“Iing,” I murmured, my aura reag out over the final stretch of space to spread over the ongoing battlefield. “Our blue friends seem to be winning, but … there might be something iing here after all.”

  I gri Selene raising an eyebrow and with a fliy ha up an illusory hologram of the peculiar Imperial voidship I’d felt.

  “Look at this,” I said, an edge of excitement seeping into my voice. The image grew, the long, full-bck ship extended and expanded. “Could this be a Bck Ship?”

  “No.” Zedev ruthlessly crushed my hopes in one swoop, but then reighem. “Nondescript, military-grade voidships of that make are a popur choice among the Inquisition.”

  “Oooh?” I smiled, my aura surging forward and spreading out through the ship. “Really now? I’m feeling two Psykers and at least a score of Space Marines onboard. You might just be right.”

  “I merely ihe most likely circumstance based on statistid data.”

  “I know you do,” I said, gng over at my two Psyker friends Val and Selene. “I want to go out and py with them a bit, want to e honey?”

  “Sure,” Selene shrugged, trying to stifle the ferocious grin on her face. “Will you be keeping watch over the rest of the battle from afar?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Shouldn’t be too hard, the Tau are already winning with both numbers and firepower being on their side. However, I think it couldn’t hurt if Val jumped in to fry some of the other ships’ and decks. You’ve been wanting to test yourself against Void Shields, right?”

  “That I have,” the Eldar said, hands csped behind his back as his amethyst eyes narrowed. I felt his own aura, spread much thihan mine, survey the battlefield along with mihis will be a splendid opportunity. Still, what are our primary objectives, Mistress?”

  “Break the Imperial Voidship Squadron,” I said, taking in a deep breath as I warmed myself up. A buzz ran through me, bio-energy and soul energy p into my body like a tidal wave and mixing to enhance me. “Sedary goal, protect the Tau ships, below that, we destroy the mining sites on the p. Optionally, we just capture them, but that’s a pipedream.”

  “Why?” Little Fae asked, sounding like she’d been w up her ce to ask a question for the st hour and severely regretted opening her mouth halfway through.

  “Because those are Promethium mines, likely manned by suicidally fanatical Imperials,” I expined, smiling at her. “I doubt we could capture any one of them without far too much trouble than they are worth without blowing the whole thing up, or making the Imperials blow it up to deny us the Promethium.”

  “Do we need Promethium?” Her little boy-toy was the oo ask this time, just as uain about his right to be asking questions as Fae was.

  “We don’t.” I shrugged. “But I bet I could make something fun out of it. Not a huge loss if we don’t get any though.”

  “Should I gather da Boys, Boss?” Throgg asked, looking at the still spinning hologram of the Imperial ship like it was the juiciest steak he’s ever id his eyes on.

  “You do that,” I said, jumping to my feet as I made some adjustments to the mind-cores’ directives, the ohat were going to be anding the ship and its defences in my stead with minimal telepathic ht from my part.

  Then I sent a surge of bio-energy into the ship and two lines of chambers opened up on one side of the ship. The b shuttles were less shuttles and more explosion-propelled spikes that could fit Orks inside of them, but they’d do. I didn’t bother to make any more intricate temptes for the purpose, seeing as Orks were hardy enough to survive the battering and I had my Portals and Blinks for any personal b manoeuvres.

  I just have to pierce through their Void Shields. I thought, my grin widening. I’d been training how to do just that with Val for months now, on and off again. I was fident in at least pierg through it with my psychic power, even if I couldn’t circumvent it like Val could just yet. Then I see how well I fare against whatever a possible Inquisitor throw at me … should I start with the skill-set I had when b the Ork ship and ramp it up from there if I stumble across something dangerous?

  That sounded like a fun challenge, so I decided to go with it. It wasn’t like two human psykers and a few Marines were going to put up much of a fight otherwise.

  “The ship is pulling away,” Val said dubiously. “The ship you suspect is the Inquisitor’s is retreating towards the p.”

  “Hey now,” I said, narrowing my eyes as my aura also noticed the exhaust plumes fring up and the ship’s trajectory curving. “That’s not very nice, is it? I guess we’ll have to step up ame. We ’t let them run after all, we?”

  “Indeed not,” Val said, a sharp grin showing his teeth. “Indeed not.”

  “Throgg, I want your best thousand Boyz ready for a teleport strike.”

  *****

  Zara watched the Imperial voidships turn to dots through the views, the explosions of missiles and the zipping fighter-ships turning into nothing more than distant fshes of light against the backdrop of endless space.

  “Should we really prepare to abandon the ship, Sir?” The head cog-boy, some Magos whose name Zara never bothered to learn asked with trepidation. “If the new ship gives chase, we will only have time to transport ohird of our crew and troops onto the p. Wouldn’t it be wiser to put our faith into the cloaking field geors and pray to the Omnissiah they will be enough?”

  “Turn on the cloak then,” Thrace barked. “The new ship’s trajectory seems to be headed straight for us, ign all other vessels. See whether we throw them off with it.”

  Zara didn’t hold out much hope for that. Especially the part where the prayers to the Meicus’ Clockwork Emperor were ed.

  Her own prayers have never once been answered, and she’d seen far too much, koo much. Zara was a telepath primarily and a divinationist sed. She knew humans; she knew human nature like few others did. The Emperor wouldn’t save them, they weren’t worthy. Least of all her. Even he loathed her for being born a Psyker.

  Or he’s just too busy. Zara thought sourly. Always too busy.

  “Teleport Strike Ining.” The cog-head said, a hint of astonishment tainting his otherwise emotionless voice. “Void Shield … operational. Our defences have been circumvented. Approximately ohousand borders were detected … the vast majority of them Orks.”

  “Orks?” Thrace asked, sounding as nonplussed as Zara felt. Weren’t they fighting the Tau? “Get me eyes on the ship, while you’re at it send a ship-wide b alert. I want every single person onboard to be bat-ready yesterday.”

  “Peculiar,” the Magos said, peering down at his pict-caster. With a wave of his mechadendrite, a holographic image flickered to life. “I have seen no ship like this before. Truly peculiar.”

  “Trajectory ging,” one of the lower-ranked cog-boys said. “The vessel is abandoning the chase.”

  They left the boarders to fend for themselves? Zara was astonished, her thought jumping to the most likely clusion: a mutiny. Doesn’t make sense for the greenskin. They would hardly use underhanded means to get rid of their War Bosses. Then what?

  “Keep course for Cathor IV,” Inquisitor Thrace ordered as he rose from his and chair. “Ready my power armour, everyone in battle positions. I want those Xeno sy ship before we reach orbit.”

  Zara waited, then fell in step behind the Inquisitor in her well-learned position with a squad of stormtroopers f up arouhey were as much for her prote as they were to shoot her in the back of the head if she showed even the fai signs of daemonifluence or treachery.

  With her-happy they were, and how every single one of the over-trained fanatical lunatics hung onto Thrace’s every word, it was a miracle her head remained un-shot.

  The stormtriment onboard would be ready for battle in mihen the rest of the soldiers would join them soon after.

  Zara wasn’t sure about her ces at survival, but as if to cripple whatever burgeoning hope she had for this fight, Thrace spoke to her without turning. “Witch, you’re with me.”

  The man couldn’t bring himself to speak her name, if he k at all, and even when he said ‘witch’ it sounded like a curse word. Zara bit her lip, but then just nodded, her face stiller than the surface of a frozen ke.

  Ign her as he strode down the winding hallways, past rushing stormtroopers and the bring arms fshing red light above, the man spoke into his -bead.

  “Watch Sergeant,” the man spoke and Zara barely kept her face from twitg again. The ander of the Deathwatch Space Marine squad apanying the Inquisitor in this test excursion was a … hard man to be around, especially for Zara who the maed like a faulty grenade liable to explode in his hand if he touched it. “I’m afraid I’ll be needing your men’s services, we have a force of ohousand Greenskin b my ship. I want them gone.”

  After a few more words, during which Zara had to manually tamp down on her urge to reach out with her power and listen in — that’d be a quick way to sign herself up to being a sptter on the wall — the Inquisitor let his hand fall from his ear. With the versation dead, they travelled in silence for the minute.

  In the Inquisitor’s personal quarters, a bunch of cog-heads, engine seers the most of them, were rushing about applying st-minute ois to the prepared power armour and saying a st few prayers to their clockwod.

  Zara was left standing around, her squad of ‘protectors’ remaining by her side as the man quickly dohe armour. She he ons on it, the lightning one arm with a bolter strapped to the wrist of the gau and the heavy fmer taking up the whole lower arm of the other. As far as she khat was the Inquisito-to Ork-sughteriup for his armour and it proved to be quite effective on more than one occasion.

  Still, it didn’t protect his mind … it would have been so easy to reach out with her powers and maul his mind beyond help. With her Psychic Hood ag as a booster, she might even mao take out every single person in the room with a single Mind Screech.

  As, that very same Psychic Hood would at best load her full s and anti-psyker poison the moment her power fred up without explicit permission to do so.

  At worst, her head would explode … or even worse than that …

  Zara’s eyes swam over to the side of the opulent room, to the metallic cage built into the walls and at the drooling woman rog bad forth with her knees hugged up to her chest.

  She had beeiful once, some Shaman Queen of one primitive phe Inquisitor had stumbled upon and decided to pull bato the fold. Now, her curls of blonde hair stick to her fa grimy clumps, her cheeks sunken and her arms skeletal. Her eyes were empty, dead in the same way Zara’s predecessors had been.

  Thrace had goh a differehod for her, deg to see what he could achieve with drug therapy and purpose-made mind-numbing cos. Zara had been forced to watch, forced to assist even and give detailed feedback after every test on how the poor woman’s mieriorated from a proud queen to … that.

  She couldn’t bear looking at her , still seeing faint mirages of her teary eyes and frantic pleas for help.

  “This way, she might be of some use to the Emperor,” Thrace had said. “Pay attention Witch, this is the fate of those of your wretched kind who didn’t have the decy to turn themselves in.”

  Zara remembered the urge to retort that the woman didn’t even know of the Imperium, and furthermore that she surrendered her people without a fight. It was a useless thought, and ohat would have earned her no favours. There was no pity in Thrace’s deep, dark pit of a soul.

  “Let out the Pet,” Thraanded and oormtrooper walked over to open up the cage the shaman queen was in, making the sorry wretch scuttle back to the er with a squeal ht. Then Thrace tapped something on his armour, and the metallic colr around the woman’s neck housing half a dozen iors activated, pumping two of their tents right into her bloodstream.

  Zara averted her eyes, knowing what that dosage would do to her. It seemed Thrace was willing to ‘spend’ her to repel the Orks’ attack.

  “Kill any Greenskin you see.” Thrace ordered, and the woman bounded out like some ghoul, shuddering at the mere sound of Thrace’s voice with somethiween dread aasy. She hissed as she took in a deep gulp of air, then searched before scampering out of the room, likely having caught st of the invaders.

  Zara felt her mental presence brush up against hers, a hungry, desperate need for … more drugs, an ag need for more of the blissful release those dreadful cos grao her the only thing on the woman’s mind. If she still be called that.

  “Let’s follow that thing,” Thrace said, servos swirling and whining as his bulky power armour strode up to the door. “Ah, and little Witch, you will use your power for the Greenskin. If you kill ahan a hundred of them, I will make you my Pet. I’ll be in need of a rept after that one expires.”

  Zara didn’t say anything, the ck of even a nervous gulp or a shiver a testament to her will of iron fed uhe various tortures the Scho subjected her to, then further sharpened by the years she spent uhrace.

  P3t1