The orbitals above Inquisitorial Headquarters were a colossal mess, straining the cogitators of Orbital Traffic Control to their limit. It wasn't just the presence of the task force mustering to counter-attack the sudden Tyranid incursion, or the tense stand-off between the Rogue Inquisitor's semi-surrendered battleship and the Inquisitorial fleet. It wasn't even the frenzy of shuttle traffic as the Inquisition mustered its ground forces and the PDF scrambled to bring themselves to something approaching readiness. No, it was all that plus the steadily increasing volume of merchant vessels pouring into the system in search of news, safety, and highly profitable Munitorum contracts. It was all OrbTrafCon could do to keep the civilian vessels corralled, even with the prospect of the Inquisition and Navy's zero-strike policies backing them up. Given the mess, it wasn't surprising that the stubby merchant vessel's arrival went unnoticed. The free trader "Event Horizon", as its IFF beacon identified it, popped out of the warp at a noticeable angle to its own portal, accompanied by a restrained burst of malevolentpsychic energy. With all but the most-expendable Astropaths locked in their sanctums, shielding their sensitive minds from the Tyranid Warp Shadow shrouding the system, nobody noticed the event, or the subsequent change in the Warp Shadow shrouding the system asits source translated into real-space. Between its falsified beacon and a cunningly disguising emission profile (via the replacement of two engines, the complete absence of another, and a persistent atmosphere leak from "somewhere on deck 6, or maybe 9 if, you know, the screen's upside down"), the Occurrence Border slipped into orbit almost completely unnoticed by Inquisitorial Headquarters. >The Trial of Inquisitor Oak

The security checkpoint at the gate had changed drastically with the departure of the penal legion, the typical pair of bored commissariat cadets having been replaced with two squads of highly alert inquisitorial stormtroopers. What the security detail didn't have, though, was a psyker, and as Sarge stepped forwards to offer his credentials he signaled Fumbles to get ready for the critical moment he'd been practicing for all week. Things then took an abrupt turn as the stormtrooper sergeant on duty abruptly pointed a finger at Sarge and yelled "IT'S YOU ASSHOLES!" Sarge's well-honed mind abruptly leapt into panicked panicking as he belatedly recognized the same sergeant that had been on duty at the evidence building's entrance. Fortunately, before he could do anything catastrophically stupid, the approaching stormtrooper noncom did something completely unexpected, holding out a hand and pulling Sarge into a backslapping hug when he reflexively took it. To our squad's collective amazement, all of the stormtroopers present started flipping up their helmet visors and talking excitedly. The gist was that when the dust had settled after Inquisitor Big Hat's failed infiltration, the MIA and KIA lists had been impressively long and we'd definitely been on them. We as in us. US us. Us personally, by name, rank, and biometric ID code. Sarge desperately prevented himself from glaring at Tink, who's fault this definitely was, and tried to take solace in the fact that he'd apparently received an Inquisitorial Decoration for Practicality (posthumous) for getting all the scribes out.

Realization that all was not as it seemed hit the team when the Good Scribe took us not to an office, but a small break room with a bunch of Inquisitorial adepts blocking the door. The Scribe politely shooed a gap through the crowd and opened the door before anyone could ask any questions, unleashing a choking billow of smoke that drove back the Inquisitorial hangers-on. Grateful for the full helmet and rebreather on his carapace armor, Sarge scanned the smoke-filled room for threats and flinched as something shot through the air towards him. Sarge's instinctive duck got him out of the way in time, which just meant that Doc caught the half-full ashtray right in the faceplate. As the medic staggered and wiped ash off his visor, a banshee-like voice screeched at us to either piss off or close the damn door before we let all the warm air out; one of the Inquisitorial adepts outside grimly wished us luck before shutting the door behind us. The screeching ashtray-thrower was the break room's only occupant (unless you counted the half empty carton of smokes), and as the door slammed shut behind us, recognition hit. The familiar "Old Lady Adept", last seen pushing an evidence cart full of parking tickets at our brief Inquisitorial trial, jumped up from her seat and grumpily informed us she'd been on "smoke break" for nearly two hours now. What looked to be the exact same evidence cart sat parked in the room's corner with a matching evidence box perched on top of it. Sarge sighed with relief that the plan, whatever it was, hadn't changed, and waved Fumbles forward with the box he'd been keeping everyone from noticing. Under the cover of a screeching rant about being owed years of smoke breaks and the gall of sending a squad of Stormtroopers to muscle a little old lady around, the switch was made.

The Inquisitorial Administrative Auxiliary Administrator's office was feeling distinctly cramped with three Interrogators, one from each Ordos, glaring futilely at the small robed man and the two evidence boxes on his desk. Administrator Jurisprudence Probity Tact was no stranger to being glared at; in fact, as a life-long adept of Departmento Diplomatum, he considered it a sign of a job well done. These specific glares were sub-standard though, comparing poorly to multiple lifetime's worth of infuriated dignitaries, secessionists, and xenos. Not to mention some rather acrimonious encounters with the Officio Assassinorum, T'au Counterintelligence, and an enraged Bloodaxe "Lordest Gen'ral". Even "Inquisitor" Sargent, who'd catastrophically failed all his body-language and non-verbal projection lessons, could pull off a better glare than the three Interrogators, but then again, the man did have quite a bit of practice. Of course, Administrator Tact hadn't expected much from the three flunkies sent to harass him over the delay of the all-important evidence of Inquisitor Oak's flagrant fiscal malfeasance. All three Interrogators, or at least their Inquisitors, were well aware of how much of the sub-sector's Inquisitorial bureaucracy had been seconded to the Administrative Auxiliary, as well as Tact's early reappointment to the rotating position by order of the Lord Inquisitor following the recent colossal frak-ups. What they were less aware of was just how many of their own decisions were based entirely on the Auxiliary's own reports and scheduling assignments. Arranging to get three weasels who all hated each other wasn't particularly hard, but he took pride in managing to stick two known Conspiracy Psykers in a room with an Ordos Malleus Untouchable for several hours. Maintaining the vaguely helpful expression he knew annoyed the self-important little shits, Administrator Tact assured them that the last evidence box would be arriving shortly.

For us grunts, the hardest part of the next several minutes was trying not to stare at the damned Diplomacy Adept as he sat there claiming to be this important Inquisition big-wig and bossing around three Interrogators. Or at least watching as his, um, accomplice? Minion? Agent was probably the best term for the retaliation between our two former adepts, or possibly protege judging by the occasional proud looks the Curatoress was shooting him. Whatever their relation, the "Administrator" seemed happy to play Good Cop to her Angry Schola Mistress, calmly taking possession of the third evidence box and walking the three Interrogators through the process of observing and certifying the evidence transfer. What was supposed to happen was a careful inventory and inspection of all items in the three boxes, with the Interrogators verifying that all items were present, correct, and free of any warpcraft before presentation to the High Conclave. In reality, the "careful inventory" was more of a high speed rubber-stamping as the Administrator whipped out item after item, reading out numbers and descriptions without pausing for input from the three Inquisitorial observers. The pace didn't slow until he reached the third box, opening it to reveal the disorganized jumble we'd piled into it. Seizing the opportunity to be an asshole, the Hereticus Interrogator asked whether the box had been packed by a trained scribe or a drunken guardsman. He did not seem amused when the Administrator asked Sarge if he and his men were sober, before shrugging off the entirely legitimate and incredibly suspicious issue with an "Honestly, it's not that bad for a guardsman" and proceeding with the inventory before anyone else could interrupt.

The evidence convoy was reformed, larger by two boxes, three Interrogators, and one annoyingly smug Diplo-strator, and thus the final phase of our covert operation began. To our surprise, the hardest part of getting our tampered evidence boxes into Oak's trial wasn't talking our way past security (who just waved us all through when they saw the Administrator) or maintaining our Stormtrooper-y facade in front of the unwitting Interrogators. Well, actually it was, but not in the sense of acting professionally and not gawking at Inquisition's inner sanctum like a bunch of pilgrims. No, the actual hard part was maintaining the damn perimeter without shooting anyone. Administrator Tact's announcement had unleashed something like a shift change in a Hive, with Inquisitorial agents of every type running in every direction. At first it wasn't an issue, with the presence of the Administrator and three Interrogators keeping the riff-raff at bay, but that changed abruptly when we entered the Holo-Hall. The Sepulcher of the Disavowed Dead, to give the massive gothic monstrosity of a "room" its proper name, was supposed to be a place of prayer and reflection. A place where a young budding paranoid could ponder the deeds, deaths, and stasis-suspended remains of the sub-sector's greatest Inquisitorial heroes. What it ACTUALLY was was something between a daycare and a Guard muster field, with the collected retinues of nineteen Inquisitors split into separate heavily armed camps and positioned around the room based on their boss' opinion of the various big holographic dead guys.

It turned out to be Tink who had the hardest job of the escort detail. As guardsmen we were all fully qualified when it came to angry shouting, inventive cursing, and semi-targeted violence, albeit a bit half-heartedly on Doc's part and over-enthusiastically on Nubby and Aimy's. Twitch was just glad to finally have a situation where brandishing a laspistol while screaming at everyone to stay back was not only allowed, but actively encouraged. Tink, though, was stuck dealing with the increasing numbers of cyberskulls, cherubs, aquilae, and anything else a cogboy was willing to staple an anti-grav unit onto. Worryingly, Tink's initial attempts to fend them off using Spot3.0's jamming field just redirected the cyberstalkers' attention to his drone. Incredibly belatedly, Tink realized that he'd never seen an actual servo-grox-skull himself, and it might not have been the best choice of disguise for his massively techno-heretical xenotech toy. Panicking more than a little, Tink set his equally techno-heretical plasma-gun to "Fry" and hosed the airspace. This had, as literally anyone else could've predicted, the exact same result as his first ploy. Fortunately, before Tink could blow the entire mission singlehandedly, Jim and Hannah's part of The Plan™ kicked in. From one minute to the next the flock of assorted flying bullshit dropped by three-quarters, as without a fuss or anything so primitive as a spoken word to their Inquisitorial colleagues, every single cogboy in the room left to go take care of Mechanicus business. Tink smugly declared victory and turned the much-smaller job over to Twitch and his comparatively standard-issue laspistol.

At the third and final door between our convoy and the Grand Inquisitorium, our Interrogators were informed in no uncertain terms that they wouldn't be going any farther. The elderly Curatoress sneered cheerfully at them, informing the three that courtrooms were for adults only, only to find a massive ceramite hand on her bony shoulder and a basso voice informing her that she, her evidence cart, and the unconscious psyker weren't going in either. The ensuing argument was very short and completely one-sided, one of the Deathwatch Marines simply picking up the loudly protesting old woman by the back of her robes with one hand, grabbing Fumbles off Doc's back with the other, and barking at the Interrogators to get the cart and turn the damned Untouchable's limiter back on. As the one Deathwatch Marine left with his escortees, the second gave the rest of us a once-over with his helmet sensors. We passed inspection without comment, though the Marine did spend a rather long time looking at Tink's weapon and insisted on triple-checking Nubby's genescan. At no point did the Space Marine notice the small, invisible Tau drone hovering just overhead (which was sort of worrying given the guy's occupation), and Spot was quietly left to cover our rear as we were waved forwards. Giving Tact a solemn nod, and us a vague gesture and grunt towards the boxes (the Codex-approved signal for "get your shit together"), the Space Marine turned to the massive blast-door behind him and opened it. Like, with his hands–grabbing the big ornate wheel set in its center and twisting it with the entire force of his power-armored frame until the massive thing cracked open wide enough for us to get through.Silently giving props to whichever paranoid bastard decided their final security measure should just be a really, really heavy door, we carefully squeezed around the straining Marine and practically ran into the sub-sector's Deathwatch Captain.

Whether there really was an "Administrative Auxiliary Administration: Analyticae Analysis Arm" (there was) and if they'd really predicted that the evidence boxes we were carrying would resolve Oak's case within nine hours (they had, but not in their official reports), the Deathwatch Captain obviously believed Tact knew what he was talking about. The angry Marine's entire demeanor changed, his frustration replaced by slightly comical excitement for a brief moment, before hardening into seriousness. Eyeing the boxes (and us by extension) with far more scrutiny than we were comfortable with, the Deathwatch Captain leaned down and quietly (for a Space Marine) asked Tact if he thought Oak would "Invoke the Rite of Counter-Accusation". The Administrator, in the lecturing tone we'd all grown far too familiar with during briefings, pointed out that while the Rite had been invoked in only nine percent of intra-Inquisitorial trials, the other ninety-one consisted entirely of those Inquisitors tried either in absentia or posthumously. The Space Marine looked a little sheepish as he stood back up, and began checking his wargear. Aimy's snide remark over the vox about remembering to check his helmet was cut off in an abrupt "Eep!" as the Captain casually checked the draw of his power-sword directly over her head. Snapping at both Aimy and the Deathwatch Captain to behave themselves, Administrator Tact strode up to the ornately carved dolomite of the Grand Inquisitorium's service entrance and poked the admission rune.

For the first time in almost a century Inquisitor Oak had ALL the facts. He understood the plan, he knew why he'd let himself walk into such an obvious trap, and what he needed to do next... And then came the appalling realization that he really HAD been dumb enough to sell a necron ship to a rogue trader, at least by proxy. And THEN he'd covered it all up to hide his embezzlement of an actual Tesseract Labyrinth. The one thing he didn't understand was why said proxy was standing here in the courtroom holding said Tesseract. Oak just could not fathom why Tact had brought his most disaster-prone subordinates to this critical juncture, especially given the promises he'd given to Lady General Von Humpeding about her daughter's personal safety. The heiress in question was boggling at the assembled inquisitors like a tourist while casually waving around a frakking tau pulse rifle and chatting with what appeared to be the imperium's only ratling stormtrooper. The fact that they were literally carrying the evidence of both their own and Oak's crimes was just the ironic cherry on top of this load of horseshit. Oak shuddered at the thought of what would happen if even ONE of the psyker inquisitors in the audience so much as looked at them, much less if the Lord Inquisitor himself started asking questions. So with that in mind, he decided it was time to move things along. Nudging the restraint-chair's "TESTIFY" rune with his chin, Inquisitor Oak cleared his throat, said a silent prayer to the Emperor, and launched straight into the formal wording of the Rite of Counter-Accusation.

Taking pity on Aimy, the Administrator took over translation duties. He kept the explanations short and pithy (but at least didn't bring out the sock-puppets), muttering to us over some sort of augmetic throat-microphone while maintaining his usual bland pokerface. According to Tact, Oak's current speech was a legal motion to postpone his trial because some other Inquisitor was a far bigger heretic. Nubby noted that this option hadn't been made available in OUR trial, but that was probably for the best given the bored expressions we could see under the edges of the blur fields. Tact blandly explained that the official legal challenge had been invoked so often that it'd passed into ritual millennia ago, losing all real meaning but none of the length. He assured us that the interesting bit would be at the end when he added the rarely used "and they're in this very room with us!" part. On cue, the mood in the courtroom abruptly changed. The semi-visible audience sat up attentively, looking around their respective platforms and whispering excitedly to their neighbors, not to mention subtly checking the draw of their assorted concealed weapons. Behind them, and feeling absolutely no need for subtlety, the four Deathwatch Marines readied their own weapons, curtailing most of the fidgeting. Up above us, taking the entire concept of subtlety and declaring it surplus to requirements and to be returned to stores, the Lord Inquisitor rose out of his seat, psyker-staff in hand, and instructed the Deathwatch Captain behind him to shoot anyone who interrupted. Oak, grinning maniacally, started spilling the beans. ALL of the beans. Every daemonic-body-swapping one of them.

Oak wasn't referencing his own evidence mind you, that'd be too obvious. The scheming bastard had actually managed to doctor the evidence submitted against him, a power-move that spoke of mind-boggling levels of foresight, preparation, and deception. At least, that's what the Inquisitorial audience and the Lord Inquisitor in particular seemed to think; Twitch confidently (and correctly) assured us that Tact and his bureaucratic minions had just done it all for him. Of course this revelation left Oak in a bit of a pickle, at least according to Tact, because suddenly there were a whole lot of very clever Inquisitors flipping through the rest of the notes on their data-lecterns, checking to see what else was hidden there. This was presumably why Oak skipped straight to the "the Daemon is here, and I wanna summon it!" part, or "DAEMONEM AD TESTIMONIUM!" as he put it, doing a damn good job of projecting righteous fury for a guy locked to a chair. There was a brief silence, and then the Inquisitorial audience lost their collective shit. Back in the Guard, we'd have never imagined that there was more than one possible answer to "Hey, let's summon a daemon!", much less twenty-seven separate, utterly self-confident and increasingly shouty ones. It didn't take a genius to see what was coming next, and the Deathwatch Marine ushers seemed to be anticipating the show just as much as we were. At the nine second mark the first punch was thrown somewhere up in the Hereticus seats, eliciting a round of cheering from the peanut gallery which abruptly cut off as a wave of psychic silence rolled out from the Lord Inquisitor's staff.

Tact was right, as usual. In a surprisingly short time, the Lord Inquisitor had Oak explaining his summoning procedure in plain, old-fashioned Gothic–or as close as one can get while talking about "Induced Xanthistic Auto-Seances" and "Nominative Materialism". They even let him out of the chair, which is to say the Lord Inquisitor and the two Ordo Malleus Inquisitors decided to let him out, the rest of the audience not being invited to either vote or comment. This did not sit well with several of the other Inquisitors, but since they didn't have a psychic staff of silence or their own cadre of Space Marines, their opinions didn't carry any real weight. The straps and chains having been remotely released, Oak was free to pace around the platform, stretching his limbs, and triumphantly monologuing about his brilliant plan to foil what he believed to be a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch. At the Lord Inquisitor's instruction, we were waved forward to lug the three boxes over to the stage, passing them through the briefly lowered energy field that constituted the real security here. The second that the boxes were through and the field was back up, Oak's demeanor changed. It wasn't a big change, just a relaxation in the poker-face he was maintaining, but we weren't the only ones to notice it. A murmur passed through the audience as the Inquisitors quietly asked each other what was so important about the three belatedly delivered evidence boxes, but before the Lord Inquisitor could shush them, Oak announced he was ready to summon the daemon right now.

Inside the masterfully crafted facsimile of an Inquisitorial evidence box, a tiny vox transmitter verified the presence and readiness of its sibling-units, and then activated the Xeno-Spiritual Warp Battery. The Warp Battery–consisting of a delicate wafer of intricately worked wraithbone, an Eldar Soulgem, and a small shaped explosive charge–flooded with psychic energy as the Soul Gem was shattered. The soul of the Eldar Bonesigner occupying the gem was understandably distressed at its predicament, and fled outwards through the wraithbone circuitry towards the one miniscule sliver of hope left to it: the oddly green chips of soulstone embedded in the skull-latch's eyes. Psychic energy poured into the skull of the long-dead Inquisitor, branching through the delicately carved Fenrisian runes covering its interior. The spell had been hand-carved (literally, like with his fingernails) by a ex-Deathwatch Rune Priest of Oak's personal acquaintance in exchange for a veritable trove of Space Wolf war-gear recovered from a renegade Blood Ravens strike cruiser during the Aurelian Purge. Essentially, it was an old Fenrisian spell, used for millennia by both the vengeful and the boastful to summon the shade of the slain to name the one who slew them. Where it got interesting was what happened when the answer was "Well, TECHNICALLY it was that Inquisitor over there on that box next to me..." From the outside there wasn't much to see: first one chest started glowing with eldritch energy, then the one next to it, and then the third. This was followed by an awkwardly long wait, with Oak glaring daggers at the glowing boxes and making a "just a few more seconds" gesture. Then, as the audience started getting antsy and the first calls for Oak's execution began to ring out, a small dumpy Inquisitor in the Ordos Xenos section erupted in pink feathers.

The last remnants of the Daemon, losing all cohesion, were sucked into the box with a distinctly slurp-like sound. The lid closed with an impressive slam, followed almost instantaneously by two more as the first box was drawn into the second, and then into the third like one of those Vostroyan nesting dolls. The solitary remaining chest sat still and pulsed with a steady, barely pink psychic glow. Oak, having prudently taken cover behind the restraint chair as the torrent of Daemon-stuff poured in, stepped out and surveyed the situation with an air of smug satisfaction. Then, I shit you not, everyone started clapping. The two Malleus Inquisitors were the ones who started it, but the attitude was downright infectious, and claps and cheers started ringing out from all sides, with even one of the Deathwatch Marines joining in. Oak, unable to resist being an overdramatic prat, stood there in the middle of the stage and started bowing to the crowd like a bloody stage magician after an exceptionally clever trick. Credit where it was due, it'd been a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch he'd pulled out of an audience member's ear, and even we were clapping and cheering. But then again WE were idiots, not a bunch of frakking Inquisitors, and Oak had even less of an excuse than all of them, since HE still had a job to do, several of them in fact, starting with the final step of his Daemon capturing plan: ACTIVATING THE FRAKKING TESSERACT. Unfortunately (in so many ways) before Oak could finish his grandstanding and get around to doing his damn job, the Ordo Malleus decided to do it for him. Declaring time to be of the essence, one of the Malleus Inquisitors jumped down to the floor, directing his Grey Psyker Marines minions to bring forward a massive, ornately-decorated Reliquary. The other Malleus Inquisitor requested that the Lord Inquisitor lower the energy field so the Knights could perform their Rite of Sealing and that Oak please back away.

Oak did his best to stop the Grey Knights leaving with the box, arguing that it would tip off the Conspiracy, and that the Tyranids weren't THAT imminent a threat. When that didn't work he switched to trying to convince the court into immediate action, initiating a full purge of Inquisitorial headquarters alongside the Knights' exit. Unfortunately this led to the questions of targets, priorities, who could be trusted, and whether Oak really expected them to just take his word on it instead of looking at the evidence themselves. Rather desperately, Oak shifted from asking for a purge, to merely requesting a lockdown of the whole facility by trustworthy non-Inquisitorial forces, such as the mustering Guard taskforce in orbit. The Lord Inquisitor asked if he meant the Guard task force commanded by the same Lady General Von Humpeding whose daughter Oak held hostage. Ignoring the outraged sputtering from both the audience and Aimy, Oak soldiered on, insisting that Amelia Von Humpeding had actually been apprehended by the Inquisition along with the majority of his teams. The Lord Inquisitor paused, visibly pondering whether he'd accidentally executed the daughter of the system's de facto military commander, before Tact cleared his throat. More surprised than offended, as if a chair or desk had suddenly offered its expert opinion on the matter at hand, the Lord Inquisitor nodded to Administrator Tact. Playing the pedantic bureaucrat with every ounce of his being, Tact explained that the heiress in question had received a commuted sentence, merely having been transferred to the Inquisitorial Penal Legion. The one which had just shipped out to serve as Tyranid fodder. This time it wasn't just the Lord Inquisitor who paused–the entire audience was taking a moment to ponder the options for indiscriminate retribution available to a vengeful Lady General.

Thoroughly outfoxed, and desperately trying not to look like it, Inquisitor Oak watched the squad of Grey Knights as they hefted their Reliquary and headed for the service door. The Lord Inquisitor returned to his seat, ordering Tact (which is to say us) to clean up the worst of the mess. As we got the scattered mess of evidence boxes back into their assigned spots, what was left of the Inquisitorial audience tried to find seats without too much blood and/or bullet holes and sat back down. Oak reluctantly got back into his seat too, shooting the occasional glance from Tact, to us, to the door the Space Marines had gone through, back to Tact, and so on. Doing his best to ignore the blatant signaling, the Administrator diffidently pointed out that the Lord Inquisitor had quite a bit on his schedule, and asked if he should discreetly postpone things until their "deliberations" were finished. After a thoughtful pause, the Lord Inquisitor nodded, and sent him off to handle things in his absence, adding a casual instruction to take his "escort" along and have us mind-wiped and assigned to Malleus service. As the service door shut behind us, Tact let out a long, frustrated breath, declared Oak to be a self-serving little shit-weasel, and yelled at us to get moving before those Malleus frack-wits screwed everything up.

Rather embarrassingly, Sarge had to immediately stop and turn around so Tact could turn the Void Shield back on. It was definitely worth the short backtrack though, since judging by the muffled shouting and bolter fire, the Inquisitors were busy with their "deliberations" and wouldn't want any interruptions. Tact took a break from cursing Oak's name to proudly declare that between the enemy's stacking of the court and his own gracious assistance with their efforts, nearly a third of the Inquisitors still in there were Conspiracy agents; hence the Space Marine ushers. Unfortunately, the same ratio held true for the giant mob of Inquisitorial agents the Grey Knights were about to march out into with their Daemon-box. As Guardsmen, we generally approved of the good ol' "get all your enemies in one place, and then shoot them" maneuver, but thinking back to that small army of Inquisitorial minions we'd passed through on the way in, Oak and Tact had definitely overdone it. There was also the rather pressing question of why in the Emperor's name neither one of them had told anyone, ANYONE AT ALL, about their genius master plan to invite all their enemies here at once. THAT, Tact informed us, had been OAK'S job. Hence the preemptive pardon, and the archeotech energy shield protecting him from the audience, and the inquisitorial frakking rosette he was so frakking proud of. But no, instead of coming clean and taking his lumps, he'd chickened out and now WE were stuck cleaning up his mess all because that slimy little weasel wanted to keep his frakking job! Sarge nodded as he picked Tact back up, and asked why HE hadn't said anything. >And blow MY cover? Frak off.

The point which we were so aggressively missing was that the Grey Knights and their chump of a boss were walking straight into not one, but TWO ambushes. On the bright side, though, it looked like they weren't completely clueless, since according to the note pinned to the passageway's middle door, they'd commandeered the entire band of Sisters guarding it. Tact paused for a second to boggle at the note, which declared that the Sisters were "Escorting a squad of Grey Knights and their containment reliquary to their shuttle, back in 30", and asked if one of us had written it. Sarge pointed out that we'd have just called the thing a "Daemon Box" and the spelling was too good, and then picked the grumpy old man back up before he could start complaining about youth these days and their lack of operational security. Someone else was taking OPSec seriously, though, because there was something wrong with our comms. Well not OUR comms, as Tink immediately pointed out–it was Tact who said he was having a problem reaching anyone, except for us of course. Tink, not having any idea how to mess with Tact's internal spy-vox thing, started flipping his own comm-bead through channels and slowed to a walk while he poked at his dataslate. Everyone turned to look at the techie as he triumphantly announced that our comms were all fine, it was the Headquarters network that was fracked to hell. It wasn't down exactly, and it hadn't locked us out, it just didn't seem to be passing along any of OUR messages. There was definitely other traffic though, a LOT of it. Belatedly recognizing the looks of horror on Sarge, Doc, and Tact's faces, Tink announced it was probably time to give Jim and Hannah a call.

Even more surprising than their over-armed escort, was the presence of a worryingly familiar-looking oversized servo-skull accompanying them. Hannah sent a panicked signal to Fio, who reassured her that the Mag'O was definitely still aboard and currently pontificating on the difference between a Mork-host and a Gork-host. The servo-skull also reassured her that any resemblance to hereteks living or dead was purely coincidental, and it was merely a well disguised archeo-tech data relay of staggering bandwidth and fidelity. This did not reassure either Hannah or Jim, which given the Magos Juris in question, was presumably the point. Backed up by their Magos' authorization codes, Jim and Hannah had no problem walking straight into the facility's primary data node and announcing an immediate security audit. In fact, several of the resident techpriests seemed downright giddy at the prospect, which made sense after Jim saw what centuries of credential management via Inquisitorial fiat had done to the security system's machine spirit. Hannah took one look at the opaque, twisted mass of a machine spirit, and declared it to be exactly the sort of security system that Occurence Border would have. If it had one at all, that is.

Tink swore and stumbled as Jim's transmission came in, and informed everyone present that ‘the entire, uh, everything’ was going to be experiencing technical difficulties shortly. Sarge swore and dropped to the rear next to Nubby, and readied the Administrator for "detachment". With Twitch and Aimy on point, we jogged through the door into the holo-hall just in time to see Mister Professional Daemon Wrangler Malleus Inquisitor Badass explode. Well, not actually "see" see, what with all the Malleus Stormtroopers and Space Marines between us and the blast, which was actually more of a wet pop. Spot had a great view, though, and caught a nice clear pic of the Inquisitor going off like a balloon full of viscera, pink fire, and daemons. Why exactly this happened was unclear, but even Malleus Inquisitors (who are famously prone to this sort of thing) don't just randomly explode. Our money was on the little scroll he'd just been handed by that Ordo Xenos Interrogator, that and his own Untouchable Interrogator deactivating his limiter with a triumphant cackle. The traitorous untouchable had roughly half a second to revel in his betrayal before the blast-wave of flaming Inquisitior-bits slapped the smug look off his face. The Xenos Interrogator did better, ducking behind his companion and merely catching an artistic splash of pink fire across his forehead. The four Space Marines, on the other hand, didn't even try to dodge; stomping forward through the wave of liquid-fire and slicing the newly manifested daemon (a sort of living fire thing) to shreds with their force weapons. As badass as the Space Marines' immediate counter-attack was, the short-lived fire daemon had already done its job. The iridescent flames clinging to the four Marines erupted like flares as they attacked with their psychic weapons, and the Xenos Interrogator cackled triumphantly as he unleashed a psychic shriek that signaled the start of the ambush.

At this point, Administrator Tact cut in to ask if we were going to DO ANYTHING!? In unison, every single red-blooded, Emperor-fearing, heresy-not-commiting, one of us rounded on the little shit with a unanimous whisper of "[EXPLETIVE] NO!" As if to punctuate the point, a massive power surge radiated through the, well, everything. Vox systems shorted in showers of sparks, the massive door-jam we were all heroically hiding behind made an ominous clunking sound, and every single light in the room went out. Nubby gestured at the massive cavern, illuminated only by the flickering holo-statues and the sheer mass of weapons-fire, and invited the former Diplomacy Adept to "Show us 'ow it's done!" The man had a point, though. We really did need to do something, and just as soon as we figured out what in the emperor's name that was, we would get around to it. Aimy was looking between her pulse-rifle's scope and Spot's video feed trying to figure out if she could land hits on the rapidly moving targets, and whether Spot's marker-thingy would help enough for the rest of us to assist. Twitch argued that this was a waste of time and effort, and that we should just go with the tried and true ‘Blow Spot Up Again’ plan, on the theory that the space marine's psychic shield thing would probably be enough to handle a medium-sized explosion. Sarge was keeping his attention focused entirely on the box while debating with Doc whether or not the Xenos interrogator was a daemonhost. Not that there was much to debate, what with him holding up in melee combat with three space marines. That and the feathers and tentacles.

We weren't sure what an 'Omega Protocol' was, but a sort of order seemed to be coalescing out of the maelstrom. Several groups of inquisitorial agents began breaking off and running for the various exits in a coordinated fashion, while others moved in around the fringes of the main battle. The space marines were holding their own against the demonic Interrogator and several of his allies, while their stormtrooper escort was having significantly less success. They were trying their best, but even before the Conspiracy agents closed to melee, they'd been having a bit of trouble with their own, "Untouchable" Interrogator. Two of the slower stormtroopers had tried to help the Interrogator, slapping at the living flames that covered him, only to reel backwards as the pink fire clung to them. They were still screaming about their twisting and mutating flesh when their comrades opened fire on all three of them, a barrage of hellgun rounds putting down the two mutating troopers but doing nothing to the living bonfire that was the Interrogator. Completely ignoring the las-fire, the untouchable interrogator writhed around, casting little droplets of flaming interrogator tallow that brought down two other stormtroopers before a burst of bolter shells finally tore him to pieces. While this did solve the immediate problem, it went rather poorly for the nearest five or six stormtroopers and forced the survivors away from the steadily growing lake of mutagenic fire.

The second ambush was not well-planned, because the second ambush did not need to be well-planned, because the second ambush consisted of three squads of centuries-old genetically-enhanced power-armored super-warriors. And also a Dreadnought. Instead of bothering with subterfuge or misdirection, the three-plus squads of Deathwatch Astartes strode through the room in a wave of indiscriminate violence that warmed our guardsmanly hearts. Bolter shells and more exotic weapons cut down dozens of inquisition agents of indeterminate allegiance while other marines armed with chainswords or power weapons carved bloody swathes through anyone dumb enough not to run for it. Sarge let out a long breath and stood everyone back down–not that we needed telling–and returned to watching the besieged reliquary while Nubby solicited the rest of us to place our bets on how many of them were Alpha marines. The bets were, nine, nine, nine, all of them, and somewhere between eight and ten with an 11% error margin. Unfortunately for Tact, his bet was rejected on the grounds that it was his fault all of these marines were here in the first place. The fact that his bet was the same as everyone else's was not seen as a factor. Things being more or less a tie, the real betting was on whether the Dreadnought was an Alpha marine too, or possibly a cleverly disguised Ork warboss, at which point the Curatoress cut in again saying that she damn well hoped the big guy wasn't an alpha marine, because it was his giant ceramite ass that was covering their approach.

Per Sarge's orders, as we moved, Tink kept an eye (or a Spot) on the Reliquary and the ongoing dispute over its ownership. The two Grey Knights, once again not counting the giant pillar of fire keeping the flickering psychic shield erected, were on their last legs. The conspiracy assault–despite the loss of their leader, comms, and lighting, not to mention everything else that had gone catastrophically wrong–were still pushing inwards. It was obviously a matter of moments before the two space marines fell and the question of the box's ownership became someone else's (re: our) problem. But as the traitors made their final push, the Deathwatch assault caught up with them. A hail of bolter and plasma fire cut down the last of the Conspiracy agents, leaving a single Grey knight, an arm and half a leg completely encased with warp-fire, standing victorious over his charge. At which point the THIRD ambush kicked off. In a repeat of the Conspiracy's grand betrayal, between eight and ten space marines (with an 11% margin for error) suddenly, but inevitably, turned on their battle-brothers. Nubby was instructed to stop trying to count who was on which side while Sarge did exactly that (except for far more valid staying-alive reasons), and Tact badgered Tink to turn Spot's jamming as high as it would go. The frenzy of space marine-on-space marine violence stopped as quickly as it started, leaving zero surviving Grey Knights, an indeterminate number of Deathwatch/Alpha marines scattered around the darkened room, and one Dreadnought still slowly plodding towards the center of the room, seemingly oblivious the bloodbath around it. There were several seconds of silence punctuated only by the sound of stomping footsteps and the occasional bolter fire as the hidden space marines sniped at each other, and then a deep frustrated voice declared "The Inquisitor inspects his closet for monsters, but not under his bed".

Whatever the Alpha Marines were arguing about (presumably who was going to have to carry the still-mutating Reliquary) they didn't have time to reach a decision. There was a sudden, pained curse from Fumbles, and the advancing green-sigiled Dreadnaught flickered and vanished, revealing a tightly packed squad of Deathwatch Marines and an exhausted psyker. All nine Alpha marines began to turn and bring their weapons to bear, only to realize that the ACTUAL Dreadnaught was just a little bit closer than it'd appeared. With a massive, wall-shaking bellow of "NOT!", the Dreadnaught sprinted across the last few meters, and several tons of pissed-off Astartes warmachine smashed into the Traitor-marines along with a volley of krak grenades. They weren't OUR grenades–even Sarge couldn't lob one that far. Our contribution consisted of a barrage of pulse rounds bursting through the hologram of a long-dead inquisitor in an especially tasteless hat, all focused on a single point as designated by a Tau-ish marker light. The target of the barrage, the one jackass who still wasn't wearing his helmet, didn't even have time to react before his oversized skull exploded. Tink's overcharged plasma blast, moving slower than the pulse shots, sailed through the empty space where the traitor marine's skull used to be, before continuing on to intercept a leaping Conspiracy agent mid sneak-attack.

Sergeant Gravis did not appear to be listening, though, being far too busy flailing at the three alpha marines dancing outside of his reach. And it really was flailing, full of wild blows more appropriate for an ork warlord than the graceful space marine we remembered. Honestly, he was outclassed, and wouldn't have caught any of the three if it wasn't for the blast of warp-fire raining around them. As one of his three targets–a power-sword wielding marine with a red teardrop emblem–dodged away from an incoming fireball, Gravis lunged, snatching the marine out of midair with a triumphant bellow, and then staggering as a massive foot punched straight through the mass of flesh, tentacles, and flames that said fireball left on the floor. It had honestly never occurred to us that a dreadnought even COULD trip. The multi-ton astartes war machine smashed forwards in a spray of sparks, blood, and warp-fire, crushing the unfortunate alpha marine in his clutches- and putting his one empty claw straight through the mutated metal of the box. This time, instead of a flash of necrotic light, the box released a massive pulse of psychic energy. The warp-fire all around erupted upwards, and there was a triumphant screech from the Daemonhost, "He comes! FOR REAL THIS TIME! The Un'Knowing and Un'Known, The Un'Seeing and Un'Seen, THE UN'DOER AND THE UN'DONE: UN'NOW'EN THE ETERNALLY SURPRISED!" There was an awkward pause as the Daemonhost made a grandiose gesture in Gravis's general direction... and once again, nothing happened. Instead, the rising tide of warp-energy abruptly stopped with a sudden psychic CLANG. There was a pause, and then the Daemon spoke. >Well, this is certainly Un'Expected...

Un'Now'En had weaved this spell itself, no one else could have done it. Nine young psykers, their souls blessed and births foretold by the Changer of Ways, had been hunted down by the Daemon's pawns. The unstoppable force of their nascent Gifts, blessings of magic and mutation beyond mortal comprehension or control, had been bound and balanced by an unmovable object of the Daemon's devising: an Un'Gift. To create an untouchable was unthinkable, and therefore well within the purview of the Daemon's paradoxical powers, and such a walking warp-void made the perfect lynchpin for the spell. The hobbled humans, barely more powerful than the Corpse God's blind servants, had been let loose. Carefully mixed in with the other potentials, the nine Gifted had been "rescued" from a cabal of conspicuously incompetent Rogue Traders and inducted into the Inquisition without any extra effort on the Daemon's part. Unguided and untouched by the Conspiracy, they had found their ways into various retinues, unknowingly bound to eachother and the Un'Gifted Interrogator by their own powers. And then, with an eager chuckle, the Daemon snapped its creation and freed their Gifts. Throughout the system, eight young psykers blinked as a torrent of unimaginable power flowed into them. All suddenly became clear as the true glory of the Changer of Ways dawned upon them. Reality ceased to have meaning, time became a mere suggestion, and causality was discarded as an outdated concept in the face of the sheer overwhelming power of Change. And then they all exploded into daemons, lots and lots of them. Ignoring the newly-formed Warp Portals, Un'Now'En chuckled in amused surprise as a single remaining tendril of warp energy twisted around, unexpectedly unable to return to its source. With a metaphorical shrug, the Daemon redirected it into the nearest available receptacle, and the birdlike Daemonhost shrieked as a ninth gateway into the crystalline labyrinth tore through its being.

The non-traitor-marine's response was less enigmatic. Bellowing at Gravis to get his ass up and bring back the damn box, the apothecary led the four deathwatch marines in a tactical advance, keeping a withering suppressive fire on both the warp-portal and the rapidly growing un'touchable-spawn. With an incoherent bellow and a geyser of humorous fluids, the overturned dreadnought wrenched its leg free and levered itself upward, the jellied remains of the alpha marine squishing under claw. His other claw held the reliquary firmly (re: was stuck inside it), and, like a concussed scrumball player, Gravis clutched the flattened thing to his chest and lurched back towards his battle-brothers. For our part, we raced ahead to the exit in the long-standing guard tradition of securing the line of retreat. Taking advantage of the extra breath supplied by his augmetic legs, Nubby announced that those of us who had put money on 'everything explodes into daemons' should contact him in one to seven weeks about getting our winnings. Twitch's more specific bet of 'everything explodes into daemons and orks and daemonids and more orks and horrors dredged from the darkest recesses of our imaginings and more orks' was still not technically ruled out, but Nubby would need to see at least six orks before he would entertain it. Sarge barked at the little trooper to cram it and redirected his charge toward where the elderly Curatoress was attempting to drag a spasming, twitching Fumbles to safety before he also exploded. Dropping his pulse-rifle to his side, and without breaking his stride, Sarge scooped the old lady under the arm not holding Tact. Behind him, Nubby and Twitch grabbed Fumbles and booked it after Sarge while Tink, Aimy and Doc began laying down covering fire on the mutated batlike creatures flapping out of the portal.

Even before it had been crushed, mangled, and mutated, transporting that damn adamantium reliquary would have been a tall order. Now, with it embedded a good half-meter into a wall, there was only one option. With a triumphant smirk, Tink fired up his techno-heretical plasma gun and set it to 'cut'. Sarge hustled his payload of geriatric spies around the door jam, the two of them still frantically babbling into their comm-beads, seemingly completely disinterested in the current clusterfrak. Under the cover of the rest of the squad, except for Twitch who was too busy laying mines, Tink extracted a glowing mass of scrap metal which he was positive contained Oak's Box, somewhere. It was still a heavy and unwieldy thing, mind you, but it didn't seem to be doing anything especially warpy (Fumbles seemed to be recovering now that he had gotten away from the chaos portals). The problem of how to carry it, and the spies, and Fumbles (who could stand up but hadn't gotten to 'walking in a straight line' just yet) was answered for us as a familiar electric tour train rocketed out of the nearest side-door. The wheelchair-bound scribe, looking decidedly worse for wear and clutching a hand-cannon as he steered, seemed to have a very clear picture of what was going on. Before the rest of us could even start moving, Tact, the Curatoress, and the scribe already had their heads together speaking what was ostensibly low gothic, but with a speed and level of jargon that rendered it unintelligible. Following their lead and doing our best not to interrupt the seven different conversations the three of them were having, we loaded up and sped off towards the motor pool, Twitch's mines already going off behind us.