For The Emperor, page 28
‘The Inquisition is an odd organisation, Ciaphas,’ she said. ‘Not like the Guard, where everyone’s united against a common foe, and you can rely on your comrades and your command structure.’ I wasn’t sure what she was driving at then, but I’ve had rather more dealings with the Inquisition since than I’m comfortable with, and believe me, it makes sense. Just take my word for it, and hope you never have cause to find out. ‘We’re not very big on sharing our sources and resources, because we never really know who else in the ordos we can trust.’ As you’ll appreciate, astonishment barely begins to cover what I felt listening to those words. ‘So, no, I think for the time being I’d rather leave him where he is. It’s safer that way.’
‘Safe? In a front line Guard unit?’ I thought she was joking at first, until I got a good look at her eyes. Blue and guileless, they shone with a sincerity that would have been impossible to fake. (Believe me, I’m an expert at that.) She nodded again.
‘I’ll be able to find you again if I need you. Either of you.’ And I was so caught up in the moment that the full implication of those words never struck me at the time. ‘But if I take him on as one of my staff he’ll attract attention. The sort I’d rather avoid.[60]’
‘I see.’ I didn’t really, but the main point seemed to be that I wouldn’t have to worry about losing my aide after all, at least in the short term. And it also hadn’t escaped my notice that while he was around I wouldn’t have to worry about any passing psykers ferreting out secrets I’d rather leave buried. I started in on my toffee cream dessert with well-deserved enthusiasm.
‘Good.’ Amberley grinned again, the mischievous expression I found so appealing back on her face. ‘Besides, Rakel’s hard enough to deal with at the best of times, without passing out on me every five minutes.’
‘I’m sure,’ I said. The silence stretched awkwardly for a moment, so I made an attempt to change the subject. ‘You’ve heard about the tau withdrawal?’ She nodded.
‘El’sorath still insists that the world is theirs by right, but they’re agreeing to respect the status quo for the time being. I guess they blinked first.’ She shrugged. ‘Besides, they’re spooked by the idea of a hive fleet moving in, even if they don’t want to admit it. They’ve had a few skirmishes with splinter fleets in the last couple of centuries, and they’re under no illusions about what a full-scale invasion would mean.’ Neither was I, and I shuddered at the thought. ‘Hanging on to one small planet doesn’t mean much in the face of that, especially if it would weaken their response to the greater threat.’
‘Speaking of which...’ I coughed delicately. ‘I’m still not entirely sure those pathfinders... You know...’
‘Who cares?’ Amberley sipped at her wine appreciatively. ‘If they were, then at least it’ll draw the hive fleets down on them instead of us a few generations down the line. And in the meantime, we can exploit the chaos in the tau empire for our own ends.’
‘Good for us, then,’ I said. I raised my own glass. ‘Confusion to our enemies.’
‘And kudos to our friends.’ Our glasses clinked together, and Amberley grinned at me again. ‘Here’s to the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’
Not to mention half a lifetime of running, shooting, and bowel-clenching terror, of course. But looking back, I have to say she made it well worth the effort.
[And on that somewhat ego-boosting note, this extract from the Cain Archive comes to a natural conclusion].
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sandy Mitchell is a pseudonym of Alex Stewart, who has been working as a freelance writer for the last couple of decades. He has written science fiction and fantasy in both personae, as well as television scripts, magazine articles, comics and gaming material. Apart from both miniatures and roleplaying gaming, his hobbies include the martial arts of Aikido and Iaido, and pottering about on the family allotment.
To Judith, for everything.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2003 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Clint Langly
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FOOTNOTES
[1] A common mistake. It is, of course, virtually unheard of for an entire Astartes Chapter to take the field at once, let alone two; what Cain obviously means here is that elements from two different Chapters were involved. (A couple of companies apiece from the Reclaimers and the Swords of the Emperor.)
[2] He’d heard wrong, or is possibly exaggerating for effect. The newly appointed colonel of the 112th Rough Riders was a former sergeant, true, but had already recieved a battlefield promotion to lieutenant during the defence of Corania. None of the senior command staff in any of the recently consolidated units had made the promotional jump directly from non-commissioned officer.
[3] Not the most flattering or accurate description of His Divine Majesty’s most holy Inquisition, it must be admitted.
[4] Slate of Organisation and Equipment. Not actually a physical dataslate, but an archaic term for the details of the disposition of troopers and equipment within an Imperial Guard unit. Still in use among many regiments with more than a thousand years of unbroken tradition.
[5] Cain is correct in this assumption. Strictly against regulations, of course, but boys will be boys...
[6] This is, of course, entirely untrue. As His Divine Majesty’s most faithful servants, we’re most definitely above such petty emotions as resentment.
[7] 837.M41, according to surviving records. Like many amateur historians, Logar is long on rhetoric and short on actual scholarship.
[8] Or Logar couldn’t be bothered to do the research.
[9] Cain was part of the invasion force which cleansed Sanguia. His account of this action is also recorded in the archive.
[10] It was hardly unprecedented for men and women to serve together in the Imperial Guard. Notable units in which this was the norm included the Omicron Rangers, Tanith First, and Calderon Rifles. However, with women making up fewer than ten per cent of the total number under arms, and the vast majority of those serving in single-sex regiments, it wouldn’t be that surprising if the 597th excited a certain amount of curiosity among the onlookers present.
[11] A widespread, though unofficial practice among units experienced in urban warfare. So much so that it’s now become part of the standard operating procedure in many regiments, the ad hoc arrangement persisting to become a permanent feature of their organisation.
[12] A Valhallan slang abbreviation for ‘kilometre’. Cain served with Valhallan units for most of his life, and inevitably his speech became peppered with colloquialisms acquired from them.
[13] The most affluent area of the city, where it began to rise up into the surrounding hills. Though tau influence on the local architecture was widespread, as Cain notes elsewhere, it was more overt here than anywhere else on Mayoh. As a result, it was popular with the most radical of the pro-tau citizens, and a natural focus of protest for the Imperial loyalists. As the political situation continued to deteriorate, clashes between the two factions became commonplace here.
[14] A reasonable assumption on both accounts. Details of Cain’s subsequent activities as my ‘errand boy,’ as he puts it, can be found in the Ordo’s libram if any readers care to check the official accounts; his own version of these events can be found elsewhere in the archive, but need not concern us at the moment.
[15] A famous military blunder in the Spiron campaign, which took place on 438.926.M41. Captain Gannack’s sentinel troop, from the 3rd Kalaman Hussars, misinterpreted their orders and charged an ork redoubt containing an artillery battery. No one survived.
[16] Like many of Cain’s sweeping generalisations, this does contain an element of truth. The majority of planetary governorships are hereditary positions, and many of the incumbents aren’t up to the challenge of the job. However, the truly incompetent tend to be weeded out by the ceaseless round of dynastic power struggles and coups d’état which keep the aristocracy amused, and in cases where Imperial interests are directly threatened, we can always turn to the Officio Assassinorum.
[17] The provincial capital of the smaller of the Northern continents. Most of the action in the cleansing of Keffia took place on the southern continent, where the genestealer cult was most deeply entrenched; so Skandaburg and its population would have been relatively untouched by the fighting.
[18] It is indeed regrettable that this predilection has become so widely known. Personally, I blame popular fiction for perpetuating the stereotype, although it has to be said that some inquisitors are simply woefully lacking in imagination when required to adopt a disguise.
[19] The ambassador, like all tau diplomats, would be one of the Water caste.
[20] The tau equivalent to haemoglobin contains cobalt, rather than iron, so their blood and viscera vary from dark blue to purple, depending on the degree of oxygenation. Don’t even get me started about the smell.
[21] ’Going xeno,’ as it’s colloquially known, is an occupational hazard among diplomats who spend a lot of time in contact with an alien culture. The prolonged immersion in a foreign mindset sometimes leads them to identify closely with the beings they’re negotiating with. In this case, however, it seems clear that Donali was just being polite.
[22] Since Cain was already aware of the fire at the governor’s palace, which eventually rased approximately two-thirds of the structure, he must have noticed one of the many smaller fires which broke out across the city that night. Despite his apprehension, few of them spread very far, and much of the urban infrastructure remained intact, for a short while, at any rate.
[23] Cain’s memory might be playing him false here, as the standard uniform colour of the Gravalaxian PDF was actually magenta, with terracotta body armour. On the other hand, he might just have been confused by the firelight affecting his colour perception.
[24] A minor civil insurrection, at which Cain had been present a few years before.
[25] Still a subject of great interest to the Ordo Xenos, although investigation of this phenomenon remains frustratingly difficult.
[26] From this point on Zyvan took a personal interest in Cain’s career, eventually appointing him to his personal staff. This in turn led to a number of life-threatening incidents which are recorded elsewhere in the archive.
[27] The Order of Merit of Gravalax, second class. In later years Cain was to joke that if he’d let the tau shoot Grice after all, the grateful populace would probably have given him the first class decoration.
[28] A gesture used on many worlds in the segmentum to bring good luck or ward off misfortune. The thumb is pressed into the palm of the hand, leaving the fingers to form a stylised aquila wing.
[29] Cain is mistaken in his assumption that his position was unique. It was by no means unprecedented for a commissar to be given direct command of an ad hoc task force when circumstances demanded it, although it was, and is, an extremely rare occurrence. In fact, there is at least one instance on record of a commissar being given overall command of an entire regiment for a period of several years; albeit with the dual rank of colonel to facilitate the paperwork.
[30] Unlike the Imperial Guard units Cain was used to fighting with, most Planetary Defence Force troopers on Gravalax weren’t equipped with personal combeads. This lack of contact between individuals outside line of sight of one another partially accounts for the relative lack of co-ordination within a squad, which most Guard veterans disparagingly attributed to poor levels of training and discipline. Of course, most PDF units were inferior to them in this regard, in any case.
[31] This is another prime example of Cain’s manipulative streak, in which he invites confidence by pretending to have shared the experiences of others. Though there are, of course, divisions within the Commissariat over matters of doctrine and procedure, they can hardly be described as anything so trivial as ‘office politics.’ They are also, let us note, considerably less fratricidal than similar disagreements among fellow inquisitors.
[32] At the risk of appearing egotistical, I suspect he’s protesting a little too strongly here...
[33] Frankly, I doubt it. But we certainly seemed more at ease in one another’s company than either of us were used to with anyone else. Make of that what you will.
[34] For further details of Sulla’s illustrious career see Dragen’s biography Valhallan Valkyrie, a populist but accurate work, and Like a Phoenix From the Flames, if you can tolerate her prose style.
