Chapter 13 Part 3

Chapter 13: Revelations

=ATBS=

Part 3

=ATBS=​

Inquisitor Vail's quarters

Rogue Trader Vessel Lucre Foedis

The Warp en route to Kronus

Amberley lounged on her bed, nursed one drink too many, and prayed to the Emperor that the universe would begin to make sense again, thank you very much! Nearby, good old, Caractacus sat on the edge of a comfortable wooden armchair, a gift from a minor noble who still held the delusion she might marry him. The savant muttered to himself, and the still flesh and blood parts of his face twitched constantly. The cause was obvious - he watched a certain infernal recording again and again.

It had to be fake, Amberley told herself. All of this had to be some grand deception. She tried to reassure herself. Otherwise, the galaxy had gone even more insane than she thought possible.

The official reports over the events from the past couple of weeks were bad enough. The Inquisitor didn't even have to read between the lines! Doing so was a critical skill when dealing with a large section of the Imperial bureaucracy. The reports were painfully blunt, and the picture they painted, ugly. The Blood Ravens and the Imperial Guard under the command of General Lucas Alexander were on the brink of open warfare. The Astartes had shot up one too many Guard unit for the General to hold back and take the abuse. Inquisitor Requista and his retinue had gone missing investigating rumors of heresy and treason in a region known as the Deimos Peninsula.

That was the same place where Necrons, Eldar, and assorted Imperial forces were supposedly busy securing right now. They were just launching a final assault to destroy a Chaos Warp Gate. That was what the reports claimed.

Reading that message nearly made Amberley giggle at the beginning of a bad, heretical joke. Nevertheless, it was supposed to be true.

At least she now knew who this "Inquisitor" Delkatar Veil was supposed to be – a green behind the ears Acolyte supposed to join Requista's retinue as a Sanctioned Psyker.

That much was reasonable. All the paperwork copies and codes Vail received from the Armageddon appeared genuine. However, what the man did next, painted a very different picture. He managed to get the Blood Ravens and Imperial Guard to step back from the brink of utter foolishness and treason. After that, he convinced them to give him assets to go find Requista so the Inquisitor could officially order them not to kill each other.

The sheer insanity of that statement was galling. It also lined up with the cry for help sent by General Alexander and the request for updated orders from the Blood Raven commander, a Captain Thule.

If that was all, Veil's actions would be commendable and enough for a lot of Inquisitors to snag him into their retinues. Common sense was a rare and dangerous commodity these days. If you were able to make use of it, that was even rarer and better!

Amberley giggled and drank some more amasec. Anything not to think about how the insanity, tragicomedy, and sheer madness on Kronus ended! Because thinking about it made her head hurt, and she wanted to scream in frustration at the practical joke the Emperor had to play on everyone if it was true! Nope, not thinking about that right now!

The blond woman stared at the ceiling, which wasn't spinning yet. She wasn't drunk enough, yet. Obviously!

What did Veil do next? He stumbled upon a massacred settlement! Then he found a bunch of traitors and Inquisitor Requista, who had been tortured to the brink of death and left to rot in the cells of the local Arbiters HQ. If she didn't know any better, Amberley would think that Veil had worse luck than dear Caiphas. Where was Cain when you needed him and his regiment anyway?

The Inquisitor frowned in a moment of clear thought. Requista had been a good man. He didn't deserve what the traitors did to him. He was also a tough bastard to survive the torture and still cling to life when rescue came. Amberly could recall the recording from the Astartes helmet cameras, from multiple sources too. Requista's brutalized form, his desperate last actions, and Veil's field promotion.

That could have been either a genuine stroke of luck, a blessing from the Emperor himself, that Requista lived just enough, that Veil could get to him in time. Or it could have been too neat a coincidence. A stranger just stumbled into Inquisitorial post. He then proceeded to wield the power his new position granted him in ways that many in the Imperium would gleefully call outright treasonous and heretical.

This all could be a long and twisted plot by Chaos. It sounded just like something a certain entity would be very happy to engineer.

But there was that last recording Amberley didn't want to think about! There was a lot of supporting evidence too! However, that evidence might be mighty Chaos effort or the Emperor making a very blunt statement in the hope that it might sink into the thick skulls of his servants.

It was days like this when Amberly hated her life.

Thinking of the source of her problems, she could recall watching Veil's more infamous exploits. Riding a Chimera to charge an Ork Warboss, after volunteering to lead his hastily gathered retinue as a kill team. It was the proper idea from an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos, even if the execution lacked. She saw Veil's stunt, going up at the Ork, even as Blood Ravens in Terminator armor swarmed it.

The brute, unfortunately, survived teleporting away. Multiple recordings confirmed orbital strikes decimating the Ork horde. Even more, evidence collaborated the Tau attack on the weakened Imperial lines, complete with Mechanicus sourced video of a wounded and incoherent Veil engaging Kroot raiding party while Medicaes attempted to evacuate him from a field hospital.

Amberley had the nagging suspicion that she was going to have to decide if these events were of a legend in the making or a grand deception with an unknown aim, and that either choice on her part would earn her far more complaints than praise.

The Necrons came next, and Vail couldn't help but be both excited and terrified. No matter the reason, those recordings were treasure troves for her Ordos. They had to survive and spread, even if people had to watch them with a few buckets of salt.

This was the first time Amberley knew of Necrons deigning to speak with humans. Perhaps, the first time they were capable of. She carefully studied everyone's faces and studied their reactions. Almost no one was happy at the alliance Veil wagered on. But the price of it, what the Necrons had and were willing to offer, that was simply too good to be true. It was an ideal bait, one that called to her like a siren's song. That was a great trap. She had to admit that much. Anyone in their right mind suspecting the presence of such technology on Kronus would be snared by it. It wasn't just the devices, but the schematics needed to build them that made it so enticing. She would risk a great deal to secure them. Any Inquisitor worth their rank would!

Those Pylons could be a game-changer. Veil saw that some of the Mechanicus contingent on-screen agreed, while others were particularly troublesome traditionalists.

In light of this revelation, Amberley merely skipped through the reports covering the clash with the combined Tau-Eldar force. It was a neat trap, one that was feasible to have happened due to the Pylons. If they worked as advertised, she could see how a Farseer might stumble in their divination and let things go astray that much.

Amberley drained her cup and discussed the merits of getting up to refill it. She glanced at a half-empty bottle in disgust and thought better of it. She had drunk enough, no matter if she wanted to be insensate soon or not.

The next group of reports made the situation seem like a tangled ball of yarn. A different group of Eldars appeared then. They warned the local Imperial forces of a Greater Daemon imprisoned on the planet, likely the heretics' primary objective.

Veil allied with them too. Amberley couldn't decide if he showed commendable foresight, or disturbing willingness to work with Xenos. That was saying something, considering her Ordo and how often she had to do precisely that!

Contrary to what anyone sane would expect, Humans, Necron, and Eldar failed to back-stab each other and fought together against the traitors pushing them back.

And it was then, that sheer pure insanity reigned! It made Amberley wonder if she managed to get either poisoned with something exotic or perhaps someone clobbered her upside the head with a power weapon. Either that or one of the Servitors running around the ship dropped a large box on top of her!

Inquisitor Vail watched chosen footage from the battle against Chaos, the Daemon charge, an Emperor damned Herald of Khorne, the most infamous one too, making an appearance. She watched the Necron Lord fight it to a near stand-still, yet losing, Inquisitor Veil's counter-charge that followed. It was the stuff of legends! Acts like this one made people sector-wide famous Champions of the Imperium. Usually, they were very dead heroes too. This would have been the case with Veil too! He faced against the Daemons with a small group of Guardsmen, Ogryn, and a child of all things! What the madman thought, Amberley wouldn't know until she met him.

And she would have to meet with all survivors and interrogate them. Carefully at that. She watched Veil and his Commissar aide face against the Skulltaker, and the Daemon began dismembering them - its preferred method of spreading terror before delivering a killing blow. Blood Ravens intervened, but only their Librarian managed to reach the Skulltaker and engage him. He was losing too, and then the Necron played their card. They teleported a Monolith behind the Daemon horde, and Amberley was sure it contained more of their anti-warp tech. As soon as the tremendous lightning bolt that heralded its arrival dissipated, many daemons fell, some bursting into fire. The Skulltaker faltered and slowed down. It still refused to die, yet it was now on the back-foot.

Amberley watched the next section multiple times, had it examined by Tech-priests again and again for traces of forgery. There were none, just the usual filtering meant to keep people safe when viewing such things.

She saw a child cripple a Herald of Khorne, saw the wounded Inquisitor deliver a mortal blow to the Daemon banishing it. She also read the critical report outlining the point of that suicidal attack. It was a field test of the Necron anti-Warp tech. The test wasn't just about weakening Daemons and Psykers, it was an attempt to kill the Warp spawn outright.

The state of the child as a blank was a part of it, Vail was certain of it. That explained her presence there. It took Amberley reading carefully through the lines to reach that explanation. At that point, she set aside her wine glass, opened her emergency amasec cache, and began drinking in earnest.

The first time Amberley went over the reports, she was ready to believe that this was it. Little did she know, that there would be yet another strike against her sanity.

Amberley glared at Mott. The man was fascinated by Veil's last stunt. Right now, he watched the recording from the Inquisitor's Kasrkin bodyguards for the tenth time at least. He kept counting all the feathers on screen and was convinced there was a divine message to be found in their numbers.

Feathers. Amberley blanched at the thought. She had the privilege of meeting an Imperial Saint once. She would never forget their golden radiance, their beautiful feathered wings. She shook her head and winced as it caused a stab of pain.

If there was even a hint of truth to those recordings, Veil at the very least received divine blessing from the Emperor. At worst, an Imperial Saint on Kronus meant that the Emperor approved of the madness that bastard wrought! Now Amberley couldn't even proclaim everyone on the surface heretics and traitors, even if it turned out it would be for the best! That was supposed to be a good thing but in this case?

How could she explain all those reports and records without appearing compromised? That bastard had to grow a pair of huge glowing wings, didn't he? What was this, a ruin Amberley's day marathon?

The Inquisitor closed her eyes, praying fervently that in the morning the world would begin to make a vague amount of sense.

Amberley would awake too early, with a headache from hell and news that reinforcements just entered the system. Necron reinforcements.