A Thin Line
The line between “radicalism” and heresy is treacherously thin. It is doubt in one’s own strength of purpose that causes so many to embrace the surety of puritanism. Some inquisitors keep far from the line, unwilling to leave their prison of black and white morality. Others build their reputations on balancing precariously on the line between good and evil, righteous and unjust. Eventually, after years of practice, avoiding the plunge into chaos becomes automatic. Just as a professional acrobat is completely unfazed by the height of the tightrope, the breadth of the abyss beneath me is of no importance, as long as I keep my focus.
---From “The Teachings of Taron”, retrieved from the Inquisitorial Data Crypt on Jomunder IV, all other copies destroyed.---
The Capita system is a dead-end. The great pirate Darbolos himself was doomed by its isolation. Great clouds of disruptive particulate surround the fringes of the system, and within this encircling sphere fluctuating radiation from the dying star and unexplained gravitational anomalies make the activation of warp drives far too dangerous to risk at every point except one. The Haelian tunnel, named after the famous explorer who discovered the system, is a spot five-hundred kilometers across where entry and exit of the Capita system is viable. Many years ago a trio of Imperial Frigates patrolled the tunnel while the cruiser Emperor’s Light and the gunboat Void Stalker sought out and destroyed Darbolos’s flagship.
As the last strands of Empyrean energies fade from peripheral view, a cold sense of entrapment settles into my stomach. I am suddenly struck by an intense fear that we will meet the same fate as Darbolos, trapped in a galactic cul-de-sac, hunted down by superior forces. But of course, I say nothing – I am always unsettled after spending time in the warp.
Inquisitor Taron stands at my side, hands behind his back, watching as real-space expunges the warp like a wet rag twisted dry. “It leaves me with a sense of awe every time, Lios. That we can sail these great void ships through the pores in the flesh of reality, and coast on the currents of raw emotion that lie beneath. It would seem an impossibility, had I not experienced it.”
I nod in assent, but as always I am put off by his metaphors. Something about the way he describes things… unsettles me.
“It is truly an amazing thing, my lord. Thank the Emperor that we have the light of the Astronomicon to guide us.”
Taron laughs. “Yes, it is most fortunate. I wonder if we would learn to navigate the Empyreal oceans without it.”
I’m about to reply when the intercom squawks and the voice of the captain pours through. “Inquisitor Taron, I have placed the ship into an approach vector that will put us in orbit around Capita III in just under 12 hours. The gravitational anomalies in this system make a more direct, and therefore quicker approach unfeasible.”
“That will be fine, Captain,” replies Taron, and the microphone built into the intercom relays his words back across the ship to Captain Jolothus on the bridge.
And then, before I can return to my previous conversation with the Inquisitor, Taron turns and walks away. “Come now, Lios. It is time to strategize and prepare the troops. These philosophical musings can wait.”
The surface of Capita III, like many worlds, is diverse. Great ice caps spread out icy tendrils from the poles of the planet, while the mid-surface is a cold, rocky wilderness of vast canyons, craggy peaks, and treacherous slopes. Besides microbial organisms in the lakes beneath the ice, nothing alive is native to the planet. Indeed, there is nothing bigger than a bacteria native to any planet in the system.
There is an old legend of the Eldar of a terrible being, a monstrous creature that could swim the channels of the warp and emerge at will to wreak havoc upon reality. The legend holds that the beast was imprisoned within this system, and that the gravity wells and radioactive clouds are the walls that prevent the creature from escaping through the warp.
That is not directly what drew Inquisitor Taron to this system. We’re hunting down a ship, the manned-probe Petitor Omnis. Actually that is not entirely accurate – we are seeking the invaluable data stored on board the Petitor Omnis. The ship had been en route to an installation jointly operated by the Inquisition and the Mechanicus. As the ship had approached the installation, it suddenly cut all vox links and veered away, then made an emergency warp jump to a neighboring system. From there it jumped again, but its jump signature was extrapolated by the crew of a system monitor there, part of standard procedure concerning unscheduled warp jumps.
Monitoring stations in all potential destination systems were put on alert. When the Petitor Omnis reentered real-space in the Capita system, the Inquisition was immediately informed via Astropathic relay. My lord Taron volunteered to track down the probe. This did not surprise me – he had long been fascinated by ancient myths, and his most recent studies had concerned the legendary “warp-walker” of Capita. The probe provided Taron with the excuse he needed to explore his newest subject of interest.
The Petitor Omnis had drifted into a decaying orbit around Capita III and crashed down to the planet roughly a day before we arrived in system. The unarmed, barely mobile monitoring station that watched over the system had been powerless to stop the probe or to dispatch anyone to investigate the crash site. We have no idea what we might discover.
The atmosphere is surprisingly calm, considering the wild turbulence of the void above, but I suppose the anomalous nature of the void has little relation to the weather of the individual planets. We set down at a bit of an angle, the rocks beneath the landing struts being heterogeneous in shape and size. One by one we emerge from the lander, Inquisitor Taron in the lead, then myself – Interrogator Lios – then Marana the Scout, Captain Arbillon Taxitor of the Skitarii 44th Brigade, Cansus Dole (expert in everything, or “omnologist” as he calls himself), Holon Gaiyer (sanctioned psyker) and then four guardsmen on loan from the 18th Chuvian Garrison. The latter make Marana shake her head in contempt. She comes from the almost-famous 11th Gorellian Scout Infantry, and as far as she is concerned Garrison Regiments are about as smart as orks and about as tough as water-caste Tau.
There were no safe landing zones within sight of the wreckage of the probe, but a short walk over the crest of a shallow ridge and the rubble pops into view. The back-slope of the ridge is slippery and steep, but we finally make it down without any injuries. Part of the Petitor Omnis is still intact – this is in line with the information we received from the Capita System monitoring station. Their estimates were that based on the orbit that the probe entered, it would crash with sufficient force to probably kill anyone still alive on board, but well-secured and armored data-packets might survive.
The probe appears to have snapped in half upon impact, the front end shearing off and tumbling through the snow, shedding its hull behind it. The back end sticks up at an angle out of the earth, looking almost untouched. Inside the probe are many corpses, but all except one belong to servitors, still locked in to their seats. The exception is the navigator, third eye dull and lifeless, head cracked open like an egg. His eyes are missing.
Every data packet in the ship is gone. Not destroyed, nor damaged, nor inaccessible, but simply not there at all. Marana gets bored of searching the ship and heads outside. Seconds later she calls us back out into the knee-deep snow.
“There’s footprints. Faint but there sure are a lot of them. All heading East-Northeast.”
We gather around her, and sure enough I see the footprints of at least six individuals, still just barely visible despite the snowfall that’s rapidly trying to fill them. “If we’re going to follow these, we need to hurry. We can always return here to the probe later on, sir,” says Marana.
Inquisitor Taron nods. “Yes, you are right. If there are survivors, and it seems quite likely from the prints that there were, then we need to find them immediately. They will be our best chance to find out what happened to the Petitor Omnis.
We find the first body after no more than ten minutes of trudging after the fading tracks. He’s face down in the snow, and his arms and legs are missing. There is no blood, and one of the guardsmen posits that perhaps the frigid temperature froze the blood in place, but Cansus Dole shakes his head. “No, even as cold as it is that would only work if he was frozen solid before being dismembered, otherwise his body heat would allow for at least a little spillage.”
Marana shrugs. “Who’s to say that isn’t exactly what happened.”
Cansus has no answer to that.
Post Merge: July 2, 2013, 11:39:34 AM
In the future, please use the modify button. Double posting is against the forum rules, and for that reason, the system merged your posts.
We find two more bodies, both without limbs. The second body is frozen like the first, but the third steams in the snow. Now there is blood, lots of it, turning ice to slush. The guardsmen are starting to look nervous. I cast about with my very limited telepathic capability and detect nothing in our immediate vicinity. Holon, our dedicated psyker, is a frightening combatant but telepathically a receiver only.
As we walk on, the snowfall increases, and I begin to fear we will get caught in a blizzard. No sooner does this worry strike me than a cave looms out of the white haze. It is a strange rock formation, rising out of the earth unconnected to any greater cliff or hillside. We cross the threshold into the cave wearily, for it is disconcertingly dark within – too dark, by my reckoning.
I activate the night-vision lenses on my helmet. The view through my goggles flickers and then reappears in shades of green and gray. In the back of the cave, a cloaked figure hunches over, facing the wall. A quick extension of my mind tells me that the person is dead, their body locked rigid into a crouching position. I notify the others.
Abruptly one of the guardsmen reaches the figure, grabs it by the arm of its cloak, and spins it around. A skull leers back at us – all the skin has been scraped from the corpse’s face and head, a fact that had been until now hidden by the hood of the cloak.
The guardsman looks somewhat ill at the sight. Marana rolls her eyes at his discomfort. “If you plan on working with the Inquisition, you’re going to need to get used to…”
Without a moment’s hesitation Marana stops in mid-sentence, screams “down!” and falls flat. Those of us who have worked with her before hit the ground a moment later, but the Chuvian guardsmen are a bit slower to react. My view flashes white as hell-gun bolts overload the lenses, and when they clear everyone is on the ground, but one of the guardsmen is screaming and another appears to be headless.
“amphetamine parrot!” someone yells.
I reach out with my mind. “There’re two attackers. Neither are psykers,” I inform everyone.
“Night-vision off everybody,” shouts Holon, and I power mine down a second before incandescent light fill the cave. Holon is muttering litanies under her breath as she wreathes the walls in glowing flame. The trick catches our attackers by surprise, and before they can open fire again Marana swings up her rifle and fires.
“Blew one of them’s head right off,” she says proudly. Then the sound of fleeing footsteps. I jump up in pursuit after the figure as it disappears around a bend in a previously unnoticed corridor that intersects with the main cave.
I’m a fast runner, and my quarry is not. I catch up to him and tackle him to the ground. At least I guess that the shapeless humanoid is a “he”. It’s hard to tell with Mechanicus, especially when they are facing away from you.
“Fool! Heathen!” he cries as I lock manacles around his hands and feet and then search him for weapons. I take away his compact las-pistol and a small data-chip just as Inquisitor Taron arrives.
“Good work Lios.”
“Thank you, sir.” I step aside.
The Inquisitor crouches over the fallen Mechanicus. “He’s an Adept Minoris of some sort. Let me find the insignia… there. Divisio Obscuritas.”
“Obscuritas, sir?” I am familiar, at least at a basic level, with the various ranks and divisions of the Adeptus Mechanicus. I have never heard of any “Divisio Obscuritas,” however.
“The Omnissiah protects.” Arbillon of the Skitarii appears at my shoulder.
“Captain, could you explain to me the nature of the Divisio Obscuritas?”
“You are not cleared for that knowledge, sir.”
“I’m an agent of the Emperor’s holy inquisition, for throne’s sake.”
“The aspect of the Emperor that is human does not always agree with the aspect of the Emperor that is machine. Your status does not grant you the same authority within my organization.”
I’m about to retort when Cansus Dole, who I hadn’t noticed had arrived, clears his throat. “The Divisio Obscuritas is a secret unit tasked with handling and studying accursed data. Tainted artifacts, scrap code banks, etcetera.”
Captain Arbillon scowls but doesn’t say anything to quiet Cansus.
Inquisitor Taron turns to me. “Did you find anything on the tech-priest?”
“Yes, my lord. A tech-forged las-pistol and a small data-chip.”
“May I see the data-chip, interrogator?”
Odd. Taron almost always calls me by my name, rather than my title. No matter. I hand over the chip.
Taron inserts the small wafer into his portable cogitator-pad and waits for it to load. Then he gasps in surprise. “By the Emperor, it’s the Xrgtul Aelificor.”
Was I supposed to know what that meant? “Excuse me, sir, but what is the Zergitul Aelificor?”
“Xrgtul, Lios, not Zergitul. But regardless, this data-chip contains a digital copy of a legendary tome. A book that describes the origins of the Monster of Capita.”
Oh no. Not this again.
“That’s fantastic, lord. We can add it to your collection after we’re done interrogating this Mechanicus scum.”
We’re both alerted by a panicked bleating noise. The Skitarii captain has lifted our prisoner off the ground by the throat.
“How dare you call upon my loyalty to the Omnissiah, you self-serving embarrassment to Mars,” roars Captain Arbillon, shaking the shackled tech-priest in the air to punctuate his words.
“Captain, stand down,” orders Taron.
The tech priest gurgles through a cracked augmetic windpipe. “Skitarii. You display so much anger. So much pitiful emotion.”
“That’s why I’m Skitarii. It’s part of the job.” Captain Arbillon squeezes and a jet of oily black fluid squirts from the prisoner’s neck.
“Captain, I said STAND DOWN!” Inquisitor Taron draws his inferno-pistol and aims it at the Skitarii Captain.
“The champion of the Omnissiah. You mustn’t let these idiots destroy our chance to bring forth the avatar of god,” the prisoner sputters.
Finally the Captain notices Taron’s raised weapon and drops the wounded tech-priest to the floor. The prisoner wheezes and tries to suck in great lungsful of air through compressed and damaged airways.
“Flesh-loving bastards,” the tech-priest grunts, seemingly oblivious to his own obvious anger and “pitiful emotion”.
“I think it’s time you stop ranting and simply answer our questions. Every time you refuse or dissemble, Captain Arbillon will excise one of your augmetics.” Taron looks at the Skitarii with raised eyebrows, and after a moment’s silence the captain replies: “If that is your command.”
“May the Omnissiah smite your ship’s machine spirit and leave you stranded in the warp with a downed Geller field,” says the prisoner, displaying a remarkable stupidity in his choice of words.
A look of horror and disbelief briefly crosses what flesh remains of Captain Arbillon’s features. Sneering down at the heretek, the Skitarii blurts a machine-code message and then clicks on a power-blade. “Inquisitor, which augmentation would you like me to cut out first?”
“Can you remove his binary receiver?”
“It’s lodged in his cortex. I might cause brain damage.”
The prisoner screeches in alarm.
“Can you just puncture the device then, as opposed to removing it entirely? Would that be easier, Captain?”
“Yes sir.”
The Skitarii places the tip of the blade against the tech-priest’s forehead and moves it back and forth, trying to estimate the exact spot to slip the blade in.
“Enough! I will talk! I will tell you everything! Spare my connection to the great and holy Omnissiah!”
Arbillon looks at Inquisitor Taron, who nods slightly in assent. The blade disappears into its sheath. “If you threaten a blessed machine-spirit again, though, the Inquisitor will not be able to stop me from cutting the cogitator right out of your brain, collateral tissue damage be damned.” The prisoner nods understanding, too panicked to speak.
After allowing the prisoner a moment to catch his breath, Taron begins the interrogation. If we had needed to, we could have brought the captive back aboard our ship, where we have a fully-outfitted inquisitorial “Explication Chamber,” but such drastic and time-consuming measures would be unnecessary in this particular situation.
“Your name and rank?”
“Adept Minoris Tulliver Ghan, Divisio Obscuritas, 5th Office”
“What was the mission of the Petitor Omnis?”
Of course, we already knew the answer to that, but Taron was warming up our prisoner with some obvious questions first.
“To collect data from the space-hulk Gargant, which was recently declared safe after cleansing by Fire Hornet Space Marines, and return with this data to Mechanicus Installation Argos Alpha.”
“Why did you not complete your mission?”
“Because we were presented with a miraculous and singular opportunity to do invaluable work in the service of the divine Omnissiah.”
“What was this opportunity that you speak of?”
“The opportunity to construct a living-machine with an advanced machine-spirit infused with a portion of the soul of the Omnissiah itself. A machine that would clear away all the non-believers in an inferno of holy fire and leave a utopia in its wake, where the division between man and machine is no more.”
For a moment, Taron is silent. I can tell by his expression that he is deep in thought.
“This opportunity, was it in any way linked to the Xrgtul Aelificor?”
“Yes. That book, or at least the copy of it that we obtained, contains detailed instructions for how to summon the Omnissiah’s champion into our world.”
“Some sort of demon, perhaps?” I theorize.
“No Lios. I do not believe this is so simple as that.”
Considering that dealing with demons is anything but simple, I’m concerned by the Inquisitor’s statement.
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