Inquisitor Ferenz Talan brooded as he prodded the food in front of him with his knife. His surroundings would have normally improved his mood, as the luxurious furnishings of a naval captain's state room and the presumably delicious food presented to him not five minutes earlier. Had this been the usual situation with similar company, he would have indulged himself to the fullest extent possible.
His philosophy on life consisted only of two parts, duty and pleasure. Life was too short to ignore either of them. Now, he feared that both tenets would be increasingly hard to fulfill over the course of the coming weeks. The reason for his growing discomfort was the company around the ornate table in front of him.
At the head of the table, inevitably, sat the Captain. An old and rather fat man by the name of Pelton, he had once triumphed in a great space battle and received considerable acclaim. The details of which Talan did not really care for, as it seems the rest of the man's career had been relatively uneventful. The man's most positive trait was that he was quiet, and intervened in conversation only when he had an absolute opinion on something. Furthermore, he did as Talan said without much hesitation, including moving a particularly perverted officer from the room next to his immediately. While that was generally the norm for requests from Talan, there was none of the negativity due to being ordered around that usually came with it.
To the left of the Captain, Inquisitor Alanis White sat, chewing steadily at a rather large piece of steak. He was a thin and tall man, with greying hair and a sneering face that didn't exactly compliment him. Talan didn't particularly like White, and found him to be suspect in every way. White was a member of the Ordo Hereticus, and seemed to enjoy his work a little too much. Talan, being a member of the Ordo Xenos, naturally found his job to be somewhat distasteful, but also acknowledged that dealing with aliens gives one a lot more flexibility than dealing with heretics and cultists. Regardless of his feelings, Talan knew that White's presence was a necessary for the coming operation. The Tau were firmly within the jurisdiction of Talan's area of expertise, but the creatures they took such a keen interest in were most definitely not. White's knowledge of cults and heretics was invaluable. Lastly, he was far from alone.
Beside White, Canoness Birgitta Siena was reposed in her chair, ignoring her food as well. She was as tall as White was, with dyed white hair far too early for a woman of her years and a reasonably attractive face. She had donned the usual dress of the Adepta Sororitas outside of battle, in the form of an Ecclesiarchy robe. She was commander of the battlegroup sent by the Order of the Blooded Rose from Orphelia VII, on Talan's request. Her troops had arrived swiftly, but brought White along to command them. Talan's reputation with the religious hierarchy of the Imperium was not the best, though they could not act against him. She seemed the typical product of the Sororitas; devout, chaste and extremely naive. Like White, she irritated Talan to no end. However, her powers of command were not to be discounted, and she was well known for several successful heretic hunts on industrial and hive worlds. Talan was not the only one to be irritated by her, however.
Directly opposite the Canoness, to the right of the Captain, sat the saving grace of the whole event in Talan's mind. Colonel Artemis Mieza, commander of the 16th Berdam Armoured Regiment. She was relatively new to the command, having only served on two assignments before this one. She was an attractive woman (in Talan's eyes at least). Dressed in her uniform, possessing nicely tanned skin, a shapely body and long black hair, Talan found her interesting from the get-go. She was from Berdam, immediately removing any idea that she was somehow an inferior commander, ideas that seemed to hang around particularly egotistical men of power in the Imperium about most women.
Berdam is a system notorious for its wild festivals and its music, so much so that every Berdamian vehicle had large loudspeakers bolted to them, which played whatever form of music was most popular among the people driving it. All Berdamian military units were mixed sex as well, harking back to a time when there were so many male deaths in the system, the women had to fight as well. This egalitarian and bohemian ideal placed Mieza directly in the path of the Canoness' ideals, and as such, they seemed to despise each other.
One particular person was conspicuous in his absence, however. Librarian Stavan, who was commanding the Blood Ravens' detachment, had opted out of the dinner event, without stating his reasons. Talan liked Stavan, having talked to him on many occasions over the course of the three week period of waiting for reinforcements on Parmenion IX's defence station. Aside from his annoying habit of inserting riddles into his dialogue, Talan found him to be a very entertaining person to be around. He didn't act like the quiet pious soldier that many Space Marines were. Stavan was also discreet about any discussions that Talan might have with him, a very useful trait to say the least.
Talan sat opposite the Captain, as they both watched the conversation taking place before them. The subject of the talk was on the operation ahead.
"The heretics must be destroyed immediately, or as soon as we can destroy them, once we are on the planet!" the Canoness said in a raised voice, shifting her weight in her chair. Talan rolled his eyes, at which the Captain cocked his head to the side slightly.
"I was under the impression our job was to capture a Tau force, not purge our only bait," Mieza responded calmly, "If you know about another cult that is so conveniently bordering Tau space, kindly tell me."
"The Tau will surely come anyway, and when they do come, we will purge them as well," continued Siena, "It does not matter that we will eliminate the heretics first."
"The Tau are not blind, they have reliable means of receiving information about these cults," Talan interrupted, "They aren't stupid either, if we purge the uprising as quickly as you suggest, then they may get wind of it before they arrive and then simply not show up."
"Are you suggesting we leave Imperial citizens to the daemon spawn?" White cut-in, still chewing steak.
"That sounded awfully like an accusation," Talan responded, grinning grimly, "Of course I am not suggesting we leave the planet entirely without aid, only that we employ a strategy that doesn't destroy the heretics before the Tau decide to intervene."
"And preferably one that leaves us with enough strength so we can grab us a few of them as well," Mieza added, looking at Talan for agreement, which was given by a nod.
The argument continued along the same lines for several minutes.
"We are only a few hours from Hephaestion now, and you still haven't agreed upon a strategem," the Captain started, "I suggest you hurry."
Talan shared the Captain's concerns, the will of the Hereticus personnel versus the needs of the mission was a battle becoming quite tiresome..
"If I might make a suggestion."
The Blood Ravens Librarian entered the room from the door behind the Captain, and took a seat beside Colonel Mieza.
He was clad in a robe himself, covering the majority of his genetically enhanced muscles, but not quite hiding them.
Everyone agreed to hear his idea almost at once, which caused another grin to appear on Talan's face.
"We land the Imperial Guard and my Blood Ravens to bolster the lines of the Hephaestion PDF, and allow the Sororitas to conduct offensive operations against the heretics until the Tau arrive," Stavan explained quietly, "When the Tau arrive to conduct their business, we allow them to land and then launch a full offensive."
The room went silent, each party thinking upon the plan.
"That is satisfactory," said the Canoness, breaking the silence.
"It is far from perfect, but it will work," agreed Mieza, a look on her face indicated that she wasn't pleased to be agreeing with the Sororita.
"I must attend to my duties, now that we have agreed a solution," White said, rising from his chair and taking a quick last bite of steak, "I will see you when we drop out of the warp." He glanced in Talan's direction before leaving the room.
"I'm afraid I must go also," the Captain said, before drinking from his goblet a last time, "Feel free to finish your meals."
"We shall," Talan said, finally starting to eat his own steak.
Conversation then turned to less relevent matters, such as the movements of Tyranid splinter fleets in the sector, and small talk on the subject of what each person had been doing prior to the mission at hand. Of course, half of the talk from most people present were half-truths and lies.
Eventually, the plates were clean and the goblets were empty, and all parties decided to go to bed, one way or another..
Talan woke up several hours later to the sound of alarms ringing violently in his ears.
He sat up in bed, massaging his temples, an amasec-produced headache penetrating his head. At least the night before hadn't been a complete loss.
Mieza stirred in the bed beside him, half awake, and mumbled something in her homeworld's dialect of Gothic.
"Duty and Pleasure," he muttered to himself, as he got out of bed to get dressed.
He thought about his asset-building, as he put on his clothing and carapace armour.
Artemis finally woke up properly.
"Ferenz, what's going on?" she asked, suddenly aware of the alarm.
He winced at her using his first name, but was strangely comfortable with it at the same time.
"I don't know, but we better present ourselves in the transport hold quickly," Talan replied, slipping on his boots.
Artemis began to get dressed as Talan admired her back as he strapped his bolt pistol to his waist, but quickly snapped out of it when a banging on the door erupted.
Talan waited until the Colonel was decent, and then went to the door.
Stavan stood there in full power armour, looking slightly amused, but not that anyone who didn't know him could notice it.
The psyker clearly had picked up on the irritation on the other side of the door.
He quickly snapped out of it, however.
"We dropped out of the warp a few minutes ago, the Tau were already in orbit," he explained quickly, glancing into the room.
Mieza soon appeared beside the two men.
"Then I need to get to my troops," she said, taking Talan's hand briefly before rushing off.
The Inquisitor and the Librarian stood silent for a second, and then proceeded to their own transport hold.
"I see you're up to your tricks," Stavan stated as they paced towards a staircase, the corridor bathed in red light and frequented by naval personnel running to their stations.
"I am a member of the Holy Inquisition," Talan replied bluntly, "I need allies everywhere."
"And yet.." Stavan started.
"Don't," Talan interrupted quickly, "We have more pressing matters."
"Quite," the Librarian said after a pause, "The Tau were within range to fire upon us when we dropped back into real space, and could have caused a great amount of damage, but are retreating to the other side of the moon."
The pair reached the bottom of the staircase, and proceeded down a much more wide corridor.
"Strength?" Talan asked.
"They could almost certainly destroy us in space, but it would likely cost them heavily," the Librarian responded, "Their strength on the ground is unknown."
"We need to get down to the planet now then," the Inquisitor said loudly.
They finally made it to the aft transport bay, where the Sororitas battlegroup was readying for deployment.
Stavan's Blood Ravens were already in a shuttle, and he quickly joined them.
Talan approached the Canoness, now wearing full power armour.
"I presume you are ready for combat?" Talan asked, retrieving a melta gun from the rack.
"As the Emperor wills," replied Siena, much to the Inquisitor's discontent.
"We're ready or we're dead," said White, arriving with his entourage.
A sentiment Talan agreed with entirely.
The Hephaestion PDF sargeant stared at the situation in front of him. His unit had held off the cultists in the capital, Batana, for a day now, but they kept coming in their droves. Now, another wave was incoming. Lasbolt fire immediately started from the three platoons around him, as the cultists charged, overwhelmed by fanaticism. The troopers felled many of them, but this wave was twice the size of anything that had previously attacked. The maddened heretics fell upon the PDF lines, and the street turned into a bloodbath.
A great hulking man, daubed in red painted stars, approached the sergeant with a chainsword.
Terror struck, as the man started into a run, but before he could swing his blades, a loud noise followed by a hiss rang out into the evening air.
On top of the buildings around them, strange alien Dreadnoughts hovered. The two groups of humans were stunned, as the alien weapons leveled to fire.
Missiles streamed down onto the pavement, while white hot plasma ignited both heretics and troopers.
