[Doctor Thunder]

Chapter 3

“The Emperor, is my Lord and Protector,” Tella prayed as she lashed the neuro whip across her back, refusing to let the pain show on her face as the energies played across her skin.
“The Emperor, is my Father and Savior,” she continued, whipping herself again.
“I live and die only for him.” She whipped herself one final time, blood trickling down from the self-inflicted wounds on her back. Though she knew it was not allowed, she added her own final line to the prayer, barely above a whisper.
“Please, let me feel something.”
Tella waited long moments, but felt nothing.

There was a knock at the rusted door of her quarters. “Preceptor Duncall,” a young voice reported, “The Delegation from Rynas has arrived.”
Tella arose and caught a glimpse of herself in the water as she washed her face. The juvenat therapy had straightened her arching back, and smoothed the wrinkles on her face. After 70 years of aging forward, suddenly aging in reverse felt bizarre to her, and she had to keep reminding herself that she no longer needed to walk slowly, or ask others to carry things for her. Her body was now exactly as it had been at the age of twenty, with the exception of her eyes, which looked as tired and grey as she felt.

Other then a few essentials, her room was completely bare. The row of shelves above her bedmat contained only a single dusty crude bracelet that had been placed there. Tella took a moment to braid her hair, then pulled the cilice off her shelf. A band of brass with spikes pointing inward, she placed it around her right thigh and tightened it until the pain was so great that her vision began to fade, then backed it off one notch.

Though she would never admit it aloud, there were few things Tella enjoyed more then looking out of the command deck of an Emperor Class Battleship. Whether by design or by accident, the view was expansive and majestic, brass statues of thousands of saints lines the archways stretching upwards to the buttressed ceilings, each holding a single wax candle that serfs spent their entire lifetimes replacing and lighting.
The stars were particularly bright that day. A full third of the skyline was dominated by a swirling purple storm hundreds of light years across. Officially it had no name, but over the years Tella had come across some older scrolls that referred to it as The Eye, although she couldn’t fathom why. At the base of their view before them lay the arcing horizon of the planet Yemahoit, with its green oceans and hazel skies. Tella noted that this would probably be the last day Yemahoit would have oceans.

A space had been cleared for her on top of the command throne mesa, around which was a full fifty stories of concentric rings, each containing thousands of servitors, runners, and lesser commanders that monitored and ran this city-ship.

The Delegation from Prova arrived with all the pomp and shine Tella expected. Magister Shinara was particularly noticeable as he wore his family’s traditional golden plate-mail.
“The honor is mine, Preceptor,” he said loudly as he bowed. “I have not had the pleasure since you negotiated the cease-fire between my grandfather and the Spicing Clan.”
Tella bowed slowly, forgetting that her back was no longer stiff.
“I am pleased that your house has prospered under The Emperor’s light.”
“You look extremely well for a woman of your age,” he added, his eyes flickering over her body.
“I assure you it was not of my volition,” Tella explained. “The Arch Cardinal practically forced the needle into my arm.”

Shinara laughed and began introducing the members of his family. Tella rarely bothered to learn their names anymore, and instead simply sorted them into the usual categories. There was the ambitious younger son, the drunken trophy wife, the incompetent uncle, the floundering addict, and the overwhelmed heir.

The Delegation from Rynas immediately filed a complaint upon their arrival at the command deck, claiming that Prova was being given special advantage by being allowed to greet the Preceptor in private before negotiations had commenced. It was only after Tella suggested that Rynas be given equal exclusive time did they withdraw their objections.

Serfs brought in a long table, the height of which Tella has specifically calculated so that the Provans could sit in their luxuriously upholstered chairs, while the Rynas could kneel on their straw mats on the other, and neither feel disadvantaged. The food and drink provided had been meticulously researched, thousands of possible choices narrowed down to those that would be considered equally appropriate and inoffensive by either side, while still representing the traditions of each world.

From beneath her white cloak, she produced and lit a censor of incense and swung it back and forth methodically as she spoke. In the back of her mind she counted, making sure that each delegation received her gaze for an equal number of seconds, and an equal number of syllables.
“Yemahoit is in open revolt,” she began, “And has claimed to withdraw itself from the Imperium. In a few hours, the population will be cleansed and the process of rebuilding, along with the opportunities for expansion, will fall to one of your houses.”
She paused a moment for effect. Rynians always listened with their eyes closed, so she took special care that her speech did not include physical gestures.
“I have studied the bloodlines of both your houses meticulously. King Midah of Prova, your strongest claim falls through your grandfather’s cousin, who was wed to Prime Minister Kabuyeh of Yemahoit during the Mining Guild Wars. Magister Shinara, your strongest claim falls on that of your first wife, who was third in line to the Yemehoit throne.
The holo-projector in the center of the table hummed to life, displaying the hundreds of relevant family trees, and highlighting the relevant links.
“As you can see here, between you two, there are an additional thirty one lesser connections that could be claimed. I have given each of these a weight as prescribed by the Acts of Succession handed down by the High Lords of Terra themselves.

A heavy copper scale was brought to the table, along with a number of weights. Tella held up each weight and explained the history of the bloodline claim it represented. When all the weights were placed, she lead them in prayer and removed the pin. For a moment, the plates remained even, then slowly, one side fell.
“Colonization and Rebuilding rights are awarded by The Emperor to Prova,” Tella stated clearly. “If tithe minimums are not maintained during the first forty years, rights will automatically pass to Rynas without appeal.”

There were a few tense moments in the silence that followed. It was not uncommon for weapons to be drawn over such matters. Only when the Ryans nodded acceptingly did Tella allow herself to exhale.

Admiral Rifta clapped approvingly from where he observed them in his command throne. Beneath his pristine uniform his body simply seemed to dissolve below the waist and behind the ears into a tangle of golden cables that made him the living core of the ship’s controls. Standing behind him, hand on her pistol grip, stood Comissar Gena, ready to execute him at the slightest sign of disobedience.

“Out scout ships report the second battlegroup has scattered what remains of the insurgent fleet at the edge of the system,” the Admiral explained in brassy tones. “We can now safetly move into high orbit for planetary bombardment.”

“Belay that order,” sounded a squeaky male voice that seemed distantly familiar to Tella.
Sister Superior Mary Ekatarina glided in amongst the delegates and made room. “May I introduce my Lord, Taddius Harokai, of The Emperor’s Holy Inquisition.”
Tad strode sternly up to the table and leapt up onto it, crushing the gardenias with his riding boots. Everywhere faces grew concerned, and several people fell at his feet and began confessing their sins openly.
“Stop that,” Taddius bade, kicking one of them away, “I’m not here for you…yet.”
The other members of the Inquisitor’s retinue joined him, the stunted Lexmechanic Hanover, the portly Master Dialogous Bendit, and his successor, Acolyte Anthon.

Tella’s jaw popped open and it took her a second to regain her composure. Anthon didn’t look a day over twenty, and was much taller and broader then she remembered him. His face was tanned and traveled, and he wore a long leather raincoat that reached down to the floor. As he smiled and waved to her inappropriately, she could see that his left arm had been replaced by a fully mechanical prosthetic.

“May I ask why I must delay the attack?” Admiral Rifta inquired, concerned. There was an audible snap as Commisar Gena unholstered her sidearm.
“Hold your fire, my good Comissar,” Admiral Rifta beseeched. “I have no intention of disobeying an order from the Inquisition, I merely want to understand so that I may comply without getting in his way.”
“I’m sorry,” Inquisitor Harokai said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “In my line of work we aren’t accustomed to explaining things. I’ll give it a try. Down in the Royal Palace archives are important documents that must be recovered before they are destroyed by your bombardment.”
“They are traitors,” Comissar Gena barked mercilessly. “What else needs to be known?”
“With all due respect, mistress Gena, your responsibility is on this one rebel planet while mine is on the hundred that will come after it. Loyal planets don’t just secede without reason. I need my suspicions confirmed.”
“And what about my responsibilities?” Magister Shinara spoke up, despite the protests of his wife. “At the end of the month the tithes will be due to the Adeptus Munitorium. How can I pay them if we are still waiting around up here for your investigation?”
Anthon placed his prosthetic hand on Shinara’s shoulder and began crushing the golden armor plate. “I suppose you’ll just have to increase the amount of xenos weapons you sell on the black market to make up the difference.”
Magister Shinara grew pale as death and his eyes grew wide with fear.
“Don’t worry,” Harokai said, waving his hand. “As I said, I’m not here for you. One of my associates is coming for you shortly. Admiral, I need to borrow a hundred Storm Trooper squads and their Valkyrie transports, it should only take a couple of hours.”

“But, my lord,” The Admiral studdered, “The reason were planned on bombarding the royal palace is because it is protected by an Omicron class defense array. None of our landing craft will be able to fly within a hundred miles of the palace.”
“Leave that to me,” Tad said with a curious smile.
“We require one other person,” Ekatarina announced coldly, pointing a finger at Tella. “Her.”
“Me?” Tella wheezed.


The Yemahoit CIC was alive with activity. Targeting servitors called out ranges and calculated trajectories in their dispassionate tones, while all the compiled data was displayed by the holo-dome as a real time model of the planet and the surrounding fleet.

“Where the feth is the Black Legion,” Commander Keine asked aloud, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth as she chewed on a piece of flesh from a severed arm. “Did they abandon us?”
“No sign no word,” Leiutenant Sampin reported, her hands dripping with icor as she pulled the heart out of a body lying on the floor. “But I am detecting a number of enemy ships breaking formation for orbital insertion.”
The holographic display zoomed in close on the small formation of ships.
“I count a hundred dropships and one cargo frigate, projected flight path puts them right on top of us.”
“What are they, suicidal?” Keine snickered, taking another bite. “Prepare all weapons batteries, fire as soon as they are in range…Wait, you said a cargo frigate?”
“Yes sir.”
“Can a cargo frigate enter low atmosphere?”
“I don’t think so sir…”
There was a bright flash from the holo-dome, momentarily blinding all of the sensors. The servitors went berserk, seizing and cavorting, murming to themselves in their basic numeric language rather then translating into high gothic.
“What the frak is going on?” Keine demanded.
“Everything is over-tasked.”
Keine walked over to the holo-dome as it reset. Instead of just a hundred dropships, there were now hundreds of thousands of target blips descending down towards the Royal Palace.
“What is this?” she asked, spitting out a bone fragment.
“They must have detonated the cargo frigate.”
“They did what?!”
“The dropships are descending amongst the debris.”
“Order the battery captains to ignore the debris and target the dropships.”
“The augers can’t tell the difference, sir.”


Around the descending Valkyries, it seemed as if the whole world was on fire. Fuel tanks and cargo crates tumbled and exploded. Enormous support ribs spun and whirled, and larger chunks of bulkhead collided like asteroids as the Dropships pilots weaved and dove among a sea of violent flame.
A Valkyrie jinked to the left, barely missing a huge tower as it tumbled over, threatening to club it, only to be struck by a plummeting girder that skewered the dropship and detonated its fuel tanks.
A blue pillar of energy shot up through the mass, vaporizing a chunk of bulkhead and causing the surrounding Valkyries to scatter away from it.
Another beam shot up, clipping a dropship. It listed lazily to one side before colliding with a spinning armor panel that cleaved it in two, ejecting its flailing passengers out into the atmosphere.
Now dozens of beams came up wildly, streaking past like rain drops and destroying whatever they came in contact with. Two more Valkyries were destroyed by lucky impacts, while a third was caught in the blast of a detonating engine capacitor.

Inside her transport, Tella was loosing the fight against her stomach as the craft bobbed and weaved violently. She held onto the landing harness with one arm, while advanceing her rosary beads and canting the prayer of evasion with the other. Anthon, on the other hand, looked relaxed enough to take a nap, and hadn’t taken his eyes off her since they got in.
“You still have it, don’t you?” he asked with a grin.
“Have what?” Tella panted, losing her grip on the harness.
“The bracelet I made you,” he clarified. “You still have it, don’t you?”
“Of course not,” Tella insisted. “I threw it away when I took my vows.”
“Yeah, sure.” Anthon said, smiling brightly.
“And what about you?” Tella asked. They told me you died of red fever.”
“That was just a cover,” Anthon explained, waiving his prosthetic hand. “Turns out this big guy needed someone to carry his bags.”
“It’s the only reason I keep him around,” Harokai chided.
Tella grew angry and kicked Anthon in the shin.
“You’re a terrible person. All this time you let me think you were dead.”
“That’s so sweet of you to worry about me,” Anthon laughed.

There was a deafening crack and the entire ship was thrown to the left as a defense beam passed dangerously close by.

“You still haven’t told me what you need me for,” Tella asked, trying to straighten her cloak.
“You’re an expert in noble bloodlines and you still haven’t figured it out?” Ekatarina asked derisively.
“The Royal Archives are bio-encrypted, and we don’t have time to crack it,” Harokai explained. Before she married your father, your mother was part of the King’s household, so it should read you as part of the Royal Family.”
“Why not just smear earwax all over it?” Tella asked spitefully.
“Do what?” Hanover asked, his artificial eyes bobbing this way and that like a crab.
“Nothing, nothing, she was kidding,” Anthon maintained.

A nearby transport exploded, and dozens of fleshy impacts could be heard as the passengers collided against the hull.
“I’m too old for this,” Tella insisted.
“You think this is bad? Just wait till you hit three hundred,” Ekatarina warned, scornfully.
“Don’t be such a nabby, Tella,” Anthon chided folding his arms behind his head, “In all likelihood we won’t even make it to the surface, so just enjoy the ride while you can.”


With incredible skill, the remaining Valkyrie pilots lifted up the noses of their craft just as they broke through the clouds, slowing their descent and allowing the bulk of the debris to pass down below them. Three more dropships were destroyed as twisted flaming chunks of metal crashed down on top of them.
Reality fragmented for a moment as millions of tons of wreckage crashed down on top of the void shields that protected The Royal Palace, their mass slipping and twisting into the pocket dimension created to capture and contain them, but the barrier’s capacity was designed for incoming warheads and energy beams, and were completely overwhelmed by the mass shoved into them. Explosions all around the perimeter of the palace indicated the destruction of the void generators, and the valkyrie pilots nosed-over again and descended down onto the palace roof before the backup systems could be activated.

The Valkyries formed a circle, allowing their troops to disembark in the center while the dropships absorbed fire from the hundreds of turrets that dotted the ramparts of the outer walls.
Dropships exploded left and right, but they did their job, protecting the troopers long enough for them to plant meltabombs on the roof and blast an entry point. By the time the final dropship was destroyed, all of the remaining assault force had managed to enter the palace.


There was a rush of necrotic air as the stone doors to the Royal Archives slid open. The crypts beyond reached too high and too far for the group to see, even with the illumination for their halo lights. Rows of bones and tomes intermingled with dimly pulsating data slabs and summoning initiators.
“Looks like I owe you a drink,” Anthon laughed as he ran into the room and disabled a security auger.
“For what?” Tella asked as she removed her arm from the recognition port on the other side.
“We weren’t sure if it would recognize you or take your arm off,” Harokai explained as he rubbed the dust off of the directory carved into the entrance sarcophagus.
“You bet AGAINST me keeping my arm?” Tella asked incredulously.
“Yeah, I was never any good with numbers,” Anthon chided as he produced a crystal-tipped spear and jammed it into the ground.

Hanover scooted in as best as his hunched frame would allow and selected a cable from those protruding from the back of his neck and slammed it into a port on the sarcophagus.
“A triple barrier?” he scoffed. “Why not just hand it to me?” His eyes retracted into his skull and began shifting rapidly beneath his lids as he and the defense spirit dueled a trillion times in the space of a heartbeat.

“Something is wrong,” Ekatarina explained as she stood there with her eyes closed, as if able to hear past the silence. “Our forces in the main hall have already been over-run.”
“What?” Harokai, asked, turning his head, “By how many?”
“I see six palace guards.”
“Impossible,” Tad surmised as he ran over to her. “Show me.”
Ekatarina touched her hand to his shoulder and his eyes closed as well. They both flinched in unison as if being injured by some unseen hand, and Tella wondered what strange device they must be using to accomplish it.
“Okay, new plan, everybody, we’ve got to get out of here as soon as we can,” Tad explained, concern in his voice.
“Working on it,” Anthon assured as he placed another spear in the ground.

“Please tell me I’ve got good news in there,” Inquisitor Harokai yelled as he ran back to the sarcophagus.”
“Afraid not, boss,” Hanover reported. “There was definitely a dramatic population shift over the last twenty years.”
“Emperor’s Teeth,” Tad swore. “I’m so sick of being right. Okay, Tella, Kat, and Bendit, I need you to grab as many passenger manifests as you can carry, section CC, isle 32, row 10, numbers 324-576.”
“Roger,” Ekatarina and Bendit, yelled, sprinting off into the darkness. Tella stood frozen for a second, then ran off after them as well.

She could feel distant rumbles of explosions and gunfire as she sprinted through dusty cobwebs and half-illuminated preserved corpses. She turned a corner and nearly ran into her companions as they climbed up a spiral staircase of stone to reach their quarry.
“Our forces in the eastern corridor are failing,” Ekatarina reported, handing Tella a stack of moldy tomes. “I’m not coming back for you if you fall behind again.”
“You don’t like me much, do you?” Tella asked, struggling with the weight of a second stack being handed to her.
“Since you asked, that’s it exactly,” she grunted, grabbing a stack for herself. “Now, can we please get back to work?”
“Work is worship.”
“Be quiet.”

As they ran back towards the archive entrance, the sounds of gunfire were very close now, mixed with the screams of the dying. Tella’s heart was pounding in her ears, and she sung aloud the litany of The Emperor’s protection over and aver again as they ran.

Anthon had nearly completed a perfect circle using the crystal spears, and as he readied the last one, a Storm Trooper was hurled into the room. His body crashed into the Imperial Eagle sitting atop the sarcophagus, breaking it in half and sending entrails down upon the floor below.

Three palace guards entered the room, crawling on all fours along the walls and ceiling like insects, their hands and faces covered with thick dripping blood.
Ekatarina screamed and fell to her knees in mid stride, scattering her tomes about, holding her hands to her temples in pain as blood trickled out of her nose.

Anthon’s prosthetic hand flipped back and he fired a blast of green energy from the exposed barrel, but the guard had already leapt sideways and rebounded off a statue. Bendit breathed in deeply, then regurgitated an impossibly large glob of green phlem that struck the guard in mid leap, and adhering her to the wall where it immediately hardened. The guard wailed inhumanly as she struggled.

Quick as lightning, another one of the guards leapt from the wall, hands extended like claws.
“Look out!” Tella yelled, throwing in her shoulder and shoving Ekatarina to the floor. The palace guard streaked past where Ekatarina’s head had been only a moment before, shredding the stack of tomes in Tella’s hands into shreds.
Inquisitor Harokai drew his saber and with a flick of his wrist it was bathed in a golden field of energy that licked over the surface like flame. The guard leapt at him, even faster than before, but his aim was true. He slashed out, perfectly timed to decapitate the guard when she reached him, but her motion stopped impossibly in midair. For an agonizing heartbeat she floated before him as his blade passed harmlessly through the air, then her leap continued, tackling him to the ground and impaling him with her fingers. Harokai yelled as he hit the floor, his attacker’s fingers protruding out the back of his shoulders.
Anthon took careful aim and released another plasma blast, which struck the guard square in the shoulder, rolling her off of her prey, and passing so close over The Inquisitor’s chest as to singe off his long goatee.

The remains of the palace guard landed at Tella’s feet, little more then a head. The face twisted and snarled, lips moving as if to curse but no sounds escaped other then a gurgle of escaping blood. But it was the eyes that truly horrified her. They were soulless, like a doll’s eyes, and when she looked at them she felt a chill run through her that seemed to seep into her very bones.

The last of the screaming and the gunfire in the hallway ceased and dozens of palace guards began crawling into the room like a wave of insects.
“Get in the circle,” Harokai coughed, rolling himself in between the spears. Tella grabbed some of Ekatarina’s scattered tomes and slipped into the circle of spears with the others. A dozen guards leapt towards them, claws extended as Anthon plunged the final spear into place. Reality fractured all around them, and for a terrifying moment Tella could hear the chittering of thousands of voices and the touch of thousands of cold hands.
Then reality healed itself and they were all standing on a glowing pad, surrounded by stacks of archaic dripping machinery.
Inquisitor Harokai and his group began laughing. Cheers of celebration rose up from serfs nearby.
“Signal the fleet,” Tad coughed, “Tell them to begin the bombardment immediately.”

Tella didn’t know where she was, but she knew it felt safer then the archives. As she removed the gloves from her hands, she noticed Ekatarina looking at her. Her face was pained, as if she was forcing herself to do something with great difficulty.
“It looks like I was wrong about you,” she finally admitted quietly, and offered her hand in apology. Tella managed a tight smile and took her hand. The second their skin touched, Ekatarina’s face grew pale, and she snatched her hand back.
“What’s wrong?” Tella asked, concerned.
“Er, nothing…it’s nothing,” she insisted, standing up and walking away.
“Welcome to the La’mibara,” Anthon said warmly, helping Tella to her feet. “Inquisitional Black Ship.”