Chương 59: Chapter Fifty-One - Burning Desire

Alexis wasn't expecting things to move so quickly, or for what she expected to be a boring meeting to turn out to be so... exciting. Maybe that was always the case when her boss's boss was around, but she suspected that it wasn't usually like this. Clarice had stomped through a lot of resistance, and the meeting ended almost as soon as it began, with only two people dead and a couple captured.

At the moment, a small group of Voidsmen were holding Nigel and one of the medicae deck's directors at gunpoint off to one side while the rest of the room decided what to do. Vena's job of inoculating everyone was... not very popular at the moment, but the risks were too high to not let that happen. Alexis rubbed at her own fleshy arm, where her skin felt dangerously raw. Once they left the medicae deck, Vena had insisted on a decontamination.

That involved spraying them both with a gaseous substance that smelled like soap and stung like acid. Her eyes had teared up for an hour and she was pretty sure all of the fine little hairs on her arm were gone. It was better than taking any risks of catching something later, so she tried to tough it out and only complained in her head. She wasn't looking forward to the second round of disinfection.

Vena promised to set up a station to process all of the Voidsmen and Sisters of Battle that were going to help them clear out the deck. Alexis was just wondering if she could find a way out of that when she was accosted. She had been minding her own business off to one side, mostly left alone except for her servitor friends, so having someone walk right up to her was unexpected. The person was not. Ordinator Velpexa Thame came up to her and stopped an arm's length away.

He was still only as tall as her nose, though that didn't stop him from being intimidating, especially with his battle-scarred robes and his hood pulled up.

"Tech Acolyte Alexis Lambda-3," he said.

"Ordinator Velpexa Thame," she replied with a stiff bow before hurriedly making the sign of the cog. He was her superior; she owed him deference.

"I had flagged you in my internal files," he said.

"I was planning on waiting for you to make it to Servitor Underseer under Ash-Theta, after which I was going to trade you once we reached the Sol system."

"Trade me?" she asked.

"Yes. You have potential. Those with potential can be traded between magi. Someone with a deft hand at controlling battle servitors would be better served on a vessel or task that puts that talent to work." He scanned her, then her servitor friends who were on standby.

"I seem to have missed my opportunity. Unfortunate."

"Thank you, sir," she replied.

"I'm just doing my best?" He nodded once.

"Understandable. Are you willing to lend assistance to the militarist faction?"

"I... I'm going to be honest, sir, I don't know what that would mean?" she said. He considered that for a moment, then scoffed.

"Acceptable. If you are to be the new Rogue Trader's representative of the Mechanicus, then we will discuss things at length at another time. If you wish to rise so far above your original station--something which I approve of--then you will need to know who you can rely upon. The militarist faction is considered quite neutral by most other factions of the Mechanicus. Most of us rely upon it, and others, to rise."

"I see," Alexis said.

"I've heard of some factions, of course, but how many are there on The Broken Scale?"

"On this vessel alone there are four hundred members of the Mechanicus about the rank of Acolyte. Of those who walk along the path for the Quest of Knowledge, we have seventy-three factions represented."

"So many?" Alexis asked.

"Most hold no more than three to five members. Being part of one sub-faction does not necessarily preclude you from being part of another," he explained.

"Major factions, such as the militarists, have hundreds of members onboard, though as this is not a warship, we are unusually underrepresented on The Broken Scale."

"I see. Maybe that'll change once we're closer to that planet Clarice mentioned?" she said before glancing to the side. They were about to have company. Octavia was stomping over, tailed by a pair of unfamiliar Sisters of Battle who looked like they had been sucking on extra-sour rations recently. Octavia's grin was a sharp contrast.

"I see, in that case, I will leave you to your matters. I must prepare for this extermination, though the Mechanicus' involvement will likely be minimal," Ordinator Velpexa Thame said, before taking a step back. He made the sign of the cog toward Octavia, then slipped away. Stolen story; please report. Octavia easily took his place.

"The old guy giving you trouble?" she asked.

"No? Not really," Alexis said.

"If anything, he's kind of helpful?"

"Damn. I wish the old farts in my faction were helpful," Octavia said with no regard to the two older women trailing behind her. If anything, their faces somehow soured even more.

"I'm kinda done with the political stuff. I'm leaving that up to Vena. She has a head for it. Clarice is having a good time, too."

"Is everything alright, then?" Alexis asked.

"Yeah, pretty sure? Clarice said that we'll be moving the ship again by the next bell, heading over to some planet or another. Meantime, the Voidsmen have started to seal off all the entryways into the medicae deck. Even the air and water circulation is being shut down. We're going to leave one way in open, and that's where I'm heading to now. The Sororitas are going to lead the charge. We have more experience with flamers and meltas and, Emperor willing, we'll have this done before anyone gets sick."

"Are you heading there now?" Alexis asked.

"Got to get those early points, yeah," Octavia said. Alexis knew that the shorter woman was a little upset that she'd missed out on that running fight late last night, so she probably just wanted to make up the difference. Vena, meanwhile, didn't seem to mind at all that she wasn't going to get more points. It was a strange dichotomy between the two.

"Give me just a moment to gather my friends, and I'll follow you," Alexis said.

"I'm not looking forward to a second decontamination."

"It can't be that bad!" Octavia said. Alexis shook her head. The poor fool. She had significantly more flesh on her than Alexis did, and so it would only burn more. It took a couple of minutes to gather her servitors, and in that time, Vena noticed that they were about to head out and ambled over.

"The medicae deck was put on high alert," she said.

"Which is probably for the best. The medicae are not equipped for handling cultists, but we are very well equipped for taking care of pathogenic and other biological attacks. If we weren't, then we'd all be dead twice over by now."

"Y'all are gonna help with the clean-up, then?" Octavia asked.

"We're probably going to insist on it," Vena said.

"Both because we'll do a better job of it, and because... I suspect that the remaining, uncorrupted directors and higher-ups within the medicae are going to be pressed hard to show how good and useful we are, especially to our new... temporary Lord Captain. Her first action as captain being the destruction of a hidden cult amongst the medicae carries a certain weight to it."

"Yeah, I can see why it'd be embarrassing," Octavia said.

"I bet some of the sisters are gonna want to purge the entire deck." Vena went pale at that.

"That would be... a disaster. Hundreds of years of accumulated medical knowledge, thousands of years of experience... the downstream effects would lead to the deaths of thousands."

"Could be worse if the cult got into any of that knowledge, though," Octavia said.

"Conventional knowledge would be to burn it all and let the God Emperor sort it out." Vena's face went ugly for a moment at that.

"No, I'd really rather not. I'll see if... our patron has anything that can assist with the sorting process."

"Hmm... fine," Octavia said.

"But I reserve the right to say 'I told you so' if we end up with a second cult to deal with in a week."

"I can accept that," Vena replied. Alexis gave the taller woman a little wave before she darted off and followed Octavia out of the room. Surprisingly, there was a small force waiting just outside. A platoon of Voidsmen, and a group--a squad, maybe, Alexis didn't know how their ranks worked--of Sisters of Battle. The Voidsmen were in bulky boarding armour, with glowing visors and thickly padded clothes that covered every inch of them.

The Sororitas, meanwhile, were in thin, lighter clothes, with a sort of poncho-like cloth over their shoulders and chest and a coif atop their heads. The difference in levels of protection was almost funny. Almost, because she wasn't sure she wanted the latter fighting against infected chaos daemons throwing plagues around. Still, they were carrying flamers with the familiarity of women who knew what they were doing.

"Alright everyone," Octavia said.

"Looks like everyone's ready. Let's go burn some enemies, yeah?"