Secret War: Warhammer 40,000, Ben Agar [list of ebook readers .txt] 📗

briefly considered telling him of my suspicions, but for some reason, I quickly decided against it.

"What are you going to do now?" said Darrance. "Lay there and keep on mopping? Or something constructive? I'm going to the bridge; you coming?"

I raised an eyebrow. "We're even allowed on the bridge?" I said.

Darrance shrugged. "Not sure; I thought I might try."

Then a thought hit me. "Why are we still here?" I said while straightening, my eyes widening.

"What?"

"Why are we still in the system?" I elaborated. "Why haven't we escaped into the warp already? It's too dangerous to stay here, just too dangerous."

Darrance shrugged. "To watch Omnartus burn? Confirming its destruction, maybe the Inquisitor is completely sure in the stealth abilities of the ship."

I shook my head. "I doubt it's just that if she's so sure, why were her forces readying for a fight?"

Darrance shook his head. "And You would know why it could be just in case."

"Hmm, perhaps," I conceded with a shrug. "But I still feel..."

"You coming or not?" said Darrance impatiently.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I think I will."

 

 

To my surprise, we were allowed onto the bridge and even more surprising, Helma and Arlathan were chatting with Enandra. The Inquisitor was back in her power armour and sat cross-legged on a solid, copper coloured plasteel throne in the bridge's epicentre, like a regal queen of old. Flanking the thrones' was the mute psyker, on the right the Stormtrooper sergeant, who was now helmetless. His handsome square-jawed face was insanely masculine, almost on par with an Astartes, his red hair typically close-cropped and short of a soldier.'

I'd half expected it to be the same bridge in Faleaseen's vision but found it couldn't have been any more different. I wasn't sure what to make of that.

"Why are we still here, mamzel Inquisitor?" I heard Arlathan ask as we came close, stepping through the constantly moving crew. "Shouldn't we have left already?"

I smiled, glad I wasn't the only one who'd come to such thoughts and once again impressed by the detective's intellectual acumen.

They glimpsed Darrance and my approach, and all of them turned to us.

"Ah!" said Enandra, smiling and waving at Darrance and I. "Colohris had voxed ahead that you would be coming; it's good to see you both!"

"Mamzel," I said with a polite, slight bow, my hands held behind my back.

"I agree with Arlathan," said Helma abruptly. "Why are we still here?"

Enandra sighed. "I guess, after everything you've been through, you would be suspicious of me. I understand. I said that all of you held potential; this emphasised even more now. I see you are already asking the right questions; that is good, very good."

My eyes narrowed. "I am surprised you approve of that," I said.

She smiled and looked at me, sidelong. "Knowledge is power, young Attelus, and sometimes knowledge can only be won by asking the right questions."

Enandra tilted her head and smiled wider, placing her fist against her cheekbone. "Or by shedding and bleeding enough blood, but you would know this more than anyone, wouldn't you, Attelus?"

I couldn't help but smile and nod back; yes, I did. Or at least I thought I did.

I hoped I did.

I was wrong; I didn't know, of course.

She sighed again and reclined back on her throne, stretching her legs and placing her palms behind her head.

"I want you to know that you can trust me," she said. "I want all of you to know I am not like Glaitis or Taryst. That I am willing to share my plans and truths..."

"But only if we ask the right questions?" asked Helma, her eyes narrowed approvingly as her arms folded across her chest.

"At first, yes," said Enandra. "But once you have shed enough blood and bled enough blood that you won't have to anymore."

"Are you going to tell us or not?" Darrance said through clenched teeth.

"Of course I will," said Enandra sounding amused at Darrance's impatient tone rather than annoyed. "You asked the right question; I will give you the answer you deserve. But my psyker Selva will have to take certain liberties with your thoughts to make sure it won't leak out, understand?"

We glanced at one another in hesitation; no one liked the idea of a psyker rifling around in our minds. Especially me.

Enandra raised a hand. "She will not erase your memory of it; just make sure it will be hard to rile up this information by another of her kind. Just a security precaution, I assure you."

Eventually, all of us nodded our approval.

"Good," she crooned. "As I had said before, knowledge is power; this also includes, know your enemy..."

 

Four hours later, I was back in my quarters. Enandra had given me back my sword, and I was stripped to the waist, my pale white skin glistened with sweat. Training slashing and slicing, stabbing and stepping. Every attack of the unactivated blade whistled and sung with absurd brevity. I could've sworn it followed a split second after I'd finished.

Inquisitor Enandra had told us her plan; it was audacious and detailed but leaned on assumptions a bit too much for my taste. But she didn't have the luxury of farsight that Glaitis did. Or perhaps she did; perhaps that was why she could plan on such assumptions, I couldn't know. Her psyker hadn't done anything intrusive, just blocked our surface thought so that we couldn't speak of it verbally. So I didn't know the details. It'd worked on me, or it'd seemed to for Selva.

With a snarl, I side kicked the air, then cut diagonally upward. I'd been training for a good hour now, how I was managing to do it after everything I'd gone through today. I didn't know, but some energy drove me onward despite my aching limbs and horrid weariness. It was anger, I supposed, and pain, the pain of a different kind than that echoed in my body.

I'd practised for another ten minutes when the visitation buzzer chimed again.

I let out an animalistic growl and kept attacking the air, some of my considerable skill lost in my anger at the interruption.

A good ten seconds later, there was another chime, and I snarled, "go away!" Even though I knew whoever was at the door couldn't hear me. I didn't care who it was; I wasn't going to answer.

The third shrilled so long after the second I'd thought whoever it was g up and gone.

I flinched in fright and finally stopped my training, wiped the sweat from my forehead with an arm, then absently, skillfully sheathed my sword and stormed toward the door.

"What the frig are...!" I roared but wandered off in my sentence as the door swung open to reveal it was Adelana. Her attractive face set and hard, but I could still see her eyes very briefly glance me up and down in appreciation. She was holding my beaten, torn, and bloodstained flak jacket before her.

It took me a few seconds to regain myself, stammering stupidly in monosyllables.

She blinked away tears and shook her head in bemusement.

"Can I come in?" she said.

"I...I'm sorry! Of course! Come in!" I stammered and stepped aside.

She stormed through the door, handing me my jacket on the way and rounded on me, making me flinch. "I was thinking about what you said, and you were right!"

"Uhm, I've said a lot. Can you please elaborate?"

"You said on the flier that once I knew the truth, it would give me purpose! A reason to live!" she snapped. "And you were right."

I smiled and laughed, and this caused her to hiss as though hurt and look away. "That'd be the first time in a bloody long time I was right, then," I said.

"I want to help!" she said. "I want to help stop this Etuarq, help make sure he can't do this again!"

"Okay!" I said as I laid my sheathed sword onto my bed and turned back her, slapping the sides of my thighs. "Talk to the Inquisitor; she'll have someone willing to help you, then."

"I want you to help me!" he said. "I want you to teach me!"

I furrowed my brow and looked at her sidelong, unable to hide my surprise; it was more surprising I didn't see this coming.

"I...," I said with a shaking voice. "I'm not qualified to teach you anything; I'm only an apprentice. I wouldn't be..."

"I saw you dodge bullets! I saw you deflect them with your sword!" she exclaimed. "Who else is more qualified than you?"

"I've never taught anyone about anything in my life," I said. "I can do that stuff, sure, but that doesn't mean I'm a good teacher."

"Then you'll learn!" she said. "Just like I will learn! I'm only here because of you! So it must be you who trains me! Please! You are partially responsible for the destruction of my world; you owe me this. You owe me!"

I flinched, hurt by her words and the truth behind them. I would've liked to teach her; I really would've...

"Why me?" I breathed.

"I already told you," she said hesitantly.

I looked into her eyes. "Is there, is there...another...another..."

Adelana met my gaze for a good few seconds, but her eyes widened, and she abruptly tore her attention away.

"I just need someone to teach me, and you owe me," she squeaked.

"Yes, yes, of course," I sighed and closed my eyes, once again feeling guilt hit me. I barely knew her, and Elandria wasn't long dead; what the hell was I doing?

"I should leave," she said and pushed past me, walking quickly toward the door.

"Adelana!" I said, causing her to stop and look back at me.

"I'll teach you," I said. "Starting tomorrow."

She smiled sadly and nodded, then went to leave again.

"Adelana!" I exclaimed again, and she halted. "I have to ask, how old are you?"

She furrowed her brow, bemused. "Nineteen standard. How old are you?"

"Twenty four standard," I answered, and her eyes widened with surprise.

"Really? You look seventeen or eighteen," she said.

I sighed. "Yeah, I get that quite a bit, anyway. I ask because you must know I've been training from when I was pretty much old enough to walk. So it'll take you a while to get up to my level."

"I understand," she said. "I have been studying to be in the Magistratum, so do have teaching in close quarters combat."

"And long-ranged combat?" I asked.

"Yes," she said with a slight nod. "I was third in my class at the shooting range."

I sighed and scratched the back of my head; damn it, everyone seemed to be a better shot than me. "I really, strongly suggest you get Hayden Tresch to teach you how to shoot better; that's just not me. I'm an average shot at the best of times."

She frowned and shrugged, "I was third at the range," she said again. "But I had an average of ninety-eight point five per cent. The two others higher than me were only point one and two per cent over me, respectively. Maybe I could teach you how to shoot, then?"

I smiled. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Will meet you at the training facility at 0800 hours tomorrow morning."

She smiled, nodded again, and left.

 

 

With a snarl, I sliced off the soldier's head, then impaled his ally through the chest. A third attempted a point-blank full auto flurry with his lasgun, but by the time he'd raised his rifle. I'd already darted in, cut it in two, then opened his throat with a diagonal slash.

Behind me, Adelana, Verenth, Vark and Helma slipped out of the cover of the two nearby outlets. Their hellguns fired flurries of laser down the wide, dirty brown corridor. The enemy soldiers took cover thirty metres away, cowering behind the outlets there.

"Cover me!" I shouted, then started sprinting forward, pulling out a frag grenade, pulling the pin, and throwing it into the left side.

The resulting explosion, followed by screams and the five others on the right leaned out, opening up with their lasguns.

I dodged and deflected the las-fire before darting behind the nearest outlet, throwing a knife a Microsecond before moving, which stuck fast into the