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Chapter 9: Storm-front

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Part 3

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Victory Bay
Kronus

I must give them this much when motivated, the Commissars and any troops they could get their hands on could move with surprising speed and skill. They could be a sneaky buggers as well – there outright arrests and detainment for questioning were few and far between, and came at the end of the sweep too. A few hastily called up meetings about streamlining logistics, discussing the PDF units part in the plant to rid Kronus of its traitor infestation, a Q&A session about how the Administratum might better support the war-effort without undue disruption of vital production, and others, to address local defense concerns among other things... Almost all of them ended up with Guard units bursting in, pointing weapons in the faces of people and not so politely asking them to accompany them so they could answer a few questions.

The local Arbiter's HQ, which had been under close observation ever since our return from the Deimos Peninsula became the unwilling host to an Adeptus Astartes squads and a Platoon of veteran Guardsmen, who backed up by a few Tech-priests, went in searching for any evidence about corruption and collusion with traitors.

In contrast, five people ended up sat in reasonably comfortable chairs, while I sat in front of them, with Anteas towering above my right shoulder and Santos skulking to my left, hands tightly holding his weapon. My guests were the helpful people noted in Sergeant Bron's list, those who were still alive and able to answer questions anyway. One of them was an Armory Sergeant from the capital's PDF garrison, who had drawn the short stick and had to deal with the Ogryns and their equipment. Beside him was one of the few helpful Medicaes looking after them, a pair of Administratum drones and a local priest who had been very happy with their faith and was determined to keep stroking its flames high.

They were colorful characters too – the Armorer was a grizzled veteran, who had good experiences serving with Ogryn units and was determined to do well by those now in his charge, he had almost as much metal in him as the average Cog-boy. Beside him sat one of the two women – a tall, reedy thing, with a haughty expression of superiority, because she was a fourth daughter of the local minor Nobility, who nevertheless was trying not to act like a typical Noble… and more often than not, failing miserably though she got points for effort.

Number three was the first Administratum Adept – who had to go out of his way to look like a stereotypical scholar, complete with dusty robes, receding graying sandy hair and huge glasses.

Next came the second woman, she was from the Administratum too, and wonder of wonders was convinced that her job and that of her organization was to make things happen and help people… which explained why she had been stuck on a dead-end job for years now or so her file told me after one of our Martians pilfered it from the Administratum cogitators.

Last but certainly not least, came the priest. He was a huge burly man who didn't look like he had even a trace of fat on his sculptured figure. He was a hill made of muscle and a "retired" confessor who after slowing down too much for front-line duty decided to dedicate his remaining days on the spiritual well-being of the Imperium's citizenry as a regular priest, instead of going out, spreading the word, bashing in the skulls of heretics and nagging people until they saw the light and accepted the Emperor's Creed.

That was what my people could find in the couple of hours it took to sweep up my guests and deliver them for this meeting. I idly wondered what a network of proper Inquisitorial agents could have dug up about them in the same period… and how many of those five might be informants or even outright agents if I have been proper Inquisitor with the time to set up shop in the first place.

Depressingly, this particular train of thought refused to leave me alone, which was not a good thing – doubt can be as deadly as the sharpest of blades.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm Inquisitor Veil and I have questions." At my introduction, all but the priest froze. The fanatic's eyes lit up with holly glee and he was about to begin a sermon or something before I could silence him with a pointed glare. "The Deimos Peninsula is in traitor's hands, controlled by a full-fledged Chaos incursion. It was engineered by traitors on Kronus, some of whom might still be in our midst as we speak. The five of you have been helpful, or so it appears."

"Born and his laddies." Sergeant Telik nodded in understanding. "He had some well-founded concerns, however, I couldn't help him much besides pointing him in what might have been the right direction, My Lord."

"That's what that was about!" The not so young Noble exclaimed. "That big boy wouldn't stop pestering me for information about Ogryns being shipped away. I remember processing some of the necessary requisition forms about a squad of them being administratively shifted to the Deimos Peninsula Adeptus Arbiters control and signing on the relevant shuffling of medical resources to account for them!"

"When I checked there were no records about any Ogryns being present on Kronus beyond Sergeant Bron and his people here in the capital." The Scholar grimaced. "I've dug in as much as I dared, however, there simply were no records left in the system I could access. I tried to find hard copies, but hit a wall there as well."

"Who has the access and authority to make said records disappear?" I asked innocently.

"That would be a Department Supervisor or even higher authority. I guess that the Enginseer and her Adepts looking after our cogitators should be able to do it as well."

There were two of those on the list of people to be interrogated, a nice start I hoped.

"What could the rest of you add on that topic?"

"The Ogryn have a bit different medical needs compared to most, their large size adds undue stress on the joints, especially ankles and knees for veteran troops. Unless they get replacements, they do need certain medicaments in order to combat and reverse joint damage. With only Sergeant Bron's Ogryn present on Kronus, there hasn't been much need to make a lot of those drugs. They're very strong, too strong to be used for the same purposes among regular humans. And I know for a fact that there used to be a lot more Ogryn on Kronus than the Administratum records show. Ours too now, though I managed to keep a hard copy of an older mandatory examination, before the clinic's director ordered us to erase some of our records." The Medicae shed some light on the matter.

Needless to say, the clinic set up to primary treat PDF-related issues was one of the focal points of the investigation and it's Director should be cooling his heels within an interrogation room waiting for me.

Of course, all of this begged the question, what else did we miss and overlook while dealing with more obvious and present threats?

I turned my attention to the priest, who met my gaze with eyes burning with fanatical light. He was grinning like there was no tomorrow too.

"I told Bron, I told him! The Emperor would provide and here you are, Inquisitor, to make it all right and burn the heretics!"

"That's nice to know. Do you have anything to add? People we should look at and question?" I asked warily. I was pretty sure that we should double, perhaps triple check, before rigorously interrogating anyone pointed by the priest without corroborating evidence. Not being pious enough might be enough for him to point us at someone's direction… On the other hand, considering what we were about to face, such burning faith might come in useful. Once this was done, I was going to ask him to pray for us and if he could gather his fellow priests in Victory Bay and bless our weapons and armor before we headed to face against Chaos.


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Part 4

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Victory Bay
Kronus

A Company of veteran Guardsmen stormed The Saint Andresta's Blessing Clinic, led by a pair of cold-eyed Commissars and followed by a group of fanatical priests normally attached to General Alexander's command in order to look after the spiritual well-being of the troops. It was only in the wake of those barbarians that Magos-Biologis Karom-Beta-31 strode on trice blessed and twice sanctified Bionic legs, leading a gaggle of overworked Medicae conscripted from the various Guard units. Theirs was the most important job once the Guard properly secured the clinic – figure out if the people working there were merely greedy mundanely corrupt bastards in need of a transformation into servitors, or if there was something more sinister going on. At any rate, every PDF trooper still alive and technically loyal needed to be examined before Command could throw them at the traitors.
Karom-Beta-31 really should have known better. It was known, if an Inquisitor wanted you working for them, you will work for them one way or another, no matter what you wanted. If you wanted to be difficult about it, your life would become interesting, just like the Magos just found out.

Of course, this could all be a coincidence. The odds for it were even good, he could easily calculate them.

It didn't matter, the Inquisition probably wanted you to think that way and wonder…

Bloody Inquisitors!

Karom-Beta-31 reached the entrance and stood in front of the white marble building, waiting for the all-clear. He could hear all kinds of commotions and shouting from within, no shots so far and no calls for help or uncovered corruption, which was either a very good sign or a very bad one, time would tell…

Meanwhile, the Inquisitor who caused so much trouble for a certain Magos-Biologis without even trying had to attend his first proper interrogation outside the carefully controlled facilities of the academy…


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The dungeons of the local Arbiter HQ were familiar ones, just lacking all the filth and warp-related taint to make them identical to what we saw at the Deimos Peninsula HQ. Some of the cells here contained many of the high ranked Arbiters, who were at the very least bought and paid for by the former planetary authorities. Unfortunately, said authorities were currently either very dead, worse, or in line for it because as far as anyone could tell, any survivors from the quick purge conducted by General Alexander upon his arrival on Kronus had fled either to the Deimos Peninsula or their Tau "friends".

A rough picture began to emerge as soon as the first interrogations began, and for once we did catch a break and a mid-ranked Administratum functionary began singing as soon as a mean-looking Commissar with a roaring chain-sword approached him promising to cut a limb or two and then ask questions… The bloody clerk told the interrogators everything he knew and a lot of things they suspected were nothing more than fabrications meant to keep the Commissar and his chain-sword as far away from tender flesh as possible. The coward did give us some actionable leads and before I could even finish my conversation with the actually helpful people on the list, Weber had strike-teams moving in to seize more targets and secure locations to be searched for evidence.

Glory-seeking, battle-crazy maniac he might be, Commissar Weber was undoubtedly a competent man, one who I was almost sure I needed as a part of my retinue. If nothing else, he apparently had more experience in this sort of thing that the rest of us combined… And that's how I ended up in front of a solid metal door covered with all kinds of wards, scriptures and holy symbols. A pair of fully armored Arbiters, from the cleared list, stood guard and admitted me after checking up to make sure it wasn't someone or something wearing my face.

Speaking about Charles Weber, he was inside, had a cigar held in the corner of his mouth, and was in the process of lighting it up with a hand-held blow-torch.

"Inquisitor!" The Commissar exclaimed happily in his inimitable fashion and spread his hands in welcome, nearly searing the forehead of a richly clothed individual, who had the misfortune of being securely bound to the interrogation chair taking place of pride in the middle of the room.

"Charles, my friend!" I returned the gesture, with what I hoped wasn't a strained smile. "You and your colleagues did the Emperor's work this morning!"

"We live to serve, Inquisitor!" Weber beamed happily at me. His pleased smile turned into a rictus grin that wouldn't be amiss to a Chaos cultist or a bloody Dark Eldar and looked at his prospective victim. "This piece of refuse is 'Lord' Ignatius Joachim, and by all accounts, he not only sold his soul to the Tau, but he also looked the other way and facilitated all kinds of corruption among the local Administratum Adepts. From there, the rot spread tainted the higher levels of the Adeptus Arbiters, and as we all know now, certain whole branches of the organization on this planet."

"That's a bad boy." I shook my head sadly, though made sure there was no trace of pity or remorse about what was about to happen. "Then again, that's why we're here and the Inquisition exists in the first place, such cancer needs to be burned out with extreme prejudice." I nodded at the blowtorch Weber held with gleeful approval.

The prisoner on the other hand, who had been going from deep red to purple, paled considerably.

"Let's see if we're all on the same page. Some time ago, the disgrace that passed for local government, got divided between either sucking to the blue-faced bastards to the west of here, or went deeper and deeper in under the influence of a home-grown cult to the Ruinous Powers, the fuckers." I began pacing around the prisoner, while Weber looked from his blowtorch to the bound man as if he wanted nothing more than to liberally apply the flames. "And you, helped both groups, all kinds of criminals, dissidents and worse, all to line up your own pockets." I shook my head sadly. "Am I missing something?"

"He had a Tau mistress too, however to the best of our knowledge she made herself scarce when we arrived and is hiding somewhere in the Xeno base," Weber added with undisguised disgust.

"Ah. That." I nodded. "I guess it could always be worse, like fucking a Slaneeshi worshiper," I scrunched my nose in disgust, that wasn't entirely a performance. "An alien one at that."

"She might very well be, the Xeno bitch." Weber pointed out.

"There's that too. I foresee a lot of cleansing flames among other things in your future." I addressed the prisoner directly.

"That's the spirit! I can't wait!"

Has he been serving with the Sisters of Battle or the Salamanders before, I wondered… Whatever Weber's not an entirely healthy fascination with fire might wait and I dearly hoped that this was mostly for the benefit of our prisoner and not his real face, stripped of all masks and pretenses.

"We might as well. He doesn't seem particularly remorseful, much less sorry about his disastrous life-choices. Ignatius here merely looks sorry that he got caught."

The prisoner did his best to shake his head in denial, however as securely as he was bound, all he managed was to strain his muscles to no avail.

"A taste of things to come might loosen his tongue…" Weber mussed aloud and looked at me like an eager kid asking for permission.

I walked around the prisoner one last time, then went to the table built into the wall and examined the various wickedly sharp instruments of torture that no sane mind could come with and picked up something weird with a lot of barbs, clamps and sharp edges. I turned around looked at the implement in my hand and at the prisoner who could barely see me from the corner of his eyes and speculatively raised an eyebrow.

"This might do, then we sear the wound to avoid him bleeding out, that simply wouldn't do."

I nodded in agreement, while a distant part of my mind screamed in horror, while the rest of me didn't see anything wrong at what we were about to do.


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