In the meantime, of course, preparations for our rapid departure were being made. Thanks to the governor’s personal intervention81 a freighter large enough to accommodate all the regimental assets had been requisitioned for our use with remarkable rapidity, and the process of embarkation begun within a day of the inquisitor’s unexpected arrival. I, along with the other company commanders, had, of course, been given the vital task of expediting our departure as much as possible, which in my case meant that Major Broklaw delegated most of the logistical matters to me, with the flattering observation that no other officer in the regiment could be relied upon to discharge these matters with equal diligence and despatch. This left him free to oversee the handing over of the defence of Drechia to the local forces, who, it must be said, had learned a good deal from our brief association, pending the arrival of whichever Imperial Guard unit was to take over from us. Whoever it was would find a world far better prepared to fend off the depredations of the perfidious xenos, the network of defensive works which we had prepared protecting the mines far more effectively than the more rudimentary constructions bequeathed us by the planetary defence force.
The defence forces themselves, on whom the task of holding the line against the eldar had now fallen unaided, rose to the challenge with all the fervour Commissar Cain’s inspirational peroration had imbued them with,82 and we took our departure content in the knowledge that Drechia was, though now more weakly defended, still perfectly capable of meeting the challenge. Of the Chaos cult which Commissar Cain had so surprisingly uncovered there was little news, beyond the arbitrator’s office assuring us that investigations were continuing, and that the rounding up and purging of every last degenerate heretic was merely a matter of time.
Thus it was that we broke orbit a mere two days after the dread discovery of the eldar’s true plans, racing to the relief of Ironfound, and praying to the Emperor that we would be in time to protect it from the xenos’ fell purpose.
Nine
Proktor’s choice of vessel, an ore barge so nondescript as to be known only by a registration number83 but dubbed
Best of all – and much to my surprise if I was honest – we’d got underway unmolested by any prowling eldar vessels, probably because the
Which still left us with a couple of weeks transiting open space to kill, but we managed to fill that with sufficient training exercises and orientation lectures to keep the troopers out of mischief, at least as much as could reasonably be expected. The inevitable exceptions kept me occupied enough not to think too much about what awaited us at the end of our journey, and given that Amberley’s presence aboard gave us enough time to renew our acquaintance with quite gratifying thoroughness, the whole interlude might almost have been pleasant.
Of course it was too good to last, the
‘I thought you’d want to see this,’ she said, glancing up from a control lectern near the centre of the bridge as Amberley and I entered in response to the tersely worded invitation we’d received a few moments before. Her manner was deferential, as people’s tended to be in the presence of an inquisitor, but far from obsequious; I had the feeling that the Emperor Himself could have materialised on her deck and been left in no doubt that she was still the mistress of her own ship.
It was my first visit to the nerve centre of the