The Inquisition IV

[Olis]

Happy birthday, LC!

 

Good to see you're still plugging away at this. I'm also interested in seeing Spider's maturity showing through, I just wonder when her secret comes out... :D

[Aqui]

Happy birthday, LC!

 

Good to see you're still plugging away at this. I'm also interested in seeing Spider's maturity showing through, I just wonder when her secret comes out... :D

 

That is something I'm waiting for. I reckon Goodwin would tear Spider a new one....

[Taranis]

Happy birthday Lady C. :D

I'll read the story tomorrow as I'm running out of time today.

[Lady_Canoness]

Thanks for the birthday wishes Gents! The day is good - made all the better by my ability to post another chapter!

 

I enjoy writing about Spider, so we'll see where her development takes her. A scared little girl she is not, but a scarred young woman she may be...

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

Happy birthday to you :)

 

another good update, though, like the others, im waiting for the Nerf secret to come :)

[Taranis]

Thank you for another great part of the inquisition. I keep on being pleasantly surprised by the quality and contents of your writing.

The new Spider looks extremely promising. I like the confidence she has gained and the scars she still carry. Now my expectations for the coming parts are further raised :lol:

 

Now that all the frindlies have been introduced(?) Is it time to guess who lives and who pays the ultimate price?

 

Btw the constantly raining and dark mood works great. As do all the party participants. :)

[Lady_Canoness]

Now that all the frindlies have been introduced(?) Is it time to guess who lives and who pays the ultimate price?

 

Haha - we'll have to see about that.

 

Any early bird bets? :P

 

Godwyn

Spider

Lee

Mercy

Zero

Constantine

Stone

Meredith

 

I think its terrible that you guys are so used to people being killed that you expect it :P

[Aqui]

Now that all the frindlies have been introduced(?) Is it time to guess who lives and who pays the ultimate price?

 

Haha - we'll have to see about that.

 

Any early bird bets? :P

 

Godwyn

Spider

Lee

Mercy

Zero

Constantine

Stone

Meredith

 

I think its terrible that you guys are so used to people being killed that you expect it :P

 

In the Grim darkness of the Forty first Millenium, there is only high staff attrition rates.....and even higher Life Insurance premiums ;)

[I-Seek-Knowledge]

Lady_Canoness, I must say that your stories are quite captivating. I followed your first installment of this series two years ago. Its been awhile since I've been on this forum site and have since immersed my self in the writings of others, so far not at all disappointed. LC, Bravo on continuing a wonderful series, I'm going to have to hunt down the preceding stories while I keep track of this one. A hat tipped...

[Olis]

Any early bird bets? :P

 

Godwyn

Spider

Lee

Mercy

Zero <---- :lol: DEAD!! ;)

Constantine

Stone <---- :nuke: DEAD!! :nuke:

Meredith

 

I'll call two! I say Stone and Zero. An each-way bet on the pair. B)

[Taranis]

Now that all the frindlies have been introduced(?) Is it time to guess who lives and who pays the ultimate price?

 

Haha - we'll have to see about that.

 

Any early bird bets? :)

 

Godwyn

Spider

Lee

Mercy

Zero

Constantine

Stone

Meredith

 

I think its terrible that you guys are so used to people being killed that you expect it :P

My guess is Stone, Constantine and one of the twins. Mercy, I fear.

[Lady_Canoness]

Thanks for all the replies guys :)

 

So Stone's going to get it, eh? You people can be so cruel :P

[Taranis]

Thanks for all the replies guys ;)

 

So Stone's going to get it, eh? You people can be so cruel :P

 

Well as the close combat specialist he's in harms way and he has yet to flash his abilities. If any? :P

[Lady_Canoness]

The story continues and the plot progresses - everything is still very much up in the air.

 

____________

 

*Part 7*

 

Meredian touched down amidst the howling wind and rolling rain atop the penthouse landing pad after an hour’s flight from the Patroclus in orbit. It was easy for Inquisitor Godwyn to forget how miserable and grey the rain seasons were on Acre when away from it all, but as she opened the shuttle’s side door it all came flooding back and she scowled against the blasts of cold air as she covered her eyes and braved the open deck and mare for the warm interior of the penthouse suite.

Mercy was waiting for her inside the door with an inviting smile on her face. The willowy giant was always pleased to see her and became impatient when she was away. Lovers, they’d often share a bed, though admittedly Godwyn’s attention had been consumed with duty as of late. Not to be denied, Mercy swept towards her and, bending low, they kissed softly with longing on their lips.

Lee, coming in after the Inquisitor, saw what they were doing and grinned like a dog. He liked to watch.

Seeing this, Mercy gave the pilot a stern look and retreated – but not before passing a promising smile in Godwyn’s direction.

“Sorry boss,” Lee Normandy mumbled an apology when the Inquisitor turned on him, “’ll be mo’ discrete next time. Promise.”

 

Her pilot’s perversions were nothing new for Godwyn, and had it not been for his prodigious skill at flying and intimate knowledge of Meridian she likely would have discontinued his services long ago. As a pilot he was brilliant, but as a man he was… repellent, and it was only a matter of time she figured until the latter outweighed the former.

Leaving Lee to tend to her shuttle, Godwyn sought out her student where she’d made her quarters in the quieter areas in the penthouse. Spider was waiting for her when she arrived.

“Inquisitor,” the younger woman stood as she entered the door. She’d chosen a small den to be her bedroom and had already settled in with her few belongings. The mk. IV anti-material rifle was sitting outside of its satchel, disassembled on a table against the wall.

Godwyn’s attention lingered briefly on the weapon. It had belonged Nerf, an agent of hers who had since died, and had been his most prized possession. It was fitting that Spider had it now. He would have wanted it that way, and Godwyn knew that the young woman was still very fond of him.

Entering the room, the Inquisitor closed the door softly behind her – her metal fingertips brushing gently against the delicate handle. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Spider seemed to shrug. She was wearing fresh clothing and had dried her hair, though her face still looked white from pro-longed exposure to the cold. “Meredith took a look at me,” she said. “She says I’m fine.”

“Good,” Godwyn nodded agreeably at this and plucked her glove from her human hand, placing it on the table beside the rifle. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You as well,” Spider replied, though her words held no warmth within them. “I saw Mercy earlier. She looks good.”

The Inquisitor’s lips turned upwards in a slight smile. Columbo was right; she was quiet, but she had her reasons: Godwyn had not always been looking out for her best interests, and sometimes the contrary was much more accurate. That would have to change.

“Please, sit down,” she motioned towards the sofa that Spider likely used as her bed in the otherwise sparsely furnished room. Spider sat at the Inquisitor’s request, though the young woman’s eyes stayed fixed upon her mentor.

Godwyn walked to the window on the far wall and looked out over the rain-swept city. Droplets of water clung to the plate glass, and the air from her nostrils fogged its surface.

“This is your home,” Spider said when the Inquisitor’s back was turned, “you told me years ago. Do you remember?”

She nodded. “It is my home,” she answered, “this city is the city of my ancestors. I’m surprised you remembered such a small detail.”

The young woman was silent for a time. Godwyn imagined that she was thinking about her own home – the home she never knew.

“But now that we’re here, its trouble isn’t it?”

“Yes, you could say that.”

“Does it hurt?”

Godwyn turned around slowly – Spider was looking at her, waiting for an answer.

She wetted her lips. “No,” Godwyn replied, “I feel very little for this place. My duty is unchanged – as is yours – regardless of where we are.”

The novice Interrogator knew this – the academies had taught her as much – but she had still to grasp the full extent of her duty, and had yet to have her devotion to it tested.

“You’ve read the files about what it is we are doing here?” Godwyn asked, though she knew already what the answer would be.

“Yes.”

“Good, then you know what we are up against.”

“Yes,” Spider replied once again, “but – ”

The Inquisitor motioned that she should speak her mind.

“ – there is more than that, isn’t there? Something the others don’t know?”

“Correct,” Godwyn admitted without hesitation, “there is more.” She knew that Spider would guess eventually – she wasn’t stupid – though the Inquisitor doubted that her student was ready to know the truth. She was strong, smart and capable, but some wounds ran too deep and festered too long.

She would know in time, but no sooner.

“Missing persons are not our only concerns,” she told the younger woman. “I am looking for a dangerous fugitive, and a contact placed him on this world not two months ago. Before I could confirm, however, my contact went dark – disappeared into the ether for all I know – and when I arrived I discovered that he was not the only one. The disappearances are likely connected, so finding one will find them all, yet the elimination of the fugitive takes precedent.”

Spider indicated that she understood: “Who is it?” she asked out of curiosity. It was the question Godwyn had been expecting.

“The name would mean nothing to you,” she lied to her student’s face, “though he is a psyker, and your abilities will be useful when confronting him.”

The young woman accepted this without further question. She may have suspected, in retrospect, but so far as she knew the Librarian had been killed the day Godwyn shot off his arm. She had no way of knowing.

“Reports I read were of wide-spread mutation,” she said.

“They are of another Inquisitor,” Godwyn confirmed. “Her name is von Draken. She’s a Witch Hunter.”

The word had the desired effect, and the young psyker shifted uncomfortably at the thought. The older woman continued:

“She is our ally and can be trusted for now, though that may change with circumstances.”

Leaning forward so that she sat on the edge of the sofa, Spider stared blankly at the opposite wall. A moment passed before she stood up and faced her mentor.

“I’m ready,” she said. “Where do we begin?”

The Inquisitor smiled, trying to be kind.

“We’ll start by looking into the last known location of my contact,” Godwyn replied. “We leave tonight under the cover of darkness. In the meantime, forward your findings from today to Inquisitor von Draken and get some rest, for I don’t think we’ll be back for several days…”

 

* *

 

“Now tha’ is m’ kind o’ firepower,” Lee was smiling, mesmerized now that they’d been uncovered.

Constantine had to agree: they were a lot larger than he had thought they’d be. The pilot started to chuckle – a chuckle that built into a laugh. He was grinning at Constantine like a lad who’d just seen his first pare of bare breasts.

Stone re-entered Meridian’s hold and looked at them like they’d just slandered his regiment. “You two are pathetic!” he barked, drops of rainwater tickling down from his scalp across his forehead. “Don’t just stand and stare! Grab one!”

Lee was only too willing and dove forward enthusiastically. Maxwell Constantine followed him, but slower with a little more caution, a little more reverence, a little more respect for what he was holding.

They’d opened the first of the two crates the Inquisitor had brought back with her from orbit. Inside was a pair of pristine weapons; large, spotless, and menacingly powerful.

“Careful where you point that,” Stone corrected Lee.

The pilot scowled. “ ‘S not armed,” he said defensively.

“The moment you stop respecting that weapon is the moment it kills you,” the Mordian warned him, apparently not hearing or caring what the pilot had to say for himself.

Constantine was not surprised. He knew what these were.

Meltaguns.

“They’ll take out a tank, open a bunker, or make a person disappear into a wisp of smoke,” Stone stated with a nod of approval. “Our boss must know people in high places to get a bran new pair of these.”

Constantine had to agree.

Stepping over the empty crate, Stone moved to the second and final unopened box – flicking open the clasps with a couple quick motions and tossing off the lid. Reaching inside he lifted what looked like a bulky, black lasgun out of the second crate and held it out for the others to see.

“Hellgun,” he said in response to their questioning looks, “a damn fine weapon. Expensive too.” He held it closer and squinted at the designation printed on the side. “Tannhauser pattern,” he read aloud, then; “mk. VIII… I didn’t know they went that high.”

Flipping the weapon over in his hands, Stone brought it up to his shoulder and sighted it down the far end of the hold. “Bran new,” he said softly, “never been fired. Sights aren’t even calibrated.”

Lee and the logistician glanced at each other: neither one understood the Mordian’s quiet reverence for fire arms.

To Constantine, a navy man, it was only natural: compared to the magnificent vessels of the Imperial Navy hand-held firearms might as well be children’s toys in terms of beauty and magnificence.

To Lee, a former smuggler, a rifle meant only one thing: it was too big to conceal. He decided to break the atmosphere with a well-timed fart.

Constantine wrinkled his nose in disgust, and Stone looked even more pissed off than normal.

“Wha’?” Lee chided them, “was get’n too quiet n’ ‘ere anyway.”

Stone put the hellgun back in the crate with its match and closed the lid with the tip of his boot.

“Just get these weapons to the armoury,” he said. “I’ll handle it from there myself.”

“I’ll need these weapons catalogued,” Constantine reminded him, to which the Mordian offered a gruff response:

“You’ll get your precious catalogues when I’m through with these.”

 

*

 

Hard as he was, Stone was man of his word and by evening Constantine had the two meltaguns and four hellguns laid out before him on the dining table. Each had been calibrated, cleaned, and made ready for use by the Mordian, which was good considering that the Inquisitor had just made it known that they would be leaving in a few hours time for an as-of-yet undisclosed location.

Turning the weapons over in his hands and studying them closely, it was Constantine’s job to make sure than he knew and recorded all the weapon specifics and requirements prior to their use. To some such a task would seem mind-numbing, but to Constantine it was vital. Weapons needed ammunition, spare parts, proper maintenance and careful attention to stay in peak working condition, and it was his responsibility to ensure all of that was taken care of in a timely and efficient manner. Aboard a frigate or a cruiser such a task required a staff of at least twenty officers and dozens of clericals, but for an Inquisitor? One hour’s time and a quiet place to work. He enjoyed it, and bit by bit he found himself understanding the Mordian’s regard for weapons that were – in the grand scheme of things – so small. There was sort of perfection too them – a simplicity in their compact design – a work of genius in fitting a potent weapon of death into such a small size.

Stone might be onto something.

“You have a sword.”

Buried in his work, the question caught the young man by surprised, as did the honeyed voice asking it.

Standing a little ways to his left the giant form of Zero was resting against the wall with her golden eyes drawn towards the sabre hanging from Constantine’s side.

“I do,” he replied, placing his dataslate on the table and resting a hand beside as he turned towards her. The killer’s eyes stayed fixed to his blade.

This was how conversations with Zero usually progressed: she would say something out of nowhere, to which he would reply, and she would then say something again if she felt so inclined. It was almost like talking to a child, or an animal, or something else not entirely human.

He smiled.

She smiled back.

He thought she might like him in a funny way, but had no idea what that was supposed to be like. She and her twin were not like other people.

“Do you use it?” she asked, referring to his blade.

“I try not to,” was his way of being clever – though cleverness always seemed lost on Zero.

“Fight me.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Are you scared?” her big eyes stared deeply into his.

Constantine could feel his face turning red. He was scared – very scared – and with good reason: he’d watched Zero and Mercy fight many times, and he had no notions of being able to keep pace – not to mention that her sword was easily twice the size of his. “Well…” he tried to deflect the question, “I don’t think it would be an even match for you.”

It worked.

Sword at her side, the giant folded her long arms across her chest. The look on her face was one of resigned disappointment.

“Fear will only ever hold you back,” she told him. “No fear.”

Constantine shook his head defensively. “I’m not afraid,” he said, avoiding her eyes by looking back at his dataslate, “but you have to admit it does seem a little foolish.”

She didn’t answer, and when he looked up Zero was gone. The only sound was of the rain pounding against the windows in the other room.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

See, I've all but avoided reading any kind of FanFic work here for a very long time - with one exception - but having just read Part 7 all I have to say is... Bravo, ranking right near the top for how a good FanFic piece should be.

[Lady_Canoness]

Thank you Captain. I'm glad that you like it, and I will endeavour to keep making it so.

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

another great update Lady C :)

 

Im liking Constantine more and more, and Spider's character is really developing nicely.

[Azekai]

Very fun- seeing more of Zero is welcome! I agree with Bohemond's assessment- interesting and fully dimensional characters as always.

[Lady_Canoness]

Thanks guys :huh:

 

As you can imagine, I'm just as keen to see where this goes as you are!

 

-L_C

[Lady_Canoness]

Whoa - its part 8 and I haven't killed anyone yet! :D

 

All joking aside, this part was a long time coming, and I'm glad to put it out so soon after the release of 6th edition.

There may be a few niggling typos here and there (the author's eyes eventually become blind to such things after repeat exposures) but nothing too serious.

 

Enjoy!

 

________________________

 

*Part 8*

 

Meridian lifted off from the penthouse shortly after the midnight hour, rotating slowly overtop the landing platform before climbing into the night sky on the orange glow of triple afterburners. Inside the main hold, Godwyn’s crew waited in silent anticipation around the rectangular briefing table as Meridian rumbled and shook around them as Lee Normandy edged it higher and higher from his position at the helm – the angle of their assent growing gradually less extreme as he levelled off at forty-thousand feet.

“S’all clear ba’ there,” his voice crackled over the intercom once the assent was over, “y’ can stop grabbin’ yer arses n’ breath a l’il.”

Lee’s humour went largely unappreciated but the message was received, and, now that the shuttle was level, the brief reprieve from duty was over and the team each went their separate ways within the shuttle’s interior.

Constantine went to the nest – Meridian’s communications hub located just behind the cluttered hole Lee called his cockpit – while Stone went to the cargo-hold sub-level to check over their cache of weapons. Meredith entertained herself in the small galley at the aft end of the main hold making instant caffeine, and the twins disappeared into either the noisy engine service compartments or cramped living modules – both giants slipping away so suddenly that they were difficult to keep track of.

Godwyn and Spider remained in the hold.

“Inquisitor,” Meredith delivered a steaming mug of instant caffeine into Godwyn’s hands with a small nod before placing a second mug on the table in front of Spider.

Godwyn motioned her appreciation with a tip of her cup, but the Interrogator didn’t touch the beverage before her, and, arms folded with elbows on the table’s flat surface, kept her face turned towards where her mentor stood on the opposite side of the hold as if the stout doctor was no more than a passing shadow.

An annoyed scowl on her face, Meredith said nothing and returned to the galley, retrieving her own lovingly prepared caffeine before retreating to her cabin in silence and leaving the Inquisitors in their own company.

“Drink,” Godwyn told the younger woman, her own mug already half finished, “it’ll help keep you alert.”

The flight would take six hours at the least before they could start scanning radio frequencies, at which point it became anyone’s guess as to how soon they would find a match. Hopefully it would take only hours, but Godwyn was prepared for it to take days. In any event, her team needed to remain focused.

Dipping her cup closer to her lips, Spider tested the steaming liquid but quickly withdrew with a whimper as it burnt her tongue. Godwyn hadn’t noticed. The beverage was hot, but thanks to the practices of an uncertified medicae the Inquisitor had lost most of her sensitivity to pain years ago.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

The girl nodded vigorously, but her eyes were weeping at the corners.

Godwyn gave her a minute to recuperate, in which time she finished her own piping hot caffeine and placed the mug down on the table.

“You want to talk to me?” the student asked her mentor, wiping her eyes and looking up to meet the older woman’s gaze.

The question left Godwyn with a slightly surprised pause. She leaned her hands onto the table; “I do. How did you know?”

She didn’t need to answer: they both knew how already.

“You’ve learned a measure of control,” the Inquisitor noted with some satisfaction.

“Yes.”

“Good,” Godwyn nodded, looking away around the now vacant hold, “good.”

When the Inquisitor had first met the Spider, the girl had been standing in her kitchen filling her face with food. She was an unknown with no past and no future, and was only alive because of her timely rescue by the very individual Godwyn now sought to kill. Spider was a teenager then, and was a danger to herself and others: more than once, Godwyn had considered killing her if only to remove the threat that she posed.

Years had passed since then, and the girl had grown into a young woman – the unsanctioned psyker into an Inquisitorial novice. Godwyn now hoped to make that transition complete, and erase the girl that was while creating the Inquisitor to be. It made her something of a protégé.

“Your schooling,” Godwyn started, seating herself at the head of the table, “what have you learned?”

Spider shrugged; “It’s been five years. I’ve learned a lot.”

“Good. All of it is a lie.”

The woman with the spider tattoo remained unflappable. “Why?” was all she asked.

“Because that is what you need to believe,” Godwyn replied. “The Imperium doesn’t exist because it is right, or because it is the divine will of the Emperor that makes it so. It exists on the basis of redundancy, and because countless people like you and me are willing to sacrifice everything to keep it that way.”

She stopped, if only to let her words sink in.

To some, what she had just said would amount to heresy – blasphemy – treason – but to Spider it hardly warranted a response. In fact, it didn’t: she had nothing to say.

“They tell you this because they believe it will save your soul,” Godwyn continued, “I’m telling you this because I believe it will save your life, and because had I known this simple fact from the start many people would not have had to die needlessly.

“I’ve lost a lot of good people,” she told Spider. “Nerf was one of them.”

Mentioning the Catachan’s name evoked the response that Godwyn had counted it would, and sitting in a shuttle’s hold forty-thousand feet in the air the young woman across from her seemed to shrink where she sat – becoming smaller and smaller until she was that same girl Godwyn had first met standing in her kitchen.

“Nerf’s death was a sacrifice,” the Inquisitor said, “and it is a sacrifice you have to be willing to make. If you can’t, or won’t, you will never understand what it means to be an Inquisitor.”

At a glance the girl vanished, and it was the Interrogator that once again met her master’s eyes. “I have sacrificed everything,” she said. “I have nothing left to give.”

Spider may have believed it, but Godwyn knew better. “For your sake, I hope you are right.”

 

* * *

 

Day was just starting to break when Inquisitor Godwyn was called to the nest. Most of her team was resting, but in the shuttle’s communication centre Constantine was wide awake and actively matching frequencies picked up by Meridian’s sensors to archived communications left by the Inquisitor’s contact. Signatures varied with each communiqué as the missing agent kept moving and content was encrypted, giving away nothing as to transmission location, but latencies between signal bursts were unique enough that the former officer thought he could identify similarities that would be accurate nineteen times out of twenty. Numbers like that would never fly in the navy, but this wasn’t the navy, and Constantine didn’t need any more proof than a hunch to pass information up the chain of command.

Six-and-a-half hours after take-off, he found what he was looking for.

“A match, Inquisitor,” he explained, rolling to the side of the tiny room so that his employer could get a better look of the read-out. With monitors, cables, and cogitator banks stacked all around him, Constantine pointed to the middle screen with an outstretched finger.

Her human hand resting on the back of his chair for support, Godwyn leaned over his shoulder for a closer look. She squinted. “Good find. Can you get coordinates?”

The young man shook his head, crinkling his moustache as he did so. “We’re a long ways out still,” he said, “however, if I can get a reading from three or more different locations, I should be able to triangulate an approximate point of origin.”

“Good,” she nodded her approval, “do it.”

Spinning in his chair, Maxwell Constantine slid the retractable work surface out from its hiding spot beneath the tertiary data-entry interface and plucked a stylus from one of the cubby holes crudely drilled into the wall.

“This won’t take long,” he said, mostly to himself, “and tapped the stylus twice against his upper lip before tearing a fresh sheet of parchment off the scroll anchored to the sheet-metal work surface and jotting down three planetary coordinates on its surface – drawing a rough triangle between the three.

“Leeee!?” he leaned back so that his head poked through the cockpit door.

“Maaaaaaax!?” the pilot, crammed between his cluttered possessions and pinups, echoed back.

“Can you take us to these coordinates?” the logistics man held out the piece of parchment and pointed to it with the stylus.

Lee looked over his shoulder, then groaned as he reached back and grabbed the parchment in his grubby palm. Sticking his tongue in his unshaven cheek, he made an odd clucking sound as he thought about it. “Yeh,” he said after a pause, “yeh, I c’n do tha’.”

Wheeling his chair back into the nest, Constantine turned to the Inquisitor; “I can have an approximation in about an hour.”

It was acceptable, and Godwyn left him too his work.

 

*

 

The signal was coming from a broadcast tower five-hundred miles away near the foothills of the northern mountains. Locating it took an hour and finding it once they had a plotted course took another two-and-half, carrying them far into the planet’s less populated regions where storms of sleet and freezing rains transformed the landscape into a desolate wasteland of flash-floods sucking mires. Lakes swelled up in the lowlands, and treacherous mud-slides raked the highlands so that little grew and nothing prospered. That no-one live up here by choice was unsurprising, and as Lee brought them down through the clouds they were greeted by a landscape that was dark, dirty, and grey. Long-range scanners picked up the signal beacons of mining outposts built up in the rocky crust of the highlands, but no settlements were visible, and nary a sign of human presence was visible on the land below.

“Shoul’ be movin’ wi’in range o’ visible righ’ quick,” Lee announced to the Inquisitor as the frozen lakes of mud and ice blurred beneath the cockpit window. “Kee’ yer eyes on th’ horiz’n…”

Black mountains dominated the distant horizon through the swells of rain, but against the stark landscape a grey outline in metal began to emerge. Getting steadily closer, they saw that it was broadcast tower extending a several dozen metres into the sky and that at its base was a metal bunker built into the outcroppings of mountain rock. The bunker was shaped almost like a flower with five arms of equal length stretching out from the centre like petals, and as Meridian sped by in its first circling pass the people inside the cockpit could see the faint glow of lights twinkling up towards them through the swirling storm.

“Inquisitor, I’m not getting any response from the tower,” Constantine stated from where he was stationed in the nest. “The broadcast signal is still there, but I’ve had no luck reaching an operator on any channels.”

Standing behind the pilot with arms crossed, Godwyn peered through the rain-streaked windows at the tower. “Keep trying,” she instructed the logistician, and he acknowledged immediately.

The Inquisitor turned to leave, but Lee Normandy reached out to stop her.

“Wha’ y’ want me t’ do?” he asked.

“Keep circling,” she told him, “and find somewhere suitable for a drop-zone.”

“Aye boss.”

 

Iliad Stone was getting ready in the main hold under the Interrogator’s watchful gaze when Godwyn stepped through the hatch.

He was always with the vanguard party when the Inquisitor required them to enter a potentially hostile environment, and it was a responsibility he took very seriously. Dressed with a tactical vest overtop of his carapace plating and bundled cold weather clothing, the Mordian had his close combat weapons, Jack and Ripper, easily accessible at his chest while his riot-pattern shotgun was secured in a specially made holster across his lower back.

Standing at ease with his back straight and his eyes forward, the former guardsman stood waiting for orders as Godwyn entered. Veterans of the Iron Guard would follow instructions to the letter – something that was an invaluable asset in the eyes of Inquisition as such obedience proved to be difficult to acquire.

“Find the mainframe down there and make sure it is secure,” Godwyn told her agent, “that is your primary objective. Questions?”

Stone said nothing in response. No questions.

Silent as well, Spider did not stir from where she was sat but continued to watch the Mordian closely.

“Good,” the Inquisitor nodded, her attention shifting away from her student and back to the soldier; “Be easy, Stone.”

The Mordian did was he was told and sat so that his weight leaned against the briefing table behind him.

“We can’t make contact with the tower but scanners aren’t showing anything irregular,” Godwyn continued, walking slowly around the hold on her way to the galley and a fresh cup of caffeine. “I’ll send Constantine with you for technical support in accessing the mainframe.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Spider interjected, drawing her mentor’s eyes in her direction though Stone did not bother to turn around. “I can get whatever we need from the mainframe.”

Ignoring the insubordination, Godwyn tilted her head in agreement. “Be ready to go,” she told her student, and the young woman rose quickly to her feet to gather her things. “I expect that Lee will have identified somewhere you can land very soon.”

Spider hastened to the sub-deck where the Inquisitor’s team had stored their equipment and Godwyn watched her go. The Interrogator was eager to prove herself, and for the time being Godwyn was willing to let her do just that.

 

* *

 

+“This ‘s th’ closest I c’n git ‘cha,”+ Lee’s voice crackled over the intercom, +“th’ res’ ‘s up t’ you.”+

“Close enough!” Stone snapped back. “Just hold steady!”

Stomping across the sub-deck towards the starboard cargo door, he crabbed the release lever with a heavily gloved hand. He could hear the wind and the rain lashing the side of the shuttle through the metal of the hull – three inches separating him from the storm.

The young woman with the tattoos was a few paces behind him, her hood pulled up on her cloak and her neck and hands bundled against the cold.

“Are you ready?” he asked, looking at her over his shoulder.

She nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

Stone pulled the door open with a single tug and both occupants of the sub-deck were instantly blasted with a howling gust of freezing air and water. Spider recoiled and Stone covered his face with a mitted hand as he staggered closer to the open door through which the wind howled. Looking out, he had to squint his eyes against the storm in order to see the flat surface of a landing pad beneath them. It was too small for Meridian to land safely, and the shuttle swayed in the air as Lee battle to hold it in place against the storm.

“Come on!” Stone called to the woman behind him. She was fighting her way forward as her cloak caught the wind and billowed around her.

Not delaying any longer, the ex-Iron Guardsman leaned through the door and dropped to the surface of the bunker. It was no more than a twelve foot jump and took less than a second. When he landed his left foot shot out from under him to the side as his boots hit ice, and he crashed down onto his hands and knees in such a way that his wrists and left ankle were jarred by the impact.

The wind stole away whatever curse words he may have yelled.

Spider landed a little ways behind him, and though she hit the deck hard she was quick to get up.

Limbs still smarting, Stone got his feet and drew the shotgun from its holster behind his back. His hands hurt, but there was no way in the Emperor’s Grand Plan that Iliad Stone was going to die without a gun in his hands.

Behind him, Spider left her carbine slung over her shoulders and clambered forward, her feet sliding across the iced landing pad as she followed the Mordian slowly forward.

The wind whipped their clothes and the rain lashed at their exposed faces like a swarm of furious insects. Turning slowly in the air – the roar of its engines nearly muffled by the storm – Meridian lifted away into the sky.

+“Interrogator? Stone? Come in please.”+ Constantine’s voice in his ear sounded tiny and insignificant as the Mordian scrambled off the exposed landing pad and under the covered archway that shielded the door from the worst of the elements.

“I hear you,” he replied, the young woman following him in and brushing the rain from her cloak as he did so, “what is it?”

+“… ust… ilat… ing,”+ the sound of Constantine’s voice garbled between bursts of static.

“Say again? I can’t hear you,” Stone turned his back on the storm and tried to focus on the logistician’s voice.

+“Better?”+

“Much.”

+“Right. Switch channel to alpha theta.”+

“Alpha theta, copy.” He turned towards the Interrogator. The look on her face said she had heard and was making the proper adjustments.

+“Are you receiving?”+

“Yeah. What is it?”

On the other end of the line, Constantine cleared his throat. +“I was close enough to get some more detailed scans of the bunker. It is not a military facility, and so access to the mainframe should be straight-forward when your inside. Primary power is offline, however, so expect it to be dark.”+

Easy for him to say, sitting in a cushy armchair in a heated cabin.

“If primary power is out, then how is the broadcast tower still active?” Spider had to shout into her comm. bead in order to be heard.

+“It likely runs off an independent generator,”+ Constantine replied, the calm of his voice a stark contrast to the tempest unfurling around them. +“System redundancy in an installation as remote as this does not surprise me.”+

It didn’t surprise Stone either, and understanding the installation’s power grid wasn’t what they were here for. He was about to remind the young woman of this when his stomach performed a sudden and uncomfortable back-flip that effectively silenced his voice. Grasping his gut, Stone had to fight down the urge to vomit.

An unusual calm had spread across Spider’s face. When it passed she spoke again in a commanding tone; “I want to speak to the Inquisitor.”

Feet away through the archway, rain whipped and whistled through the air.

+“Talk to me Spider,”+ the Godwyn’s voice replaced Constantine’s.

The young woman placed the palm of her gloved hand flat against the worn metal surface of the door. It may have been a trick in Stone’s mind, but as she did so he thought he saw a faint glow around her fingers.

He blinked; must be imagining things.

“Inquisitor, this facility shouldn’t be offline,” Spider removed her hand from the door, “something is wrong here.”

+“Retrieval of data is your priority,”+ the Inquisitor reminded her coolly, +“everything else is a secondary concern. Understood?”+

“Yes, I understand.”

+“Good. Stay vigilant though, as it will take us a few minutes to get there if you require aid.”+

The Interrogator closed the feed, and after a few breaths Stone felt normal again. Once the queasy feeling had left him, he located the access controls to the door and moved towards them for a closer look.

“Damnation!” he spat under his breath – the controls were iced over and completely useless.

Holstering his shotgun, he pulled Ripper from its sheathe and tried to pick away at the ice, but the tribal blade’s narrow tip proved ineffective and only scratched thin lines into the ice’s surface.

“Out of the way,” Spider elbowed past the Mordian, a huge fighting knife in hand. The ex-guardsman stepped aside, and the Interrogator jammed the blade into the panel. A few twists and stabs later and the panel’s faceplate popped off and clattered to the deck, exposing bundles of circuitry brittle wires. Stone didn’t know what he was looking at, but Spider went about it with a familiar ease, and after a few cut wires and hasty redirections the doors groaned open.

Inside was black and still, and the wind from the echoed ahead of them in a low howl.

Pulling a lamp-pack from where it was tucked inside his tactical vest, Stone flicked it on and swung the narrow beam of light back and forth along a narrow corridor flanked on either side by long pipes and support beams. Stepping inside with his shotgun drawn, he shone the light in Spider’s direction – illuminating the white flesh of her face underneath the black ink of the arachnid.

“Is there something I should know?” he asked in a low, rumbling down as the wind rushed past them into the dark bunker.

The Interrogator squinted and glared into the light. “No,” she said, “Move out.”

He didn’t like it but he obeyed, and with the lamp-pack in one hand he stowed his shotgun in favour of the more manageable Jack and strode forward.

Upright and fearless, the Mordian led the way into the unknown.

[Aqui]

Jack and Ripper :)

 

I like ^_^

[Taranis]

Oh no! A cliffhanger. As always a superb read. Stone is in his work clothes and Spider is in for a nasty surprise. Great things to read soon I'm sure.

Stone seems to be a extremely by the book and professional. I'm looking forward to the two of them searching the bunker.

[Lady_Canoness]

Thanks gents. Writing seems to be moving a little quicker these days, so hopefully you won't have to wait toooo long between updates. :yes:

[Chapter Master Onyxius]

In the name of the Emperor and his Holy Ordo, I demand MORE! This knowledge is too great and the feeling of suspents is awesome, makes me feel like I am reading a book from the Horus Heresy, except with the Inquisition in it.

[Lady_Canoness]

In the name of the Emperor and his Holy Ordo, I demand MORE! This knowledge is too great and the feeling of suspents is awesome, makes me feel like I am reading a book from the Horus Heresy, except with the Inquisition in it.

 

Ask, and thou shalt receive.

 

Hot off the press (as in I finished it all of two minutes ago) comes part 9. Suspense be-gone!

 

In another note, this part was particularly enjoyable to write. Lets see if it is just so when it comes to reading!

 

----------------------------

 

*Part 9*

 

Visibility was down to two-hundred meters and dropping quickly when Inquisitor Godwyn was called up to the cockpit by Meridian’s pilot.

“What is it, Lee?” she asked, holding onto the handrails mounted on the ceiling as Lee Normandy’s scattered belongs skidded along the floor and across the dashboard, turning his already cluttered space into a complete sty as the shuttle banked and rumbled through the air.

Grinding a wad of chew between his teeth, the former smuggler tapped one of the instruments panels with a dirty fingernail. “Win’s pickin’ up,” he wiped a string of brown drool from his chin on the back of his sleeve, “if it kee’s go’in a’ this ra’e I won’ be able t’ pi’ up the l’il lass an’ soldier boy.”

Godwyn squinted for a closer look at the dial. Lee had stuck a cut-out of a tasty strumpet with her bare ass in the air over the instrument dial, and when he noticed the Inquisitor looking at it he gave her a lascivious grin.

“Though’ y’ migh’ like tha’…” he said, biting his lower lip, “jus’ let me know ‘f ya wan’ a couple fer yerself.”

He winked, but Godwyn had a lot of practice in ignoring him.

“How soon until a pick up is out of the question?” she demanded.

Lee, she was pleased to see, could still take matters seriously. “Abou’ ten mins,” he replied, “twen’y ‘f we’re luh’y.”

It would have to do.

“Keep us here for twenty,” she told him and strode from the cockpit.

 

*

 

+“You have twenty minutes to find what you need and get out. Clear?”+

“Very clear,” Stone replied to the Inquisitor’s order, “see you at the rendezvous in twenty.”

“Move faster,” Spider said from behind him in hardly more than a whisper, “let’s find what we need and get out of here.”

The Mordian didn’t need to be told twice, and, with the Interrogator at his back, picked up the pace into a jog.

Constantine’s assessment had been correct and the bunker was not of military design, though as they advanced deeper into the bunker with a renewed sense of urgency Stone quickly noted that it could be defensible if need be. The corridor they entered off the landing platform was long and without any real cover, making it a perfect kill-zone if anyone were to be hiding at the far end with a machine gun. Visibility was almost zero in the dark and the sound of their hurried footsteps combined with the low gusts of wind made for hard hearing, but as he advanced Stone no signs of any activity in his lamp-pack’s yellow beam. There were no doors on either side of the corridor and the ventilation ducts overhead were perfectly still. The facility was likely no longer in commission, in which case getting what they wanted should be fairly straight-forward.

“Door,” Spider announced after barely a minute of running, looking ahead to where a sealed access-hatch similar to the one at the landing pad blocked their way forward; “give me your light and I’ll deal with it.”

Handing over his lamp-pack, Stone dropped back into a covering position and in seconds the Interrogator had pried the faceplate off the control panel and was operating on its internal circuitry.

“That should do it,” she said after a couple minutes work, but when the door didn’t open she had to look for alternatives. Shining the lamp-pack around the walls, the beam came to rest over a heavy-looking lever a few feet from the door.

“Over there,” she pointed, “that looks like a manual release. Pull it.”

The Mordian backed to the door, keeping Jack covering the corridor behind them, and extended his arm towards the lever, though he froze before he could pull it as his boot landed in something with a sickening squishing sound.

“What the…?”

The yellow beam of light dropped down along the soldier’s leg and stopped where his boot had stepped in a gooey pool of thick, dark liquid.

“Get your foot out of there!” Spider hissed and Stone obeyed immediately – thin strands of ooze hanging from the bottom of his foot as he pulled it away:

“What in all that’s Holy is that?” he asked, staring down at the muck that covered his black boots. The puddle was slowly reforming itself to fill the imprint that Stone’s foot had made.

“Can you walk?” Spider asked, ignoring that ex-guardsman’s curiosity and holding to the facts.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’m fine.”

“Good, then pull that release and let’s go.”

He tugged the release and the door opened – Spider leading the way through without a backwards glance. Stone followed her slowly, his foot sticking to the metal floor with every forward step.

It did not take much time for them to reach the base of the broadcast tower where the corridor ended in a cavernous room filled with whirring cogitator banks. Lights flickered and winked while the machines made whirring and clicking noises as all around them thousands of radio frequencies were calculated and computed across the planet’s surface.

“Systems still have power,” Stone commented factually as he and the Interrogator searched the monstrous room they had entered, “What we’re looking for should be nearby.”

Spider, however, seemed hesitant, and from the corner of his eye Stone noticed.

“What are you not telling me?” he asked in a low rumble. “What do I not know?”

“Nothing.”

The Mordian nodded slowly and, eyes casing the darkness, stuck out his chiselled chin. It wasn’t warm in the bunker’s dark interior, but there was a heat building up under his collar that wasn’t from his layered clothing.

“With respect,” he said calmly, “I think you’re full of s***.”

The young woman had guts, he’d willingly give her that, and she didn’t so much as bat an eye at his words. A heart of stone, if he didn’t say so himself.

“I don’t care what you think,” she told him.

“Well it’s about time you started. What did you mean when you told the others something is wrong?”

Her eyes were like daggers but she wasn’t mad enough to ignore him completely. She looked away. “I don’t know what it is, but this place wasn’t decommissioned like you think. People should be here.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

“Well that’s good to know,” the Mordian’s eyes wandered back to the humming cogitator banks. The Interrogator still seemed hesitant, but Stone didn’t see how her revelation changed anything. Their mission was still the same. “Can we get back to looking for this thing now? We don’t have that much time.”

She didn’t resist any further.

The cogitator caverns turned out to be numerous within the bunker, and each was identical to the last. Stone didn’t know how they’d find what they were looking for, yet Spider seemed to have some whimsical sense of direction and turned to a machine at random after several minutes of searching.

“This is it,” she announced; “Give me a moment.”

Stone checked his chronometer – they didn’t have many moments left. Spider appeared to know what she was doing, however, so he left her to it.

+“Iliad? Interrogator? Come in please.”+ Constantine was back on the intercom.

“I hear you,” Stone replied, looking away from what Spider was doing and watching the extremities of the cavern; had it suddenly got darker in here?

+“Conditions out here are getting worse… If you take much longer we won’t be able to pick you up until the weather improves.”+

“We’re nearly done here,” the Mordian assured him. “Hold for a few minutes more and we’ll be out.”

+“I’ll hold you to that, Iliad. Be safe.”+

“Copy. Out.”

He turned back to the Interrogator where she leaned over a chirping control panel.

“How are we doing with that?”

Her eyes studied the flickering lights intently, and in the darkness it seemed as if her spider tattoo was crawling its way further along her face. “Almost there…” she told him.

A chill ran down his spine. Instinctively, Stone spun around – Jack raised and ready.

Nothing. But it wasn’t his nerves… he didn’t get nervous.

Did he just see a shadow in the corner of his eye?

“Spider…?”

“Just a few more seconds.”

Eyes penetrating the darkness, Stone panned Jack across the darkness. Mordians didn’t get nervous. Didn’t get fearful.

The room was very cold all of a sudden and he noticed his breath for the first time. There – that was definitely movement.

He swung Jack over, but couldn’t see a target.

F*** it. He holstered Jack and quick-drew the riot-shotgun.

“I have it,” Spider said from behind him, but she didn’t sound relieved.

“Spider, what the hell is going on?” he whispered the words. Things were definitely moving in the dark. He couldn’t see them, couldn’t hear them, but he knew they were there.

“I know,” she told him, slowly slipping her bullpup carbine from her shoulder and bringing it up in both hands. “They are watching us.”

“What are ‘they’?”

She swallowed loud enough for Stone to hear: she was scared. Not good.

“I don’t know,” she told him quietly. “I don’t know where they came from. They weren’t there a minute ago, but they’re not the people who should be here.”

Mordians were never afraid.

“Give me the light,” he said coolly – somehow it was still pointed at the ground.

“No,” she replied softly, though her voice was starting to shake, “the only reason we’re still alive is that we haven’t panicked. The moment we do that, we die.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Yes.”

“Well…” he was swimming for thought; what the hell was he supposed to do if not fight? “Are we just going to walk out of here?”

“Yeah,” she was grasping at straws, “I think that might work. They don’t know we’re aware of them. We might be able to escape if we’re careful.”

“What in the name of the Emperor’s Holy F***ing Ass**** are these things?”

She looked up at him. Stone wasn’t scared – he was pissed off.

They started to walk – very slowly – back the way they came, Spider calmly stuffing a dataslate into her cloak as she did so.

“They can sense fear,” she said almost breathlessly. “Good thing you don’t scare easily.”

With the light pointed at their feet, Stone had to point his shotgun at just about everything.

“How close are they?” he asked, trying to get some idea of just how dead they were going to be if they panicked.

“Very close.”

“And how many?”

“I can’t tell.”

“S***.”

Step by step, they made it out of the cogitator room they were in, but were still a far ways away from the landing pad and their escape.

“You realize that in a few minutes our pick-up is gone, right?” Stone had to make himself heard as his chronometer clicked closer to the twenty minute mark.

“Yes, I realize that.”

“And that if we miss it we’re out of luck?”

“Yes, I get that too.”

Stone was starting to get agitated and sweat dampened his brow despite the cold. “We keep going at this rate and we are missing the pick up,” he said very pointedly.

“We won’t make it if we run.”

“And we won’t make it if we don’t!”

The Interrogator knew he was right, but either wasn’t ready to face the truth, or too afraid risk running. “We can’t run yet!” she hissed, watching over their backs as she tried to walk as casually as possible after the Mordian.

Stone had already made up his mind, however. “We get the straightaway and I’m running,” he said, leaving no room for rebuttal. “The mission won’t fail because we’re afraid of the dark.”

They got to the mouth of the corridor leading to the landing pad with less than a minute to spare. Looking around, Stone immediately noticed that the puddle of liquid he’d stepped in on their way inside was gone. Now he hated this place even more.

“Ready?” he looked down at the Interrogator once they’d crossed the threshold of the bunker’s inner door. The look in her eyes said it was now or never.

Stone took deep, steadying breath – realized halfway through that it could be his last – and exhaled:

“FOR TERRA’S GOLDEN THRONE!”

Spinning on his heels Stone raked the darkness with ceaseless shotgun fire so that it pounded in his ears and set his very soul on edge. Drill after drill after drill that had been drummed into him as a lad came surging out all at once, and every second of every battle he’d ever been in flew through his blood-scorched veins.

Whether or not he hit anything was unknown to him. Whether or not there was actually anything to shoot at was a mystery. Beside him, Spider unloaded her carbine on full auto into the gloom without uttering a sound.

Seconds in battle always seemed to take years, and every moment that one’s life hung in the balance became seared into the mind in a tapestry of war. It was thoughtless, automatic, bestial, yet training overruled mere consciousness, and Mordians had training in abundance.

Ten shots and Stone was finished. His weapon snapped up into his shoulder and before his mind registered a difference his legs had already turned around and were springing towards the exit.

Spider’s shooting ceased as she came racing after him. There was no thought to it. Training overruled thought.

“We need a pick up now!” the Interrogator was shouting. Her voice was alive with a fear of death. Stone had no such emotions – he just kept moving: living or dying never factored into a battle once the fighting started.

Ahead was a light at the end of the tunnel and he ran towards it with every ounce of his speed. He could feel the wind rushing – feel the moisture on the air – and very soon the rain on his face as he and Spider broke from the darkness of the underground bunker and dashed across the treacherous footing and crushing crosswinds of the landing pad to where Meridian lowered herself to just within their reach.

Behind him, Spider lost her foot and fell. Without hesitation Stone turned back, grabbed her by the front of her clothing, and hauled her back onto her feet.

Meridian started to level out and the side-hatch slid open as Inquisitor Godwyn stood with the two giants braced against the wind.

“Get in!” the Inquisitor extended her hand, yelling over the howl of the engines and the wind. “Come on! Move!”

Stone threw Spider into her arms, then accepted Zero’s hand to haul himself up afterwards, and just as his feet left the tarmac he looked back over his shoulder at what was behind him.

Nothing.

There was nothing.

The only thing behind them was the gaping black maw of the bunker doorway still open as the shuttle pulled away into the storm. From what they had fled there was no sign. No enemy had come.

 

“You have the data?” Godwyn asked, holding onto a hand brace as Meridian’s interior quivered and shook while Lee accelerated to take them above the storm.

Sitting on the floor – her face white from either fear or the cold – Spider freed the dataslate from the fold of her green coloured cloak and handed it over. Inquisitor Godwyn looked grateful, but said nothing as she pocketed it herself.

“What happened down there?” she looked between the soldier and her student for an answer.

Swaying with the movement of the shuttle while his shotgun dangled on its straps, Stone didn’t really have an answer to the Inquisitor’s question. Training and a soldier’s instinct had carried him so far, but as the shuttle gained altitude he felt the cold calculus of reason stepping back into his mind. What had happened? Really happened? What were the facts?

He hadn’t seen anything. He hadn’t heard anything. He hadn’t felt anything. It had been dark, he had fired his weapon, and he ran.

He ran. That was the fact.

“Something was down there,” Spider spoke up, drawing the eyes of the Inquisitor and the twin giants, though Stone did not look her way. She was the one that saw something; she was the one that convinced him something was there.

He didn’t know if he believed her.

“Iliad?”

He looked up when the Inquisitor spoke his name. All four women were looking at him.

“Did you see anything?”

The giants looked impassive and distant like they always did. The Inquisitor, Godwyn, was similarly resolute and unreadable – she was asking the questions here. Only the Interrogator, the young woman with the tattoos who was sitting on the floor, showed any emotion at all: desperation.

“No,” the Mordian’s face hardened around his piercing gaze, “I didn’t see anything.”

 

*

 

Spider’s cabin aboard Meridian was nothing special. Like all the others – of which there were eight, four on each side of the shuttle – hers was small and cramped with enough room for a bunk, a locker, and little else. The walls were unfinished metal and hummed and vibrated as shuttle ploughed through the air, with the only light coming from a single glow-globe in the middle of the ceiling, but at least it was private, and it let her be alone with her thoughts.

Throwing off her cloak and letting it fall to the floor, she sat on her bunk with her arms around her knees. For a time, all she could do was sit there and breathe – the humming walls helping her mind stay refreshingly blank.

It felt like she’d been thinking forever.

Training, lessons, the academy, the people… it seemed like mere noise – noise that filled her brain until she felt like screaming. Reading, writing, arithmetic… countless hours spent learning a life’s worth schooling. History, theology, politics… were they even worth knowing? Did any of it matter?

She found herself thinking again – little noises in her brain – and groaned as she hid her face in her hands. Would it ever stop? Would it ever go away?

Knowing for the sake of knowing? She’d preferred it when she didn’t know anything.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Across the knuckles of her right hand, fresh, black ink stared up at her from where four letters had been embedded into her flesh. The letters spelled a name, and she kissed each of them in turn.

Nerf.

It was the name that matter more to her than anything else she had ever known, the name she thought of in times of darkness; the name she wanted but could never have.

What would he have thought about where she was now?

Grinning, the Catachan would have shaken his head when he saw what she had become. He’d tell her that it was funny how things turned out, but that he was proud of her. He would have warned her not to get lost in the crowd, to stay true to herself, to never forget what made her who she was.

She was a woman now, not a child like when they’d last been together. She’d grown up, but she hadn’t moved on. She didn’t want to move on. She’d never forget. Spider still thought of him, still dreamed of him, still longed for him… still loved him.

When he died it tore her apart, and for the longest time she couldn’t put herself back together. She wouldn’t.

She’d tried to kill herself more than once – tried to lose herself in crowd – but something always brought her back.

He brought her back.

He’d died for her – to save her. What would he think if she squandered that sacrifice? No, she owed it to him to live – to carry on – to try and be normal and lead a normal life. Because of him she had that determination; because of him she would succeed.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Spider mumbled mostly to herself, not moving from where she sat.

The pocket door opened and Inquisitor Godwyn stepped in, brushing her student’s cloak aside with her boot as she entered.

“No – ” she held out a hand as the young woman swung her feet to the floor and made to sit up, “ – don’t move on my account. Get some rest.”

“I’m fine.”

“Then a little more rest won’t hurt. It’s still six hours until we get back to the penthouse and I don’t need you to do anything before then.”

At Godwyn’s insistence, Spider placed her feet back on her bunk and tried to relax. Not wanting to impose upon her, the Inquisitor crouched down on her haunches and rested her back against the wall – bouncing on the balls of her feet a couple times to get more comfortable:

“I’ve spoken to Stone,” she said once a comfortable air had settled between master and student, “he believes he was imagining things.”

“I saw something!” Spider retorted defensively, but the Inquisitor motioned for patience.

“I believe you,” she said; “there was something inside that bunker – I believe that.”

“But?”

Godwyn shook her head calmly: “No buts. Tell me what you sensed. Tell me what you think you saw.”

“I…” Spider didn’t have the words to describe it, and the Inquisitor knew this:

“Take your time.”

The young woman screwed up her face in concentration – her fingers kneading her brow. “It was like a feeling the air, and I felt it as soon as I set foot on the landing pad.”

“What did it feel like?”

“Like an energy on the edge of perception… like something primal.” Spider bit on her lower lip and stared at the wall. “I don’t know how else to describe it. I could feel it, but couldn’t put a finger on it; like I knew it was there but not how or why… does that make sense?”

Godwyn shook her head slowly even though Spider wasn’t watching her. “What you experienced wasn’t something natural of this world. I would be surprised if you could grasp it.”

“I’m a psyker!” the young woman said hotly. “I’ve trained specifically for this type of thing!”

“And that you and Stone are still alive is probably a testament to that training.”

She hadn’t thought of that before, but her mentor’s words made sense, and what she’d done felt less like a failing.

“Meridian’s scanner didn’t detect anything for the duration of your time inside,” Godwyn explained, “though that doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything there – just that we don’t have the proper tools to find it.”

The Inquisitor paused, likely consulting with her own thoughts. “Stone also mentioned feeling suddenly cold, though he described it as an instinctual reaction to a perceived threat. Did you experience anything similar?”

The Interrogator nodded, looking sideways at other woman who sat beside her bunk.

“Did you feel cold?”

“Yes.”

Godwyn appeared satisfied. “A sudden change in temperature can often be associated to a powerful warp presence. If that is the case here, then we may be on the right track to finding our fugitive.”

“So what is our next move?”

“We’ll need to get back to the penthouse first of all,” the Inquisitor said, standing up – her joints cracking as she did so – “after that, we’ll see.”

An evasive answer; it was somehow what Spider had expected.

“By the way,” Godwyn was halfway out the pocket door when she stopped and looked back over her shoulder at the woman huddled on the bunk, “I think it’s good that you’ve kept Nerf’s weapons. He would have wanted it that way.”

She continued out the door and closed it behind her. By the time she had stepped into the main hold, the girl she’d left behind was softly weeping.