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Without wasting much time, we began moving toward the hive city located in the area. On the way, we saw thousands—hundreds of thousands—of field workers; unlike the world we had taken under our control, here they seemed to possess better technology at their disposal… but still far inferior to the agricultural tech of the Dominion.
Their thoughts were very similar: exhaustion, anger, frustration, resentment… although there was hope among them, which surprised me a bit, since I expected to find another miserable planet with nothing. Apparently, many had hopes that the governor's son would bring changes once his rule began.
It seemed the population enjoyed more privileges than what one would find on some Imperial worlds, but recently these had been heavily restricted by the current governor, who was trying to concentrate more power in the upper echelons. So there was a great deal of discontent, leaving the door wide open for cults… meaning we had problematic neighbors.
Entering the hive was no problem at all. Even though it was heavily fortified with massive walls and large numbers of guards on the battlements, alert, they had nothing that could detect us. We simply walked into the city without being noticed.
The only thing I saw was an auspex tucked inside the pocket of the city guard officer, but he didn't seem very interested in using it.
And just like that, we were inside the hive's walls. What was supposed to be difficult turned into simply walking through open gates guarded by soldiers too uninterested to bother doing their jobs.
The damn city was a maze, and since we didn't have sensor data from our battlecruisers, the only option was to use local knowledge to reach our destination: the spaceport. So by reading hundreds of minds, I managed to piece together a sort of map through the hive's complicated levels to reach the target.
Even though I was completely sealed inside my hostile-environment suit with my own oxygen supply, I could feel the outside through mind-reading. The air was disgusting—greasy, like it stuck to the lungs.
As we moved, I took in life inside this hive and I could say the construction system of these cities seemed almost intentionally terrible. I couldn't understand why there wasn't a better sewage system. Everything flowed downward, but the water recycling system was almost nonexistent: they only had a single waste-recycling plant, but it couldn't handle the load. In the underground levels, all the waste practically accumulated, and the wretches living there had to coexist with it.
Eventually we began moving through higher streets, where things seemed better: clean streets, less crime, and a greater presence of the city guard as we climbed. But that didn't mean discipline was any better, because once again there were auspex devices around, but none were being used. The guards chatted among themselves, and I even found a couple hidden between alleyways kissing passionately while avoiding the others.
Finally, I reached the spaceport. Besides being a massive flat area in the mid-levels of the hive, it was full of city guards… and of the colossal ship that nearly blocked the sun.
I felt a tingling in my head—someone was trying to read my mind. I immediately noticed it was one of my ghosts, trying to get my attention, since none of mine could penetrate my natural defenses against mind-reading. That's why the trick of communicating by reading thoughts required me to actively connect with them with the protoss trick
"What is it?" I said, sending the message into his mind
The ghost began thinking what he wanted to tell me, and I read it as if he spoke aloud.
"Orders, my lord," the ghost responded as he took elevated ground.
"Find out why they're here and if they plan to visit our planet. Take advantage of the situation and figure out how Imperial ships work. Don't take risks—no unnecessary risks," I answered telepathically.
"I'll inform the others," the ghost replied mentally as he let the others read his thoughts and receive my instructions, since we couldn't use our comms: there was a chance they might detect us through radio waves.
I was reading minds, but the main problem was time: going through an entire memory takes far too long, and sometimes it depended on how recently they had talked about what I needed. So the only thing I could extract from most of them were typical complaints from ship guards.
They hated the smell of the city to the point of not being able to stand it, and they felt heavier because the gravity aboard their ship was much lower. Many of them were stepping on a planet for the first time. Some… had lived their entire lives aboard the vessel without ever touching planetary soil.
Until I noticed one wearing better armor than the rest, who seemed more focused and nervous. Reading him, I felt deep fear toward his master… fear of the ship's captain… a merchant… a merchant.
The ship was civilian… the damn ship was civilian… the largest ship we had ever seen was a civilian vessel… CIVILIAN.
That lifted a massive weight off my shoulders, but it didn't erase the scare our admiralty had just suffered. Still, at least it was useful that they were terrified of the Imperium's power: it justified my vision of building battlecruisers with adamantium plating to match Imperial armor.
Now I had to make sure of their next plans, so I spent long minutes digging through this officer's mind as he supervised tons of resources being loaded onto the ship. The fear came from their engine malfunction. The Mechanicum member assigned to repairs had suffered an accident while performing the rites of maintenance, and now they had no one competent enough to fix the drive. So they had drifted for months, looking for a world with Mechanicum presence.
The merchantman was supplying a few hive worlds scattered in the region, making a fortune by acting as the middleman between the agri-worlds and the hive planets several light-years apart. And apparently it was very profitable, since the merchant captain lived with luxuries even Emperor Mengsk himself would have struggled to obtain, and the crew envied him bitterly.
But I couldn't find any plan or itinerary. He was a low-ranking officer who knew little more than what he'd already shown. I checked and checked, but no one down here knew more than this man. So I stared at one of the transport ships being loaded with huge amounts of processed food—and even what looked like luxury food.
It was risky… but if they tried to pass near our planet and sent a message through their astropathic choir… if they had one… we were screwed. So there was only one option.
"I'm infiltrating the ship. The rest of you try to infiltrate the upper levels and locate where they keep their psychic communicators. Once you find them, withdraw to the ship," I said mentally to one of my ghosts so he could pass on my orders.
I waited for another transport to arrive at the port and get stacked full of processed food and what looked like premium goods. Once it was nearly full, I slipped inside with the cargo, staying in a corner that hadn't been packed yet. The craft lifted into the air as we were carried toward the main ship.
I focused on keeping my mind silent, reviewing protoss teachings to still my thoughts, until I finally heard the transport land. I controlled my abilities to avoid reading minds unintentionally.
The unloading center was enormous: an army of workers was unloading crates. Without making a sound, I began moving across the area. Not that I needed much effort—between the shouting and constant complaints of the workers, nothing could betray my already-muted footsteps.
Eventually, I found several servitors—humans lobotomized and enslaved into flesh-machines. They used them as loading equipment, since with all their augmentations they were more machine than whatever they had once been.
I slipped out of the area as someone opened a door and began following him. We eventually reached a restroom, and I kept walking through a long corridor, waiting for someone else to open another door. Finally, a worker and a servitor opened the next access point, and I slipped through. I spent almost an hour navigating the labyrinthine, colossal ship, advancing and mapping the interior, memorizing every corridor and every detail I could catch.
Soon I heard a wide noise of many voices and found what looked like the ship's canteen, packed with workers eating and laughing.
I started moving closer, trying to listen to conversations, but all I caught were the usual complaints: how awful the food was, how dry it felt, or how much recaf they needed to get through the next shift.
Nothing I cared about.
Just when I was preparing to move to the next area, waiting for a door to open, someone important walked in. He was followed by a group that didn't carry the ship's standard gear: they looked like mercenaries or some kind of private guard.
They headed into a reserved section of the canteen, and I quickly moved closer to eavesdrop.
"How long are we going to stay on this shit planet?" one of the mercenaries asked.
"A couple of Terran weeks… the engine's busted, and one of the Gear-followers is repairing it right now. There isn't a shipyard within thousands of light-years of these backward planets," said the man who seemed to be the group's leader.
Silently, I positioned myself beside them and kept listening.
"We're already seriously behind schedule. Do you think we'll be able to stop at that paradise world where we were supposed to deliver provisions?" asked the biggest of the group.
"I doubt it. The captain wants to get back on track with the big contracts. He'll probably send a smaller ship when we're close instead of taking the whole crew," the leader replied, annoyed.
"So we're going to skip that Knight world?" asked one who was leaning on the edge of the table.
"No, we can't skip it. We have to deliver the minerals to that forge world, remember? They need all the adamantium they can get, and that planet can't produce much, but it has everything needed to refine adamantium. So yes, we're stopping there no matter what," said the leader, rubbing his nose bridge.
Shit… all right, time to find something important.
I dove into the man's mind, keeping an eye on the others as I extracted what mattered: codes, guard patterns, blind spots, the astropath's location, the captain's quarters. I had almost everything mapped out in my head.
Then the canteen doors burst open.
Conversation died instantly. Everyone froze, as if afraid to breathe. A psyker walked in, followed by several guards. Their faces showed clear discomfort just from being near him.
I cut off my powers immediately and stepped back.
The psyker stopped exactly where I had just been. He tapped his staff against the floor as if searching for something, frowning.
"Something… was here," he muttered.
The mercenary leader snorted. "Another one of your visions, witch?" he said, though the insult sounded more nervous than aggressive.
One of the guards whispered under his breath, "May the Throne protect us…"
He tried to track me. I felt how he extended his perception violently but clumsily, searching desperately like someone throwing punches in the dark, hoping to hit something.I focused on calming my mind until my psionic signature vanished entirely.
He took a deep breath, visibly frustrated. "Whatever it was… it's gone now."
It was far too dangerous to keep using my powers with him so close, so I stopped reading minds altogether and simply followed him silently, walking beside his guards as they moved through the ship's corridors. Physically I could stand a meter away from him without issue; the real risk was using my abilities within his range. Any attempt at a mental probe could make him feel that same disturbance that had alarmed him before.
I followed him all the way to his quarters. I slipped in right behind him before the doors closed.
"What was that…? I'm sure I felt a presence… something is wrong," the psyker muttered, massaging his skull and touching the tubes embedded in his implants, restless, searching for an explanation that wouldn't make him look paranoid.
"I have to stop drinking so much… it's getting to me," he added, even less convinced.
While he kept rambling to himself, I took from my armor a needle designed specifically for assassination. The very tip carried a nerve agent that killed in seconds and left no trace in autopsies. It induced a violent cardiac arrest and then broke down completely.
I approached silently and stabbed him in the carotid. The needle went in and out in less than a blink.
The psyker grabbed his neck, confused."What… what was that?… ahg… gah…" His chest tightened suddenly, and he collapsed to the floor convulsing.
I really wanted to decloak for a moment, stand before him, put a finger to my lips and whisper shhhh. But tempting fate was not on the menu.
The psyker continued convulsing, trying to fight for a few seconds longer, attempting to counter the agent with his powers. It didn't work. Within seconds he lost all capacity to resist and went completely still.
The guards heard the noise and rushed in, too late.
"Get a medicae!" one shouted.
"Don't touch him, he could be dangerous," said another, far more afraid.
The guards eventually decided to carry the psyker to the med-bay. The medicae began examining him, reaching the logical conclusion: cardiopulmonary arrest. They tried defibrillation, oxygen, stabilizers.
Ah… the memories.
The medicae did everything they could to save him, but the agent claimed the psyker in the end. I began reading minds again in case any of them realized the true cause of death.
They asked how he had been found, if he'd said anything, and mentioned that he had experienced "a strange psychic sensation" beforehand. That triggered an alarm in their minds.
They quickly catalogued it as "death by adverse phenomenon."
A perfect assassination.No deep autopsies. Soon they stored the body in a cold chamber, ready to forget it.
Now it was time to visit the captain.
Two options lay before me:
Ensure his ship never reached New Korhal by implanting in his mind the idea of skipping the planet…
…or, even better for our interests: let the ship arrive, but without an astropath, making it an easy prey for the Dominion fleet—and packed with ghosts ready to cause chaos inside.
Reverse-engineering every scrap of Imperial technology we could steal would be vital to at least partially match the Imperium's advantage.
Although, of course… the disappearance of a merchantman this large might attract someone's attention.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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