Nemesis

Yosef felt wrung out by the events of the day even though it had hardly begun. He sighed and looked away, only to find the woman Perrig watching him again.

When she spoke, her voice had a melody to it that was at odds with the fire in her eyes. ‘There is a horror here,’ she told them. ‘Darkness clustering at the edges of perception. Lies and murder.’ The psyker sighed. ‘All of you have seen it.’

Yosef broke her gaze with no little effort on his part and gave Hyssos a nod. ‘Where do you want to start?’

‘You tell me,’ said the operative.

3

Ultio drifted into the gravity well of the gas giant, crossing the complex web of orbits described by Jupiter’s outer moons. It was almost a solar system in miniature, with the gas giant at its core rather than the blazing orb of a sun. The cloud of satellites and Trojan asteroids surrounding it were full of human colonies, factories and forges, powered by drinking in the radiation surging from the mammoth planet, feeding on mineral riches that in centuries of exploitation had yet to be fully exhausted. Jupiter was Terra’s shipyard, and its sky was forever filled with vessels. Centred around Ganymede and a dozen other smaller moons, spacedocks and fabricatories worked ceaselessly to construct everything from single-crew Raven interceptors up to the gargantuan hulls of mighty Emperor-class command-carrier battleships.

In a zone so dense with spacecraft and orbitals of every kind, it should have been easy for the Ultio to become lost in the shoals of them; but security was tight, and suspicion was at every point of the compass. In the opening moves of the insurrection, an alliance of turncoats, men of the Mechanicum and traitors from the Word Bearers Legion, had assembled in secret a dreadnought called the Furious Abyss, constructing it in a clandestine berth on the asteroid-moon Thule. The small Jovian satellite had been obliterated during the ship’s explosive departure and the ragged clump of its remains still orbited far out at the edges of the planetary system; but the shockwave from Thule’s destruction and the Abyss incident was still being felt.

Thus, the Ultio moved with care and raised no uncertainties, doing nothing to draw attention to itself. Secure in its falsehood, the vessel passed under the shadow of the habitats at Iocaste and Ananke and then deeper into the Galiliean ranges, passing the geo-engineered ocean-moon of Europa and Io’s seething orange mass. It followed a slow and steady course in across the planet’s bands of dirty orange, umber and cream-grey clouds, down towards the Great Red Spot.

A vast spindle floated there, bathed in the crimson glow; Saros Station resembled a crystal chandelier severed from its mountings and cast free into the void, turning and catching starlight. Unlike the majority of its industrial and colonial cohorts, Saros was a resort platform where the Jovian elite could find respite and diversion from the works of the shipyards and manufactories. It was said that only the Venus orbitals could surpass Saros Station for its luxury. Avenues of gold and silver, acres of null-g gardens and auditoriums; and the finest opera house outside the Imperial Palace.

4

The station filled the view through the Ultio’s canopy as the ship drifted closer.

‘Why are we here?’ asked Iota, with an idle sullenness.

‘Our next recruit,’ Tariel told her. ‘Koyne, of the Clade Callidus.’

At the rear of the flight deck, the Garantine bent his head to avoid slamming it against the ceiling. He made a rasping, spitting noise. ‘What do we need one of them for?’

‘Because the Master of Assassins demands it,’ Kell replied, without turning.

The Vanus glanced up from the displays fanned out around his gauntlet. ‘According to my information, there is an important cultural event taking place. A recital of the opus Oedipus Neo.’

‘The what?’ sniffed the Eversor.

‘A theatrical performance of dance, music and oratory,’ Tariel went on, oblivious to his derision, ‘It is a social event of great note in the Jovian Zone.’

‘Must have lost my invite,’ the Eversor rumbled.

‘And this Koyne is down there?’ Iota wandered to the viewport and pressed her hands to it, staring at Saros. ‘How will we know a faceless Callidus among so many faces?’

Kell studied the abstract contact protocols he had been provided and frowned. ‘We are to… send flowers.’

5

Gergerra Rei wept like a child as Jocasta went to her death.

His knuckles turned white as he held on to the balustrade around the edge of the roaming box the theatre had provided. Behind him, the machine-sentries in his personal maniple stood motionless and uncomprehending as their master’s lips trembled in a breathy gasp. Rei leaned forward, almost as if he could will her not to take the steel noose and place it over her supple neck. A cry was filling his throat; he wanted to call to her, but he could not.