FOUR
So after one skewered Magos, two razed garages, five dead guardsmen, six deceased Administratum adepts, seven dismembered tech-priests, eighteen scrapped vehicles, twenty-eight fallen tech-guards, forty-two destroyed combat servitors, and several dozen slaughtered civilians, our presence on the planet was no longer being greeted with the utmost of confidence from the citizens of the planet.
And we hadn't even been on the planet for a full day. Not a stellar start by even our meagre standards.
The aftermath of the incident left our forces in a fury. Suffice to say, the men and women of the Valhallan 597th were not willing to sit idly by and let this unprovoked assault go unanswered. However, Cain and Broklaw both knew that charging out guns blazing was only going to be met with failure. There's an old saying in the Imperial Navy, 'you're better off trying to catch starlight than you are bringing Eldar to battle.' If our forces had charged out in pursuit of the Eldar, we would have either A) never found them; or B) walked into an ambush that would've made the Drop Site Massacre seem like a fair fight. But to do nothing would be to invite despair and uncertainty amongst the rank and file as well as the within the Adeptus Mechanicus. Our next move would have to be taken with great care and consideration. With great zeal, haste, and decisiveness, the Valhallan 597th jumped into action…and called an emergency meeting. We opted to keep 'bloody retribution' as an open-ended option to be discussed at a later time. For obvious security reasons, we decided to have the meeting back at field headquarters where we would at least be better prepared should Eldar decide to rain from the sky again. Despite a medic's insistence that I get my arm properly treated, I attended the meeting, which contained the regiment's senior officers and members from the Adeptus Mechanicus. Or at least the Adeptus Mechanicus had been invited and were expected to attend. When I arrived there were only the Valhallan officers and Cain present. Also notably absent was the regiment's commanding officer.
Colonel Kasteen's injuries weren't serious but they were severe enough to keep her out of action for the next week or so. She had taken several hits to the chest and arm and by the Emperor's divinity did she manage to escape without a severed artery. Taking her place at the helm of the 597th was Major Broklaw and like everyone else in the regiment, he saw the Colonel's injuries as a personal affront and vowed to make the Eldar pay in kind. The Eldar were on my mind as well though for entirely different reasons – I was trying to make sense of it all. An upfront attack seemed uncharacteristic for Kael and the wraithlord had seemed very intent on pounding me into a bloody pulp. It didn't fit with Kael's preferred methodology, nor did the threats made by the Eldar who had duelled with Cain. But on the other hand, Eldar were a capricious race so I couldn't discount the possibility.
Precisely one minute before the start of the meeting Broklaw spoke up "Okay, everybody take a seat, time check in 20 seconds. It will be 0819 exactly." Complete silence followed by "In 5, 3, 2,1 mark; 0819. I'll be frakked if we're going to wait for the Adeptus Mechanicus to arrive." It was…odd to see him standing at the head of the table without the colonel nearby but I had every bit of confidence in his ability to take command. The meeting room was still being set up and throughout our discussions there were grunts and techpriests running back and forth with boxes, cables, and various electronic equipment. Unfortunately, there was no holographic interface to make use of so we were all sitting around a drab wooden table. Being on a forge world would normally mean access to better equipment had our allies not blown all of it up before our arrival. "Now as you are all aware of, Colonel Kasteen was injured in the Eldar assault on the Mechanicus facility and I have assumed command in her absence. However, thanks to Commissar Cain this will only be a temporary situation." Indeed had Cain not been present in the top floor of the command spire when the Eldar warrior struck, Broklaw would probably have had to assume Kasteen's responsibilities permanently. When I first thought about it, I wondered why Cain was so far away from the battle but I soon realized that if I had been able to piece together the Eldar's plan, then Cain would have been able to see it coming a mile away. It's just like him to charge off on his own rather than taking people with him and weakening the outer defences based solely on a hunch. Since Cain probably would have beaten the Eldar had I not interrupted him, I decided to not make any mention of my own presence in the spire. Nobody asked where I was, so I wasn't technically lying about anything.
"Saving one life out of a dozen is hardly worthy of praise," Cain modestly replied. "The death of Magos Aureus threatens to derail the entire project, which we can all assume is the Eldar's main objective."
"Wherever they're hiding, we shall drag them out into the Emperor's light and we shall make them pay," Broklaw continued. "Because of our mission, we're stuck on the defensive but as the saying goes, often the best defence is a good offence. If we sit and wait here, the Eldar will whittle down our defensive with these hit-and-runs until we're shooting at shadows and chasing ghosts. We need to take the fight to the Eldar as soon as possible and that means we need to find where their operating."
"With all due respect Major," I spoke up reluctantly, not wanting to contradict Ruput in front of the officers, "we're surrounded by about a hundred city blocks' worth of rubble and ruin not to mention a thousand miles of undercity tunnels, which are probably in just as bad shape as the surface. How exactly are we going to find the Eldar?"
"A valid concern Commissar Abel," Broklaw answered, thankfully sounding unperturbed by my questioning. Before he could answer, though, the door to the meeting room opened and the gargantuan techguard captain entered, followed shortly afterwards by Anargyros and Zalanskos.
"You?" I remarked when I saw the scrawny little ordinate. "I thought you were killed along with Aureus."
"What? Oh…th-that," he stammered in response. "I…um, I hid underneath one of the…uh, bodies…" Not exactly stalwart behaviour but we never expect civilians to do anything other than scream and panic. If anything, we prefer when they get down and stay out sight. Most moral guardsmen are reluctant to try and fire through a mob of citizens while our opponents rarely demonstrate the same degree of restraint. The sentiment was probably not shared by many others sitting at the table but at the time, I was grateful to see him still alive. He knew more about the project than the Magos did. Keeping the operation on track would have been difficult if not borderline impossible without his knowledge.
"And why is he here?" I continued, pointing to Zalanskos.
"Good question," replied the techpriest who, not surprisingly, did not sound thrilled to have been dragged to the meeting. "Why am I here?"
"Well," the ordinate began, "Major Broklaw requested that the senior techpriest in charge of the operation to be present at this meeting. Normally that would have been Aureus but he is, erm…deceased. With Gallos, York, Karrot, and Plumbic dead as well then the techpriest with the most knowledge, experience, and seniority would be…ahem, you, Tech-priest Zalanskos."
"I'm in charge of this clusterfrak?" Zalanskos replied, using a mechadendrite to point to himself rather than his actual hand. I got the impression that withholding the information was the only way to get Zalanskos to commit to the meeting. The techpriest probably would have left too had the techguard captain not forced him down into a chair. "Why the frak do you people need me anyways?"
"Because we need information tech-priest," Broklaw insisted. As far as first impressions go, the complacent attitude of a tech-priest in such an important meeting ranked just above that of a dung beetle. "The Eldar are targeting this area and we need to know what it is they're after. What makes this foundry so special?"
Not surprising, to me at least, Zalanskos shrugged his shoulders. I doubt he paid much attention to anything outside of his own little world and the projects he was more directly involved with. "I maintained and organized the servitors and machines used for digging. I have no interest in what they dug up. This foundry was no different than the dozens of others on this planet. Oh wait…" he paused suddenly, drudging up memories that seemed to have eluded him thus far. "We were working on some new designs with plasma technology. Part of the reason the navy bombed the foundry was to keep it out of the rebel's hands."
Broklaw digested the information but eventually shook his head. Cain held a similar expression of uncertainty that mirrored my own sense of scepticism. "Seems unlikely for Eldar to go to such lengths over plasma weapons," Cain finally said. "The Eldar I fought against mentioned something about the Hounds of Erebus. Does that ring any bells for any of you?"
Drusus was quick to shake his head, followed shortly thereafter by an indifferent shrug from Zalanskos. Anargyros was the only one who seemed to have anything to say in response to the question. "I believe I had come across the term once before somewhere in the old records of the planet. I will attempt to locate the scrolls but the recent civil war will make this a difficult, in not utterly futile. However, I will task my best archivists to the matter and will get back to you if we succeed in finding the relevant documents." The ordinate made a quick note in a dataslate that he carried with him, which he had somehow pulled from the depths of his robes and returned in an equally mysterious fashion.
Since there was little that needed to be said to bring the new arrivals up to speed, Broklaw was able to return to the previous topic. To summarize , Broklaw's plan was to send the bulk of our forces over to the excavation site to supplement the techguard forces. It was a bold, albeit risky move because it left our field headquarters with only one company for protection (in addition to the logistics and command company staffing the actual headquarters) but the field headquarters had a much smaller perimeter to protect. Even with four companies, stretching our forces around such an extended perimeter was going to leave as many holes as your drawers stretched over the front-end of a chimera. Once in position we would send out reconnoissance patrols to sniff out the enemy positions, either by finding clues to their presence or by luring them out. That little wrinkle meant that his plan had a low probability of succeeding because, as I had mentioned, there was far too much debris to perform an effective search. Patrols could search through a normal industrial region until the end of time and never turn up an Eldar. So finding clues or the Eldar ranked right up there with the chances of finding a sober guardsman in a distillery. The paper map Broklaw was using to explain the plan made the task look difficult and daunting. But I would like to point out that his map was made before the planet had been bombed back to the Feudal age.
"I've also sent a request to the Imperial Guard regiment stationed in the nearby Lethe territory for additional support," Broklaw said. "They've reported unusual sightings on patrols but have yet to make any confirmation of an Eldar presence."
"And how will our patrols have any success in this mess?" Captain Sulla asked.
"Skull probes," Broklaw answered with a smirk before turning to Zalanskos. "I assume that your people have some to bolster our own numbers."
"Do we have skull probes?" Zalanskos replied with unrestrained sarcasm. "What kind of a primitive circus would we be running if we didn't have skull probes? If there is one good thing that has come from the civil war, it's that we've got a surplus of skulls. We're tripping over skulls in our storehouses. Take as many as you need – a dozen, a hundred…however many you need to get your job finished."
"Scores will be needed," Drusus commented suddenly. "I used to use skull probes to supplement my patrols but they began disappearing in unsettling numbers. We suspected looters, ruffians, or leftover rebels were using them for target practice but with the Eldar in the picture, it is far more likely that they are responsible for the disappearances." This new information immediately caught everybody's attention since it added another clue to our paltry pile. Broklaw was first to ask the question that had popped to my mind (and likely everyone else's), inquiring if they knew where their skull probes went missing. If there was one thing you could count on from the Administratum, it was to keep records of the most trivial and pointless of details, including the last known location of almost two hundred and twenty lost skull probes over the past eighteen months.
Producing yet another dataslate from the depths of his robes, which left me seriously wondering where he stashed them, Anargyros began transcribing the data from his dataslate onto our map in the form of convenient little red dots. After a few dozen were produced, we began seeing a pattern forming on the map. Though the dots were generally across the whole field, there were growing concentrations within several distinct areas of the map. When it was finished, it was plainly obvious that the distribution of dots was anything but random.
"And these are where we'll start looking," Broklaw said a bit unnecessarily. The Valhallans began lobbing back and forth suggestions, details, and the usual assortment of officers volunteer to tackle these tasks personally. No surprise Sulla was eager, bordering on fanatically driven, to lead a team to investigate the densest collection of red dots. Captain Drusus was also eager to participate; he was quite angry over his failure to protect the Magos and sought redemption. Or at least that's what it had appeared to be. It took me a few moments to realize that Cain was still staring at the map, an inquisitive look upon his face and a hand scratching at his chin.
"I know that face – that's your 'something's wrong with this picture' face," I commented, which surprisingly silenced most of the chatter around the table. Once again his eye had caught something that the rest of us had casually overlooked. Even when I knew that he saw something amiss, I could not pinpoint what exactly he was looking at until he tapped a blank area on the map.
"There're no dots here," he said plainly. My first instinct was to make a sarcastic quip about how he stated something that could only be more painfully obvious if it had been nailed to our forehead but I managed to keep that thought to myself. His train of thought had to be going somewhere.
However, while the Valhallans were polite enough to hold their tongue, the Adeptus Mechanicus was under no such edict to grant him such respect. "That's because there's nothing there but a big pile of rocks and toxic waste you simpleton," Zalanskos said. "Read the label! It was a chemical waste facility and thanks to the war it's now been turned into a radioactive swimming pool. It's great if you want to kick back, grab a cocktail, and absorb some rads! Hiding would be tricky since you'd develop a pleasant green fluorescence after a few days."
Oddly enough, I was almost inclined to agree with the raving misanthrope. There were a lot better hidings places that didn't involve hazardous waste material. Perhaps if it were a last ditch option I would consider it but the blasted cityscape provided enough hiding places to hide a whole armoured column. Cain, however, was not convinced and that was the only reason I still sided with him. His gut instincts had a better track record than all the regiment's intelligence officers put together. "I still would feel more comfortable if I took a team down there and investigated it personally," Cain said. As usual, Cain appeared to be volunteering for the riskier assignment – unlike the hot spots, the peculiar empty area was only accessible on foot and a significant distance from the base. It would take him most of the day just to reach his destination and were his instincts to prove correct, he could be easily encircled and help would not be able to reach him. On the other hand, if he were mistaken then he would waste an entire day just walking through ruins while the rest of us played 'fowl hunt' with Eldar sharpshooters. I was half-tempted to ask if I could tag along.
The rest of the meeting consisted of the usual military chest-pounding, jargon lobbing, and repetitive blabber that would bore an archivist to death and I shall spare you the boring details. I found Zalanskos to be surprisingly cooperative about surrendering all security matters over to Broklaw, which was a nice change of pace, until I realized that the tech-priest simply didn't give a damn. This whole operation was, from what I could tell, beneath a person of his stature. In fact, he said unless the plasma generators were going to explode, we should direct all our reports and inquiries to either Anargyros or Drusus. Broklaw didn't have an issue with that either as he was quickly discovering the joys that I had when it came to dealing with that particular tech-priest. Shots would probably have been fired had Zalanskos stayed any longer and despite voicing his absolute confidence in us, he still made a dozen or so remarks warning us 'not to blow this place to the void.' Or at least I think it was something along those lines. I don't recall a great deal of the later half of the meeting because I was in pain, tired and thus didn't much attention to what was being said. As Broklaw and Cain were the only ones who ever said anything important, I developed early in my career a kind of selective hearing, filtering out the banter of the junior officers while retaining the important remarks and decisions of the seniors. It is a skill that I got away with it because few ever noticed that I was even in the room, let alone paying any attention to what they're saying.
"You awake Abel?" Cain suddenly spoke up, tapping me on the shoulder and jostling me out of my mental coma. I had zoned out while Sulla droned on about how we should do something to the Eldar involving the Emperor's wrath and fishsticks. I'm fairly certain that I misheard her. It could have been that I was hungry for seafood at the time. I did my best to act as though I had been deep in thought but failed to convince him that I was even ankle-deep in it. Everybody else in the room had already left and I had been staring at the map for, according to him, several minutes. I insisted otherwise and made the excuse that I had been deciding which recon force I would participate in. One of the main reasons I tend to be so honest is because the universe seems to fling my lies back into my face with a bonus 'frak you' warhead strapped to it. "Excellent, glad to hear you're so eager to get onto the field," he said. "I was actually hoping you would join us. In fact, I have a very important assignment that I feel that you would be instrumental in its success."
"That was fast, if not too fast," I remarked.
"That's why I get to make the speeches in this regiment," he joked. "Nonetheless, during the briefing I was promptly reminded of your excellent performance during the initial landing in the liberation of Magnus Viridis."
Personally, I wouldn't have used the words 'excellent performance' to have described that debacle. The whole ordeal started with me slipping down the shuttle ramp, nearly getting vaporized by a Tau battlesuit, getting blown off a tank, and almost eaten by an alien dinosaur. The only thing that could be described as excellent would be my fortune in managing to survive the battle and 'sheer dumb luck' is not a marketable skill. However, I did have a biased and overly-critical opinion of my performance so it was possible that he saw something I had overlooked or was too busy fighting for my life to have seen at the time. "That would require a very broad definition of the term 'excellent,' sir…and 'performance.'"
"Don't be so modest," he insisted as he led me out of the meeting room. "You're guile and resourcefulness were instrumental in the success of that landing and in the subsequent battle for the space port. I need those assets once again."
"You can count on me sir," I said, trying to hide my swelling pride.
"Good…I'll need you to go with Captain Sulla again."
"Yessi-wait, what?"
"You did a marvellous job keeping her zeal in check. I need you to do whatever it is you did back on Magnus Viridis."
"I grabbed her by the ponytail," I said flatly and wholly unenthused.
"If that's what it takes to keep her from charging into an Eldar ambush then go for it," he said as he patted me on the back as if to reassure me. "We depart in a couple of hours so try to get some rest and then meet us in the staging area."
"And so it begins," I muttered to myself. I was about to remark that my day couldn't get any worse but I knew damn well if I so much as uttered that statement, the ceiling would collapse in the universe's rush to squish me. Unfortunately, as it turned out even thinking that was enough to incur its wrath.
The prospect of having to play leash-holder for Captain 'head-first into the firestorm' Sulla was an unsettling one to say the least. The last time I had to play that role I was nearly killed (on multiple occasions) and spent a great deal of time just keeping her in one place. She had good tactical skills but when she saw the enemy, her brain just seemed to switch off and she charges right in. Granted, she was trusted and respected by those under her command and both Broklaw and Kasteen held favourable opinions of her but that didn't stop her from being a safety hazard for anybody standing around her. On Magnus Viridis, she got two whole squads cut down because she decided that a straight line would be the most effective means of assaulting a fixed position regardless of the fact that it took them out of the trenches. She captured the position but the only other survivor from the assault was Private Reiner, whom Cain had to reprimand for 'failing to follow the lead of a superior officer' as he had taken the longer route and remained in the trench. I would have given him an accommodation for being the only person in the squad who used their brain. But that's why I'm not allowed to dole out medals – I make a distinction between pants-on-backwards idiocy and real courage.
Still, I could understand where Cain's concerns stemmed from. Sulla was exactly the kind of opponent that an Eldar would favour – all too willing to jump into a fight regardless of the conditions. Without one of us to keep her in check, she could very well lead her column straight into the proverbial meat grinder. As I meandered back to my billet for a quick recaf boost, I wondered why Cain had chosen me rather than take the task on personally. There was no shortage of danger or glory escorting Sulla through a battlefield but then I wondered if, perhaps, Cain's very reputation would have done more harm than good. Emperor knows I tried my hardest when Cain was around. Sulla probably did the same, which meant she'd be even more gung-ho than usual. Perhaps a commissar she didn't admire was a more tactical choice. Once again I found myself humbled by Cain's superior abilities of leadership and personnel-management. With that in mind, I had no choice but to keep a leash on Sulla for the good of the mission. Like any dutiful Kriegan, I had a responsibility to my mission regardless of the risks involved. Thankfully, there were no dinosaurs to deal with on Erebus.
Watz and Heilmit had done a superb job of securing me a comfortable place to stay while on Erebus. A neighbouring building belonging to the Administratum provided both proximity and comfort. Old Administratum buildings are a favourite amongst guardsmen as they're often spacious and the adepts do not skimp the expenses when it comes to comfort. Unlike most of the quarters on base that once belonged to tech-priests, the rooms in the Administratum building were used by people who didn't have steel-plated arses or titanium spines and actually slept from time to time. As I proceeded to my new quarters, I caught wind of Jurgen's characteristic odour. Cain had procured a room in the same building, as did Colonel Kasteen. Broklaw, citing a need for security (and not having the entire command staff wiped out by one unfortunately misplaced bomb) made his quarters in the main command center and had been fortunate enough to get a room larger than a bathroom stall. My room had the usual assortment of features any self-respecting citizen would have along with a few luxuries. For starters, it had an in-suite washroom complete with shower and tub, which Heilmit had spent most of the afternoon restoring the water pressure. It also had its own recaf machine, which immediately made my room the envy of the entire floor and required Watz to fight off other aides trying to curry their superior's favour.
Though the outlook for the rest of my day (or night. I wasn't fully aware of the time and Erebus had seventy-hour days during the summer months) was grim, I at least could look forward to a hot cup of recaf when I reached my room. As I opened the door, I was met with the enticing arouma of a freshly made pot of recaf. "Thanks for putting the pot on guys," I said aloud as I shut the door behind me.
"I thought it might be prudent," replied a voice that belonged to neither of my aides. In fact, it sounded all too familiar…
"Kael?" I replied without even thinking. As if taking my words for a summoning, the Eldar stepped out into view from the bedroom. And he looked almost exactly the same as the last time we had met – the same neatly drawn-back platinum hair, the smug little smirk across his lips, the green cloak that hung so loosely from his figure, and even the custom long-las that was slung across his back. The only few differences that remained came from the fact that he was no longer hiding his alien nature as he had his Eldritch blade sheathed at his side and beneath his cloak were robes adorned with runes and icons of the Eldar people. However, what I noticed first and foremost was what he held in his hands: my prized bathrobe.
"So good to see you again Miss Abel," he said in an oddly cheerful manner. "I must admit, I never pictured you as one for wearing pink."
"You son of a-" I reached for my laspistol but both my words and action were interrupted when something struck me in the back of the head. Before I could even get my ire up, I was face down on the floor. The strike hadn't knocked me out but it made a compelling argument for staying put.
"I thought I told you to be gentle Iamanu," Kael said after a drawn-out sigh. He tossed my bathrobe aside just as my assailant stepped into view. It was an Eldar warrior, wearing the same wide, sloped armour as the ones who had assassinated Aureus and his associates. One striking difference, however, was that this particular Eldar's armour was blue and yellow, as opposed to the white and green of the earlier ones.
The other Eldar appeared dismissive of the criticism. "I was," he insisted before looking down at me. "And they call us fragile." The second Eldar walked over to one of the living room chairs and took a seat while Kael offered a hand to me. Stubbornly, I got up under my own power and then straightened my hat and coat out of stern defiance (to what ends I still don't know but I wasn't going to look like a fool in front of him). The Eldar in the chair kept a watchful eye on me, his deathspinner resting eagerly in his hands. I didn't need to be a psyker to know that if I tried to reach for my gun again, I would get to experience first-hand the joy of being turned into bloody confetti.
"I apologize for my friend's behaviour," Kael said as he motioned for me to follow him to the kitchenette area. "I believe there is a human saying about old dogs and new tricks. Not that Iamanu needs to learn any new tricks…he's practically learned them all by now. We've been friends since we were youths but while I dabbled in the arts, he preferred to express his inner self with guns and violence." He stopped at the recaf machine, grabbing a mug and filling it up with the aromatic brown elixir. "Here, I made it while I was waiting for you," he said as he handed it to me. Despite my initial reluctance, my addiction to the elixir of life overpowered my usual cautions. I figured if he was trying to kill me, there were easier ways to poisoning my drink. And truth be told, he actually made a good cup of recaf.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, cutting straight to the point.
"What does it look like? I'm stopping by to say hello to an old friend…and I'm doing well. Thanks for asking." Unlike most of our previous encounters, I was mentally prepared for him having ulterior motives. I knew it couldn't be as simple as a friendly hello but I also knew that he would be aware of my suspicions. Even a simple conversation with him was a battle of wits, trying to pin him down to an answer, peeling away the lies and half-truths, reading between lines so narrow you'd need to microscope just to decipher, and all while trying to conceal what I knew, which isn't easy when you're dealing with a psyker. I watched him closely even as I sipped on my recaf, wondering what kind of idiot he took me for, but he did little more than just pour a cup for himself. His eyes met mine briefly and his smirk disappeared, "No, I do not take you for an idiot."
Were another Eldar not waiting for an excuse to shoot me, I would've smacked Kael for reading my thoughts like that. All I could do was play along with whatever game he was up to. "Then why are you on Erebus?"
"A terrible darkness is coming for you Miss Abel."
"I know…it tried to step on me a few hours ago," I replied sarcastically.
"That is not what I meant and you know it," Kael said harshly. It appeared that he was no longer in a joking mood. "I have spent many days delving into the yawning abyss of time. I have tweezed apart the threads of your fate and seen the paths that they lead to, peering into your past and your future."
"I'd be flattered if that didn't sound a little creepy. Why so interested in me?"
"Because a great destiny awaits you…but you stand at a crossroad Miss Abel. You will have to walk a fine line between salvation and damnation but if you succeed…untold billions will be saved."
It's not every day that somebody told you that your future involved saving countless billions but even ignoring the source of this news, it was difficult to grasp and even harder to believe. "Listen Kael, even if I did believe in all your fate nonsense that doesn't explain why your people tried to kill me if you say I'm so damn important."
"She thinks we're with…oh brilliant choice Kyriese!" the Eldar warrior suddenly shouted. Judging by his sarcasm and impatience, he was even more sceptical than I was. "This mon'keigh is as ignorant as the rest of them. We are wasting our time here."
"Were you and I so different when we were young? If I recall correctly you once thought humans reproduced by budding." Kael replied, remaining remarkably patient despite the apparent insubordination. Surprisingly, this silenced the warrior quickly save for a few disgruntled mutters as he leaned back in his chair. "Contrary to what you might think and what others will tell, I am not your enemy here Miss Abel. The others…well, Junayd will not see reason. He is locked into his path and there is nothing any of us can do." I could detect the faint hint of sadness in his tone. The thought of having to stand against his own kind was likely not a pleasant one for him. But for whatever reason, whatever he saw in me, he felt it was more important than his sense of loyalty. "I cannot do anything to help you against my kin. I will not partake in the death of my fellow Eldar. They…you will have to stand on your against them. It pains me that I cannot ask for you to show them leniency for they will kill you without a second thought…and your life outweighs theirs." I had no intention of showing any mercy to anybody trying to kill me so what he said meant little to me. Unfortunately, had I paid more attention perhaps I would've realized the gravity of what he meant.
"So…wait, I'm confused. If you're not here to help against the other Eldar then…who are you worried about?"
"Something else. Something worse."
"And you're not going to tell me, are you?" I said with a disappointed groan.
"Manipulating fate is a delicate task. Push too hard and you overshoot your target, push too little and it falls short. I can only intervene as much as I feel it is safe to do so…otherwise I will put you in terrible danger before you are ready to stand against it." Somehow, I was afraid he was going to say something along those lines. Despite everything Kael and I had been through together, I could never get past how aggravating his 'I cannot tell you now' nature could be. Often, I had no choice but to put my trust in what he said but on Erebus I could trust him only about as far as I could throw him. He told me of foreboding dangers but gave me little to prepare for them; he told me he did not stand with the other Eldar, equally he would not lift a finger against them. I had no reason to believe a word he said. And in his usual fashion, Kael answered my question before I even uttered it. "I'm afraid there is nothing I can give you at this time to convince you to believe me. That is something you must do of your own volition when the time comes. All I can do is give you these words, knowing that in time you will look back to them and you will see the truth."
"Oh lucky me," I sighed.
"Fate is never an easy burden to carry, believe me. But your sense of duty will keep you going and your curiosity will let you see the things that others will overlook." Kael finished off the rest of his recaf and sighed contently. His mood seemed to elevate now that he was finished with all grim discussions of the future. How he switched from mood to mood so quickly I will never understand but I suspect it is another quirk I can simply chalk up to him being an Eldar. He motioned for the Eldar in the chair to follow him as he headed for the exit. However, Kael stopped short and reached into his cloak. "I almost forgot, when you see Miss Vail, I want you to give her this as well as my regards." He pulled something from the depths of his cloak and tossed it over to me. It was about the size of the palm of my hand so I instinctively caught it when it was thrown to me. It appeared to be a component belonging to a larger device and judging by the large lens, it looked as though it had once belonged to a helmet or some sort of ocular device. Whatever it came from, I doubt it was in very good condition as I noticed thin, clean cuts in the metal housing that looked to have been left behind by shuriken fire. What it was and what it meant was a mystery to me and I knew there was no point in asking Kael about it since he added that Miss Vail would know what it meant when she saw it. It looked harmless enough so I eventually decided I would carry out this little request and, to be honest, I was curious as to its significance. All I had to do was keep an eye for this Vail woman. Of course, little did I realize that she would be coming to me all too soon.