I put on something that I was to use as Blasius Deckard had our mission lasted a few more days. A handsome, navy colored button down and relatively expensive brown trousers. My casual albeit sturdy boots betrayed my inquisitorial manner, but I suppose other than the fact I had not shaved for two days, I looked less like an inquisitor now than I had for a long stretch of time. I was surprised there was someone waiting in my office that I cared enough to be embarrassed around. In three nights she had alleviated my concerns over her heretical nature and we had gained mutual respect. A little over a week after that we saved one another's life and kissed on the balcony, and merely what, a day later? We had decided to pursue some sort of romantic relationship, and now a week after that we finally had time to actually speak. Things moved quickly, and I would have laughed if someone said I was thinking about anything else but Bahometus on the journey to Danubis. Granted, he did flash in my mind more frequently than I would have liked, and I was busy building my strategy for when we reached the dead planet's orbit. It was a miracle the other two Inquisitors had allowed me a generous amount of authority on this matter, as they were both almost a century in the game.

I walked out of my closet, smoothing my hair as I sat opposite of her. I had heard every word, and I was not certain if something was on her mind or if she was feeling lost. I never had the luxury of the latter, but the former I was in a perpetual state of experience. I idly took one of the glasses of amasec she had poured, but I didn't drink it as of yet.

"I can understand, believe it or not." I admitted, swirling the drink as I considered for a moment. "When we first spoke, I gave you three options. I know you chose to work under myself out of pragmatism. There's no shame in that. And the last few weeks have been harrowing or deceptive. But it's not all chasing phantoms across the stars. If Danubis turns out to be the end of this ruinous cell, Urien will need to return to his duties as a Rogue Trader, and Lazarus, you, and I will return home."

She looked curious, and I took it as a cue to explain. "I own six different holdings on as many systems, but I only have one home. Pacitus is beautiful, I'm sure you'll love it. If Urien has the same route, we'll be there for eight months while I try to find another way for us to find something that might kill us. During that time, things will be more like this moment. Genuine."

It was then I took the drink, curious on her thoughts.

It had honestly never occurred to me that Inquisitors might have homes. I just always assumed that they spent all their time roaming the galaxy fighting the Emperor’s enemies. This was, of course, naive of me. Obviously they needed places to recuperate, places to train, places to study. I had seen the Inquisitorial palace on Manaki once, I assumed that when they were off duty that they stayed in places like that, grim fortresses of black marble and adamantium. It had also never occurred to me that Urien was merely lending his services to the Inquisition. I had thought the Rogue Trader was a permanent member of Hadrian’s warband rather than an ally drawn in as necessary. A lot of assumptions I had made exploded under the weight of a few words.



“Is everything ok?” Hadrian prompted, clearly surprised at my silence.



“I… I’ve never been to Pacitus,” she admitted, as thought that was all was on her mind.

“I didn’t realize Inquisitors got to take vacations to…” she waved the glass, “have lives I suppose.”



“Of course I suppose all of this depends on us not getting killed on Danubis.”

I looked at her with a naked tenderness. Emmaline always took life with a devil-may-care attitude, but she seemed more contemplative here. I should never forget she was, at her core, a woman who had been thrown across the imperium and used for other's gain. It was something I should always keep in mind. I didn't think she was about to burst into tears, but this was all clearly new to her. I spoke a modicum more softly.

"I've only been there three times," I admitted, sipping my drink. "And only once since I became an Inquisitor. I've been on Bahometus's trail for years now." Kronus requisitioned the world for what he often joked as a place to 'retire,' but I knew he acquired it for my sake. "I think it's been twenty five terran months since last I saw it, but I get missives from there every now and again from my staff stationed there, when I get back to one of my hubs. It's lovely. I wouldn't necessarily say I take a vacation, but we can only find and change so much wrong in the galaxy, and if I have no leads, I would like to be some place comfortable."

"It's your home too," I said carefully. "I'm too stubborn to die or let someone die on my watch." Especially to that bastard, I thought to myself. "When we get there, you'll be able to shop and travel around to your heart's content. Perhaps not with unlimited funds, like now. Inquisitors have carte blanche in a sense, but our peers keep us in check. If I started throwing parties every night for years rather than doing my job, that might be frowned upon. But we'll have enough to where you wouldn't really need to think on spending too much."

"Tell me about your home," She said, looking as if she was far away.

I told her of the manor. It wasn't massive, but it could house two dozen staff in the outer buildings and could suit a family of eight in the main house. It was nestled on the outskirts of the small city of Corbah, near the main continent's massive river system at the apex of its estuary. I told her of the asteroid showers that fell three times a year, and the two red moons that waxed and waned with the seasons. There was fishing and swimming, shopping and even traveling festivals. The most important holiday on the planet was the Day of Bounty and The Festivals of Fruit, where the trees and flora were always seen as suitable to be picked and the following fortnight was full of parties and the most outrageous but tasty fruit recipes one ever had. By the end of my little guide tour, I realized I had not eaten since hours before I had fallen asleep.

"You hungry? We can go and fetch something from the kitchens and eat somewhere, or we can bring food in here..."

Admittedly I wanted to simply eat and spend time with her, and I imagined I was transparent in that regard, but I also didn't want to bore her. I couldn't tell if she was just out of reach still, or even if she wanted to go elsewhere. I wouldn't stop her if she did.

The idea of having a home, even one that by Hadrian’s own admission we would visit only infrequently was a very strange one. I couldn’t remember ever having a home not since Q… My brain sheared away from whatever it was I had been thinking about like the unconscious reaction that pulls a hand away from a hot stove. I was perplexed for a moment, unable to recall what I had been thinking about. Hadrian was looking at me slightly askance.



“Are you ok?” he asked with evident concern. I shook my head as though to clear it.

“Yes,” I responded feeling a sudden growl in my stomach. “Just… I don’t know exactly.”



“Lets get some food.”



The kitchen of the Caladonian was a simple affair. Most ships I had traveled on tended towards the extravagant when it came to galleys, but once again Urien’s unsophisticated background shone. It might have been an exaggeration to even call it a kitchen, it rather resembled a massive larder. Cheeses, preserved meat, and other dry goods hung from hooks in the ceiling or were piled high on shelves. An entire wall was given over to barrels of ale and mead stacked and secured with netting against the bumps and shocks of transition. Several vast cooling units dribbled unhealthy smelling coolant gasses and haunches of grox, ambull and other meats could be seen hanging within. Vegetables tended to be freeze dried in sacks, though there were a few refrigerated bins containing greens and root vegetables which I had to assume had been acquired on Moldar. A reasonably sophisticated servitor was in the process of making a stew in a vast cauldron, clicking and whirring as it poured minced garlic into the pot in a pungent spray from one of its extruder nodules. It seemed an extremely odd place to be in a ball gown and I felt more than a little foolish as we took a loaf of still warm bread from a cooling rack and loaded up a platter with meat cheese and what condiments we could find. Hadrian demonstrated his familiarity with the set up by finding a crate that contained stoneware bottles which turned out to contain a very crisp but not unpleasant cider. There was a refectory beside the kitchen, although judging by the thin coating of dust and the smell of old antiseptic the crew rarely used it, preferring I imagined to eat in Urien’s main dining room in the tradition of armsmen rather than in shifts like a naval crew might have done.

“So what is the plan once we get to Danubis?” I asked around mouthful of bread and salted grox.



“I suppose its too much to hope for that we can just level the place from orbit?”

"Unfortunately, we don't have the firepower or numbers to do that. Nor the time to acquire them." I said, popping some beef into my mouth and chewing casually. The sorcerer and his followers had a definitive headstart, and I was loathe to wait even for these reinforcements. A few hundred aristocratic honorguard, astra militarum reserves, and PDF volunteers would have to do. In all, there was about three hundred and eighty seven men, not including the Inquisitors and their retinues. Depending on where we would land and search, that was pitifully little. "He's a week ahead of us. The best we can do is look for him and make sure he doesn't leave orbit without being destroyed or pursued."

Lazarus approached from behind, and I heard it as a fox heard the small thumps of a rabbit. Or perhaps the roles were reversed, in this case.

"The shuttle has been acceptably modified as per your request, Hadrian," Lazarus said through his vox speaker. I, childishly, mouthed every word he said in a manner I could only say was exaggerated. Lazarus always said the same thing when he was done with his chores on the shuttle, and usually he said something similar on different items of equipment. I saw Emmaline looking my way and I tried to hide a smile at my own unprofessionalism, but I failed spectacularly.

"Very good, Laz. Once we make it back to Pacitus we'll fix it up together. Have you finished the other tasks I wished for?"

"I calculate I am seventy percent finished. But, if I am correct, you seem not to have finished your Emmaline goal."

I nearly spat out my food, but thank the throne I was able to hold it in. I looked at Lazarus, and yet again his face was neutral. I could tell he was trying to get a rise out of me, however. At my look, he elaborated. "You gave me your schedule for the day. Combat training for our newest recruit, was it not?"

"Yes, but that was for later. We're merely eating, now." I said, but I regretted it. Lazarus gave a bow and began walking away, saying 'when was the last time you let anyone else take a break?' and I kept myself from getting up and having it out just here and there. I knew for certain this time he was being difficult. There was little to do on this ship but wait for arrival as it was. I merely got Lazarus to fix the shuttle to keep him busy. But perhaps something to focus on would help Emmaline get through the day.

"Well, seeing as if we've just eaten and you're dressed for only one of the two, let's focus on guns instead of close combat for today, shall we?"

We finished our food and drink, and made our way down to the bow of the ship, where Urien and crew had set up a 50 meter shooting range that was used for cargo space when I did not require their services. Fully sixty meters long and twenty meters high, the floor was steel and had been meticulously painted to mark distance. Fiber-polymer dummies had been arrayed at 25 meters to the full 50 meter mark, and on the table under plexi-glass were varying guns. Auto and Las pistols, rifles, carbines, and even a plasma pistol. Though it had very limited ammo.

I took an autogun, and went through the basics of how to operate one. I knew she had some familiarity, but it never hurt to be careful with lethal weapons. Once that was finished...

"Stand feet slightly further apart than shoulder width. Make sure you're comfortable. Lean forward slightly to account for recoil, hold the grip hard, but not so hard you're shaking. Hold the grip in your right hand, and use your left hand to steady. Use your left eye to aim down the sight, and pull the trigger as you exhale with controlled, easy breathing." I said, demonstrating every word, before handing her the gun and standing to the side.

She took it gingerly, clearly having heard my autogun and had some trepidation on handling one. Mirroring my stance, her elbow a bit low and her stance a bit nervous, she still did not do terrible. She hit three out of five targets near center mass at 25 meters, and managed to snag one at 50 meters. The gunshots were loud, but we got used to them quickly. Only on her seventh shot did she accidentally pull the trigger when not aiming entirely in the right direction, squawking like a bird and dropping the gun as the bullet ricocheted and thankfully fell harmlessly 11 meters away.

Wiping the sweat from my brow, I got her a laspistol. "Let's try one without recoil," I said. As the minutes went by, I showed her a few of the other guns and explained the plasma pistol, which she seemed interested in until I told her there was a 5% chance it could explode and immolate your body in seconds and it was a hard pass from her. I had to admit that despite her lack of experience, seeing her hold a gun in that dress was compelling.

"Very good," I said, stepping toward her position on the range. "Better than I expected."

She blew imaginary smoke out of the laspistol barrel. "Easy enough."

I smirked, a twinkle in my eye. "Really? It takes more than an afternoon to be a sharpshooter. But as you're so sure, let's make it more interesting. Five shots, each of us. Our gun of choice. Whoever hits the most wins the wager."

"What are we betting on?"

"Let's decide that after the fact, shall we?"

“Well it only seems fair that you give me odds, seeing you are a big bad Inquisitor and this is my first day at the range,” I suggested. Hadrian considered it.

“You want odds on a bet we haven’t set yet?” he asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“Five to one,” I suggested. He snickered.

“What if it it something that doesn't scale?” he asked. I made a show of thinking it over.

“Ten to one,” I countered. He laughed and threw up his hands. “Fine ten to one. What weapon did you want to use.” I picked up a Magistratum riot gun and hefted it, feeling the weight of its black polymer steel barrel.

“Thats a shotgun, you can hardly miss with one at twenty five meters,” he pointed out. I grinned impishly.

“ Got to make the odds work for me,” I suggested. Hadrian stared at me for a minute and then rolled his eyes.

“Fine, you go first,” he suggested. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself as I sighted down the barrel towards the dummy, pulling the weapon in tight as I had been shown with the autogun. I breathed in, breathed out, breathed halfway in and made the iron teeth of the sight line up and then pulled the trigger. The blast of it slammed me in the shoulder and dropped me on my rump on the deck. I managed to hang onto the gun and keep my fingers off the trigger but my shoulder throbbed in protest. The dummy lit up were a half dozen of the pellets had peppered its flesh.



“Well that is one to me,” I muttered, levering myself up and massaging my shoulder.

"Do you think your shoulder can handle all five shots?" I asked her, only letting the smallest hint of smugness enter my voice. I walked over to the table and picked up a semi-automatic auto gun. Checked its magazine, reloaded, cocked the hammer, and took a far too casual stance as I walked up and stood five meters behind the firing line. I took less than a second to aim and fired. The gun roared, a bright flash erupted from its muzzle.

A hole an inch to the right of center mass materialized on one of the targets. It was a smooth, capable shot from someone firing weapons for over half of his life and practicing twice a week when he was not too busy with his duties. Yes, I was a better swordsman than marksmen, but these targets were close in my estimation. The closest they could be while still accurately applying the practice of ranged fire. I put the gun down and stepped back, gesturing for her to take her next turn. I tried to remain impassive, but the look she gave me caused me to smile, which just incriminated me more.

She took the shotgun, examined it for a moment, and blew a fringe of her golden hair out of her eyes before taking her position and aiming down the center and doing as I had instructed. Seconds passed by, and she fired, her shotgun punching a hole through a target. It was two inches below bullseye, though it was hard to tell from the shredding of the target by her gun.

Things progressed similarly to that, my shots hitting bullseyes or very near to it, and Emmaline not quite matching my ease of aim whilst simultaneously still accruing a point for the scoreboard.

Her fifth shot was her worst, but only by the grace of the God Emperor did three pellets of her shot hit into the target. If I missed entirely, she would win. If I hit anywhere near where I was supposed to, I would take the day.

"Hmmm, what do I want from you?" I asked her playfully. "I'd need to think about it..."

"I'll bet that you do," I snickered, rubbing my sore shoulder. I stepped back and allowed him to reload the gun, feeding fresh shells into the breach, with a series of clicks.

"I'm pretty creative," Hadrian assured me, lifting the gun to his shoulder and racking the slide to chamber a fresh round. I moved around to his side as he lifted the weapon and grinned, sighting down the barrel at the target. He had already told me how it was done, I saw him breath in, then breathe out, then still his breathing. I leanded close and blew softly into his ear. Hadrian flinched and the gun boomed, pellets from the shot sparking off the bulkhead and the ceiling. The target registered no hits. I put my hand over my mouth in mock surprise.

"Does this mean I win?" I asked innocently?

Dammit.

I took a moment to collect myself, my face unreadable. It was hard even for me to know whether I felt anger, sorrow, or amusement, or whether I was impressed. A mixture of all was the most likely, and mechanically I lowered my gun, switched the safety on and idly tossed it onto the table. I turned on her, and I was angry for the merest moment. Not the righteous anger of an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor, but Hadrian Drakos with a cheeky peer. "You..." but it evaporated instantly, and I actually felt a smile trying to make its way onto my face. Yes, I could petition to do it again, but this was a lesson for me as well. Never get cocky or distracted, something I seemed to have a habit of doing around Emmaline.

"You win," I admitted, placing my hands on my hips and looking at her knowingly, even as she fluttered her lashes innocuously. If she started to gloat about being a better marksman, I was going to contest that, but she did play with the cards she had and won. I suppose it's worrisome she knew getting me flustered was in those cards. I crossed my arms and looked at her, eyebrow raised and a hint of a grin. "What would you ask of your Inquisitor?"

The fact I had come in here to train her and it turned into a win in a contest by her showed she was still capable, if nothing else.

In the morning, we awoke in delightful bliss and spent another hour enjoying ourselves before we slid out of bed, dressing for the day. Emmaline borrowed some of my clothes from when I was a bit younger, and it suited her slimmer form. Over breakfast we conversed on our time on Moldar and the funny intricacies of the crew on the Caledonia, joking to one another and smiling far too much for two people just days away from fighting the forces of chaos. Even after our passionate night, we were taken with one another. In fact the night had enhanced it, and we were still so new to one another it felt fresh with possibilities. I knew we were walking down a potentially dangerous path of fraternization, but at the moment my worries had fled as we ate together and shared another kiss.

I let her go until lunch, as I needed to organize my documents and see Urien on matters of landing on Danubis, not to mention of if we were still on schedule to arrive within less than two days. Where Emmaline went, I did not know. But she was set to rendezvous with me at the shooting range at the Caledonia's "noon" time for training.

Once we found one another, I had her do an hour of target practice. Despite her victory over me during our wager, I decided not to trust her to blow into the ear of a chaos cultist and felt she needed to learn the ins and outs of the various firearms present. Luckily, she did not harm her shoulder as we both acknowledged she could use the scattergun well enough.

After lunch, we took an hour walking around the ship and spoke to the astropath Caiphon for a brief interval before we arrived at the gym, full of food but with time to digest. We both went into the locker room, changing into our attire. We both wore appropriate sparring trousers, and as I donned a tight shirt that hugged my broad chest, Emmaline donned a workout top that exposed her midriff but kept herself wrapped for whatever exercise we were about to endure.

"Close combat training." I told her by way of a more professional introduction. "I don't know what we'll see once we reach Danubis, and it's very likely we will not merely be fighting just men. If you are unarmed and come face to face with some horror, it's better for you to run if your psychic skills are ineffective. However, if a man assaults you or attempts to grab you, this training should come in use. You won't learn everything before we get there. We'll perfect your firearms and close combat training on our way to Pacitus, but for now here is a crash course."

I showed her where to plant her feet, how to square her shoulders, and the proper way to throw a punch. To pivot your back foot and twist your hip and shoulder toward your target as you launch your fist, the fist itself closing all four fingers and your thumb locking over the end of your middle finger to avoid as much injury as possible. I stepped back and let her square up to the punching bag, crossing my arms.

"Try it a few times."

The bag stubbornly resisted my attempts to pummel it into submission. The padding deforming around my fists as I circled and punched.

“Good, keep your hands up,” Hadrian encouraged. After an hour of practice my body was glistening with sweat, I was not normally one for intense physical activity, in this realm at least, but I found the idea of being ripped appart by the God Emperor knew what concentrated my mind.

“She appears thirty seven percent more focused than yesterday,” Lazarus commented, having joined us at some point during the training session.



“Bio signs suggest increased endorphin production as well as serotonin and dopamine secretion which combined with decreased cortisol suggests…”



“Enough Lazarus,” Hadrian put in quickly before the Skitarii came to the right conclusion. Lazarus made a clicking noise and cocked his head towards Hadrian but fell silent.

“Limited muscle mass renders close combat an option of last resort,” he said instead. I paused in my assault on the Chaos tainted punching bag, breathing heavily.

“Not to worry, I plan on keeping the two of you between me and anything I might need to punch,” I assured him. With the best will in the world, two days wasn’t going to make me a combatant. Lazarus reached down and selected a training sword from the weapon rack, a bundle of wooden dowels weighted to mimic a standard naval cutlass.

“Try to defend yourself,” he instructed and then darted forward. I yelped and knocked his blade aside, backpedaling to avoid his follow up.



“Concentrate on your feet,” he instructed. The punching bag smacked into him from behind and knocked him off balance, its forty pound mass glistening with frost. I tapped him on the shoulder with the blade before he could regain his feet.

“A trick, in a fair fight you would have been killed,” he observed.

“Not alot of incentive for me to fight fairly I suppose,” I returned. He made a proforma salute and attacked again. I split myself into a half dozen copies of myself, the illusions all menacing him with their blades. It was convincing enough that he could have felt their touch, but he backed away, fending off thrusts and cuts as they came. A light in his cowl changed and he focused on the real me, lunging forward to tap my chest with the point of his blade. My doppelgangers all scowled with disappointment and then faded.



“Clever of you to invest the illusions with body temperature, however each of them was uniform without the normal variations induced by layering of fat and tissue,” he informed me.

“Well I can’t say I’ve had any complaints before,” I huffed, setting the sword down and taking up one of the water canteens, gulping greedily.

I gave my trademark reserved smile, glad Lazarus could show up and knock Emmaline down a peg. Not that I felt she needed it desperately, but if Emmaline and I were cozying up, it was beneficial to her training to have a third party with little emotion to manipulate and no libido to capitalize on. I simply sat down and watched them go a few more rounds. The blonde psyker was not born for the blade or fist, I could already tell by her movements. Even with months of training, it wouldn't be her forte. But she could learn to defend herself well enough, given time. I also had to give her credit:

She was creative.

She also had Lazarus when she threw her sword in what turned out to be an illusion, only for an imaginary Emmaline to catch it from behind and attempt to strike. Lazarus nearly fell for it, but he caught her real frontal assault before she could land a blow home, and subsequently handled her to the ground with his extra limbs.

She got up when I told Lazarus to get off her, blowing her fringe of blonde locks outs of her face and sticking her tongue out at the tech-priest when he addressed me.

"Shall I continue with the lesson, Hadrian?" He asked in binary, something I only had a rudimentary knowledge of. He added something snarky I couldn't catch.

"No, are relieved." I told him, and got off my ass to walk over onto the mat. I placed my hands on my hips, and she looked less than enthusiastic to continue. I grinned. "Don't worry, one more thing and then we can relax. I need to show you something even more important than how to punch or duel."

"Maybe we should have started with that." She huffed.

"I wanted to get the easy stuff out of the way," I quipped, my smile halting her before she gave a complaint at the prospect of something even more difficult. I raised my finger in the manner of a teacher. "The most important thing to learn in self defense is balance and grappling. But I won't show you any fancy techniques. That will be for the trip home. Right now, you merely need to know the basics. And the fundamental rule of grappling is balance, as stated. Keep your feet planted and uproot their stance in turn. It's easier than you think. For instance..."

I grabbed her shoulders firmly but with only marginal strength. "If someone grabs at you, you have two options, depending. If they pull you, you need to push. If they push, you need to pull. You're lighter than almost any combatant you're going to face, despite Lazarus's opinion on the subject."

"I never stated her mass was-" Lazarus began from across the room.

"-Which means you won't be able to brute force it, so you need to go with the flow of your assailants movements. Be like water. Hit vital areas. If I am pushing you from my position, pivot and turn-" I moved her into the correct position to show her my meaning. "Left leg out. Good. Adjust your hips, good. And then let me continue with my momentum while you control it. Understand?"

It was not unlike dancing, dancing with a very unskilled very irritating partner. I followed Hadrian’s moves easily enough, anticipating his attempts to pull me too and fro, but I just didn’t have the mass or the strength to push him off balance. At one point I tried to kick him and he shoved me over onto my ass.



“Don’t try that until we have shown you how,” he advised as I climbed to my feet, “you don’t have the strength or the leverage to make it count.”

I elbowed him in the kidney and he flinched back slightly. I followed it up with another elbow aimed at his throat but he managed to get his hands infront of that one and spin me away, grabbing me from behind. I lunged forward with what momentum I had and twisted hard, driving him into a bulkhead though not hard enough to make him loosen his grip.



“Good,” he approved and let me go, “always try to use your enemies strength to make your attack. We continued sparring for another two hours, by the end of which I was thoroughly done with the exercise to the point that even the fact that it might save my life seemed too small a comfort.



“Enough for today, let’s hit the showers,” Hadrian suggested. “Then I have a surprise for you.”



Somewhat to my disappointment the surprise did not involve the showers but that was not to say it was impressive. The armory on the Caledonian, one of several I was later to learn, was immense. It reeked of gunoil, burnished metal, propellant powder and more exotic scents I couldn't name. Urien was a collector of sorts, a trophy taker might have been a better term and Hadrian’s personal collection was also extensive. The sheer variety of implements of death was a little overwhelming. Some weapons, like the las carbines and flamers, were familiar enough from imperial service. Others I thought I recognized from tales and texts, like the bejeweled Aeldari shuriken catapult. Others were so alien that their very relationship to violence was alien to me.



“Don’t bother with the xenos stuff,” Hadrian advised when he saw me looking at a strange glove like thing that might have been a gun and might have been a whip. I arched an eyebrow in surprise. We were the inquisition weren’t we? Didn’t that allow us to use the tools of the enemy? Or did they just not trust me not to shoot myself in the foot.

“Heretical xenos tech?” I asked skeptically. Hadrian shook his head and chuckled.

“Well yes, but mostly its because we don’t have alot of ammunition for them, it isn’t as though I can whistle up a corrupted Aldeari and ask for a few extra magazines of ammunition for yon splinter rifle,” he told me, making a gesture which might have been aimed at anyone of a dozen bizarre looking weapons. I had no idea what a splinter rifle might be. Well that wasn’t strictly true. Presumably it was a rifle and it either fired splinters, or made things splinter when it was fired at them. Emmaline Von Morganstern, ace Inquisitorial Operative, blinding powers of deduction.



“Oh,” I said lamely and continued through the collection into a more recognisabley imperial section.

“Might I suggest a sling shot, low risk to the rest of us,” Lazarus sniped as he followed in our wake.



I ignored him and picked up a gold and chrome hand gun with a black rubberized grip. The slide had been engraved with various images of St Sabat and with tiny curleques of text that seemed to be a variation on the Prayer for Accuracy. A half dozen magazines lay beside it, loaded with fat blunt ended rounds. I placed it on an arming tray and added the magazines beside it, then took a standard magistratum issue riot gun and a bandolier of reloads.



“I have fired a pistol before,” I declared loftily, glossing over the fact that it had been a las derringer designed to be pushed up against the target before being triggered, effective at scarring off unwelcome attention from men or their irate wives. I wondered what had happened to it, presumably the hotel I had been abducted from had taken it as collateral to my unpaid fees.



“What about a melee weapon?” Hadrian mused, turning his head to make it clear he was asking Lazarus. The Skitarii made a series of clicks.

“In all honesty, I would consider lending her your force staff, she cant cut her fingers off with it and her instinct is going to be to rely on her psychic powers if things go wrong. Which, if she gets into hand to hand combat, they most certainly have.”

The day we arrived, I made arrangements for a meeting with my peers before departing. I was called to meet my fellows on the Gereon, a sword-class frigate meant for escort duty before it was requisitioned by Barnabus Amator, one of the two Inquisitors that answered my call. A good choice, the frigate. It was a ship with a design that had remained largely unchanged since the heresy, with strong void shields and superior structural integrity allowing to go head-to-head with even destroyers, it's only real draw-back was its relatively short ranged weaponry which made it ideal for close-quarter assaults and self-defense but very vulnerable in long range fights, not to mention it could become stranded and picked apart if out-maneuvered.

I stepped on the bridge in full battle-gear, planet-fall schedule within two hours. At my hip was my power sword, the skull of the emperor emblazoned on the hilt. In my hands was a shotgun I retrieved from the armory, a custom model with AP slugs that could penetrate armored targets at medium range. On a holster at the small of my back, my large-caliber auto-gun rested. My cloak and furs hugged my shoulders, but my torso was covered in carapace armor, and I wore ceramite greaves and vambraces.

In my wake walked Emmaline, carrying my force staff and keeping her face serene and regal, as usual accompanied by a glitter of intelligence in her eyes which I felt would no doubt impress the other inquisitors. I had told her to dress somewhat conservatively, if not in a body-glove. Her presence was not unwelcome, but she was new to my outfit and I did not want the elder inquisitors to think I was beguiled by her to induct her into my service. The beguiling part happened after that, and it was certainly mutual. Not that she did not look stunning even dressed such a way, but I had to admit even then I was growing smitten with her.

Crewmen and midshipmen sat at their stations, servitors zipping across the thickly plated floors and operating cogitators that flanked the bridge. At its head was the Captain whom I was informed was named Gelgar Fawks. He had evidently made a small name for himself in the Ultima Segmentum with a daring lunar orbit maneuver in a battle against insurgents. Behind him stood my two colleagues and their seconds.

Barnabus Amator stood in a dark military uniform, bedecked with the Carnodon pelt and the symbol of the Ordo-Xenos on his chest, along with various accolades that betrayed his states as a senior inquisitor with a century of experience. Next to him was a man with an arbites helm and strange armor that had a mirror polish to it, a las-carbine in his hand and a jump-pack at his back.

Cornelius Reichgleib of the Ordo Hereticus was much the same as Inquisitor Amator, with a similar amount of experience though having spent the last decade in the desk from a lasting injury he had received during a heretical uprising on the planet of Ambalkator. I did not know the extent of his injuries, but I could see a somewhat pinkish mark reaching to his check from his neckline, which hinted at burns. He seemed resolute in the eyes, howver, and he was dressed to kill. A black body-glove and what looked to be padded armor underneath, as well as a cape that befit his station. Before his injury he was known as a shrewd man, and I knew I needed all of the experience both men could provide.

At Reichgleib's right was a man of greenly pale skin, seven feet in height with white eyes. Had I not been informed of the fellow in question, I would have thought it a xenos. He was a forest-stalker from the moon of Elkor, where the radiation from the system's two suns caused a strange evolution to the people there. The forest-stalker had a long bladed saber at his hip and a visor over his eyes, though he wore a simple uniform fit for a large guardsman, without the helmet. His hair was a shock of white.

"Inquisitors," I greeted, giving a slight incline with my head. They repeated the gesture. Barnabus looked at me with his good eye, his left having been removed by some battle-wound decades ago. "You honor me with your involvement in this matter."

I was not being humble or honeyed, they truly had given me more respect than I had likely earned. This had been my case, but either of them could have claimed seniority and taken control of operations. I hoped I did not disappoint them in the coming conflict.

"You've done quite the time on this matter for such a short career," Inquisitor Barnabus said. "The PDF are growing restless, but they'll serve as their part deems. We'll let them go ahead so as to soak fire and soften the enemy up for our guardsmen and aides."

"We will need to remain covert, at first." The Hereticus Inquisitor added. "As far as we know, we have the element of surprise. We should assume we do not while operating to capitalize on it if that be the case."

"Agreed," I replied. I produced a data-slate, and they did the same. I sent them both the coordinates of the attack areas, but I spoke it aloud so there was no confusion. "On the northern quandrant of the planet, there is an estimated landing zone. 397-214, around fifteen hundred miles north of the planet equator. I will land there. Inquisitor Barnabus, you and your squads will land twenty miles due east where our schematics have picked up a gaping cavern that we believe is an entrance to Bahometus's headquarters. You are to help my team flank them when the time comes. Inquisitor Reichgleib, you will approach from the heights in the west. It's rough terrain but you'll be able to get the drop on them from above. We will flush them out."

"A sound plan, Inquisitor. But might I ask, who is this?" Barnabus inquired, pointing at Emmaline. I turned to regard her as if the question was strange. He continued. "I was told your second is a tech-priest of mars."

"Yes, Lazarus." He conceded. "He is busy making sure our equipment is readily available, as he serves as my quartermaster in such affairs. This is Emmaline Grimelhausen Teobaldina von Morganstern, my aide and a psyker of considerable power. She has saved my life numerous times and I have personally trained her and dubbed her worthy of service."

I will admit that if I hadn’t been low key convinced I was going to die in the next few hours it might have been more intimidating to come face to face with a conclave worth of Inquisitors. As it was I was pleased to have taken Hadrian’s… advice is too soft a word, direction I suppose to dress more conservatively than was my wont. I had worn, at Lazurus’ suggestion, an armored body glove, one of the pair I had picked up in the few days between the affair at the manor and boarding the ship. It was the less ostentatious of the two, matte black with panels of navy blue ceramite attached at key points. I had worn a dress robe over the top of it, a conservative vaguely ecclesiastical cut that could be easily removed when the shooting started. My hair I had pulled into tight braids which were woven down my back to keep them out of the way and my head covered with a veil of lace which had been worked into scenes from the life of Saint Catherine. When you are a psyker it never hurts to appear like you might be a closet Emperor Botherer. Even so I got looks which ranged from loathing, to desire from the assembled company. Psykers are never well trusted, even in the Inquisition which houses more than any other imperial institution save the Astropathicus itself. The entire Imperium would collapse if it wasn’t for psykers, yet even here we are viewed with suspicion.





The only weapons I carried were the force staff and a las pistol, though Lazarus had assured me that he would have an extra riot gun with him when we made it to the ground. I felt very underdressed in the firearms department. The Inquisitors quibbled for a few minutes about arcane details of deployment which might as well have been tech priest babble as far as I was concerned, and then we split up and headed to separate shuttle craft, the better to spread the risk of destruction as for the tactical advantage it would provide. Remember initiates, don’t put all your Inquisitors in one basket.



I expected the decent to be somewhat similar to shuttle flights I had taken before, despite the long dagger shaped hulls and bulky gun pods of the assault shuttles. I was disabused of this immediately as I was slammed into my seat by several G’s worth of acceleration. I squealed in fright but everyone politely ignored me. The next ten minutes were a combination of crushing G force and sickening maneuver as we powered through the atmosphere and then dropped to the nap of the earth. The fleet had not detected any anti-air craft emplacements, but the surface of the planet gave off so much in the way of strange and unexplained readings, that the tatorium had no confidence that a failure to detect them ment they were absent all together. Our enemy had, afterall had a considerable amount of time and considerable resources to fortify the place. Later, much later, I learned that the Fleet Commander was as much concerned about the mysterious Necron technology as anything the heretics might bring to bear, despite Mechanicum assurances that it was dormant.



The ride was so miserable that when we finally hit the ground it was something of an anti climax. More than anything I was relieved not to have lost my breakfast of akenberry waffles over my nice new dress, stained with lubricant grease and old gun oil as it had become during the decent. I wobbled to my feet a half second before the rear ramp dropped with a clang that was all but obscured by the wind rush that blasted in, carrying with it a scouring cloud of sand and flying particulate. I pulled my hood down over my eyes in time to avoid any serious problem, and I wondered if Saint Catherine had any particular relevance to vision and forethought.

I had experienced such drops before. Three times, in fact, before that incident. The key was to breathe through the nose. It kept the food down and your nerves calm. On looking at Emmaline, I feel as if I should have informed her of such a technique, along with a few other precautions...

Once we landed, I double checked the oximeter, making certain it read the air was breathable. It made little sense in my estimation on how the planet kept an atmosphere, but it read the environment was safe for humans. Even still, everyone had astra militarum-grade rebreathers on hand, and blessings of the God Emperor in the form of tokens emblazoned with the visage of Saint Lucia, Founder of the Order of the Valorous Heart. Mine was one of many emblams and fetishes of saints long past.

The shuttle door opened like a falling anvil, hitting the ground with a resounding boom, cracking the very stone. 18 guardsmen and 32 PDF troops hustled out in rough skirmish formation, lasguns readied and scanning the bleak horizon. The ground was ubiquitous and uneven, as if the entire planet was the slope of a barren mountain. But the rocks were reddish black and almost burnt looking, and I loathed to touch anything on this forsaken planet. The air was breathable, but foul and tinged with dust. I took one breath and placed my rebreather on, if only to shield myself from the miasma.

Emmaline, Lazarus, and I walked out of the shuttle. Fully encased in carapace armor and shotgun in my hands. I stepped past a PDF trooper, my keen eyes saw his arm visibly shaking. I placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him. I changed my optics from low-light to bio forms, and then to infrared, followed by ultraviolet. I cycled between them as my men began to spread out at my command, uplifting every stone and finding every corner in the landscape. Emmaline clutched the staff, obviously unwilling to make any attempt at using it until absolutely necessary, which was smart.

Minutes later, I had a call from Lazarus.

"Hadrian," I heard over the comm. I was in the midst of checking an indention in the rock, curious on if it was a footprint or an anomaly. If something had stepped here, it had to have been extremely dense.

"What is it, Lazarus?"

"I'm not archaeologist, but I calculate I have found the entrance."

I had my doubts as I made my way a click to the north to reconvene with him, but once I stepped over the last rise, I realized Lazarus's remark was an understatement. I admit I caught my breath at the sight. There was a hole in the wall a cadre of Leman Russ tanks could roll through, only this hole was encased in a door of metal I couldn't recognize. Sinister lines of green pulsated slowly, as if they were the veins of some great, sleeping beast. To my horror, I realized the center plates of the massive gate were formed into a xeno skull the size of an imperial knight. From behind, Emmaline approached. I heard her intake of breath at the sight.

"How do we open it?" She asked, breaking the somber mood.

I pulled out the eldritch key and shook it in my hand.

There was more marching around than I had imagined. By the time we reached the strange passage my feet were throbbing and my calves were aching. It didn't help that the surface of the planet was so friable, as if the rock itself had grown tired of holding itself together and disintigrated into smaller chunks at anything more the the lightest brush of boots or equipment. No one actually fell, but the idea that the whole planet seemed about to crumble set us all on edge. The portal by contrast was almost terrifying in its solidity, its alien metal seemed to plunge into the very core of the planet, like an ancient eldritch skeleton that the flesh of this world was only now begining to flake away from after eons of extreme dessication. Suffice to say, I didn't care for it.

"I feel, like maybe this isn't such a great idea," I opined but that was more nerves than any serious notion that we should stop at this point. Hadrian lifted the key and slid it into some appature I couldn't see from my vantage. For a moment nothing happened, though it seemed that the strange green pulsations grew slightly more intense. Then, like a distant gathering sunrise the runes flashed and blazed, growing so bright I had to shut my eyes and wish I'd worn a throne dammned helmet. There was a sound too, or something like a sound, a kind of weird eerie wail that pushed on the skin like a stormfront or a psywave that was just about to form. There was a sudden and tremendous outrush of air, it blasted out, whipping up grit in an obscuring curtain that stank of something metallic and alien that made me grab for my rebreather. As quickly as it had begun it was over and I could see the outline of a portal wide enough for three groundcars to pass through. The dust filled air sucked in and out around it in a series of unstable currents, settling slowly to the ground.

"I guess we..." One of the Guardsman beside me snapped sideways and collapsed, connected for a moment to the track of burning dust a long las had carved in the floating dust. One of the PDF troops caught me in a tackle from behind as a second bolt ripped through the space I had previously occupied. Everything was chaos. Two guardsman dropped down beside me, I thought they had been hit until one unfolded the bipod on some kind of belt fed weapon. It ripped out a burst of fire at something I couldn't see, vast star shapped muzzle blasts reflecting dizzingly. Hot casing scattered over my arm smouldering against the fabric of my dress. Someone was screaming about auspex contacts and I managed to get to my feet just in time to see a dozen landspeeders, big green and gold house models were screaming towards us in a phalanx, trailing pieces of camo-netting and anti-auspex screen behind them like streamers. Weapons fire flashed from nose cannons and pintle mounts. Bolter rounds exploded all around me and I squirmed behind a boulder. Las fire was cracking all around me as our own troops returned fire, scrambling for what cover they could. I saw one of the guardsman decapitated as he tried to drag a fellow into cover, then the world shook as Lazarus fired his trans-uranic arquebus. The lead vehicle folded up into a fireball that raced along on its own momementum for a few seconds before it hit the ground and went up in a secondary blast that scattered components over half a kilometer of desolation. The blast knocked a second speeder into a third, the second speeder regained control but the third veered right in an increasingly wide circle. I saw the crew try to bail out a second before it slammed into one of the stone spires, the resulting exposlion shattered thousands of pounds of monolith into gravel in an instant.

I lifted up my las pistol with a notion to do something, though what I thought I was going to do against millitary grade armored speeders I dont know. They were coming on at a tremendous rate, lifing vast rooster tails of dust for miles behind. Gunfire roared in both directions and I saw another speeder come appart in a storm of small calibre hits, its frontal armor and engine cowling peeling away like a sandcastle in the rain.

"They aren't going to be able to turn..." I started to say, though no one could hear me over the din, but as soon as I had said it I realized they werent planning on it.

"Down!" I screamed, and it was more than just a word. Every guardsman and pdf trooper involuntarily threw themseleves to the dirt a second before the twelve or so surviving speeders ripped past overhead, the jetwash shoving us hard enough into the dust that my ribs creaked. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Hadrian on his back, somehow having managed to get his pistol free and fire a trio of shots into the underside of one of the vehicles. It pitched up onto its side, clipped the entrance and cartwheeld through the portal after its fellows in a spray of prometheum and debris. I managed to get to my hands and knees and get a good look at the portal for the first time. Beyond the great entryway stretched a collossal corridor a hundred feet tall and nearly as far across. Great pillars covered with glowing green runes stretched off into the distance beyond the limit of my eyes. The landspeeders raced away, seeming to move very slowly for the tremendous turn of speed I knew they had. They had been waiting for us to open the door. And now they were inside and ahead of us.

"Frak," I muttered.

"Three dead. No one injured." Sergeant Rhadvek reported as I reloaded my autogun. Once I realized my aides were alive and most of the men were present, I set my mind to moving forward. Either way, they were going to make it into the xenos-chambers along with us. Now we knew where they were, in a manner of speaking.

"Form them up. V-Columns" I told the sergeant. A dependable man, with a sharp face and a hard way about him. Most of the troops I had been given were green or PDF, but the sergeant was certainly an exception. He called for the men and set them to formation, four of them made of a dozen men each. Each wing had six men, maximizing the area of fire and minimizing casualties if fired from the left, right, or forward. Emmaline and Lazarus stuck close to my person, though much to Emmaline's distress I strode ahead with my men flanking me, stepping off the barren rock and entering the cavernous chambers of the inner sanctum.

My first step into the 'lobby' as one might call it was a shock to my senses. Not in the physical realm, but my psychic presence felt wholly strange. It was as if my entire life I had been walking in rain, and now I stepped into a dry cavern, where stilled air and an enclosed environment altered all sensations of my form. It was not painful, but off-putting. As I walked past the first pillar, I felt the physical sensations rest on my face. The stale, stuffy air, frozen and encased for untold millennia. Breathable, and with surprisingly little dust for how ancient it undoubtedly was.

There was a strange, gloomy ambient light that permeated all space, and yet somehow there was an overwhelming darkness behind every corner, every crevasse, every unknowable turn. As we moved, the foundations of the vast halls stuck out like large, insectoid feet. Green tendrils within the xenos-steel pulsated just as it did at the gate. Some universal and undeniably powerful power source. Lazarus gazed at our surroundings like I would read an old tome from the dark age of technology.

"Find it fascinating?" I asked him, mostly to lighten the mood. The men were on edge. Like it or not, they were now within a xenos construct on a dead world chasing chaos cultists. Half the PDF were shivering.

"Entirely..." The techpriest marveled.

"Stay focused." I cautioned him.

The halls were like fissures between tall cliffs, almost immeasurable in scope. The paths, however, were at least walkable. It was perhaps forty strides between the left and the right. We passed the first corridor and were met with a fork. Emmaline advised we go left, and so we did. As we progressed, the halls became more complex, with smaller chambers locked behind doors in the shape of caskets. One man cried aloud when he spotted a floating drone, much like those the xenos known as the tau used, I suspected. An abominable intelligence, though it didn't seem aggressive at its current state.

Among the aristocracy of certain worlds there exists a certain flexible interpretation of the Emperor's prohibitions on contact with Xenos. I had, therefore, had the dubious pleasure of meeting a number of non humans at various clandestine parties and gatherings. Often those Xenos had felt strange at a psykic level, esspecially the Alderi I had met on Quentus, but none of them had the dry dreadful feeling that this place had. The drone continued on its path, apparently not deigning to notice us. One of the guardsmen beside me lifted his rifle to track the thing but I reached out and pushed the barrel of his rifle down. I had a sense that this place hadn't yet paid us much attention, but something in the pulsing green glow told me I didn't want that to change.

The trail of our adversaries was easy to follow, it seemed they had simply blasted straight down the central passageway, the mark of their passage written on the floors in a faint sheen of prometheum by product. We moved fast, almost at a jog and my legs continued to complain. I ground my teeth determined to keep up.

"They might be hundreds of miles ahead of us," I complained.

"Actually, given the topography, it can only be fifty three kilometers to the other side of the range. Assuming this instalation remains flat without decending, and that their goal is in the center, they can be no more than twenty one point two five..." Lazarus droned on.

"Its still going to take us hours to cover that..."

"Will the pair of you be silent," Hadrian broke in on the argument, "we have transport en route."

The trio of chimera troop transports that arrived ten minutes later were not what I had expected, but we piled into the back and took our seats on the cushionless troop benches. Despite the exceedingly flat terrain they somehow conspired to rattle and bounce along till I felt like the pea in a whistle.

"Auspex contact," one of the troopers realyed nervously.

We rumbled along the corridors, the alien geometry of this facility's construction was thankfully without much in the way of curvature. In fact the floor was so smooth, it made the chimera's dimensions look completely lopsided. Every movement of the track made me realize how clumsy and imperfect the design of the armored vehicle was. What sort of civilization would make a labyrinth such as this? Our travel lasted for thirty standard minutes, I calculated, before we found anything beyond an oddity.

I heard the crack of machine-gun fire from an accompanying chimera through the thick hull, the thunder of the heavy bolter supplementing the rattling fire in varying iterations. It could have been a mile away or mere meters to our right, but when our own chimera began firing we shuddered in our seats. I should have gotten in the front of the vehicle to better direct the driver, but as it was I sat in the back along with Emmaline, Lazarus, and Sergeant Rhadvek's squad. Briefly I believe I heard men calling out from outside the vehicle, and through the small visor, the red flash of lasers blended with a strange, green light that flashed like lightning.

"Chaos spawn!" The sergeant cursed,, flipping his lasgun to full auto, telling the men to take positions at the firing slots. The men did as they were told, aiming their lasguns at a 45° and aiming at whatever non-friendly they could get into their sights. A few of them began cracking off lasbolts, but even as they did I could see the confusion and fear in their eyes.

"It's not just chaos spawn," I told them cryptically.

There was a bright flash of green, and a deafening silence followed by a concussive force and a fiery light from the right slots. The men on that side fell back, panting and blinking from their eyes trying to dim the light they had witnessed.

"They...they destroyed Chimera C!"

"Everyone out!" I ordered, getting to my feet and slamming my fist onto the bulkhead door trigger. Immediately there was whirring and the back end of the chimera began to lower, revealing an iron-grey ground littered with dead men and stragglers who fired past our position from behind odd, gleaming obelisks uniformly placed along the path. Even as I stepped out, an eldritch lightning bolt of green warped into one of the men flanking the Chimeras. I watched in horror and fascination as the trooper was stripped atom by atom before my eyes, leaving naught but the barest flecks of cloth on the ground.

"Hadrian!" Emmaline cried in my face.

"Move! Behind the pillars!" I cried. The bolter rounds were unimaginably loud, but I was thankful we had them. I rolled out of the cover of the chimera and gauged what lay ahead, and what I saw was pure pandemonium.

The room was an immense chamber, with larger obelisks planted to frame the central causeway towards what looked to be a full-sized pyramid that doubly served as a throne. Atop it was a lone figure, twice as tall as a man and built like a statue who watched the fire fight below with cold eyes. Before the figure were the cultists, or at least some of them, crouched behind pillars and a central, rectangular 'fountain' that housed what looked to be pure plasma at the center of the walkway. They fired lasbolts and grenade launchers, but not at us.

From the darkness, within nooks of pulsating green light, emerged those things. Taller than men and made of metal, they walked in monotonous but strangely animated steps. There were dozens of them, some close by and stepping over the corpses of our guardsmen. They were machines, but I could tell that was not the full extent of what they were. Burning in their breast and behind their eyes were their lifeforce; an alien form of what might have passed as a soul, or what was left of it. It glowed the same green as their weaponry and architecture, only deeper in hue. A few of them lat scattered and broken, shattered by grenades or bolter rounds, or the relentless fire from the heavy stubbers. But even then I saw one, its metal body broken, reanimate and crawl toward its severed lower half.

Before it could, a shot from the trans-uranic arquebus reduced its steel form to fragments. I turned and looked at Lazarus, who watched with rapt fascination. I could tell he fired on instinct, and was loathe to harm these things because of the questions they might answer. But he was my ally, and in the end I knew I could count on him.

"Push forward!" I roared, rounds erupting from my combat shotgun. Four shells burst one of the skeleton-machine's apart, pressing forward at the head of my men to have them follow in my wake. "Fire until there's nothing left of the xenos! Kill the cultists! For the Emperor!"