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***
There WAS no Drop Zone Beta.
Melchoir was still stunned by this fact. What had once been the paranoid fantasy of a person running without food or sleep for a week wound up to be true, and then some.
It was true that Foleran Battle Command had created a single drop zone on the most heavily defended part of a planet and then had wrapped it in the ruse of a mass planetary invasion. Given casualty figures, it was true that Melchoir and all the hapless souls were expected to be killed to a man. In fact, the reality was almost more bizarre than his fiction.
Melchoir hadn't been the only survivor. A few thousand fighting men and vehicles had managed to escape and find themselves here. It was from them that he was piecing together the whole story.
The planet - Geomides - had been a regular, nondescript Emperor-fearing part of the Imperium. Only recently it had suddenly been overrun by the forces of chaos, lead by the mysterious grey marines against whom Melchoir had been fighting these past months. The planetary governor had sent out a plea for help, which had gone unanswered until Foleran forces had suddenly appeared. The locals thought that it was their reinforcements. They had treated all of them, including Melchoir, very well. They were sorrowed to hear of their defeat, but glad that the survivors were now amongst the ranks of their planetary defense forces.
It had become clear to Melchoir that the planet had been abandoned, and that the only chance he had of leaving was to be victorious over the enemy in their attempt of global conquest.
At least, so he had thought. After a few weeks of attempting to get comfortable in his new surroundings, and organizing the long train of Foleran Delta escapees, a surprise fell into his lap. A pair of inquisitors by the names of Druxus and Amns had arrived. They seemed to take a great deal of interest in the survivors, questioning their means of escape, and asking a great many questions about the relationship between the Ecclesiarchy and the government on Folera.
They had taken a great deal of interest as well in Melchoir in particular. He still wore, as he did every day, the pin with the crest of the Inquisition on it that he had earned in service to inquisitor Gaius Sixtus years ago. When they heard the tale of his actions and escape from Drop Zone Delta, they had insisted that the officer become part of their retinue. Melchoir couldn't refuse.
And so now here he was.
The inquisitors, in their secret wisdom, had an important mission to accomplish. He was given sparse details, other than that speed was of the essence. Thakfully, he WAS given the resources to do his job. He was given a few handfuls of the choicest Foleran soldiers along with a few supercharged fast attack tanks that had managed to escape Delta.
Curiously, though, the inquisitors also had a retinue of their own mysterious grey marines. The exact kind that Melchoir had been fighting. He didn't know what was going on, and no one would tell him. Especially not the marines. Not only did they refuse to talk to him, but they seemed to refuse to talk at all, as if under some vow of silence.
They were there, now, in support of his motor pool. Melchoir had lined up his tanks and was rolling them forward at a reduced speed, being on the lookout for the enemy. Just what were the battle lines around here, he had no idea whatsoever. They had managed to make it a few hours through the massive ruined city before they came across even the faintest sign of active enemy action.
By mid-afternoon, they had made it to the wreckage of what had once been a pumping station of some sort. The inquisitorial forces cautiously advanced into it.
In the other side of an open vacant lot, the enemy was waiting for them.
It was a pair of Leman Russ punishers with attending infantry. He immediately recognized the mottled white camoflage pattern. He had fought against this force before. If rumors were true, these were actually native Geomidians. Apparently, the forces of chaos had been able to turn the entire tank and aircraft portions of the native planetary defenders over to their side.
Whatever the case, they would have to be faced down. Melchoir looked uneasily at the wide space they needed to cross just to get to the heavy armor, and the powerful short-range guns of the tanks once they got there. The officer had a knack of winning over cleared spaces like courtyards, but he gained that reputation by going AROUND the bald spots, not rushing headlong THROUGH them. He didn't want to have made it all this way just to commit suicide by some sort of pointless chimera charge.
As Melchoir watched the enemy, just out of the range of their guns, he began to notice something. The air on the other side of the field began to shimmer and elide, almost as if there was something invisible lurking in front of them. His intuition was well-justified as some sort of... creatures... began to pop one after another out of some arcane realm and onto the grass before him.
Melchoir closed his eyes to plot his next move.
These were demons, and needed to be dealt with swiftly. The traitor guard had some sort of an artifact that was summoning them, and must be dealt with swiftly and xyresically.
Wait a minute, Melchoir didn't know what the word "xyresic" meant. He suddenly turned his focus into his own mind, feeling a strange sensation. An overwhelming feeling of dread and betrayal overswept him, as if one woke up in the morning to find someone else's muddy bootprints on your carpet that weren't there when you went to bed last night. Was somebody... some THING else in his mind?
He shook his head violently for a moment, his helmet wobbling slightly on top of it. If there was anything that Melchoir loathed, it was witchcraft. He was suddenly filled with a trepidation regarding his new inquisitorial allies.
No, it was probably nothing.
More importantly, there was a mission to accomplish. The enemy was over there, spawning demons, apparently, and Melchoir was over here, with perhaps 6,000 horsepower of chimeras and turbo tanks, and a wide, open field that needed crossing.
He clicked on his Micro-bead.
"This is Melchoir to all units, prepare... prepare to charge."
He turned and could see the strange grey marines in a line behind him. He could see the other part of the inquisitor's retinue further up to the left. They were just waiting on his order.
"All right," the officer ordered, "Move out!"
At once, the supercharged engines of the fire tanks revved up in a blistering display of combustive power. With a jerk, they began to take off, filing in through a gap in the pumping station ruins.
As the front row of fast armor broke through, they suddenly took off. Speaker systems on the tanks started blasting
five-string music accompanied by the high-pitched banshee-wail warcry of the tank commanders.
Melchoir was flung back into the side of the top hatch as his own transport suddenly broke free and blasted forward. The whole vehicle began to buck and shimmy wildly as it shifted into top gear and began flying across the field. Mud and wind flew at Melchoir's face as the scarcely-controlled vehicle accelerated.
It was all that the officer could do to desperately hang on to the side of the hatch. He was stunned by the sudden burst of speed. He literally did not know that chimeras were possible of moving this fast. To his shock, the turbo tanks ahead of him were driving even FASTER.
Within mere seconds, the entire armored column was careening across terrain at break-neck speeds.
Suddenly, punisher gatling cannon fire began to sweep over them, and the enemy scrambled to prepare multimeltas as the chimera wall flung itself towards the Russes.
As Melchoir struggled to keep what semblance of balance he had, he could see a monstrous enemy creature spill out into realspace in front of him.
Heedless, the turbo tanks simply rammed into it, causing the demonic entity to spin off to the side. Nothing was going to break their stride, not even soon-to-be roadkill.
The roar of the engines and the lightning-fast finger-picking of the banjo soared through the air. The enemy was taken completely by surprise at how quickly they had closed the gap.
In what might have been a day of dangerous fighting on foot, the armored column managed in maybe 30 seconds. Foleran forces crashed upon their enemies.
Coming up the side were the inquisitorial grey marines, setting themselves on the demons nearby with incinerator cannons while the turbo tanks unloaded with melta charges at point blank ranges.
With a sudden, violent explosion, the banjo music came to a halt as the lead tank blew up into a massive fireball. The fighting was at lethally close quarters, and the enemy heavy armor had more firepower than their own flame tanks could bring to bear.
Melchoir's attention broke as the monstrous creature that had nearly been squashed flat had recovered and charged in against the officer's own transport as it quickly passed forward.
"Ah!" Melchoir cried as the twisted entity sprinted forward, its head at eye level with his own atop his transport. "Kill it!" he shouted leveling his own sunpistol at the enemy. From the hatches below came a blistering broadside of plasma bolts. The wave of their energy crashed into the demon causing its corporeal form to warp and fade against the murderous onslaught.
The creature kept on coming, lifting its claws to attack the officer. Rather than instinctively ducking back into the chimera, he instinctively unloaded a spray of pistol fire into the monster's face as it bore down on him. It reeled backwards against the blow.
... directly into oncoming traffic. With a horrifying squelch, the plasma-burned entity was brutally run over by a speeding vehicle. The chimera rocked on its suspension slightly as the beast was trampled under-tread.
Ahead of them, the inquisitorial forces pressed in, and the enemy desperately attempted to defend themselves, spraying gunfire everywhere in a bid to stop or even slow their assailants.
Their only hope arrived in the form of a short-ranged vendetta fighter that had managed to pick itself up into the sky and charge in against the rush of the chimeras.
The incoming aircraft let loose a concentrated blast of lascannon fire down onto Melchoir's transport. The massive, twin-linked shots slammed into the side of the chimera, blasting into the side wheel well and ripping through the treads. The officer flinched as the lasers and a whole chunk of track flew over him.
A moment later, and the flier's guns were off and away. The chimera, now with one non-functioning track swerved violently as the driver slammed hard on the breaks. The officer lurched forward as his vehicle slid to a grinding halt.
The officer frowned slightly as the last of the flying bits of metal tore off and rolled gently across the grass. That was it. He was now stuck.
Ahead of him, the rest of the charging vehicles were bogged down in a firefight with the heavy tanks. Despite the incredible power of their guns blasting holes and melting off armor panels, neither side was giving up the epic slug-fest of tank and anti-tank weapon. The sheer power of it all was awe-inspiring as the shots fired everywhere and slammed into their targets mere feet away.
Meanwhile, the enemy demons charged in against the inquisitorial grey marines.
As the fighting broke out, a splinter entered into the officer's mind.
They were out-powered. They weren't ... necessarily going to win.
Not necessarily at all.
***
Inquisitor Salfacious Druxus could feel the warp boil around him. It was sloshing and churning, like boiling water about to be heaved out of the pot onto the floor.
Things were grim indeed. It wasn't just the impending burst of demons into manifestation. He had long since seen that as a mere part of his job as a Mallean inquisitor. No, it was the convolution of it all. Minds and hearts scheming and plotting, masked by a psychic silence. Events were transpiring that even he was having a difficult time grasping to understand.
There was a schism between the Grey Knights here in this subsector. It twisted and gnawed at their psyche as an silent pain, unspoken. Unresolved. After months of sitting on their hands, his grand inquisitor had given him leave to investigate what the other elements of the Malleus were up to. He had been shocked by what he'd found.
Everywhere there was a brewing treason, and the beginnings of a serious demon infestation. Local Imperial Guard units were defecting to the powers of chaos. Others were defecting into the hands of the other Grey Knight faction, and being ordered to slaughter their loyalist brethren. To make it worse, there was this damned crusade cutting into the heart of everything by these infernal brown and white clad guardsmen from the planet of Folera. But it wasn't just a crusade. There was something malicious behind it all, and it had the Ecclesiarchy's stubby, clerical fingerprints all over it.
But these Folerans were of secondary concern to him. Whatever the church was scheming would have to wait. The rift within his own order came first, followed by deciding what to do about these planets being overrun by the forces of chaos.
Strangely enough, he had gained a new ally in this cause. A small faction of said Folerans were dispatched, undoubtedly unawares, into their slaughter against the forces of the other faction of Grey Knights. They had dropped into the worst positions, had inflicted heavy losses, and then were utterly wiped out. Utterly, save for a few particularly enterprising guardsmen. Not only did they have very useful intelligence on the other faction, but they were also the absolute best of the best of the guardsmen on the planet. Given that he only otherwise had planetary defense forces to work with, he was glad of some competence.
While he had the Folerans form a hard core of trained and experienced resistance, he had cherry-picked a small number from this already small group to serve as his personal retinue. While the rest of the guardsmen slugged it out in the customary way of the Hammer of the Emperor, he needed something more surgical. A few days ago, one such scalpel had been placed into his hand - an unusually qualified soldier by the name of marshal Melchoir Theleos.
He could feel the bright spark of the officer in his command transport, preparing to give the order to attack.
On the other side of a small, open field, there was a pair of traitorous Russ tanks. They were harboring something in their defensive position, Druxus could feel it. He had been told that traitor guardsmen around the sector were beginning to be able to summon demons at a rate unseen in previous heresies. Undoubtedly, there was some sort of method, or more likely a collection of arcane artifacts that they were using to call out into the empyrean void.
He could feel the demons itching... yearning to get into the material world. Very soon, they would be here.
The inquisitor reached his mind out towards Melchoir. Time was of the essence. He gently imprinted his orders on the officer. Melchoir's mind jerked frantically against his probing. Such
raw, untamed power. This Melchoir clearly was unaccustomed to the feel of the warp on his spirit, like an untamed horse bucking violently in his first corral. Perhaps there was really some potential in him after all...
But that would have to wait. The inquisitor could feel the first, most adventurous demons beginning to filter into reality. He could feel the sudden burst of excitement as the guardsmen began their chimera charge across the field.
... to some sort of high-speed lute music?
In his brief lack of focus, the warp split open in front of him. Demons began to burst out, including a horrific monstrous creature. The guardsmen would have to deal with their traitorous kin. He had demons to hunt.
He simultaneously instructed the chimera drivers and his junior partner, inquisitor Amns, to drive forward and prepare to cleanse the demons from the field. Amns managed to break out, but immediately, the Druxus' own transport got hung up on terrain. The inquisitor scowled.
Then he felt it. One of the master demons had done something to reality. He looked out of the top of his transport and could see a swirling green vortex appear before him. The creature was opening up a warp gate!
Real space began to
sag and leak around the edges of the portal. It was just like a dam about to burst.
The inquisitor instinctively ordered his dreadknight in to close the portal. The psychic metal machine bounded forward and let loose with a long gout of psychically-tuned purifying flame. The warp lesion boiled and popped against the fires, writhing as if in personal agony at the onslaught.
Slowly and painfully, the rift began to heal itself as the heavy incinerator cannon cauterized the wound in reality.
With his transport stuck, the inquisitor reached into the minds of his personal staff and one by one they exited the vehicle and made for the second floor of he ruined building that their chimera was stuck on. As the transport crew attempted to dislodge the obstruction from the treads, the inquisitor and his squad set up positions and began to survey the battlefield.
The warp gate was closed, but there were still demons rushing at them from the other side. More insidiously, the brief portal had attracted the attention of other trans-worldly creatures, some of whom had managed to grab hold of a glimmer of its power and descend out of the warp.
A pack of them quickly rushed in against the inquisitor from behind.
He was now surrounded by demons.
"Purge them!" Druxus shouted, turning around his retinue with both word and mind. With practiced speed, his henchmen began to fire down on the newly-erupted demons. Plasma bolts and psychic weapons tore into them as they advanced on the ruins.
The inquisitor's highly-tuned mind percieved all threats at once.
While there were demons in front of him, his other forces were already under attack. To his left, the dreadknight came into close combat with the master demon.
The dreadknight commander unleashed a concussive blast of psychic energy. The demon writhed as the holy power caused its massive weapons to dissolve in its hands and the armor on its chest to shred and fade away.
Naked and enraged, the monstrous creature savagely attacked the dreadknight with lightning speed. With nothing but brute force of claw and fang, the hideous creature began to tear at the mechanical construct's actuators and armor plates. On the defensive, the dreadknight pilot attempted to beat back the savage blows, but for every one he blocked, three more took its place.
The demon sprung up on top of the dreadknight. The creature ripped at the hydraulics that controlled the arms while its tail crashed down towards the space marine controlling it. The mechanical monster desperately thrashed around under the demon's savage mauling to no use. After more carnage was done, the demon turned and peered down at the driver. With a blindingly fast stroke of its claws, it snatched the pilot out of his seat and began to feed.
Meanwhile, Amns was being voraciously attacked by demons of Slaanesh, while even more beasts were falling out of the warp and attacking him, personally.
Time slowed to a stop around him as he considered his options.
Amns was in a better position than he believed. More experience would undoubtedly give him more faith in his own abilities as a warrior. Meanwhile, he could feel the atavistic urges of the demons below him. For the moment, they were focused hungrily on the souls of the chimera crew trying to free their vehicle from the ruin. That only left one option.
"Fire!" the inquisitor shouted, jerking the arms of his retinue with his mind. In unison, they turned and targeted the master demon.
Plasma blasts fired through the air, followed by rending lascannon fire. The lethal barrage sent up twisted screams from the demonic creature as the demons eviscerated his transport crew below.
In a second, it was all over.
Rending claws from the beasts below found their way into the chimera engines as they punctured the crewmen to the side. With shocking speed and power, the chimera exploded.
Druxus was thrown from his feet by the blast. A fireball surged through him and his retinue. They were thrown against the wall, saved from instant incineration by nothing more than the floorboards that they stood on.
Demonic beasts and the inquisitor's retinue both alike perished as the wrecking vehicle blasted flaming hunks of metal everywhere, flying into the ruins and up into the air around them.
Recoiling, the lone surviving demon backed up as the humans above staggered to their feet, stunned by the explosion.
Just a half-second later, as if called by the blast, one of the inquisitor's assassins melted out of his hiding spot nearby.
The thick pall of smoke was still roiling up when a second explosion blew out of the middle of the other demons. The high-explosive charge instantly vaporized several of the demonic entities, their corporeal form being unable to stay manifest against the power of a demolition charge.
Amidst the chaos, the lone remainder of the original pack of demons fled, and Druxus angrily fired down at the others. As his retinue was able to regain their senses, they began to shoot their weapons down as well, but it was too late.
One of the beasts lunged up through the air and attacked the inquisitor and his retinue on the second floor of the ruin. The mighty form crashed over a henchman, taking his head clean off with its mighty claws. It turned and snapped with terrible ferocity, biting into the face and neck of another.
His retinue being quickly torn apart, the inquisitor produced his mighty thunder hammer. The beast was facing away from him. With an angry visage, the inquisitor struck down with his mallet. The thunderfield went off with a blasting crash as the heavy head impacted the hind quarters of the beast. With a howl of etherial energy, the demon destabilized into the warp in a flash of panic.
The hammer continued to swing down to the ground as the demon dissolved, landing softly on the floor beneath him.
He turned and looked. All traces of the demonic presence had been purged. All of those loyal to him nearby had been slain in the effort.
Inquisitor Druxus was suddenly very alone.
He picked his way out of the ruins, and began to walk across the pumping station. Hopefully his guardsmen had been able to hold their own.
***
A second flier swooped down on Melchoir and his convoy as the first one began to peel off. This time, Melchoir had the sense enough to duck. The officer threw himself into the chimera cab just as the incoming enemy fighter opened up with a pair of gatling cannons.
The officer plunged into the darkness as a hideous torrent of fire slammed into the front of the vehicle. The sound of ripping canvass and peeling steel screeched around him.
The inside of the chimera was suffocatingly hot as thousands of rounds violently splashed onto the transport. The men inside were firing their plasma guns at rapid fire against some more demons who were charging in against the transport. The officer could scarcely breathe. It was like a sauna.
The heat sinks of the weapons glowed a fierce orange as they tried to displace the energy of the weapons. Shot after shot caused little puffs of superheated steam to briefly flash around the gun's intakes. Shot after shot, the weapons glowed hotter and hotter, burning into the heavy asbestos gloves of their firers and singeing the faces of their heavy plasma masks.
Despite the immanent danger of their weapons catastrophically overheating, the plasma gunners kept on firing, sending sheathed bolts of plasma into the demons, ripping them apart as they charged in. Their slatheing forms could be seen sprinting towards them through the mesh screens.
Just as the last of them fell, mere feet from the vehicle, the flier above changed course and swooped in against the side armor of the transport.
What had before been nuisance strafing suddenly became deadly as the laser-like beam of flying bullets cut into the weaker side armor of the chimera. Now the shots began to pierce through into the cabin, the rounds ricocheting like popping popcorn all through the cabin. The heavy ripping buzz of the gatling cannons in the air crescendoed in strength as dozens of holes suddenly appeared in in the armor. Sharp, thin daggers of light pierced the overheated haze.
"We've got to get out of here!" Melchoir shouted over the airborne assault. Out in the open, they were probably dead. Inside the transport, they certainly were.
Running to the back of the cabin, Melchoir activated his power fist and punched open the door. He and the two survivors of his command squad piled out of the wreckage.
As they ran for cover, the gunship above turned to target the rear armor of the vehicles that had managed to make it up to the russes.
There, the fight was still raging at blistering intensity. Light flashed through the thick cloud of smoke quickly enveloping the dueling tanks. If something didn't happen soon, his attack would get cut to pieces from both sides.
Then, suddenly, something did.
The lead devil god fired its melta cannon into the Russ in front of it from a range almost close enough for the tanks to be touching each other. This time, the shot went through and caught in the magazines of the lead Russ, detonating in a massive explosion, sending the turret flying up into the air chased after by globs of molten steel. The thousands of unspent gatling cannon rounds were blasted up into the air as well, and went off in a sizzling cloud of sparking light like a huge string of firecrackers lit and thrown into the air.
Soon after, the other Russ met the same fate, a multimelta round punching through the engine block and blasting the entire rear half of the vehicle off, showering the nearby guardsmen in heaving chunks of burning metal. From over the cloud of smoke, a hellhound arced its flame thrower up into the air, splashing a great, searing arc of liquid fire into them. The enemy was helpless against the shrapnel and the nightmarish inferno.
But that still left the fliers.
The gunship above had needed to turn to handle his tanks, but this had left its rear exposed. From behind charged up inquisitor Amns, guiding his meltagun retinue against the aircraft. With uncanny precision, the henchmen opened fire, sending their anti-tank beams into the thin rear armor and quickly dismantling the large jet engine at the rear.
With a loud crack, the flier broke apart as bits of engine exploded through the wings, followed by another, larger explosion.
Melchoir raised his power fist to shield his face. He watched as the flaming wreckage cascaded over to his right, crashing into the ground amidst his motor pool. The bits of flaming debris bounced off the steel plates below as the bulk of the once-aircraft crashed into the grass off to the side.
The officer looked back towards the vendetta, which was trying to affect a get-away. The turbo tanks, now free of better targets, began to turn around. He looked on in awe as the tanks revved up their engines again and took after the flier with incredible speed, guns blazing. The multilasers from the chimeras also chimed in, and soon the flier was taking damage to its rear hatch and engines.
One of the tank's multimeltas managed to get in underneath it as the tank chased after the aircraft, and the shot ripped up through the low-altitude belly armor. The flier caught on fire and began to list. Melchoir watched as a single occupant managed a very quick descent after bailing out with a poorly-fitted grav chute.
Despite landing hard, the enemy soldier thrust himself with shocking speed into inquisitor Amns' squad, as if he hadn't just survived a flaming crash.
Melchoir could see from behind the remnant of a demon pack rush up behind them. Inquisitor Amns and the survivors of his retinue were trapped.
"Come on!" Melchoir shouted to what few could hear him, "We've got to save the inquisitor!"
The officer took off at a full sprint, his powerfist crackling energy around him.
Neither the inquisitor nor the enemy soldier was all that well equipped for close combat, and the fight was a flurry of pistol whipping, clubbing, kicking, and pushing without either of them obviously winning. Both were beating on each other with as much force as they could, and injuries quickly followed both participants in the duel.
As fast as his legs would carry him, Melchoir made it into the fight.
"Look out, inquisitor!" the officer shouted as he leapt between the two fighters. He grabbed up with his power fist and wrapped the gauntlet around one of the enemy's plasma pistols. He simultaneously threw his weight into Amns, shoving the inquisitor back.
As Melchoir oafishly stumbled between the two, the enemy dropped the grasped plasma pistol and spun to deliver a punishing roundhouse kick. The steel-toed boot caught the officer in the sweet spot between his equipment belt and his flak armor.
The air raced out of Melchoir's lungs as the kick landed, followed almost immediately by a second, aimed only slightly worse than the first.
Melchoir reeled backwards. The enemy leveled his other plasma pistol at him. Melchoir shielded his face.
The plasma blast collided with both his refractor and disruption field simultaneously. The impact shot a long spray of sparks into Melchoir's eyes as it blew two of the fingers of his power fist off. The officer put his weight on his back foot and countered with a lunge. The full weight of the officer and powerfist collided with the enemy, the two refractor fields screeching noise and light like a welding torch briefly flicking between them.
The force of the tackle sent the enemy back, and relinquished his hold on his other pistol. Disarmed, the enemy tried another kick against Melchoir as he tried to right himself, but the attack went wide.
Melchoir raised his fist and hammered it into his opponent, causing the enemy refractor field to explode, and throwing him several feet away into a collapsed heap on the ground.
Feeling his task sufficiently complete, Melchoir turned and saw the inquisitor and his squad dispatching the last of the demonic foe.
"Is that it?" he asked to no one in particular.
***
Melchoir picked disinterestedly at yet another bin of scraps. The problem was that he was no techpriest, not by a long shot. Doing regular cleaning and maintenance on his power fist was one thing. Repairing damage to it was quite another.
He flicked an actuated hunk of steel back into the hamper. His right hand half-heartedly found its way over some more metal bits while he left his other jammed into his belt.
Melchoir sighed. Another small hunk of steel fell back into the pile.
This was pointless.
The quiet, oil-smelling air began to fill with footsteps behind him. The officer turned to see the tall form of inquisitor Amns striding up to him. He had only me the inquisitor once. They hadn't talked.
"Lord Am-n-s," Melchoir spoke with a bow, his Foleran Gothic tongue tying itself in knots trying to pronounce the foreign name.
"Please," the inquisitor replied in a smooth, baritone voice, "You may call me Quistl."
Melchoir felt honored that an inquisitor would invite him into any degree of familiarity. That said, the tall man's first name was going to be even more difficult to pronounce than his last.
"Thank you, Lord... umm... Kou-ei- uhh..."
The inquisitor chuckled quickly.
"Or as you wish, marshal."
Melchoir snapped at the offer.
"Lord Amines," he tried, satisfied with how unawkward that sounded, "To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?"
"I came to commend you on your work today. Druxus and I were reasonably impressed with how you held yourself in combat."
"That is a great honor," Melchoir replied, surprised that he was almost blushing.
"We may well have a chance for you to continue to prove yourself in the near future," the inquisitor replied.
"Thank you," the officer automatically responded, keeping his eyes downwardly averted from the taller man's gaze.
Amns looked past Melchoir at the bins of scrap metal.
"What are you doing here in the junkyard anyways?" he asked smoothly.
"This?" Melchoir responded, "Oh, well, umm. My powerfist was damaged, and I needed to find some spare parts, but I don't think that - "
The inquisitor silenced him with an upraised hand.
"Bring your weapon to one of my retinue and I will see that it is repaired and returned to you within an hour."
"Oh," Melchoir replied, almost more surprised than grateful, "Well thank you."
Amns bent down to give the officer a good look in the eyes.
"You will find, marshal Melchoir, that those who do good to me will have good done in return."
The inquisitor turned and began to walk away. He had pressing business to attend to.
Melchoir watched after as he left.
He had no idea just what he was getting himself into.
***
8th Grand Company (Iron Warriors 8,000pts): 36-11-2
Heavy Rain Cadre (Tau 4,000pts): 9-3-0
Hive Fleet Lunulata (Tyranids 2,000pts): 6-4-0
/
The Empire 
: 
KHADOR 
X-Wing (Empire Strong) 
