After Procris Magna
By Oryn
By Oryn
Inquisitor Fiach sat back in the acceleration couch as his tiny ship zoomed away from Procris Magna. While the worst of the Chaos incursion had been contained, the entire affair had been mismanaged, and mismanaged badly. How had so many disparate elements of the Inquisition manage to be on planet at the same time, and yet take so long in assembling the evidence to assign blame on the governor? “Another case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, I suppose,” he growled. He turned and activated the ships intercom. “Smoit, take us out. I want to head into the East. Our supplies are low, and that battlesuit we picked up on our last stop is in dire need of repairs. We may need to contact Por’ui Yanoi again.”
As the ship’s gravitic engines whined and readjusted their course, Fiach considered the situation further. Though the crisis had almost collapsed on their heads the forces of the Imperium had won out in the end. The governor had been executed, the raving of former-Inquisitor Warwick had been ignored, and the summoned daemon had been vanquished with the help of the zealot woman from Ordo Malleus. How had Warwick survived though? After taking multiple autogun rounds to the face, his corpse had been roasted and dropped into a mineshaft, yet Warwick had still managed a return. Thankfully, his corruption by Chaos rendered any of his ravings inadmissible as evidence against Fiach. And thanks to Fiach’s devotion to the protection of Procris and obvious distaste for warpcraft, even investigator Voltt’s suspicions had been allayed.
Still, the entire expedition had been a waste. The initial foray into the Mechanicus’ dig site had been fruitless, the archeotech beacon had been destroyed because of Inquisitor Spinelli’s cowardice, and both the plasma guns from the cultists and Eldar spirit-stone he had discovered were both horrifically corrupted by Chaos. No useful technologies could be found on this expedition, and while the safety of the Imperium had been secured in this system, it was a hollow victory for Fiach without having saved some piece of knowledge from the devouring secrecy of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
“Mechanicus.” said Fiach thoughtfully, letting the word roll off his tongue. The word didn’t quite carry the same amount of venom it once did. He tossed a data-card from palm to palm, and smiled briefly. His mysterious enemy had more of a face now than it once did. Techpriest Vane and Magos Kelvin had proved that if nothing else, the secretive organization deserved respect. Kelvin. Now there was an interesting one. Apparently the AdMech had infighting and factions of its own, complete with ‘mad radicals’ like himself. Kelvin was odd, but the magos would remain on the short list of Mechanicus that Fiach trusted just enough to stay in contact with. Anyone as radical as he who still managed to rise to the rank of Magos within the AdMech was certainly, if not an ally, a useful contact.
Fiach’s thoughts were interrupted by a crackle from the ship’s intercom. Smoit’s deep voice came through, strangely tinny over the small speaker. “Inquisitor, I’m still nervous about using a warp drive so close to a world visited by Chaos, so we’ll be using the Gravitic Wing Drive we picked up from Por’ui Yanoi. Thought I’d warn you, since we’ll be accelerating much sooner than you’d expect.”
“Thank you, Smoit.” Fiach replied. The rogue trader wasn’t particularly imaginative, but he was cautious, loyal, and more importantly, free of ignorant superstition about xenotechnology. The rogue trader continued to prove himself a more valuable asset than a mere alibi for his growing cache of xenotech.
The sleek, almost inhuman ship distorted as the gravitic field around it warped and intensified before the ship itself disappeared in a flash of violet light and a flicker of motion.
