There's an old Cadian saying, "You die three times".
The first time happens when you take your last breath.
The second time is when your name is spoken for the final time.
The last time happens when your memorial is torn down.
A couple of years ago, I found out my mother was from Cadia. She was Imperial Guard, like I was...still am I guess. A Colonel from what I've been able to find out. She met my father, an officer in the Imperial Navy while her regiment was being transported from one warzone or another. I don't know if they were in love or what, but hey, one way or another, I was born and a couple of years later, they died. And I got dumped into the Schola Progenium.
When I found out about her, I travelled to Cadia.
And I kind of wish I hadn't.
Cadia is one of the most heavily defended worlds in the Imperium, because it stands as the gateway to the Eye of Terror and guards the only stable travel route. Definitely large enough for a fleet to travel through. And because of that reason, it's been subjected to multiple invasions. So every city is a fortress, every citizen is able to strip and fire a lasgun before they were ten years of age.
Thing is, Cadia has limited space for fancy things like graveyards and memorials. So to combat this, there's a law called the Law of Decipherability. Each graveyard is watched over by priests and when they find a headstone that is no longer legible, all the graves in that section are dug up and the bones are dumped into a pit.
I guess they figure that by that stage, there's no one around who would remember the dead anyway. Makes you wonder why would anyone care about people who have been dead for a couple of millennia anyway?
And I try to stop myself from laughing at the thought that my parents get a memorial in the shape of five kilometers of dead ship in orbit over the world that claimed them. I do, however, managed to go for a smile instead.
Of course, things were done differently on Dovlornisk. Ì couldn't tell you when Dovlornisk was settled, maybe during the Dark Age of Technology... Certainly seems old enough. That said, I don't know why anyone would be stupid enough to settle on a toxic planet. I mean, sure, the lower plains of Dovlornisk are fertile enough to feed its population as well as pay its tithes to the Imperium, there's something about the air on the plains that makes it nearly impossible for people to actually live on the surface. Someone tried to explain it to me once, though I wasn't paying attention. Instead, the majority of Dovlornisk's population of ninety million live in a dozen floating cities, just on the edges of the breathable altitude. As such, off-world visitors to any of these cities usually find it hard to breathe due to the reduced oxygen for the first few days until they get used to it. Or they do like me and cheat and carry small rebreathers for when they get a little light headed.
Still, it's better than the poor bastards who live in the lower levels of the cities. I couldn't tell you how old these cities are, but I know they're no longer working as well as they used to. Every few years there are dips in the power supply and a city drops a couple of hundred feet. Not enough to crash, but just enough that people living on the lower levels get dangerously close to the toxic cloud. Sometimes, its only the "Netters" who die, those poor bastards who can't even afford a room, they just sleep on the large cargo nets under each city. Other times, there's a sudden increase in available rooms, that is, if you don't mind clearing the dead from each room...
The problem with floating cities in the clouds is that space is really limited, so the people of Dovlornisk practice cremation. The bodies of the dead are placed in specialised plasma generators, then depending on how rich you were, the next stage of the funeral took place. The ashes of the majority are let loose on the wind, while those of the noble houses are taken aside and converted into crystalline matrices. This crystals are then taken and turned into hololith emitters, loaded with a holographic image of the deceased. I guess they're just fancy headstones.
And yet, here I am, sitting in one of these gardens, specifically the Gardens of House Tastrov, looking out through one of the viewports and a sea of dirty grey clouds looks back...I'd be trying to smoke a lhostick if it wasn't for two reasons. The first being these gardens prohibit smoking, something about the smoke damaging the emitters. The second is that I already know that being this high up, the lhostick would extinguish even before I could have that first drag. I don't normally smoke, but then I don't usually hang around in gardens filled with creepy reminders of the dead.
I arrived on Dovlornisk a week ago on an assignment with several other members of my team. Nothing major, just some follow up on an old investigation. These investigations never truly end, you just tie up the threads and keep checking to make sure they don't come loose. Sometimes I feel more like a tailor than a soldier.
I was part of the original investigation; knew the layout of the cities, still had some contacts here and there, so naturally I was told to come here.
I always did serve as the point-man and I'm still doing it now, it's just instead of carapace armour, I'm in the uniform of a Naval Junior Officer. Could have gone for a higher ranking, but that's just begging for people to notice me. Of course, the left arm has been adjusted to accomodate the heavy gauntlet that replaced my arm. Which isn't very subtle, but mixed in with a couple of hundred other officers and I fit right in.
For this week, at least, I am Elias Noq - a Junior Officer on the Sword of Saints, a light cruiser in orbit over Dovlornisk, on shore leave for a few days. If I'm seen going to some of the shadier areas of the city, hey, I'm just looking for a little fun before heading back...
My thoughts are interrupted when I realise I have company.
A young girl, about eight years old, looking at me from behind a stuffed animal. Dressed in a heavy velvet robe, dark brown hair framed the edges of her face and though most of her face was hidden behind the animal, I could tell that a line of freckles ran across her nose. Grey eyes peaked out at me and I can't tell if she's afraid of me or if she's smiling.
"Your arm is funny." By now the stuffed animal is by her side and a warm smile is being flashed at me. I can see a slight gap in the girl's teeth, she's already lost a tooth. Somehow, the loss of the tooth doesn't take away from the warmth of the smile.
I can see she's waiting for a response and so I look at my arm and wriggle the fingers a few times. "I guess it is. It's also pretty special too."
I've piqued her interest and she hides behind the animal again before she asks another question, "Why is it special?" She definitely has the Dovlornisk accent, not as thick as the adults, but it's there.
Returning a smile of my own, I spin my hand around a couple of times "Well you see, I lost my arm a long time ago and this was given to me by a friend. I can lift really heavy things with it."
Before the girl can talk again, a voice calls out from down the pathway, "Karina? KARINA! Karina, where are you child?" and I can see the girl is flinching.
I look at the girl and watch as she tries to hide behind the animal once more, "I take it that you are Karina?" and smile slightly as she nods.
"I think your mother is looking for you."
The animal is once again by Karina's side and the smile is gone. She looks on the verge of tears and wipes away one on her sleeve. "No, Ser. I came to see Mama today."
It takes me a few seconds to understand what she meant, but without pause, I take a hankerchef from a side pocket and offer it to her, "Dry your eyes child. I'm sure your mother wouldn't want to see you so upset."
I watch the kid smile, wipe her eyes for her and I offer her the sign of the Aquila, "You had better be getting back now, Ms. Karina, else they might call the guards to find you."
She flashes a smile again and took off towards the source of the voice; a rather stern looking governess who glares at me like I had suddenly developed multiple mutations.
A tap on my shoulder and I see Thalsom Adare, one of a handful of people I would call a friend. A former member of the Arbites, Adare had long served as an agent for the Old Man before working for his successor. An investigator without peer, Adare was always someone I was glad to have acting as back up.
The fact that I could mock him about his being as bald as a cue ball since he was nine also helped.
A worn and craggy face split into a thin smile followed by a voice that I can only describe as a truck's engine dying a thousand deaths, "Didn't realise you had so many connections here, Van. You do realise that would be Karina Yrena Tastrov, the Governor's grand-daughter?"
I look back and I know I can't smile back, the little girl with the stuffed animal is gone, "I know." I stand up off the bench and straighten out my jacket before looking back at Thalsom.
"She's my daughter."