Chapter 11D
Egg Sevenson was astonished by how peaceful and safe her new school was, not a single person was harmed the entire day.
Despite the presence of an entire regiment of elite inquisition storm troopers, no one was shot nor even threatened, everything was peaceful and safe. Bullying seemed to be nonexistent, the students were not split up into warring factions and the teachers appeared to be genuinely excited about their jobs.
Her class consisted of about thirty students, an even mix of boys and girls, and all except Egg were exactly the same ethnic group and culture. They were all clean, well fed and showed no signs of suffering violence, all in exactly the same school uniform though the boys wore different uniforms from the girls.
It was impossible to tell who was rich or poor, who was powerful or weak politically, nor the social or economic differences between the students. Egg was astonished, in the education system of the forces of chaos, you ALWAYS could tell by sight exactly how high a person's status was. This system was so different, so equal.
Egg sat next to Yuki in the front row, the only desks that remained unclaimed, and she felt rather shy with the class able to see her but herself unable to see them. Normally in the past Egg's status was such that she would get any seat she liked, but here she was just another student.
The lesson was all in the Japanese language that the planet Beta Kyoto Epsilon spoke, and used Japanese letters which was a problem for Egg. As the heir to the Chaos Lord, Egg's education had been second to none and she had been raised extremely multilingual. She could speak and understand SPOKEN Japanese, but she had far greater difficulty reading and writing the Japanese letters.
Egg was forced to write down everything in Imperial High Gothic letters as best she could and constantly asked the teacher to verbally read what he wrote on the board so she could hastily scribble it down in gothic letters phonetically.
This caused continual interruptions to the class and Egg got ever more embarrassed by her lack of understanding.
"Miss Sevenson, I would like to see you after class to discuss options for you to overcome this literacy barrier. It is ok if you don't write down what I put on the board today, no one expects you to be able to read in a language not your own." The teacher told her in Japanese.
Egg sighed and agreed, feeling so stupid.
Egg had never been ALLOWED to be less than perfect in any subject before, the forces of chaos did not readily tolerate failure. No matter how hard a subject was, Egg had always managed to pass, fearing punishment and disapproval if she failed.
Egg felt terrible as the class continued without her, she felt so stupid and incompetent. Everyone else was easily understanding the written component of the lesson, only poor stupid Egg had absolutely no idea what the letters meant.
At the end of the class Egg trembled all over in shame as she approached the teacher. Yuki stayed with Egg for moral support and Egg held his hand like a lifeline.
The teacher looked at the hand holding in disapproval and Egg quickly let go and apologised for everything.
"Relax miss Sevenson, it is ok. The Inquisitor has explained your situation to the entire faculty before you enrolled. You are not in trouble." The teacher said kindly.
"I'm not in trouble?" Egg asked nervously.
"No, you are not in trouble. I merely wish to talk to you about extra classes you can take to learn our system of writing." The teacher reassured her.
He went on to outline the study options available for Egg as well as some extra credit classes that could really help her. Egg felt touched, this teacher was being so nice to her.
Egg felt encouraged as she left the class, these people were all being so nice to her.
Egg and Yuki proceeded to their next class just before it started, taking their seats at the front of the room once again.
This class was a religious studies class, taught by a rather stern looking woman from the Imperial Cult. She was dressed like some sort of nun in grey robes, middle aged, clearly a native of Beta Kyoto Epsilon and just as clearly disapproving of the native culture.
The woman was named Sister Yoko, and she seemed to have very mixed feelings about Egg being present in her class. She looked constantly between Egg's mutations and the excessive purity seals covering Egg which proclaimed her as being clean in the eyes of the Emperor.
Egg was very eager to learn all about the Emperor, the god of her new religion. She had never really learned much about what the imperial cult actually taught and was very eager to dive into the worship rituals of the Emperor. Egg was therefore very excited about this class.
Sister Yoko started the class and Egg listened enthusiastically.
Egg listened for a few minutes before she was frowning, that wasn't very nice to say that the 3 deadly sins were being a mutant, being a psyker and being an alien. Egg timidly put up her hand.
"Yes miss Sevenson?" Sister Yoko asked.
"I have some difficulties with these sins Sister Yoko. I was born as both a mutant and a psyker, I can't help the way that I was born. How can it be sinful when I didn't actually do anything to be born this way?" Egg asked politely.
"You are the daughter of very sinful parents, and their sins and crimes have carried through into you, making you be born sinful. Because of this you are both a mutant and a psyker. But do not fear, you have repented of your evil bloodline and are being educated in the holy faith of the Emperor." Sister Yoko explained.
Egg frowned but nodded, she wasn't entirely happy with this explanation but it gave her something to ponder. Her biological parents were indeed extremely evil people and maybe some of that evil had somehow carried over into Egg?
The lesson continued and Egg listened carefully despite her unease.
Sister Yoko enthusiastically proclaimed, "at the invocation of the name of the Emperor, all daemons of chaos will be driven back from you. As long as your faith in the Emperor is strong enough, neither daemon nor psyker shall be able to harm you."
Egg shot up her hand frantically at this.
"Yes miss Sevenson, a question?" Sister Yoko asked impatiently.
"I know from personal experience that what you just said is not true. I myself have used my psychic powers to kill sisters of battle, loyalist space marines, even some custodians of the golden throne itself! This was back before I met the Inquisitor and joined the imperium. These people all had unquestionable faith in the Emperor, and I fried their brains and crushed their bodies with no difficulties." Egg said and continued talking through the stunned silence.
"As for the daemon fleeing the name of the Emperor, that is also not true. My birth mother ascended to become a daemon princess after I was born. Actually my grandmother on my father's side also ascended to daemonhood. We have two daemons in the family, and both of them have killed people who invoked the name of the Emperor, it didn't even slow them down. Holy relics covered in the right symbols can drive them both away, but words alone are not enough." Egg finished.
Sister Yoko gaped at Egg, as did the entire class, all of them looked terribly afraid.
"You killed sacred custodians of the golden throne?" Sister Yoko asked numbly.
"I did. I didn't want to but they were trying to kill me, I had no choice. Inquisitor Hoffman sent them in a large task force to murder me almost a year ago, that was before he decided to take me alive. They were really scary, for months afterwards I suffered terrible nightmares about them, they are terrible foes to face in battle! They came so close to killing me!" Egg said wretchedly.
The room was so silent that you could hear a pin drop.
"Hmm, well I think that maybe you are a special case. From the number of purity seals you bear and the fact that you are here, it is possible that the Emperor had already blessed you, knowing that you would one day serve him. Perhaps you might even become a saint, yes, perhaps you will grow up to be a saint or something else really sacred in the light of the Emperor." Sister Yoko suggested feebly.
"As for your um, daemon relatives, maybe they are just lying to you. Daemons are well known for being liars, maybe the Emperor's name actually did drive them back but they merely lied about it." Sister Yoko offered.
Egg's mouth fell open, "I'm a saint?"
"No I didn't say definitely, I merely offered a hypothetical suggestion!" Sister Yoko exclaimed fearfully.
"Maybe I should ask the Inquisitor?" Egg suggested.
"No! Don't mention what I suggested, it was merely a hypothetical, nothing worth bothering the Inquisitor about!" Sister Yoko pleaded emphatically.
Egg cocked her head slightly and said, "you are terrified of being investigated for heresy and shot, aren't you. I highly doubt that Inquisitor Hoffman will go to the effort of treating every word you say as evidence of wrongdoing, he is more sensible than that. Unless you are actually part of a chaos cult or are part of some conspiracy then he will have no interest in you. If he can forgive me of everything I did, then he CERTAINLY won't condemn you for sharing some hypothetical conjecture."
Sister Yoko's face went grey and she stammered that she was completely innocent and that she had nothing to fear. Egg nodded and Sister Yoko struggled to continue the class after that.
***...
Egg spent her lunch break exploring the school grounds, walking as she ate the packed lunch the Inquisitor had prepared for her. The lunch was some kind of rice dish, with fresh fruit and some type of packaged snack bars on the side.
The school was composed of several 4 story buildings connected by walkway bridges, surrounded by a spacious playground, sports field, ball game courts and swimming pool, all surrounded by a massive high wall with only one highly fortified gateway.
The walls and gate had obviously been recently fortified by the Inquisition forces, with adamantium battlements, a series of armoured gates, and even an overhead void shield to protect against orbital bombardment! The battlements and gates were vigilantly guarded by storm troopers, and sniper nests occupied the roofs of every building.
In fact the entire school was infested with soldiers who silently guarded every room in the entire school and patrolled the halls and grounds constantly in heavily armed groups.
Despite the heavy military presence, the storm troopers were so silent and disciplined that it was quite easy to forget that they were even there. They simply didn't interact with people beyond the initial check of every person at the gate. They stood still as statues in the back corners of the class rooms and did not react to anything around them.
Egg was tailed constantly by a group of storm troopers everywhere she went. They always kept a discreet distance from her to avoid disturbing her. Egg ignored them and had the time of her life exploring the wonderful clean playground.
It was all so open, with blue sky overhead and exposed to the atmosphere of the planet, not counting the invisible void shield which at any rate did not seem to enclose atmosphere. Every now and again a local wild bird flew into the void shield and caught fire, but the wind easily blew through it unhindered.
Egg was a bit sad about the poor birds, they vaporised in tiny little fire balls, giving agonised squawks for a split second before being reduced to ash. It wasn't just birds either, flying insects were also being obliterated en mass, as was the occasional wind blown bit of trash.
Egg looked away from the genocide of airborne things and instead focused on the things on the ground. This planet had TREES.
Egg had never seen a tree before except in films and photos. She had been born on a space ship and apart from this planet, she had set foot on exactly 3 planets in her entire life, Akranes, Cocowango and Hapela Theta Rho 1.
Akranes had been an ice world of glacier covered land masses on the frontier between the Imperium of man and the Tau Empire. Egg had only been on the surface once for a few hours during the year of her life that the Tau Empire had stolen her from the Night Lords before her father murdered them all. There had been no land vegetation on Akranes, the only plants and animals had all been living in the icy cold oceans.
The imperial Agri-World of Cocowango had had trees but Egg had not gotten to see anything bigger than the hedge in a farmer's garden. Cocowango was an arid desert planet covered in hardy arid crops, just endless planes of genetically modified crops as far as the eye could see. It had apparently had entire forests around the oasis's but Egg herself had never got to see them.
And Hapela Theta Rho 1 of course had never had any plant life of any kind.
Egg gazed at the playground trees in fascination, they were such beautiful things. They were a variety of different species, but all had a central trunk that stuck out of the dirt and went up in the air before branching out into steadily smaller branches that ended in green leaves. The trees smelled so wonderful.
Egg spent the rest of her lunch break just exploring these beautiful trees, she loved plants.
In her life on board various space craft and space stations, Egg had barely had any opportunity to encounter plant life. In the pressurised environment of a space ship, liveable space was at a premium. Growing plants would just take up far too much room.
The machines on the space ships had used electricity to produce a breathable atmosphere artificially, and all food was either obtained from planets or else was produced synthetically in massive chemical synthesisers that used electricity to turn carbon dioxide, water, nitrogen and sewerage into bland chemical meals that provided everything the body needs.
A few people had kept useful or decorative plants in small pots, but those had all been very tiny plants, nothing like these massive trees.
Egg was sad when she left the trees to go back to class, it had been such a huge privilege to see them.
***...
Egg's new life on Beta Kyoto Epsilon was the happiest her life had ever been. It was consistently safe, consistently peaceful, and the people she encountered were kind and accepting of her.
After it became common knowledge that Egg had personally rescued all of the returned abducted locals, Egg was forever afterwards welcomed by the community members with open arms.
The cultural differences were a struggle to overcome, but as the days became weeks and the weeks became months, Egg felt more and more at home here.
She threw herself into learning devotion to the Imperial Cult, joining a local church that Inquisitor Hoffman recommended. Inquisitor Hoffman... The man was a father to her now, the most devoted father figure she had ever had.
Hoffman never beat her, never got angry with her, was consistently patient, kind and nurturing. He was nothing like her previous father figure "Pedo" Pete Smith the pedophile, who used to fiddle with her vagina in the bathtub. Hoffman had never touched her, nor ever shown inclination to ever want to.
He was quite simply a decent man with a huge heart and a lot of love to give. He was quite simply the father that Egg had needed her entire life.
***...
Inquisitor Eduardo Garcia was deeply troubled as he met with the Inquisition council on Jarred's Asteroid.
Eduardo was back in prison again, his mission over the moment that the Alpha Plus had been captured by Horatio Hoffman and secured in a psychic containment helmet. Eduardo had returned to Jarred's Asteroid dutifully without question but he was still deeply troubled by Hoffman's actions.
"He should have killed the Alpha Plus, I find his actions to be deeply questionable." Eduardo told the council yet again.
"Inquisitor Horatio Hoffman is the leading authority on Alpha Plus Psykers, he knows more about them than anyone. I have always found him to be a deeply trustworthy man. If anyone can handle the Alpha Plus then he can." Said Inquisitor Bossenhagen.
"But why did he not hand her over to the black ships, this is not the correct protocol. I still think that he should have shot her. Everything about this is unorthodox." Eduardo insisted.
"I disagree, think about the millions of lives lost to capture her. It cost the Imperium dearly to obtain the Alpha Plus, killing her would leave nothing to show for it. Think about what we have here. A tame Alpha Plus serving as an official agent of the Inquisition! Do you not see the huge potential we have to destroy the enemies of man." Inquisitor Messe exclaimed passionately.
This generated still more debate among the council.
Hoffman had sent a detailed report of his plans for Egg Sevenson. He pointed out that Egg had a deep seeded need to have family figures in her life and would be much more cooperative and loyal if she was put in a nurture environment in an imperial setting to make her fall in love with the Imperium of Man.
To this end, Hoffman had personally adopted the Alpha Plus as his own daughter and was teaching her to worship the Emperor. Hoffman had also insisted that Egg Sevenson stay in intimate contact with Yuki Tagawa, the abducted imperial citizen who was romantically involved with the Alpha Plus.
Hoffman had insisted that Egg was settling into Imperial life much better by having bonded with Yuki and he showed detailed information to prove that this was true.
What was without question was that the Alpha Plus was being educated in the Imperial Cult and was showing great enthusiasm in this. 3 different Inquisitors had visited Hoffman and Egg over the past few months and all of them confirmed that the girl was showing proper enthusiasm and dedication in worship of the Emperor.
"I'm still not convinced that this is appropriate. I think that perhaps Hoffman has let his personal feelings cloud his judgment. It is deeply inappropriate for him to adopt her, at the very least she should be raised in an Inquisitorial Bastion rather than on an unsecured civilised world. The forces of chaos may still be seeking her." Eduardo insisted.
The council was deeply divided on this issue and Eduardo requested that he tag along with a large group of Inquisitors to investigate Hoffman for any signs of taint or compromise.
The council disagreed, "You are in no position to judge another for heresy, a heretic yourself you have no right to judge an inquisitor of flawless reputation."
Eduardo sighed, this was not over yet!
***...
In the Hapela Theta Rho system the Imperial scavengers were hard at work looting the many battle fields of everything of value.
The system was on paper supposed to be a group of mining worlds, but this was far from the primary economy. The planets had more iron than the Imperium knew what to do with, but the location really stinks for warp travel.
It was extremely easy to cut away slabs of iron and shuttle them up to waiting ships in orbit, but only during the middle of the night when the shuttles were protected from the radiation by the shadow of the planet. And even after that the ships then had to spend many weeks at least traveling far enough from the star to go to warp. It simply wasn't worth all the effort involved.
Much more profitable was salvaging the war equipment and wrecked vehicles scattered everywhere. A las gun was worth more than a ton of iron, and there were literally hundreds of millions of them laying around.
The locals were making a fortune swarming the planet gathering the wealth of the battle dead. Every body was searched and stripped of everything, even the most damaged gear was worth something after all. Arms dealers swarmed to this planet to buy the gathered bonanza and the local economies were booming while this glut lasted.
The planet Hapela Theta Rho 1 was still an active war zone and too dangerous to scavenge the surface, but the planet's orbit still contained a rich feeding grounds of wrecked war ships.
Most impressive were the cubed ships that the Alpha Plus had crushed into cubes with her psychic powers. Those cubes were still in orbit, but the scavengers were not interested in cubes.
The civilian scavenger ships gleefully looted the massive wrecked ships, some of the Night Lords ships were filled to bursting with loot plundered from various planets, everything from gold to high technology.
The ships were still dangerous of course, the chaos crew were not always all dead. Odd pockets of atmosphere still remained deep inside these ships and harboured deadly chaos fighters. Some of the larger ships were positively crawling with heavily armed heretics in space suits.
The civilian scavengers avoided the known occupied ships and instead focused on the wrecks with no survivors onboard.
Kevin the scavenger grinned greedily as he explored the guts of one of the bigger chunks of a chaos battle cruiser that had been blasted into several large pieces. The ship was absolutely choked with xenos technology stolen from the Tau Empire.
Kevin smiled as he grabbed a crate full of Tau Pulse rifles and carried them back to the docked civilian ship, black market arms dealers would pay an absolute fortune for these guns.
Kevin wandered the corridors back to his ship, the magnetic soles of his shoes granting him purchase in zero gravity. The place was choked with floating debris, especially vacuum desiccated bodies, and these obstructed visibility greatly.
Kevin radioed his other scavengers happily, uncaring of the floating grave yard. He got no reply, nothing but static. Kevin guessed that the metal of the wreckage was blocking the signal and thought nothing of it.
He made his way gingerly through the floating detritus and reached the spot where the docked ship should be but found only a gaping hole blasting in the spot. Kevin gazed through the hole in horror and saw something massive that shouldn't be there.
It was clearly a dauntless class light cruiser, but it was so thoroughly covered in blasphemous symbols sacred to the chaos god Tzeentch that it was obviously a chaos ship. It's navigation lights were all blinking and it was unquestionably operational!
Kevin was so busy screaming that he didn't hear his radiation warning beeping at him. He didn't even notice the distant black orb of the pulsar star behind the chaos light cruiser, and he didn't even notice as every cell in his body instantly had it's genetic code fried. He was dead in moments, his cellular molecular machinery completely obliterated by the harsh gamma rays.
The crate of Tau pulse rifles slipped out of his limp dead hands and sluggishly floated out the hole into the surrounding space of orbit. It floated past the metal fragments that was all that remained of the civilian scavenging fleet, floated slowly past the massive form of the light cruiser.
The weapons systems of the light cruiser were flashing silently in the vacuum of space, hitting the imperial soldiers down on the surface of the planet in a surprise attack that was killing men by the millions and driving the survivors deep underground where they could not interfere with the evacuation of all chaos ground forces.
In the clogged orbit of the planet the cruiser had exited the warp with pinpoint accuracy in a gap in the wreckage, completely undetected and mistaken for just another wreck. Automated Tau designed Manta missile destroyers slipped out of a modified flight bay on either side of the prow of the cruiser. Unaffected by the radiation, this stolen Tau technology descended down to the planet's surface, rescue for the chaos forces had arrived.
***...
The chaos Dauntless light cruiser "Orphan Blender" was rather squishy as it evacuated over 10 million chaos survivors from both the wrecks in orbit as well as everyone down on the planet.
The ship initiated a brief warp hop and flashed back into real space beside the wreckage that was the Chaos Gloriana class battle ship "the Nightmare Asylum". The Nightmare Asylum had been traveling at significantly above escape velocity when it had been shot into wreckage and had drifted far out into deep space by now.
The wrecked battle ship emitted a radio signal, "what took you so long."
"Sorry Lukey, came as fast as I could." Came TigerLily's reply.