ushernet 169 – Connection
169 – Connection
169 – Connection
Ciaphas Cain was old. Rejuvenation treatment after rejuvenation treatment had seen to that he lived so long he could barely even recall his home planet.
The dark tunnels of the far-off hive world, and the tunnel-rats senses they had gifted him were the only mementos he had.
Centuries had gone by since he first stepped foot on the Schola’s grounds, and sometimes he still wondered about the sheer impossibility of it all. He was still alive, despite time and every last enemy of mankind doing its best to put an end to him on a near-daily basis.
“Sir?” A nonplussed voice snapped him out of his brooding. As his senses returned to him, he felt his oldest comrade’s utterly unique body odour invade his nostrils. He really must have been lost in thought, Jurgen was not the sneaky kind and yet Cain hadn’t noticed his presence until he spoke up. “Care for a cup of tanna?”
“Yes,” Cain said, nodding slowly as he made sure to breathe only through the mouth. Jurgen had many positive qualities, foremost of which was his unbending loyalty, but few ever cared to look beyond his unkempt and rather repulsive exterior. Oh well, that only served to keep them from realising his true nature as a Blank, so it was to his benefit. “Thank you, Jurgen. Was there any communication from our friends in the capital while I was out?”
“No, Sir.” Jurgen shook his head. “It’s been silent.”
“Well, that’s not good.” Cain rubbed at the bridge of his nose as he savoured the warmth of the tanna spreading through his body.
It did little to banish his rising anxiety though. There had been no news from Amberly for what felt like ages, but was a mere two days in actuality.
Cain was rather certain the headstrong woman would be just fine, one way or another. Inquisitors were made of sterner stuff, and Amberly even more so. What he was more worried about, was that without her, he was stuck here like a landed fish since she was the only one who had access to whatever they used to communicate with the stealth void-ship up in orbit.
It was her own personal ship of course, but Cain would really do with any shoddy piece of junk that could fly him off of this damnable planet. He had never been one to believe the Emperor had the time, or willingness to personally protect his every last subject, so he liked to take every precaution to put as many obstacles between himself and enemies as possible.
Alas, life always found a way to mess it all up.
This time, it came in the form of a request. Few men could ever resist the words ‘darling, could you do something for me?’ spoken by a beautiful woman. That was doubly true when said woman was an inquisitor.
“Sir?” Jurgen spoke up, and Cain glanced up with a start to find the man’s face warped in a confused frown. “What are we supposed to do with the Miss that came with you? The Lieutenant has been complaining that she keeps poking at his men’s equipment.”
“‘Poking at his men’s equipment’?” Cain repeated, an eyebrow tiredly raised in amusement. Unfortunately, Jurgen was immune to humor, or likely never even learned the word to begin with, so he just nodded. “Which equipment?”
“Guns, knives, tactical gear,” Jurgen listed out, looking confused. “I thought they weren’t supposed to let a civie touch their stuff, but most of them didn’t seem to care. I don’t get it.”
“Well,” Cain said, pausing to down the remaining tanna in his cup before rising to his feet with a groan. The day’s action had not been kind to his knees and hip. If he couldn’t get another rejuv treatment soon-ish, he’d really start to wither, he felt. “Let’s see what’s going on.”
I watched the byplay between the soldiers and Cain with some amusement, but the main part of my attention was focused solely on pushing the boundaries of what I could still do with the oppressive power of a Blank pressing down on me.
Now that I was this close to him, I could tell my drone would have had no hope of pushing back against it. My telepathic link to it would have snapped the moment it came close to Jurgen and my inbuilt contingencies would have activated, which would have had this lot around me slaughtered to the last man. A Blank’s powers might dampen, or even nullify, all of my powers that were fueled by soul energy, but it had no power against bio-energy and raw power.
Without exerting myself overly much, I could still actually use my powers, though in an area limited to my body and its immediate surroundings. Even that much took me pulling my aura back in and wrapping it around me in a bubble, layering it atop itself until it kept most of the interference away from me.
The Emperor’s feat of using his Psyker voodoo on a Blank suddenly became a hundred times more impressive. It might take me frying my current avatar with a massive amount of soul energy to even come close. I was confident I could manage it, if it was some tiny thing like sending a blast of psychic screeching into his mind, but it just wasn’t worth it beyond tickling my ego.
I had hands, with fingers that could turn into claws able to rend flesh from bone with little to no effort. Killing a Blank the simple way was much more doable, since they really were just like regular old humans when it came to physicality.
Cain was talking with that grouchy Lieutenant guy while I pushed and pulled at the aura-shell around me, trying to expand it and infuse it with more soul energy without compromising its integrity when I caught the telltale sound of static coming through a vox-speaker.
In the corner, the tactical officer — the guy responsible for maintaining the comms and keeping in contact with other units — jumped in shock just as a warbled, but clearly feminine voice came through.
Whatever petty drama was going on between the Commissar and the Lieutenant, which largely involved the two throwing barbed insults back and forth, came to a sudden stop as the man manning the not-radio turned the volume up.
Cain jerked and turned towards the speaker, ignoring the soldier who glared at him, but kept whatever he wanted to say to himself.
“ ... -thre, do you- ... -repeat, do you copy?”
The techie glanced up at his commanding officer, then at Cain who was by now right there next to him with the urge to nab the speaker and the mic out of the trooper’s hand clear on his face.
“Respond,” Cain said, and I caught a hopeful tone in his voice.
The techie nodded jerkily, then grabbed a mic before speaking a string of words that was likely some authorisation code or maybe it was to make sure whoever was on the other end of that line knew for sure this side hadn’t been compromised.
“The connection is shaky, but we can hear you. Over.”
“Thank the Emperor,” the voice cleared up a little, and I could hear the relief in the woman’s voice. “Prepare for departure. We need to leave this planet yesterday. We will be using the agreed-upon meetup location, be there in 48 hours. Vail, out.”
Hmmm. So they are running? I mused. Didn’t they have something they wanted from this planet? Beyond just banishing that Daemon Princess? They must have gotten it already, or decided to abandon the mission with all the fuss we had been kicking up around here. Oh well, it could still be interesting to see what they found, or would have wanted to find. I just need to somehow attach myself to this bunch until they leave ... but how can I convince them not to leave me here?