I could hear the fight between Iblis Kyle and Mirena Law before I saw it; the deep huffs of breath, the squeak of footwork on a practice mat, the clap of padded practice equipment, the short and regimented battle cries thrown out alongside punches and kicks to raise adrenaline—I had heard it all before as a Commissar with the Guard. I had not heard it recently, though, as my role as Inquisitor had elevated me a bit above those I oversaw. I had, however, lived a more vibrant and live-fire version of practice with Lucene—there were no pieces of ‘practice equipment’ in play there.

Regardless, when I eventually came upon the scene, I found Iblis atop Mirena with a knee jammed into the top of the latter’s back whilst she hoisted one of Mirena’s arms up. Mirena used her remaining arm to clap against the practice mat in surrender before the pair shot to their feet for another bout. In doing so, Mirena spotted me and lowered her guard a hair. Sensing this, Iblis followed Mirena’s gaze to face me as well. “Not an easy thing, downing my pilot, Carmichael,” I greeted them, using Iblis’s cover name.

“She’s well trained, yes,” Iblis agreed, glancing over to Mirena to smile at her. Mirena’s eyes did not leave mine. “I assume you’re here for one of us?”

“Her, if you wouldn’t mind,” I answered with a nod.

Iblis nodded in return and stepped off the mat, walking in my direction but with the intent of leaving the room. “If you think you want her. And good morning, Callant,” she smiled to me.

“Good morning, Bliss,” I smiled, holding out a fist for her to bump as she neared. She did so with her own, happy to exchange the small greeting we had devised between us, but otherwise left without a further word. I stepped up to the mat to join Mirena.

“Did Castecael send you?” she asked, flat and plain. We were on good terms with each other, and I knew that on most days she would have been happy to see me, but she understood better than most that business was business.

Even so, I toyed with her a bit to try to earn a grin from her. “Please, Mirena, a medicae could never send an Inquisitor around anywhere,” I scoffed. In reply, she planted her hands atop her hips and raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Castecael sent me,” I confessed. “What’s going on?”

“She didn’t tell you?” Mirena replied, eyes widening in surprise.

“She told me some. She also told me I should hear it from you,” I offered.

“How considerate,” she muttered.

“So, again, what’s going on?”

Mirena shrugged and sighed, then hooked one of her arms under the other to stretch them out following her bout with Iblis. “It’s…there’s so much to say,” she sighed again, then swapped her arms around to stretch the other. “I’m—I don’t feel useful to you, Cal,” she offered with another shrug.

“My head logistics officer doesn’t feel useful?” I asked with a scoffing laugh. “Well, you are. There, better?” I smiled, stepping up to her. Then, finally, I managed to get a grin from her as well, albeit brief. “You haven’t been my pilot in a while,” I inferred, understanding her desires. She nodded.

“It’s more than that, though, but yes. How big is your operation, now, Cal?” she asked, putting the hands of her newly-stretched arms back onto her hips.

“Vicinity of three hundred operatives,” I answered. Even I did not know specifically; I barely knew of those far removed from answering to me, but I had some idea of the extent of things. “Significantly more if you count the staff on our voidships.”

“For the sake of argument, let’s keep it down at three hundred,” Mirena nodded. “How many of those are deployable to ground work?”

“North of two hundred,” I replied—between Comms units, Intel teams, Tactical teams, Medic crews, Psychic units, Stealth operatives, and Strike teams, I had a lot of Agents on the ground. The Command and Logistics substructures did not really touch down on the ground much, though, which made me understand her plight. “You’re jealous of them.”

“That’s a word for it,” she shrugged, then moved each of her hands to each of my shoulders. I did not reciprocate the embrace. “Cal, I’m not one for managing people. I’m a pilot—a soldier. I don’t particularly want more than that. I…,” she began, then bit her lower lip. “I envy Silas. Bliss. Luther. I want to do what they do. But I’m not like them,” she explained.

“What are they like?” I frowned.

“They’re incredible,” Mirena smiled. “They can fight, and they can fight well. I want to fight. For you. Like they do. It’s been decades, Cal, and I haven’t pulled the trigger of a lasgun or airship alike. I get that there’s a bit of subterfuge in your current methods, but if you don’t have room for air support in your operations, let me be on the ground like they are.”

“I don’t need boxers, Mirena, I need killers,” I replied, gesturing to the practice mat at ‘boxers.’ “I know you’re trained to use small arms and personnel munitions, but—”

“But I’m not a super-soldier like Silas Hager. Yeah, I know. Hence the frustration,” she sighed, shaking her head, and then broke away from me to walk toward the other side of the practice mat.

“I don’t need a second Silas Hager, I need you, Mirena,” I insisted.

“And what do you need me to accomplish that you couldn’t do without me, hm?” she asked, turning back to me and returning her hands to her hips. “I’m not a savant-like prodigy like Zha is; there’s plenty of people you could recruit to do my job as a logistics officer. You’re not using me as a pilot. And you’ve barely needed me as a friend since—” she started, but bit her tongue to stop herself.

“Since Lucene returned,” I understood. She sighed and nodded.

I felt like responding, but at the same time, I felt like she had something more to say. However, after a pause, when she did continue, she deflected the conversation away. “Am I wasting your time, Cal? Don’t you have some traitor to interrogate or something?”

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“Don’t give me that shit, Mirena,” I grumbled, furrowing my brow and crossing my own arms. “First of all, I’ll take any excuse to let him stew for a few more hours. Second, maintaining the cohesion of my staff is never a waste of time. And finally, I have always needed you as a friend. You’re the one damned Agent of mine unfazed by Imperial dogma yet untainted by heresy; you cannot know how valuable your clarity is to me.” At that, she opened her mouth to speak, but this time I was not done, and held up a finger to tell her to wait while stepping nearer to her. “And if offering me grounded insight isn’t fulfilling enough for you, Mirena, just tell me what else you want. You want that fast little star-rocket we joked about in Abseradon? To be my chauffer, or perhaps my bodyguard?—I can get you any training or resources you desire. Whatever it is you want, all I need from you is you.”

We were already at arm’s reach from one another, but even so, Mirena took a step closer to me after another pause, a gentle smile on her face. I, however, frowned. “Don’t hug me,” I sighed, which widened her grin as she embraced me. Begrudgingly, I returned the embrace, and tipped my head forward to meet hers as she did, locking my gaze with the warm silver eyes she possessed among a face of bronze.

“If only it were so simple, Cal,” she hushed, not quite in a whisper but just loud enough that her voice was quiet even with our proximity. Then, a bit louder, elaborated, “The stuff doesn’t matter—the ships, the guns, what I have or what I do. I don’t want to change; I want to be me, with you. I’m not Silas Hager, and I don’t want to be.”

In that moment, in her eyes, the galaxy was not on fire. I was not an Inquisitor, nor a Commissar, nor a soldier. I was simply me, and in understanding that, I came to realize she did not see herself in my eyes in return. My galaxy was on fire, and she was a means to keep the flames at bay, if only in part. I closed my eyes for a moment, as much to hide the inferno from her as to focus my own thoughts. Still hiding from her, I admitted, “Mirena, you are nearly impossible to resist.”

“Nearly?” she chuckled. “But thank you, Cal.”

I returned my gaze to face her once more. “Inaction has wounded us, I think. You and I are of a kind; we are not the Silas Hagers or Lucene Flints of the galaxy. But what we are, we are, and that is all I need from you, Mirena, now and forever. I plan to make planetfall more often in operations near. I will need transport for them. And I will, as ever, need clarity and consult. And a hand, likely, too. Will I have yours?”

“Until the bleakest night sees dawn again, and then some,” Mirena assured me, nodding, rubbing her forehead against mine in the process. “What does Lucene think of us?”

“She understands that some bonds cannot be broken, nor forgotten. Castecael?”

“She understands, in fewer words,” Mirena grinned. “Thanks, Cal, for your time. At first I thought I needed to blow off some steam, but no, I needed this. Have you had breakfast?”

“I have not.”

“Me neither. Want to grab a bite?”

***

Heirene was about as ravaged from his surgery as I expected. He was little more than a mangled corpse when I entered his holding cell, barely alive, yet somehow conscious. A casual observer may have described him as pitiably harmless, but I knew better, and so respected the ever-present danger of his existence by choosing not to enter his cell unarmed, nor alone. I once again donned my full ceramite power suit, this time with my helmet, and was accompanied by Lucene at my back, she armed with her Eviscerator at the ready, if not actively priming it.

I loomed over the dilapidated body before us, albeit keeping my distance as best I could within the confines of his cell. After a moment of non-responsiveness, I muttered, “You are conscious.” As if on cue, Heirene’s eyes flittered open—two purple slits that lacked any of the former charisma he once possessed on Skardak’s Reach. “You are also well enough to speak.”

“And such choice words I have for you, Blackgar,” he growled, only his face showing any signs of movement. It may not have been an intentional growl; I suspected the tone was all his body could muster at the time. “They matter not. Ask your questions and I will answer, for withholding from you matters not.”

“Because my life is forfeit anyway?”

“Correct.”

“What are you doing with the flects?” I asked.

Heirene evidenced bodily movement in a shrug, though it did seem to pain him. “Extracting Chaos.”

“To what end?”

“It is…an alkahest,” Heirene answered.

I glanced to Lucene for insight on the term. “A solvent, universal. Theorized, not demonstrated. The Faith does believe in such a thing, though I doubt it could originate from the realm of the Archenemy.”

“And why not?” Heirene grinned.

“You will not be questioning her faith on my time,” I declared. “Or, at all. This alkahest, if it is a solvent, what are you dissolving in it?”

“The weakness of flesh.”

“The Mechanicum will be pleased,” I grunted. Heirene managed a snorting laugh. “And the Prima Materia Prareus was extracting on Canicus, how does that come into play?”

“It is a tunneling agent,” Heirene explained. “The physics you will not understand, nor will you want to hear; your kind is deafened with zealotry.”

“What, exactly, are you doing with these materials on Amnes Minoris?” I asked him.

“Really, Blackgar, what do you think? Killing you, upending a rotting empire, giving hope to mankind—I feel like you must have heard all of that before,” Heirene replied, flustered.

“And yet I still must ask as your kind is hard of hearing all the same. Specifics, Heirene, specifics. This alkahest and Prima Materia, what are they for, in that twisted, broken skull of yours?” I pushed, putting hands atop my blades in a vain attempt at implying further torment.

“Do you intend to kill me, Blackgar?”

“Eventually.”

“But not at first.”

“You will be interrogated by my peers and supervisors, for what little you are worth, when this is all done and the reports are written,” I shrugged. “Then you will be killed, even if not by my hand—much as I may wish it.”

“That is what we are doing, Blackgar. That is what we are solving on Amnes Minoris,” he tried to explain. I cocked my head to the side, not understanding. “Eternity. We will give mankind an Eternity among the stars.”

“It might already have it, if not for the likes of you,” I replied. “And what can I expect to find on Aerialon, and how does it help you solve Eternity?” At that, Heirene’s eyes widened. He did not appear to expect that I would already have the name of such a destination to work with. He mouthed the word How, then winced, ashamed of himself for displaying such shock to me. “I have my sources,” I answered nevertheless. “Buckle up, Heirene, you’re coming with us. We’ll talk more on the journey. Do try to keep up this cooperative attitude; it will make things quicker for you, in the end.”

I gestured to Lucene my intent to leave, and we began to abandon our corpse-like foe, but his call stopped me in my tracks. “You did not ask, but we have our own Assassinorum, Blackgar. Why don’t you go to Amnes Minoris and see for yourself, o’ mighty Inquisitor?”

The Officio Assassinorum. I had had the misfortune of seeing firsthand what its Agents could do. I have the present honor of recognizing that two of my Agents had bested two of theirs, if only just. But I also knew, to some extent, of what Heirene then spoke of. We had caught its image on camera, and the psychic projection of itself had managed to kill one of my most powerful Psykers. It was not the sort the Assassinorum of the Imperium produced, but rather of the twisted designs of the Archenemy. “I have seen it. I am unafraid of it,” I replied to the Phaenonite, and then left him to his suffering alone.

I had lied to Heirene, for I had yet to deduce a response to the monster I knew to be lurking on Amnes Minoris. I think Heirene sensed my lie, as he forced himself to laugh through his own pain in response to me.