Caldera flinched as the Astropath she had been staring at suddenly raised her head. Not that it was unusual for them to bob their heads slightly while focused on the Warp, but the look on her face was one of horror.
"He's gone. He's gone." Other voices joined in, and Caldera found that she recognized every one of them, every single one a Psyker onboard the vessel, from the weakest telekene to the most powerful seer. It hurt to hear, but she knew why. In an instant, her body moved, not entirely under her control, down the hallway between the bridge and the command crew's chambers.
Her hand reached into a pocket hidden in her robes and grabbed a card from the deck inside. She didn't need to look to know which card it was, nor did she need to feel the rough edge where a hole had been burned through it with a las-pistol fifteen decades ago. The Emperors Tarot card, Death, with a hole punched right through the face, leaving behind the dead-man's hat.
She handed the card to the young man at the desk inside, without a word. The man took the card, looked at it for a long moment, then slid it into a pocket in his coat, "Do we have a beacon on location?"
_POVSHIFTPOV_
Hannah pressed her metallic hand to the Inquisitor's neck as he continued to bleed through ruptured eyeballs and every other thin membrane that could be torn. As the Jedi moved forward to console her, and the politicians stared in shock, Lukas dropped his backpack and tugged out a large plastic bag with a thick zipper on it. Technically it was for specimen study, but it was big enough for a man's head. He rushed forward, scooping the head up before it hit the ground, as Hannah sheared through flesh and bone like wet tissue. He sealed the bag as quickly as possible and hit the small red button at the end of the zipper, activating the stasis system, more or less an anti-microbial thing that would stop the deterioration of the flesh until it could be properly treated.
The body, Hannah rolled off the edge of the hole before standing up, muttering a last-rite that she had recorded from a Ministorum priest. "I am truly sorry you had to witness that. You have my word it will not happen again," Lukas smiled grimly as he slid the bag into his pack, "Incidentally, the old man was tainted by Chaos. As immediately as possible, the remains should be located and examined, as well as anywhere he frequented. Our new commander is no doubt on his way already, and will take command of as much as necessary to remove this taint." He grabbed the blood-splattered hat Scylla had been wearing, and flipped it onto his head, "Until then, I'm in charge."
_POVSHIFTPOV_
"It fades by the moment, no doubt his artifact was damaged by whatever killed him." Caldera spoke rapidly as the Commissar pulled on his uniform. First his carapace armor, painted in the same fire pattern as the rest of the Muspelheim Guardsmen. Then his long black coat, weighted with steel bars to support the ceramite trauma plates. A pair of crimson leather gloves covered his fingers, and he flipped his hat off the mannequin, setting it atop his black hair, in a move that led his hands through the shoulder length curls. Caldera watched patiently until he was finished.
"I am ready. Give the order to depart as soon as is physically possible."
"Yes Commissar Sollus," Caldera bowed and stepped out, her mind whirring as she transmitted the order down wires in the walls. Hansel Sollus was a powerfully built man, nearly six foot four, with a cybernetic left eye rimmed by a trio of scars where he had torn out the eye himself. His other eye was a brilliant blue on blue that showcased his psyker nature. Only through intensive training, and a series of small artifacts from ancient Terra, was he able to maintain his grip on the rip in reality that existed in his brain.
Sollus reached the bridge moments after she did, stomping onto the bridge as imposingly as he could, his angular face reflecting the lights off the consoles and giving him a natural glower. Caldera saw now why the telekene had been chosen as the head Commissar. The swirling morass of shattered glass marbles around his head helped the image that he was angry quite well. With a nod, she informed him that they were ready to depart, and he raised an arm, pulling the shards to his palm and forming them into a sphere, then an arrow as he roared, "JUMP!"
_POVSHIFTPOV_
The politicians seemed quite unhappy with the revelation, and mostly ignored him, letting their guards prevent him from acting out before the entire scene could be examined by the Jedi. Lukas let them. After all, there was a reason Scylla slept with his bolter in hand. A five minute timer separated the Inquisitor's departure from the bolt-pistol intentionally setting off a chain reaction. It had been that long. The resounding echo of the explosion took nearly thirty seconds to reach the platform, and the detonation of fifteen bolter rounds in the clip had no doubt been earsplitting at the point, not to mention the destructive radius that ensured the body could not be recovered.
He stepped onto the shuttle, followed by Hannah, both still splattered in gore, "Alright, since that man was supposedly a high ranking politician, that is where we should start our search," he spoke quickly to the two Jedi, "Are there any more Psykers here who can help us hunt for the taint of Chaos?"
Qui-gon stared at the pilot, who had seemingly ignored watching his commanding officer die, then bagging the head without a second thought and kicking the body over the edge. There was no reason he should be so rational. Nonetheless, he pulled out his comlink, "Temple, this is Jedi Master Qui-gon Jinn. There has been a murder-suicide, and evidence points towards the Sith possibly returning. Orders?"
The comm was silent for several minutes, during which the shuttle moved closer to the Jedi temple. Finally an answer came through, "Master Jinn, report to the council as soon as you arrive. We need to know everything, but this line is unsecured."
"Yes Master. We will be bringing along the companions of one of the two. It is impossible to know which killed the other, even though I witnessed it in person."
_POVSHIFTPOV_
Jedi Master Yoda floated up out of his seat, "To the council you will report. Speak before this nothing."
A tired 'Yes Master' came through, and the line went dead. Yoda turned to the other two council members in the room, Master Mace Windu, and Master Ki Adi Mundi, a human and Cerean respectively, and the two most powerful besides himself, "The Sith. Returned they must have?"
Windu nodded solemnly, "I believe so. It would explain the visions."
"That it would, "Mundi added, before tapping his towering skull with a fingertip, "Visions of a war, fought with endless numbers of faceless men, led by monsters, against monsters. We will need to speak to these companions personally."
_POVSHIFTPOV_
The Gellar fields went up, and the ships leapt forward, but something wasn't right. The Warp wasn't chaotic. The ship wasn't shaking like it normally did. Sollus dared to peek at the three Astropaths from behind, and saw the bewildered body-language. Something wasn't right here. They didn't look fearful, despite struggling to emulate a Navigator, as the previous one had died.
"What's wrong?"
He knew before he asked, even as one turned their eyeless face to him, "ThE WarP IS CalM. IT IS SmootH SailinG FroM HerE ON OuT."
"Good to know. ETA?"
"GiveN ThE StabilitY OF ThiS AreA OF ThE WarP, FivE HourS."
"Good. Let me know the instant something changes. I will be preparing the troops for an invasion if necessary."
_POVSHIFTPOV_
Lukas looked at the nervous politicians as they scattered into the Senatorial building, before turning back to the Jedi, "You said your superiors wanted to speak with us. Take us to them."
_POVSHIFTPOV_
The council of twelve had formed up, using holograms where necessary, as several could not make it to the meeting on such short notice. As it was, two of the members had been required to sit their padawans on their chairs, as they were involved in negotiations elsewhere.
"Members of the Council, and Padawans of members of the Council, we have recently been informed that a malignant presence may be reappearing in our part of the Galaxy. It is imperative, therefore, that we locate the source, and remove it before it causes the Republic harm. Padawans, inform your masters as soon as they are able, that they must contact either myself, Master Mundi, or Master Yoda at their earliest possible convenience. We will explain the situation to them further, as this conversation is not for Padawan ears." Master Windu shut off the comm-links to the padawans, then let Yoda take the floor.
"Centuries ago, vanquished the Sith were. Evidently missed some, we did." His voice carried more weight than a cruiser, and bashed the other council members just as hard. The idea that the Jedi were not infallible was a shock to the majority of them. Only four had known of the time before the Republic had been saved by the Jedi. Yoda, his padawan Mace Windu, Ki Adi Mundi, who had done extensive historical research as part of his training, and Jocasta Nu, the Librarian.
"We have two companions of one of the Sith's recent victims arriving with Master Qui-gon Jinn and his Padawan shortly. They will tell us what they know about the menace, and hopefully be able to help us quell it."
_POVSHIFTPOV_
Lukas stepped onto the landing pad of the Jedi temple and scowled. Here was an elegant structure, Xenos in origin if he wasn't mistaken, and probably filled with Psykers. A node for Chaos incursion if he ever saw one. It wasn't his place to speak though, as a pilot. He had timed the arrival of the fleet, doing calculations in his head. If everything went right, the fleet should be arriving right about the time he went to speak to the Council. They could wait to talk to his new commander then.
_POVSHIFTPOV_
Caldera scrambled around the Vox network, figuring out how well the Xenos systems were integrating with the damaged Warp drives, and what sort of systems would be the first to give. Fortunately, it didn't look like anything would be breaking any time soon, and she settled into a large armchair from ancient Terra, which had cost her three years pay, but it was so worth it to have the comfortable leather seat to flop into after a stressful day.
She could see Sollus standing on the balcony in the hangar, hands crossed behind his back, bits of pistol hovering before him as he drilled himself. She knew his eyes were closed, and he was doing all of it by memory, using his telekinetic abilities to move the tiny bits around. He would be doing that throughout the entire flight. He always did, to mock the very daemons that wanted to invade his mind, that they couldn't penetrate the Gellar field.
R&R please. It's time for the Imperium to showcase some Military might against something tougher than basic Xenos.