Book Two: Corruption's End
Chapter 82: Seen and Unseen
"Lo there do I see my mother. Lo there do I see my father. Lo there do I see the Grey Angels." Ulra "She-Wolf" Beheshti on her deathbed, veteran of the Imperial Army, 1st Woadeshi Grenadiers
Silence. Serenity.
After the chaos of the excursion to the Black Library and acquiring an aura, these things were foreign to Amat. Though Yang made every effort to be with him, she was often busy training with her platoon, leaving him to meditate.
Pray. Reflect.
How long had it been since he'd been able to? Felt like years. Couldn't have been more than a couple months. The empty barracks he'd claimed for himself was truly his now. Canvases and easels were his only company, paints smeared across them.
The colors were… more vibrant than he was accustomed to, the prayers of a different nature. He was a psyker now. Now he dreamt. What terrible things they were, the nightmares. Mother was in many of them, sometimes in agony, sometimes jeering.
Cold. He felt cold. Huddling his precious jacket around himself, he hobbled over to his latest piece. Studying it, he realized he needed some darker colors to properly complete his work. That meant a trip to the holds.
Dressed as he was - with just his jacket and standard-issue fatigues - the only part of him that stood apart were the studs above his eyes. He sighed. Grabbing his crutches, he left his barracks, his pace awkward and fumbling. Part of him raged at the loss of his leg. What right did Yang have to sever it from him? What did she hope to accomplish?
He realized he was snarling, and shook it away. She was only trying to help.
The anger lingered.
That was the worst part. Was that really Amat? Could Amat feel resentment? He bit down the questions. It didn't matter.
Yes it did. She took your leg and made you a psyker like it would fix things. She saw.
"I'll get the leg back," he said to no one.
Why did his Lady have to choose him for this mission?
Because she knew you weren't like the others. She knew she could strip away the fog. The thought was his own.
Slowed by his newfound infirmity, he found himself studying the walls as he passed. Graffiti was common. Too common to enforce a ban. Most of it was uplifting fodder after all - quotes from scripture, stories of battle, memoirs to the forgotten.
He stopped.
A talented Woadian had drawn a pict of Yang with a halo around her head, a fiery grin on her face. The low gothic below it was rough and colored by the Woadian dialect, but it was decipherable. 'Heretics,' it read, 'I have come'. Another hand had added 'and so have I', other notes either agreeing with or admonishing the passage.
Amat pressed on. He was not in a well-traveled hallway, but the fact that the image still remained meant that the Woadians either protected it... or this was not the only copy. He wondered if the Woadian's Preacher knew of it.
The image was a falsehood. This he knew. Yang was no one to revere, a fact that he was very glad for. He could not fathom why that was so reassuring. He pressed on.
Bustling with camp followers and off-duty soldiers, the holds were an explosion of humanity, all crammed between four towering walls. They lived in ramshackle houses made from corrugated sheet metal and canvas dividers, crowded each other in impromptu streets that didn't have names.
Everything was for sale. Fried rats, child-rearing services, mementos, prayer papers, sex, songs, good luck charms, lho, pulpy novels with threadbare spines. No one looked at Amat twice.
He passed by a shrivelled Woadian, wheelchair-bound and regaling some Gartenwalders with tales of his homeworld. Beside him, another Woadian poured drinks for their guests. She was missing most of her left hand, and her left eye was covered by a strip of black cloth. Wrinkled patches of bolted-on replacement skin stretched across most of her scalp, neck and shoulder. She beamed, collecting the munitorum bills they slapped down.
Amat found the paints eventually, a collection of blacks and dark blues purveyed by a brusque Ranshan man with ink-stained fingers and a tangled black beard.
"What you want, tall-boy?" He demanded when Amat approached. The assassin pointed out what he wanted.
"Twenty bills," the store owner barked. "No discount for cripple, so sorry."
Amat said nothing, giving the man his money and bundling his purchase in an olive canvas satchel. He started back to his barracks before he passed by the retired Woadians' shop again. He stopped. He didn't know why.
"Care for a drink?" The burned woman asked. Amat thought for a moment.
"Sure," he said eventually. Haltingly. "You have beer?"
She grinned. "Something like it." Ducking into the shop, she called out to her crippled companion. "Theni! Get a table ready for our new friend."
"Can do Brídyé," the man said.
"Watch your tone!"
"Yes mistress!" He shouted back, grinning. Glancing at Amat, he gestured him to a table. There were only four, arranged into a slapdash patio. A small bar overlooked it, cut into the side of sheet metal. There was no menu.
Theni wiped down the table with a rag, though it was already spotless. "Here you go man," he said. "Got any friends joining you?"
"Just... me," Amat said.
"Bah," Theni said, waving his hand. "Nothing sadder than drinking alone. Mind some company?"
"You're not busy?" Amat said, nodding at the Gartenwalders.
"Nah, they're fine. I can barely keep up with their chatter, after all. Have you heard the way they mangle gothic? They sound so angry!" He laughed, slapping the table. "Come on, have a seat. Me and Brídyé might be a bit unsightly, but we won't bite."
"He's lying," Brídyé said, putting a cold glass of beer down before him. Amat thanked her.
"So where are you from?" Theni asked, leaning back in his wheelchair. "You look like a Gartener, but you don't have the accent." Retrieving a lho stick from within his jacket, he offered it to Amat.
The assassin thought of rejecting it, but realized he'd never tried it before. Hesitantly, he reached out and accepted the smoke. It was hand rolled. Not munitorum issue.
"I... " He hesitated, mind racing, lips working. Lying was difficult. Once impossible. "Used to be one of Colonel von Israfel's staff. Before Woadia."
"No shit?" Brídyé asked, holding out a lighter with her good hand.
"Oh, right." Amat said, placing the lho in his mouth and leaning forward.
"That's good stuff," Theni said, as the woman kissed a small flame to the end of the stick. "Ranshans can't speak gothic for shit, but they're pretty good at horticulture." He leaned forward, wearing a conspiratorial grin. "Just don't tell your old CO, huh?"
"I'm..." Amat hesitated. "Discharged," he tried, wiggling the stump of his leg. He sucked on the lho, unsure of what else to do. A coughing fit seized him immediately. How do people enjoy this? His throat burned, and it felt like someone had pressed a fresh-spent casing onto the back of his tongue.
"What's the matter?" Theni asked. "Never smoke lho before?"
Amat shook his head, still hacking into his fist. To quell the fire in his throat, he tried the beer. It was watery. He didn't like it. But it was cool, so he kept drinking it.
"What kinda regiment doesn't smoke lho?" Theni asked Brídyé, who shrugged. "Hell of a pull for your first time, friend. Gotta name?"
"Amat," Amat said, seeing no reason to lie.
"Welcome to our bar, Amat," Theni said. "The Drunken Major, after our dearly departed Hrakksson." He flashed the sign of Aquila with one hand, the other trembling as he shifted it into his lap. Nerve damage. "We can't live up to his brewing prowess, but we're doing our damnedest."
Taking the lho between his fingers as he'd seen Yang do, he tried smoking it once more, drawing it in carefully. Far less painfully than the first time, Amat felt the lho fill his lungs. It still burnt, still tasted terrible. Why do people enjoy this?
The answer came a moment later. A stab of euphoria spiked into his brain before settling into a pulsing wave of golden relaxation that bloomed behind his eyes and drew the hold into sharp relief. A narcotic.
Secondary and tertiary filtration organs activated, the pride of the Magos Biologis swiftly pushing back the gentle daze and refocusing him on the present. It barely took a second.
"Thanks," he said eventually, a languid cloud of smoke spilling from his lips.
"On the house," Theni said, waving his thanks away. "So, Israfel's old guard, huh?"
Amat nodded. "Reassigned to 5th Company. Lost my leg on Uriel," he lied. The jovial expressions of the scarred veterans fractured for a second.
"No one came out of that hellpit whole," Brídyé said. She waggled her mangled hand before combing back some patchy ice-white hair that fell into her eye.
"Xenos," Theni spat, once more making the sign of the aquila. "Heretics." He chuffed. "The Mechanicus. What a miserable fucking planet."
"The Rangers are hellacious fighters though," Amat said, feeling bad. He didn't know why. They brightened at his words.
"Woadian bred, Emperor-blessed." Theni said, beaming. "At least we got to see the titan." Brídyé nodded.
Amat finished his beer, attempting to quench the fire that scoured his throat.
"Want another?" The woman asked.
"Sure."
"Careful now," Theni said. "Too much lho and too much drink will fuck you up."
Amat nodded. They didn't know that he'd probably have to suck ten lho sticks down to the filter and guzzle half of their amasec stores at the same time to achieve any kind of lasting effect. His body was built to resist tyranid venom - alcohol and lho were child's play in comparison.
But not summervine.
He bit his cheek to push the thought away. He tasted blood.
Brídyé put down another beer. It tasted just as bad as the last one. He couldn't remember having opinions like that before.
"Any good stories then?" Theni asked, shaking out a lho stick. His trembling hand curled into his wrist and shook violently. His smoke pattered onto the table, where Brídyé swiftly retrieved it for him. "Thanks," he muttered through his teeth. "Fuckin' g-goddamn," he added, staring at his seizing hand.
"Nothing too interesting," Amat said. Shouldn't I be going back to my barracks? He took another slow drag. "What about you?"
"First Company," Theni answered, his melancholy vanishing in a rush of pride. "Gamma Platoon. Held the gates at Shao-La, took Hill Thirty-Seven on Uriel. But I'm sure you've already heard the stories."
This time, it was Brídyé's turn to make the Sign of the Aquila. At this, Theni sighed, accepting a light from her once she'd finished.
"I wish you wouldn't," he said.
"You'll see," Brídyé said.
Amat watched them. Something was amiss. "Problem?" He asked carefully.
Theni gave him a wan smile. "Don't worry about it, friend."
Brídyé's tongue flicked over her lips. "It's…" she said. Theni shot her a look, but she ignored him. "We're in the Emperor's Grace." Quickly, she showed him a pendant that hung behind her aquila - a flaming heart.
Amat nearly choked on his beer.
"Our friend doesn't need to hear it," Theni insisted. "She's not like that."
"Yang," Amat said. It always comes back to Yang.
"Yes," Brídyé said. "She is our Guiding Light, Holy and Sacrosanct," she insisted, clutching her symbols.
Theni barked out a laugh, nudging Amat with a bony elbow. "I know you've heard the stories," he said. "But Brídyé's got it all wrong. Yang is blessed, no way around it. But she isn't some kinda saint."
"I agree," Amat said, before he could stop himself. Talking wasn't his specialty.
"See?" Theni said.
Brídyé shook her head. "She will show you. She'll forgive your transgressions."
"Yang drank like a fish," Theni said. "Never made it through Preacher Alvito's sermons conscious." He scoffed. "Her puns alone are proof there's nothing divine about her."
Amat allowed himself a momentary grin, taking another drag of lho. The taste was growing on him. That, or the smoke had seared away his taste buds. He liked the fleeting sensation it brought. It muffled the residual, uncomfortable and too-new throbbing of his aura.
"You know Yang?" Brídyé asked, her singular eye shining with hope.
"Yes." Amat said.
"Then please tell Brídyé she's an idiot. I wish I could say she was alone in her lunacy," Theni said. "But I can't."
"Is the Commissar's bolter not enough of a threat?" Amat asked. "You're not worried someone will see it as heresy?"
"Captain Ragnarsson saw her hair glow gold," Brídyé answered. "And Commissar Daniloft leads us in prayer."
Amat said nothing. If Yang could not conceal her aura, could he? What would happen if he couldn't? Will I be worshipped as well? An uncomfortable thought. He was… was Vindicare. Duty was patience. Duty was silence.
"I fought with her until Uriel," Theni said. "And I call groxshit. She's good at killing, sure, but the Imperium is hardly devoid of skilled soldiers."
"You didn't see the manufactorum on Uriel," Brídyé insisted. "Bodies by the hundreds. Your own Corporal said she went in alone!"
"Caolin will say anything that earns him the attention of an attractive woman," Theni grunted. Amat gathered that this was on old argument. "Besides, she is too prideful. Vain. Have you ever heard of an arrogant saint? What about one that cracks jokes so dirty that they'll curl the hair of a bald man?"
"Theni... has it right," Amat said, carefully brushing some ash into a proffered tray. His technique was unpolished, and the burnt lho fell unevenly. "Our company saw a lot of Our Lady. As her Representative, Yang was never far behind," he said, trying to lie as little as possible. "She is no Saint."
"Told you Brídyé," Theni said, shrugging. He received a two-fingered salute in response. "Any other stories you want to share about the most famous Trooper in the 111th? We didn't see too much of her during transit. Spent a lot of time with Our Lady, as I understand it."
Amat paused. "No stories," he decided. "Though I know her well. She's violent. Impulsive. Undoubtedly arrogant. Irreverent." He inspected his hand, now imbued with an aura. With psychic power. "Naive."
In his perfect memory, he saw her brandish a jacket with a woolen collar. Saw a hole in her stomach wide enough to fit his fist through. Saw her weep after a fight with the Lady Inquisitor. Felt blood-wet fingers glide against his bare skin. Saw her hand reach for his on a beautiful, moonlit night.
Brídyé blinked. "Huh," she said. "I… hm."
"You really do know her," Theni said. "Oh, and about the bill?"
"Right," Amat said, overpaying them. As soon as the paper hit the table, Theni handed it to Brídyé.
"Make sure this is stashed properly. Cleanest looking notes I've seen," he said. Wheeling his chair around to watch her leave, he wore a tight smile. "I'm sure you have your own reasons for lying," he said.
Amat said nothing.
"But I appreciate the effort with Brídyé. That kind of thinking is dangerous," he added, taking a drag. Once more, his hands shook uncontrollably, and he dropped the stick. Amat caught it before it could hit his lap, and waited for Theni's seizures to stop before returning it. It took awhile. "Thanks." Theni said. "Fucking xenos."
Amat finished his own lho. The pleasant after effects did not last long, but the burnt taste lingered. He wondered if he would have caught the smoke six months ago, or let it smolder in the veteran's lap.
"You don't seem overly concerned about being called out on lying," Theni noted.
"I'm not good at it," Amat replied. "I just…" he didn't know what to say. "I appreciate the drinks," he said eventually.
"Of course," Theni said. "You know, some of the Ranshan whisper about a shadow that came to Shao-la. A vengeful soul who sat in the belfry of their cathedral and delivered the Emperor's Justice. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
"No," Amat lied. Badly.
"Keep it that way," Theni said, massaging the aftershocks out of his seizing hand, "Our Lady grants us more freedom than any Inquisitor I've ever heard. But if we get any more of Brídyé's type, that might change. I didn't survive two weeks of unbearable agony and waste away to this state just for some Commissar to show up and press a bolt pistol to the back of my head. Though the Emperor knows I asked them to."
"Understood," Amat said. Why am I acquiescing to him? The thought came suddenly, forcefully. He's just some conscript from a backwater agriworld. You are Vindicare! Was. He reminded himself. "Sorry for disturbing your morning."
"Late evening for me," Theni said, still wearing his smile. "There's no such thing as day on the Dawn, eh?" He chuckled. "I'm sorry too. I'm sure you just wanted to come down for a few beers, not for some cripple to harangue you. You're welcome back anytime."
The apology was genuine. Amat didn't know how he knew that.
"I might," he said. Collecting his purchases, he waved to Brídyé and left.
As he left the holds, he found Theni's comment about 'late evening' to be accurate. A renewed energy seemed to fill the living space, a buzz of chatter and laughter as the day-cycle ended and the night life began.
Walking the ramshackle streets, he saw more Woadians come by to visit family or lovers, buy drinks and illicit homegrown lho. He felt their relief, felt their anxiety, felt them relax, felt it all in way he never could before. Everyone gave him a wide berth.
Do they know what I am? Can they sense it? Or are they just avoiding yet another cripple?
Once he was alone in the halls, he activated his aura. It wasn't easy. Though a sweat broke out on his forehead, a warmth filled him, a sense of safety. Silver light shone from his skin. A gift. A curse.
Both. Neither.
Shouting voices reached him, and he deactivated it immediately. Some Woadians turned the corner, out of breath, panting out a cadence as they sweat through their tank tops.
"Munitorum and Holy Terra," the chanted in unison, "Just want me a sweet chimera!"
They paid Amat no mind, but their numbers stopped him from progressing.
"Don't need no porn, don't need no lho, give me a lasgun and I'm good to go!"
White Horses would test them. Even if Josephus hadn't made it there yet, Amat knew he would eventually. How many Woadians were even left in the regiment? Two thousand? Three thousand? Amat wondered if there'd be any left.
The barracks was just as empty as he'd left it. It was quiet.
Setting his purchases down next to his easel, he stared at his latest work. It'd been troubling him for a while now. Ever since I was given an aura. He shook his head, ran his hand over the stubble that dusted his chin.
But auras aren't 'given', he recalled. Auras are unlocked, a latent power waiting to be unleashed. Does that mean that every human being is potentially a psyker? He shuddered and picked up his brush. Wet it. He unscrewed the cap on his new paints. The smell was familiar.
Heady. Welcome.
He resumed his work. It let him forget about his missing leg, about his aura. About the questions that assailed him. About the words Maion had whispered to him. Amat was glad to be among humans again. The Tou'Her were unlike other eldar, yet exactly the same. Humans were so much easier.
But no longer was he the silent observer, a shadow that stalked the halls. He walked among them, talked to them. They didn't know what he was. What he'd seen. They didn't seem to care.
His brush hesitated as the memories returned. The vision of Terra aflame. Yang corrupted. Mother, Palla. His own weakness. If I had been stronger, I wouldn't have needed an aura. The hand holding his brush glowed silver. It was warm. Within it, he could feel the pulsing power of his soul. He wiped his forehead.
A gift and a curse. The Tou'Her said nothing of it, but he knew that their souls were closely eyed by She-Who-Thirsts, their souls all the brighter for their foreign… flavor. And now he was the same.
No.
But he was no longer Vindicare. He was Amat.
So what does that mean?
His painting stared at him. It was the first one that was not a prayer. It was troubling him. Did I really need new paints, or was I simply delaying the inevitable?
Why was this so difficult?
The silvered edge of his soul did not provide an answer. Closing his eyes, he redirected it, felt the power surge from one end of his body to the other. Felt it as it warded him against the dark. It was difficult. It was all so alien.
Does anything have to be different? Can't I just keep living for Emperor and Imperium? His canvas did not provide an answer. But he at last realized what was troubling him about it.
He'd never painted himself.
Yang was easy - she shone in his mind, clear and bright. 'Amat'… did not. What's to become of me? Will I be disposed of? Cast aside? He couldn't help but think of such measures as wasteful.
Gently, he pressed his brush to the canvas. Recognizing the problem was the first step to solving it. He continued his work. Patience is always prudent, he reminded himself. Perseverance is blessed by the Emperor. The answers would come in time. Yang would help. His Lady would help. But help was all they could do.
He deactivated his aura, let it fade away. Without it, the barracks seemed empty and barren.
Amat realized that he didn't miss the quiet at all.
"Again!"
Once more, the cries and grunts of fifty-two Rangers filled the great hall, now on their fifth hour of training. Yang noticed them flagging, but no one protested.
"You're slow, Mael!" She said, watching him pin a struggling Gartenwalder - a new addition to Gamma by the name of Dieter Sparlich. "Sparlich," she continued, "he didn't cover his crotch! Failure to capitalize on that will get you killed!"
Sparlich cursed under his breath and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. A half foot taller than his Woadian comrades yet decidedly less muscular, he was impossible to miss - especially with his long, brackish-blond hair.
"We're just training, Sarge," he said.
"Well I don't give a shit," Yang said, helping him up from the cold metal floor. She raised her voice so the rest of Gamma could hear. "Mael got enough use out of his tool, and most heretics would be happy to mount it on a stick… or something equally horrific. You fight like you train, and if you don't train like you're going to kill, you're going to die."
One of the first maxims she learned at Signal.
Sparlich cursed again and muttered an apology. "It's weird, is all. We didn't learn this in RIP."
Yang was already well aware of RIP's relative deficiencies regarding melee combat, and decided to rectify the problem with some martial arts from Remnant's top Huntsman academies. Though many of Gamma likely survived their frequent enemy contacts due to Jorvis' additional melee drills - his experience with a chainsword came from a place of practicality, after all - Yang knew that basic bayonet practice and hand-to-hand wouldn't cut it anymore.
No one questioned the forms they learned. None of them could know they were learning martial arts from another universe. Most assumed it was some Cadian school of combat. She let them believe that.
"Again!"
They sparred once more. They were too rigid for her liking. Every member of Gamma was a quick learner, but they learned like Imperials - there was no room for improvisation or deviation.
"Shen-se!" She barked at a Ranshan addition. "Did the Munitorum give you your spear back?"
He blinked, his golden, almond-shaped eyes searching for the correct response. A veteran of the Siege of Shao-la, he'd been cut down by lasfire when the gate was breached. One of a handful of Captain Dao's surviving men. He'd clung to life even as a tidal wave of heretics trampled over his apparent corpse before he was eventually brought to a Woadian aid station.
"N-no, Sergeant," he said, his gothic halting and careful. He spoke it poorly, without a hint of confidence.
Yang tried to be careful with him - he wasn't here by choice. When the Woadians were lifting off, Shen-se wasn't in a condition to go back to Shao-la… so he came with.
"Then why are you trying to keep your opponent three yards away?" Yang asked.
"So sorry, Sergeant," he said, wiping at his brow with his tank top. As his shirt lifted, she saw why he'd earned the nickname 'Shiny' - the lasbolt that struck him had hit his cuirass, the primitive metal armor exploding under the heat and leaving him riddled with metal fragments. Some embedded in the surface of his skin and held fast, a violent pattern of steel and scars that stretched from his flank to his neck.
"Just because she has a metal arm doesn't mean she's invincible," Yang added, hauling Asgeg up from the floor. "Again!"
They took to Yang's drills decently enough, despite their tendency to do everything by-the-book. She'd had them at PT from 1330 to 1800, with firing drills, reloading drills, formations, and martial arts later in the day.
Yang was not like Ruby, Ros, or Jorvis. She wasn't a born leader, she didn't know the right thing to say at the right time, didn't know how to live up to the way they looked at her. In lieu of that talent, rigorous training would have to suffice. Even though it'd only been a week since her return to Gartenwald, she'd thrown herself into her new role. There was a lot more to being a platoon leader than pious, inflammatory speeches and getting everyone pointing their lasguns in the right direction.
She studied vox codes and transmission protocols with Kalla, coordinated drills with other platoons. Learned how to delegate tasks to Caolin and protect the 111th's standard at all costs. The duty of bearing it fell to Lorl.
Her days were full, but she relished in the busywork. Took her mind off the Black Library, the dreams where the traitor marine kept punching. Off Amat. She knew she couldn't keep putting off a long talk with him, but broaching the subject filled her with dread. Getting shut down wasn't her greatest fear - she knew reciprocation was a dim hope - but she didn't want to lose him as a friend by making things weird.
"Again!" She cried.
There was also the matter of her psykery. She meditated, practiced, spun golden flame from her hands in the safety of Amat's barracks. And as helpful as Garnet's teachings had been, she still found it… difficult. There was something impeding her, something that held her back when she plunged her mind into the whorling madness of the Empyrean. Something that kept her away from the radiant light of the Astronomican. It wasn't malicious.
It's just… me.
"We're good for today everyone!" She called eventually. "Get some water, take a shower unless you enjoy smelling like shit. Dinner's at nineteen hundred. Oh, and weekend service is tomorrow, so get your sinning in tonight," she added, grinning.
Sighing in collective relief, they took a few minutes to catch their breath before heading back to the barracks block. Yang took a swig of water from her canteen, satisfied with the day's progress. She'd wanted to teach her comrades in the Guard some Remnant moves for some time, but always found an excuse not to.
Maybe if you had, Ros would still be here.
The thought was unwelcome, and quickly squashed. I wasn't in a good place when I got here. Not in the right frame of mind. But now she was responsible for more than just Ros. And she knew not all of them would make it back from White Horses. That was the cold reality. It was her taking the person she used to be and fusing her mouth shut with a lasgun.
A grim image, but a fitting one. I was stupid to promise Ros something like that.
But ever since speaking with Pyrrha, Yang realized she was still glad she did it. Even if it was just for a few months, she bought Ros some peace, a measure of reassurance. In the Imperium, you couldn't ask for more.
"First Sergeant Xiao-Long!" The now-familiar voice of Commissar Neuhoff called. He stormed towards Gamma's corner of the hall, his posture impeccable, his face splotchy from exertion.
"Commissar present!" She cried. Gamma snapped to attention, saluting stiffly. Shen-se was slow - Ranshan salutes were a bow and a fist against the breast - but he was getting better.
"At ease," Neuhoff said. "May I speak with you privately, First Sergeant?"
"Of course," Yang said, puzzled. Usually, the Commissar addressed them all as a platoon, and didn't single her out for anything. She resisted the impulse to ask 'what's wrong', though the words were already in her mouth. That's not a question a Sergeant asks.
As Gamma shuffled back to the barracks block, Neuhoff took her aside.
"You've been summoned," he said simply.
"Longi-" Yang stopped herself. "Colonel von Israfel again?" She asked.
"No," Neuhoff said wheezily, just as winded as the rest of the platoon. The image of him running through the Dawn's halls amused her. "Joint Task Force Command. They just got a transmission from the Lady Inquisitor. Sorry, the Lady Highest."
"The Lady what now?" Yang demanded, a little too loudly. She corrected herself and leaned forward. "Are we deploying?"
"As soon as the Lady Highest returns and more elements from Uriel's Fleets arrive," Neuhoff answered. "They won't deploy without their Archmagos Prime."
"So why do they need me?" Yang asked, trying to walk herself through all the new information.
"You're the Lady Highest's Representative, right? They want you to speak for her at the strategy meeting. Her missive mentioned you specifically."
Yang blinked. "Well fuck me."
A/N: Five chapters left until the end of Book 2! We're getting there folks. I hope you guys enjoyed a brief look into what's going with Amat! Poor guy just can't catch a break - it'll take him a bit before he figures himself out, I think.
Next time, Yang's going to talk with some higher-ups. No way that can go wrong!
See you then!