Vex Chronicles 3: Hunt

Calm before the storm

Aes Cognis, laboratory

Vex looked at the source of his anger. It was warpriest Corra's body. Everything in him told him to complete the work. He knew how to repair the mess the scarabs had left the body in. He could do it better than them. And that was why Vex was so angry... Angry about his own helplessness. The Cax archives barely talked by now. They just acted. And Vex clearly saw signs that he had already begun working on the body. But he just couldn't remember ever repairing those pieces.

Kressman would have seriously berated Vex for doing so. But the religious veteran had made himself scarce. And that was what worried Vex. The old veteran had retreated into himself. Something was bugging him. Something so big that he didn't even wanted to speak with Vex about it. It felt as if everything around Vex begun to come apart at the seams.

Even the good news of the Adeptus Mechanicus providing a navigator for the Aes Cognis left a sour aftertaste. Tech priest Gerrisat had personally joined the contingency on the heavy frigate. And his constant questions and demands had given Vex another reason to dig himself deeper into his laboratory. The only way to silence the logis had been to already allow him, his tech guard and priests access to key systems of the Aes Cognis.

"Inquisitor, I am closing in on the coordinates. If you want to join us?" Feh's icy voice cut through Vex's brooding.

"On my way, captain."

Vex marched towards the bridge while the warp jump warnings barked from the ship-wide vox. The Aes Cognis would soon break back into realspace.

Vex passed the security station and down into the bridge He had just fastened himself into the chair reserved for him as the rumble raced through the Aes Cognis. A buzzing pressure raced through Vex's cybernetic implants. But Vex had already grown accustomed to the effect reentry effect had on his implants.

But the reentry was much softer than many such events in the past. The heavy frigate was a good ship and the Gaten Constellation a zone of relatively safe warp routes. That was the reason why the previously so independent and uninteresting region had turned into a safe haven. It was close to the Cicatrix Maledictum, the great rift had torn the Imperium in half. And Gaten's stability allowed the Imperial Navy to use it as a concentration area for the fleets that guarded the rift.

Captain Feh and her crew went through the usual routines, synchronized their clock as good as the stars allowed. Time flowed oddly during warp travel. But the dilation had been mild. The ship's clock was only a few hours off from the estimated reentry date.

"We are right on time." Feh confirmed it as well. "Good work."

They had reached the coordinates of Grandclose before the Kastratoff's schedule. Vex stared at the emptiness of the void that filled the view screen of the bridge.

"Those are the coordinates," Vex said. "So where is Grandclose?"

"Navigational buoy is close. No trace of the station." The lack of emotion in Federim, Feh's heavily modified officer of auspex, annoyed Vex even more.

"I can see that myself," Vex snapped back. "But where is it then?"

Federim had long since lost his eyesight to wire his senses into the ship's auspex. The upper half of his face was only a visor with thick bundles of cables reaching up towards the roof of his post. And further life-support implants in chest and throat allowed him to stay 24/7 on the bridge.

"I send a trade request with our fabricated transponder." Comm officer Martisson spoke up before the inquisitor's anger could escalate. "I got a reply in Grandclose's name nearly immediately. The station is not here. But someone is replying in their name."