Chapter 9 - Unwelcome Surprises
Kade gritted his teeth as the city's surgeon forcibly stretched out his injured ankle. After a few crunches and pops, there was an enormous pressure relief causing Kade to release the breath he was holding. At that, the surgeon dropped Kade's ankle, handed him a dose of painkillers, and moved on to the next patient. Without a second thought, Kade popped the pills into his mouth and prepared to leave the medical area.
As he turned towards the exit, he almost collided with Uriel who had evidently been rushing towards Kade. Kade waited patiently for Uriel to catch his breath; his friend seemed extremely distraught.
"C-Crazy... wh-whores… fuck-fucking up ….wholecity" Uriel panted, face pale and eyes sunken from worried exhaustion.
Kade stared at his friend, uncertain if this was some sort of proclamation of Uriel's wantonness or something actually worth inquiring about.
"Didn't you … hear me?" Uriel wheezed, panic-stricken, "daemon bitches are back! ...Limanowitz needs us!"
"What the hell?! Let's go!" Kade exclaimed, grabbing his friend and sprinting to meet up with his platoon.
In their haste to form up, the guardsmen almost didn't notice the heated argument going on amongst the officers in front of them. Kade was shocked at the appearance of the Inquisitor; the man's ornate armor brought visions of the Golden Throne to mind, but the Inquisitor's face was twisted with the rage of a Chaos lord.
"To hell with this planet! Unknown warp energies, inexplicable daemon invasion, and Eldar appearances to boot? The miniscule leads we have on Opuntia mentis are hardly enough to justify extending this investigation any further. The Imperium would be better off performing exterminatus on this shithole!" The Inquisitor was fuming at an elderly captain that Kade recognized as Dragos McThraby.
"Inquisitor, you don't have the ties to this planet that I do," Captain McThraby replied calmly, ignoring the spittle that had landed on his jacket from the Inquisitor's ravings. "But you must remember, an unusually high number of powerful psykers in the Imperium arise from Achilles VII. Related to Opuntia or not, this phenomena cannot simply be ignored. More important than psykers, there are countless families here who would gladly give everything they have to serve the Emperor. Must you take their homes, lives, and histories from them just out of frustration? Why can't you have faith in the ability of my soldiers to stem this invasion?"
Somehow, Inquisitor MacVicar's face darkened even more, "You're questioning my faith? How can you possibly have any idea of what these daemon's are capable of? You are just an old planet-bound man who -" the Inquisitor was cut short by an intentional cough behind him. Completely changing tones, he addressed the source of the interruption, "Garth! My dearest and most devoted comrade in battle! What say you to this ruckus?"
As the room awaited Commissar Bellaire's response, Kade glanced around trying to read everyone's reaction to the Inquisitor's unchecked impertinence towards dear Captain McThraby. The beloved old man had faithfully served his entire life in service of the Planetary Defense Force and took great care to ensure his soldiers had the best supplies the planet could offer. Of course, these weren't always exemplary supplies as the Departmento Munitorum often deemed it unnecessary to upkeep such sparsely populated worlds' garrisons, but the servants of Achilles VII knew the Captain did the best he could. The wizened man had even been able to wrangle up several Imperial vehicles for the city's use. Timeworn as they were, these transports were still the pride of the Achilles VII defense force considering most planets with comparable populations merely had an occasional chimera for use by only the highest-ranking officials.
Kade himself was disturbed by how quickly the Inquisitor switched from enraged at McThraby to pleasantly engaged with Bellaire. Many of his peers seemed to share this emotion while countless others appeared agitated at Macvicar's blatant disrespect of their home and Captain. Some even appeared resolute, as if determined to get a chance to prove their value to the angry Inquisitor.
Somehow, Kade felt that the Commissar read these same emotions from the men; did those taciturn eyes of his miss anything? As the brooding man stood rigidly before the growing crowd, he addressed his leader, "Inquisitor Valoris, the men I saw in battle out in the badlands fought as well as any Guardsman I've seen. Before we condemn this planet to exterminatus, perhaps there would be no harm in letting them try to defend their home. A successful defense may even prove these men worthy to join the ranks of the Astra Militarum. There is some additional information I'd like to retrieve, but my recommendation would be to withhold judgement of exterminatus until tomorrow evening after seeing how the defenses hold. By your leave."
The Inquisitor waved the Commissar away and paced the floor as he considered the suggestion. Kade was honored by Bellaire's description of his platoon, especially since Bellaire was respected enough to be on first name terms with an Inquisitor. An Inquisitor! What had Bellaire been through such that MacVicar was willing to contest the Commissar's opinions with his own? Nonetheless, Kade was still grateful for the Commissar's suggestion as it at least delayed MacVicar's decision to call for exterminatus.