V3 Chapter 5: Having the Inquisition on Your Side Has Its Uses
When the officer announced a highest-priority emergency report, Duvette's feet stopped moving.
Calgar did not immediately send him away. He took the sealed data-slate, completed the identity verification, and began reading.
The officer added in a low voice: "My lord, a sealed copy of the report has been transmitted to the sector Inquisitorial representative under the suspected Warp contamination protocols."
Calgar's brow came down.
He had already been holding his anger from the previous exchange. Looking at the report's contents, his expression grew considerably heavier. The severity in that face showed nothing approaching fear: only anger that kept building.
Duvette heard the words "Warp contamination" and stayed where he was.
Chaos corruption.
Those words appearing at this exact moment was too convenient to ignore.
He glanced at Werner, standing to his side.
Werner understood immediately.
The Lord Inquisitor stepped forward half a pace and addressed Calgar directly. "If the report concerns Chaos corruption, the Inquisition has the right to know its contents."
Calgar looked at him.
Werner continued. "This is very likely connected to the task we are currently executing. Anomalies on Ultramar's outer worlds fall within our remit."
Before Calgar could respond, Juno also raised her head.
The expression on her face had changed completely. The satisfied observer's look from earlier was gone, replaced by something considerably more businesslike.
"Any interference factor affecting a major Inquisitorial task must be addressed," Juno said. "If what has occurred on Tarentus is connected to Warp contamination, it cannot be treated as an ordinary planetary administrative dispute."
Calgar was silent for a moment.
His gaze moved from both Lord Inquisitors to Duvette.
Duvette stood where he was and said nothing.
He knew he had already pushed Calgar's patience close to its limit. Having the Inquisition make this request was considerably more appropriate than asking about the report's contents himself.
Calgar spoke at last.
"Under those circumstances, and with the caveat that nothing relating to Eldar is involved, I can disclose the Warp-contamination elements of this report in your presence."
He placed the data-slate onto the central data-interface in the council chamber.
The hololithic projection activated.
A standard Inquisitorially-formatted report appeared. At the top of the display were the seals of the Ultramar defence network and the Inquisitorial sealed-copy authorisation marker.
Calgar raised a hand and opened the first section.
The report identified a transport vessel that had been scheduled for Tarentus.
Its registration number placed it within the reconstruction-supply transit sequence. Its cargo consisted of building materials, machine components, food rations, medical supplies, and a batch of armed equipment intended for the restoration of Tarentus's local defence network, all required for the planet's post-war reconstruction.
According to its planned route, it should have entered the Tarentus outer control zone after completing its Warp transit.
Instead, after emerging from the system's Mandeville point, it had begun drifting through the void without heading or purpose.
It did not respond to any communications.
The automatic identification transponder was still operating. The ship's main drive was running at low power. The navigational beacon had not been shut down. But no matter how many times Tarentus orbital control attempted to reach the vessel, it answered only with silence.
When the anomaly was confirmed, Tarentus dispatched a patrol vessel to approach and investigate.
The information returned by the first boarding party reached the Inquisition and immediately set off alerts.
Calgar continued scrolling forward.
Images and footage appeared in the projection.
The council chamber fell into silence again.
The visual material had been subjected to sanitisation processing. Large sections were obscured behind black redaction overlays. Even so, what remained visible was more than sufficient for everyone present to understand what had happened aboard that ship.
Every one of the tens of thousands of crew, armed personnel, and embarked labourers was dead.
Their deaths had been extraordinarily cruel.
What the footage showed included what appeared to be intact pieces of unknown leather material, stretched flat and fixed to bulkheads with metal pins along the edges. Several of the ship's corridors had been arranged with various deeply disturbing materials into what looked like ritual pathways, the colours and shapes deliberately ordered.
A second video showed the cargo bay floor covered in murals.
Under the ship's lighting, the murals appeared in shades of dark red and purple-black. An Inquisitorial annotation warned that the images should not be observed for extended periods, as prolonged exposure risked auditory hallucinations, severe nausea, and mental breakdown.
The bridge footage was worse.
Crew members had been fixed in position at their stations, fingers forced into place near their control panels. The captain's face still bore the expression of the last moments before death.
More skulls had been arranged along both sides of the bridge.
They appeared to be watching whoever entered.
A large volume of additional imagery remained locked behind access restrictions in the report's later sections.
The Inquisition's stated reason was brief.
Unprocessed content carries active Chaos contamination risk. Prohibited from distribution. Prohibited from duplication. Prohibited from viewing by unauthorised personnel.
The first boarding party had suffered irreversible psychological damage in its entirety.
They had been executed by the Inquisition.
The report offered no further elaboration on this, only the reference number for the applicable purification protocol.
No one in the hall spoke.
Even the Ultramarines held their silence before material like this. Cruelty itself was not unfamiliar; they had seen xenos massacres, they had seen the work of the Traitor Legions. But what had been done aboard this ship carried the weight of deliberate display. It was plainly not merely about seizing a vessel or stripping its cargo.
It was closer to a letter. A message sent along the Tarentus shipping lanes with the clear intention of being found.
The Chief Librarian, who had been standing to one side, spoke slowly.
"This reads as a provocation. Someone wants us to see it."
Duvette looked toward him.
Varro Tigurius stood at Calgar's rear flank, wearing the blue armour of his office, his psychic hood deactivated. But his gaze had not moved from the projection since it appeared, as though he was reading what lay beneath the images and the text.
Calgar did not disagree.
He made a short, cold sound and moved to the next section.
The second report came from the Tarentus planetary governor's office.
It indicated that after Calgar had departed the relevant warzone, the political disputes surrounding Tarentus's reconstruction had been gradually expanding.
In the beginning, it had been disagreements between the reconstruction committee, the Ministorum pacification delegation, local noble houses, and the Ultramar Auxilia.
One faction held that the reconstruction ceremonies on Tarentus had to be completed exactly according to their prescribed sequence.
They insisted that every memorial observance, every restoration report, every scheduled milestone had to be precise. Any work offered to Ultramar and to the gene-sire could not be permitted to carry imperfection.
Whatever sacrifice that required was appropriate.
The opposing faction held that order had to come first.
They demanded the excessive ceremonies be suspended and called for a full audit of the population, material stockpiles, military strength, and actual repair progress. They argued that the pursuit of perfect reconstruction was consuming Tarentus's foundations, and that continuing on the present course would produce far worse consequences.
The dispute escalated quickly.
The local defence forces split. Armed clashes broke out in reconstruction work zones. Several memorial plazas were seized by competing factions. The planetary governor admitted in the report that full-scale civil war on Tarentus was close to breaking out.
He was requesting Ultramarine intervention.
Taken in isolation, a political dispute and a planetary civil war were not exceptional events.
The Imperium was too vast.
Every day, somewhere, worlds erupted in conflict over taxation, succession, faith, food, minerals, or defence commitments. As long as loyalty remained, the Departmento Munitorum and local governance structures could always find a way to press the situation back into order.
But this was different.
A transport vessel that had evidently been worked over by Chaos forces had just appeared on the Tarentus shipping lane. At exactly the same time, Tarentus itself had descended into civil war over "perfect reconstruction" and "restoring order."
Calgar could not treat those two things as unrelated.
Had the civil war on Tarentus been deliberately provoked by cultists?
Or had some Chaos influence already taken a hand in it?
Calgar drew a slow breath.
He shut down part of the projection and retained only the Tarentus orbital map and the distribution of local conflict zones.
A moment passed. He reached his decision.
"Tigurius."
The Chief Librarian looked up.
"Take a company to Tarentus," Calgar said. "Determine what happened to the transport vessel, stabilise the local situation, and confirm whether any Chaos ritual activity is present."
Tigurius inclined his head.
"By your will."
At the name Varro Tigurius, something sharpened in Duvette's eyes.
This was the man who, in the original timeline, had been guided by his own prophetic visions to believe that Yvraine could save Guilliman.
If he could bring Tigurius on board, it might be possible to bring Calgar back to the table for the rest of the conversation.
Duvette did not let that calculation stay on his face for long.
He recognised quickly that something more immediate needed his attention first.
If this was genuinely Slaanesh's work, the target was almost certainly not Tarentus alone.
They had arrived at Macragge, and almost immediately a transport vessel turned into something resembling a work of horrifying art had appeared on the Tarentus shipping lane. The timing was too precise. The method was too deliberate.
This could be a provocation directed at Ultramar.
Or it could be something directed specifically at Duvette's group: an invitation, or a trap.
Either way, it was an opportunity.
A chance for Tigurius to witness certain things with his own eyes.
Duvette stepped forward.
"Lord Calgar."
Calgar turned to look at him.
"We can assist with this investigation."
Calgar's expression did not change.
Duvette continued. "Our purpose in coming to Macragge includes investigating potential threats to worlds within the Ultramar region. Chaos threats fall squarely within that remit."
Werner spoke immediately. "He is correct."
Juno gave a nod as well.
"This matter now falls within the scope of our Inquisitorial task," she said. "Having Duvette accompany the investigation removes a considerable amount of potential friction later."
Calgar's gaze settled on Duvette.
He did not agree immediately.
The earlier meeting had not truly ended. The "source of power that does not belong to the Imperium" that Duvette had mentioned was still sitting in Calgar's thinking, unresolved.
Allowing Duvette to join the Tarentus operation meant permitting the same man who had just proposed something dangerous to continue involving himself in Ultramar's affairs.
Duvette held Calgar's gaze.
He did not look away, and he did not offer any further explanation.
Calgar looked at him for a long time.
"I want no Eldar involvement."
The words carried considerable weight.
Duvette gave a nod.
"None whatsoever."
He paused, then added: "I will not act without restraint within Ultramar. I have shed blood for this place before."
Something in Calgar's expression eased.
That last line had reached something. Duvette had bled for Macragge, and he had made choices for this world. Even if what he was proposing now was difficult to accept, what had come before still existed.
Calgar spoke.
"You may accompany Tigurius to Tarentus."
"The Ultramarines lead the operation."
"Your people operate under their direction."
Duvette gave a nod.
"Understood."
Calgar looked to Tigurius.
"Prepare to depart."
Then he looked at Duvette once more.
"I have other matters to attend to."
Duvette rendered a bow.
"May the Emperor watch over Ultramar."
Calgar did not return the blessing. His gaze went back to the Tarentus orbital map.
Duvette turned and left the council chamber.
Evan followed at his back. Werner and Juno came with them. Cawl said nothing, but as he passed alongside Duvette in the corridor, his vocaliser produced a short, flat mechanical sound.
"Your complications are becoming more layered."
Duvette did not slow down.
"I know."
He walked out into the long corridor beyond the chamber doors.
Tarentus. The death ship. Chaos corruption. Tigurius.
All the pieces together.
If this was Slaanesh's invitation, he had seen it.
If something deeper was behind it, then Tarentus was where he would have to dig it out.
A trap? He was no longer sure who was the hunter and who was the prey.