Inquisitor Daul is hunting down the dangerous heretic Soren Faust on the planet of Belzafest. Faust, the supposedly long dead traitor Inquisitor Lord, infamous for close to a century for his wild genetic experiments and insane philosophies, has taken world hostage and is planning something insidious. Aided by the former Skitarii Cairn Thross, the Magos Kerrigan, the elite soldiers known as the Lionhearts and reluctantly aided by the Rogue Trader Nathaniel Emanuelle Sáclair Daul is about to discover secrets far beyond the scope of what he was prepared to manage and is going to have to find his place in a wider world than he had ever believed existed in a war for the fate of humanity long before even the Dark Age of technology. Babylon five is a haven for warriors, idealists, dreamers, and wanderers. How much damage can one more ship of fanatics do in the long run?

I own nothing.

THIS WILL BE A CROSSOVER BE FOREWARNED.
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Daul's perennial nightmare had not changed in decades, his terrifying fever dreams as inevitable as the act of sleep. He would close his eyes and find himself in the home of his youth, as unchanged and welcoming as it had been in childhood. It had been decades since he'd last been to Metzik, it had never been the same after the imperial purges but his childhood memories of the world would always be of a place that was green and full of life. Throne help him how he missed the smells of cooking meat from his mothers kitchen and the smell of curing wood in his father's workshop. His father.... His father, it all came back to his father in the end. Daul was perhaps the only child in existence who's greatest desire was his father die and stay dead.

His father never stayed dead. His father could never stay dead.

Usually Daul would avoid the dream by self-medicating with a compound that granted dreamless sleep. It was an effective substance but not without side effects and Daul could not afford to dull his whits in the following morning. So it was that he was once again in his dream, a small and helpless boy fleeing a gore-soaked effigy of his parent. Daul knew that he was within a dream, knew that the monster was long since dead, knew that by force of will and by the strength of his own hands he had crushed stronger fores in a heartbeat but in his dreamful state the only facts that seemed to hold sway were the need for safety and the furious beating of his own heart.

Daul's childhood home was exactly as it had been in his youth, a large center hall house of the traditional Metzik fashion. A tall house made out of the dark wood of the forest that blanketed most of the planet, a warm place of the smells of spices and cured meats. It was a simple place, a place of plenty and relative calm in the grand empire of mankind. A world untouched by the wars and conflict that raged through most of the galaxy, a paradise by all accounts.

It was also the place where Daul's father would kill his entire family.

It had been an accident in the mines that killed his father, or so they said at first. Some fool hadn't properly shored up the supports and the whole tunnel collapsed. It was a tragedy for the entire community of miners. Efforts were made to dig survivors out of the cave and some were saved but Daul's father was not one of the ones unearthed by the rescue teams. In the following days Daul sat with his mother and this three sisters in the chapel the Emperor, ostensibly praying wisdom and salvation. Daul did not pray for his father's salvation, he prayed for his father's resurrection. If the great saint Daufn Por had been raised at the will of the God Emperor then why not a man as good and true as Daul's father.

It was not the emperor who heeded Daul's prayers for resurrection but his prayers were answered, after a fasion.

Daul's father came back. He emerged days later from a shaft on the southern ridge, covered in soot and looking like death warmed over but alive as any man. It had been heralded as a miracle of the God-Emperor when Daul's father had come out of the southern mineshaft unhurt some two weeks later. A curse cloaked as a blessing.

For in the days that followed his father would become more distant, laugh less, eat more, and be prone to capricious bouts of fury. Sven Hilder had never said a cross word in his life before but rapidly became the worst sort of man. Something in that shaft had changed him something that he had found in the darker pits of the earth. The colonists had no way of knowing this but man was not the first creature to colonize Metzik. There were xenos of the worst kinds imaginable in Metzik's distant past, monsters who could drive a man mad simply by gazing upon their warped visage. Beneath the surface of Metzik lay remnants of great evils long past. Creatures of spite and craft had once lived on Metzik and had left artifacts of twisted powers and false promise to tempt the unwary.

In life he had welcomed his father back with open arms but in the dream he was wiser. He would try to convince his family that the thing that visited them nightly was not his father, to warn them of the danger that this twisted mockery of a man represented, but they didn't listen.

Please, Emperor help me... Please make them listen... I can't let it happen again!

His mother would cry and embrace the father-thing and his sister would praise the God-Emperor for his grace. It waited for the end of her prayer to change, the blasphemy of corrupting a child's prayers too tempting to resist. No longer was it the hale and healthy image of his father but a twisted and malevolent abattoir beast wearing his father's face grinning a chelsea smile. Then it would begin, and he would do nothing.

What could a child be expected to do? But he was not a child was he? Was he not a grown man? No.. not in the dream... never in the dream...

Daul would watch his family being butchered by the chaos spawned xenoform father-creature. In Daul's own life the creature was slain many years ago by his mentor Inquistor Martin Gaal but there would be no power-armored rescuer in the nightmare. He was alone to fight off his father. What boy can fight his own father?

He's not my father, not my father. My father could never be you! Please don't be my father...

He was alone with the cruel mockery of his father's love, forced to listen to its insane cackle and listen to its fleshy chewing. For the icon bound to his father's flesh could only be paid for its boons of power and madness in flesh and blood, the universal currencies of sacrifice.
He would try to trick himself into believing that his father had not killed him out of love, that he would take all he needed out of the others and leave Daul alone but love was a boon his father could no longer grant, another sacrifice to his blasphemous icon. The room would spin as he stood, spindly young legs shaking with panic and sorrow. It made no sense for it to be happening and thus must not be true.

Please let it not be true.

The soft and almost seductive voice of his father whispered hollow words of comfort and love to Daul, “Come now child never fear, you are safe, you're always safe around your father.”

Daul would stand still, wishing to believe it but knowing it to be false. He would sit and listen to the creature's platitudes and promises till it started to scoop out the soft contents of his mothers head and start pawing chunks into a distended maw. The urge to flee overpowered all his other conflicting emotions.

Daul's child mind was frustratingly uncreative, the protection of a blanket and a stuffed bear seem as powerful as any void shield. No matter how many times he fled to his room his secret place in the hollow space in the wall between his bed and where his chest of toys sat did not protect him but he still ran there to clutch his favorite stuffed animal as though the misshapen and thread-worn bear could provide sanctuary. As though the overstuffed face held a reliquary of the Golden Throne itself.

Clutching the bear he would pray to his mother for guidance, a weak child sending impotent prayers sent to the dead. The ancestors could not save him from the predations of chaos spawned xenotech.

Ragged breath and shambling bow-legged footsteps caused by something large caused him greater and greater panic with every passing second. The softest creaks and echoes of the shifting of floorboards sounded thunderous in Daul's ears.

Daul tried to hide himself in the friendly face of the overstuffed bear, hopping to muffle the sound of his frenzied breathing and the furious tattoo of his own heart.

The creature's hands made wet noises as they slapped on the frame of his bedroom door. It grinned it's twisted skeletal grin, stretching out the skin of his father's face and cried out, “Daul... are we playing a game now Daul? Daddy likes games?”

Daul squeezed himself into a tighter ball.

“Why don't we play a game Daddy likes? Do you want to play the game Daddy and Mommy just played? I promise we'll only do it once,” It cackled to itself as it tore the clothes in Daul's closet to shreds.

“Or do you want to play a game of hide and seek? Oh what a naughty child you are hiding from daddy,” its voice darkened, “remember... Daddy loves you doesn't he?” More laughter followed.

“Ok, new rules to the game. Daddy finds you and we play a game he likes, Daddy doesn't find you and you get to leave?” Liar... he would never escape. Daul choked back a sob, Damn, had it heard?No... emperor almighty let it not have heard.... please.

Seconds passed that felt like an eternity, the creature stood in the room ranting and raving to itself till it grew bored, there was the sound of footsteps then silence, glorious silence. It might have left after all, perhaps tonight was the night were “daddy” lost the game.

Daul dared not check, but what other option was there?

Daul shifted his weight and looked out the hollow. In the darkness there was nothing, a great void of emptiness. No, not nothing, throne help him not nothing, in the darkness there was a still darker shadow shuddering with silent laughter.

The last memory of his dream was a wicked taloned hand grabbing, twisting, and clawing at his flesh.

--

Daul shot out of bed, roughly clipping the crown of his head on the alcove above. His fears and worries about the dream were numbed by the throbbing pain in his now swollen and throbbing head. Lights blinked before his eyes as he made his way to the washbasin at the side of the room. The rooms provided for Daul by Captain Nathaniel Emanuelle Sáclair were spacious by naval standards but poorly suited for the broad form and tall stature of the Metzik native. The only larger spaces were either poorly placed in terms of security and privacy. It would not do to either leave himself wide open for an attack or to allow a member of the crew to witness a member of His Majesty's most glorious Inquisition reduced to tears over a bad dream.


But it wasn't just a dream was it?

It was a memory of things long past, things that might have been and ought not be allowed to pass in future. Most people feared the demons of their past, the Inquisitors simply had the luxury of being able to put names and faces on those who haunt the recesses of dreams and nightmares. Many in his profession either ended their own lives or went mad from the pressure, the sacrifices of uncensored knowledge of the universe. Daul's discomfort was well deserved but difficult to explain, better to maintain the anonymity and privacy expected of his position. Daul was not long trapped in such dark musing however, the massive form of Daul's attendant brushed through the door to his private chambers carrying a strong drink in one hand and a data slate in the other.
Daul smiled, “Cairn you're a saint.”
Cairn Thross served as bodyguard, attendant, and confidant to Daul. He was a large man, larger still than Daul himself, posessed of a stoic manner and a cloaked frame bulging with augmentic implants. Cairn had once been a member of the Skitarii, the special defense forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus before his assignment to Daul in payment for services rendered in defense of the Daskal Forge. Cairn was as unwavering in his duties to Daul as he was in his devotion to the omassiah, completing all tasks in silent efficacy. He was also an alarmingly good cook and bartender who had long since given up solid food and strong drink for the intravenous nutrition drip favored by the Skitarii.

Exactly how one of the augmentic soldiers of the machine god had become so proficient in the various domestics, dalliances, and duties of an inquisitorial attendant was something of a mystery to Daul, a mystery that Cairn was unlikely to ever resolve. Though all of Daul's earthly oaths of loyalty and fealty were bound to Daul his spiritual oaths to the omassiah were unchanged. All members of Cairns legion took an oath of silent obedience, swearing only to speak in the secret binary tongue of the machine. Cairns brief bouts of speech were invariably in a garish and whirring tone of garbled screeches and clicks. Binary, the secret language of the machine worshippers was totally alien to most of the universe, some members of the Inquisition attested that it wasn't even translatable by mortal man and could only be bestowed by the curious machine sorceries of the Admech. After over two decades of listening to the garbled warbling speech and Daul was tempted to agree.

There were a number of mysteries to Skitarii Thross' name. Even if Cairn were able to speak Daul doubted that Cairn would betray the honor of his order and reveal their secrets nor would Daul be able to ask for them in good faith. Daul would have to survive on the silent service of his faithful aide without knowing every secret, a privilege rarely given by an Inquisitor.

“Thank you Cairn,” Cairn made the symbol of the cog, his universal symbol of thanks, welcome, and greeting used in lieu of speech.

Daul shook his head, someday he would learn that small-talk was wasted on his impassive metallic acquaintance. He accepted the drink and the data-slate and proceeded to partake in both. The drink transpired to be less mind numbing than the data reports on the slate. There was only one conclusion to be drawn from the voluminous facts and figures, “Nathaniel Sáclair despises me.”

Sáclair hated Daul for the same reason that he was honor bound to aid Daul in times of need. Daul had saved his life and his honor. Sáclair would never be able to properly repay Daul for the debt he owed, a fact that galled the notoriously willful and violently independent captain of the Endless Bounty. Sáclair would never be so uncouth as to leave a debt of honor unpaid but his puckish and theatrical nature demanded that he rebel as much as honor allowed. Childish pranks were how Sáclair allowed himself to maintain his own sanity and sense of control. In this instance the status report that Daul had requested was not a simple summary of the past eight hours and an estimated time of arrival but rather a complete historical log of both the travels of the Endless Bounty and the Belzafest outpost. Without spending months or years sifting through the data it was useless.

Daul looked up at Cairn, “No chance this makes any sense to you does it?”

Cairn nodded.

“Yeah, that figures,” it wasn't as though Cairn could exactly explain the tablets, “Goes with my luck so far.”

Daul flipped the data-slate upside down and shook it, vainly hoping that it would jar some morsel of knowledge from the recesses of the data. Or at least change it into a language he could understand, the scribbles were as incomprehensible as the numbers, “What language is this written in anyway? A dialect of proto-gothic?”

Cairn nodded.

Daul looked frustratedly at Cairn, “None of this data is even remotely useful to me if I do go through the effort of having a logic engine run this through its machine spirit and collate the data?”

Cairn shook his head.

“Sáclair is going to make me walk up to the bridge and talk to him while he's sitting on that gaudy excuse for a throne isn't he?”

Cairn nodded.

“The universe hates me doesn't it.”

Cairn nodded and shook his shoulders, the closest thing to laughter he was capable of. Clearly he found the situation to be as amusing as Sáclair no doubt did. Humor was not a characteristic emphasized by the adepts of the machine god but in spite of this Cairn seemed to have gained a healthy sense of irony and sarcasm that he used to the best of his ability. It was just as well that the Skitarii would never be in the service of the Admech in the future, they would probably consider a jovial Skitarii to be some grievous form of heresy.

The throne to which Dual referred sat in the middle of the command deck in a high ceilinged hall with wide banks of data-screens and vid-banks arranged around the room like the multicolored glass of a cathedral window. The room was a physical representation of the opulence and temporal powers to which Sáclair had access. The Endless Bounty was a city of its own packed into four miles of starship. It was a community of thousands for whom the command deck represented the epicenter for king, country, and God-Emperor. Though none of the crew were so craven or so bold as to deny the Emperor the base of Nathaniel's command chair was probably the closest most of them would ever get to reaching the Holy Throne of High Terra. The crew of the bounty were, with few exceptions, void-born folk. Entire generations would be born, live, and die without ever having entered an atmospheric shuttle or left an airlock. Every deck and sector was a city of a greater nation flying the livery of the Lion of Sáclair.

Like any other nation the Endless Bounty was steeped in tradition and governed by custom. Since the ship first left the Damascus IV shipyards and went to the stars the de-facto center of society and culture was always the grand hall of the command deck. The ship's command structure was ostensibly a meritocracy the majority of Sáclairs court of officers had gained their positions hereditarily. Like any oligarchy it suited them to structure government in such a way that they could primp and pose for the lesser members of their world, showing their superiority. One could always expect a queue of deckhands, gunners, ratings, and merchants petitioning the magistrate for marriage, divorce, or any number of other legal matters. It would be rare for either a member of the command staff to be involved in such matters but they always occurred under the watchful gaze of Sáclair.

Daul was a man of status and would not have to queue up with the crew but a meeting with Sáclair would require him to obey the protocol else risk insulting Sáclair and freeing him from his debts. It was unlikey that Sáclair expected such an obvious ploy to work but it would amuse Sáclair to no end to force Daul to operate within a social structure that he dominated. Sáclair would obey the whims of Daul but in order to get him to do so Daul would have to maintain the image of amiable servitude to a benevolent captain.

It would be a small price to pay but it was no less annoying.

Such byplay was all well and good, Daul supposed but custom dictated that he wear full inquisitorial livery bearing all the seals of his office and his signed inquisitorial mandate, which was frankly more of a hassle than he wished to deal with for a relatively simple status report. He would have to do it. He needed the information Sáclair was withholding.

“Still, if Sáclair insists upon me arriving in full livery I will do so,” Daul smiled wickedly an amusing idea popping into his head, “Cairn, how quickly can you get my formal livery out of storage?”

Cairn looked at Daul confusedly, one of the tentacle like mechandrites that dangled from where his mouth used to be lazily raised and pointed in the direction of Daul's armoire.

“Not that one.”

Cairn nodded to the laundry hamper.

“No Cairn my other suit.”

Cairns mechandrites shifted excitedly and his shoulders shook as comprehension dawned on him. Sáclair was not the only one with a sense of irony.

Daul had no issue in navigating the bustling halls of the great market that led to the transport tubes. The crew was in shock and awe of the Inquisitor at the best of times, now that he was garbed in the full robes and powered armor of his complete battle raiment they were terrified to be within arms reach. One particularly unprepared crewman actually jumped back and knocked over a table of fresh fruit, causing the vendor at the stand to fly into a fit of epileptic rage that was cut shot upon seeing the skull like face of Daul's helmet.

“Even the pious and mighty fear the wrath of His Majesty's Inquisition,” his former master had once told him, “We are the things of nightmare and of greatest hope, often at the same time.”

It stood to reason that people as guilty of minor heresy as those on the bounty would be gifted with a special mistrust for the inquisition. The Endless Bounty had a record of trading with people and species who were off limits to the traders of the empire, a fact that Sáclair historically chose to forget in light of potential profits. They were heretics but there was more use in their lives than in their deaths, a fact that Daul had put to good use. He was lucky that the looks were only of fear and not of hatred, even the thickest of the crew seemed to realize that their survival was by Daul's will alone.

Cairn lightly tapped on Daul's sholder, augmentic fingers clinking loudly on the ornate adamantium shell. Daul looked around and smiled. A group of five armed security officers were following them at a discrete distance. Daul smiled behind his mask, “I see Sáclair still feels the need for us to have our entourage.”

Cairn squinted and nodded. This was not the first time he had caught members of the crew following him at a distance. The security chief of the ship was determined to ensure that there was no incident with the local criminal element and the Inquisitor, he had a great fear of Daul that was well earned. The obviously placed guards were an olive branch to help make him feel at ease and to demonstrate the chief's willingness to comply with the any inquisitorial efforts.

They needn't have bothered, the first thing Daul had bothered to do after moving to his quarters was to track down the leader of the largest crime syndicate onboard and assert his dominance. Hess, the underboss of the largely deserted section of ship nearest to the engines plasma reclamations, had proven to be quite reasonable and compliant. Watching the best of your guards flayed alive by psychic energies before being held down by a Skitarii who injects you with a remote detonator tends to engender a more agreeable attitude. The criminal element onboard the Endless Bounty was by and large unwilling to risk being within line of sight of the “psychic terror,” though there were always some fools in the bunch no doubt. The submission of the ships criminals had probably been overkill but it helped enforce his own image of omnipotent control.

“If I can take out a Hive Tyrant what hope does a mugger have?”

Cairn looked back impassively at the blue uniformed security officers in apparent mild frustration. There had already been several attempts on Daul's life in the past months, the last of which Cairn had nearly failed to avert. Cairn's professionalism demanded that he allow the security officers to follow them but his pride demanded that he treat them as an equal threat. The look he gave Daul spoke volumes.

“Thross I would not worry about the security staff, they need me alive for the next fifty years or the whole of the Imperial Navy will be at their throats,” Daul was confident in the loyalty of Sáclairs crew. They may not like the Inquisitor but they liked living more than they feared him.

The Endless Bounty had come within a hair's breadth of annihilation. Some ten years ago the ship was seized by imperial forces at the border of Tau controlled space en route from an imperial world who had recently defected to xenos control. The ship, its cargo, and its crew had been seized by the magistrate on charges of treason and heresy. While the standard procedure in such a situation was generally summary execution of the crew and destruction of the ship to avoid xenos contamination the magistrate had apparently decided that caution was called for, he could not be sure if the Captain had been aware of the planet's defection at the time he left or even as they were trading. A rarity in the empire for sure, the magistrate wanted absolute proof of treason before he ended thousands of lives. In light of this Daul had been called in to investigate the situation and determine the legitimacy of Nathaniel Emanuelle Sáclair. Sáclair was potentially guilty of trading with the heretics but Dual was to discover the truth.

Nathaniel was guilty as sin. He had been regularly doing trade with various institutions at the fringes of space that were questionable at best, but it seemed strange that Sáclair's trading guild was not trying to stop Daul's efforts to root out the truth of Sáclair. They were, in fact, providing him with a plethora of damning information. It was all too easy.

Daul didn't like too easy, it often meant that someone was hiding something far worse and trying to get rid of him, so he started researching the Amon Sui Trading Guild and discovered a far larger issue than a single errant captain. Further investigation revealed that the arrest of Sáclair had less to do with heresy and more to do with simple economics. An astounding amount of trade was ongoing between the supposedly blockaded border worlds and the various trading guilds of the sector, so much so that it would be only a matter of time before a massive imperial retribution would be taken out upon the entire guild. As a way of preserving their image of proper behavior the guild had offered up Sáclair to the magistrate as a sacrificial lamb, someone to point at and say, “here is what we do with heretics in our guild,” while still committing greater heresy in secret.

Sáclair was an easy target, he was the last of his house and already had an infamous reputation for breaking the rules and laws he felt were too restrictive for someone of his status. Obedience to authority was anathema to Sáclair, he would rather die than be cowed under the yolk of someone else's control. The evidence provided to the magistrate to convict Nathaniel proved to be enough rope for Daul to use to strangle the guild. The disloyalty and subterfuge of the guild disgusted Daul, Sáclair was far from a perfect man but he seemed to be a good and loyal man or at least as good and loyal as one can expect a pirate to be. Moreover, in spite of his many heresies, Sáclair had a faith in the power of the Emperor that was second do none. True faith was in short supply as of late.

The lowest pits of the malevolent eye were reserved for traitors and deserters, the center of hell itself the home of the great dragon that sits in place and rips the flesh off the greatest traitor of all, Horus thrice damned. This was what Daul's mentor had raised him to believe, an unusual philosophy for an inquisitor perhaps but one that Daul believed wholeheartedly. Such a cold and calculated dismissal of someone so pious and loyal made the Inquisitor's blood boil.

By the time Daul had finished with them and their holdings the once proud and prominent Amon Sui Guild was broken. It's members who had not been declared an excommunicate traitor killed were stripped of property and titles. Daul had bound Sáclair under imperial mandate and commandeered his ship for fifty years and a day, technically making the Endless Bounty an inquisitorial ship and thus beyond the jurisdiction of the Magistrate. Sáclair's heresies would be absolved by doing great works in His name.

The process had worn Sáclair physically and spiritually. His great laugh was less wholehearted and his famous smile no longer seemed to reach his eyes, but then how does a man who's jailer is his only ally react? Sáclair would probably hate Daul for the rest of his natural life. Daul had interrogated him, tortured him, violated the boundaries of his mind, heart, and soul. He had destroyed Sáclair's history and pride, tearing to shreds the guild to which he was bound to service by blood and honor. Then Daul had the unmitigated gall to save Sáclairs life, his crew, and restore his honor in the eyes of the imperial administration. Sáclair would never forgive Daul for saving him or himself for needing to be saved.

The decisions he made in that investigation were not popular ones, the Amon Sui Guild had been well connected even within the inquisition itself. Its members though bereft of title were not without resources and influence. Already there had been several unsuccessful attempts on Dauls life by guild trained assassins bearing the mark of Ska'ra'xo, a death cult devoted to the god Slaaneshi from the hive world of Kag-Gal. They were like most death cultists, insane, uncreative, blood thirsty, and dangerous beyond belief, the Ska'ra'xo had nearly destroyed the Kag-Gal some two centuries earlier. Exactly how they had survived the ensuing imperial purge was unclear but it seemed more than likely the Amon Sui were guilty of having harbored them. The cult was only one in a series of dirty secrets unearthed by Daul, sadly far from the most damming one.

“We are causing as much of a stir as I had hoped,” Daul said to the eternally silent Cairn as he flipped the call switch on for a transport tube. A merchant had just walked into a doorframe in his frenzied efforts not to make eye contact with the Inquisitor. “Lets hope we don't actually scare any of the crew to death then.”

Like most of the ship the doors to the transport tube were gaudy and overbearing. In the center of a number statues in relief depicting the works of the Emperor and his Primarchs was a truly heinously ugly paining of Sanfal the lesser. Sanfal was a saint known for his fondness of seafarers and mariners who most starship crew in the sector prayed to for guidance. It made sense to have the images in such a well traveled place, it forced the uneducated and illiterate masses to be exposed to their history daily. Daul did however wish that the custom for painting Sanfal the lesser did not call for painting him dying as excruciatingly as the artist could stomach. Seeing Sanfal in pain seemed to comfort the crew, it was as though they believed that the worse pain that Sanfal had gone through on their behalf the less pain that would be in their own life. It was not equally comforting to Daul.

Daul was convinced that this particularly heinous paining of Sanfel the Lesser had been placed on the nearest lift to his quarters intentionally, “He wants me to be off base when I see him, needs me to be off base.”

Cairn looked at Daul nonplussed.

Daul laughed, “Honestly how he expected this to offput me I have no idea. We have seen too much you and I. How many years have you been in my service? Twenty... no twenty five isn't it? And we still have a long time to go before either of us is fit to retire.”

Cairn's optics refocused confusedly and his shoulders began to shake. The idea that either the Skitarii or the Inquisitor would retire to some resort community for the wealthy, elderly, and infirm with the aging nobility of the core worlds was quite amusing. The Daul, Inquisitor Lord Interrogator and “Cleanser of Boros VII,” was an unlikely choice for a life of convalescence and games of regicide with other retirees, as unlikely as a celebration of Horus' birth in the lands of High Terra.

“Oh shut up and get in the lift you augmentic terror.”

The lift was already crowded with crew members when the two massive men entered the lift and only continued to fill up more as the lift headed towards the command decks, a sea of the scarlet and gold uniforms of the crewmen of those under Sáclair's command. Noon signaled the end of second shift and the start of third, no amount of fear of the Inquisitor would stop the crew from reaching their duties on time. Like any ship worth its salt the Endless Bounty had strict punishments for the shiftless and the lazy, not the least of which was flogging a man once for every minute late he was to his duties.

Daul and Cairn were not the only non-crew on the lift. There was color scattered in the sea of crimson and gold, a ship of the Endless Bounty's size and prestege invariably picked up merchants, pilgrims, travelers and wanderer's over time. Cairn was eyeing them sternly, the Skitarii had never forgiven himself for allowing an assassin near Daul and was prone to extreme mistrust. It was far from uncalled for but this particular group seemed innocuous enough. He doubted that the couple in their full dress formalwear in the corner would be a particular threat, they seemed to engrossed in discussing wedding preparations. Daul followed the direction of Cairn's gaze, smiled, and telepathically whispered, <I very much doubt that the couple on their way to ask Sáclair permission to marry are about to attack two men in full armor Skitarii Thross.>

Cairn waved a mechandrite dismissively, ignoring the psychic intrusion entirely and simply continuing to focus on the other people on the lift. Daul closed his eyes and focused on the sounds round him. The language of the crew was a flowing form of low gothic combined with some native speech patters from the worlds on which Saclair's ancestors had mustered the crew. Daul had learned the some of the language in his past months on the ship but his mastery thereof had proven difficult as there was no written equivalent to their spoken language. Anything important enough to be written down would be done so in High Gothic rather than the ship's native speech. He could communicate with his own Metzik variant of Gothic, which was similar enough to the High Gothic of the command staff to be understood, but he missed a lot of the subtext of the conversations going round him. His own psychic talents allowed him greater insight but it was far from enough to allow him to have a conversation with the largely illiterate crew.

Still he could understand the gist, though the crew were wont to assume otherwise. The topic of the day seemed to be the last round of So'go'ol, a common game on starships based upon the speed at which members of a team could traverse a maze of cargo crates and score a point by tossing a ball into the opposing team's goal. Each team was distributed shock pistols capable of temporarily disabling a member of the opposing team, a team would win by getting the most points possible before all their team members were disabled. The game had started as a way of training the starship crews to defend against boarding actions but had since evolved into something wholly unrecognizable.
The crewmen were arguing about some bizarre technical terms to do with how one ought to oversee a game properly. There was some contention over if the most recent match had been refereed poorly. The losing team was petitioning for a rematch.
Sporting discussions varied little from planet to planet, the universality of human behavior astounded Daul. His musings on the subject were interrupted by the stopping of the lift. A lean and narrow man wearing purple robes with an orange fringe entered the lift and leveled a look of abject disdain at Daul.

“Zorn Calven,” Daul spat out the word like an oath under his breath, “Just perfect.”

A navigator of great pride and status, Zorn was one of the three men on the Eternal Bounty responsible for guiding her through the eddies and currents of the warp. His gaunt and pinched face echoed generations of inbreeding between the various families of the Navis Noblitie, the imperial houses of navigators. As a rule navigators were unnerving and off-putting, their appearance bore an etherial air of unnaturalness. They were warp-touched, though they lacked the talent to manipulate its energies but could traverse its currents with grace and ease. No ship in the Empire could navigate without at least one, a fact that Zorn believed grated him a seat a the right hand of the golden throne after death. Basic social courtesy was something that lesser mortals needed to worry about, not navigators.


“Greetings Inquisitor.”


“Good morning to you Navigator.”

“Inquisitor you know as well as I how useless the idea of day is within a starship. It is always day inside this ship and night sleeps eternally outside our second skin of adamantium.”

Smarmy Bastard, thought Daul, “And yet I see that the clock is set to the time on Terra, if day and night suit the will of the Emperor I assure you they are good enough for me.”

“I'm sure they are Inquisitor.”

“What is that supposed to mean.”

“Only what you wish for it to,” his face turned up in a grin that look stretched and wrong on his face, “We are just making friendly conversation after all.”

Zorn reached a hand into his pocket and Cairn tensed imperceptibly, the Skitarii's hand reaching into the fold of his robes where he hid a high powered laspistol, but Zorn only pulled out an elegant snuffbox and sniffed a pinch between two gaunt fingers.

“Sáclair feels he is bound to you Inquisitor.”

“Does he now?”

“So it would seem, though I wonder if we truly are. A less pious man than I might harbor hatred for you in secret.”

“Would they now?” Cairn's had buried itself in his robes, covertly aiming his pistol at the Navigator. The bulge of the pistol was hidden in the various irregularly shifting bulges of mechandrites and augmentics on his body.

“Indeed most honorable Inquisitor, you have caused the financial ruin or death of some of the noblest and influential families of the sector,” Zorn tucked the snuff box away and rubbed his nose delicately.

“Even a navigator must answer for crimes of heresy. A ship doesn't reach a xenos core world or a Chaos planet without the consent of the navigator or foul sorcery,” Daul rearranged his cape in a gesture of dismissal, allowing him to cover the left hand that now grasped the blade at his side, “Tell me Navigator do you have anyone in mind who would hold such a grudge?”

“None in particular Inquisitor, you left few enough alive after your vendetta and fewer of the great houses were left blameless in your eyes,” he brushed back his hair. His bulbous eyes and ill defined features scrunched on their narrow frame, “Even I lost family to you and my house lost fewer than most.”

“I doubt a guiltless man will suffer Navigator.”

“How can they be guiltless when innocence is no excuse? The Inquisition is not know for its delicate methods.”

Daul scowled at the Navigator but did not answer. The two stood starting at each other expectantly, neither willing to be the first to break the silence. The rift rumbled and shook, echoing with the cheerful talk of the crew who continued on oblivious to the power struggle happening before their eyes. It was a good half hour before the lift reached level 56 and Zorn was forced to back off the lift. As the lift doors closed behind the navigator he stated in a cold voice, “The next man who has suffered at your hands is unlikely to mince words with you in a place where your clockwork man can protect you beneath his skirts.”

The doors shut with a resounding clang. Daul turned to Cairn, “Throse help me but I detest that man.”

Cairn shook his head frustratedly.

“I know, I know, the part that annoy me isn't that he's an ass, though he is one. Its that I can't tell if he's threatening us or warning us.”

Daul sighed, “When we get to Sáclair we're going to have to get him to take Dorn out of storage.”

Cairn garbled something off in binary, that Daul was sure had been rude.

“Yes we will. I find him as distasteful as you do but we need someone who lacks loyalty issues.”

The rest of the trip passed in silence.

–

Chapter 2
----

Security was tight at the entrance to the great hall. Sáclair feared for his own life, an not without good reason. The Amon Sui blamed Sáclair for their fall as much as they did Daul. Daul was not aware of any attempts on Sáclair's life but it was foolish to presume that there had been none. The captain was unlikely to inform the Inquisitor of any breaches in security lest he be left with no other resource. The last attempt must have rattled Sáclair; even Daul was stopped by security.

Daul almost didn't notice that the guard at the diplomatic entrance was flagging him down till he noticed the purplish glow of the portable void shield covering the entrance.

"I'm sorry sir," said the security guard at the checkpoint, "I know who you are but protocol demands that you verify your identity before I allow you through."

Daul eyed the guard exasperatedly. Only a Lionheart, a member of the elite guard in Sáclair's employ, would have the courage to force an Inquisitor to play by the rules. The guard stared stonily at the Daul, face betraying no emption other than mild boredom as he brushed some lint off of the golden embroidery on the silk strap of an elegant but deadly looking hellgun. Daul shook his head. "I really have no time for this Sergeant."

"Not for me to judge sir. Either you verify your identity or you get the slag off this deck," said the Sergeant. Daul glowered at the rudeness and he hastily added, "Sir."

"If I must," Daul shook his head wearily and removed his helmet, cool air brushing his face. The additional security was frustrating but probably necessary.

The Guard nodded and turned to a sleek panel on the wall. He placed his hand on the control console and whispered softly. A faint green glow ran over his hand and a podium shot up in front of the door. The podium was a masterwork of the Adeptus Mechanicus, concealed in what appeared to be a pillar carved from purest marble was a complex network of logic engines capable of unraveling human genetic code. Daul plucked a hair from his head and placed it into the stone bowl on top of the pillar, "Will this take long Sergeant?"

The Lionheart shrugged, "It takes as long as the machine spirit decides it takes sir. I don't make the machines sir, I just baby-sit them."

After a brief period the hair burst in a puff of smoke and the podium shot back into the floor after chiming briefly. Daul turned to the Sergeant who simply shrugged and tapped his comm-bead twice, notifying the guard on the inside to deactivate the shield, "Never doubted it sir, please wait a second for the weapons detector to be shut off before you enter."

"Of course. Come Cairn," the command deck employed a sophisticated piece of ancient technology capable of detecting weaponry. It was of course not without its limits, it was only capable of detecting firearms and metallic weaponry but lacked the sophistication to look for knives or poison, but it provided an effective countermeasure for the sort of hold-out pistols and needle weapons preferred by heretics and assassins. Weapons were normally not allowed into the great hall but Daul was something of a special case.

The security detail not only allowed Sáclair to have obvious weapons on hand, they relied upon it. The entire point of having an Inquisitor was to give him the ability to disobey marked rules and customs in the search of justice, that duty required the use of covert weaponry regularly. Security Chief Auguste had a healthy respect for an inquisitor's capacity for conceal any manner of dangerous and deadly weapons on his personage and had come to the conclusion that the easiest way to avoid violence around the Inquisitor was to simply allow him to keep his weapons as obvious and deadly looking as was possible. There were plenty of officers who still resented Daul's involvement with Sáclair but they tended not to be the sort prone to attack a well armed man in a public space.

The Chief was also relying largely upon the frustratingly correct assumption that if Daul were foolish enough to start a fight that the Endless Bounty would have the manpower to take Daul down eventually. Daul looked around the room, subtly assessing the security staff. They may permit him to carry his weapons with impunity but they were most certainly not leaving him unwatched, "Cairn I suspect that we could kill, what… twenty of the Lionhearts before they managed to take us down if it came down to it."

The skin at Cairn's cheeks stretched in a vestigial smile, pulling at the puckered skin leading to the thin cluster of tentacle like mechandrites hanging from his face, and he shook his head.

"What do you think we could take more of them? I'm spry Cairn but I'm not that good."

Cairn's shoulders shook and he pointed up to the ceiling above them.

"Ah... that might complicate things if it ever came down to it," installed in the ceiling, partially concealed by the hanging crystal of the chandeliers they were mounted inside of were a number of wicked looking cannons. "The workmanship is fantastic. Kerrigan's work you think?"

Cairn nodded emphatically. This was the work of a xenotech expert Magos to be sure; the plasma weaponry was too sophisticated to have been done by someone focusing purely on STC designs. They were elegant and deadly without losing the ostentation that Sáclair adored.

"Remind me to speak with her later," Daul sighed and fixed his helmet firmly on his head, steeling himself for what was to come, "Throne help me but I hate this part."

Given the choice between defeating an armored assault by heretics on an imperial fortress and navigating in the social circles of the rich and well to do of the empire Daul would probably chose the armored assault nine times out of ten. After their public announcement by the Master of Protocol Daul and his adjunct were forced to fight their way through crowd to make their way to Sáclair. The various families milling about in the command deck were hell bent upon engaging with him in long and vapid discussions of tariffs, wine, and rumors.

Far be if for a suit of power armor to get in the way of gossip, thought Daul bitterly.

"Inquisitor have you met my wife?"

"Inquisitor will you be accepting our invitation to the range?"

"Where did you get that fantastic hood and cloak inquisitor?"

In spite of Daul's best efforts he was waylaid by the corpulent and boisterous Master of the Watch, Étienne Sácomer. Like all the senior command staff his face was noble but warped around the temples wherein two augmentic sockets were seated. High-ranking officersregularly underwent augmentic enhancements to allow them to better commune with the ship's systems directly. Usually such connections were sub-dermal and placed along the spine but Sácomer spent days or even weeks at a time immobile at the sensor banks of the ship. Over a period of decades this immobility had taken its toll on Sácomer and forced him to augment his body as his legs became unable to support his own weight. His back was already implanted with the control systems for the spidery augmentic frame he used to suspend his considerable girth.

He was not an easy man to sneak by in the best of times. Upon seeing the inquisitorial livery of Daul's armor Sácomer's wide face curved into a smile, "Daul! My old friend!"

Sácomer based his own personal worth upon the connections he made with powerful people; the more powerful someone was the more excited he was to network with them. Sácomer was under the impression that Daul's decision to save the ship was, either in part of wholly, on his behalf or influenced greatly by his magnificent powers of persuasion. Daul couldn't remember interviewing Sácomer or even having requested his name as part of his investigation but Sácomer was not one to let a little thing like facts get in the way of his own self-image. There was little hope that Daul could duck out of a conversation with the Master of the Watch quickly but there was nothing to be lost by trying, "Indeed Sácomer but I have no time for pleasantries..."

Sácomer laughed boisterously, his girth shaking gelatinously underneath his well pressed uniform, "Nonsense, I'll hear none of that talk. There is always some time for diversion, even for His most valued servants. Come I want you to meet them."

Daul was reasonably sure that statement counted as heresy worthy of a crusade in the Thorian inquisitorial doctrine and briefly regretted not having joined their orders as his protestations of, "really I must insist," and "I have duties to attend to," were totally ignored by Sácomer.

"Inquisitor I insist, I swear if you don't relax eventually you're going to pop," Daul's arguments fell on deaf ears. Daul was too powerful and too controversial for Sácomer to be able to resist dragging Daul along. Even in power armor Daul was not strong enough to fight off the combined strength of the augmentic frame and substantial mass of Sácomer as the fat man pushed him forwards in an adamantium frog march.

Cairns shoulders were shaking so hard with laughter Daul wondered if he was going to do permanent damage to the delicate servos that ran his shoulders. He could hardly blame his attendant, the sight of an inquisitor being led about like a show grox by a puffed up nobleman was comical to say the least. He was one of the deadliest men in the sector and he had been waylaid by the blubberous Master of the Watch without having thrown a punch. Insufferably personable talk and impossibly exuberant cheer are not traits that the Inquisition trains its members to fight off. God help me if the forces of Chaos ever figure out that we have no weapons against politeness and helpfulness.

The "they" to which Sácomer referred transpired to be a trio of mid level officers, the Chief Docere Medicus of the aft sectors and two officers who's uniforms indicated that their roles on the ship were primarily ceremonial, all of whom looked as displeased to be dealing with the Inquisitor as he was to be dealing with them.

Docere Faest Nor was a droll man with a forgettable face and a fondness for the sound of his own voice. He gave a curt nod of acknowledgment that Daul returned in turn. The medicus disliked the Inquisitor as a matter of principal for a number of reasons that Daul grudgingly respected him for. Faest viewed the crew with a fiercely paternal nature, ensuring the health and well-being of the crew was not simply his profession but rather his calling in life. Daul's method of coercing information from suspected heretics was effective but inelegant. Faest had been responsible for helping heal those who were under suspicion once a subject's questioning had gone dangerously far. The process had not endeared Daul to the medicus in the slightest.

In spite of this the Endless Bounty was not without expectations of formality, Faest's professionalism was stronger than his dislike of Daul. Were Daul any other man he might have missed the subtle undertones of scorn in the man's otherwise inscrutable expression, "Greetings Inquisitor."

"Greetings Docere Medicus. It has been a long time since we last met."

The Medicus narrowed his eyes, "And if I had my will it would be longer still."

"What brings you to court today?"

"I was not aware that I needed to have a reason to seek out the company of others," he motioned to the well dressed crowd, "Is not conversation with the best and brightest a goal in and of itself?"

Sácomer chuckled unconcernedly; he was apparently unaware of the history between Daul and Faest. His wide form shook gelatinously with his every giggle, "Come now, Faest! Every time is a good time to have a meeting between friends. Do you not agree Inquisitor?"

Daul opened his mouth to give a pithy reply but Sácomer interjected, "Of course it is! But one bound by duties such as yours must have great reason indeed to grace us with his presence. It is rare enough for you to send up a messenger from your medical ward let alone to come in person. You've made your belief that you should never be farther than an arm's reach from your charges well known."

Faest's smile hardened and some of the forced politeness left his tone, "My business is my own and I will discuss it with Sáclair and no other."

Sácomer jerked as though he had been slapped. He was clearly unaccustomed to being treated this way by the Medicus. The conversation had already gone on far too long for Daul's taste and he could see that it was not heading in a constructive direction. Prolonging this discussion would lead nowhere productive, "Sácomer, if the man wishes to keep his matter private one I have no vested interest in violating his privacy."

The officer on Faest's left snorted in an undignified manner, "Inquisitor, simply by existing you are destined to violate the privacy of others."

Daul turned to face the narrow faced officer and felt a vague sense of recognition. His features were vaguely familiar but that meant little among the upper class of the Endless Bounty. Generations of inbreeding had long since homogenized the gene pool making it difficult at times differentiate between the grey eyed and raven haired faces of the various nobles. Still the distaste in the man's voice sounded more personal than professional, "What is your name boy?"

The young officer glared defiantly at the visor of Daul's helmet, "Bertrand Germaine Gauge, brother of Dominique Isabel Gauge."

That accounts for the boy's defiance then, Daul's interrogation of Dominique had been more thorough than most. The girl had been hiding a secret in a deep corner of her mind, one that she was concealing from Daul with every fiber of her being. Though his master had been elegantly skilled to the mental arts Daul's own psychic gift was ill suited for delicate work but he made up for it with force of will, his method of garnering information from a subject's mind was dangerous and brutal. So determined was she to keep her secret that the only way to discover the truth of her shame was to strip her mind of all protections. Daul had left her alive, though killing her would probably have been a mercy, a useless act of hubris that had done the girl more harm than good. Hours wasted on a stupid girl wasting energy on being fearful that her husband might discover her lover. Petty fools actually believe that the Inquisition gives a damn that they are adulterers.

"The Inquisition provides a necessary service by rooting out the worst of the heretics among us, of that there is little doubt," the man's words were slow and deliberate. He was foolish enough to criticize an Inquisitor to his face but apparently not so foolish as to seem a heretic himself, "Your profession demands that privacy and secrecy be torn away. I have witnessed you pursue a man with a secret in his mind and a half truth on his lips with equal fervor as you do for the darkest of heretics."

" The innocent hardly need fear my dismissal of half truths and lies," Daul said witheringly, "I very much doubt that the Medicus is guilty of any crimes that require my attention. I am only interested in truth that may conceal heresy or betrayal. Keep your mundane secrets, my interest is in traitors, not fools."

Sácomer blustered and sputtered, the situation had clearly spiraled beyond his initial plans, "Come now men, we're all friends here. All servants of the Golden Throne and whatnot?"

The officer standing between Faest and Bertrand spoke in a hesitant tone, he at least had the common sense to realize the danger in provoking an Inquisitor, "Are we? I mean no offense but as of late we seem to be more devoted to serving the will of His most honorable Inquisition."

"Your ship was conscripted for such duties if you recall correctly child. I have the right to call your ship to duty whenever the Empire requires it."

The officer, apparently bolstered by Daul not having smote him on the spot, continued nervously, "Of course sir, what I mean to say is that we've been ferrying you around on your missions with increasing regularity as of late."

Daul tilted his head impassively; usually the authority of his position was enough to suspend this sort of dissent, at least to his face. Cairn was perhaps right that he needed to either spend less time with the officers on the ship or summarily execute someone in a public place, he was becoming too approachable, "Are you suggesting that I am not acting wholly in the service of His will?"

"No sir, its not that at all," the officer was nervously biting his lower lip, "It's just that, well, sir we are a merchant ship not a ship of the line. Admittedly we are a well-armed merchant ship but you've got us going one on one with things that I'm still not sure how we survived fighting. Wouldn't it better serve your interests to use one of the Black Ships."

Yes boy they could work but they would only do so if my goal was to declare to the universe about me that I was an Inquisitor, thought Daul bitterly.

The Black Ships were intended to be well armed and intimidating; they were also massive, cumbersome, and obvious. The Black Ships military applications were secondary to their psychological ones. As the naval arm of the Inquisition they were equipped with munitions and technology beyond the scope of all but the greatest of Imperial Warships. Moreover the Black Ships were designed with the intention of rapidly deploying an exterminatus-extremus solution if such mandate were deemed necessary meaning that every planet being orbited by one was only a hair's breadth from Armageddon. The ships were effective but lacked subtlety. Daul's methods were often direct but he preferred to move in secret when possible. One of the Black Ships raised red flags the second it arrived but a simple rogue trader, no matter how well armed could often pass by unnoticed.

"Boy it is not for you to decide what is and is not necessary for the job of an Inquisitor. This is not your duty and I would prefer you stay silent rather than open your lips and prove your ignorance. "

Faest cleared his throat, "It is, however, mine to see to the health and wellness of this ship. Tell me Inquisitor, do you know how many of the crew died in your last errand?"

"Medicus I have..."

"Three hundred and twenty six souls dead Inquisitor."

"And if we hand not been there to slay the beast how many more souls do you believe it would have sent to the next life? Six hundred? A thousand?" Daul had not shouted, had not even raised his voice but there was a dangerous edge to every word that sharpened with every curt syllable, "I can not plan in advance for every potential outcome Medicus. The warp beast possessing an Imperial ship was unforeseeable but destroying it was our duty. Their deaths were unfortunate but the task was necessary."

Bertrand's anger got the best of his common sense, "We are a merchant ship, we should be hauling cargo not traipsing about the galaxy on some foolish quest. There must be other ships suited to your needs."

Daul smiled behind his mask, "Certainly none as conversant in dealing with xenos as this ship."

"Now see here," Faest had given up all pretense of civility and was staring at Daul in Fury.

"No Faest, I will talk and you will listen," Daul allowed a subtle aura of intimidation to seep into the minds of the three officers, it was perhaps overkill to add the psychic energies but he was in no mood for back talk from any of them, "I am not some Noble Lord on holiday booking a ship looking for adventure who can be bargained with or traded off. I am an Inquisitor. I do not explain my motives to you because I haven't the will, the means, or the time to run every decision I make by committee. I am fighting to preserve the soul of the Empire. If doing so means that I run afoul of your moral sensibilities so be it. Sacrifices have been made and many more will be made before I am through.

Faest opened his mouth to speak but was silenced by the gentle but firm pressure of a mechandrite on his shoulder. Cairn looked him in the eyes, his augmentic optics glowing ominously beneath his cowl, and shook his head firmly, cowing the rage of the Medicus. Nothing good could come from further argument.

Sácomer's round form swayed backwards and forwards on his spidery augmentic frame, struggling for word, "Inquisitor I... that is to say that we..."

"Nothing need be said Sácomer," Daul nodded curtly and motioned to Cairn, "If you'll excuse me I have business to attend to."

Daul had not lied about having business to attend to, though he was grateful for the excuse. In a far corner of the hall stood a half circle of figures in deep red capes and robes, the retinue of Searcher-Magos Kerrigan Frist. Frist was the former head xeno-archeologist and xenotech expert of the Oita Forge at the edge of Tau space. The Magos herself stood in the center of a semi-circle of servitors, attendants, and experts all of whom were taking notes and passing her data-slates as she fiddled with a hololithic display in front of her. The Magos was an old associate of Daul's with an interesting past and a questionable set of security clearances for the information she was regularly able to access.

The specifics of her history remained a mystery, even to Daul, but after discrete questioning and some choice interrogation he had been able to discover the circumstances leading to her exile. About a half century ago the Magos had proposed the incorporation of elements of reverse engineered xenotech gained from the Tau Empire into Imperial technology, specifically into dangerous and often unstable plasma weaponry. Her paper on the matter had been worded carefully and well prepared enough that it was not outright heresy, a wise choice that had probably saved her life. Her suggestions had raised the hackles of the more conservative elements of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Continuing her position at Oita Forge was impossible.

The Forge Lords had given her four choices, to return to Mars to undergo psychological re-evaluation and re-education, to be condemned to death, to be stripped of her implants and exiled from the order, or to devote the rest of her life to searching for a universal STC. The choice had seemed pathetically simple to the Lords of Mars, death was unacceptable, to be stripped of augmentic was unthinkable for a devotee of the machine, and the search for the universal STC was a fool's errand. The STC, Standard Templates of Construction, were archeotech from the Dark Age of Technology. Ostensibly a complete STC would contain the entirety of technological knowledge gained at mankind's peak, great and powerful knowledge that could be used to bring the universe to heel. What little STC knowledge had been discovered by the Adeptus Mechanicus had been fragmented and corrupted with time. The discovery of a complete standard template of construction was unlikely if not wholly impossible. When Kerrigan Frist had chosen the quest it had no doubt been a shock for the Lords of Mars, it meant that until the Magos discovered one of the STC she would not be allowed to step foot on a Forge World till the end of her quest. The Lords of Mars had forgotten one crucial detail of the duties of a Searcher. Any Searcher would be granted wide powers in what technology and resources could be employed in search of the STC including otherwise forbidden technology. In her persecution Kerrigan had gained everything she ever desired.

The search for the STC was a fool's errand but she was no less dedicated to her task in spire of this, her love for her broad authority was only matched by her desire to prove her own validity. In her mind discovering the STC would prove to the universe that she had been correct about the application of xenotech and her theories were favored by the Omassiah.

She could not, however, make use of any ships bearing the cog of the Adeptus Mechanicus. She had spent years traveling from ship to ship and world to world before Daul caught wind of her exile and proposed an alliance between Kerrigan and Sáclair. Sáclair provided Kerrigan with transport to the far reaches of space in search of any clues as to the location of the STC and Kerrigan provided Sáclair with her own unique technological knowledge and skill. The Magos' relationship with Sáclair was far more amiable than Daul's own, the Captain found the exchange of favors and services more acceptable when the exchange was equal. Daul was a bit envious.

Daul viewed the semi-circle cautiously; it was unwise to approach the Magos unannounced. Her enthusiasm for her job often overwhelmed her awareness of her surroundings, including where her mechandrites were waving. Her attendants jumped, ducked, bobbed and weaved around Kerrigan. Years of service to the Magos had trained them with the acrobatic skills necessary to survive working in her service.

"No. No. No. That will not do at all. The power ratio is all wrong," one of her mechandrites swooped down into a bag carried an attendant and ripped out the slim form of a data slate, "The calculations ought to be correct, work you piece of slag."

Daul approached her as slowly and quietly as his power armor would allow, trying to ignore the shaking of Cairn's shoulders in response to a series of derogatory epithets screeched in binary, "Magos Frist. Do you have a moment to talk?"

Daul's next words were cut short as the blurry form of a servo skull whipped by his head, carrying a scroll of some sort to the irate Magos. Kerrigan snatched the scroll without looking at it and tossed it onto a pile of similar scrolls haphazardly piled on a silver plate carried by a particularly beleaguered looking servitor. Daul looked at Cairn who simply cocked his head and looked right back.

"Well do you intend to give me a hand here?"

Cairn's brow raised in amusement.

"You have got to be kidding me. Still?"

Cairn shrugged, if Daul was going to be foolish enough to try and get between a Magos and her machines he could damn well do it without his help. Magos Kerrigan continued her frenzied argument with the hololith, blissfully unaware of her attendants and servitors ducking and weaving round her furiously flailing mechandrites, "Work you useless over designed piece of Cadian junk! You are well within acceptable limits of functioning."

After the third time Daul tried to approach the Magos but was buffeted back by a stray mechandrite, Daul lost all pretense of politeness and simply superimposed a psychic suggestion upon his speech. Daul's voice reverberated ominously as he shouted, "Kerrigan if you do not stand still for ten seconds I will blast that hololith into a pile of smoldering slag. Stop now."

Startled by the overpowering psychic suggestion the Magos jerked to a halt, her mechandrites flailing in the air. Then, just as suddenly as she had frozen Kerrigan relaxed and turned to Daul smiling as her many snaking mechandrites relaxed and coiled over her shoulders and around her waist, "Daul, subtle as always I see."

"I find my job is often served though directness."

Kerrigan laughed, the vox caster through which she spoke was tinny and hollow but maintained a distinctly feminine tone, "How long were you standing there?"

One of the squat attendants to her left popped up, "The better part of ten minutes mistress."

Kerrigan scowled at her attendants, "The Inquisitor was here for that long and none of you thought to announce his presence? I expect more of you."

"Of course mistress," parroted back the attendant. His voice sounded sure but the look in his eyes betrayed his doubts about interrupting his mistress in the future.

Kerrigan cracked her neck with a resounding pop and shifted her attention back to Daul, "Now Daul, what is it that you need?"

"You actually, not to put too fine a point on it."

The Magos tittered, "How forward of you Daul."

Daul smiled bemusedly behind his mask, Magos Frist was about the least feminine creature in the universe. Having long ago sacrificed the majority of her biological parts in lieu of mechanical ones it was quite possible that the flesh of her face and brain were the only organic parts left in her body.

"You know what I meant Kerrigan. I need your technical expertise on a matter best discussed in private."

"Is there any reason to keep this matter a secret from my staff," Kerrigan begun to motion for her staff to organize the various scrolls, seals, and data slates lying haphazardly behind her.

"None in particular, they'll end up having to know in order to assist you but I would prefer not to discuss it in such a public setting. The Amon Sui still have agents in Sáclair's crew and sabotage is not beyond them."

"I shouldn't worry too much about it," Kerrigan waved her hand dismissively.

"Magos Frist," Daul started exasperatedly, "You know as well as I that the walls have ears."

"If they do I can assure you they'll go deaf," Kerrigan screeched a long string of binary in to the air. A dozen cherub like servitors fluttered down from the ceiling in a wide circle on paper thin wings. Stretched between them they carried a web of golden filaments shining with a dim silver light. The cherubs swooped round the half circle of Kerrigan's staff and draped the web like a spidery tent.

"A privacy filter?" Daul looked up at the silky strands of gold, "Dear Magos you've been holding out on me. Where did you find one this elegant?"

"Ah ah ah," Kerrigan waved a single finger with every ah in front of Daul's visor, "That would be telling."

Daul snorted in an undignified manner and was immediately grateful for the privacy filter.

Kerrigan's mechandrites twisted from her waist and shoulders and planted themselves on the ground, weaving themselves into a makeshift seat upon which the Magos perched, "And I believe that you are the one with a story to tell me."

"Indeed," Daul's voice darkened, "Are you aware of Soren Faust."

"I presume you refer to the Inquisitor who went mad about a century ago? Yes I do...only in the vaguest of terms mind you, it's difficult to figure out which stories told about him are true and which are gross exaggerations," Kerrigan smiled and rubbed at the vox caster jutting from her neck, "And quite frankly his destruction of the Arturus VIII forge is enough that I need know little else except that he earned every bit of hatred the Lords of Mars felt for him."

"Yes, that would be the one. He got it into his head that the only way for the Empire to service was to start incorporating Xenos technology into the empire."

Kerrigan gave Daul a pointed look, "So did I Daul."

"Magos you can hardly compare the two points of view," Daul shook his head, "You wished to allow us to use the weapons of the enemy to help destroy them. Faust went... farther..."

It was a gross understatement; Soren Faust's crimes were heinous in the extreme. Only a handful of crimes could be proven to be the work of Faust but that was only because worlds touched by his hand often needed to be purged with virus bombs and cyclonic torpedoes before an investigation into the cause of the problem could even be considered. The prohibition against the use of xenos technology often confused the more liberal minded members of the Administratum Imperialis, at least till they were granted security clearances sufficient to view the aftereffects of unrestricted access to xenotech. In the case of Faust, the only universally verifiable fact that they had been able to determine was that he was trying to bind human and alien biological traits, creating nightmarish half-breed creatures.

Kerrigan's tone became abruptly businesslike, "Cairn I have aided you in fighting the greatest of Heretics if you wish my aid do not insult me with the use of such obvious euphemism. 'Went farther' my hat."

Daul raised his left hand to his chest, "Kerrigan I mean no offense but honestly I'm not entirely sure what his crimes are."

Kerrigan paused for a moment, "Were, you mean were Inquisitor."

"No Magos," Daul tapped his gauntleted hand on the armor of his chest plate, "I do not."

Kerrigan made the sign of the cog over where her heart had once been and hissed, "The bastard lives!"

"It would seem so, it's either him or someone who has taken up his mantle," Daul pulled a data crystal out a pouch at his side and handed it to Kerrigan, "Either way I intend to ensure that the mantle ends here. He's holding a world on the southern rim hostage."

"The whole world?"

"It's Belzafest Kerrigan. There is hardly more than an outpost on that scrap of rock. But the colonists claimed that Faust is on the rock with them."

Kerrigan sighed, "If it is him you know what happened to the colonists after they send their warning."

"Yes, Faust is not known for his forgiving nature. He cannot engage in his favored tactic of destroying the settlement and moving on however," A measure of sad pride leaked into his voice, "The damned fools on the colony used the station's void shields to cut Faust's ship in half as he was entering the docking bay. The arrogant bastard was so sure he could scare the colonists into submission that he never saw it coming."

"Did they destroy his cadre of half breeds?" Kerrigan said hopefully.

"Sadly no," Daul winced, "Some of them perhaps but I suspect the majority of them survived. Foul creatures they may be but exposing them to the vacuum of space has only proven to be marginally effective in killing them. For the moment we will have to settle for them being confined to a set space."

"Damn," Kerrigan leaned back on her makeshift seat, "And I suppose that the void shield on the outpost is strong enough that we won't be able to take it out directly?"

"A dome shield, powerful enough to take a single shot from a nova-cannon," Daul smiled half-heartedly, "One of Oita design actually."

"I suppose that that is simply par the course."

"Kerrigan I need to ask you for a favor but I fear I ask for too much."

"Daul ask and you will have it."

Daul leaned in and whispered.

Kerrigan laughed, "You don't ask for much do you Daul?"

"And still I ask," Daul stared pointedly, "Can you do it?"

Kerrigan nodded pensively, "I can but I'm going to need you to convince Sáclair to give me two boarding torpedoes, and power from the shields. I mean a lot of power from the shields."

"I will ask."

"Daul," Kerrigan started in a low voice.

"Yes Kerrigan?"

"I want him dead."

"That would seem to be the consensus on the matter."


Kerrigan nodded and squawked in binary. The cherubs carrying the privacy barrier fluttered away as quickly as they came. Daul looked across the room to the distant sight of the Sáclair's throne, grimacing slightly at the prospect of having to wade this way through the well meaning but blisteringly dull noblemen determined to force themselves into his social circle. Just as he was about to sign for Cairn to follow him Kerrigan giggled girlishly, "There is a better way of getting Sánclair's attention you realize."

"Indeed Magos?"

"You're a psychic aren't you?"

Daul had little to say in response, the solution was blindingly obvious, too obvious for someone as absurdly obtuse as an Inquisitor to remember was at his disposal. He bit back a biting reply and swallowed his pride before muttering a curt, "thank you," that only resulted in more giggles from Kerrigan. Sending a message to another person via psychic means was a relatively simple task requiring little more than a line of sight and a force of will, both of which Daul had. Sánclair would be irked by the intrusion into his mind, but Sánclair was going to be frustrated no matter what. Daul focused his mind on the distant presence of Sáclair and whispered, "Sáclair I would have a word with you at your earliest convenience, which I presume would be imminent."

And then he waited. For a second he was sure that Sánclair had not understood his message or had presumed that it was a flight of fancy, psychic messages often were interpreted as such, but one of the brightly festooned guards of Sáclair approached him carrying one of the absurdly elaborate laser rifles favored on the Endless Bounty in one hand and a cane in the other. The guard stood in front of Daul and waved his cane twice, guiding a floating marble platform to the ground in front of him. The hidden antigravity generators hummed dangerously and created a bight blue pulsing sheen beneath the platform, cracking on the gold embossed onyx tiles of the floor. The guard turned wordlessly to Daul and motioned to the platform.

"I presume Sáclair got my message?"

The guard nodded curtly.

"Then I shan't keep him waiting," Daul headed for the center of the platform trying to ignore the hideously gaudy mosaic of Kitnik the Abjured on beneath his feet, "Come Cairn."

Once the Inquisitor and Skitarii were safely on the platform the guard muttered something into his sleeve, presumably activating a hidden communications bead. The platform began its steady rise to the lofty height upon which sat the throne of Sáclair. Daul grudgingly had to admit that the floating island of ivory and gold that made up the throne of Sáclair was impressive. The Damascus IV shipyards were unique in their ability to weave simple pieces of archeotech together for greater purposes, which is probably why the Biel Tan Eldar had been so keen to destroy them. The shipyards of Damascus now only existed in record but their remaining works were impeccable.

The massive throne itself hung from the ceiling as part of a massive stalactite of archeotech and artwork. Its sides glimmered with the light from a thousand delicate looking silvery filaments, each snaking their way from the chair of the throne up to one of the jade statues of former Captains. The statues and the great seal of the Lion actually covered up the entrances to the funereal vaults for the ships Captains in which the minds of the former leaders of the Endless Bounty were eternally kept in a near death state, sustained by a continuous bath of juvat-restoration chemicals and nutrients. The current Captain of the Endless Bounty was for all intents and purposes just a continuation of the experiences of the former one. Sáclair felt and remembered everything from the previous generations of his family as though he had lived it himself. Some of the former Captains had even taken to marrying the wives of their predecessor, a tradition that Daul was infinitely grateful that Sáclair did not take part in as the position had historically been hereditary. It would have made official gatherings with the Captain awkward.

Sáclair's throne served as a hard line connection to the ship and to the former Captains in the even that his own wireless sub-dermal implants connecting him to the ship's systems were to fail. In a very real way Sáclair represented the living connection between the past, present, and future of the Bounty. The past generations provided advice and council to Sáclair much as he would one day provide his successor. Considering his wide range of historical experience he had to draw from dating back to the Age of Apostasy, Sáclair had a well deserved ego and a vehement hatred of being controlled. Sáclair despised Daul, though an outsider would probably never know it. As the platform finally reached the throne, Sáclair was already jauntily and effortlessly perched upon this throne holding a goblet of wine and smiling brilliantly.

"He's enjoying this altogether too much"

Cairn shrugged and looked at Daul.

"I'm so glad that you find this amusing. I plan put you into an equally amusing situation later."

Even as the platform reached arm's length of the throne Sáclair continued to sit upon this throne, smiling, drinking his wine, lecherously eyeing one of his concubines, and wholly refusing to acknowledge the two meters of power armored psycher in front of him as one might ignore a petulant child. Daul resisted the powerful urge to shoot Sáclair and instead bowed his head as Cairn's vox caster played a recording of Daul's various titles and permissions. An attendant wearing an anti-gravity harness floated down and took Daul's scrolls and seals from Cairn and quickly verified them, disappearing into the ceiling as quickly as he came. Technically speaking security required that anyone presenting themselves to Sáclair provide a blood sample to verify their identity but Sáclair was not so crass as to force Daul to publicly humble himself by spilling blood on the altar used to verify DNA. Such pettiness was beneath Sáclair, not far beneath but still beneath him.

A servitor gave a hollow announcement of Daul's presence and Sáclair perked up in false surprise, as though he had not been staring directly at Daul for the past ten minutes, crossed his arms, and leaned back into the plush leather of his throne, "Well, it would seem that Inquisitor Daul is gracing my humble presence once again. Did you miss me Hildy?"

"We have business to discuss Captain."

Sáclair scoffed and drank deeply from his flagon of wine, "Come now Hildy, you know old friends like us are on a first name basis. I see you more often than I used to see my third wife, Throne rest her soul."

"Captain Sáclair I have no time for schoolyard bickering."

"She was also a nosy busybody with no sense of fun. When was the last time you simply let loose and left the rest of us to our own devices? There will be still be heretics in the morning."

"Not if I've had the chance to kill or convert them all by nightfall."

Sáclair laughed derisively, "Daul can I show you something?"

"If I say no will it make any difference?"

"Doubtful," Sáclair waved his hand at the ceiling of the hall activating a massive hololithic display. A swirling mass of green holographic stars blinked into existence, swirling about the room. The sounds of polite applause and genuine interest emerged from the crowd below. By then fact that the Inquisitor and the Captain were in conference was knowledge and the crew below were wildly speculating on the topics of conversation between the two most important persons they knew of. Sáclair seemed unaffected by the attention, "Beautiful isn't it? Space as far as we know it to be. This wide section is what human's rule."

"An Empire worthy of the God Emperor's dominion."

"Well said, but the Empire is comprised of millions of systems containing countless worlds, moons, outposts, and colonies. Uncounted trillions of faithful and doubtless millions of heretics live and die each day."

"Countless more of the faithful."

"Even so do you plan to catch them all?"

"You know full well I do not," Daul glowered, "A man may only do as much good as he may."

"Or as much evil," Sáclair snapped his fingers and a floating cherub approached him with a platter of meats. Sáclair reached out with a gloved hand and grabbed a pinch of the savory food, "Have you eaten yet Inquisitor? The grox is exquisite."

Daul started tapping his foot impatiently, "Sáclair I have no time for our usual games."

"My dear Hildy, time is always a luxury. It should be spent sparingly. Life is the one precious commodity we all have a shortage of in equal measure."

"And you're wasting mine. What do you know about Belzafest?"

Sáclair smiled wryly as he chewed a bite of the fresh grox, "You have what I know on the subject already."

"Sáclair I need a summary of events not the entire library of geographic and spatial history predicted for the past and present."

"I was being specific."

"No," Daul's voice cracked with a subtle aura of psychic energies, "You were being an insufferable waste of energy and whit. If I had a thousand years I would not be able to pick out the information I need."

"Nonsense you're a bright lad."

"You are hardly capable of judging that."

"IF you were any other man I would call you a presumptuous ass and have you marooned on the loneliest scrap of terraformed earth in sight, Inquisitor."

"And if you were any other man I would have shot you through the head and scuttled your ship on the nearest moon. Fortunately for the both of us we can only be who we are. So once again we find ourselves in the position where I need what you have."

"Indeed," Sáclair settled back into his cushioned seat.

"Do not force me to be so crude as to remind you of your debts owed."

It was a low blow, one that Daul would not normally use. Sáclair's face briefly contorted into a look of pure malice before snapping back to the blustering image of the spoiled prince, "Preston, the data slate please."

Preston, an old and particularly disagreeable looking servant in a spotless white suit approached on a gravity harness carrying a Data slate. Cairn snaked out a mechandrite to take it but Preston seemed unconvinced that he should hand it over till Sáclair waved his hand dismissively at Cairn. Preston shrugged passed the slate over and returned to wherever it was he came from.

"Inquisitor I wasn't lying when I said that I was giving you all I had on the matter. In so far as I can tell Belzafest is, for lack of a better word, gone."

"Gone? How does one disappear a planet?"

"Inquisitor I cannot pretend to guess, this is more your field of expertise. I have no idea what lies at the colony but your quarry has either great power or dangerous allies."

"Both I'm afraid, probably worse that even you fear. We are going after a nightmare. Have you set course for where the planet supposedly was?"

"I have. Though our route is destined to take us through some sections of tormented space rarely traveled."

"That is not altogether comforting Captain."

"It shouldn't be. We are going to be traveling through undercurrents of the Delvian Maw. It's a place of ill will and bad rumor. The oldest of my ancestors tell me tales of the nightmares that lurk within that seem like ghost stores. I can't be sure how much of them are true, the oldest of my predecessors are quite senile, but there are enough similarities between their narratives that it troubles me."

"Any truth to the rumors?"

Sáclair laughed bitterly, "If starships avoided every sector of space with a ghost story and a rumor of evil we would simply fly in circles around Holy Terra. No matter where we go there is always the risk of deamonic incursion or the like. The Jaws of the warp are omnipresent."

"Yes but recent events have shown the wisdom in trusting to rumors and superstition. I was not simply coincidence that the Martirio de los Naufragios was possessed by the warp beast."

"Then it is good that I have an expert in such matters traveling onboard my ship then is it not," Saclair's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"Indeed you are," Daul ignored the Jab.

"I do have a matter to discuss with you as well Inquisitor."

Daul was reasonably certain he knew the topic to which he referred. It had been an unspoken point of contention for months, "Do you now? Which matter is that?"

"Our guest in solitary confinement in the detention center. Four fingers, bright yellow, hard to miss."

"I have nothing to say on that matter."

"Fantastic for you," Sácomer sipped at his wine, "I do."

"I suppose I should have expected that."

"He wants to see you. Damned if I know why he is so wildly loyal to you, you got his entire brood killed."

"They were honorable deaths, and it was only the end of a small portion of the blood line. Their bodies were sent back to the tribe to be consumed and absorbed back into their gene pool. He wants a similar honorable death."

"Why don't you just kill him already and be done with it. It's cruel to keep him caged as you have."

"The comforts of the xenos are not my concern, but there is another more pressing reason why I have not."

"Which is?"

Daul chuckled, "I gave him my word."

"And that is enough to risk yourself and this entire ship?"

Daul closed his hand and silenced the captain, "If I break my word I am unworthy of my office and a craven liar. In my trade I find that my own honor is more valuable than any other tool I have at my disposal."

Sáclair raised an eyebrow, "There are times where I cannot figure out if you really are that insufferably noble and scrupulously honest or just alarmingly tactical in your speech."

"They are often the same."

"That you had such... Esoteric labor on retainer was something of a shock for me. If memory serves the couple of weeks I spent in your care was for a crime of association much less severe than what you yourself have committed."

"I was supposedly sending them on a suicide mission. My superiors were apprised of my intentions and approved of my decision to do so. Sending xenos to their doom is well within the boundaries of my authority," Cairn shifted to Daul's right, the Skitarii was not especially happy that the xenos had survived, "That any of them at all managed to walk away was nothing sort of a minor miracle and a testament to their field craft."

"But why keep him after he survived? Certainly you could have abandoned him on that moon. Even if you don't kill him why keep the xenos around, especially considering his disgusting appetites?"

"It is foolish to waste such a valuable tool. He is bound to die by my hand or in my service, and as I have denied him the former I am left with the latter."

"I don't like him," Sácomer downed the rest of his wine in a single throaty gulp.

"Nor do I, just keep him under lock and key with those hounds of his. And for Throne's sake warn the guards not to talk to him. We may yet have need of him."

"We reach the planet in ten hours Inquisitor," Sánclair said wearily, "You'd best prepare for the assault."

"Yes I that would be wise," Cairn tapped Daul's shoulder and passed him a dataslate, "Of course Cairn how foolish of me."

Sáclair looked amusedly at the Skitarii, he seemed to enjoy Cairn's silent role as mother hen to the Inquisitor greatly, "And what pray tell are you forgetting?"

"Kerrigan needs to make some modifications to the ship for this assault, your ship is not properly equipped for land warfare so we're going to have to improvise a bit. The details are on the datapad. And I need the Dorn unit taken out of storage, Kerrigan's people can do it but I need your approval to activate an arco-flagellant onboard your ship."

"What drives this obsession of yours to bring such foul things on my beautiful ship?" Sáclair accepted the dataslate and looked over it, his face lighting up with amusement as he read along, "This plan is almost entirely suicidal for you if it doesn't work perfectly."

"Will you do it?"

"I certainly wouldn't want to seem like I wasn't a team player now would I?"

Punishments within the Imperial justice system are often scaled differently from planet to planet depending on the crime, the severest punishment being the process of conversion to a servitor. Most condemned to lobotomy and conversion to a mindless cybernetic servitor are traitors in some way or another, those who embezzled imperial tithes or who sold state secrets to the enemy, but those condemned to the worst crimes of heresy are sometimes punished by a servitor conversion into an arco-flagelant. The process by which one becomes an arco-flagellant is painful and long by design rather than out of necessity, a punishment reserved for the lowest of heretics, traitors, and cowards. A criminal found guilty of egregious crimes against the Empire would be taken from the Cult of the Emperor by the Adeptus Mechanicus and reforged into a weapon. The subject was lobotomized of their higher thought functions and subconsciously molded to accept hypnotic commands. The flagellants spent most of their existence in a near comatose state, pumped full of narcotics and sedatives and forced to listen to soothing songs of praise to the Emperor and condemnation of heretics. It would not even be able to complete basic tasks without constant direction from a user.

Unlike the generally docile servitor however, the portions of the brain capable of memory and anger are left in tact. They remember how to hate, and that they hate, but not who they hate and why. They associate the prayers to the Emperor and Imperial heraldry with the blissful feeling of nothingness that saves them from the all too real feelings of pain and rage that otherwise plague them. On command a flagellant's narcotic drips can be disabled, turning the flagellant into a beast of pure rage and hatred. The flagellant will kill anything in its path, friend or foe, with the exception of its master and anyone bearing his seal. The flagellant is a loathsome creature but an often necessary one.

Dorn-746 was renamed for the Sainted Rogal Dorn for whom the day of celebration on which he was converted was held. In life "Dorn" had been Sotu'an Taka a criminal found guilty of committing a series of ritualistic murders he believed would elevate him to godhood. In life he had been cruel, calculating, and untrustworthy in his near death like state he was a spirit of pure rage. Daul had personally overseen his arco-flagellentation procedures, had watched his eyes glass over as lumps of brain had been pulled out by delicate mechandrites but Dorn still unnerved Daul slightly. Dorn may have had the sentience of a toaster but his thick beard and cruel smile were the same as they had always been.

Daul hated that smile, it reminded him of corpse mounds and sacrificial altars, the cornerstones of Dorn's former life as High Priest of the Zok'nor'oka-tek. Even so the flagellant servitor had proven invaluable, the berserker was dead useful in a pinch and Daul all too often had need of his brutality.

The cell in which Dorn-746 was kept on the Endless Bounty was actually a retrofitted servitor processing cell. A sturdy chair sat in the middle of the small ferrocrete cell upon which sat a man bound tightly with shackles of adamantium. Numerous intravenous tubes and wires dangled down from the ceiling, lazily snaking their way down to the various interface ports that pockmarked Dorn's hunched body. His arms, shacked with triple the chains of any other part of the body, ended in long barbed whip like appendages where his fingers ought to have been.

The room was pitch black and silent save for the slow dripping of condensation off of coolant lines and the soft ragged sound of Dorn's own troubled breath. As the door to Dorn's cell creaked open and light pierced the darkness Dorn twitched slightly.

The sound of men's shuffling feet in the tiny space echoed deafeningly. The two men's well-pressed uniforms seemed oddly stretched in the dim light of a single glow globe. If Dorn was aware of their presence he gave no sign. The taller of the two switched on a handheld lamp and moved towards the construct cautiously, rumors of the unstoppable killing machine of the Inquisitor were widespread on the bounty and he was unwilling to test the validity of just how invincible the flagellant was. The two carefully stepped over the tubes and cords, making their way to the center.

The shorter one eyed the nutrient feed warily and whispered, "It's a standard interface, let's just be done with it and get out of this eerie damn cell."

His fellow reached into a leather pouch, "Are you sure we aren't going to activate it?"

"I doubt it, but if we do at the very least there won't be enough of us left for them to do to us what they did to this poor bastard."

"You're sure of the Inquisitor's orders?"

"Gold level encryption straight from the command deck, I double checked. We come here are start stage one of the ambulatory processes for the servitor."

"Do you even know what that means?"

"I know it means I take this syringe, " he said pulling a long needle out of his satchel, "And plug it into that man's IV feed tube."

"But why isn't a tech priest here for this, hell even a Churegon?"

"Tech boys been commandeered by Kerrigan's lot, and whatever the Inquisitor's got planned has got the Chief Docere freaking out over how many wounded they can deal with at once," he had started to plug the syringe into its place in the machine, "And let's be honest, if this thing goes ape it's probably better to lose two ratings than it is to lose a tech priest or a medic."

"Not really a comfort sir."

"It isn't really supposed to be," the machine had started to absorb the liquid in the syringe into the IV, "Just keep your gun on it."

"Will a shotgun be enough to keep this thing down if it goes pear shaped?"

"Should be enough to give us the time to keep shooting it in the face till it actually stays dead."

"Makes sense I suppose."

"Course it does," the first said as he wiped his hands on his trousers, "You think too hard about these things. It's why you never seem to get a promotion and I do."

"Fine, can we get the hell out of here then? The Inquisitor will be here to pick the damnable thing up soon and I'd prefer not to see the Inquisitor."

"Why, you got something to hide?"

"The guy makes my skin crawl," he shuddered, "He can read minds from what I hear."

"Well if we do see him he won't read anything from me other than a powerful need to eat. To the eye with that bolt magnet of an Inquisitor. We've done what's ours."

"You don't have to tell me twice, the freak's keeps twitching."

The two left quickly and shut the door, once again leaving the bound form of Dorn alone in the darkness, fidgeting.

CHAPTER 3

The transition from warp-space to real space is not often a pleasant one. There is a cold sensation and a shifting of pressure along the edge of ones senses. The transition at the edge of the Belzafest colony space was smooth, alarmingly so. The physical sensations felt during real space reversions were there for a reason, the laws of physics were different in warp-space than in real space. The gellar field around a starship could limit the effects of the altered physics, but never wholly eliminate them. That Belzafest's surrounding space was so saturated enough in warp energy to negate this, an ill omen of things to come. Whatever means being employed by Faust apparently relied more on obscurity and misdirection at the moment but Sáclair shuddered to think of the raw power needed to shift the currents of the warp.

The bridge, usually teeming with people, had been vacated with the exception of active duty crewmembers and Sáclair's own personal staff. The sounds of footfalls echoed ominously off the onyx floor as ensigns, ratings a tech priests shuffled between the various interface-chairs into which the command staff were hard wired. There was a dull hum from the rapidly shifting arrays of faux stained glass hololithic readouts and a watery throbbing noise from the coolant tubes heading to the base of Sáclair's own throne.

Belzafest itself was a relatively unimportant scrap of space. It held no tactical or mineral resources worth speaking of and was incapable of yielding vegetation. It would be a wholly dead world were it not for it's archeological value. Beneath the poison skies of Belzafest lay the remnants of an ancient xenos civilization that supposedly had contact with Holy Terra during the Dark Age of technology. In spite of their apparent modernity the species had been utterly destroyed, wholly wiped from the annals of history. Now only their crumbling cities and mummified bodies gave any hint to how they had lived or why they died. It was a matter of academic curiosity but ostensibly little else. It's importance within xenology and theoretical xenobiology circles it had been provided with a number of simple defence systems to defend it from pirates and raiders. The vast majority of Belzafest space had been mined with plasma charges and stationary gun turrets to ensure that the only safe approach to the planet was along a single corridor of space between the two moons, placing approaching ships directly in the line of fire of an ancient and oversized point defense array. An array that was no doubt under Faust's control by now. Most Captains would want at least a heavy cruiser or a star dreadnaught to break that sort of blockade.

Sáclair was not most Captains. Breaking that sort of a blockade with the lightly armed and armored Endless Bounty was the sort of challenge he lived to meet. Like his fathers before him Sáclair was linked into the minds and memories of his ancestors, granting him the wealth of their knowledge but condemning him to constantly measure his own worth against that of his predecessors. Each member of the collective had competed some great act that made him "worthy" of joining their ranks. He could think of no greater hell that joining their ranks in either shame or obscurity. Frustrating though it was to admit, the Inquisitor was probably Sáclair's best route to an act that none of his predecessors or successors could hope to match. The assault on Belzafest would not be that act but it would be wonderful practice. Sáclair licked his lips in anticipation as he closed his eyes and folded his mind into the ship's systems.

This was going to be fun, "To the Eye with this miserable scrap of rock."

Rather that taking the safe corridor between the planet's two moons Sáclair gave the orders to enter the minefield around the planet at full speed. The mines themselves were of Oita design, activated by the ambient energies of a ships shields. An unshielded ship could theoretically pass through the field unharmed provided that it did not trip one of the various proximity sensors imbedded inside the mines. The proximity sensors were less accurate than those detecting void shields, the only ships larger than a cutter that were either armored enough to not worry about taking damage from the mines were of Orkish or Chaos design, substantially larger and better armed than the Bounty. It was a terrible gamble but Sáclair had always been a betting man if only in part because he preferred to play games in which he knew how to cheat properly. In this case his ace in the hole had come from Kerrigan, who's knowledge of Oita made mines was second to none.

"Ten seconds till we enter the field sir," Illrich, head of the triad of Navigators, stood to Sáclair's left with his eyes closed as he listened to the seemingly insane ramblings of the astropathic choir.

"Good," He flipped a switch on the left arm of this throne, activating the ship-wide intercom, "All hands prepare to enter the minefield. Close all bulkheads and blast doors. I want full decompression safety procedures in place we're turning off the shields."

The Endless Bounty's engines burned brightly as the ship swam forward towards the bright orange ball of Belzafest. It's shields flickered briefly then died. "This will work," Sáclair said to one of his more nervous looking concubines. Then to himself, "Thishad damn well better work."

The ship lurched forwards elegantly into the night, it's matte black hull and golden prow reflecting the pales orange glow of Belzafest. Its movements were slow and painful, it was a ship designed for speed and thus ill equipped for the sort of delicate maneuvers that Sáclair had planned. Sáclair would gladly gut anyone who suggested his ship would not be up to the task, this would just be another story of the Endless Bounty spitting in the eye of fate to be told over wine, women and absinth in a years time. Still, it was best not to tempt fate and Kerrigan's intimate knowledge of the spacing and design would prove to be essential.

Sáclair breathed deeply and pulled the neural interface cable from the arm of his chair. The sliver cord felt cool in his hands and Sáclair had to labor to hide his excitement, directly interfacing with the ship's machine spirit was bracing. As the cool metal of the interface locked into the sub-dermal connection at his neck his body began to twitch and shake, his mind struggling to cope with the myriad of new sensations. His physical body now only felt like a small part of the greater body of the ship, his urges of the flesh dwarfed by the rushing cold of the void whipping at the ship's sides.

He abruptly close his eyes to stop himself from being overwhelmed by his mind trying to overlay the images from his own eyes and those being fed into his mind by the sensors. The minefield was all round him, so close he felt like he could reach out his arm and touch them.

"God I love that woman," Kerrigan's alterations tot he sensors were perfect; the electronic countermeasures of the Oita mines were wholly ineffective. The most sophisticated of Oita cloaking technologies laid naked before him.

"Sir, your orders," it was all Sáclair could to stop himself from just shooting the rating in the head for interrupting his moment with the ship. Sáclair shook his head, he was letting glorious sensations of space overwhelm his judgement. There was work to be done, "Mark three Z access, rotation six. Fire left thrusters on my mark."

"Yes sir."

Navigating through the field of mines would be a delicate task. The ship would have to navigate through the narrow passages between the explosives and make hard turns at exact moments. Sáclair felt the soft caress of microscopic space debris as the ship rushed forwards.

"Turn in three, two, one, now!"

The Endless Bounty swerved right at the last moment passing by the mines and leaving a whistling sound in Sáclair's ears. The proximity sensors showed the ship to have passed dangerously close to the mine. "Perfect," Sáclair muttered to himself before yelling, "Next turn ten seconds full burst down-thrust."

It was exhilarating to navigate through the field. Every last second brush with death had Sáclair's blood pounding in his ears and his body pumping adrenaline, heightening the already sensational feeling of swimming through the stars. God Emperor help him he loved every moment of it he wanted to just lose himself in the ship forever. He licked his lips and bit down on his tongue as he became more daring with every pass, waiting longer and longer between each turn, taunting death.

"Fantastic!" Sáclair cried out as they past the halfway mark, "Faster! Faster!"

"Sir?" His second in command Donat Enzo pursed his lips in frustration, "Is it wise to take such risks? Is there not danger enough for your needs already?"

"Ship thirty degrees more y access in ten seconds," Saclair shouted jovially then to Donat he whispered back, "We are safe enough old friend."

"One does not cheat death when it is not needed."

"My dearest Donat, if one does not cheat death on occasion one robs him of satisfaction when he finally comes for us. Who am I to rob him of a challenge?"

"I question if you are giving him a challenge or presenting him a gift. Yours is not the only life at stake."

"Bah, no sense of fun at all," Sáclair smirked, "Enjoy the ride."

Donat looked unconvinced but was too occupied with giving the distribution of work orders to the deck chief to respond with much more than a grunt. He would have to simply trust in Sáclair's judgment for the moment, which suited Sáclair just fine. There was still work to be done and fun to be had. It took some thirty minutes to pass through the minefield and another five for Sáclair to be convinced he was far enough from the mines to safely activate the void-shields of his ship.

"Tell the Inquisitor we're ten minutes from Showtime," Sáclair snapped his fingers to the servitor responsible for supplying him with wine, "And he'd better appreciate how... bloody..."

Sáclair blinked nonplussed, as a message appeared oh his HUD from an ID that he did not recognize, "What now?"

The chief astropath was flagging him down over the interlink. The chief astropath never flagged anyone down over the interlink, the chief astropath was rarely sane and coherent enough to remember his own name. The stress of the soul binding ritual and the constant psychic stresses of directing the astropathic choir of the ship usually kept him babbling meaningless strings of logic and data that would be subsequently interpreted by the sophisticated machines interpreting his brain patterns. It had been four generations since Head Astropath Dorae had even been able to recognize his own name. His message over the link was not his usual bizarre ramblings, "There is a missing section of space grid three epsilon on the port side."

"A what?"

"There is a missing section grid three epsilon on the port side."

"What is it?"

"There is a missing section grid three epsilon on the port side."

"….you aren't going to be more specific on this are you?"

"There is a missing section grid three epsilon on the port side."

"Mad as a hatter I swear," there was a section missing? That didn't make sense to Sáclair. The astropathic sensor-servitors of the Endless Bounty were not military grade but they were sophisticated and unlikely to fail without outside interference. The Lionhearts themselves were guarding the servitors so it couldn't be an act of sabotage. So what could it be?

"Sir, would Kerrigan's alterations to the sensors to allow us to see through the Oita stealth measures prevent us from seeing through other measures?"

"No it shouldn't. Anyhow he's not supposed to…. supposed to have any ships. There aren't supposed to be any," Sáclair's eyes widened in horror as he screamed over the interlink to Sácomer, "Shields to full!"

"Sir is that wise, we're at the edge of..." Sácomer's words were cut short by the warning klaxons indicating a sudden impact of a bright green lancing bolt of energy shooting out of the "empty" section of space flying just missing the bounty by a few hundred yards to the stern, "What the blazes? There weren't supposed to be any ships here!"

Sáclair chuckled as the phantom pain of the impact on the ship shot up his spine, "We can ask them to leave politely if you think it would work."

Donat's dour voice came over the interlink, "It would seem that the absence of ships was a gross misrepresentation of facts.

"These heretics just have no sense of fair play," Sacomer whined.

"Luckily the Inquisitor has even less, try to keep us out of range of whatever the hell that thing is so we can make a pass on the outpost. I'm not risking atmospheric craft while that thing's there to shoot them out of the sky," Sácomer winced as a second shot flared on the ship's shields causing a dull throb from the ship interface's feedback, "Now get me my shields to full and a damned firing solution."

-

Kar'kan'tal could not remember where his own mind and memories ended and where the ship's began. He had been a beggar and a cripple when the master had found him. Or had that been the pilot before him. The master, the master was a good man. He a great man. He was the best man. He had promised Kar'kan'tal a new body and a new life as long as he obeyed him. He was pretty sure he had been a man.

Now he was the ship, a ship, wasn't he? It was hard to think, it hurt, it always hurt but it wouldn't hurt forever. It hadn't hurt in the before, in the before things had been better. They would be better. The master said they would be better. They had to get better.

The master was trapped on the ground where he could not go, there was no master. He needed a master. Without a master there was no one to sing him songs and tell him tales. And the pain, he could only remember the pain.

It had been months since they had gone down to the ground place on the master's ship and he hadn't heard from the master. Did the master want him to stay or to go down? He didn't want to do what the master didn't want him to do. The master would make the pain worse, but it wasn't the master's fault that he hurt Kar'kan'tal. Kar'kan'tal should listen to master, Kar'kan'tal had always listened to master. Didn't he?

Too many thoughts, too much pain. Why can't he remember? Time in silence, time alone, time without the master, there was too much time. And then there was a new thing on the horizon. It was a new thing a strange new thing thing. Not like what the master said should be coming. Not what the master promised, not the old times with the before masters who made the ships. No this was an enemy. Something that would try to stop the master, stop the before times, stop what needed to come, what had already come and what would never come to be. The stop, the time, and the winding pain were there. No, Kar'kan'tal was not going there.

Blood, yes he remembered blood. He liked blood, that's why the master picked him, that's why the master changed him, and that's why the master crippled him. Wait, what? No the master found him crippled the master was good and he was bad for questioning the master. All leaders must be questioned shouldn't they? Not the master.

Pain, pain, too much pain.

The ship, strange ship. Blood, he wanted blood, needed blood, needed to taste blood again and the ship needed it to. The ship worshipped different gods than he, or maybe they both worshipped no god.

Was there no God?… no it was not the absence of God that troubled him… God, there had been a god once a god on a throne of skulls and gold, he had loved and reviled him and a god on a throne of brass and love that he had hated. Now they were one, now they were gone.

The strange ship fired back? Pain, yes he felt pain. No matter. The ship would die.

And the blood would take away the pain.

Like the before time.

–

"Either shoot so you hit the damn the damn thing or don't bother shooting at all," Sáclair screamed over the coms to the gun batteries. This unnatural piece of xenotech filth dared to fire on his ship with impunity? He would not have it. It would die, honor demanded as much, " Andrews what in the hell is going on?"

Mister Andrews, a portly balding man who ran the ships sensor links to the main gun batters, appeared on a hololithic readout to Sáclair's left. The dull green glow of the display only emphasized the unnatural pallor of the void born gunnery sergeant hard wired into the ships mainframe. A piece of shrapnel from an exploding power relay had cut an angry gash into the man's face but his expression was more of rage than of pain, "We can't hit the damned thing with our targeting sensors. We're going to have to target the bastard manually."

"I don't care if you have to use the will of the Emperor alone. I want that abomination dead as quickly as is possible." The ship's sensors barked angrily as another lance of energy shot out from the inky black nothingness in the distance and the ship lurched left, "Damn it! I want more power to the shields, now! Donat make it so."

"Sir we can't put any more power into them than we're already doing. We had to refit the ancillary plasma generator as a dedicated power source for Kerrigan's..."

"To hell with the Inquisitor's pet project, we can put it back together once we're not dead!"

"I'll try sir," Donat responded professonally.

"No, you'll do Donat," the ship lurched again and Sáclair screamed as a feedback of pain shot up his spine, "Will somebody get a throne damned firing solution on that blasted ship"

The fuzzed voices of the fighter wings launched off the bounty shouted out random warnings and encouragements to each other other the com-net as they charged at the enemy ship, their little green blips indicating allies showing their great looping movements about the missing section of space where the enemy no doubt was hiding.

The Endless Bounty was no stranger to battle even before its service to the Inquisitor, as a cargo ship specializing in exotic and often wholly illegal materials and cargo it was often the victim of attempted piracy. The hull of the ship had once been as ornate and opulent as the interior but centuries of blasting and laser-fire had left the sides of the ship pockmarked and twisted with scorch-marks and dents. Still with every bleeding rent of molten gold caused by the spidery black nothingness Sáclair found himself going mad from the indignity of it, he was not about to let some creature defeat his record of puissant mastery of space.

–

Strange thing, strange little thing. Angry little thing trying to hurt it like it was of the before times in the great wars. It was not from the before time, or the after, or was it? No matter it would try to kill but it would fail. The strange thing would die.

The strange thing ran, swooped around and fired at it. It was in pain from their weapons but it was a pain of the flesh, only a pain of the flesh. Their weapons were dangerous but it was a thing of the dark, a creature of hiding and strife. It would crush the creature.

Shields, all the young things now had shields. Foolish young things to rely on force and fire instead of guile and forbearance, the would learn in time. But they wouldn't would they? They would die like the rest.

Pain! More pain. The ship was hitting with greater accuracy, how? Feeling... what am I feeling? I... was there an I... no the machine only the machine. Tendrils, tendrils grasping in the dark. Little bright minders, the before one's brother meddling at work. No, it would not work this time. The machine would feel their reach but the man way immune. The work of darker powers than the before ones. Tampering with the human gene making dark ones to silence the mind voices of the shining ones. They would find the ship, but not the void in which they met in silence. They could not listen.

But they could look, couldn't they? Yes there was more pain, more suffering. That would not do!

Damn it's safety, damn it's life, death was a blessing and master was a God-king to be!

–

"Of course actually shooting the blasted thing only managed to make the bastard mad. Just bloody fantastic," thought Saclair to himself as the bounty twisted to evade another angry bolt of light, "Andrews tell me you've got good news!"

"Sir," the sour face of Andrew's responded over the interlink as he tried to ignore a servo skull attempting to cauterize and bandage his nasty looking head-wound, "We've started manually linking in some sanctioned psychers into the control interface but it was never meant for this sort of implantation into someone without years of preparatory chemical conditioning. As it stands now I think we can manage to use them for about ten more minutes before their bodies are no longer able to hand the stress and they expire."

"Then you'd best make those ten minutes count then shan't you?"

"By your command sir."

The ship rocked again, "Donat, the damned shields! What about my throne damned shields! We're going to be down to only the hull soon if I can't get them more power."

"Sir Kerrigan cannot re-integrate the ancillary plasma generator without disabling the primary systems. There is nothing she can safely do till we're out of battle."

"What can she unsafely bloody well do."

"She can do little more than redirect life support energy."

"Pull it from the deeps, the only people living that close to the plasma reactors are servitors, criminals, and the insane. We can afford to lose them we can't afford to lose the ship."

"And Magos Kerrigan herself."

"Donat, a lack of air is hardly an issue to bother a bloody Magos."

"Her attendants might object to it quite strongly sir."

"Her attendants will have to simply tough it out with their survival air tanks. They were intended for rad-bursts so they only cover a thirty minute period but if this blasted thing gets its way that won't be an issue."

"Sir," it was the voice of Andrews over the

"What is it now Mr. Andrews?"

"The lances aren't having much of an effect but the broadside guns are doing some damage to it when they can hit it," Andrews bit his lip pensively, "There's something odd about this thing Sir."

"About the spectral apparition of a ship blasting the hell out of my port side shields? Whatever could you mean," he rounded angrily to a maintenance crew of tech adepts trying to repair a shattered mural attached to the bulkhead, "Get the damned shields working first you twits, I don't give a tinkers damn what they're doing the bloody décor."

He turned back to Sgt. Andrews with a look of barely controlled rage, "What exactly is odd about this ship."

"Well the fighter wings are reporting that damn thing is bleeding when we shoot it."

"Bleeding?"

"Like a stuck grox."

"It's organic... the damned thing is organic... if it bleeds..." Sáclair looked to the readouts displaying failing shields and systems and entered a new heading, "If it bleeds we can kill it. Order the fighter wings to move out of our path."

Sácomer's corpulence wobbled nervously, "Sir?"

"I'm turning the damn ship around. We're going to ram the bastard."

–

It wasn't dying. Odd, most things died quicker than this. It would only be a matter of time, Kar'kan'tal felt sad for the ship in a way. The dead god would not approve but he was a servant of a glorious past not a long failed future.

Stranger still it was coming towards it. The ship was confused but Kar'kan'tal was afraid... why was he afraid? The ship knew that the logical tactical decision was to surrender or retreat. Defeat was obvious. Kar'kan'tal remembered something different, something strange, something human.

It was not going to reatreat.

The ship reacted in horror. Such a decision was insane, it had no hope of succeeding, Kar'kan'tal must be mistaken. Kar'kan'tal must be mistaken... by the old ones Kar'kan'tal was not mistaken! The ship tried to leave, tried to pull itself away but it was too late. Its confusion and indecision had sealed its fate. The strong armored prow of the Endless Bounty was not strong enough to destroy the ship in a head on collision but it's forward gun batteries were hard pressed to miss the ship from point blank range.

Kar'kan'tal's last thought as he felt the ship being torn into so much ichor and viscera was and odd one.

If the ship was Kar'kan'tal then who was he?

–

Sáclair spat up bloody phlegm as the ship came to a halt just beyond the crushed ship remnants. Killing that blasted ship wouldn't be the act that earned him his place with the fathers but Emperor willing it wasn't far off from it. Sáclair yanked the connection out of his arm wincing it's presence went away.

"When this is all over remind me to call the blasted Inquisitor and tell him about re-defining what he considers "need to know" information about a job. And that by the Saints as my witness the cost of repairing my ship is coming out of his Inquisitorial expense account."

"Of course sir."

"Fire the damn breaching torpedoes at the central dome."

–

Cairn warbled with frustration as he tried to buckle into the crash webbing on the retrofitted boarding torpedo. The seats were properly sized for a man of Damascan origins wearing combat grear but ill fitted for someone of the Skitarii's unusual size and girth.

"Cairn we drop in ten minutes we haven't the time for you to be mucking about. Now if the bloody Dorn unit can fit into one of these things than you damn well can," it was a half-truth at best. The Dorn unit had been painstakingly strapped into place under Daul's supervision by a couple of tech adepts. Daul hated lying to Cairn but implying that the non-sentient servitor had manged to accomplish a task the Skitarii had not was galling enough to silence the binary whinge.

Daul didn't really have the heart to blame Cairn for being frustrated but he couldn't afford to look weak in front of the Lionheart assault teams. To them he must be a paragon of leadership and excellence. The Lionhearts, the highly trained and fiercely loyal personal army of Nathaniel Sáclair, were as full of bluster and bravado as Sáclair himself. Like Sáclair they backed up that bravado with a dangerous edge and martial acumen keen as a Kasarkin blade. Unlike the rank and file security forces of the bounty the Lionhearts were usually trained by sending them into active warzones to hone their skills, it wasn't unheard of for an unruly soldier from one of the more strict regiments like the Mordians or the Kriegsmen to "accidentally" end up coming back with the Lionhearts as a partisan soldier bearing he heraldry of Sáclair.

It also meant that Daul had been forced to seem as humorless and unimpressed by the battle between the Endless Bounty and the xenos ship. Maintaining a look of grim frustration was easier today than most days. Ignoring the near brush with death against the enemy ship the boarding torpedoes of the bounty had never been intended to be used as part of an atmospheric entry. Belzafest's atmospere was negligible but of the ten torpedoes it was likely that three would not make it to the surface. It was suicide but there was no better way of avoiding being tracked by the anti-aircraft weaponry of the colony. The pods would ostensibly drop faster than anything bigger than a lesser flak gun could track and the chances of that shooting down one of the boarding torpedoes.

The bulky suit of artificer made powered armor helped to both intimidate and conceal Daul's own severe fear of flying. The leering skull mask of his helmet did a fantastic job of hiding Daul's ardent desire to be anywhere but dropping out of space in an adamatium tube. Better still the mag-locks in his boots would allow him to stand upright in the center of the pod in lieu of strapping himself down as though even gravity itself couldn't intimidate him.

Throne but he hated heights.

The thunderous bang of the initial launch yanked at Daul inside his armor as his body was thrust between the artificial gravity of the ship and the weightlessness of space. If the Lionhearts found the transition between to be as sickening as Daul did they showed no signs of discomfort. Daul briefly wondered if they too had taken supliments to help with grav sickness but it seemed more likely that the veteran spacers had simply become used to rapidly changing gravity. Cairn, who lacked a digestive tract was of course blissfully unaware of the shift.

Daul turned his head to the palefaced man in the corner of the tube humming to himself and caressing his gun lovingly. Colonel Danzig, leader of the Lionhearts, smiled back at Daul, "You take me to the best parties Sir."

"Parties Colonel?"

"You get us all dressed up to socialize with heretics in traditional Imperial fashion. Why you even brought me a friend to play with," he patted the high powered Cadian made lasgun on his lap, "It's her first time but I bet she can sing like an angel when she puts her mind to it. We're in for a fun night sir."

Daul said nothing. Responding would only fuel the rant and he knew this was the way that Lionhearts let off steam before a battle. The colonel continued, oblivious to Daul's silence, "I just want you to know that a night out on the town might won't be enough to get me to put out on a first date."

Danzig pursed his lips mockingly, "I'm not that kind of girl."

"Indeed you aren't," replied his second in command Sergei, "but that is out of a lack of options rather than a lack of desire. The mind is willing, but the flesh is pale and flabby."

And so it continued, each man in the squad tossing insults at their superior officer till the line got to he lowest ranking man who simply insulted himself. It was a ritual with a simple purpose, the Lionhearts believed that a man with a grudge had unfinished business and could thus not allow himself to die until he had properly resolved the matter of honor. Every insult bound them all together by their own chain of grudges forcing each man to survive and make sure the man above him survived so that they could resolve all grudges one day.

The Lionhearts were not ones for silent contemplation before entering the fray. The squad sang cadences as the torpedo plummeted to earth. The private language of the Lionhearts was an ancient pagan tongue from before the coming of the Emperor from the old Damascan holy books. It prevented their enemies from breaking their communications and protected their ancient cultural heritage. Daul hadn't learned their language yet but their cadences were simple enough to follow and had a common refrain. Based upon the thrusting motions that the Colonel made every once and a while it seemed best to simply appreciate the beauty of the song without putting too much thought into the content. The Lionhearts may be elegant and cultured soldiers but they were still soldiers.

The heat and friction of re-entry shaking the torpedo wildly only made the soldiers sing their cadence louder and prouder. The squealing angry sound of the inertial dampener slowly failing was deafening but they paid it no heed because the song was not finished. Daul found less comfort in the uproarious chanting about whatever Danzig had been pantomime thrusting towards in light of the plummeting torpedo. His heart was in this throat and threatening to flee out his lips were he to open them.

"Imperitor Deux Est..." The imperial mantra and prayer of forgiveness and guidance was long and complicated but focusing on the words would help clear his mind. He chucked to himself as he saw Cairn, the only man who hated heights more than Daul himself. The towering mechanical man had long since given up on the buckles and simply snaked his mechandrites through the ship's crash webbing and grabbed onto the bulkhead with his heavy duty augmentic arms. Cairn scowled at Daul and sputtered something curt and no doubt rude in binary, the fine tentacle like mechandries twisting nervously.

The tube tube jerked loudly and abruptly, a metallic bang resounding through the torpedo. Danzig turned to Daul, the cadence now silent, "Sir, exactly how long have they had to prepare?"

Daul shifted his neck, frustratedly cracking his vertebre, "Long enough to improve the anti-aircraft weaponry it would seem."

Danzig smile manically, "Good Sir, wouldn't be any fun if it were easy."

Daul disagreed wholeheartedly, facing an enemy who was as entrenched as the gates of Cadia was hardly practical but it was a waste of time to say so, "It would seem that Faust seems bound and determined to give you the challenge you seek."

Danzig smiled and turned to his men yelling out, "You hear that boys, we're in for a real scrap. No more fighting off candy arsed pirates for us." He punctuated it with a loud whooping cheer that his men responded in kind.

The tube bucked and bobbed as the anti-aircraft fire tried to track them. It seemed that they would get clear of the danger at first but the bangs and pops rapidly became deafening. Eventually someone got luck and blasted a wide hole in the side of thetorpedo bursting the left wall and two unlucky Lionhearts into shrapnel and smoking charnel. The bright orange smoke of the toxic Belzafest atmosphere began to seep into the tube in thick bilious clouds.

Someone screamed "Rebreathers!" and the Lionhearts rushed to put on the masks before inhaling too much of the natural paralytic caused them to asphyxiate. The man on Carin's left struggled with the straps on his mask as the methane rich air caused his mind to cloud and his eyes to fog up with tears. A slender but agile mechandrite shot out and grabbed the mask, pulling it over the man's head and clipping the air hose firmly into place. The Lionheart ceased to flail in pain, gasping in bliss. He wispered out words of thanks that Cairn seemed politely unaware of in light of the rapidly approaching ground. Cairn often seemed to be unaware of what his mechandrites did on his behalf. Daul braced himself with the crash webbing on the ceiling, even with the mag locked boots and powered armor this was going to hurt if things went further wrong. This was going to hurt a great deal.

The torpedo collided with the ground tail end first, crumpling under its own massive weight and pulping three Lionhearts and a servitor that had been hard wired into the guidance systems. The Lionhearts, bruised and battered though they were remained silent and ready, waiting for the end. The tube creaked and tipped over flipping the passengers upside down. A man screamed as his saftey harness failed and he was tossed headfirst into the bulkhead, his neck twisting at an odd angle, his eyes twirling in agony. A well placed shot from Danzig saved the proud Lionheart from a life of paralysis and indignity.

The process of safely untangling themselves from the combat webbing and harnesses was an indelicate one, slowed only by a healthy desire not to end up as the first man had. Daul's own extraction had proven to be the most undignified of the lot, once his mag locked boots let loose his body fell to the ground with a resounding clang as his even ton of mass collided with the ground. Cairn's descent proved to be somewhat more graceful. He descended with his spidery mechandrites twitching shoulders indicating his mirth at Daul's predicament.

"Just help me off the damn ground."

One of the Lionhearts nearest to the door called out, "Colonel Danzig, sir. The breaching doors seem to be damaged, shall we burn through?"

Danzig nodded, "Haziz, Falkan, Bornat to the front to the front with the meltas."

"Sir," yelled a voice from the back, "Haziz is dead sir, him and the damned melta, Falkan and Bornat too. We had them in the back because we thought the anti-aircaft was most likely to hit us head on."

Danzig swore loudly, "What the hell are we supposed to get through that slagging door without a bloody meltagun, we pop detchord, grenades or meltabombs in here and we'll be as fragged as the damn door."

Daul cleared his throat, the sound reverberating metallically through his vox unit and lifted an oversized gauntlet, "I believe I may be of assistance."

Danzig nodded and bowed out of the way. The servo assisted power-fists of the Adeptus Astrates were designed with the intention of tearing through armored bulkheads and vehicles. His mentor and felt that it was necessary to use such weapons of terror in the apprehension of heretics. The perceived omnipotence of being able to rip through solid ferrocrete was often an effective intelligence-gathering supplement. As his left hand grasped at the door the powerful disruptive energies of the gauntlet flared blue and screeched angrily. As his fingers grabbed, twisted, pushed, pulled, ripped and tore at the door the dancing blue arks of electricity bursting off the agitated subatomic matter flared blindingly bright.

"I am the sword of the Emperor," Daul yelled, "I am his strength and his sigil, by my hand the evils of this galaxy shall be smote and I am not about to be stopped in my righteous quest by a broken blasted hatch!"

Daul roared and ripped the adamantium door off its hinges with a resounding clang. The Lionhearts rushed out before it had even hit the ground and dove for cover, ready to fight for their lives. The ridge they landed on, however, was quite abandoned. According to Daul's autosensors had gone some five miles off course from the expected landing zone and would have to catch up with the other three torpedoes worth of troops.

"Danzig we need to move south as soon as possible. We won't be there in time be with the main assault force but if we are to catch Faust we'll need to reach the southern dome within the hour."

"Yes sir," Danzig's voice squawked out, garbled by the microphone in his breathing mask.

Daul and Cairn let the way, towering figures of adamantium making the Lionhearts look squat and pinched by comparison. The bright orange toxins of the fog billowed and shimmered as they waded though it. The path was slow and treacherous, deep gorges and sharp rocks lay hidden in the smog waiting to snag the unwary. Belzafest may have been beautiful once, the petrified fauna hinted at a past of lush forests and green grass, but the modern Belzafest was sullen and stretched. The dark sod of the earth beneath their feet had long since given up on life and simply slid into death.

It was a terrible dead place, silent except for their own footfalls and the distant booms and cracks of battle at the domed structures of the colony. The group only stopped twice to remove Dorn from where he had gotten himself stuck in the ground when Daul had forgotten to give him the necessary command to avoid a sudden drop or ravine.

Every few minutes or so one of the Lionhearts would swear loudly as they caught their foot on a jutting shart of razor sharp sharp rock or thick knot of petrified root hidden beneath the orange smog. Bright green geysers of molten hot smoke shot up from waist high geysers along the path, randomly bathing them in sickly light and reflecting against the gold leaf trim of the Lionhearts flak armor.

It was some twenty minutes of treacherous ground and hidden paths before they reached anything resembling civilization, the remnants of what was once the main street of some alien city. Towering spires of crystal cut out of the very mountains themselves glinted in the dull light, their dark windows ominously presenting convenient cover should Faust have placed snipers. Danzig whistled and tapped the side of his head and lifted two fingers. Daul's radio was apparently tuned onto the wrong frequency.

"Yes Colonel?"

"Sir? Is there something I'm missing? Our mission report said that there was only one settled part of the planet. This," Danzig waved to the wide street, "Is a bit more developed than advertised and clearly not human."

"It also hasn't been habitable for close to ten thousand years. We aren't really sure who made the cities, it's why the Belzafest colony is here in the first place," Daul squinted and pointed at something far down the street visible only to his own enhanced senses, "The main dome is at the end of this street built over the main excavation site, we're going to need to work our way there. Now is hardly the time for a history lesson."

Danzig raised his hand and signed at this men, the Lionhearts rushed forwards, "I think you'll find that we have time for both or neither. Something stripped this world bare and I find that highly unnerving."

"Your hardly alone on that," yelled out the voice of his Sergei, "The whole bloody place just screams trap."

Daul sighed, "Possibly but we're going to have to take that risk. Come on."

It was unsurprising that Danzig should feel the need for a better explanation for the disturbingly well preserved empty cities of Belzafest. The supposedly extinct indigenous peoples of Belzafest were a common topic of myth and speculation in Xenologer and Xenobiologer circles. No physical remains of the natives of Belzafest had ever been recovered though plenty of non-functioning technology had. Belzafest, or "Xenos-prime" was in the center of some half dozen planets with similar crystalline architecture and total ecological holocaust. Every planet had been wholly scourged of life and history either by some unknown enemy of days past or by the aboriginal Belzafast xenoforms.

The only universally agreed upon facts were that there had once been some form of bipedal xenos living in Belzafest and its surrounding systems. Had Faust come purely to unravel the secrets of Belzafest or for some darker purpose? Daul did not know but he could not allow for Faust's goals to succeed, no matter the cost. Fausts involvement with this world was enough to convince Daul of the danger of the planet. He was a twisted madman by all accounts, the sort of monster who would use a mass grave like Belzafest as a fortress.

Faust would die by his hand, it was the only acceptable outcome.

The sky continued to flash in bursts, anti-aircraft batteries struggling to fight off the air wings of the bounty. Daul smiled wryly, Sáclair was committing more military resources to this assault than he had initially promised. The boxy shapes of the heavier marauder bombers and their thunderbolt escort fighters danced and weaved around the smaller wedge shaped fighters of the Belzafest colony spitting out iridescent green bolts of death from their lascannons. In the distance the bright bursts of cyclonic explosives flashed off the dull purplish glow of the void shield protecting the domed settlement.

"Where the hell did Faust get series six Soral Interceptors?" mused Sergi, "No PDF has those freaking things. Hell we don't even have those freaking things."

"Faust's efforts are well financed. He has a great deal of support from groups like the Amon Sui and centuries of personal wealth amassed to support himself," Daul fidgeted with the thick chain that held a large tome in place at his side.

"Why the hell don't we have weapons like them backing us up? Or the freaking Space Marines? Isn't this chap some sort of major heretic?"

Daul sighed. His own resources were considerably more limited as of late, the planet his own personal estates and holdings were based on had been destroyed utterly by the Imperial Navy in order to deny a splinter fleet of Hive Cancer the biomass necessary to advance into the Empire. He had been offworld to deal with the Amon Sui when news reached him of the Exterminatus of Verzan. Now his network consisted of Cairn and what few possessions he had with him on the Endless Bounty, "The Adeptus Astrates aid when they chose to and whom they chose to. I have not endeared myself with the local chapters and I doubt I could gain their assistance in time, though I have sent a plea for aid."

The group slowed as they approached the central dome and the signs and sounds of fighting became more prominent. The Lionhearts fanned out hugging what little cover they could find, eyes straining to see though the fog. Daul's own senses, augmented by his own augmentic and psychic enhancements were less dulled. It was he who noticed the first sign of enemy movement.

Daul grabbed Galan, one of the youngest Lionhearts by the sleeve and yanked the boy behind him as a waning klaxon began to blare from his helmet's HUD. He barely had time to yell, "incoming" before the whistling death of mortar shells impacted into the rocky ground of the street flinging razor sharp shrapnel and debris in a wide arc. Several of the Lionhearts were tossed by the blast and landed flat on the ground some five feet from where they had been standing. Someone outside Daul's field of vison screamed a wet cry as a shard of crystal lodged itself into the thin mylar of the breathing tube and into the soft flesh of their throat.

"Damnit Dorn get out of the middle of the blasted street!" The servitor was standing in the middle of the street, blissfully unaware of the danger around him and grinning stupidly. A long gash was bleeding steadily where he had been clipped by shrapnel. At his master's command the servitor ran towards Daul at a brisk trot, uncaring of the whistling sounds of an imminent second shelling.

The now two dozen men sat unmoving, bellies to the ground in cover. Not daring to speak or even breath for fear of missing the sound of incoming shells.

Minutes passed like hours.

"Where the hell are they?" Danzig yelled over the com-net after a while, "Who has the damned auspex? I want to know who the bloody hell is shooting at me and I want to shoot them in the bloody bonce."

"Genrin and Tayvlin were sir."

"Thone take me, is anyone who isn't dead carrying the damned gear?"

"Mine was taken out by the shelling sir," responded a nervous Falon.

Danzig flexed his hand and resisted he seemed to struggle with the urge to throttle the nearest person till Cairn chirped an affirmative response while fiddling with some boxy piece of admech technology at his side.

"Of course the damned mute has the auspex... why not..."

"The damned mute," responded Daul tersely as Cairn fed data directly into his helmet's infolink, "Is more than adequately communicating with the rest of us. They aren't shelling us, apparently the Belzafest PDF forces that have been in hiding since Faust took over the colony have decided to assist us. There is an armored column assaulting a bunker some half mile southwest of us, those were presumably stray shots."

"I don't like my men being dead as a result of collateral damage Inquisitor."

"I don't like your men being dead at all," Daul squinted into the distance, "It would be best for us to avoid the PDF's armored division, they are as likely to shoot us as Faust's forces in this damned smog."

"Where to then?"

"We need to get closer to the domes, there ought to be underground entrances to the excavation sites. We just need to find one and follow it back to the main dome."

"Sir that just screams trap to me."

"I prefer a trap to mortar rounds. They're damned inconvenient."

Danzig paused before responding in a deathly serious voice, "Sir did you just make a joke about our imminent deaths?"

"It's possible."

Danzig laughed heartily, "There's hope for you yet. Men move out, we've got a hole to find."

–

Kerrigan sat in the center of the great machine chanting the rites of purification and computation for the fifth time, inhaling the scent of the perfumed lubricating oils that her adepts were gently massaging into the delicate gears and servos along the wall. The machine was as ancient as the Endless Bounty itself and it's machine spirit was fragmented and confused after centuries of disuse. Such a flagrant abuse of one of the children of the Omassiah was unacceptable but symptomatic of the loss of knowledge following the Age of Strife and the Age of Apostasy. Even a magos of Kerrigan's quality could only hope to fix and mend the machine, the creation of such wondrous technology was beyond her ken.

The tactile sensors in her augmentic limbs allowed her to feel the ridges and bumps in the dark obsidian aquilla placed in the middle of the floor as she prostrated herself in front of the icon of the great cog. With love and care she repeated the sacred rite of cogitation, slowly lowering her slim computer interface mechandrite into the port in the eye of the left head of the eagle. The machine was near mad, it had gone too long without a user and had gone quite rampant.

She sang it soothing words as she helped it to reach solutions to it's rampant loops of incomplete logic and inane trails of computations. The machine would be ready for when Daul needed it. It was her duty, it was her honor, and it was her pleasure to contribute to the death of Soren Faust.

She would not fail.

Such an out come would be illogical.

–

Authors note: The actual crossover elements will come in later chapters, I wanted to establish the OC properly before tossing them into a separate fandom.

I appreciate any input, I'm well aware that I'm not the world's best author and any constructive criticism is welcomed.

This is excellent writing, a lot of the dialogue feels realistic, typical macho lines from 40k but not to the point of ridiculous. There is plenty of dialogue that state the competition and even aggression between the characters as well as paranoia of the system they work in.

My only pick is a crossover really should have balance, at three chapters in (and the length of each chapter) there needs to be a gradual narration and storytelling on B5 to the point the two are fully mixed. I don't think it's a good idea to leave B5 out for at least three chapters, a story has to justify what it promotes. If it says it's going to be a crossover then that has to be included within reasonable reading time otherwise readers will get the assumption that it's biased to one side of the story or why include a crossover at all if three chapters in you have a story and a plot that is developing well without it.

Chapter 4

Discovering an entrance to the underground dig sites proved to be astoundingly easy, even in the dim murk of Belzafest's fog. As a place of great academic interest the leadership of the colony had seen fit to put every possible safety measure in place to make sure that those mining and exploring the surface of the colony could find their way back to safety. The excavation sites were marked with oversized spotlights and bright glow-globes that flashed on the ground for a good hundred meters in a great semi-circle. The entrance was guarded by a handful of pitifully thin looking men wearing rebreathers and holding low caliber stubbers. They stood in a close huddle near to the warmth of an exhaust vent, guns lazily held at their sides.

They were dead before they ever knew it. Five whip cracks of laser-fire sounded and five bodies fell bonelessly to the ground, their eyes glassing over. Sabestan, one of the Lionheart scouts ran forwards though the thick orange smoke and ducked down next to the bodes one by one before clicking his radio twice to indicate that it was safe to advance.

“Hardly quality mercenaries he's been hiring,” Danzig said as they warily approached the entrance to the catacombs, “They didn't even get off a shot.”

Daul kneeled next to one of the corpses and pulled off its rebreather, “They aren't mercenaries, I think they're leftovers from the crew of the ship Faust was commanding when he arrived. Look here, the muscles in his arm are strong but the bones are brittle from years in a zero gravity environment. They shattered from the impact of the shot where on a normal man they would just be seared and burnt.”

“Throne,” Sergei kneeled next to Daul, “He's right. I'll way even money he worked as zero-g welder or the like. I thought the colonists destroyed the ship.”

“The engines at any rate, it would seem that some of the ships crew survived the bisection of the ship,” Daul clicked his tongue pensively, “He's using them as advance guard to figure out where we're coming from. Probably doing vox checks at regular intervals. They aren't here to stop us, just to slow us down and to track our progress. He didn't even bother to give them weapons capable of piercing rudimentary body armor.”

Cairn warbled and frustratedly waved a chronometer.

“Quite right, the more time we dawdle the more time we give Faust to form a counteroffensive,” Daul said straightening up and turning to the sealed entrance to the catacombs, “Danzig if you would be so kind as to open a path?”

“My pleasure sir,” Danzig pulled a long silvery tube out of his bag, fixed it to the side of the door, pressed a red button on the top, then backed to a safe distance. The tube burst in an implosion of controlled heat and fission, leaving a molten pile of slag where once stood a door. Danzig smiled, yelled “For the Emperor!” and led the charge through the new opening in the wall.

The excavation site consisted of a series of subterranean passages carved out of the same silvery crystal as the buildings above ground with many thousands of cross passages. Like the rest of the city it was disturbingly untouched by time and wear but unlike the long since plundered above ground. It was alarmingly well preserved, one would expect an area undergoing such frankly rapid excavations to be a mess of instrumentation and clutter but the tunnels hardly even showed noticeable levels of dust or grime. The passing of centuries had passed apparently without notice helped in part, Daul suspected, by some as of yet undiscovered automated maintenance systems.

The group stopped briefly as the roof shook and debris rained on their heads. Danzig looked up, “ Short range shells?”

“Not ours,” Sergei tapped the rail of the mag train, “Do we have a cart we could use to ride this?”

“And do what exactly? Be all in one place for them to shoot us in a single shot?”

“I wouldn't mind getting Sontián off this leg,” Gazan the medicus of the first squad was wrapping second squad's sniper's leg with a combat dressing, “He's good to walk once the second skin sets but abrupt movement could rupture the seal.”

“I can see that Medicus.”

“And Fabian must have some sort of abnormality in his brain chemistry, he's clearly reacting badly to the morphine,” the aforementioned Fabian was standing groggily to the side blinking incessantly and muttering about a “holy duty.”


“I can't afford to wait any more than I already have Gazan,” Daul said as he hefted the sniper over his shoulder in spite of the burly man's protestations of perfect health and started marching along the path of the tracks, “We need to move quickly or not at all.”

“The man is trapped in a hole on a godforsaken rock for Throne's sake. How much of a time limit could be possibly be operating on?”

“I ordered to total Exterminatus Extremus of this planet in twenty hours by the fifth fleet. It would be unwise to be on the planet when it happens.”

“... that would do it,” Danzig grimaced, “Any particular reason you felt the need to add an additional challenge to this?”

“It would be advantageous to catch him alive but far more still to allow him to live and escape. If he is the real Faust he has incalculable tactical information about the Halo Stars and if not we must determine where he encountered the secret knowledge of the arch-heretic,” Daul paused, “And frankly if we haven't captured him alive in twenty four hours I can't risk the chance that he might succeed at whatever his goals may be.”

The ceiling shook again briefly making Daul's knees feel weak and once again making him grateful that his helmet obscured any expression of surprise or worry, “We can argue about the merits and failings of my decision once we are closer to the central dome. Those shells are getting closer and I'm not sure how stable these tunnels are. We'll follow the mag rail, for now at least, as it must head to a central hub somewhere. It's guarded, no doubt, but I suspect that Faust will have deployed his stronger forces inside the dome itself around the civilian population.”

“Not at the points of ingress?”

“His worry will be more about egress.”

“Where the hell would they go?”

“I doubt the civilians care, the past records of Faust's experiments would tend to indicate that he prefers to have a wide range of genetic templates upon which to conduct experiments. Suffice it to say most of his patients are not willing participants. I suspect that the poison gases of the surface world look pleasant by comparison.”

“I doubt you're speaking metaphorically are you?”

“If this is actually Inquisitor Faust as bad as you can imagine. He was tutored in the flesh-works by the homunculus Coven of the Sightless Eye. If we fail and you're captured I suggest slicing your own wrists, his doctors probably won't be able to stop the death processes and cyanide isn't fast acting enough.”

“Exactly how many people has this Inquisitor killed,” Danzig looked over his shoulder at Cairn as the Skitarii fiddled with a machine on the wall bearing the great cog of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The Skitarii tilted his head to the side with a serious air and a face inscrutable, mechanical tentacles still adjusting and fidgeting. Cairn's memory engrams included very specific eyes-only data on Faust's attacks on the Ad-Mech itself including the destruction of several entire forge worlds. The Machine God's servants had long memories and many well deserved grudges.

“Enough to cause us...no, no! Dorn stand still,” the Arco-flagellant flailed impotently about in a low hanging chandelier made up of find strands of glowing crystal. The snaking crystalline strands had wrapped around the power leads to whiplike chords replacing his hands and were sparking ominously, each spark causing red welts to appear on the otherwise pallid and oily skin of Dorn. Daul sliced the offending cords with one of the razor tipped talons of his gauntlet muttering darkly under his breath, “Insufferable creature, they could at least have left some of your basic reasoning skills. A danger to yourself and others I swear.”

Dorn stared back at with a gormless expression, drooling slightly and apparently only mildly interested in his brief incarceration and subsequent liberation. Even then Daul was reasonably sure the only reason Dorn even looked back at him was a pavlovian reaction to having his owner speak. It was uncommonly stupid, even for a servitor. It was quite likely that an overzealous surgeon lobotomized more of Dorn's brain than was really necessary. He was eternally stumbling into near lethal situations.

“Damned, useless servitor,” Danzig looked at it scornfully, “Why you brought it is beyond me. More trouble than it's worth.”

“You'll keep your opinions to yourself soldier,” resisting the urge to openly agree with Danzig was difficult but it wouldn't do to have the Lionhearts openly mocking a servant of His most holy Inquisition. A fine dust of crystal shook from the roof as another shell hit the roof, shaking the group soundly and causing Sontián to wince with pain from his awkward position draped over the Inquisitor’s shoulder. It was time to move out.

The group moved as silently as they could down the main corridor, sticking close to the tracks of the mag-tram. Daul's armor had been designed specifically with stealth in mind. The thick treads of his armored greaves were created with stealth in mind, soft but durable plastisteel soles muffled his footfalls considerably. Even so he could not help but feel somewhat awkward and plodding as the Lionhearts gracefully slunk forwards in the semi-dark hugging the shadows. Their footfalls hardly even caressed the ground. Every once and a while Cairn would motion for the group to stop at one alcove or another as he consulted with one of the many data terminals the Admech had left along the walls, hoping to find some map or legend by which they might navigate the excavation site with greater ease. The colonists had apparently instructed the machine spirit to secret that information away in the hopes that it might give their PDF a chance to regroup and arrange a counteroffensive but Cairn seemed to suspect that the lesser machine minds of the outer terminals might have escaped the notice of the dome's primary machine spirit. The arcane data spirits of the Machine God were prone to such fickle errors.

As they sunk deeper into the dark tunnels it became readily apparent that Cairn was not the only one to have come to that conclusion. The ground was littered with the irregular clawed footprints of something clearly inhuman traveling in a large group, no doubt the abhuman half-breed soldiers of Faust. Easily as large as the abhuman ogryns and possessed of a deceptively cunning whit the half-breeds of Faust were the things of nightmares. Twisted masses of cruel flesh and crueler spirit, pale shadows of the men they once were. They too were looking for the peripheral logic engines and data ports that littered the walls of the tunnels.

“On the bright side they don't seem to be finding what they're looking for,” Belka one of the burliest of the Lionhearts mused as he shifted the debris of a smashed vid-screen with his boot.

Daul grunted noncommittally as Cairn approached the data port, “It's possible. They certainly might have smashed it in a rage.”

Sergei shot Daul a pensive look, “Might have Sir?”

Danzig pulled a cigar out of his pocket and looked mournfully at the pilot light on Hamman's flamer, before thinking better of it and pocketing it, “Inquisitor if you are going to insist upon being cryptic we're going to be dead and buried sooner rather than later. I hope you'll pardon my bluntness but I while I'm comfortable dying for our cause I'd much prefer to help the other fellah die for his.”

Daul permitted himself a brief chuckle, “It may well be that they're simply sabotaging everything that isn't directly of use to themselves. The destruction is too concise and too clean for me to believe that it was being caused by a rampaging half-man. They went straight for the computers and ignored everything else in the room. They clearly used their rifles rather than their fists, the footprints don't go directly up to the keyboard, and a half-breed in a fury cannot resist the urge for the close kill.”

“Then the data is probably useless?” Sontián asked as Daul placed him back on the ground.

“Haven't the foggiest. Data collection and collaboration isn't my forte and my specialist isn't particularly talkative,” Cairn squawked out a rude string of binary, “And frankly I doubt that Faust would risk giving his half-breeds such dangerous knowledge, he values his own cleverness too much.”

“Seems to be a theme with Inquisitors,” Danzig muttered in an exaggerated whisper.

“If you'd prefer I imitate the Commissariat I could always just shoot you for insubordination.”

Danzig shrugged and looked at Sergei, “I believe he just implied he was going to give me a heretics furlough on the bolt magnet express.”

“Don't look to me Sir, you die and I get an instant promotion. And frankly your quarters are substantially larger than mine are.”

“And my girl is substantially prettier than yours.”

Daul rolled his eyes and focused on the waving mechandrites of Cairn as the Lionhearts broke into another one of their insult competitions. It was about midway through a complex suggestion of an anatomically improbable act involving a goat and Lance Corporal Beau'nal's paternal grandmother that Cairn blurted out a chime of success. After some fiddling with a silvery box at his side engraved with the great cog Cairn nodded to Daul.

“Finally,” Sergei smiled, “If we didn't get to killing xenos soon I was afraid I'd forget how.”

“We should hurry,” Daul said as he checked his chronometer, “Sácomer starts phase two soon.”
–

“Could you repeat that last order sir? I seem to have misheard you,” Asked a disbelieving Sácomer. The resentment between the Inquisitor and the Captain was the most poorly kept secret on the Endless Bounty but such feuds were resolved with secrecy and guile in the upper class, not force and brutality. To simply have the Endless Bounty bombard the location of the Inquisitor's locator beacon was unthinkable.

Sáclair glowered back at Sácomer, he had never been one for repeating himself, “I need you to fire on the colony on my order. Load the starboard guns with high yield ammunition and warn our birds to stay out of the way. We'll the locator beacon for the Inquisitor and the Lionhearts to get past the jamming signals they're using.”

“Sir,” Sacomer's many chins shook with confusion.

“You heard me order's Mr. Sácomer, either follow them or relieve yourself of duty,” Sánclair looked positively giddy as he sipped at his wine. As the seconds of stunned disbelief and quivering chins passed, the look of betrayed disbelief on the Master of the Watch's face sobered him somewhat, “Calm yourself Sácomer, this is not a betrayal of either your honor or my own we are doing this under direct Inquisitorial orders of Daul himself.”

“Why would he order you to do that? Why would anyone ask for that?”

“I doubt that it was a roundabout suicide pact,” Donat, dour faced as ever, chucked dryly, “He has a plan, damned if I can see what it is. The Inquisitor isn't planning to die now.”

“No,” Sáclair's disappointment filling every word, “I doubt he will. Still, we might get lucky. Mr. Sácomer would you be so kind as to take my ship into range.”

“Yes sir, moving to optimal firing range.”

Sánclair reclined in his throne and sipped at his glass, eyeing the massive hologram in front of him. The green shape of the Endless Bounty shifted slowly above the bright orange sphere of Belzafest. Sánclair's blood boiled and his heart raced, this was the sort of conflict he adored, the adventure he craved. His passive links to the ship hummed with the energies of weapons systems and subsystems activating and calculating and his ears were filled with the sounds of battle chatter over the Vox net. The anticipation for the first salvo on the colony was intolerable.

“He does bring me the most delicious violence,” Sánclair whispered in a voice of meaningful omission as he watched his chronometer count down the minutes.
–
The seemingly random offshoots of the paths transpired to be part of a greater series of Fibonacci spirals leading to the central plaza of ancient Belzafast. It was in the ruins of this plaza that the colony itself sat, a ten kilometers wide domed city half as tall skyward as it was underground. Now that they had a map finding the core city proved to be astoundingly simple, getting into it proved to be substantially more difficult. As they approached one of the various transport tubes to the city proper the sounds of deep breathing and mewling cries were audible to the enhanced senses built into his powered armor. He hissed out a whispered order for silence and the use of night-vision optics and carefully approached the sound.

The lift tube was in the center of a massive high-ceilinged room littered with workbenches and archeological tools used by the xeno-biologists and xeno-archeologists of the colony. It was doubtlessly where artifacts were examined and cataloged before moving into quarantine in the city above. Faust's forces had smashed most of the machines lining the walls to bits.

Even in the dull green light the half-breeds of Faust were unmistakable as were the dull gurgling whimpers of pain from the man in the center of their tight circle, or rather what was left of one. Large hunks of flesh had been torn from the man's legs and face, the white bone underneath scored with tooth marks. Daul winced; he'd hoped the rumored appetites of the half-breeds were exaggerations. Creatures that preferred to eat their prey alive were terrifying as a concept even when their preferred dish was not man-flesh. The half-breed xenos were as dark and vile as any he'd seen, thick sinuous creatures the size of the abhuman ogryn with crests of bone along their limbs, orange scaly flesh, and a series of whiplike tentacles tipped with venomous barbs. They stood in a tight circle, jabbering and fussing over who got to eat next. The heavy stubbers slung over their shoulders seemingly forgotten in presence of food.

Danzig looked meaningfully at the arco-flagellant. Daul shook his head; the berserker was as likely to kill the Lionhearts as the half-breeds in close quarters. Daul whispered over the vox link, “On three rush for cover, try to encircle them while I meet them head on. Do not try to, Fabian stop! What are you trying to?”

Fabian charged straight at the circle of half-breeds, firing his weapon wildly, and screaming “for the Emperor!” at the top of his voice. His heart was full of the Emperors will and his veins were pumping with morphine.

“Damned drug addled fool,” grunted Danzig, “Nothing for it boys. Get into position and fire at will.”

It was not the organized military assault that Daul had hoped for. He reached out with his mind and willed the half-breeds not to react. Fabian managed to get close enough to hit the half-breeds with a couple of lucky shots before Daul lost control over the group. One fell to the ground bonelessly it's tentacles twitching wildly. The remaining half-breeds, furious at their interrupted meal and fallen comrade, mercilessly brought their weapons to bear on Fabian. The flak armor of the Lionhearts proved inadequate at such a close range. Fabian stumbled and fell, his body broken and bloody.

“Aim for the necks, the bone crests protect the heads,” Daul yelled as he charged forwards. The stubber fire hit his armor at the midriff. It clanged loudly and would no doubt bruise but the armor held. Cairn followed closely, agile mechandrites lifting him over tables and debris, firing a pair of inelegant but powerful las-pistols with mechanical accuracy.

The half-breeds were foul and inhuman, but they were bred for war and death. Their stubbers were the size of small cannons and what they lacked in subtlety they made up for with pure brutality. Danzig screamed, “Get that one!” at large half-breed brandishing a massive chainsaw moments before it cut off Semál's arm at the shoulder. The axe blade, whirring and screeching monstrously, spat up a long gout of blood onto the face of the half-breed that it licked off with relish with a long, snaking tongue. It screamed out a cry of victory before exploding in a cloud of ichors when Verdun hit it in the face shot it with a grenade launcher.

Lasgun fire and the bark of subber rounds echoed thunderously in the hall. Daul grabbed one of the half-breeds and crushed its ribcage with a powerful servo-assisted punch. The disruptive forces of the gauntlet cracked and hissed as they tore apart hunks of muscle and bone. One of the half-breeds pulled a plasma weapon out from a satchel and Daul ducked into cover just as a jet of superheated matter burst past his head, melting part of his right pauldron and damaging the mobility of his right arm.

“Cairn!” Daul bellowed even as a second jet of plasma narrowly missed his leg. The Skitarii, never too far from his Inquisitor master lined up his pistol and fired a single shot between the offending half-breed's eyes before aiming for his next target. Hamman bathed the room with yellow light and the smell of burning flesh as he aimed his flamer at a group of half-breeds taking cover behind a table.

Private Falkan leapt off of a table and onto the back of a half-breed as it reloaded its weapon. The short blade in his hand was more than sharp enough to slice through the carapace of the creature and cut it's larynx, but not before the half breed managed to stuck the Lionheart with one of the venom-tipped barbs along it's tentacles. As the half-breed fell to the ground Falkan's body went into fits. Medicus Gazan rushed to the man's side and started to apply anti-venom and antiseptic gel, stopping only briefly lob a grenade at an approaching half-breed. Sergei took five of the Lionhearts and cut right, covering Gazan as he tried to work on the fallen Lionheart.

Daul was in the middle of it, slicing with the scythe-like claws of his power-fists when he could get in and tossing bolts of psychic energy when he could not. He could feel the rush of lasfire whipping about him at the enemy as the Lionhearts blasted at the foul half-breed soldiers. Then came a cold, horrible empty feeling. A great clawing howl of nothingness screeched at his mind and he tasted blood in his mouth as he approached a large and particularly calculating looking half-breed. A null, thought Daul as he felt his knees give out.

Nulls were a psycher's worst nightmare, even weakly warp gifted individuals would feel mind pain and discomfort as they approached one of the psychically dead. It was unlike the other half-breeds. Its head was wide and its mouth was a long and proboscis out of which hung a tongue tipped with a fine barb of bone. Cairn, seeing his master's distress, fired at the creature only to have the shot stop short as it came into contact with a refractor field, “Kill it. Yelled Daul over the vox link.”

Cairn, fired wildly at the null as it approached Daul, pointlessly firing at its shields as Daul started to feel himself slipping into nothingness. Someone yelled, “Fire in the hole,” and tossed a blue metallic ball at the feet of the null, overloading its shields and ripping its legs to pieces. With a bit more spite than is fitting of a devotee of the Great Cog, Cairn smashed the nulls head with a swipe of a long mechandrite.

Daul, helped by Cairn, got to his feet as the last of the half-breeds fell to the ground dead. Danzig swaggered up to Daul, the cigar in his lips now lit, “I hope you'll pardon the heresy of using a grenade of Tau make to bypass the shields.”

“Noted, and forgiven Danzig,” Daul said looking at the Dorn unit in distant doorway and feeling foolish for having not giving it the order to charge, “How many did we lose?”

“Four, we lost four."

“Five now sir,” it was the voice of Gazan, “I don't know what's in the venom those creatures secrete but my kit isn't doesn't do much more than slow it down.”

“Damn,” Danzig chewed at his cigar, “Falkan was a good soldier.”

“Seems like a lot of soldiers to have at a exit, even when they're expecting trouble,” mused Sergi. His face and uniform had become covered with soot from Hamman's flamer. His wide grin stood out brilliantly against the dark soot, “Why do you suppose they were all here?”

“For the meal I suspect,” Daul walked over to the half-eaten man and bent down to get a better look. He had to resist the urge to cry out in shock as the man's eyes went wide and his left arm reached up to grab at his tabard. His mouth moved wordlessly in a plea for help.

Gazan rushed over in shock, “How on earth is he still alive?”

“I'd always assumed that the claims of the half-breeds eating someone alive to the last bite were rumors. Look at the wounds, the saliva of the half-breeds must be a natural coagulant,” Daul looked down at the man with curiosity, “The femoral artery was severed long ago but there's no pooling at the wound.”

“I can save this man.”

“No,” Daul said as he looked into the Gazan's eyes, “No you cannot.”

“You can't mean for us to leave him like this!”

“We haven't the time to heal him Gazan and even if we did we'd only be prolonging his life by a matter of hours till the fifth fleet came,” Daul said in a detached tone, “No, we're going to find out what we can from this man and move on.”

“Find out what we can? The man is missing his voice box,” Falon said disbelievingly.

“I have no need of speech.”

Daul looked into the man's eyes and tore into his mind. It was in shambles. The man's world was nothing but pain, betrayal and death. In his agony his conscious mind and his sense of self and had retreated to a dark corner in which to hide, but not far enough. The space of everyone's mind looked different, this man's space was dark and ragged. It was a tortured place. In the middle of a dark void Daul found a huddled man, ragged and bloody. He was babbling incoherently.

“They shouldn't be, nope, can't be. Nope. Not one bit. Smit sees right through them!” He looked up at Daul's astral form, “They aren't right. Shouldn't be.”

“No,” agreed Daul, “They should not. Smit? That's your name isn't it?”

Smit's eyes focused on Daul

“He came, said we had to obey him. But we aren't fools, not going to be taking in by some heretic scum. We showed him, least we through we did.”

“You brought the void shields down on his ship? Soren Faust's ship?”

“That's his name is it? Yes, yes we did. I did. Worked in the dome. My place you see? That's where I worked.”

“I see.”

“It didn't work though, we sent off a request for help before he took over the colony but too late, far too late. You know what he does to people? What he wants here”

“I suspect I do.”

The man cried, “No. No you don't. You think you do. You need to understand. He found it! Knew exactly where to look for it. Where we were supposed to dig for it.”

“For what, exactly?”

“The angel. The thing of beauty trapped in stone. The most glorious thing I have ever set eyes on till the day I go to the Golden Throne in the afterlife. He found it and took it. The Kosh was stolen from where it hid, took him. Wanted his secrets he did. Hid in the dark days from the starfeeders.”

The man's eyes shook and the world of his mind grew darker. He was dying and by staying in the man's mind Daul risked dying along with him, “Smit I need you to focus. Where is Faust?”

“Where do all kings sit? On a throne on high.”

“Smit, I need you to be more clear? Smit?” Smit's eyes closed feebly and his mind fell to shadow. As Daul pulled away from it he felt the icy clawing of death nipping at his skin. He took a deep breath and shook his head to clear his mind.

“Sir? Are you ok sir?” Danzig was looking at him worriedly.

“Fine Danzig, I'm just fine,” the cold fingers still grabbed at his flesh but they were becoming less biting on his skin and he no longer heard the distant voices. He would be fine soon.

“You just stopped moving for and then started to twitch. Gazan wanted to check your vitals but the Skitrarii wouldn't let him.”

“Your concern is noted but unnecessary. Cairn, I need you to upload the schematics for the city into my HUD. We're going to have to split up.”

Cairn agrily warbled out a negative.

“It's not up for debate, someone has to sabotage the plasma reactors and you're the only one I trust to do it without blowing us all to hell. The Lionhearts are more than capable of destroying it but would be hard pressed to do so without causing a chain reaction of some sort by accident. Take Danzig and half the Lionhearts and head to the reactors, that's not a suggestion that's an order.”

“Where you will be taking Sergei and his squad if I might ask sir?” Danzig looked as confused as Cairn as Daul approached one of the many wide domed transport tubes at the center of the room.

“I'm going after Faust.”

–
Kerrigan was furious. The machine in front of her was a beautiful and elaborate device. It was the sort of machine that few Magos would have the opportunity to work on in their lifetimes and for the life of her she could not figure out what was wrong with it. The power-couplings were in place and properly blessed. The correct incense had been placed at the base of the command consul after the runes of activation had been pressed. Even the proper rituals of cognitive assistance had been done and yet the ancient machine spirit refused to work because she had not answered its riddle.

She could not tell if it was simply the senility of this particular machine or an added security measure but every time she tried to activate the machine it spat back a series of numbers and demanded she input the next in the series.


1
11
21
1211
111221
312211
13112221

}---Input Code---- {

She had tired the command overrides available to her but this was a truly ancient piece of archeotech, in order to appease the spirit inside she would have to answer it's riddle but for the life of her she could not think what to type.

Worse still it was a series six cipher, if she were to type in the wrong answer the machine spirit would shut down and they would have to start the hours long process of activation over from the beginning. Assuming they could start it at all the time for the use of the great machine would long since have passed. But that would be failure. Kerrigan was not about to fail.

“Mistress,” one of her attendants approached her, “We are consulting your personal archives but we are unsure where to start.”

“Don't bother,” Kerrigan's eyes were fixed on the numbers, “I've memorized the lot of them. This is not part of it. It's a puzzle, a riddle.”

“A security measure.”

“I suspect that the machine has grown bored in its long period of disuse. This is its way of appeasing its ego after having abandoned it for so long. It wants an apology.”

“Of course mistress. Do you want us to perform the rites of reuse?”

“Yes, I feel that would be best. The prayer's of cogitation too. It's only a matter of a half hour before Sánclair starts to fire on the city in earnest and must be prepared to use the machine the second the shields fall.”

If it weren't, the consequences would be dire.

–

Danzig could not stop himself from feeling apprehensive about separating from the Inquisitor. The specifics of the exit strategy had not been made clear in the mission briefing and he suspected that were there to be an emergency extraction it would be those closes to Daul to be rescued. He wasn't even entirely convinced Cairn was human. For all Danzig knew the Skitarii's machine enhanced brains could simply be copied at will and their physical body was simply a shell. Still it seemed unlikely that the Captain would let them die so easily.

Presumably the Skitarii had some form of internal map in his mind that he could consult but the Lionhearts themselves were effectively blind. The colonists had gone through the corridors of the facility and burned the maps off the walls in order to blind Faust, effectively blinding the Lionhearts as well.

“Damned unnerving if you ask me sir,” Fadir said as they passed yet another abandoned building, “I was expecting a real dust up after that first fight but this place is just... empty.”

“It's a service area Fadir,” Danzig shrugged, “I doubt there would be many people other than the tech servitor or odd tech priest at the best of times.”

“Still creepy sir. It's like one of the dead levels of the ship, I keep expecting to get captured by a Bendy at any moment,” Sala'ha eyed the Skitarii with mild amusement, “At least Clockwork seems to be at home.”

Indeed Cairn did seem to be at peace in the mechanical underbelly of the domed city, the sound of pistons churning and the warm fog of steam was making the Skitarii almost chipper, or at least as close to chipper as he ever seemed to get. How the Inquisitor read the Skitarii's emotionless body and stale, mechanical expression was a mystery to Danzig. The Skitarii seemed to have a grasp of humor, though most of his jokes seemed to be private ones only understood by the Inquisitor. He supposed that being a psychic factored into it somehow.

It was unnerving to follow the silent giant. The Lionhearts had to mutely follow Cairn through the winding corridors of the Belzafest domed city and simply trust that he was heading in the right direction. The silent man's mechanical manner and emotionless demeanor was unnerving at best. It wasn't that Danzig disliked the man, but how was he supposed to interact with something so inhuman? Especially in the dull green light of his night-vision optics he looked strange and alien.

“Are we far from the generators?”

Cairn said nothing but warily eyed the narrow corridor in the distance. He nodded but his manner became more cautious and he started to follow what little cover there was more closely.

“Are their any enemies between us and it?”

Cairn took out his auspex and fiddled with it as they marched. Eventually he put it down and shrugged noncommittally as he upholstered his pistols as he nodded at the balcony above the entrance to the main reactor.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

Cairn grabbed Danzig by the collar, yanking him into cover moments before a searing jet of flame shot over his head. The Lionhearts started firing wildly at dark shapes in the distance and rushing for cover. Danzig winced as he hit the treaded ferrocrete on the ground. As Danzig lifted himself off the ground, head still swirling with punch-drunk confusion, he took the time in between violent outbursts of swearing to give Cairn a withering look.

The Skitarii either didn't notice or was too busy firing at the sinewy beasts charging them to care. A set of distinctly canine half-breeds with long, gaunt maws, and talon tipped feet charged the Lionhearts as the ducked to avoid the fire of an small-bore auto-cannon leapt off the second story balcony and rushed towards the Lionhearts. Cairn managed to kill the first with a well-placed shot to the eye but only managed to graze the flank of the second as it vaulted over a chemical vat and started to tear into the exposed flesh of Boalan's neck. An enraged Pilar tried to pry the creature off Boalan but only managed to get a deep slash along his shoulder for his trouble.

“Die you xenos freak,” Boalan managed to gurgle out as he drove his bayonet into the creature’s stomach. The creature ignored its hanging entrails and simply bit off Boalan's head. It rounded on Pilar only to have its head implode under a concentrated blast of lasfire from Pillar’s sidearm.

“Ten hostiles left on the balcony sir,” Farast chuckled as he sighted his lasgun at one of the moving shadows in the distance. He breathed out and fired, the gun bucking briefly with a crack of ionized air. The shape in the distance at which he'd been aiming ceased to move, “Make that nine. Good enough sport for you Fadir?”

Fadir looked up from reloading his own weapon behind cover and flinched when an enemy grenade shot burst against the loading crane he was crouched behind. Shrapnel flew out from the space between the wheels, wedging painfully between his ribs. He spat up a bloody bit of phlegm, “A bit too active for my liking sir.”

Gazan rushed up to Fadir to examine the wound, just barely managing to avoid getting shot himself as he jumped a behind the crane. Danzig lobbed a grenade at the distant enemies as the sound of another dog-beast approached. The creature whimpered and died, some genetic compulsion forcing it to try and snap at the flying ball with its jaws.

Danzig tapped his vox link, “Gazan, how bad is he?”

Gazan had a bedside manner second to none on the battlefield. The man was just as much of an adrenaline addict as the rest of the regiment but his calm and clinical manner didn't change even as bullets narrowly whipped by his head. With nimble fingers and wise eyes he examined the wound at Fadir's side. Gazan smiled at Fadir as he pulled a set of silver forceps out of his bag, “He'll live. This is going to hurt like hell to get out and a doubt he'll be too happy with me for a while,” he smiled a comically exaggerated look of sadness at Fadir, “but as soon as I pull the shrapnel out and dress the wound he'll be fit for combat. He'll be, get down you damned fool!”

Semal never had a chance to do so. As soon as he stood up and started to spin a grenade around in a sling, presumably to lob it up to the balcony beyond, he had been cut down by steady stream of auto-cannon fire. He fell to the ground, his sling falling limply at his side. Wahal barely had time to scream before the two of them burst in a fine cloud of pink mist and shrapnel.

“Throne cursed gun. Skitarri Thross no chance you have any bright ideas to get us out of this mess?”

Cairn looked into the distance and pointed to a spot above the balcony upon which the half-breeds stood. Danzig popped up and cautiously looked down the sight on his rifle and smiled as he tapped his vox bead, “Sala'ha do you read me?”

“Yes sir.”

“Shoot the conduit above that damned fixed gun,” Danzig flinched as another stream of auto-cannon fire raked along the pipes he was ducked behind. The echoing ricochet of auto-cannon rounds was thunderous.

“Not the gun itself?”

“Just do it.”

“Yes sir.”

Danzig shuddered as another salvo of auto-cannon fire raked his position, denting the pipes he was using for cover. He muttered out a brief prayer to the Emperor as the bright streaking light of a hotshot long-las streaked down ten meters of corridor. The conduit exploded in a brilliant shower of sparks and light. Several live wires dropped from the burst conduit, sparking and surging with barely controlled energy. More than enough energy to ignite the ammunition supplies for the auto-cannon. n. The eviscerated charred bodies of the half-breeds flew off the balcony in a syrupy mess of flesh and ichors.

Danzig smiled and turned to Cairn, “You do have a special talent for destruction my friend.”

Cairn simply looked to the destroyed conduit with shame.

--
The main plaza of the Belzafest colony was out of a nightmare. The colonists, what few of them were left, had been cordoned off into slave paddocks made from electroshock cable lashed together around human bones. It served as both a physical cage and a tool of emotional torture. Faust loved such devices. They found several lone half-breed soldiers at the paddocks satisfying their urge for food or their own lust. They were far too concentrated on their own hedonistic debauchery to notice the Lionhearts till it was too late.

Faust's megalomania demanded that he be situated in the most central building of the Facility, of that Daul was sure. He would have it in the center of everything so that he wouldn't have to go to far to reach the slave pens from which he extracted the raw materials necessary for creating and feeding his half-breed army. Not for the first time he worried about his own humanity as he was forced to march past the cheering and pleading slave enclosures on the basement floor of the control complex for Belzafest. These people have no reason to be cheering for me, thought Daul, they'll die in less than a day and their blood will be on my hands, Throne forgive me.

Whatever guilt Daul felt as they passed the ragged and emaciated Belzafest natives in their cages it was nothing compared to the guild of Sergei and the Lionhearts. Every time a mother held our her child begging Sergi for a blessing or to take her child to safety it look a little bit away from the boisterous Lionheart. Daul was eternally thankful that it was in a common Damascan dialect that that Sergi chose to voice his ethical concerns rather than low Gothic. He didn't want to rob these people of their last moments of hope for salvation.

“Sir, can't we at least let them out of their cells?”

Daul shook his head, “We enough problems without worrying about civilians getting in the way or bumbling about trying to help. This group hasn't eaten more than corpse-meal portage in months. Best to leave them where they are.”

“Can't we save any of them?”

“I will not risk allowing anyone infected with the half-breed genes to leave this planet. We have enough natural horrors to be getting on with without manufacturing new ones,” Daul said patiently, “They will all be dead in twenty four hours. We cannot waste more time here.”

“Wouldn't it be possible,” Sergei's teeth ground together with every word, “ To countermand that order?”

“All things are possible under the Emperor's will but not under mine. I will not countermand that order. We are here to do an unhappy task. Let it be.”

Sergei moved in front of Daul's massive armored form and looked straight into the emotionless skull mask's eyes unblinkingly. His voice was one of barely controlled rage and sorrow, “Sir, please help these people. Let me help these people.”

Daul sighed and looked into the hopeful and hungry faces in the slave paddocks. He was their hero; many of them had already started the primarch's blessing. To leave these people would be the act of a monster. “Sergei,” Daul sighed.

The face of Sergi lit up and his smile brightened, but for naught, “Sergei we cannot help these people. It is monstrous to leave them but it is my duty to be a monster if the Empire calls for it. If you need to satisfy your conscience then seek revenge on me later but we cannot be slowed by this now.”

Sergei's face hardened and his smile disappeared entirely. Daul had never been quite so pleased to see a well-armed group of paramilitary heretic xenobreeds. Sergei scowled, “This isn't over Inquisitor.”

“Later Sergei,” Daul focused his frustrations and tossed bolts of psychic lighting into the center of the group. The half-breeds screamed with shock and pain. The Lionhearts opened up with a bright salvo of lasfire, cutting down ten half breeds in as many seconds. However one of the half-breeds, a massive brute bull of a creature simply laughed off the lasfire as it crackled and sizzled against a corona of psychic energies in front of him.

“Spawn of Horus!” Screamed Yonal as he switched to auto fire and started to fire at the creature’s head with a continuous stream of high-powered lasfire. The brute simply laughed and charged with a massively oversized chain blade. Yonal screamed as the blade went for his head faster than he could dodge, but the whirring blades of the sword streaked as they scythed against the closed fist of Daul's gauntleted fist.

The creature yowled in frustration and punched towards Daul's face with its free hand. Daul caught it at the wrist, severing it at the wrist. The creature screamed and howled, wrenching its chain blade free and impotently stabbing at Daul with its venom-tipped barbs.

The creature stabbed and twisted it's bade, wildly flailing it's stump in an effort to blind Daul's optics with it's thick ichorous blood. Daul because quickly alarmed when the stump where the arm sued to be quickly reformed and re-molded into a chitinous tentacle that exuded pale warp fire.

“I've had enough of this. Dercius empower deliver 7-2-2.”

At the sound of the secret command words spoken by his master the previously motionless Dorn leapt into action. He was a twirling mess of hatred and death, his long barbed electroshock whips ripped and tore at the great brute's flesh and burned down to his bone. The brute tried to slice at Dorn with its chain-blade but it kept being parried and dodged by the wildly flailing and erratic servitor warrior.

Eventually the creature took a wild sweep that overbalanced it and Dorn was able to get behind it and hamstring it with wild sweeps from its whips before beating it into a bloody pulp of nothing. As the creature sat on the ground in a bloody mess of it's own blood and viscera Daul yelled, “Scorn is it's own reward.” Dorn promptly regressed to his previous state of inaction even as he rounded on a nearby Lionheart.

Daul walked up to the brute and crushed his head into a pulp before heading towards the massive doors of the central command building, “Hamman, burn it.”

“Don't have to tell me twice sir.”

–
Selcan Porst was a man built like a stump. He was squat, wide, thick, and covered in knotted bulges of muscle that seemed unnatural on his more subdued frame. While he had no love of cruelty he had no particular qualms with it either, making him an ideal second in command for the mercurial and capricious Faust. As the inquisitor approached the door to the wide spire of the command center he took a long drag of the cigar between his lips and looked to his employer, “I don't think the door will hold him.”

His employer did not respond to him the first time so he repeated himself loudly, “The door won't hold them sir. They're getting in.”

“I heard you the first time Porst.” The tall man behind him waved a pale, nearly translucent hand dismissively not looking up with his work. The silver scalpel in the pale man's hands was still dripping with pale red blood and small flecks flew up and stained Porst's shirt, “He's gotten here faster than expected but not much faster.”

Porst shrugged and tried to ignore the screams of the creature on the table beneath Faust's knife, “Do we proceed with the plan?”

“Of course you will,” the pale man's voice sounded shrill, “Delay him or kill him, but give me the time to launch.”

“Shall I dispose of the specimen?” Porst eyed the cowed and bleeding creature.

“No, if this fails I want someone to understand why.”

“Will he understand?”

“Not now, but perhaps eventually. Prepare Porst, prepare. I must spend more time with our guest before I leave,” Faust looked back at the pathetic and broken creature beneath him, “Pathetic Vorlon slime. You let the universe fall to hell for your arrogance. Now it is up to me to fix your mistakes.”

–

A/N: Hey! Please review this story; any input at all would be useful. I'm writing this as an exercise to get used to writing novel length fiction but it only really works as an exercise if people tell me what they do and don't like about my stories. `

@ Kortega: I have already started to add elements of the B5 world, not the least of which was a shadow ship attacking the Endless Bounty. I have not pointed at them and shouted "look look here it is" but they are there. I'd tell you what they were but it would ruin the big reveal later on.

Thank you for reading

I'm going to explain my position so you know where I'm coming from. This may be a bit longwinded but I feel its important that I try to be clear.

I'm a Fiver. I clicked the link for this thread under the assumption that there would be some Crossover goodness between Babylon 5 and another universe. I'm not familiar with 40k beyond what people talk about in forums, nor am I all that interested.

I'll admit that I skimmed this, but after a (case sensitive) keyword search of: Minbari, Shadow, Centauri, Narn, Sheridan, Ivanova, Garibaldi, Babylon and Vorlon... there is only a single match, Vorlon... at the end of the latest chapter.

At four chapters this is decidedly not a crossover. This is a 40k fic with B5 elements. While the people that clicked to see a 40k fic will be quite happy, I can't help but feel like reading this will be a waste of my time because the primary hook, the whole crossover element, is completely missing. You, the author, have thus far broken an implicit promise of a crossover.

As Korgeta mentioned, a crossover should have balance. If the B5 section of the crossover had begun in Chapter two, I'd have definitely sat down and given this a thorough read as opposed to the skim I've given it. You're four chapters in and the most you've done on the B5 angle is dangle a single vague scene that seems to connect the two.

I can understand that you're going for novel length here and that you'd probably like to build things up, but you can do that by twining two separate stories together until they merge. Consider for a moment if I wrote about a Farscape / Star Wars crossover and titled it as such. If I wrote ten chapters of nothing but Farscape people would be scratching their heads as to why the hell I labelled it a crossover, even if it did have elements of Star Wars mixed in. The people who checked my story out under the authorial promise that Star Wars would be involved would be disappointed and wouldn't bother after a certain point, second or third chapter would be my guess.

When you write a crossover, you're not writing for a single audience, you're writing for at least three. The people who like Universe A, the people who like Universe B, and the people who like the idea of Universe A meeting Universe B. By leaving things this late in the game, you've effectively neglected two thirds of your audience (assuming all things are equal), which is effectively unforgivable for a writer. Write for your own pleasure by all means but don't forget that you also write for your audience as well.

My suggestion would be to alternate chapters between the universes that you intend to crossover and have them gradually merge over time, that maintains the interest of the people who clicked for 40k and the people who clicked for B5... not to mention those that clicked to see those two universes meet.

If I were into 40k (and I know I'll be hung, drawn and quartered for that) I'd probably be more entertained but I'd still be wondering exactly where the B5 crossover comes in. Aside from the last part involving the Vorlon, I can't see how this differs in any way from a straight up 40k fic, I don't see the crossover elements you've alluded to. However, if the references are there and they, for some reason, didn't turn up in my keyword search, I'll gladly eat my words.

As a writer you have promised me, the reader, however implicitly, that there would be B5 in this fic. As a reader, I feel you aren't living up to that promise and the one part that does involve B5 is akin to calling a packet of chips a feast.

Don't misunderstand me, your writing is pretty good, better by far than most crossover writers and believe me I've seen some bad ones in my time as well as some excellent ones. Those that are excellent and stick with me are those that give equal time to both universes, that treat the characters of both universes with respect and care towards both fanbases.

In the shortest, most succinct way that I can possibly sum up all of the above (if inaccurately): Where is the B5 Crossover? Where are the main characters from B5? Is B5 even in this fic?

Holy Shit Stop Whining!

It has already been established as a crossover with the B5 universe, he had a protracted battle with a shadow vessel in chapter 3 for Christ's sake, you would have noticed if you hadn't decided to read via keyword search.

Are you seriously posting "Hey, sorry I am so staggeringly lazy, and self absorbed that I can't be bothered to read your hard work, can you direct me to the parts that are relevant to what I already decided I want to see?"

He's doing something a little more elaborate than "ZOMG! A Rift! Who Are These other People, lets Fight!" why don't you settle down and see where he's going with it rather than backseat fanficcing.

**glances up**

So there is... except he doesn't really refer to them as "Shadows". They're "shadowy". Perhaps that's splitting hairs a bit.



It's 8 days to Christmas and I'm getting about four hours of sleep per night. I skim everything at this time of year, meals included, unless its very, very interesting. Perhaps I'll give it a good sit-down read when my schedule clears up next year if it maintains my interest.

You'll note that I'm honest about the manner in which I read it and offer to gladly eat my words if I can be proven wrong. Care to prove me wrong? I honestly don't mind it when I'm wrong. I've acknowledged his attempt to do something higher calibre than the usual level of crossover writing. Check my post again if you'd like, I praise his writing where I feel its due but I also temper that by mentioning what I feel is wrong and suggest a method for working on what I feel is problematic... you know, constructive criticism?

Finally, the man asked for feedback... I quote;



I did exactly as the author asked. My opinions may not be the greatest thing since sliced bread but they were solicited and given, moreso, they were given in an honest manner with an explanation from my point of view as a reader with a suggestion to fix the problems I felt were there, rather than the whiny final line of my post which I could easily have left him with.

Whether the author decides to take that on board is up to him to decide. If you don't like my opinion then review his fic and counter my opinions with facts. Can you prove to me there is a balance in his work? That both universes are getting, more or less, equal time?

Recall that "A fictional crossover is the placement of two or more otherwise discrete fictional characters, settings, or universes into the context of a single story", my criticism is that the balance is off. If he so chose he could rewrite this fic very easily as a discrete 40k fic with the B5 elements removed or altered generously and it probably wouldn't suffer. On the one hand it's good because his writing can stand on its own, on the other, its bad because, in my view, a crossover fic by definition must have significant contributions from both universes towards an overarching story.

Prove my supposition wrong or shut the hell up.

Before this becomes a flame war this actually is the sort of critical input I want to receive (not the reaction I'm hoping for I'll admit bit the type of input I'm looking for). I will write a more complete response when I have time but if people are frustrated by how subtle I'm being it's nice to know.

That being said I intent to be subtle in this fic till we reach the obvious crossover. My intention is to make the switch between universes organic. I never intend to point at something and scream "here it is" but rather want the reader to be able to look back and go "holy shit that did happen." Characters who have no reason to know that the "Shadows" are called the Shadows by the species in the B5 universe will not do so. My narrator is only semi-omniscent so as not to clue the reader into more than the protagonists should reasonably be able to figure out on their own or to give away surprises that I don't intent to reveal for another 10-20 of my planned chapters.

You're right, most crossover stories traditionally do have an equal level of narration on both sides throughout the entirety of the fanfiction. Then again most fanfiction is so painfully formulaic that upon entering a crossover you pretty much know what to expect before you've even started reading it. I will break numerous of these formulas in my story.

Thanks for reading.

I agree with Razor One that the B5 component is slow in entering the scene, but its the authors choice to write his story anyway he/she likes. Its a shame you are not taking the time to read the story. I understand that you are bussy and trying to filter thru good and bad fiction. However, half of the fun of reading a new crossover fiction is the thrill of the hunt, or chase of may be this time one has stumbled on a good original and/or unique story.

Don't like the writing style well just stop reading. After all the author will figuer out sooner or later if his writing technique is any good. Free choice my friend its a wonderful thing. Now stop whinning and keep reading )

There is a difference between constructive criticism and going "THAT'S NOT HOW YOU DO CROSSOVERS" and "WHERE ARE THE NARNS?" If you actually read the chapters, which you admit you didn't, you would have realized that Babylon 5 elements are gradually being introduced, clearly leading up to a significant crossover event.


If you had simply said you were disappointed at the lack of Babylon 5 material, that would have been fine. Instead you go on a multiple paragraph tirade accusing the author of neglecting the majority of his audience and declaring that a proper crossover has to be a back-and-forth between two universal perspectives.


Can you prove to us that a crossover even needs a "balance" in the first place?

Quite frankly, I'm enjoying this rather slower, subtle approach. I would even say it's necessary considering the author is using his own, original characters to represent Warhammer 40k. We don't have mountains of material to look back on to understand these particular characters, unlike the Babylon 5 things you did a keyword search for.


Your Wikipedia quote doesn't even indicate that there has to be a balance. By the very definition you are using, this is a crossover since several elements from the Babylon 5 universe are present.


So in other words, the only complaint you really have is that a work of fan-fiction, posted for all as free entertainment, does not conform to your exact standards when it comes to crossovers. I got ya'.


Hey man, it's just a fanfic. No need to get mad over it.

Well, I for one am thoroughly enjoying this, could do with running through a word processor though.
I write my own fanfics sometimes, nothing up here, but I find its worthwhile to write it out on a word processor, check it, save it, draft it, etc. then copypasta it into the forum.
You might also want someone else to proofread it for you and correct any mistakes the spellcheck screws up on, occassions where you've written a real word that doesn't fit, or you've said something like "he swung for his opponents wrist, he severed his opponents arm at the wrist" or somesuch, I know there was something like that in that last chapter. flows a little wierdly, I'm just saying.

I'm not a Babylon 5 fan, I think I've caught glimpses of it on other people's TVs, I've watched the first episode halfway through (then the internet streaming of it cut out for no good reason)
so its all a little too subtle for my taste, from your descriptions of the critters with the armoured bony crests I was able to recognise one of the Shadow's minion races though. I totally failed to recognise the shadow warship until it was pointed out later. the description was very chaos-ish.. fitted perfectly fine into WH40k there
personally I love the description of life on the rogue trader ship, the characterisation and feel of it all is spot-on.
some confusion with the names at times, I think you may have mixed up characters once or twice early on, but nothing that a quick checkover won't fix.
I've got this page on my quick-link bar so I can check it routinely keep writing, you're better at it than I am.

---

"To the Rational mind, nothing is inexplicable, only unexplained"

@Headcrab, and anyone else that feels like addressing my points.

I wrote my opinions under the notion that the author had gotten somewhat carried away with the Warhammer angle and had neglected the B5 angle. I feel that crossovers have to be balanced more or less and that both intellectual properties require their time in the limelight.

Currently, the fic is very heavy on the 40k. The Author requested feedback on the story so far. I've given my opinion. The author has clarified to my satisfaction that he does indeed intend to get to it and I have clarified to the author that I fully intend to read this when my time permits and give him further feedback.

There was no malice, no hint of being on tirade. I gave my opinions and, importantly I think, the reasons for those opinions. I did not slander his work, nor call it the worst thing since tapeworms. The parts I did settle down to read were written well, in my opinion, and I stated as such.

The author has explained his process to my satisfaction and I'm willing to give it a decent read coupled with feedback sometime next year when I can get my work and family commitments out of the way and get some free time consisting of hours as opposed to minutes.

What I find interesting however is that the author can write pages and pages of material that looks pretty good from what I've skimmed (even if Warhammer itself does not interest me), yet a few paragraphs from me illicit more responses.

The author wants feedback. Any feedback. You can call me out for my opinions all you like, you can state that you actually read his fiction as a trump card over me, but if you haven't given him feedback you've contributed less than I did to this thread and to his creative process.

I have no intention to further derail this thread and will take my leave. Feel free to continue bashing my thoughts, I've not the time nor the inclination to further defend them. I only ask that you consider giving the author the feedback he deserves for writing all that he has done while doing so.

At the very least he'll get what he needs to help improve his already good work further

Settle down Razor, no one's going to dogpile you. You need to grow a thicker skin if you're going to bother speaking in public.
The issue I had with your feedback was that it was poorly thought out. My feedback to the author is essentially ignore yours.

Don't take it personally, you admitted in your very first post you hadn't actually read the fanfic, and more, you admitted not having slept, not having thought it out, whatever. Consider mine, and other posts, a form of group quality control, and next time post a slightly more thoughtful response.

Having read the fanfic isn't a trump card because we're not playing poker. The idea here isn't to post the most and the fastest, its to provide substantive feedback, which you really can't do if you haven't read the fanfic.Next time aim for quality not quantity, and don't take it personally if people disagree.

We definitely all go through it, if you don't believe me, do a site search on "Grade James T Kirk" and see who started THAT little clusterfuck.

Heh, if you're not a B5 fan then you wouldn't know that the Shadows are agents of chaos. Whether or not this has anything to do with WH40K Chaos is open to interpretation.

I'm definitely liking this fic so far, it has the right sort of atmosphere and Daul comes off just right; a very human character, but believable as an Inquisitor.

I disagree that the lack of crossover elements is a weakness, I think the narrative works quite well.

heh, actually, now that you mention it (and now I've examined the B5 wiki's entry on the Shadows) I see what you mean, given that they fairly obviously represent the biblical devil as in, it is their task and purpose to sow chaos in order to further other civilisations....
while their opposite number is the Vorlons who keep things stable and neutral all around...hm...interesting premise.

well, if there's one civilisation in need of a good shaking up, its probably the imperium of man

---

"To the Rational mind, nothing is inexplicable, only unexplained"

I find this extremely well-done, aside from the typographical errors and occasional grammar mistakes. While I also missed the Shadow Ship, thinking it was simply another experiment, it all makes sense now, from the Navigators warning to the end. All the B5 elements are being filtered by the characters into their own W40k worldview, which is why it's not jumping out and kicking us in the face with "This is B5!"

That, to my mind, makes a fantastic crossover. Bravo, please keep writing.

---

agentfisherSDnet: You're as brilliant as you are beautiful.
Librium Arcana, Where Gamers Play!
"We're cooler than an iced frappicino -- On the Planet Hoth!"

Thank you all for your input.

Exactly this.

Its 40K's first contact (more or less considering the rogue Inquisitor) so they don't recognize what the B5 elements are and describe them as best they can from what they know.

---

The diffrence between a player who is as good as he thinks is and a player who is almost as good as he thinks he is is the same diffrence between a victory dance and a corpse run.

The exterior door to the command spire imploded under the force of ten kilograms of det-chord. The few seconds of chaos and smoke just barely gave Daul and the Lionhearts the time to rush into cover. Like most facilities in the Empire the spire was not without defenses in case of rebellion or invasion. The walls of grand cathedral of the entrance hall were dotted with a half dozen leering gargoyles concealing a wicked array of lethal turret weapons. The shadowed recesses of the vaulted ceiling flashed brightly as tracer rounds rocketed towards the door. Sandar hesitated as he rushed through the door, fear briefly overtaking him. The momentary indecision was his undoing as his legs were cut out from under him, his kneecaps reduced to nothing. He fell down the stairs behind the door screaming in pain.

“I thought the clockwork man was supposed to have disabled these damn things. They’re linked to the main reactor aren’t they?” yelled Sergei as he batted out a small fire in the dangling silk sash he wore round his waist. He winced at the crack of laser fire from beyond the door. Sandar had taken his own life rather than be found by the half-breeds.

“He must have been delayed. Faust will no doubt have guarded the reactors as well as he’s secured the spire,” Daul yelled back between hurling blots of psychic energy at the leering gargoyles, “We’ll have to assume that the turrets won’t be disabled in time. Try to aim for the power cables feeding into them, sever those and the machine spirits should lose the will to fight.”

“Damned angry spirits they are at that sir,” groused Hamman as he looked into the distance, “Two lift tubes sir.”

“We’ll have to split up, I’ll take Dorn in the one. You take the other. Take this data crystal, you’ll need it to force a manual override of the system so that they can’t force the lift to stop midway.” He pulled out a green crystal from his tabard that Sergi pocketed.

“Both of them seem to be large enough for all of us if we can get to them,” said Sergei as he squinted into the distance. The hall was dimly lit but the distant overhead light of the transport tubes was visible.

“This suit weighs an even two tons, I could not hope for it to lift us all. Come on, we’ll have to continue forwards, turrets or no. Our time is limited and unless I miss my guess Sánclair will be firing in… oh my,” Daul looked at his chronometer, “Cairn not having done his part may yet be a blessing, we’ve arrived late.”

“If you say so sir,” Sergei said as he fired a shot into the mechanical undercarriage of one of the gargoyles. His shot pierced the ammunition feed and burst the turret in a brilliant ball of flame, “All the same I’d rather not be fighting these damned turrets.”

A bright, blinding light flashed as the blast shutters slammed shut on the windows to the command spire. The distant screams of fear from the Belzafest colonists in the slave pens echoed shrilly as the ground shifted and shook. Daul blinked stars out of his eyes and looked back to his chronometer and trying to ignore the sense of dread at being inside of a colony mid-barrage and the screaming klaxons going off citywide, “Better than taking the full force of a bombardment from the Bounty. There’s somewhere we’d all rather be soldier, now hurry up and take these damned things out. ”

The group bobbed and weaved through the various upturned desks, shattered statues, and great stone pillars, firing for the turrets as they went. Daul lost his footing on a loose bit of ferrocrete and caught a head on blast from an auto cannon that burst on his armor. It tore a gaping rent in his chest armor but not the layer of flak underneath. Daul ignored the warning flashes on the HUD in his helmet and tossed a bolt of psychic force at the offending turret. It crumpled and burst.

“Are you alright sir?” Hamman’s voice was strained. The man was always edgy when dealing with something that could not be killed with his flamer.

“It’s a scratch,” Daul said as he pulled a cylinder of sealant out of a pocket in his tabard. Thick foam filled the opening in his armor, quickly sealing itself and forming a bond over the jagged tear, “But I wouldn’t want to take another hit there soon.”

Daul flinched as Vazziz burst in two, showering his armor in a spray of his guts and viscera. There was some xenotech devilry at work, of that Daul was sure. These turrets were far too accurate. The machine spirits of the standard prefabricated complexes used on border worlds were lazy and prone to bouts of mischief. The turrets firing at Daul had been precise and methodical, aiming at the joints in his powered armor where its protection would be weakest, too clever for the more whimsical mass-produced machine spirits.

Yonal screamed as his finger was torn away from his body in a burst of gore. He whipped his rifle up and fired blindly while crying in pain, his rife on full automatic fire. He continued to fire long after he’d managed to destroy the turret and kept pressing down on the trigger after exhausting its power pack. Evaan had to wrestle him to the ground in order to dress his wound and administer a painkiller.

It was then that Daul noticed a turret firing wildly at a bit of stray bit of debris. Of course, it was foolish of him not to have thought of it earlier. The facility, though full of systems fabricated by the Oita Forge would not have been able to afford Oita make for all of its systems. Some bureaucrat had decided to save a sovereign on the defense turrets. It was a damned foolish decision that Daul could be nothing but grateful for, “They’re using basic wide band auspex sensors!”

“Inquisitor if you insist on speaking in riddles and techno-sorcery we are all going to get killed. They’re using what?”

“There has to be an auspex array somewhere that they’re getting data from. Somewhere with a good view of everything, somewhere protected, somewhere that people wouldn’t notice,” Daul turned around and looked up to the keystone of the arched ceiling, “Somewhere that would be damn near suicidal to shoot at.”

Sergi crawled along the ground to a bit of cover opposite from Daul. He flinched when a stray ricochet pinged past his face and nearly jumped when a bit of drool dripped from Dorn’s gormless smile onto his hand. Grimacing slightly he wiped off the spittle on his pant-leg, squinting at the ceiling. Keen eyes darted about in consternation eyeing every angle.

“Suicidal is right sir, shooting that will collapse the ceiling,” he shot Dorn another murderous look as a second great glob of spittle dripped down on his shoulder and muttered angrily in ancient Damascan. Apparently the words for “filthy” and “mutt” of modern Damascan were the similar in both the modern and ancient dialect.

“Only in the entrance hall, if we knock out the turrets we ought to have enough time to reach the lift tubes in time for us to climb in and frankly it ought to cut off reinforcements for Faust. I have no doubt that there are many hundreds more half-breeds still in the city proper. This should serve to stop, or at least slow their advance. Head for the one on the left, I’ll head for the one on the right with Dorn.”

“Mad as all hell you are sir,” Sergei said in a tone of grudging respect, his smile took on the manic aspect that so characterized the Lionhearts and he yelled out to Var in ancient Damascan. Var blinked nonplussed and pointed up. Sergei scowled and yelled back in gruff low gothic, “Yes I damn well know the roof is going to bloody well come down! Just be ready to move when it does.”

Var shrugged and loaded a krak shot into the grenade launcher. It whistled as it shot upwards and collided with the arch, bursting into a brilliant ball of fire. Sergi screamed, “Move,” at the top of his voice even as he lifted his hands in front of his face to protect his face from falling debris.

“Move you miserable lump of a creature,” Daul’s face contorted in frustration behind his helmet as he yanked the servitor along behind him. Dorn had been sanding still, giggling as the two-ton ferrocrete bricks collided with the floor. He continued to giggle midair as Daul heaved him into his shoulders and carry him to the lift.

The doors to the lift slammed shut and echoed with the thunderous crashing of ferrocrete and adamantium in the entrance hall. The lights inside the lift flickered and died before switching to the emergency lights, bathing the interior of the lift in a dull red light. Daul righted himself and rearranged his tabard, eying the wet spot where Dorn had drooled on it with distaste. “Disgusting, positively disgusting, I really must housebreak you Dorn.”

Dorn stared back smiling that disturbingly cruel smile behind his bushy beard.

“Bah,” Daul pulled the data crystal out of his tabard and plugged it into the control panel. The lift’s lights flashed back to white and the tube ground back into motion causing Dorn to shift drunkenly as his servitor mind struggled to adjust to the shifting ground, “I should have left you. It would have served you right, damned creepy beast that you are.”

Dorn looked at Daul with his head cocked at a jaunty angle, his morpha cables flopping down from his helmet and beard making him look distinctly like a deranged spaniel. Daul could just see the listless grey eyes behind the helmet’s visor staring vaguely into the distance. There was a benign innocence in them that belied the cruelty of his smile, but it had been the same in Dorn’s life prior to lobotomy. Perhaps Daul would be lucky and the Emperor would see fit for Dorn to pass into the next life. Daul would certainly not mourn his passing.

He tapped his helmet to activate a comm. channel to the Lionhearts but only heard static. “The thrice damned lift must be radiation shielded. We can only hope for the best… and I’m talking to a servitor as though he were about to respond to me I truly have been spending time around the Skitarii.”

Dorn shifted gently from foot to foot, rocking with the motion of the elevator. He giggled with each bump and made bubbles with his mouth.

“The rubble should slow down their re-enforcements. That’s something at least, the command overrides ought to disable the lifts once we’ve reached the top meaning that they’ll have climb the stairs. Even then they’re going to have to cut through the blast shield on every level to reach the top,” Daul knew it was a terrible habit but he found that talking himself through every aspect of his situation calmed his nerves. He could not afford to let his mind be clouded by adrenaline and the frenzied pumping of his heart.

Dorn gurgled contentedly and watched the buttons flash in time with the rising of the elevator. The relaxed posture of his body clashed noticeably with the cruel smile behind his bushy beard and the dead sightless eyes behind the visor. His bare feet made fleshy scuffling noises on the plush carpet of the lift as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. “That the Emperor has seen fit to save you when all others in my service are long dead is beyond my understanding Dorn,” Daul checked the patch on his side to see if it had burst after rapid movement, “They didn’t leave you enough brains to remember to feed yourself. Then again, I suppose the less of you they left in the better. You are destined to find penance in sacrifice but I suspect that He only wants you to take the parts of you worth having to the hereafter. And there wasn’t much worth sending to him beforehand, not much now either… not really. I suppose you are a test send to me, suffering and frustration to deal with you for the few moments where you’re of any use.”

He glowered at the servitor, “Having to carry you away from a falling ceiling… honestly! I must have a talk with Kerrigan about installing some sense of self preservation in you or I will simply never be able to finish anything for fear that you might die of some foolishness before I’ve decided that you ought to,” he chuckled at his own grim joke. He didn’t find it funny but any verbal cruelty he could inflict on Dorn gave him no small satisfaction, “but at least that damned cave in ought to give us some time to finish our work, the won’t get re-enforcements through till they clear that rubble, Throne willing that is.”

The past three years of his life had been leading up to this confrontation. Now that Faust was just within his grasp he could not help but feel a giddy rush of adrenaline. No, there was no time for that. He could not afford for his mind to be clouded with rage anticipation, he must treat Faust with the same level of clear headedness as any other heretic. Faust was just like any other heretic but Dorn’s issues with him were personal.

Faust’s crimes were without number and his evil without measure but when Daul choked the life out of him with his bare fists in an interrogation cell it would be to avenge a single death. One wholly undeserving the cruel death he received at Faust’s hands. What little of Daul’s household was left after the Tyranid incursion fled to the fortress monastery of his mentor Inquisitor Lord Martin Gaal. Gaal had always been like a father to him and had been the closest thing he’d had to family for some eighty years. So long as his people reached Gaal Daul had no fear that any harm could reach them. He had been mistaken.

It had been foolish to use a military decryption in order to issue orders to his household but he’d been unsure if anything other than a military transmission would reach the planet at all. Faust had followed them to the hive city that held Gaal’s fortress monetary and lain siege to the fortress. By the time Daul reached it the monastery was little more than rubble, only the sub-basement fortress complex remained. Gaal’s soldiers had held it dearly but vainly; Daul found what little was left of Gaal crucified on the great aquilla that hung behind his desk. Faust had piled their bodies haphazardly beneath the crucifix. Gaal had died a hero’s death trying to save the women and children of Daul’s house who’d come to seek refuge.

Faust had intended it to be a warning to those who interfere in his plans.
It had not had the desired effect

“I will see him flayed alive Dorn. I will do things to him that would have made you cringe. I will break every thing about him and turn his life’s work to dust and ashes," he had promised as much as he knelt in the shattered ruins of his former master's household, weeping like a babe. He had little enough joy in his life without losing what little family he could claim. Faust had stolen part of his heart that day and Daul had filled the emptiness in his heart a with cold and brooding malice.

By the time the lift reached the command level of the spire Daul's anger and apprehension had bled away and only the cool determination remained, sharp as a razor's edge. As he stepped out from the lift there seemed only one acceptable outcome, Faust would die. The wretched stench of the half breeds billowed into the lift as the doors opened, strong even through the rebreathing apparatus of Daul's helmet. He exited the lift and his heart caught in his throat, the door to the second lift, the one that the Lionhearts had taken was sealed by a void shield. The command crystal he'd given them had either shorted out or been cracked in the fighting. The Lionhearts would not reach the command level in time, not without a meltagun anyway. He could not affort to wait for them to find an alternate path.

"Can time never be on my side? Emperor grant me grace."

The hallway leading to the command center was long and opulent. Silk tapestries hung from the ceilings in front of each door declaring the outrageously exaggerated family genealogies, histories and, accomplishments of the colonial office holders. The colonial officials had no doubt been the first to die but the elegance of their apartments no doubt suited Faust's ego.

Daul sensed a pair of half-breeds before he saw them in the gloom. They were lurking in the shadows near the door of a luxurious apartment. Their predatory instincts were strong but Faust had not gifted them with an equal measure of common sense.

Daul walked forwards nonchalantly, pretending not to have noticed the two bulky predators slinking behind him. Goaded by his apparent weakness the two pounced, long claws and powerful jaws ready to tear through armor and into flesh. Two brilliant bolts of pure psychic force pulped their heads into mush midair. The bodies fell to the ground and twitched eerily in deat. Dorn followed Daul. The servitor paused only briefly to stare at their twitching corpses, curving his lips in fascination.

The doors to the offices were open. Most had been torn off their hinges by the half breeds during the initial assault on Belzafest. There were thousands of hiding places and though Daul no longer smelled their stink he could not help but feel that he was being watched. It was an eery sensation that prickled along the back of his neck, setting him on edge. The space was dead, dank, and dark. The damaged florescent lights flickered and spat sparks, giving the tapestries the illusion of motion though there was no breeze down the corridor.

Daul broke in to a dead run as he reached the end of the corridor, building up momentum. He struck the rich double doors that lead to the command center with a jarring crash of metal. The doors, already worn from Faust’s assault, bent and crumpled to the side.

They were waiting.

There had to be twenty of them. Twenty of the largest half-breeds Daul had ever seen, each of them sporting eight tentacles covered in barbed spines that coiled and uncoiled around great sinuous arms. They stood in a wide phalanx in front of some dozen or so hard faced men working tirelessly at their data stations. At the center of this cadre, sitting on the plush throne of the colonial governor, was a man in wearing elegant silks and wide brimmed hat, smiling greedily at the sight of Daul. He put a thick cigar to his lips and puffed at aged talbac, "You're too late Inqusitor."

"Not so late as you assume," Daul walked into the command center flanked closely by Dorn. And in a voice full of as much bravado as he could muster as he walked forwards, "You underestimate me. So does Faust. Tell me where he is hiding before I tear it from you Porst."

The man laughed and snapped his fingers; a void shield flickered into life around Daul faster than he could blink. Daul tossed a bolt of psychic energies at the shield that sparked and spattered but did little else, "Inquisitor do you honestly think my employer has survived centuries by sitting around waiting to be cornered? My employer started the preflight checks the second you came out of warp.

Emperor almighty, a ship. The throne cursed traitor had another ship.
--

The deep cavern in which the primary reactor for the city sat made Danzig slightly homesick. The plasma generators that powered the city were massive, larger still than any generators Danzig had ever seen. Pulses of blue-white crackled as they pulsed their way down the hundreds upon hundreds of cables feeding into the cavernous ceiling and the city above.

The air was dry and smelled of ozone and lubricant, and the distant throbbing hum of machines was startlingly similar to the sounds and smells of the facility where the children of Lionhearts received their early training. The children would cry for their mothers at first, the machines were loud and frightening and the dormitory in which they slept was often dark. After a few days with the surly corporal who played nursemaid for young Lionhearts the children soon learned that they feared the unknown sounds and clashes of the machine less than they feared the well-worn switch of Corporal Maziv. He was a hard man but not a cruel man, most of the Lionhearts affectionately referred to the man as “Mom” though none of them dared to do so within earshot of Maziv himself.

As he led the handful of men down the wide stairwell to the command platform that sat above the deep chasm he could not help but hear the gruff voice of Maziv, “Don’t you bother to be falling over the edge now boy. You fall over the edge of a plasma reactor and it’s the Emperor himself you’ll be explaining your clumsiness to. The Emperor don’t suffer wooly headed scrum like you lightly.”

The platform sat hovering above the center of the generator itself, reachable only by a wide bridge lined with thick ferrocrete pillars and steel support struts. In the distance, obscured partially by the glare of the plasma discharges, a lone figure sat at the command consul of the generator, a single man, and no guards.

“Cairn, does that look like a half breed to you?” The Skitarii’s face puckered with concentration as his optics focused and re-focused on the shape in the distance. After a few moments consideration he shook his head, his mechanical tentacles waved lazily.

“Sir,” Fadir was looking at a cracked chronometer with trepidation as he shielded his eyes with his hand, “We’re already behind schedule as is. If we don’t have those generators down soon the plan will not proceed. Our mission is still technically a success so long as Faust dies but I’d prefer not to be in the list of acceptable losses.”

“You think I don’t know that,” Danzig spat on the ground, “Burn me, we’ve got no choice. One half-breed with his throat cut is as good as none at all. If I’m going to end up at the foot of the Throne I intend to say I died doing my duty not lollygagging around like a deckhand on his first shore leave. Fadir, you take point.”

Fadir smiled and slunk forwards. Even with a broken rib he was still the fastest and surefooted of Danzig’s men. He should have been born a cat, at least then he would have an excuse for how his feet never seemed to make a sound no matter how fast he moved or how far he jumped. Sala’ha shouldered his long-las and turned to Danzig in a false whisper, “The boy takes altogether too much joy from his work.”

“And you spend altogether too much time moving your lips,” Danzig said in a surly tone. Fadir did like stealth a bit more than was healthy and he was too handsome for his own good by half. His own unique talent for mischief and caring smile often landed him into trouble, though Fadir would never call it such. More than once the young Lioheart had been near court marshal for having made his way into the bedchambers of the noble ladies of the Endless Bounty. The women of the bounty did seem to have a curious habit of having strapping young soldiers arrested when they were caught sneaking into their dressing rooms then dropping the charges in private after the fact. Danzig sometimes wondered if Fadir found less sport in the women than he did in sneaking past the jealous husbands and angry fathers.

Fadir was a sneaky and unscrupulous bastard but he was Danzig’s sneaky and unscrupulous bastard. He could not help but feel a small measure of pride as Fadir shot forward, leading the silent charge with muffled footfalls. If the man in the chair noticed the six Lionhearts and single Skitarii he gave no notice, he seemed wholly enthralled by the terminal in front of him. He muttered to himself angrily, some in low gothic, some in a screeching language that he’d only ever heard spoken by Cairn. He suspected that the binary was no more cogent than the gothic. Cairn certainly gave no expression that he’d heard anything resembling sense. But the man was clearly in pain, deep pain.

“Turn, spin… it works NO I work It and I are we now, 90% pain pain hurt, am I hurt? No, we are not. But are we a we or am I me? Hurt, now die. But no weapons. I am not the ship, where is the ship? This is not a ship.”

Insane ramblings, he was probably some poor fool that had been captured by Faust. By all accounts Faust took prisoners and the results were often unpleasant and usually irreversible. At least he would be able to put this man out of his misery. Danzig looked to Fadir and sliced a finger across his neck.

Fadir nodded and pulled out a slender knife. Its blade’s silver sheen had been dulled with soot but its point was as sharp as any. Fadir grabbed the man from behind and drove his dagger across his throat as far as he could manage. The man’s head jerked backwards and his body went slack as the blade sliced along his neck. Fadir whooped triumphantly before recoiling in horror as the man started to shift about in spite of his near decapitation. The man’s voice gurgled as his lips tried to make words through his severed voicebox. The near corpse lifted itself on a frame of mechanical tendrils that fed into the ground beneath the chair, fingers twitching and his legs convulsing. The man’s eyes rolled about wildly and his severed flesh was knitted together by bands of silvery black metal and he began to speak in clipped screeches. Cairn froze in horror listening to the screeching binary and for once Danzig was grateful not to understand a word of it.

“Threat assessment, determine… what am I? I am he, machine, pain, bring death, ships weapons. Am I the ship? There are no weapons, a ship must have weapons..”

“Throne Almighty!” Danzig made the sign of the aquilla over his heart and started reciting the chant of unity in his head. He turned to the other Lionhearts all of whom were staring at the rising figure openmouthed, “Don’t stand there like it’s a goddamned holo vid shoot it!"

Woken from their surprised stupor they leapt into action, weapons on full automatic. The air cracked and sizzled with the sounds of laser fire. Bright streams of energy cut into the man but they might as well have been yelling at it crossly for all the good it did them. He simply twitched with each shot, his body filling in the holes with the same murky black metallic substace shouting random phrases.

From his perch Sala'ha got in a good shot to the man's heart. Dark eyes focused on Sala'ha as though for the first time noticing an attack. It's mouth opened wide like a python before belching up a great ball of phosphorescent blue. Sala'ha dodged the ball and ducked behind one of the pillars, swearing loudly as the crates he’d been standing on burst in a shower of white hot metal shards. He rolled back into cover, wincing as shrapnel stung at his back and side.

“Weapons… weapons… I am the weapons!”

Fahal screamed as bolt of lightning shot from the man's hand. The burst deftly tossed Fahal in one direction and his arm in the other. Gazan grabbed Fahal and dragged the sobbing man behind cover. He would need to have it replaced with a prosthetic assuming that the shock or the blood loss didn't kill him outright. By the Throne but how do you kill something that didn't die when you shot it in the blasted head?

Falin pulled a melta charge out of his sachel only to have it grabbed away by Sala'ha. Sala'ha chastised Falin furiously, "Have you lost your wits? We're standing above the Throne cursed reactor core. It does us no good to kill him if we die as well. If you want to die on your own time do so but don't blow me up in the process."

"What else do you suggest we do? If we can't take the reactor down then the Inquisitor's plan fails and we're dead anyway. I say we blow it all to hell, better to die here than be cornered and eaten by half-breeds." Falin's voice held a frustrated resignation that he could not help but feel as well. They had no weapons stronger than a hot-shot lasgun other than explosives and they could not hope to use the explosives without causing critical failure in the reactors. Falin's suggestion was unpleasant but possibly inevitable.

--

Porst eyed the caged Inquisitor greedily. He had no great love for the servants of the Empire. They were irrational at the best of times and wildly fanatical at their worst. He could not see fit to bow and prostrate to the cult of the Emperor either, there were days where he frankly doubted that the Emperor was still even alive. The Lords of Terra be damned for all he cared. He took a deep drag from his cigar and stood from his chair, approaching his caged prize, “My employer implied that you would be motivated to follow us but he neglected to suggest that you would try take us on with a one man,” he looked at the servitor, “make that one and a half men. What did you hope to accomplish?. My employer has survived attempts from those who were of greater skill and longer in the tooth with entire armies behind them, let alone one mangy looking servitor.”

The Inquisitor whipped his head around to and yelled to his servitor. The servitor looked up when the garbled sounds came from his master but otherwise continued to stare at the swirling colors of the shield, smiling toothily. Servitors were always unnerving to Porst, perhaps because if he were ever to be caught by the authorities he would be made into one, but this one seemed especially wrong to him for some reason. It was too giddy for his liking, “Inquisitor I am not a complete fool. That field negates any sound you might make, though it allows me to speak mine. A lovely variation of the privacy filter don’t you think? I’ve seen my employer make use of compulsions with a word and a gesture to get men to bring about their own undoing. I’m not about to give you the remotest chance of accomplishing that.”

He took the silver handle offered to him by one of the half-breeds, “You will sit there and behave till my employer returns or I will be forced to ensure that you are properly plaint. I was given the appropriate means to do so.” He pressed a button on the handle and a wave of force shot down from the ceiling upon the Inquisitor driving him to his knees, “You will obey,” he pressed the button again, “or I will make you obey.”

The Inquisitor’s helmet from his face as it cracked under the pressure. A long sliver of metal shrapnel pierced the inner layers of flak to slice his scalp as it burst. A long trickle of blood dripped down the front of his armor from the deep gash along the left side of his face. It would scar, Porst was sure of that.

“Inquisitor fighting it is futile, I’ve already won,” The Inquisitor struggled in the most delightfully futile way. Porst pressed the button again, a damaged section of the Inquisitors armor ruptured and a thin trickle of blood poured down the white of his tabard. Not enough to kill him, but undoubtedly enough to be excruciating. Porst waved his free hand at the large wall of monitors in the front of the room, each showing a different angle of a massive black fleshy hulk with spidery protrusions, “Inquisitor you’ve already lost. My employer boarded the ship and other than those few of us still in the command spire and catacombs we’re already boarded and ready. Your ship in orbit will not pierce our defenses and you are at the mercy of my tender care. Surrender now while you still can.”

The Inquisitor responded with a decidedly course hand gesture unbecoming of his breeding and status. Porst pressed the button again, throwing the Inquisitor to his hands and knees. The half-breeds chuckled darkly; pain fitted their warped sense of humor. Porst walked past the ring of half-breeds, resisting the urge to shudder as he did so.

“It was brilliant of you to commit most of your forces to an assault on the munitions depots while you advanced with your retinue. I must confess I’d expected you to have a substantially larger honor guard.”

Covag, the commander of the half-breed group in the room screeched loudly and spoke in grumbling gothic, “We will have to remove the other soldiers. Father would not appreciate it if we were to give them the chance to interfere with our duties.” Porst rolled his eyes, for all their talk of obeying the father he knew that they were more attracted to the idea of fresh man-flesh than they were to the tasks at hand. The soldiers his employer bred were efficient but at times short slighted and bloodthirsty.

“No Covag I don’t think that’s wise,” Covag’s already warped face twisted into an angry leer. Given the chance Porst suspected that they would have just left the Inquisitor alone in the void shields in favor of going after the meat they were allowed to eat.

Gan Zo, one of the mercenaries in Porst’s company, turned from his consul, “Sir you might want to reconsider that. The level they’re on isn’t a crucial one for us, but there is a subsystem that leads to control of the hangar’s promethium lines. It would be wise to protect that.”

Porst swore, “Very well Covag you will have your fight, but leave half your… men. We might have need of them soon.” Somehow Covag’s toothy grin was even worse than his glare. Half the group followed Covag as he climbed over the balcony and began to lower himself down the side of the building with his taloned hands and barbed tentacles. They made a raucous mess of opening the blast doors, climbing out, and sealing them again behind them.

“Strange creatures but they do their job,” he stared at the Inquisitor’s obtrusive countenance behind the shimmering force field, “Don’t you look at me as though you’re so much better Inquisitor. I know the things you’ve done. I never ordered a planet fragged just because I didn’t like someone on it. Yes, I know about the Exterminatus order. My employer has well connected friends who you’ve substantially angered. You should be thankful for that, you’re worth a great deal more alive than dead,” he sighed exaggeratedly, “Though to be fair not connected enough to countermand your orders it would seem. You have access to a substantially important person in the Imperial Navy don’t you? Don’t bother to try and answer I wouldn’t hear you anyway. Yes you must have one. We shall have to deal with him when we’re done with you.

He walked in a wide circle round the field that trapped Daul, eyeing the power armor in the way one might examine a particularly feisty animal at the zoo and stopping only when he reached the arco-fagellant. He put his hand on Dorn’s shoulder in a mock paternal fashion and chuckled, “I suspect that it’s well within my employer’s power to alter your servitor, repair him even to his previous state. Would you like that?” He turned to Daul and made a deep mock bow, the thick muscles of his neck bulging, “I wonder if you’re little pet dog will bite you as hard when I’m the one who feeds him treats?”

Then as a cold sensation of wrongness swept through the back of his spine he heard a deep grating chuckle in the back of his head, “Tell me Porst does your privacy filter silence my mind as well?”
Porst looked down in horror to the servitor’s body went rigid and the barbed electroshock whips sparked into life. The hand clutching the handle floated through the air as the rest of Porst was turned into a bloody mess. Daul sat safely behind the void shield watching the lasfire flare off it as the half-breeds and human jumped into action to counter whirling and screaming whirlwind of death that was Dorn. Daul stood and he laughed.

--
Danzig had to resist the urge to jump out of his own skin when a firm hand tapped him on the shoulder. Cairn held out his hand and pointed to the spare power cells on his belt then to back his own robes. The Lionheart opened his mouth to ask what Cairn planned to do with them. He closed it just as quickly when he got a look at the Skitarii’s expression. Skitarii Thross was standing behind him, quivering with rage, and staring at the their attacker with undisguised malice. The mechandrites hanging from his face were still and the fingers of his prosthetic hands clenched and unclenched so hard that the servos inside them groaned and whined with the pressure. The heretic in front of the was a sin against everything the Skitarii held dear. It showed a perversion of the Omassiah on a level transcending description. Indulging his wishes seemed wise.

“Fine, you want my spare ammunition? You can have it. Whatever you’re planning it better damn well work Thross,” Cairn gave him a look that could have frozen a sun and contemptuously snatched the power cells out of his hands. Danzig winced as the augmentic fingers squeezed his hand a bit more strongly than was necessary. It had admittedly not been the most graceful thing he could have said at the time to Cairn. But it was still better to anger the clockwork man into action than to allow Falin’s harebrained plan to become a necessity.
Cairn’s solution was unconventional to say the least. The devotees of the machine god tended to be more blasé about damage to their own bodies in the service of the Omassiah than others would be. When Cairn actually removed his arm at the elbow Danzig was at a loss for words but he supposed it was easier to accept losing an arm when one could simply have it replaced later with a spare. Danzig watched in fascination as Cairn ripped open a side panel of the floor and started to plug wires into the sockets of his detached right arm with all the signs that he considered it to be as mundane as firing a lasgun. Thinner reed-like mechandrites emerged from beneath the beard of tentacles that marked his jaw line. They snaked out and attached wires and circuits in ways entirely beyond his understanding. It was like watching magic being born, fantastic circuit sorcery.

A bright ark of lighting shot out and cracked the wall behind Danzig. The creature, Danzig had long since given up on thinking of it as a man, had started to just lob attacks in the general area of where it suspected the Lionhearts to be. Whatever it was doing with the computers must have been taking up a majority of it’s attentions else it was a truly terrible shot.

Not for the first time that day he considered the sanity of the Inqusitor’s plan. Presumably the Inquisitor had not known about… whatever this thing was. He would not have come down to fight on the planet itself were escape impossible.

At least he hoped the Inquisitor wouldn't.

The Inquisitor’s sense of danger was somewhat warped. The man hadn’t even flinched when they were tagged with anti-aircraft fire during planet fall. It was downright disturbing to meet someone who seemed to actually be as cavalier about death as the Lionhearts pretended to be. Laughing in the face of death was a tactical decision by pretending not to fear anything in a large enough group it allowed them to suppress whatever fears they actually had. Doing their jobs even in the face of Kabalite pirates or whatever else might come their way was crucial. The dry and clinical manner in which the Inquisitor was able to either compartmentalize or ignore fear and confusion was astounding. Whatever else could be said about Daul the man’s blood was made of ice, “Throne protects the man who got in his way.” he muttered.

Cairn shot him a stern glance and Dazig stopped muttering, though his expression was still as sullen. What did the Skitarii expect? Danzig was a soldier. Having to cower in a corner while waiting on someone else to solve his problems was galling. Cairn made an annoyed warbling sound and started to attach the power cells from Danzig’s ammunition pouch to the beveled sockets on his arm. Silvery mechandrite tendrils fed into the sockets between the arm and the cell weaving an intricate web of wires.

It was probably some minor techno-heresy to allow Danzig to watch him doing this. Or not, one never knew with the Adeptus Mechanicus. It might be enough for him to assume that Danzig was unaware of the workings of the great machine spirits for the Skitarii to avoid penance or, worse yet, forcing penance on Danzig. The Ad-Mech guarded their sorceries jealously. A penalty for knowing too much forbidden knowledge could force him into a lifetime of service to the Ad-Mech or a lifetime in a penal legion. He squinted his eyes shut just in case.

When the Skitarii let out a whooping cheer he risked opening his eyes only to shut them abruptly as a blinding flash burst from the bundle of wires. Even behind his lids the flash left a brief afterimage on his retina, “Bastard son of a heretic! Skitarii give some warning!” The Skitarii slapped him with his remaining arm and screeched in binary. Danzig muttered a sullen apology.

As he tried to blink the stars out of his eyes he looked at the damage the Skitarii had done. The ground and walls were scorched from where the burning cables had scored them and a scent of cooking meat wafted from the now dead creature. Its body was twisted and stretched by rigor, the blackened cables and smoking offal leaking out its ruptured guts. Cairn, still missing his arm, approached the data terminal beyond the smoking heap of man-flesh apparently unaffected by the sight or the smell. Danzig didn’t share his impartiality. The smell of it was vile.

Fahal’s sobs had settled to an occasional whimper. Gazan had managed to patch the wound with some synthetic skin and a tourniquet but the stub of an arm still hung limply at his side. His breath was ragged and his eyes were unfocused but that was as much from the painkillers than from the wound itself. Gazan stood up, lifted Fahal to his feet, and helped him to hobble over to Danzig.

Sala’ha whistled and kicked some chunks of meat with his shoe, “The tin man has fangs. What did he do?”

“I don’t want to know,” Danzig bit his lower lip, “And neither do you. After we debrief I want you forget this ever happened. Purge it from your memory. You didn’t see him do it and neither did I for that matter. We’ve got an Inquisitor within shouting distance most of the day, don’t forget about whom we’re talking just because you’re used to seeing him. If he even begins to suspect us of getting close to an interest in techo-heresy or, throne forbid, the Magos it’s more than my life’s worth and damn sure more than yours is. Consider this an order, this never happened.”

Sala’ha looked incredulous but didn’t press the matter farther. Fadir gave a curt nod of agreement. It didn’t take much to convince Fadir to mistrust the Inqusitor. Fadir was one of the many Lionhearts who had been loaned to assist the Imperial Guard in retaking Choros XI. The Imperial Guard, doubting the loyalty of the mercenary band, insisted on placing a Commissar with the Lionhearts. They’d balked at his authority but could do little other than submit to his will. Fadir had lost friends who were just as rebellious as he but lacked his talent for not getting caught. His distaste for the omnipotence and lack of oversight of the Commissariat had transferred over to the Inquisition. The few times Fadir had been in a room with Daul he’d spent the entire time eyeing the Inquisitor’s pistols. People looked at vipers with more trust.

“Clockwork! Can we get this moving? I want to start the shutdown then get out of here. The locator beacons for pickup won’t be of much use if we’re still in a rad-soaked area. I want to be there for dust-off,” Danzig winced at Falin’s tone. Falin was young enough and foolish enough to doubt the wisdom of believing in his own mortality or fallibility. Cairn’s success in killing their attacker as had been taken as a personal insult, Danzig bit back venom and rounded on Falin, “Boy stow it, it will be finished when it’s finished. And if we leave, and I do mean if, it will be when I say so and if I tell you to stand there from here to judgment day I damn well expect you to stand there and do it. No Falin I don’t want to hear it. Stow it and wait.”

Even so Danzig could not help but privately agree that they ought to get moving if for no other reason than to get out of the shadow of the creature’s body. It was damned unnerving. As he watched the numbers on his chronometer rise his sense of urgency rose along with them.

--

“How goes the recall of our forces Donat,” Sáclair smiled as he downed another glass of aged wine and sipped at the smoke from a pipe fixed to a long hose hanging down from a to an ornate Shisha attached to the back of one of his servitor servants. Being able to attack the city had boosted Sáclair’s spirits greatly, as had the aged talbac in the Shisha. The great hall was still in disarray but the servitors and servants had already started to put things to rights. For all his gripes that they ought to see to critical systems first Sáclair seemed to find the re-hanging of every painting in the hall to be greatly cathartic.

Unfortunately for his second in command this boot in morale invariably meant that it would lead to smoke and drink. Donat coughed and winced at the smoke, or at least as close to a wince as Donat could manage. An issue with a cerebral implant had caused a stroke some year’s back, permanently paralyzing most of his face. Donat hadn’t been an expressive man to begin with so it had taken most of the year for people to notice.

“The troop transports are nearly finished loading sir. It took some doing to get all the ground forces we’d committed to the skirmish, minus those lost in the sortie with Faust’s irregulars, as well as a sizeable chunk of the defense forces but barely enough to compensate for the lives lost,” Donat looked over the many folds of a long roll of parchment as a servitor scribe hastily scribbled out tactical data in shorthand. The data was also fed into the networked data slates but there was a five second lag and Donat was never one to surrender an edge, “Of the ten squads of Lionhearts we’ve accounted for eight. Two are dead, tagged by anti-aircraft fire on the descent, four have been safely recalled and two are refusing to leave till they’ve helped the PDF secure munitions and ammunition on their transports. The PDF has been using Golan class transports for the tanks for centuries but I can hardly blame the Lionhearts for mistrusting the planetborn in knowing the first thing about star flight. Either way we should have everything but the atmospheric flyers running bombing runs out of there and boarded within the next twenty minutes.”

“Make it ten, I want to be done with this damned affair. Stop the bombing and prep stage two. Wait? Golan class transports? Are they taking the entire city with them?”

“Only as much of it as they could carry on their backs, the PDF were loath to leave their families behind. We couldn’t convince them to come along unless we took the women and children as well. We even had a couple regiments refuse to help at all till we agreed to take the children to the ship on the first transports.”

“Where are we going to house them? We’re damn near crewed to capacity.”

“We were crewed to capacity sir, apparently the black ship managed to hit the environmental controls for the level ten foredeck. Once we’ve cleared out the bodies that will make suitable temporary quarters. They’ll be two or three to a bed but I doubt the families will object,” Donat sighed exaggeratedly at Sáclairs incredulous looks, “The Golans aren’t filled to capacity just with the Belzafest citizens Captain, as loath as they were to leave their families they were nearly as incensed by the idea of leaving military vehicles in the hands of heretics.”

“How well equipped were they Mr. Donat?” Sáclair stood up from his throne and took the scroll offered by Donat, “That seems lightly armed, even for a border colony. I don’t recall most fringe worlds having a PDF to speak of but most of them manage to have at least some hydra batteries or a decent core of siege weapons.”

“The city had what you’d expect from a miniscule colony in the middle of nowhere with a decent budget but when they left they only took mostly Salamader class and Chimera class transports, a good number of lightly armored sentinel walkers and around couple dozen Leman Russ. They had difficulty in taking any of the more heavily armed or armored from the city before Faust started taking over, they were too slow for the escape.”

“Sir the weapons are a boon to be sure but we seem to have forgotten something,” Sácomer’s wobbling jowls quivered with confusion, “What of the Inquisitor and Danzig? Mr. Donat’s report spoke nothing of them. What do we know of their progress in the retreat?”

Donat shifted to face the holoithic monitor’s image of the walrus of a man and carefully ignored the look of growing irritation in Sánclair’s eyes, “We’ve found no finite proof that they’re alive or dead yet but seeing as how they were tagged by an aircraft battery it’s not unreasonable to say that some or all of them are dead.”

“I’m not that lucky Mr. Enzo.”

“Captain?”

“He’s alive, you mark my words. Even if he weren’t he designed this plan to run the same if he were alive or dead,” Sáclair blew a great ring of smoke, “Hildy is man of commitment if nothing else. No, we continue with the plan. Load everyone back on the ship then charge the forward lance batteries and the fore torpedoes with the high yield atomic charges the Inquisitor brought. I’ve hated having something that unstable in my cargo bay to begin with. Disgusting things, the man seems determined to bring disgusting things on my beautiful ship. Those torpedoes worst of all, I don’t want to even imagine the man that imagined bombs designed specifically to annihilate a hive city. We’re going to burn this city to the ground then salt the earth once Kerrigan activates that contemptible machine.”

“Sir I really must protest! I cannot believe the Inquisitor really means for you annihilate the city he is presumably inside of.” Sácomer looked as surprised as anyone else that he was voicing disagreement with the captain. People who did so did not keep their position long.

Sáclair’s tone took on a dangerous edge, “Protest away Mr. Sácomer. You have your orders. Follow them or step down from your position so I can find someone who can do his job without second guessing me.” Sácomer flinched but said nothing. We will wait for Kerrigan to finish her task. It won’t to us much good to do the job if it’s not done properly. We will wait for her to turn on the array and not a second earlier.

Sáclair’s drank in the colony of Belzafest below him. He smiled wrily and sang an old Damascan love song to himself as he watched status reports of the ship preparing to fire and possibly to rid him of two great problems. Some times life truly was wonderful. One way or another once the torpedoes were loaded there would be an end.
--
The void shields encircling Daul dropped once a stray electroshock flail from Dorn overloaded the power supply. Daul hastily issued the command to subdue the servitor. Dorn jerked to a halt and relaxed back into his state of blissful simplicity.

There were times where Daul envied him.

Dorn had made a bloody mess of things, though he only actually killed a handful of the men in the room. Once the furious servitor had been unleashed in their midst every man had grabbed for his side arm and started firing wildly in the direction of the arco-flagellant. Confined spaces and firearms was a recipe for disaster, one that Daul was very grateful for as he stepped over a bullet-riddled corpse.

A groan came from the ground near to the ornate raised seat in the middle of the room. Daul walked over and came face to face once again with Prost. Porst was using what was left of his arm and his one good hand to keep his guts from spilling on to the ground. Daul smiled grimly, “Clotting accelerants. Very expensive but a good way to keep from dying, that’s good. I need you alive for what comes next Porst. Are you going to tell me why Faust is here or will I have to take it from you?”

Porst spat bloody phlegm up at Daul’s face, “Just do it already Hilder we both know what comes next.”

“To the point as always Porst,” Daul winced to keep the blood out of his eye, “Very well, I haven’t much time anyway.”

Porst curled his lip, shouted, “Burn in hell you bastard,” and then the started to scream. Taking information from a man’s mind psychically was a delicate process. Any mistake would leave the informant crippled, gibbering, simple, or dead. Daul was not worried about mistakes, he tore into Porst’s mind ripping anything that looked remotely useful from it and digesting it wholly. Porst’s thoughts were crisp and orderly in spite of giving him the distinct sensation of filth on the back of his hands. Porst was putting up a decent fight, tossing up walls of extraneous thoughts and disgusting compulsions in the hopes of distracting or delaying him. Daul’s sheer force of will ripped through those walls till he reached a great inky black walled off section of Porst’s mind.

A barrier, put up by Faust himself no doubt. Well, it was too late for finesse.

Daul plowed forwards, tearing though the wall and grabbing as many thoughts and ideas as he could before the walls came crashing down, and Porsts head came crashing along with it. Faust had apparently included a failsafe in addition to his walls. Within seconds of Daul breaking the barrier of his thoughts a fist sized section of the back of the thick man’s head exploded outward. Daul gagged at the recoil from touching a man’s mind in his dying moments and emptied his stomach onto the floor.

He spat to get the taste out of his mouth and looked up at Dorn. The servitor was staring at him with a giddy smile of contentment, “What are you smiling at you vile creature?” he spat again, “Throne that hurt.”

He straightened himself and turned to the armored door just beyond the raised chair, “Come Dorn, I say it’s time we see what’s behind this door that was important enough for Faust’s countermeasure.” He walked forward at a brisk pace, making no effort to walk around the bodies. Flesh and bone crunched satisfyingly beneath his feet.

The door was easily overridden by the security crystal he’d used on the elevator. It opened with a deep whoosh and a thin fog of cold air wafted out. Daul recognized the table sitting in the middle of the room and the hanging tool setup immediately. An imperial vivisection table was difficult to mistake for anything else, especially one with a live specimen strapped to it.

“It seems the Belzafest colonies were not totally devoid of native life after all Dorn,” Daul slowly approached the creature, being careful to keep his distance. Only a fool got too close to an unknown xenos, even one strapped down to a table. Daul prided himself on his knowledge of xenology and xenobiology but could not ever remember hearing tales of this creature.

It had a graceful serenity too it and a dignity in spite of its predicament. Silvery flaps of flesh that might have once been wings were torn to shreds and it’s arms showed signs of recent injury at every joint. That made sense; procedure dictated that any creature taken in for vivisection had to have every tendon in its extremities cut to prevent the specimen from contaminating results by jerking around. This was especially important with sentient species. However it seemed that after the use of the automated systems to disable the creatures arms and wings Faust had gone for the old fashioned touch. A small pile of bloodied scalpels and tools sat on the table behind Daul.

“Strange creature this one,” Daul said as he approached the table. He eyed the creature with mild suspicion then considered the deep pools of blood on the floor and ceiling, “Pity it’s dead.”

“Not dead,” It raised its head sightly, eyeless sockets filled with gauze looked towards Daul, “Not yet.”

Daul’s body tensed and he eyed the tools on the table speculatively. Would he have to use them or would he be able to entice the creature into simply telling him why Faust was interested in the creature? For that matter could he find out what the creature even was? The creature solved the problem for him.

“So full of anger. They young are so full of anger. They ask the how but have forgotten what and why. Do you remember what and why?”

The damned creature was delirious, at least it spoke something resembling gothic, “I only seek Faust the one who did this to you. Tell me where he is and what he looks for you and I will promise you revenge.”

It sighed, “So young. So angry. You have forgotten. He has remembered. Sometimes the mistake is to forget. Ours was not. Ours was to remain. Ours was to remember. Ours was to fail.”

“Where is Faust.” Daul started to circle the table impatiently. Recovering reliable intelligence from a victim of torture was imperfect at best. That was one of the main reasons he preferred to take the information from the minds of others without resorting to it. It left even the strongest in fits of delirious useless ranting.

“One finds now when one finds when and how.” More damned riddles, it was a small wonder that Faust felt the need to slice into the creatures wings so often.

“What does Faust seek?” The knives kept looking better and better to Daul.

“Knowledge.”

“Knowledge of what?” Daul wiped the blood off his face onto the sleeve of his cloak.

“Light and Shadows once fought each other till death woke. The circle was broken and the path led astray. The ones before consumed. The ones after lost. All lost.”

Daul ground his teeth, “Where is Faust’s ship?”

“Where shadows slept, no shadow remains. Deep, deep down. Only light, only me. Only Kosh.”

“Who is Kosh?”

“We are all Kosh.”

Daul grabbed the creature by the neck, “You will speak plainly or you will die. Where is Faust? Where is he right now?”

“You are so lost. The young are lost. All are lost. Pain, loss, you lost him. The loss of family is always hard,” Daul flinched and slammed down on his mental shields as he felt a thin tendril of awareness snaking its way into his mind. It slowed but he could still feel it wriggling in his head.

Daul saw black, “You dare to intrude in my mind you xenos filth?” His hand closed around the creatures neck and head, cutting off the creatures airflow and crushing It gasped and screeched before collapsing in death. As it died Daul shuddered as a warm paternal feeling washed over him and a single word reverberated though his mind, “forgiven.” The creature had truly wanted to die. Far be it from Daul to deny a xenos’ death wish but he was no closer to finding the ship.

A great booming crash echoed through the air. For a second Daul feared that Faust had rigged the command center with explosives till he realized that the roaring rush was the equalization in air pressure between the poisonous atmosphere of Belzafest and the oxygen rich atmosphere within the dome. Cairn had done it. Carin disabled the generators. He could only hope that they were picked rescued before Sánclair deployed the powerful explosives upon the city itself. Rescue depended on Kerrigan’s speed in fixing the great machine. All that was left was to sit and to wait.

--

“You may tell the Captian I will activate the machine when I do so and not a minute earlier. This may be his ship but I am the mistress of his machines and his speaker for the Omassiah. He will listen to my wisdom or he will be silent in his ignorance,” Sáclair continued to send down frightened looking ensigns to pester the Magos about her progress with the machine. He was clearly eager to wash his hands of the entire bloody affair. His latest messenger was a young boy of around twelve with sandy hair and eyes that were all too interested in all the machines for Kerrigan’s liking. Though his voice carried all the sounds of respect his mouth moved over the words as though he was unaccustomed to humility. A common curse of the privileged children of the command staff destined for command positions.

Considering her own relative failures with the machine, Kerrigan was at the verge of conceding defeat herself. Unfortunately she had given her word she would manage to get it working and the value of her word was about the only currency she still had to her name. It would not do to lose that as well as her position on the Oita Forge World. She did truly miss Oita but it would not have done to simply forego what she believed for the benefit of political expediency.

But this task of the machine spirit, Curse of the Eye this damned task was infuriating. It made no sense. It was in none of her texts, none of the manuals of doctrine. None of her ancient books of scripture, by all accounts the damned machine spirit had just made the thing up. It was in none of the coded languages of the machine, it was none of the secret words of worship. It was not a command code in any languages she understood and it was not a reference to any passages of the holy texts of consultation.

Her servants and attendants scurried around, feverishly flipping pages and consulting data slates. Machine Spirits developing these sorts of irregularities was not uncommon, especially in the most venerable and sophisticated of them, but it was always damned frustrating.

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It was there, mocking her and thumbing its nose at her because of how clever it was. She looked back at the boy still standing and looking up at the data terminal of the great machine in wonder, “What are you staring at boy?”
The boy flinched as though scalded, “Nothing mam’ its just,” the boy hesitated.
“Just what?” She looked at the boy pointedly. She had no patience for any more interruptions from an impetuous child. She even lacked patience for one wearing the crest and silks of Sáclair, one of his nephews no doubt. She was a Magos of the Adeptus Mechancius, not some traveling performer from the ship’s markets to do tricks for his amusement. Her mechanical voicebox crackled with rage as she rounded on the child, “Does Sáclair have some additional message that I need to hear or are you just adding your personal opinions on the secrets of the machine?”

“1113213211 Magos.”

Everyone in the room froze and looked at the boy. It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. In a tone of dangerous calm Kerrigan asked, “What do you mean boy?”

“The answer mam’ its 1113213211. It's a riddle they use to train children being prepped for the surgeries used to control the Endless Bounty. The Endless Bounty she likes riddles mam’ and we’re trained to know every one of them. You never know when she’ll decide that she needs you to prove yourself worthy of her. I’m honestly surprised that none of the people sent down to deliver the message told you,” Kerrigan’s grip on the delicate tool in her hand was causing the handle to bend and indent under the force of her augmentic grip. The boy, clearly unaware of the dangerous line he was walking continued unabashed, “I suppose they assumed you already knew. People do tend to think you and the Inquisitor know everything, but I suppose nobody but the Emperor can,” he bit his cheek, “And honestly mam, uh, that is Magos,” he’d caught a sight of the tool in her hand, “You’re a little scary.”

Kerrigan rounded on the boy, propelled forwards on her mechandrites till she was looming over the now petrified child. She bent down within inches of the child’s face, her augmentic features terrifying. She stared straight into his eyes and began to laugh with joy as she lifted the child up into her arms and hugged him, “Child you have just done more than you can possibly imagine.”

She turned to her startled attendants, “Well? What are you waiting for? Hurry up! Enter the code and activate the machine. Daul has waited long enough for us to do our jobs.” The attendants and lesser priests jumped into action, fiddling with dials, tapping at keyboards, and chanting soothing songs of computation. Kerrigan’s cheeks crinkled up into a remnant of a smile, “And for you child I have a special reward.”

The boy looked back at her as though he’d been brought to the foot of the chopping block only to be told that not only was he not to be sentenced death they intended to knight him. He sputtered a bit and said, “Reward? You mean to give me a reward?”

“I reward cleverness child, one should always reward cleverness. I intend to make you one of my apprentices,” The boy’s eyes widened in excitement, “Yes child I do mean that. I will teach you the sorceries of the machine if you prove yourself able. You’ve already proven to have a deductive mind and a great deal more cleverness than wisdom. I can work with that. Now tell me your name.”

“Abbas Sáclair,” the boy said in a guarded fashion, as though afraid to admit who he was for fear that the great present would be taken away. It made sense, as the bastard son of one of Nathaniel Sáclair’s concubines he would not sit on the great throne himself but would always be constantly being groomed for a position he could never have. Well his role in the Adeptus Mechanicus would be all his. Kerrigan smiled, “Well Abbas, you are now my apprentice. Your first job is to stand silently with me and watch me activate the void shields to protect us from the radiation it will put out.”

Abbas stood straight as a board next to her, quivering with pride. Kerrigan shook her head, he would have to learn to curb that enthusiasm or he would go mad from exhaustion. She suppressed a chuckle remembering her own enthusiasm as an apprentice whilst activating the commands that caused a domed void shield to flicker into life around the great double-headed eagle sitting on the circle of obsidian in the center of the room. It was magnificent to see the machine in action, there were so few teleporters in active service on any ship smaller than an lunar class ship, powering them simply took too much energy for the smaller ships to handle. Activating the one on the Endless Bounty had taken altering the generators to output more energy enough that it bordered techo-heresy. Were it not in the service of activating such a wondrous machine Kerrigan would have been loath to do it at all. Now that the machine sang and hummed with activation she smiled to herself as the chorus of singers chanted in melodic tones of binary.

She typed on the data pad and entered the crystal with the information about the sub-dermal locator beacons inserted into all of the Lionhearts as well as Daul. They appeared as bright orange dots flashing on her screen. Most of the dots were on ships heading back to the Endless Bounty but there were two clusters of orange dots still in the city. She focused the great machine on those two clusters of dots and thumbed the runes of activation. The room filled with a great hum of the machine and a bright flash of light in the center of the room on top of the obsidian slab.

Two rather haggard and war worn looking groups of Lionhearts appeared in the center of the room blinking in astonishment next to a substantially less surprised but no less relieved looking Daul. Dorn, as always, just looked clueless. Falin pulled up his gun in surprise and fired wildly at the shield. Danzig batted his gun away and screeched at him. Kerrigan smiled, the void shield would have protected her but she appreciated the effort. She tapped on the intercom, “Is it safe to let you out or are you going to shoot at me again?” She didn’t wait for a response before thumbing the deactivation rune for the shields, “You’re welcome by the way.”

Daul batted away the frustrated motherings of Cairn over his torn eye and approached Kerrigan, “The beautiful Magos Frist, your timing is impeccable as always. May I bother you to activate a channel to the bridge? I have need of you again,” Kerrigan put her hands on her hips and her face crinkled in a smile, “Magos I would love nothing more than to exchange our usual pleasantries but this is urgent. Faust has another ship.”

Kerrigan’s joking demeanor dropped entirely she shrieked for her attendants, “Holonet-link! Now!” She turned back to Daul as two of her attendants rushed forwards pushing a thin sheet of black glass
“One burning thing after another I swear,” she muttered darkly as she eyed the look of undisguised hero worship Abbas was eying the Lionhearts with.

The sheet of black glass flickered and the image of Sánclair’s face appeared. He eyed Daul with mild surprise and then smiled, “So that’s what Kerrigan’s pet project does! On my ship? There is one installed on my ship. How wonderful. Oh Hildy I take back all the nasty things I said about what you bring onto my ship. It isn’t even the anniversary of my ascension. ”

“Captain, now is not the time,” Daul tried not to enjoy cutting Sánclair off, “Faust has a ship. I don’t know how or what type but we need to blast it to hell before it can take off.”
“Another ship? Hildy you do need to fire whoever is in charge of getting your military intelligence on Faust. He truly is dreadful at his job,” Sáclair’s ruff had been torn in the earlier battle but he still managed an over dignified flourish of his silken coat and lace cuffs before continuing, “Yes Hildy I will fix this problem for you but I want you to resolve the issue of our four fingered friend and his hounds in my brig.”

Daul bit his tongue keeping his retort in check, now was no time for a fight, “Fine. Whatever you wish just blow that ship to hell.”

“I promise to do everything in my power to kill it,” Sáclair ended the connection on his end and watched the image of Daul wink out of existence. The Inquisitor really did have Horus’ luck, a teleporter of all things. Still if the Inquisitor intended to keep the teleportation machine it would mean better business for the bounty. Provided of course, the Inquisitor ever allowed the Endless Bounty to go back to work. Damned oath of service and damned honor keep him. He looked up to Donat, “Well? How much of a charge have we built up in the forward lances?”

“More than enough now that the shields are down sir.”

“Well then there’s no use in waiting, fire, fire everything we have.”

“Of course sir.”

Bright streams of laser fire burst from the forward lance batteries, crashing into the city and cracking the already pockmarked and damaged dome. The force ruptured the top of it into shambles. The modified atomics rocketed down into the colony and burst in bright plumes of fission and death. The bounty fired off four salvoes of laser fire and atomics. The skies of Belzafest boiled and churned around the explosion like the eye of some great storm.

“Tell the Inquisitor that, once again, I’ve cleaned up his mess Sácomer. And do try to emphasize that I would prefer he not make a habit of it.” Sáclair stood up and stretched, “I daresay it will be nice to get some sleep after all this.”

“Sir you’re going to want to interface with the ship,” Donat was looking over the readouts from the servitors scribes again, “You’re going to want to do it now sir.”

Donat, never one for joking or exaggeration had gone white as a sheet, “If you insist Donat, but I must sleep eventually.” He nonetheless did grab for the silvery filament as fast as possible and fix it into the socket. Who was he, after all, to discourage his crew from helping him do exactly what he wished to be doing. Throne it was glorious to be part of the ship, to be large. It was fantastic. He throttled down on his emotions and soaked in the information around him, not just the sensations of the ships systems.

There was the space around him, the minefield in the distance, and beneath the planet. The city was a swirling mass of atomic death. Nothing could have survived. No that was wrong. The same sense of deep nothingness, the missing space, the absence of matter was sitting in the middle of the explosion. An inky black nothingness the size of an apocalypse class cruiser rouse out of the mass of rolling clouds and took to the stars.

Throne almighty help him he had to fight that, he could not let it escape. Damn his confidence and damn his word. Burn it all, it would have to do. It was suicide but it would have to do. He could only hope this would earn him his place with his predecessors or kill him and his ship in the process and resolve the issue to everyone’s satisfaction, “Get the sanctioned psychers attached to the gun batteries, as many as were left over from the last try. No more, we can’t risk more and I doubt they’ll have issue finding the damn thing.”

It was as nightmarish and alien as any ship Sáclair had ever seen, almost tyranid-like in its architecture. In addition to the back spidery spines that had flared from the smaller ship its crablike midsection fed into a thick section of mottled fleshy tentacles that circled what Sánclair could only assume was a weapons array of some sort. It sat in the distance, flexing its tentacles and spines like some great predator of the ancient seas of Terra. Sánclair swung the bounty round and gave the order to fire, but the weapons of the bounty seemed infinitesimally too small to damage that the great ship. The ship apparently agreed, it ignored the efforts of the Endless Bounty entirely. It loomed in the distance, impassively taking what the bounty tossed at it. It slowly turned at faced the planet. The mass of the great tentacles hanging from its spidery form pulled away from its front and Sáclair registered a monumental buildup in energy.

He flinched and tried to fly away to a safe distance but was a second too late. A stream of bright orange energy swept towards the Endless Bounty. Sáclair gritted his teeth and waited for the incoming embrace of death. It never came. The wave of energy swept past the Endless Bounty entirely and collided with the planet of Belzafest. The sweeping waves of unease that Sánclair associated with the plunging into warp space started to overcome Sánclair. He checked the condition of the ship’s Gellar Fields just to make sure, though he doubted they would do any good in protecting the ship from whatever warp devilry Faust had planned.
Sácomer’s face hardened and he yelled to Sánclair, “Sir, we must move destroy that thing, that monstrosity.”
“Mr. Sácomer?” Donat’s emotionless face eyed Sácomer, “What do you mean for us to do?”
“We did ram the last one sir.” Sáclair bit back the urge to shout. It would be like a minnow trying to ram a swordfish. The glowing orange energy fired by the ship had bored deep into the planet and had caused great cracks and fissures to form at it slowly imploded on itself. The astropathic choir started to scream and their handlers had to quickly intervene to stop them from opening their own veins. Sánclair watched in horror as a great rift in space opened where the planet used to be. A thought occurred to Sánclair and he activated the hololithic connection to Kerrigan’s workshop a second time, “Inquisitor. I need your help.”

Daul, half covered by the powered armor the Skitarii had been aiding him in removing popped into the view nearly instantly. Apparently he understood how desperate Sáclair was to admit he needed anyone else’s help, least of all Daul’s. “Yes Captain what do you need?” the Inquisitor batted Gazan away from the half finished stitches covering the left side of the his face and tried to ignore the Skitarii as he proceeded to remove his left pauldron.

“Faust is known for his forays into xenotech but what of the other heretical arts. Has he been known to consort with the forces of Chaos?” Sánclair deeply hoped he was misinterpreting the facts. He would give near anything to be misinterpreting the facts.

The Inquisitor flinched as Gazan pulled the stitches tighter on his face than they necessarily needed to be. He muttered something that sounded distinctly like sadist. Gazan ignored him entirely and saw to his forehead, “We damn well can supect it now. It feels as though I’m being spit in half. Captain,” he winced in pain, “shoot the damn ship, ram it, plead with it, but do not let it get away,” the Inquisitor doubled over and the astropathic choir wailed again in horror and pain, “I need, I need to sit down.”

The hololith flickered out even as Sáclair yelled, “No Inquisitor wait!” Sáclair swore and turned to the only person who didn’t seem to be in a state of panic, Zorn Calven. The Navigator stood at the head of the navigators staring out at the rift in mild amusement, “Navigator would you care to shed some light on what is going on?”

The navigator slowly rubbed his pale skeletal fingers together and clicked his tongue on his teeth. He giggled slightly as he said, “It’s a flow, a current… no, not a current. It’s a tidal wave of warp along which to travel, the idea is twisted, brilliant but evil. The mass of the planet is being used to tear a path to wherever it is that the other ship is going. Wherever that is must be astronomically far away.”

“How far?”

“Farther than I can calculate sir,” Navigator Calven seemed excited by the prospect, “Perhaps farther than mankind has ever been.”

The massive ship started to rocket forwards at surprising speed towards the tear. As did the Endless Bounty much to the surprise and chagrin of it’s Captain. The rift was pulling at the bounty with surprising force. Navigator Calven might think it a tidal wave but to Sáclair it couldn’t help but feel like quicksand. Moving away from the rift felt sluggish and painful. It tore at the ship’s hull and engines and only slowed their descent into the rift. Sáclair closed his eyes and tired to ignore nagging voice of caution in his head as he drove the bounty through the rift right after Faust’s ship, “It looks like we’re going on an adventure lads.”

The deep plunging sense of driving the ship through the rift was exactly the same as normal warp travel, but never in his life had he experienced as turbulent of a warp flow in his life. It was rushing, churning, frothing, and seething mass of nothingness lined with fangs. Simply keeping up with the massive shape of Faust’s ship in the distance was straining the engines beyond what was safe to use within warp-space. It was something neither Sácair nor any of his predecessors could remember experiencing. He eyed the rear weapons of the ship warily, fearful that they could fire on him at any moment. Fearful that he could not fire back without compromising the power supplies to the Gellar Fields, he was full of nervous energy. So focused was he on the ship in front that he did not notice the danger approaching from behind.

Sácomer screamed, “The mines sir! Deactivate the shields! The mines!” but it was too late. Pulled in by the inexorable gravity of the rift a stream of Oita make mines streamed towards the bounty. Sáclair screamed as they burst near the Endless Bounty tearing into her engines and crippling them. Reports flowed in from all sections of hull breaches and isolated failures in the Gellar Fields. Sáclair listened to the reports of system damages and casualties through a haze as he watched Faust’s ship disappear into the distance. He ignored the sounds around him and consigning himself to the shame of failure as the Endless Bounty drifted helplessly in the warp. He wondered if his ancestors would ever let him forget the shame.

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All reviews are welcome. I love negative reviews as much as positive ones.

Vorlons aren't made out of flesh.

Vorlons are whatever they want to be.


Fantastic story so far. Keep it up.

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agentfisherSDnet: You're as brilliant as you are beautiful.
Librium Arcana, Where Gamers Play!
"We're cooler than an iced frappicino -- On the Planet Hoth!"

I believe that JMS is on record as saying that Vorlons are sort of crystalline entities, not that we ever got a good look, even in the episode the Shadows killed Kosh which I think is the only time we really see him out of the environment suit without putting on a humanoid seeming. In the episode where he rescued Sheridan from being thrown from the core shuttle, everyone saw their personal conception of an angel or their world's nearest equivalent, well, except Londo who saw nothing.