Thaddeus knew he would have to kill him. Sarpedon would have to die before the Chapter could be broken. Thaddeus might be unable to do it himself and might have to call in other inquisitors with their own resources, perhaps agents of the Officio Assassinorum or even the planet-scouring Extermi-natus, once he had located the Soul Drinkers and driven them into a corner.
Messy and costly. But every drop of spilt Imperial blood would be worth it. A rebel Space Marine Chapter was a danger too great and unpredictable to forgive.
All these thoughts, as they often did, occupied Thaddeus as he sat in the darkened navigational chamber on the Crescent Moon. The circular chamber formed an auditorium of upholstered reclining couches that could have held a couple of hundred, but Thaddeus was usually the only one there, silent in thought as he sunk into the deep padding. The seating was reclined because the navigational display was projected onto the vast glowing disk of the ceiling, shining down on the chamber like a full moon.
The Crescent Moon was Thaddeus's own ship, a ribbed gunmetal-grey cylinder with vast particle scoops like the fronds of an anemone sprouting from the bow. These fuelled the four enormous engines just behind them, leaving the rest of the ship to house the bridge, living quarters, cargo holds, machine-spirit chamber, and all the rest of the many places that a spaceship needed to function. Thaddeus' own quarters, and those of his Interrogator, Shen, were armoured sections in the heart of the ship. The inside of the ship was furnished to Thaddeus's taste - simply and darkly. The ship was a rare creature, the sort of craft the shipyards of the Imperial Navy couldn't make any more, assembled centuries before from parts millennia old by one of Thaddeus's mentors. It was fast and comfortable, and it only needed a crew of a few dozen, which gave Thaddeus some valued privacy. However, with the storm troopers and Sisters occupying the refitted cargo sections, the ship was feeling rather more crowded of late.
'Sector map.’ Thaddeus said, and the vox-sensor switched the star map from the shining star field to a map of the sector, with the many star systems and planets flagged with names and coordinates. The Crescent Moon was still orbiting around Koris XXIII-3, and Thaddeus had to give some thought to where he would head next - probably towards the nearest Inquisition fortress or subsector headquarters to relate the paltry scraps of information he had found to the Ordo Hereticus. The cluster of agri-worlds was surrounded by a ring of populous hive worlds and manufactoria planets, many of which had their own permanent Inquisitorial presence. Thaddeus was trying to decide which one would be the least grim place to explain his lack of progress when the vox-casters chimed in alarm.
An incoming transmission. The astropathic choir, the half-dozen telepaths who received and transmitted messages between Thaddeus and the rest of the Imperium, spoke in unison over the vox, their voices whispering and raspy. 'From subsector command Therion, sector Boras Minor, Ultima Segmentum. Ordo Hereticus naval liaison staff report rogue space hulk, possible Adeptus Astartes activity. Report to follow. Have faith lest your unbelief consume you.'
Thaddeus pulled himself upright and walked through the darkened auditorium towards the door that led towards the bridge. To tell the truth, he had held little hope that the requests he had made of the Hereticus command - that he be informed via astropath of any unusual discoveries that matched certain criteria, including the possible presence of Space Marines - would bring in much information of value. Now a space hulk had been found by the Imperial Navy, and the find had become known to the section of the Ordo Hereticus that kept watch on the fleets of the Ultima Segmentum. For whatever reason they had suspected the superhuman warriors of the Adeptus Astartes were involved. It was a thousand to one shot that the Soul Drinkers were the Marines in question (literally, for they said there were a thousand Chapters of Marines, though Thaddeus suspected the true number could be anything), but it was a better lead than anything else he had.
The bulkhead slid open and instead of the corridor beyond, Thaddeus was confronted with the sight of the Pilgrim.
Tall and shrouded and surrounded by a cloud of thick, sickly incense, the Pilgrim's face was hidden by the tattered dark grey hood of his robes. His hands were wrapped in heavy bandages. Thick cables ran from within the hood down to the quietly humming respirator clipped to the leather belt at his waist, to assist whatever was under those robes to breathe. The bulky power pack on his back, which ran the Pilgrim's portable life support systems, gave him a crippled and hunchbacked look. The ever-present incense was billowing from the twin censers that topped the pack, and a faint glow burned through the rents and frays in the shroud as if the Pilgrim was fuelled by a furnace.
Thaddeus permitted the creature to be referred to as the Pilgrim because he professed to be an utterly devoted follower of the Emperor, and he served Thaddeus as an expression of this fervour.
Although Thaddeus valued him greatly, the Pilgrim had a habit of acting in the most sinister manner, occasionally seeming to anticipate Thad-deus's movements.
'Inquisitor.’ it said with a heavy, monotone, half-mechanical voice. 'The hulk. Will we go?' The pilgrim turned and followed Thaddeus as he headed past it towards the bridge.
The Pilgrim must have been monitoring the information Thaddeus was receiving. Thaddeus knew the upper echelons of the Hereticus must be spying on him must of the time, but he was not happy that the Pilgrim was doing it too. Still, Thaddeus knew better than to risk a rift with the creature. 'Perhaps.’ said Thaddeus. 'We are duty-bound to follow up any clues. But the chances of the find being relevant are...'
'It is them.'
'Unless you have some intelligence I have not received, Pilgrim, it would not do to get our hopes up. We have received more promising leads than this before.’
Think on it, inquisitor.’ In the Pilgrim's voice, the rank sounded like an insult. 'One craft is more difficult to track than a fleet. A hulk is large enough to house a whole Chapter. And what loyal Chapter would sink to taking up residence on a space hulk? The perversion of such an idea would suit Sarpedon perfectly.’
The Pilgrim knew the histories of the Soul Drinkers in depth, and had read of the many great victories they had won in the Emperor's name, from the dawn of the Second Founding to the eve of their heresy. It had instilled in him a hatred of what the Chapter had become; it was a hatred that rivalled Sister Aescarion's religious faith. The Pilgrim was a profiler, and expert in the means and beliefs of the Soul Drinkers, and he could be the most valuable individual in Thaddeus's entourage if it all came down to guessing which way Sarpedon would jump.
yje can't be sure,' said Thaddeus. The Ordo Xenos was tracking more than seven hundred hulks and suspected hulks at the last count, and they were only the ones they were willing to mention.'
'You are right of course, inquisitor.’ replied the Pil-gim. 'One ship amongst hundreds gives us long odds. Perhaps you are pursuing a better lead at the moment? One strong enough to negate the value of optimism in our mission?'