Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 217
The Warp was turbulent as ever, a crashing sea of passion and despair where tidal forces of tears and joy fought for supremacy and cavorting Daemons weaved their ethereal lies. Only the distant light of the Astronomican pierced the mists of deception, a clarion call formed from a thousand screaming Psykers, honed by the Emperor's will. This single point of light was the star humanity steered by, granting a measure of safety and accuracy through the tangled nightmares of a trillion dreamers. By His will alone did a million ships bear a million armies to their destinations, by His will alone was Chaos held back and by His star did the Falconer steer.
A hunter-class destroyer, among the smallest vessels capable of breaching the warp, emblazoned with the feline-skull icon of the Smoke Jaguars. Pacts with Imperium had brought many boons and in the last half-millennium the Chapter had replaced its aged Ironclads, torpedo boats and light cruisers with the finest output of Mars' shipyards. Mighty as that was it paled in comparison to the blessing of Navigators, the strange mutant breed who alone could gaze into the Warp without fear of madness and corruption.
Deep within Vitcos stood idle, his power armour purring as he watched his Kinsmen at work. Blazing Shadow Prowl was honing their combat edge, keeping their skills sharp by drilling with Combat-servitors. Within domed mesh cages they fought withered half-men, fitted with stabbing blades and spinning buzzsaws. Each of them could have dismantled a grown man in seconds, but the Smoke Jaguars took it in stride. Ilquitio stabbed with his Daga blades, the forked tines ripping outwards to demolish flesh and steel. His blows were vicious, his hatred keen, once he had been the mirth of Blazing Shadow, but no longer. Sechura by comparison was the hunt unleashed, a traditional Obsidian Blade in hand, stabbing and tearing. He was as methodical as he was deadly, yet his weakness was his narrow focus. Against one foe he was terrifying, in a broad melee he oft was vulnerable. Others fought in their own ways, nine Smoke Jaguars putting on a fine display of combat skill. Within two minutes the servitors had been rendered useless, left to be collected by Serviles and rebuilt only to be destroyed again. The cages parted in the middle and rolled into the floor, allowing the Prowl to step forth.
Sechura seemed eager as he called, "Another!"
"More will not slake your lust for battle," Vitcos growled.
"My hands grow heavy with idleness," Sechura muttered.
"It weighs not upon our First," Ilquitio muttered resentfully.
"I ponder higher matters," Vitcos retorted, "As to where we voyage and why?"
"Still Il-Tzak has not told you?"
Vitcos sighed loudly, "Tachna avoids the question, and that troubles me more than a simple denial. What is this mysterious geas we are compelled to bear, what enemy do we hunt? Never have I encountered such obfuscation. Something is afoot, I smell it in the air. This is no normal hunt-quest, everything I know tells me this is more than suspicious."
Vitcos knew they shared his misgivings. The Prowl had completed their troth of blood of murder with the ritual sacrifice of a Servile. Tachna had shared in the killing, and the ritual cannibalism, but had revealed nothing. As First Vitcos should know the nature and face of their target, but he had been sternly told they would be informed once underway. This sat ill with him, the Chapter mistrusted him yet, even after all he'd done.
Transhuman senses detected the tread of Terminator feet long before Tachna entered the gallery. All faced the door as the Gaze Catcher entered, his plate broad and heavy. He bore a powerfist and Transonic axe and his shoulders were crowned by a Cyclone missile launcher. Well named was Il-Tzak and his exposed face was grim and full of judgement.
"Idleness in the hour before battle?" Tachna growled.
"Our skills are my role to chide," Vitcos retorted, "Yours is to explain why!"
"You are ever a greedy thing, Vitcos, hungry for glory unearned."
"We have had these words tenfold ten times," Vitcos snorted, "I loathe you; you loathe me. Why enjoin this hunt if you doubt us at all?"
"Because you alone fit the need before us."
"At last a revelation!"
"You would hear of our great enterprise?"
"By my eyes, yes!"
"Then walk with me," Tachna commanded.
Vitcos glanced at the others and then did as bid, curiosity overcoming his innate distrust. They found the passages tight, barely wide enough for two Astartes. The Falconer was sleek and fast, but cramped. A small ship, barely a thousand metres long, a mere ten thousand crew. Pifling numbers and the walls were stark, lacking the patina of age and generations of use most ships boasted. Vitcos found it dull and uninspiring but serviceable.
Finally he said, "So great a secret you bear that you cannot just tell us?"
Tachna's heavy clomp rang in the tight confines of the passageway, "Certain things must not be known to outsiders, even Servile's ears cannot be trusted with all secrets."
"This has been explained to us," Vitcos snorted, knowing he'd told his newer Prowlmates about Konrad Curze, despite explicit orders not to.
"The shallowest of secrets doth thou know," Tachna sneered, "Speak to me of Inquisition."
Vitcos frowned as they proceeded further into the ship, "Headsmen of the Sun-Emperor. Terra's most feared Serviles, tasked with punishing crimes against the High Lords. Devious and suspicious, always stalking our Boscage, seeking to know our secrets. Invidious watchmen, best avoided and never to be trusted. They have no bearing on the Smoke Jaguars."
Tachna sounded amused, "Says he who plunged us into their den of vipers."
"I hear but understand not," Vitcos scowled.
"Your pact with the Storm Heralds brought many offers of support and pledges of mutual aid. One of those was to enjoin a project most perilous and profane: the Censor project."
"The explanation is a caged bird on your tongue, yearning to be free."
Tachna let that pass, "There are many breeds of Inquisitor, many Ordos. Malleus, Xenos, Hereticus, the Majoris you have heard of, but there are Minoris too. Ordo Chronos, Machinum, Militum, Redactus, Scriptorum, Excorum, more than a man can count in one lifetime. Yet what concerns us is being Ordo Astartes, a small band of Inquisitors, tasked to monitor and sanction the manyfold Space Marine Chapters. They stand vigil against possible renegades and future Devil-sons."
Ilquitio snorted loudly, "You jest?! To think mere mortals could challenge tenfold a hundred Astartes!"
Sechura agreed, "Men of brittle bone and thin of arm could not best one Space Marine, let alone a Chapter entire."
"No wonder this Ordo's name is not sung among the stars," Vitcos concurred.
"Laugh today, for tomorrow you weep," Tachna hissed, "Ilquitio, speak to me of the Chambers Militant."
Ilquitio blinked in surprise but his Hypno-indoctrination supplied an answer, "Inquisitors do not fight alone but draw upon outside forces. With a word they can requisition men under arms and ships of the Navy Imperial. They also have access to Stormtroopers, the Deathwatch and the Sororitas. The bonds between Inquisitor Hereticus and Battle Sister are new, yet to be tested, but have proven sound thus far."
Vitcos saw what Tachna was suggesting and guessed, "This Ordo Astartes too seeks a more potent warrior breed?"
Tachna nodded begrudgingly, "Envy sparks in their eyes and they crave a Chamber Militant of their own, Space Marines to fight Space Marines: the Censors. A noble vision, but to best one's own kind requires greater strength. The Devil-sons are granted boons by the Wrights of the Underverse, renegades wield weapons profane as they are potent. To stand equal the Censors are implanted with sciences perilous, secret arts of the Dark Age of technology long forbidden on Mars, yet hoarded by the sons of Ferrus Manus: the Keys of Hel."
Sechura froze, "This you plan to stick into us?!"
"You intend our deaths!" Vitcos agreed.
Tachna continued walking as he said, "Dangers there are, yet promises of power too. A chance to stand greater than any Space Marine ever has, become a new paradigm of Transhuman, warriors forged for mankind's darkest hour. A pact has been sworn with Magos Lazar and his Lazarus Progression, to craft Second Generation Space Marines for the Ordo Astartes. Towards this noble endeavour the Smoke Jaguars have trothed their blood."
Vitcos was amazed as he jogged to keep up, the notion of changing the sacred template of Astartes struck as a crime most foul. The Sun-Emperor's great design could not be improved upon, no more than the perfection of the human form could be altered. Mutation, change, deviancy, these the Imperium abhorred, and the Smoke Jaguars too. And yet he was tempted, ever had he been scorned, his due denied. To return to Copan endowed with the strength and power of the Dark Age, to be filled with glorious potency of arts forbidden, to look down upon Huacho, that had an appeal all its own.
Carefully he probed, "These Censors, mighty are they?"
"Those that survive," Tachna allowed, "As with the Deathwatch many Chapters have sent envoys to join the cause, some even lived long enough to report back."
Sechura butted in, "The Techwrights, they approve of this?"
"They do not," Tachna grunted.
"And the Genewrights?"
"They spit upon the idea, declaring the weak shall perish."
Vitcos however pressed, "But for the strong there are boons?"
"So tell our allies in the Storm Heralds."
To that Ilquitio snorted, "He who would accept that without question would buy a bridge off a street peddler."
Vitcos shared their misgivings but kept his doubts behind clenched teeth. The promise of power yet greater than he already owned was lure enough to tempt him. Unspoken was the caveat that if the project failed then Blazing Shadow would suffer. He doubted Tachna would shed a tear if he died under the Gene-sculptors knife. Teotihuacan had sent his least favoured Prowl as envoys. Small loss to the Shade-Lord if Blazing Shadow was extinguished, so concluded Vitcos.
Their walk brought them to the ship's brig and here they paused. Tachna lumbered around and explained, "To enjoin the Inquisition we offer a gift, a heathen filled with dark knowledge. His understanding of gene-craft deep and troublesome." The hatch was opened and they ducked within, to find a lone man in a cell. No, not a normal mortal, a metal-man, one they knew well. Magos Tvos, traitor, blasphemer and Xenophile. His sickening experiments had produced by-blows and horrors, and worse he was proud of his handiwork.
"Tvos!" Vitcos exclaimed in surprise.
"Our offering to Lazar, in exchange for his boons," Tachna explained.
"I held him dead!"
"Dead, no, he proved too valuable to kill. His lore has been of value to the Genewrights, for a time."
"And the fact he knows the truth of Konrad Curze troubles thee not?!"
Tvos spoke up then, "I think you'll find Magos Lazar has bigger issues than your tainted blood to occupy his attention."
"You know of him?!"
"I heard many things in my wandering years," Tvos stated, "Lazar's experiments made mine look tame. There are few Magos indeed who dared meddle with the genome of the Astartes: Belisarius Cawl, Tinchere, Maddrok... but none of them compare to Lazar."
"And this is the tinkerer we entrust our blood and bone to?!" Sechura hissed.
Tachna glared back, "The decision has been made by the First of Firsts, and we are trothed to obey. But know there is a second part to our geas. Blind to the snares we shall not be. That is why a whole Prowl was despatched, not one Smoke Jaguar alone. If the Censors prove tainted, if Lazar is the madman Sechura fears, then we are to burn out his Devil-work, root and branch. An executioner's axe must we be, if the Ordo Astartes plays us false!"
Vitcos gulped as his hands strayed close to his Transonic Chakrams. The hunt was even more ominous than he had feared. Blazing Shadow was going into a den of wickedness as the lamb does the slaughterhouse. A part of his soul railed against it, to demand the ship turn back this instant, but a louder part thirsted to know what eldritch power they had uncovered. If these Keys of Hell were so potent then he wanted to know them better. No matter the cost in pain and blood. Vitcos would not turn his face from such might, not when Huacho was waiting, scorn in his eye for the coward's return. Vitcos refused such a fate, he would become greater than any Smoke Jaguar before him, this he swore.