Inquisitor Daul is hunting down the dangerous heretic Soren Faust on the planet of Belzafest. Faust, the supposedly long dead traitor Inquisitor Lord, infamous for close to a century for his wild genetic experiments and insane philosophies, has taken world hostage and is planning something insidious. Aided by the former Skitarii Cairn Thross, the Magos Kerrigan, the elite soldiers known as the Lionhearts and reluctantly aided by the Rogue Trader Nathaniel Emanuelle Sáclair Daul is about to discover secrets far beyond the scope of what he was prepared to manage and is going to have to find his place in a wider world than he had ever believed existed in a war for the fate of humanity long before even the Dark Age of technology. Babylon five is a haven for warriors, idealists, dreamers, and wanderers. How much damage can one more ship of fanatics do in the long run?
I own nothing.
THIS WILL BE A CROSSOVER BE FOREWARNED.
-----------
Daul's perennial nightmare had not changed in decades, his terrifying fever dreams as inevitable as the act of sleep. He would close his eyes and find himself in the home of his youth, as unchanged and welcoming as it had been in childhood. It had been decades since he'd last been to Metzik, it had never been the same after the imperial purges but his childhood memories of the world would always be of a place that was green and full of life. Throne help him how he missed the smells of cooking meat from his mothers kitchen and the smell of curing wood in his father's workshop. His father.... His father, it all came back to his father in the end. Daul was perhaps the only child in existence who's greatest desire was his father die and stay dead.
His father never stayed dead. His father could never stay dead.
Usually Daul would avoid the dream by self-medicating with a compound that granted dreamless sleep. It was an effective substance but not without side effects and Daul could not afford to dull his whits in the following morning. So it was that he was once again in his dream, a small and helpless boy fleeing a gore-soaked effigy of his parent. Daul knew that he was within a dream, knew that the monster was long since dead, knew that by force of will and by the strength of his own hands he had crushed stronger fores in a heartbeat but in his dreamful state the only facts that seemed to hold sway were the need for safety and the furious beating of his own heart.
Daul's childhood home was exactly as it had been in his youth, a large center hall house of the traditional Metzik fashion. A tall house made out of the dark wood of the forest that blanketed most of the planet, a warm place of the smells of spices and cured meats. It was a simple place, a place of plenty and relative calm in the grand empire of mankind. A world untouched by the wars and conflict that raged through most of the galaxy, a paradise by all accounts.
It was also the place where Daul's father would kill his entire family.
It had been an accident in the mines that killed his father, or so they said at first. Some fool hadn't properly shored up the supports and the whole tunnel collapsed. It was a tragedy for the entire community of miners. Efforts were made to dig survivors out of the cave and some were saved but Daul's father was not one of the ones unearthed by the rescue teams. In the following days Daul sat with his mother and this three sisters in the chapel the Emperor, ostensibly praying wisdom and salvation. Daul did not pray for his father's salvation, he prayed for his father's resurrection. If the great saint Daufn Por had been raised at the will of the God Emperor then why not a man as good and true as Daul's father.
It was not the emperor who heeded Daul's prayers for resurrection but his prayers were answered, after a fasion.
Daul's father came back. He emerged days later from a shaft on the southern ridge, covered in soot and looking like death warmed over but alive as any man. It had been heralded as a miracle of the God-Emperor when Daul's father had come out of the southern mineshaft unhurt some two weeks later. A curse cloaked as a blessing.
For in the days that followed his father would become more distant, laugh less, eat more, and be prone to capricious bouts of fury. Sven Hilder had never said a cross word in his life before but rapidly became the worst sort of man. Something in that shaft had changed him something that he had found in the darker pits of the earth. The colonists had no way of knowing this but man was not the first creature to colonize Metzik. There were xenos of the worst kinds imaginable in Metzik's distant past, monsters who could drive a man mad simply by gazing upon their warped visage. Beneath the surface of Metzik lay remnants of great evils long past. Creatures of spite and craft had once lived on Metzik and had left artifacts of twisted powers and false promise to tempt the unwary.
In life he had welcomed his father back with open arms but in the dream he was wiser. He would try to convince his family that the thing that visited them nightly was not his father, to warn them of the danger that this twisted mockery of a man represented, but they didn't listen.
Please, Emperor help me... Please make them listen... I can't let it happen again!
His mother would cry and embrace the father-thing and his sister would praise the God-Emperor for his grace. It waited for the end of her prayer to change, the blasphemy of corrupting a child's prayers too tempting to resist. No longer was it the hale and healthy image of his father but a twisted and malevolent abattoir beast wearing his father's face grinning a chelsea smile. Then it would begin, and he would do nothing.
What could a child be expected to do? But he was not a child was he? Was he not a grown man? No.. not in the dream... never in the dream...
Daul would watch his family being butchered by the chaos spawned xenoform father-creature. In Daul's own life the creature was slain many years ago by his mentor Inquistor Martin Gaal but there would be no power-armored rescuer in the nightmare. He was alone to fight off his father. What boy can fight his own father?
He's not my father, not my father. My father could never be you! Please don't be my father...
He was alone with the cruel mockery of his father's love, forced to listen to its insane cackle and listen to its fleshy chewing. For the icon bound to his father's flesh could only be paid for its boons of power and madness in flesh and blood, the universal currencies of sacrifice.
He would try to trick himself into believing that his father had not killed him out of love, that he would take all he needed out of the others and leave Daul alone but love was a boon his father could no longer grant, another sacrifice to his blasphemous icon. The room would spin as he stood, spindly young legs shaking with panic and sorrow. It made no sense for it to be happening and thus must not be true.
Please let it not be true.
The soft and almost seductive voice of his father whispered hollow words of comfort and love to Daul, “Come now child never fear, you are safe, you're always safe around your father.”
Daul would stand still, wishing to believe it but knowing it to be false. He would sit and listen to the creature's platitudes and promises till it started to scoop out the soft contents of his mothers head and start pawing chunks into a distended maw. The urge to flee overpowered all his other conflicting emotions.
Daul's child mind was frustratingly uncreative, the protection of a blanket and a stuffed bear seem as powerful as any void shield. No matter how many times he fled to his room his secret place in the hollow space in the wall between his bed and where his chest of toys sat did not protect him but he still ran there to clutch his favorite stuffed animal as though the misshapen and thread-worn bear could provide sanctuary. As though the overstuffed face held a reliquary of the Golden Throne itself.
Clutching the bear he would pray to his mother for guidance, a weak child sending impotent prayers sent to the dead. The ancestors could not save him from the predations of chaos spawned xenotech.
Ragged breath and shambling bow-legged footsteps caused by something large caused him greater and greater panic with every passing second. The softest creaks and echoes of the shifting of floorboards sounded thunderous in Daul's ears.
Daul tried to hide himself in the friendly face of the overstuffed bear, hopping to muffle the sound of his frenzied breathing and the furious tattoo of his own heart.
The creature's hands made wet noises as they slapped on the frame of his bedroom door. It grinned it's twisted skeletal grin, stretching out the skin of his father's face and cried out, “Daul... are we playing a game now Daul? Daddy likes games?”
Daul squeezed himself into a tighter ball.
“Why don't we play a game Daddy likes? Do you want to play the game Daddy and Mommy just played? I promise we'll only do it once,” It cackled to itself as it tore the clothes in Daul's closet to shreds.
“Or do you want to play a game of hide and seek? Oh what a naughty child you are hiding from daddy,” its voice darkened, “remember... Daddy loves you doesn't he?” More laughter followed.
“Ok, new rules to the game. Daddy finds you and we play a game he likes, Daddy doesn't find you and you get to leave?” Liar... he would never escape. Daul choked back a sob, Damn, had it heard?No... emperor almighty let it not have heard.... please.
Seconds passed that felt like an eternity, the creature stood in the room ranting and raving to itself till it grew bored, there was the sound of footsteps then silence, glorious silence. It might have left after all, perhaps tonight was the night were “daddy” lost the game.
Daul dared not check, but what other option was there?
Daul shifted his weight and looked out the hollow. In the darkness there was nothing, a great void of emptiness. No, not nothing, throne help him not nothing, in the darkness there was a still darker shadow shuddering with silent laughter.
The last memory of his dream was a wicked taloned hand grabbing, twisting, and clawing at his flesh.
--
Daul shot out of bed, roughly clipping the crown of his head on the alcove above. His fears and worries about the dream were numbed by the throbbing pain in his now swollen and throbbing head. Lights blinked before his eyes as he made his way to the washbasin at the side of the room. The rooms provided for Daul by Captain Nathaniel Emanuelle Sáclair were spacious by naval standards but poorly suited for the broad form and tall stature of the Metzik native. The only larger spaces were either poorly placed in terms of security and privacy. It would not do to either leave himself wide open for an attack or to allow a member of the crew to witness a member of His Majesty's most glorious Inquisition reduced to tears over a bad dream.
But it wasn't just a dream was it?
It was a memory of things long past, things that might have been and ought not be allowed to pass in future. Most people feared the demons of their past, the Inquisitors simply had the luxury of being able to put names and faces on those who haunt the recesses of dreams and nightmares. Many in his profession either ended their own lives or went mad from the pressure, the sacrifices of uncensored knowledge of the universe. Daul's discomfort was well deserved but difficult to explain, better to maintain the anonymity and privacy expected of his position. Daul was not long trapped in such dark musing however, the massive form of Daul's attendant brushed through the door to his private chambers carrying a strong drink in one hand and a data slate in the other.
Daul smiled, “Cairn you're a saint.”
Cairn Thross served as bodyguard, attendant, and confidant to Daul. He was a large man, larger still than Daul himself, posessed of a stoic manner and a cloaked frame bulging with augmentic implants. Cairn had once been a member of the Skitarii, the special defense forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus before his assignment to Daul in payment for services rendered in defense of the Daskal Forge. Cairn was as unwavering in his duties to Daul as he was in his devotion to the omassiah, completing all tasks in silent efficacy. He was also an alarmingly good cook and bartender who had long since given up solid food and strong drink for the intravenous nutrition drip favored by the Skitarii.
Exactly how one of the augmentic soldiers of the machine god had become so proficient in the various domestics, dalliances, and duties of an inquisitorial attendant was something of a mystery to Daul, a mystery that Cairn was unlikely to ever resolve. Though all of Daul's earthly oaths of loyalty and fealty were bound to Daul his spiritual oaths to the omassiah were unchanged. All members of Cairns legion took an oath of silent obedience, swearing only to speak in the secret binary tongue of the machine. Cairns brief bouts of speech were invariably in a garish and whirring tone of garbled screeches and clicks. Binary, the secret language of the machine worshippers was totally alien to most of the universe, some members of the Inquisition attested that it wasn't even translatable by mortal man and could only be bestowed by the curious machine sorceries of the Admech. After over two decades of listening to the garbled warbling speech and Daul was tempted to agree.
There were a number of mysteries to Skitarii Thross' name. Even if Cairn were able to speak Daul doubted that Cairn would betray the honor of his order and reveal their secrets nor would Daul be able to ask for them in good faith. Daul would have to survive on the silent service of his faithful aide without knowing every secret, a privilege rarely given by an Inquisitor.
“Thank you Cairn,” Cairn made the symbol of the cog, his universal symbol of thanks, welcome, and greeting used in lieu of speech.
Daul shook his head, someday he would learn that small-talk was wasted on his impassive metallic acquaintance. He accepted the drink and the data-slate and proceeded to partake in both. The drink transpired to be less mind numbing than the data reports on the slate. There was only one conclusion to be drawn from the voluminous facts and figures, “Nathaniel Sáclair despises me.”
Sáclair hated Daul for the same reason that he was honor bound to aid Daul in times of need. Daul had saved his life and his honor. Sáclair would never be able to properly repay Daul for the debt he owed, a fact that galled the notoriously willful and violently independent captain of the Endless Bounty. Sáclair would never be so uncouth as to leave a debt of honor unpaid but his puckish and theatrical nature demanded that he rebel as much as honor allowed. Childish pranks were how Sáclair allowed himself to maintain his own sanity and sense of control. In this instance the status report that Daul had requested was not a simple summary of the past eight hours and an estimated time of arrival but rather a complete historical log of both the travels of the Endless Bounty and the Belzafest outpost. Without spending months or years sifting through the data it was useless.
Daul looked up at Cairn, “No chance this makes any sense to you does it?”
Cairn nodded.
“Yeah, that figures,” it wasn't as though Cairn could exactly explain the tablets, “Goes with my luck so far.”
Daul flipped the data-slate upside down and shook it, vainly hoping that it would jar some morsel of knowledge from the recesses of the data. Or at least change it into a language he could understand, the scribbles were as incomprehensible as the numbers, “What language is this written in anyway? A dialect of proto-gothic?”
Cairn nodded.
Daul looked frustratedly at Cairn, “None of this data is even remotely useful to me if I do go through the effort of having a logic engine run this through its machine spirit and collate the data?”
Cairn shook his head.
“Sáclair is going to make me walk up to the bridge and talk to him while he's sitting on that gaudy excuse for a throne isn't he?”
Cairn nodded.
“The universe hates me doesn't it.”
Cairn nodded and shook his shoulders, the closest thing to laughter he was capable of. Clearly he found the situation to be as amusing as Sáclair no doubt did. Humor was not a characteristic emphasized by the adepts of the machine god but in spite of this Cairn seemed to have gained a healthy sense of irony and sarcasm that he used to the best of his ability. It was just as well that the Skitarii would never be in the service of the Admech in the future, they would probably consider a jovial Skitarii to be some grievous form of heresy.
The throne to which Dual referred sat in the middle of the command deck in a high ceilinged hall with wide banks of data-screens and vid-banks arranged around the room like the multicolored glass of a cathedral window. The room was a physical representation of the opulence and temporal powers to which Sáclair had access. The Endless Bounty was a city of its own packed into four miles of starship. It was a community of thousands for whom the command deck represented the epicenter for king, country, and God-Emperor. Though none of the crew were so craven or so bold as to deny the Emperor the base of Nathaniel's command chair was probably the closest most of them would ever get to reaching the Holy Throne of High Terra. The crew of the bounty were, with few exceptions, void-born folk. Entire generations would be born, live, and die without ever having entered an atmospheric shuttle or left an airlock. Every deck and sector was a city of a greater nation flying the livery of the Lion of Sáclair.
Like any other nation the Endless Bounty was steeped in tradition and governed by custom. Since the ship first left the Damascus IV shipyards and went to the stars the de-facto center of society and culture was always the grand hall of the command deck. The ship's command structure was ostensibly a meritocracy the majority of Sáclairs court of officers had gained their positions hereditarily. Like any oligarchy it suited them to structure government in such a way that they could primp and pose for the lesser members of their world, showing their superiority. One could always expect a queue of deckhands, gunners, ratings, and merchants petitioning the magistrate for marriage, divorce, or any number of other legal matters. It would be rare for either a member of the command staff to be involved in such matters but they always occurred under the watchful gaze of Sáclair.
Daul was a man of status and would not have to queue up with the crew but a meeting with Sáclair would require him to obey the protocol else risk insulting Sáclair and freeing him from his debts. It was unlikey that Sáclair expected such an obvious ploy to work but it would amuse Sáclair to no end to force Daul to operate within a social structure that he dominated. Sáclair would obey the whims of Daul but in order to get him to do so Daul would have to maintain the image of amiable servitude to a benevolent captain.
It would be a small price to pay but it was no less annoying.
Such byplay was all well and good, Daul supposed but custom dictated that he wear full inquisitorial livery bearing all the seals of his office and his signed inquisitorial mandate, which was frankly more of a hassle than he wished to deal with for a relatively simple status report. He would have to do it. He needed the information Sáclair was withholding.
“Still, if Sáclair insists upon me arriving in full livery I will do so,” Daul smiled wickedly an amusing idea popping into his head, “Cairn, how quickly can you get my formal livery out of storage?”
Cairn looked at Daul confusedly, one of the tentacle like mechandrites that dangled from where his mouth used to be lazily raised and pointed in the direction of Daul's armoire.
“Not that one.”
Cairn nodded to the laundry hamper.
“No Cairn my other suit.”
Cairns mechandrites shifted excitedly and his shoulders shook as comprehension dawned on him. Sáclair was not the only one with a sense of irony.
I own nothing.
THIS WILL BE A CROSSOVER BE FOREWARNED.
-----------
Daul's perennial nightmare had not changed in decades, his terrifying fever dreams as inevitable as the act of sleep. He would close his eyes and find himself in the home of his youth, as unchanged and welcoming as it had been in childhood. It had been decades since he'd last been to Metzik, it had never been the same after the imperial purges but his childhood memories of the world would always be of a place that was green and full of life. Throne help him how he missed the smells of cooking meat from his mothers kitchen and the smell of curing wood in his father's workshop. His father.... His father, it all came back to his father in the end. Daul was perhaps the only child in existence who's greatest desire was his father die and stay dead.
His father never stayed dead. His father could never stay dead.
Usually Daul would avoid the dream by self-medicating with a compound that granted dreamless sleep. It was an effective substance but not without side effects and Daul could not afford to dull his whits in the following morning. So it was that he was once again in his dream, a small and helpless boy fleeing a gore-soaked effigy of his parent. Daul knew that he was within a dream, knew that the monster was long since dead, knew that by force of will and by the strength of his own hands he had crushed stronger fores in a heartbeat but in his dreamful state the only facts that seemed to hold sway were the need for safety and the furious beating of his own heart.
Daul's childhood home was exactly as it had been in his youth, a large center hall house of the traditional Metzik fashion. A tall house made out of the dark wood of the forest that blanketed most of the planet, a warm place of the smells of spices and cured meats. It was a simple place, a place of plenty and relative calm in the grand empire of mankind. A world untouched by the wars and conflict that raged through most of the galaxy, a paradise by all accounts.
It was also the place where Daul's father would kill his entire family.
It had been an accident in the mines that killed his father, or so they said at first. Some fool hadn't properly shored up the supports and the whole tunnel collapsed. It was a tragedy for the entire community of miners. Efforts were made to dig survivors out of the cave and some were saved but Daul's father was not one of the ones unearthed by the rescue teams. In the following days Daul sat with his mother and this three sisters in the chapel the Emperor, ostensibly praying wisdom and salvation. Daul did not pray for his father's salvation, he prayed for his father's resurrection. If the great saint Daufn Por had been raised at the will of the God Emperor then why not a man as good and true as Daul's father.
It was not the emperor who heeded Daul's prayers for resurrection but his prayers were answered, after a fasion.
Daul's father came back. He emerged days later from a shaft on the southern ridge, covered in soot and looking like death warmed over but alive as any man. It had been heralded as a miracle of the God-Emperor when Daul's father had come out of the southern mineshaft unhurt some two weeks later. A curse cloaked as a blessing.
For in the days that followed his father would become more distant, laugh less, eat more, and be prone to capricious bouts of fury. Sven Hilder had never said a cross word in his life before but rapidly became the worst sort of man. Something in that shaft had changed him something that he had found in the darker pits of the earth. The colonists had no way of knowing this but man was not the first creature to colonize Metzik. There were xenos of the worst kinds imaginable in Metzik's distant past, monsters who could drive a man mad simply by gazing upon their warped visage. Beneath the surface of Metzik lay remnants of great evils long past. Creatures of spite and craft had once lived on Metzik and had left artifacts of twisted powers and false promise to tempt the unwary.
In life he had welcomed his father back with open arms but in the dream he was wiser. He would try to convince his family that the thing that visited them nightly was not his father, to warn them of the danger that this twisted mockery of a man represented, but they didn't listen.
Please, Emperor help me... Please make them listen... I can't let it happen again!
His mother would cry and embrace the father-thing and his sister would praise the God-Emperor for his grace. It waited for the end of her prayer to change, the blasphemy of corrupting a child's prayers too tempting to resist. No longer was it the hale and healthy image of his father but a twisted and malevolent abattoir beast wearing his father's face grinning a chelsea smile. Then it would begin, and he would do nothing.
What could a child be expected to do? But he was not a child was he? Was he not a grown man? No.. not in the dream... never in the dream...
Daul would watch his family being butchered by the chaos spawned xenoform father-creature. In Daul's own life the creature was slain many years ago by his mentor Inquistor Martin Gaal but there would be no power-armored rescuer in the nightmare. He was alone to fight off his father. What boy can fight his own father?
He's not my father, not my father. My father could never be you! Please don't be my father...
He was alone with the cruel mockery of his father's love, forced to listen to its insane cackle and listen to its fleshy chewing. For the icon bound to his father's flesh could only be paid for its boons of power and madness in flesh and blood, the universal currencies of sacrifice.
He would try to trick himself into believing that his father had not killed him out of love, that he would take all he needed out of the others and leave Daul alone but love was a boon his father could no longer grant, another sacrifice to his blasphemous icon. The room would spin as he stood, spindly young legs shaking with panic and sorrow. It made no sense for it to be happening and thus must not be true.
Please let it not be true.
The soft and almost seductive voice of his father whispered hollow words of comfort and love to Daul, “Come now child never fear, you are safe, you're always safe around your father.”
Daul would stand still, wishing to believe it but knowing it to be false. He would sit and listen to the creature's platitudes and promises till it started to scoop out the soft contents of his mothers head and start pawing chunks into a distended maw. The urge to flee overpowered all his other conflicting emotions.
Daul's child mind was frustratingly uncreative, the protection of a blanket and a stuffed bear seem as powerful as any void shield. No matter how many times he fled to his room his secret place in the hollow space in the wall between his bed and where his chest of toys sat did not protect him but he still ran there to clutch his favorite stuffed animal as though the misshapen and thread-worn bear could provide sanctuary. As though the overstuffed face held a reliquary of the Golden Throne itself.
Clutching the bear he would pray to his mother for guidance, a weak child sending impotent prayers sent to the dead. The ancestors could not save him from the predations of chaos spawned xenotech.
Ragged breath and shambling bow-legged footsteps caused by something large caused him greater and greater panic with every passing second. The softest creaks and echoes of the shifting of floorboards sounded thunderous in Daul's ears.
Daul tried to hide himself in the friendly face of the overstuffed bear, hopping to muffle the sound of his frenzied breathing and the furious tattoo of his own heart.
The creature's hands made wet noises as they slapped on the frame of his bedroom door. It grinned it's twisted skeletal grin, stretching out the skin of his father's face and cried out, “Daul... are we playing a game now Daul? Daddy likes games?”
Daul squeezed himself into a tighter ball.
“Why don't we play a game Daddy likes? Do you want to play the game Daddy and Mommy just played? I promise we'll only do it once,” It cackled to itself as it tore the clothes in Daul's closet to shreds.
“Or do you want to play a game of hide and seek? Oh what a naughty child you are hiding from daddy,” its voice darkened, “remember... Daddy loves you doesn't he?” More laughter followed.
“Ok, new rules to the game. Daddy finds you and we play a game he likes, Daddy doesn't find you and you get to leave?” Liar... he would never escape. Daul choked back a sob, Damn, had it heard?No... emperor almighty let it not have heard.... please.
Seconds passed that felt like an eternity, the creature stood in the room ranting and raving to itself till it grew bored, there was the sound of footsteps then silence, glorious silence. It might have left after all, perhaps tonight was the night were “daddy” lost the game.
Daul dared not check, but what other option was there?
Daul shifted his weight and looked out the hollow. In the darkness there was nothing, a great void of emptiness. No, not nothing, throne help him not nothing, in the darkness there was a still darker shadow shuddering with silent laughter.
The last memory of his dream was a wicked taloned hand grabbing, twisting, and clawing at his flesh.
--
Daul shot out of bed, roughly clipping the crown of his head on the alcove above. His fears and worries about the dream were numbed by the throbbing pain in his now swollen and throbbing head. Lights blinked before his eyes as he made his way to the washbasin at the side of the room. The rooms provided for Daul by Captain Nathaniel Emanuelle Sáclair were spacious by naval standards but poorly suited for the broad form and tall stature of the Metzik native. The only larger spaces were either poorly placed in terms of security and privacy. It would not do to either leave himself wide open for an attack or to allow a member of the crew to witness a member of His Majesty's most glorious Inquisition reduced to tears over a bad dream.
But it wasn't just a dream was it?
It was a memory of things long past, things that might have been and ought not be allowed to pass in future. Most people feared the demons of their past, the Inquisitors simply had the luxury of being able to put names and faces on those who haunt the recesses of dreams and nightmares. Many in his profession either ended their own lives or went mad from the pressure, the sacrifices of uncensored knowledge of the universe. Daul's discomfort was well deserved but difficult to explain, better to maintain the anonymity and privacy expected of his position. Daul was not long trapped in such dark musing however, the massive form of Daul's attendant brushed through the door to his private chambers carrying a strong drink in one hand and a data slate in the other.
Daul smiled, “Cairn you're a saint.”
Cairn Thross served as bodyguard, attendant, and confidant to Daul. He was a large man, larger still than Daul himself, posessed of a stoic manner and a cloaked frame bulging with augmentic implants. Cairn had once been a member of the Skitarii, the special defense forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus before his assignment to Daul in payment for services rendered in defense of the Daskal Forge. Cairn was as unwavering in his duties to Daul as he was in his devotion to the omassiah, completing all tasks in silent efficacy. He was also an alarmingly good cook and bartender who had long since given up solid food and strong drink for the intravenous nutrition drip favored by the Skitarii.
Exactly how one of the augmentic soldiers of the machine god had become so proficient in the various domestics, dalliances, and duties of an inquisitorial attendant was something of a mystery to Daul, a mystery that Cairn was unlikely to ever resolve. Though all of Daul's earthly oaths of loyalty and fealty were bound to Daul his spiritual oaths to the omassiah were unchanged. All members of Cairns legion took an oath of silent obedience, swearing only to speak in the secret binary tongue of the machine. Cairns brief bouts of speech were invariably in a garish and whirring tone of garbled screeches and clicks. Binary, the secret language of the machine worshippers was totally alien to most of the universe, some members of the Inquisition attested that it wasn't even translatable by mortal man and could only be bestowed by the curious machine sorceries of the Admech. After over two decades of listening to the garbled warbling speech and Daul was tempted to agree.
There were a number of mysteries to Skitarii Thross' name. Even if Cairn were able to speak Daul doubted that Cairn would betray the honor of his order and reveal their secrets nor would Daul be able to ask for them in good faith. Daul would have to survive on the silent service of his faithful aide without knowing every secret, a privilege rarely given by an Inquisitor.
“Thank you Cairn,” Cairn made the symbol of the cog, his universal symbol of thanks, welcome, and greeting used in lieu of speech.
Daul shook his head, someday he would learn that small-talk was wasted on his impassive metallic acquaintance. He accepted the drink and the data-slate and proceeded to partake in both. The drink transpired to be less mind numbing than the data reports on the slate. There was only one conclusion to be drawn from the voluminous facts and figures, “Nathaniel Sáclair despises me.”
Sáclair hated Daul for the same reason that he was honor bound to aid Daul in times of need. Daul had saved his life and his honor. Sáclair would never be able to properly repay Daul for the debt he owed, a fact that galled the notoriously willful and violently independent captain of the Endless Bounty. Sáclair would never be so uncouth as to leave a debt of honor unpaid but his puckish and theatrical nature demanded that he rebel as much as honor allowed. Childish pranks were how Sáclair allowed himself to maintain his own sanity and sense of control. In this instance the status report that Daul had requested was not a simple summary of the past eight hours and an estimated time of arrival but rather a complete historical log of both the travels of the Endless Bounty and the Belzafest outpost. Without spending months or years sifting through the data it was useless.
Daul looked up at Cairn, “No chance this makes any sense to you does it?”
Cairn nodded.
“Yeah, that figures,” it wasn't as though Cairn could exactly explain the tablets, “Goes with my luck so far.”
Daul flipped the data-slate upside down and shook it, vainly hoping that it would jar some morsel of knowledge from the recesses of the data. Or at least change it into a language he could understand, the scribbles were as incomprehensible as the numbers, “What language is this written in anyway? A dialect of proto-gothic?”
Cairn nodded.
Daul looked frustratedly at Cairn, “None of this data is even remotely useful to me if I do go through the effort of having a logic engine run this through its machine spirit and collate the data?”
Cairn shook his head.
“Sáclair is going to make me walk up to the bridge and talk to him while he's sitting on that gaudy excuse for a throne isn't he?”
Cairn nodded.
“The universe hates me doesn't it.”
Cairn nodded and shook his shoulders, the closest thing to laughter he was capable of. Clearly he found the situation to be as amusing as Sáclair no doubt did. Humor was not a characteristic emphasized by the adepts of the machine god but in spite of this Cairn seemed to have gained a healthy sense of irony and sarcasm that he used to the best of his ability. It was just as well that the Skitarii would never be in the service of the Admech in the future, they would probably consider a jovial Skitarii to be some grievous form of heresy.
The throne to which Dual referred sat in the middle of the command deck in a high ceilinged hall with wide banks of data-screens and vid-banks arranged around the room like the multicolored glass of a cathedral window. The room was a physical representation of the opulence and temporal powers to which Sáclair had access. The Endless Bounty was a city of its own packed into four miles of starship. It was a community of thousands for whom the command deck represented the epicenter for king, country, and God-Emperor. Though none of the crew were so craven or so bold as to deny the Emperor the base of Nathaniel's command chair was probably the closest most of them would ever get to reaching the Holy Throne of High Terra. The crew of the bounty were, with few exceptions, void-born folk. Entire generations would be born, live, and die without ever having entered an atmospheric shuttle or left an airlock. Every deck and sector was a city of a greater nation flying the livery of the Lion of Sáclair.
Like any other nation the Endless Bounty was steeped in tradition and governed by custom. Since the ship first left the Damascus IV shipyards and went to the stars the de-facto center of society and culture was always the grand hall of the command deck. The ship's command structure was ostensibly a meritocracy the majority of Sáclairs court of officers had gained their positions hereditarily. Like any oligarchy it suited them to structure government in such a way that they could primp and pose for the lesser members of their world, showing their superiority. One could always expect a queue of deckhands, gunners, ratings, and merchants petitioning the magistrate for marriage, divorce, or any number of other legal matters. It would be rare for either a member of the command staff to be involved in such matters but they always occurred under the watchful gaze of Sáclair.
Daul was a man of status and would not have to queue up with the crew but a meeting with Sáclair would require him to obey the protocol else risk insulting Sáclair and freeing him from his debts. It was unlikey that Sáclair expected such an obvious ploy to work but it would amuse Sáclair to no end to force Daul to operate within a social structure that he dominated. Sáclair would obey the whims of Daul but in order to get him to do so Daul would have to maintain the image of amiable servitude to a benevolent captain.
It would be a small price to pay but it was no less annoying.
Such byplay was all well and good, Daul supposed but custom dictated that he wear full inquisitorial livery bearing all the seals of his office and his signed inquisitorial mandate, which was frankly more of a hassle than he wished to deal with for a relatively simple status report. He would have to do it. He needed the information Sáclair was withholding.
“Still, if Sáclair insists upon me arriving in full livery I will do so,” Daul smiled wickedly an amusing idea popping into his head, “Cairn, how quickly can you get my formal livery out of storage?”
Cairn looked at Daul confusedly, one of the tentacle like mechandrites that dangled from where his mouth used to be lazily raised and pointed in the direction of Daul's armoire.
“Not that one.”
Cairn nodded to the laundry hamper.
“No Cairn my other suit.”
Cairns mechandrites shifted excitedly and his shoulders shook as comprehension dawned on him. Sáclair was not the only one with a sense of irony.