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Imperial Interludes - IC [M]
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PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.
Guardswoman: I remember my first kill. I was proud. It was kill or be killed and I did what I was trained to do. But you feel like there is this debt that you build for every life that you take. You feel like you owe the galaxy something...because you left it without this other person that could have done something amazing. I think about all of these soldiers coming out of the Guard and hearing about what they aspire to do and be in the world. And I wonder about all of the Adranteans that we killed and what they aspired to be.
Interviewer: Can you describe what it was like on Baraspine?
Guardswoman: I could but...no. No.
Interviewer: Why not?
Guardswoman: I stopped telling war stories because no matter how bad and awful it sounds, you can still see the look in the juvies’ eyes that says, ‘That’s the rite of passage, that’s how I become a true servant of the Emperor. I have to go there and live through that horrible shit to know that I am an adult.’
Interviewer: Umm...well that’s...ahem. You mentioned your first kill for the Emperor. You said you were proud?
Guardswoman: At first. I remember looking back, and the Addie was down in the middle of the road, arching his body... All the sense of satisfaction just washed away and this horror filled it - this sadness, anger and frustration. I was mad at him that he just didn’t die. I ended up putting another three rounds into him and he finally stopped moving.
Interview with Guardswoman Erika Valdez, 44th Callisto Airborne, 608.M41
Broadcast application denied by the Ministry for Morale Truth
+ + + + + +
Inquisition void runner Crimson Eye, approaching Concordia Orbital
Thirty days until Baraspine invasion
“Of sheltering an enemy of the Imperium...we do not absolve you.”
Inquisitor Eran de Shilo tapped the pause rune on the fifth playback, bringing the courtroom and the ragged penitents standing before it to a flickering halt. His informants on Holy Terra had not captured much of the secret investigation, but they had been able to record the verdict.
De Shilo laced his fingers and rested his mouth against them. The flickering light of the cogitator illuminated a long face, with golden skin, a broad nose and red-brown dreadlocks that snaked across his shoulders. His hazel eyes creased as he studied the faces of the six penitents, trying to see past the masks of flesh. Four of those faces were familiar to him. One had even served under him, though de Shilo found his memory hard to reconcile with the slumped, bedraggled man in the vid-recording. He looked half a corpse, standing between his sister on one side and one of the Adrantis Nebula’s most reviled traitors on the other.
“It's a shame.” de Shilo mused to himself as he sat back in his chair. “That boy had potential.”
Footsteps behind him made the inquisitor spin his chair round. Striding through the light-pools cast by dingy shipboard lumoglobes was a man whose right eye and cheek had been rebuilt in chromed metal, with a ember-red bionic sensor smouldering within. He was flanked by two stormtroopers in beetle black carapace armour - two of the mind-scrubbed survivors of Sidonis’ task force Carbon, de Shilo knew. The overreaching inquisitor lord was a year dead, but the Imperium was not in the habit of wasting good military material.
“Eran.” the man with the bionic eye grunted by way of greeting.
De Shilo inclined his head in the slightest of nods. “Alexis.”
He did not rise. They both bore the inquisitorial rosette on their long coats, and although there were always de-facto hierarchies between inquisitors of different means, Alexis Yannick had chosen to waive them. It was a point in his favour, as far as de Shilo was concerned - he had had too many experiences of inquisitors who leveraged their superior resources for causes other than the good of the imperium.
Only someone who's following in Sidonis' footsteps and trying to build an empire sits back and lets the sisterhood declare them a saint.
Yannick’s organic eye switched down towards the paused cogitator, the red bionic purring as it followed suit. “From your man on Terra?”
De Shilo gave another tiny nod. “And more news from the ad mech.”
Yannick huffed. “I can’t say that I’ve ever gotten along with them.”
De Shilo drummed his short-nailed fingers on his chair arm, one after the other. “Our friend Crenshaw might have given the game away about the Ampoliros incident. But we have to be careful.
"The time for careful is over." growled a voice, as a tall man in the dark robes of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica swept into the room. “And I must agree with inquisitor Yannick. It was I who bore the brunt of the mechanicus’ ire for that shambles on Ampoliros. The sisterhood were hardly accommodating either.”
“I have already given you my word, legus Telek.” Yannick stated coolly. “Cardinal Tarpeian will smooth the waters for you on that front.”
“And the mechanicus?” legus Telek countered. “Between Ampoliros and Saros Station, there is little goodwill left in them for the AAT. You want to hang Ampoliros around Crenshaw’s neck to distract from the two heretics you let slip in under inquisition rosettes? I suggest you act quickly.”
De Shilo tapped his chair arm, and said nothing. That the legus saw one field agent as expendable was no surprise. Everything was transactional for the Telepathica - they did, after all, run the largest human trafficking operation in the Imperium. The fact that Crenshaw already had a dubious reputation, dubious enough to make the smear believable, was incidental.
“We will.” Yannick reassured the legus. “It helps that your rogue fixer has been plying his trade almost exclusively on behalf of Alia Machairi."
Yannick folded his muscular arms.
“You’ll have him soon. We’ll have them all.”
+ + + + + +
Scintilla, Calixis sector capital
Fifteen days until Baraspine invasion
A ring of stone angels watched from above. Some stood with heads bowed and hands Aquila-crossed in hopeful prayer, while others spread their marble hands protectively over the hospitium common room. Pict-screens curving across the walls gave the illusion of windows looking out over a sunlit sea of cloud, as if those within walked with the Emperor himself.
It was a beautiful prison, but a prison nonetheless. As soon as inquisitor Alia Machairi took one step outside the protection of the Hospitaller sanctuary, she would be vulnerable to the other inquisitors seeking her blood. If I could even take one step.
The wheelchair, controlled by blink-clicks into a holo-screen projected over her right eye, was a shameful but necessary device. It had been three months since the DeRei daemon had nearly killed her on Concordia orbital, and the sisters were saying it could be several more before they would risk bionic surgery. No wound inflicted by warp-spawn healed quite as it should.
For now, she had to act through the few allies who remained with her. Tomas Prinzel, her faithful Casterian bodyguard, had barely left her side in all this time. Glabrio Hybrida was here too, still ambitious and rakishly handsome, with the new interrogator’s rosette pinned to his old arbites uniform. Father Solvan, on the other hand, looked every one of the years that Haarlock’s xenotech had cruelly bestowed on him. He was leaving soon, bound for the convocation that had been called by the crusade pontifex. Machairi was loath to send another one of her agents out alone, after Kuscelian, Crenshaw and Sonder had already been scattered to the wind.
She was especially loath to send Solvan. No-one had fought harder for the souls of Kally and the others. Vincent’s loss was still a deep wound for him, Machairi knew, and yet he had volunteered without hesitation to go to the conclave in her stead. He knew the political value of the gesture - and the potential intelligence value. He could be an inquisitor himself...were he not too good a man.
That left only Sapphira, Gavin and the Black siblings, though Machairi had noticed that the two never stood together any more. Kelly stood close by Gavin and Sapphira, while Marc watched the new arrivals with his new, mismatched eyes.
Inquisitor Lucullis was a grey man - grey haired, grey clad, and with eyes that were like murky chips of flint. The lines around his mouth were not made for smiles, but he was nothing if not impartial, and Machairi’s remaining agents needed a warden who stood apart from the viper’s nest waiting outside the Hospitaller sanctuary. With him were a tall Guardsman and a man in strange, lobstered armour, as well as an emaciated astropath and a wiry woman with thin, shrewd eyes and an interrogator’s rosette pinned to her chest.
The small delegation crossed the mosaic floor and halted, the two retinues regarding each other appraisingly.
“Inquisitor Machairi.” Lucullis said after a moment, with a fractional nod of his head.
“That would be Saint Alia, sir.” Solvan replied with soft conviction.
Lucullis’ ironsights gaze rolled over to Solvan for a moment, and then back to Machairi. “Not yet.”
Machairi twitched her cheek. In truth, there was little chance of the ecclesiarchy accepting the Silent Vigil’s petition to have her canonised for surviving the DeRei daemon, but while it remained under consideration it provided another modicum of defence against her enemies. Machairi knew that it would not have deterred Feyd Lucullis, if her fellow inquisitor had been one of them.
“There’s news from the Grey Knights.” Lucullis continued, indicating his astropath as if nothing had happened. “And unfortunately it’s not good. They say their prognosticars have determined that the daemons of Adrantis will not be slain by the knights of Titan.”
Machairi exhaled. So they’re not coming. Two astartes chapter masters had similarly rejected the crusaders’ petition. The warmaster would be taking the fight to the secessionists without the Emperor’s angels at her side.
“Will not be slain by the knights of Titan.” Tomas repeated levelly. “I’m not sure whether that’s a good omen for our chances or a bad one.”
“Daemons.” Hybrida cocked an eyebrow. “Plural?”
Beware the daemon at your back. Machairi thought grimly. My mistake was in thinking that it only applied to one incident.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t read into that just yet.” she ruled. “We have enough to worry about. Sub-governor Tierce and his heretics couldn't have picked a better time to declare independence. Sector governor Harvala is on life support now and mostly senile, and the great houses of Scintilla all have different ideas of how she should respond. Even the Ad Mech won’t declare openly against the traitors yet. Omnicron and Skorgulion are staying stubbornly neutral, and Perinetus is only involved insofar as the magi are at war with each other. If it weren’t for their shipyards and the loss of food exports from Siculi, the rest of Calixis might not even have mobilised to support the crusade.”
“You have kept your ear to the ground here, I see.” Lucullis commented. He rested his hands on the belt of his grey overcoat. “Do your agents know yet why I’m here?”
Kelly Black nodded. “We’re being handed over to you.”
Lucullis nodded, his mouth setting into a thin line. “I understand that your penance still isn't finished. Try not to die before your souls are fit for the emperor.”
“I have absolved them.” Solvan stated. His voice was still soft, but with a touch of protective warning.
Lucullis turned his head a fraction to regard the old priest once more. “Is that so. Then why does DeRei still live?”
“We're working on it.” Marc Black growled.
Something flickered behind Lucullis’ flint-chip eyes. “I suppose you are.” He clasped his hands behind his back, regarding those of Machairi’s retinue who still bore the punitive title of penitent. The title that he himself had handed down, speaking the judgement of the Terran conclave for their actions on Saros Station.
“I actually thought that the whole sentencing back on Terra was rather overdone.” Lucullis revealed, unexpectedly. “They only made me read it out because I'm the only one of them who'd actually met Sidonis and your lady. I can already tell that you lot wouldn't have needed any berating about souls to finish the job with DeRei. But the ruling of the conclave stands.” His gaze roamed towards Marc’s left eye, a milk-white augmetic orb that only served to highlight the reddened, tear-crusted skin around it. “Your bionic eye looks raw.”
Machairi saw Marc’s eye twitch, as if he were fighting an instinctive urge to rub the irritation that Lucullis had drawn attention to. Three months on and the bionic was still too new to be comfortable, like having to spend a lot of time with someone he didn't know well.
“The medicae would have saved the eyeball if it wasn't for Arcolin's dirty fingernails.” Marc returned, with a hint of very dark humour. “At least they kept the optic nerve.”
Lucullis hmm’d. “As long as it works. I’m going to need you all to prepare to leave for Baraspine ahead of the main crusade fleet.”
“We’re hoping to rally some of the trade houses who have more to lose by joining the rebels than staying loyal.” Machairi explained. She fixed her agents with an intense stare. “Don't let me down. I'll be seeing you again.”
+ + + + + +
Troop transport HDMS Governor Seydlitz
Eight days until Baraspine invasion
Pasted to the steel bulkhead was a poster of a young guardsman, offering a thumbs up towards the viewer and grinning like a man who knew he had cheated death. His face was a mask of blood, except for a conspicuous ring around his eyes. BALLISTIC GOGGLES SAVE EYES! the text splashed beneath the photo proclaimed. WEAR THEM!
That, Joseph Schenke felt, was a sensible precaution. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of the Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer that he was flicking through while he waited outside the cabin that the lord commissar had claimed for his office.
“The writers have excelled themselves this year, I see.” Schenke noted dryly, and read one of the new regulations aloud. “It is a flogging offence to not salute the Aquila when it is raised victoriously over the battlefield. I’m not sure how that reconciles with It is a flogging offence to relinquish your weapon under battlefield conditions.”
At his side, adjutor Janie Ephese folded her arms. The young woman was shorter than him, but it would be a mistake to judge her by her height. She had more guts than most Guardsmen that Schenke had met, and she could sniff out approaching danger like some kind of talismanic truffle pig. She also happened to be a mutant, with thick porcupine quills for hair and a barb-tipped tail that curled around the backs of her shins.
Not an orthodox adjutant for a junior commissar, but exceptional events made for exceptional companions. The memories of Janie’s heroism aboard the Greed’s Reward hadn’t left Schenke, any more than the nasty blunt-trauma scar that creased his forehead just below his buzzcut hairline.
“Salute left handed?” Janie suggested.
Schenke tapped a page with his forefinger. “It is a flogging offence to disrespect the Emperor by offering an improper salute to His holy Aquila.”
Janie blinked. “What the actual frell?”
Schenke chuckled quietly. “I suppose we’ll just have to pre-emptively flog everybody before the battle, and then just let them get on with it.”
The wheel-lock door beside them spun open and swung back on protesting hinges. A munitorum aide appeared, and immediately scowled at Janie, though the presence of Schenke deterred her from saying anything aloud.
“The Lord commissar will see you now.” she said instead, and briskly stalked away down the crewman’s passage as if eager to remove herself from their company.
Schenke pocketed the Primer and stepped through into an austere little cabin, where a desk had been wedged beside an air duct and neatly stacked with dataslates. A trio of lumoglobes provides ample light, but little warmth. Even less warmth was forthcoming from the man behind the desk.
Physically, lord commissar Tyne was the polar opposite of Schenke. Schenke was on the energetic side of thirty, his black skin unlined save for battle scars that hadn’t stolen the fire from his eyes. Tyne was an old lion; a pallid, steel-eyed man with crinkled frown lines and a short beard that was more silver than ginger.
“Commissar Schenke?” the lord commissar asked in a gravelly voice, tilting his head back slightly to frown down his long nose.
“Yes sir.” Schenke confirmed, his boots clicking together as he came to attention. Half a pace behind and to his right, Janie mirrored the stance.
“Your unit will be the Callisto 44th.” lord commissar Havelock Tyne spoke without preamble. “Airborne, drawn from a civilised world, mixed gender by company.”
Schenke chewed the inside of his cheek. “Has the Callisto military been integrated for long, sir?”
Tyne looked up from his dataslates, tilting his head back to frown once again. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, sir,” Schenke explained. “Has it been standard on Callisto to have mixed gender units for more than a few decades? Or did the governor just panic and call up both sexes to make up his tithe? I want to know if half my time's going to be taken up with fraternisation and authority abuse cases.”
Tyne made a noise in his throat. “I believe the regiment disseminates cycle suppression tablets as standard - the rest you'll have to find out yourself. As for fraternisation, I think you've got more than enough experience of that.”
At the corner of his eye, Schenke saw Janie’s tail switch. It was too much to hope for that the young mutant would stay silent.
“With all due respect, mister lord commissar sir.” she blurted icily. “I'm right here.”
“Sir,” Schenke broke in, “I can assure you that…”
Tyne cut him off with an austere look. “Frankly, Schenke, I don't really care whether the barracks rumours are true or not. And, Emperor help me, I don't particularly have time to care what you do or do not do in your spare time either. But the fact remains that you wear a commissar's uniform, and I expect you not to publicly dishonour it.”
There was a long, frosty silence.
“I suggest you pool resources with the regimental chaplain.” Tyne said at length, returning to tapping runes on his dataslate as if nothing had happened. “He’s a Praetorian, and a former drill abbott, so he should know a thing or two about how to put the fear of the Emperor into people. Your adjutant might want to stay out of his way though. Dismissed.”
This time, Janie managed to hold her tongue until they were halfway back to the crew berths, for which Schenke was grateful.
“What a prick!” she spat as they entered the long mess hall where men of the 14th Haven and the 94th Delphic were bolting down food inbetween training exercises.
Schenke didn’t bother to hide his grin. “And I thought enforcing the Primer was going to be our biggest problem.”
“No,” Janie countered. “He’s just a prick. Our biggest problem is that we're attacking a frelling hive. With a ring of space stations.”
Schenke slid his hands into the pockets of his black coat. “That’s the Navy’s job.”
“And a planet full of angry heretics.” Janie added.
“That’s the inquisition’s job.”
“And as soon as they see us coming, all the toffs will run for the spaceport.”
Schenke grinned. “And that’s our job.”
Janie caught the look in his eye and ruffled her quills. “Alright then. Let's do it.”
+ + + + + +
HDMS Impiger, Imperial crusade fleet
Two days until Baraspine invasion
The warp engines surged, thrumming with building power and promised violence. As the chronometer above the bridge ticked down and the Lunar cruiser prepared to tear its way back into realspace, everyone in the vaulted gallery fixed their eyes on the central hololith. Aboard every vessel in the fleet each bridge crew was doing the same, playing the pre-recorded messages that had been delivered on data wafers prior to the crusade’s departure.
Captain Elspeth von Scharn stood with gloved hands clasped behind her back, strong but relaxed. She was a lean woman, with freckles dusting her milky face and her red hair pinned up beneath her peaked battlefleet cap. She watched with her crew as the holographic image of commodore Tehrani outlined the initial strategy for the invasion. Under cover of the Navy’s guns, the Guard would go straight for hive Arda, in an attempt to both capture the Baraspini leadership and minimise damage to the planet’s infrastructure. The outlying cities and the forces garrisoning them were deemed an unwelcome distraction, that could be dealt with by the follow-up forces. It was shock and awe tactics at their most blunt and direct.
“You all know your duties.” the commodore’s voice emanated from the flickering hololith. “And I have every faith in you to carry them out. I’d be proud to lead you into any battle, but in this one, we take back what is rightfully ours.”
She wore the commodore’s uniform well, Elspeth had to admit. Tehrani had always been tactful about taking over Elspeth’s command after the Coreltis debacle, but no captain could find it easy to watch another stand on the command dais of a cruiser that had once been theirs.
“We’ve got them here for sure.” Commander Thurlow murmured, from where he stood to attention at Elspeth’s side. “After Baraspine though, I daresay all bets are off.”
“I thought you loved bets, Mr Thurlow.” Elspeth murmured back. She was still wary of the Axinite pleasure-worlder - he smiled too much, and was friends with too many people who still viewed Elspeth’s assignment to Impiger with skepticism. On the other hand, he had been invaluable in dealing with the Emperor-damned inquisition, and the enthusiasm he put into drilling the cruiser’s armsmen made him a hard man to dislike.
“I do,” Banastre Thurlow replied, glancing briefly sideways towards the captain. His eyes were dark brown; bright foci in his tawny-skinned face. “But I heard this rather good analogy a few months back. The trouble with bets is you can only place money at the start of the game. I'd much rather wait til the end - that way your odds are better and you're parted from your money for less time.”
Elspeth tried not to smile. “I don't think that's how it works.”
“Yes, that's what the bookies always told me.”
An astropath hobbled across the bridge to whisper in Elspeth’s ear. The word was given from admiral Bravick on the Damnatus. Prepare for translation out of warp.
“So what's the plan, Eppie?” Thurlow queried after the green-robed man had shuffled away, gripping the banister of the command dais to guide his blind path.
Elspeth’s eyes creased with vague annoyance. Every now and then, her XO kept pushing the boundaries of familiarity.
“We're on orbital clearance. Disable the ring of space stations and support the ground forces. The lighter units will help us neutralise the Agglomeration and then keep enemy fleet assets off our backs while we cover the transports.”
Thurlow nodded with a crescent-moon smile. “I'll whistle up the marines. They're looking forward to fighting alongside the Sisters.”
“I'm sure they are.” Elspeth replied dryly. One of the things that made Thurlow a good fit for his armsmen was his fondness for harassing the female warrant officers. The Sisters of the Silent Vigil however...those that remained aboard Impiger had seen their convent destroyed and their novices murdered. Somehow, Elspeth did not expect them to tolerate any distractions from their murderous vengeance.
“Just remember, Mr Thurlow.” Elspeth said as the hololithic recording finished, and a mighty roar of Ave Imperator! rolled across the bridge. “As the commodore said, we're taking back what is ours here. I want those orbitals intact. Well,” She added, thinking again of the Sisters. “As far as is reasonably practical.”
+ + + + + +
Inquisition fortress, Scintilla
Twenty four hours until Baraspine invasion
Kelly Black slumped against the treadmill as it powered down, wheezing to catch her breath. She was determined to give that grey bastard Lucullis no reason to turn her down when she requested transfer back to field ops. The others would be on the ground today if they weren’t already, and she was done with watching from the sidelines.
As the clack of weight machines and the grunts of sparring agents continued around her, she groped for her towel and scrubbed the sweat from her face and neck. Exhaling, she re-tied her ponytail, pulling her dark hair away from a chiselled, light-skinned face with a long nose and dark brown eyes.
Almost subconsciously, she massaged the skin of her forehead. Whenever the blood was thumping through her temples after a workout, the silver-wire pentagram etched into her skull began to ache. Sapphira had done as good a job as any surgeon could, so that the outline scars were invisible unless she stood nose-to-nose with someone. But she was seldom unaware of the rune’s existence. A sigil of protection, yes. But also a mark of purgation. A literal brand crawling beneath her skin.
“Does it hurt much?” said a voice, in passable Solomon gothic.
Kelly looked up, and saw that a younger woman had appeared in front of her treadmill. She was an albino, with wispy white hair that fell either side of her face and across the front of her grey workout shirt. There was something ever-so-slightly asymmetrical about her face, as if some grevious wound had been carefully, though not quite perfectly, repaired. She stood with hands clasped demurely at her chest, but her pink eyes were fixed steadily on Kelly.
“Marks like that never do truly heal.” she said, her eyebrows twitching as if in sympathy.
“What are you talking about?” Kelly asked, feigning confusion.
The albino drummed her fingers on the bar of Kelly’s treadmill. “Oh. That’s a shame. You see, the Adrantean court hears stories from Alicia DeRei, and spies in that court hear stories from them. Stories of possession.”
Kelly felt as if glacial meltwater was trickling down the back of her neck. She resisted the urge to let her eyes dart left and right for escape routes. This place is crowded. She won’t try anything. She wants something else.
“Who do you work for?” she asked instead, keeping her voice level by force of will.
The albino smiled blithely. “Inquisitor Yannick, may the Emperor bless him.” She folded her arms over the bar and rested her chin on them. “But he’s not the one you need to worry about. If anything, he’s your friend really. That inquisitor Lucullis on the other hand…”
She twisted her mouth and twiddled her fingers.
“He’s fairly well-known for how he treats any Chaos-touched he comes across. Daemons laugh when we give them the gift of mercy, I think is the line he’s fond of.”
Kelly’s blood froze in her veins. The albino just tipped her cheek against her crossed arms and giggled.
“Why don’t you go get showered off and then we can have a little girl-talk?”
+ + + + + +
Troop transport HDMS Lord Derfflinger
One hour until Baraspine invasion
Behind them, the warp was a weeping wound as warship after warship tore through the barrier between dimensions and flared its rockets to take station. Ahead of them was the scarred grey marble of Baraspine, clouds trailing across its atmosphere like bands of soot. It was surrounded by a canted black band - an ugly, barnacled mass of space stations and ships had been welded together to form the orbital ring known as the Agglomeration.
Baraspine was a harsh, tidally-locked world, whose people took shelter in vast hives from the silica hurricanes that regularly scoured the surface. Despite lying astride the subsector’s premier warp route and growing fat on trade tariffs, the Baraspini were still a suspicious, furtive people. Almost without exception they shrouded themselves behind full-face masks, even within the relatively clean air of the hives - from the children to the elderly, from the lowest hive menial to governor ordus Sondar Vel-Cyvasse.
She might have been chosen by the tarot-readers of the Baraspine Soothsayers’ College, but ordus Vel-Cyvasse had made a grave mistake in aligning herself with the so-called Adrantean Patriots. The crusaders were coming, and they were bringing a storm to put the glass cyclones of Baraspine to shame.
The Munitorum representative pushed his fists into the table. With the metre-thick armaglass portal at his back, he stared instead at the colonels opposite. Purple-eyed colonel Ketch of the Haven 14th. Reserved cardinal Odervank of the Cam’s Lot Frateris. And others.
“Gentlemen.” the ordinate began. “We have only a narrow window for attack, due to a lull in the glass storms. As you know we will land in the staging point at Alda crater and hit the capital hive from the east.”
He gestured behind him towards the smog-shrouded world, looming closer as the Derfflinger burned hard to reduce speed after warp egress. Hive Alda was already visible from space, nestled beneath the protecting cliffs of the vast crater that had protected the first colonists from the worst of the silica storms.
“Go with the Emperor, gentlemen. Tephaine delenda est.”
Spoiler: My RP links
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(Wrong spot)
Last edited by Jarms48; 09-22-2019 at 11:30 AM.
Interviewer: There have been concerns, about the treatment of hive citizens after the pacification.
Lieutenant: I’m sure there have.
Interviewer: How would you answer the accusations of excessive force against civilians?
Lieutenant: I suppose you’re going to quote the primer at me, aren’t you? No looting, no assault, yadda yadda yadda? I don’t think when they wrote that they were picturing an entire planet who like to hide behind masks.
Interviewer: The munitorum sets those rules to try and avoid a cycle of violence with the reintegrated population. A cycle that some worry is already taking place here in Alda.
Lieutenant: Well, they’re welcome to put down their guns anytime. Are they still civilians when they’re putting bombs underneath your cars?
Interviewer: Well, no, and no-one’s trying to justify that. But there have been a number of accounts of mass arrests following heretic attacks, and reports from the carcerae of...
Lieutenant: (sighs) Listen. Let me tell you what the commissar told me - straight from the silver skull’s own mouth, when I first arrived here as a wet-behind-the-ears second lieutenant. He caught me looking at the insurgents being dragged past and some of the Guardsmen who were giving them a kicking. He pulled me aside and said ‘son, before you open your mouth, understand this. These men have watched their friends get shot and stabbed and blown up for two wretched years, by people who look exactly like those masked freaks. You tell them to go easy on the Addies and I’ll probably have to clean your brains off your billet tomorrow morning.’
Interview with lieutenant Armin Rostock, Baraspine pacification force, 608.M41
Broadcast application denied by the Ministry for Morale Truth
+ + + + + +
Crusade headquarters, Allocthon Crater
Hive Alda pacification operations ongoing
It was still an hour before dawn. The darkness outside washed the stained-glass windows clear of colour, so that the Emperor’s angels looking down at them seemed more like ghosts. On the south-facing windows, glass dust from the latest storm had gathered in drifts at the angels’ feet.
Outside, the spires of distant Alda were picked out in strings of light, as the halo of Imperial righteousness settled across the hive once again. Within the prefabricated chapel-barracks, the senior officers of Guard and Navy gathered to plan the next conquest. Stenograph servitors clattered at their typewriters, and servo-skulls and mechanical cherubs flitted above the heads of their bonded masters.
“Good morning warmaster.” an administratum adjutant said, snapping to attention as Andrea Caiser swept into the room.
The warmaster of the Adrantis Crusade was not a tall woman, but no-one had ever succeeded in making her look small. She regarded the adjutant with narrowed eyes, her silver cane sweeping lazily back and forth in her free hand.
“Have we won the war yet?” she demanded.
The adjutant opened his mouth, and then closed it again.
“Then it’s not a good fokking morning, is it? Show me the press release.”
Paper crackled as the adjutant fumbled with a printout and handed it to Caiser. The warmaster cast a hard glance over it.
The Adrantis rebels do not represent our faith and they do not represent humanity. They are nothing but Vandire-esque tyrants, bereft of justice, mercy or moral feeling. Outlaws from the Creed, who engage in indiscriminate slaughter of any who dissent.
If you’re different or you disagree, you die. That is the face of their new “Republic”.
Any one of us, any of our families, would be killed if we were cursed to live under them. We are faced with a choice of taking the fight to this evil regime, or of simply sitting back and waiting for them to come and get us.
I have made my choice, and so have you. Forward, soldiers of the Emperor!
Caiser grunted apathetically. “It’ll do, I suppose. I wish our propaganda arm was having as much effect on the locals.”
“Forgive me warmaster but we lost most of our experts in the secession.” one of the other administratum adepts bowed apologetically. “They were always going to be better at targeting their own worlds’ cultural foibles.”
Caiser huffed. “We’ll just have to beat them the old fashioned way.”
She cast her gaze around the room, her silver-tipped cane tapping against her leg as she took in the assembled. Seventeen generals for the Astra Militarum; five liaisons for the Holy Fleet; doddering old pontifex Albinius and his hatchet-faced lord cardinal for the ecclesiarchy. Canoness Kiana was present as a flickering hololith, projected from the jaws of a gilded servo-skull. Legus Telek stood for the adeptus telepathica, magos Sandoval for the mechanicus. Lord commissar Tyne, representing the adeptus munitorum, stood alone, the Guard officers instinctively giving him a wide berth. Of inquisitor Lucullis there was no sign, though Caiser did not doubt that someone in the room was reporting back to the sour old bastard.
And these are the lot I’m supposed to beat the Vandire-esque tyrants with. They might even manage it if they stop fighting each other.
It would not be easy. They had taken Perinetus and Baraspine at the first push, but half of Perinetus had still been loyal, and Baraspine had still been recovering from the Dominion crisis - not to mention being on a warp convergence that made the concentration and coordination of a full-fleet strike possible, and having only two major hives to take. Tranch, Coseflame, Marioch, Tephaine...they would not fall so easily.
Caiser drove the tip of her cane into the floor tiles with a sharp tap. They had already had their first taste of what the Patriots could truly muster. Admiral Bravick had led the greater part of the crusade fleet to Tranch, in the hope of seizing the most stable warp route to the Republic capital of Tephaine, but the first furious volleys from the planet’s lance satellite network had convinced him to veer away. It had probably been the right call, Caiser supposed. Guardsmen they could replace, but without the holy fleet to guard their holdings, escort the transports and take the fight to the Republic Navy...it would serve them ill to lose too many ships in the first year of the war.
Accordingly, the crusade had switched from sledgehammering a single path to the enemy capital to a multi-pronged assault on the coreward worlds of the sector.
“What can you tell me about Soryth?” Caiser shot the question towards the room at large. With its unstable warp routes, Soryth was easily the riskiest of their three sallies, even if its promethium mines would be a valuable prize to the crusaders.
“The astropaths report good augeries from their brethren in the Soryth task force.” legus Telek spoke up in his low, toneless voice. “The fleet has arrived, and secured a foothold on the planet, if it please you warmaster.”
“Victory, praise the Emperor!” Albinius exulted, which did not please the warmaster. The old pontifex brought his spotted hands together into an Aquila sign. "He on Terra rewards leaders of faith and daring. See Warmaster? This is living history!"
“Dead history’s better.” Caiser rebuked him. The gamble paid off, but a foothold isn’t a victory. “It doesn’t keep changing, and you can write it in ink rather than blood. Canoness Kiana?”
The projection of the black-robed sister flickered mutely for a moment as the question was beamed up via vox-wave to her vessel in high orbit.
“The Silent Vigil have landed to reclaim Coseflame.” Kiana’s voice crackled from the projector-skull. “The Adrantean and Kriegan units accompanying us have fought well, but while the enemy retain control of the air we have been effectively confined to the caverns.”
Caiser glanced sharply at the naval liaisons. “I understand the fifth squadron is being dispatched to reclaim orbital superiority?”
The officer in his high-collared blue and white gilet nodded. “Yes, warmaster. They break orbit today.”
Slightly mollified, the warmaster huffed. “And Marioch?”
“The first wave have stalled around their beachhead.” one of the generals reported gravely. “But the second should be arriving any day now. I have ordered the troops to make their landing on Ascension Day. The Patriots may be heretics but they still claim to honour the Emperor. A victory for us on His most holy day will surely crush their morale.”
“Marioch?” Albinius spluttered in his reedy voice. “That backwater? Warmaster, we would do better to focus reinforcements on Coseflame. Our efforts to retake the shrine world must not fail!”
The aide beside Caiser must have read the angry clenching of her fist around her cane, because he leaned close to whisper urgently in the warmaster’s ear.
“With respect, warmaster, it might be clever to appease the priests.”
“Clever?” Caiser repeated, deliberately neglecting to lower her voice. “My little brother's clever, he can name every bone in your body as he's breaking them. Don't try and tell me the basics of Imperial politics, boy, I wasn't born yesterday.”
The aide looked horrified, and pontifex Albinius even more so, but it was lord cardinal Tarpeian that replied, composing himself with a dignified smoothing of the front of his robes. “Am I to take that as an acceptance of the Emperor’s will, warmaster?”
There was a lifeline in his words, but also a warning, which Caiser didn’t like.
“An acceptance of the ecclesiarchy’s need?” she corrected him, archly. “Certainly. I take it you’ve already got a strike force in mind.”
She knew that the lord cardinal had form in such matters, having hammered together - and led - militia units on Aurelias Prime. For a priest in an order forbidden to maintain men under arms, he seemed to have an indecent enthusiasm for military logistics.
Tarpeian maintained his stern dignity. “Down to the blessed ones who will carry our relics into battle, warmaster.”
And so the politicking begins. Caiser thought, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Ankari’s delegation to Skorgulian are the fortunate ones. They just have to make sure the Patriot ambassadors fail to secure their alliance, and the easiest way to do that is to shoot the shit out of them.
“Do we move out immediately, warmaster?” one of the Navy liaisons queried, looking from Tarpeian to Caiser.
The warmaster gave him a withering look. "Who are you, and what meds did you forget to take? Of course we do.”
She stamped the butt of her cane into the floor tiles a second time to punctuate her decision.
“Alright boys and girls. All those heretics aren’t going to fok themselves. Let's get to it."
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Spoiler: Prologue
Corporal Soven was a native to the Adrantis sub, settled on Marioch with his parents as part of the ‘578 Planetary Development Act, and he was also a loyalist. His Baraspini faith mask marked him as the lowest of the low so far as his fellow Guardsmen were concerned, but his ability to speak fluent Tephainian and Mariochi made him valuable to the warmaster, and so he had been attached to one of the Casterian regiments to assist the men who hadn’t had time - or couldn’t be arsed - to learn how to talk to the local civilians. He was in the middle of talking to a shell-shocked hab family when a roar of jump jets made them snap their heads upward. The Casterians of 4th company looked up too, confused because they didn’t recognise the sound.
Soven knew the sound from a hundred vid-reels. He recognised the long-barrelled autoguns in the descending jump-troops’ hands, just like the plastek replicas that he and all his friends had owned as juvies. He had always wanted to play the Hero of Siculi, but gangly, button-nosed Meri with her hoity-toity Tephanian accent had always insisted that “Boys can’t be Captain Alicia, duh!” Now the real Nebulas descended on them with a vengeance, modular rifles knifing fire as they picked off commanders and the scattering troops from Reider’s flanking 5th company. Corporal Soven was a loyalist, but the lasgun slipped from his hands and hung uselessly by its strap all the same, because he knew that they were doomed.
+ + + + + +
Crusade headquarters, Baraspine
Warmaster Caiser barged into the strategium with her usual subtlety, manoeuvring adjutants and scribes out of her way with her silver cane.
“I can reliably report that the admiral and his wife are a lovely couple.” she said, as she shouldered her way to the holomap table. “He’s a stand-up gentleman, she's a fall-down drunk.”
“Warmaster?” one officer exclaimed, turning in surprise. “We weren't expecting you back from the gala…”
“Schedules are schedules. I'm not a fokking anarchist. Now what's the good word?”
“The Coseflame relief fleet has reported victory,” one general reported in a flat tone. “And the Ad Mech have reclaimed Perinetus.”
His voice was steady but he moved oddly, like a man who had frozen in horror and never quite unthawed. Caiser sensed it.
“But?” she prompted.
“But,” the general admitted, “The Marioch front is not going well - the Venatoran expeditionary force has been taking heavy losses.”
“What's that all about, eh general?” The warmaster’s tone was blithe, but her smile was hideous. “I'm laughing, but I'm severely fokking angry."
The general stood ramrod straight. “Astrix Island had to be evacuated after the Patsies dropped in mercenary units. The Nebulas were there too, but it was the drop assault that did the damage.”
Caiser pinched the bridge of her nose extremely tightly between thumb and forefinger. “So let me…” she said quietly, “Get this straight...?"
Near the back of the room, a young propaganda scribe who was wearing a headscarf despite the heat of the stuffy room flinched and drew a line through her page. “Okay…” she murmured to herself, “So, that’s a no on the ‘traitors so desperate they’re using mercenaries’ article…”
Caiser insisted on reviewing the reports and skull-probe footage from Astrix Island before deciding their next move - up to and including the news reels that some Vigil agents had smuggled out of Tephaine.
“That’s a Vaxan sigil.” inquisitor Lucullis commented. A grey shadow at the far end of the table, he pointed a laser wand towards one of the photos of Patriot soldiers posing with their banners atop the fire-gutted Imperial headquarters.
Caiser frowned at the interruption. “Vaxan?” she repeated, taking a moment to place the name. “Malfian units, then.”
“My agents found evidence suggesting the possibility.” Lucullis grated softly. “I’ll have some questions for lord Rem Vaxanide about those commando units that were listed as destroyed in the Terrigan jungle.”
“You do that.” Caiser agreed bluntly. She was plainly angry, but the crusade’s focus had to remain within the Adrantis subsector, and not potential traitors feeding the fire from outside. She stared at the hololith once more, lingering over a pict capture of Nebula troopers cutting burning arcs with their jump jets.
“First the Glom, then the Endrite task force, and now Marioch.” she growled, "These Nebulas are a pain."
"A pain?” pontifex Albinius coughed angrily, “They're an unholy affront! I hear they’re calling Alicia Tarran a living saint now. A saint! As if the Emperor would ever bless a traitor! This is vile heresy!”
Caiser glanced sharply at an aide, who shuffled her feet. “Sorry warmaster,” she murmured, “Someone brought the cardinal up to speed before he arrived.”
“I'm impressed that there's a speed slow enough to bring that dumb old sod up to.” Caiser replied under her breath. She dwelled for a moment on the incredibly blasphemous thought that she was actually missing cardinal Tarpeian. [i]He might have been a traitor with delusions of Vandire, but at least he kept the pontifex quiet, and the rest of the ministorum implicitly understood that the choice was to keep their heads down or lose them.
“I think,” she said, louder, “We may assume that Saint Alicia is a fraud, your holiness. And the lord commissar will ensure that the men know it.”
Lord commissar Tyne nodded silently from where he stood lurking in the shadow of a devotional statue. From the other side of the table, inquisitor Yannick’s bionic eye clicked as it focused on the hololith.
“If captain Tarran truly is possessed, as some of my colleagues claim,” the gravel-voiced inquisitor offered. “We could reduce it to a binary. Us vs Chaos. Exclude Chaos from any ceasefires too, and we can continue to bomb anyone inconvenient.”
If Caiser noticed the flint-grey eyes of inquisitor Lucullis switch over from scrutinising Yannick towards herself, she paid them no mind. “The Patsies won’t be fokking stupid enough to fall for that.” she snorted. “But our troops might be. Have a care though, inquisitor. It’d be one Horus of an escalation from a liberation to a chaos purge. I don’t want more unwarranted massacres than we’ve already had.”
The warmaster swept a command wand towards the hololith, rotating the view of the subsector to bring its rimward planets into focus.
“Where was the Nebula hulk last sighted?”
“Endrite, Warmaster.” replied an aide. “But that was three days ago.”
“Endrite’s a backwater, no resupply infrastructure. They won’t have stayed.” Caiser tapped the tip of her silver cane against her boot. “So we can expect them to respond when we move in force on Tranch.” The cane swept up to point at the brocaded officers across the table. “I need to you beat them, general. I need you to prove they’re not invincible.”
The singled-out commander visibly swallowed, but saluted all the same.
“If we’re lucky, Tierce himself might be there on that tour the Vigil reported, and we can cut the head off the snake.”
Yannick touched the sleeve of inquisitor Lucullis’ grey longcoat. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any word from your agents on Tranch?” he asked in a lowered voice, “Or the Vigil?”
Lucullis looked down at his sleeve, then at Yannick, and then back at the hololith. “No.” he said.
“Assassins are being prepared for transport along with the fleet.” an assassinorum adept stepped forward, seeming to glide in his floor-length robes. “If Tierce is positively identified, he will not escape.”
Caiser nodded, seemingly satisfied.
“Alright boys and girls. Don't fok this up, or you'll be answering to me.”
As the room began to clear, an elegant red-gowned figure hovered through the press towards the knot of inquisitors lingering at the back.
“I thought you would want to know that my Nebula penitent engines are ready to deploy, inquisitor Lucullis.” purred archmaga Mariyana Veiss.
A muscle in Lucullis’ hollow cheek twitched. “Then perhaps you should get on with it, my lady.”
“Get on with it?” The techpriestess splayed an affronted hand across her chest. “My dear inquisitor, this is both art and vendetta. I for one am savouring every minute of both.”
“Well I am not.” Lucullis straightened his coat collar and made a perfunctory bow. “Have them loaded.”
Veiss shook her head as she watched him walk away. “Honestly, that man is no fun.”
Spoiler: My RP links
PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.
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