Harr stood next to not-Bliss in the back of the Chimera, watching the world he knew vanish as its doors closed. He felt empty, hollow. Uncertain. All he had the strength for was standing and watching and listening. So he stood, watched, and listened. In addition to the Storm Trooper, Sister of Battle, Tech Priest, and bodygloved-not-Bliss, the Chimera also held a trio of Guardsmen like himself, though they seemed marginally more of a veteran, battle-worn sort compared to his Whiteshield nature. Two combat servitors were also present, answering to the Tech Priest. Finally, at the far end of the personnel bay of the Chimera, stood an officer in full body armor, hands working on a dataslate. Her skin was dark as night, and what could be seen of her hair was braided.
“What’s our route look like?” the Hager fellow asked not-Bliss, who, for the time being, Harr decided to just continue referring to as Bliss Carmichael.
“Target is twenty miles up the chasm. The chasm ends in a bend that empties onto an open bridge where point defenses lay in wait. We should not be in the armor on that bridge,” Carmichael explained.
“Agreed,” Hager nodded. “Intel, what do you have?”
Still looking at her dataslate, the woman at the back of the Chimera answered, “Two Sabre Platforms each with Twinned Lascannons primed at bridge installation, manned. Two Tarantula Sentries equipped and primed identically, unmanned. One Phaeton Pattern Defense Turret; personnel unknown. Three Griffons, personnel unknown. One Manticore.”
“Is the Manticore stationary or on a tank?” Hager asked.
“It is a stationary emplacement,” the woman answered.
“It’s yours, then,” Hager told Carmichael, then looked back to the woman at the back of the vehicle. “How much longer is this storm going to last?”
“Storm expected to clear in three hours and eighteen minutes,” she answered, still thumbing away at her dataslate.
“Plenty of time,” Hager nodded to himself.
“Who’s the new guy?” the woman asked, having never once looked at Harr.
“Apparently Stealth’s new squeeze,” Hager shrugged.
“He’s loyal to the Throne, alright? I couldn’t just leave him with the rest,” Carmichael explained for the umpteenth time.
“Sure you could have,” one of the Guardsmen noted.
“Oh, like we left you on Fareran?” Carmichael quipped back.
“How can you know—”
“It’s my job to know,” she answered.
“Negative, it is my job to know,” the woman at the back of the vehicle corrected. “Tactical, do you believe his presence will compromise the integrity of the operation?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t have allowed him on board in the first place,” Hager shrugged again. “Stealth says she can watch him, so I’m content to let her try.”
“Does he have a name?” the Sister of Battle asked.
“Jack Harr, ma’am,” Harr answered, voice quivering in awe of his surroundings.
“Sister, please,” the Sister replied.
“Right, sorry,” he nodded.
“It’s up to you and Intel, Sister,” Hager noted. “You’re our Command rep, after all. What do you two think?”
“I am willing to defer to Intel for this operation,” the Sister answered.
“And I am willing to defer to your judgement, Tactical,” the woman at the back—Intel—answered. “Hasn’t steered us wrong thus far.”
“Yeah, well, a lot of that has been courtesy of the boss’s guidance,” Hager—Tactical—sighed.
“The boss exists?” one of the Guardsmen asked, which appeared to be a joke, as the rest chuckled from it.
“Shut up, Hosku,” Hager grunted.
“Who…how…what is this op?” Harr managed to squeeze out.
Eyes looked around the room to various seniorities. Many fell on Carmichael, ‘Tactical’, the Sister—‘Command’—, and ‘Intel.’ None fell on the Tech Priest, which is ironic, because it was the Tech Priest that read the room and broke the silence. “Withholding operational information from an operative, compromised or not, is likely to result in unsatisfactory outcomes. Suggested recourse: offer enough information for him to work with as required.”
Hager looked to Intel, who shrugged—still not looking up from her dataslate. Hager then looked to Harr. “Your Inquisitor…he was an Inquisitor. But he had radicalized long ago and is now declared…damnit, what’s the phrase, Intel?”
“Excommunicate Traitoris,” Intel answered.
“Right. Excommunicated from the Holy Inquisition. He’s part of a radical cell. Ordo Hereticus wants him alive for interrogation. Our op is to infiltrate his stronghold, kill everything that isn’t ours, sabotage whatever he’s been up to here, and take him in. Just so you’re aware, she’s an actual Inquisitor,” Hager explained, jamming a thumb toward Intel. “So if she tells you to do something, it’s like receiving an order from the Emperor Himself. Got that, kid?”
“Y-yes, sir,” Harr nodded. “This…this whole time, I’ve been protecting a heretic?”
“Insidious, isn’t it?” Carmichael nodded. “Many, if not most, who serve heresy do so unaware of it. If you want to atone, Jack, now’s your chance.”
“I…I…,” he started, but still had not figured out who to trust: the murderous group that had just abducted him and told him his life was a lie, or the life he thought he knew.
“It’s fine not to have an answer yet. But when those doors open and we move out, you better have figured it out by then,” Carmichael told him, then slid off one of her gloves and took up one of his hands in hers. She was warm. She squeezed his hand in hers. He squeezed back, and for the first time that night, had found the peace with which to breathe.
“Who…she’s an Inquisitor?” Harr asked, pointing to Intel. Intel gave him a thumb’s up, still having refrained from turning her gaze from her dataslate. “But she’s not ‘the boss’?”
“The one who doesn’t exist? No,” the Guardsman from earlier—Hosku—shook his head.
“Why do you make that joke?”
“Because he’s an idiot,” Hager grunted.
“No one’s seen the boss in years,” Carmichael explained. “Most haven’t ever seen him. Only the Command and Tech units, and Tactical and Intel here.”
“Doesn’t that seem slightly shady?” Harr asked. Hager laughed and even Intel managed a grin. “Does it not?” Harr asked again.
“Perhaps it does,” Carmichael admitted with a laugh. “But he’s real. And he’s a good man. I think he’d like you, and that you’d like him.”
“You still talk like you know him, Stealth,” Hager muttered.
“You still talk like I don’t,” Carmichael returned with a grin. Hager glared at her, then shook his head and looked away. Carmichael looked back to Harr. “As you’ve probably deduced, I’m a Stealth operative. My roles include infiltration, disguise, subterfuge, and sabotage. Unlike other units under the boss’s command, no one knows who leads the Stealth unit. It could be me, it could be some other Stealth member; not even Intel over there knows.”
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“But she has a pretty good guess,” Intel muttered.
“Only Command-1 and Command-2, the ‘boss’ and the second in command, have any idea. So part of my role is to play up that I may or may not know more about the boss than I should.”
“So that if you get captured, you could feed false information your captors would be more willing to accept,” Harr guessed.
“Exactly,” Carmichael nodded. “Out of curiosity, Intel, what is your guess?”
“My guess, Bliss Carmichael, is that you are not the unit leader for the Stealth unit,” Intel replied. “My reasoning stems from the fact that I have met you. I do not find it likely any of us will ever meet Stealth-1.”
“Hmm,” Carmichael mused, but otherwise said nothing.
“ETA 4 minutes to bend,” the Tech Priest noted. “Recommend preparation of physical and mental faculties. What is expected point of entry?”
“That’s what I’ve been working out,” Intel replied. “There is a sewer system underneath the fortress we should be able to access by descending from the bridge. We should cross the bridge on foot and descend upon the cliff of that side to minimize visibility; the storm should cover our journey from the point defense.”
“Should,” one of the Guardsmen noted.
“Yes. I estimate an 18% chance of being detected through the storm with our equipment. Higher if we use vox during our transition, so don’t. Reveal no signals to our target,” Intel explained.
“Well, here’s to the sewers,” Hager laughed. “That should take you back to Abseradon, eh, Intel?”
“I’m not as amused by the prospect as you are,” Intel grumbled.
***
Intel’s plan worked seamlessly at first. The bridge was crossed without being evaporated by the point defense systems staring at them, their oculars obscured behind the sandstorm. Harr had to let go of Carmichael’s hand when the Chimera’s doors opened, but he decided to follow after her. He was not convinced of the unseen-boss being a servant of the Emperor, but he was convinced that his only chance for survival was to do what Carmichael said. He was also convinced that she was sticking her neck out for him, and that he owed her at least a bit of cooperation.
Upon crossing the bridge, the group began descending down the cliff face into the chasm below, as Intel had suggested. Hager, the Sister of Battle, and the Tech Priest served as a Vanguard in this regard, leaping down to a lower ledge with their landings being eased by their advanced armor. Everyone else, the servitors and Inquisitor included, needed to pace themselves in gingerly climbing down into the chasm. On that lower ledge, the group emptied out from beyond the cutting winds of the sandstorm, still obscured from the threats above by the sandstorm as much from the angle of the cliff face between them. However, a new threat appeared further below.
“Artificial darkness. Tech, report,” Hager demanded, peering down into the chasm, where a layer of pitch-black shadow stretched across the floor far below, an abrupt transition from the rocky cliffs at its edges.
“Auspex scans reveal Xenos entities within obscured regions,” the Tech Priest answered.
“Shadestalkers,” Harr suggested. Everyone looked to him. “They’re native to Canicus. They exhume light-absorbing particles. There must be a lot of them down there.”
“Scans suggest 34 Xenos entities between us and anticipated entry point,” the Tech Priest confirmed for the group.
“They must have been corralled here. Interesting,” Harr thought aloud.
“Are they hostile?” Hager asked Harr.
“They’re territorial,” Harr nodded.
“Great,” Hager grumbled.
“Well look at that, the Gun Baby has a use after all,” one of the veteran Guardsmen chuckled. Gun Baby was another term for a Whiteshield, though Harr had not heard it often—this veteran was likely an offworlder.
“Bet you wish we waited for a Psyk operative now, eh, Tactical?” Intel grinned, now no longer working on a dataslate. She crossed her arms, then shrugged. “How do these Shadestalkers see in their…shade?”
“Echolocation,” Harr answered.
“You seem to know a lot about the Xenos,” Command—the Sister—noted.
Harr shrugged. “They’re native to Canicus. You just grow up learning about them. More of an undomesticated animal than a Xenos.”
“Whatever,” Hager shrugged. “Tech, can you mask our presence from them?”
“I can, but not in a way that would not appear on a seismic monitor,” Tech confirmed.
“Doesn’t matter, our foes will learn of our presence soon enough anyways. Do it. Everyone else, night vision up,” Hager ordered, and most of the group donned surveyor headsets for the task.
“Uh, what am I supposed to do?” Harr asked.
“Ask your babysitter,” Hager shrugged, and followed after the Tech Priest further into the void of the chasm, whose mechanisms were emitting an eerie hum. None knew precisely what the Tech Priest was doing to mask their movements from the Shadestalkers, but all trusted it.
“Hold me when we’re down there,” Carmichael told Harr as the group continued their descent. Follow his abductors into a black abyss where he would be surrounded by great creatures that he would not be able to see? Well, it was that or head topside to get vaporized by the point defenses. Harr took his chances with the alleged-Inquisitorial Agents. He continued climbing down into the chasm with them, eventually passing into the opaque darkness at its base. He gingerly felt for the ground that he could not see with the tip of one of his feet, and his heartrate began to rise in abyssal darkness. He began to feel terribly sick to his stomach. When he found his footing, a hand wormed its way into one of his, and as consequence his heartrate began to fall back down. He knew the touch to be that of Carmichael’s, and traitor or not, she remained the last connection he had to the life he thought he knew.
Carmichael moved his hand to her shoulder before ferrying him along through the darkness. Harr still could not see much of anything, save for the occasional darkened silhouette, but he could hear two things—the footsteps of his captors and the huffed breathing of many nearby Shadestalkers. They sounded as though like cattle, but he knew them to be far less domesticated than that. He tried to shy away from the sounds of their breathing, if keeping still following in Carmichael’s footsteps. The knot in his stomach only intensified as their journey continued; he assumed it was from the stress.
It was not, as was revealed shortly after the group stepped into a large sewer pipe.
The group only needed take a few steps into the sewer pipe to emerge from the opaque blackness of the Shadestalkers. It seemed as though the Shadestalkers knew better than to enter the sewers, and it also seemed Jack Harr was not the only one experiencing severe discomfort. Much of the group stumbled in their step, leaning against the walls of the pipe to catch themselves. “Hey, Gun Baby, this feeling an effect of those Shade things?” a yet-unspoken Guardsman asked Harr, seeming as though to be on the verge of puking.
“No, not to my knowledge,” Harr shook his head, holding at his stomach.
“I know what this is,” the Inquisitor woman said sternly, stumbly deeper into the pipe. “I haven’t felt this since Thantalus, and even then not so intensely. But the families traded in this on occasion.”
“Intel?” Hager asked her.
“Pariah Gene. Blanks, Nulls, whatever you want to call them,” the Inquisitor replied. “It’s either several of them, or one very potent Null. The discomfort you all are feeling is psychological. Push through it,” she ordered, and led the way further into the sewers. Everyone hesitated in following after her, save for the servitors under the Tech Priest’s command, but all did so after remembering their duties. The group stalked through the winding, slimy corridors of the sewer system, the environment being far less discomforting than the ambient repulsion generated by the Pariahs the Inquisitor had talked about. For a time, it seemed as though the tunnels of pipes went on for far longer than should have been possible, but surely that was just a mistaken feeling generated by the discomfort the group felt.
The thought occurred to Intel as it had the others, but she did not give in to that assumption as everyone else did.
Eventually, however, Intel’s leadership did guide the group to an exit hatch in the ceiling of a pipe. The Tech Priest’s servitors meticulously and quietly opened the hatch before establishing a portable ladder system for everyone else to use to climb out of the sewers. Hager and the Guardsmen went first, soon flanked by the Sister and Intel. Harr and Carmichael followed, with the Tech Priest and his servitors taking the rear. The group emerged into a room of prisons; it was not itself a prison, but cages dotted a large, flattened basement. People were within these cages, and equipment of all sorts had been affixed to these prisoners. Muzzles kept the prisoners quiet whilst small piping drained silvery, near-translucent fluid from the prisoners’ backs. Each captive was kept suspended in the air, faces pointed toward the ground.
It was hellish, and the sight of it all proved even more discomforting than the rampant discomfort that emanated from the captive Pariahs. Harr felt like he was going to pass out, and he was far from the only one of the group to be overwhelmed by the scene. Harr said a silent prayer to the Emperor, but wanted not for the Emperor to be looking upon such vile horror as surrounded him then.
“We have to destroy them,” Intel declared to the group.
“Good,” Hager nodded. “We brought charges,” he suggested.
“Yes, set them up,” Intel ordered. Hager and the Guardsmen began routing demolition charges around the room’s support structure. Intel, meanwhile, stepped up to one of the captive Pariahs. She raised a hand inside their cell and lifted their head up, making eye contact with one of the prisoners. “You’ll be given peace soon,” Intel assured the Pariah. The Pariah, muzzled, blinked once and nodded eagerly in Intel’s grasp. “Is Prareus here?” The Pariah nodded again. “Do you know what he is extracting from you?” The head shook then. “Tech, find a sample,” and the Tech Priest obeyed without a word.
“Prareus?” Harr whispered.
“You don’t even know his name? That’s your faux-Inquisitor,” Carmichael replied just as quietly, trying to find a corner of the room furthest from the Pariahs. There was no such spot, but Harr followed after her all the same.
“He’s not mine anymore,” Harr shook his head.
“Glad to hear it.”
“Were you a native to Canicus?” Intel asked, continuing her line of questioning. She received another shake of the head. “Ixaniad Sector?” A shake of the head. “Calixis?” Yes. “Have you been here for more than a year?” Yes. “Five?” Yes. “Ten?” No. “Have there been fatalities you’ve observed from this extraction?” No. “They’ve kept you all alive for this?” Yes. “Have you seen others like Prareus?” Yes. “In Ixaniad?” Yes. “On a planet or on a ship? Blink once for planet, twice otherwise.” Planet. “Amnes Minoris?” Yes. “Damn. Thank you, Pariah. Your end will be quick. The Emperor protects.”
“What’s Amnes Minoris?” Harr asked Carmichael.
“A deathtrap,” she shook her head. “More than that, I shouldn’t say.”