Enforcer: The Omnibus (Warhammer 40,000) by Matthew Farrer

Author:Matthew Farrer [Farrer, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Games Workshop
Published: 2018-07-13T16:00:00+00:00

Private Offices of Shira Calpurnia, The Wall, Hydraphur

‘So what the hell is this about a counter-claim?’

Normally the briefing conferences of the senior Adeptus Arbites followed a detailed and traditional protocol, which was why when Shira Calpurnia needed to get quickly to the pith of an issue she held a less formal and more forthright meeting somewhere away from the meeting-vaults around the Arbitor Majore’s tower. The Arbites who made good use of the freer, blunter-spoken environment tended to be the ones who found their way onto her growing personal staff; the ones who were scandalised by it or allowed it to make them sloppy were quickly and firmly rotated out. Now in her little set of chambers were three of the staff she liked and trusted the most: Culann, her personal aide, the grizzled Arbitrator Odamo and Umry, the quick-witted praetor-cognatis who’d distinguished herself in the Anstoch trials the previous year.

‘Received by communiqué sent by flotilla astropaths from Shexia system, repeated again at Antozir Proxima. Authentication reads “Zanti”, that’s one of the flotilla masters. Shexia and Antozir-Prox are successive steps on the route to Hydraphur from the border sectors where the old man died. Time-stamps on each of them show the flotilla making good time.’ Leaning against the table by Calpurnia’s door, Praetor-Cognatis Umry was twirling the data-slate in her fingers but rattled off the report without referring to it.

‘Good time? Hurrying, are they?’ Kyle Odamo was a heavy-jawed aedile senioris with thirty-two years on arbitrator strike teams, including eight on an Arbites intercept cruiser until a shipboard accident had cost him both his legs. The augmetics hadn’t taken well enough to return him to full combat assignments, but on his planetside posting he still took an interest in spacefaring. ‘Don’t know much about that direction firsthand but I’ve heard it’s not hard to hurry through. They’ll have an easier time of it than that other poor fellow. Fearful rough it gets coming up the well past Knape and straight out from galactic centre.’

‘We can’t know,’ Umry replied, tossing the slate and catching it. ‘That message is pretty much all we’ve had out of them. We’ve got no informants on the flotilla. The really old traders have had these whole sealed communities grow up around them. Just try getting one of your own people in or turning one of theirs. Next to impossible, I’d think. Unless the Emperor willed it,’ she added piously.

‘But someone’s got an insider,’ said Calpurnia. She was out of armour and in simple duty fatigues, sitting cross-legged on a soft mat in front of her bookshelf. ‘We know that because we’re monitoring the Varro end, or so Culann tells me. Culann?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Things are as rough between here and Gunarvo as Arbitor Odamo said, and our communiqué from the commander of court there took a few attempts. But, well, the flotilla may not be hurrying but the heir, this Varro Phrax, is moving like a scorch-arsed blasphemer. A representative of Navigator House Dorel visited him and he was making tracks out of the system within twelve hours.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.