Chapter 3D
Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor Horatio Hoffman cursed as the Night Lord and Iron Warrior fleets entered the perpetual warp rift that was the Maelstrom. With regret he ordered his Inquisitorial Retribution class Battleship "Dictator of Righteousness" to turn about right at the very edge of the first outlying warp rifts. Following the chaos worshippers into their own hellish domain was not advisable with their current ship.
Horatio sent Astropathic reports to his superiors scattered in Inquisitorial Bastions all around the planets surrounding the Maelstrom and requested their aid and advice. It would take some time before he got a reply this far out.
This was a very serious problem to his efforts to destroy Egg Sevenson. As long as the Chaos Worshippers remained in the the nightmarish domain of the Maelstrom they were effectively out of reach of the Imperium of Man. Horatio was absolutely terrified that Egg would stay permanently inside the Maelstrom now until her training was completed!
He desperately needed some way of getting Egg out of the Maelstrom, but how?
The problem with the Maelstrom was that the chaos gods directly controlled it and did not take kindly to ships of the Imperium of Man entering their domains. The place was absolutely infested with Orks (Khorne adored Orks), Hrud (Nurgle loved these filthy creatures) and a range of other xenos creatures that the chaos gods looked kindly upon, but that most certainly didn't include the Inquisition!
The ship's of the traitor legions would have no trouble whatsoever in being welcomed by the gods that controlled the Maelstrom, chaos space marines were the beloved darlings of the chaos gods.
If Horatio were a much more radical inquisitor then he would have simply hired the services of chaos worshipping pirates to grant him and his retinue passage safely into the Maelstrom, the chaos gods would let a ship full of their worshippers through regardless of whether it harboured the Inquisitor or not.
Horatio however was not a radical who used chaos to fight chaos and would not corrupt himself in such acts.
The Inquisition however DID contain some among their number who WERE radical enough to do just this and right now the entire Imperium had desperate need of these dangerous radicals!
***...
Eduardo Garcia frothed at the mouth gibbering like a lunatic as he carved yet more chaos runes into the wall of his Inquisitorial prison cell. He simultaneously sang hymns to the Immortal God-Emperor as he worshipped the chaos gods.
His Inquisition colleagues called him mad, and they were absolutely right!
Oh yes he was mad, absolutely out of his mind! He was mad because it was his duty to the Emperor to be mad, it was for the sake of the survival of the Imperium that he worshipped the chaos gods!
Eduardo howled the 1001 blessings to the entire pantheon of every single chaos god and daemon in existence, he was extremely careful to worship absolutely all of them! His supernatural 8 pointed star mark of chaos undivided glowed red as blood on his chest as he poured out praise and worship to the delighted chaos gods.
Eduardo was a giant contradiction in terms that his fellow inquisitors were not entirely sure what to do with. He was simultaneously a loyal imperial inquisitor and a marked chaos champion of chaos undivided! In short he was a chaos champion who was utterly unquestionably devoted and loyal to the imperium of man.
This massive contradiction in terms was possible because Eduardo Garcia was a member of the radical inquisitor faction known as the Oblationists. The Oblationists believed that chaos was utterly damning yet at the same time they believed that only by fully sacrificing themselves to damnation could the truly righteous save their beloved Imperium from the many threats it faced! It was exactly because he was a loyal and righteous hero that Eduardo must give up his very soul so that others may be spared!
His puritanical Inquisitor colleagues had captured him and comprehensively interrogated him for heresy. They had found him to be an obvious heretic but also found him to be equally obviously unshakeably loyal to the Imperium and the Emperor.
Being unsure exactly what to do with him the other inquisitors had simply locked him away in a cell deep within the maximum security wing of "Jarred's Asteroid", a secret Inquisitorial Bastion that contained an absolutely gargantuan prison for heretics.
Eduardo had been in this cell for ten years now and he was fairly certain that they would never ever let him out as long as he still lived. He knew that he deserved to be locked up at the very least and he humbly accepted his punishment, it was necessary for his beloved Imperium that he be locked away to protect mankind from his taint.
Eduardo was just about to begin another hymn, this time to all the Imperial saints, when the thick metal shutter in front of his bulletproof window raised up with a clatter, giving Eduardo a clear view into the visitors room on the other side of the 3 foot thick armoured glass window. Eduardo jubilantly greeted his visitors in the Emperor's name.
The visitors room contained an entire gathering of his fellow inquisitors, all of them puritans including 3 Lord Inquisitors and a number of very important members of the Ordo Hereticus. Eduardo knew all of these men and women by name and had worked with them for years before he became an Oblationist.
Eduardo greeted them all by name and praised them all for the fine work that each of them did to protect the Imperium from its enemies. They all reciprocated greetings with him, he was one of their own so was treated with far greater warmth and politeness than they would with a non-Inquisitor.
Without preamble Hoffman the Alpha Plus hunter spoke.
"The Imperium has great need of you Eduardo, are you willing to do your duty to the God-Emperor?" Horatio Hoffman asked.
"I am offended that you even feel the need to ask! I gave up my very soul for the Emperor and I will die to do my duty to the Imperium! None take their duty more seriously than I!" Eduardo proclaimed with absolute conviction.
"I am grateful to hear that. One of my targets has fallen into the clutches of the traitor legions and been taken into the Maelstrom." Hoffman said gravely.
Eduardo balked and spluttered, "the vile traitor marines have gotten hold of an Alpha Plus! Emperor preserve us! Whatever you need me to do I will do it, tell me everything you know!"
***...
Warsmith Victus Ironboot of the Steel Brethren faction of the Iron Warriors chaos space marine legion cursed as the hated Night Lords found his flagship "the Bakal" yet again. No matter how well he hid his ship in the crazy warp storms of the Maelstrom he just couldn't shake off his pursuers!
The constant bombardment had blasted so many chunks out of the Bakal that the metal shortage for the repairs was now reaching breaking point. He even had his men knocking out walls throughout the ship now just to provide more metal for vital repairs!
His once proud Flagship was now like a skeleton, every bit of metal that could be safely salvaged was being fed into the eternal hunger of the smelters to repair the incessant damage. And the metal that could be safely removed would completely run out an hour from now at the present rate!
If he couldn't shake the Night Lords within the next hour then he would be forced to negotiate terms of surrender. The Night Lords only wanted to get back their Alpha Plus and her crèche, they would most likely spare the lives of the Iron Warriors if they just gave her back. Victus knew that the only reason they were all still alive was because Egg was still alive on board, if Victus had the Alpha Plus shot out of spite then he would never escape with his life!
Victus liked staying alive, so on the whole it was a lot safer just to give Egg Sevenson back to the Night Lords.
Victus cursed and opened a communications channel to the bridge of the Nightmare Asylum, they had won curse them!
The unbearably smug face of Chaos Lord Luke Sevenson filled the entire screen and Victus hung his head in bitter defeat.
"Take her and her damn crèche, you have won damn you! Just spare our lives!" Victus said bitterly.
The smug bastard smiled ear to ear and he eagerly agreed to spare them on the condition that they join his warband and swear oaths of loyalty to him. Victus had no choice but to agree.
***...
Reinstated radical Inquisitor Eduardo Garcia directed his borrowed Retribution class Battleship "Dictator of Righteousness" into the rolling warp storms of the Maelstrom with no resistance whatsoever from the chaos gods.
The mighty Inquisitorial battleship had been completely recrewed with chaos worshippers that Eduardo had carefully selected from the grim dungeons and torture chambers of "Jarred's Asteroid", the massive Inquisitorial Bastion that had housed Eduardo himself for ten long years. These heretics had been so completely brutalised and broken by the inquisition that they now fearfully obeyed all orders any inquisitor gave them without question.
Eduardo now looked the part in a master crafted suit of Inquisitorial Power Armour, bedecked all over in symbols of his office as a dreaded Inquisitor. The chaos crew was so utterly psychologically conditioned that the mere sight of Eduardo in his uniform of office made them wet themselves in terror and obey his every command unquestioningly.
The Dictator of Righteousness was absolutely filled to capacity with people and weapons, an entire army just in case it was needed. 3 million worshippers of chaos in total now called this ship home and all of them had been chosen for their combat abilities and imperial or chaos military experience. They were the best available out of the over 1 billion heretics housed inside the core of the 200 kilometre wide asteroid bastion, more than adequate for the task required of them.
Jarred's Asteroid was located near the South East edge of the Maelstrom and hidden in the middle of an asteroid cluster around an uninhabited star whose intense solar emissions obscured radio signals that might give away the Bastions position. It was utterly top secret and known to none outside the Inquisition. It was a dedicated prison for holding heretics captured from the surrounding sectors of the south eastern border of the Maelstrom, including not only imperial citizens but also masses of the lost and the damned originally born on the daemon worlds of the Maelstrom.
Traitor imperial navy men rubbed shoulders with the mutant crewmen of captured chaos ships to crew the Dictator of Righteousness, just as traitor imperial guardsmen shared ranks with battle hardened mutant hoards to provide Eduardo with his massive armies.
The chaos gods warmly welcomed Eduardo and the other chaos worshippers into their chaotic domain, no matter what their politics were, ALL worshippers of the chaos gods were welcomed here, even if they were Oblationist inquisitors!
Eduardo prayed fervently to the chaos gods and commanded his 3 million pawns to do the same. They needed to generate a frenzy of worship to attract enough favour for Eduardo to divine the location of Egg Sevenson.
"Worship harder, by order of the Inquisition!" Eduardo commanded over an intercom to the entire ship when the progress was slow.
The crew wailed in fear and threw themselves into a frenzy of emotional worship of the entire chaos pantheon and Eduardo felt the gaze of undivided draw to him.
"Gods of chaos, your worshippers ask the location of Egg Sevenson." Eduardo screamed in invocation.
The chaos gods were deeply conflicted by this request and refused to just hand over their prized Alpha Plus.
"We are not stupid you know Inquisitor. We welcome your worship but don't think that you can outwit us!" Tzeentch's voice tittered mockingly in Eduardo's mind.
Hmm Eduardo thought, maybe this would be more complicated than he originally thought!
***...
Egg Sevenson squealed with joy to see Violet and Patrick! She hadn't seen them in almost 6 months!
They had both grown so much! Especially Patrick.
Violet was holding Patrick in her arms and was accompanied by a man who was probably her biological father Sigmund Smith, an extremely attractive blonde woman who was obviously her often talked about but never before seen nanny slave/best friend Pamela, and unfortunately also present was the massive daemonic form of the Daemon Princess TigerLily.
The blonde woman's eyes went wide at the sight of Egg and she visibly trembled with excitement waiting for Egg to cover the distance to reach her. It was weird and a bit unsettling.
TigerLily chuckled and snapped her fingers. Suddenly Pamela transformed from a scantily dressed blonde woman into a black clad terrible Callidus Assassin!
The assassin looked at her black clad arms in horror as Violet and Sigmund yelled in absolute dismay! Quick as lightning the assassin realised that her cover was blown and she hurled herself at Egg with truly astonishing speed! Egg only just had time to scream before the assassin woman was stabbing her, but the blow never fell. At the last possible nanosecond a teleport beam flashed around the assassin and she was gone!
Egg wet herself in terror as everyone around her screamed. TigerLily was laughing so hard that she had fallen over on the floor as Violet and Sigmund wailed!
"What happened to poor Pamela, what did you do to her!" Violet screamed in her birdlike voice at TigerLily.
"Oh my dear daughter, it was not "I" who replaced Sigmund's fucktoy with a Callidus Assassin, I merely exposed her true form." TigerLily smirked, blinking away daemonic tears of laughter.
"WHAT!? But where is my best friend the REAL Pamela, oh Slaanesh please tell me that she is not dead!" Violet wailed in absolute distress.
TigerLily howled with laughter and took a while to get a word out. When she finally did, Egg and Violet both wanted to kill the evil bitch!
"That WAS the Pamela that was your "best friend" you fool, you never even met the original Pamela that the assassin replaced! The Callidus Assassin murdered your father's favourite sex slave Pamela 6 months ago, took her place mere hours before you entered your father's custody! She spent 6 months deliberately befriending you just so she could gain access to Egg, using a relic of the Dark Age of Technology to fool your psychic powers! She was NEVER your friend, it was all a lie to assassinate Egg! I was onto her right from the very start!" TigerLily said howling with cruel laughter.
"You deliberately let it go on for SIX MONTHS when you KNEW THE WHOLE TIME!? Why, WHY? What possible reason could you have for not apprehending her 6 months ago!?" Violet screamed through outraged tears of grief, pain and betrayal.
"Because it was FUNNY!" TigerLily said with sick delight and roared with daemonic laughter.
Every night lord space marine in the room roared with rage and opened fire on the treacherous Daemon Princess with their bolters until the chuckling sociopathic daemon fled the room bleeding daemonic ichor pursued by outraged chaos marines!
Violet and her father were absolutely inconsolable with grief, they had both absolutely LOVED Pamela! For 6 long months they had had so much delight in her company as a beloved family member! This was beyond SICK!
Egg and the rest of the crèche desperately hugged their wailing sister.
"6 months, SIX MONTHS! All because it was FUNNY!" Violet whimpered over and over again, her sanity driven right to the edge by TigerLily's latest sick "joke".
The daemon princess of Tzeentch was the most evil person Egg had ever had the misfortune of knowing, and in the forces of chaos the title of "most evil" came up against some pretty stiff competition! She was the sort of person who thought that dead puppies were funny, the sort of person who found it hilarious when a baby died of starvation! Just absolutely SICK!
Violet and her father were still crying with emotional pain when the grumbling Night Lords space marines returned to the room, apparently TigerLily had successfully evaded them.
One of the Night Lords walked up to the crèche and gave them all a cuddle to comfort them. They recognised the armour instantly, it was Mark/Mary, a Slaanesh worshipping chaos space marine who was a transsexual.
Mary (as he/she preferred to be addressed) was one of the few Night Lords that Egg had any respect for. Mary had been born as a boy but wanted to be a girl, it was a bit odd but Slaanesh took all sorts and as a self proclaimed Slaanesh worshipper Egg dutifully accepted Mary's oddity.
Mary certainly acted the part of a girl and did stuff like cuddle you when you were sad and joined in with girly activities like baby showers and shopping trips. She was the only Chaos Space marine that Egg had ever met (apart from her big brother Augusta) who actually genuinely cared about Egg as a little girl rather than as a super weapon.
The crèche (except Augusta who was repelled by Mary) accepted Mary's cuddles and together they all patiently comforted the weeping Violet.
When Violet had calmed down sufficiently Mary gently led them all into the throne room of the chaos lord.
It was an absolutely giant room, as big as a mighty chaos cathedral, large beyond any obvious need apart from feeding the Chaos Lord's equally massive ego. It was full of all sorts of furniture and equipment but was dominated by a massive command throne with an equally massive Chaos Lord sitting on it.
The room was completely swarming with people, most of them wretched looking slaves and fearful looking servants of various roles. A terrified looking Dark Mechanicum Tech priest was chained by the neck to the foot of the throne with a long chain, and a gaggle of naked concubines reclined provocatively around the foot of the throne awaiting the pleasure of the chaos lord.
Egg shuddered at the sight of these concubines, poor Mum had once been one of them!
Standing next to the throne was the Chaos Lord's sister, the chaos champion of Slaanesh Wendy Sevenson. Wendy was wearing far too much makeup and far too little clothing, clearly dolled up as much as possible for Mum's sake. She was a pretty petite woman with shoulder length hair that was currently dyed bright pink but was naturally brunette. On her face on her right cheek her champion's mark of Slaanesh glowed with a faint pink light.
Mum gazed at Wendy with open mouthed desire and Egg discreetly squeezed Mum's hand, reminding her to stay strong in the face of her highly unfaithful estranged wife. Mum came back to herself and steeled herself to resist simply going crawling back into the toxic relationship.
Egg's biological father, the Chaos Lord Luke Sevenson, pointed to his own lap and said, "come here beloved daughter."
Egg shivered with fear but dared not defy the terrible chaos lord. She slowly and fearfully walked up to the throne and climbed up and sat in the armoured despot's lap.
He looked at "his super weapon" greedily, seeing his own daughter as priceless and precious for all the WRONG reasons. In those eyes Egg saw maybe a dim ember of something approximating healthy fatherly love, but that ember was completely outshone by a raging inferno of desire to possess her as a weapon! The old tyrant had thousands of daughters borne to almost every woman on the ship, the only reason why he valued "this" particular daughter was because she was an Alpha Plus!
"Hello father", Egg squeaked fearfully, feeling intensely unsafe on the psychopath's lap.
The chaos lord beamed at her delightedly and placed a massive armoured hand on her back gently, holding her like she was the most precious thing he had ever owned (which she was).
The violent despot had won back his prize and now the whole galaxy would fear him!