ANGELUS JESCHA
AT STATION KEEPING
D'IVA TWO MAGNETIC ANOMALY
BORDER, PARNITHA SYSTEM
EARLY MORNING, NOVEMBER 15th, 2188
HIS QUARTERS were spare, Spartan and mostly empty. Like every other soldier on any ship in the fleets of The Endless, it had no furniture and few amenities. The room's only 'decoration' was on one wall that held his 'campaign' cloaks, three of them hung with precision, on each a sigil which denoted a 'special action' he'd undertaken for the Lord Remnant, the cloaks further distinguishing him from the soldiers and Inquisitoria around him. The sigil rewarded for his 'Rebuke' of the quarians was a white closed fist in front of a red open palm with two crossed spears behind that. Each spear had a flag tied behind the spearhead, the one on the left bearing the symbol of the Beloved and the right the Lord Remnant's own seal "sanctifying' the action. Another bore a sword through the skull of a Brute in front of a shattered planet for his action in the last cull of the wild ones. They'd spread too far and the most expedient method had been to simply raze the planet. The official count was four billion one hundred and sixty million five hundred thousand three hundred fifty two, mostly females and cubs. He'd also uncovered how they were migrating, exposing the hitherto hidden transport network of the Horns, attempting to use the Brutes as a biological weapon against the Endless. His action in the cull had led to the current liquidation being undertaken by the Lord Hound of the Thrice – another Corrupted – or "Reclaimed" as they preferred to call themselves. The third had a large silver V slashed with an inverted V in gold that resembled two joined lightning bolts. In the centre a crescent moon shape with a small notch in the middle of the curve. Those symbols marked his 'reclamation' from enemy to 'revered friend' and was an unmistakable reminder to all who saw it that he was a 'convert' to the Truth and not 'born' to it.
That sigil had also been burned into his flesh at his 'birthing' ceremony so many years ago as if everything else that forced him to stand out hadn't been enough. Because there were no beds on a vessel of the Endless, on the opposing wall to his cloaks was his alcove. Like all the others on this ship, he would step and lock his armor into it to be scanned and maintained while he slept, where its onboard computer would interface with the ship for upgrades and information parsing and retrieval, where waste would be eliminated and sustenance ingested. Even though he could remove his armor, he rarely did ship-bound. There were no luxuries to be had. Also, and this was the greatest secret of the Corrupted, their armor did not explode when breached but it was hardly an improvement. The Corrupted carried their 'assurance of obedience' literally in their heads, a nano-built web of microscopic explosive charges overlaid across and laced through their brains. Only the Beloved or Lord Remnant could order its detonation – or a Watcher, a specialized Inquisitor charged with 'oversight' of each Corrupted Lord. None ever knew just which Inquisitor would be their Watcher but there was always one, always watching. In the Lord Remnant's realm there was only loyalty or oblivion.
The Lord Commander knew better. While in his alcove, he had direct feed to all the Jescha's monitoring capability and had spent the last several hours patiently watching his Captain go about her business, particularly in reference to his prisoners. Several times she looked as if she would counter his orders in their regard but she never did, even if she hadn't followed them precisely to the letter. He'd said 'isolate' and she'd merely put them into a cargo dispensary, separated by containers. The male she segregated and the Commander found himself wondering why. Her actions bespoke some level of familiarity with the male that he could not associate with any particular logic and it had been her insistence that they follow the male's ship initially. He had vague suspicions he could not pin down. He wondered if they were not some buried aspect of his newfound questions and doubts. He decided that, with care, it would be something to investigate.
He wondered at Inquisitor arrogance and let the lapse pass, curious to see what his prisoners might do. Several Inquisitors had been dispatched to look the prisoners over yet did nothing, still obeying his order that none were to speak to them but himself. Initially the prisoners had been merely a disposable means to an end as he'd known that the odds were against her pathetic Scarweavers to accomplish much. That they had captured any had been a slight surprise to him and he'd initially meant for them to be killed and forgotten. Yet he refrained.
They could be useful, some near-forgotten instinct had muttered low in the back of his mind. How he was not entirely certain although he knew he was in danger of being 'exposed' and destroyed – mostly due to the Watcher's incompetence – and he was not about to allow that to come to pass. His own unorthodox methods were, though successful, more than enough to cast suspicion upon him. The very thing the Lord Remnant had called 'The Reclaimed Ones' greatest strength' was also the first thing any Watcher would use against him. Of course, he couldn't simply remove her. The other six Inquisitors on his ship would simply kill him if he did it without good reason and even though he'd tried to manufacture such a reason, it wasn't nearly enough. Inquisitors were very careful with one another. They wouldn't hesitate to destroy anyone else not of their caste and as far as they were concerned that was simply part of their mandate – they existed outside the Lord Remnant's control, they were the Beloved's own and they policed themselves but gingerly. Being 'shards of grace' as they were sometimes called, avatars of the Beloved Herself they were beyond special. To do anything to an Inquisitor was do it 'directly' to the Beloved. It was an horrific power that made them almost untouchable.
Almost.
There were ways, of course. Ways they could, if necessary, purge and weed among themselves. The high demands on the person inside that red armor, well, even if they were all the superlatives cast on them they could still falter. They could err. Such ran the dissonance, the contradictions that powered the very creed of the Inquisitoria itself presented ready-made method for their elimination, if one were clever and careful – extremely careful – one convinced them to eliminate themselves. A transgression that blatantly besmirched the Beloved would be ruthlessly expunged, no matter the Inquisitor's rank or title.
You just had to know what set them off.
A small chime told the Lord Commander that his armor had completed its cycle and he made to step from the alcove. As the seals were about to disengage, he suddenly noticed the figure standing in the centre of the room that had not been there before. The figure was roughly human in shape, a tattered and fraying thing made of grey and red-flecked ash, with hollow eyes that seemed to extend past the physical presence of the creature. The Lord Commander did not shout or demand it explain itself, he was not of such a mindset. Some buried instinct told him that any hostile action could be catastrophic. He obeyed that instinct and calmly stepped from his alcove to confront the being with merely a raised outstretched empty hand.
"Speak, if you will," He told it.
An arm seemed to materialize from the being and stretch toward him, ash swirling and fluttering from the being as a 'finger' extended from the end of the arm and pierced him dead-centre between the eyes. The Lord Commander might have shouted in surprise had his faculties remained under his command, but all coherent thought ceased instantly and he crashed to the floor in a heap. As he fell a coruscating ring of intense blue light exploded from him at the impact and flooded through the floors and walls to infuse the Jescha with a sudden blinding glow that seemed to pulse from every atom of the ship and its inhabitants.
For all that light, the Angelus Jescha suddenly went dark.