P3t1

  ‘We may have a problem.’ Selene’s voice buzzed in my ears and I sat up straighter, ign the soldiers rushing about to pack their stuff for a moment.

  ‘Yes?’ I said. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Well,’ Selene drew the word out, soundiant. ‘It seems we might want to resider the initial pns. Whether they did it by themselves, or if there are some cultists influeng the media … the citizens kind of loathe us … or rather, the strange white-cd warriors that dropped from the sky and killed their Queen. I don’t think taking them in as your citizens would be doable in the short term.’

  ‘That’s not good.’ I mused, blinkie myself as I processed the news. That would likely make them accept me as their new queen or whatnot, rather challenging. But that brought up the question of whether I even wahat all that much? After thinking it through, I shrugged. ‘Well, it’s mostly whatever. If these people are too much of a pain it, I’ll just dump them oau’s p. I’m not dead set on making citizens out of them.’

  ‘Really?’ Selene asked, a vague sense of surprise radiating through our bond. ‘But you were so … I guess it doesn’t matter. It would have been o know though, I’ve been w over nothing.’

  I listerumble for a short while, a smile fluttering ay face. Still, no matter how much Selene’s want to help me in what she thought was my ‘pn’, I still felt guilty for the needless stress I’ve been unknowingly puttihrough.

  ‘Sorry,’ I sent while transmitting my genuine feelings of guilt her way. ‘o worry about it though. If I get a city’s worth of citizeher from this p or as immigrants from other Tau worlds, I’ll sider that a win. Not that we need citizens right now, the city won’t go anywhere and there isn’t much actual be to having citizens.’

  I could probably tax them, thehe moo buy new fancy toys from the Tau, but that was about it. I could build better than them, was entirely self-suffit with energy and I most certainly didn’t hem to serve in some PDF to protect me. Likely, getting actual citizens to take care of would be more trouble than it was worth, but if I ever wa real ge into this gaxy, I would o look beyond a simple cost-be analysis.

  I came here because some shithead sent raiding Chaos cultists my way and I wao make sure they khat kind of thing wouldn’t fly. I had dohat and more, free citizens would have been nice, but maybe I could find something even more iing if I stuck around with .

  Inquisitors were a rare breed. There were untold billions of humans spread across a million worlds, but only an infinitesimal fra of those humans are Inquisitors. Their authorities were teically without limit, and they were only supposed to ao the Emperor himself. The fact I had run into two in this st week was a statistical impossibility, almost.

  There has to be something important here. I reaffirmed my perhaps silly decision to tto the retired issar like some mprey.

  ‘I suppose there isn’t.’ Selene said after a few seds of silence, a soft sigh reverberating across our bond. ‘Still, if you want, this situation might still be salvageable. I’m pretty sure if I asked Zedev, he could take trol of whatever woverns the media of this p. We could bend the rhetoric to favour us more … it’d be a longshot without studying their culture first, but anything would be better than the fear-m currently being broadcast worldwide.’

  ‘Do you think it's worth it?’ I sent back, feeling curious about what she was actually thinking. ‘I mean, we have time. We could just go find another phat isn’t actually worshipping a Chaos God in a top hat.’

  ‘It just feels like a waste not to try,’ Selene said, but sent the vague feelings of a shrug my way. ‘It’s your choice though. They won’t be my citizens even if we do mao vine … well, you could force them to e, but I take it that’s not the way you want this to go?’

  ‘Nope.’ I tapped my lips in thought, sidering my options. Well, there wasn’t anything lost by giving this a go. ‘Alright. I’m game. Let’s try and see how it goes and then we decide whether to gh with it once we see some preliminary results. What do you need me to do?’

  ‘For one, could you at least make a drone somewhere where I talk to you through it?’ Selearted. ‘This telepathic thingy is nice, but I’d like to see your face when I’m talking to you.’

  ‘That could be someroblematic with the Bnk around here,’ I said. ‘My link to the drone could snap if I’m iive and the thing would go on a rampage.’

  ‘Maybe take the rampage tingency out of it?’ Selene suggested dryly. ‘Plus you never lost trol of the bat drones down on the p while hunting cultists. You’ll be fine. Also, I’d need some measure of trol over those drones, if you won’t be directly trolling them.’

  ‘You just ask the drone I’m about to make for you to order them to do stuff.’ I shrugged. ‘And you ask me whenever. It’s not like I ’t multitask.’

  ‘You get weird when I do that.’ Selene shuddered. ‘It’s like talking to a robot.’

  ‘Yeah … well, nothing I do about that. It’d be even creepier if I gave my mind-cores fake personalities. Cause those are what’s trolling my drones when I’m not doing it manually.’

  ‘Right.’ Sele, then huffed. ‘Well, that’s that. Still, I would appreciate it if you helped out. This is going to be a pain in the ass even if it succeeds.’

  ‘I … I’ll see what I do.’ I answered, my attentiourning to my Avatar as I felt a pair of eyes staring at it rather intensely. wanted something, and by the few vague strands of thoughts swirling around on the borders of his mind, it was as I feared. ‘I think I’ll be back soohan I thought. Though I might have to leave again in two days.’

  ‘Beats not having you around,’ Selene said. ‘See you ter?’

  ‘Yep, I’ll be right back.’ I gave her a telepathic hug, thehe e dim.

  “ I help you with something, Ciaphas?” I asked, looking up at the man from the shoddy old armchair I had cimed for myself. His eyebrows twitched ever so slightly at me so casually calling him by his given name, but he masked it well enough.

  “We will be leaving in a few minutes,” he stated. “I am here to thank you for your help in esg those terrorists and to apologise. Most likely, I had beearget of those lunatid you’d just gotte up in the crossfire.”

  “You’re wele?” I raised an eyebrow. He most certainly was feeling the proper emotions to be meaning at least a part of what he was saying, but none of them were his actual reasons for talking to me.

  “We are loathe to endanger a civilian more than necessary,” he tihen stared at me firmly. “We will leave some supplies here with you, some food and water. I’d reend staying in this safe-house for a few days to y low while whatever pandemonium is going on out there dies down.”

  Hmmm. Rather smooth. I mused. He didn’t even ask me whether I wao e with, but just talked like me staying behind was a fone clusion. Well, that could work for me. Especially with all this nastiness with whatever Selene is pnning.

  “You’re leaving me here?” I asked, putting on a fearful expression. “What if those terrorists find me?”

  “They’ll be following us, most likely.” He nodded, aowledging my gripes like he actually gave a damn and wasn’t just trying to be rid of me. He wasn’t sure what, but something about me was rubbing him the wrong way. I could tell. So he decided that leaving me behind was a great way of getting rid of that added variable he really didn’t want in his pns. “There are several exits from here, and it is hidden enough. I’ll have one of the troopers quickly show you all the escape paths. But ing with us would be even more dangerous. We are soldiers and are likely to be running right towards the rgest tration of danger. Wherever we are heading, is not a pce for a civilian to be.”

  “I see,” I said slowly, giving a nod.

  And that was that. I sat back while they packed up a in short order, on to meet up with the curious Inquisitor and likely in a hurry to get off the p.

  The moment they were well and truly gone, I slowly got up and calmly left the building through one of the back doors. It was likely meaningless as I doubted they would ever e back to collect the few surveilnce devices they had left behind around the building, but it paid to be careful.

  I didn’t want to light a fire uheir butts and give away that I was weird just by never showing any sign of havihe buildie not being iher.

  I Blinked, and space twisted around me, cradling my body for a nanosed before it spat me back out.

  “Wha- Oh, you’re back,” Selene said, looking up from the holopad she was gl at before with a start. “Or are you? Is that a drone?”

  “Nope,” I said, smiling as I sauntered over and sat up on the edge of her desk. “All me. As real as I get.”

  “You’re doh whatever you were doing?” Selene asked with a doubtfully raised eyebrow, but I caught a hint of hope ioo. Aww.

  “For now,” I said, feeling a little guilty. I leaned down to give her a loving pe the lips, and she happily retur. “I found the most atrocious tanna ever made while down on the p, wanna try it?”

  “Uhhhh.” Selene blinked, hesitating for a sed before just giving me a shrug. “Why not?”

  I just grinned and teleported a bit of leftover tea leaves from that cafe then made her a nice rge mug that I filled with boiling water.

  “So,” Selene tinued, eying the floating mass of water I was levitating above my palm as it started bubbling from the heat I was elling into it. “What did you mean by ‘for now’?”

  “I left a handful of trackers and bugs on the bunch I was with,” I said, smirking as I felt the dozeal signatures of the little beads I had attached to various stuff the troopers took with themselves. Some dimmed occasionally, even going fully dark for a bit before ing baline, likely from close proximity ten. But they worked, a me keep track of ’s bunch. “I’m going to check up on them before they leave the p. Or if they stumble upon something iing. Inquisitors are supposed to gravitate towards weird or iing stuff, no?”

  “And you think following that Inquisitor will let you nab whatever iing thing they are after?” Selene raised an eyebrow, a slight smirk tugging at her lips as I gave an eager nod. “What makes you think that inquisitor didn’t e here just for the daemon prince?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged, mentally trolling the leaves to swirl around in the boiling water for a bit. “They are supposed to have some sixth sense for strauff.”

  “If they do, it will go haywire the moment that inquisitor es anywhere near you.” Selene mused. “I don’t know of any ‘stuff’ in this gaxy that’s strahan you.”

  “You would be surprised,” I said, images of some of the most horrifying beings supposedly inhabiting this gaxy fshing ay mind’s eye. “Also, that was a horrible attempt at flirting, if it was intended as such. I prefer being called hot over ‘strange’.”

  “Your head is already big enough.” Selene rolled her eyes good-naturedly, then smiled. “You need me to tell you how ‘hot’ you are?”

  “You have a way with words when you want,” I said in an exaggeratedly dreamy tone as I swept the fianna into the newly made mug with a fliy wrist. “Is it so bad that I love to hear you praise me?”

  “It isn’t,” Selene said, her hand reag out to iwine her fingers with mine over the table. Her voice dipped to a mock stern tone as she tinued, “but if you raise, you’ll have to work for it, young Miss. Sitting there and looking pretty just won’t do.”

  “I’m good at it though.” I grinned, feeling the by now familiar warmth in my chest spread even at just her slight admission of my beauty.

  “You are.” Selene rolled her eyes, then took a tentative sip of the drink I had made for her. The moment the liquid touched her tongue, I watched her face go stiff as the amused quirk of her lips curved down in distaste. She pced the mug down, then looked up at me. “That was horrible. Where did you find it?”

  “Apparently, it is a popur drink on the p of Valhal.” I shrugged. “They were serving it in the cafe.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever taken anything that sour into my mouth,” She said with a grimace, then poked me in the side. “I was w on writing up an annou speech for you when you popped back up. I am going to get back to writing that, and while I’m doing that, you make up for the crime you’ve itted against my tastebuds by giving my legs a mueeded massage.”

  “Annou?” I raised an eyebrow even as I was already looking for a nify couch to steal for Seleo lie down on. If the adorable cutie-pie wanted a leg massage, a leg massage she would get.

  “Yes, annou.” She said, her face twitg towards the fake leather sofa that popped ieh a thud. “What’s that?”

  “A sofa,” I answered in an equally helpful mahe her up into a princess carry and carried her over to our newly procured sofa. I doubted the ‘Eternal Queen’ would be needing it, seeing as she retty dead at the moment. “Will I have to read the annou or something?”

  “No,” Selene said, taking being hoisted up and dumped back down on the sofa with all the grae could manage while smiling all the way. “I think it’d be better if I did it. It’d give the impression that you are some greater figure, above the lowly task of giving speeches to the citizenry of a quered p.”

  “We didn’t ‘quer’ the p,” I said, frowning a little as I pried her legs out of their boots and the pants c them. “We just … “

  “Killed their sn, killed her loyalists and now we are staking cim to the citizens,” Selene said, then cut my words off with an amused look in her eyes. “‘But we were resg them from demons.’ Is that what you were going to say? Because that’s what every quering power does, they ‘rescue’ the quered. Either from barbarism, the wrion, corrupt rulers or whatever else.”

  “But we did actually save them from a damned daemon prince?” I said.

  “It doesn’t really matter.” She shrugged, leaning back with a blissful smile on her face as my thumbs started w the knots out of her right calf. “Would you be a dear and give me the holopad? The sooner I’m doh the speech, the better.”

  “Sure, one holopad ing right up!”

  P3t1