Herald of the Stars: Chapter Three Hundred and Twenty-One

Thomas Self, Conor lennon, Daniel Francis, and ArizonaRanger057. Thank you for subscribing to Herald of the Stars! I would not be writing full time without your support and appreciate all the help that you have given me.

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Brigid, Alpia and I continue our walk along the beach. The rolling fog around us muffles the distant roars of fighting Daemons as our heavy steps crunch against the yellow sand.

“You believe that Alpia might be able to build this Warp Tap for you?” says Brigid.

“I hope so,” I say. “At the very least, Alpia’s blessing should help me learn how to make a Warp Tap faster if we work on it together. The two of you could also help me by taking on some of my duties, like if we start taking it in turns to host the commendation lunches and other tasks I need to be physically present for.”

Brigid shakes her head, “I can’t take on any more duties and time away from your research will provide perspective. The most brilliant of ideas often come from mundane conversation or a quiet stroll. It is why you hold those meals of yours and walk the halls and temples, talking to the crew. I do not think you should do less of these things, Husband, even if I would like you to be constantly working on fixing yourself. A sudden change in behaviour would also concern the crew. They pay far too much attention to you.”

“Mum is right,” says Alpia. “You don’t need to worry that we’re going to lose patience with you Dad. Not anymore anyway. You’ve shown progress, given us your trust, and offered a heartfelt gift as an apology. It doesn’t make everything OK. That hurt won’t go away anytime soon. It has helped us understand your perspective and know that you’re doing everything that you can. We can be annoyed at the situation, but we can no longer be annoyed at you. That’s the difference.”

I say, “That is most pleasing to hear.”

“There’s no point discussing this further until Alpia has had a chance to examine the Warp Tap STC,” says Brigid.

“Exactly,” nods Alpia. “I want to know how you started fixing up your soul and getting your emotions back.”

“A mix of things,” I say, “I caught Alis fishing minor Daemons from the Immaterium and stomping them to death on the beach. When I went over to take a look a few days later, I saw that the energy I had absorbed had turned into seagrass. A brief experiment with the executed Inquisitors revealed that Human souls do not have the same effect.”

“I’m surprised those arseholes didn’t make you sick,” says Alpia. “Also, Dad. Eating corrupt Inquisitors is nasty.”

“I know. That’s why I keep my soul closed off. I don’t like consuming Human souls. It messes with my mind as I get snippets of their memories that I have to spend time purging from both my soul and my remembrancer implants.” 

“At least they died doing something useful,” says Brigid, her tone cold.

“Ha! After experimenting with the Inquisitors, I went around visiting all the sealed Daemons in the Tricorn Palace vaults and ate them. That partially restored my emotions and took care of a growing problem. I now know that to restore my emotions I must consume entities that were born from emotions. Who’d have thought that a Soulphage heals by eating souls, eh? Not this fool, it would seem.”

Alpia groans, “That is frustratingly obvious now that you point it out.” Alpia peers through the fog, “I’m not even going to ask why you aren’t pulling up Daemons from the depths of the Warp. Alis is a reckless lass.”

“Bordom makes people do stupid things,” I say. “You are getting on well with her, Brigid?”

“She’s a bit chatty, but knows her place,” says Brigid. “I do like that she never complains when given a tedious or unpleasant task, she just gets on with it. Alis seems content with her new role and hugs her boltgun while sleeping on her feet when she thinks no one is looking. 

“Her education is still lacking, though Alis is making progress and is about as competent as a Herald Conscript for now. Most important, however, is her loyalty and expendability. She knows that she ends up back with you if she dies and has absolutely no fear. I could not ask for a better personal guard.”

“Good. I am pleased that assigning Alis to you worked as intended. She was unhappy with me when I told her what she would be doing.”

“Alis lacked the knowledge and perspective to know what you were offering. Now she does not. She loves the empowerment she feels from learning new skills and having good equipment. You have given her purpose and value at considerable expense to yourself. I will not let her forget it. You can remove her from your list of concerns, Husband.”

“You spent more time with her than I have,” I say. “If that’s your evaluation then I will follow it.”

“Of course you would do that, Dad,” says Alpia, sounding exasperated. She removes her hand from my shoulder then lengthens her stride. After getting a little distance, she turns around and starts walking backwards, letting her see our faces. “Mum, Dad, do you think we can do anything for Luan?”

“Ah, the letters?” I say. “I sent a sappy reply and confirmed that I backed the boys’ choices.”

“Those Tech-Priests were lucky they were only executed!” says Brigid. “Still, my poor son. Watching his girlfriend get the firing squad only to later find out she was being blackmailed to help abduct him. Not that it worked.”

“Improper dosage was the evaluation,” I say. “I’m not sure I buy that excuse. She would have known he had a Toxiphage and regeneration.”

“Luan is an idiot for not speaking up in her defence and I can only hope he learns his lesson,” says Alpia. “Fial and Dareaca are way to clannish and must have encouraged him to drop her after she drugged him and he had to fight off a dozen skittarii. Those skittarii messed up and would have killed Luan if he wasn’t so tough. They did kill a couple of Heralds. How the Tech-Priests thought they would get away with it is a mystery.”

“They didn’t,” says Brigid. “They were planning to die and had a stealthy shuttle prepared to ship Luan off to a hidden research station at Zayth. I don’t think they cared if he was dead or alive.”

Alpia says, “I know! I just can’t believe it. Sure, you said it was likely they would try something dumb, Dad. It just makes no sense to me.”

“The only good thing that came out of that is Thalk is even more convinced your father is a mastermind,” says Brigid. “Thalk was forced to replace all his technical personnel in his fleet from the new Trade School in Footfall and with many volunteers from SR-651. He paid a lot for the privilege. None of the minor Forge Worlds in the Koronus Expanse would give him any Tech-Priests after he purged the lot of them in the follow up audits and investigations. He was not pleased to discover how many resources were being syphoned from his fleet, among other things.”

“Of course they were all shot or exiled. They went after Luan in the middle of a battle with the Orks and tried to blame it on a boarding party!” says Alpia.

I say, “You say that the Tech-Priests wouldn’t have gotten away with it if Luan was captured, but I disagree. They may have planned for failure, but they didn’t seek it. Luan’s abductors had plenty of control over all the pict recorders and other sensors.”

“Yeah, maybe. It was still dumb,” says Alpia.

“At least Thalk promoted Luan to a third rank officer ahead of schedule,” says Brigid. “Fial and Dareaca are still fourth rank, but they’re on Luan’s watch now, so they’ll be getting all the jobs that let them show off. It is upsetting to have our boys so far away, but they are performing their role well and have entrenched the Stellar Fleet in the cogs of Battlefleet Koronus. I am proud of them and said as much in my own reply I sent back with Yonder Moon.”

I shake my head, “Luan’s rank promotion occurred due to losses sustained while intercepting a raid from the ‘Undred ‘Undred Teef. It was a partial apology at best. Thalk sells commissions, sure, but I didn’t give him any cash for that one. Third officer is a senior role and he would not have let such a position slide for free unless he had no choice.”

“It’s good that Eire has everything under control then,” says Alpia. “Thalk confirmed that the Orks were massing for a Waaaagh! The raid he saw off were the weak ones with something to prove.”

Brigid says, “Under control is debatable. Charon is behind schedule. However, SR-651 is now self-sufficient, the old shipyards have been refurbished, and the defences have been fully overhauled and bolstered.” 

“Those all sound like good things to me,” says Alpia. “Eire and Rósín are planning to decommission the old Receiving Yard as Charon grows and move the ship breaking facilities inside the refurbished shipyards. She even sent me a wild plan for how to build an artificial Forge World out of recovered metals. Either way, business has resumed four years earlier than expected. Given the sudden influx of Imperial Navy vessels requiring repairs, Eire made the right call to change Stellar Fleet MANI’s priorities.”

I say, “Eire would not have done so if Scintilla hadn’t been throwing void ships at us. I arranged those extra void ships for MANI years in advance. She knew she could make up for the lost production as Charon won’t have to produce new hulls for far longer than expected. Eire’s prescience is a mix of good planning and luck.”

“I suppose so. I just wanted to give her more credit,” says Alpia. “It can’t be fun being stuck at work with half your friends light years away.”

“I don’t call you Sweat Pea for nothing,” I say.

“That’s lame, Dad.”

“There’s one more thing I want to discuss with this extra privacy before we go,” says Brigid. “Inquisitor Lyre Hamiz.”

“Ah. Him,” I say. “He’s in a coma and Calligos is using that as an excuse to borrow Lyre’s void ships as they search for Karrad Vall.”

“Husband, Hamiz is in a coma after an MIU malfunction gave him a heart attack. While your Rejuvenat Gland and other work on Lyre is keeping his body alive, thus freeing you of suspicion from less enlightened minds, I know you far too well. It doesn’t matter if the fault occurred while you were on the other side of the Maw and no Stellar Fleet personnel were present on Lyre’s vessels. Hamiz pointed a gun at Alpia and conspired multiple times against our family and our fleet. Why is he not dead yet?”

Maybe not being able to lie to my wife and daughter was not such a great idea!

“Am I really that transparent?” I say.

Alpia scoffs. “Like a fucking window and we’re both holding the keys. How can you not know this? It somehow comes as a shock to you every time. Mum and I don’t need this armour to know when you're up to something, Dad. You start taking extra walks and stare at the walls like they owe you a bigger research budget.”

“I never noticed, but now that you point it out, I can see it.” 

“When you read the news about Lyre I felt a hint of guilt wafting off you,” says Alpia. “With your current state that is a massive flag. It may not show on your face, and another psyker wouldn’t notice, but you can’t hide it from me. I spoke to Mum and it took, like, a second of conversing in Lingua Technis to figure it out. Seriously though, like Mum said. Why isn’t he dead?”

Gosh, if anything I am the least blood thirsty of these two! I didn’t think I’d get criticised for not killing him! Well, no point denying it now, regardless of if they are fishing for information or not.

I say, “I have no idea. I set it up so that his brain would make him sleep so deeply his autonomic functions would fail while his pacemaker was switched off. My method must have worked long enough to leave Lyre brain dead, but not enough to kill him. He may have had some contingency in his implants’ programming that I didn’t spot, or a servo-skull floating about his room with a syringe primed with adrenaline. It was the best I could do and not make it obvious that it was me.”

Alpia says, “At least half your plan went right. It is rather ironic that his survival from the Rejuvenat Gland you gave him is what makes everyone think someone else tried to off him. It might even be what helps him wake up! Not that the arsehole would ever acknowledge such gratitude.”

“I prefer it this way,” says Brigid. “Setting Lyre up so that it is his own mind that betrays him is a fitting punishment. What are the actual chances of him reviving?”

I hum, “Hard to say. Caligos’ report states that Lyre is on life support and his prognosis is dire. He is a powerful man and his medicae should be competent enough to provide an accurate diagnosis. However, these days miracles seem as common as Soylent Viridians. Alternatively, a Daemon could always make a play and trick Lyre’s retinue into reviving him in exchange for something unpleasant that for some convoluted reason they won’t see coming.”

“Both those scenarios have more chance of happening than I am comfortable with,” says Brigid.

“I agree,” says Alpia. 

I say, “If Calligos’ report is truthful, I don’t think that Lyre will wake up by himself and Caligos may well be doing his best to keep him unconcious. Having the Inquisition’s vessels accompany Caligos gives him the last bit of clout he needs to enforce his leadership on the Rogue Traders searching for Karad Vall. That means more credit, and more reputation for Calligos. The chance that anyone of significance knows that Lyre is in such a poor condition is low. Calligos likely only told us because of Raphael and knew that Raphael would get suspicious if Lyre stopped communicating with him.”

“So we’re free of his powersword dangling above our heads?” says Alpia. “Emperor knows being a Saint doesn’t stop the Inquisition.”

“For now, at least,” I say.