I had no doubt, from what I'd seen of the Astartes during our voyage here, that their patience with this kind of confusion would be limited at best, so you'll no doubt appreciate my surprise when Gries voxed one morning to request a meeting with the governor, and the senior Guard officers, at his earliest convenience. As it happened I was having breakfast with Mira at the time, and she looked at me quizzically over the plate she'd just stuffed with salt grox, coddled eggs and some local species of smoked fish.
'What do you suppose he wants?' she asked, and I shrugged, quietly fascinated as usual by the amount of food she seemed able to pack away without any noticeable ill-effects.
'I suppose we'll find out soon enough,' I said, sipping my cup of tanna[30] gratefully, Jurgen had brought a supply with him, and I hadn't realised quite how much I was missing the stuff until it was back. 'We needed to get him in for a joint strategy meeting anyway. Probably a lot easier if he thinks it was his idea in the first place.'
'Perhaps,' Mira agreed, slightly indistinctly. 'But why wouldn't he come if you asked him anyway? I thought we were all supposed to be cooperating.'
'Astartes like to cooperate on their terms,' I told her, punctuating my words with sips of the fragrant liquid. I had no doubt that they were zealous servants of Him on Earth, but whatever alchemy made them more than human undeniably set them apart. Perhaps if I hadn't been so affected, both physically and mentally, by my experiences on Interims Prime, I might have interacted with them to a greater extent on our journey here, and found more common ground than I had, but somehow I doubted that. The closest thing to a personal connection I'd been able to forge was with Drumon, and he'd been more interested in the necrons and their infernal devices than anything approaching the social niceties.
'Who doesn't?' Mira asked, reasonably enough. I couldn't think of an answer to that which didn't sound trite, or smug, so I took refuge in my breakfast and simply shrugged.
* * *
TO GIVE THE governor his due, he lost no time in setting up the conference Gries had requested. As I entered the command bunker, the taste of tanna still fresh in my mouth, I was pleasantly surprised to see Orten there, apparently at DuPanya's invitation. Having him on hand as a source of local knowledge would be useful, and save us the bother of rebriefing him later in the unlikely event of us needing the forces he commanded for anything. I nodded an affable greeting and exchanged a few words, noting with quiet amusement how my friendliness towards him seemed to change the attitude of a number of the Guard officers present from indifference or barely concealed disdain to a slightly forced cordiality. They would have had little enough time for the PDF even if a fair proportion of it hadn't been shooting at their men, of course, but under the circumstances, I wouldn't have been all that surprised if at least some of them hadn't suspected Orten of being a hybrid himself[31].
Rather more surprising was Mira's presence, wearing another of her wedding-cake uniforms, but at least this time she'd had enough sense to pack the cleavage away where it wouldn't distract anyone. She smiled at me as I came in, although if any of the assembled officers noticed, they had the good grace not to appear to take it for anything other than a perfectly natural infatuation with the dashing hero I was popularly supposed to be. I made my way over to the girl and her father, acknowledging the greetings of the Guard officers I was acquainted with, or who wished to foster the impression that I was.
'Governor,' I said, greeting him first, as protocol demanded, before nodding to Mira. 'Colonel. An unexpected pleasure.' Which it was. She'd said nothing about tagging along when she'd left my chambers an hour or so before, and must have got changed remarkably quickly, at least by her standards. Many of the Imperial officers milling around us seemed confused by her presence, as even if they accepted her military rank as real, which I doubted any of them did, it was by far the most junior in the room. She smiled again, but before she could reply, DuPanya cut in, as dextrously as I might have pinked an opponent with my chainsword.
'My daughter is here as my potential successor, commissar[32],' he said. 'In these days of uncertainty, it's important for her to be kept abreast of policy matters, in case she has to take over the reins of government.'
'Of course,' I said, nodding gravely, as if there was any government worth a damn on Viridia at the moment other than jumpy Guardsmen with lasguns, who'd apply whichever fragments of the occupation code[33] they remembered so long as nothing or no one looked like threatening the safety of their squadmates, and use their weapons indiscriminately if their paranoia was sufficiently tweaked. (Which, under the right, or wrong, circumstances, wouldn't take much, as a rule.) 'But I'm sure we all hope it won't come to that.' I certainly would if I was a Viridian, anyway.
'Quite.' DuPanya glanced at his daughter, apparently picking up my implied meaning without effort, and moved the discussion on to safer topics. 'What do you think the Astartes want to discuss?'
'I've no idea,' I admitted, trying not to sound as though it rankled. We were, after all, supposed to be on the same side, but, as I've mentioned before, the Astartes were a law unto themselves, and confided as much or as little in their allies as seemed to suit them. At least, that was true of the Reclaimers, and I've no reason to suspect that it doesn't hold true for the other Chapters as well[34]. 'But I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.'
We didn't have long to wait, either. At the appointed hour, almost to the second, the synchronised clash of armoured feet against rockcrete I'd come to associate with the Astartes echoed through the bunker, shaking a thin film of dust free of the support beams to sprinkle everyone lightly with synthetic dandruff, and all eyes turned to the main doorway. After a moment or two, in which the clattering and the vibration increased to levels just short of uncomfortable, Gries appeared, flanked by a couple of his companions from the squad which had accompanied him before[35]. A moment later, I had a real surprise. Drumon was trailing a pace or two behind them. Even if he'd still been wearing his helmet, which was hanging from a pouch-filled belt at his waist, next to a holstered plasma pistol, I would have recognised him instantly by the metal claw at his back, the jointed arm to which it was attached folded neatly away parallel to his spine. He was carrying a scabbarded sword on the opposite side to his pistol, with an activation rune of some kind in the pommel. He was evidently used to employing them in tandem, in the same fashion I used my chainsword and sidearm, and I smiled involuntarily, amused to have found another small thing which the towering Techmarine and I appeared to have in common.
Catching my eye, Drumon returned the smile and nodded a greeting, which clearly astonished those among the assembled officers who noticed it even more than it did me. In fact, I was so taken aback, I took a moment to register the red-robed tech-priest gliding smoothly in his wake, like a gretchin after an ork[36]. I had no idea what the tech-priest's presence portended, but I was pretty sure it was nothing good.
'Captain.' DuPanya stepped forwards to greet Gries, who glanced down at him, then removed his helmet, hanging it at his hip as Drumon had done. Seeing the two men together, I was put incongruously in mind of an adult, tilting his head to listen patiently to an importunate child. 'To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?'
30
A Valhallan beverage, which Cain developed a taste for shortly after his first posting to a regiment from that world. Why, I have no idea.
31
He was, of course, one of the first Viridians to be screened and declared free of the xenos taint. Otherwise he'd hardly still have been breathing, let alone given access to one of the most secure facilities on the planet.
32
Not strictly true, as she was the youngest of three siblings, but she was the only one present in Fidelis at the time.
33
Or, to give it its official title, The Emergency Martial Law Regulations and Provisions for the Safeguarding of Civilian Populations in Areas Under the Protection of His Divine Majesty's Imperial Guard and Allied Forces (CCXXXVIth revised edition, 759.M40).
34
The vast majority, certainly. Most, if not all, have their own traditions and secrets, sometimes to a degree which would seem positively heretical in less devoted servants of the Emperor.
35
From which we can infer that they'd either removed their helmets, and Cain had seen them on some other occasion, or he recognised the personal heraldry on their armour; probably the latter.