Astra Militarum

---------First of all I want to say sorry to my readers that I didn't redacted chapters till today, my father passed away so I kinda didn't have time for it. I did all In my power and redacted all chapters, so u can look at them one more time. Have a nice time reading this work -------------------------------------------------

I spent the flight digging through all sorts of files, learning (in general terms) about Navy life, and occasionally snatched up by the Reducer for "field testing this Omnissia-blessed figuline, Inquisitor." Perhaps Magos meant something else, but my sensory organs heard only "figulina."

Anyway, it was pretty funny with the ship's crew. Well, for starters, Wrath differed from the "standard" in a favorable way: since the Inquisition had no need for money and resources, the ship was stuffed with attendants, which markedly reduced the number of crew needed (just like with the "Mischief"). However, it was much more "toothy", however, I did not go into all the torpedoes and onboard guns, limiting myself for the time being to "light cruiser level salvo mass, Inquisitor".

Accordingly, the crew was by three thousand (I couldn't get it into my head, to be honest) people less than the navy counterpart, and fifteen hundred servicemen did the "lower class" work, that is, repairs, checks and other things in the back and distant parts of the ship. But the remaining crew of four thousand began with the "senior sailors," had education, responsibilities and... families, living on the ships for generations, at least on Wrath at this point, most of the first crew's grandchildren served.

And this is not the exception, but standard practice, which added another detail to the "building" of the ships: the ships looked like a city district, not least because that's what they were.

And due to the "small" crew, the lack of slumming, and the need for cargo space, our sloop had quite a lot of space given to me. Actually, a healthy workshop of several hangar-like cabins, occupied by the Reducer. Training areas, barracks, entertainment, heck, facilities for a regiment of Imperial Guards. And a third of this obscenity was allotted to me personally, for my needs and to house the Inquisitor's crew.

Well, on the whole, they were "hereditary inquisitorial" empties, with high loyalty and loyalty, right up to the priest, who, though he frightened me with faith in me the Emperor at every opportunity, quite naturally arranged a "prayer for the victory of good Terence Alumus," for example. In fact, it's creepy," I shooed away the faint "draughts" of warp. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that, but I'm sure I'll get a mutation, and I'd rather have a wing than a tentacle. It was rather flattering, though, no matter what.

Another of the curious things was that the ship did not have a traditional Imperial commissar, whose role was distributed among the officers and certified by the Inquisition. Quite a curious point, which I did not know how to interpret: either as some rough edges between the Inquisition and the Officio Prefectus, or on the contrary, as trust and unwillingness to waste the already not unlimited human resources.

And of course, during the flight I was wandering the internal code of the Inquisition, or rather, not even the code itself - there was a point: act for the good of humanity, a direct and literal democracy of the Inquisitors, in the sense that most right in case of conflict with a one to two or higher advantage. And "threesomes" with the uncritical (and circumventable) condition of various Ordos.

And I have dealt with the precedents for the application of this code and the acts of the Inquisition. The same exterminatus of various kinds: the destruction of sentient life, life in general, the upper layers of the soil and atmosphere, and finally, the destruction of the planet. No, the desire to destroy worlds did not inflame me, but situations when it was used, when it was found justified by the Hordo Exorium (special, investigating every use of exterminatus by Hordos), and when the one who used it was let to the servitor.

And so on down the line of acts of various types and kinds: the limits of authority, the measure of responsibility, the reasons that prompted the action. And the real, and not declared relations of the Inquisition with various associations and not only that was important. That is, for example, the Inquisition "irreconcilably fights" with xenopathy, at the same time having a lot of quite business connections. It was also "subtle" with mutants, especially considering the actual status of the Astartes and all kinds of winged, nimb-bearing, and other Imperial Saints.

There were enough pitfalls with ordinary humans, too. In theory you could "burn them all with fire," but in practice some organizations were better left untouched and turned a blind eye. Again, which ones and in what cases - the factor is not unimportant.

And I even practiced a little with the representatives of the so-called "security battalion", a sort of boarding, counter-boarding and partly police team. In principle, despite being a veteran and all that, my armor was strong enough to handle a dozen men at a time without risk of injury. Though, of course, the guards were ordinary people, so I did not spar with them to enhance my greatness, but rather to test the armor's capabilities and habituation to it.

We arrived at the Astra Militarum orbital base near the lone star a decade and a half after launch. I didn't know exactly what the void position was due to, but I suspected "warp currents," which simplify and accelerate warp navigation and astropathic communication in this particular system. In fact, the considerable fleet of ships indicated that I was right.

And the base itself would have been honored by the Death Star, if it was not made in purely imperial, neo-Gothic style. In terms of size, it was a planetoid, as it were, though not with a flat base but... rhomboidal. And who knows where the source of artificial gravity resides in it, but I would not be surprised if it is in the center of this "double cathedral" and, accordingly, in the center of mass.

Upon flying up, our trough was seized by special grippers, pulled into the bowels of the fortress, and I visually admired the alignment and conjugation of the artificial gravity sources of Wrath, standing at an angle of ninety degrees to the gravity source of the station. Quite a curious moment, with the construction of a kind of "gradient-step transition", and the work was clearly routine.

And finally, I found myself at the base, having thought about it and decided not to pull a magos with me and refuse a naval escort. The sight of me, though open-faced and with my servocap glinting through the scarlet eye sockets, in spite of the lack of an escort, impressed the men who met me.

There was a Guards officer with captain's stripes, a Department official, and a couple of their escorts, for solidity's sake. Well, I had enough solidity, so I interrupted the welcoming trills with a movement of my paw and announced:

- I need to see Colonel 13th of Ophidian. Banquets, audits, and the like are impractical at the moment, who can take me to him? - I voiced.

- Probably... me," the captain began to play the maiden.

- Very well. Go ahead," said I. - And you, sir?

- Egor Lassi, Perfect-sekundos Departamento Munitorum," said the official, clearly intent on making a break for it.

- Fine," I repeated indifferently. - You will keep me company.

As a matter of fact, I was following the unanimous instruction to the bureaucratic apparatus (Astra Militarum's General Staff was quite one of them). To keep my mouth shut, to make my wishes clear, and to point the finger at those responsible for their realization. Otherwise, getting what they wanted might have been delayed for an unexpected period of time. Or it would require at least the third level of impact, in Inquisition classification: "inflicting pain without causing injury or long-term disability.

The funny thing is that the officials could actually be crystal clear. That was more or less the rule in the Imperium, given the punitive apparatus and degrees of punishment. But they had their little sins, because they were human. And in fear of the "imminent Inquisitor," they could make such a fog...

One of my favorite revelations, reread several times, said that as part of the investigation the Inquisitor needed to trace the path of supplies through Departamento Munitorom, on an out-of-town planet, which belonged exclusively to the Inquisitor's case, as a transit point. But the officials, all three of them, were suddenly sick with something viral, delirium-inducing, and generally (as it turned out later - pretend). Okay, the Inquisitor decided to spend a couple of hours and trace the path of the junk through the circumstantial data of the planetary administration.

The bureaucrats managed to make a mess of things so masterfully and at the same time lie in such a talentless way and, in addition, evade direct questions, that the colleague quite reasonably suspected the filth of warp.

The recorded conversations were such that I, too, would have thought the place was a nest of vice and Tzinchitches are foul, not a planetary administration. Anyway, the Inquisitor barricades himself in his office, requests a landing party from the ship, sends a request to Astra Militarum, because the arbiters on the planet didn't yell "alarm," which means the top of the planet is infested with a nasty disease. If not the entire planet at all.

So the Inquisitor's ship drops a landing party, surrounds and captures the government, the spaceport, and blocks the Arbitrator's fortress. And the Inquisitor begins to talk thoughtfully, under cover of a regiment of guards with armored vehicles, to the officials.