Chapter 328: Judgement
Inquisitor Trasolh was a young man who had just turned thirty-two. He wore a suit of Ignatus-pattern power armour, predominantly gold with black runic trim.
A power sword hung from his left hip, a master-crafted bolt pistol from his right.
Over his heart, a small shield was mounted on the left side of his chestplate, and set into that shield was a Rosette.
This man, barely into his thirties, was already the senior-most Inquisitor of a sub-sector on the Imperium's far eastern frontier — nearly a hundred worlds under his sole jurisdiction.
Within those hundred worlds, he wielded absolute power over life and death. If he wished it, he could have virtually every Planetary Governor in his domain put to the sword.
But for now, this young man was the picture of geniality.
Inquisitor Trasolh smiled at the Planetary Governor and opened with a casual jab:
"My dear Governor, I've been travelling for quite some time and I'm positively famished. Surely you're not planning to receive me standing on a landing pad?
I happen to know this is an agri-world. The natural produce grown here is the kind of thing you simply can't find elsewhere."
The Planetary Governor snapped to attention and scurried ahead like a servant, leading the way.
"Right this way, my lord! The banquet is already prepared!"
The entire party relocated to the banquet hall inside the Governor's residence.
Inquisitor Trasolh was seated at the head of the table — the chair that had always belonged to the Planetary Governor.
The Governor himself didn't even qualify for the secondary seats. Those were occupied by Trasolh's retinue.
And what a retinue it was.
A three-metre-tall Ogryn sat in the corner like an oversized child, surrounded by a chaotic spread of food. His enormous mouth — a black hole in human form — crunched through a slab of meat, bone and all. His teeth might as well have been made of steel; the bones shattered between his jaws like dry twigs.
Two figures who looked like upright rats, neither taller than 1.5 metres, sat with oversized sniper rifles strapped to their backs.
A woman with cat-like ears wore a suit of light powered armour, twin autopistols holstered at her waist.
A middle-aged man in standard-pattern power armour had a conspicuous antenna rising from his helmet and a personal data terminal mounted on his forearm.
And finally, pale-faced and nursing a glass of red wine with two daggers at his belt, Baron Pallid sat off to one side.
It was a textbook Inquisitorial protection detail, every role accounted for.
Inquisitors spent most of their lives traversing the void. They visited countless sectors and encountered abhuman strains that most Imperial citizens would never see.
These abhumans each brought unique talents to the table. The Ogryn, for instance — three metres tall, a walking mountain of meat. Their intelligence hovered around that of a three-year-old, but their physical density and raw strength were on par with a fully armoured Astartes.
The cat-eared woman with her delicate features and distinctly Eastern aesthetic was a sanctioned abhuman strain of the Imperium. Her kind could hear sounds far beyond normal human perception. Their bodies were as agile as an Aeldari warrior's. Cat-quick and hyper-alert, they were ideal for an Inquisitor's close protection detail — they often detected threats before anyone else in the room.
The two diminutive figures with the sniper rifles were Ratling marksmen. Thieves, greedy merchants, surprisingly capable cooks, and born snipers. Their marksmanship seemed to be coded into their DNA. Give them a high-calibre rifle and promise them enough coin, and all you had to do was sit back and wait for miracles.
The walking computer of a man was an operative from the Officio Assassinorum — a Vanus Temple intelligence assassin. This type didn't engage in direct combat. They were elite infiltration hackers, and the electronic equipment they carried provided comprehensive communications and intelligence support.
How Inquisitor Trasolh had managed to recruit an Assassinorum operative was anyone's guess. The Inquisition and the Officio Assassinorum were separate institutions entirely, and jurisdictional overlap between the two had historically been a source of friction.
These bodyguards occupied the seats of honour. The Planetary Governor, meanwhile, had been squeezed to the far end of the table like a servant at his own feast.
The Governor put on his most ingratiating smile.
"I trust everything is to your liking? All the dishes are prepared with vegetables grown directly in our soil — no chemical additives whatsoever. One hundred per cent natural."
Inquisitor Trasolh picked up a cut of guana-beast, took a bite, and nodded with a smile.
"Mm. Delicious. When you spend extended periods travelling through the void, food like this becomes a rare luxury. My thanks for the hospitality, Governor."
Then his tone shifted.
"Tell me, Governor — how much of this food can you provide?
Twenty years of unpaid tithes. If you attempted to cover the entire debt in natural foodstuffs, I imagine the soil of this planet would be stripped of all organic content long before you finished. Wouldn't it?"
The Governor collapsed into his seat with an audible thud, sweat visibly beading on his enormous face.
"M-my lord! I... I... I..."
He was on the verge of tears, stammering helplessly.
The cat-eared bodyguard sitting beside the Inquisitor pinched her nose and waved a hand in disgust.
"Mrow! He's wet himself! That's revolting, mrow!"
The two Ratlings let out chittering snickers. While everyone's attention was elsewhere, their little hands darted across the table, stuffing gold and silver cutlery into their pockets.
The Inquisitor continued eating, his voice perfectly level.
"Obligation to the Imperium represents loyalty to the Imperium. Twenty years of neglected obligation is twenty years of absent loyalty."
The Governor cried out in terror:
"I'll make it up! I'll pay the tithes in full! Please, my lord, just give me time!"
"Time? Twenty years wasn't enough?"
The Inquisitor's question landed like a hammer blow.
"The tithe fleet didn't come for twenty years, but those twenty years didn't simply vanish.
Protocol is clear: if the tithe fleet fails to arrive due to extraordinary circumstances, the planet in question is required to stockpile all outstanding tithes in advance, to be surrendered in full upon the fleet's eventual return.
So what, exactly, have you been doing for the past twenty years, Governor?"
The Vanus operative glanced at the data display on his gauntlet and spoke in a flat, clinical tone.
"Based on my analysis of intercepted local data, the planet is currently in a state of fragmentation. Rebel forces operate freely outside the Hive.
And you, Governor, made no meaningful effort to suppress the rebellion over the past two decades.
You chose silence. You remained inside your spire for years on end. You even dispatched trusted subordinates to actively broker a ceasefire between the PDF and the rebels, and then maintained that status quo indefinitely."
The intelligence assassin looked the Governor dead in the eye and delivered his conclusion.
"My assessment is that you deliberately abandoned pacification.
You calculated that a full-scale campaign would eventually reclaim control — perhaps within ten to fifteen years — but given the rebels' numbers and willingness to fight, the entire planet would be devastated in the process. Development would be set back by at least forty years.
If you had chosen to fight and the planet was left in ruins, you still wouldn't have been able to pay the tithes when the fleet arrived.
So you chose to let it go. You decided to preserve the planet's economic base and forgo pacification entirely.
Your plan was to maintain a relatively intact world, so that when the tithe fleet finally returned, you could leverage functioning infrastructure to repay twenty years of debt."
The operative paused to take a sip of wine, wetting his throat.
Inquisitor Trasolh turned to the Governor. "Is that accurate, Governor?
You understand, of course, that by failing to pacify the rebellion and allowing the tithe arrears to accumulate, you bear primary culpability. The sentence for that is death by white phosphorus.
Were you trying to be noble? Is that it? A selfless sacrifice for the greater good?"
At the mention of white phosphorus execution — the very thing this Governor had spent twenty years dreading — something strange happened. He grew calm.
The terror drained from his face, replaced by a stillness that hadn't been there before.
He grabbed a cloth from the table and mopped the sweat and grease from his brow. Then he picked up his utensils and began eating. Methodically. Ravenously.
He ate and ate, clearing five platters of meat and vegetables without pause, and offered the Inquisitor no answer whatsoever.
"Mrow! The Inquisitor asked you a question! How can you just sit there eating, mrow!"
The cat-eared bodyguard yowled in protest. Trasolh raised a hand, silencing her.
He simply watched the Governor eat. And eat. And eat.
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