behind. Marc was leaping over the body to get to him, Kadath’s oversized autopistol still in his hand, while Ella was dropping the arm she had thrust out towards the cultist. She was panting from the run through the hospital, and inquisitor Suffolk’s force gladius was raining sparks from her other hand. Both of them were without their enviro-suit helmets, and sweat had plastered their hair to their foreheads.

“We need to move.” Marc advised, as he dropped the empty magazine out of the big Tallarn auto and slid in a fresh one. The pistol banged furiously as he fired it over the balcony at the cultists below, and Glabrio added his own shots to the suppressing fire. Marc jerked his head towards the decapitated cultist. “Those two weren’t the only ones behind you. Bastards are crawling all over the ground floor.”

Glabrio looked around for Josiah, and saw that the arbiter had dragged himself away from the balcony, where he was now grunting in pain. He had one hand clasped to his leg and the other to the side of his neck, and both of his gloves were sticky with blood that had leaked out through punctures in his flakweave undersuit. The arbiter had evidently taken more damage from the cultists’ grenade than Glabrio himself.

“Can you get up?” Ella sked Josiah urgently. The astropath’s lips were drawn tight from the stinging psychic violence pulsing through the air around her.

Josiah nodded. “If the Emperor requires it.” he growled through clenched teeth, and allowed Ella to clasp his bloody hand and haul him to his feet.


+ + + + + +

Looking south through the clearing dust storm, Sapphira could see that the promised Nebula attack was beginning. Smoke was rising from the buildings at the far edge of the city, and CAS aircraft were buzzing around them like angry wasps, the distance softening their engine roar to a dull rumble. Some sort of gunship was throwing out smoking darts, missiles thumping from the launchers in its wings.

Submunitions sprayed through the air and erupted the line of buildings on the horizon, the thunderclap of the impact reaching the hospital a second later. The distant buildings went down one after the other, crumbling as if they had been made of spun sugar. The roof of a burning water reclamation plant caved in, and the flames within greedily sucked in oxygen, gusting a fireball thirty metres into the sky.

"Do not get too close to the windows." Crenshaw advised. "The heretic with the missile launcher and his friends are still down there."

No sooner had he said it, a las weapon raked the glass wall ahead of them, blowing out the panes one after the other. Whether Arcolin's cultists below had seen them or not, breaking through to assist their team-mates had just become somewhat more problematic.


+ + + + + +

Marc led the group, Kadath's pistol braced over his other wrist, which was turned with the screen of his vambrace auspex towards his face. His drone was still up and showing the west side of the hospital as clear, but his motion tracker was alive with contacts: moving dots that pulsed like a frightened heartbeat.

He pulled up short and signalled to the others, holding up a flat palm and then two fingers. He and Glabrio flattened themselves against opposite sides of the corridor, while the limping Josiah raised a pistol in the hand that wasn’t clamped against his neck. A few seconds later, a pair of storm-coated cultists came barging through the ward doors ahead, and half a second after that they both went down in a bracketing hail of fire.

Marc cursed as his pistol slide locked forward on his final, empty magazine. He holstered the hot weapon, before running over to the dead cultists and making do with a battered machine-pistol that one of them had been carrying. He removed the oversized magazine and found that it was still full, before pushing it back into the grip and chambering the first round. Beside him Ella was turning a circle, one of her crystal-fronted Tarot cards held out in front of her. Marc caught a brief impression of tiered seating and a pillar of light on the glowing face.

"They're on their way." Ella reported, breathing shallowly as she returned the card to her pocket.

"Who, the others?"

"No, Machairi. The Astronomican card, for hope. She's on her way."

Marc nodded. The long-range vox was still lousy with interference, thanks to the storm – and quite possibly to Nebula jamming as they began their attack on the city – but he trusted Ella’s readings. He turned to Glabrio.

"Get to the roof, switch on the homing beacon and throw up a couple of flares so Machairi knows what to aim for. I'll round up the others."

"What about Carson?" Josiah asked, as he slumped against the wall to take the weight off his bleeding leg. "Sapphira left him locked up downstairs. He's my prisoner."

"Frak Carson." Marc opined. Josiah was hardly a friend, but he was against letting anyone else risk their lives to retrieve that piece of underhive sump-shit. "If we can't drag him out then Prinzel can trigger his collar as soon as we're clear."

Josiah's broad features twitched. "I will admit, I can't see any violation of Imperial law in that course of action.”

Marc nodded agreement and turned on his heel. Leaving the others to fall back upstairs, he pounded on through the derelict ward, listening to the screech of lasfire and the heavy thump of explosions that now seemed to be coming from every direction.

"Kally," he snapped into his vox, "There's too many angles to cover - we're falling back upstairs. Machairi's on her way. Where are you?"

Kally was with Vizkop in the south fire-escape stairwell, and her current thought was shitting hell! as an honest-to-gods plasma gun blew the landing above her into superheated dust. Half the ceiling came down in a welter of plasterboard and light fittings, crashing into both Kally and Vizkop. Forced to one knee as a piece of rebar thumped painfully against her helmet and shoulder plate, Kally saw cultists coming up the stairs. The plasma gunner was not immediately in evidence, though three others were pushing up the stairs behind what looked like a battered arbites tower shield, although the ceramite Aquila on the front had been chipped away by gunfire, and struck through with a crude spray-painted X. The refractor field within the Aquila seemed to have shorted out long ago, possibly as a result of the cultists' own overly-eager desecration, but behind the shield Kally could hear the ugly roar of a chainsword, and she liked that a lot less.

Still kneeling, she groped for a grenade with her numb left hand. With her right she fired a one-handed burst into the edges of the cultist's shield, hoping to torque it hard enough to knock the carrier's arm to one side and open him up to a second volley. Her wrist quickly protested the decision as it took all of the bolter's considerable recoil, and bolt rockets blitzed into the shield and into the wall beside. The cultist staggered slightly, but the two behind him opened up with lasguns, firing at Vizkop as he strafed across the landing to get a clear shot with his Salusian revolver. Neat las-holes through Vizkop's mechanicus robe crisped away into larger marks as the armour beneath absorbed and reflected the energy, and his helmet visor briefly fizzed with static as a red beam screeched off the side of his helmet. Then Kally had no more time to worry about Vizkop and the two shooters as the first cultist drove up into her. The eroded Aquila at the centre of the shield punched towards her, and then a throaty roar filled the universe as the chainsword came hacking in from her left.


+ + + + + +

“We’re leaving.” Kelly said brusquely as she dropped her finger from the vox bead in her ear. She gathered up her dataslate and slotted it into the breast pocket of her enviro-suit. As if to punctuate the statement, the harsh white bulbs which lit up the operating theatre flickered.

Alicia, who was standing near the whirring promethium generator, looked uncertainly over at the prisoner whom the generator was keeping alive. “What about him?”

The lights flickered again, and gunfire echoed up from somewhere below them. Arcolin was slumped motionless in his chair, his head dropped forward against his chest and the generator’s steel-jacketed cables trailing from his sternum interface ports.

“We sedate him.” Kelly replied, nodding towards the needles of kalma that Sapphira had left on the operating table for their use. “Then I’ll put his battery back in.”

A heavy explosion, another missile impact perhaps, struck the hospital and vibrated the floor. The lights began to strobe. Kelly heard Arcolin mumble something.

“Say what?” she asked, pausing with her hand hovering above the row of hypodermic needles. Arcolin mumbled again, without raising his head. It was only then that Kelly realised that he was repeating some kind of chant. A cold jolt shot through her stomach, and she made to drop her hand to her hip and claw out her laspistol.

Her hand wouldn’t move, and neither would anything else.

The lights went out.


+ + + + + +

Tomas felt it as a prickle across his skin and down the back of his neck. Gavin must have felt something much worse, because the psyker threw back his head and screamed, before his bionic legs gave out under him with a crunch, and he collapsed to the floor.

“Gavin?” the team’s commander snapped urgently, dropping to a knee beside the stricken psyker. He had a horrible suspicion that he knew what had caused the disturbance. He had had the misfortune to feel a similar sensation once before in lady Machairi’s employ. His pulse began to pound as Gavin looked up at him with saucer-wide eyes and confirmed his worst fear.

“Warp-spawn, agent Tomas Prinzel!” Gavin gasped. One hand was stabbing at the null halo around his neck in a desperate attempt to shut out the psychic intrusion, while the nails of the other had raked bloody welts into his bald scalp. “Warp-spawn!”

Tomas hauled the scrawny psyker to his feet, and ignited his Casterian power sword with a snap-hiss of charging energy fields. Changing direction, he barged through the rusted double-doors on his left and sprinted down the corridor that led to Arcolin’s makeshift holding cell.

When he got there the heretic was gone. The unlocked cuffs hung limply from the bolted-down holding chair, and the generator power cables had scattered across the floor, recoiling like wounded snakes. The generator itself had been half overturned against the wall, and sported a smoking hole in its front. Promethium fuel was leaking out of the now-silent engine.

Alicia was pinned beneath the generator, cursing violently as she braced her arms and tried to push the crushing weight off her. Leaping over the overturned operating table and crunching through its scattered contents, Tomas put his back against the wall and his booted foot on the hard metal of the generator. Combining their strength, he and Alicia were able to send the engine tilting over and then crashing to the floor.

"He started chanting something,” Alicia explained at machine-gun pace as she staggered free. Her expression was one of shocked horror. “Before we could stop him, there was this flash..."

“In there!” someone shouted in gutter Baraspine, and then Tomas’ senses were assaulted by a cataclysmic bang and a flash of fire and smoke. A whole squad of cultists came bursting into the entrance corridor in the wake of the grenades.


+ + + + + +

Ella ran, groping her hand along the wall for support, trying to follow the bright imprints of Marc’s footsteps as the whole corridor throbbed red around her. Her lungs were burning, and her breath was raw in her throat. She was afraid – not of the violent aura that now saturated the hospital, but for her friend. Marc wasn’t going to round up the rest of the team, at least not as his first priority. The flash of murder red through his aura as he said it had betrayed that lie. He was going back for Arcolin before the cultists found him.

She shouldered through a door, following Marc’s psychic tracks into the ward-room beyond, and immediately lost sight of them amid the splintering black and purple that wriggled across her warp-sight like snakes through oil. It radiated through the walls and coiled through the rusted bed frames, pulsing like a heartbeat. She staggered to the side, and thumped her leg against a bedside cabinet that had disappeared from her warp sight. The little gasp of pain died in her throat as she realised that someone else was in the room with her.

It was Kelly Black, but it was not just Kelly Black. Something else was hovering behind her friend’s distinctive golden aura, piercing it with white thunderbolts of panic and distress. The Other was a swirl of indistinct auras; vaguely man-shaped, but made up of dozens of lesser souls that were at once both more and less than human. It dominoed through them, each one different, but all of them a beautiful, terrible blue. It was more horrifying even than staring directly into the black voids that made up Kally and Crenshaw.

The Other had one of its clawed, amorphous hands curled around Kelly’s throat, and the other was clamped around her wrist. Ella saw it wrestle the hand upward, and it was only then that she realised that Kelly was holding the bleeding red warp image of a gun. She was too horrified to even raise Suffolk’s force gladius in defence.

The laspistol cracked, and Ella felt a volley of impacts punch her in the chest and stomach. Her breath left her in a coughing gasp that brought a taste of copper with it. Her warp-sight exploded bloody red as she reeled back against the door, the force sword tumbling from fingers that she could no longer feel.


+ + + + + +

The ceiling of the southwest wing had collapsed under a weight of sand blown in through the smashed windows. Exposed to the dust and damp, the floor wasn’t doing much better. It was, however, the fastest way back to the others – and to the operating theatre where Arcolin was being held.

There was no question in Marc’s mind – unless inquisitor Machairi was coming down with overwhelming firepower, they would not have the luxury of time to drag an unconscious Arcolin, never mind his generator, up to the roof and evacuate. The number of cultists swarming the hospital made him wonder if Machairi would even be here in time at all. In either scenario, the safest option – the only option – was to terminate Arcolin DeRei here and now. A dead cultist hatched no new plots, and Marc would be dead himself before he allowed one as rabidly dangerous as Arcolin to be rescued by his mad Tzeentchian allies.

Marc was running flat out when the door to his left swung open and smashed him in the face, poleaxing him off his feet. He landed on his back with an impact that knocked the breath out of him. Choking and spitting out blood, he looked up and saw his sister stumble through the now-open door.

“Kel!” Marc coughed in shock.

Kelly looked down at him, and there was something wrong with her eyes.

The words Marc was going to say died in his throat, and instead the air was filled with a hissing whine, which grew louder and higher in pitch as something powered and lightning-fast streaked towards the building. The missile hit the floor below them, shattering a load-bearing outer wall. The pillars around it went down like dominoes, as did the floor beneath Marc and Kelly’s feet, and then the floor below that.

[dakkagor]

"We are going to need more." Crenshaw opined clinically. "Vizkop, Kally, I strongly recommend that you get over here right now."

"Go." Kelly urged. "I'll watch him. Alley..." She hesitated, turning to their returned comrade. "You stay here with me."

Alicia opened her mouth to protest. "I can..."

"It'd be best if you stay." Kelly repeated firmly.

Alicia twisted her mouth as she drew and cocked her oversized pistol, aiming it squarely at the impassive Arcolin. "Alright."

“Moving.” Kally said into the vox before she turned to Arcolin. “Don't go anywhere Arcolin. I'm not done talking to you yet.” She spared a look for Kelly and Alacia.

“I'm on band six. If you need me back here let me know.”

She stepped out the door and immediately ran into Vizkop, who passed her her boltgun and sword.

“Never rains but it pours, right?”

“Tell me about it.”

Kally fell in next to Vizkop, and the pair began to double time it towards the stairwell. Both of them slid to a halt together and hunkered down as they heard a group of people coming up the stairs towards them.

Five. Plasma in the back, chain sword in the front. Vizkops hands flashed through a series of combat signs. Kally nodded, quietly impressed.

Cover me, and I'll clear them out. Kally signed back.

They both listened for a second, and then Vizkop shook his head, eliciting a shove from Kally.

Cover me, and then follow up. Vizkop signed. Kally shook her head vigorously.

The two stared each other down, then Kally held up her fist. Vizkop mirrored the motion.

One.

Two.

Three.

Rock signed Kally, Paper signed Vizkop.

Frack you!

Before either agent acted, an blast of white fire cut through the air and carved through the ceiling above them. Both of the agents threw themselves to the ground out of reflex as hot plaster rained down on them, before they clambered back to their knees, the cultists below warned by some sixth sense that the agents had been waiting in ambush for them.


Still kneeling, she groped for a grenade with her numb left hand. With her right she fired a one-handed burst into the edges of the cultist's shield, hoping to torque it hard enough to knock the carrier's arm to one side and open him up to a second volley, while yelling for Vizkop to move. Her wrist quickly protested the decision as it took all of the bolter's considerable recoil, and bolt rockets blitzed into the shield and into the wall beside. The cultist staggered slightly, but the two behind him opened up with lasguns, firing at Vizkop as he strafed across the landing to get a clear shot with his Salusian revolver. Neat las-holes through Vizkop's mechanicus robe crisped away into larger marks as the armour beneath absorbed and reflected the energy, and his helmet visor briefly fizzed with static as a red beam screeched off the side of his helmet. Kally saw one of the cultists thrown back against the wall to slide down it with a red streak, and the two at the rear of the pack broke of to pursue the assassin as he dived into a set of operating theatres. Then Kally had no more time to worry about Vizkop and the two shooters as the first cultist drove up into her. The eroded Aquila at the centre of the shield punched towards her, and then a throaty roar filled the universe as the chainsword came hacking in from her left.

Kally backed up two steps, and felt the chainsword glance from her carapace chestplate anyway, nearly dragging her to the floor as the chain bit and tore through the ceramite weave. She drew her sabre and thumbed the activation rune before the second strike and met it with a parry, her boltgun discarded on the floor in her hurry to get something between her and the roaring melee weapon.

Watch your fingers

She caught the next blow, and the next, the chainsword bouncing away each time in a shower of sparks as its diamond hard teeth met the powerfield. Each time, Kally lashed out with her sword, but the riot shield was an impenetrable wall that the cultist was using with some skill. She knew she could eventually hack her way through and destroy it, and then the man behind, but that would take time she did not have. She needed to change the dynamics of the fight before she lost it.

She met the next blow and held the parry, stepping into it and twisting her sabre two handed. There was a shriek as the beyond razor sharp edge of her blade sheared into the whirring teeth of the chainsword, and defanged it, stripping the teeth in a hail of sparks and white hot shrapnel. The cultist pulled the blade away and slammed her with the riot shield, knocking Kally onto her arse. Over her suddenly lowered head a spray of lasbolts punched holes in the brickwork beside and behind her.

She scrambled to her feet and the chainsword, now a whirring, smoking red hot club, swung down for her. She cut the top of the blade off, and the sword finally catastrophically failed, a pair of battered chains exploding from their casing. Kally raised her left arm in reflexive defence as they lashed for her face, and felt the chains wrap into and bite through her armour. The cultist immediately changed tack, pulling her in with his improvised whip and lashing out with the shield simultaneously. Kally stumbled into the blow and felt her left shoulder wrench, causing her to cry out in pain. She shoved back, and the fight dissolved into a brawl. She could vaguely hear the other cultists yelling for their friend to get clear so they could take a shot, and somewhere below and two her left she could hear Vizkop firing his distinctive pistols. With a yell, she pushed the cultist back and over the rail.

She had a moment to realise how bad an idea that was before the chain wrapped around her arm dragged her off the landing and after the cultist as he fell.


+++++

Tomas spun and held up his shield, screwing his eyes shut as the flash bang went off in a searing flash of light. He was practically deaf as he lowered the shield and saw a half dozen cultists sweep into the room, all faceless behind balaclavas and sand goggles, and level their rifles. A firing squad. He gritted his teeth and hunkered down, covering Alicia out of instinct and preparing for death. Even with his shield, there was enough firepower to put him down for good. He tensed, preparing to charge into the fusillade and take at least one of the bastards down with him.

Before the cultists could fire, there was a pulse of overpressure and a flash of blinding white. Tomas thought for a second they had been hit by a lightning strike from the raging storm, but as he refocused on the cultists he watched living tendrils of energy crackle over their gear, lasguns malfunctioning as power bled away and magazines dropped from autorifles. Above him, the light bulbs flared to brilliant life one final time before detonating in a shower of glass.

Gavin. Thank the Throne for Gavin.

Tomas charged with a roar. Before the first cultist could recover, he swung his sword down in an overhead cut that tore through crude metal armour and into a shoulder. He kicked the cultist clean off his blade and slashed out again in a wide sideways cut, his broadsword meeting a stunned cultist's head and smashing it like a overripe ploin. The others had rallied, dropping their disabled rifles and pulling knives and axes. The first one came at Tomas with a wild overhead swing, and Tomas met his chest with his shield, the blast from the field discharging slamming the man back and through a wall, his ragged robes on fire. The next two circled and struck together, and Tomas turned his shoulder into one blow, letting the armour soak it while parrying the other with his shield. He stabbed out with his sword, and impaled the cultist coming for his front, and pulling the blade clear reversed it, swinging in a low cut that took out a leg and dropped the cultist screaming to the floor. The final one standing threw himself bodily at Tomas, slamming into the shield and nearly bowling him over. Tomas redirected the bull rush, flipping the man to the floor before driving his sword into the cultists side. As Tomas stood and brought his boot down on the last screaming cultist's neck, he saw Gavin standing in the doorway, and watched him wince slightly as the bastard's neck snapped.

“Good job, Gavin. Wouldn’t have survived that without. . . whatever you did.”

“Not bad yourself, Agent Prinzel.” muttered Alicia, still recovering from whatever had happened in here. He shrugged, and regretted the motion immediately. He could feel a wet warmness spreading from his shoulder. It wasn't a deep wound, the armour had seen to that, but a gash had been opened in his armour and his flesh.

“Where is Arcolin?” Tomas demanded, watching Gavin totter into the room on his mechanical legs. “And for that matter, where is Kelly Black?” He strode over to Alicia and pulled her to her feet, and gave her a once over. She looked fine to his eyes, but she still seemed slightly off balance mentally; possibly a mild concussion or shock, or perhaps...

“Arcolin...he summoned something.” Alicia shook her head. "The lights went out so I didn't see it...but it tore the room apart."

Warp Shock. Tomas had seen it before, seen it unbalance the hardest of soldiers. Watching reality melt and run like cheap wax could tear at the mind in a way no conventional horror could. He turned to Gavin as the frail psyker put himself in the half-destroyed chair, and remembered how he had responded to the feeling of gooseflesh and horrible disquiet in the corridor.

“Daemon.” Tomas hissed through gritted teeth.

Alicia shook her head again as she groped around the floor to retrieve her oversized handgun. "A daemonhost. He couldn't summon it down here without a body to put it in. There's no background warp energy, no foci laid out." She looked at Tomas earnestly. "If he's made himself into a vessel then he just became exponentially more dangerous. I lost track of Kelly in the dark, but..." She shook her head once more, lips pursed. "I wouldn't hold out hope."

“You and I need to have a long talk about what you do and don't know, Agent Alicia Tarran. And don't rule out Kelly just yet. She's tougher than she looks” He raised an eyebrow as he saw Gavin lower himself with a pneumatic wheeze into the chair left miraculously untouched in the maelstrom.

“Gavin, we don't have time for you to sit down. We need to get after the thing wearing Arcolin like a greatcoat and kill it.”

"That is exactly what I plan to do, agent Tomas Prinzel." Gavin rasped. His face was pinched tight, but determined. "There are old cables still running through most of the hospital. I will project through them and find the warp-spawn."

He nodded. “I'll keep these frackers off you. Do what you came here to do. Alicia, get after Arcolin, and terminate him! Go!"

The former Nebula acknowledged the order with an emphatic nod, racked the slide on Pretentious Bitch and drew a second pistol from the thigh holster under her skirts with her off hand.

Tomas now had an objective, and a plan. He hauled several destroyed bits of furniture to the door and piled them up, watching Alicia set of at a soldier's practised jog. Once his crude barricade was set, he policed a rifle from the floor, a heavy Armageddon pattern autogun, and reloaded it, checking the action and piling up a small stack of spare magazines. It seemed to be in mechanical order, and he knew that a man with a rifle, and an iron will, could turn a room into a fortress.

“Emperor watch over you, Gavin.” he muttered as he hugged the barricade, listening to a wave of booted feet making their way towards him from down the corridor. “Emperor watch over us all.”

+++++

Kally had managed to grab the railing by dropping her sabre. The cultist had grimly hung onto his smashed chainsword, and the sudden heavy weight had popped her left shoulder clean out of its socket with a hot spike of agony. She cursed Strelilov for the millionth time, and applied her boot to the cultists masked face. On the third kick he finally let go of the sword and fell, crashing into the railings as he plunged screaming down the stairwell to land in a bloody, broken heap below.

Above her, a pair of the bastards levelled guns at her head and fingers.

With a grunt, she swung onto the landing below, landing and rolling to send a fresh spike of raw pain through her shoulder, lasbolts cutting the air where she had been. She drew a las pistol into her right hand before slamming her left arm into a wall, brutally popping the limb back into place with a nausea inducing crunching sound.

"Sapphira's going to fracking kill me for that."

She drew her other pistol and fired them both at full auto. Three bolts exploded across the armour on her chest even as she fired and backed up into a corridor, but one of the cultists plunged over the rail, riddled with shots. She heard movement behind her, and spun to see another pair of cultists running down the corridor. She had completely lost track of Vizkop in the brawl, but she thought she could hear a firefight running a floor or two below her. She levelled both pistols and fired, catching one and dropping him, and forcing the other to duck into an office. Las rifle fire tore down from the landing and into the corridors entrance, and Kally ducked deeper in for more cover.

+++++

He would have killed for Gavin to pull the same trick as before, and disable the cultists guns, but he was stuck doing it the old fashioned way. He'd give his good eye for a few members of his old fire team, but he was alone. And he'd probably give up his original lung for one of the current team to cover him, but they all seemed to be engaged elsewhere.

The rifle kicked against his shoulder, hard, and he gritted his teeth as he kept firing down range, suppressing the cultists at the far end of the corridor and preventing them from advancing. His right shoulder was now numb, and he knew logically that he had lost a fair amount of blood. One of the attackers got overconfident, stepping clear of cover, fumbling with his webbing. Tomas plugged a neat set of rounds into his chest and ducked back as bullets whined over his crude defences.

He watched warily as the cultists backed off. Circling round? This room only had one way in or out, but he remembered the team reporting that the bastards had breaching hammers in their arsenal. If this fight was about to go mobile, he would need to sort his shoulder, and then see about moving Gavin. And something else. There was no way he could push deeper into the building now, and get to and retrieve Merle. And with so many attackers, the scum was a rogue variable, too dangerous to let live.

He reached into his webbing, and pulled out the . . . Tomas frowned, and looked down at his chest.

Nothing! His gloved fingers pushed through a slashed hole in the pouch. He frantically scanned the blood covered floor until he saw it, and dropped to his knees to grab it up.

The detonator for Merle's collar was gutted, cut open by a blow from some weapon and its vital circuits torn out. Tomas wasn't a techpriest, but he knew that the detonators machine spirit was a casualty. It had been designed to be fail-safe rather than fail-deadly, which meant that Merle, though he had no way of knowing, was off the leash.

Tomas couldn't help but bitterly laugh at the irony. The Detonator had certainly soaked a hit meant for him. Merle Carson had saved Tomas life, and in the process, stayed his own execution.

In the chair behind him Gavin let out a hissing breath, his features drawn taut and his hands clawed around the chair arms.

Tomas frowned. If Gavin had a chance to defeat this daemon, he had to let the psyker take the shot at it. He walked over to the gaunt, frail man and sheathed his sword, and drew a laspistol from a holster.

Tomas would give Gavin his chance. But he wouldn't hesitate to save him if he went wrong.

+++++

Gavin had not fought Malfallax on Saros Station. He had been in the Telepathica eyrie with Kelly, sending a desperate message to the secret chapter house on nearby Titan. Gavin still remembered the raw, awesome power of the Grey Knight prognosticar flooding back through him, tears running down his face at its painful purity even as his larynx nearly ruptured trying to emulate the Grey Knight's voice. He wondered if the dark mirror of daemonic possession approached the same kind of pain, and if so he hoped that Arcolin DeRei was feeling every iota of it.

The Grey Knight who had burned Gavin's mind had been a bastion of purpose - proud in his power, unafraid of it and unshunned; bolstered by faith and the psychic might of others like him, who saw him as a brother and not just a dangerously unreliable tool. He had been a defiant voice howling his challenge into the warp, instead of shrinking and hiding from what he knew lurked within it. The Grey Knights were everything that Gavin Jenkins would not and could not ever be. He remembered weeping as the connection was broken, falling into the arms of Kelly Black as his mechanical legs folded in response to the spasm from his misfiring nervous system. Kelly Black - she had caught him and tried to help him, and had done the same not an hour later when he had unleashed himself upon the Gnosis Guard and dared her to shoot him dead. Agent Prinzel thought that Kelly was still alive. Inasmuch as Gavin prayed for anything, he prayed that his team leader was right - even more than he prayed for the strength to strike Arcolin's daemon-infested body down. Gavin would never be a Grey Knight, but he would fight for one of the few people who had treated him kindly, and against the monster that had caused them so much grief. Even if that monster was now the living puppet of a power that no sane person could comprehend.

Gavin's mind bolted through dismantled detectors and long-abandoned cable runs, speeding past Alicia as he frizzoned through the arterial corridors. As the metallic aura of perfectly machined weapons in perfectly steady hands fell away behind him, he began to sense the faint, sickly spoor of the daemon growing stronger ahead of him. It wasn't immediate and savage, a rending of the materium like he had felt before - it was the foetid trail left by recent passage; dull and ominous. He was getting closer. The empty ward ahead of him was throbbing darkly.

Gavin arced into a lasgun lying next to a slain cultist, draining the weapon's battery in the process, and then on into the damaged enviro-suit slumped near the door. He realised a split-second later that the suit's occupant was still alive, their bio-electric thoughts firing in sporadic seizures as they fought not to sink into final oblivion. It was one of Gavin's team mates. It was Ella Seren.

Gavin's scrawny physical muscles clenched tight as his mind flitted across damaged cooling coils and las-scorched armourweave. There were no cultists left alive on this level of the hospital - Gavin would have sensed their murderous minds if there were. Only the daemon could have done this. It was close. Gavin zagged through the suit's still-intact comms system, setting the built-in distress beacon shrilling as he passed. Alicia was close behind him; she could help Ella where Gavin himself could not.

Where did you go? Gavin all but snarled. You murdering warp-tainted bastard, where did you go?

He frizzoned back, feeling another feeble pulse of bio-electricity from Ella's wounded mind. Gavin held back fearfully. His psychic affinity for machine spirits was part aptitude and part preference - electronic systems spoke to him in simple, cold binary, and even the semi-aware ghosts of the mechanicus' better creations didn't carry the hidden apathy, revulsion and suspicion of almost every human brainwave he'd ever scanned. But more tellingly, he knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of a more powerful psyker's mind probe. The idea of subjecting the unconscious and wounded Ella to such an intensely invasive experience made him almost sick with disgust.

But I need to know where he is.

He looked down at the scattered, misfiring signals coming out of Ella's open, vulnerable mind, and felt his skin crawl with self-loathing. It crawled again, this time from the inside, as he caught hold of the mental impulses and eased himself down inside Ella's head like a burrowing parasite.

"I need you to be brave, okay?" said a woman with dirty-blonde hair and prematurely lined skin. "Can you do that for me?"

"Mum, I don't want to go!" the little girl still clinging to her skirts sobbed. "Please don't make me, please!"

She was frightened. She didn't want to follow the scary, blank-faced man to the cargo-8 parked in front of the doors. Outside, the landing party from the Black Ships were aggressively cordoning off the holding complex, pushing back the gangs of robed hivers who were hurling stones, bottles and abuse.

The woman knelt and pulled the little girl into a hug. There were tears in her eyes, which only frightened the little girl more.

"I'm sorry, Ella." the woman said, her voice cracking. "I'm so sorry. We don't have a choice. You have to-"

"-make it to the comms spire and send a distress call."

Commissar Schenke's words were calm and matter-of-fact, which was mirrored by the steady amber glow of the man-shape that formed his presence on Ella's warp vision. It was almost as if they hadn't just been through a furious, blitzing firefight with the pirates storming the Greed's Reward.

"Father Bicktus told us not to." sister Rose protested. "As soon as they detect an astro they'll blast the ship apart and make their escape."

"Not while their own men are still aboard." Schenke argued. "Like Janie said, those boarding torpedoes were one way. They'll need an extraction, and the only place they can land one is this hanger bay. We hold it and buy time."

"Um...Schenke?" ventured the small, spiky avatar standing behind the commissar. The quills that topped the young mutant's head rattled nervously, and she still didn't seem comfortable standing without Schenke at least partially between her and the two Sisters escorting Ella. "How are they going to find the comms spire?"

"Shireen knows the way, Janie."

Janie's avatar glanced back to somewhere beyond the range of Ella's warp-sight bubble and flickered doubtfully. Ella heard the mutant scoff.

"Good luck to you, Blondie."

"Would you rather we kept her here to fight the pirates?" Schenke countered. "Besides, you've already proved that you can fight for two."

Janie stood a little straighter, and her avatar momentarily flared purple.

"So," sister Rose put in sternly, "The only question is what-"

"-is that for?" Ella asked, as she looked at the burning twist of cloth that Simeon had scavenged from somewhere around the psyker hold. Apparently he could make fire with his hands, although with the heavy band of a psychic inhibitor clamped around his head, he had had to make do with an ordinary match.

Simeon blinked at her. He was a sandy-haired boy of nine or ten, and he seemed less concerned than the rest of them that they were hurtling through the void towards Emperor knew where, surrounded by the thump and crash of machinery, the barked orders of Telepathica overseers, and the ever-present wailing that filtered through the sweating steel walls.

"It's your birthday, isn't it?" he said simply, grinning as he pushed the burning twist of cloth into an empty candle holder.

"Oh." said the eight-year-old Ella.

Simeon didn't know where they were going, any more than he knew that in a few weeks an inquisitor was going to read his mind, shake his head sadly, and have a Telepathica armsman escort him through into a soundproofed euthanising chamber. But he had been kind to Ella. He picked up the rusted candle holder and held the dancing flame towards her.

"On Elnaur Delta," he explained, "You blow the candle out, and they say that if you make a wish at the same time, the Emperor grants it."

It was not a superstition that Ella had ever heard of. But if the Emperor really did grant birthday wishes, she knew what she wanted: she wanted to go home.

She screwed her eyes tight shut, and blew out the candle.

Simeon laughed. "Happy-"

"-birthday, Ella."

Ella smiled shyly, and adjusted the shoulder strap of her party dress as Kelly's golden-yellow avatar sat down next to her.

"You really didn't have to do this." she said as she looked around the Mooncalf's refectory, which her team-mates must have spent the last few hours decorating.

The caged flames that made up Kelly's face shifted into a smile. "So you keep saying. Don't mind Jansen. He's just a bit drunk, that's all."

"It's okay." Ella said, nodding her understanding. "He misses his little sister. I know he does."

"I'm sorry we couldn't have all met you under better circumstances." Kelly said as she cupped her drink and rested her elbows on her knees. "Kally said you'd have fitted right in."

Ella giggled nervously. A psyker and a blank...that would have been an odd fit. Then again, as Kelly had said, it was all a matter of circumstances. Where the Tarot led, what the Emperor willed. But of course, Ella thought, if things were really that simple they could just -

- do it. Just do it. What have you got to lose?

At the front of the arched chamber, a Psykana overseer who was leading the droning, meditative chant. The novice's halls were in the deepest underground caverns beneath the City of Sight - the overseer's soporific voice should have echoed, but dampening crystals threaded through the walls stole the sound. Feeling uncomfortably hot in her starched initiate's uniform, Ella looked away from the overseer and instead stole a glance to her left. The girl sitting next to her had rich brown skin, a pretty, short-bridged nose and tightly curled hair, and she looked just as bored as Ella. She also sensed Ella's scrutiny almost immediately, which was an occupational hazard with psykers. She shot Ella a questioning glance, though not an unfriendly one.

Ella's heartbeat reached a painful crescendo, until she worried that the meditating boys and girls around her wouldn't even need their eldritch senses to hear it.

"Do you want to go for tanna after?" she blurted in a whisper. She was sure that Raeni could sense her embarrassment even in the highly unlikely scenario that it wasn't showing on her face, but to her surprise the other girl smiled.

"Yeah, alright." she whispered back, tugging at a strand of her curly hair.

"Initiate Seren!" the overseer suddenly thundered, making both girls almost jump out of their skin. The boy next to Ella flinched at the spike of psychic alarm radiating out of her.

Another occupational hazard of psykers was that their overseer was one too. Ella cringed, turning bright red, and slowly shuffled round to face the equally red-faced overseer.

"Do you think this is a joke, initiate Seren?" the overseer barked. "What do you think-"

"-of the Solomon Rookery?" Theodosia said, and her jade-green psychic avatar tilted its head questioningly.

Ella took a sip of the drink she had been offered, and coughed, which made Theodosia laugh.

"It's good." Ella said, after she had finished spluttering. "I just don't drink that often."

"Are you being this cute on purpose, kitten? Or is it all natural?"

Ella's stomach fluttered at the compliment, and she blushed in spite of herself. Theodosia laughed again, making her green soul-projection ripple prettily.

"Never turn down a free drink, Ella. And don't let any other-"

Other. The Other. She could see it tightening its formless claws around Kelly's neck, making her friend's aura flare with helpless terror. It had a gun - it had a gun and oh God Emperor!

The memory splintered into incoherence, and Gavin's probing mind was assaulted instead by a raw tide of unfiltered feeling. Most of it was pain, but there was fear in there too.

Duty. Have to help them. Have to save. Please. Duty. Du...ty...oh please please please no. Please. I don't want to die.

Gavin shuddered and withdrew in horror; jerking like a knife twisted out of a wound, still bloody with Ella's desperate thoughts. He had not spoken much to the young astropath during their time together, and if she survived he wasn't sure if he could ever face her again. Make it worth it, he told himself through gritted teeth, still tasting bile on his tongue. He fled the ward, jolting through the between-floor cable flats and leaving a trail of filthy ectoplasmic ice in his wake.

He found what he was looking for thirty seconds later - and when he saw it, he wished to the God-Emperor who had forsaken him that he hadn't. Back in the barricaded operating theatre, Gavin's corporeal body wept tears of horrified rage.

+++++

Alicia ran, sweeping her guns left and right as she made progress, covering every door and alcove. Any prediction she could make as to what Arcolin DeRei might do was rendered invalid at this point. What in the warp would a daemon do? She barged through the door of an open-plan gallery, which might have been a recovery ward until all the useful equipment was stripped out, and rolled to evade an expected fusillade of gunfire or warp lightning. None came, and as she came back up onto one knee she registered the frantic beeping from her in-ear microbead. It was the mayday tone from one of her team-mates' hazard suits. Wary of a trap, she kept her guns up as she threaded through the rusted skeletons of bedframes. She instantly dropped them when she saw who was crumpled beside one of the beds, near the opposite doors.

"Ella." she gasped, running to the petite astropath's side. She pressed down hard on the microbead in her ear. "Team..."

She hesitated, before settling for the call sign she had used back on Saros and Teleostei. That was the Alley Tarran they knew. The Alley Tarran they expected, she thought, resignedly.

"Team, Winchester One. Man down, man down. Arcolin got Ella!"

She tore her hand away from her ear as she dropped to her knees next to the motionless astropath. Ella's hazard suit was burned through with half a dozen ragged holes, and her force gladius lay beside her on the silica-dusted floor. Droplets of red had splattered down her chin and lips, and more blood stood out bright across her cheeks and neck.

"Ella? Come on kitten, give me a sign." She pinched the pale astropath's ear, hard, and her anxiety rose when she didn't get a response.

Alicia cradled the astropath's head, dipping her own to check for breathing. She felt a weak brush of air against her cheek. Alright, that was good. She laid Ella's head down flat and to the side, against her knees, so that she wouldn't choke on any more blood. Then she pulled a knife from a wrist-sheath and set to sawing open the front of Ella's hazard suit. The flak vest she wore underneath was scorched, but didn't seem to have been penetrated. Okay, that was good too. She resisted the instinctive urge to remove the armour as well and check for bruising underneath. From painful experience, she knew that the mule-kick blast of a lasbolt vaporising the outer layer of your armour was still akin to a miniature grenade going off next to your chest. The tightly-fitted armour might be the only thing holding a broken rib in place.

Ella coughed. Alicia snapped back towards the astropath's face, chiding herself for forgetting to check her airway. When you were used to team-linked Nebula suits with their own MIU diagnostics and chem-dispensers, you got rusty at the basics.

"Ella? It's okay, I've got you. Can you hear me?"

Ella's hazel eyes snapped open. The way they darted around without focus told Alicia that the trauma had robbed her of her warp sight.

"Who's..." she rasped, her voice thin and reedy.

"It's me, it's Alley."

"Alley." Ella croaked, her hands grasping blindly before finding Alicia's arm and holding on tight.

"I've got you." Alley soothed, feeling a little vulnerable at the intimate, trusting grip on her arm. "Where does it hurt most?"

Ella sucked in a weak, rattling breath. "Chest." Her mouth opened to gasp like a landed fish, revealing bloody tooth-marks on her tongue. She coughed again, spattering blood across Alicia's skirts.

"It's okay." Alicia said, as a look of sudden panic crossed the astropath's chalk-white face. "It's not from your lungs; you just bit your tongue. Listen to me. Your flak vest stopped the shots. You've got a broken rib, maybe a collapsed lung, but you're going to be fine. Just breathe."

Ella coughed again, nodded, and held on tighter to Alicia's arm.

[Atrum Daemon]

Vizkop was growing tired of faffing about with these cultists. He wanted this done so he could deliver a severe beating to Arcolin. Instincts from his youth telling him that everyone responded to pain eventually. Besides, in his current state, who on the team could stop him from quite literally kicking the shit out of worthless meatbag?

He shoved those thoughts away and refocused himself as his vision cleared. His revolver barked and decimated a head. But was burning through his rounds too fast. It was time to do what he had a guilty enjoyment of. He was in a operating theatre with two of the cultists. Two dead men. He ducked behind a row of seats and holstered his revolver. His blades slid out and the fields crackled to life. He then thought about a better idea and the blades slid back. Accessing his detail functions, he removed the strength limiters from his arms. He was feeling a little more viscous with everything that had happened.

He surged to his feet and gave a sharp whistle to the cultists. They whirled and fired, surprised shots whizzing by him as he reached forward and ripped one of the chairs from where it was bolted. He tossed it at the two men. It only clipped one as they ducked away, but the sharp cry told Vizkop that his shoulder was shattered. He shot forward to where they were hiding and tackled the one he had not hit with the chair. Metal fingers were swiftly inserted to the man's mouth at the roof and floor. With a wrench and a sickening sound along with a rush of fresh blood, he separated the man's jaws.

“And you're in a sorry state,” Vizkop said, standing and walking to the injured man. He kicked him in the side, cracking ribs. “Oh but that shoulder is the worst. Severe damage. Yes, yes, that needs to be removed immediately.”

He reached down and tore the offending arm off, spilling blood across the dirty floor. The cultist died of shock on the spot. He tossed the arm down and reengaged the limiters for his arms. “I'd count this a healthy outlet for my aggression,” Vizkop commented. “Now to the rest...”

He drew his pistol again and exited the theatre. The firefight started in earnest as he reached a lower floor and he ducked behind cover. He peeked out and fired a few rounds, each finding their mark and sending the target spinning to the floor. He was lucky he had gone downstairs as there was a ragtag strike force storming the building. In terms of firearms, he was not well equipped for the showdown he was facing. But that's where his other gear came in handy. He holstered his pistol and slid his blades into activation. He accessed his overclock enhancement and intoned a quick prayer to the Omnissiah before activating it.

Everything slowed and he whirled from his cover, shooting forward like a bow from a taught string. He weaved effortlessly through their incoming fire as he moved, his perception and reactions heightening as the world slowed around him.

'I am a blade of the Omnissiah.'

His blades stabbed through the skulls of the two cultists up front.

'I dedicate myself to war in the Omnissiah's name.'

He ripped the blades free and moved to the next, viewing the cultists reactions at half-speed. Arms holding weapons were removed before cutting one cultist open from neck to waist.

'My body has been tempered in the holy forges.'

Vizkop's body spun and his blades glided through flesh and bone with terrible ease, the assassin dancing through the airborne blood while he moved.

'I am a sword of the Omnissiah. In his name I do destroy his enemies and safeguard realms claimed in his name.'

His arms arched upward and sliced off both arms on a cultist wielding a revving chainsword.

'I will wear many faces, but call none my own. For I am a blade. Faceless I will be.'

A final twirl brought him to the other end of the assaulting cultists, helmet smoking again as he cut off his overclock. The sound of the bodies hitting the floor was incredibly satisfying as his senses returned to real-time.

'Faceless I shall be. For a blade has no need for one.'

[PaintSerf]

Spot reserved for a future post.

[Azazeal849]

WHAM. WHAM. WHAM.

The echo of something striking against unyielding steel reached Marc as he lay in the darkness, blinded and choked by brick dust. His left ankle was on fire, and something was pressing down hard on his chest. He tried to push up with his arms, and felt a slab of ward-floor decking slide away and crunch into the debris beside him. He groped for his face, trying to rub the blinding dust out of his eyes.

WHAM. WHAM. WHAM.

When he could finally see again, he saw a gaping hole in the ceiling above him, going up for at least another floor. He was half buried in rubble and bent pieces of rebar, and his carapace armour was white with a cloying layer of dust. He groped around, and his right hand found the cultist machine-pistol that he had lost in the fall. The cracked auspex screen on his left forearm was blinking a single contact in his vicinity.

WHAM. WHAM. WHAM.

Marc rolled over onto his side, bringing a flare of pain from his left ankle as the chunks of plaster and brickwork tumbled off him. A faded sign on the wall told him that he was in the morgue level - one of the sealed-off basements where bodies were stored before being rolled down to the adjoining crematorium. The banks of freezers were gone now, and the only light in the windowless gallery came through the collapsed ceiling. In the wide shaft of light, eddies of brick dust swirled in dizzy, disoriented spirals.

In the gloom that clung to the edges of the room, a wiry figure lunged furiously back and forth. Kelly's fists were wrapped around a length of broken copper pipe, which she was slamming over and over again into the chain-locked doors that barred her way out of the morgue. WHAM. WHAM. WHAM. The blood running down her temple was black in the dull light, standing out sharp against the pale brick dust that covered her face like a mask.

Marc could hear a single, high-pitched tone ringing in his ear, which he belatedly realised was coming from his microbead. He tapped runes on his cracked sleeve unit to try and find a clear channel. The team's backup frequency was awash with static. On the tertiary band, all he could hear was something like distant screaming. He cycled back and-

"...down, man down. Arcolin got Ella!"

"Alley!" he rasped into his pickup, recognising the voice. But instead of a response all he got was screeching static.

No, not Ella. She deserved so much better than to die out here at the hands of a deranged psychopath. She might still be alive, she might be okay. He wouldn't give up on her, and he wouldn't give up on Kelly, no matter what that wretched bastard had done to her.

"Alley!" he croaked once again into the fizzing vox, and this time the channel seemed to clear enough to carry his voice through.

"...chester One, s... again?" Alley's voice called back, hazy through the interference.

"Alley." Marc rasped a third time, "Marc. How's Ella, is she still alive?"

"She's stable...I've got her."

Marc's relief was short lived. WHAM. WHAM. WHAM.

"Alley." Marc coughed. His pulse was racing, setting off a painful hammer in his injured ankle, and acid was burning the pit of his stomach. "Arcolin's done something to Kelly. She attacked me and now she's trying to batter her way out of the morgue level."

There was a pause, accompanied by what sounded like a curse.

"Team, Win...er One. Be advised...host is Kelly Black, repeat, daemonhost is Kelly Bl..."

Marc's fear spiked. "Alley!" he rasped into the vox, as loudly as he dared, "Alley stop, wait!"

His only answer was a mocking cackle of static.


+ + + + + +

Kally levelled both pistols and fired, catching one and dropping him, and forcing the other to duck into an office. Las rifle fire tore down from the landing and into the corridors entrance, and Kally ducked deeper in for more cover.

She heard the hissing blast of a plasma impact, and looked up to see the office door violently ejected from its hinges on a bow-wave of green fire. Even as the fire wash sent pieces of wood and metal pinwheeling across the corridor, there was another electromagnetic whine and several more flare-bright bolts went chasing up the stairway beyond. A chain of explosions disintegrated the lower stairway, then the upper, and then the cultists shooting down from the landing. Kally saw one of the men catch fire and evaporate as he turned, in a puff of ash that ejected a burnt skull and shoulder blade down the stairs towards her. They bounced to a stop at her feet, smoking, as Merle Carson appeared at the bottom of the collapsed stairs.

He was horribly burned; his forearms seared red and the right side of his face a braised nightmare. One eye was boiled white, though Merle didn't seem to care as he casually craned his head to observe the carnage with his undamaged left eye. His mouth pinched down on a precariously dangling lho-stick as it scrunched into an appreciative frown. The plasma gun in his hands was screeching as it vented steam.

“Oh, baby!” Merle groaned with satisfaction. He let the dangerously overheated gun hang from his right fist as he took a drag. The convict reached out for his lho, oblivious to the blood and brain matter he smeared across his face. Merle’s posture sagged slightly as he exhaled a contented sigh, and suggestively raised an eyebrow at Kally through a plume of acrid smoke.

“Was it good for y’all, too?”

The convict chuckled darkly at her expression and absently knocked the ash from his lho.

“Don’ be lookin’ so surprised, sweetheart. Did y’all really think I’d be lettin’ some culto cocksucker go kill-stealin’ you from me?”

In spite of his threatening words, Merle kept his hissing plasma rifle pointed at the ground. He lazily gestured towards Kally’s bolter with his gently fuming smoke-stick.

“Now before y’all go doin’ somethin’ drastic, don’ be forgettin’ that I’m the friendliest face y’all are gonna see ‘tween here an’ the basement, or that Mr Tall Dark and Soulless is already headin’ there now.” The convict challengingly tilted his chin at Kally with a dubious expression on his brutalized face. “I mean, y’all already gott'a know your boyfriend won' be hesitatin’, even a slight li’l bit, ‘bout puttin’ down your gal-pal, right?"

Merle snorted and shot her a nasty, golden toothed grin as he brought the lho back to his lips.

"Tick tock, Kally girl. Tick tock. Missy Black’s on the death clock.”


+ + + + + +

Glabrio shouldered through the shrapnel-scarred door, and was immediately hit by a hissing blast of air and glass particles. Behind him, Josiah cursed and shielded his face.

"Come on." the investigator snapped, slinging his shotgun over his shoulder and freeing his hands to pull the homer beacon from the velcro pocket at his waist. "Get on the vox. Try and raise the Lady."

Josiah was already unpacking his long range vox set, leaving bloody handprints on the black plastic casing as he took shelter in a corner of the roof's curtain wall, in the lee of the fitful wind. Glabrio looked down at the black discus of the homing beacon.

"Machine God," he murmured to the device by way of a prayer, "I know people are seemingly lining up these days, but don't frak us." He depressed a rune to set a small green light blinking at its centre of the disc and tossed the homer to the ground, where it scraped a trail through the glass dust coating the roof.

Glabrio looked up, over the safety wall skirting the edges of the hospital roof. Without his helmet and visor, the toxin-laden air tasted foul. The gunfire downstairs had subsided to sporadic bursts, but explosions were still chaining off from the city centre, the blasts a dull thunder that came rolling over the roof wall alongside the rattling glass shards. The Nebulas' supporting aircraft were still buzzing above the flattened prefabs, now looking less like stooping hawks and more like circling carrion birds as they scanned for any remaining resistance. The buildings in the distance were roasted shells, gutted by the Nebula's savage assault.

"Let's hope this gets us the right kind of attention!" the investigator remarked as he struck a flare into life and threw the streaming pyrotechnic down next to the beacon. A red plume of smoke billowed into the sky.

"Inquisitor Machairi." Josiah was repeating into the vox, stopping every few seconds to adjust the tuning in an attempt to cut through the signal-bouncing glass clouds. "This is arbiter Wuziarch, do you read?"


+ + + + + +

The orbit to surface lander screamed as it cut down through the atmosphere, trailing white streamers of condensed air from its wingtips and tail fins. It cleared the air in front of it with a potent ident-code - an aggressive mix of inquisition cyphers and the personal sanction of subsector governor Thomas Tierce.

Inside the sleek hull, the thunder of the turbojets was reduced to a dull, shuddering roar, which allowed inquisitor Machairi to concentrate on the screen in front of her. Clad in black survival fatigues armoured with contoured carapace plates, the inquisitor's eyes were fixed on the dull green auger bars as they rolled back and forth across a greyscale map of the city below. The display lit up with white flares as the Nebula strike team made their swift and methodical firesweep through the Dead City.

"Inquisitor." her tech priest reported in a hollow monotone from the lander's cockpit. "Homing beacon detected, north west."

Machairi craned around in her seat, shifting from the auger screen to the armourglass porthole in the lander hull. The ground below them was a haze of settling glass dust, clinging to the abandoned buildings and smothering the smaller habs. The grey brick of a medicae complex jutted above the soup, with a fraying pall of red signal smoke pouring from its roof.

"Get us there." Machairi ordered coolly, "And arm the turrets."

"Compliance, inquisitor." the tech priest intoned, and there was a sizzle of building power as the lander's lascannons thrummed into life.

The lander juddered as it fell lower. The worst of the storm had passed, and they were still above the groundswell of eddies and vortices channelled by the Dead City buildings, but through the porthole Machairi could still see coarse streamers of glass scudding across the lander's wings and engines. She had ordered her tech priest to launch as soon as the weather planetside had fallen within the minimum acceptable tolerances. She had been certain that the Nebula air support descending from their frigate would wait no longer than that.

From above, it was easy to appreciate the brutal economy of the Nebula assault, as it played out like a neat simulation on the auger screen. Whatever cult cells that DeRei had been organising here on Baraspine would soon no longer be a problem. Whether these seemingly random attacks on Imperial authority figures were just distractions, was an answer that they would have to pry out of DeRei himself. This clearly wasn't over yet.

Beware the daemon at your back. Machairi reminded herself soberly.

Still, it was useful to get an impression of just how efficient the governor's life guards were in action. Machairi turned away from her sensor screen again, this time to regard the tall, regal young man who sat beside her. Trist Maxilium; the governor's hand-chosen liaison to work with her in hunting down DeRei.

Trist Maxillium was styled the Lord of Sabilis, though one would not ascribe much weight to the title just by looking at him. The man looked no older than twenty five Terran standard, with a casual mop of blonde hair and boyish blue-green eyes. His crisp white robe was pinned at the collar bone with a golden broach, and embellished by a black arrow-shaped arm guard that covered the man's left arm from shoulder to elbow. It lent the ensemble a vaguely martial look, the kind favoured by young hive nobles who tried to add gravitas to their standing by imitating the uniforms of real soldiers.

The instant impression was that of a young fop, and Machairi knew that it was entirely deliberate. The man's guileless blue-green eyes missed very little of what was going on around him, and almost imperceptible lines around his jaw gave away the fact that he had undergone significant juvenat surgery - possibly augmetic. From the hair-thin lines around his eye sockets, Machairi surmised that they were augmetics as well, and uncommonly good ones. Only someone who had spent a fair amount of time around mechanicus augmetics experts - experts like, say, Vizkop - might have seen them. The so-called Lord of Sabilis was much older and much better connected than he chose to appear. Machairi was still feeling out whether he was also wiser.

"Tell me, my lord." Machairi asked the governor's agent delicately, "Are the Nebula corps always this forthright?"

Her tone was intrigued as she glanced back towards the window, and then fixed her eyes back on the handsome young lord as she unspooled the vox caster from its cradle at her elbow.


+ + + + + +

"Faceless I shall be, for a blade has no need of one."

As Vizkop fell silent, so did the scene around him, save for the glass dust skittering across the floor. It stuck to the glazes of blood seeping over the tiles, forming silver pools in the white ceramic. The dust was blowing in through a large breach in the wall in front of Vizkop, but no more cultists were coming to die from the street beyond. Vizkop's internal pickup chimed as his sweeping vox receivers homed in on a new signal, automatically tuning, filtering and decoding.

"Repeat:" a familiar voice crackled in his ear, hissing through the interference. "This is inquisitor Machairi, please respond."

When Vizkop did, he thought he detected a smile behind the inquisitor's tone.

"Secutor." Machairi replied, "I had a feeling that if we got through to anyone it'd be you. What's your status?"

At that moment the motion detectors in Vizkop's helmet tagged a series of new contacts, boxing them in with blinking amber rhomboids. A knot of figures were on the move in the complex opposite the breached wall, spreading out to take up firing positions. No, the secutor realised as he further analysed the movements - not taking up firing positions, scattering for the doors at either end of the ruined building. They were falling back. A sand-cloaked, filter-masked figure appeared briefly behind a broken window before darting away again, paying no attention to Vizkop.

A possible explanation revealed itself a few moments later. Vizkop's threat detectors pulsed as a pair of bulky, angular shapes arced above the intervening buildings, propelled by the white knives of thruster jets. Another two followed, the armoured figures moving in fireteam pairs as they took long, low bounds towards the hospital. Vizkop's optics identified a familiar name, blinking on the chest hololith of one suit before it vanished beneath the roofs.

Gunnery sergeant Jensaa Kirabo.


+ + + + + +

"Kally? Saph? For Emperor's sake, pick up!"

Marc's ears were a painful cacophony. The vox channels were all garbled, or else dead, emitting a high-pitched tinnitus ring. Every few seconds he thought he caught a snatch of a voice he recognised, but it was gone too quickly for him to make anything out. He wondered if Arcolin's daemon was letting the snippets through specifically to torture him. The white noise was punctuated by the steady WHAM WHAM WHAM of Kelly's pipe against the door, thudding in time to Marc's own jagged heartbeat. The tears veiling Marc's eyes reduced his sister to a dark blur, ten metres away across the debris-strewn morgue.

The temperature in the morgue suddenly shifted, the air chilling by several degrees. Marc clenched his fist around the cultist's autosub and scrubbed the blurring tears from his eyes, just in time to see a film of ice chasing around the lower edge of the wall, zagging and branching like electrical discharge as it followed the lines of long-dead power cables. Kelly didn't cease in her efforts to batter through the steel door.

"Begone psyker." Kelly snarled, in a voice that wasn't hers. "This is not your fight. Walk away and you will live."

The temperature dropped another couple of degrees.

My name is Gavin Jenkins. Marc felt it rather than heard it, a sine-wave of white noise from his microbead that almost sounded like speech as it shuddered through his skull. And you are going to release my friend agent Kelly Black.

"Begone, Gavin Jenkins." Kelly said, her voice rasping as the daemon tore and twisted her vocal cords. "I do not have to hurt you, but I will."

Something invisible thrummed through the room, causing the auspex screen on Marc's arm to fracture into wavering lines before going dark. Marc's heart painfully skipped a beat, and a dish-sized slab of plaster dislodged itself from the ruined ceiling to smash across the floor. In response, Marc's earpiece roared with angry static, and a spider-web of ice splayed itself across the door. Kelly staggered half a pace back, still facing away from Marc.

"Stop it, Gavin!" she shrieked. "Stop it or I will break you! You think Crenshaw was bad? I will leave you nothing but a shell!"

I am no longer afraid of Martin Crenshaw. Marc's earpiece sizzled. A line of ice snaked across the floor towards Kelly and she staggered back again, dropping the pipe with a clatter. This time she screamed, high and desperate. The sobbing shriek came again as the ice darted and flickered across the metal floor around her.

"I said stop it, Gavin!" Kelly shouted, abruptly snapping upright. "That isn't me you are hurting, it's her! You'll kill her long before you kill me!"

The ice darted in again. Kelly shrieked in pain, clawing at her head.

Gavin, stop! Marc wanted to scream as the sound knifed through him. For frak's sake stop!

The line of ice flickered back like a wounded thing, snaking and spreading up the wall. Kelly staggered to her feet, leaving a few droplets of blood to dribble onto the floor from somewhere on her face.

"Leave." she rasped.

The ice spread across the chain-locked door as if to bar her path. I can't stop you. Marc's earpiece sputtered. But the others can. They're blanks, sisters, trained exorcists. They will drive you out.

Marc's vox bead went dead, returning to its previous flat-line ring.

Kelly let out a shriek of anger, and another painful thrum swept through the room, dislodging more pieces of the crumbling ceiling. Kelly slammed into the door, this time attacking it with nothing more than her bare hands. Streaks of blood began to smudge the metal. For a moment, Marc thought that the film of ice took on the shape of Gavin's pinched, gaunt face, its mouth screaming wide in pain. Marc had lost all feeling in his right hand, the fingers cramped and the knuckles white as he gripped the salvaged machine pistol. He pushed himself up onto one elbow, triggering a thunderbolt of pain from his damaged ankle. He raised the snub-nosed gun, leveling it at Kelly's back.

He wavered.

He dropped his arm back to the floor, shivering, and cuffed the cold sweat and tears out of his eyes.

They're coming, he told himself, They're coming to help. Gavin was right - Kally and Sapphira were still on the lower levels, close enough to act on Alley's warning. Aye, and Crenshaw too. Mother frakking son of a bitch Crenshaw. A surge of visceral rage wrapped itself around Marc's chest. This was only happening because Crenshaw had insisted on taking Arcolin alive. But the frakking major wouldn't see it that way - any more than he'd have any concern for Kelly's safety if he got down here. Marc trusted Crenshaw's instincts, to take no chances - but that spelled death for his sister.

His mouth was dry, and his heart was thudding in his throat. The microbead in his ear roared painfully, almost causing him to cry out, and then as if by the Emperor's own will the channel cleared, and he heard:

"Marc? Marc, are you still there?"

Alley!

Marc fought down his anger at his former team-mate. She was just doing her duty telling them. And right now she's the only lifeline you've got. Just like Saros. Marc clenched his fist as if to physically crush the thought. Alicia tore through Arcolin's cat's paws on Marioch after they killed her parents, he reasoned feverishly. Arcolin had said so himself, and it was one of the few things Marc was sure the bastard hadn't lied about. She had fought Chaos before.

"Alley!" he croaked into the vox, unable to raise more than a whisper even if he had wanted to. "Kelly's still trapped down here with me, what do I do!?"

The vox swirled with static. "...noticed you?"

Thump. Kelly was still driving her fists into the frost-covered steel of the doors. Blood was running between the knuckles of her hands. As the next strike hit, Marc clearly heard the crunch of something breaking. Sympathetic pain lanced through his own hand.

"No." he whispered, crushing the vox bead into his ear with his free hand. "She's trying to get out."

"Listen, Marc." Alicia's voice was faint and swamped by fizzing interference, but her tone was deadly serious. "This isn't going to be easy for you, but you need to put her down, right now."

"Frak off!" Marc swore savagely.

"Trust me, if that thing gets out it could burn planets!"

"That thing is my frakking sister, Alley!" Marc cuffed at his face with his forearm, still holding the machine-pistol in a death grip. "Blanks can drive out daemons, right? We can still save her!"

"Unlikely. She'll be too far gone by the time Kally or Crenshaw get to her!"

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Marc, I'm giving this as both a professional opinion and a personal one. If Kally barges in there first, she's going to hesitate, and that daemon could rip her apart before her aura drives it out. If it's Crenshaw, he'll blow the daemon away regardless of who its wearing. Any of the others, they won't stand a chance."

Fear and rage battled for supremacy in Marc's chest, ripping him apart. He could hear Merle's mocking voice, speaking before Vincent had arrived to drag him out of the galley. So in answer to your question, kid, no I don' think your l'il sister would've pulled the trigger, even if it meant chicken-boy was gonna rampage across the whole station an' kill every last one of your friends.

If Crenshaw gets here first, Kelly dies. If someone else does...she still dies, and so do they. Marc felt sick. He remembered, bitterly, his promise to himself. It has to be me. No-one else in the firing line.

His head pounded as he looked down at the battered machine pistol.

"Marc? Marc, are you still there?"

Better me than Crenshaw. Marc wasn't cold, but every part of his body was freezing. He raised the gun again, and this time he pulled the trigger.

There was a metallic snapping sound from the weapon, and the bolt jammed open. Marc caught a glimpse of cracked bronze through the open bolt - an old or recycled cartridge that had simply failed instead of firing. Above him, he heard a sigh.

Marc's head snapped back. Through the sagging hole in the ceiling, he saw Arcolin DeRei standing at the edge of the broken floor struts. The scarred cultist wasn't grinning. In fact, his gaunt face was hovering somewhere between horror and relief.

The thought that the heretic had been up there watching, possibly the entire time, was enough to tear a howl of rage from Marc's throat. He slammed the stolen machine pistol into the floor, and there was a metallic ping as the cracked cartridge came loose and went spinning away. Not even caring that the gun was more likely to explode in his hand than fire, Marc rolled onto his back and swung his arm up, his entire hand crushing the pistol grip as his finger convulsed on the trigger. The gun roared a devil's rattle, and smoking holes exploded across the walls and ceiling. Arcolin yelped and reeled back, vanishing from sight as the floor where he had been standing was erased in a ripple of bursting plaster. Debris rained down on Marc as the gun clicked empty.

Tears streaming down his face, breathing through his teeth in furious snorts, Marc barely even noticed Kelly turn away from the door and look right at him.


+ + + + + +

Alicia was still trying to raise Marc on the vox, but the line had gone dead, choked by roaring static.

"Choice." Ella rasped from her lap, her voice a reedy whisper.

"Huh?" Alicia asked, snapping away from her vox to look at the injured astropath.

"Choice." Ella repeated, coughing. "The Ace of Adeptio, I read it, back at the warehouse...it means a really difficult choice..."

"Shhh." Alicia soothed, looking down uneasily at Ella's hand still gripped tight around her arm. "You're alright. I've got you."

She broke off as she heard a whisper of noise behind her. A footstep, and then another - almost quiet enough to miss, trying not to be noticed. Alicia didn't give any outward reaction, only curled her hand around the pistol in her lap. Ella continued to breathe raggedly, oblivious. At the third footstep, Alicia lunged around, bringing her gun up.

And looked straight into the bottomless red pit of a flect shard.

Ella gave a small whimper of surprise as Alicia's supporting presence slumped away from her. With her warp sight, just beginning to return, she saw the older woman's jade aura fade into unconscious olive. A second aura loomed above her, casting something aside that shattered as it hit the floor tiles. It was a man, faded blue, but on one side of his blurred face a patch of bright and vital flames were dancing as if with new purpose. It was only when the man spoke that she realised who he was.

"Tell her I'm sorry for that." he said quietly. "And tell Marc as well. Tell him I had the best intentions."

Before Ella could reply, Arcolin DeRei had slipped beyond the hazing bubble of her warp sight, and was gone.

[Imperial1917]

The hull of the lander rocked sharply as an eddy revolved from the massive gutted corpse of the necropolis and jarred the craft with its force. Fortunately the advanced augers had predicted such a pattern early enough for the pilot to ride the greater part of the assault.

"Tell me, my lord." Machairi asked the governor's agent delicately, "Are the Nebula corps always this forthright?"

Her tone was intrigued as she glanced back towards the window, and then fixed her eyes back on the handsome young lord as she unspooled the vox caster from its cradle at her elbow.

Quite reasonably he paused at the question and considered his answer carefully, keeping his eyes locked to the flickering tactical display before the pair. A feeling somewhere between wonder and appalment at his current circumstance passed through him as quick as lightning, temporarily overriding the more novel impression that a dissatisfactory response would yield a strangled to death with vox caster cord on a tag tied around his toe in the near future.

He thought on the question posed to him and reflected sourly that his friend – if a subsector governor was permitted such things – had placed him in a position that he was likely sure would either cement his ties to Sabilis or else get Trist killed. It was quite a pair of extremes and Trist cursed the day that he mentioned being ‘bored’ to the man. More inquisitorial attention was not something that he needed at that moment, even if he strongly suspected that the inquisitor was not so much interested in his reply as trying to make small talk to ease the tension she was trying to hide so desperately. And like so many of her kind, the powerful whose position either did not require or required the opposite of amicable people skills, she was probably incredibly poor at making small talk. Not that silence was an appropriate response; she was likely looking to file the information for later and saying nothing could result in the aforementioned strangling.

So he inclined his head at the tactical display slightly where he sat, as if more closely studying its contents, and replied in soft, clipped tones, “No more so than the mighty ordos, inquisitor.”

A smile flickered at the corners of the inquisitor's mouth. "Lord Sidonis might have skewed our reputation somewhat. I usually try to be more circumspect."

She chuckled, perhaps considering that Trist's first impression of her would have been her requesting a sector-wide arrest warrant from sub governor Tierce.

"Usually."

"Perhaps," said Trist, lifting his eyes from the tactical display to regard the inquisitor, "But would that mean a rule or an exception for the Inquisition as a whole?" A smile curved his lips and he continued, "And wouldn't such methods inherently mean that the more visible of the two commands the norm in the public eye?"

Machairi cocked her head. "I know a number of inquisitors who think a visible symbol is the most powerful, and I know a number of inquisitors who think the successful agent is the one who completes the mission without anybody knowing he was there and gone."

She gave him a coy look.

"But you aren't dealing with any other inquisitors, my lord - you only have to deal with me." She broke off to raise the vox set to her lips and depress the transmit rune. "Ground team this is inquisitor Machairi, what's your status?"

Only a dull crackle of static buzzed from the caster grilles mounted on the side of the vox cradle. The interference from the glass storm was still fierce.

Machairi's brown eyes switched across to regard Trist before she tried again. "Besides, my lord - I wasn't asking your opinion on the ordos. I wanted to know what you thought of the governor's life guards. Firsthand accounts are always so much better than the propaganda vids."

Trice shook his head and gestured to the tactical display, his face serious. "I was once told that wise man of ancient Terra advised his followers to not try teaching desert dwellers with water metaphors. The line I draw is an analog, inquisitor, one better suited to your background."

"Flexibility in function is paramount to effectiveness in function. The problems faced require similar solutions and so require similar bodies. Thus when you ask me whether the Nebula are usually so forthright, my answer is: no more than the holy ordos. And, as you point out, if the latter modus operandi is functioning as intended to, you would never know any better."

He smiled, "As to what I think of what we can see, here, now, I would say that they are well suited to the task at hand, even if they are not the sharpest tool in the Imperium's box."

"The governor is lucky to have them as bodyguards." Machairi noted offhandedly, and picked up the vox caster again. "Ground team this is inquisitor Machairi, please respond."

"Sixty seconds, inquisitor." the tech priest pilot reported, while the vox remained stubbornly silent. Both Machairi and Trist were pushed forward in their seats as the lander decelerated, its brake jets flaring.

"Take a breath, my lord." Machairi advised as she returned her attention to Trist. "Things might be about to get a little hectic."

Trist smiled and gripped the haft of his axe, ever hidden in the folds of his cloak. "As you say, inquisitor."

Machairi nodded, adjusted the gain on the vox set and tried the caster again. "Repeat: this is inquisitor Machairi, please respond."

[Atrum Daemon]

"Repeat:" a familiar voice crackled in his ear, hissing through the interference. "This is inquisitor Machairi, please respond."

“This is Secutor Vizkop,” the assassin replied, keying into the channel. “Good to hear you, Inquisitor.”

"Secutor." Machairi replied, "I had a feeling that if we got through to anyone it'd be you. What's your status?"

“How do I put this delicately?” Vizkop began, “The situation down here is completely fecked. Guess the years did nothing for this team's luck. Joking aside, we are in trouble. Arcolin has slipped the noose. Turns out he had more backup than we bargained for and they got the drop on us with a missile-fronted hello before storming the building. I just finished cutting a squad of them apart on the ground floor of the complex we've holed up in. The team is spread out all over. And I just heard a crackling report of a...something in the building. Our vox has been a bit spotty.”

There was a pregnant pause.

At that moment the motion detectors in Vizkop's helmet tagged a series of new contacts, boxing them in with blinking amber rhomboids. A knot of figures were on the move in the complex opposite the breached wall, spreading out to take up firing positions. No, the secutor realised as he further analysed the movements - not taking up firing positions, scattering for the doors at either end of the ruined building. They were falling back. A sand-cloaked, filter-masked figure appeared briefly behind a broken window before darting away again, paying no attention to Vizkop.

A possible explanation revealed itself a few moments later. Vizkop's threat detectors pulsed as a pair of bulky, angular shapes arced above the intervening buildings, propelled by the white knives of thruster jets. Another two followed, the armoured figures moving in fireteam pairs as they took long, low bounds towards the hospital. Vizkop's optics identified a familiar name, blinking on the chest hololith of one suit before it vanished beneath the roofs.

Gunnery sergeant Jensaa Kirabo.

“Well that's some good news,” Vizkop said, breaking the radio silence with Alia. “The Nebulas are closing in. I will keep you appraised, Inquisitor. Secutor out.”

He keyed off the line to the ship above and moved closer to the opening, peeking out and taking further stock of the situation. The cultists were falling back, which meant they had finished their mission most likely. Arcolin was getting away. The Nebulas could help in stalling the escape and recapture the traitor. But that presented a whole other mess of problems. But with everything going on inside and the distance to cover, there was no chance of anyone else making it in time. The Secutor's augmented mind worked as fast as it could, making multiple predictions from the available data.

He had no other option, really. If anyone else did not like, well too damn bad.

“This is Secutor Vizkop to Gunnery Sergeant Jensaa Kirabo. Be advised, you have cultist activity in a building near your position. They are attempting to make an escape and I have every reason to believe Arcolin De Rei is among their number. My team is tied down thanks to his machinations. Can you assist?”

In those moments while he waited for a reply, Vizkop considered that once the mission was over he would like to take a long vacation to some paradise world. If he lived through it all, at least.

[Azazeal849]

"Kirabo copy." Vizkop heard a moment later. He detected a slight rasp in the Nebula's voice, probably from a dry mouth brought on by a full combat dose of satrophene coursing through her system. There seemed to be a momentary pause from the gunnery sergeant that matched his own.

"We have them, secutor. Moving to engage."

Kirabo and her wingman soared above the rooftop once again, this time twisting round in their jet-assisted leap to train their weapons on the fishbone rafters of the administratum. Their modular autocannons roared, the muzzles lighting up with split-second blooms of burning gas. Vizkop had to admire the geometric precision as Kirabo thumped down through the roof of the complex in a shower of masonry and began to pick off the cultists. One spun round in surprise and died, out-drawn and outgunned by the Nebula's monstrous weapon. One ducked for cover and died, a firing angle fed from the wingman's camera punching a burst through the crumbling brickwork. One tried to return fire and died, only two bullets from his wild spray cracking off Kirabo's armour before Vizkop saw his chest, neck and skull explode in neat sequence. It seemed to Vizkop that there was a slight discrepancy in the Nebula's satrophene-boosted speed - a momentary pause before each well-placed kill shot. She was pausing to confirm that each target was not DeRei.

The wingman hammered down into the next room in a howling wash of jump-jets, and a few more bursts of fire flickered white through the broken windows before the building fell silent.

"McLaughlan, sitrep?" Kirabo's voice queried calmly, clearly not directed at Vizkop. And then, a few moments later, a transmission that was. "Secutor Vizkop, eight tangos down and one in custody, negative ID on Arcolin DeRei." A momentary pause. "And you're welcome."

[Azazeal849]

The lander howled to a stop above the hospital, its jets swivelling downward and sweeping ripples of stone and glass fragments off the roof. Extended autocannons tracked back and forth in their blister turrets, and the drone of the lander's anti-grav plates set the concrete roof vibrating ominously. Doors popped away from the lander's sleek sides and pistoned back, spilling out a nest of ladders and hoists, and one braided rope. A black-armoured figure slithered down the rope and dropped to one knee to cushion their landing. A shoal of silver-inlaid servo skulls followed them, firing bursts of auspex light into the surrounding buildings as they spiralled down around the hospital and dispersed into the derelict streets.

"Get everyone aboard." inquisitor Machairi ordered through the grille of her rebreather, clapping Glabrio on the shoulder as she rose to her feet and stripped off her heavy fast-roping gloves. She pressed a finger against her ear-bead as she stalked off towards the shredded roof-access door. "Pilot, activate the medicae servitors. Prep to receive wounded agents and possible prisoners."

"Compliance, inquisitor."


+ + + + + +

The servo skulls were buzzing through the ruins like questing hornets by the time Machairi joined Vizkop on the ground floor.

"Quite a mess you left back there, Dragon Slayer." the inquisitor commented mildly as she stepped out into the shifting glass-dust that covered the street. She affected nonchalance, but Vizkop could detect the tension in the corners of her eyes. Crenshaw and Sapphira had no doubt appraised her of the full, cluster-frak situation on her way down through the building.

Machairi turned to the armoured figure of Jensaa Kirabo, who despite Machairi's statuesque height overtopped her by a good few inches. "And you must be gunnery sergeant Kirabo." she said, tilting her head slightly.

The hulking Nebula didn't move. "Inquisitor."

"Could you please appraise me of the situation across the city, gunnery sergeant?"

"We secured Zhang and one of the tech priests." Although Kirabo's tone was perfectly neutral, something about her words seemed to add no thanks to you people. The Nebula tapped the side of her head, activating her helmet hololith. A line of blue light fanned out into a horizontal strip, and then extended up and down to display a flat rectangle two feet in front of her face. Above a blinking rune annotated PFC Sharma, the vid feed bobbed and swung towards a Valkyrie painted with red medicae helices. A pair of men wearing oxygen masks were being stretchered aboard by armoured Nebula soldiers.

"Any sign of DeRei?" the inquisitor replied, not rising to the bait.

Kirabo shook her helmeted head fractionally, causing the holo-pict to wobble. "No. Did you do any better?"

"We'll see." Machairi replied, her eyes following one of the skull drones as it hovered to examine the wreck of the mechanicus transport before banking away down the highway. "VIzkop mentioned you had a prisoner in custody. May I see him?"

Kirabo's vox caster crackled as she huffed into her mic. "You mean can you take him off our hands."

Machairi shrugged. "Are you really going to make me take out the rosette?"

Kirabo huffed again, then crooked two fingers over her shoulder. "Callisto? Let 'em have the cultist."

A shorter Nebula soldier emerged from the ruined administratum block, nosing a trembling man forward with the muzzle of her oversized autogun. The man looked young but prematurely aged; stunted by a wasteland diet, and behind his sand goggles his eyes were shadowed and tainted yellow by the toxic atmosphere. He dug his chin into his chest as if to hide his face when Machairi and the others looked at him.

"Thank you." Machairi nodded to Vizkop to take hold of the shivering cultist. "Oh, and gunnery sergeant?"

Kirabo turned back round. "Inquisitor?"

"When adept Zhang wakes up, advise him that he will be hearing from my colleagues very soon. I have a lot of questions regarding how DeRei managed to infiltrate his team."

Kirabo turned her head to watch the distant medicae Valkyrie lift off towards Arda hive, its red and white hull distinct against the smoky sky. "So do we, inquisitor. So do we."


+ + + + + +

Two kilometres away, in the tower of a stripped and time-crumbled machine temple, two figures clutched the hoods of their armourweave cloaks against the pull of the dying wind. Beneath the hoods, sleek, close fitting enviro-suits protected them from the caustic air, shielding their faces behind matte black visors. They did not concern themselves with detection. They were too far away for standard senses to be relevant, and their noospheric overrides had little to fear from skull drones, even ones with inquisition-level command encryption.

The taller of the two figures shifted a little, trying to shake off the deja vu of another abandoned city, stalked by biomechanical nightmares. Most of her kind would consider such thoughts illogical, but to the chosen few there was a balance to be found between rational thought and human instinct. The figure rolled back her sleeve to double-tap a manipulator panel mounted on her wrist. The hand she used was ungloved, but immune to the dust and toxin-laden air. The hand was bionic; the long fingers elegant constructions of interlocking silver. The figure's visor whirred quietly as microscopic lenses in the glass zoomed and depixillated. For a long moment, she studied the three women being stretchered across the hospital roof, and the eclectically-equipped agents securing them to the lift lines of the hovering lander. A dishevelled man in dust-smothered carapace armour was bent over one of the stretchers, seemingly shouting at its occupant to wake up. A battered woman with straggling blonde hair was tugging at his shoulders, seemingly offering support.

The figure let her gaze slide off the tortured spectacle towards the other two stretchers. Her visor cocked slightly to one side as the figure compared what she was looking at to stored images within her own, bionic-webbed mind.

A silent communication pulsed across to her, as quick and precise as a spark arcing between two conductors.

<Confirmation?> the shorter figure at her side asked.

<Confirmation.> the first responded. <There, centre stretcher. Adjusting for cheekbone reconstruction, 93% facial match. That is Alicia Tarran.>


+ + + + + +

The Arthrashastra
Baraspine high orbit

The atmosphere in Arthashastra‘s borrowed ready-room was tense.

At one end of the table sat inquisitor Machairi, at a place laid with a brushed papyrus mat, a small Aquila idol with two incense sticks curling sweet smoke into the air, and a goblet of honey-blonde amasec. At the other end sat Merle Carson, chained to his chair by heavy iron links across his wrists and chest. The inquisitor was dressed in lavender silk, the convict in dull overalls of heavy grey canvas. The contrast was striking, and intentional. And yet, Machairi noted, the convict wasn’t scowling, despite the new explosive collar gleaming darkly around his neck. He seemed almost amused.

Machairi silently sipped from her cup, and placed it back down next to the smoking Aquila. She looked down the table at Merle, all imperious arrogance

“I am not impressed, Merle Ray Carson.” she said, glaring at him. When I made my generous offer to grant you an inquisitorial pardon, it was on the understanding that you would give us actionable intel on DeRei. Instead, you repay me by relentlessly antagonising my agents.”

“To be fair, queen bitch,” Merle shrugged as well as he was able, rattling his chains. “I did tell y’all that I was gonna. Ain’t my fault if y’all ‘ve gone too senile to remember.”

Machairi glared at him, and toyed with the stem of her goblet. “Be careful, Carson. I can still tear up that pardon I wrote for you.”

“Oh give it a rest, lady high an’ fuckin’ mighty.” Merle replied. “We both know that pardon was grox-shit from the motherfuckin’ start.”

Machairi’s goblet froze half way to her lips, and the convict gave a wry cackle, puckering his lips.

“But it’s a fuckin’ sweet image thinkin’ of your blood boilin’ while y’all had to sit there an’ write it. I gotta ask, did it remind y’all of bitin’ the pillow while ol’ man Sidonis was rammin’ his shrivelled ol’ cock inta your self-righteous ass? ‘Cus fuck me, I can’ think of any other possible way you landed this here inquisitor rank.”

Machairi slammed her goblet down onto the fine, varnished hardwood of the table with a rattling crash. “Let me tell you how this is going to work, Carson. You are going to tell me everything you know about DeRei right now.”

Merle threw back his head and roared with laughter. "All'a y'all inquisition pricks ain't ever been too bright, eh? Y'all get access to all the data in all the fuckin' imperium, and y'all can't see shit! I mean, y'all had to rely on Van Der Mir an’ his sorry buncha assholes to stop Sidonis for ya, and Emerald might'a had a daemon ridin' his ass but he still got rubber man offa Solomon while your so-called quarantine enforcers were standin' aroun’ holdin' their dicks!"

Machairi pursed her lips. "I assume by rubber man you're referring to the xenos Juno - but I didn‘t ask you about Saros or Solomon."

"Ha, I don' fuckin' believe this.” Merle shook his head, looking up at the vaulted ceiling of the ready room. “You're a fuckin' joke, queen bitch. That wasn' a xeno, that was Lucius fuckin' Pembroke after the C'tan shard'd finished fuckin' him up! Yeah, we cut it outta him an' put it in that psyker bitch with the sword fetish, but it still left him lookin' like a walkin' talkin' gimp suit. Now please don' be tellin' me I've just blown your mind with that there revelation, 'cause I think I might jus' bust a nut if y'all make me laugh again."

Machairi just glared at him, and then stabbed the comm-bead nestled into her silver wrist chronometer. “Josiah, Vizkop, I’m done with Carson. Take him back to solitary.”

The door slid quietly open, and Wuziarch marched in with Vizkop gliding at his heels. The arbitrator’s neck was still padded with a gauze dressing, though through juvenat healing or sheer force of will his limp had entirely disappeared.

“Enjoy your drink, queen bitch.” Merle said cheerfully, as the two men unshackled his hands and hauled him up by the armpits, after which Wuziarch diligently applied a new set of manacles. “Don’ go too heavy now, or the soulless major might come creepin’ in here lookin’ for an easy ride.”

Machairi remained silent, resting her laced fingers against her chin as Carson was dragged to the door and it snapped closed behind them. After the sound of footsteps and clinking chains had receded, she suddenly smiled, and reached under the table to click off the vox recorder that had been taped to its underside.


+ + + + + +

Inquisition void-runner Tiercel
One hour later

The elegant oval corridors of Machairi’s Tiercel provided a familiar and welcome change from the eclectic opulence of the Arthrashastra. As they crossed the docking umbilical and climbed down into the crew deck, Crenshaw wondered idly if Machairi simply preferred to talk to him in her own defined sphere of influence, or if she still did not trust his cabin on Tarran’s ship to be proof against snooping ears.

“I must admit,” Machairi confessed once they were standing with glasses in hand in the deserted conference cabin, looking at the camera-projected image of Baraspine spinning below. “It tastes better when I’m not drinking it in Carson’s company.”

“Even when your new drinking companion is a blacksoul, Alia?” Crenshaw queried, cocking an eyebrow. “Sadly I can confess a similar sentiment. Perhaps the fire-and-brimstone preachers with their talk of heretics souring wine and turning food to ash unwittingly stumbled across a grain of truth.”

He paused to contemplate the view, ignoring Machairi's suddenly scrutinising look. Past the lumpy band of the Glom, hive Arda was visible as a black smudge through the grimy, marbled swirls of cloud.

“I cannot see DeRei remaining in the Dead City with his cultist cat’s paws crushed and the sub governor’s forces combing the area. Though I am afraid I cannot predict whether he will try to lose himself in hive Arda or try to make it back up to the Glom.”

“If he can summon daemons," Machairi thought aloud, mulling DeRei's projected options. "Then he has no more need for cultists. The PDF can put these poorly-armed cells of his down in hours, as they have indeed done. But if he can create ’flects, and now summon a daemon…”

“And a bound one, too." Crenshaw clarified. "There is no other explanation - nothing in that hospital suggested serious preparation for a standard summoning ritual. If there was, we would have found it and dismantled it. DeRei’s affinity for the warp seems to have developed significantly since Saros.”

Machairi frowned, folding her arms with her drink still in hand. “We’re still missing something. He was too lucky to slip past the Nebula net. Someone else we didn’t see must have been helping him.”

“Perhaps one of Danilov’s men is still at large?”

“They’d find it hard to operate openly. The arbites sentenced Danilov this morning, and every member of his crew now has a warrant out for questioning.”

“At least we can trust the Adrantean authorities to make a passable job of cleaning up DeRei’s associates.”

Crenshaw sipped his drink, the alcohol burning slightly at the gums around his prosthetic teeth. In truth, he wondered about the speed of the Nebula response - even if the level of mobilisation of the various Adrantis PDFs was exemplary, considering they had not seen a serious war in decades. Had the Nebulas been tipped off somehow, like the PDF on Marioch? And if so…sacrificing his cults was one thing, but why would DeRei himself actively initiate their destruction?

“Were you and sister Kiana able to deduce anything, major?” Machairi asked, breaking Crenshaw’s train of thought.

Crenshaw chewed the inside of his cheek, inevitably reminded of his tense encounter with the spymaster canoness. “Nothing relevant to DeRei or the Nebulas, Alia. However, I think I have finally worked out why the Necrons were after Kally's map.”

“Back on Hercynia?” Machairi cocked her head, not seeing the connection to their current worries.

“As you will recall, the Necrons mounted an aggressive attack on Solomon not long after the destruction of hive Makita, but they failed to break through and secure Pembroke from the ruin. Once they found out that Kally was carrying a piece of him, they must have thought it was the key to finding and re-imprisoning their rogue shard.”

Alia sipped her drink and swallowed, thoughtfully. “I see. Have you told Kally?”

Crenshaw hmm‘d. “No, but I thought you might find it valuable to know even after the fact - considering De Shilo and Lucullis are likely still watching us.”

“And Yannick.” Machairi reminded him, with a meaningful look. She sighed. “I will be frank, major; I am not happy with how our operation so far is going to look to my colleagues.”

The inquisitor paused, contemplating the pict-screen view.

“That said, Carson just gave me some rather beautiful intelligence, and together with what you’ve just told me, I don't think the Necrons were planning to search the hive at all.”

The smile that she offered Crenshaw was almost mischievous, which prompted the major to raise an eyebrow.

“Very well, Alia, I will take your bait. Since beautiful is not a word I usually associate with Carson, what did he give you?”

Machairi smiled, her dark brown eyes glinting. “The final piece of the puzzle between Emerald, Pembroke and the Necrons. He told me that Emerald dug Pembroke out right under the quarantine’s noses - if De Shilo wants to play hardball, we have evidence of some pretty gross negligence on his part.”

“And Yannick?” Crenshaw asked.

Machairi met the major’s pointed gaze, and pursed her lips. “That one I’m still working on.”

Crenshaw grunted low in his throat. Yannick was, after all, a far greater threat to him than to Machairi. He had been like a dog with a bone since the Ampoliros incident, gnawing the case down to splinters in search of evidence. Crenshaw suspected that Machairi had already expended some amount of political capital to keep him safe within her team.

“I am curious though, Alia.” he spoke up after a moment, seeking to change the subject. “How did you manage to prise that information out of him?”

Machairi’s smile returned, albeit thinly. “I’m quite happy to play at being the arrogant fool he thinks I am, if scoring cheap victories loosens his tongue.”

“Be careful, Alia. He has done a great deal of damage to the penitents recently, and your own agents.”

“Not as much as DeRei.” Machairi countered grimly. “How are Kelly and Ella?”

“Stable."

"The precautions I asked for were enacted?"

Crenshaw's expression was stony. "Yes."

Crenshaw neglected to mention how borderline Sapphira had been when he had ordered her to assist him with that procedure - not a good thing, when he was fairly certain that sister Kiana had tasked her with watching him for any sniff of heresy. He had not confided those suspicions to Machairi either; now seemed a poor time to push Sapphira over the edge by cornering her. And, he admitted to himself, Kally needs her friends. The thought almost provoked him into a perverse laugh. Not so long ago, it was not a consideration that would have even registered in his mental calculations.

"Father Belannor has also run purity checks on the whole team, including captain Tarran." he went on instead. "He pronounced them safe. However, I cannot overstate the continuing risk of Carson’s presence, even if you may now wish to keep him for blackmail material against De Shilo.”

“No, I agree.” Machairi nodded. “I don't want him near any of my people unless absolutely necessary. But if he knows things that could help keep the Sol ordos off our backs, then for now I will send him to solitary instead of an immediate appointment with Tarran's plasma chamber.”

Crenshaw exhaled. “Ah yes, and so we return to captain Tarran. Whom by the way I still recommend you bring in an impartial astropath to scry."

Machairi pursed her lips at the reference to Ella and what she had kept from the team. "I don't suppose the sisters Famulous have finished processing the trade warrant that Black sent."

"Not yet. Or if they have, the results are still in transit."

Machairi exhaled contemplatively. "Solvan has pronounced her clear of taint. That will suffice...for now."

"For now." Crenshaw repeated, and cocked a questioning eyebrow. "What do you plan to do about her, Alia?”

Machairi finished her drink, and set the crystal tumbler down on the table at her side. “I plan to beware the daemon at my back.”


+ + + + + +

The Arthrashastra
Fourteen hours later

The apartment smelled of damp laundry. Shirts, blouses and scholem uniforms were hung from the clothes horse in the main room, and from every available radiator. Space was at a premium, especially now that Varrius and Cassandria Black had finally agreed to give Kelly her own room, and moved their own bed into the corner of the living area. By the standards of many midhivers this humble dwelling was spacious; with an ever-growing population, and the Ad Mech dragging their heels on releasing the decommissioned chem plants for new building space, government rents in spire 13 just kept going up and up.

Through in the kitchen, the smell of powdered detergent was replaced by cooking and aggressively applied counterseptic. While the plague still ran rampant through the midhive, no-one wanted to take chances. Even juvies like Kelly had it hammered into them twenty times a day - by their parents, by the scholem masters, by the servitor vox messages blaring through the mag-lev stations while they waited for their train to school.

The Emperor protects those who protect themselves. Through constant vigilance, Makita Hive endures. Face masks must be worn in all public areas. Counterseptic wash stations must be used on entry and exit of all Imperial facilities. It is every citizen's holy duty to report signs of plague to the nearest medicae clinic. Ave Imperator.

Kelly unhooked her paper mask, threw it into the bin, and closed the kitchen door behind her to keep the smell of grain broth from infecting all of their clothes in the next room. Marc, meanwhile, slouched over to the table and shrugged his schoolpack onto the floor.

"Hiya kids." Cassandria Black said brightly, jumping back and forth between the electric cooker and her Aquila-marked administratum work slate. She paused to cough into her fist, as if clearing her throat. "How was school? Did the PS results arrive the day?"

The Preliminary Streaming exam was specifically designed to scare the shit out of Makita hive juvies around their twelfth Terran-standard year. It determined whether you would be allowed to continue into secondary schola - and potentially into well-paid work with the administratum or mechanicus - or whether you would be locked out of all such opportunities and earmarked for life in the labour corps, where the only way out was to join the PDF, or possibly the church. Kelly had duly spent the last two weeks running the tests over and over in her head, dissecting every written and spoken answer that she could remember giving, and losing sleep over every one that she wasn't convinced she had answered perfectly. Today felt like a weight had been lifted.

"Aye, they arrived." Marc replied before Kelly could open her mouth, keeping his face absolutely serious. Marc, who had passed his own PS the previous year, had actually kept the terrorising of his sister to a tasteful minimum over the past months. He had even helped her out with the algebraic maths that he knew she had difficulty with, but Kelly was still in no mood to be upstaged on her big day. She elbowed Marc hard in the ribs for his trouble and stepped past him; unlike her brother, she was unable to contain an ear-to-ear grin.

"Aye." she said, "I passed, mum! Beta grade, upper class!"

Cassandria's face lit up. She was a graceful, handsome woman, despite her hiver-pale skin and the shallow lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She had silky black hair and a dainty nose, which Kelly sometimes wished she had inherited instead of her father's blade-like proboscis. She remained convinced that she was never going to grow into it.

"That's fantastic Kel, well done!" Cassandria gushed. "Two geniuses in the family - we must be doing something right."

The vox-cast messages from the speakers outside grew suddenly louder as the flat door opened. They were immediately eclipsed by a bump and a curse as the same door jarred against the school shoes that Marc and Kelly had kicked off and left on the mat.

"Emperor's teeth!" Varrius Black shouted. "Marcus! Kelly! How many times have I told ye tae put your shoes on the rack!?"

Varrius Black did intimidation well, but neither Kelly nor Marc flinched. They knew that their father was relatively harmless while he was shouting and ranting. It was when he went dangerously quiet that they had to worry. Sure enough, when Varrius stomped through into the kitchen he just took off his stencilled enforcer's jacket, rubbed his angular face with both hands, and stooped to kiss Cassandria on the crown of her head.

"How was work?" he asked, giving his wife's shoulders a squeeze.

"Shan." Cassandria groaned, "The ad mech still willnae budge. And the baron in upper 12 is playing politics about our spire getting built up afore his."

"Urgh." Varrius agreed sympathetically. "Sometimes I wonder who the real criminals are. Go sit down, ae? I'll finish serving up."

He squeezed past her and took up stirring the grain broth. Cassandria gratefully moved over to the sink to pour a glass of water. It came out chalky-white, as it often did when the reclaimer plant across the level was struggling with the summer dry season. One statistic that Kelly could have lived without knowing was that every drop of water you drank in Makita midhive had, on average, been through thirty other people before being recycled once again into your tap. Then again, at least they had a reliable water supply, unlike many sections of the underhive.

Cassandria grimaced slightly at the silty water, and placed it down on the table to settle out while she looked over her work slate again.

"You kids wear your masks all day the day?" Varrius asked, looking over his shoulder as he banged the wooden stirrer clean on the edge of the saucepan.

"Aye, dad." Kelly and Marc answered.

"You pray tae the Emperor for protection before you sat down tae lunch?"

"Aye dad."

"Kelly's got some news for you." Cassandria said, shooting her daughter a sly smile, before coughing into her hand again.

Varrius paused and turned fully round. "You got your PS results?"

Kelly grinned. "Aced it, dad."

As Varrius was about to reply, Cassandria coughed hard into her water, and sprayed half of it across the dining table before she could cover her mouth with her hand.

"Mum?" Marc asked, looking alarmed.

"Cassie?" Varrius crossed the room in two quick strides. "You okay?"

"Fine, I'm fine..." Cassandria wheezed, wiping her mouth and groping for a flannel cloth to clean up the table. "Just tried to inhale it instead ae swallow it...I'm fine."

No you're not. Kelly thought, with horrifying certainty. She felt as if something was tugging down on her insides. Tomorrow you won't be able to get up, and in two weeks you'll be dead and us and dad'll be on our own.

She blinked. That thought didn't belong. The room seemed to darken. Kelly looked around in sudden apprehension, but Cassandria just smiled sadly at her.

"I love you, Kelly." she said, "And I would be so, so proud of you. But you need tae open your eyes."

Kelly looked around again, at a loss. "I'm..."

The music was a white wall of noise, full of harsh growls and thundering double-kick drums. Marc threaded his way through the low-ceilinged club towards the more packed crowd in front of the stage, which was surging back and forth as the hivers threw themselves at each other. Kelly saw that Marc kept looking back over his shoulder to make sure she hadn't gotten lost in the crush. He had been growing out a short but carefully-edged beard for the last week, which didn't really suit him but made the muscle-grafted heavies at the door less likely to ask him for proof of age. Kelly had her friend's older sister's ident card tucked away in the pocket of her jacket, but neither of them need have bothered. Plenus Luna was notoriously lax in its door policy, and Kelly was sure that half the crowd here were juvies like themselves. The rest were scruffy underhivers who lived and breathed the Hate Metal scene, and inevitably a few creeps sniffing around for younger girls.

"Hey beautiful." one such man asked as he came sauntering up to her, while Marc was busy yelling across the bar counter to make his order heard. The man was perhaps in his mid twenties and not unattractive, but his smile was almost a leer. "What's your name?"

Kelly shook her head. "You don't need tae ken my name."

The man leaned close to Kelly's ear to make his answer heard over the pounding amplifiers. The smell of his aftershave was cloying, covering up the sweat of the overly-warm club. "But I want tae get ta ken you."

"No," Kelly said with a sardonic grin, "You want tae frak me, and you don't need my name for that."

The man frowned as she gave him a gentle shove away from her. "What's up? You got a boyfriend, like?"

"No." Kelly admitted, "I'm just not interested in you."

The man finally shook his head and wandered off in search of an easier target, muttering something from which Kelly discerned the words 'frigid bitch'.

"Who the frak was that?" Marc asked with a frown as he belatedly turned away from the bar.

"Just a chancer." Kelly said offhandedly. "Not my type though."

Marc seemed to accept the explanation, and huffed. "See," he complained ironically, "Why do the fit girls no come up tae me when I'm waiting at the bar?"

"Well it's either your face or your personality." Kelly countered, taking advantage of the fact that her brother had his hands full of drinks and so avoiding the punch in the arm she would otherwise have recieved.

Quietly, she exhaled in relief. Marc had always been protective of her, but for better or worse he had doubled down after their mum's death. Kelly didn't like the sour, withdrawn young man her brother had become since - throwing himself doggedly into his schoolwork with his earbud-casters tuned into that underhive Hate Metal that he said helped him concentrate. Kelly was never quite sure if he wasn't just shutting the world out. It had been her idea for them to come along to this gig down on the very lower edge of 13 midhive, and she was happy to see her brother looking animated again.

"It was sweet ae you." Marc said, still holding the drinks. "You're always trying tae look out for other people first."

Kelly looked up at her brother in confusion. She was sure he hadn't said that on the night. Over Marc's shoulder, something shadowy and vaguely man-shaped had appeared among the surging crowd, and was gliding steadily towards them.

"But I need ye tae do yourself a favour first this time." Marc said. He wasn't raising his voice, but somehow Kelly could still hear him over the cacophonous music.

The shadow drifted closer, flickering blue.

"I need you," Marc said earnestly, "Tae open your eyes."

The hab-stack apartment smelled of blood and shit, and Kelly's surgical mask did little to protect her from it. A young man with narco-gang connections being shot to death in his own flat was sadly normal in the midhive. Personal firearms were outlawed in hive Makita, but too many weapons still filtered up from the lawless underhive through an intricate ladder of couriers and fronts. What was not normal was that the assailant had then proceeded to slash his victim's body open with a knife, and daub ugly red symbols across the walls with his blood.

Kelly liked the forensic jigsaw-puzzle of lab work. Marc over in Criminal Investigations could often solve the puzzle with half the pieces missing, but she built the watertight proof that ensured justice was done. Despite the satisfaction of assembling a dossier that would see a murderer or rapist punished and a family given closure, Kelly still preferred being sent out to directly appraise a scene with the other Scene of Crime Officers. The things she had to record were often harrowing, but she also got to see the faces of the victims, and sometimes those of the loved ones she owed an explanation to. It reminded her that the end goal of her job was human.

"I told you this wasn't just standard scum-on-scum." Sandra Farrel said. The room flashed white as she photographed one of the symbols with her boxy pict-stealer.

"The report said signs left on the walls." Kelly countered, her plastek oversuit crackling as she knelt down to photograph the body from a different angle. "That could have meant some kind of gang graffiti or calling card. They didn't say blood, and they didn't say this."

She gestured in the direction of one of the ugly blood-streaks. It looked like a squiggle, or perhaps a stylised flame, with a slit-pupiled eye in the centre. It wasn't like any of the common ganger logos, and something about it made her not want to look at it for long. That in itself was odd, for someone jaded by several years in verispex. It made her chest tighten forebodingly.

"No," Sandra told her dryly. "You just hate being wrong. Suck it up."

Kelly realised that she didn't have a comeback because her friend's observation wasn't untrue. She laughed instead, and the tension in her chest diffused a little.

"You coming to kickboxing later?"

"Aye. Maybe drinks too if these photos don't end up killing my appetite."

The door of the apartment crashed open, and a young MHE officer in standard patrol uniform came reeling into the living space.

"What the frak, get out of here!" Kelly yelled at him. "You'll contaminate the crime scene!"

"Shit's kicking off downhive." the MHE officer explained, shouting over her. "Verispex are pulling all SOCOs back to base while the riot squads arm up. We've got multiple officers down, possible cult signifiers on the gangers responsible."

Kelly and Sandra's eyes both widened. "Cults?" Sandra repeated.

The MHE officer looked uncomfortable.

"Agent Black..." he began, turning to Sandra.

Sandra shook her head. "I'm agent Farrel. That's agent Black."

The officer flinched. "Sorry, sorry, you almost look the same in those masks...agent Black...Kelly..."

Kelly's heart was punching hard against her ribs as the man hesitated. "What?"

"An IED went off near Buford mag-lev station - your father was hit."

Kelly's stomach dropped. "Is he...?"

"He's in a medevac rhino now, headed for St Kaori's. That's all I know. I'm sorry but we need to go now."

Kelly and Sandra looked at each other, both lost for words.

"Kelly..." Sandra began. "You always want to help everyone, even though you know you can't. You couldn't have stopped what happened to your father, any more than what happened to me."

No, Sandra never said that. Kelly edged back a little as the walls of the apartment seemed to swim.

"I don't blame myself for what happened, Sandy." she challenged her colleague quietly. "But that doesn't mean I'm not sorry."

"I know." Sandra soothed. "I just want you to remember - nothing that happened on Baraspine was your fault either."

Baraspine.

A rattling groan dragged Kelly's eyes from Sandra to the body on the floor. The dead man was gone, replaced by a silhouette of blue shadows that twitched and clawed weakly up at her. Kelly scrambled away from it with a cry of horror.

"Kelly," Sandra urged. "You need to open your eyes."

"They are open!" Kelly screamed at her dead friend.

Blackness.

No, not black - blue.

The shadow of the daemon loomed in front of her, reaching out with talons that dripped indigo liquid, and she didn't have anywhere to run. She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound only froze to death in her throat.

"Agent Kelly Black." a familiar voice said, and all of a sudden the daemon dissolved, sloughing and draining away like ink to reveal a shrunken, bald figure that stood on two ungainly bionic legs. Behind his gawky wireframe spectacles, his eyes glowed with a soft golden light.

"The daemon is gone, agent Kelly Black." the figure told her. "You do not need to fear its influence, nor its memory."

Kelly swallowed until she could force her vocal cords to work once more. "Gavin?"

"Agent Kelly Black." Gavin said, "I thank you, and I am sorry for everything. Including, and perhaps especially, this. But now, in this present moment, I need you to open your eyes and wake up."

At last Kelly understood.

And so she did.

She awoke to a dull, throbbing pain in her forehead, and the realisation that she couldn't see.


+ + + + + +

Gavin did not feel comfortable in chapels. The Imperial faith rejected him as a psyker; used and tolerated, but never welcome. And the cog-emblazoned temples of the mechanicus held nothing but terror for him. It seemed to Gavin that chapels were places of prayer and comfort for others, but not for him. Not for him.

Gavin was no longer afraid of dying. That emotion had been burned out of him on Saros Station. It had allowed him to attack the daemon on Baraspine without a second thought. But he did fear for one of the few people who had ever shown him true kindness. And for all his astral self had done, in the ruined hospital and after, he lacked the courage to meet her face to face now. But, Gavin knew, he was not the only one who cared. Others deserved to know, and so for their sake he steeled himself to enter the shrine of a distant and hostile god.

The wooden, gold-leafed doors behind the isolation bulkhead pushed open with a creak, and he found himself in a vaulted gallery that could easily have accommodated a hundred crewmen. But the painted saints on the walls frowned down upon empty pews, and only two figures knelt at prayer before the golden idol of the Emperor that stood at the far end of the chapel. Solvan wore a simple brown robe that made him look shrunken and frail within its voluminous folds. At his side Vincent Nyl thumbed a set of rosary beads, a cushioned plastek brace enveloping his neck.

Gavin limped forward, still feeling the effects of his psycho-stigmatic wounds, and cleared his throat, awkwardly. Solvan unclasped his hands and turned. When he laid eyes on Gavin, a smile crossed his prematurely-aged face.

“Gavin. Can I be of any help to you?”

“Er…no, father Solvan Bellanor sir.” Gavin replied, twisting his fingers. “I hope that I am not interrupting.”

Solvan’s smile became thin. "I am praying for forgiveness, Gavin. Something I’ve done many times before and will no doubt do many times again."

Gavin frowned. "But...father Solvan Bellanor sir, you were not there. Down on Baraspine. When Arcolin DeRei escaped."

The old priest nodded sombrely. "Precisely, Gavin. But it's not my job to burden you with my penance. Did you come here to see Vincent?"

"Er, yes, Mr Vincent Nyl." Gavin said, uncertainly, and shifted his gaze to Vince. "Erm...you might like to know that agent Kelly Black has recovered. That is to say, she has regained consciousness, and is awake."

Vince was quiet for a moment. Then he looked at Solvan, who nodded silently. Vince rose to his feet and limped past Gavin towards the door.

"Thanks, Gav." the old soldier rumbled, and clapped his meaty paw down on Gavin's thin shoulder as he passed. The slap was unintentionally hard, and made the psyker flinch as it landed square on a stigmatic bruise, though the squeeze that followed was oddly gentle.

"I'll leave you guys to talk." Vince said as he exited the chapel.


+ + + + + +

“He said we were to distract the PDF when the time came.” the man said, as he cupped his hands around the beaker of tanna. “He didn’t say we were to distract them by frakking dying.”

He raised the steaming cup to his lips and sipped through the mouth slit of the simple wooden mask he wore.

“You no longer owe DeRei anything.” inquisitor Machairi agreed gently.

She had offered the mask in deference to Baraspini cultural sensitivities, which dictated that all true believers should humbly hide their faces, save from close family members and the Emperor himself. DeRei had evidently not bothered to re-indoctrinate his followers too deeply into service to the blasphemous powers - exactly as had been the case on Marioch.

Machairi leaned forward and cocked her head slightly. Her own face was covered by an elegant, whorl-patterned mask of white silver, with blue gemstones inlaid over the eye lenses. The mask had once belonged to an overreaching Baraspini trader by the name of Natalia Veiss.

“Tell me what DeRei was planning,” she said, “And we can make some sort of deal. What were you supposed to be the distraction for?”

“I don’t know for sure.” The prisoner hesitated. “Some kind of power play on Perinetus.”

“The forge world?”

“I guess, though I don’t know how he planned to get there. I always assumed he worked out of hive Arda when he wasn’t meeting us out in the Dead City. He kept talking about this archmagos and a big speech he was going to give. He promised that we’d get ad mech help to build up our settlements into something liveable, but I don’t see how he manages that by voxing us to gun down and capture that team that came snooping around the Dead City…”

“I see.” Machairi replied quietly. She pressed her palms into her knees and rose, leaving the prisoner facing her empty chair across from his own in the otherwise barren holding cell. “Thank you for telling me. One of my people will be along shortly with food.”

As the mag-locks thanked closed behind her, Machairi pulled off the silver mask and eyed Tomas and Vizkop, who were waiting outside.

“Did you get all of that?” she asked them.

[dakkagor]

"Tick tock, Kally girl. Tick tock. Missy Black’s on the death clock.”

Her fists tightened around her pistols until her knuckles whitened. She resisted the urge to shoot Merle right then and there, and the only justification she could come up with was that he was basically right. Between here and Kelly, was a frak-off pile of cultist bastards, and she knew from prior experience, that for as much as she liked Crenshaw, his mercy was not one of his redeeming characteristics.

“Emperor frakking damn you Merle Carson, and the frakking horse you rode in on.”

“Now that’s the fuckin’ spirit, my li’l ganger gal.” Merle growled with patronizing affection.

He hummed with amusement and took another deep drag off the lho, its bright ember flare only highlighting his old bruises and recent burns. The convict exhaled a dual torrent of smoke out his nose with a bull-grox’s snort as he plucked the slightly bent leaf stick from his bruised lips and flicked it towards the charred skull at Kally’s feet. He grunted as it missed and sparked out on the ruined stairs.

“It’s lookin’ like you’re gonn’a have to be leadin’ the way, sweetheart. Damn.” The convict drawled, swinging his free arm and snapping his fingers. Merle kept his head turned toward Kally and vaguely gestured towards his damaged eye. His patently false disappointment was underlined by an ugly little smirk. “Y’all wouldn’ want to be riskin’ me accidentally not seein’ somethin’, now would’ya?”

“You’re such a frakking arsehole.” Kally seethed as she slammed her pistols into their holsters and retrieved her boltgun and powersword. She hadn’t needed Merle’s low wolf whistle to know that even now, being that sort of frakking arsehole, he wouldn’t waste the opportunity to be an unsavory letch.

“Love ya too, babe.” Merle snickered, as his good eye flicked back from a thorough once over of her backside to finish the one on his stolen plasma gun. He grunted in approval and cracked his neck, before he exhaled slowly and flashed a dangerous, glinting grin at the blank. “Now what’a’ya say we go savin’ the mother fuckin’ day, huh girlie?”

She ignored him and the various aches and pains already spreading across her body, especially across her chest, and took a bearing, before setting off at a dead run, Merle gleefully falling in behind her.

They tore out of the stairwell and through the deserted main hallway of an administrative section. Kally was vaguely surprised when Merle pulled even with her, and properly covered the cross corridors on his side as they darted past. Both former scummers kept weapons levelled and ready as the noise of several overlapping firefights echoed through the derelict hospital. She halted after bypassing three such intersections to gauge the air currents, before she hand signed to turn south. Kally almost snapped at Merle when he didn’t move – until she remembered his newly acquired blind spot, and sighed with frustration.

“Hey, dickless.” She tersely whispered, earning a wordless irritated grunt from the convict as she caught his attention. “We’re going south and down a level.”

“So we’re takin’ the direct route. Hmm.” Merle deduced, as able as Kally to feel the spatial disruption caused by two partially collapsed floors and an exposed basement. He hmm’d thoughtfully, doubtfully, even as he complied with her decision. “Interestin’ play to be callin’, sweetheart.”

“I didn’t ask for an opinion, shitbag.” Kally growled. She followed after Merle, and almost immediately regretted being downwind from the convict. “Seriously, Merle? You frakking shit yourself?


+++++

Tomas flinched as the temperature in the room plummeted, a thin rime of ice spreading across the pools of blood and cracked glass. The old soldier turned to check on Gavin, who had slumped forward. He managed to get an arm under him before the frail psyker collapsed out of the chair.

“Frak.” He muttered.

He didn't know if Gavin had succeeded or failed, but it was obvious the psyker had found the daemon and been in one hell of a fight. And taken one hell of a beating. Tomas grimly realized as he noted the psychostigmatic trauma. Bruises mottled the younger man’s face. His left eye was swollen shut, and a broken nose evidenced by the frozen blood caked around his nostrils. More almost black blood against Gavin’s almost sheet-white skin marked where the daemon had mauled him with psychic talons. The most severe gouges were torn across the left side of Gavin’s face, from his ear tapering down to his chin, which made him suspect that the psyker had taken a vicious backhand.

Gavin’s wounds were bad enough, but they weren’t what harrowed Tomas most. It was the shiny lines of iced over tears, and the expression of soul-wrenching anguish locked onto the otherwise limp psyker’s face. The old soldier’s bitter experience had him recognize that haunted look of profound loss, and he could easily guess what that meant. Kelly. Something bad has happened to Kelly. He bit down on a curse with gritted teeth, resisting the reflexive urge to once again damn the Terran torturers for the damage they’d inflicted on the penitents. Nyl being wounded had been destabilizing enough, but if one of the tight knit group of survivors was a fatality…

The old soldier dismissively shook his head. Whatever had happened down in the basement, and what was maybe still happening, it wasn’t good and he needed some damn answers. He was going to get some damn answers, but they would have to wait. Tomas knew Gavin was in no position to move under his own power.

“Sorry Gavin.” He muttered as he reached behind the psyker, and unclipped him from his bionic legs. “When this is over, we are going to get you some better bloody legs.”

He had studied Gavin’s mobility frame quite thoroughly as prep for mission, in case he needed to move the frail psyker in an emergency. With the psyker freed, he hoisted him onto his uninjured shoulder and started to make for the stairwell, a boltpistol in one hand and his sword and shield slung over his back.

“Tomas to team. Anyone out there?”

There was the familiar pop and hiss of static, but no response.

“Say again, this is Tomas, does anyone hear me?”

“I've got you chief. Me and Josiah are on the roof and have a beacon set up for extraction.”

“Thank the Throne.” Tomas allowed himself a wry smile. He could always rely on Glabrio to keep his head and his objectives in mind, even when the whole op went to the warp in a handcart. “I'm incoming with Gavin. Any sign of the others?”

“None yet. But I've been hearing some radio chatter.”

“Not good news?” Tomas huffed as he took stairs two at a time, and Gavin groaned on his shoulder at every jarring impact.

“Only snatches, but I think we've lost Ella and Kelly.”

Tomas swore, violently and with some variety and skill, before he responded over the vox.

“Once I've dropped Gavin off, I'll be going back in.”

“The Lady. . .”

“She'll understand.”


+++++

Kally realised this was as far as her little partnership with Merle could go. He could hear something hammering at something heavy and metallic a floor below. They had come to a stop and could hear, nearby, the distinctive sound of a Boltgun firing in sharp counterpoint to autoguns and lasguns.

Crenshaw

“What now, sweetheart?" Merle chuckled darkly. "Going to go help your blacksoul bastard of a fucktoy?"

Kally could feel the building move underneath her, and could sense not just the firefight nearby, but coming up the stairwell they had just crossed, a handful of reinforcements. They would be drawn to Crenshaw by the sound of gunfire and pin him from his flank. It wasn't even a decision.

"We push on. Crenshaw can look after himself."

"Now thats fuckin' cold, sweetheart." Merle cuffed at the wound over his eye and smiled widely. "Maybe your thinkin' about giving me another chance and leaving that uptight prick to get his soulless arse shot?"

She looked around the room, frowning, and ignoring his barb. Crenshaw was big enough and ugly enough to look after himself, and frankly, the . “Watch the door.” she responded flatly, before moving off to examine a section of piping exposed by collapsing wall. It was solid, unrusted, still firmly rooted to the floor and ceiling.

“Hey Merle, how frakked up is your eye right now?” She turned and pointed at her left eye, watching Merles face as he turned to respond

“Still working fine enough to enjoy your fine arse.”

“Hmpph.”

She turned back to the pipe. Mulled it over. She set her shoulders and walked over to Merle, padding quietly across the room, her sabre gripped in one hand.

“Hey.”

Merle turned, stepped back, guessing what was coming next as he hauled his rifle around. But Kally had approached from the side with his blinded eye, and the guard of her sabre crashed into Merles head, discharging a pulse of lightning. He flopped to the floor as Kally stepped back. Wordlessly, she removed her collar and reattached it to Merles neck, snuggling above the explosive device that had completely failed to keep him in check.

“Can't have the fracker downstairs jumping ship.” She dragged her fellow scummer over to the pipe and cuffed him to it. She didn't bother to check him for anything that might help him get free, this was only a temporary measure until Tomas finally got his thumb out of his arse and popped Merles head like a zit.

Kally looked up. Gunfire. Someone had screamed, The banging had stopped. She had run out of time.


+++++

Tears streaming down his face, breathing through his teeth in furious snorts, Marc barely even noticed Kelly turn away from the door and look right at him. She was smiling with her teeth, in a way that his sister hadn't done since the Terra cells had half-ruined her gums.

"You will not understand." she told him, in a voice that managed to echo and chorus all by itself. "Because you are just the ink on the page, drying and flaking away. We are the Story."

A line of explosions stitched between Kelly and Marc, drawing both Blacks' eyes up as Kally dropped into the room. She threw her empty boltgun aside as she landed, and charged with a wordless yell. Kelly stepped back, which turned into a reeling stagger as Kally's blank aura hit her full force, and then both women rebounded from the wall as Kally slammed into her and full-body tackled her to the floor.

Somewhere behind her Kally could hear Marc rasping her name, while beneath her Kelly was thrashing like a landed fish. Her friend's face and hair were mortis-white with dust, save for the shockingly red lines snaking from her nose and forehead. Her eyes were screwed shut; her mouth screaming open.

Kelly's fist flailed up to thump hard into Kally's ear, with the loose crunch of finger bones that were already broken. The blow was hard enough to stagger her sideways. Kelly rolled up and away from her and tried to crawl away, scrabbling blindly at the floor.

“Get back here.” she snarled, and scrambled after Kelly. She caught her friend, hauling her up by her collar and getting an elbow to her face for her trouble.

“In His name I abjure thee, in His name I castigate thee, in His name I cast thee out.” Kally chanted as she shoved Kelly to the floor again. She dropped on top of her friend and finally, finally, got her left arm around her friend's throat, putting her in a choke hold. “In His name I name thee, Daemon, thrice cursed, spawn of Chaos, and I cast ye the frak out!”

"You have no true faith in the Emperor!" Kelly shrieked, and jerked her head back with violent force. Blood exploded from Kally's mouth but she refused to let go.

"Alright then." Kally snarled. “In the name of Marcus frakking Black I abjure thee! In the name of Vincent Nyl and Sapphira Wilder I name thee daemon! In Kelly Black's name I cast you out of my friend!”

Kally scrambled to keep Kelly pinned, but it was like riding a rampaging grox. Even with her pariah aura smothering its sight and power, the daemon would use every reserve of its host, with none of the normal human limitations. Even so, Kally was counting her lucky stars. Compared to what had become of Sidonis, this was nothing. She tightened her grip and gritted her teeth as Kelly let out another keening shriek, beating her bloodied hands against the rubble.

“Come on Kelly, fight this frakker!” She felt teeth sink into her arm, chewing through the bodyglove under her battered armour to draw blood. “I know you're still in there!”

The pressure on her arm vanished and she braced herself for a second bite, but instead Kelly let out a retching noise and convulsed against her chest. Kelly dry-heaved a second time, and this time an enormous quantity of something thick and oily black poured out over Kally's arm and went spreading across the floor, roiling like something caught between gas and liquid. It shrank away in a ring around Kally's blank bubble, like oil dispersed by an immiscible water, before finally gusting upwards, shredding and vanishing through the ruined ceiling.

As Kelly slumped back against her arm, Kally saw her eyes glaze over, roll back into her head, and close.

Kally let go immediately, stepping up and away from Kelly. She tapped her vox bead and broadcast on a general band, ignoring the crawling goosebump sensation that had spread from her wounded arm to her whole body and was only now receding. She could feel a fresh nosebleed tracking down her face that had nothing to do with physical trauma.

“Kally to team, Kelly is safe. Repeat, Kelly is safe.”

She didn't dare broadcast more over the squad link, and knelt down to check on Kelly, hovering her cheek over her friends mouth

“She's not breathing.” She shifted and found Kellys wrist. “No pulse.” Marc was behind her, any previous relief vanished. Kally pointed to Kellys chest even as she flashed her combat knife, sawing Kellys suit open and peeling her sweaty flak vest off, before positioning Kelly so her airway was open. “Compressions, give me thirty.” As Marc got into position, gloved fingers laced and the heel of his hands over his sisters breastbone, Kally shrugged out of her own restrictive carapace. She bent down to Kellys face and counted the compressions.
10,
20,
30,
Kally ducked in and clamped her mouth over Kellys, pinching her nose, and pushed two breaths into her, Kellys chest rising and falling, before pulling up for air.
“Again!”
10,
20,
30,
Marc was flagging, Kally could see the strain on his face, but she couldn't admit that she was faring worse after the long firefight to get here. Kally ducked in and delivered two breaths.
“Again!”
10,
20,
30,
Come on Kelly, come back to us.
Kally ducked in again. One breath, out. Kelly coughed, spittle flying into Kally's face as she ducked in for the second breath. Both Kally and Marc slumped back, watching Kelly breathe on her own , before Kally rolled Kelly onto her side, propping her up. She also drew a laspistol, and kept it at her side. Marc shifted slightly, taking his sisters hand in his, before turning to look at Kally, an unreadable mix of emotions on his face.

“Looks like that grox fucking cultist got away while we being kinky, Kally girl!”

Kally's shoulders slumped as Marc hissed a curse. Kally pulled herself to her feet, and decided that trying to trade barbs with Merle was not worth her remaining fraks.

“Doors jammed, rusted most likely. Get your arse down here and cut us out.”

Merle grinned and scrambled down the rubble, plasma gun bouncing from its strap.

“I see the cute little verispex is out for the count, I always preferred my girls unconscious, stops 'em whining too much.”

Kally flicked the safety off her laspistol and favoured Merle with a death glare that could bore through concrete. He shrugged and turned his stolen weapon on the morgue door, and with almost admirable precision, cut the door from its hinges. A final blast sent it tumbling backwards with a dull roar that seemed to shake the whole building.

“Lets get out of here.” Kally muttered, keeping Merle covered as they started to head to the roof.

[Azazeal849]

Arthrashastra med Lab
24 hours later

The pain in (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjncyiuwwXQ) Ella's chest was a dull ache every time she breathed in, matching the low but insistent thump beneath her scalp. Her blind eyes were gummed together with sleep, and she rubbed them clean even as she sat up against her pillows and looked around with her warp-sight. The Arthrashastra's med lab was a cold, sterile grey, with only flickered imprints ghosting across the beds and equipment. Merle had been confined to the secure brig surgery on deck 4, and so apart from herself and Kelly the primary med lab had seen little use. It seemed to have been the case for quite some time.

Against the greywashed backdrop, Kelly Black's aura was a bright yellow candle, burning low as she slept. The ripples across her phantom form told Ella that her dreams were troubled. She could entirely sympathise - possession was the primal threat, hammered home with visceral warnings into every psyker who was brought to Terra. One lapse in vigilance could cost you your sanity, your life and your soul. To survive it was a miracle.

And yet Kelly was still alive - alive and, seemingly, intact. Or was she? Ella strained her warp-sight, trying to peer closer into the cracked red soulfire around Kelly's broken hands, and at the wisps of other contacts hovering around her. She saw nothing inhuman, but she could pick out the silver psychic traces of inquisitor Machairi, twisted through Sapphira's coral blue and Marc's jagged grey, and...

Gavin?

A click of the door opening made her start almost guiltily. She was already in enough trouble. She pulled her snooping attention away from Kelly and yanked the bedsheets closer to her thin cotton nightgown, gathering them up around her chest. Her tension dissolved a little when she saw the familiar aura padding softly across the wardroom towards her, and she even felt her heart skip a beat, despite her unflattering position.

"Hey." she said, her fingertips coming self-consciously up to her cheek. Her shy smile faded in the face of a sudden jolt of worry. "What happened? Did Sapphira...?"

"It's fine, kitten." Alicia said tiredly. "Belannor gave me the all-clear from the flect. How are you?"

"Better." Ella replied. She lost her smile completely as Alicia came closer, and the wavering cracks in her aura became apparent. It was painfully obvious that the other woman was upset.

"Alley?" Ella asked in concern, and to her consternation she saw the other woman's aura fracture further. She grimaced, cursing her mistake. "Still not used to that name, huh?"

"No." Alicia corrected huskily, as she sat down by the side of the bed and tucked her hands into her shapeless grey sweatshirt. "I just don't like what that name means to everyone."

Ella shook her head. "I don't understand."

Alicia let out a weary breath. "I already told you about how I don't want to be some weird cult figure to the subsector. Well, it seems like I can't talk to the team either now. I thought that they would be different after Dosi...but when I talked to Sapphira, she just laid into me. Marc blames me for Kelly. And when I went to see Gavin, he was sanding the names off his legs and told me that not everyone has the luxury of coming back from the dead."

She paused to rub the bridge of her nose, sending a frizzon of stress through her aura.

Ella hugged her duvet. She remembered very clearly the incandescent rage coursing through Sapphira's aura as they were all bundled back into the lander. As for Marc and Gavin...

"Everyone's been through a lot." she tried to rationalise. "They'll need...time. We nearly lost Vince and Kelly down there."

Alicia's hands went back into the pockets of her sweatshirt as she hunched her shoulders. "Aren't merely near-death experiences the standard in our line of work? I hate what happened to Vincent and Kelly but I'm just glad they made it. The closest friends I had were in the Nebulas, and I tended to lose them - combat deaths, transfers...all the usual misfortunes of the imperium."

Ella frowned. "Alley."

"Listen, I know I'm not the only one. Gavin had a right to say what he did, and I know you've probably seen friends killed or shipped off to Warp knows where. I suppose if anything you have it worse. At least I don't have to deal with my friends being killed by my own side."

Ella's mouth fell open. Most of her colleagues had more tact than to mention the threat that all psykers ultimately lived under. She wouldn't have expected it from Alicia.

"That's not fair." she said, upset.

Alicia sighed, and bowed her head. "I'm sorry. It's just...it's hard...it's really, really hard when all they do is judge. I mean, Marc going on about how all the cloak and dagger...all of Theodosia's flirting and acting, how it wasn't like me. How would he know?"

Ella gnawed her lip. The trouble was, even she felt that there were things about Alicia Tarran that she didn't know. She saw trickling lines split the green shimmer that made up Alicia's face, and realised that the other woman was crying.

A streak of black blurred up across Ella's warp-sight from Alicia's sweatshirt pocket. Alicia unstoppered the thin tube and drained the contents, diffusing the black through her aura.

"Alley," Ella said uneasily, "I've told you about going easy on the Spook..."

Alicia curled her fist around the tiny vial and dropped her forehead against it. "Please Ella," she groaned. "Not right now."

Having her compassion thrown in her face a second time made Ella see red.

"I'm being serious!" she all but shrieked. "If you're not worried about Crenshaw hauling you in as a rogue psyker then worry about yourself! I know you were possessed! That's why you tried to stop Machairi branding Kelly with that pentagram, isn't it?"

This time it was Alicia's mouth that fell open. "How...?"

"It's in your aura." Ella explained defiantly. "I thought I saw it on the way to Baraspine, but I was more worried about making sure you were okay. Down in the Dead City I was sure."

It had been there - visible for a brief moment as Theodosia's vibrant aura sloughed away. Down below the cracked jade exterior, inside the dark, lonely core. Alley's soul was branded with the deep, unmistakeable scar of a demon's claws.

"I've had your back," Ella snapped. "This whole time, even though it's left me in shit with the others. If you want the team to trust you you have to be honest with them, and that goes double for me!"

She stopped to breathe, shocked by the intensity of her own emotion. Her bruised ribs knifed at her in punishment for the outburst. A memory floated up to her - something one of the overseers in the City of Sight had told her, back in her days as an initiate. The path of knowledge is a long trail of tears.

Alicia was quiet for a long moment. Her aura wavered.

"Yes." she admitted at last. "I was possessed. Back on Marioch, during the Nibenay rebellion. I killed a lot of people. And Sidonis' agents put me through hell before they let me serve again. But after that, things like Spook lose their relative danger."


+ + + + + +

Alicia swore and tugged her helmet off her head, freeing her vision from the blinding greyscale static of her damaged visor. A few more emergency release triggers split open her armour, removing the dead weight of her heat-fused knee and ankle joints. She grimaced as she stripped off the vambraces, the injector plugs pulling free from the sockets at her elbows. The ticking pulse in her temples faded as the MIU shut down.

Arcolin had been smart to rig an improvised plasma charge to the inside of the airlock, but she was still alive, and she still had her weapons. Waystation 2724 was a cheerless place; oversized and aggressively lit, which made the faded plastek and the yellowing ceremite bulkheads stand out all the more. Grinning cog-skulls lined the empty reception corridor, each one with glassy camera lenses for eyes. No doubt the heretic was watching her even now.

"I know you're there, you motherfrakker." Alicia growled.

A vox-caster crackled into life from somewhere among the baroque ribs and buttresses that adorned the corridor. It emitted a sequence of staccato raps, and Alicia belatedly realised that it was the sound of Arcolin clapping.

"Good job, Alley." the heretic's voice echoed, distorted by the static wash of the ancient and ailing comms system. "I was actually quite hoping that you wouldn't fall at the first hurdle. You're too perfect a specimen."

Alicia disconnected the long barrel from her modular autogun, and started up the corridor, sweeping the shortened weapon left and right. The migraine-bright lighting left few shadows to hide in, but the plethora of access tubes and devotional alcoves gave ample scope for concealing booby traps.

"No comebacks Alley? No witty banter to liven up the walk?" Arcolin gave a theatrical sigh. "I suppose I'll have to keep the floor entertained by myself. The things I do for love."

The heretic's voice followed her as she advanced, jumping from one concealed vox caster to another.

"I've been through the inquisition files that Van Der Mir was kind enough to hand over to Emerald." he went on, almost conversationally. "Fascinating reading. You were a heretic's experiment, bred to be the perfect daemonhost. That's why you interfaced so well with Nibenay's failed experiment on Marioch. The Táin wanted you so much more than that sub-standard host I gave Nibenay."

He's a liar. He'll say anything to throw you off your game.

All the same, Alicia couldn't stop her hands from tightening in a white-knuckle grip around her autogun. The only thing stopping her from shooting out every vox caster on the station was the knowledge that she would need every last bullet for Arcolin.

"Your creator was taken down," Arcolin said wistfully, "But the ones who did it thought you would be useful. Grotesque arrogance I'll grant, but I can't say I'm not grateful to them."

Alicia gritted her teeth, her cheek muscles standing out taut. Don't let him get to you!

"Oh don't tell me you didn't suspect?" Arcolin drawled, with feigned incredulity. "Surely you thought it was weird that your foster parents were a retired stormtrooper and a Battle Sister? They never loved you. They were just watching for the day they might have to execute you."

Alicia stopped, trembling with anger, in front of a vast round door edged with a cog pattern of shining, crenelated bronze. At the centre of the door, another camera-eyed skull leered out at her.

"I'm coming for you, Arcolin." Alicia snarled, and burst the grinning skull into sparking fragments with a single shot from her autogun.


+ + + + + +

"You heard that a daemonhost cored out Nibenay and his rebellion on Marioch." Alicia murmured. "It's true - but it wasn't his daemonhost."

"Does Machairi know?" Ella pressed.

"Probably. She knows that Nibenay's daemon got loose, she knows that Sidonis put me through special screening after Marioch, and she wouldn't buy that I knew exactly how to core out that heretic rogue trader's organisation on my own. I suppose I should thank her for not telling you all."

Ella didn't reply. The thought of how Crenshaw or Wuziarch would react to the news made her blood run cold.

"What worries me is that Arcolin knew too." Alicia went on. "And he could easily have sent Marc and the others off the deep end by letting it slip. So why didn't he?"

Ella shook her head, ruminating anxiously on what she had seen on Baraspine.

"He told me all sorts of crap before he escaped." Alicia massaged her temples with her fingers. "And the worst thing was I could verify it. My so-called parents were inquisition agents. Just two handlers, waiting to see if I'd go off the rails. They never really cared about me. I feel I've never really had any human being care for me for who I really was."

Ella went quiet, her anger evaporating and replaced by an empathetic pang of guilt. She reached out, hesitantly, to put her hand on Alicia's arm.

"I care." she whispered.

[dakkagor]

Marc's right fist was visibly trembling as he stared through the glass into the Arthrashastra's med lab. His left was clenched around the handle of his plastek crutch, threatening to snap the walking aid.

"What," he asked, his voice a hissing rasp. "Did you do?"

"What was necessary, Agent Black." Alia Machairi answered him, coolly. No doubt some of her hard-line colleagues would have accused her of doing significantly less than was necessary to neutralise a former daemonhost. And then there was captain Tarran, who had well-meaningly tried to make the argument that the pentagrammic ward would not be needed at all. Machairi had been dubious, given Tarran's coloured history on the subject.

"Necessary?" Marc repeated, snapping his head round to look at Machairi. His green eyes were shadowed and bloodshot, and Machairi surmised that he hadn't slept since Baraspine. A bite of cinnamon and leather in the air told Machairi that the agent was wearing slightly more aftershave than was his wont - almost as if he was trying to cover something else. Tiredness again, or has he been drinking? Machairi made a mental note to ask Solvan to look in on Black. His emotional state was understandably frayed.

However, she wasn't about to accept that as an excuse. While she encouraged candour from her agents, she rarely tolerated disrespect, and she had no intention of changing that now.

"Let me be clear, Agent Black." she said stiffly. "I have no intention of having your sister killed. But our policy of not taking chances doesn't only apply to Carson. I have to put the well being of this team before any of your personal feelings. Is that understood?"

Marc's cheek muscles twitched as he gritted his teeth and then released. "Yes, ma'am."

Machairi nodded smartly, and softened her tone just a fraction. "Go and see her, Marcus. She asked after you as soon as she woke up."

Marc offered her a grateful nod in return, and shouldered through the med-lab door into the ward room beyond. As she watched him go, Machairi reaffirmed her decision to talk to Solvan. Beware the daemon at your back. She had no intention of becoming paranoid, but there were altogether too many people whom that old astropathic prophesy might apply to.


+ + + + + +

The ward was softly lit, and smelled of counterseptic and floral air cleanser. The constant rumble of the air circulators was counterpointed by the soft beep of monitoring equipment, and the rhythmic piston-clank of a medicae servitor shuffling up and down the row of beds. Glancing right, Marc saw that Ella's privacy curtain was half drawn. Alicia was kneeling beside the bed, clad in an uncharacteristic grey tracksuit. Even as he watched, Marc reflected that his own unironed shirt and suit trousers hardly qualified as well-presented.

He limped across to his sister's bed, hobbling on the rubber-capped crutch that Sapphira had insisted he use for the next few days. Just so he didn't turn a light sprain into something worse, she had said.

Kelly shifted against her pillows as Marc scraped a plastek chair across the floor tiles, pulling it next to the bed. Looking down, Marc hesitated. Kelly's injuries looked worse up close than from the window. Her broken hand was bound up in thick plaster, and gauze dressings covered the skinned knuckles of the other. An IV drip snaked down from a hanger and into the crook of her arm, the tube taped in place. A thick wad of gauze was pressed to her forehead, wound around with bandages that were so thick they covered her eyes.

Kelly struggled up onto one elbow, and made a face. "Either my brother's in the room, or someone else is wearing his frak-awful aftershave."

Marc heard himself laugh, raggedly. "I'm sorry." he half-whispered, manoeuvring awkwardly into the chair and propping his crutch against Kelly's bedside table. "I didnae think you'd want me to come in smelling of worry and alcohol."

Kelly groaned quietly. "Was it good alcohol at least?"

Her voice was fuzzy with sleep and morphia, and raw with the strain the demon had put on her vocal cords.

"If Vince's homebrew counts as good." Marc admitted. Vincent himself had had no use for his blindness-inducing moonshine since they had been released on Terra. Seemingly, he was now taking his comfort from Solvan's prayers instead. "How are you feeling?"

"I hurt everywhere." Kelly rasped, with a painful wince. "But Vince's homebrew? What did you mix it with?"

"A glass."

Kelly groaned again. "For frak's sake, Marc."

Marc felt vaguely irritated at the admonition, the triviality of it seeming somehow offensively out of place next to everything else. "Kel...do you remember what happened?"

Kelly shook her bandaged head. "I'm sorry Marc, it's all a blank. Please tell me I didnae hurt anyone."

"No, no." Marc reassured her. It was a lie; he had seen Kally's bloody face, and the psycho-stigmatic wounds all over Gavin when they all limped out onto the hospital roof. But his sister was not the one who needed to feel guilty right now.

"Sapphira told me that Kally drove it out." Kelly rasped. "And you and her brought me back."

Marc shook his own head, even though his sister couldn't see him. "Kel, I...I nearly shot you. I did shoot you. If the gun hadnae jammed..."

Kelly groped around the bedsheets with her good arm, and Marc realised she was searching for his hand. He took it, feeling the warmth of Kelly's fingers against his own ice-cold ones.

"Then you'd still ae made the right decision." Kelly told him firmly.

Marc was certain that that was a lie, of the same kind that he himself had just told. He had been sure in the moment that he couldn't let anyone else take the risk, but he had been second-guessing that call ever since. Kally had done it, in spite of what Alley had predicted. She didn't need his protection. Why hadn't he instinctively just trusted one of his closest friends?

If I'd waited just a few more seconds, Kally would have still gotten there, and probably managed to jump Arcolin as well. If only the vox had gotten through to her rather than Alley...

He found his gaze drawn to the bay two beds down from Kelly's, where Ella and Alicia were still talking. He couldn't suppress a scowl. She was wrong about Kally, and about Kelly being recoverable. She should have been able to read the situation better.

He brushed his thumb over his sister's hand, imagining it not warm and alive but deathly cold.

No, he thought, the ugly thought curling like a snake around his stomach as he watched Alicia. I shouldn't have trusted her.

There was a gentle tap at the door, followed by a cough that drew Marc's attention. Kally was lurking at the frame, dressed in a simple training jumpsuit. Her left arm was bandaged and her hair was drawn back into a short ponytail, revealing a freshly cleaned and repaired suppression collar. Vincent was a step behind her, his own neck encircled by a cushioned plastek brace.

Kally spoke first. "Hey Marc, is Kelly awake?"

"I am now." Kelly snarked thinly. Kally stepped across the threshold, smiling.

"Just wanted to check in, see that you were doing all right."

Kally had meant the question for Kelly, but she ended up looking at Marc as she finished it. The other agent didn't hold her gaze. She crossed the room quietly, looking over to Ella's bed and frowning slightly at Alley's back, before pulling up a chair and slumping down.

"I'm doing all right." Kelly croaked, then coughed. "I don't remember a lot of what happened though."

"Yeah, I heard." Kally shrugged. "It's all right, you didn't miss much."

"Grox shit." Kelly challenged her weakly.

Vince folded his arms, the servos in his bionic left pistoning softly. "Ja." he admitted with a sigh. "Arcolin slipped the net, but one of the cultos squealed and we know where the fokker's headed next. But don't you worry about that, kiddo. What'll have us all sleeping safer's knowing you're restin' up and on the mend, ja?"

He paced up behind Marc and slapped the younger investigator on the back.

"Mess hall's still serving." he said pointedly. "Marc an' me'll be back in five with some proper chow instead of whatever grox shit they've been serving in here."

The jerk of his head wasn't subtle, and Kally reflected that it was fortunate that Kelly couldn't see them. She was left to wonder at Vince's startling approximation of tact while Marc pursed his lips and took the hint, rising from his seat and following the stocky ex-Guardsman towards the door. Kally managed to catch Marc's eye on his way out, and again he looked away, preoccupied.

Kally sighed; softly, but the way Kelly moved her head towards her meant she was sure the other woman had caught it.

“I don’t need to tell you that Marc is beating himself up over all this.” she said.

“No.” Kelly admitted. “But I wish he wouldn’t. I can't even talk to him honestly when he's...like this.”

Her good hand picked uncomfortably at the plaster cast over her broken fingers.

"I mean, how am I supposed to admit to him how scared I am without him flying off the handle? I don't remember anything. Anything. I have absolutely no idea what that thing did to me. And even Saph can't tell me what Machairi's planning to do now, only that she had me branded like some sort of dangerous heretic."

Her hands rose to the sides of her head, and for a moment Kally thought that she was trying to rip the bandages off, but she only let her head sink against her hands.

Kally reached out and took a gentle hold of Kellys hands, causing her to flinch. “Hey, don't pick at that.” She held Kelly's hands for a moment, before breaking the contact, as Kelly was tensed, shoulders hunched from the contact. “You'll be alright. I vouched for you myself with Machairi. Getting that daemon out was all you, I just made it a fair fight.”

"Thanks, but you don't know that." Kelly rasped. "I told you, I don't remember anything."

She chewed at a fingernail, worrying the cuticle with her teeth.

"Either I was out cold the whole time, or it wiped my memory on its way out."

Kally had vouched for Kelly's safety, but she also knew that she was still a risk, and she hated herself for knowing that. According to Alley, fighting off a possession gave you a resistance to future attempts. But from her own experience Kally knew that the departing daemon would often, but not always, leave behind its own mark, like a gang's tag on a concrete wall. Kelly hadn't manifested one, yet, but Kally knew that Machairi and the others would be watching for it.

“You'll see." she rallied, "No pun intended. Me and Vince will get Marc levelled out and calmed down, and we can finish this like we started it. As a team.”

Kelly nodded slightly. "Thanks Kally."

Kally smiled, lapsing into silence. As the silence deepened, and she looked over Kelly's injuries, she started to replay what had happened over in her mind, and her mood slumped.

“We’ve all got a share of the blame this time.” Kally muttered, leaning forwards and resting her chin on her clasped hands, her elbows on her knees. “I should have capped that heretic frakker, blown his brains out right on that Throne-cursed rooftop and ended this. We underestimated him, Kelly. We beat all his traps, completely outmanoeuvred him, pulled out his freaking heart and shackled him to a chair, and he still beat us.” She slumped back in the chair. “I should have told Crenshaw to jam his capture order up his frakking arse.”

“Don’t you start with that.” Kelly responded. “You had no way of knowing...”

“I want to believe that. I think we all do. But we knew. We knew he would get away from us if we let our guards down, and we convinced ourselves that we had beaten him when he was nothing but.” Kally shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Next time, I’m not going to hesitate, no matter what. I’m going to finish this even if it kills me. I’m fed up with living under this delayed death sentence.”

"Kally, be careful." Kelly rasped, almost plaintively. "I don't...I don't want you getting stuck in the same place Marc is. You're both better than that. Arcolin's life isn't worth either of yours."

”Kelly, you saw what I did to Merle. Throne knows the frakker. . . no, even he didn't deserve that. The things I've done, I . . . I'm not a good person like you or Marc. I can drop to his level, hell, I could probably drop to Arcolin's level if the mission required it, if any of you were in danger, if it would get the job done once and for all. I left Crenshaw to fight alone knowing he could have been overwhelmed and killed. Even when I thought I was doing the right thing by collaring Merle, it made me miss Arcolin.” She laughed bitterly. “I don't deserve friends like you and Marc most days. Here I came in to cheer you up, and I ended up bringing up all that crap.”

"Kally..." Kelly said, though she didn't seem to know how to continue. She tugged at her nail again.

"I'm sorry." she said after a moment. "For running away after you beat Merle's teeth out. I just wasn't ready for that story about the ganger girl..."

She stopped, and shook her head.

"I know you're not that person any more. We can all be horrible, dangerous people - all of us. Vince needs the rest of us to help keep him steady, especially you. I turn into a hard-headed bitch if you people aren't here to point out when I'm wrong. And Marc...well, you know."

Kelly groped for her friend's hand with her blood-smeared fingers, and found it. Kally only felt the slightest twitch of reaction to her blank aura.

"What I'm trying to say is, we can all sink really, really low. But we have to believe that we can bring each other back."

Kally choked back tears, tensed and looked away.

“Throne damnit, how did you get so good at being so right?”

Kellys grip tightened on her hand, making Kally look round again. The other womans face was turned to face her, which was disconcerting with the bandages.

“Promise me. Promise me you'll look after Marc. Don't let him. . .”

“I won't, I swear.” Kally promised, gripping her friends hand. “I'll bring everyone back, no matter what, I promise. Like I said, we'll finish this like we started it, as a team.”

[Atrum Daemon]

“Did you get all of that?” she asked them.

“Every word, ready for transcription.” Normally Tomas would have been happy with that kind of interrogative performance, but instead he was subdued, and tired. He had already personally apologised to Inquisitor Machairi, taking all the blame for the foul up as the leader on the ground. He had walked back through every decision he had made, every call, and analysed them all. Now he needed to go through the same process with the team, to assess where people had failed so it could be prevented from happening again.

That was in the future. Right now, he flicked a look to Vizkop, impassive next to him.

“Normally, I'd suggest we lock down the star ports and alert the local Arbites, get them to check outgoing ships, that kind of thing.”

“But this time?” Machairi quietly enquired, also casting a quick look to Vizkop.

“This time, I suggest we make best speed to Perinetus and get our blood hounds back on his scent. I'd bet my pension that the frakker is already on the Forgeworld.”

The implication in Tomas statement was that Arcolin no longer needed a void ship, to travel the slow and dangerous way through the Immaterium. That his fell masters would allow him to move between worlds in an instant. It explained, potentially, a great deal, and would mark Arcolin as an exceptionally dangerous Heretic, the most dangerous Machairi, Glabrio, Solvan and Tomas would have ever faced.

“I'd like to discuss Perinetus in private with you, Inquisitor” Vizkop offered. Machairi nodded. “Tomas, get the team put back together. And keep an eye on Alicia Tarran. I doubt she's out of surprises for us.”

“As you say Ma'am.” Tomas responded stiffly, aware he was being dismissed. Machairi was not one to make her displeasure known through more than a curt word and a certain tone, but Tomas knew he was out of favour currently, and rightly so. He turned sharply on his heels and stalked down the corridor, already thinking about how to turn this cursed investigation around.

“Thank you for seeing me in private, Alia.”

Vizkop offered the Inquisitor one of his more genuine smiles. He did like the woman, after all. She was competent at her job and kept a level head even in dire straights. Both excellent qualities in a leader. Her level-headedness was more commendable considering the massive backfiring they had taken with the last mission. But, Vizkop was not there in her office to talk about that. He was more interested in looking to the future. Particularly to the Forge World that was to be their destination. For better or worse, such places were his home turf. And a Forge in the midst of a political battle between Magi was a very deadly place for players like Inquisitors. But, they had a chance to get a piece already in place with Vizkop's help.

“I wanted to talk to you about the Forge World we're heading to. I am unsure how much you know about Mechanicus political movements, but I believe you would assume they are dangerous. And you would be right. If we go in unprepared, we will just have our time endless wasted trying to trade favors for favors with people men and women we have no real leverage over. I think I can help there. Weaponsmith Ankari is someone I am...familiar with. We have a mutual acquaintance with the Lords Dragon.”

The assassin paused to take a drink from the water-filled glass and let Alia process his information. He did indeed have ties to the Dragons. To call him one of their agents was a tenuous notion, but he did act on their behalf at times. But it was enough for him to have special access and communication codes and to be able to identify other agents. It just so happened, he had run into Jazmin Ankari on more than a few occasions. In fact, Ankari had been his handler for a few assignments he had run for the Dragons. They had a...stable relationship. The kind between co-workers who could at least respect one another.

“Ankari is the recent recipient of a nice promotion within the shadowy order. I am not certain exactly how high, but I can still get us in to see him. She and I have worked together in the past. And in case you are worried, no we did not leave on bad terms. I would not call her a friend, necessarily, but certainly a professional acquaintance. I possess the communication codes to get in touch with her in such a way that he'll be hard-pressed to ignore. This is the kind of in we need, Alia. I promise you that if you try doing this through official channels, even flashing your Inquisitorial status, the red-tape will be a barrier the likes you won't see outside the Administratum. The kind of politicking we can be sure is going on there can not be fostering an air of trust. And a Magos is not the most trustworthy person at the best of times. And I don't think you fancy the idea of being endlessly given the run around, right? Certainly not at this stage.”

[Azazeal849]

“This time, I suggest we make best speed to Perinetus and get our blood hounds back on his scent. I'd bet my pension that the frakker is already on the Forgeworld.”

Machairi didn't answer directly. Instead, she marked the points of the Aquila across her chest.

"We'll attack both ends." she decided after a moment's silence. "Tell Tarran to get her ship prepped for a side-along jump with the Tiercel. We'll make best speed for Perinetus and leave the local authorities to lock down here."

Although the governor's Nebulas had sent a fast warp-runner straight back to Tephaine, their frigate was still in orbit and most of the corps was still aggressively sweeping the surface of Baraspine. According to the Silent Vigil's taps of the frigate vox comms, they were having no more luck than Machairi's own skull drones. Trying to shut down all the flights out of Baraspine would be a public relations nightmare with the planetary governor and the trade cartels, but at least with a Navy frigate to augment the hard-pressed arbites it was actually possible.

“I'd like to discuss Perinetus in private with you, Inquisitor.” Vizkop offered.

...

“Thank you for seeing me in private, Alia.” Vizkop offered the Inquisitor one of his more genuine smiles.

Machairi returned it, though more wanly as she carefully placed the silver mask back on its stand on a wall shelf and fetched down a data crystal from a combination box safe. She slotted it into the holo-projector on her table, and leaned her palms against the table edge as the projector extruded a thin beam of light, which spread and flowered like digital origami to produce a spherical map of the subsector.

"So here we have Perinetus." the inquisitor mused aloud, as she struck a rune that caused the projection to collapse and refold into an image of the oily grey forge world, with its signature shipyards hovering in orbit. "Does archmagos Krupp still hold power there?"

Vizkop nodded.

"And still as paranoid as ever, I suppose."

Vizkop saw the inquisitor purse her lips thoughtfully. Archmagos Lazarine Krupp was indeed far from the most welcoming ruler. As Vizkop recalled, he had become so suspicious of his own subordinates that he never ventured outside the steel and copper fortress of Complex Alpha 1 - except when the annual Founders' Day demanded his public appearance, and even then he didn't step further than his refractor-shielded balcony.

“I am unsure how much you know about Mechanicus political movements, but I believe you would assume they are dangerous. And you would be right. If we go in unprepared, we will just have our time endlessly wasted trying to trade favors for favors with men and women we have no real leverage over. I think I can help there. Weaponsmith Ankari is someone I am...familiar with."

"Jazmin Ankari?" inquisitor Machairi cocked an eyebrow. "How do you know her?"

Archmagos Krupp might be the most aloof and insular tech-priest on Perinetus, but he was hardly an isolated example. Weaponsmith Ankari stood just below him in the pecking order, just above bio-interface specialist Integrator Delzharian, and by all accounts both magi wanted Krupp's job. The honour of Master of the Perinetus Shipyards was a strategic one, and those with their sights set on it played their cards exceptionally close to their chests.

"We have a mutual acquaintance with the Lords Dragon.”

The assassin paused to take a drink from the water-filled glass and let Alia process his information. He did indeed have ties to the Dragons. "Ankari is the recent recipient of a nice promotion within the shadowy order. I am not certain exactly how high, but I can still get us in to see her. She and I have worked together in the past. And in case you are worried, no we did not leave on bad terms. I would not call her a friend, necessarily, but certainly a professional acquaintance. I possess the communication codes to get in touch with her in such a way that she'll be hard-pressed to ignore. This is the kind of in we need, Alia. I promise you that if you try doing this through official channels, even flashing your Inquisitorial status, the red tape will be a barrier the likes of which you won't see outside the Administratum. The kind of politicking we can be sure is going on there can not be fostering an air of trust. And a Magos is not the most trustworthy person at the best of times. And I don't think you fancy the idea of being endlessly given the run around, right? Certainly not at this stage.”

"Right." Machairi admitted, stepping back from the table and folding her arms. "Could you convince Ankari to give us passage down to the surface? That cultist talking about a magos giving a big speech sounds to me like Krupp's Founder's Day address."

She reached forward to tap the holo-pojector panel again, and the 3D image raced inwards to show the broken-tooth topography of the city surrounding Complex Alpha 1. Shuttle tubes strung between the high towers, and mag-lev lines webbed the ground, but the archmagos' palace was isolated from the rest of the interconnected metropolis by a ring of security walls.

"Founder's Day is in three weeks." Machairi noted. "If we can't make headway through the official channels then DeRei certainly won't be able to, but worming his way through the menial districts to set up a sniper shot would fit his M.O, and Krupp standing out on a balcony is the perfect opportunity even if it's shielded."

She pulled the data crystal out of its reading slot, and the hololith flickered away.

"If you can get us free access to the city, then we have another chance to take him down. I'll put Glabrio and Marc at your disposal to help with drawing up a list of possible sniping points. If you think Ankari can be trusted, send her the list to have them watched."

Machairi returned to the shelves where she replaced the data crystal before retrieving a glass and a crystal bottle from the cabinet below. She poured a measured volume of amber liquid into the glass, and Vizkop's augmetic olfactory sensors spiked with the chemical traces of fermented fruit and sweet spices. The inquisitor clicked over to him on her flat-heeled boots and chimed her glass against Vizkop's own simple container of water.

"I'm in your debt again I think, Vizkop. Thank you." She raised her drink to her lips, swallowed, and exhaled as she lowered the glass. "I suppose I'd better have Crenshaw deal with our prisoner."

[Imperial1917]

A deep groan echoed ominously through the hull of the Arthrashastra, swallowing the soft tread of Trist’s footsteps. Tilting his head back, he looked up at the ceiling reflexively, a habit drummed into him by a thousand pic-reels than any real expectation to see anything. He had long since learned that any true failures of the hull of a ship would manifest with little warning and sudden explosions of decompression. And this was not the first time he had heard such things since coming aboard anyways.

Eventually the groaning receded. For a moment he held the pose, as if expecting it to continue. Satisfied that there was nothing he could do to prevent sudden death, Trist continued on his walk. In truth, the absence of the sound meant nothing; the thickness of the rugs underfoot meant that he could not hear his own footsteps anyways. Slowly moving his head from side to side, Trist took in his surroundings.

Boarding the ship had been an involved endeavor, just not for Trist. As far as he could tell, there was no real reason why he had been involved in the action other than because there was nothing else for him to do. The long, tedious descent to the surface had been followed by a tense loading of wounded Inquisitorial agents – always a risky proposition, as they tend to be a bit trigger-happy if not sedated – and a solitary prisoner – actually two, if he was not mistaken – and a long, tension-brimmed ascent during which he sensibly withdrew to a corner out of the way of the Inquisitor, the medical servitors, and the prisoners. Upon arrival, everyone dispersed almost immediately, most to the infirmary. This left Trist in the landing bay, alone save for the pilot of the Aquila shuttle, which actually powered down and left him alone completely. Not that he was complaining – servitors tend to make terrible conversationalists. However, it did leave him without a tour guide.

Trist lifted the glowing dataslate up once more and studied its contents. After a moment he sighed and folded it into his robes. A proud ex-hiver like him would never admit to being lost in anything that resembled a hive underbelly except under the most extreme of circumstances. If he wasn’t careful though, things were apt to get to that point rather soon.

A relatively long career of travelling and smashing things of various architectures had given him a deep appreciation for how things were built as part knowing of how to take them apart. High Gothic architecture, for so long the craze of the Imperium, was as close to a specialty as he could claim. All around him the soaring arches of gold and obsidian stretched up into the invisible ceiling where the light of the electro-candles hanging from chandlers did not reach. Carpets of almost unseemly opulence matted every square centimeter of floor, threatening to engulf the bases of marble pedestals bearing busts of forgotten Imperial worthies.

Yet for all its bedazzling charm, the long hall in which he stood carried an air of neglect. Dust covered everything. The deep color of the carpets were made to look paler than they should have been; dust trails like xeno vines crawled their way up the pedestals to assault the busts. Even the electro-candles glowed dim through the blankets of dust that smothered their light. In his quite learned opinion, Trist quietly believed that few, if any, had trodden through this part of the ship in months, if not years. Certainly no cleaning servitors had been through here recently.

It was to this he would have insistently attributed his loss of direction to if ever asked. Insistently, in part because he was deeply unnerved by this ship and was unwilling to admit it. After a moment of hesitation, he crossed the hallway to one of the many doors leading out.

The door was not particularly remarkable, at least by the standards of any of the others in the room. Seemingly a large slab of wood cunningly worked into the wall so as to be invisible, he knew that it was likely a servants’ entrance and was, in fact, made of metal. Decades of wanting for maintenance had led to the layers of fabricated materials that made up the exterior to peel away, revealing the metal beneath the illusion of wood. Raising a hand, he rapped on the outside sharply and was rewarded with a hallow, yet convoluted return, a sure indication of complicated locking mechanisms within.

Glancing around, Trist located the access panel hidden behind a wooden box affixed to the wall. In truth, neither of the wooden constructions nor the layers of carpet seemed to fit with the room; it was as if they had been added by some other who had only a vague sense of High Gothic style. Or perhaps someone had added the High Gothic style to them. Still, this was not the most bothersome part of the whole setup.

Reaching out, he removed the metal panel to reveal a white pad that seemed almost an obscenity to all the dark colors around it. Upon closer inspection, it seemed even more out of place than at first glance. There were no obvious fixed lines or angles to it, a defiance of conventional Imperial style. Instead, it seemed to curve, forming almost a half-shell around the pad, a roof covering part of it. No connecting fissures showed how it was assembled and no mag-locks indicated how it might be undone. Trist hesitated again, but then placed a hand on the pad.

Nothing happened. Frowning in confusion, he removed his hand and waited for a moment before replacing it. Again there was a conspicuous lack of activity. Then a thought occurred to him. Placing his hand once more upon the pad, he pressed down gently, then with greater strength. Ancient layers of grime came away as the pad moved back slightly. Blue lights flashed from beneath the hood of the access panel shell, bathing his hand in color, before going dark. The sound of mechanical gears shaking themselves free of dust echoed in the hall.

Turning, Trist approached the door cautiously. It had belatedly occurred to him that he had called upon the ancient machine-spirits of the access panel without so much as a drop of sacred oils or even an incense candle, yet it had opened anyways. He knew more than one tech-priest that would probably set skitarii on him for that alone. That it had complied with his wishes rather than just spit its fury at him was unusual.

Placing a hand on the door, Trist pushed. It didn’t budge. For a moment, he wondered whether he had imagined the sound of the door opening. Looking around, he searched for another access panel. Suddenly, he realized that he could see the hinges of the door. Looking to the opposite side, he saw a large metal bar. Seizing it, he pulled. It came surprisingly easily, sliding on hinges that seemed freshly oiled for the time they had been neglected. Gradually, a slit opened up.

Focused on opening the door as he was, Trist did not immediately realize that something was wrong. It was only when the opening was just large enough for a man to slip through that he saw the light. White, radiant, it poured from the entrance like water flowing between rocks. The dim tan light of the electro-candles was immediately and utterly overwhelmed wherever this light fell, shadows were mercilessly annihilated. It was not cold or surgical like light that he had seen before, nor was it warm and welcoming like the priests always described the light of the Emperor. Rather, it was like an imitation of sunlight, the best that humans could do. Hesitating for a third time, Trist proceeded cautiously to the new entrance, his eyes squinting to adjust to the brightness.

Looking around the edge of the metal door, Trist saw that it opened up into another hallway. This one was nothing like the High Gothic architecture of the hall in which he stood; rather, it was like the strange access panel that he had used to open it. Much smaller, the walls were a shade of sterile white that somehow conspired to be warm and welcoming. They possessed no break that he could see and seemed to curve, bowing outward to make an ovular shape. Bright strips illuminated the entire length of the hall, running parallel to each other for from beginning to end. The floor was a single, long strip of white which, like the walls and ceiling, seemed to have no pause. It was then that Trist noticed the door.

When he had heard the unlocking sound, he had thought nothing of it. Yet now that he saw what had opened, a deeply unsettling feeling settled in his soul. Thinking back, he realized that the sound that he had heard was one of swishing air and smoothly sliding artificial alloys, not the heavy clanking of disengaging locks. The door was not to be seen – it seemed that it folded itself into the walls upon opening. He could see nothing of it, save the outer rims, which were no more than a hand’s length in width and as white as the walls. Only the slightest gap between the walls and the doors gave them away; he suspected that this was more due to age and lack of maintenance than design.

Trist swallowed and looked down the hallway. The bright light allowed him to see the end, a stark contrast to the hall behind him. Here it seemed to curve smoothly to the side rather than terminating in a door.

Deep down, Trist knew somehow that he looked upon something that was crafted by human hands. Still, the contrast to the High Gothic style was unsettling in ways that he had no wish to dwell upon. Backing away from the hallway slowly, he reached out and grasped the door handle. Sliding it shut, he watched as the unseemly light faded from the High Gothic hallway, allowing the dim electro-candles to reassert themselves where the shadows did not get first. He found himself leaning against the door as it shut completely, breathing hard. Something told him that it was not the time to go chasing whatever stories the harsh light told.

Turning his back on the door and the secrets it hid, he took a deep breath to calm himself.

“Well, not that way.”

[Azazeal849]

Turning his back on the door and the secrets it hid, he took a deep breath to calm himself.

“Well, not that way."

"No." said a voice with a vaguely Mariochi accent. "If you want to get back to the upper decks you'll need to turn around and take the crewman's passage, third left."

Trist turned to see shipmistress Alicia Tarran standing behind him, who merely shrugged.

"The ship flagged a bio-sign down here when everyone usually hangs around B and C deck. Rather than send a servitor I thought I'd check it out myself."

Like most people across the Adrantis subsector, Trist knew Alicia Tarran as the former public face of the governor's elite Nebula corps, and the heroine who had rescued the governor from the heretics on Siculi. He could not fail to note that the face he looked upon was subtly different from the one on the propaganda reels - although that might have been the product of juvenat surgery, or simply digital manipulation of the vid-reels. More striking was the change in dress; a simple hooded sweatshirt and grey jogging trousers instead of something militarily neat, or even the gaudy opulence of a traditional shipmaster. The only concession to her military background was the aggressively oversized Nebula autopistol holstered at her thigh.

"I believe the shipmaster who modified this deck was an eccentric called König, who put keeping up appearances to the Ecclesiarchy above everything else. I can't say his redecorating appealed to me much. If I knew you'd be coming down here I'd have cleaned up."

Her tone was offhand, though Trist noticed that her eyes were slightly red, and otherwise absent makeup had been smoothed underneath them as if to hide the fact that she had been recently weeping. In return Alicia squinted slightly as she looked at him, giving Trist the impression that she was examining something deeper than the simple features of his face.

[Atrum Daemon]

Was he getting himself in too deep? Vizkop had always made it a point to keep his allegiances divorced from one another while working. Now, with the case bringing them to the Omnissiah's holdings, he was faced with the possibility that his oaths to the Mechanicus would conflict with his pledge to help Alia. But what other choice did he have? They needed to circumvent the direct method to get ahead of Arcolin. This was the team's best chance to do it.

But that did not mean Vizkop was looking forward to the conversation.

Contacting Ankari through the Dragon channels was a bit of a process. Codes and counter-codes within signals within pings masking as viruses. It was all very complex but entirely efficient in its own way. The whole procedure ensured a truly secure line between them. The connection was not obvious, but Vizkop knew when it had finally been established. He was secure in his room aboard the vessel and would not be interrupted.

“Jazan.” The greeting was to ensure she knew it was him. During their time together, he had taken to shortening her name in the tradition of his own homeworld. “Jaz” from her first name and “An” from her surname. He waited patiently for the response. Out past Perinetus' double moon as they still were, it would take the vox signal at least 8 seconds to reach the planet and return.

"Vizkop." the reply came, fuzzed by the last few bursts of warp distortion as the Tiercel and the Arthrashastra made their exit from the immaterium and shook off its grasping fingers of corposant. "Only you would interrupt a delicate operation without bothering with a preceding query code."

For everything else she had replaced from her organic body, weaponsmith Ankari held onto her original flesh voice. Vizkop could understand why, because her threatening contralto garnered instant attention from any tech priest who hadn't had their sympathetic nervous system surgically modified.

“I'll be brief. I need your help with a case I am helping the Inquisition with. A dangerous heretic named Arcolin DeRei is very likely on Perinetus."

Pause.

"Confirm; would this be the Arcolin DeRei that the subsector governor recently issued a warrant for?"

"Confirm. We have every reason to believe he is going to assassinate Archmagos Krupp during his Founder's Day speech."

Pause.

"Everyone wants to assassinate Archmagos Krupp. He has survived thus far, praise the Omnissiah."

The magos' apathetic tone belied her pious words.

"Has anything been...unusual lately with anyone's behavior? More so than usual, I mean.”

Pause.

"I assume that whatever intelligence you are operating on is to be trusted?" Magos Ankari was silent for a moment, but not long enough to indicate that she was awaiting another return signal. She finished mentally evaluating a second later and said, "Very well, secutor. But before I clog your memory banks with every plot currently turning here in the forge, how do you believe a wanted heretic infiltrated the planet? The only ships to dock at the orbital shipyards in the preceding weeks have been Imperial Navy and mechanicus vessels."

She was the same as ever, it would seem. That both pleased and worried Vizkop. In fact, the whole operation was starting to give him a bad feeling the closer they got to the Forge World. The realization that only Alia knew his ties to the Dragons was beginning to sink in. His allegiances had priorities, after all. His oaths to the Mechanicus would, in his mind and heart, always supersede any others. He knew at the start that this would be the mission to test everyone. The assassin had just hoped he would escape such testing.

“Circumstances have led me to trust the intelligence. And this team is too pressed for time to pursue other options. As to how I believe he infiltrated, after seeing what kind of action the heretic is capable of I do not doubt he could insert himself aboard a Naval vessel. Of course there is the second possibility that one of Krupp's enemies has hired Arcolin to kill Krupp. That would potentially allow him access to a vessel and passage to the surface.”

"Worrying." Ankari commented simply, once the signal had had time to bounce and return. "There are thankfully not many magi on Perinetus who I computate would be reckless enough to enlist a man with a subsector-wide warrant. Magos Ordyne only cares about his work, not hierarchy politics. Magos Keitl has been censured before for bending the Omnissiah's laws for his own benefit, but he would not stand to gain appreciably from Krupp's death. Magos Delzharian has the means to pull strings across the sub-sector, but he has always been one to consider what he might lose before what he might gain. Given that he is third in the forge hierarchy, I would expect myself to be his target before Krupp."

The vox line silenced for a moment.

"Ironically, secutor, by pure mathematics the most likely candidate is myself. As Krupp's direct successor, I have the most to gain from his removal, and you know that I have contacts across Adrantis who could expedite the hiring of a heretic assassin."

“I am aware,” he said simply. She was right, of course. The numbers did not lie. “But I have my doubts that your character has sunk so low as to stoop to such dangerous tactics. Particularly considering whom we both serve. So I am less likely to immediately consider your guilt in this. But not remove it from the table entirely. This Inquisitor is in deep, Jazan. Very deep. But all her team needs is access to the surface and as much freedom of movement about the city as they can get. They can smoke out the heretic or whatever other scheme is at work here. And if they can't...well, their lives are the ones on the line, not mine.”

He paused, both to let the signal route and take a moment to think. He knew he was taking a gamble trusting Ankari with any details. She could be involved. Perhaps without realizing she was. Vigilance was all. Had he one of the “special packages” left, he would have disguised it as sensitive data to go back to the Lathes and gotten her to ferry it with her higher priority codes. If she opened it...well her guilt would be certain in his mind. And she would be dead. But, perhaps luckily, he had no such packages left.

“Decision, Magos?”

There was another pregnant, 8-second silence.

"The Omnissiah would no doubt approve of your priorities, secutor." Ankari observed. "Though your inquisitor might not. Transmit me your colleagues' biological ident-markers and I will arrange for them to be given unrestricted access to the surface for the next 72 hours. Obviously, I cannot get them inside Complex Alpha One itself. Archmagos Krupp holds those codes, and he has not approved any new personnel in the past 5.7 years."

The vox crackled.

"And Vizkop? If you have sufficient influence with your inquisitor, their discretion in dealing with the heretic would be appreciated. It could lead to unfortunate misunderstandings with the Imperials if DeRei was found to be sheltering on one of our forge worlds. Likewise, if he is found to have been receiving aid from one of our own, I would prefer for it to be dealt with internally."

“Of course, Magos,” Vizkop replied. A few keystokes was all it took to provide Ankari with the relative biometrics for the team to be given access. In the back of his mind, he knew the huge risk he was running with this. Not just circumventing regular channels but the possibility that Ankari could be compromised. But nothing about his job came without risks. “I'll do all in my power to ensure this stays as in-house as possible.”

“Even if that means killing them?” By Mars, not now!

Mikera's familiar voice slid into Vizkop's ear. It was a real question, though. One he had trying to ignore, as he usually did with extreme answers. But if it came down to it... if killing one of these men or women was the price to safeguard the Forge World... It was a question he did not need to give the phantom an answer for.

"You have my gratitude, secutor." Ankari's voice replied, mercifully oblivious. "May the voice of the Omnissiah guide you."

[PaintSerf]

Spot held for scenes.

[Azazeal849]

Ella took the corridor slowly. She hunched forward slightly as she walked, one hand wrapped around her abdomen, the fingertips of the other brushing along the painted steel wall in case she suddenly needed to catch her balance. Navigating the warren of passageways left her breathing harder from the exertion, which in turn made her bruised ribs hurt, but she had to get out of her cabin. Sapphira had taken her Tarot deck - to avoid the temptation to stress herself too soon, the Sister had said, and to Ella's surprise the concern in her aura had seemed genuine. She hadn't expected it, after everything.

You falsified the Emperor's Tarot, Ella, the sister had said; and even remembering the bitter frustration in her voice made Ella flinch. You've stood in His presence. You know that only six of my sisters have ever had that monumental privilege, and even then only to have their sins laid bare? Why would you do that?

Ella had had no good answer for her.

I was trying to help. she had said at last, in a tiny voice.

You were trying to help Alicia. Ella winced again as she remembered the visceral rage that had boiled through Sapphira's spectral torso. Even though it hadn't been directed at her, she had felt the heat of it needling her skin.

I can't lie about how disappointed I am, Ella. This is the worst possible time to strike the rest of the team with a physical and emotional blow like this. And you can gauge their temperaments better than anyone. Surely you must have known that Alicia couldn't keep her secret? If she hadn't been outed by the Nebulas, Arcolin would have. If he has all our files, it's hardly impossible that he knew about the Prince charter as well. Can you imagine how much worse it would have been if the penitents had heard it from him?

Ella hadn't been able to say what she was really thinking - that the daemonic brand she had glimpsed at the core of Alicia's aura had been filling her with far more fear than anything else the team might discover on Baraspine. If Sapphira or Crenshaw found out, by themselves or through an end to Machairi's forebearance, then there would be no second chance. Sapphira's cold fury was plain, and Ella did not need to be able to see through Crenshaw's empty black aura to know his mind. Trader's warrant or not, a former daemonhost using psy-enhancing Spook would see Alicia arrested, or worse. Josiah wouldn't stop them, and neither would Glabrio. Ella was sure that the former regulator was quietly looking for a scapegoat after their capture of Arcolin had come apart at the seams. Glabrio had ambitions of his own - ambitions that he couldn't advance if Machairi's name was mud.

Sapphira had taken Ella's silence for shame.

I'm not oblivious, Ella. the sister had said, and her tone had not been unkind. After spending most of my life around women, I don't need your warp-sight to recognise the signs when someone's got a girl crush.

Ella could still feel the blood pricking her cheeks.

You're still my charge, Ella. And you're still the astropath that my sisters Rose and Jennifen risked their lives to protect. I just want to make sure that you're certain that Alicia isn’t just...stringing you along to suit her own agenda.

Ella knew as surely as she knew anything that Sapphira was wrong. But how could she prove it to the others? Especially now. Lying on her cabin bunk with her mind constantly turning, the Braille books that Alicia had fished from somewhere in the Arthrashastra's library had failed to distract her. She needed to see the others, even if walking there was painful and talking to them likely to be more so.

She followed the floor, and the glowing imprints that criss-crossed the now well-travelled crew quarters, like footprints in the rough carpet. There she saw Marc's, still slightly uneven from his damaged ankle. There were Josiah's, and there were Glabrio's. Kally and Crenshaw of course were ghosts, leaving no trace for her psychic sense to follow.

Glowing faintly through the solid mist of the cabin walls was a single avatar, sitting hunched over its desk. Ella sighed; of course Marc would be working. He felt guilty if he wasn't throwing himself into solving the problem, even if he was attacking the wrong end of it. She hesitated for a moment before depressing the door chime.

The avatar flickering behind the walls stirred, snatching a set of headphones down around its neck. "Hello?"

Ella brushed her fringe out of her eyes, and coughed into her hand to clear her tight throat. "It's Ella. Can I come in?"

There was no reply; just the click of a mag-lock being disengaged. As she pushed the translucent grey door open, Ella saw the negative energy saturating the room like a cloud, seeping into the dull reds and ambers of the furniture. Marc himself had turned from his usual hard-edged grey to a swirl of morose, inky black.

Marc Black. Ella thought, feeling a twinge of empathy behind her navel. Black, black, black.

The investigator unhooked the caster headphones from his ears and dropped them onto the desk next to a pile of maps and statistics. Some kind of underhive Hate Metal continued to snarl threateningly from the speakers, until Marc killed it with the click of a control wand.

"Good to see you're up and about again." he nodded. He spoke a little stiffly - the same kind of distancing stiffness that Vincent and captain Prinzel had used with her since Baraspine. It was a far cry from the Marc who had, despite his deep inner turmoil, crossed the room to affectionately flatten down her bed hair. Had that really been less than two months ago?

"Thanks." Ella said, hovering self-consciously near the door. She opened her mouth to ask Marc if he was alright, and stopped herself as she realised it was a question he wouldn't want to answer.

"How's Kelly?" she asked instead.

The dark centre of Marc's chest throbbed blue. "She's doing alright, aye."

Ella clasped and unclasped her hands. "I'm sorry, Marc." she said plaintively.

"For what?" Marc said, without inflection.

"For lying to you about that Tarot reading. For lying to you about Alley. For not being able to stop Arcolin when he ran right past me."

At Arcolin's name, a wave of red pulsed out of Marc's avatar to bloodstain the room, and Ella winced.

"For...everything." She hesitated, fighting her hands. "Do you hate me?"

Marc exhaled slowly down his nose. "Sit down will you, Ella?"

There weren't any other chairs in the cabin, so Ella sidestepped over to the immaculately turned-down bed and perched hesitantly on the end of it.

"You're still the same person who worked herself to the bone on Teleostei and saved my arse from those Gnosis Guard on Saros." Marc said, "Of course I don't hate you. And I don't blame you for Arcolin getting away."

His aura seethed, making it clear that he blamed someone. Me? Crenshaw for insisting we take Arcolin alive? Himself? Ella looked closer, hoping to sift the truth from beneath the murky black layers.

"Stop that." Marc said.

"What?"

"You know what."

There was an awkward silence.

"What are you working on?" Ella said, desperate to fill the quiet and unable to think of anything else. "Can I help? I want to make myself useful."

The black flames of Marc's avatar held her gaze for a moment, then he stood up and spun his office chair around, inviting her to take his place. Ella complied, smoothing her skirt under her legs as she sat down. Marc shifted round to her side, pressing his fists into the edge of the desk and looking down at the collection of maps and production quotas which flickered dimly to Ella's warp-sight.

"I know how assassinating archmagos Krupp hurts Adrantis and the Imperium." Marc said. "But I can't figure out how it benefits him. If we're going to get ahead of the motherfrakker instead of just reacting to him, we need to figure out the pattern behind all his moves."

Ella laced her hands and rested her chin on them, biting her lip. "I don't know if it helps, but...Arcolin said something to me. After he knocked out Alley."

Marc dropped to one knee and rested his folded arms on the desk.

"What was it?" he asked guardedly.

Ella bit her lip again. "He wanted you to know he was sorry. That he had good intentions."

Marc's aura rippled darkly. "You're joking."

"That's what he said."

Marc hissed quietly through his teeth. "Intentions don't matter - only what you do."

Ella realised that she must have flinched, because Marc's darkly glowing head turned to look at her.

"That wasn't a dig at you. I'm saying that what Arcolin did was hack a sister to pieces, murder subsector agents and put a daemon in Kelly."

Ella shifted in her seat, thinking about the stark shift in Arcolin's aura - the bright yellow fire burning in the scarred half of his face that had almost stopped her from recognising him.

"We're still missing something, I'm sure of it. Something's changed."

"So let's find the son of a bitch and get to the bottom of it by autopsying his corpse." Marc replied. "If it's us personally he wants then maybe I can turn the tables on him."

"I?" Ella repeated, noting the singular pronoun with unease.

Marc seemed to catch himself. "Don't worry Ella. I'm no gonnae run off without the others. But if I get so much as a clear shot I'm taking it. No-one else is going to suffer for..." He trailed off.

Ella pushed her fringe across her forehead. For what Arcolin did? Or for what I did?

"You're glowing." Marc said, pointing his finger at Ella's chest.

Ella felt a warmth against her collarbone, and tugged the chain from inside her woollen jumper to see her animus vox glowing a bright psychic white at the end of it.

"It must be the Order." she realised. The Sisters had news for Machairi. Perhaps they had more intelligence from the Glom, or even from Marioch.

"You'd better go and report to the inquisitor." Marc advised. "Ella," he called after her as the astropath groped her way to her feet and hurried towards the door. "I meant what I said. I don't hate you and I don't blame you."

Ella nodded, and managed a smile before the closing door cut her off from Marc's baseline mortal vision.

He said he didn't blame her. That might be true. But he guarded his words and resisted her warp-sight. He had closed off. And that meant she couldn't do anything to help him.

[dakkagor]

After assuring Kelly that she would return, and convincing her to rest, Kally fled the infirmary, heading to the only place she knew she would be able to relax an inch.

But Crenshaw wasn't in his room. Sighing, Kally ran a hand through her hair and briefly rested her head on the unresponsive door.

"This relationship gak is hard."

She didn't feel like hitting the mess right now. She didn't want to talk to Solvan. She needed to relax. And that meant she needed to sleep. And that meant, rather than this awful comedown from adrenaline, she needed to be tired, completely beat, drained. And that meant the gym.

She stood straight, and set her shoulders, ignoring a spike of pain. She turned the walk to her quarters into a warm up jog, picked up her kit bag, and then jogged to the Arthrashastra's B-deck gym. By the time she reached it, her legs had begun to burn already as the fatigue from the day came back with a vengeance.

Thats right. A solid half hour and I'll be beat enough to actually sleep solidly for eight.

As the door opened on complaining hinges, she realised that she wasn't alone. Alicia was setting up near a running machine, causing Kally to pause at the door.

I can just do a few laps in the lower decks.

She turned, ready to head back out.

"Kally, wait!"

She let go of the breath she had been holding. I can do this. She turned on her heel and met Alicia Tarran's gaze.

"Alicia."

The other, taller woman rested her arms on the crash bar of her treadmill.

"The other week you were perfectly happy playing cards with Dosi." she observed in a neutral tone. "And even when we were back with Van Der Mir's crew Alley didn't make you flee a room just by being in it. Are you alright?"

Kally blinked. Mentally, she scrambled for something to say.

"You lied."

Something other than that.

"You lied." She repeated. She stepped into the gym, her anger rising in her like a black tide of sludge. The room became muggy and close. "You lied to us all. And you even twisted Ella's arm to lie for you! You could have said on the Glom, you could have said during our first trip, you could of, you could of..."

"Kally..."

She had crossed the room towards Alicia, her fists balled, her gym bag forgotten. Her voice had raised to a yell.

"Don't you frakking dare use my name like I'm your throne damned friend!" She yelled, fighting with herself to resist the urge to simply deck the other woman. "You must have thought you were so damn clever, pulling the wool over our eyes like that. I can't imagine how twisted up Marc is right now. I can't imagine how guilty Ella feels, or how much hell she is going to catch for lying to us all for you. You selfish frakking bitch!"

Alicia had tensed up, Kally saw, as if preparing to defend herself if she actually went for her.

"Okay, I deserved some of that..." she admitted with a kind of resigned calm. "But if you'd actually talked to Ella you'd know I didn't twist her arm into anything."

As she climbed down off the running machine, her eyes - jade green now they were shorn of their tinted lenses - seemed to harden slightly.

"While you're at it, you might talk to Marc about how he twisted my arm into going after Arcolin, once he figured out I was the only one close enough to stop him. How long do you think he was sitting on that intel about Arcolin being on Marioch and getting my foster parents killed?"

"Oh, you can bet your arse that that is a conversation I have planned." Kally stepped back, and consciously unclenched her fists, instead settling for crossing her arms across her chest. "But it wasn't really something to bring up while that decision had supposedly gotten you murdered by the psycho that blew up our home. As you may have guessed, Rogue Trader Prince, we've all been through hell the last three months."

"I know you have." Alicia replied quietly. She placed her hands on her hips, standing a couple of paces back from Kally - though Kally couldn't be sure if that was to respect her space and de-escalate the fight or just because Alicia couldn't stand her blank aura. "I wasn't lying to you down on Baraspine. I jumped my ship to Perinetus after Arcolin escaped, thinking I needed a new identity and a new plan if I was going to catch up to him. And while I was being gene-tested so I could transfer my entire pension for a shitty little void runner...this Prince thing happened. I'm as shocked as you were - I never knew my birth parents but I didn't expect them to be traders...but they were a cover and I took it."

Kally met Alicia's green eyes evenly. The black sludge had cooled and hardened into something much more toxic than seething anger.

"But it doesn't explain why. Why did you lie, that's what's bothering me. I can't even wrap my head around it. Any number of times you could have come forward with the truth, discreetly, one at a time if you felt like it needed to be managed. You had us on your ship for days, it would have been easy."

"Not as easy as you think." Alicia replied, shaking her head. "Alright, but you need to promise you'll hear me out, okay?"

"You have my full attention." Kally responded, forcing her anger down. She owed Alicia that much.

"I took the Prince cover so I could get to Arcolin. And I admit, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would - I liked not being Alley Tarran; not just being the pocket space marine that people could whistle up when they needed legs breaking, not having all of her duties and responsibilities that I couldn't get behind any more. And like I said down on Baraspine, I was pissed at Marc for manipulating me. I'm sorry if that was selfish."

She huffed, and began to pace up and down.

"Ella did tell me about how Marc was feeling, which was why I asked her to try and feed him the hint that I was still alive. But..." She hesitated, stopping in the middle of the sponge-tiled floor. "Can you blame me that I wanted to keep the way you and Vince and everyone else treated Dosi? I never got the chance to be your friend as Alley, and this was my second shot. Yes, it felt good. And I wanted to help too - after everything that happened to you all - all of that unforgiveable shit that they put you through on Terra... Alley wasn't close enough for you to confide in, but I thought that Dosi could be. Ella helped."

Alicia's lips formed a flickering smile, as if she were vacillating between wanting to express emotion and wanting to project the serious tone the conversation demanded.

"She helped so much - honestly she's amazing. She doesn't judge, she listens."

Kally wondered if there was an accusation in there, but if so she couldn't detect it in Alicia's expression or tone.

"I don't want her to get into trouble. Believe you me, I'll fight it as hard as I fought to stop that sociopath Machairi from branding Kelly like a grox."

"She's not a sociopath, she's being careful." Kally was surprised to find herself rising to Machairi's defence, but here she was. "A more hardline Inquisitor would have put a bolt in Kelly and one in Marc if he complained. You should know that."

Alicia chewed the inside of her cheek. "Your inquisition certainly has an unhealthy enthusiasm for knocking off its own people. The point is, I did my best to help. I still am."

"Look, I get it, I do. I can't even list the names of all the people I'd like to have a second chance with, and half of them are dead. But this was the complete wrong way to go about it. Any trust you've built up is gone now. No matter your intentions you are working from scratch, again."

Alicia looked at the floor for a long moment. "Alright." she said, folding her arms as her strong-boned face creased into a frown. "So where do we go from here?"

Kally rubbed the back of her neck, thinking that through.

"Well, first, I apologize. I shouldn't have blown up at you like that. So, um, sorry."

"Sorry too." Alicia replied flatly.

Kally stepped back, and let her arms drop to her side. "For everyone else. . . I don't know. Honestly the whole lot of them are a lot nicer than I am, they put up with me after all." She shrugged. "Apart from that, sorry, got no help for you. I'm not exactly the social butterfly you are."

Alicia shifted her weight, standing fractionally more at ease. "Maybe not. But you and the others do have something special. I've seen the way you are with each other, even after...everything. Don't let the job...or people like Merle frak that up for you."

"We won't, don't worry." Kally briefly remembered the incident with Kelly and Gavin, what she had inflicted on Merle. "Though I'm struggling to understand why they haven't put a bolt in him yet. For all the enthusiasm the Inquisition has for killing people, I don't get why that scumbag is still alive."

Alicia sighed. "I heard Sapphira say that Machairi's going to leave Merle in the lock up this time instead of taking him down to Perinetus with us - so I guess she's not a total fool. But I agree with you, it's wrong for all of you to be put through the wringer and yet he gets to live. I was giving very serious thought to letting the arti-grav plate in his cell accidentally fail so that the next warp translation smears him across the wall."

She pursed her lips and looked away.

"Don't worry, I won't. You know, I sometimes try and imagine why inquisitors think the way they do. I can empathise with being up on a pedestal with a crushing responsibility and having no-one else to turn to...but then I wonder if they aren't just power addicts who bring everyone else down with them when they frak up."

"If the grav did fail and turn the frakker to jam, I don't think anyone would shed a tear over it, least of all me." Kally shrugged and stepped away, sitting down now the anger and adrenaline was bleeding out of her. "As for our Boss. . . my boss, I suppose, I try not to think too hard about it. I think you have to be a certain kind of crazy to want the job in the first place." She shook her head, a thin smile crossing her face.

"Any way. Enough of this." She stood, and started to limber up, nodding to a running machine next to the one Alicia was using. "Mind if I join you? I need to be properly exhausted if I'm going to sleep tonight."

Alicia hesitated uncertainly for a moment, then nodded.

"Yeah, I'd like that."

[Azazeal849]

Perinetus, three weeks later
Two kilometres outside Complex Alpha 1

The horizon was red with light pollution, poisoning the sky. Frost crystals clung to the walkways and the remaining moisture in the air had condensed out as freezing fog. The scarlet clouds threatened rain. Marc hated rain. Not only had he not experienced it until he left Solomon and thus never truly got used to it, it reminded him of Telsostei. The cold set the old gunshot wound in his leg aching.

As bleary-eyed menials shouldered past them, hands tucked into the armpits of their cog-stamped boiler suits, the mag lev blared a klaxon and began to slide backwards out of the terminus. The mag lev itself was silent, gliding along six inches above its induction rails, but displaced air made it howl as it vanished back into the tunnel. Hovering skull drones fired aggressive bursts of light at every menial as they filed out of the station, swooping to intercept anyone who strayed from the crowd or hunched their shoulders against the cold. The automated checks were becoming more and more invasive as they proceeded deeper into the central high-sec districts of the forge city. The security measures here made the eye-scanners that had kept track of everyone in Makita midhive seem downright unobtrusive.

The servo skulls swept the team with their light beams, whirred as they processed the authorisations that magos Ankari had personally seeded into the datasphere, and veered away to continue their patrols. The menials paid the team no mind either, assuming by their red canvas overcoats that they were ordained tech-priests en route to one of the power plants or distribution depots that dotted the eastern quarter.

"How the Horus did DeRei plan to get down here?" Glabrio grumbled under his breath, as he blinked away the flash of one skull's bio-auspex. "We'd have been vaporised ten times over by now without Vizkop and his friend's Dragon codes."

"Perhaps he got hold of a facial cast?" Machairi suggested. The inquisitor walked with her hands in her pockets, the tails of her long coat fluttering about her ankles. "Or maybe he crawled through the storm drains. It doesn't matter. Ankari's search teams reported negative on all the other possible sniper spots, which means we've got two hours to lock this one down before Krupp steps out for his Founders' Day speech."

The team was smaller than before, with Kelly, Ella and Vince still recuperating, and Merle safely locked up in Arthashastra's brig. No-one objected to the latter, though there was plenty more for Machairi, now leading the team personally, to be uneasy about. They were going in blind. They were on one of the few planets in Adrantis where the Silent Vigil hadn't been able to deploy their spies, and their main ally in this operation - magos Ankari - was a contact of Vizkop's rather than someone Machairi had known and vetoed personally.

She hates not being in complete control. Marc thought sourly, before checking himself. This wasn't about Kelly; this was about stopping Arcolin. The heretic's plan was escalating; all of his intuition was screaming the fact. The Vigil had contacted Ella to inform Machairi that they were mobilising their primary forces.

If only I hadn't missed my shot in the hospital basement. It wasn't his fault, Kelly and the others kept telling him. Perhaps they were right - it was, after all, Crenshaw who had insisted on taking Arcolin alive. Marc shot a dark look at the major's back. Crenshaw had ordered it, and they had taken every precaution.

That's the point! We did everything right and the bastard escaped anyway!

"Which way now?" Josiah asked, as they jostled clear of the sullen crowd of menials into a plaza whose paving stones were inlaid with intricate circuit diagrams in ice-rimed gold. The mist was lying so thick that the buildings on the other side of the plaza were just hazy, looming shadows. Shuttle lifts whined between the spires, lost to sight in the fog, and broad stab-lights scissored through the murk as a bulk lander thrummed by overhead.

"That way." Marc said, pushing back his overcoat sleeve to call up a map on the repaired screen of his vambrace auspex.

The crowds thinned to nothing as they approached the frowning, chevron-hatched security wall that surrounded industrial site Beta 3, but like the servo skulls before them, the silent gun-servitors on guard merely probed them with green bursts of light and then clanked aside. The slab door behind them opened like a sliding cliff, leading into a misty, floodlit alleyway that cut between the towering administration blocks to either side. As the gate juddered closed behind them, Marc and the others reached inside their overcoats and began to snap together the modular weapons that they had concealed inside.

"The assembly yard's five hundred metres that way." Marc advised, slashing a hand to indicate the direction as he clicked home the magazine and twisted the bullpup autogun's fire selector from safety to burst fire.

Machairi nodded (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PvrckxuVCU). "This mist might actually help us. Tomas, circle your squad round to the west entrances. My squad will hit from the east. Everybody stick close to the walls and keep an eye on the upper windows."

The team advanced, cushioned boots crunching softly on the cracked paving stones.

"HALT."

The High Gothic order came from somewhere above them, the fog deadening and scattering the sound so it became difficult to pinpoint. The voice was female, and coloured with an accent that didn't match the common Adrantean dialects.

Machairi looked up and around, warily, her sleek melta pistol in her hand but not raised.

"Stand down." she called back in the same High Gothic. "We are here by the personal authorisation of weaponsmith Ankari."

"That is not relevant." came the reply. There was a chittering sound, and something silver and articulated crabbed down the sheer wall of the administration block to their left. As it emerged from the mist, the team saw that it was a squat, metallic spider with grav-clamps for feet and twitching manipulator needles for fangs. A translucent, armoured dome was recessed into its back, with a dead-eyed servitor head nestled inside. A swivel-mounted webber gun jutted from below its quivering pincers.

"We are here for captain Alicia Tarran." said another voice, this one male, and the team now saw that it was coming from a pair of vox-casters on the mechanoid's shoulders.

Machairi's eyes darted towards Alicia, but at that same moment there was a sharp hiss and a thick coil of white foam squirted from the construct's webber gun. It hit Crenshaw with a wet slap, and enough force to throw him back against the wall. The major struggled to pull himself free as the chem web rapidly began to harden and constrict. At the same time a second stream jetted down to envelop Josiah, and a third tangled Alicia's arms just as she began to move, binding her fast to her drum-mag carbine. The rogue trader cursed as she ducked aside.

Machairi's melta pistol was up in a flash, burning a clean line through the foggy air. The visible servitor exploded in a shower of white hot metal, raining down on the team as they dived through criss-crossing spears of chem web. Silenced weapons snapped and rattled as five more servitors came skittering down the building with webber guns hissing.

[dakkagor]

"This mist might actually help us. Tomas, circle your squad round to the west entrances. My squad will hit from the east. Everybody stick close to the walls and keep an eye on the upper windows."

Tomas nodded, and issued a series of orders to his small team, peeling away from Alia's group and heading to the western approaches. They had barely gotten fifteen paces when the attack came.

“Scatter!” Tomas yelled, pulling his own silenced bolt pistol from his overcoat and blazing away as he scrambled for the dubious cover of a recyc bin. A tight group of bolts found a spider drone and shattered its glass dome, blowing the ghastly head inside into meat chunks. “Kally! Close detail on Alicia!”

Scattering the team was a risky move. There was little cover, and if they clumped up to provide each other covering fire, they risked being disabled in handfuls rather than individually. There were no good choices here, especially with the lack of cover. It was a well planned ambush, and with a few of their team immobilised, they couldn't pull back. That only left one option: push forwards. He toggled his comms to the entire team.

“They must be controlling these drones from a local source.” He looked up and scanned the roof line. “Find them!”

+++++

Kally was up and moving instantly, closing on Alicia. She had her sabre in one hand and, rather than her bolter, a heavy naval autopistol packing amputator rounds. While it also sported a heavy silencer, it was still a very loud weapon. A shot that sounded like a heavy codex thumping from a shelf to a floor slammed into a drone approaching Alicia and blew of one of its limbs in a shower of sparks. Kally rammed her sword through its braincase as it tried to right itself on the paving stones.

“Behind you!” Alicia yelled as Kally dropped to fiddle with the drone. The blank spun and fired from the hip, the heavy round going wide and punching out a window. Her assailant retched another stream of white riot grade glue, and Kally rolled aside, dragging her drone prize with her. The shot splattered over the pavement and up Alicia's legs as she struggled with the webbing on her hands.

“Some close detail.” The Rogue Trader groused. A pair of shots hammered out from Kally as she continued pulling apart the destroyed drone, one catching the attacking drone square on and hammering it into the wall, the other blasting a hole in an Icon Machina rendered in grey stone.

“Stop complaining!” Kally growled, before pulling a blue tank from the guts of the drone. She tore the rubber piping connecting the bottle to the drone clear with her teeth, laying down another pair of shots to drive back another scuttling drone, and then dashed over to Alicia. She dumped a generous quantity over Alicia's hands and legs, and the glue that had previously instantly hardened dissolved into wispy strands.

“Release agent.” Kally shook the bottle as Alicia wiped the last of the webbing clear. “They wouldn't glue someone without the ability to release them as well.”

“More than just a pretty face and a short temper then.”

“Nah, I just read the briefings.” Kally shrugged.

“So, feel like some help on this bug hunt?” Alicia racked the slide on her carbine, favoring Kally with a wicked smile.

“Yeah, I'd like that.” Kally nodded, reloading her pistol. Alicia put her weapon to her shoulder and started to fire short, concentrated bursts, driving back drones as Kally fell in behind her.

“Wait, you think I'm pretty?”

[PaintSerf]

"How the Horus did DeRei plan to get down here?" Glabrio grumbled under his breath, as he blinked away the flash of one skull's bio-auspex. "We'd have been vaporised ten times over by now without Vizkop and his friend's Dragon codes."

"Perhaps he got hold of a facial cast?" Machairi suggested. The inquisitor walked with her hands in her pockets, the tails of her long coat fluttering about her ankles. "Or maybe he crawled through the storm drains. It doesn't matter. Ankari's search teams reported negative on all the other possible sniper spots, which means we've got two hours to lock this one down before Krupp steps out for his Founders' Day speech."

Crenshaw pointedly hmm’d as he overheard the exchange between Alia and Glabrio, but remained wordless and impassive as he bumped and nudged his way through the press of wretched humanity with the confident, sharp elbowed finesse of a native technocrat. There were other alternatives for how Arcolin had managed to slip through the Weaponsmith’s own search efforts - but it was hardly the time or place to vocalize such loaded terms as infernal rituals and Mechanicus collusion when surrounded by a horde of the Cult’s down beaten slaves and an oppressive security network.

One is a known issue. His mouth twitched into a slight scowl. The operation on Baraspine had unequivocally proven their heretical quarry was also now a sorcerer, who had control over a bound daemon, was capable of manufacturing flect, and may have used those unwholesome talents to escape from the Nebula cordon. Crenshaw’s scowl only depended as his thoughts shifted from the Adrantean elites to their iconic hero, Alicia Tarran. He considered the former Nebula and the substantive, unresolved questions about her another issue of operational security - and an irksome distraction.

The other remains an open question. Crenshaw’s eyes narrowed as the servo skulls darted out of his peripheral vision. Weaponsmith Ankari’s intervention was the only reason they were able to operate on Perinetus, and he disliked that immensely. The Major was a skeptical man by nature, although not an untrusting man. He trusted in the innate flaws of human nature, especially from those in positions of authority who proclaimed that through their faith they had transcended such mortal weaknesses. In his experience, those sorts tended to be the most self-interested of individuals and most pious of frauds.

Ankari has a substantial amount to gain from DeRei’s destabilizing efforts, whether or not she is actively in league with the heretic. The Major’s ground his false teeth together as he mulled over the recent news of the Silent Vigil’s mobilization. He would be the first to admit it was a prudent move on Kiana’s part - in spite of the spymaster canoness’ unwise attempt to guilt Sapphira into becoming an observer and informer against him – given the unsettled state of affairs in Adrantis, and the not insignificant amount of blows against the Imperial regime across the sub-sector in recent years.

Terce’s abduction on Siculi, Nibenay’s uprising on Marioch, Arcolin’s poisonous rumor mongering about trouble in Sol. Crenshaw’s fists curled tightly as he once again summed up the tally, which only accounted for the most notable incidents. The Major’s teeth clicked sharply as he factored in the numerous lesser disruptions that were known. Krupp’s untimely demise, or even the attempt on his life, would only accelerate the unraveling of political stability in Adrantis. The breakdown of Imperial authority will mean conflict. Weaponsmith Ankari benefits from conflict, regardless of the particulars.

Crenshaw was not naïve enough to assume that the Magos’ affiliation with the Mechanicus’s analogue of the Inquisition overrode the temptations of personal ambitions. The Major had assisted in hunting down rogue Inquisitorial operators before, those so righteously self-assured that they had strayed beyond the few bright lines of conduct in the shadow war for Mankind’s future and soul – and damned themselves, and innumerable others, in the process. He knew the Cult’s servants, despite their self-serving rhetoric to the contrary, were no better than anyone in that regard. He trusted the Mechanicus, as much as his own Adeptus and the Inquisition, to protect their own interests first and foremost.

If only I had been able to kill Lehron as well. Crenshaw mused as he considered the Mechanicus’ representative from Ampoliros. The Major’s eyes flicked towards the dismal skyline of Perinetus as he momentarily appreciated the irony of willfully infiltrating a high-security district on one of the Cult’s exclusive fiefdoms, with cooperation from questionable contacts affiliated with the Lords Dragon. He fractionally shook his head as he dismissed any further thoughts about his own troubles. Not now.

The crowds thinned to nothing as they approached the frowning, chevron-hatched security wall that surrounded industrial site Beta 3, but like the servo skulls before them, the silent gun-servitors on guard merely probed them with green bursts of light and then clanked aside. The slab door behind them opened like a sliding cliff, leading into a misty, floodlit alleyway that cut between the towering administration blocks to either side.

What a shit avenue of approach. Crenshaw grunted, as he unbuckled his canvas overcoat and began to assemble his broken down assault carbine. He critically eyed the obscured elevations and negligible amount of cover at ground level. The alleyway was nothing more than an artificial canyon - potentially with heretics at the end of it – that was ideal territory for an ambush at any point in the advance. Box canyon. The Major corrected himself, as the security gate closed shut behind them.

I do not care for this in the slightest. Crenshaw internally grumbled. There is not a damned thing I like on Perinetus. The soft scrape of his artificial teeth was the only betrayal of his pensive disquiet. The Major impassively finished screwing and snapping together his weapon. He intently scrutinized it as he knocked its casket magazine against his carapace thigh plate, and clicked the ammunition into place. The inspection concluded after he checked the carbine’s reflex sights, toggled off the safety and chambered a round. Our feelings are inconsequential. The mission always takes priority.

The Major nodded approvingly at the readiness of his weapon and the rightness of his mind, and raised his eyes to see Kally. She was across from him, and he silently watched as she deftly finished the re-assembly of her weapon. He analytically noticed the exceptional proficiency with which Kally worked, and how she looked in the alleyway’s distorted lighting. Perinetus’ diseased sky and the fluorescent floods from above had conspired to make her pale skin and sandy hair radiantly golden in the mists. Crenshaw was momentarily captivated as he made an effort to fully appreciate the latter sight.

Then again…I have been wrong before. The Major’s teeth clicked together as his jaw tensed slightly with the internal admission. Kally glanced over and met his eyes. He knew that she knew it was one of his tells, given the amount of time they had been sharing with one another as of late. She briefly flicked a brow at him, and he reciprocated with a fractional nod of his head. Crenshaw noted the faintest suggestion of a knowing smile that she had made sure he would see, and pressed his tongue against his back teeth as they both turned their attentions elsewhere. And I am a colossal hypocrite.

Crenshaw’s appraising gaze settled on the Sister and the former Arbitrator, and he was vaguely surprised to see the two were standing side by side. Sapphira’s head was bowed as she concluded a murmured prayer to her spiritual father and traced the Aquila points. Hybrida stared intently down the alleyway, thoroughly testing his right arm’s mobility as he distractedly indulged in his jellybean addiction. He saw them exchange a quick, reflexive glance before they broke their impassive eye contact. Sapphira walked away, without any further acknowledgment made between either of them.

He knew the Sister and Hybrida were mission focused professionals in the field, but the stoniness was atypical behavior from Ms. Ministorum and Mr. Administratum. Aside from their habitual proximity, they often exchanged slight touches of encouragement before committing to an action. It was curiously affectionate behavior from two intimate individuals who were so determinedly committed to being uncommitted to one another. Crenshaw idly wondered if he and Kally would choose, and be able to emulate their arrangement. The Major stole a sidelong glimpse of her, and immediately knew he could -

Not now. Crenshaw rebuked himself, with a sharp click of his teeth. He turned his gaze away from her, and realized that Hybria had caught him glancing after Kally again.

The former Arbitrator managed the faint hint of a sly grin, and brushed one trigger-finger across the other as he discretely pointed at him. Crenshaw understood that was some manner of shame inducing gesture from his religious schola days. The Major registered the light admonishment with a grunt, and made it a point not to respond to the investigator’s sardonic flicker of the brow unconcealed by Marc’s tech-menial eyepiece from Saros. Hybria’s brief flash of humor quickly hardened as he flexed his arm one last time and un-holstered his pistols, eyes locked back down the alleyway.

He had been there when Hybrida had taken one curious look at the artifact, and after a thorough inspection had insisted that the false bionic was absolutely necessary for his disguise. It was normal behavior from the man who had worn a stolen Commissar’s cap on the Glom. The Major had seen through the projection of cool humor and confident swagger as he casually appropriated the device. He was certain that Hybrida wanted it for the anti-psychic circuitry woven into the prosthetic, as insurance against another flect experience as he hunted down Arcolin.

This has become personal. The Major shifted his gaze from the lethally determined former-regulator. He knew that Hybrida was an effective operative, but he also knew how the investigator was about wounds - especially those to his pride. Crenshaw shook his head as he mentally restrained himself from delving further into the extensive amount of conflicting entanglements that were shot through the team. Personal makes this emotional, and emotional makes you make stupid decisions.

"The assembly yard's five hundred metres that way." Marc advised, slashing a hand to indicate the direction as he clicked home the magazine and twisted the bullpup autogun's fire selector from safety to burst fire.

Machairi nodded. "This mist might actually help us. Tomas, circle your squad round to the west entrances. My squad will hit from the east. Everybody stick close to the walls and keep an eye on the upper windows."

…

"HALT."

The High Gothic order came from somewhere above them, the fog deadening and scattering the sound so it became difficult to pinpoint. The voice was female, and coloured with an accent that didn't match the common Adrantean dialects.

Crenshaw tucked his carbine tighter into his shoulder as he hissed out a breath through clenched teeth. Although the order had come from above, as point man for Tomas’ squad the Major kept his eyes and carbine intently sweeping the alleyway ahead. It was classic misdirection tactics. He disliked the immediacy of the ambush after they had committed, and the vocal irregularity almost as much.

Heretical operatives from outside Adranits? Possible, like Danilov, yet unlikely. Cultists have been domestically sourced converts. Crenshaw quickly assessed. His pulse rate elevated slightly further as he considered the other alternative, and mentally compared the accent against those from other Mechanicus holdings that he was aware of. Definitely a priestess, although at least not a Martian.

The Major gritted his teeth, and immediately wondered if Ankari was aware of the Ampoliros, as her erstwhile colleague Vizkop was, and had feigned cooperation with Alia’s request to lure him into the open and ensnare him. Crenshaw could only begin to speculate how else the Weaponsmith might profit from turning him over to the Mechanicus’ factions that were interested in his persecution.

Machairi looked up and around, warily, her sleek melta pistol in her hand but not raised.

"Stand down." she called back in the same High Gothic. "We are here by the personal authorisation of weaponsmith Ankari."

"That is not relevant." came the reply.

His false teeth clicked at the unwelcome response. There was a chittering sound, and something silver and articulated crabbed down the sheer wall of the administration block to their left. The Major spun to face the new threat, and retreated back several paces with the others to make a separation. He fractionally lowered his carbine, so as not to not provoke an immediate response, but kept the weapon ready to snap back level and terminally engage this potential new threat.

As it emerged from the mist, the team saw that it was a squat, metallic spider with grav-clamps for feet and twitching manipulator needles for fangs. A translucent, armoured dome was recessed into its back, with a dead-eyed servitor head nestled inside. A swivel-mounted webber gun jutted from below its quivering pincers.

Crenshaw grunted at the further unwelcome revelation of the servitor, and the less than lethal webber mounted on it. The Major distantly registered how long it had been since he had been on the wrong side of such a weapon system, as he stared down the drone’s quad barrels. He irritably ground his teeth, not thrilled in the slightest to be in this position. Or, he had to admit, the number of years he had tallied.

"We are here for captain Alicia Tarran." said another voice, this one male, and the team now saw that it was coming from a pair of vox-casters on the mechanoid's shoulders.

Two adepts, at least, and Tarran is their objective. Outstanding. Crenshaw bitterly thought, as he began to lowly exclaim a profanity. He pivoted a step back and began to raise his carbine, but at that same moment there was a sharp hiss and a thick coil of white foam squirted from the construct's webber gun. It hit Crenshaw with a wet slap, and enough force to throw him back against the wall.

“-ak!” Crenshaw barked out the last of his breath and curse. The chemical web had already begun to constrict across his right arm, upper torso, and the side of his face. His carbine had been completely enveloped as well, and it was now the common bond that locked his arm and chest together.

Crenshaw, dazed as he was by the sudden shot and impact, knew he couldn’t allow it to weld him in place. The Major grunted, brought his feet up against the wall and pushed as he hurled his body forward towards the alley floor. The foam creaked as it shredded and yielded slightly, allowing him a measure of separation from the wall before it fully solidified. He snarled out a tirade of half muffled profanity as he violently lurched to a halt, bent and hunched at an awkward angle by the restraining chemical web.

The Major grunted again in frustration as he watched the team run and gun against a torrential downpour of riot foam. His false teeth involuntarily ground together, his partially fused lips peeled back into an excruciated grimace by the constricting web. Crenshaw had no desire to be captured again, and quickly assessed his available assets and formulated an escape plan. It was a desperate move, and he was hardly enamored with it, but he was desperate. He had no intention to being captured again.

Such a shit idea …but the alternative is shittier. Crenshaw rationalized, hissing as he reached and groped around on his belt until his hand curled around the haft of his maul. He dropped his left foot to stabilize himself, and braced his right back against the wall in preparation to push again. With as deep a breath as he could manage, the Major once again strained against the web as he tore the weapon free and thumbed the power field to maximum.

Crenshaw reached across his body and thrust the maul point first underneath his pinned arm. He growled at the field’s burning proximity, but endured the discomfort as the maul easily pulverized its way into the wall. The Major turned his wrist and gouged the maul vertically through the masonry behind the administration block’s Icon Machina embossed veneer. Crenshaw heard the wall crumble from within, until he had forced the maul in to the extent he physically could. He dialed the field down.

“Frak!” The Major barked, as he pushed against the wall and yanked on his maul. The undermined section of façade tore away with a splintering crack, and Crenshaw lurched forward as he was freed. He immediately stumbled, dragged aside a step by the remnant of masonry still fused to him by the riot glue. The Major caught himself on his right foot and righted himself as it slammed to the ground, a second before he caught himself on his carapace thigh plate with the maul as it wildly swung out.

Crenshaw growled as he was staggered by the maul’s shock field. The ceramite had diffused worst of the effect, so he was able to mentally quell the pain and keep moving. The Major quickly assessed the situation on the ground as he irritably deactivated the maul. His eyes immediately locked onto Kally, where she was stacked up behind Alicia as they hurled fire back at the drones. Crenshaw ran towards them, slightly hunched by the chunk of decorative veneer still glued to him. The instant he made eye contact with Kally, Crenshaw felt a gust of wind roar down the alleyway.

He immediately lost sight of Kally and Alicia as an impossible fog bank of steam rolled through and enveloped the team. Crenshaw immediately held his breath as he noted the harsh chemical edge, and heard several of the other agents cough and retch as they inhaled the contaminants. The Major had barely taken a couple more steps towards Kally when a series of metallic clangs and hydraulic whines rang out through the alleyway, and an alley spanning fire barrier roared into existence on his left.

The Major spun towards the new impediment, as he thought he heard the Sister briefly yelp with surprise. It terminated almost immediately with what sounded like a clatter of ceramite, and Crenshaw gritted his teeth tighter than the web foam forced him. He would’ve vocally expressed his frustrations, but the choking fog meant it was necessary to hold his breath in. Crenshaw almost made to fire the maul back to life, before his attention was again turned another impossibly freak event. The soundless flare of lightning, which he had not seen since Hercynia, almost made the Major laugh.

Our assailants did not subdue Jenkins. Crenshaw’s rictus grimace spread into a wide smile. Whoever these tech-adepts were, and despite how well they had constructed this ambush, he knew they had made a monumental tactical error by not targeting his former adjutant first – and lethally. I would suspect that mistake will not be made again. If Jenkins does not simply kill them, of course.

[Azazeal849]

<Confirm Primary Target is mobile. Subject KS is...damn, lost drone Kappa 5.>

The taller adept's frustration was clear, even through the limited signalling of code bursts. Her companion remained calm, sitting on a metal bench nearby. He was plugged into the local cogitator network, managing a triple dozen different data inloads and command exloads.

<Don't fret. We have an entire forgeworld of resources at our disposal, should we need it.>

<I would, except you and I both know that is not strictly true.>

He accessed a haptic link and sent a brusque command to a distant machine spirit. A heatsink near the team vented at the same time as an atmospheric processor summoned up a strong gust of wind. Steam tainted with coolant was blown down the packed alleyways, fogging their opponents' organic senses.

<Clever.> the tall tech-priestess admitted.

<I try.>

The drones fell back under the sudden steam cover, the tall priestess expertly marshalling them. The other started to activate fire barriers and road blocks. Elements of the Inquisitorial team suddenly found themselves isolated by steel walls rising from the ground. A temporary measure, but enough to regain the initiative.

<Primary Target is isolated with Subjects KS and MC.>

<The Blanks are a secondary concern. Focus on disabling all three, then we can call in our Skitarii-Provosts and extract the Primary Subject, just as planned, with minimum loss of life.>

The priestess' small mouth flickered. <I cannot help but think the Machine God hates the phrase just as planned.>

As he continued to spin and splice lines of machine code, the second priest had to admit that the Subsec-Governor's plan had been ingenious. By issuing an Adrantis-wide warrant for a dangerous heretic, he had given this inquisitor, clearly in his pocket, all the clearance she needed to breach the Iron Curtain. Using a heretic dead for several years had been a mistake, however. All logic pointed to Arcolin DeRei being dead since the Makita incident, with no activity known to either the Inquisition or the Mechanicus. A clever ruse, but one he had seen through. This was the first Nebula Trooper to set foot on a Mechanicus world, but she would be the last once her secrets - and the tech heresy he suspected of boiling under the surface of the Governor's ersatz Space Marine chapter - were finally unveiled.

<I have lost drones Delta 2 and Alpha 3.> The priestess frowned. <That does not make...>

<Extract and squirt me the last three minutes of each drone's sensorium.>

He received the data packet and speed-reviewed the feeds. A massive electromagnetic burst, from nowhere; a lightning strike that seemed to leap from the wall the drone had been crawling along. No heat spike, no weapon spoor... He called up feeds from the initial confrontation.

<Identifying all assailants.> he reported. <Running checks against all known files...>

<Frakking scrap-shunt! Perimeter Servitor Mu 2 damaged. It reported a hostile, and fired its primary weapon limb for 2.8 seconds. Servitor Rho 5 is reporting heavy damage to all systems, under fire.>

The second priest shook himself awake, back into the real, and drew his inferno pistol, training it on the door. He could hear it now, the thunder of a twin-barrelled Echon pattern assault stubber firing full auto.

“Keep up the the assault on the Primary Subject!” he instructed vocally as he marched toward the door, his powered knife flicking into his hand.

<I wouldn't do that, if I were you.>

He spun, the words coming from all around him as a broadband transmission. He recognised the accent from his briefings, even as a sub-processor spat out the agent they had missed in their first attack.

“Psyker, Jenkins, Gavin, Technopath. Stand down at once, this is a legal Mechanicus operation, and you are interfering with sanctified machine spirits on a Forge World of the Deus!”

<Redirecting Gamma 4 to priority target subject GJ.> his colleague advised, sensing the danger. <Seeking.>

The assault stubber coughed and died.

<Both perimeter servitors disabled> the priestess pulsed across the code link. He heard her curse aloud under her breath. <How...?>

“They shot each other.” He smirked. “Very clever.”

<Not as clever as you, filling yourself with things I can break and surrounding yourself with things I can use against you.>

He saw it as a aurora shimmer, a stuttering ghost of electricity that pulled itself under the door and into the warehouse they had commandeered for the op, spreading a cloak of ice and frost across the concrete floor. Their last line of defence rumbled forward; a packing servitor based on a bull ogryn, with massive yellow cargo claws replacing its arms, tracked units replacing its legs, and covered in industrial armour. Identifying the threat, it barked a challenge. The ghost flickered, like film reel disintegrating, before it jumped. There was a shower of sparks from the servitor, which bellowed as if in pain.

He shot it twice. Once through the head, and again through its torso-mounted power core, his inferno pistol blasting melted channels through its metal and flesh. Even as its impromptu host died, the ghost jumped again, slamming into him like the shot from a railgun. He tumbled to the floor.

"Nikolai!" the other priest yelled, as he toppled away from the control console.

Nikolai's limbs twitched, electricity-motivated muscle fibres fighting against long-neglected flesh ones. Gavin tore through his systems, causing his augmented eyes and ears to fail and leaving him deaf and blind to the world.

“Let him go!” the priestess shouted, drawing her laspistol with her flesh hand.

<No.> Gavin stated, using Nikolai's throat augmetics to growl out the word. <You are not in a position to bargain. You will release my friends, halt this assault, and surrender. Or you will watch him die.>

"There is a Peregrine-pattern hornet servitor hunting your bio ident." the female priest snarled back. "Unless I call it off, it will find your physical body and vaporise it, probably in the next fifteen to twenty seconds."

<That's still plenty of time to kill the two of you.>

To make Gavin's point, Nikolai's throat augmetic snapped shut. He was allowed enough control of his body to roll over, his hands going to his neck.

<I can choke him to death. I can burn out his brain. I can overload his potentia coil and turn him into a walking bomb. Surrender. It's the only logical choice.>

“We are agents of the Lords Dragon." the female priest said coldly. "We are the authority here, and we will not surrender! We stepped into this operation knowing we might die, just like every mission. You cannot threaten me. I have read your file, you are not a killer.”

Nikolai's face jerked up, looking at the other priest. His jaw locked open in a scream, Gavin's voice coming out again.

<I can threaten you. And that file? It's a bit out of date.>

There was a bolt of lightning from Nikolai's eyes, and it earthed into the female priest's chest. Her vision swam as her bionic heart constricted and temporarily failed. She clutched at her chest, dropping her pistol and falling to her knees as a spike of white pain lanced through her.

<A bionic heart is easy to destroy. I can kill you both.>

The tether of lightning faded.

<Something to say, Adept?>

Nikolai gasped, sucking in a lungful of air. He could barely move. He could barely think. But he knew that he couldn't let his companion die.

“Raechel...shut down the servitors." he croaked. "Mission...is failed. We surrender.”

Raechel hesitated for a moment, still clutching at her chest. Then her eyes darted towards the ceiling. With a noospheric command, the remaining servitors hounding the team froze and powered down.

The lightning ghost jumped from Nikolai, and landed in his console, which exploded in a shower of sparks.

<That's more like it.>

"You should be aware." Raechel said, still using her physical voice. "Pacifier teams are responding to the gunfire you just caused."

<You're Dragon agents, aren't you? Turn them away. And don't try sending any commands to your servitors. I'll see it, and I'll burn both your brains out.>

[Azazeal849]

Sapphira and Glabrio doused Josiah with release agent and prised him clear of his chem-web bonds, carefully minding Gavin as they worked. The psyker had used the immobilized arbitrator as an impromptu source of cover in the ambush, and none of them wanted to accidentally disrupt Gavin’s concentration as his consciousness remained projected outside his body.

"I'll do a sweep." Marc advised, tossing his buzzing silver insect-drone into the air.

"Quickly." Machairi urged the former investigator, following the last of the servitors with her inferno pistol as it crabbed backwards up the wall and vanished onto the crenelated roof.

The chemical fog that their assailants had conjured was starting to lift, and it was taking the freezing mist with it as the sun began to burn through the clouds. But better visibility meant better sniping conditions for their quarry. Not only that; they had just engaged in a blazing firefight with heavily-armed servitors. Mechanicus forge cities were loud, but even silenced guns could be heard - especially when combined with the hiss of venting heat sinks and the hydraulic whine of deploying fire walls.

It was too much to hope for that someone hadn't heard the commotion - and even if Gavin had allegedly forced the prisoners to turn aside the responding forge pacifier units, it could be the end of their mission if Arcolin elected to cut and run. Archmagos Krupp would live, but they would be left with no leads on the heretic's next move. Everything hung in the balance.

Machairi exhaled slowly down her nose, pressing her olive lips tight together and tasting the acrid chemical residue that clung to her skin. She watched as the two tech priests limped through the security gate. The artificial wall snarled closed behind them, and Gavin's psychic presence loomed over the two prisoners as a spiderweb of frost, crackling across the chevroned metal. Solvan stood protectively over the psyker's comatose physical body. Josiah was flanking him, and he stared at the subdued tech-priests with all the warmth of a target lock, his hand flexing on the grip of his autogun. Tomas took a more relaxed stance than the arbitrator, though his grip on his weapons was just as firm. Glabrio stepped forward and delivered two sharp kicks to the backs of the prisoners' legs, bringing them stumbling to their knees in front of the team.

"Just what exactly did you mean by that then, eh?" he growled, pushing the long suppressors that capped his twin autopistols into the backs of their heads.

"That will do, Glabrio." Machairi intoned. It was not out of altruism. Only a lifetime of knowing when and when not to show anger stopped inquisitor Machairi from venting her fury directly onto the two tech priests.

They were on thinner ice here than even the penitent agents knew. Machairi was acutely aware that she had taken a risk in keeping Kelly Black alive, when the Terran Ordos were breathing down her neck for any deviation from ordained procedure. And her relations with the Silent Vigil had been strained ever since canoness Kiana had discovered Crenshaw's involvement with the Ampoliros. Even Machairi's painstakingly-built network of deals and reciprocal favours could only withstand so many shocks. Kiana had made that clear: her tone audibly cold, even through the ethereal echoes of Ella's animus vox, as she reported that the Vigil's reserve sisters on Coseflame were responding to the Baraspine escalation by mobilising to battle alert.

Machairi coldly appraised the tech priests as Josiah and Tomas stepped forward to flank them. The two agitators were not intimidating to look at, nor even visibly favoured with a large number of augmetic blessings. One was a reedy man who did not look like he had yet seen thirty years, with pale skin that was clammy from obvious, recently-inflicted pain. His companion looked just as dishevelled. She was almost as thin as Ella, though more coltish; long-legged and tall almost to the point of looking gangly. Her red-brown hair straggled from its simple ponytail, and her small mouth was pressed together in a thin line. She looked no older than the other priest.

Even before Machairi had spoken, both of the captive tech priests had been staring levelly at her. Machairi was pleased to see that her authority was visibly evident - even with the team dressed in identical Mars-red longcoats, and with the greasy condensate of the heatsink vent clinging to her face. The young man cuffed his short mop of brown hair out of his eyes, and was rewarded by a warning nudge from Glabrio's gun-barrel. Briefly, the inquisitor wondered if those eyes homing in on her were organic, or just particularly subtle augmetics. Though the tech priests often crafted their bionics as glittering, obvious proclamations of the superiority of metal over flesh, some served their purposes by doing otherwise. Machairi refused to believe that the two unassuming prisoners weren't extensively and lethally augmented, even if the segmented silver hand protruding from the woman's right sleeve was their only concession to standard mechanicus aesthetics.

"We don't have time for this." Machairi stated coldly. "And we don't need to know who you are to complete our mission."

"So why question us?" The female priest blinked her wide-set eyes. They were red-brown, Machairi observed; the same red-brown as her hair. Not a common combination in the Adrantis sub.

"So I can decide whether to kill you right now, or not." the inquisitor retorted frankly.

The red-haired tech priestess stared her down. "We are agents of the Lords Dragon."

“Incredible.” Crenshaw murmured, as he shook his head and dispassionately appraised the two tech-priests.

Sapphira turned to face their captives at the revelation, her movements stiff after being catapulted by the fire wall that had opened under her feet. She stared them down with hard-eyed dubiousness, as the fingers of her left hand subconsciously worked through a phantom rosary.

Behind the priests, Glabrio made an O with his lips and whistled softly. "Awkward."

The priestess twitched her head slightly, trying to look at the man standing behind her. "Why?"

To her credit, Machairi thought, the red-eyed priestess' composure wasn't ruffled. Or perhaps she was one of those mechanicus acolytes who pared all inflection out of speech before processing it, so that they no longer registered human subtleties like sarcasm.

"Because," Machairi permitted Glabrio to explain, "We're here with the sanction of the Lords Dragon. And I thought the inquisition was bad for having the left hand not talk to the right."

The young priest with the mop of brown hair managed to raise a crooked smile. "Forgive us if we don't take that assertion at face value. Who was the cell leader who authorised you?"

"I already told you." Machairi answered. "Weaponsmith Ankari."

Machairi saw a flicker of doubt cross both priests' pale faces. Perhaps they were not so removed from human foibles after all. The Dragons are secretive, to hear Vizkop tell it. They might not know the names of any other handlers. They might not even know the name of their own. But they must be wondering, why would we tell such a specific lie?

“You two went through all the effort of stalking us…and didn’t try and verify who you were actually attacking?" Sapphira thornily interjected, as she gazed incredulously at the captive operatives. "Did if ever cross your minds to explicitly identify yourselves as agents of the Lords Dragon? Golden Throne on Terra…we might be doing the Mechanicus a favour if we executed both of you.”

"You're committing a logical fallacy, sister." The male priest stated calmly. "We know precisely who all of you are; it's you who just made an unverifiable claim about having the censure of the Lords Dragon." The male techpriest smiled wryly. “Indeed, we would not have attacked if we could not have verified your identity.”

"As for announcing ourselves," his companion rejoined, with a hint of what sounded like irritation, "We were about to do just that when Major Crenshaw..."

Something made her lay emphasis on the major's name, and her eyes switched across to the silent Blacksoul. Crenshaw’s dental prosthetics softly clicked as he matched the tech-priestess’ eyes with a stony expression. His finger deliberately shifted down to lightly rest against the carbine’s trigger as he re-appraisingly regarded their Mechanicus prisoners.

"...raised his weapon and triggered my servitor's threat response. But unlike yourselves we can prove that assertion. Would you like to see my ident codes?"

Machairi gave a humourless chuckle. Let you activate your implants, and send a signal to anyone else nearby? I think not.

"What you did say," she countered icily. "Was that you were here for captain Tarran. What do you want with Alicia?"

The priestess turned her round face back towards Machairi. "If you are in the governor's pocket then this is nothing you will not already know."

"We're not in anybody's pocket, Martian." Josiah snapped. "We are loyal servants of the God-Emperor."

The young male priest smiled knowingly. "An agent of the Governor and an Inquisitorial agent would claim the exact same thing, Terran."

Sapphira’s steely eyes glared dangerously at the man as she took a step towards him. The Sister's machine pistol was at a ready rest across her carapace armored torso. She kept her finger resting against the trigger guard, but the Sister’s other hand curled into a fist as she closed the distance.

"Speak." Machairi cut in, sharply raising a hand to forestall the Sister as she sensed the initiative beginning to slip away from her agents.

The two tech-adepts looked at each other, as if wondering how much advantage they would be giving away.

"No binary." Machairi warned them.

"I will terminate them both at the first sign of a transmitter activation, lady inquisitor Machairi." Gavin's static-tinged voice calmly assured her - and the captives - as it emanated from a nearby public address vox.

In an odd contrast to his presence in the conversation, Gavin’s corporeal self was the only member of the team involved in speaking with the Mechanicus agents who was not facing them. He remained sitting upright and hunched over, elbows resting across his bionic knees as his eyes – hidden behind brass, cogwheel-framed wrap goggles – stared fixedly at the administratum complex. Condensation had flash frozen across the hooded overcoat he was draped in, and had formed beaded channels through the chestnut-brown beard the psyker had cultivated on his narrow face since departing Baraspine.

"We had an agent planetside at the time of the Marioch rebellion." The female priest said at last. "When captain Tarran was recovered from the warzone, he was able to get a brief look at her augmentations and suit systems before inquisitor lord Sidonis spirited her offworld. His recordings raised suspicions. The Lords ordered further investigation."

"Further investigation." Behind Machairi, Crenshaw cocked his head and favoured the priestess with an austere look. Loose strands of chem-web still clung to the major's armour. "One of my most favorite of the old Adeptus euphemisms. I am sure the Lords Dragon would love the ability to create proxy Astartes for themselves."

Machairi thought she saw the slightest frown crease the priestess' pale forehead. "Major Crenshaw, the Nebula program was never sanctioned by the archmagi of Perinetus, Omicron or Skogulian. None of the Adrantis forge worlds were consulted before proceeding with a project with subsector-wide ramifications. Our working theory is that a cabal of tech-priests offered their services to governor Tierce outwith the official channels, and the first reason they might have done that is because the official channels would find some aspect of their work unacceptable."

Glabio shrugged lazily, while Crenshaw’s teeth clicked once again. His eyes narrowed while he considered the tech-priestess’ theory about the Nebula Corps. "Or they just didn't want to wait five hundred years while those ossified old gear-heads argued back and forth whether the armour's colour scheme was holy enough."

This time the priestess definitely frowned, turning her head half back over her shoulder with a withering look. "The mechanicus subjects all new spirits to purity testing for a reason."

"So your arch-magi can be the only ones dealing new tech to the rest of us." Glabrio supplied, "At whatever price you feel like charging."

"So no priest of the brotherhood starts down the path to abomination."

The priestess moved her bionic hand, as if to begin tracing a cog circle across the front of her robe. She froze and abandoned the gesture as a blade swished quietly through the air, and the tip of Tomas' depowered sabre hooked down to rest against her jawline.

"Stay still." the Casterian warned her, softly. The priestess looked up at him inscrutably for a moment.

"The Nebula corps," she went on at last, "Uses a reclaimed space hulk as a base, and most of the research and construction work for the program was conducted there. Again, nothing they pulled from that warp-soaked hulk has been subject to official sanctioning."

At Machairi's side, Crenshaw softly exhaled; a caustically dry breath that vaguely emulated amusement. The Major bitterly glowered at the poisoned sky for a moment, before his scrutinizing hazel eyes locked back on the female operative. "And I am sure the Lords Dragon would love to confiscate a space hulk to pick through and sanction at their leisure as well."

The priestess gave a sad, very candid-seeming smile. "Some magi believe that innovation denies the established perfection of the STCs. I wonder if some of them parrot that line just to hide the fact that we have lost so much we would not even know where to begin modifying most of them."

It did not sound like an admission she would be willing to make to most Imperials.

"But the Nebulas are more...worrying. They act like they have something to hide. Shortly after Marioch, the Lords assembled an inspection team to investigate the Nebula hulk. After a year of being stalled by the corps' administrators, the team was dispatched only to disappear en route. Officially, they were lost in the warp."

Glabrio tilted his head in Machairi's direction, cocking an eyebrow. "It makes you wonder, doesn't it? How often ships really get lost in the warp and how often it's just someone making someone else inconvenient go away."

"It does." the male priest agreed. “I can confirm that from personal experience.”

Kally chuckled slightly under her breath, and was briefly glad that Vince was not here, after all the things he had told her about his first off-world trip. At a sharp look from Crenshaw, she coughed into her hand and reset her shoulders, looking away and keeping an eye on the perimeter.

"You have not answered the salient question." Crenshaw observed, turning back to the pair. "Namely, what do you want with Alicia Tarran."

Both tech-priests' eyes flickered towards Alicia, who was standing warily towards the back of the group with Kally guarding her.

Kally risked another glance away from her watch of the surrounding buildings. “So I’m guessing this is the first you’ve heard of any of this.” she muttered to Alicia.

“You’d guess right.” Alicia responded. “It's a little worrying.”

"A lone former Nebula asset who still had all their equipment was the easiest target." the male priest explained, levelly. "We wanted her armour for full analysis."

“You did notice Alley’s not wearing her armour, right?” Glabrio questioned, with mild pressure from his pistols against their heads as emphasis. “In case you didn’t know what it looked like, since you’re both so fresh off the local assembly line, it’s the massive frakking powered suit she’s handily modeling in the PDF recruitment posters plastered all across the damned sub-sector.”

"Which is also why you would have been stupid to draw attention by wearing it down here." the priestess stated in riposte. "We would have offered to exchange you captain Tarran for the armour, following her interrogation."

The Sister’s scarred cheek twitched slightly with tension as she kept her silence.

Machairi fixed the priests with a hostile stare. "It wouldn't have been in my power to give you it, even if I wanted to. Captain Tarran's armour is in the custody of the Grey Knights after they quarantined waystation 2724."

There was a garbled hiss of scrap-static from Gavin’s appropriated vox-voice at Machairi’s reference to the Knights of Titan. It almost covered the creak of fractured ice as the psyker’s hands, fingers splayed and pressed against his temples, clenched fractionally despite his dislocated sentience. Josiah’s gaze flicked down at Jenkins before it moved over to Solvan, and held a questioning look. The venerable priest shook his head, and raised a hand above the psyker’s shrouded body. The old Aquila seared into his palm’s flesh was evident as he softly intoned some soothing words to his temporary charge.

The public address vox briefly went into the muted, constant drone of a network reset chime, before Gavin terminated the noise with what sounded like a finger tap against a microphone. Those familiar with Sidonis’ IST detachment recognized it as taskforce Carbon’s non-verbal acknowledgement protocol.

The male priest seemed to chew the inside of his cheek, thinking. "If you do not have the armour, then our mission was in a fail-state at the moment of its inception. Unfortunate. I do not think we have anything more to say to each other, in that case.”

"More like that's all you know." Glabrio challenged. "If you didn't know that one of your own lords let us come down here, I doubt they told you about anything the rest of the red team are doing."

The young priest's response was the flicker of a smile. "I won't confirm or deny, especially since you have yet to prove that magos Ankari really sent you."

"We could just confirm one way or the other by having Jenkins rip the information out of you." Josiah countered aggressively, dropping the supporting hand from his autogun to mark the points of the Aquila across his chest.

"Our memory buffers are designed to wipe themselves and obliterate the surrounding brain tissue before anyone can tamper with them - even a technopath." The young priest offered Machairi another flickering half-smile. "As an Inquisitor, I'm sure you can relate to the value of a little healthy paranoia."

"We also have a telepath." Machairi told him.

This time it was the female tech priest's turn to offer a grim smile. "I have been on the receiving end of one of them before. I have learned a few tricks since then. You will most likely induce a fatal seizure before you find what you are looking for."

“Most likely.” Gavin’s vox-voice flatly echoed the priestess. Solvan frowned slightly, as his warily concerned gaze shifted between the public address speaker above and the frozen body at his feet. Glabrio grimaced and took a fractional step back as a crazed line of ice pointedly circled the ground around the priestess' kneeling companion. “If you should expire, we will fortunately have a spare on hand.”

Machairi rubbed a fingernail against the ball of her thumb. "You seem very happy to give me excuses to kill you."

"As we told your psyker," the young priest intoned grimly. "Death is a recognised risk of any Ocularis mission."

"Hmm." Machairi paused, and then offered the two tech priests a hard-eyed smile. "But then how would you let your superiors know that I managed to trick magos Ankari into letting us pass, especially if she really is one of your own Dragon agents? No, you want to live, even if it's just to warn the Lords."

Machairi looked over her shoulder, to where Marc was still kneeling. The former investigator was intently watching his drone's vid-feed, and only half listening to the interrogation.

"Black? What's the status of the target complex?"

Marc frowned at his vambrace screen. "I've got definite movement, ma'am."

The inquisitor felt a twinge of adrenaline twist below her ribcage; the triumph that they might have correctly predicted their quarry's location balanced against the dread that he might be about to slip through her grasp.

"Fleeing?" she queried, giving voice to her fear but not allowing it to bleed into her tone.

"Fortifying." Marc replied. "They probably heard the vents going off. They're alert, but they're not leaving."

Machairi chewed the inside of her cheek. "How many?"

Marc double tapped a rune on his sleeve-auspex. "Eight or nine just set up behind the first floor windows, and I count as many again on the ground. More movement inside. The guards' weapons look like auto or las and maybe a grenade launcher. Some kind of tripod autocannon covering the front door. They've got menial overalls on, can't tell if they're wearing flak underneath. No NBC or sensor gear."

"Still a lot harder than if they weren't on the alert." Josiah appraised.

"You will have to kill us after all." the tech priestess stated mildly. "Otherwise we will beam a warning to those innocent adepts you are targeting, as soon as your psyker's concentration slips."

Josiah scoffed at the word innocent.

“We would only need to nullify the priestess, lady inquisitor Machairi.” Gavin counselled. “The priest’s augmentation structure makes him eminently suited to being rendered blind, deaf, and mute. His brotherhood, the forge-world, and all its machine spirts would never hear him cry for help.”

The vox itself mimicked the snowy-static texture of Gavin’s voice as it exhaled a light dusting of powdered ice from the grille. The gentle downpour sporadically continued, as the technopath paused to let the inquisitor and the captive tech-priests consider his offer. Sapphira’s eyes narrowed as she registered the flurries, unnaturally emulating what should’ve been Gavin’s normal respiratory cycle.

“I can make those deactivations permanent as well.”

The priestess stared up at the vox speaker with what Machairi suspected was tightly-controlled unease. Her gallows humour seemed to have temporarily evaporated.

"You have changed a lot in a short span of time." she noted, looking up at the speaker instead of down at the psyker's ice-clad physical body.

“Not. Short. Enough.” Gavin responded, from his corporeal self. His already scratchy voice was made rawer and raspier from the strain of speaking through his gritted teeth and frozen lips. The words slurred out as a growl from low in his throat, and the effort to use his natural voice rather than the modulated neutrality of the vox betrayed a measure of the psyker’s frustration and fury.

“Gavin Jenkins is not in control of his emotions.” The priestess accused, as she made to point at the psyker. Tomas flicked his sabre down and struck her hand with the flat of his blade. She recoiled back, brow furrowed and teeth gritted as she glanced intently at Crenshaw and his limiter collar. “Why have you not shut him down?”

“Why would I?” the blacksoul officer countered, as he impassively assessed the priestess’ reaction. “You two are still alive, so it is obvious that Jenkins is exercising a tremendous amount of self-control.”

He grunted, and scowled irritably at the kneeling duo.

“It is also obvious that your opposition research was deficient, which I would say rates you as a couple of ignorant and overconfident rookies well out of your depth.”

“We have examined ten years worth of records.” the male priest retorted, as he defiantly glared at the Major. The glare became a dangerous smirk. “We know all about you, major Crenshaw.”

“You most assuredly do not.” Crenshaw mildly guaranteed the captive priests, his face an impassive mask as he levelly met their eyes. “Files are not always indicative of the whole truth of an incident.”

Sapphira’s expression hardened as she noted the Major’s particularly choice use of incident. She inhaled slightly as her gaze shifted from their captives, and settled on the security gate behind them. The Sister’s mouth was pressed into a firm frown as she distantly thumbed her absent chaplet beads.

The tech-priestess frowned contemplatively as she scrutinized the team’s reactions. After a moment of silence, she met the inquisitor’s eyes with a curious tilt of the head. “What happened to your team?”

"That's none of your concern." Machairi warned her, hiding her unease at the fact that the priestess was right.

They know something, and they can guess even more. It's not safe to let them go, but killing them would just confirm guilt to whoever sent them. They had only narrowly avoided infighting with other Imperials on Marioch and Baraspine, and between the Sol Conclave's scrutiny and Kiana's recent ambivalence, she was running out of political capital to defend herself with.

She looked at Marc, who was glancing agitatedly between the prisoners and the drone feed streaming through his auspex.

And thanks to them we already lost the element of surprise against DeRei. We need to redress that balance.

Machairi saw Crenshaw glance askance at her, an anticipatory brow raised. She lowered her melta pistol, just a fraction.

"I'm not sure I want to kill you." she told the prisoners. "I'd rather have your help."

The red-eyed priestess adopted a jarringly human expression of skepticism, twisting her mouth and squinting one eye. "You do know that we still think you are working for the sub-governor, yes?"

Machairi did not appreciate the priestess' attempt at humour, and Glabrio expressed displeasure on her behalf with an indelicate corrective nudge from his autopistol. "We're here for the heretic who we suspect is about to try and assassinate your archmagos Krupp." she answered.

“Ah yes, ‘Arcolin De Rei’.” the male tech priest responded dryly, even making little air quote gestures with his fingers until he was jabbed in the back of the head with a silenced weapon. “The supposed survivor from Makita hive, arch-heretic of the Changer and source of all the sub-sector's current ills. We have dismissed that claim.”

Marc shook his head warningly at the tech priest, jaw and fists clenched. Solvan frowned with disapproval at the man’s flippant reference to one of the False Four, while Sapphira reflexively traced the Aquila points as a ward against the casual use of the malefic name.

“I would’ve thought, as a couple of Ocularii,” Glabrio idly speculated, as he made the priests stare at the thinly-iced ground they knelt on with a firm pistol shove, “You two might’ve noticed that the snarky comments and knowing smirks routine isn’t working for us, and it really isn’t working for you.”

“I’ll have to agree with investigator Hybrida.” Sapphira seconded, thumb diligently brushing against index finger even as she refocused her baleful attention on the captives. “Are you both so petulantly committed to being correct that you would rather be killed than be proven wrong?”

"We trust actions, precedent and motive." the priestess answered. "Not words. Words do not carry any more weight just because your organisation is unused to having to provide proof to anybody who is not another inquisitor."

“Besides...” Her colleague sardonically raised his brows and once again flashed his trademark flicker-grin. “Should we model our professional behavior on you and investigator Hybrida, Sister Sapphira?”

Sapphira’s lowly exhaled her constrained frustration and determinedly set her shoulders. She slowly and purposefully advanced to stand before the kneeling tech-priest. Her hand darted out to cradle his chin, and clamp down with thumb and middle finger on the base of his jaw. She firmly craned his neck back against the oppositional pressure of Glabrio’s auto pistol. She intently and wordlessly stared into his eyes.

“Here’s some friendly advice on professional behavior, young Dragons.” Glabrio murmured, as he gave them another less than friendly poke with his suppressor, “In your precarious situation, it isn’t exactly smart to be a couple of smart mouths. We aren’t too keen on smug, smiling, know-it-all shits who don’t know shit, and like to try and press our buttons.”

“We’ve already got one of those pricks locked away,” Marc growled, even as he intently scrutinized his vambrace screen, “And that frakking arsehole has had his teeth bashed out for his efforts. Twice.”

“Not a pleasant ordeal.” Crenshaw commented. He emulated the priest’s flickering grin, and pointedly clacked his own less than authentic teeth. “I can confirm that from personal experience.”

“Is that the next phase of your strategy?” the priestess questioned. “Attempt to intimidate and torture us into accepting your baseless alternate facts, and cooperate in your scheme?”

“You’re already intimidated, priestess.” Gavin’s atonal voice answered. The vox crackled a hush of static as she made to respond. “No. Don’t try to claim otherwise. We don’t have the time.”

The woman’s red-brown eyes widened as her bionic hand glazed with a rime of ice. It lurched upwards and emulated Sapphira’s vice hold as it turned her neck to look at the silent Sister.

“Now. You’ll be silent, and you’ll listen.”

“The logical fallacy you have been committing, adepts,” Sapphira levelly spoke, with the faintest hint of strain as she contained her ire, “Is assuming that you have had access to the most classified of data – the truth.” The Sister’s tempestuous gray eyes narrowed as she glanced between the two captive Dragon operatives. “The truth is Arcolin DeRei is alive, and the only reason we are on Perinetus is to hunt him.”

She released the male priest with a firm shove, that Gavin mirrored a moment afterward with the priestess. Sapphira suppressed a grimace as she turned to sharply point towards the assembly yard with a hostile glare.

“That heretical son of a bitch has been holed up at the end of this alleyway the entire time!”

“If you can prove that," the priest went on undeterred. "Then by necessity my friend here and myself would need to reassess our mission status here. We would be willing to re-task to help you, if he is alive - he would be a dangerous variable that needs to be removed, especially in a sensitive location like this.”

Sapphira pulled a high capacity data slate from her robes, and looked briefly to Machairi, who nodded in assent.

"If you don't trust words," the inquisitor advised frostily, "Then trust hard data."

The Sister re-awoke the machine spirit with a succinct swirl of her finger in emulation of the cog. She offered the device and a gaze with all the warmth of a Valhallan winter to their captives.

The male priest accepted the slate and turned to Machairi.

“With your permission, I will interface with the dataslate directly. I will only access whatever you flag for me.”

“No tricks, Martian.” Josiah warned.

“No tricks.” The priest smiled wanly. “Your psyker friend will be able to monitor my inload speed. If he detects any exload activity, he can fry my brain in an instant.”

“He can, but he won’t – at least not immediately.” Gavin neutrally clarified from above, as more ice crackled into existence. It manifested as the methodical tread of the psyker’s utilitarian bionics, walking a circle of frosty footprints around the priestess. “You would break your companion’s heart if you tried something clever, adept.”

“No tricks.” They young priest assured, with no hint of amusement or the flicker of a smile, as he met the Inquisitor's eyes.

Machairi nodded, and the male priest extended his left hand, a silver tendril extending from a compartment on his wrist. It plugged neatly into the dataslate, and the male priest's eyes fluttered closed.


+ + + + + +

A kaleidoscope of numbers and code-symbols began to fire through Nikolai's head in synaesthetic bursts, folding together like digital origami into a stream of vid-recordings. Before even considering them, the tech adept took a thorough 0.85 seconds to trace back the code-idents of every individual stream - sifting through time stamps, storage medium signatures and a dozen other indicators only a senior transmechanic would know to look for, combing for mismatches that would indicate forgery or imperfect copying. Such deception would mark the inquisitor as not only the sub-governor's lackey, but an enemy of the mechanicus as a whole.

Understanding is the True Path to Comprehension, the key to all things. He who would corrupt or conceal the True Path is an enemy of the Deus.

The data seemed, to him, to be pure and unspoiled. With a conservative rating of his own abilities and those of his blessed cortical implants, the chances of a tampering that had escaped his notice shrank to 0.02%. Statistically insignificant, although of course not negligible.

With a mental nod, Nikolai allowed the data streams to pass through his quarantine buffers, where the dozen different feeds formed a mandala of parallel images in his partitioned consciousness. Still-picts of a dead man's wrist, inked with what looked like a flame-wreathed eye. Several more of weapon serial numbers, tagged from a meltagun and auto weapons recovered on Marioch.

Skorgulian, Zeta Forge, 604.M41 batch twenty three. Mu-gamma-two-nine-nine-zero-five, shipment seven-three-four. It registered in Nokolai's internal databases as being loaded on the trader Kulvard Sunrise three months ago, but never officially disembarked.

Audio logs that juxtaposed Alia Machairi's voice against what was evidently a Baraspini prisoner's. A half dozen others with highly-classified arbites code stamps, that appeared to have been routed through Coseflame.

"Trader Danilov, do you have any idea what sentences the lex imperialis imposes for aiding traitors?"

"He had flects, sir! He offered me flects if I'd get him off Solomon! The supply out of Scarus dried up years ago and I need them!"

The vid-recordings from a Vespa-pattern spy drone were possibly the most alarming. Furious running gunfights; orbiting feeds of a sand-blasted medicae complex; a blurred figure in blue armour leaping from the cover of a camo-drape.

"Bastards are crawling all over the ground floor!" Agent Marcus Black's voice ident.

“Kally? Kally!” That one was major Crenshaw.

The recording whirled back to the medicae complex roof, where the blue figure was firing at a hunkered shield wall of agents. The Sister was framed in the access stairway, bodily shielding a comrade as she took aim at the heretic with a bolter. It was a Godwin-De’az, the standard armament of the Sororita warrior caste, modified. She assuredly tracked her target for a moment, made a slight adjustment, and fired. The heretic started as his weapon exploded mid-way through an evasive roll.

Nikolai couldn't see the blue man's face. He wound the recording back further.

"Hello, clever girl."

Nikolai was so unsettled that he physically blinked.

Worse followed, in a cascade of affronts to the Imperial and Mechanicus creeds both. A Sister of the Imperial faith tortured and hacked apart in the most brutal fashion imaginable. Imperial forces manipulated into fighting each other as the heretic's pet trader attempted to cover his tracks. An intricate Necromundan battlesuit, corrupted beyond all recovery. The heretic hiding in plain sight next to adept Zhang of the sub-governor's cabinet, and murdering the mechanicus survey team they had attached him to.

"Note in particular the similarities with DeRei's documented M.O from Solomon." Sapphira suggested sharply, anger edging into her voice after Nikolai had been quiet for several seconds. "For a dead heretic, he has been busy."

"I am aware of the details of the case." Nikolai hissed, withdrawing from the machine's spirit and partitioning all he had taken. "I am...sor-"

“Don’t.” Sapphira reciprocally hissed. Her expression, gaze, and tone aligned with the cold and certain lethality of a razor’s edge. “Your determination, adept. Speak it.”

He looked over to Raechel. "Their data is valid, within acceptable parameters."

"May I have a look?" his red-haired companion replied neutrally.

Nikolai looked to Sapphira, who looked to Machairi. The inquisitor nodded curtly. Raechel leaned over to receive the dataslate as Nikolai passed it to her, wrapping her silver hand around the connection ports. The priestess blinked rapidly, several times.

"I see." she said gravely.

Nikolai turned back to the Inquisitor.

"Our original mission statement, to investigate the Nebula Corp, is now secondary to the confirmed destruction of Arcolin DeRei."

"That's it?" Josiah snapped angrily, "These Martians interfere with an inquisitorial mission and put a whole forge world at risk, both of which have precedent as treason charges, and we're just going to let them join up with us?"

"Consider them on probation, arbitrator." Machairi replied in a firm tone, though Nikolai saw her eyes flash at the interruption.

"As you say, my lady." Glabrio chimed in, though he delayed in lowering his weapons. "Although I will agree with Mr Wuziarch on one point. At least an apology might be nice."

Nikolai shrugged. "I will not apologise for our attack, as it was logical within the parameters of our first mission. But if you wish our assistance, I am willing to give it."

The inquisitor was impassive. She flexed her free hand, running the ball of her thumb along her fingernails.

"Getting close enough to storm the building is going to be harder now that DeRei's on the alert. What can you bring to the table?"

"I have six constrictor drones still active." Raechel answered. "Four Cobalt interceptor servitors and one Peregrine flyer. They can draw fire for you. Do you want DeRei taken dead or alive?"

"Dead." Machairi answered flatly, and Nikolai noticed both Marc and Kally open and close their mouths as if they had been about to affirm the same thing.

"I will re-key the Peregrine to his bio-ident. If it gets a clear shot through a window or even a thin wall, it will dive on him with a melta charge."

Machairi seemed satisfied. "Your names." she stated. "It will be useful for us to know them."

Nikolai and Raechel exchanged a glance. Raechel spoke first.

"Raechel Kuscelian."

"Oppen." Nikolai followed up. "Nikolai Oppen."

"Consider yourselves free." Machairi nodded formally. "For now."

Static roared across Nikolai's vision and his aural pickups, clearing again a moment later. Beside him Raechel flinched, her bionic hand moving to clutch at her ribs.

"What?" the priestess snapped in protest.

A burst of ice crystals showered from the public vox caster. "Consider it a declaration of my intentions."

"And a down payment on mine." Glabrio added, grinding his pistol barrel into Nikolai's neck one last time for emphasis. "If one of those bloody spider-bots so much as looks in my direction. Alright?"

"Let them up." Machairi said levelly. "Oppen, you're with me. Kuscelian, go with Tomas' team. Stick close to Vizkop."

The red-cloaked figure who had been silent until now glided quietly forward. Nikolai recognised a fellow brother of the priesthood, though one who until now he had considered no friend of his. He was the only member of Machairi's retinue who they had been able to gather almost no information on, since he seemed officially to stand apart from both the inquisitor and the main fold of the mechanicus. Now they had a name - Vizkop.

It was clear that Machairi's order to stick close to the martial tech-adept really meant to be guarded by, much as his own position was to be shadowed by Gavin. The technopath rose to his feet in a crackle of splintering frost, aided by Solvan and Josiah’s firm support from under his arms as his cold bionics whined in complaint. Gavin’s haggard face locked with Nikolai's, and his expression was twisted into a frozen mask of visceral hatred. His eyes were like chips of cloudy, iced over blood as they ominously bored into the priest from behind his cog stamped wrap-goggles.

"I really do not know why the cult frowns on emotions, Nik." Raechel confided as they stood up and drew apart, moving towards the targets who were now their nominal allies. "The machine god clearly has a sense of humour, even if it is a supremely twisted one."

Raechel was still attempting to diffuse her tension in the usual way, and Nikolai himself was uncomfortable with how things might have panned out - each team neutralising the other and leaving both their prey to run free. The irony was clearly not lost on the inquisition agents either; several were exchanging looks.

What was more, the future beyond the immediate necessity of DeRei's death was still in doubt. Inquisitor Machairi encapsulated the unresolved tension best when she passed by Alicia and Kally, and clapped the pensive-looking former Nebula on the shoulder.

"Captain." Nikolai heard the inquisitor murmur. "We'll talk about this, later. For now, let's see this heretic dead."


+ + + + + +

"Brother." Kuscelian said grimly as she fell in beside Vizkop. Tomas' group peeled away from the others as they reached the end of the thoroughfare, splitting to either side of the assembly yard and using the intervening warehouses to block the view of anyone up in the control module that faced the inner city wall - and beyond it complex Alpha One. "With your permission, I will now reactivate the servitors."

She deliberately routed a noospheric connection to Vizkop's own comms node as she activated her transmitter. Vizkop saw green rhomboids tag across his augmented vision, highlighting the Dragon agent's retinue of servitors through the intervening buildings. Now that they had reached a precarious understanding, adept Kuscelian was taking pains to show him everything she was doing.

<If you do not mind me asking, brother.> she pulsed across to him, the secret binary cant of the mechanicus pipping across on the back of the main radio signal. <The inquisitor called you Vizkop. By any chance are you Vizeriousyl Kopollanzitra?>

[Atrum Daemon]

Vizkop stood slight apart from the others but still in formation as they moved. A scarlet cloak covered his combat gear and his usual helmet had been traded for a veritable death mask of a leering skull. Death was his intention and with the hood of the cloak up he looked a very effective flavor of intimidating. Not to present company, of course.

Ankari's access had been a real blessing in disguise. Being able to breeze through security had saved them a great deal of time and circumvented a hilarious amount of fatal moments. It was somewhat nostalgic being back on a Forge World. It had been years since he had set foot on one and his senses were filled with familiar sights and sounds. To a point those were constant throughout the Mechanicum. Each Forge World had a similar sound to it with differences here and there depending, usually, on what was produced primarily.

He came out of his thoughts as they turned down a lit alleyway between the administration blocks. A good place to cut through to get to the assembly yard.

Of course nothing could ever go well could it?

At the vocalized demand to halt, Vizkop melted from the main body of the group. Leaning against a rockrete wall he watched what had been a tense situation go completely ass up. Though he was not watching, more observing. The units attacking, their weapons, the flight patterns and formations. Anything to give an idea of who they were being assaulted by.

They were willing to ignore a very bold claim of being authorized by one of the leading Magi by declaring it not relevant. They had clearly been observing the team for some time by the way they were moving in with the drones and servitors. To him the drones seemed to be not concerned with killing anyone. Most likely to avoid causing a scene. Pieces began falling into place for the assassin. Whoever they were, and he suspected more than one, they were nearby and privy to some nice techniques and training.

The Lord's Dragon was a loosely connected organization from the stand-point of a field operative but Vizkop still recognized some of the more conventional tactics often employed. The whole thing made him shake his head in a mixture of amusement and disbelief. And in the end, his services were not even required in apprehending the two agents.

'By the Omnissiah, they're just kids,' Vizkop thought as the two agents were dragged before the team.

The treatment was...rougher than Vizkop would have preferred. And they walked in several circles that could have been avoided by just asking him to show the pair his details. But everyone was high strung with all that had been going on. At least Machiari had no intention of hurting them. A pair of Ocularii agents, who seemed familiar with one another, crossing paths with them at such a juncture.

Coincidence? Probably not. Providence? More the likely answer. They could be invaluable if the right steps were taken. Needless to say, Vizkop was quite pleased at the outcome of the very tense interrogation of the two. Though he was growing tired of Josiah's constant state of needlessly aggressive.

"Let them up." Machairi said levelly. "Oppen, you're with me. Kuscelian, go with Tomas' team. Stick close to Vizkop."

Vizkop moved forward like a specter to get a better view of the young agents. Thin, disheveled, possibly sickly. Yes they were definitely moderately augmented tech-priests that was certain. Or rather and priest and priestess. Vizkop simply gave the Inquisitor an affirmative nod. He was to be in charge of the tall woman. An acceptable order.

As the groups split, Vizkop hung to the side of Tomas' to search for the best point to set up his nest. Bringing Kuscelian with him was a small thing given the nature of the mission now. Besides she seemed to have a decent wit about her that might prove useful.

"Brother." Kuscelian said grimly as she fell in beside Vizkop. Tomas' group peeled away from the others as they reached the end of the thoroughfare, splitting to either side of the assembly yard and using the intervening warehouses to block the view of anyone up in the control module that faced the inner city wall - and beyond it complex Alpha One. "With your permission, I will now reactivate the servitors."

She deliberately routed a noospheric connection to Vizkop's own comms node as she activated her transmitter. Vizkop saw green rhomboids tag across his augmented vision, highlighting the Dragon agent's retinue of servitors through the intervening buildings. Now that they had reached a precarious understanding, adept Kuscelian was taking pains to show him everything she was doing.

<If you do not mind me asking, brother.> she pulsed across to him, the secret binary cant of the mechanicus pipping across on the back of the main radio signal. <The inquisitor called you Vizkop. By any chance are you Vizeriousyl Kopollanzitra?>

He turned his masked face to look upon her up close for the first time. Decades had it been since someone actually called him by his full name. He should have expected it given it was what was on file but it still sounded quite alien coming out of someone he barely knew. <Affirmative> Vizkop replied. <That is my full name but I will request you continue to refer to me by the shortened Vizkop. Is there a purpose in asking that, Kuscelian?>

He had a plethora of questions of his own but they could wait. The mission was the important focus but he could take time to converse with her. Binary was an incredibly efficient means of communication, after all, and was far less distracting that using voice.

[Imperial1917]

Trist met the eyes of the shipmistress levelly, but without challenge. He was keenly aware of the delicacy of his position, perhaps moreso than the inquisitor was aware. And like with the inquisitor, this was not the first person of such stature that he had encountered. There was more here than met the eye. Spreading his hands in a gesture encompassing their surroundings, he replied,

“Not at all. I would not have wanted to put you through so much bother.”

Alicia shrugged, resting her hands in the pockets of her hooded sweatshirt.

"I've never really had a proper look around this gallery, if you want me to be honest with you."

She tilted her head to suggest they should begin walking back, and fell into step beside Trist. The soft, dusty carpet softened their footsteps, leaving just the thrum of the distant generators and the soft buzz of the electro-candles.

"Well, would you look at that." the shipmistress said unexpectedly, pausing by one of the busts that lined the corridor. She extracted one hand from her pocket and gently wiped the dust away from a marble woman with delicate cheekbones, a strong chin and elaborately curled hair. The dull plaque beneath the bust gave her name as Theodosia I Prince.

"That's the Prince trader I decided to take my name from." Alicia explained in a tone of quiet admiration. "I read her history but I didn't know she was hiding down here."

She chuckled mirthlessly, and stepped back from the sculpture.

"It's funny. I spent my whole life, from when I was two until just a few months ago, thinking that this Mariochi couple were my parents. I even went on a rampage after the people I blamed for killing them. Twice, actually."

She shook her head, as if to rid herself of some distasteful memory.

"Only then I find out that they weren't my parents at all. I could have lived with that; a foster parent is still a parent, right? Except they weren't parents but handlers, watching over an imperial asset."

She shook her head again, letting out a breath as she stared at the bust.

"My real family's the cadet branch of some noble house that liked sowing its wild oats around Calixis. Most of them are dead now. It makes you wonder what family really means, doesn't it?"

The young lord tilted his head to the side for a moment, regarding the shipmaster with apparent curiosity. Crossing to the bust, Trist looked at it in the dim light offered by the electro-candles overhead, appearing to be comparing the old Prince to the new as he gathered his thoughts.

“A soldier has two families. One he raises and one he raises hell with.” he murmured. Realizing that he had spoken aloud, he smiled apologetically at the veteran, “Sorry, just something that someone told me once.”

"And I can tell you where they heard it." Alicia said, breaking for just a moment into a knowing smile. "Governor Tierce's address before the battle of Endrite, back when he was a commodore. I thought it was more famous in the Navy than the PDFs."

Turning, Trist walked towards another bust, but then stopped halfway there. He turned about to face the Rogue Trader. “But I suppose it has a point, doesn’t it? It has the right ring to it, like a truth understood on a level that makes it almost unspeakable. There are the people we watch and then there are the people who watch our back. Sometimes they are one and the same and sometimes they aren’t. But what are they if not family?"

Alicia nodded in quiet agreement. "The trouble comes when things change. You can fight alongside these people and watch half of them die, and HQ will call it a victory and you a hero, and they think they're doing you a favour by promoting you. But it's never quite the same with the people who used to be your squadmates, is it? I still tried to do right by them but they were different - they had to be. I wasn't their sister any more, I was their captain."

She sighed, with a flicker of a self-deprecating smile.

"I...haven't had much luck since then."

“The people we care for, we elevate, in part to justify the effort. The people who care for us, we promote for their value; out of gratitude. And when it comes down to it, the people who use us, who betray us, who stand for everything we cannot, especially when they challenge those who we consider family, well, they can’t be our family no matter what, can they? It is all or nothing.”

"Perhaps." Alicia put her hands back in her pockets, staring at nothing in particular as she mulled over his words. Trist got the feeling that he had touched on a deeper nerve than he realised as the silence stretched. Trist shrugged.

“I suppose that means that we define our family how we see fit. And to the Warp with everyone else.”

Alicia chewed the inside of her cheek. "I wish I had the luxury of being able to say to the Warp with everyone else. But it isn't just what I want to do, it's what people need me to do."

Trist turned away, looking down the long hall. Busts lined it and he realized now that they were likely the faces of long-dead Rogue Traders. He knew that each had been made later in the lives of the originals; most of their faces were unblemished, but the artists had captured the hardness of their eyes.

"You are wrong," he said. The words were softly spoken, but they seemed to echo in the silence.

Alicia checked. "How so?"

He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the memories. "It is not a luxury. There are no such things."

Alicia heaved in a breath and resumed her walk. "I've seen friends die or go missing in action for the greater good. I've seen..." Her mouth twitched. "Not quite friends, but people I care about sacrifice everything for the cause and be...tortured for it. I needed to believe that if things weren't better now, they could be."

Opening his eyes, Trist looked down at his hands, flexing the material of his gloves, barely feeling the neural impulses sent up by the augments. "We all did." His mouth quirked in a parody of a smile as he raised his gaze to the distant ceiling. "'The man who has nothing can still have faith'; isn't that what they tell us?"

"Yes." Alicia agreed quietly, tonelessly. "It is."

[Azazeal849]

"Agent Black," priestess Kuscelian inquired softly, using some kind of implanted transmitter to tap into the team vox. "What is the signal frequency on your drone?"

There was a moment's pause before the terse answer crackled across Tomas' earpiece. "2.95 GigaCruz."

"Thank you."

The priestess twitched her head in some sort of coded gesture as Tomas' group worked their way round to the west side of the control hub. Over to their left was a line of big, coil-topped transformers, channelling from underground feeder cables to satisfy the yard's voracious power requirements. Evidently the forge had need for even more, because stacked behind the construction warehouse that they were using to shield their approach were vast pieces of shaped metal, which Tomas surmised to be blade pieces for more of the 400m wind turbines that dominated the southern skyline. A huge mobile crane for hoisting the blade pieces onto their transport crawlers stood nearby, its stabilisers splayed out like the feet of some gigantic reptile.

"There are six armed humans on overwatch." Kuscelian informed Tomas as she stared into the middle distance, apparently tapping into Marc's drone feed. "Windows ground 2, ground 4, ground 7, first 5, second 1 and second 9."

There was a mechanical skittering sound as two of the priestess' webber-armed servitors scuttled up the wall of the construction warehouse and clung to the eves below the roof.

"What is your preferred approach?"


+ + + + + +

"Governor Tierce is no traitor." Alicia hissed to Kally as they crabbed forward. They were hugging the walls, keeping low to minimise their profile as the cold mist began to shred away. "He's a war hero, and so are the corps. Every one of them I served with bled to save Adrantis half a dozen times!"

"Limiter off, agent Sonder." Machairi ordered as the team crept forward towards the front side of the control hub.

Alicia went quiet and took a steadying breath. Even Nikolai, who was several metres away, felt something unpleasant twinge in his stomach. He shook off the feeling and blinked to cycle his visual implants to an infrared frequency that was untroubled by the fog. He could see the baseline humans that agent Black had described as red figures peering out into the mist, exchanging questions and guarded looks with their comrades. There were over a dozen of them now. Their faces flickered with wireframe overlays as Nikolai's facial identification routines sought and did not find Arcolin DeRei.

"Tomas, report when you're in position." Machairi voxed, while behind them a quiet whir announced Raechel's servitors moving into perimeter positions and holding for further orders.

[Atrum Daemon]

<Curiosity.> Kuscelian admitted, as the tagged the comm stream with a time signifier dated 0.89 Martian standard years ago. <I worked with a magos Krystek who mentioned your name. She spoke highly of you.>

He glanced at the date stamp. He had no idea what Krystek had been doing at the time. He had not spoken with her in several decades. But the memories he had of her never faded. Her voice, her laugh, the scents she liked to decorate herself with when playing diplomat...

<Unsurprising that she would> he replied. <I was her student for several years. Though I have not spoken to her in any recent date. She developed a high opinion of my capabilities early in my tutelage under her. What were you working with her on? Or perhaps it is more accurate to ask: what were you doing that she inserted herself into?>

<Attempting to reclaim a silenced forge world, one which turned out to have been overrun by hereteks.>

Kuscelian fired a code-signifier for the Holy Cog across the link, a binaric shorthand for actually tracing the circle across her chest, or linking her thumbs in the more formal cog sign. The icon flitted through to Vizkop's receivers, cleansing the code-stream of any evil that the loaded word heretek had left in its wake.

<They had enlisted an Imperial inquisitor to work with them, so I hope you can understand our previous reluctance to treat your own colleague as infallible.>

<Perfectly understandable. I had heard some of that event from a contact of mine. As ever, the Inquisition decided our business was theirs as well. From what I was given, the whole exercise quickly turned into a hot mess. If I may use such a colloquial phrase.>

<It would actually be rather appropriate.> Kuscelian replied. Vizkop saw her augmetic hand twitch, just slightly.

<Nevertheless, I was given to understand you were all somewhat successful in exorcising the hereteks.>

Vizkop fired a matching signifier at his utterance of the word. Superstition was healthy to have, especially given the current climate they were in. For the talk they were having, a clear code-stream was necessary.

<I was not given all the details, to clarify. Just the pieces my contact believed I would find most interesting. Question: what was it to stand in the White Lady's presence? Was it as illuminating as I have heard?>

<You are referring to archmagos Katan of the ark Firinne Dhiaga, yes?>

The code stream went dormant for a fraction of a second while Kuscelian considered her answer.

<I have never seen a sister priestess raise an entire forge back into the light with just a single perfect code-prayer. It was both awe-inspiring and...>

A tiny code blip marked the stream, either another momentary pause for thought or the sign of a word-signal being recalled and reworded at the last moment.

<Disconcerting.> was the word that eventually translated through Vizkop's receivers. <My first research projects involved reclaiming the Knowledge behind alien machines so we could resurrect their spirits in pure bodies. But I would never have attempted to revive a machine touched by servants of the Dark Mechanicus. In my experience Chaos can be very...insidious.>

Most of what Vizkop knew, or thought he knew, of the reclusive Archmagos Katan consisted of rumors and hearsay. Much more was said of her senior officers aboard the ship, each a Magos in their own right who served her with zealous loyalty. But here Kuscelian was after having a front row seat to just what Katan was capable of. Valuable information to be sure. Though Vizkop knew he had to treat it with care. He had encountered the White Lady's officers before, as well as her....friend(?) in the form of Archmagos Adelaide von Somner. Healthy amounts of fear was the proper phrase for what he felt thinking back on both of those encounters.

<Insidious indeed,> Vizkop agreed with a short reply. <Yours is not the first voice I have heard speak of such a venture. I have encountered a few fringe groups of priests concerned with the reverse engineering of alien machinery in order to properly advance what they saw as humanity's technological stagnation. But I think we are getting a little off track. Did anything other than simple curiosity fuel your initial question?>

<A certain degree of risk assessment.> Kuscelian admitted, the corner of her small mouth twitching upward. Her eyes flickered over Vizkop's head to track one of her arachnid servitors as it skittered ahead of them towards an advantageous overwatch position. <If DeRei really is here, then sister Krystek made secutor Vizkop sound like a good way to skew the odds in our favour.>

<A fair statement> he acknowledged. <In theory DeRei has been here longer than this team. So the advantage remains his, for the moment, in regards to places to hide. And he has us beat in terms of pure range when it comes to reconnoitred firepower. Regardless one way or another this ends for me here.>

A very deliberate choosing of words from the Secutor. From his view, this whole ordeal was turning into somewhat of a personal crusade. One he had no real flag to fly in. He was on as a favor to Machiari. He had, with coming to the Forge World, stretched thin how much he could help her officially. When it came down to it...no he would not endanger his place within the Mechanicus for them.

He had found himself an advantageous position to hole up in. From his place, Vizkop had an accetable view of the field and could get eyes on the other team if needed. His rifle, designed with the intent of countering materiel and reconfigured to hunt cyborgs, stood at the ready. The weapon was not quiet by any means and for the kind of enemies they would be facing...well some might call it “overkill.” He was watching the building, altered visual spectrum from his helmet confirming what Kuscelian had reported about the men inside.

[dakkagor]

"Agent Black," priestess Kuscelian inquired softly, using some kind of implanted transmitter to tap into the team vox. "What is the signal frequency on your drone?"

There was a moment's pause before the terse answer crackled across Tomas' earpiece. "2.95 GigaCruz."

"Thank you."

The priestess twitched her head in some sort of coded gesture as Tomas' group worked their way round to the west side of the control hub. Over to their left was a line of big, coil-topped transformers, channelling from underground feeder cables to satisfy the yard's voracious power requirements. Evidently the forge had need for even more, because stacked behind the construction warehouse that they were using to shield their approach were vast pieces of shaped metal, which Tomas surmised to be blade pieces for more of the 400m wind turbines that dominated the southern skyline. A huge mobile crane for hoisting the blade pieces onto their transport crawlers stood nearby, its stabilisers splayed out like the feet of some gigantic reptile.

"There are six armed humans on overwatch." Kuscelian informed Tomas as she stared into the middle distance, apparently tapping into Marc's drone feed. "Windows ground 2, ground 4, ground 7, first 5, second 1 and second 9."

There was a mechanical skittering sound as two of the priestess' webber-armed servitors scuttled up the wall of the construction warehouse and clung to the eves below the roof.

"What is your preferred approach?"


+ + + + + +

They were hugging the walls, keeping low as the cold mist began to shred away.

"Limiter off, agent Sonder." Machairi ordered as the team crept forward towards the front side of the control hub.

Alicia took a steadying breath beside the blank, and even Nikolai who was several metres away felt something unpleasant twinge in his stomach. He shook off the feeling and blinked to cycle his visual implants to an infrared frequency that was untroubled by the fog. He could see the baseline humans that agent Black had described as red figures peering out into the mist, exchanging questions and guarded looks with their comrades. There were over a dozen of them now. Their faces flickered with wireframe overlays as Nikolai's facial identification routines sought and did not find Arcolin DeRei.

"Tomas, report when you're in position." Machairi voxed, while behind them a quiet whir announced Raechel's servitors moving into perimeter positions and holding for further orders.

"Hold position." Tomas' voice was no more than a whisper over the vox. In the lull, Kally carefully deactivated her limiter and rechecked her weapon.

+++++

Tomas looked back at his team and smiled, happy to see everyone was carefully preparing for the assault.

"Nikolai, can you kill the lights and give us some more fog cover?"

"Certainly. Whenever you are ready." The reedy techpriest voxed.

"Good. Vizkop, clear the windows, Crenshaw on point. Josiah, take up the rear. Solvan and Alicia on me."

They were doing this with sidearms and melee weapons. Hardly ideal. He worked through the variables before he activated the squad wide comm.

"Everyone. On five we will have smoke and darkness. On 3, we move. On one, we breach. Check your corners and watch your fire."

He disabled the safety on his pistol.

"Five."

The lights failed with a percussive bang, plunging the block into a industrial twilight backlit by distant forges and other districts nearby. He could hear shouts from the building.

"Four."

Fog, chemical heavy and clinging to any sheer surface, rolled out of the alley ways and filled the artificial canyons. Tomas wrinkled his nose at the smell of it and wished he had a rebreather.

"Three."

Crenshaw and Solvan were up and moving together, the rest of the team a step behind.

"Two."

The team stacked up at the wall and Crenshaw tested the handle. It hung half out of the door, as if it had been opened in a hurry by brute force.

"One!"

Crenshaw kicked open the door and Alicia swung round, blazing away. At the other end of the building, Tomas could hear similar shooting as the other team breached. Somewhere above and muffled by intervening walls, the bipod autocannon was barking in wild, hysterical bursts. That had to be Kuscelian's servitors drawing fire for them. Alicia cut ahead to his left and kicked open a side door, but it revealed only a dimly-lit boiler room with the thickly insulated calorifier tanks humming quietly away. A small cog-shrine had sat next to the boiler control systems, but it had been petulantly smashed up, seemingly with a claw hammer.

"Clear." the ex-Nebula reported, biting down on the end of the word.

"The stairwell is ahead and to the right." Crenshaw advised tonelessly.

The office wing ahead of them was garrisoned, but the men defending it didn't put up much of a fight. Some were still ducking away from the windows to escape Vizkop's lethal sniper fire, and the others were distracted by one of Kuscelian's webber servitors scrabbling in through the smashed windows. They were still turning towards its flailing pincer limbs with shocked curses on their lips when Crenshaw and Alicia's accurate fire blew apart their skulls.

"Let me take point." Kuscelian's voice advised through the drone's vox casters as the squat metallic spider skittered ahead of them towards the stairwell.

+++++

Marc kicked the door down and Kally leaned round, to see a cultist perfectly framed in the door.

"Frakkin' tech priests!" the man tried to shout in warning, his eyes bulging at the sight of Kally's red overcoat.

She shot him twice, once in the head and once in the chest, sending him flying backward like a puppet yanked by its strings. She stepped in and fired four more shots, catching another boiler-suited cultist by surprise and de-limbing him with extreme prejudice.

Sapphira was at her back with Glabrio, and the four moved forwards as fast as they dared, spreading out and cutting down targets as they appeared from the murk. Fire, mainly solid slugs but the occasional lasbolt, began to rattle back in their direction. It was dark, and dusty, and surprisingly hot in the building. This wing was one long office gallery, divided by flimsy plasterboard walls.

"We're in! Move up!"

Marc's autogun hammered in the gloom, stippling bullet holes through a flimsy partition wall. The cultist behind it reeled out, vomiting blood, and dragged the cogitator workstation with him as he crashed to the floor. Marc glanced down at the auspex on his arm, now alive with motion-tracker contacts, and dropped one hand from his weapon to snatch a series of hand signals to Kally and the others. Four more ahead; three left side, one right.

Machairi responded with a downward slice of her own hand. Push up the right side.

While Marc took a knee and snarled covering bursts up the gallery, Kally and the others advanced, shouldering down the flimsy partitions and knocking aside expensive cogitator equipment.

"The autocannon on the first floor has stopped firing." Kuscelian's voice reported over the team vox. "I have lost sight of them, cannot confirm eliminated."

"Copy." Machairi replied curtly, wasting no breath.

It was still hot in the office wing, and the air reeked of gunpowder - and something else. Kally couldn't put her finger on it until Glabrio barged through the last partition, pistols blazing. The investigator vaulted over a work desk, scattering the paperwork as he slid across it, and landed only to stumble into a wide, cleared area where the desks and divider walls had already been swept aside. The worn carpet covering the floor was burned away in neat lines and curves, forming a huge, charred rune-shape in the centre of the cleared space.

The smell was brimstone.

Machairi seized Glabrio by the shoulders of his red overcoat and hauled him backwards away from the blasphemous sigil. The inquisitor clapped a hand to her ear, to vox and warn the others.

At that moment a static cackle cut through the air, rising in pitch until it dissolved into a roaring barrage of gunfire. The glass walls of the ordinate's office ahead of them spider-webbed, and then crashed to the ground in splinters as wicked yellow streaks of tracer blurred through the air around them, demolishing woodwork and shattering cogitator screens.

It was no boiler-suited cultist raining hell on them from across the gallery. It was a frakking suppression servitor, with two rapid-fire autoguns mounted on each metal-braced arm. It stomped forward with steel-shod footfalls, blitzing fire at them.

+++++

The constrictor drone battered through the swinging doors into the stairwell, swivelled its webber guns to point up the stairs, and immediately disintegrated into whirling shards of metal. Heavy autocannon shells thumped into the floor and made matchwood of the fire doors, forcing Tomas to shield his eyes from the whirling splinters. The cultists must have dragged their autocannon away from the windows and and used it to cover the stairwell.

"Frag out." Alicia warned through gritted teeth, pulling a grenade from underneath her red overcoat and yanking the pin. She flattened herself against the chewed doorframe, but as she ducked out, an evil, sucking howl filled the stairwell. Something crashed into Alicia from above, feet first; its feet were hooked steel talons, that ripped through Alicia's coat and gouged into the mesh armour beneath. The thing was thin and hunched and corpse-grey, eyes and mouth pinned wide open by surgical braces. It screeched into Alicia's face as it bowled her over, clawed steel arms swiping furiously.

Still holding the grenade, Alicia shoved it towards the murder servitor's gaping mouth, and kicked out at its armoured torso in a vain attempt to get it off her. A flailing viscerator arm swatted the grenade aside, sending it and two of Alicia's fingers bouncing away across the floor.

Before Tomas could stop him, Solvan had lunged to the side and thrown himself on top of the skittering grenade.

+++++

Sheltering behind the vast pieces of turbine blade, Kuscelian had screwed her eyes shut to prevent her organic senses from distracting her. A steady stream of data was pouring into her electrograft receiver: from the scuttling constrictors, from the hovering Cobalts with their tagger darts, from the circling Peregrine with its hawk-like machine spirit as it scanned in vain for the facial capture that would send it hurtling down with melta charge armed. Despite the inquisition agents' clean breach, none of the data she was receiving was good.

<I just lost constrictor Theta 1.> she reported to Vizkop and Nikolai, the terminal feedback causing her physical body to flinch. <I have lost visual contact with agent Prinzel's team.>

<The inquisitor?>

<Visual contact through east windows.> Kuscelian fought to form and transmit the code bursts even as she beamed out new orders to her diminishing cohort of servitors. <The agents are under fire from one Tector suppressor.>

There was no time to conjecture who or what could be controlling such heavy support for the hereteks, and barely enough to form a tactical plan to counter them.

<I am diverting constrictors Gamma 1 and Nu 6 to attempt to lock it down. Overriding agent Black's Vespa drone patrol directive.>

She hoped the agent would forgive her - or rather that Gavin wouldn't take issue with the inquisition codes that even a Dragon agent wasn't supposed to have, after inquisitor Hypatia had gifted them to her all those years ago. There was no error margin now to make any other course acceptable. The soul is the conscience of sentience.

<Gamma 1 engaging- damn, Gamma 1 neutralised. Vespa has entered building. Visual with Prinzel's team re-established. Frakking scrap-shunt! Threat extreme; they are under attack by one Gulo murder servitor!>

Before she could say anything else, her ears were assaulted by a shrieking crash. The sheer volume of it drove her eyes open in alarm. The hook of the nearby lifter crane had crashed to the ground, leaving a crater in the rockrete. With a hydraulic whoosh and a grind of tearing asphalt, the crane began to swing around, bringing its half-tonne hook mauling towards her.

"Oh." Kuscelian murmured. Well that was mildly clever. Whoever was directing the two combat-grade servitors within the building had not only triangulated her signal origin through its layers of scrambling, but had also cast out a data-spike to activate the servitor lying dormant within the lifter crane. Unfortunately for them, she and Nikolai had a suite of highest level overrides to answer it with. She raised her bionic hand towards the crane to project the counter-curse, and...

...and flailed helplessly, as her signal beam scattered off the servitor's utterly dormant receiver. There was nothing; no-one. It was as if the servitor had awoken to unholy sentience and set out to unilaterally murder its former master.

She had experienced this kind of impossible, signal-less override before. In the last standard hour, in fact.

"Oh." she repeated. The machine god really did have a twisted sense of humour.

Her organic muscles caught up with her brain's shrieking warning only just in time, and she ripped her mechanicus robe as she went diving across the rockrete. Behind her the crane hook slammed into the stacked turbine blades, splitting one of the plasteel pieces with an almighty crack.

"Agents!" she wheezed aloud into the vox, as loudly as she could manage. "Technopath!"

---

The roar of the stubbers made Kally flinch deeper into her dubious cover of an overturned cogitator stack.

"Agents!" she wheezed aloud into the vox, as loudly as she could manage. "Technopath!"

"Crenshaw, I'm pinned! Find and kill it!"

There was a dull thump that shook the building. Grenade. She looked up and round instinctively, towards where the other team was fighting.

The reedy techpriest dropped next to her, breathing hard.

"Distract it!"

"What?" she yelled back incredulously.

"I can kill it, but my effective kill range is three metres! Its not responding to haptic override!"

What the gak is a metre when its at home? She wondered to herself as she shrugged out of the heavy, gakking useless red robe. No point being subtle now it was all going to hell. She waited a half breath as the fire sawed in the air over her head and to her left, then sprang up and broke right, firing her pistol one handed, the heavy rounds spanking from armour plate and drawing its attention. It stopped firing immediately and swung round to face her with typical machine speed, snarling a blurt of binary as it opened fire. Kally went down in the spray of solid rounds, thrown bodily into a desk and flopping face down onto the floor.

A red blur had closed to 3.5 metres with the servitor. It snapped round and snarled another blurt of hostile code, before its head was explosively vaporised. It stumbled back, and another blast hit it square in the chest, coring out its power plant and vitals in a gout of steam and fire. It dropped backwards, sawn in half, and self immolated.

[Azazeal849]

"Saph!" Glabrio shouted urgently, pointing to where Kally had fallen. Her armoured bodyglove was slashed along the side of her arm, and a more direct hit to her centre mass had burned away the outer armourweave and visibly cracked the ballistic plate underneath. Either another bullet or a shrapnel fragment had grazed her head, and the cut was sheeting blood down the side of her stunned face.

"Come on then, you ugly frakkers!" the investigator bellowed, giving the sister cover to move to Kally's side by standing up and strafing in the opposite direction, knives of burning gas flaring from his outstretched pistols.


+ + + + + +

The loud bang of the servitor's demise made Marc flinch, even from the other end of the office gallery. The defenders were yelling to each other in some sort of Low Gothic cant, possibly shouting for backup as they hammered solid slugs at Marc's teammates further up the gallery. Marc spun out low and fired a series of suppressing bursts up the length of the corridor. From somewhere among the demolished cubicles, an autogun rattled a fully automatic reply. Marc ducked back as a line of bullet holes sawed through the partition next to him, sending slivers of plaster cracking off his helmet visor.

He glanced down at the auspex on his forearm, gritted his teeth, and sprinted the breadth of the wrecked office. A shout and a new snarl of gunfire chased him, and as he pivoted right, two young men resting their autoguns against an overturned desk began to haul their weapons round towards him. Marc fired first, spattering both men's brains across the tangle of cables and cracked cogitator screens behind them.

"Two targets down!" He glanced at his auspex again, and ducked down behind a load-bearing column to eject the spent magazine from his Decker autogun. "You're clear left, push up!"

"Black, hold your position!" Machairi's voice voxed back.

The inquisitor had gone to one knee to cover Sapphira and Glabrio, and her melta pistol cut a sizzling line through the overturned furniture. The flash and scatter of burning cogitator pieces sent the cultists opposite flinching for cover. One rolled over himself and tried to retreat, stumbling away at a hunched run. Two more quickly followed. Machairi cupped her ear to drown out the vicious rattle of stub-guns, her eyes falling again on the burned sigil scarring the floor.

"All agents, Machairi - we have evidence of an invocatio daemonis, do not proceed upstairs without blank support!"

"I'll send the drone up." Marc voxed, but a moment later there was a static-distorted curse. "Frak it! I've lost the connection!"

"Sorry, that was me!" Kuscelian voxed a deadpan reply, as she scrambled up onto her hands and knees on the shattered tarmac outside. "I will give you it back as soon as I am not being pancaked!"

There was only so much multi-tasking even an Ocularis Dragon could do, especially while having to dodge hijacked lifting machinery. It was all she could do to deflect the increasingly urgent interrogatives from nearby forge security units, and her cohort of drones had reverted to their standard, inflexible attack protocols and were suffering accordingly.

The crane hook that had nearly crushed her pulled free of the stack of turbine blades with a shrieking crash, bringing several of the multi-tonne blade pieces smashing to the ground. The crane heeled back around, bulldozing a chunk of brickwork out of the warehouse where Vizkop was sheltering. Kuscelian threw herself flat a second time to avoid the crane hook as it whooshed over her.

Round the opposite side of the building, a ragged trio of menials come bailing out of the broken windows, coughing on the acrid chemical fog that Nikolai had unleashed across the concourse. They scrambled up from the rockrete and ran obliviously towards Gavin in their haste to escape Machairi's team. A fourth menial made the mistake of trying to bolt for the stairs past the ordinate's office, and she caught fire and evaporated mid-stride as Nikolai's pistol turned her into a puff of ash. The second Ocularis turned his attention towards the stairwell as he stepped away from the burning servitor. Inquisitor Machairi didn't want them to advance without a hard counter to whatever unholy entity DeRei had summoned, but the defenders massing up the stairway evidently had no such reservations. There was the heavy thunk of a grenade launcher, followed by a blast that demolished the rest of the ordinate's office.

[Azazeal849]

<Posting on behalf of Imperial1917, who is indisposed>

The Arthrashastra had never been heavily populated, even before, but now it was practically a ghost ship. With the bulk of the inquisitor's team dispatched to Perinetus, Merle incarcerated, and the others recovering in the med-lab or in their quarters, the only sound through deck B was the soft whir of captain Tarran's gilded servitors, mindlesssly going about their tasks.

Trist knew well enough after his diversion through the underdecks that Arthrashastra was a ship with many secrets: many that it was reluctant to give up, and many that he sensed would be unsafe to pry into. He paused for a moment, listening to the soft thrum of the ship's engines, as if they would reveal something he wasn't entirely sure he knew he was looking for. He desisted as another wheeled inspection servitor glided past him, its green probe-beam rolling silently back and forth across the walls.

The corridor became quiet again - good for thinking, bad for a man of action. He stopped before his destination and thumbed the cabin's door chime.

"Hello?" a voice from inside answered.

Trist pushed on the wood-panelled door, and found that it wasn't locked. The lights in the cabin beyond were off, leaving the hallway lumoglobes to cast a wedge of light into the room. It fell across the pale woman huddled on the bed, who hurriedly uncoiled her arms from around her knees and groped for the touch panel on the wall. As the lights flickered on Trist was able to take in the room, which was more austere than he had expected given the number of sumptuous cabins going spare on the ship. Holo-picts clung to the walls, but they had all been turned off. It was also disorganised: a cup of tanna was cooling untouched on the bedside cabinet, propped carelessly on top of an antique paper book with a title spelled out in Braille dots. The simple plastek kettle was still steaming on the dresser, next to a blocky vox speaker with a data wand still plugged into it. A little square table with two chairs rounded out the room's sparse decoration, and a regicide board with figures of brass and pewter was set up to play on top of it. A woollen jumper and a short grey dress were folded haphazardly over one of the chairs, and a pair of black tights had fallen onto the floor beside it.

Circulator grates hummed where the back wall met the carpeted floor, and Trist noted that the fragrance dispensers inside the ducts had been keyed to spray something that smelled like sweet apple. A spicier smell of meditative incense lingered behind it, and Trist spotted the jar and diffusers tucked into the carelessly half-closed drawer of the bedside cabinet, next to a sleeve of plasticrystal cards.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked, pushing her short blonde hair across her forehead as she peered at him. Her hazel eyes were unfocused and clearly blind, though she seemed to have no difficulty in following him as he stepped into the room even with the carpet muffling his footfalls. One of the woman's thin arms was wrapped protectively around her stomach, and Trist wondered if it was residual pain from her injuries on Baraspine, or just a comfort gesture because his presence made her nervous. He didn't fail to notice that the young woman was adhering more closely to the letter of Telepathica custom today, dressing in a plain green robe with the wireframe eye of the astropaths pinned over her heart, as if to give Machairi's team no further reason to fault her commitment. Trist had only heard snippets of what had happened between Ella Seren and the others on Baraspine, but he thought he understood enough.

"I hope so." he replied solemnly, then inwardly cursed himself. Whatever she needed, she certainly did not need solemness at this time. She had had quite enough of that of late, if the rumors were true. Taking the cue from the lights, he crossed the room carefully, his eyes never leaving hers. It seemed a long trip. Ironic, considering that there was virtually nothing in his way for once. He sat in the unburdened chair at the table, gathering his cloak about him.

Silence stretched for a moment that felt like an eternity. If she felt uncomfortable, then she might have laughed knowing his own discomfort. No one now could accuse him of being suspicious of psykers, but nobody could say that he welcomed them as readily as he might have once. Abruptly he remembered that some could read thoughts. Fighting the urge to curse for the lapse, he calmly began to dissemble his thoughts somewhat. He could not have been said to be particularly talented at it, but he was no slouch either. Acutely aware that the psyker probably detected this shift, he continued aloud, "My apologies that we were not able to meet earlier. I have heard of you."

"Oh." said Ella, as if she wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a compliment or a rebuke. She slid her feet down onto the floor to stand. Trist noted that she was barefoot, which led him to the conclusion that the astropath hadn't been planning on leaving her cabin any time soon. She drifted over to the dresser and hovered there uncertainly next to the kettle. "Um...can I get you a drink or anything?"

"Thank you, no." he replied politely. It was the safest course of action; fewer variables meant fewer risks. Besides, she likely had little to offer; she was clearly making an effort not to pamper herself, after all. Casting his eyes around the bare room, he eventually settled on the antique paper book. Gesturing to it, he said, "What have you been reading, if I may inquire?"

Ella's eyes followed his own towards the bedside table.

"Oh that? It's called Castaway. It's a story about a chartered trader who loses her ship in an accident, but she survives thanks to the Emperor's intervention and ends up crash-landing on this mythical planet."

She tiptoed over to the table with the regicide board on it and pulled up the remaining chair. She belatedly noticed the old clothes hanging off it, and fumbled to stuff them into a wicker basket behind the table.

"She goes around doing these crazy things like finding a flute that makes plants grow and getting caught up in a battle between two sea monsters. At one point she met this Eldar trickster and won a magical gemstone off him in a game of regicide."

She smiled nervously as she sat down and folded her hands under the table.

"It's just a bit of escapism really, but Alley found it in the ship's library and thought I might like it."

Trist's gaze lingered on the book while she spoke.

"Escapism, huh?" he said when she had finished. "I suppose that the means of escape never really change, do they? The more they change, the more they remain the same."

What are you running from? he heard an old woman cackle in the back of his mind, rising from his memory. You'll never get away; you'll just die tired. Like me!

"We don't get to...switch off very often." Ella admitted carefully. "Though I did wonder if Alley was projecting a little bit, when she gave me a book about a trader getting to leave their old life and go exploring."

"Maybe," Trist mused, "Or perhaps she simply finds herself in like company."

Ella looked at him sharply. He stopped and flushed. "Sorry, that was an ugly thought."

"My friends know their duty." Ella replied, very stiffly, "And even if they didn't they'd never just run away and leave each other in the lurch. They can't stop - they won't stop - not until DeRei's been caught and the...and the mission's over."

Trist looked back at her, meeting her gaze, caught slightly off guard by the vehemence in her voice. The astropath reached up and nudged her fringe across her forehead.

"After that though..." she admitted, "I don't think anyone could grudge them a rest." Somehow, he expected differently.

Her eyes flickered away from Trist to glance at the bedside cabinet, with the sleeve of cards pushed inside its half-closed drawer. He followed her to it, but paused before opening his mouth to mention it. As far as he had seen so far in the sparse room, it was the only thing that wasn't in perfect order. For someone who was trying to conform, or reconform, to the strictures of their station, it was out of place. And where psykers were concerned, things left out of place were best left alone.

The astropath coughed into her hand. "You said you hoped I could help. What do you need - a reading, a message...?"

"A connection, to the governor sub-sector, if you please. It is high time that I report in. I understand you know how to use an animus vox?"

Ella thumbed the material of her robe, toying with some sort of necklace that she wore under the garment. "Yes...but they work in pairs. Mine connects to one of Lady Machairi's contacts."

Trist produced a small, runic cube from his pocket, unspooling the chain that it hung from. "So it's just as well the governor gave me the twin to his one."

He held out the tarnished silver artefact, and dropped it into Ella's small palm.

Ella turned it over in her fingers for a moment, feeling the unique pattern of runic cyphers that covered its surface.

"I'm not sure how long this'll take." she cautioned Trist. "And try not to worry if it gets...cold."

The astropath exhaled quietly, and closed her hands around the artefact, touching it to her pale forehead, and then to her lips. Then she sat in silence for what felt like a very long time. Trist wasn't sure if the hum of the ventilators was getting quieter and the astropath's soft breathing louder, or if it was just a trick of his imagination. Then the light overhead strobed, with a fizzle of interrupted current.

He didn't remember seeing Ella move, but her hands were now cupped open around the animus vox, which was now shining pale light from the etches and grooves in its surface.

"Lord Maxillium."

The words seemed to come from behind him, breathing a whisper of cold air onto the back of his neck. They spoke in governor Tierce's distinctive bass-baritone, though Trist thought he heard Ella's voice speaking with him, despite the fact that the astropath's eyes and mouth were closed. There was another voice too, echoing half a second behind them. It sounded like an old woman, her voice cracked with age.

"Governor sub-sector. Greetings. As you directed, I am here to report in."

Trist sat a bit straighter as he spoke, just to be safe.

"You can speak freely?" the governor's voice spoke, echoing quietly despite the cabin's lack of acoustics.

Trist's sophisticated augmetic senses could detect no recording devices in the room, and Ella seemed to be deep in her trance, though he had no idea if she was conscious of his words or not.

"I can, sir." replied Trist.

"I sent the Nebulas to Baraspine as soon as I heard about adept Zhang's disappearance." the subsector governor continued. "Was it any kind of lead to DeRei? I have been under pressure to respond strongly to every possible threat since the inquisitor demanded we send out her subsector-wide warrant."

Trist paused and considered his words carefully, “Following the affair on Baraspine, the inquisitor directed that we should depart for the Forge World of Perinetus. I have gathered that she expects to confront him there, though under what circumstances I am unable to say."

"Perinetus?" The governor sounded uneasy. "Did the inquisitor find out how he got there, or what his objectives are?"

"His motives for going there are difficult to determine.”

Trist straightened, knowing that he was heading into guesswork, something that he knew people in power generally detested. “I can only speculate as to his intentions on the world, but I believe that he intends assassination. He cannot possibly have the forces necessary to take the world by storm, nor is he likely to have enough cultists to carry out sabotage without it being discovered nearly immediately, knowing the Mechanicus; this leaves him only assassination, killing someone important enough to cause a disruption in the working of the world itself."

"Does the inquisitor require support? I can petition the archmagos to allow her men access to the surface. It may take a little time, but even Krupp can't ignore a sub-sector governor."

"The inquisitor is planet-side as I speak. How she arranged for that, I cannot say," His voice paused almost imperceptibly as he quickly masked his hesitation in indulging in such far-reaching speculation with fabricated anger at being left out of the loop. Anger, he was sure, that the governor shared. "I saw no sign of fanfare though, if the Mechanicus indulge in such things, so I presume that they are unaware of her presence, if that is even possible; it certainly cannot last."

Something like a growl slid through the air around Trist. "I do not need a diplomatic incident with the mechanicus, no matter what the heretic's plans are. What is your assessment of the inquisitor's team on the surface?"

The young lord grimaced. “Competent but ruffled. Something has unsettled them: I can feel it in the ship. There is a nasty atmosphere here that would make the crew cringe if there were any. Half of them walk like they are already dead while the other half watches them like they are walking to their graves. And tight lips all around about why, though that does not surprise me: they do work with an inquisitor after all. I see no indication that they cannot do their jobs. They are just eccentric."

There was a sigh from Tierce, and it was as if it physically misted the air for a moment, because the air between Trist and Ella hazed.

"I don't find that wholly encouraging, my lord. Tell the inquisitor that a little advance warning would make it a lot easier for me to help her. And keep me appraised as best you can. Ad Imperator, et Adrantis."

Something receded from the muffled air, and the cabin began to feel warmer again as the sound of the air circulators reasserted itself. Ella let out a breath and slumped forward slightly, blinking hard as if she had just surfaced from a daydream. She cupped her hands protectively back round Trist's animus vox.

"He's gone." she rasped, and then coughed hard into her sleeve to clear her throat.

"He's gone." she tried again, and offered the silver cube of the animus vox back to Trist. As she opened her hand, the last traces of silver light frizzoned away from its grooved surface. "Did you hear what you needed?"

Rising to his feet, Trist shook his head and took the cube. "No, but it will have to suffice for now. Do not concern yourself with it. Good day."

With that, he turned and swept from the room, closing the door behind him.

[Azazeal849]

(OOC - copost part 1)

The constrictor drone battered through the swinging doors into the stairwell, swivelled its webber guns to point up the stairs, and immediately disintegrated into whirling shards of metal. Heavy autocannon shells thumped into the floor and made matchwood of the fire doors, forcing Tomas to shield his eyes from the whirling splinters. The cultists must have dragged their autocannon away from the windows and used it to cover the stairwell.

"Frag out." Alicia warned through gritted teeth, pulling a grenade from underneath her red overcoat and flattening herself against the chewed doorframe. As she yanked the pin and ducked out, an evil, sucking howl filled the stairwell.

Something crashed into Alicia from above, feet first. The feet were hooked steel talons that ripped through Alicia's coat and gouged into the mesh armour beneath. The thing was thin and hunched and corpse-grey, eyes and mouth pinned wide open by surgical braces. It screeched into Alicia's face as it bowled her over, clawed steel arms swiping furiously.

Still holding the grenade, Alicia shoved it towards the murder servitor's gaping mouth, and kicked out at its armoured torso in a vain attempt to get it off her. A flailing viscerator arm swatted the grenade aside, sending it and two of Alicia's fingers bouncing away across the floor.

Before Tomas could stop him, Solvan had lunged to the side and thrown himself on top of the skittering grenade. There was a dull thump, and the floorboards shook like a regimental drum that had been thumped with a hammer. Tomas stared in horror at his oldest friend, and then, something deep, and wound tight, and integral to Tomas character, snapped.

The murder servitor was first. Tomas slammed his shoulder into it, sending it staggering. He used the space to brutally hack it to chunks, roaring in incoherent anger as he smashed it apart with the edge of his blade. He then turned, overcoat flapping behind him, and Tomas charged the death trap stairs, screaming a Casterian oath of bloody murder. Alicia watched wide eyed, and would later swear that it was a minor miracle. Somehow, in that tight space, with anti-armour rounds and lasbolts dropping in a hail at him, Tomas took not a single wound as he bounded up the stairs.

He vaulted a desk pulled up as a barricade, and landed on top of the autocannon team as the loader was pulling the drum clear from the cannon. He swung the empty can like a bucket, and it crashed into Tomas ribs. The guardsman was too lost in rage and pain to notice, taking his sword to the menial and hacking him into bloody chunks, spraying arcs of smoking blood onto the floor and walls from massive overhand blows with his sword. The autocannon firer attempted to scramble away from the blood coated berserker, and Tomas opened his back like a kit bag, exposing white ribs and spine with a sweeping blow that left blood and bone chips embedded in the ceiling. Two cultists, wielding surplus lasguns like clubs, rushed him and bulldozed him to the floor, sending his sword skittering away. Tomas kicked one of with a savage, feral yell, leaving a lanky menial curled up and vomiting from the pain of his crushed crotch. The other tried to wrap grimy fingers around Tomas' neck and crush his windpipe. Tomas punched his fingers into the man's eyes, causing the heretic to squeal in piteous pain and release his grip. Tomas surged to his feet, rage and andrenalin thumping through him, and grabbed the blinded heretic and threw him head first down the stairs, his spine cracking under the impact of his fall, before he landed in a tangled pile of limbs at the bottom of the stairwell. The still weeping and puking menial he drove his boot into, crushing the man's windpipe with his first kick and finishing him with a savage stamp of his steel-toed guard issue boots that snapped his neck.

Breathing hard, Tomas bent and picked a weapon from the floor, reloading it with a precision and skill ingrained by decades of combat service that even this heightened killing frenzy couldn't ruin.

Two more menials, rushing to reinforce their friends, slid to a halt and gaped at the scene. Standing amidst four bodies was a blood-covered spectre of death, hefting the cult's main heavy weapon and braced to fire it from the hip. With a roar of anger, Tomas fired the back-breaking weapon and tore the two men in half, punching fist sized holes in the wall behind them before either could raise a weapon to fire.

Ignoring the comms, and Machairi's orders to hold until a Blank had caught up with him, Tomas advanced, firing short, bone-shaking bursts from the autocannon, destroying anything that got in his way in a murderous killing rage.


+ + + + + +

“Frak!” the Major vehemently swore as he processed the frantic series of events that culminated in Prinzel’s break with sanity.

He swore again as the Casterian shoved past his attempt to hold him back, and then swore once more for effect as Alia’s armsman charged into the stairwell and his certain death.

Crenshaw hauled up shortly as the largest remnant of the dismembered servitor twitched by his feet. The drone was barely more than its surgically mutilated head attached to a diagonally slashed fraction of torso and a partially sundered viscerator claw. It’s braced open mouth emitted a rasping binary screech, which was underlined by an all too human shriek of pained alarm as it was enveloped in his aura. The drone writhed spasmodically against the battered floorboards the scream became a drowning gurgle, as it sought to breathe with bisected lungs even as it wretched blood-oil lubricants.

The Major grunted as he caught the fleeting instance of maimed sentience in the bloodshot, perpetually pried open eyes, before they glazed over as the drone’s default programming took over for the expelled technopath. Dying motivators had the failing servitor attempt to reach over and disembowel him with the damaged viscerator claw. Crenshaw pinned the drone’s truncated arm beneath a boot, and finished the half completed draw of his maul and thumbed it to maximum power. He terminated the construct’s tortured existence with an overhead smash that bashed another hole in the abused floor.

Crenshaw’s mouth pressed into a tight-lipped frown as he wrenched his maul free and deactivated it. His gaze shifted from the decommissioned Mechanicus horror to Belannor’s sprawled corpse. He restrained himself from factoring how the old priest’s death would impact the team. It was a difficult feat when the screams, both from Tomas and his victims, were evidence of how poorly the revelation could be taken. He stowed the maul, and once again took up his carbine as he turned toward the stairs.

“Praise unto Him.” Wuziarch breathed, as he listened to Tomas’ violent rampage.

The Arbitrator’s voice was tinged by awed conviction that made the Major’s teeth click. He considered blind righteousness and willful ignorance to be a virtue for the masses - not an operative in the Imperium’s shadow conflicts. Crenshaw again chose to restrain his antipathy towards Wuziarch as the Arbitrator impertinently clapped a hand on his armored shoulder as he made to move around him.

“Come on, major Crenshaw!” Wuziarch exclaimed. “Into the breach!”

“Negative.” Crenshaw briskly countered. He reached out and arrested the Arbitrator’s advance with a forearm across his armored chest, and fixed him with a firm look. “I alone shall go after Prinzel.”

“He has made us an opening!” Wuziarch protested, as he tried to push his way past. “We must take advantage of it!”

“We must not allow any cultists to break out and escape, Wuziarch.” The Major elaborated, almost growling through his gritted teeth as he kept his arm barred. “Hold the stairs and await further orders.”

The Arbitrator’s eyes narrowed as he knocked off the major’s hold. “I don’t take orders –”

Both agents whirled with weapons levelled as they heard an anguished, panicked scream as a cultist descended down the stairs - headfirst and airborne. The cry terminated with an echoing symphony of cracked vertebrae, splintered limbs, and a loud clack as his head violently bounced off rockrete at the bottom of the stairs. Crenshaw duly noted that Tomas had gouged the broken man’s eyes out - even as he fired a hushed burst from his carbine into the cultist’s fractured skull. Wuziarch’s shotcannon thundered a moment after and tore apart the mangled cultist’s torso in a shower of blood and viscera.

“I don’t think he’s completely dead.” Tarran quipped. “Why don’t you shoot him again, boys?

Crenshaw briefly glanced aside with Tarran’s toothless sarcasm. The Nebula turned rogue trader was propped against the wall, ignoring her maimed hand as she rummaged through her medipack. The Major followed her gaze to Belannor’s still body and made to speak until their voxes crackled.

"All agents, Machairi - we have evidence of an invocatio daemonis, do not proceed upstairs without blank support!"

“Stay!” Crenshaw barked, pointing at Wuziarch as if he were a disobedient hound.

The Major held the imperious glare before turned and advanced into the stairwell with his carbine raised. He stepped over the ruined heap of humanity and hustled upwards towards the barricaded doorframe, only slowing once the cannon began to thump again – from a distance with rounds being sent back into the building. He quickly surmised that Prinzel had taken the crew served weapon, and was making himself the most obviously dangerous and easily eliminated of the mission team as he murderously advanced into the cultist stronghold. Prinzel was going get killed, or worse, get killed quickly.

Personal makes this emotional, and emotional makes you make stupid decisions. Crenshaw reiterated as he reached the crest of the stairs and heard a cultist trying to flank the Casterian, with the clumsy eagerness of an amateur. The Major ignored the bloody mess of the cannon crew as gazed down his reflex sight in the slight gap between their erstwhile desk barricade and the floor. The cultist stopped and covered his goatee framed mouth as he tried not to wretch as he took in the sight of his friends’ butchered corpses tossed about the room.

Stupid decisions make you dead. Crenshaw concluded, as he fired with a series of muffled thwacks.

Bullets tore through hand, mouth and throat as the cult soldier staggered back against a wall now decorated with his own blood as well. The man exhaled a deep, gurgling breath as he dropped his battered stub rifle and feebly reached for his shredded throat. Crenshaw stood and navigated over the desk barricade as the man bucked, sunk down onto his knees, and shakily collapsed to feebly gasp and writhe amidst his dismembered comrades. He could see Prinzel firing away further down the hallway, and listened for more cultists as he dipped his carbine to validate his most recent kill.

Stupid decision. The Major chided Prinzel as he dispassionately ended a lifetime of the cultist’s troubles with a muted snap. Crenshaw knew from experience that should the Casterian make it through the day, he would physically regret the impulsive decision to carry and fire the crew served cannon. His had used Vincent’s auto – Gene – as an effective distraction and fire magnet on Baraspine. That, in addition to grappling with the cyber hounds, had caused substantial deep muscle aches in his arms, back and chest…which Kally had demandingly insisted on thoroughly working out since they had –

Not now. Crenshaw once again chided himself. His incongruous thoughts about Kally in the middle of an operation were unacceptable. The major shook his head to focus himself as he swapped his depleted casket magazine for a full one. He stalked ahead, carbine tracking along with his eyes as he as he moved after the relentlessly murderous Prinzel. The vox clicked again as he neared the side corridor.

"Tomas, Sonder's been injured, stable but non-mobile.”

Major Martin Crenshaw, born a blacksoul and bred a blackheart, abruptly halted. His body was wracked by a highly intense and highly involuntary bio-electric and chemical response to Alia’s words. His hands shook with unaccustomed unsteadiness as an adrenal surge that squeezed like a vice around his chest. His escalated heartbeat thundered deafeningly in his ears.

Kally is injured. The major’s shrewdly pragmatic self would have observed the visceral reaction as thoroughly emotional hindbrain impulse, and assessed it as a supremely dangerous operational liability – and chastised himself most severely for such unacceptable behavior - if his shrewdly pragmatic self was not also momentarily blinded to all other concerns Kally being injured, and the equally corrosive thought that thrashed through his consciousness a moment later that I am not with -

NOT NOW! Crenshaw viciously ordered. He exerted every available shred of willpower to suppress his startlingly emotional response to Kally being injured and furiously beat it back into the recesses of his mind. Kally is stable and the Sister is with her. She will live.He exhaled deeply, unintentionally echoing the cultist he had killed moments before, and forcibly unclenched his jaw.

There is a time and a place to be the concerned about Kally. This is emphatically not it. Focus.

“Acknowledged.” Crenshaw responded, with as much neutrality as he could enforce. His teeth clicked as he relayed even worse news to the other half of the team. “Belannor is dead. He smothered a grenade.”

The major proceeded when no reply immediately crackled back. “Be advised, Prinzel charged the first floor and I am in pursuit. Wuziarch and Tarran, who is lightly wounded, have the stairs covered.”

"We'll regroup with you and push up your side of the building.”

“Understood.”


+ + + + + +

"Saph!" Glabrio shouted urgently, pointing to where Kally had fallen.

The Sister’s breath momentarily seized as she glanced over to see her friend and fellow agent down, bloodied and motionless out in the open. Don’t be dead, Kally. Don’t be dead.

Sapphira swept the cultists hunkered across the gallery with another whippoorwill burst of auto-fire, until her compact machine-pistol was emptied. She ducked back into the questionable cover of the desk she’d thrown herself behind, and hissed in pain as the motion brought about another inflamed pulse that coursed along her spine. The Sister firmly pressed her lips together as retaliatory fire thudded against the desk while she reloaded. Cultist gunfire drove Glabrio into cover with her, and the Sister inhaled deeply as he bumped against her and uncomfortably jostled her already tweaked back.

“You okay?” Glabrio queried with a quick, sideways glance while he swapped out magazines.

Others have had it worse than you. The Sister sharply chided herself as she thought about her discomfort against the penitents’ torments...the suffering of the Silent Vigil’s Sisters on Marioch…Kelly and – You have no right or reason to complain. You are a Sororita Hospitaller. You will endure it.

Sapphira exhaled softly and nodded with grim determination as she readied her machine-pistol. She looked back at the former regulator and tilted her head towards where Kally was down. “Cover me?”

“Of course.” Glabrio readily affirmed with his own nod. The Sister reflexively returned his deliberate elbow nudge as they both readied themselves to break cover and re-engage the cultists. “On your go.”

“Go!” The Sister urged as she clapped a hand against his armored back.

"Come on then, you ugly frakkers!" the investigator bellowed, giving the sister cover to move to Kally's side by standing up and strafing in the opposite direction, knives of burning gas flaring from his outstretched pistols. She traced the Aquila points and prayed as he went.

Imperator, grant us your aegis as we enact your will.

Sapphira stifled a grunt as she leveraged herself onto her feet with the desk to rise into a crouch, machine-pistol leveled at the cultists across the way. She twinned her prayers with deeds as she opened fire on the traitorous menials who were trying for Glabrio. One young menial was spun out of cover as she was shot in the head, and chased another girl behind a desk near the ordinate’s office by the stairs.

She took advantage of the momentary lull to charge out towards Kally in a hunched over run. The movements practiced by the innumerable semi-live fire and maneuver exercises of her youth, honed by years of service alongside the Inquisition. She kept her teeth gritted as each footfall sparked a twinge, yet nevertheless kept her weapon shouldered and ready to kill or discourage any cultist who got in her way. The Sister glanced at her dear, wounded friend. Don’t be dead, Kally. Don’t be -

Sapphira audibly gasped and stumbled to a halt as her foot struck and caught on some debris. She staggered upright as a wracking spasm tore along her back, and tenuously tried to hobble forward. The Sister grimaced as she heard a shout in gutter Perinetine from across the gallery, and unsteadily lurched forward to reach Kally even as she turned and addressed the threat with the muffled cracks of gunfire. She saw an overturned desk and a fractional second later two figures illuminated by dual starbursts.

The Sister barked out a harsh cough as she was doubled over by a strike to her abdomen, and she reeled until another burst scythed across her thighs and violently hurled her onto the ground with a clatter of carapace armor. Sapphira clenched her eyes shut as further snarls of auto and stub fire chewed into the ground around her and pelted her with sprays of rubble. The Sister winced as two flicker-flashes seared overhead and the menials panicked. She tried and failed to keep track of the vox as her head whirled.

“Shit.” Sapphira growlingly seethed.

The Sister raised her machine-pistol and opened her eyes as she registered someone nearby. She lowered the weapon as Glabrio crouched down next to her. Sapphira made herself stare at the ceiling, and away from his sharply concerned expression, as the investigator checked her over for wounds. She gritted her teeth and focused on the discolored tiles as she suppressed any reaction to the physical pain.

Sapphira glanced at Glabrio as he concluded the blood sweep and showed his unstained gauntlets, and then exhaled with relief as he offered her a hand up. “The good news is that you’re not leaking, Saph.”

The Sister groaned as she was hauled upright by Glabrio. She held her machine-pistol tightly against her chest as she curled arm around her stomach, and her thankfully undamaged medicae satchel. Sapphira snaked her other arm to firmly clutch the neck seam of his armored back plate, as he wrapped an arm securely around her waist. She met his eyes as he gave her a questioning, are you ready look.

She nodded wearily, and murmured as she leaned against Glabrio. “Not a criticism of you, Ri.”

“Good to know.” Glabrio softly chuckled. Sapphira managed a brief, slight smile. She mentally braced herself and grasped on tighter to him, even as he patted her side with gentle encouragement.

“Get me over to Kally.”

“You got it.”

The Sister’s vision whited out in a nova flare of sciatic agony as Glabrio stood and hauled her onto her feet. There were further ragged stiches of pain across her stomach and thighs. You have endured worse. You have no right or reason to complain. Sapphira’s neck muscles were taut as she forced her lips together and choked down any exclamation. Just like being in Schola again. She held Glabrio tighter, and blinked to clear her vision as she adjusted to movement as they took steps towards Kally.

Sapphira saw Gavin framed in the gallery door, and even from a bleary-eyed distance she saw he was a disheveled wreck. He was hunched over with stooped shoulders, and his overcoat was soaked through by frost thaw and exertion. The psyker’s haggard, grime and sweat streaked face was knitted tightly with consternation as he was transfixed by the sight of Kally down. He belatedly registered her and Glabrio in motion, and they briefly made eye contact, his amber eyes bloodshot behind his Cog framed goggles.

The Sister noticed his weary, worried expression morph into a vicious scowl as his eyes narrowed and flicked past her shoulder. She followed Gavin’s hostile gaze as Glabrio turned them around, and revealed the male tech priest – Oppen. Sapphira could not help but glare herself at the damned Ocularii. She experienced the brush of an unnaturally cool breeze, and shivered as Gavin used his sanctioned abilities.

"So much for those innocent adepts." a phantom voice something like Gavin's ghosted through Sapphira's earpiece, though clearly not directed at her. Oppen winced, as if cuffed around the ear, and irritably returned the psyker’s venomous stare.

Sapphira immediately disregarded any concern for the Ocularii. She loathe as she was to admit it, Crenshaw was right. Gav would’ve killed the tech-priests, and would’ve doubtlessly already killed the Major, if he wasn’t in control of himself. Sapphira frowned as she watched the psyker moved deeper into the gallery. After speaking with Kelly after Baraspine, Gavin had been almost a new person…and now he was bristling with mute anger as he stomped towards a processing terminal away from Kally’s null aura.

“Proceed with caution, psyker.” Oppen pointedly advised.

“Shut your mouth before I shut it for you, again.” Gavin snarled. The psyker’s scratchy voice was thick with contempt and fatigue. He glanced differentially at Machairi. “I’m going after their technopath.”

Sapphira sighed. Gavin was in a bad way, but she couldn’t focus on anyone other than Kally.

She gave Kally a critical, clinical once over as Glabrio gently lowered her down beside the wounded blank. Her armoured bodyglove was slashed along the side of her arm, and a more direct hit to her centre mass had burned away the outer armourweave and visibly cracked the ballistic plate underneath. Either another bullet or a shrapnel fragment had grazed her head, and the cut was sheeting blood down the side of her stunned face. Sapphira breathed with relief as she observed Kally’s shallow respirations, and reached out to rouse and tend to her friend.


+ + + + + +

“Kally! Kally! Wake up!”

Kally drifted awake. Had she been dreaming? She remembered a factory, and steam, and. . .

Sapphira was leaning over her. Her arm hurt like a bastard, and there was a coppery taste in her mouth. Had she bit her tongue? She kept having to blink her left eye. Something was in it.

“Hey.” She managed, trying to focus on Sapphira.

The Sister’s grime streaked face was paler than usual, beaded with sweat and plastered with loose hairs from her ponytail. She stared down at her with a tight lipped frown, like the keen eyed clinician she was...with a deep intensity of care that Kally had always imagined maternal concern must have looked like, if she hadn’t… She shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny, and groaned as she remembered her arm hurt like a bastard. Why was she even on the ground? She blinked again, and saw the cracked carapace beneath the Saph’s tattered robes and overcoat. That meant -

“You…you’ve been shot.” Kally murmured. She tried to push herself up, and her head swam like it wasn't properly connected to her neck. She sat back down hard. “Ow.”

“Yeah, and you’re one to talk.” Sapphira quipped, somewhat tersely. She put a slim hand on her chest to keep her from moving again. “Now, stay down. You'll make it worse if you move.”

“Was. . .was I shot?”

“Uh huh.” Sapphira grunted, as she moved to focus on her head. There was a jagged flash of pain as she applied counterseptic. “You smashed your head open on a desk, too. The desk got the worst of it.”

“Am I going to be alright?” Kally asked. She hated this feeling, like her head was wrapped in cotton wool and stuffed with fluff. She knew enough to know she had been pretty badly concussed.

“You'll live, praise be to Him.” The Sister answered, with all the conviction of a sermon. Kally saw her scarred face soften, and offer a slight, wry smile as she went from Hospitaller Sapphira to Saph, even as she rummaged in her medical kit. “I’m going to be a real bitch about this later, though.”

“Okay, Team Mom.” She breathed. She knew she sounded like a snarky juve, but Saph exhaled a soft laugh. Kally managed a weak smile as Glabrio chuckled, from surprisingly close by. The former bounty huntress’ smile evaporated as she focused on why they were here and who they were after.

“No.” Kally pushed Sapphira away. “Go. Get him. I'll keep.”

“Kally, I need. . .”

“You need to finish the job. I swore to Kelly I wouldn't let him get away again. Don't make me a liar. You and Marc get that frakker for me.”

Sapphira paused, and gave her a hard look. Kally saw the Sister’s pale grey eyes darken at the mention of Kelly. She’d always thought they were pretty from the moment she met Saph, in the True Bane’s interrogation block, when the Sister had been sent to keep her alive for another day of torture. She hated to see the shadows of grief and guilt that had lingered in her friend’s eyes since Baraspine – but she had promised Kelly. She knew that Saph could understand a vow like that.

The Sister pressed a tourniquet into her hands. “Apply this dressing to your arm wound.”

She nodded, and regretted it as nausea washed over her.

“No problem. I’ll follow when I can.”

"Stay where you are, Sonder, you've done enough." Machairi ejected a hissing fuel flask from her melta pistol and screwed a reserve into place as she joined Glabrio and Sapphira by the wounded blank. "Tomas, Sonder's been injured, stable but non-mobile."

The inquisitor spoke with brisk efficiency into her vox, pre-empting the concerned questions from Marc and Crenshaw.

“Acknowledged. Belannor is dead. He smothered a grenade.”

"Son of a frakking bitch!" Sapphira heard Marc curse bitterly over the vox.

Sapphira herself choked on a low, deep exhalation as she sagged back onto her heels. She scrunched her eyes shut as she processed the news and wordlessly touched the Aquila points. The Sister’s eyes bolted open as there was a metallic bang and crash as Gavin kicked over his terminal.

“Hey!” Nikolai objected.

“Frak off.” Gavin growlingly rebuked. “I’ve got work to do.”

Machairi didn't intervene, and as she glanced at the inquisitor Sapphira saw her still shocked into silence by Crenshaw's news. For a moment, the unflappable, indomitable Alia Machairi looked more stricken and more human than the sister could ever remember seeing her. It was terrifying.

“Be advised," Crenshaw's voice continued with a calm that felt somehow obscene. "Prinzel charged the first floor and I am in pursuit. Wuziarch and Tarran, who is lightly wounded, have the stairs covered.”

“Ballsy bastards.” Glabrio muttered, as he disbelievingly shook his head.

"We'll regroup with you and push up your side of the building." Machairi answered. The terrifying moment had passed, and although the inquisitor's eyes still looked moist, she was back in command. "Glabrio, hold here with Sonder and Oppen and keep the heretics on the stairs busy. Don't let them come down, make them think we're trying to come up."

Glabrio's lined face rallied into a wan smile behind his visor. "Put my ass on the line at ten-to-one odds? Can do, m'lady." He tilted his pistols to check the ammo counters glinting on the grips, and began to run towards the shattered stairwell, shouting loud enough for anyone upstairs to hear him over the gunfire. "Skitarii squads two and three, with me! Let's smoke these motherfrakkers out!"

Nikolai gave Glabrio an odd look, and then shrugged his shoulders. He opened his mouth and a string of harsh, warlike binary and code-blurts issued out.

"That's what a Skitarii Tribune sounds like." he hissed. "Let me do the talking."

“Frak talking, frak being clever, and frak you as well.” Gavin countered the tech-priest. His voice was a static crackle from the upended terminal’s speakers. The words echoed from terminals further down the work floor as the psyker passed through and flash frosted the office machinery.

Marc came crunching through the broken glass and wood splinters, divested of his mechanicus robe. His armour was filthy with dust and powder-smoke, but no blood. "Kally?" he asked urgently, his opaque visor snapping towards her where she lay on the floor.

"I'm alright." Kally looked up at Marc, frowning. "Finish this frak-up."

"Black, Sapphira, follow me." Machairi ordered, raising her arm towards the wall and bursting it into flaming shreds of plaster and rebar with a flicker-blast of her melta pistol. The Inquisitor looked down at Kally with a meaningful expression. “Sonder, keep an eye on Jenkins.”

The Sister supportively squeezed Kally’s shoulder before used the desk to leverage, and then steady herself on her feet. She allowed a muted grunt of irritation as she shouldered her weapon and slowly moved off towards the fire fight raging at the other end of the office.

Kally leaned her head back, and closed her eyes for a moment.

Don't frak this up Marc. We're all counting on you.


+ + + + + +

Technopath. Kuscelian's warning still resonated inside Gavin's skull, even as he hurtled his way across the gallery towards the staircase and the cultists above. It was obvious now that he knew what he was looking for. Now that he traced the psycho-electric spoor back through the storm drains below their feet, and sensed the scrambled machine spirits of the sluice gate, he understood how Arcolin had gotten so close to Complex Alpha One undetected. Now that he saw the code-marked, abandoned patrol routes through the underground warren and that their designated guardians were absent, he understood how Arcolin had co-opted the murder servitor and its suppressor counterpart.

Gavin felt oddly detached about the idea of having to face off with another technopath, just as he felt oddly detached from oculus Kuscelian as their nominal ally scrambled to escape a runaway lifter crane. Gavin felt no compulsion to help her, even if there had been time. He felt no compulsion to aid oculus Oppen either, although he indirectly aided the Martian from being blown to bits as he used a frag grenade in mid-flight to slingshot himself up the stairs, detonating the explosive while it was still half-wreathed in the exhaust flames of its launcher. The bursting shrapnel scattered the menials sheltering beyond the landing into bloody ruin, while Gavin arced from a punctured vox-unit to a lasgun falling from its owner's nerveless fingers, and on into the lighting circuit of the upper floor.

<What would a skitarii tribune say to that?> he jabbed hard into Oppen's vox receiver as he hunted for his quarry, shearing past the other psyker's servitor puppets to avoid forewarning them.

Their own servitor support was no longer performing with the same lethal efficiency. As the three cultists who had fled Machairi's melta fire blundered through the blinding smoke, looking for a way out, one of Kuscelian's spherical Cobalt drones tilted its fan-like suspensor wings and swooped in, spitting auspex tags from an underslung dart gun. Without a guiding hand, its instinctive line of attack took it straight through the tracer fire still stuttering from the first floor window, which caught it and killed it in a burst of metal confetti. Another servitor quested across the ground floor offices, green light beams flickering through the broken window as it hunted left and right, oblivious to the real battle unfolding on the floor above it.

The reason for the automata's lack of strategy was, of course, the distracted plight of their guiding Oculus.

"This is bloody stupid!" Kuscelian complained through gritted teeth as she flailed upright again and half stumbled, half crawled towards the control pod of the machine-cursed crane. Latching onto the steel cage with her augmetic hand, it gave a metal-on-metal screech as she hauled herself up to the level of the cockpit canopy. She watched in horrified fascination as the buttons and levers clunked back and forth of their own accord, under the gaze of its comatose servitor pilot. The crane swung round on its pedestal once again, almost throwing Kuscelian clear as it moved to finish off demolishing Vizkop's sniper nest.

Omnissiah forgive me. Kuscelian prayed, locking her augmetic fingers in place and fighting the centripetal force to bring the pistol in her organic hand to bear. But a soul can only be bestowed by the Machine God.

She shot the servitor first, with a thread of light that spider-webbed the cockpit canopy and blew the lobotomite's head into superheated steam. Three more shots tore sparks and severed wiring from the control panel, and filled the cockpit with smoke. It billowed out as the fractured canopy collapsed. The crane groaned like a mortally wounded beast and juddered to a halt, its heavy lifter hook crashing to the ground and cratering the abused asphalt.

"Sorry." the priestess said with heartfelt remorse, placing her bionic hand on the smoking panel for as long a moment as she could spare. A second of remembrance was the least a servant of the Machine God could do, for a faithful workhorse spirit that had been taken against its will by a filthy chaos psyker. Raechel supposed she should be thankful that the technopath did not seem to be as skilled as Gavin, or she might have had to perform the same mercy kill on all her own servitors.

I may yet. I cannot risk handing the enemy extra assets.

Hurriedly, she stretched out her Omnissiah-gifted senses and reasserted control over her dwindling servitor retinue.

<Nik.> she pulsed across their secure noospheric comm-band. <Hostile crane neutralised.>

There goes a sentence I am unlikely to speak again. she reflected.

<And so much for those innocent machine spirits.> a voice intruded into her comm-band, on a bow wave of seething static. Kuscelian flinched without meaning to, and wondered just how long Gavin Jenkins had been watching her struggle with the machine-cursed crane. Probably hoping that it would smash her into an ugly organic paste, she conjectured. Mechanical logic of her strategic value dovetailed nicely with a very human sense of spite to keep on denying the psyker that pleasure.

She burst-fed a command to her constrictors that had bounded ahead into the office block, hauling them back to bring them out of range of any foci within the building that the enemy psyker could use as a bridge.

<Vizkop.> she signalled. <My drones will hold the perimeter - tell your friends to...>

In the same split second that it took her to form the signal, she realised that Vizkop's ident code was no longer keeping overwatch from the half-demolished warehouse. To her consternation, it was headed into the building.


+ + + + + +

Cursing under her breath with a rogue trader's fluency, Alicia finished winding the gauze from her belt medipack around the bleeding stumps of her fingers. Firing Pretentious Bitch one and a half-handed was going to be an interesting challenge. Her Nebula suit's satrophene injectors would have been very useful round about now.

Correction, Alley: if you had your Nebula suit, father Belannor wouldn't be dead, and Prinzel wouldn't be off on a murderous rampage.

She bit her cheek as she looked at the fallen confessor and thought about how Ella and Kally would react, after everything the old priest had done for them.

"On your feet, soldier." Josiah insisted, taking Alicia's unmaimed hand and helping her haul herself to her feet. "He's at the Emperor's table with the other noble martyrs now. Back here there's cultists that need the Emperor's judgement, and the boys upstairs need that that big frak-off carbine of yours."

He clapped her on the shoulder and began to move off in the opposite direction.

"Where the Horus are you going?" Alicia shouted after him.

"Downstairs!"

Alicia blinked. "Wuziarch, are you deaf as well as overzelous? Crenshaw just instructed us to cover the stairs."

"The inquisitor is on her way to reinforce. Meanwhile, the cog-girl says there's another technopath on the loose. And this building is an STC design, just like arbites HQ on Marioch."

"So?"

"So, the cogitator memory bank is in the basement. Back in '04 a technopath broke out of the cells and used the banks as a focus to cast his powers across the entire fortress. I'm willing to bet that this heretic is doing exactly the same thing."

"How will you stop him?" Alicia asked.

"The same way my colleagues stopped that heretic. Blow the cogitator core."

"Arbiter!" Kuscelian's voice suddenly broke in over the team vox, spluttering with horror. "That cogitator core is a hub for the local network. If you harm it, it could feed back a disruptive power spike that wipes every machine spirit in this manufactory zone!"

"That happened at HQ too." Josiah argued back into his earpiece. "We lost six months worth of data. It was a price worth paying to put the witch down."

"Listen!" Kuscelian implored. She had already euthanised one co-opted machine spirit, but this one was infinitely more valuable - valuable enough for her to know that they had to at least attempt to salvage and reconsecrate it. An Ocularis Dragon no longer had the luxury of being able to deal in absolutes. "You do not know what you are-"

"You tech priests always did have skewed priorities." Josiah shook his head, and pulled out his earpiece to silence any further argument. "For the Emperor, lady Tarran. Go stop the daemon - that's the bigger threat. Just promise me that when you're done with DeRei, I can hand over whatever pieces are left to the arbites!"


+ + + + + +

Not having a good day was an understatement for Vizkop. His vantage point had been suitable, that was not the problem. No the problem was the crane that had came swinging almost into his face, demolishing part of the warehouse but leaving his nest mostly intact. But that had to wait. There were better places for him to be than providing cover. There was a low chance any high-priority target would cross his sights, so he absconded from his nest with his rifle across his back.

“Don't you dare go down there, Josiah!” Vizkop all but shouted into the link. “If you do-!”

He cut himself off into a growl as Josiah removed his earpiece. He altered his course for the basement Josiah was going for. He was not about to let that fool destroy a valuable piece of technology just because it had worked once before. There were other options for taking out the technopath and Vizkop was ready to do whatever he needed to make sure Josiah did not lay a finger on that cogitator bank.

[Azazeal849]

(OOC - co-post part 2 and GM response)

Marc fell back on cold, relentless training protocol as he advanced. Check motion tracker. Check corners at each door. Check motion tracker again. One bullet into each fallen traitor, just to be certain. The job became harder as they reached the chewed-up gallery by the other stairway. Retrieve ident and ammunition from casualty.

Father Solvan had done everything for Marc's closest friends. He had saved Vince from himself; he had brought Kelly back from the brink when even Marc himself hadn't the tools to do it; now he had saved Alley and the others, in a final act that had left him face-down and bloody on top of a frag grenade. He lowered to one knee next to the body, dropping his supporting hand from his autogun to turn the old priest over as gently as he could manage. Solvan's robes had shredded to reveal the enameled carapace beneath, and his beard was stained with red around his bloody lips and nose. His eyes were closed almost peacefully, as if he had known he was offering his death in place of Tomas and the others, and considered it a fair exchange. His rosarius still hung about his neck, cracked in two down the centre of its invincible aquila. The protective amulet must have crushed right against the grenade as it detonated, blowing out the refractor field and splitting the blessed metal. Marc wasn't normally one for omens, but somehow the ruptured aquila lying across the faithful priest's body seemed like a particularly damning one.

And then the dead priest breathed. It wasn't a cough; it was barely even the thin rattle of air being sucked through a broken reed, but it was unmistakable.

"Saph!" Marc shouted, dropping his autogun entirely to cradle the miraculously alive priest's head in his hands. "Saph, I need you here right now!"

“Holy Throne…” Sapphira softly exclaimed, numbed by shock and wide-eyed with awe. Solvan is alive. The Sister slowly reconciled that the old priest - her old friend – was alive against his seemingly deathly visage. She had seen that same expression before on another old friend.

She acutely remembered the hectic and harrowing moments after Tomas had taken an assassin’s bullet for the Inquisitor. The Casterian had been dying, his beard matted around his mouth and nose as every breath and heartbeat shed more blood in unwitting complicity. Tomas had met Lady Machairi’s eyes, and only then gave himself permission to die with a weary nod after verifying his ward was safe. She had been by Tomas’ side almost immediately, and seen the hauntingly peaceful contentment on his bloodied face. She prayed meet her own eventual martyrdom with the peace and serenity of an oath fulfilled.

Sapphira knew with every fiber of her being that the God-Emperor had spared Solvan Belannor, and the Sister desperately wanted to stay and do everything within her abilities to ensure he remained so…yet she remained hesitant to move. She had been in this terrible, time sensitive situation before. She had abandoned wounded servants of the Imperium, who she alone could have saved with prompt medical attention, when the greater interests of the Imperium were on the line. She had never allowed herself to be burdened by guilt in the moment, and had always prayed for the souls of the dead afterwards…

But those individuals hadn’t been Solvan. She knew that was a horrendous double standard…but this was Solvan. Guilt about her own absence of guilt was a shame to be addressed at another time, and the Sister promised herself rigorous penance for this most recent of her many failings. Sapphira wanted nothing more than to save the life of a good man – but that decision was not hers.

The sister hospitaller looked from Marc to Machairi, and for the second time in a few short minutes the inquisitor appeared to have been struck dumb. For a moment she looked like she might stagger sideways against a demolished workstation, as her free hand silently marked the points of the aquila across her chest. Sapphira tensed in dread expectation of her answer.

"Help him, sister." the older woman ordered, half a whisper.

Sapphira did not need to be told twice. The Sister distantly registered the protestations from bruised muscles and traumatized nerves as she hurtled towards Solvan. Sapphira thumped down onto her knees beside him with barely a hitch in her breath as she mentally repurposed her own minor physical ails into single minded focus on the wounded priest and what his needs were. She tore off her tattered Mechanicus overcoat and passed it to Marc, who promptly rolled and delicately tucked the garment underneath Solvan’s head as she tore out and activated her diagnostic slate.

“Stop.” Solvan murmured. He weakly brushed away Marc’s hands. “Go…with Him…and finish this.”

“Aye, Father.” Marc affirmed. The former investigator stiffly nodded to Solvan and Sapphira as he scooped up his rifle, and scrupulously checked his motion tracker as he moved toward the stairs.

The old priest slowly opened his eyes, and they burnt with determination as he met Machairi’s gaze. “Imperator vult, Alia.”

“Imperator vult, Solvan.” The Inquisitor solemnly echoed. She seemed to be the resolute and indomitable Lady Machairi once again as she followed after Marc.

“The God-Emperor willed it that you live, Sol.” Sapphira declared with absolute conviction, as she gently touched his chest over the cleaved rosarius. “You don’t have His permission to die.” She shifted her eyes from the data-slate’s screen, and met the old priest’s with fierce, stubborn concern. “Or ours.”


+ + + + + +

Gavin found the technopath on the second floor - slumped against a computer terminal, psychic consciousness extending down like a taproot into the cogitator core in the bowels of the building, before spiderwebbing out through the rest of the electrical systems. The crude piggy-backing technique through the higher voltage network told Gavin that the other psyker was both less confident and less adept than himself. On the other hand, few technopaths could claim the poisoned honour of being honed under the merciless eye of major Martin Crenshaw.

The cult psyker was young, like many of the damned fools standing against Machairi's agents. Gangly and dark-haired, he was in his early twenties at most, although his scruffy stubble was already flecked with premature grey. His concentration was entirely on the servitors he had slaved to his will, with almost no awareness of his physical body - another amateur error, and one that was about to cost him dearly. Taking advantage of his quarry's tunnel-vision focus, Gavin speared straight into the boy's open, unshielded mind.

It was like diving into an ocean of someone else's memories - first the ice-cold shock of immersion and a confusing bubble-scatter of entrained memories, and then the pain of crashing into an unseen floor as the other technopath reacted with instinctive and violent self-defence. Gavin's physical fists clenched as he battered off the unfocused counterattack, trying to grab hold of his opponent's core consciousness behind the veil of random memories that were shredding away under his hands. There was none of the reservation, none of the self-disgust that he had felt when doing the same thing to Ella. Instead of seeking information, he grabbed the nearest memories and flung them at his opponent like missiles.

"How did you do that? Answer me, you little shit! How are you doing that!?"

A thin woman, straggle-haired and sunken-eyed, lunged to put herself between the furious man and his cowering target.

"Stop it, for Cog's sake! Stop shouting and leave him alone!"

"He's been conniving with daemon spirits! He's brought witchcraft into my house!"

The boy shrank back against the wall. With the naive logic of childhood, he had only stretched out his mind to scramble the settings on his father's hymn-vox as a prank...now he -

- was cowering under the duvet in his tiny box room, palms pressed against his ears to try and shut out the shouting and screaming he could hear from his parents' room next door. Menials needed sleep, the tech-priests said, if they were to serve the Omnissiah...and if you were still awake past midnight the data-daemons would slither out of the chronometer and eat you...but an entirely different sort of daemon seemed to have taken hold of his father in the next room. Or perhaps he was the daemon - only tech-priests were allowed to talk to the spirits of the machines - what he could do was the most terrible blasphemy. Perhaps he should -

"- go, Jakub, you need to go now! Your father, he's told the Tribune!"

Gavin felt the sting of terror spreading through his body and the ice-cold trail of tears running down his cheeks as the boy ran, clutching the address on the slip of paper his mother had pressed into his hands, turning back as a commotion of hydraulic footsteps hammered up to the hab-stack that had been his home. The splintering crash of the third-floor door disintegrating under the blow of a piston hammer...the distinctive searing crack of lasguns...

The boy gaped at the strobe-flashes glaring through the window, illuminating one shadow stalking forward, and another, thinner one reeling and falling. All he could think was that they had...she was d...she was -

- an incredibly tall and forbidding woman, with a rust-spotted bionic for a right arm. Jakub had been told that being bonded with the blessed purity of metal was the highest honour a menial could achieve, but on the tall woman he couldn't help thinking that this one seemed a meagre gift. Was this really the right place? Was this frowning woman supposed to keep him safe from the skitarii?

"Change from below?" he whispered fearfully, making the strange sign with his hand that his mother had shown him.

The woman's eyebrows rose in undisguised surprise. Her bionic arm wheezed as the skeletal fingers returned the sign.

"As the Táin commands." she nodded, and stood back to let him through the door.

Crusts of ice shattered as the technopath fell backwards from his focusing cogitator. He curled up, wheezing blood, as back on the ground floor Gavin's knuckles split and blackened with psycho-stigmatic bruising. He hit the young technopath again, this time with the hammer of his voice.

“Stay down.”

“You fr-”

“I insist, Jakub.”

“You might be able to force your way into my mind, oppressor.” The other technopath snarled, through tightly clenched teeth and curled back lips. Jakub’s eyes were scrunched shut, and his gaunt face betrayed his discomfort with hostile telepathy. Gavin distantly noted his own lack of sympathy.

“You may know my name, but don’t frakking talk to me like you know me.”

Gavin’s projection rippled in the emotional furnace blast of Jakub’s honest, raw and passionately emotional hatred for the Mechanicus. He smiled thinly, knowingly down at the other psyker, and felt his own flash frosted face creak sympathetically as the reaction transcended the astral and corporeal divide. He understood. The rival technopath’s rebuke was an almost mirrored image of his own thoughts about those glitchwits from the Lords Dragon and the ten years worth of records they had examined.

“I know you better than you’d think.”

“So we’re not so different, you and I?” Jakub questioned, with unbridled hostility as he grimaced and forced his eyes open. Gavin noticed how they narrowed almost immediately as the Change’s technopath witnessed his projection. He presented himself exactly as he was to the other psyker, his bionic legs prominently displayed as a feature of his Mechanicus disguise. “That’s scrap! We’re different!”

“And until now, you were fortunate for that.”

“Fortunate?” He softly echoed, almost disbelievingly. Another surge of heated aggression brushed past Gavin’s looming, film-reel flickering projection as Jakub shouted incredulously at him. “Fortunate?!”

“Fortunate.” Gavin reiterated.

“I should’ve been inducted into the Cult! I should’ve been sanctioned and been able to openly use my gifts to look after my siblings!” Jakub excoriated. He accusingly pointed at the Imperial psyker with a viperous glare. “I should’ve been you!

Gavin soaked in the other technopath’s emotions as their riptide current washed over him. He registered the sense of aggrieved injustice and jealous self-loathing that Jakub had as he saw the robed, augmented psyker that was presently invading his mind. The Imperial psyker slowly shook his head.

“You wouldn’t want my life.”

“Says you, you cog-wheel bastard!” The cultist psyker hoarsely raged. “You’re nothing more than another frakking lobotomized tool, remade by your masters in the template of your inhuman Deus!”

“I’m not from the Cult, Jakub.” Gavin countered. Objectively there was no reason to talk with, or defend against accusations from the cultist…but the other technopath was subdued, and he was curious. He had never encountered someone with the almost the exact same curse as himself before.

“You lie!”

“Psykers aren’t sanctioned and used by the Mechanicus, as we mutants are weak fleshed aberrations in the Deus’ schematics for humanity.” Gavin calmly explained. He shrugged, almost commiserating with the other psyker about their unnatural and unwanted genetic blight. “Or so they say.”

“You’re still trying to feed me a line of scrap, drone.” Jakub accusingly spat, the words accompanied by bloodied spittle. He grunted, and cuffed at his mouth and chin even as he glowered at the Imperial psyker. “You’ve got the bionics, and you’re wearing the bloody red robes of an oppressor.” The cult technopath scowled and threw a dismissively backhanded waive at him. “You can’t hide what you are!”

“I’m not hiding anything from you.” Gavin assured. He sighed, and reached down for the sprawled over Change cultist with his phantom hands. “And you can’t hide anything from me.”

“Wait!” The cultist cried out, correctly guessing what came next. Gavin didn’t.

He focused his exertion and went deeper into the other technopath’s mind, and delved back into his recent memories. Gavin’s left hand, pressed against the ridged scar across his temple, twitched slightly as he battered the cultist’s formative resistance and forced his way deeper into Jakub’s mind. His other hand lightly brushed sideways against the cogitator it was pressed against, as if he were idly swiping through a collection of images on a data-tablet rather than prying through another human’s mind.

The Imperial psyker’s focused on the ethereal, wavering panorama of Jakub’s emotional status and his sensory perception in-load over the last few hours. He could see the younger psyker through the gossamer thin extraction of his memory, as he writhed on the ground and clutched his head, a tormented rictus spread across his haggard face. Gavin muted out the anguished screams, and frowned in both existential dimensions as he realized they in the Change’s hideout, during their final briefing.

He immediately advanced the timeline, thoroughly uninterested in gathering intelligence on the anti-Mechanicus cult. The Dragons can do their own damned work. Gavin dismissively mused, as he advanced through the psyker’s mind. Jakub’s tormented screams terminated with –

- a ragged cheer as he withdrew his consciousness from the murder servitor. He didn’t raise his own voice in the exuberant cry of his fellow freedom fighters. He couldn’t, as he tried to shake off the reflexive nausea of coming into contact with the drone’s cognitive bionics, and the horrific bleed-through of its mangled human brain. Jakub struggled to breathe in the moist, sickeningly warm air of the underground warrens as he stared uneasily at the monstrous construct he’d subdued and co-opted for the Change. He grunted as he choked down bile, thoroughly unnerved by what he’d seen and felt…

Jakub numbly noted the revolutionaries’ advance scouts begin to squelch their way further into the tunnels. They warily avoided the blade armed abomination, which but not for his intervention, would have otherwise taken them to pieces for their trespass. Tadeusz, of course, was less reserved than the others as he walked up next to him and spat in the drone’s unblinking, mutilated face. It stood still.

“Lobo freak.” Tadeusz disparagingly sneered, as he cuffed stringy saliva off his bristly chin.

“Freak or not,” Jakub responded, self-consciously trying not to sound too testy about the freak comment, as he shot his comrade a look, “he was once a person.”

Jakub knew that Tadeusz, and every single one of the revolutionary menials, knew that they would be condemned to servitorized, should they be taken alive. Not that they would’ve avoided the risk if they’d been compliant little boys and girls and stayed servile to the Cult. The bastards harvested from their labour castes to make those monsters out of otherwise innocent men, women and children as needed. The oppressors always needed more constructs, and several of the Change had lost family and friends in a brutal way. The former menials all hated the drones almost as much as they feared them.

Jakub saw Tadeusz’s mouth quirk, not quite able to offer an apology. The other revolutionary merely offered a thoughtful grunt as he tilted his chin at the servitor. “Until they made him into a drone.”

“Yeah.” He muttered darkly.

“Yeah.” Tadeusz echoed. He stood, melancholically introspective for a moment, and then grunted again. “Still…it’ll be sweet justice and even sweeter revenge to turn the cog-head’s drones back on ‘em.”

“It will.”

“Freak or not,” Tadeusz continued, with a meaningful sidelong glance at the technopath, “he’s making Change happen.”

Jakub was stricken into silence by the almost compliment, and belatedly offered a nod.

“I think I’ll be keeping close to the lobos,” Tadeusz determined. The youth’s prematurely lined face cracked into a broad grin, and Jakub winced slightly as the other man clapped a hand on his back. “So make a good show out of decommissioning the bastards, eh, Kozica?”

“I guarantee it.” Jakub promptly answered. He nodded firmly with determination.

“Good.” Tadeusz affirmed, as he turned and raised his battered auto rifle overhead. He shouted to the rag-tag column of other self-liberated menials. “Change from below, and death to the oppressors!”

“Death to the oppressors!”

The technopath called back this time, raising his own thin yet heartfelt cry alongside his fellow revolutionaries. He hesitated, and stared once again at the idled combat servitor as the others tromped past them. He remembered the remnant memories that weren’t his, but rather those of another man’s broken mind. He shuddered as he felt the wet heat of blood splash over his hand and wrist, and the grind of a screwdriver as it pressed against the shift foreman’s spinal column. His chest ached as he saw the woman he loved, and the children their love had produced, scream for him as he screamed for them –

Jakub exhaled lowly, eyes stinging with emotion as he shook his head. He nodded slowly at the construct, and immediately registered how bizarre – and yet appropriate – such a human gesture that was to make to the Cult’s former tool of oppression. He murmured almost conspiratorially, as he reached out to coax their newest revolutionary comrade back into motion. “We can’t wait.”

“You relished the opportunity to turn those servitors on some red priests.” Gavin assessed, thoroughly ignoring the other technopath’s irrelevant emotions. He once again smiled knowingly at Jakub, who had hesitantly opened his eyes. The cultist flinchingly recoiled as he saw the expression. “I understand. I laughed, and laughed, and laughed when I tore apart those skitarii.”

“You…wh-what?” Jakub stumblingly queried. Gavin could sense the first tremors of doubt unsettle the other psyker’s consciousness, as he registered what he had heard and tried to process the implication.

“I destroyed several skitarii while on Saros.” Gavin repeated, almost dispassionately matter of fact about the admission. “Some I decommissioned quickly. Others I deconstructed slowly, piece by component piece.” He decided to smile again. “All the while I kept on laughing as I killed them.”

“S-Saros…y-you were on Saros?” Jakub stammered. Gavin frowned slightly as he detected the undercurrent of awe in the other technopath’s voice. He gave him a curt, confirmatory nod. The cultist’s mouth moved as he struggled to speak, his brow knitted with confusion. “Y-yo-you were with the Táin?”

“The bastard’s name is Arcolin Diarmad DeRei.” Gavin snarled down at Jakub, and the heat wash of his sudden ire caused the cultist to recoil. He composed himself, and curiously cocked his head down at the other psyker. Jakub seemed even more confused by the unexpected revelation about his master. “Did you know he was formerly an Arbitrator?”

“They are the most oppressive model of Imperial law enforcement officer. Gavin explained, after an awkward pause, when Jakub stared blankly back at him. Of course not. He sighed internally, and ignored the other technopath’s protests as he raised a hand and cycled back through his own memories. “Let me show you.”

The Imperial psyker mentally retrieved the relevant information and separated it from his consciousness. It was risky enough to be within the mind of an untrained and unsanctioned psyker – and as unreserved and unorthodox with his despised powers since Baraspine – he was not so detached as to form such a free-flowing connection between them. Gavin forced the compiled evidence and imagery directly into Jakub’s mind via strands of bio-electricity that speared from his fingertips into his opponent’s skull. He watched Jakub spasm and silent screams in the otherworldly strobe lighting, and idly noted how the cultist’s psyche tremored under the assault of knowledge as he was made to see -

– the contrast between Arcolin the Heretic and Arbitrator DeRei was stark in his personnel file. The document’s existence was an almost inconceivable artifact from a different life. He wouldn’t have believed Marcus Black’s assertion, if he wasn’t looking the proof; black inked into the triple-redundant Administratum forms with a glossy print of the now-heretic attached to the inside cover. He stared and -

- Arcolin Diarmad DeRei stared back at him. The heretic-to-be was clad in an Arbitrator’s somber black duty uniform, with the golden sigil of the Lex Imperialis prominent and proud on his chest badge. He was young, but there was nothing youthful about his impassively serious expression, and his almost unnervingly blue eyes were hard and intense. He was unmarred by the burns that would lend to his unhinged, mocking smile and become the basis of his chosen moniker with the cult in Makita hive –

“No…he wouldn’t have wanted you all to know that.” Gavin murmured as he relented. The other technopath’s mind was open to him, and it was obvious that he was unaware of his cult leader’s background. His raised his hand glowed again as Jakub pleadingly groaned. “I’m sure the hypocritical son of a bitch also failed to mention he helped execute his own family, in its entirety, for their – ”

- crimes against the Imperium, DeRei had killed subjects of the Imperium. He had no doubt the precise numbers were documented in the verbose Administratum file. He had no interest in searching through the compilation to know the precise number of guilty and innocent DeRei had killed as an Arbitrator in a hive he ultimately helped murder. He instead sought out the bastard’s last mission and -

- stared at DeRei’s memento that had been recovered from that damned hospital. It was faded, a little dog eared picture of an up-hive family wearing distinctly Makitan clothes. A young boy, in the middle of the photo, looked sternly directly at the camera. He had not been close with his family…or at least had not been once his curse had manifested and he saw them for who and what they were - and were not…but even in his deepest, darkest moments he was sure he –

- had led the Arbitrators’ raid on the estate of House DeRei. Such were the extent of their crimes against the Imperium and sins against the Emperor, the baroque mansion on the heights of Spire 4 had been torched. He absorbed the evidentiary photos of the blackened, hollowed skeleton of the once grand edifice. House DeRei had burnt alongside their home. He turned the page and his gaze lingered over the blackened, twisted skeletons of the grand family themselves. Men, women and children -

The Imperial psyker relented once again and waited as Jakub tried to recover. “He…h-h-he…he said-”

“Plenty of misleading scrap, I’m sure.” Gavin responded, almost soothingly to his cultist counterpart. “No doubt the bastard said exactly what he knew you all wanted to hear, but I can understand the appeal.” He once again nodded understandingly. “What young, angry menial or serf wouldn’t take the opportunity to bleed their overseers if given half a chance?”

“That’s…than…I…i-if…if…you’re not…” Jakub struggled to articulate, as he struggled to reconcile the Imperial psyker’s appearance with his words and the images that he’d been forced to witness. The cultist emitted a frustrated groan and shouted at the stranger. “Who the frak are you people?”

“That’s a deep, existential question.” Gavin frowned. He stared distantly for a moment, before he exhaled lightly and glanced down at Jakub. “The short answer is we’re the Imperial Inquisition.”

Gavin saw the comprehension ignite in Jakub’s eyes – as evidently even in an enclave of the Mechanicus the Inquisition was still known – and nodded with muted affirmation at the unspoken question. The cultist’s mouth quavered as he struggled to speak, unable to offer more than a tiny, dry whisper. “Oh…oh frak…”

“It gets worse for you, Jakub.” Gavin assured the cultist. He spoke without any sense of consolation or sympathy as the piteous wretch stared at him in silence with wide eyed anticipation and horror. “The red priests with us are operatives of the Lords Dragon.”

Jakub choked out startled cough as Gavin pursed his lips and glanced around as the room. It rattled and darkened with the other technopath’s dread and horror at the thought of the mythical Mechancius enforcers. The vague, predatory shapes of fearful childhood fantasy stirred within the shadows of Jakub’s subliminal consciousness at the mention of the Lords Dragon. “Th-th-hey…they’re real?

“Dragons do exist, Jakub.” Gavin coolly confirmed. Unfortunately. In the corporeal world his head tilted fractionally towards the male priest. The Imperial psyker’s expression shifted slightly towards the deep scowl of his projection, as his hand snapped open to scour the cultist once again with truth.

"We don't have time for this." Machairi stated coldly. "And we don't need to know who you are to complete our mission."

"So why question us?" The female priest blinked her wide-set eyes. They were red-brown, Machairi observed; the same red-brown as her hair. Not a common combination in the Adrantis sub.

"So I can decide whether to kill you right now, or not." the inquisitor retorted frankly.

The red-haired tech priestess stared her down. "We are agents of the Lords Dragon."

Jakub rocked on the ground and whimpered almost plaintively as he stammered, almost hyperventilating. “Oh, oh scrap…oh scrap, scrap!” He stared wide-eyed. “The Táin…h-he…didn’t…”

“No, he wouldn’t’ve.” Gavin agreed. He frowned as his projection thoughtfully strummed his fingertips on his thigh, as his fingers briefly twitched against the cogitator tower back in the corporeal. “That’s bad news for your siblings as well.”

Jakub tensed and inhaled, lowly and deeply. Interesting. Gavin thought as he noted the other technopath’s terror reach another level - yet that the prospect of an adverse result for his siblings seemed to compose him. His voice was marred by stifled emotion as he strained to speak levelly. “My brothers and sisters are innocents. Whatever happens, whatever comes next, you leave them alone.”

“Innocence proves nothing, Jakub.” Gavin countered with the Inquisitorial credo.

“Damn it, they’re only kids!” Jakub shouted. His tenuous composure had snapped, and the young cultist was flush faced with desperation, fear and outrage as he continued to shout at the Imperial psyker in his mind. “They don’t know anything about the Táin or the Change! I make sure they don’t!”

“Ignorance is no excuse.” The Imperial psyker dismissed. He was unmoved by Jakub’s emotional appeal, and the scrambled distortion of his mind as he descended deeper into agitation and despair.

“Think this through logically, Jakub. You’re a psyker, and worse yet, a technopath. The Cult hates us our kind almost as much as they fear us – and they fear us tremendously.” Gavin calmly explained, with absolute conviction after his encounter with the Dragons. “They won’t take chances that a brood of potential technopaths infests their precious, precious forge world, especially with your connection to an insurrectionist group that has attempted to assassinate their precious, precious archmagos.

“Not great for the little ones, Jakub.” Gavin concluded. He stared, unmerciful and unmoved, down at the young man whose mind he had invaded and wracked with bitter knowledge and harsh truths. “You only have yourself to blame.

“They’re only kids!” Jakub snarled, as he hunched back off the ground, eyes stinging with desperate and hateful tears as he sought to plead his case. “Kashia and Marek are ill…I-I-I’m all they’ve-”

“I don’t care.” Gavin interrupted.

“I DO!” Jakub mentally howled back at the Imperial psyker. Gavin recoiled away from the cultist as he lashed out with the feral, primitive fury of a cornered animal and surged towards his feet. “Get out of my mind, you monster!”

Gavin gritted his teeth in both realities as he recognized that he had overstepped with the cultist. Idiot! He excoriated himself. He should have known better than to fuel the other technopath’s ire by invoking family. He didn’t know that connection itself, but he knew of it from Kelly Black –

He growled lowly, threateningly in his frozen throat and within Jakub’s mind. His own composure faltered as he thought about Kelly Black and the memories of family he had been forced to see because of The Other. He remembered the vicious, murderous anguish and rage that had surrounded Marcus Black, and his hands flared ominously as the damaged Imperial psyker delved back into his own memories as Jakub struggled to reform his defenses and drive him out. Unacceptable.

“You wanted to be sanctioned? You wanted to be me?” Gavin questioned. His damaged voice was a raw, hoarse, and venomous as he stared at the cultist. “See what you missed, Jakub!”

He hurled his projection at cultist psyker’s formative defenses. His ethereal strike ploughed through the last mental blocks and bowled the other technopath over. His avatar’s psychically charged fists struck into Jakub’s head again, and again, and again. The young man screamed violently as moments of horror from the life of Gavin Jenkins were bludgeoned and burnt into his mind with each vicious swipe.

Gavin was so intent on killing the other psyker that he didn't notice that the spattering blood drops were hanging suspended in the air, or that the clouds of ectoplasmic ice he was smashing off the walls were falling towards the ceiling rather than the floor.


+ + + + + +

Alicia had to whistle as she struggled up the stairs through the carpet of hacked and bullet-riddled bodies that Tomas had left in his wake. Either the Emperor or a daemon was on the Casterian's side right now, that was for sure. A horrendous screech sounded from her right, mingled with the bubbling retch of someone trying to scream while simultaneously vomiting blood. A body in a menial's jumpsuit thumped violently into the corridor wall, and was followed out by a second steel-clawed murder servitor. It gave the falling body a few more vicious swipes, reducing it to an eviscerated red ruin, and then snapped round towards Alicia and came bounding straight up the corridor on its taloned feet. Alicia swung her carbine to bear and rattled tight patterns into the monster's face and centre mass, dropping it thrashing to the floorboards several metres short of her.

Alicia winced as the recoil jarred her bandaged finger-stumps. Yes, firing the Pretentious Bitch one-handed was definitely interesting. And something was going wrong with their enemy's hijacked servitors. This murder-drone hadn't waited in ambush like its predecessor; it had just charged at her down a narrow corridor. Not only that, it had attacked one of the cultists' own soldiers. It was just as well that something seemed to be distracting the enemy psyker. Maybe Josiah's hare-brained plan had worked, or perhaps Gavin had pitched into the fray. Alicia hauled herself round and followed Tomas' trail up the corridor. The path of destruction he had left wasn't exactly subtle.

"Prinzel, Crenshaw!" she shouted as she caught sight of her squadmates ahead. "Regroup!"

Tomas snarled, and tossed the empty autocannon to one side. He cast a filthy look at Crenshaw then looked back at Alicia, a rattling breath escaping through clenched teeth as he brought himself back under control.

The major wheeled to face her. "Where is Wuziarch?"

"He said he could hamstring Arcolin's technopath by blowing up the cogitator bank in the basement level."

"Moron." Crenshaw was grinding his prosthetic teeth, and looking far from amused. He barked into his vox. “Wuziarch!”

"He took his earpiece out." Alicia groaned as she remembered. "The Dragon girl was talking his ear off."

"That damn idiot!" Tomas yelled, punting the empty autocannon. "I'll flay him for this!"

“Join the queue.” Crenshaw muttered irritably.

"Tomas." Machairi's voice sputtered over the vox in all three agents' ears, "We're at the stairwell right below you. We've got Solvan. Twenty seconds."

"Say again?" Alicia queried. "You've got Solvan?"

"He's not in a good way, but he's alive. Sapphira is with him."

The flush of red drained from Tomas face, and he slumped against a wall. "I...it's a bloody miracle...Saph, you keep that goddamn cantankerous bastard alive, you hear me!"

“No worries, chief. It’s Saph.” Glabrio interjected, trying to sound cheery over the gunfire. “She’ll do what she does best, and you’ll be having your boring scotch and book club in no time.”

"The Emperor protects, Tom." a weak but welcomely familiar voice wheezed through the vox. "And I'm still faster than you."

Even if leaving Sapphira behind brought their storm squad for the upper floors down to less than half of the team's initial strength, Alicia couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief on Ella and Kally's behalf that the old priest might pull through after all. "I don't suppose you've got my missing fingers down there too?" she joked weakly.

“That’s enough chatter.” Sapphira tersely responded. Alley chewed on her bottom lip. The former Nebula turned rogue trader couldn’t help but notice that the Sister had only made a reprimand after she had made a comment. Why, yes, Alley. She still hates your frakking guts.

A tramp of footfalls on the stairs announced Marc and inquisitor Machairi, who appeared at the blood-soaked landing and spun to check their corners. Machairi lowered her glowing-red melta pistol as she turned towards Tomas and the others.

"Form up." she ordered simply, making no mention of Tomas' rampage. "We'll sweep the offices facing Alpha One first. Krupp is due to make his address in ten minutes."

She held up Tomas' deactivated power sabre, which she had pulled from the mess of bodies by the stairwell, and offered it hilt first back to its owner.

"Also, Tom, you dropped this."

He took the weapon wordlessly, and nodded his thanks.


+ + + + + +

A blast of appallingly powerful psychic force blasted Gavin and his prey apart, almost scattering Gavin's projected consciousness to the winds as it hit. The cult technopath slumped to the floor, limbs jerking sporadically as he sobbed and wept blood.

The blast had come from a spindly woman, who was stumbling jerkily into the room through the blown-open door. She was haloed in a cloud of ice crystals, draining them towards her from the dislodged mass that was falling upward towards the ceiling. Jakub's blood still hung in the air, ribboning out into misty waves.

The woman was not much older than Jakub, with gaunt features and shoulder-length blonde hair. Blood was dripping from her nose and floating out to join the fine rings of ice crystals that clung to her aura. As a high-pitched ring stroked at the edges of Gavin's hearing, he saw that there was something wrong with the woman's eyes.

It isn't nice to bully people weaker than you, you know. Her lips didn't move, but the voice travelled from Gavin's astral consciousness right to his bleeding physical ears, manifesting directly inside his skull. Telepath. he identified, though he couldn't hear anything of the woman's voice in the sonorous, almost paternal admonition. He could only hear another. An Other. The Other.

Vindictive little boys who pull the wings off butterflies seldom come to good ends.

Somewhere on the floor, Jakob the technopath was gasping, laughing with relief - not knowing or simply not caring for the true nature of his deliverer as he groped his way to the terminal to resume his hold on the servitors. The Other pulled its latest victim's face into a ghastly smile, lips stretching over bleeding teeth.

I warned you, Gavin Jenkins. it roared into his mind, with the primal fury of an oceanic tempest. And now I will break you!


+ + + + + +

The vox suddenly shrieked and twisted into a high-pitched whine of white noise. Something growled through the static, both within the vox and as a terrifyingly real voice somewhere ahead of them.

"I warned you, Gavin Jenkins." it said. "And now I will break you."

"Warp threat close!" Machairi warned, signalling for the team to cluster up around Crenshaw. A moment later the vox crackled with breathless, relieved laughter, but the laughter wasn't Gavin's.

"Gavin?" Machairi voxed sharply, "Gavin, rep-"

There was a juddering explosion somewhere above and behind them. The plaster along the bottom of the wall cracked as something scored through the power cables behind it. The temperature in the corridor palpably dropped by several degrees.

"Oh shit." said Marc.

The ceiling above them exploded, spraying down water from burst heater pipes and sparking wire-ends from severed cable runs. Whickering tracers stitched a line towards the agents as something raked a heavy stubber down through the floor of the room directly above them. The team scattered - Marc back-pedalling up the corridor and firing his gun blindly into the ceiling. Crenshaw broke left through the nearest door, thoroughly desecrating a small shrine to the Omnissiah as he knocked over the table in the prayer room beyond.

"Looks like the techno's got his mojo back!" Alicia cursed from across the hallway, following suit with Marc and bringing down a waterfall of plaster and rebar as she tried to take out the heavy servitor above. She missed a kill shot, but hit something load-bearing that brought the ceiling and the servitor spilling down into the corridor. As the thrashing automaton tried to rise, its gun arm spraying tracers into the walls, a single shot from Crenshaw tore its head off.


+ + + + + +

Tomas and Machairi had bailed forward, shouldering through a pair of fire doors. Machairi's door sprang back, accompanied by a yelp from someone behind it who had been struck. Machairi slammed the door into the cultist's face a second time and barged through after Tomas, straight into a melee of bodies. One man was on the floor already, holding his guts in with one hand while trying to drive a knife into Tomas' calf with the other. The man behind the door was reeling back, weapon dropped and both hands clapped to his bleeding nose.

"For the Change, oppressor!" screamed a menial, a tattoo of a flaming eye just visible beneath her ripped overalls as she swung a broken-off piece of rebar into the inquisitor's shoulder, knocking her melta pistol off target. Her reward was to lose the hand at the wrist, the stump pumping blood as Tomas hacked with the sword. He drove the pommel into another cultist, sending her staggering with broken teeth, and Alia cored her out with a point blank killshot from her pistol. Alia and Tomas fell into a familiar fighting pattern, Tomas leading and clearing space, Alia placing pinpoint accurate shots that dropped jumbles of seared limbs to the floor. In a frantic minute of ruthless combat, the two cut down half a dozen combatants.

"Just like old times." Machairi commented, panting hard as she scanned the row of windows facing the Alpha One curtain wall. "He's not on this floor. We need to move up."

Both of them knew that Gavin couldn't buy them any more time.


+ + + + + +

Nikolai's chemical fog had seeped into the building, mixing with the battle smoke and draining down into the basement level, where it blurred and diffuses the lights illuminating Josiah's path. The arbiter advanced, his own breathing loud and hot inside his rebreather. He methodically checked each corner, and smashed open each side door to check for heretics, but it seemed that they were all upstairs trying to fend off his teammates.

Well, not quite all. As he approached the grinning cog skull embossed on the big door ahead of him, the mechanicus icon began to swing out towards him. Evidently, DeRei had left a few heretics to guard his technopath's source of focus. Levelling his shotcannon, Josiah fired twice, tearing through the door and the man trying optimistically to use it as a shield. Josiah heard him scream and fall as the force of the buckshot impacts slammed what was left of the door back on itself. It swung out again on broken hinges, revealing the heretic's mangled body, and a second terrified menial crouching behind. Seeing Josiah emerge from the clawing fog, the menial threw away his laspistol and shakily raised his hands.

"The Emperor protects?" he stammered hopefully.

"The Emperor rejects." Josiah replied, and his shotcannon thundered a third time to turn the heretic's head into an explosion of pink mist.

The fog rolled in through the open door to envelop the bodies, condensing against the walls of the network stack-room. Josiah saw ice coating every wall, and ectoplasmic frost was rimed over the blinking, slab-like cogitator blocks that stood inside.

"For the Emperor, witch." he snapped, and emptied the rest of his shotgun magazine into the core. Metal plates spalled off, thick cables whipped back like wounded snakes, and bleeding fountains of sparks shot out across the floor and ceiling. The lumoglobes above Josiah's head exploded, plunging the basement into darkness, and he felt a thrum of feedback spiderweb past him, blowing out power outlets and wall heaters.

Outside the office block, half the buildings of the assembly yard flared nuclear white through every window, and then snuffed out in a snap of overloaded circuits. In amongst the electronic scream, Josiah thought he detected a howl of surprise and pain at the edge of hearing. He smirked behind his rebreather.

Burn, witch!


+ + + + + +

Something like a static shock ripped through the building, and someone above them screamed. All the lights flared blinding white, and then exploded. Disorientating blackness snapped closed around them like a claw; Marc groped for the wall but instead found Alicia, grime-streaked and sweating.

"That will have been Josiah blowing the data-stacks, then." the ex rogue trader commented, and without hesitating jumped up onto the collapsed beam that the gun-servitor had brought down with it, sprinting up the makeshift ramp into the dark gallery above.

Marc cuffed away the dust on his helmet visor, and slammed a palm into the frequency controller at his wrist until the static in his ear stopped roaring. Every comm-channel was corrupted. It was claustrophobic and hot inside his armour, and sweat was running into his eyes, but the ongoing gunfire and the knowledge that Arcolin might have a chemical surprise for them made him keep his helmet on. With contact lost with the others, he had little choice but to stick with the one team-mate he could still see, regardless of how they felt about each other after Baraspine. We're out of time! Muscles burning, he followed Alicia at the best speed he could manage, feeling the beginnings of a sharp pain in his healed ankle as well as the old wound in his thigh as he ran up the fallen roof-beam.

He stumbled over broken boards and piping at the top, and quickly swept the corridor with his autogun, but found only motes of dust spiralling in the gloom. He and Alicia lowered their guns fractionally.

"Galleries either side." he informed, looking down at the wavering, ghosting contact dots on his forearm auspex. "Two or three contacts in each, hard to tell."

Warp-threat close. he remembered forebodingly. Where was Crenshaw? Where were Prinzel and Machairi? The returns on his auspex were so distorted that he could no longer parse the contacts on their own floor from the ones below them.

"The windows that side face Alpha One." Alicia replied instantly. "You clear them first and link up with the inquisitor. I'll cover your back."

Marc nodded sharply. Windows. Sniping positions. Arcolin. He slung the Decker autogun round his back, and pulled Kadath's Tallarn pistol from its holster at his hip. His other hand yanked a stun grenade from his webbing as he ran for the door. He shouldered it open, and tossed the flash-bang through.


+ + + + + +

Alicia ran the opposite way, putting a burst of automatic fire through the door before kicking the splintered wood back on its hinges. A wave of freezing air hit her, and she saw that the room was sheathed in a film of ice. Snowflakes and droplets of blood danced and twirled in the air. A flicker of aurora light scattered them as it darted in and out, avoiding the hooked fingernails of a shrieking young woman. The woman had frost in her hair and veins standing out livid on her temples. A young man was writhing on the floor next to a burned-out cogitator desk, but the woman seemed oblivious. There was blood on her lips. And her eyes...

As they locked with Alicia's, the former Nebula thought she saw a flicker of something like fear. The woman convulsed, her head lurching back and her mouth snapping open. A twisting tentacle of blue-black smoke poured out of her mouth and flashed past Alicia before she could stop it, leaving the woman to collapse like a marionette in its wake.


+ + + + + +

Marc lunged through the doorway in the wake of the flash-bang's shrieking detonation. The room beyond was a blur of shadows, filling with jets of white mist from the metal-oxide payload. A lasgun blind-fired through the smoke, a sweeping beam that stripped through the haze and left it twisting and coiling like a wounded animal. It came nowhere near Marc as he pivoted right, guided by his motion tracker, and dropped to one knee. There were two shapes by the window, the one with the lasgun obscuring the other; he was hunched, reeling, firing blind with his eyes scrunched closed and his teeth bared in pain. Behind the two men, propped on a tripod facing the window, was the long ugly focusing barrel of a Guard-issue lascannon. Marc's Tallarn auto punched its own trail through the fog, cutting into the torso of the man with the lasgun. The shots over-penetrated, winging the man behind and spinning him half round. Blood droplets spun and cartwheeled through the air. Marc saw half of a scar-ravaged face revealed behind the first man as both reeled and began to fall clear. His vision polarised to a single, murderous focal point as he shifted his aim down, and fired again.

The bullet hung, spinning in the air.

Something slammed into Marc from behind, sending him sprawling forward. Kadath's pistol spun away out of his grip as his visor smacked into the corner of an overturned desk. As he hit the floor, his tumbling vision registered the far door bursting open, framing Tomas and Machairi with weapons raised, and a column of blue-black smoke streaming over Marc's own head to envelop Arcolin. For a moment it seemed to form a figure, a smoky spectre cradling the heretic in its arms as he fell, and then both it and Arcolin were gone in a thunderclap that tore up the floorboards and shivered the bay windows into pieces. Marc's wordless scream was lost in the cacophony.


+ + + + + +

Alicia felt some kind of invisible, oppressive weight lift from her shoulders, as both her ears and the vox feed cleared simultaneously. At almost the same time, a fanfare and an ululating cackle of binary roared in the distance, to be answered by the static-like roar of thousands of augmetic voices raised as one. Glancing at the blood-spattered wrist-chron on her maimed hand, she realised that the clock had just ticked over to midnight. Archmagos Krupp had stepped out onto the floodlit balcony of complex Alpha One to lead the Founder's Day ceremony.

Over the ecstatic chant of machine code, Alicia heard someone sobbing. The scruffy youth was still clenched into a fetal ball amongst a puddle of melting ice, his hands clutched to his face as acrid smoke curled out through his fingers. Alicia aimed Pretentious Bitch at his head, just in case the young rogue psyker decided he had any fight left in him.

The other psyker, the daemonhost, was already dead. She lay crumpled like a doll whose strings had been cut, crying tear-streaks of blood from her glassy eyes. Alicia frowned, briefly wondering what differentiated this wretched host's fate from what had happened to Kelly. No doubt Marc would tell me to stop trying to understand the minds of daemons. Would Kally have said the same? Would Ella?

"Team," she reported wearily, "Winchester One. Technopath and daemonhost down."

"We neutralised the sniper's nest." Machairi's voice came back, monotone. "It looks like DeRei was planning to overcome the balcony refractor fields by sniping with a lascannon. Negative on a confirmed kill. The daemon spirited him away."

Alicia heard a thump, like someone slamming their fist against a wall in futile anger. She couldn't picture Machairi succumbing to such a display. Tomas or Marc, then. Her money was on the latter.


+ + + + + +

Marc stalked his way back down the stairs, fists clenched so tight that his nails cut into his palms, taking no notice of his team-mates except to shoulder past them. His vision was closing in, tinged with red. The evidence gathering, the extraction, any kind of deal or damage control with Vizkop's contact Ankari, none of it mattered. The motherfrakking son of a bitch had slipped the net - again. The trail was cold, and the daemon had denied his one chance to end it. His nose was flooded with the reek of copper and cordite as he ripped the carapace helmet off his head and flung it against the wall, barely even hearing the stream of voices that continued to chatter from the now-clear vox.

"First floor secure." Glabrio was reporting. "All hostiles down and out."

"Perimeter secure." That was the Dragon priestess, Kuscelian. Through a shattered window, Marc could see the battered ocularis falling to her knees in the loading forecourt, her cowl pulled up over her dishevelled hair, and one hand splayed against the ground while the other traced Cog-circles over her chest. Perhaps she was praying in relief as in the distance archmagos Krupp began to lead his sermon before a roaring crowd, oblivious to the failed attempt on his life. Perhaps she was mourning all the machine spirits that Josiah's hammer-blow solution had just shorted out. In that moment, Marc could not have cared less either way.

"Please confirm," the priestess added in her accented gothic, "You had visual on DeRei, and a daemon teleported him out?"

Marc aimed a violent kick at his discarded helmet and sent it bouncing several metres down the corridor.


+ + + + + +

Tomas and Crenshaw exchanged glances as the adrenaline of the battle gradually ebbed.

"We will debrief you shortly, in the meantime stand down your drones." Machairi told Kuscelian - authoritative, but Tomas could tell that she was biting down a little on every word. "Vizkop, we'll need your contact Ankari to deflect the skitarii long enough to process the site."

"After that mass-murder your arbiter caused?" Oppen put in sourly. "I'll see what my Dragon codes can do, if only to stop them from seeing this mess."

"Silence." Gavin's voice hissed.

"Vizkop." Machairi voxed again, cupping one hand around her ear-bead. "Secutor, respond?"


+ + + + + +

Vizkop let out a howl amidst the sounds of the power surge and his vision focused on Josiah with one thought in mind: Remove.

Josiah turned, the thin beam of his stab-light swinging round to illuminate Vizkop. His other hand was halfway through reloading, nimbly slotting a sequence of shells into his shotgun magazine with practiced fingers. "Vizkop." he greeted the tech-assassin jovially. "The Emperor's law prevails."

Vizkop's blades sprang from his arms and he moved up to Josiah, spearing him through the chest with both blades without the power fields active. His augmetic strength punched the blades right through the arbiter's armour, stopping only when they jarred hard against his backplate. Josiah's shotgun fell from his hands; shells scattering, torch beam spinning crazily as it bounced off the floor. Vizkop saw the man's dark, almond eyes bulge wide as he struggled to form words through his rebreather.

"Tr..." he rasped, "Trai..."

“Josiah Wuziarch,” Vizkop said, “you have committed unforgivable crimes against the Omnissiah and the Mechanicus. With the authority vested in me I have judged your life forfeit. Ave Omnissiah.”

"Crimes?" Josiah rattled. His eyes narrowed to slits as one hand groped forward, scrabbling at the neck of Vizkop's bodysuit before latching tight to the top of his chestplate. "I," the arbitrator hissed as he dragged himself closer. "AM...THE...L-"

The blades pulled back from Josiah's torso as the fields flickered to life, burning away the blood coating the blades, and allowing Vizkop to seamlessly remove the man's head from his shoulders.

In his heated state, Vizkop had not realised he had just broadcast his execution across the team's open communication line.


+ + + + + +

Machairi looked from Tomas to Crenshaw, as if to ask their confirmation that what she had heard was real, and not some parting mind-trick of Arcolin's daemon. Tomas could see the evident shock in her face, undisguised by the customary mask that so often presented only what the inquisitor wanted her interlocutors to see. It didn't make sense. None of it made sense. Even if Josiah had desecrated the forge world to stop the rogue technopath, Vizkop would never...would he?

"Beware the daemon at your back..." Machairi's voice was completely devoid of emotion, and so quiet that it barely carried across the vox pickup. There was a long pause, and when the inquisitor's voice returned, it was thick with cold anger. "Gavin. Disable and detain secutor Vizkop."

[Azazeal849]

Fire. The heat of the curtains and the tapestries catching light around her, and the heat of the blood beginning to pool stickily underneath her flak vest. The satrophene she had manually dosed herself with blocked the pain and kept her senses sharp, but even with it there was only so much that torn muscles and a lung full of blood could do. She could smell the warm, muggy Marioch air, now tainted with ash and gunsmoke. The fresco of St Drusus on the ceiling was bright and vivid, as she looked up in the wake of the bullet that had floored her. The saint's defiant face was turning from mahogany brown to sooty black as the smoke gradually suffused it, and the heads of the snarling hydra he was fighting were peeling and bubbling. Outside she could hear shouts and grenade blasts as Nibenay's heretics moved to breach the ground floor of the mansion. She still wasn't sure if they had come because Nibenay thought a retired Nebula was a threat best dealt with, or if the hilltop villa was just a strategic point along the insurrectionists' line of advance. They had already killed her foster parents - now they had killed her.

Fire; crackling, burning - stinging her eyes and shortening her breath as it ate up the room's oxygen and spat out smoke and ash in its place. For a moment, as her rational mind still tried to will her broken body back into action, and as her irrational mind still floundered at the realisation that she had been mortally shot, she thought she remembered another burning house. One made from glass and fibrebrick instead of granite, and lit by a slowly-scrolling series of glow panels instead of a real sun. There were shouts and grenade blasts that time too - but those shouts were arbites battle-cant, spoken in the rolling Solomon gothic of Makita hive. She was sure there had been another voice too. Not a hostile one; a protector, her mother. Her real mother, not her adopted parents who had raised her in this Mariochi villa. She had been calling her name.

The cacophony in Alicia's ears softened and faded into a high-pitched ringing noise, and the flames leaping up the walls seemed to slow, twirling lazily over themselves. She suddenly realised that her mother was there with her now, walking slowly towards her through the ash and debris that now hung suspended in the air. She hadn't seen her mother since she was five, and yet she knew without a doubt that it was her - her face, her voice, even if the eyes were slightly wrong.

"It's alright. It'll be alright." her mother soothed, reaching out a hand. "It's not over yet. It's only beginning."


+ + + + + +

Ella felt the passing of warp energy (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=heBWnjnI48U) like a static arc between her fingers and the card, and watched the glowing red of the monasteria suit spread out over the psy-resonant crystal wafer. Two golden haloes materialised in the centre, shimmering brightly.

The two of monasteria. A beginning; a new path taken;

The near future;

Now.

It had kept turning up, no matter what question she asked. Where is Arcolin DeRei now? What is he planning? How can we stop it?

Ella closed her fist and drew back, feeling the burning sensation recede from her fingertips as she released her link to the astronomican. She scrunched her blind eyes shut and rubbed at them as the glowing images on the cards faded, feeling the pinpricks of an oncoming headache behind her closed eyelids. She dropped her head into her hands.

There was a rattling hum as the panel lights above the Tiercel's canteen hall sputtered into life. Ella turned her head and saw a familiar faded green avatar, radiating dull thrums of fatigue.

"Midnight snack, kitten?" Alicia asked, looking at the tanna cup that had gone cold at Ella's elbow, next to a half-eaten ration bar.

"Working late." Ella admitted. And going round in circles. Having Alicia's company lifted her spirits a little, and she found herself smiling despite suddenly being very aware of how waxy and bloodshot she must look.

"Don't get like Marc." Alicia warned. No doubt it was meant as a joke, but Ella couldn't bring herself to laugh. She hadn't seen Marc since Perinetus - in fact, most of the team hadn't. How must his aura look now, after DeRei's second escape? And after Solvan and Kally, and after Vizkop had murdered Josiah? Marc Black. she thought sadly. Black, black, black. Emperor help him, because he won't let me.

Alicia sat down opposite Ella. "Is it cold in here or is that just me?"

"Sorry." Ella apologised, sweeping the cards from her reading back into a pile and carefully slotting them back into the pack before returning the whole to its fabric sleeve. "I've been channelling for a while."

She looked down at Alicia's hands, feeling an urge to reach across the table and warm them between her own. Her eyes were instinctively drawn to the two finger stumps that were still glowing a dull red through the thick translucent bandages.

"How's your hand?" she asked, stretching out to make the lightest brush of her fingertips over Alicia's knuckles. She felt soft gauze under one hand, and rough, warm skin under the other.

"Getting better." Alicia replied. Ella thought there was a slight edge in her voice, and she felt the former soldier's knuckles twitch slightly, as if Alicia had almost flinched away from her. Ella saw a sheen of steely grey ripple across Alicia's hands, turning them for a moment into hard, slender blades. She remembered their talk on the journey to Baraspine, and felt her heart sink. Killing - all she thinks they're good for. Ella knew fine well that even with only eight fingers, Alicia could crush her smaller hands in her own without much effort. Is she afraid of hurting me? The thought only compelled her to squeeze Alley's unmaimed hand harder.

"It's going to be alright." she told the older woman, earnestly. "I don't know how yet but...we're still here, aren't we?"

Alicia's jade face formed a humourless smile that brought no warmth to her aura. "So I should take my own advice from before Baraspine and soldier on?"

"We have to."

Alicia shook her head, still smiling emptily. "Why is it never about what we would like to do, only what we have to do? Even after Marc goes off the deep end and Viz completely loses the plot, they say we still have to stop Arcolin. We're practically combat ineffective now, and we haven't achieved much bar pissing off the locals. I keep seeing you all get hurt or consumed by it while your lady Machairi refuses to call in more qualified backup, and I don't know if I can take it any more. I already lost my foster-parents in the Marioch rebellion, and most of my Nebula brothers and sisters on Siculi. And now Kally, and Solvan...and you. That daemon nearly killed you on Baraspine."

"I'm okay." Ella replied, reddening a little. "Sapphira even said the bandages can come off in a week or two. I want to be helping again."

"But for how long?" Alicia challenged. "Half the team's dead or wounded already, but that's not going to stop Machairi sending you out. So far, the thing that's been keeping me going is that there's no-one who could do the job better. We had to do the job; I had to do the job. Like on Siculi - with all the other officers dead, who else was there to get even those eighteen people out? But I'm so tired of getting out alive when everyone else dies. Can someone else save the sector for a change?"

Ella opened her mouth, closed it again pensively, and considered. No doubt Machairi, Prinzel and Crenshaw were working on new assets and favours they could call in and cast a wider net for their quarry, but if they were making progress they were keeping quiet about it. Machairi wanted them to focus on recuperating, Sapphira had told Ella. The young astropath withdrew her hands from Alicia's and instead began to toy self-consciously with the wireframe eye pinned to her green robe.

"The Emperor calls and we can but answer." she said at last.

Alicia's avatar fractured and reformed as she shook her head. "Don't give me platitudes, Ella. Did you never want to just walk away? Let someone else do what had to be done this time, so you could treasure the people you had left?"

Ella dropped her blind gaze to the table, hearing the Astronomican choir at the edges of her mind and imagining the Emperor behind it - watching, judging. She tried not to think of Raeni's voice growing hoarse and guttering out amidst the other psykers.

"I suppose it's easier for me..." she admitted. "I've always had the Light to guide me, tell me what I should do...but you don't just have to be loyal to principles, you can be loyal to people. Like Marc is - and he's right; These are good people. Friends."

"Oh to hell with Marc." Alicia countered brusquely. "You know he doesn't consider me a friend, if he ever did. He just used me to get to Arcolin. I don't think he cares about anything anymore except killing him."

Ella flinched.

"What about Kally then?" she changed tack, trying hard to ignore the cutting and at least partially accurate jibe. She bit her lip and added, "Or me? I'm just trying to say...you're not doing this alone."

Alicia sighed and sat back in her chair. "That's the trouble - I'm not even sure what this is. I don't really have a duty I can get behind when I know you're the ones who might suffer for it. I don't think I'm strong enough, Ella. Is it wrong to make a decision for me? To be selfish for once?"

Ella frowned in consternation. "What do you mean?"

"What would you do, Ella? What's your advice to me?"

Ella bit her lip again and was silent for a long moment, trying to find an answer that was both true and helpful. Alicia's avatar hovered in front of her; strong, vulnerable, hurting.

"Find yourself a duty you can get behind." she said at last.

For the first time, something that might have been a flicker of humour rippled through Alicia's psychic image. The former soldier shook her head. "I really envy you, Ella. That purity of purpose you have, that conviction. I wish I could have that again."

Ella reached over to squeeze Alicia's hand again. "You will. I know it."

Alicia smiled crookedly. "Did you see it in your cards?"

"No," Ella said earnestly. "I see you."


+ + + + + +

"Adrantis has a proud history of defending itself. We beat the xenos on Soryth, and the heretics on Marioch, and the terrorists who kidnapped our own dear governor on Siculi. We have bowed to the inquisition's will for this crisis, but it's time to ask the question: what have we got to show for it? Nearly starting a fight with our heroic PDF on Marioch, then with our governor's own life guards on Baraspine, and now they're antagonising our Martian brothers-in-arms on Perinetus as well? I think it's time we ask if they aren't doing more harm than good."

"Whatever happened to it being best to give the inquisition what they want, chancellor Souvage?" Machairi observed dryly, as she studied the pict-screen and the stern, frog-like face that was staring out of it. Grey haired and plainly dressed in an adeptus-black suit jacket, the governor's chancellor wore what was no doubt calculated to be an expression of forthright honesty. Machairi had pinned subsec governor Tierce as an incurably frank man during their brief meeting. She had not gotten the same feeling about Souvage.

The young, sandy-skinned interviewer occupying the other half of the pict seemed less sure of himself in the face of such inflammatory words. He frowned down at his dataslate for a moment, and adjusted his coiled headdress. "Forgive me chancellor, but surely you're not suggesting anyone interfere with the work of the holy ordos?"

The chancellor's wide mouth cracked into a smile as he laughed, and he paused to take a sip from the amber liquid at his elbow.

"Don't go putting words in my mouth, Mr Kol, of course I'm not suggesting that. But there are, you know, good servants and bad servants in every branch of the Emperor's service, and I don't think we should sit back and reward incompetence with blind faith that the inquisition will magically fix everything for us. I have a message for every citizen of Tephaine and of our great subsector: you have dealt with scum like DeRei before. You don't need to be afraid of him. If you see a threat to your fellow Adranteans, annihilate it yourselves."

"Thank you chancellor. We shall expect the honourable sub-governor's statement shortly."

"Is it even his role to speak before and for the governor on such things?" Crenshaw wondered aloud.

"Tierce defers to his council on most non-military matters, for better or worse." Machairi said, stretching out an arm and thumbing her control wand to switch off the pict-screen. "The Vigil courier said this tape was broadcast on Tephaine a week ago. Hopefully it will take slightly longer to reach Yannick and DeShilo."

The inquisitor rubbed her thumb against her fingernails, contemplatively. The Silent Vigil had clearly sent the message to inform and warn her, but there was an implicit threat there as well.

"I assume there is not some better news that you are holding back for dramatic effect?" Crenshaw prompted.

"The courier said they've infiltrated a sister onto adept Zhang's medicae staff, but the man himself is still in a coma, and without his keycodes it'll be tough to access his mission logs. We'll have to wait a little longer to find out just how DeRei got on board his survey mission."

"At least we may now have an explanation for how he got off Baraspine so quickly and onto Perinetus. Though a teleporting daemon does not simplify our attempts to pin him down."

"And I can't ask Ankari for help without her finding out that I've got Viz sedated in a cell..." The inquisitor shook her head, still not fully come to terms with the tech-assassin's betrayal. Has this mission gotten to even him? Or did his loyalty to the temple come further above his loyalty to me than I hoped?

Even the Tiercel's enigmatic little tech priest hadn't been able to hide his discomfort as Vizkop was wheeled off the shuttle, rimed in Gavin's psychic ice as Sapphira disconnected him from his weapon limbs and manacled his shrunken torso to a gurney on a constant sedative drip.

"As providence would have it," Crenshaw reminded her. "We now have two other Dragon agents to source contacts from. If they are inclined to work with us."

Machairi considered. "They'll work with us as long as we've got a common enemy in DeRei. But this business of theirs with the governor's Nebula corps is incompatible. I can't afford to defend Tarran from the mechanicus as well. And we just arrested one of their brothers. They'll still be looking for evidence against us, especially after that. I suspect it's only a matter of time before the two of them home in on you."

Crenshaw clicked his prosthetic teeth. "The soulless sentience is the enemy of all, I believe the mantra goes. But I could not help but notice that Kally was not being glared at half as much. The mechanicus never did buy the story that I had simply mislaid the Ampoliros' data core..."

Machairi appraised the major, and her face twitched with the flicker of a wry smile. "The sisterhood and now the mechanicus. If Arcolin didn't have a daemon under his control that needed a blank countermeasure, some might say the only sensible option for me would be to have you killed, major."

Crenshaw shrugged. "Appease your allies while also silencing anything I might tell them? It would certainly be the safest of your potential options. We have always been each other's biggest threat."

This time Machairi did smile, almost sadly. "Perhaps our only option left is the same degree of honesty with our antagonists."

Crenshaw cocked an eyebrow. "And with the rest of your agents, Alia."

"I agree." Machairi said, suppressing a sigh. I still haven't talked properly with Tomas.

To remedy the latter, she fished her PDA out of a pocket and tapped out a single-word message to Prinzel.

Dinner?

She sent it on its way to the Tiercel's vox mast with a gentle brush of her thumb over the send rune.


+ + + + + +

Kuscelian pursed her lips slightly as she inspected the grazed mess that skidding across tarmac had left her arm in, and took a moment to marvel at the unscarred metal beyond the cap-sleeve where her arm met her bionic hand. It was important, she felt, to always maintain an appreciation for the Omnissiah's blessings: from the MIUs and data uplinks threaded through her brain, to the tiny implant that had been ticking away in her chest since birth to regulate a defective heart. Even when someone like Gavin Jenkins can turn them into a weakness.

She traced a cog-circle over her overalls, and sprayed an aerosol counterseptic onto her superficial wounds before reaching for a roll of gauze. The counterseptic was a polypeptide nano-polymer, without the astringent smell of a chemical disinfectant - and, incidentally, without the latter's tendency to fall victim to microbial resistance.

Kuscelian and Oppen sat back to back, tending to their separate tasks, and lapsing between exchanges of ideas and contemplative silence. They had a good deal to discuss. Alicia Tarran - her armour might be a dead end, but the question of Nebula tech-heresy still stood unanswered, and she might yet have data they could use. Martin Crenshaw - the blacksoul linked to a significant mechanicus disaster, now coincidentally serving under the same mistress as their first target. It was him whom they were discussing now.

<Rumination: Is it really worth it to target him?> Nikolai's code burst pulsed through the air between them with the merest prickle of electromagnetic static.

Kuscelian clicked on her own transmitter with a mental nudge, and paused for just a second to consider. There were certainly magi within the mechanicus who needed to save face against the Telepathica after a whole blackship had been lost, found, and lost again to marauding Chaos marines.

But, while Crenshaw was certainly a valuable asset given his Telepathica and inquisition connections, he was also ultimately an expendable and deniable one. Not to mention, Kuscelian herself was more relieved than outraged that the Ampoliros data core had been lost or destroyed, when the alternative had been for it to fall into the hands of the archenemy - be that the marauding Word Bearers or the Night Lord agents who had murdered inquisitor Khadir and shown up posing as two of his henchmen. Kuscelian expected that Machairi's colleagues in the imperial inquisition were still in active damage control and scapegoat mode after that one.

<I am inclined to think no.> Kuscelian pulsed back after taking another quarter second to process her thoughts, <And stop that.>

Nikolai looked up from his disassembled melta pistol, strewn across his work bench like pieces of some lethal and very expensive puzzle. <Query: what?>

<Those marker prefixes. I am not so augmented that I have forgotten how to tell a statement from a question.>

<Ironic apology: sorry.>

The two tech-priests glanced back over their shoulders, caught each other's eyes and grinned.

<I think we should prioritise action against one primary target. And for now, DeRei would appear to be highest on the threat matrix. Any action against our hosts would only help him.>

<Settled then. But we are ocularii. Even if we don't act, we must still watch everything.>

<Just like you taught me, Nik.> Kuscelian finished winding the gauze around her arm, and turned to the question that petty human emotions had been trying to keep her from asking. <And on that subject...what about secutor Vizkop?>


+ + + + + +

"Sorry to bother you, sir. But I thought you and the inquisitor should see this sooner rather than later."

Tomas towelled the sweat away from his face, leaving spots of red on the cotton from where he had skinned his knuckles against one of the weighty punching bags. Sparring without Solvan felt strange; unsatisfying; and hadn't even succeeded in distracting his thoughts. He tossed the towel aside and took a slug from his water canteen, tasting the slight coppery edge of the Arthrashastra's reclamation filters.

As he swallowed, he stood up and regarded Marc. The Makitan investigator looked like he was holding together through sheer force of will - ramrod straight and jaw set despite the dark circles under his eyes and the unironed collar of his dress shirt. He smelled of fatigue, recaff and grain liquor, and even now he seemed vaguely angry, as if the wrong word would prompt a violent outburst despite his rigid ex-enforcer demeanour.

"What have you found?" Tomas asked, his eyes dropping to the dataslate Marc was holding. "Something on DeRei's possible location?"

"No sir." Marc admitted, and his frustration was palpable. "But I've also been going through all the Adrantean documents on the Nebulas that Trist and the sisters pulled, and cross-referencing them with ordo records. Have you ever heard of an inquisitor Nalaran? Ordo Calixis, hereticus branch?"

"I might have." the Casterian captain admitted, and wondered how many hours had been required to pore through those records in addition to full shifts spent combing planetary comms traffic for signs of Arcolin.

"An inquisitor Nalaran working on Siculi disappeared under Spec Circ several years ago," Marc illuminated. "Just days before governor Tierce was kidnapped...on Siculi."

Tomas put down his water bottle. "Did Nalaran get word of the plot and get killed trying to intervene?"

"He was the plot." Marc said. "The mercenary army that was waiting for the Nebulas when they landed are a possible match for ordo records of Nalaran's assets. There's auspex captures of them making planetfall just days before the Nebulas mobilised to rescue Tierce. And the way they prepared their defences, they were quite probably expecting the Nebulas to counterattack."

"So you're saying that he took Tierce to draw the Nebulas out?" Tomas concluded. "Was he interested in the Nebulas as well?"

"My question exactly, sir. I'm trying to find evidence to get Alley off the hook...but everything I dig up just makes it worse."

Tomas massaged his shoulder to give himself a moment to think, even as he wondered at the truth of Marc's motive. The other man had not exactly been cordial with Tarran after she had advised him to euthanise his sister, in the middle of her possession on Baraspine.

The mechanicus and a rogue inquisitor, lined up against the Adrantean government. Tomas considered. Suddenly a few of DeRei's cults adding sparks to the powder keg looked a lot more consequential.

"What else did you find?" he queried. "And what do you mean when you say it makes things worse?"

"I've re-examined the list of people killed by that daemonhost during Nibenay's rebellion on Marioch. Aside from a few that break the pattern, almost all of them lent skills in some way to the Nebula project."

Tomas mentally reviewed what he knew of the Marioch rebellion. The overreaching rogue trader Nibenay turning to the powers of the warp, after the Nebulas he had lobbied for creating proved more loyal to the subsec-governor than to him...only to be betrayed by those same warp powers as well. Now the question of who Nibenay's contact with the dark powers had been was solved - Arcolin - but what the Tzeentchian traitor had hoped to get out of it remained unclear. So did whether the daemonhost massacring its own summoners had been part of the plan or not.

"This is too circumstantial to base a prosecution around." Tomas noted. For us...and fortunately also for the Lords Dragon and anyone else who has issue with governor Tierce. But that's assuming they want to do things the official way.

"I think we need to ask Alicia if there's anything else we should know about her old outfit." he decided. As he reached over to gather his kit bag, the PDA sitting on top of his deck shoes buzzed and lit up with a note from Machairi. It was short and to the point, and yet still loaded with much more than the single word implied: Dinner?


+ + + + + +

"Don't be afraid, my lady. They are only bandages."

The Arthrashastra's chapel was full of light: crystal-kissed and candle-bright, but something about it felt oppressive instead of the calm that the painted saints and golden idol should have instilled. Subject to his own quirks and customary stubbornness, Solvan had gotten his medicae bed wheeled through into the chapel, with a trio of the Arthrashastra's gilded medicae servitors on hand to attend him. They clattered quietly back and forth, their only company in the vaulted hall.

"I'm not afraid." Machairi told the prematurely aged priest, more gently than she would have answered the same question from almost anyone else. The inquisitor was gowned in flowing black, with a silver shawl pulled around her shoulders and over her hair to show suitable humility in a temple of the Emperor.

"But you do wish to unburden your soul." Solvan surmised, in a low rasp that turned into a cough. He waved away the medical servitor that came whirring forward, and wiped the flecks of red from his lips with the handkerchief gripped in one pale hand.

Machairi looked at her confessor for a long moment but said nothing. He had already waved off the team's thanks for his selfless actions, and she knew from experience that he did not like to be pitied. The Emperor, she could picture him saying, has seen fit to keep me around for a while yet.

"You reminded me once." she recalled to the wounded priest. "Blessed is the mind too small for doubt, and hallowed is the mind that can doubt and endure."

"On Hercynia." Solvan whispered, nodding his head. "I remember."

Machairi stepped over to the gurney and rested her hands on the edge of the mattress. "I can't say I feel very hallowed right now, old friend. Arcolin has slipped the net again. The Adrantean authorities and noble houses are hostile. The Sol ordos are watching my every move and I think some of them are actively working against me. My allies are no longer my allies. The Vigil suspect Crenshaw, and now the mechanicus...Vizkop..." The inquisitor let out a slow, uneasy breath. "I must confess, father, I feel alone. More alone than I thought even an inquisitor was supposed to endure. No path I can take seems like a good one."

"Then there is only one path to take." Solvan whispered, drawing a wheezing breath. "If you can't do the right thing, Alia; if all of your options seem to lead to bad outcomes no matter what you do; then make the moral choice."

Machairi paused, her expression smoothed flat out of discomfort at showing less than perfect understanding of what her old friend had meant.

"What do you mean?" she admitted at last.

"I would ask you," Solvan rasped, coughing intermittently, "To allow me to bring the Penitents here...and Alicia, and the tech priests. I want you..." The wounded priest coughed again. "To give me permission to absolve them. They have done as much as anyone else could, and suffered more. It is not just this judgement that is driving them to hunt Arcolin down. Let them know that whatever happens, they will meet the Emperor with their souls pure. And perhaps...once that is done, they can also begin to absolve each other."

"My pardon won't protect them." Machairi warned. "If the other inquisitors come after me, they'll come after my people too."

Solvan closed his eyes and nodded, slowly. With an effort, he raised himself slightly against his pillows, so that he could reach out and place his hand over the inquisitor's.

"Like I said...if you cannot do the right thing...then do the right thing, Alia."

[Atrum Daemon]

Everything was black, both inside and outside his mind. It was difficult to form thoughts, but simply drifting was comfortable.

Drifting within the void of his thoughts was always an interesting experience. The current coma he was in was not dissimilar to those he had been in when getting augmented. The usual parade of faces came to his mind. A mixed bag of good and bad experiences as well. At least in such a state there would be no nightmares. No phantoms to haunt his thoughts with things that could have been. He had acted in error, in part, in executing Josiah. But it was a decision he would have to weather. His priorities had always been set in stone. There was no wavering from it...

Hypothetical: What if you were unable to do anything but think about what could’ve been for hours…days…weeks…months…? a dry, scratchy whisper in his mind. Existential query: Would you be so certain about your decisions, your priorities, or even who and what you are anymore?

Before the secutor could process a response there was a sudden, almost shockingly loud pop as aural implants that had been remotely shut down were unceremoniously reactivated.

"Can he hear us, Gavin?" a contralto voice asked. It was familiar, but his drifting brain was having trouble putting a name to it.

"Yes, lady Machairi." said the same damaged voice from his mind. Machairi! Alia Machairi, that was it. And the damaged one was Gavin.

"Alright Sister, wake him up." Machairi's voice said.

Vizkop felt something cold snaking up through the remains of his left arm. It spread through his chest and up his face, and as it reached the level of his still-blind eyes he felt the fog recede from his brain. He could think again, and he could feel his bionic implants - or rather their absence. His MIUs and sensory implants were all in shutdown mode, apart from his ears, and his limbs appeared to have been removed entirely. It was not a pleasant feeling.

It’s not. The psyker agreed. And yet you always had a choice.

"You always had my trust, Vizkop." Machairi's voice said. There didn't seem to be any anger in it - if anything she sounded disappointed. "And I thought I had yours. So tell me, why?"

“The answer is rather simple,” Vizkop said, voice calm despite the less than fine state he was in. The lack of the familiar weight of his arms was the most jarring thing. “My loyalty always lies with the Mechanicus first. I thought I made that clear, Inquisitor. But humor me, if you will, with this thought: what would have happened had Josiah lived? Such rampant destruction of such a valuable and irreplaceable machine is tech-heresy of the highest degree. The details will reach invested parties eventually. And we are operating largely through the grace of one of the Forge's chief Magi. At best, the man's head would have been demanded as recompense for the destruction and we continue on our way. At worst, the entire operation becomes much muddier to wade through without official assistance. But ultimately...I executed Josiah because I am a protector of the Mechanicus and an upholder of the laws therein. And his brazen disregard for both of those could not be suffered.”

All throughout, his voice never rose above a nominal tone. He was simply speaking the truth as he observed it. He was a man of faith and conviction and until that point those things had not come into conflict with his assistance to Machairi. But now it had, as it inevitably must have. Vizkop had made his peace long ago with his life. Whatever the decision that was made... He would consider it just only because it came from her.

"Murdering an archmagos with all his knowledge is tech-heresy of the highest degree." Vizkop heard a quiet sigh, which probably wasn't supposed to be picked up by non-augmented hearing. "People like us can't afford to treat anything as black and white, Vizkop - not ever. I thought I made that clear to you. I also thought you would trust me to use those two Ocularii to keep the forge off our back...and to make DeRei and his rogue technopath our scapegoat if necessary."

"And you trust two agents of the Dragons to be that useful to you? I thought you had more sense than that."

"And." Ah, there it was - the anger. The tightening of the vocal cords; the slight drop in pitch. "I thought you would trust me to revenge one of my people when they die in my service."

“Then do so and be done,” now his tone was changing. A hint of dry exasperation entered his voice. The remains of the drugs in his system were making him fair shade more irritable than usual. “If you intend to execute me or let Gavin rip out my neural implants, or whatever else you have in mind, then get on with it."

He registered a discrepancy in the soft metallic clicks as Sapphira meticulously worked her chaplet’s adamantium prayer beads at an accelerated rate…which he was unable to quantify.

"It would be justified." Machairi replied - calmly, but with a hint of warning. "Wuziarch acted impulsively, and I wouldn't have ordered him to do what he did, but he bought us time to reach DeRei and his psyker. Whereas you acted impulsively, bypassed my judgement and everyone else's, and killed him."

"I acted in poor judgment, this I understand. I have not been made entirely a fool by my convictions yet. And I am prepared for whatever punishment or penance you have in mind. But allow me to provide you a piece of advice from my experience dealing with my own: it is better for your fortunes not to lie to them. Especially to those you would count as even prospective allies.”

Now it was his turn to sigh and it was a rather defeated sound. The exhalation of a man aware of the gravity of his misstep. “I trust you a great deal, Alia. Far more than I trust most and more than any of my peers would find it sensible to trust an Inquisitor. That same trust is the reason I gave myself over without a struggle."

"I know." Machairi replied quietly. "But this is my investigation, Vizkop. My agents' lives are mine, not yours. For the sake of everything else you've done, I'm not going to have you executed. But you'll have no more part in this investigation. You'll be staying here until DeRei's been run to ground - and then I'll decide what to do with you."

“Assuming that decision is still yours to make by the end of all this.” It was not a threat, simply a statement. The anomalous powers he served had reaches that often far extended that of others. “I wish you luck and, for what it's worth, will pray for your success.”

"I wish I could believe you, secutor."

“I will continue to keep you in my prayers, Vizkop.” Sapphira quietly assured him, sad and solemn as she gently rested a hand over his heart. She hesitated and then kissed his brow. “Be at rest, and may your Omnissiah grant you the serenity that you deserve."

Some unspoken signal was given, and Vizkop felt liquid diffusing through the tube in his arm once again, this time bringing the comfortable numbness back into his torso and truncated limbs.

[dakkagor]

It was a quiet trip from the docking umbilical to the Tiercel’s airlock and on to the spinal corridor. The rest of the team were still berthed on the Arthrashastra, and Machairi’s solitary tech-priest had sequestered himself in the enginarium, as was his wont. No doubt the old Navigator was locked away too - probably sleeping, which was where he seemed to spend every hour not actively involved in piloting, as far as Tomas could recall.

Machairi hadn’t told Tomas where to go, but the captain could make an educated guess - the inquisitor’s cabin would have been improper, and the crew galley too spacious and impersonal, which left the conference cabin at the ship’s prow. A servitor shuffling the opposite way to Tomas, on its way back down to the crew deck, told him that his guess had been correct. The wheel-lock door to the conference room was closed when he reached it, so he announced himself with a knock.

“Come in, Tom.” Machairi’s voice answered, muffled by the metal.

Letting himself in, Tomas found the cabin lights dipped to ambient, leaving a row of vanilla-scented candles to illuminate the length of the conference table. They flickered in the draught caused by the quietly-rumbling air circulators, painting yellow streaks across a pair of silver dish covers that had been set either side of the table’s centre point. The camera screens set around the curved wall showed the cliff-like flank of the Arthrashastra, fixed in place and stretching away along the topside of the view. Its running lights swamped out the star field, turning the horizon an empty black.

Machairi was busy pouring amasec from a crystal decanter. The inquisitor was more plainly dressed than usual, with her only concession to finery being a jewelled clasp that held her pleated hair in place. She glided round to the other side of the table to place the amasec glass down, and lifted the dish cover to reveal a plate of pulped tubers and steamed vegetables, arrayed around a shortcrust pie of the kind that was sold everywhere on Casteria; from the market street-vendors and dive pubs up to the castles of the noble families.

“I had the servitor programmed specially.” the inquisitor explained, with an almost impish smile. “But if you want to run your detector wand over it for old time’s sake I won’t be offended.”

Tomas stepped across the threshold with a sheepish smile of his own. He was quietly glad he had decided to dress down for evening: a tailored shirt with epaulettes and formal trousers, and a pair of his old dress uniform shoes.

"If its authentic, it’s probably undetectably lethal anyway."

He stepped around the table, and out of old habit, pulled Machairi's chair back for her, before seating himself. The smell coming up from the table was delightful, but also somewhat melancholic. The regiment’s cooks would always make an effort to prepare something like this every Founding Day. His smile became wistful as he poured himself a drink and then raised the glass, which Machairi mirrored.

"Our agents."

"And absent friends."

They drank, and refilled the glasses before starting to eat. It always took a little time for the barriers the two put up around each other to fall away, and Tomas was the first to cross the no-mans land of the dinner table.

"How are you holding up Mach?"

The inquisitor smiled quietly and rested her fork on the edge of her plate. “Do you remember the back-streets in Hyrix? When we were running from the cultists, the xenos and that vigiles captain who was convinced we were working for the genestealers? I don’t feel quite as out of control of the situation as I was then, but it comes close.”

She steepled her fingers and contemplated them for a moment, before looking back up at Tomas.

"You deserve the truth, Tom. Things are only likely to get worse. If we catch up to DeRei in time, then our allies lose their motive for playing nice with us. Even if I sacrificed Crenshaw to appease the Sisters and the Telepathica."

Her face was unreadable as she made the suggestion.

"And if, on the other hand, we don't manage to stop DeRei?" She parted her steepled hands and spread them, letting the significant silence hang for a heartbeat. "Assuming that we survived, there are at least two inquisitors ready to pounce on us. I might be able to make a deal with De Shilo, now that I can prove how Emerald smuggled Pembroke off Solomon on his watch...but I have nothing on Yannick. It'll be tough. It might come down to just us against them. So..."

The inquisitor folded her hands in her lap.

"I need to ask how you are holding up, Tom. Of all my team, you probably have the least to prove. If you can't, or won't deal with what's coming, then I can arrange for you to be transferred back to Casteria. They won't be able to touch you there. You have my word."

Tomas leaned back in the chair, his hand over his mouth. He had expected anything other than this. He thought for a second, gathering his wits.

"Mach...you know what I swore to you, that I would follow you to hell and back, no matter what. How could I live out my years and face the Emperor at the moment of judgement and say I had done my duty if I abandon you now?" He smiled wryly. "No, Inquisitor I'm afraid you are stuck with me now."

Tomas knew that the inquisitor was no mean actress when she wanted to be, but he was also fairly certain that her touched, slightly pensive smile was genuine.

"I thought you would say that." she nodded. "And I'm grateful. But I need you to be honest with yourself, not just with me. Are you sure you can do your duty?"

She unlaced her fingers and laid her hands on the table.

"I understand what you were thinking and feeling when Solvan jumped on that grenade. But at that moment our agents didn't need another loose cannon hell-bent on revenge. They needed a leader. Can you give them that?"

Tomas sighed. "I can. That silly bastard, jumping on that damn grenade..."

"You're going to call him a silly bastard?" Machairi countered, the corners of her mouth twitching upward.

"Pot, kettle, I know. I've seen others from my unit pull similar stunts to what I did, and they normally end up on the regiment's honour rolls by sundown. Its a bloody miracle I survived, so I promise on the Holy Throne, I won't be pushing my luck again. And, sorry, for what its worth."

"Accepted." Machairi said, with dignity. "Because you're no good to me on an honour roll, Tom; if you can still handle it then I need you here."

She breathed out.

"Case in point, the agents tell you things that they might not tell me. Solvan wants to absolve the penitents, but I want to know if it'll be enough. Is there anything about them you've seen that I haven't?"

Tomas shook his head. "I've talked to Solvan about his plan, and as much I wish we could take that burden from the Penitents, it's not our absolution to give. I'm worried its coming from his own fears about this fate after...after his injury. I love the codgery old bastard like a brother, but I don't think Marc or Kally would accept it unless the job was done."

Machairi considered for a moment, then nodded thanks at the news. "Hopefully they'll get their wish soon. Nyl might be able to talk Sonder round. I'll have to see about Black."

The inquisitor toyed with her fork, thoughtfully.

"And the rest of our people? I know Sapphira for one is less calm than she lets on. She's been shutting herself away with that cyber-mastiff as a distraction."

"She has?"

"Not right now. I sent her and Glabrio to get Carson ready to meet the Nebulas, since we unfortunately need him there in person to repeat his evidence. Sapphira's determined not to have another breakdown, and you know how it never hurts Glabrio's ego to be entrusted with something important."

"Well, do bear in mind he's our only link back into the Arbites now. Keeping him sweet is a good plan, and you can do that by keeping Sapphira sweet."

Machairi chuckled. "Am I the only one that thinks that they make quite the odd couple?"

"Hmm." Tomas toyed with a chunk of gravy covered meat. "Odd, maybe, but happy and less. . . dramatic than our other pair of lovebirds."

"Crenshaw and Kally." Machairi shook her head. "Atleast its a good outlet for stress. This is a difficult job at the best of times."

"Especially this job. Kelly, Solvan, Vizkop and that blowhard Josiah. This has been our most difficult mission yet, but considering the prey...Arcolin was never a simple peddler of warp harm from some low-hive sink or a high-spire dilettante."

"No." Machairi agreed grudgingly. "When I'm feeling optimistic I feel like we might have rattled him. Compared to his moves on Marioch and Baraspine, that last one was sloppy. But if we don't run him to ground quickly, we'll have three or four powerful organisations bearing down on us."

She stabbed her fork into a cube of pie meat and twisted it.

"It seems like a good time to call in everything while I still can. One last throw. I'll send everything we've gathered so far to the conclaves at Tephaine and Calix Sector HQ. And I'll call up Avani Kol to see what she can do about the PR front on Tephaine. And since Canoness Kiana has mobilised every Vigil sister who isn't already out undercover, I plan to enlist their help - all of it. If the Nebulas co-operate then perhaps we can still salvage this, but if they're as dangerous as our mechanicus friends think they are, then they won't show up to talks without a show of force."

"And how do we transport several thousand battle sisters when they normally just smuggle around on ore haulers?"

"I think there's one more favour I can call in, if lord Maxillium is still willing to backup my mandate. His divine majesty's imperial navy."

"Some naval firepower would be damn useful." Tomas agreed, dabbing at his lips with a napkin. "Lord Maxillium might also provide us a link into the Navy's intelligence apparatus, which would be useful right now. I'll call in the favours I have left with the Commissariat's office on Scintillia; at the very least that should give us some idea about the Nebulas' deployment in recent history."

Machairi nodded agreement. "I'd appreciate that."

"I have this awful suspicion that there is some pattern here we can't see, but Arcolin can, some piece of information that ties all his attacks and victims together. And I would be willing to put Tarran and the Nebulas right at the heart of the matter."

Machairi frowned. "How so? That heretic Nibenay might have had a hand in the Nebulas' creation, but that was long before DeRei joined him for his uprising on Marioch. DeRei's already tried to goad us into fighting people who should be on our side."

"Well, there's something Marc has dug up." Tomas pulled a slimline dataslate from his coat. "Inquisitor Nalaran, Ordo Hereticus, Calixis Conclave. Remember him from that kerfuffle with the Shattered Hand a few years back?"

"Jeri Nalaran?" Machairi raised her eyebrows, looking genuinely surprised. "What's he got to do with any of this?"

"Well, Marc has been comparing data captures with his known operatives, mercenary assets and cadre, and they match up near perfectly with records of the fighting on Siculi, specifically the rebel forces. I double checked, and it fits. He just had unit badges removed, but the force composition is near identical."

"He applied for a Special Circumstances warrant and dropped off the auspex a while ago, if I remember right." Machairi recalled.

"Right, but I have nothing registered with the Tricorn about him sanctioning that op, and capturing a sub-sector Governer is a damn radical way of going about it."

"The Siculi incident." Machairi said flatly. "You're telling me Black thinks that was Nalaran?"

"I am. The evidence is solid. There's more, though."

Tomas paused and then changed the page on the dataslate, bringing up the other 'interesting' tidbit.

Machairi reached across the table to pull the dataslate towards her. She stared down at it for a long moment. "Very funny, Tom. That's my interim report on the Nibenay case, after Sidonis left me to pick up the pieces." She tapped the screen. "And that's the list of casualties from Nibenay's daemonhost that I drew up."

"Yeah. We know who summoned it for him now, our favourite warp cultist of the hour. However, compare and contrast with the list of people our new Mechanicus friends suspected or outright knew were involved in the creation of the Nebulas."

Machairi did so, and her skeptically raised eyebrow immediately pulled down into a frown. "There's a lot of matches. Who compiled this?"

"Marc again. Though I did note a few military officers he missed, associated with training and logistics. All of the victims, barring some collateral, bodyguards and the like, were involved in the Nebula project. That is sniper accuracy for a rampaging daemonhost."

Machairi began tapping her fingernails on the table. "My working theory was that the daemon cored out Nibenay's organisation to take revenge on its summoners. Now you're saying that either the daemon or the ones controlling it...and this must now include Arcolin...you're saying they wanted to completely obscure the creation of the Nebulas?"

"Right. And if that doesn't give you a case of the screaming frights, I don't know what will. I get the awful feeling we have stumbled onto someone's long term game, and most of the moves have been made."

Machairi pushed back her chair. "Under the circumstances, I think we should skip dessert. As soon as Solvan's finished, let Tarran know that we're moving. I'll wake up our Navigator and have him prepare for a side-along warp jump."

[Azazeal849]

The Arthrashastra,
En-route to Perinetus apogee jump point

Vincent rested his shoulders against the panelled oak of the crewman’s passage, turning the rosary beads over in his organic hand. He closed his fist around them and let out a long breath, running the hand over the faded knife tattoo that was beginning to show through his thinning hair. He pushed himself off the wall as the isolation doors in front of him parted on their oiled runners. Marc stepped through, furiously massaging his eyebrows with one hand. He snapped the hand down violently as soon as he registered Vincent.

“Carson?” the old soldier guessed, as the gilded doors slid closed and the blinking motion auspex above them reset.

“Frak Carson.” Marc snarled, in a tone that brooked no further inquiries. His fists were curling and uncurling as he crossed the corridor, as if he had just been in a fight and was spoiling for another, but Vincent noted that his knuckles were unbloodied.

“What are you doing here?” the former investigator shot at Vince.

“Waiting for you.” the ex-Guardsman rumbled. “Are the other kids coming or what?”

“Kelly’s probably already on her way up with Glabrio.” Marc said curtly, folding his arms. “Don’t know about Kally.”

“Word on the grapevine is you’d made some breakthrough. Must have been a good one to have Machairi and Prinzel retiring to the Tiercel to chat it over in secret.”

Marc’s jaw worked as he chewed his tongue, but his spring-taut posture seemed to unwind slightly as Vince turned to the subject of work. “I managed to link up Nibenay, the Nebulas and a missing inquisitor called Nalaran. Nibenay lost control of the Nebulas when they turned out to be more loyal to sub-sec governor Tierce than to him. So he got Arcolin to summon him a daemonhost for his Marioch rebellion, but he lost control of that too.”

“With you so far.” Vincent nodded.

“It cored out his organisation, but focused on people who helped create the Nebulas. So despite the fact that the Nebulas did most of the purging of Nibenay’s Marioch cults, this daemon protected them by hiding their ties to a heretic creator - even though it had an explicit vendetta against Nibenay. This guy Nalaran must have thought it was weird as well - that incident on Siculi where some rebels ambushed and the sub-sec governor and took him hostage? That was him. No better way to draw the Nebulas out than to kidnap the guy they’re sworn to protect.”

"The rebels set an ambush and wiped half the Nebulas, ja?” Vincent recalled. “It didn’t do this guy Nalaran any good though ‘cos they wiped his guys in return. What’s this got to do with Arcolin though?”

“I can’t prove it’s got anything to do with him, yet.” Marc growled, grinding his teeth. “But either way, the daemon he summoned protected a fighting force that was put together by a Chaos-tainted maniac, and now works as a bodyguard to the sub-sec governor. And everyone who’s tried to dig into their origins from the ordos or the ad mech has ended up dead.”

Vince chuckled darkly. "Well fok, damn, and set fire to it! No wonder the boss said something about callin‘ up the whole Silent Vigil."

“The Nebulas aren’t traitors!” a vehement voice interjected. Alicia Tarran had rounded the intersection with the crew berths and was looking mortified as she strode towards them. The former soldier was wearing one of the functional jumpsuits that were her standard since abandoning her rogue-trader finery, and had her bulky Nebula pistol holstered at her hip.

“You got invited to Solvan’s meeting as well?” Marc asked, rather coldly.

“We all did.” Alicia replied. “Even those two tech-priests. You’re wrong about the Nebulas, Marc. I’ve fought with pretty much all of them from colonel Tarquinius downward. They’d never betray governor Tierce. Throne, they even psych-screen the recruits to weed out the glory boys. And none of them are arrogant - not after Siculi.”

“Sorry if I don’t take your advice at face value after what happened last time.” Marc deadpanned.

Alicia looked as if he had slapped her. “Marc…I dunno how many more times I can say this. I’m sorry I steered you wrong on Kelly. We were able to work past that down on Perinetus, weren't we?”

“Having your back against frakking cultists doesn’t mean I forgive you.”

“Well perhaps it’s time you did. I already told you where I went wrong: from what you told me over the vox, I thought…we had to protect everyone else.” The tall woman sighed, tiredly. “I just meant -”

“Aye.” Marc snarled. “I’m sure you meant well. But I don’t deal with what people mean when they do something. Ella might have endless forgiveness for you Alley, but I don‘t.”

“You’re one to preach!” Alicia snapped. “I’m sure you didn’t mean to blatantly manipulate me on Saros either, when you told me the one thing that you knew would send me after Arcolin.”

Vincent stepped between the two, his organic arm raised to hold Marc back; his bionic one raised to ward off Alicia.

“Solvan’s waiting for us.” the old soldier rumbled softly. “Save this for after, ja?”

“I know what he wants.” Marc said stonily. “He wants to make sure we can still function as a team. Unless he plans to vaporise Carson, and strike off the two Dragon agents before they try and avenge Vizkop, for a start…” He glared past Vince at Alicia. “I think he’s being optimistic.”

Vincent’s good eye narrowed as he ground his teeth.

“Look now, kid.” he growled, his voice suddenly low and dangerous. “Solvan saved both of us after Terra. And he saved Kel. He took a fokkin’ grenade for you all down on the forge world, and somehow he fokkin’ lived. I know you’re pissed off ’cos of Arcolin and whatever that shitbird Carson’s been saying in his latest, but don’t you ever doubt Solvan in front of me, you clear?”

Marc pulled his eyes away from Alicia to meet Vincent’s mismatched glare, and then dropped to the old soldier's accusingly pointed finger. He opened his mouth, but closed it again without being able to find a response.

“An’ while you’re listening,” Vincent rumbled. “The problem ain’t just with the others, kid. If Kally-girl can be civil with Alley, so the fok can you. Ella’s said she’s worried about how you are when you’re not working, an’ I’m hardly the first fokkin’ person she comes to with her problems. Even Kel’s runnin’ out of patience with how much of a shit brother you’re being lately.”

At his last words, Marc’s face hardened into stone.

“You sound like Carson, Vince.” he spat. “And there’s something I never thought I’d frakking say.”

He turned on his heel and stalked away from them.


+ + + + + +

"I have called you all hear to tell you a truth.”

Solvan‘s voice echoed across the chapel‘s vaulted ceiling, lending it a strength that his bed-bound body could not. Propped up on his gurney before the golden idol of the Emperor, the old priest made the sign of the Aquila across his bandaged chest. He unclasped his hands, and then laced them again in the mechanicus sign of the holy cog.

“It’s a truth which I think even you children of the Omnissiah will accept."

Standing incongruously in this sanctuary of the imperial faith, their white-edged cowls pulled up over their heads to show respect, were the two ocularii. Kuscelian stood beside Sapphira - of all people - with her bionic hand hidden inside the clasped sleeves of her robe. Nikolai stood on her other side. The two accepted Solvan’s attention with a quite nod.

"The truth is this.” Solvan rasped as he regarded the men and women assembled in the Arthrashastra chapel. “Whatever we do, in the grand scheme of the universe, will never matter. The universe is too big, and the universe does not care. But it still matters that we do it.”

He let the words hang for a brief moment.

“It matters to our comrades, to our families, and to the immortal Emperor who judges our souls. I cannot speak for Him on Terra, but I will willingly submit my soul to his judgement for what I do now, in the hope that he will find my actions worthy. And in His name, by the authority that His church has seen fit to give me…”

With an effort, the wounded priest raised his right hand.

“I welcome you all back into his grace. I absolve you for your sins on Saros, and declare the penance upon your souls fulfilled. Imperator vult.”

He traced an Aquila in the air, the sweep of its wings enveloping not only the six penitents, but all of Machairi’s agents who stood beside them, and Alley, and the two tech priests.

“And now, I command you to absolve each other. You will not be able to work everything out here and now, but in His name, I charge you to take your first steps.”

His gaze lingered for a moment on Sapphira before sliding across to Alicia, but when he turned towards Marc the former investigator shook his head.

"With the greatest respect, father,” he said levelly, “We're just trying to paper over the cracks. This can only be fixed after we kill DeRei. And Carson."

Vincent snarled under his breath, profaning the sanctuary with a violent oath.

"Marc...!" Kelly called after him, but her brother had already strode out of the chapel. There was a heavy silence.

“I do not know if it is my place to speak…” said a voice, breaking the razor-edged quiet. Kuscelian reached up and took down her hood, so that Machairi’s agents could see the apparently earnest expression on her round face. “But I think we owe you an apology. I am fully aware of how badly we nearly broke things by attacking your team, and how it may have contributed to the heretic‘s escape. If agent Black thinks we need to kill DeRei to mend this, then we will assist you. We will look into where his cultists have been sourcing the melta and plasma weaponry that you recovered. We could also delve into weapon production quotas and shipment destination records to see if they match with the expected PDF re-armament after Nibenay’s heresy. Mars stands with you against the enemy.”

Ella shuffled closer to Kelly, who was tugging at her fingernails with her teeth. "Marc was right about attacking the wrong end of the problem,” she whispered, “But...how far would the Emperor want us to go?"

"What do you mean?" Kelly snapped, a little more sharply than she had intended. Her eyes were still fixed on the chapel door.

Ella brushed her fringe, pensively. "...What's the perfect crime?"

The reference to her and Marc‘s former line of work belatedly grabbed Kelly‘s attention, and she turned to give the young astropath her full concentration.

"One without a suspect." she replied after a moment.

"No,” Ella disagreed. “One without a victim."

Kelly blinked. "That's what we're trying to achieve. Machairi won‘t set us on the Nebulas unless she has to, not when we still don‘t have any idea they‘re even connected to Arcolin."

"I just…” Ella hugged her arms, shuffling uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I’ve been reading the Tarot, and I don't like what my cards are telling me. The two of monasteria means something new beginning; something important. It's always there, whatever other cards I draw. Like something's coming and we can't stop it."


+ + + + + +

Coseflame, feudal world
Two weeks later

The orbital elevators were the one, incongruous piece of high technology rising above the feudal world of Coseflame, tied to bloated stockpiler orbitals that hung above the globe like tethered balloons.

The mining world was used to ore haulers and refinery ships trawling in and out of its orbital docks, but it was not used to seeing warships. The HDMS Impiger was a doubly unusual sight; first because it served with battlefleet Ixaniad and not the home fleet of Adrantis, and second because it came alone. Generally, a heavy cruiser peeling off from its squadron towards a feudal world had one guessable purpose - recrewing. Or, to give it the less diplomatic name that most space traders used, impressment.

Unbeknownst to the merchant traders, recrewing the Impiger was only a convenient coincidence. It was certainly clever, to pick a time when many smaller ships would be milling around the cruiser. And the smaller ships that weren't, would be actively avoiding it rather than trying to ask any questions.

Of course, Emperor only knew who had told this inquisitor Machairi that the Impiger was actually due to arrive at Coseflame.

Oblivious to the unfolding subterfuge, the usual chaos triggered by an approaching warship continued unabated. Merchantmen - who doubtless paid well for advance notice of Navy vessels - were uncoupling from their berths and scarpering before the Impiger made orbit, or else were busy revising their crew rosters and hiding half their men down on Coseflame. Elspeth von Scharn did not enjoy grieving the very people who paid their tithes for the Navy's protection; nor was she oblivious to how counterproductive it could be. But the Holy Fleet was at war everywhere, casualties were taken, and there were never enough experienced spacers who could be recruited through volunteering alone.

Of late, Elspeth had began to empathise on a more personal level with people who were pulled off one ship and onto another through no fault of their own. Her last action, the crusade to retake Coreltis from the archenemy, had been a disaster - and one that could be laid firmly on the shoulders of an inquisitor like the one she was about to meet. Elspeth could still picture him (https://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?217962-Hearts-of-Darkness-IC&p=3977954&viewfull=1#post3977954), swaggering onto the bridge of the Vehemens with that arco-flagellant murder drone at his side. It had been almost as if he had wanted to remind them all of holy judgement, while simultaneously proclaiming that everyone within reach of the monster lived or died by his forbearance.

But he rushed down to the planet, and took the archenemy's prize right to them. He gave them the power to drag that whole planet screaming into the empyrean. There had been no question that heads would have to roll after such a debacle. But the inquisitor was dead; the Blood Angels captain who had accompanied the crusade was dead; even the Guard commander was missing in action, along with all the troops that had been unfortunate enough to be planetside when the Warp closed its jaws around Coreltis. Only Elspeth had been left, powerless to intervene despite the city-levelling firepower of her cruiser squadron. And so it was that commodore Nasim Tehrani now commanded the 5th cruiser squadron, while a demoted and disgraced Elspeth watched another take her place on the Vehemens from the deck of its sister ship, Impiger.

Both ships were of the Lunar class, but they couldn't have been more different. Different architecture, different men with different traditions - even the brass plaques that bore the ship's coat of arms were strange. The embossed banners beneath them proclaimed Nulla fugae. The sacred words of the Vehemens had been Qui tangit frangitur.

It could be worse, the former commodore reminded herself sternly. The Holy Fleet didn't just press-gang merchantmen into service. As the Navy's ships grew older and more battle-worn, they also had to conscript increasing numbers of unskilled labourers; poor men and women who were rounded up to accomplish with brute force what the ship's machinery no longer could, on the seemingly increasing number of systems that the tech-priests could build, but would not admit that they no longer had the skill to repair. Officers rarely ventured down into the chattel decks, but Elspeth was under no illusions about how wretched life was down there. If it were not, the Navy would not routinely lace the conscripts' food with opiates designed to keep them dazed, biddable and impotent enough to stave off an epidemic of rapes, murders and suicides.

Yes, it could be much worse. The press-ganged merchantmen could be with the chattel; just as she could be in a much worse position than demotion. At least she was still the captain of a ship. Not her ship, but this ship was hers now.

Of course, just as a captain might resist a new ship, a ship would often resist a new captain. Elspeth could sense it from all of her bridge officers - even, she fancied, from the midshipmen and ratings who stood to attention as she passed by. They were uncertain, wary; trying to figure out their new commander. A couple, she suspected, would openly challenge her. Foremost on that list of suspicions was her new executive officer, Banastre Thurlow. He seemed to smile too often, and laugh too easily.

Thurlow was a lean, coffee-skinned man in his youthful prime, with chiselled features and a rogueish shadow of stubble around his mouth and jawline. As Elspeth understood it, he had grown up on the pleasure world of Axinite and purchased his officer's commission primarily because of too much family wealth and not enough to do. And yet, by all accounts he had proved both talented and enthusiastic in a command role, and had turned the Impiger's marine complement in particular into a ruthless, well-drilled force. A self-made man, then, and such men seldom let their ambition rest on its laurels for long. In conversation with Elspeth he was nothing but friendly, with the kind of carefree attitude and flamboyant mannerisms that might endear or irritate, depending on one's personal attitude towards pleasure worlders. Perhaps the lively young officer was genuinely just trying to establish a rapport. But naïveté had consequences in the imperial navy.

"So how do you want to play this, Eppie?"

There it was, the casual pushing of boundaries. He never showed such blatant unprofessionalism in front of the other officers and crew, which was a mercy, but it also made it harder for her to rebuke him without appearing pedantic.

"The plan, Mr Thurlow." Elspeth answered, hoping the slight emphasis would make her point for her. "Is to see to this inquisitor Machairi's request and then send her on her way, as soon as is polite and practical." After hosting one inquisitor had led to the debacle at Coreltis, Elspeth found it difficult not to feel a sense of foreboding at the idea of crossing paths with another.

"Perhaps we should be generous, rather than simply accommodating?"

"Accommodating your enemies just tends to make them greedy."

"But if you manage to make an enemy into a friend, you're still one enemy down are you not? And besides, even an inquisitor doesn't stand alone. No commander does."

Was that a veiled attack? Elspeth wondered. "What do you mean, Mr Thurlow." she replied, her tone neutral.

"I mean she has a crew, just like a Navy ship - and ratings tell different stories from officers. You host the inquisitor, and let me talk to her team over drinks. I'll see if I can work something out."

Elspeth considered for a moment, and decided that it was not worth being contrary about a good idea, just to score a cheap point against her new XO.

"Very well, Mr Thurlow." she nodded. Thurlow returned the nod, with a smile.

They passed beneath another gleaming coat of arms as the gold doors of the praetorium pistoned open before them. Nulla fugae, the ship's gilded motto proclaimed. No escape. Elspeth tried not to think of it as an omen.


+ + + + + +

The shuttle transfer gave the Impiger's bridge officers ample time to study their new associates' ships, as they matched course and speed a few hundred kilometres off the cruiser's left flank. The inquisitor's vessel was a sleek, aquiline void runner, with the high-sided blade of the sprint trader keeping station behind. They're not here because they lack for transport, then. Elspeth deduced. They're here because they need firepower.

It was true enough that few things quite matched the intimidation factor of a Lunar-class cruiser, but an inquisitor who felt entitled to commandeer such an asset did not sit well with Elspeth. Just a single ship and its captain this time, at least, she thought with wry humour. Not a squadron flagship.

Streaming the hull camera feeds to the globular hololith above her table, Elspeth watched the shuttle's progress until it was safely berthed, and then waited as her honoured guests were led up to the captain's praetorium. When the doors swung open, Elspeth was glad to see that the escort they had been given was suitable: two junior officers, a squad of armsmen, even the ship's chief confessor with his clockwork cherub dragging its perfumed censer in his wake. Thurlow was already standing - and no doubt enjoying the slyly embellished ensign's disguise he was wearing - but as custom dictated, Elspeth waited for the inquisitor and her retinue to enter the reception gallery before she herself rose to her feet.

Von Scharn didn't look at the inquisitor, garbed in flowing silver cloth. Everyone else was looking at the inquisitor, and she wouldn't see anything they didn't. She looked at the retinue. They were a mixed bunch - a bearded man with an officer's bearing who stood close to the inquisitor's side; a tall, sour-looking man in a double-breasted suit; a robed official with aristocratic features; a roguish, square-jawed man who was irreverently chewing candies; and two close-visored stormtroopers.

Some looked tired, others guarded - almost angry. On edge. Whatever mission they were involved in, it clearly wasn't going well. Von Scharn exhaled, though she suppressed the urge to smile. Advantage, mine.

"Lady Machairi." Elspeth said, making a carefully measured bow. "Please, make yourself comfortable. Mr Thurlow here will look after your men in the reception gallery."

The inquisitor inclined her head graciously. "Thank you captain. Lord Maxillium will be joining us, if you don't mind."

Elspeth reassessed slightly at the challenge, appraising the robed man whom the inquisitor had indicated. A lord, is he? Working out the hierarchy between the three of us is going to be amusing. "Of course."

[Imperial1917]

The captain was not a tall woman, Trist noted, and both he and the statuesque Machairi towered over her until they took their seats on opposite sides of the table. Nevertheless she had a strong but relaxed bearing - wider at the shoulders than the hips; lean; comfortable in her own skin. Her dark red hair was pinned up at the back of her head, contrasting with her pale, lightly freckled skin. Her blue eyes hovered over Trist, but not long enough to appear impolite instead of simply interested. A moment later, a civilian butler without Navy rank stripes on his cuffs emerged from a side door, with three glasses and a carafe of wine.

"This one's from Axinite I believe." the captain said, as the butler poured deep red swirls of wine into Trist and Machairi's goblets. "Outside the Adrantis sub. Outside the Calixis sector, even. One of the things about Navy life is that the rotating supply ports always keep the fare interesting."

The captain had a lyrical accent - one designed to take a language of hard consonants and polysyllabic words and somehow make them flow softly together. It reminded Trist a little of Kriegan gothic, or perhaps Sancta Heroican.

"I had heard that your personal favourites were from the Tandem province of your homeworld, captain." Machairi said, delicately folding her hands.

The captain cocked an eyebrow. "You've done your research."

"I consider it polite to learn something of the people I will be meeting with."

"Really." The captain stroked the stem of her glass. "And what did you learn, inquisitor?"

Machairi took a measured sip from her own glass, and nodded approvingly. "You're right, it does taste interesting. I learned that Elspeth von Scharn was born on Ichabarr, trained at the Navy officer's academy, and gained her first posting on the HDMS Susceptor. I learned that she rose through the ranks with a mixture of the right training, the right contacts, and above all the right enthusiasm and perception for void warfare."

"And fell just as rapidly," the captain smiled self-deprecatingly, flatly refusing to be flattered.

"As a scapegoat for the Coreltis debacle." Machairi defended. "Which was a grotesquely unfair appropriation of the blame; everyone who actually knew you stated during the investigation that you did not believe in leaving things to chance, and yet everything about Coreltis had been a reckless gamble."

"Thank you for your support." the captain nodded. "And I appreciate that I probably look rather ungrateful to be rebuffing it. So I'll be candid with you, inquisitor. Last time I worked with the inquisition, an over-zealous fool screwed up, handed vital information to the enemy and got the planet destroyed. I only lost my commodore's stripes, so I got off lightly - but a lot of other people didn't. I hope you can see why I'm not particularly happy at the prospect of working with you people again."

A light silence fell, the kind that comes with an uncomfortable truth that everyone was presently aware of but was still unprepared for someone to actually say. It was, Trist reflected as he swirled the contents of his glass contemplatively, something that happened at every level of society, the high and the low.

Sipping from the glass, he deliberately avoided eye contact with either of the women, instead seeming to look in the distance and savor the vintage. In truth, he found it unpalatably bitter, but he made the best of it. When he set the glass back down on the table, the remaining amount was the delicate amount that, at least among nobility, screamed for more to be added even though plenty remained; in fact, little had been drunk at all. The butler took the cue, moving to refill the delicate balloon. As he did, Trist leaned back in his chair and rested his arms on the chair’s rests.

“Your position is appreciated, captain.” he replied carefully, glancing to the Navy officer, to the inquisitor, and back again. “Nevertheless, your assistance is appreciated.”

At that moment the butler finished his task, the final addition of vintage merging virtually without sound with the body already in the glass. As he backed away, however, the young lord caught the servant’s attention with a subtle motion with one hand. Another flick and the man set down the bottle on the table next to the freshly filled glass with only the slightest of surprised pauses. Seeing nothing more to be done, he bowed and slipped out the side door.

"That's nice to know, sir." the captain said to Trist, smiling blandly. "But in the interest of...ah...not leaving things to chance, would you be so kind as to tell me a little more of what this is all about? If nothing else, pulling the Impiger off-station muddles up a lot of people's timetables, and I'm going to have to write and tell them all why."

"Of course." Machairi said, conciliatory rather than imperious as she put down her glass. "We have a subsector warrant out for a daemon consorter named DeRei."

"I've heard." von Scharn nodded. "And I understand you've crossed wires with the local forces a couple of times while hunting him down."

"Yes." Machairi agreed simply. "We also crossed wires with a parallel investigation, which is what brings us here."

"I see." The captain paused to take a measured sip. "If you don't mind me asking, who are your friends investigating that they need a whole Navy cruiser to back them up?"

"The Nebula corps."

Von Scharn's thin eyebrows raised for a moment, then settled. "Goodness me, the subsec-governor's own Rapid Reaction Force." She cocked her head towards Trist, singling out the Adrantean noble. "What do you make of that, my lord?"

Trist played at mulling over the question for a moment. In truth, it had occurred to him before he had bumped into the inquisitor, long before.

"Only as much as I have cause to, captain. Please indulge me in such a vague answer; I have had not inconsiderable dealings on such matters before. Sometimes they come to something and sometimes they do not. Our learned colleagues will undoubtedly inform us of the difference between if it is necessary."

His tone was carefully neutral, but carried an intentional subtle undercurrent of caution in that conclusion.

"Blessed is the mind too small for doubt, I believe the Creed goes." von Scharn quoted, "But..."

"Hallowed is the mind strong enough to doubt and yet to endure?" Machairi finished, smiling metallically.

The captain returned the smile. "Precisely." She sipped her wine. "I'm afraid I don't always have the luxury of being able to wait for my learned colleagues to decide for me. The captain's chair doesn't have many corners to hide and stall in. Well, that and the courier boats are less frequent than I'd like."

"But I suppose what you really want to know is if this chase I'm bringing you on will come to something or not." Machairi interjected.

The captain executed a slightly theatrical shrug. "You wouldn't be horribly off the mark. Especially since I imagine the Adranteans are slightly delicate at the moment?"

"Yes." Machairi agreed, once again not elaborating on their recent tribulations, or the messages that had been coming from some of subsec-governor Tierce's cabinet. "The shortest possible version, captain, is this. Either archenemy agents are deliberately stoking tensions between Imperial factions, or there is a powerful element at the heart of the subsector's defence which is unsanctioned and unsupervised. Either way, I need to speak to the Nebula commanders."

"You plan to just whistle them up?"

"I already have. Their colonel has agreed to meet us at Concordia Orbital."

"Concordia Orbital?" von Scharn frowned, sitting back in her chair. "I beg your pardon, inquisitor - I'm not familiar with it."

Seeing that the inquisitor's glass was dipping below the aforementioned level, Trist rose to his feet and took hold of the bottle seemingly in a single smooth motion. Pouring, he replied, "Are you familiar with Lehyde Ten? It is a space station nearby." Still standing, he motioned to the captain, who placed her glass down as well, a slightly perplexed air about her. Adding the exacting measure, he continued,

"Deserted for the most part, it has a noteworthy database and scanner suite that is equally adverse to weapons and tech-priests alike. Rogue traders get to work their differences out and the Mechanicus gets to gnash its mendrites about not being let in."

Setting down the bottle once more with the same grace, he took the captain's glass and offered it to her.

"Thank you." von Scharn inclined her head, smiling as she regarded the young lord as if surprised that he was taking the serving upon himself instead of simply recalling the butler. "If you and the inquisitor will permit me a brief diversion, sir, I'm trying to place your accent. It's not quite the cut-glass Tephainian I expect from most of the subsector governor's staff."

Seating himself once again, Trist replied, “Forgive me, captain, but I would hardly have expected you to place my speech. I am not from this Segmentum, you see, and so even in your greater experience, you are unlikely to have come across it.”

“Oh?” inquired the captain, again with that eyebrow motion, as if ready for a game of hard-to-get, “If that is so, where are you from?”

“Sabilist.”

“I confess I have never heard of it,” she admitted grudgingly.

“Nor, again with my apologies, would I have expected you to. If it could be called important in Imperial histories, it would only be in the recent memory. That and the Rift…”

The captain swirled her drink. “The Rift?”

“A breed of Warpsurges that plague the sector of my birth.”

“I have heard of such. This Sabilist, it is in the Caligari Sector of Segmentum Tempestus? Even out here it is well-kno-”

“Again, forgive me, captain,” interrupted Trist, waving a hand theatrically, a note of measured annoyance in his voice, “That is a common mistake. Sabilist suffers from similar misfortunes, yes, and is in the same Segmentum, but is not in the Caligari Sector. We are not so lawless.” The last came out with an edge, as if he had bitten it off when he added it by mistake and purposefully chose to leave it raw when he realized the error.

"The lord means no offence." Machairi interjected quickly, and a little firmly.

Von Scharn shrugged it off. "None was taken, inquisitor." Silence fell again, the captain seeming to consider her options in the lapse as she met the lord’s eyes. Finally, she said, “So your world does well for itself?”

Trist met her eyes before replying a trifle stiffly, “By the grace of the Emperor, yes.”

More silence, during which Trist reached and plucked his glass from the table and brought it to his lips, his eyes meeting hers the entire while. The captain's own eyes dropped to his glass. Indicating his hand with the glance, she said, “Am I correct in saying that you have had considerable augmentation work?”

His expression unreadable, he replied, “Just so, captain.”

“Your augments seem to be of fine work. I did not know that the Mechanicus could reproduce flesh with such authenticity.”

“Nor did many that I knew until it was done.” He seemed to smile for a moment, a sad smile, “But do not mistake them for lesser designs. They are as capable as any other; more than most.”

“I’ll take your word for it. So your world is known for its augmetic works?”

A moment of hesitation, then, “Certainly it is no longer unknown. The work there has not gone unnoticed.”

“Now?” she asked, possibly wondering why he did not mention the magos who oversaw his augmentation, “But not before? What changed?”

“I… the work was done to repair damage sustained during the war.”

“You went abroad into a war? A laudable feat.”

His jaw clenched, “The Sabilian Wars,” he rejoined flatly.

Trist sighed and set down his glass.

“My apologies, captain, for being such a discourteous guest. Sabilist has seen difficulties in my time. A long history of managing on our own, all but smothered by the effects of the Rift, was ended with the coming of the Imperium. While many embraced this, there were a few malcontents who sought to stir up trouble. The result was years of war during which I… I lost much. Friends, family, more. In a real way, the replacement of my flesh with steel was the least of what was lost. The cost is still being counted. Along with the gains. We are better now, but the memories of what happened are still… fresh.”

"You have my condolences, whatever they might be worth." the captain nodded sombrely. "I have to ask: after all of that, how did you come to be in another segmentum, working for governor Tierce, as an inquisition attaché?"

Trist glanced at Machairi. "A long story, captain, better suited for another time. Suffice to say that I provided assistance to the governor as an adviser on some delicate theological questions and he was most gratified. Come to that, the Mechanicus were not ungrateful either, in their own way. In any case, the governor offered to return the favor with respect to the sub-sector. Thus I found myself in this part of space when he needed a trusted individual to address the inquisitor's concerns. Knowing that I have worked with the Inquisition before, he proposed that I step in."

The captain nodded twice, before turning back to Machairi. "Without meaning to offend, inquisitor, it does reassure me that you and the subsec-governor are openly cooperating. Although I have my doubts that he knows you plan to take a cruiser to Concordia orbital."

"It's for his own protection." Machairi replied. "I have yet to see an Imperial court that wasn't absolutely stiff with informers."

The captain hmm'd a chuckle. "So. I assume that you will want the Impiger to stand off, and keep a beady eye on any backup that the Nebulas themselves bring?"

"Yes." Machairi nodded. "That, and to provide transport for several hundred Sisters of the Silent Vigil and their equipment."

"And their equipment." von Scharn repeated shrewdly. "Battle Sisters, then."

"Correct."

"How fortunate that we are already parked in orbit." von Scharn smiled, evidently understanding now why her ship had been singled out for requisition. No doubt, Trist thought, she also saw the cunning of transferring the Sisters up during a recrewing stop - when the press-gang shuttles would already be coming and going, and therefore provide a perfect cover for the manoeuvre. Any archenemy spies on Coseflame would be hard-pressed to discover that the better part of the Order's fighting strength had just mobilised and shipped out.

"You must think trouble is more likely than not, to be pulling so many Sisters from their convent." von Scharn observed.

"Unfortunately, I must." Machairi said. "The worst case scenario is that a full boarding action will be needed to detain the colonel's ship and any Nebulas aboard. Canoness Kiana and I are in agreement on this."

The captain ran a finger delicately around the rim of her glass, as if to give herself time to consider.

"Well," she said after a moment, "The Navy will usually move mountains to get the church's blessing, so I don't see a reason to change that habit now. We have an accord, inquisitor - on one condition. If it comes to a void engagement, although I pray it doesn't, you will trust my crew and I to do what we do best without interference. Is that acceptable?"

"It is." Machairi nodded, and folded her hands in her lap. "The Holy Fleet will get all due credit."

"And all due blame?" von Scharn queried, giving Machairi a significant look. Machairi returned it.

"If this goes wrong, captain," she said earnestly, "Who takes the blame will be the least of our worries. I hope I've made that clear."

Von Scharn held the inquisitor's gaze, her expression mild. "Oh, transparently so."

[dakkagor]

Kally was in command of the fireteam, which didn't fit right even as it made sense.

The reasoning, according to Tomas, was as follows: Marc was too invested and losing his emotional distance, Alley Tarran was too close and now considered compromised. Saph was planetside, working with the Vigil on getting things rolling. She would have preferred Glabrio to be in charge, but all she had to do in command was shoot anything that looked dangerous until it stopped looking dangerous, and then get the Inquisitor, Lord SnootyMcnotsayalot, and Tomas off the Imperial Navy cruiser and back to their ships before the portside lances atomised their transport, all their stuff, and all their friends. Glabrio was a solid shot and a great guy to have at your back in a firefight, but when it came to hard-nosed, close range murdering, Kally was the best of what was left.

So she had dressed to impress. Her stormtrooper carapace, helmet locked, with the void-treated underlayer in case they had to go EVA and all die messily. Boltgun clamped across her chest and fed with infernus fragmentation ammo, ideal for shipboard fighting. And of course, her trophy sword.

She had seen the portside lances out the port of the shuttle. The huge, turreted weapons seemed bigger than any ground unit she had ever seen, let alone any of the weapons she usually handled. The sheer scale of them impressed on her that if this all went sideways, they wouldn't be flying away.

She hoped and prayed this time, it would all go right.

++++++

She worked through the firefight as they walked under escort. Ensign "Furlough" had said this was an honour guard, but it felt to Kally more like a execution watch. She flexed her gloved hands and tried to force herself to loosen up and relax. It was just paranoia, jitters.

The Lord, the Inquisitor and Tomas peeled off with the Captain to a seperate room, leaving her, Glabrio, Crenshaw and Marc standing on the deck. The ensign turned to them and hitched up a smile that Kally was surprised to realise was probably genuine as the honour guard dispersed.

“If you'd like to come with me, I can get you some refreshments. Not officer grade, but still. . .”

She shrugged. “Sounds good.” They fell in behind the ensign. Marc shot her 'the look' and she shrugged again. They hadn't planned on being separated from Machairi this early on, but Kally realised that if the inquisitor hadn't kicked up a fuss, she must have felt confident that this wasn't about to blow up.

The ragtag group stepped into an officer's mess. The ensign got behind the bar, and with some relish, started pouring drinks.

“I didn't catch your names?”

Kally unbuckled her helmet and dropped it onto a real wooden table worth more than most of her internal organs. “Agent Kally Sonder.” She tapped her armoured chest. “That's Marc Black, previously of the Hive Makita enforcer cadre, the guy digging into your liquor cabinet is Glabrio Hybridia, arbitrator.” Glabrio sketched a little bow, and went back to rattling the wide-based rum decanters. “That's Major Crenshaw, AAT. She took a proffered glass. “Suffice to say, they are all also agents of the Inquisition.”

“Charmed, I'm sure.” Furlough replied, tapping his glass against Kally's. "Wow. This isn't something we see every day in the Navy."

He knocked back a measure of something pale red and sweet-smelling, and cheerfully poured himself another.

"One for me, one for the Emperor. It's also not every day we get an excuse to break open the senior officers' stash. Anything for you, boss?"

The question was directed at Crenshaw, who pulled off his own visored helmet and shook his head. He was deliberately standing far back near the door, to minimise the impact of his aura. All the same, Kally still caught the slight tightening around Furlough's eyes that she had long learned to recognise, and she fancied that the ensign was shooting her a couple of sidelong looks as well.

"How about you gents? M'lady?" Furlough continued breezily, pointing around the group with his newly-empty glass, "I'd ask you Mr Hybrida but you're already into lef-tenant Sheldrake's special reserve."

"I take it you're not on duty?" Marc observed, as Furlough poured himself a third shot and topped up Kally's.

Furlough grinned with one side of his mouth. "Don't worry about me; I just finished my watch. Someone else can finish swearing in the new ratings. Or swearing at them as the case may be."

He rested his forearms on the bar, head and shoulders reflected blurrily in the polished brass-and-teak surface.

"Well, we might as well get the obvious question out the way first. What do cloak and dagger merchants like yourselves need with a cruiser?"

"The lady," Glabrio explained as he swirled a large glass of dark Navy rum without actually putting it to his lips. "Wants to have a frank and open discussion with the senior officers of the Nebula corps."

His chair creaked as he raised his booted feet and thumped them down irreverently on the expensive table. The ensign just laughed and carried his own glass over to a spare seat, mirroring the investigator's slouch.

"Well, down the barrel of a macro battery is one way to have a frank exchange of views. But what's Adrantis' best Rapid Reaction Force got to do with the Ordos?"

"That is classified." Crenshaw stated.

"Of course." the ensign tapped the side of his nose, before turning serious. "I'm sorry about this. It's probably not doing your nerves any good to be shut in here while the bigwigs have their serious talk." The young officer's purse-lipped expression seemed genuine. "I'm afraid the new captain's a bit antsy after the last time she had to entertain an inquisitor and he sent everything tits up."

He splashed another measure into his glass and tipped his head back to swallow it.

Kally shot a look back to Marc, who shrugged. So, not something they had intelligence on.

"The captain has dealt with the inquisition before? Who was it, if you don't mind my asking?" Kally ventured, pouring herself a third shot.

And what went wrong was the unasked question. Kally didn't like the idea that they might have drawn someone for this sensitive mission who had a history of spectacular, deeply classified screw-ups. That was their shtick.

"A rather firebrand ordo hereticus type named Drake." the ensign said, leaning back in his chair. "Or so one of the ensigns from the Vehemens told it, anyway."

Near the door, Crenshaw exhaled through his teeth. "Drake you say? Well, it is a small galaxy."

Furlough drained his glass and rested his elbow on the table. "Aha. You've had the misfortune to meet him too?"

"I worked under him for a while. He no longer needed my specific abilities after he trained up banisher Ramirez. I respected Drake's bravery, and his opinion of psykers, but he always had more balls than brains."

"Yes. I hear at their first meeting, he brought an arco-flagellant onto the captain's bridge." The navy man shrugged. "I hear that she wasn't impressed."

"Ah. Unfortunate." Crenshaw clacked his prosthetic teeth, but did not elaborate. "I do not suppose you can tell me where Drake is now? I expect him to be dead in a few years, hopefully having done something useful."

"He's already dead, and in a far from useful manner. I hear that on Coreltis he ran on ahead to try and nab a rogue inquisitor, got captured himself and gave up information that scuppered our whole counterattack. The captain took the blame for it, and that's why she's with us now instead of commanding the squadron from Vehemens."

"Disgusting." Glabrio tutted. "Give me an inquisitor like the Lady over rosette-waving impetuousness any day."

"I'm actually very glad to hear you say that." Furlough leaned forward, putting down his glass so he could tap the table for emphasis. "I don't know about you but none of us around here want another frak-up. So I want to be straight with you, and vice versa. No...surprises, if you get me?"

"If that's a fish for information it's not a particularly good one." Marc commented dryly.

"That's not what I'm after." Furlough said quickly, frowning and waving his hand. "Look, I'm stationed with the ship’s armsmen. I'm thinking if we're backing you up we're moderately likely to get mixed up in any mess that goes down. What I want to know is if there's any way we can help better, and make it less likely that we'll get another cluster-frak like Coreltis."

Kally mused on that, sliding her empty glass back and forth on the counter.

"Sure. The main, most important thing is to understand that we'll have a plan." Kally refilled the glass. "And that when things go wrong, or not according to the plan we told you, which in all frakking likelihood is going to be the case, we will have another plan ready to go. Orders will change, and we all may have to improvise a bit. If that happens, the best any of us can do is listen to and follow orders, and if we tell you explicitly not to do something or do something, even if it doesn't make sense, you should not do or do that thing, as the case may be."

The Navy man nodded slowly, and then faster as Kally finished talking. “Sure. If there’s one thing the bootnecks can do it’s follow an order without mucking around questioning it.”

Kally slugged back the drink and flipped the glass over on the counter, sliding it back to Furlough as a quiet indicator she was done drinking.

"So, no surprises here, Mr Furlough. But you should be expecting surprises when we get to talk to the Nebulas, because we sure as shit are."

“We also do improv pretty well.” he said, “And begging your pardon agent Sonder, but it’s Thur-low.”

He drained his shot glass and saluted her with it to show no resentment.

“I’ll make sure my armsmen know the score. Shall we report back and get this show on the road?”

"Sure Thurlow." Kally smirked. "Lead on."

[Azazeal849]

Executive officer Thurlow watched the luminal hololith with half an eye, feeling pleasantly warm from the Navy-issue spirits he had drunk. He hadn’t been lying to the agents; it was a rare enough opportunity to have free reign at the officers’ bar, and he was happy to abuse it. He watched as the Impiger’s docking clamps releasing the wireframe of the tiny inquisition shuttle and pushing it gently on its way. As the tiny auger contact began its slow, graceful dive back towards its home ship, captain von Scharn tapped a long white cigarette against the table and lit it from a chrome lighter. The flame danced briefly, and then vanished with the snap of the closing lighter cap.

“You think it went well, then.” Thurlow grinned. Eppie von Scharn was well known for only lighting up after a particularly close-run battle, and a change of command didn’t seem to have led to a change of habit.

The captain tipped her head back slightly and blew a stream of fragrant lho smoke into the air, to be dissipated by the praetorium’s air scrubbers. “It seems our good lady has the mandate of the subsector governor, which is pleasantly reassuring. What did her henchmen have to say?”

“A few useful things.” Thurlow smiled. The captain shot him a brief but significant look. The XO recomposed his features and stood straight. He didn’t fail to note the bottle of wine still sitting on the captain’s table, somewhat less tapped than the bar where he had entertained the agents. One day, perhaps.

“They were tight-lipped about the mission, as you’d expect - but I don’t get the impression their inquisitor likes to run in guns blazing, even with a Navy cruiser. Amusingly enough, one of them knew Drake and didn’t think much of him.”

Von Scharn thumbed the butt of her lho stick and exhaled another jet of perfumed smoke. “Lady Machairi did her homework.” she said skeptically. “She probably told her agents to say exactly that, just to try and get us on side.”

Thurlow bit the corner of his lip. “Maybe, ma’am.” he admitted, then rallied. “But there was something I don’t think they could’ve faked. The dour guy in the suit had had all his nails ripped out, and not that long ago - they were still growing back in.”

“And that means…?” the captain prompted, pausing with her lho balanced delicately between two fingers.

“It’s consistent with action three inquisition interrogation, if I remember it right. Lady Machairi has at least one penitent on her team, which means she’ll be under scrutiny to do things by the books.”

“More good news for us then.” Von Scharn paused to consider. “That was a good idea of yours, Mr Thurlow. Well done.”

Thurlow thought she sounded almost grudging, but he still couldn’t resist the temptation to add a subtle flourish as he clipped to attention. “Always happy to help, ma’am.”


* * * * * *

The Arthrashastra
Lehyde system

"A hard decision. To save lives, a hard decision..."

Ella realised that she was whispering aloud, trying to prise some deeper meaning out of the glowing cards through sheer force of will. Everything she had learned in the Telepathica told her that she was already doomed to fail. The Emperor’s will guides the cards, the masters would have scolded her. Are you a heretic, to think you can bend His will to your own? Do not search. See.

But she could not. And because of that she was failing in her duty - to the Emperor, to the people of Adrantis, to her friends. She released her concentration and slumped back onto her unmade bed, utterly exhausted.

As the crystal-faced Tarot cards faded to transparency, someone knocked on the door of her homely little cabin. She sensed a familiar jade aura outside.

“It’s not locked.” she called. Without looking round, she placed a hand gently over her force gladius, lying scabbarded on the bed beside her. Walt Brenner had trusted her with it, and it had saved her life on Saros and on Baraspine. But she couldn’t take it with her.

She sensed the glow of Alicia’s avatar brighten as the translucent door between them slid aside.

"Coming, kitten?" the shipmistress asked.

Ella sighed quietly. She couldn’t hide the psychic frost dusting her bedside table, any more than she could hide the dark circles that she was sure were ringing her blind eyes - but Alicia was the one person she felt like she didn’t have to make an excuse to, and the former Nebula gave no comment except to offer a hand to Ella to help her up. Ella was almost tempted to lace her fingers through the hand and hold onto it as they made their way up to the team’s final muster.

Raechel and Nikolai were waiting for them in the armoury. Raechel passed her bionic hand over her workplate, using the haptic sensors to unsecure the cogitator and wake it from its saved memory state, so that Nikolai could download the machine’s knowledge onto several data slates and parcel them out among Machairi’s agents.

“We have analysed the battle between the Nebulas and Nalaran's forces.” Raechel explained. “If he knew where to hit them, maybe we can borrow some of his tricks. There is also anecdotal evidence from an incident on Teleostei, claiming that neutron weaponry can effectively de-power active Nebula armour at short ranges.”

Alicia scowled, and Vince grunted in wry amusement. “We know, bokkie. We were there.”

The tech priestess blinked. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Remember what Maxillium said.” Kelly put in. With her hand still bound up in thick bandages, the former verispex was in no fit state for front-line duty, but she had insisted on being present for the load-up. “If we’re going to take weapons, they can’t look like weapons. The sensors on Concordia apparently work on shapes and power signatures, so even too many bionics might set them off and leave us all locked out.”

“I guess the blade attachment is out then.” Vince said mournfully, flexing the fingers of his bionic arm.

“So is the Nebulas’ power armour, which I would classify as a good thing.” Raechel rejoined, almost brightly. “Consider though, even without their armour the Nebulas will still have access to their integrated satrophene injectors. It can improve performance and even produce a limited slowing of time-perception. Unfortunately Nikolai and me are not likely to get past the orbital’s guardian augers, so I would recommend some drug or neural amplifier of your own if any of you are conditioned to handle them. Or perhaps a null-aura alpha strike, with agent Sonder and agent Crenshaw turning off their limiters together - that might temporarily stun your opponents if it comes to a fight.”

"Why not both?" Glabrio opined, swinging the heel of his boot back and forth and gently bumping it against the wall.

Raechel cocked her head. “Hedging your bets?”

Glabrio pulled a jelly bean from his ever-present stash and tossed it into his mouth. “The trouble with betting is you can only do it before the race starts. Seems more sensible to me to bet near the end so you have a better chance of winning - and so you're apart from your money for the shortest possible time.”

“Well, I cannot argue with that.” Raechel shrugged, smiling at the logically illogical statement.

“Let’s just do this.” Marc murmured, having stood with his arms silently folded throughout the conversation.

Alicia pursed her lips, and then spread her arms to indicate the vaulted alcoves that stretched away along either side of the gallery. “I had the servitors bring your kit down, and you’re welcome to tool up with anything else that takes your fancy. There’s probably more digi-weapons in the old captain’s collection than I can reasonably wear anyway.”

There was a slightly awkward pause.

“I’ll...see to the shuttle so the tech-priests can do their thing before we leave.”

Without any further ado, the former Nebula turned on her heel to withdraw from the room. Marc, who had flicked up the needle on his injector ring to check the toxin vials inside, felt a jolt as his sister nudged him hard in the ribs.

“What?” he hissed at Kelly through his teeth.

Kelly jerked her head towards the retreating Alicia. “Talk to her. This is your last chance to make it right.”

Marc followed her gaze, then shook his head and turned back to his ring. “That'd need some effort on her part.”

“What's wrong with you making the first move? You used to be friends.”

Marc shook his head. “I was always fine with her before Saros. I even ran this whole frakking investigation in her memory. And then I find out she's been swanning about as a rogue trader this whole time?” He flexed his jaw, briefly peeling back his lips to expose his teeth. “And she's been cold as frak to me since we caught her out.”

Kelly rubbed the bridge of her nose with her good hand. “You treated her like a frakking attack dog on Saros. You don't think she's got the right to be a little pissed off after that?”

“She's got the right?” Marc rounded on his sister. “She's lucky I'm still speaking to her after she talked me into…” He curled his fist and slammed it on one of the shaped steel arches. “Into nearly shooting you in the head.”

“Do you see me still complaining about that!?” Kelly raised her eyebrows sharply, eyes wide and hard. “I don’t care if it’s just papering over cracks to you, Marc. Fix it. Before you don't have a chance to.”

Marc rolled his eyes. “This really isnae the time.”

“This could be the last time.” Kelly told him angrily. She jerked her head over her shoulder. “And while you're at it, say sorry to Vince and Kally. You've been treating them like shit since Baraspine.”

“How?” Marc snapped, as if the accusation were ridiculous.”

“Oh I dinnae ken - by going over their heads with all the new data you dig up so they have to hear it back from Prinzel? This isnae just your fight, Marc.”

Marc thumped his hand twice against the arch, and rested his forehead against his closed fist. “How do you still no get it, Kel? I shouldae told Van Der Mir to go frak himself and put Arcolin down on the Mooncalf. Frak’s sake, I should have told Prinzel to go frak himself and pulled the plug on him in that hospital. Every time I let him go, a whole nother load of folk get hurt. Why the frak should you all keep taking bullets for me?”

Kelly folded her arms. “When you're finished being a self-indulgent little shit, maybe they'll tell you that taking bullets works both ways. That's how family works.”

“Don't play the frakking family card, Kel.” Marc cut her off with an angry slicing gesture and bumped past her towards the door, shaking his head.

Kelly’s mouth fell open as she stared after him. “Oh frak you, Marc!” she spat.


* * * * * *

HDMS Impiger

Lehyde Ten was a lush, temperate planet, seemingly ripe for colonisation. And yet, every attempt to establish a foothold on the frontier world had met with disaster, be it from failed harvests, solar flares scrubbing whole cities of their machine spirits, or populations simply vanishing off the face of the planet. Now the only permanent fixture on the planet’s surface was a single auger bastion, which was rumoured to have an abnormally high turnover rate among its attendant adepts.

Keeping a healthy distance from the cursed world was Concordia orbital, fanning its hexiform solar arrays from the orbit of the system’s barren fifth planet. Its adamantium hull was tinged green by the outermost tendrils of the Adrantis nebula, but the station was kept at optimal function by a cantankerous machine spirit and its seemingly ageless army of servitors. Emissaries of the mechanicus brought yearly tribute to the station to keep it functional, in the hopes of access to the inner sancta that were almost always dashed. Rogue traders and subsector worthies, meanwhile, used Concordia’s uncompromising machine spirit to arbitrate the kind of sensitive disputes that, thankfully, only cropped up every few decades at most.

The Impiger was probably the biggest vessel that the system had seen in a generation. And she wasn’t alone - the Arthrashastra drifted alongside Concordia orbital, tethered by a segmented docking umbilical, while the nimble Tiercel stood off with the inquisitor’s support team standing by in constant vox contact.

The Nebulas themselves had elected to arrive in the Exitos, a blunt, pugnacious Tempest assault frigate that no doubt matched their preferred shock assault doctrine.

“Captain, Exitos has entered weapons range and is moving to deploy shuttles to the orbital.”

Von Scharn folded her arms across the front of her sleeveless Navy greatcoat, tapping one finger against a starched shirtsleeve. “Shields up, I think.”

“Aye captain.” acknowledged the scutarium overseer, and the globular hololith dominating the bridge shifted as emissions spectra were replaced with the blood-red dots of warp auger contacts.

On the face of it, the inquisition task force held every advantage. Tonnage, firepower, manpower…even if squads of power-armoured Nebulas launched across using their Tempest’s signature assault boats, they would never be able to fight through a crew as large as the Impiger’s - and that was before they ran into the inquisition’s secret weapon.

Alongside Thurlow’s armsmen, standing by to deploy at the first sign of trouble, were nearly a thousand sisters of the Silent Vigil. Smuggled into orbit alongside the press-ganged citizens of Coseflame, every trained sister who was not undercover somewhere out in Adrantis had donned her fleur-de-lys armour and mobilised. Von Scharn recalled the order’s canoness, a square-jawed woman in an unassuming black abaya, looking around appreciatively as she was brought aboard and joking that it was amazing what the Navy would do to get the church’s blessing.

They had every advantage, and surely the emissaries from the Adrantean Nebula corps knew it. If the lady Machairi had any tact at all, perhaps this would be nothing more than an uneasy interrogation.

“Alright.” the captain murmured softly. “Let’s see how our new friends play this.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCBXBsTCzGI)


* * * * * *

Inquisition void runner Tiercel

Trist was in the novel position of having practically free reign over an inquisition ship, as most of the crew departed to Concordia orbital. Machairi was over there leading the team personally, leaving Trist with the tech priests and the walking wounded. The vox set on the table crackled intermittently with the team’s comm chatter, lagged slightly by the stellar distance.

The two Oculari tech-adepts were with him, too internally augmented to pass the orbital’s bio-scanners, as was their colleague turned prisoner Vizkop. The psyker Gavin Jenkins remained as insurance; his technomancy a hard counter to any escape attempt. Father Belannor and agent Kelly Black sat by Trist at the table, the latter chewing her fingernails and visibly agitated,

At least they were spared the company of Merle Carson. The convict had been dragged along to Concordia, no doubt to the disgust of some of Machairi’s agents. They needed his testimony, even if the orbital’s lockdown augers stopped them from being able to march him in there with his bomb collar still attached - as some would have no doubt preferred.


* * * * * *

Concordia orbital

There was an Aquila above the entrance. It stared down the line of detector arches and guillotine doors that ribbed the corridor, fanning its wings above the portal to the main reception hall.

Looking up at doorframe, Marc remembered a similar pious guardian hanging above father Gorski's church, right before they had met Lucius Pembroke - and set in motion events that had doomed his home hive. He remembered yet another, marking the door of Lucinda Irons' stronghold on Saros station.

For what we are about to receive… he remembered bitterly.

For what these bastards are about to receive, may they die screaming. And Arcolin with them.

The Aquila door hissed open as they approached, and brushed, austere steel was replaced by wood panelling and plaster that had been shaped into vaulted arches. The central hub of the orbital was a vast ballroom gallery, shaped in an oval with doors at each apex and midpoint. Marble angels with bowed heads welcomed them from either side of each door, while square tiles impregnated with what looked like fossilised seashells stretched away across the floor. Fluted lamps curved from the walls, though most of the light came from three great circular chandeliers that hung overhead. Tables and elaborately carved chairs were stacked against the walls of the gallery, though it seemed that the orbital’s silent cohort of servitors had not prepared the room, and the agents’ counterparts from the Nebula corps had not corrected the oversight.

Six Nebulas were waiting for them, standing in pairs near the centre of the room. They all stood with their booted feet shoulder-width apart, hands clasped behind their backs. Identical implant jacks glowed softly blue at their temples. All of them were solidly built; tall, hard-muscled, dangerous looking, even in their pressed khaki dress uniforms. Stencilled name-patches at their shoulders told them apart, and some of the names were familiar from Baraspine: PFC Callisto. PFC Tyria. L Cpl McLaughlin. 2nd Lt de Sade. PFC Sharma.

The one nearest to Kally, flanking PFC Callisto, was gunnery sergeant Kirabo. Her dark eyes flickered to Alicia as the team spread out to cover the gallery.

"Hey Alley." the Nebula said, grimly.

“Hey yourself, Kirabo.” Alicia echoed, her face stony.

The Nebula called McLaughlin tipped a salute to Vince. “No hard feelings for the near miss, boss?”

Vince didn’t reply, but Marc heard the servos in his knuckles whir, and Carson hissed in pain as the old soldier’s bionic grip tightened painfully on his shoulder.

The arti-grav hummed tensely beneath their feet, and the plasma heart of the station beat a hostile thrumming through the hidden conduits above their heads.

“Clear, sir.” the Nebula called De Sade reported into his vox stalk. He cocked his head slightly as he fixed his flinty gaze on Machairi, standing tall in her night-black fatigues. “You came to the governor’s spire on Tephaine.” he recognised her. “What’s this ridiculous show of force all about, inquisitor?”

“I just have a few questions for governor Tierce’s vaunted bodyguards.” Machairi replied mildly, her hands clasped neatly in front of her.

“And we’ll be happy to answer them.” said a gravelly voice, which was accompanied by the whir and slam of another hallway door. A slab-faced, battle-scarred man with salt-and-pepper hair and gold braid webbing his dress uniform marched into the reception hall.

Walking at his side was Arcolin DeRei.

Without a word, Marc started forward.

STOP.

The voice inside his head was loud enough to blind him, and sent a shock like raw voltage down his spine that locked him in his tracks. When the needling wave receded from his skin, he felt a small, warm hand locked around his wrist, holding him back.

“Something’s wrong.” Ella whispered. "He's...different."

Marc twisted his hand out of Ella’s beseeching grip, and blinked sharply to try and clear his vision. "What?"

"His aura,” Ella whispered. “It's not...I can't explain it. It’s lighter."

“I am colonel Tarquinius.” the officer in gold braid introduced himself, stepping forward. The implants at his temples winked blue as his eyes roamed round the group, and then back to the heretic at his side. “And this is executor Krol - though I understand you know him as DeRei.”

Machairi glanced at Tomas.

“I see.” she said, smiling mirthlessly. “So tell me. On Baraspine, did your men know about DeRei before we told them, or were they called off by someone higher up who did?”

DeRei was silent, his scarred face emotionless. Tarquinius glances to one side. “Tell them, gunnery sergeant.”

“Sir.” Kirabo answered, her wary scowl and ramrod posture never shifting. “You’ll recall, inquisitor, that the subsec governor sent us his pipe as a token of his authority. The executive order that came with it instructed us to get his favoured advisor out of there. That he wasn’t the heretic you claimed him to be.”

“They found me right after I escaped you at the hospital.” Arcolin said. His voice was low, almost subdued. “But the sub-governor and I have been on good terms for a while now. The Nebulas moved me offworld and carried me to Perinetus.”

“No daemonic teleportation then.” Machairi said dryly. “I’ll remove that from the charge list, while I’m adding on that all of you here aided and abetted a declared heretic.” She shook her head at Tarquinius. “I had evidence that you were evading mechanicus oversight, colonel, but I hoped not to find this. And to think that a war hero like Tierce fell this far with you.”

Arcolin shook his head. “Tierce is no heretic.”

“That’s for me to decide.” Machairi replied, her tone turning sharp. “But I’m wondering. What made you show your face here, even after you saw the backup we were bringing?” She raised her arms to encompass the oval room. “Do you think this orbital will protect you? It denies weapons. It doesn’t deny the Emperor’s will.”

Both the Nebulas and the agents tensed, but Arcolin just stood with his arms hanging at his sides. “I’m here to talk on subsec governor Tierce’s behalf. This is…”

The heretic’s shoulders slumped, and he let out a sighing laugh.

“This is the worst cliche, but this is not what you think.”

[dakkagor]

There was a, horrible, painful laugh from Kally. Tomas tensed, and went to place a hand on her shoulder, which she slapped aside with a snarl.

"Frak you." She snarled again. "Frak you all. Arcolin DeRei was tried and judged by a conclave of Inquisitors on Holy Terra. I know, because I was there. He is a Heretic, and a Traitor, and a Warp-damned sonofabitch, and you can hand him over or I'll go through you to get to him."

Kirabo bristled, stepping forward, and Kally shot her a murderous glance.

"Don't you frakking dare defend him."

+++++

Nikolai rose slowly, looking at everyone else around the table.

"This is unexpected." He turned to face Gavin, who, by a quirk of circumstance was technically in command on this end. Or at least, he was the biggest obstacle to the Ocularis Agents acting decisively.

"If he has shown himself like this, I think we can safely assume this is a trap. We need to act."

[Azazeal849]

"If he has shown himself like this, I think we can safely assume this is a trap. We need to act."

Raechel traced a cog circle over the front of her wraparound robe, her organic hand clenching and unclenching against the table top. A nasty confluence of logic and gut feeling suggested to her that her partner was right.

“I have an idea.”she said. “But we will need access to the vox mast to remote-seance the Concordia’s spirit.”

Gavin gave her a withering look, his eyes like sunken pits in the depths of his deathmask face. “Are you glitched enough that you actually think you can wire us a way in, after tech priests a hundred times more competent than you two have been trying and failing at that same task for centuries?”

“No.” Raechel said, with dignity. “I am not trying to convince it to let our allies in. Almost the exact opposite.”

The priestess rose to her feet and began to follow Nikolai towards the door, before turning to look back at Trist.

“My lord, if you have any pull with these Nebulas then I would say now is the time to use it.”


+ + + + + +

There was a, horrible, painful laugh from Kally. Tomas tensed, and went to place a hand on her shoulder, which she slapped aside with a snarl.

"Frak you." She snarled again. "Frak you all. Arcolin DeRei was tried and judged by a conclave of Inquisitors on Holy Terra. I know, because I was there. He is a Heretic, and a Traitor, and a Warp-damned sonofabitch, and you can hand him over or I'll go through you to get to him."

Kirabo bristled, stepping forward, and Kally shot her a murderous glance.

"Don't you frakking dare defend him."

“You’re very quick to throw around words like heretic and traitor.” colonel Tarquinius frowned. “Even at people like the Marioch PDF, when they so much as get in your way.”

“We have evidence.” Machairi answered coolly. “And the testimony of one of DeRei’s former associates. If you want to hear it…”

Tarquinius tilted his head up slightly to look down his nose at Merle. “That sorry sack of shit? Everyone outside your kangaroo courts knows that torture confessions are worthless.”

Machairi clasped her hands behind her back. At the pre-arranged signal, the team began to cluster together slightly, overlapping each other’s defences. Even numbers, Kally noted - but that was only if you counted Merle Carson as a friendly combatant.

“Ella.” Machairi said. “Warn our friends on the Impiger please.”

Ella nodded silently.

“I don’t want any blood here.” Arcolin spoke up, twisting to edge past Kirabo. The heretic looked haggard; his skin was waxy, and his eyes shadowed. A wan smile tugged at his scarred cheek. “What Powers would doing that serve anyway? I just need you to listen. You especially, Marc.”

He looked directly at the former investigator.

“I was done listening to you a long time ago.” Marc answered. His posture was rigid. “There’s a word for bastards like you, Arcolin.”

“I’ve heard them all, inside my own head. Save your breath.” Arcolin shifted weight between his feet. “You helped, Marc. I know you're not a monster - so you showed me that not only monsters make those decisions...when you fired at K-“

Vince spat something in his native Delphic, perhaps as much to forestall Marc as to get Arcolin himself to shut up.

“You ain’t fit to say her name, bru.” he growled.

Arcolin looked at Ella. “I'm sorry. I tried to tell you. I...I would never have done that. The Smiler...the Blue Devil…”

“Cute names.” Glabrio said dryly. The investigator was rolling his shoulders and cracking his knuckles, as if blithely anticipating the fight. “Is that what you call the daemon, then?”

“No,” Arcolin said hurriedly. “The daemon is the Táin. We called it that because it's the story, the story of House DeRei…”

“A story that’s too long in ending.” Machairi interjected stonily. “Unless you're going to tell me you were possessed all this time, then it doesn't change that you killed Kadath al Omar and Yvonne Kepler. It doesn't change that you killed sister Shireen. It doesn't change that you put your Táin daemon in Kelly Black and nearly killed her in the process. Emperor only knows how many lives you've ruined. The Blue Devil is you, Arcolin DeRei.”

The Nebulas stood unmoved by the accusations.

“Not any more.” Arcolin said quietly. “Do you know why I...fell? Why I fled into Makita underhive and turned to the Raven God? I believed in duty just as much as Marc did - maybe even more. I upheld the lex imperialis with the arbites for half my adult life. I followed every order, I executed every heretic and I knew what I was doing was right. Then the arbites discovered that House DeRei were heretics. They sent me and my precinct to burn them. They told me it was my duty to the Emperor, and I forced myself to believe them. But when the mansion was burning, and I heard the family I hadn't seen in twenty years screaming, looking straight at me, begging…”

Arcolin scrunched his eyes closed and mashed his palm against his temple, somehow seeming smaller and frailer despite his impressive height. Against the silent Nebulas and the unmoving agents, the contrast was stark. Arcolin forced his eyes open again, almost pleading.

“A righteous person wouldn't do what I did. A good person wouldn't do what I did. I knew then I was as tainted as every heretic I'd ever gunned down. So I fled, and I fell back into using flects, and I joined a Tzeentchian cult because I wanted so desperately to believe that there was some meaning, some plan behind it all.”

“Your plan nearly burned Makita hive.” Marc countered, unimpressed. “Three hundred MHE officers killed or injured, including my dad. I'm not forgetting that, Smiler.”

Arcolin bowed his head, his long fringe falling forward to shadow his eyes. “The Smiler led the cult uprising, yes.” He jerked his gaze up, suddenly vehement. “But who burned the hive when Pembroke got loose? Sidonis! Your inquisition! I used to want to burn all this, I admit it...but the Táin knew better. When I tried to summon it on Baraspine, it knew exactly what to show me to bring me back. I don't expect you to forgive me for Kelly, but seeing you make the same call I did on my own family, for the greater good...it showed me that not only evil men can make that call.”

Marc shook his head, flexing his jaw so that for a brief moment his lips peeled back to expose his teeth. “Don't you dare compare me and you.” A Traitor can never be forgiven. A Traitor will find no peace in this life or the next.

“Marc…” Ella whined quietly, as if afraid to raise her voice above a whisper as she tugged on his sleeve. “He...I think he actually believes what he’s saying…”

Arcolin gripped his face with both hands, and then tore them back to his sides as he turned to face Kally.

“Kally, listen. You’ve never really been one of them. You’ve always wanted to save people, whether it was Pembroke, the indigens on Hercynia...or Emerald. I know there was more than your scum-ganger’s sense of honour working when we were down there on Teleostei.”

The heretic had suddenly gone very still, only his lips moving.

“Do you remember what the Smiler told you? You deserve better than you get, Kally Sonder. He thought it was just the way of life and death. But if there was a chance to make something better, wouldn’t you take it?”

[Imperial1917]

The young lord had listened to the confrontation through the vox with growing alarm. Though he had no experience with this Arcolin himself, Trist knew inquisitorial agents were not easy to shake. And they were shaken. The techpriests were covering their emotions as well as they could, but the rest were clearly eager to be on the Concordia, their hands around this man's throat. Eager inquisitorial agents was rarely a good thing.

Then everything was bustle as the techpriests got to their feet, one jabbering about gaining access to the station by getting it to open its doors. Privately the young lord was more confident of their abilities than the inquisitor's psyker appeared to be, but something still nagged at him. Turning to the techpriest as she was about to leave, he brushed aside her comment on the Nebulas somewhat while still marshaling what he could possibly say to the pocket astartes to convince them how deep a hole they had dug for the subsector governor. "Forgive me," he said, "But is this course of action you propose wise? Could this heretic have compromised the station's machine spirit?" He made the sign of the cog, hoping that such a thing was untrue considering how well and truly frakked they would be if it was and tilted his head toward Nikolai. "As he said, this is likely to be a trap, and all past experiences point to this being a cunning enemy, so could he have... misled Concordia's spirit?" Inwardly he cringed slightly, knowing perhaps too well what he was proposing to a servant of the Omnissiah.

[Azazeal849]

Inquisition void runner Tiercel

“Forgive me, but is this course of action you propose wise? Could this heretic have compromised the station’s machine spirit?”

The priestess actually smiled. “DeRei had to use a technopath on Perinetus, which suggests he does not possess those skills himself. This might be a trap, but if we can activate or even trip Concordia’s lockdown procedures, then we will have trapped him.”


+ + + + + +

Concordia orbital

“Your appeals to emotion are most interesting.” Crenshaw deadpanned. “Was that how you convinced sub-governor Tierce as well?”

“I told you before,” Alicia said, almost snarling. “Tierce is no traitor, he wouldn’t knowingly side with the Enemy.” She narrowed her eyes at Arcolin. “You must have lied to him.”

Arcolin shook his head vigorously. “No! That's what the Blue Devil wanted, but it's not what I want, or what any of the people here want. I went to governor Tierce and confessed to him. The Blue Devil's cults are all cat's paws - they're weak, you've seen how easily the Adrantis PDFs took them down. All they were meant to do was convince Adrantis that it can stand and defend itself, free of an Imperium that takes and gives nothing back. An imperium that crushes spirits, steals children for the meat grinder and demands such mindless obedience that you are supposed to choose loyalty above your own family. Adrantis believes in something better, and now I - we - can really give it to them! The Blue Devil would have betrayed them and given them Chaos, but I will not!”

Crenshaw blinked slowly. “Well, I believe we have the sub-governor’s confession by proxy.”

Machairi hmm’d. Kally saw the hands behind her back quietly clench into fists - another signal. Whether she opened one or both would tell them whether to move in to capture or to kill.

“If you think that daemon saved you,” the inquisitor told Arcolin, “Then you're insane and deluded. No daemon ever acted in humanity's interest.”

Arcolin shook his head again. “I don’t blame you, but you’re wrong. The Táin served the DeRei family faithfully for millennia. And in return we bred ourselves to be the perfect daemonhosts. The Táin rejected me as a vessel, but it still saved me by convincing my family to send me away to the arbites instead of leaving me to drown in flects for the rest of my life. And then it saved me again, after all this time.”

The heretic spread his arms.

“Don't you see? I'm not the enemy, even the daemon isn't. The enemy is a system that demands you kill your own family to keep it safe. The imperium demands that you sacrifice everything so mankind can survive...but survival alone isn't enough! What if we can build something better?”

Machairi cocked an eyebrow. “Like Chaos?”

“No, like justice.”

Ella pushed her fringe across her forehead, still looking uncomfortable. Alicia looked over at the astropath, and her posture changed fractionally as she took her weight off her front foot.

"You need to understand.” Arcolin urged. “My intentions are..."

"Intentions don't matter, Arcolin.” Marc’s interjection was ice cold and ice-pick sharp. “Only what you do. And I will never forgive you for what you did."

"Isn’t that the Imperium’s way?” The investigator glanced to his left. It was Alicia who had spoken. “Every crime is unforgivable? I don't want to choose revenge this time. I want to choose something better."

She broke ranks with the others and stepped out into the middle of the vaulted gallery. For a brief moment, every eye in the room was on the former Nebula.

"This time I choose my old family." Her gaze slid from the silent Nebulas to Arcolin. “Both of them.”


+ + + + + +

Ad Mech Waystation 9794
2 weeks after the Saros Station incident

The control deck was full of smoke, fed by bleeding cogitator cores and smashed, sparking pict-screens. The Smiler had to laugh to himself. He had been right about one thing; Alicia had not given them the chance to simply shoot her down as she breached the doors. Even with her Nebula armour destroyed by the booby-trap at the airlock, she was tenacious. But the Blue Devil was running out of patience. He wanted them to stop talking, and end this. The Smiler struggled to maintain control.

"Think of all the people who used you, Alley!” he shouted from behind the solid cover of a devotional column, as he threw down his rifle and unlimbered his more mobile machine-pistol. “Just a weapon. Even your so-called friends in Marc's group never thought more of you than that.”

Fizzing sparks and the broken rattle of the circulator fans were the only sounds that came back to him. Discerning footsteps through them was difficult.

“But the demon cared for you, and helped you. It helped you get revenge on the ones who killed your family. It didn't want your strength or your skill, it just wanted you. And the one being who actually, genuinely cared for you was taken away, by the Imperium."

The Smiler chanced a glance round the side of the column. A spray of gunfire scythed past him, and behind him he heard the clunk-whoosh of a ruptured pipe.

And then his world exploded.

The Smiler was blinded and deafened, shattering away into the depths of madness even as his body cartwheeled down from the mezzanine deck. The Blue Devil roared in fury, only to be knocked insensible as his head struck the edge of a smoking cogitator bank.

Out of the void, the Third surfaced. He found himself lying in almost the exact spot where he had sat, staring into the flect glass he had just created while Alley’s fighter closed in to dock. Lying with his cheek against the floor, he saw that the Changed cogitator screen was still there, albeit lying at an angle with its glass splintered by bullet impacts. He could almost make out a shadowy blue shape inside the spiderweb, looking back at him.

“Look at me, you piece of shit.”

He could hear heavy breathing above him. He turned his head with an effort, peeling a sticky glaze of blood away from the floor and setting firecrackers of pain dancing up and down his spine. As his view rotated, he saw Alley standing over him; smoke-streaked, tear-stained, furious.

He coughed, which brought more pain, but somehow he was able to turn it into a laugh. "Did you aim for that pipe?"

"You know, I actually did." Alley lowered the muzzle of her gun until Arcolin was staring down the endless black hole of the barrel. "Beg for your life."

He let the back of his head sink back against the floor. "I have nothing to offer you."

"You're right there.” Alley agreed thickly. “What I really want is my family back."

"And I can't do that. I burned them all."

"Yes. On Marioch."

Marioch. He frowned weakly. No. Solomon. Makita Hive.

"Your guardians on Marioch were never your family. A retired stormtrooper and a Sister? You don't even believe it yourself. No. I burned them, but they were not your family. I burned your real family during my arbites raid on the DeRei house, on Solomon."

He could see Alley fighting against her desire to simply disregard everything he said as a lie. But the armour was wavering. Instead, she said, "What are you talking about?"

"Your name isn't Alicia Tarran. It's Ailill Cassandra DeRei."

The armour hardened. "Bullshit."

"It's true.” And then, the blue shadow he had seen in the flect swam to the front of his mind once again. He could almost see it blurring out of the vaulted ceiling above Alley, like a hovering vulture - or a guardian angel. Moving his left hand painfully, he groped for the broken screen. He felt warm glass under his hand.

“Let me show you. I can't bring our family back, but I can give you back the one being that really cared about you. It's been watching over both of us for longer than you realise. It protected you ever since you were born, even if you don't remember it."

Alley’s eyes narrowed as she sighted down her gun barrel. "It?"

"The Táin."

"It's alright, Alley." said a voice from within the cracked screen.

He could feel something stroking softly against his hand from behind the screen. He turned his head again, resting his lacerated cheek in the puddle of his own blood as he looked into the flect-glass. He sensed Alley following his gaze, drawn by the same voice. He wondered if she saw the same thing that he saw. It was not as he remembered from his childhood - now it was just an indistinct figure of blue smoke. But they both recognised its voice.

"Remember what I told you on Marioch, Alley.” said the daemon. “It's not over, it's just beginning."


+ + + + + +

“Captain Tarran.” Inquisitor Machairi’s voice had dropped a dangerous half-octave. “I’ll remind you that there is a Navy cruiser standing off from this station. Stand down and we can talk about this later. I won’t be giving you another chance.”

"I let Arcolin live on the mechanicus waystation." Alicia said in low voice. “Until now I thought that was a mistake. I know what he did to you all. But I realised that I was going to need to find out the truth of Arcolin's words...and what his endgame was. I even sent his daemon away because I didn't want it to colour my decision."

"Oh really.” Glabrio spoke up with biting sarcasm. “And just for the after-action report I’m going to file, what swung it for you?"

"Something Trist said. People who hurt the ones you care about aren't your family.”

Alicia flexed her right hand, still bandaged around her missing fingers. Tomas saw the Nebula whose LED plate read Callisto look at it questioningly, but she didn’t speak.

“The Blue Devil hurt a lot of people." Alicia looked at Arcolin. "But if Ella's right, and you're not the Blue Devil..."

Arcolin held her gaze unblinkingly. "I'm not."

"I know. Back on Baraspine, you wanted me to kill you. Whatever part of you was talking to me then would rather have died than carry on being Him."

"Alley!” Marc broke in. “Do you know what he's done?"

Alicia scowled at him. “I haven’t forgotten, and I haven’t forgotten who told me either. Look at what the Imperium has done, Marc.” She spread her arms to take in the inquisition team. “To you, who are also people I care about...and after you saved Holy Terra, no less! What does that make them? All my life I believed that what I was doing was making the galaxy better. Well now we can."

Marc shook his head at her. "Not like this."

Alicia looked from him to Vincent to Glabrio, all equally stony. "Then I'm sorry. Thank you, my friends. I parted ways with Arcolin confused and searching for answers, about both Adrantis and myself. And it's my experiences with you all that helped me find them." She turned slightly to look at Ella. “Especially you. You were always the first one to listen.”

The astropath looked back at her for a long moment, as if searching the aura behind the physical body that she couldn’t see. Then she dropped her head, cuffing at her blind eyes with the sleeve of her robe. “This is what I was afraid of.” she whispered. “All those readings...this is the big event we couldn't stop. And I don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice.” said Arcolin.

Ella twisted her small hands together. And then, before Marc could move to stop her, she stumbled away from him and took up a position in the centre of the hall, next to Alicia.

“I…” she began. But she could not finish the sentence. Marc gaped at her. Even Merle was uncharacteristically silent. Alicia quietly squeezed Ella’s shoulder.

Standing next to Machairi, Tomas actually saw the inquisitor’s shoulders slump. “I was told beware the daemon at your back.” Machairi said. “But I never thought that daemon would be you, Ella.”

“That's the imperium.” colonel Tarquinius broke in. The Nebula commander held out an open hand towards the inquisitor. “If you are not with them you're against them. We just want peace. A chance to use our own resources to shape our own destiny.”

Machairi took a deep breath. "You can't do this without war with the imperium. Is that what you want? People slaughtered, cities bombed, children starving? That's what war brings."

"If war comes to Adrantis, it will be the Imperium that brings it. We're going to build a better world; if you don't want to see cities bombed and children starving, then tell the Imperium to leave us in peace."

Machairi shook her head slowly (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9pT5FT3Q-80). "We both know they'll never do that."

“Then help us!” Arcolin pleaded, looking not at Machairi, but at her agents.

Beside a visibly seething Marc, Vincent gave an ugly little laugh. "If you asked me four years ago...hell, if you asked me four months ago, I might have considered it.” He fixed Arcolin with his one good eye. “Now though? I don't give a shit about the greater imperium, but I care about my promise to Solvan, and I fokkin’ well care about these people here and what you put them through. And for that...you're gonna fokkin' die."

Merle cleared his throat pointedly. “I dunno Vinny, maybe the blind baby-dyke’s seein’ better than either’a us one-eyes. Maybe…”

He never finished the sentence as Vincent’s bionic fist came smashing down on the back of his head. As the convict dropped to his knees, the fist came down again. And again. Yelping, Carson tried to interspace his manacled hands between the fist and his head. The bionic fist cut through both the metal restraints and his skull. Blood spattered across clean tiles as the convict was hammered to the floor.

In the sudden silence, Alicia let out a grunt of approval. “We disagree...on whether the Imperium is right, about what path to take, and other things... But one thing we can agree on is that that piece of shit needed to die.”

Vincent’s only response was a truculent eye. The old soldier’s gaze flickered across to Machairi, who held it for a moment before turning her head back towards the Nebulas.

"Your plan won't work.” the inquisitor said, calmly.

Arcolin bowed his head and closed his eyes. Tarquinius offered the inquisitor a smile that danced somewhere between sad and mocking.

"Yes it will. It's already started."

Tomas saw Machairi exhale a long breath. "And you know everything we need to stop it."

Behind the inquisitor’s back, her right fist opened. Take them.

The Nebulas must have read the muscle-shift in their opponents, because both sides started forward simultaneously. Alicia threw Ella behind her, hard enough to send the young astropath stumbling. Vincent let out a guttural Delphic warcry and charged straight for the nearest Nebula, the tall lieutenant named de Sade. As they crunched together the lieutenant wrapped a muscular arm around his leg. Vincent reversed his centre of gravity and avoided the smother tackle by dropping his other leg back, and drove a bionic fist into the Nebula’s armpit. As the lieutenant flinched upwards, the brawling ex-Guardsman seized him around the waist and hurled him over his shoulder.

Marc all but spear-tackled Kally out of his way, darting through the onrushing soldiers to head straight for Arcolin. “Wait…” the heretic said, before Marc crashed into him with pile-driver force. The taller Arcolin gave ground to preserve his greater reach, defending automatically with arbites-standard grapples designed to snap wrists and dislocate elbows. Expecting them, Marc evaded, and Arcolin had to skip back another step to dodge a roundhouse kick aimed at his still-human ribs. He turned the backstep into a spin, and the spin into a kick that connected with the side of Marc’s face. The investigator hit the floor and rolled, coming up with a teeth-bared snarl, and dived in.

“Tiercel!” Machairi clamped her hand over her concealed earpiece, sidestepping as Tomas intercepted the first of a wing-pair of Nebulas bearing down on her. “Tarran’s gone rogue, disable the Arthrashastra now!"

It was all she had time to say as colonel Tarquinius vaulted straight over Glabrio and charged into her. Machairi had to let her legs skid back and slide down onto one knee to avoid the takedown.

“Inquisitor.” Tarquinius offered by way of salute.

“Heretic.” Machairi returned, before their weight shifted and bore both of them to the floor. On the ground, the colonel’s greater strength counted for less.

"Surely you understand the desire to do something meaningful, inquisitor?” Tarquinius said through gritted teeth. “To not just be another irrelevant life in a galaxy of a quintillion identical, suffering souls?"

“You'll get your wish, colonel.” Machairi drove the colonel to the ground with her elbow, and attempted to grapple his arm. "After your trial, you’ll stand as a warning to every last one of them."


+ + + + + +

Inquisition void runner Tiercel

“Secutor!” Raechel jumped to her feet in evident joy, as Vizkop stalked through the doors of the control room at the base of the Tiercel’s vox mast. Gavin loomed in his shadow. “Did you receive that?”

“Yes.” Gavin growled. “A change of plan. And fortunately, Vizkop tells me that he planted a sleeper program in the Arthrashastra shortly after we first boarded.”

“Given these last few moments I would say it was a wise precaution.” Raechel said quickly. “Now can we please shut that bloody freighter down and stop whatever insane plan she is trying for?”

One after the other they connected themselves to the Tiercel’s vox system, bracing themselves for what they knew was coming. Vizkop and Nikolai tapped in through their electrografts, while Raechel opted for the haptic portal in her bionic hand. Gavin simply touched his palm to the whirring vox cogitator.

Their combined attack codes jousted across the void towards Arthrashastra, riding on the back of a focused vox wave from the Tiercel. They could feel the trader ship’s angry, territorial machine spirit beginning to wake almost immediately, but by the time it had mobilised counter-codes of its own to lock down vital systems it would already be too late. An almost fully-automated ship had its disadvantages.

<I see it.> Raechel pulsed to her fellow tech-priests as she sighted Vizkop’s override, nestled like a parasite in the Arthrashastra’s datasphere. <Wait.>

Something was flitting from system to system within the Arthrashastra, awakening the furious machine spirits and adapting around Vizkop’s override traps. Raechel attempted to tag it with a data spike, but it slipped away, reacting as if it too were...sentient.

<Frakking scrap-shunt.> Raechel cursed, <There is already someone aboard the ship. They->

She broke off when she realised that her first statement was not, technically, correct. The data spike belatedly connected with its target and a blood-spurt of information gouted back through the vox connection, identifying the sentient presence as a code-stream originating in the computer core that served as Arthrashastra’s navigator. Normally Raechel would have been overawed to take communion with such a rare and ancient machine spirit. But this was no machine spirit at the trader vessel’s heart. Reaching back across the vox-wave bridge to the Tiercel, it struck.

Raechel had a moment to register the Arthrashastra’s soul awakening, and then the blow hit. A spearhead of aggressive program attacks, fuelled by dozens of icebreaking cogitators slaved from all over the ship, attempting to clear the way for a colossal, seething mass of mind-melting neurofeedback.

The neurofeedback was bleeding with the unmistakable scrap-code taint of a warp daemon.

Raechel stared at the oncoming attack. "Oh.” she said aloud.

[Imperial1917]

Events were moving apace; more than apace. They were moving quickly, too quickly. Trist's mind whirled and reeled as he tried to take in everything that had occurred too quickly. He had always been one to act, not plan; he left the planning in the short term to others. And now his long term plans were coming undone. So easily. The board was set and the pieces were moving of their own accord, each knowing their part. Everyone knew what was happening, except him. He was down to basic instinct.


All knowledge flows from the Omnissiah,
It is His gift to Mankind.

His body had always been faster than his mind, even before his augmentations. Even now as his eyes tracked the departing techpriests and a hand extended to steady himself against the table to rise he struggled to remember the words. Those words, the ones his friend had spoken as he rebuilt Trist time and again. They had always pierced the fog that clouded his mind, bringing clarity in moments of pain, anguish, despair. He hoped they would serve so again now. They came slowly, dredged from painful memory. But they were all that blocked out the pain around, the madness.


The Omnissiah is holy.
Therefore, knowledge is holy.

The young lord of Sabilis blinked back the techpriest's dismissive rebuke and rose swiftly to join the exodus from the room. Absorbed in their own thoughts nobody seemed to pay him much mind as he followed the party headed to the vox mast. They made their way unerringly through the maze of the ship's interior, any in their path becoming a blur even to augmented optic sensors. He followed wordlessly, knowing that he had to find a way out of this mess.


Data is knowledge purified, studied, understood.
Therefore, data is holy.

All around, the air crackled and buzzed. The tension that had lurked beneath the surface of their journey since long before the shattered hivescape and the Forge World that followed was now igniting, fire spreading across it like flame consuming spilled promethium. The whole world; the entire sub-sector, seemed to have gone mad. He could hear the voices that he knew would stand in his memory forever in his ear, in his mind. They spoke of things that shredded his understanding, clawed at his sanity. They echoed back and forth between the weary combatants who knew that they merely delayed the inevitable.


Knowledge is holy.
Knowledge is holy and data is holy.

For a moment he let the names and deeds wash away. Disappointment filled his being, piercing the thrusts and rebuttals. Tierce. The sub-sector governor. What had he wrought here? How could he have chosen this path, these means? He had been better than this, smarter. Or so Trist had always hoped, always believed. Now it was clear that Tierce was never the man that Sabilis could rely on, that Trist could trust. It was a shame, a lodestone in the young lord's heart.


Machines bring knowledge, store data, are physical manifestations of both.
Therefore, machines are holy.

Trist stopped in at the entrance to the base of the vox mast and leaned upon the frame. He no longer possessed a stomach in whose pit he could feel fear; he had no gut with which to gauge if something was wrong. But he could feel that something was wrong and fear rushed adrenaline through his system. Shutting away the voices, the transmissions, the kernal of regret building in his soul, he focused on the words in the present and those long ago. Peace, for a moment.

"Vizkop tells me that he planted a sleeper program in the Arthrashastra shortly after we first boarded.”

“Given these last few moments I would say it was a wise precaution. Now can we please shut that bloody freighter down and stop whatever insane plan she is trying for?”

Wait, no. No!

His mind raced, the present forgotten, the past muted for a brief split-second. The Arthrashastra. The corridor of unspeakable light. The encounter with Tarran. How much did she know? Did she know even then?

He looked around the room. Yes, here. A moment. A chance to change the course of events. Slim, but there. The others were distracted now, immersed in the world of data beyond the physical, blind to the physical.


As knowledge is holy and machines are holy,
To shut down a machine is an affront to the Omnissiah,
From whom all knowledge flows.

His body was always faster than his mind. Even as his vocal cords failed to utter the warning, his hands found Lotus as his belt. The backs of the techpriests were to him; the psyker was distracted. Did they know? Did they even suspect?

He could feel the heaving of his chest, his augmented lungs pumping air in with a force that stung the flesh of his windpipe. Beneath him, his legs bent slightly, obeying instructions from his unconscious mind, ready to spring. His lips moved and he heard his own breath giving voice to words.

"Circuit preserve us! Get away from the vox!"

His thumb creased the activation rune a moment after it cleared the folds of his cloak. Ozone ignited instantly, burning away rapidly in the close confines of the doorway. A moment later the axe left his hand, flying straight and true as his body knew it would even as his mind only caught up, registering it's light reflecting off the polished vox cogitator. In the back of his mind there was a tiny twinge of regret.

[dakkagor]

So. Thats the way its going to be.

Kally lunged forwards, fists balled, and found McLaughlin in her way. His teeth were gritted and his pupils were beginning to dilate, the glands detecting a surge of adrenalin and pumping his bloodstream with combat drugs.

The fucker that nearly took Vince. She reached into the padded groxhide jacket she was wearing and pulled out the weapon she had smuggled past the stations security. She flicked it out with her wrist, the thin glass baton sliding out to just shy of a half meter in length.

McLaughlin frowned, but attacked anyway. His right fist rocketed towards her head and she blocked with her left forearm, the gelplates hidden behind tanned groxhide helping spread the impact rather than leaving her with a broken arm. His left came up for her gut, and she stepped backwards, dropping her left hand and seizing his wrist. The hours of training with Crenshaw, and a few sessions with Alicia, had left her razor sharp and whip crack fast. She hadn't told Tarran that she was trying to figure out the move set used by Nebula troopers. But every hour she had managed to squeeze in with her was about to pay off.

Her right arm swung up and under a grasping paw as Mclaughlins training told him to go for a tackle, and she crashed the glass tube into the Nebula troopers face. McLaughlin stepped back, eyes instinctively screwing shut and his arms whipping up into a defensive posture as Kally stepped out of his reach.

“Wait. . .is that it?” He growled. His face was wet, the glass already melting into the liquid.

Kally tossed the shattered end of the tube she had been left holding to the floor, and shrugged. McLaughlin stepped forwards, then froze. Grey, sticky goo suddenly expanded over his face. His scream was muffled as it grew over his mouth and nose. His hands tried to claw it from his skin, but only succeeded in becoming stuck in the expanding mass.

It was a simple trick. A resin tube subdivided into three seperate compartments along its length, filled with the component chemicals for webber fluid, itself mounted on an extending glass baton. Completely harmless as far as the stations machine spirit was concerned, and very risky to use. But if you got a hit in, well. . . Kally had to admit, it was one of Oppens more fiendishly clever toys.

McLaughlin crashed to the floor, his thrashing arrested when his face adhered to the metal deck. He'd be dead in minutes, without an application of the solvent Kally had in her other pocket.

She glanced around the fight, and spotted Ella. Frag Arcolin. He was practically dead on his feet, and Marc didn't have any obstructions. But if she was going to get Alicia to come quietly, to rethink whatever the hell was going through her head, she'd need leverage, and Ella was perfect for that. Kally would feel positively awful about that after the fight. But that was something she could live with. At least she'd be giving Marc some closure.

She started to run after Ella.

+++++

Tomas was having some difficulties with Kirabo. She was fast, strong, and the Satrophine had kicked in, so she soaked up punishment like a brick wall. His own one shot trick, a handful of glass beads filled with a knockout gas, had only slowed the Nebula trooper down until the Satrophine had overwhelmed its effects. Now Tomas was on the back foot and looking at an imminent beating.

He did not like imminent beatings.

He backpedalled, swung round. For a second Crenshaw brushed against his back, and he grunted at the fleeting, skin crawling contact with the un-collared blacksoul even as he soaked up another blow on his forearms and blocked another kick. Bruises where piling up and he was getting worn down.

Tomas sucked in a labored breath through his gritted teeth as he heard Sapphira and Vincent exchange shouts in Delphic. He grimaced as a man’s high-pitched, choked off scream reverberated through the gallery with sickening crunches he recognized as vertebrae being crushed. It could always be worse than bruises…

Kirabo looked left, opened her mouth in shock, eyes wide. Tomas didn't even pause. He switched to the attack, landing two solid blows in Kirabo’s abdomen, one two, then catching her on the chin as she buckled over in pain. Kirabo staggered backwards, rallied, and tried to haul Tomas aside.

“McLaughlin! He’s choking!” She yelled, only for Tomas to step inside her guard and deliver a right hook to her nose that sent blood flying. He heard Crenshaw stifle a grunt, and saw the Nebula’s medic sprint towards her downed comrade. She was bleeding from a ragged gash on her cheek. Kirabo screamed in rage, lunging at the swordsman with both hands. Tomas stepped back again, and delivered a kick to the woman’s stomach that only made her angry.

“Die you frakker!” She screamed. Tomas began to wonder how many hits she could take. More than he could, that was for sure.

"Heya, Kirabo!"

“Cellkeeper!”

Kirabo vicious, bloodthirsty snarl was matched by Crenshaw’s contemptuous, wrathful scowl as the two thoroughbred killers were liberated to murderously settle their animosity from Baraspine. The Nebula deftly stepped back and turned to address the incoming threat. She caught Crenshaw’s forearm as he punched in low towards her abdomen with the glinting spike of adamantium clenched in his blooded fist. Kirabo bellowed a Brontian war-oath as she wrenched the blacksoul’s arm and threw out a knee.

Crenshaw twisted his hips and caught the blow with his thigh instead of his balls with a muted grunt. The blacksoul hauled down on his vice clamped arm and planted his feet as he hip-checked the Nebula. Kirabo staggered forwards as she sharply wrenched his arm aside to prevent being skewered. The two killers exchanged growling, rapid fire vulgarity as the major pivoted with his arm torqueing. Crenshaw hauled his other arm back, and the silver metalwork of his digital-laser flashed in the chandelier light.

“Wait!”

One last hit. The swordsman assured himself as Crenshaw duly ignored Alicia’s desperate shout. The digital-laser triggered with a viridian flicker-flash as the major smashed his fist against Kirabo’s cheek – and the borrowed device flashed brighter as it detonated with a resonant thunderclap.

Tomas grunted as he belatedly registered his honed reflexes had him cover his face from the explosion, and grunted again as he also registered the not-unfamiliar stinging of fresh bone shrapnel wounds. The swordsman grimaced at the potent stench of burnt flesh and cooked bone as he lowered his arms, and surveyed the damage done by the sabotaged weapon to the erstwhile combatants.

Crenshaw’s hand was non-existent and all that remained of his wrist were the blackened, jagged shards of his radius and ulna that protruded from the seared flesh of his lower arm. The blacksoul stared incredulously at where his hand had been as he staggered backwards, veins prominent in his forehead and neck as he thumped into the bulkhead and shouted a seething curse through his clenched teeth.

Kirabo had had skin stripped from her face by the blast, a grisly wound that exposed blackened bone and teeth. Her right eye had been seared out in a grim, tangled mess from the shrapnel from Crenshaw's own hand. Blood poured from a dozen scalp lacerations and her short cropped hair smouldered from the released energy.

Kirabo staggered back to her feet, and rasped out a gurgling scream as she came for him again, her remaining pupil dilating as the Satrophine flooded her system, and Tomas was back on the defensive, ducking and weaving, giving ground.

His back hit a bulkhead and he ducked, really letting himself fall out of the way. Kirabo's fist slammed into the metal so hard he heard the bones in her knuckles crack. She let out a low moan of pain and staggered back, clutching her broken fist, blood trickling from split skin over cracked bones. Tomas scrambled to his feet, and delivered a punishing kick to the woman’s crotch that caused her to fold up. Before she could recover, he was on her. Grabbing the Nebula trooper by her hair, he dragged her to the bulkhead and slammed the remains of her face into it, breaking her nose and shattering several teeth, then slamming her forehead into the unyielding metal until she collapsed, unconscious, or dead, at last.

Breathing hard, he looked up and saw Machairi grappling with another trooper, both trading blows with expert precision.

Rolling his shoulders, he charged in to help.

Tarquinius rolled his body away from Machairi, and pistoned out a foot that caught the inquisitor full in the face. As the pressure on his pinned arm vanished, the Nebula colonel flipped back onto his feet, ready to seize the advantage.

He was just in time to meet Tomas bearing down on him. A lightning fast exchange of strikes and counterstrikes left the colonel with blood streaming down his forehead, and Tomas doubled over from a winding blow to his solar plexus.

Both men fell back. Tomas reached down, and Machairi clasped his outstretched hand to haul herself back to her feet. A silent look passed between the two, significant without spoken words.

Not your first save, Tom.

And hopefully not the last, Mach.

Machairi cuffed blood from her nose and split lip. Tarquinius did the same, the blue implant at his temple still winking sickly through the film of red. The blood settled into the scars furrowing his craggy face, making him look older; uglier.

“This bloodshed solves nothing, inquisitor. The only reason we came here at all was because the executor wanted to give you a chance to see reason.”

“If you could see reason,” Machairi panted. “You would kill executor DeRei yourselves and stop this madness before you make the whole subsector bleed.”

The Nebula colonel shook his head. “I told you, the revolution has already begun.”

Tarquinius sucked in a breath, and bellowed a retreat order in Tephaine gothic.

+++++

Raechel had a moment to register the Arthrashastra’s soul awakening, and then the blow hit. A spearhead of aggressive program attacks, fuelled by dozens of icebreaking cogitators slaved from all over the ship, attempting to clear the way for a colossal, seething mass of mind-melting neurofeedback.

The neurofeedback was bleeding with the unmistakable scrap-code taint of a warp daemon.

Raechel stared at the oncoming attack. "Oh.” she said aloud.

Nikolai blinked. Such monstrous heresy. Such vileness. He could feel its hatred bleeding across the connection, its desire to corrupt, kill, destroy.
In a fraction of a second his gloriously enchanced brain ran through the options, even as the wave of neurofeedback crested over the three adepts and threatened to overwhelm them.

It could not be stopped. It could not be reasoned with, and fighting it would leave the entire ships data-architecture a barren, blasted wasteland as they tried to contain and purge it, section by section.

But it could be redirected. It could be contained. He fired a quick data-packet at Kuscelian, bright, indefatigable Kuscelian, and then used the backdoor he had guiltily placed in her mind a year ago for just such an occurance. She was trapped out of the system, anything linking to her redirecting to Nikolai. He did the same to Vizkop, but this time with jarring brute force, throwing down a dizzying wave of redirects and barriers.

Like water, like a tidal bore, the neurofeedback and the data daemon on its heels followed the path of least resistance and poured into the only thing it could find. Nikolai's beautifully augmented brain. It screamed into him, tearing at his soul and his mind, and just as it realised it was trapped, just as it realised Nikolai's deadly intent, he pulled the plugs out of the back of his head. He staggered away from the console, Vizkop and Raechel still trapped in the system for a few vital seconds.

"Circuit preserve us! Get away from the vox!"

He staggered backwards, away from the vox. He could feel the vile thing thrashing, moaning and shrieking inside him, rifling through his memories, his systems, trying to find a way out. An unlocked I/O port, a noospheric interface, anything.

His thumb creased the activation rune a moment after it cleared the folds of his cloak. Ozone ignited instantly, burning away rapidly in the close confines of the doorway. A moment later the axe left his hand, flying straight and true as his body knew it would even as his mind only caught up, registering it's light reflecting off the polished vox cogitator. In the back of his mind there was a tiny twinge of regret.

Nikolai felt something slam into his back. It was heavy, sharp, and carved through his spine, throwing him like a broken ragdoll to smash into the vox.

"Oh." He wetly slid down the vox, smearing it in blood and lubricant as the daemon cackled in binharic.

His head lolled on his shoulders as he tried to look at who had just killed them all. Standing there, frozen in horror, was Trist. As his brain burned out and shut down, an unconnected bit of data fluttered across his eyes.

Nikolai travelled silently down the long corridors of the Tiercel. Normally such a glorious artifact of the Omnissiah, a herald of his divine will encased in adamantium, would fill him with wonder. But he couldn't shake the feeling the ships bellicose spirit was judging him, watching his every step, waiting for an excuse to kill the one who had threatened its master.

It made him very nervous.

As he traversed the main spinal corridor, he saw a standard human male, lightly augmented. Trist Maximillun, Lord of Sabillis. He hadn't expected him to be lurking on this vessel. Nikolai turned and bowed to the Lord, presenting a flawless Aquilla.

"Honoured Lord. I was not aware you were aboard."

Trist returned the Aquilla in a decidedly less perfect fashion, the folds of his cloak shifting almost imperceptibly as he did so. Certainly at least two of a like on this ship, he reflected. Taking his hand from the Imperial salute, he brought them together so that they formed a cog of the Mechanicus. A perfect cog. “Nor was I, you. Well met.”

"What brings you out and about at this hour, if I may be so bold?" Nikolai asked in an innocent tone, while resuming his slow walk, with Trist falling in next to him.

This is a useful opportunity, but also a dangerous distraction.

Wondering how I got myself into this mess, of course. thought Trist, though he kept his face composed and replied aloud, "Doing what I am afraid to say that I do worse; scrounging for information. What about you?" Seeing Nikolai's expression at that, he laughed, "You see? No skill to speak of."

His laughter echoed down the gunmetal corridors, empty save for the two of them. Come to that, Trist could not recall seeing any crew in this part of the vessel. Studying the metal-man before him, the lord wondered whether someone had yet carved out the part of his once-human brain that felt fear at such desolation. Knowing tech-priests as he did, Trist could not dismiss the possibility.

Nikolai raised an eyebrow, and coughed slightly into a clenched fist at that comment.

"Well, perhaps if you have information to share, we can arrange a trade of sorts?"

He stopped and turned to face Trist directly.

"As agents of the throne, it would be wise to share what we know."

He watched Trist carefully, still unsure how truly dangerous the man was.

"My colleague and I have been caught flat footed in this situation. And I doubt you know everything about the mechanicus side of this equation."

Over the years Trist had come to appreciate that his eyes were works of art almost as much as the techpriest who installed them claimed they were. Though they could be stale and dead to the point of unnerving more typical company, who usually couldn’t tell they weren’t organic, they did have a singular benefit: hiding his intentions became incredibly easy since effort was necessary for finer emotional displays. With much of his body likewise replaced, he did not have to worry about giving away his surprise. Usually.

Spreading his hands in an open gesture, he replied, “As you say. What is it that you want to know?”

"To the point, why are you here, and what is it you hope to accomplish?" Nikolai shrugged his shoulders. It was blunt, but he felt that driving in hard now might achieve something. "My colleague and I were originally tasked with assessing the threat posed by the Nebula Corps. Now we hunt a renowned Heretic."

The adept seemed to be trying the honest track, but the young lord was unsure whether he could trust that at this juncture; in the techpriest's position, he certainly wouldn't. "I am serving in the capacity of an liaison of sorts to the Lord Governor. As you might have guessed, the actions of this Heretic have caused quite a disturbance, one that he could not ignore. The Lord Governor thought it would be useful to have someone on hand to keep matters in perspective and possibly preempt any administrative issues."

"As for the intention," Trist shrugged, the immaculate white material of his cloak rolling with the movement, "A swift and thorough resolution to the current crisis that is satisfactory to the Imperium. Certainly there could be worse outcomes." Looking up and down the hall to be certain that they were alone, he added, "To be quite frank, there comes a point at which certain parties can only hope to resolve the issue without drawing further unwanted attention. Matters have progressed far beyond what simple diplomatic interactions were intended when I joined the Lord Governor's court."

"I would ask you to consider, then, that perhaps things have moved to the point where the situation must be resolved, political point scoring be damned. Sometimes, to save the hab-block, you have to burn the hab-block."

Nikolai bowed.

"Anyway, I'm sure you have important business to attend to elsewhere. Good day, milord."

Returning the gesture, Trist watched as the techpriest walked away and reflected that he likely knew more about burning hab-blocks to save them than the metallic man; the servant of the Omnissiah did evade going all out on the forge world, after all. What he missed is that, sometimes, the hab-block was not the thing that needed burning.

"Next time" Nikolai gurgled. "Speak plainly."

There was a blast of lightning that swallowed the deck in white arc flare light. When it receded, Nikolai's carbon laced skeleton was standing, trailing wires and burning augmetics.

The daemon puppeteering the remains of his body picked up Trists axe, and let out a static laced howl.

[Azazeal849]

Kill them all. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_mS3ZhNanAs)

Marc ducked a savage kick, pushing off one foot to cut to Arcolin’s right, and pivoted into a spinning backfist that the heretic caught on his forearm.

“I know you’re not a sadist, Marc.” Arcolin panted, angry now as he threw the investigator back. “Unless someone’s a cop killer, or a traitor, or they threaten your inner circle...you're an Emperor-damned hypocrite.”

Marc laughed through blood-laced teeth. “Then just think what I'm going to do to you - a traitor, a cop killer, and you're trying to kill my friends."

Arcolin’s height advantage knocked him back again. The arbites fighting style was all lethal counters, forcing him to abort half of his attacks and protect himself. Marc reeled back from a blow that connected and clutched at his ribs, one hand folded over the other. If Arcolin saw him twist the signet ring on his right hand, he had no time to react as Marc launched himself forward, a flying, stabbing punch.

Arcolin reacted as Marc knew he would. Ingrained training; instinctive counterpunch. This time Marc made no attempt to ward off the blow.

Marc felt a smashing impact against his eye socket, and the whole left side of his vision went black. His balance deserted him and he teetered back before falling hard. Then the pain hit him, sparking in blinding waves through the inside of his skull, radiating out from where his left eye had been. He curled up around it, muscles locked by the freezing agony.

From the drunken angle of the floor, he could see Arcolin stumbling back to catch his balance, and batting at the new scratch raked along his already-scarred jaw. Smashed back by his longer reach, Marc’s attack had barely grazed him. In spite of the pain, Mac felt a laugh well up in his throat. A graze was enough.

The needler ring on his right index finger had broken; half of the injector snapped clean off. A tiny bead of black liquid bubbled out of the vial inside and spilled down onto the floor. Not Veritas truth serum this time. Etum Omega - one of the deadliest blended toxins in the inquisition’s arsenal.

Arcolin wavered, his right hand painted with Marc’s blood, his left with a tiny streak of his own. He dropped to one knee, and began to choke.


+ + + + + +

Tiercel

Raechel was frantically reversing her attack codes, shunting every firewall and sandbox isolator to the forefront, when Nikolai pinged the data-packet into her head. She took it for a new attack strategy; something - anything - to stop or slow down the monstrous blasphemy roaring towards them. But as the digital origami unfolded, she realised too late that it was a trap. First her noospheric connection clicked off, and then the connector port in her hand, the signal node redirecting as Nikolai’s own tracer tags flooded over it. Even her electrograft stuttered and shut down, taking the familiar, warlike buzzing sensation in her temples with it.

For a terrible, horrifying microsecond, she was locked inside her own head - hearing nothing but cackling static and seeing nothing but the last calculations that her electrograft had burned across her retinas. Current defensive strategy, projected probability of preventing hostile scrap code from infecting Tiercel machine spirit: 36%. Projected time until hostile scrap code severs outbound attack line to Arthrashastra: 2.849 seconds.

Probability of electrograft firewall failure: 63%. Fatal seizure from neurofeedback imminent without immediate disengagement from system.

Without the detached certainty of her cogitator implants, Raechel’s brain jumped to the impossible - that Nikolai’s defences had collapsed, and the data-daemon had fired a trojan program into her head without her realising. But as the flashing, agonising horror of data corruption failed to spread through her implants, she realised another solution to the equation. That Nikolai had installed a remote command into her electrograft - probably during one of their routine upgrades - and used it to shut down and reroute her connection. Not impossible this time; just unthinkable.

Not Nikolai. Not the tech-priest who had convinced her that some people were, in fact, worth trusting.

Raechel’s mind was blank. Even as her electrograft and her haptic connectors rebooted she gave them no command input, her barrier programs spiralling out to form their shieldwall in accordance with their last received directive. As soon as her transmitter implant was back online, she used it to fire a screaming data packet at her fellow Ocularis; coarsely baseline invective wrapped in neat, clinical machine code.

+YOU MOTHERFRAKKING SON OF A BITCH!+

There was no-one there to receive the castigating expletive. As more data streamed back into Kuscelian’s implants, she realised that both Nikolai and the data-daemon were gone. Her electrograft recalculated, the odds swinging dramatically.

Projected probability of Arthrashastra icebreakers breaching Tiercel machine spirit: 20%. Projected probability of Arthrashastra firewalls resisting Omega 9 data spike: 11%.

Raechel felt an impact against her shoulder as somebody flailed past her. It had to be Nikolai. He disengaged himself from the system.

Raechel stayed linked into the system for no longer than it took to make the binary switch from a shielding program to an attacking one. Her data stream inverted, ready to send invasive overrides beaming across the vox link to set Arthrashastra’s command servitors tearing into their own systems. Vizkop’s attack was already underway, and even more destructive - propagating through the freighter’s raging, counter-striking machine spirit with ferocious efficiency. The soul-killer attack algorithms unfolded with a terrible beauty that Raechel had never before witnessed, not even after three years serving the Ocularii. Now she understood why they called him Dragonslayer.

She could not stay to marvel at the destruction. She ripped herself out of the control console, so fast that the machine howled its protest in a shower of sparks. She could not stay to apologise to the gross violation of machine rites either. All her attention was on Nikolai, spasming across the console next to her while something bubbled and clawed underneath his pale skin.

He was on his knees; trying to rise and push away from the console, his hands fumbling with his melta pistol as he forced rebelling hands to turn the muzzle upward towards his own face.

Raechel couldn’t risk a data connection with Nik’s daemon-infected implants, and her legs - her slow, useless human legs - would never carry her to his side in time. “Nik!” she screamed, her flesh-voice the only tool left to her to bridge the gap between them.

For an illogical moment, Raechel was no longer on the inquisitorial void runner. She was back in the silent forges of Anatolia (www.role-player/net/forum/showthread.php?t=71660&page=2&p=2482793&viewfull=1#post2482793), listening to Nikolai speak the first of many truths to her.

You are working from too small a data set to assume that all members of the priesthood who suddenly leave have an ulterior motive. Some just might want you to stay safe.

Nikolai flailed around, away from her and towards Trist. Only then did Raechel see the power axe jutting from his back, bleeding lightning and a reek of ozone. It was Trist’s.

"Next time," Nikolai gurgled. "Speak plainly."

There was a blast of lightning that swallowed the deck in white arc flare light. When it receded, Nikolai's carbon-laced skeleton was still standing, trailing wires and burning augmetics. The silver threads of one exploded bionic eye hung limply from their socket, and the MIU chip plugged between his neck vertebrae crackled as its spirit fled its broken vessel as a wisp of smoke. Both Trist’s axe and Nikolai’s own melta pistol fell to the deck with a clatter, released from the grip of vaporised flesh. Because flesh was weak, Raechel thought ruefully, and metal endured. And then Nikolai’s skeleton began to collapse - folding in on itself with almost stately grace, as if the physical laws of the Machine God were trying to imbue his passing with a shred of the dignity it deserved.

No. Too graceful. Not collapsing at all.

Stooping.

It was no longer the natural laws of the Machine God that were governing the de-fleshed corpse.

The daemon moved, hauling like a puppeteer on the burned-dead neurocircuit wires that bound Nikolai’s charred skeleton together. Silver-jacketed phalanges closed around Trist’s fallen axe. The daemon rose to its stolen feet, the last embers of a burning implant smouldering like witchfire behind its eye sockets. In his last act Nikolai had burned out all of his I/O connections, denying the daemon a chance to spread to another body - but now with no-one fighting it for control of the remnants of Nikolai’s beautiful, subtle neurocircuits, it had no need of one. Something very much like a triumphant war cry cackled, stacatto-screech, from the seared remains of Nikolai’s binharic transmitter.

The axe came at Raechel in a sweeping arc, its spirit dead in the daemon’s hands but its monomolecular edge still deadly even without the buzzing power field. Raechel ducked and threw herself to her left as the axe carved into the vox system’s interface panel. A shriek of metal shearing through metal formed the death scream of even more machine spirits as the vox array’s life was ripped out of it in a scatter of soul-sparks.

Raechel rolled to escape from under the data-daemon’s feet. She could see the striated lightning-scars on its bones, and it bled an indescribable reek of burned-out wiring and cooked organ meat; the smell of dead flesh and dead machine. The daemon was barking in angry, corrupted binary as it fought to free its axe from the guts of the vox array. It was almost as if, with its last breath, the machine spirit was trying to grip tight to the stolen weapon and buy them a few precious moments. Then she saw the film of psychic ice clawing over the axe blade, fusing it in place.

Gavin. And this time, thank the Omnissiah, the technopath was on her side.

Raechel stretched out desperately with her bionic hand, and snared Nikolai’s fallen inferno pistol with the magnetic lure built into her palm. A pulse of feedback ticked up her arm as the gun skittered and slid across the floor and locked into her waiting fingers. The Dragon tech-priestess rolled onto her back just as the daemon ripped its axe free with a triumphant roar. The axe trailed a streamer of metal confetti from the vox array as it swung over and down. Raechel’s eyes met the daemon’s empty sockets as Nikolai’s pistol swung over and up.

It was like the electrified bone-golem she had fought on Anatolia, only worse. Nikolai had offered himself as bait to the daemon, and it had swallowed him whole from the inside out. She looked into her partner’s face and there was nothing left; only flensed bone, burst-black eye sockets and grinning, cackling corruption. Her arm was quaking, biologic fear response interfering with the signals jagging along her nerves. Luckily, the machine spirit of her bionic hand knew what she needed better than her flesh did, and a metal finger snatched back the trigger.

A flashbulb glare and a dragon’s breath of heat overwhelmed Raechel’s physical senses. Burning cables and molten metal rained like brimstone as the melta beam seared into the roof of the chamber, triggering klaxon screams and the slashing smoke-jets of fire suppressors. The beam bored right through the thing that had been Raechel’s closest friend. For a split second she saw the daemon as a long-limbed shadow, backlit against the white, before its skull and ribcage puffed out of existence and what remained of its wire-clad skeleton burst in all directions. Trist’s axe spun away and buried itself in the wall.

Raechel’s artificial heart skipped an excruciating beat, and the data-daemon screamed static into her aural implant as it vanished back to hell. The scream was replaced by a colder, angrier roar as Gavin’s vox-ghost flickered through her, and then past her. There were splinters of something embedded in Raechel’s cheek, and she realised with a kind of numb horror that they were fragments of Nikolai’s bones. The air was dusty with hot ash.

Solvan and Kelly came pounding into the room, shaken by the unexplained explosion and staring in horror at the smoke-shrouded aftermath. Kelly was shouting Gavin’s name as Trist collapsed into a twisting, wrenching heap on the floor. Raechel barely registered them, even as her electrograft filed away a picture-perfect image of the scene. She dropped the pistol and fell back against the floor with both hands over her face, choking on human ashes and human tears.


+ + + + + +

Concordia orbital

Kally started to run after Ella. The ballroom doors gaped open in front of her, and beyond them the frail young astropath was lying collapsed halfway down the corridor that led back to the airlocks. It looked like someone had taken her down while she was trying to run, but who had done it and why they hadn’t finished the job Kally couldn’t tell. She spun to look for the culprit, and was immediately enveloped in a brawling tackle. Her yelp and the crunching impact were just one more sound amid the screams and curses of the ongoing melee.

Kally kneed Alicia in the stomach, and rolled to lever the choking rogue trader off her. She managed to regain her hands and knees before the other woman returned to the attack, punching her in the spine to knock her sprawling forward. Kally’s chin hit the fossil-laced tiles, jarring her teeth together.

“I don’t believe this, Kally.” Alicia panted helplessly. “You went above and beyond your duty on Saros, as much as or more than I ever did. How can you still fight for the imperium after what they did to you?”

Kally’s elbow hit Alicia in the throat, and the unexpected gutter-fighter’s blow left the former Nebula wheezing powerlessly on the deck. But only for a moment - as Kally tried to rise, Alicia’s booted foot snapped out and broke her nose.

“I’m so sorry Kally.” Alicia apologised, heartfelt. She clutched her bruised throat as she stumbled to her feet. “I didn’t want it to be like this. I hoped we could be on the same side.”

"There are no sides." Kally gargled through a mouth full of blood and broken teeth. She rolled to her feet, blinking away the stars, and she spat a gobbet of bloody spit at Alicias feet. "There's only the Imperium, and all the gakked up shit it has to do to survive, or the death of humanity." She stepped towards Alicia. "That's why I stayed. Because this fight is the only one left worth a gakking damn."

Alicia hit fast. Kally pushed one punch aside, then another, but the swinging kick was not a part of the Nebula troopers standard set of moves. Kally felt a rib pop, but in return she got in a good hard strike to Alicia's left ear with the edge of her palm. There was a flare of anger in Alicia's eyes as she staggered, then attacked again. Kally blocked two more blows before Alicia finally powered through her defenses and slammed a fist into the floating rib left from her previous kick. The pain was enough to send Kally into the corridor wall, gasping in pain.

"Stop fighting." Alicia snarled. "I don't want to hurt you."

"I'll never stop." Kally locked eyes with the Alicia. "Never. I'll hunt you, and Ella, and Arcolin to the ends of the frakking galaxy. I'll make you all pay."

For a moment, the two women, the Blank and the Toy Soldier, stared at each other, the divide that had always existed between them now a vast, unbridgeable chasm of hate. Kally lunged first, but Alicia was faster. She swatted aside Kally's punch, and grabbed her arm as she overbalanced. With a savage twist, she dislocated Kally's left arm, and used it to slam her into the floor, dropping onto her spine with a knee. Kally screamed in rage and pain, but Alicia wasn't finished. She grabbed Kally's hair and slammed her face into the deck until she heard the fossil tiles crack under the impacts.

Breathing hard, Alicia stood. Kally was alive. Barely. And she knew that she would follow up on her promise. Kally Sonder would hunt her relentlessly if she didn't finish the job. But then she pictured the horrified, stricken look on Ella’s face.

With a huff, Alicia turned away.

“Captain Tarran!” Tarquinius’ voice cut through the melee. “Fall back! Get your ship prepped for evac!”

Alicia looked up. Khaki uniforms blurred among the confused brawl as Sharma and Tyria fought their way back towards the door. Sharma was still engaged with Glabrio, and colonel Tarquinius - first in, last out - was mounting a fighting withdrawal against both Tomas and Machairi. To his credit, the colonel was able to ward off both the inquisitor and her bodyguard as he gave ground back towards the door portal. His mistake was when he tried to use one hand to haul up Arcolin, who had fallen onto all fours near an equally disabled Marc. A punch from Tomas hit the colonel in his unprotected side, shifting his weight; a kick collapsed his ankle, and he was forced to roll away, escaping the Casterian’s follow-up grapple only by leaving a sheaf of ripped gold braid in Tomas’ fist.

Machairi aimed a kick into the side of Arcolin’s head, knocking the collapsed man sprawling. She twisted a hand in Arcolin’s long hair to dash his head against the tiles and finish what Marc had evidently started. Alicia began to run.

Crenshaw dived through the melee towards her. Callisto intercepted, protecting her former wing-woman. Mid-stride, Alicia pulled a vial of black liquid from her webbing pocket and tipped it into her mouth. Watching semi-conscious from the floor, Kally recognised the black elixir as Spook.

“Get away,” Alicia shouted, “From my BROTHER!”

A thunderclap sounded across the ballroom, and Kally thought she saw a circle of burning light form around Alicia’s feet, crossed through with ugly, wriggling runes, before the wall lamps and the three chandeliers hanging above their heads snuffed out and plunged the whole room into darkness.



+ + + + + +

Tomas stumbled, losing Tarquinius in the gloom. The lamps around the walls began to flicker and misfire sporadically, granting him brief glimpses as sections of the hall blazed bright and then were just as suddenly swallowed by blackness. He heard a sound like rushing smoke beside him, and then a sharp cry. In another starburst flash he saw that Machairi was no longer at his side but had been dragged several paces away, headlocked by a thing made of solidified mist.

Flash.

The inquisitor struck backwards with her elbow, but her arm sliced empty air, scattering through a plume of immaterial smoke. The claws wrapped around her face remained horribly solid. Tomas spun and aimed a wild, sweeping hook at the thing as the room went dark once more.

Flash.

He hit empty air, and the thing had now dragged Machairi further away from him. It was hunched over the inquisitor’s ear, and the indistinct shroud of its head seemed to domino through a dozen twisted, blue-tinted faces in the space of a heartbeat. As blackness descended, Tomas heard the creature speak.

“Beware the daemon at your back, inquisitor.”

Flash.

Tomas saw Machairi’s eyes, wider and more frightened than he had ever seen them. He saw her hand clawing out towards him. Desperate hand; pleading hand; drowning hand. The thing torqued Machairi’s head around with a wrenching snap, and as the inquisitor fell to the floor darkness fell with her.


+ + + + + +

The darkness smothering Kally lifted in a flash as the wall-lamps around her stuttered. She saw something, a plume of blue smoke, tunnelling through the murk. It aimed like a spear towards Alicia, and as the room went dark again, she saw the plume streaming down her former comrade’s throat.

When the light strobed again several seconds later, Alicia Tarran had disappeared.


+ + + + + +

Marc rolled, and sprawled painfully onto his front. The flesh around his blinded eye orbit was puffing shut, and he could feel hot liquid trickling viscously down his cheek. He tasted copper and salt. Someone was hissing in his ear where his microbead still sat, distorted by static until it sounded almost like the growling, shrieking underhive hate metal that he had listened to in his youth.

His right leg throbbed with remembered pain as he thought of another microbead, ringing a cacophony while he bled out on a gun-shop floor. Kally negotiating with Kadath to try and save his life. Inquisitor Massani’s men laying waste to the uphive - in an atrocity that he had later shot her dead for, gunning her down like the heretic filth she was. Acolin lying with only a cashier’s desk separating them, half his ribs seared away by a glancing melta blast.

If Arcolin had died there, a wave of cultists wouldn’t have blocked the path to Pembroke, and Makita hive might not have burned on Sidonis’ order. Franklin Priest wouldn’t have fallen to a sniper’s bullet on Teleostei. Loyal Imperials would not be dead on Marioch, Baraspine, Perinetus. Adrantis subsector would not now be on the brink of war.

The discordant noise of the vox in Marc’s ear became a focus. With a snarl of pained effort, he pulled himself up onto one elbow. He could see bodies lying contorted around the ballroom, blurred figures moving indistinctly, inconsequentially, between them. Arcolin - Arcolin, who had been right beside him a moment ago, choking to death - was gone. One of the Nebulas, Tyria, had hoisted him over her shoulder and was running for the exit.

“Inquisitor?” the hate-metal static in his ear became a voice. It was Solvan. “Anybody? What is going on down there?”

“Daemon.” Marc rasped, thickly. “They’re trying to run.”

An escape pod to the Nebula frigate would never make it past Impiger. They had to be heading for the docked Arthrashastra. It would take them a vital two or three minutes to reach it. Marc was never going to let them get that far while he still breathed.

“They took Arcolin with them.” he growled, foaming through clenched teeth. “I scratched him with Etum Omega.”

“Then he is dead.” Solvan replied.

“He isn’t dead until I see his frakking corpse!” Marc blazed. His bisected vision was veiled in red, and past the ruined agony of his left eye every blood vessel in his face and neck felt ready to burst. But behind it, the logic of what he had to do was cold and remorseless. “Gavin? Maxilium? In the name of the Emperor’s holy inquisition, fire on this frakking orbital! Kill the son of a bitch!”

[dakkagor]

“He isn’t dead until I see his frakking corpse!” Marc blazed. His bisected vision was veiled in red, and past the ruined agony of his left eye every blood vessel in his face and neck felt ready to burst. But behind it, the logic of what he had to do was cold and remorseless. “Gavin? Maxilium? In the name of the Emperor’s holy inquisition, fire on this frakking orbital! Kill the son of a bitch!”

“Belay that!” Tomas yelled as he kneeled over Macharai. “Frakking belay that! Mach is down!”

He placed a hand on her chest and almost sobbed with relief when he felt her chest rise and fall. She was breathing, raggedly. Her heart was beating a rapid humming bird dance in her chest. Terror. His own bionic heart was pounding like a steam hammer in his chest.

“I've got you.” Tomas promised. “I've got you. We can fix this. We can fix anything.”

+++++

Kally lurched to her feet. She tried to speak, but there was only a gurgling, spitting noise. She was concussed again. Injured. Badly. Someone was yelling something, screaming in anger. Her entire face was on fire, and her chest was complaining loudly about a punctured lung. Her left arm hung limply, the muscles and tendons bruised and mutilated.

Worse pain than this hadn't killed her. Worse injuries than this hadn't stopped her.

She turned to the docking bay and started to put one foot in front of the other. That was the only way to survive. Keep going. In the back of her mind, something else, something that drove her forwards, with utter determination.

Hatred. Pure, unfiltered, unreasoning hatred.

To the ends of the galaxy. To the ends of universe. I will find and kill you all.

Her foot nudged something. She looked down, and saw one of the Nebulas lying in a pool of blood. She was still breathing. With a pained groan, Kally bent and grabbed the Nebula by her collar, and dragged her along.

It starts with you.

+++++

Tomas was dragging Macharai. His reinforced coat had made an improvised brace for her neck, and he was dragging her, as fast as he dared, by her shoulders, her head resting on his pounding chest.

“Everyone who is still alive and moving, evacuate! Fall back now!” He glanced around, seeing Kally staggering along dragging one of the Nebula's with her, the others falling back with varying degrees of willingness to give up the chase.

"Maxilium, if you can hear me, you need to send out a warning. The whole Sub is going to burn in a matter of days. You need to get your astropaths to contact Tephaine, the Arbitrators need to know. . . Tierce is complicit, compromised. This is bigger than Arcolin and the Nebula's" He sucked in a breath, aware he was on the edge of panic, the edge of babbling like a mad man. "You need to tell the Arbitrators to arrest Tierce, before he can lead his sub-sector into damnation!"

[Azazeal849]

Concordia orbital

Gavin felt a contact with his physical body, hands still interfaced with the Tiercel’s vox systems as he raged through the dying Arthrashastra. It was Kelly, her hand clamping down over his own.

“Don’t you frakking dare.” the former verispex said. It took Gavin a heartbeat to realise that it was in answer to Marc’s shouted order, which had been all but drowned out by the Grey Knight chant coursing through his memory. The grip on his hand was almost a claw - half pleading, half rigid with incandescent fury. The fury was not directed at him.

Gavin could not recall the same mix of emotions from Kelly since she had thrown herself in front of a squad of PDF servitors on Hercynia.

“Belay that!” Tomas’ voice cut across the vox, shuddering through Gavin as the technopath projected himself along the signal-waves. “Frakking belay that! Mach is down!”

As the vox-wave passed through him, Gavin thought that the old Casterian sounded raw, on the verge of tears. His evident rage and grief was almost as frightening as Kelly’s.

“Glabrio!” someone else shouted, the pickup faint and second hand. “Find Sapphira! We need a medic, not a martyr!”

“Where’s Vince?” yelled another.


+ + + + + +

Glabrio had weighed the odds, and he did not like them. Sapphira had gone full repentia, and from what he could hear over the vox she was screaming at one of the Nebulas to give her Arcolin. Glabrio guessed that they had to be somewhere near the airlock by now. But that meant that the other Nebulas Glabrio had seen fleeing the scene were about to run up behind her and cut her off.

Tired, unaugmented and with one broken arm, Glabrio himself was not much of an asset. But there was one valuable bargaining chip left on Concordia orbital. One blind, treacherous bargaining chip.

Striding through the blinking, stuttering lights, Glabrio dragged Ella upright with his good arm and thumped her against one of the weapon-scanner arches that ribbed the corridor. The astropath came to with a whimper, blood running down her face from a deep split by her temple.

“Well look what you’ve done now.” the investigator growled, tutting through his gritted teeth. Twisting his fingers around Ella’s collar, he hauled her minimal weight up to his eye level, hearing the fabric of her robe tear as he did so. “I believe imperial law gives you the right to refuse to give testimony, and I suggest you exercise it because otherwise I will be knocking your traitor teeth down your traitor throat.”

“Glabrio…” Ella whined, recognising his voice. Her whole body was quaking.

“That’ll be investigator Hybrida for the foreseeable future.” Glabrio countermanded her. “And if you are going to talk, perhaps you’d like to explain how your girl-crush on Alley was worth all of this.”

He wheeled her away from the wall, wondering how her warp-sight was rendering the human wreckage now filling the ballroom behind him.

“It wasn’t just that!” Ella pleaded, and Glabrio grudgingly admitted that she at least had enough shreds of honour left to not outright deny it. “I read it...in the Tarot...I’m trying to save people…”

“Really?” Glabrio queried dryly as he began to drag the wounded astropath along the corridor. “Prove it.”

He could hear sounds of brutal, unarmed combat up ahead. He broke into a lurching run as he heard Sapphira yelp, hauling Ella after him. The astropath seemed unable to muster any resistance, physical or psychic.

“Glabrio, please…” she whimpered as she stumbled along, “You need to listen! Carson-”

“Shut up.” Glabrio ordered flatly. Ahead of him the Nebula called Sharma had barrelled into Sapphira, leaving his companion to retreat through the umbilical with a comatose Arcolin. Sapphira had been backed up against the wall, where she was using her chaplet as a flail to fend off both Sharma and the Nebula colonel. Against two satrophene-boosted opponents, she was not winning.

“Give up!” Sharma was hissing as he grappled her to the floor. “I don’t want to have to kill a Sister.”

Sapphira’s enraged eyes fell upon the Aquila medallion strung around the Nebula’s neck, dangling free from underneath his ripped dress uniform. “You’re not worthy of His symbol, heretic.”

“Heretic?” Sharma repeated venomously, and dug his knee harder into Sapphira’s shoulder. “The colonel’s right; you inquisition types do throw that word around too easily.”

Sapphira hissed. “What else would you call someone who fights with a former cultist? He admitted it himself, right in front of you!”

“The Emperor protects!” Sharma spat, his gritted teeth an inch from Sapphira’s ear. “He believes in redemption, sister. He’s not a self-righteous asshole like you!”

“We’re done here.” Tarquinius interjected sharply. “We don’t need a prisoner. Kill her and lets go.”

“No, you’re not quite done.” Glabrio interjected, and twisted Ella’s arm into a professional arbitrator’s bind that he used to lever her to her knees. “Let her go or I’ll break your latest recruit’s spine.”

Both of the Nebulas snapped up to look at him, their eyes a threatening target-lock.

“I think you’ll be needing an astropath.” Glabrio went on coldly. “I hear our ad mech friends made a holy mess of your freighter’s vox system, among other things. Plus imagine what your Alley Cat would say if you handed her a blind, spindly corpse.”

Tarquinius held the investigator’s eyes for a heartbeat. “Done.”

At his word, Sharma released his hold on Sapphira. Glabrio put his foot on Ella’s back and shoved her towards the two Nebulas.

“I’ll be seeing you, Blondie.” Glabrio warned the astropath, before hooking Sapphira’s arm around his shoulders and helping her to limp away.


+ + + + + +

Merle vs Vincent - coming soon


+ + + + + +

The Arthrashastra

Auto-scaffolds swung back, telescoping down into their rest positions with a reverberating thump that was immediately swallowed by the airless void. In reply, mag bolts disengaged from the Arthrashastra’s airlock and the docking umbilical broke away, leaving the detached end of the tunnel to sway and curl like a blind worm. Retro rockets flared along the trader’s flank, bathing the outer hull of the station in light and heat as the vessel clawed away.

Alicia shouldered her way onto the bridge, running purely on adrenaline and whatever strength her mother had given her. Even after escaping the melee, she had returned to a ship in chaos - lights strobing, consoles blown, crazed control servitors attempting to trigger meltdowns in multiple systems. Alicia had broken their necks with her bare hands, putting the automatons down just like her mother had put down inquisitor Machairi. One of the servitors had lost its golden mask as she seized it, and for a brief moment, the slack female face behind had contorted and shrieked in hate at her.

Alicia was drained, physically and emotionally; and even the familiar sight of the command deck had lost its power to comfort. Her place of control - and yet to seize the destiny she wanted she was going to have to fight harder than ever before. Her place of friendship - and yet most of the people she called friends were now lying dead or wounded in Concordia’s ballroom.

Everything was as she had left it - the rosewood columns still gleaming, the brass chronometer ticking, the Prince family writ of trade sitting safely in its armourglass alcove. It had been blind luck that none of her gilded servitors had been manning the dirigarium when the machine curse hit. But something was out of place. She could feel it with her newly boosted aura-sense.

“My thrall is gone…” the voice of her mother whispered, sounding distraught.

Alicia understood, albeit through senses that she had never possessed, and through memories that she had never experienced. The warp-spawn, her mother’s unwilling servant, had been somehow leeched out of the warp cogitator where she had caged it. A follow-up attack had gouged huge chunks out of the ship’s machine spirit, leaving whole subsystems dead and the central cores fractured and lobotomised. What was left of the Arthrashastra’s old, reactionary spirit was going haywire, just waiting to lash out mindlessly at the first person to try and interface with its bridge controls.

Alicia recognised the handiwork of Vizkop, and the Dragon agents. Gavin was with them too - with her senses still running high off the Spook, Alicia could feel his lingering, spiteful presence.

Kelly Black. she heard in her head; an accusation and a justification.

If her mother replied, she did not let Alicia hear it. Gavin’s spectre glared at her one last time before fading away.

Alicia looked back over her shoulder. Sharma was right behind her, looking furious. Ella was in his arms, positively tiny compared to the augmented soldier. She looked even paler than usual, still panting and in shock. She moaned quietly as Sharma lowered her to the floor, and that was the last gesture of restraint that the Nebula private showed.

“What the Horus did you do, Alley Cat?” Sharma barked.

“I took a vial of Spook.” Alicia replied, which was neither a lie nor the whole truth. She looked at Ella, half-pleadingly. The astropath said nothing to disprove her words, but wouldn’t raise her hazel eyes to meet Alicia’s gaze.

“I don’t hold with unsanctioned warp-frakkery.” Sharma snarled, and vigorously signed the Aquila. “And we left half of our people behind, to the mercy of those sick fraks from the inquisition!”

“That’s enough, private.”

Tarquinius came limping in after the others. The venerable old warhorse looked like he had just been through another drop zone. His face was bloody, and his braided dress uniform had been torn to shreds. Tyria were limping behind him, injured from her fight with Sapphira, and looking bitter. McLaughlin was her wingman, Alicia recalled, and felt a hollow dragging sensation in her stomach. McLaughlin, Callisto, Kirabo, de Sade...I couldn’t save any of them. Again.

But it was the figure hanging limply round Tyria’s shoulder that quickly arrested Alicia’s gaze. Arcolin’s eyes had rolled back in his head, and pale foam was erupting from his mouth.

“What happened?” Alicia yelled. “What did they do to him?”

“He’s been poisoned.” Tarquinius snapped. “We need to get him to the medicae lab, now.”

“It’s one deck down.” Alicia said, grabbing a data slate from atop one of the command consoles and practically throwing it towards her fellow Nebulas by the door arch. “Corridor 6-K!”

Let him be alright. she pleaded silently - to who or what, she had no idea. Don’t give him a chance of redemption and then snatch it away.

Tarquinius cast his eye back down the corridor as Tyria hoisted Arcolin over her shoulder and ran for the turbo-lifts. “Are we all that’s left?” the colonel asked sharply.

“Gunny got taken down by the Casterian and the Blank, sir.” Sharma’s tone was level, but his eyes smouldered and he was biting down at the end of every word. When he got like this, Alicia recalled, someone usually died; and she still wasn’t sure he wouldn’t try to make that person her. “I think McLaughlin and the lieutenant are dead as well. I don’t have a good estimate of the enemy casualties.”

“I saw the inquisitor go down.” Alicia said, without any real sense of satisfaction. “And I took out Kally, but I didn’t finish her off.”

“No matter.” Tarquinius said levelly, “What about your wing?”

“Crenshaw got Callisto when she tried to cover my back.” Alicia replied hollowly. She struggled to recall her former wing-woman’s face without pain. Callisto had always hero-worshipped her, which Alicia had never wanted; but even if she had only helped Alicia to feel more isolated, she had been a faithful soldier who deserved better than to have her life cut short by that soulless bastard. “At least she took the pariah frakker down with her.”

Taquinius’ jaw tensed as they delivered the grim debrief. “Astopath.” he said, “Signal the Exitos. Tell them to warp out immediately.”

Ella didn’t move.

“Astropath!” Tarquinius knelt and laid a firm hand on Ella’s shoulder, causing the small woman to flinch in fright. “Adrantis and the Emperor will reward you for the decision you’ve made today. Now if you can still stand, I need you to do your duty.”

“Duty…” Ella mumbled, belatedly looking up at him. She nodded, quaking, and groped her way back onto her feet. Tarquinius offered her a hand, but the astropath pointedly refused it.

“Y-yes sir.” she stammered hoarsely. and bumbled out of the command deck towards the comms spire.

“How are we going to get out of here, sir?” Sharma asked pointedly. “That cruiser will blow us out of the void.”

Tarquinius cuffed some of the blood and sweat away from his forehead. “As long as the Exitos is out there they’ll have their shields up, which means they’re relying on warp sensors.”

Sharma chewed the inside of his cheek. “They don’t need to see us out the porthole to kill us, sir. Throne, they don’t even need an auspex lock. If their warp vanes don’t tag our souls aboard, they’ll be able to see the ripples from our power spikes. And that’s if we risk running with shields down. If we put them up, dumping any hits into the warp will be another giant Kick Me sign.”

“Captain?” Tarquinius fixed his flinty gaze onto Alicia. “This is your ship. What do we do?”

Alicia grappled for a response as both of the Nebulas turned. They were looking at her - Alicia Tarran, hero of Adrantis - looking for her to take charge and pull off some miracle like she had done after the debacle on Siculi.

“Trust me.” said her mother.

“I’ve got a plan.” Alicia heard herself say.

She stepped up to the dirigarium lectern and folded her hands around the archaic spoked wheel. On the console spread behind it, brass needles vibrated within their dials as the haptic pickups within the wheel activated. What her fellow Nebulas did not see was the thin coils of smoke bleeding down from her palms, sinking into the electronic-laced wood and spreading through the gaping wounds in the Arthrashastra’s machine spirit.


+ + + + + +

HDMS Impiger

Within the Impiger’s main director, chief gunnery officer Stenger hunched over the binocular scope of his targeting display, trying to shut out the clatter of cogitators, the oil-reeking servitors, the whispering chants of the tech-priests, and the occasional brief, barked reports of his fellow gun-layers. The order was given, and across the swirling red of his display, green lines converged towards the bright dot of the Arthrashastra as the starboard batteries hauled into position.

Suddenly the bright dot flickered. Then it strobed. And then it disappeared, replaced by a steadily expanding cone as the cogitators tried to plot a possible course from the last known data.

Without taking his eyes away from the rubber-cushioned lenses, Stenger groped for his vox set. “Main director to batteries two, four and six; hold and await, stand by.”

Batteries two and six replied with clipped acknowledgements. Battery four, which was under the command of a new and overly-excitable lieutenant, shot back with a request for confirmation.

“Confirm.” Stenger replied simply. “Target is gone from scopes; reacquiring. Repeat, hold and await new firing solution.”

“Gone?” the lieutenant repeated, in flagrant breach of vox discipline. "What do you mean it's gone? Where the Horus could they possibly go?"

Stenger didn’t bother to respond, and made a mental note to mark the lieutenant down for punishment detail. Instead he redirected his internal vox set to the starboard auger cluster, dialing the code by touch. "Sensorium gamma? Main director. Status report please."

On the cruiser’s bridge, a similar controlled panic was unfolding at the unexpected occurrence.

“Is there a problem?” captain von Scharn asked levelly, as she stalked across the bridge’s spinal walkway to the sensorium hub. She had kept her face in a neutral mask since the warp-borne transmission from Gavin, and she did not trust herself to drop the facade for a few minutes yet.

At the hub, eight crewmen and as many tech-adepts were working to process data from the ship’s multiple auger clusters - currently limited solely to the warp vanes while Impiger’s shields remained raised for battle.

"Arthrashastra’s warp signature just vanished, captain.” the overseer reported, as the tech-adepts exchanged alarm signals in their own chattering Martian cant. “Something's masking it; something powerful.”

The skin around von Scharn’s eyes tightened slightly. “Well that’s unfortunate.”

She glanced left to commander Thurlow, and wondered if she was still expecting to catch a lip-twitch of shadenfreude from her XO. She found none, only a serious frown on the younger officer’s face as he awaited the captain’s response.

"We'll have to improvise.” Elspeth said. “Scatter broadside. Mr Sandoval, watch for shield blooms.”

The sensorium overseer nodded. “Aye, ma’am.”

“They could be running with shields down to minimise their warp-shunt.” Thurlow spoke up. “If so it’ll only take one lucky hit to their engines to disable them. Should I prepare a boarding party?”

Von Scharn considered a moment, and could find no fault with his reasoning beyond the obvious desire to get his armsmen into action. “Do it. And send three squads to the station to extricate the inquisitor.”

“Should I invite a few of the sisters along, ma’am, just to be diplomatic?”

“Yes, that would be prudent.”

The commander offered a salute, and executed a slightly flamboyant turn on his right heel to stride away back down the spinal walkway. Elspeth nearly smiled in spite of herself, then smoothed her features as she descended the stairs to one of the internal vox stations, and gestured with two gloved fingers for the crewman there to give her his handheld microphone. “Main director, this is captain von Scharn.”

“Receiving, captain.”

“Chief Stenger, isn’t it?” von Scharn asked. She didn’t force the gunnery officer to break protocol by waiting for a reply. “Mr Stenger, I need a scatter salvo across as much of the Arthrashastra’s uncertainty cone as you can give me. Batteries two and four. Hold battery six and prepare to zero in on any positive impacts. And try to avoid hitting the Concordia station, if you’d be so kind."

There was a brief pause, and von Scharn could picture the gunnery officer swallowing. He knew as well as the bridge officers did that there were inquisitorial agents on the station, and perceived friendly fire against such people could leave an offending crew excommunicated or worse. Although the gunnery chief was too professional to state it, the question was palpable.

And what if we do hit it, ma’am?

"If you can't,” von Scharn supplied the answer. Then my captaincy of this vessel will be over extremely quickly. “Then the Emperor will forgive you."

Arthrashastra was burning hard, expending vast quantities of its maneuvering fuel to drag its blade-shaped hull into a new thrust vector. Impiger flared a more conservative burst from its portside, countering the recoil force as its starboard flank lit up in a silent thunderstorm.

Invisible las beams and star-bright macrocannon shells fumbled through the dark, glowing fingers questing blindly after prey. One glanced the trader's dorsal hull, and a struck vox-mast hinged over in a burst of sparks. Another kinetic penetrator blew out a massive chunk of the vessel’s flank - carving through unused crew quarters and a water storage sphere, but doing no systemic damage. The rest of the salvo flew wide.

And then, lightning spat from empty space as a bottomless red hole tunnelled away before the Arthrashastra. Greedy tendrils of purple corposant reached out to envelop the trader ship, dragging it in.

And with a noiseless flash, the ship was gone, leaving the Impiger’s second multi-megaton salvo to rake harmlessly through empty space.


+ + + + + +

The Arthrashastra
Warp transit

Ella placed her hand (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WIN6zeOGYpA) against the closed isolation bulkhead. She felt freezing metal, frosted with grainy ice crystals. To her warp-sight the thick slab of steel was as translucent as clouded glass, and beyond it she could sense the jagged, ripped ruin of support struts that had once given shape to the corridor beyond. Her cabin, second from the left, was completely gone - its outer walls torn away and all its contents sucked out into the void. Her sacred Tarot deck; her clothes; her regicide set; her battered music player...inquisitor Suffolk’s force sword. Everything but the wireframe telepathica pin over her heart, and the animus vox in her pocket - both of which she now felt unworthy of.

She heard footsteps behind her, and sensed Alicia coming up the hallway to the crew berths. The other woman slowed to a hesitant tip-toe as she got close, as if she knew that Ella could see her but was suddenly unwilling to announce herself. Without turning, Ella focused her warp-sight on Alicia’s weary green avatar. The daemon had receded, shrinking down into the claw rune that now glowed like a hot coal at the very bottom of Alicia’s soul. But it was there.

The void beyond the bulkhead continued to leech the heat out of Ella’s hand, and after a few seconds her palm began to throb painfully.

Alicia stepped forward, her aura shimmering an uncertain white. Her hand hovered with equal uncertainty, as if caught between wanting to squeeze Ella’s shoulder and make sure she was okay, and worrying exactly how much she was permitted to care.

Ella’s heart was fighting the exact same battle.


+ + + + + +

Lights winked softly as the medicae servitor brushed its spidery limbs over the consoles. The ventilator apparatus hummed, feeding air into the tube that ran down Arcolin’s throat. The unconscious man’s chest rose and fell steadily, mirroring the bellows that pistoned softly inside its glass cylinder. A battery pack wired to Arcolin’s chest kept his bionic lungs moving in sync with the ventilator. A tangle of intravenous counter-toxins were trickling down into his needle-studded arm. A heart-rate stenograph peaked and troughed erratically.

Trembling slightly from the counter-serums that were bringing her down from her satrophene high, private Tyria was beginning to feel her bruises. She shrugged off the superficial wounds and looked instead at the biometric readouts being projected above the bed. The hololithic man’s internal organs were blinking amber, while a tree-root network of lines running through its body and limbs were turning steadily from blue to red.

A blended toxin, and a particularly insidious one. While the servitors were fighting to neutralise the oxygen inhibitors binding throughout his bloodstream, they had missed the secondary neurotoxin that was now slowly and surely destroying every motor neuron in his body. Including the ones that governed his bionic lungs.

It would be weeks - perhaps months - before his body could repair itself enough to breathe unassisted. Tyria shook her head, and wondered what she was going to tell Alicia.


+ + + + + +

Concordia orbital

The hallway shimmered and swam, as if he was looking at it through a lens of water.

Merle dragged himself, hand over painful hand, down into the lower decks of Concordia orbital. He was trailing the stolen medikit from the shuttle in one hand, and Vincent’s robotic arm from the other, still unsure why he had held onto the macabre trophy. The dark, contoured metal was stained red with blood and brain matter. Every step of the way the Shard watched him, a procession of mirror-eyed figures lining the dusty hallway.

Eileen Ryobi.

Julia Taymor.

Vincent Nyl.

A flect-glowing Arcolin DeRei watched him stumble into what had once been a storage gallery, full of stacked crates that had been covered with sheets of white plastek. All the containers were secured, with padlocks that had long since rusted closed. Merle spread the medikit atop one and pried it open. Inside was counterseptic, blood coagulant, syringes of morphia...even a spray-can of synthskin. Rolls of gauze bandage had been wedged between them, along with a collection of clamps, forceps and scalpels. Strapped into the lid was an electric bone-saw.

The grain of flect-glass in Merle’s palm itched and burned. He turned his hand over, staring blearily at the letters P-U-R-E tattooed across his knuckles. One more joke at his expense. In sudden anger, he closed his other hand around the handle of the bone-saw. Slamming the medikit box closed, he splayed his cursed hand across the top of it.

The Shard belatedly realised what he was doing, and the mirror-eyed Arcolin started forward with a gaping snarl, firing pain and memories and pain and false deaths and pain through every synapse it could find.

The bone-saw swung down first.


+ + + + + +

The team drifted about the blood-spattered ballroom like ghosts. Some tending to the wounded and the dead; some leaning hard against the walls; some simply staring into space. Armed marines from the Impiger held position at the airlocks, beyond the orbital’s weapon detector hallways. A quartet of Vigil sisters, in closely-wrapped tunics of black and red, appeared at the airlock and strode in to appraise the scene. The Impiger officer named Thurlow walked behind them, accompanied by a frail astropath dressed in Vigil black.

The headscarfed sisters were led by a thin-faced, green-eyed woman who introduced herself as sister superior Amira. She waved forward one of her companions who was carrying a narthecium medikit, and looked around.

“Who is in charge here?”

“I am.” Tomas was kneeling over the broken-doll form of inquisitor Machairi after dragging her out of the ballroom, holding her head still to prevent any further damage. The rise and fall of the inquisitor’s chest was almost too shallow to see.

“Alicia betrayed us.” Glabrio’s chiselled face was drawn as he slumped on the floor, cradling his broken arm. “She started spouting some nonsense about Arcolin being her brother.”

Amira solemnly dropped to her knees and signed the Aquila across her chest. “Our order has failed the Emperor...and you. We received the astro from our Famulous allies today - it only just reached us.” She reached out her hand for a sheet of printed vellum that the astropath was holding, and passed it to Tomas. “They finished researching the Prince charter that you sent picts of. It is very old, and difficult to track because its assets can go dormant for years or decades at a time. But as well as Prince, the family who own it have existed under names such as Konig, Caesar, Dauphan...and DeRei.”

“And Alicia inherited the ship after they turned her up as a Prince in a bioscan…” Glabrio thumped the back of his head against the folded table he was leaning against. “You’re not telling me that baby-eating cultist actually told her the truth?”

Tomas was on the vox, barely able to control the emotions warring for dominance on his face.

"Maxilium, if you can hear me, you need to send out a warning. The whole Sub is going to burn in a matter of days. You need to get your astropaths to contact Tephaine, the Arbitrators need to know. . . Tierce is complicit, compromised. This is bigger than Arcolin and the Nebula's" He sucked in a breath, aware he was on the edge of panic, the edge of babbling like a mad man. "You need to tell the Arbitrators to arrest Tierce, before he can lead his sub-sector into damnation!"

Behind Amira, the astropath suddenly let out a shrill cry and staggered against one of the angel statues.

The sister superior turned, half rising. “Astropath?”

“Visions...” the astropath replied, blinking his blind, cataracted eyes hard. “Messages from your sisters...dozens of them…anarchy…betrayal.”

“St...started.”

The reedy whisper came from inquisitor Machairi. Cradled in Tomas’ lap, she forced the words out, even though it sent saliva running down her paralysed cheek.

“Al...ready…started (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vhSHXGM7kgE)…”


+ + + + + +

Aboard Mors Indescepta, one of the flagship cruisers currently docked at the shipyards above Perinetus, commander Maximilian Thark looked down at his PDA. A series of lights winked green, the signal from his comrades on Provocator and Tenebris Ultor. The commander drew his naval autopistol, and with the squad of loyal armsmen at his side, he kicked open the door to the commodore’s ready room.

The commodore dropped his knife and fork with a clatter, almost knocking over the table with his bulging belly as he leapt in alarm to his feet. The commodore had always been a fat bastard, Thark thought - so devoted to the Emperor that he ate a meal for both of them every time he sat down at the table.

“Commander?” the commodore blustered uncomprehendingly as he stared down the barrel of Thark’s autopistol. “What in Terra's name are you doing?"

"We're doing nothing in Terra's name, sir. We're doing it in the name of Adrantis."

The commodore’s reply was cut short by a single, thunderous gunshot.


+ + + + + +

Down on Perinetus itself, the mechanicus datasphere was flooding with alarm codes and frantic binary alerts. Weaponsmith Ankari drew herself forcibly out of her holy communion and roared commands at her forge-masters, the vehemence in her flesh voice alone enough to set them in motion. In Complex Alpha One, it seemed that archmagos Krupp had set his personal fiefdom into panic lockdown. Magos Delzharian - the string-puller and MIU specialist who had once worked on governor Tierce’s vaunted Nebula project - had activated hidden neurofeedback generators across a dozen forges, instantly assassinating the magi who were bound in prayer to their machines.

Ankari had thought that Delzharian would never have considered the gains of replacing her and Krupp to be worth the risks. She had also thought that the recent attempt on Krupp’s life, foiled by Vizkop’s inquisition allies, would have driven any insurgents underground for the time being. She had been catastrophically wrong in both calculations.

Now it was civil war.


+ + + + + +


On the subsector capital of Tephaine, marshal Rabban of the adeptus arbites barked for an update from his senior judges. Rabble-rousers had suddenly spawned all over the streets, unfurling seditious banners and shooting off improvised fireworks, and the fully-deployed arbites had been forced to call in support from the local PDF.

“Marshal!” an adjutant suddenly bawled from near the window. “You have to come and see this!”

Spitting curses, Rabban stalked over to the balcony and dug his hands into the granite bannister. He was just in time to see a fireball mushrooming from one of the slum districts below Ravensbrook. That was where zeta and kappa squads had been called to respond to the urban riots.

Looking towards the main street that sloped down from the precinct house into the city proper, Rabban’s mouth fell open in horror. Black patrol rhinos and arbiters on foot were skidding and slewing back towards the fortress, all unit cohesion abandoned. They were under fire - from a squadron of PDF chimeras that were pursuing them up the highway. Rabban saw an arbites rhino blow apart, shards of metal tumbling out of the chasing fire wash.

“Man the walls!” the marshal roared. “Order every drill abbott and intelligence officer to arm up immediately!”

He could hear chanting, cheering. Crowds of Tephaini citizens were pouring into the streets and running heedlessly after the treacherous PDF, shouting “Adrantis!” and “Freedom!” and “For the Emperor!”

The last one in particular made Rabban’s blood boil.

Through the rising smoke, Rabban could see the inquisition fortress on Gorebridge Height, bathed in the rocket flare of orbital landers as they screeched down towards it. The landers bore the insignia of governor Tierce’s Nebula corps.


+ + + + + +

On Coseflame, the Silent Vigil’s tireless army of data analysts continued to work, but the main convent was almost empty save for novices and instructors. Sister Viyan did not begrudge the others for arming up and following the Emperor’s will without her. Her field days had ended when she had taken eight bullets during an undercover mission on Siculi, and been left with a permanent limp. Passing by the door of one of the study halls, she paused to look in at the six young women who were walking slowly round a table, memorising the objects and parchment fragments that had been laid out on it. What the initiates didn’t know was that in about sixty seconds, sister Yazmin was going to burst in on them and call them outside for an hour of relentless physical training, only after which they would be asked to recall what they had seen.

Viyan drew away as a teenage girl in novice’s hijab came running along the arched hallway, clutching a scroll.

“Sister!” the novice panted. “A message from the observatory. A space hulk has just appeared in high orbit.”

Impossible. Viyan made the sign of the Aquila. “Show me.” she demanded as she began walking in the direction of the observatory dome.

The novice handed over the scroll as she fell in beside Viyan, trotting to keep up. Viyan unfolded it, and studied the quill-skull sketch that had been made on the smooth parchment paper. She almost breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the conglomeration, ugly as it was.

“No need for us to raise the void shield today, child. That’s the Nebula hulk. The governor’s life guards use it as a training base.” She shook her head. “But what are they doing he-?”

With the theatre voids down and the surface-to-orbit defences idle, the lance strike carved straight down through the atmosphere and hit the Vigil headquarters like the fist of an angry god. Both Viyan and the novice caught fire and evaporated mid-stride. Everything organic within the convent burst into billowing puffs of ash, and a moment later the melting stonework blew apart in a flattening blast of overpressure.


+ + + + + +

On Concordia orbital in the lonely, abandoned Lehyde system, sister Amira crossed shaking hands across her chest to make the sign of the aquila. One of her fellow sisters was chanting the Fede Imperialis under her breath.

“Sirs!” an armsman shouted from back near the station airlock. “The captain needs us back aboard Impiger now. She’s spinning up the warp drives to get us back to fleet command!”

“Sister,” one of the Vigil acolytes asked Amira. “What do we do?”

Amira looked from her fellow sororitas to the inquisition agents, locking eyes with Tomas.

“For now, we only have one choice. We run.”

[dakkagor]

Impiger
In Warp transit, en route to the Golgonna Reach

The light in the room was dim, like her senses. Most of what she felt was cloaked in grey fog, and most of what wasn’t was just dull, gnawing pain in her face and neck. Swallowing hurt so much that it was only shreds of pride that stopped her from letting it simply drool down her chin. Even rolling her eyes in her sockets felt like an effort. When she rolled her eyes down from her slightly elevated pillow, she saw blankets, with painkiller feeds and catheter tubes and a dozen other humiliating instruments spreading over and under them, and resting either side with injectors taped to the wrists were two bruised, olive-skinned arms.

Objectively, she knew that the arms were hers. Sometimes she even thought she could feel them tingle, a burst of phantom pain when she focused her eyes on a cut or a ripped fingernail. But they were dead - leaden, alien weights that she had no longer had any control over. She could never stand to look at them for long.

A grey-haired medica came once or twice a day, but otherwise Alia Machairi was alone. She had not explicitly instructed her retinue to stay away, but they had all done so - or else taken the hint from the Vigil sister that Kiana had posted outside the cabin. Alia was grateful. Even to Solvan, and even to Tomas, despite all they had been through. Both she and the faithful Casterian needed time to process the memory of him rushing her through the Impiger hanger bay, fearful tears leaking from both their eyes.

She felt new tears pricking at her eyes then, threatening to blur her vision. Her instinctive reaction was to cuff them away, but of course the hand didn’t move, and that was enough to make them spill across her face in wet, burning lines. She had to turn her head to either side and scrub her cheeks against the pillow.

The door clicked. That was wrong - the medica wasn’t due back for another two hours. Alia’s heartbeat suddenly thumped in her temples, until the oak door was pushed open by a metal hand, and a familiar hard-faced man let himself into the cabin. The feeling of anger and borderline panic drained away.

Crenshaw. Of course it would be Crenshaw. The two of them were not close - truly, not even friends - but they had never been anything less than frank with each other. He was, after all, soulless.

I’d have more cause to worry if he wasn’t being his presumptuous, overly-familiar self.

"Oh, it's you major.” Alia sighed. “After everything that's happened, I'm half expecting an assassin to come through that door to remove an embarrassment to the ordo."

Crenshaw’s left eyebrow quirked upward. "How do you know I'm not a callidus face-dancer, Alia?"

"Because your aura is still making me hate the sight of you.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to smile. “Although maybe it's just the thought of you seeing me like this."

Crenshaw remained by the door with a thoughtful, uncomprehending frown. “Like this?”

She blinked incredulously at him. Was there any ambiguity as to what like this meant?

“Alive, you mean?” The blacksoul blithely continued in the absence of any response. He immediately grunted in casual dismissal. “I would have rectified that situation years ago, if I had taken issue with it.”

Alia didn’t reply. She knew as well as he did how often they had made light of how dangerous they were to each other. But that was when they had glared a mutual target lock over Crenshaw’s desk on Hercynia; standing and shaking hands as equals, rather than him looking down at her while she lay paralysed and bedridden. That was when she had clicked her glass against his in a silent toast on their return from Perinetus, holding and drinking her amasec rather than actively struggling to do something as simple as swallow.

Crenshaw pointedly met her eyes, and subtly craned his neck to reveal his null collar. “I suppose that after all this time, I must have become acclimated to the phenomenon.”

That time, Alia did almost wish that she had it in her to smile. From Martin Crenshaw, a man whose coat of arms she could well believe was a blank slate above a High Gothic banner reading death before intimacy, that was an admission that he was glad that she was still alive. He had never been outright sentimental to Glabrio or Solvan either - not even to Kally, as far as Alia knew. Why should I be special?

“You know,” Alia swallowed, despite the pain in her throat. “I’ve always thought you were a bastard.”

Crenshaw merely nodded. “I have been one my entire life and will be until my dying breath.”

“Of the many things I consider you, major, an idiot isn’t one of them.” Alia narrowed her eyes slightly. “I’d prefer that you don’t start now.” Or treat me like one either.

“It does not give me any pleasure either. Prophecies are never…that literal.”

Beware the daemon at your back. A cold sensation crawled up the back of Alia’s neck and across her scalp. She gritted her teeth. “I hope you’ll forgive me if I need a bit of time to start seeing the funny side.”

“I take no satisfaction from any of this, Inquisitor Machairi.”

And that, Alia mused, was as close to an apology that she was ever likely to hear from the major as well. It was a sadly inappropriate time for a conversation of such surprising firsts.

He’s not even going to give me the I-told-you-so routine over Alicia’s Spook use. Or getting someone other than Ella to purity check her.

“Thank you.” she said truthfully, trusting that Crenshaw would unpick the significance behind her words just as she had unravelled his.

Crenshaw exhaled, as if relieved that they could retreat back into the comfortable familiarity of talking business. "Will they be able to repair your injuries?"

"In time, I'm told. Though I'm looking at at least three months before they'll risk a nerve-bridging procedure.” Three months. Three months imprisoned in her own body, while the heretic who had slipped through her fingers set an entire subsector aflame. “And I'd be better staying under the Sisters' aegis in any case. Yannick and De Shilo will still be wanting my head."

“That will not please Glabrio.” Creshaw pointed out.

Alia closed her eyes. Not just Glabrio; most of her team were done for now. But she was willing to bet that the former arbitrator would be first to voice it.

“No. He has ambitions of his own that I can’t further for him if I’m hiding like a rat.”

"And I,” Crenshaw stated neutrally, “Am now firmly more of a liability to you than an asset. The rebellion in Adrantis will be everyone’s pressing concern for a while, but I am pretty sure that both the Vigil and the Lords Dragon are now aware of my part in the Ampoliros incident, and it is only a matter of time before they come to collect my head for it. I would fully understand you thinking that spending any more political capital to keep me safe would be wasted. Although, I expect that you came to the conclusion some time ago."

"I did.” Alia owed him the truth, at least. “Where will you go?"

"It might be easiest to lose myself in the Munitorum. Though I will admit to a certain temptation to follow in Remus' footsteps and just find a nice agri world somewhere."

Alia understood what he was talking about. "Will you be taking Kally with you?"

Crenshaw gave her a meaningful look. "I have not asked her yet. Of course."

Alia saw Crenshaw’s metallic thumb scrape across his fingers, as if thumbing an invisible ring. At the mention of Kally’s name, it was the first sign of genuine agitation that the major had let slip. It was also the first explicit movement that Crenshaw had made beneath his neck since he came into the room – if Alia didn’t know better, she would have accused him of being tactful.

Alia nodded her understanding. "Thank you for coming to me first.”



+ + + + + +

Frowning angular passageways, brass direction plaques with embossed Aquilas, hard-faced Navy men stalking back and forth. The thrum of gigawatt power generators, the smell of grease and electric ozone, and always, omnipresent, the oppressive weight of the warp scratching at the thin barrier of the Gellar fields. It was a different walk to the one he had made to his dinner with the inquisitor not so many days ago. Then, they had been preparing for their moment of judgement. Now, they knew that they had been found wanting.

Tomas was surprised to see Crenshaw coming the other way as he turned down the steel-grey warship corridor. Unlike most other people billeted on the Impiger, the Major did not suffer from the dragging, leaden feeling that warp travel left in the muscles, and he walked with purpose. As their paths crossed his hazel-brown eyes switched towards Tomas in a meaningful look, but the blank did not initiate a conversation.

Tom walked a little longer, before turning and watching the Major walk away. He watched until the Blank disappeared down a junction, and the entire time, he couldn't shake the feeling that it would be the last he ever saw of the Major. He threw a small, sardonic, salute, and turned back to walking to Alia's cabin.

An armed sister in the red-trimmed black of the Silent Vigil was posted outside the unassuming door. Tomas recognised sister Pari, apparently healed from her wounds on Marioch and now wearing her order’s colours openly instead of the simple robes of a Mariochi habber. Canoness Kiana had insisted on setting her own women to watch over the inquisitor. Tomas had even heard that she was planning to have Machairi nominated a saint for surviving her encounter with the DeRei daemon - though he suspected that had less to do with pious near-martyrdom and more to do with providing a shield against the other inquisitors who would be on them like wolves after this debacle.

Sister Pari’s pale, nondescript face was grim, and although her eyes were on the corridor, she was thumbing a chaplet through the fingers of her left hand. Tomas was reminded strongly of Sapphira. The Vigil sisters had been hit hard by the news of their convent’s destruction; their spies remained in the field and Kiana’s astropaths stood ready to pick up the reins - no doubt their information would soon be more vital than ever - but their neophyte girls had all burned in the treacherous orbital bombardment, and the future of their Order was not so easily replaced.

Tomas had seen some of the sisters limping, cross-hatched with red penitent scars that they had given themselves for failing to foresee the great threat to Adrantis that their Order had been specifically prophesied to face. Others he had seen sparring in the training cages until their faces were grit-teethed masks of blood, so furious were they to begin avenging the loss of young, innocent lives. He wondered briefly which camp sister Pari fell into.

“Captain.” the sister nodded stiffly. She raised a small silver device, a genator auspex perhaps, which flashed in his face before beeping green. Seemingly satisfied, the sister stood aside and waved him on.

"Sister." He responded, automatically, then paused. He looked the woman in the eyes.

"If you want to take a break, the lady will be safe enough with me for the moment."

The only response was a grim stare. He felt a wave of guilt wash over him, and shook his head.

"As you were."

When the door clicked open, Tomas was met by soft light and a smell of incense. Unlike the sterile-scrubbed white of the med-bays, this one was more of a converted cabin. Dozens of hexagram-stamped candles stood atop furniture or in wall-mounted candelabras, provided a dim, flickering light. Tomas recognised the fragrance that had been impregnated into the wax as the same holy oils that he had sometimes smelled burning in Machairi’s cabin on the Tiercel.

A simple bed dominated the modest space, surrounded by monitors and IV stands whose tubes spaghettied over the coverlets. Above the bed, facing Tomas as he entered, a gold aquila had been mounted - with talismans of the ecclesiarchy, the sisterhood and even the navy hanging from its claws on thin chains. The top half of the bed was slightly raised, so that the inquisitor’s head was propped up enough to see the door. It was difficult to reconcile the woman in the bed with the authoritative figure Machairi had cut prior to the battle on Concordia. Wrapped in a simple surgical gown, her face and arms had faded from warm olive to an almost ashen grey that the orange glow of the candles couldn’t fully hide. Her arms were cut and bruised from fending off Nebula punches, though the dark bruises around her throat were far worse. The inquisitor’s hair was fanned haphazardly across the pillow, and some of it was sticking to her clammy cheeks. Her head was turned aside, eyes closed but clearly not asleep, a pained expression on her face.

"Hey Mach." He stepped up to the bed, and gently, brushed her hair back. "I should lean on one of the Navy lads, get them to send the shipboard barber up. It'll be more comfortable."

“Maybe,” Machairi admitted, opening her eyes and wincing in evident embarrassment. “But I’d rather not have anyone else spreading stories through the underdecks. No-one can keep a secret on a Navy ship.”

He pulled a chair up to the bed, and sat down, hands clasped in his lap.

It should be me in that bed, not her. My only job is make sure she can do hers, and I've fucked it up!

He fought down the angry emotion, as he had every time he had seen her.

"Productive conversation with the Major?"

“Ah, so you saw him on the way out.” Machairi’s throat worked several times as she struggled to swallow. She eventually succeeded, and flinched slightly at the pain it caused. “Unfortunately yes. I’ve ordered him to transfer back to the Munitorum. He’ll give us an ear to the ground on the crusade preparations, and he’ll be safer there than here against our friends Yannick and DeShilo.”

She looked up at him.

“No, I’m not going to order you away too. I insulted you with that offer once already.”

"It wasn't an insult, and you know it." Tomas run a hand through his own hair, breathing out a long sigh. "So. Kally is a mess and will need at least two months convalescence before she's mission capable, and that's if we can convince her to take the rest, and if she will ever actually be a hundred percent again. Vince, poor bastard, is dead. Kelly is compromised, as much a risk to us politically as spiritually. Solvan. . .Solvan is done. We've lost Crenshaw, as much as I can't stand the arrogant bastard, I hate to see him go.”

Machairi grimaced. “I know I told you things were likely to get worse. In this case, I hate to be proved right.”

“Alicia and Ella are both traitorous bitches working with the enemy. Vizkop will probably have to go to ground after making Arbitrator lean cuts. And Marc is slipping, daily, into. . .I don't know what kind of mental state. We've had an agent of the Lord Dragons die right under our nose, and we have one of the Governor’s friends in the brig. The only bright side is that none of us need to put up with that viperous shitbag Merle anymore. So, for team effectiveness, its just Glabrio, Sapphira once she snaps out of her current martyrdom episode, and perhaps Raechel. Don't ask me about Gavin. He as much scares me as worries me, I'm not sure if he's going to snap or break. I'm not field cleared, because I'll be damned before leaving your side."

Tomas paused, looked up at the ceiling.

"Which is a long way of saying, what are your orders, ma'am? Because not one of us left is ready to give up."

Tomas heard the inquisitor sniff, and she jerked her head to one side as if to blot one cheek against the pillow.

“Damn it, Tom.” she whispered. Then she coughed, winced, and continued. “I never liked trusting to hope...but I still used to think that one day things might be stable enough for you and Solvan to take some time off with your books, without feeling like you were abandoning your duty. Maybe next year, I kept thinking, maybe next year. But that’s not the galaxy we live in, is it? There’s always another case, another crisis.”

Machairi took a steadying breath.

“We’ve already sent everything we know to the Conclaves. How they judge us is out of our hands. What I need you to do, is find us an astropath when we get to Scintilla. And then, I need you to send a message to inquisitor Lucullis on Vaxanide. He’s not got many friends in the ordos, but at least they all agree that he’s unimpeachable. He’ll hear us out at least, and he’s not likely to give a damn what Yannick thinks either. And if it comes down to it, our penitents will get fair treatment in his custody. Until then...”

She sank back into her pillow, her eyes rolling up to regard the token-hung Aquila sitting above their heads.

“Kuscelian might be an asset now we don’t have to worry about protecting Alicia from her - I suppose we should thank the Emperor for small mercies. So we work with her, and we work with the Sisters. We undermine these traitors any way we can.”

"And we hope maybe next year, we can take that time off." Tomas smiled thinly, doing his best to put a brave face on things.

"I did have an idea. Risky, but at this point, necessary." He reached into his coat and pulled out two, slim black cases, balancing them on his knees.

Machairi frowned. "You said you'd never. . ."

"And I still won't. I'm not cut out for it, mentally, the choices that have to be made. Three months ago, I'd have picked Marc for it, no question. But he's too brittle. That shortens the candidate list."

"Glabrio." Machairi said, her eyes not wavering from the boxes. "And who else?"

"Glabrio is the obvious choice; solid, ambitious, well rounded with front line experience and an investigator’s eye. He's a perfect point man, a face for what comes next, and it keeps him sweet. We both know he's wanted this since he signed up."

Machairi blinked slowly. "Agreed. Who else, Tom?"

Tom sucked in a breath, and released it through his teeth.

"Kally."

Machairi fixed him with 'the glare'. He had to sell it.

"I've been talking to Solvan. What she's been through, what she's seen, Horus’ balls what she knows. . .none of it’s stopped her. She's indomitable Mach. We can use that."

"She's also a violent ex-criminal without a soul." Machairi pointed out.

"Just like at least one other inquisitor in the Conclave’s history. We wind her up, and cut her loose. I'd be willing to bet, in under a year she will have cut a red path through the secessionists to get at Alicia and Ella. And while Yannick and De Shilo chase after her, we can use Glabrio to actually get the job finished."

Tomas could see the inquisitor mulling it over. “You’re right,” she allowed after a moment, “It is risky. Not as bad as loosing an arco-flagellant without a pacifier code, but close. But it would keep Yannick busy.”

She exhaled, and managed another painful-looking swallow.

“Do it.”

[dakkagor]

Inquisition void runner Tiercel
In Warp transit, en route to the Golgenna Reach

Ordinary Imperials might have found it strange that tech-priests did something as esoterically human as hold funerals. Perhaps, for all their veneration of logic, their rituals held a more emotional component than they wished to admit.

Raechel wasn’t crying any more, but she did feel a lump in her throat as she knelt among the scarred machinery of the vox spire, her hands folded and her cowl pulled solemnly over her head. Father Belannor had reconsecrated the room to remove any trace of the daemon, and Raechel herself had sanctified the vox systems against any lingering corruption. The Tiercel’s own enginseer had repaired the interface stations, and left his servitors to mop the bloodstains and sweep up the metal swarf.

Raechel touched her cheek with her left hand, her human hand, feeling the scabbed cuts where a surgeon had picked the bone splinters out of her face. No trace remained of the data-daemon, and no trace of Nikolai Oppen. No implants to find immortality in another body; no closed eyes to grace with data-chits so he could go to the Omnissiah with the gift of knowledge. There was nothing left but dust, dissipated and filtered away by the unthinking spirits of the Tiercel’s atmo-scrubbers.

Flesh is only flesh. Dead flesh even more so. Nikolai was more.

Raechel traced a circle over her chest, and then linked her hands over it, clutching the sign of the holy cog to herself as if trying to hold her faith tighter against her.

Remember the Eighth Law. The machine god knows all, comprehends all. He would already know of the life of Nikolai Oppen. He would already comprehend its worth.

She took a shuddering breath, and felt slightly better.

Her prayers were interrupted by a new sound grinding through the gentle heartbeat of the Tiercel. Her aural implant picked it up first; a low whir of cables, gliding over old runners as a turbolift ran up the vox spire. She rose to her feet and pulled down her hood in time for the door to hiss open. Her visitor was Martin Crenshaw, stony-faced in a slate-grey wraparound jacket, and looking like he was holding his body upright through sheer stubborn willpower.

“Major?” Raechel greeted him in poorly-suppressed surprise. Alone with the blank, the air in the vox tower seemed to chill slightly, and she felt an unpleasant shiver prickle across her skin. She tried and failed to hide the shudder.

Out of tact, or perhaps more likely simple indifference, Crenshaw did not react. Instead, the major cast his eyes around the repaired vox tower with slow deliberation. “You have been up here for quite some time.”

“I was praying.” It was not technically a lie, but something told her that the blank understood anyway.

Creshaw held up his left arm. A gunmetal-grey bionic of overlapping plates had replaced the hand and wrist he had lost to the sabotaged digi-ring. No doubt an agent of the inquisition could afford better, but it would be serviceable until they put into port above Scintilla.

“The medicus from Impiger calibrated this earlier today, but I felt the need for an inspection by a tech priest of...broader experience.”

The question of Crenshaw’s real motive tugged at the back of her mind, but Raechel was still oddly grateful. Having a solid, solvable task put in front of her - instead of the chaos of recent events and thoughts of the chaos to follow - was a relief. She nodded, and stepped forward to trace a preliminary cog circle over Crenshaw’s bionic.

“We match now.” Raechel observed, flexing her own bionic hand. “I will have to find an excuse to high five you.”

Crenshaw’s expression was frostily neutral. “It would be extremely optimistic of you to assume that is going to happen.”

In spite of everything, a baseline flow of neural impulses compelled Raechel to smile. “That is appropriate then. Optimist is exactly what inquisitor Hypatia’s retinue used to call me.”

Crenshaw made a sound that suggested he was grinding his prosthetic teeth. “Sapphira will require the same service out of you when she awakens. Inspection that is, not optimism.”


+ + + + + +

It was said that sins weighed heaviest in the warp. You could dream all night of people you had wronged in some way, and awaken to hear them still weeping and cursing you through the air ducts. Sapphira limped slowly across the sterile white med-lab and then slowly back again, tracing the same steps. Her dove-grey gown scratched at her ankles. The ward around her could have housed five sick crewmen, but it was empty - Captain von Scharn had cordoned off several small sections of the Impiger for inquisition use. Two med-labs, a crew berth and the docking ring that held Tiercel secure for the side-along warp jump were all off limits, under threat of sanction extremis.

There was a weariness on Sapphira that had nothing to do with warp-fatigue. The Impiger’s cyber-surgeons had warned her that it was far too early to be sitting up, let alone trying to walk, but the sister paced the room all the same. If the Emperor saw fit to let her body collapse around her new bionic heart, she would accept the judgement. I should have died on Concordia.

She remembered fading away on the Impiger’s hanger deck, with Glabrio, the black-clad sister Mahin and - of all people - that Impiger officer Thurlow cradling her, all holding her hands and imploring her to hang on. The one comforting thought was that the Emperor would witness her death, fruitless though it was. She was a sister of the faith, a martyr born, and even an ignominious death was some form of redemption. But it seemed that she had failed even at martyrdom.

“I failed.” she said.

Kuscelian’s eyebrows knitted together. “How?”

Sapphira had almost forgotten that the red-haired tech priestess was in the room with her. How - a simple enough question, and yet she could not find words to articulate the answer in sufficient depth.

I failed to kill Arcolin. I failed to save Vincent. And what about Ella - I tried to warn her about her girl crush and what did she do? The sister simply couldn’t fathom it. She’s a traitor. How can someone soul-bound to the Emperor turn traitor? The fault was her own negligence to watch and support, Sapphira was certain. Another failure in her miserably long list.

Sapphira spread her arms, wincing at the pain it drew from the stitches down the centre of her chest. “Everything. Even my own heart failed.”

She saw the tech priestess fidgeting, her organic hand fighting with her metal one. “If it makes you feel any better, I was fitted with a heart implant right after birth. An atrial septal defect they called it. Two years ago, they replaced the whole organ.”

The priestess shrugged her robed shoulders.

“Flesh is, as they say, a bitch...but flesh alone does not make either of us failures.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Sapphira winced painfully, and felt heat pricking at her cheeks. “You...know something of our order, yes?”

Raechel folded her hands. No doubt the spy priestess had picked over every scrap of information about Sapphira, as she had about every other member of Machairi’s family. But what could any follower of another sect truly know of the sororitas’ millenia-long penance? The debt they owed for allowing themselves to be deceived, and how she herself had repeated that sin again and again.

“I know something.” Raechel admitted. “But I would not presume to comprehend everything.”

Sapphira slumped down on the edge of her medical cot, her fingers digging into the foam mattress. “On Concordia, I called on the Emperor to witness me. To watch me as I achieved a death that would honour Him. But Arcolin is gone, taking my friends’ absolution with him as long as we can’t show the ordos his corpse. And Alicia is gone. And Ella is gone. And…” She had to swallow. “And Vincent is gone. And I’m still here.”

Raechel wrapped her thin arms around herself. “We believe,” she said after a moment, speaking slowly, “That the machine god leaves an underlying pattern in the universe, if only we show the intellect to understand it. No prophet of the mechanicus alive today would claim that understanding, but perhaps one day we will.”

Sapphira bit her lip, feeling a vague, undirected anger ticking in her throat. “You’re saying that this was how things were meant to turn out?”

It was the tech priestess’ turn to flinch, though she hid it slightly better than Sapphira had. “I am saying that perhaps you are still here for a reason. To put things right.”

Sapphira looked away. “I don’t exactly have the best track record with trying to do that.”

“You will be stronger.” Raechel raised her bionic hand, the palm towards Sapphira’s own chest where an artificial heart now ticked. “Your Emperor...my Omnissiah...he has not answered your prayer as you expected, but he has given you that gift. Do not offend him by failing to make use of it.”

“Are you guilt tripping me?” Sapphira almost laughed...and almost cried as she remembered another conversation about her wellbeing, back on Hercynia, with the Black siblings. She had employed the same tactics on Marc - sororita and orphan guilt - as she critiqued his infrequent messages to his father. She could almost hear Kelly’s surprised and delightfully vindicated laughter; almost feel her impulsive, heartfelt hug; and envision Marc’s stunned, well-struck expression as his mouth opened and closed uselessly.

Marcus Black won’t struggle for his words now, least of all… The Sister frowned as she looked back at the priestess, who shook her head in response to Sapphira’s accusation.

“Guilt tripping you?” Raechel repeated, almost defensively, “If I recall correctly, we promised over a workbench to show respect for each other.”

Sapphira exhaled a sharp, ragged laugh. “You are guilt tripping me.”

Kuscelian was right, though - they had made that pact, as they set to work repairing adept Koskynen’s cyber mastiff. No doubt the tech priestess had an exact recording stored in her implants that she could beam out on demand. She squinted at the other woman, but Raechel turned away, cocking her head as if listening to something only she could hear.

“What is it?” Sapphira asked. She would not have put it past the priestess to invent some excuse to change the subject.

“Two people are coming.” Raechel answered. “Your friends Kally and Kelly.”

Friends. Sapphira wasn’t sure if the word still applied, after Inquisitor Massani’s name had been screamed across the vox for all to hear. She heard an audible click in her chest as her bionic heart up-regulated in response to a very human adrenaline rush.

Kally’s arm left arm was pinned across her chest by a cast and sling, her face sallow and bruised. Livid surgery scars crossed the other woman's pale skin where the Navy medicae had stapled her skull back together. Sapphira worriedly pursed her lips as she saw Kally, and instinctively assessed her wounds with a clinician’s eye and a friend’s concern. She had been attending inquisitor Machairi on Concordia, and while on the shuttle to Impiger Crenshaw had warned her away with a subtle shake of his head. Kally had pointedly refused to even look in her direction, and the message of that had been clear.

I was dead to her… Sapphira winced as her new heart twitched, as if to helpfully remind her that she had indeed been dead - to Kally and everyone else - and she would die again without it. She studiously ignored Raechel’s particular look as she pensively waited for Kally or Kelly to speak.

"Saph." Kally croaked, before coughing. Kelly supported the other woman for a moment. The former verispex had arranged her hair to hide most of her forehead, but the filament-thin scars of the ward implantation were still visible if you looked for more than a few seconds. The Sister shivered as a storm-surge of guilt and remorse rose within her. I inflicted that on her. I failed her so completely, so thoroughly…I may as well have been the one who -

Sapphira exerted the tattered shreds of her willpower to terminate the abhorrent, impossible thought before she could complete it. No. I would never…but I could have, should have prevented her possession. She choked back the wave of nausea that accompanied the nigh-heretical thought, and the unbidden sensory memories from when she was obliged to mutilate her friend to save her.

"We came to ask. . ." Kelly began.

"Why?" Kally interrupted. Kelly glanced down at the deck as Kally stepped forward, working fist balled. "Why didn't you tell us? Tell me? Throne damn it, Saph. Throne damn you, I thought you trusted us. Me. Did you think...did you think we would judge you, or hold it against you?"

Kally wobbled on her feet, and blinked rapidly. Kelly was quick enough to grab a chair and put it under Kally as she slumped down. Sapphira was compelled by calling and comradeship to rise and assist. Kally’s wounded stare and the sharp look of warning from Kelly compelled her to remain seated. Sapphira shivered as Merle’s spiteful, vindictive drawl crooned victoriously within her anxiously racing mind.

I mustn’t lie to the faithful, sister. Hurtin’ those y’all care about is doin’ what y’all do best.

"You shouldn't be up and moving around." Kelly said, though it wasn't entirely clear if the comment was aimed at Sapphira or Kally.

Sapphira’s bionic heart gave another audible tick. At this rate, the sister thought despairingly, it would wear out faster than her first one. Her stomach felt knotted.

“Listen,” she began lamely, twisting her hands together as she sought her chaplet to thumb through. She was very aware of Raechel still hovering in the corner. “I know what Merle said…”

Kelly shook her head and waved a hand, wearily. “Saph, just don’t. Don’t even start.”

Sapphira felt her heart sink, but Kelly kept speaking.

“Aye, my first thought when I heard it was Great. Just great. On top of everything else why not one more? But then…”

The former verispex held out her hands, beseechingly.

“Kally and me talked about it and she told me about what she said to…” She winced. “To Marc and Vince...back on Venatora, when we found out about why Sidonis put you on our team.”

Sapphira blinked, turning to Kally. “What...what did you say to them?”

Kally flicked her gaze to Sapphira, and Sapphira saw the tears beginning to prick at the corner of her eyes.

"That none of it frakking mattered. That you were a good person and that we could trust you. That in a group, in a cell, you need people who you trust to report up the ladder, and...that we needed someone to watch us. I'd been broken and put back to together, Marc was still angry and torn up, Vince..."

Kally was crying now, right hand digging into her shoulder.

Sapphira stifled a whimper of symbiotic pain as she watched her friend hurt herself, tears welling in her eyes as she was unable to rise and intercede. She was unable to make it stop because it was her fault that Kally was so badly wounded. There was surely no greater sin a Hospitaller could commit than to inflict suffering on those she was sworn - by oath and vow to Him on Terra - to support and defend unto her death…and that these were her friends made her sins all the worse.

Kally was correct in her earlier blasphemy. She was damned for this. Damned for her failures.

"I trusted you!” Kally blurted. “I trusted you then and I trusted you on Hercynia! We all did, but you didn't tell us about Massani, and the only reason I can think of is that you don't trust us."

The Sister’s vision blurred as she weathered Kally’s well-deserved recrimination. It was only when Raechel stepped forward that she heard the strained whine of her bionic heart as it regulated. Sapphira vehemently shook her head towards the concerned priestess and scrunched her eyes shut, liberating the brimming tears across her scarred and unscarred cheeks. She struggled to compose herself. The least she owed them was an answer – the truth - before she died…again.

Imperator… The Sister struggled to articulate her prayer as she anxiously rubbed her fingers together in a sad, desperate pantomime of working through her chaplet’s penitent beads. Dominus…I do not begin to understand your intentions for me…but I beg of you, if I yet have a purpose to fulfil in your divine manifest destiny, grant me the fortitude of Saint Lehner to endure - for their sakes…

Sapphira grunted, inhaling and exhaling deeply, and sat immobile for three beats of her mechanical heart as she summoned the courage to meet her friends’ eyes – and three more before she had the courage to begin speaking, her voice cracked and miniscule. “Trust…was never the issue…”

“I know, Saph.” Kelly said quietly, as the Sister trailed off. One of her hands was squeezing Kally’s shoulder. The other was rubbing the bridge of her own nose, as she always did when she was stressed. The curled fingers dropped to her lips and for a moment it looked like she was about to start biting her nails, but instead she clenched her fist and lowered it.

“We know.” she corrected herself. “We know you’re fair, we know you’re a good person. You never did anything but look out for us. But even with that motherfrakker Carson dead...look at us, no-one on the team can take any more secrets. We need to let the past lie. For good. Without some prick like Carson coming along and stirring up some new shit.”

The former verispex squeezed Kally’s shoulder again.

“So what was the issue, Saph? We trust each other, you said so yourself. You can tell us.”

“Time.” Sapphira whispered as she absently worried at – and worried about - her absent prayer beads. She shook her head as she looked miserably at her friends. “I…I don’t even know where…”

“I would suggest at the beginning.” Raechel contributed with an encouraging nod to the Sister. Sapphira watched as Kelly glanced over her shoulder and gave a quick, appreciative nod to the spy priestess.

“Aye. Start from the beginning and talk us through it, Saph. When, where and…” Kelly hesitantly chewed on her lower lip and exhaled down her nose. “And why you went to work for Massani.”

“Okay…okay.” Sapphira hollowly murmured. She scrunched her eyes shut and cuffed away her tears, and took a few moments to breathe regularly before she dared to open her eyes and face her friends once again. “It was about…four years before Solomon. I was assigned as an examiner of moral threat on blessed Ophelia…” The Sister marked the Aquila points as she shuddered in revulsion and struggled to speak. “That’s how I met the heretic and traitor Nasreen Massani…that’s how I…impressed her.”

“What’d you do to impress that psycho?” Kally hoarsely snarled. “Throw a team-mate under a tram?”

“Kally…” Kelly mildly interjected as she exchanged a look with the wounded blank.

“Nothing like that.” Sapphira answered softly. She numbly watched Kally and Kelly’s expressions change, as they slowly and silently looked at her. Kuscelian’s expression was inscrutable from behind her friends. No doubt she was already aware… The Sister’s shoulders slumped as she curled her arms around her midsection and sagged into the mattress.

“Ophelia VII is second only to Holy Terra as a shrine world, and as the seat of the Synod Ministra it maintains the spiritual integrity for half the Imperium. It stands as a beacon to the faithful and a target of the profane.” Sapphira’s voice faded into a dull monotone as her eyes went glassy. “The Imperium endures by the blood of the martyred faithful. No sacrifice is too great, no treachery too small.”

Sapphira’s eyebrows furrowed as she went silent again and stared off into the middle distance. The Sister clearly envisioned herself in the hours before Nasreen Massani came into her life – and imagined how scornful her younger self would’ve been to see the contemptible spectacle she would become. The deaths of a thousand innocent faithful exchanged for a single guilty heretic and you never once questioned the cost, Hospitaller. You praised Him and went on. She raked her thumbnail over her raw fingertips, frowning deeply as the absence of her chaplet gnawed away at her…and Sapphira knew exactly what response her younger, unblemished self would have.

You are no Sister of mine.

Kelly exhaled deeply and tensely down her nose. “So…you were recruited because you were faithful?”

“No.” Sapphira croaked with a faint, weary shake of her head. “I was recruited because I had the audacity to challenge her authority.”

“How’d that go down?” Kally queried. “Lucius and Kadath described her as a rabid control freak.”

The Sister blinked as she refocused her eyes on the other women. “Massani didn’t declare herself as an interrogator when she reached our checkpoint, so I was the only examiner designated to her and her entourage…and no sooner do I introduce myself? Out comes the warrant, rosette and entitled bitch attitude – You’ll make way for a senior field agent of His Majesty’s Inquisition, Sister.” Sapphira scowled as she viperously emulated the heretical, traitorous wretch’s high-pitched voice. “I refused.”

“And she didn’t have you killed for that?” Kelly asked.

“She threatened it, in that hypothetical I could have my bodyguards remove you sort of way…and I told her I would gladly die if that revealed her as a traitor and heretic.” Sapphira recollected, with the same timbre of conviction now as she had then. “She gave me this…smile and relented...and I…I…” The Sister exhaled mournfully as her eyes misted over. “I declared her pure...”

“Thats it, isn't it?” Kally shook her head, thinking back to other conversations she'd had with Sapphira. “You're still beating yourself up over getting it wrong.”

“Our original sin.” Sapphira whispered as Kiana’s grave and gravelly-voiced sermon on forgiveness echoed in her mind. Our penance for the Reign of Blood is never over, sister. Once a penance is complete, there is a chance that the original sin will be forgotten. The Sister grimaced as she stared at Kally and Kelly. Not all crimes were so heinous, but she had denied her friends the opportunity to complete their own penance. She sorrowfully shook her head towards them. “We were deceived. We were wrong…and I keep repeating that sin over and over again.”

“Even the Emperor didn’t know Horus for a traitor.” Kelly pointed out, subconsciously marking the points of the Aquila against her chest to ward against the archenemy’s name. “Even the fallen angel was pure, at first.”

“My apologies for interrupting.” Raechel put in from the sideline, her hands folded inside the sleeves of her robe. “But I think it is relevant...Nik and I noted that sister Sapphira was discharged from Massani’s retinue before she began polluting her agents’ genomes with xenos DNA.”

“And even Massani had to know a sister wouldn’t stand for that.” Kelly bowed her head in understanding. She opened her eyes and looked up at Sapphira. “Listen, Saph...I’ll admit it, I was angry. Gut angry. But I’d be a hypocrite to stay pissed at you. We’ve had to work under some pretty shitty people too - Sidonis for one, and in the end Van Der Mir wasn’t much better even if he was at least trying to do the right thing. Having a heretic say you’ve impressed them is shan, but…” She spread her arms, and let them flop to her sides. “You’re still you.”

“I…I…” Sapphira stumbled as her mouth went dry. “I…almost wasn’t me.”

“What’re you trying to say, Saph?”

The Sister grimaced and glanced away as Kally keenly questioned. Her mind whirled, unable to form a coherent thought and transmute it into articulate words. She curled her arms tightly around her body as she scrunched her eyes shut and tried to ride out the seismic aftershocks…which were only the disquietingly mechanical thumps of her heart as it self-regulated. Oh God-Emperor…I can’t…

“Sister.”

Sapphira could hear the cautionary, warning note in the spy priestess’ voice over the increasingly familiar whining complaints of her new heart. You’re still you. She inhaled sharply as Kelly’s words repeated again and again and again. I’m only me because of you, my friends…

“Sapphira…we trust each other. Whatever it is, you can tell us.”

Sapphira exhaled a strained, rattling breath as she fought to impose some control over her own body…her own body on Kelly’s soothing, concerned word. She reopened her bleary eyes, and miserably glanced at the other women as she subconsciously touched her blade-scarred throat.

“I…I impressed the abomination on Hercynia.” The Sister answered in a strained whisper. She recoiled as she heard Javid Schafer’s voice even as she brokenly repeated what the monstrous beast which had assumed his identity told her – moments before it had determinedly begun to murder her again.

“I hope the Masters agree to have you replicated."

"Throne..." Kally blinked. Kally looked away to the floor, her good hand running through her hair. "Throne of Terra. What a thing to say." She shook her head. "Doesn't that...doesn't it just mean that you were good at your job? Enough of a threat to turn into a weapon? That's why they took...the people they took."

But not me. Or Crenshaw. They wanted us for much worse.

“I agree with agent Sonder.” Raechel deadpanned. “They saw the value of your skills and position, but they failed to take them. Assuming you are not about to announce that you are, in fact, a Necron replicant.”

Kelly exhaled down her nose; not quite a laugh, but close. Then she blinked, as if surprised by the sound she had just made.

“Oh, Saph.” the former verispex said, quietly, as the momentary humour slid from her face. “The real Schafer respected you, so its only to be expected that his...replicant...would too. Whether it was just playing a part or it shared all his memories...I don’t know how those things worked and I don’t really want to.”

She looked down, massaging the bridge of her nose.

“If the Emperor blames you for being fooled,” she began, raising her gaze once more. “Then we’re all damned, ’cause they fooled us too. Me, Kally, Machairi...you might be a Sister, Saph, but you’re not one of the Emperor’s angels. You’re just like us - one of the plain, shitty, fallible humans in a galaxy that wants us dead.”

She shrugged tiredly.

“And I know for a fact they really did care for you, before those xenos killed them and took their places. Schafer and...and Clement.” Kelly hesitated, no doubt knowing that Arval Clement was still a tender wound for Sapphira even after all this time. “Don’t let the xenos take that away from you.”

Sapphira’s eyes slid off her friends faces to fix on the floor by her feet.

“Let them rest in peace.” Kelly said, “We’re still here; focus on us.”

She quietly spread her arms.

“We’re all we’ve got left.”

A moment of silence passed between the three women. The fourth eventually broke it with a soft clearing of her throat.

Sapphira looked up, in time to catch Raechel tilting her head towards Kelly. The latter stood with her arms still spread, now hovering uncertainly. Out of Kelly’s sight line, Raechel quietly raised her eyebrows.

The distance between Sapphira and her friends suddenly seemed like a very long way, and the sister’s feet felt rooted to the floor. Kelly and Kally’s offer crossed the gap, recognising their mutual need; silently pleading.

Oh God-Emperor, I can’t...

Endure...for their sakes...

I’m only me because of you, my friends.

Her first step was leaden, but the second came easier. As if some of the weight was falling from her shoulders, if only for a brief moment. Kally and Kelly stepped forward to meet her half way. Their grip as they put their arms around her was fierce. It was just as well, because Sapphira did not trust her knees not to give way beneath her.

Looking past her friends’ shoulders, Sapphira could see Raechel still hovering in the background, an outsider to the moment. The spy priestess didn’t move from her spot, but she did silently raise her hands to her chest, touching them together with fingers curled and thumbs extended downwards. At first Sapphira thought it was some bizarre variation of the Cog sign, and it was only when the priestess smiled that she realised the shape was supposed to be a heart.

Sapphira felt a laugh choke out of her throat, and with that sudden release of tension her vision began to swim. Tears welled up in her eyes, and ran down her cheeks.

They felt clean.

[Azazeal849]

Tephaine, Adrantis subsector capital

“The inquisition tried to take loyal officers on Concordia, just as they did on Siculi.” Alicia read aloud. “And this time, the Navy, the mechanicus, the sisterhood...all were complicit. What justice were we ever offered by the imperium? Deafening silence, in the face of tyranny. As we rightly celebrate our triumphs here on Tephaine and Tranch and Baraspine, I wish to honour the memories of these fine soldiers. Second lieutenant Alric de Sade. Gunnery sergeant Jensa Kirabo. Lance corporal Fiodor McLaughlin. Private first class Gwenifer Callisto. They were the first martyrs of the liberation.”

Alicia looked down at the manuscript, and Ella saw her aura pulsing blue as she stroked a fingertip softly over the names of the dead Nebulas.

“The first martyrs of the liberation.” Alicia said, in a subdued voice. “That’s nice. I like that. But are you sure you don’t want me to deliver it?”

“You’ve done enough for us already, captain Tarran.” Sub-governor Tierce’s voice was made for bellowing commands across the bridge of a warship, but now it was a soft baritone, fatherly and reasonable. “I wouldn’t put that burden on you. But you’re welcome to lead the smaller ceremony later. I know they were your friends.”

And her friends keep dying. Ella thought, biting her lip in sympathy.

They were surrounded by strangers now. Nebulas with steely auras and eager red bionics, Adrantian officials whose thoughts were somber blue and exultant yellow. The mercurial soul-blaze whose warm words did not match his oily aura was the governor’s chancellor, Nyal Souvage. There was even the guttering spark of a tech-priest, though only one - Ella had heard that many of the Martians had withdrawn inside their manufactora while they assessed the new political situation, and the forge worlds of Omicron and Skorgulian had ceased all contact.

There were no other astropaths, either.

Almost all of the fiery avatars were turned towards Alicia with some degree of respect, but Ella wondered how many of them Alicia truly knew - even among the Nebulas. Kirabo and Callisto were her friends, but they both died on Concordia. Ella had seldom felt so keenly aware of the limits of her own power. This revolution should happen - must happen - the Emperor had decreed it so through her Tarot. It was her task to make it happen as bloodlessly as possible. Save Alicia. Save a million other men and women and children. Maybe even save the friends I betrayed. So far, while the hive below cheered and unfurled PDF banners over smoking arbites rhinos, she did not feel like she was succeeding.

“You’ve been brave, captain.” Tierce spoke, his shining gold aura merging with Alicia’s own as he took her hand in both of his. “And by the Emperor’s grace, you’ve returned to us to help give us victory.”

“By the Emperor’s grace.” the assembled adepts and spire nobles murmured in chorus. Ella had noted that almost immediately. Unlike the godless heathens from the propaganda reels who renounced the imperium and threw the Emperor’s aquila into the mud beside it, these people retained their faith.

“And you.” Tierce continued. “You’ve been brave too.”

When he withdrew from Alicia and stepped past her, Ella realised that he was talking to her.

“I…” she began, caught off guard. Her voice was an ugly croak. The bruises were still livid on her throat, and speaking was painful. A few paces behind Tierce, she saw chancellor Souvage’s aura ripple with secret disgust. "M’lord…” she tried again. “The Tarot told me that if I wanted to save thousands of lives, I'd have to make a hard choice. Well here I am."

Tierce’s golden aura eclipsed her warp-sight as he stepped forward and enveloped her in a hug, pulling her skinny body against his broad and alarmingly warm one. Ella flinched without meaning to. The memories of Glabrio twisting her arm up behind her back were still fresh. And Vince - never a gentle man but never unkind to her - had smashed her against the wall rather than continue to look at her. Damn, Blondie. Damn. Even as she tried to warn him about Merle.

Merle. Her skin crawled.

He’s dead. she told herself, struggling against the tightening in her throat as her heart began to flutter like a caged bird. He’s dead.

But another daemonhost stood with her now, not two metres away - and the woman she deeply, deeply cared for considered it a blessing rather than a curse. She shivered again against Tierce’s gold-braided tunic, and this time the sub-governor noticed her distress and tactfully withdrew, his aura flickering with a pale streak of embarrassment.

"I assure you,” Tierce said, “You did the right thing. And I will prove it to you. Today we write the beginning of a new story for the Adrantis Nebula."

He held his palm out to Alicia, who handed him the parchment script, and strode confidently towards the vaulted gallery doors. Beyond them, the scribes waited with their clacking servo skulls and their flashing pict-stealers.

If Tierce had any wisdom, Ella thought, he would use his address and the moment of victory to brace the Adrantian populace for the Imperium’s retaliation. He would know, better than most, that there was a world of difference between the PDFs knocking down some straw-man cults and taking loyalist assets unaware, and an organised Imperial counter-strike smashing into the Nebula. And that counter-strike would come; slow but inexorable as death itself, and furious as only the Emperor’s righteous sons and daughters could be.

It's not over yet, Ella thought, and shivered yet again. It's only the beginning. There's a reckoning to come.


+ + + + + +

HDMS Impiger
In Warp transit, en route to the Golgenna Reach

The med-lab lights glared in judgement, like the lamps above a dissection table. Trist could smell counterseptic, and hear the thrum of Impiger’s power generators as the cruiser lashed a path through the immaterium. Sometimes, when the lights were dimmed for Shift 3, the smell would turn sour and coppery, and his bionic vision would ficker with rogue black pixels. He wasn’t sure if it was a product of the damage he had sustained, or just some kind of unsettling warp-travel phenomenon.

A steady procession of shipboard medicae and white-robed cybernetica priests had examined him over the last few days, though none of them would speak to him at any length. One of the tech-priests had wept oily tears, but he suspected that had had more to do with the damage to his wonderful bionics, rather than empathy for Trist’s own predicament. Iron shackles pinned him to the bed, clamped around his de-powered bionic limbs. He hated that - he kept getting phantom prickles where his truncated arms interfaced with the cybernetics, and ever since Gavin had forced his way into his mind he kept getting the inexplicable urge to grind his thumb into the opposing wrist. Effectively paralysed, he could alleviate neither of the two tensions.

The three Nebula prisoners in the beds across from him had been given the same treatment, though in their cases the shackles seemed somewhat superfluous: the satrophene cartridges had been removed from their wrist injectors, and even then Kirabo’s face was already a caved-in ruin, and de Sade was clearly going nowhere with his neck broken in two places.

As he studied them, Trist realised that the third Nebula was awake, and looking back at him.

“So they threw you down here too?” McLaughlin croaked. His face was still discoloured by the chemical burns of webber foam. “That’s ironic. The whole reason the governor picked you to liaise with the inquisitor was because you were too loyal to them.”

The shackled Nebula let out an ugly sound that was half a cough and half a laugh.

“Be thankful that Tierce sent you away - if you had stayed, everyone would be calling for your head.”

"Of that I have no doubt." sighed the young lord. Though his restraints and damage to his body rendered the act physically impossible, he mentally settled back into the medicae bed. There was little doubt in his mind that the company of such a naysmith would make their stay in this confined space seem a great deal longer than it actually would be - the Inquisition would dispose of the Nebula before long, having no particular reason that Trist could see that they would keep him alive for any significant length of time. Then again, the same might be said for him.

"Goad him, question him, butter him up." said a voice, decidedly feminine, in the back of his mind, "You're lying there like a useless lump, so you might as well make use of the time. Who knows, you might produce something useful in the end." He knew that she was right, but could not muster the effort for the task. It seemed a tedious task and overall pointless since the Inquisition would wring the soldier dry anyways. Years on the street told him that rare was a snitch prosperous.

Besides, the man had already revealed the depth of his ignorance, quite a feat in so few sentences. While the Nebula were undoubtedly among the few the soon-to-be ex-sub-sector governor trusted, they were little more than a tool to achieve an end. Trist knew from experience that few would ever hold a full conversation with the man, let alone get him to lower his guard enough to allow them a glimpse into the inner workings of such a mind, if only because they probably wouldn't like what they saw there. 'Everyone', undoubtedly the nobles following the Tierce into whatever he was leading them, would be at even further distances.

Wherever that was, Trist was sure that they weren't going to like what they found there.


+ + + + + +

Inquisition ship Tiercel
Side-along Warp transit

Kuscelian sat cross-legged atop her chair in the void-runner’s small conference suite, staring down at her dataslate. The message had popped up a few minutes ago, downloading itself into the shared area of their data crypt.

Raechel

If you are reading this, then either I am dead, or you have cracked the encoding on this file after finding the partitioned area of the data crypt that I set aside for my personal use. If it is the second option, please stop reading now, and reseal the partition. I'm very impressed, but you probably should let me labour on in ignorance.

If it is the first option, there is a very high chance I died in such a way that you may feel some blame for my death. Either a mission went wrong due to some factor outside our control, or I made a choice to save you in preference to my own continued existence so that the mission could be completed successfully. There is no chance, in my mind, that you failed in your duties in such a way to cause my end. You are simply too competent for that.

In either case, I ask you, do not hold onto any guilt. Know that I would have died holding you in the utmost esteem and respect as a colleague and a friend. Mourning is an entirely natural biological response; do not feel you have to rush it, but at the same time, do not wallow in it. Be sad, then move on.

You are an exceptional person, Raechel, and I was honoured to know you. Your dignity, courage and insight were always inspiring. Your loyalty to the Mechanicus and the mission was beyond reproach.

Now that I am gone, I am relying on that exceptional person once again. Salvage what you can of my augmetics and use them for yourself. Take up my weapons and tools and finish the job. This letter contains a set of codes to unlock the rest of the partition. I have not always been completely honest with you, in regards to who and what I know. Some I kept back as compartmentalisation, to reduce the risk if anything I had done became toxic. Other things. . .I think perhaps I wanted you to not think less of me. But if I am gone, you will need that information. It is my final and most terrible gift to you.

Darker secrets and harder tasks await, Raechel. I know you will rise to the challenge. Remember to trust, but be prepared for betrayal. Do not cut away all your humanity, but do not let it weaken you. And finally, remember that even though we are observers, to observe the universe is, in the act of observation, to change it irrevocably. We must make those changes, for the betterment of not just the cult, but the Imperium entire.

Your friend.

01101110 01101001 01101011.

Raechel read the letter a redundant second time, and sat in silence for several minutes more before touching the runic code-keys that danced at the bottom of the message. The attached passwords did exactly as promised, prompting the data djinns to offer up two categories of Knowledge files, whimsically titled “Data I should really delete” and “People I should really delete”.

The first section was a treasure trove of captured and un-redacted research screeds that Nikolai had seemingly taken from hereteks, high-clearance repositories, and in some cases what looked like the private collections of radical Inquisitors. Nestled beside them were reams of restricted information on STC constructs used in the militarum, the ecclesiarchy and the other armed branches of their Imperial allies. There were even reports on xenos devices recovered from the Koronus Expanse and elsewhere; many of which Raechel recognised from her own stint as a xenotech researcher, though there were many more again which she did not. Added to them were massive piles of incomplete data ranging from carefully documented theories to Omnissiah-affronting conjecture, rumours, and even what amounted to hearsay and gossip among the upper echelons of the mechanicus. The Ocularii see all. Understanding is the true path to Comprehension.

Some of the data files were identical to ones that Nikolai had placed in their shared datacrypt, and of course Raechel had kept a similar personal databank of incomplete intelligence that she was not yet confident to share, but it quickly became clear that Nik had been holding a large and dangerous portion of his Knowledge back. It is my final and most terrible gift to you. Raechel exhaled to calm her racing bionic heart, and traced the holy cog across the front of her robe.

When she looked deeper into the files, she saw that they were heavily annotated - not just by Nikolai, but by other agents of the Lords Dragon who must have sent him the data in the first place. This was not in itself unusual - the Ocularii shared and cross-analysed as much data as was practical, as both an aid and a safeguard - but Raechel had to fight back an irrational sense of pique that she was only now being allowed to contribute to the discussion of reports she had helped to write. The unredacted report on the silent forge of Anatolia was especially festooned with comments, with Nik responding to his colleagues’ questions with answers and annotations. Remember to trust, but be prepared for betrayal. There was the Machine God’s own truth in that statement.

The second archive (People I should really delete) was a list of borderline hereteks, sanctioned reclaimators, salvage guilds, and technomat leagues that operated on the fringes of the wider mechanicus. Compared to the first archive this list was lightly annotated, generally with warnings written to Nik by other Ocularii (This one doesn't always honour his promises; She will only trade for Eldar items) or else with blackmail material that could be used to facilitate their compliance with an investigation.

One name stuck out to her, because she recognised it from the Saros Station reports she had painstakingly assimilated prior to their fateful interception of inquisitor Machairi. Zerlinda Ghast. The Terran conclave listed her as missing after Saros, but a tip-off from an Ocularis on Scintilla suggested that she had sought refuge with the mechanicus and was now operating a lower-hive augmetics service under their supervision. Raechel thought it odd that they had let interrogator Van Der Mir’s controversial pardon stand without challenge. Nik had apparently agreed with her - his single annotation read Pardoned, after that many murders? Too dangerous to attempt to eliminate?

By the Machine God’s providence - if a headlong retreat to regroup after a heretic revolt could be called such - Scintilla was exactly where they were headed. Raechel tapped the screen and imprinted the newly shared data-file with her first annotation. Investigate, beta priority.

She paused, sitting back. If this was to be her responsibility now, and if she had fellow Ocularii across the sector to draw on and inform in equal measure...then there was much and more she needed to share before it was too late. Shunting the inquisition team’s findings out of her personal partition and into the warded data crypt, she activated her electrograft with a mental nudge and began to transmit text, setting new lines of encrypted machine-code skittering across the screen.

Executor Artorius Krol, aka Arcolin Diarmad DeRei - Adrantis government official, heretek priority beta, c.f. Adrantian Nebula corps, details to follow.

Captain Alicia Tarran, aka Ailil Cassandra DeRei - Adrantis military asset, heretek priority beta, c.f. Adrantian Nebula corps, details to follow.

Colonel Serjan Tarquinius - Adrantis military commander, heretek priority beta, c.f. Adrantian Nebula corps, details to follow.

Raechel signed the Cog for strength, taking a breath. Her cursor icon paused, blinking green against the slate’s cross-hatched background. She clicked her interface active once more, and wrote.

Magos Terminius Delzharian - primary architect of Adrantis Nebula corps, instigator of traitor uprising on Perinetus, heretek priority alpha.


+ + + + + +

HDMS Impiger
In Warp transit, en route to the Golgenna Reach

The room was dark. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cjVQ36NhbMk) Marc hadn’t bothered to adjust the lumoglobes from their standard cycle. He had been sitting with his chin resting on his hands, occasionally probing the red-spotted bandage that covered his left eye. Just looking at the desk across his tiny cabin. Just looking at the papers and the dataslates and his deactivated PDA. Staring, staring, staring.

He hadn’t raised the light level when Kelly had thumped her fist on his door and demanded entry. His sister was clearly too angry to care. It wasn’t hot anger either. It was cold anger, icy and implacable and resolved.

“What happened to no-one else in the firing line, ae?” Marc’s sister challenged him levelly, in the dead language of Makita spire 13.

Marc matched ice with ice. "Is Solvan gonnae tell me that justice is a sin now?"

"He’ll tell you that blind wrath is.” Kelly narrowed her brown eyes, the ones she shared with their dead mother. “Come on tae frak, Marc. Either you lost it, like you promised you wouldnae, or you really didnae give a shit about Kally and the others when you tried to get Maxilium to burn you all.”

She folded her arms.

“Would you have done the same if I was on the station too?”

Marc bared his teeth. “Dinnae be a frakking idiot, Kel.”

“Aye? Alright then. Explain your flawless logic to me.”

“Alley was about to get away, with a daemon. Arcolin’s slipped away too many times to risk not confirming the kill. And Ella…”

“I notice you’re only naming enemies, not our friends.” Kelly observed. “Maybe if you’d been focusing more on the latter Ella wouldn’t have-”

“Ella was your friend too, you know.” Marc snapped at her. He saw the sting of truth hit home, though his sister tried to hide the wound with anger.

“Don’t you dare try and turn this round on me, Marc.” she growled. “Were you thinking of anyone else when you tried to call the hammer down? Were you thinking of Vince or-”

The name made Marc see red.

“Vince was dead, Kel!” he shouted at her, so loud that she flinched involuntarily. “That son of a bitch Carson bashed his frakking skull in! Machairi was dead too for all I knew, and Saph as well!”

“Uh huh?” Kelly’s lips pressed together into a thin, hard line. “And Kally?”

Marc shook his head. “She’d understand.”

“Oh would she now? Have you asked her?” Kelly mirrored her brother’s sharp head-shake. “Newsflash Marc. Getting the bad guy at any price isnae taking the long view, and having no frakking emotional intelligence isnae the same as being frakking logical. You want to be like Sidonis, burning down Makita Hive and calling it a win because it stopped that C’tan shard? You've put this vendetta of yours above all of us. Just like you did with Alley.” She paused. “And I'm done. I’m so frakking done."

Marc gave a dry, humourless laugh. “You’re done?”

“Yes. With you.”

Something about her eyes made the retort wither and die in his throat. They stared each other in silence for one heartbeat, two, three. Then Kelly turned and slumped out of the room, closing the door behind her and leaving him in the dark.

As his anger and irritation drained away, Marc felt regret ooze into the cracks they had left. She was his sister after all. And she was the objective one, even if she could be prickly. Sighing, he dropped his head into his hands. The empty eye-socket beneath his gauze bandage itched, and he knuckled it until the itch turned into a spike of pain.

Lurching to his feet, he pulled the door open onto the red-lit crewman’s passage. Kelly had already disappeared. He traced her route back to the opposite crew berth and pulled out his shipboard keycard to swipe across the guardian scanner.

It buzzed a negative in reply.

He tried again; same result.

Kelly, what the frak are you doing? He knew his sister - she never did things simply out of spontaneous spite.

What the frak are you doing?

“Kel?” he called out. When no-one answered he thumped his fist against the door. “Kelly?”

No-one came to unlock it; not his sister, not Kally, not Sapphira. Either they weren’t in, or they agreed with his sister.

What the frak are you doing? Whatthefrakareyoudoing? Whatthefrakareyoudoing?

He stared at the cold metal door, willing his sister to come back. But she didn’t.

On the other side, Kelly slumped with her back against the locked door, feeling the dull vibration of Marc’s fist as a judder through her spine. Hot, angry tears pricked at her eyes, and she stumbled away from the door. She made it halfway back to her cabin before she sagged against the bulkhead and broke down weeping.


+ + + + + +

Tephaine, Adrantis subsector capital

It was late before Ella was able to summon the courage to talk to Alicia, and later still before there was a chance for them to be alone. It had been a draining, punishing day of introductions, re-introductions, media interviews and strategy meetings. When Alicia finally limped back to the spire-top apartment that Tierce had set aside for her, her jade aura was cracked and faded, and Ella hadn’t had the heart to disturb her without at least giving her an hour to eat, wash and rest.

So instead she paced the soft-carpeted atrium beneath the suite, listening to Tierce’s announcement playing on repeat across the holo-screens. With no soul-spark attached to the pictures, Ella could make out none of the vid-reel, though during a brief respite that afternoon Alicia had described it to her in careful detail.

The long-dead inquisitor Nalaran’s face would flash up - the Imperial thug who had abducted governor Tierce on Siculi, hoping to trap and destroy the Nebula corps and thus curtail Adrantis’ ability to defend itself without the Imperium. Alicia would come next, armoured and proud, the hero who had saved Tierce and who had now returned once again to guard them against the Imperium’s wrath. Ella’s former team-mates were in the vid-reel too. Sapphira, Glabrio, Crenshaw... Alicia had quotes and picts and vox-recordings stored within the Arthrashastra’s data banks, and the Adrantian propagandists were twisting every one of them for maximum effect. Crenshaw seemed to feature most prominently - although, Ella reflected, the major was about as straight an example of unyielding, machine-cold Imperial tyranny as the Adrantians could wish for.

As the report moved on to the murdered Nebulas, and began to extol the egalitarianism and solidarity of the feral-worlder Kirabo laying down her life alongside the spire-born Callisto, Ella gathered her courage and climbed the spiral stair. The polished wood bannister was smooth under her grip, and on the stone steps she could see Alicia’s psychic footprints slowly fading.

As Ella approached the top of the stairs, she halted. Her warp-sight picked out smooth walls and carved doors, rendered in translucent grey. She thought she could hear a woman’s voice - not Alicia’s. It was singing, humming a soft lullaby that drifted through the closed doors ahead of her. The sound trickled into her mind without bothering to pass through her ears first. Ella’s neck tingled, raising the hairs that were cut short above the neural plug in her spine. She pressed forward, the ghost-image of the apartment resolving slowly out of the darkness ahead of her. She smelled sweet incense, curling from tapers atop the radiator panels. She heard the hum of lumoglobes, and the gentle whir of the extractors pumping scrubbed air down from the stratosphere outside the spire. And still she heard the singing - soft, haunting, oddly beautiful.

Beyond the transparent veil of the bedchamber wall, a green soul glowed. Alicia was curled up on her bed, bleeding exhaustion and the soft psychic ripples of dream-sleep. Another soul that was not a soul hovered over her. It was thin and indistinct; one moment showing the hint of a face, the next fracturing into a kaleidoscope of dark swirls. It was all blue - beautiful, soothing, mesmerising, terrifying blue.

The Other raised its head briefly, regarding Ella for a moment with placid indifference. Then it looked away, stroking one clawed hand softly through Alicia’s hair as it sang her to sleep. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWFEVbfCcOY)

[dakkagor]

I hate hospitals. I spend too much time in them.

She gave up on reading the 'edifying spiritual pamphlet' some well meaning sister or navy medicae had left next to her bed, and laid back, trying to get comfortable and sleep. Her body was a mass of complaining bruises, healing bones and reknitting muscles.

Two months.

She sighed in frustration. Two months to heal, then she would need to get fit again. Call it three to re-equip and fully recover, four to work up leads. Four months, at best, to get back on their trail.

All that time, others would be on the hunt, snapping up data and witnesses, chasing down the information she needed.

She stared up at the white washed ceiling and wondered why Alicia De Rei had left her alive.

“I didn’t want it to be like this. I hoped we could be on the same side.”

Kally huffed. Like she had said, she believed there was only one side. The Imperium, despite its first-hand experienced monstrousness, was the best and only chance for the survival of humanity in a galaxy actively set against it. She knew this, because Blanks in Sidonis’ employ got to read more sequestered and classified material than anyone else. She knew.

If Alicia had known, really known, what she had let into her body, Kally doubted she would be able to live with herself.

Lost in her own thoughts, staring at the white ceiling, she missed the door opening. She didn't realise she wasn't alone until someone sat down next to her bed. She turned over and sat up when she realised it was Solvan.

“Easy, Kally.” The old priest put out a hand as Kally winced. “I heard about your. . .confrontation with Sapphira a few days ago. Are you. . .well?”

Kally snorted. “I was still on painkillers. I'm fine.”

Solvan smiled. “I can see that. I have. . .something else for you.” He reached into his robes, and pulled out a small dataslate. He fumbled with it for a second, before passing it to Kally.

She read the first few lines, before pausing.

“Vince's will.” Kally blinked a few times, holding back tears, then kept reading. There was one item that caught her eye.

“He left me the Pembroke case money. And asked I used it to . . .avenge him.”

“Not exactly the language he used.” Solvan huffed. “But yes. I imagine the transfers have gone through by now, I made the appropriate calls this morning to the banking guilds below. Scintillia may be a den of sin, but at least it has efficient bankers.”

Kally had fallen silent, staring at the pad. Fresh tears were tracking down her face.

“Kally, listen to me. I know what you are thinking. Let this go. This was. . .this was a different Vincent. You've talked before about getting out. Now is your chance, as much as I don't necessarily approve of your choices in that particular. . .arena, Crenshaw will look after you.”

“You don't understand.” It was practically a whisper. “He would do the same for me.”

+++++

The Scintillia sinks reminded her so much of home it was painful. She moved quietly and with purpose, though only lightly equipped with a silenced autopistol and a short knife, both under a heavy slick cloak whose inside was laced with cameoline. This was about as off the books as she could manage, what with Tomas breathing down everyone's necks.

She needed a doctor. A good one. Or a very, very bad one.

She finally found the meeting place. It was a dive bar advertised by garish neon strips and holographic dancing girls. She could feel the dustcore music pounding even out here in the street. As she watched, a massively muscled and lumen-tatted heavy stepped out the door and threw someone out into the street. She smoothly stepped round the crumpled bleeding mess and came face to chest with the bouncer.

“You ain't local.” The man sneered. “I know all the locals. Locals only.”

Kally pushed back her hood. “My gelt is as gold as anyone else's, and I don't want trouble.”

“Neither do I. You check that custom piece of yours, then you're good.”

Kally knew how this needed to play out. She placed her autopistol into the man’s outstretched paw of a hand, followed by a small bag of local gelt. The man nodded, and taking her right wrist, he jabbed her with a bio-sampler. She was edified to see he at least had the decency to wipe it with alcohol afterwards. Her gun was tagged and dropped into a slot in the wall.

“You can keep the shiv. Cause any trouble, and I'll break you in two. Have a nice evening.”

Normally, Kally would have laughed off such a threat. Laughing hurt though.

“I will. Thanks.”

She stepped through the airlock door, and into the club. She pressed two fingers to her implanted vox caster.

“I'm in.”

+Good.+ Raechel, the Dragon Agent, was on the other end. As Kally weaved through the clubbers, she noted that most of them seemed young, and all of them were better armed than her. The locals clearly got to keep their pistols, and more than a few were heavily modded. Bionic arms and eyes abounded. Even the dancers on the stages had re-built limbs that granted them superhuman flexibility. +Scan left and right.+

Kally did so, letting the Ocularis see what she could see through a contact lense like device in her eye.

+There. The VIP booth. Be careful.+

Kally smirked and strode across the club, grabbing a pair of drinks in the process. Her progress was halted by a pair of twins, supple men in clubber’s attire with opposite limbs and eyes removed, and replaced with artisan grade bionics. Small opus machinae made of gold were implanted into their bronzed foreheads. Both carried las carbines, slung at the small of their backs. She heard Raechel hiss over the vox, though out of desire or disgust she wasn't sure.

“I need to talk to your boss.” The two looked at each other, back to her, and shook their heads. “Tell her that Sonder owes her a drink.”

They both frowned, then stepped back and to the side. Kally nodded, then stepped into the booth.

Sitting between two more heavily-augmented pretty things was her target.

“Zerlinda Ghast. You're looking well.”

“Kally Sonder.” Zerlinda sat up fully and took the offered drink. “You look like death.” The tech priestess gestured for her to sit, and she did so.

+I have met quite a few hereteks,+ Raechel commented over the vox. +But one holding court like a mob kingpin is new. Be careful Kally. She is dangerous, even if she is a disgrace to the Priesthood.+

“Can you tell Raechel that I would happily return to the temple, if those monstrous old bastards wanted me. Despite my pardon I am still damaged goods.” The drink disappeared into the heavily gold-embroidered robe that Ghast was wearing, then re-emerged mostly drunk. “And why is Oppen not here with you? He is a true masterwork of the augmentecists art.” She waved a tentacle airily. "I liked talking to and looking at him."

“Oppen died.” Kally cut off Raechel’s incredulous responses, then killed the vox entirely. “I'm hunting those that killed him. Traitors that are hiding in the Adrantis sub.”

“You may not have noticed, Kally, but this isn't the Adrantis sub. I don't know any hereteks or heretics anymore, I'm keeping my nose scrupulously clean.”

“The chop shop you run is skirting the line, Ghast. Mod-work on rich noble brats and brute upgrades for local gangs. Never mind your line in unlicensed juvenat work. I could turn you in to the arbites and they'd have every excuse to smash your little operation, considering this club is littered with examples of your unlicensed work.”

There was a snap. The twins behind her, the languid boys hanging off Zerlinda’s robes, and the two girls sitting in the booth and smoking obscura had all, simultaneously, drawn weapons and aimed them at her. Las-sights formed a pattern on her torso.

“Do not threaten me, Agent Sonder.” Zerlinda hissed. The remainder of the drink disappeared into the hood. “I can make you disappear, and then disappear myself. I am a survivor, Agent, and I will do anything to keep surviving.”

“Kill me and you'll have half a dozen different Adeptus hunting you down, and your pardon won't mean shit. Anyway, I can pay.”

Kally reached slowly into her robe and pulled out a data slate. The guards put their weapons away, though Kally was cognisant of the threat they still posed. She slid the slate across the table, and a metallic tentacle slithered from Zerlinda's robes to take it.

“Black bone bracing, gland work, muscle enhancement with myomer. Artificial lung, eye, ear, as well as an MIU interface, all cross linked to an implanted data-tether. Layered over the top, you want about 10 years cut off to restore lost function to nerves and remove some very unsightly scars. I never took you for a vain woman.”

“That last thing isn't for me.” Kally sipped her drink. “Can you do it?”

“It’s all in my wheelhouse.” Zerlinda drummed metallic fingers on the table. “I can fit you in in a year or so, and it will take about a month of work.”

“Not good enough.” Kally slid another data slate across the table. “I need you to start tomorrow at the latest.”

“Kally, dear, I have other clients, and they have paid good money, I simply. . .” the mechandrite picked up the other slate. “Will explain that something has come up and we will start prep this evening, as you are clearly in a rush.”

“Thank you.”

+++++

She was staring at a whitewashed ceiling again. But it felt. . .different, somehow. She felt different. More alive.

She rose and stretched. She was in a medical smock, and what she had done - and the amount of money she had just spent - jumped into sharp relief in her brain. She would have been out for a week as Zerlinda worked her tech-magic on her battered body.

She stared down at her hands and marvelled, flexing her fingers in sequence. Her skin was almost luminous in its clean newness.

“You look good.”

She looked round, and realised that Crenshaw had been sitting next to her bed.

“You found me.” She turned to face him. “What do you think?”

“I think you are insane. You handed yourself over to a borderline tech heretek and let her work on you for almost a week without any warning to your friends or colleagues. Sapphira is having kittens.”

“But you found me, and let them know I'm alright?”

Crenshaw clacked his teeth together. “Yes. Raechel does not do 'guilty secret' very well.”

“I hope you didn't give Ghast too much trouble.”

Crenshaw clacked his teeth together again, a sure sign he was angry. “She is fine. But you are coming back with me, now.”

Kally crossed her arms.

“Am I in any danger?”

“No, but. . .”

“Have I spent anybody's money but my own?”

“Arguably, but. . .”

“Is it, in point of fact, Major Martin Crenshaw, my body, my choice, to do with as I please, and take the risks I want?”

Crenshaw grimaced. “Agent Kally Sonder, you have responsibilities. To more than just yourself.”

“I'm doing this, Crenshaw. I need to finish this out. I need to be able to go toe-to-toe with the Nebulas, because I am going to hunt Alicia De Rei down and bring her in.”

He looked away. She smiled, knowing that at this moment, the man she loved was a seething pit of contradicting emotions that he would never (and could never) properly express.

“You will die if you do this alone. Which is what you are planning to do.” He finally ground out. “I. . . cannot let that happen.”

She clambered out of the bed, and gently pulled his face round to look at her.

“Look at me.” She leaned in. “I have waited my whole life to find someone like you. I am not going to let you go now. But I know you love me because I am as good as my word, and I promised to the people that I love that I would finish this. I can't turn away from this.”

They kissed, just briefly, because it felt right and natural and perfect.

“I've got an idea.” Kally breathed.

+++++

It was easily the most rundown chapel Solvan had ever seen. It would have taken an ocean’s worth of holy water to scrub it clean of the ancient, ingrained grime that clung to its STC prefab walls and pews. The preacher who ran the place was a good sort, the kind of dangerously earnest true believer that Solvan would have avoided like the plague in his younger days, but now found inspiring, even with the faded gang tattoos and the collection of piercings. The sizeable donation Kally had coughed up to secure the place would be put to good use, he was sure. And that would probably please Kally, as she had grown up in a neighbourhood much like this one; run down and forgotten, full of people trying to eke out a meagre living. As Solvan sat on the stone steps and watched a group of dirty hab children kick a ration can around the street, he wondered how high they might rise, one day, if given the chance to prove themselves.

The young preacher walked up next to him, and lightly touched him on the shoulder.

“It is time, Father. All are assembled and ready.”

He nodded, stood, and dusted off his hands and brushed down his robes.

“Thank you again, Preacher Melik.”

“It is my humble pleasure to serve agents of the Throne in this.” The young man smiled widely. “In any way I can.”

They walked through the priest’s small, humble quarters, and Solvan noted with a pleased eye that the young Melik hadn't eschewed all the trappings of his former life, as weapons littered the small rooms. Melik noticed Solvan’s roaming eyes and perhaps misinterpreted his look.

“The Emperor calls on us to be armed against the dangers to the mind, body and soul every day, Father. Down here, the dangers to the body are at the forefront.”

“I couldn't have said it better myself.” Solvan paused to pick up a well-thumbed book from the personal collection he had left on a small table, along with a small flask of blessed water, taken from Maccabeus Quintus.

The pair stepped out into the nave. These small, STC shrines could hold two hundred people, tightly packed in pews. Now, it held a dozen. Standing before the Aquila altar was Crenshaw, and Solvan thought he detected a hint of nervousness in the man’s stance and in the way he flicked imaginary dirt from his uniform. But it could be his imagining.

Standing to one side with a censor was Sapphira, in her habit. She had insisted on taking this role, as atonement for her deception. He wondered how long that would take to heal.

Siting in the pews were Kelly, Glabrio and Vizkop. Gavin was a bit further back, sitting with Raechel who had been invited as a courtesy, and because Kally had leaned on her and felt she owed her. Tomas and Machairi were notable by their absence; Machairi not well enough to travel and Tomas unwilling to leave her side for a moment.

Solvan gestured to Melik, who activated a battered voxcaster, which began to play 'Angevins March'.

+++++

“Are you sure about this?” Marc asked as the music started up. He had almost refused the role, and Kelly had gone on an unusually bitter tirade when she heard, but Kally had shouted both of the Black siblings down.

“Yes.” She shot back at Marc. “You really don't like him, do you?”

Marc’s face twisted, pulling at the raw skin around the milk-white bionic that had replaced his left eye. “Is it that much of a surprise?”

“No.” Kally looked at the floor briefly. “But I need someone like him, Marc. And he needs someone like me. When we are together. . .”

“Please, no details.” Marc made a face that caused Kally to laugh. “Nervous?”

“Never. Shall we?”

+++++

Marc and Kally entered, Kally on Marc’s arm. Kally's father was many years dead, after all, so it made sense for Marc to be the one to walk her down the aisle.

There where audible gasps from her friends as they saw the results of the juvenat work for the first time. Kally had shed a decade of hard fighting, scars and all, and looked like she had stepped from a noble’s beauty parlour, even though Solvan knew she was only wearing minimal makeup and her number one uniform. Finally, the two reached the altar and Kally craned up to peck Marc on the cheek.

“Humble servants,” Solvan began, summoning up his most stentorian voice. “We are gathered here today, under the sight of the God Emperor of Mankind, to join in holy matrimony two loyal servants of the Throne.” Solvan looked the couple over, Kally smiling like a hab kid on her first high, Crenshaw stiff-backed and uncomfortable. “While all owe first fealty to the Emperor, and serve him with their lives, he generously allows us to serve others with our hearts. We implore of Him on Terra to look on this union and find it worthy, that both may serve the Emperor with all their strength, and each other with all their hearts. May He bless you both with courage, loyalty, dutifulness and honour, from this day, till your last day. Ave Imperator.”

“Ave Imperator.” the small group chanted back.

“Those gathered here today have been asked to fulfill the holy duty of witness to this union, that they might hold vigilance against those forces that would lead it astray. Many are those forces: corruption, perfidy, and worse that I shall not name. We ask that the Emperor shield the souls and hearts of this couple, that their days may be filled with happy service to the Throne, and to each other. Ave Imperator.”

“Ave Imperator.”

“Finally, I ask you all, now, to think on this couple before you, their deeds and their sins, their faults and frailties, and if you can think of any reason they should not be joined before the Emperor, speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

There was a silence, and considering some of the. . .personalities at play, and those who bore a personal (and justified) grudge against Crenshaw, Solvan was glad it held until Glabrio piped up, causing him to flinch.

“Father, if we listed all the stuff those two got up too, we'd be here all night. I think we can safely say they deserve each other at this point!”

There was some stifled laughing from those assembled, and Solvan would have reprimanded him if Kally hadn't covered her mouth to laugh as well.

“Well, yes. Thank you Glabrio. Anyone else? No? Good. In that case, Kally Sonder, please repeat after me.”

+++++

They exchanged, vows and rings, they kissed, and everyone cheered and applauded. And that was all they needed.

The whole group, after thanking Brother Melik for his service, retreated to a nearby bar. Kally had paid to have the place clear for their use, and they sat around a few pulled-together tables, drank, and toasted.

It was somewhere between a reception and a wake. They had lost people, good people. Stories were swapped and gone over, Glabrio broke out a pack of cards and Solvan donated some fine cigars, “a gift from Tomas”. They talked, drank, and for a little while it was old times. The old gang, toasting to absent friends.

Kally was into her fourth drink and laughing uproariously at an impression Kelly was making when
her implanted vox buzzed.

+Kally, its time.+

She sighed and blew a breath out of her nose from frustration. She lifted her glass to her lips one last time, and looked around the room. Glabrio, smiling and joking to Saphirra, who was just beginning to come out of her shell all over again. Kelly, good, sweet soul Kelly Black, sitting and holding up cards for Gavin to guess. Even Gavin had overcome his discomfort, and was smiling wanly as Kelly prodded him along. Reachel was watching the odd guessing game and chuckling at some joke between the three. Solvan looking over his little flock like a forgiving grandfather, rolling a cigar between his fingers, clearly savouring it. Finally, her eyes fell on Marc and Crenshaw, both of whom were talking in short, sharp bursts about some intelligence details.

How different things almost were.

She was worried about Marc. About them all, but especially Marc. This case, Arcolin. . . it had nearly broken him. She tried to pin the whole tableau in her minds eye, hold it like a pict. She could imagine Vince, standing behind the group with a bottle in each hand, and behind him, more shadows. More friends she'd lost along the way.

She turned her glass upside down and dropped it onto the table and stood, pushing her chair back. Crenshaw was standing in the next second, and immediately all faces were on her, imploring her to stay.

“I've got to go.” Kally waved them off. “I know, I know. But I think me and the Major deserve a little privacy. . .”

There was boo's and jeers, all of it good natured, as Kally and Crenshaw waved the party good bye, and stepped out into the night. The cold sink air hit Kally like a wall.

“Hey, Sonder.”

She turned and smiled. Glabrio had slipped out with them, and Kally had missed it.
When did he get that good?
“Hey yourself.”

“I know we haven't ever been the closest. But, good luck, seriously. I think everyone here knows you are going to pull a lone wolf hunt for Alicia and Ella. Don't get killed.”

Lone Wolves get killed, Agent Sonder.

“Thanks. I promise to come back in one piece.” Crenshaw tightened the grip on her hand. “That's what all this is about.”

Glabrio nodded, and rubbed his neck. “Machairi gave me something to pass to you. Give you an edge. A wedding present of a sort.”

He pressed a slim, black box into her free hand. Kally looked quizzically at Glabrio before opening it, her breath catching. It was a slim, obsidian badge, a stylised 'I' centred on a skull. Glabrio smiled and pulled back his lapel, revealing the badge’s twin pinned to the inside of his regulator’s storm coat.

“Good luck, Interrogator Sonder.”

Kally laughed, and pulled Glabrio into a hug.

“Good luck yourself, Interrogator Hybridia.”

Glabrio stepped back and away, holding up his hands towards the Major. “Hey, you saw that, she started it.”

“Do not make a habit of it, Interrogator.”

“I won't, Major.” He flipped a lazy salute, then sketched bow to Kally, before disappearing back into the bar.

“He agreed to cover our retreat.”

“He's a good man. They all are. People. Good people.”

Crenshaw was silent. He was staring at the metal door, his uninjured hand gripped tight around Kally's.

“We can go back inside, if you want. You do not have to go.” He finally said. His voice was close to breaking.

She stepped in front of her husband, and wrapped her free hand round the back of his head.

“Hey. Hey. Listen to me. I'm not going anywhere. I promised you, that I'll love you for the rest of my life, and I am determined that I am going to be around for a damn long time, alright?”

There was a shuddering breath, and Kally wasn't sure if it was hers or Martins.

My Major

+++++

She was staring at the white washed ceiling again. No Crenshaw this time. He was a month away, hopefully embedded in an intelligence unit attached to a Guard regiment, and safely out of reach of Inquisitorial rivals.

She sighed, and rolled out of the bed. She flexed, and felt no different. But when she blinked, reticules played across her vision. Her skin felt tight and cool at the back of her neck, like it was covered in a sheet of plastek.

It was done then.

Ghast entered the room and Kally spun, then blinked in surprise that she had entered the room outside hers. Her hearing had improved that much. When the Tech Priestess stepped in, she tossed Kally a ball, which she smoothly caught.

“Good, good. How you are feeling?”

“Not. . . Not that different.”

“That's good. If you had any discomfort or pain, it would mean something wasn't wired up properly. In other news, the last of your shipments have arrived.”

“All accounted for?” She asked as Ghast passed her a stealth bodyglove to change into.

“Indeed. Combined with your personal equipment, you've got enough material to fight a small covert war.”

“Well, that's the plan. Any issues?”

Ghast grunted and passed a medicae auspex over her, checking the readout.

“Only that you've been made. A small hit squad has been reconnoitring the area around my lab for the past 24 hours.” Kally looked up at Ghast, alarmed. “Don't worry, they haven't found you yet. But not for long.”

“Alright. Plan B then.”

“Plan B. I hate plan B. Fine. Get on with it.”

Kally snapped out with her fist and caught Zerlinda in the chest, throwing the tech adept backwards and through the wall. She pulled a stubgun from her webbing and stalked through the billowing plaster dust as Zerlinda scrambled away on the floor.

“Make it look good, Agent!” she rasped.

“I will.” She fired twice, and then went to get the remainder of her gear.

+++++

“So, you're saying she betrayed you?”

“Yes, I'm saying she betrayed me.” rasped Ghast, blood and other fluids bubbling around her shattered augmetic lung. The Tempestus Scion medic working on her raised a thumb. “She paid me upfront, which was suspicious, but I assumed she was desperate. I run a clean operation here.”

“Well. Clean enough that Inquisitor Yannick is unlikely to pursue any charges at this time.” The Scion commander pulsed a command into his voxnet, and the ten-man kill team started to pull out. “My medic has stabilised you. Don't try to leave the hive, the Inquisition may have more questions for you.”

“Perish the thought.” Zerlinda muttered. Without another word, the Scions retreated, leaving Zerlinda sitting on the operation table she had used to, very successfully, augment Kally Sonder into a one-woman army.

She sent out a noospheric pulse to call her servants back to her. She'd need an extra set of hands to repair the damage, minor though it was. In truth rebuilding the damn wall and putting the front security door back on its hinges would take more time than swapping out an artificial lung and three plastek ribs.

Sighing, she shambled over to a medicine cabinet, retrieved a bottle from it and took a long drink.

“Good luck, Agent Sonder.” She took another swig. “You're going to need it.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfie7ok8-XI)


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