[M] Penitence - IC

[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.