"You killed him." she accused the agents.
"No." Kally muttered. "They did."
Still not speaking, magos Primavesi extended Vizkop's auspex towards the skeleton. Even though it was charred and half crumbled to dust, the auspex almost immediately began to shrill a warning. Primavesi handed the auspex to Craddock. Faroven, M: Not human.
Craddock stared at the small curved screen of the auspex for a very long time. The crow's feet around her eyes deepened, and the muscles in her neck tightened, as if she was struggling to swallow.Sapphira kept Craddock in her sights as she emerged from cover, slowed by wounds received in her charge to reach Kally. The surgical suite and bone saw on her arms had been destroyed by shots that would’ve otherwise killed her. Her right leg had taken a graze across the thigh, and the left had been clipped on the calf and hip. Another blast had fractured the fleur-de-lys that stretched across her abdomen, but fortunately the carapace had held.
"I will now proceed to scan everyone else in this room." Primavesi said as she took back the auspex. Craddock didn't seem to hear her. Very slowly, she raised a hand to the vox caster mag-clamped to the shoulder of her flak vest, and clicked it on.
"PDF, this is security chief Craddock. What's your status?"
"Astropath spire secure, chief." crackled the reply, loud enough for the whole team to hear. "Two heretics in custody; no casualties."
Craddock's wind-chafed face tensed as she clenched her jaw. "Let the heretics go."
“My agents aren’t the heretics here.” Sapphira coolly reminded Craddock.
"Ma'am?" the soldier on the other end of the vox replied, just as Craddock released the transmitter button and the vox deactivated with a last pip of static. With the same dream-like slowness, Craddock unslung her lascarbine and placed it down on the floor. Sapphira followed her movements with the plasma pistol, and was ready to immolate the Venatoran if she made one false move.
"Sister." she said formally, facing Sapphira. "I wish to confess the crime of heresy. I accept complete responsibility for both my own actions and those of the men and women under my command. I surrender to your judgement."
“You are guilty of heresy and more, Vitani Craddock. Your life is forfeit and your soul imperiled.” Sapphira proclaimed as she raised her aim to Craddock’s head and started to depress the trigger. The chief simply stood her ground, and stared unflinchingly down the plasma’s barrel, as waited for her execution. She was deceived like I was by Arval. But she knows that she has to die, and accepts her fate. Like the honorable soldier she is. Sapphira’s eyes narrowed dangerously as her finger halted with that thought. It could’ve easily been me on the wrong end of a barrel. Do the right thing. She sighed heavily and shook her head almost disbelievingly. Sapphira slowly eased back the trigger as she regarded Craddock appraisingly.
“I refuse to let these replicants waste more loyal lives and souls.” Sapphira quietly resolved before she voiced her sentence, “Chief Craddock, pending approval of Interrogator Schafer, you and your soldiers will be assigned to a penal unit. There you will save your souls by sacrificing your lives for the God-Emperor. I pray that by your deaths you will serve Him better than you have here. ”
“With respect, Sister, my soldiers were obligated to obey my orders.” Craddock argued as soon as Sapphira finished speaking. Her stunned composure had broken, and the concern for her soldiers was evident on her weathered face. “They were my orders, and I should be the only one punished.”
“Would you have spared my agents?” Sapphira genuinely asked without malice. The chief’s expression hardened as she glanced at the Sister and remained silent. Sapphira nodded knowingly as she saw the answer in Craddock’s eyes. “Nor should you have. Your soldiers were obligated to detain or execute you as a traitor for resisting the Inquisition. Instead they followed your illegal orders and condemned themselves.”
“I see.” Craddock eventually managed through clenched teeth. She took a deep, pained breath and made another appeal. “I would like to keep immediate command over my men and women, so that I might better look after them.” The chief’s voice lowered as she forced herself to speak. “Please, Sister, surely you can understand that?
I’ve never particularly cared to give a heretic what they desire. Sapphira felt her cheek twinge, painfully, as she remembered her earlier words to Javid. “I do.” Sapphira quietly responded, and paused to grimace as she considered how to answer. “While that would be highly irregular, I will recommend that your command not be broken up. In return, you’ll make sure they all accept this punishment and know that the alternative will be more severe. Now swear to the God-Emperor that you will be compliant, and then get the frak out of my sight before I change my mind.”
“I swear to the God-Emperor that we will compliant, Sister. His will be done.” Craddock affirmed with a straight face as she made the aquila in salute. With the precision expected of a governor’s chief bodyguard she stepped back, turned, and advanced to her troops. On her order they professionally fell into formation and marched out of the audience hall.
“Okay,” Sapphira wearily sighed as she turned and holstered the plasma pistol. She critically eyed everyone’s wounds over as she shrugged off her medi-kit and started to remove her bloodied gauntlets. “Kally, you’re up first then Lia, Vincent and Marcus. Dr. L’Hoace? I could use your assistance.”
---
"Are you guys alright?" Kelly asked as the team limped back into the main astropathic complex, accompanied by magos Primavesi who was supporting a now-recovered Vizkop. Sapphira stood next to the Adept, and cradled a small bundle of black and red fabric. All of them were hunched and tired looking; armour scored skin blood-spattered from a variety of minor wounds. But at least their wounds all been sanitized, bandaged, and braced as appropriate and possible. Sapphira had needed to draft Fredriq to assist in triage, despite his insistence that he wasn’t that type of doctor, as she tended to her own wounds first. The quick application of synthetic flesh was hardly elegant, but it was effective and it allowed the Sister to tend to her wounded agents, which was what really mattered.
“We’ll live.” Sapphira answered, without really answering, as she slowly walked past Kelly and Manita to the nearest unoccupied work station. With reverent care she rested the saint’s remains, which were swaddled in a banner torn from the audience hall, safely in the middle desk. She felt no need to speak for the team, as she listened to the younger Black and quietly agreed. Sapphira eased off her medical satchel, and barely had time to put it down before one psykers drew the attention of her minder and Manita. Only when she limped over did Sapphira recognize her as the astropath who’d been so fixated on the saint. Reminded of him, Sapphira felt a sharp pang of loss as she silently observed the development unfold.
"It's from Schafer." Kelly said abruptly. "It has to be. Can we get a feed from an orbital telescope or something?"
"Most of our comms satellites were destroyed along with the orbitals and docks." magos Primavesi said sombrely, tracing a cog circle over her chest, "But we have the stored auger records of the lance satellites."
She crossed over to the cogitators on one side of the room and traced a holy sign over one before going to work on the keyboard. She swivelled the pict screen towards the team as they gathered round. Above a time-stamp dated several minutes ago, a green-tinged image showed a tiny white speck orbiting the grey disc of Vitaris. The speck was bright with reflections from a much more intense patch of light on the surface, which wavered and flickered as it burned. The surface of Vitaris was glowing with molten fire.
"He's glassing it." Vincent said, suddenly jubilant. His mechanical hand whirred as it made a fist. "He's glassing the alien fokkers! That'll be why our meat puppet in the palace dropped dead."
Sapphira stood and intently watched the screen without comment. After a long moment she turned around and hobbled back to her claimed desk. With a pained hiss she sat down and rummaged for a stylus and message form. She quickly filled in the destination identifiers and kept the coded message short. The xenos has been confirmed and purged. Control over defense satellites reestablished. Team is minus one. Request your return to Venatora as soon as possible. Sapphira looked up and waved over one of the adepts, coincidently the man she’d spoken to earlier, and handed him the folded note with a nod of thanks. Once she was alone, Sapphira eased back into her chair with a soft grunt of pain and observed everyone the room.
I guess that’s mission accomplished? Sapphira hesitantly concluded as her eyes flicked between the PDF soldiers, Telepathica adepts, and her agents. No. My mission isn’t accomplished. Sapphira reminded herself as she retrieved her data-slate and grasped the stylus, which she tapped against the case as she appraisingly regarded four of them in particular. Kelly Black. Marcus Black. Kally Sonder. Vincent Nyl. The Solomon survivors had congregated together as they watched the Excubitor scour Vitaris. Both men had wrapped arms around Kally’s shoulders, and Sapphira saw the woman clasp Marcus hand and smile up at him and exchange quiet words, which Kelly must have overheard, as she shook her head and managed a long suffering smile.
Sapphira turned away from the companions and thoughtfully considered the screen. Finding the right words was suddenly much harder than she’d expected. While she ruminated, instances from the past few days glared unbidden back at her. Vitani Craddock, her silently wounded eyes as she all but begged for her soldiers. John Shere, and his tortured last breaths as she smiled at him. Julius Farrier, her patient, restrained and all but headless in his recovery bed. The security guard who’d pleaded futilely for her attention, that she hadn’t inquired about afterwards. Arval Clement’s roguish smile and smooth voice as he’d recited prayers with her. In that moment Sapphira almost felt nauseous, and inhaled sharply, as she noticed that her hand had started to shake as she suddenly felt the weight of her exhaustion.
“Throne…” Sapphira hissed quietly through clenched teeth as she favored the slate with a grimace. She dropped the stylus onto it and closed her eyes. I’m a real paragon of serenity. Sapphira bitterly thought as she rested her left elbow on the desk and massaged her unwounded temple. She flexed her right hand on the desk until her fingers inadvertently touched the sumptuous fabric of the saint’s shroud. Sapphira exhaled slowly and opened her eyes as she reached forward to touch the charred remains. “I really wish you could’ve spoken…” Sapphira softly spoke as she gently ran her fingertips across the skull’s remaining temple. “Your blessed insight would’ve always been appreciated, but now more than ever.”
"His insight would probably be that you're an Emperor-damn disgrace and need to polish your armour." a rough voice said, as Vincent slouched over with a knowing look on his face. "Did I hear you calling 'im saint Lehner back in the palace?"
When Sapphira proved too tired to answer, the stocky ex-guardsman let out a bark of laughter.
"I thought I recognised that astropath over there." he said, as his good eye roamed down to the broken remnants of the servo skull. "How do you like that one, corporal Nasty Bastard?"
“Have some respect, Vincent.” Sapphira snapped back as she favored the bounty hunter with an irritated expression. “He’s an Imperial saint.”
Vincent gave her a mocking smile. "Is that what they told you? He wasn't no saint, Sister; he was a hard-nosed Emperor-bothering fok. I should know, cos I knew him. Corporal Nicholas B Lehner, Delphic 94th? My old regiment." He tapped the shoulder of his augmetic arm with the other hand. "I'd show you the tattoo, but it's lying back on Solomon somewhere with the rest of my arm."
He ran a hand over the knife that was tattooed down the centre of his scalp, and sat down next to Sapphira, hooking his leg over the chair.
"No, he wasn't no saint. That said, he must have had the Emperor's ear, cos I can't think of any other way he could've did what he did. We were on our way to some world I can't even remember the name of now, our first deployment offworld. Our transport lost power in transit. Gellar field malfunction. The warp started messing with everybody's heads - our old colour sergeant even flipped out and tried to kill us all. And just for kicks some alien parasites escaped from the lower decks as well and got loose all over the enginarium. In short, we were fokked. The cogboys tried to lock everything down but a few of us including me, Nasty Bastard and, if I'm not mistaken, her sister," He jerked a thumb towards the wispy-haired astropath, who was being tended to by her handler. "Managed to get loose, but the warp and the xenos were picking us off one by one. We got ambushed swimming through one of the ship's water tanks - don't ask me what we were doing there - and Lehner stayed behind and blew his grenades. Grenades, underwater, at that range...ain't no way he could have survived. But somehow he came back, and he helped us turn the power back on before the fokking cogboys did an emergency translation that would've squashed us all into paste. As soon as we were out of the warp, Nasty dropped dead. None of us could ever agree if it was the hand of the Emperor or just the warp fokking with us one last time."
“And what do you think?” Sapphira cautiously asked against her better judgment, which was as stunned as the rest of her consciousness by Vincent’s unexpected insight.
Vincent got his mocking smile back. "I think I'm still alive. Fitz always thought he was the real deal though. Although she was probably even more fokked in the head than the rest of us - the warp tried to trick us with a hullucination of her sister Liv."
The old guardsman craned his neck around, looking at the astropath in the corner.
"Well, if that's her, I can't fault the fokkers for accuracy. But someone needs to tell her that Fitz bought it on Arcus. No point stringing the old crone along." Vincent's voice softened, just a fraction. "For what it's worth, she was saving up her pay to come here after her term was up."
He put his bionic hand on the table and levered himself up with a whir of augmetics, the mocking sneer back on his face.
"Now if you'll excuse me, Sister, I'm off to self medicate until Schafer gets back."
For some time Sapphira sat and stared at the remnants of the saint and brooded on what Vincent had alleged about him. New thoughts and feelings about her blessed companion warred fiercely with ingrained thoughts and feelings. She reflexively clenched her hands into fists as she scrutinized the skull. It wasn’t until the pain got too excruciating that Sapphira realized her face had been contorted as well. Unwilling to acknowledge her distress, the Sister simply exhaled in a slow sharp hiss and observed the room. It was then that she saw the elder astropath and remembered what Vincent had said. The woman had a sister who’d been dead for almost forty years, and almost assuredly didn’t know.
“Frak it, I might as well do the right thing.” Sapphira softly muttered as she reached up and self-consciously fixed her ruined habit. As she did so, her fingers brushed against the Inquisitorial medallion around her neck. I’ll handle this as Sister. After the moment’s thought, Sapphira unclasped the necklace and placed it on the desk top. She eased herself out from the chair; jaw clenched against the discomfort, and smoothed her tattered skirts. Sapphira took a breath to steady her nerves before she started determinedly towards the wizened astropath and her handler.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where do you think you're going? You need to report to a Medicae officer, you're in no condition to be fully active." Remus' voice propped up, as he caught wind of their return. His gaze had fallen across each of the Inquisitorial agents, from first glance alone he could have scarcely imagined their mission was a success. Each of them battered and wounded, armour kits destroyed, wrapped in blood stained bandages.
It couldn't have gone well, they should of had more support. Noyer had taken out a large portion of the PDF airbase before being put down, Julianus couldn't imagine their chance with only small arms. But none-the-less they had succeeded, that much was apparent, the lance batteries had been called off, and the xeno infiltrator was dead. A world saved, and Venatora would live on for a time. For better or for worse, he couldn't care. Living was living.
Remus stepped before the Sister, rose his hand to gesture her to stop. She was perhaps the worse of the lot of them, or the others were at least were giving each other support.
“Conveniently I am a medicae officer, and I say that I’m well enough for this.” Sapphira stubbornly responded as she brushed by the stormtrooper. He sighed knowingly but politely offered a forearm for the Sister to hold, which she wasn’t proud enough to refuse. Forced to walk slower by her escort, Sapphira sighed herself and spoke. “Vincent served with the astropath’s sister. She died about forty years ago, and it’s only right that the poor woman knows the truth.”
“There’s no need, Sister.” The handler called out as he noticed the duo, and he quickly stepped up to intercept them. “Liv’s rather worn out, but I’ve got her under control.” His voice dropped down so his ward couldn’t hear. “Please, there’s no need to kill her too.”
Sapphira winced slightly and shook her head negatively before she quietly responded. “I have news about her sister.”
The handler looked at her sharply, with surprised expression that quickly turned to grim understanding. Evidently the adept knew about the psyker’s sister and could guess what had happened to her. He glanced from his charge and then back to the Inquisitorial agents with a concerned frown. “Seeing Anna is… was, Liv’s touchstone, her hopeful dream. Without that…”
"She has nothing. I can understand that, she gave me this." Remus replied, his had digging into a shoulder pocket and retrieved the letter she had given him.
"The date alone says it all. I didn't have the heart to tell her, I thought it'd be best for her to live in hope. If that's truly how she feels, a touchstone, I don't think we should tell her. What could that do to her?" Remus regretted. He still couldn't imagine what he would do if he lost another sibling, family was everything to him, and he wished, more than anything, to see them again.
“Just be careful, whatever you two decide.” The handler tightly responded after considering. He stepped back and crouched down by the astropath, and gently squeezed her shoulder to get her attention. “Olivia? These two agents would like to have a word with you, about Anna.”
“Anna…” The wizened woman breathed as she struggled to sit up straighter. Sapphira knelt down next to the older woman with Remus’ assistance, and she momentarily froze as the psyker fixed them both with an intent stare. She seemed reinvigorated by the prospect of news about her sister, and reached out to grab the Sister’s hands with nervous anticipation. “Do you know where she is?”
“I do.” Sapphira evenly replied after she overcame the shock from the unexpected contact. While part of her wanted to pull away, Sapphira forced herself to accept it as she took a breath and met the blind woman’s eyes. “I’m sorry to say that your sister Anna was killed in action on Arcus.”
“No. No… No! Anna’s not dead! She can’t be dead! She promised!” Olivia adamantly denied through sniffles as tears immediately started to streak down her face. The old psyker wracked with sobs and shook her head with disbelief as she clutched harder on Sapphira’s hands. “Anna… Anna promised. Promised that she’d come visit me when… when…”
“One day you’ll see Anna again,” Sapphira replied to Olivia, with sincerity in her voice and tears in her own eyes, as she gently squeezed the psykers hands back. “One day He’ll call for you and you’ll answer. Anna will be right there, waiting by His side to greet you, and welcome you to your well-earned place by the Throne.”
Remus grimaced, his face fell low, and he couldn't bare to look at them. What had they achieved? Had they really given her closure? His face slowly turned to anger as he heard Sapphira's attempts to comfort her. He could understand her mentality, but those words - He'll call for you - did nothing but rattle along his spine. What if she took that to liberally, what if this meant so much to her, as the handler said - her touchstone. He didn't want to think about it, yet, he couldn't shake the thought from his mind.
"I know what it's like to lose a family member. I've lost a brother to war, he did his duty, and was executed because the brass had counter-manned his decision, but he refused. His men were dying, they had little chance of succeeding in their objective and he tried to save them. To retreat and regroup, he was shot by the regimental commissar." Remus said, but he had other siblings, she, or at least he assumed, was the only person she had left.
He took a step forward, reached his hand out and placed it on her shoulder.
"You'll be okay." He tried to assure her. Remus would have kicked himself, he didn't know what else to tell her. What could he say? What could he do? Nothing, nothing he could do could subside the knowledge she had just learned. Perhaps she'd be alright given time, perhaps if she was given ample distractions. He could do nothing for her know, but, perhaps he could do something else.
The team would not require him for a time, most of them would need time for recuperation, perhaps, if he was able to attain personal leave. He could at least visit her, give her the distraction she needed, some company. He wasn't uncommon to the sight of Astropaths, but they're handlers would be a different matter entirely. Remus would be sure they wouldn't approve, though, he was a member of the Inquisition. He could get away with it.
Sapphira looked up and listened to Remus’ words alongside the teary Olivia, and picked up where the soldier had left off as she remembered what Vincent had said. “Anna never gave up on you, Olivia, not once she knew you were on Venatora. She’d wanted to visit you and been saving her pay to make it here.” Sapphira extracted a hand and gently massaged the woman’s other shoulder. “I don’t doubt she kept your letters to her also, and that she thought of you as much as you think of her. Treasure that bond, Olivia. Treasure that bond because it’s special and not even death can take that away from you two.”
Olivia remained silent for a while as tears continued to drip steadily down her wrinkled face. After some time the old woman spoke through a strained throat. “Thank you, both of you children. It hurts to know… but it’s good to know. Thank you.” She reached up and gently squeezed Remus’ hand and Sapphira’s at the same time. She looked from the Sister to the stormtrooper and smiled sadly at him. “I’m sorry about your brother, young man. You’ll be okay, too.”
Bookmarks