Sarge was… not necessarily livid, but no one would call his current state of emotion 'happy.' He had just been 'promoted' to Interrogator, and while that was probably a good thing as far as our paychecks were concerned, it meant that we'd need to deal with even more nonsense and inquisitorial red tape than ever before.

On the upside, we did get a bit more leeway in terms of how we were allowed to run things.

Our first mission, assigned to us by Professor Oak himself, was a joint one. We were going to be working alongside another interrogator under an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos, a man named Karev. Karev was supposedly pretty new to being an Inquisitor, and this mission was meant to help him learn how to train other prospective Inquisitors. We were told to wait for them to show up at a set of coordinates, and to expect them to be… eccentric. We weren't exactly optimistic.

The Occurrence Border was parked just above some random Agri-world while we waited for them to arrive.

Nubby used the time to travel back and forth down to the planet, always coming back with a large haul of sometimes useful, sometimes useless, junk, Twitch was trying to figure out how many explosives he could fit in the doorway to our quarters, Doc was spending time with his girlfriend, Sarge was trying desperately to keep the ship's captain from abandoning the mission entirely, and Tink was just trying to mess with Spot. Fumbles and Aimy were mostly just trying to keep from losing their sanity. We tried to help the former as much as we could, as we really didn't need the one Psyker we actually liked to get possessed by a daemon.

All in all, we were prepared for just about anything.

The first sign that something was off was when two ships came out of the warp a bit closer to us then should have been reasonable. It normally would have taken them a couple of weeks to get from the edge of the system to the planet, but no, these guys decided to exit the warp a day's flight away from the planet. That in and of itself was enough to set us on edge.

The vox transmission from the lead ship telling us to meet the Inquisitor and Interrogator down on the planet was the second red flag. We wondered why they didn't just order us to meet them on their own ship, or maybe they come to us, but they said to meet down on the surface.

Sarge was suspicious, to say the least.

Regardless of that suspicion, he agreed, and our whole group traveled down to the cities main settlement. Nubby greeted a few of the locals, who just ignored him or started to run screaming. None of us questioned it, but Sarge did send Nubby a glare.

Two more Aquila's made their way to the landing dock, one holding the Inquisitor and his retinue, and the other being the Interrogator and his.

The first one opened, and a blonde man strode out, followed by a pair of guardsmen, a tech-priest, and a Psyker. We were all set on edge when we saw him, and he seemed to wince as we tensed. He whispered something to the Inquisitor, who just sighed and nodded. We prayed to the Emperor he wasn't another Snitch.

Everyone turned to look at the last ship as it opened. We were expecting a normal group of guardsmen, clerics, Tech-priests, maybe some psykers if we were unlucky.

What we did not expect, was for the Interrogator to walk out of the transport with a frakking space marine walking behind him! We were beyond tense by that point, and the Space Marine probably knew it. None of us really had the courage to ask how or why the Interrogator had gotten one of the greatest super soldiers in the Imperium as part of his retinue.

"WE'RE WORKING WITH SPACE MARINES!?" At least until Tink opened his stupid mouth.

He was tackled by Twitch and Nubby, who almost strangled him for making a potentially negative impression on something that could very easily kill everyone in the surrounding area. Fortunately, the Interrogator seemed to think our reaction was funny, as he started laughing at our antics.

It was at that moment that we actually took the time to take our eyes off the black-armored space Marine and to look at the Interrogator who we were supposed to work alongside. He was short. That was the first thing we noticed about him. Not as short as Nubby, but definitely shorter than everyone around him. His black coat was only marred by the very guardsman-like fatigues underneath it, along with the alcohol flask and power sword at his hip.

He introduced himself as Jarod Carolinus, Rogue Trader and Inquisitor in training. That one phrase sent some of us scratching our heads. Nubby asked how someone could be both, Twitch asked why someone would be both, and Doc answered both of them by saying that if this guy was both, then he would be one of the most powerful people I'm the Imperium.

That made many of our brows rise. How much power did this guy have already, and why did he need more?

The space marine overheard us - unsurprisingly - and seemed to signal Jarod somehow. Probably some kind of vox-bead or something. Regardless, Jarod started laughing.

"You have no idea what I have planned. I'm not going to say that's a good thing, but it's gonna be fun to see the looks on your faces when you find out." His grin was vicious, and none of us were quite sure what to make of the ominous-sounding remark.

Anyway, once the introductions were out of the way, Inquisitor Karev explained the rough outline of what our next mission would be. There was a Tyranid Splinter fleet that had been rampaging through Imperial space in a straight line, something that made most of us shudder. The main theory was that there was that somewhere in its path was a gene-stealer cult, which had been drawing it in that direction.

Most of the planets eaten by the 'nids had been outpost worlds or feral worlds. Nothing particularly worth going after, but the fleet was getting uncomfortably close to a cluster of hive worlds that no one really wanted to lose. Our mission was to travel ahead of the splinter fleets path in order to figure out where their end goal was and root out the gene-stealers. Or failing that, find a good staging point to deal with the fleet.

It wasn't ideal. We weren't sure how long it would take to deal with the problem, or if it could be dealt with at all for that matter, but considering our current company none of would say it would be impossible. We had a space marine on our side after all!

In the end, we decided to head to the first planet that was likely to have a gene-cult on it. According to the dossier, it was a simple agri-world with an above-average population and a primary output of grox-meat. Not the prime location for a Tyranid invasion, but it was a place to start.

With three ships in total, we linked up and made our way into the warp. It was largely uneventful, with only two minor demonic incursions and a few nightmares here and there. Honestly, the Occurrence Border held up better than it ever did before, which was exactly the reason almost all of us were put on edge. Don't get us wrong, we weren't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it felt like the universe was just waiting to screw us over.

Admittedly, the fact that we didn't have to deal with Karev or Jarod's crews also probably helped. Unfortunately, this meant that we didn't get any time to try and judge their character, but most of us figured we could do that later. It took a few weeks of warp travel, and another two weeks of realspace travel for us to get to the planet in question. Karev informed Both us and Jarod that we would be going down to the surface in order to meet with the planetary governor and that the Interrogators and their retinues would be staying in one of the homes of a local politician.

When Tink if this meant we were going to be sharing a roof with a space marine, Sarge relayed the question to Inquisitor Karev. He said that it all depended on Jarod, and whether or not he decided that a Space Marine would be appropriate to bring on a diplomatic mission. None of us were particularly optimistic about that answer.

While the Occurrence Border's captain parked the ship at the planet's spaceport alongside the other two Inquisitorial vessels, we headed down to the planet's surface. All three means of transport were greeted by the Planetary Governor and his entourage. The man himself was thin, with a grey beard and a bald head. He wore a fairly simple green shirt and pants, though they were very clearly made of high-quality material, more-so than any of the peasants could have gotten their hands on.

As we exited the transport we got a good look at the teams that had been brought alongside the other interrogator and the Inquisitor. Karev was flanked by the same retinue we saw when we first met the man, but Jarod's retinue was different. At least, he had more than just a space marine at his side this time. Flanking him opposite from the space marine was a scribe, who had been furiously typing on a data-slate the moment he got off the transport. Behind them were a pair of guardsmen who were carrying basic lasguns and wearing basic flak armor. Nothing special there.

The Inquisitor greeted the governor cordially enough, and after explaining that we were here on a 'top secret inquisitorial mission' we were eventually escorted to where we would be staying. Unlike the vast hive cities we had experienced before, the agri-world was far less dense in its population centers, so the vehicle that we were currently driving in - a combination APC and limousine - was actually able to travel at speeds greater than twenty kilometers per hour. We were grateful that it was this and not some half-destroyed old van.

The house we were staying in was a three-story building with enough rooms to hold a platoon of men. Not exactly the pinnacle of luxury, but it was far more than we'd had before. Once we got inside, we noticed that the place had a very lived-in feel to it, and after a bit of snooping around, we figured out that it had been. None of us really cared about the fact, until Interrogator Jarod asked where the family that lived here had been sent. The governor explained that they had been evicted as soon as Inquisitor Karev had requested a place to stay for the immediate future.

Jarod's frown was not an expression we liked.

The Interrogator walked up to the governer, looking the man up and down. Jarod was, while not by much, shorter than the governor. He calmly stated that he did not ask what had been done to them, he asked where they had been sent. The governor seemed to grow pale, before straightening himself and stating that they had been sent to the country-side with a relative of theirs.

Now, here's the thing. Up to this point, we'd had a fairly good impression of Jarod, if a bit of a terrified one. You probably didn't get a space marine in your employ by being nice… well, you might, but we didn't exactly have any real positive experience in that area. Regardless, we'd figured Jarod was probably a polite, possibly eccentric man. What we didn't expect was for him to immediately refute the claim that the former residents had been sent to a relative's house, and to claim on his own that the family was being kept prisoner and awaiting fast-tracked trial and execution.

Now, at first, none of us were quite sure what this meant. We'd compiled notes later, with Doc suggesting Jarod had an information network on the planet before we'd gotten here, Nubby theorizing that Jarod knew the family personally, Tink suggesting that maybe he had a secret group under his command running surveillance on the Governor since we'd arrived in system, all the while Twitch was convinced that the Governor was an Ork and Jarod had figured out the plot.

None of these theories ended up being true, well at least mostly, as we found out later. But in the meantime, we were left to try and figure out what was happening on our own. The planetary governor at this point was sweating bullets, his skin was deathly pale, and he was stuttering. He tried to dispute the claims at first before Jarod cut him off, saying that the family that lived here was one that actually threatened the governor's power. The arrival of the Inquisition was just a convenient excuse to get rid of them.

At this point, the governor was on his knees begging for mercy. None of us were really sure what to do, and considering the Inquisitor, the Space Marine, and everyone else had decided to watch from the sidelines, we decided we'd do the same. We watched the bald man grovel at Jarod's feet in tears, begging to do anything to resolve his transgressions. Jarod put a finger to his lips and shushed the man, before telling him that the only way to fix his problem was to resign as governor and to give the position to the man who owned this house.

The governor's eyes were wide, and the expression on his face was one of shock and fear. He slumped back on his knees, his shoulders going slack as his jaw fell. The man was speechless, and at least to the majority of us, we got our first real example of what Jarod was capable of doing. When the governor didn't move to get up and leave, Jarod gestured to the two guardsmen in his retinue. The two men moved forward, lifting the governor to his feet before dragging him off.

We all stared at Jarod, some of us more slack-jawed than others. We were severely taken off guard when Jarod did a quick spin on his heel and turned to us.

"So, who wants to hunt some Tyranids?"

[-]

AN: And with this, we have the begging of Jarod's own personal Arc! I'll probably conclude the Necron arc either next chapter or sometime after, but for now, this is what my brain has been enjoying writing. Michael won't be appearing in this Arc either, though the reasons for that will be explained in the next chapter of this arc.