‘Have you ever experienced combat?’ Ngiri asked her as they traipsed out through the ship’s ruined stern for a second time.

‘The ship I served on was boarded once,’ Chetta told her. ‘Half a dozen ork troop ships, or however they refer to them. The rest of the Navigator corps and I were given laspistols, and told to face the door to our quarters and shoot anything green that came through it. The orks never made it to us, but it was a nerve-wracking few hours, I can promise you.’ She stumbled slightly, and suppressed a grunt of pain as her hip made its presence more keenly felt for a moment. ‘Out of interest, what is the fastest way to take down an ork warrior?’

‘In my experience?’ Ngiri paused, as if in thought. ‘Lascannon.’

‘Hnh.’ Chetta snorted a humourless laugh. ‘I must admit, I was hoping for something slightly more insightful.’

‘In the same vein, we’re hunting a psyker, and you’ve spent much of your life dealing with the warp,’ Ngiri said. ‘What would you say is the best way to deal with the threats it poses?’

‘In my experience?’ Chetta shrugged. ‘Being inside a Geller field.’

The eye-lenses of Ngiri’s helmet regarded her steadily for a moment.

‘I know, I know,’ Chetta grunted. She puffed her cheeks out, and her own breath reflected back at her off the respirator’s interior in a warm gust. ‘So here we are. The unprepared, arraying ourselves against the unfathomable, on behalf of the unaware.’

‘Welcome to His Majesty’s Divine Inquisition,’ Fell commented darkly.

‘Fell!’ Ngiri snapped.

‘Sorry, boss.’

Ngiri exhaled breathily over the comm, which Chetta took to indicate both the inquisitor’s irritation with her armsman, and her preparation for what was to come next.

‘Very well. Lady Brobantis, if you would be so good?’

‘No one look at my face too closely,’ Chetta warned the others. She took the head of her cane in both hands, braced it in front of her and opened her warp eye.

The disorientation was immediate, and worse than usual. She couldn’t tell if it was because of her weariness, or injuries, or simply the fact that the smothering smog made it hard to anchor herself using her senses of sight and hearing. As ever, her warp eye sought the roiling maelstrom of the empyrean but found nothing, and the disconnection from her other senses was all the more pronounced.

She could focus on the pain in her body, though. That was nowhere near as far from her as she’d like it to be.

‘I don’t think… he’s anywhere immediately near,’ she said. Her mouth felt clumsy and her tongue thick. Faint sparks brushed at her awareness like the trailing tendrils of unseen cobwebs when moving through a room long-abandoned: a fleeting sensation that had changed by the time it was focused on.

‘Can you walk?’ Ngiri asked.