II
FOR WHOM THE WIND BLOWS
"Look to the crying skies for me, as it is there I will reside."
- General Militant Alteans Zephryn, prior to his death.
As it so happened, Inquisitor Levy's orders were to expand. Because he realized that Raege would have little idea how to begin doing that, he directed her towards the nearest battle.
That so happened to be the world of Matrinar, out near the rim of the Halo Stars. The journey took the better part of a month. Levy had instructed Raege to pick up any guardsmen that were clearly abandoned. The Rapidheart was equipped well enough to provide for a large influx of wounded as well. With these instructions, Raege set out.
As soon as the Rapidheart had entered the Imperial Navy's safe zone, Raege set out aboard a bulk freight lifter. From there, she and her unit shuttled to the nearest fight.
Matrinar was a hive world. Rather, it had been at one point. A decade ago, the arch-heretic Rymen Valendr, the Dread-Master hypnotized a great portion of the populace into a mass-rebellion. It was the typical story of a world's corruption, the planet's manufactorums were seized and re-equipped to churn out the most insidious war engines and weapons they'd ever produce. Those loyal to the Emperor resisted his grip, but ultimately were stamped out. Two months after Rymen Valendr had obtained Matrinar, the Imperial Guard finally smashed into the world. By that point, however, the Dread-Master had dug in, and refused to let go. Due to a number of miscalculations and serious misdirection, the Guard bumbled along in the conflict for nearly 9 years, in the mean-time Rymen Valendr managed to bring reinforcements to his call from deep within the Halo Stars. Finally, after 10 years of this, progress was being made, and slowly, the Dread-Lord was losing his hold.
It was doubted Rymen Valendr even still remained on Matrinar. Most of the generals appointed to the conflict agreed that he had escaped to do damage elsewhere. Others, however argued that it was extremely unlikely he had removed himself from the battling. Regardless, the fighting continued, and that needed to be stopped.
Raege looked up at the silver statue of Lord Lovidus that dominated the square. It was massive, a tribute to the man that had guarded the planet long ago, and it was around this monument that Ministe City was built. The Lord's statue had long since become tarnished, to the point that the silver was nearly unrecognizable, replaced by an unnaturally deep black. The head was missing, blasted off by what seemed to be lascannon fire. The outstretched arms now were wrapped in darker scripts. Thrown dung stained much of the body. The disgusting servants of Chaos had defiled everything sacred to this world. It made the Commissar sick. She quickly looked away.
In the distance, she could hear the faint sound of artillery pounding. This had been the site of fighting, only hours ago.
She walked back to her squad, who sat vigilant in the burnt-out wreckage of an abandoned halftrack. The rest of her unit was spread out, searching the area. Lockwood had taken half the platoon closer to the active fighting, a kilometer off north, leaving Raege the other half in this district. By this point, she'd sent everyone off to rest, as this was the only area left.
Raege ordered the squad's vox officer, a Cadian by the name of Joseph Firch, to call up the Major. A few moments later, there was a response. Raege took the boy's microbead.
"You called, Commissar?"
"Lockwood, report." Raege ordered.
"Hey! Not so loud!" Lockwood sent back. "I sent everyone but my own squad back to the ops center. We're in a building off a ways to the east of you right now, looking for any wounded. Got a tip from a sergeant while visiting the rear line of the Guard, said that they'd been raiding these things like nuts before moving on. Seems the enemy liked to drop missiles on passing vehicles from behind windows. We suggest you do the same."
"Understood. Call back if you find anyone. Raege out." The Commissar handed over the microbead to Firch, and looked around the square. She realized then that there was a large hole punched into the half-track wreck's front compartment. The angle corresponded with a row of broken windows in a building to her far right. The half-track her squad was in was on the opposite side of the road, and the building, the only one in the square that wasn't boarded up, was a good 25 meters distant from her.
She ordered her squad out of the fast track and toward the ruined structure.
It had been an Administratum office at one point. A charred skeleton lay huddled over the front desk. The large Imperial Aquila that had once hung on the far wall now lay in shards on the floor. In its place on the wall, fitting improperly with the dusty imprint of the Aquila, was a crude tribute to the dark gods, made from assorted bones.
Raege ignored it. She had other things to concern herself with.
Lockwood closed the door behind her. Still no sign of survivors, only corpses. Some weren't even those of Guardsmen, as it seemed to be the case in this building; the rooms she'd searched so far in the basement were all filled with rotted cadavers, and many of them had been skinned. Either way, the smell was overwhelmingly bad. She'd searched the entire area, and found nothing.
As she walked over to the staircase leading back up to the top floors, where her squad was, she noticed something: Through space between each step, she could see a decorative rug, pushed aside as if in haste. Beyond the rug, there was a square patch the width of a man that did not match up with the rest of the flooring. It looked like a hatch, almost.
Before she could investigate, there was a loud crash from the floor above her. She was suddenly aware of the sounds of las and autogunfire. She hurried up the stairs, and looked around. One of her squadmates, Kas Grin, was down on the floor with a bullet wound in his side, and the other two members, Kael Tornic, her vox officer, and Raffin Mar were firing blindly out what had been a window. Broken glass was spread across the floor, and Lockwood observed as projectiles zoomed through the opening. She hurried up to the top step, got on her elbows and knees, and crawled over to Kas. She rolled the moaning soldier over on his back, and then dragged him back into cover to the side of the windowsill, and applied pressure to Kas's wound.
"Tornic!" She called over the noise. "Report! What have we got?"
"At least ten different contacts, all firing from the other side of the street!" Kael Tornic replied. "Don't know if there's anything else!"
"Call the Commissar on vox! Tell her we're pinned down a kilometer to her east!"
"What?" Tornic hollered back, firing out at whatever was shooting with his lasgun, then crouching. Lockwood had a hard time hearing him herself, a new sound had deafened out most everything else.
"I said," The Major yelled at the top of her lungs. "Call Raege on vox!" The noise was getting louder and louder… What was that? It sounded like a constant, mechanical screeching, and she recognized it from somewhere… But from where? Yes! She remembered it, from the military parades on Oseiri II, after the conquest! It was a…
Lockwood dared look out of the window to see what was happening, her hellgun in her hands. What she saw brought only fear to her heart.
A green Vulture gunship, hovering incredibly low in front of the building, with an eight-pointed star where the Aquila symbol should have been, was lowering into place in front of the building.
"Shit!" She hissed, diving aside, as the gunship's nose-mounted heavy bolter began firing into the room, releasing a thunderous roar that registered over the sound of the gunship's jets. The massive rounds tore through walls and blew out the front side of the building. Tornic and Mar had managed to escape by following suit with Lockwood, who was had now bolted down the basement steps, with Grin over her back.
"Come on!" She screamed to them, and although it was impossible to hear her, the two guardsmen understood and quickly followed.
The Vulture began to fire again. The Major gave Grin to Mar for carrying, and went under the staircase to the hatch she'd seen before, praying it had been what she thought it was. She dug her fingers into the indentions on the sides of the cover. It was heavy. She struggled to pull it up, and once it was free from the hatch, she threw it aside, and looked down into it. It was dark, where it led. She pulled a small flash torch from one of her belt pouches, and pointed it down into the hole. It was a few meters deep, there was a bar ladder lining down the side of the shaft, and it seemed there was a larger space at the bottom.
She looked to Tornic and Mar. She gestured for them to go down. Tornic went first, barely fitting with his vox equipment. Mar went down next, slowly and awkwardly while carrying Grin. She went down next, practically sliding down the tight walls to make it quick.
The heretic gunship up above fired again with the heavy bolter. It hit the building's frame hard, and then continued to pound mercilessly, firing a frag missile into the mess to seal its fate. The circling, spinning warhead hit nearly dead-on, destroying the central support beam. With its work done, the Vulture rose up to a higher altitude to join its pack again.
The building crumbled inwards, taking with it the two structures connected. The entire foundation collapsed under the massive weight.
Raege ordered her squad to search the building. Angela Neuehoff and her twin sister Eva Neuehoff, the two Krieg women, went up to the higher levels. The Commissar herself and Joseph Firch continued on through the main floor.
The two passed by hall after hall of doorways to offices. Every door had been left standing wide open, and each office contained a now-skeletal demonstration of a different way to murder a person using fire and small explosives.
At what had to be the last hallway, the path split in two; one a way to a kitchen, and the other a way to… Another hall. There was a steel bulkhead as well, but when the Commissar tried to open it, it was locked. There was no point in attempting to break in.
Raege looked into the kitchen first. As she came in, she noted that a suit of flak body armor lay on the floor, torn at the breast. A helmet, a brown tunic and a pair of crew trousers, as well as various other articles of clothing were strewn about as well. She looked to the other end of the room. Surrounded by a bloody mess, a culled human, its gender no longer distinguishable, was hanging from the far wall, its belly pinned open. Raege looked away, nearly sick with her disgust now. The instant Firch walked in following after her, he immediately turned away with his hand over his mouth. He wasn't used to this sort of sight. He'd only been with his regiment for a few months when he found himself abandoned on the battlefields of Tsurini II. He'd been found by locals, and then decided it was his duty to report to the Munitorum as soon as possible. While he had been waiting for transfer back to his regiment, Levy came, plucked him up, and had it registered that he was KIA. Whatever they taught on Cadia, harsh as it was, just wasn't effective enough to help men endure the morbid sights that the Chaos zealots often produced.
Odds were, the person hanging from the wall was just another Guardsman, stranded amongst their fallen fellows, that the Dread-Master's servants picked up. If Raege had only gotten there a few hours earlier…
No. No. She didn't let herself think like that. There was nothing she could have done.
As Raege stormed out, she noticed a pounding coming from the bulkhead. There was a commotion from the other side, and it sounded as if someone had just yelled. From where she stood, Raege watched as the reinforced steel tore open, following a loud KRAK. By now, Raege had her autopistol out, waiting to see what came up.
"Who's there?" A woman peeked out. She looked to Raege, and then quickly disappeared back behind the breach, only to reappear, this time standing straight and tall.
She was dressed in the blue outfit of a Mordian sergeant. Her purple hair was cropped short. A laspistol rested in its holster at her side, and a chainsword in its scabbard on the other. "Thank goodness!"
"Identify yourself." Raege ordered. "Now."
The woman clacked her boots together and saluted to Raege. "Sergeant Lara Minhelm, 342nd Mordian Regiment!" Another Mordian appeared from the doorway now as well. "This is Private Mik Branz, also 342nd Mordian. Permission to leave, Sir?"
"Not granted, Sergeant." Raege replied, lowering her autopistol.
"But sir! I must get to the front-line, immediately! I have information regarding close-by enemy movements that must reach the Guard elements in this region immediately!" Minhelm whined. "It cannot wait!"
"Wait, wait a minute, enemy movements?" Raege looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"My men were patrolling several kilometers to the east of here earlier during the initial building raids. We encountered heavy resistance early into our return about an hour ago..."
Raege put her hand up suddenly. "Hang on." She said. Her microbead was producing noise as someone attempted to communicate with her.
"Hostile contacts encountered on the seventh floor, appearing from further into building. Pressing forward while engaging."
It was Angela, she and her sister up on the higher floors.
"Negative, negative." Raege yelled, holding her hand to her earpiece. "Remain where you are. I've found some guardsmen. I'm coming up to assist you."
"But Commissar! The -"
"Stay where you are!" Raege nearly shouted.
"But the heretics fester further in…"
"Neuehoff! You and your sister stay put and keep yourselves protected!"
"Ja. Understood, Commissar."
"Who was that?" Sergeant Minhelm asked.
"A couple of troops under my command." Raege answered. She was afraid something like this would happen. The Death Korps was trained to charge on in face of any threat. Admirable, yes, but the constant yearning to die fighting made them very impractical as well. The sisters would prove difficult to control. "Come, Sergeant. I need to go assist them. Firch, bring up Lockwood on comms, tell her we've got other business to take care of."
"Understood." The vox officer responded.
The group rushed down the hallways, all the while Joseph Firch attempted to bring up the Major over the vox. By the time they arrived back at the main entrance, Firch had made 10 different calls out to Lockwood; all of them went without response.
The Commissar cursed. Had Zune been attacked as well? Was she alive?
She couldn't linger on it. She hurried through the other doorway, and up the stairwell. Even from the bottom, she could hear clearly the distinctive bark of lasguns conflicting with the bang of autogunfire. She activated the electrical field of her power fist as she ran down the seventh floor corridors, the sounds of fighting drawing ever closer. She skidded to a halt at one last turn, and held up her autopistol. At the end of the path, she could see the bright red flash of lasfire against the wall on the right. "Angela, Eva!" She dared call out as she hurried ahead. The flashes and the barks continued, which she judged to be a good sign. A bullet hit the wall on the left, kicking up powdery plaster and leaving a hole where it had penetrated.
"Here, Commissar! We are here!"
Eva's voice, Raege realized.
Raege hugged to the right wall, holding her autopistol at the ready. She stuck her head out, and immediately saw Angela Neuehoff around the corner, firing from behind an overturned steel desk. Eva was hiding behind a doorway. Light filtered in through the dirty windows that lined the left wall. The far end of the way was littered with corpses.
A hostile appeared from the far end of the hall. He was clad in what appeared to be standard Cadian-issue body armor, re-painted a deep green and inscribed with unholy phrases. In his hands he carried a combat shotgun, and he clearly hadn't intended to fight at the distance he was from the Commissar and her team.
Before Raege could even raise her autopistol to shoot at him, Angela picked his head off with a clean las round that tore through his neck. His head rolled across the floor, joining a stock of corpses that had piled up in the corner.
"Angela, cease fire!" Raege ordered. "You must be running low on ammo by now!"
The Krieg girl hesitated for a moment, then finally crouched back down and turned her back to the desk. While her skull mask conveyed no emotion, she must have been furious.
The truth was, Angela Neuehoff wasn't even originally an infantrywoman. She'd been a tank commander in the 492 Krieg Armored. Her Macharius battle tank had been ruined on Villandr after artillery was launched against the same units she was attacking. Levy had taken her away afterwards. She'd requested her sister, Eva, in the 493 Infantry be brought as well, and Levy granted this request.
Raege rushed through the doorway parallel to the one Eva was in. "Move up, Sergeant!" She called back to Minhelm and her fellow Mordian. The two stormed in, crouched as low as they could while keeping quick. The Sergeant got down on a knee, clutching her laspistol, and took aim, reading to shoot the next person that came through. Branz did the same. Another hostile appeared, this time carrying an autogun. Minhelm got a hit into the cultist's stomach, and Branz hit his left thigh. The attacker fell to the floor. Minhelm's next shot hit the now prone cultist in the top of his head. Firch moved up next, lasgun ready.
Raege stepped out of the doorway, and pointing with her power fist, charged forward. Eva, Angela, Minhelm, Branz and Firch followed after.
As Raege came to the end of the hall, another cultist appeared. The Commissar's power fist smashed into his left cheek, tearing his head off and turning it to ash as the electrical field crackled. She fired her autopistol into the group of cultists coming up around the corner at the far end of this corridor, killing another two and sending the others into cover.
"Keep charging!" Raege yelled back at her squad. One of the cultists stuck his upper body out of cover, and shot at the Commissar with his autogun, though the shot was made too hasty, and he missed her completely. Raege fired back, but it was Eva who killed him when next he popped out, hitting his collar bone. The other one jumped out now, and took three shots from Raege's autopistol to the chest, and then a shot from Minhelm's laspistol brought him down.
No other hostiles came after that.
"Now then…" Raege turned to Minhelm, stowing the empty autopistol clip in her pocket and replacing it with a fresh one. "Explain. How did you get past all this?"
"The sewers." The Mordian Sergeant answered. "The whole city's sewer system is accessible from the buildings here. A lot of the locals used them to escape from the Dread-Master back when the invasion began ten years ago."
Raege looked down the end of the hallway. The attackers had been coming in from very far end, which turned left. They seemed to have been ready to perform a striking maneuver, she noted, as the last one that had been killed was carrying a missile launcher strapped over his back in addition to his shotgun.
"I'm guessing these are the forces you spoke of earlier?" Raege asked, looking back at Minhelm again.
"Yes, but there were many more."
"How many, you think?"
"A hundred, maybe more, judging from the number of points my unit was shot at from. A strike force that size could seriously disrupt artillery fire. They need to be stopped."
Raege sighed. "Firch, can you bring up the Guard center on vox?"
The Cadian shrugged. "Probably." He said simply. "We'd need to get up on top of the building for this type of equipment to actually send the signal out that far."
"So be it." Raege said. "Come. Let's get that message out." With that, she moved past the Mordians and the rest of her squad, and began to walk back down the path to the stairwell. The others followed.
The door refused to open, so Raege kicked it down. The roof was covered with air conditioning and exhaust modules, creating a small parody of a city.
The Commissar adjusted her cap as she stepped out, and while Firch began to tune the voxcaster, she walked over to the edge and looked out at the cityscape.
The Administratum office they were on top of wasn't the tallest building of all, but was indeed the largest in the block, standing at least ten stories higher than the various habs and other structures. The buildings seemed to reach higher the farther they were from the silver statue of Lord Lovidus down below.
The vox officer cursed in frustration, and Raege turned back to him. "How long will this take, Firch?" She called off to him.
She could hear something new suddenly, like two pieces of metal screeching against one-another.
"It should only take a few minutes to get it adjusted, Commissar." Firch answered. "It's being a bit troublesome, though."
The sound was getting louder.
"Well make it quick, there's no doubt we'll be heard trying to transmit."
Louder and louder, Raege found it annoying. It seemed to be getting closer. In fact, now that she thought about it, it sounded like…
Like a jet.
"Got it! We've begun broadcasting!" Firch called, almost excitedly, which was surprising for his usually dull tone.
Raege spun around. A green Vulture Gunship, wearing the eight-pointed star on its nose, jumped up from the street space. As it adjusted its position, Raege screamed for the others to duck, before going to ground herself. Although the powerful turbojet of the gunship made it impossible to hear her, the others saw the ship and scattered behind the air conditioning modules as the Vulture began to fire its heavy bolter. The rounds exploded on contact with the rockrete surface of the roof, punching holes into the ceiling below, spitting up dirt and dust and destroying the vox unit Firch had left behind as he went behind a large exhaust vent.
This was very bad, the Raege realized. These were the gunships of the Skychildren, the Dread-Master's most favored of units. Stolen from an abandoned Navy facility in the Halo Stars, the gunships had devastated many unprepared forces during the early days of fighting on Matrinar. Once the Imperial Aircraft arrived, they went into hiding, being no match for fighters like the Lightnings and Thunderbolts.
That would explain why they'd come up from below. They must have been moving to assist with a strike on the rear of the Guard advance, so they were flying low and slowly to avoid catching any attention. Yet they had to have only a few meters of movement space between the buildings. These were truly experienced pilots.
Raege crawled along the edge. Seeing her on its thermal auspex, the vulture began firing at her with its autocannons, chipping away the rockrete above her. She winced as each round came closer and closer to hitting her.
From behind cover, Minhelm watched as a second gunship appeared. She yelled at Branz to give her his last krak charge. It had a timed detonator, and they'd used several of them to get through heavy doors. It was only ever recommended to use them against enemy armor when it was possible to attach them, but that was clearly impossible. She intended to throw it, but the distance was too great.
Desperate, she undid her dress tunic. Branz watched as she took it off, leaving herself in her undershirt. She held it out like a sling, then she set the timer on the charge for just over 10 seconds, and dropped it into the pouch she'd created. She hurried out of cover, spinning around a couple times to gain momentum, then launched the charge out of the cloth sling at the gunships. It bounced off the first one, which was now preparing to fire at her. Then the charge detonated, tearing off the right. Smoke-heavy flames sprayed out from the damaged engine, and the Vulture began to tilt, veering into the other one. The second's pilot tried to move away as he realized that his ally was about to crash into him, but instead, the damaged Vulture tore off the second one's right stabilizer. It flipped, then the two engines smashed into each-other, exploding spectacularly, sending bits of smoke-streaming metal into the air.
Raege dashed for the door. She could still hear the scream of a jet engine, more Vultures were about. She called out to the others, who hurried to her.
The smoke from the last two lingered until a third Vulture appeared, causing the cloud to dissipate. As it adjusted its angle to begin firing, Raege, the last to go back inside, was hurrying down the staircase to the main building.
A frag missile fired from the gunship at the doorway missed, exploding and blasting a hole into the ceiling instead. Had it actually been accurate, the Commissar would have been killed then and there.
Raege hurried as fast as was possible for her down the stairwell. As she came to the turn at the seventh floor entry, she stopped, and looked down the corridor.
"Minhelm!" She called. The Iron Guard Sergeant stopped and looked back up at her.
"Yes, yes Commissar?" She nodded quickly.
"Get everyone into the sewers. I'm going to go kill some heretics."
"Are you sure, Commissar?"
"Go, Lara."
Raege shooed them off, and once they disappeared from view down the spiral, she began to run down corridor.
She checked the dead heretics' bodies; many of them had been carrying missile launchers and other explosive devices in addition to smaller arms. They'd been intent on seriously disrupting rear-line formations.
The scream of a jet engine was suddenly apparent, though muffled through the walls. Working hastily now, Raege slipped the carrying strap off the dead cultist's shoulder, then took several of the tube-like missiles, their tips pointed with a cone, from his body and that of his buddy. She opened up the loading breach, and dropped one of the rockets in.
She'd never fired a missile launcher before. While serving with the Boomslangs, she'd often observed them being used by a team of two, due to the difficulty of firing and reloading. She suddenly wished she'd brought Minhelm, or Angela, or any of them.
A muddled, dark shape appeared in the dirty window as Raege stood in the middle. She gulped. They'd found her.
The gunship was watching her, guided by its auspex. Raege tightened her fingers around the grip of the launcher's trigger. She knelt down, supporting the weapon over her left shoulder, steadying her aim as best as she could with the massive power fist on her right hand without blocking her vision.
She fired.
The rocket sprang from the barrel, leaving Raege surrounded by a massive cloud of exhaust fumes, then it smashed through the window, shattering the pane near-instantly. Next, it hit punched through the cockpit canopy of the Vulture, at which point it detonated. The gunship tilted backwards, reeling from the explosion, and then, as the engine's intake failed, it tilted further and began to fall. It made a whole circle, then crashed into the front of the building on the opposite side of the street, which took off its tail, and sent glimmering specs of glass mixed in with bits of scrap metal raining down. It came apart in a blaze as soon as it hit the ground.
The black smoke of the wreck was wafting up to Raege's level as a fourth Vulture appeared now. She'd already begun reloading before the gunship's autocannon barrels started spinning. She lifted up the launcher again, remaining impossibly calm as the other glass panes shattered, and the walls beside her were dotted with holes from the autocannon bullets. She tightened her grip. She fired.
The missile bounced, harmlessly, off the fuselage, and then spiralled away into the side of a building, where it exploded, shattering the closest row of windows.
Raege cursed her luck, and made a dash down the hall to the right, narrowly dodging bullets. At one point, she lost her balance and landed on her leg, but quickly recovered. The firing continued a few minutes, a few shots managing to punch through the wall, and then, eventually, the autocannon ceased altogether. As Raege passed down the next corridor, she stopped to catch her breath and reload. As her adrenaline rush began to slow down, she became aware of a distinct pain in her outer thigh. She looked down. A shard of glass glimmered back at her, covered with thick, dirty blood. Her stockings were stained almost completely as well.
Instictively, Raege pulled the thing out, which only brought about more pain and more blood. She breathed hard, then went back to loading the next rocket in. Her last one. She couldn't go back for more, because that damned gunship was out there.
She could hear that thing, waiting, still following her, watching for her next move.
That angered her, and so, she decided, it had to end. She was suddenly filled by a renewed willingness to fight. She stood back up. She began to run, ignoring the pain in her thigh, in addition to that which had formed in her shoulder and arm as she fired the heavy weapon. The sound of the gunship's jet remained constant. The outside walls were following the pathways she went along. Any minute now, she would likely come to another set of windows...
There, at the next turn. She could see it, the light of the outside, against the shadows cast by the walls of the interior. She could now hear that damned thing even more clearly.
She hefted up the launcher over her shoulder, and charged. As she came to a stop in front of one broken pane, the gunship bounced up in front of her. It began firing again with its heavy bolter, creating a terrifying roar as the massive rounds smashed through everything they touched, but ultimately, the Commissar was still left standing.
Raege fired the missile.
It flew, straight into the intake fan. The results were instantaneous; the engine exploded, and then the rest of the gunship detonated. It fell to the ground as a massive fireball, crashing loudly and cracking the pavement.
The scream of jets had finally stopped. The Commissar sighed with relief, sliding down to the floor, her back against the wall. This, she decided, was a career opportunity worth holding onto.
A cultist appeared to the right, dressed in green flak armor, covered in disturbing markings, with a las gun in his hands. Raege had no time to pull her autopistol out.
The cultist took aim at her.
His head exploded in a pink vapor.
Raege looked down the left side of the hall.
Major Zune Lockwood stood at the corner, her face and clothes dirty, toting her hellgun like one of the poster boys from the recruitment images. "Sorry I'm late, had to make a run through the sewers. Heard your signal a ways off."
Raege nodded her head. "Good thing you got here when you did."
"Sure as hell, a good thing. Oh come on, the least you could do is smile for me!" Zune laughed as the Commissar frowned. "Come on, Raege, let's get out of this damned pit."
The Commissar nodded, ignoring the lack of formality Lockwood displayed, and let the Major help her up, still carrying the launcher. All the way down to the main floor, she and the Major talked about how many honors one could get for destroying four Vultures.
A few weeks later, Inquisitor Tobias Levy sat down in the study of his estate on Scintilla, and read Commissar Raege's report. He smiled.
She would prove useful after all.
