Chapter V
"It's unprecedented," The Inquisitor said, as he crowded into the bunker, staring at the consoles, the Techpriest having taken a seat and started rattling off the status and location of the rogue assassin, "Well, at least for this temple," the Inquisitor shot a glare at Lukas, who sat in the corner, rubbing his forehead, "You do understand-"
Your life is forfeit if you breathe a word of this to anyone not cleared to know it, thought the Governor Militant.
"Your life is forfeit if you dare to breathe a single word of this to anyone not cleared to know it." The Inquisitor said, confirming Lukas's thoughts.
"Right."
"And the Farseer?"
"No one knows. We had sent out a scouting party, but they have yet to return."
"Hmph. He's heading towards a combat zone," murmured the Inquisitor, ceramite finger tracing the route of his assassin errant on the watch screens.
"Yes, a team of Kasrkin are holed up resisting Orks a little beyond the mountains, I've dispatched some men to–"
"Call them back."
"I'm sorry? I can't see how it would harm–"
"We have the greatest opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, Governor."
"First, as an Inquisitor, I know well the way the common man thinks; even if you DO save the men, and by some miracle, they all survive, they shall criticize you for even leaving them in that situation, and I desire your administration to remain stable without any further scandal."
"Second, I require that one of the most secret orders the Imperium has ever known to remain a secret, and beyond that, that they can be corrupted must remain a secret."
The baleful, flickering green glow immersed the inquisitor's grin, under the red glow of the bionics. His fingers were playing with the handle of the bolt pistol.
Lukas stared at the Inquisitor, locking eyes best as he could and slammed his fist down on the comm button, "Ardrin! Tell Yoland to recall the men, and that I have rescinded the order. Rather–"
Call out the Basilisks, Mouthed the Inquisitor.
"Call out Tennyson's basi-"
All of them.
"All. All of them. All of the basilisks."
Ardrin's reply cut out with a squawk as Lukas flicked off the button.
"Give me a show, Governor," Said the Inquisitor, as he swept out, his retainers following.
The sea was far off, on the horizon. In the horizon, it was chopping, surf sloshing about, but above it was a storm, thunder and lightning wrapping around and around and around–
This wasn't right. She shouldn't be doing this, she wasn't looking ahead right now, to be sure, she could always feel the ebb and flow of fate, running along her ankles in the back of her mind, but she shouldn't be seeing it unless she wanted to.
The hunger. Behind her.
She turned and beheld the glittering dust of spirit stones. Beneath a burning sun, they danced like embers above the bodies of Eldar, common and noble, all with their hands plaintively in the air. The air, beset with gasps for breath and whispered pleas, as under their bodies, roiled the dark and cracked ground, flesh and blood growing under them, mouths spawning, again and again, coiling like cancer across and over the bodies. The gasps became screams, and the whispers became cries for help.
Blood, shot out in squirts like bullets, staining and stinging Taldeer's face. Drills of flesh and bone, rammed down, again and again in the mass, a sick parody of sexual congress. One, a Bonesinger was propped up, an organ set before her, as she was puppeteered to play to the scene, arms wrapped around hers, snapping softly like acorns underfoot. Eyes grew like weeds, wrapping and rising, staring upon the grisly scene.
It waits, said a voice that managed to skip her ears.
There's no one left, but you. Echoed the foreign thought, as the Farseer tried to spin, to turn away, but always found the same scene going.
And you're the climax!
The pink flesh moved on, rolling toward Taldeer, leaving broken, hollow, desecrated bodies, no two the same.
She awoke weeping.
They were maybe nine kilometres away from the Ork battlefront when the Primary had passed out. She had still walked seven steps more, but the sound of a quick slowdown of heartbeat, changes in breathing, and missteps grated on the previous light-footed rhythm that she had displayed.
On step six, she was beginning to fall, and LIIVI began to move. He caught her on step seven. Her black hair fell around his hands, as he carefully lowered her to the ground. He felt the minute stresses her breathing put upon her suit. The small strains her muscle went through, as she slowly fell into REM sleep, and her body relaxed control. The warmth of her through his gloves. Her eyes, shut, her lips, twitching, whispering.
He wasn't sure why, but he held her a little more tightly at that moment. For just one moment. Before lifting her to his arms, carefully, and moving on. When tears started to pour from her tear ducts, he was six kilometres away. He didn't know Eldar could lacrimate.
He glanced around, spymask switched to infrared spectrum. Some small pockets of warmth were out there. Only one within a kilometre and a half. He carefully set down Taldeer on her side, before shooting the rat.
He had seen people comfort others when they had commenced the standard grieving patterns. He had seen a lot of grieving, rarely before the mission, but often after. He had watched them, cling and cry on one another as their beloved died, or they bore witness to the Emperor's wrath.
Her hand wiggled about, scratching at the ground through her gloves. He reached out, carefully, and took hold of it. She calmed down almost immediately, as the frenzy of motion beneath her eyelids increased.
That wasn't that hard, he thought, as he knelt down next to her. Her hair was in her eyes, wet and plastered to her face.
He reached down, leaning in–
Her eyes snapped open. "They're all dead."
She knew it. Slaanesh had claimed many, some had been saved, but the fact remained–
She was the last Eldar on Kronus. To be sure, that had been the last stand, the main base and the first landing zone that had fallen to Imperial forces. She should have thought of the practicality of it. But she had held out hope, that there was some pocket that had passed the purges of all the other empires and interests that were on this planet.
But they were gone. Had she known that when she ran off, drawing the humans away from the evacuation, ensuring the safety of the survivors? Or was she still deluding herself to some hope?
Her hand was caught on something. She looked, as LIIVI released his hand from hers, and drew it back.
"Are you," the spymask stared at her for a time, before continuing, "Ready for moving?"
"I'm fine, I," her hand ran down her side, between the ribs, to where her wound had opened again, "I-I could just...Use a hand."
Pathetic. He is an assassin, who disobeyed orders from the people that brainwashed him. Why should he help you, with that plaintive plea for pity?
His hand took hers. Her arm was slipped over his shoulder. She leaned on him. They walked.
He was warm.
The rain killed the smoke, but one could see the black columns spearing
the ground across the field. The central bunker was now nothing more than a mash of concrete, occasionally spattered red. For now, the Orks rested in the only way Orks could, jeering, fighting, yelling at one another to get moving, get fixing, and get fighting again.
Taldeer glanced across, sensing the psychic miasma and overwhelming presence. The WAAAAGH! was upon these aliens.
They were set on a hillside, overlooking the lumbering mass of the Orks. Thousands of them. With Emperor knew how many grots, noted the Vindicare as he picked out the scuttling shapes and the noises of the servile Orkoids.
"Wish those kill teams of yours would show up sooner," muttered Taldeer.
"What then?" Together, they had been putting off this question. What they would do? And it was they were now, they couldn't help it. She couldn't help it.
She needed him.
"I...I hadn't thought of that," She glanced down, "First, we'll think of those things."
Down in the pit, as Uzgob Nekkstompa, a Nob and a 'ard boy to boot wit' more bullets in 'im than a shoota, perked up. A smell was in his nose. Strange to fink of it actually, now that, true to Nob form, a momentary thought went through his 'ead.
His nose had been blasted to Gork long ago, replaced by an iron plate to stop the bleeding. Though suspicious, one could not deny the scent, up and through the smoke, he peered, his bionik peeper whirring and sparking as it zoomed with the focus of the nob. Somethin' was up among the rocks.
Somethin' unorky.
"OI! LOOKIT THAT!"
As the faces turned, it was like watching a bright green fungal bloom, as shining green faces turned, following the raised claw of one of the bigger Orks.
LIIVI glanced over to Taldeer, as she hissed an inhalation to say something. He sprinted, and pushed her out from behind the rock, and down the hill as it was shattered and pulverized into powder as well over a thousand guns, approximately thirty rockets, six laspistols, a bolter, and three thrown grots rained death upon it.
The Vindicare checked her. No broken bones, but she was bruised, and looked a mite angry, "We need to get lower. To the trenches," advised LIIVI, checking his weaponry.
"Go towards the hail of bullets?"
"CEA- SEEZ- STOP SHOOTIN THAT BIT YOU GROT SWILLIN MAGGOTS!" Shouted a nob, with a loudspeaker implanted in his throat. The bullets swayed, searching and spreading across the hill, knocking down what few stubborn trees grew out of the rock, and eliminating anything that claimed to be more than a foot tall.
"Alright, into the trenches, me in front, you in back, cover me."
They ran like mercury. She breathed a prayer to Khaela Mensha Khaine to guide her through the coming battle, while the Vindicare made several, fatal, statements with his Exitus Pistol to what few Orks were in the trench they headed for.
"THEYZE COMIN' STRAIGHT FOR US! READY YORE CHOPPAS BOYS, ITS TIME FOR SOME FUN!" The Orks roared their appreciation.
Mother dirt and father mud embraced the two as they splashed into the trench, a final wave of fire whizzing over their heads.
"Now what?" Taldeer looked to the Vindicare.
"I was following you," The Vindicare reacts to the primary- usually to shoot them, -but the assumption, in this case, was that the Xeno knew what it was doing.
"Oh," Taldeer said. Shit.
"Do your bunkers have underground complexes?"
"Depends upon the Enginseers. But they never connect into the trenches."
"Great, well I suppose we're all just–"
Thirty kilometres away, someone shouts fire.
A bare minute later, inside of the valley above the trenches, three hundred incendiary rounds burst, in the air and on the ground. Bright, white, light interrupts farseer Taldeer.
And the world around the two becomes little more than fuel.