Morhson's Testimony
[authval=Josh S-D]
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+Priority Inquisitorial Communique+
+Destination: Choreopsis Adeptus Astra Telepathica Choirstation+
+Thought for the day: He who hesitates is damned+
My Lord, what follows is a transcript of the classicist Theodor Morhson’s interrogation, pertaining to the assaults on Croesus and Morgant. If it is your Inquisitorial will for me to pursue these allegations, you need but ask.
Yours faithfully
Interrogator Cartchek
++Transcript begins++
T. Morhson: Yes, Croesus was my homeworld. As I said, when the assault began, I was in Ava’s patisserie, which is near Exterior Plaza. Very outer part of the upper hive, near the verandas skirting the hive structure which are often open to the sky in good weather. That evening though, it was wet, windy and dark. Couldn’t see the moons because of the cloud cover. In my time I’ve pored over many accounts from antiquity, of Imperial citizens who were in the wrong time, wrong place when the bombs started to fall. When the hive’s sirens started to wail and an up-hive enforcer ushered me and a few other patrons outside, I felt like I was in one of those accounts. It certainly didn’t feel real. I sort of remember the enforcer looking me in the face and saying something about evacuation. Moments later I was crossing Exterior Plaza, a vague notion of getting on a strato-plane knocking around my head. Aye, I think I was trying to get out to the landing aprons on the veranda, to one of the pleasure-craft that could take me to another hive. Hm, I also recall a man next to me cursing the name of the planetary governor, saying something about how we were paying the price for his declaration. I think he was talking about declaring for the returned primarch. It wasn’t a unanimous decision on Croesus, you see. Our autocracy made the declaration and though many of us supported it, many didn’t.
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That was when something struck the hive, not that far from me I think. It blew up sheets of the veranda roof, offering us up to the elements. Suddenly I was on the floor, my recently purchased pastries scattered to the astrogranite, pummelled by the rain. The ringing in my ears was gradually overwhelmed by an approaching howl. It wasn’t the wind, though the squalls up this high were vicious and tearing at my clothes. I saw the source of the noise hurtling towards the plaza. Others saw it too and rose to flee back into the shelter of the city. The roaring was the scream of dozens of engines, bearing forth a score of ruddy and darkly coloured craft from the night. They’d just flown through the hive’s void shields. I watched from my prone position, still not believing my senses, even as my ears began to register the wall defence guns activating and my eyes observed the attacking machines evading incoming fire.
To my horror, two of the aircraft came spiralling towards the plaza, then slowed from a staggering speed to hover over the middle of the square. The red prow of the leading ship folded down like a ramp, unleashing a lurid light from within. There was a figure in black before the light, a stark silhouette like an armoured colossus. Like a statue observing a field of battle before diving into the fray.
This was the last I could remember, for a time. I believe the shooting-war started in earnest at that point, for my next memory was awaking with a pounding headache – some masonry or shrapnel had hit my temple, left me bleeding. I’d been moved during my unconsciousness, but not far, for I still felt the astrogranite beneath me and had become sodden in the rainfall. I could hear thumps and cracks of distant, raging battle.
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I wasn’t alone; I was surrounded by the dead. Well over a hundred bodies, mostly other hivers arranged in rows, lying on the plaza. Evidently I had been mistaken for one of them while I was unresponsive. Beyond the sprawled dead, hunkering at the other end of the square, was one of those aircraft, its armoured slab-sides slick with rain and decorated with an embellished black cross, a fanged skull at its centre. Peering through the gloom I was shocked to see the trappings and wargear of the corpses next to me. For not all of the supine bodies were fellow civilians; in neater ranks beside me were the bodies of soldiers I recognised from my studies of antiquity. They were Solar Auxilia. They looked hard-edged and professional even in their deathly repose, thoroughly equipped, though their armour and weapons looked like they had been forged in another era. There were, of course, far fewer of them than the deceased hivers.
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They rushed over to their fallen comrades, all the while casting about themselves as though looking for danger.
++Subject stops talking++
Interrogator Cartchek: Can you remember in any more detail, exactly what they said?
T. Morhson: They seemed surprised that all their comrades were dead, as though some had only been wounded when they left them on the plaza, presumably awaiting treatment from the missing orderly. One of them definitely ordered the others to start taking up their dead, so as not to leave them behind in the extraction. That seemed my best hope to escape this nightmare so, despite my suspicions that they were enemy soldiers, I called to them for aid. Half a dozen las-weapons turned my way before they judged me harmless. One moved towards me, heaving me up by the arm with the implanted valve, the pressure making me wince. When back on my feet I asked him about it, supposing that the medicae personnel they were seeking had put it there. Hurriedly glancing towards the device, he snapped back that he didn’t recognise its design – it wasn’t their tech. But I could tell from his expression he knew what it was for and I guessed he had seen it on the bodies of his dead comrades.
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With harsh whispers they debated how to transport their fallen comrades, as there weren’t nearly enough of them to take them all. It was desperate, but the discussion ended when the hissing of pneumatics cut across the night. We looked towards the previously dormant aircraft, its prow ramp lowering to emit that lurid light onto the plaza once more. I turned back to the soldiers, my peculiar saviours, their rain-wet visors and faces glinting in the glare. The one I took as their leader said simply, “we’re leaving this damned hive,” without any dissent from his men. They left the bodies behind and I instinctively ran with them, away from the aircraft. Glancing backwards I saw a gaggle of figures descending the ramp. I could see the outlines of their forms and equipment from the stark backlighting. Glistening needles, slick tubes and even over the fall of rain and distant war, I could hear the clinking of glass flasks. I quietly begged the nearest Auxilia to take me with them, which they agreed to, as long as I kept up and didn’t get in the way.
Interrogator Cartchek: These Auxilia troops were allied to the Pentarchy, fighting for the High Lords by our records. Help me understand why this unit helped you.
T. Morhson: I didn’t find out until later. You’ve heard the rumours, Interrogator; that’s why we’re talking about this after all, isn’t it? There were a lot of citizens talking about horrendous acts of torture by the Pentarchy during the evacuation off-world. I never saw that, or evidence of it even. What we did know to be true, largely from the accounts of the Solar Auxilia 555th Cohort who threw in their lot with the Partisans, was that to fight alongside the Pentarchy was to fight alongside beasts. Devils whose methods are indistinguishable from the forces of darkness we supposed they should protect us from. There were honourable souls, like those who saved me, among the 555th who would no longer abide such atrocities.
T. Morhson: I didn’t find out until later. You’ve heard the rumours, Interrogator; that’s why we’re talking about this after all, isn’t it? There were a lot of citizens talking about horrendous acts of torture by the Pentarchy during the evacuation off-world. I never saw that, or evidence of it even. What we did know to be true, largely from the accounts of the Solar Auxilia 555th Cohort who threw in their lot with the Partisans, was that to fight alongside the Pentarchy was to fight alongside beasts. Devils whose methods are indistinguishable from the forces of darkness we supposed they should protect us from. There were honourable souls, like those who saved me, among the 555th who would no longer abide such atrocities.
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T. Morhson: The histories say that Croesus, and Morgant for that matter, were staggering victories for the Pentarchy. The assessment probably isn’t wrong, for the fear of that symbol, that bloody rose, has spread among the Partisans like a plague. That reputation emerged from the wreckage of my homeworld. But for every individual I saw cowed by the foul rumours of what had happened on Croesus, I saw two more that had no doubt the Partisan cause was the more righteous. Since Croesus, I never met an individual who described themselves as ‘neutral’.
++Transcript ends++
++Transcript ends++
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