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Thread: [M] Penitence - IC

  1. #161
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    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.”
    Last edited by dakkagor; 08-26-2018 at 08:52 PM.

  2. #162
    The Last Remembrancer
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    Inquisition void runner Tiercel
    In Warp transit, en route to the Golgenna Reach


    Ordinary Imperials might have found it strange that tech-priests did something as esoterically human as hold funerals. Perhaps, for all their veneration of logic, their rituals held a more emotional component than they wished to admit.

    Raechel wasn’t crying any more, but she did feel a lump in her throat as she knelt among the scarred machinery of the vox spire, her hands folded and her cowl pulled solemnly over her head. Father Belannor had reconsecrated the room to remove any trace of the daemon, and Raechel herself had sanctified the vox systems against any lingering corruption. The Tiercel’s own enginseer had repaired the interface stations, and left his servitors to mop the bloodstains and sweep up the metal swarf.

    Raechel touched her cheek with her left hand, her human hand, feeling the scabbed cuts where a surgeon had picked the bone splinters out of her face. No trace remained of the data-daemon, and no trace of Nikolai Oppen. No implants to find immortality in another body; no closed eyes to grace with data-chits so he could go to the Omnissiah with the gift of knowledge. There was nothing left but dust, dissipated and filtered away by the unthinking spirits of the Tiercel’s atmo-scrubbers.

    Flesh is only flesh. Dead flesh even more so. Nikolai was more.

    Raechel traced a circle over her chest, and then linked her hands over it, clutching the sign of the holy cog to herself as if trying to hold her faith tighter against her.

    Remember the Eighth Law. The machine god knows all, comprehends all. He would already know of the life of Nikolai Oppen. He would already comprehend its worth.

    She took a shuddering breath, and felt slightly better.

    Her prayers were interrupted by a new sound grinding through the gentle heartbeat of the Tiercel. Her aural implant picked it up first; a low whir of cables, gliding over old runners as a turbolift ran up the vox spire. She rose to her feet and pulled down her hood in time for the door to hiss open. Her visitor was Martin Crenshaw, stony-faced in a slate-grey wraparound jacket, and looking like he was holding his body upright through sheer stubborn willpower.

    “Major?” Raechel greeted him in poorly-suppressed surprise. Alone with the blank, the air in the vox tower seemed to chill slightly, and she felt an unpleasant shiver prickle across her skin. She tried and failed to hide the shudder.

    Out of tact, or perhaps more likely simple indifference, Crenshaw did not react. Instead, the major cast his eyes around the repaired vox tower with slow deliberation. “You have been up here for quite some time.”

    “I was praying.” It was not technically a lie, but something told her that the blank understood anyway.

    Creshaw held up his left arm. A gunmetal-grey bionic of overlapping plates had replaced the hand and wrist he had lost to the sabotaged digi-ring. No doubt an agent of the inquisition could afford better, but it would be serviceable until they put into port above Scintilla.

    “The medicus from Impiger calibrated this earlier today, but I felt the need for an inspection by a tech priest of...broader experience.”

    The question of Crenshaw’s real motive tugged at the back of her mind, but Raechel was still oddly grateful. Having a solid, solvable task put in front of her - instead of the chaos of recent events and thoughts of the chaos to follow - was a relief. She nodded, and stepped forward to trace a preliminary cog circle over Crenshaw’s bionic.

    “We match now.” Raechel observed, flexing her own bionic hand. “I will have to find an excuse to high five you.”

    Crenshaw’s expression was frostily neutral. “It would be extremely optimistic of you to assume that is going to happen.”

    In spite of everything, a baseline flow of neural impulses compelled Raechel to smile. “That is appropriate then. Optimist is exactly what inquisitor Hypatia’s retinue used to call me.”

    Crenshaw made a sound that suggested he was grinding his prosthetic teeth. “Sapphira will require the same service out of you when she awakens. Inspection that is, not optimism.”


    + + + + + +

    It was said that sins weighed heaviest in the warp. You could dream all night of people you had wronged in some way, and awaken to hear them still weeping and cursing you through the air ducts. Sapphira limped slowly across the sterile white med-lab and then slowly back again, tracing the same steps. Her dove-grey gown scratched at her ankles. The ward around her could have housed five sick crewmen, but it was empty - Captain von Scharn had cordoned off several small sections of the Impiger for inquisition use. Two med-labs, a crew berth and the docking ring that held Tiercel secure for the side-along warp jump were all off limits, under threat of sanction extremis.

    There was a weariness on Sapphira that had nothing to do with warp-fatigue. The Impiger’s cyber-surgeons had warned her that it was far too early to be sitting up, let alone trying to walk, but the sister paced the room all the same. If the Emperor saw fit to let her body collapse around her new bionic heart, she would accept the judgement. I should have died on Concordia.

    She remembered fading away on the Impiger’s hanger deck, with Glabrio, the black-clad sister Mahin and - of all people - that Impiger officer Thurlow cradling her, all holding her hands and imploring her to hang on. The one comforting thought was that the Emperor would witness her death, fruitless though it was. She was a sister of the faith, a martyr born, and even an ignominious death was some form of redemption. But it seemed that she had failed even at martyrdom.

    “I failed.” she said.

    Kuscelian’s eyebrows knitted together. “How?”

    Sapphira had almost forgotten that the red-haired tech priestess was in the room with her. How - a simple enough question, and yet she could not find words to articulate the answer in sufficient depth.

    I failed to kill Arcolin. I failed to save Vincent. And what about Ella - I tried to warn her about her girl crush and what did she do? The sister simply couldn’t fathom it. She’s a traitor. How can someone soul-bound to the Emperor turn traitor? The fault was her own negligence to watch and support, Sapphira was certain. Another failure in her miserably long list.

    Sapphira spread her arms, wincing at the pain it drew from the stitches down the centre of her chest. “Everything. Even my own heart failed.”

    She saw the tech priestess fidgeting, her organic hand fighting with her metal one. “If it makes you feel any better, I was fitted with a heart implant right after birth. An atrial septal defect they called it. Two years ago, they replaced the whole organ.”

    The priestess shrugged her robed shoulders.

    “Flesh is, as they say, a bitch...but flesh alone does not make either of us failures.”

    “That’s not what I meant.” Sapphira winced painfully, and felt heat pricking at her cheeks. “You...know something of our order, yes?”

    Raechel folded her hands. No doubt the spy priestess had picked over every scrap of information about Sapphira, as she had about every other member of Machairi’s family. But what could any follower of another sect truly know of the sororitas’ millenia-long penance? The debt they owed for allowing themselves to be deceived, and how she herself had repeated that sin again and again.

    “I know something.” Raechel admitted. “But I would not presume to comprehend everything.”

    Sapphira slumped down on the edge of her medical cot, her fingers digging into the foam mattress. “On Concordia, I called on the Emperor to witness me. To watch me as I achieved a death that would honour Him. But Arcolin is gone, taking my friends’ absolution with him as long as we can’t show the ordos his corpse. And Alicia is gone. And Ella is gone. And…” She had to swallow. “And Vincent is gone. And I’m still here.”

    Raechel wrapped her thin arms around herself. “We believe,” she said after a moment, speaking slowly, “That the machine god leaves an underlying pattern in the universe, if only we show the intellect to understand it. No prophet of the mechanicus alive today would claim that understanding, but perhaps one day we will.”

    Sapphira bit her lip, feeling a vague, undirected anger ticking in her throat. “You’re saying that this was how things were meant to turn out?”

    It was the tech priestess’ turn to flinch, though she hid it slightly better than Sapphira had. “I am saying that perhaps you are still here for a reason. To put things right.”

    Sapphira looked away. “I don’t exactly have the best track record with trying to do that.”

    “You will be stronger.” Raechel raised her bionic hand, the palm towards Sapphira’s own chest where an artificial heart now ticked. “Your Emperor...my Omnissiah...he has not answered your prayer as you expected, but he has given you that gift. Do not offend him by failing to make use of it.”

    “Are you guilt tripping me?” Sapphira almost laughed...and almost cried as she remembered another conversation about her wellbeing, back on Hercynia, with the Black siblings. She had employed the same tactics on Marc - sororita and orphan guilt - as she critiqued his infrequent messages to his father. She could almost hear Kelly’s surprised and delightfully vindicated laughter; almost feel her impulsive, heartfelt hug; and envision Marc’s stunned, well-struck expression as his mouth opened and closed uselessly.

    Marcus Black won’t struggle for his words now, least of all… The Sister frowned as she looked back at the priestess,
    who shook her head in response to Sapphira’s accusation.

    “Guilt tripping you?” Raechel repeated, almost defensively, “If I recall correctly, we promised over a workbench to show respect for each other.”

    Sapphira exhaled a sharp, ragged laugh. “You are guilt tripping me.”

    Kuscelian was right, though - they had made that pact, as they set to work repairing adept Koskynen’s cyber mastiff. No doubt the tech priestess had an exact recording stored in her implants that she could beam out on demand. She squinted at the other woman, but Raechel turned away, cocking her head as if listening to something only she could hear.

    “What is it?” Sapphira asked. She would not have put it past the priestess to invent some excuse to change the subject.

    “Two people are coming.” Raechel answered. “Your friends Kally and Kelly.”

    Friends. Sapphira wasn’t sure if the word still applied, after Inquisitor Massani’s name had been screamed across the vox for all to hear. She heard an audible click in her chest as her bionic heart up-regulated in response to a very human adrenaline rush.


    Kally’s arm left arm was pinned across her chest by a cast and sling, her face sallow and bruised. Livid surgery scars crossed the other woman's pale skin where the Navy medicae had stapled her skull back together. Sapphira worriedly pursed her lips as she saw Kally, and instinctively assessed her wounds with a clinician’s eye and a friend’s concern. She had been attending inquisitor Machairi on Concordia, and while on the shuttle to Impiger Crenshaw had warned her away with a subtle shake of his head. Kally had pointedly refused to even look in her direction, and the message of that had been clear.

    I was dead to her… Sapphira winced as her new heart twitched, as if to helpfully remind her that she had indeed been dead - to Kally and everyone else - and she would die again without it. She studiously ignored Raechel’s particular look as she pensively waited for Kally or Kelly to speak.


    "Saph." Kally croaked, before coughing. Kelly supported the other woman for a moment. The former verispex had arranged her hair to hide most of her forehead, but the filament-thin scars of the ward implantation were still visible if you looked for more than a few seconds. The Sister shivered as a storm-surge of guilt and remorse rose within her. I inflicted that on her. I failed her so completely, so thoroughly…I may as well have been the one who -

    Sapphira exerted the tattered shreds of her willpower to terminate the abhorrent, impossible thought before she could complete it. No. I would never…but I could have, should have prevented her possession. She choked back the wave of nausea that accompanied the nigh-heretical thought, and the unbidden sensory memories from when she was obliged to mutilate her friend to save her.


    "We came to ask. . ." Kelly began.

    "Why?" Kally interrupted. Kelly glanced down at the deck as Kally stepped forward, working fist balled. "Why didn't you tell us? Tell me? Throne damn it, Saph. Throne damn you, I thought you trusted us. Me. Did you think...did you think we would judge you, or hold it against you?"

    Kally wobbled on her feet, and blinked rapidly. Kelly was quick enough to grab a chair and put it under Kally as she slumped down. Sapphira was compelled by calling and comradeship to rise and assist. Kally’s wounded stare and the sharp look of warning from Kelly compelled her to remain seated. Sapphira shivered as Merle’s spiteful, vindictive drawl crooned victoriously within her anxiously racing mind.

    I mustn’t lie to the faithful, sister. Hurtin’ those y’all care about is doin’ what y’all do best.


    "You shouldn't be up and moving around." Kelly said, though it wasn't entirely clear if the comment was aimed at Sapphira or Kally.

    Sapphira’s bionic heart gave another audible tick. At this rate, the sister thought despairingly, it would wear out faster than her first one. Her stomach felt knotted.

    “Listen,” she began lamely, twisting her hands together as she sought her chaplet to thumb through. She was very aware of Raechel still hovering in the corner. “I know what Merle said…”

    Kelly shook her head and waved a hand, wearily. “Saph, just don’t. Don’t even start.”

    Sapphira felt her heart sink, but Kelly kept speaking.

    “Aye, my first thought when I heard it was Great. Just great. On top of everything else why not one more? But then…”

    The former verispex held out her hands, beseechingly.

    “Kally and me talked about it and she told me about what she said to…” She winced. “To Marc and Vince...back on Venatora, when we found out about why Sidonis put you on our team.”

    Sapphira blinked, turning to Kally. “What...what did you say to them?”


    Kally flicked her gaze to Sapphira, and Sapphira saw the tears beginning to prick at the corner of her eyes.

    "That none of it frakking mattered. That you were a good person and that we could trust you. That in a group, in a cell, you need people who you trust to report up the ladder, and...that we needed someone to watch us. I'd been broken and put back to together, Marc was still angry and torn up, Vince..."

    Kally was crying now, right hand digging into her shoulder.

    Sapphira stifled a whimper of symbiotic pain as she watched her friend hurt herself, tears welling in her eyes as she was unable to rise and intercede. She was unable to make it stop because it was her fault that Kally was so badly wounded. There was surely no greater sin a Hospitaller could commit than to inflict suffering on those she was sworn - by oath and vow to Him on Terra - to support and defend unto her death…and that these were her friends made her sins all the worse.

    Kally was correct in her earlier blasphemy. She was damned for this. Damned for her failures.


    "I trusted you!” Kally blurted. “I trusted you then and I trusted you on Hercynia! We all did, but you didn't tell us about Massani, and the only reason I can think of is that you don't trust us."

    The Sister’s vision blurred as she weathered Kally’s well-deserved recrimination. It was only when Raechel stepped forward that she heard the strained whine of her bionic heart as it regulated. Sapphira vehemently shook her head towards the concerned priestess and scrunched her eyes shut, liberating the brimming tears across her scarred and unscarred cheeks. She struggled to compose herself. The least she owed them was an answer – the truth - before she died…again.

    Imperator… The Sister struggled to articulate her prayer as she anxiously rubbed her fingers together in a sad, desperate pantomime of working through her chaplet’s penitent beads. Dominus…I do not begin to understand your intentions for me…but I beg of you, if I yet have a purpose to fulfil in your divine manifest destiny, grant me the fortitude of Saint Lehner to endure - for their sakes…

    Sapphira grunted, inhaling and exhaling deeply, and sat immobile for three beats of her mechanical heart as she summoned the courage to meet her friends’ eyes – and three more before she had the courage to begin speaking, her voice cracked and miniscule. “Trust…was never the issue…”


    “I know, Saph.” Kelly said quietly, as the Sister trailed off. One of her hands was squeezing Kally’s shoulder. The other was rubbing the bridge of her own nose, as she always did when she was stressed. The curled fingers dropped to her lips and for a moment it looked like she was about to start biting her nails, but instead she clenched her fist and lowered it.

    We know.” she corrected herself. “We know you’re fair, we know you’re a good person. You never did anything but look out for us. But even with that motherfrakker Carson dead...look at us, no-one on the team can take any more secrets. We need to let the past lie. For good. Without some prick like Carson coming along and stirring up some new shit.”

    The former verispex squeezed Kally’s shoulder again.

    “So what was the issue, Saph? We trust each other, you said so yourself. You can tell us.”


    Time.” Sapphira whispered as she absently worried at – and worried about - her absent prayer beads. She shook her head as she looked miserably at her friends. “I…I don’t even know where…”

    “I would suggest at the beginning.” Raechel contributed with an encouraging nod to the Sister. Sapphira watched as Kelly glanced over her shoulder and gave a quick, appreciative nod to the spy priestess.

    “Aye. Start from the beginning and talk us through it, Saph. When, where and…” Kelly hesitantly chewed on her lower lip and exhaled down her nose. “And why you went to work for Massani.”

    “Okay…okay.” Sapphira hollowly murmured. She scrunched her eyes shut and cuffed away her tears, and took a few moments to breathe regularly before she dared to open her eyes and face her friends once again. “It was about…four years before Solomon. I was assigned as an examiner of moral threat on blessed Ophelia…” The Sister marked the Aquila points as she shuddered in revulsion and struggled to speak. “That’s how I met the heretic and traitor Nasreen Massani…that’s how I…impressed her.”

    “What’d you do to impress that psycho?” Kally hoarsely snarled. “Throw a team-mate under a tram?”

    “Kally…” Kelly mildly interjected as she exchanged a look with the wounded blank.

    “Nothing like that.” Sapphira answered softly. She numbly watched Kally and Kelly’s expressions change, as they slowly and silently looked at her. Kuscelian’s expression was inscrutable from behind her friends. No doubt she was already aware… The Sister’s shoulders slumped as she curled her arms around her midsection and sagged into the mattress.

    “Ophelia VII is second only to Holy Terra as a shrine world, and as the seat of the Synod Ministra it maintains the spiritual integrity for half the Imperium. It stands as a beacon to the faithful and a target of the profane.” Sapphira’s voice faded into a dull monotone as her eyes went glassy. “The Imperium endures by the blood of the martyred faithful. No sacrifice is too great, no treachery too small.”

    Sapphira’s eyebrows furrowed as she went silent again and stared off into the middle distance. The Sister clearly envisioned herself in the hours before Nasreen Massani came into her life – and imagined how scornful her younger self would’ve been to see the contemptible spectacle she would become. The deaths of a thousand innocent faithful exchanged for a single guilty heretic and you never once questioned the cost, Hospitaller. You praised Him and went on. She raked her thumbnail over her raw fingertips, frowning deeply as the absence of her chaplet gnawed away at her…and Sapphira knew exactly what response her younger, unblemished self would have.

    You are no Sister of mine.

    Kelly exhaled deeply and tensely down her nose. “So…you were recruited because you were faithful?”

    “No.” Sapphira croaked with a faint, weary shake of her head. “I was recruited because I had the audacity to challenge her authority.”

    “How’d that go down?” Kally queried. “Lucius and Kadath described her as a rabid control freak.”

    The Sister blinked as she refocused her eyes on the other women. “Massani didn’t declare herself as an interrogator when she reached our checkpoint, so I was the only examiner designated to her and her entourage…and no sooner do I introduce myself? Out comes the warrant, rosette and entitled bitch attitude – You’ll make way for a senior field agent of His Majesty’s Inquisition, Sister.” Sapphira scowled as she viperously emulated the heretical, traitorous wretch’s high-pitched voice. “I refused.”

    “And she didn’t have you killed for that?” Kelly asked.

    “She threatened it, in that hypothetical I could have my bodyguards remove you sort of way…and I told her I would gladly die if that revealed her as a traitor and heretic.” Sapphira recollected, with the same timbre of conviction now as she had then. “She gave me this…smile and relented...and I…I…” The Sister exhaled mournfully as her eyes misted over. “I declared her pure...”


    “Thats it, isn't it?” Kally shook her head, thinking back to other conversations she'd had with Sapphira. “You're still beating yourself up over getting it wrong.”

    “Our original sin.” Sapphira whispered as Kiana’s grave and gravelly-voiced sermon on forgiveness echoed in her mind. Our penance for the Reign of Blood is never over, sister. Once a penance is complete, there is a chance that the original sin will be forgotten. The Sister grimaced as she stared at Kally and Kelly. Not all crimes were so heinous, but she had denied her friends the opportunity to complete their own penance. She sorrowfully shook her head towards them. “We were deceived. We were wrong…and I keep repeating that sin over and over again.”

    “Even the Emperor didn’t know Horus for a traitor.” Kelly pointed out, subconsciously marking the points of the Aquila against her chest to ward against the archenemy’s name. “Even the fallen angel was pure, at first.”

    “My apologies for interrupting.” Raechel put in from the sideline, her hands folded inside the sleeves of her robe. “But I think it is relevant...Nik and I noted that sister Sapphira was discharged from Massani’s retinue before she began polluting her agents’ genomes with xenos DNA.”

    “And even Massani had to know a sister wouldn’t stand for that.” Kelly bowed her head in understanding. She opened her eyes and looked up at Sapphira. “Listen, Saph...I’ll admit it, I was angry. Gut angry. But I’d be a hypocrite to stay pissed at you. We’ve had to work under some pretty shitty people too - Sidonis for one, and in the end Van Der Mir wasn’t much better even if he was at least trying to do the right thing. Having a heretic say you’ve impressed them is shan, but…” She spread her arms, and let them flop to her sides. “You’re still you.”


    “I…I…” Sapphira stumbled as her mouth went dry. “I…almost wasn’t me.”

    “What’re you trying to say, Saph?”

    The Sister grimaced and glanced away as Kally keenly questioned. Her mind whirled, unable to form a coherent thought and transmute it into articulate words. She curled her arms tightly around her body as she scrunched her eyes shut and tried to ride out the seismic aftershocks…which were only the disquietingly mechanical thumps of her heart as it self-regulated. Oh God-Emperor…I can’t…

    “Sister.”

    Sapphira could hear the cautionary, warning note in the spy priestess’ voice over the increasingly familiar whining complaints of her new heart. You’re still you. She inhaled sharply as Kelly’s words repeated again and again and again. I’m only me because of you, my friends…

    “Sapphira…we trust each other. Whatever it is, you can tell us.”

    Sapphira exhaled a strained, rattling breath as she fought to impose some control over her own body…her own body on Kelly’s soothing, concerned word. She reopened her bleary eyes, and miserably glanced at the other women as she subconsciously touched her blade-scarred throat.

    “I…I impressed the abomination on Hercynia.” The Sister answered in a strained whisper. She recoiled as she heard Javid Schafer’s voice even as she brokenly repeated what the monstrous beast which had assumed his identity told her – moments before it had determinedly begun to murder her again.


    I hope the Masters agree to have you replicated."

    "Throne..." Kally blinked. Kally looked away to the floor, her good hand running through her hair. "Throne of Terra. What a thing to say." She shook her head. "Doesn't that...doesn't it just mean that you were good at your job? Enough of a threat to turn into a weapon? That's why they took...the people they took."

    But not me. Or Crenshaw. They wanted us for much worse.

    “I agree with agent Sonder.” Raechel deadpanned. “They saw the value of your skills and position, but they failed to take them. Assuming you are not about to announce that you are, in fact, a Necron replicant.”

    Kelly exhaled down her nose; not quite a laugh, but close. Then she blinked, as if surprised by the sound she had just made.

    “Oh, Saph.” the former verispex said, quietly, as the momentary humour slid from her face. “The real Schafer respected you, so its only to be expected that his...replicant...would too. Whether it was just playing a part or it shared all his memories...I don’t know how those things worked and I don’t really want to.”

    She looked down, massaging the bridge of her nose.

    “If the Emperor blames you for being fooled,” she began, raising her gaze once more. “Then we’re all damned, ’cause they fooled us too. Me, Kally, Machairi...you might be a Sister, Saph, but you’re not one of the Emperor’s angels. You’re just like us - one of the plain, shitty, fallible humans in a galaxy that wants us dead.”

    She shrugged tiredly.

    “And I know for a fact they really did care for you, before those xenos killed them and took their places. Schafer and...and Clement.” Kelly hesitated, no doubt knowing that Arval Clement was still a tender wound for Sapphira even after all this time. “Don’t let the xenos take that away from you.”

    Sapphira’s eyes slid off her friends faces to fix on the floor by her feet.

    “Let them rest in peace.” Kelly said, “We’re still here; focus on us.”

    She quietly spread her arms.

    “We’re all we’ve got left.”

    A moment of silence passed between the three women. The fourth eventually broke it with a soft clearing of her throat.

    Sapphira looked up, in time to catch Raechel tilting her head towards Kelly. The latter stood with her arms still spread, now hovering uncertainly. Out of Kelly’s sight line, Raechel quietly raised her eyebrows.

    The distance between Sapphira and her friends suddenly seemed like a very long way, and the sister’s feet felt rooted to the floor. Kelly and Kally’s offer crossed the gap, recognising their mutual need; silently pleading.

    Oh God-Emperor, I can’t...

    Endure...for their sakes...

    I’m only me because of you, my friends.


    Her first step was leaden, but the second came easier. As if some of the weight was falling from her shoulders, if only for a brief moment. Kally and Kelly stepped forward to meet her half way. Their grip as they put their arms around her was fierce. It was just as well, because Sapphira did not trust her knees not to give way beneath her.

    Looking past her friends’ shoulders, Sapphira could see Raechel still hovering in the background, an outsider to the moment. The spy priestess didn’t move from her spot, but she did silently raise her hands to her chest, touching them together with fingers curled and thumbs extended downwards. At first Sapphira thought it was some bizarre variation of the Cog sign, and it was only when the priestess smiled that she realised the shape was supposed to be a heart.

    Sapphira felt a laugh choke out of her throat, and with that sudden release of tension her vision began to swim. Tears welled up in her eyes, and ran down her cheeks.

    They felt clean.

  3. #163
    The Replicant
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    Tephaine, Adrantis subsector capital

    The inquisition tried to take loyal officers on Concordia, just as they did on Siculi.” Alicia read aloud. “And this time, the Navy, the mechanicus, the sisterhood...all were complicit. What justice were we ever offered by the imperium? Deafening silence, in the face of tyranny. As we rightly celebrate our triumphs here on Tephaine and Tranch and Baraspine, I wish to honour the memories of these fine soldiers. Second lieutenant Alric de Sade. Gunnery sergeant Jensa Kirabo. Lance corporal Fiodor McLaughlin. Private first class Gwenifer Callisto. They were the first martyrs of the liberation.

    Alicia looked down at the manuscript, and Ella saw her aura pulsing blue as she stroked a fingertip softly over the names of the dead Nebulas.

    “The first martyrs of the liberation.” Alicia said, in a subdued voice. “That’s nice. I like that. But are you sure you don’t want me to deliver it?”

    “You’ve done enough for us already, captain Tarran.” Sub-governor Tierce’s voice was made for bellowing commands across the bridge of a warship, but now it was a soft baritone, fatherly and reasonable. “I wouldn’t put that burden on you. But you’re welcome to lead the smaller ceremony later. I know they were your friends.”

    And her friends keep dying. Ella thought, biting her lip in sympathy.

    They were surrounded by strangers now. Nebulas with steely auras and eager red bionics, Adrantian officials whose thoughts were somber blue and exultant yellow. The mercurial soul-blaze whose warm words did not match his oily aura was the governor’s chancellor, Nyal Souvage. There was even the guttering spark of a tech-priest, though only one - Ella had heard that many of the Martians had withdrawn inside their manufactora while they assessed the new political situation, and the forge worlds of Omicron and Skorgulian had ceased all contact.

    There were no other astropaths, either.

    Almost all of the fiery avatars were turned towards Alicia with some degree of respect, but Ella wondered how many of them Alicia truly knew - even among the Nebulas. Kirabo and Callisto were her friends, but they both died on Concordia. Ella had seldom felt so keenly aware of the limits of her own power. This revolution should happen - must happen - the Emperor had decreed it so through her Tarot. It was her task to make it happen as bloodlessly as possible. Save Alicia. Save a million other men and women and children. Maybe even save the friends I betrayed. So far, while the hive below cheered and unfurled PDF banners over smoking arbites rhinos, she did not feel like she was succeeding.

    “You’ve been brave, captain.” Tierce spoke, his shining gold aura merging with Alicia’s own as he took her hand in both of his. “And by the Emperor’s grace, you’ve returned to us to help give us victory.”

    “By the Emperor’s grace.” the assembled adepts and spire nobles murmured in chorus. Ella had noted that almost immediately. Unlike the godless heathens from the propaganda reels who renounced the imperium and threw the Emperor’s aquila into the mud beside it, these people retained their faith.

    “And you.” Tierce continued. “You’ve been brave too.”

    When he withdrew from Alicia and stepped past her, Ella realised that he was talking to her.

    “I…” she began, caught off guard. Her voice was an ugly croak. The bruises were still livid on her throat, and speaking was painful. A few paces behind Tierce, she saw chancellor Souvage’s aura ripple with secret disgust. "M’lord…” she tried again. “The Tarot told me that if I wanted to save thousands of lives, I'd have to make a hard choice. Well here I am."

    Tierce’s golden aura eclipsed her warp-sight as he stepped forward and enveloped her in a hug, pulling her skinny body against his broad and alarmingly warm one. Ella flinched without meaning to. The memories of Glabrio twisting her arm up behind her back were still fresh. And Vince - never a gentle man but never unkind to her - had smashed her against the wall rather than continue to look at her. Damn, Blondie. Damn. Even as she tried to warn him about Merle.

    Merle. Her skin crawled.

    He’s dead. she told herself, struggling against the tightening in her throat as her heart began to flutter like a caged bird. He’s dead.

    But another daemonhost stood with her now, not two metres away - and the woman she deeply, deeply cared for considered it a blessing rather than a curse. She shivered again against Tierce’s gold-braided tunic, and this time the sub-governor noticed her distress and tactfully withdrew, his aura flickering with a pale streak of embarrassment.

    "I assure you,” Tierce said, “You did the right thing. And I will prove it to you. Today we write the beginning of a new story for the Adrantis Nebula."

    He held his palm out to Alicia, who handed him the parchment script, and strode confidently towards the vaulted gallery doors. Beyond them, the scribes waited with their clacking servo skulls and their flashing pict-stealers.

    If Tierce had any wisdom, Ella thought, he would use his address and the moment of victory to brace the Adrantian populace for the Imperium’s retaliation. He would know, better than most, that there was a world of difference between the PDFs knocking down some straw-man cults and taking loyalist assets unaware, and an organised Imperial counter-strike smashing into the Nebula. And that counter-strike would come; slow but inexorable as death itself, and furious as only the Emperor’s righteous sons and daughters could be.

    It's not over yet, Ella thought, and shivered yet again. It's only the beginning. There's a reckoning to come.

    + + + + + +

    HDMS Impiger
    In Warp transit, en route to the Golgenna Reach


    The med-lab lights glared in judgement, like the lamps above a dissection table. Trist could smell counterseptic, and hear the thrum of Impiger’s power generators as the cruiser lashed a path through the immaterium. Sometimes, when the lights were dimmed for Shift 3, the smell would turn sour and coppery, and his bionic vision would ficker with rogue black pixels. He wasn’t sure if it was a product of the damage he had sustained, or just some kind of unsettling warp-travel phenomenon.

    A steady procession of shipboard medicae and white-robed cybernetica priests had examined him over the last few days, though none of them would speak to him at any length. One of the tech-priests had wept oily tears, but he suspected that had had more to do with the damage to his wonderful bionics, rather than empathy for Trist’s own predicament. Iron shackles pinned him to the bed, clamped around his de-powered bionic limbs. He hated that - he kept getting phantom prickles where his truncated arms interfaced with the cybernetics, and ever since Gavin had forced his way into his mind he kept getting the inexplicable urge to grind his thumb into the opposing wrist. Effectively paralysed, he could alleviate neither of the two tensions.

    The three Nebula prisoners in the beds across from him had been given the same treatment, though in their cases the shackles seemed somewhat superfluous: the satrophene cartridges had been removed from their wrist injectors, and even then Kirabo’s face was already a caved-in ruin, and de Sade was clearly going nowhere with his neck broken in two places.

    As he studied them, Trist realised that the third Nebula was awake, and looking back at him.

    “So they threw you down here too?” McLaughlin croaked. His face was still discoloured by the chemical burns of webber foam. “That’s ironic. The whole reason the governor picked you to liaise with the inquisitor was because you were too loyal to them.”

    The shackled Nebula let out an ugly sound that was half a cough and half a laugh.

    “Be thankful that Tierce sent you away - if you had stayed, everyone would be calling for your head.”

    "Of that I have no doubt." sighed the young lord. Though his restraints and damage to his body rendered the act physically impossible, he mentally settled back into the medicae bed. There was little doubt in his mind that the company of such a naysmith would make their stay in this confined space seem a great deal longer than it actually would be - the Inquisition would dispose of the Nebula before long, having no particular reason that Trist could see that they would keep him alive for any significant length of time. Then again, the same might be said for him.

    "Goad him, question him, butter him up." said a voice, decidedly feminine, in the back of his mind, "You're lying there like a useless lump, so you might as well make use of the time. Who knows, you might produce something useful in the end." He knew that she was right, but could not muster the effort for the task. It seemed a tedious task and overall pointless since the Inquisition would wring the soldier dry anyways. Years on the street told him that rare was a snitch prosperous.

    Besides, the man had already revealed the depth of his ignorance, quite a feat in so few sentences. While the Nebula were undoubtedly among the few the soon-to-be ex-sub-sector governor trusted, they were little more than a tool to achieve an end. Trist knew from experience that few would ever hold a full conversation with the man, let alone get him to lower his guard enough to allow them a glimpse into the inner workings of such a mind, if only because they probably wouldn't like what they saw there. 'Everyone', undoubtedly the nobles following the Tierce into whatever he was leading them, would be at even further distances.

    Wherever that was, Trist was sure that they weren't going to like what they found there.


    + + + + + +

    Inquisition ship Tiercel
    Side-along Warp transit


    Kuscelian sat cross-legged atop her chair in the void-runner’s small conference suite, staring down at her dataslate. The message had popped up a few minutes ago, downloading itself into the shared area of their data crypt.

    Raechel

    If you are reading this, then either I am dead, or you have cracked the encoding on this file after finding the partitioned area of the data crypt that I set aside for my personal use. If it is the second option, please stop reading now, and reseal the partition. I'm very impressed, but you probably should let me labour on in ignorance.

    If it is the first option, there is a very high chance I died in such a way that you may feel some blame for my death. Either a mission went wrong due to some factor outside our control, or I made a choice to save you in preference to my own continued existence so that the mission could be completed successfully. There is no chance, in my mind, that you failed in your duties in such a way to cause my end. You are simply too competent for that.

    In either case, I ask you, do not hold onto any guilt. Know that I would have died holding you in the utmost esteem and respect as a colleague and a friend. Mourning is an entirely natural biological response; do not feel you have to rush it, but at the same time, do not wallow in it. Be sad, then move on.

    You are an exceptional person, Raechel, and I was honoured to know you. Your dignity, courage and insight were always inspiring. Your loyalty to the Mechanicus and the mission was beyond reproach.

    Now that I am gone, I am relying on that exceptional person once again. Salvage what you can of my augmetics and use them for yourself. Take up my weapons and tools and finish the job. This letter contains a set of codes to unlock the rest of the partition. I have not always been completely honest with you, in regards to who and what I know. Some I kept back as compartmentalisation, to reduce the risk if anything I had done became toxic. Other things. . .I think perhaps I wanted you to not think less of me. But if I am gone, you will need that information. It is my final and most terrible gift to you.

    Darker secrets and harder tasks await, Raechel. I know you will rise to the challenge. Remember to trust, but be prepared for betrayal. Do not cut away all your humanity, but do not let it weaken you. And finally, remember that even though we are observers, to observe the universe is, in the act of observation, to change it irrevocably. We must make those changes, for the betterment of not just the cult, but the Imperium entire.

    Your friend.

    01101110 01101001 01101011.


    Raechel read the letter a redundant second time, and sat in silence for several minutes more before touching the runic code-keys that danced at the bottom of the message. The attached passwords did exactly as promised, prompting the data djinns to offer up two categories of Knowledge files, whimsically titled “Data I should really delete” and “People I should really delete”.

    The first section was a treasure trove of captured and un-redacted research screeds that Nikolai had seemingly taken from hereteks, high-clearance repositories, and in some cases what looked like the private collections of radical Inquisitors. Nestled beside them were reams of restricted information on STC constructs used in the militarum, the ecclesiarchy and the other armed branches of their Imperial allies. There were even reports on xenos devices recovered from the Koronus Expanse and elsewhere; many of which Raechel recognised from her own stint as a xenotech researcher, though there were many more again which she did not. Added to them were massive piles of incomplete data ranging from carefully documented theories to Omnissiah-affronting conjecture, rumours, and even what amounted to hearsay and gossip among the upper echelons of the mechanicus. The Ocularii see all. Understanding is the true path to Comprehension.

    Some of the data files were identical to ones that Nikolai had placed in their shared datacrypt, and of course Raechel had kept a similar personal databank of incomplete intelligence that she was not yet confident to share, but it quickly became clear that Nik had been holding a large and dangerous portion of his Knowledge back. It is my final and most terrible gift to you. Raechel exhaled to calm her racing bionic heart, and traced the holy cog across the front of her robe.

    When she looked deeper into the files, she saw that they were heavily annotated - not just by Nikolai, but by other agents of the Lords Dragon who must have sent him the data in the first place. This was not in itself unusual - the Ocularii shared and cross-analysed as much data as was practical, as both an aid and a safeguard - but Raechel had to fight back an irrational sense of pique that she was only now being allowed to contribute to the discussion of reports she had helped to write. The unredacted report on the silent forge of Anatolia was especially festooned with comments, with Nik responding to his colleagues’ questions with answers and annotations. Remember to trust, but be prepared for betrayal. There was the Machine God’s own truth in that statement.

    The second archive (People I should really delete) was a list of borderline hereteks, sanctioned reclaimators, salvage guilds, and technomat leagues that operated on the fringes of the wider mechanicus. Compared to the first archive this list was lightly annotated, generally with warnings written to Nik by other Ocularii (This one doesn't always honour his promises; She will only trade for Eldar items) or else with blackmail material that could be used to facilitate their compliance with an investigation.

    One name stuck out to her, because she recognised it from the Saros Station reports she had painstakingly assimilated prior to their fateful interception of inquisitor Machairi. Zerlinda Ghast. The Terran conclave listed her as missing after Saros, but a tip-off from an Ocularis on Scintilla suggested that she had sought refuge with the mechanicus and was now operating a lower-hive augmetics service under their supervision. Raechel thought it odd that they had let interrogator Van Der Mir’s controversial pardon stand without challenge. Nik had apparently agreed with her - his single annotation read Pardoned, after that many murders? Too dangerous to attempt to eliminate?

    By the Machine God’s providence - if a headlong retreat to regroup after a heretic revolt could be called such - Scintilla was exactly where they were headed. Raechel tapped the screen and imprinted the newly shared data-file with her first annotation. Investigate, beta priority.

    She paused, sitting back. If this was to be her responsibility now, and if she had fellow Ocularii across the sector to draw on and inform in equal measure...then there was much and more she needed to share before it was too late. Shunting the inquisition team’s findings out of her personal partition and into the warded data crypt, she activated her electrograft with a mental nudge and began to transmit text, setting new lines of encrypted machine-code skittering across the screen.

    Executor Artorius Krol, aka Arcolin Diarmad DeRei - Adrantis government official, heretek priority beta, c.f. Adrantian Nebula corps, details to follow.

    Captain Alicia Tarran, aka Ailil Cassandra DeRei - Adrantis military asset, heretek priority beta, c.f. Adrantian Nebula corps, details to follow.

    Colonel Serjan Tarquinius - Adrantis military commander, heretek priority beta, c.f. Adrantian Nebula corps, details to follow.


    Raechel signed the Cog for strength, taking a breath. Her cursor icon paused, blinking green against the slate’s cross-hatched background. She clicked her interface active once more, and wrote.

    Magos Terminius Delzharian - primary architect of Adrantis Nebula corps, instigator of traitor uprising on Perinetus, heretek priority alpha.

    + + + + + +

    HDMS Impiger
    In Warp transit, en route to the Golgenna Reach


    The room was dark. Marc hadn’t bothered to adjust the lumoglobes from their standard cycle. He had been sitting with his chin resting on his hands, occasionally probing the red-spotted bandage that covered his left eye. Just looking at the desk across his tiny cabin. Just looking at the papers and the dataslates and his deactivated PDA. Staring, staring, staring.

    He hadn’t raised the light level when Kelly had thumped her fist on his door and demanded entry. His sister was clearly too angry to care. It wasn’t hot anger either. It was cold anger, icy and implacable and resolved.

    “What happened to no-one else in the firing line, ae?” Marc’s sister challenged him levelly, in the dead language of Makita spire 13.

    Marc matched ice with ice. "Is Solvan gonnae tell me that justice is a sin now?"

    "He’ll tell you that blind wrath is.” Kelly narrowed her brown eyes, the ones she shared with their dead mother. “Come on tae frak, Marc. Either you lost it, like you promised you wouldnae, or you really didnae give a shit about Kally and the others when you tried to get Maxilium to burn you all.”

    She folded her arms.

    “Would you have done the same if I was on the station too?”

    Marc bared his teeth. “Dinnae be a frakking idiot, Kel.”

    “Aye? Alright then. Explain your flawless logic to me.”

    “Alley was about to get away, with a daemon. Arcolin’s slipped away too many times to risk not confirming the kill. And Ella…”

    “I notice you’re only naming enemies, not our friends.” Kelly observed. “Maybe if you’d been focusing more on the latter Ella wouldn’t have-”

    “Ella was your friend too, you know.” Marc snapped at her. He saw the sting of truth hit home, though his sister tried to hide the wound with anger.

    “Don’t you dare try and turn this round on me, Marc.” she growled. “Were you thinking of anyone else when you tried to call the hammer down? Were you thinking of Vince or-”

    The name made Marc see red.

    “Vince was dead, Kel!” he shouted at her, so loud that she flinched involuntarily. “That son of a bitch Carson bashed his frakking skull in! Machairi was dead too for all I knew, and Saph as well!”

    “Uh huh?” Kelly’s lips pressed together into a thin, hard line. “And Kally?”

    Marc shook his head. “She’d understand.”

    “Oh would she now? Have you asked her?” Kelly mirrored her brother’s sharp head-shake. “Newsflash Marc. Getting the bad guy at any price isnae taking the long view, and having no frakking emotional intelligence isnae the same as being frakking logical. You want to be like Sidonis, burning down Makita Hive and calling it a win because it stopped that C’tan shard? You've put this vendetta of yours above all of us. Just like you did with Alley.” She paused. “And I'm done. I’m so frakking done."

    Marc gave a dry, humourless laugh. “You’re done?

    “Yes. With you.”

    Something about her eyes made the retort wither and die in his throat. They stared each other in silence for one heartbeat, two, three. Then Kelly turned and slumped out of the room, closing the door behind her and leaving him in the dark.

    As his anger and irritation drained away, Marc felt regret ooze into the cracks they had left. She was his sister after all. And she was the objective one, even if she could be prickly. Sighing, he dropped his head into his hands. The empty eye-socket beneath his gauze bandage itched, and he knuckled it until the itch turned into a spike of pain.

    Lurching to his feet, he pulled the door open onto the red-lit crewman’s passage. Kelly had already disappeared. He traced her route back to the opposite crew berth and pulled out his shipboard keycard to swipe across the guardian scanner.

    It buzzed a negative in reply.

    He tried again; same result.

    Kelly, what the frak are you doing? He knew his sister - she never did things simply out of spontaneous spite.

    What the frak are you doing?

    “Kel?” he called out. When no-one answered he thumped his fist against the door. “Kelly?”

    No-one came to unlock it; not his sister, not Kally, not Sapphira. Either they weren’t in, or they agreed with his sister.

    What the frak are you doing? Whatthefrakareyoudoing? Whatthefrakareyoudoing?

    He stared at the cold metal door, willing his sister to come back. But she didn’t.

    On the other side, Kelly slumped with her back against the locked door, feeling the dull vibration of Marc’s fist as a judder through her spine. Hot, angry tears pricked at her eyes, and she stumbled away from the door. She made it halfway back to her cabin before she sagged against the bulkhead and broke down weeping.

    + + + + + +

    Tephaine, Adrantis subsector capital

    It was late before Ella was able to summon the courage to talk to Alicia, and later still before there was a chance for them to be alone. It had been a draining, punishing day of introductions, re-introductions, media interviews and strategy meetings. When Alicia finally limped back to the spire-top apartment that Tierce had set aside for her, her jade aura was cracked and faded, and Ella hadn’t had the heart to disturb her without at least giving her an hour to eat, wash and rest.

    So instead she paced the soft-carpeted atrium beneath the suite, listening to Tierce’s announcement playing on repeat across the holo-screens. With no soul-spark attached to the pictures, Ella could make out none of the vid-reel, though during a brief respite that afternoon Alicia had described it to her in careful detail.

    The long-dead inquisitor Nalaran’s face would flash up - the Imperial thug who had abducted governor Tierce on Siculi, hoping to trap and destroy the Nebula corps and thus curtail Adrantis’ ability to defend itself without the Imperium. Alicia would come next, armoured and proud, the hero who had saved Tierce and who had now returned once again to guard them against the Imperium’s wrath. Ella’s former team-mates were in the vid-reel too. Sapphira, Glabrio, Crenshaw... Alicia had quotes and picts and vox-recordings stored within the Arthrashastra’s data banks, and the Adrantian propagandists were twisting every one of them for maximum effect. Crenshaw seemed to feature most prominently - although, Ella reflected, the major was about as straight an example of unyielding, machine-cold Imperial tyranny as the Adrantians could wish for.

    As the report moved on to the murdered Nebulas, and began to extol the egalitarianism and solidarity of the feral-worlder Kirabo laying down her life alongside the spire-born Callisto, Ella gathered her courage and climbed the spiral stair. The polished wood bannister was smooth under her grip, and on the stone steps she could see Alicia’s psychic footprints slowly fading.

    As Ella approached the top of the stairs, she halted. Her warp-sight picked out smooth walls and carved doors, rendered in translucent grey. She thought she could hear a woman’s voice - not Alicia’s. It was singing, humming a soft lullaby that drifted through the closed doors ahead of her. The sound trickled into her mind without bothering to pass through her ears first. Ella’s neck tingled, raising the hairs that were cut short above the neural plug in her spine. She pressed forward, the ghost-image of the apartment resolving slowly out of the darkness ahead of her. She smelled sweet incense, curling from tapers atop the radiator panels. She heard the hum of lumoglobes, and the gentle whir of the extractors pumping scrubbed air down from the stratosphere outside the spire. And still she heard the singing - soft, haunting, oddly beautiful.

    Beyond the transparent veil of the bedchamber wall, a green soul glowed. Alicia was curled up on her bed, bleeding exhaustion and the soft psychic ripples of dream-sleep. Another soul that was not a soul hovered over her. It was thin and indistinct; one moment showing the hint of a face, the next fracturing into a kaleidoscope of dark swirls. It was all blue - beautiful, soothing, mesmerising, terrifying blue.

    The Other raised its head briefly, regarding Ella for a moment with placid indifference. Then it looked away, stroking one clawed hand softly through Alicia’s hair as it sang her to sleep.
    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.


  4. #164
    The Last Remembrancer
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    I hate hospitals. I spend too much time in them.

    She gave up on reading the 'edifying spiritual pamphlet' some well meaning sister or navy medicae had left next to her bed, and laid back, trying to get comfortable and sleep. Her body was a mass of complaining bruises, healing bones and reknitting muscles.

    Two months.

    She sighed in frustration. Two months to heal, then she would need to get fit again. Call it three to re-equip and fully recover, four to work up leads. Four months, at best, to get back on their trail.

    All that time, others would be on the hunt, snapping up data and witnesses, chasing down the information she needed.

    She stared up at the white washed ceiling and wondered why Alicia De Rei had left her alive.

    “I didn’t want it to be like this. I hoped we could be on the same side.”

    Kally huffed. Like she had said, she believed there was only one side. The Imperium, despite its first-hand experienced monstrousness, was the best and only chance for the survival of humanity in a galaxy actively set against it. She knew this, because Blanks in Sidonis’ employ got to read more sequestered and classified material than anyone else. She knew.

    If Alicia had known, really known, what she had let into her body, Kally doubted she would be able to live with herself.

    Lost in her own thoughts, staring at the white ceiling, she missed the door opening. She didn't realise she wasn't alone until someone sat down next to her bed. She turned over and sat up when she realised it was Solvan.

    “Easy, Kally.” The old priest put out a hand as Kally winced. “I heard about your. . .confrontation with Sapphira a few days ago. Are you. . .well?”

    Kally snorted. “I was still on painkillers. I'm fine.”

    Solvan smiled. “I can see that. I have. . .something else for you.” He reached into his robes, and pulled out a small dataslate. He fumbled with it for a second, before passing it to Kally.

    She read the first few lines, before pausing.

    “Vince's will.” Kally blinked a few times, holding back tears, then kept reading. There was one item that caught her eye.

    “He left me the Pembroke case money. And asked I used it to . . .avenge him.”

    “Not exactly the language he used.” Solvan huffed. “But yes. I imagine the transfers have gone through by now, I made the appropriate calls this morning to the banking guilds below. Scintillia may be a den of sin, but at least it has efficient bankers.”

    Kally had fallen silent, staring at the pad. Fresh tears were tracking down her face.

    “Kally, listen to me. I know what you are thinking. Let this go. This was. . .this was a different Vincent. You've talked before about getting out. Now is your chance, as much as I don't necessarily approve of your choices in that particular. . .arena, Crenshaw will look after you.”

    “You don't understand.” It was practically a whisper. “He would do the same for me.”

    +++++

    The Scintillia sinks reminded her so much of home it was painful. She moved quietly and with purpose, though only lightly equipped with a silenced autopistol and a short knife, both under a heavy slick cloak whose inside was laced with cameoline. This was about as off the books as she could manage, what with Tomas breathing down everyone's necks.

    She needed a doctor. A good one. Or a very, very bad one.

    She finally found the meeting place. It was a dive bar advertised by garish neon strips and holographic dancing girls. She could feel the dustcore music pounding even out here in the street. As she watched, a massively muscled and lumen-tatted heavy stepped out the door and threw someone out into the street. She smoothly stepped round the crumpled bleeding mess and came face to chest with the bouncer.

    “You ain't local.” The man sneered. “I know all the locals. Locals only.”

    Kally pushed back her hood. “My gelt is as gold as anyone else's, and I don't want trouble.”

    “Neither do I. You check that custom piece of yours, then you're good.”

    Kally knew how this needed to play out. She placed her autopistol into the man’s outstretched paw of a hand, followed by a small bag of local gelt. The man nodded, and taking her right wrist, he jabbed her with a bio-sampler. She was edified to see he at least had the decency to wipe it with alcohol afterwards. Her gun was tagged and dropped into a slot in the wall.

    “You can keep the shiv. Cause any trouble, and I'll break you in two. Have a nice evening.”

    Normally, Kally would have laughed off such a threat. Laughing hurt though.

    “I will. Thanks.”

    She stepped through the airlock door, and into the club. She pressed two fingers to her implanted vox caster.

    “I'm in.”

    +Good.+ Raechel, the Dragon Agent, was on the other end. As Kally weaved through the clubbers, she noted that most of them seemed young, and all of them were better armed than her. The locals clearly got to keep their pistols, and more than a few were heavily modded. Bionic arms and eyes abounded. Even the dancers on the stages had re-built limbs that granted them superhuman flexibility. +Scan left and right.+

    Kally did so, letting the Ocularis see what she could see through a contact lense like device in her eye.

    +There. The VIP booth. Be careful.+

    Kally smirked and strode across the club, grabbing a pair of drinks in the process. Her progress was halted by a pair of twins, supple men in clubber’s attire with opposite limbs and eyes removed, and replaced with artisan grade bionics. Small opus machinae made of gold were implanted into their bronzed foreheads. Both carried las carbines, slung at the small of their backs. She heard Raechel hiss over the vox, though out of desire or disgust she wasn't sure.

    “I need to talk to your boss.” The two looked at each other, back to her, and shook their heads. “Tell her that Sonder owes her a drink.”

    They both frowned, then stepped back and to the side. Kally nodded, then stepped into the booth.

    Sitting between two more heavily-augmented pretty things was her target.

    “Zerlinda Ghast. You're looking well.”

    “Kally Sonder.” Zerlinda sat up fully and took the offered drink. “You look like death.” The tech priestess gestured for her to sit, and she did so.

    +I have met quite a few hereteks,+ Raechel commented over the vox. +But one holding court like a mob kingpin is new. Be careful Kally. She is dangerous, even if she is a disgrace to the Priesthood.+

    “Can you tell Raechel that I would happily return to the temple, if those monstrous old bastards wanted me. Despite my pardon I am still damaged goods.” The drink disappeared into the heavily gold-embroidered robe that Ghast was wearing, then re-emerged mostly drunk. “And why is Oppen not here with you? He is a true masterwork of the augmentecists art.” She waved a tentacle airily. "I liked talking to and looking at him."

    “Oppen died.” Kally cut off Raechel’s incredulous responses, then killed the vox entirely. “I'm hunting those that killed him. Traitors that are hiding in the Adrantis sub.”

    “You may not have noticed, Kally, but this isn't the Adrantis sub. I don't know any hereteks or heretics anymore, I'm keeping my nose scrupulously clean.”

    “The chop shop you run is skirting the line, Ghast. Mod-work on rich noble brats and brute upgrades for local gangs. Never mind your line in unlicensed juvenat work. I could turn you in to the arbites and they'd have every excuse to smash your little operation, considering this club is littered with examples of your unlicensed work.”

    There was a snap. The twins behind her, the languid boys hanging off Zerlinda’s robes, and the two girls sitting in the booth and smoking obscura had all, simultaneously, drawn weapons and aimed them at her. Las-sights formed a pattern on her torso.

    “Do not threaten me, Agent Sonder.” Zerlinda hissed. The remainder of the drink disappeared into the hood. “I can make you disappear, and then disappear myself. I am a survivor, Agent, and I will do anything to keep surviving.”

    “Kill me and you'll have half a dozen different Adeptus hunting you down, and your pardon won't mean shit. Anyway, I can pay.”

    Kally reached slowly into her robe and pulled out a data slate. The guards put their weapons away, though Kally was cognisant of the threat they still posed. She slid the slate across the table, and a metallic tentacle slithered from Zerlinda's robes to take it.

    “Black bone bracing, gland work, muscle enhancement with myomer. Artificial lung, eye, ear, as well as an MIU interface, all cross linked to an implanted data-tether. Layered over the top, you want about 10 years cut off to restore lost function to nerves and remove some very unsightly scars. I never took you for a vain woman.”

    “That last thing isn't for me.” Kally sipped her drink. “Can you do it?”

    “It’s all in my wheelhouse.” Zerlinda drummed metallic fingers on the table. “I can fit you in in a year or so, and it will take about a month of work.”

    “Not good enough.” Kally slid another data slate across the table. “I need you to start tomorrow at the latest.”

    “Kally, dear, I have other clients, and they have paid good money, I simply. . .” the mechandrite picked up the other slate. “Will explain that something has come up and we will start prep this evening, as you are clearly in a rush.”

    “Thank you.”

    +++++

    She was staring at a whitewashed ceiling again. But it felt. . .different, somehow. She felt different. More alive.

    She rose and stretched. She was in a medical smock, and what she had done - and the amount of money she had just spent - jumped into sharp relief in her brain. She would have been out for a week as Zerlinda worked her tech-magic on her battered body.

    She stared down at her hands and marvelled, flexing her fingers in sequence. Her skin was almost luminous in its clean newness.

    “You look good.”

    She looked round, and realised that Crenshaw had been sitting next to her bed.

    “You found me.” She turned to face him. “What do you think?”

    “I think you are insane. You handed yourself over to a borderline tech heretek and let her work on you for almost a week without any warning to your friends or colleagues. Sapphira is having kittens.”

    “But you found me, and let them know I'm alright?”

    Crenshaw clacked his teeth together. “Yes. Raechel does not do 'guilty secret' very well.”

    “I hope you didn't give Ghast too much trouble.”

    Crenshaw clacked his teeth together again, a sure sign he was angry. “She is fine. But you are coming back with me, now.”

    Kally crossed her arms.

    “Am I in any danger?”

    “No, but. . .”

    “Have I spent anybody's money but my own?”

    “Arguably, but. . .”

    “Is it, in point of fact, Major Martin Crenshaw, my body, my choice, to do with as I please, and take the risks I want?”

    Crenshaw grimaced. “Agent Kally Sonder, you have responsibilities. To more than just yourself.”

    “I'm doing this, Crenshaw. I need to finish this out. I need to be able to go toe-to-toe with the Nebulas, because I am going to hunt Alicia De Rei down and bring her in.”

    He looked away. She smiled, knowing that at this moment, the man she loved was a seething pit of contradicting emotions that he would never (and could never) properly express.

    “You will die if you do this alone. Which is what you are planning to do.” He finally ground out. “I. . . cannot let that happen.”

    She clambered out of the bed, and gently pulled his face round to look at her.

    “Look at me.” She leaned in. “I have waited my whole life to find someone like you. I am not going to let you go now. But I know you love me because I am as good as my word, and I promised to the people that I love that I would finish this. I can't turn away from this.”

    They kissed, just briefly, because it felt right and natural and perfect.

    “I've got an idea.” Kally breathed.

    +++++

    It was easily the most rundown chapel Solvan had ever seen. It would have taken an ocean’s worth of holy water to scrub it clean of the ancient, ingrained grime that clung to its STC prefab walls and pews. The preacher who ran the place was a good sort, the kind of dangerously earnest true believer that Solvan would have avoided like the plague in his younger days, but now found inspiring, even with the faded gang tattoos and the collection of piercings. The sizeable donation Kally had coughed up to secure the place would be put to good use, he was sure. And that would probably please Kally, as she had grown up in a neighbourhood much like this one; run down and forgotten, full of people trying to eke out a meagre living. As Solvan sat on the stone steps and watched a group of dirty hab children kick a ration can around the street, he wondered how high they might rise, one day, if given the chance to prove themselves.

    The young preacher walked up next to him, and lightly touched him on the shoulder.

    “It is time, Father. All are assembled and ready.”

    He nodded, stood, and dusted off his hands and brushed down his robes.

    “Thank you again, Preacher Melik.”

    “It is my humble pleasure to serve agents of the Throne in this.” The young man smiled widely. “In any way I can.”

    They walked through the priest’s small, humble quarters, and Solvan noted with a pleased eye that the young Melik hadn't eschewed all the trappings of his former life, as weapons littered the small rooms. Melik noticed Solvan’s roaming eyes and perhaps misinterpreted his look.

    “The Emperor calls on us to be armed against the dangers to the mind, body and soul every day, Father. Down here, the dangers to the body are at the forefront.”

    “I couldn't have said it better myself.” Solvan paused to pick up a well-thumbed book from the personal collection he had left on a small table, along with a small flask of blessed water, taken from Maccabeus Quintus.

    The pair stepped out into the nave. These small, STC shrines could hold two hundred people, tightly packed in pews. Now, it held a dozen. Standing before the Aquila altar was Crenshaw, and Solvan thought he detected a hint of nervousness in the man’s stance and in the way he flicked imaginary dirt from his uniform. But it could be his imagining.

    Standing to one side with a censor was Sapphira, in her habit. She had insisted on taking this role, as atonement for her deception. He wondered how long that would take to heal.

    Siting in the pews were Kelly, Glabrio and Vizkop. Gavin was a bit further back, sitting with Raechel who had been invited as a courtesy, and because Kally had leaned on her and felt she owed her. Tomas and Machairi were notable by their absence; Machairi not well enough to travel and Tomas unwilling to leave her side for a moment.

    Solvan gestured to Melik, who activated a battered voxcaster, which began to play 'Angevins March'.

    +++++

    “Are you sure about this?” Marc asked as the music started up. He had almost refused the role, and Kelly had gone on an unusually bitter tirade when she heard, but Kally had shouted both of the Black siblings down.

    “Yes.” She shot back at Marc. “You really don't like him, do you?”

    Marc’s face twisted, pulling at the raw skin around the milk-white bionic that had replaced his left eye. “Is it that much of a surprise?”

    “No.” Kally looked at the floor briefly. “But I need someone like him, Marc. And he needs someone like me. When we are together. . .”

    “Please, no details.” Marc made a face that caused Kally to laugh. “Nervous?”

    “Never. Shall we?”

    +++++

    Marc and Kally entered, Kally on Marc’s arm. Kally's father was many years dead, after all, so it made sense for Marc to be the one to walk her down the aisle.

    There where audible gasps from her friends as they saw the results of the juvenat work for the first time. Kally had shed a decade of hard fighting, scars and all, and looked like she had stepped from a noble’s beauty parlour, even though Solvan knew she was only wearing minimal makeup and her number one uniform. Finally, the two reached the altar and Kally craned up to peck Marc on the cheek.

    “Humble servants,” Solvan began, summoning up his most stentorian voice. “We are gathered here today, under the sight of the God Emperor of Mankind, to join in holy matrimony two loyal servants of the Throne.” Solvan looked the couple over, Kally smiling like a hab kid on her first high, Crenshaw stiff-backed and uncomfortable. “While all owe first fealty to the Emperor, and serve him with their lives, he generously allows us to serve others with our hearts. We implore of Him on Terra to look on this union and find it worthy, that both may serve the Emperor with all their strength, and each other with all their hearts. May He bless you both with courage, loyalty, dutifulness and honour, from this day, till your last day. Ave Imperator.”

    “Ave Imperator.” the small group chanted back.

    “Those gathered here today have been asked to fulfill the holy duty of witness to this union, that they might hold vigilance against those forces that would lead it astray. Many are those forces: corruption, perfidy, and worse that I shall not name. We ask that the Emperor shield the souls and hearts of this couple, that their days may be filled with happy service to the Throne, and to each other. Ave Imperator.”

    “Ave Imperator.”

    “Finally, I ask you all, now, to think on this couple before you, their deeds and their sins, their faults and frailties, and if you can think of any reason they should not be joined before the Emperor, speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

    There was a silence, and considering some of the. . .personalities at play, and those who bore a personal (and justified) grudge against Crenshaw, Solvan was glad it held until Glabrio piped up, causing him to flinch.

    “Father, if we listed all the stuff those two got up too, we'd be here all night. I think we can safely say they deserve each other at this point!”

    There was some stifled laughing from those assembled, and Solvan would have reprimanded him if Kally hadn't covered her mouth to laugh as well.

    “Well, yes. Thank you Glabrio. Anyone else? No? Good. In that case, Kally Sonder, please repeat after me.”

    +++++

    They exchanged, vows and rings, they kissed, and everyone cheered and applauded. And that was all they needed.

    The whole group, after thanking Brother Melik for his service, retreated to a nearby bar. Kally had paid to have the place clear for their use, and they sat around a few pulled-together tables, drank, and toasted.

    It was somewhere between a reception and a wake. They had lost people, good people. Stories were swapped and gone over, Glabrio broke out a pack of cards and Solvan donated some fine cigars, “a gift from Tomas”. They talked, drank, and for a little while it was old times. The old gang, toasting to absent friends.

    Kally was into her fourth drink and laughing uproariously at an impression Kelly was making when
    her implanted vox buzzed.

    +Kally, its time.+

    She sighed and blew a breath out of her nose from frustration. She lifted her glass to her lips one last time, and looked around the room. Glabrio, smiling and joking to Saphirra, who was just beginning to come out of her shell all over again. Kelly, good, sweet soul Kelly Black, sitting and holding up cards for Gavin to guess. Even Gavin had overcome his discomfort, and was smiling wanly as Kelly prodded him along. Reachel was watching the odd guessing game and chuckling at some joke between the three. Solvan looking over his little flock like a forgiving grandfather, rolling a cigar between his fingers, clearly savouring it. Finally, her eyes fell on Marc and Crenshaw, both of whom were talking in short, sharp bursts about some intelligence details.

    How different things almost were.

    She was worried about Marc. About them all, but especially Marc. This case, Arcolin. . . it had nearly broken him. She tried to pin the whole tableau in her minds eye, hold it like a pict. She could imagine Vince, standing behind the group with a bottle in each hand, and behind him, more shadows. More friends she'd lost along the way.

    She turned her glass upside down and dropped it onto the table and stood, pushing her chair back. Crenshaw was standing in the next second, and immediately all faces were on her, imploring her to stay.

    “I've got to go.” Kally waved them off. “I know, I know. But I think me and the Major deserve a little privacy. . .”

    There was boo's and jeers, all of it good natured, as Kally and Crenshaw waved the party good bye, and stepped out into the night. The cold sink air hit Kally like a wall.

    “Hey, Sonder.”

    She turned and smiled. Glabrio had slipped out with them, and Kally had missed it.
    When did he get that good?
    “Hey yourself.”

    “I know we haven't ever been the closest. But, good luck, seriously. I think everyone here knows you are going to pull a lone wolf hunt for Alicia and Ella. Don't get killed.”

    Lone Wolves get killed, Agent Sonder.

    “Thanks. I promise to come back in one piece.” Crenshaw tightened the grip on her hand. “That's what all this is about.”

    Glabrio nodded, and rubbed his neck. “Machairi gave me something to pass to you. Give you an edge. A wedding present of a sort.”

    He pressed a slim, black box into her free hand. Kally looked quizzically at Glabrio before opening it, her breath catching. It was a slim, obsidian badge, a stylised 'I' centred on a skull. Glabrio smiled and pulled back his lapel, revealing the badge’s twin pinned to the inside of his regulator’s storm coat.

    “Good luck, Interrogator Sonder.”

    Kally laughed, and pulled Glabrio into a hug.

    “Good luck yourself, Interrogator Hybridia.”

    Glabrio stepped back and away, holding up his hands towards the Major. “Hey, you saw that, she started it.”

    “Do not make a habit of it, Interrogator.”

    “I won't, Major.” He flipped a lazy salute, then sketched bow to Kally, before disappearing back into the bar.

    “He agreed to cover our retreat.”

    “He's a good man. They all are. People. Good people.”

    Crenshaw was silent. He was staring at the metal door, his uninjured hand gripped tight around Kally's.

    “We can go back inside, if you want. You do not have to go.” He finally said. His voice was close to breaking.

    She stepped in front of her husband, and wrapped her free hand round the back of his head.

    “Hey. Hey. Listen to me. I'm not going anywhere. I promised you, that I'll love you for the rest of my life, and I am determined that I am going to be around for a damn long time, alright?”

    There was a shuddering breath, and Kally wasn't sure if it was hers or Martins.

    My Major

    +++++

    She was staring at the white washed ceiling again. No Crenshaw this time. He was a month away, hopefully embedded in an intelligence unit attached to a Guard regiment, and safely out of reach of Inquisitorial rivals.

    She sighed, and rolled out of the bed. She flexed, and felt no different. But when she blinked, reticules played across her vision. Her skin felt tight and cool at the back of her neck, like it was covered in a sheet of plastek.

    It was done then.

    Ghast entered the room and Kally spun, then blinked in surprise that she had entered the room outside hers. Her hearing had improved that much. When the Tech Priestess stepped in, she tossed Kally a ball, which she smoothly caught.

    “Good, good. How you are feeling?”

    “Not. . . Not that different.”

    “That's good. If you had any discomfort or pain, it would mean something wasn't wired up properly. In other news, the last of your shipments have arrived.”

    “All accounted for?” She asked as Ghast passed her a stealth bodyglove to change into.

    “Indeed. Combined with your personal equipment, you've got enough material to fight a small covert war.”

    “Well, that's the plan. Any issues?”

    Ghast grunted and passed a medicae auspex over her, checking the readout.

    “Only that you've been made. A small hit squad has been reconnoitring the area around my lab for the past 24 hours.” Kally looked up at Ghast, alarmed. “Don't worry, they haven't found you yet. But not for long.”

    “Alright. Plan B then.”

    “Plan B. I hate plan B. Fine. Get on with it.”

    Kally snapped out with her fist and caught Zerlinda in the chest, throwing the tech adept backwards and through the wall. She pulled a stubgun from her webbing and stalked through the billowing plaster dust as Zerlinda scrambled away on the floor.

    “Make it look good, Agent!” she rasped.

    “I will.” She fired twice, and then went to get the remainder of her gear.

    +++++

    “So, you're saying she betrayed you?”

    “Yes, I'm saying she betrayed me.” rasped Ghast, blood and other fluids bubbling around her shattered augmetic lung. The Tempestus Scion medic working on her raised a thumb. “She paid me upfront, which was suspicious, but I assumed she was desperate. I run a clean operation here.”

    “Well. Clean enough that Inquisitor Yannick is unlikely to pursue any charges at this time.” The Scion commander pulsed a command into his voxnet, and the ten-man kill team started to pull out. “My medic has stabilised you. Don't try to leave the hive, the Inquisition may have more questions for you.”

    “Perish the thought.” Zerlinda muttered. Without another word, the Scions retreated, leaving Zerlinda sitting on the operation table she had used to, very successfully, augment Kally Sonder into a one-woman army.

    She sent out a noospheric pulse to call her servants back to her. She'd need an extra set of hands to repair the damage, minor though it was. In truth rebuilding the damn wall and putting the front security door back on its hinges would take more time than swapping out an artificial lung and three plastek ribs.

    Sighing, she shambled over to a medicine cabinet, retrieved a bottle from it and took a long drink.

    “Good luck, Agent Sonder.” She took another swig. “You're going to need it.”

    Last edited by dakkagor; 10-04-2018 at 12:19 PM.

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