Just Below the Surface: An Adeptus Arbites Story

by BladeMasterWolf

"They decide the guilty, they decide the punishment." The creed of the Adeptus Arbites, the police, jury and executioner of the Imperium's vast hives. On the hive world of Tercius, the Tercian Arbites will face a threat they never have before.

2. Introduction

Tercius, a hive world in the Segmentum Tempestus, in the Oreidium Sector of the galaxy and under the holy watch of the Adeptus Terra and the mighty Immortal Emperor of Man. Is like most other Hive Worlds in the Imperium of Man. High habitation spires stab into the smog choked skies and The Adeptus Mechanicus manufactoriam churn out the war machines for the Imperial Guard and the many, varied and lethal arms of the Departmento Munitorum.

Billions upon billions reside in the mighty hives that dot the continents. Upon the surface of Tercius there are eighteen such hives, the primary export is man-power, bodies for the eternal war machine of mankind, workers to mine the deep pits, to stoke the fires and the like. Some of these people will go on to be great soldiers in the Imperial Guard or the Planetary Defence force. They could become numbered among the great Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, they could even be governors of their own planets should they work hard enough for it. Even one may be chosen to serve in the most elite order of warriors, the Adeptus Astartes, the Emperor's Angels of Death. But to think of the probability of such a thing is ludicrous.

But this is not to say that the universe is their oyster, it is a harsh, cold time to be alive, it is the Forty-First Millennium. Forget the promise of science and the understanding of your fellow man, in these times only the strong survive and the weak are either slaves or worse. Mankind is beset by aliens, traitors and heretics. The armies of man wage an unwinnable war against the myriad foes that would rape and burn the worlds of the Emperor, to whom a single human life is nothing but a number to be erased in a tide of fire and death. To be alive in such times is be one among unnumbered trillions. Your passing won't be remembered or mourned, for the tides of blood rise and fall with each passing day washing away thousands of lives. For each enemy without there are a hundred within, cruel, cold organisations mercilessly purge thousands to kill a single man, all in the name of faith.

It is up to the men and women of the Adeptus Arbites to ensure peace and law is maintained among the general populace. They decide the guilty, they determine the punishment.

In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.