V3 Chapter 32: Performance
The instant the stasis field released, the laser beams frozen in mid-air resumed their original trajectories.
The beams struck the bulkheads and weapon racks along their interrupted paths, producing a rapid series of sharp sounds as they burned dark lines across the metal surfaces.
Sound returned to the armoury.
The Storm Troopers still had their weapons levelled at the space ahead. The armed ratings at the hatch were still maintaining the posture of having just fired. The Mechanicus priest's scanning device gave a sharp alarm before beginning to recalibrate its readings.
What they saw in front of them: the Marshal-Commissar standing in the centre of the room.
Duvette had the power sword in his hand, the disruption field still giving off a low hum. On the floor in front of him, a silver-grey metal body had been cut into several pieces, the remains slowly losing the coherence of solid matter.
What had just happened?
The Storm Troopers' eyes behind their helmet lenses held a certain blankness.
In their perception, they had just opened fire, and in the next moment the crisis was already over. The xenos body had been cut apart on the floor, and Marshal-Commissar Duvette was standing in front of it as though he had just concluded a brief execution.
A thought surfaced in most of them at the same time, without any of them having to say it.
The Marshal-Commissar had resolved this.
That seemed reasonable enough.
They had seen Duvette come through too many dangerous battlefields, and they had heard too many accounts of the kind of things he did that seemed to belong more to legend than to reality.
For many ordinary soldiers, as long as this Commissar was still standing, certain things that defied understanding simply got resolved.
Duvette was not paying attention to what they were thinking.
He looked at the metal fragments at his feet, confirming that the proxy body Trazyn had left behind was being drawn back by some remote protocol. The edges of the fragments were already growing indistinct, as though they might disappear from reality at any moment.
Duvette deactivated the power sword's disruption field and sheathed the blade.
He then looked at the Mechanicus priest, who was still in the process of collecting himself.
"If you want to recover any of that xenos material for study, do it quickly," Duvette said. "It will be recalled shortly."
The Mechanicus priest's optical lenses blinked rapidly in sequence, and he produced a rapid string of binary before he could stop himself.
Duvette paid no attention to it. He swept his gaze across the armoury and gave a further order.
"Additionally, this compartment is to be inspected again from the beginning. Every centimetre of deck, every conduit, every piece of metal. I do not want to see this happen again."
The Mechanicus priest paused.
"I accept the revised instruction." This time he answered Duvette in standard speech.
"Good."
Duvette gave a nod.
He looked at the Storm Troopers and armed ratings remaining in the compartment.
"Assist the priest in sealing this space. No recovered material is to be handled without authorisation, and no record of what occurred here is to leave this compartment."
"Yes, General."
Duvette signalled for several of the Storm Troopers to follow and turned to leave the armoury.
The hatch sealed behind him. The Mechanicus priest's voice was still audible through the metal, now moving quickly, as though he was issuing instructions simultaneously to his servitors, the scanning device, and the shipboard shrine.
Duvette walked the corridor back toward the command bridge, his mind running back over the conversation with Trazyn.
I want your future.
That had sounded, frankly, like a xenos making some kind of declaration. An absurd opening.
Duvette had nearly expected the old thief to follow it with something even more unpleasant.
As it turned out, the exchange that followed had made Trazyn's actual meaning clear. What the Solemnace collector valued was not Duvette's body at any particular moment, and not a trophy that had already been catalogued.
What he valued was the thread of fate around Duvette that he could not see clearly at all.
The events that had unfolded around Duvette, things that appeared to have no rational explanation, were not, in Trazyn's assessment, isolated incidents.
They were all connected to Duvette.
Trazyn believed that if Duvette continued forward, he would generate more historical moments worth preserving. Rather than forcing him into a display case now, it was more rewarding to let him keep moving and then appear at the more significant points to collect the key events or individuals worth recording.
This was an extremely dangerous arrangement.
Duvette understood clearly that cooperating with someone like Trazyn was equivalent to placing a blade at his own side that might act on its own at any moment. There was no guarantee that this Necron Overlord would not decide, mid-campaign, to quietly tuck an ally, a warrior, or a critical piece of equipment into his collection.
So Duvette had imposed limits.
Trazyn could only intervene against targets Duvette had explicitly designated as hostile.
He was not to take any of Duvette's personnel. He was not to act against anyone in Duvette's allied command. He was not to interfere with Duvette's operational objectives while a campaign was still in progress.
Trazyn had agreed faster than Duvette had expected.
The proxy body had leaned on the Empathic Obliterator with something in its tone that approached genuine contentment. He said that ordinary Imperial soldiers held limited interest for him. By comparison, certain xenos overlords, Chaos champions, and traitor Legion figures were considerably more suited to entering the exhibition hall.
Then he mentioned Abaddon.
The Black Warmaster. The one who claimed never to have lost.
Trazyn said that if Duvette and Abaddon ever came into direct conflict, he wanted first collection rights. Not necessarily Abaddon himself: a champion who had genuinely stood close to the Black Warmaster would suffice, or a Black Legion battle standard, or a sufficiently significant engagement on record.
Duvette had agreed to the arrangement in the end.
He was not the kind of person who abandoned every option the moment a xenos was involved. As long as this arrangement carried no Chaos contamination, posed no threat to himself or his allied forces, and made the road ahead any easier, he could make use of Trazyn for the time being.
He did not trust Trazyn.
He would treat Trazyn as a dangerous tool and nothing more.
In exchange, Trazyn had given him a set of coordinates.
The collector had said that the elderly woman from Macragge would be held at those coordinates. If Duvette wanted to retrieve her, he would have to go there himself.
Trazyn had not given any direct indication of Tarasha Euten's condition.
He had only said, in that infuriating manner of his, that he would cooperate with Duvette in staging a performance.
Then, at Trazyn's signal and with his quiet amusement still audible, the stasis field had released.
Duvette had swung the power sword and cut the Necron proxy body apart.
And so everyone had seen exactly what they needed to see.
Duvette stepped onto the lift platform. Several Storm Troopers followed behind him in silence. None of them asked questions, and Duvette offered no explanations.
Some things were better known by as few people as possible.
Several minutes later, Duvette returned to the command bridge.
Admiral Villent was already at the command podium, his expression notably more serious than it had been. The bridge officers were exchanging quiet words; evidently what had happened in the armoury had already reached them.
When he saw Duvette walk in, Villent came forward immediately.
"I have already received the report," he said. "That a xenos was able to leave a phase beacon aboard this ship is considerably more serious than I had expected."
Duvette gave a nod.
"The thing was methodical."
"Fortunate you were there," Villent said, looking at him. "Otherwise the fleet might not have discovered the problem until after entering the Warp. I would not want to speculate about what might have happened then."
"It was what needed to be done."
Duvette did not linger on the subject.
He walked to the star chart and entered the coordinates Trazyn had given him, reconstructed and formatted into a navigable set of stellar references.
"I extracted a piece of significant intelligence from the xenos," Duvette said. "It left behind a set of coordinates. Based on what it disclosed, there may be a relic of significance to the Primarch at that location."
Villent paused.
"Connected to the Primarch?"
"I cannot fully confirm its authenticity," Duvette said. "But the potential value is high enough that it cannot wait."
Villent looked at the star chart without answering immediately.
He was an Admiral. He would not alter the fleet's course on a single sentence. But he also knew Duvette did not use this kind of thing carelessly.
Especially now, with Guilliman newly returned. Any relic connected to the Primarch could carry significance that went well beyond ordinary military intelligence.
"What is your intention?" Villent asked.
"Report to Macragge first," Duvette said. "Log the xenos incursion, the phase beacon, the shipboard lockdown, and the coordinates. Then we proceed to the location ourselves."
"We don't wait for a response?"
"There isn't time," Duvette said, looking at him. "Astropathic messages may be delayed or arrive incomplete. By the time Macragge receives it and issues orders, the window will be gone."
Villent was quiet for a moment.
The bridge held only instrument readings and the low murmur of officer reports.
Then he gave a single nod.
"Understood," Villent said. "We move on your assessment."
He turned and issued the order.
"Astropathic Choir, prepare a concise encrypted dispatch. Destination: Macragge relay station."
An officer recorded the instruction immediately.
Villent continued. "Transfer the coordinates to the Navigators. Request their assessment of transit hazards and Warp tidal conditions, and confirm navigability. All ships, return to Warp transit preparation. Raise Gellar Fields."
The orders spread through the bridge.
A low resonance moved through the depths of the Resolute's hull. The escort fleet began adjusting heading in sequence, formation running lights coming to life one by one.
Duvette stood at the star chart and looked at the new coordinate point.
Tarasha Euten might genuinely be there.
Or it might be another trap Trazyn had prepared.
Either way, he had to go and see.
A short time later, confirmation came from the Navigators.
The transit was viable.
Villent looked at Duvette.
Duvette gave a nod.
The fleet's engines fired again. The Gellar Fields stabilised across the outer hulls. Then the vast formation of ships moved slowly toward that churning expanse of the Warp.