Strange Bedfellows

by BRBrony9

Interrogation

The shipyards of Hydraphur were vast, huge constructs that hung in the sky like moons when viewed from the planet below, an artificial city in the void. Interconnected rows of dry docks, supply platforms, arc-welding bays, transfer stations, landing platforms and cavernous construction chambers that would rival any mountain in size, where new ships for the battle fleets of Segmentum Pacificus were fabricated and assembled by vast gangs of manual labourers and swarms of servitors, overseen by suitably zealous Techpriests who operated the more complex machinery. The planet and the shipyards were protected by rings of defensive gun and lance batteries, minefields laid to funnel incoming traffic into safe shipping lanes, and further out, roving planetary defence craft and naval escorts. It was the seat of Imperial naval power in the Segmentum Pacificus, a cauldron of heat and activity where the shield of the Emperor, the warfleets of the Navy, were built, maintained and repaired.

It was also the site of Segmentum Command.

'Again, Lord-Admiral. Explain it again.'

Lord-Admiral Marcos sat before a simple metal table, in the glare of several bright lights. General Jahn sat beside him, but the rest of the large, austere chamber was empty, saved for a large raised dais, which seated three other individuals, only half visible thanks to the lights being shone upon the pair at the table. Faded statues of the Emperor and Malcador The Sigillite flanked their interrogators, the dull eyes of stone having witnessed thousands of such scenes over the years since they were installed in this chamber. Those whose actions had been called into question would be summoned to testify before their superiors to explain themselves. This dank, empty room had seen many men condemned to death for heresy or treason, others dragged away in shackles for a lifetime of hard labour or psychic cleansing.

'Lord Commander, you have all the facts at your disposal,' Marcos responded to the question from the shadowy figure at the centre of the trio of interrogators. Lord High Admiral Biscayne, Lord Commander of the Segmentum Pacificus, the highest ranking naval officer in the region and Marcos's direct superior, was a formidable and ancient figure, hardened by a lifetime of service to the Navy and the Emperor. To his right sat Grand Magos Delema, the senior member of the Adeptus Mechanicus at Hydraphur, and to his left, most worryingly of all, sat Lord-Inquisitor Martaan, representing the sinister and secretive Ordo Xenos, whispers of whose mere presence could be enough to pacify entire worlds into submission or terrify them into mass suicide. Together, the representatives of the three bodies would act as judge and jury in this case, as they had done for many others.

It had taken three months of realspace time for the remains of the Crusade fleet to reach Hydraphur, though only a week appeared to have passed inside the warp and inside their Gellar Fields. There had been no further mishaps, for they were able to retrace their course to previous systems, and as they did so the light from the Astronomican burned brighter and brighter with every parsec that passed. The Emperor guided his children home to Hydraphur, where they had been met with jubilation from the workers and planetary citizens. News of their previous conquests had reached Hydraphur long ago, and several signals transmitted from orbit around Kuda Prime had briefed Segmentum Command as to the broad basics of what had happened there.

That was why, far from the jubilation being universal, the entire fleet had been met with armed weapons platforms and a large flotilla of escorts accompanied by a trio of battleships and half a dozen cruisers, standing ready just in case. Exposure to Chaos, Changeling infiltration and unknown psychic energies carried risks, and so the entire fleet was quarantined and ordered to power down all but essential life support systems. They were kept under guard for a whole month while the crews and the Guardsmen were screened carefully, one by one, by Imperial sanctioned psykers and personnel from the Ordo Xenos and Ordo Malleus. Mass testing was performed; psykers who were attuned to search for abnormalities were on the lookout for any discrepencies. Any sign of Chaotic or Daemonic contamination would see a man dragged out of line and taken either for psychic scrubbing or for execution as necessary. Any indication that the mind was not that of a human would see execution on the spot- the risk of a Changeling infiltrator morphing into a fly or a bird while being dragged away and simply escaping custody was too great to risk otherwise. Despite the loss of two Imperial ships due to Changeling contamination, there were only a few dozen positive cases from the rest of the fleet, mostly Guardsmen. Troops and security were on standby to act, but at least one psyker and almost a hundred Guardsmen, armsmen and members of the Adeptus Arbites were killed in violent clashes with Changeling drones who had been exposed and reverted to their true form, lashing out with fangs and magic before being gunned down. Likewise there were less than fifty men who were deemed to have been tainted by Chaos who were taken away, never to rejoin their units or their ships again. Once every single member of the Crusade had been screened and cleared, they were allowed to finally leave their vessels. Marcos and his command staff had been the first to be tested due to the importance of their testimony, and over the past weeks they had engaged in many meetings, briefings and conversations with members of Segmentum Command and the naval hierarchy, culminating here in fleet headquarters with the final interrogation that would determine the outcome of the official investigation into the Crusade's actions at Kuda Prime.

'Indeed I do possess the facts, Admiral, but not necessarily the deeper truth behind them. Please, explain again,' Biscayne demanded, his stentorian voice matching that of Marcos, who was not bowed or afraid despite the stark and scary surroundings and the nature of the interrogation.

'Very well, My Lord. The Xenos Princess was able to direct her control of the system's sun, to weaponise it, with an uncanny accuracy, able to strike individual targets over a range of tens of millions of miles with no form of Auspex. No radar, no lidar, no gravometric grids, no thermal sensors, not even visual detection,' Marcos explained, elaborating for the third time. The reports and after action logs from the Crusade fleet had been pored over again and again by data-scribes and Inquisitorial aides, by Segmentum Command and even by the High Lords of Terra themselves, those august individuals who ruled over the Imperium in the Emperor's stead, such had been the interest stirred by the surprising revelations from the Western Fringe Crusade.

'Query: no mechanical assistance?' Grand Magos Delema interjected. 'Exertion of psychic power over such distance and of such magnitude is virtually unknown in the galaxy.'

'Indeed, Grand Magos, which is why our Adeptus Mechanicus support ship analysed the readings and recordings and determined them to be not of psychic origin, at least not in the way we would traditionally understand it,' Marcos replied.

'Your report further states, Admiral, that you expressed misgivings initially toward working with these creatures,' Lord Inquisitor Martaan spoke, a measured and cool voice, no doubt a voice which had lulled a thousand alien-lovers into a false sense of security before pronouncing sentence and carrying it out, either with his power sword or his plasma pistol. 'I wish to hear you explain exactly why your opinion wavered from one side to the other, from distrust to collusion and thence on to extermination. It seems suspect to me, Admiral. No matter how many times I read the report, I cannot quite determine what made your mind sway, like the wheat blowing in the breeze, just before it is cut down by the reaper's blade...'

Marcos ignored the thinly-veiled threat at the end, and addressed the nub of the issue. 'Because, My Lord Inquisitor, I realised the reality of the situation. At first I acted to rescue our ground forces which had already made planetfall. We had already begun diplomatic talks with the ponies...'

'Ah, yes, ponies. The name of this species. Is that how they referred to themselves, Admiral, or did your Crusade apply that epithet due to their relation to Terran horses?' Biscayne questioned.

'That is how they referred to themselves, My Lord,' Marcos replied, before continuing. 'We had initiated diplomatic talks, as had been done many times before with other minor Xenos species, as you all know. We did that because they initially appeared to be of no threat to us. There were no large power sources on the planet beyond that associated with an early-industrial society, they had no spacefaring capacbility or satellites, we detected no radiation readings other than those consistent with the natural background levels. We believed they were of no threat. Upon landfall our troops reported observing ponies using telekinesis and other rudimentary psyker abilities. Once the Ferrus Terra, our Mechanicus support vessel, obtained some...live samples...we were able to determine through study and post-mortem autopsy of the dead that we were not dealing with ordinary psychic activity. By that time we had been forced away from the planet by the Chaos fleet. It was only after the Princess tore a hole in the warp storm that we truly knew that there was something more complex at work. We then established positive vox contact with our troops on the ground, and found they were already working with the ponies and griffons.'

'Necessity breeds ingenuity and adaptation, hm?' Biscayne mused, though Lord-Inquisitor Martaan expressed a different view.

'Necessity breeds desperation, Lord Commander, and once the immediate crisis has passed, that desperation can turn to acceptance, and to normalising. Once that occurs then the acceptance can spread, unchecked, like a rot through the mind and soul. That is where we must be most wary, gentlemen, whenever a ship or unit, or indeed an Inquisitor, may I add, is forced to work alongside aliens by circumstance. The Eldar, for instance, are extremely good at manipulation, manipulation of the mind so subtle that one would scarcely feel anything was amiss, yet find oneself acting out the desires of the Xenos, not of the Emperor. Do you not feel, Admiral, that this may have happened in your case?'

'My Lord, I never once acted for the pure benefit of these aliens,' Marcos replied indignantly. 'Any gains they may have accrued from our actions were necessary byproducts of the fight against the Archenemy, and against this new and insidious foe...'

'The Changelings, yes?' Martaan questioned. 'They first revealed themselves to you directly in your very own ready room, didn't they Admiral? General Jahn, you took command of all ground forces when Lord-General Galen was murdered, correct?'

'I did, My Lord Inquisitor,' Jahn replied. 'As second in command of the Imperial Guard contingent, that task fell to me, and I carried it out with the dual intention of cleansing the taint of Chaos from the world as the Emperor commands, and to avenge the Lord-General's murder.'

'And yet the majority of the fighting against the Changelings appears to have been carried out by the ponies and the men of the Navy,' Admiral Biscayne chided, a nudge against the Guard indicative of the rivalry between the two services.

'That was because our primary task was to fight back the Chaos invasion,' Jahn pointed out reasonably. 'Defence of the fleet was left up to the armsmen and the crews, as it always is, and with all due respect to those from both services, this was an impossible and unexpected situation. We had no knowledge of the Changelings' existence when we arrived at the planet. The Princess did not tell us about them for some time, giving plenty of potential opportunities for drones to infiltrate ground forces and, through landers and shuttles, to get aboard the ships of the fleet. They were totally undetectable, My Lords, unless and until they were in their true form. Their disguise was perfect.'

'So the alliance with these horse-aliens began as one of necessity. Once your own forces were rescued and the Chaos forces were on the run, why did you not enact Exterminatus then and there, before the second Chaos fleet arrived?' Inquisitor Martaan asked, looking at Marcos.

'At that time, although we were more aware of the nature of the threats posed by the Changelings and the potential threat of the pony magic, we still did not have a full understanding of the true power that the Changeling Queen or the Princess actually possessed,' Marcos explained. 'Those facts only revealed themselves to us at a later date. Namely when the Queen survived the destruction of the Emperor's judgement and a full bombardment from ship-killing weaponry, including a Nova Cannon, and when the Princess showed her ability not just to manipulate the star, but to use it in an incredibly precise way to carry out her will. That was when we truly knew we were dealing not just with a powerful psyker, but with a creature of both intelligence and real, dangerous strength. Alas, by that time, the Greater Daemon had already been summoned, and that naturally became our immediate focus. Our orbital strikes were insufficient to harm the Daemon, and I knew that unleashing Exterminatus upon the planet while it was still present posed a serious risk of either boosting the Daemon's power, or worse, being the spark that the Ruinous Powers were seeking, and turning the planet into a Daemon world. The Daemon had to be banished first.'

'But at this stage you had already reasoned that the planet should die?' Martaan demanded.

'Yes, My Lord,' Marcos replied after a moment. 'I knew that the Princess and the Queen posed too great a threat, for two reasons. First, any attempt to approach the planet by Imperial vessels was likely to be met by the same destruction as had been unleashed on the second Chaos force. The Princess had already demonstrated her ability to destroy an entire fleet within a matter of seconds if she chose to do so, and she had spoken to me of her willingness to do so again if she felt her planet was in danger. Secondly, while I recognised and understood the potential benefit to the Imperium of studying and exploiting her magi...unusual psychic powers for our own gain...I also very clearly understood the danger of letting that same source of knowledge fall into the hands of the Archenemy, or indeed any other species whose goals do not align with those of the Imperium. Such a situation would be unthinkable, and to permit it would be for me to be complicit in such heresy. I have never engaged in such foul thought or action, and I was not about to begin with Kuda Prime.'

'It is regrettable that the planet had to be sacrificed, given that it was a garden world. A potential land campaign could have been mounted to clear out the local inhabitants with ease, judging by your reports on the state of the pony war machine,' Martaan retorted, responding to Marcos's impassioned defence of his actions. 'The Crusade fleet could have withdrawn and returned at a later date with support from the Ordo Xenos if needed. We would have been most keen to obtain a specimen, one of the pony Princesses or the Changeling Queen...alive, preferably, but even deceased, they could provide us with a wealth of information.'

'Yes, My Lord inquisitor, but I am not sure you have fully grasped how difficult it was to kill any of those creatures,' Marcos replied. 'The Changeling Queen survived firepower that could destroy a fleet. She only succumbed to some kind of psychic artifact possessed by the ponies, which seemed to stop her dead within a moment. However, it appeared that even that might not have been enough to actually kill her. It appeared to our investigators that she had merely been put into some kind of stasis, encased within stone or a similar material. The Princess did not allow us to conduct a full investigation of her body. Despite her willingness to work alongside us, I believe she shared the same reservations about the secrets of pony psychic abilities leaving the planet as I did, albeit she did not want the truth to be learned by the Imperium either.'

'Note: understandable caution,' Grand Magos Delema interrupted, his bionic eyes whirring as their lenses adjusted focus, switching his views between Jahn and Marcos while obtaining biometric data; heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, all were being recorded and imprinted in the Magos's memory circuits. Though such data didn't constitute proof of anything, there were certain physiological signs that the human body would often undergo when lying. The Magos routinely recorded such data from his own underlings for no particular purpose other than to potentially intimidate or embarrass them at a later date, and he had no qualms about doing so here. It might just catch one of the two defendants in a lie- though nothing had shown untoward so far. 'The Xenos Princess was not aware of our experiments on captured ponies. Counterpoint: unless she was informed of same by senior Crusade fleet staff.'

'To the best of my knowledge, Grand Magos, the Princess was completely unaware of such...activities,' Marcos replied. 'I certainly never told her of such things, nor did any of my command staff.'

'So having made the determination that the Princess had to be destroyed, Admiral, why did you not open fire upon the city...ah, Canterlot...' Biscayne checked his notes. 'Yes, Canterlot. Why did you not fire upon the city as soon as the Daemon and the Changeling Queen were eliminated? Why did you not initiate Exterminatus then?'

'Because we still had several hundred thousand personnel on the planet, Lord Commander,' Marcos answered simply. 'Sacrifice for a noble goal is one thing, but to throw away the lives of loyal citizens of the Imperium where they may be safely spared is brutality of the highest order, and I would have no part in that. The Exterminatus order could not reasonably have been given until all of our men were evacuated. Given that the Princess believed us to be allied at this point, I felt there was no danger of delaying the order until our men could be brought to safety.'

'A reasonable conclusion, Admiral,' Inquisitor Martaan nodded. 'The Ordo Excorium have conducted their own investigation into your decision and have concluded with you that it was prudent to allow the evacuation before ordering the Exterminatus.'

The Ordo Excorium was a small subset of the Inquisition tasked solely with investigating Exterminatus orders, who issued them, and for what reason. They were the least-used Ordo, according to most statisticians, only dealing with hundreds of cases per year, rather than millions of incidents like the Ordo Malleus, Ordo Hereticus and Ordo Xenos had to respond to, given the scale of the Imperium. Exterminatus, being the most draconian response that any Imperial commander could impose on a world, did not happen that often, partly because it was irreversible and partly because it led to inevitable and intense scrutiny from the Inquisition. Many commanders preferred to throw away the lives of thousands or even millions of their men to forcibly cleanse a world of taint, rather than submit to an interrogation from an Inquisitor over whether their judicious use of Exterminatus was justified or not.

'Yes, My Lord Inquisitor,' Marcos replied. 'I am pleased that the Ordo Excorium has understood my reasoning behind the delay. I have no desire to needlessly throw away the lives of my men or those units attached to my command if there is a possibility of saving them. The Crusade had already taken high casualties across the numerous planets we had taken, and especially at Kuda Prime.'

'So once you had evacuated your personnel, Admiral, you decided to fool the Princess?' Biscayne asked, and Marcos nodded.

'Yes, My Lord. I knew that if the fleet was still in orbit when we launched an attack on the planet, the Princess would be able to attack us and destroy at least some of our vessels, especially the slower transports,' he explained. 'That was why I ordered the fleet to head to the jump point before initiating the attack. That way, the Princess would believe that we were honouring our word and departing the system peacefully. Once her guard was down, that was the moment to strike, catching her unawares and leaving her little or no time to respond.'

'Evidently it worked,' Martaan remarked., stating the obvious. 'You were able to carry out the task without loss, despite the presence of an intelligent and powerful creature with the capability of destroying your vessels. That is to be considered a victory, even if losing the source of study for such a potentially useful source of power can only be considered to be a negative outcome for the Imperium.'

'I regret that I could find no solution that would suit our ends, My Lord,' Marcos answered. 'The Princess would most certainly not come willingly, and I knew of no force great enough to compel her to do so, nor to defeat her in battle without taking most of the planet with her anyway.'

'Indeed, it is regrettable,' Lord-Commander Biscayne agreed. 'But it sounds unavoidable. Given the circumstances, I do believe that you chose the lesser of two evils, Admiral. Far better to prevent this phenomenon being used at all than to allow it to fall into the hands of Chaos.'

'Opinion: I concur,' Grand Magos Delema chimed in. 'The Adeptus Mechanicus has been able to make significant preliminary progress in our studies of the captive ponies and Changelings. While they are not of the subspecies Alicornus Dominatus, every drone and every horned pony has some concentration of the novel particle within them. Work will begin shortly on extracting the energy for further detailed study. It is hoped that with enough research, we may be able to synthesise the particle for further use by Imperial science. A stable source of an artificial version of the particle could lead to any number of future breakthroughs in a variety of subjects.'

'I understand from your report, Admiral, that you agreed to release all captive ponies from your custody and turn them over to the Princess,' Martaan added. 'Why was that?'

'A gesture of goodwill, My Lord, to keep her onside,' Marcos explained. 'There was little harm in it, I felt. We would still retain our Changeling captives, and their...magic, for want of a more precise term...'

'Interjection: We have chosen to use the term Alternative Psychic Energy Source,' Delema interrupted.

'The Changelings' psychic energy source was functionally identical to that of the rank-and-file ponies,' Marcos continued. 'There was no real need to keep both species aboard when one would suffice. It was only once we arrived here at Hydraphur that I leaned the Mechanicus had...retained some pony specimens, despite my order.'

'Does that aggrieve you, Admiral?' Martaan asked. 'Surely you had no love for the creatures?'

'What aggrieves me, My Lord, is merely that the Adeptus Mechanicus contingent assigned to the Crusade decided to flout the authority of their designated superior officer and subvert the chain of command merely to further their own private ends. After all, Grand Magos, can we not agree that we are all on the same side here? The side of humanity and the Imperium of Man?'

'Response: The operatives aboard the Ferrus Terra carried out their duties as instructed by their Adeptus Mechanicus superior. Namely, myself,' Delema responded. 'Before the Crusade departed I ordered that samples, both living and deceased if possible, of every novel species encountered, should be procured and preserved for study and dissection, both aboard the Ferrus Terra and upon their return to more well equipped Mechanicus facilities. To that end, my operatives decided that my order outweighed that issued by you to hand over all captive ponies.'

'They were under my command as Crusade leader,' Marcos pointed out. 'They had no right to ignore my orders, Grand Magos. It could have jeopardised the security of the fleet.'

'Be that as it may, Admiral, this is not the time for sectarian infighting between Imperial organisations,' Biscayne chided. 'We are all aware of the historical animosity between the military and Mechanicus commands. Let us not repeat it here and now. This session is to establish the facts about the events of the Crusade, not to revisit old wrongs.'

'Agreed,' Martaan nodded. 'Please focus on the task at hand, gentlemen. I understand full well that the Adeptus Mechanicus has a tendency to act as a law unto itself, but in this particular instance it did not materially affect the outcome of the withdrawal from Kuda Prime, did it, Admiral?'

'No, My Lord, it did not,' Marcos admitted. 'Though only because the Princess was unaware of it, as was I. If she had known that they were retaining...specimens, was it, Grand Magos? Then there may have been consequences...perhaps negative consequences for the Mechanicus.'

'Interjection: It is unclear if the Princess was aware of the differences between the Imperial Navy and the Adeptus Mechanicus, beyond the very broad outline of each group. It is equally possible that the negative outcomes you refer to might have been imposed upon the Navy, and not upon our own vessel,' Delema retorted.

'It would still have been the fault of your operatives if that had been the case,' Marcos answered, prompting Biscayne to interrupt again.

'Enough bickering, gentlemen, please. We are here for the facts, and the facts are pretty well established by now. We have the reports, we have the sensor logs, we have the autopsy records and now we have heard oral testimony. It is time to make our decision, gentlemen. If you will excuse us, Lord-Admiral. General.' Biscayne, Delema and Martaan rose from their seats at the dais and withdrew from the chamber, the door closing with a clang- a potentially ominous sound, the signal for either life or death, depending on the results of their deliberations.

Marcos turned to Jahn. 'Well, General, I suppose they will keep us waiting now. I'm sure they have already made their decision.'

'But the spectacle is important to them,' Jahn nodded. 'Understandable, of course. I am sure I have done the same when considering bringing charges against a subordinate. No doubt you have also acted in such a fashion, Admiral.'

'Indeed, it has been known,' Marcos agreed. Neither officer spoke anything more than simple words with each other, for they knew that the room was almost certainly outfitted with recording equipment, hoping to overhear anything incriminating from those who were on trial while the officials were out of the chamber. It was common practice in the Imperium, and many criminals and traitors had been exposed in just such a fashion. But Marcos and Jahn were old campaigners and knew all of the tricks; they weren't going to say anything that wasn't in the report, or that they hadn't already announced in their official testimony. It would not take more than a few misplaced words for the interrogators to assign blame where it wasn't necessarily due. Words, either spoken or written in an official report, could be twisted to suit a preconceived narrative. If they had decided Marcos and Jahn were already guilty, then they would be able to extract enough from what they already had to suit their decision, to make it fly with their superiors and other officials.

Time passed as they had predicted, making the two officers sweat it out. With no chronometer it was hard to tell how long they were alone, but Marcos estimated twenty minutes or so. Then, Lord-Commander Biscayne, Lord-inquisitor Martaan, and Grand Magos Delema returned, taking their seats at the the dais once more, ready to pass their judgement.

'Please rise, gentlemen,' Biscayne ordered, and Marcos and Jahn pushed back their chairs and stood. Marcos adopted his familiar stance, hands clasped firmly behind his back.

'We have considered all the evidence put before us, as well as your verbal testimony,' Biscayne continued. 'It is the judgement of this tribunal that, in carrying out the act of Exterminatus upon the planet of Kuda Prime, you were acting in the best interests of the Imperium of Man in denying an asset to the enemy. Therefore, our judgement is that you shall both be found innocent of the crime of treason, and of the crime of misuse of the power of Exterminatus. The Ordo Excorium independently reached the same conclusion.'

That was a relief, at least, but it was not the only charge leveled against the Crusade's commanders. The issue was more broad, stemming back to before they issued the order to carry out Exterminatus. Biscayne continued.

'It is further the judgement of this tribunal that, on the charges of consorting with Xenos, of sharing classified information with Xenos, of aiding and abetting Xenos, and of heresy and blasphemy, that you shall both be found innocent of those crimes also. In our judgement, your actions were proportionate and appropriate, given the scale of the threat you faced in the form of a twin assault from Chaos and from a new and highly dangerous species of Xenos, designated by the Adeptus Mechanicus as Equus Incognitus. The records clearly show that what information you did share was done purely to permit short-to-medium term tactical interoperability between your forces and those of the newly discovered species Equus Sapiens. Such actions fall under the accepted guidelines of both the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Navy, when driven by necessity, and especially when prompt remedial action is conducted once the period of emergency has passed, which is what happened here, with the issuance of the Exterminatus order. Therefore, this tribunal decrees that both defendants are cleared to leave this chamber without a stain on their character or integrity, and with no marks on their records.'

Marcos and Jahn came to attention, sharp salutes answered by the Lord-Commander, who stood, while Grand Magos Delema and Lord-Inquisitor Martaan, being outside of the military command structure of the Imperium, did not. The two officers, now cleared of all charges laid against them, departed from the chamber. The door clanged shut behind them, the sound of freedom and justice. Marcos extended a hand, and Jahn shook it.

'Looks like we'll be heading back to work tomorrow,' Marcos chuckled. With the charges no longer hanging over them, the two officers would be returning to duty with their heads held high, back to their respective commands, at least temporarily. There was not much of the Crusade left, and the units and vessels would be transferred to other sectors and other missions soon enough. Marcos expected he would be given some kind of headquarters assignment at Hydraphur, perhaps shipyard commandant or chief of the planetary defence force. It was a common enough switch, for an Admiral who had led a major Crusade or successful campaign to be moved to a more peaceful posting as a reward for six months, perhaps a year. Other Admirals, however, declined the posting and requested another active assignment, leading more combat forces into action. Marcos wasn't sure yet which way he would swing if presented with the opportunity, but he was glad that he was going to be given the chance.

'Back to work...not sure where they will be sending me. They're going to disband the Guard forces assigned to the Crusade, so I shan't have a command until they reassign me,' Jahn replied. 'I doubt our paths will cross again any time soon. You know how Imperial bureaucracy can be.' He chuckled. 'It was an honour to serve under you, Admiral. I just wish I had not had to become the commander of the Guard forces in the process.'

'As do I, General,' Marcos replied. 'Lord-General Galen was a damn fine man and a damn good officer. I can say truthfully that you embody the same qualities as he did. It was a pleasure to serve alongside you. I hope we shall meet again someday, Emperor willing. Somewhere quiet and calm, where we can remember the old days.'

'Yes, one day all of this will be a distant memory,' Jahn mused. 'Our names will fade from history...I suppose you might get a statue somewhere, for birds to relieve themselves upon.' He chuckled. 'Those strange creatures we encountered...just a footnote in some document buried deep within the bowels of the Segmentum archives.'

'Indeed, General, indeed,' Marcos nodded. in agreement. 'Such is the fate of all Xenos, of course.'

'Such is the fate of all Xenos,' Jahn repeated, extending his hand. Marcos shook it once more, and the two men shared a knowing smile before turning and going their separate ways, Marcos back to the Indefatigable and Jahn to the Imperial Guard headquarters block. If their paths never crossed again, then at least they could go to their eventual graves with their secret intact, undiscovered and undisturbed.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

The Greatest Showmen, pulled off The Greatest Heist.

The Ordo will still be in two minds to send a check up team, given the extreme nature of the apparently resolved threat?

There was just enough clean up for the overall story to be perfect?

Very suspicious.

[Josiador]

I'm guessing next chapter will show the ponies are fine and the Exterminatus order was falsified? Thank the Emperor, I was about to get REALLY upset.

[WanderingPony]

their secret intact, undiscovered and undisturbed.

The only way to save one's soul and one's life in this catch-22. Bonus if they managed to actually dump an Exterminatus on a completely unrelated world of lesser lifeforms instead of Equus.

[BRBrony9]

10672143

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10672176

There is one final chapter to come, so stay tuned! Thanks to all readers for sticking with this (long) story, especially those who started reading it before my (also long) hiatus from writing it!

[Josiador]

10672664
You're probably the only author who leaves a story with an interesting premise dead since 2013 and then actually finishes it years later, so thank you.