Vorushko

Inquisitor Vorushko cast the data slate aside and gazed idly at the artificial flames in the fireplace of her state room aboard the Inquisition ship Lord of Light. This was her base of operations now. With the apparent rise of Guilliman and the involvement of the living saint, much of her Crusade had abandoned her. The Crusade fleet, a rag tag but giant force of vessels with fanatical zeal, as well as the firebrand priests had all gone, swept up on a holy crusade to Terra, where Celestine herself had appeared with the resurrection of the Primarch of the Ultramarines. Now only three chapters of Astartes, the Sky Lords, Minotaurs and Angels Repentent, kept faith with her, along with elements of the mechanicus and several guard regiments she had managed to secure. But her fleet numbered mere tens of ships where once there had been hundreds.

Vorushko remained skeptical. She knew within her heart there was something wrong with Guilliman, no matter what her one time friend Greyfax claimed, the reappearance of the Primarch after ten millenia and the involvement of Xenos proved to her that the Primarch could not be trusted. "Trust me" Greyfax had ended her communication, but how could Natalia trust a friend who had been trapped by Xenos for several centuries? To Natalia, trust meant nothing. Faith and righteousness had been her defence in the past and had served her well. She knew her purpose was just and her plan the only one which would deliver mankind from the alien and the heretic on the eastern rim. Faith in the emperor had got her through the warpstorms of the Aurelis Deeps which had trapped her ship for more than three hundred Terran years, and Faith had told her this sector must burn to cleanse the wound eating at the heart of the Imperium.

And now the new data from Corticant. Her agents had done well, intercepting the secret communique to the idiot Hathek. The old fool still had little idea of the power that had been found under the surface of the world, and worse, they had managed to accidentally activate the thing. Now it would be calling to all who had the with to hear it.

Natalia knew what the object found in the caverns was. This was the third, or possily fourth such construct to have been found in the Perseus Deeps. At first the Imperium had assumed these "devices" had been created by the warp spawn of chaos, having first encountered such an artefact in the possession of the Iron Warriors, but her junior Inquisitor, Xanthus, had managed to destroy it on Myrentas II, dying in the attempt. This device had been used to fold space and punch tunnels through the warp, sacrificing thousands of living souls to power it.

Another had been found on Valitane, and yet a third on Protogonus. The device on Valitane had been similarly used by chaos, this time to bend the warp to the will of its masters, controlling the population and almost overthrowing imperial rule. Vorushko's agents had stopped that just in time, and then discovered a third being analysed by the Tau and Federacy on Protogonus. the alliance, ignorant heretical fools that they were, attempted to harness the power of the device to build an impenetrable energy shield, with varying, often disastrous results.

Now another, a fourth had been found on Corticant. As yet Hathek and his "loyalists" were not yet aware of what they had found, but this one was different. Not only had the device been found intact, but the ancient power core it sat upon. And it had been powered up... Even the accidental feeding of one living soul to the device was enough to start the ancient engines, which now broadcast their signal across the Perseus Deeps. Others would come, tempted like moths to a flame.

Vorushko stood, her mind made up. Pulling the hood over her long flowing hair, the inquisitor lord made her way to the bridge of the Lord of Light.

"Summon the Crusade Council. We are going to war".