An imperial warship, Constantine believed implicitly, was impregnable. The religious certainty of the Navy’s dominance, of their ships’ deific majesty, had been drilled into him since his youth, years before. For his command to irrevocably collapse in such a short period of time; for his god/ship to be so crippled and sundered in his absence and beyond his control, it was a feeling not unlike falling. Everything he’d ever known, everything he’d ever been certain of and taken for granted, fell away from beneath him in a rush of flame and debris and blood.

Fine. Let it fall. But let it not be said that in his most testing hour Lord Admiral Benedil Constantine had shirked his duty as a leader.

He would have Severus executed for ineffectual command, the time-wasting fool. He would dispatch messages conveying his great displeasure to the Administratum and to the Raptors’ fortress-monastery on Cortiz-Pol. He’d regroup the Fleet Primus, file an immediate request for backup from the Secundus and Tertius armadas, then obliterate every last one of the grey-skinned abominations currently wreaking havoc aboard his vessel. Heads, he decided furiously, would roll.

Besides, there were still the Ultramarines. He’d drawn upon the Raptors to guard the vessel’s principal sections at Severus’s demand, aware that Captain Ardias and his men might well regard the choice as an insult. Well, it couldn’t be helped; the governor’s Administratum documents had given him implicit command over the situation, and if he chose to snub the warriors of Ultramar then there was nothing Constantine could have done about it. At least now, in the midst of this madness, he had an entire company of the Imperium’s finest warriors to assist in his liberation.

With that thought in mind, he stamped from the elevator and found a long, wickedly sharp blade pressed against his throat.

“Nk,” he said.

“Be quiet, you.” Gloved hands gripped him from behind and the voice was thick with an unknown accent. An exotic, unrecognisable odour assaulted his senses, its explanation startling him.

“X-xeno!” he flinched away from the contact, gasping. Briefly he was struck by the insanity of finding himself more terrified of contamination than of physical death, but the thought was quickly chased away by added pressure upon the knife. He almost choked. The figure behind him pulled him into the shadows, like a spider seizing its prey.

“I said, be quiet,” the voice insisted, three-fingered hand gripping his shoulder. “Who are you?”

“No-hkkk-nobody.”

“Lies.”

“What?”

“The colours and the metal circles. You’re important.” The hand tapped pointedly upon the constellation of medals pinned to Constantine’s chest, making them sway and jingle prettily. The alien’s words were recognisable but clearly strained, impeded by a limited Low Gothic vocabulary. Constantine was briefly impressed that a mere warrior could speak an alien tongue at all (after all, could he, an admiral, speak tau?), but recognised it at once as a dangerously heretical thought and purged it from his mind.

“No...” he hissed. “J-just an ensign—”

“Lies. Who are you?”

“Nobo—”

The xenogen cut his throat. It was white fire — a single burning ribbon of pain beneath his chin that sliced open with dreadful slowness.

Not deep, he prayed, shaming himself with his own cowardice, not deep enough to kill.

He whimpered as the pain continued to blossom, warmth pattering serenely across his collar bone, soaking into his robes. The xeno replaced the knife centrally and pushed harder, tensing for another slow, surgical slice. This time, Constantine could tell, the cut would be deep.

“Admiral!” he groaned, begging the Emperor’s forgiveness, knees almost buckling. “I’m the admiral! In charge! Commander!”

“A kor’o?”

“What?”

“You command the vessel?”

Yes!

“And the fleet?”

Emperor’s undying mercy yes!

“Then listen. You... just listen.”

Constantine had the distinct impression that the alien was confused, thinking hard about what to do. He began to wonder at the possibilities of somehow exploiting the situation when full pressure was reapplied to the knife, making him gag.

“You contact the rest of your fleet. You tell them—”

“Warp take you! I’d rather die!”

“You tell them to fall back. You tell them to leave.”

“You’re pathetic!” Constantine fought to bring a cold laugh to his voice, breaking through the quaver of fear and hoping the creature was convinced. “They won’t listen. They’ll know I’ve been compromised.”

“We have your ship. We have you. It is best that they leave. There will be no more conflict.”

“The Emperor doesn’t compromise, xeno.”

The knife bit into this throat again, nicking at his skin. “Where is this Emperor now when you have need of him, human?”

Constantine suddenly felt a long, long way from home.

Cut him cut him cut him cut him—

It hissed and raged in Kais’s mind, a song of blood and anger and violence.

Make him bleed cut him cut him—

It was a killing lust born in frustration. Everything had seemed so simple before, killing and destroying anything that moved, cleansing the bridge of all life, capturing this quivering, whimpering kor’o. He’d felt like he could do anything, overcome any obstacle, crush any enemy.

But there were objectives here. Diplomatic outcomes.

The comm-link with the Or’es Tash’var was still down. He’d tried it twice, desperation mounting. So he’d tried to consider, just as before in the stygian gloom of the prison compound. He’d felt like he owed it to the tau’va to think — to force a conclusion to this conflict that didn’t rely on the squeeze of a trigger or the slash of a knife. To end it in blood, he felt, would surely be to allow the Mont’au devil its victory.

The personal glory of single-handedly forcing the gue’la fleet to withdraw, he had to admit, was alluring. Would it elevate him to hero status? Would it secure his promotion? Would it...

Don’t even think it.

...would it have made his father proud?

It was selfishness of the highest order, he saw with a guilty wince, imagining Ju shaking her head and patiently reading out another patronising meditation upon... upon the essence of humility, or the righteousness of unity, or something like that. Still, the image was hard to shake: cheering crowds, grateful ethereals...

But of course it wasn’t that simple, and his clumsy threats and attempts to control this tall, grey-haired human were going badly awry. He thought back to the por’vre from the expedition to Queh-quih and for the first time saw beyond the bumbling enthusiasm and almost comical attempts to placate the natives, appreciating instead the merchant’s grasp upon linguistics, his subtle words and hints, his mastery of interpersonal communication. Kais solemnly wished for a water caste diplomat now.

“Tell them to withdraw,” he shouted, pushing down on the blade.

“I’m-hekkgh-telling you... it won’t work!”

“Then you die.”

“Fine! Do it, abomination! I die in the knowledge that your race is doomed! They’ll be crushed underfoot! Kill me and have done with it — I won’t sully myself for you!”

Kais wanted to growl, enraged by the futility of his threats. The gue’la started to laugh madly — an hysterical cackle with more fatalism and terror in its tones than any great sense of amusement.

The rage shivered in Kais’s belly, widening its pin tooth grin and flooding his blood with fire. His arm muscle tensed. He closed his eyes and concentrated, fighting for control.

Focus focus focus focus—

Cut him cut him cut him cut him—

Calm. All you need is calm and balance and equilibrium and unity and—