The storm trooper nodded to Solara before looking straight into Momaru's eyes and speaking "You are witnesses to the events on the surface and the third group recovered from it. The Ancient is being held as well, the only difference is we have reason to still trust him."
Outside the door was a full squad of storm troopers. Solara was led into the outer corridor and escorted by them. As Solara left the door closed again. Solara was led through several corridors to a bright room with furnishing reminiscent of a court room.
Four figures sat in elevated positions on the far side of the room, each staring into Solara's eyes as she was directed to a seat. In order the figures were: a man wearing a black set of robes with a left eye replaced by a green bionic one, a bald man with a high degree of facial scarring wearing a suit of golden power armour, a woman that would be best described as a generic witch hunter with red bionic eyes, and a man wearing a red robe that is clearly a tech priest.
The man wearing the golden power armour, Inquisitor Thane, spoke first "For the record, please state your name."
[hr]
"There is no reason to not trust one of the emperor's first." Momaru said before the storm trooper closed the door.
[hr]
Solara nodded and took her seat. "Solara Atia Draco, Acolyte and heir to the now deceased Inquisitor Lunette Alethia Draco and adoptive daughter of the formerly mentioned as well. I offer any information you might be requesting." Solara said to them, giving a slight bow as they were her superiors.
Inquisitor Thane took a moment to think before speaking "Miss Draco, your adept... nearly killed himself before he said anything useful. Would you mind explaining how you came to be in the hulk that crashed into our warzone?"
"So long as my adept is given proper apothecary attention and restored to full helth and given proper limbs again, i shall give any and all info you require. I have nothing to hide, but i do care for my routine and the greater good of the Imperium. To see a member of our Society being tortured over information that was already being retrieved is a wrong that needs to be righted. I do think it's a small request in exchange for all you need to know." she said to them, confidently and concerned for the well being of her friend.
"We did not torture him. He opened fire on a squad of sororitas and his limbs were blown off while they were capturing him. During interrogation he tried to electrocute one of Inquisitor Cadence's acolytes, one of his capacitors blew and it damaged his brain. In his deranged state of mind he then proceeded to attempt to murder Inquisitor Cadence with a bolt of electricity, so we were forced to remove his current limiter. During his third interrogation while Magos Horthon attempted to reason with him he fried his skin and exploded his eyes trying to electrocute the floor. The only responses we can get out of him at this point are in broken T'au."
He paused to let that sink in.
"We've done our best to stabilize him but we are not risking any more of our staff on repairing him until we have a guarantee of compliance."
"Hmmm.... I have no idea what he could possibly mean by T'au... we never encountered any in our mission and he was functioning fine enough to eject our pods from the ship we were on in cryo tubes. I feintly remember seeing him working to save the rest of us as i was coming out of a haze..." Solara explained to the gathered council. She was genuinely thinking of what he could mean.
"Since he was functioning fine up until impact, he must have suffered brain damage, since there was no time to get into a pod and eject from the ship... I'm truly amazed he survived impact. Please tell my Psyker, Dante, to communicate with him telepathically. Tell him to explain that i'm speaking with you and sorting out this mess for us. and tell Dante to tell Anthony to let the techpriests help him. Sana is a rather fine aspiring rune priest who should be able to repair him if given the resources." the inquisitor said to them.
"Now... Onto how me and my routine wound up in that hulk. A number of years ago, maybe a couple, My Mother, Lunette was assigned to collect people found to be immune to the warp. Not necessarily negative grade psykers, but those found to be highly resistant to the warp. We gathered everyone from a janitor to a Daughter of Russ." she said then paused, waiting a minute.
"I cannot explain the list we were given, but we ventured into the eye of terror none the less. Surgical strike team? Reconnaissance? i don't know. The ship's machine spirit was the only one with the destination known and we lost him when the void shields went down and we were boarded by servants of chaos." she said to them and explained thoroughly.
"They were servants of slaanesh and we destroyed them as the set foot on the imperium's ship. we took heavy losses and were left with my routine as you see in that holding area and maybe 20 crew members of the already skeleton crewed ship." solara continued the story.
"Some of them died after we appeared above an unknown planet. We descended and found it to be a crumpled eldar world, from a time before their current state. It was ruled by chaos and we were only on the surface for a brief number of days." she said and kept herself stone faced despite emotions attempting to surge through her.
"That was when we lost Lunette. She had made me her replacement Inquisitor prior to descending the planet and gave herself to fight off chaos space marines loyal to Slaanesh. We were at the drop ship when she came staggering back to us... taint beginning to grow in her. Before it could take hold, i put her down while she still served the imperium." she said, taking a minute to let it sink in and recollect her thoughts.
"During that brief planetside stay, i picked up the eldar slave i have with me, a solitaire who helped us in the time after we left the planet. She is an invaluable resource to fighting chaos as she has access to the black library and can retrieve info we need. However, this is no more heretical then when the Blood Angels truced with and fought alongside the necrons against the tyranids." she said, explaining her reasoning for keeping the xeno in her party.
"After that, we were boarded once more, fighting them off one last time before jumping blindly with the navigator and helmsmen dead. With no idea on where we were going, we settled into the pods, the routine with surviving members of the crew volunteering to stay awake and protect us for as long as they lived and survived. After that time, we must have become lodged in the space hulk and wound up on the planet." she said and finished her explanation. "Is there any other information you may require? There are some things i cannot answer because i have never known to begin with, but i will try to the best of my ability regardless."
"Interesting..." he paused and motioned to a nearby blue robed adept who then ran out of the room.
"You say your mother put you through the rite of ascension before she fell to taint? Do you have any evidence that your claimed authority is legitimate?"
"The entirety of my routine as well as several copies of the codes necessary to transmit to Holy Terra to automatically Authenticate it with her signature she left to me. Inquisitor Lunette also named myself as her Heir to her position in a final updated report before we left on said mission. I am not mentioned by name but rather as "her acolyte". I can confirm this as she had me proof read it before she sent it out." Solara said, producing a small data slate from her person and holding it out to be retrieved and brought to the council.
"I assure you everything is in order for the transfer of power from her name to my own." The inquisitor to be said with a slight bow.
A blue robed adept walked over and retrieved the data slate, bringing it to the Magos.
Inquisitor Thane spoke again "We will get to that in time-"
The witch hunter, Inquisitor Cadence spoke interrupting Thane "She has been travelling with a xenos and allowed it to hide itself on board unguarded. Her companions carry heresies with them and one carried them inside himself. How can we trust her!"
Inquisitor Thane spoke "Calm yourself she has already explained herself-"
The man in the black robes, Inquisitor Strillok spoke interrupting Thane "Their Adept carried licenses and was spoken of highly by my contacts Cadence."
Cadence spoke again "Papers do NOT justify HERESY!"
Strillok said "His work was sancti-"
Candence yelled "He was a HERETEK!"
Thane screamed over them "QUIET! The legality of xenotech isn't in question right now."
He stared into Solara's eyes "Cadence has a point though. You say you recovered an Eldar from a tainted world. It wasn't recovered with you. Where is it?"
"Before the doors of the dropship opened, she disappeared into the shadows. I can afirm that your psykers would feel her presence. She is not in the base and knows better than to snoop around an imperium base. She could die from something labeled as an accident while i still have use of her and the access to the black library." Solara explained to them, showing no signs of taint in herself.
"If it's any condolence to your nerves Witch Hunter, my mother was a Cannoness Preceptor prior to her days as an inquisitor on the black ships. I have no intent of assisting chaos in any form." the girl said looking up at the witch hunter.
"And i can explain the Xenotech and why it is being used." she began once more. "The armoury was partially taken out on the first boarding and on the second boarding it had been fully taken out. We needed weapons if we were going to survive. If you would wish to have the technology to do as you please, be it destroy, research, you may take it once this is over. I just would like to be present when it is being taken as to make sure everything is in order." she said, adressing the magos.
While the witch hunter looked thoroughly unimpressed. The red robed tech priest, Magos Horthon spoke "The medicae team has already reported on the your retinue. Besides the singing spear, the rest is not of interest currently. The disturbing matter was the sheer amount of unidentified and jury-rigged components found inside your tech priest in the few times we were able to perform surgery on him."
While he was speaking, Thane was ordering one of his acolytes to accompany sweep teams to recover the Eldar from the Transports.
As the yellow robed adept ran off to deal with the Xenos, Thane spoke to Solara again "Is there anything we will need to know to prevent her from attacking us on contact?"
"He made changes to himself as he saw fit. I had to stop him from labotomizing the remaining crew and turning them into servitors. I think i had finally gotten the idea out of his head before we went to sleep. But as to the nature of unknown devices, only he can answer that, which i shall have him do once he is recovered, you have my word." Solara explained, then heard they were going to fetch Titania.
"I'm sorry, but i think you have misunderstood me, i blame myself on improper wording. She is not on this station, moon if you'd prefer to call it what it is. Her presence in the warp, as foul as it may be, isn't in this station despite coming with us. She is probably in the web way, waiting until it is safe to come back out. She may be a xeno, but she knows better than to come into a fully armed and operational Imperial Battle station." Solara explained once more, not wanting to leave another misunderstanding to chance.
"She is a roamer then..." he took a moment to use his subvocals to order his acolyte to call off the search.
Showing disgust Cadence stood and walked from the room, with mild amusement on the face of Strillok as she left but clear frustration shown on Thane's.
Thane spoke "She wanted us to hang you immediately for having arrived in the hulk."
The Magos looked at Thane and spoke "We'll need time to authenticate the codes with the enclave because of the cloud."
Strillok looked at Thane and spoke "Cadence will want to drag her associates through questioning."
Thane took a moment to think before speaking "You have permission to run oversight." He paused "Miss Draco my psykers will need to examine you for taint before we can begin to release you. If you resist them they will cause damage. If you do not consent you will be imprisoned and submitted to the same procedures you would have been submitted to anyway. Do you consent?"
"I do consent and thank you for sparing my life to give me a fair questioning. However, i fear not for myself, but for the psykers you will have examining me. My files are not correct in my grade because of the tendency witch hunters have to kill anything even approaching close to a beta level on sight, let alone above it." Solara replied.
"And please make sure none of my routine members are harmed by the witch hunter... i know their... methods... are extreme in more cases than less." she vocalized her concern to the remaining inquisitors.
Thane looked at her and pointed to the door where several yellow robed adepts were now congregating. Their thoughts if examined would be staticy and unreadable, though their auras would make it clear they were psykers.
One opened the door and then Thane spoke again "They will escort you to your examination, if you follow them."
Strillok stood and bowed before walking away and leaving through a side door of the room.
Solara nodded and gave a little bow before she walked off, following the adepts. "I hope the others are fairing well..." the inquisitor said, not wanting to use telepathy and give them a reason to call her a conspirator.
The yellow robed psykers led Solara to a cell covered in various psychic artifices. They sat her down and fitted an odd oaken helmet over her head. "Due to the shadow we had to get creative to stop them from overwhelming us." an image of nerve stapling entered her mind, a process violent and destructive to the body and mind, used in prisons to prevent revolts, the use by these psykers was unknown however "This device will keep your mind open to our weakness." A piece was slid over her eyes and she seemed to go blind and deaf to the outside world simultaneously. It then felt as if a psychic choir of fifty were combing her mind.
She closed her eyes and relaxed into the chair. She splayed open her entire mind to the psykers, everything from her childhood on the backwater planet, running and hiding from the others on the planet. All while struggling to survive, up until the current point sitting on the chair. Before them was displayed a massive beast of warp power, constrained by golden chains that solara had willed into her obeying. They could sense that it was all a part of her, and she was restraining herself for their safety. However, in the midst of warp power, they could sense the holy power of the emperor himself.
