Today, three days after our arrival on Janus, I left Lady Cassia in the care of Mistress Heydari — they were working at uncovering palace intrigues, which smelled worse with every titbit they learned — stories of strange promotions, of disappearing servants, of memory loss and lascivious dreams — and travelled back to the Emperor's Mercy. The lord-captain was putting together an expedition to the southern hemisphere jungles where the rebel headquarters had been located, thanks to the rebel's vox box. Despite Magos Pasqal's ministrations as well as Vox Master Vigdis's efforts, though, the damn thing must have been broken, because we couldn't manage to patch a call to them — unless there was what the Magos called 'a discrepancy in the catechisms of communication' that the rebel in the brig wasn't savvy enough to walk us through. In any case, we had no way to warn the rebels of our intentions to muster a parley and so Her Ladyship was quite right in getting prepared for war. The eldar — Yrliet Lanaevyss — contrived some intelligence as to what could be expected on the ground: thick jungle, few paths rapidly overgrown, and the odd bloodthirsty beast. As far as our auspex can see, her accounts are truthful, and I feel a bit easier about her presence. With his usual tact, Danrok had found her quarters far enough from the crew's to limit contact as much as possible, and the eldar appears satisfied to be kept away from us mon-keighs.

Our major problem would be that, because of unbroken tree cover and difficult terrain, we shall be unable to land near the rebels' HQ. We have a two-day long trek (at least) to look forward to, in the kind of humidity and heat that I am sure will make me regret wearing my usual breastplate. Sister Argenta's power armour, at least, is ventilated.

It was lovely having dinner on the Emperor's Mercy again tonight. The fare has little to envy to that in the palace dirtside, and although Lady Cassia and Mistress Heydari are excellent company I did miss the frank camaraderie of the officers' mess. Her Ladyship, as is her new habit, presided over the high table — arriving last, as is her privilege, greeting and chatting with a selection of officers along the way to her seat, careful to rotate who got the favour of a word. There is something in seeing an officer's face light up at the recognition of their face, name and duties, by the lord-captain! She does foster a sense of belonging in the crew, the like of which I haven't seen I think since Admiral Mercier's tenure on the Spirit of Vengeance, and, in that regard, her simple uniform does wonders. I guess the contrast, once again, with the late Lady Theodora's style, was what prevented me from liking her style at first, but I am definitely warming up to it. Her tall and fit dark silhouette as she walks among the crew is unmistakable.

The only surprise I found tonight was in Master van Calox claiming the left-hand seat by the lord-captain. I, myself, sit at her right, but her left is usually reserved to the second highest-ranking officer present, which tonight would have been Commander Fadell. Master van Calox, being a civilian, should have sat at least a spot further — his belonging to Her Ladyship's retinue being the only thing allowing him a place at that table in the first place. I suppose Commander Fadell didn't want to argue with one who waves around his rosette as if the Inquisition wasn't supposed to behave in a inconspicuous manner in the first place. I know Her Ladyship and van Calox play regicide together — although the appeal of that game I never got — but, from both their past demeanour, I would have thought friendship unconceivable. Yet, while they didn't talk much, there was a sort of watchful care in van Calox's attitude — not that she appeared to notice, or at least pretended not to, because I felt some embarrassment on her part. He was very much aware, I felt, of Her Ladyship's presence: a silly thing to say, because of course one notices one's dinner companions. Perhaps she has managed to knock some respect for hierarchy into this handsome head of his after his — our — outburst with the eldar the other day? But I pray to the Emperor that I never looked that way at any of my commanding officers. I shall have to keep an eye on the lad.

Six of us have travelled down to the jungles of Janus, and have been paired so that each veteran supports a greener warrior: the lord-captain with Master van Calox, Sister Argenta with Magos Pascal, and myself with the eldar. The climate is as bad as I expected, the air thick with some warm mist that prevents perspiration from evaporating so that after less than an hour we were all sweating like grox (except for the Magos, of course, being more metal than flesh). Animal tracks ran through the forest, but sometimes hit dead ends of impenetrable thickets and overgrown ferns, curly things that were taller than a man. Whichever team took point had the hard duty to widen us a way through by help of a machete — tiring work — while the other member of the pair was on the look out for enemies. Those in the rear, well, covered our rear and the middle team enjoyed, if not a break, at least just walking along. Magos Pascal was our only guide, though, by virtue of his having integrated the coordinates of our destination as well as a rough map of the area. Every now and then, he would correct our course and, if not for him, our hike would have been much longer.

After a few hours, we found ourselves in rockier terrain — easier to navigate, despite the chaos of boulders split in narrow chasms by eons of tropical rains — and we stopped for a rest before getting started on the ascension of a few small hills. Magos Pasqal aimed to steer us to a low pass where, hopefully, we could seek shelter before the night, that comes swiftly in these latitudes. The water in my canteen was warm and tasteless, and I dared not drink too much of it. By the time we reached the pass, I was glad for this precaution as streams were rare. The eldar and I had taken the point and I shall admit I was breathing like forge bellows when she held up her fist and signalled for us to stop. Kneeling, she stuck to the rock face and, shouldering her sniper rifle, looked through the sight. With her tall ponytail, her slender limbs and her slightly out of proportions body, she could have been one of those ancient statues strangely preserved from the injuries of time one comes across of once in a while.

'Enemies below,' she said. I could neither hear nor see a thing and grumbled so, although I stopped in my tracks. She didn't even look at me before replying, full of disdain: 'It is not my fault that you mon-keighs are born blind and deaf.'

Once the others had joined us, the lord-captain fished a portable auspex from her kit. Its value, in a jungle teeming with life, is very limited, but it confirmed the eldar's warning by signalling a small encampment hidden somewhere below the tree line: a few metal structures, and a dozen life signs big enough to be human. There was no way around them, as the valley was quite narrow — almost a gully, in truth.

'Pasqal,' she asked, 'could we be already there?'

'Negative. The vox signal points to the north, down the valley and to the coast. This encampment is located east. I estimate the remaining distance to destination at thirty-four point eight kilometres.'

'Yrliet, do you confirm there are no loyalist settlements in the region?'

'Yes, elantach.'

Eyes lost in thought, Her Ladyship bit her nail. A few stray hair clung to her brow below her helmet rim, and she had rolled up her sleeves — both camo combat fatigues and bodyglove armour. This was no pleasure trip; red gashes, where ferns had cut, marked her forearms. She undid her canteen from her waist and took a sip of water, running it around her mouth before swallowing.

'I want to give them a chance,' she said afterwards. 'I'd rather avoid beginning peace talks by oh, sorry, but we took out a few of yours on the way here. Let's fan out. Yrliet, Argenta, find positions on either sides of the ridge below — you'll probably get a good enough view to cover me on the way in. If you don't, vox when you have found a better spot. I won't move until then.'

Clearing my throat (I should get rid of that tic), I reminded the lord-captain that, in a civil war, she was under no obligation to put herself at risk when we could mount an assault with the advantage of surprise. Something twitched in her eye — a repressed smile — and she said that she didn't intend to give that up. Well, as a Navy man, ground military tactics elude me, and as a seneschal I am sworn to follow, so follow I did.

Bold as brass, Her Ladyship walked into the encampment, escorted only by a Magos Pascal very demure in his red robes, mechadendrites tucked away and hands joined in the sign of the Cog. She didn't look in my direction when she passed my hiding place; a bit further on, I thought I caught a glimpse of Master van Calox's back, unless it was a figment of my imagination. Getting to where we were without being spotted had required a little diversion, that the Magos had been gracious enough to provide: with the help of the Omnissiah, he had overloaded, from a distance, some thing or other and a screaming cogitator had attracted enough attention that we could slip by unnoticed.

The lowering sun brought out jungle noises: insects, going wild with anticipation, and birds gurgling strange songs. Its light grazed at treetops, ready to fall beneath the horizon, when the lord-captain stopped on the path that lead to the heart of the small settlement and shouted: 'In the name of House von Valancius, I beseech you! I come in peace; let me and my comrades through and no harm will come to you, or your kin! The traitorous governor has…' But her sentence was cut short by the crack of discharging weapons — sentinels remembering their duty — and she and the Magos ran for the protection of a nearby shack as Sister Argenta and the xenos provided cover fire that sent our foes scurrying.

Wary as I may have been about Her Ladyship taking the role of bait, she did draw them to that bottleneck where we had them surrounded. Those that escaped our sharpshooters we took out in close combat, and the precious first few minutes that can make or break an assault were in our favour. Four lay dead at our feet. Then came the waiting — but the surviving defenders were in no rush to abandon their position. Servants of the Ruinous Powers, of course, wouldn't have shown such acumen, but those insurgents were trained and rational: if we wanted them, we would have to go get them. So we did! Under the cover of lengthening shadows, the xenos climbed atop the closest shack, disappearing against poorly fitted layers of corrugated iron. Sister Argenta switched her long-range rifle for her usual bolter and joined our little circle of assailants before the Magos blessed our weapons once again, so that nothing went awry with the small and angry machine spirits they housed.

We stormed the settlement in formation — well, began to, until a lasbolt, then two, hit Sister Argenta. First one didn't do much harm, but the next pierced her armour by her torso, and we fell back into hiding. Only a hellgun could have done such damage, although there had been something unusual about the sound of it. With Her Ladyship and the Magos keeping watch, and van Calox applying his hand on her forehead, murmuring prayers of healing that would dull the pain, I deftly undid the lock to the sister's front armour. She was even paler than usual, the day's grime clinging to a face lined with contained suffering, and she whispered through clenched teeth while I readied a medi-kit. 'I shall fill my soul with love for the God-Emperor. All doubts in my heart shall be hollow. Oh, Emperor, grace me strength that I may smite your ene… ah!' I had applied the kit against her wound: a small, round affair on her right flank that gave out dark pooling blood, and the kit filled it with counterseptic and anti-bleeding agents. I know first hand these things hurt all the way to Terra and back, and her fortitude in bearing it was admirable.

'Horus's guts,' Argenta spat, 'I shall strike down that heretic in the Emperor's name, and rejoice in it!'

'An admirable sentiment, sister,' I said, helping her fasten her armour back in place. 'Will you be all right?' And, just like that, she ran back into the fray without another care, barely limping. The lord-captain, in our comm-beads, advised us drily to be more careful about the two sharpshooters posted on the other side of what could have been called a plaza, in a place made of more durable materials. Had Mistress Tlass been with us, she would have made small work of them, unleashing the untamed violence of the Empyrean right where they stood — but unfortunately the lord-captain had decided against her presence, with a scathing line about not caring much to have what she called 'Warp accidents' in our backs. So it took longer, and by the time the hellguns went silent (thanks, in no small part, to the xenos, I have to say, who took them out with great acumen) our remaining foes had managed to get in position. Unfortunately for them, however, they tried flanking us — flanking me, of all people — and got a taste of my power hammer. Its molecular disruption field wreaked havoc on the chest wall of the first one to get into my range; these weapons might not be standard equipment, but by the Throne are they efficient! I felt, beneath the armour, sternum and ribs shatter into jelly and the woman collapsed immediately, her heart stopped in its rhythm. The next one had a hand gun, but he never managed to land more than a glancing shot before I broke his spine. And then, I saw it: a combat servitor, two meters high, heavy as a Marine, stripped of near all organic components save its nervous system — one arm an autocannon, the other a chainfist, its armour dark ceramite. Its forbidding shape hovered over me as a mountain in the purple twilight. The pale, violent colour of lasbolts reflected on its armour as it raised its fist towards me, and it would have crushed my head if not for van Calox racing towards it and hitting it on the knee, at full force, with his power sword, distracting it.

'Target the cable couplings at the back,' said the lord-captain in our comm-beads. 'Argenta, focus with me on the remaining humans.'

'I'd love to,' snarled van Calox, 'but I'd need to get round it first.'

Hovering between two quarries, the servitor hesitated for a split second — too short a time for us to do anything, but Magos Pascal's reflexes, sharper and quicker than anyone else's, caught him. He must have sent something through what they call, I believe, the noosphere, and an inhuman screech tore the air. Nails on a blackboard, a rusty panel scratching against steel, or the death throes of a tyranid… nothing can describe the teeth-shattering visceral horror of the sound made by machine rejecting flesh. The thing was lost, fighting against itself, and I swung my hammer against the knee van Calox had already damaged. The joint dislocated in a shower of sparks; the servitor fell on its broken leg. In a feat of athleticism, van Calox jumped over the downed servitor, swearing under his breath because of the harsh landing. I lost no time in swinging my hammer again, aiming for the elbow that held the autocannon, and cracking the casing as a result. Van Calox, meanwhile, raised his two-handed sword — the Aquila on the hilt shone golden — and plunged it in the assortment of circuitry that made the nape of the servitor's mechanical neck. A spurt of liquid gushed out, red as blood, but clearer and artificial: acrid-smelling ichor, tainted with whatever tech-priests bless for such uses. It took several more blows to ensure the servitor was truly out of order and wouldn't attempt to use its autocannon ever again. By then, Her Ladyship and the others had almost finished dealing with the rest of the rabble; van Calox and I lent them an enthusiastic hand, and at last calm reigned over the encampment.

Because of the late hour, we had no choice but to set up camp over the ruins of our victory. It did require dragging out the corpses — no one is comfortable eating beside a cadaver spilling out entrails, or with a half-blown head, even if the menu is just soylens viridians — and, while we were in the middle of that grisly work, Her Ladyship voxed me on a private channel, requiring my presence by the shack the rebel sharpshooters had nested upon. The xenos was already there, with her everlasting air of bored disdain. Grabbing the ladder, Her Ladyship ordered us to follow.

Up the shack, most of the camp would have been visible if not for the night. I saw the swinging light of hand luminators where van Calox and Sister Argenta finished setting up our stuff. Magos Pasqal, I supposed, was somewhere on the perimeter, putting his night vision to good use. A warmth still permeated the air — a green smell, light and fresh, rising from the jungle.

Meanwhile, Her Ladyship spoke, her silhouette a dark cut out against the deep blue sky. 'There was something wrong with the sound of those hellguns. Well, not wrong in itself, but — unusual, and it was a sound I've heard before. Took me long enough to connect the dots.'

Powering her own luminator — a crude, white, glare that did no favours to any of us — Her Ladyship picked up a rifle that lay at her feet and handed it to Yrliet. The weapon was too long, too thin to be a hellgun; the stock, in particular, extended too far. 'I have unloaded it,' she said. 'The mechanism isn't that different. Do you recognise it?'

The xenos's pale green eyes shone like a predator's against the dark forest backdrop, shone too high over us, for the eldar are tall, tall and impossibly thin, and with arms long enough to fit that stock. 'It is a weapon of my people, elantach, but I have never held this one before.'

'And those two, have you seen them before?'

Her Ladyship redirected the light to the dead sharpshooters. Eldar, the both of them. Their blood had congealed in sticky pools where the lord-captain's soles had imprinted. The xenos took a few steps and, kneeling between the two bodies, looked at their face without a word. Then her attention switched to their clothing; she rummaged under their tunics.

'Looking for these?' The lord-captain's tone was cold and guarded, and she held two necklaces in her closed fist, thin chains dangling in the air, each weighed by a crystal that appeared to be slightly luminescent.

'Yes. Elantach, those mean nothing to you. I ask you — as a respect to your fallen adversaries — to entrust those to me.'

At this I had to speak, and interjected that the Imperium has no respect for the enemies of humanity, be they alive or dead. Her Ladyship shut me up with a gesture of the hand; she stared at the xenos with a fearsome intensity.

'Tell me first what they are. I have seen your kind gather them from the dead that lay on the battlefield, risking heavy fire to collect them. Answer truthfully.'

'Lies are a mon-keigh artifice that I stoop not to use. Those are Spirit Stones, sometimes also called Soulstones. They save the soul of the Asuryani, in the event of death, from entering the Immaterium — from being devoured by She Who Thirsts.'

'Ha!' I scoffed. 'Of course creatures such as you would be afraid of the Sea of Souls. Our own souls risk nothing there: they flock to the God-Emperor and He rewards the faithful.'

'Abelard, please don't,' said the lord-captain with equanimity. 'Yrliet, can you tell me why two of your people lie dead here, having joined with rebels who, from what we know, claim no link to xenos?'

'No, elantach, I cannot.'

'But do you, yourself, know why?'

After a slight hesitation, the xenos replied: 'Yes. Worry not: all shall be revealed in time. I weep for taking the lives of my kin, yet such was my fate, and theirs.'

Her Ladyship gave me the luminator to hold and fished out a clean handkerchief from an inside pocket, before carefully folding it over the stones. She then tucked the small packet back in her field jacket. 'Until I know the truth of the eldar presence on Janus, Yrliet Lanaevyss, I shall hold onto these. As long as you remain faithful to me, I swear to protect them as if my own soul was trapped inside — but deceive me, and I will crush them under my boot.'

It wasn't a threat. It was a statement. The eldar nodded gravely.