Author's Note: Hello again! I'm back, bringing another hefty installment from the Imperium's perspective. I must thank all of you for your patience. I know the delays must seem pretty outrageous, but this story is only ever hibernating, not dead—I'm sticking to it! Posting should be erratic but non-zero for the foreseeable future.


Aboard the Absolution, 2.41 AVY:

Small craft swarmed like carrion flies around the carcass of the enemy warship. Lacking its command tower, and with great chunks of hull blasted away, it was just a jagged grey wedge floating helplessly in the skies above Graval Prime. But it was not wholly derelict; some sections, Zara Kentarian had been told, remained pressurized, and within those sections were still-living interlopers from beyond Imperial space.

Inquisitor Miletus stood beside her at the window. The pane of glass reached high above their heads, terminating in a pointed arch near the distant ceiling. Decorative metal cherubim and Astartes flanked the view, every figure lavishly detailed in gold filigree—embellished for its own sake.

"I have been in contact with the recovery crew since we entered realspace," Miletus said. "A month ago they completed their sweep of the interior, with the aid of servo skulls and a Navy breaching team. Most of the heretics surrendered without a fight."

Zara nodded. She glanced from the stricken ship to the planet below, where an expanse of grey slag blotted the otherwise green-brown surface, and a haze of atomized crust tinted the atmosphere a sickly orange. Such devastation. The enemy had unleashed a partial Exterminatus upon an unsuspecting world, and they would have finished the job, too, if not interrupted by the heroic efforts of Commodore Lepidus and his small fleet.

"They are human? Nothing abnormal about them?"

"Seemingly. Medical examinations have shown them to be almost identical to us, save for the addition of a minor organ and a slightly different immune response. Given the prevalence of abhumans within the Imperium alone, it's a surprise they weren't more different."

"So then the Ordo Xenos will have no business here. The case is ours."

Miletus stepped away from the window, inviting Zara to walk beside him down the Absolution's long port-side viewing gallery.

"They will still try to stake a claim. Word has it that Inquisitor Hera Mazhar and her retinue are on their way to do just that. They are perhaps a week out, but it's hard to say, the Warp being what it is."

A servo skull hummed far behind them, faint at first but rapidly growing in volume. Zara turned and saw the device speeding down the length of the hall. Even in power armor, she would have taken a minute to walk the distance it covered in three seconds. The pitch rose as it drew closer, then diminished again as it slowed to a halt, as smoothly as if it were fixed to an invisible rail. An arm protruding from the side held a scrap of yellowed parchment.

"Ah," said Miletus, grabbing the parchment, which popped loose as soon as he gave it a small tug. "My favorite servo skull. It once belonged to Xua Kichir—a Throne Agent in my retinue, and the sector's leading expert on the cults of the Dark Prince. Even in death, she serves me and the Imperium."

Zara looked into the dark, dusty sockets where Kichir's eyes had long ago rotted away. When she died, her highest ambition was to be canonized as a minor saint, and have her bones scattered around reliquaries for pilgrims to marvel at—to be recycled into a servo skull would not be her first choice.

She remained silent as Miletus took out a pair of reading glasses and puzzled at the text. It was an ornate form of High Gothic calligraphy, the kind servitor-scribes produced day and night, sometimes individually and sometimes by the thousands in tall, dusty halls across the Imperium. Whole industries existed just to provide the necessary tonnes of ink. But Zara was a writer herself, and she knew the servitor script, though technically precise, was an artless fabrication.

"What does it say?" she asked.

Miletus scrutinized the slip, furrowing his scarred brow, then slipped it into a pocket of his finely adorned jacket.

"Well," he said, "Speak of Horus. The Warp is a fickle thing, Palatine, and it will thwart the plans of men with almost conscious malice—its eddies have just spat out Inquisitor Mazhar's ship. She is at the Mandeville point and heading inwards."

"That gives us only a few hours."

"Correct. We must hurry. We have only so much time to collect what data we can, without the interference of a hostile Inquisitor." Miletus drew a portable vox-caster and spoke into it. "In thirty minutes I need a shuttle fully equipped and ready for launch. Yes, we are boarding ahead of schedule." He looked up at Zara. "Which of your sisters would you like to bring? My lieutenant can probably get the message to them fastest."

Her own, weaker vox-caster, unattuned to the Absolution's net, was unlikely to carry through a kilometer of solid starship, so he was probably right.

"Ojori and Azlant. They're among my most reliable."

Miletus nodded. "The Palatine requests Sisters Ojori and Azlant aboard the shuttle. Yes. Excellent. The Emperor protects."

The thought occurred to her: if he had the comm-link, what in the Emperor's name was the point of the servo-skull and the parchment? But the ways of the Inquisition were not always obvious, and Zara knew better than to ask.

They walked back the way they had come. Miletus moved briskly, fast enough that his green cape caught air, and kept his eyes fixed forward, slightly down, gazing through the floor and perhaps a hundred decks and into the vacuum of space. One did not become an Inquisitor without seeing further than most.

"Tell me about Inquisitor Mazhar," Zara said. "What do we have to fear from her?"

Miletus' eyes narrowed. "Mazhar is aggressive. Very ambitious. She made a name for herself seventy-five years ago, working as a young Inquisitor in the Calixis Sector, investigating the foul sorcery of the hated Rak'Gol; rumor has it that she used an entire Imperial Guard regiment as bait to draw the creatures out."

"Emperor protect us—really?"

"Well, it is a rumor." He grinned, but the muscles on his face didn't quite move right. Perhaps that long, ancient scar had severed some of them. "Remember, Palatine, the universe is a vast and fearsome place—I suspect today will deliver us greater worries than a rival Inquisitor."

Zara turned her head towards a passing window, and scrutinized the crippled vessel floating outside. Beneath the battle damage it was a brutally utilitarian design. There were no artistic indulgences, no statues or arches or stained-glass windows—this ship was the product of an efficient mind. An alien one, no matter what the geneticists said.


They went aboard with a party of four. While the Inquisitor had his usual retinue aboard the Absolution—Zara had met a tech-priest, as well as an elite guardswoman—in his judgment they were not as useful as a few handpicked Battle-Sisters by his side, and he'd elected to bring only Zara, Ojori, and Azlant.

The derelict ship loomed large on their approach, visible through a small window on the far side of the shuttle's cabin. Zara pressed close to the glass and tried to take in as much as she could. Up close, the warship's battered hull seemed downright tortured. The shells of the Imperial Navy had torn through its flimsy armor plating and spread devastation across deck after deck. In a few places, salvage crew in void suits prodded the wounds, shining luminator beams into vast, dark chasms of metal. Shuttles and assorted small craft hovered nearby, supporting the operation.

Zara briefly wondered if it was all for show. The enemy ship had been here for nearly two months, after all, more than enough time to get through all basic investigations, and without approval from a higher authority, such as Miletus, the salvagers ran the risk of tech-heresy if they proceeded any further. Most likely the team had been idle for some time, then ordered out at the last minute to put on an industrious face for the Inquisition.

While Sister Azlant remained seated, reading assiduously from a prayer book, Sister Ojori did not take long to appear at Zara's side, angling for a look out the window. She was a short woman with a plump face and dark brown skin; tattooed on one cheek was the fleur-de-lis, on the other a quotation from the martyred Saint Katherine. As an elite Celestian, part of Zara's understrength command squad, she had fought alongside the Palatine through all the thorniest engagements of the past three years. Sisters like her were limited-issue. Zara smiled at her, then stepped back and returned to her seat.

"A satisfactory view?" asked Miletus, seated across from her, glancing up from a data-slate.

Zara nodded. "Our brothers and sisters in the Navy certainly gave them a good pounding."

"According to Commodore Lepidus' report, their ships appeared extremely vulnerable to macro-cannon shells. Yet their weapons were strong and rapid-firing, and when the tide of the battle turned, they were able to make an immediate Warp transit—without even having to reach the Mandeville Point. We face an enemy that may be very well suited to hit-and-run attacks."

"Like the perfidious Eldar, then. Fast and deadly, but fragile." She had never fought the Eldar, but she had read books referring to their sleek, high-speed craft, and the unparalleled agility of their warriors.

"There's a similarity, perhaps." Miletus frowned, his gaze momentarily far-off, then absorbed himself again in his data-slate, and Zara spent the short remainder of the trip alone with her thoughts.

Their shuttle decelerated with small, quick bursts as it made its final approach. Ojori returned to her seat. Sister Azlant muttered another prayer. Outside the window, a thin sliver of black gave way to grey, and not long afterwards metal clanked loudly on the hull, the sound of an enormous claw grabbing hold of it. Zara was jolted from side to side by a series of erratic, truncated motions. Then, she heard a greater rumble of machinery from somewhere further away—and a hiss of air.

The main door swung downwards at the front of the cabin, beneath the elevated cockpit. It came to rest with a thud and provided a ramp for them to walk down. Outside stretched the grey confines of a hangar, smaller than most Imperial ones and crowded with crew and cargo.

"Here we are," Miletus said, the first to rise from his seat. He straightened out his cape, reset the gold braids and medals adorning his green jacket, and positioned the Inquisitorial Rosette squarely on his chest—the Imperium's most fearsome badge of rank. As he left the shuttle cabin, Zara wordlessly took her place behind him and to his right, while Ojori and Azlant trailed further back.

All around, salvage crew halted their work and stared their way. To the average citizen, Inquisitors were more myth than fact, and Sisters of Battle were not a common sight, either. It felt more than a little satisfying to impress the people who were already picking apart an alien warship. Zara allowed herself the faintest trace of a smile as she walked down the ramp, her bolter low but ready.

"Inquisitor Miletus!" called out a middle-aged woman, garbed in a plain, functional tunic, rushing at a light jog towards the shuttle. She skidded to a halt on the hangar's smooth deck and breathed just a little heavily. "Welcome aboard. I'm Commander Ilse Jörn, Imperial Navy, head of the salvage operation here." She made the sign of the Aquila. "It's, uh, an honor, Inquisitor."

Miletus stepped off the bottom of the ramp and nodded at her, while Zara's Sisters formed up close behind. "Yes. I have read your reports, Jörn, they are most detailed."

"There is much to say. Yet we have just scratched the surface." She motioned for them to follow. Around them, the hangar returned to a busy but hardly frantic level of activity, Navy crew hauling crates while warrant officers barked orders. A few groups of tech-priests conversed in their strange binary tongue. Jörn cut a path past the thickest concentrations of people, leading towards a broad, open doorway. A few lights flickered overhead. "We are in the secondary hangar now. This ship has a much larger docking bay, further aft, carrying all manner of strike craft, but it was badly damaged during the battle."

"How much of the vessel remains intact?"

They entered a wide corridor. Bulkheads protruded every few meters, like the ribs of a snake, and the main illumination came from vertical strips, perfectly flush with the walls. A few panels had been removed, but nobody was around to work on the electronics beneath.

"Well, about thirty percent of the vessel remains pressurized, according to the latest estimates. Structurally it's in one piece, of course, with the exception of the command tower and parts of the superstructure. We have explored large habitable areas in this forward zone and the port side near the stern." Jörn handed Miletus a dataslate. The two of them walked together, with Zara's team close behind. "Auspex scans suggest maybe twenty to thirty other, smaller pressurized regions, but the hull interferes with our sensors, and in any case we have limited equipment available to breach them. The crew there have most likely starved or run out of oxygen by now."

While the Inquisitor and salvage commander conversed, Zara turned her attention back to her Sisters. Azlant appeared calm and unperturbed, her gaze fixed squarely forward, but Ojori made no effort to hide her curiosity as she looked in every direction.

"First impressions, Palatine?" Ojori asked her, quietly.

Zara pursed her lips, thinking it over. The architecture here was… drab, for lack of a better word. Walls were walls and doors were doors, utterly without ornamentation, form and function indistinguishable. She tried to visualize this corridor as it had been in its prime; she took away the metal shards scattered across the floor, the scorch-marks from onboard fires, the scattering of bulky, humming equipment brought in by Imperial tech-priests, and beheld a vista of shocking sparseness.

"They are an efficient race," she told Sister Ojori. "Seemingly without any sense of aesthetics."

Ojori shook her head. "Minimalism would be their form of beauty. But it does raise interesting questions."

"Such as?"

"You and I have both fought plenty of heretics. When have the servants of the Ruinous Powers ever kept such clean and orderly surroundings? There are no bones, or graffiti, or blasphemous sigils—you'd think these people believed in nothing at all."

"Well. Heretics are heretics, no matter how you cut it."

"But they are not so corrupted as, say, the denizens of the Eye. Perhaps there is hope for some of them, should they open their hearts to the Imperial Creed."

"Perhaps." It seemed a distant prospect.

Zara realized, as she mulled it over, that the best comparison wasn't to the Eldar—it was to a faraway race on the Eastern Fringe, the T'au, against whom the Imperium had launched a crusade less than a hundred years before. Rumor had it that they too were a frugal and utilitarian people, using high technology that they did not treat with the proper reverence. It was said, also, that the T'au employed a scattering of humans within their empire—traitors who had abandoned the Imperial Creed for some twisted secular ideology, promises of equality, advancement, and the "Greater Good." This vessel bore no stamp of the T'au, but it seemed its makers harbored all-too-similar values...

Jörn stopped ahead of them. She gestured towards a doorway, flanked by two expressionless Navy troopers. "We have arrived at the first of the things I would like to show you today. It is… somewhat sensitive, and disturbing. I did not include the full details in my report."

Miletus nodded. "I shall decide if that was appropriate. Continue."

The Navy officer nodded at one of the guards, who turned and entered a code into the control panel by his waist. The door unlocked with a loud crack, then slid smoothly upwards, disappearing into its frame as if it had never been there. Jörn, Miletus, and Zara went through—Azlant and Ojori stayed in the corridor.

Inside, they found a small room cluttered with a tangle of cables and cogitators and power cells. The original lights were gone, but an Imperial-pattern luminator crudely affixed to the ceiling provided a warm orange glow, beneath which a solitary tech-priest labored away at some arcane task. On the table beside him was a construct of metal broadly resembling a human. Only the torso and head remained, while wires trailed from empty sockets for arms and legs. Some wires dangled freely and others connected to the tech-priest's strange apparatus.

Its face was a mockery of a person's. Two wide circular eyes, almost like groundcar headlights, and a narrow, immovable mouth. Large silvery plates covered its body, except for a gap at the waist.

"Magos Yalais," Jörn called out. "You have visitors."

Yalais looked over his shoulder, but did not deign to turn the rest of his body. He seemed to have an unnaturally long neck. Beneath a scarlet hood, nothing could be identified as human flesh—there were only three clusters of small green eyes, fixed in place above a confused mass of metal pieces that clicked softly like the mandibles of an insect. He said something in binary static. Then, in ordinary language:

"Welcome, Inquisitor Miletus. I apologize for the mess in here, but the Omnissiah rewards results more than neatness—and I have on my hands a very fascinating problem."

His voice sounded almost like a normal person's. It was even more unnerving than the monotone Zara had expected, given that he had no visible mouth.

"I can see that," Miletus said. He took two steps forward, as close to the table as he could get before he risked tripping over a cluster of power cells. "Is this their version of a servitor?"

"I was unable to find organic components of any kind." He finally pivoted to face them, his motorized chair whirring. Previously unseen mechadendrites emerged from behind his back and began plugging away at various switches and keypads around his station.

"Then it is their version of a robot," Miletus said. "Unless…"

"Show them, Magos," Jörn said.

Yalais nodded. The pointed end of a mechadendrite pressed an activation rune, on a console directly behind him, and immediately the machines around the room increased their tempo, whirring and humming and chirping. As for the automaton, its head twitched. Sparks shot from the stump of the left arm. Lights behind its round eyes flickered, then glowed steadily.

"Hello!" the thing said. Zara jumped. "I am L-Two-K-One, human-cyborg relations. How may I be of service?"

She dug her feet in and raised her bolter, ready to blast it to pieces with one straight shot to the chest. This was not like the brute automatons the Imperium begrudgingly used and disposed of. This was the dark heart of tech-heresy: an Abominable Intelligence. A memory darted to the surface—she recalled a late night, three years before, seated in the recesses of a candle-lit convent library, poring over a crumbling tome penned not long after the Emperor walked the galaxy. The text had referred to great and terrible beings known as the Men of Iron...

She muttered a prayer to the Emperor, asking His benediction against the evil in this room.

"It speaks Low Gothic," Miletus noted. Zara broke from her swirling thoughts and looked at him. There was no shock on his face. There was disgust, in the curl of his lips and the scorn in his eyes—but not shock.

The machine replied to him: "Yes indeed, sir! I am fully programmed in the languages and diplo—"

"Shut up!" With remarkable speed, the Inquisitor drew a power cutlass from the scabbard at his waist, and pointed its tip between the machine's eyes. "This thing speaks Low Gothic, Commander Jörn—do any others?"

"No. It's the only one," Jörn said. "When we first got aboard, none of the prisoners could understand a thing we were saying. It took a month to develop a workable translation matrix." She paused, then hastily added: "Though we've barely used it. We were, uh, waiting for you to arrive."

"Why haven't you destroyed this abomination, commander?" Miletus withdrew his sword and turned it, only slightly less threateningly, towards Jörn. The blood seemed to drain from her face. There was no standing up to a man with the Inquisition's sigil on his chest.

"Most of the automatons were purged immediately after boarding, Inquisitor. A few, such as this one, have been, uh, kept functioning, and under close guard, pending investigation by someone with, uh, sufficient standing. I did not feel that I had the authority to make a decision."

"You kicked the issue upstairs." Miletus shook his head, but his stance relaxed ever so slightly. He sheathed the cutlass. "All too common in this day and age. Nobody has initiative anymore—though perhaps your studies have already yielded useful insights. And you, Magos?"

Magos Yalais seemed unperturbed. "It is the position of the Adeptus Mechanicus that this technology merits further study. If we do not understand it, we will be defenceless against it."

"Hm. I have known many damned souls over the years, who said such things." He turned back to the Navy commander. "How many know?"

"Rumors got out," Jörn said. She had started picking at the buttons of her tunic sleeve. "That was unavoidable. But I have kept my people away, and well clear of possible corruption."

"Make sure that continues." He glanced at Zara, who still held the bolter level. She reluctantly lowered it and flipped the safety back on. "Palatine, you will inform your contingent of Sisters about this, only in the broadest terms—it is necessary for them to know that we face heretical technologies."

Zara nodded. She didn't imagine Ojori, Azlant, and the others back on the Absolution would be very happy to hear it, but they had all faced horrors before. "Yes, Inquisitor. Of course."

Miletus leaned in towards the automaton. It was silent, expressionless, watching them with slight pivots of its head.

"You really can think, creature?" the Inquisitor asked.

"I am fully programmed in the languages and diplomatic protocols of one million cultures," it replied. "My capabilities encompass intermediate problem-solving, basic computations, advanced interpersonal—"

"How do you speak our language?"

"I was programmed with it, sir."

"By whom? Who do you work for?"

"I work for the Galactic Empire. My assignment is to assist, as needed, in communication with new subjects, as they are integrated under the peaceful and prosperous rule of Emperor Palpatine."

Miletus only nodded at that, his reaction unreadable on his scarred face. Zara, meanwhile, tightened her grip on her bolter—there was only one Emperor, Him on Terra, and He would never permit tech-heresy. Or blasphemy, for that matter.

"I understand your apprehension," it went on. "But you should rejoice! Advance scouts to your civilization have revealed that you are mired in age-old superstition and technological stagnation." Zara shot a glance at the Inquisitor. Why had he not silenced it? "They have further revealed that you are at war against a number of alien species. It does not have to be this way. Emperor Palpatine will bring progress to this galaxy, a New Order, and you will all enjoy a secure, stable, rational government, capable of ensuring peace through its superior military might." Further blasphemies. Miletus had to do something!

"Turn it off," he said. Finally.

Magos Yalais powered down the abomination, but his eye-clusters nevertheless dropped with dismay. "With respect, Inquisitor, this machine still has much to teach us about the enemy's technical capabilities—and even their ways of thinking. The created machine reflects the creator."

"The only thing it will teach us is the melting point of its metal." He pivoted to face the others in the room. "The esteemed Magos and I have some matters to discuss, privately. Commander Jörn, you will escort the Palatine to your holding facilities for this ship's crew, where she will begin interrogations."

"Of course, Inquisitor," Jörn said, some of the color returning to her face. Zara could relate—it would be good to leave this abomination behind. "We should be able to get the translation matrix up and running again. It's crude, but it ought to do the job."

"Very well." Miletus looked at Zara. "Palatine, your task is twofold. You must find out what these alternate humans know about us—how far have their 'advance scouts' penetrated? And you must assess their own civilization. How many people? How many systems? Are they in league with xenos, or the Ruinous Powers? They will doubtless throw more unpleasant surprises at us—I want you to stay on top of it."

Zara nodded. "It shall be done, Inquisitor."

"You two are dismissed—the Emperor protects."

"The Emperor protects," Zara said. She pivoted and made for the door at an eager clip. Outside, she found Ojori and Azlant waiting for her, standing silently across the hallway from the two Navy guards. She gestured for them to follow her and Jörn.

"You seem shaken, Palatine," Ojori said. "What happened in there?"

"We heard shouting," said Azlant—the first words from her since they left the Absolution.

Zara shook her head. She could still see the unholy light behind that thing's disk-shaped eyes, and hear its ghastly mimicry of human speech. "I will not discuss it in detail. Not here. But if either of you hoped that the Emperor's Truth could save these people, forget it—they are beyond the reach of mercy."


Author's Note: Thanks for reading! The next chapter will finish up the explorations of Zara and Inquisitor Miletus aboard the captured Star Destroyer; it may feature some bonus content, too. No promises regarding a timetable, but it *will* come out—quite possibly before the end of the year.