V.

“My recaf’s cold, Spooky.”

The servo-skull flitted across the cluttered ship’s hold, dodging between various cogitator-banks and more esoteric machinery, bobbing up and over a half-wrecked T’au Battlesuit before settling above Eliza’s half-empty recaf mug. Popping a tube from his underside, Spooky shuddered for a moment, before giving a plaintive whine.

“Out?” Inquisitor Horncastle’s voice was incredulous. “I just filled your reservoir!”

Spooky’s chirping reply indicated that this was not the case.

“What do you mean it’s been a week?!”

The little skull shuddered again as his onboard hololith fired up with a whirr. The first thing displayed was a local chronometer that confirmed that it, in fact, had been a week. A green light pinged to life atop the whirring series of augmetics that jutted from one of the floating skull’s eye-sockets, and the hololith shimmered, changing shape. It was a live feed, displaying exactly what Spooky was seeing. To wit, Inquisitor Horncastle.

Haggard would have been a generous way to put it. Her hair, normally up in a neat-ish bun, was stringy, unkempt, and wild, a mass of matted brown hair that only remained in a bun by the will of the God-Emperor Himself. The dark circles under her eyes were so deep that it almost looked as if she’d applied corpse-paint in some imitation of the skull-painted Sororitas of the Order of the Final Hymn. She was paler than usual, by far, almost corpse-white, and her cheeks were sunken, making her look even more gaunt than normal.

Eliza licked her dry, chapped lips – it was then that she noticed the strange, almost fuzzy sensation in her mouth, on her teeth. It had been far too long since they’ve felt the pleasant caress of a toothbrush, or had anything pass them that wasn’t recaf.

It was about then that another wave of fatigue hit her, and she slumped at her workspace. Green eyes narrowed into a scowl as she regarded the datacrystal before her.

“I cannot give up now,” Eliza groused, slapping the table. The crystal jumped with it, as did several other cluttered items. A stack of paper slipped from the edge to scatter about her feet – a problem for Future Eliza. “I’m so close, if only I can crack the throne-damned interface!”

Spooky warbled.

“I know I’ve said that before, It’s just…” She gestured at the cables hooked into the crystal, running off to the various machines strewn about the hold. “The finest damned cryptographic safebreaking software in the bloody Imperium, and some from beyond, and… Nothing. Absolutely bloody nothing.”

She hung her head, letting out a groan of pure frustration.

Spooky’s next chirps rose in pitch at the end, a question.

“The Infocyte was delayed,” Eliza replied, shaking her head as she glared at the datacrystal. “Interference in the Warp. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem, I just…”

She shook the desk, rattling a few more random curiosities off the edges. “Throne damn it!”

“You seem frustrated, Mon-Keigh.”

The voice nearly made Eliza jump out of her skin. She whirled about, instinctively reaching for the shuriken carbines holstered at her hips. They weren’t there.

E’lara Veilwalker had kindly relieved the Inquisitor of them, regarding the weapons curiously as she strode out of the hold’s dimly-lit gloom. Her gaze was appraising, but grew dismissive before she deposited the carbines on a nearby crate – out of Eliza’s reach. She smirked that ever-present smirk, tilting her head.

“You’ve wounded me, dear Horncastle. Do you mean to shoot me down?”

“N-no!” Eliza protested, holding up her hands. “Just surprised me, focused on my work and-” Her shock gave way to indignation. “What are you doing here, E’lara?! This is a Raptors vessel. As in Astartes. As in, Captain Kaene will have us both executed if you’re discovered here!”

“Then it is well that I am exceptional at not being discovered,” E’lara countered, her smirk widening. “As adept as your Space Marine allies are, even they can be evaded. How goes your progress on the prize from Eremos?”

Eliza rolled her eyes, their glow painting her face. “How do you think? It goes shit, Veilwalker. None of these cogitators can crack the data within.”

E’lara approached closer, tilting her head further as she regarded the datacrystal. She reached out, one delicate finger tracing over an edge of the cube, murmuring a few words under her breath.

“Well of course they cannot, your glorified counting machines are not what is required.”

It was Horncastle’s turn to tilt her head, as she squinted in confusion. “Huh?”

“The datacrystal is psychoactive,” E’lara explained, as if the information was obvious knowledge. “One would need to open an aetheric link with it. Or perhaps, attempt a direct neural link-”

The Inquisitor was already rummaging about on her desk, throwing ever more spent recaf mugs, empty ration tins, and random Xenotech artefacts to the floor. She finally withdrew a length of cable with a shout of triumph, before connecting one end into a plug at the nape of her neck.

Spooky let out a panicked squeal, and even E’lara’s signature smirk faded a touch.

“Do not tell me you’re going to do this right now, Mon-Keigh.”

“I am,” Eliza retorted, this newfound discovery flooding her body with energy. She looked more animated by the moment. “I’ve a week of lost time to catch up on. Wish me luck, E’lara.”

“Fie, wait, you fool-!”

But it was too late. Eliza already had the other end of the MIU link slotted into the datacrystal.

For a brief moment, the Inquisitor was still, her glowing green eyes distant. Her expression lit up in triumph for the briefest moment-

And then she collapsed into convulsions.

—

Eliza awakened to the worried binary of Spooky. The servo-skull floated close to the Inquisitor’s prone form, gently nudging her. The teeth on his upper jaw dug into her ever so slightly, eliciting a soft noise of discomfort from Horncastle. She rolled away from it, feeling the floor-grate dig into her cheek. She retched, and vomited recaf and bile into it. The ship-menials would not be pleased.

GROS5.

It was the second voice to make Eliza nearly jump out of her skin. This was not the Aeldari, though. Instead of a lilted accent and air of condescension, this was wholly more mechanical. Like a poorly-maintained vox-grille at the entrance of some misused Administratum archival building. But there was something sharper there, a sense of mischievous wit.

She glanced up. It was a woman, garbed in slick black synskin and dark red leathers. Her face was hidden, enclosed in a visored helm that glowed at the front with blue light, all while cabling atop it pulsed with red. Her arms were sheathed in sleek gauntlets that she tapped away on with one hand, throwing up various, ethereal hololithic displays that scrolled so fast that it nearly made Eliza retch again. Above her, a trio of Servo-Skulls flitted about the room, bathing it in red scanning light.

An Imperial Assassin – Clade Vanus. Hackers, information brokers, famed for being able to execute their targets without firing a single shot.

That helm tilted as she regarded the Inquisitor.

H3Y, Y0U. YOU’R3 F1NALLY AW4KE.

“Infocyte,” Eliza murmured, struggling to sit up. She yanked the MIU cable from her head with one hand, rubbing her mouth with the other. “I wish you’d gotten here sooner. What is your designation?”

There’s a blurt of static from the Vanus’s vox-grille. A laugh.

0PERATIVE CL1PP1NG. 4ND Y0U C0ULD HAV3 W4ITED F0R M3.

“For all the good that would have done,” Horncastle groaned, finally managing to drag themselves to their feet. Spooky drifted under one arm, straining with his little anti-grav engines to hold her steady. “Throne, maybe it’d be you laid out on the floor.”

A5 1F, N00B.

“How long was I out…?”

N0 CLU3. S1X 7ERRAN HOUR5 SINC3 1 GO7 HER3.

Eliza shrugged. “At least I got some rest, then. I think. Still, progress has been made.”

5O 1 C4ME H3RE F0R NO7HING?

“No, no…” She turned to the datacube. CL1PP1NG was already at the desk next to her, her triad of servo-skulls converging on it to scan while she tapped away at her wrist-cogitators. A mechadendrite, trailing from the small of her back, snaked between her and Eliza, causing the Inquisitor to shiver before a spike emerged from the end, slipping into the datacrystal.

“The crystal showed me its data, but it must be refined. It was… Strange. Incomplete.”

D3FINE P4RAMETERS. WHA7 D1D Y0U S33?

“A device,” Eliza began, gesturing vaguely. “Something of great power, great importance. In the right hands, the power to safeguard the Pilgrim Sector, purge it of our direst foes. In the wrong hands… Its downfall. Billions dead. Worlds overrun and stripped bare.”

She paused, taking a shaky breath. “The Apocrypha Engine.”

WH3RE I5 1T?

“Exitus.”

The reply came unbidden, as if from muscle memory. And yet anything more specific was lost on the Inquisitor. Like trying to remember a dream, after hours of being awake. CL1PP1NG raised a hand to the cogitation array on her opposite forearm once more, her fingers flying over the keys. Her visor seemed to ripple with inner light.

WH4T I5 ‘EX1TUS?’

“That, Operative, is where I need your help. Other than in this sector, I am unsure. We’ll need to dig into the records, intelligence files, enemy communications – anything for some reference to Exitus. It’s the key to finding the Apocrypha Engine before our enemies do.”

Eliza paused as the room spun, nearly collapsing. Beneath her arm, Spooky squealed, then let out a rather rude sounding series of admonishing buzzes and bleeped.

“Or rather, you’ll need to start. I… must rest.”

G0. Y0U’LL JU5T SL0W M3 D0WN.

The Vanus was already typing furiously, swapping the datacrystal to a spike that jutted from one of her cogitator-gauntlets. She crossed the room to one of the larger cogitators, her mechadendrite reaching out to interface with it. Her skulls spread out throughout the hold, jacking into various noospheric feed-ports that connected to the rest of the Strike Cruiser.

Eliza paused at the threshold, glancing over her shoulder back at CL1PP1NG. “Once I’m conscious again, I’ll be sending out for more help. If this Apocrypha Engine is as crucial as it seems, then we’ll need as many collaborators as possible. Cato and Lux, to be sure, and whatever resources they can pull in.”

She nodded, doing her best to look chipper despite the bags under her eyes and the servo-skull struggling to hold her upright. “I won’t be long, Operative. Not when there’s research to be done!”

5WEET DRE4MS, 1NQUISITOR.

The Inqusitor managed to make it to the mess hall, where she promptly passed out into a plate of half-eaten synth-omelet. Apothecary Addivaria Lycaeus saw to it that the somnolent Horncastle at least found her way to a bed in the Apothecarion.

Inquisitor Horncastle (and Spooky!) will return.