Semi-Rogue Semi-Inquisitor Greg Sargent sighed and looked around for something to throw at the damn screaming servo-skull. The immediate area had been depleted of disposable munitions, but a grope under the holo-table yielded a grimy yellow sticky-note declaring "Do Not Remove This Note". Sarge shrugged, wadded the note into a ball, and hucked it the noisy servo-skull, or to be more precise, the undeniably insane Magos Biologis who'd somehow managed to install his brain in the thing. The sticky-note faired no better than Sarge's previous projectiles, sizzling to ash mid-air as one of the skulls little mechadendrites zapped it and failing to disrupt Magos Smith's screaming rant on the nature of xenos astropathic communications. Sarge got a bit more of response from the rest of the little war-council, ranging from a small snort from the cheerfully stoic Rupert, a disapproving eyebrow from Alfred, and a proffered laspistol from the Captain. The Cogitator Adept, the only person in the room actually listening to the Magos, shot Sarge a half-annoyed half-apologetic look, and made a shooing gesture at his nominal superior. Sarge shrugged, muttered a hasty "Meeting Adjourned" and headed for the exit before anyone could come up with any more work for him to do. To say the debriefing had run long was an understatement, without the old Diplomacy Adept to run things, getting the Magos to shut up was nigh impossible. Sarge would've given anything for the wily little geezer to return from wherever Oak had sent him, sock puppets and all, if only to have someone to relieve him in these Emperor-damned meetings. Aimy had wisely fled at the four-hour mark, pleading a homicidal rage, but Sarge was pretty sure that as the person in charge of the meeting, he was supposed to stay until it officially ended. Wearily wondering who he was even trying to impress, Sarge opened the briefing-room door, took one step, and collapsed in a heap as someone jabbed a syringe into his neck.
When Sarge woke up, he was naked, strapped face-down to a table, with the highly alarming whine of a power saw coming from somewhere above him. Reacting with the berserk strength of someone who still had the majority of his limbs and wanted to keep them, the noncom torqued his entire body against the restraints. The straps, having been designed exactly for this sort of thing, held tight, as did the vice clamped around his left wrist, less so the table they were all fastened to. Several people cursed as the table's upper half snapped free of the lower, and the entire assembly bucked into the air before crashing over sideways in a jumbled heap. Sarge had his un-viced hand free now, if not the whole arm, and rooted around in the junk on the floor for something sharp to cut the straps. His fingers touched on some sort of handle, only to have it kicked out of his grip by a booted foot, so Sarge grabbed the boot instead, and yanked it with all the strength available to him. The boot's owner gave a surprised yelp as they face-planted directly on top of Sarge. The noncom strained against the head strap, managing to get his face turned enough to get a blurry image of his attacker out of the corner of his eye, until someone punched him in it. A single punch wasn't usually enough to put Sarge down, at least not one from anything smaller than an Ogryn, but before he could continue his escape, the fight abruptly drained out of him. He closed his eyes to the sound of an exasperated argument over who's fault that all had been, and quietly hoped it wasn't his.
Sarge's next awakening was accompanied by a lot of swearing, which was normal, but the source of the profanity was external for a change. He blinked as a goggled face wavered above him, drifting back and forth drunkenly. Attempting to bring the wavering figure into focus somehow only made the effect worse. Sarge attempted to bat the nauseating figure away, giving the entire bed a good shake, but failing to part the thick leather straps tying him to it. Tink reached a steadying arm down to Sarge, arresting the bobbing movement of his 'grav-crutches', and hushed the groggy noncom. "Shh! We're breaking you out of here," he whispered, glancing over his shoulder before setting to work on Sarge's restraints. "We have ten minutes until Valerie gets back, we gotta move." Sarge sat up, pushing Tink off of him, sending the techie in a surprisingly long arc across the room. Tink swore and fought with the controls on his grav-chute, barely avoiding a collision with a light-fixture and whining about how Sarge was going to spoil their stealthy getaway. Taking stock, and finding the majority of his appendages where he'd left them, Sarge pondered the sticky-note adhered to his wrist reading "I.O.U. (1) Hand -Hannah". This was reassuring, as the cog-girl was generally good about paying off her markers, and a lot less likely to hock the Arbites-grade augmetic for booze money than anyone else aboard. A second note, stuck upside-down to his chest for readability, prescribed "3 drink maximum, 1 minimum, no spicy foods" with Sister Valerie's illegible signature underneath. Sarge nodded vaguely, declining to argue with Tink's whole prison-break narrative, and followed the hovering techie out of the medbay. >Interlude:Debrief
They were joined at the medbay's exit by Fio, dutifully performing his role as Tink's lookout from just beyond the medbay's 'No Xenos Allowed' sign. Sarge ignored the pair of techies as they chattered incomprehensibly, mostly about Tink's techno-heretical crutches. As they neared the barracks, Sarge was gratified to see the perimeter in good order, if littered with considerably more servitor bits than he'd remembered. Inside, the noncom was finally able to shed his annoying escort, Tink and Fio scurrying off to the section they'd claimed as a laboratory. Sarge idly noted that this section had grown markedly, nearly impeding on Twitch's munitions dump, where the demo trooper appeared to be holding some sort of class with the former trainees. The only other member of the squad present was Aimy. The markswoman was sitting in front of Hannah, who at first glance appeared to be giving her a haircut. This theory failed to explain the mechanical contraption rolling around on the floor though, as well as the cable running from it to Aimy's head, and the general lack of scissors. Aimy waved at Sarge, and down on the floor, the small tank-like machine waved a claw in his direction. "Welcome back to the land of the living, fearless leader! How is the shot-ness of your ass?" Behind her, Hannah snickered.
Sarge ignored the inquiry, aside from giving the region in question an exploratory scratch, and gestured at the mysterious device. "What is this and why is it wearing cat ears?" Aimy grinned. "It's a CAT!" Sarge nodded, as if this explained anything at all, and looked at Hannah instead. The cog-girl gestured a mechadendrite at an invitingly empty chair next to them. "We are re-sanctifying her Mind Impulse Unit, and since I couldn't find a Baneblade to calibrate it with, we're using my CAT. Now sit down. Once we're done, we'll get started on your hand." From his corner, Tink raised his voice. "So you're saying you'll give Sarge his handjob once Aimy is done playing with your-" The techie broke off as all three members of the conversation turned to glare at him, and exercising his one functional social grace, shut his mouth and turned back to Fio.
Sarge settled into the proffered seat with the weary sigh of a very busy man with a valid, if temporary, excuse not to be. Dropping him from their attention, Aimy and Hannah resumed what, if they hadn't been a guardswoman and a techpriestess, would've been defined as gossiping. The main topic seemed to be all the horrendous things Magos Smith had been up to, from the ongoing squig-infestation to his turning most of the lower decks into his personal manufactorum. "After he took over our faraday clubhouse," gossiped Hannah, "this was the only place left on the ship secure from the madman. At least once he ran out of defuser servitors." Aimy nodded. "Just don't let Twitch know or he'll-" From the back of the room, there was a shout of 'TOO LATE!', followed by maniacal laughter. The cog-girl shrugged. The discussion turned to Hannah's new cadre of recruits, who'd settled in surprisingly well given the circumstances of their recruitment, with their senior tech-priest somehow winding up working in hydroponics with the tribals. Despite Sarge's best efforts, he felt himself beginning to nod off, at least until the breaching charge went off. Acting on pure instinct, Sarge launched himself upwards. Unfortunately, those instincts had a rather out-of-date theory about the number of hands in his possession. Not having been designed to support a hundred plus kilos of noncom on one arm, the chair flipped over, taking said noncom with it. From his newfound position on the floor, Sarge listened to the sound of flash-grenades and las-fire coming from somewhere behind him. Reassured by the steady firing cadence of a squad picking their targets and the general lack of screaming, he relaxed and decided that his current position was actually quite comfortable. Unfortunately, while comfortable, the position was not secure, and immediately fell under attack. Somewhere above him, Aimy and Hannah giggled as the CAT rolled forward, prodding him with its claw.
With a put-upon groan, Sarge abandoned his position to the enemy's overwhelming assault, and levered himself upright with the existing hand this time. Ignoring the muffled snickering behind him, he stumped off to survey the literal battle damage at the rear of the bay. The breach in the wall had been done cleanly enough, with clear signs of having been pre-cut, and not going through any power conduits or sewage pipes. Sarge skirted around the blast shields that had been erected around the breach and looked inside as the last of the las-fire trailed off. In the middle of the flare-lit bay, Twitch was triumphantly holding up a leaking purple ball of teeth and quills, and loudly declaring it to be a Sqroot, not to be confused with a Kruig. The four flak-armored men around him nodded attentively, and as Sarge's noncom hind-brain automatically examined their kit, posture, and weapon-discipline he allowed himself a bit of sergeantly pride in the newly-founded Team Rupert.
The floor around the little group was littered with a combination of Sqroot bits, shredded packing material, and a worryingly large number of human skulls. Sarge picked his way across the floor inspecting the nest-like detritus, but was relieved to discover almost all the skulls to be old, clean, and wired with bits of electric junk. Twitch explained to his captive audience that the critters had probably been living on the servo-skulls everyone kept sending to spy on us. Sarge cleared his throat, and the squad came to a gratifyingly swift attention. "Barracks?", grunted Sarge. Twitch nodded smartly. "Carry on." His duty done, Sarge turned his back on the proudly straight-faced squad, and headed back towards his comfortable chair. As he drew close, Aimy waved a hand and cheerfully explained "Nubby sent them to Alfred, cause "'ee always knows where ta fine da bes digs" and Alfred sent them back with a very polite note about us being the hosts here and doing our fracking jobs." Hannah paused and looked at Sarge too, "Was it Sqroots or Kruigs?" "Sqroots." Hannah swore, and tossed a munitorum cocoa-flavored fructose-bar to Aimy, who accepted it with the good grace of someone getting her brain augmetics poked at. The cog-girl expanded, "Tech-Priest Lagbolt sealed it for inspection when he found a bunch of Nubby's stuff in there," she grinned, "before he got demoted to junior Enginseer 7th grade." Hannah poked something on the dataslate, and on the floor the CAT's turret started to rotate spasmodically. "We tried to send some skulls in to get to the interior override, but the krootoids got there first, so after the third we just decided to leave it be." Sarge raised an eyebrow. "Lot more than three there." Hannah nodded. "Probably all the skulls people send to spy on you, didn't Twitch tell you about them?" Aimy smirked at Sarge's look of disgust, and munched her fructose-bar while the CAT waved its turret-claw in a series of increasingly obscene gestures.
Sarge's hand was somewhere between the on-fire and the reflexively death-clenching stages of augmetic re-connection when the supply convoy arrived. Announcing their presence via a psychic shout for anyone who wanted dinner to deactivate the perimeter mines and come carry shit, Fumbles and Nubby carefully brought their grocery-pallet through the front kill-box. The haul seemed like a good one, with actual food-like smells coming from some of the boxes, and the aggressively-bland labeling of Munitorum alcohol rations on some of the others. Sarge began to rise with the vague goal of asserting some semblance of order on the unloading process (and asking Fumbles where Nubby had gotten it all), only to be yanked back into his seat by mechadendrite around his arm. Hannah growled something in binary, and Sarge flinched as another nerve connection snapped into existence. He decided to stay seated. Doc arrived as the chow was being laid out, unexpectedly accompanied by Chief Medicae Sister Girlfriend Valerie, who viewed the barracks as something just short of a nurgle cult lair. Equally unexpected was the Cogitator adept, who held similar views, particularly regarding Twitch and his idea of "security", which was probably why Jim was carrying him. Interrogator Alfred's presence bringing up the rear, calmly chatting with the near-hysterical Adept and carrying a stack of kit-bags and data-slates taller than he was, seemed as perfectly normal and unexceptionable as it always did.
Team Rupert's surprise at their newly-issued, perfectly-fitting Evil Inquisitorial Goon uniforms was amusing, as was Alfred's recollection of us receiving ours and Nubby's third-hand account of what happened to Sarge's uniform. A sort of ad-hoc banquet formed around the table where the most food-like boxes had been deposited, drawing Tink and Fio away from their project, and Twitch away from duct-taping every wall-seam in the Sqroot-bay. Tink flinched at the sight of Sister Valerie, bobbing over to urge Sarge to hide before she noticed him, earning the techie an eye-roll and a tart comment about having literally left a note with a drink-limit stuck to Sarge's chest. Twitch pried open the first crate of Munitorum liquor, revealing the finest of Nusquan Fungus-Wine. The second crate at least didn't list its ingredients and vaguely identified itself as beer-ish, and was bretted up to First Crate (despite Alfred's insistence that it was actually a very commendable vintage). Sarge freed himself from Hannah's clutches, his augmetic feeling almost as normal as constantly wearing a power fist, and tried to guess whether any of the other ration-crates would have something more drinkable in them. It was Nubby who raised the topic of Oak, whining about how the Inquisitor had absolutely no sense of gratitude. "If this dumb boxy fing was so portant, why'd 'ee go an' send us off wif bloody BANE? Bastid was tryin ta kill us!" This was a well-worn topic, at least the "is Oak trying to kill us?" part, but for once it wasn't immediately followed by Twitch's knee-jerk "YES!" Interrogator Alfred cleared his throat, and when that didn't work, sent out a little psychic nudge, earning him several dirty looks and a whispered "No psychic powers at the table" from Fumbles, but it did at least get everyone's attention. Alfred set down his glass of fungus wine, "I believe that he may simply have forgotten. You see-"
Whatever response Alfred expected, it wasn't Nubby to cut in and declare "Nah, we fought of dat, but the 'Quisitor 'as one of them "Eye-Edit Memry" brain augmetic fingies, like a cogboy or a cogitator weenie," he gestured at Hannah and the Adept, "an' dat means he's doesn't ferget nuffin!" "Unless," interjected Twitch in a surge of manic excitement, "he forgot it ON PURPOSE!" There was the usual chorus of groans from around the table, but the demo-trooper ignored them. "No, shut up, this makes perfect sense! How do you hide secrets from a bunch of psykers who can read them right out of your brain? YOU DELETE THEM FROM YOUR OWN MIND!" He paused, hyperventilating, "It's genius, absolute genius, and it explains EVERYTHING!" There was a collective pause as everyone mulled this over, until Aimy broke it, "That's the stupidest idea I've ever-" Alfred raised a polite finger, "Actually…" "-GOD-FUCKING EMPEROR-DAMNIT!" the markswoman slouched in her seat, muttering to herself about the unfairness of the universe. Alfred sighed the sigh of someone's whose big surprise had just been spoiled by a smelly little idiot, and asked "First, where exactly did you hear that, Corporal Nubbs?" Nubby, sensing danger, immediately threw his comrades under the bus, "Tink said Fio said!" At the far end of the table, Fio looked up in vague confusion until Tink whispered something to him. The little xenos scientist nodded, "Mag'O THE FLESHSMITH screamed he would instill one in me if I penetrated his perimeter." Taking in the confused looks this statement earned, he expanded "It was a very flattening offer, the design being deviced by himself, and made with brain matter cloned from the most adequately intelligent of Inquisitors." Alfred sighed again, and picked his wine back up. "I would like to ask everyone present to meditate on the effectiveness of a secret anti-psyker memory alterer if it stops being secret, and kindly keep their mouths firmly shut."
"I had my own suspicions after Inquisitor Quercus assigned both you and that madman as our backup, it being such a deliberately terrible fit, but I'd assumed it was some traitorous underling." Alfred's unobtrusive demeanor began to drop away as the man grew engaged in his story, "But it was on one of my rare encounters with Quercus that it occurred to me that his mind was not just exceptionally open to psychic reading, it was deliberately that way. Even as minor a psyker as myself could sense the plain truth of his words, even when speaking of things I personally knew to be secretly false." Fumbles nodded in confirmation, "I could hear him from three rooms away. It was super weird, like he was constantly talking to himself, explaining what he was currently doing, even when he was doing something completely different. It was very hard to talk to him." Alfred hushed the young psyker with a gesture and continued. "I'd asked a casual question about the gene-seeds recovered on our mission to that uncivilized backwater, and realized the Inquisitor's version of events perfectly matched that in our reports." The point being, that we'd reported only half the number of untainted gene-seeds, omitting multiple batches from our inventory at his express direction. Either the man was the greatest liar I've ever encountered, or he really did believe that we hadn't found any Ultramarine-descended seeds in the haul."
Alfred sighed again, "I was going to explain the whole process of deducing the existence of his augmetic memory alterations, but apparently that's not necessary." Across the table, Fio worriedly asked Tink if he'd done something wrong, but Alfred waved forgivingly at the little xenos and turned to Twitch. "In essence, yes Twitch, Inquisitor Quercus secretly edits his own memories as an anti-psyker security measure." The demolitions trooper puffed up with vindicated paranoia, but remained silent as Sarge leaned over and rested his heavy augmetic on his shoulder. Alfred nodded in appreciation, "I believe the Inquisitor reserves this technique for matters dealing with The Conspiracy, keeping himself on a need-to-know basis-" Aimy broke in with a sneer, "At least he doesn't ask his troops to do anything he wouldn't do himself." Scoring a few chuckles and a disapproving look from Alfred. Alfred continued, "And putting great trust in his allies and subordinates' abilities to implement his plans." Nubby raised a hand, Alfred sighed in anticipation. "An so when 'ee needed someone super depen'able an trust-worth-y for 'is self-secret mission fing, 'ee picked us?" Alfred nodded gravely, "Yes." "Why in the Emprah's name would 'ee do dat?" "Presumably all the better options are either busy or dead."
It was one of Team Rupert who raised the question of just what the Necron cubey-thing was and if it had come off the same Necron scout vessel that'd killed 75% of their graduating class. It was hard to say whether it was Matt, Max, Mack, or Mark that asked, only Twitch seemed to be able to keep track, and since they all called each other by their former-careers just like we did, it didn't particularly matter. In any case, the Scribe's question led to more questions, and to our genuine surprise it was our former trainees regaling the table with dubiously accurate recollections. When the story got to Cutter's last stand, Doc was both surprised and embarrassed as Sister Valerie slightly-drunkenly gushed over how he'd killed TWO Traitor Astartes, obviously viewing his administration of combat-stimms to the wounded as perfectly in line with Imperial medical practices. Nubby seized the opportunity to take the spotlight, "An dats when I pers'nally recov'ed dat fancy archeotech box fing what da nutty cogboy was tryin to take. Savin it from immy-nent orbital bomb-bard-ment, an' duty-fully turning it over 'Quisitor Thankless Bastard." Tink, who'd stayed remarkably quiet through the whole thing, looked from Nubby to the rest of the squad with his mouth hanging open, "You had a Tesseract Labyrinth and you GAVE IT AWAY?" Nubby glared back, "It wasn' like the 'Quisitor gave us a choice or nuffin," he paused to scratch thoughtfully at a boil before continuing, "Nor the 'Terrogator neither for dat matter, packed us on da first ship back ta Oak da secon' 'ee saw it." Twitch nodded in affirmation, "Told us we'd all be killed in horrifically painful ways if we discussed it with anybody." "Wait," asked Aimy, "Oak or the Interrogator? And which one was this anyway? The one that got arrested, or the Sciscitat guy?"
"Both," answered Sarge before anyone else could, "And it wasn't either of those assholes, it was the, uhhhh." there was a pause while the noncom tried to recall an actual name, before giving up with a shrug. "The one with the data-slate?" Surprisingly almost everyone present nodded in understanding. The notable exception was the Cogitator Adept, who stared in disbelief, "You, uh, do realize that Interrogator Ulmus is the Inquisitor's actual Interrogator. As in, he answers directly to Inquisitor Quercus?" This revelation was met with several blank looks, and Tink pointed across the table, "Yeah, so did Sarge, at least until Ivana tricked him into being an Inquisitor. And?" The Adept worked his jaw, presumably attempting to come up with an answer that didn't involve calling everyone present idiots. Fortunately, Alfred came to his rescue, "As in, he's the Inquisitor's Executive Officer, while Sarge was just part of the command squad." This gloss was met with general approval. Aimy, who'd recently spent several weeks traveling with both Oak and the Interrogator, asked the obvious question, "The hell was he doing babysitting you idiots on a training detail?" "Mostly playing with his data-slate." supplied Doc. "I mean aside from that. One of Team Rupert raised a hand, "Getting a bunch of us killed by necrons?" "EXACTLY!" interrupted Twitch. "Oak wanted a Necron box, right? And his XO just happens to personally send us to a planet where one just randomly shows up? IT ALL FITS!" Everyone present looked to Alfred, who nodded in reluctant support. There was a series of groans around the table as Twitch pumped his fist in the air, and started rapidly expounding on how Oak had obviously been manipulating our missions to an agenda so secret not even he himself knew it.
Before this digression into Oak's theoretical plots could pick up too much steam, Nubby cut Twitch off. "What I wants to know is what's so special 'bout dis Tesser-fingy anyways." Tink leaned forward in excitement, drifting slightly over the table until Fio helpfully pulled him back. "It's a xeno-archeo-tech device containing a sealed pocket dimension capable of holding ANYTHING!" Nubby's expression perked up in interest, "What we talkin ton-age wise 'ere? Cause I know dis guy what does some off-da-books shippin' who'd-" Sarge gave Nubby a medium-strength glare, which the grubby trooper deciphered easily. "I means, if we hadn' already turned it over to da proper author-ities." Alfred cleared his throat, "Actually, you didn't. The Proper Authorities in this case would be the Ordos Malleus, as these devices are the only known way of permanently containing a daemonic entity, and only they know the secrets of their use." Fio looked at Alfred quizzically, "Really? It did not seem covertly difficult to disentangle." The table fell silent, and Alfred gave the xenos a pained look as he poured himself another glass of Fungus-Wine. "I supposed the Magos told you about that too?" Fio nodded, then caught himself and shook his head instead. "No, Mag'O THE FLESHSMITH had me designate the interface myself, as he was over-encumbered instilling the Xeno-Psycho Seance Introducer and the Hexadecimal Containment Words in all the skull-boxes." This time everyone stared at the short Tau xeno-technological genius, with the exception of Jim and Hannah who shared a burst of something in binary. Fio took in the looks cheerfully, "Does this mean I am of the Ordos Malleus now?" "No," replied everyone.
Fio's rambling explanation of what he and the Magos had done to the boxes to turn them into some sort of Daemon-trap was almost impossible to follow. The bit about activating the Tesseract with some sort of Imperial-Tau hybrid field thingy was simple enough, if only because we'd seen that Necron ship he'd worked on and were willing to take his word for it. Even Fio found the whole concept of psycho-technology tricky though, and it was hard to say if the drinking was helping or not. As Tink finally put it, "So how it works is the skulls are all, like, former Inquisitors who've been possessed by the Daemon-" "I prefer: Extra-Dimensional Psycho-Energic Entity," added Fio unhelpfully, Tink ignored him. "And because it possessed them, they still know its-" "Unique Phonetic Signature, creating a multi-directional psychic correction between them and the-" Tink hushed the xenos, "Name. The deaders know the Daemons name, so Magos screamy-skull put together some sort of wraithbone circuit board thingy to automatically trigger a sort of seance… thingy." He paused, looking back to Fio. "Which summons the dead Inquisitor's ghost-" "Semi-Sentient Warp-Echo." "Ghost. Which in turn uses the Daemon's name to summon it into the, uh,-" "Psycho-Planar Pocket Realm?" "Ghost-dream. The ghost summons the Daemon into the ghost-dream, and traps it there. And then the other boxes summon the first box-" "Actually it's the entity itself that-" "And they just eat eachother until it's a Daemon in a box in a box in a box, because it's too strong for just one of them to hold it." Doc raised a polite hand, "But all three together will be enough to hold it?" Tink shrugged and looked to Fio. "Yes, for up to multiple hours, the Mag'O told me." Tink nodded sagely, "Yeah, so, probably important to get the Tesseract put back before Oak tries to use it."
As Tink wound down, Sarge put down the last of his prescribed beverages, and assumed The Briefing Pose. "And that, guardsmen, is why we're on our way back to Inquisitorial Headquarters." Tink, Twitch, Doc, Nubby, and everyone else who'd been spared the ordeal of the debriefing started swearing. Sarge correctly interpreted this as a general inquiry into the strategic situation. "First, shut up. Second, roughly six hours after we departed the system, Oak warped his battleship into the system and surrendered himself to Inquisitorial authority." Doc raised a hand, and asked the inevitable question, "Why in the Emperor's name would he do that?" "Dunno, maybe he expects the Daemon to come to his trial or something?" Sarge shrugged, "In any case, we need to get back before those boxes are brought in as evidence, or shit's going to go sideways. Hard." "How hard?" Alfred raised a finger "If I may, Inquisitor?" The Interrogator took up his own pose standing over the table, gesturing at the detritus of food-boxes and empty bottles as if it was a hololithic tac-map. "Currently, three quarters of the Inquisitorial fleet has been dispatched to counter the sudden inexplicable appearance of a Tyranid splinter fleet in the region, and won't be returning until their Navigators recover from the psychic shock of that unholy abomination the Magos is keeping up in the astropathic sanctum." "The Mag'O calls it the Xeno-Phantasmal Warp-Jammer," explained Fio. "We calls it a Daemon-thrope," added Nubby, "or Frank." Alfred silenced the commentary with a look. "Delightful. In addition to its use as a psychic weapon and masquerading as a Tryanid fleet, the Magos assures us that the abomination's warp-shadow will block all astropathic communication, cutting off Inquisitorial Headquarters from any reinforcements." "And," added Fumbles with a glance up through the ceiling at something nobody else could see, "give anyone over delta sensitivity one hell of a headache until they get used to it."
Alfred nodded to his fellow psyker and continued, "Of the remaining Inquisitorial fleet assets, several have yet to return from a mission to Haarlock's Wager, and most of the remainder is tied up picketing Inquisitor Quercus' battleship and its attendant vessels. This leaves the Astra Militarum taskforce being mustered to counter the non-existent Tyranids as the primary power in the system, with Lady Amelia's mother commanding." Aimy groaned at both the title and overall situation and hid her face in her arms. Alfred ignored her. "Between them, a Mechanicus task force, six Deathwatch destroyers, and Strike Cruisers from the Lamenters and Grey Knights chapters, the Conspiracy's void assets are heavily outnumbered." Sarge nodded, "And along with all that, Aimy's mom has nine regiments of Guard, all ready to drop on Inquisitorial HQ and purge some "gene-stealers", assuming Oak can smoke them out." The table fell silent, pondering the sheer scale of the charlie-foxtrot looming before them. After several seconds, Doc asked the question. "And if he can't?" Sarge attempted to do the whole 'look around the table and meet everyone's eyes to establish the seriousness of the situation' routine, but gave it up as a waste of effort before he even made it to Nubby. Instead the tired noncom flopped back into his seat, and stared dolefully at Sister Valerie until the medicae pityingly held up a single finger and Doc passed him a final drink. "And if he can't, we're so frakked we might as well just go back to the Penal Legion." Sarge paused and cautiously sniffed the munitorum-issue beverage before raising it in a toast, "So here's to the Inquisitor, and pray to the Emperor he's better at this shit than we are."
Next time: >The Trial of Inquisitor Quercus