Por’Ui Alvash“A thousand of eafantry on, ten Cruiser css Railguns, two dozen railgun batteries and about fifty different Battlesuit armaments along with … about a huypes of various infantry, special unit and battlesuit equipment?” Alvash found himself asto the woman’s sheer audacity to just hand the list to him with a simple smile befoing back to lounge on her sofa.

  “You are asking for my ship’s Engine and Gelr Field Geor,” she said, throwing one leg above another. “You are asking to let me tear out the beatis of my ship. Two pieces of teology worked out by the Priesthood of Mars dozens of Millenia before your civilization learned how to make fire. You are askio spit in the fay aors, and give away the most sacred teologies, teologies no one even knows the ws of anymore, to you.”

  Alvash stared at her, an unreadable expression on his face. The Captain was a strange one, a mystery unto herself that he was having trouble even beginning to unravel. For one, while he didn’t mention it, he had a feeling her choice of a dress for their meeting was a slight. Or, rather, it would have been a slight to any within her own society.

  She wore the same manner of a silky garment that would have been ted as an undergarment in Tau society on her lower half, and a simple piece of the same smooth cloth oorso.

  Perhaps appearing in less … official garments is a show of burgeoning trust? He reasohough he doubted it. Mostly, because the feeli was that the woman had been sleeping just minutes ago and just refused to bother clothing herself properly for their meeting. Ihose do seem like fortable wear for sleeping. I suppose, that still could be a show of trust? That she doesn’t feel the o put up the metaphysical barriers of proper clothing wheing me.

  “And I did just that. I gave it up to you, willingly, even knowing ging the core of my ship would undoubtedly promise its structural iy. I offered it up to you. Thousands, upon thousands of years of teological evolution just fell into your p. What I’m asking iurn is measly in parison. I’m sure you uand that.”

  “I do,” he nodded, even if he didn’t, not really. He lomat, he couldn’t know the true worth of such teology like his Earth Caste brethren, but from the way their eyes glimmered iement at taking it apart, he was leaning towards agreeing. “But I’m not sure the Governor would feel it appropriate to hand over so many powerful ons to a new member of our Auxiliaries. Perhaps … at least cutting the diversity in half, could calm him enough to agree?”

  “Ask your Stists, this,” the woman huffed. “Have they ever tried pushing their FTL drives beyond what should be reasonably expected of them? What happened? Did the crewmen go mad? Did they just disappear, along with the ship? Did they find remains of destroyed vessels used in such testiuries ter? I assure you, the ao all those questions will be a resounding ‘YES’ if they look into their archives deeply enough.”

  “I see?” Alvash was taken aback. Was there such a danger when using their FTL drives? If there was, why didn’t he know of it?

  “You do not,” she smiled at him without warmth. “The ao why those acts happened is not something I share, but avoiding them is the purpose of a Gelr Field geor. You are throwing the ship into a storm whenever you use those engines of yours, and yur shields are far from enough to protect them from the forces at py.”

  “I will rey that to the Head Stist,” said Alvash, blinking in surprise as he filed away all that information and started writing a detailed report of the Captain’s words in his mind. “But … might I ask, why would you be willing to give up that shield geor if that was the case?”

  “I have a back-up,” she waved him off. “It’s not up to par with the primary geor, but Zedev should be able to make it work for a short while. Now, Envoy, please get to it. I want to be on my way as soon as possible. My mearving for some a, and holy, so do I.”

  “I will make sure the proper procedures are doh all due haste,” Alvash nodded, realising then that the Captain’s men ‘starving for some aight have been much more literal than he first thought. They were Orcs, after all. “I will be on my way. May the Greater Good shine your path.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the captain, waving him away. “Goodbye Envoy.”

  *****

  “Well, that weer thaerday’s heist, didn’t it?” Selene asked snarkily, rolling out of the bed behind me and flopping over the backrest of the sofa to nd with her head in my p. I unsciously started weaving my fihrough her tangled mess of hair, trying to put some order bato those unruly locks still stig to her skin from our py session earlier.

  “I couldn’t have known they would have that good security,” I said, sounding a touch pouty even to myself. “Who puts military-grade sensors on a random mansion.”

  “Well, Tau Ethereals,” Selene said, smiling blissfully as I worked on her scalp. “Apparently. Better luext time.”

  “At least we get the toys,” I hummed. “Then we finally be on our way. I’m getting bored out of my mind here.”

  “You’re just spoiled,” Selene said, taking the opportunity my closeness provided to py with a loy hair. “I’ve spent months just crossing a tenth of the distance we travelled in under a single month with The Wanderer. But I guess I get it, a stable base we could actually defend would be o have with however many enemies you have out there.”

  *****

  OctavianThree months, or has it been four already? Perhaps even five? Octavian couldn’t be sure. Time lost meaning wheravelled through the for extended periods. Not that he would have kept track of the days even if he could. They bleogether as he waited, mind trying to get ao questions that had been pguing him sihe day that scorg portal closed right before his face.

  ‘What do you wao do, My Lord?’ Octavian thought, sending the question out into the aether with a desperate need for an answer. Yet, like Every. Siime. Before. He received no answers.

  The slight mental he absolute certainty he had before that he was on the right track to fulfilling his Lord’s will, evaporated along with that fming portal ba Baal. He failed, and in an atroa that. He knew, yet he couldn’t help but wish for a sed ake things right.

  The otle thread of hope he still had was in the certainty that his Lord was willing to give him a sed ce. It took Octavian some time, weeks, to feel it, but the slightest echo of that driving force that guided him to Baal was still there, lingering.

  His Lord didn’t abandon him. He’d not given up on Octavian just yet. irely. His assistance went from a clear and unmistakable trail set up for him to walk on to a tiny nudge in the back of his mind, but it was still there, and that was all that mattered to the downtrodden Custodian.

  “Lord Octavian, we have arrived at the designated location,” a muffled voinouhrough the shut door of his offibsp;

  “Wait for my orders, halt all operations, keep our position stable.” Octavian didn’t move, merely sending out the orders as he sunk into deep meditation and focused on that slightest indication of a dire that lingered in the back of his mind.

  His arm moved almost by itself, log his own position oar-chart and rec the vague direal nudge he felt. He took a mio sed check, trying to be as precise in rec the nudge’s guidance as possible. Then he opened up his eyes and took in the gactic map spread out before him.

  “Zoom out,” he said, as he rose to his feet. His gaze lingered on the newly recorded floating point and the line expanding out of it into the distance. As the map tio expand, another point just like it joihe first and finally even a third and a fourth.

  “Expand to full gactic map,” he ordered, and the map did so. “Add a 10% margin of error to the direal vectors, expanding expoially the further they reach from their point in.”

  The four liurned into ders and intersected. Iy, he’d only hree points tute a location in three dimensions with the nudge in the back of his mind, but he did a fourth, just to be sure.

  “Outlihe spa which all four ders intersect.”

  Octavian frowhis was the first time he was seeing it, so it was no wonder he was a bit surprised when the location outlined on the map was oher side of the gaxy and in Imperium Sanctus no less.

  “Zoom in olined region.”

  Octavian stepped closer to the map, his gaze taking it all in and processing it in under a sed. “Ultramar? She is in Ultramar?”

  That was surprising. And w. Was Ea angry enough of the Primarch’s rather rude dismissal of her that she travelled all the way over to Ultramar to take some sick revenge on the Primarch’s home?

  “That would be petty … but perhaps not out of the question for her,” Octavian mused, frowning deeply as he thought. Still, he doubted that woman would waste so much time with petty revenge, she seemed much more result-oriehan that by his evaluations. Perhaps he was not thinking about this in the right way. There were other things out there besides the Imperium. “Show any known Xeno worlds, or promi locations in the highlighted region.”

  Octavian stepped back as a rge e blob, rivalling Ultramar’s blue popped into being on the map, quickly followed by smaller ses of sickly green and finally even some darkened spots here and there with Chaos’ six-poiar floating above them.

  “The Tau Empire,” Octavian read out the name of the e-coloured region, then the green ones. “Ne Space.”

  Those two were the most promi, but Orks, Chaos and eveyranids had a promi foothold in the region. Octavian could see almost any of those being the targets of Ea’s. The Artifaeeds biomass to fun and t its powers to bear. If maximising its potential is her goal as I suspect it to be, she’ll head for a species with unique and powerful mutations.

  “Doesn’t make sense,” Octavian mused. There were Tyranid worlds, eveire hive fleets with known louch closer to Baal and furthermore, some of the Deathworlds he was initially suspeg to be her targets based on her requests to the Primarch were also much closer. “Why would you go all the way over there?”

  Perhaps his Lord wanted him to colleething else, and he’d been uhe misuanding that he was still hunting Ea all along. But that felt … wrong.

  The familiar feeling of his Lord’s psychiudge made Octavian’s eyes widen. He must have been on the right track if his Lord saw it fit to spend some of his energy on dispelling his misuandings.

  “No matter,” Octavian said, shaking his many hypotheses out of his head. He had his target’s vague location. Once he was closer to it, he could make a more accurate sg. He was close to Terra at the moment, having taken one of the two stable gateways through the Great Rift a few months ago. The trip to the location his nudges were indig was a couple more months of travel away if he pushed the ship to its limits.

  Unfortunately, that was a non-option. His current ship was a loan from the Primarch, and was running on fumes. Both the crew and the fuel tanks were severely exhausted and in need of a refill.

  Perhaps andeering a new vessel is in order. Octavian thought. Yes. I’ll head back to Terra and have a newer Cruiser. Furthermore, perhaps it is time I made use of some other assets at my disposal, since I’ll be in a race with the Shadowkeepers to cim Ea.

  Octavian might have resolved himself to a much more heavy-handed approach with the strange Xeno, but the fact that he needed her alive and somewhat willing to cooperate didn’t ge. Which meant the Shadowkeepers, who wao rip the Artefact out of her corpse, were his rivals in this mission.

  I believe I’ll make use of the Inquisition, and perhaps a few squads of the Officio Assasinorum. If she is indeed hiding in Xeno space, I’ll need people more fit for blending in to pinpoint her location a up an ambush she ’t possibly escape from.

  Octavian doubted she’d be hard to find once he was close enough. He didn’t take the woman for oo hide overly much. If his suspis were right, half the System would know of her by the time he reached his destination.

  “Set course for Terra, I want to be there by the week’s end.”

  “Yes, Lord.” Came a muffled voice from behind the door, a different ohis time.

  Octavian rexed. Things were finally starting to work out, and a pn was f in his head. He could see the path ahead once more.

  The Lord wants her alive; I am certain. The Artefact is a rge part of why he is ied in her, I believe, but Shadowkeepers failed to uand why exactly he wants her. He wants both the Artefad its user, together. Alive. Possibly as a servant.

  That st bit would resolve itself. Octavian hadn’t met a psyker who could refuse the Emperor ohey were made to kneel before him. He wasn’t aware of the exact procedure, but they all either perished screaming or came out as devoted servants of the Emperor, no matter how much they loathed him beforehand.

  She’ll be the same. I’ll make sure of it. She is an exceptionally powerful psyker, but all of them fall when faced with the proper termeasures and preparation, and uhe Shadowkeepers, I won’t be uimating her. Only once I’ve made her kneel before my Lord I rest. His will be made ma. His vision is eternal, and I will bring it oep closer to fruition.

  ***

  Not one hour ter though, Octavian stumbled as the guiding nudge in the back of his mi haywire. Then it split, jumpiween two entirely separate dires and not stopping for the five minutes.

  It only calmed an hour ter, when both nudges went vague and weaker. But they kept stable. Fortunately, the new dire was close, very close, close enough that Octavia it move ever so slightly. It seems I have no time to prepare after all.

  P3t1