GeGe's Odd Adventure Part 1.2

The electro-torches offer little to no lighting for most of the interrogation cell the assassin was in. Much so copying the rest of the ship, the metals walls were anything but thin. His hands were tied behind his back as he sat on a lone chair in the almost empty room. The only other person present was Inquisitor Genevieve who was standing to look at the drooling assassin. He had on a brown trench coat, black boots, and a tie to appear as somebody far from being a Temple Assassin. No, just a hired gun who was closer to a murderous hobo than the killers bred and trained for a single purpose. Sargent Odicar and Adalheid was watching from outside the cell through a periglass window. The window from inside the cell looked like just another part of the wall due to the metallic paint.

Being brought to the cell with a bag covering his head, Genevieve prepared him for interrogation by inducing him into a low-level coma with drugs beforehand. Stretching both her physical and psyker muscles, the Inquisitor place her open palm on the forehead of the assassin. The two onlookers outside were ready to burst into the room if something unexpected happens. The Seer was probing the assassin’s mind to try to find his consciousness buried under the unconsciousness. A few seconds later the entire conscious part of his mind was laid out right in front Genevieve. Trying to enter the memory first, the Eldar was quickly and painfully expunged from the consciousness. ‘What the Warp is going on?’ asking nobody when she got kicked out by a non-psyker. ‘Must be some sort of unconscious defensive means, so I must be questioning if this is natural or taught’ thinking to herself.

One moment was all it took for Genevieve to come up with a rather blunt plan. Gathering her mind to act as a battering ram, she smashed pass the unconscious defense to break into the mind as quickly as possible. The defense was weakly trying to reform itself while the Inquisitor spread herself out to cover the memories of the assassin. Skimming over the past to find out his name was Sima Lee, Genevieve went to working shuffling through the useless memories to get to the time Lee became an assassin. Calling himself Liu Mao when dealing with all his clients, it translated to ‘Green Cat’ but Genevieve didn’t know why green was in the name. ‘I believe his stubber was green yet nothing else was similar’ thinking to herself. Thinking ‘Snatched you!’ as she looked over the more recent memory of being hired by the Red Armbands to kill her. ‘I wasn’t even on planetside when they-’ the thought was cut off as the defense sinking its metaphorical claws into Genevieve to throw her out of the consciousness.

Retracting her hand from the drooling assassin, the Eldar made her way out of the cell to discuss her findings with the other two. Her mind still feels like pins had stabbed it every time the defense dragged her out of Liu’s memories. Rubbing her forehead from the pain, Adalheid asks her “Your pain receptors are active yet I detect no physical damage that would set it off”. Waving a hand to dismiss the Bio-Priest’s fear was Odicar saying “Don’t fret, seen this before when the Lady Inquisitor interrogated a witch. That one seems much more painful and she recovered a few hours later”. “Odicar is right, I’ll be fine, just let me have a moment to catch my breath,” said Genevieve. Gulping in air to stabilize her body, the Inquisitor had to keep the mask of strength before her subordinates. “His name is Sima Lee but uses the alias Liu Mao when acting as an assassin,” told Genevieve to Adalheid “Look up his movements within the last 72 hours”.

“Anything to take notes when on my search?”

“From his memory, there was clear sky where he was hired to kill me, so track down places that he stops by on the outskirts of the Hive city or one of the farm towns.”

“I will begin interfacing with a cogitator immediate, ” said Adalheid as she ran off to open restricted pic recordings of Liu from the Manchuguo Enforcer Record Keep. Not even needing to slice open the machine-spirits of the Record Keep, the simple Inquisitorial authority being waved around did more than its work. ‘Avoidance of defiling Imperial machine-spirits are preferable, thank you Ordo Securitas’ the Bio-Priest was thinking to herself. Firs, she looked up the name Sima Lee to find his address, then track his movements from there on. After what seem like hours of watching the pic recordings, which it was, she finally noticed only one place Liu went outside of the Hive city in the last three Terran days. Thanks to built-in cogitators near her spine, Adalheid could fast forward through most of the footage without missing any details. That’s why she could pause several microseconds after there was a frame of Liu arrive at a farm town. Further tracing down the location to a town known as Yangshwai near a river, ten or twenty kilometers just south of Manchuguo.

“Can love bl-” this saying from Genevieve was interrupted by Adalheid shuffling into the personal quarters. The Inquisitor kept the room doors unlocked when she was reading a human novel to pass the time waiting for Adalheid. Those from a Craftworld would enjoy fine opera or Exodite worlders might meditate in their free time but not Maiden worlders. They have some of the most contacts with Xenos leading to like some human entertainment and exotic food. With that in mind, Genevieve was panicking while she forcefully closed her book to shove it somewhere hidden from Adalheid.  “I see that you are done?” said to the Bio-Priest in a regal tone she was faking. Hoping to cover her surprise program under a calm voice, Adalheid said “His last dealing was within 48 hours in the town of Yangshwai, my lady”. Getting up from her seat, Genevieve said “Then let us be away! Prepare the voidcraft and Odicar squad for departure within the hour.

The voidcraft rock back and forth when it descends down planetside as fast as it could. Evidence was running cold and information was drying up the longer they took to get there. The transport wasn’t graceful as it shot down towards the ground, yet it had a rustic charm to it that Genevieve liked. Sort of like a cradle moving, except if this voidcraft shakes too much, it can rip in half sending the passengers plummeting to their deaths. From outside the transteel window, she could see the approaching farm town coming into view.

The transport was arriving just north of the landing zone, low and fast to avoid flak or targeting fire. It shot to pass the LZ to cut the speed then made a hard turn to face the LZ while lowering more of its speed. Stopping right outside of the town, the townsfolk ran inside their buildings in fear. The voidcraft was hovering gently less than a meter off the ground when it opened its doors. Everybody jumped off the transport right away to secure the area while the transport flew away back to Isha’s Poison. True enough to the name, there was a yellow river slicing the town in half. It was more of an orange color but that was a subjective matter, what was not subjective however is that almost all of the streets were totally emptied out with the arrive of the Inquisitor. Odicar broke the silence with “Nobody expects the Inquisition but how come they did? For all they know, the transport could have belonged to a guild or a noble”.

“We did not paint the Inquisitorial Rosetta on the voidcraft, correct?” said Adalheid.

“I’m not that unintelligent as to announce myself before arriving, we are Ordo Securitas, nobody should ever expect us to come to this backwater town,200 year” told Genevieve.

Odicar said “Either the townsfolk practice hiding, which is unsurprising since th200-year war thing or word got out we were coming”

The wind was blowing hard and the sun was at its zenith to batter down the heat on the Eldar when she said “Always plan for the worst, in this timeline, that would be the latter and we are walking into a trap”. Seeing parked hovercrafts in the streets, stalls cover the sidewalks, and carts everywhere led to her saying “Find cover then get behind it when the shooting start”.

Adalheid asks “There is certainty in your voice that information-gathering will become more complicated as we go on”.

“Yes, it is not the question of if, but a matter of when.”

Odicar was chuckling while he whispered “Domina Vult” but loud enough for Genevieve to hear. “Indeed” saying the Inquisitor as she walks down the main street to the town square. There was a peaceful landscape of rice patties that littered the outskirts of Yangshwai. Having farmers and all, the food produced planetside was never enough to feed everybody on the Hive world but it did cut down off-world food imports. With the natural minerals found on Zhong mixing with the water, it led to many rivers, lakes, and streams having a yellow or orange tine. Although larger bodies of water like seas or oceans didn’t have the same coloring as these minerals are found deeper inland. A few people had sometimes peeked out of their windows and door when they thought the Inquisitorial retinue walked passed them. Others, however, boldly came out of a tavern near the town hall.

“Well look at here guys, an Inquisitor graces us with her presence,a very round” said the man wearing a Cadian Foot Trooper flak armor. It pretty much had all the standard flak plates on his arms and knees while there was a plate only covering his upper torsoa round helmet. What was not standard was the pink symbol of Slaanesh on his right shoulder pauldron, a black eight-pointed star of Chaos on the breastplate, and the jarring metallic silver paint job. “Traitor Guardsman, do you know who hired the assassin to kill me?” asked Genevieve and not expecting an answer. The sunlight shining off of the flak armor made her eyes hurt just looking at it. “Your looking at him,” told the Traitor Guardsman.

“Never send somebody else to do a job you can do better” the Traitor Guardsman was shaking his head as he said it. Hovering his hand over his holster, it was clear the Traitor Guardsman was preparing to shoot with his Las-pistol. Genevieve did the same thing as her finger ready to touch the Shuriken pistol. Adalheid took out her Las-carbine and the Scions were aiming at him. If the Inquisitor was hit in the head by a lasbolt, not only will it destroy her brain like a stubber round, but it would also pop her skull like a melon. “I have the blessing of the Dark Goddess for speed you know” announced the confident Traitor Guardsmen. “Whilst I was born with Eldar reflexes, cultist!” fired back Genevieve. One of them will hit the other first, yet the Seer couldn’t divine which one might be laying dead.

Genevieve and the Traitor Guardsman, both of them stood completely still to stare each other. Staying 30 meters from each, the Eldar felt like she was right in front of him, face-to-face. Sweat was dripping from the traitor’s forehead due to the celestial heat pounding down on him. One strong gust of wind picked some leaves up to blow them across the middle of the staring contest. Genevieve was so focused that she could hear the flak plates rub on the fabric of the armor, every time the traitor breathed in or out. “I’ve learned a lot from Golden Groxwranglers when I fought with them” the former Guardsman broke the long silence. “What would that be?” Genevieve was asking.

“How to quick draw!” yelled the Traitor Guardsman as he pulled his weapon out. Firing three shots from the hip to hit the Inquisitor. Knowing that she would be hit no matter what, Genevieve was planning on dodging to her left. It sort of worked out when she was twirling, the lowest lasbolt hit her wraithbone neck guard while the middle shot grazed her right ear and highest one totally missed. She was grateful for the fact a lasbolt didn’t turn her into a bloody corpse and hated being shot in the ear. Gritting in pain, she took out her pistol to shoot from the hip to slice his face into an unidentifiable mess. As soon as the dead traitor’s body hit the ground, windows and doors burst open to have stubbers poking out of the tavern. “Oh, Warpshit!” shouted Odicar as he dove behind a parked hovercraft.

Genevieve fell to the ground in agony, clutching her wounded ear. Normally, these things like being shot through the arm, twice, didn’t incur that much reaction from an Eldar. This is where they keep a straight face using their psyker war mask to only express fury and bloodlust when in combat. All other feelings such as compassion and empathy are suppressed. The problem with an Eldar becoming an Inquisitor is that a war mask is detrimental in an investigation. Without the war mask, however, Genevieve was absorbing then expressing all the pain that was inflicted upon her. Again, being grazed shouldn’t have that much of a reaction from the Inquisitor. That is not taking into account Eldar ears, tongue, soles, and fingertips are the most over sensitive parts of their body, resulting in excruciating suffering when hurt.

The Eldar fell low just screaming her lungs out then morphing to incoherent words and almost getting shot. Stray rounds landed close to her but the traitors were more concern about killing the Scions who were firing back. Adalheid had to pull Genevieve by her neck guard and move behind some metal carts for cover. One stubber round tore through the right shoulder to hit some unimportant wiring inside and another got stuck in her right metal thigh. As sure as sure can be, the Inquisitorial retinue was pinned down. The traitors planned to turn this street into a kill-zone for whoever walked down it the moment the voidcraft touched down. Some fired at the furthest rear where their targets can retreat, to discourage a retreat, they would shoot them in the back. Others, hit the sidewalks flanking the street then closed the cone of fire tighter to the center, forcing the retinue to take cover.

All of a sudden, one of the traitors from the second floor of the tavern was thrown out of a window. As the retinue was hiding from rounds, Genevieve had calmed down to stop her irregular breathing. Using Heliomancy, she was able to stop the bleeding of her ear just by touching it with her charged fingers. “Status report!” the Eldar was shouting to Odicar. “Uh, we’re pinned down here with two wounded. No way out unless we use smoke grenades to charge at the enemy, maybe we can also retreat from this kill-zone” said the Scion. Stubber shots whistle pass over Genevieve’s head when Adalheid said “How should we proceed, Inquisitor?” Thinking that if they ran back now, even if they used smoke to hide their exit, the fire incoming was too overwhelming to avoid.

Not wanting to be blind and shot in the back, the Inquisitor was going to make the decision the others won’t like. “Odicar, prepare your squad to pop smoke then charge on my command!” the slender head then turns to look at Adalheid after she was done using the vox-transmitter, “Do you have any krak grenades?”

“Yes, two of them to blow up hovercrafts just in case. What may I ask is the plan?”

“You see, once we charge at them, I’ll use the grenades to create an opening in the walls. You will then tear down more of the wall for us to jump in. For they expect us to run in through the front door. We’ll take them by surprise!”

“The survivability for us in this plan is… suicidal”

“Worry not, I’ve done things like this a hundred times”

“Truly?”

“No, more like around 60 times if you include my warrior’s life”

Grumbling something in binary that only the Mechanicus or machine-spirits could understand, the Mordian didn’t like such a stupid idea. “What did you say?” asked the Inquisitor and got the answer “Merely saying a calculation out loud… in binary”. The firing was lighter than before when another traitor was thrown out of a window from the tavern. “What?” Genevieve was talking to the air as she got ready to tell everybody to charge. Somebody with enough strength was just going around inside the tavern to shove traitors out of windows to probably their deaths. “Smokes out!” told Odicar to his squad and two Scions threw to have them land near the middle of the street. Genevieve and Adalheid ran in first when the smoke was thick enough to block the vision of the tavern. Throwing two krak grenades at the wall when she got to the other side, she sides “Odicar squad, advance now!”

The Scion Sargent was running through the smoke until another Scion yelled “Watch it!” to warn Odicar. Jumping to the right, he narrowly dodge being crushed by a traitor who was falling. “How weird” Odicar made his one remark before running to the Inquisitor. “Uh...” came out of his mouth when he saw Adalheid punching her way through a wall to enlarge the holes left steaming. When she halted, Genevieve said “Breach and clear!” Odicar squad first entered the ground floor with Hellguns pointing to find anybody armed then fanning out. All they saw on this floor were a bunch of cowering townsfolk tied up like animals. “Seems the traitors cleared out the upper floors to corral the civies here,turn” said Odicar. “That’s what it looks like, although there may still be civilians on the other floors as well” Genevieve was hinting at the Scions to not to just throw frag grenades to clear out rooms.

Odicar squad plan to split into two they sweep through the other floors to cover more area. When they walked up the stairs to their first floor, the Scions shot every traitor in the first room before they could react. Another room was where Genevieve cleaned it out with sword slices. Meanwhile, Adalheid had thrown two traitors out of a window when she was finishing a room by herself. The other half of the Scions threw a frag grenade to clear a room, after peeking inside to be greeted with a hail of shots. The last room of the second floor emit sounds of struggle when Genevieve ran near the door. She felt the presence of three people fighting each other in a melee. Kicking down the door, she saw a brawny man with a chain-ax fending off two traitors.

“Help, help!” asked the chain-ax wielding man as he was about to be overwhelmed by the traitors. One quick thrust to the abdomen killed the traitor to his right. While a slash decapitated the other traitor to his left, the sword stopped right before it could touch the questionable man. “Hey, hey, I was helping you!” said the man in fear. Adalheid ran in to see a man being held at swordpoint and was quite confused. Odicar came in next to say “What’s going on here?” Where Genevieve told him “This person was fighting the Traitor Guardsmen”. The man bowed to the Inquisitor then said “My name is Agrippa Publius Bruta but you can just call me Bru-” The Eldar interrupted the introduction with a swift hard strike to Bruta’s forehead using the pommel of her sword.

The other two standing next to the Inquisitor stared at her with another unconsciousness man in front of them. “Why did you do that?” asked Odicar along with Adalheid examining the corpses. “He was clearly armed!” replied Genevieve being flustered with something she didn’t expect. The Inquisitorial Scion gave a look doubt to Genevieve when saying “Yet this man was also clearly helping us because he fought the Traitor Guardsmen”. Trying not to argue further, turns to leave the room saying “What’s done is done, Sargent. Take him back to our ship for interrogation”. Adalheid finished seeing the effect of a wraithbone sword through a human neck when she said “What of the civilians?” Genevieve halted in her tracks to think about what to do then told “Odicar, your squad will round up the ones here for questioning before we leave. Adalheid, help Odicar by acting as a living lie-detector… Also Odicar, you have the authority to kill-on-sight anybody suspected of working for these Traitor Guardsmen. I’m going to take a look around”.

Odicar with his squad left the room carrying the sleeping body with Adalheid following close behind. Genevieve was waiting outside for everybody to leave the room before reentering the area again. Putting on surgical gloves, she felt ready to sniff through the building. ‘What do we have here?’ asking nobody while crouching, she picked up the chain-ax with some difficulty due to its weight. Thinking ‘Heavy little thing’ Genevieve saw the emblem of the World Eaters on both sides. Floating around the idea ‘How did he get his grubby little hands on this? Fought against them, fought with them, or stole it from them. Maybe just got it as a gift’. Tailing the Warp presence of Bruta, she moved across the hallway then three doors to the right, to arrive at where Bruta was staying at least for a day.

Carefully opening the door in case of booby-traps, Genevieve wonders inside to search for more about Bruta’s intent for fighting the Traitor Guardsmen. One emblem patch was kept in a backpack, for what must have been used for traveling. It had the word ‘Calixis’ written over an image of a yellow star and a black shield as the background for both. ‘Like Battlefleet Calixis, former Imperial Navy. That fleet is stationed in Segmentum Obscuris, so how did he get here? Pirate, renegade, or nobility?’ thought Genevieve. Digging through more bags, she found a smoking pipe made from a horn. It was decided that no half-decent pirate or renegade would ever smoke using a pipe so it only left nobility as the background to Bruta. ‘Noble joins the navy to then leave it, to go all the way to Ultima Segmentum using his riches and influence. Why?’ thinking Genevieve.

There was still no explanation on how Bruta managed to obtain a chain-ax from the World Eaters since they mostly are deployed with Cadian regiments to guard The Maelstrom. She frowned just thinking about the place, that tear in reality into the Warp made the surrounding worlds rebel constantly. With countless Fallen Marine warbands, Chaos Guard battlegroups, and Crone Eldar warparties pouring out of that place, she thanked Khaine for only have fought Tyranids. ‘Did Battlefleet Calixis move or did the World Eaters move? Uh… The Battlefleet can’t move but those Space Marines surely must travel around the Imperium. That means, they went after something coming out of The Maelstrom and was trying to enter The Eye of Terror’ thought the Eldar. She could feel bitterness on her tongue from the mere mention of that, The Eye of Terror was just a bigger and worst version of The Maelstrom.

‘Yet the Cadian Gate was never broken since the 11th Black Crusade and those Space Marines were fighting near The Maelstrom back then. After the Black Crusade, no other Chaos forces have broken through all the star-forts and fleets to neither exit nor enter that tear. So the Space Marines caught up to destroy the Chaos… something, maybe Battlefleet Calixis intercepted to end the chase and help the World Eaters’ Genevieve was satisfied with this answer for now. She wanted to confirm if Bruta was a loyalist for helping her or an opportunistic enemy trying to gain her trust. From the corner of her eyes, the Inquisitor spotted The Book of Lorgar and thought ‘An aspiring daemon-hunter I see’ then chuckling. That book was more for giving instructions for Imperial citizens on how to not die from Chaos and Warp phenomena. ‘Appears he read this three time, a least, from the notes written on the pages. Well, he is a loyalist it seems… probably’ Genevieve thought while leaving the room to meet up with Adalheid and Odicar.

“Come again, Inquisitor?” Odicar was confused by what was happening.

“I said, what is your opinion on taking Bruta in as a part of my retinue?” She was sure everything about what she found out was told to both of them.

“Uh… This man can wield an Astartes’ weapon and doesn’t appear to be vile, so why not bring him along” He was afraid Genevieve might get angry with his advice, thus he worded it as tiptoeing in conforming agreement.

“How about you, Adalheid?” Now Genevieve was curious for more.

“Although rather strong, especially for a naval officer, there is an unacceptable risk that he is unhinged. No matter what his intentions were, the best case scenario is that he is an insane fanatic” Condensing all her probabilities down to two sentences.

“An insane political fanatic, just what we need to complete this poor excuse of an Inquisitorial force!” The Inquisitor was getting excited with this idea.

“Really? Are you sure we need him?” Odicar was trying not to step on Genevieve’s metaphorical toes.

“Of course!” She was quick to counter, “Why every inquisitorial force has at least one fanatic”.

“Bruta is regaining consciousness,” told Adalheid to the other two.

“Act along you two,” said Genevieve, as she untied Bruta from a column. Bruta’s head was still hurting from the blow yet he could see again as it felt like he took a short painful nap. In front of him was this female Eldar Inquisitor helping him up, what surprised him was that he expected to see those hats they always wear but didn’t. “Thank Inquisitor, but I don’t want to receive that pistol to my face once more” getting up groggy from the floor. Genevieve was embarrassed behind that emotionless face of her then said “It was actually a sword. I apologized for that, although you were swinging a chain-ax around”. After brushing off some dust from Bruta, she said “I know all about you Agrippa Bruta. You’re a long way from home, aren’t you? Never mind that, my name is Genevieve Genth o Alayran. Not my full name but it will do, those under my service call me ‘GeGe’ for short” with a smile in the end.

Adalheid turns to look at Odicar’s face to confirm what was going on, then Odicar just shrugged his shoulders in confusion. “I like to keep it informal when working, right guys?” Genevieve was asking the other two with eyes that can punch through armor plating. “Uh… yes, that’s right...GeGe” Odicar was still unused to saying. Adalheid wasn’t under the Eldar for long, and even she knew only Hatter called her GeGe because he didn’t care for rank or protocol with Genevieve tolerating it. The toleration was also most likely just an act to appear unaffected by insults or baits to anger.

Genevieve turned back around to ask Bruta “What is the Lex Deus Imperator?”

Saluting to stand at attention, Bruta said “Lex Deus Imperator is High Gothic meaning ‘God-Emperor Law’. It was enacted right after the Imperial Civil War to prevent any and all people who ascend to the Golden Throne to not be worshiped, like Goge Vandire when he became the self-declared God-Emperor sparking the war. Punishment for breaking this law depend on a planet-by-planet basis, although an Arbites or Inquisitor can overturn and expand the punishment. These punishments include but are not limited to finical penalties, enslavement, torture, execution, tortures execution, and… community service”.

Odicar noted, “Community service don’t seem bad even compared to tortures execution”.

“Have you ever been assigned to clean a hive city’s sewers?” asked Genevieve to cause the Scion to almost vomit. “It is remarkable you can recite the law almost like a wordsmith, ” said the Seer with added admiration to her tone.

“Oh, that? I just reread one of King Vulkan’s essays on law recently”

“Ah! A true Man with unshakable loyalty to the Imperium! Great, you’re hereby conscripted to be under my service”

“Um… Thank you… I guess” said Bruta expressing a mixed bag of anger, happiness, confusion, sadness, and excitement all at the same time.

“Don’t worry, just think of this as another step in running away from home after leaving the navy… permanently”