Chapter 1 (Part 3)
The Lord Inquisitor
“No!” Rosenadel roared as he leaped to his feet. He threw himself at Arkot bodily, crashing into the Tyranid with enough force to pick him up off his chair and slam him into the wall. The door hissed open, but Rosenadel ignored it, screaming profanities at his struggling captive. It took three of the Tyranid guards, each one easily 20-times stronger than Rosenadel, to drag him off the slowly recovering Arkot. They pinned him to a wall, one of them holding a serrated claw at his throat.
“I apologise,” Arkot said, a tinge of regret entering his voice. “Perhaps Gregor would have put it gentler.” Rosenadel's head shot up at the mention of the name. He stared coldly at Arkot, his piercing gaze causing the xenos to shiver slightly.
“Gregor?” he hissed, his eyes darting from each of the Tyranids holding him to another.
“Yes. He is an Inquisitor, like you, but he is the Lord Inquisitor of the Ordos Triangulum,” Arkot mentioned off-handedly. “Perhaps you would like to meet him?”
“Eh,” Rosenadel stuttered for a moment. “Ah, of course.”
“Very good,” Arkot smiled. He looked at the Tyranid guards, who swiftly withdrew to the far wall. Rosenadel hadn't noticed he had been so far off the ground till he slid down, then noticed it was foolish of him. He wasn't as sharp as of late, he had been looking Arkot in the eye from his level.
“Well then?”
“Nache, tor girdak nof Ekc,” Arkot told the guards. Rosenadel shot him a look, and Arkot looked down at him considerately. “'Guards, look after the humans', in Low Gothic.”
“Of course,” Rosenadel mumbled as he followed Arkot towards the door, sounding only slightly reassured. The door slid open cleanly and Arkot strode out, being careful to move slowly, and allowing the limping Inquisitor to keep beside him. “What happened?” Rosenadel asked as he examined the ship's interior. It was shining, unblemished white, much like the medicae, but with black, blank control panels integrated into the wall. He ran his fingertips over one, feeling it's impossibly smooth surface, refusing to give his hand purchase.
“What do you mean?” Arkot replied, sounding genuinely confused by Rosenadel's query.
“The Imperium. You said it was gone, yet you speak Low Gothic. Why?” Rosenadel replied, stopping to lean against a wall, rubbing his right thigh.
“Well, I guess that is rather more a question that you should ask Gregor when you meet him,” Arkot replied, “It is not my place. I will gladly tell you of my own race's history, though, if you will.”
“Of course. I am very interested in your advancement to sentience in...how long?” Rosenadel said, walking again.
“I'm sure you would be, considering your background,” Arkot agreed, turning sharply into an adjoining corridor. “Well, you see. Me and my race are descended from a very large brood of Tyranid Warriors your Imperium called Tyranicii Preafectea.”
“A Tyranid Warrior brood?” Rosenadel half-mumbled to himself, though Arkot heard him.
“Yes, most basic of all the so called 'synapse creatures'. The most important detail of this is that Tyranicii Preafectea could reproduce, much like Preafectea Ceralobitus, the Termagauntus Termagauntii, Hormagauntii, and Gargoylisii. During a battle with the now extinct denizens of this galaxy, consumed by the Tyranid hordes, the brood was cut off from Tyranid forces retreating from the world in the face of an overwhelming counter-attack. The Tyranid's enemies, however, left the planet to pursue the Tyranid, leaving the brood behind. They adapted to the terrain, and took five millennia to develop sentience, while the Hive Mind's influence on them had grown weak. This was around the time of the Horus Heresy.” Rosenadel shuddered at the mention of the fallen Primarch's name.
“That long ago?” he commented, composing himself.
“Oh yes. They did, however, still fight amongst themselves almost continuously, still weakly under the Hive Mind's aggressive influence. We developed, slowly but surely, technology akin to that which humanity created during the Dark Age of Technology, though it was all geared towards war.”
“Big surprise...”
“Please, Inquisitor, do not joke about this.”
“Oh, no, please go on.”
“Thank you. As I was saying, all of our technology was geared towards waging war on other broods, we were slowly killing each other off...”
“And..?
“And it stopped,” Arkot finished, turning at a door and typing in a code. His dexterous fingers flow across the keys, the tips of his claws gently tapping in letters, not leaving so much as a scrape.
“Just, like that?” Rosenadel wondered, snapping his fingers as he said it. He raised and eyebrow.
“Indeed, Inquisitor. I know, it was very sudden.”
“How long ago?”
“Around five hundred years ago. Then the Alliance came, and made peace between the broods.”
“And who are the alliance?”
Arkot smiled wickedly, “You will see, Gregor will who you. They united the broods, and integrated us into their society.”
“What role do you fulfil?”
“I am of the Imperial Navy, a Captain. This, as I have told you before, is my ship, Wrath of Erek. Erek was the first and only Tyranid Admiral, well known amongst the Navy for his exploits in the subjugation of the minor races located in the aptly named Erek Cluster.”
“I thought the Imperium was gone.”