A psychic intrusion attempt.
A breach.
It could come from a thousand different sources, for many were the minds that longed to hear the most secretive sessions of the Emperor’s Holy Inquisition. Whatever the source of an infiltration, the result would be the same – instant termination of the mindscape and an immediate return to the physical realm.
As ever, there was too much at stake.
No, thought Omicron. This is different. The stakes are even higher now.
It was a dark thought. So much work, so much progress since Night Harvest. Blackseed was further along than ever. So much had fallen into place.
Now it all hung by a thread.
A full century ago, when he first set foot on this long and arduous road, taking the mantle of Omicron and all its attendant responsibilities from his late mentor, he would never have believed he might actually come this far. The opposition had proven less competent than he had first given them credit for. Far from fools, of course. Deceivers and exploiters all – manipulators and illusionists, puppeteers and gamesmen of the very highest order. But in taking them on, their very capabilities had brought out his own and, thus far at least, his had consistently proved the superior.
Only he hadn’t foreseen this. Not this. The members of the ordo played the most dangerous of games. Assets disappeared – many were tortured and killed, others simply never heard of again – and as many questions went unanswered as not. But this time, one of his own, one of his best and brightest and most highly placed…
His hooded avatar leaned forward across the table and stared at the identically cowled figure seated there.
Sigma.
Omicron had invested five and a half decades in this one. Time well spent. That investment had been returned many times over.
I knew you’d be worth it. You had the right kind of fire in you. And exactly the kind of Achilles heel I needed to draw out your best.
The boy and his sister – she deathly ill – had been stowaways on an Imperial freighter. Omicron had been tracking the illegal movement of xenos technology between cells of a multi-system extremist pro-alien terrorist group. He had thought to find eldar shuriken rifles in the freighter’s hold. Instead, he found a boy who would, in time, evolve to be a far deadlier weapon.
He chuckled scornfully at himself, still surprised on occasion at the strength of this patriarchal pride. Naively, he had thought himself beyond such feelings. Some within the ordo thought him a paragon of ruthless, cold efficiency. They would have been surprised to know he was still so human. But such feelings were a weakness nonetheless, and that was something he could not abide.
The blade that kills you is the one you least expect.
He hardened himself. There was deadly business to discuss. High-level assets would have to be put on the line. There would be deaths. Very probably Space Marine deaths.
‘Epsilon has gone off-grid. Dark. Without authorisation.’
On the other side of the table, Sigma’s avatar stiffened visibly. The weight of the words and their implications hung there in the astral space between them.
‘Probability she’s dead?’ asked Sigma. ‘What does your coven say?’
‘Dead would be simpler, old friend.’
Yes, he thought. Let him hear me say ‘friend’. The bonds must remain strong, more so now than ever before.
‘And we would not be talking now,’ continued Omicron. ‘But my coven has been scouring the aether since she missed her last transmission deadline, and it appears her soul is still grounded in the physical realm. Were it disembodied, the coven could have forced it into seance. Their divinations are not often wrong, and their conviction is strong on this one. I am inclined to believe them – she is not an easy one to kill. They also believe there is a significant event-nexus in her near future. Highly significant. And that makes the problem of her disappearance all the greater.’
Of course, there were ways of being dead without one’s soul transcending. And there were countless reasons why an inquisitor of Epsilon’s rank and responsibilities might fail to report as ordered, none of which were reassuring. In every single case, the implications for all that Omicron and his faction had been working towards could not have been more grave.
‘How long has she been missing?’ asked Sigma. ‘How overdue is her last astropathic contact?’
‘The tower on Galathis was due to relay a status report forty-three days ago. The Listener there reports no transmissions forthcoming. Nothing got through, not to Galathis nor to any of the other relays. No distress calls. No fragments. Nothing. Epsilon’s movements for the last ninety-one days are a blank.’
Sigma’s avatar leaned forward, elbows on the table, and clasped bone-white hands. ‘The very difficulty of tracing an agent who has deliberately gone dark is testament to the training you gave us. She may have had no choice. There’s a chance that seeking her out is the wrong play here.’
Omicron nodded. ‘I’ve accounted for that. But this goes well beyond the usual protocols. There are signals she could have given prior to dropping off the map.’
‘What of her retinue? Her assets? Someone must know something. Even dead bodies tell tales.’
‘Those we could locate, we picked up. Interrogations proved fruitless for the most part. Members of her network either knew nothing or opted not to cooperate, loyal unto death. Significantly, a number of those interrogations were cut short. Our opponents within the ordo have been particularly proactive and tenacious. Armed elements stormed several of our active sites. A number of operators under my own direct command were lost as a result.’
‘You exacted an appropriate price of your own, I’m sure.’
Omicron allowed himself a slight smile. ‘Oculum pro oculo. I’m confident the opposition gained nothing tangible. They will still be smarting from their last attempt. But this is the most overt move our political enemies have ever made against us. The implications are twofold, I think.’
‘That they were watching for just such an opportunity, and that they believe there is a chance they can get to Epsilon first,’ said Sigma.
Omicron nodded. ‘They have never had such a fine chance. To acquire one of the core members of our cabal, one I trusted as deeply as I trust you, trained in the same way and to the same ends, someone who knows enough to destroy Blackseed and all we have built… Yes, it’s worth almost any price to them. They must be frothing at the prospect. Were I in their shoes, I would spare no effort.’
Sigma shifted, leaning back in his chair, arms sliding from the table to settle on its armrests. ‘There is, of course, the possibility that they have Epsilon already and the strikes are a ruse to cover it. Could she have defected? I mean no offence, my lord, but, much as it pains me, it would not be the first time an ordo inquisitor has… switched allegiance.’
Omicron felt the same brief wash of denial he’d felt when that very thought had first occurred to him. But feelings changed nothing. Epsilon may indeed have gone over. Still, even as he admitted this to himself once again, his gut rejected it. It just didn’t strike him as truth.
‘I can’t rule it out,’ he said. ‘But her indoctrination and psycho-conditioning were every bit as comprehensive as your own. You share many qualities, you and she. Her loyalty has never been in doubt, nor her commitment to our ultimate aims. Something else is afoot here. I’ll not believe her a defector until I have exhausted all other possibilities.’
‘Xenos, then,’ offered Sigma. ‘Epsilon may have been taken captive before she could signal. I am assuming, of course, that as part of Blackseed she was conducting an operation with a high probability of hostile contact.’
‘Capture was my first thought. On the surface, an obvious answer. But why, then, the resistance from her assets during interrogation? We are not talking about mere conditioning. There was hope. Faith. They went to their deaths willingly with kn
owledge they would not share at any price.’
‘Nothing was extracted? At all?’
Sigma’s surprise was warranted. Ordo methods always ensured something to work with.
‘Ultimately, we were able to snag a single thread. It cost us much.’ And now we get to it, to the moment I put you in play. ‘A single word is all we have to go on – Tychonis.’
Sigma’s avatar paused as the inquisitor searched his memory.
No. Nothing.
The avatar shook its hooded head.
‘Tychonis,’ said Omicron, ‘was a low-yield Imperial fringe world until it was cut off by the warp storm Occulus Draconis, the Dragon’s Eye.’
‘That storm abated a century ago,’ said Sigma. ‘The system was not reintegrated?’
‘It was a desert world. Low population. Low- to mid-value natural resources only. The proposal was scrapped over costs. For a while, the human population was victim to the depredations of the dark eldar. The t’au swept in, eliminated that threat and turned the planet into a fertile agri world during their last expansion.’
‘The t’au? What was she doing in t’au space? You’re sending me in, of course, so I’ll need access to her records.’
‘What I can share under emergency protocols, I will transmit to your ship’s archives at once. There will be omissions, for your own sake as well as mine. Encryption will make processing slower than I’m sure you would like, but you’ll understand the need when you review the material. Once you’ve processed it, make your initial assessment of the assets you require. I’ll see you have everything you need. Because mark me well, locating and recovering Epsilon is the most important thing I have ever asked of you. Failure in this is not an option. Only a handful know the truth about Blackseed, and each of those knows only their part. Epsilon, however…’
‘She knows enough to end it, then.’
‘She has been to Facility fifty-two. She has overseen key aspects of the work and more besides. Enough that, were it to come out, every last one of us would be declared traitoris and marked for death. Of the cabal, nothing would remain. Of all we have achieved to date, only ash. Let me reiterate – we face not only the fall of Blackseed, but the collapse of everything you and I have ever built in the name of mankind. There will be no mercy for us.’
Sigma leaned forward on the table again, head bowed in thought.
‘And if we find her?’
‘I need answers. Why did she go dark? If she has talked, to whom, and of what? How much has been compromised? What are the ramifications? I cannot get these things from a corpse, and I cannot plan countermeasures without them.’
‘I understand, my lord. Tychonis, then. If she is there, my assets will find her.’
‘I have already activated sleepers within the Tychonite populace. The blue-skins are watchful. Like the eldar, they are not easily deceived. But also like the eldar, their weakness lies in their arrogance, their self-assurance. Agents on the ground have been told what to look for. I await word. The time and distance involved…’
‘Why was Epsilon in t’au space?’
‘She was initially deployed to the Eastern Fringe in order to covertly observe their military operations against tyranid incursions there. She was never tasked with going to Tychonis. Her last reported movement was groundfall on a world called Dalyx. The t’au had fallen to the tyranids there two decades prior. A dead husk of a world is all that remains now, but decrypted t’au records secured in a previous kill-team operation led her to seek out an old research facility. Since their first clashes, the t’au have been looking for an answer to the tyranid problem as desperately as we have. Why she would ultimately end up on Tychonis is a mystery, if indeed that is where you’ll find her.’
‘She was tasked with observation only?’
‘With one proviso – in the event that a nascent genestealer presence was discovered on a t’au-populated world, Epsilon was to secure several t’au specimens, male and female both, infected with the tyranid geneseed.’
Sigma’s head lifted at that, the sharp movement betraying his surprise. ‘An extension of Blackseed.’ After a second, he nodded. ‘Of course. The blue-skins have no known psykers. The potential benefits to the project… It should have been obvious to me.’
‘Peace, my friend,’ said Omicron. ‘The scope of the project has grown. You were assigned to other critical work. Blackseed would not be so far along but for all you achieved with Night Harvest. The inclusion of t’au subjects in the programme is potentially promising, yes, but it is merely an offshoot – an avenue of research that has yet to prove its worth.’
‘If she is unrecoverable, do you wish me to secure infected t’au specimens?’
‘If she cannot be recovered, you will take over her mission and procure them for transport to Facility fifty-two. Detailed orders will follow by astropathic link. Our time here is almost up. To risk maintaining this astral space any longer invites intrusion or a trace. All relevant files will be transferred to the Saint Nevarre. Make your resources request once you have reviewed the data. Assign assets as you see fit, but spare nothing in pursuit of your goal. As you will see from the files, Tychonis is firmly in t’au hands. Consult your coven. A kill-team will need to be deployed.’
‘Scimitar then, my lord.’
No, thought Omicron. Not Scimitar. At least, not just Scimitar.
He had been told, warned, by that enigmatic voice in his mind – a voice he thought of as ‘the great herald’ – that his ambitions would falter were the Exorcist Rauth and the Death Spectre Lyandro Karras not somehow brought into the middle of all of this.
But would the Death Spectre recover in time?
‘Talon,’ said Omicron. ‘If the kill-team Alpha can heal and deploy in time, his skills could be pivotal to recovering Epsilon.’
‘Scimitar are more experienced, more obedient, my lord,’ countered Sigma. ‘Codicier Karras has never fought the t’au outside of simulations and sensorium relays.’
Omicron shook his head. ‘Broden is too rigid, too orthodox to lead an operation like this. Scalpel over sledgehammer, at least until we know more. Night Harvest could have collapsed into disaster. Karras is the reason it did not. Experience aside, he and his team are the better choice, though you ought to place him under the tactical command of one with more direct experience of the t’au.’
Sigma bowed. ‘Your will be done, lord. I have just such a one, but the Death Spectre will not like it. None of them will.’
‘They are Deathwatch,’ replied Omicron with a wry smile. ‘It is not in their mandate to like it. Just make sure they get the job done.’
Omicron rose from his chair, signalling an end to the discussion. But Sigma was not quite finished.
‘One last thing, m’lord.’
‘Ask it,’ said Omicron.
‘Epsilon… Did she have a Deathwatch kill-team with her?’
That was astute, thought Omicron. Good. ‘Eight operatives. Battle-hardened. Excellent service records. No word from any of them.’
‘A Librarian?’
Omicron’s avatar shook its head. ‘None with psychic aptitude.’
Sigma nodded.
‘If that is all,’ said Omicron, ‘go, and know that I trust you to resolve this. In nomine Imperator.’
Sigma also rose from his chair. He bowed. ‘In nomine Imperator.’
With that, the room around them began to dissolve, to peel and flake, rising up like ash on a warm current as if the whole illusion were a painting on fire or paper being burned from a wall. So, too, did the cloaked avatars disintegrate until nothing of them remained.
The minds of the two Ordo Xenos inquisitors snapped back into their respective bodies and the voices of the astropathic choirs which had been raised in hymn gradually lowered.
The song ended on a last long and mournful note.
Minu
tes later, the master astropath aboard the Saint Nevarre started to receive highly encrypted data. He gave himself over to the deepest of trances. His eyes rolled back into his head. His hands began scribbling madly, frantically, on the reams of parchment placed in front of him.
When the writing stopped, his servants rolled his work into tight scrolls and delivered them into the hands of the acolytes on the Mechanicus decks for crypto-cogitator processing.
Three hours later, seated in an antique ironwood and grox-leather chair in his private quarters, Sigma finished absorbing the last of the details. The hyper-focus drugs he had taken were starting to wear off, right on time. Over ship comms, he ordered Cashka Redthorne, ship’s captain, to make for the waystation at Mandrake Point. It was a trading and refuelling hub roughly midway between Damaroth and the edge of the T’au Empire. Already, plans were forming in his mind.
The Saint Nevarre swung around to face galactic east. Her warp engines powered up, prickling the skin of all aboard. Moments later, she punched a boiling white hole in the immaterium, then plunged into it like a spear cast into churning waters.
The turbulent rift in reality closed behind her.
Operation Shadowbreaker had begun.
Seven
Time, like the torrents of the Black River, flows only in one direction. But like those ethereal currents that carry one’s soul to the afterlife, it does not flow uniformly. There are rapids and crashing falls and gentle, slow-moving shallows.
Moments of joy and victory seem to flash by.
Moments of pain and torment seem to last an age.
Karras could no longer sense these currents. The flow had become immeasurable to him. There was nothing to gauge it by. He existed. This much, he knew. He could think. He could wonder. His conscious mind was intact. But he had struggled up from the inky black of oblivion into a world entirely of the mind. He could no longer sense any physical form. Nothing to tell him he still had fingers, or eyes, or either of his two hearts.
All he had was thought, and at first his awareness hung in a void of utter nothingness, waiting.
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