It had taken Amelia eleven hours to parse her way through the Duque’s head and as she withdrew the ties she had created in and amongst his synapses she felt fatigue setting in. The Interrogator displayed no visible reaction as Amelia delivered her report, but his mind became alive with endless possibility as she repeated Maria Benevente’s words. Without so much as a word of praise, he strode off to seek out the Inquisitor, though Amelia was far too tired by this point to care. There was no visible change within the labyrinthine depths of the precinct to indicate night and day, but the chronograph on the wall read well after midnight, and the rest of the team was asleep in their converted cells. Amelia found her own cell and fell face first onto the camp cot, too tired to even take off her boots.

The walls echoed with sharp cracks, and Amelia woke with a start into a pitch-black room. Gunfire was echoing throughout the halls, the harsh retort of bolters intermingled with the crack of lasfire, all made indistinct by echoes. Amelia checked herself over for her weapons, retrieving her staff from where it sat propped against the wall and buckling her sword to her belt. Gathering her courage, she went to the door, only to find that the cell had been locked during the night. She pounded her fists against the door and screamed as loud as she could, hoping someone would notice her. Her telepathic senses stretched out to find anyone, but the cell had been designed to hold unsanctioned psykers and rewarded her efforts with stabs of pain as her mind touched the walls. Gunfire echoed closer and closer, now joined by the screeching of metal as rounds hit nearby bulkheads. Amelia pressed herself against the cell’s rear wall, trying to make as small a target as possible. Running feet could be heard outside the cell and a bolter was fired just outside her door.

In response, a volley of shots burst into Amelia’s cell, shattering into fragments that pierced the ceiling. Beams of light swept past the holes as the aggressors passed her by, shouting ‘all clear’ to some hidden colleague before departing. Amelia lay huddled on the ground for some time, afraid to move until she was sure the attackers had left. Reaching out with her mind through the broken door she felt no sign of the attackers, and a wounded man at the end of the cell block. The door had been practically blown off its hinges by the bolt rounds but it was still some time before she was able to force it open and step outside, her snub-nosed revolver raised more for comfort than anything else. The corridor was dark, occasional red emergency lights providing scant illumination, and at its end lay the Interrogator in a pool of his own gore.

His ornate cuirass had a single hole in it, but the blood pouring out of the base showed that a bolt round had pierced the plate, before detonating internally. A second round had cost him his jaw and much of his neck was now open. Amelia scanned his mind as she approached, its synapses were slowly fading as the flow of blood to them was interrupted but he was still lucid.

‘You can’t talk,’ Amelia said as she knelt before him, reaching out a hand towards his cheek, ‘but you can still tell me who did this to you. Just think about them, and I’ll see.’

The man made no visible response, but his mind fired and Amelia was able to latch onto an image. An Arbitrator stood at the end of the corridor; a bolter held expertly in his hands. His uniform had been augmented by a rusty red sash tied around his waist, and a skull formed of angled shapes had been painted onto the helmet that shrouded the top half of his face. The shape of it hurt too look at, bringing forth a sensation of corruption that almost overpowered Amelia. She left the man’s mind and he breathed his last, having spent himself to give Amelia the image of their foe. She took one last look at her Interrogator, and wandered off into the labyrinth.

As she passed her cell, noxious fumes spilled through the broken door, pooling in the corridor. The emergency countermeasures meant to deal with uncontrollable psykers had been activated, and the rest of her team were likely dead in their own cells. The enemy clearly had control over the facility, the red emergency lighting was the only available light source and none of the alarms had been activated. Amelia strode down empty corridors, every room she passed had been locked and Amelia was struck by an oppressive sensation of isolation. Eventually, the faint sound of combat echoed through the corridors to her; she hurried towards it, desperate to find an ally in this place. Soon the sounds of gunfire were replaced by the clashing of steel on steel and the whirring of some unknown machine. Rounding the corridor, Amelia saw a mountain of steel and wire fighting two death cultists in attire similar to that Maria had worn in House Benevente. The monstrosity was matching their needle-thin daggers with a colossal axe, whilst sweeping at them with heavy pincers bolted to what may have been its shoulders. It wore blood red robes trimmed with white gears around dull metal armour that framed a human skull laden with augmetics. The cultists were weaving in and out of the whirling dervish of metal, landing hits on the monstrosities armour but failing to hit the gaps between the armoured plates.

Utterly oblivious to Amelia’s presence, the trio moved up and down the hall following the momentum of the fight, carving large ruts into the corridor and stepping over and, in the priest’s case, through the remains of two gun-servitors. Amelia sent her knife flying through the head of one of the cultists, breaking through the base of the skull and poking out of her eye socket before returning back to Amelia, leaving only a neat hole. The second cultist, distracted by her compatriot’s sudden death, failed to stop a large pincer from gripping her head, the tech-priest crushing it in one swift movement before throwing the body aside. It turned to Amelia and spoke, distorted voice that might once have been female emerging from speakers on her shoulders.

‘The machine spirits of this place are being uncooperative.’ she said, without even acknowledging the bloody melee, ‘Inquisitor Heydrax has tasked me with reaching the Central Information Centre. You will accompany me.’

‘Right.’ Amelia sighed as the tech-priest turned to leave without even waiting for her reply.

The duo made their way through the precinct, Amelia keeping an open mind to warn her of any other people. Every now and then her mind would touch those of solitary figures or small groups that were roving the halls. Amelia could tell their allegiance through the subtle sensation of wrongness they emitted, as well as their fierce rage masked by discipline. It was a risk to willingly expose herself to corrupted minds, but less of a risk than accidentally running into an enemy patrol. Eventually, Amelia sensed a trio of minds dominated by drill and ritual that served to suppress their fear, a trio of Stormtroopers sheltering in a small office. They were all too eager to follow Amelia and the Priest, glad to be able to actively do something to combat the threat. After some deliberation, the leader of the trio, a Lance-Corporal, decided that Amelia would be more open to conversation than the inhuman tech-priest.

‘Any idea what’s going on?’ He asked, more out of curiosity than fear.

‘Some of the Arbitrators have turned on us, they let in Death Cultists, took control of the building and gassed those they could.’ Amelia informed him

‘Shit. We fought a squad of soldiers that looked like they came from some noble house, killed two of my men before we brought them down. Seems the whole damn planet has turned on us.’

The two of them jumped as the tech-priest suddenly spoke up.

‘That statement is false. We have passed many Arbites barrack blocks on our route, all of which have been locked with the occupants presumably trapped within.’

Amelia cast her mind towards a locked room. Inside she could feel a dozen minds, each fearful and angry at their imprisonment. When compared to the minds of the enemies wandering the halls they may as well have been an open book. It was then realisation struck.

‘Only the elite betrayed us; this planet reveres special forces so they only induct the best into the cult, probably through training exercises with the noble houses. This Precinct is the Arbites headquarters for the entire planet, there are hundreds of loyalists surrounding us, all we need to do is let them out!’

Amelia could feel the relief emanating from the stormtroopers, the satisfaction of a soldier who has a plan of attack. The tech-priest, on the other hand, was so inhuman as to be unreadable, though Amelia convinced herself that she was pleased.

Suddenly, one of the stormtroopers dropped as two men in black carapace armour fell upon them from the rafters. One had fallen on the trooper, plunging a combat knife into his neck, a second before the other, giving the Corporal time to push Amelia out of his way; the monomolecular blade instead severing the wire that connected his rifle to its battery pack, spraying white hot sparks that lit up the corridor in an artificial glow. The Corporal immediately went on the offensive, using his now useless weapon as a club to force the man backwards. The other trooper kicked the second attacker, who was pulling his blade out of the body, sending him careening into the wall. He recovered fast and leapt off the wall just before it was scorched by a volley of lasfire, tackling the trooper to the ground and sliding his blade into the gap below the man’s helmet.

Amelie forced herself out of shock and gathered power in her hood, before unleashing it in a terrifying psychic shriek that shattered the glass in the man’s visor, before liquifying the brain that lay behind it. She then turned to the man attacking the corporal, gathering tendrils of her own mind into her staff before launching them, seizing control of his motor functions. He froze, and Amelia could feel his eyes darting from left to right in confusion behind his opaque visor before widening in horror as the corporal drew his side arm and executed him.

As he exchanged his rifle with his dead colleague’s the corporal shifted one of the bodies, staring at an insignia, before turning to Amelia.

‘You were right, these guys are with a PDF kill team, more elites.’ He paused ‘You know… you’re pretty terrifying.’ At this he held out a gloved hand, ‘Marcus Flavius. Thanks for the save.’

Amelia smiled before shaking his hand, ‘Amelia Lafayette. We’re even now, he’d have skewered me if you hadn’t pushed me out of the way.’

Their newfound camaraderie was interrupted by the emotionless tech priest strolling off ahead, after admonishing them for wasting time.

Soon they found themselves before the precinct’s auxiliary control centre. Amelia gestured silently for the group to stop before they wandered into view. The centre was in the middle of a panopticon of five stories of cells, atop a raised tower twelve meters high. The cells themselves were empty, all the prisoners having been transferred or executed once the building passed into Inquisitorial hands, but there were eight men guarding the entrance to the tower, and another figure inside it. Through the eyes of one of the enemy Amelia was able to see they each wore bright red uniforms, suggesting they were with a noble house, carried ornate long barrelled autorifles and ceremonial swords and had positioned four heavy stubbers with a clear view of the rooms entrance. The tower itself had six lasrifle turrets linked to the central control room, covering a complete arc of fire.

Their team simply wasn’t resilient enough to withstand that kind of fire and a fierce but almost silent debate emerged over their next course of action, Flavius arguing they should find reinforcements whilst the tech-priest wished to simply charge the tower. In the end, it was Amelia who provided the solution.

‘I can make us invisible.’ This was met by disbelieving stares, even the tech-priest’s bare skull managed to look confused. ‘I can hide us from their thoughts, then we can seize the tower and the turrets.’

‘And you’ve done this before?’ Flavius questioned.

‘Not with this many people, but yes.’ Amelia was now much more hesitant about the plan.

Flavius paused a moment, deep in thought.

‘Fuck it.’ He exclaimed as loudly as the circumstances allowed. ‘Let’s just walk out there.’

The four agents of the throne walked through the centre of their enemies, Amelia sweating with the effort of controlling the minds of eight different pairs of eyes. She kept her own closed to help deal with the flow of information, with her hand on Flavius’ shoulder guiding her to the entrance. After what seemed like an eternity, they reached the door to the tower and after another eternity, as the tech-priest loudly hacked the lock, stepped through, sealing the door behind them. Amelia exhaled and leaned against the wall for support as the two stormtroopers rushed up the stairs two as a time, giving the enemy slicer in the control tower only an instant to express surprise before an overcharged shot burst his head.

Amelia began to make her way upstairs when she heard the sound of the exterior turrets firing on the tower’s guards. She was passed halfway up by Lance-Corporal Flavius and his last remaining soldier, who told her they were going to watch the entrance. Once at the top she was met by an unsettling sight. It was hard to tell where the tech priest ended and the control panel began; thick tendrils of wire stretched out of her misshapen chassis into very input port the computer had, as well as directly into the cogitator stacks and stabbed at random intervals into the walls. One tendril was even merged with some wires running inside the roof; a ceiling panel lay in a crumpled mess in the corner of the room.

Before her lay a bank of cameras most displaying firefights, small holdouts of Inquisitorial forces standing their ground against the traitors. Amelia saw a woman in the power armour of the Sister’s of Battle firing her boltgun full auto from behind the reception of a small complex of offices in which a field hospital had been established by other Sisters. On another screen a bearded priest built like a brick shithouse, equal parts muscle and fat, swung a massive chainsword down, bisecting a cultist that had tried to flank a barricade of crates and barrels from which a section of stormtroopers was firing into the darkness.

A third screen drew her attention; the Inquisitor himself, surrounded by elite warriors from all walks of life, stood in mortal combat against a foe that made Amelia’s breath stick in her throat. The Inquisitor was wearing his power armour, but he was dwarfed by his opponent; a giant stood before him, two and a half meters tall and dressed in a blood red suit of twisted and misshapen suit of power armour. The suit was trimmed with silver and his left shoulder pad bore a horned skull, surrounded by flames and esoteric sigils. He carried a sword as long as Amelia was tall that glowed with eldritch power, and he met the Inquisitor and his cohort with a rage tempered by millennia of discipline. His armour hurt Amelia to look at, and so she reluctantly turned to face the tech priest, whose own skull was at least human.

‘I now have full control of the systems.’ The tech-priest said, punctuating the statement by turning on the lighting across the entire precinct. ‘You will direct the deployment of the Arbites.’

‘I will?’ Amelia cried out. Stunned by the suggestion.

‘Unaugmented Humans are reliant on their emotional cores when making decisions. I seldom speak Gothic, and my voice has been referred to as ‘harsh’ and ‘irritating’ as a result. You have a baseline human voice. Biologis studies have also shown humans are better manipulated emotionally by female voices.’

Realising that she was getting nowhere, Amelia sat before the control panel. Since being collected by the Black Ships twelve years ago she had sought to maintain as low a profile as possible, to avoid the notice first of her guards, then her instructors and now her peers. The microphone before her would broadcast her voice to the entire precinct, to the Inquisitor himself, but if she didn’t act then dozens would die. Amelia swallowed her fears, and hit the transmit button.

‘This is Amelia Lafayette, Acolyte of the Inquisition. This precinct has been infiltrated by the forces of Chaos. An elite team of Arbitrators, your own comrades in arms, have turned on you and let in heretics and cultists.’

Her words were broadcast through every speaker in the facility, as every combatant paused briefly in shock before resuming their fight.

‘They seized control of your precinct, locking you in your own barracks and gassing the agents of the Inquisition in your cells.’

In dozens of barrack blocks throughout the precinct hundreds of Arbites stopped their efforts to escape and listened.

‘My team fought our way through and placed this facility back in Imperial hands, in your hands.’

Every single locked door opened as one, and hundreds of Arbites poured out into the halls. Some ran straight into enemies, who fired into the crowds but were overcome by weight of numbers and bludgeoned to death by bare fists.

‘It now falls to you to take back your home, to drive back the enemy who dares make a mockery of the sanctity of this place, who rides roughshod over Imperial Law.’

Arbites pour into the now open armouries, collecting bolters and shotguns from the racks and distributing them amongst the crowd. One trooper grabbed a box of riot shells through force of habit, but he quickly had it taken from him by a sergeant and replaced by crate after crate of live ammunition.

‘Gather into your squads and report in to me. Your orders are to sweep this facility for rogue PDF kill teams, death cultists, house guards and your own traitorous brothers in arms, who have painted a red skull on their helmets. They are led by a traitorous space marine, a monster who betrayed the Emperor himself ten thousand years ago. I will direct you to where the fighting is thickest. Tremble before the majesty of the Emperor, for we all walk in his Immortal shadow.’

Dozens of squads of grey-blue armoured troopers now charged through the halls. Hardened veterans of the street fought beside office bound investigators, their righteous anger motivating them to feats of heroism. The small teams of heretic infiltrators were overwhelmed by sheer numbers, blown apart by bolt shells or crushed beneath power mauls. The isolated pockets of Inquisitorial resistance were found, and joined in on the offensive. Directing all of this, a young woman sat beneath a priest of the Mechanicus, leading the righteous to the enemy made visible by the precinct’s omniscient camera network. The Inquisitor, half his team dead at the hands of the traitorous marine, let out an uncharacteristic smile as innumerable Arbites flooded the room, their massed bolter fire giving the Astartes pause long enough for the Inquisitor to plunge his blade into its torso, bisecting the ancient warrior.

Amelia was juggling hundreds of soldiers; an entire army was relying on her work. She was busier than she had ever been, working on a task more taxing than any psychic effort, and yet she felt a thrill she had not felt since she was first brought to the Imperial palace to be assessed. For the first time in a decade, she felt truly alive.