Chapter 23: Chapter: 4.4
Chapter: Zeta-IX
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Part: 4
Space Station Zeta-IX - Section E20
En Route to the Lance Battery
The psychic backlash hit Greybrand like a hammer to her head, causing her to recoil and stagger backward, her palm instinctively reached down to support her weight and squashed what little remained of a man's brain. The psychic consciousness of 'Jenny' was nothing like she had seen before, and since she served as the chief interrogator for an Inquisitor for nearly two years, that was saying something.
She knew better than the masses who believed Psykers were unique mutants! Heck, the Inquisition knew even better!
The psychic genes were present in almost all human beings, except for the Pariahs of course, but those were rare. In this particular case, however, 'Jenny's' psychic presence had been distorted. Ripped to pieces, shattered like glass so that when Greybrand attempted to scry her for information, the shards ripped into her mind like blades.
Someone had deliberately rearranged the poor woman's psychic to act like a trap, and Greybrand would have fallen for it had she been of lesser powers. Still, it felt like grasping live wire, and for a moment, she felt the sting of the dead trooper's agony.
Fragments of memory rolled over her mind, the life of Jenny, the Adeptus Arbitress turned PDF trooper when the need to take up arms came.
The Warp was a treacherous realm, and any attempt at reading the mind of a deceased individual contained certain risks. It was like opening a faulty tap, if one is too careful, they won't even get a trickle but if one is too hasty, then the tap might straight up blast their face with a jet of water... or whatever liquid they consumed.
In Greybrand's case, however, it was the perfect! She had spent a better part of her life trying to understand the mysteries of the human mind and being flooded with memories was a common enough occurrence when she tried to read her past life.
Jenny was an Arbitrator, one of the roughly one hundred stationed on Accazius II, born and raised on the very agri-world she was stationed at. However, things changed when the Planetary Governor suddenly got a windfall and began prosperous reforms... well at least he attempted to do so.
A second-hand space station!
Better arms and equipment for the local PDF and Arbiters!
Two freighters to facilitate transportation and trade!
Funds to form at least a skeleton of a Navy!
Heck, he somehow got his hand on two more Surface-to-Space Lance Batteries!
And then... he got assassinated.
The usual rumors about his brother or maybe some distant relative being the culprit, but it became apparent who it was when his wife ordered the execution of all major aristocratic patriarchs and matriarchs a week after his death. A couple of months later, most of the funds were pulled back into the treasury, and the Navy got discounted to an aeronautic force.
Half a year later, some shady people started to gather around the new Governess. Rag-tag groups of space merchants and captains, the obese head of the arbiters, the local PDF Colonel, and the amorous Senior Ecclesiarch. Consequently, there was a revolt a month or two back and the shady merchants' merchant ships turned out to be pirate ships.
The loyalist PDF and the Enforcers mounted a sturdy defense around the Space Port, but with the Space Station out of their hands, it was only a matter of time before they would lose all resistance. So, Arbitress Jenny had the brilliant idea to board the Station with one of the patrol gunships of the pirates, succeeded in doing so, and was fighting her way toward the Lance Battery when... when...
"Frak."
Greybrand cursed as another shockwave of pain shot through her head, disorientating her momentarily and breaking her connection to the warp.
Whoever attacked the Arbitress' group was a powerful Psyker, the usage of warp energy to carefully carve out the memories of this conflict was surgical and precise. It would take her a couple of days at least to slowly remove the shards and open up a path to her goal, a time she did not have.
"Inquisitor!"
Called out one of the honor guards, standing next to a pile of hacked-off bodies, all dressed in the ragged uniform of the pirates.
Greybrand made her way over, wiping her blooded and fortunately gloved hand on a relatively clean piece of clothing she found on the Arbitress when she was fiddling with her corpse for any more clues. Trying to remember the name or call sign of the Honor Guard nee ODST, at long last, she couldn't remember it despite standing right before her and thought better than to ask her.
"What is it?"
The Honor Guard pointed at a relatively intact corpse, well, mostly intact, just bisected horizontally. The poor bastard appeared to be fleeing but his legs didn't realize that they left most of his vital organs behind.
But the interesting thing about this heretical pirate was the bloody drag signs behind his torso, and from the looks of it, the man had tried to drag his torn torso away to the alarm latch, but no alarm had sounded and his arm was still pinned to the wall with something that reminded her of the a certain Xeno species.
A crude knife, one she had seen being used by her master on many occasions, it was a rare artifact as far as her master was concerned, something precious enough to buy a fully functioning Aquila Lander in the black market. Yet, it was left behind by the Aeldari Banshee as if it were a common throwing knife.
Now that she thinks about it, Greybrand concluded that it was indeed no more than a common throwing knife for them.
She reached out to take it out but stopped, fearing a trap, and motioned for the Honor Guard standing next to her,
"Check the knife for trip wires, try to pull it out if there is none."
Well, she could have used warp craft to scry it for danger but since the Aeldari were concerned in the matter, it was best to keep a respectable distance from it, lest her mind gets shredded by tendrils of psychic energy.
The warp was treacherous and so were those who delved into its depth, she was no exception to that rule. By merely being born with the ability to touch that cesspool, one was condemned to be a threat, a portal to the depth of hell itself. Who better to drive a psyker mad other than beings who were born with the mastery of that treacherous realm?
Her honor guard stared at the blade, her armor undoubtedly running sequences one after the other, scanning for potential danger and so much more. They didn't make such armor these days, the Tech-Priests were far too busy hoarding as much technology for the Emperor knew what purpose and guarded it jealously. Kinda reminded her of a dragon, a greedy, evil dragon from the folklore of old terra and memories.
The Honor Guard reached out and casually drew the knife from the wall. No explosion or otherwise deadly trap was swung so Greybrand guessed the Aeldari might have missed the blade while cleaning up.
She took another look at the scene of the massacre, dead bodies strewn everywhere, guts and gore, splattered brain matter and splintered bones.
'This was the work of a lone Aeldari Banshee?'
She guessed.
It might not be so, for all she knew, a horde of banshees had overwhelmed them with the sheer number of blades they swung in mere seconds, but the carnage was quantifiable.
No less than two, or the pirate might have tripped the alarm in time, but no more than five, maybe even six, since they did stop him from almost alarming the whole ship.
"But what were they after?"
Greybrand said out loud, drawing the attention of the soldiers all around her, but she didn't bother with clarifying and continued her musing.
The Aeldari have a stick so far up their assess that even a titan might fit inside!
They won't bother themselves with the mundane struggle of primitive Mon'keigh or the raiding of a mixed-race pirate crew. As for the assailant being Drukhari... well, that was impossible. They wouldn't have just left the corpses lying around, at least not without making some sort of artwork out of their flesh and blood.
Her thoughts, however, were once again interrupted by the sound of static on her comm-bead. Someone was trying to reach her over the main encrypted channel, probably the Captain,
"This is Command Element. Report."
As always, there was a hiss of static as her response registered on the other side before the answer,
"Command Element, the Space Station is losing altitude. Do you copy? The Space Station is losing altitude! It will enter the planet's orbit in five minutes! Get the hell out of there!"
For a moment, Greybrand stood still, stunned into a stupor, and then, all at once, her thoughts returned in a flood of questions.
"What?"
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