The small craft drove forward into the blackness. It would still be days until it reached Iaxrak VI, but the connection that the tech priest had found was something that had to be followed up on.

"This is Nesot Vakyon, access code 7PL30Y8T. Requesting application for tagmata requisition."

A brief pause, then a whirl of sounds, clicks and beeps that were only parsable to the members of the Adeptus Mechanicus and their servants.

"Rerouting…." the server replied.

This is why Nesot didn't like to travel the wide expanse of space. Too much interference, too many delays and interruptions. For her, it was the speed of communication, translation, computation, that thrilled her. Set her gears and cogitators humming. The sheer efficiency of it…

Out here, she was lonely.

"Rerouting…" the panel in front of her repeated.

"Patience," she told herself, using the down time to recalibrate one of her optic sensors. It had been giving her some trouble as of late, and the moon base on which she was stationed was basic to say the least, lacking many of the facilities of her home forge on Konor.

"Rerouting…"

It was funny, she mused as she waited, that she had found she had missed her two female companions of late. When the Soroitas and Inquisitor had left, Nesot had thanked the Omnissiah for the chance to focus on her work, but after a few cycles, she had found that she grown used to the sullen frame of the Sister stomping about the place, or the many conversations she had had about the nature of heresy with the young Ordo.

"Rerouting…" the server continued.

What would Prasia Dominante, or rather, Prasia Von Stromm, as had been revealed, thinking of the news that Iaxrak VI had been tagged as a site of interest by certain members of Nesot's sect.

"Rerouting…"

The tech priest knew she would have to tread carefully. As a Xenarite, she would have to keep all her eyes open. Finding Xeno artifacts was one thing. Wanting to use them was another. But a piece of Aeldari wargear, and one of their sacred Tears of Morai-Heg at that, was worth the risk.

"Request received," the panel shouted suddenly. "Tagmata requisition denied."

Fine, Nesot thought smugly, reinserting the newly calibrated optic sensor back into its slot. I'll do it myself.

Sergeant Grenaeus Castis tried to keep his eyes on the recruit report in front of him, but found his mind wandering back to that day, when the Sororitas had come to them, and had made a mockery of their training simulator.

"Impressive," Stellon Alcandar had said at the time, nonchalantly as was the Primarus' way.

"Impressive!" Granaeus spat, leaning back from the desk in front of him. "Shameful is more like it."

The Novamarine hated it, all of it. How dare the Sister show them up like that? How dare she bring dishonour to his chapter? She should have refused to participate, Granaeus had decided. Demurred and said no, thank you, noble Space Marine…

"We should study her methods," Stellon had added later, having caught the Sergeant watching the playback of Luces Aspea as she shot, slashed and stabbed with righteous fury.

"We should destroy this," Granaeus had replied, and had feigned erasing it from the datastack, but he hadn't.

Instead, he watched it obsessively.

"How..," he had asked himself as he had hit rewind and played it again and again on the vid display in his private office.

Sure, she was an Elohiem, supposedly consumed by holy rage, with a need to unleash their sacred fury against her foes but still - the Sister had woven through the training simulation like an assassin, her body a blur of motion. Each shot had found its mark. Each strike had landed true.

"Sergeant," a voice called out to him then, bringing him back to the present, back to the desk in front of him and the unread report.

"Come," Granaeus barked, standing.

Stellon entered then, accompanying a small boy, who, by the look of him, had survived a hard life in the spire of Hive Primus.

"Young Dannor here would like to join us," the Primarus informed him, pushing the child forward.

"Does he?" the Novamarine snorted, scanning the boy more closely now.

"Lord, I…" Dannor started, but Granaeus waved the rest of the reply away.

"He has been seated outside our chapel barracks for three weeks now." Stellon said, obviously approving of this fact.

"Very well," the Sergeant replied, giving the potential recruit a last once over. "Put him with the others."

The Primarus marine saluted and turned, gesturing for Dannor to leave, but the child stood his ground, and saluted also.

"Indeed", Granaeus thought to himself, watching his brother and the boy as they left before adding another name to the forgotten list in front of him.

So many would try, he knew, to earn their spot as one of the Emperor's angels. And so many would fail. Few would live long enough to live up to the standard of Stellon, or himself.

Or, he supposed bitterly, of the Sister.

On the seventeenth day after the sun came out, Enos Rathope, veteran captain of the 27th reconnaissance regiment, watched as the Inquisitor disembarked from the shuttle she had arrived on and started walking over to him.

"Steady," he told the guardsmen and women behind him, knowing that they, like him, were trying their best not to shit their pants.

"Is this about the squigs?" he heard one of them ask another.

Enos didn't think it was, but then again, with the Inquisition, who could say.

"Captain!" the young woman now directly opposite of him called out, as if summoning him.

She had her hood pulled down low over her face, and only her lips, and a pristine Imperial Aquila tattoo visible. He took a tentative step forward, shifting his eyes to the parched ground in front of him.

The wind had been strong that day, and the landscape had been cleared of its usual layer of irradiated dust and grit. In the crack below his feet, he thought he could see the start of an Ork bloom and absent-mindedly smeared it away with his boot.

"You are Captain Enos Rathope?" the Inquisitor asked him then.

"I am," he replied, as evenly as he could manage.

"You are to come with me," she told him. "Now."

Why, he wanted to ask, but knew that to do so would only make the situation worse. He swallowed hard and tried to mentally prepare himself for whatever was to happen next.

"You can pick three of your best to join you," she added, the wind now whipping back up, ruffling the edges of her robe.

"What?" Enos blurted out, more from surprise than anything else.

Pick three of his guard? Was this a test somehow? Would they suffer with him, or were they going to have to testify against him...

"Can't you count that high?" The Inquisitor inquired, sounding somewhat bemused.

"I can, your…"

"Prasia," the woman answered. "Prasia Von Stromm."

As one, at the mention of the high house of the Spire, the Captain and his troop immediately dropped to one knee.

"Forgive us, Lady, we did not know," he begged, his voice shaking.

While the fear of what an Inquisitor might do to you was rumoured, what would happen if you disrespected the Von Stromms was well known. He had seen it in fact.

"Get up," Prasia snapped, obviously annoyed. "We don't have time for this. We need to leave quickly. We have much to do."

As Enos slowly stood, he realized finally that he was not being interrogated.

He was being reassigned.

[To be continued]