Chapter 109: They Will Answer for This
By the time Duvette returned from the warehouse, the boundary between the Cold Quarter and the Warm District had been occupied.
The street that had been empty an hour ago was filled on both sides by heavy engine noise. A line of Adeptus Arbites Repressor armoured vehicles sat across the road from the 112th's transports like a formation of steel barriers, and from behind them, several hundred Arbitrators in black reinforced body armour had deployed with riot shields and suppression shotguns, holding a tactical line across the full width of the approach.
The 112th's veterans had not opened fire. Their lasguns were powered, and the mono-molecular bayonets fixed to them caught the street light with a particular stillness. Both sides were watching each other across the gap.
The Arbitrators were holding their formation. But facing soldiers who had walked out of Macragge with the faces of people who had done it more times than the experience had stopped costing them, the composure on the Arbites line had acquired a quality that, to an experienced reader, was distinct from its usual certainty.
At the front of the Arbites formation stood an officer in a heavy ballistic cloak, the gold scales insignia of his rank prominent on his helm.
His aide raised an amplifier.
"Your unauthorized armed operation constitutes a serious violation of the sacred Imperial Code. Have your commanding officer come forward."
At the front of the 112th's formation, Major Dylan stepped forward. His voice was level. "Chief Arbitor, our Colonel-Commissar is on his way. Please hold your position. He will be with you shortly."
The words had barely settled when a measured rhythm of boot falls came from somewhere in the formation behind him. The 112th parted without being asked, opening a corridor through its own ranks, and Duvette walked through it at a pace that communicated he was not hurrying.
He came to a stop in the centre of the buffer zone between the two formations.
He straightened his greatcoat, met the Chief Arbitor's eyes directly, and spoke in a voice calibrated to carry to both formations without effort.
"Chief Arbitor. I am Colonel-Commissar Duvette Erdmann, commanding the Ash Watchers-Eisenmark 112th. Under the authority of Imperial Military Code, Article 72, Section 4: in the presence of confirmed evidence of Chaos infiltration, my regiment took necessary defensive and immediate suppression action. I trust you will understand the circumstances."
The Chief Arbitor regarded him for a moment. He was the highest law enforcement authority on Pyrite, and a man accustomed to his presence resolving situations rather than encountering them already in progress. He walked forward two paces, bringing himself to within a direct conversation's distance.
"Colonel-Commissar Duvette. I had heard the name." His voice carried a controlled quality that managed both professional courtesy and something beneath it. "I had been looking forward to exchanging words with Macragge's celebrated hero at the Governor's reception in a few days. It appears you have delivered your own form of introduction."
He closed the last metre of distance between them and let the silence do its intended work.
"Your operation has alarmed the upper nobility and the Munitorum presence on Pyrite simultaneously. If you cannot provide immediate and convincing evidence that a genuine Chaos threat was present, we will have no choice but to treat this as an attempted insurrection."
"I apologize for the disruption." Duvette's expression did not change and the smile he produced was entirely presentable. "My soldiers, during their authorized leave, came across what appeared to be a substantial military arms transfer to concealed Chaos operatives in the Cold Quarter."
He paused.
"I had to consider the possibility that certain individuals in Pyrite's upper administration, or within the Munitorum presence itself, might have connections to the heretics. To prevent the intelligence from being compromised before action could be taken, I chose to proceed through direct channels rather than standard reporting procedure. I hope that decision is understandable given what was at stake."
The Chief Arbitor's gaze was measuring. The corner of his mouth moved in a thin, cold acknowledgment.
"And did you find the evidence you were looking for, Colonel-Commissar?"
Duvette raised one hand in a brief, inviting gesture.
"I believe so. If you would follow me."
He led the Chief Arbitor and a small escort through the Cold Quarter's streets to the warehouse, now with its door standing open. The large precision components remained exactly where they had been left.
He led them from the warehouse to the cleared cult position, one of several the 112th's sweep had neutralized.
The cult site told its own account. On the walls, the eight-pointed star in blood, applied with the kind of thoroughness that implied not a rushed job but ritual preparation conducted over time. The altar still carried the iron smell of what had been placed on it. This was not a hasty decoration. This had been in use.
The Chief Arbitor's breathing had changed by the time he had taken in the full scope of it. He had not expected this. He had not expected to be standing in the centre of his own jurisdiction's capital city, weeks before a major Imperial crusade assembled in this system, looking at evidence of Blood God worship conducted with apparently significant freedom of movement.
If this reached the Warmaster's staff before he had handled it, his position became untenable. What this Colonel-Commissar had done, for all its procedural irregularity, had detonated a threat that had been accumulating under his own city without his awareness. Whatever complications the action had created, the alternative was considerably worse.
He turned to Duvette with urgency in his voice for the first time.
"Do you know who the heretics were conducting the arms transaction with?"
"My soldiers may have found something useful when they cleared the site." Duvette maintained the same composed expression and led him to the room where Stroud's team had finished their work.
A dozen bodies on the floor. The Chief Arbitor's eyes went immediately to several that still wore the remains of deep grey robes. He moved toward them, crouched, and examined the closest.
The modifications were crude but unmistakable. Augmetic implants of a grade and pattern that did not come from commercial sources. And at the shoulder joint of the robes, where an insignia had been: deliberate removal, the marking ground away, but the shape of the excision told its own story.
"The augmentation pattern and what was removed there," Duvette said, providing the observation with the timing of someone ensuring it was heard, "strongly suggest a former Mechanicus apprentice. Whoever arranged this transaction had access to significant technical resources."
The Chief Arbitor said nothing. He used his boot to turn a second robed body face-up, dropped to one knee, and looked at the neck. His hand went up immediately for his aide, who produced a compact subcutaneous scanner. The instrument processed for a breath.
The identifier on the screen resolved.
The Chief Arbitor stood. His face had a quality that the preceding twenty minutes had constructed one layer at a time.
"This is the Carpé family marker. The Rogue Traders." The words came out through controlled fury. "They have considerable nerve."
He drew a long breath and looked at Duvette with an expression that had moved from confrontation to something considerably more useful.
"The Carpé family will answer for this. To the letter of the law." He inclined his head with a formality that was genuine. "You acted decisively and at significant personal risk, Colonel-Commissar. Your reputation is not overstated."
"You are too generous, Chief Arbitor." Duvette came to attention and gave a clean salute. "Now that the situation is confirmed, I will leave the legal process in the Adeptus Arbites' capable hands. We should withdraw. Three thousand armed soldiers occupying a civilian district is not an ideal situation to prolong."
This time the Chief Arbitor did not raise any objection. He stepped aside and watched Duvette turn and walk back toward the 112th's lines.
The return journey moved through a city whose upper district lights were beginning to resolve against the last of the daylight. Pyrite's sky had the particular quality of a world where the heating infrastructure ended at a defined boundary, the Warm District's light bleeding upward into grey.
Duvette was in the front passenger position of a light assault vehicle. Kleist had taken the driver's position and was handling the vehicle through the return route with the competent automatic economy of someone who has driven many vehicles and is not particularly focused on this one.
The interior was quiet.
Duvette settled back against the seat and reviewed the board.
The official situation: Adeptus Arbites now aware of Carpé family outer operatives conducting military arms transfers to Chaos heretics on Pyrite. Sufficient for significant institutional pressure on the dynasty, heavy sanctions, asset seizure, mandatory sacrifice of peripheral figures to demonstrate cooperation with the investigation. A Rogue Trader family of the Carpé's standing and age could absorb that, at cost.
What the official situation did not include: one of the Carpé family's direct-line heirs had been personally present at the transaction and was currently in a holding cell in the 112th's billets.
The gap between those two facts was the entire difference between survival and extinction.
Peripheral agents at a Chaos arms deal: the family could argue distance, ignorance, rogue operatives acting without authorization. It was not convincing, but it was defensible with enough resources and enough willingness to spend them on the right officials.
A direct heir at the same transaction: no distance. No plausible ignorance. The Inquisition's involvement became automatic. And in the Imperium, smuggling was an economic offense. Colluding with the servants of Chaos was a death sentence extended to every name on the family tree, including those who had never heard of the transaction and never would.
A Warrant of Trade ten thousand years old, granted by the Emperor's own authority, meant nothing when Chaos was involved. The dynasty would be stripped of everything and erased.
The Arbites pressing from the official channel above.
Duvette holding the heir below.
He looked through the vehicle's window at the buildings moving past and the camp lights drawing closer, and allowed a certain quiet satisfaction to arrive.
Juno Karol had delivered an extraordinary welcome gift.
He was beginning to understand exactly what it was worth.