As always, I shivered at the sight of Inquisitor Globus Varaak. His bloated form scarcely contained by the black body glove that covered what remains of his human form, his left arm and both his legs replaced by crude mechanical constructs hardwired into his spine as part of the life support carriage that supported him. Tubes stretched from the hissing machines at his back to his pock marked face. He spoke through a vox castor wired into the ruin of scar tissue that remained of his throat. He was a broken and twisted shell of a man.
He was also one of the most powerful men in the Calixis Sector.
The holovid was terse and direct. My team was to route immediately to Iocanthos in response to a request for Inquisitorial aid from a remote outpost. There I would meet Senior Adept Aristarchus, who would have overall command of the mission.
"Aristarchus the Seer?" Grumman said with a whistle, "We're moving up in the world."
"Indeed," I said with bemusement, thumbing through the appended documents and background notes on Iocanthos.
"Anything good?" he asked leaning over my shoulder.
I brushed him back with annoyance. We had been living in tight quarters for too long and personal space was at a premium. We also hadn't had access to showering facilities in quite a while, so Sergeant Clifford Grumman smelled like a hundred kilos of grox meat left out in the sun too long.
"Not really. Minor world in the Golgenna Reach, hasn't benefitted much from close proximity to the Sector Capitol, since there's nothing much of value."
"Except the Ghostfire Pollen," Sophitia added from the other side of the cramped one room pre-fab that had served as our base of operations for the past 4 months. She was thumbing through a worn copy of The Sermons of Saint Sebastion Thor while listening.
"Do you know it?" I asked over the top of my dataslate.
"My order maintains a force there. The Abbey of the Dawn is one of our largest training centers in this sector, and the Order of the Ebony Chalice defends it, as well as seeing to ceremonial duties across the subsector. Many of the local Sisters Famulous are trained there before taking up positions on Scintilla."
I set aside the dataslate. It was less thorough then I was used to, "Anything we should know?"
She thought for a moment, pushing her spectacles back up her delicate nose, "There's really not much there. We enjoy the seclusion. The Ghostfire Pollen is the only export, though I'm not sure what it's used for."
"It's a psychoactive," Alia added, pushing in through the door amid a cloud of dust and dazzling light. She smelled even worse than Grumman, if that was possible. No one said anything though. For one thing, we all smelled terrible. For another, Alia MacDonnell could likely tear each of us in half with her bare hands.
"We used to have problems with it in the Undercity. Some back alley chemists will mix it with just about anything, including other narcos and stimms to enhance the high. Has some weird effects on anyone with even a slight latent psychic potential."
She shook her head as she peeled off her filthy regulation Arbites carapace armor, "Mostly we use it in combat stimms for the penal legions. Gets processed and shipped out over half the Segmentum, so it's big money for the sub, when we can keep it regulated."
I nodded, "I remember now. Isn't Iocanthos almost a feral world? A few years back someone was talking to my master about organizing an expedition to pacify the locals and industrialize production."
Alia snorted, "Yeah, someone floats that idea every couple of decades. Problem is the locals..."
"The Ashleen," Sophitia added from behind her book.
