Private Old Ties



I listened without interruption as Aurellia spoke. Her reasoning was sound. More importantly, it was practical. For a moment the only movement in the strategium was the slow rotation of the comet above the hololithic projector.
"You are correct to raise the concern," I said at last. I could see the pained look on Holt's face, or at least imagined it. I knew he would be better than to betray his feelings so outwardly.
My fingers rested lightly on the edge of the tactical table. They had this habit of drawing figures of eight, something I had failed to grow out of.
I turned slightly toward the projection and adjusted the display. The subsurface marker brightened.
"Site Two represents the greater uncertainty. Thermal activity. Possible artificial structures. Unknown internal environment."
I glanced briefly toward Khepra.
"And the greatest probability of requiring technical intervention."
The Magos inclined his head, his augmented body shifting slightly like steel vines.
"Affirmative. Analysis of potential xenos artefacts or machine architecture would require specialised cognition."
"Precisely."
Halbrecht spoke next, his voice level.
"If we divide specialists, both teams become fragile."
"Just so," I replied.
I allowed my gaze to return to Aurellia.
"Therefore we will not divide them."
A faint adjustment in posture rippled through the room as the plan shifted.
"Khepra and Rome will descend together to Site Two, with your permission." I gestured to Roth, inviting her consent.
Khepra rotated one optic toward the projection as if already calculating.
"Both command authorities will accompany the subsurface investigation," I continued calmly.
That point I did not phrase as a suggestion.
"Roth, you and I will lead that element personally."
Halbrecht nodded once, already planning what his scions and the Militarum complement accompanying us would do. They had their own Lieutenant present, an officer named Thos De'vaal. He would be sure to cooperate with any of The Emperor's Inquisition, that was for certain.
"Which leaves the surface."
"Yes" answered Holt, determined to punctuate the severity of the question.
I shifted the hololith again, expanding the landing zone.
"Interrogator Holt will command the surface security element. Take Guard elements with you and establish perimeter control around the landing zone and Site One."
Holt's answer came without hesitation.
"Understood."
"Holt remaining with the surface team offers us freedom otherwise denied. Roth and I are better coordinating together with our combined specialist."
Holt straightened slightly, though his expression did not change.
"You will coordinate vox relay, maintain operational oversight, and ensure the landing zone remains secure for extraction."
"Yes, Lord Inquisitor."
Kallis spoke quietly.
"If the subsurface team encounters injuries in confined terrain, extraction will take time" offered the Chirurgeon. Ever the pragmatist.
"Which is why you will remain with the surface force," I said.
Her expression did not change, but she gave a small nod.
Halbrecht gestured briefly toward the rock formation marker.
I looked again to Aurellia.
"Do you forsee your team accompanying the descent team? " I asked her.
Halbrecht gave Aurellia and her team a brief assessing glance, all the while the comet continued to rotate slowly above us.
"We land as a single force," I said. "Secure the landing zone. Confirm environmental stability."
I tapped the subsurface marker.
"Then the investigation teams split up."
A moment of quiet followed.
I looked back to Aurellia.
"I would value highly your thoughts, Explicator. Your expertise here is of exceptional value."
The comet turned slowly in the hololith between us, its frozen ridges gleaming in green light as the room settled into the quiet certainty that the next stage of the operation had already begun.


Aurellia Roth
 
"Extraction of injured will likely be unnecessary. With only trace atmospheric particles and low-gravity, most injuries will prove terminal in short order." Rome interjected at the most inopportune moment. That was one of the things Aurellia enjoyed about the Skitarii, his sardonic honesty. To the Skitarii, he had just told a joke. To everyone else he had just relayed a fatal condition of the mission parameters some may not have realized.

"Indeed. Which is why the only assets extraction attempts will be made for is Command and Mechanicus." Aurellia stated as a matter of fact for the room. To everyone else, injury was death. The three troopers from the 181st that accompanied her glanced at one another and then nodded, though the rugged frontiersmen held their own distrust of high command. They were loyal to the God-Emperor, they had faith. But to the foreign commanders that claimed them, not so much. It took effort to prove oneself to them, for them to understand their lives were not being wasted on fools errands. Likely, they would ignore that order and make efforts to save each other regardless, something Aurellia struggled to find fault with. "Yeah, I see no reason to break up my team. Six from mine, six from yours. That much can fit in a single Termite digger along with some additional supplies." A cramped, but adequate fit.

Depending on how long it took the Termite to reach the appropriate depth, they could all be stuck inside the driller machine for hours if the comet's mineral composition was too dense. It could make for a 'bonding' experience for the two teams.

"Expertise is a strong word." Aurellia offered with a chuckle. Though she had several years in service to the Ordo Xenos alongside elements of the Deathwatch, most of that time was spent battling the resurgent Hive Fleet Tiamut through the southern reaches of Imperium Nihilus. Most of the supposed Xenos cultures that existed she had not interacted with in any real capacity. And all she could hope was that this was not like the old tombs that contained daemon princes long since imprisoned.

"The plan is set then?"

Cait Vengarov
 

I regarded Aurellia for a moment after she spoke. The room had settled into that peculiar quiet that follows the moment when a plan ceases to be theory and becomes inevitability.
Rome's comment hung faintly in the air. No one disputed it. No one needed to.
Halbrecht merely adjusted his stance, as if mentally shifting from planning to execution.
"Yes," I said simply. "The plan is set."


The launch bay was lit in stark white lumen strips that reflected harshly across the plated hull of the waiting lander. The craft squatted heavily on its mag-lock clamps, its armoured belly already frosted by the cold vacuum cycling through the open deployment gantry. Crew-servitors moved around it in slow mechanical arcs, securing the final grav-tethers and loading the last sealed equipment crates.
Halbrecht's Scions boarded first, boots striking metal in disciplined rhythm, followed by the Militarum elements. These soldiers were well-seasoned, veterans of various campaigns and ideal for this sort of work. Inside, the compartments were narrow and utilitarian. Bench restraints ran along the interior bulkheads, grav-harnesses hanging ready beside each seat. The kind of craft designed for soldiers who expected discomfort.
I secured my harness and glanced across the cramped hold. Halbrecht sat opposite, his Scions already checking weapon safeties. Kallis was quietly arranging med injectors along the inside of her field case. I didn't think we'd need her services at the time, though I would come to regret how woefully I had misplaced my trust in that.
Khepra had connected a cable directly into the craft's internal cogitator port, mechadendrites twitching faintly as he monitored the projected descent telemetry. The comet seemed to sit below our voidship, still and ominous.
Holt sat beside the forward bulkhead, one hand resting on the vox unit. The hatch had sealed with a heavy metallic thud some minutes earlier, the various crews eager to ensure we got off safely.
For a moment there was only the sound of the craft's engines rising through the deck plating. Then the mag-lock clamps disengaged. A brief shudder ran through the hull as the lander dropped away from the voidship. I recall whispering a brief prayer to the Emperor. A force of habit.
Through the small forward viewport the blackness of space widened, and far ahead the comet Sigma-Vhal Nine slowly grew larger against the distant stars.
Halbrecht watched it silently for a moment before speaking.
"Hard place to hide something."
"Not hard enough," I replied.
The lander angled forward as its engines ignited fully, the jagged ice ridges of the comet beginning to resolve in pale silver light. The landing zone lay somewhere among them.
Waiting for us.
Aurellia Roth
 
Aurellia fell into one of the seats, strapping the five-point crash harness around herself and cinching it tight over her armor, the obsidian lined tabard draped over her thighs as she cast her gaze through the group. Inquisitor Vengarov had her own Militarum attachments, along with her warband of acolytes.

As the comet began to fill the viewports, Aurellia affixed her helm, a featureless, faceless piece of armor that matched her carapace armor. It hissed as the pressure regulators and air-supplies activated, the autosenses coming to life with blinking lights on her Heads Up Display. The heart-beats of her comrades and those of Inquisitor Vengarov's team appeared in a small place by her cheek. Everyone was steely and ready, no irregularities which spoke to the professionalism of the Ordo Tempestus, even dropping into an unknown environment with potentially unknown hostiles.

"Just like old times, huh, Cait." Aurellia said through the unit vox, letting everyone hear the conversation as she spoke with lighthearted tone and familiarity towards the ranking Inquisitor. "At least it's not another jungle, but I'd prefer a tundra like back home." The Explicator offered with a chuckle.

Turbulence shuddered through the vehicle, some sort of gravitic fluctuation or possible micro-debris most likely. The ship continued to jerk around, as though being shaken, until finally its engines compensated. "Gravity higher than expected. Point four four one standard Gravities at landing zone." A robotic voice said over the ship's vox for them all to hear. It was an oddity, about twenty times the gravity expected from a comet the size of Sigma-Vhal-Nine would usually be expected to have. Super-dense mineral layers would explain it in part, but even a pure adamantine chunk would not quite have that high gravity.

"Perhaps the Mechanicus set up grav plates?" Aurellia asked, looking to Vengarov as she did, the faceless mask seemingly unconcerned by the anomaly.

The ship began its landing sequence, slowing and matching pace with the comet's unusual orbit and rotation until it could begin descent.

Cait Vengarov
 


Aurellia's suggestion about grav plates lingered in the air for a moment after she spoke. I did not answer her immediately, instead opting to lean forward slightly in my harness and watch the telemetry scrolling across the cogitator beside Khepra. The runes and data continued to update as the lander refined its calculations during descent.
Point four four one standard gravity.
For a body the size of Sigma-Vhal Nine the number made little sense. Even a dense metallic core would not account for such pull. I surmised that a comet should barely be able to hold a loose crate to its surface, let alone drag a landing craft downward with this degree of insistence. How naive I had been.
"Negative," I said over the vox, keeping my tone even. "The Mechanicus have not installed grav plates on this body. If they had, Magos Khepra would have informed us."
Fateful words.
Across the hold, the Tech-Priest paused, one mechadendrite lifting slightly as if acknowledging the exchange. His optics shifted faintly as he regarded the flow of the sanctified data stream.
"Confirmed," he replied. "No such installation exists within Martian or Baalite infrastructure registries."
Halbrecht shifted slightly in his harness opposite me, the movement small but deliberate.
"Then something else is pulling us down," he said.

Outside the narrow viewport the comet had grown from a distant object into a bleak landscape of jagged ice and fractured ridges. The lander's searchlights swept across the terrain as the pilot servitor did their best to guide our descent toward a relatively level basin between the formations. If they were resisting the pull of whatever-it-was, it was not evident at the time.
The light from the voidship seemed to sink into the terrain rather than scatter from it, leaving dark hollows that felt deeper than the shallow gravitation of a comet should allow.

"Khepra," I said after a moment. "Run a density scan of the internal mass."
The Tech-Priest complied immediately. For several seconds the compartment filled with the soft mechanical murmur of cogitator calculations and binharic cant.
Then the cogitatator flickered.
"Magos?" I prompted.
"Preliminary analysis complete," he replied. "The internal density profile is inconsistent with natural geological formation."
Halbrecht frowned faintly.
"Inconsistent how?"
"There are extensive internal voids," Khepra said. "Their geometry displays structural regularity."
"Caves?" Halbrecht asked.
"Negative," the Tech-Priest replied.
A moment passed before he delivered the conclusion.
"Architecture."

The word settled quietly among us. If the augurs were correct, then Sigma-Vhal Nine was not simply a fragment of ice and stone that had drifted into Baal's gravity well. Something had been built inside it, or buried within it, long ago.
The pilot servitor spoke over the craft's vox.
"Landing vector stabilised. Estimated touchdown in twenty seconds."

The searchlights swept across the basin below and briefly illuminated a surface that was unmistakably artificial. Smooth planes interrupted the broken ice, forming angles that nature did not produce.
Halbrecht saw it as well.
"Well," he murmured, "someone definitely hid something here."

Before I could respond, the lumen strips flickered once along the ceiling of the lander. Khepra reacted immediately, mechadendrites tightening as he monitored the craft's systems.
"Minor power fluctuation detected," he reported.

At the same moment I felt a faint vibration pass through the deck plating beneath my boots. It was subtle but unmistakable. The engines were operating normally, yet some other controlling force had intensified, and now its effects moved through the hull as though the comet itself had shifted.
The pilot servitor continued its calm announcement.
"Touchdown in ten seconds."

I resisted the urge to unfasten the final clasp of my harness until we felt the shunt of the voidship touching down. A moment later, I rose slightly from the bench, steadying myself against the bulkhead as the lander came to a halt.
"Everyone check seals", I said over the vox. "This surface has no atmosphere. Rebreathers active before the ramp opens."

Around the hold the team responded immediately. Halbrecht and his Scions drew their rebreathers into place with practised efficiency, locking the seals beneath their helmets. The Militarum troopers followed suit, each man checking the mask of the soldier beside him before tightening the straps across his own face. Kallis secured the respirator integrated into her med harness while Holt adjusted the filter valves on his unit.

Khepra simply detached his interface cable from the cogitator port and folded his mechadendrites inward, his own sealed respirator grille hissing softly as it activated. Though his presence would prove vital to our survival on that floating ice cube, I admit, somewhat shamefully, that I felt a measure of trepidation about his presence now. The Mechanicus demanded a loyalty that bordered on zealotry, and I was not yet certain where that loyalty would lie if ever it were tested against the interests of his fellow adepts.
I paused, finding my balance. For a moment there was only the sound of the engines idling and the faint hiss of rebreathers circulating air through sealed masks.

Halbrecht rose from his bench and signalled his men with a brief motion of his hand. The Scions immediately shifted into position beside the rear ramp, weapons held ready but angled safely downward.
The Militarum troopers followed, forming a secondary line behind them while leaving space for the rest of my retinue to move forward.
I stepped into the centre of the hold and looked at them through the dim red lumen light.

"Standard disembark", I said. "Scions first. Establish a perimeter. Everyone else follows once the landing zone is secure."
Halbrecht gave a single curt nod.

I checked in on Aurellia with a single hand gesture, part of the extensive combat-designed communication our various orders and Militarum forces utilised when speaking was difficult or prohibited.

The ramp servos began to whine as the rear hatch unlocked. A thin layer of frost cracked along the edges of the seal as the mechanism disengaged.
Slowly the ramp descended toward the frozen surface of Sigma-Vhal Nine, beyond it waited the silent basin of ice and fractured rock, lit only by the harsh beams of the lander's searchlights.
Halbrecht stepped forward first as the ramp reached the surface, his Scions moving with him in disciplined formation. Within seconds they spread outward across the landing zone, forming a defensive perimeter around the craft.
Only once they signalled that the ground was clear did I move to follow them down the ramp and onto the surface of the comet. I stopped momentarily and looked at Aurellia.

"Ready, Roth?"
Aurellia Roth
 
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