Impiger
In Warp transit, en route to the Golgonna Reach
The light in the room was dim, like her senses. Most of what she felt was cloaked in grey fog, and most of what wasn’t was just dull, gnawing pain in her face and neck. Swallowing hurt so much that it was only shreds of pride that stopped her from letting it simply drool down her chin. Even rolling her eyes in her sockets felt like an effort. When she rolled her eyes down from her slightly elevated pillow, she saw blankets, with painkiller feeds and catheter tubes and a dozen other humiliating instruments spreading over and under them, and resting either side with injectors taped to the wrists were two bruised, olive-skinned arms.
Objectively, she knew that the arms were hers. Sometimes she even thought she could feel them tingle, a burst of phantom pain when she focused her eyes on a cut or a ripped fingernail. But they were dead - leaden, alien weights that she had no longer had any control over. She could never stand to look at them for long.
A grey-haired medica came once or twice a day, but otherwise Alia Machairi was alone. She had not explicitly instructed her retinue to stay away, but they had all done so - or else taken the hint from the Vigil sister that Kiana had posted outside the cabin. Alia was grateful. Even to Solvan, and even to Tomas, despite all they had been through. Both she and the faithful Casterian needed time to process the memory of him rushing her through the Impiger hanger bay, fearful tears leaking from both their eyes.
She felt new tears pricking at her eyes then, threatening to blur her vision. Her instinctive reaction was to cuff them away, but of course the hand didn’t move, and that was enough to make them spill across her face in wet, burning lines. She had to turn her head to either side and scrub her cheeks against the pillow.
The door clicked. That was wrong - the medica wasn’t due back for another two hours. Alia’s heartbeat suddenly thumped in her temples, until the oak door was pushed open by a metal hand, and a familiar hard-faced man let himself into the cabin. The feeling of anger and borderline panic drained away.
Crenshaw. Of course it would be Crenshaw. The two of them were not close - truly, not even friends - but they had never been anything less than frank with each other. He was, after all, soulless.
I’d have more cause to worry if he wasn’t being his presumptuous, overly-familiar self.
"Oh, it's you major.” Alia sighed. “After everything that's happened, I'm half expecting an assassin to come through that door to remove an embarrassment to the ordo."
Crenshaw’s left eyebrow quirked upward. "How do you know I'm not a callidus face-dancer, Alia?"
"Because your aura is still making me hate the sight of you.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to smile. “Although maybe it's just the thought of you seeing me like this."
Crenshaw remained by the door with a thoughtful, uncomprehending frown. “Like this?”
She blinked incredulously at him. Was there any ambiguity as to what like this meant?
“Alive, you mean?” The blacksoul blithely continued in the absence of any response. He immediately grunted in casual dismissal. “I would have rectified that situation years ago, if I had taken issue with it.”
Alia didn’t reply. She knew as well as he did how often they had made light of how dangerous they were to each other. But that was when they had glared a mutual target lock over Crenshaw’s desk on Hercynia; standing and shaking hands as equals, rather than him looking down at her while she lay paralysed and bedridden. That was when she had clicked her glass against his in a silent toast on their return from Perinetus, holding and drinking her amasec rather than actively struggling to do something as simple as swallow.
Crenshaw pointedly met her eyes, and subtly craned his neck to reveal his null collar. “I suppose that after all this time, I must have become acclimated to the phenomenon.”
That time, Alia did almost wish that she had it in her to smile. From Martin Crenshaw, a man whose coat of arms she could well believe was a blank slate above a High Gothic banner reading death before intimacy, that was an admission that he was glad that she was still alive. He had never been outright sentimental to Glabrio or Solvan either - not even to Kally, as far as Alia knew. Why should I be special?
“You know,” Alia swallowed, despite the pain in her throat. “I’ve always thought you were a bastard.”
Crenshaw merely nodded. “I have been one my entire life and will be until my dying breath.”
“Of the many things I consider you, major, an idiot isn’t one of them.” Alia narrowed her eyes slightly. “I’d prefer that you don’t start now.” Or treat me like one either.
“It does not give me any pleasure either. Prophecies are never…that literal.”
Beware the daemon at your back. A cold sensation crawled up the back of Alia’s neck and across her scalp. She gritted her teeth. “I hope you’ll forgive me if I need a bit of time to start seeing the funny side.”
“I take no satisfaction from any of this, Inquisitor Machairi.”
And that, Alia mused, was as close to an apology that she was ever likely to hear from the major as well. It was a sadly inappropriate time for a conversation of such surprising firsts.
He’s not even going to give me the I-told-you-so routine over Alicia’s Spook use. Or getting someone other than Ella to purity check her.
“Thank you.” she said truthfully, trusting that Crenshaw would unpick the significance behind her words just as she had unravelled his.
Crenshaw exhaled, as if relieved that they could retreat back into the comfortable familiarity of talking business. "Will they be able to repair your injuries?"
"In time, I'm told. Though I'm looking at at least three months before they'll risk a nerve-bridging procedure.” Three months. Three months imprisoned in her own body, while the heretic who had slipped through her fingers set an entire subsector aflame. “And I'd be better staying under the Sisters' aegis in any case. Yannick and De Shilo will still be wanting my head."
“That will not please Glabrio.” Creshaw pointed out.
Alia closed her eyes. Not just Glabrio; most of her team were done for now. But she was willing to bet that the former arbitrator would be first to voice it.
“No. He has ambitions of his own that I can’t further for him if I’m hiding like a rat.”
"And I,” Crenshaw stated neutrally, “Am now firmly more of a liability to you than an asset. The rebellion in Adrantis will be everyone’s pressing concern for a while, but I am pretty sure that both the Vigil and the Lords Dragon are now aware of my part in the Ampoliros incident, and it is only a matter of time before they come to collect my head for it. I would fully understand you thinking that spending any more political capital to keep me safe would be wasted. Although, I expect that you came to the conclusion some time ago."
"I did.” Alia owed him the truth, at least. “Where will you go?"
"It might be easiest to lose myself in the Munitorum. Though I will admit to a certain temptation to follow in Remus' footsteps and just find a nice agri world somewhere."
Alia understood what he was talking about. "Will you be taking Kally with you?"
Crenshaw gave her a meaningful look. "I have not asked her yet. Of course."
Alia saw Crenshaw’s metallic thumb scrape across his fingers, as if thumbing an invisible ring. At the mention of Kally’s name, it was the first sign of genuine agitation that the major had let slip. It was also the first explicit movement that Crenshaw had made beneath his neck since he came into the room – if Alia didn’t know better, she would have accused him of being tactful.
Alia nodded her understanding. "Thank you for coming to me first.”
+ + + + + +
Frowning angular passageways, brass direction plaques with embossed Aquilas, hard-faced Navy men stalking back and forth. The thrum of gigawatt power generators, the smell of grease and electric ozone, and always, omnipresent, the oppressive weight of the warp scratching at the thin barrier of the Gellar fields. It was a different walk to the one he had made to his dinner with the inquisitor not so many days ago. Then, they had been preparing for their moment of judgement. Now, they knew that they had been found wanting.
Tomas was surprised to see Crenshaw coming the other way as he turned down the steel-grey warship corridor. Unlike most other people billeted on the Impiger, the Major did not suffer from the dragging, leaden feeling that warp travel left in the muscles, and he walked with purpose. As their paths crossed his hazel-brown eyes switched towards Tomas in a meaningful look, but the blank did not initiate a conversation.
Tom walked a little longer, before turning and watching the Major walk away. He watched until the Blank disappeared down a junction, and the entire time, he couldn't shake the feeling that it would be the last he ever saw of the Major. He threw a small, sardonic, salute, and turned back to walking to Alia's cabin.
An armed sister in the red-trimmed black of the Silent Vigil was posted outside the unassuming door. Tomas recognised sister Pari, apparently healed from her wounds on Marioch and now wearing her order’s colours openly instead of the simple robes of a Mariochi habber. Canoness Kiana had insisted on setting her own women to watch over the inquisitor. Tomas had even heard that she was planning to have Machairi nominated a saint for surviving her encounter with the DeRei daemon - though he suspected that had less to do with pious near-martyrdom and more to do with providing a shield against the other inquisitors who would be on them like wolves after this debacle.
Sister Pari’s pale, nondescript face was grim, and although her eyes were on the corridor, she was thumbing a chaplet through the fingers of her left hand. Tomas was reminded strongly of Sapphira. The Vigil sisters had been hit hard by the news of their convent’s destruction; their spies remained in the field and Kiana’s astropaths stood ready to pick up the reins - no doubt their information would soon be more vital than ever - but their neophyte girls had all burned in the treacherous orbital bombardment, and the future of their Order was not so easily replaced.
Tomas had seen some of the sisters limping, cross-hatched with red penitent scars that they had given themselves for failing to foresee the great threat to Adrantis that their Order had been specifically prophesied to face. Others he had seen sparring in the training cages until their faces were grit-teethed masks of blood, so furious were they to begin avenging the loss of young, innocent lives. He wondered briefly which camp sister Pari fell into.
“Captain.” the sister nodded stiffly. She raised a small silver device, a genator auspex perhaps, which flashed in his face before beeping green. Seemingly satisfied, the sister stood aside and waved him on.
"Sister." He responded, automatically, then paused. He looked the woman in the eyes.
"If you want to take a break, the lady will be safe enough with me for the moment."
The only response was a grim stare. He felt a wave of guilt wash over him, and shook his head.
"As you were."
When the door clicked open, Tomas was met by soft light and a smell of incense. Unlike the sterile-scrubbed white of the med-bays, this one was more of a converted cabin. Dozens of hexagram-stamped candles stood atop furniture or in wall-mounted candelabras, provided a dim, flickering light. Tomas recognised the fragrance that had been impregnated into the wax as the same holy oils that he had sometimes smelled burning in Machairi’s cabin on the Tiercel.
A simple bed dominated the modest space, surrounded by monitors and IV stands whose tubes spaghettied over the coverlets. Above the bed, facing Tomas as he entered, a gold aquila had been mounted - with talismans of the ecclesiarchy, the sisterhood and even the navy hanging from its claws on thin chains. The top half of the bed was slightly raised, so that the inquisitor’s head was propped up enough to see the door. It was difficult to reconcile the woman in the bed with the authoritative figure Machairi had cut prior to the battle on Concordia. Wrapped in a simple surgical gown, her face and arms had faded from warm olive to an almost ashen grey that the orange glow of the candles couldn’t fully hide. Her arms were cut and bruised from fending off Nebula punches, though the dark bruises around her throat were far worse. The inquisitor’s hair was fanned haphazardly across the pillow, and some of it was sticking to her clammy cheeks. Her head was turned aside, eyes closed but clearly not asleep, a pained expression on her face.
"Hey Mach." He stepped up to the bed, and gently, brushed her hair back. "I should lean on one of the Navy lads, get them to send the shipboard barber up. It'll be more comfortable."
“Maybe,” Machairi admitted, opening her eyes and wincing in evident embarrassment. “But I’d rather not have anyone else spreading stories through the underdecks. No-one can keep a secret on a Navy ship.”
He pulled a chair up to the bed, and sat down, hands clasped in his lap.
It should be me in that bed, not her. My only job is make sure she can do hers, and I've fucked it up!
He fought down the angry emotion, as he had every time he had seen her.
"Productive conversation with the Major?"
“Ah, so you saw him on the way out.” Machairi’s throat worked several times as she struggled to swallow. She eventually succeeded, and flinched slightly at the pain it caused. “Unfortunately yes. I’ve ordered him to transfer back to the Munitorum. He’ll give us an ear to the ground on the crusade preparations, and he’ll be safer there than here against our friends Yannick and DeShilo.”
She looked up at him.
“No, I’m not going to order you away too. I insulted you with that offer once already.”
"It wasn't an insult, and you know it." Tomas run a hand through his own hair, breathing out a long sigh. "So. Kally is a mess and will need at least two months convalescence before she's mission capable, and that's if we can convince her to take the rest, and if she will ever actually be a hundred percent again. Vince, poor bastard, is dead. Kelly is compromised, as much a risk to us politically as spiritually. Solvan. . .Solvan is done. We've lost Crenshaw, as much as I can't stand the arrogant bastard, I hate to see him go.”
Machairi grimaced. “I know I told you things were likely to get worse. In this case, I hate to be proved right.”
“Alicia and Ella are both traitorous bitches working with the enemy. Vizkop will probably have to go to ground after making Arbitrator lean cuts. And Marc is slipping, daily, into. . .I don't know what kind of mental state. We've had an agent of the Lord Dragons die right under our nose, and we have one of the Governor’s friends in the brig. The only bright side is that none of us need to put up with that viperous shitbag Merle anymore. So, for team effectiveness, its just Glabrio, Sapphira once she snaps out of her current martyrdom episode, and perhaps Raechel. Don't ask me about Gavin. He as much scares me as worries me, I'm not sure if he's going to snap or break. I'm not field cleared, because I'll be damned before leaving your side."
Tomas paused, looked up at the ceiling.
"Which is a long way of saying, what are your orders, ma'am? Because not one of us left is ready to give up."
Tomas heard the inquisitor sniff, and she jerked her head to one side as if to blot one cheek against the pillow.
“Damn it, Tom.” she whispered. Then she coughed, winced, and continued. “I never liked trusting to hope...but I still used to think that one day things might be stable enough for you and Solvan to take some time off with your books, without feeling like you were abandoning your duty. Maybe next year, I kept thinking, maybe next year. But that’s not the galaxy we live in, is it? There’s always another case, another crisis.”
Machairi took a steadying breath.
“We’ve already sent everything we know to the Conclaves. How they judge us is out of our hands. What I need you to do, is find us an astropath when we get to Scintilla. And then, I need you to send a message to inquisitor Lucullis on Vaxanide. He’s not got many friends in the ordos, but at least they all agree that he’s unimpeachable. He’ll hear us out at least, and he’s not likely to give a damn what Yannick thinks either. And if it comes down to it, our penitents will get fair treatment in his custody. Until then...”
She sank back into her pillow, her eyes rolling up to regard the token-hung Aquila sitting above their heads.
“Kuscelian might be an asset now we don’t have to worry about protecting Alicia from her - I suppose we should thank the Emperor for small mercies. So we work with her, and we work with the Sisters. We undermine these traitors any way we can.”
"And we hope maybe next year, we can take that time off." Tomas smiled thinly, doing his best to put a brave face on things.
"I did have an idea. Risky, but at this point, necessary." He reached into his coat and pulled out two, slim black cases, balancing them on his knees.
Machairi frowned. "You said you'd never. . ."
"And I still won't. I'm not cut out for it, mentally, the choices that have to be made. Three months ago, I'd have picked Marc for it, no question. But he's too brittle. That shortens the candidate list."
"Glabrio." Machairi said, her eyes not wavering from the boxes. "And who else?"
"Glabrio is the obvious choice; solid, ambitious, well rounded with front line experience and an investigator’s eye. He's a perfect point man, a face for what comes next, and it keeps him sweet. We both know he's wanted this since he signed up."
Machairi blinked slowly. "Agreed. Who else, Tom?"
Tom sucked in a breath, and released it through his teeth.
"Kally."
Machairi fixed him with 'the glare'. He had to sell it.
"I've been talking to Solvan. What she's been through, what she's seen, Horus’ balls what she knows. . .none of it’s stopped her. She's indomitable Mach. We can use that."
"She's also a violent ex-criminal without a soul." Machairi pointed out.
"Just like at least one other inquisitor in the Conclave’s history. We wind her up, and cut her loose. I'd be willing to bet, in under a year she will have cut a red path through the secessionists to get at Alicia and Ella. And while Yannick and De Shilo chase after her, we can use Glabrio to actually get the job finished."
Tomas could see the inquisitor mulling it over. “You’re right,” she allowed after a moment, “It is risky. Not as bad as loosing an arco-flagellant without a pacifier code, but close. But it would keep Yannick busy.”
She exhaled, and managed another painful-looking swallow.
“Do it.”
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