Dellenger finally managed to step through the main doors of the medicae centre; his two-sized too large heavy boots echoed over the white tiles. The place was overflowing with bodies, but few of them were medicae staff, just more militia.
He'd bypassed the guards by claiming in a gruff voice his autogun had jammed and he needed to get another. The guards had spoken in a strange accent Dellenger had never heard before, guttural growling that made them sound like phlegm was permanently lodged in their throats, a way of talking Dellenger struggled to emulate, his throat still hurt from only saying a few paragraphs. This concerned him more than he could say, even beyond the implication of a Chaotic nature. The agents he'd encountered and killed sounded nothing like them; could they be from another faction? Yet another faction lodged in this complex web of schemes and secret wars.
This was the new form of war he was now partaking in. He'd forgotten that he'd fought in a similar world a long, long time ago as Adrassil, the now legendary mercenary. Dellenger hoped one day he could get his friend Tathe to believe him; he needed someone to believe him. Tathe had reminded Tathe so much of his long, long-lost friend Prince Royd, especially when he was a young, "hardline" cadet-commissar when the Velrosian 1st and the rest of the Elbyran contingent were established decades ago.
The images of young Royd Antares flashed through his mind. Adrassil. Rotasia and Royd sat at a fire; Royd had his arm over his future wife's shoulders as they laughed at some joke Adrassil couldn't remember. Royd's always unkempt; thick brown hair blew in the breeze. Then Adrassil was fighting alongside Royd; Adrassil's spear stabbed and swung through the mass of Marangerian soldiers in front of them as Royd's longsword cut soldier after soldier down, his sword a blur of speed and skill.
Dellenger's memories were smashed away as someone bashed into him. Thankfully, whoever it was just moved on, but it made Dellenger blink; now was the last frigging time for him to get lost in long-lost memories of a friend who'd died too soon and too young, even if it was a fated death, a death made in the most ultimate of sacrifices.
Dellenger walked on and glanced at the nearest sign, trying to seem indistinct. It had three arrows; one pointed to Patient Rooms, one to Operation Rooms, and the last to Emergency Rooms.
The Patient Rooms was most certainly what interested him the most, even though with all the people in quarantine, the other areas were likely stuffed with patients as well.
Dellenger smoothly turned and started onwards, but he paused as a strange, dirty, rusty metal pipe running on the wall above him caught his eye. It was a stark contrast to the clean white surroundings of the medicae facility. Dellenger was no builder, but it seemed the pipes had been roughly jury-rigged in not long ago. Where the pipe turned into the wall, the hole sawn through the wood was splintered and uneven.
As Dellenger looked, a slurping, gurgling sound filtered through the pipe and into his sensitive ears. The sound alone instantly made him want to throw up into his stinking, too loose mask, but Dellenger fought it back and swallowed down the bile that flooded his mouth.
'Hey!' growled a voice that made Dellenger look to its source. Moving through the flood of bodies was another Militiaman. He towered over everyone, even the other militiamen, especially Dellenger. 'You there, what are you doing? You can't just be standin' around; get back to your post!'
Dellenger grunted to roughen his throat; he had to assume this was a mid-level or maybe even senior leader of sorts, but it was hard to tell; all of these masked militiamen looked the same. 'I ain't, sir, sorry, sir. Just my autogun jammed, and I gotta get another one from the armoury and-'
'Quit ya damn excuses. Ya tellin' me ya don't know how to unjam your damned weapon?'
'Nuh, uh, sir, I-'
'Just shut it!' snarled the officer. 'And hurry and get another one; when ya off patrol duty, I'll have ya on Ecclesiarchal duty, ya complete useless nuckin' fool.'
Dellenger saluted sloppily and turned to go, but the officer's inaudible bark stopped him. 'Where ya going ya nuckin' fool? The armoury is this way!'
The officer indicated the main corridor as he simmered with anger.
'S-sorry, sir!' said Dellenger as he began to jog, and as he passed the leader, he smacked him over the side the head, making the mask slip forwards, covering Dellenger's eyes and almost causing him to crash into a medicae staffer.
The officer boomed a laugh as Dellenger readjusted the mask. 'Nuckin' stupid head.'
Dellenger wanted to point out that if anyone was a "Nuckin' stupid head" for not being the least bit suspicious about a militia man who didn't know where the armoury was, or at least Dellenger hoped he wasn't.
As he jogged, Dellenger couldn't help but look back at that strange pipe again; those things seemed to run throughout the facility. Dellenger didn't like this; he didn't like this at all.
Attelus had underestimated how many levels he had to descend before finding the bottom floor. The corridor did loop around, but the staircase was only a few metres down, and that corridor also looped around the whole building, and so did the next one, then the next one. All of them had those same wooden doors in the interior walls. He didn't know why they needed so many rooms; there must've been hundreds.
Attelus had to dodge six pairs of patrolling Sisters, which slowed his progress considerably. There was no sign of any other Throne Agents or other orders of the Adepta Sororitas.
All the while, Attelus had to fight from thinking about that girl, he'd already forgotten her damned name, but the image of her kept invading his thoughts like a virus.
He turned the corner of what he counted as the fifth floor down, and there he found a large pair of double doors instead of another staircase at the end of the corridor. There were no guards there, but there would likely be sentries on the other side.
Most certainly, knowing his luck, how he would bypass them, the Emperor only knew.
Attelus clenched his teeth as he approached the doors and activated his wrist auspex, and the screen showed...
Nothing, no life signs were on the other side, which made him reel with this revelation. But there was a quagmire of signals coming up from below him. So many it seemed like a blanket of white. This must've been where they were keeping the sick.
He was still trying to comprehend how there were no guards, that it took him quite too long to hear the heavy footfalls approaching his back.
Attelus slipped into a nearby alcove a split second before the patrolling Sisters were almost on him.
They stomped by, opened the doors simultaneously and stepped through the threshold. Attelus exploded from his cover and through the doors just before they slammed shit.
The Sisters were mere inches in front of him, their backs to him. Luckily for Attelus, the doors were designed to close on their own.
Another staircase dropped, but much further down and led to a frigging huge stained glass window that fell behind and below the stone floor, it seemed like a balcony of sorts, and there was no sign of anyone down there.
Attelus let the two Sisters step off the stairs before following after them, and when he emerged from the staircase, he found he was indeed on a balcony. A balcony a good twenty metres high overlooked a hall that took up the entire length and breadth of the building. Beyond that was another tremendous stained glass window which spread below the floor, as well as the smaller windows on the walls left and right sides. Attelus didn't know how many levels down these floors went, but from looking at how long those windows were from the outside, it could be three or four, and it'd leave plenty of height for the ground floor. The blanket of life signs on the auspex did not live up to the number of beds covering the floor below, so much it was almost impossible to make out any floor. All of them contained a figure under the blankets. Thousands of them, just on this floor alone.
'Holy frigging shit,' Attelus couldn't help hiss, the first words he'd uttered out loud for hours.
Then the gun barrel pushed against the back of Attelus' skull.
'Yes,' said the familiar resonant voice of the Catachan behind him. 'Yes, holy frigging shit, indeed.'
Tathe glanced at the glass cabinet, which contained a supposed shard of the power sword Drusus had apparently wielded according to the droning junior Ecclesiarch standing beside it. Tathe had wielded a power sword for many years, and it didn't look like it was from a power sword to him. Of course, he wouldn't point that out. Tathe had never been so bored in his life, and that was saying something; he regretted it to all hell and insisted on taking part in this assignment.
Trying to seem subtle, Tathe glanced about in an attempt to locate young Vex Carpompter among the pilgrims lined up behind him. Vex was a few metres away and, much to Tathe's frustration was failing miserably, at least pretending to seem interested. Tathe thought a Throne Agent, even one as young as him, would be at least a bit better at acting than this. Vex seemed like a temperament little bastard, so Tathe shouldn't have been surprised.
The Ecclesiarch had finished his spiel, so Tathe and his small group were ushered onwards as they did. Tathe caught Torris further ahead and was looking at him almost questionably. Tathe shook his head slightly. Arlathan and Karmen had been forced too far down the line to take the lead, so Torris was looking to him for leadership as the plan was intrinsic on Vex. Tathe rolled his eyes; he knew Interrogator Arlathan Karkin was jealous enough of him already, this despite Tathe trying his best to make the Interrogator know he wasn't trying to overshadow him, or whatever, that it wasn't his fault the Inquisitor was trying to flirt with him, and this will likely make it worse. But the mission always came first.
Tathe looked back to Vex, trying to catch the young Throne Agent's attention, trying to make sure militia around wouldn't notice him but feeling like he was failing badly.
After several minutes, Vex noticed. Tathe raised his eyebrow questionably, and Vex nodded slightly. Tathe then turned back to Torris, and he nodded. Tathe wished he was closer in line to Vex for this, but if needs must.
They came to the next cabinet, which seemed like it had a dataslate in it, which Tathe guessed was Drusus' during the Angevin Crusade or some crap; he could've easily put any old dataslate in there and claimed it was his. But that hardly mattered.
'Oh, God-Emperor!' Tathe cried out as loud as he could, causing everyone around him to look at him. Tathe raised his hands above his head. 'I feel his spirit in me! He is great! He is mighty!'
'What the frig are you on about!' Torris roared. 'You ain't worth shit! He's makin' it up! I'm the God-Emperor's chosen!'
Torris began to push his way toward Tathe, the big man easily knocking aside any pilgrims in his way.
'Please! Calm down!' cried the nearby priest. 'Just continue-'
'What!' shrieked a nearby woman. 'This man is having a Holy union with the God-Emperor, and you are trying to deny it!'
'I-' said the Ecclesiarch, but many of the people around drowned him out with "boos!"
Tathe began to pretend to start having a seizure. 'See? See! The God-Emperor is shining upon him!' yelled another pilgrim. 'He is blessed, and we are blessed to be here with him!'
The priest just stood gaping like an idiot. Meanwhile, Torris was making his way toward Tathe.
'That one is trying to hurt the Holy one!' yelled the woman from before. 'Stop him!'
A few pilgrims turned on Torris and tried to grab him, but the ex-arbitrator easily knocked them away. Most were thin and malnourished from their travels and probably weighed less than Torris' arms.
Tathe spun on his heels, his boots squealing on the tiles to check on what the guards were doing. They, too, stood, seeming bemused, even with their masks on and their attentions plastered on Tathe, to his relief.
Tathe pretended to have his eyes roll into the back of his head, which made the seizures worse. Then Torris' fist smashed against his face, sending Tathe flinging to the floor, making Tathe's world weave about, then go black.
The last thing he thought before unconsciousness overtook him was, Vex, you better have frigging managed to plant that damned thing.
'Hands up, slowly,' said the Catachan, and Attelus did as ordered, allowing the cameleoline cloak to fall off him. From his calculations of how far away the Catachan's voice was, the gun must've been a pistol, so his arm would be well within the range of his sword, but Attelus didn't want to risk it.
'It seems we have an interloper here,' said the Catachan, and Attelus heard the familiar sound of an activating vox-link. 'Mamzel Rilistil, I have found a little rat that's managed to get its way in. Send up a squad. We're on the balcony on the third floor.'
Attelus heard a murmuring reply.
'Yes, he's managed to get in, and, yes, I will find out how,' said the Catachan. 'Just hurry it up.'
Then he cut the link.
'H-how?' said Attelus.
'How did I find you?' said the Catachan. 'Now why in the God-Emperor's name would I tell you that? All that matters is that you're caught now, little man, and whatever reason you are here for is over. Now, who are you?'
'Not an enemy.'
The Catachan snorted. 'Oh yeah? You sneak on in here like a spy or an assassin and have the audacity to say you're "not an enemy"? Do you think I'm one of those stereotypical Catachans? All muscle except for the one between my ears?'
'N-no,' said Attelus. 'You managed to get the drop on me, so of course, I don't think that. It's just the truth. I swear.'
Attelus wanted to point out he could probably draw his sword and cut the Catachan in two before he could even consider pulling the trigger, but he hadn't done it yet, but that'd just sound arrogant and combative even if it were true.
'I'm going to reach into my jacket,' said Attelus. 'Please just hold back and-'
The doors above them slammed open, and the stomping of power armoured feet descending the stairs echoed through the cavernous room, making Attelus look over his shoulder.
The old Canoness Sister stepped into view as she and a ten-woman squad fanned out, bolters raised. One of them was the girl who looked just like Elandria, and Attelus found his eyes plastered on her, turning to look at her. She was beautiful, so beautiful. Her large hazel eyes met his, and there they stayed; there was no recognition in her gaze, just indifference.
'Eyes forward,' said the Catachan and Attelus managed to tear his gaze away.
'Is this the rat?' said the Canoness. 'This little man?'
'Yeah, I think it's him, pretty sure it ain't me. Unless there's somethin' you know, I don't know.'
The Sister barked out a laugh. 'Smart arse. Now, what are you doing? Sneaking onto this most holy of spaces, boy? Pick your words carefully, or you will burn in Holy fire.'
Now glad that his back was to her, Attelus couldn't help but roll his eyes; he would likely burn no matter what he said or how he said it. 'I'm investigating into the disease infecting this planet,' he said. It was the truth, half of it anyway.
'Investigating for whom?' said the Sister.
'I was about to answer that before,' said Attelus, hoping he managed to keep his annoyance from his voice. 'I'm going to reach into my jacket pocket; please do not shoot me.'
'What for?' said the Sister.
'The answer to your question,' Attelus said through gritted teeth. 'I'm going to do it now.'
So with slow, deliberate movements, Attelus took out his sigil and held out his hand, allowing it to dangle from his hand on its chain.
'Hmm,' said the Catachan, but he sounded about as interested as if he was looking at a brick wall. 'A junior Rosette of the Ordo Hereticus and looks pretty real to me.'
'The Witch Hunters?' said the Canoness. 'We are the militant arm of the Ordo Hereticus; why did you feel you needed to enter here clandestinely? Did you think us potentially guilty of something? Who is your master, little acolyte of the Inquisition?'
'I'm a Throne Agent,' Attelus couldn't help correct. 'My master is going to come down here, but she sent me down first to gather intelligence first, and she is Inquisitor Jelcine Enandra of the Ordo Hereticus.'
There was a pause.
'You say that name as if it is meant to mean something to me,' said the Canoness. 'Never heard of her, and I do not like her already. Sending one of her "Throne Agents" down to investigate us instead of just coming here herself. I do not appreciate that.'
'Hmm,' said the Catachan. 'I understand such tactics myself, and he might've got through your defences if it wasn't for me.'
'Yes, yes,' sighed the Canoness. 'I will make sure to place all the Sisters on patrol on the upper floors on punishment detail for their incompetence.'
'Nah,' said the Catachan. 'I stalked this boy, and I can say it wasn't because of your Sister's incompetence he got past, but due to his competence.'
Attelus couldn't help but feel a rush of pride well in his chest at the compliment; It Still didn't make it any less shitty that he'd been caught already.
'Thank you for the advice, Trooper Goruan, but I will be the judge of that!' snapped the Canoness. 'Sister Satiristine and Sister Roliriss, you will go with Trooper Goruan to escort this little fool to the dungeons, then take guard duty. We will question him later.'
Attelus couldn't help but stiffen as he remembered Satiristine was the name of the Sister who looked like Elandria. Did the Canoness notice he was interested in her and did that on purpose? It was very likely; she certainly didn't seem stupid, besides believing "faith" will make these people well. Or, perhaps, she was in league with Serghar Kaltos and placed his agent near him, just in case.
'The rest of you!' snapped the Canoness. 'Onto cleaning duties and repentance! Never again shall an infiltrator bypass your sight again!'
'Yes, mamzel Canoness!' the Sisters exclaimed as one, and their enthusiasm for such a mundane task was one of the most alien things possible to Attelus' very being. Attelus looked over his shoulder, trying to find the Elandria girl again.
'Satiristine and Roliriss, get these weapons off him,' said the Catachan. 'And keep your hands up and your eyes forward, Throne Agent of the Ordo Hereticus, the Sisters ain't here for you to gawk at.'
'They aren't here for you to frig, either,' said Attelus.
The Catachan laughed heartily at that, much to Attelus' shock. 'Ahh, ya got me there, son. Ya got me there.'
