At the edge of the Slawkenberg system, the barrier between Materium and Immaterium shimmered and cracked, letting a single, tiny craft pass through. So small was the vessel, and so smooth its transition, that the pulse of Warp energy was barely registered by the various devices monitoring the Mandeville Point to keep watch for intruders – and even that was well within the margin of error.
The vessel was an ancient and priceless relic. While clearly of human design, it was a remnant from the Dark Age of Technology that the Inquisitor's tech-priests only managed to keep in working condition through great effort and at considerable expense. Less than ten meters in length, the Ineluctable Law could navigate the Warp without the guidance of a Navigator, sail through a planet's atmosphere, and its stealth technology could elude the most sensitive of detection networks available to Mankind in the current age.
Most of the scant few such ships in the Imperium were reserved to the use of the Officio Assassinorum, but Inquisitor Tannenburg had acquired this one decades ago, following a violent conflict with another Inquisitor which had ended in the woman's death and the seizure of all her remaining assets by the Witch-Hunter. Since then, Tannenburg had made great use of it as a mean of delivering his operatives in enemy territory – and as an Inquisitor, his definition of 'enemy' was quite wide.
At present, the pilot and sole passenger of the Ineluctable Law was Agent Orion, one of Inquisitor's Tannenburg's many pawns in his endless struggle to keep the Imperium free of heresy. In the twenty years and dozens of missions Orion had served the Inquisitor, this was only the fourth time he was deployed using the Ineluctable Law.
This time, the gunship had been brought to a nearby system by a vessel whose captain was in Tannenburg's pocket before making the last leg of the journey to Slawkenberg on its own. The days spent in the Warp, with only the Ineluctable Law's meagre Geller Field standing between Orion and damnation, had been far from pleasant, but Orion was used to discomfort.
When Tannenburg had wiped out the Coven of the Red Moon, it had numbered forty-five psykers. Orion had been one of the candidates for number forty-six, born and raised within the Coven's facilities, where he'd been subjected to endless rounds of testing and training.
Out of the hundreds of young children the Coven had stolen from the streets of the hive-world they'd sought to enslave to their sorcerous whims, Orion had been one of the most talented. Compared to some of the Coven's higher-ups, his talents were minor, but he'd a knack for using them to their fullest extent when it came to the bloody art of assassination. A minor precognition power let him know precisely what to do in order to arrange seemingly impossible accidents, while a weak telepathic gift let him blur other people's perceptions, making even the most rudimentary of disguises enough to let him wander in restricted areas.
At the Coven's orders, Orion'd killed dozens of people, never asking why his targets needed to die in order to further his masters' goals. Then Inquisitor Tannenburg had come, and brought sword and fire to the Coven of the Red Moon, hunting down each and every one of its forty-five members, along with hundreds of their servants. But Orion, along with a handful of others, had been spared.
In truth, Orion hated killing and always had, no matter how good at it he might be. But Inquisitor Tannenburg'd told him that the only way he could earn the Emperor's forgiveness for his unclean existence was by doing His work, and the only way he could do so was by putting the very talents that marked him as unclean to His service.
At the very least, Orion'd always done everything he could to ensure only his target perished on each of his assignments, by engineering various accidents to eliminate them instead of resorting to brute force. Unfortunately, this had only led Tannenburg to regard his skills highly, resulting in Orion being sent on even more missions, forcing him to stain his hands with more and more blood.
He was so tired of it all. But he couldn't stop. Lord Tannenburg – the Emperor wouldn't allow it.
With a deep sigh, he set the Ineluctable Law on a course to land in one of the least populated regions of Slawkenberg, and prepared to spend the next couple of weeks drifting in the cold void, listening in on the heretics' transmissions and building up a picture of the situation on the planet he could use for his infiltration.
From the hidden spot where the Ineluctable Law had landed, Orion made his way on foot to the nearest settlement. He was dressed in the kind of ordinary clothing that wouldn't draw any second look on any number of Imperial worlds, and his psychic ability to blend in ensured he was able to slip into the small farming community without anyone the wiser.
Obtaining enough local currency for his needs was a simple task. He could have just stolen it, of course, but he wanted to avoid doing anything which might draw attention at this stage of his infiltration, especially since crime tended to be very noticeable in such small communities.
Instead, he found a pawnshop to sell the jewellery he'd brought along with him was easy, and subtly convinced its owner that he'd obtained the jewellery in question during the rebellion, and had recently fallen on hard times forcing him to sell them. From there, securing passage to the capital was as simple as buying a ticket on the first train to the arrogantly-named city of Cainopolis.
There, he was able to begin his investigation properly.
It immediately became obvious that the heretical coalition which had claimed Slawkenberg was nothing like the cults of Chaos Orion had infiltrated before. There were no human sacrifices, no constant hunt for those who still served the God-Emperor : even the anti-Imperial propaganda was mild in comparison to some of the blasphemies the assassin'd heard in the past. There were no calls to slaughter all the followers of the Golden Throne : instead, the average citizen's opinion was that they ought to spread the Liberation to other worlds in order to help these faithful worshippers of the God-Emperor by freeing them from the Imperium's oppression.
The fact that the Imperial Creed hadn't been outlawed and was still practiced by a small portion of the population, even within the capital itself, was even more baffling. Inquisitor Tannenburg had warned Orion that the Cainite heresy was more pernicious than most he'd encountered before, and now the assassin could see the truth of it with his own eyes.
The people of Slawkenberg didn't spend their days praying to the Dark Gods or building monuments out of skulls : instead, they enjoyed lives more comfortable and peaceful than those of most Imperial citizens Orion had ever encountered. Illegal activity was practically non-existent : most crime pre-rebellion had either been endorsed by the Giorbas (and had thus promptly and bloodily ended after the Uprising), or had been controlled by the very groups that now composed the planetary government.
His investigation had also revealed that the United Slawkenberg Army was almost comically small by the standards of the Imperium : he wouldn't have thought it capable of defending half the planet. And yet, they had successfully repelled the first attempt at reclaiming the planet, defeated two simultaneous xenos raids, and purged Adumbria Prime of the Warp-born contagion which had resulted in the system's interdiction.
This made Orion's mission more important than ever.
Fortunately, the local print-sheets were obsessed with Cain the Liberator. Of course, with how little intelligence Orion'd to work with, separating propaganda from fact was difficult, but there were still nuggets of useful information to be found. One of the most obvious ones was that the traitor Commissar was undeniably the lynchpin of the entire Protectorate. While the various cults he'd unified before the Uprising had yet to come to blows, Orion could read between the lines well enough to realize there was still a lot of underlying tension, kept from blowing up into full-scale warfare only by the supreme authority of the Liberator.
It was true that, now that Cain apparently had an adopted daughter, the Liberation Council could technically replace Cain with her as a figurehead, but while Zerayah Cain was clearly no ordinary child (since she'd apparently grown up from infancy to near-adulthood in a mere six years), Orion doubted she had the same charisma and political instinct her father possessed.
Reading through the records of past years, Orion couldn't help but wonder whether another assassin had been sent to Slawkenberg before him. The sheer number of brushes with death Cain had encountered defied reason : it had to be the work of one or more assassins. Had Tannenburg dispatched someone else and neglected to inform Orion ? Or perhaps this was instead the work of some other Imperial faction, or even just typical infighting among the servants of Chaos.
Regardless, Orion's mission remained the same. Killing Cain would be a challenge, that much was certain. Not only was he accompanied everywhere by his aide, whose psychic powers far surpassed Orion's own meagre talents, but his life was safeguarded by a xenos female warrior as well. Orion recognized the latter as a Dark Eldar Wych, and while he'd never killed on himself, Tannenburg's files were quite clear that even someone like him couldn't hope to match her skills.
Direct confrontation, something Orion already preferred to avoid in any case, was thus straight out : even if he was willing to sacrifice his life, it wouldn't be enough to guarantee success. No, this would require subtlety, and a lot of research and planning. His psychic gifts were a great help in such matters, but they still required him to put in the effort, and he had a feeling this particular job would be the most difficult of his entire career so far.
In this, Orion would soon come to realize, he was entirely correct.
The Nails still weren't biting. Even now, after nearly seven standard years of being free from their pounding (and yes, he was counting the days, he couldn't help himself, even if he knew it wasn't healthy), Hektor still found himself on the verge of tears at that realization from time to time.
At first, when he'd arrived on Slawkenberg, the borgs had looked into removing the implants completely, but had soon concluded that it was too dangerous. The human brain was a very delicate thing, and how exactly the Panacea dealt with damage to that organ was still unclear (from what Hektor understood, Slawkenberg hadn't exactly had a surplus of older people with 'natural' brain degeneration to test the effects of the wonder cure on).
Given that regular doses of Panacea were enough to suppress the Nails and how available the stuff was on the Protectorate's core world, the World Eater had agreed with Basileus-Zeta's suggestion that they don't try to fix what wasn't broken. The improvised injection collar had been replaced by a more dignified pair of vambraces he wore under his warplate, which itself was a suit of power armor custom-made to fit his transhuman physique and was painted in the same scarlet as the rest of the USA.
The last years had been … relaxing, for lack of a better word. In truth, Hektor couldn't remember a time where he'd been as happy as he was now. Theoretically, his childhood before being inducted into the ranks of the Twelfth Legion might have been it, but even after years under the constant effects of the Panacea, those memories remained lost to him – which, given the typical recruits of the World Eaters, was probably for the best.
Since his arrival on Slawkenberg, the former Ravager had been attached to the United Slawkenberg Army as an advisor, though he didn't have an official rank. Technically, this role was similar to the one he'd held within the Ravagers : then, too, his purpose had been to instruct the mortal followers of the Blood God, pointing them toward the enemy and leading from the front. But, of course, the two couldn't have been more different – for starters, he actually hadn't killed another human being since … well, given that the Infected probably didn't count, the journey to Adumbria.
Apart from training with the soldiers, he'd also spent many hours talking with the USA's officers, discussing battles that, with his brain freed of the Nails, he could now remember with the eidetic memory of any Space Marine. For all that the common trooper's equipment, physical and martial performance were of incredible quality, the colonels of the USA were distressingly lacking in practical experience leading their forces in large numbers.
Numerous large-scale exercises had been orchestrated to correct this, with thousands of USA soldiers battling each other, wearing their full gear and using training weapons. By going through Hektor's recollections, the strategists of the USA had been able to recreate a wide variety of combat scenarios, ranging from the relatively ordinary to some truly bizarre engagements the World Eater had fought in the Eye of Terror.
Admittedly, it was unlikely the troopers would ever have to fight anything like the latter, but as Cain himself had pointed out, it was at least good to teach them to improvise and adapt to unforeseen circumstances – even if only partially recreating the conditions of a daemon world had still given the borgs a massive headache.
And today, the latest of these exercises was taking place. The fact that none other than the Liberator himself had taken the time to leave Cainopolis and come witness the exercise meant that everyone involved was even more motivated than usual.
To Hektor's mild embarrassment, however, he wasn't going to participate in the exercise any longer. Within five minutes of the starting mark, a particularly enterprising (or lucky, but luck had its place on the battlefield, as he knew very well) squad of the opposing force had managed to get the drop on him and tag him as eliminated. It had been a one-in-a-million shot which had taken him out, but one of the lessons Hektor had learned during his long life was that sooner or later, even a long shot became a statistical certainty.
The soldiers in question would no doubt have their evaluation suitably raised for such an impressive deed, but in the meantime, Hektor had found his way to the observers' lounge, where Cain and his entourage were watching the proceedings. It was located above the maze of ruined buildings which served as the environment for the exercise, at the top of a rockrete tower rising on the edge of what, to Hektor's understanding, had been a hotel complex for off-world tourists before the Uprising, but had since gone through several cycles of rebuilding by the USA builders.
Cain greeted Hektor the moment he entered the lounge, making no mention of his embarrassing defeat, for which the World Eater was grateful. Of course, not many people would dare to talk about it in front of him – even after seven years of peacetime, he was still a transhuman warrior whose every movement exuded threat – but if anyone could've expected to get away with it, it would've been the Liberator.
"And how is Miss Zerayah doing ?" Hektor asked after they'd exchanged greetings.
"She's doing well," replied Cain with a fond smile. "Very busy with her studies right now; her finals are coming up."
"Oh, that's good to hear. I'm sure she'll do fine – she is a very driven girl."
From time to time, when he visited the Liberation Palace, Hektor had been asked to help with the training of the Liberator's daughter. The World Eater was part of the small group who'd been told of her true origins, and Cain had judged it necessary for his daughter to learn how to act should she come face to face with an Astartes, so as to avoid sharing her progenitor's fate.
Sparring with Zerayah had been a rare experience. In his millennia of life, Hektor had fought all manner of xenos, mutants, daemons, and more of his own kind than he cared to remember, but the Liberator's adopted daughter was unlike any of them. From what Hektor understood, she was always holding back from using her unique abilities to their fullest extent, yet even with these restrictions, she was a true terror in battle. Her strength, agility and endurance far surpassed what someone of her build should be capable of, and her reflexes were even sharper than Hektor's.
If not for his vastly superior experience, the World Eater would have had the humiliating experience of being defeated by a six-years old child. As it was, their sparring sessions were the greatest challenges he had in centuries, and he'd been forced to intensify his own training in order to keep up with Cain's prodigy daughter.
Part of Hektor was still baffled that Cain was simply letting Zerayah live a normal life – well, as normal as the Liberator's daughter could. Even a simple battle-brother of the line like him could see that Legienstrasse's heir had the potential of turning the Protectorate into an unstoppable force. The risks of such a course of action were obvious, yes, but from Hektor's experience not many leaders had the strength of will to resist the temptation of such power. His best theory was that Cain genuinely loved the girl, and refused to do anything like what the Imperium had done to her mother.
Given Hektor's experience with his own transhuman demigod parent, the World Eater couldn't help but feel slightly envious of Zerayah.
"I think one of the squads is about to make its move," commented Cain, pulling Hektor out of his contemplation. "Could you pass me one of the binoculars, please ?"
"Of course," said Hektor, moving to pick up one of the devices from a basket where a bunch of them had been placed for use by the observers. However, he miscalculated the amount of strength he'd put in his grip, and the device shattered between his armored fingers.
Cain looked at him, amused. "Shall I tell the borgs to reset the counter ?"
"Yes, please," muttered Hektor, mortified, before carefully picking up another pair and handing it over to the Liberator.
The renegade tech-priests had done their best to make sure the equipment he used in his day-to-day life was capable of withstanding his strength, but these binoculars had obviously been made for baseline humans. He was trying to get better at fine motion control, which was not exactly something he'd needed since the Horus Heresy. The only kind of delicate work he'd needed to perform had been what little maintenance of his equipment he could still do with the Nails tearing his sanity apart, and it'd obviously been designed for Astartes use.
After the umpteenth time he'd accidentally broken something, one of the borgs had come up with the idea of a counter measuring the time since he'd last lost control of his own strength. Whether as a joke or as a genuine attempt to help him, Hektor still wasn't certain. He was getting better at it, though, even if his current streak had just been ruined.
Oh well, he thought, returning his focus to the exercise taking place below. He had plenty of time to learn.
Sixteen years.
For sixteen years now, Malicia Mortalyss had been forced to serve as bloodward to a mon-keigh, under the threat of her soul being ripped from her body by one of She-Who-Thirsts' greatest minions. Once, she'd been the Third Succubus of the Tainted Kiss, a Wych whose name had been on the lips of thousands of Drukhari attending the arenas of the Dark City.
Now, she was surrounded by inferior creatures, many of whom had pledged themselves to the Primordial Annihilator, heedless of the risks. And yet, despite this, she hadn't had the chance to torture anyone, as her employer frowned upon such methods, calling them 'inefficient' – as if efficiency had anything to do with it !
At least she didn't need to worry that the mon-keigh around her would try to kill her. Those who weren't outright terrified of her still held some modicum of respect for her position. Not nearly as much as they should, of course – that would've required them to press their forehead to the ground and beg for her mercy whenever she walked by them – but enough that they wouldn't try to remove her from their leader's side.
Not that she wanted to stay near that depraved mon-keigh's, of course. She just didn't have a choice. Without her, he was sure to get himself killed, which would only be what he deserved – but since it'd also mean the termination of her 'employment', she simply had to stay near him at all times.
Which included following him as he graced yet another drab factory with his presence, to make the pathetic little men who worked there feel like they mattered in the grand scheme of things. She'd no idea why he even bothered : the people of Slawkenberg worshipped him already. Perhaps he enjoyed basking in the sincere praise of his inferiors ? His mind was certainly perverse enough for that to be the case.
This particular factory was building gear for the local mon-keigh army. Weaponsmiths were among the few castes of Commoragh which enjoyed, if not immunity from the deadly games of intrigue that wracked the Dark City, then a certain amount of protection from them due to how important their work was to keeping the flow of slaves running. But among the Drukhari, weaponsmiths were artists : no true Kabalite would go raid wielding mass-produced garbage like what the assembly lines of Slawkenberg were churning out.
It was efficient, yes, but soulless. The workers here didn't even get to touch the weapons except for random testing : they just monitored and maintained the machines that did the actual work. And they didn't even test the weapons on slaves, just lifeless mannequins ! How could you know how good a weapon was at killing unless you let it kill someone ? Simply disgraceful.
A sudden motion among the crowd drew her attention. One of the workers had stepped out of line, falling to his knees. Before the clumsy mon-keigh could get to his feet, her blade was under his throat, ready to decapitate him the moment he showed any sign of aggression.
"Get back !" she barked, her armor's speaker immediately translating her words into the base language of the primates around her. The fact that she'd had to ask Cain to tell the borgs to install the device into the suit after her initial request for it had been rejected was yet another humiliation added to the unending list.
The man looked up at her, terror written plain in his gaze. For a brief moment, Malicia relished the sight.
"Malicia," chided – chided ! the indignity ! – Cain. "Leave the poor man alone, would you ?"
She clicked her tongue and stepped back.
Cain never threatened her, nor did he punish her. He didn't need to, and that was the worst (well, the second worst, the worst was bearing the soul-brand of a Daemon Princess of She-Who-Thirsts) of it. Punishing a subordinate meant that you had to put them in their place, which meant that they were a threat. But Cain didn't even see Malicia as a threat : he was confident that she'd been tamed, like an animal made to do tricks for its owner in exchange for being given treats (being spared from the Thirst) and being kept from the stick (her soul's eternal damnation in the Silver Palace).
He would pay for it. One day. This, Malicia swore. She didn't know how, or when, but he would pay for the dishonor he'd inflicted upon her.
One day.
Ferik Jurgen walked through the corridors of the Liberation Palace, a stack of data-slates under his arm. There had been some new developments with the building of the new underwater power plant in the southern ocean, and Cain'd asked to be kept informed of anything going on with the borgs' latest mega-project.
As he knocked and entered the office, he nodded to Mortalyss, who was leaning against a wall and inspecting her blades. He didn't like her and she didn't like him, but politeness cost nothing, as his ma used to say. Besides, she might be a soul-sucking xenos who was compelled to protecting the Liberator by sorcery and the constant threat of damnation, but she was good at her job.
"Sir ? I've got some new files for you."
"Hmm ?" The Liberator raised his head from the data-slate he'd been reading. "Oh, right. Put them here, I'll get to them once I'm done with this lot."
"Of course, sir."
Jurgen noticed that the trash can next to Cain's desk was almost full. He might as well take care of it while he was here. Without disturbing the Liberator any further, he picked it up (it was surprisingly heavy) and walked out of the office, before emptying its contents into the closest incinerator.
Due to how much paperwork was produced by the Protectorate, and the Liberation Council's aversion for the Administratum's inefficient parchment-heavy method of record-keeping, there were numerous chutes across the building leading to the central incinerator, so it wasn't much of a detour.
With that done, Jurgen started to make his way to the kitchens. The Liberator had looked rather exhausted : he could do with a snack to keep him up until dinner. The young miss had told Jurgen she'd made some new friends at school when he'd escorted her this morning, and planned to tell her father all about them tonight : he'd need to be awake to pay attention.
It really was inspiring, Jurgen mused, how the Liberator could manage leading the Protectorate into an era of unprecedented prosperity while also being such a caring and loving father for his adopted daughter.
Orion was on his knees, hands clapped before his face, head down before the large statue of the God-Emperor. It was the middle of the day, and the church was empty, all of its usual attendees being out working. Even so, Orion wouldn't normally have risked entering a public place like this, but he was nearing the end of his rope.
How ? How did it keep happening, again and again ?
His first attempt to kill the arch-heretic of Slawkenberg had consisted of infiltrating the logistic corps of the USA prior to a training exercise Cain was going to attend. By listening in on conversations, he'd been able to locate the crate of binoculars meant for the observation lounge, and his precognition had identified which pair the Liberator would pick up.
From there, it had been relatively easy to build a small bomb inside the device, set to detonate when someone pressed it against their eyes. From that distance, even a small explosion would be enough to kill – and while it'd be obvious it hadn't been an accident but an assassination, Orion had planned to be far away before his preparations reached fruition.
He didn't know why, but it hadn't worked. In fact, he had watched from a nearby bar as the training exercise proceeded without interruption, not even a mention of any incident in the observation lounge. Admittedly, it'd been a long shot : perhaps he'd messed up when assembling the finicky device.
The second attempt had required infiltrating one of the planet's weapon factories, with the corresponding security. Orion had disguised himself as a maintenance crew to get in. It was one of his favorite tricks : such individuals were typically beneath notice, while having unquestioned access to all but the most secure of locations. For some strange reason, the former wasn't true on Slawkenberg, but his psychic gifts had helped compensate for the unusual amount of attention someone in a janitor outfit received from the other workers, and he'd been able to sneak in and lay his trap. This time, he'd needed to take the risk of remaining on the scene to activate it, blending in the crowd of workers trying to catch a glimpse of the Liberator.
His finger had been on the button that would detonate the explosive charge he'd hidden under the floor while replacing a faulty electric cable when, suddenly, one of the other workers had slipped, stumbled out of the mass, and drawn the ire of Cain's xenos bloodward. Before Orion could get a good look at what was going on, Cain had wandered off the path Orion had predicted he would take to go deal with the situation. By the time it was done, the heretic leader had resumed his tour of the facility without getting close enough to the explosive that it'd be a sure kill. Orion had been forced to give up, and then spend an entire week working in the factory until an opportunity to remove the explosive presented itself (he couldn't risk it being discovered, as this mission was already difficult enough without people being alerted to an assassin's presence among them).
It had taken weeks of observation and planning, and no less than three different disguises to place the bomb inside Cain's office. With how many witches worked there, Orion had been forced to leave immediately, lest he be discovered and the scheme fall apart. He'd barely managed to stay out of Chief Clerk Jafar's sight on the way out, but he'd made it – and it had all been for nothing, as the bomb had never detonated, for reasons he'd most likely never learn.
Never before had his gift failed him so completely – on some occasions, he had failed to put things into place exactly as was required, but the fault had been his, not his gift's. Here, every time, he'd been able to put things into motion exactly in the way his precognition told him would lead to Cain's demise – and each time, he'd been thwarted.
He would have thought it the result of some gift of the Dark Gods, except Orion'd killed many of their champions before, ones who had displayed the favor of their infernal patrons much more openly than Cain. For all the influence he wielded, Cain himself appeared to be a perfectly ordinary if imposing specimen of Mankind. Obviously, the boons of damnation could be subtle – Inquisitor Tannenburg's work would've been much easier otherwise – but Orion couldn't help but wonder if the Liberator's ongoing survival wasn't due to divine protection from another source.
"You look troubled, my son."
Orion opened his eyes and looked at the old man wearing a simple ecclesiarchal robe approaching him. The assassin recognized him, of course : Father Anthony was a public figure, the unofficial leader of those still faithful to the God-Emperor on Slawkenberg.
"I know all those who come here by face if not by name, but I don't recognize you." Orion's body tensed, but the priest's next words made him relax : "I take it you've recently come to the capital, then ?"
"Yes," Orion admitted. "I came here for work."
The priest nodded. "Plenty of jobs here these days, that's for sure. So what's a strong fellow like yourself doing here at this hour ?"
"I … I am looking for His guidance, Father. I thought I knew what the Emperor expected from me," he said. "I spent my entire life doing it. But recent events have caused me to … reconsider that belief, and now I am lost and unsure what to do next."
"It is my personal belief that the Emperor loves us and wants us to be happy," began the Imperial preacher.
Did the Emperor want Orion to be happy ? He was unclean, a psyker born and raised by heretical deviants bent on enslaving Mankind to their whims. When he'd rescued him from the Coven of the Red Moon, Tannenburg had made it clear that his sole reason for doing so instead of executing him out of hand was that Orion might yet be of use to the Inquisitor, and through him to the God-Emperor.
"After all, if He didn't love us, why would He keep watch over us from His Golden Throne ?" Father Anthony continued. "So, if what you think He wants from you doesn't make you happy, then I think you try another path."
"Another path," repeated Orion. "What would that be ?"
"That is for you to decide, but maybe you can start with something as far from whatever it is you are doing right now that doesn't make you happy ?" Anthony suggested, and Orion wondered what the old, inoffensive-looking old priest thought of the tall bald man he'd found kneeling in his church.
That said, something completely different from what he was doing, huh ?
"Maybe I can do that," he muttered. "Thank you, Father."
"You're welcome, my son. Emperor's blessing be upon you."
Three days, a minor break-in and several quiet bribes later, Orion Rieper was registered into the data-banks of the Liberation Council as a citizen of Slawkenberg residing in the planetary capital.
After considering the options available to him, Orion decided to take up a job as a gardener, working on the various public parks spread out across Cainopolis. Once meant solely for the enjoyment of tourists, they had been converted for the use of the entire population, with families bringing their children to frolic in the grass and couples walking together amidst the fields of flowers.
The job's pay was more than sufficient for Orion's needs, and after so long spent killing, it was a joy to help things grow. To his surprise, his gifts were even helping him in this work, letting him know precisely what kind of work each plant needed to flourish.
Without Orion returning to it, the Ineluctable Law eventually flew off Slawkenberg on auto-pilot. In time, it would be recovered by Tannenburg's agents, who would check the contents of its data-banks and conclude Orion had died without accomplishing his mission. Perhaps, if the Inquisitor was in a good mood from the intelligence on the Cainite Protectorate's inner workings thus obtained, he'd even say a prayer for his lost assassin's soul.
One month after starting his new life, Orion was pruning a fruit tree growing in the middle of a field of white flowers, letting instinct guide each cut, when someone called out to him.
"Excuse me ? Are you the one who grew these flowers ?"
He looked down from the stepladder he was standing on, and saw a beautiful woman with hair colored silver.
"Ah, yes. I am the one charged with tending them, miss."
"Oh, good." The woman smiled, a sight that would've sent many to their knees in adoration. "I've been looking for you. My name is Artemis Suthanna; I'm a member of the Handmaidens."
Orion's instincts immediately reacted to the mention of the Slaaneshi cult. While the Handmaidens were mostly involved with running the various festivities and entertainment venues of Slawkenberg, it was obvious to anyone with any skill in these matters that they also ran part of the Liberation Council's counter-intelligence apparatus. Was this it ? Had they found out his origins ? The woman didn't look threatening, but that meant very little.
He was still holding his gardening tool. It was meant for cutting through plants, not flesh, but if he moved fast enough, he could maybe take her by surprise and dispatch her before she could react and unleash whatever sorcery was at her disposal. There were numerous witnesses around, but they were all civilians. He was confident he could make his way out of the garden, change his clothes, and disappear into the crowd –
"You see," she continued, either unaware of his nerves or deliberately ignoring them, "we've been trying to grow these flowers in the Academy's garden, but without any success. Could you tell me who you managed it ?"
Orion blinked, then looked around. He couldn't see anyone waiting in ambush. Was this a trap ? Now that he thought about it a bit more calmly, it seemed unlikely.
"Of course, miss," he replied, aware that the gardener he officially was would react to a Handmaiden's attention with a mix of awe and shyness. "Please give me a moment to finish what I'm doing, and I'll be happy to explain it to you."
Two hours later, Orion and Artemis were sitting at the terrace of a nearby café, discussing matters of soil composition, sun exposure, and proper watering. It was the first time Orion'd talked with someone for so long on something that didn't involve murder, and he found that he greatly enjoyed it. When they parted, Artemis insisted she pay for their drinks, and when Orion reflexively protested, she smiled, and said :
"How about this ? If you want to pay me back, then meet me again here next week."
Before he realized it, Orion accepted.
With my work for the day done, I was relaxing in my quarters, going back on the events of the day to make sure I hadn't missed something else that would come back to haunt me.
I couldn't think of any. To my own surprise, having Zerayah attend a school outside of the Liberation Palace hadn't ended in disaster. She had been going there for an entire year now, and both the school and the capital were still in one piece. The school was relatively new – but then, there were very few schools on Slawkenberg more than seventeen years old, as the old nobility had used tutors, and the plebs hadn't been allowed any education besides what was absolutely necessary for them to do the jobs the Giorbas wanted them to do.
It was one of the many which had been built right after the Uprising, as part of the first crop of reforms I'd designed to keep the Council busy with something other than plotting my violent overthrow. The current students had never known a Slawkenberg that hadn't seceded from the Imperium, but they'd learned all about the Giorbas' reign in the history books their parents' generation had written. From the few times I'd managed to make up an excuse to visit, I could say that their devotion to the cause of Liberation frightened me, but at least they made good friends for Zerayah – and the more human friends she had to keep her grounded, the less likely she was to go on a bloody rampage.
Thankfully, and despite Krystabel's influence, she hadn't started getting interested in the other youths of her apparent age beyond simple friendship. Whether that was because her mental age hadn't yet caught up with her physical one or because her Maerorus heritage removed such instincts, I didn't know, but I was happy to kick that discussion down the road as long as possible.
In fact, the entire Protectorate had been remarkably quiet. I'd been worried that, after I'd failed to find any convincing arguments against expanding the ranks of the USA to match the Protectorate's growing territory, the Khornates in charge would start clamouring for another war, but they were being remarkably calm about it. Maybe all those insane training exercises Hektor was helping them run took the edge of their bloodlust, along with their primary purpose of keeping the ex-Ravager, whose sanity relied on constant Panacea injections, away from me.
Back in Adumbria, Tesilon-Kappa was assuring me that the refitting of merchant ships was advancing apace, and the planet was well on its way to recovering from the Nurglite plague – although it'd take decades for the population to return to its pre-Infection level, since Slawkenberg wasn't exactly suffering from an excess of people itself and no one else was going to Adumbria anytime soon.
The wider Imperium seemed to have largely forgotten about us, which I was more than fine with. According to the divination rites of the Tzeentchians, Sector high command was still busy fighting against the Tau, along with the remnants of Hive-Fleet Behemoth and the never-ending threat of the Orks. Something strange was going on with the Panacea STC I'd given to Inquisitor Vail : after parsing the occult jargon of the magi, it seemed that Nurgle's power in the Eastern Fringe was waning, so she was definitely doing something with the archeotech. But there were so many competing influences around her that even Jafar couldn't make sense of it all.
I wished her all the best, regardless. Making sure the Imperium had access to the Panacea remained the single thing I'd done since my arrival on Slawkenberg I could be unevoquably proud of, after all.
All in all, things were going about as well as I could hope for. Which meant that, any time now –
The door slammed open, and I jumped to my feet, my hand moving instinctively toward my weapons before I recognized the intruder as Jurgen, looking distinctly ruffled (although someone less used to him than I would've found it hard to tell, such was his continued commitment to personal grooming). In the corner of my eyes, I saw Malicia slide her weapons back into their holsters as she identified him as well – with her preternaturally quick reflexes, she'd already half-drawn them by the time I'd started to move myself.
"Lord Liberator !" Jurgen gasped, clearly out of breath. "Vice-Queen Kasteen is on the ansible. She wants to talk to you about something vital to the survival of the Protectorate !"
And there it was. I swear, I could hear the Emperor laughing at me.
"Well then," I said dramatically as I stood up from my chair and made a show of checking my coat. "I guess I better not keep the Vice-Queen waiting, then."
AN : So, this chapter started with the idea of an Imperial assassin trying and failing to kill Cain, eventually getting crazy until he confronted the Liberator directly, who still had no idea who he was, and killed him.
Then I decided to use an Agent 47 expy, and I couldn't just kill off the poor bastard, so we ended up with this chapter instead.
Agent 47 clearly has a handful of minor Warp powers : a short-range precognition that lets him set up accidents (or, more generally, the 'opportunities' of the latest games), a minor perception filter that lets him get away with his 'disguises', and even a telekinetic talent to help throw things in exactly the correct way to cause unconsciousness (see the legendary homing briefcase, for instance). And given that he's a clone made up of the genetic material of several high-profile assassins mixed together by a mad scientist, who can say with 100% certainty that he isn't some kind of early, low-level psyker unaware of his own abilities ?
... I have a feeling Slawkenberg might end up as some kind of reincarnation destination for fictional characters who got screwed in their original settings so that they get a second chance at living peaceful, happy lives under the benevolent protection of the Glorious Liberator. Any suggestions ?
Fun fact : while writing the backstory of Agent Orion, I checked what little lore there is on Inquisitor Tannenburg. One of the two things he's known for is his purge of the Coven of the Red Moon, a Psyker Chaos Cult, which had ... 45 members.
Admittedly, it's just one short, but that's still a crazy coincidence (I found that out after I'd decided to make the assassin an Agent 47 expy).
This chapter originally contained a Broklaw POV, but I cut it out because I felt it didn't fit in with the rest. Don't worry, I've just moved it to the next chapter, so you'll get to read it soon anyway.
Finally, regarding the cliffhanger : this Cain has seen a lot less combat than his canon self at the same age. It's time to fix that !
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, and I look forward to your thoughts and suggestions.
Zahariel out.