The five sat in their cafe booth, sipping on whatever caffeine-filled beverages the locals were drinking, and generally keeping as low a profile as anyone can while an Imperial commissar is sitting alongside a man in void-black armor that looked a bit too advanced to be of human make and a woman with naturally green hair. Taylor, thinking as quickly as he could, realized there was a seventy-percent chance of the planet coming under serious attack at some point in the next week, and made a mental note to be as close to or far from Cain as he possibly could, depending on the threat.
“I trust you're finding your time here somewhat pleasant... Taylor, was it?” Amberley asked the man, ostensibly to make friendly conversation. With everyone at the table knowing she was an inquisitor, and at least one recognizing her compatriot, it was unlikely she would get very far. Taylor, rather angry that someone was talking to him while his mouth was occupied by a cup of green liquid that tasted like someone boiled hemorrhoids down to their base elements and filtered it through an elephant carcass; the inability to immediately respond was the cause of his irritation, not the terrible tea, or whatever the hell it was called on Crius.
“I'm lightyears from home, fought a rogue Space Marine, a genestealer infestation, and am going to suffer an official interrogation by the Inquistion,” he replied dryly, looking about as amused as a man who had just been told his home was burned to the ground by a roving band of clowns. “But a sanctioned psyker is having a fit trying to guess my full name, so I have that going for me.”
“He's trying to enjoy the little things,” Lyra translated, knowing the Imperials may not understand his humor, or may take it as an insult. She wanted to avoid trouble, but wasn't above pulling out her rifle on the off chance something might go down; if anything, she expected it.
“Speak of the devil,” Taylor said, as the aforementioned psyker walked into the cafe, escorted by two stormtroopers. She must have been important, or on official business, if the Inquisition was willing to slacken her leash, or perhaps that was why the troopers were with her.
@#@#@# Taylor's POV @#@#@#
What has Amberley gotten me into?
He has to be lying; there's no record of any mercenary company out of Prometheus with the black and white color scheme.
Oh, Throne, what is Taylor thinking about right now? He better have some plan to get us out of this mess.
Words swirled in and out of my mind faster than I cared for, but there was no method of stemming the tide without losing vital information. Mind reading is a bitch, a complete, utter bitch that I could not tame. For a group who hated psykers, and did everything they could to keep their mental fingers out of their brainpies. Amberley Vail, the spunky blonde who sat across from me, and Ciaphas Cain, a man who, despite being one of the millennium's... shall we say nicer individuals?, was still closer to evil, or at least what I was raised to consider evil, than I would hopefully ever be. Absentmindedly, I watched as the psyker from before designated Psy-134 by the Inquisition, though her real name was Mellanie, walk into the cafe, escorted by a pair of stormtroopers toting the same hellguns as before.
“Now, as it stands, the feral Orks tribes seem to be massing for another round of attacks,” Amberley said, sipping from her drink. She, of course, suspected me of being a bit more than what I presented myself as, and even wondered if Dahl's words carried a smidgeon of truth to them. As the psyker walked over to the booth, I redirected my focus back to Amberley, though I could tell she knew I wasn't focusing on her. “Do you think they'll attack soon, Burned Man?”
“Perhaps, though it really isn't much my concern unless they attack me directly,” I replied, glancing very briefly to a small amount of paper money sitting on the table next to us, indicating that payment was my primary motivator for killing, regardless of my enemy.
“Uriah Olothaire,” Psy-134 said as she spotted me, sure of herself. She very quickly corrected herself when she noticed and inquisitor and her commissar retinue member engaging me in conversation, though Cain was mostly silent. When I shook my head, she grunted bit her lip, clearly angry at her continued mistakes. “Burned Man, I have tried every method at my disposal, from divination to telepathy, and yet your real name eludes me.”
“Uriah Olothaire is a name I haven't heard in a long time, but it isn't mine.” The old priest, Uriah, may have stood for everything I was against, but he did something I could respect, and all without raising his hand in anger. Amberley and Ciaphas looked at me curiously, but Lyra and Amos seemed to almost expect it; Amos even looked seemed to accept the name was something I knew from either the far future or distant past, but I could tell he was going to ask me about it in the near future. “Now, Mellanie, you wouldn't happen to be familiar with the city, would you?”
“I've spent most of my adult life here, sir,” she replied, perhaps barely touching the outer limits of my mind and seeing what I was planning. “I take it you wish to visit a shooting range?”
“As well as a weapon shop, if such things are legal here.” I turned to Cain and Vail, smiling as diplomatically as I could. “I don't know about the two of you, but a little target practice is precisely what I need to unwind after a stressful day.”
@#@#@#@#@#@#
From the journal of the Burned Man
Somewhere between 926.M41 and 999.M41 (Date to be changed as data is acquired)
I am using the suit's onboard word processor to pen this as the group and I walk to the a nearby, relatively speaking, shooting range, where I intend to spend as much money as I possibly can, all from Dahl's seized assets, or course, and purchase as fine a selection of arms and munition as I can. I have, through the mere presence of Commissar Ciaphas Cain, been made aware of impending danger, and though I recall no records of the planet Crius ever being detailed in his exploits, I have a sinking feeling there is either good reason for this, and therefore he and a number of other individuals obviously survived, or the planet was never in danger and this entire thing will go over smoothly. But, more likely, this is some alternate timeline and I should tread lightly.
Still perhaps I won't be forced to kill the Hero of the Imperium before his time, assuming I have the skill, time, and luck necessary. I suppose I'll have to settle for shooting plywood targets with a laser gun until the Orks decide to attack, because Inquisitor Vail mentioned they were massing again.
Might have to call in the others if things head south.