SIXTEEN

I should have died that day. I had stupidly dropped my guard for a few moments and somebody walked up behind me, took their sweet time in aiming, and fired several shots into my backside. In my career I had seen far worthier people die through no fault of their own and yet I lived despite having made one of the dumbest mistakes you could do without being considered mentally deficient. I lived because while I might have made a massive and erroneous lapse in judgment, my assailant made an even worse one – he didn't bother to check and make sure I was dead. You can be certain that several shots in the back is virtually guaranteed to kill any guardsman or commissar. But most guardsmen and commissars don't stuff an extra layer of flak armour under their coat. Perhaps my shooter was in a hurry, perhaps he was drawing his last breath, or maybe somebody wanted me alive (though I think that is unlikely as I was deliberately shot several times at close range).

Now the flak armour might have saved my life but that didn't mean I was able to get up and walk away from the attack. Quite the contrary, I laid unconscious for several hours. The flak armour had taken some of the edge off the hits but they had still caused significant injury.

I had been reported missing presumed dead, written off as another statistic in a bloody war that had already claimed thousands of lives already. Somewhere, Cain was resigning himself to the fact that he'd have to start doing his own paperwork again; Watz was working on the centaur so he wouldn't have to think about how he'd loss another shot at an easy career; and a certain veteran sergeant was probably feeling a bit more cheerful.

Considering the career that I had chosen, the assignment I had been so unceremoniously dumped into plus the inevitability of a painful death for anybody serving in the Imperial Guard, a part of me was wondering if just surrendering to death would be the best option or if I should subject myself to more abuse, pain and suffering.

What happened next I still often debate late into the night over a glass of amasec. At the time I dismissed it as nothing more than the random firing of neurons as my brain slowly started losing power and the synapses desperately tried to cling to life. Lately, however, I wonder if it could have been something more. I was conscious but at the same time I wasn't. Rather like dreaming that you're awake when you're sleeping but then realizing that you are awake. I was lying on the ground surrounded by sheer, utter darkness and an all-pervasive chill. Back then I thought it was what people went through as they died – that cold, darkness that people usually described in their last breaths before calling out for their mother. I couldn't help but wonder, 'am I dying?'

"Do you believe you are dying?" A voice suddenly spoke up, soft to the ear, flowing through my mind like a warm breeze. I looked for a source and saw a barely-visible figure standing over me. Whether it was darkness or failing nerves, I could scarcely make out any details other than the outline of a tall figure, featureless save for two shimmering points where the eyes would be. They twinkled ever so slightly as he spoke but otherwise I seemed to be talking to a shadow on a non-existent wall.

"I…I think so. Are you…are you the Emperor?"

He shook his head slowly. "Your Emperor cannot help you here." That was undeniably true. There wasn't going to be some miracle to save me and if I was still alone after so many hours then it was unlikely anybody was going to bother coming for me. A quick death was beginning to seem like a preferable option. I wondered if I just let my eyes drift shut, I might be able to go to sleep and simply not wake up.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I realized my senses weren't slowly shutting down but it was merely nightfall and the temperature had dropped significantly. I was, in fact, still in the shattered warehouse in the same spot that I fell, as evident by the presence of my laspistol. "I…I'm still alive," I muttered at the realization. To further test my observation, I tried to move, which predictably caused sharp, stabbing pains to shoot through my back. Now there was no doubt about it: I was definitely alive…at least for the moment. While I could safely conclude I was not yet in my last throes of life, the shadowy apparition was still present and still just as featureless. "What do you want?"

"Actually, there is a far more important question to ask," he replied, slowly walking around me like a tutor circling their troublesome student. "What do you want?"

"I asked first…"

"Ah, but first is rarely what matters," the voice replied, almost mockingly. "The first to live is often the first to die; the first to act is often the first to make mistakes; the first to talk is often the first to be ignored. As such, being first means little in the end so I ask again: what do you want?"

"Right…I'm clearly losing my mind," I sighed in resignation. Why I was arguing with a figment of my exhausted imagination is still a mystery to me but when alone and close to death, sometimes weird things are needed to keep the mind running. Figuring that if I ignored the voice long enough my mind would eventually stop trying to screw with me and give but after several minutes it lingered, repeating the question every so often. "I want you to shut up!" I finally snapped after hearing the same question for the tenth time.

Oddly enough, for a short while the voice did remain silent. The barely-visible shadow was still lingering over me but at least it had stopped talking. I was almost able to convince myself that what I saw before me was merely the light (or general lack thereof) playing tricks on my fatigued mind. But then the voice spoke again, eyes twinkling as if to remind me that it was still there. "Silence did not improve your situation." Neither was the yammering but pointing it out did not dissuade the voice from continuing to provide pointless feedback. Since ignoring and telling the voice off didn't help matters, I figured I might as well just try being honest for a change. There wasn't much point in lying to myself now was there?

It asked what I wanted. "I want…to get out of here," I groaned.

"That, commissar, is entirely up to you."

"If the Emperor wills it…"

"Do you really think He will help you now? Do you honestly believe a giant, mystical hand will reach down and lift to your feet? Cure your pains? Tend your wounds? Shield you from harm?"

"No, but…somebody could come and-"

"And if nobody comes?" the voice interrupted, much to my annoyance. "Yours is the only will that you can depend upon and it is the greatest weapon you will ever possess. Find the strength wherever you wish but only when you accept the burden of your destiny will you find where it leads. When darkness envelopes, yours is the only light you can use to illuminate your path. Now I ask you, do you wish to live?" I simply nodded, not sure how I had managed to get chastised by my own consciousness. "Then you will want to get up."

I felt like I just got slapped in the face by Captain Obvious but I had just minutes ago almost resigned myself to an inevitable death. Did I just mentally kick my own arse back into line? Sometimes even a commissar needed a kick in the pants. I needed to get up; I wanted to get up…I wanted to live. However, if my own chastising subconscious had failed to motivate me, the heavy footsteps and loud, obscene grunting echoing from outside would. They were not the muttering and bickering of guardsmen or heretics but orks. Injured and perhaps surrounded by orks made for bad survival odds and I began to wonder how my subconscious ever expected willpower to help but I had already committed myself to surviving so there was no where to go but forward.

I grabbed my laspistol and started crawling across the room to where an intact metal pipe still ran up the wall. Although it was slow and very painful progress, I was able to use the pipe to climb back to my feet. One of the shots must have caught my shoulder, though, as moving my left arm cause the sharp pains to return and I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out. Contrary to what a lot of war novels and holofilms suggest, getting shot makes it very difficult to move and not just because of the pain. It took almost all my strength to get up and all my willpower not to scream at the top of my lungs in the process. I was about to take my first steps when I heard footsteps closing in and the telltale sign of ork grunts and mutterings echoing through the hall. Steadying my laspistol as best I could (thankfully my right shoulder was uninjured) at the doorframe, I did not even dare to breath as the footsteps grew louder. The first one appeared, its massive, hulking frame seemed too big to make it through the doorway, not that I expected an obstacle as simple as a narrow doorway would hold back a bloodthirsty ork. Fighting orks indoors was always a bad thing for us puny humans: indoors only the smaller orks could move about easily but the short ranges meant even their bad accuracy was dangerous and they could be right on top of you in a heartbeat (usually your last). At first it didn't see me in the shadows – it wasn't looking in my direction. Praying wasn't going to help me so I focused on lining up my shot. Since the universe had made it a personal mission to play mind games with me, the ork lingered in view, its head sweeping from side to side, loud snorts and sniffs barely audible over my jack-hammering heart. My hands trembled. It was me against Emperor-knows how many orks and the slightest noise would give my position away. A single shot from my laspistol, even if it was precise enough to take out the ork before it could let out a holler, would alert any ork in the immediate vicinity and a cascade of hollers would lead them to me. They would descend upon me faster than a pack of tyranids on an all-you-can-eat buffet.

It was a most disconcerting thought.

The ork looked ready to move on but just before he continued on his way, my hand slipped on the metal pipe was using for support, sending a spray of rockrete pebbles across the floor. They clattered upon the rockrete floor, followed soon by a heart-stopping call of 'wut dat?' From that point on I had little other choice – the board was set, the pieces were in place, and all I could do from that point on was fight for dear life. The first shot faltered, missing the vital point and only blowing off most of its jaw. The pained howl echoed through the building but it only lasted a moment as my second shot pulped its brain.

I waited a few seconds to see if any other orks would spill into the room but thankfully none came. At first I thought I could hear the continuing echo of the ork's wail through from the halls but after a few seconds I realized it wasn't an echo I was hearing. Despite spikes of pain shooting through my body with every breath and movement, I limped passed the fallen ork and into the hall just in time to see a bunch of the greenskins clustering near at the far end. Whether they could see me or not was irrelevant, I had to strike first if I were to have any chance of survival. The tight hallways and stocky ork frames meant every short hit something and the few shots they managed to fire back whisked past me. A dozen shots later, the cluster of orks were dead but I could hear more coming soon.

"Run commissar! Run!"

It was that damn voice again. Maybe I really was losing my mind. However, this was not the time to be having arguments with my inner self so I carried on down the hall as fast as my wounded body could carry me. A few shots bouncing off the rockrete near my head provided excellent motivation to pick up the pace. Unfortunately it was not motivation that I lacked but capability. I approached a four-way intersection, my first instinct to head to the right. If I hadn't become too disorientated it should be the quickest route outside.

"Left, now!" The voice echoed through my mind.

Since I only had a nano-second to make up my mind (though part of it already seemed to be decided), I figured I'd follow the advice of the little voice in my head. Thus far it hadn't steered me wrong and by the whiz and crackles of the bullets bouncing off the walls the left hallway proved to be the only one clear of orks. The random shots I fired blindly over my shoulder did little to dissuade my pursuers and they were rapidly gaining ground on me. Movements in the shadow ahead caught my attention and for a short while I thought they had managed to box me in. But the silhouette I saw in the distance was not large enough to be an ork and I wondered if my eyes were merely playing tricks on me again. I was close to dismissing it as the same visual hallucination that had taunted me earlier. Then the shadow spoke and all doubt was moved.

"Get down Abel!" Kael's voice rang out. I hit the ground as advised, less of a dive and more of a drunken pratfall. Silenced shots zipped over me, cutting down the orks with surgical precision. I had barely regained my composure when Kael came up to me. "Fancy running into you out here, eh? Come on Abel, on your feet." If I weren't so close to dying I might have resented being ordered around but saving my arse does grant certain privileges. With the added support from Kael, we were able to continue moving forward.

"I hope you have an escape route planned."

"Yeah…Watz is waiting out by the vehicle," Kael explained.

"Watz is here?" I asked incredulously.

"Well somebody had to drive and Watz sure as heck wasn't interested in getting reassigned," he answered with a sigh. We stopped at another four-way intersection and his eyes panned between the different halls. Being a scout, he should've known his way through the building effortlessly so I was puzzled to see him so hesitant. "Everybody had pretty much pegged you for being dead and with the orks roaming around the neighbourhood they weren't going to risk sending anybody in. I was a little surprised that Watz was willing to help me out. I guess I wasn't the only one hoping for a miracle."

"That's all well and good but which way do we go?" I asked in order to get him to focus on the task at hand.

Finally, he decided on a direction and took us straight ahead. With echoing of orks all around, I figured he was trying to plot a path that avoided them, rather than the most direct route out. At the next intersection he tried to take us right but a group of orks appeared around the corner in the distance and a volley of gunfire forced us to take another route, to the tune of much cursing. Our movement became more hasty and erratic after that, which led me to initially believe that he had been anticipating on using the hallway we had been forced away from. The truth, it turned out, was that he wasn't so much keen on using the main hallway that we had been cut off from but that he desperately wanted to avoid the hallway we had been forced into. This fact was made readily apparent when we stumbled into a dead-end room.

"Frak, I was afraid of this," Kael muttered bitterly. "Serves me right for being so hasty."

"Any more brilliant plans?" I remarked.

"One…but you're really going to have to trust me on this," he said as he led me into the room. He carefully set me down in the corner of the room. I thought he would barricade the entrance or something idiotic like trying to draw the orks away from me. Instead, he knelt down beside me, drawing me close with his arm and then covering my mouth with a free hand. I did not know what he was up to…but I had no option but to trust him if I wanted to survive. We waited, barely making a sound as we kept out breath soft and shallow. I knew the shadows would make us harder to see but we were far from invisible and as a few orks stomped into the room I was certain we would be slaughtered in a heartbeat.

But they didn't seem to notice us. The two orks walked right past us and gawked in confusion at the otherwise empty room. One of the orks even turned and looked right our direction and for a second I was certain our eyes met…but then it turned away and started shouting at the smaller ork next to it. The two started shouting at one another, which naturally involved into head-smacking, and then finally the larger ork just hit the smaller one with its cleaver. It was the typical routine of ork behavior – cursing, violence, and then both walking away as if everything was perfectly normal despite one having bodily wounds that would fell a normal human. Eventually the orks left, their footsteps faded into nothing and silence fell upon the warehouse, at which point Kael finally loosened his grip on me. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief but I was left with more questions than a paranoid inquisitor on stims.

"What the frak did you do?" I blurted out immediately and was quickly wary of how loud I might have been. Thankfully, I did not undo all the good fortune that had just fallen upon us. There was no way in the Warp that those orks could have overlooked us, not in their blood-hungry state. There was only one feasible explanation that popped to mind. "What manner of sorcery was that?"

"The kind that just saved your arse…and you're welcome, by the way," he snipped back. Though he might have saved my life, I wasn't prepared to risk damning my soul over it. I leveled my laspistol at him, which he noticed with no hint of surprise. "I told you to trust me Ariel," he said sternly. "I came to get you out of here so please let me do that. When this is over and we speak again, I'll answer all the questions you want about this."

He had a very good point. As upset and suspicious as I was, he did possess the only means of escape and it wasn't like he was crapping out daemons. Whatever he did…whatever he was capable of…it hadn't caused me harm, yet. I may as well continue trusting him. "Fair enough," I said in resignation, allowing my laspistol to fall to my side.

Kael looked relieved to hear that, though it only showed for a brief moment before he hopped back to his feet and crept to the doorway. "We'll wait here for a minute or two. They should start to disperse when they can't find us and will assume we've made it outside. Thankfully, orks don't exactly have organized search parties." Thank the Emperor for small miracles indeed; any other army would have posted sentries and made systematic sweeps. Orks could barely organize a clusterfrak. The silence didn't help ease my nerves much but with so much happening at once I barely noticed that my hands were still shaking. Kael returned to my side and offered to take a look at my injuries. Normally I would leave it for a proper medic but since I had no idea of the extent of my injury, it seemed like the prudent choice. For all I knew, I had been running through the hall with my kidneys trailing behind. I shifted into a more comfortable position while Kael apparently did his best to make it as uncomfortable as possible. His fingers poked and probed through the holes in my coat and armour, pushing against charred, burnt flesh. "Looks like these came from a lasgun," Kael said. "I figured you'd be more careful than to just drop your guard."

"I got distracted," I replied. "The rest of the squad should have been just outside…everyone in the room was dead…"

"Black Cross maybe?"

"Couldn't have been just a coincidence that I was with the one squad that hated me the-OW! Careful!" Had it not hurt so much to twist my upper body, I would've reached back and smacked Kael for that but I had little choice but to make a mental note to hit him later. Every time he made me wince was going to be five smacks upside the head. He was up to forty thus far. Things were quiet for a while as Kael continued to poke and prod and I continued to keep tabs on his debt. Eventually, as the question nagged at my mind, I had to ask, "Why'd you come back for me?"

"Why do I need a reason to save your life?" He was clearly trying to deflect the issue, which was all the reason I needed to keep pressing.

"You couldn't have known I was still alive…so why risk your neck on the slim chance I was still alive in all this mess? Plus, two people risking their lives for a commissar who might be dead – people don't risk their lives with the odds stacked so squarely against them without a really good reason. I'm not worth that kind of risk."

"Did you ever think that maybe you matter more than you give yourself credit?" Kael insisted, sounding a bit annoyed at my display of humility. How come Cain always got away with it? "You're important to your regiment, to your comrades, to Cain, to your friends, to this mission…and to me." Despite how much it hurt, I had to look back to see Kael's expression – the conversation was just too difficult for me to continue without being able to read his expression. People often told far more through the subtleties of their facial muscles than with their words. However, my gesture must have sent a different message as Kael immediately fell into a verbal retreat. "I…uh, didn't mean it like that! What I meant to say was that well-being is a matter of great concern to me and…um, that doesn't sound a whole lot better actually. I just mean that I like you…uh, but not in the way that you're thinking! Unless you're thinking that I meant in the total non-emotional, arm's length away kind of way, in which case that's exactly what I meant. Well, I don't mean quite like that cause it's not completely non-emotional and…um, I'm getting myself confused here."

"You're not the only one," I quipped.

Kael took a deep breath to regain his composure, giving me time to wonder how a guy with social skills like that managed to get a girl in the first place. "I know it sounds weird but I do care about you…but not in the way that you're thinking. I…I don't really think of anybody in that way actually…not anymore at least."

I think that was one of the only times I actually knew he was telling the truth. It was something about the way his tone softened at the end, the way his eyes drifted downward and lingered there for a few seconds. It was something that I had seen before. "There never really is one quite like the first one, right?" I asked rhetorically.

He nodded slowly, pulling away and leaning back against the wall. "I don't expect you to fully understand."

"I do...sorta," I replied. "My parents were together only long enough for me to pop up. My father was never with anybody else afterwards and he was always a bit happier when he spoke about her and their time together. I honestly think it was the only time he was ever really happy…"

"You probably would have liked her," Kael said with a hint of a smile. "She was a warrior first and foremost, kinda like you. I never really could understand what she saw in me. Heck, she hated me the first time we met. She called me a 'flower-pressing, weepy-eyed little girl.' But in a way, I suppose I also reminded her of how things ought to be rather than always filled with bloodshed and carnage. She said I was an anchor for her…a connection to the world. I couldn't save her though…and the constant fighting took its toll. It was so gradual I didn't even notice it until it was too late; until all she ever seemed to think or care about was the next mission."

"It sounds like she was just dedicated to something greater than herself. That's part of what being a soldier is all about."

"That's what everybody else told me," Kael said grimly. "It didn't make the last few years we had any easier. There wasn't anything left of her…at least nothing of the person I loved. It was…weird seeing somebody familiar and yet so alien walking around…wearing her clothes…sleeping in her bed. When did 'acceptable loses' become the mantra of the universe? When did the big picture become so encompassing that we could no longer see the mountains of bodies we were creating? When did the existence of the principle become more important than the meaning of it?"

"By the Emperor…you really are a flower-pressing, weepy-eyed little girl."

We both laughed, or I should say he laughed and I tried to laugh for as long as I could before the pain became too much for me. "Maybe, but don't you go falling in love with me too. I've been hurt enough times already…by orks." It could've been considered strange for two isolated people to be having a laughing fit while hiding from orks but the stress of the situation had been wearing on our nerves. If anything, the laughter helped our minds reset and focus on the important issues with renewed vigor.

"Okay, knock that off," I said as I tried to keep another bout of laughter down. "This really frakking hurts, you know?" Since we had wasted enough time treading on subjects unusual for the situation and I had a far better understanding of the man than I wanted, Kael helped me back to my feet and we continued on our way. As Kael had anticipated, the orks had assumed we had escaped the warehouse, as our escape from the building went without a hitch. Outside, the shadows, large open spaces, and a now plentiful supply of cover provided by the ruined buildings, we were able to escape beyond the perimeter with little difficulty (at least on his part, moving still hurt like frak for me). He led me out into the jungle where our movement was quickly spotted by an all-too-happy-to-see-me Watz. To be honest, I was actually quite thrilled to see his masked noggin as well.

"Praise the Emperor," he said in a barely-contained whisper as he rushed over to help. "I was skeptical when Kael said it'd be better if he went in alone but…damn is it good to see you again commissar."

"Believe me, the feeling is mutual," I said with a weary grin. Watz took over as support, helping me along into the brush. I had expected the familiar sight of the centaur but what greeted me instead took me by more surprise than it should have.

"You're looking well for a dead person," Cain said, standing in the open canopy of a scout salamander. I should have expected a daring, nighttime rescue from the likes of him and I had wrongly dismissed his participation since he had not been personally leading the rescue. It must have taken Kael a lot to convince Cain to sit and wait in the salamander.

"Cain? What are you doing here?" I asked stupidly since my mind was still dumbfounded by his presence.

Cain modestly shrugged as though he was just as puzzled by his presence. "Your centaur was with the enginseers for repair. They needed a fast vehicle and somebody to talk them through the gates…so here I am."

Watz promptly reminded us that we were still surrounded by orks and not wanting to bear the embarrassment of having a rescue party call for its own rescue, we loaded into the salamander. I was a bit surprised to see Watz behind the wheel and I asked Cain where his fragrant aide was. He mentioned something about Jurgen being too tired to be entrusted with the mission, which was probably for the best since I wouldn't have wanted Kael to have another nausea episode like last time. I'm not sure if it was the sheer exhaustion I suddenly felt or just the comforting sense of security that came from knowing that I was safely on route back to base but within a few minutes I had drifted asleep.

Or maybe my brain finally gave up and I lost consciousness. It had been a bloody and long day.

What happened after my arrival back at base is a blur to me for the most part. Wounds, weariness, and liberal doses of medications meant that I spent the next several hours in a state medically referred to as 'high as a battle barge.' I imagine there was a great deal of commotion upon our return, followed by me being carried off to the medicae facility while a team of medics made sure I was too drugged to threaten bodily harm as they shoved their fingers down every hole in my back. I had been shot three times in the back at close range with a lasgun. According to them I should have been dead hours ago and my survival was nothing short of a miracle from the Emperor.

Somehow I doubt the Emperor was concerned for my well-being, otherwise he wouldn't have let me get shot in the first place.

It wasn't until morning that I was finally alert enough to know which hole to shovel food into. Watz was there when I awoke, though he wasn't at first. An orderly was observant enough to notice my awakening and brought around some breakfast for me. It wasn't much but I was half-starved by that point so I would've eaten it even if it had been ground-up ration bars. "So what did I miss?" I asked between mouthfuls of some kind of locally-made biscuit.

"You should have seen the shit-storm that came about. The Lord-General was so pissed I thought he was going to nuke the whole planet," Watz explained with more enthusiasm than I would have imagined given the subject. "He voxed ahead so when we reached the command center they had dragged out a captain from the Adumbrian's third company. I swear he looked as confused as an ork in a librarium and then the Lord-General started ripping him a new one…uh, verbally of course. Poor guy looked like he was about to loose his whole bowels right then and there. Lord-General Zyvan was just about ready to put a bolt between the guy's eyes when his aides raced in and pulled him away. I guess it's not quite proper for a Lord-General to be popping heads out in the courtyard for everyone to watch."

"You say the captain was confused?" I asked as I was puzzled by why Watz was showing any hint of sympathy for the Adumbrians. "What's the situation with them?"

Watz didn't have much of the details but from what he had heard; Colonel Trevek had taken his command staff and all of 1st and 2nd company out to relieve the Catachans shortly after our chat with the Tau. Nobody thought anything of it at the time since they were the rookies and figured it was just punishment for having screwed things up so badly. When word hit home about the betrayal, Colonel Kasteen and the rest of the 597th were quick to put the remainder of the Adumbrian regiment under arrest. Unfortunately, as far as anyone could tell, none of the other companies had any idea what their colonel had been planning. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't have let ignorance serve as a defense but if they were unaware of the conspiracy then they could prove their resolve and loyalty by continuing to fight for us. We couldn't afford to keep an entire regiment under arrest.

"When you have some time, could you find Kael for me? I suppose the least I should do is thank him for saving my arse."

"Um, yeah…that might not be possible," Watz said reluctantly. I pressed for an explanation as I was understandably confused by the notion. It did not seem plausible for Kael to have overcome such odds to rescue me only to be hit during the escape. The explanation, however, was far more disconcerting. "Damnedest thing happen on the way back to base. Cain and Kael were talking in the back and then Kael mentioned something about how Cain should talk to you when you woke up and for me to tell you that he's sorry. I asked what in the warp he was talking about but when I looked over my shoulder he was just gone."

"Just…gone?"

"He must have hopped off the back when Cain and I weren't looking. We doubled-back to try and find him but Cain eventually insisted that we get you back to base first and worry about him later." I was confused by his sudden disappearance but I suspected it had something to do with avoiding the fallout that would come when I questioned him and exactly what he did back in the warehouse. The potential implications of his flight were not promising. It was something I knew I needed to discuss with Cain as soon as I could. On a side note, Kael's disappearance had another not-too-surprising side effect on things. With him gone that meant that the salamander returned to base with nothing more than the heroic Commissar Cain, a loyal soldier of the Imperial Guard, and a wounded commissar thought to have been killed in action. No prizes in guessing how people interpreted that kind of arrival.

No sooner was I about to send Watz to find Commissar Cain when the man came walking into the medicae bay, with Garrick alongside him. I figured the commissar must have instructed the orderly to alert him as soon as I was conscious…or he simply had impeccable timing, which had always been a trait of his.

"How are you feeling?" Cain asked upon his arrival at my bedside.

"About as good as you'd expect for being shot three times in the back," I replied with a hint of sarcasm just to show that my spirits hadn't been dampened by the incident. "Watz just told me about Kael jumping ship."

"Ah, good…that'll speed things up a bit," Cain replied. "Before Kael went and vanished he mentioned that I should speak with you when you woke up. Now, did he do anything…peculiar during your rescue? Any sort of odd behavior from him or something that happened that by all means shouldn't have?"

"Uh…yeah, there was," I replied. I did not know how Cain got his suspicions but he clearly saw something that I had missed, which left me with a sense of humility and foreboding. I explained Kael's unusual choice of escape route through the warehouse and went into great lengths about how we went from being chased by orks to be completely overlooked despite being under their noses. Garrick and Cain took much interest in the latter.

When I finished the impromptu debrief, Cain was already deep in thought, arms folded across his chest and a pensive look across his face. Eventually he turned to Garrick, "You've got more experience with matters of sorcery, what is your impression of this?"

"This Kael is most definitely a psyker," Garrick said, nodding his head slowly. The confirmation explained why Cain never told me of the exact nature of his suspicions – I would have tipped off Kael the second I saw him. "Commissar Abel, you have seen Kael in battle. I need you to describe the way he fights as best you can."

While I didn't understand how Kael's fighting style made a difference, I knew that with Garrick's vastly greater experience it had to mean a great deal. It took me a moment but I eventually found the right words. "He never so much as fought, as he operated. More like a surgeon than a butcher. Every movement he made was with methodical, purpose, moving swiftly from one target to the next; every strike was precise and with the utmost lethality regardless of how large his opponent was. He wasn't fighting them…he was just killing them, like it was a sport or a hobby to him. And he did it faster than any person I had ever seen." At that very moment, it was as if that missing piece of the puzzle suddenly fell into place and the entire image came into view. I paused with the horrified realization before finally muttering, "Sweet Emperor, don't tell me he's-"

"Indeed," Garrick stopped me. "He's Eldar."