"Only four gene-seed rejections among this year's girls," Apothecary Vesta informed captain Minerva. "They won't be needing to induct replacements."
"So we're not going to have to request a tithe exemption after all," Minera said, relieved. The Chapter prided itself on never failing to make its tithe of gene-seed on schedule, but after their recent losses against Hive Fleet Leviathan, many unrecoverable, gene-seed reserves had fallen perilously low. The curse of the Twenty-First Founding lay lightly upon the Amazons, but they still had a drastically higher rejection rate than the other children of Guilliman.
"You know they'd grant it," Techmarine Arachne growled. "It's not like they have a use for it. Or us." The three of them sat around a sturdy oak table in a sparsely-furnished room at the heart of the fortress-monastery, while the four squads of Third Company currently home drilled on the practice fields outside.
"We don't do it for the Adeptus Terra," Minerva replied. "We do it because it's our duty." It was an old argument, far older than any of them. Five millennia and as many Foundings, and they lacked a single successor chapter. Minerva changed the subject. "Any problems with the new shipment?"
"We're going to be able to repair Thunderhawk Two, and the regular ammo resupply is all there," Arachne replied. "The plasma guns are a bust again, though. Their heat profiles aren't stable even in a controlled test. They're barely guard quality, and you know how they go through plasma gunners."
"Do you think they'll be able to improve?" Minerva asked, trying to mask her disappointment. Third Company had acquired five of the precious weapons over the centuries, and she'd nursed ambitions of getting a couple dozen since the forge world of Etna had acquired the pattern. "Or do we need to keep looking?"
Arachne shrugged. "I can't really say; it might be a problem with the pattern. I haven't gotten a straight answer on where it came from. And before you ask, it's not something the Alecto's forge could use even if we could somehow get our hands on it."
"Keep looking, then." Minerva said. "Send the discards to the PDF again; the forest patrols always need more firepower, especially with them planning to establish a new settlement. Speaking of which, Vesta, you'll be accompanying the scouts on a sweep mission next week. After that, we'll be embarking again."
"Do we have a destination yet?" Vesta asked.
"No," Minerva replied. "The astropaths haven't received any requests for aid. We'll pick one in the usual way."
"Have fun," Arachne said dryly.
"You may enter, captain" Medea called before Minerva's fist rapped the door. It might have been because a Space Marine could hear her approach even through the thick plasteel, and not many people came to meet with the Librarian. It probably wasn't.
Medea was short for one of the Amazons, which still left her towering over Cadian men, and somehow contrived to give off an air of wispy frailty even with her enhanced musculature. She was sitting cross-legged in a simple robe, facing directly away from the door at a blank wall, and didn't rise to greet Minerva.
Minerva walked up to sit beside her. She got straight to the point; Medea despised pleasantries. "We need a target for our next expedition."
"The paths grow clouded," Medea replied, not turning to face her. "From every side does present death appear."
Minerva frowned. "Do you mean Nemea itself is under threat?"
"All will be beset," Medea replied. She finally turned to look at Minerva. "Evil will fill the skies of every world." Her eyes focused. "Not tyranids."
That was more like what Minerva expected out of her. "If everywhere is threatened, should we go to Terra?"
"Terra will stand. Elsewhere…" Medea faltered. "My sight is opposed."
"Will Cadia fall?" They'd heard reports of the Thirteenth Black Crusade, but that was an entirely different segmentum, difficult to intervene in. Second and Fifth company had been dispatched regardless.
"That is hidden most of all," Medea said. "The paths are barred to us; we would not arrive."
"Then the sector is our responsibility," Minerva mused. "Telerion will be the center of any response. We'll take the Alecto there, until we have a target." She'd also send astropathic dispatches relaying Medea's warning, but she expected they'd be ignored. Admittedly, vague prophecies of doom from seers were as common as grass, but Medea was generally reliable.
Vesta entered one of the fortress-monastery's briefing rooms. Nine young women, clad in unpowered carapace armor, stood in a half-circle as a scarred elder woman addressed them from in front of a hololith displaying orbital imagery of a chunk of the Nemean forest.
"Remember, this is a squad exercise," sergeant Artemis was saying, giving a particular look to a taller blonde woman. "Try proving how strong you are at the expense of the squad, and you'll get to spend a week proving it by helping the cargo servitors."
The scouts nodded tolerantly; they'd been receiving variants of that speech since they'd cleared the trials half a decade ago. A good many of them had spent time ferrying ammo boxes, too. "Good," Artemis said. She nodded to Vesta and turned to the hololith. "Now, for the tactical briefing."
"We will be assisting a PDF clearance action in sector N-7, attaching to forest patrol platoons to provide scouting and combat support." She activated a control and unit symbols appeared on the hololith, with arrows indicating planned lines of advance. "You will be in teams of three with the advance platoons; Apothecary Vesta and I will remain with company command in case of emergency."
"The mission objective is to reduce the population of primary threats in advance of a full cut-and-burn operation. The target priority is the same as our hunt exercises, but you also need to concern yourself with the PDF unit." She adjusted the hololith to display a standard forest patrol chimera, armed with an autocannon. "Keep them from getting ambushed and caught up in close combat, but also rely on them for fire support, particularly with their heavy weaponry."
Artemis turned back to the scouts. "You're not under the command of the PDF, but need to work in coordination with them. Stick reasonably close, and assist the lieutenant's tactics. Keep them appraised of your plans and inform them immediately if you have to deviate."
Lieutenant Thames, Nemean PDF, took a moment to appreciate the relative chill in the shadow of the canopy. It was intolerably hot and muggy by the standards of most worlds, but the shade cut a good five degrees off the temperature in the towns. That was at least something.
It didn't exactly make up for everything else about the deep forests. His respirator hissed with every breath, a constant reminder that they could run into a spore tree at any moment. Undergrowth cracked beneath the Chimera's treads, threatening to throw a track. The path was barely wide enough for one of the vehicles, and they weren't exactly spoiled for clear lines of fire.
Didn't seem to bother the Astartes any; two of the big women kept flitting back and forth alongside the outskirts of the column. Every now and then a bolter thundered, followed by a clipped contact report. The third carried a massive shotgun, jogging alongside the lead vehicle.
The men were overawed by their presence, so much so no one had even tried making a pass at them. He'd been afraid they would, especially since he checked the regs and realized that technically fraternization regs didn't apply. Doomed romances between men, or occasionally women, and the Angels of Death were a popular genre, although according to his mother the Astartes were above such emotions.
Personally, Thames was grateful they were here, but had been a bit put out when the captain told him they were nineteen-year-olds on a training exercise. Apparently, this didn't merit the attention of real marines. He knew they kept a reserve company on-planet most of the time, which occasionally deployed when a migration threatened the walls of a town, but he'd never been on a mission with them.
His musings were interrupted by another signal from the Astartes' vox. "Contact. Boar pack, one kilometer ahead of column, heading south. Three adult, seven juvenile."
Perfect. Nemean boars weren't the most dangerous animal on the planet, but the hydras were solo predators. Even they wouldn't take on a full boar pack at once. They were heading perpendicular to the column, and he dearly wished he could let them go. But the burn teams wouldn't be able to clear them.
"Halt and deploy," he voxed. "Special weapons teams to the front. Astartes-" He checked himself. He couldn't actually give them orders. "We'll be setting up a fire zone along the trail. Request you bait them into it."
"We will. Signal when ready." The girl with the shotgun disappeared into the trees.
Thames turned to his troops. "All right," he called. "Autocannons and missile launchers to the path. Load krak. Lasmen in the trees. Show some fire discipline; the Astartes will be in the zone of engagement."
Julia sighted down her shotgun at the boars, listening to the distant sounds of the PDF setting up. "Any time now," she muttered, making sure her vox was off. She knew intellectually that the men were slower and weaker and hadn't been through the same degree of training as her, but she hadn't expected them to be this slow off the mark.
Fortunately, the boars weren't in any hurry either, rooting around in the undergrowth. They weren't as big as the breed on the southern continent, where they usually went for training, but they were still several tons of gristle and bone thick enough to stop a bolter shot. She'd loaded penetrator shells, which would be able to break through if she put a couple rounds in the same spot, but wouldn't be able to take down the whole herd on the charge.
The heavy weapons the PDF had should be more than capable of it, assuming they were better at shooting them than they were at setting them up. When they'd used this tactic before it was with a proper devastator squad providing the fire base. Was it going to be like this every time they worked with mortals? She was beginning to see why other chapters didn't like doing it.
"We're ready," the lieutenant finally voxed. Julia stood up, leveled her shotgun, and emptied it into the largest boar in the herd. The massive slugs tore into its flanks, and it staggered with a spray of blood. She didn't wait to see if it got back up, turning fluidly and breaking into a sprint as the other boars turned and charged.
The Astartes didn't waste any time, Thames thought as the boom of the shotgun echoed. A couple seconds later the girl with the shotgun swept back into view, hurling towards them faster than a galloping horse. Unbelievably, she was reloading the shotgun even as she ran, slotting in a fresh ammo drum. She was halfway down the path when the boars rounded the corner.
They were things from a nightmare, steely tusks emerging from distorted snouts, taller than a chimera. They came on, snorting furiously, smashing through the thick undergrowth as easily as if it were cleared ground. "Fire!" Thames shrieked, hearing the panic in his own voice.
The girl slipped out of the way, moving into the tree line as the autocannons opened up. The boars came on through the fire, seeming to shrug off the heavy rounds. The heavy weapons were joined by the sharp crack of hellguns, searing but not stopping them. For a moment it seemed like they would carry through.
Then the missile launchers opened up, a trio of krak missiles hurling into the beasts. The leading pair went down, the anti-tank missiles burning through even their thick skulls, and the others stumbled over the bodies. The Astartes girl with the shotgun reappeared, firing a half-dozen rounds into one of the staggering juveniles and sending it falling. The autocannons roared again, this time finding the weaker flanks of the surviving boars. In moments it was over.
"Contacts down," the Astartes voxed, sounding for all the world like she was out for a stroll.
"So," Artemis said on the Thunderhawk ride back, "Thoughts on your first joint assignment?"
"The PDF wasn't very competent," Julia said grumpily. "Poor discipline and slow to react. We kept having to wait for them to set up."
"I have some bad news for you," Artemis said solemnly. "The Nemean PDF forest patrol is an elite force and maintains higher standards than most guard regiments." She chuckled slightly at the horrified expressions on her charges' faces. "Yes, it's usually worse than this. Especially with regular PDF; Nemea is exempt from the tithe."
Her face turned serious again. "They are not as you are, and they never will be. Among a dozen regiments, you will find perhaps one soldier who could complete our basic drills to minimum standards. But they are the bedrock of the Imperium's armies; they are many and we are so very few. There is not even one Astartes for every world in the Imperium."
"Few wars are won by Astartes alone," Vesta added. "We forget that at the Imperium's peril. Even when the Legions strode the galaxy in their tens of thousands, mortals in tens of millions fought at their sides."
"But we're separate from the Militarum," one of the scouts said, her brow furrowing. "When we're deployed, who has overall command?"
"The only mortals we report to are the Inquisition and the High Lords of Terra. And the only mortals who report to us are our chapter serfs and the people of our homeworld." Visions of countless strategy meetings, arguments, harried vox calls, and one particularly unwise colonel demanding an honor duel danced through Artemis's mind. "This makes matters difficult."
"For now," she continued, "leave it to the officers to sort out. We'll be shipping out in three days, and you'll get to see it in action."
Thirteen subjective days later, Minerva stood in the dueling cages of the Alecto with two of her sergeants, Europa and Helen, at her side, facing Medea. All wore their simple training bodygloves and held unpowered gladiuses. Blades weren't a preferred weapon of the chapter, much to Helen's annoyance, but tactical need did not always bend to preferences and the Amazons kept their skills sharp.
Minerva advanced cautiously, making sure to keep in step with her partners. Separate even slightly, and they wouldn't be able to cage Medea's actions. They had to pressure her from multiple angles simultaneously. Medea had taken up a neutral guard stance, giving no clues as to her intention.
Just as the trio closed to blade range, Medea snapped to the attack, stabbing at Helen. Minerva lunged in instantly, as Helen raised her gladius to parry and Europa stepped around to surround Medea. Medea smoothly interrupted her lunge, stepping back to keep all three in front of her and just barely parrying Minerva's strike. Helen and Europa swung at once, Helen low and Europa high.
Medea dropped, letting Europa's swing pass over by a millimeter, deflecting Helen's blade, and simultaneously trying to sweep Minerva's leg. Minerva evaded the sweep, slashing down just barely too slowly to catch Medea's leg with a return blow.
The assault continued, the trio trying to surround their target at every opportunity, not committing to attacks until Medea was already in motion, matching their actions to hers. Tracking three targets, predicting out responses to every action, strained her sight.
It wasn't enough; fifteen seconds into the fight she put Helen off-balance with a parry and got her blade around swiftly enough to score a touch on Europa, drawing a thin line of blood along her bicep. Europa stepped back; out at first blood. Helen was struck two exchanges later, caught on the backhand when she tried to interrupt a strike on Minerva. Medea lunged at Minerva, snaking her blade around to score a touch on the shoulder.
"Maybe we should go to four," Helen grumbled. The assault marine was not fond of losing, particularly not in her element. Being thrown around by a telekine would be easier on her pride.
"Four basically makes it into a game of whether she can arrange to fight only three at a time," Minerva replied. "Besides, we have a seven percent win rate."
"Might be higher if we raised the injury rules," Europa remarked.
"No," Medea assured them.
The ship shuddered suddenly, the hum of the Gellar field rising in pitch for a moment then returning to its usual background. The Astartes snapped to attention, checking the walls. "Breach?" Minerva asked.
"Field held," Medea said, staring at nothing. "The off-shift serfs will be having nightmares. Nothing significant."
It was possible the serfs in question would disagree. The journey so far had been rougher than usual, with more than the typical background rate of hallucinations and madness. Vesta had quarantined three decks after an outbreak of mild flu, notable for nothing except its total immunity to any counter-viral. Five crew had attempted to gouge out their own eyes, and one had tried to walk out an airlock at the urging of a voice only she could hear.
Such matters weren't Minerva's concern. While Vesta and Arachne had authority over their domains shipboard, general ship control was the province of the shipmaster, not the attached captain. She might assume command when on the bridge, but managing discipline among mortals, even chapter serfs, was difficult for Astartes. Even though the serfs had passed the first round of trials, they lacked the implants and indoctrination of their mistresses. Nightmares held no fear for her; she couldn't truly grasp how they'd affect the crew.
"All right," Minerva said. "Two more bouts, then it's time to drill her in psyker-less basics." Helen cracked a grin.
Reality trembled and tore, a rift a thousand miles across ripping open at the outskirts of the system hosting sector command. A blunt-nosed, blocky ship painted in teal emerged, crackling lighting chasing it out, trying to haul the strike cruiser back into hell.
"No contacts within two hundred thousand kilometers," the master of detection announced. Like most of the crew on the bridge, she was a chapter serf. "Reading Imperial traffic in the inner system."
Minerva nodded. "Take us in," she directed the shipmaster.
"Alecto to Telerion control. We require an orbital assignment."
"Orbital slots are reserved for the Imperial Navy," the vox crackled. "You may hold station in the outer system until-"
"Astartes Strike Cruiser Alecto to Telerion control," Minerva interrupted, standing behind the shipmaster's throne. "We will be entering planetary orbit."
There was a moment of stunned incredulity. "Acknowledged, Astartes vessel. Equatorial orbit five."
"Confirm equatorial orbit five," Minerva said gravely, then waited for the serf operating the vox to cut the link. "Now get us in contact with sector command; arrange a meeting with Lord General Solon if he's in-system, and with the ranking naval officer." She looked over the strategic hololith, filling with Imperial icons, and noticed a red rune. "Arachne, Legio Victrix is in-system. Pay them our respects."
The master of detection spoke up again. "There's a cruiser class ship in a high orbit that's not broadcasting any identification code. No archive matches. Emissions pattern imperial."
"Confirm their identity with orbital control," Minerva ordered, purely for the form of it.
She got the response she expected. "That's classified."
"Medea?" she asked.
"They will be needed," the Librarian replied. "I will accompany you to the surface."
"Keep the ship at combat alert," Minerva ordered. "Combat squads stand by for surface deployment. Scouts prepare for shipboard security. And advise all forces to raise alert level." Not that she expected them to listen.
"Want me to wake the ancients?" Arachne asked over the vox.
Minerva considered that for a moment. "We might not deploy them at all here, then have to redeploy where we'll need them. Vesta, your opinion?"
"Not advisable," Vesta replied. "Standby is hard on them, and Persephone is already showing signs of degradation. Then we'd either have to leave them online for the warp jump or put them through another sleep-wake cycle of only a couple weeks."
"They stay asleep," Minerva decided. "But once you're back from visiting the Titans make the preparations."
Arachne stepped out of her thunderhawk alone, to be greeted by a tech-priest, a Skitarii, and a man with no visible augmetics. She immediately bowed to the third man and transmitted a binary greeting; his unmodified physique coupled with the location communicated his status as clearly as his uniform.
"Welcome, Techmarine," Princeps Krane of the Warlord Motive Wrath replied, accompanying his flesh voice with an identification code. Arachne connected to the noosphere and inloaded his service record. "It is an honor."
"The honor is mine," Arachne replied truthfully. "I bear greetings from captain Minerva of the Astral Amazons Third Company."
"Respectful," Magos Rolian-Pi-8 transmitted. "Many Astartes would presume to come themselves."
"They presume much," Krane agreed. His eyes narrowed. "Including to tell us where to march."
Arachne hated this part of the job, though she was sure the others had it worse. "The captain knows where her authority ends," she said. "She merely wishes to coordinate our efforts, that we may both better serve the Emperor-Omnissiah." And knew better than to intrude on sacred mysteries; Arachne was a member of the Mechanicus herself and Minerva's preferred intermediary.
"Good," Krane said, then smiled. "I suppose you want to see the titans?"
"I would appreciate the opportunity," Arachne said, hiding her unseemly excitement.
As they walked, Magos Rolian-Pi-8 asked The Question. "How is it that your chapter is compatible with the holy gene-seed? It is not generally effective on female genetics."
"Our gene-seed is unique," Arachne replied. "It originates during the Twenty-First Founding. I am not trained as a Magos Biologis and cannot answer specific inquiries." If she was fortunate, this particular group was unfamiliar with the Twenty-First Founding.
She was not fortunate. "The Cursed Founding?" Krane asked.
"That is its common name." Rolian-Pi-8 droned. "Efforts were made to correct perceived flaws in the Omnissiah's work. They were largely unsuccessful."
That was putting it mildly. The truth was lost in a haze of rumors, but the Flame Falcons had displayed gene-seed deviation so dramatic they were purged outright, the Black Dragons teetered on the edge of the same, and several other chapters had only eluded that fate because their gene-seed was so flawed they were unable to maintain their population and were allowed to die out.
The same cloud of suspicion had attached itself to the Astral Amazons, despite their record. They were fortunate Etna had been dedicated to their support at the time of their creation, which at least allowed them to maintain a decent quantity of basic equipment, but they were badly limited in their access to advanced patterns.
"Our case was an exception," Arachne replied. "Rejection rates are increased two hundred thirty percent over the baseline for the Thirteenth Legion, but no flaws have expressed themselves in successful implantations." Vesta was of the opinion that the problem was actually in the screening process, and the gene-seed was no less stable than their progenitors.
"Is combat capability comparable?" the Skitarii asked.
Arachne repressed a spike of irritation and uploaded her battle records. "Physiological capabilities are equivalent within standard variation. Training emphasizes ranged combat, with expected impact on melee capabilities. Tactical combat effectiveness within expected parameters for Thirteenth Legion."
The conversation continued, but avoided the real question, the one the Astral Amazons privately asked each other; why hadn't the Emperor-Omnissiah created female marines in the first place? Mortal women had served in the Great Crusade in vast numbers, with the Sisters of Silence prominent among them. The founder of the Sisters of Battle had been permitted into His presence. Yet, if mortals could adapt His work successfully, it could not have been beyond His capabilities.
To Arachne, it seemed obvious that He simply did not desire more Astartes. He had created eighteen Primarchs (though Arachne wondered why there were gaps in the numbers) and their Legions, and had not seen fit to produce more. He had not needed more; those eighteen conquered the galaxy and only blackest treachery among their own ranks had undone it.
She turned the conversation to more comfortable grounds. "What is the status of the god-machines?"
"Motive Wrath is currently undergoing repair," Krane said. "She sustained heavy damage engaging Aeldari knights. The primary injuries have been mended, but the machine-spirits of secondary systems were unsettled and reconsecration is required." He transferred maintenance data.
Arachne reviewed it reverently; while they lacked the sheer mass of a voidship, the titans were far more sophisticated, and their machine spirits wiser. Even the mysteries of Astartes armor paled in comparison to the grace of their mind-links. Small wonder the Princeps did not see the need to augment his body, when he communed with a greater machine than any of them.
Still, an Astartes, even a Techmarine, always kept battle in mind. Her training did not extend to the control throne, but she could understand the weapons and motive systems well enough. The volcano cannon's power system had required a nearly complete replacement, and the plasma devastator cooling had been badly damaged. Both had been repaired to full functionality, but the motive units of the arms still displayed irregularities consistent with close proximity to vortex detonations. The repairs would be completed in ninety-seven hours, but they required a deep shutdown.
The remainder of the maniple consisted of three Warhounds; it appeared a Reaver had been attached but was sufficiently damaged to require return to a forge world for reconstruction. There was no data available on when that would be completed; it could be decades.
Soon, she was able to see them for herself. She was led in through a personnel door into the massive maintenance bay. Arachne gazed up in awe at the massive forms of the Warhounds, wrapped in scaffolding and boarding ladders. War banners hung from them; marks of the glory they'd earned over the centuries. Even with their reactors powered down they radiated might.
Where most would only pay attention to the god-machines themselves, she was equally interested in the equipment to repair them. Such devices were as precious as the machines they serviced, and could be even harder to replace. They were rarely shown to unconsecrated eyes.
The glories around her didn't distract her from the security. It seemed Minerva's alert had been well-taken, and the repair crews were joined by units of Skitarii. Combat servitors had been activated and brought into the bay. She reflexively calculated the force it would take to break through, and was satisfied to determine that a standard terminator squad would be insufficient. The arrival of a larger force without prior warning was low-probability.
Sector command wasn't built like a fortress.
Oh, it had its security measures, but they weren't built into its bones. It was an administrative hub, sheltered behind the fleet. The brick walls and razorwire would keep out a riot, but barely slow an armored assault. There were few heavy weapons, and they were simple nests rather than rockcrete bunkers.
Minerva took all of this in again as she stepped from the Thunderhawk onto the rockcrete pad. Another weak point; it was entirely inside the security perimeter and had only a couple hydras providing air cover. An assault force could easily clear them and land tanks in the heart of the complex. Admittedly, they'd have to get past the void shield, the one serious fixed defensive measure. Which took a good fifteen minutes to light from a cold start.
She'd argued the point before, many times. Command didn't think it was necessary. The fleet would hold off landings. The headquarters didn't need to be prepared for an armored assault, because it would never face one. The only threat was infiltration.
At least they took that threat seriously. Black-armored Tempestus Scions stopped her at two checkpoints before she even entered the main building, requiring her to remove her helmet and confirming her authorization and Medea's.
The checkpoint into the main building came as a surprise. Inside the security room, a young woman was painting on an easel behind the guards, with one holding paint for her. Minerva frowned; was she a relative of a ranking officer? She'd seen some brazen abuses of position before, but in a guard station-
The woman snapped around suddenly as Minerva approached, setting her brush down with snakelike quickness. Her eyes swept past Minerva and locked on to Medea. The man holding the paints started, his reaction almost comically slow compared to the woman. A chemical reek hit Minerva's nostrils, the scent of half a dozen drugs, each meant to calm violent patients in sanitoriums, in catastrophically high doses.
"Librarian," the woman said in a cheerful singsong. "Psyker-threat. Female? Astartes are male. Allowed? Not allowed? Terminate?"
"It's okay," the Scion with the paints said soothingly. Minerva noticed his unit insignia didn't match the others, or any unit she'd encountered before. "They're expected. Go back to your art."
"I like art," she said cheerfully, flipping back around with the same snapping speed as before.
+We'll need her too+ Medea sent. +Something's coming+
"Can you be more specific?" Minerva whispered.
+The threat occludes my sight+ Medea replied. +It has the power to do so+
Minerva toggled her vox to the headquarters security channel. "This is Captain Minerva, Astral Amazons. Precognitive psyker reports possible imminent threat, on base, either psychic or null."
"Specify threat," the officer of the watch replied.
"Her divinations are not specific," Minerva replied. "Evident ability to counteract a beta-grade seer."
"So you just have a witch's word for it," the officer replied.
"She is a sanctioned psyker," Minerva said, biting back frustration.
"We'll take that into account," the man said blandly. "Please clear this channel."
+We need to get to our meeting. Now+
Minerva turned and picked up her pace, heading through a pair of double doors into a secure room, filled with the violet light and faint hum of privacy fields. Waiting for her were a dozen men in a mix of naval and Militarium uniforms, a tech-priest, and a man holding a staff in a plain black suit with no insignia save for a barred I pendant hanging from his neck.
Lord General Solon spoke up first. "Captain Minerva, welcome. We were-"
"There is an imminent security threat," Minerva interrupted. "My Librarian reports hostile forces are interfering with her abilities, and that this room, specifically, is in danger."
"Psykers are always prophe-"an admiral began.
"Shut up," the Inquisitor said coldly. The admiral shut up. "On my authority, take the base to condition red." Solon moved to comply.
"Now," the Inquisitor turned to look at Minerva, "Do you have more details?"
"It's something with the capacity to block her sight, and may require the intervention of your vessel, and her presence on the ground, at this meeting," Minerva replied. "It is also large-scale-"
There was a sudden wrenching sensation of disorientation, a feeling of fundamental wrongness. Several of the officers vomited. The inquisitor's face twisted in pain. Medea staggered as if struck. Minerva's bolter snapped into her hand without conscious thought.
"What was that?" Admiral Shane demanded. He'd drawn his pistol too, an antique piece Minerva recognized as a volkite gun.
"Psychic effect," the inquisitor snapped. "A major shift. How large I can't-"
"The Astronomican," Medea interrupted. "It's gone."
Solon's face was ashen. "What could have done that?"
Any responses were interrupted when one of the generals in the room vomited purple fire.
