“Congratulations, Initiate, you’re now officially an Inquisitor. Welcome to the fold,” Arthur’s mentor said, “To think the first time I found you, you were on the run from the worst pirate warlord for centuries,” Maya laughed, slapping him on the back and handing him his official Inquisitor badge as the people around them respectfully clapped.
“Thank you, Maya,” Arthur replied with an earnest smile, taking the badge with both hands and pinning it to his dress uniform, the gesture a symbol of an Inquisitor claiming the office of their own merit. “It has been an amazing time,” he said, “But did you need to do this in the cafeteria?” he asked, looking around at the other Inquisitors clapping for him.
“Of course!” Maya replied, grabbing her lunch tray and stepping into the short line, “What kind of Inquisitor wouldn’t want to let everyone know that they’re not the real deal? Especially when they are in a cross-department mentorship?”
“I still don’t know why you insisted that I become your mentee. Even after you talked up the classes,” Arthur said, taking his own lunch tray. He piled food onto his tray, making sure that he got a good amount of vegetables before he took the meat or noodles, “Then you barge into my room and tell me that you’re going to be training me.”
Maya laughed, still piling mounds of cheese-covered branchalik, a broccoli-like vegetable from the Cilerian homeworld, onto her own tray, “Why are you so mean? I only did that once! It’s not like I dumped the whole thing off onto someone else when you started asking about investigation techniques.”
“You did,” Arthur replied, adding a small scoop of Maya’s favorite dish to his tray, “You sat there and spaced out while Helix taught me everything. Do you know what happened to Helix, by the way?”
“Oh, yeah, he got an assignment on First Eye,” Maya answered, gesturing to an open table for four near the far wall. The two of them walked over to the table and sat down, both beginning to eat with the decorum fitting their well-made dress uniforms, “Something about robotics. Apparently, some dumbasses were planning on infiltrating the Bulwark to steal AI code.”
Arthur paused, putting down his fork and looking up at Maya, who had her usual amused expression, “Are you serious? Who in their right minds would try to attack the solar system-wide fortress just to get some AI codes?”
“Some AI codes are better than others,” De3 said from Maya’s comslate, it’s familiar waveform appearing on the screen, “Comparing my AI code to the Bulwark’s, for instance, is like comparing a monkey’s DNA to a human’s, simply because you are both primates. Similar, but one conquered their home planet for a reason.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, De3,” Maya soothed, petting the comslate as if it would make her assigned AI feel better, “Just because they’re more complicated doesn’t mean that they’re better. Do you know how many people died to monkeys on Terra before the modern age?”
“Not many,” De3 said, it’s voice still neutral.
“But it’s still more than one!” Maya asserted, taking another bite from her pile of cheesy vegetables, “Just because you’re a bit less complicated doesn’t mean you’re worse!”
“I think it knows that already, Maya,” Arthur said, looking at his own comslate, “Ah, I’ve got to run in a little bit. I’m getting my first assignment today.”
Maya sighed wistfully, “Oh, they grow up so fast!” she cried, melodramatically throwing her head back and putting her hand on her forehead, “I remember when you first came with me on a routine inspection. You were so innocent back then!”
Arthur chuckled, smiling as he ate another forkful of food, “Come to think of it, you never told me about your first mission. You keep talking about how great you are, so surely you must’ve had a flawless first mission, right?”
Maya paused, averting her eyes and looking to the side while she ate another bite of food, “It’s because she screwed it up so badly that a whole team was sent to rescue her,” a voice said from the side. They turned, one out of anger and the other out of greeting.
“Hey Cramps,” Arthur said.
“Dammit, Cramps, can’t you keep your mouth shut!?” Maya hissed, looking down.
Cramps laughed, taking a seat beside Maya. He was a Vikshe, so he was taller than both of them, but he made up for it with the generally thin and lithe body his species was known for. He had two pairs of eyes, one pair like normal and the other black and able to see thermal signatures, but his left lower eye had blood-red pupils while the other one had a deep green pupil. His skin was dull purple, far warmer on the color spectrum than most of his species. The Vikshe also had dog-like ears on their heads. His, however, were cut in more than one place, but he was still just as snarky as when Arthur first met him, “Because we all have our stories no one'll let us live down. Stop calling me Cramps and I’ll think about keeping your fuck-ups on the down low,” he said, looking back to Arthur, “But look at that! I never thought I’d see the day where Little Obby would get his badge!”
“You call us out for calling you Cramps, but you got everyone to call me ‘Little Obby.’ This street goes both ways, old man,” the newly promoted Inquisitor remarked, taking another bit from his meal, “So, where’s the rest of your squad? Are they hungover or something?”
Cramps laughed his roaring laugh, grinning as he threw his head back, “Nah, those guys are still dealing with the paperwork from the last mission. I wasn’t the one who broke all the dangerous biocontaminants, so I don’t have to deal with that stuff. So, you want to hear about her first mission?” he asked with a chuckle.
“No! Don’t say yes, Arthur!” Maya cried, shaking her head.
Arthur watched Maya panic, finally shaking his head after a moment, “If she’s so against it, then not thanks. I’m not an asshat. Unlike some of us,” he remarked, looking into Cramps’ eyes, who scoffed and turned his head.
Maya breathed a sigh of relief, giving a gentle smile, “Aww, you’ve always been a sweetheart!”
“Do you mind telling me why you don’t want me to hear about it, though?” Arthur asked, smiling softly in his best attempt to get the prideful woman to open up about her mistake.
Maya wilted at his words, “Yeah… Fine, I’ll tell you some stuff about it. I ended up drawing the attention of a multi-stellar crime syndicate who was devoting their resources to a Human-Seeker hybrid warrior species. I got onto the boss’ shitlist and… well, the rest is history.”
Cramps shook his head as she spoke, “Lucky thing she happened upon the research documents, too, since they seemed to get pretty close to finishing their tests. Not only did they try to make that hybrid crap, they also wanted to use neural dampeners to control whatever was pulled out from the test tube. Disgusting shit, I tell you.”
“Damn, that does sound awful,” Arthur remarked, “So, Cramps, do you want to open up a bit about your first mission? Give a rookie some advice?”
“You want advice?” Cramps asked, “Then just remember who you are. You’re a damn Inquisitor. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who, when they see your Regalia, doesn’t become a blubbering mess. Remember that, in almost every case, you’re the highest ranking officer there. You can order the League Guard around, tell almost anyone from the TMB of Parliament to check something for you, or even hold up independent stations for a stop-search. Just remember that, in that last case, you can’t personally bring them in for something you find unless it’s got to do with the TRC’s rulings. Narcotics may be bad, but we’re here for more important things than that.”
Arthur nodded, committing it to memory, “So remember that I can get help from everywhere, but I’ve got more important issues than some drug smugglers or something like that. I already know what I do when there’s a murder, so it’s just smaller stuff I can’t intervene in. Got it. Thanks, Cramps. I’ve got to go and get myself ready. See you guys once I’m done with my mission,” he said, standing and picking up his tray.
“Good luck, you never know when you might need it,” Cramps said, smiling and waving.
“Make me proud, kid. I trained you better than to have your first mission to go to shit,” Maya assured, devouring her meal at a faster rate.
“I wish you good luck” De3 added from the comslate.
“Thanks, guys. Let’s hope I have an interesting story to bring back,” he said. He put his tray into the pile of dirty dishes and made his way to the hallways of the fortress. The walls were a cold stone gray, with the floors being carpeted in vibrant blues, reds, and greens. The walls were also adorned with decorations like paintings, weaved tapestries, and mosaics. To Arthur, the most interesting part of it was not the artwork itself but was the fact that each and every piece of art was made and paid for by the Inquisitors who had interests in art and the like.
Eventually, Arthur made his way to his room. Stepping into the room quickly, he took a brief moment to look around and take it in before he would be away for a while. He had a bed, dresser, end table, all-purpose terminal, desk and chair, row of filing cabinets, and an armory in the corner, all of which was flawlessly cleaned in case he had guests for whatever reason. He wasted no time in stepping into the bathroom and taking off his clothes, stopping for a moment to unpin his Inquisitor Badge and to place it on the bathroom counter. He washed his face and looked himself over in the mirror, making sure there was nothing on his face.
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He was over six feet of muscle, with smooth, brown skin that shone in the bright light of his bathroom, and was clean shaven with a buzz cut. His face was mostly unremarkable, common in almost every astrodock or colony that held Humans, but his piercing blue eyes were sharp and alert nonetheless.
He scrubbed his face, making sure that nothing was left of his meal, and walked over to his dresser. He pulled out a jumpsuit, the layer beneath the undersuit, and put it on quickly. He then pulled out two sets of civilian clothing and another dress uniform from his dresser, some miscellaneous travel supplies from his desk, his badge, and his comslate from the bed where he left it before. He then carried the neatly stacked bundle to the armory in the corner, placing it down on a small stool and opening the locker.
He took his undersuit, a matte black and skin-tight suit that provided him with plenty of armor to survive beam shots, and put it on. He was definitely glad that there were non-reproductive nanomachines in the suit that cleaned it, since it was frowned upon for an Inquisitor to take their suit off in the field. That meant he would be wearing it for a long time, at least if he did not receive his own small station to pilot.
Once his undersuit covered his body below his chin, he turned his eyes upon his overarmor. Undersuit style astrosuits were split into two parts, the undersuit and the overarmor. His undersuit was bulk standard for an Inquisitor-- which was top of the line for most, but he was an Inquisitor, so it was to be expected-- but he was given free reign to design his overarmor. He chose an overarmor that was middlingly bulky, which provided him with both armor and enough pack space to be able to operate in the field completely alone while not being so bulky that it may as well be power armor.
His was royal blue, with black highlights to match his undersuit and had smooth armor designed to deflect projectile fire, if the need ever arose. On top of that, his armor also had a sensor module, used to map fine mechanisms and large structures alike, and an analyzer module, used to analyze substances and a staple in every Investigation Unit Inquisitor’s loadout. He took the thigh-joint armor for his legs first, featuring an undersuit-style cerasteel weave to protect the gaps in his armor, followed by the boot-greave portions next. Next was the chestplate-hip armor, which covered his chest, shoulders, and hips, but left his stomach protected only by another layer of the cerasteel weave. It gave him enough movement to operate in daily life while not leaving him to the mercy of crack shots. Next was the bicep armor, which fit nicely under the pauldrons of the chest armor’s pauldrons. He then strapped his gauntlets on, the right one with a spot for a comslate, since he was left handed, on the inside of his arm, which quickly was quickly occupied by his own comslate. He then took his astrosuit’s pack and filled it with the supplies he needed, attaching it to his back.
Finally, he took the helmet from the locker and looked it over, making sure it was spotless. It was mostly featureless, with only three things on the whole thing that contrasted with the royal blue cerasteel armor. The first was the quantum radio, a small blue box on his left temple. The second was the visor, made of the finest carboglass, a glass derived from carbon, that was in the shape of a wide chevron, going from the bottom of his ears, past his eyes, and meeting at the bridge of his nose. The final detail was the stamped Inquisitor’s Eye Regalia at his forehead.
There were four places the Eye Regalia was placed and where it was told to anyone who knew the inner workings of the Inquisition which Unit the Inquisitor came from. If the Regalia was stamped into the forehead, then the Inquisitor was part of the Investigation Unit. If the Regalia was stamped into the temple, then the Inquisitor was part of the Archivist Unit. If the Regalia was stamped into the chest, then the Inquisitor was part of the Assault Unit. And if the Regalia was stamped into the gauntlet, then the Inquisitor was part of the Assassination Unit. It kept multi-Unit operations simple and allowed for plans to be made on the fly that utilized every strength of the Inquisitors present.
Arthur did not wear the helmet, but instead placed it on the stool, where his travel supplies once were. Finally, he took his weapon from the locker. He spotted a bit of dirt on it, likely from the last live-fire exercise Maya had him do, and got a rag to clean it. The beam gun itself was not a powerhouse, nor was it something he could dance around with like the Assassins could with their beam pistols. It was a short carbine, without a stock but with enough cutting edge technology to reduce the recoil to nearly nothing. It was a boxy thing, with the top half devoted to the workings of the gun and the bottom half being the trigger, grip, and plasma launcher. He never expected to use it, but he also never expected to find the worst pirate warlord’s secret base either, and that was before it was even his job to find the unexpected.
He latched the back of the gun to his pack, took his helmet under his arm, and walked out of the door. He felt amazing as he walked down the labyrinthine corridors of Inquisition Fortress Gamma, carrying his Regalia with pride rather than with aspiration. He soon reached his superior’s office, however, and his feelings of excitement were tempered into calm collectedness. He knocked on the door thrice, as was tradition, and waited. After a few seconds, a high pitched voice came from the other side of the titasteel door, “Come in.”
Arthur obliged, stepping forward and into the room as the door opened for him. The office was both cozy and homely, with a hint of the professionalism that the Inquisition represented shining through as well. The room was long, going four dozen feet in length and reaching a dozen feet wide. The floor was divided into two sections, with the far side of the room being carpeted in shining green fabric while the closer side was paved in mosaic tiles, each tile a slightly different shade of gray from its neighbor and most being unique shades of gray amongst the whole. The walls were lined in paintings of previous people, all of which once served in his superior’s seat.
The room, despite being so colorful, was sparsely decorated with furniture, with a large desk in the middle of the room, a chair to match, and a table surrounded by chairs in the carpeted section. The thing that truly drew attention, however, was the massive window above them, which showed the entire astrodock of Fortress Gamma, a many-tiered ring that converged into a large zero-gravity docking bay, making the shape of a wheel with an entirely too large axle.
Arthur made sure to only give each thing a cursory glance, putting his attention onto his superior, sitting at her desk. She was a Seeker, which meant that her body was a bit odd to normal human conventions of anatomy. Meyitvani, other Humans, Vikshe, Ukala, and even the ocean-going Cilerans were relatively normal for most humans, but Seekers had wholly different anatomy. They were even more different than the Kragaks, which were massive insects.
What made them so different, however, were not their arms, of which they had four, nor their legs, which were instead a dozen tentacles below their waist. It was not their chest or torso, which was normal for most species, if perhaps a bit thin. What was odd was her head, which was a large sphere, covered in rough skin, and adorned in the front with a massive mouth that took up the entire front of the head. Within the mouth, however, was the Seeker’s single, massive eye, which housed the brain and other cerebral organs. The eye would have looked demonic to anyone without knowledge of how the Seekers’ appearances varied in their species, as she had black sclera and red irises.
Arthur, however, having grown up on a planet with some of every species in the known galaxy living within it, was not phased. He simply held his free hand up to his forehead in a salute, “Ma’am. I have been assigned to your direction and I am ready to receive my first mission.”
The Seeker’s massive eye studied him, the pupil dilating as she focused and unfocused her vision. Eventually, she nodded and raised a hand, the sign to return the Inquisitor to ease. Arthur lowered his hand and put his free hand behind his back, still holding his helmet in under his arm, “Good, you’re early, prepared to be deployed immediately, and you’re showing proper conduct. You’ve come a long way, Inquisitor Wan. Now then. It’s time for you to earn your paycheck,” she stated, her voice higher than most humans were able to even attempt to make.
“Your first mission is not just a routine inspection, but you will still be going to check on a distant colony. In the system BV-X4Y, otherwise known as Jalrish by the newly-settled colonists, we have lost contact with said local colonists. Multiple attempts from the TMB have been made to reestablish contact, but our network is unable to reach them. Normally, this would be the job of the League Guard, but our own Archivists have detected anomalous oscillations in the local star’s spacetime curvature. There are concerns that the star is being tampered with and, though natural explanations exist, you are being sent to determine if that is the case or not. You have had enough training in stellar physics to be able to determine the cause, so I have confidence in your abilities, but do not be fearful of calling for assistance. Your objectives are as follows: Determine the cause of the loss of communications and document the cause, confirm the status of the colonists, ensure that the star is not being tampered with by any means necessary and document if it applies, and, if the colonists are not eradicated, perform a routine check on their technology to ensure that no forbidden technology is being used.
“I know that most of this is work beneath you, but you need experience. Beyond that, this is still important, so don’t slack off. Unfortunately, I have some bad news. The construction of your station has been delayed for the foreseeable future. Before you become angry, please hear the reason. A large number of Assault and Assassination stations have been destroyed and damaged in a large-scale deployment in the farthest sectors of the League. That sector is having difficulties with fleet power, so the main station yards have fully devoted themselves to that sector. Once this issue is solved, then construction of your station will continue. For now, any Inquisitor without their own station has been permitted to use the wormhole network to travel to prominent astrodocks and planets in order to procure transportation. I personally recommend the Gilvan caravans. They have no issues with transporting an Inquisitor and they have no problems with staying quiet.
“Now then, good luck, Inquisitor. You are dismissed,” she said, turning her eye back to her desk and the multiple administrative devices strewn about. Arthur nodded, saluted, and left the room quickly. He put on his helmet and made sure that his quantum radio was in proper order, then he began to walk. Walking down the hallway, he commited his orders to memory and ensured that there was nothing he needed that he did not already have. He had all of his normal travel supplies, his modules were prepared and ready, and his weapon was clean.
He continued through the halls, walking miles in the increasingly small gravity of the upper levels of the Fortress, until he finally reached the wormhole network. It was a large room, in the shape of a half-circle, with only two features. The first was the large screen that stood in front of the door, to the far left of the flat side of the circle. The second was a large ring, held by thick titasteel braces and struts and connected to the wall via many wires. “Greetings, Inquisitor,” a synthetic voice said, their waveform appearing on the screen, “Are you here to use the wormhole network?”
“I am. My superior has permitted me to use it. My name is Arthur Wan, Investigation Unit Inquisitor. I was given a mission about twenty minutes ago,” he replied.
The AI paused for a moment, presumably checking the digital archive of orders, mission briefings, and other administrative material. The waveform then bobbed up and down, a sort of nod to the organic individuals who AI worked with, “I found them. According to your briefing, you are needed in BV-X4Y. The closest inhabited star system with a wormhole gate is BV-X9V, approximately twenty five light years away. The astrodock is a permanent settlement used as a trade hub between the large number of sector colonies, so finding passage to your destination will not be difficult. You are permitted to use the gate. Good luck Inquisitor.” The ring at the back of the room suddenly flared to life, the fabric of space being parted to reveal a bright multicolored swirling mass of energy within the rift. Arthur leapt the dozen feet to the gate, with the help of the low simulated gravity near the axle of the Fortress’ rotation, and stood before it. He made one final check of everything he had, ensuring that nothing was left behind. With a nod, he stepped into the gate, leaving the Fortress and beginning his first mission.