For the second time in a day, Lord Inquisitor Ignatius Rosenadel woke in a daze. He looked around him, finding himself to be in a sterile, white, spotless room. A medicae facility, he reasoned, seeing his companions on the adjacent beds, plugged into all sorts of monitors and support machines. He found that he wasn't, but he wasn't injured either. His last memory was drawing his bolt pistol. He strained to remember what had happened next.
He had fired, but the bolt hadn't even hit his target, the alien. What was his name, he struggled to think, the word failing to penetrate a splitting headache. Arkot.
His blood began to boil as his fury at the xenos filth resurfaced, but then calmed himself as his educated and wise mind jumped into a frantic storm of thought. Tyranids?, he wondered. It was impossible, but the thing, which claimed to be one of the wretched filth Kryptman had named after the first world they devoured, claimed to be a member of the damned species. But, he reasoned, Tyranids are not sentient.
This one was, though. No matter how much his own logic tried to convince him otherwise, he knew the truth. He had recognised the physical features of a Tyranid, the breath, the stench of it's skin oils. Memories of Ichar IV flooded back, but Rosenadel blocked them out instinctively. That had been a horrible moment of his life. The psychic resonance of the near-death event had almost killed him during a séance. When he came out of it, the attending Astropath's brain had been turned into a wall decoration.
He had also sensed it's thoughts. There he had found rock hard evidence. It knew it was a Tyranid, knew it's history, it's ancestry. These creatures were independent, sentient beings. No longer part of the Hive Mind, though how, Rosenadel did not care to think of.
He climbed out of the bed, leaning on a table at it's foot. He was still getting his balance back, randomly attacked by spells of dizziness. Studying the bodies, he raised an eyebrow. On-board the ship, there had been 15 men on the bridge. There were 18 here...
He looked at the faces of the original 15, all of whom he recognised. The 4 Custodes and 3 Grey Knights were dressed in robes rather than their armour. The robes were fresh. It made him think, why would the Tyranids have human robes?
Now, the other three. To Rosenadel, they looked, and smelt...tainted.
He turned to look at the next room. It had a table in it, with a chair on either side. He walked over to the door, which was electronically protected by a code, and tried to open it. Surprisingly, it slid open after a few attempts. He had thought this was a Tyranid ship, but the coding was in Low Gothic, and it was a name he'd heard before back in the Scholam on Cadia.
Now he was in another Galaxy. So far from home, that having been so long ago. He wasn't at all disturbed by the fact he was finding it difficult to come to terms with it. Quite the reverse, as one would expect such an adjustment difficult.
He slid quietly into the room. It's walls and the door were plasteel, transparent. The table and the armless chairs were made of the same substance, though they were barely translucent. He was used to the smog and pig iron of the Imperial Hive Cities, and the ugly steel subterranean factories that played home to criminal underworlds. The interrogation room, much like the medicae unit and, now he thought, the hangar, made him uneasy. It was the unnatural sterility. Like someone had allowed a sea of disinfectant to flow through the entire ship. He had seen this before, and the implications were not lost on him.
Even though the code had been in Low Gothic, with a human alphabet, and the xenos had talked in the very same tongue, he could not shake the thought that this was most definitely a xenos ship, making him uncomfortable in it. Logic, however, once more argued against his instincts, telling him that it could not be Tyranid, because it was not biological, nor even a miracle of biotechnology.
Rosenadel sat in the chair facing the medicae entrance and lay back. He fished around in his armour with one hand, and pulled out his Inquisitorial Rosette. He sat, staring at it for a moment. It shone in the white light of the room, even after he had been wearing it for centuries.
Rosenadel jumped to his feet as he heard a pneumatic hiss and the door opposite him opened. A Tyranid walked in, stood to the side, and Arkot followed. The Tyranid guard left and Arkot sat opposite Rosenadel, who had quickly shoved his Rosette down his armour.
“Human,” Arkot acknowledged, inclining his head. Rosenadel did likewise.
“Xenos,” he replied, his tone venomous. He locked eyes with Arkot for a moment, hiding his hate as best he could. The two sat, motionless, then Arkot opened a folder with his two lower arms.
“I would like to ask you some questions, human,” Arkot said, looking sidelong at Rosenadel while taking a pen from inside the folder.
“Why?” Rosenadel asked, his voice almost a growl. He could not believe he was being interrogated by xenos filth.
“To gauge your psychological health,” Arkot replied, looking up from a file he had pulled out. That answer surprised Rosenadel. Not only were these Tyranid sentient, but they had an advanced understanding of science also. He was slowly beginning to suspect outside involvement.
“Very well,” he sighed, examining his hands. His nails had been cut from long, dirt covered claws to manicured fingernails, more fitting of a remembrancer than a warrior. Though he now appeared calm, his fingers were twitching as thoughts of killing Arkot flooded into his head.
“What date is it?” Arkot asked.
“Day two-hundred-and-thirty-three of year nine-hundred-and-ninety-eight, millennium 41,” Rosenadel answered, glaring. Arkot cocked the bony ridge over his right eye.
“What galaxy are you in?” the Tyranid asked.
“The Milky Way galaxy.”
“What race of creature are you?”
“Human.”
“Scientific designation?”
“**** Sapiens Sapiens.”
“What race am I?”
“That is debatable,” Rosenadel answered, smirking slightly as the answer caused Arkot to tilt his head in confusion. “You claim to be Tyranid, but you are sentient and you have no link to the hive mind. In addition, you do not have weapons grafted onto you, but clawed hands. So, logic reasons, you are no Tyranid, Arkot. You are lying.”
“Am I? You claim to be in the Milky Way. You are not. You are in the Triangulum Galaxy, NGC 598. Also, you claim it is the year nine-hundred-and-ninety-eight, millennium 41. This is also incorrect, it is the year nine-hundred-and-ninety-eight, millennium 44.” Arkot let it sink in, noting the slight difference in Rosenadel's temperament, then added, “Tell me, why are you're answers incorrect?”
“They are not, you are lying.” Arkot sighed.
“You call me xenos. That is a term once used by the Imperium of Man. Why?”
“Because that is what you are, xenos filth. I am tasked by the Holy God-Emperor to destroy your kind.” Arkot's eyes widened a fraction, barely noticeable , and he looked at Rosenadel's chest. He reached over, and Rosenadel moved to stop him, but the two lower arms shot out and restrained him. Arkot slid out Rosenadel's Rosette, and sighed.
“What is your name?” Arkot asked, leaning back and letting Rosenadel relax again, withdrawing his long arms.
“Lord Inquisitor Ignatius Rosenadel, Ordo Xenos,” Rosenadel answered, scowling.
“Damn...” Arkot sighed, rubbing his forehead. Somehow he managed not to slice his skull open with his razor sharp claws, but Rosenadel didn't bother figuring out how.
“What, xenos?”
“It is as I feared. Inquisitor...I'm not sure how to put this to you...” Arkot said before trailing off.
“Say it, filth!” Rosenadel pushed, a look of anger replacing his scowl.
“The Milky Way, nor this galaxy, belong to the Imperium of Man...anymore.” Rosenadel looked like he was about to lunge, but he restrained himself.
“What do you mean? More lies!? What is all of this based on?!” he growled.
“They are not lies. You see, the Imperium of Man no longer exists.”
+++
“No!” Rosenadel roared as he leaped to his feet. He threw himself at Arkot, 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, still looking rather venomous. Eventually he decided to comply. Perhaps he could gain an advantage. “Ah, of course,” he said.
“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 realised it was foolish of him. He wasn't as sharp as of late. He had been looking Arkot in the eye from the alien's eye level.
“Well then?” he asked, levelling his tone but tapping the wall with his fingertips, his anger still raging
“Nache, tor girdak nof Ekc,” Arkot told the guards. Rosenadel shot him a look, and Arkot looked down at him considerately. “I am telling them to...ah...take good care of you.”
“Of course,” Rosenadel said sarcastically 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 painful right thigh delicately.
“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 feigned, keeping the xenos occupied while he examined the ship's internal defences.
“I'm sure you would be, considering your background,” Arkot agreed, turning sharply into an adjoining corridor. “Well, you see. My race and I 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. The Alliance came, and made peace between the broods. It was surprisingly easy.”
“And who are the alliance?”
Arkot smiled wickedly, “You will see. Gregor will show 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.”
“Yes, the Imperial Navy is part of the Imperial Alliance.” Rosenadel moved to counter him with another query, but Arkot told him to be silent as, at long last, the door opened. They stepped inside, and Rosenadel stood in awe. He was in an auditorium, in the middle of which was a schematic of a cluster of stars, a hundred at first count, but obviously more. “The Erek Cluster,” Arkot hissed, “Each star represents a system, red represents enemy held systems, green is Alliance controlled and blue is uninhabitable.”
Rosenadel nodded. He scowled as Cagarner turned round and nodded at him, but his attention was drawn away from the Mechanicus Lord and to another, human figure in the middle of the auditorium. He was sitting in an anti-gravity chair, with several wires entering his body from the back of the chair, a particularly thick one connected to his brain stem. “What is that?”
“A life support system, built by the Eldar to sustain the ageing military geniuses of the Alliance, in order to continue our crusade into the Universe,” Arkot replied in a whisper. He walked up towards the chair, and bent down, talking to the figure in the chair in an impossibly low voice to avoid the words being carried across the room.
The chair spun round, and the man in it scowled. It was like he wore a mask of flesh. “Welcome to the Triangulum Galaxy, Ignatius. I was following your progress with great interest before you... disappeared. Valdor was quite distressed by the loss of one of his Centurions. Icarus is with you, I hope... anyway, we were all worried. Several key men had went missing in one go! Oh, the uproar you caused, quite a nuisance. Anyway, I greet you, Ignatius.”
“Heretic!” Rosenadel spat. “How dare you consort with these Xenos breeds! Osma was right, all those millennia ago! You are a heretic!” The man was quite taken aback by Rosenadel's outrage, and looked to Arkot for support.
“Are you even aware of who this is, ignorant Inquisitor?” Arkot asked in an angry tone. Rosenadel nodded slowly, his face contorted by rage.
Of course he knew who the man was. Every Inquisitor who had lived during Rosenadel's day knew.
Eisenhorn.