Chapter 296: The Shrewd Speculator (Patreon)

…

A week later.

The Blood Angels and their successor Chapters were still engaged in the monumental aftermath of Hive Fleet Leviathan’s assault on Baal. Many Void-merchants and Rogue Traders, having learned of the Imperium’s victory, rushed toward Baal to sell materials and machinery useful for planetary reconstruction.

Some came out of opportunism, some out of genuine loyalty to the Angelic sons of Sanguinius, and many simply followed profit like carrion birds circling a battlefield.

Among them, the Barent Rogue Trader Dynasty had established a temporary trade-hub near a gas giant named Set, a lonely colossus on the far edge of the Baal system.

It was a small, modest void-installation, fifteen kilometers in length and ten in width, a skeletal colossus of adamantine struts and pressure domes.

Its name was the same as the lonely gas giant within the Baal System: Set.

The half-light-second distance between Baal and the Set Trade-Station was crowded with endless cargo haulers.

One transport craft, bearing a feather-insignia, was locked onto by the station’s tractor beam as it approached Set Station. Station personnel performed their routine scan.

A local Baal-born security recruit, seeing the feather crest, immediately assumed it carried natives of Baal and permitted passage.

The transport was pulled into Hangar 4466. As the ramp descended, Lord Inquisitor Bellona stepped out, flanked by two followers.

One was her acolyte. The other, a subordinate.

The subordinate was impossible to miss. The moment he stepped off the transport, bystanders found their eyes unwillingly drawn to him.

His skin was corpse-pale, devoid of any hair upon his body. His right hand never ceased rolling a single Throne Gelt between his fingers.

Every passerby felt their stomach twist as they neared him.

He was a Pariah. A Blank. An Untouchable.

“Remember your names.” Bellona glanced at her acolyte. “Ayen.”

The newly assigned temporary name earned a silent nod.

Bellona had a strange habit, she always gave temporary aliases before a mission. No one truly knew why, but acolytes and subordinates alike obeyed without question.

She turned to the pariah. “Berrant.”

Berrant nodded wordlessly. The coin continued its silent dance between his fingers.

The three did not need to whisper in public, they all bore implanted covert vox-nodes, capable of broadcasting short-range, silent, undetectable communication.

“Move.” Bellona took point.

Ayen and Berrant followed instantly.

They threaded through the trade-station, passing a salvage shop selling components stripped from dead voidcraft, then a stall peddling Baal-native trinkets. They took a lift upward, then a rail-cart downward, until they reached an isolated corner of the station.

The place resembled a hollowed tower. From the railing one could see nearly every deck of the entire complex.

Set Station was designed for maximum efficiency in minimal volume, a labyrinth of commerce built straight up into the void.

“Who built this?” Ayen asked, curiosity in his voice.

“The Barent Dynasty.” Bellona looked upward, toward a glowing sign bearing the Craftsman’s Hammer with a golden lion in the background sigil. “Their patriarch is Barent Klein.”

“Klein? The rogue trader rumored to have funded the Lord of Talon during the unification of the Talon Sector?” Ayen asked.

Bellona nodded. “The rumor is likely true. Without high-grade matter-printing technology, constructing such a void-station so quickly is nearly impossible.”

“He knows how to invest, that’s for sure…” Ayen mused, placing a lho-stick between his teeth as he leaned against the rail.

Berrant remained silent, expressionless, the only motion in his entire body the ever-turning throne coin between his fingers.

They waited one solar hour.

Ayen’s patience wore thin. He looked around, noting that not a single person had passed through since they arrived.

“What exactly are we waiting for?” he asked. “And why are we even here?”

Even Berrant turned his deadened gaze slightly, waiting for Bellona’s answer.

“Waiting,” Bellona replied simply.

Ayen knew well his mentor’s peculiar temperament. He did not press further.

Another solar hour crawled by.

Bellona seemed bored. Leaning on the rail, she watched the crowds on the lowest decks below.

Then she spoke to Ayen: “We cannot abandon the project. The Eye of Terror may have shrunk, but it has not closed. Traitor activity around the segmentum grows worse by the day…”

Ayen’s expression darkened. “I thought we had already given up.”

“Abandoning anything is never easy,” Bellona said flatly. “We invested too much. Do you still remember the cost?”

Ayen nodded silently.

How could he forget? He remembered every filthy deed committed in the process.

To acquire prototypes for the compounds for the drug Sanctus, capable of forcing psykers into catastrophic overloads, Bellona had assassinated every planetary governor in a remote cluster, plunging those worlds into anarchy.

And once chaos in the region reigned, no one remained to stop her from exploiting their psykers and populations freely.

Ayen had aided her. He never considered himself innocent. Without his rare talent, their entire operation would have been impossible.

His abilities made him invaluable… and complicit.

“Do you remember what the Librarian said when we arrived at Baal?” Bellona asked.

“I remember,” Ayen replied. “He said our plan would bring catastrophic consequences.”

Bellona continued watching the crowds below. “He had a point. Which is why I intend to test it elsewhere.”

“Where?” Ayen turned toward her.

“The Talon Sector,” Bellona said, and Ayen felt shock ripple through him.

“The reality-framework there is exceptionally stable. We’ll repeat what we did before, near the Talon border.”

Ayen’s lho-stick trembled between his fingers.

Reports indeed claimed that the Talon Sector’s warp-resilience exceeded that of surrounding regions. But repeating that procedure there… was she seeking a safe test, or merely testing the destructive potential of her psychic design?

“Do you trust me?” Bellona asked, straightening and meeting his gaze.

Ayen frowned. He lacked an answer.

He trusted her, but never entirely.

Yet he would not abandon his loyalty. Without Bellona, he would have died a gutter-born, illegal psyker in some hive’s underbelly. He owed her everything.

“When this is over, I will petition my mentor to promote you to full Lord Inquisitor. After that, you may leave me,” she said softly.

“…All right,” Ayen exhaled. “But how do we even reach the Talon Sector? Their security systems are infamously tight. Even the Inquisition struggles to infiltrate.”

As he spoke, an elevator arrived. A group stepped out before them.

Two ogryns in power-armor, a young woman who looked barely out of adolescence, yet carried herself with the poise of authority, and a stern middle-aged man clad in a golden fur-lined coat, leaning on a gilded cane, its head shaped like a flat hammer, forged entirely in gold.

Ayen did not know them personally, but the sigils on their attire were unmistakable.

The Craftsman’s Hammer.

The Barent Rogue Trader Dynasty.

Which meant this man could only be Barent Klein, patriarch of the Rogue Trader dynasty.

“The shrewd investor has arrived,” Bellona said through their hidden vox-channel, then stepped forward wearing a warm smile. “The Lord of Talon likely never imagined that, to a true merchant, nothing in this galaxy is beyond price.”