It was early in the morning when Sister Hospitaller Veritta Kern walked tiredly towards the meeting point she obtained from Niandra. They were both members of Inquisitor Thaberus Thorn’s retinue and had an amicable relationship within his mini inquisitorial warband.
Generally, be it infiltration or taking out critical targets, Niandra would be tasked with the most critical aspect of the missions whereas Veritta would fix up any of their members who suffered injuries during their mission. It was also Veritta’s job to fix the occasional interrogation subjects to prolong the “interview” session when needed. It was a grim duty that she had answered fully with all her talents.
Behind her were three servitors carrying the luggage of the mysterious individual Syrine. As Veritta turned a corner she recognised Niandra’s silhouette in the distance, the way the assassin stood signalled her to wish to talk, probably for a short mission briefing.
‘Nian.’ Veritta called out.
Niandra nodded, acknowledging her colleague before replying. ‘Took you long enough.’
Veritta sighed. ‘Complications with the luggage contents.’
‘Really? With that little amount of stuff?’ Niandra looked behind Veritta, evidently not impressed by the paltry amount of material present. When the rich and powerful people of the Imperium moved between worlds, it was not uncommon for their “personal necessities” amounting to what looks like a whole month worth of supplies for an Astra Militarum battalion.
‘So? What is the deal with our little miracle lady?’ Veritta asked.
‘She is… a complicated case. While she seems cordial enough, do tread lightly with her.’
‘But you are here.’ Veritta scoffed.
‘Listen.’ Niandra cautioned and whispered, ‘If for any reason she went rogue, I am not sure I can stop her.’
Veritta almost gasped at that statement, her impassive face turned serious for the first time in the conversation. Working alongside Niandra for decades, Veritta was well aware of her capabilities, so much so with the latter around as of this moment not even the sudden appearance of a heretical Astartes would faze Veritta much.
‘Throne, are you jesting?’
Niandra did not reply as she never joked about work.
‘Come on, tell me more, no one has ever mentioned anything about her being able to best you in combat?’ Veritta pressed.
‘No, she wasn’t much of a fighter from what I had observed.’
‘Then?’
‘Hmm.’ Niandra contemplated for a while before finally answering. ‘Truthfully speaking, I am not sure. But somehow I have a feeling that if it reaches that point things will not be easy or pretty because I cannot get a proper gauge on her capabilities nor her personality.’
‘You are making this scary now.’ Veritta protested.
‘Let’s go.’ The assassin signalled the sister to follow. They walked a short distance before arriving at the room where Syrine had spent her night. Niandra stopped to look at Veritta again, her expression reading “try not to offend her”, making the latter gulp at how serious the assassin was approaching this assignment.
Just as Niandra was about to knock on the door, something triggered her instinct to jump back, a split second later a thunderous low thud could be heard coming from the room. Veritta let out a small yelp at the sudden development and moved away from the door.
They stayed silent for a while, standing completely still looking at the door. Finally, Niandra moved slowly towards the door, she produced a spying device, pushed it on the door and listened. A moment later, satisfied with whatever she heard, the assassin knocked on the door and slowly opened it.
The room had a typical interior set up for an important guest, inside the room she saw a girl with platinum straight hair sitting on a huge bed, she was hugging her legs, head on her knees as if in some sort of agony.
‘Syrine?’ Niandra asked.
The girl turned her head and looked at the assassin before replying in a dreamy tone. ‘Niandra. Morning to you.’
‘Are you hurt or anything?’
‘No, I was just… upset. I still can’t recall most of my memories.’
‘My colleague is here with your belongings and she will provide you with a basic medical examination.’
Niandra signalled Veritta to enter, the latter entered the room hesitantly with the three servitors behind who put down the luggage bags then left. Niandra observed Syrine seemed to flinch at the sight of the servitors, but her expression was so subtle even with her transhuman perception she could not be sure about it.
Servitors are mindless humanoids of flesh and metal used to carry out simple, manual tasks. They can be either made of mind-wiped humans or the vat-grown variants. Servitors are programmed and cybernetically-enhanced to serve some specific, rudimentary function and are ubiquitous throughout the Imperium. Considering most imperial subjects wouldn’t even spare servitors an extra glance the whole observation just came out as odd for the assassin, further reinforcing her own assessment of being unable to read Syrine properly.
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Then there was the room itself, one side of the wall had a few paintings that fell off and were on the floor. Niandra was sure that was not the case when she did a quick sweep of the room yesterday. Other details she noticed that were out of place was a toppled flower vase and a single bolster pillow on the floor. Niandra walked over, picked it up and took a closer look at it.
On one side of the pillow the fabric appeared to be torn, suggesting the sleeping aide had been subjected to some brutal surface impact force.
‘You threw this?’ Niandra asked.
‘Sorry,’ Syrine said as she buried her face on her knees. ‘I did that just now when I realised my memories did not return after I woke up.’
‘This is Sister Veritta, she also works for inquisitor Thaberus.’ Ever the professional, Niandra pushed forward her agenda of the day. Veritta stepped forward and performed the sign of Aquila.
‘Well met, Lady Syrine.’ the hospitaller said.
Syrine gave the hospitaller an apprehensive look before getting off her bed and properly returning the Aquila sign.
‘Please, just call me Syrine.’ She said before talking in a resigned tone. ‘Sister Veritta, I have to inform you in advance of an issue which I believe Niandra knew as much already,’ she paused for a while before saying her next words slowly. 'I am not a normal human.’
Veritta did a quick exchange of glances with Niandra upon hearing that statement, the latter indicated she should proceed with the planned examination so Veritta pressed forward despite having her own doubts.
‘Perhaps let me do a standard medical examination first?’
Syrine did not reply but continued to look at the hospitaller, this was the first time they made direct eye contact and suddenly Veritta understood why her colleague of many years warned her beforehand of this meeting.
Sister Hospitaller Veritta Kern was not your typical citizenry of the Imperium. To put it into perspective, “The ordinary has nothing to do with anything off-world” was a common saying within the empire as almost all of the mundane masses of the massive empire will never step foot upon a starship in their entire life, let alone travel between worlds and different star systems; in terms of exposure to the worldliness of what the galaxy has to offer Veritta Kern had seen enough to be ranked amongst the elite within the masses of humanity.
In her line of duty, Veritta had travelled to various star systems and frequently works in the presence of individuals who have the power to drop death sentences on an entire planet’s population. Due to the unavoidable sinister nature of Thaberus’ work, she had seen enough behind the scene workings of the inquisition to drive most of the ordinary citizens mad. Veritta herself had garnered enough clearance level over the years to receive briefings on the dangers of chaos sorcery and daemonic entities to know these were no fairy tales.
Even the Emperor’s mighty space marines, which some of the more backward agricultural world masses worshipped as angels of death had lost their mythical appeal to her as she learned more and more about them in her line of work. Veritta sometimes wonders how those masses would react if she had told them she personally had cut apart some of the space marines who had turned renegade and at this point had seen enough of these ‘angels’ dead in the interrogation chamber for her to even care.
So when the worldly Veritta locked eyes with Syrine, she found it strange her level of unease rising rapidly despite the latter showing no sign of malice in demeanour, it was as if just having Syrine’s full attention was enough to intimidate her. This experience reminded Veritta of the time when she was on the verge of a panic breakdown when she met a transhuman space marine in person for the first time.
The symptom of ordinary humans experiencing a high level of unease just by meeting a space marine was actually quite common, they call it “transhuman phobia”. One would not know this without ever experiencing it first hand, but meeting an Astartes in real life was far from a pleasant experience. From an unaugmented human’s point of view, a transhuman is stronger, faster and generally smarter than you before even considering their usually far superior equipment; to look directly at a transhuman Astartes would mean the understanding of one’s totally inferiority and near-total helplessness against them, such realisation could trigger a sense of survival crisis response at the primal level, severe cases would render sufferers of said phobia to be non-functional in the presence of any transhuman.
But her tendency to suffer from an episode of transhuman phobia was so long ago, it was bewildering that her instinct was giving her all the warnings not to slip up now. It was then Veritta noticed Syrine was not looking at her but passed through her and then Niandra’s voice called out. ‘Someone is coming.’
‘There are three of them, one is wearing power armour.’ Syrine added casually. Veritta felt surprised by that statement, she knew Niandra was operating on a sensory level much higher than a normal human, in fact, so far Veritta had heard nothing at all which hinted on people coming their way, much less about being able to discern one of them was equipped with power armour.
‘Are you expecting guests?’ Niandra asked and started tapping into a small dataslate.
‘Not that I remember.’ Syrine shrugged.
‘.... The record shows representatives of Adepta Sororitas landed just moments ago.’ said Niandra after consulting a security log from somewhere.
‘Via an Aquila lander! I recognised these.’ added Syrine suddenly with a seemingly misplaced sense of enthusiasm.
‘Are you talking with the machine spirits again?’ replied a rarely flustered Niandra, ‘please restrain yourself from casually showing off your unusual talents.’
‘Argh, I am sorry. Will observe these in future.’ Syrine apologised by putting her palms together and doing a slight bow. It appeared almost comical to Veritta but she was unable to laugh. Niandra was right, she thought, even the worldly Veritta could not discern what was actually going on underneath Syrine’s weird antics.
A while later a knock sounded at the door, Niandra answered it and three Sororitas entered as predicted.
‘Good to see you again, Palatine Alicya.’ Syrine cheerfully greeted the power armoured sister leading the party. Behind Alicya were two more sisters but of the non-militant orders, one was another hospitaller, the other appeared to be a learned scholar of the Adepta Sororitas.
‘Revered lady,’ Alicya bowed and asked, ‘how is the situation with your memory? I have spoken with my Order. They would like to confirm your identity.’
‘About that,’ Syrine said apologetically, ‘not much progress, what do you need from me?’ The scholar looking sister stepped forward, formed her Aquila sign and spoke, ‘Greetings, I am Welminah Maeyer of the dialogous order. We humbly request your cooperation.’
On that statement, Syrine took a look at all the guests in her room before saying. ‘Very well, I would like to know for certain myself too.’