Penny

Bodacious Bounties: Bounty Hunter AU

“Beest I kin do iz teen tousand,” Gerk, the paunchy pawnbroker said as he surveyed the guns and equipment. He pulled a monocular lens into place and scrutinized the flechette gun without changing his offer.

“Come on, its worth twice that much!” Neil objected. Gerk rubbed his monocular with a lens.

“In zat keese…. teen tousand,” the pawnbroker reiterated he shrugged in the general direction of the walls of his shop.

“War ez oveer, heave guns da? No hestory, worth seemthing, but not much,” he explained. Jocasta pondered just hitting Neil over the head and stealing enough fuel to get him to the drop point but dragging an unconscious body back to the ship and confining him would raise too many red flags.

Gerzyirsky’s Boutique Boom Emporium was on the lower level of the station and seemed to have started life as a general purpose warehouse that had slowly morphed into a gun store. Plastic walls had been replaced by security steel that made the original frames sag alarmingly. Gerk sat behind a wire mesh cage that had once probably been a shield generator, but had long since phased its last electron.

“On of deez though,” Gerk said and reached out to snatch one of the small dragonfly drones from the air with surprising dexterity. “This would be worth an extra…ahhh!” There was an arcing blast of electrical discharge as the drone dumped it spare capacitor into the gun dealer, he pulled his hand away smoking and twitching.

“Not for sale, and no touchy,” Jocasta advised.

Pirates - Ye Be Warned

“I wish I was a gunner’s mate aboard a man-o-war!” Lars the shanty man sang from his post at the mainmast.

“Sam’s gone away, aboard a man-o-war,” the crew roared back as they heaved on the line to hoist the mizen top-sail.

“I wish I was a gunner’s mate aboard a man-o-war!”

“Sam’s gone away, aboard a man-o-war.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGLAHpnXgXE

Jessica Scarlet hummed the chorus as she stood upon the quarter deck of the Weather Witch, peering at the approaching coastline through a brass bound spy glass. The south easterly wind was freshening as dawn broke behind them, filling the straining sails of the twelve gun sloop as she sliced through the aquamarine waters. There was a cheer as the mizen topsail unfurled and caught the wind, dragging them slightly leeward as the lines were hauled taut.

Captain Scarlet, or Red Jess as she was sometimes called, sniffed the air, tasting the tang of salt and the green earthy smell of distant jungles. She glanced behind her at the gray and lowering sky. There would be a storm later, but she intended to be well out to sea by the time it struck. She was of average height, with an athletic figure made hard by years of clambering up and down the rigging. Her red hair hung loose to her shoulders, partially controlled by a bandana and tricorn hat. A coat of black linen with gold stitching hung around her shoulders though the heat of the day would soon force her to shuck it. She blinked her blue green eyes and squinted through the glass again, noting the point where the white caps began to form, a sure sign of shoaling waters.

“Another point a-starboard if you please,” she roared. The helmsman, a massive Lesoutan named Pelae, was only a few feet away, but the command was meant to be heard by the whole ship. Sailors liked to know what was going on and Jess tried to oblige them where she could.

“Point a-starbord, aye,” Pelae replied, turning the great oak wheel slightly so that the Witch hardened up to the wind, running nearly parallel to the coast line.

“Hands to set stunsails!” Jessica shouted, watching with a critical eye as her crew began swarming up the rigging to shake out even more canvas to the rhythmic beat of Lars’ song. Krycek, the first mate, stomped up onto the quarterdeck. The dwarf was as broad as two men and so heavily muscled that it seemed to Jess that he might break his own bones if he flexed them all at once. His head was bald for all that his thick red beard reached to his chest. He wore no shirt, but was covered with intricate nautical tattoos.

“Ye weel rip thee stick out-o her if ye keep this up,” he grumped, scowling as though Jess had embarked on a conspiracy to do just this.

“Good morning Krycek,” Jess responded as she closed the glass with a snap. She could make out the mouth of the bay that was her target now and was satisfied they were on course.

“Don’t worry, the wind will slacken as we get into the shadow of the coast,” she assured him.

“Dinnae worry she says,” the dwarf continued to grouch. Jessica grinned, Krychek would bitch if they hanged him with a golden rope. It was a fine morning with a good wind and the taste of salt on the air, and who could complain about that?

“Flash!” a top man shouted, and Jessica’s eye was drawn to the small promontory that formed the eastern arm of the unnamed bay. A puff of smoke was visible in the air, followed a moment later by a column of water lifting a hundred yards behind the Weather Witch. It seemed that the Ran-tai were as methodical as ever. There was a battery up on the headland keeping look out. This was a challenge gun, not an attempt to sink her ship, though that would come soon enough.

“Run up the colors Mr Avery!” Jessica shouted. Wheels squealed as the green and white ensign of the Serene Dominion of Ran-tai rose to catch the breeze, snapping like a coachwhip.

“A half point to starboard Mr Pelae,” Jessica instructed, “make it look like we are a merchantman shying away.” The helmsman complied, and though there were no further shots, Jess fancied she could see activity around the distant smoke shrouded battery. No doubt they were sending men to inform the locals that another ship had hove into view.

“Diya think it weel take them mor’n a minute to realize ye are flying everything by yer wee knickers?” Krycek complained. Jessica’s smile broadened. Krychek wanted to shorten sail, and so he was framing everything in a way that would lead to that opinion. She pulled a coin from a pocket and made the gold dubloon dance across her knuckles before flipping into the air with her thumb and slapping it down to reveal the crowned head of Emperor Carlos.

“I think, that if this Ran-tai princling knows a stunsail from his asshole, he will be unique in all the world,” she told her first mate. Ran-tai was a powerful nation that controlled vast swaths of territory in the northern jungles and on the heavily populated plains beyond, but they were newcomers to the sea. Their officers were of their noble classes and had little to recommend them beyond their pedigree. They wouldn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.

“Two sails!” the topman shouted down as fifteen minutes later they reached the mouth of the bay. It was broad and well sheltered, a sandy crescent where several small streams drained the low interior hills. Green lantana climbed from the sand to the low headland. Two vessels were in the process of trying to lift anchor, one was a merchantman, beamy as a butter tub with two masts studded with over wide yards, the other a three masted warship flying the same ensign as the Weather Witch. Unlike the battery on the headland, the crew of the warship was quickly realizing there was no reason for a friendly ship to come charging into the bay at nearly twelve knots. Jessica could see green coated officers shouting orders as men swarmed up the rigging to set sails. She had already cut her cables and was drifting slowly to leeward. Sloppy that, as if the wind shifted she might be driven a ground before she got underway.

“Hard over Mr Pelae,” Jessica instructed, feeling the familiar thrill of catching an enemy by surprise. She ran to the quarterdeck railing and cupped her hands around her mouth.

“Run out the guns!” she shouted down into the waist. The shanty cut off abruptly as men ran down to the gun deck. Tackles squealed as the covers were removed and the six twelve pounder guns were run out. Jessica hummed the last few bars of the shanty’s chorus.

“Run out to port!” she called and the process was repeated on the other side of the ship. Some of the newer members of the crews grumbled, but they were corrected with slaps and punches from their more seasoned comrades. Jessica’s orders sometimes seemed eccentric, but the old timers knew they were never without purpose. Jess watched the enemy ships struggle to react. It was better luck than she could have hoped for that the Ran-tai warship had anchored closer to shore than the vessel it was safe guarding. A Lesoutan ship in a similar position would have anchored in the mouth of the bay with springs on her cables so she could command the seas without ever having to set sail. Evidently the Ran-tai had wanted to be closer to shore for ease of bringing aboard supplies. Jess could make out boats pulling furiously towards the warship from where they had evidently been making camp.

“Run up the colors!” she shouted as the Ran-tai ensign came down. There was no need to clarify which colors she meant, as the black skull and crossbones sailed aloft.

“Fire as you bear!” she shouted, a heartbeat before her first gun went off. She didn’t need to tell her crew when it was time to start shooting. The Weather Witch cut across the bow of the Ran Tai warship at almost the maximum range of the guns. Greyish pencil lines sprang from the crashing discharges and stinking clouds of gun smoke. The first two shots went wide, splashing on either side of the ship before the third shot smashed the figurehead of the ship into a cloud of flying splitters. A great cheer went up from the crew as the next shot shattered the bow sprit, dropping a tangle of timber and lines into the sea. Jessica saw flashed from the Ran-tai ship as her bow chasers touched off. The heavy long guns hammered heavy shot her way and a hole appeared in the mainsail as a lucky shot howled over head.

“Reload and secure port guns! Mr Pelae, hard a-lee!” Jessica shouted, all but hopping with excitement as the gun crews sponged the guns with buckets of sea water to quench any embers still burning in the breeches before ramming fresh bags of gunpowder into place. The Weather Witch heeled over as she arrowed straight into the bay. The sails snapped as they luffed, losing some of the following wind.

“Are ye blind! Haul away ye droolin’ pond scum!” Krycek roared as men leaped to pull cables tight. The Witch was slowing, though still held a prodigious turn of speed. They were only a few hundred feet from the merchantman now and her crew were obviously in a panic. Axemen cut her cables as her first sails shook out but it was a foul wind for leaving harbor. The sun was well up now and beating down on the shore, making everything seem to glow an emerald green. A shot crashed overhead and Jess looked up with a scowl to see the battery on the headland was joining the fight.

“She’s presentin’!” Krychek warned and Jess looked up to see the Ran-tai warship turning to bring her starboard guns to bear. It was going to be too late. The Weather Witch passed behind the merchantman, at the same moment the enemy guns bore. Jessica grabbed the wheel from Pelae and turned it hard. The Witch crashed into the side of the other ship in a scream of splintering timber. Men screamed and there were a handful of shots from the merchantman as desperate sailors fired muskets or pistols. It wasn’t a smooth collision but rather a series of crashes as the hulls rebounded from one another on reflected waves. Jessica held on grimly as scantlings snapped and yards collided, ripping away. The important thing was to bleed off momentum that would otherwise carry them into the shallows. The noise was tremendous, like two forests colliding. Men on both ships screamed and several went down in showers of splinters.

“Stand to starboard guns!” Jessica bellowed as loud as her lungs would allow. The Witch had lost much of her speed in the deliberate collision, but she slipped free of the other ship no faster than a trotting horse. Jess put the helm hard over, swinging the ship in a lazy circle that pointed her loaded starboard guns directly at the stern of the Ran-tai ship. All six guns fired at once in a colossal explosion of fire and powdersmoke. The quarter gallery of the enemy ship exploded in splinters of glass and timber as all six guns raked the enemy vessel, cannonballs careening down the length of her like scythes. More importantly Jessica saw the enemy ship wobble as its rudder post was shot away.

“Clue up! Clue up! Stand for stay! Gunners reload!” Jess shouted as hands swarmed aloft to reset sails. The wind that had driven them in to the bay was a memory now, replaced by a warming land breeze off the coast, it was but it was enough to keep maneuvering way on. The Ran-tai warship had finally built up some speed, but without her rudder she had no way to maneuver. Men clambered up and down the rigging in confusion, but it was a good bet her captain had been killed by the raking which had shattered her stern castle. The ship's momentum was carrying her towards the headland with no rudder to steer her. A crack crew might have been able to get anchors away before they struck, but these were no tarry deep sea jacks and anyway, they had cut their cables, the best crew in the world couldn’t have brought fresh sea anchors up in time. Before order could be established the ship came to a crashing halt. Men who had been aloft were shaken free, the lucky ones plunged into the shallow water, while the less fortunate struck the deck, breaking bones or worse. There was a tremendous shriek of ripping timber as the foremast came away, ripped free when the rudderless vessel had run around. It toppled in a nest of rigging, dragging lines and spars down in ruin. The ship was helpless and under Jess’ guns but there was no time to finish her off. There was a crack above as the shore battery sent another ball through the topsails, they were struggling to depress the guns far enough, but that wouldn’t last. That didn’t matter, it was the merchant that she was after, not the warship.

Jess turned her attention to the merchantman who had managed to get her sails set and was picking up speed. Jess cupped her hands into a trumpet.

“Strike! Strike for your lives!” she shouted to the captain.

“Prepare borders!” Krychek yelled, louder by far than Jess and with more impact. The pennon fluttered down as the merchant ship struck. Wisely, the captain didn’t attempt to shorten sail, correctly surmising that Jess would want him to move out of the bay and away from the battery’s harassing fire.

“Pretty work, brave boys, pretty work I say," Jessica hummed.

@POOHEAD189

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

"Most exquisite my lady," the polished looking clothier asked. They were androgynous and completely bald, lacking even eyebrows, dressed in a flowing robes of gray silk. Like everyone else on the planet, he dressed in vaugley Ecclesiachal fashion. Even on Agnivor, a world of towering cathedral spires and shining minauretes most people were not actually members of the church, but dressing as though you were, earned you an extra measure of respect.

"You'd say that if I were dressed in a sack," I retorted as I admired myself in the micron fine mirror. The dress was of fine brown cloth stitched with gold thread. The seams were of pale cream silk masterfully dyed with scriptoral verses, apparently from the Life of Saint Ecklverta. The clothier simpered but didnt respond to my joke. I adjusted the stole of cream and orange fur around my neck.

"I'll take it," I responded, nodding to the pile of gowns and garments stacked on a guilded cart. The days shopping was not limited to gowns, it also included reliquaries, illuminated books of hours, small pomanders of herbs that proofed against the varied effluvia of pilgrims, incense, and the background grease of millions of candles.

"Your husband is calling again Madmosielle," one of the ushers said in a professionally respectful voice. I touched my belly and grimaced slightly, as though feeling the loss of my imaginary child. Ignoring Hadrian was a good way to establish my cover, but I was still dealing with some residual pettishness as well. In case of a real emergency he could reach my psycically.

"I'm not to be disturbed," I responded snappishly. I gazed out of the luxurious store into the two story drop to the flagstone street below. Thousands of pilgrims thronged the streets, ranging from well dressed nobles to penniless mendicants who had worked passage on starships or stowed away. The two ends of the social spectrum were not homogonous, the nobles had retinues that kept the hoi poloi at bay, while the unwashed masses crashed around them like surf. Preachers stood on street corners on makeshift plinths draped with painted silks, shouting out the Emperor's message while hard faced thugs in aquilla marked robes stood vigils.

The crowd moved in an out of temples in long unending lines, like food passing through a digestive tract. Pilgrims were marked by servitor scribes with strokes of ink at each genuflection. Slowly, over thousands of strokes, the Benediction of St Hildesheim. The prayer was seven hundred thousand words in length, so it required scores of pilgrims to complete a single iteration. I couldn't see it from here, but I knew that the ground water was stained black from the effluent. The Golden Jubilee of the Saint was bringing pilgrims from all over the sub-sector. That might be coincidence, but after what had happened on Gravemire, I had a bad feeling.

"Madmoiselle, your husband..."

"I am not to be disturbed!" I snapped. Then I moderated my temper.

"Bring me something in burgandy."

Penny's Pencils

@wanderingwolf I'm using krita with a simple pressure opacity brush and blending tool

Death's Edge: A Warhammer Story

"I am not feeling the warmth of the friendship you spoke so highly of Giovanni," I complained as I counted the meager handful of coins into my purse. The pawnshop was cluttered with old swords, last seasons dresses, and a surprising number of pistols and firearms. Keeping in shot and poweder was more expensive than people thought I supposed. Giovanni, a balding florid man spread his arms helplessly.

"Mia Cara, you know that I love you, but I have a bussiness to run! You say you have property in the palace, but you do not know it hasn't been looted, how can I advance money against what might not even be there?" he reasoned. I grunted sourly. What he said was true, but the excuse to poke around the palace was worth more than the few possessions I had left there. In truth, he had me over a barrel and he knew it. This was the only place I can think of to get some coin to get out of the city.

"I guess it will have to do," I grumbled and tied up my purse. We stepped out into the street keeping our hoods up.

"Are we going?" Kian asked, "also where are we going?" I shook my head and ducked into an alley across the way.

"Not yet, and not yet," I told him, peering out of the alley way as Giovanni emerged from his store, he locked the door and hurried off towards the palace. When he had turned the corner I stepped out and crossed back to the door, pulling the piece of parchment I had slid between the lock plates free as I opened the door. I crossed quickly and pulled the lock box from behind the counter, tucking it into my cloak.

"We are robbing him?" Kian asked, "Isn't he your friend?" I snorted.

"My friend who is running to the palace to inform on me," I explained, helping myself to a handsome pair of pistols and a rapier with a jeweled hilt.

"Grab what you need and lets get out of here, assuming your priestly virtues don't preclude a little loan."

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

I was much less certain than Hadrian seemed to be about the existence of this so called curse. Power armor was power armor and I suspected with a little reworking anyone could wear it. This whole thing seemed less likely than Hadrian was just spinning an elaborate self deception to convince himself Lazarus couldn't make a mistake. The pronouncement however set of a babble of conjecture and questioning.

"How have we come up with correct leads so far?" Clara wanted to know. A reasonable concern though easily explained if you knew the underlying psykannic principles. The scheme wasn't protected but Vorn was. That said something interesting about the enemy and their priorities.

"Why wasn't ever aspect of chaos cloaked this way?" Selenica enquired.

"Did this mean we could trust Lazarus on his analysis of priestly vestments?" and so on and so on.

I slipped out during the general furor and headed aft and upwards towards my quarters. I changed quickly (for me) out of my golden dress and into a simple black body glove with a mantled coatlet of soft grey leather. It may surprise you to learn this but the Caledonia was a cold ship, and a humid one, as though a mist were perpetually about to form. Apparently this was some kind of tribute to the world that Urien and his crew hailed from, and a unique one in my experience. Just keeping the air breathable at all is a struggle on all but the most luxurious of ships, and even those tend to go for a dry sterility that will avoid rust and other mechanical issues.

I left the room and wandered the ship, partly to keep working on cleaning my mind from my recent contact with the dead Bishop Simon, partly just to think. My efforts were perhaps not competely successful, as quite by accident I found myself at the Caledonian's chapel. Modest is a term to be used in context when it comes to both Imperial chapels and Starships, but it is fair to say that this one was modest. It was one of the few areas of the ship that stuck me as completely Imperial, without the embellishments of Urien and his crew. It even felt warmer, though this was likely due to the votive candles and braziers that rimmed the roof twenty meters above with a perpetual mist of smoke. I stepped inside and took a seat at the back out of sight, contemplating the march of stately columns up to the stained glass window of Him on Terra, depicted here gazing up to the stars, perhaps about to embark on his great crusade. I thought about Simon Philovong, whom I had jumped to his death, still in the unshakable belief that he did the Emperor's work. A man so devout that it had led him to become a heretic, killed by a woman whom, despite having no faith at all, served the Emperor's avowed purpose. Not forgetting raising the shade of a dead heretic to get answers in the bargin of course. Was I the real Heretic? Was Philovong? Both of us? Neither? I bowed my head and did something like pray.

I must have dozed off because when I woke my face was pressed against the front of the pew. I hastily wiped the drool from the corner of my mouth and glanced about to make sure my dignity was intact. It was, but a moment later I saw a figure enter the chapel. Elektra walked, head bowed, to the altar, her evicarator held before her like an icon. She laid the weapon on the altar and stepped back, sheding her cloak to reveal the rippling muscles of her back. She drew a length of knotted rope from a pouch and began to chant rythmically. At the end of each verse she whipped herself hard across the back. It didn't quite draw blood, she was too toughened for that, but I saw mottling of bruises form as she chanted her devotion to the God Emperor. I wondered at her devotion, reliving the flashes of divine inspiration I had seen in her mind during out mental contact. I was going to have to slow down or I would have snap shots of half the sub sector living in my brain. After a shockingly long time Elektra ceased the flagellation. She was tough, but even so she was trembling. Reverently she reached out and retrieved the sword then turned to leave. Either she didn't see me sitting in the dark or she didn't dain to comment. Instead, she strode regally from the chapel like a queen, leaving me alone and wondering at her devotion.

Death's Edge: A Warhammer Story

Soldiers and courtesans rise early. The former check the picket lines and observe the weather, for the later it is time to begin applying the various powders and potions needed to maximize appeal. My cosmetics were in the palace but the instinct didn't leave me. I climbed from the bed, pleasantly sore from the night before and stepped over to the mirror, lighting the single candle from the coals of the fire. I peered into the mirror and was surprised to find myself as fresh and vivacious as ever, perhaps even more so. My skin seemed to glow in the soft predawn light and my lips were redder and fuller than I remembered. Perhaps the stimulation of the evening had been good for me. I glanced at the sleeping Kian and began to smile, then froze. Out in the street I saw a cat arch its back and hiss before skittering off down an alleyway. I frowned and pulled on my tunic before slipping to the door and opening it. The hallway beyond was dark and I crept down it to the top of the stairs and peered down into the common room. There were still a few drinkers up and about, chatting excitedly about the coup and the prospects for various parties. Their words were slurred from a long night of drinking but they seemed harmless. The tavern door opened and a trio of condottieri half walked half staggered inside.

"Ale for me and they boys!" one of them called as they made their way across the floor. Cursing I ducked back and ran on silent barefeet back to the room. Kian stirred as I came back through the door sitting up on one elbow and giving me a hungry lookd.

"Back for round two?" he asked with a lazy smile and I realized I wasn't wearing any pants. I grabbed my leggings and started pulling them on in the same motion that carried me across the room to him in an awkward hop. I put my fingers over his lips and leaned close.

"There are soldiers downstairs, looking for you," I told him. I assumed that was the case anyway. They weren't drunk as they hadn't slurred their words when they asked for ale.

"The probably have men out in the streets too," I hurried on, rationalizing the behaviour of the cat. It seemed like a leap but I somehow knew it in my bones. Kian was awake and getting dressed no, evidently this wasnt the first bed he had been rousted out of by unwelcome company.

"Why in Sigmar's name would they be looking for me?" he puzzled. I wasn't sure.

"Maybe they want you as a hostage, now that they missed their chance to snatch Hortimann? In any case I'd say its time to scappare."

I grabbed up my few possession and stepped to the door only to freeze as I heard voices at the top of the stairs. The innkeeper was shouting at the soldiers telling them it was two crowns a night if they wanted a room. The hostile response didn't even have the pretense of drunkenness, and I could imagine the condottieri stalking down the hall weapons drawn. I slid the bolt closed as quietly as I could, though the attempt at stealth was rendered moot by the crash of a door being kicked in and the startled screams of the occupants. By Myrmidia's grace they didn't know what room we were in.

"Time to go," I half gasped stepping to the window and pulling up the shutter as slowly as I could. Kian followed me, pulling on his boots and grabbing his own few belongings as I climbed out onto the tile roof. Something whizzed past my ear and the timber frame splintered as shouts erupted from below. I saw a half dozen soldiers emerging from cover, several more pointing crossbows at us. Kian paused, clearly uncertain whether being shot on a rooftop was preferable to being captured in the room.

"Come on!" I yelled and took off down the roof at a full sprint, praying to Myrmidia that the tiles didn't come loose under my feet. The end of the roof rushed up towards me and I leaped out into empty space, sailing through the air, arms flailing. I hit the roof of the villa on the other side of the alley and slid. This time I was less fortunate, the tiles coming away under my wait as I scrabbled for purchase. I managed to grab hold of a stem post and pull myself fully up onto the roof just as another crossbow bolt whisked pass me.

"Jump!" I yelled at Kian, then on inspiration began to prize up tiles and hurl them down at the soldiers in the alley below. The heavy ceramic missiles crashed down in explosions of terracotta dust. One of the crossbowmen was slow to reach and went sprawling to the dirt as I caught him in the arming cap.

"Come on!" I screamed. If Kian could make it across we could flee across the roof tops and that sounded pretty good to me, I had spent just about enough time in Remas for one season.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

That trips through the hellish realm of the Immaterium can be idylls of peace is a paradox known to many Imperial travelers. Certainly I have always found this to be the case, except for that time on the Prospect of Redemption of course. As a Rogue Trader the Caledonia was luxuriously appointed with every amenity. Hadrian was able to receive proper treatment for his wound opting, to Lazarus' disgust, for a cloned organ rather than an augmetic. Selenica clucked and fussed over him. Lazarus did whatever it is tech priests do. Elektra, having opted to enter Hadrian's service in order to atone for her sins, spent her time in the Caledonia's small chapel, ritually scourging herself. This ritual, conducted nude, had attracted the attention of several of the Caledonia's crew, until Elektra had caught them watching and put three of them in the medical bay. It was fortunate that she didn't have her chainblade and thus our voyeurs remained in one piece. I spent several days in a kind of fugue as I struggle to disentangle my mind from that of the late Simon Philovong, a rigorous process of directed meditation which slowly cleaned my mind. Now and again I caught glimpses of the shade of Jogar Carden in the corner of my eye, but I resolutely ignored him.

I spent some time reading, though Hadrian always contrived to accompany me when I did, transparently concerned that I might delve into his tomes of forbidden lore without guidance. This rather soured the pleasure and I soon gave up on the practice and returned to the real work of the Inquisition. It may surprise the uninitiated, whose view of the Ordos is of stern faced heroes dispensing the Emperor's justice with a bolt pistol, that the vast majority of time is spent grinding through data. The Imperium of Man runs on record keeping, and I am convinced that any mystery may be solved if one simply has the patience to deal with the mountains of numbers generated by the Administratum. We had converted one of the Caledonia's guest quarters to a kind of operations center by removing most of the furniture and piling up documents and data slates. The walls we had covered with picts and notes linked together by sacred scarlet cord, a tradition of the Inquisition whose origins had been lost in the mist of time. There were masses of new material to be added, picts of the burned printing presses which had been used to create the scrolls, notes on the Under Council and their purchases of unsanctioned psykers and on and on. I was sipping an amesec and making notes on some of Philovong's sermons He had been an articulate man and a gifted orator. His doctrine of radical obedience to the word of the Emperor wasn't heretical in and of itself but I could trace the man's progress. Radical obedience to the word of the Emperor quickly became a kind of soft anti-clericalism, the hierarchs of the Church were no closer the Emperor's Grace than the humble street preacher and so on. I could see where he had become a target for the cult who could offer him a Word that was Obedience. Philovong had begun with the good intentions that the road to heresy is so often paved with. I was pondering if that meant my ambivalent intentions were actually a better recommendation for Imperial service when the door hissed open and Urien bustled in, grinning like the cat that ate the syber bird. He offered a formal bow and extended a leather case to me, embossed with the signals of an astropathic communique. I opened it and took out the printed flimsy inside.

"Better get the others," I told him.

______

"Meet Inquisitor Teritus Vorn," I told the party when they had assembled. I was wearing a dress of shimmering cloth of gold with varying inlays of silver and copper thread. On the wall was a new image, this one depicting the Inquisitor Hadrian had fought on Havenos. Unlike the psy-casts had made of the man, which were slightly fuzzy with the fear and confusion which had colored my perception of him, this image was clear and precise, part of an astropathic communique we had received in response to the query we had sent out months earlier. Time was not always reliable when it came to astropathic messages, and who knew what favors Hadrian had called in to get the beauracracy of the Ordos moving.

"Ordo Hereticus, sterling record, marked for great things by all accounts," I told them, summarizing the few details that had been appended to the name and picture.

"Purged the Pyrarchy on Cadavitz, prosecuted the arch-deacon of Leinster and successfully convicted him, broke a ring of xeno-antiquity traders on Remic II," I continued, then paused and shrugged my shoulders. "By all reports a dyed in the wool mono-dominant."

"I've never heard of him," Hadrian declared bluntly. I nodded my head. In some ways the Inquisition was a small community, but the galaxy was a very large place.

"He is assigned to the Ordo Angevin, in the Orphidian Sub," I noted. Inquisitors could, in theory, go anywhere but as a matter of administrative origination, they were grouped into rough geographical units. Most sub sectors were headed by a Grandmaster or Inquisitor General who oversaw operations.

"He is a long way from home then," Lazarus noted, retriving the datum which had taken me to the library to run down in a few moments.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

All around me was chaos. The air tasted soapy with sublimed calcium that flayed at the back of the throat. The zealots behind us were charging the door, their screams drowned out by the howl of Elecktra's evicerator as she wove it in great figure eights, sending limbs, heads, and bisected bodies flying in all directions in a welter of blood. Hadrian and Lazarus were killing the psykers as fast as they could. The barrel of Lazarus' weapon was glowing white from firing, the air around it shimmering and twisting. I couldn't see Clara or Ortega but judging from the chatter of las fire and the continual boom boom boom of Ortega's shot gun suggested they were fully engaged. I looked up at the priest, above us. The psykic shield was weaking but slowly, too slowly. I knew what the scroll said, and where in the liturgy the command word came. However much we had dampened the psykic signal, many thousands of Imperials were about to be ensnared.

I would like to say that inspiration struck, but in my experience, desperation beats inspiration everytime. I grabbed the cables connecting a now dead psyker to the altar and yanked them free. Flesh ripped with a horrifying sucking sound followed by two metallic pops. I caught the bloody ends of the cable and wrapped them around my force staff. With a a jolt of mental effort my mind tore up the conduit and into the altar, twisting along kaledoscipic wheels of light and meaning. I could taste the salty stink of the warp all around me, feel the gibbering minds of the captive psykers being drawn into the altar, feel them dying as Hadrian and Lazarus continued their bloody work. The command was building in the mind of the priest, there were only moments before the ritual was finished. The shade of the dead assassin I had raised gibbered in the corner of my consciousness. I had to concentrate.

It is a hard truth of the Warp that if you can touch something, it can touch you. Every psyker learns this, or is destroyed by what lies beyond. I just had to find the connection. My mind scrabbled on the inside of the ritual, like blind fingers feeling along impossibly smooth glass. I found it and wormed my way through, clawing my way up into the priests mind. I heard him start screaming on the inside as he felt me coming, his mind frantically trying to form the words of the liturgy. I had a fleeting moment of connection, I felt his desperation. He wasn't a heretic, not in his own mind, he merely wanted to bring the entire hive, the entire universe into perfect and unerring devotion to the divine Emperor. His will locked with mine. He was strong, as strong as any I have ever known. His mind was hard edged, bitter and fanatic. He began to drive me back, his mouth forming around the edge of the word. I clawed at him, slashed at him, but he was reciting a litany in his own mind. Abhor the Psyker, Suffer not the Witch to Live. Abhor the Psyker, Suffer not the Taint of the thrice cursed to lay upon thy flock. Abhor the Psyker. I was giving him everything I had but this was his play ground, his mind, a ritual space he had constructed and repaired, as strong willed and desperate as I was he was going to drive me out and say the unword. There was nothing I could do to stop it.

Except there was.

I blasted him with Lucius' memories of the Emperor of Mankind. Not a divine and omnipotent god, but a mortal man, tired from ceaseless wars, fallible and human. I shoved the borrowed memories deep into his brain. The third party nature of them was far more devastating than anything I could have come up with. From me it might have seemed a lie, a stratagem to be dismissed, but they very authenticity of them made them cut like a power blade. The Priest screamed and I opened my eyes to stare down over the dead psykers and the pit of profaned bones. I was larger, clumsier, my balance was all wrong without the weight in my breasts and hips. I was stronger and older. I saw myself gripping the end of a cable forty feet below, electric shocks jolting through me ever second which flashed dizzying images of the bones in my hand. I could see Hadrian and Lazarus hewing down the remaining psyhic batteries. I felt the priests sadness at their loss, along with a sense of joy that they had died for the Emperor. I saw Elektra who I had raised from the gutters hewing down my devoted servants. I saw the light of the pict receivers as they recorded my stalled sermon. I looked down at the scroll infront of me and my liver spotted hands.

I jumped from the dias.

There was a brief sensation of vertiginous drop and then the connector cords that plugged my augments into the altar snubbed, caught my decent for a second and then ripped free in a welter of blinding pain. I screamed, the sound ripping from two throats in a confusing doppler as I plunged towards the bones. I caught a flash of red and the whir of chainsword blades as pain ripped through my left side as my leg and part of my hip were carved away, the feeling of ceramite blades grinding and sawing through my bones seeming to take far too long for the few instants it should require. I crashed into he bones, screams abruptly cutting off as a shattered femur drove through the cartilage of my throat. Wheezing I lifted my hands to try to stem the blood pouring from the terrible wound, though I knew that the arterial blood spurting from the stump of my leg must finish me first. I tried desperately to push myself up, lifting my head just in time to see Elektra's chain blade sweeping towards my eyes in a flat horizontal cut.

The mental link broke as the zealot's chainsword took off the top of the Priest's skull at eye level. If I had been able to apprehend fact I might have decided that she had been aiming for decapitation but had misjudged the strike as the priest slipped in the bones, but that was far to subtle a distinction for me as I screamed and vomited simultaneously. I gripped at my leg and my eyes all at once, trying to curl myself up into a ball with enough force to strain muscles. I just had time to cough up a spray of blood and bone dust before I plunged into merciful oblivion.

Bodacious Bounties: Bounty Hunter AU

"It helps a bit that you cant see the ventral airlock from here," Jocasta admitted, drawn in spite of herself. She loved the Dragonfly and it wasn't easy not to share Neil's excitement. The landing bay was a large place, capable of docking two or three heavy freighters, though a present it was given over to half a dozen smaller craft, mostly intrasystem packets that ran cargo between the many stations of the girdle. It was a working space and the air rang with the sound of impact wrenches and welding flux generators. Jocasta fondly wished she could afford a full yard overhaul, but as it was she was probably going to be lucky to scrape together enough for fuel.

Neil was standing with his back to the boarding ramp and so couldn't see Cygi produce a sack with a credit symbol painted on it and crudely pantomime shooting Neil. Jocasta smiled flatly. She was tempted, but even if she managed to club Neil over the head, she would have still needed fuel to get him to the drop off point a half a parsec away.

"Mech fighting you say?" Jocasta asked instead. There had been a mania for robot fighting in the past few years. A lot of hardware suddenly up for grabs now that peace were declared. She wasn't entirely certain how they would make money on such an endeavor beyond betting and with the few credits she had that would take more time than she could afford to stay docked. Unless she could get really long odds on a sure thing of course.

"Aren't those fights fixed?" she asked, the inkling of an idea percolating in the back of her febrile mind.