Chapter 10 Part 2

Chapter 10: Tonight, we dine in hell

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Part 2

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Victory Bay

Kronus

Honestly, stunts like these gave birth to particularly treacherous rumors and various not sufficiently patriotic movies, that as often as not get the local Arbiters busy cracking heads. And that was a tangent my mind had no business going at while everyone pointed guns at each other.

"Commissar Weber." My voice came out of my lips as a quiet hiss. "It appears a lot of people need remedial weapon discipline training." I looked at the troopers watching each other warily and felt my facial scars stretch uncomfortably when my eyes began to twitch from sheer vexation.

"It appears so, Inquisitor." My blood-thirsty acquaintance promptly agreed.

"In the Emperor's name, stand the fuck down!" My voice snapped like a whip. "Commissars, deal with this. Some remedial training is in the order I reckon." I shook my head at the sheer bloody idiocy of what just happened and gave my best-disappointed look to the Ogryns. After that, I marched towards a nearby Chimera, determined to requisition it, and go see what mischief the Necrons were up to. Not to mention, I had to explain how they lost a drone because of an itchy trigger finger.

My bodyguards fell in formation around me, with Anteas effortlessly striding behind us. Meanwhile, Weber began issuing orders to the nearby Commissars which would hopefully ensure there would be no more such embarrassing and dangerous incidents. Now if it only could be so easy to deal with the Necrons and Blood Ravens before we got another shooting or stabbing incident…

We pilled up in a transport I promptly requisitioned.

"Anteas, where is the technology our allies provided?"

"One of the Tech-Priests compounds near General Alexander's HQ."

"Driver, get us to the HQ. Anteas, what's that rumbling I'm hearing because we aren't shooting at each other?" I asked the Librarian, who barely fit at the back of the Chimera.

We left as fast as the Chimera could accelerate with a Space Marine weighing it down. Behind us, I could barely hear the screams of pissed off Commissars. It was like music to my ears.

We spent the next twenty minutes or so in a comfortable silence, which offered me some sorely needed time to get my head straightened up as much as possible. Various mental exercises and quiet prayers to the Emperor helped a bit. The latter even earned me a few nervous smiles from the troopers stuck inside with us.

A wave of static electricity washed over me, focusing my mind on the here and now. It was a weird sensation, like nothing I've experienced before. The energy wasn't physical I found out a moment later. It didn't touch my skin, instead, it clashed over and around my soul. With every passing moment, the ever-present sensation of wrongness and power emanated from the Warp-Storm nearby felt more distant, losing their grip on me. My eyes widened and I warily attempted to touch the Immaterium. It felt distant, more distant than ever, and with every passing heartbeat, that distance increased. I was sure that very soon it would be out of my reach. At the same time, I could feel the walls separating the Materium and Immaterium strengthen, in a way that was similar yet not to a Gellar Field in action.

A couple of minutes later, the Warp was little more than a distinct echo. For the first time since I could remember, I could breathe easily, as if a great weight no longer pressed upon my whole being.

Soon the effect became apparent even to the troopers who were lucky enough not to have a clear connection with hell itself in their souls. The Guardsmen and women in the Chimera looked around, more lively and dare I say, light-hearted than before.

"The device is indeed working, Inquisitor." Anteas rumbled.

I nodded with a smile. This… it was a game-changer. And I would be damned if I wasn't going to throw it in the faces of the damned traitors we would soon be facing.

When we reached the Martian's compound with the nice Necron devices and disembarked, it was immediately clear their effect was great for the morale. Even with groups of Necron Scarabs and other assorted drones flying around, not to mention a group of their infantry standing at attention near the entrance, the soldiers dug in nearby were all in a much better mood than they had any right to be. I had never paused to think about how the Warp might passively affect regular people, especially when there weren't friendly warp-touched entities or artifacts to boost their morale. You know, like the odd Imperial Saint or relic.

This was certainly something worth studying in the future… if we didn't get all shot as heretics for dabbling in what we shouldn't have.

A couple of minutes later, we were inside and pass the security checkpoints. The heart of the building was one giant workshop. A large monolith made of the same stuff the Necrons were built of stood as the centerpiece. Thick cables connected it to a pair of portable plasma generators through crude attachments. Green lighting forked up and down its surface and I could feel energy resonating with my very soul as I approached it. While it wasn't exactly uncomfortable, I would never call the sensation pleasant either.

Groups of Martians chanted in Binary. A few of them knelt reverently in front of the Monolith, while others took readings with all kinds of sensors. Incense burned all around the workshop and to top it all Servo-Skulls flew around carrying smoking sticks of it.

At least no one was spraying the device with blessed oil, though there was a pair of toaster-fuckers with what suspiciously looked like sprayers ready nearby.

A single Necron Praetorian stood proudly close by and if I didn't know better, I would swear he was rolling its solid glowing eyes.

"Inquisitor." The Necron announced in a toneless synthetic voice. "You're alive." The Praetorian turned to look at me. "And you appear more or less sane." He lowered his head a bit to look at me closer. "Or so it appears. Please explain… this…" He pointed clawed fingers at the Martians who were all too busy with their religious fervor to pay us any attention.

"Sadly, ever since the fall of the Human Federation, these are what passes for our scientists and engineers.' My facial muscles twitched at the very idea. "By treaty and out of desperation," I added.

I wasn't sure where those words came from. What I knew was that sooner or later I would be paying for them.

"Praise the Omnissiah!"

"By the Motive Force!"

That much I understood. The gleeful beeping I was reasonably sure I didn't want a translation of.

The Necron looked at the Martians, then back at me.

"You don't say, Inquisitor."

"I'm glad you've lived up to your part of our bargain. How many of these devices can you have operational for when we strike at the Deimos Peninsula? Their ability to wall off access to the Warp is going to be invaluable."

"Not as many as we would like." The Necron rumbled in a deep voice that was a passable imitation of Anteas' deep baritone. "I find myself curious. From what we've been able to figure out, your kind is supposed to be frothing at the mouth because of our very presence and stirring up the locals on a crusade against us on general principle."

"Didn't we agree that I'm a sane Inquisitor? Don't worry, when our respective reinforcements arrive, we'll probably have to either kill each other or get blasted from orbit on general principle."

The Necron simply stared at me, while Anteas groaned.

"It's a good thing you aren't a diplomat, Inquisitor."

"There's that. Yet, what I just said is unfortunately to be our future. On the bright side, before we get blasted from orbit, we might ruin the Chaos' day and avoid getting our souls devoured by Demons. So there's that."

"My Lord provisionally agrees. When reinforcements arrive, all bets are going to be off." The Necron concluded.

"On the bright side, we might get lucky. Sanity and common sense might for once rear up their ugly heads."

"I find that unlikely." The Necron decided to rain on my parade.

"I find myself in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with the Xeno." Anteas pipped up.

"Let me have my delusions until I get thrown into an Inquisitorial interrogation chamber or shot on general principle. At any rate, before we might suffer such auspicious ends, we have work to do. Anteas, my friend, please get the attention of a few of our Martian friends. I need to ask them a few questions."