Everyone was happy to put the Pariah-prison behind them. Tech secured a vial of the silver liquid for Intel, which she stashed away on her person for safekeeping. Silently, the group continued to stalk through the underside of the fortress that belonged to ‘Prareus,’ though that silence could only last so long and everyone knew it. Eventually, after securing and ascending a short flight of stairs, Intel turned to Hager and simply said, “Ground floor.”
To that, Hager turned to Carmichael, the Guardsmen, and unfortunately, to Harr. “This is where we part ways, then. Stealth, as discussed, the Manticore is yours. You know what to do when you’ve got it. Strike team, make sure she gets there. And you,” he started, red eyes glaring at Harr directly. “The Throne is watching. Time to prove your worth.”
“Yes, sir,” Harr nodded in response, though it was not given as a militant reply, but rather as a formal one. Hager growled something to himself, then looked back to Carmichael.
“You have five minutes, tops, before we blow the basement and all hell breaks loose. Can’t guarantee that our cover isn’t blown before then, though. Good luck, team. The Emperor protects,” he told everyone.
“The Emperor protects,” everyone—including Harr—replied, and to that Hager turned back to Intel, the Sister, and the Tech. The quartet, accompanied by the Tech Priest’s servitors, skulked off on their own. “Alright, men, five minutes to find and neutralize a terrifyingly destructive war machine. Let’s not waste time chatting about it,” Carmichael declared, and gestured for the group to follow her in the opposite direction from Hager’s squad. The Guardsmen obeyed, and Harr followed her by necessity.
Harr had never been to Prareus’s fortress. In fact, he had not known it to be a fortress at all; he had no idea the sort of structure his previous command had operated from, nor an inkling of its general layout. But, apparently, Carmichael had more than an inkling in that regard, as did the Guardsmen, as they seemed to know where they were going. Everyone else had apparently done their homework. Harr tried not to be too great a weight on their shoulders, now more genuinely believing that his former master was indeed heretical after seeing what was held in his basement. In fact, he was now happy that the actual Inquisition had showed up; his faith in the Inquisition as being the cleansing fire of the Emperor’s benediction was precisely what he felt this world needed at the time.
The group scurried seamlessly through Prareus’s fortress without incident, though guards were seen and avoided in the process. Stealth—Carmichael—was demonstrably capable within her role, knowing how to maneuver herself along with her compatriots within and around the scrutiny of their opposition. It only took a minute or two for the group to find their way back outside, where they were immediately buffeted by the sandstorm that continued to rage through the heavens above Canicus. Masks were thrust back on without hesitation or command, and the group continued forth, though visibility tanked. That was of course good for the purposes of maintaining a cover, but bad for those trying to follow along—which was, now, everyone, as Carmichael was again leading the way in search of the Manticore.
Their search did not take long to find stone stairs leading to a ring of battlements. Battlements? Harr thought. He was beginning to get a picture of some foreboding, gothic castle secluded in a mountainous gully. Were it not for the sandstorm, the scene of Prareus’s fortress was, in Harr’s mind, fantastical, albeit in a moody sense. Atop the battlements was, immediately, nothing of interest. Carmichael glanced to her left and right, then shrugged. “Flip a throne,” she grumbled to the group, gesturing in either direction.
“Don’t think I could see how a coin would land,” Hosku replied.
“Right is might,” Carmichael suggested, and headed off to their right. They pursued that angle in peace for a time, but eventually the ground beneath their feet shuddered as an explosion rocked Prareus’s fortress. “Our five minutes are up. Weapons ready,” Carmichael warned the group.
“What weapons?” Harr sighed, still not having been given his lasgun back. Unbeknownst to Harr, Carmichael managed a grin, but no one else reacted to his comment, and instead the group picked up the pace in pursuit of their Manticore. For the next thirty seconds, in circling around the battlements of Prareus’s fortress, they continued unopposed. Then, finally, they found their quarry: a large, stationary installation holding four larger, imposing missiles. The slight movement of staff attendants could barely be seen through the cover of the sandstorm, but thus far Carmichael and the quartet behind her had not been spotted.
Carmichael glanced behind her and pointed to the Guardsmen. She then held up two fingers and gestured toward the Manticore. She pointed up before sliding flat hands over each other in a gesture of negativity. Don’t shoot the missiles, was the intended message. Harr understood, and prayed to the Throne everyone else got it too. Carmichael then pointed to Harr specifically before pointing to the ground. She wanted him to stay down. He obeyed, and let the quartet do their work. He did not want to see it done anyways. Upon laying on the stone battlements, he closed his eyes and said another silent prayer to the Emperor, asking for guidance. Shortly after his prayer finished, the hiss of four quick, muted lasrifle shots wheezed over the whipping winds. Harr looked up, and saw his entourage still standing, now within the shuddered confines of cover provided by the Manticore’s encampment. He spied Carmichael waving him over, and rose to do so.
Upon his arrival, he found the two bodies of the Manticore’s former crew slumped up against its hull, obscured from view even by those who may catch a glimpse of the scene through the sandstorm. “Now what?” Harr asked when he rejoined the group.
“Now, altar boy, you say a prayer to this beast’s Machine Spirit for us,” Carmichael replied, winking to him in still calling him ‘altar boy.’
“What, you intend to fire it? In this?” Harr asked, gesturing around to the sandstorm everywhere around them. Carmichael shrugged. “And…you actually want me to say a prayer to it?”
“You’re the most capable in that regard, yes,” Carmichael nodded.
“Well, OK I guess,” Harr sighed, shrugging himself. “O Great Machine Spirit, we offer you freedom from the stagnant oppression of operating in the hands of the heretic, and invite you back to the fires of war in the name of Holy Terra and the Divine Spark of Mars. We ask that you release your vengeance upon the heretic, and visit upon them the wonders of your rage, even in this tumultuous storm. May your roar sing praise to the God of All Machines.”
“That was better than I expected,” Hosku admitted, clapping Harr on the back. “Targets locked, Stealth?”
“Targets locked.”
“What are your—”
“The other FD’s,” Carmichael replied. “Ready for ignition?”
“Ready for ignition.”
“Fire.”
“Fire.”
Immense heat blasted over the scene as each of the four missiles burst into life, screaming off into the vast nothingness of the sandstorm ahead of the battlements. “Throne Almighty!” Harr recoiled, not remotely ready for the Manticore to have been fired so soon. “The other FD’s? That’s…this is way overkill for that!”
“It’s just one missile each,” Carmichael shrugged. “And besides, there can’t be any evidence of the heresy here on Canicus remaining. Once we’re done here, this fortress will be lanced from orbit until the whole chasm is just a sheet of glass. This was to make sure the other FD’s don’t mobilize to reinforce Prareus against us. Are you—Lexam!” Carmichael shouted as one of the Guardsmen recoiled, away from the group, the red light of lasfire briefly flashing over the scene. Harr took cover again as the Guardsman—Lexam—hit the ground, clutching at his incinerated shoulder. Carmichael and the others returned fire from behind the cover of the now-spent Manticore.
“Give me your gun!” Harr shouted to Lexam.
“Like hell, Whiteshield!” Lexam growled back, trying to squirm back behind cover of the Manticore. Harr reached down to help pull him along.
“Do it, Lexam!” Carmichael shouted.
“I don’t take orders from—” Lexam began to protest.
“Give him the frigging gun or I’ll put you down myself and let him take it!” Carmichael shouted in return. Lexam begrudgingly obeyed. “Harr, secure our flank!”
“Yes, ma’am!” Harr agreed, accepting Lexam’s lasgun and priming it to the empty sandstorm beyond. Soon, the emptiness coalesced to the rough, still-obscured forms of encroaching soldiers. Harr opened fire.
***
The fighting began a lot sooner for Silas’s group than for Harr’s. That was by design. Unlike Harr’s group, however, Silas’s leveled the opposition it came across in quick, brutal instants. Silas had not operated with this Sister and Tech-Priest—or his servitors—before, but it did not matter; the six of them moved as a cohesive unit through any and all foes they found on their way to Prareus. In fact, the gunfights were, though numerous and very bloody, by far the least interesting part of Silas’s day.
“Ah, Trantos and Hager, a pleasure to meet you,” an inviting voice called to them after the group had emptied half a dozen rooms of life. Silas looked up to the top of a staircase to see its owner—not Prareus. “I am Interrogator Stavros. Master Prareus is eager to see you. He is just in here, if you would follow—” Stavros began, but never quite finished his sentence before Silas’s Hellgun burned a cleanly cauterized hole through his head, the Interrogator’s entire face vanishing in the process.
“After you,” Silas said to Zha.
“Charmed,” Zha replied, and ascended the staircase toward Stavros’s still-standing and still-smoldering corpse. Her killteam followed behind her in lockstep, weapons checking every edge and corner of the scene. “Tech, can your servitors watch the door?”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“They can, Inquisitor,” the Tech-Priest confirmed.
“Good. Everyone else, with me,” Zha commanded, and went into the room Stavros had intended to lead them into. It appeared to have once been a ballroom, yet a few tables and workbenches now dotted its floors, paperwork strewn messily across the lot of the desks. One man sat in isolation at such a desk, clothed only in dark robes. His head was not hidden; he had pale skin, though it had reddened from significant augmetics implanted across his neck and face. Likewise, his hair had been lost some ages ago in favor of further augmetics atop his crown. Oddly, he still had both eyes; one—or both—eyes were commonly traded out in favor of more capable augmetic devices for those with the means to procure such things, and a once-Inquisitor like Prareus could have managed far more than merely that.
As the quartet entered his room, Prareus leaned in his chair to glance around behind Zha. He then nodded. “Yes, I had assumed you would kill Stavros rather quickly. He always was a suck-up and in my experience, it is those sorts that rarely pose much of a threat. But he was loyal, at least.”
“To you,” Zha noted. Prareus smiled and nodded at the implication. Yes, to him. Not the Throne. “Phaenonite.”
“Loyalist.”
“You say that like it’s an insult.”
“It is.”
“Restrain him to his chair,” Zha ordered the three of her allies. The trio obeyed without hesitation. Prareus did not appear to resist. Silas stayed behind Prareus. “Sister, would you move the desk aside, please?” The Sister did so, shoving the large wooden structure out from between Prareus and Zha with a single hand.
“Oh, is the little girl from Thantalus going to try to scare me? Is she all grown up into a big, bad Inquisitor?” Prareus mocked. “You don’t have the heart, Trantos, for violence.”
“Your information is outdated,” Zha replied. “What were you doing in your basement with the Pariahs?”
“Did you like what you saw down there, little girl?” Prareus smiled.
“What were you doing?”
“Did you take a souvenir? We left some out for you to take,” Prareus noted.
“Silas.” Silas circled around Prareus before launching a fist into the once-Inquisitor’s gut. Zha had seen Silas hit larger men half as hard as he punched Prareus then, and floor those larger men all the same. Prareus barely reacted to Silas’s attack, save for raising an eyebrow toward Zha, ever-grinning. “Again.” This time Silas went for Prareus’s face, and struck him so hard one of his augmetics dislodged from his cheek. Blood began to drip out of it.
“Ah, that’s a bit of a pinch,” Prareus winced, moving his lower jaw around in circles to try to lodge his augmetic back into his body. He did not succeed.
“What is your goal here on Canicus?” Zha asked him.
“Oh, I’m happy to answer that one,” Prareus admitted. “Our goal here, on Canicus and elsewhere, is to kill Callant Blackgar.”
“As revenge for killing two of your own,” Zha asserted.
“Please, revenge is simple and idiotic,” Prareus shook his head. “We’re Inquisitors, you and I. And he. You should know better.”
“But it is because he killed two of your own,” Zha gleamed.
“Oh, yes. Blackgar is a threat. We’ll give him that. We—our cell, which you already know exists—we had been doing other things at the time of Hestia Majoris. Some of that took the backburner when we heard the news. We knew Blackgar would know Silverman and Ryke were part of our larger cell. We knew the good, loyal Inquisitor would come for us. And, what, should we have just let him? No, we pulled resources in together. We intend to meet that threat head-on. And for that reason, Callant Blackgar is going to die.”
“Silverman and Ryke were pretty sure they could kill him too,” Zha noted.
“Yes, but they didn’t know him as we do now. We’ve done our research. The great Commissar that was, turned Inquisitor after a tragic psychic…accident. We know what he’s capable of. We know how he thinks. We know he exposes a weakness when losing people. We know you do, too. Tell me, how well did you know that little crew of yours on Amnes Minoris?” Prareus taunted. Zha almost bit, raising a laspistol between Prareus’s eyes before he could blink. “That well, huh? Oof, pity,” Prareus laughed. Zha lowered her pistol slowly, gradually, then shot him four times in the gut.
As Prareus began to spit up blood, Zha told him, “And I know that you Phaenonites can take a beating. I’ve been looking forward to this, personally. Do you know what Blackgar did to Silverman and Ryke before killing them? Do you know what they were able to survive? I do. And as a savant, I have spent years studying human anatomy. Years studying pain centers and receptors. I can torture you, scum, more severely than Blackgar could ever dream of. Do not make the mistake of assuming I am the little girl you once read about. I am the nightmare that will dissect you alive and put you back together to do it again.”
“You have grown, haven’t you?” Prareus wheezed, then managed a dry laugh. “Congratulations, Trantos. I am very proud. But I think you underestimate Blackgar.”
“I could say the same of you.”
“No, I don’t underestimate him, and that’s my point,” Prareus replied, heaving out a sigh before sitting upright again. “I know Blackgar as well as any of you. Maybe better, even. My entire cell does. We have spent decades engineering the demise of a single man. We have not left that to chance. The great Commissar from Pyrras-3 will die at our hand. We do not underestimate him, but we can make that guarantee. You cannot stop us. For all your brilliance, young woman, you know not how to stop us. And for that, I still do not fear you.”
“You will,” Zha assured him. “What was the operation in the basement?”
“I’ll answer that—I will—if you tell me whether you took a souvenir,” Prareus admitted. Zha sighed and rolled her eyes, then revealed the vial of the liquid the Tech-Priest had secured for her. “Excellent. A fine sample.”
“What is it?”
“It has many names, for many worlds have tried to find it. Mercury. Venus. Those are names, mind you, not referring to the planets near Terra. Lye. Stella Signata and Lucifer. Many names, many, many names,” Prareus rambled.
“And what do you call it?”
“Prima Materia.”
“First Matter,” Zha translated. Prareus nodded. “I won’t try to understand the implication. What are you using it for?”
“Engineering eternity,” Prareus replied. “And through that, annihilating Callant Blackgar. I admit, we had been at this long before Hestia Majoris. Ryke and Silverman were trying their own gambit in that regard before you so rudely interrupted them.”
“And slaughtered them,” Zha added.
“Yes. Quite. But eternity is a useful thing. It would provide ample opportunity to destroy a most troublesome Inquisitor,” Prareus explained. “You know, Trantos, you don’t have to die for him. None of you do. All he has to do is set foot on Amnes Minoris and all of this between us will be forgotten.”
“You know I’ll tell him that in my report. You intend to bait him there by threatening our lives. Sinister,” Zha noted. “Problem with that plan, however. What happens when he sets foot on the ground with a force that could rival a Sector? Because he will.”
“Oh, he will set foot on Amnes Minoris? Excellent!” Prareus laughed. “As many can join him as they want. They’ll die all the same. Well, we plan to take Blackgar’s demise a little more slowly—that bit may be fueled by vengeance.”
“Sister,” Zha commanded, evidently surer of the Sister’s raw strength than Silas’s. Silas backed away knowingly, in time for the Sister to ram her own power-armor-enhanced fist into Prareus’s gut. The blow was so intense that it at least broke the back of Prareus’s chair in the process, sending it careening across the room. Prareus himself fell into a fit of coughing, most of which involved a great deal of blood and spittle between gasps for air. “You brought the Pariahs in from beyond Ixaniad. From where? How? Why here?”
Much of the jolly, mocking tone proved to have vacated Prareus’s lungs in his response. “I think not, young Inquisitor.”
“Sister.”
“Frigging everywhere!” Prareus shouted in response. “Our reach spans Ixaniad, Calixis, and Askellion. You think a punch from a Sororitas somehow gives you more power than I wield? I thought you savants were supposed to be of heightened intelligence,” Prareus spat. During his boasting, the Sister, having received the earlier command, looked to Zha. Zha tolerated a moment of Prareus’s ego-stroking before nodding to the Sister, who proceeded to crush the Phaenonite’s face inward.
“Phaenonite, you may think you wield some special power. And perhaps you have. But the moment we walked into the room it vanished from your grasp. I have something which I believe will convince you with greater surety that your cooperation with me is in your best interest from here on out. You see, Blackgar wants you alive, yes. But he did not stipulate whether you should be in one piece. Tech-Priest,” Zha ordered.
“Do your worst,” Prareus growled, blood drooling from his mouth as his head sagged forward between the two Inquisitors. The Tech-Priest took the Sister’s place at Prareus’s side.
Zha looked to the Tech-Priest. “Take his eye. The right one,” Zha commanded. The Tech-Priest obeyed with verbal silence, but otherwise released the noises of whirring servos and firing pistons. The Priest lifted Prareus’s brutalized face up with the Servo-Arm on his back, while his hands shifted between various surgical devices.
“Eternity,” Prareus hissed, panting. “Is without Callant Blackgar’s allies. Eternity is without Callant Blackgar. Eternity is without the weakness of your Imperium,” he chanted. And then the chanting fell to agonized screams.
“Actually, Tech-Priest—err, sorry, is the eye still in?” Zha interrupted. Prareus was still screaming.
“It is,” the Priest reported.
“In that case, leave it in, but burn the socket out, down to its nerve endings,” Zha requested. The screams reached new heights. Eventually, Zha winced, for a moment hearing Hans Okustin’s agony within that of Prareus. A quick tonal analysis helped her spot the vocal differences, however, and those differences gave her the assurance she needed to tolerate the extreme suffering unfolding at her word. Even as the Tech-Priest eventually stepped away from Prareus, the job having concluded, the screaming continued. It took some time to lessen before falling to whimpering. “Why Ixaniad?” Zha asked him after a time.
Prareus had no witty response, for he had no response at all. For a time, it seemed as though he had been broken. But Zha knew better.
“I asked you a question, heretic,” she pushed.
“Only Blackgar…only Blackgar had to die,” Prareus muttered. “I do not fault you, Sister or Priest. Not even you, Scion,” he explained, and then heaved in a gasp of air as he lifted his head up to face Zha. One of his eyes was a scorched, welted mass of incinerated flesh. “But you will die for that, Zha Trantos.”
“I’m quivering in fear,” she replied dryly. “Why Ixaniad?”
“Why Ixaniad? Because Ixaniad has the most ample resources to us. Such immediate proximity to the beautiful Eye of Terror while still being near the galactic rim. We are in the shadow, here, of the baleful Emperor’s Light. Here, the gaze of the Carrion God is at its absolute weakest. Here, your beloved Imperium is most ready to be toppled. Here will be your grave and our divine ascension into eternity to take the Emperor’s place once and for all,” Prareus explained.
“Sister,” Zha began, turning to her heaviest muscle. “Beat some sensible faith into him. Or shut him up. I think we’re done here, for now.”
“With pleasure, Inquisitor,” the Sister replied.
As Zha turned to leave, Prareus called out to her from the shadow of the Sister that descended upon him. “You had a smile once, Trantos!” Zha turned to him, and he grinned. “Blackgar described it as being most enviable. A lovely thing, I think it was. I do wonder what it will look like without any skin on your face. We’ll see, won’t we?” In response, Zha nodded to the Sister, who immediately got to beating the heretic into the ground.
Zha waved Silas over with a flick of her finger, who greeted her by saying, “You did have a nice smile once upon a time, you know. But now you’re almost as terrifying as our boss.”
“He—Prareus—just revealed he knows more than he should. There’s a leak in Quintus somewhere,” Zha explained. “Enviable. That is the word the boss has used to describe my smile, but only in the report of our operation in Abseradon. Stealth’s new recruit…I don’t trust him. I don’t trust her. I don’t trust anyone that wasn’t there with us.”
“I can put them down,” Silas offered.
“No. Command-1 and Command-2 are the only people who can vet Stealth members, which means one of them vetted Carmichael. They trust her. I trust their judgment. And she trusts…Harr?” Silas nodded. “Watch them. Give Mr. Harr the chance. I will consult Mr. Blackgar myself—I must deliver this sample and my report to him, personally, anyways. I also need to deliver Prareus. You’re like family to me, Mr. Hager. So watch yourself, too,” Zha explained.
“I can’t tell an Inquisitor what to do, but look out for yourself too, would you? You’re starting to sound like the boss, and not in a good way,” Silas laughed. Zha managed to chuckle. “I’m serious though. Especially if you’re bringing that piece of voidshit on your journey with you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hager. I’ll be fine, but I appreciate your concern.”