The Chimera armored transport rolled lonely across the frozen tundra of the ice plains.
The interior of the troop compartment was cramped and dim, lit only by a single white light casting down from the ceiling. Ten soldiers sat squeezed together on the metal benches lining both sides. There was no conversation, no movement—only the characteristic numbness of soldiers who had spent years stationed on the front lines.
Yet, two figures stood out, their presence utterly at odds with the stifling dullness of the compartment.
Raynor leaned into the innermost corner of the vehicle, his back against the cold armor plating in a relaxed posture. Diagonally across from him, Solene huddled in the shadows, her standard PDF helmet fastened tight. Her chin was pressed deep into the padding of her neck guard, her gaze lowered, fixed intently on the tips of her boots.
Her posture was the perfect imitation of an exhausted soldier, but only she knew that her heart was pounding at a rate far beyond normal—like a startled rabbit on the prairie.
Raynor's playful words, "Comrade... why don't you... see me off?", echoed repeatedly in her mind. She couldn't be certain if it was a casual remark or a deliberate test.
Back at the obstruction, the moment that hand had dropped onto her shoulder, she had nearly struck then and there. But she had ultimately restrained herself. The faint, trace-like pressure of Alpha-level psionic energy radiating from Raynor made her hesitate to act rashly. She had seen many high-level psykers and had personally executed several sorcerers who had fallen to Chaos, but Raynor's psionic signature was different. It felt refined to the absolute extreme—calm, yet carrying the potential for world-shattering destruction.
She wasn't sure if she could take him down. More importantly, after saying those words, Raynor had walked straight into the transport without sparing her another glance, as if he truly had just picked a random, pleasing "escort." His natural demeanor even made her wonder if her vigilance was merely paranoia.
To suppress the surging fear and doubt in her heart, Solene forced herself to close her eyes and began to review every single action Raynor had taken since arriving on Brevis. She tried to pull a single thread from this tangled mess that would prove he was a Heretic.
Carey Von, descendant of an Astra Militarum Major General, who only secured the governorship of Brevis by clinging to the Cora family. According to the laws of Imperial bureaucracy, the first priority of a noble scion who rose through nepotism was always to "recoup the investment." Embezzling rations and pay, smuggling rare minerals, raising private militias, and using power for personal gain to suppress dissent—turning the governorship into a personal cash cow.
But what about this Governor?
He distributed his own rations to refugees, threw his private guards into the defense of the Forbidden Wall, and even charged into battle personally atop a Leman Russ Battle Tank. The image of him slaying the Ork Warboss had even been circulated among the frontline soldiers as a miracle of "the Emperor's Manifestation."
He was too upright—upright to the point of being a saint, an anomaly that didn't belong in this dark age. For a noble Governor to behave this way was, in itself, abnormal. Furthermore, he had completed the decapitation strike against the Ork Warboss in less than three weeks and executed perfect psychological warfare against the ice plains wildmen, binding two feuding clans firmly to his war machine. This was not something a pampered noble descendant could achieve.
Then there was his knowledge of the Orks; it felt more like the experience of a veteran general who had crawled through countless battlefields in life-and-death struggles. Yet his file showed he was barely in his early twenties.
A young Governor with high-level psionic power, god-like capability, and a bone-deep understanding of the Greenskins... she truly couldn't imagine it. Could he... actually be a Living Saint, a Chosen of the Emperor?
A chill ran from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. She made her decision: as soon as she returned to the Hive, she would immediately use her formal status as an Inquisitor of the Calixis Sector branch of the Ordo Hereticus. She would meet with Arch-Cardinal Goodwin and High King Caladog and, at all costs, initiate the highest-level investigation into Carey Von.
Even if he were a true Saint, this investigation would strip him of three layers of skin and expose everything about him to the gaze of the Imperium! If he truly conspired with Chaos or Xenos, she would personally nail him to an Inquisitorial cross and let his soul howl forever in the fires of purification. This was her duty as an Inquisitor, and her loyalty to the God-良好 Emperor.
The jolting within the vehicle ceased, and the sound of the blizzard weakened; the Chimera had entered the perimeter of the Forbidden Wall. Raynor remained with his eyes closed, but his consciousness was already linked with Sarah's.
"I didn't expect her to be so bold—to actually infiltrate my escort squad personally," Raynor noted with a hint of surprise. He had initially thought Solene would, at most, plant high-tech bugs near him; he hadn't expected the woman herself to be hiding right under his nose.
Sarah sounded a bit annoyed. "The Lictor's scan didn't detect any anomaly. The gait, body temperature, and psionic fluctuations of the 'skin-suit' were identical to her own. Even my psionic perception failed to see through it." This human "dark tech" was more troublesome than imagined.
Raynor nodded slightly, his finger brushing Sarah's carapace to soothe her. In truth, his trip out wasn't purely to accompany Sarah for a stroll; it was a test. If Solene had truly left, her planted eyes would still be near him. If they noticed the "monitored" Governor suddenly going out, it was impossible for her true self to have no reaction. They just hadn't expected Sarah to find the clue before the test even properly began.
A few hours earlier, the moment Sarah had boarded the vehicle, she had sensed something was wrong. It was the instinct of a top-tier Tyranid predator. Her grasp of the physical characteristics of "prey" was more precise than any instrument.
The "soldier's" shoulder-to-hip ratio, gait, center of gravity, and breathing frequency showed clear statistical differences from the male soldiers in the same squad. Male soldiers had wider shoulders, narrower hips, a higher center of gravity while walking, and heavy, steady breathing.
But her shoulder-to-hip ratio was more slender, her center of gravity was lower, and her breathing rate was nearly a third faster than the males. Of course, there was also the difference in hormonal signatures that could only be detected by specialized biological senses. And in the roster for that squad, there were no female soldiers at all.
An internal mole? The thought flashed through Raynor's consciousness.
"Uncertain who it is. Deep psionic probing is required to confirm her true identity," Sarah replied.
"Don't!" Raynor immediately stopped her. "Probing now will only alert the enemy. Since she wants to act, we'll play along with her until the end."
Just as their mental exchange concluded, the mini Ripper tucked into Raynor's sleeve slipped out silently. Its body entered an optical stealth state, leaving not even a shadow in the dim compartment. Only Raynor could perceive its position through the system link.
The Ripper crawled through the compartment toward Solene, eventually hovering in the air thirty centimeters behind her. Its compound eyes stared intently at her back, as the perceptions of a top-tier Tyranid unit extended without reservation.
[Target detected with reinforced padding inside shoulder armor. Suspected artificial filler used to broaden shoulders and mimic a male physique.]
[Trace amounts of estradiol metabolic markers captured in the air. Completely inconsistent with the hormonal profile of high-intensity trained male soldiers. Confirmed female.]
[When unobserved, the target subconsciously shifts her weight to the right hip. This is a muscle memory formed by long-term wearing of chest-binding equipment that compresses the thoracic cavity; it cannot be consciously hidden.]
Every one of Sarah's detection results flowed directly into Raynor's consciousness.