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The Next Day
Talon System – Hive World Talon I – Orbital Starport
Vanessa was teleported directly into the bustling orbital starport of the hive world, where she laid eyes on the vessel she'd be boarding for this journey: a massive cruiser, its hull adorned in layers of burnished gold that caught the cold light of the void.
On the port-side armor, four kill-mark sigils were emblazoned: two for Lunar-class cruisers and two for Storm-class escorts.
Vanessa immediately recognized them for what they were, trophies of war, a testament to the cruiser's victories over those enemy vessels, having utterly annihilated them in combat.
But that made Vanessa uneasy. Those insignias clearly belonged to ships of the Imperial Navy.
The implication left a bitter taste in her mouth.
After all, those were loyalist ships... weren't they?
Before she could dwell further, a voice called from behind.
"This is the Path of Glory."
She turned to see Thunderborn Yoan approaching.
Yoan was a Pariah, a soulless, and her Null bodyguard.
His mere presence made Vanessa's skin crawl, her psychic gifts recoiling in pain as if her very soul were being pressed beneath an invisible weight that distorted even her perception of space around him.
More importantly, her psyker abilities were completely ineffective against him. She couldn't even subtly probe his mind, let alone manipulate it.
There would be no influencing this one.
Yoan stepped up beside her, nodding toward the kill-marks on the cruiser's hull.
"We've never fought the Imperial Navy. Those marks commemorate her maiden battle, where she shattered the rebel governors' ragtag fleets during Talon's last civil war."
"I see... impressive."
Vanessa nodded, then smiled at Yoan, her face a picture of innocent charm.
"You must be the Null bodyguard assigned to guard me? Thank you for taking the time to… protect me. I'm honored."
Yoan shook his head slowly.
"Protect you? If this were only about your safety, a few ground forces and the Path of Glory would be more than enough."
He didn't elaborate further, but the implication was clear enough.
Vanessa said nothing in return.
She knew exactly why she was really here.
This mission was a test.
Her assignment to petition the Sector Governor was no gesture of goodwill. If she failed to prove her worth as an intermediary, they would question her motives for being in the Talon Sector.
And the consequences of being branded subversive… were best left unspoken.
Yoan tapped his vox-bead and spoke briefly with the bridge crew.
"Prepare for teleportation."
Vanessa nodded in response, though she didn't need any preparation. She was long accustomed to the sensation of traveling through the Talon's unique teleportation systems.
In a flash of light, both were teleported aboard the Path of Glory, directly onto its bridge.
....
Vanessa glanced around.
Unlike the bustling control decks of commercial vessels in the Talons fleet, this military-grade warship was cold, clinical, and quiet.
After teleportation, each bridge officer entered a pod-like station, their "control thrones" embedded within armored cylinders. No audible orders, no shouting just the soft susurrus of biometric scans and the whispering clicks of internal cogitators calibrating to their neural patterns.
It took her a few seconds to realize that this was how they communicated, through the system itself, not by voice.
Curious, Vanessa approached one of the pods and found that they were neural-interface sarcophagi, designed to shield the operator and allow for rapid ejection if the bridge were compromised.
"Inside," Yoan reminded her, entering his own command pod in the corner.
Vanessa lay inside her own pod assigned to her near the aft bulkhead, the hatch sealing shut with a hiss that echoed like a coffin closing.
There, she found a neural cable with a standard MIU (Mind-Impulse Unit) plug. Of course, it was useless to her.
Her body was entirely unaugmented. She didn't even have the basic cranial sockets that were commonplace among most Hive World citizens.
Left with nothing to do, she lay there, imprisoned in metal silence.
Vanessa pulled from within her coat a quill and parchment, followed by a set of binocular lenses engraved with the Aquila Imperialis, the twin-headed eagle of the Imperium. She donned them and began writing.
The Path of Glory initiated Dimensional Transition.
The entire cruiser vanished into the Dimensional corridor, its hull shuddering with energy distortions that bent light and thought alike, traversing an impossible distance through a medium that could not be meaningfully described as space or time, and emerged again into realspace five seconds later.
Her modified binoculars had been recording and analyzing the transit the entire time, producing an auto-scripted report in the lens. Vanessa dutifully copied down the findings.
Most of the report, however, was marked with "Unable to Analyze" notations. What little it could decipher was scattered and incoherent. Only one line stood out:
["Subjective time within the corridor exceeded 1,000 years. Objective realspace aboard passage: 5 seconds. No signs of temporal displacement typical of warp travel anomalies."]
Vanessa sighed, the weight of her inadequacy gnawing at her.
She knew the analysis was mostly worthless.
Partly because the technology was beyond her grasp, and partly because the Talon Sector was now mass-producing Dimensional Engines as part of its Tithes to Terra.
Still, Vanessa recorded everything.
Long ago, the Voice had commanded it: that she document everything.
And so she did.
....
After forty jumps, the cruiser had left the Talon system far behind.
Vanessa noticed her psychic powers had returned to full strength, the weightless shimmer of the Immaterium now singing through her senses again, the oppressive suppression field of Talon no longer dampening her abilities.
She immediately used her psionics to influence the navigator and drive techs aboard the cruiser, guiding the ship toward a remote system within the Nebulae Expanse.
The Path of Glory dropped into low orbit above a Hive World buried deep in that system.
Vanessa and Yoan teleported down, arriving directly at the planetary governor's palace.
To Yoan's surprise, the governor, who had never met Vanessa before, treated her with reverence, as though she were the High Lady of Terra herself. He offered her the finest quarters, prepared feasts, and summoned over a hundred servants.
None of this stemmed from loyalty. Vanessa had turned the governor into a thrall through layers of suggestion and invisible compulsions woven deep into his mind, subtle psyker domination that left no outward trace.
From that point forward, her days were spent roaming the Hive Spires and descending into the lower sub-hives.
Yoan accompanied her, watching as even the most savage gang lords, bounty hunters, and wild cyber-hounds obeyed her without question, as if she were some unholy saint anointed by the Warp itself.
By the fourth day, they reached a crumbling ruin in the deep underhive.
It looked like a temple. Though unmarked by any official creed, the architecture bore a stern, almost militaristic symmetry.
Yoan walked through the grand hall, his eyes scanning each column and relic. Dust caked every surface, yet not a single cobweb marred the structure, as if even vermin feared to trespass.
"So this is what four days of wandering was for? A treasure hunt?" he asked.
"Treasure hunt?" Vanessa tilted her head.
"Bounty hunters call it that, scouring the ruins of the underhive for relics. But I'm asking, why are we really here? Shouldn't you be heading to Terra or at least somewhere in the Sol System, not rooting through rubble?" Yoan elaborated dryly.
Vanessa gave no reply. She led him to the end of the hall, where a wall of unmarked stone loomed.
After a few seconds, a towering silhouette emerged silently from the shadows: a robed figure whose mantle seemed to absorb light itself. He was built like a monument, each movement precise, patient, too graceful for his size.
His heavy footsteps made no sound.
He approached, and Vanessa handed him a parchment scroll.
"This is it?"
The robed man looked at the parchment, confused.
"Why would the Master of Talon want control of a backwater sector governorship? What purpose does that serve?"
"It's a test," Vanessa sighed, glancing briefly at Yoan, who remained silent but watchful.
"Everything is a test lately." The robed figure nodded and tucked the parchment away, but he didn't leave immediately.
"Admiral Quarren was ambushed near Agripinaa," he said. "The Navy took heavy losses. They can no longer defend the Forge Worlds there. We need the Talon fleet to intervene."
"Quarren again?" Vanessa scowled. "I told him to be careful. Why didn't he listen?"
"Foreknowledge of prophecy does not prevent it," the man replied. "Some things are unavoidable. The tides of war drive even the wise into ruin."
"Fine, fine..." Vanessa rubbed her temples. Persuading Qin Mo to commit his fleets to defend a Forge World not under his domain would be no easy task.
But it had to be done.
"Thank you for your service, sister." The man gave a formal Aquila salute, then disappeared into the shadows.
Yoan glanced at Vanessa.
"That's it?"
Vanessa exhaled deeply.
"That's it... and yet it's only the beginning. Now I have a new mess to clean up. The Emperor laughs at our plans, doesn't He?"
The two turned and left the ruined temple, heading back to the Path of Glory to return to Talon.
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