Chapter 252: The Interrogation (Patreon)

After handing over the command orders to Qin Mo, Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed rose with his usual unshakable calm. Without protest, he followed Jarran Kell out of the office toward the chamber where an Inquisitor had requested a private audience.

Qin Mo stood silently, watching Creed’s broad back fade into the distance. His expression was unreadable, but his thoughts churned. To be honest, he wasn’t surprised the Inquisition wanted to take him. Practically everyone on Cadia had witnessed the Daemon incursions with their own eyes. The Inquisition must be agonizing over how to deal with both the Cadians and the Talon forces that had fought at their side.

“Imperium… the Imperium of Mankind,” Qin Mo murmured, his gaze drifting to the window, where the horizon still bore the bruises of war.

Thanks to the mighty Blackstone Pylons, the Eye of Terror’s baleful glare had been reduced by half. The Cadian skies no longer looked wholly purple and sickly; instead, threads of natural color fought their way back across the firmament. It was a fragile beauty, a sky still wounded but no longer utterly damned. His mood improved… but only a little.

For what soured it again was not Chaos, but the Imperium itself.

The Imperium was the archetypal tyrant: heroes went unrecognized, the Inquisition ran rampant, hammering down anything, or anyone, that drew its suspicion. Truth was a luxury, mercy a liability, innovation a sin. The Imperium had calcified into a prison of its own making, a stagnant empire where survival mattered more than progress. Were it not for the ceaseless, existential threat of Chaos, Qin Mo would have declared the Imperium his enemy without hesitation and set its destruction as his highest calling.

But reality was not so simple. The Imperium’s cruelty was not born of wanton malice, it was the armor humanity had forged around its own festering wounds. The galaxy itself was a nightmare: too hostile for compassion, too vast for gentleness.

Once, long ago, the Imperium had been a dream. The Emperor’s vision of unity, the promise of enlightenment, the strength of science and reason. That dream had died on the steps of the Imperial Palace, drowned in blood and betrayal. What followed was a slow rot stretched over millennia, a corpse empire animated by bureaucracy, religion, and fear. The Emperor still sat the Golden Throne, not as a leader, but as a god-shaped shadow that both protected and enslaved humanity.

Faith had replaced reason, dogma had strangled curiosity, and the great machine of the Imperium ground onward through inertia alone. Forge Worlds built weapons they no longer understood, Tech-Priests chanted prayers over engines they could no longer replicate, and entire generations of men and women lived and died without ever questioning why their suffering was necessary. The Imperium endured not because of its brilliance, but because the alternative was extinction.

He understood. However despotic, however revolting the Inquisition appeared, it was still a necessary evil. Without its ruthless hand, the galaxy would drown in heresy, xenos horrors, and warp-spawn.

Within the Ordos there were zealots like Karamazov, raving lunatics who would burn entire worlds for a suspicion. Yet there were also pragmatic men like Gregor Eisenhorn and Horst, who had actually saved countless billions of lives, even if their methods were ruthless and often indistinguishable from heresy.

Qin Mo found himself unable to despise them completely, for he knew what it took to hold the line against the abyss. The paradox was cruel but unshakable: to fight the abyss, men had to become part of it. For every tyrant who ordered genocide in the Emperor’s name, there were those who quietly sacrificed their humanity to keep the greater darkness at bay.

That was the reality of a “necessary evil.”

In this age, with Chaos’s corruption seeping everywhere, reason and moderation had become luxuries reserved for dreamers. Only in the Talon Sector could such “luxuries” exist, and even there, only in moderation.

That was not due to any inherent nobility of its people, but because their system was stabilized by Qin Mo’s C’tan-born powers and the shards of the Star Gods, which made the material structure within the Talon Sector more stable and less susceptible to psychic influence. To his subjects, the effect was invisible, crops grew despite warp storms, dreams went untainted by daemons, but for the Imperium at large it was a miracle bordering on heresy. They simply had protection, an unnatural stability that the rest of humanity could only dream of.

Humanity had been abused by darkness for too long. Like a beaten and cornered animal, it now lashed out at every shadow.

Yes, the Inquisition, for all its horrors, remained necessary for most of the Imperium. But that did not mean all were obliged to suffer their abuses.

At the very least, Creed did not deserve this. The man was a warrior who had given everything to Cadia. Qin Mo could respect that, even admire it, though he suspected the Imperium never truly would.

With that thought, Qin Mo opened channels to Talon’s high command, linking to Grey and Adam.

“The Celestial Engine is fully repaired,” Grey reported. “We can depart for Talon at any time.” He assumed Qin Mo’s call was about their return.

“No,” Qin Mo shook his head. “We can’t leave Cadia so quickly. They’ll hold a victory celebration. We must attend.”

“As you command, My Lord.” Grey acknowledged.

“Do you wish the Navy contingent to participate in the celebration?” Adam asked.

Qin Mo fell silent, weighing the risks, before finally shaking his head.
“No. All naval personnel remain aboard the fleet. The moment my command reaches you, the Navy must be ready for immediate battle.”

…

"Thump. Thump. Thump∼!"

"Thump. Thump. Thump∼!"

The sound of a boot tapping against wood echoed in the gloom.

Inside a damp, stinking cell beneath Kasr Myrak Fortress, Inquisitor Greyfax sat across from Creed and Kell. A stack of parchment lay in her gloved hands, while the heel of her boot drummed idly against the mold-stained interrogation desk between them. The desk, ancient and foul-smelling, had been dragged from the depths of the fortress; used for generations to wring confessions from heretics.

Greyfax had already been officially reinstated to her post. In the Imperium, vanishing into the Immaterium for years, even decades was hardly unusual. In fact, she’d learned from another Inquisitor that her disappearance had only reached the Ordo Hereticus half a year ago.

“What happened to those ancient Astartes you were seen with?” Creed lit a cigar and asked casually, the flame illuminating the scars on his face.

“In the next chamber,” Greyfax replied without looking up.

“As expected.” Creed nodded, inhaling deeply. Smoke curled from his lips as though nothing about this situation disturbed him.

Greyfax’s keen eyes studied Creed. He smoked like a man who had drawn it through scarred lungs too many times. Based on her experience, he either had augmetics… or he was simply that tough.

“You asked for a private conversation,” Creed said, glancing at Kell. “So why is he still here?”

Greyfax’s lips curled in a smile. “Because I wish it so. Is that not reason enough?”

Creed offered no reply. He understood the game. He knew this was part of her performance, the display of dominance, the subtle pressure. Whether she showed disdain or arrogance, it was all a weapon. An Inquisitor was never simply themselves; interrogation was theater, and Greyfax was a master performer. A seasoned Inquisitor often had no “true” personality at all, only masks worn for leverage.

“I ask, you answer.” Greyfax leaned back, boots now resting atop the table. “Why did you order the expulsion of Inquisitor Bellona during the war?”

“Because she was a lunatic liability,” Creed replied without hesitation. “Any lunatic who interferes with my war gets kicked out. If it had been you, during the wartime, I’d have done the same.”

“Why did the Talon forces come to Cadia’s aid?” Greyfax pressed. “Their sector lies impossibly far.”

“Because they are human. Simple as that. Even had they stayed away, Cadia would not have blamed them. At least they didn’t show up just to posture and disrupt the chain of command.”

Greyfax’s eyes narrowed. “During the war, you signed an authorization, permitting Talon ships and void constructs to scan Cadia. Do you remember?”

“Of course. It was the only way to identify psykers the enemy could exploit. Neither Cadia nor the Imperial Navy possessed such powerful augurs capabilities.”

Greyfax said nothing further. Instead, she laid a file upon the table.

Creed glanced at it, recognized it instantly as his own record. It noted how he had once mysteriously disappeared into a warp storm years ago, when his fleet had strayed into the Talon Sector. But the file had no details of what had happened there.

Creed exhaled smoke directly across the file. He tapped the ash away with deliberate disdain. “Who authorized you to unseal this?”

“I wished to see it,” Greyfax replied evenly, “so I did. Is there a problem?”

Kell could no longer restrain himself. He shot to his feet, voice tight with anger though carefully controlled.
“If you’re so curious about the Talon, why not summon their Lord himself and question him directly? Why waste time twisting words around the Castellan? Is it because you fear the Talon’s Lord would shoot you for your impertinence, while you know the Castellan will always put Cadia above his pride?”

Creed’s expression hardened at once at his adjutant’s outburst.

Greyfax, however, kept smiling. Her tone was light, almost playful: “And why should I not interrogate this so-called Lord of Talon? Why should he respond with weapons? Is the Talon Sector not a part of the Imperium? Is its ruler an enemy of Mankind? Tell me, soldier, what exactly is it that you know?”

“Silence,” Creed snapped at Kell, eyes narrowing. “The Talon forces are irrelevant to this conversation. Do not bring them into it.”

The chamber fell heavy with smoke and silence, the shadow of the Inquisition pressing down like a storm.