Amongst the stars in the galaxy, there exists a great and powerful institution dedicated to serving the teeming trillions of mankind, and it is known as the Holy Imperium, founded under his Divine Majesty the Emperor. Within this great mass of humankind, the Inquisition of the Holy Imperium of Man is the most feared agency of his Majesty's divine will. They seek to protect the Imperium from within and without, from evils that hide and lurk beneath the veils of normalcy and good mankind, and so are given the most wide ranging of powers to control, destroy, or obtain from the trillions that live in his Majesty's Imperium. Access levels to information that Planetary Governors or Fabricator Chiefs of the Adeptus Mechanicus could never hope to reach are easily within the grasp of an inquisitor. Orders that no Lord Admiral would ever dare to give are uttered casually by the highest agents of his Majesty's will. They are power incarnate, and men and women tremble in their presence.
Members of his Majesty's Holy Inquisition are not often refused anything.
So when Inquisitor Alera Jumil found the red signal runes blinking back at her after she had input her highest Inquisitorial clearance codes into the access terminal she was standing at, she was slightly surprised. Her brow creased with slight annoyance.
The Inquisitor's lithe hands flew across the access terminal's screen and input another set of codes, codes so secret not even a full two thirds of the inquisition knew of them. Codes and pass phrases of the Ordo Hereticus, the Inquisition within the Inquisition, the last guardians of humanity against traitors and heretics.
When the data terminal again spat out another red set of signals, she furrowed her brow. Her right hand flew out and engaged in extensive percussive maintenance of the screen, hoping that perhaps that might bring some green satisfaction to her otherwise futile search. No luck. Her hand slapped the screen one more time, and the slight fizzle of overloaded circuits was the only change that she could detect on the smooth surface. The log in screen still stared out in blood red.
The Inquisitor swore, some choice words she'd learnt in her childhood. The syllables echoed off the high, vaulted ceiling of the room she was in, set in stone and with other data terminals spread across the walls, with strips of lightstrips stuck onto the cornices bathing the room in a sickly yellow glow. Shadows spread across crevices cast by rubbish and detritus strewn across the floor, and several still smoking corpses of large, well built men with various gang tattoos etched into their now burnt skin. A strand of pure white hair loosened itself from where it had been settled behind her ear, and she flicked it aside absent-mindedly with a hand as it chanced across her face.
The Inquisitor turned to a figure standing slightly away who was somehow managing to look bored and alert at the same time. He had a cap of the Imperial Navy Pilot Service perched precariously on his head, which was out of touch with the neat and completely forgettable attire he was otherwise wearing. He had taken a handkerchief out from one of his pockets and was casually wiping off a few splashes of blood on his greatcoat. His other hand held a still smoking laspistol. The inquisitor wore what she usually wore when she was out on "work," which meant conservative civilian clothes for whatever planet she was on. Her methods were not the kind that emphasized flashing the rosette she kept in a little pouch tied to her thigh, next to the monoblade knife. She briefly considered using her Rosette's master override functions, but a brazen use of Inquisitorial privilege like that would be noticed and logged. Such actions were not things she wanted known, least of all to the people she was investigating.
"Mr Danar, what information could possibly be out of bounds for an inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus?" the Inquisitor asked, chewing her lip slightly as she considered another way to get her hands into the information the terminal held, so tantalizingly close to her. The voice rang with High Gothic starch.
"Heretical material that you are not meant to read, Ma'am?" The voice was serious, although a practiced listener could have detected the mirthful sarcasm within that sentence.
Alera smiled. "Utterly true, Mr Danar, but that doesn't help me one bit." She placed her hands into her coat pockets, her mouth twisting into a thoughtful pout as she contemplated the data screen in front of her. "I've been doing this for 110 years and I still haven't found a database that's not yielded information up to an Inquisitorial access code, let alone Hereticus." She paused. "So who would have the ability to shut out a Hereticus Inquisitor?"
"Adeptus Mechanicus?" the man asked.
"No."
"Astartes?"
"They try, the poor dears, but they really have no clue how to protect their computers from the most cursory of hacks."
"Navy?" The man seemed to swell a little, remembering his own profession. Garen Danar was a Flight Captain in his Divine Majesty's Navy, piloting Shuttlecraft.
"Ha."
Danar smiled sheepishly and shrugged. "Well Ma'am, I just don't know."
The Inquisitor harrumphed slightly and slicked back her hair into a messy pony tail at the back of her head, closing her eyes to think of what next to do. The red runes reflected off her eyes, which flickered as they sought some way to circumvent the security lock and still stay electronically quiet. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger.
"Let's go over this again, Mr Danar," she said, remembering all the mental exercises to begin with a clear mind, a mind ready to pick up on hints and nuances in her current case. "The facts."
Danar thought for a moment. "It is 211.997.M41. You are currently assigned to Obscuras sector, planet Indrii VI. You have received reports of a lack of upgrades to the Golan Defence Platforms as required per Administratum orders and they are annoyed since they sent a significant amount of money to the local governor. The Inquisition has requested that you find out where the resources have gone and if possible remove any culprits."
"Keep going," the Inquisitor mumbled, as her thoughts began to slowly coalesce inside her head.
"If you remember, ma'am, the governor was less than helpful."
"As you would be were you being investigated by an Hereticus Inquisitor over a possible Capital Offence."
"Ma'am, it IS a capital offence to hinder an Inquisitor's investigations," the pilot remarked casually, flipping out a datapad from his coat pocket and tapping a few commands into it. "The governor offered us his help, made his best PDF guard escort us everywhere that made sure we didn't touch anything we weren't supposed to, and spent as much time as possible trying to make us eat his food and sample his holo-entertainments." Garen smiled. "I mean, Ally's having the time of her life right now gorging herself on nafar biscuits and sampling the wine from Holy Earth itself, but even that expenditure, obscene as it is, is hardly enough to cover the upgrades to the PDF defence batteries." Alera smiled wanly as her pilot mentioned his wife, a top notch Mechanicus engineer, even now spending her time distracting the Governor's minders as long as she could. They were an odd couple, at the very least. Her Pilot and her Engineer loved each other dearly, but the Inquisitor suspected their love was as much a mutual love for the shuttle that he flew and she fixed than for each other, strong as it was. "I think we have a Governor who really does enjoy the finer things in life. Did you see his mouth? Full of fillings. He probably never cleaned them."
"Of course I did, Mr Danar, I'm one of his Majesty's Inquisitors. Well, now I can understand why I have a very strong suspicion foul play is afoot and why we're being forced to hack a public terminal in the Emperor Forsaken Lower levels of a hive where the local gangs keep suicidally throwing themselves at us, but what that doesn't help with is why I can't get access to the ledgers concerning the transfer of funds."
Her wrist suddenly chirped. Or rather, the small watch on her wrist chirped, and the Inquisitor thumbed it. The gentle, somewhat disjointed voice of a human female filtered through the communicator as her visage sprang up from the holo display on the communicator.
"Inquisitor, must be quick, in restroom." The expected echo off tile was not present. Ally Danar was indeed a top notch Mechanicus engineer, but her face wouldn't have shown it, appearing as normally human as her husband on a cursory inspection. A closer look over the otherwise attractive engineer would have revealed the left eye that focused far too precisely for it to be organic, and no one would have missed the various implants that her hands now were, various tools built into her mechanical hands that she routinely deployed in and out when anxious. Her hair appeared long and well looked after, but it consisted of various polymer compounds stuck onto a ceramite scalp that covered a universal machine interface straight into her brain. Internal Auspex scans would reveal the muscle and bone replacements, extra mechanical organs, and various knick knacks she'd installed in herself over the years. Some were very useful.
Her lips were not moving as she spoke. Ally had installed a communicator wired to her mind a while ago, and she'd found it useful when she wanted to talk to someone on communicator without having to speak and to be overheard.
"Not being heard?" Alera asked.
"No. Not to mention, Inquisitor, my internal Auspex scans are picking up a few bugs in the stall and outside. I'm jamming them while we talk. In any case, I don't think I can hold the PDF men much longer by being ditzy, Inquisitor." She paused to let some internal cogitator work out the maths and relay the data to her human mind. "I predict approximately 2 minutes, 25.12 seconds before they will start searching for you and Garen, and another 3 minutes, 56.98 seconds after that to raise a general alarm."
"Good work, Ally. Try to stall for as long as you can. Meanwhile, a quick question. Do you know how to lock out an Inquisitor from a computer system?"
"Is this a trick question, Ma'am?" Ally chuckled. She used her husband's mannerisms when she was amused.
"I've got a hack which refuses to track into the general treasury accounts of the local administratum and refuses to give me access on Inquisitorial or Hereticus override codes. I'm thinking of using the Rosette or asking you to bypass, but it'll trigger alarms."
"Well then, Inquisitor, yes," Ally started, smiling as she thought about the implications of her answer. Behind her, Garen suddenly perked up, a look of revelation upon his face.
The two spoke at the same time. "You don't have anything on the computer system to lock the inquisitor out of in the first place." The Mechanicus engineer laughed when she heard her husband's own deduction. "See? Even my fleshy darling knows that. The computer's machine spirit, clever girl that she is, won't let you in if there's nothing for you to access." She paused. "Oh dear. I can hear people getting restless outside the bathroom. Look for your records somewhere else. Ally out."
The inquisitor turned to her pilot. "So, we have about five minutes to find out where the money trail leads before our presence is missed, Mr Danar. Suggestions on where to find it?"
Garen shrugged. "The payments were made through standard administratum methods, at least on the Administratum's side, which means it did go through the standard accounting software systems, Ma'am," he said, as his communicator chirped. He looked down at it for a moment. "Oh yes, Ma'am, the Local Ecclesiarchy Cathedral confirms that our shuttle is in their safe hands and won't be impounded."
"Better make our way back to our designated rooms then," Alera resignedly. "There must have been some way the money was transferred, and didn't show up in treasury accounts. Not that the computers helped us this time." She looked balefully at the computer terminal, then with a sadistic grin her eyes filled with an unearthly, azure light, and the terminal screen imploded.
"Blue Screen of Death?" Garen asked, as his superior stalked off toward an inevitable confrontation with the PDF men searching for her and her pilot, eyes still glowing with psychic energy.
"Blue Screen of Death." As if to emphasize her point, the terminal sputtered mournfully before its capacitors ran out.
It was as the Inquisitor and her Investigator were set upon by a ring of well trained PDF troopers with riot prods somewhere in the grey area where lower hive met more law abiding areas, and politely but forcefully escorted back to their quarters, with a strong emphasis that "The Hive is really unsafe in the lower levels," that Alera Jumil suddenly realized how the Governor had been leaking money from his construction projects and not having it appear in the accounts. She wondered how Male inquisitors ever got anything done without intuition.
***
The governor was waiting for them when the two got back to their apartments, with an entourage of guards in armour. Ally was beside him, talking animatedly about computers to anyone who would listen, which was no one. The Inquisitor and her pilot were flanked by six large PDF men, brandishing riot prods in menacing fashion.
"I trust you were not lost for too long?" The governor said, his sumptuous robes rustling with every movement. "It is sometimes lawless in the lower levels." He prattled on, sweeping his hand to the side and motioning the inquisitor back into her apartments. "I've heard so much you're your Engineer that she enjoys poetry and literature. Come, come, I have so many things to show you…"
Alera saw what she was looking for hidden in his robes and knew that she was right.
Her eyes glowed bright blue, even as Garen, sensing his mistress' moods and actions, sprang back from the escorting cordon and hit the floor. Ally had already detected the increase in light levels emanating from the Inquisitor's eyes, and her hands disappeared into a flurry of mechanical tendrils that snatched the guns off the men surrounding the Governor before they realized what was happening.
There was a bright flash, and the six PDF men around the Inquisitor lay crumpled on the floor, soundly asleep. A bolt pistol was in her right hand, pointed squarely at the Governor's forehead.
"Governor Ludwig von Kirten, you are guilty of the Grievous Offence of fraud against his divine Majesty the Emperor and his administratum," she intoned, her voice imbued with all the terrible power a 150 year old Inquisitor could project. The bodyguards around the Emperor sprang into action, only to find their feet tightly bound by metal ropes leading into the smiling engineer's hands. All of them hit the floor, hard, the wind driven out of them. The governor was incandescent with Fury. "What is the meaning of this preposterous…"
He hit the ground a second or two later, a bullet hole drilled neatly into his forehead. The bolter shell hadn't even had time to explode.
"The Punishment is Death," Alera Jumil pronounced. She padded over to the body, ignored the cordite fumes leaking from the smoking crater in the forehead, and extracted a small sliver of something from a pocket in his robes.
Garen had by now stood up. "Well I never, Ma'am," he said, when he realized what it was. His wife, too, gasped with the shock of it all.
"Paper???" was the amazed outburst. "Who uses paper for writing anything apart from Space Marines???"
The Inquisitor smiled. "More than that, dears," she said. "Double Entry accounts." She flipped open the piece of paper, and the numbers and columns written down in indelible ink showed where all the money had gone- to various "expenses" of the Governor mostly involving food, drink and women- and a deeply disturbing loss of several billion credits to an unspecified account.
Alera Jumil chuckled. "I don't know if there is a paper spirit," she said. "But she and the numbers never tell lies."
END