I just want to be perfectly, crystal clear with this—are you certain these criminals are lying about Inquisitorial ties?
Yes, of course I am. And even if I am wrong, it matters not. Inquisitors step on each other’s toes all the time; it’s never pleasant, but your world won’t be ended over it.
How can you be so certain, though?
Because I’ve served with the Inquisition for over a century in Ixaniad, and I can very confidently tell you that there is no Callant Blackgar, and that there never was. Give these cretins a trial if you wish, but I would have of them myself when you are done.
But the assault on my son—
Yes, it is regrettable, Gronheim. But I have facilitated your trade to Amnes Minoris for some time now, and as your partner in that endeavor, I reserve the right to conduct my own interrogation of those that threaten it so.
***
“Ugh, a most detestable sight, is it not?” Vrun Ethrael protested upon arrival to the Great Halls of Skardak, surrounded by his own personal retinue of guards that may as well have been a private army. He turned and gestured to that makeshift army. “At least the room is soundproof, or so those surface dwellers say. You there, line these walls. The sight of our House’s strength is at least mildly more appealing than this horribly decrepit façade of a formal space. Ah, Gronheim, for what inanity have you summoned us down from the skies?”
“My apologies to ask this of the oh-so wonderful and splendorous Houses of Skardak such as Ethrael,” Severant Gronheim replied, flanked by Scodd Gronheim—whose face was swollen from recent augmetic reconstitution surgery—and a hooded figure of peculiar but nevertheless decadent and vibrant purple dress that Ethrael did not recognize. Flanking the trio was Gronheim’s own personal guard, which numbered comparably to Ethrael’s, much to his disdain. The unknown individual also had a personal guard of their own, and while lesser in size, Ethrael hated to admit to himself that they appeared much better equipped. At least they also spread out to decorate the room, too, he decided. “But the efforts of House Gronheim in the Undercity were subjected to a rude interruption, and I as much wanted to give the other Houses the means to query our cretinous assailants as to investigate their ties to neighboring Houses—yours not included in that regard, of course.”
“Of course,” Ethrael nodded. Ethrael knew better, and that the accusation was as much for his House as any other, but he also knew he would behave much the same as Gronheim in this situation—which also irked him as their comparably-sized militias had. “Well, at the very least, can we see this process expedited? I have little desire to share the air of these surface dwellers.”
“Most certainly, I share the sentiment,” the senior Gronheim nodded. He then turned to his son. “Boy, go sit in the witness booth. The Administratum will want this trial to have at least some semblance of legitimacy.”
“But I am still—” Scodd protested.
“What? Bruised around the edges?” Severant shot back. “Your victimhood will be shown in full display as much to evidence the depravity of these criminals as to wound your ego. Consider this embarrassment a lesson for your failure, as you have embarrassed your House likewise. Go, boy. Ah, House Janion, a pleasure!” Severant exclaimed as Scodd begrudgingly obeyed his father, who stepped forward to greet Zeng Janion. Ethrael had little desire to interact with his peers any more than necessary, and so left Gronheim to answer for his summons. Ethrael took the second seat on the council’s bench, sitting across from the unknown man that had entered behind Gronheim. Ethrael studied the man a moment more, but gleamed nothing new before a pair of shimmering purple eyes locked with his from beneath the man’s cowl. Ethrael was not one for shame or terror, but knew in an instant to look away from the man’s gaze.
Representatives of a dozen Houses took seats upon the council, each having been tediously greeted by Gronheim and given the same rehearsed voidshit that Gronheim had explained to Ethrael. Each House brought with them their own private militias, though Ethrael’s, Gronheim’s, and the unknown man’s seemed the most formidable. Ethrael wondered if the man was an Imperial representative of some sort, perhaps a trade partner of Gronheim’s. That seemed most likely. The nobles of the Houses sat uncomfortably with one another, as none wanted to say something that could give any other the slightest political or economical edge or insight against them. Ethrael was the one to break the awkward silence between the nobles: “Gronheim, expediency, yes?”
“Yes, indeed,” Severant nodded. “Regulator, please fetch the defense,” he bid to Ramiel Kanius, who stood near to the entrance of the room in full carapace armor, arms crossed behind his back. Kanius nodded, then marched out of the room before returning a few moments later with a trio of shackled individuals—one of them very short—whose heads had been covered under sightless armaplas. Kanius led them to the bench before removing their facial coverings, revealing the group of men that had very obviously had information ‘extracted’ from them already by the Arbites. “Thank you, Regulator. Can you identify them?”
“Before you are seated Silas Hager, Jack Harr, and Jethro Rhyme,” Kanius reported.
“And where did you find them?”
“They were captured as part of a gunfight within the borders of established House Gronheim territory,” Kanius answered.
“Were there others?”
“There were. Most are dead. One is missing.”
“Are you shitting me?” the swollen face of Scodd Gronheim shouted.
“Boy! Be quiet!” Severant yelled back. The event managed to perk the trio up, as they inferred from Scodd’s objection that Bliss Carmichael was still out there somewhere. And if that was the case, their lives were not yet forfeit. Still, there were a dozen private armies packed into the room; Harr and Jethro knew that any forceful extraction was next to impossible.
Hager knew otherwise.
“Regulator, am I correct in understanding that they identified themselves as Agents of the Inquisition?” Severant asked.
“You are,” Kanius nodded.
“Are you daft?” Janion exclaimed, standing upright immediately, glaring at Gronheim. Other nobles fell into similar exclamation. “What is this, Gronheim? Is this a trick, a ruse to get us all on the Inquisition’s shitlist?”
“The nature of their Inquisitorial tenure is an allegation—theirs,” Gronheim explained to Janion. “Was their claim verified, Regulator?”
“It was not,” Kanius reported.
“How so?”
“The identity of the Inquisitor they named could not be found as operating in Ixaniad,” Kanius explained.
“Who did we name?” Jethro whispered to Harr and Hager.
“The defense will remain silent unless spoken to,” Ethrael declared. “Sit down, Janion. Those legs of yours are not big enough to hold the rest of you up for long,” he smiled, bringing the group of nobles in mocking jeers.
“Shut it, Ethrael,” Janion sneered, but sat himself down nevertheless. “Continue, Gronheim.”
Gronheim furrowed his brow at the thought of receiving permission from Janion to speak, but continued nevertheless. “Regulator, were any motives divulged by the defense for their actions?”
“They did not reveal such information in questioning, no,” Kanius replied.
“Well, defense, I offer you the chance to enlighten us as to your operation now, with the incentive of more lenient sentencing,” Gronheim declared. Silence followed. “This would be when you speak up, Ratling.” The nobles stared silently toward the trio, who in return stared emptily toward the nobles. Silence remained.
“Alright, different tactic, I’m getting impatient,” Ethrael declared. “The first one of you who tells us how you came to this world and what you were planning on doing here, and who set you up for that, gets to walk completely free. The others will die.”
On ‘die,’ an almost-imperceptible bump trembled through the trial room. A few noble eyes narrowed slightly, noticing both the bump and its timing, and wondering if Ethrael had choreographed the event; he had not, as evidenced by his own curiosity. However, none paid it much mind—perhaps it was merely a kick in the pipes of the building, or some other jumpy surface dweller mechanism.
Harr, however, noticed that Hager’s gaze had shifted, and turned his head to follow it toward a large window across the room. He thought he saw the shadow of a man fly across its stained glass, but was not sure. “What was that?” Harr whispered.
“Wrath,” Hager responded quietly.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“The defense will speak up and respond to my offer,” Ethrael demanded. “You have assaulted a noble, deprived a House of its resources, conspired to interfere in further noble activity, and defiled the name of the Holy Ordos. In the name of the God Emperor, you will enlighten us to your intents or meet a more catastrophic end than you can imagine.”
“The defense is unimpressed,” Hager replied.
“We are not here to impress you with the means to which we can end you, and your contempt is but another tally on a long list of sins to justify your fate,” Janion grumbled.
Another sound emanated through the room, muffled and suppressed by the room’s soundproofing. Nevertheless, that it was a bang! was unmistakable; an explosion of some sort from a courtyard of the courthouse. Hager had been led through it, and felt the warmth of sunlight on his skin and a breeze of wind; he wagered it was without a roof, perhaps an open-aired garden or some other exposed area. But he knew it was large enough for vehicles he once called home. And when that muffled explosion had passed, he listened more closely to the quiet chatter of soundproofed lasfire, which only he seemed to notice.
“Kanius,” Hager muttered. Until then, the Regulator had maintained a stoic appearance, moving only to report to the council of noblemen. “I had not lied to you. He is here.” The Arbites looked down at Hager, and for the first time since Hager had laid eyes on him, released a twitch through his right hand of subtle unsurety.
“What did he just say to you, Regulator?” Gronheim demanded, out of earshot.
“I think it may be wise to draw this trial to a pause, sir,” Kanius replied.
“You think? And why is that?”
“Because you do not possess the men to stop what is about to walk through those doors,” Hager answered.
“Has your interrogation at the hands of the Arbites robbed you of your faculties, Hager? If you think some undercity ganger is going to spring you from jail, you are sorely mistaken. Look around you—there are several armies present to ensure that justice is served today,” Ethrael scoffed.
“You wouldn’t know an army if it was standing right in front of you, which I think is about to happen,” Hager laughed, and only then noticed that the gunfire coming from the rest of the building had intensified to a point that, while still muffled through the room’s soundproofing, was very plainly audible. “Any man that doesn’t want to die should drop their weapons now. They won’t do much good to what’s coming through there, anyhow.”
“What’s going on?” Jethro asked Hager, poking his head around Harr’s torso.
Shortly after being asked that question, a high-pitched but short lived screetch! punctured everyone’s ears—no, their minds. It disoriented the entire room, save for Hager, who had heard it many times, and if there was ever going to be any doubt behind his reply to Jethro, it had then been removed. “The boss is here.”
Hager folded his hands, shackled at their wrists, upon the bench before him, and looked forward with emotionless confidence. Internally, however, he was ecstatic; he had not seen the boss in years. Fitting that their reunion should have so many guns and explosions present. Shortly after his hands had folded, the room shook as though enduring a split-second earthquake. Dust fell from the ceiling, and cracks formed along the walls of the room. “All units, watch the door and the windows!” shouted the man whom no one seemed to recognize, with the most well-equipped soldiers to his name. They formed up around the council and did as instructed, and not wanting to be left out, the other nobles hastily gave similar orders to their own private armies.
“Regulator, terminate the defense, now!” Gronheim shouted.
“No, sir, I do not believe I will,” Kanius shook his head, and backed away from everyone involved, standing against the far walls of the room.
“Wise,” Hager muttered, managing a grin. Then, with another room-wide, brain-piercing screetch! the might of Holy Terra revealed itself.
The doors of the room blew open and in almost the same instant a swath of the nobles’ soldiers were vaporized with the sound of concurrent, synchronous Bolter-fire. Three volleys of Bolts were loosed before any return shots were fired, and another two before any of the noble’s forces even identified what it was they were shooting at. Those five volleys eviscerated much of the forward lines the nobles haphazardly threw together, including some of those from the unknown-man. And then, finally, the sight of the invading force was understood by all—and that threw the defenders into further disarray.
Nine suits of jet-black power armor marched forward in a lockstep, V-shaped formation, Bolters snapping to new targets and picking them off in perfect, symphonic unity. With each stride, the nine invaders each felled a single defender. Advancing, aiming, killing, advancing. Their assault was immaculate in the most divine sense, and effective to the extreme. Autogun bullets and lasrifle shots bounced off their armor mostly harmlessly, save for the occasional scratch. Even if the defenders fought to the last man, holding the room and halting the intruder’s advance was hopeless. But every second that went by, more and more men surrendered outright, dropping weapons and falling to the ground in prayer. “Oh Most Merciful Emperor, forgive me my sins, and allow me to offer You my life in a battle worthy of Your cause, for this is not,” was one such prayer that made Hager’s grin widen. The nine Sisters paid it no mind, in the literal sense—the moment anyone surrendered, they were no longer targets, and the Sisters simply advanced by them harmlessly. The acceptance of surrender compounded and cascaded through the defenders, further amplifying the rate at which arms were laid down.
The Sisters needed mere seconds to slaughter or otherwise force the room into complete submission. When they did, another screetch! pierced through the room, during which the Sisters cocked their heads to the side in unison. They then backed away from the council of shuddering, groveling nobles, overseeing the room from the entrance they had taken. After that, the windows of the room exploded inward, and a host of men and women quite literally flew into the room, each carrying heavy lasrifles. Most stayed airborne, though one landed next to Hager. “Been a while, sir,” the man said, grinning. “Shackles seem unbecoming of you.”
“I believe we are of equal rank now, Strike-1. Don’t call me sir,” Hager chuckled.
“You’re sounding more like the boss,” Strike-1 laughed. “We’ll get you out of here, sir.” The man then turned toward the now-empty council and addressed it. “House representatives will return as they were. Be seated at the council.” Slowly, warily, the nobles did as ordered, eyes darting every which way toward the nine Sisters at the back of the room pointing Bolters their way, to the multitude of men and women hovering overhead, and to their ‘armies’ that had either been annihilated or coerced into repentance. “I am told there is an Arbites present in this room?”
“That is I, sir,” Kanius nodded, stepping forth from the walls. “Are you Inquisitor Callant Blackgar?”
“Ha! No. I am Luther Vaigg, Agent of the Ordo Hereticus. You will meet the man of whom you speak shortly if you do as I say. Then I suggest you forget about his existence. For now, free these three,” Luther instructed, nodding toward the shackled trio. Kanius hesitated, a moment of doubt still in his mind, but a quick glance at the nine Sisters at the back of the room eliminated that soon enough. He freed his prisoners and backed off, letting them rise. Then freed, Harr’s eyes naturally flicked to the doorway the Sisters had secured, a natural instinct to eye for escape. In doing so, however, he beheld what he could only describe as a titan of a human being—a tenth, gigantic Sister that towered over the rest, still adorned in jet-black power armor, and while they did possess a Bolter holstered along their waist, they instead held a chainblade the size of a man in a single hand. She looked so utterly impressive to Harr that he believed she could have emptied the entire room on her own about as quickly as the nine other Sisters had.
Screetch!
The nine Sisters again looked to the side in unison before forming up along a once-red carpeting that had since been darkened with blood to a maroon color, four standing on each side of the carpet. That left one extra, who accompanied a woman familiar to Harr further into the room—Intel-1. The Inquisitor strode forth through the divide of kneeling Sisters to greet Luther with a handshake. “Hello, Mr. Vaigg. How is your apparatus holding up?”
“Without hitch, Ms. Trantos,” Luther smiled, bowing courteously to the Inquisitor.
“Excellent. And Mr. Hager, I thought I told you to look after yourself,” she scolded him.
“My apologies, Ms. Trantos,” Silas chuckled. “You know how the job is.”
“All too well. Mr. Vaigg, escort them out of here. And call your damn troops down, they’re buzzing around like flies up there,” she muttered. Luther whistled to his fliers, who subsequently landed with grace and began disarming the surviving members of the nobles’ forces. While Luther escorted the room’s former prisoners out, Intel-1 addressed the room. “Noble Houses of the Ixaniad Sector, I am Inquisitor Zha Trantos, Ordo Hereticus. You undoubtedly seek answers as to the events of today. You will have them—but only once we have ascertained all that we wish to know from you first. Status quo: We had been engaging in an undercover operation on this world that went…,” she began, and then glanced to Scodd Gronheim, whose still-swollen face had now fallen into tears at the thought of offending the Inquisition. “Afoul. Now we’re here in force, stealth having proven insufficient. Make no mistake: the last time Inquisitor Callant Blackgar set foot in a Hive City, by the time he left it it had been leveled to the ground. Obey every command given to you without hesitation or restraint, and that fate will not occur today. Nod in committing to compliance.”
By the time Zha’s introductory speech had finished, Luther had led the trio out of the room, whereupon Harr was immediately assaulted by a hug. Harr returned it at once, unexpected though it was. Luther made to interrupt the pair, but Hager shook his head. “Let them,” Hager said, and Luther nodded before leading Hager and Jethro on. Harr and Carmichael, meanwhile, continued to hold each other in silence for the time being, each not having known whether the other had made it. Hager, meanwhile, outpaced Luther’s step, and fell into a brisker stride toward one of many familiar gunships that was parked in its landing, whereas others were coming and going. A man, shrouded in a black cloak, stood upon the top of its landing bay door, while two women sat over its edge, watching all the soldiers mill around.
“Castecael, you should probably get in there,” the man declared, then nodded to Hager. One of the two women—blonde, with red eyes, like Bliss’s—jumped off the landing bay door and, while bidding farewell to her friends and greeting Hager, made for the courtroom.
“Hello, sir,” Hager nodded in return. “Thanks for the assist.”
“My pleasure, friend. But stop calling me sir,” the man replied, making Hager and the other woman break into laughter. “Law, get him out of here.”
“I’m able enough to fight, sir,” Hager insisted with a nod.
“I know you are, Silas. But the fighting is done. Mostly. I will have use for you in another fray soon enough; you best rest up for that,” the man replied.
“Come on, Silas. I have so many embarrassing stories to tell you about Cal and Lucy,” the woman—Law—added, rising to her feet.
“Looking forward to them, Mirena,” Hager grinned, then nodded to the man once more before climbing aboard the vessel. He did not get far before the man grabbed one of his arms, stopping him, before offering him a hand. Hager took it, but pulled the man into a full embrace, which the man was happy to return. When they parted ways, the man leapt out from the vehicle, sundering the marble floor upon which he landed, hinting at a hidden heft beneath his cloak.
“Anwar, Sven, Varnus. It’s time.”
The man’s landing shook Harr from his hug with Carmichael, and his gaze fell toward the pair of Crusaders and the Tech-Priest that accompanied the man. “Is…that him?”
“In the flesh. Mostly. The most powerful man in the system, yes,” Carmichael nodded. “Don’t worry, I already told him your name.”
“Wait, you did what?”
***
And it is there, finally, that Jack Harr’s role as prologue to this story gives way to my own tale. In a bloodied, broken, and sundered courtroom of Skardak Tertium, I revealed myself to the enemy for the first time since Hestia Majoris. And in so doing, I doomed all Ixaniad to unknowable horror.
Though, that came much later.