Arrival 1.6

To the Stars

The battles fought in the Fay System were of course close to insignificant in numbers by the Imperium standards. If events had stopped at this point, undoubtedly the eyes of strategists and other war students would have never been attracted to such unremarkable and distant planets.

But the challenges had only just started for the Nyx Sector. The Fay 20th Regiment had not yet earned their well-deserved reputation as 'Weaver's Own', but the first steps on this path had been walked...

Retired Lord Militant Tor, Victory at all cost, 630M36.

In my long and glorious career, I have long concluded it is best to stay far away from the Fay regiments when they launch their attack. These men are so convinced Lady Weaver is watching over them they're ready to kill Gargants with their bare hands to prove their devotion.

It wouldn't be so bad if they were not expecting me to lead by example...surely blowing up one of those cursed behemoths was enough? On the good side, they provided me so much tanna afterwards I did not manage to drink all the stock until my retirement...

Ciaphas Cain, To Serve the Emperor: A Commissar's Life, 106M42.

Ultima Segmentum

Nyx Sector

Moros Sub-Sector

Fay System

Planet Fay III

7.197.289M35

Thought for the day: Serve the Emperor today, tomorrow you may be dead.

Tech-Priest Enginseer Morkys

Accepting the invitation was something he had passed many cycles of his cogitators' implants thinking on.

Magos Explorators were by their very nature regarded with fifty per-cent of admiration and fifty per-cent of disdain by the rest of the Omnissiah's Chosen. It was undeniable the adventurers of the Mechanicus had recovered lost archeotech, charted uncategorised spatial phenomena, recovered incalculable volumes of data and made contact new forms of life for the last millennia. But these successes were not without reverses. All his teachers and superiors had insisted on the facts: for each Priest of the Omnissiah going into the unknown and coming back with valuable knowledge, one hundred disappeared or had to be terminated for their own good.

The explorers of the Mechanicus gained strange ideas from their travels in the void and used techniques which often came very close to the doctrinal limits put in place by the Mars Accords. Worse, these wayward minds in service of the cog weren't answering to the established chains of command. If a Magos operated alone, and it seemed it was the case for Magos Explorator Desmerius Lankovar, then his superior was certainly one of his Fabricator patrons on Stygies VIII –and such a holy figure had probably other things to do with his time than watch one ship half a galaxy away. Prudence was still required nevertheless. By all reasonable assumption, it should mean there would be no repercussion of his hierarchy if Morkys opposed one of the Magos decisions. Unfortunately, the lack of information on the Mechanicus newcomers in the noosphere data repositories meant he had no idea the extent of Lankovar's influence and contacts. Refusing or bypassing him could result in demotion or his transformation in a servitor. There was simply too little time and zero useful news to have an accurate view of the situation.

Thus Tech-Priest Enginseer Minoris Arcturus Morkys had decided to accompany the curious human known as Taylor 'Weaver' Hebert. The possible rewards from this meeting were significant...but the risks weren't inconsequential too.

"Enginseer Morkys and Taylor Hebert to see Magos Lankovar." Buzzed the senior Mechanicus representative of the Fay 20th Infantry of the Guard. The two Skitarii barring the entrance of the compound modified their handling of their plasma weapons to a non-lethal posture, indicating their arrival had been anticipated.

The outer plasteel door opened with a satisfying speed, proving its machine-spirit had been properly honoured and maintained. Gesturing with one of his mechadendrite to the unaugmented young woman behind him, the Enginseer marched first into the compound. The structure was a classical D-057831-Type DU facility, a storage place no servant of the Omnissiah had any difficulty to navigate. The Magos-Explorator had requisitioned it for its own use immediately after his arrival seven days ago, and no modification had been made to the original plans.

It was then they heard the screams. Piercing and loud, they were impossible to mistake for anything else.

"What is the Magos doing?" Asked Miss Hebert, who judging by her worried tone was now seriously having doubts about the honour of accepting the invitation.

"I don't know." Replied honestly the Tech-Priest. "But we're about to discover it."

When the last door opened diligently, it was with a certain dread in his circuits Morkys placed his optical sensors in full-mode, fervently wishing the rumours he had heard were wrong.

The view they had from the entrance platform, alas, fully justified his fears. In the massive amount of space which had once served to store Guard supplies before they were once sent off-world, a far more bloody work was going on.

Hundreds of Mechanicus and skitarii were studying the orks. And by 'studying', Morkys was implying they were cutting them apart, putting some of the organs in stasis, burning hundreds of members, injecting powerful poisons and electrocuting the greenskins. Below them, the big-master and the Tech-Priest could see a particularly impressive ork specimen being slowly and methodically reduced to a bloody piece of meat.

"Why are they torturing the orks?"

The voice of the heroine who had saved the Fay 20th from annihilation was not fear as he had dreaded. It was more...anger? But as her initial assumption was wrong, he had to correct her.

"They are not torturing them. They are vivisecting them."

"Is that supposed to be better?" The voice of the insect-controller was bitter enough that the Tech-Priest recognised the sentence was something the flesh and blood humans called 'sarcasm'.

"Probably not." Answered the Enginseer. Logically, vivisecting a xenos alive without anaesthetic – not that it would have been useful given the impressive immune system of the greenskins – was torture. Morkys wasn't terribly sorry for these loathsome xenos – the atrocities and desecrations they had committed against the God-Machine were countless – but dissecting them and doing studies like the supporters of Lankovar did was definitely not in conformity with the conservative tenets of the Omnissiah. It also raised the question what other amends and transgressions the Magos-Explorator's crew was ready to make in their Quest for Knowledge. Arcturus Morkys didn't like it at all.

But like it or not, they had a Magos to find. Using an electromagnetic elevator on their right, the servant of the Omnissiah and the parahuman descended in this vivisection warehouse. Reaching ground level, he grudgingly conceded the Tech-Priests and Explorator servants evidently knew how dangerous the orks could be and had put proper procedures in place. Each section was separated from the others by powerful force fields. There were emergency barriers and shields everywhere ready to be activated. Two Inferno cannons were mounted on massive turrets, ready to bathe in promethium any hypothetic sign of xenos insurrection. The beast themselves were deprived of their fangs, arms and legs, and cut again when they re-grew. The floor was ceaselessly decontaminated by hundreds of servitors, preventing any spore from fertilising.

"Taylor Hebert and Enginseer Morkys?" Amid the tumult of screams coming from the fangless ork maws, he almost jumped when the red robe of a senior Mechanicus came behind them. Not Miss Hebert though. For a moment, Morkys felt an unreasonable irritation at the incredible advantage the control of insects and arthropods provided. Provided the controller was coping with the numberless priorities of the present situation, it was extremely difficult to surprise her.

The Stygies VIII Tech-Priest who had called them was female and had a brilliant green bionic replacement instead of her right eye, providing a striking contrast with her pristine flesh. A respirator unit covered her mouth and her arms had long been replaced by metallic augments. At their nod of confirmation, she presented herself without any of the blessings Morkys had spoken before with his superiors.

"I am Questor Alena Wismer, Magos Lankovar's second. Follow me."

To his surprise the female Questor had spoken to them in Low Gothic – not unsurprising due to Miss Hebert's presence – but there had been no cant of binary, no added sign of recognition in the Omnissiah's sacred language. It was troubling...and a bit insulting.

He was only a lowly Enginseer in an Imperial Guard regiment but he had no demerits to his name and none of the other Tech-Priests in the Petersburg Campaign had found any flaws in his work. If the Omnissiah was answering to his prayers, he may even have a promotion before the decade's end. But here came these explorers, court-circuiting the proper chain of command and experimenting their techno-knowledge on the greenskins.

At least there was a relief the Magos Explorator wasn't in the warehouse dissecting the orks with the rest of his crew. For a few cogitator cycles, Arcturus had been turning simulations on the likelihood of Lankovar being a dangerous heretek who had somehow managed to escape the Great Cog's judgement. Which meant the probability of seeing a deranged Tech-Priest dissecting them in the next minutes for the sheer thrill of insanity was significantly reduced. Great.

A new mag-elevator guarded by six Skitarii made them leave the former storage facility. A new corridor and they were introduced the presence of Magos Explorator Desmerius Lankovar.

The first impression the Enginseer born on the Industrial World of Harbin II had of the high-ranking Priest was the thought this couldn't be a Mechanicus member. Lankovar had no mechadendrite, no augment, nothing metallic showing his allegiance to the Cult of the Machine. For the outside world, the senior Mechanicus representative in the room –dozens of servitors and lowly menials were watching the multitude of screens – was a forty-year plus flesh human with a red robe, nothing more.

A nanosecond-long scan of his incorporated augur disproved this assumption. The body of the Magos was in reality built close to ninety-eight per-cent of metals and alloys. Statistically speaking, the 'mortal envelope' was certainly constituted of vat-grown skin cells.

Their arrival had not been unnoticed. Of course the control room they were introduced had hundreds of screens, and Morkys had already found those controlling the servo-skulls and the rest of the warehouse monitoring system. In a move so fast his optical bionics barely recorded it, the Magos was in front of them, a buzzing sceptre decorated with the symbol of the Mechanicus in one hand an unknown device in the other. The two were directly pointed at Miss Taylor Hebert.

"Fascinating, simply fascinating." Declared in binary the Explorator. In the next second, Lankovar was forced to jump inhumanly fast away as a storm of insects appeared where he had been. If he was still made of flesh and bones, Morkys would have sighed. Did his warning not to antagonise the bug-controller had somehow gotten lost in the noosphere?

"And no emissions of detectable psionic energy. Incredible." Said Desmerius Lankovar like if nothing wrong had happened, a move of his sceptre ordering the two Skitarii next to him to lower their weapons.

The high-ranked Tech-Priest turned around and taped a long combination on the terminal in the centre of the room. Many screens stopped showing the orks experiments conducted by the Stygies explorers and instead unfurled streams of data that went in complexity anything Morkys had seen in his service to the Omnissiah. The parahuman to his side made her bugs disappear under the light Imperial cloak she wore, allowing everyone to relax.

All the while the Magos continued to mumble in a combination between Low Gothic and a highly technical binary. "Fascinating...a structure never seen before...DNA pure...fascinating..."

At long last after three minutes and twenty-nine seconds, Lankovar returned his attention back to them.

"Fascinating, absolutely fascinating. M3 blood samples...in other circumstances samples of this blood would be sent to Mars by the fastest ship available. What a majestic discovery...I wouldn't have believed it if I had not seen if of my eyes..."

Arcturus Morkys once more absolutely didn't like what he was hearing.

"Excuse me, Magos-Explorator." He canted, having for the first time the undivided attention of the Magos on him. "But my sensor bionics must deceive me. I believe you don't intend to inform Mars of this huge discovery? The blood samples and the archeotech Miss Hebert have..."

"Would be considered heretical and whoever produced them would be executed in the millisecond by the brainless Cardinals of the Ecclesiarchy." Finished his interlocutor. It was kind of strange to see the metallic components rippling under the flesh now that he knew what to look for. "Segmentum Solar has been a very dangerous place for the last three centuries. Between the Nova-Terrans, the influence of the Synod and our own Moirae problem we could be all murdered by whatever faction is in the ascendant if we came out in the open. I will send the data and the samples to Stygies VIII, they will be safe there. They will transfer everything to Mars as soon as possible."

"It might be not on our lifetime, Magos." The tone of Questor Alena Wismer could have not been more respectful, but there were cants and binary inflexions he wasn't able to decipher. Still, there was some logical implication the crew of the Magos Laurentis would not be able to share the glory and the resources which went with such a discovery.

"The servants of the Omnissiah can afford to be patient." Replied philosophically her superior in Low Gothic. "In the mean time, we have a strategy to consider."

"Could you send me back to my Earth?" Intervened the parahuman girl, turning the attention of hundreds of bionic parts in her direction.

"No, probably not." Said in what could pass for an excuse the Magos Explorator. "Trans-dimensional experiences are in general prohibited and Mars never managed to master this type of technology." A shiver-like move went from his alloys-feet to the head, making Morkys wonder how catastrophic the failures in said field had been. "There are rumours it was possible in the Dark Age of Technology...but only the Emperor knows for sure. Besides, for such an experiment to take place it would be better to go back to your home planet and there's a seven hundred years waiting list for Holy Terra."

The Mechanicus Priest had left unsaid there was no way by the Holy Quest of Knowledge this kind of experience would be authorised by the High Lords of Terra.

"Seven hundred years?"

The M3 young woman sounded really horrified. Not without reason, Morkys had to admit, the Administratum was really getting worse at directing the flux of pilgrimages and the travels to the homeworld of humanity.

"Seven hundred and sixty-two years, four months and eight days to be accurate. Plus of course the Warp-travel to Terra."

Desmerius Lankovar lightened the large hololith, before projecting a large map of the Milky Way galaxy. A bright red light showed the Solar System on the far left of the galaxy, while the Fay System was on the south-east of the Ultima Segmentum thousands of light-years away.

"So far away..." A single tear dropped on Miss Hebert's right cheek. "What I am going to do?"

Morkys didn't know if she had expected an answer to this question but the Magos gave her one.

"You could become the Governor of this world. I'm told the trial of the current Governor, his accomplices and the officers who planned the coup to overthrow him is going to begin tomorrow."

It was a very attractive proposition, the Tech-Priest admitted. A logical one, since the young woman had emerged from the fires of battle as one of the heroes of the day. Fay was not an extremely wealthy Civilised world, but it was not a Feudal backwater either. There were billions of men and women who were ready to kill countless people if it meant receiving in their hands this kind of power.

"No, thank you."

Arcturus Morkys clicked in surprise. Billions of people weren't Taylor Hebert apparently.

"In that case, I would suggest either taking a commission in the Imperial Guard or requesting to join the Mechanicus as soon as possible." Advised Lankovar. "The Deacons of the Ecclesiarchy aren't going to stay idle for long. The current Pontifex Mundi is among the traitors judged next morning, but his superiors will soon send a replacement. You don't want to be without protection when he arrives."

"You have testified I am not 'tainted' or guilty of heresy." Taylor Hebert countered.

"Indeed. But the Mechanicus and the Ecclesiarchy are organisations having very divergent interests in what constitutes heresy, treachery and Warp-contamination. We base our observations on cold logic and science. They made their observations on pure faith. My word would be more a drawback than an advantage. "

The insect-controller stayed quiet for a moment before speaking again with a distant expression.

"Assuming I chose to join the Guard..."

"There would be many advantages for you to enjoy." Ended the Magos. "There are always special land grants for great deeds having protected a world of His Holy Majesty and I'm sure the Nyx Prefectus emissary won't be ungrateful. A few medals and some prize money for the killing of several Ork warbosses will certainly be in order too."

"I don't have any experience leading soldiers."

For the first time of the day, his truth detectors tingled. Not a full lie, but not the complete truth either. Judging by the cants Lankovar and Wismer communicated, the two experienced Explorators had caught it.

"Reports from the Fay 20th officers say otherwise. And you would be surprised how many officers in the Imperium are still promoted despite not having the slightest clue how to command a regiment."

"How do you benefit in this? You're not a Guard General, you can't give orders to Governors or Generals like that!"

For a human which didn't know the Imperium existed last month, it was a smart remark.

"I am a Magos Explorator of the Adeptus Mechanicus, realising my own Quest of Knowledge in the name of the Forge-World Stygies VIII and the Omnissiah."

The inauspicious black eyes did not blink a single time during this sentence. Whatever bionic devices controlling them would not allow them to.

"You will learn there are very few persons I can't command if I want to."

And on this Magos Explorator Desmerius Lankovar made his red robe swirl before switching the screens back to his study of orks being vivisected. For the love of the Omnissiah, Morkys didn't know if it was a threat or if the Magos was that simply fond of xenos studies.

Colonel Daviev Larkine

The laws of any Sector loyal to His Holy Majesty's Imperium were generally divided into three categories. The first referred to the laws which concerned with the Imperium as a whole. For example, an ambitious General or Lord Militant misappropriating the funds of a Crusade was a violation of said regulations. Murdering a high-ranking member of the Adeptus Terra or stealing the Navy's deployment plans entered it too. It was the Lex Imperialis as it had been intended by the God-Emperor and was written in the millennia-old Book of Judgement.

The second category concerned itself with lesser crimes and punishments, usually on a planetary scale. Of course given the immensity of the Imperium and the large autonomy it granted to a Governor and his – or her – administration, the derivations of the law had generally little in common from one planet to another, never mind a sector. While on some worlds looking directly in the eyes of a noble was punishable by a death sentence, other cultures had a fierce ban of everything edible having a yellow colour.

The third one was the Ecclesiarchy law, laid down in uncountable and antique data-scrolls. So uncountable in fact were the treatises that every Sector had its own interpretation of what constituted proper worship of the God-Emperor sitting on the Golden Throne of Holy Terra.

In theory, the divide between the three was simple and the attendant punishments served as guidelines for the entire Sector. In practise, there were crimes and influence struggle in every Sector. An accusation of high treason could very well be prosecuted by the first group of laws while the Priests of the Ministorum would say it fell in their jurisdiction since the accused was obviously a traitor and a heretic.

Today was one of those days where reality had bypassed the Lex Imperialis. Among the accused were a Governor, a Pontifex Mundi, several PDF Generals and an important majority of the Fay nobility. Larkine was glad neither he nor anyone of his regiment were among them, because these trials where the three categories were in consideration ended on average in very unpleasant manners for the guilty.

"Guards, let enter the accused." Ordered Judge Vilifeng Otto, the member of the Adeptus Arbites who was going to preside over the entire trials. Wearing imposing red and black attire where the double-eagle flashed prominently, the judge was assisted on the benches by five other Arbitrators of lesser rank and hundreds of scribes.

The large doors of what had been the Ball Room of the Fay Overlord Palace – but which had been requisitioned and transformed these last days to become an audience and trial room – opened in a noise from the grave. A large column of men and women passed came through it, escorted by dozens of enforcers. None of them were manacled or in chains – the Colonel supposed it was a concession to their past aristocratic status – but their once priceless and opulent clothes looked like their owners had spent lengthy nights of prison with them...which when one thought about it was indeed had happened.

Leading the prisoners was Exalted Overlord Boris Byukur, who had once been the Governor of Fay III and the rest of the Fay System. For the men and women in the audience who had never seen their Governor save on a few propaganda hololithic pictures and vid-casts, the appearance of the morbidly obese man advancing was something to behold. The coup of Marov and the other PDF Generals had been launched when the Overlord was wearing a set of pink and gold clothes. It had certainly been an insult to the eyes when it was clean; now it was an horror. The sad excuse for a human being had taken refuge in his 'secret' bunker and waited the reinforcements who would restore him to his throne. Public hygiene and changing his clothes had not been taken into account.

"How the mighty falls..." Giggled Ilvyna Dalten.

Her superior threw her a concerned look. The blonde-haired ex-Major looked radiant today in a purple dress and her hair had been masterfully combed into a golden braid...a fact which had probably something to do with her future ascension to the Fay Governorship –once Byukur was condemned for his crimes of course. It was an unavoidable consequence of the first two candidates having refused the post; neither he nor the heroine who had saved his regiment had wanted to inherit the cutthroat arena of Fay politics.

Daviev did not know if he should be happy or frightened. Seen from a good eye, the Fay 20th wouldn't be refused reinforcements and military supplies like the last times and he had lost a psychopath bitch from his command list. On the other hand, the 2nd Company was going to be tough to handle with Ilvyna's departure. And he really pitied the Fay nobles; they clearly had no idea what sort of nuclear ammunition was going to fall upon their heads.

"Calling him 'mighty' is a bit of exaggeration I think." Chuckles all around him were confirmation enough the non-esteemed Exalted Overlord piteous appearance rejoiced many in the crowd.

Daviev nodded and turned back his attention on the ex-Governor who had managed to crawl his way to a seat in the centre of the hall where he seated himself alone and unsupported. To give honour where no honour was due, the Exalted Overlord was going to be judged first. If the big slug was worried about the outcome of the trial, nothing on his figure, his behaviour and the grease in his belly suggested it. The double-puffed cheeks were elongated in an impressing spectacle of pure arrogance, and the eyes were shining with malevolence, preparing no doubt the executions of those who had dared overthrowing him.

"Governor Boris Byukur." Thundered the voice of the Arbitrator-Judge. "You have been accused of High Incompetence, failure to uphold the law of the God-Emperor, conspiracy and murder of Adeptus Mechanicus personnel, conspiracy to murder Ecclesiarchy personnel, subverting the Church of His Holy Majesty to your own desires, gross mismanagement, perjury in presence of a Mechanicus representative, treason..."

The voice of justice continued like this during several minutes. Not being an Arbitrator, a lawyer or a specialist of the Lex Imperialis, the Commanding officer of the Fay 20th of the Guard had no idea what sort of punishments awaited the crime perpetrators but it didn't look good for the Byukur dynasty. Oh, well. The eldest son had already been killed by the orks and the cadet had perished during the coup. Over a dozen cousins had been killed by the Mechanicus Explorator teams when they learned what had happened aboard the starships and on the ground but there were two other sons, three daughters and over a hundred relatives alive to continue the name...or share the terrible punishment the Governor crimes deserved.

"Wow. I had no idea it was possible to commit so many crimes." Murmured Taylor 'Weaver' Hebert to Larkine's right.

The young woman was now wearing a modified gray-black Guard uniform which had been in the last hours been specifically modified for her by the Mechanicus. No power armour - the generosity of the Tech-Priests did not go that far - but she had been given full sets of armour similar to the protections she wore upon arrival hybridised with a sort of light carapace. It was the five shining medals she had been awarded hours before that were attracting the attention however. The medals and her new epaulets of Major to be precise, there were few men and even less women who got directly promoted from outsider to an important officer rank.

"...and scamming of ammunition destined to Imperial Guard regiments. How do you plead?"

The question was not a triviality: should 'guilty' come out of the large and greasy mouth, there would be no trial and Boris Byukur would have an eternity of torment to look for. 'Not guilty' was going to give the overweight grox a few hours of reprieve...not that it would do any good in the end.

"Not guilty, Judge." Sniffed the Exalted Overlord in a high-pitched voice. "These accusations are lies and heresy! Where are the traitors who dare accuse me? Where are they?"

Hundreds of red robes carrying the familiar white and black skull of the cogboys rose from their seats. Usually their metal faces and mechadendrites didn't show any expression but the circumstances weren't normal. Byukur proxies had killed many Tech-Priests in their purges born from baseless paranoia, and now the survivors supported by the Explorators wanted blood. According to the rumours, the sycophants of a certain deceased Admiral had been spaced out of the warships head first and without a voidsuit. It was no great secret they would sell their mechanical souls in a heartbeat if they were given the chance to do the same thing to Byukur.

Clicking and trembling, five cargo-hauler servitors came from the alleys, carrying over a hundred piles of data-slates, digi-scrolls and other data repositories varying from the centuries-old parchment to the modern crystal data cells.

"A particularly overwhelming amount of evidence has been gathered, I see."

Arbitrators were the justice professionals of the Imperium and were not showing often their emotions. Today nevertheless a hint of amusement could be guessed in Judge Otto's remarks.

"I want my lawyers!" Barked the disgraced Governor. At last the potbellied noble understood the peril he was finding himself in. Glances were thrown everywhere as if the mere mention of the law predators was enough to teleport them to the rescue. But the seats next to the ex-Governor stayed desperately empty.

"Your lawyers have been given the date and the place of your trial, Boris Buykur." Was the icy reply. "It is not the fault of this court they failed to present themselves."

Indeed it wasn't. And no one had even had to do place a word here or a suggestion there. When it came to light Buykur purges and general odious behaviour were going to cost him his title and his head, those could distance themselves had done so with impressive speed. Larkine had not thought about the lawyers. But when it came down to it, the men practising one of the most detested professions of the Imperium were not going to rush to his defence. Not when it had the high probability of putting them on the new Governor's black list.

"Accusation, you can proceed."

Magos Explorator Desmerius Lankovar and Prefectus Tertius Don Ald left their comfortable throne-seats. The dozens of accused waiting on the seats behind Byukur all shivered to various degrees. Both were foreign parties on Fay – one was from Stygies VIII and the other from the Sector Capital of Nyx –but the last days had been largely sufficient to form an opinion on them. Knowing you had the Administratum or the Mechanicus after your skin was bad. Having both organisations wanting you dead was kind of counter-indicated if you wanted to live a long and prosperous life.

And Lankovar was after their skins. In fifteen minutes, the representative of the Mechanicus revealed in great detail how Boris Byukur had conspired with his entire House to divert billions of Throne Gelts, assassinate cogboys right and left, shirk on his military duties and generally utterly fail his duty to the God-Emperor. The evidence given was the equivalent of a continent-sized library and was summed-up in the record time of one hour and fifty standard minutes. The former Exalted Governor, deprived of his justice protectors, stammered incoherently during this rising list of accusations and his counter-arguments could have been comical if so many men and women hadn't died for this fat-greasy thing.

Don Ald, Prefectus Tertius and emissary of the Prefectus Primus on Nyx, took longer but he had thousands of infractions, crimes and regulation breaks to report. The Administratum was also more prone on using human sources and partial witnesses: fifty or sixty servants and minor bureaucrats were brought before the Judge to testify and tell how nasty their former Master had been. For all the Colonel could see, every man and woman spoke of their own will. No coercion had been necessary to turn them against Boris Buykur.

It took three hours for the list of accusations to be completed. Each embezzlement, manipulation, conspiracy and murder was fascinating in a macabre way. Byukur had created a small empire of crime and felony and he had not limited himself to the system he governed. Several nobles of Wuhan, Petersburg, Omsk and Harbin had helped him. The investigators of the Arbites were going to track them mercilessly; it could be seen in the Judge's very eyes. The efforts of millions of hours of tax evasions, murders and unbridled arrogance were coming to an end.

During this extraordinary accumulation of unlawful behaviour, the ex-Governor had stayed mumbling and crying on his own. Sometimes he shouted diverse accusations to someone in the audience. In a few occasions he tried to counter the accusations raining on him, only to be firmly rebutted as new proofs and evidence scrolls were presented.

And then finally it was over. The Arbitrator-Judge banged his desk with his gavel.

"Boris Byukur, this court declares you guilty of 78 631 chiefs of accusations."

The Exalted Governor moaned in despair, attracting looks of disgusts from the Arbitrators and the rest of the justice representatives.

"You are attainted of all your titles, positions, lands, planets and material possessions. Everything you held in the name of His Holy Majesty is thereby confiscated and will be distributed to loyal servants of the Imperium. As for your punishment..."

"You can't kill me! I am a Governor!"

"You were a Governor." The sinister rectification silenced the fallen noble. "Before me I only see a traitor to the Imperium."

A twitch animated the lips of the Judge. No one in the transformed Ball Room was stupid enough to think it was a pleasant smile.

"But you are correct. The magnitude of your crimes is such that your final fate is indentured servitor serfdom in the service of the Adeptus Mechanicus for the next five thousand three hundred and thirty-five years."

This time there was no moan; Boris Byukur was staying with his mouth wide open like the idiot he was. More than a witness laughed and under the red robes Daviev felt confident the cogboys were recording every moment of this humiliation.

"Each convicted member of your House will join you to serve this sentence...once they've paid for their own crimes."

Two Enforcers walked at a slow and intimidating pace and seized the soon-to-be servitor by the arms. Byukur, terrified by the fate he had been rightly condemned for, tried to escape their grasp with uncoordinated kicks.

Given that the Governor had likely not practised a serious physical activity, it was doomed to fail and the only thing he managed was to anger the enforcers. A servo-skull planed over the short-lived melee to show the images of the Overlord's fall and thus was well-placed to see the first enforcer strike Boris Byukur in the rear. The power of the shock baton could not be very high, but for the greasy idiot it was like an artillery shell had blasted him. The second shock baton was more than sufficient to send him to the lands of dreams. Unconscious, the ex-Fay Governor was dragged away, his long robe comically loosening and falling behind every meter. By the time the doors were reached, the destitute noble was half-naked, a repulsing spectacle if there ever was one.

"Take him away to his punishment. Enforcers, bring the next accused."

For an instant, the commanding officer of the Fay 20th felt the urge to stay and see how many years the depraved Pontifex Mundi was going to receive. But there was a lot of paperwork waiting at their temporary headquarters, a regiment to rebuild and hours of training to do.

"Go back to your duties." He ordered to his officers and his new Major. "We have a lot of work before we can be considered combat ready and excuses are unlikely to be accepted after this."

Major Taylor Hebert

The night had long fallen on Fay III and the temperatures were becoming rather fresh. Despite the harvest season having begun, it was not the kind of summer she had been used at Brockton Bay, more like early spring. On top of the tall building serving as the Fay 20th current headquarters, Taylor observed the lights of the capital shining in the obscurity.

Before the Battle against Behemoth at New Delhi, she would have been back inside the barracks. Even with glasses, her ability to see in the night had been awfully limited and the insects she controlled were not known for their enhanced vision. It was before she was the recipient of a standard eye operation done by the Guard medical personnel. From this point –five days ago – she didn't need glasses anymore.

Seeing perfectly was a boon she had never imagined before coming here; after her super-villain past, the PRT and whatever Tinker specialised in optical prosthesis were certainly not going to waste their money when old-fashioned glasses or lenses were available. On the other hand, it left her able to see the grotesque constructions the Imperium of Man decided was 'art'.

Take the 'Exalted Cathedral of the Martyrs' for example. While the hour was late, the gargantuan construction was still fully illuminated and acted like a beacon five kilometres away. Three hundred and fifty metres high, close to a kilometre long, this place of worship was a synthesis of the worst aspects of the gothic and baroque styles. The angel statues sculpted in marble or whatever equivalent stone existed on Fay III weren't so bad. The gargoyles, the gold, the precious stones, the arcades, the colours and all the other elements however were too charged and too ostentatious. It was like the architects had tried to put the maximum of decorations in a minimum of space...force was to admit they had succeeded. The result was an architectural abomination which was shining before and after the sunset.

It wasn't the only thing wrong with the city of Great Landing. After seeing a cathedral of such opulence, one would almost expect the rest of the inhabitants to live in comfortable conditions. This wasn't the case. The middle-classes had living quarters that wouldn't have been out of place in New York or Boston, but the areas where the poorest inhabitants were concentrated were worse than Brockton Bay post-Leviathan. Thousands of years in the future, mankind had not solved the wealth inequalities. If anything, they had worsened. The nobles and the aristocracy of the Imperium lived in opulent and extravagant palaces which were so decorated the result was giving her the urge to vomit. At the same time, they were thousands of beggars pleading for scraps of food a city block away. Luxurious air-cars - so splendid the car enthusiasts of 2011 would sell their two arms to own them - were flying over a crowd living in slums conditions.

But the worst part was the looks she and the rest of the regiment had gotten at their arrival in the city after the battle against the orks. Nearly all the men and women had prostrated themselves and regarded the winners as something close to God. In their eyes there had been fear and adoration in equal measure.

What had humanity become in thirty-two thousand years? When had they abandoned their ideals? The future among the stars was supposed to be a version of this Aleph-movie named Star Trek, not something which made the Empire of Star Wars kind and funny! When had the future turned so wrong?

Weaver did not know the answer. Hell, no one knew the answer. In the days since she had arrived, the former super-villain had searched information on the past millennia. In this like in many other things, it was the Mechanicus which had been the most useful. These strange man-cyborgs compulsively recorded every data of importance and a lot of things that weren't critical too – though why they were so fascinated with monkeys was beyond her.

Their abridged version of events unfortunately didn't go past the Age of Strife, a terrible period where apparently humanity had lost most of its knowledge, technology and population when the Skynet-type AIs went mad and the robots launched their revolt against their creators. These five millenary of darkness were given the name of Old Night. Between the twenty-fifth and the thirtieth millennium, uncountable billions died and Earth itself was ravaged by apocalyptic catastrophes born from thermonuclear radiation and biological weapons.

Names had survived the eons. Merica, Jermany, Franc, Hy Brasil, the Antarctic Kingdoms. With a sort of futurist implant, she had in a matter of minutes been granted the ability to decipher the variants of this 'Low Gothic' language. Put it simply it was a base of English with many derivatives and expressions borrowed from Spanish, Chinese, German, French and some dialects which had probably not existed in 2011.

The country names had survived, the oceans of Earth had not. Terra –since it was the name everyone used in the thirty-fifth millennium – was a barren planet requiring tens of thousands ships daily to survive. It was a gigantic urban centre where hundreds of billions lived and died under the polluted skies. It was a planet-straddling temple built to venerate the God-Emperor. At least Mars was still red; granted the red they had showed her was certainly a sign of rust given all the industry they had packed everywhere. But Earth...the Earth she had lived on was no more. Fay III had more in common with 2011-Earth than the current homeworld of humanity.

My world is gone.

As much as she had hated the abandonment of Brockton Bay after the Endbringer attack...the United States had still been a democracy and relatively tolerant; it was not the fault of the government massive city-killers monsters attacked every six months. The President wasn't responsible for the explosive rise of the parahumans, as far as she had been able to ascertain he was not a member of Cauldron. The Imperium of Man wasn't a democracy, it was an absolute dictatorship. The justice trials were incredibly ruthless and brutal, no matter their efficiency. Humanitarian concerns and prisoner of laws conventions were reduced to the strict minimum. Governors and high-ranking soldiers were warlords ruling the stars under a steel fist.

All in service of a being who had tried to conquer the Galaxy only to be betrayed and crippled by his favoured son at the moment of triumph. A being who appeared to protect and guide humanity to the very stars despite being forced into complete immobility and in a decrepit state to boot.

The inhabitants of Fay called him the God-Emperor, the Master of Mankind and the Unifier. The Mechanicus called him the Omnissiah. Idly, the heroine of Earth Beta wondered if such a powerful being could vanquish an Endbringer. The thought was banished as soon as it appeared. Silent and powerful, the Emperor was supposed to stay on the 'Golden Throne' powering an incredible device known as the 'Astronomican'. Nevertheless it was an interesting question who exactly had helped her against the darkness because they couldn't be a lot of great golden figures between the dimensions...

The noise of someone climbing the last metal stairs disrupted these last musings. If she had chosen this place for a break, it was because it was more or less deserted once the sun set over the horizon. That she had also only to activate her dorsal reactors for thirty seconds while the rest of the regiment needed several minutes of efforts was also a factor.

Momentarily Weaver had the envy to play a joke and return to the ground, leaving the newcomer alone and whatever message he or she carried with him not received. But as a familiar hat revealed itself from the shadows, this joke alas was erased from the options.

"Major."

"Commissar."

To be honest, Taylor felt really conflicted about the man who wore the black uniform the SS officers of Nazi Germany wouldn't have denied as their own. His primary job was to kill every soldier who failed in his duties, oversee the morale of the regiment and inspire the men and the women to fight as best as they could – by shooting them if he believed it was necessary.

But Zuhev had also led the charge against the small parties of orks reaching the trenches. He had contributed to save plenty of lives and lost an arm in the process – Tech-Priest Morkys had really dragged his mechanical parts to find him a replacement. This was not the behaviour of the average Earth Beta villain: neither Kaiser nor Lung would have risked their lives for the average gang member. The Commissar had done it. The rumours the veterans told the new recruits Zuhev had beaten down the ork responsible for his mutilation with his own arm...but it was likely an exaggeration.

Turning her head, the former super-villain known as Skitter noticed the Commissar had already discarded his military medals. Strange. No matter the rank, every Guardsman who had participated in what the Fay administration already called the 'Triumph of Ramev's Pass' had one or two.

Taylor herself had received five. The Order of Fay First Class and the Wings of Fay for her kills directly or indirectly of the ork leaders. The Iron Skull because she had killed over a hundred orks by herself. The Silver Skull for a thousand green aliens' deaths. And the Shield of Iron for helping the Mechanicus and the Administratum reclaim thousands of tons of steel alloys and war materials after the battle.

I suppose I will have to put them in a box too next morning too. They are too shiny and attract too much attention.

Added to these decorations were also a large parcel of virgin land and a quarter million of Throne Gelts. What she was going to do with those, she had no idea.

And money will not bring me back to Earth Beta anyway.

"I suppose you haven't climbed all these stairs to watch the stars with me, Commissar."

She wasn't really taking any risks there: the morale-enforcer of the regiment wasn't a man who looked like an admirer of beauty in all its forms.

"I am afraid star-gazing has never been a hobby of mine." Conceded the political officer before rapidly turning to the professional business without delay. "The 20th has received new orders. We must redeploy to the Wuhan System immediately."

"So soon?" She tried her best to hide her stupefaction but it was not easy. "We are still recovering..."

A single twitch of the Commissar's bionic eye made sure she didn't finish the sentence.

"Fine." The newly promoted Major huffed. "I will go warn the Colonel all our new recruits and machines are going to fight their first battle."

It could have been worse: with the latest batch of volunteers they had received this morning, the regiment's manpower had passed over the respectable number of five thousand and three hundred women and men. Plus they had forty Chimeras and two hundred Tauros, not real tanks for the Imperium but formidable all the same.

"I didn't know the orks were attacking the defences of this Hive World, though."

"The astropath message we received didn't mention any orks." If it was possible, Zuhev was harbouring an expression far sinister than the one he had expressed when he commanded the firing squads to kill several PDF deserters. "It was bearing the seal of the Inquisition."

The menace contained in this single word dissuaded Weaver to make the appropriate joke of 'No one expects...' with humorists in red robes. For one she didn't think the Commissar would like the joke Uber and Leet had spread thorough Brockton Bay with their private channel. Secondly she had the feeling that in a galaxy where religious fanatics could dictate Imperial politics, any group calling itself by that name was not exactly going to tolerate the mockery.

"To the stars, then." Said the parahuman as she jumped over the balustrade and activated the equipment built by Dragon several millennia ago.

After all, no one had said being a hero was without its dangers, no?

"To the stars in the God-Emperor's name."

Ultima Segmentum

Nyx Sector

Atlas Graveyard Sub-Sector

Calypso System

Frigate Fearless of Nihilas

7.207.289M35

Codicier Librarian Bayar Rysan

The Astartes Librarian pushed a runic command on the wall and the splendid view of the Calypso System disappeared, replaced by the grey and boring plasteel of an Imperium warship hull.

As pleasant as the view was - the Calypso System had three Civilised Worlds and all of them had their own beauty – it would be only a distraction for his own activities.

The battle on this world had been won with ease; the orks had been defeated in less than five days and their warboss slain in duel by Captain Mur Arquenis, no battle-brother had been lost and only two had received light injuries that would be healed far faster than the time it would take for the Gladius-class Frigate to reach their next destination. Truly this battle would be a new mark of honour for the 5th Company of the Death Strike Chapter. One more year of his Company cutting the greenskins heads, and the Space Marine had little doubt the Nyx Sector would be free of ork taint.

Unfortunately, this wasn't going to happen. Orders had come from Nihilas and the Chapter Master himself to redeploy one Warp-year away on the outskirts of the Eastern Fringe. A new xenos race had started to attack several isolated outposts and merchant starships in their infinite arrogance, proving once more time a good xenos was a dead xenos. In accord with the Imperial authorities of the Sector, their Company was going to find the xenos homeworld and deliver the Emperor's wrath on them. It was better to reduce them to mere atoms while they were still a small threat than to give them the time and the resources they needed to become a troublesome nuisance.

The Nyx Sector was truly not a priority anymore: in the last weeks the astropaths bound by His Light had delivered close to a dozen victory transmissions. Petersburg, Fay, Omsk, Txacopec, Matapan...as many worlds where the ork tide had been completely stopped, though garrison duties and cleaning work were going to take decades and require hundreds of thousands Guardsmen lives.

Yet he was troubled. Perhaps it was the haphazard images which had appeared during his mediations. Or it might be the seven campaigns he had fought against the orks and the experience he had gained on this barbaric race while fighting them. Maybe after years of fighting the greenskins, he was simply too eager to crush their skulls and plant them at the top of the fortresses gates his brothers and himself had saved. Or the source of his anxiety came from the issue they hadn't found the ork commanding the Waagh among the collection of warbosses who had invaded the Sector.

This was too important to leave it in the balance. A complete strategic situation would not reach them in time, thus Codicier Bayar Rysan was going to make a reading of the Tarot. Of course it was unlikely he was going to have a clear answer, but something to interpret was always welcome. Placing the seventy-eight psychoactive liquid-crystal wafers linked to the Emperor's Will on the short desk he kept in his quarters, the psychic Astartes concentrated for several minutes.

Not a sound could be heard save the slight vibration indicating the room was on a starship accelerating progressively towards the outer reaches of the stellar system. Minutes after minutes, the concentration he imposed on his mind went stronger and the tiny spark of power he drew from the Immaterium flew easily into the cards. The aetheric protections of the Tarot cards shone in a blue light.

Satisfied nothing heretical or anything like event of explosive nature had happened, the Death Strike Librarian formulated the question at the heart of his shielded mind.

What is the future of the Nyx Sector?

Posing his non-armoured hand on top of the deck, Bayar Rysan drew the first card.

"The Crusader."

An old image of the Primarch Dorn was represented, and the Librarian felt instantly reassured. This was a very good omen, announcing conviction, command and bravery. In the background, men and women of the Imperium stood triumphant. Years passed and heroes died, but new ones always rose to defend humanity.

The second card was drawn.

"The Captain."

The fifth card of Excuteria and another good omen, though it was curious to see it in second place. The mastery over a limited area and a means to an end. A leader of men bravely commanding his troops and showing them the way to defeat the enemy. Strangely, the soldier was wearing an old uniform of the Great Crusade-era. It was definitely unanticipated but the Codicier reminded himself that with all the Tarot combination possible and the Will of the Golden Throne, mysteries could and would happen.

It was time to draw the third card.

"The Arch-Magos."

Another good drawing, it appeared. The tenth card of the Excuteria set was representing the mastery of craft, the machines and the old ways. The impression he was getting from the card was more influencing the latter two than the former, but there were nuances which might have escaped him. What it meant for the Nyx Sector was harder to interpret. The arrival of a Forge-World envoy, the discovery of a lost STC, new Tech-Priests to reinforce those already in charge of the Imperial technology or another scenario he hadn't envisaged?

Still, three good cards out of the seven he was going to draw. Hopefully the good fortune was going to continue.

The fourth card was drawn...and Bayar Rysan whistled between his teeth.

"The Angel of Death."

This time the feeling of duty and hero of old imposed itself. The Space Marine represented on the card was in a Great Crusade-armour and leading thousands of men in a charge. An Angel of Death, cast in the flames of war and defending the Master of Mankind's realm. It raised troubling questions of course. Rysan and the half-company guarding the Fearless of Nihilas were the only Space Marines in the Sector. And they were leaving.

In the end, the Librarian shrugged. Astartes deployments and real-time locations were in general outdated at the best of times and changed on very short notice. He would still ask the Captain but there was little chance the name of their Astartes cousins on their way was known.

The fifth card arrived...and the time of good omens was past.

"The Xeno."

A hideous Ork covered the better part of the card. The danger from without, the very enemy Astartes had been engineered and trained to fight. Given the state of the Nyx Sector at the moment, this fifth card was anything but a surprise. But it was concerning. The card wouldn't have shown if the Orks were completely routed. Unless Nyx would have soon another xenos species to deal with?

There were too many predictions...perhaps the sixth?

"The Soulless."

This one...this wasn't good at all. The first interpretation was a deep warning that machine intelligences were never human and were denied true sentience. Frightening, very frightening as there had been no indication of Abominable Intelligences or disastrous Mechanicus experiments so close to Nihilas. The second interpretation was instability, faithlessness and the revelation of very bad things to come.

"The Astronomican." A bright ray of powerful light was the image shown. A card he had never had the privilege to draw before today in the last place of a Tarot prediction. "Hope."