FVN 171 – Announcement
171 – Announcement
171 – Announcement
Something was wrong with this planet, something deeply unsettling that sat thick in the air and sent shivers down Ciaphas Cain’s spine. Ever since that assault on the cafe and his near-miraculous survival of it, he had been wrestling with a deep sense of foreboding.
The people of the towns they had rode through spoke of superhuman warriors clad in all white, of terrorists and criminals who stood up to them getting slaughtered like helpless children, and of the myriads of theories they had for where these strange, alien creatures had come from. Aliens coming to conquer the world, a secret society of warriors staking their claim to the planet, angels of their blasphemous goddess coming to purge the unworthy and so on and so forth.
Unrest was rising and a thick web of tension had settled onto the populous. Resentment, fear and anxiety were on the rise and with the main governing body of the planet being utterly demolished in the capital, the forces of the government were far too slow to respond. The whole place was a powder keg, and Cain was sitting right on top of it.
It didn’t help that most forms of regular communication had stopped working a day ago, which included pict-casters, radios, and all forms of media present before. Now that had only made everything worse, because while it did stop the news channels from rousing the citizens into a fearful frenzy, it also left the entire population without their primary source of entertainment. Even Jurgen’s porno slates stopped working, and the man had been rather grouchy since then. If his unflappable aide was in a bad mood, he could only imagine the lows to which some other people’s moods had sunk.
There is still a whole day until we have to meet up with Amberly. Cain thought, staring out the second-story window at the crowd passing through down on the street in some form of protest. I hope this whole thing doesn’t blow up until then.
Of course, fate has never been that nice to him, and it wouldn’t be changing its ways now.
The pict-caster that had been sitting silently atop the table in one corner of the room despite the sole enginseer of the group trying to work his magic on it buzzed with static. Cain wasn’t the first to react, that would have been Sergeant Braum who had just been napping on the sofa a moment before, but now had his laspistol aimed threateningly at the revived piece of machinery.
“How?” the engine seer muttered in horrified wonder, and Cain caught some utters of blasphemy among the troops. After all, the coghead had pronounced the machine spirit of the pict-caster to have been obliterated by some insidious techno sorcery, and yet, it seemed to be powering on despite that.
The image buzzed for a moment, black and white dots swarming across the screen in a storm of chaos as a faint image turned clearer and clearer beneath it. It was vague for now, but with it getting cleared by the second, Cain soon recognised it for a podium, the like a governor might have stood behind to give a rousing speech to their citizens.
In only half a minute, the image was crystal clear, as crisp as it was ever going to be and showed some stark differences with the mental image Cain had in his mind. Governors, like all nobles and their lesser political lackeys, loved ostentatious shows of wealth to drive it home to the poor citizenry how much more power they held in their hands.
There was none of that here, not a hint of gold or gems, not elaborate engravings or delicately etched surfaces. Not even a grand painting in the background. The podium stood at the centre of the screen, empty for now. It seemed to be carved from a single slab of some glistening white rock that resembled the carapace of some Tyranids much too closely for Cain to be comfortable with. The room where the podium stood was much the same, seemingly built up from man-sized bricks of the same white rock, with the only colour shown being the bright silverish light streaming down from above, cast by something out of sight.
There was a flash of light, an indistinct colour which drove a spike of pain into Cain’s skull right behind his eyes just by looking at it. By the time he managed to blink his blurry vision back into focus with a curse muttered under his breath, a woman stood behind the podium.
“Despite what many of you may think,” the woman continued after a few seconds of silence, just as Cain’s cascading thoughts started calming down enough to pay attention again. Which was likely intentional. “We are no conquerors. What we had come here to do was retaliation, and was done while minimising civilian casualties and infrastructural damage as much as possible. After these announcements, we will be lifting the suppression of your communication networks and will be leaving your planet to fend for itself. Before we fully depart, though, our leader has asked me to extend an invitation to any and all humans on this planet.
“We are powerful, but few in number,” the black-haired woman said, making the images disappear with a snap of her fingers and letting new images take their place. On it, an enormous construct rivalling the main towers of many a Hive City stood, reaching for the sky. The image expanded, and around it showed a gigantic circle of walls many kilometres away, with an expansive system of roads and growing buildings still under construction shown between the two. “We need workers, citizens, craftsmen, and every other profession beyond soldiers and warriors. Any who would be willing to come with us to live in the new city shown behind me, and is doing so in good faith, we will transport there ourselves. For any who come, we promise safety and protection. Never again will you have to fear terrorists, cultists, aliens or monsters of the like you have just seen. When the time comes, you will find one of our warriors in the centre of your settlements and they will transport you to our ships if you both qualify and are willing to come. That is all. Have a good day.”
The screen buzzed and went white, then dark as it turned off. The engine seer rushed up to it a moment later, muttering something in his Order’s chittering tongue. Soldiers who had been in the room began to mutter among themselves, confusion evident on their faces and in their voices, but Cain caught a few cursing and swearing too. ‘Xeno lovers’ and ‘heretics’ were among the words spoken, but the few smarter ones who understood the implications of everything they had heard were silent and pensive, just like Cain.
At least they don’t seem to be here for us. He thought with some relief, though he didn’t allow himself to get drunk on it. People lied all the time, and that announcement might have just been a way to distract him and Amberly’s group, make them think they weren’t here for whatever bauble had caught the Inquisitor’s eye this time around.
*****
“So?” I asked, letting the quickly thrown-together broadcast room melt back into writhing eldritch flesh that rushed back into my outstretched palm. “How did that go?”
“You were watching the whole thing,” Selene said with a mild smile from my side, still dressed up to the gills in her fancy set of robes and armour. “And you likely saw the reactions people had for the speech too, didn’t you?”
“I did.” I shrugged. “Time will tell. But what I’m interested in is what you think. Despite that bluey sub-brain doing its damnedest, I’m not really built for this type of shit.”
“Nobody is,” Selene said. “It’s a skill to be learned, like everything else. But I think it went as well as it could have, though I would have preferred it if I could have given a name to refer to our ‘faction’ as.”
She gave me a mock glare, and I scratched my cheek in embarrassment. Naming things was hard, even more so when I knew the name I gave would stick to me for centuries.
“Did I tell you how jaw-droppingly gorgeous you look in that getup?” I said with a flutter of my eyelashes, shamelessly changing the topic, which Selene took in good humour.
“No, I don’t think so.” She giggled. “But I’d love to hear more ... though maybe after you gave me a quick rundown of the reactions. If things go wrong, we need to react quickly.”
“Sure,” I said with a dramatic sigh. “Let’s get that over with then.”