The Cruel Conundrum of Ciaphas Cain
Amberley Veil, Hero of the Inquisition, thought she knew all the reasons one might have for hating Chaos and it's vile servants. In the last two years, she'd realized that Chaos was at it's dangerous, most hateful, when the damned thing is proven right.
She sat in her luxuriously appointed private stateroom aboard her personal cruiser, balefully studying the innocuous-looking device that housed the Panacea STC and brooding on how much she hated that the heretic Cain had been proven so painfully correct.
It was a secret she would take to her grave - that day on Slawkenberg, she hadn't stolen the Panacea STC and executed a daring escape. Cain had given her the STC and allowed her to leave. She still remembered his smug words. "My dear, I'm a leader of Chaos worshippers. And nothing will cause more chaos than allowing this little device into the hands of the Imperium. So by all means, take it. Use it. I look forward to the results."
She'd suspected a trap. Of course, she'd suspected. So she'd taken it to her best Forge World contacts. They'd tested everything thoroughly, and had concluded, amazingly, unbelievably, the STC was exactly what it seemed. A full, uncorrupted database on the design and manufacture of the single most powerful healing serum ever seen in humanity's history. It made the rejuvenation treatments available to Inquisitors look like so much herbal medicine.
The rest had followed quickly - her elevation to Lord Inquisitor, the private planet, the personal fleet, various awards and medals - but the triumph turned to ashes in her mouth when a seeming heretek conspiracy infiltrated the forge world's defenses and made off with the STC.
Except it hadn't been a heretek conspiracy. Rather, it was an operation carried out by a rival Forgeworld who wanted control of the STC.
Who in turn were betrayed by their Sector Lord who wanted to use the STC to gain leverage over his rivals.
Said Lord fell prey to a Callidus assassin who'd been sent by a member of the Senatorium Imperialis.
That High Lord ate a bolter round when his private fortress world was raided by a Space Marine chapter at the behest of a Lord Inquisitor.
A Lord Inquisitor who Amberley had just executed after she found him trying to trade the Panacea STC to some mysterious buyer who claimed to have the preserved head of the venerated Ecclesiarch Sebastian Thor.
So now, the STC was where it had been two years ago, back in her undeserving hands. In the meantime, an entire Sector was facing economic collapse due to the feud between it's ruling family and their primary Forge World. There was a low key civil war raging in the Mechanicus, one which most recently reached Mars with a servitor 'malfunctioning' and throwing an Archmagos into a power core. The Officio Assassinorum was in the middle of a purge of it's own ranks. Two other High Lords of Terra had resigned under mysterious circumstances, accompanied by seizure or destruction of assets that could best be measured in terms of multiple Hive World GDPs. Inquisitor - Astartes relationships, contentious at the best of times, was now verging on outright hostility.
And, lest she forget, besides executing a Lord Inquisitor, Amberley had just given the order to hunt down every one of the man's allies who had enabled his actions, which included several other Inquisitors and a few Planetary Governors and Rogue Traders.
And in all this time, not a single person that Amberley knew of had actually benefited from the STC.
For one wild moment, Amberley was tempted to ship the STC back to Slawkenberg and let Cain deal with it. But no, she couldn't. The STC was simply too valuable to humanity. Surely, with the proper precautions, it could be put into production for the betterment of mankind. Surely, there's a limit to how often that bastard heretic can be right.
In the meantime, on Slawkenberg
I was very fortunate that there had been no witnesses to my final confrontation with Inquisitor Vail. I could even spin her theft of the original STC as a good thing - this way, those who would want it have no reason to attack Slawkenberg. Still, it's been two years, and even isolated as we were from the rest of the Imperium, we had gotten news of the honors and rewards being heaped upon her.
It looked like they were openly admitting the value of the STC. I'd been worried some Forge World would try to hoard it, but if they were talking about it openly, it was only a matter of time before the serum started spreading throughout the Imperium.
I sighed with satisfaction as I sipped my evening amasec. Letting her get the STC was the single best thing I could have done for the Imperium. When the time came for my soul to answer to the Golden Throne, surely the Emperor would look kindly upon me for the great boon I had done for his people.