Getting Warhammered - [ 171 ]

Something was wrong with this planet, something deeply unsettling that sat thick in the air and sent shivers down Ciaphas Cain’s spine. Ever since that assault on the cafe and his near-miraculous survival of it, he had been wrestling with a deep sense of foreboding.

The people of the towns they had rode through spoke of superhuman warriors clad in all white, of terrorists and criminals who stood up to them getting slaughtered like helpless children, and of the myriads of theories they had for where these strange, alien creatures had come from. Aliens coming to conquer the world, a secret society of warriors staking their claim to the planet, angels of their blasphemous goddess coming to purge the unworthy and so on and so forth.

Unrest was rising and a thick web of tension had settled onto the populous. Resentment, fear and anxiety was on the rise and with the main governing body of the planet being utterly demolished in the capital, the forces of the government were far too slow to respond. The whole place was a powder-keg, and Cain was sitting right on top of it. 

It didn’t help that most forms of regular communications had stopped working a day ago, which included pict-casters, radios, and all forms of media present before. Now that had only made everything worse, because while it did stop the news channels from rousing the citizens into a fearful frenzy, it also left the entire population without their primary source of entertainment. Even Jurgen’s porno slates stopped working, and the man had been rather grouchy since then. If his unflappable aide had was in a bad mood, he could only imagine the lows to which some other people’s moods had sunk.

There is still a whole day until we have to meet up with Amberly. Cain thought, staring out the second-story window at the crowd passing through down on the street in some form of protest. I hope this whole thing doesn’t blow up until then.

Of course, fate has never been that nice to him, and it wouldn’t be changing its ways now. 

The pict-caster that had been sitting silently atop the table in one corner of the room despite the sole engin seer of the group trying to work his magic on it buzzed with static. Cain wasn’t the first to react, that would have been sergeant Braum who had just been napping on the sofa a moment before, but now had his laspistol aimed threateningly at the revived piece of machinery.

“How?” the engine seer muttered in horrified wonder, and Cain caught some utters of blasphemy among the troops. After all, the coghead had pronounced the machine spirit of the pict-caster to have been obliterated by some insidious techno sorcery, and yet, it seemed to be powering on despite that. 

The image buzzed for a moment, black and white dots swarming across the screen in a storm of chaos as a faint image turned clearer and clearer beneath it. It was vague for now, but with it getting cleared by the second, Cain soon recognised it for a podium, the like a governor might have stood behind to give a rousing speech to their citizens.

In only half a minute, the image was crystal clear, as crisp is it was ever going to be and showed some stark differences with the mental image Cain had in his mind. Governors, like all nobles and their lesser political lackeys, loved ostentatious shows of wealth to drive it home to the poor citizenry how much more power they held in their hands. 

There was none of that here, not a hint of gold or gems, not elaborate engravings or delicately etched surfaces. Not even a grand painting in the background. The podium stood at the centre of the screen, empty for now. It seemed to be carved from a single slab of some glistening white rock that resembled the carapace of some Tyranids much too closely for Cain to be comfortable with. The room the podium stood was much the same, seemingly built up from man sized bricks of the same white rock, with the only colour shown being the bright silverish light streaming down from above, cast by something out of sight.

There was a flash of light, an indistinct colour which drove a spike of pain into Cain’s skull right behind his eyes just by looking at it. By the time he managed to blink his blurry vision back into focus with a curse muttered under his breath, a woman stood behind the podium.

Cain stared. She looked human, and by all rights, he shouldn’t doubt it … but at the same time, doubt and paranoia had served him well all his life. She had cascading black hair, a heart-shaped face drawn into a stoic look of professionalism as she stood there, a picture of aristocratic grace personified, and a pair of piercing silver eyes. That was all fine and good, being just about what he had been expecting. What was not fine was her choice of clothing.

Like most things in that strange room, they were largely white. The main thing was the carapace-like armour covering every inch of her skin down from the neck below like she was some humanoid crustacean, then atop it was a robe of fine silk, its elaborate folds accentuated with silvery filigree which covered the woman’s hips like a skirt and draped over her shoulders like a capelet.

Cain thought hard but even just looking at it, he was pretty sure he would have remembered seeing that style of clothing before, so he wasn’t all that surprised when he came up short. Not one human culture he knew wore clothing of that style, thought while he had seen hundreds, there were thousands more under the umbrella of the Imperium. For some reason, I doubt she comes from within the Imperium.

“That armour is just like the ones those things that slaughtered the cultists wore,” the Liutenant muttered darkly. 

“Just without the helmet,” Jurgen added helpfully.

“Someone check the other pict-casters,” Cain barked. “We need to know whether they are sending this just to us or-”

“Greetings, people of Kazathor,” the woman on screen spoke, her voice lilting just right to be both feminine and dignified. That was not something anyone learned without being thought.

“Guess that answers that,” Jurgen said, his voice just as stoic as ever as he stared at the pict-caster like it was showing the weather report.

“I speak to you today as the representative of of the faction responsible for defeating the monstrous creature man of you in the capital had seen with your own eyes, or heard about and for the warriors wearing armour much like my own who had worked tirelessly to eradicate a cult of deranged terrorists who had grown root on your planet.” The woman waved her hand, and holographic images shimmered in the air behind her. One showing the disturbingly familiar visage of a Slaaneshi Daemon Prince, while the other showed cultists screaming as they threw themselves on the white-clad warriors' blades. “Not so long ago, a marauder fleet has had the audacity to attempt an attack on a System under our protection, and we had tracked their origin back to this planet. Now, I am glad to say that we had made doubly sure that their entire organisation and leadership on Kazathor had been obliterated. Unfortunately for you all, that came at the cost of the lives of much of your government, in one way or another.”

If Cain wasn’t so flabbergasted by the words coming out of the woman’s mouth, he would have snorted at the implication. Especially since he knew that the monstrous creature being slapped around by what looked like an Eldar Farseer was the one most of the planet’s population considered their undisputable ruler. Instead, a shiver ran down his spine as his eyes were locked onto the scenes playing out on the two projected images.

He had encountered that very same Daemon before, and she had slaughtered her way through a whole platoon of soldiers without much fuss, looking like she was taking a leisurely evening stroll through it all. Only Jurgen’s Blank nature and its sudden clash with her infernal power managed to finally banish the creature on that day, and only because they had caught her by surprise. In short, he knew what a force of nature that daemon was.

And that Eldar looked almost bored as he played with her like a vindictive predator trying to make its prey suffer before its jaws clamped down on its throat. Worse, that Eldar was part of some ‘faction’ that cooperated with humans and whatever those white-clad warriors were. Was he their leader? He doubted that Eldar loathed working with humans most of the time, considering them little more than animals. The only way Cain knew of that could make them even just mildly cooperative was if the human force was strong enough to make them second guess their chances at slaughtering it.

No, that faction had somehow convinced him to work with them. That was most likely. With all the implications that carried, it was a terrifying prospect. 

“Despite what many of you may think,” the woman continued after a few seconds of silence, just as Cain’s cascading thoughts started calming down enough to pay attention again. Which was likely intentional. “We are no conquerors. What we had come here to do was retaliation, and was done while minimising civilian casualties and infrastructural damage as much as possible. After these announcements, we will be lifting the suppression of your communication networks and will be leaving your planet to fend for itself. Before we fully depart, though, our leader has asked me to extend an invitation to an and all humans on this planet.

“We are powerful, but few in number,” the black-hared woman said, making the images disappear with a snap of her fingers and letting new images take their place. On it, an enormous construct rivalling the main towers of many a Hive City stood, reaching for the sky. The image expanded, and around it showed a gigantic circle of walls many kloms away, with an expansive system of roads and growing buildings still under construction shown between the two. “We need workers, citizens, craftsmen, and every other profession beyond soldiers and warriors. Any who would be willing to come with us to live in the new city shown behind me, and is doing so in good faith, we will transport there ourselves. For any who come, we promise safety and protection. Never again will you have to fear terrorists, cultists, aliens or monsters of the like you had just seen. When the time comes, you will find one of our warriors in the centre of your settlements and they will transport you to our ships if you both qualify and are willing to come. That is all. Have a good day.”

The screen buzzed and went white, then dark as it turned off. The engine seer rushed up to it a moment later, muttering something in his Order’s chittering tongue. Soldiers who had been in the room began to mutter among themselves, confusion evident on their faces and in their voices, but Cain caught a few cursing and swearing too. ‘Xeno lovers’ and ‘heretics’ were among the words spoken, but the few smarter ones who understood the implications of everything they had heard were silent and pensive, just like Cain.

At least they don’t seem to be here for us. He thought with some relief, though he didn’t allow himself to get drunk on it. People lied all the time, and that announcement might have just been a way to distract him and Amberly’s group, make them think they weren’t here for whatever bauble had caught the Inquisitor’s eye this time around.

*****

“So?” I asked, letting the quickly thrown together broadcast room melt back into writhing eldritch flesh that rushed back into my outstretched palm. “How did that go?”

“You were watching the whole thing,” Selene said with a mild smile from my side, still dressed up to the gills in her fancy set of robes and armour. “And you likely saw the reactions people had for the speech too, didn’t you?”

“I did.” I shrugged. “Time will tell. But what I’m interested in is what you think? Despite that bluey sub-brain doing its damndest, I’m not really built for this type of shit.”

“Nobody is,” Selene said. “It’s a skill to be learned, like everything else. But I think it went as well as it could have, though I would have preferred it if I could have given a name to refer to our ‘faction’ as.”

She gave me a mock glare, and I scratched my cheek in embarrassment. Naming things was hard, even more so when I knew the name I gave would stick to me for centuries.

“Did I tell you how jaw-droppingly gorgeous you look in that getup?” I said with a flutter of my eyelashes, shamelessly changing the topic, which Selene took in good humour.

“No, I don’t think so.” She giggled. “But I’d love to hear more … though maybe after you gave me a quick rundown of the reactions. If things go wrong, we need to react quickly.”

“Sure,” I said with a dramatic sigh. “Let’s get that over with then.”