Warhammer 40,000: Stavrakis- The Hunt For Valakt

Whispers

The loading shuttle slipped out of the rear loading dock noiselessly. I sat near the dividing wall between the cockpit and the passenger bay, giving me a window view but also letting me keep an eye on my passengers. The two psykers sat opposite me. The implants we had given them were doing their job, dampening surface thought and manipulating the basic electrical function of the brain, which was internally hypnotising them. 

To my left sat Gro'Kna, the Kroot Shaper. The rest of the space was taken up by the fireteam of Hasskar mercenaries I had hired. Lurking near the two psykers was a blank, a Null-Psyker. Blanks were a rare breed of psykers, with a mutation of the already mutated psyker gene which enables them to nullify and 'blank' out any and all psychic phenomenon in a small radius around them. This also had the unfortunate side-effect of unsettling non-psykers, almost to the point that normal people would actively avoid them. 

Dirjean was an amicable person nonetheless, always smiling and laughing, and at least having my powers nullified was never as disorienting as it was for others. My power was passive, not active. It amounted to nothing more than an evolved 6th sense. It felt like different threads of reality all tickling my brain, giving me sensations and traces of the world around me, an echo of the psychic wave created by everyday actions. I eyeballed the five mercenaries. What little sub-news I managed to catch up on suggested there had been outbreaks of civil unrest, as many as 15 such events culminated in the firebombing of a major Magistratum asset or, more rarely, a fringe related Inquisition asset.

Setra Prime... how far could you have fallen? The Imperium was well into the fight against the second Tyranid Swarm, and I think most of its citizens have not forgotten the last time they had invaded. For Setra Prime it was more personal, having been ravaged by heretic invaders years ago. I looked out of my viewport. The landscape looked serene. Spires looming up from the ground like needles, the pockmarked and dusty earth disturbed by near 0-grav training, the shoals of Imperial fighter craft roaming the upper reaches of the atmosphere. 

I saw the monolithic bulk of an Armageddon class battle cruiser looming above us. I remember the scene vividly, as the calm before the oncoming storm. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what the planet would looked like before the catastrophe. I was only born recently, only 60 standard years in the past, so the catastrophe was long past. But having seen my fair share of tropical worlds in service to the inquisition, my imagination did not have to work too hard. The lush green forest canopy, the mist shrouded sky with the gleaming towers in the distance. I saw the emerald sky fill my vision. Swooping flights of Macaws rising and diving through the tops of the trees. I opened my eyes. The view was barren. Dusty, bland. We passed a huge crater, scorched black by the psychic firestorms. I broke out of my daydream.

"Spire landing in 45, standard, minutes." The pilot servitor intoned. I took one last look out of my view window. I saw a company of Inquisition Stormtroopers clamber over the lip of a crater, the movements creepily reminiscent of the swarming of Tyranid Gaunts. The front ranks pulled themselves over the edge and immediately broke into two groups, split down the middle. They took up a grouped firing position as the second wave pulled over the edge. They tore through the middle of the two groups and took up advanced firing positions ahead of them. The third wave repeated the manoeuvre, until a total of 100 stormtroopers had been divided evenly into the two separate groups. Then they disappeared from my view. The spire slid into view in the distance.

"Seranet Spire. This is Lander i219, Inquisitorial party attending. Please respond." The secondary Comm/Nav Servitor activated itself to start off our landing sequence.

"Lander i219, this is Seranet Primary landing platform. Please identify Passengers. Gene-Coded identifiers only." Standard Inquisition security hard at work.