//------------------------------// // Aftermath // Story: Of Xenos and War // by Snake Staff //------------------------------// ++Aquila-class Shuttle Emperor’s Grace, Denton III++ ++3.632.879.M39++ Twilight sighed wearily as she felt the screaming in the Aether slowly fade away from her immediate consciousness. It was not gone, of course, merely leaving the planetary atmosphere would not suffice to escape a wound in the fabric of magic caused by billions of deaths, but it helped ease the pressure. A portion of her strength began to return. As if belatedly catching up to the psychic reality, the shuttle’s atmospheric jerking and kinking finally ceased as the Imperial craft entered the cold void of space. With barely a conscious thought, Twilight’s horn glowed and her safety harness released itself. She dropped off the uncomfortably human-sized chair, landing easily on all four hooves. Leaving Titus to his brief nap – how he was able to sleep through such turbulence was something Twilight would never understand – the lavender alicorn trotted a few meters to a ladder built into the wall. It was time to indulge in one of the few pleasures that were left to her these days. Flapping her wings in a well-practiced maneuver, Twilight ascended the small distance to the Aquila’s observation dome. Almost pressing her face to the transparent material protecting her from the vacuum, Twilight stared out into space. Space was, as always, beautiful to Twilight. Free of the interference from planetary atmosphere, the stars twinkled brightly, like a million million sparkling diamonds spread throughout the night sky. “Oooh, there’s the Soaring Pegasus!” Twilight grinned like an excited little filly as she worked to identify the constellations from her studies back home. “The Crystal Heart! Could that one be…” she pondered for a moment. “The Eyes of Starswirl? Or would it be Celestia’s Gaze that's visible from here? Hmmm…” Twilight’s stargazing was interrupted when the Emperor’s Grace made a course adjustment, swinging her around to look back at the planet below. Denton III had a murky, reddish-brown tint to its upper atmosphere, a testament to uncounted centuries of hive pollutants destroying whatever natural beauty had once been present. Great machines of the Adeptus Machanicus worked day and night, Twilight knew, keeping the air breathable, but only just. Grey-black clouds covered much of the regions surrounding the hives themselves, blocking even the meager view a person could get through the foggy atmosphere. In the areas somewhat free of such obstructions, one could see the bare bedrock of the planet, interspersed with the green and black remnants of the planet’s oceans. It looked almost as if the apocalypse had already come to the world. Turning her head to peer around the planet towards the stars again, Twilight caught sight of a tiny speck. Squinting, and casting a cantrip to magnify her vision, she took another look. “It’s a ship. One of ours. It’s… firing?” Twilight took a second look. Sure enough, the starboard broadside cannons unleashed another volley even as she watched. The deadly projectiles angled downwards and disappeared into Denton III’s atmosphere. “Orbital bombardment. They must have located a concentration of Necrons. Or they think they did, at any rate.” Twilight pulled her gaze from the starship and dismissed her spell. She shook her head. Even after all these years, she had difficulty grasping just how willing the humans were to devastate their already ruined planet solely for the sake of making the invaders suffer. It made little sense to her. “On the other hoof…” Twilight mentally pictured thousands of Necrons on the ground, suddenly being pounded by a force beyond their power to see or fight, smashed and blasted into a molten goo, their pitiful remnants scattering like rats in all directions, terror reaching into their metal minds for the first time in an eternity. She couldn’t help but grin at the thought. “Maybe I do understand.” ++Lunar-class Cruiser Kyne’s Fury, Orbiting Denton III++ ++3.632.879.M39++ “You wished to see me, my Lord?” said Twilight as she walked slowly into an improvised command room, filled with holos and charts and reports. “Ah, Acolyte,” said Lord Inquisitor Tas Rovini, without turning away from the enormous Warp chart hung from the wall that he was studying. He’d gained the new title – or at least he’d insisted on being known by it – under circumstances he refused to describe two years prior, only a short while before the initial Necron attacks. “I’ve read your initial report. Have you anything to add in person? Any further explanations as to why you’ve come back minus the majority of my men and the target of your mission?” “Sir,” Twilight began, suppressing the urge to let her emotions show in her voice, “as I stated in my thirty page summary of our mission, the entire situation was clearly meant to be an ambush from the beginning. The “Prophet” was not acting under his own will, and his masters disposed of him rather than allow us to capture him. As I’ve also stated, and trooper Titus can confirm, the xenotech device brought in sufficient Necron soldiers to overwhelm my team in moments. I did everything I could do under the circumstances to withdraw safely, but-” “I will be the judge of that. Refrain from inserting your opinions into your speech when reporting to me. Is that sufficiently clear?” the Lord Inquisitor interrupted. He still had yet to turn his eyes away from the chart on the wall. Twilight nodded, repressing a twinge of frustration. “Yes, sir.” “Good. You may continue.” “Thank you.” Twilight cleared her throat. “As I was saying, we withdrew with due haste. Bringing the orb with us was no longer feasible once it had been revealed for an enemy teleport homer-” “You are inserting your opinions again, Acolyte.” Twilight’s eyes widened briefly before she reasserted her control of them. “Sir, you can’t seriously be suggesting that I should have taken the orb with us while it was spewing Necron solders?!” “Can’t I?” he said, a slight hint of danger to his voice. “Please do refrain from such outbursts in the future or I may be forced to discipline you.” Twilight’s ears folded down meekly. Inquisitorial “discipline” was hardly known for its gentle nature. “Yes, my Lord.” “Do continue,” the old man said, now examining something on a dataslate and looking back and forth between it and the chart. “We withdrew from the building. By this point, only two of the team that had gone in with me remained. I used magic to teleport us all up to where our sniper was perched. It was my hope to meet up with her for a retreat. However, when we arrived, she was dead and a Necron awaited us. It killed one more man before Titus and I were able to put it down. Then we retreated up for several stories. Our communications were poor, but I was able to contact our Valkyrie and pick up Titus. It took some time, but eventually I got through to Imperial command and alerted them to the Necrons emerging from the building where we had been. That effectively concluded the operation.” “I see,” came the response. Lord Inquisitor Rovini still had yet to face Twilight, now staring down at a holo-map of the planet and checking his dataslate every few seconds. “Now I shall ask for your opinion, and you have permission to give it. What do you make of what just happened?” Twilight frowned, choosing her words carefully before answering. “My Lord, this mission strikes me as being highly… strange. Some things don’t make sense.” “Really?” the Lord Inquisitor said with an air of thoughtfulness. “How so?” “If they had a teleportation device and they knew we were coming, why spring it there? Why not let us have it, wait for us to take it to somewhere sensitive for study, and then activate it? I don’t mean to denigrate myself or my men, but frankly we were hardly the most strategically valuable targets that trap could have been sprung on. It could have been used on an Adeptus Mechanicus facility, an Inquisition base, or even one of our ships. Bypassing the defense to teleport their soldiers directly into the middle of such soft targets would do far more damage to the war effort than eliminating one single kill team. In light of that, I don’t understand why the ambush happened when it did.” “You believe we are missing something?” Twilight nodded, though the old man still hadn’t deigned to look her in the face and presumably couldn’t see the gesture. “Yes. The soldiers may not be very bright, but their commanders seem to have good strategic minds. Why waste this opportunity and risk putting us on alert for the next trap just to destroy my team? There must be a reason, something I’m not seeing.” “I see. Do you have anything else to add?” “Yes sir. They knew we were coming, so it is only logical to conclude that our communications systems have been compromised, at the bare minimum. Under a worst case scenario…” “We have a spy in our ranks,” Lord Inquisitor Rovini finished, finally turning to face his Acolyte. He had a tired, pained look to his face that hadn’t been there all those years ago. “And in my experience, one should always assume the worst until proven otherwise.” Twilight nodded again. “As you say, my Lord.” The Lord Inquisitor put his dataslate down on a table and looked Twilight in the eye. “And what do you think is going to happen now?” Twilight wilted under his stern gaze. Her ears folded back again, and she looked at her own hooves. “I’ll accept whatever punishment you see fit to inflict, my Lord. If I may make a request, please don’t punish Titus. He’s lost enough already.” “Punish you? I don’t think so. You have done… well, Acolyte.” Twilight looked up, eyes wide. “But sir, I failed to bring in either the device or the prisoner! I lost almost all my team!” Lord Inquisitor Rovini waved his hand dismissively. “You lost a handful of lives. In return, you gave me valuable information about enemy strategic priorities and alerted me to a possible compromise of our ranks.” Twilight’s jaw dropped. “But… but…” “Most lives are of negligible importance compared to information.” Rovini’s face hardened as he looked at Twilight’s shocked expression. “This is war, Acolyte. That there will be casualties is an inevitable fact. Billions have died already. In this case, a mere handful perished in the line of duty. Is that really so surprising to you?” Twilight forced her face to resume its neutral pose before responding. “As you say, sir.” “Yes. Now, I’ll have a new mission for you soon. But you’ll need to replace your lost men before you can complete it. Unfortunately, there are currently no available squads of Inquisitorial Stormtroopers to assign to you. So you will need to conscript some replacements from the ranks of the men on the planet. I shall have a list of noteworthy candidates sent to your quarters. Be swift in choosing. Understood?” “Yes sir.” “Good. Report back to me with your replacements in five standard Terran days. You are dismissed.” Lord Inquisitor Rovini turned his back to Twilight once again, retrieving his dataslate from where he’d left it and continuing the task he’d left off. Twilight started towards the door. She hadn’t gotten but a few steps before the Lord Inquisitor spoke once more. “Oh, and Acolyte?” Twilight turned back around again. “My Lord?” “Send in my next visitor.” “As you wish.” “Good. Dismissed.” Twilight exited the same thick, sliding portal she’d entered her superior’s office from. The blank-faced Stormtrooper guards watched her passing closely, but said nothing. The lavender alicorn trotted easily over to the next subordinate “invited” to the Lord Inquisitor’s chambers, bile rising to her throat as she did. “Our Lord Inquisitor wishes to see you now, Interrogator.” Twilight told the woman in carefully controlled tone, staring into her eyes with a hostile look. The hostility was more than returned. “As you say, Acolyte,” said Interrogator Kylara. She swept toward the chamber immediately, not looking back. Twilight watched her vanish within, then began to trot towards her quarters. “I have a lot of work to do.”