'Good afternoon Ciaphas, Colonel Kasteen.' Amberley's voice rang out, as sweet and alluring as ever3, my head snapping in her direction as soon as I heard it, conveniently missing whatever was going with Kasteen's uniform in my haste to greet the oncoming Inquisitor.
'Amberley!' I said, striding forward to meet her at the top of the ramp up into the fortifications we had set up planetside. 'It's good to see you.'
'And you as well.' She replied, reaching out to shake my offered hand, our grips remaining clasped for just a second longer than was strictly speaking necessary, after which both of us offered a slight, nervous cough before returning to the display table Kasteen had taken a seat next to, conveniently on the opposite side from where we were standing, preventing the Inquisitor from picking up on what I'd already not noticed. Pulled up on the table, which had been set up next to the onboarding ramp to function mostly as a glorified check-in desk for any supply drops, was a rotating image of the planet dotted with symbols to represent supply lines, notable force concentrations, and other relevant tactical information about the planet.
'I can see you've already wasted no time in plundering the resources you could get from this world.' Amberley noted with just a hint of bemused sarcasm as she examined the planetary display, sitting down in one of the chairs around the table while I took up the seat next to her.
'Earlier than we would've expected to.' I nodded, sipping at a mug of Tanna leaf tea I'd left on the table a few minutes earlier. 'Munitorum mishap. We landed, but none of our rations did, so we had to go straight to foraging. Fortunately the planet's got plenty of supplies for us, so we won't be starving to death, just got to worry about the regular getting shot and sliced up problems.'
'Speaking of which.' Kasteen cut in, pulling out another fruit and offering it to the inquisitor. 'Care for a ploin, Inquisitor? This planet's products are surprisingly delicious, even moreso than usual, and we just got a fresh shipment in, it'd be a shame not to try some before they get sent for preservation.'
'Yes, I have noted that anything that gets 'preserved for future use' becomes almost as bland as a standard ration pack.' Amberly said, taking the offered fruit and biting into it4. 'Mmmmm, you weren't wrong about them being more delicious than usual.'
I must admit I probably seem irregularly dense to you, readers, because even though Amberley was sitting right beside me, I didn't notice the crimson bodyglove she normally wore faintly dome outward at the stomach just at the consumption of that single fruit. But then again, she was an Inquisitor, and someone whose temper I was readily familiar with, so I was perhaps taking extreme care not to let my gaze drop anywhere below her eyes while anyone else was around5.
'Pleasantries aside though, Inquisitor.' I interjected while she tore into the remainder of the Ploin, and Kasteen started to dig into a second one. 'What exactly brings you to this lovely corner of space? I'm not quite sure what job an Inquisitor might need to fulfill on an open battlefield, everyone seems to be aware of what's going on.'
She finished the fruit she had been eating with almost indecent vigor, even going so far as to suckle any remaining juices off of her fingers before stifling what seemed like the most ladylike approximation of a belch I could possibly conceive of, before she responded.
'That's actually precisely the reason I'm here. The situation seems a little -too- cut-and-dried for my taste.' she noted, spinning the display round with a few twists of the knobs and dials on the table. 'The enemies you seem to be up against, a chaos cult of Slaanesh and a number of Craftworld Eldar, are making their presence known far more quickly and broadly than is typical for either group's usual mode of operation.'
'And you're worried they've got some kind of devious plan hidden behind the bluff of an all-out invasion?' I asked, suddenly feeling like I'd just had a Valhallan shower6. It made sense. Both chaos cultists (well, those who weren't servants of Khorne anyway) and Eldar tended to be on the sneakier and trickier scale of enemies I'd had to face in my long and illustrious career. The idea that something as big as an invasion and all-out war could be a bluff however, which implied that there was something even bigger being hidden behind it, frankly terrified me.
Amberley nodded. 'Exactly. So I'm here along with a handful of my retinue to try and figure out what's going on behind the scenes while you and the 597th fight the main fight. Hopefully anything I find will be of assistance in the main battle anyway.'
As terrifying as the revelation had been, it suddenly gave me an idea on how I could avoid ever having to deal with the front lines of this war, even after the task of sorting out supply lines had been dealt with. I stood, turned to face Amberley, and saluted, looking my most Commissarial. 'Inquisitor Vail. I'd like to request to accompany you on this task. Not only to provide my assistance, but to act as a liaison between your task and ours, to ensure that communication flows smoothly and we can properly co-ordinate our efforts.'
Amberley looked at me with that faint smirk that she usually got whenever she saw right through my grandstanding and false courage, and I almost expected her to decline, but after a moment she nodded. 'Alright. That sounds like an excellent idea. Unless you've got any objections, Colonel?'
Kasteen looked between the two of us for a moment, looking as surprised as if she'd just intruded on an intimate moment, and held her hands up in a negative gesture. 'No, no, that sounds perfect.' she said, seeming oddly flustered. I took mental note of it, but honestly didn't know what to make of it. Stress, or distraction, perhaps.
'Right. That settles it then.' Amberley said, putting her hands on the table and pushing herself to her feet at the same moment as Kasteen did. 'Let's get to work.'
And it was at precisely that moment, as two of the women in my life that I respected more than just about anyone short of the Emperor himself stood up, full of fire and determination to beat back the enemies of the Imperium, that I noticed the slight bulges in the bellies of both of their uniforms. The incongruity of the moment almost threatened to make me laugh, which would have been disastrous given the situation, and I stifled it with an effort, the links not quite forming in my brain just yet that this was something truly amiss.
Something must have shown on my face, however, because Amberley looked at me quizzically. 'Something the matter, Ciaphas?' she asked, prompting me to scratch the side of my head insecurely.
'I, uh...'
_________________________________________________________
3Flatterer.
4Stupid, stupid, stupid! Even if nothing had been wrong with the food, I should've known better than to try anything native to a world that was currently undergoing an invasion by Chaos forces. And I'd spent a not inconsiderable amount of effort minding my figure.
5So that's his excuse. I suppose trying to avoid a 'my eyes are up here' reprimand is as good an excuse as any, though I note the 'anyone else around' clause of that reasoning.
6Also known as being doused in ice-water.
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