999.M41
“Come on then, cowboy, just through here,” Mirena insisted, pulling on each of my hands in my grasp as she backpedaled. My hands continued to shake uneasily even in her grasp, though her grip did help considerably nevertheless.
“Cowboy?” I muttered as she led me inside the establishment, unfamiliar with the term.
“Oh, do you not—never mind,” she shook her head, releasing one of my hands—my augmetic—from her grasp to spin around my side, where she then pulled herself against me and coddled me in her arms. “Shall we get a drink?”
“I think that would help,” I agreed, letting her lead me further into the club while my eyes scanned the scene. Most of the patrons were a military sort, Astra Militarum, which made sense. Multiple Guard regiments were parked on Saar’s World, the voidships carrying them hovering overhead. I had been in their position once, having some last-minute fun on a civilian world before being sent off to hell. As a Commissar, I always told the men and women under my command never to get into anything too uncouth, but even then I always knew that they were destined to find time for alcohol and a sultry stay. Now, knowing what fate awaited these soldiers, I was not about to deprive them of their time to be alive, nor was I going to rob the establishment, Tavera’s Tavern, of its guests.
Most of the guests were of the Guard, but a few were civilians. Fewer still were Naval noncoms, and those of such a background failed to hide their sneers of disgust and jealousy for Mirena upon seeing her newly-pinned jacket. Off to the right of the entrance, on an elevated platform, a band of Servitors was playing some bassy tune to set a lower, more-jiving mood for the establishment. It was far from the quality of a live show, but it was better than nothing.
Upon arriving at the bar, Mirena sauntered over a stool to take a seat and tapped the counter twice. “Two shots of Gleece for the best pilot in the Sector!” she said with a wide grin on her face. “And her mate,” she added, glowing joy glancing over her sunglasses—indoors, mind you—to me as I took a seat next to her. “How’s it look, do you think?” she asked me while I paid for our drinks, holding the chest of her brown bomber jacket out. In stark contrast to someone like Bliss, Mirena was fully clothed at most times, not revealing any skin at all below her neck, save for her hands. And at that, one hand was bionic anyway.
“Well, it’s right where it belongs,” I agreed, flicking the pin that she had stuck on her jacket, from coming in 1st place at Saar’s 1,232nd Airshow. It took some string-pulling to even get her entered as a contestant, and now it was going to take a shot of Gleece—or more—to quell the shaking in my hands from being her copilot during the event. This was also the source of the disdain expressed by the Naval pilots in the room, as this apparent-nobody had beaten out the dozens of other contestants among the Imperial Navy stationed at Saar’s World as well.
“Ain’t that right,” she smiled, licking her lips over as two shots of Gleece were placed in front of us. She picked hers up first, waiting for me to take mine, and when I did, she hooked her arm around mine and had us drink in unison, coupling ourselves together. “You doin’ OK, Cal?”
“Did you have to fly so damn fast?” I sighed, making her break into a laugh.
“Well, yes. I did, in fact,” she answered, still chuckling, then tapped the counter twice for a refill of our shots. “Sorry. Did you have any fun, though? Any at all?”
“Oh, plenty of fun. Rarely a dull hour with you, Mirena,” I admitted with a shrug as I reached for a newly-refilled shot of Gleece. Unlike our first drink, we had these on our own, without coupling our forearms around each other.
“Well, that’s good, at least. I get it. You’re more into a skyview cruise,” Mirena suggested, also shrugging, before patting my back. “Nothin’ wrong with that. Maybe we’ll find time for that tomorrow?”
“Not likely, what with all the buzz,” I shook my head.
“Yeah, what’s that all about, anyway?” she asked, referring to the intense military presence over the world.
“Cadia’s at war,” I said, then leaned in closer to her. “The Despoiler’s trying to take it. Not gonna happen, but the Imperium’s throwing everything they have at the fight,” I explained more quietly.
“Does that include us?” she wondered. I shook my head. “Should it?”
I shook my head again. “Galaxy’s aflame. Cadian Gate is just one front of the Eternal War. We have our front to fight back here. For instance, a number of Hulks belonging to the Archenemy appeared in Scarus recently. They’re on a death-march toward Cadia, and they seem to have Greenskin support, to make matters worse. Everyone is fighting the same battle, doesn’t really matter where they are.”
“Well it’s bad timing for a vacation, then,” Mirena acknowledged. I shrugged.
“It’s always bad timing when you’re…what we are,” I reminded her. “I’m making do. So I’ve done a bit of astropathic communication here and there during our time off to make sure things are in order and the Sector’s ready to respond to what it must, even if I’m not there,” I suggested. “What?” I asked her afterward. She was looking over her sunglasses again, eyes locked with mine while a subtle grin crept across her face.
“You’re just so damn cool,” she whispered before leaning forward to peck my lips. “I could listen to you talk Inquisitor for hours.”
“I’m pretty sure you already have,” I grinned. Mirena blew me another kiss, then waved the bartender down for a refill of our shots once more. After doing so, she looked past me and much of her prior joy began to fade from her face, her smile withering away. I scanned with my mind for why, and found it immediately. Some of the Guard were trying to hook up with a woman, a civilian, and not having much luck of it. Their reactions, then, were getting less friendly by the moment, and all of them were obviously drunk. Recipe for disaster, particularly of the sort that most troubled Mirena. My pilot shot to her feet at the sight of the scene, and began to move to intervene, until I grabbed her by her non-augmetic wrist. She glowered down at me for a moment. “Don’t kill them. And don’t hit their heads if things come to blows,” I told her, then extended a hand up to her. She passed me her sunglasses at last, and I set them upon the counter next to me.
“Fine. Why not their heads?”
“They’re soldiers. Problems arise when they’re concussed,” I answered. She nodded, and I let go of her, OK’ing her intervention. While she moved to assist the civilian, I called to the bartender. “Excuse me, sir, how much for the bottle itself?”
“You lookin’ to drink yourself to death? Better ways to go,” he warned me.
“Just for the road,” I suggested.
He shrugged. “Five Thrones.” I paid up, and he planted the bottle next to our shot glasses. I had both mine and Mirena’s at once as a fight broke out between my Agent and three members of the Guard. The civilian, meanwhile, managed to escape the scene, thanking Mirena as she left. As I had with Bliss, and while a bar fight broke out behind me, I took the bottle of Gleece up in my hands and began trying to discern its vintage. Again, no luck. Perhaps at some point producers of the drink just stopped mentioning that. Disappointed, I put the bottle down to rest, then used a bit of my psykana to influence the bartender away from drawing his shotgun located below the counter as the fight intensified. “For the damage,” I suggested, sliding some extra coinage up. “And your discretion,” I added.
“That’s…that’s a new bar’s worth,” the bartender muttered. “Who the Throne are—”
“Not a question you want an answer to,” I shook my head. “Take it. Take the gun, get civilians out of here. Oh, do you have rooms for rent in this establishment? I’ll pay triple your rate,” I suggested. He nodded slowly, acting as though in a dream while entranced by my will, and procured a key from a rack behind him before putting it next to the bottle I had bought. I added further coinage to the pile. “Thank you much. Go,” I told him, taking the key and the bottle into my grasp.
Shortly thereafter, Mirena landed next to me, thrown against the counter by one of her—many—assailants. She had antagonized much of the whole bar, save for the civilians and the band. The Navy noncoms, of course, were happy to try to land a blow on the outsider that had stolen their medal from them. But Mirena seemed happier, a bit beaten around the edges though she was, than she had been while flying; she was enjoying herself greatly. I handed her the bottle of Gleece. “Drink,” I said, wiping some of her blood from a torn cheek against my thumb while she winced. After she took a swig of the Gleece, I then snapped her nose back into place, which produced a more sizable hiss of discomfort from her, including the thrusting of one of her fists into my thigh. That did not hurt me at all, was just a bit of pressure.
“Hey! You with her?” boomed a thick, still-drunken voice from behind me.
I did not turn to face the speaker, instead thumbing across the chest of Mirena’s jacket, where I noticed her medal had been stripped from her. “I am,” I answered, reaching out with my mind to find the medal a few feet away from us, sitting on the ground. The Navy noncoms were trying to force their way through a crowd of the Guard to get to it. “And if you’re not, you had better not be in the room when I turn around,” I added, taking the bottle from Mirena and shooting down a swig of my own. “Need a hand?”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Just one,” she admitted, raising a bionic fist into the air to her side. I tapped my own augmetic fist against hers, then spun around and hopped from my stool just in time to bop my head to the side, dodging a blow from the Guardsman that had addressed me earlier. I caught his outstretched arm with my augmetic, holding him in place, then rammed my birth-arm into his gut, blowing out any semblance of oxygen from his body in the process. As I pushed the Guardsman away from me, such that he fell onto his back in a wheeze, Mirena jumped off her stool again to stand to my side.
“Well?” I asked the crowd.
***
“See? I’m not so bad at fighting, either,” Mirena told me as she lifted another wheezing victim off the ground, still looking for her badge.
“Yeah, you’re the first resource I’ll tap if I ever need to win a barfight again,” I agreed, wiping blood and booze from my jacket, none of it mine—or Mirena’s. “Do you suppose we should tell the band?” I asked, nodding toward the Servitors.
“Nah, it’s funnier this way,” Mirena giggled. The Servitors were now not only playing their songs for no one, they also weren’t playing them; their instruments had broken or been thrown aside in the ensuing brawl, but still, the Servitors went through the motions of playing a beat without their bass, drums, or reeds. “Come on, where is this damned—”
“Mirena,” I called to her, then pointed across the room when she looked to me. She went over to the person I had pointed to and plucked her medal from their grasp.
“Thanks, Cal,” she smiled, pinning it to her chest once more. “Suppose we should find a place to go wash up, hm?” she suggested. I replied by reaching into my jacket and dangling they key I had procured for a room in this establishment. “Ah, someone’s been busy. Shall we?”
“I think we should address our guests first,” I shrugged.
“I don’t think they’re in a position to listen much,” Mirena frowned as she walked up to me, throwing her arms around my waist.
“Not those guests, the new ones,” I clarified.
“New ones?”
On cue, a swarm of additional Guardsmen flooded into the establishment, lasrifles already drawn and trained on us. Or, they tried to aim at us. They all found themselves unable to lift the barrels of their weapons beyond a sixty-ish degree angle from the ground, leading to much confusion. “What the—why aren’t any of you aiming at them?” a Commissar asked his unit, fuming.
“I don’t—we can’t sir!” a Guardswoman replied, still struggling—and failing—against my psykana. Mirena, with reluctance, meanwhile moved behind me as I insisted on shielding her from view.
“Well I’ll be damned, a psyker, of all things,” the Commissar acknowledged. I grinned and nodded to him, but he was not so amused. “Whoever the hell you are, stop all this and come quietly for arrest. It’ll be much less painful for you if you do.”
“I don’t really think you have the right idea here, Commissar,” I warned him.
“Really? Because we’ve got a Primaris of our own,” the Commissar declared, and waved his arm forward to usher another individual into the overly-crowded room.
Their psyker looked at me for a moment, and was well-composed for a time. But when they invaded my mind—and I let them in, to some extent; I was willing to show a cursory glance of who I was without allowing them to see any operation details—their composure broke completely and they fell prone, prostrating themselves before me. “I’m so sorry, sir, Emperor forgive me my transgressions!” he began to plead to me. Their psyker’s immediate surrender made many flush awash with curiosity and hesitation, to the point that I no longer needed to keep their weapons pointed away from us. They lowered their aim willingly.
“Again, not what you think I am,” I said with a wince and a shrug. I then reached to my jacket. “May I?” I asked the Commissar, though I did not wait for the permission he eventually gave. A moment later, I produced my Rosette, and in so-doing made the rest of the room kneel to me as every conscious soul fell to prayer, save for the Commissar, who was trying to figure out how to react. “This wasn’t really my plan for the evening,” I admitted. “Some of your men need medicae attention. Take care of them. You march for Cadia?”
“We…we do, Inquisitor, yes,” the Commissar answered.
“Good. Give the Despoiler hell. What’s your name, Commissar?” I asked him.
“Commissar Gryll Ardam, Inquisitor, of the Redhounds. Born Catachan,” he explained.
“You’re a long way from home, Commissar,” I acknowledged. He nodded. “Well, from a former Commissar to a current one, if you take the Despoiler’s head from his shoulders, Ardam, bring your Redhounds back this way and I’ll treat them all to a proper round of drinks. Sound like a deal?”
“Yes it does, Inquisitor, and a damn good one at that,” he agreed. “Thank you, sir, for your service and your mercy.”
“My mercy is the Emperor’s; may He watch over you as you bring His fury down upon the foe. Now, if you’ll excuse us,” I started, nodding a farewell to a man I knew I might never see again. He nodded in return, knowing likewise, then turned to his men and women.
“Come on, then! If you sorry bastards could survive an Inquisitor, you can damn well face down anything you’ll find on Cadia! On your damn feet!” he shouted, beginning to get his unit out from Tavera’s Tavern while Mirena and I took our leave deeper into the establishment. And still, the band played on.
“You’re so hot when you talk like that,” Mirena said over my shoulder before quite literally climbing onto my backside, wrapping her legs around my waist.
“I think you’re just thirsty is all,” I grinned.
“Well, duh,” she rolled her eyes as she wrapped her arms over my shoulders and around my neck. “Best pilot in the Sector has gotta drink, you know.”
“I didn’t mean that kinda thirst,” I told her.
“Neither did I,” she giggled, then kissed my cheek.
***
One well-earned bath later, and a newly-toweled Mirena sat next to me, on my left, throwing her still-drying legs over my lap. Her wounds had cleaned, but were still open, involving a torn lip and cheek on her face, among other scratches and bruises across her body. I, however, had no wounds at all, which was probably the primary saving grace for many of Commissar Ardam’s soldiers. Mirena’s newly-earned medal rested to my right, now under her feet, while her jacket was splayed across the bed I was sitting on. It had not occurred to me to request a double room from the barkeep, so there was only one bed for us to spend the night in together. In hindsight, had I asked for Mirena’s insight, I think she would have preferred the single that we wound up with, anyway.
“You seem distracted, Cal,” Mirena observed as she settled in next to me, snuggling against my side.
“Do I?”
“Yes. What’s on your mind, because it certainly isn’t me,” she asked.
“That can change,” I admitted, looking to and kissing her not-torn cheek. She giggled to herself as I did so.
“It can, and I’ll be sure to make sure it does, in time. But if something’s bothering you I want to know about it and stamp it out under my feet,” Mirena told me, leaning closer to me while lifting her feet from her medal onto my lap, tapping her toes against my right thigh.
“I…,” I began, but could not find the words. What was bothering me? The close of the 41st millennium, the universe on fire. Ouranos. Cronos. Bliss. Lucene. Mirena herself, who held my flame in her hands and mirrored it in her bosom for the past few weeks. “I just…I’m trying to figure out who I am.”
“Oh, well that’s easy!” she exclaimed with a blurting laugh. “You’re Callant Blackgar, the baddest badass in all the galaxy!” she shouted, then leaned forward and, despite her torn lip, gave me a thick, wet kiss against my own cheek, ending with an audible mwah! “Better?”
“Well, that didn’t worsen things,” I shrugged, chuckling to myself.
Mirena then moved herself closer to me, all but sitting sideways upon my lap as she threw a mostly-dried arm over my shoulders. “So why don’t you know who you are, Cal?”
“Well…I feel like I’m changing,” I sighed, pulling her into an embrace despite my dejectedness. “Long time ago, when it was just you and me, I felt like a soldier, even as an Inquisitor. This continued for a while, into and out of Hestia Majoris at least. And then, as I fell in with Lucene and worked from the shadows for the Phaenonite Affair, I think I began to feel like more of an Inquisitor—or, my image of one, anyway. And now, more recently, after my personal defeat at the hands of Mortoc followed by a…not-insignificant period of time with Bliss, I…I’ve felt different still. Am I changing? And if so, into what?”
“Cal, has it occurred to you that perhaps you’ve always been all of these things, including whatever you’re about to be following your time with Bliss?”
“It hadn’t,” I shook my head.
“Well, think about that. And by the way, how was Bliss? I heard you two really got after it in that closet of hers!” Mirena laughed.
“I really hate how much of my sex life is apparently public knowledge,” I sighed.
“It’s not public, it’s just a couple closed circles,” Mirena rolled her eyes while tapping a bionic finger to my nose. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to take the conversation away from your troubles—but I am really curious, is all.”
“Well, I can tell you never to share a room with Bliss—especially not so small of one—after she’s had a drink of Gleece,” I assured her.
“Yes, I’ve heard apparently she gets rather foul from that,” Mirena giggled. “But when not Gleece’d up, how is she?”
“Why do you—whatever,” I sighed, shaking my head, which made Mirena blurt out another laugh. “She’s…very…there’s a lot of her to go around, I’ll say that much. Most of what she has in her arsenal is quite pleasant,” I explained.
“Well, perhaps in that case we should invite her along for one of these vacations, hm? That would mean less Gleece though,” Mirena mused. “But I’m certain the evenings would be far more adventurous.”
“I’m not sure I’d survive them,” I noted, getting a quick, grunting laugh from Mirena.
“Anyways, Cal, all you need to be is you. That’s enough for me, and it’ll be enough for the Throne. It hasn’t not been enough so far,” she offered, pausing to parse through her own double negative before nodding to herself when she decided she had said her piece correctly. “Whatever we may have to face in the future, we’ll face together, and I’ll feel safe and at peace doing so by your side. One day you’ll realize that, what that means,” she explained. “Hey, did we forget the Gleece downstairs?” she asked, suddenly looking about our room for it.
“Must have,” I admitted.
Mirena stood up from my lap and shrugged her towel off, revealing herself to me in full for a few moments while she moved across the room to fetch some new clothes. “Like what you see?” she asked, quoting herself—that was among the first things she had ever said to me.
“Well it’s not the worst view,” I admitted with a shrug.
“Save the insults for Carmichael, Cal,” Mirena giggled, apparently aware of that facet of my relationship with Bliss as well. Upon donning some underwear and a light top, Mirena strode for the door of our room. “I’m gonna go see if I can find our bottle downstairs.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I suggested. She looked back to me in uncertainty. “Pants?” I asked. She laughed to herself and waved my suggestion off, then left the room. And for a moment, I thought I was alone. I came to wish that I was.
You lied to her.
I did not respond.
You live in lies, human. Do they make you feel safe?
I said nothing, but closed my eye and fell to prayer. Alas, waiting behind my eyelid was darkness, infinite and vast.
Can you see it coming? How you’ll get there? The route laid out for you? I await you there, Callant Blackgar, at the cabin. It’s very near, now. Soon, we will speak face to face at last, and I so look forward to that conversation, when I’m free from your head.
You should leave Saar’s World. While you can.