Today, Jarrion felt, was going to be a good day, in spite of how it more-or-less started with him being present at a flogging.

The loading of the Assertive was nearing its tail-end, with the last odds and sods and bits and bobs being taken over, partly by cargo tug and lighter, partly also by the docking umbilical that had been put in place to make the moving of cargo that much easier. This was one of the good things.

The bad thing that came with this good thing - and what had led to the need for flogging - is that a fair few items that were meant to have been put onto the ship were apparently not on the ship where they were supposed to be. They were missing. Missing cargo was not a good thing, particularly not when it is valuable cargo, and House Croesus, as a ruled, deemed all its cargo valuable.

So, where had it gone? No-one knew and if asked they always pointed to someone else saying that they were the ones who'd know or who had seen it last. No-one would admit to anything. When the work rota was inspected to see which shift had been on at the time the cargo in question had disappeared and the shift in question was singled out, they too knew nothing.

With no answers forthcoming and the shift swearing up and down that there'd been no wrongdoing it had been decided to set an example and move on. To that end, ten members of the shift were selected at random and flogged, the flogging itself taking place on the station as opposed to on the ship, mostly out of convenience.

Jarrion hadn't needed to be present but had decided to be so, feeling that it was important he be present. Him just happening to be nearby also helped - he'd been on his way to breakfast.

It had been a while since he'd attended such a thing. Most shipboard discipline happened beneath him and without him having to get involved (if he, the Lord Captain, needed to get involved then things were dire indeed) but it was always good for the men to see that these punishments were not arbitrary and that they were, in fact, proper demonstration of proper authority, flowing down from Jarrion, through his officers, on down to the warrant officers and so on.

All part of the chain that, ultimately, ended with the Emperor. It was sometimes easy to lose sight of that.

There wasn't a whole lot notable about the flogging. It was as Jarrion expected it to be: painful. The men who'd been selected bore it with as good a grace as they could manage under the circumstances, and took their lashes with remarkable stoicism. Life on an Imperial ship did wonders for a man's constitution, assuming he survived at all.

Once the last man had received his last lash Jarrion got up to leave, pausing only briefly to congratulate the armsman who'd been administering the flogging on his professionalism, and to check that the men would have their wounds seen to in good order.

And then he was off to breakfast. He took it in one of the station's upper tiers, with a nice view overlooking the docking facilities so he could keep an eye on the Assertive. By sheer chance he also bumped into a naval officer he was passingly familiar with, who joined him. Pleasant conversation was had until the subject of his brother was raised, at which point the conversation stopped being pleasant and started being tedious.

Jarrion did not need or want to hear about how well his brother was doing in assisting in the crushing of a Waaaaggghh (or however that was pronounced). He knew exactly what his brother was doing and he knew without being told that he was doing it wonderfully, because he did everything wonderfully.

Breakfast ended on something of a sour note as a result, but Jarrion was determined not to let it dim his enthusiasm for the day. The day would be good, because today was the day they were due to set out again!

He headed back down and, in fairly short order, found Torian, who was overseeing the activity of the current work shift.

"Still on schedule, I trust?" Jarrion asked, wandering up to Torian, who did not look away from his dataslate. A servo skull was hovering nearby, keeping an eye out for malingerers and time-wasters.

"Yes, Lord Captain. The final items of cargo are being secured now, and there is a headcount ongoing of the work crews and all men who had leave to go ashore," Torian said.

The Assertive wouldn't wait if a handful didn't make it back in time, but it was always good practise to try and keep at least a semi-solid idea of the coming and goings of the crew.

"Good, good. We've made good time," Jarrion said, nodding approvingly.

"Yes, Lord Captain."

Waiting for the things that he'd wanted but hadn't been on the station and so had needed bringing in had been agonising. Every day that passed felt like a day wasted, a day he could have been back on the other side of that hole in space, carving out a little bit of the Imperium in the most virgin territory imaginable.

Now that everything was on-board he was chomping at the bit. So many things he wanted to do!

Mostly, firstly, Jarrion really, really wanted to elevate Home Away From Home into a proper little slice of the Imperium, or at least it's frontier portions. And, more importantly, get it up to a more significant state of development. Bigger, better. Established! A proper base of operations, rather than the half-hearted supply depot and storehouse it more-or-less was now.

It was to be the beating heart of his burgeoning trade enterprise, and a shining beacon of the Imperium, besides! A microcosm of all that made it great.

To that end, he'd got a lot of stuff. The sort of stuff to stand him in better stead and give him a solid foothold for all future efforts. Manufacturing equipment, more than he'd already bestowed upon the place. Extensive modular habitation, the better to house all the extra personnel he was bringing in, and so on.

And of course considerable defensive capabilities, just in case, what with those collectors still at large and those 'Reapers' apparently due to present something of an issue at some point in the near future. Quad-mount anti-air lascannon batteries, tarantula sentires, void banks, components for some of the smaller types of planetary defence laser - even some of those big static-field producing anti-insect pylons certain colonies relied upon to keep out harmful local wildlife. Jarrion's thinking on that last one being that, in a pinch, it might be useful against those damned collector bug things.

Couldn't hurt, certainly.

All of that was loaded. All of that and more - even a modular, droppable chapel to replace the one his men had apparently converted an empty cargo container into! What could better show their commitment? Before had just been Jarrion making the best of the situation as it had presented itself. This was a statement - the Imperium had arrived, and it wasn't going away!

The thought filled him with genuine excitement.

"Right, well, I'm going to head on-board then, Torian. I trust you have the final details in hand?" He asked. He could guess the answer but felt he had to ask anyway.

"Yes, Lord Captain," Torian duly said, wizened fingers tapping out something on the dataslate.

"Good good, carry on."

Jarrion wandered shipward. He decided, on a whim, to take the docking umbilical. Alongside the main thoroughfare it provided for the movement of large traffic it also had several smaller routes for simple foot traffic. None of them were what anyone would call luxurious, nothing about the umbilical was luxurious. It was rustic, but he could handle rustic, and it meant not having to wait for a lighter.

He'd gone through perhaps three doors of pipe-lined corridor when he heard someone from behind him:

"Jarrion? I mean, Lord Captain? Which should I use today?"

Jarrion recognised that voice. He didn't even have to turn around to know who it was. He did turn around though, because pretending she wasn't there wouldn't make her not be there, and he didn't feel especially safe with his back to her.

"Hello Loghain," he said.

"Inquisitor, please. We are still in the Imperium and I'd like to take advantage of that while that's the case." Loghain said.

"Hello Inquisitor," Jarrion said through gritted teeth.

"I do like the way you say that. Told you I'd be back in time for you leaving,"

"So you did and so you are. Dare I ask how?"

After all, he'd hardly advertised when he'd planned on casting off.

"You could, but it would just be a long, tedious, technical explanation that would suck all the mystery and mystique out of it. And that's assuming that I'd even explain my methods to you. Which isn't something I make a habit of doing."

A lot of seemingly effortless things in life were actually the product of gruelling, unrewarding busiwork, Jarrion was aware, so he could well imagine that the ability to show up at a dramatic moment wasn't as easy or glamorous as it might appear in practise. It was probably about ninety percent preparation and waiting, nine percent wasted effort and half a percent reward (with another half percent simply lost somewhere).

She was probably right he'd gain nothing from it. He sighed.

"Wonderful. Suppose it wouldn't change much anyway. Hello again, Log- Inquisitor. You look well. Though something about you seems different, can't quite put my finger on it."

It did actually take him a second, and it was because it was so very obvious his brain seemed to skip it in favour of trying to look for more subtle changes, entirely avoiding the main one: She had eyes now, after a fashion. Cylindrical, seemingly solid augmetics that were somehow worse than the empty socket she'd had before - certainly kept her just as inscrutable as she'd been before.

They didn't even appear to have any obvious lenses, or at least none that Jarion could see.

"Windows to the soul, they say," Loghain said, noticing him staring and raising a finger to give one of her new eyes a tap. The flesh around the implants was still very raw looking, but then that was hardly a surprise given how recently they must have been installed.

Jarrion stopped staring, shaking his head.

"How fittingly opaque, in which case," he said. "They look rather sore."

There was some lingering rawness in the flesh - both the original and the recently-applied synthflesh - around the implants. This was only to be expected, of course.

"Aww, I didn't think you cared, Jarrion," said Loghain.

"I don't. Merely noting that they look sore."

"Which I think shows you care."

Jarrion wasn't going to bother keeping going on that one and decided to let it die there. Not that it stopped Loghain from grinning at him.

"There's some people to introduce to you," she said, gesturing to a small knot of strangers who'd just come into view a little further down the umbilical, plainly waiting for Loghain's signal to approach. Jarrion cast an eye at them.

"Goody, more of you. Your staff, I assume? I was unaware you had staff."

"What sort of Inquisitor would I be if I didn't have a team? I'm good, Jarrion, but I'm only one woman. One supremely talented, charming, intelligent-"

"Yes, yes…" Jarrion muttered as Loghain continued.

"-ty, and dashing woman. Can't be everywhere at once. Don't worry about my team though, you'll hardly know they're there."

"Will I know you're there?" He asked pointedly.

"Oh, obviously. You'll never forget me."

"Well, we can still try. Let's meet this team of yours, shall we?"

The sooner it started, Jarrion reasoned, the sooner it could end and he could get on with his life.

At Loghain's signal, the knot of people approached. Jarrion counted three. A man in the red robes of the mechanicus, a woman in the drabber, brown robes more typically worn by administratum clerks and a man who had nothing about him that suggested anything particularly notable at all. It was the tech priest who approached Jarrion first.

He looked considerably less augmented than most of the tech priests that Jarrion was familiar with, or at least his augments were considerably better hidden. Certainly, he was seeing a lot more flesh than he might have expected, and a lot fewer mechadendrites. Assuming it actually was flesh - Jarrion had heard that there were specific mechanicus agents especially trained and more subtly modified the better to interact with those outside the priesthood.

Perhaps this was an example of such? Or just more junior in rank? Or something else entirely, some other branch or sect he was unaware of? Or perhaps Jarrion was just overthinking things?

It probably didn't matter, at least not right then. The symbol of the cog overlaid with what appeared to be a trio of squares stacked corner-to-corner in a vertical line told him nothing, though it was dangling from a chain around the man's neck. Signified something to someone, he imagined.

"Magos Craven," the tech priest said, pleasantly enough, extending a hand. This was behaviour quite unlike what Jarrion was used to from the mechanicus, and it took him a split second to reciprocate the handshake. Felt enough like flesh.

"Lord Captain Jarrion Croesus, though I have a feeling you knew that already," he said. Not his full name, of course, but enough for the moment.

"Oh, the Inquisitor has been very thorough in briefing us on our mission and on you, Lord Captain. She tells me that you travel in the company of Magos Pak - the Magos Pak formerly of Scallex, no less. Are they still observing their silence?"

This caught Jarrion a bit off-guard.

"Uh, barring the odd binaric outburst, yes, but I was always led to believe it was, ah, conventional speaking that was being eschewed. You're familiar with Pak?" He asked, bemused.

"Heard of, heard of. Assuming it is the same Pak, though with the silence I think it might be. We haven't met but we did used to move in some of the same circles, at least until Pak took to being an Explorator."

"Is that so…?"

What this meant Jarrion was not sure, at least not yet. Did it mean anything if Pak was known to the sort of tech priest that an Inquisitor felt it was a good idea to bring along? Or, again, was he just overthinking things?

Probably, he decided.

At a silent signal from Loghain the magos stepped aside and the woman that Jarrion had judged to be an adept of some kind of stepped forward. She did not make for a handshake, instead giving a small bow. Jarrion, no stranger to being bowed to, accepted this as he usually did: with dignity and grace.

"Adept Watlington," the woman said.

"Administrative support?" Jarrion asked. She gave a wan and long-suffering smile. Definitely an adept.

"Something like that, Lord Captain," she said.

"Hmm."

"And last but not least my Interrogator, Varne Redlands," Loghain said, ushering forward the non-descript man. There really wasn't anything notable about him whatsoever. It was quite unsettling now that Jarrion got a closer look at it. Like someone who'd had features, but had since swapped them out for less interesting ones.

The living embodiment of generic.

"Lord Captain," he said.

"Yes, hello."

Jarrion still didn't fully understand what an Interrogator was and wasn't in the mood to ask. He guessed it wasn't something to be taken literally as he was entirely aware that Inquisitors were both willing and capable of interrogating on their own.

"Well that's introductions done. Carry on, you three. The Lord Captain and I have a few more things to talk about," Loghain said once the last handshake had finished, and her team didn't need telling twice. Jarrion watched them walk off with a feeling of powerlessness he did not appreciate, but really what else could he do?

He told himself that as an Inquisitor, Loghain was a servant of the Emperor and so his aiding her in her duties was, in quite a big way, serving His will. It might have been incredibly annoying, but these things were sent to test, after all, and much worse could have happened.

Weirdly, this thought soothed him.

"No luggage?" He asked her.

"Torian was more than obliging when I approached him about having our effects loaded earlier today," she said.

"Clever."

Torian would not have said no to Inquisitor. Few would have. Here, in Imperial space, even Jarrion wouldn't have, but would have griped about it more than Torian would have. Torian had probably been the picture of helpful when asked. Loghain gave her own tiny bow.

"I have my moments," she said.

"Suppose there's still no chance of you giving me any hint of your greater purpose?" Jarrion asked.

"Of course not. Why do you even assume I have one?"

"Firstly because you are an Inquisitor. Secondly because you are coming back with staff. You clearly hope to achieve something in this other galaxy. Quite what it has to do with protecting the Imperium is beyond me," Jarrion said, which earned him a semi-sharp look. Impressive to pull it off given the blank, inexpressive nature of her eyes, but Loghain still managed it.

"Protecting the Imperium is not your concern, Jarrion, it is my concern. Do I question how you go about your job? Question your decisions and what you do?" She asked.

"Yes, constantly," Jarrion said bluntly. Loghain scoffed.

"Constantly, indeed! Occasionally, at best. Anyway, the point is you don't need to worry about it. My task - whatever it may be - is well in hand, and nothing to do with you," she said.

"How reassuring…"

"There is one more member of my team who I think you might be rather pleased to see."

Jarrion sighed and checked his chronometer.

"Is that so?"

"Oh yes. Think he'll give your expedition a touch of prestige."

"I am giddy."

"You should be," Loghain said, and Jarrion moved one notch away from 'dismissive' and towards 'nervous'. It was to do with her tone of voice. Loghain was a woman who could infer an awful lot in the way she said things, and also angle her inference so it kept you wondering just what her longer term goals were. Jarrion assumed this was something Inquisitors did as a matter of course, just to keep people on edge.

Certainly, he felt on edge whenever he was around Loghain.

That there wasn't actually anyone other than them in that section of the umbilical at that moment also made it a bit odd. Jarrion looked around and continued to see no-one but them.

"Are they running late?" He asked. Loghain said nothing, and just pointed back down the umbilical at the door her team had come through not long ago. It was closed. But not for long.

The door opened, and standing there filling most of the corridor on the other side was a giant in black armour. Not the sort of the thing you saw every day, but just the sort of thing you recognised in a heartbeat. Jarrion's jaw dropped.

"That," he said, mouth suddenly very dry. "Is a Space Marine."

It was. Him saying it wasn't really necessary. Once the door was open the Space Marine entered and came to a halt in front of Loghain and Jarrion, towering over the pair of them to the extent he even blocked out the light, leaving both in shadow. Probably not on purpose.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lord Captain Croesus. I am Brother Dromoz al Bet of the Hound Skull Chapter, presently seconded to the Deathwatch and now assigned to the good Lady Inquisitor. I hear we're going to parts unknown."

A well-spoken Space Marine, at that!

Jarrion was staring again.

"Um...yes…" said his mouth, largely without input from his brain.

The space marine had his helmet tucked under one arm and Jarrion found himself at once reminded of Commander Shepard, in that both she and the space marine had faces that looked as though they'd been put back together again. But while Shepard looked like a person who'd been taken to bits before being reassembled, the space marine more closely resembled a tree that had been hacked apart at regular intervals throughout its long and weatherbeaten lifetime only to heal and grow over again and again.

On the plus side at least, the space marine was smiling, something Jarrion had very rarely seen Shepard do. Something he wasn't wholly aware Space Marines could do, either. The thought that they might have ever done so had just never crossed his mind.

The effect, with the marine's ravaged features, was singular. Like a topographical map of somewhere very rugged and inhospitable, only oddly friendly. Jarrion scraped his wits together at last and actually thought of something to say:

"Ah, uh, yes, yes we are. An, ah, equal pleasure to have you involved in the, uh, in the - in the proceedings, yes. You'll be, ah, assisting the Inquisitor?"

A very stupid quesiton to be asking given the circumstances and given what had just been said, but Jarrion still wasn't at his best right at that moment. Not thinking as straight as he might normally have been.

The space marine nodded. More an incline of the head, really.

"I am at her disposal for the duration of her mission, however long that may be."

"Right, yes, good. You, ah, have much experience working with Log- the Inquisitor, Brother Dromoz al Bet?" Jarrion asked, realising with a thrill of horror that he had defaulted to trying to make small talk. Normally fine, but with a space marine it felt oddly blasphemous.

Not that he seemed to mind. His smile broadened.

"Al Bet, if you prefer, Lord Captain," he said.

"O-of course, al Bet."

Al Bet's eyes drifted to Loghain. She was also smiling, but that was pretty normal for her and could have meant anything. In this case, Jarrion assumed it had something to do with his discomfort.

"We have worked together before, though I could of course not go into details. I have found her to be a most competent and reliable servant of the Emperor, in her own distinctive fashion. What higher praise can there be? Hah!"

"You'll make me blush, al Bet," Loghain said, then adding: "If you carry on you should be able to catch up with the others. I'll be with you shortly, just have a few things to conclude with the Lord Captain."

"Lady Inquisitor," al Bet said, strolling off in a manner at once both casually and quietly terrifying. Once he was gone - Jarrion waited especially long, knowing that 'out of earshot' for an Astartes was quite a distance - he rounded on Loghain, who was looking perfectly content.

"You brought a Space Marine?!" He hissed. Loghain pouted.

"I thought you'd be happier. Most honest citizens rather like Space Marines," she said.

Perhaps underselling the nigh-on ecstatic awe that your common Imperial citizen might be expected to exhibit if they were lucky enough to encounter a Space Marine outside of combat. Dropping to the knees, genuflecting, occasional joyous weeping, that sort of thing.

By contrast, those who viewed them in combat and lived through the experience tended to have a reaction closer to terror and deep-seated, life-changing dread, having grasped the full extent and reason for why they were known as the angels of death and the Emperor's fury made manifest in flesh and ceramite. A numinous event if ever there was one.

But that was by the by. Just one of those things.

"I - well - I mean I'm as delighted and as honoured as the next man to be present with one of the Astartes but they do tend to show up when a certain level of violence is expected or required. Such violence is bad for business. Not to mention the health of anyone nearby," said Jarrion, who had only ever personally seen Space Marines from orbit and mostly on a tactical hololith and even then only once, in his youth.

Even at such a distance the experience had been a sobering one. Enemy positions winking out one after the other, those comm-channels that had been tapped into going from confused to terrified then to incoherent screaming before cutting off abruptly into silence.

It had all happened so fast.

Had Loghain's eyes been capable of rolling they would have done so. In the event she just clucked her tongue and shook her head, which was about as close as she could get.

"Oh relax, Jarrion. He's here at my specific request because, well, a whole and unexplored galaxy may well turn out to be a dangerous place, thus. I might need protecting from unexpected dangers! Or perhaps I have something specific in mind. Perhaps I have some plan I'm working towards and I think having a capable bodyguard is an important part of that plan. Or perhaps I don't. Either way he's very reliable."

"There is such a thing as an unreliable Space Marine?" Jarrion asked.

Loghain considered her next words carefully.

"Astartes are first and foremost...soldiers. In this they are peerless, no-one's going to argue on that one. I've seen them doing it, I'm definitely not going to argue on that one. That said, when it comes to matters of more delicacy they can - in my limited experience, at least - lack refinement. Which is fine, it's not really their job to be refined. But it does mean that a Space Marine who understands restraint is one to be treasured. Hence my appreciation of Brother al Bet," she said.

A pause.

"He's very personable for a Space Marine," Jarrion said.

"He is, isn't he? From what al Bet tells me it's a fairly common feature of his Chapter, not that I've met any other Hound Skulls. Certainly he's a lot friendlier than the other Astartes I have actually come into contact with. Again, another reason why he seemed the best to bring along. A Dark Angel wouldn't have been good company at the best of times, let alone in a strange place, and they might have done something rash when confronted by, well, take your pick, really. Excellent at killing aliens, not so big on anything else involving them. No sense of humour, either. Really suck the air out of a room."

Jarrion was going to have to take Loghain at her word on this one, never having met a Dark Angel and not really wanting to, either. They sounded dour from what he'd heard of them, but who knew, really, and who could be surprised?

Assuming Loghain wasn't just messing with him, of course. Which she may well could have been. Jarrion decided to just let it all slide and not let her trip him up.

"Quite. And you made him wait outside just for the sake of being dramatic," he said. Loghain grinned at him and pointedly did not deny having done this.

"How soon until we cast off?" She asked.

"Soon enough," Jarrion said, resigned, holding up an arm to indicate that Loghain might as well board. She didn't need telling twice, and off she went.

Alone in the corridor now, Jarrion let his arm drop. He then sighed, again, and rubbed his face. His commbead pipped. Not many people had access to his personal channel so there weren't many people it could be who felt they had the right to bother him. Didn't improve his mood much, though.

"What is it?" He asked.

"The missing cargo was located, Lord Captain," came the voice of Torian. Jarrion's brow furrowed.

"Missing cargo?" He asked.

"That which had been presumed stolen, the cause for the crewmen being flogged this morning."

Now he remembered.

"Oh, that missing cargo. Located? That's good. Found somewhere in the port? Some shady warehouse waiting to be moved on by ne'er do wells?"

"No, Lord Captain, it was found where it was supposed to be, in the holds. The crates had been loaded improperly so that the servitors were unable to verify them as being present. A manual inspection revealed the truth."

How tediously mundane. Did happen from time-to-time, normally spotted sooner.

"Is that right? Well, that's still incompetence of a sort, though perhaps not quite worthy of a flogging. Have each of the men punished this morning given, ah, an extra shift of free time, by way of compensation."

"Very good, Lord Captain. One of them has since died of the injuries he sustained."

Jarrion imagined it to be the older-looking of the men from this morning. He could vaguely remember his face, sort of.

"That's unfortunate. My order still stands," he said.

"Lord Captain."

Torian pipped off. Jarrion stood alone in the corridor, motionless.

"What an eventful morning," he said, at length.

The Hound Skulls is a real space marine Chapter, too, I didn't make that one up. To the best of my knowledge they are mentioned in exactly one - one! - Chapter Approved from one White Dwarf (237, I think?) and have forever stuck with me because they're mentioned in the capacity of some fluff being taken from the memoirs of one of their captains.

Memoirs! MEMOIRS! A space marine writing memoirs! How could I forget that?

Anyway. Should probably go off the rails soon. Hmm.