Chapter 7
023.M42
Mining colony Krenzar, Huldah subsector, Syntyche sector
He was a long way from Dreadhaven. Tilting his head back to take in the night sky – something the pollution of his hive world obscured – the man allowed himself a small moment to realise his role in the great thundering machine of the Imperium. His threadbare jacket was thrown carelessly to the ground, next to a diminishing pile of gravel and churned earth. The mouldy smell of moss mixed with the wet soil, making the man think of a distant home he would never see again. Of a house now just charred ruins and burnt memories, without a family. With a grunt of exertion and suppressing the urge to spit, he returned to the task at hand. While all was silent for the digger it was different for Ehlijah.
Weight crushed Ehlijah's chest. He was pinned in place. Unable to move, the only thing he could do and control was the pitch of his scream. Yet there was no actual weight pressing against his hefty frame; the coffin shielded him. And there was ample room to move, but his claustrophobia raked across the section of his brain where primal fear dwelt. In the logical part of his mind, rapidly dwindling, he knew he had to stop screaming. The limited air in his grave would only run out faster. Darkness pressed around him, crept under his eyelids, bore into his body to swallow Ehlijah whole. Above, the pitter-patter of dirt rattled off the roof of his prison tomb. He strove for calm and lost it in the dark.
"For the Gods sake you crazy bastard, let me out of here!" Bloodied hands hammered the covering, fingernails breaking against the corrugated iron.
Dram halted to stare as the coffin lid shivered, hearing its occupant cursing within. Patiently waiting for the muffled voice to subside, he admired the stars again, thinking how many light years he was from Dreadhaven. Then, scooping another shovelful of dirt into the deep pit, he began humming a hymnal. Ignoring the weakening shouts and pleas was easy, the hammering blows becoming more sporadic until nothing came from the occupant in the pit. The earth closed over the coffin. Soil was smoothed down carefully until no trace remained.
Sweat-streaked and covered in grime, Dram picked up his coat and slung the shovel over his shoulder as the shift bell clanged, summoning the morning workers to the mines. He walked out of the small pit, scheduled to be filled in later that day, whistling a jaunty tune as the sun began rising over the white horizon. Heretics, he believed, deserved no less a painful death than what he had just given to Ehlijah. For all his hard work, Dram knew there were more like the corrupt man, hiding and working alongside him down in Krenzar's shafts and tunnels. Whatever their plans – no matter what it was – he would get to the bottom of it even if it killed him. He chuckled at his mind's choice of words, knowing today would be another glorious one in service to the God-Emperor.
Krenzar, while a dead planet, held a mining colony of some importance. The atmosphere, made breathable by the Adeptus Mechanicus's processing generators, tasted like chalk dust and metallic shavings. While unpleasant it was bearable. Ten thousand employees with their families thought Krenzar a paradise from where they had come from. Compared to Vespor, the subsector capital, what was not? Vespor, whose forge production supported much of the Syntyche sector; its pollution required masks for people to breath at ease and where life expectancy fell short of forty years, Krenzar was a haven. An easy life carved from white rocks and chiselled out of immense ravines, made by honest blood and sweat.
Nobody gave much thought to the murders on Krenzar. None of the migrant workers or contract labourers did. To the administration, keen on high production numbers and effective management, the deaths created copious amounts of stress. Panic attacks were becoming second nature to the chief supervisor of the Krenzar Mining Facility. Someone, perhaps seeing the killings as a growing threat, hadn't let the matter fall quiet. The Administratum in the Syntychia subsector, notified of the nature of the deaths, reacted instantaneously.
Mayun Dena, recovering from a strong panic attack after receiving a warning of the highest importance, kept his calm. Barely. His staff made sure their underlings fell in to line. One tug, one small breech of decorum, would be the snapping point to turn mild-mannered Dena into a raving lunatic.
The Inquisition had come to Krenzar; as the Stormbird swept over the striped grey and alabaster landscape, heading for the largest and only opened mining pit, chief supervisor Mayun Dena prayed. Oh, how he prayed as his stomach churned and his palms grew sweaty. His facility provided Vespor's forges and refineries with precious adamantium. Krenzar's importance was enough to not be immediately sanctioned. The dreaded thought of exterminatus was enough; his face blanched and one of his aides helpfully held up a bronze pot for the chief supervisor's heavy lunch.
Heat blasted down as the Stormbird landed on the tarmac. Engines whined as the pilot, obscured by the tinted windows, powered down the black-painted craft. The golden sigil of the Holy Inquisition, embossed on one wing, glinted off the runway's floodlights. On the other, a chalice of burning fire had been painted. Cannons mounted under the nose and wings of the vessel whirred and clicked, automatically finding targets, but did not fire. That did nothing for Mayun Dena's constitution. He bravely held back another wave of nausea. An orderly file of scribes, savants and grey-armoured storm troopers marched down the Stormbird's lowered ramp. Following them a woman in black ceramite armour came, holding a banner of the Ordo Malleus in one hand.
"Who is the chief supervisor of this facility?" A personal servo-skull attended the woman, its one red lens panning back and forth across the crowded tarmac.
"That is I." Dena strode forward. He tried to swagger even as his confidence flagged, dabbing at his bald pate with a silk kerchief. "You are the Inquisitor we have been expecting, milady?"
"I am Sister Ursula of the Ebon Chalice. I am the voice for my Inquisitor." Ursula rested the banner in the crook of her arm. She took in the bland grey facade of the mining building, built on a low rise offering a view of the yawning pit far below. "You will take me to see the bodies."
Mayun Dena did as he was told, ushering the large gathering inside, down corridors of polished metal and pristine glass, past offices where low-ranking officials worked and cogitators processed reams of code. His hastily prepared speech espousing the installation's importance evaporated in the face of the emissary's direct order. One of Dena's senior staff brought the guests to their quarters while he continued on, the battle maiden and the servo-skull at his back. With them came a cenobite, heavily robed, a beaked mask hiding his features.
"Here," Dena indicated a pair of steel doors where, beyond the swinging hinges, the medicae center lay. "We have kept the bodies in cryostasis for preservation. The head apothecary, Yannis, is the one who deals with the bodies when they're found. Yannis, step lively now," the chief supervisor hollered as he swung open the doors. "He's old and believes in selective hearing, milady."
The smell of antiseptic wash and old blood wafted through the air. Underneath it all lingered the sweet scent of preserved decay. Ursula noted four gurneys off to the side of the chamber, the bodies covered by plastek tarps. On the other side of the room, behind a cluttered table of medical equipment, the lord of the sanatorium presided. Owlish, rheumy eyes looked up from an ancient microscope. The apothecary's liver-spotted flesh was hidden under thick red and white robes. Yannis, thin white hair floating over his scalp like wisps of cloud, tutted.
"Chief supervisor, please respect the rest of the dead within these chambers."
"The very important guest has arrived," Dena emphasized each word while scowling in Yannis's direction. Blinking wide eyes, trying to comprehend Dena's behaviour, Yannis saw the armoured woman behind Krenzar's chief supervisor. A pinched look came to his face, a tremor to his hands, and he left the cover of his desk to face the arrivals.
"Ah, the... Inquisitor?"
"The representative." Mayun Dena corrected. "Yannis will be able to offer any and all information concerning the rash of murders. Yannis, ensure that the Inquisitor's messenger wants for nothing." Before the questions could begin chief supervisor Mayun Dena left, breathing heavily and without respite.
Handing her banner reverently to the silent cenobite, Ursula strode across the medicae to the covered bodies. The servo-skull's internal pict-recorder whirred to life, ready to begin its work. Without pause she raised the tarp off the first cadaver, looking down with cool indifference at the corpse. She was use to death. High on the brow, right between the eyes, she noted the fatal lasbolt hole. The shot spoke of marksmanship. What remained of the back of the skull had been padded with gauze and bound by surgical tape, keeping the fractured bones in the semblance shape of a head.
Yannis, standing alongside Ursula, spoke with deference. "This is the fourth this week that we know of, Sister."
"That you know of?"
He shirked against the condescending tone. "What the mining security finds comes here. I am the senior most medical officer, stating only what is found, and nothing more. Rumours deal greater wounds to the morale of the miners that even I cannot patch up."
"When was the first death recorded?" Ursula opened the eye of the dead man, closed it, tilting the face one way and then the other. Stepping aside, Yannis turned to a tray of dirty autopsy tools, fastidiously cleaning them.
"Prior to my arrival of this facility, just under a year. Before then milady, who knows how many others have been murdered." He watched the Sister of Battle closely, marking the Inquisitorial seal displayed on her left shoulder guard; she passed to the second corpse. "The murderer has skill. Each one, as you no doubt see, was slain executioner style. A single headshot or a swift stroke of the blade from ear to ear, cutting the internal carotid artery. I believe the murderer has some martial skill. The precise headshots indicate military training."
Thick black thread stitched close the once ragged wound on the second body's neck. The third and fourth body had been slain in the exact manner as the first. "What other marks have you found? There must be a corporeal link beyond these fatal wounds." She absently rattled her rosary beads. Yannis found the sound disturbing to the tranquility of his work.
"Sister? I do not comprehend the meaning behind your words."
Ursula turned, scarred mouth twisting. "There is a reason for everything, apothecary, and when someone murders to such extremes it is rarely without cause. Murderers, even the ones driven to insanity, have a method to the madness boiling their brains. The God-Emperor states a reason for every act, no matter how trivial it may be, no matter who it is."
Beckoning Ursula to examine the feet of the first body, Yannis pointed at the left foot. On the arch a simple tattoo was inscribed. It depicted a seated woman illustrated in blue ink, enclosed in a circle. Raising the tarps from the other corpses, Yannis gestured at the same brand inscribed on each sole. "The other tangible link. I do not know if it is cultish or not, though it weighs heavy on me should it be so."
It was not iconography the Sister of Battle was familiar with. Her scowl deepened, the grip on her rosary tightening. "What workers are hired on Krenzar?"
Yannis rubbed his wrinkled jowls. "Over half the personnel are seasonal contractual labour. The remainder are long-term employees with families. Most of these souls come from Vespor, or are migrants from the trading ships passing by Krenzar toward the Syntychia subsector."
"Were you the one to send the request for an inquiry?" Ursula's speculative remark was tentative at best, impertinent at worst. She was not trained to be anything beyond a warrior of faith and exterminator of Chaos, but looking long and hard at the symbol on the dead man's foot, she hated it more by the moment.
"I cannot take credit for the Inquisition's involvement." Yannis gathered his courage. "Sister, is there an Inquisitor on their way to this facility? The workers fear there could be a purge."
The servo-skull floated close to the cadaver's foot, scanning the tattoo and uploading it into its internal memory bank. When the automaton's work was done, Ursula pulled the tarp over to cover the body. "I am their agent on this world, apothecary Yannis. I will root out the cause of these deaths. If the people fear, then it is good they do so. Heretics should fear what they have to hide."
"But will there be an Inquisitor coming?" Yannis stressed his words, poorly concealed terror evident. "There's talk-"
"I am here for the procurement of justice." So saying, the warrior woman kissed the golden aquila on her rosary. "Let it be known the warriors of the Throne watch. We bide our time and strike when the moment of opportunity comes."
He gave a wheezing laugh which rattled his old bones. Yannis was crafty enough to know when prettied words hid a bald-faced lie. "I will take that as a yes. May I have your name to send a dispatch, honourable Sister? When other bodies come tumbling into my hospice."
"Sister Ursula." She gave the sign of the aquila, taking her banner from the diminutive masked cenobite. "Continue about your work as I will be about mine." Leaving the medical ward with her servants, the Sister of Battle was greeted in the hallway by Mayun Dena.
"Milady," he dabbed at his red brow. He was sweating profusely. "Did you find anything concerning the deaths of my employees?"
"The investigation is ongoing, chief supervisor. All is well."
"I see." As well as a blind man, Dena reasoned silently. "And when will your Inquisitor arrive?"
"Presently," Ursula answered, already walking down the corridor. "Supervisor Dena, I need you to summon all the overseers for questioning. Furthermore, I require a full tour of this installation."
"Of course! Say no more, ask what you need and I will do my utmost to ensure it happens. We are all Emperor fearing, loyal subjects here."
"I pray it is so," Ursula said, looking into the red eyepiece of the servo-skull.
Kyle's ears itched. He thought it was background noise at first. Everything in the gigantic mineshafts was loud. Sounds ricocheted in the cavernous depths from the Adeptus Mechanicus machines; the workers jackhammers cleaved away at the tunnel walls with no mercy. Scratching did little to alleviate Kyle's irritation. He felt his mind buzzing like it did after too many drinks at the stump-pub. When the buzzing persisted, like a droning insect circling his head, Kyle started believing it was fatigue. Triple shifts did that. Then it was no longer the noise or the idea of over exhaustion. The persistent itch moved between his shoulder blades, setting Kyle's mood from an indifferent grey to a foul black.
He was not known for his negativity – like every other miner he had moments but generally he was a jovial man, especially when drinking. Now Kyle was looking for any excuse to lash out. "Dram," he spat in the dusty air, "do you feel that? Like there's bile choking up your throat?"
"I don't get wasted at the stump-pub, Kyle, so I wouldn't know." Large in the arms and broad across the chest, the other miner continued swinging his pickaxe. Sweat beaded his shaven and scarred head. "Not my fault you feel like a grox turd the morning after and have to work multi-shifts."
"Hell no, that'd be a better feeling than right now. I've got a serious issue. It's about the new workers."
"How they're lazy and steal our jobs? How they don't come from the same subsector and aren't a real part of what goes on here? That our seniority or brute strength doesn't impress them?" Dram often heard the one-sided argument from Kyle and the other miners.
"I wish." Kyle scratched ineffectually at the back of his neck. "Just being around them is annoying to the point I'd like to take this shovel and bash the head in of the closest one. Just to make the buzzing stop."
Dram paused mid-swing with his pickaxe. "Buzzing?"
"Yeah, you don't hear it?"
"A lot of machinery's used here, Kyle. Maybe you're confused where the sound's coming from." Dram pointed to the drills and heavy gears crushing the chalk-like substance, then to the trolleys pulling the debris away for smelting. "Lots of noise, lots of echoes in the tunnels and shafts."
"It's from the workers, not the machines."
Offhandedly Kyle pointed at a new team. Dressed in bulky orange work suits, they awkwardly drew attention to themselves. It was in the inexperienced way they used the mining tools and how they moved in Krenzar's lighter gravity. Dram, leaning against his pickaxe, lifted his goggles to his forehead to inspect the unsullied recruits. Across the mineshaft a few of the nine person team were adventurous enough to dash ahead, checking the ridge as they went for new mineral deposits. One worker, smaller than the others, waved at another. Even from the distance, Dram could gauge the worker's discontent in being summoned.
"That team," Kyle stated confidently. "Whenever they're around, I always hear that damn buzz."
"Do you think all of them are making the noise or just one?" Dram readily listened to Kyle's grumbling.
"That one," without hesitating Kyle pointed at the slighter worker. "The one in the lead, but they're all equally annoying."
Dram adjusted his goggles to cover his eyes, spat a ball of phlegm down the mineshaft, and returned to work. "Listening to you in annoying."
"Only because you know I'm right," Kyle laughed, licking dusty dry lips. "And I heard the latest from up top. There's an inspection taking place. Someone got the word out about the murders and missing people. We've got a Sister of Battle waltzing around like she owns the place."
"You actually believe the stories of people going missing in the mines? Here, of all places?"
Kyle rubbed his neck. "Course I do. Work teams vanishing, then the rescue teams go missing too. Weird music playing through the vents, tunnels eating up workers sent in. But what has the uppers really scared is the vessel the battle nun came in on. Inquisition marks, Dram." He paused for theatrical effect. "The Holy Ordos is here! It's a wonder nobody's pissing in fear yet. I bet everyone'll be doing that once it becomes public knowledge."
"Which you'll tell once you're back at the stump-pub." Swinging his pickaxe against the rock face, a large section sheared off to plummet below. Servitors trundled over to add the load to the trolleys.
"Pays to be on good terms with manager Bethal," Kyle hit Dram's shoulder. "Knowing how lonely she gets at night, needing someone to talk to-"
"We've got nothing to worry about with the Inquisition. We're all good servants of the Golden Throne."
"Still, with a battle nun marching about I bet the Inquisitor's not far behind. Do you think Ehlijah knew about this and took the first trader tug out of here? Or he conveniently got lost in the tunnels?"
"Who knows, Kyle? Who the hell knows anything around here anymore?"
When the first shift bell clanged the miners returned to the elevators and Krenzar's surface. Some would retire to their quarters and families for the evening; others to the stump-pub; all to engage in conversation and a hot meal. A few employees lingered in the tunnels. Assigned by the managers to check equipment, they spoke few words to the Mechanicus adepts working alongside them. Data-logs were taken and fed to cogitator-servitors, behavioural reports summed up to the overseers, kits made ready for the next shift.
One of these workers, finishing a halting conversation with a Mecanicus adept, ducked down a service tunnel. Discreetly resting behind a metal crate, she removed a small vox-transponder from the pocket of her suit, tuned it an encoded channel, and waited as the small light flashed. Presently a voice trickled through. All reconnaissance transmissions had been this way, from the moment Amara Kith departed the Stormbird disguised as a scribe to donning the uniform of a miner.
"My report, Milady Kith."
"What did you find?" The Inquisitor warily kept her eyes on the mouth of the tunnel.
"The apothecary did not officially summon the Inquisition. He denies those charges."
"Fascinating," Kith dryly noted. She shifted her weight, massaging her left shoulder. "Tell me something worthwhile."
Ursula's voice tensed. "Each identified corpse has a tattoo on the sole of their left foot. I am certain it is allied to the Ruinous Powers, saints damn them all, for there is no sanctioned Imperial Cult I know which bears it. The heretics," and Kith pulled the vox-transponder away as the Sister's vitriol carried, "were killed in military fashion. Headshots, carotid arteries severed. I believe we are dealing with a former Guardsman."
"Who," Amara Kith mused, "knowing something foul's running around Krenzar, took matters into his own hands. Possibly the same person who requested aid when he realised this was larger than he thought."
"A righteous vigilante," the Sister of Battle murmured. "It does my heart good to know such people exist out here in near-lawless space."
The second shift bell clanged. Massive gears echoed down the length of the ample mining shafts; elevators rumbled down, bringing with them the overnight crew. "What about the overseers? Anything in the facility files which correspond to the rumours?"
"Many. The rumours have a tangible base. Teams vanishing in the tunnels have been filed as mining fatalities caused by the environment. Action is rarely taken in finding the poor souls. The infrequent search teams sometimes disappear as well." Ursula's voice faded out. Amara lifted the transponder to find a better reception angle, picking up the woman's voice again. "-the search teams' primary objective is to reclaim equipment over recovering bodies, costly apparatuses critical for the boring of new tunnels."
"I heard the same. What has the dear Mayun Dena done in regards to this?"
A bitter laugh. "His attempts at covering his tracks will bring nothing but dishonour. The acolytes have extracted files which survived in the deeper memory holds. Upon inquiries with the Mechanicus to the energy fluctuations in the various mineshafts, they confess confusion. They seek answers, stating the facility is old. If there is truly Chaotic taint here, Inquisitor, I do not believe it has infected the Adeptus Mechanicus." Her voice wavered again as interference came down the link.
"You must be very popular with the Krenzar administration right now, Sister Ursula." Amara Kith imagined the battle maiden's candid demeanour was not making her many friends. "How do these events tie in with a non-sanctioned cult on our hands?"
"I trust in the God-Emperor to guide us in that regard, milady. Where He leads me, I shall be His judgement."
Grimly, Amara knew the Sister of Battle was right. "Continue with your investigations. Have my adepts search the employee files of those working on Krenzar for the past several years. Our vigilante might have been here for much longer than we first thought. And Sister Ursula?"
The link broke. Amara slapped the machine, struggling to realign the vox-transponder as the tramp of heavy footfalls came down the service tunnel. The light sporadically lit up, the channel coming under heavy interference. Chancing it, Amara whispered loudly, "Have Fray stand-by with the Stormbird. I might need a quick evacuation if-"
"Hey! Get your arse back in line with the others!" The crate Kith was behind was unceremoniously kicked aside. Looming over her was a stern-looking guard, authoritatively holding a power maul in his hand. "You know the rules, stay within the assigned areas. Friggin' migrant help, lazy bums going off on your own."
Raising her hands in a placating gesture, she dropped the vox-transponder to the ground, crushing it under the heel of her boot. The comforting weight of her bolt pistol, nestled in its harness and concealed by the bulky contours of the suit, kept a smile on her face against the guard's animosity. Not that she would use it against him, Kith thought as she joined the shuffling line of second shift miners. If Lord Saeger's dispatch to the young Inquisitor was accurate, she would be using the weapon against a new tumour of the Dark Mother's growing cult.
The events of Isfarena were a subsector and a year past from Krenzar, yet the similarities between the two were there, if delicate. Least of all the tattoos the corpses bore. As Selina's hissed divinations stated, the rot in the Syntyche sector was great. However far this Tzeentchian cult grew, Amara Kith would hunt it down. And come the day she met Ahriman, bolt pistol pointed at the arch-heretic's head and her sword at his throat, she would know the truth of Katea's fate. Marching with the other miners to the southernmost tunnels, she examined her surroundings closely. The mine seemed large enough to allow the safe passage of a gunship. Amara Kith prayed Ursula had received the last transmission. She did not know any quick retreats from the Krenzar mines if things went foul.
Not all were in the same situation as the Inquisitor.
Dram, his work shift finished, was beginning another nightly obligation. Reciting personal oaths and vespers prayers, checking his lasrifle, Dram consulted his data-slate of the southern ventilation shafts. He committed the route to take to memory. Occurrences', vanishings as he liked to call them, had been happening in those tunnels with alarming frequency. When these disappearances broke out, Dram knew he needed to be quick to staunch it.
It meant the heretics were growing bolder.
A brief check of the night shift roster confirmed a lingering hunch. Three names matched those to the group Kyle singled out. If luck and the God-Emperor were not guiding his hand, Dram did not know what else to believe. Leaving his small hab-unit with his lasrifle swaddled in greasy rags, Dram nonchalantly walked down the colony's residential quarters until he arrived at the atmospheric processing plant. He Reaching the ventilation ducts, he crept into the dusty interior from a badly rusted hatch. Crawling forward on hands and knees, a small torchlight strapped to his vest illuminating the way, Dram slithered down the metal duct.
Tense hours later, he arrived at his assigned point. Exiting the ducts on to a gantry, cramped muscles protested as he stood. Letting his eyes adjust to the underworld gloom, Dram looked down the colossal tunnel. The reported disappearances began further in the southern tunnel recesses. Three hundred meters north of Dram was the main site he had just been working at. Sounds of the overnight shift could be heard, laser torches hissing as they carved into the rock, hammers ringing against the stone. Further south winding and snaking corridors disappeared in the deep dark, the corridors where the vanishings had occurred.
Keeping to the upper platform, every one of his senses heightened, Dram hunted. Ghostly light shimmered under the white rock face and half-heard whispers spilled from the exposed pipes. The man cautiously came to a secondary tunnel diverting from the larger main. Hurrying along for another five hundred meters, he knelt, removing the rags around his lasrifle. Dram sighted down the scope, searching.
In the ruddy glow of their work lights, Dram saw the heretics. They were not far from the main site, keeping to the shadows and insolently practicing their foul religion. Converging in an auxiliary tunnel, they preformed a polluted induction rite. A new inductee, coveralls speckled in blood, was given his mark of damnation while the others chanted. Words which made the skin crawl and set the mind on fire hissed in the air. Still quiet, Dram adjusted his aim through the lasrifle scope, exhaled quietly and fired. The first lasbolt punched through the murk, scoring a headshot that left no question to the heretic's death. The second lanced through another's neck, almost severing the spinal column. The third created a hole through—
Dram heard the crack of a bolt round discharging and saw the chest of a miner explode in a spray of gore. Someone else was amongst them. Quickly Dram threw his lasrifle over his shoulder, racing along the gantry. The heavier gun fired again. It echoed oddly in the tunnels, the sound rolling back on itself. Descending the closest ladder, Dram saw the owner of the bolt pistol finish off the last heretic as his feet touched the ground. He held the new arrival in the sight of his lasrifle, barking the command, "Arms up where I can see them. Drop your weapon."
The worker dropped the weapon immediately and raised her arms. She turned, looking at Dram with amusement. "The vigilante of Krenzar?" she queried.
"I'll slit your throat, renegade," Dram spat. In the work lights, he recognized her as one of the miners Kyle had pointed out.
"Before you jump to conclusions," the woman spoke coolly, "I want to say we both work for the God-Emperor."
"Unlikely. Your sort wouldn't hesitate backstabbing each other if it meant getting rid of me. To think I'd fall for such an obvious trap is pretty stupid." His finger tightened on the trigger.
"I thought you'd be more inclined to having an ally. Would you really chance shooting an Inquisitor?" The weight of the mentioned title echoed in the mammoth tunnel, lingering with impetuousness. Dram found he did not want to take the chance.
"Prove you're an Inquisitor." In turn, the woman carefully withdrew a necklace. Dram's eyes caught and held the hallowed Inquisitorial Seal, three horizontal bars bisected by a vertical one of ruby and gold. Dram swore, checked himself, and made the sign of the aquila. He almost bowed, reigning in the impulse, knowing it was his Guardsman training to order and rank influencing his actions.
"I am Inquisitor Amara Kith in service to the God-Emperor. Any violence against me is violence against the Imperial Truth. I came here after receiving a broadcast for aid. I take it you were the one who sent the distress call." Picking up her bolt pistol, she dusted off the weapon's casing, frowned at something.
"How did you know it was me?" Dram wiped sweat off his scalp.
"I didn't. I took a guess and you supplied the answer." Checking the rounds in her pistol, Amara disdainfully looked at the equipment the cultists had used for their arcane practices. "Do you have a name or should I call you Krenzar's vigilante?"
"Dram. If you don't mind me saying, Inquisitor," he glanced around the tunnel, lowering his rifle slightly. "We should leave now before others come to check on their friends."
"I was expecting more than this," Amara replied, nudging a body with her foot. Blood pooled with the dusty surroundings, misting the air with its metallic edge. She felt cheated at how little fight the heretics had given. Her head snapped up when the first discordant notes issued from the pipes. "What's that?"
"We need to get out of here." The edge in the man's voice chilled Amara. "Hurry up."
Rushing back to the scaffold ladder, Dram shone his light over bare rock. Stabbing the beam upwards, he saw the glimmering white stone ripple and swallow the metal platform above. Beside him, the Inquisitor saw the same thing. She hauled Dram back from the wall. The intensity of the song increased, becoming a constricting band wrapping around his head. It became harder for Dram to focus as the rock face shuddered in front of him. A section of the tunnel tore away as corrupted miners rushed out, opening fire with slug guns and laspistols, howling devotional prayers.
Five hundred meters to the main tunnel. Away from the song's influence. The words raced through Dram's mind as he sprinted over the uneven surface of the tunnel floor. He had heard those notes once, before killing his first group of heretics. The song sent them into a wild frenzy, compelling them forward even as Dram's shots should have kept them down. Dram had barely gotten away with his life then. Now it might take a miracle to make it out in one piece. Beside him Inquisitor Amara Kith kept pace, turning back to fire a quick three round burst at the cultists. Training kicked in. Dram provided covering fire for the woman, a heavy rush of adrenaline surging through his body at the sight of enemies after his blood.
The pipes sang on, shrill notes soaring higher and higher. Dram's precise shots started wavering as the vise around his head tightened. Next to him the Inquisitor discharged the rest of her clip, fumbling in the indistinct gloom to reload her empty weapon.
Three hundred meters became two hundred. Dram faltered as a bullet pierced the calf of his left leg. He swore, reeling from the pain's abruptness, unable to hold his body weight. Dram fell, twisting around in the same moment to see where his enemies were. He grabbed his lasrifle, shooting one cultist in the stomach before Amara pulled him to his feet. The boiling pressure in his brain subsided, leaving him to think clearly over the shrieking pipes. One hundred and fifty meters. Another section of the tunnel wall melted, revealing more cultists. Their countenances were mutated, twisted features leering out of the dark, flickering in and out of Dram's torchlight. Amara aimed the barrel of her gun at the first target. His chest blossomed into a red spray of flesh and stinking guts. The second and third cultist shared the same death of the first. Leaving the others to fumble over the corpses of their brethren, Amara Kith and Dram reached the main tunnel.
"Can you keep up?" she asked, ducking around the corner to fire blindly at the Krenzar defectors.
"Course I can," he snapped back. He glanced down at his leg, swearing at the blood and each squelching footstep.
They pushed off, running back to the floodlights and din of the central site. Above them and to either side, the pipes thrummed as the horrid musical cacophony played out. No matter how fast Dram's feet worked even with his injury, his movements felt ponderous. He would die down here, heretics pouring from the walls like waves of filth, lost under their jackboots. Even holding his lasrifle was a struggle. Amara pulled alongside Dram. Close to her the song's affects receded, vigour returning to his body. The Inquisitor's breath was coming fast and sharp. Her face was drawn. Sweat poured down skin looking older than what Dram had first seen.
Piercing light, its intensity blinding Amara and Dram, suddenly washed over the dark tunnels. A whining drone filled the air, becoming a thunderous roar loud enough to blot out the infernal song. With it came scorching heat and the unmistakable snarl of an assault cannon firing. Pulling the Inquisitor down, Dram whooped at the Stormbird's passing. Its cannon blazed at the heretics, high-calibre rounds turning them into shreds of flesh and spatters of blood against the distant walls. Rock dust filled the mineshaft, kicked up by the powerful engines. Banking in the enormous mining tunnel, the gunship landed with little grace, the craft's arrival nothing short of a vision brought to life.
At the top of the lowering ramp the pilot, Fray, waved to the Inquisitor. Rising to her feet, Amara Kith helped Dram hobble up the incline of the Stormbird and find a seat in the craft. "Your skills are remarkable, Fray. I didn't know you could pilot the ship this well in the tunnels. You must be mad or lucky." She passed a medical kit to Dram. He took it with a grunt of thanks, rummaging through the contents to find a field dressing. Behind them the ramp slammed shut.
"I'm the best pilot you've got. It's neither madness nor luck, its talent. We need to move," Fray's usual calm voice was terse. "Sister Ursula was firm that I recover you when you didn't respond to the timed vox calls."
"She's always terse," Amara replied, buckling herself into the co-pilot's throne. She touched wrinkles on her face with concern. As colour, sound and smell bled back for her, Amara Kith was only too aware how far she had strained herself. Her muscles were stiff, and rolling her left shoulder brought her considerable pain. Growing old in the line of duty was not something she relished.
"Things grew interesting while you were away, Inquisitor." Pitching the engines to a howl, Fray steered the craft with finesse through Krenzar's tunnels. Outside the Stormbird, Amara Kith saw frightened faces of the workers flash by until they became a blur.
"Interesting how?"
Tightening his tourniquet, Dram let the conversation flow over him. His grisly work discovered, Dram prayed the Inquisition was capable of ridding the heretics from the colony. He saw Krenzar's night sky rushing up to greet them, the damned whiteness of the tunnels falling away. For a moment, a very brief moment, Dram remembered another transport. There had been others with him in the vessel, men and women of the Dreadhaven 17th who never— He left the thought unfinished. Below, Krenzar's dead landscape spread out, the Stormbird hurtling back to the facility.
"After the last vox hail went unanswered, the good Sister sent me to get you. With the situation below and the one starting up top when I left, I wouldn't be surprised if Ursula wants to personally escort you everywhere. Ah," Fray checked the Stormbird's auspex, "it seems we have someone coming to greet us on the tarmac."
"What's happened up here?" Amara, annoyed by Fray dancing about the subject, started drumming her fingers on the arm of her throne.
"What about him? Can he be trusted?" Fray inclined his head to Dram. The man, covered in blood and dust, looked hollowly from the pilot to the Inquisitor. Not showing any emotion, the Guardsman in that moment seemed to be the personification of the castoffs of Imperial society.
"The vigilante of Krenzar," she responded, "is our esteemed guest. We can trust him."
Fray concentrated on landing the craft first. It gave him a chance to organize his thoughts. Unbuckling himself from the pilot throne, he moved to stand by the opening of the Stormbird. Fray looked long and hard at his employer. "Sister Ursula found things. Things the supervisors wanted kept hidden. She ordered the storm troopers to shut down the Krenzar facility and to detain everyone. She started locking people up, then things got nasty. The chief supervisor seems to have gone-"
Fray staggered, jerking violently as the lasbolt seared his stomach. His body pitched down the ramp's incline to rest at the feet of Mayun Dena. The chief supervisor of the Krenzar Mining Facility clutched his laspistol in both hands, shaking with the rush of murder. Seeing other targets, the man's eyes rolled wildly. His body seemed to be under someone else's control, each movement puppeteered and stilted. Raising his weapon once more, Dena fired off an erratic volley. Amara Kith clutched her torso, slumping to her knees in shock. Her work glove came away covered in blood, a bright crimson red.
"I had to do it! I was ordered! She told me to do it!" Mayun Dena shrilled before his head ruptured under Dram's single, well-placed lasbolt. The body of the former chief supervisor crumpled on to the tarmac.
"That's the second commander I've killed," Dram muttered, kneeling by Amara's side. She felt pressure against her deep wound. Her tired body slide into unconsciousness as armoured storm troopers raced from the grey facility.
"Mother, they came." Scampering down the trail with a grin on his face, Rais stopped before the Dark Mother, his brow sheened in sweat. "Just like you said, the Imperial servants came. I saw the fight, everything! They killed your followers. They might be back soon!"
+Peace, Rais.+ The Dark Mother's gentle voice soothed over Rais' anxiety. Neferuaat cupped his dirty face in her corpse hands and smiled, whispering, "What a wonderful boy you are, going to such trouble to deliver this news."
Rais grinned at Neferuaat's praise. "What do we do?"
"It is time for us to leave." Neferuaat turned her burning eyes to the encampment below. "Accompany the honourable brother Hekmut and find Chief Magos Krauskopf. Tell him we are finished here." One of the Rubricae, storm bolter in hand, moved tediously down the pathway. Rais followed the Thousand Son proudly; glad to have been chosen for the task. Behind him the jealously of the other children lashed the air, tangible enough to feel.
Preparations had been underway to begin the evacuation from Krenzar even as the battle in the tunnels raged. She had seen the fight from a distance, just as her 'eyes' above ground showed what was taking place even now. Neferuaat looked at the makeshift city, the small outcropping where she held council an excellent vantage point. The people who dwelt amongst the quarry worked ceaselessly. People who, freed from Imperial shackles, had readily taken up her cause. It was so frightfully simple how they traded one belief for another, willing to be guided with only the barest of persuasion. Krenzar's once loyal workers, finding a calling higher than their false religion, now served the Great Architect. Reaching out with her mind, the sorceress lingered on the uppermost thoughts and emotions of the workers toiling toward her master's enterprise.
+The freed people, listen well.+ Neferuaat's voice touched all present. +To those bearing my mark, it's time for you to step forward. Your hard labour is to be well rewarded. And the dear, blessed children, a new journey to the stars will set in motion the next step in your life.+
There would be no accounts when the Inquisition arrived. And when they came, as they would with fire and bolter to these caverns, no tales would be told. One by one and without effort, the flames of the miners' souls were extinguished. Neferuaat guided the aetheric gale with skill, watching each soul enveloped in the howling tempest fed back into the Warp. The precious machines and drills began to whirr down. Krauskopf, unhappy at the turn of events, bitterly spoke of the loss of the machines. His pleas for the Skitarii to return for them were ignored. When the last worker's body had slumped to the floor and the final mechanical note was silenced, the Dark Mother moved on with her entourage.
The children held the long train of Neferuaat's veil out of the dirt while the Rubricae protected the procession. Some infants limped from the brand recently inscribed on the soles of their feet. That pain, like any other, would pass in time. Silence was the only music now in the depths of the dead planet. What Ahriman vainly sought for hadn't been here. He had been wrong, and the knowledge that the infallible grand sorcerer misinterpreted Saint Gilles writings warmed Neferuaat. Once Pathoth learned of this wild chase, she could only imagine how he would use it against Ahriman.
Halting at a smaller cavern, the psyker reached out to pluck the skeins of the Great Ocean. Past the planet, through the tumbling void and stars, she sent a missive to one soul. Neferuaat's psychic communication formed frost at her feet, lightly coated the armour of her guardians, and made the children shiver in discomfort.
+Nothing is here as you thought it was, great lord. I believe your knowledge was... incorrect.+
Just beyond the Huldah subsector came an answer. +Make leave. The Inquisitorial dogs are amassing.+ Displeasure raced down the psychic link – from her message or the future implications behind it – strong enough for Neferuaat to visualise Ahriman's scowl.
Neferuaat produced a small glass pyramid from her violet robes. Its dimensions no larger than the palm of her hand, the psi-crystal rippled with contained energy. Setting it in the center of the underground chamber, she worked an esoteric pattern around it. With an intense burst of Warp energy, a small gateway opened. Beyond its shimmering edges the deck plating of a familiar vessel, and an armoured sorcerer, waited. The Dark Mother and her coterie passed through, the psionic pyramid shattering in their wake. Krenzar was left behind in their wake, another lonely colony spinning on its way, removed from the larger game.
Amara Kith woke up in Krenzar's hospice, groggy and extremely nauseated, but alive. A plethora of tubing cycling fluids to and from her body stuck out from her wrists like a crazed form of plant life. It hurt for her to move or twitch. A hazy face with too many wrinkles, jowls and liver spots focused before her. The apothecary... what was his name?
"Yannis?" the name came out a mashed gurgle.
"Finally awake, I see, dear Inquisitor." His voice was good-humoured, if forced. "And looking much younger than when you first arrived." A hand mirror was placed in front of Amara. The wrinkles once lining her features were gone, replaced by smooth youthful skin. She looked at the tubes, guessing at the liquid contents flowing inside.
"Are these tubes for-"
"Your rejuvenate? Indeed, they are. Sister Ursula provided a sample of the concoction and I was able to duplicate the drug." He moved around the cot to check the machine, exuding a nervous energy.
Shrewdly watching the apothecary, Amara said, "Difficult work to remake. You're quite gifted to figure it out given the limited resources of this facility."
Yannis paused in his motions. "Between you and I, Inquisitor, there is a reason I was sent here. Krenzar wasn't a post of my choosing. I angered many in my profession with my... research. I was far too good, delved too deep and my talents were the envy of many." His anxiety over his patient's rank abated for a moment. The apothecary's tired eyes slightly watered. "I was packed off here to end my days."
"Enemies in high places, apothecary? What research did you follow?"
"Nothing heretical, I assure the Inquisitor." Again, the forced humour seeped into his voice. "The subsector governor didn't approve of genetic splicing, if you want to know. He believed it went against certain religious views."
His mannerisms were likeable. She hadn't found a suitable physician to take into her confidences yet, though Yannis's skills would be better suited than working in a colony. "Would you consider a new employer, Yannis? I can't promise the work will be easy, but your talents won't be wasted." She winced against the pressure in her midsection.
"Move carefully, Inquisitor. Your sutures will come out if you're reckless." Yannis assisted the woman to sit upright before answering her question. "I would relish working for the Throne given the chance."
The apothecary might have said more but hushed at the clattering of armoured footsteps. Sister Ursula stalked into the medicae ward, the servo-skull with her and Dram following. His calf was properly bandaged and set in a supporting leg brace. Both saluted Amara Kith, dark circles under Ursula's eyes attested to the lack of sleep in the hours following the turmoil.
"Milady Kith, you are well?"
Amara smiled tiredly. "I'm certain I'll be given a clean bill of health, and then we can all be on our way. Was Fray...?"
"He is dead. I oversaw his final rites and consigned his body to purifying flames." Ursula's abrupt tone masked her grief. "May he be kept safe by the Emperor Everlasting."
"It's always the best who go first," Amara murmured. Fray's involvement with the Holy Ordos hadn't been long. Having found him after Isfarena, Amara enlisted Fray's expertise in flight craft to supplement her limited knowledge. He had been competent. Replacing him would be difficult, but not impossible. His death would not be the first or last in her warband, Kith knew. She tried not to think about such things.
"Heed my council, Inquisitor, we need a new pilot." Ever the pragmatist even in times of sorrow, Ursula's statement brought Amara Kith out of her reverie.
"There's a prison moon orbiting Vespor. We can find a proficient pilot there. Just like Fray, all the good ones are criminals." The Inquisitor beckoned Dram closer. "The vigilante of Krenzar. If not for you sending out the distress beacon, the cult would have overrun Krenzar. If you will, please give your full name and rank."
Dram's Guard training resurfaced. He held himself stiffly if not at full attention, hands clasped behind his back. The white dust from the mines still clung to his boots. "Former Infantryman Dram Gehnatus of the Dreadhaven 17th Company, 75th Dreadhaven Regiment, of the Emperor's Imperial Guard Infantry."
The servo-skull's red eye flashed twice. It drew up a hololithic pane, the green surface scrolling with a vast amount of information. The Guardsman's folder, a list of his merits and deeds, was laid bare to read. Rotating the pane for Dram's convenience, Kith read off the summary. "After a long engagement with Orks, your battle company was victorious. Sent back to Dreadhaven on standard rotation, you were given time to go off base to meet with family. Is this correct?"
Dram swallowed hard. "It is, Inquisitor."
"Could you clarify the events which led you to kill the majority of your neighbourhood in a single night?" Violent acts on the hololith were highlighted. Images burned into Dram's memory from that night surfaced in each pict the Inquisitor scrolled through. The very things he had run from, the past he thought buried, now hovered before him. It was time for Dram to confess his crimes.
"They killed my family," he replied. There was no use hiding the truth from the Inquisition. "My mother was called a witch. She wasn't, but it didn't stop her murder from happening. The mob took my sister and hung her from the district church because she was touched. Just like you are, Inquisitor, but she never hurt anyone."
Amara arched a blonde eyebrow. "Like I am? Would you care to explain your statement."
"A friend of mine called it a buzzing." Dram struggled to explain it. "It repels people, makes them anxious. You had it about you in the tunnels. My sister Vykos had the same thing, only worse. I suppose I was use to it because she was my sister. I grew up with it." Nodding sympathetically, Amara paused at one pict. A gutted corpse, the head caved in by a heavy object, flesh charred. What person would not desire revenge against cruel injustice?
"To the rest of the district, Vykos was something to be killed." Clearing his throat, the former Guardsman continued. "I got back at the people who do the greater Humanity a disservice. I left behind family when I shouldn't have. Nobody was there to protect them when it counted."
"And to escape the Arbites and tribunal, you took the first available freighter and went wherever it landed," Amara concluded the story.
"Yes, Inquisitor. When I found the rot here, I knew what I had to do. I sent out the call for help and got to work." Nothing was left to say. There was no hesitancy in Dram's voice. Dram's sister, a true Pariah, one of the rarest being to find in the galaxy, had spurred his drive and devotion. Amara Kith approved his fervour for justice even while the tactics were underhanded.
She was a good judge of character. Inquisitors usually were. Amara Kith prided herself on being exceptionally discerning. Dram's temperament was the sort she required. "Dram, let me extend you an offer. This file from the Guard and the memory of Dreadhaven will disappear with a few well-placed clicks. Your crimes will be absolved in the Emperor's light, but for this you will have to make a great commitment to a much higher power until the day you die."
Dram held himself at full attention. "When the call comes, who can refuse service to the God-Emperor, Inquisitor?"