@#@#@# Taylor's POV @#@#@#
“Kappa,” the medic said, looking over the test results. One the Imperium's twenty-four point scale for determining a psyker's ability, those under the classifications kappa, lambda, mu, nu, xi, and omicron are closer to dumb luck, their powers only manifesting under extreme levels of stress. This meant the Inquisition couldn't touch me, as I was too low on the scale to warrant any sort of threat, and not appetizing enough to be fed to the Golden Throne. “You're lucky, you know that? You're just barely under iota-class, and I mean barely.”
“I think you understand exactly how much of a relief that is to hear,” I replied, completely serious. Two psykers stood within the room, sanctioned by the Imperium, and could only look at me with slight envy. They knew I had serious control over what they considered useless potential, if my telepathy was fueled by the Warp, which I was doubting. One of them was a woman who was rather skilled at such information gathering, and while I had repelled her every attempt, the medic had said I was putting more concentration than she was, and that was the only reason I could resist. The entire time, she was under orders to learn my real name. “No hard feeling, eh?” I asked her as I connected my armor back to my spine.
“None at all,” she replied coolly, not caring that I had displayed power beyond what the scale was picking up, which made me think she was either in the process of corruption, or was under some misguided belief that I was harmless. She snapped her fingers and perked up a bit. “John Coffey?”
“Not even close.”
“You were thinking the name earlier,” she countered. “Thinking about it a lot.”
“Not my name; he was a far better man,” I admitted, feeling a little sad. The Green Mile was the only movie to ever bring me to tears, and while Coffey was just a magical black man, he had morals most men didn't have by half. “Maybe you'll figure it out before I leave Crius.”
@#@#@# Amos's POV @#@#@#
I have never, nor do I think I ever shall again, felt as terrified as I was under the unflinching gave of nineteen inquisitors. Dorosa, who was just as pleasant a woman as there ever was, scowled at me as I handed the large folder of evidence to her assistant, apparently not satisfied that I had only managed to gather enough to land a dozen convictions. It would take hours to read, and days more to piece it all together, but as Dahl and Ophidia knelt in the chamber's center, I could not help but feel this was all closing to an end.
“Leon Ophidia, you stand accused of treason, worshiping the Ruinous Powers, and seducing your former partner into following you on your path of damnation,” Dorosa began, spitting venom with every word. It had been decades since Ophidia had been declared Ecommunicate Traitoris, and the wait had only served to make justice bitterly satisfying. “Do you accept the charges against you?”
“I am guilty of the crimes you accuse me of, Lord Inquisitor,” the snake answered, unflinching even as a storm trooper whipped him for speaking the Lord Inquisitor's title in a tone that suggested they were equals. “Punishment should be meted out as the Emperor wills it.” Another lashing for speaking of the Emperor.
“Then you shall burn after proper interrogation,” she said, turning her attention to Dahl. Despite all that could be said of Ophidia, he was still an inquisitor, at least in his own mind. I know not if it is worse to know yourself a traitor, or to delude oneself into think one loyal, even as one slaughters billions to meet the ends one sees fit. Three cults had sprouted under his guidance that managed to spread until they pervaded the upper crust of planetary society, all on separate worlds in separate sectors. All three were burned to ash, leaving a total count of three-hundred-eighty billion men, women, and children.
Dahl, as I feel the need to note, was fairing much worse than his partner, and sweated under Dorosa's gaze. He was undernourished, unshaven, and his hand was still wrapped in filthy bandages from where Taylor cut off his fingers. He looked ready to crack and lose what little dignity he had left. I once had some measure of respect for the man, but now I considered the heretics of Equus better men, and even the xenos had their nicer points, if their forms were perverse and an affront to all the Imperial Cult preached.
“The Burned Man is a heretic, a xenophile!” he yelled suddenly, seeing Taylor enter the room, flanked by Lyra and the Deathwatch Marines. He stopped as soon as the words caught up with him, looking thoroughly confused.
“I don't recall you being this crazy, Dahl.” Taylor looked at him like he was insane, which I was beginning to believe was very much true.
“That bitch is an alien, too!” he shouted, glaring at Lyra, who was still very much human. Dorosa and the other inquisitors seemed like they didn't know whether to take his words at face value, or brush them off as the babbling of a Warp-addled heretic. “They're colorful little ponies that talk and use sorcery, and the Burned Man is married to one and they have a daughter!”
Dorosa sat in silence for a while, looking, for the first time in what I imagined to be centuries, completely stumped. Taylor, Lyra, and even the other inquisitors seemed rather perplexed by Dahl's ramblings, and, admittedly, I wouldn't have believed him had I not seen the ponies myself. After a moment, one of the retinue members coughed, swiftly bringing the room back to attention. The Lord Inquisitor, after regaining her composure, did the one thing I felt needed to be done at that moment.
“We shall reconvene tomorrow and decide Dahl's fate; he does not seem stable enough to stand trial.”
@#@#@# Taylor's POV @#@#@#
I coughed as I got my first full breath of Crius's air. Years on Equus had softened my lungs, I think, made me vulnerable to airborne pollutants. My hometown was full of diesel trucks and coal dust, and the nearest city was full of steel factories and smokestacks. Every now and then, wind would catch the fumes from a chicken farm, which was always a pleasant smell in the mornings. Some of the other inquisitors milled about the small cafe we gathered in, not that I was paranoid, or about to say anything incriminating while I was within a lightyear of this planet.
Oleg, Alexander, and Delphine had their own booth, while Amos, Lyra, and I shared another. The booths were large, obliviously made to accommodate the wealthy of Crius, albeit a little tainted by the air, but I still think my lungs were just spoiled on clean, Everfree air.
“Pardon me,” a blonde woman said as she approached our table. A cursory scan of her mind revealed her to be Amberley Vail, Ordo Xenos. She seemed nice enough, a little bubbly for the occupation, and maybe a bit too young. I had to keep it in mind that she was likely older than I, and probably a functional sociopath, as I was almost certain most of the Ordo Malleus inquisitors were. “Do you mind if my friend and I sit here?”
“Not at all,” I replied, not seeing the issue with allowing allowing them to sit with us. Lyra and I scooted over to let the man, dressed in a dark overcoat with a red sash, sit down, while Amos did the same for Inquisitor Vail. “But where are my manners? They call me the Burned Man, last I checked.”
“I'm Lyra, or the Musician as my name most closely translates to,” Lyra said, raising her hand in greeting. It wasn't necessarily a lie; our title were legally binding names, and we regularly signed things off to them.
“Amos Till, ma'am,” the pilot said, taking a large gulp of his drink.
“I'm Amberley Vail,” she said, extending her hand for Lyra to shake. This was probably an attempt to make us wonder about her intentions, but it was equally possible she was just fucking with us, and genuinely friendly.
“I'm Ciaphas Cain, at your service,” the commissar said, smiling. I let the name sink in for a minute, before running it through a list of names I knew, and realized not only what century I was in, but the severity of the danger Lyra and I were facing.
Any time I recognize the name of someone from the forty-first millennium, it generally means things have a bad habit of exploding in their presence.