169 – Connection
Ciaphas Cain was old. Rejuvenation treatnt after rejuvenation treatnt had seen to that he lived so long he could barely even recall his ho planet.
The dark tunnels of the far-off hive world, and the tunnel-rats senses they had gifted him were the only ntos he had.
Centuries had gone by since he first stepped foot on the Schola’s grounds, and sotis he still wondered about the sheer impossibility of it all. He was still alive, despite ti and every last enemy of mankind doing its best to put an end to him on a near-daily basis.
“Sir?” A nonplussed voice snapped him out of his brooding. As his senses returned to him, he felt his oldest comrade’s utterly unique body odour invade his nostrils. He really must have been lost in thought, Jurgen was not the sneaky kind and yet Cain hadn’t noticed his presence until he spoke up. “Care for a cup of tanna?”
“Yes,” Cain said, nodding slowly as he made sure to breathe only through the mouth. Jurgen had many positive qualities, foremost of which was his unbending loyalty, but few ever cared to look beyond his unkempt and rather repulsive exterior. Oh well, that only served to keep them from realising his true nature as a Blank, so it was to his benefit. “Thank you, Jurgen. Was there any communication from our friends in the capital while I was out?”
“No, Sir.” Jurgen shook his head. “It’s been silent.”
“Well, that’s not good.” Cain rubbed at the bridge of his nose as he savoured the warmth of the tanna spreading through his body.
It did little to banish his rising anxiety though. There had been no news from Amberly for what felt like ages, but was a re two days in actuality.
Cain was rather certain the headstrong woman would be just fine, one way or another. Inquisitors were made of sterner stuff, and Amberly even more so. What he was more worried about, was that without her, he was stuck here like a landed fish since she was the only one who had access to whatever they used to communicate with the stealth void-ship up in orbit.
It was her own personal ship of course, but Cain would really do with any shoddy piece of junk that could fly him off of this damnable planet. He had never been one to believe the Emperor had the ti, or willingness to personally protect his every last subject, so he liked to take every precaution to put as many obstacles between himself and enemies as possible.
Alas, life always found a way to ss it all up.
This ti, it ca in the form of a request. Few n could ever resist the words ‘darling, could you do sothing for ?’ spoken by a beautiful woman. That was doubly true when said woman was an inquisitor.
“Sir?” Jurgen spoke up, and Cain glanced up with a start to find the man’s face warped in a confused frown. “What are we supposed to do with the Miss that ca with you? The Lieutenant has been complaining that she keeps poking at his n’s equipnt.”
“‘Poking at his n’s equipnt’?” Cain repeated, an eyebrow tiredly raised in amusent. Unfortunately, Jurgen was immune to humor, or likely never even learned the word to begin with, so he just nodded. “Which equipnt?”
“Guns, knives, tactical gear,” Jurgen listed out, looking confused. “I thought they weren’t supposed to let a civie touch their stuff, but most of them didn’t seem to care. I don’t get it.”
“Well,” Cain said, pausing to down the remaining tanna in his cup before rising to his feet with a groan. The day’s action had not been kind to his knees and hip. If he couldn’t get another rejuv treatnt soon-ish, he’d really start to wither, he felt. “Let’s see what’s going on.”
Cain already had an idea of what might be going on, several ones in fact, and he was relieved to find that it turned out to be one of the rather ta ones. As he stepped into the larger room, the one they’d nad ‘the lounge’ of the safe-house, he wanted to sigh. The detachnt of elite stormtroopers that had stayed behind with Cain should have known better, but they had been stuck inside this ratty safe-house for weeks now.
At least this bunch isn’t from a mixed regint. Cain mused, watching half a dozen grizzled troopers fawn over the gorgeous woman who had found herself locked in a room with them. The Lieutenant was frowning up a storm in the corner, arms crossed and feet almost tapping in annoyance. Cain knew the troopers would have killed the woman if their superior had given the order, but by the flash of almost malicious relief on his face as his eyes caught Cain’s, he seed reluctant to weather the bla for giving that order. After all, why did they have a Commissar in house if not to be the object of all malcontent and bla?
Well, frak that. Cain thought, suppressing the urge to glare at the man. Making a platoon full of veteran soldiers loathe him was the last thing he wanted to do, especially so far away from any real imperial authority and with them being the only thing that’d stand between him and a planet full of Slaanesh-worshipping-loons.
Before doing anything else, he let his gaze wash over all the weapons and gear spread out on the small table before that Emilia woman. Laspistols, lasrifles, combat knives, flak jackets and even a tactical combat helt. More importantly, all the firearms were missing their power packs. aning they were harmless. The most dangerous thing on the table was the combat knife, but Cain was pretty sure whoever lived long enough in the stormtrooper corps to beco an elite veteran could handle a single civie woman with a knife.
Surprisingly, the second person to notice him lingering just beyond the doorfra was the woman in question, not any of the other soldiers. Cain’s palms tingled as his eyes made contact with a pair of enthralling erald eyes filled with overflowing curiosity and a hint of … amusent. That couldn’t be right. What regular woman would feel not a hint of fear or anxiety when locked in a room with a score of killers of whom she knew barely anything about?
She must still be in shock. Cain decided, rembering her trembling hands coated in blood as she stood over a gutted cultist with a haunted look on her face. People reacted in a million different ways to facing down death. It wasn’t the first ti he saw soone seemingly lose grip of reality as a result. The lack of fear, and the need for distraction in the form of playing with strange ‘alien’ weapons made sense too, if he looked at it like that.
Cain sighed, squared his shoulders, and strode into the room. The n glanced over, then snapped to attention, their fists slamming into their chests.
“At ease,” Cain said easily, and they all relaxed. He was just about to address the woman in question, who stood along with the soldiers, wearing a sheepish expression on her face. Then she flinched, taking a half-step back before she caught herself and hid her reaction in less than a second. What was that? “I see you’re getting along well.”
A mont later, Jurgen’s familiar bouquet notified Cain of his aide’s arrival. For a brief, tiny instant, Cain’s heart froze in terror as he recalled the kinds of things that tended to react to his aide’s presence most negatively.
Daemons, Genestealers and Psykers. Any who drew upon the cursed realm of the Immaterium for power.
He banished that thought in no ti flat. Emilia was back to her previous, mildly curious expression that masked just a hint of revulsion as her eyes flickered over to Jurgen. If she was a Psyker, she would have been writhing on the ground, bleeding through her eyes and screaming in agony, as Cain had seen Psykers do on more than one occasion when they got too close to the Blank. It was foolish of him to even consider the possibility, especially since without the Schola’s teachings, a rogue Psyker was unlikely to live beyond the age of ten without blowing themselves up, or getting possessed.
No, Emilia was a regular human woman. With eyes. Which explained the revulsion he saw in her eyes when she laid eyes on Jurgen, and had her eyes forever tainted by the sight of what a varied collection of skin diseases could do to the face of soone who already thought hygiene was sothing that only happened to other people.
Now, a more ruthless man in his place would have ordered the woman’s death the mont she outlived her use as a at shield, distraction and, lastly, driver. Which was just about when the beat-up van rolled to a stop in the abandoned warehouse near the safe-house. A kinder man, one still having deluded ideals of inherent human goodness, would have let her be on her way.
Ciaphas Cain was neither. He didn’t want to order the death of an innocent woman just because she was in the wrong place at the wrong ti and had ‘seen too much’, but neither was he willing to trust her not to go blabbering about their location to the local authorities the mont she was out of range of their rifles. So she had been kept here, as their sort of prisoner for the ti being.
“So,” Cain said, drawing the word out as he let his gaze conspicuously wash over the assortnt of gear the troopers had laid out on the table. “I hope you have not forgotten your duties just because a woman finally graced the room with her presence?”
“Of course not, Sir.” One of the Sergeants said, the one nad Marvin … sothing. He sounded the slightest bit offended at the question, but hid it well behind a veil of professionalism. “Third and fifth squads are on lookout duty, keeping watch of the streets.”
*****
I watched the byplay between the soldiers and Cain with so amusent, but the main part of my attention was focused solely on pushing the boundaries of what I could still do with the oppressive power of a Blank pressing down on .
Now that I was this close to him, I could tell my drone would have had no hope of pushing back against it. My telepathic link to it would have snapped the mont it ca close to Jurgen and my inbuilt contingencies would have activated, which would have had this lot around slaughtered to the last man. A Blank’s powers might dampen, or even nullify, all of my powers that were fueled by soul energy, but it had no power against bio-energy and raw power.
Without exerting myself overly much, I could still actually use my powers, though in an area limited to my body and its imdiate surroundings. Even that much took pulling my aura back in and wrapping it around in a bubble, layering it atop itself until it kept most of the interference away from .
The Emperor’s feat of using his Psyker voodoo on a Blank suddenly beca a hundred tis more impressive. It might take frying my current avatar with a massive amount of soul energy to even co close. I was confident I could manage it, if it was so tiny thing like sending a blast of psychic screeching into his mind, but it just wasn’t worth it beyond tickling my ego.
I had hands, with fingers that could turn into claws able to rend flesh from bone with little to no effort. Killing a Blank the simple way was much more doable, since they really were just like regular old humans when it ca to physicality.
Cain was talking with that grouchy Lieutenant guy while I pushed and pulled at the aura-shell around , trying to expand it and infuse it with more soul energy without compromising its integrity when I caught the telltale sound of static coming through a vox-speaker.
In the corner, the tactical officer — the guy responsible for maintaining the comms and keeping in contact with other units — jumped in shock just as a warbled, but clearly feminine voice ca through.
Whatever petty drama was going on between the Commissar and the Lieutenant, which largely involved the two throwing barbed insults back and forth, ca to a sudden stop as the man manning the not-radio turned the volu up.
Cain jerked and turned towards the speaker, ignoring the soldier who glared at him, but kept whatever he wanted to say to himself.
“ … -thre, do you- … -repeat, do you copy?”
The techie glanced up at his commanding officer, then at Cain who was by now right there next to him with the urge to nab the speaker and the mic out of the trooper’s hand clear on his face.
“Respond,” Cain said, and I caught a hopeful tone in his voice.
The techie nodded jerkily, then grabbed a mic before speaking a string of words that was likely so authorisation code or maybe it was to make sure whoever was on the other end of that line knew for sure this side hadn’t been compromised.
“The connection is shaky, but we can hear you. Over.”
“Thank the Emperor,” the voice cleared up a little, and I could hear the relief in the woman’s voice. “Prepare for departure. We need to leave this planet yesterday. We will be using the agreed-upon etup location, be there in 48 hours. Vail, out.”
Hmmm. So they are running? I mused. Didn’t they have sothing they wanted from this planet? Beyond just banishing that Daemon Princess? They must have gotten it already, or decided to abandon the mission with all the fuss we had been kicking up around here. Oh well, it could still be interesting to see what they found, or would have wanted to find. I just need to sohow attach myself to this bunch until they leave … but how can I convince them not to leave here?
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