Fame Cimex Chapter 17

Orbiting high over Angle's Redoubt, the Inquisition's starfort sat among the shoals of dockyards and defence platforms like a disapproving teacher over a fearful class in a Scholam. The shuttles, cargo ships and defence monitors all made sure to steer well clear, as if afraid that the dark guardians within could see into their thoughts and would send legions of leashed Daemons to hunt them down.

Yet if they could have seen inside they would have been disappointed by how mundane and ordinary the station was. Various crewmen and servitors simply going about their business, doing the multitudes of tasks any spaceborne facility required. Supplies were received and sorted; crew shifts were handed over, men trained and work and slept just like they did anywhere else in the galaxy. The crew bore the brands of the Inquisition, but they were not true acolytes of that order, they were mere functionaries inducted to serve the basic requirements of the Ordos and nothing more.

Of the true Inquisition, there were barely a handful of representatives aboard, tending the forbidden libraries, torturing dissidents in the dungeons and scouring the planet's data-nets for signs of Heresy. There were data-savants, Hierophants, Interrogators, gun-slingers, Sanctioned Psykers, Medicaes and Warp-Mystics, but as for those deemed pure enough to rank as true Inquisitors there were currently only four on board. One of these four was presently sitting in a luxurious office, staring out at the stars and contemplating the past and the future. He sat in a black bodysuit, while his powered armour rested on a display stand. His name was Zerban and he was a Lord Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus, one with the scars to prove it. His name and title were feared throughout the Saint Karyl Trail, his litany of deeds and the Heretics he had purged was impressive and had brought him much power and respect among the Ordos, as well as many rivals.

Zerban was currently contemplating those rivals with his fingers steepled before him, knowing that they were plotting his downfall just as he was theirs. His rank may have sounded impressive but the Inquisition was a fractious organisation and his fellow Inquisitors all believed themselves the ultimate authority of the God-Emperor's will. It had taken him centuries of influence and careful power building to reach his position and he had no intention of losing it now. Zerban had long since passed over the mundane chores of field work, though he was quite capable of smiting the foe if necessary he often found it inefficient and time-consuming. These days he found it far more effective to get the Imperial institutions to destroy his enemies for him, turning them to his purposes like a well-tuned machine. Zerban saw himself more as a back-door problem solver than anything else, he looked down upon those Inquisitors who lacked the imagination to do more than blast and burn away whatever they found before them.

Behind Zerban the door gave a discrete cheep and he indulged himself with a small smile, he was currently keeping Cardinal Giovanni waiting in the outer office, a situation that had endured for almost an hour. It was petty, banal and venal and Zerban knew it was exactly what Giovanni would have done in his place, the Cardinal was all of these things and the Inquisitor was accustomed to using his rival's own tactics against them. Still he supposed this had gone on long enough so he spun his high back chair around and positioned himself behind a large Nalwood desk before saying, "Come." The hatch swung up into the ceiling and the Cardinal entered, flanked by two Sisters-of-Battle in full plate armour. Giovanni had grown increasingly paranoid and distrustful, even daring to bring armed bodyguards into his meetings, Zerban wasn't concerned though, the man was far too cowardly to dare anything.

As the Cardinal approached Zerban had time to consider the man, he was a typical example of the Imperial priesthood, lazy, self-indulgent, corrupt and utterly confident in his own right to do as he pleased. Once when Zerban had been a much, much younger man he had railed against the corruption of the Imperium, but now he welcomed it: it made such men so easy to extort and control. Giovanni himself had a long, long list of sins to cover up, a fact Zerban had repeatedly threatened to reveal to his superiors many times. Yet what the man failed to recognise was that those Zerban would report him to were in fact far more corrupt than he was. The litany of sins he had built up wouldn't even raise an eyebrow on Terra or any of the worlds of the Imperial heartlands around it.

Zerban reflected that more than any other Imperial institution the Ecclessiarchy seemed almost purpose-built to foster corruption. Surely there must be men of good faith and honour within it, but such individuals were ruthlessly excised at a young age and sent out to distant war zones. Only the cowardly and the debased were permitted to rise and the cesspool grew more rancid every day. The Great Sebastian Thor had once tried to cut out the rot, even creating internal policing forces to purify it, but the decay had swiftly returned. Zerban knew for a fact that these Sisters-of-battle, those charged with vouchsafing the integrity of this Cardinal, in fact spent their nights keeping a steady supply of drugs, wines and young flesh flowing into Giovanni's chambers.

Finally Giovanni waddled up to the desk and threw himself into a leather chair without asking, he mopped his red face with a silk handkerchief and gestured to one of his guards saying, "Amasec." The battle plated sister grudgingly lowered her bolter to her hip and clomped over to a sidebar, pouring a crystal decanter out into a glass; she waved a poison sniffer over it then returned. Giovanni treated his most veteran warriors like serving girls, no wonder Zerban found it so easy to manipulate him.

Zerban let him sip the vintage brew then growled, "Well what do you want?"

Giovanni clutched his glass and replied, "Haven't you heard, the Imperial Navy has been defeated!"

Zerban waved off the concerns and said, "It is of no importance."

"No importance!" wailed Giovanni, "The Hive Fleet broke them with ease, the Great Devourer is coming. It's coming right here, for you and me!"

Zerban shrugged and said, "Xenos threats come and go, they always have and they always will. The Imperium has weathered Waaaghs and invasions for millennia and it is still here, this is no different. No the real danger in this situation is the Storm Heralds, they think to worm their way back into the Imperium's good graces."

Giovanni stared at him and said, "I think you're underestimating the Tyranid threat, they have cut us off from all communications and transit with the Imperium, their monsters are already here!"

Zerban remembered that the Cardinal had recently been attacked in his own Cathedral, a narrow escape that explained his fear and his most recent bout of hedonism. The Inquisitor waved off his fears and said, "The greatest threat the Imperium has ever, or will ever face is Chaos and the Astartes are the tools of the Ruinous Powers. They were made to be pure, to defend humanity but how many of them have fallen over the last ten thousand years? They think themselves perfect but they are just as corrupted as anyone else and they don't even realise it."

Giovanni shook his head and said, "I have never understood your obsession with the Space Marines, are they not the work of the hand of the God-Emperor?"

Zerban answered, "Oh I understand well why He made them, the Great Crusade needed a battering ram, a weapon to break the Xeno hordes infesting the galaxy. But those rabid dogs should never be given the freedom to direct themselves, they should have been kept in cages or Cyro-caskets like the Eversors, before being thrown into battle. Why the God-Emperor gave them the ability to reproduce is beyond me, at the very least the Gene-tech to produce new Astartes should never have been allowed to leave Terra. I intend to finally put a leash on those arrogant war-dogs and the Storm Heralds are the next step along that path."

Giovanni sighed and said, "So what are we going to do about all this?"

Zerban answered, "The Storm Heralds will be coming back, thinking to turn the other institutions to their side, we have to stop that."

Giovanni gulped his Amasec and said, "Do you think we can?"

Zerban slapped the desk and said, "The Storm Heralds made the biggest mistake possible in politics, they made themselves inconvenient. The other Institutions bear no love for those upstarts."

Giovanni had a thought and said, "Do you think the new Admiral can be tempted to our side?"

Zerban said frankly, "No, he's already broadcasting his intentions, he has taken the Storm Herald's side."

Giovanni smirked then said, "Perhaps we should do the same thing to him that we did to his uncle, if people knew what the Dousmanis family has done to earn all that wealth, then their name would be mud."

Zerban grimaced and said, "Would that we could, unfortunately the late Lord Admiral's death has made him a martyr… nobody wants an Imperial Hero's legend besmirched after the fact. Dousmanis the Younger is shielded by that reflected glory, he's untouchable now."

Giovanni had an evil glint in his eye and said, "Then play the man not the ball, I have heard rumours that the young Admiral enjoys inviting some of the more good-looking male officers to his quarters in the night. If his wife and family heard of this…"

Zerban sighed before saying, "You think they don't already know? This isn't Terra or the heartlands, as long as he produces heirs they don't care what he does elsewhere. The same is true of the wider Imperium; as long as he wins nobody gives a crap who he spends his nights with."

Giovanni looked frustrated and said, "Then purge him! Call out your armies and fleets to remove him, replace him with somebody more malleable."

Zerban went very still, for Giovanni had hit upon a thorny problem. In the strictest sense the Inquisition did not exist, there was no hierarchy of superiors, no vast fleets and armies waiting to be unleashed. There were only a few scattered bases and training facilities and whatever armed forces an individual Inquisitor could requisition. Even the Chamber's Militant, (the Assassins, the Sisters of Battle, the Deathwatch and the Grey Knights), were separate institutions and oft went their own ways at the most inconvenient moments.

The Inquisition's only real power was that people believed it was powerful, so if Dousmanis the Younger genuinely thought that Zerban couldn't touch him, then there was nothing to be done. Zerban had no intention of being one of those fools who walked into a room, flashed his Rosette and got gunned down for his troubles. Zerban drew in a breath and said, "No, this is not the time for brash action. I am going to start making calls to the various Adepts, you get back down to the planet and make yourself seen."

Giovanni gasped and said, "I am not going back, not with that monster down there!"

Zerban barked, "You will go where I tell you to go."

Giovanni quivered, "But the Tyranids, they want me!"

Zerban glared at him in disgust, fixing him with a steely gaze that made Giovanni shrink into himself and nod in acquiescence. Zerban nodded in satisfaction and said, "Good, then we have much work to do. It is time to remind everybody who really rules this Imperium."