Something was wrong with this p, something deeply uling that sat thi the air a shivers down Ciaphas ’s spine. Ever sihat assault on the cafe and his near-miraculous survival of it, he had beeling with a deep sense of foreboding.

  The people of the towns they had rode through spoke of superhuman warriors all white, of terrorists and criminals who stood up to them getting sughtered like helpless children, and of the myriads of theories they had for where these strange, alieures had e from. Aliens ing to quer the world, a secret society of warriors staking their cim to the p, angels of their bsphemous goddess ing te the unworthy and so on and so forth.

  U was rising and a thick web of tension had settled onto the populous. Rese, fear and ay were on the rise and with the main g body of the p being utterly demolished in the capital, the forces of the gover were far too slow to respond. The whole pce , and was sitting right on top of it.

  It didn’t help that most forms ur unication had stopped w a day ago, whicluded pict-casters, radios, and all forms of media present before. Now that had only made everything worse, because while it did stop the news els from rousing the citizens into a fearful frenzy, it also left the entire popution without their primary source of eai. Even Jurgen’s porno stes stopped w, and the man had been rather grouchy sihen. If his unfppable aide was in a bad mood, he could only imagihe lows to whie other people’s moods had sunk.

  There is still a whole day until we have to meet up with Amberly. thought, staring out the sed-story window at the crowd passing through down oreet in some form of protest. I hope this whole thing doesn’t blow up until then.

  Of course, fate has never been that o him, and it wouldn’t be ging its ways now.

  The pict-caster that had been sitting silently atop the table in one er of the room despite the sole enginseer of the group trying to work his magi it buzzed with static. wasn’t the first to react, that would have been Sergeant Braum who had just been napping on the sofa a moment before, but now had his spistol aimed threateningly at the revived pieaery.

  “How?” the engine seer muttered in horrified wonder, and caught some utters of bsphemy among the troops. After all, the coghead had pronouhe mae spirit of the pict-caster to have been obliterated by some insidious teo sorcery, a, it seemed to be p oe that.

  The image buzzed for a moment, bd white dots swarming across the s in a storm of chaos as a faint image turned clearer and clearer beh it. It was vague for now, but with it getting cleared by the sed, s for a podium, the like a governht have stood behind to give a rousing speech to their citizens.

  In only half a mihe image was crystal clear, as crisp as it was ever going to be and showed some stark differences with the mental image had in his mind. Governors, like all nobles and their lesser political ckeys, loved ostentatious shows of wealth to drive it home to the poor citizenry how much more power they held in their hands.

  There was none of that here, not a hint of gold ems, not eborate engravings or delicately etched surfaces. Not even a grand painting in the background. The podium stood at the tre of the s, empty for now. It seemed to be carved from a single sb of some glistening white rock that resembled the carapace of some Tyranids much too closely for to be fortable with. The room where the podium stood was much the same, seemingly built up from man-sized bricks of the same white rock, with the only colour shown being the bright silverish light streaming down from above, cast by something out of sight.

  There was a fsh of light, an indistinct colour which drove a spike of pain into ’s skull right behind his eyes just by looking at it. By the time he mao blink his blurry vision bato focus with a curse muttered under his breath, a woman stood behind the podium.

  stared. She looked human, and by all rights, he shouldn’t doubt it … but at the same time, doubt and paranoia had served him well all his life. She had casg bck hair, a heart-shaped face drawn into a stoic look of professionalism as she stood there, a picture of aristocratic grace personified, and a pair of pierg silver eyes. That was all fine and good, being just about what he had been expeg. What was not fine was her choice of clothing.

  Like most things in that strange room, they were rgely white. The main thing was the carapace-like armour c every inch of her skin down from the neck below like she was some humanoid crusta, then atop it was a robe of fine silk, its eborate folds atuated with silvery filigree which covered the woman’s hips like a skirt and draped over her shoulders like a capelet.

  thought hard but even just looking at it, he retty sure he would have remembered seeing that style of clothing before, so he wasn’t all that surprised when he came up short. Not one human culture he knew wore clothing of that style, though while he had seen hundreds, there were thousands more uhe umbrel of the Imperium. For some reason, I doubt she es from within the Imperium.

  “That armour is just like the ohose things that sughtered the cultists wore,” the Lieutenant muttered darkly.

  “Just without the helmet,” Jurgen added helpfully.

  “Someone check the other pict-casters,” barked. “We o know whether they are sending this just to us or-”

  “Greetings, people of Kazathor,” the woman on s spoke, her voice lilting just right to be both feminine and dighat was not something anyone learned without being taught.

  “Guess that ahat,” Jurgen said, his voice just as stoic as ever as he stared at the pict-caster like it was showing the weather report.

  “I speak to you today as the representative of the fa responsible for defeating the monstrous creature many of you in the capital had seen with your own eyes, or heard about and for the warriors wearing armour much like my own who had worked tirelessly to eradicate a cult of deraerrorists who had grown root on your p.” The woman waved her hand, and holographic images shimmered in the air behind her. One showing the disturbingly familiar visage of a Saneshi Daemon Prince, while the other showed cultists screaming as they threw themselves on the white-cd warriors' bdes. “Not so long ago, a marauder fleet had the audacity to attempt an atta a System under our prote, and we had tracked their in back to this p. Now, I am gd to say that we had made doubly sure that their entire anisation and leadership on Kazathor had been obliterated. Unfortunately for you all, that came at the cost of the lives of much of yover, in one way or another.”

  If wasn’t so fbbergasted by the words ing out of the woman’s mouth, he would have s the implication. Especially since he khat the monstrous creature being spped around by what looked like an Eldar Farseer was the one most of the p’s popution sidered their indisputable ruler. Instead, a shiver ran down his spine as his eyes were locked onto the ses pying out owo projected images.

  He had entered that very same Daemon before, and she had sughtered her way through a whole ptoon of soldiers without much fuss, looking like she was taking a leisurely evening stroll through it all. Only Jurgen’s Bnk nature and its sudden csh with her infernal power mao finally banish the creature on that day, and only because they had caught her by surprise. In short, he knew what a force of nature that daemon was.

  And that Eldar looked almost bored as he pyed with her like a vindictive predat to make its prey suffer before its jaws cmped down on its throat. Worse, that Eldar art of some ‘fa’ that cooperated with humans and whatever those white-cd warriors were. Was he their leader? He doubted that Eldar loathed w with humans most of the time, sidering them little more than animals. The only way knew of that could make them even just mildly cooperative was if the human force was strong enough to make them sed guess their ces at sughtering it.

  No, that fa had somehow vinced him to work with them. That was most likely. With all the implications that carried, it was a terrifying prospebsp;

  “Despite what many of you may think,” the woman tinued after a few seds of silence, just as ’s casg thoughts started calming down enough to pay attention again. Which was likely iional. “We are no querors. What we had e here to do was retaliation, and was done while minimising civilian casualties and infrastructural damage as much as possible. After these annous, we will be lifting the suppression of your unicatioworks and will be leaving your po fend for itself. Before we fully depart, though, our leader has asked me to extend an invitation to any and all humans on this p.

  “owerful, but few in number,” the bck-haired woman said, making the images disappear with a snap of her fingers aing new images take their pce. On it, an enormous struct rivalling the main towers of many a Hive City stood, reag for the sky. The image expanded, and around it showed a gigantic circle of walls many kilometres away, with an expansive system of roads and growing buildings still under stru showweewo. “We need workers, citizens, craftsmen, and every other profession beyond soldiers and warriors. Any who would be willing to e with us to live in the new city shown behind me, and is doing so in good faith, we will transport there ourselves. For any who e, we promise safety and prote. Never again will you have to fear terrorists, cultists, aliens or monsters of the like you have just seen. Wheime es, you will find one of our warriors in the tre of your settlements and they will transport you to our ships if you both qualify and are willing to e. That is all. Have a good day.”

  The s buzzed a white, then dark as it turned off. The engine seer rushed up to it a moment ter, muttering something in his Order’s chittering tongue. Soldiers who had been in the room began to mutter among themselves, fusion evident on their faces and in their voices, but caught a few cursing and swearing too. ‘Xeno lovers’ and ‘heretics’ were among the words spoken, but the few smarter ones who uood the implications of everything they had heard were silent and pensive, just like .

  At least they don’t seem to be here for us. He thought with some relief, though he didn’t allow himself to get drunk on it. People lied all the time, and that annou might have just been a way to distract him and Amberly’s group, make them think they weren’t here for whatever bauble had caught the Inquisitor’s eye this time around.

  *****

  “So?” I asked, letting the quickly thrown-together broadcast room melt bato writhing eldritch flesh that rushed bato my outstretched palm. “How did that go?”

  “You were watg the whole thing,” Selene said with a mild smile from my side, still dressed up to the gills in her fancy set of robes and armour. “And you likely saw the reas people had for the speech too, didn’t you?”

  “I did.” I shrugged. “Time will tell. But what I’m ied in is what you think. Despite that bluey sub-brain doing its dam, I’m not really built for this type of shit.”

  “Nobody is,” Selene said. “It’s a skill to be learned, like everything else. But I think it went as well as it could have, though I would have preferred it if I could have given a o refer to our ‘fa’ as.”

  She gave me a mock gre, and I scratched my cheek in embarrassment. Naming things was hard, even more so when I khe name I gave would stie for turies.

  “Did I tell you how jaw-droppingly geous you look in that getup?” I said with a flutter of my eyeshes, shamelessly ging the topic, which Seleook in good humour.

  “No, I don’t think so.” She giggled. “But I’d love to hear more … though maybe after you gave me a quick rundown of the reas. If things g, we o react quickly.”

  “Sure,” I said with a dramatic sigh. “Let’s get that over with then.”

  P3t1