40k/ME Chapter 1 Draft

Citalli watched the remnants of a broken planet float past her window. She pressed her hand against the glass, admiring the countless asteroids as they burst apart on the Hand of Judgement’s void shields. Against the best in the Inquisitorial fleet, even dead continents were helpless.

She grinned. Such sights were beyond the smog-choked hive she once called home, and every day she thanked the Emperor that Inquisitor Halth had freed her from that horrid hellhole. Out here, there was simply… more. Infinity stretched out before her, its stars clean and bright.

But she could not linger on the view forever. Sighing, she checked her equipment once more - they had almost arrived at the mining colony, and Halth would have need of her soon. A flick of her finger spat out the mag for her needler rifle, showing that it was full, just as it had been ten minutes ago.

Her cameoline jacket was active, tightly fitted over her form-fitting onyx flak armor, with its hood shrouding her short black hair. Quirking her head, she checked her reflection - what little of it she could see - in the window. With her olive skin and pearlescent electoos hidden behind her armor, a pair of sea-green eyes were all that stood out from her wargear.

Some face-paint will help with that, she thought, reaching into her tactical rig. Sure, their destination was essentially a tiny city built into a floating rock, but every space station had overlooked spaces. Everything built by humans always had hiding places.

A few streaks of black paint across her eyes sufficed. She bowed her head, touching her forehead to her folded hands. Once more, it was time to do her duty. Once more, heresy had reared its foul head.

Emperor grant me guidance.

“Enjoying the view, Ms. Nehuatl?” a voice sounded out behind her, thin and raspy. Sabert. For a psyker, the man was unusually reserved. He was like a raven - his shoulders were wreathed in black feathers, he was constantly brooding, and he had the propensity to quork when agitated.

“Readying myself,” Citalli replied. “Though the view is quite impressive.”

“Indeed,” Sabert said. Even though he was at the rear of the observation deck, his whispered cadence was easy to hear. A shiver seized ahold of Citalli’s spine. She held nothing against the psyker except his witchcraft, but three years of service with him had not dulled the odd sensation of his speech. “They have drifted for eons,” he said, gesturing at the window, “and they shall continue to do so for eons more. So many fragments…” he finished, trailing off. Headwires rustled as he shook his head.

“Have you received a summons from Lord Halth?” Citalli asked, slinging her needle rifle on her shoulder. “My microbead has been silent.”

“Feh,” Sabert said, prodding at the steel floor with the butt of his Aquila-capped staff. “I am no mind-reader, but I can sense his agitation from here.”

Citalli frowned. “The colony isn’t that large. How many secrets can a station of fifty thousand truly hold?”

“The secrets a single man is capable of would stagger you,” Sabert said. “Let alone fifty thousand of his kith and kin.”

“And the secret to how you saw me so easily?” Citalli prodded.

“You always come to the Observation Deck before a mission,” he said simply, swiping a speck of dust off his immaculate robes. “Hardly a challenge.”

He even preens like a bird.

“Well, we should gather the others before-” Citalli’s words died in her throat as she saw Sabert’s grey eyes widen. The electoos hidden away along her right arm vibrated. “What?” She demanded, her hand snapping to the grip of her rifle. If Sabert turned on her, she wasn’t sure of her chances - she had seen his flames before. Instead of a reply or a crackle of ozone, he merely pointed. Citalli spun, following his gaze.

A ship had emerged from behind an asteroid, bristling with weapons and hateful, hateful runes.

“Oh fuck me,” Citalli breathed. We were too late. Much too late.

Klaxons blared to life aboard the Hand of Judgement, emergency lights dousing the Observation Deck in crimson light. The shutters slammed shut, cutting off their view. “Alert,” the PA system droned. “Alert. Combat stations. Enemy vessel sighted.”

“Sabert!” Citalli said, charging towards the psyker. Blood spilt from this nostrils, seeping into his lips and teeth. Pain wracked him, and his lips quivered. “You okay?”

“Mhm,” Sabert said, dabbing at his nose with a silken cloth. “I can… I can feel their hate. Their fear. Something is not right.”

“An Inquisitor’s ship being ambushed is about as ‘not right’ as you can get,” Citalli returned. “Fuck!” The ship was much larger than the Hand of Judgement, but likely nowhere near as advanced. “Let’s get you to the medbay, huh? If Lord Halth needs us, he’ll call.”

Sabert nodded weakly. Taking his wrist, she led him out of the Observation Deck. The halls - once tall and flooded with light - were nearly black, with a shadowy red glow lining the ancient piping along the walls. It was almost claustrophobic.

Under their feet, the Hand of Judgement shuddered.

Return fire. Inquisitor Halth’s ship was not built for combat, but it was still one of the most advanced ships in the Imperial Navy. She prayed it would be enough. A metallic groan filled the halls.

“Brace!” Citalli shouted, grabbing a nearby wire sprut. She tightened her grip around Sabert, who did the same. Gravity pulled at them as the cruiser’s thrusters roared, and rumbling consumed the entire ship.

“Another vessel has joined the fray. Heretic scum,” Sabert spat.

“Thrice damned by the Throne,” Citalli cursed through clenched teeth. Pretending not to feel the gravity pushing her guts into her throat made speech challenging. “If we have to repel boarders, I need you not bleeding from the face.”

“I’ll do my best,” Sabert grunted, pinching the bridge of his nose.

It took ten minutes of stumbling through constant gravitational shifts and thunderous, bone-shaking salvos to reach the medbay. Sabert’s condition had not improved, and the battle continued to rage.

Both knew that to be an ill omen, but neither spoke a word of it. The medbay was relatively calm - only a handful of white-uniformed medicae scurried between beds, attending to a few injured voidsmen. Strangely, Magos Volkov was present as well, spluttering to himself in the strange tongue of the Mechanicus, entirely unconcerned with the chaos that surrounded him.

A hulking two-meter titan of machinery, his red robes with gilded cog pattern seemed to fill up half of the medbay, while his mechadendrites and countless other apparatuses took up the other half. His backwards steel legs stood motionless, and he faced the wall, staring into nothingness. His trio of servo-skulls floated behind him, chittering to each other.

What concerned Citalli most, however, was the presence of his force axe. A tall, brutal thing, its head in the shape of a gear. Why had he felt the need to bring it to the medbay?

“What’s his problem?” the head medicae asked, jogging up to Sabert. Citalli didn’t respond for a moment, mostly because she was watching Volkov, partially because she couldn’t remember the man’s name.

“Ah, Mr…” She paused, scanning for the nametag on the medicae’s scrub, and finding none.

“Adams,” the head medicae provided, annoyance flickering in his features for but a moment.

Citalli’s electoos buzzed, but she ignored them for now - she could read their analysis on her dataslate later.

“Sabert has some sort of internal bleeding,” she said.

“What?” Adams demanded, shooting a panicked look at Sabert. As one of Lord Halth’s retinue, his health was top-priority.

“Yeah, a nosebleed,” Citalli said, pointing at the blood-sodden handkerchief Sabert used.

“A what? That’s not…” Adams shook his head. “He’ll be fine. Come along, Lord Eadre.” He gestured the pskyer towards one of his prettier medicae. “Thanks for your assistance, Lady Nehuatl.”

Citalli bristled at her title, but let it pass. ‘Lady’ implied nobility. Weakness. Complacency. Her electoos buzzed again, demanding her attention.

“Fine,” she grunted, checking her dataslate. A few sensor chips, a tool kit, lockpick, and other handy apps made her electoos valuable tools, but if she calibrated them incorrectly (or forgot the correct psalms to soothe their Machine Spirits), they’d misbehave terribly.

‘Greetings.’ her dataslate read. The message was dated ten seconds ago, signed by Magos Volkov. She looked at the Magos, then back at her dataslate.

‘Forgive the intrusion’, another message said, appearing below the previous one instantly. ‘Currently engaged on all primary systems. Vox abilities null. Machine spirits in your systems are flustered. Applying brief cant for their appeasement - Magos Volkov.’

Citalli opened her mouth to speak, but another message appeared before she could give wind to her words.

‘Tapped into combat network,’ it read. ‘Our vessel has encountered a well-prepared ambush. The battle goes poorly. Merely wanted to attempt diagnosticator calibration for medbay, now stuck here - Magos Volkov.’

“How could they ambush us?” Citalli demanded. “Hand of Judgement is millennia old, one of the best!”

Her dataslate remained silent for a moment.
‘Unknown.’ It read eventually.

The Magos himself burbled something unintelligible. ‘Processing new data…’ her dataslate spit out. ‘Another craft has joined the battle. Xenos.’

“Xenos?” Citalli demanded, too loudly. Heads turned in her direction, and Sabert swallowed.

‘They are attacking the heretics.’