Post by Lex on Feb 25, 2007 9:06:12 GMT -5
The tale of Rogue Inquisitor Lord Sluice, and his discovery of the boy. Does and will contain violence and some gore, but little or no profanity.
So far it only really introduces characters.
disclaimer;I have no onwership of any of the GW material.
Part One
The planet Centurion 12 is host to one of the strangest people known to the inquisition. He was born in the first year of the forty first millennium, six hundred years ago to this day. On that day the Doxial sub-sector suffered a massive warp storm that enveloped entire planets, each of which slowly drained of life until very suddenly the storm left.
Taking many of the planets with it.
The planet Centurion twelve orbits a star, a star created by the power of the warp storm. Originally it was a planet of ice, whose depths no machine could reach. When the storm came the ice gradually evaporated, and somehow formed one of Centurion twelve’s moons; a water moon called Giala.
But I am getting ahead of myself… it was the incident prior to the moon’s creation that interests me, and concerns the child. He was born early, three days early to be precise, the B*st*rd son of a heretic and a slave. His birth brought with it a final lash from the warp storm, which destroyed the ship the child was on. The inquisition only knows this because he was willing to tell us, a rarity I assure you.
The child is one of three apex level Psykers that I have heard mention of, though his powers… fluctuate uncontrollably.
I met him, in the late sixth century.
This is my story.
*
The ship was bustling with the grind and clank of servitors at work, and the air was thick with smoke and fumes. My metal soled boots clanked down the corridor that led to the astropath’s quarters, but my mind was elsewhere.
Over the years I have developed low level Psyker abilities, not amounting to much, but enough to help me with my work. I have ascertained a class E grading, which is enough for my purposes. My one use for the warp is memory, and the things it has seen. Using this I can tell the history of a place just by being there, or feeling an object from it. On occasion I get flashes from the future, a varying distance away.
As I entered the astropath’s transmission room, the warp flashed pain, soon.
I addressed the astropath formally, knowing he was not the sort to exchange banter with. After a moments idle introductions I asked if he would check my account for transmissions. I had been away a long time… too long. I needed to know what had gone on since.
There were three messages. One was from my brother, the other two from the ordos.
The astropath inputted the data mentally into my mind, careful not to read any of it. I thanked him and left, going through what had been sent.
The first message froze my blood; it was the authentification of my brother’s death. I hadn’t seen him in two years, there hadn’t been time… guilt flowed through me, but I gently put it aside, I would visit the grave within the next month.
Slightly put out I returned to my chamber and worked my way through the ordos messages. The first informed me that my duties had been withdrawn until I could prove my faith, the second declared me hereticus, diabolus, and xenus.
I was hardly surprised.
Sitting slowly on my bed I picked up a data slate from my bedside, scanning through the list of crimes I had committed against the imperium. I had written the list, and therefore it was short.
The last entry burned particularly true; refusal to assist the ordos in the cleansing of a planet. My three acolytes had been routed out there, and I admit that more caution should have been taken by myself.
It is difficult to hide a heretic from the inquisition, nigh on impossible. It is harder still to mask a xeno, particularly a Hrud, from the ordo xenos. Demon hosts… lets not attempt to work out the struggle.
But somehow I had managed all three, and if I hadn’t been so stupid they would still be safe now. The vox at my bedside crackled to life and a slightly whiny series of screeches were emitted, I translated them.
“Bridge-deck… arrive soon. Master done?”
I sent a reply using a language I had developed, and there was a second of background chatter. The whines started again. Slowly my brain engaged and I understood the chatter instantly.
“I’m done.”
“Morl stay here-here, sin-swine coming up chat.”
The Hrud switched off the communicator and I counted off three second before ‘sin-swine’ floated up through the floor. She bowed elegantly, her pale skin rippling where it made contact. I gave her a nod and she spoke.
“You simply have to get rid of that rat thing! He is truly foul! And what kind of name is sin-swine might ask?”
She had been reading my thoughts, which disgruntled me a little, but I let her anyway. Who knows what she would do if I had secrets? Her loyalty to me was questionable, a whim a decade ago where she decided she would try and keep me alive for eternity.
A trivial challenge for one as powerful as herself.
“Sin-swine is just a name, an object. Be thankful it, yes it is an it, didn’t know your real name.”
Knowing a demons name gave you power over it, but she shrugged as though it wouldn’t matter. As an afterthought she stopped the ripples on her body, realising how uncomfortable they made me.
She beckoned with a white finger and I followed her to the bridge, jogging to keep up with her speed. After a minute of clanking boots I stepped onto the bridge, and waited for a second so that my last acolyte would turn. He didn’t, he just bent lower over a sword he had laid on the adamantium table.
I tapped my foot in irritation; he was engrossed in some heretical thing again. Morl dropped from the roof and tapped the heretic on the shoulder. He turned, probably more because of the smell.
The trio stood before me; the stocky cloaked Hrud clicking its jaws, the demon host bobbing inches from the floor, and the heretic nervously playing with an amulet which glowed purple.
The heretic stepped forwards. I allowed him to speak.
“We will arrive at Centurion 4 in a few days; there has been some warp disturbance which I have worked to our advantage… which will drop the time but it is a little… risky.”
I was concerned, his use of risky translated as ‘mortally deadly’.
“How so?”
He sighed and pulled a data sheet from his pocket.
“It has a small chance of destroying the planet and perhaps a few nearby ones too.”
‘Small chance’, he wasn’t doing very well at hiding the truth.
“What is the chance?”
“Oh nothing, only about forty percent-”
I silenced him with a wave, and inclined my head, eyes shut, to face the ceiling.
“Can you get us into the system, without a chance of destroying things?”
He consulted his charts, his finger tracing a line of some kind. My mind wanted to loom at what he had written… but I forced myself not to. His writings were… disarming at best. More often they drove minds to dementia.
He came back, muttering something under his breath.
“We can drop you off at Centurion 12, it’s small and convenient. Marl may want to-”
There was a second of irritated chatter, and a clawed grey-green armature slapped the heretic’s leg before quickly withdrawing into the cloak.
“Morl, I apologize. The demon host can get himself to Centurion 4, and I will go with him. Morl won’t fit in with the Centurion 12 population… they are very suspicious. He will have to remain with the ship while you move to the surface, conduct your work, and get out. Sound good?”
There was a screech of pain, a cry of pure anguish before the sound of flesh tearing itself apart and liquefying on the floor.
“That doesn’t,” I looked at the demon host for a second, she had a cheeky grin on her face, “your doing?”
She shook her head.
“I just liked the noise.”
Worry overcame me and I rushed back, remembering the flash of pain I had seen.
I threw myself through the glass doors of the astropath’s room, sliding across the bloody floor. The demon host appeared at my side, her smile gone.
We both stared at the boy splashing around in the blood.
Part two
The child stopped splashing and stared at us. Beside me the demon host shivered, gradually floating back. The child blinked and the lights flickered. I stole a glance at the demon host; she was horrified, not a good sign in any instance.
The lights turned off and the air turned cold, the demon host yelped and flew back through the wall, screaming in agony. The lights turned back on and a man looked at me, his naked body bathed in blood.
A trickle of blood stared in the corner of my mouth; I gently wiped it away and stared as the man approached. I chanced a whisper.
“Who are you?”
I don’t know.
The voice echoed in my head, the trickle of blood increased slightly.
Another step forward.
“What are you?”
I am me.
Ringing, bouncing inside my skull. I began to feel faint. I mouthed a few more words.
“Why was she scared of you?”
Because she is not a fool. Now hush inquisitor, you are worrying yourself.
I nodded, and the trickle of blood stopped. The naked man held out a hand for me to shake, but I was too petrified to move. I managed a half pace backwards.
“Why are you here? Why did you kill my astropath?”
He tuned in on me, and the warp spat me across the galaxy. I didn’t mean for him to die, the warp did.
The lights flickered and the man was gone. There was a child’s laughter for a few seconds, then nothing. The silence was penetrated by the chittering of Morl as he flung himself round the corner.
He only knows one word in gothic, he spoke it now.
“Blood-blood!”
He dragged his cloak through the plasma; I didn’t stay to watch the rest. I stalked off down the corridor, confused and afraid. It had been a long time since I had last felt fear. There was a rush of air and the demon host was beside me, her skin turned an ugly shade of creamy blue.
“Is it gone?”
I stared at her, her perfect feminine body draped in an aristocratic velvet robe.
She was genuinely frightened. I told her it had gone.
Her old smile struggled back to her face.
“Good… I didn’t like it… it hurt me so much.”
She grabbed me in a painfully tight embrace, mimicking human emotion because her own were not enough. I pitied her, something I had never done before. I remembered the time I had first met her, many years ago.
In the possession of the rogue Inquisitor Mulan. He took four bolter rounds to the brain and survived them all; it was only when I had rammed an Imperial bible down his throat that he had died. She had been in his possession, and I turned her over to the ordos. She was in a male body back then, but that host had been destroyed.
She had returned to save my life, in payment for saving her own. I didn’t know I had saved her, and in those days I had been a puritan, and shunned her presence. In my life I have executed almost a dozen inquisitors for less than having a demon host have loyalty to them.
How very ironic that now seemed.
I returned to the bridge, thinking about what I had just seen. A Psyker obviously, more powerful than my demon host, capable of… almost anything. The astropath must have died instantly, that creature tearing him apart with its sudden galaxy bound.
At least, that was if its story was true.
The Hrud returned, its entire robe no longer a dirty cream but red. I ignored the images of it rolling in the gore. The heretic was muttering something again, staring out of the great clearplex window and out into the warp. I thought saw a figure form in the bustling cloud like madness.
I emptied my mind and checked one of the dozens of computers mounted in the bridge. I checked the crew life signs, only the astropath was gone. That was easy enough, I could fetch one of those.
The demon host passed through the window of the ship, strengthening itself after that last encounter. She was glowing brightly when she returned.
The bridge was cluttered, and looking around I had already lost sight of the Hrud amidst the piles of junk that lay everywhere. It nested in the mounds somewhere, which was the only place it would remove its cloak. I had seen it once, clotheless, I never wanted to again.
The heretic was noisily keying in some data into the computer, he was the only person I could really talk to on the ship, so I paced over to him and stared over his shoulder at what he was doing. He hastily blocked my line of sight but I didn’t bother to question it. He was very secretive, due to some virus he had. He was reluctant to share information unless he had to.
“How long until we reach the planet? Rechartering the course will take a few days won’t it?”
He pressed a button and a holomap beamed up, projecting little spheres orbiting a vast sun. Little labels popped up, identifying the forty main planets, half of which were populated, and a score of other important cosmic formations.
He zoned in on a little section, the area surrounding Centurion 12. Keying in a few more buttons he overlaid the warp slip streams. With a screech he slammed on the warp exit button on the dashboard on the wall.
With a lurch we were thrown into real space. The heretic stared out of the great glass window and at the planet before us.
“We shouldn’t have arrived for another few days…”
The demon host fluttered up beside me, staring vacantly at the planet.
“We almost flew through the emotion of a population! Imagine the carnage!”
I didn’t want to, we had almost wiped out the planet with this unexpected move forwards. What had happened to increase our speed so much? I knew only one thing to claim to get so far, so fast.
And it happened to be a Psyker.
Part three
The bar was dark. Dust gripped the air in insufferable quantities. A musty smell lingered from the rotting beams, moisture occasionally dripping onto the small population of regulars and locals.
Wind soared into the room, moving more hot air around the building. Two figures stepped in through the open door, one shaking from some unknown chill, staggering forwards, having to support himself on each table in turn.
Each time his hands thudded down another customer turned, until he had the whole bars attention. They judged Bracken there and then, but none of them understood quite who, or what he was.
The other wore a vast billowing black cloak. Its hood covered her face, moving slightly with each breath. At her side hung a huge sword, its surface glowing slightly, as if in anticipation.
The woman swung her leg onto the stool; each movement seeming to take an age. An all too audible click sounded behind the robed form. A ganger stood behind her, auto gun aimed at the woman’s back.
“The sword, now. I isn’t got time to spare. Hand it over, don’t try to be hero.”
The robed woman swung around on the stool. She slid her feet onto the floor and pretended to stabilise herself.
“My hero’s are dead, I killed them”
She took a step forward, her hooded face inches from the would be assailant. The ganger gave a yelp of surprise and began pumping rounds into the cloak. His target flinched for a second, then put a hand on a fold in the hood, and pulled it away.
Her face was unexpectedly youthful; grey blue eyes stared out from slightly sunken sockets. Placing his hands on the ganger’s shoulders, she sunk her teeth deep into his neck. Then she withdrew, her cloak falling away.
The ganger shuddered for a second, and then exploded in a cacophony of cracking bone and tearing flesh. The young woman turned to the rest of the bar and grinned, his semi naked body suddenly wreathed in flames of warp fire.
“The people you know are the people I hate.”
Flames began to pour from her hands, consuming the unfortunate population of the bar. Soon only one was left, frozen to his seat. The two figures approached him, the quaking one still and well composed, the demon host smiling.
“Inquisitor, how nice of you to remain so still whilst I had my fun. Last words?”
*
Morl was quiet when I left him, unusually so. I had expected a complaint; he didn’t normally like being left on the ship. I didn’t question the silence, though I made it a point to ask him when I returned. There was still so much I could learn from him.
I took one of the bland landing cruisers from the ship’s port, and gently eased my way down to the docking platforms that rose like needles from the planet’s surface. Using a forged profile, I got safely past the security checks as a mercenary. I had done some research and noticed how common these sell-swords were, and I think that it probably aided with the guise.
The dock was a bustling heaving mass of people entering and departing, after descending some steps I entered a huge arena like hall, dotted with stands and circled by commercial buildings. It took a while to worm through the crowds, but once I had emerged from the massive space-port I was grateful for the work.
The hive I had chosen docked on the upper floors, so I was met by aristocratic sights instantly. After a month on a ship with some rather unwholesome, though useful, company, this was a sigh of relief.
My task on the planet was simple, I needed to get within range of the arbite offices and hack into the data files. Once through I needed to access the magenta class files using a stolen key-code, and find out just how badly the ordos wanted me dead. It was important, for I needed to get as safe as possible if I intend to continue bringing about the Emperor’s vengeance.
The streets in the upper spires were clean, though the cream of the walls was marred by a built up layer of stains. White never cleans properly; the shirt I wore was testament to it, the bullet High Lord Verdact had put there had ruined more than just one of kidneys.
The three I had returned had done enough though, the High Lord was no longer a threat.
The arbite centre leered at me; I slunk into an alley to its right and slunk behind some waste disposal cans. Pulling the vox caster from my pocket, I patiently scanned the centre for accessible links, tuning in to the usual arbite channels.
A passer by nearly spotted me as he sidled past, but as he took his double take I was gone. Cursing myself for the sheer stupidity and amateur concepts that an interrogator could defeat, I finally got through and into the arbite network.
** Please login…**
I fumbled with a note in my pocket, and slowly typed in the stolen number. Verdact had given me something in return for his bullet, but it would be found after a single use.
Dead men don’t use the arbite network.
I was past the clearance, which was the easy part. I wasn’t sure how they had labeled my case, and I wasn’t in a position to trawl through every single case in the sub sector, so I grabbed a few interesting prospects and added the three words that would almost definitely be in there.
Hereticus, ally of heretics.
Diabolus, ally of the warp.
Xenus, ally of the xenos.
So far it only really introduces characters.
disclaimer;I have no onwership of any of the GW material.
Sluice
[T]Part One
The planet Centurion 12 is host to one of the strangest people known to the inquisition. He was born in the first year of the forty first millennium, six hundred years ago to this day. On that day the Doxial sub-sector suffered a massive warp storm that enveloped entire planets, each of which slowly drained of life until very suddenly the storm left.
Taking many of the planets with it.
The planet Centurion twelve orbits a star, a star created by the power of the warp storm. Originally it was a planet of ice, whose depths no machine could reach. When the storm came the ice gradually evaporated, and somehow formed one of Centurion twelve’s moons; a water moon called Giala.
But I am getting ahead of myself… it was the incident prior to the moon’s creation that interests me, and concerns the child. He was born early, three days early to be precise, the B*st*rd son of a heretic and a slave. His birth brought with it a final lash from the warp storm, which destroyed the ship the child was on. The inquisition only knows this because he was willing to tell us, a rarity I assure you.
The child is one of three apex level Psykers that I have heard mention of, though his powers… fluctuate uncontrollably.
I met him, in the late sixth century.
This is my story.
*
The ship was bustling with the grind and clank of servitors at work, and the air was thick with smoke and fumes. My metal soled boots clanked down the corridor that led to the astropath’s quarters, but my mind was elsewhere.
Over the years I have developed low level Psyker abilities, not amounting to much, but enough to help me with my work. I have ascertained a class E grading, which is enough for my purposes. My one use for the warp is memory, and the things it has seen. Using this I can tell the history of a place just by being there, or feeling an object from it. On occasion I get flashes from the future, a varying distance away.
As I entered the astropath’s transmission room, the warp flashed pain, soon.
I addressed the astropath formally, knowing he was not the sort to exchange banter with. After a moments idle introductions I asked if he would check my account for transmissions. I had been away a long time… too long. I needed to know what had gone on since.
There were three messages. One was from my brother, the other two from the ordos.
The astropath inputted the data mentally into my mind, careful not to read any of it. I thanked him and left, going through what had been sent.
The first message froze my blood; it was the authentification of my brother’s death. I hadn’t seen him in two years, there hadn’t been time… guilt flowed through me, but I gently put it aside, I would visit the grave within the next month.
Slightly put out I returned to my chamber and worked my way through the ordos messages. The first informed me that my duties had been withdrawn until I could prove my faith, the second declared me hereticus, diabolus, and xenus.
I was hardly surprised.
Sitting slowly on my bed I picked up a data slate from my bedside, scanning through the list of crimes I had committed against the imperium. I had written the list, and therefore it was short.
The last entry burned particularly true; refusal to assist the ordos in the cleansing of a planet. My three acolytes had been routed out there, and I admit that more caution should have been taken by myself.
It is difficult to hide a heretic from the inquisition, nigh on impossible. It is harder still to mask a xeno, particularly a Hrud, from the ordo xenos. Demon hosts… lets not attempt to work out the struggle.
But somehow I had managed all three, and if I hadn’t been so stupid they would still be safe now. The vox at my bedside crackled to life and a slightly whiny series of screeches were emitted, I translated them.
“Bridge-deck… arrive soon. Master done?”
I sent a reply using a language I had developed, and there was a second of background chatter. The whines started again. Slowly my brain engaged and I understood the chatter instantly.
“I’m done.”
“Morl stay here-here, sin-swine coming up chat.”
The Hrud switched off the communicator and I counted off three second before ‘sin-swine’ floated up through the floor. She bowed elegantly, her pale skin rippling where it made contact. I gave her a nod and she spoke.
“You simply have to get rid of that rat thing! He is truly foul! And what kind of name is sin-swine might ask?”
She had been reading my thoughts, which disgruntled me a little, but I let her anyway. Who knows what she would do if I had secrets? Her loyalty to me was questionable, a whim a decade ago where she decided she would try and keep me alive for eternity.
A trivial challenge for one as powerful as herself.
“Sin-swine is just a name, an object. Be thankful it, yes it is an it, didn’t know your real name.”
Knowing a demons name gave you power over it, but she shrugged as though it wouldn’t matter. As an afterthought she stopped the ripples on her body, realising how uncomfortable they made me.
She beckoned with a white finger and I followed her to the bridge, jogging to keep up with her speed. After a minute of clanking boots I stepped onto the bridge, and waited for a second so that my last acolyte would turn. He didn’t, he just bent lower over a sword he had laid on the adamantium table.
I tapped my foot in irritation; he was engrossed in some heretical thing again. Morl dropped from the roof and tapped the heretic on the shoulder. He turned, probably more because of the smell.
The trio stood before me; the stocky cloaked Hrud clicking its jaws, the demon host bobbing inches from the floor, and the heretic nervously playing with an amulet which glowed purple.
The heretic stepped forwards. I allowed him to speak.
“We will arrive at Centurion 4 in a few days; there has been some warp disturbance which I have worked to our advantage… which will drop the time but it is a little… risky.”
I was concerned, his use of risky translated as ‘mortally deadly’.
“How so?”
He sighed and pulled a data sheet from his pocket.
“It has a small chance of destroying the planet and perhaps a few nearby ones too.”
‘Small chance’, he wasn’t doing very well at hiding the truth.
“What is the chance?”
“Oh nothing, only about forty percent-”
I silenced him with a wave, and inclined my head, eyes shut, to face the ceiling.
“Can you get us into the system, without a chance of destroying things?”
He consulted his charts, his finger tracing a line of some kind. My mind wanted to loom at what he had written… but I forced myself not to. His writings were… disarming at best. More often they drove minds to dementia.
He came back, muttering something under his breath.
“We can drop you off at Centurion 12, it’s small and convenient. Marl may want to-”
There was a second of irritated chatter, and a clawed grey-green armature slapped the heretic’s leg before quickly withdrawing into the cloak.
“Morl, I apologize. The demon host can get himself to Centurion 4, and I will go with him. Morl won’t fit in with the Centurion 12 population… they are very suspicious. He will have to remain with the ship while you move to the surface, conduct your work, and get out. Sound good?”
There was a screech of pain, a cry of pure anguish before the sound of flesh tearing itself apart and liquefying on the floor.
“That doesn’t,” I looked at the demon host for a second, she had a cheeky grin on her face, “your doing?”
She shook her head.
“I just liked the noise.”
Worry overcame me and I rushed back, remembering the flash of pain I had seen.
I threw myself through the glass doors of the astropath’s room, sliding across the bloody floor. The demon host appeared at my side, her smile gone.
We both stared at the boy splashing around in the blood.
Part two
The child stopped splashing and stared at us. Beside me the demon host shivered, gradually floating back. The child blinked and the lights flickered. I stole a glance at the demon host; she was horrified, not a good sign in any instance.
The lights turned off and the air turned cold, the demon host yelped and flew back through the wall, screaming in agony. The lights turned back on and a man looked at me, his naked body bathed in blood.
A trickle of blood stared in the corner of my mouth; I gently wiped it away and stared as the man approached. I chanced a whisper.
“Who are you?”
I don’t know.
The voice echoed in my head, the trickle of blood increased slightly.
Another step forward.
“What are you?”
I am me.
Ringing, bouncing inside my skull. I began to feel faint. I mouthed a few more words.
“Why was she scared of you?”
Because she is not a fool. Now hush inquisitor, you are worrying yourself.
I nodded, and the trickle of blood stopped. The naked man held out a hand for me to shake, but I was too petrified to move. I managed a half pace backwards.
“Why are you here? Why did you kill my astropath?”
He tuned in on me, and the warp spat me across the galaxy. I didn’t mean for him to die, the warp did.
The lights flickered and the man was gone. There was a child’s laughter for a few seconds, then nothing. The silence was penetrated by the chittering of Morl as he flung himself round the corner.
He only knows one word in gothic, he spoke it now.
“Blood-blood!”
He dragged his cloak through the plasma; I didn’t stay to watch the rest. I stalked off down the corridor, confused and afraid. It had been a long time since I had last felt fear. There was a rush of air and the demon host was beside me, her skin turned an ugly shade of creamy blue.
“Is it gone?”
I stared at her, her perfect feminine body draped in an aristocratic velvet robe.
She was genuinely frightened. I told her it had gone.
Her old smile struggled back to her face.
“Good… I didn’t like it… it hurt me so much.”
She grabbed me in a painfully tight embrace, mimicking human emotion because her own were not enough. I pitied her, something I had never done before. I remembered the time I had first met her, many years ago.
In the possession of the rogue Inquisitor Mulan. He took four bolter rounds to the brain and survived them all; it was only when I had rammed an Imperial bible down his throat that he had died. She had been in his possession, and I turned her over to the ordos. She was in a male body back then, but that host had been destroyed.
She had returned to save my life, in payment for saving her own. I didn’t know I had saved her, and in those days I had been a puritan, and shunned her presence. In my life I have executed almost a dozen inquisitors for less than having a demon host have loyalty to them.
How very ironic that now seemed.
I returned to the bridge, thinking about what I had just seen. A Psyker obviously, more powerful than my demon host, capable of… almost anything. The astropath must have died instantly, that creature tearing him apart with its sudden galaxy bound.
At least, that was if its story was true.
The Hrud returned, its entire robe no longer a dirty cream but red. I ignored the images of it rolling in the gore. The heretic was muttering something again, staring out of the great clearplex window and out into the warp. I thought saw a figure form in the bustling cloud like madness.
I emptied my mind and checked one of the dozens of computers mounted in the bridge. I checked the crew life signs, only the astropath was gone. That was easy enough, I could fetch one of those.
The demon host passed through the window of the ship, strengthening itself after that last encounter. She was glowing brightly when she returned.
The bridge was cluttered, and looking around I had already lost sight of the Hrud amidst the piles of junk that lay everywhere. It nested in the mounds somewhere, which was the only place it would remove its cloak. I had seen it once, clotheless, I never wanted to again.
The heretic was noisily keying in some data into the computer, he was the only person I could really talk to on the ship, so I paced over to him and stared over his shoulder at what he was doing. He hastily blocked my line of sight but I didn’t bother to question it. He was very secretive, due to some virus he had. He was reluctant to share information unless he had to.
“How long until we reach the planet? Rechartering the course will take a few days won’t it?”
He pressed a button and a holomap beamed up, projecting little spheres orbiting a vast sun. Little labels popped up, identifying the forty main planets, half of which were populated, and a score of other important cosmic formations.
He zoned in on a little section, the area surrounding Centurion 12. Keying in a few more buttons he overlaid the warp slip streams. With a screech he slammed on the warp exit button on the dashboard on the wall.
With a lurch we were thrown into real space. The heretic stared out of the great glass window and at the planet before us.
“We shouldn’t have arrived for another few days…”
The demon host fluttered up beside me, staring vacantly at the planet.
“We almost flew through the emotion of a population! Imagine the carnage!”
I didn’t want to, we had almost wiped out the planet with this unexpected move forwards. What had happened to increase our speed so much? I knew only one thing to claim to get so far, so fast.
And it happened to be a Psyker.
Part three
The bar was dark. Dust gripped the air in insufferable quantities. A musty smell lingered from the rotting beams, moisture occasionally dripping onto the small population of regulars and locals.
Wind soared into the room, moving more hot air around the building. Two figures stepped in through the open door, one shaking from some unknown chill, staggering forwards, having to support himself on each table in turn.
Each time his hands thudded down another customer turned, until he had the whole bars attention. They judged Bracken there and then, but none of them understood quite who, or what he was.
The other wore a vast billowing black cloak. Its hood covered her face, moving slightly with each breath. At her side hung a huge sword, its surface glowing slightly, as if in anticipation.
The woman swung her leg onto the stool; each movement seeming to take an age. An all too audible click sounded behind the robed form. A ganger stood behind her, auto gun aimed at the woman’s back.
“The sword, now. I isn’t got time to spare. Hand it over, don’t try to be hero.”
The robed woman swung around on the stool. She slid her feet onto the floor and pretended to stabilise herself.
“My hero’s are dead, I killed them”
She took a step forward, her hooded face inches from the would be assailant. The ganger gave a yelp of surprise and began pumping rounds into the cloak. His target flinched for a second, then put a hand on a fold in the hood, and pulled it away.
Her face was unexpectedly youthful; grey blue eyes stared out from slightly sunken sockets. Placing his hands on the ganger’s shoulders, she sunk her teeth deep into his neck. Then she withdrew, her cloak falling away.
The ganger shuddered for a second, and then exploded in a cacophony of cracking bone and tearing flesh. The young woman turned to the rest of the bar and grinned, his semi naked body suddenly wreathed in flames of warp fire.
“The people you know are the people I hate.”
Flames began to pour from her hands, consuming the unfortunate population of the bar. Soon only one was left, frozen to his seat. The two figures approached him, the quaking one still and well composed, the demon host smiling.
“Inquisitor, how nice of you to remain so still whilst I had my fun. Last words?”
*
Morl was quiet when I left him, unusually so. I had expected a complaint; he didn’t normally like being left on the ship. I didn’t question the silence, though I made it a point to ask him when I returned. There was still so much I could learn from him.
I took one of the bland landing cruisers from the ship’s port, and gently eased my way down to the docking platforms that rose like needles from the planet’s surface. Using a forged profile, I got safely past the security checks as a mercenary. I had done some research and noticed how common these sell-swords were, and I think that it probably aided with the guise.
The dock was a bustling heaving mass of people entering and departing, after descending some steps I entered a huge arena like hall, dotted with stands and circled by commercial buildings. It took a while to worm through the crowds, but once I had emerged from the massive space-port I was grateful for the work.
The hive I had chosen docked on the upper floors, so I was met by aristocratic sights instantly. After a month on a ship with some rather unwholesome, though useful, company, this was a sigh of relief.
My task on the planet was simple, I needed to get within range of the arbite offices and hack into the data files. Once through I needed to access the magenta class files using a stolen key-code, and find out just how badly the ordos wanted me dead. It was important, for I needed to get as safe as possible if I intend to continue bringing about the Emperor’s vengeance.
The streets in the upper spires were clean, though the cream of the walls was marred by a built up layer of stains. White never cleans properly; the shirt I wore was testament to it, the bullet High Lord Verdact had put there had ruined more than just one of kidneys.
The three I had returned had done enough though, the High Lord was no longer a threat.
The arbite centre leered at me; I slunk into an alley to its right and slunk behind some waste disposal cans. Pulling the vox caster from my pocket, I patiently scanned the centre for accessible links, tuning in to the usual arbite channels.
A passer by nearly spotted me as he sidled past, but as he took his double take I was gone. Cursing myself for the sheer stupidity and amateur concepts that an interrogator could defeat, I finally got through and into the arbite network.
** Please login…**
I fumbled with a note in my pocket, and slowly typed in the stolen number. Verdact had given me something in return for his bullet, but it would be found after a single use.
Dead men don’t use the arbite network.
I was past the clearance, which was the easy part. I wasn’t sure how they had labeled my case, and I wasn’t in a position to trawl through every single case in the sub sector, so I grabbed a few interesting prospects and added the three words that would almost definitely be in there.
Hereticus, ally of heretics.
Diabolus, ally of the warp.
Xenus, ally of the xenos.