“No explosives today, Mirena,” I told her, getting situated in the cockpit.

“Sir, it’s almost all explosives,” she reminded me, grinning.

That was true, as in their way, Bolters were explosive weapons. “Fine, no missiles or cannon,” I clarified.

“Killjoy,” she chuckled. “Ready to patch you in.”

“Count me down,” I told her. She fingered a three, then a two, then a one, and then nodded while pressing a button nearby. “Abseradon. I am Inquisitor Blackgar of the Ordo Hereticus,” I said into a vox communicator hardwired into the cockpit. My voice roared out of the starship hanging over the city, slamming into Abseradon as Vostroya’s music once had into me in his factory of nightmares. “Your city harbors four heretics of gross violation of Imperium Order. They did all they could to take my life from me, promising it to me personally, to my face. They failed. These heretics stand in open defiance of Holy Terra, for all to see. I will end them, and anyone who makes the mistake of defending them. Governor Merek, I told you, before you betrayed me to them, that I would shred your city top to bottom to get to these heretics. That happens now. If you still think four men are mightier than the wrath of the Throne, if you still think you want to bow to them, be my guest. I will reduce you and your precious city to a crater in the ground. And to the PDF who take their orders from him, and the Arbites who take their orders from him, and to the gangs of the Underhive who would love to cause chaos in my wake, consider this: Be it four men, or a thousand, or ten billion that I need to kill today, I will. I strongly advise you not count yourself my enemy.

“Lastly, a message for each of the heretic scum: Vostroya, I admire your taste in music. You’ll have to tell me what you think of mine. Ryke, I promised you damnation. I hope you are prepared for it. Heretek, your cruel experimentation ends today. I will crash it down upon you as Vostroya tried—and failed—to do to me. And a special message to the other Phaenonite formerly of Ordo Sicarius: For the defection of your assassins, and for their use against Inquisitor Thaddeus Scayn, I promise you a very final obliteration. I will not deny you the pain that you have wrought upon this city. Now I assume you all think I’m giving you this message from the comfort of some safehouse, or maybe that starship, while my forces prepare for battle. That would be very authoritative, and it would give you time to surrender and repent, like a good, novice Inquisitor would do. But you and I both know you won’t surrender, that you think you shouldn’t be intimidated by me. So, if Floor 482 wants to turn around and wave goodbye, let’s kick this day off early, shall we?” I told them, and turned off the vox whilst pointing ahead at a small portion of the thirty-mile-tall superstructure in Abseradon.

“Yeah, I got them,” Mirena replied, and opened fire with the four Heavy Twin-Bolters on the Bird, vaporizing a whole platoon of Vostroya’s goons that had been waiting for our arrival. We strafed by without issue, and Mirena began pulling back on the Bird to turn for another pass. “You really sure about no missiles?” she asked, frowning.

“If the PDF makes the mistake of siding with them, use everything you have. Until then, I want to keep the city in one piece,” I told her, and then reached out with my mind as we set upon another approach. “Floor 749, left side, by the spire.”

“Little close to Merek,” she warned me.

“Frig him,” I shrugged.

“Agreed,” she answered, and proceeded to shred another floor of mercenaries.

“Floors 648 and 533, then insertion. Kill anything that even waves a fist at you. I’m heading to the deck. Keep in touch. If we don’t respond on vox for some reason, just shout in from the battleship up above. And feel free to request fire support from it,” I told her, leaning on various handles throughout the cockpit to make my exit. My stroll was a little bumpy as we rocketed over Abseradon, slaughtering more and more legions of heretic troops.

“Turbulent winds we’re having, eh boss?” Silas shouted to me as I joined him on deck. Everyone else was strapped in for the ride, but he was standing tall, his maglegs keeping him glued to the floor.

“Silas, that thing I told you about over the Monitron, that one’s yours today!” I shouted back. “Keep your head down!”

“Looking forward to breaking its skull! For Luther!” he replied. I had walked up to him and was holding on to his arm for balance, but we still had to shout. Mirena was heavily throttling our approaches, the super-dense atmosphere of Hestia Majoris kicking into the Bird and knocking it about as we sailed around at high speeds.

“For Thaddeus!” I agreed. “Kill team, you all ready?” I shouted to the room.

“Yes, sir!” came the uniform reply.

“Judging by the corners Law’s taking, we have one more strafing run before insertion!” I told them. “When we touch down and the bay opens, you have fifteen seconds! Law will provide covering fire, so just focus on infiltration and getting into position!”

“You heard the boss! The heretics came knocking, and with what do we answer?” Okustin asked the crew, also shouting.

“Only war!” everyone shouted back.

“Final strafing run complete, on approach for insertion. Good hunting out there,” Mirena called through the bay’s vox unit.

“Trantos!” I shouted to her. She was in the back of the bay, far away from the exit. “When we land, take the opportunity to get to the cockpit! I want you reading the scanners for us! Keep us posted on enemy movements! And as I told Law, don’t be shy of voxxing through the battleship!”

“Understood, Blackgar, sir!” she shouted back, nodding, and gave me a thumb’s up.

“Everyone else, I know not of our enemy’s forces beyond what they’ve already shown! For as bombastic as our introduction is, expect them to have a reply! The two traitor Inquisitors are mine—I know I can best them and don’t want to risk anyone on them! The Heretek and Vostroyan are anyone’s game,” I explained. “Don’t engage something you can’t handle! We have superior air support and comradery—they don’t! So use those resources to their fullest! Remember, our target is Governor Merek—we secure his survival, or end it, his choice! Then we work our way down and flush the heretics out of here! And keep your heads down, the enemy has at least one high-range sniper! That’s everything, the rest is your judgement!”

I had not said anything that I did not already explain as we were initially leaving for this engagement. But it was all still worth reminding them now, as there would likely not be much opportunity for chitchat as soon as we exited the Bird. Sure, I could have messaged them such reminders at a faster rate if needed, but that was focus spent on communication that could have been used on the heretic. I figured it was worth shouting what I could while I could.

And speaking of which, as soon as I finished espousing those reminders, the Bird touched down. We had scoped out an insertion point prior to leaving the temple outside the city: a spacious terrace with no structures, which was a perfect landing spot for an Astartes-size vessel, on Floor 732—reasonably near to Merek’s office. The moment the Bird touched down, we heard some light tapping and ringing of lasgun and autogun fire hitting the hull, but it was drowned out by the thunderous roar of the Bird’s many Heavy Twin-Bolters. Everyone in the bay unstrapped from their seats as soon as the Bird had landed, and were now just waiting for the landing door to open, which it did after a few moments of Mirena’s hellfire. The six of us leapt forth from the Bird before the bay door fully opened, jumping into a devastated hellscape, bodies of mercenaries and servitors cut to shreds across an equally-sundered terrace. As soon as we had cleared the bay door, Mirena began closing it, our group hurrying into the central structure of Abseradon unopposed for the time being.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Our squad was organized in two V-patterns. Silas stood to the front, as the most heavily armored of us all, with Czevia slightly behind and to his left, and Xavier slightly behind and to his right, closer to the outside edge of the structure. In case of structural collapse along the side of the building, Xavier’s psyker abilities would give him the best chance of survival, were he to fall a floor or two down. I, meanwhile, directly flanked Silas, further back than Czevia or Xavier, with Okustin to my left and Penitent to my right, also slightly behind me. Altogether, this gave us a frontal firing line while maintaining maneuverability for all involved, and spaced us out enough to limit the possibility of collateral damage from explosives or debris.

It bothered me that we had encountered as much resistance as we had, even if most of it was dealt with by the Bird. There should have been noble houses with their own security this high up, but they were nowhere to be found. Had the Heretek set his sights on Abseradon nobility for his experiments? It seemed like a natural, if of course awful, next step for him. And given the sheer number of soldiers Mirena had laid waste to thus far, I wondered if the security details of each house had been absorbed into Vostroya’s ranks. Merek might offer some answers, if he was still alive and more cooperative.

Eighteen floors between us and Merek’s. Roughly three quarters of a mile, vertical. In performing thought-scans of the structure to provide targets for Mirena, I knew there were several soldiers on Merek’s floor, as well as the floor just beneath it—which I had Mirena hit—but I did not know their allegiance. I was sure I had also missed some between our position and Merek’s office, and wanted neither to take an elevator into unknown territory nor allow forces so close to our flank. So that vertical distance was going to be taken manually, on foot.

As we began to leave the suite of the house we had stormed into, I broadcast a message to our frontline. “Fireteam, six targets, hallway on right, arrival in eight seconds,” I told them. Silas immediately issued some slight tactical commands over vox, moving Xavier and Czevia into position. Sure enough, a few seconds later, a firefight broke out, though it was short lived. The enemy group was slaughtered by our better equipped and better organized fireteam, and it seemed as though our foes did not expect us to be there. I suspected they were on patrol, and while generally moving carefully given that the building was under assault, they were not prepared for the firestorm we levied upon them. “Second door on the left, then three hundred feet to main access shaft,” I told everyone. As we moved as one in the direction I had instructed, I also checked in with our air support over vox. “Command to Bird, fireteam deployed, acknowledge?”

“Roger, Command, no disruption yet. And I have you all on pictcast with a clear visual, over,” Mirena voxxed back.

“Copy, fireteam moving to central. Outer contacts are no longer danger close. Engage at will, out,” I replied. The main access shaft we were heading to was a large, inclined spiral slope. It was itself about seventy feet in radius, and circled around the elevators and their support equipment in the center of the room. With this setup, the elevators could empty out to the spiral structure for less ‘critical’ Floors, or await direct access tunnels to more ‘important’ Floors such as the Governor’s. But the spiral slope touched everything from Floors 1 to 800, the top of Abseradon. Technically, there was probably some access below Floor 1, too, but the Underhive was likely intentionally sectioned off from having such easy potential access to this structure that it would not have mattered. The spiral was just wide enough to support two lanes of vehicle alleys, so if we were going to encounter any armor in our way, this was the time and place for it.

That, thankfully, would not happen, and all in all our journey to Floor 750—Merek’s—was met with less opposition than I anticipated. I got the sense that the heretics’ numbers were dwindling quite fast, both by Mirena’s hand and by their own loss of morale. I was not complaining. In any case, upon arriving and entering Merek’s floor, we found the remains of a shootout between Vostroya’s private army, a platoon of PDF forces, and the Arbites. I suppose that spoke enough about Merek’s choice of allegiance. It had cost him, though—only a few PDF and Arbites members survived, the Proctor that had escorted me to my torment included.

For the second time in our encounters, we wound up pointing guns at one another. But as before, shots were not immediately fired, and the Proctor—whose helmet was off as an aid was tending to a las wound on his head that had burnt an ear off—ordered his men to stand down. “Comply with the Inquisitor, lads. We owe him that much,” the Proctor ordered.

“Merek?” I asked him as Silas’s fireteam and Okustin moved to take the Arbites’ weapons away from them.

“Sheltered, I can take you,” he offered.

“No need, I see him in your mind,” I replied. “Silas, stay here. Everyone else,” I started, gesturing for everyone to follow. I led them a short distance away to a bunker of a secret compartment embedded in a wall, which I telekinetically wrenched open, revealing Merek cowering with his hands over his head. “You’ve seen better days,” I noted, nodding to him. He was a bit bruised, likely having been intimidated into further compliance by the heretics. Moreover, he looked physically weaker, stress and exhaustion taking their toll.

“As have you, Inquisitor,” he replied, and pointed to my augmetic arm. “Are you going to kill me for that?”

“For that? No, that fate belongs to them,” I replied, referring to the heretics. “I will kill you if you resist me or my Agents in the slightest. Understood?” He nodded eagerly. “My Interrogator will get everything we need from you, but before that, where are they? They wanted me here, which means they’re waiting for me somewhere.”

“Three of them are here, yes, or they were. I’ve never seen the fourth, I’ve only heard his voice,” Merek answered at once. “Cryo Facility, Floor 492. I think that’s where they want you.”

“Were you told to tell us that?” Okustin asked him, towering over the Governor. Merek eagerly shook his head, intimidated by my Interrogator.

“He wasn’t. But I wager they knew he would regardless,” I answered for Merek. “Hans, Czevia, Xavier, stay here, reinforce the PDF, keep the Governor secure. If you need to evac, take him with you.”

“Happy hunting, Cal,” Okustin nodded to me, and I turned to leave, but Merek called to me.

“Inquisitor, wait!” I turned back, raising an eyebrow. “They have something here, something human but…evil beyond approach.”

“I’ve seen their experiments firsthand,” I replied.

“As have I, unfortunately. This isn’t that. It’s something else. Smaller, smaller than her,” he suggested, pointing to Penitent. “And while it looks human in shape and size, I can’t believe that it could be. It had a skull for a head, a turquoise suit with a great claw, and some strange, needle-like weapon,” Merek described.

“I have some idea what it is, then,” I nodded. “I suggest you forget you ever saw it. Its existence is not for you to know. The same goes for their experiments. Sharing what you know would be another reason for me to kill you, Governor, of which I already do not need a second. Hans, he’s yours. Get his entire life out of him.” For a second time, I turned to leave, taking Penitent with me but leaving everyone else in the bunker with Merek. “Silas, time to go,” I called to him, and wanted to begin to leave to Floor 492 as Merek had suggested, but was hit with a wall of dread that caught me in my step. Dizzied by the suddenness of it, I stumbled forward a bit, and looked warily around the Governor’s suite. Everything seemed to be in order. Everything was going to plan. So what was wrong?

“You felt that too, boss?” Xavier called to me, having also felt some semblance of something being off. I looked back to him to nod, and that was almost my downfall. But the dread intensified as I looked away from the windows of Merek’s Floor, which served as a grim reminder of what had befallen Luther Vaigg; or, rather, a reminder of who had targeted him. In a heartbeat, still half-glancing back toward Xavier, I thrust a hand up to the windows, just in time to telekinetically ‘catch’ a bullet that screamed in from below, pinning it in midair less than a foot from my skull. It continued to spin incessantly while it hung suspended in my mind’s grasp, and then a second one joined it, both of them pushing nearer to me. I do not think I could catch a third.

“Silas!” I shouted to him, but did not need to. After I caught the first round, he had already assessed the situation and knew what he needed to do. And without hesitation, he shot out the windows nearest to him and leapt forth into the open air, dozens of miles above the ground. If I ever saw him alive again, it would mean that he had killed Scayn’s murderer—the Vindicare Assassin.