Broken Talon, a Blackshield's Story

[Tiber]

The following is a fanfiction I've been working on off on for sometime. I'll be posting in parts by chapter.

 

Broken Talon

 

Prologue

 

        The two Blackshields stood facing each other, each in their Mk4 battle plate daubed in black, almost all sign of their original legion destroyed aside from the cobalt blue of their left pauldron and a faded Ultima rune barely visible on the right. All around them was the final preparations of their warband as battle brothers, serfs, and even the occasional Imperial Army trooper readied the flight of Xiphon Interceptors, Thunderhawks, Stormbirds, and more for the final attack to come.
        “Well Captain, here we are again.” the slightly shorter of the two said with grin, his face stocky and dark with a scar stretching across his cheek bone. His deep brown eyes shone with a humor undulled by years of civil war, even the abandonment of legion.
        “So it seems.” The other replied solemnly, his complexion tan and dark brown hair close cropped, his green eyes hard, but a certain softness to them that belied his nature of a care for those of his cause, beyond simple ties of brotherhood. He sighed and looked at the waiting aircraft around them as the noise of starting engines began to fill the air, “I fear this may be the last time we see each other, Idris.”
        “Oh please, you’ve said that before, yet we’re still here!” the other laughed, wrapping his knuckles against the chestplate of his commander and friend, before letting his voice drop, “Though I do see what you mean. The scions spoke to me, they say evil witchcraft permeates that destroyer. I do have my reservations at fighting warpcraft without a psyker, but we will make do.”
        The other nodded, “We always do.” he replied, removing his helmet from his side and clicking it into place with a hiss of pressure sealant, “Regardless, some of us need to survive. Word is that things on Terra are soon to come to an end, and we need to be ready. If we do not survive, destroy the site from orbit.” the Captain replied, “We cannot allow Calavon to fall. It is up to us to ensure these mortals have a home after we are gone.”
        “What? Again?” the other complained seemingly oblivious to the reasoning of his Commander, “Every time! You get to go charge off with the final battle while I have to stay on the ship?”
        “You know it's for the best. Or do you really want Chabor to take over our merry little band to meet the victor of Terra?” the Captain asked, a wry grin coloring his tone to his old friend even through the modulating tone of his helmet’s vox. Nearby a Knight in white and blue livery strode by on its way to the front, shaking the ground slightly with each footfall, but the Astartes paid it no heed.
        “Oh by the Emperor…” the other put on an aghast look, before putting on his own helmet with play for urgency, “I best ensure that never happens. He would probably do more damage to us than the enemy!” he laughed, coming out as a bark through his helmet.
        The pair of Legionnaires clasped gauntlets, and nodded to each other, “Good hunting Captain, see you back aboard the Triumph. Kill a few Word Bearers for me will you?”
        The Captain grinned under his helm, “If there’s enough left after I’ve had my own count, I think I could manage.”

 

        Flak fire exploded all around as the downed Word Bearers destroyer fired what batteries it had operational at the incoming flight of warbirds from the Blackshield Warband known as the Broken Talons. The Captain flew his own Thunderhawk, expertly avoiding each flak burst with a skill borne of decades of flying for his original Legion, far beyond what the psycho-indoctrination of other Astartes allowed. The flak fire suddenly lifted as auspex alert chimes warned of Word Bearer Xiphons storming in. This was their final stand, and so were throwing what pitiful remnants they had left at the Warband.
        Their attempt to usurp the Knight World of Calavon had failed, and the Broken Talons were simply there to tear out the last of their corruption. The warband’s own Xiphons split and engaged the incoming hostiles in what was by numbers an even fight, but under their Captain, the Broken Talons had become exceptional pilots all even by Legionary standards. Even as the transports dived at the downed space vessel, the first Word Bearer Xiphon fell flaming from the sky.
        The Thunderhawk, flanked by Stormbirds came to a screaming landing outside an identified rent in the hull torn upon by its crash landing. The Captain left the pilot’s seat for another more junior officer to take his place as he grabbed his Tigris pattern bolter and roared into his vox, “Let us put down these rabid traitor dogs once and for all!” as he strode into the transport compartment of the Thunderhawk. The warriors of assorted legions all exclaimed their own approvals and war-chants as the ramp began to lower.
Even then, the remaining mortal servants of the Word Bearers who had attacked Calavon charged out from the wreck, heedless of the hundreds of meters of space between them and the legionnaires. The Captain strode out firing, his camo-line cloak flowing behind him as his warriors followed, joined by heavy bolter fire from the gunships. From the Stormbirds other warriors in black emerged firing, slaughtering the mortal host with as much dispassion as the Captain’s group.
        Under the fusilade of fire, the mortals charging them obliterated, and despite their headlong reckless charge, not a single one came close enough to attempt to deploy their suicide packs and melta charges. Those only added to their self destruction, tearing great chunks out of their numbers before the horde finally came to a trickle then ceased.
The Captain opened a general vox to his host, “Onwards! The Word Bearers cower in their shelter, they think they're safe, but we shall show them the error of their ways. Be ready for anything those cowardly dogs think they might throw at us!”. A hundred strong, the warband moved into wreck, as the gunships rose to tear at the remaining weapons of the destroyer.

For having fallen from orbit, the vessel remained surprisingly intact, its crew having managed an expert controlled crash, but as with any space vessel, its interior was still a veritable maze. Yet unlike in a space battle, there were only two objectives - the Warp Engines, and the bridge. The former in case the Word Bearers sought to coax them to life to self distrust, and the latter for being the likely center of operations of the Word Bearers.
        The Captain led one detachment towards the Bridge, and as they approached through the enclosed corridors of the small vessel, traitor resistance steadily switched from mortal chaff to enemy legionnaires. The Warband’s numbers advantage however proved decisive as the Word Bearers, worn by attrition in the war for Calavon, were badly outnumbered. When one choke point was found, teams were simply routed around through the maze of passages to flank it.
        As the Captain and his command squad entered the final room before the Bridge, three Word Bearers from behind makeshift barricades opened fire, attempting to turn the space between them and the loyalist Warband into a kill zone. The Captain led a charge, a bolt round ricocheting off his pauldron and spinning him, yet he caught himself and fell upon the traitors, his power sword plunging through ceramite with ease as his brothers tore the other two apart.
        “Casualties?” He asked, pulling his blade from the traitor’s twin hearts and looking back to the crowd of black legionnaires around him, almost adding to the gloom of the dark room.
        “Pratus lost a hand to a bolt shell, but he’ll live. The Claw detachment reports one fallen, Kaeston, geneseed recovered.” The apothecary Vaskon reported with a salute. An Astartes near him with a freshly sealed wound where his right hand once was nodded.
        The Captain was processing this, he felt a prickle along the back of his neck and a metallic tang fill his mouth, “Quick, get this door open. I would rather not discover what surprises the traitors have in store by completing them.” he said, moving aside as legionnaires moved forward and attached melta charges to the sealed armored doors to the bridge. The warband took cover as a stark white flash and bang of melta charges blew the doors in, then charged forward.
        The bridge was a charnel house, a handful of Word Bearer legionnaires ritualistically sacrificing the remains of their mortal command staff. All around symbols daubed in blood that hurt to look at covered the small bridge of the destroyer, centered around a single Word Bearer sorcerer chanting in guttural tones as he held aloft a strange stone knife. The Captain raised his bolt pistol and fired as the ritual reached its crescendo and the sorcerer swiped down with the blade. The shot staggered the sorcerer as he cut, and with horror the Captain watched a tremendous tear in reality rip open from the slash.
        The yawning black tear into nothingness seemed to want to consume all, tugging hard at the Captain and even the Word Bearers. the Sorcerer caught hold of a command console just in time to avoid being sucked in. His comrades were not so lucky, being consumed by the widening portal with screams of anger. The eyes of the unhelmed, ritualistically scarred sorcerer glared with inhuman hatred at the blackshields as they fought against the sucking void of the tear.
        “May the Gods toss you like the sands of time itself so that you might live to see all you fight for crumble and die! Your false emperor shall fall!” he cursed at them, his voice barely audible over the screaming void. The sorcerer suddenly let go of the console he was clinging to, being yanked off his feet and swallowed by the yawning cut in reality. As if in response, the portal seemed to drag at the blackshields with even more vigor. One was pulled off their feet, the Captain catching them quickly by the gauntlet as he held onto the breached bulkhead door. Others began to tumble, one after the other being consumed as even their own superhuman strength failed against the power of the vortex.
        Just as the Captain thought he might hold on through, the weakened door to the bridge cracked and crumbled sending him and the legionnaires clinging to it spilling towards the void. Time seemed to stretch as he approached its gaping maw as brothers he had fought alongside for years cartwheeled helplessly next to him. The darkness seemed to reach out for them, and suddenly, all was still. The Captain was alone, falling…falling…falling, blind to the miasma of the place between spaces he had been flung. His howls echoed in his ears, but his brothers were gone. And still he fell, for an instant and an eternity, damned to a future he knew not, where suspicion ruled, and he like the rest of the galaxy would know no peace.

 

[Tiber]

Chapter One

 

        The flyer cut through the air, expertly flown through its exact flight corridor by its pilot, Titus Galienos, or as his passengers and crew knew him - Idris Casarkon. In the cramped cockpit in which his bulky frame barely fit, he worked with surprisingly dextrous ease, his hands moving easily between the various screens and buttons required to hold the small twenty passenger lifter steady through the turbulent air of the high sea breeze. The eastern AJAX approach to the Edros City Starport was famously difficult as air from the sea swirled and mixed with the air coming in from the tall spires of Edros City’s downtown, but it provided an excellent view of the tourist capital of Aygeas for those passengers with porthole seats.
        Titus was, unlike his passengers, looking at the twinned horseshoe terminals of the starport and the large landing tarmac between them. The vox channel playing in his ear was constant with chatter as traffic controllers attempted to guide vehicles of all sizes and types from massive conventional jetliners to smaller vertical landing orbital shuttles like his own craft.
        Finally instructions for his own craft came as the immense tarmac strips grew ever larger in his view, “Starlight Lighter, A-C-P-X 8, follow inbound traffic to Xantor, break left 500, land at Gate B19, how copy?” came the traffic controller in tight, tired words. Titus couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor man, knowing many controllers worked far longer than they should, but he smartly repeated his instructions.
        At three kilometers from the starport and only one kilometer up at the imaginary point ‘Xantor’, Titus broke the flyer from the approach into the eastern landing strip, following the given flight path to fly straight to his assigned landing pad. The flyer hovered above the tarmac with surprising ease as Titus eased the throttle down, carefully holding the flight stick to keep the flyer utterly steady, a plate balanced on a stick.

        Touchdown was near perfect, the craft only shifting as it settled its full weight on the ground as Titus brought the throttle to full idle. He took no pleasure in it however, only to immediately begin the shutdown checklist as a handful of flight crew and servitors rushed forward to the craft to begin tie down and their various duties for unloading the craft. As he worked, he cleared his throat as he prepared for his least favorite part of the job and opened the hard channel to the passenger compartment.
         “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Edros City. I hope the flight was enjoyable and that whether you are staying or moving on elsewhere, you might find Edros City agreeable. The weather is currently nineteen degrees, with a breeze from the west. Thank you for flying with Starlight Charter.” He informed them before disconnecting the vox channel.
        After finishing shutting down the craft, he sighed and pushed the seat fully back from his control console. Turning out of his chair, he stuffed his headset into the small bag he had placed by the cockpit door and grabbed his flight cap. Titus adjusted it carefully to hide a spot on his head without hair, and opened the cockpit door. He looked through the passenger compartment, forced into a half hunch by the low roof, across the fine leather upholstery and well dressed passengers gathering their belongings from the compartments.
        The craft was small, but able to carry about twelve passengers in large cushioned chairs in rows. Confirming those passengers were about to finish gathering their belongings, Titus looked to the flight servant, Tarhe Cytan if he recalled, who was standing by the exit hatch and nodded. She was wearing the standard uniform of such servants, meant to look simultaneously eye-catching and professional for the sort of passengers they often flew, as was her brunette hair, which was put up in a practical, yet intricate way.
Titus cut his hand slightly down in signal, and Cytan nodded before she clunked down the hatch seal. With a whine of hydraulics, the door slid down, turning seamlessly into a set of stairs to allow a more elegant departure from the craft. Titus turned his shoulders and ducked to get through the narrow opening, looking around and ensuring there were no issues for the passengers before stepping down to the ground. His body ached slightly from the long hours trapped in the cockpit, but was glad to feel him finally standing to his full near seven foot height. He turned and put on the best smile he could as the flight servant  began helping passengers down the stairs.

        As the passengers disembarked and walked by the pair of crew, Titus would give a polite bow of his head and greet each by name from his memorization of the manifest. Internally he detested this required action, but the company insisted it was part of the expectation of their clientele who would charter luxury orbital shuttle flights. So he kept his voice pitched up so as to not intimidate the clients, with the best smile he could manage.
        A short greeting, and an occasional handshake to each of the elite passengers, ensuring those who asked that Edros City was indeed a wonderful city, and saying he hoped they would fly with Starlighters again. It was almost enough to reassure the more normally sized people in front of him that he was not, in fact, a simple overs-wollen brute. Of course, some would undoubtedly still be thinking him a mutant, but they kept it to themselves, and Titus simply didn’t care beyond that.
        That was, until, the last passenger. The man was dressed as any other minor Imperial nobility, likely of the mercantile guilds if Titus had to guess. Overall, to Titus however, the man was generally unremarkably average in build and in appearance. The man studied Titus, very obviously looking him up and down, “Did you have a question sir Everon?” Titus asked as politely as he could manage.
        “Yes, in fact.” The man said, his expression shifting from a mix of disgust and genuine curiosity, all tinged by a hint of fear, “If you do not mind, where could such a large brute such as yourself have learned to fly as fine as you did? If I didn’t know any better, I’d have taken you for an Ogryn!” he laughed, playing off a direct insult as those of his class were prone to do, “How do you even fit in the cockpit?”
        “Carefully.” Titus replied dryly, breathing slowly to try to let the insult pass him, “I learned to fly in the Imperial Navy as a transport pilot. I served for twenty years.” he replied with his practiced rote response
        “Oh my! And I thought the Navy would have found better uses for such skilled pilots. But I will admit I imagine your…frame… got in the way.” the man allowed with a sly smile, “I must admit I should commend your skills to Starlighters!”
        Titus shook his head slightly, wishing that Everon would leave him be, “That won’t be necessary sir. I do not wish for accolades. I only wish to do my duty as a pilot.”
Everon snorted, amused as if the response was expected, “So modest! Oh how delightful.” he chuckled, shaking his head, Titus not being sure if it was sarcastic or genuine. Everon glanced to the side, noticing what must have been one of his compatriots waiting on him impatiently, and the merchant gave an exaggerated sigh, “Oh very well. I must apologize Captain…Casarkon was it?” he said, peering at Titus’ name badge, “But it appears I must go. I do believe we might see each other soon! Never know when one might need a pilot!” Everon gave an almost mocking salute before turning and started demanding loudly for the rest of his luggage and berating the ground crews for not immediately bringing it to him.
Titus sighed and closed his eyes and shook his head slightly as the ridiculous man and the rest of the passengers were escorted through a nearby door gate into the great concrete and glass terminal before them.
        “I am glad that one in particular is gone.” He heard the flight servant Cytan mutter.
        “He was indeed odd.” Titus replied simply before turning without further comment to the lander to retrieve his bag leaving enough room to allow Cytan to move past him to retrieve her own. Hoisting the strap onto his shoulder, he began walking towards the crew gate into the terminal building trying to block out the noise of the active starport.

        He had nearly reached the heavy steel door for the flight crew to enter the terminal, when Tarhe Cytan almost jogged up next to him and gave a small smile. Titus glanced down at her before turning to the door, pulling the door lever to unlatch the sound seals. Hauling the door open for the servant, he waved her in to go first to which she smiled her thanks,         “Thank you, Captain Casarkon. I always have trouble with that.” She thanked him as she walked into the small room inside - a simple block chamber meant to block noise from outside disturbing the interior terminal.
        Titus Galienos stepped into the room and smoothed his flight suit as he closed the exterior door behind him, the seal thunking shut, “Of course.” he said, Throne he always hated small talk, especially in his “service voice”.
        As the locking mechanisms worked, the flight servant sniffed and waved her hand in front of her face, “Captain, why by the Throne are you wearing such strong incense? Whatever cleaning powder you use is far too strong.” she complained, looking on the verge of gagging.
        Titus shrugged, and only half lied with his answer, “The flight schedule is long and busy. I spend hours or even days in the cockpit with little chance to properly clean myself, and don’t want to distress the passengers with the smell of my sweat.”
        The servant sighed and shrugged, “I guess it's not so bad outside.” almost leaping for the door when it clanked unlocked, leaning into it to push the heavy door open, revealing the grand concourse beyond. The somewhat ornate semi-circular building arched high above them, covering a central aisle of marble tiling flanked by rows of seating in front of passenger gates on one side, and myriad shops and restaurants for bored wealthy travelers to waste their currency in. There was a notable amount of people, but certainly no great crowds thanks to the mid-day flight sag.
        Seeking to escape from the flight servant so he could be on his way, Titus walked out purposefully into the concourse. He took several steps out crossing through a softly carpeted waiting area, where rows of cushioned chairs lay half full of passengers waiting for their own flight. “Wait! Captain!” Cytan exclaimed trying to keep up with Galienos just as he was about to step into the central concourse, “I just wanted to ask; several other crews were planning on a small meet up, at a restaurant in town. Would you like to join?” she asked, a little huffed from the short jog to catch up with him, “We hardly know you and thought-”
        “No.” Galienos replied flatly as he turned to face the small woman, “I just want to go home. It’s been a long week of flights and I need my rest.” he said with a sigh as he stopped and looked down at the small woman, “Besides, what could be so important about knowing me?”
        “Well…It’s your one year anniversary with the company, and you are always ranked so highly. Even on difficult shuttle routes like the Strakol run, for someone so new it’s…” she trailed off, “Look we just want to congratulate you, have a few drinks, that’s all” she said with a soft smile looking up at him.
Titus looked down at her, considering simply ignoring her. But…Had it really been a year? He of course already knew that academically, but he had mentally not yet processed that it’d been an entire year since he pulled what favors he could to move to a chartered shuttle flight pilot from simple freighter routes. It clicked, of course there would be some kind of party planned for him. The company was relatively small and its employees proud of their role. He decided to feign some ignorance, “I hadn’t realized it had been a year.” he said, relenting, “Where is this…meeting?” he asked.
        The flight servant’s face brightened, “Great! It’ll be at the Hoplon’s Rest at 21;00, in the entertainment district?” She half asked, craning her neck as she looked up at him, pulling her luggage close.
“I am…unfamiliar, I must admit.” Titus said as he considered the name, though truthfully more for show as he knew no bar in Edros City to begin with, “What road is it on?”
    “Oh! Uh, Alonkinrest Boulevard? At the corner with 18th street?” She offered cautiously, now unsure if the man she knew as Casarkon would know where that was.
    Titus narrowed his eyes before nodding slowly, “Yes, I think I know where that is. I will be there” then, without further comment, he turned and strode out onto the marble central concourse, leaving Cytan behind to her confusion over his blunt and sudden departure. However he at least allowed that she had decided against following him again. Relieved to be left alone, Titus would walk through the terminal to the crew room for payment before he could go home.

 

Edited October 7 by Tiber

[Tiber]

Chapter Two

 

        Titus Galienos would make his way to his hab deep in the heart of Edros City after stepping out into the warm salty air from the starport. His journey home took a maglev train that sped the fifty kilometers from starport to near city center. Through the windows, he could watch as the sparse exurban development scattered around roads and farming would quickly densify into the outer suburbs. Large stark white villas stood lonely sentinel, interspersed with random conglomerations of denser, yet still stand alone housing of those more fortunate of Edros City and its surrounding area. Soon though, the maglev would plung into the dense urban heart of the supposed ‘glittering jewel of the Lokanic subsector’. Plaster and concrete habs grew over five stories, their true drab nature obscured by vibrant paintwork and decorative colonnades.
        Titus knew the planet’s elite put great stock in maintaining the image of Edros City as a refined place for nobility, with any building clearly visible from the main routes in the city forced to follow rules of ‘appeal’. What it often meant in reality in his experience was an impressive exterior, but even basic upkeep in the interior forgotten. Yet it did its job, as he had found in his time upon this planet, with endless hordes of rich nobles from hive worlds coming to gape at the shimmering blue seas, and bask in the breathable air. Yet all that aside, Edros City was simply any other city in the Imperium, only made to look a little more exotic on the surface.
        As Titus stepped from the maglev onto the elevated platform station and into its crowd, it wasted no time in reminding him of that as his ears were assaulted by a cacophony from many sources. Much was from the street below, split between traffic and general crowd noises. He strode through the crowded terminal as people milled, waiting for those disembarking for their turn to get aboard the train.
        Down from the concrete elevated gantry by a flight of stairs, he would make his way to a nearby shuttle route that would stop by his hab. Despite his bulk and height putting him head and shoulders above much of the rest of the clumps of people busily to and for, none paid him any beyond from the occasional glance.
When the noisy ground shuttle arrived with a squeal of brakes and hiss of hydraulics, like he had countless times before he paid the fare after boarding. From there it was slow, jerking progress towards his hab’s neighborhood, with passengers occasionally getting off and on, though he paid them no mind. They left him to sit alone on his seat, taking up too much room for another to sit comfortably next to. Titus knew he could afford a ground car with his salary fairly easily, but he did not care for such luxuries. He had money to save, he knew of the realm of Ultramar, the light of the Imperium in this dark time, and had every intention of seeking immigration rights to that far off sector some day.

After nearly half an hour of slow progress through the traffic of the bustling city, the garbled servitor voice of the shuttle mangled an announcement for his stop. Titus stood as the shuttle came to a stop and stepped down the stairs of the shuttle onto the sidewalk. Two blocks down, he arrived at his hab unit, a fairly unremarkable building daubed in a drab and faded blue that towered some stories above him. Rolling his shoulders, Titus sighed and dug through his bag, digging through it as he stepped up to the heavy metal doors. Pulling out an access key, he opened the autolock and slipped into the still air of the hab unit.
        The ground floor hall was lit by fizzling sodium lumens, casting everything in a soft orange gloom, just enough for residents to see where their units were. He walked down towards his unit, picking his way around yet to be collected piles of bagged rubbish, found Unit 013, and pushed open the heavy door. With a creak, he closed and locked the door behind him and flicked on the lights before looking around as his flat. All was how he left it at a casual glance, the stark lumen glow showing the bare nature of his flat. By the door was a pre-built household devotional shrine to the Emperor, a simple Aquila with a ledge for candles and flowers that was empty.
Without a word, he walked past the quaint shrine and into a small living room empty aside from a vid-screen and high backed metal chair in front of it. Attached was a small kitchenette, and two doors leading to a lavatory and the bedroom. It was spartan to the extreme, with any other Aygean who lived in a unit such as his usually being able to afford at least some creature comfort or decoration that were totally absent. The only concession Titus had to decoration was a set of wooden book shelves on a strange metal frame that he himself had fashioned.
        Titus silently walked into his bedroom and laid his flight bag on a large bed covered by a thin sheet. He turned and considered the door to his storage and clothes closet. He pondered for a moment if he truly wished to go to the celebration the flight servant Cytan had offered, and if so, what would he be expected to wear? He could not but help but feel there was an ulterior motive for the invitation, yet he could not for the life of it decide what it was.
         “Throne, why did I agree to it…” Titus muttered to himself before deciding to change out of his flight suit. It was quite formal, but he decided it best not to wear it outside his service. Some companies in his experience could be remarkably fickle about such ‘casual representation’.
        He stepped into the closet where there was a single rack of enough clothes for two weeks, and a massive safe. He changed into a set of comfortable but formal clothes before turning to the safe and considered for just a moment.
        He decided to err on the side of caution, a decision that his long years had never let him down for. In three practiced twists of his hand, he turned the dial to the correct code and opened the safe with a clunk. He paused, looking at the series of plastek boxes inside that contained his most prized possessions with a sigh. Titus fought the urge to open one, before grabbing a customized laspistol decorated with naval insignia. A veteran pilot’s reward for retirement.
        Unlike most laspistols, this one fit his hand perfectly, large enough to have been mistaken for a hellpistol or a large caliber autopistol. But the Imperial Navy or the Munitorum wasn’t about to let a civilian, no matter their service, have such dangerous weapons. Instead, it simply used its additional size to fit a larger power cell, allowing far more shots than usual. It was more than adequate for a self defense weapon, yet still felt somehow lacking to Titus. He shook aside the feeling and hid the weapon in a concealed holster.
Titus pulled out his chrono, and checked the time, “Still three hours before 2100.” he muttered, before walking back into the living area of the flat. He pulled a book at random from his collection and sat to read on the metal chair. As he opened the book, some local historitor’s attempt at summarizing the Damocles Gulf Crusade that he had been attempting to read for some time, yet never able to finish, for every time he could not shake the feeling the author was being almost sympathetic to the Tau, despite the appreciated detail provided.
Just as he was starting to read, he got the feeling of being watched. Titus looked up and glanced around, his unit’s window was covered by a blackout curtain, and his door was still locked. He looked at the staring eye of the Aquilan eagle boring a hole through him  and chuckled to himself, “Stop staring at me.” and started to read again.
    
        Some hours later, Titus Galienos found himself in front of a door at the address the flight servant had given him. It was nondescript, and Titus looked around feeling as if he was missing something. The entertainment district was brightly light with promising and flashing neon signs, advertisements both painted and pictscreened, with noisy, often drunk, crowds all around. He could tell many were obscenely dressed offworlders, as was to be expected, but nothing about the restaurant and small tobacco shop to either side suggested they could be the real place. Titus sighed and shrugged before deciding to knock on the blank door before him. For several moments, nothing happened, but just as he was about to knock again, the door opened to reveal a man dressed in all black. Security, Titus decided, the man’s build and way he carried himself sure to intimate any other man. The man blinked as he looked up at Titus, “Go away. This is a private way.” He said with surprising firmness despite his clear shock
        “I am Idris Casarkon, I believe I was invited to some kind of celebration here by a Tarhe Cytan?” he offered as explaination, “Is this the Hoplan’s Rest?”
        The man studied Titus a little more before nodding and opening the door fully, “Pilot?” he asked
        “Yes. With Starlight Charters.”
        “You're quite large for a pilot. Miracle you fit in the cockpit.” The guard said with a chuckle  evidently relaxing as Titus sighed inwardly at that comment being repeated yet again,         “Come on in, apologies for all that, this is supposed to be for flight crew only, you get?”
        “No offense taken.” Titus said before stepping inside, turning his shoulders to pass the bouncer. Down a small hallway, Titus opened a second door to reveal a well furnished restaurant-bar with ornate wood paneling. The walls were covered in posters of Imperial Navy Pilots from Edros City and various stills of aircraft in flight. The walls were lined with tables, with a well stocked bar in pride of place on the opposite side of the room, with a games room in a side room. The place had a few dozen people scattered around it drinking, eating, chatting, but was still over half empty. A few heads looked from what they were doing to look at the newcomer. From a larger party table, a man called out raising a hand, “Captain Casarkon! Over here!”
        Titus turned to look at the group and saw several men, a couple still in their flight uniforms, and several women, all well dressed. He walked over to the table and a second man he vaguely recalled seeing in a staff room raised his shotglass to him, “Congrats on surviving a year! Not many rookies impress enough to make it this far.” He said, his speech slightly slurred.
        “Uh, thank you.” Titus replied, still standing beside the table, “But I am no rookie to flight.”
        “Right right, Imperial Navy yeah?” the slurring man, “So was I! Got to Captain too I did. One day flying Lightnings, next..” The man smacked his leg with the dull noise of flesh on metal, “not fit to serve and dumped on some rock. Least can still fly civvie eh?”
        Titus shrugged, and looked at the rest of them. “Flying something is better than not at all.” he replied

        Another man in a white collared shirt with a plain jacket on spoke before the slurring man could agree, “Yes, very much so. We saved you a seat, Captain Casarkon.” he said motioning to an empty chair at the head of the table.
        Titus nodded his thanks and carefully sat down, the chair protested against his bulk and creaked dangerously, but didn’t give, “If you don’t mind, I can’t say I know most of you. I only ever do the solo flights.” he asked the group.
        “Right of course, I’m Adrien Synker, first officer. And the man you were just speaking to is Ismael Pollock, captain.” the man raised his shot glass and then downed it in one gulp, and was about to speak again when Synker cut him off and introduced the rest of the group, and if they were a captain, first officer, or flight servant. Titus noticed Tarhe Cytan was there, and seemed one of the more attentive ones to him.
        “Well, I believe I must thank you all for organizing this.” Titus said, “You can call me Idris.” he added with a shrug, not knowing if they knew the first part of his false name.
“Hah!” Pollock laughed, “Any excuse to drink to another pilot is fine by me, first year or twentieth!” he exclaimed, noticing his empty shot glass before getting up to go replace it to the shaking amused heads of those at the table.
        “So how is the chartered life treating you?” a woman pilot named Ferra Delian asked Titus, leaning forward slightly to better see him.
        Titus shrugged, “I’m flying aren’t I? There’s been several times I thought I would be grounded forever, but here I am.” He replied, truthfully enough.
        “And for that we should all celebrate!” Pollock exclaimed as he set down several bottles of various liquors and glasses, “And can’t have a celebration without some drink!” He set a glass down a bit too hard in front of Titus and grinned at him, “I’d wager even with what I’ve had, I could still drink you under the table!”
Titus looked up at Pollock, and simply shook his head, “No. You do not want to try. And I am not sure drinking so hard is a good idea.” He told the eager man, still sitting almost stiffly in the chair, careful not to move.
        “Is that a challenge?” Pollock breathed with mock insult, “I'm old Navy too you know! Besides, I'm not flying for a few days yet!”
        “Perhaps Idris has the right idea…” Synker said in a conciliatory tone, and Titus got the distinct impression this wasn’t the first time Pollock had been like this.
Pollock waved Synker’s words aside with his hand, “Psh, nonsense, it’ll just be a few drinks!’, and without waiting for permission from the rest of the group, opened a bottle of amesec and poured out surprisingly deliberate measures into glasses for everyone, “But first a toast, to our newest, if not youngest, captain!” he said, passing the glasses out.
        They all smiled and raised their glasses, Titus following their lead before drinking from the stout amasec. To him, it was almost water, and he set the glass back down. He could tell it was already hitting the ones around him with their reactions, getting their tongues loose for the rest of the night.

A couple rounds of drinks later, there was lively discussion, with Titus increasingly trying to let the group of flight crew forget about him so he could slip out during their revillerie, only answering them when directly addressed. As he was about to stand and walk out, suddenly came an unbidden question he was sure they had all thought but only came out with the liquor.
        “So why are you so…large?” it was Cytan, and she made a motion with her hands around his outline for emphasis. She seemed more coherent than others, but she had also still had at least two glasses of the strong liquor, “Honestly, from a distance you could be mistaken for an Ogryn! But you're certainly a lot…Easier to look at.” she said, in a tone he wasn't sure if it was revulsion or something else.
         The rest of the group chorused in nods of agreement, with another of the more sober members asking, “Yeah! You're tall and all, but so…broad. Don't tell me there’s a bit of twist in you?”
        Titus sighed, knowing if he didn’t respond adequately it could very easily spiral into accusations of mutancy, which could end badly. It had happened before, he did not want to start over again, “No. No twist.” he said, raising his hand placatingly, “Navy gave me the all clear. My parents were wealthy and deluded. That’s all.” he said, trying to put on a reassuring smile.
        “But what did they do then?!” another, a first officer named Petreus, asked, confusion clear on his face
Titus sighed, playing up it being a painful memory as he hung his head slightly, “They bought the best gene-wrights could afford. They wanted the perfect children, and to try to send my brother and I to the Adeptus Astartes as neophytes already halfway there.” He looked up at them, “They ruined us, their eagerness to foist us upon a passing Astartes recruitment drive revealed what they did. While they did not change anything fundamentally human..”
        “They did it without approval?” one of the pilots asked, the coin dropping.
        Titus nodded sadly, “They were given to the Adeptus Mechanicus Biologis for illegal modification. My brother and I nearly shared their fate. We were saved and placed in the Scholum. I excelled in flight basics so ended up a pilot. My brother…” Titus rubbed his chin, as if in deep recall, “Became a commissar I believe? I forget. I have not seen him in thirty years.”
        The table was quiet for a few minutes as the group processed the information, one letting out a long whistle before Titus smiled disarmingly, “I would appreciate it if that didn’t leave this room.”
        “Of course!” Pollock said, slamming his fist to the table, swaying slightly as his balance nearly gave, “No fault of your own! How about happier memories eh?”
Titus nodded, knowing he had to distract them again before he could extricate himself, “Of course. How about we share some of our flight stories?”
The group fell to easy discussion over their shared passion of flight. Titus shared memories, real and false and inbetween, like his story of stealing a Tau flyer. He told them of being inserted on a mission requested by the Mechanicus deep behind Tau lines. He was chosen for his instinctive feel for piloting anything, and hope that it would extend to xenos techno-sorcery. Him and a squad of stormtroopers snuck into a xeno held starport, passing over a fierce firefight into the belly of a Tau transport. With difficulty, he learned how to turn the beast on, and went up and away with the surviving stormtroops, flying the craft back to a waiting Imperial vessel. It was, at least, half true. But he told the story with all sincerity, and it seemed to convince the others.
        The story sharing went on, and soon after Pollock stood to go relieve himself, Titus claimed the same. Ensuring the group was in conversation, he turned to go out the door when a hand grabbed his forearm. He wheeled, ready to level whoever had the temerity, only to see Pollock with a strangely earnest look on his face, “You are not among friends, Idris-sha. Run from here. Flee. May goodness guide you.”
        Titus blinked, and was about to ask when the drunk look on Pollock’s face returned as he half stumbled back to the group table making a fuss that drew all attention to him. Titus stood confused for only a second, before quickly turning and leaving the Hoplon’s Rest.

 

[Tiber]

Chapter 3

 

       Titus clenched and relaxed his hands as he walked to his hab unit, reviewing once more in his head the comment Pollock had told him. What disturbed him most was the -sha Pollock had attached to his false name. It dug up old memories of the planet light years away, and the strange human customs there that only made sense when the planet went to hell, and he was forced to uproot a life he had built. Now, it seemed the events of then were somehow, somehow caught up to him.
       'Surely they couldn’t be here, surely! I'm more than a sector away!', he thought. He had come so close to his goal, another year of toil and he could have done it, he could have…Titus shook his head, realizing he had growled unconsciously under his breath. He closed his eyes and took a few breaths to center himself, going through long drilled mental practices to help him plan, “Trust not the xenos, for they only lie.” He told himself as he retrieved his key and opened the door to his unit.
Everything inside seemed as he left it as he took a step inside looking around. Titus studied every detail, comparing it to his recall as he closed his door and locked it. His eyes fell on his bookshelf, stepping closer to it and getting down on one knee. He ran his finger along the wood, narrowing his eyes before standing upright. Not everything was right. An almost imperceptible click came from his bedroom area. Standing slowly, he pretended to check his kitchen before stepping into his bedroom.
Standing in the doorway, he put his senses on high alert, ignoring his heartbeat.
       Just at the edge of his hearing, he heard something besides the normal sounds of his hab. Something wasn’t right. He crept slowly to his closet, holding his breath as he drew his laspistol. He heard the noise again, a slight almost inaudible shuffle. Eased the door to the closet open, before in a blur he charged in, reaching out with his hand to his guess of where the sound was. His great fist closed, grabbing the top of something falling. He yanked hard, there was a tear and was rewarded with a fistful of a shimmering fading camoline of clearly impeccable quality.
       He registered it in a fraction of a second, his peripheral senses picking up the rolling form of a shape in the dark attempting to go between his legs. Long suppressed battle urge soared back and he roared in anger at the intrusion as his fist swung out.
       The intruder was fast and nimble, but so was Titus, and his fist met with a grazing impact on the invader’s shoulder as they dived. A human male cried out as he was punched into the ground. Now Titus saw him, his face half revealed by the torn camo-cloak. Already he was trying to recover and escape, scrambling towards the gap in the closet. Titus fought the urge to fire his laspistol, this was no ordinary home invader, but his blood was up. He whipped the laspistol out, smacking it into the shoulder of the stumbling man and slamming him into the door frame as he tried to flow into the blow surprisingly well.
       Unfortunately for the man, Titus had strength beyond human, and the force of the blow smacked him hard into the frame, sending the intruder reeling into his bedroom. Titus stormed behind him, grabbing the man by the scruff of his cloak and throwing him back. The invader was thrown back, slamming into the plaster covered concrete wall, “Who are you?!” Titus roared in anger, leveling the laspistol at the man.
       A deep green eye simultaneously defiant and terrified under a shock of dark hair and a half revealed tan face glared back at him. The man muttered something under his breath, “...vokzi…protocalis veridian.” Titus saw the outline of the man tense, his eyes narrowed and was already moving when the man threw himself at Titus, reaching for the laspistol. Titus turned, bringing his knee up as the man missed and tried to recover, his shin smashing into the man’s side throwing him into the wall again with a cry of pain.
Titus had to give the man credit, he recovered far faster than any man should. The invader was clearly highly trained, which made Titus even more certain he couldn’t let the man escape. The invader rolled, diving for the main room, but Titus was moving with him, grabbing another handful of camo-cloak and yanking. The sudden force arrested the man’s dive and smashed him against the floor, but the camoline blurring his outline saved him from being dragged back into Titus’s reach.
       The man scrambled up, taking advantage of the delay Titus had to take to fit through the door to run towards the front door as Titus gave chase. The man was undone by the locked door, the delay letting Titus catch up and grab the man, pulling him back and slamming him to the floor, “Tell me who you are?!” he roared, leveling the laspistol.
       “Frack off!” the man snarled back, before expertly twisting himself around out of the laspistol, and sudden shocking pain surged through Titus’ body as the man stabbed an electroprod against his shin. His fist involuntarily clenched, and the laspistol spat a searing red laser into the ground with a crack. The pain didn’t stop Titus, but it made him just a fraction to slow to catch the man as he threw himself at the door and yanked it open, running out into the hall, his camoline cloak smearing but failing to hide his black body glove in the dim yellow light before disappearing out of sight.
        Titus sprinted outside and rebounded off the wall to give chase, but soon saw the hallway deserted. Titus’ face twisted in outrage, his fist clenching the laspistol tight enough the plasteel creaked under his fingers.
       “Is…everything alright?” a tired voice asked. Titus whirled to see one of his neighbors, a middle aged woman he had never bothered to meet, leaning out from her unit door, a worried look in her eye.
Titus tucked the laspistol into his concealed holster and shook his head, “Damn robber broke in. Chased him off though, don’t worry.” He said, barely suppressing his outrage.
“Are you…okay sir?” she asked, retreating back a little at the sound of anger in his voice.
       “I’m fine. Just…Furious at the intrusion is all. Goodnight.” He said curtly before storming back into his flat and slamming the door behind him.

Titus’ jaw tightened as he stormed into his room, his hands clenched into fists so tight his fingernails threatened to break the skin of his palms. His mind raced as he tried to center himself, to figure out what just happened, but the outrage was boiling just under the surface, breaking his thought line. He felt his subconscious psyche crying out in frustration over his quarrel’s escape and his battle urge going unsated.
       Titus leaned down and snatched up one of the torn pieces of camo-cloak and studied hoping to find something, anything, that could tell him about the invader. The fabric was incredibly light, its camouflaging ability still of almost peerless quality just as a rag being held in his hand.
       “This certainly was no common criminal…” he mused, “Practical, it involves a substantial investment and desire to not be seen. Theoretical…” He froze, his humors suddenly settling into a cold, hard realization, “Inquisition.” He mouthed, for there was not a local body as far as he knew that would sink so much into trying to sneak into seemingly a random civilian’s flat. And they had to have known he was out, but expecting him not to be home for some time. He breathed slowly as his mind followed the line, the man hid and tried to flee, not fight, meaning the invader had some inkling of his true identity, or at least what he was.
       A possibility came to mind, all those strange feelings of being watched… Titus’ head whipped around to glare at the two headed Aquilan shrine and narrowed his eyes. He marched to his bedroom and retrieved a long bladed knife and stormed back to the eagle. His eyes studied it intently, looking for…something, anything. Much of the top of the cheap shrine made it look as if it was part of the wall itself, but when he bent down to look at the underside, where he wouldn’t normally look, he saw it. A small indent that suggested recent work. He jammed the blade into the crevice, it biting deep into the plaster and indent, before working it back and forth.
        For a moment, he started to think he was just being overly paranoid, before suddenly there was a click, and the shrine seemed to lift slightly from the wall. Titus studied the very small gap revealed, looking for any sign of a trap as he ran the knife along the gap. Nothing. He stood and swung the shrine open, revealing it to be a facsimile that could contain…in this case, a miniaturized picter unit, a cogitator, and small antenna. Titus growled subvocally leaning down to face to face with the picter, he wasn’t sure if anyone was watching, but he felt it necessary. “I found you, watcher. Call off your dog, I let him escape this time, next time I will be ready. I still serve the Imperium, and I will be where I belong soon. Find better quarry.” He threatened the unit, before gripping cabling he knew were powering it all and cutting it.
       Standing up, he let old training return to him as he started methodically disassembling the spy unit, whispering remembered benedictions to the unit’s machine spirit and apologizing for the sudden disconnection. He carefully laid out the equipment on his kitchen’s countertop and studied it carefully, noting the quality of the build. It looked relatively fresh, with little dust settled on it. Whoever was hunting him could not have been closing the net so tight until very recently, he estimated one to two weeks, likely soon after he left for his latest week-shift of flights. Things began to click, right up to that strange warning Pollock had given him at the Hoplon. He realized that he was being hunted, not just by one group…
       “It’s time to go.” He said hollowly, “Now.”, he turned to the bookshelf and carefully removed each shelf and set them to the side. The metal stand stood with its metal holding bars in a pattern roughly in his own shape, but bulkier. He turned and walked to the closet, opening his safe, leaning down and began transferring bulky, heavy duty boxes stacked around its lower shelves out into the main area. They were the hardest thing to have moved into his unit, for they contained his true identity, a life long past. Heavy with ceramite, he had carefully brought it box by box from the countryside hovel he had previously hid it. Now, their purpose done, and with not enough time to sneak them out as they had been brought in, it was time to don what was inside.
       By the time he had emptied the safe, the room was crowded with only enough room for him to walk around the stand. Kneeling down, he opened one of the smaller boxes and looked inside, his eyes meeting dulled ruby red lenses and a smile crossed his lips, “Hello old friend. I’m sorry you’ve had to be put away so long this time, but it's time to go.” He apologized to the dormant helmet, hefting out the black colored flat snout faced helm and gingerly setting it to the side so it could ‘watch’.
       Box by box he reverentially took out the pieces of his armor, inspecting them, cleaning and making what maintenance rites he could, before organizing them for ease of assembly. He carefully placed the armored boots into the correct slot of the stand, marking yet another time it would perform its duty as a helpful, albeit inert, armoring stand. Titus stood and undressed, picking up the black body glove and stepped into it, ready to begin the laborious process of armoring himself on his own.

       Hours of laborious work passed, and finally stood in his lavatory, Titus studied himself in his full Mark IV battle plate, ensuring all looked well. Much of it was daubed black, an ancient shame, aside from one arm which remained its stark cobalt blue. Old scars riddled the armor, gouges filled with field ceramite repair and not the seamless molecular bonded new plating that a full armory could perform. Titus began moving his joints experimentally, ensuring that the modifications to reduce his armor’s noise were still working. The servos purred quietly, yet would occasionally ‘catch’, breaking the smooth movement of the plate. It was an almost imperceptible amount, but to a legionary used to their battle plate as a second skin, it was supremely noticeable.
       Rolling his shoulders, Titus sighed and rapped his fist against his chest plating, “Let’s hope to catch a break and get to Ultramar this time.” He told himself and partly to his armor’s machine spirit. With finality, he affixed his ancient command cloak to his armor. It was made from a two-sided camo-line material, with one side being a true camo-line and the other a black material that worked just enough to break up his outline but not truly hide him.
       That alone however wouldn’t be enough to disguise his being, but for a moment, he could not tear himself away from the mirror. He ran his gauntleted fingers through his peppered gray and black hair and for a moment, he let himself forget this accursed era he found himself in. He let his mind recall days long lost and of brothers gone.
With a shake of his head, Titus pulled back from his nostalgia and to the task at hand. He walked back into the flat, the rubberized bottom of the boots of his armor dull thumping with each step. Titus worked quickly, putting together his few belongings that mattered to him into a pack he had long ago made to sling over his power pack. Each of the boxes he had to contain his armor he returned to the safe for storage and retrieved all the money he had saved while working on Aygaes. He did not know if it would be enough to buy a private ticket, but he assumed it would at least help.
       Finally, he recovered his old Tigrus pattern bolter from the safe alongside his power sword. Much like his armor, both were in need of a true astartes armory, but still functional thanks to his long care. They and the ammo would be the most difficult things to hide, but he had held onto them this long and had no intention of abandoning them. He traced his fingers reverentially over the true weapons of his craft even with their worn appearance.  
       Titus tested the long leather straps he had fitted to both, and confident they were still in adequate shape, slung his weapons over his shoulder. To complete the menagerie of things covering his plate, he strapped several ammo pouch belts to himself, in which he tucked his more mundane laspistol and combat knife.
With finality, Titus slid a final black, blotchy, and misshapen robe over his armor along with the pack. With it disappeared the image of an astartes, but a hunchback gene bulked laborer or ogryn, at least from a distance. He checked the chrono resting on his kitchen shelf, and was pleased to see it was the deep night of Aygaes’ 32 hour day. Few would be out, for by law of Edros City, only essential businesses would be open for the benefit of the city’s guests. Without word or ceremony, Titus walked out of his unit of over a year, ensuring none were watching, locked the door, and left behind yet another life…

 

Edited October 8 by Tiber
Added chapter #

[Tiber]

Chapter Four

 

       Titus Galienos stole his way across the quiet, though still populated streets of Edros City. When he could, he kept to the poorly lit back streets and alleys where he could move with more purpose, risking his battle plate being revealed in his striding from its clanking of ceramite and whirring of servo joints for speed. Occasionally, he was forced to follow a well lit road, where he was forced to lumber in an attempt to mimic the gait of an Ogryn.
       His luck despite this seemed to hold, as the few local Enforcers he saw were responding to another call or seemed satisfied with the dull Imperial Guard pin he wore on his chest as the reason for an Ogryn to be out. Only once was Titus forced to stop on his way out of the city, when two thieves too cocky for their own good took his Ogryn gait to mean he was too dumb to notice them. A flash of his large combat knife and some grumbled words scared them off.
       Titus eventually managed to find a local commuter rail station and catch a train to one of the subsidiary starports of Edros City. There, he hoped their smaller size would leave more room for avoiding security. Yet as the train rattled on through the city with stops seemingly every few minutes, he was growing increasingly concerned time would not be on his side. The first rays of sunlight were turning the sky orange, and steadily more people were boarding the train at each stop.
       Titus was left moving increasingly what he hoped were harder and harder to see positions, and trying to keep as still as possible to quiet his armor. It was only as the train approached a third full, and Titus was noticing curious glances being thrown his way, did the train leave Edros City behind. It clunked through the suburbs of the city, where single dwellings and small hab-blocks mingled, until finally with a squeal of brakes, the train finally came to a halt at the station to the Tertius starport for Edros City.
Titus waited until as many people got off before him as he could before disembarking himself, the train’s doors hissing shut with a clunk behind him. As the train groaned its departure, Titus would follow the crowd out to the starport itself.  At least, until the crowd suddenly stopped at the exit of the station.
       “Alright alright, you lot clearly don’t know the toll.” Titus heard a coarse voice call out as he neared the back of the crowd. A gang of a dozen men in ragged flak armor with an assortment of seemingly scrounged weapons were blocking the exit. Through the glass panes behind them, he just could see the terminal’s concourse, as if mocking him.
“Ya see, Tercio-whatever is now under the 91er’s protection. And if you want to go, you got to pay the toll!” the voice barked again in response to some angry murmur from the crowd. Titus picked out the speaker as he looked over the crowd from a distance - an overconfident barrel chested, bald headed man with a tattoo meant to mimic a scar down the right side of his face. Titus glanced around, noting that should he want to, he could easily sneak out of the station via the tracks. They were not elevated, and the separating fence shouldn’t be too hard to break.
       Another voice cursing snapped him out back to the gang harassing the crowd, “Get this one! Lively here needs to be taught a lesson!” Titus watched as two of the gangers waded into the crowd with stun batons raised, bringing them to bear on anyone too slow out of the way moving towards some seemingly random target. Titus’ breathing slowed as he watched with mounting fury at the blatant attacks, the shrieks of pain of civilians who simply were just trying to get somewhere, and the desperate cries of a poor boy barely out of his teenage years getting grabbed by the gangers.
       'Theoretical; the civilians require aid.' His mind prompted, 'Practical; it does not concern you. Find another way.', the logical part of his mind replied, theoretical: intervening will reveal your nature. Practical: the Inquisition will react. By all rights, to accomplish his task, to do what was right for the Imperium itself, Titus needed to get out and get to Ultramar. There, he could return to true service, protecting mankind.
       Titus growled to himself ‘What does it mean to protect mankind if I do not act when I see Imperial citizens accosted.’ His fists clenched as he saw the first maul rise to strike the boy. His mind warred, torn between what he believed his duty was, big and small. It was a dilemma that had long plagued him, one his own brothers of the legion occasionally mocked his 'softness' for.  One that had helped drive him to abandoning his Legion when it abandoned him so long ago.
       As the power maul fell, Titus’ mind solidified, ‘I must act as I always have. For what would Idris and Solkan think if I did not?’  he thought to himself, before in a flash of motion his laspistol was in his hand. The bolt speared through the power maul’s holding hand, eliciting a scream of pain from the holder as they were forced to let go. As the maul tumbled from the man’s grip to start to tumble to harmlessly impact next to the boy, Titus bellowed his answer to the injustice of the sight, “Stand aside in the Emperor’s name!”
       With a hard kickoff from his standing start, Titus fired a second bolt from his laspistol over the heads of the crowd. One ganger’s head snapped back and blew out from the impact as the rest were still trying to react to the first shot. Ceramite banging and servos whirring, Titus leaped over the few civilians who hadn't scrambled out the way between the ganger attack and Titus’ challenge.
       With a slam of ceramite on stone, Titus landed in front of the gangers, his free hand reaching back and wrenching out his power sword. The gangers stood dumbstruck at the giant landing in front of them as the body of the first man killed finally slumped to the ground. “By His will, I am your death!” He yelled as his power sword ignited and it began to dawn on the gangers what exactly they were facing. He turned and whirled, servos whirring, slicing the sizzling blade through flesh like butter. The braver of the gangers stood and fired madly at the Astartes, the more cowardly turned and fled. The former lasted barely a moment before they were cut down before his scything blade, the latter survived a few moments before his well placed las shots speared them from behind. In just ten seconds, it was over, and Titus let the power fade from his sword as blood burnt off it.
Titus turned away from the eviscerated gangers, some of whom clung to life, sliced in two from less artful and immediately lethal cuts. He knelt down on one knee and proffered an armored hand to the boy whom the gangers intended to make a lesson of.
       The boy, really a young man to those of mortal years, looked up at Titus, awe and horror crossing his face in equal measure. Titus fell back on old habits he thought long gone, and he smiled reassuringly, “Come. As one might say, the Emperor Protects.” Titus cringing slightly inwardly at the line for its role in the Imperial Creed, even as its ability to placate could not be denied.
       The boy smiled up at Titus’ unscarred face, and took his proffered help. Titus carefully raised the boy to his feet as almost simultaneously, every civilian in the crowd sank to their knees, making the sign of the Aquila of their chest in awe. He could hear their muttered prayers of revental awe of seeing one of the Emperor’s Angels come from seemingly nowhere to save them.
       “Stand.’ Titus bid them, “I deserve not your ministrations. It is good fortune alone that has guided me here to aid you this day.” ,He watched some of the crowd cautiously stand, though others remained firmly on their knees in awe.
       “M-my lord…thank you…” The boy he rescued blurted out, “The 91ers are…vicious…” he shifted uncomfortably as Titus looked down at him coolly.
       “Worry not.” Titus said smoothly, feeling himself rush back for the first time in years, “I will drive them out of this place. They block good Imperial citizens from going about their ordained duties, and interrupt one of his very own Astartes’ pilgrimage. They shall be driven from this Starport, by my hand.”
       “What…are we to do, my lord?” a civilian in the crowd asked, their eyes still firmly planted on the ground. He could see that all of them were doing everything in their power to avoid staring at the mess he had made of the gangers - some more successfully than others. Titus felt sorry for them, few Imperial citizens ever witnessed an Astartes, almost none were ever exposed to what one could do to their opponents. And he hadn’t even drawn his bolter…
       “Remain here or flee. But do not enter the starport, at least not until well after I am gone. Please, do not attempt to follow.” Titus told them, motioning with his hand calmly for them to stay, before reaching under his robe and withdrawing his helmet. With a hiss of sealing as it latched onto its pressure seals, Titus breathed a little easier as he saw the all too familiar play of the targeting interface wash over the crowd, “I am going hunting.” With that, he turned into the Starport’s concourse, weapons drawn, following the trail of blood the one ganger he let get away with a shot leg. The crawler wouldn't get far, but would lead him in the right direction…

       A handful of gangers were gathered around the one Titus had let live, having propped him against a wall, clearly trying to figure out what happened. Terrified civilians already fleeing or hiding from the sight of the injured man were first to see Titus striding forward, and only had their current state reinforced.
       Titus paid them no mind as he brought up his laspistol just as the gangers were turning to look at him as the horrified injured ganger raised an arm to point at him. The las cracked in rapid succession as he fired at the group of gangers, each crumpling to the ground from each kill shot. Those quickest in reaction took off running, only to be cut down with their back turned. He tracked one, then let his arm drop, letting them escape unharmed.
       ‘Whether he gets the rest to flee or to come, it matters not.’ Titus told himself, stalking past the limp tangled bodies of the gangers as civilians fell to their knees pleading for mercy as if he was sent to judge their sins. He ignored them all, his helm’s battle tracker system easily letting him follow the ganger’s flight through the small terminal. Titus could hear the man yelling desperately, calling to those gangers still left in the small terminal.
       As Titus strode behind him, ignoring the cowering civilians looking up at him in terror and awe, the targeting viewer of his helmet buzzed slightly and started moving in and out of focus. Cursing to himself, Titus distractedly rapped his knuckles against the temple of his helm while muttering a benediction to his suit’s machine spirit. It finally focused as Titus strode through an abandoned security checkpoint into the reception area of the Starport terminal, just in time for targeting reticles to highlight almost three dozen gangers all pointing a menagerie of weapons at him, even a heavy stubber. He cursed again, and whipped his laspistol up sending a series of searing red bolts into the ganger with the heavy stubber as the gangers recovered from seeing a Space Marine just meander into their firing view.
       It did not take long for them to open fire with autopistols and autoguns, the bullets pinging off and leaving small impacts in his armor. So Titus charged forward with a yell, firing his laspistol seeking to close before one got a lucky hit. The gangers he charged immediately tried to run from the cover of the ticket desk they hid behind as screams filled the air alongside the bangs of the autoguns.
        With a leap, Titus cleared the desk, his armored form landing square on the legs of a scrambling ganger in ill fitting leather jerkins. He cried out as his legs were crushed, and silenced by a plunge of Titus’s power sword. He moved swiftly, slicing down the three other gangers running away and turning to look from behind their desk to see the rest of the group trying to move in, firing recklessly at him from the hip.
‘It’s like fighting Orks in their stupidity!’ he thought at their stupidity and simple volume of fire, then with a grin ‘Unfortunately for them, they are not Orks.’  He moved along the cover as bullets peppered it and tore it apart, the gangers yelling encouragement to each other seemingly thinking they had him on the run. Titus would soon disabuse them of that notion, as he holstered his laspistol for the time being.
       He charged the group as they moved in the open closer to him, and it was only then with a two meter tall armored giant did they pause and think they made a mistake. The fire slackened then grew more wild and inaccurate as Titus closed the twenty meter distance. His power sword crackled as it ignited, a lucky shot pinged off his helmet, sending the targeting matrix out of focus again, but he no longer needed it. He crashed into the bunched up group of gangers, carving through them with his power sword, his fist lashing out to batter those to his other side to the ground.
       One brave, foolish ganger larger than the rest dressed in gaudy armor charged at him as the rest scrambled away. The ganger’s chainsword chugged and roared as he slashed at Titus, which the space marine avoided with all the grace absent in the untrained ganger. He slashed up with his power sword as he spun to the side, slicing the ganger’s arm off at the elbow. The human barely had time to register the sudden loss of his limb before Titus’ fist smashed the back of his head, cracking the skull and slamming them limp onto the hard tiled floor.
       The gangers, all courage gone as true terror at what they were facing took hold, were in full flight. Some threw down their weapons and begged for forgiveness, which Titus provided with a swift merciful death. The rest fled through the doors to the ground car lot outside the doors to the terminal, several in such a state the doors knocked them down as they tried to push through.
       Titus followed the gangers to the door, watching them flee to a few oddly decorated vehicles including a Cargo-8 transport stopped haphazardly around the front. The logical side of his mind began yelling at him that his duty was done, the Starport was cleared, and escape was now his duty before word of his appearance spread. Yet even as he considered it, he heard the cries of injured civilians caught in the crossfire behind him. He turned to look at the carnage, where over a dozen gangers lay in crumpled heaps, but civilians who had only tried their best to hide when the shooting started had fallen from their hiding places, clutching at wounds he could not tend to. He looked to his power sword and made up his mind, he could not help those injured, but he could take vengeance.
       A pleading look from one civilian, looking up terrified from behind a ticket counter was the last encouragement he needed. He raised his power sword in silent salute to the civilians, before charging out as vehicle doors slammed shut and tires began squealing. He leapt onto the back of the Cargo-8, metal buckling slightly under his weight and his grip. But the terrified humans inside simply mistook it for the jolt of hitting a curb and failed to look behind them before Titus had ducked out of sight behind the tailgate. He had no idea where he was going, but he intended to make sure these gangers could never threaten the citizens of Edros City again.

 

[Tiber]

*note: This is the last previously written chapter.

 

Chapter 5

      The Cargo-8 sped down a highway for several minutes before whipping into a rundown suburb of Edros City. Here beyond the aesthetic laws of the city proper, the facades were crumbling revealing the brickwork underneath. Disrepair and decrepitude surrounded Titus as he clung to the speeding cargo vehicle, mag-clamped to its bumper. It weaved around ancient looking ground cars, or newer ones modified to a gaudy level to show off to the rest.
      Those civilians he saw walking its streets ranged from the insane to the hopelessly poor, with a handful of bravado infused gangers. Those that turned their gaze to look at the speeding convoy and their squealing tires would catch a glimpse of an armored figure with a flapping cloak obscuring all identity and form clinging on. At least that was Titus’ hope, regardless, when he left this place he would make sure it was in one of the vehicles.
      There was a final squeal of tires as the cargo-8 took a turn hard, its rear swinging out slightly due to Titus’ bulk, before it started to slow to a rumbling chug. Ahead Titus could pick out the sound of a gate opening, and arguments between frantic voices and calmer, confused ones. The frantic voices were no doubt the survivors as he picked out their terrified yelling about a space marine, and the complete disbelief in what he assumed were a gate guard’s responses.
      Titus chanced a glance around the end of the truck, and blinked in surprise at what he saw. The convoy was rumbling into a walled compound, with lavish greenery and an ornate building at the center. It was almost as if a patrician villa had been simply dropped into the middle of a slum. He pressed himself against the tailgate of the truck as it rumbled through the gate, him watching a gate guard in ornate garb with his back turned to the convoy walk back to his security shack. Titus waited several more seconds as the cargo-8 neared a tree line, then leapt from his perch, and dashed into the cover of the well tended pleasure garden.
      Titus took advantage of his speed to dash into a thicket of trees and knelt, blink clicking to zoom in on the entrance of the mansion, his helm taking an aggravating amount of time to fully resolve in focus. As his vision cleared, Titus saw several more gilded security guards armed with autoguns run out of the massive double doors of the villa with one’s even more ostentatious and sashed uniform marking him as a likely leader.  “What by the Throne have I gotten myself into…” he muttered.
      Titus had expected to be taken to some gang hovel, where he could quickly take out a bunch of easily missed rabble. This, however, was clearly some Aygean nobility’s manor, one he simply could not go charging in without good reason. So he bent his superhuman hearing to trying to overhear the conversation between the emphatic ganger and the guard leader.
      “...large, armored, pulped us in a fraking instant! Yeah, I think it was an Emperor damned space marine!” the ganger was almost hysterical with anger, his arms moving wildly in emphasis. His accent alone would have been almost incomprehensible to Titus had he not spent so long here on Aygeas.
      “That is not possible.” Titus heard the guard leader respond, the hint of annoyance making it even to him fifty meters away, “A lone Astartes? On Aygeas? Impossible. It had to have simply been a talented Ogryn or combat servitor.”
      “No frakking Ogryn would have moved like they did. We lasted barely ten or twenty seconds against that monster. Brakon is dead, our best throne-damned sword! He only got a swing in because the beast let. him.” The ganger swept his hand out to the group, “You see how many of us are here? That thing killed over half of us!”
Titus watched the guards look uncomfortable as they seemed to finally realize something, a couple of them looking around fearfully. Titus remained completely still, trusting in his cloak to keep him still as he knelt by a tree. The guard leader put his hand up to his chin, running a hand through his short cropped beard, “Hm, you have a point. Astartes or no, this could indeed be an issue. Come inside, all of you. Give your keys and weapons to my men, they will hide your vehicles. This needs to be taken somewhere more private.”
Titus watched as the chief guard turned smartly and marched up the stairs into the manor, with the gangers looking at each other before cautiously following him. There was a reluctant  exchange of keys and weapons with the guards at the door, before the great double doors silently slid shut. As the guards left outside moved to the small convoy of gaudy vehicles, Titus tried to blink-click the zoom clear rune of his helm display.
      The helm refused to return to a normal view, even after Titus attempted a rite of percussive maintenance. He pulled his helm off with a hiss of air pressure and turned it in his hands so the vacant eye lenses stared back at him. “What is going on with you?” he hissed under his breath at the blank faced helm, “I did all the rites, we even saw battle together. What is going on with you?” Titus complained at the helm. He knew its machine spirit wasn’t going to respond, but he could not think of why it was seemingly so displeased with him.
He dug into one of the pouches festooning his armor and pulled out a bottle of sacred oil, dapping it into key points with muttered benedictions. He worked as fast as he dared as the convoy of ganger vehicles rumbled by, being taken behind the manor by their drivers. After they passed, he replaced his helm and drew the hood of his cloak back over it, the zoom of the display back to normal.
      Content for now, he studied the building and area around him. It was clearly not designed for defense, with all defenses against the slum outside pointing outward. The manor was well built, but had multiple entry points, and for an astartes far too few guards standing at entry points. If he was wearing carapace armor, it would be almost too easy for him to slip inside and find incriminating evidence.
       Instead Titus stalked in the thicket of trees of the pleasure garden that stretched along the side of the manor. He was already committed, and attempting to leave would just as likely alert the manor as breaking in. With the noble family inside already clearly having criminal connections, he had no doubt the local gang network would be stirred up. Not to mention the potential for Enforcers to respond, it may be a poorly governed slum-urb, but it was still a noble manor.
       He worked the problem in his mind as he found another large tree to kneel beside, willing his suit to keep power to a minimum and locking joints to absolutely minimize noise. Behind the manor, he was able to look over the pool of several ganger vehicles, the security guards meandering around them, scoffing at their shabby nature. More than one seemed to be brushing off their spotless black and gold uniforms from perceived dirt.
      It was already evident from their conversation, he would not learn anything important as it was similar haughty disgust at the gangers they were working with. So Titus turned his senses to figuring out next steps and ensuring none would see him. He knew staying in one place would make him all the more likely to be spotted, but if he moved especially in his heavy battle plate, it risked being heard, especially with guards being close by.
      Around the small motor pool were a handful of outbuildings, and an expansive lawn reaching out a hundred meters to the rear wall of the property. The outbuildings themselves were, like the manor, of typical upper crust Aygean style - rich plaster, these in a light yellow, with decorative colonnades and overhanging tile roofs. They would be his only chance at cover if he wanted to try to move to the other side of the building, yet the dozen guards meandering motorpool made that a non-option.

      The chrono in Titus’ display showed the minutes dragging on as he continued to be simply unable to move. Every time he made to leave his semi-hidden spot, the guards would shift position, leaving his previous plan in ruins. As they spread out with time he too was left unable to backtrack, as they walked the main path of the pleasure garden randomly. He only thanked Terra they didn’t actually expect trouble, vigilant guards would have likely seen his tracks.
      At the edge of Titus’ hearing, he heard a distant noise so faint he couldn’t pick up on it. Almost as one, the guards around put their hands to voxbeads, some asking for confirmation, others immediately running towards the manor itself. Weapons seem to come from almost nowhere from well concealed holsters, and it was not long before the grounds deserted as the guards charged inside, side doors banging open.
      Before Titus even realized what he was doing himself, he was following it, stopping a small side door from slowly closing behind the last guard to charge inside. He drew his laspistol and nudged it open, and he heard the distinctive, but still distant sounds of gunshots and yelling. Did the gangers turn on their masters? or the other way around? he considered for a moment before dismissing it. Either way, he had committed himself to this scheme, after all - if this noble family was bold enough to seize an entire Starport from the planetary government, did it not threaten the Imperium? It may have been nearly one hundred years since Titus last fought in its ranks, but he was still an Astartes. More importantly, he was loyal, even when the Imperium itself seemed determined to shake itself of him.
      He moved into what appeared to be a kitchen abandoned halfway through cooking. Pots stood on lit burners, with cooking implements scattered, with only a couple cooking servitors working diligently away at their last tasks. Titus paid them no heed as they seemed completely oblivious to the sound of his armor as he trampled through and opened a door into a broad eating area, its walls half a wood facade and topped by multi colored wallpaper. By now the sounds of gunshots and las-bolts were obvious, with indistinct yelling adding to the layers of noise. The scent of blood tinged the air he breathed through his helm, confirming that some of the yelling was the cries of the injured.
    Titus drew his power sword and activated it as he readied the laspistol in the other after confirming it still had more than half its charge. He stalked through the dining area around its long table and out into a foyer, where he saw two more guards dash by, oblivious to him in their headlong rush into one of the hallways leading off the foyer. From the sounds of things, that was where the fight was happening, so he followed them.
      Titus pushed through the door into a side hallway that had a narrow flight stairs going up one way, and an open side door with two additional guards posted on either side of it. With commendable discipline, they reacted quickly to the door to the hallway slamming open, turning their heads to stare at the Astartes as they started to bring up their weapons. However their reactions slowed in terror at the sight, Titus seeing their limbs shake even as his combat display highlighted the humans and their weapons in threat runes. In a fluid motion too fast for the mortals to react to, Titus turned the laspistol in his hand around, and swung out, catching the butt of it into the sternum of the nearer guard. Titus felt the man’s ribs crack under the impact as he screamed and was sent flying back into his comrade, the pair tumbling back in a tangle of limbs with autoguns clattering to the ground.
Titus casually stepped on the dropped firearms, crushing their barrels under his armored tread as he pointed his power sword at the two humans, igniting it and lighting their terrified, pain-wracked faces in its silver-blue glow, “I will only ask this once. What is going on here?” He demanded, his voice a threatening growl, turned further into a threatening grumble by his vox-speaker. The first human was too busy writhing in pain as the other worked his jaw dumbly, his face pale as his eyes darted between the blade and the black threatening face of Titus’ helm. “Speak.” Titus demanded, “I do not have patience for imbeciles.
      “I-I…” the uninjured mortal guard sputtered, trying to find words that could save his life, “I don’t know! W-we were just told to guard this door to prevent anyone n-not one of us from leaving! Nothing more!” He cried out, wincing at Titus moving his blade slightly closer, “M-my lord?” he added almost as an afterthought.
      “Prevent who from leaving. Who is us. Are the gangers involved?” He demanded, “Those foul creatures you work with?”
      “G-gangers? Uh…I don’t know.” The mortal stammered, clearly near catatonic with fear, barely holding himself together. Titus pressed his blade closer, not touching the man’s skin but close enough the energy field made his hair stand on end. The other man coughed and moaned next to the first, clenching his chest hard still unable to add anything. “T-the guests are with us! We’re all loyal! We’ve done nothing wrong!” The first man insisted, suddenly grasping Titus’ meaning, “I don’t know what they could have done! T-there clearly must be some other family’s spy being flushed up!”
      ‘The rationalization of the ill-informed’, Titus thought, before lowering his blade, “You did not see me.” he threatened lowly, “If you see me again, you will see nothing. You will not raise your weapons to me again. You will tell no one.”
      The man nodded eagerly, “Y-yes my lord! Of course! My lips are sealed!”
      Titus motioned with his blade at the injured man, “Take care of your friend.” he said before turning and headed down the stairs towards the sound of the battle. Behind him, he heard the first man desperately try to assist with his comrade’s pain. Underfoot, the wooden stairs creaked dangerously as they tried to support his weight, encouraging him to go carefully. He slowly made his way down, the sound of fighting clear now, though the firing was more sporadic now. Reaching the bottom of the stairwell, he paused on the threshold of a doorway to listen.
      “-taking so long? Get in there and flush that spy out!” he heard a voice bark, Titus was sure it was the guard leader he had seen at the doorway.
      “Oh like that worked so well for the last guys who tried that.” Came a sarcastic, accented voice, definitely one of the gangers.
      “Get in there or I will shoot you myself, we pay you for a reason. You already failed us once today, or do you want your little group to be cut off? I’m sure the others will be just pleased to hear the 91ers are weak and lost all backing.” the commander threatened.
      There was several seconds pause before the ganger’s voice came back, “Come on lads, lets go get this frakker.” in a defeated tone. The gunfire suddenly intensified as autoguns were fired en masse, but then came a sound Titus knew all too well - several crack-roars of bolter fire, pistol no doubt, and the wet popping of human bodies being burst. Titus pushed through the door and was ran into by the ornately dressed commander as he vented his anger. The human bounced weakly off Titus’ plate and fell to the ground, his eyes wide in shock and terror as his eyes slowly made his way up Titus’ body taking in the scale of the space marine.
      “A-astartes, they-” The man started before Titus shot the man through the legs to keep him from leaving. He howled in anguish as Titus looked around the room, it was a large concrete bunker with tables and furnishing haphazardly thrown down for cover in front of a wide open reinforced square vault door some forty meters away. Bullet holes and las-scorch marks peppered the area around the large reinforced wheel door, but whoever the target was was well concealed. Corpses, some popped by bolt-pistol fire, others downed by more conventional means lay strewn between the cover line of furniture and the vault door.
        
      The noble guards and gangers manning the scattered cover started to turn in shock at the new arrival, as Titus raised his power sword as if in salute, “Greetings men and women of the House and the 91er gang. You have committed crimes against His Great Imperium, taking His facilities and assaulting His citizenry. I am your death.” He pronounced as his combat display displaying threat runes over each person in the room. It showed him in a glance the weapons they had and if any were a true danger to him. Only a couple of the guards had combat shotguns that he might worry about, the rest were of no real threat. He may have to worry more about the bolt-pistol held by whoever was hiding in the Vault however.
      He cracked several beams of searing light from his laspistol into those more dangerously armed mortals, sending them sprawling back as he simply strode forward. Autoguns started firing wildly at him, rounds ricocheting or impacting uselessly off his armor as he began to hew with his power sword. There was no artistry in it, Titus simply swept the sword across the huddling masses as they fired at him. He noted dispassionately his arrival evidently scared some of the mortals enough they fled towards the vault room only to be gunned down in turn.
      It did not take long for the guns to fall silent, leaving Titus alone, holes torn through his cloak but no worse for the wear as he turned to look at the vault door, raising his laspistol, “Come out, whoever you are. Know that I am Astartes, and will not be so easily deterred as these fools.”
      Almost to his surprise, two people, one male and one female, came out from the dark vault room. They were both clad in black body gloves, camo-line cloaks draped over their backs and shoulders as they held up their hands to show they meant no harm. One held a small device in their hand, and with a click, a hololithic projection of a stylized ]I[ appeared slowly rotating in space, “And I am Interrogator Alia Gondal, serving Inquisitor Heinrich Dorganon of the Ordo Xenos.” said the female, a sly smile crossing her face, “And we’ve been expecting you, ‘Idris Casarkon’. Took your time getting here.”

 

[Tiber]

Chapter Six

      He could have left of course, there was nothing stopping him from simply turning and leaving those Inquisitorial agents behind. He could have even killed them with relative ease should they have tried to stop him, for all their training they were still only mortal humans. Yet to Titus Galienos, despite decades of ill-luck and rejection by the Imperium, he still lived by the deeply implanted principles of duty and service he had lived by since he was first raised as a neophyte. So instead, he listened to the agents ‘request’ for him to follow them, and from that manor he had been taken aboard a Rogue Trader’s ship.
      That was two days ago, Titus mused, and in that time, he had been left in a small, but not cramped quarters. Everything thus far had been couched in requests, he had been requested to stay in his quarters, he had been requested to avoid talking to the man in stormtrooper garb outside his door, and more. He had even been left with his weapons, armor, and everything he had on his back. Yet much like the ‘requests’, he expected this hard more to do with them not wanting to risk the challenge of forcing him to do anything. So he had refused all offers for his equipment to be taken to the Inquisitor’s armorer for attention, or even to be taken out of his plate.
      Titus weighed his power sword carefully in his hand contemplatively as he stood in the middle of the austere officer’s apartment he was in. He stood in an emptied, roughly square reception room meant to be just large enough for a favored middle officer to have a private space, with small adjoining rooms for a bed and private lavatory. Titus sighted down his sword’s blade, turning it over in his hand before suddenly in a blur of motion, he began to shadow fight an imaginary opponent. He blocked, parried, and attacked the air in controlled swings as his power armor loudly grumbled with each tightly controlled movement, the tip of his blade missing the walls by centimeters.
      He had spent almost every waking moment in this way, his mind recalling opponents he had fought from across the centuries as he slew them once more. It wasn’t true training, but he hadn’t had a battle brother to spare with in, to him, almost a century. Instead, he was left with simple maintenance of what he had. It kept his body occupied and the anxious machine spirit of his armor distracted, and drowned his mind in memories that kept him out of his ignoble circumstance. When he had first been confined to this room, he had plunged into memories from better days, of the Great Crusade.
      Yet as time wore on and his mood darkened from his subtly increasing anger at his de facto confinement, Titus’ mind was pulled to darker memories. Desperate struggles in the Shadow Crusade against Word Bearers and World Eaters, his blade slicing through the air in desperate parries of chain axes as howls ringed in his ear. Darker still, his battles as a Blackshield, his mind vividly recalling every Legion he fought from the cold resistance of the Iron Warriors to the controlled fury of the Sons of Horus. His blade froze in mid-plunge, a mental image of a sight that plagued him even to this very day of a brother in black and red, howling in pain and fury as he lost all sense.
      Titus very slowly went to a stance of repose, sliding his sword back into its scabbard as he fought to chase the image of an angelic face twisted in feral fury. His dual hearts pumped in sympathy, but it was not a response of fear the image elicited. Instead, at the idea that one so noble as a former Blood Angel could have fallen so far with seemingly no reason, and what that meant for him or any of his fellow Astartes. It was the penultimate twist of the knife in his soul that the Heresy had subjected him to, the last of course being banished to this accursed time. He slowly lowered his head in contemplation, speaking quietly to himself, “Brother Mero, I hope you found peace.”
      Titus stood almost motionless as he stilled his raging mind, burying those hated memories with practiced ease. A process suddenly interrupted by a knock on the door to his confinement quarters, and the door opened, revealing Interrogator Alia Gondale. She was wearing a black vest emblazoned with the Inquisitorial ]I[ over what looked like naval fatigues. Her short cut hair was tied back, and her face hard as she looked at Titus, “I see you have been keeping yourself busy.”
      “Only the most basic of practice routines.” Titus replied evenly, not moving from his pose other than moving his head to look at the woman, “What this cell allows.”
The woman smiled slyly, leaning against the wall next to the open porthole, “You and I both know this is no cell, especially for you. You could leave at any time if you wanted.”
Titus shrugged slightly with a rattling of plate, “A cell without bars is still a cell. Just as false civility is still false. I could leave, but to do so would be to break the trust of this Inquisitor you serve. Excommunicatus would almost certainly follow.”
      “As you say.” She said with a shrug, “The Inquisitor sends his apologies for keeping you…detained for so long. Believe it or not, a rogue space marine is quite low on his list of priorities.”
      Titus’ jaw worked at being called rogue as he glared down at the interrogator, “So has he finally deigned to summon me?” he asked, his words tinged with a hint of venom over his displeasure at all that had occurred.
      “No.” Gondale replied bluntly not rising to his anger, pushing herself up from the wall before pressing the key to close the porthole, “He does however send his appreciation for chasing the 91ers off of Tertius Starport, and being such a great distraction at Caekon Manor. Oh, and for not killing Acolyte Okren at your unit. That would have been…inconvenient for both of us.” The Interrogator strode over to a small wooden chair Titus had pushed into a corner, and moved it back towards the center of the room a couple meters in front of Titus. “It is, in fact, one of the reasons you are still alive.”
      “He was lucky I wanted to ask him questions. Otherwise I didn’t care to think he was from a higher power until after he fled.” Titus replied, looking down at his gauntlet as he recalled the quality of the camoline.
      “And yet you still thought beyond simply killing him.” Gondale said with a disarming smile, resting one leg over the other, “Which leads us to wonder. Just who are you?” She motioned at him, “Forgive me, but you're not like the other renegade Astartes we have encountered before. You even seem to retain some of your original colors.” She added, pointing specifically to his cobalt blue left pauldron, “Yet your armor’s pattern suggests a veteran, which makes your seeming blackshield nature ever more puzzling.”
Titus frowned, “You would not believe me. Your era of superstition has only ever called me a liar and a traitor when I have tried to come forward.”
      The interrogator tilted her head slightly to the side as she folded her hands together on her lap. To Titus, her seemingly relaxed nature told him either she trusted that he would not dare attack her, or that she was confident in whatever defenses she had to keep her safe if he did. He was not sure which he found more insulting. “ “your era” ?” she asked bemused, “Well now you have my true curiosity. And what harm is there in trying? You're already our…guest.”
      Titus’ face twitched slightly at her intonation of the word ‘guest’, the hollow euphemism clear. He stood there for several seconds, debating whether or not to try his honest story with the Inquisition before deciding, “I am Titus Galienos, formerly Line Captain of the two hundred and twelfth company of the Thirteenth Legion. I was abandoned by my legion in the drive to Terra, and as scattered loyalists collected under my banner, I decreed a temporary blackshield status for all to encourage unity amongst my forces.”
He reached across and rapped his knuckle against his blue pauldron, “As such we removed all insignia that could create division, but left our legion colors as a reminder of who we were. As loyal sons, we purged traitors bypassed by our fathers until some strange traitor ritual we interrupted backfired. I and many of my brothers were pulled into a vortex. My next memory is landing on some backwater world a century ago. I was stuck there for decades, and have ever since tried to make my way to Macragge. I desire nothing more than to return to my younger brothers.”
      There were several moments longer of silence after Titus finished speaking, the interrogator narrowing her eyes as she considered what he said. Then Titus felt an a jab in his brain that made him snarl and draw his blade reflexively, “Psyker!” he growled, his power sword whistling as he swung it up into a readied stance as he glared daggers through Alia Gondale, “You dare try to push into my mind?” he said in a low threatening tone, “I do not forget that touch so easily.”
      The woman blinked, her eyes widening slightly in surprise and Titus heard her heart start to race slightly in response, though she managed to maintain a cool exterior, “I apologize. Perhaps our psyker got a little too..curious.” She motioned carefully, holding her hand out in a gesture of apology and for him to remain calm.
      Titus regarded the interrogator suspiciously, and he could feel the psykic jab receed. With an annoyed grunt, he deactivated his power sword and took a step back in contrition, but not sheathing his blade. Still..it was good to see that she did still fear him, it was meager recompense for the indignity of his circumstances, “Tell this pet psyker of yours to not touch me again. I do not appreciate such sorcerous things.” He demanded in a low voice, his hands clenching tight.
      Gondale gave a small controlled nod, “Very well, but you must understand why we might wish to have him…verify your story, yes? We have permitted you tremendous leeway in your circumstances, others might have simply seen you executed as a traitor.”
      Titus didn’t reply to that, it was certainly possible if the fairly limited reputation of the Inquisition that he knew of was anything to go on. That of course, was if they would be quite so foolish as to try, but saying so would likely not be what the interrogator would want to say. Instead he simply sheathed his sword and studied the interrogator as she seemed to do the same with her steel gray eyes.
      After several moments of silence, Gondale tilted her head slightly and said, “Let’s say I believe your little story, when and where exactly did this…ritual you say you interrupted happened?”
      “The Knight World of Calavon.  783 014.M31.” Titus answered without pause. On a crashed Word Bearer’s frigate we had identified as the Void Blood.”
      “Calavon?” Gondale asked, “That is within the sub-sector. If you fought alongside the Knights of Adaste, surely you could have afforded a trip there by now, verified your identity with their records, and been on your way?” Titus could tell she thought she’d found some flaw in his story, flashes of emotion crossing her face that a normal Astartes unused to dealing with mortals likely would have missed. Likely even most humans, but Titus had long been forced to learn and perfect such skills to keep his cover.
      “A possibly astute question, if it weren’t for several issues.” Titus replied dismissively, raising a fist with a whir of plates and extending three fingers, “I will give three. One; I refuse to be seperated from my wargear, so any such passage that would have protected me from overzealous local authorities would be very expensive. Two; the pay I have received was insufficient. You have no doubt frozen my accounts, and I have handed over my physical currency. It would have been at least another year before I had sufficient funds for such a journey. And three;”
      Titus paused as he considered how best to word his response, “I quite frankly had no idea Calavon was so nearby. I was seeking passage to Macragge, not some knight world I fought on 10,000 years ago in the vague hope they would believe me long enough to verify and not attack me for being a renegade.” He finished, only slightly lying.
“And why exactly are you so sure you would have?” she countered, clear suspicion crossing her face.
      “Because it happened before. On the world I was on before Aygaes. Aten Ra.” Titus’ voice was controlled as he fought against the anger the insinuation brought, “I presented myself, as I am, with the honest words I have said to you.” his lip curled slightly in distaste, “They promised to bring me to the governor to arrange transportation, I was instead threatened. The corrupt fool thought he could threaten me, demanding I serve him or be executed for abandoning my chapter and turning against the Emperor, Beloved by All.”
      “Aten Ra?” she asked carefully, "I see. And I recall a reported attempt on said planetary governor’s life from that time. Care to explain?”
      “Interrogator, I’ll tell you what I told him. I fought in the Great Crusade for a century. I stood against the traitorous filth that tried to kill us all.” Titus smiled grimly, “And he thought I was bluffing. When I refused for both my own and my chapter's honor to bend the knee, he ordered his guard to open fire on me. Anything past that, was mere self defense. I am sure the reports are shockingly short on deaths for the ‘assassination’.” This was of course, only mostly true. Titus felt confident that the true when or where mattered too much to this woman. He had no idea what happened on Aten Ra, but upon Aygaes? Certainly.
      Gondale studied Titus for several long moments, “Very well. I will be leaving you now. I have other duties to attend to, and I am sure the Inquisitor will wish to hear your…story.” She said to him as she stood to leave.
      Titus shifted slightly as he considered stepping forward, grunting in annoyance as his suit’s leg caught slightly, “Very well. As you said; you have other duties. But I must ask, may I leave this…confinement to go to the armory. My suit's machine spirit grows…disquieted with its predicament and my repairs.”
      “You can always request the armor to be delivered there.” The interrogator began, turning back from the door she was about to open, but Titus held up a hand
“No. I must be present.” He told her firmly, “Beyond whatever you might think of suspicion or such on my part, my plate has been in my care and my care alone for a very long time. I must ensure its machine spirit is correctly attended to.”
      Gondale narrowed her eyes slightly and studied him, something he was noticing she was very prone to doing. He wondered if she was hiding her listening to some cue from her master, or simply it taking her some time to read his implacable Astartes features, “Fine. I’ll arrange an escort when you’re ready. Just inform your ‘honor guard’.” she said before opening the door to his quarters, leaving him once more alone in the gray box of isolation.
      Without a word, Titus drew his power sword up into position of repose and spoke quietly to his armor's machine spirit, "I will see to you soon, I promise. But we need to work through one more." With that, he swept his sword up and into a feigned parry to a recalled Iron Warrior's chain axe.

 

Edited November 18 by Tiber
added chapter number

[Tiber]

Chapter Six, Cont.

      For over a standard Terran month, Titus Galienos virtually lived with the ship’s armory, watching over the tech-priests as they spent what time they could with his wargear. While he found the reverence they showed to what was undoubtedly to them relic armor of utmost holiness to be encouraging, he still could not shake the lingering discomfort over their rituals. While the Mechanicum of his time was certainly quite religious, this new Adeptus Mechanicus, much like the Imperium itself, had taken such tendencies and magnified them exponentially in the millenia since. Yet another annoying amplification of familiar culture elements to a bastardized extreme, Titus considered.
      He sat in a metal chair dressed in a simple working robe with a component of his bolter, applying sanctified oils to every working surface of it, paying only a fraction of his attention to his work. Most of his attention was watching the pair of tech adepts fawn over another component of his armor. It was unsurprisingly the stubborn leg joint that refused to obey all attempts at repair. For as slow as the adepts worked with all their ceremony and religion, he had to admit they had done as well as could be expected for the rest of the armor.
      Titus set the bolt component on the table beside him, glancing at the disassembled bolter, then over at the armorium rack on which most of his repaired armor stood. Many of the field repairs he had been forced to make or cludge together had been refined and the black and blue paints refreshed. While it certainly needed time in a true Astartes armory, Titus had to admit, this captivity was in some way worth seeing his beloved wargear approach its old self.
      After he swiftly reassembled his bolter with long, practiced ease, his reveillairies were interrupted by one of the two tiresome escorts stepping forward. Titus looked up at the beady eyed blank faced face mask of the ornately armored stormtrooper, “What?” he asked sourly, “I’m working.”
      “My lord sends his apologies.” came the reply, the storm trooper’s voice modulated by his? mask, “However he requests your presence on the A Deck.”
      Titus sighed and wiped his hands clean of oil with a work cloth before standing, “Is it finally your ‘Inquisitor’ or is it yet another damned interrogation by some lackey of his?”
“They are interviews, my lord.” the escort replied, ‘correcting’ Titus to another one of the Inquisitor’s annoying euphemisms, “But I do not know. I only know where to take you”
      Titus grunted in annoyance and acknowledgement before he stood, towering over the escorts and grabbing his power sword in its scabbard, looping its belt over his work robe. “Fine. Lead the way.”
      The pair saluted him and turned smartly on their heels, walking out of the armory at what was to them a brisk pace, but to Titus almost a stroll. They lead him through the labyrinth of passages and stairwells in the rogue trader’s vessel, and through it all, he never once saw any crew besides at a distance. It was always this way whenever he left his quarters, leaving Titus convinced there were other storm troopers that as part of his escort kept the corridors clear. However, he was not quite sure if it was a precaution against him, or a precaution simply to keep his progress unimpeded.
      After a lift ride to the A Deck, Titus immediately noted a stark change in the ship’s interior. Gone were the narrow, at least for him, cramped corridors of gun metal and harsh, flickering fluorescents. Instead the corridor before him was wide, ornately decorated, and had a rich carpeted floor. The lumens filled the corridor utterly with a soft light that nonetheless lit every surface. The storm troopers stepped out from the elevator and lead Titus down a couple more turns and corridors before coming to a halt smartly at either side of a pair of grand wooden doors, criss-crossed with gold and silver filigree in the shape of, Titus assumed, a familial crest.
      “Through here, my lord.” one of the escorts said, the voice modulation of their mask making it difficult even for Titus to to place a voice to either soldier.
      “Very well.” Titus replied flatly and was about to step through, when he considered the importance of appearances. He straightened his working robe to sit on him more squarely, pulling his old camo-cape over a shoulder in a half covering much like how he would wear it in his days as a captain of the legion. Satisfied, he nodded to the storm troopers then pushed his way into the room.
      The room was five meters high, stretching off two or three times that in any direction from Titus. The outer wall was lined with tall bookshelves that stretched to the ceiling, with two book retrieval servitors sitting idle by the entrance. Interspersed throughout the luxuriously decorated room were random ornate small tables and at the center of the room, three figures stood around an active hololith casting them in its soft blue glow. Before it shut down, Titus saw a zoomed in section of some city or other in ruin.
      The three figures made for a confusing collection, with his eye first drawn to a pudgy, broadly built noble dressed in the garish silk finery of one who thought it passed for modest for one of his ilk, the man’s jawline weak and his face framed by artificially white, curled hair. However, his eyes a surprisingly piercing steady blue as they focused on Titus. The second man was in a black coat that covered at least a carapace chest-piece, a mix of clothing that put a lot of bulk on what Titus believed to be a slight frame, but the man’s bearing was one that spoke of being used to being commanded. His lower face was covered by a thick stubble the same dark brown of his slightly shaggy hair, like he had forgotten to shave for too long, and his steel gray eyes were hard, but distant as if constantly considering something else, in front of him was a half drank mug of recaf on the hololith's table. The last was shrouded by a black robe that seemed to swallow the mortal, and it was clear he had deliberately shifted it to hide a near fully obscured symbol upon his shoulder.
      “Captain ‘Galienos’.” The man in the black coat simply stated, his voice somehow maintaining a pitch of speaking plain fact, but that he somehow doubted that fact.
Titus stepped forward up to the idle hololith as six eyes bored into him, and he glanced at each figure in turn, “Why did you ask for me?” he asked after a moment when it was clear nothing else was forthcoming. Titus noticed the dark brown eyes of the robed man seemed the most focused on him, as if studying every inch of him and judging. ‘Is this the Inquisitor?’ he thought, ‘If so I fail to see how he could be.’.
      “Because, Captain, as much as I would have liked to have you more thoroughly screened, we simply do not have the time.” Said the man in the armor, “I am Inquisitor Heinreich Dorganon. Before you is a servant of a chapter of the Adeptus Astartes who has asked to remain…unnamed for now.” He motioned to the robed man, “And the most noble Rogue Trader Adryahn De Gros.” he motioned with a wave to the gaudy noble who swallowed vigorously before opening his mouth.
      “He can be relied on, mostly, I believe.” Dorganon cut off the Trader, fixing him with a hard stare, drawing a glare from the noble.
      “I wasn’t going to ask that.” De Gros snorted, turning his head in mock insult.
      “No, you were probably going to go into a diatribe about how honored, but not really, you felt to meet your ‘guest’.” Dorganon said bluntly before quickly continuing with a stab of his finger, the hololith burst to life, projecting a blue, hazy view of the world of Agyeas, “Captain, I trust you are in fighting condition?” he asked.
      “I am.” Titus replied firmly, his hand unconsciously moving to the hilt of his power sword as he looked down at the mortals, “I can not say the same for my battle plate.”
      “If it isn’t you will just have to make due.” Dorganon replied dismissively, “The situation has gotten much worse upon the planet. It seems we kicked a hornet’s nest, thus, I require your help, Captain.”
      “My masters should be more than adequate for putting down the rabble, my lord.” the serf suddenly interjected with surprising temerity. Titus saw the Inquisitor tense, clearly the serf had annoyed him.
      “Your masters came without warning or invitation. I would prefer an asset I have some control over.” Dorganon replied tersely with a glare at the serf. Titus may have been an Astartes, but even he could feel the distrust radiating from both parties as they stared each other down.
“Now now, I am sure Master Serf Ayleon meant not to disrespect, sir.” The Rogue Trader cut in with a diplomatic turn and a nervous smile, “Why don’t we focus on informing our…guest on what is going on?” he offered.
      Titus nodded slightly to the Trader, “Yes. Just a month ago Aygaes as far as I knew was as peaceful as any world in the Imperium. I fail to see the emergency.”
Dorganon stabbed a few buttons and the hololith shifted to a few seconds of a vid-capture of rioting. The outlines were fuzzy, making it impossible for Titus to see any detail besides a large group of humans chanting and marching. He felt a pang of nostalgia for the crisp, clear hololiths of the Great Crusade, even though he knew they could also be finicky.
“Riots have broken out planet-wide. A simultaneous uprising too coordinated to be random, but not simultaneous and targeted enough for me to worry it's something far worse.” Dorganon explained, “Ordinarily, I would not be too worried, however the planetary governor suddenly vanished last week.’ He shook his head,  “Which itself would not be too much of an issue, if the head of the planetary Arbites and local enforcers hadn’t also turned up dead in the past twenty four hours, murdered in their own homes by their servants.”
“So it is a revolution?” Titus asked, considering how he had heard of the Raven Guard legion doing similar things during the Crusade, of course, his mind then tried to pull up more painful memories of his band which he immediately quashed.
      “I wish.” Dorganon answered with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. The man suddenly looked incredibly fatigued, that one gesture showing how hard he was running, “If it were as simple as that, I frankly wouldn’t care as long as those riots were simply against the local nobility or the tourists or whatever other petty local complaint. No, there is an outside influence behind this, seeking to usurp the Imperium. I believe it is the xenos known as the Tau.”
      Titus considered that for a few moments, “I have fought them before. Briefly. Subversion definitely was something I noticed.”
      “So you have told my acolytes, which only has confirmed my suspicions. The world you reported fighting these xenos is within range of their capabilities, only just. But it is part of a pattern.” Dorganon sighed, “Unfortunately, I underestimated the level of penetration they seem to have achieved into Aygaes. Thus why I need you, now.” He told Titus, waving off the serf before he could complain.
      “Is it really that bad? And what difference could I by myself make and not this serf’s chapt-” Titus began but Dorganon make a sharp cutting motion with a hand.
      “Our esteemed guests are not fans of listening to me. I’ve tried. Each time they have only succeeded in making things worse, or while they’ll crush one cell, anything I could have used would also be destroyed.” He explained, ignoring the glare from the chapter serf, “I am giving you a chance to earn redemption. Perhaps I will allow you to earn forgiveness with the Deathwatch, if you do your job.”
      Titus’ lip turned down slightly, he did not like a mortal speak of  ‘allowing’ him to serve, but he chose not to voice his displeasure. A man powerful enough to cowe a Rogue Trader and a representative of Space Marines had to be respected, “Very well. What’s the mission?”
      Dorganon’s fingers danced on the hololith’s interface, pulling up the fuzzy image of a warehouse, “It will be here. You will recieve your briefing on the way. You are to arm yourself and make your way to Hanger Beta-Two immediately. Now leave, I have much else to do.”
      Titus blinked, his hand tightening on the hilt of his power sword at the insultingly terse dismissal. His rage bubbled up, and with effort, he forced it back down  turning sharply and marching out of the room, letting his escorts try to scurry after him to keep up.
      After a few minutes striding and stepping into the lift he had come up on, he saw a third figure walk quickly onto the lift behind the escorts. When they turned and saw the passenger, they began to move to push him off before Titus rested a large hand on one’s engraved carapace pauldron gently restraining the man, feeling him freeze even under the armor, “Master Serf Ayleon.” Titus greeted the robed mortal.
      “Captain Galienos.” The man replied with some forced joviality as he eyed the blank visages of the storm troopers who stepped back as Titus let go of the one he grabbed’s shoulder, “I heard you are having difficulties with your wargear.”
      “I am.” Titus replied suspiciously, raising an eyebrow.
      The serf bowed deeply as the lift jerked into motion, “It would be an honor if you would allow me to assist in its repair rituals. I may be my masters’ representative, but I was once an artificer. I believe I may be of some assistance.”
      As the man stood, his once swallowing hood had rocked back slightly, revealing the aged features but strong eyes of an experienced serf. Titus considered the offer for a couple seconds before inquiring, “Won’t your masters wish you to return quickly?”
      “Sire, my masters would surely understand my desire to assist a long lost brother, I shalln’t tarry. Only assist in the most vexing issue.” Ayleon replied smoothly.
Titus’ brow furrowed, “Long lost?”
      The man blinked, as if only just realizing he had let that slip, “Apologies, sire. The Inquisitor informed me of your…predicament so as to not surprise my masters with your sudden appearance on the field.” he explained a little hastily.
       Titus considered that before shrugging, it made a certain level of sense, and the joints and helm display stability of his armor had been sources of consternation amongst even the most talented tech-adepts aboard this ship. Perhaps an experienced chapter serf could at least see what was wrong the tech adapts couldn’t through sheer experience? “Very well.       Do not touch it without one of the armory tech adepts with you. I know how touchy they are about that.”
The serf bowed again, a little too enthusiastically for Titus’ tastes, “Thank you sire. I am sure by the time you return it will be nearly as good as new.”.
Titus frowned, and couldn’t help but wonder if this serf had an ulterior motive, and if it wasn’t a mistake to let them poke at his armor. He dismissed this thought as baseless suspicion born of being alone for far too long, and turned his mind to considering the unknown mission he was soon to depart on.

 

[Tiber]

Chapter Seven

 

            Titus rolled his shoulders, shifting the pauldrons of the scout carapace armor that had been ‘graciously’ donated by the mysterious space marine strike force after it quickly became obvious his battle plate would not be ready in time. The serf at least seemed to be true to his word and was helping the tech magi repair his armor far faster than before. He still felt incredibly exposed to be heading into a potential battle armored like a mortal, as even his short time as a recon legionnaire in the Crusade saw him typically armored in full plate.
      He was standing in the cramped confines of a human scaled dropship, holding tight onto crash webbing as his bulk precluded sitting like the humans around him. There was a squad of four of those ornately armored storm troopers, that he had learned were referred to as ‘tempestus scions’, leaving him wondering what happened to the solar auxilia of his time. Leading this little expedition was Explicator Shaydon Hark, the very man Titus found in his hab unit not long ago. He was out of the camoline bodysuit and in an armored body glove under his own carapace armor. His shaved head was uncovered, and Titus could feel the occasional glare from the mortal. That and the clipped briefing Hark had given them when they boarded the dropship told him Hark still held a grudge against him, which Titus couldn’t help but find mildly amusing in its pettiness.
      “Atmospheric entry in ten seconds.” the pilot’s voice reported over the microbead in his and the rest of the party’s ears.
      “Bring us in hard and fast.” Hark ordered the pilot, which was acknowledged in a short professional manner.
      The steady humming vibration of the hull increased as the pilot opened the throttle a little more. The vibrating bangs of control thrusters that so many mortals mistook as simply being part of planetary entry shifted the craft’s attitude slightly, and Titus closed his eyes, recalling his time as a Legion pilot before the Heresy destroyed the Imperium.
He let part of his concentration drift to an aerial ambush he took part in as a fresh Xiphon Interceptor pilot, recalling the steady increasing push of the hard entry as they dived on an Ork aerial horde just as he felt the increasing push of deceleration on his limbs. Titus let a small smile across his face from the memory, and as he felt the battle-readiness fill him. He knew combat wasn’t guaranteed on this mission, but he found himself hoping they’d find it.
      The g-forces suddenly started lifting, only to be replaced by the tight movements of the pilot as they dived on the target warehouse. “Sixty seconds.”, the pilot reported Titus felt the dropship shudder slightly through some turbulence. The humans around him began readying their hellguns, but remaining in their crash seats. Titus freed his right hand from the crash webbing and reached back, pulling the bolter on his back up and over to a relaxed position on his chest, his hand resting on its grip to keep it steady.
      Several seconds later, the pitch of the thrusters changed to a roar as the dropship pitched hard to arrest its forward momentum. Titus had to brace himself for the movement, unable to rely on even the intermittent mag clamping of his battleplate. With a pair of sudden thunks of the rear then forward landing skids impacting the ground, the rear ramp of the dropship lowered with a grumble of hydraulics. Titus readied his bolter, but did not bring it up from its relaxed ready position, and was out of the dropship before the humans had even untangled their harnesses.

            They seemed to have landed in the middle of a half-full parking lot for ground cars. Titus scanned around him as his camo cloak billowed around him in the dropship’s backwash, noting they seemed surrounded by warehouses in the neighboring lots, and the tall stacks, complicated pipework, and large buildings of a manufactoria area behind. To one side lay a wide avenue, followed by a sharp drop after guardrails behind which lay the deep blues and greens of the Aygean seas. Closer at hand were a small handful of mortals, half seemed frozen in place at the four engined dropship that suddenly ‘fell’ from the sky and the rest running to get out of sight. Most seemed to be in worker overalls, likely caught between shifts.
      The small squad with Titus made their way down  the ramp behind him and took up flanking positions as the Explicator strolled next to him, double tapping his microbead to signal the pilot. With a sudden roar, the dropship lifted off, its ramp raising to a closed flight position as it roared out.
“What about the spectators?” Titus asked, motioning to the couple dozen random workers gawking at the party from a distance.
“Leave them, if they try to approach, disperse them. We need to move quickly before our quarry escapes.” Hark told him, before walking meaningfully towards the tall, whitewashed walls of the closest warehouse. The Scions fell in around him as a protective square, leaving Titus to simply follow them. He could not help but feel this mission was a gross waste of his capabilities as an Astartes. Not only was it some mere capture mission of suspected mid-ranking members of the Tau infiltration ring, but Hark was insistent on Titus acting as a rearguard.
      ‘Is the Inquisitor truly running so thin on resources that he requires me to rush onto a mission? Yet in a position that seemingly doesn’t make good use of an Astartes capabilities?’, Titus considered with a portion of his mind, even as he otherwise kept scanning the surrounding area as the party approached a small side door into the warehouse. Explicator Hark produced something from his toolbelt and began to worm on the door as Titus worked through various practicals and theoreticals.
      After a few seconds, he recalled the Inquisitor’s mention of riots, and their likely connection to the xenos plot, and realized the explanation was quite obvious - the primary threat wouldn't be seizing the target, it would be fighting whatever mob the target managed to call for before their capture. The practical was simply even outside his battle plate, he would be a considerable opponent for a mob of poorly armed civilians. Certainly not invincible, as he grimly recalled even plated battle brothers being dragged down by hordes of hundreds of mortal human fanatics, but enough to hold back the tide with five Inquisitorial agents until help arrived? Potentially.
      In the few seconds it took him to consider this, there was a small ‘click’ from the door as the Explicator finished picking the lock and motioned to one of the Scions by the door, “You’re on point.” he ordered. The Scion nodded and shifted his hellgun into a one handed grip, cautiously cracking open the door as Hark produced an auspex from a belt holster. Titus turned his attention out from the warehouse and saw that more civilians, now up to thirty or fourty loitering and staring from a hundred meters away from across the parking lot they landed, stopped likely only by the chain link fence separating the lot from the sidewalk.
      “I don’t like this.” Titus voiced quietly to the Explicator, motioning to the crowd now hanging around the perimeter.
      Hark glared at Titus for a second for interrupting his booting up the auspex as the Scion at the door glanced over at the Explicator for instruction, “Neither do I. We’ll need to expedite.” He replied before motioning for the Scion to move in, which they dutifully obeyed. The soldier slipped into the half lit gloom of the warehouse followed by Explicator Hark. As the others followed inside, Titus swept the surrounding area one more time, squinting his eyes as he spotted a wink of light from the pipework of the surrounding manufactoria. He watched the spot, cursing to himself for not having his armor as even his enhanced vision could only just make up a vague shape disappearing into a mass of scaffolding and pipework. With his bolter covering the distant manufactoria, Titus slowly stepped back into the warehouse and closed the door.

      Tall metal shelves that stretched to the ceiling sat to either side of the broad hallway the party had come out into. Each shelf was loaded down with a mix of large shipping containers and plastec wrapped pallets of boxes, all with a variety of labels on their sides. Explicator Hark stood over the prone form of a worker in a yellow fluorescent vest and simple work overalls, their hands cuffed behind their back. Hark seemed to pay them no mind as his eyes drifted along the shelving units, clearing wishing he had the time to spare to investigate them for contraband.
      Looking away from the shelves, Hark looked to Titus and the Scions motioning for them to move in, “Try to subdue, if they resist, exterminate them. Captain Galienos, watch our back.” he ordered before striding towards the main aisle down the center of the warehouse.
      “‘Lo, Daniyl, what's taking so long?” called a rough sounding voice from the next aisle over just as the party stepped out into the central aisle. There were a handful of workers and servitors visible, all pushing pallet lifters or driving their motorized cousins in various states of loaded or unloaded. All of the human workers froze in the middle of what they were doing as they saw the armed group suddenly appear almost smack in the middle of the warehouse. The servitors of course kept doggedly working their tasks as Hark held up his Inquisitorial seal, letting it display a holographic icon of the Inquisition.
       “All workers here are to immediately cease function and surrender themselves onto me for confinement and interrogation, by order of the Holy Ordos of His Most Holy Inquisition.” Hark ordered in a voice that projected clearly even over the background noise of pallet lifters and servitors. Most of the handful of workers immediately threw themselves to their knees with their arms raised in surrender, their faces wracked by terror, joined by several more workers from the aisles.
      One made the mistake of flinging himself from his motorized pallet lifter to try to flee. A Scion raised their hellgun and speared the man with a bolt of vivid red light, punching a crater  through the man’s chest as he sprawled to the ground. The surrendering workers shifted uncomfortably, wincing from the sharp crack of the bolt.
      “Those who resist will be put down as a renegade who defied the will of the Holy Ordos.” Hark pronounced coldly before any could work up the courage to complain, “Do not speak unless I ask you a direct question.” He then pointed to two Scions, “Secure them.” before motioning to Titus and the other two Scions to follow.
      Titus looked down at the kneeling workers as he walked by, the rank of their fear was obvious even over the smells of the warehouse, but those who dared glance up had incomprehension cross their face at the sight of him. Titus wondered if they could recognize what he was for a moment before turning his attention back to the Explicator as he led the group towards the front of the warehouse, studying his auspex dutifully, stepping over the slain worker’s corpse almost absent mindedly.
      Hark stopped and turned, waving the auspex over a container on the floor of the shelves and frowned, looking to Titus, “If you would be so kind?” he asked motioning towards it.
Titus grunted and slung his bolter, he rested his hands on the cold metal of the container and shoved. It squealed along the rockcrete floor, mixed with the squealing of metal on metal as it moved surprisingly easily aside. Shoving it totally out of the way, he turned and saw the Explicator flanked by the two Scions leaning down and inspecting a revealed metal hatch. It was two rectangular doors laying flush with the rockcrete, with hand hold catches near where Hark was kneeling.
      Titus unslung his bolter and leveled it at the hatch as he stalked to the side as he felt the slight unease of long experience that something was not about to go well. Hark waved his auspex over the hatches and nodded, replacing it and drawing his own lasgun, “Get this open.” He ordered the Scions. They reached down and each grabbed a hand hold and pulled.
      Slowly at first, then faster as they got a better grip, Titus caught sight of a flight of rockcrete stairs descending into a surprisingly well lit hallway. The Scions stepped to the sides and drew their hellguns as they were rejoined by the two who had secured the workers. Hark looked at Titus, “Stay here if you please. Even if you hear fighting, the last thing I want is to be trapped in a bunker with no way out.”
Titus nodded, understanding the logic if unhappy with the decision, his innate desire was of course to be at the heart of the fight, “Very well. Don't be long.” he told the Explicator before nodding to the Scions in good luck before dropping into cover down one aisle. Just as before, two Scions descended down the stairs, followed by Hark, and the two other Scions.
      Titus fell into a state of pure observation, watching and listening for any change to the noises of the warehouse. Servitors finishing their last tasks could be heard settling into inactivity or otherwise continuing on mindlessly. He couldn’t hear the captured workers, making him passingly curious as to what the two Scions had done with the dozen workers.
Minutes dragged on before something changed, right at the same time he heard the echo of Hark yelling his little speech about surrendering to the Inquisition, there was a bang from somewhere in the warehouse, like something slamming into metal. Titus retreated into the shelving the best he could, the stark lumens of the warehouse making shadows few and far between. He strained his senses to listen for it again, but it was drowned out by the sounds of screaming and the sharp crack of lasguns mixed with the staccato of autoguns coming from the bunker.
      Titus swung his bolter to cover the hatchway they uncovered just in time to see a terrified clump of humans stumbling their way up the stairs. His finger instinctively moved to the trigger, as they ran into the solid pallet of boxes directly in front of the stairs in their fright. His finger twitched, ready to pull and kill these mortals like chaff. Yet…He couldn’t bring himself to, their clothes were distinctly civilian, disheveled by their flight, but clearly of all classes, made equal by terror. They failed to notice him as they scattered and fled, all clearly seeking the same entrance.
      Titus lowered his bolter shaking his head, he couldn’t kill Imperial citizens in cold blood. His battle plate was black because of his need to protect those abandoned in the charge to Terra. ‘Should have been a Salamander!’ a memory of Casarkon’s long gone, good humored jab came to mind. Titus let out a long sigh, a century in this Throne-forsaken millenia and his mind continually dragged him back to nostalgia.
      Something moved in the corner of his vision, and his mind immediately cleared as he wheeled around and snapped up his bolter in an instant. He heard soft, stealthy footsteps that were distinctly not those of the terrified fleeing civilians slamming their way out the door. Titus narrowed his eyes and began to slowly ease around the shelves and their cover, following the sounds of the footsteps.
      They stopped suddenly and Titus stopped, scanning slowly around him for signs of anything out of place. His eyes caught the faintest shifting of form from between shelves along with more quiet steps. He followed cautiously, ready to act. This was clearly no terrified random citizens, but something or someone trying to hide and not counting on someone with Titus’ enhanced senses. The pattern of catching movement and following before stopping and listening continued two more times before he saw the faintest hint of shape disappear through the doorway of an office. The door was left open, almost inviting him to follow.
Titus froze and narrowed his eyes, wondering if perhaps his quarry was, in fact, counting on him being able to sense things ordinary humans couldn’t. That door was left open too carelessly for someone trying to hide, leaving Titus with the feeling that maybe he was the prey. Fury rose its head, and he rested his finger on the trigger, ready to hose down the small office in front of him with bolter fire.
 

            “Captain Galenios!” the infuriated voice of Explicator Hark called out. Titus glared at the office a little longer before cautiously backing his way out of the aisle he was on and onto the main aisle. Stepping behind the cover of a shelving unit  he finally lowered his bolter and looked to where the Explicator was yelling at him from the hatch. The Scions were carrying two bodies between them, one human, one a somewhat lanky bipedal xeno in a white robe with greyish-blue skin.
Titus cautiously made his way over to the Explicator, who raised an eyebrow curiously, his anger fading as puzzlement replaced it. “I was being watched. I think something was purposefully leading me somewhere.” Titus explained gesturing with his bolter back in the direction he came, “Into one of the offices.”
Hark pursed his lips and shook his head, “We don’t have time to investigate unfortunately. Just got word from the Inquisitor; we got a large crowd descending on our location right now. We need to evac now or be overrun.”
      Titus nodded, motioning to the limp xenos and human, noticing the crater in the xeno’s shoulder and the human's chest, “What happened?” he asked
“I think we created a martyr.” Hark said sourly, motioning for the group to move out. The Scions grunted with effort as they dragged their bodies, “The shots to the xenos at least should have been non-fatal. The traitor human pulled a gun on us forcing us to shoot. There was a crowd in there too as if it was some kind of sermon, most of them attacked us.”
Titus nodded and moved in front of Hark moving at a trot, all the more eager to get out of this damned warehouse than before, “How long before our ride comes back?”
      “Five minutes.” Hark replied trotting a little behind Titus, his tone making it clear how long he really thought that was going to be. Titus came to the door they entered by, and kicked it open, sending it flying open and revealing the last thing Titus wanted to see. A massive crowd in the hundreds stood chanting angrily, holding up anti-Imperial signs declaiming corruption and tyranny.
      “The rot goes deep here.” He heard Hark mutter sourly behind him. At first, a few of the demonstrators noticed the small party, and Titus could almost feel the slowly spreading ripple of anger as silence, then renewed angry chanting directed straight at them through the chain link fence. Fists banged against or gripped and shook the fencing, sending it jangling and swaying dangerously as the Scions spread out to either side of Titus and Hark. The crowd roared their anger, insults and chants calling them ‘murderers’ echoing through the streets.
      “Orders, sir?’ a Scion asked, his voice calm but uncertain. Titus knew if Hark ordered them to open fire, they would without complaint, but they likely knew to do so would break whatever dam was keeping the crowd merely banging on the fence and not tearing it down or jumping over. With the weapons they had, they could reap a toll on the crowd, but if it didn’t break, it would certainly overrun them.
      “Hold fire. If anyone tries to climb the fence, kill them.” Hark ordered cautiously, the calculus of the situation clearly working in his mind.
      “They were expecting us.” Titus said bluntly, the simple theoretical glaringly obvious to him now, “Such a mobilization so soon after landing can’t be a coincidence.”
      “And someone in the warehouse tried to draw you away.” Hark breathed as the trap became obvious to him, “Just as we were forced to cull a xenos cult.”
      Titus whirred as he heard a ‘click’ behind him, seeing the shaking form of a blood spattered woman behind him, aiming an autogun at the Interrogator. She recoiled at the speed of Titus’ movement just as she pulled the trigger a split second before Titus’ bolter barked. Her head disappeared in the mass reactive explosion of a bolt shell, showering the doorway in her blood and brain matter.
      “Oh, by the Throne…” Titus heard Hark mutter as the crowd suddenly roared in anger. Looking behind him, he saw amongst the press of bodies one laying limp against the fencing. All pretense dropped, dozens of people began trying to clamber up the fence as the crowd shook the fence violently trying to tear it off.
      “Open fire!” Hark yelled as he leveled his own lasgun, and vivid laserfire cracked out from five muzzles. Ozone filled the air as the front row of humans crumbled, which seemed to only make the anger of the crowd worse. Titus cursed and brought his bolter to bear, hesitating only a fraction of a second before adding his own bolter fire to the fusillade as the fence finally gave way, spilling wounded and dead to the parking lot. Formerly sign welding humans held the wooden stacks that signs were attached to like clubs as they were scythed down or bodily exploded.
      It was only the seconds of hesitation Titus saw or the horrified anger on the crowd’s face at the visceral damage being done that told him these weren’t the warp corrupted fanatics of Horus charging him. Just terrified humans who saw the  quickest way to silence their tormentors as to charge, propelled along by those behind them not seeing the horror done to the front. Titus’ bolter ran dry, and he drew his power sword as the crowd closed to thirty meters ws they spread and filled the parking lot. “Fall back!” he ordered, brandishing his weapon as he ignited the blade in anger for the first time in a decade, white-blue energies sparking along the razor sharp edge.
      Hark and the Scions didn’t argue, just turned and fled into the building as Titus stepped back, bodily blocking the entrance but giving him room to work. Without the scything hellguns  the crowd surged, and Titus braced himself. Stopping the crowd’s momentum would be the hardest part, so many humans running at him could knock him off balance and leave him open, especially without his battle plate. So he charged, causing those directly in front of him to recoil back into those behind them. It wasn’t much, but it's all he had.
      “You stand against one of His angels of Death!” he roared in a voice that challenged even the crowd noise, even just a little as he swung his blade. Armor was rarely an issue for his weapon, mere flesh and bone provided almost no resistance as he scythed into the crowd with a grim face, “Flee or die! To stand against me is to die!” he bellowed. Titus didn’t know if his words would have an effect, but he slashed in great sweeping motions. A few more broke something in the crowd, he imagined the pressure from behind must have relented, as he could see those in front retreating into those behind instead of being shoved forward.
      He flourished meaningfully, the blade leaving great swipes of blue energy through the air as he repeated at the top of his lungs challenges and hate for the crowd, demanding they flee. It seemed stuck on the edge of trying to overwhelm him and fleeing. Titus was sure if he was in his plate, the vision would be terrifying enough to break even this incensed crowd of xeno loyalists. They were still Imperial citizens at heart after all, and the legends of the Astartes had only grown from the Legion days. But in this carapace armor, he likely seemed all too vulnerable.
      The moment dragged on, Titus standing over the bodies of a dozen dead and wounded members of the crowd, and he was cautiously glad he did not have to cut down any more so far. He glared at the crowd now in silent challenge, but his ears heard the roar of engines. Then, there was a screech of tires and terror and suddenly the crowd began to flee from him screaming in terror as the crack-roar of bolters  smashed through the air, cutting down tight controlled groups of them.
      Titus breathed and tried to suppress welling anger at the slaughter. They were xenos lovers, sure, but they were still human, and could still be saved as had happened uncountable times during the Crusade. A dark thought then came to him, ‘Is human life worth so little now that even being led astray for a moment is worthy of death?’ he wondered, before dismissing the thought. His mind was now appreciating those who had fired only did so just enough to send the crowd to flight. This small comfort suppressing his anger, he turned his attention to his…Helpers.
      In a row stretching across the parking lot idled nine black Astartes assault bikes with twin bolters mounted atop their armored shield, with a feathered ‘tail’ sticking out above the rear tire. More importantly were the nine ebon armored Astartes knights sat astride their mounts. With the crowd cleared, the bikes eased their way closer as Titus blinked as he took in the sight. Why were Dark Angels here? Yet their livery was wrong, for one each of their pauldrons was a small shield, painted gray yet the hint of the vivid colors underneath was visible. What’s more their left pauldron played host to a chalice instead of the familiar winged sword.
      Titus cautiously saluted them with his sword as he extinguished it, the Explicator and the Scions cautiously crept out from the warehouse and joining him, standing to either side.       One dismounted from their bike and studied the party before them, “I see the Inquisition got here first.” He observed, his voice flat through the moderation of his vox grille, looking over the field of dead and wounded civilians. The knight’s face was hidden by his helm, but Titus could tell there was a certain distaste to the scene in his movements, “And dragged along a poor, lost knight-brother to do their dirty work for them.”
      “Captain Galienos is finding redemption for his idleness in the Emperor’s service.” Hark managed, standing up straight, “We thank you Chevaliers for your assistance in breaking the xenos trap we stumbled into.”
      “It is a shame it was one ye risked much to trigger. I do hope such...dulladry is not a common habit amongst ye.” The Angel replied, looking at the Explicator, ignoring the furious look crossing the mortal’s face before looking to  Titus. Even through the red lenses he could feel the piercing stare studying him, “How is the armor, knight-brother?”
      “It is adequate while my plate is repaired.” Titus replied, “I thank you for the honor.”
      “Let us hope it is returned to us soon. When thou plate is repaired, I am sure ye would make an honorable opponent to duel.” Without another word, the knight mounted his bike, and the squad roared out of the parking lot just as the dropship roared in overhead.
      “Come on.” Hark said looking at Titus somewhat shaken and angry looking, “Let's get back to the ship.”

 

Edited December 12 by Tiber
added chapter number

[Tiber]

Chapter Eight

 

      Titus looked out at the burning bulk of Edros City, shifting slightly in his battle plate to keep steady as the dropship sped to its destination. He felt complete for the first time in decades, not only was his armor repaired, but the Inquisitor had recovered his old plasma pistol and even had it repaired as it now sat holstered in a pouch. And yet that fact was proving only a small comfort. The sight was plenty explanation as to why. Ruined patches of the city sped by - burn out husks of hab blocks and other structures by the increasing civil strife. Titus wasn’t aware of the details that Dorganon was, but he knew their enemy was turning every attempt to curtail the revolt against them.
      On previous missions he had already seen vid-captures proclaiming to show the callous massacre of innocents by the Imperium, mixed in with propaganda extolling the populace to resist their oppressors. It was even worming its way into the planetary defense forces to the point he and Explicator Hark were being dispatched to deal with one such rebellious unit. Titus shifted his weight subconsciously as the Valkyrie suddenly banked hard then dived as he saw a burst of flak flash by.
      “Hydra and missile fire, going to ground.” the pilot reported once they’d descended into flying down an artificial valley, tall hab blocks to either side, “Prepare for landing.”
Titus wordlessly opened the side hatch as the pitch of the engines changed sharply as the Valkyrie suddenly slowed hard. He saw rockets sparking off in series from a cylindrical container on the side, their fizzle-roars adding to the growing cacophony of noise as they approached the sounds of a firefight. Titus could feel his dual hearts thumping in anticipation, despite the failure this fight happening at all represented to Dorganon, he was Astartes. The prospect of a true fight, not some stealth mission or wanton slaughter of mobs, ignited his humors in a way nothing else could, even if it was against mere mortal humans.
      Even before the Valkyrie fully landed as it sharply slowed, he stepped off and fell to the ground. Pavement cracked under his impact as he stood and brought his bolter up from its mag clamp, caring not for the squad of Scions and the complaints Explicator Hark he was leaving behind. In front of him was an ad hoc barricade of PDF vehicles fanned across the broad avenue with the platoon of troopers cowering behind them, stacked behind wheels or whatever armor they could find. Titus made sure to stay in the lee of one as he walked towards the line of green and grey fatigued troopers.
      “Report.” he barked to the troopers, seeing them visibly start, more than one nearly jumping clear from their cover as they snapped their autoguns up to aim at him. Almost immediately they dropped their aim as Titus saw the mix of terror and awe cross their faces, and for several moments they seemed almost frozen. The report of autogun fire and the passing ‘crack’ of bullets snapped Titus’ attention to what appeared to be an officer sprinting from his original cover over to Titus and fell to a knee with haste.
      “Lieutenant Stavrikos at your command my lord!” the man said shakingly, his eyes fixed at Titus’ feet as the Scions and Explicator Hark finally caught up and took their own places in cover, “We have had the rebels here pinned down since this morning! We tried to push them back, I swear my lord but-”
      Titus cut him off with a sharp movement of his hand, “I am aware Lieutenant. I do not need your excuses. Only your observations.”
      The man nodded and looked up, his face haggard and scared, but he cleared his throat, pointing through the armored cargo-8 at the buildings flanking the rebel controlled street, “They got snipers up there, not sure how many. They've kept us pinned since our advance…stalled.” He explained cautiously, glancing over at the Explicator as if he was a commissar, “We’re not sure how many they got in their own barricade. But we’re sure it's more than us sir. Or they have some heavy stubbers.”
      Hark shrugged and looked over at Titus, “Could be both. The traitors have been reported to be arming civilians at other positions.”
      “And they aren’t pushing us! It’s damned strange with the beating they've given us. Maybe they're just as scared of us?” the lieutenant offered.
      “Either way, I will break their line.” Titus said with finality, interjecting before Hark could. This wasn’t his field of expertise to command and even Hark knew it, “Sergeant Laskins.” Titus looked to the hard faced brick of a Tempestor, “Toss some smoke. Follow my lead. Suppress the snipers if you see them.” he ordered then looked to Hark, “Stay back. I don’t think the Inquisitor would care for losing you to a stray round.”
      Hark raised an eyebrow, hefting his hellgun, “I’m here, aren’t I?”
      Titus simply shrugged and saw the Scions standing with smoke grenades in hand, ready to toss them on command, before looking to the Lieutenant, “Follow us or not, your choice.” before signalling to the Scions to throw. Wordlessly, they tossed their grenades underhand over the vehicles, followed by the click-pssh of the smoke generators igniting.
       Almost immediately a fusillade of fire rained on and around the transports, autogun hard rounds mixed with the harder *thunks* and cracks of stubber rounds. A couple pdf troopers cried out, no doubt hit by ricochet under their vehicles, but Titus was listening to fire, ignoring their pain. He heard the fire slacken slightly, then only a slight lean around the corner of the Cargo-8 providing warning to those around him. He exploded into forward momentum, armored tread cracking the pavement as his plate whirred and propelled him forward through the slackened storm of hard round fire into the pooling clouds of smoke.
      His vision was temporarily obscured before he burst from the cloud, cycling through infrared and other vision modes rapidly to pick out the figures of the traitorous PDF. He was already halfway across the two hundred meter gap, being chased by fire as he sprinted alongside the ruins of the loyal PDF’s vehicles. Hard rounds smacked his armor, and he only slowed fractionally as he saw a trooper raise a missile launcher. He dived to the side, rolling and springing up as the missile sailed by and slammed into the burnt out ruins of a Chimera. Titus leveled his bolter and swept the barricade of sandbags and hard cover with automatic fire, forcing the troopers back into cover.
He had to give them credit, they were holding their position remarkably well as he pushed forward again, covering the remaining distance in a matter of seconds while magclamping his bolter. Just as they were poking their heads out ready to fire again, he barreled through a sandbag emplacement, smashing aside the trooper hiding behind it as his power sword swung from and cut down another. The closest squad hesitated for a second before charging him with bayonets as the rest of the platoon manning the barricade attempted to turn their fire.
      Not able to afford getting bogged down and risking getting hit in the soft armor, Titus lashed out with his sword, whirling and drawing his plasma pistol. Two troopers stabbed towards him, desperate terrified looks on their faces, to be met with a sword stroke that sheared through rifle and neck. Plasma spat from his pistol, smacking another trooper square in the chest. A bayonet scraped across his thigh armor, and with an easy reversal of his grip he stabbed backwards, feeling the weight of the impaled trooper before ripping it out and spinning, cutting down another pair of troopers. Blood sizzled on the energized blade of his sword as he grunted with exertion.
      A squad lay dead at his feet, yet his count still suggested over thirty were left, a dangerous number for even an Astartes of his experience. Titus cursed quietly at his impetuousness, he let his battle lust get the better of him and assumed this rabble would have simply broken and ran by now. Even now autoguns and even a heavy stubber were training on him as he felt arms try to grasp his gauntlet from behind. He jerked his arm hard, sending the unfortunate soul stumbling forward and he kicked forward, sending the man flying through the air and bowling into some of his comrades as Titus fired again with his pistol, silencing the threat of the heavy stubber.
      Several rounds smacked into his pauldron from the side, staggering him slightly as he turned to see a firing line of a few troopers kneeling and unloading with their autoguns. He pushed off, already feeling rounds slamming into his armor, aiming for his armor’s weak spots. Bastards were taking advantage of him clearing out the squad closest to him to move back and get a clear shot on him!
      Improvising, he magclamped his pistol back in place as he reached the fireteam in front of him, grabbing one by his throat and tossing him bodily towards the largest group of troopers. He felt hard rounds glance off joints as he cut down one trooper, the other two running back just out of easy reach. Titus roared in anger, the vox-accented noise reverberating off the hab-blocks mixing with the autogun fire. ‘I can’t die to this!’ he cursed to himself as he attempted to roll and throw off the aim of the deluge of fire, but this close his momentum meant he couldn’t attain full speed easily.
      As Titus grew convinced he was going to be overwhelmed, spears of ruby red light started scything through the exposed, standing PDF troopers. They crumbled to the ground under the rain of automatic laser fire, and Titus kept to one knee as finally this unexpected new attack scattered the traitors. The survivors tried to flee into the buildings or running down the street, trying to duck into alleyways, all the while precise laser fire felled them one by one.
      With a groan of protesting servos, Titus slowly stood and took stock of his armor. Its black paint was speckled with small craters, grazes, and the distinct circular dust circles of hard rounds that failed to even crater the armor. The soft armor in places was cut, but there were no solid hits. His camo cape of command had several new holes in it, but the ballistic weave held for the most part, it likely helped save him from injury, ‘Well, won’t be in vacuum ops for now’, Titus thought wryly to himself, ‘At least it was only PDF, if any of them had carried a melta…’. That practical all but solved itself.
      “Captain Galienos, are you injured?” Tempestor Laskins asked trotting up in front of him, looking up and down the Astartes’ cratered black warplate.
“I fortunately am not. My pride however…” He pulled his bolter free, and exchanged the magazine for a new one with a satisfactory click, “I forget that I am no longer with my brothers. I should have advanced more cautiously.” Titus added looking down at the Tempestor, “I thank you for your timely intervention. Now let us hunt down the rest of these traitors.”

 

      It did not take long to find the next rebel barricade as they cut straight towards the heart of the rebel held territory, keeping in fireteams along the sidewalk. Behind their spearpoint, the loyal PDF was taking advantage of the break in the line to get in around the other forward barricades, those extended firefights echoing through the canyons of broad streets and taller hab-blocks. In front of them, the street opened up into a square, surrounding a park. No greenery, but empty fountains and stonework provided plenty of cover, and that was before the plenty of sandbag emplacements were added to the equation.
      The half of the squad of Scions followed in his wake to take cover behind the brick face of a hab-block just before the road split. The narrow alleyway was not the best place, but it was for the best, especially given the multiple autocannon and heavy bolter emplacements he saw covering the entries to the plaza.
      “No way we’re clearing all that out ourselves.” Tempestor Laskins said matter of factly over the vox to Titus.
      Titus looked up across the broad street, picking out the red beret’ed leader from his group, Explicator Hark kneeling next to him in cover, “Agreed. Those heavy weapons would punch a hole even through my plate.” he considered for a moment running through the practicals and theoreticals, “Falling back and finding another way forward isn’t an option. We got lucky they didn’t fire at us on approach, I don’t want to chance getting shot in the back.”
      “Agreed. I would take charging them over that, sir.” Laskins said dryly, leaving Titus unsure if he was serious or not. Entirely possible, given what he had learned of the Scions.
Titus glanced over his shoulder, noting only a chainlink fence blocked his group from cutting through to the street over, “Is there a way out of your alley?” he asked.
“No sir. We’re bottled up here.” Laskins reported after a pause.
      “We have a potential exit over here. I’ll see if we can get into a flanking position. Do what you can, see if there’s a way to break into those habs.” Titus replied, already drawing and igniting his power sword as he advanced on the fence. In the distance the sound of fighting sounded both closer and further way, with deep throated roars of engines joining the ensemble, “Hopefully it won’t be long before reinforcements show up.”
      “Agreed.” Laskins reported before cutting the vox link. The Scions with Titus followed him wordlessly, they hadn’t heard the vox-comm, but they could guess his intent easily enough. With three swift cuts, Titus carved a large hole in the chainlink, laying the cut out section to the side to limit the noise. He wasn’t sure it mattered if it would be any louder than the whirr of his armor or audible over the distant staccato of gunfire, but he wasn’t going to chance it.
      As they approached the other end of the alleyway, Titus held up his fist and dropped to his knee. The Scions immediately stopped and copied his action, just as two saucer-shaped figures with underslung rifles sped down the road in front of him. “Tempestor, Explicator, confirmed sighting of Tau drones.” he reported over the vox, “Unknown destination.”
      “Copy that Captain.” Hark’s voice cut in before Laskins’, “I’ll report that to the Inquisitor.”
      Titus wasn’t about to ask the how of it, but the sighting of the drones was not a good sign. They were being seen wherever the Tau behind the insurrection seemed to think a situation critical, and had more than once broken PDF pushes by themselves. There would also undoubtedly be more, they seemed to have endless numbers of the things, only countered by a seemingly limited deployment capability.
      When enough time passed that he felt it safe, Titus crept forward again, with the street they were coming out to near identical to the one before, only this one’s road went straight along the edge of the square. He poked his head around the corner, and saw at least one emplacement a mere twenty meters away looking straight at him. He recoiled behind the building, and a couple seconds later autocannon tracers and shells shattered the brickwork corner he had glanced around.
      Shouting and disciplined call outs came clearly from the plaza, leading Titus to curse, “By the Golden Throne did the Tau get the best unit?”. He muttered rhetorically to himself, “It’s like I’m fighting the damned Solar Auxilia.”
      “Solar Auxilia?” one of the Scions behind him asked, surprisingly nonplussed by the sudden fire raking across the street mere feet in front of him.
      “Uh, think your kind, but from my time.” Titus told him, not wanting to get bogged down in reminiscing in a firefight.
      “I think we’re safe enough if you want to tell us more, sir.” the Scion added helpfully.
      Titus furrowed his brow and turned to look at the blank visors of the Scions, picking out the one who said that, “We’ve alerted an entire platoon to our position, and there’s six of us. You are surprisingly…nonchalant for a mortal.”
      The Scions all shrugged looking at each other, “They aren’t charging us yet, sir.” Another added helpfully, “We feel pretty safe behind this nice solid cover. If you ask me, at the moment, we’re as safe as we would be back on the ship right now.”
      Titus stared at them through his visor, before turning back towards the street, his bolter at the ready in case the traitors came charging around the corner. Deep down, he was always impressed by the coping mechanisms of mortal units. He did not have to feel fear, to laugh in its face, to defeat it, it was simply not there to begin with. Not for the first time he wondered how much the loss of that alone took from what was left of his humanity. The fire on their position petered out, but Titus was sure even his reflexes might not be fast enough to risk a glance.
      There they sat in silence for long minutes, the Scions stacked behind Titus so all could fire around the other while keeping close to cover to dive in. The defenders at least seemed content to wait them out, and more concerningly there had been no reports from Hark or Laskins, though Titus was sure that was from them going into a hab-block. The impasse broke with the sound of approaching engines from behind. Titus looked over his shoulder and saw three dark combat bikes roaring around a corner, their tires squealing from the hard turn. Dark armored Astartes rode in hard, low in the saddle, engines roaring as they started to pick up speed again.
      Suddenly as if they just noticed Titus and the Scions, the three began to slow in near unison, coming to a halt beside them, just out of the line of fire of the traitor emplacements, “Hail knight-brother! Have you lost your steed?” the lead warrior asked.
      “No, cousin. I’m Captain Galienos. The Scions and I are being detained by an autocannon and platoon of traitors in the coming square. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.” Titus replied to the knight, saluting him in the fashion of the Crusade.
      The knight of the Black Chevaliers inclined his helmed head fractionally, “We have heard of you, brother. We had hoped to share the field with you again in better circumstances than before when you spoke with our knight-sergeant.”
      A land speeder of odd design with two large cannons mounted over its wings hovered down from the top of one of the hab-blocks to hover behind the bikes, another dark armored astartes jumping from the forward turret and landing with a thud on the paving, striding purposefully towards Titus.
      The one from before spoke again, “This is knight-brother Rugerrio. If you will have him, he will accompany your charges for a time, should you wish to share battle with us?”
Titus blinked behind his helm and stood, saluting again. Such a gesture from Dark Angels, even successors such as these, was downright friendly as far as he knew, “You honor me cousins. It has been far too long since I fought together with fellow Astartes, I accept.” The Scions, for their part, seemed nonplussed by the impromptu gathering of superhuman warriors and change of commander as Titus strode to the land speeder, stowed his bolter and moved into the forward gunner’s position. The land speeder variant was unfamiliar, but even a century could not dull an Astartes’ intuition of their arsenal.
      Titus inclined his head to the driver and the lead biker, accepting a requested vox link connection, “Ready, brother?” the lead biker asked.
      “Ready.” Titus replied, his hearts singing with joy in his chest. They may not be his brothers of old, or Ultramarines of new, but these cousin Black Chevaliers would do just fine to fight alongside. The bikes squealed as they spun in place and took off hard back down the street to gain momentum, the land speeder suddenly accelerating after them. As one, they turned and roared back down the street, and Titus gripped the heavy bolter a little tighter. ‘By the Emperor, how I have missed this’, Titus thought to himself as the bikes burst into the square.
      Titus let rip with the heavy bolter, cutting down the autocannon emplacement as its crew recoiled in shock. Twin plasma bolts suddenly shot over the land speed, close enough for his armor to register a heat warning, the large plasma bolts bursting amongst the fortified square. Fire from Titus’ heavy bolter and the twin linked bolters of the bikes were ripping the fortified square to shreds, but just as quickly as the fight had begun, the land speeder shot off down another street.
      “Where are we going?” Titus asked, confusion tinting his voice as he noted they were moving away from the traitor PDF’s headquarters, seemingly robbed of his envisioned glorious battle alongside fellow Astartes.
      “The knight-sergeant requires us at another battlefield.” The Chevalier driver said, and said no more.
      Titus grunted, remembering all too well the attitude and secrecy of the Dark Angels from the time of the shameful Imperium Secundus and the Shadow Crusade. He knew it would be likely futile to ask for more information, and simply kept the heavy bolter at the ready.

 

      The land speed hovved down in front of a short, squat building of black brickwork, to either side were identical buildings, all with large folding metal doors on their fronts. Warehouses or ground car depots no doubt, to Titus’ mind. He saw two Chevaliers detach themselves from the shadows of the buildings and approach.
      “Go with our Knight-Brothers, Captain.” the driver said, his voice surprisingly solemn, “They shall take you the rest of the way.”
      Titus looked at the driver, but they were not looking at him. Titus sighed to himself and extracted himself from the land speeder, riding the land speeder’s bucking to the ground, and the vehicle almost immediately sped off again. Titus looked at the two Chevaliers in their black armor plate of this current millenia half covered by tabbards, making Titus subconsciously adjust his holed camo cloak to drape more appropriately across his pauldron “Well? If something requires three Astartes, what are we waiting for?” he asked, his own mood soured by being robbed of a fight.
      Wordlessly, they turned and lead Titus to a side door in one of the buildings, motioning for him to enter. Grunting in acknowledgement, Titus hefted his bolter and ducked through the human sized entrance and into a surprisingly empty room. Ten meters by ten meters, the warehouse had been emptied of shelving and produce save for an attached office. Behind him, the door suddenly slammed shut, but Titus’ blood was already running cold as opposite him, stood another Chevalier in repose. His hands rested on the pommel of a great power maul that had a two metal plates making an x, the tip of it resting on the ground. Great wings sprung from the Chevalier’s helm, and a rich tabard crossed his body, his heraldry shield mourning black.
      Titus slowly mag clamped his bolter to his hip, shifting his own hand to the pommel of his power sword, as one thought began to repeat over and over in his mind, “Is this a trap? Are they traitors?”.
      The Chevalier looked up at Titus from his repose with deliberate slowness, “I am Black Knight Renaude, and I am sorry that it comes to this. However, thine armor of black speaks of thy heresy. I shalt allow thee one chance to surrender and repent for thy sins.” His voice, though modulated by the vox caster, was solemn, as if this was a duty he did not care for, but one he must regardless see through.
      Titus’ grip on his power sword tightened, “You dare accuse me of treason, cousin? I know not your deeds, but I helped build the very Imperium upon which we stand!” He was going to say more, but the knight swung up the power maul into a two handed stance and cut him off.
      “Then what shall be done, must be” Renaude said almost ritualistically, and charged. He swung down hard in a crossing strike for Titus’ sword arm. Titus ducked the blow and backed off from the Chevalier, his power sword in his hand and ignited just in deflect the follow up blow striking out behind for just such a dodge. Titus knew better than to try a full parry and to only ride the blow, yet the impact still jarred his arm, he backed up quickly as Knight Renaude pushed him hard, swinging expert blows and feints in rapid succession. Titus was forced to sink into a defensive battle trance he had not had to in a century just to keep up with the flurry of blows, dodging and deflecting each one.
      The Knight was relentlessly, but silent, no boisterous or taunting calls, only that grim fighting focus Titus remembered the Dark Angels of old fighting with. The portion of his mind scarred so long ago by hated Calth screamed in fury at betrayal renewed, and Titus growled as it overcame his battle trance. He pushed forward instead of dodging back into a blow, swinging his blade upwards to cut the Chevalier’s arm off at the wrist elbow. But he turned the blow at the last second, meeting the descending power maul ‘under the chin’ with the flat of the blade.
      The impacted jarred hard through Titus’ arms, and would have shattered his blade if not for the counteracting power field. Instead, the power maul flew back, staggering the Knight, giving Titus an opening he did not take, “Why are you attacking me?! I am no traitor!” Titus bellowed with barely contained anger, as he held his power sword hard in two hands, its tip pointing almost accusingly at the Knight.
      The Knight had recovered almost instantaneously, but took a moment to readjust his grip on the maul and examine Titus, clearly looking for an opening as the pair began to circle. The cold solemnity in his voice contrasted hard with the Ultramarine, “Because it is our duty. And thou art a traitor.”
      Renaude pushed forward and swung almost experimentally towards Titus’ legs, forcing him to back off, before the knight jabbed out. Titus spun to the side, barely recovered in time to avoid the sparking head of the power maul before smacking it aside with the flat of his blade. Titus was no dueling master, but he knew this for what it was. The knight was feeling him out, seeking weaknesses in his fighting style, soon the fight would begin for real, and all thought of conversation would be lost until one side broke.
      “I am Captain Titus Galienos, survivor of Calth, ace of the skies of Nuceria, I lived the Great Crusade and the thrice damned Heresy! I am no traitor, I slew those first traitors with my very blade!” Titus exclaimed, desperate for this seemingly traitorous or potentially confused cousin to see sense.
      “A fine cover.” the Knight replied, his tone of grim finality, where he wished to believe otherwise but was already committed, “One we see through thanks to the cretin of this world, brother.”
      The knight attacked again, fully unleashed now, aiming for Titus’ arms, limbs, and even head in a flury of blows that any warrior not of Titus’ calibre would have been immediately overwhelmed by. As it was, unwilling to return the potential lethal blows, Titus was forced to fight defensively, sidestepping, deflecting, and ducking under the screaming missile of metal the power maul was rendered by the Knight’s strength and skill. The concrete floor cracked under hard tread and shattered with impact, power armor servos whirring and plates clanging as the two combatants’ cloaked rustled in the dance.
      A mortal would have found the melee hard to follow, but Titus knew it was an even match with the restrictions he was putting on himself. It was his Ultramarinian blunt, efficient fighting style against the artful dance of a knightly veteran of the 41st millennium. He had slain World Eaters, Word Bearers, and Iron Warriors, but this was like fighting a cleaner version of one of the pre-Fall Emperor’s Children. Every swing of the Knight was purposeful, aimed to incapacitate or mislead, artful and skilled, but not boisterous like one of the IIIrd legion. He had once fought a Dark Angel in a practice ring of course on Macragge, but that was just a training bout.
      He had the experience, especially in fighting fellow Astartes, but the Chevalier was incredibly skilled, and was not restrained. What’s more, Titus was beginning to feel something that had long been foreign to him - fatigue. He trained relentlessly of course, but to train by one’s self while unable to make it their life’s work would always be left wanting against one who could train with brothers of his own gene-line, day after day, he needed to act fast. He dodged a downward swing that shattered the concrete under it, stepping into the blow and the knight’s guard, reversing his grip on his power sword and punched out.
      Metal pommel cracked against ceramite, and the knight’s head jerked back, momentarily stunned as Titus jumped back to avoid a counter stroke, “I was of the two hundred and twelfth company of the thirteenth legion! My Xiphon Interceptor was shot down over the skies of Calth, and I only lived from luck and skill! I knew your forebears, Chevalier. I once saw the Lion, I heard him speak. I know your kind are loyal, why do you attack me despite that?!” he demanded, his breathing hard.
      Black Knight Renaude steadied himself, sea blue lenses boring holes through Titus’ own ruby red eye lenses, studying, but not attacking or speaking. Titus took this momentary mercy and brushed the camo cloak off his pauldrons to reveal the blue left one, and the one on the right with its faint symbol of Ultramar, barely visible under the black coat. “My armor is black for one reason and one reason only, so that those brothers and cousins I was left to command when my gene-father abandoned us to save our Emperor would act as one. I lead warriors of six legions, cousin, and at least one squad who refused to say if they came from a seventh. It is my greatest shame, but it was necessary.”
      The Chevalier was quiet for a long time, studying Titus. Moment after moment dragged on, Titus still in a guarded stance, ready for the Chevalier to reveal their full treasonous intent and attack. If it came to that, Titus knew he would have to kill the Chevalier, or be killed himself.
      Knight Renaude brought his power maul up, the power field extinguished, into a salute, “I believe thee, cousin. Thou failed to take any opening I gave, and thy words sing true.” He said slowly, but with barely evident relief in his tone, “And for that, I am grateful.”
      Titus cautiously copied the knight’s salute, ready for if it was but a trick to get him to lower his guard, while noting quietly to himself Renaude's strange shift to calling him cousin and and not brother as before, “And I am grateful I didn’t have to kill you cousin.” He replied, trying to put levity in his voice he did not feel to try to crush the Mark of Calth within him burning with fury still at the seeming betrayal.
      “You are welcome to try.” The Knight offered, clearly believing he had the better of the fight.
      Titus opened his mouth to reply, and to move towards his misguided cousin, when the back wall of the warehouse was blasted open in a great explosion.

      Before the metal wall of the warehouse even fell to the ground, Titus was pumping bolt shells through the opening. Even through the dust plume his helm display highlighted the rushing forms of human rebels that would be obscured from sight. Their by the books breach would have likely won them the room, had the occupants not been Astartes already on edge from their duel. Holes were punched in the smoke by the rockets of his shells, and by the plasma blasts from a suddenly produced plasma pistol from the Black Knight Renaude. Bodies tumbled to the ground one after the other, cut down too quickly for those pushing from behind to realize what was happening to their comrades. Out front, Titus heard the bang-roar of two bolters as no doubt the Chevaliers out front were suddenly engaged.
      In moments, the push through the wall was broken, blood mist mixing with the falling smoke and pooling thickly amongst the broken bodies. Immediately the two Astartes’ attention was pulled to the roof by the sounds of footsteps clanging on the metal roof. Titus clicked to full auto and fired through the roof with Renaude’s plasma fire. The roof was quickly perforated, some holes being covered by limp, leaking bodies. One unfortunate trooper crashed through a weakened part of the roof, but his cries of panic were ended when Renaude’s power maul swung up and blasted the man bodily up back to the roof, slamming hard then slamming limply back down to the ground.
      The roof began to cave in, driving the Astartes apart as they stepped to avoid the metal falling on them. Bodies alive and dead tumbled down with it, those survivors not living long enough to regret their decisions. It was easy even for Titus to forget how exponential in combat efficacy Space Marines were. Alone, this rabble could have overwhelmed him, having the right idea of splitting attention and attacking from different angles. But with only a single brother providing direct support swung it decisively into their favor.
      A small shimmer was all the warning Titus had of what came next. He was already firing and moving when the broad Tau stealth suit seemingly materialized in the gap carved in the wall by the human PDF. Automatic plasma fire seared through where Titus had been standing as he ran towards the concealment of the small office, firing shell after shell at the battlesuit before his magazine clicked dry. It staggered hard and stumbled, incidentally saved as the plasma burst of Renaude’s plasma pistol seared by, scorching through the side of its armor. Its holofield flicked to life intermittently as it bounded away as Titus ducked into the office to reload.
      A second stealth suit dropped in from the roof, two Tau drones hovering down beside it, firing at full blast towards Renaude as soon as it slammed into the ground. The things were as big as the space marines were, but their pilots were still only mortal, facing veterans of centuries of the worst the galaxy had to offer. Renaude was able to avoid the tracking fire of the stealth suit, plasma bolts searing into it as he was chased out the front door. Titus fired from behind, his shells bursting the drones in controlled bursts before breaking the back of the suit, and it fell face forward, limp on the ground.
      Outside Titus could hear the combat intensifying, Tau plasma firing joining the much reduced report of autogun fire alongside the sound of bolters. He stood to go join his cousins in battle when a shimmer in the corner of his eye caught his attention. His right fist holding his bolter bashed aside an invisible cannon as his left fist swung out, crashing into the hidden stealth suit and sending it careening into a wooden desk, shattering it and sending papers flying. They may have been bigger than the ones he had fought before, but they clearly still were not invincible.
      There was a great dent in the armor plating, and a halting grinding that told Titus something critical was broken inside. Regardless he kept his bolter trained on it as he advanced. A vox modulated hacking cough told him the Tau inside was still alive, “Ah, gue’ron’sha. Your reputation…holds up I see.” The Tau’s voice was strangely accented, but they were xenos, and Titus had heard its sort before.
      “The Inquisitor will be glad to see you’re still alive, xenos.” Titus told it iceily, “I would save your breath for his interrogation chamber.”
      The Tau laughed horsley, and said no more for a few moments, “As…One warrior to another, may I see the face of my captor? True face to true face?”
Titus’ eyes narrowed, and was about to refuse when the ‘face’ of the Stealth suit popped open, revealing the haggard face of a Tau fire warrior with blue blood dribbling from his nose and mouth. Outside the fighting was clearly petering out, so Titus made up his mind.
      Keeping his bolter level with the Tau’s face, he reached up and unclasped the seal of his helm with a hiss, lifting it with one hand and magclamping it to his side.
      His steel grey eyes burned through the Tau with quiet intensity, “Are you satisfied?” he spat acidly, figuratively for as much as he wished to be literal.
      The Tau looked at him, studying quietly, “The Kaish-” it coughed a small splatter of blood, no doubt either the punch or crash landing having broken something in the xenos, “The Liberator of Miskansho. The Pas’vre would be pleased.” the Tau seemed to shift uncomfortably in his armor, even as he looked deeply pleased with himself.
      “Miskansho? Liberator? Explain yourself, xenos.” Titus demanded, stepping closer to the Tau cautiously.
      The Tau grunted and shifted slightly, speaking something in its alien tongue and an attached projector on the stealth suit suddenly sprung to life, the face of a supremely smug looking Tau appearing in crisp, if occassionally flickering, projection. Titus’ fist clenched around his bolter’s grip at its appearance, he did not much care for the mockery of human expression on its face.
      “This is a message for the gue’ron’sha of many names, Paeter Gorok, Idris Casarkon, Titus Galienos, the ‘Liberator of Miskansho’, or Weideon, as I am sure you know.” the Tau spoke, a clearly pre-recorded message, but the elequence and utter self assurance was clear “I am Por’vre Kas’yan Oron. I have tried to arrange meeting with you many times, but was foiled each time. I believe the human term is…parlay? Yes, we have much to discuss. about this kind world and others upon which our paths have crossed, and those they might cross still. May the humble messenger bearing this message find you well, and you may find our suggested meeting place in the device's message.”
      Titus stared blankly at the now empty space, so many odd instances suddenly gaining meaning should this Tau be true. The warning that flight serveant Tarhe wasn't what she seemed’ by the drunk pilot, the guiding shimmer he hunted in a warehouse, and other such events, all interrupted by one act or other. He shook his head, no, these were xenos lies, and couldn’t be anything but, “Again I ask xenos, are you satisfied enough to remain quiet?” Titus asked
      The Tau grinned, “Completely, Kaish’o” suddenly a drone drove at full speed through the window of the office. Titus dodged back effortlessly as he heard the approaching whine of its engines, letting it embed itself into the wall, no doubt obliterating its front section and fired at where the Tau…had been.
Titus blinked, in the mere second or two it took fot the drone to take his eyes off the prisoner, the xenos had activated their stealth field and somehow fled despite the damage to their suit. He felt an unwelcome re-emergence of something he had not felt in twelve years, since he left Weideon, a begrudging respect for a xenos opponent. Where the Tau had lay was a hastily ejected black disk with a blank hololith projector.
      Titus leaned down and picked it up as three Black Chevaliers knights charged into the warehouse and over to him. “More xenos?” Renaude asked, his helm inclined to look at the broken Tau drone half buried in the sheet metal siding wall.
      “There were. Bastard threw a drone at me and used a stealth field to escape. I swear, its like a cheap knockoff of the Eldar.” Titus sighed, before placing his helm back on his head and looking to Renaude, “However, I believe we may have just been given a chance to end this. I need to speak with the Inquisitor, immediately.”
      “And I doest believe he will want to see ye as well.” Renaude replied, his tone neither sympathetic or warning, “I received word from knight-brother Ruggerio that he was simultaneously attacked by a mixed Tau-traitor force as we. Thy Scions took casualties.”
      “Then it is safe to assume that the other half of the party was also attacked.” Titus said, “Enemy drones were likely watching us. Practical: we separated, were scattered, so were tempting targets. Defeat in detail.”
      Renaude nodded in agreement, clearly coming to the same conclusion, “Come cousin, let us make haste from this place. Our Thunderhawk has been dispatched.”
      Titus raised an eyebrow behind his helm, “Not going to try to drag me off as a traitor again, are you?”
      Renaude looked at Titus, his inscrutable helm lenses glaring hard, “I might.” he said before turning with his brothers and making their way out of the warehouse.
      “Was that humor, cousin? I thought you Dark Angels were incapable!” Titus laughed, but then stopped. They were sons of the Lion, he could be deadly serious despite the jab.

Edited Monday at 10:41 PM by Tiber
Adding to chapter