The confessional booth is silent. The cleric is currently extremely nervous and praying for himself. Quite unprofessional, in your opinion, because you're the one that's going to risk your immortal soul for coming into contact with the xenos. Also the treason, the fomenting insurrection, going against the Imperium's holy Administratum via the implementation of heretical book-keeping techniques, and, oh, yes, you almost forgot this one: inciting the good people of the Imperium to tear clerics, commissars, and other voices of the Imperium limb from limb. In your honest defense, you did not see how it could get that far.
When you voiced this thought to Colonel Drakholt, she called you a moron because, her words, "they're scum, commander! What, you thought their hearts are made of cotton candy and sugar? No, they just want to use the lash!"
So that explains why the cleric on the other end of the grate is currently reciting the litany like his life depends on it. Because to him, you're the next best thing to a Chaos cultist, come to collect his skull or whatever they happen to do. Still, the point is clear to you: your immortal soul is at risk, and the most this priest is risking is his quite mortal body. Ergo, he should get over himself.
You rattle the grate. Your timepiece informs you that the great Kaeman Mael will be arriving under the auspices of a Vorst-Carayn convoy at noon. You dimly hope the Vee Cees didn't meet any real trouble with Zelung Elipson. In any case, you really must get this started, so you begin the confessional:
"God Emperor on Terra forgive me," you mouth the ritual words, "I will come in contact with the xeno. I fear for my soul and my mind."
Silence.
"He's not here on charity," you continue in the darkness and the quiet. "We're a part of his plan, what the plan is, I don't know. I don't know if it has good ends or a bad end. Maybe he just wants us to die. Maybe he's sent here to die-- ha, I know the feeling." You do? You must question this impulse. "What feeling?" You ask yourself quietly, fiercely. "I'm not abandoned. They told me fair and square that this was a high risk mission. They're willing to give me assets if I need them. But I don't need them! This is a whole hive planet, I can requisition in the field. I have a bully set of comrades. I chose this."
"Doubt is the open door to the fortress of the mind," a stern voice rings. You look up. You consider this quite uncharacteristic. He should be telling you to take a short jump off of a long pier in the hopes of redeeming your soul.
"I love xenos," you try out. "Yes, siree, just love them."
"Have you considered hatred instead?"
You get up and open the door to the priest's cell. In it, instead of a faithful servant of the God-Emperor, you find a servitor. A flesh robot. Its dead eyes stare up at you. You notice that it is oozing some sort of clear fluid where it's augmentics meet its flesh. "Hope is the first step to disappointment," it plays back at you.
It is, isn't it?
The hives emit the same noxious air that time when you shot the old governor and his lieutenant. It is only worsened by the war.
Ah yes, the war. The charismatic talent of the conspiracy, who are mostly renegade priests, were seeded on your order through the hives. The fiery sermons they used to revile the heretic, the xeno, and the traitor were quite easily turned around to reviling the tyrant, the rich, and the commissar capped, to widespread approval. A cleric or a commissar on leave can't step outside without being seized by a mob hopped on patriotic fervour and torn limb from limb. Of course, the Ecclesiarchy and the Commissariat plans for occasions such as these. The smartest of them all took their fellows underground and are now fighting a spirited guerilla war against the forces of the Conspiracy.
Luckily for you, your forces are sitting on every single armory, every single manufactorum worth a damn. All they've got are autoguns and makeshift flamers, as well as lasguns so shoddy Orks would throw them away. Oh, yes, and the nunnery of Adepta Sororitas, sticking out in your maps like a canker sore. The existence of the war is fairly embarrassing. You really should have thought about that. But what's done is done, and you can see a range of possibilities as to spinning this in a more beneficial light.
The Eldar shuttle alights without the clunking noise that you would expect. "It is all organic curves, more of a living being than a machine. You are reminded of the raptors in Zelung Delta's spires, especially as a… is it a wing? Is it a door? You're not sure. As something opens up towards the sky. Now out from within, lit by witch light, unfolds your guest. He stands up…
"...and up…
"...and up. Good heavens, a dim part of you thinks. Weren't Eldar supposed to be slim? This knife ear could be mistaken for a scout strider. The Eldar laughs," the Eldar laughs. An ugly, barking sound. "Orks did it. Oh, and before you wonder if I mean monkey or mon-keigh, I mean monkey. I'm already speaking your quaint verbal babble, so I shouldn't withhold myself from transliteration."
Stop reading my internal narration, you think with irritation.
"No."
Fine then.
"Sanctified Simon Servitor, scribe of sacred soles, sustained service on Scintilla's soot-stained streets. Seventeen solemn solar cycles, storm-swept seasons, and searing sunscapes saw Simon's small, sanctified stall still standing stalwart, its steel sign swinging silently in the suffocating smog, stipulating: Simon Servitor, Solemn Sanctifier of Shoes- ach! M'tongue!"
You allow yourself a moment of pride as you watch the tallest, broadest eldar/any non tyranid life form clasp a hand to his mouth, at least, he would have if there wasn't a helmet in the way. You also notice that a much smaller, paler eldar, covered head to toe in a black cloak, with only a shock of dull red hair hanging under their cowl, suddenly sprouts a smile commonly seen by children burning ants with a magnifying glass. "The great Kaeman Mael, I presume." You step forward, offering a hand.
"The one and only," he grumbles. "This is my cousin and bodyguard, Lyssith Vextrae. I… only know you as 'the commander.'" He takes your hand and shakes it with real vigor. You fear for your shoulder joint. "I'm not sure if I have the incompetence of my side to blame or your skill to admire."
"Let's split it evenly," you rejoin. "You've arrived just in time for a pressing matter. I'd love to plumb the brains of an Eldar… not in an Inquisition way, of course."
The great Kaeman Mael sits opposite of you on the conference table. Thus the provisional ruling committee of Zelung Delta comes together, minus the Chem Barons, who are too busy arguing with each other over who gets to represent their fraternity, and the Arbites, who's replacement leader is too busy fighting the pro-Imperium elements on Zelung Delta.
So the provisional ruling committee hasn't come together. Tech Priest Vess needed to be blocked from molesting Kaeman Mael, or more specifically Kaeman Mael's various Eldar technologies attached to his staff and robe? Power armor? by Colonel Drakholt and Lyssith Vextrae. Seraphine Benefex seems quite pleased to have someone as elderly and venerable as her on the committee, although she sniffed a bit when she realized that as an Eldar, Kaeman Mael still looks middle aged, despite being somewhere between four or seven hundred years old.
The main thrust of discussion today is the war. All throughout the hives zealot battles zealot. Not the underhives, no. You've targeted the inhabitants there with your promise that service in the Thraxian military industrial complex will be slightly better than service in the Imperium military industrial complex: that is, you are going to offer them mid-hive rations instead of underhive cast off rations. So it's the mid-hives that went up in rebellion. Makes sense. Lots of them make time in their lives to attend a church. Perfect targets.
The Star Ultima strike force will arrive soon. You want to wrap this up before they hit you. Deny the enemy an ally, of course. Right now, you're looking back on a lot of your tactical choices with glumness. You'd really wish you'd dragged out all the clerics and whatnot and shot them yourself. You really wish you have outer system auger probes to check if anyone's warped in sneaky like and are currently gathering information on you. At least you've taken control of the planet's vox net, the only way someone can try to patch a comm-line to an orbiting space marine cruiser is if they have a ground to orbit transmitter the size of a spire.
You just have sour grapes.
In any case, you need to…
CRUSH THE REBELS
[]- Targeted Assassinations
Kaeman Mael is a farseer. He can see the future. Therefore, he's offering to give you the locations of the leaders of the resistance so you can send kill teams after them. Once you've fragged them, he claims that the resistance will fall apart on it's own. Of course, he tells you, they'll likely go human-shit and vent their rage on the population of Zelung Delta before they figure it's all pointless or your forces will have captured them all.
[]- Proper War
Colonel Drakholt supports letting the war fester. You think she's mad, but there is sense in tactically giving up some losses to give the resistance a solid hot spot where they think they can win. Then, once it's sopped up all of the focus of the renegades, wham, bam, come at them with all the artillery and assault teams in the world. Pluses: a solid, indisputable victory that'll sap the will to fight better than the Horus killing Sanguinius. Minuses: you are letting the enemy win.
[]- Lessons in Rhetoric
A man cannot overcome their training. To Seraphine Benefex, you have the food. You have the money. You have the medicaes. What the pro-Imperium rebels have to offer is a short life of struggle and pain. Therefore, she suggests erecting a strong cordon and supply the Arbites, at the detriment of the Imperial Thracian Guard's forces. After that, once the hostiles are seeing their counterparts enjoy themselves, you can just accept their surrenders. A very 'safe' plan that, while doesn't place your forces in danger, doesn't actually solve the problem.
[]- The Open Trap
This one is all you. What if you were to allow the Star Ultima strike force to learn of your rebel problem? That would shape their thinking. They would make their plans in a way that helps your rebels. In fact, they might have to redouble their efforts to get to you. And doing a hasty warp jump never works out well, not to say what they might lose in terms of wargear and support. You've wrapped Zelung Delta in a porcupine's quill of anti-air batteries. You have macrocannons in orbit and two cruisers ready to fight. Are you brave enough to take this suicidal risk?
