Patriot Interludes - IC [M]

[Azazeal849]

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This thread is for flavour text and updates that will be posted between battles to keep players appraised of the war's progress from the Adrantean perspective.

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Like the other RPs in this forum, this is a Mature rated thread.

[Azazeal849]

I think this war will end soon
Because the whole world is being destroyed.
No men are being spared.
The whole world is being finished.
If I survive, I will tell you everything.
The cold. The cold is so great that it cannot be described.
I have neither rest by night nor ease by day.
Six months have passed since I saw the sun
Because there is constant rain and cloud.
Snow. A kind of ice that falls from the sky, looking like cotton.
It stays on the ground, but when the sun comes out it becomes water and begins to run.
Just imagine how we shall see the sun when we get back home.
I can’t walk anymore.
My feet are frozen.
Always tired.
Always hungry.
Always thirsty.
If I survive, I will tell you everything.
If I survive, I will tell you everything.
If I survive…
...I will tell you everything.

Nabihah Iqbal, If I Survive I Will Tell You Everything (abridged)
Pre-Imperial archives

+ + + + + +

Hive spire, Tephaine
Twenty seven days until Baraspine invasion

“Ella?”

Ella Seren started a little at the sound of her name. She was nervous - but then, she was almost always nervous nowadays. She still couldn’t get over what had happened, and her own part in it.

Not to mention the way her friends had looked at her. Vince’s sorrowfully disgusted look as he slammed her away across the wall. Glabrio twisting her arm and hissing curses as he made the prisoner exchange. And Merle...oh god Emperor, Merle.

He’s dead, she told herself, taking a breath. He’s dead - along with whatever unholy daemon made a home in his flesh.

“Ella?” Alicia asked again, uncertainly.

Possession. The word cut through her like a knife.

Alicia had turned away from the mirror where she had been self-consciously tugging at her dress uniform. Ella saw her as a green, man-shaped fireball against the smoky blur of the inanimate walls. It was the way that all soul-bound astropaths viewed the world, or so she could only assume. The edges of Alicia’s psychic aura shimmered, wavering with blue flickers of concern. The daemon had shrunk down into the claw-shaped shadow within Alicia’s chest, so dim that it was almost possible to forget that it was there.

Almost.

“I’m fine.” Ella said, hitching up a pyrite smile. “I’m just thinking. Are you alright?”

She heard Alicia sigh. “I'm six kilos heavier and I'm worrying where it's gone.”

Ella couldn’t tell if the flickering in the other woman’s aura meant Oh Throne, do I look bad now? or Oh Throne, have I gone soft to be even asking? She would have giggled like a juvie, if she had been in a better mood. The great Alicia Tarran, as worried as anyone else about how she looked. Perhaps the change was down to her getting back into the punishing Nebula corps training regime. Or perhaps it was the daemon’s work. Subtly mutating...twisting and shifting its host to meet its own sinister purposes.

Ella kept smiling. “I can absolutely assure you that you look amazing.”

The hard part was that she wasn’t even lying. Sometimes, she did almost wish that she couldn’t see the daemon’s mark. That it could slip from her mind just for a moment, so she could appreciate the woman standing before her and not the parasite that she had invited in.

Alicia wasn’t the blushing type, but Ella did see a shy smile flicker across the impressionistic blur of her face. A gentle fizzing sensation settled in her stomach. Yes; that was definitely the hard part.

“Is he any better?” Alicia asked, half an hour later when they were standing in a tiny ward-room that smelled of metal and counter-septic. They were due at another briefing in fifteen minutes, but Alicia would never go a day without visiting their brother. Arcolin DeRei lay atop the medical bed, his blue aura dull and subdued as an external cogitator pulsed signals to his bionic lungs to breathe in and out.

“That inquisition agent jabbed him with Etum Omega.” said the attending medicus, whose voice was as sombre as his psychic avatar. “Evil stuff. It turned out to be a blended toxin, so while we were focused on stabilising the acute effects, the second component got deep into his CNS.”

Ella saw Alicia’s aura drain white. “Can you give us a moment?”

The medicus nodded and quietly withdrew from the room. For a few moments there was silence, save for the news broadcast fuzzing from the pict screen mounted to the wall. Although the people on the screen were invisible to her absent soul-imprints, Ella recognised the voice of governor Tierce’s chancellor, Aric Souvage.

“We all know the costs of the imperium, but what are the benefits? When people stand up and talk about the power and glory of the imperium, I'm not sure anybody saying it really believes themselves any more. The Saros incident was a wake-up call to how weak and inept our so-called protectors had become. The imperium is in crisis and we can no longer survive inside it.”

The chancellor’s voice was measured and confident; his plummy spire-born accent downplayed by midhive argot.

“All we wanted was to trade with the wider galaxy while remaining free to govern our own affairs, which is what my ancestors thought they’d signed up for in the first place. They would not give us our freedom, and so we took it by force! And it is with force that we will defend it!”

An answering roar of cheers filtered through the pict-screen speakers. There had been a steady stream of such rallies being broadcast since the liberation. Ella’s former friends had forced the Adranteans to act before they were truly ready, and although they had still won, the strain showed. There had been months of fumbling and scrambling: purging loyalists they had hoped to convert, struggling to change codes and reestablish supply chains. Even a few blue-on-blue incidents, that the media had tried to cover up and mask as heroic victories. But the Patriots had forced through their new order by sheer willpower.

“See Arcolin. It's happening. Just as you wanted it.”

The air chilled slightly, prickling at the back of Ella’s neck and sending tendrils of ice crawling around the edges of her psychic vision. It was hiding behind Alley's face, and it was imitating Alley's voice, but it was Not-Alley.

Ella wheeled away from the pict-screen towards Alicia, her small hands forming into fists. The air around her began to buzz. “Let h-”

A surge of jade-green spread out through Alicia’s psychic avatar, evaporating the streaks of chilling blue.

“I’m here.” Alicia soothed, taking her hand from where it rested on Arcolin’s bedsheet and instead squeezing Ella’s arm with it. Ella felt three human fingers and two mechanical ones - a product of the mission to Perinetus when they had stil served the imperium.

Ella turned her head, instinctively averting her blind eyes, but the jade aura remained front and centre in her psychic vision, flickering with concern.

“I’m fine.” Ella said, for the second time that morning. “Sorry.”

“No.” Alicia said quietly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to let the Tâin upset you.”

There was a heavy silence between them for a handful of seconds. On the pict-screen, Souvage continued to stoke Adrantean patriotism. Noble is our cause, just is our reward. For the Emperor and Adrantis!

Alicia looked up at the screen, thoughtfully.

“For the Emperor and Adrantis.” she murmured quietly. “You know, Ella...I don't see how they can all still believe that the Emperor is anything but impotent. Wouldn't he want to stop these men bringing even more war to Adrantis? Where is he, with all this evil bearing down on us?”

Ella hugged her arms. The Emperor was still the Adranteans’ god, just as He was still her own. She was soul-bound. The Emperor was always with her. How did he weigh the balance of her choices, she wondered.

Where is He, with all this evil bearing down on us?

Ella looked up, through her with her blind hazel eyes, and at her with her warp-sight. “He's in the hearts of people who work to stop it.”

+ + + + + +

Governor’s palace, Tephaine
Two days until Baraspine invasion

The war room was organised chaos, as it always was in recent days. Servo-skulls whirring overhead, projecting the latest updates via hololith; adjutants dodging through the crowd waving scraps of paper from the overworked astropath’s eyrie. One young courier crashed into another and sent an armful of dataslates crashing across the floor.

Only the most senior of the government staff were afforded some semblance of personal space. Standing within a ring of pict-screens and notepad-wielding correspondents, hive-chancellor Souvage was bending his froglike face to a sheaf of picts, squinting at the glossy propaganda posters. The one he was currently holding showed Alicia Tarran and Ella Seren at Tierce’s inaugeral address as governor of the Patriot Republic of Adrantis. Alicia stood at six feet even without her armour; strong-boned, golden hair tied back, reserved. The petite astropath at her side was much smaller in her green gown, with wispy blonde hair cut short, and skin so pale that she might have passed for albino. She looked waifish next to Alicia. The hero of Siculi was standing at ease, one hand clasping Ella’s for support. The bold script across the top read Together for a free Adrantis.

The chancellor tapped his chin. “Crop out the hand-holding.”

“Chancellor?” one of the propaganda adepts queried. “I know it’s not strictly professional, but I thought it played well into the idea of co-operation.”

The chancellor pressed his lips together into a thin line, shaking his head. “You have to think less like a spire-born and more like a salt-of-the-earth habber somewhere downhive. Holding hands with another woman might be offensive enough, but with an Emperor-damned psyker? No, no, take it back and re-do it…”

While the chancellor fretted over propaganda and press releases, subsector governor Tierce focused on reports of the approaching Imperial crusade. The reports were grim.

“It's not looking good for Baraspine.” the sub-governor intoned as he gazed down at his dataslate. Thomas Tierce was a broad, solid man with undimmed eyes, but his white-bearded face was careworn.

“It would look even worse, governor.” the hive treasurer put in. “If we hadn't put the word out when we did.”

Tierce frowned at the man’s words. He disapproved of hiring mercenaries from outside Adrantis, whether the incident on Concordia orbital had forced the Patriots to tip their hands early or not. Men who fought for coin might be competent, but they were never as reliable as men who fought for a genuine cause.

Manpower was just one of the subsector’s problems. They needed ships...astropaths...and tech-priests. Though the Patriots had enticed many local industries to their side, and siezed control of those who refused, they still suffered from a shortage of magi. Not all of Perinetus had come over when archmagos Delzharian raised his banners, and the forge worlds of Omnicron and Skorgulian had gone into belligerently neutral isolation until the war was over. And, as always, there was the religious divide between the mechanicus and the rest of humanity. Most priests across the subsector who were co-operating were doing it for their own ends, not for the betterment of Adrantis.

“We need to produce our own materiel.” Tierce murmured, half to himself. “We need more tech-priests.”

“At least Genofina Industries are on our side.” Souvage pointed out.

Tierce wrinkled his nose at the mention of the arms dealer cartel. “Those cut-throats? They’re just vulture capitalists looking for a profit.”

“There is always opportunity in adversity, lord governor. We just have to find it.”

Tierce grunted with false humour. “Are you an Istvaanian now, chancellor?”

Souvage spread his arms. “Sadly, true change can only happen after a disaster, lord governor.”

“And I consider that a tragedy, not a merit.”

Tierce looked again at his dataslate, at the flashing red threat-runes moving to encircle Baraspine. Just like twenty years ago, when Chaos came.

Some called the Dominion Crisis a blessing for Baraspine - a war that had swept away too many centuries of ossified plutocracy and allowed young, ambitious men and women to rise to prominence. Tierce did not agree; he remembered the cost. He might not wear the distinctive face mask, but he was still Baraspini. And now the astropathic messages were flooding in - imperial warships had split from the warp at the Baraspine Halo jump point. Within hours they would be formed up with their transports. Within days, they would be darkening the skies above Baraspine itself.

“We must think strategically, lord governor.” one of the generals milling around the war room interjected gently. “We cannot afford to think on any smaller scale now. Baraspine is just one world.”

“It's my homeworld!” Tierce snapped, a measure of his old naval command tone finding its way into his voice. He took a breath and regained his focus. “But you’re right, we can't hold it.”

“We have reinforcements in-system.” an adjutant offered. “Forces still on the training station...the Menoth Martyrs, a loyal skitarii maniple…”

“Pull them out.” Tierce ordered. They would not make a difference, not against the sledgehammer blow of the entire crusade. It was only after they began to branch off towards their individual objectives that the Adrantean military would be able to defeat them in detail. “Summon Tarquinius, and captain Tarran. I want a company of Nebulas dispatched with the fleet to extricate what forces they can.”

As the officers around him saluted and moved to obey, Tierce looked down at the dataslate and its slowly-spinning image of Baraspine. His home, his people; lost to occupation for the second time in his life.

“I'll be back for you.” he murmured.

+ + + + + +

The Nebula hulk, en route to Tephaine Rim jump point
Twenty four hours until Baraspine invasion

The blue implants at colonel Tarquinius’ temples glowed dully, fighting the dim light of the mezzanine deck. Few areas of the repurposed space hulk were well lit, but the tech-priests seemed to care even less for the requirements of ordinary, unaugmented vision. The shadows accentuated the scars on Tarquinius’ slab-like face, each one of the wounds earned in a mission whose odds would not have shamed the adeptus astartes.

By coincidence or design, adept Kiran Sova was standing in a pool of shadow between two spotlights. The tech-assassin’s angular frame was softened by the shroud of his robe, and the two sensors that served as his eyes glowed icy blue in the dark.

Tarquinius disapproved of mirroring the free-roaming black ops teams of the imperial inquisition. Such underhanded tactics had their place in warfare, of that there was no doubt - but he hated to be reminded of the unaccountable, loose-cannon operatives who had abducted Tierce on Siculi, leading to a horrendous battle where they had had to bury far too many good soldiers. And then there were those savages whom that other inquisitor had brought to Concordia orbital. Fanatics, every one of them...and the imperium lets them commandeer whole armies.

Who watches the watchers, indeed?

Me.

Tarquinius scrutinised Sova, his eyes falling to the grinning half-mechanical skull emblazoned on the armour beneath his parted robe. Many thought of the tech-priests as cold and unfeeling, but in truth they could be almost as fanatical as any inquisitor. Thank the Emperor that it was mostly cooler heads who had aligned themselves with the Patriot cause.

“These are the units I have chosen to accompany me to Perinetus.” Sova spoke, his voice rasping through a modulated vox caster.

Tarquinius cast his gaze past Sova, and fixed the tech-assassin’s offerings with a critical eye. The hulking cyborg and his (her? its?) attendant electro-priest were expected choices for a mechanicus strike team. The young woman with the elfin features and the long sabre slung across her back, less so. Tarquinius suspected that she was bound for some other destination.

“I believe you will judge them acceptable.” Sova stated, with a hint of satisfaction underlying his static-distorted voice.

Tarquinius narrowed his eyes in appraisal. “Prove it.” he challenged finally, and turned on his heel to walk away.

[Azazeal849]

You know, I’ve decided it’s not the Imps I hate most. It’s the Emperor-damn propagandists. The remembrancers and the picters and all those little shits on the vid-reels, banging the drum for our great and glorious war. Don’t get me wrong, I’d go to the wall for Tierce and the Republic. I’d go to the wall to keep you all safe, and make sure our kids grow up under something better than Imperial tyranny. But what I can’t stand is those wide-eyed journalists who come and yammer like they want to be a part of it. I had one stick his vox-recorder under my nose the other day, and ask me what it was really like to be under fire. I wanted to scream at that Emperor-damn journalist. Hell, I wanted to SHOOT at him. You want to know how it feels to be under fire? You want me to show you what it’s like?

From the soldiers’ letters archive, Quaddissar War Museum, Reth
Unknown writer

+ + + + + +

Governor’s spire, Tephaine

Thomas Tierce, former subsector governor of the Imperium, now lord governor of the free Adrantean Republic, shook his head in solemn disgust as he watched the broadcast. The vid-clip originated from Baraspine, from the helmet camera of some nameless armsman, but the crusaders had beamed out copies to every Republic ship they hadn’t been able to run down. The images had spread like wildfire as soon as they made port. By now there probably wasn’t a man, woman or child on Tephaine who hadn’t seen governess Vel-Cyvasse sobbing under the guard of that smirking, nameless Navy officer.

And the way he just gave her a dead bodyguard’s mask… Tierce might not wear the Baraspini faith mask any more, but he remembered all the customs of his homeworld. Did that officer know them too? he wondered. Did he offer her a servant’s mask to humiliate her further? Not for the first time, he considered directing an intelligence team to find out the name of that smiling Navy commander.

News banners scrolled across the pict-screen, and the video shifted to chancellor Souvage’s broadcast from earlier in the day. Its content was the chancellor’s usual fare.

“Again and again we’ve seen that the imperium promises safety and stability, but delivers the opposite. They want to keep us in a corrupt, failing system where the labour of good honest Adranteans is wasted for no benefit. I mean, tell me, why should our crops go to feed hivers on Scintilla when there are people starving on the streets of our own cities? Better still, tell me why should our people bleed and die in wars on the other side of the galaxy? They certainly wouldn’t do the same for us. Where was the imperium when those madmen attacked Marioch, or kidnapped our lord Tierce on Siculi? I think we have proved that we are more than capable of defending ourselves from the worst the galaxy has to offer, in spite of imperial scaremongering.”

“Chancellor!” an offscreen journalist shouted, “What is the governor’s response to the imperium’s latest terms for surrender?”

“I’m sure the governor would say back to them that their imperium is a dictatorship of economic failure, insecurity and tyranny. That is what they’re asking us to come back to. That is what they’re offering us if we surrender. If that's all they're offering, then I say let them come!"

Tierce looked away from the plasma-cast face on the screen to the real chancellor Souvage, who was watching his own speech with a sternly modest look on his frog-like face.

“Impressive, chancellor.” Tierce admitted. “Though you could have focused more on our strength rather than their crimes. Some might call you a demagogue.”

Souvage shrugged and smiled. “I've been called a lot of things in my time, governor. That's politics.”

And what do they call me? Tierce wondered. So far I’ve been forced to associate with the Malfian Cartel...with that Gallowglass witch...and then there’s executor DeRei. Tierce knew better than most that a man’s past did not determine his future. But some words stuck with you - words like rogue psyker, words like heretic, words like cultist. Next to them, Souvage might be the least publicly offensive face in the room.

And the people do seem to love him. They look up to war veterans like me and Tarran, but they talk about Souvage like he was born down in the hive with them, rather than the spires.

The governor exhaled, and wondered once again just how someone like Souvage had tacked himself onto a cause which had started as a purely military ideology after the Dominion Crisis. Tierce and other former Navy contacts had laid the groundwork twenty years ago, but with the escalation in the Patriot’s ambitions and capabilities had come movements like Delzharian’s radical mechanicus cohort, and Souvage’s moneyed crowd who were tired of imperial bureaucracy forcing the capital planet to play second fiddle to worlds like Baraspine.

Souvage and his Tephaine first! rhetoric had been instrumental to winning the nobles, though Tierce was ever conscious of his growing list of nominal allies who grafted themselves to the Patriot cause only to try and subtly nudge the Republic towards their own ends.

Perhaps he’s right to focus his speeches on the enemy without. The threat of the imperium unifies us. But after that?

Even Souvage himself had begun voicing pointed concerns about the non-traditional group of flag carriers Tierce had surrounded himself with. Seren, Tumasian, Burakgazi...

“The synod stands behind you, lord governor.” cardinal Raygar spoke up, almost as if he had been reading Tierce’s thoughts. “As the good chancellor said, the Emperor wants his people to thrive, not suffer.”

“We suffer for our sin of betrayal.” The somber rebuttal came from cardinal Matlock; an arch-conservative among the Adrantean synod who had envisioned the independence of Adrantis as a smooth diplomatic transition, and not the bloodbath it had been forced to become.

Tierce ground his teeth at the opposing holy men. He took no comfort from the fact that his cabinet was not the only institution on Tephaine still riven with discord. Small wonder this all began in the Navy. It’s the only service in the Imperium where men of different worlds must learn to work together or die.

“Enough, cardinal.” he snapped at Matlock. “What's done is done, and we are all allies now. We have to protect all of our people.”

His was a voice made for barking commands across the strategium of a void-cruiser, and it was enough to silence the defeatist priest. Matlock dropped his gaze to the rosary in his hands, and began to thumb silently through the prayer beads.

As long as his prayers are silent.

Tierce looked to his commanders, standing stiffly to attention opposite his cabinet and the emissaries of the Adrantean church. Some of the generals in the room were familiar to him, others were not. Front-line officers were being rotated, he knew - good ones were being sent back to help with training, while career officers needing war experience replaced them.

“There’s another sally bound for Tranch,” Tierce said, pointing to draw their attention back to the maps and dataslates spread across his war table. “But thanks to an intelligence leak we’ve been able to divert fleet assets to counter.”

“The Imperial fleet turned tail and ran last time they saw the defences.” one of the naval officers commented as he studied the star chart. “But if they come again, Thark’s squadron should be enough reinforcement to hold them.”

“He’d better hold.” Tierce said gravely. “The imperials have already landed troops on Soryth and Coseflame.”

And to think the analysts assured me that the imperials wouldn’t greenlight anything until they had a weighty folder of bollocks counting up all the beans. The commanders of this crusade are either reckless or dangerously competent.

“Is it true that the Silent Vigil are leading the attack on Coseflame, my lord?” a Tranchite general queried.

Tierce saw no benefit in keeping the truth from them. “It is.”

A murmur ran around the room. When it was discovered that most of the Vigil’s fighting strength had been with inquisitor Machairi - and not within their convent as expected - when the Nebulas made their surgical lance strike, the news had not been received well.

Not well is an understatement. My war council practically shat enough bricks to rebuild the Sisters’ convent for them.

Tierce’s internal security agents were still trying to root out the Vigil’s spy network across his newly-freed worlds. Nearly a thousand such sisters on some key battlefield was another prospect entirely. The battle for Baraspine’s orbital ’Glom had proved that much.

“And Perinetus?” another officer asked.

Tierce shook his head. “As good as lost. However, the Genofonia family have assured us that they can increase weaponry shipments to compensate.”

In truth it was lady Bai and the Malfian cartel who had eased Tierce’s mind by adding their shipments to lord Genofonia’s, but this time it seemed better not to mention the fact. The Malfians were not popular outside the capital spire. But at least they have predictable motives. If you’re already committing high crimes and treason against the Imperium, why not make a tremendous amount of money out of the deal?

Tierce frowned down at the maps for a moment. “I agree though that we will need real ad mech support if we're in this for the long haul. That’s why our loyal agents have agreed to negotiate with the archmagi of Skorgulian, and bring them into this fight on our side.”

He held out a hand, and all the heads in the room turned towards a red-robed figure standing unobtrusively at the back of the room. He stood flanked by two electro-priests - one of whom Tierce knew to be his own bodyguard; the other, one of the tagalongs from the Malfian deputation. Lady Bai’s gifts may be poisoned, but I still intend to turn them to good use.

Souvage looked at the three, his eye settling for a moment on the Malfian electro-priest. “A fitting mission for them, governor.”

You would know. Tierce thought sourly. You lobbied enough times for the Malfian to be sent with them. Souvage and the Malfian ambassador had been at loggerheads for some time - possibly, Tierce thought, because Burakgazi had taken Souvage’s man-of-the-people act to heart and was showing him up. Without the engine of the Tephainian state behind him, he had nevertheless gone to the stubbornly neutral Celeano manufactorum and managed to talk its magi into re-lighting their forges to produce humanitarian aid instead of war materiel.

The Malfian priest tapped his thumb against his fingertips with a metal-on-metal click. Out the corner of his eye, Tierce thought he saw astropath Seren shake her head at him. The subtle warning went unheeded however, as the priest’s articulated silver eyes turned to settle on Souvage.

“How fortunate that most of the unwashed masses do not share your prejudices, chancellor.” he said, his tone barbed.

Souvage folded his hands with dignity. “Why, my good fellow, I’m not entirely sure what you’re suggesting.”

“I’m entirely sure that you’re entirely sure of what I’m suggesting.”

Souvage jerked his head back, rolling his eyes. “Oh here we go again. I’m getting extremely tired of these spurious accusations.”

“You and that preening lady Tumasian should be grateful that we offered you a place here.” one of the noblemen shot back at the electro-priest. “We certainly won’t be able to do the same for every refugee now pouring in from Baraspine.”

“With loyalist saboteurs hidden in among them, no doubt.” growled another.

“Would these…worthy noble gentlemen’s arguments be a preview of your next broadcasts, chancellor?” Burakgazi queried, with a narrow eyed gaze at Souvage’s sycophants. “Citizens of the Republic: You should be grateful for what you have been given and It is better a thousand true Patriots starve outside the walls, than one loyalist saboteur sneak within them?” The electro-priest crossed his arms as he stared at the chancellor, and subtly bent his thumbs to emulate the Aquila. “I must admit, it seems…derivative, but then again I’ve heard it said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

“Enough.” Tierce barked. The argument quietened, but mutterings remained. The Tephainian elite would not come to heel as instinctively as a starship’s bridge crew, or an old priest. It was a discovery Tierce had made years ago, and one he had come to rue. The only one who even acknowledged their overstep was Burakgazi, who offered Tierce a quiet bow of apology.

“Executor Krol sprung our trap too soon.” one of the nobles complained, sullenly. Like most of the Tephainian court, he used DeRei’s Adrantean name - a name that wasn’t dogged by Imperial accusations of heresy. “Before the whole subsector was on our side.”

Tierce sighed heavily, retreating into his thoughts. The man was not wrong. We were to have the battlefleet on our side. Instead we had blood on every ship’s deck. And that inspired even more blood on the ground.

No planet in the Republic was as secure as he had hoped. Now Reth had daily protests, each with its tail of anarchists who tagged along simply to make trouble. The Tranchite hives had riots in their underdepths. Matlock and his faction within the church were openly questioning the secession. People like Souvage and Bai were using the upheaval to advance their own agendas within the Tephainian court. And across all the worlds of the Republic, they were witnessing a vicious cycle between the increasingly militant minority of Imperial loyalists, and the increasingly frequent retaliatory hate crimes directed against them.

“No-one said this revolution would be easy.” Alicia Tarran stalked away from lady Seren’s side and pushed her way through the war council to face her fellow commanders. “And what choice did my brother have? Those inquisition bastards were onto him.”

“The Emperor dispenses punishment for what we have done.” cardinal Matlock proclaimed, rallying from his cowed silence to raise a bony finger straight at Tarran. “For what you and your brother have done.”

“If anyone’s got grievances.” a low voice interjected. “Please voice them now.”

The entire gathering turned towards the chamber’s lancet doors. Framed between them was Arcolin DeRei. He was scarred and hollow-cheeked from his long confinement to a medicae bed, but he walked with purpose, and something in his eyes cowed the room into silence.

Tarran broke forward across the silent floor, and swept him into a hug.

“Glad to see you back on your feet, executor.” Tierce nodded as the siblings drew apart, grateful for the timely intercession. “Now if we may return to the business of winning this war...general Anders, what is the report from Marioch?”

A general with wispy white hair bowed, linking his hands together in the holy Aquila. “Relatively good, my lord. We bloodied the Imperial fleet enough to force a stalemate in orbit, and the traders’ PDF are holding against the crusaders who managed to make planetfall.”

Tierce dipped his head. “We need to drive them back. If we are to have peace we need to show the Imperium our strength.” They will have no more footholds on my subsector. “Your mercenaries did well, getting the bulk of our forces off the Glom. We’ll use them to strike back at Marioch.”

“I will take a company of Nebulas to support them.” Tarran offered. “The hulk and our remaining two companies can strike where needed.”

“Take the Cytherian mercenary company too.” Anders suggested. “They’re tailor made for this kind of operation.”

Tierce nodded once more, feeling like he was returning to his element. “We’re in the crucible now, ladies and gentlemen. And sadly the only way out is through blood. These imperials call for our surrender, but they don’t truly want to negotiate. They’ve already defined us as traitors and heretics. We must conquer or we must die.”

[Azazeal849]

Spoiler: Prologue 

Arcolin tried hard not to give the Smiler inside him the satisfaction of the irony, as he thumbed the now-blank Tarot card that Ella Seren had given him. Astropaths were, after all, as much agents of fate as he had once been, but even after her defection he had not expected Seren to come and seek him out. Not after everything that had happened.

She didn’t do it for me. he concluded grimly. She did it for my sister.

According to Seren’s readings, cardinal Matlock - that cheerless priest who seemed to value his own self-righteousness over the need for a united front - was planning to filibuster the synod discussions until late in the night, then table a motion for vote after most of his rivals had gone home. The motion concerned Alicia Tarran’s recent clash with interrogator Sonder on Marioch, and whether her survival in the face of a full manticore strike marked her as a saint or a daemon.

He’s exploited the barracks chatter well. He'll have the signed decree sent to every church by morning prayers, and we'll be too late to stop his version of the story getting out. It was exactly the sort of game that Arcolin himself might have once played, and that more than anything made his blood boil. Survival requires a united front. Not to mention, that’s my sister you’re denouncing, you craven old fool.

Pocketing the laminated card, he pulled two Tephaine-pattern lasguns from the rack in front of him, and turned to regard the two Nebulas towering behind him.

“Okay, friends.” he told Sharma and Tyria, smiling wanly. “Here are your dates for the evening.”

He tossed the two lasguns, and both Nebulas reflexively snatched them from the air.

“Guns?” Sharma questioned, looking down at the weapon he had caught and thumbing the aquila that hung around his neck. “In the cathedral?”

Arcolin put a touch of executor Krol’s command into his voice. “I’m the peacemaker here, but it doesn’t hurt for Matlock to think I’ll frak up anyone who gets in my way.”

The two Nebulas exchanged a glance. But if Sharma’s look was uncomfortable, the look that cardinal Matlock wore when they came bursting into the heavy, candle-bright space of his voting chamber was something else.

"You can't do this!” the cardinal blurted as priests and priestesses stumbled to their feet, knocking over candles and spilling wax over sacred parchments. “This is a legitimate meeting of the holy synod!"

"So legitimate you had to hold it in the middle of the night, when all cardinal Raygar's people had gone home?" Arcolin challenged, his eyes burning. "You've always hated my family, Matlock."

The priests looked at the door, at Arcolin and his men blocking it, and then at Matlock. They began to edge away towards the corners of the room. Alone, Matlock drew himself up with all the dignity he could muster.

“No, executor.” he refuted. “I hate those that turn from the light of the Emperor. And I fear to watch what you have led us to.”

This one will never see. “Then look away, old man.” Arcolin intoned softly, “This meeting is adjourned. Tomorrow, you will be charged with heresy for trying to subvert honest theological discourse."

“She was tearing through my squad…I had to do something. I think I put about half a power cell into her in the end. One of the beams tore part of her visor off. I remember she looked young, no older than me…you’d think that seeing their faces would make them seem more normal but there’s still something…different about them. I just remember looking down at the prayer seals and the Sisterhood iconography on her armour and thinking oh Emperor, what have I done, I’ve killed a Sister. I was on my knees, praying for forgiveness. My sergeant had to step up and finish her off. But I just remember her looking up, all bloody from the lips down, and looking right at me with all the Emperor’s hate and judgement…I remember her whispering All your souls are forfeit.”

Patriot remembrancer’s audio recording, unknown subject 608.M41
Recording deemed unsuitable for public dissemination

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Governor’s spire, Tephaine

Governor Tierce was conspicuous by his absence, having gone to Tranch with colonel Klemens and a handful of other war heroes to raise morale. In his place, chancellor Souvage slouched in the governor’s chair, legs crossed and one hand toying with a tall, fluted glass. The carbonated wine stood in contrast to the downhiver’s beer that he preferred to have at his elbow when making media appearances.

“It’s a shame,” Souvage noted, archly, “What happened to Matlock.”

Cardinal Raygar, despite being the new regime’s most full-throated supporter, folded his hands carefully inside the sleeves of his cassock before answering. “His faith was found wanting, chancellor.” the senior priest replied carefully.

“And I can only hope ours will not be!” Souvage joked, sipping his drink. He turned to the projector at the centre of the table, where wavering hololiths of the Republic’s absent generals were arrayed in a regimental line. “And speaking of matters of faith…general Anders, how are things on Marioch? I hear that the Imperials are using reports of rising Chaos cults in your sector as propaganda against us.”

“Do you know what they're frakking doing on Marioch?” the white-haired general snapped back, his hologram jerking as he moved. While Anders was always respectful around the governor, he had less patience for his chancellor. “They're offering us a ceasefire against the cultists!”

Souvage cocked an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

“Don't you see, chancellor?” Ander’s voice crackled through the vox projector, “They can designate whoever they like as cultists. The only people who'd actually have to abide by the ceasefire are us!”

Souvage tapped the rim of his champagne glass. “They know we won't accept that, and they'll spin that refusal as an excuse to keep attacking us. Scoundrels.”

“With respect, chancellor.” Alicia Tarran spoke up. The heroine of Siculi was standing stiffly and a few feet back from the table, as if she would rather be elsewhere, but something in the discussion had compelled her to speak. “If Tierce was here he wouldn't care about that. He'd care about protecting the people of Marioch.”

Souvage shook his head. “Yes - and more and more of those Emperor-damn Mariochi are running here! And claiming sanctuary just because their grandparents used to live on a real civilised planet. I ask you.”

Tarran, who had grown up on Marioch, visibly bristled, but said nothing. From the spires to the sumps, there were bitter divisions on Tephaine about whether to accept additional refugees from Marioch - the influx of Baraspini with their face masks and their historical rivalry with the sector’s other great hive world had been struggle enough, and the Mariochi brought with them the fear of Chaos cultists hidden among them. Facts had reached the malleable state where they could be twisted to fit any prejudice, and when enough men held the same prejudice, the results were incendiary.

“Marioch has always been the most lawless part of Adrantis, despite our best efforts.” Souvage continued in a reasonable voice. “I will not let this planet become a dumping ground for drug cartels, criminals and cultists just because the governor is offworld.”

“You think I’d let such people onto transports, chancellor?” general Anders’ hologram inquired, stiffly.

“Don’t put words in my mouth, general.” Souvage chided, shaking his head again. “I think you may miss some. There must be thousands of them, just waiting to use this crisis to flood into Tephaine. I can tell you, general, that there is a very real fear among the people about this issue! Yes, we all feel compassion for those poor bastards fleeing the war, but we can't allow it to affect our judgement. Security must come first."

“Then let me solve the problem.” Arcolin spoke up, sidestepping closer to Tarran and putting a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “I know how they operate.”

Tarran glanced sideways at him, apprehensively. Yes, Arcolin knew where some of the cults were based - because in a past life, he had fostered them. Though the Imperials had been loudly denouncing the heretic in their ranks since before the war, it was risky to drop any reminder that they were right.

Arcolin offered her a reassuring smile, though it was twisted by his scar-ravaged face. “It’ll be refreshingly like being an arbitrator again. And it’s a chance to clear up my own mess.”

Souvage looked at the siblings for a long moment, searchingly. “Tell me about the Coreward front.” he said at last, turning away.

“Our frontline on Marioch holds.” Anders reported neutrally. “We’re still waiting to see if our overtures to the forge world of Skorgulian will bear fruit.”

“An Imperial squadron made a sally to Endrite to try and seize the jump point to Tephaine.” a fleet liaison reported. “The Nebula hulk saw them off though, and crippled one of their capital ships.” He sketched a shallow bow in Alicia’s direction.

“If only we’d had them on Coseflame.” one of the generals mused, his tone sombre. The Imperial second wave had apparently scattered their own relief fleet, and the war on the ground had swiftly turned against them in response.

“The Nebula corps can’t be everywhere.” Tarran objected, with a touch of resentment. After the evacuation of Baraspine the corps had been loudly feted, despite that battle technically being a defeat - now they were simply ordered into the next warzone. With barely a “thank you for heading off that Imperial fleet and destroying a bloody battleship”, and certainly without the offer of cocktails and finger foods.

“We’d best start drafting more underhivers for the army.” Souvage said, straightening. “I’ll see to the recruitment campaign.” He tipped his glass, savouring the last of the champagne, and scrunched his face in quiet resignation.

“And we’d best recall governor Tierce from Tranch.” one staff officer put in, lowering the data slate that a courier had just pressed into his hands. “Intelligence says that the Imps are massing for another attack on Tranch. We’d be expecting another whitewash after their last sabotage attempt was seen off, but the astropaths are all suddenly giving dire warnings.”

“I’ll tell the corps to prepare the hulk to deploy in support of the relief fleet.” Tarran said, her mouth twisting.

“I’ll ensure a team is tasked with the governor’s extraction before I leave for Marioch.” Arcolin added.

Souvage, whose antipathy for astropaths was well known, sniffled. “We should really be taking back the initiative. I assume you have a plan to break this deadlock on Marioch, general Anders?”

“I am organising a counterattack.” Anders reported. “If we can hold the river Isen for a few more days, we can beat them.”

“Noble is our cause, just is our reward.” Souvage smirked, quoting his own propaganda slogan.

Anders straightened, with dignity. “Fear not, chancellor. Victory will be ours.”