[47]

273.738.M41

Velgrad

13:20

It was the day after abducting Pras. We leaned hard into training. I think we all wanted to release the energy left over from not having to fight his men. We kept The Maze urban-assault training warehouse to ourselves for forty minutes after Sext had rung and the Battle Sisters training with us had left.

Then Mak'ti discovered a carbon buildup in the Arvus's number 4 grav-jet while we were doing our routine maintenance, and it took us an extra half hour of scraping, praying, and trying to use bolter cleaning brushes for grav-jet maintenance without committing some accidental insult to the machine-spirit. We were all anxious and covered with black splatters before Mak'ti and pilot Esmond assessed that our duty was done and number 4 ran clean.

I think that is why I remember our midday meal: it was almost an hour and a half overdue, and we had been working unusually hard, so everything tasted amazing, even though it was squishy and clammy from being in our packs all day. There was a thick pottage of millet, beans, and bitter greens with black pepper, day-old bread and blackberry jam with seeds that got stuck in our teeth, and salted fish. Adem and Castor had infected us with their love for recaf, and we drank it black out of thermoses gone lukewarm, metallic and bitter—but somehow also delicious by association with the food. Nothing special happened around then to explain the memory being so strong.

Wessex hadn't trained with us that day. Pras's temporary replacement had been appointed, and Wessex was occupied by bullying him into finding—without dishonest tampering—the unedited records that Grendel wanted for his investigation.

After None prayer at 14:30, we were going to study the emergency use of Eldar weapons. Using xenos technology by choice is a grave sin, but dying because you were too squeamish to pick up the enemy's weapon and kill him with it is worse. Someone needed to retrieve one of the captured and ritually purified shard-rifles from Grendel's safe storage, which I thought would take several minutes. I sent Tara.

I had an ulterior motive. When she was gone I beckoned the others close and spoke quietly.

"Tara's nameday celebration is in three weeks. Day 296. It will be her twenty-second year. I tried to catch a butterfly and impale it, but it broke into a hundred pieces and… anyway. How do we get authorized funds for presents?"

Castor raised his eyebrows. "You don't. We just buy them."

"We don't have money."

"What? How? What could you possibly have spent it on?"

"What? Nothing. We don't have money."

"Poverty vows," said Adem.

People think poverty is hardship, but the opposite is usually true for us. The Church gives us everything we need. We know that we always shall have what we need, and we don't need to plan against the future. Even if we are released from our vows or expelled for misconduct, the Church promises to support us as if we were widows. But it is hardship whenever you want to give a present. Some of us are skilled with paint or wire or calligraphy, and can give beautiful gifts made by their own hands. But not me. I have discovered that I can write adequate personal histories, which might have made a good gift, but I didn't realize that then.

Adem and Mak'ti proposed that they, Castor, and Wessex could supply all the money. Castor thought that was foolish.

"You work for the Inquisitor, don't you? Let him pay up. When did Grendel take possession of you?"

"Day 223."

"So… forty… thirty-nine days… call it a month. I get eighteen thousand Gaervalt vik a month. Ask him for... three of you… so… fifty-four thousand."

Which was about fifty-four times as much money as I had ever handled in my life.

"Fifty-four thousand?!" said Hana.

Tara appeared in the doorway at least two minutes earlier than expected, carrying the long metal box that contained the shard weapon. "Fifty-four thousand what?" she asked.

Hana put her hands over her mouth, but cause and effect did not change for her.

Castor leaned back, spreading his arms across his bench. He said in a calm voice: "Tox-shards fired on the night of 231, by my estimate. Of course, I could be wrong."

Tara thought about it. "Thirty thousand at most," she said. "Probably less than twenty. You forgot that we killed half of them before the fighting started. Hana, why are you blushing?"

❖ ❖ ❖

​

The weapon we drilled on was inert. Grendel's sage had unloaded it of its torture-toxin and scoured it clean, disassembled it and taken picts of every step, blasted it with alternating radiation and cleanser until an auspex-scan showed no energy, no bio-residue, no active chemistry, no circuit-sign. The oblong green crystals were cloudy, almost gray. There was a faint yellow residue around the moving parts where something had disintegrated and become bound to the strange black metal.

The auspex machine-spirits said that it was a piece of metal and rock. But it felt like picking up a huge dead spider and holding it to my face to look down the sights.

The sights themselves were extremely crude. They would be useless beyond about seventy meters. The stock came higher than my chin with the muzzle resting on the floor, but for all the length it was clearly a short-range weapon. Tiny projectiles that would lose velocity fast, tumble, and drift off target. Huge rate of fire. The Tactica entry lists their antipersonnel range at 150 meters, which I can believe only because of their terrifying rate of fire and the agonizing death that can result from a wound which would scarcely be noticed if it came from something inert.

The weapons we had captured fired tiny crystal fragments with a cyclic rate of fire of almost five thousand rounds per minute. The "magazine" provided them with enough matter and energy for a full minute of sustained firing. It was a 35-centimeter oblong shape that slotted into an aperture between the rear sight and the barrel assembly. Ours was full of inert plaster for weight, but theirs would contain a crystallized neurotoxin.

We wore gloves. We practiced working the action, using the trigger, and ejecting the magazine: a three step process involving a lever, a catch, and a firm upward yank. We disassembled and reassembled the weapon. We took it to the combat room and tried using it as a spiked club. There was a strip of differently-colored metal where a bayonet lug or stablight hardpoint would be, but no identifiable way to attach anything.

I tried stomping on the magazine and trigger assembly as hard as I could to see if the weapon might be put out of battery by impacts in close combat, but didn't succeed in bending anything or knocking the magazine loose.

"Stomp on the Eldar instead," I said. "At least they break."

After forty minutes we sealed it away again, prayed the rite of expurgation and let Mak'ti pray for us a similar rite in the warbling Binaric chant of her devotion. With the rituals done, we went to the showers for the rest of our allotted Studies time. I don't think any part of my skin had touched the weapon, but I still scrubbed and scrubbed until the water ran cold and the sense of touching something vile went away.

❖ ❖ ❖

​

Tara suspected that we were scheming something. I could tell. I wanted to contact Grendel and ask about the money that night, but Tara asked to join me on the vox, and Verity and Hana wanted to be there, too.

We called Grendel and asked about Wessex and Pras instead. We learned that Wessex had the unedited report data that he wanted. Pras would be released sometime the next day, if the adepts agreed that the data was valid.

"Other pressing questions or news?" Grendel said.

We all had questions, but we could sense he was occupied, even through the vox. "Negative," I said. We ended the call.

In the end I made the request through Wessex the next morning, 274. I did it on the squad vox during hygiene and personal time, muted by the sound of other Sisters' conversation and showers, pretending to talk to Verity and Hana while I could watch Tara doing her makeup and make sure she wasn't near her own micro-vox. Wessex hid delight behind crisp vox-discipline, but I could hear it.

"Affirm. Will comply. Expect confirmation and quantity by 09:00. Handoff 11:30."

Of course, Tara saw us smiling and glancing at her with our heads all together. I think we were obvious. If you conscript me to your service I will require remedial training if I am to be assigned any covert actions.

❖ ❖ ❖

​

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from NovelPhoenix. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Grendel provided us with nine thousand vik for gifts and an offer to let us help choose his next gift to our Order. Or Tara could choose if we preferred.

I thought about the replacement Aquila command shuttle that the convent had acquired on 226, only four weeks after ours was shot down on 198. Three days after Grendel had claimed our service. I thought about that little word next. I didn't ask if he was the one who had given the shuttle, because he hadn't seen fit to tell us. But I think that conclusively answered Castor's objection to our lack of pay.

Nine thousand was more than enough. Escaping Tara was easy, once I obtained Palatine Elin's authorization for deviating from our schedule. During the training period of day 275, she was to command Castor, Adem, and Mak'ti in defense of a position against infiltrating enemies. Verity, and Hana, and I, on the enemy team, had drawn three of the Order's four cameleoline cloaks for the exercise so that we could be as invisible as the Eldar.

We walked out of the training region, boarded an aircar, and rushed to Velgrad's nearest market district. We spent ninety minutes of frantic shopping, flew back, and infiltrated again in time to stage our assault against Tara's meticulously prepared mock-defenses.

At first I thought that her smirk during midday meal was because she had conclusively won the exercise. But she knew. Somehow she knew we had snuck off to do something, and she wanted us to know that she knew it.

She talked like she was talking to Castor, but she looked straight at me, sitting next to her, not at him, across the table.

"Castor, is Marisa not a virtuous fireteam leader?"

"Surely she is," he said. He put down his spoon.

"Would it shock you to learn that she was not always a fireteam leader? Or a Sister, or even especially virtuous?"

He leaned back and smiled wolfishly. "Please, shock me."

Tara bumped my knee with hers under the table and flashed a questioning smile that meant, 'Are you alright with this?'

I shook my head, laughed, nodded, and bumped her knee back, which meant, 'Continue.'

"Although she did always have a devious tactical mind, it was sometimes turned to wickedness."

Verity gasped and looked up with a delighted smile. Hana had an intrigued, questioning look that meant she didn't know the story yet.

Verity said, "You mean year 732? Drill Abbot Presidio?"

"In the year 732 at Gaervalt Schola Progenium 3-South," said Tara, "there was an instructor named Drill Abbot Presidio, who always began his lectures as if he had received personal revelation direct from the God-Emperor. It was always a reference to some element of canon, so it was not sin, exactly, but it was terribly annoying, and there was one girl in the age-sixteen class, a year older than me, who was annoyed enough, and devious enough, and yes, wicked enough, to do something about it."

All of them were staring at me expectantly. I let myself grin. Tara continued.

"One night, young Marisa suborned her accomplice Gwen—may her name live in glory with all martyrs and the saints."

We all made the sign of the Aquila and the three of us who had known her took a moment to let the tightness go away.

"Gwen distracted the dormitory matron with subtle questions about theology, so her coconspirator could escape curfew. Marisa used pillows and boots to give her cot the shape of a girl under the blanket. There was an air duct that ran above the instructors quarters. It was just large enough and sturdy enough for Marisa before her last few centimeters of height."

"Covert deployment of buckets of mop water?" Castor asked, eyeing me with something between glee and grave respect. "Subtle and artful thefts? Bugs in his bed?"

I suspect that I was not the only one with a past of pranks.

"You were not paying attention," said Tara. "I said Presidio spoke like he had personal revelations from the Emperor."

"Oh," said Castor. "My."

Tara continued. "Marisa said, 'Dies dierum mox adveniet.' Which means, The day of days is soon to come. Marisa, say it right, I can't do the voice. Say, say!"

I hid my face until the blush subsided a little and I could make a straight face. I forced an expression of apocalyptic solemnity. I rasped my most grimly portentous whisper. "'Dies dierum mox adveniet, Presidio. Dies dierum mox adveniet."

"The first time, Presidio was perplexed," said Tara. "Some people would have stopped there, content with partial victory. But the next night, Gwen distracted the matron again and Marisa snuck out again, and the next, and the next. Presidio muttered the words in the halls, he barely spoke during lessons, he devoted himself to prayer and fasting. But then the Bishop came because Presidio reported the supernatural visitation, and Marisa had to confess the prank before it turned into true blasphemy. She was whipped for her wickedness, yet she remained unrepentant for many months, and never did give up her equally wicked coconspirator."

"Wicked, yes," said Castor. "Inspiringly wicked."

"I suspect that she still has the urge for such wicked pranks," said Tara. She looked right at me. "Which is why I tell you this, not as condemnation of my beloved Sister, but as a warning. A very stern warning. Very stern."

"No pranks," I said. "I promise."

That seemed to satisfy her, at least for a while.

❖ ❖ ❖

​

Castor, Adem, and Mak'ti needed no special plans to escape Tara and would procure their presents separately tonight. They used the Arvus every day to return to base when we separated at 18:30 for Vespers. The plan was to send our gifts with them.

There was no reason for Tara to check Mak'ti's small new box. Mak'ti procured new equipment all the time. There was always some new box, often just the same size. Tara had never been suspicious of one before.

Tara noticed it at once, nestled in the restraint webbing near the hatch as we were seeing the support team off. "Something new, Mak'ti?"

"Inert wire and stone," Mak'ti said. Which was true. From her perspective, maybe not even deceptive.

"May I see?"

"There is no operational benefit." Mak'ti shifted slightly to be between Tara and the box.

"Please?" Tara reached out for it.

"Tara, it's a secret!" I blurted out.

"I knew it!" she said. She grabbed the box and opened it. Her face went white, then red.

All our presents were inside. Verity had found a beautiful old icon-locket of Saint Tara of Solace Veld whose shell was a thin panel of pale blue stone in Tara's favorite color, and boxes of Tara's favorite sweets. I had spent all of my share and a little of Verity's on a fiercely feminine bracelet that looked like delicate gold and crystal wasps having a battle to the death—or possibly making love, or both, if wasps do things that way. Hana had followed my example and bought some more sensibly-priced jewelry that looked like butterflies, plus a set of makeup that would inevitably end up shared, but would be Tara's for a day.

Tara wiped away a set of tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, it's perfect, it would have been perfect."

We embraced her and told her it was all right, and she told us she loved us. Castor said he was hungry, and asked: did we still want to them to take the presents back to headquarters and wrap them.

"Yes, yes, do that, yes," said Verity. "Tara, you have to wait three weeks, it's tradition."

They departed.

Several more days passed. Without the nameday plot, they blur together in my memory. Training, exercise, studying how to fight the Eldar and survive their weapons used against us.

The investigation into the transit records gave no results and was abandoned after four days. Either the sect had falsified their records before they ever reached an administrator, or Wessex and Grendel had made a false assumption about what the transit records could mean.

Grendel turned back to the grinding process of cutting away at the sect one unimportant heretic at a time, still hoping for the break that would lead him to the so-called Epistemic Engines.

Wessex was retasked back to supporting Grendel in Velgrad, where he could stay in contact with us by vox during our training and keep his edge as our operational vox controller. He continued looking into the trace groundwater contamination records.

A week passed without much progress in either investigation. What violence Grendel needed was all handled by local Enforcers or military police, and we stayed on our routine.

Then, mid-morning of 284.738.M41, we were working through another tactical exercise in The Maze. Wessex was off-site, functioning as our vox controller and idly working on his project. Suddenly he transmitted the old abort-training code with excitement flooding his voice.

"Amasec, amasec, amasec! Meet outside, I'm on my way. I think I have them. I think I have found them. By the God-Emperor, I think I have found the Eldar."