Among the shadow cartels which ran the piratical and crime scene in the Torredon Subsector, the Bloodied Crown was the one which put the most effort into maintaining a veneer of, if not respectability, then at the very least professionalism. While the various groups gathered under the cartel's umbrella were as vicious and uncivilized as such groups always there, the greater organisation prided itself on certain standards of behavior when the representatives of these subordinate groups interacted with each other.
Which was why, when the leaders of the Bloodied Crown were summoned by the cartel's high seat, they didn't meet in some dark hole surrounded by the still-living bodies of their former enemies, but inside a well-lit room at the heart of a hollowed asteroid which served as one of the cartel's bases in one of the Subsector's lifeless star systems. It was also why, rather than whatever ridiculous titles and self-aggrandizing ranks each of the individuals present might go by outside this room, here they were all merely 'directors', called together by the Chairman of the Board, as if this whole affair were a meeting between the head of a mercantile guild rather than a gathering of merciless killers.
Admittedly, the professional ambience was somewhat tarnished by the decadent sculptures and paintings which surrounded the long table at which they were seating. Then again, it wasn't as if those who had earned their fortunes in ways which the Imperium considered legal were any subtler when it came to flaunting their wealth.
Ernst Stavros Killian was the newest member of the group of seven worthies assembled here. Getting a directorship had required quite a lot of effort on the disgraced Inquisitor's part, and his ascension to this table was still a relatively recent affair, which left his position vulnerable.
Selling psykers to the other directors had given him some influence, since they were unlikely to risk killing the grox that laid adamantium eggs. Sure, they had tried to learn more about his operations, but Killian hadn't survived as an Inquisitor running what close-minded fools would see as a dangerously Radical program without knowing how to hide his tracks.
He didn't know what this meeting was about, and as an Inquisitor, not knowing things made him naturally nervous. To calm his nerves, Killian considered each of the other attendees, reviewing what he knew of them.
They were seated around a rectangular table that could easily have accommodated ten times their number, but keeping a safety distance between them was probably for the best. Besides, the room's acoustics were excellent, so there was barely a need to raise one's voice to be heard by all.
Sitting at the head of the table, Chairman Tutha Jabbus was a repulsive human being. He was morbidly obese, to the point Killian was reasonably sure he was a mutant of some kind, as surely no untainted set of human organs could possibly survive under so much fat. Jabbus had long since passed the point of being able to walk on his own, and went everywhere on an anti-grav chair whose engine constantly struggled to bear his prodigious weight. The clothes he wore, which had entirely too much gilding to be in good taste, had obviously been made specially for him, and Killian didn't envy the poor soul who had the misfortune of being the crime lord's tailor.
Yet despite his repugnant appearance, there was a reason Jabbus was the head of the Bloodied Crown, whose name he'd penned and whose emblem he wore around his head, a circlet of gold and rusted silver. It was him who had forged the cartel in the first place, gathering a bunch of disparate crime lords under a common banner through diplomacy, intimidation, and the outright assassination of a couple who had made the mistake of refusing his invitation. According to Killian's investigation, Jabbus had once been a menial worker on one of the Subsector's hive-worlds, before being press-ganged into joining the Navy. The ship he'd been indentured on had been seized by pirates, and Jabbus had seized that opportunity, eventually rising to command a flotilla of his own.
Apparently, the reason he ate so much was because, after spending so much of his life working for the gain of others, he was determined not to put any physical effort into anything ever again. His servants, a pair of androgynous youths with eyes utterly devoid of any emotion, stood at his side, one of them holding a data-slate and the other a platter of finger food. They'd been specially commissioned from a renegade Magos Biologis, and were rumoured to have been created using the genetic material of several of Jabbus' defunct enemies, as one final post-mortem insult.
To Jabbus' right was the most ancient of the cartel's directors, the only survivor of the original group and the Chairman's unofficial second-in-command (the shadow cartels of Torredon didn't believe in things like lines of succession, as they tended to encourage unhealthy ambition in the appointed successors). Director Wisent Balor, known to the Imperium as the Ripper General, couldn't have been more different from Jabbus if he tried. The renegade Guardsman was a mountain of vat-grown muscle, which strained the counterfeit General uniform he most definitely wasn't entitled to wear under Militarum regulations – in fact, if Killian remembered correctly, merely wearing it without the corresponding rank was ground for summary execution, as was the defilement represented by the emblem of the Bloodied Crown sewn onto its shoulder pad.
Not that Balor had any reason to be worried about that, since the Guard had plenty of other reasons to kill him on sight already, although the Commissariat had apparently offerred a sizeable bounty for his capture alive, just so they could put him on trial before executing him as an exemple. Once a sergeant in a Torredon Regiment, Balor had turned coat in the middle of an anti-pirate operation, leading to the death of thousands of his comrades in exchange for a place in the renegades' ranks. Numerous treatments by hereteks had turned him into the giant he was now, capable of crushing the skull of a grown man in the palm of his hand – something he did often, whether to punish failure or to make an example of a captured enemy.
Standing next to the Ripper General was his 'aide' (Jabbus insisted every director bring one – and only one, with him alone being allowed two as a sign of his superiority – to these meetings as part of the trappings of formality). The Munitorum-issued uniform fitted the man – Pelton, Killian's investigation had uncovered – much better than Balor's own. Pelton was a hardened criminal, who had killed without hesitation nor remorse at Balor's command since he had joined the Bloodied Crown. Ruthlessly efficient, without indulging into excessive hedonism and cruelty – something Killian wished he could say about the director sat straight across the table from Balor.
Now, Killian didn't have anything against psychopaths; Throne knew he'd employed more than his fair share during his career. Their lack of a conscience made them such useful tools, once properly trained and motivated. Which was the source of his dislike for Jeremiah Smile, because the man was neither of those things. He was a dangerous, unfettered lunatic, kept under control only by the fact that the Chairman absolutely would've him killed the moment he stepped out of line.
Jeremiah had gained his directorship by murdering his predecessor, along with the rest of his immediate subordinates. That wasn't especially unusual among the shadow cartels, but he had done it using a particularly painful poison, which he'd spread through the ventilation of an entire section of the ship. Hundreds of pirates had died in horrible agony alongside their leaders, leaving nobody willing to oppose Jeremiah's takeover once he'd told the other ship captains that similar poisons may or may not be hidden aboard their own vessels, waiting for a single vox-signal on his part.
That had been over twenty standard years ago, and since then, the Laughing Fiend had become a recurring figure in the nightmares of millions of people across the Subsector, as he led his pirates into acts of ever-greater depravity upon the crews of captured merchantmen and whatever settlements they could raid.
Jeremiah's aide was as violently insane as the man himself, though for different reasons. The nameless thug, who was only known to the rest of the Laughing Fiend's crew as 'Big Joe' due to his prodigious size (nearly the size of an Ogryn, though he wasn't of abhuman stock), had numerous injection tubes plunging into his neck and arms, linked to a reservoir of drugs on his back. With a single spoken command, Jeremiah could activate the device to pour all kinds of combat drugs into his bodyguard, turning him into a rampaging killing machine before stopping him with another word to replace the combat drugs with tranquillizing ones. If the constant flow of mind-altering chemicals had left anything of Big Joe's original personality behind, Killian didn't envy it, as surely it must be little more than a passenger in its own body by now.
Sat to the Fiend's right was Magos Negando. Like Balor, he had no right to his favored title : if he had any connection to the Cult Mechanicus, Killian had failed to uncover it. Negando simply seemed to have a preference for heavy augmentation, taking particular interest in capturing tech-priests and forcing them to work on augmenting his men to make them more efficient reavers.
Negando's own body had been augmented with cybernetics ripped from the still-living bodies of captured tech-priests and skitarii, and was rumoured to be able to survive the void of space unaided for hours. His arms ended in a pair of brutal power claws which were more than capable of tearing through the walls of a boarded ship, let alone the armor and flesh of its defenders. A trio of mecha-dendrites rose from his back for fine motor work, but the way they twitched and shuddered made Killian think that either the augment had been incompetently grafted, or Negando lacked the ability to control them properly, something no real member of the Mechanicus would struggle with. Given that the rest of the director's augments were working fine, Killian suspected it was the latter.
His 'aide' was a simple servo-skull hovering at his side, doubtlessly recording the meeting for its master's later perusal. It had once belonged to one of the tech-priests Negando had enslaved, and still bore the cogwheel symbol of the Cult Mechanicus crudely engraved on its forehead. As one more affectation of being a real Magos, Negando was always accompanied by a servo-skull, but his habit of leading boarding operations from the front meant that the devices rarely survived for long. Given Negando's propensity for punishing failure, disobedience, and insult from his thralls with death, however, replacing them wasn't much of a problem.
In front of Negando was Valusios the Serpent, a vile mutant whose skin, what little of it was exposed underneath the patchwork carapace armor he wore, was covered in iridescent scales. His yellow eyes and forked tongue completed the wretch's monstrous appearance : on any properly Emperor-fearing world, Killian knew, he'd have been killed at birth. Unfortunately, that hadn't been the case, for Valusios' homeworld preferred to enslave rather than purge the abhumans, and the Serpent had become a figure of terror throughout the Torredon Subsector, as he led his band of freaks across the stars.
A lord of the twisted and the unclean, he had spies on numerous worlds, lurking in the shadows and feeding him information for his raids. Cowering behind him was his aide, an even more wretched creature, half-rat and half-man, with the dignity of neither. Its beady eyes darted from one Director to another without pause, and it hadn't stopped trembling since entering the room, clearly terrified to be in the presence of so many people who could so easily kill it. Killian could only imagine Valusios had brought it along as a twisted jest, or perhaps merely to torment it for his amusement.
To Valusios' left, and joining Killian at the end of the table, was Mitslav Sertanov. Apart from the Inquisitor, he alone in the room fit the impression of professionalism Jabbus sought to show. Once the head of House Sertanov, whose bloodline had been among the rulers of Torredon for thousands of years, he had been forced to flee the Subsector's capital after finding himself on the losing side of a civil war to decide the next Planetary Governor. Upon realizing defeat was inevitable, Sertanov had decided (wisely, given what Killian knew of the man who had ended up ruler of the hive-world at the Subsector's heart) to take his entire House and as much of its assets as he could into the void.
The Aristocrat, as he was nicknamed by the rest of the cartel, still claimed to be merely biding his time and gathering resources until he struck back against the Governor and reclaimed what he saw as his rightful place, and made a point of continuing to wear the kind of clothing you'd expect from a spire-born noble. Of course, given the Imperium's attitude toward pirates and the fact that all Governors ruled at the pleasure of the Adeptus Terra, that claim was nothing more than a pipe dream. Nevertheless, Mitslav was still a ruthless pirate lord, who ruled over his extended family with an iron fist, very much including his grandson Illarion, who stood at attention behind him.
The last person in the meeting room besides Killian himself was his own aide, the single most successful result of his research program on the Shadowlight's psi-enhancing capabilities. Aleric Heinrich had been nothing, just another thug among the thousands who dwelled in the darkness of the Torredon Gap. Then, through the experimentations of Magos Galerion, whom Killian had recruited as a replacement for his slain accomplice Metheius, his latent psychic powers had bloomed.
Aleric had become a pyrokinetic of great skill, which, combined with his previous talents as a hired gun, had made him very deadly indeed; so deadly, in fact, that Killian had made sure to have a small explosive surgically implanted between two of his vertebrae, waiting for a coded vox-pulse the Inquisitor could send with a single push of a button. Killian, after all, was no fool : while he knew Mankind needed the power of psykers could survive in the galaxy, taking precautions against treachery was only good sense.
In any other circumstances, Killian would have taken great pleasure in ordering the execution of every single other man in this room other than Aleric (well, perhaps not all of them : he might be able to make use of someone of Pelton's talents, and the servo-skull could always be repurposed). Unfortunately, the Concilium Ravus had left him no choice. His work with the Shadowlight was far too important to the future of Mankind to let scruples stop him. If he had to lower himself to dealing with such scum and play along with their delusions of grandeur, then he would willingly dirty his soul by suffering their presence.
"Gentlemen," began Jabbus. "We are all gathered here today to discuss a matter which was brought to my attention by the leaders of the executive task force I sent after the detestable Areelu Van Yastobaal."
"Are we here to celebrate the bitch's death ?" asked Jeremiah, smiling widely. His depredations had been severely curtailed by the Rogue Trader in the last couple of years, and she'd forced him to flee with his tail between his legs on three separate occasions where they'd crossed paths in the void. "I'd have brought some alcohol if you'd told me in advance."
"Unfortunately no," replied Jabbus, unperturbed. "Not only that, but the squadron returned with interesting news. It seems that, upon facing certain doom, Van Yastobaal fled through the Warp, seeking to escape to the Adumbria system."
There was a muted gasp. As pirate lords, all assembled had heard of what had befallen the once-prosperous trade world, leading to its interdiction by the Imperium. The impact of that quarantine on trade within the Subsector had been severe, though the cartels had only benefited from the merchants being restricted to what Warp routes remained available to them.
"I assume they pursued her, irregardless of the Perditia edict ?" asked Sertanov, matter-of-factly.
"Of course," chuckled Jabbus. "My men know better than to put the Imperium's will above my own. They chased the Worldwounder through the Immaterium all the way to Adumbria, which is where things took an interesting turn. For Adumbria, you see, is no haunted graveyard. The system's main world is still inhabited, and the ships which were scuttled in orbit are in the process of being salvaged. In fact, enough of them were already fit for service that, when they moved to engage, the executive task force retreated to bring me these news rather than stand and fight."
"What happened to the one who gave the order to run ?" asked Negando.
Jabbus smiled. "He was … thoroughly debriefed, along with several other captains of the squadron, just to be sure. In the end, I judged he made the correct call. My medicae estimate that he will be ready to resume his position in a month or two."
Of course. Then again, an Imperial Commodore making a similar decision could expect a similar treatment by the Navy. Cowardice was a sin which had no place among the servants of the Golden Throne, after all.
"So, Adumbria managed to overcome the plague which was killing it," mused Jeremiah. His face was suddenly split by a wide smile. "How wonderful ! What a great opportunity this is for us !"
"Indeed it is," said Jabbus, looking at the Fiend with an indulgent smile. "I'm glad that you grasped it so quickly, Director Jeremiah. While I do not know how exactly Adumbria managed to survive, we cannot let that chance pass us by. The planet's defenses were never much to talk about, and the plague will have decimated them. Now is a perfect opportunity for us to claim the entire star system as our own, along with the bounty of abandoned ships in orbit. According to the data from the hunting flotilla's cogitators, only a fraction have been repaired. Once we've seized and refitted the rest, we'll be the most powerful cartel in the Subsector."
"I would like to volunteer to lead for this acquisition operation, Chairman," grinned Balor.
"I am afraid that will not be possible, General," replied Jabbus. "The situation in the Sanguia system remains unresolved : I would like you to go there in person and help the locals understand their position, now that the Eldar raids which kept us from the area have stopped for over ten years, we will be replacing the xenos as new management."
"As you wish, Chairman," said Balor. "Then what about Adumbria ?"
"I already have someone in mind for the job. Director Jeremiah," instructed Jabbus, "you will take your fleet and go to Adumbria. Make sure to capture the infrastructure as intact as possible, along with the people crewing it."
"What about the rest of the planet ?" asked the Laughing Fiend with a hungry gleam in his eyes.
"Do with them as you wish," said Jabbus, condemning Throne knew how many people to the whims of the lunatic director with the same passion Killian would put into choosing his socks in the morning.
In spite of himself, Killian found that he felt sorry for the people of Adumbria. To have apparently survived a plague that had resulted in their system being cast out of the Imperium, only to then come into the sights of the likes of the Laughing Fiend, was truly one misfortune after the other.
Well, it wasn't Killian's problem.
"Now that the most important subject has been dealt with," continued Jabbus, "let's make a quick check on everyone else's projects. It isn't that often we're all together in one place, after all."
Really, the nerve of the bastard. This whole thing could've been handled with the Chairman sending a message to Jeremiah alone, instead of summoning them all. But then again, that had probably been half the purpose of the meeting. A pointed reminder that, even as the Subsector slowly fell into anarchy and the cartels reigned supreme, Jabbus was still the one in charge of the Bloodied Crown, and they all had to obey his whims.
For the next half an hour, they discussed the cartel's various efforts to undermine Imperial authority and increase their profits across the Subsector. Apparently, the Beastkin of Torredon, the Subsector capital, were still rejecting Valusios' entreaties to have them rise up against their Imperial oppressors. The animals were convinced the Serpent only planned to use them as bolter fodder, which was entirely true, of course, but Killian was surprised they had the intellect to realize it.
"Find the source of the rumors and have it dealt with," ordered Jabbus. "The Subsector's capital will be of vital importance to determine the next rulers of the Gap."
Next, they talked about the other cartels, which were also taking advantage of the withdrawal of the Imperial Navy to increase their raids. From where Killian stood, it was obvious that soon enough, the entire economy of the Subsector would grind to a halt. Barring intervention from the wider Imperium, which was unlikely given what Killian knew of the situation in the rest of the Damocles Gulf, the cartels would inevitably end up as the new rulers of the Subsector, ushering in a new order with them at the top instead of the current aristocracy.
Millions, if not billions, would die before the situation stabilized, but in truth it wasn't all that different from the way things had started in many other domains of the Imperium. It wouldn't surprise the Inquisitor if, in a couple thousand years, the Imperium reclaimed the Torredon Gap by granting the descendants of the men in this room the mantle of Governor of the worlds they'd respectively conquered.
Well, unless those rumors of Traitor Astartes being involved with some of the other cartels were true. Then only fire and desolation awaited Torredon. Thankfully, by that time Killian would have long finished his work and left this benighted Subsector.
"And finally, Director Auric," said Jabbus, using the pseudonym Killian had used when establishing his fake identity in the cartel, that of Jereb Auric, renegade agent of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. After all, it was all but certain the Ordos had agents within the crime scene of the Subsector; it was the same reason why he had changed his appearance on the way to Torredon. "How goes your work ?"
"The latest shipment of potentials was promising. We are on schedule for all currently planned deliveries," replied Killian, careful not to let anything slip. "Magos Galerion is as competent as you promised, Director Negando : my thanks once again for recommending him to me."
The cybernetic monstrosity nodded slightly in response.
"Good, good. If you require any additional funding to scale up your activities, you need only ask. I'm sure we can come to an arrangement."
In addition to being the Chairman of the Bloodied Crown, Jabbus was also the cartel's main bank, lending money, personnel and resources to the other members at rates that would make any Administratum-approved institution blush.
"Thank you for your kind offer, Chairman," demurred Killian, "but that won't be necessary. I'll be sure to get in touch if things change."
Things petered out after that, Jabbus clearly enjoying keeping them all seated, until he finally declared the meeting was over. Killian left, Aleric following behind him, and the two of them went back to his ship. His Righteous Punishment (who, as far as the rest of the cartel was concerned, was named Wickedness' Reward) ignited is engines and left.
It would take at least a week before they arrived at Killian's base of operation. There were shorter paths than the one his Navigator would follow, but Killian wanted to keep the base's location secret from his 'colleagues', and the longer trip would help make sure nobody was following him. Plenty of time to read through Magos Galerion's latest reports, and put together his own report for his true master.
The Emperor's will would be done, regardless of the cost to his own soul or that of the Magos' test subjects.
Jenit Sulla stood at attention, at the head of twenty of the best women of the Adumbrian Guard, as the gunship landed on the pad. According to what she'd heard the bureaucrats from Slawkenberg whisper, the vehicle had once belonged to the insane Inquisitor Karamazov, before Cain had stolen it in the course of his daring escape from the madman's ship just before its detonation.
It was a great honor to be here to welcome the Liberator, and Sulla was fully aware of how lucky she was to have it bestowed upon her. She was incredibly grateful the Vice-Queen had forgiven her foolishness, despite being well within her rights to have her executed for her betrayal years ago, when she'd foolishly attempted to kill Cain.
At the time, she'd thought Cain had led her superior astray, making her turn from the light of Him On Earth by offering her a way to save the people under her protection from the Infected. And so, when he'd returned to Adumbria, she'd made her move, only to be forced to face the full extent of her mistake.
When the shadow-things had emerged, Cain hadn't hesitated to engage them, leaping straight into the fray, heedless of how doing so left his back exposed to Sulla, who had still been holding her weapon. She could have killed him then : he'd been wearing armor, yes, but his head was exposed, and no daughter of Valhalla unable to make such an easy shot would've been accepted into the ranks of the Imperial Guard.
She'd almost taken the shot on reflex, before the realization of how dishonorable that action would be had hit her. Cain had the God-Emperor's blessing, whether he realized it or not. It was the only possible explanation.
The strength of will, the confidence, they had been captivating. The Liberator had put himself into harm's way to protect Colonel Kasteen without a moment's hesitation. In that moment, Sulla had known she'd been mistaken to think him some heretical manipulator, out to drag the women of the 296th into damnation. Not just mistaken : foolish. For had Cain not demonstrated his valor already, when he'd led the charge into the very heart of the vile darkness that sought to consume Adumbria, and struck down the foul fiend which had directed it ?
She felt ashamed that it'd taken witnessing that valor in person to make her see the truth, and turned that shame into determination not to err again. Yes, Cain was associating with heretics, but that was only so that he could make them do the Emperor's work, whether they realized it or not. Sulla couldn't imagine the pressure and constant intrigue such a task must require, but if there were anyone capable of it, then surely it was the Liberator.
"Lord Liberator," she saluted him, her motion mirrored by the rest of the honor guard. "Welcome back to Adumbria."
"Thank you, Colonel," he smiled. "It is a pleasure to be back, though I wish it were under better circumstances."
"As do we all. Please, follow me. The Vice-Queen and the Rogue Trader are waiting inside."
"Good." He made a show of shivering, as if such mundane things as the cold still bothered him – but then, he was always so dismissive of his own greatness. "Let's get somewhere warmer, then."
Areelu Van Yastobaal caught her first glimpse of the Liberator as he strode confidently into the reception hall of the Vice-Queen's estate in Glacier Peak. By the standards of the Imperial nobility, the building was insultingly utilitarian : prior to the plague which had gutted the system, it had been the vacation home of a House Head from the capital, who hadn't made it out when Skitterfall had fallen to the undead horde.
Areelu didn't mind. There was an earnestness to the ruling class of Adumbria that she'd never encountered in her previous interactions with the elite of the Imperium, and to her own surprise, she found herself enjoying it.
Behind Cain came his entourage. Apart from the other members of the Liberation Council, the Liberator was accompanied by a psyker, a Dark Eldar, and an Astartes. It was an eclectic group, one which wouldn't have been too unexpected from a Rogue Trader like Areelu, but which no Governor of the Imperium could have gotten away with – but then, Cain was no mere Governor.
As she approached him, he raised her hand to his lip, and kissed it in a way that wouldn't have been out of place in the dancing halls of a hive-world's highest spires.
"Lady Van Yastobaal, a pleasure to make your acquaintance," he declared. "I am Ciaphas Cain, leader of the Liberation Council of Slawkenberg, and ally to Vice-Queen Kasteen."
"The pleasure is mine. I have heard of you, Lord Cain," she replied, matching his smile with one of her own. "The man who led the rebellion on Slawkenberg, defeated Inquisitor Karamazov in single combat, and fought back not one, but two xenos invasions at the same time. Quite the résumé.
"I had help," he deflected. "Well, except against Karamazov, I suppose, but that wouldn't have amounted to much if not for the rest of the team who actually stopped the Exterminatus while I was getting lost."
"Is that so ? I look forward to hearing more about this." Areelu had only heard rumors about what had happened at the former vacation world, her interests laying in other directions. "Truth be told, I was unaware your interests extended beyond Slawkenberg. Her Excellency didn't tell me you were her off-world ally until your ships arrived in-system."
It was easy to see why Kasteen hadn't done so, of course. Rogue Traders weren't as feared as Inquisitors (nobody else really was), but they still weren't the kind of people you wanted to admit consorting with heretics and enemies of the Imperium to. Until today, Areelu had thought the Vice-Queen's allies were some kind of shadowy cabal seeking to turn Adumbria into a secret base of operations, hiding behind the Perditia edict.
"Ah, it must have been quite a surprise then," said Cain, his smile suddenly taking a more cunning aspect. "But I don't think this will be a problem, do you ?"
He knew, Areelu suddenly realized. Somehow, Cain knew the truth of her allegiances, despite all the years she'd spent making sure nobody who learned of them survived to tell the tale.
She chuckled. "I see your reputation wasn't exaggerated at all, Lord Liberator. Yes, you're right. I don't have any issue with working with others who have turned aside from the Ecclesiarchy's lies."
Kasteen stared at her, then at Cain, flabbergasted. Areelu could guess what was going through the Vice-Queen's head in that moment : despite spending hours in her presence, she hadn't so much as suspected the Rogue Trader's allegiance, whereas Cain had only needed a moment to figure it out.
"I thought as much," said Cain, his smile widening. "You don't strike me as a Khornate, though, and I won't insult you by even contemplating the possibility of someone of your stature having fallen in with Nurgle's dupes. Taking this into account, I would say … the Architect, yes ?"
"Your insight is as sharp as your swordplay," Areelu complimented him, before making a complex gesture with her right hand which caused the symbol of Tzeentch to briefly flash into the air before harmlessly dissipating, provoking an audible gasp from their audience. "I do indeed follow the Tzeentchian philosophy."
Cain nodded, clearly unsurprised. "Good. I wouldn't have had any issue working with you had you been a devotee of the Imperial Creed, but I suspect it'd have made things awkward on your end, Lady Van Yastobaal."
"Please, since you are getting to know the real me, call me Areelu," she said. "By the way, this is Suture," she introduced her own transhuman companion, "my bodyguard."
"'Suture' ?" asked Cain, raising an eyebrow.
"He refused to tell me his name after I saved his life," explained Areelu. "At first, I called him that to try to get under his skin so he'd change his mind, but it stuck."
"I see. Well, in that case, let me introduce you my own entourage. This is Krystabel, mistress of the Handmaidens of Emeli; General Mahlone, commander of the Unified Slawkenberg Army forces we brought with us; Tesilon-Kappa, leader of the Bringers of Renewed Greatness; Sir Harold, representative of the Liberation Council's bureaucracy and spokesman of the Tzeentchian acolytes in their ranks; Jurgen, my aide; Malicia, my bloodward; and Hektor, military advisor to the Unified Slawkenberg Army."
Areelu greeted each of the new introductions in turn, before realizing that Hektor and Suture were staring at one another in complete silence. Despite the years she'd spent in Suture's company, Areelu had no idea what he was thinking at the moment. She could only hope things wouldn't turn violent – she wasn't afraid for her life, but it would certainly make things awkward.
"World Eater," said Suture after nearly an entire minute. "You look calmer than the last of your kind I met."
Hektor smiled, which was not a pleasant sight. He tapped his finger against the strange cybernetic implants that hung from the back of his skull like dreadlocks, and replied :
"Having the Nails finally silenced will do that. Can you believe it's been seven years since I've killed someone ?"
"Really ? How ?"
"The Panacea allows for many things which are commonly thought to be impossible," Cain cut in.
"The Panacea ?" repeated Areelu, her curiosity suddenly piqued. "Are you referring to that healing substance your medicae used when they came aboard the Worldwounder ?"
"Indeed," said the tech-priest Cain'd introduced as Tesilon-Kappa. "Which reminds me : as a Rogue Trader, had you not already heard about the Panacea before now ?"
"I had, actually," replied Areelu. "There are rumors that such a miraculous substance is being deployed across the Sector to support the Imperial Guard and the Space Marine Chapters. I'm impressed that you managed to acquire it : from what I understand, access to it is quite restricted."
There was another moment of silence, eventually broken by Cain sighing painfully.
"We didn't 'acquire' anything," the Liberator explained. "We were the ones who obtained the Panacea STC in the first place, and I personally made sure it reached the Imperium in order to curtail Nurgle's power. After all these years, I was hoping it had become commonplace, yet it seems the Imperium's disappointed me yet again."
Areelu blinked. "Oh. That is … surprising news. I take it you make use of the Panacea more liberally within the Protectorate, then ?"
"We use it for everything, more or less," Cain explained. "It helped us greatly in the campaign we fought on this world against the Infected, since it made our troops immune to the Nurglite contagion."
Areelu's breath caught in her throat. The Panacea could help fight off the plagues of the Lord of Decay ?! If so, then maybe, just maybe …
No. She had to stay calm. She couldn't let her enthusiasm get ahead of her. Before she dared to let herself hope, this needed further investigation. Cain had already seen through her entirely too much for her liking : if nothing else, her pride wouldn't let her expose such vulnerability to him. And if the pirates killed them all, then it wouldn't matter anyway.
"In any case," she rallied herself, "I look forward to witnessing the Protectorate's martial might under your command, Warmaster Cain."
"Warmaster ?" Cain repeated, a strange expression on his face.
"Yes. Doesn't it make sense ?" explained Areelu. "You are, after all, leading the combined forces of Slawkenberg and Adumbria, and I'm willing to lend my aid as well. Given that three distinct chains of command are involved, and you stand at the top of them all, I feel the title is appropriate."
"I … hmm. I never considered it."
"It makes sense," said General Mahlone, his eyes seeming to shine at the suggestion. "Lady Van Yastobaal has a point, lord."
"Indeed," added Krystabel, who'd been glaring at Areelu for several minutes for some reason (though given the looks the Slaaneshi cultist was giving Cain, the Rogue Trader was fairly sure she knew why). "It'd clarify the chain of command, make sure everyone knows their place."
Suddenly, Areelu knew what was going on here. Cain couldn't have claimed the title for himself without damaging his image as a humble hero of the people, and his followers were too enamoured with his title of Liberator to even think of granting him a new one. Which was fine so long as he remained within his domain, where everyone knew who he was, but when dealing with outsiders, a Warmaster would be much more feared than a Liberator.
"Well, if you all insist, then it'd be childish of me to refuse," accepted Cain. "I shall serve as the Warmaster of our alliance, then, until the threat of the shadow cartels to Adumbria has been dealt with."
What clever wording, thought Areelu. She was going to enjoy working with the Liberator.
Three hours after my arrival at Glacier Peak, I was sitting in the office provided for me by Kasteen, sipping a cup of recaf as I considered what had just happened.
When I'd said I didn't think Van Yastobaal would be a problem, I'd meant it as a reminder that even if her ship was doubtlessly a match for any of ours, it was also alone, and still docked at the orbital dockyard, while she was on the planet right in front of me. Not the most subtle threat I'd ever made to be sure, but one I'd thought would get the point across that neither of us wanted things to escalate to shooting.
I had most definitely not expected Areelu to reveal herself as a follower of Tzeentch, which I was pretty sure went against the terms under which her bloodline had been bestowed a Warrant of Trade. But try telling that to my entourage of heretical lunatics.
"How did you know, my lord ?" asked Jurgen conversationally as he refilled my cup without me needing to even mention it. "About the Lady Van Yastobaal, I mean."
For a moment, I considered simply telling him the truth. It wouldn't even hurt my reputation all that much : luck, after all, was considered the purview of Tzeentch, with every coincidence being part of the Architect of Fate's overarching scheme. Personally, I thought it was all nonsense, used to justify anything bad that happened so that you could feel better about it being all part of the plan.
My aide's own approach when it came to religion was rather simple : as long as the Dark Gods were helping the Liberation and opposing Nurgle, he was fine with them being worshipped by the people of the Protectorate. While he still prayed to them on occasion (as the old saying went, there is no such thing as a godless man in a trench), he had no interest in swearing his soul to any of the Three, and any faith in the God-Emperor he'd possessed had withered away during his captivity.
Once I'd accidentally revealed that she was a heretic herself, deducing which of the Four she'd aligned herself with had been a simple process of elimination. Khorne and Nurgle were out for the reasons I'd told her, and if she were a follower of Slaanesh I was pretty confident Krystabel would have been warned by Emeli beforehand, instead of being as surprised as she'd been.
If Jurgen had been the only one in the room, I might've just told him as much, but Malicia and Hektor were also present, so I needed to play up the image foisted upon me.
"I had a, let's say, hunch," I simply said, with what I hoped was an appropriately enigmatic smile. Both the Drukhari Wych and the Chaos Marine seemed to buy it, which was a relief. Before anyone could push me further and risk unravelling my web of deceit, I turned to address Hektor :
"This Suture fellow," I began, changing the subject. "What can you tell us about him ?"
Having another transhuman killing machine in my vicinity was making me nervous. I couldn't ask Areelu to send him back to her ship for obvious reasons, and thought that getting as much information as possible would help me handle the potential threat he represented (there weren't many things in the galaxy which could get past Malicia and Jurgen, but by my reckoning a Space Marine had better odds than most).
"Not much," the World Eater replied, frowning thoughtfully. "He isn't a member of the Twelfth, that's much is obvious. I doubt he's Thousand Sons either, and we'd definitely have noticed if he were Death Guard."
Since joining what he thought of as my banner, Hektor had given me and the rest of the Liberation Council a primer on the Traitor Legions which were imprisoned within the Eye of Terror after Horus' failed attempt at usurping the Emperor. He'd admitted that it was far from in-depth, due to being based on observations made while he was still under the influence of those awful implants of his, but it had still given me material for fresh nightmares. Especially once I'd learned entirely too much about the Death Guard, the Traitor Legion which had pledged itself to Nurgle. Of course, they were supposed to all be trapped in the Eye of Terror, where they were kept by the ceaseless efforts of the loyal servants of the Golden Throne, but then so was Hektor.
"Still," Hektor continued, "that leaves a lot of options even just among the old crowd, and he could be a renegade of any number of Chapters, renegade or loyalist. He clearly recognized the Nails, but that doesn't mean much : he could've encountered another of my Legion before. Usually, I could tell make a few more guesses, but those scars of his make it impossible to tell whether he used to have some of the more visibly striking mutations of, say, the Salamanders or Night Lords before Yastobaal put him back together. Still, the fact he didn't try to kill her even after she admitted her allegiance at least means he shouldn't cause trouble for us."
"There is that," I nodded. Unless, of course, Areelu decided to turn on us for Emperor knew what reason. By now, I was reasonably certain the Protectorate Tzeentchians wouldn't turn on me unless I did something really stupid, my unmerited reputation keeping them in check. But I'd no idea how someone like Areelu would act.
It was clear she was already playing some kind of game here : her suggestion that I assume the title of Warmaster made that obvious even to someone who'd coasted on the unwarranted respect of far more dangerous people like myself. By making me Warmaster of the assembled forces, she was making them equal under me, despite the existing power unbalance between Slawkenberg, Adumbria, and herself.
Once my attempts to refuse the title by playing up my supposedly humble persona had failed, I'd been unable to think of a good reason, and now I was stuck with it. I tried very hard not to think about the implications of that title. Of course, numerous Imperial commanders had borne it before, but there were only two individuals who really came to mind when thinking about it. Regardless of what it might look like at first glance, neither of them was someone I wanted to emulate, being either dead or insane.
But it was only symbolic, I told myself. Despite my inflated reputation, I was still only a figurehead, who kept things in balance within the Protectorate by virtue of being equally terrified of everyone else. Somehow, I doubted Horus or Abaddon had to worry about things like that, although I couldn't suppress a nervous rictus at the mental images conjured by the thought.
Hektor and Malicia exchanged a glance, and I wondered what they were thinking – hopefully they hadn't caught on to my fear.
"Sir Harold might be able to find out more," offered Jurgen. "If the magi were able to figure out Miss Zerayah's origins, uncovering those of Sir Suture shouldn't be beyond them."
"True," I agreed, "but they've more important things to work on right now. I'll think about it once we've dealt with the pirate fleet, if it's still relevant."
On most Imperial worlds, the astropathic choir would've been able to detect the approach of a fleet in the Warp, though it would have been as imprecise a process as everything involving the blind star-speakers. We didn't have those (none of those stationed on Slawkenberg and Adumbria had survived their worlds' respective upheavals, and we could hardly petition the Administratum for replacements), but the acolytes of Tzeentch who ran much of the Protectorate's bureaucracy were almost as good, even if (from what I'd been told) they used very different methods.
According to them, we had two days (or, given Adumbria Prime didn't have those, forty-eight hours) before the pirate armada emerged from the Warp at the system's edge. Which meant that I'd have to get back to the Fist of the Liberator very soon, leaving no time to properly renew my acquaintance with Regina. A shame, as I'm sure you'll agree, but there were more pressing concerns on my mind at the moment.
Given how short time was, you might wonder why I'd gotten planetside in the first place. The reason, as was far too often the case in my life, had to do with optics. News of the incoming pirate attack had spread through the population of Adumbria : that much had been inevitable. But Vice-Queen Kasteen had been able to prevent the very understandable fears of the proles from degenerating into abject panic by declaring that she'd called their stalwart Slawkenberg allies to help, with Cain the Liberator, he who had struck down the evil which had plagued their world at its very source, leading them.
The fact that the figure public imagination fondly imagined me to be had nothing to do with who I actually was was irrelevant. By showing up planetside, showing every sign of confidence in our ability to overcome this latest crisis, I'd reassured everyone that things were well in hand. Which would keep Kasteen's people free to focus on handling the actual threat instead of panicking civvies, not a prospect any military worth the name has ever relished in the history of Mankind.
If only I could convince myself so easily. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, and unlike the rest of our task force, I couldn't even throw myself into work to keep my mind busy : there was simply nothing for me to do. The others were handling the final preparations, coordinating with the local SDF and the crew of the Worldwounder, or disembarking the USA contingent meant to defend the planet if the pirates managed to land.
Meanwhile, all I could do was sit, and wait until the time came for me to return to a ship where I'd still have to sit and wait while other people's actions determined whether I lived or died.
Throne, I wanted a drink. Since Zerayah wasn't here for me to be a bad influence on her, I was badly tempted to ask Jurgen to find some amasec to go along my recaf, but I decided against it. My aide could be very discreet when needed, but the thought of word spreading that the Liberator was getting drunk before so important a battle couldn't help morale, and morale would help keep me alive, so better not risk it.
My mind wandered back to my adopted 'daughter' back on Slawkenberg. Zerayah had wanted to come with us, but I'd put my foot down as firmly as I could fake. Arguing with her – our first actual argument in seven years – had been a terrifying experience, since I'd been all too aware of how easily she could've killed me. But in the end, she had grudgingly accepted the groxshit I'd fed her about not wanting to risk my successor on the same battlefield I'd myself be, which of course had then turned into me telling her that yes, of course I'd be safe, I would have Jurgen and Malicia with me at all times.
Just to make sure she didn't sneak aboard one of the fleet's vessels, I'd made sure to contact the Liberation Palace using one of the ansibles aboard the Fist of the Liberator to check she was still there before we had left Slawkenberg. If she hadn't replied, I'd fully intended to stop the entire fleet until she was found and returned to the planet, and she knew it, meaning that I'd been able to rely on her unwillingness to cause delays in such a monumental operation to ensure she'd stay where she would be safe from harm (and the rest of the galaxy would be safe from her).
I'd made sure to call her the moment we'd dropped out of the Warp and the ansible connection to Slawkenberg had started working again, reassuring her that the journey had gone well. I'd then spent the next hour or two of the trip from the Mandeville Point to Adumbria Prime talking with her about how things were back home, making sure nothing had gone wrong in my absence. It'd been a gross abuse of power, but nobody had said anything.
I sighed. I was trying to distract myself, and it wasn't working.
"I'm going to take a nap," I announced to the three hardened killers in the room with me. "Make sure all of you are fresh and ready by the time we get back in orbit as well."
With any luck, some sleep would help me relax before I had to once again risk my life.
AN : Coming up with all the directors of the Bloodied Crown took me entirely too much time. I wonder how many references the readers will get.
I know some of you wanted Zerayah to come along to go pirate-hunting and be all horror-monster-ish, but do you really think the Glorious Liberator would bring his seven-years old daughter to a warzone ? Really ? Shame on you all.
While writing Cain's POV at the end of this chapter, I went back and edited Chapter 15 to remove the five words that indicated that the ansibles worked in the Warp. Because while I don't know frak about quantum entanglement, it not working in the Warp seems like the kind of stuff that'd make sense - well, as much sense as anything in 40K ever does. Sorcerous interference while in the Materium, like what blocked the vox-net during the Cleansing of Skitterfall, is another story, since the ansibles are still in reality.
Is it a minor detail no one would've noticed if I hadn't pointed it out in this AN ? Probably. But I do try to have my stories self-coherent, even when they're crack.
I haven't actually decided Suture's backstory, so if you've a suggestion, don't hesitate to leave it in your review/comment.
As always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. The next part of the Roboutian Heresy is about 4/5th done, with only one part left to finish and then a lot of polishing and beta-reading, but I think it'll come out before the next chapter of this story (unless the Muse decides otherwise).
Zahariel out.