[M] Kaleidoscope IC

[GraftRaven]

A spider drone watched Delaz enter from above the door as Censor simply continued to work, thinking for a moment about the question posed to him. [A valid question Delaz. The game is still afoot, while Carmine could have been a very powerful piece there is another more important to victory... myself. I am fairly certain that you would have killed me had I persisted, I am also not fitted for combat.]

He looked up from the lower leg he was working on, his hood discarded for now and the bleached surface of his skull gleaming in the low light as his red eye sensors scanned over Delaz. [I would as soon ask you why you spared me, as I am obviously not through with my plans.] Censor planted the leg from the bench on the floor, its cross shaped pad providing a stable base, then planted his currently truncated thigh on the leg and waited a few seconds for the joint to.assemble itself. [Were you going somewhere?] He asked, pulling his hood over his skull and then retracting the arms he had used to do it.

[ArchonDuPlex]

Ren made his way back to his quarters, tiredness again washing over his resolve as waves erode footsteps on the beach.
Cloak cased off as the door closed, rifle unslung from its hidden sheath beneath the Camelioline.
The humans had seen how accurate he was with shurikens, handing him a round board to hang in his broom closet sized quarters. It was of a tough cork, a circular metal grid shooting from the central spot painted red, numbers in their crude language noting round the rim.
dart board...the name echoed in his mind, as he spotted it.
less than a second later, the 'bullseye' was hit, the white wraith-bone star embedded through the board into the metal behind.

He rested slightly, occasionally peppering the board, making out a few crude sketches of runes with the shurikens before retrieving them, placing them aside as he slumbered.

The Archon stood in from of the vast window, facing it as Ren entered, the guard waiting outside.
“Syren, as your reward, I've left my pistol on the table. It is yours. As is everything I own.
That is why you came here, correct?”
Ren took the rifle, eyes on the Archon as he holstered it.

“I don't think the Farseer had it in mind for replacing you with me, Archon.”
“farseer? oh. Your a ranger.”
The Archon sighed

“at least you treated me to one last surprise before the end.” He remarked, not talking as Ren drew his blade, an elegant short sword.

Ren didn't reply, walking forward slowly. Closing the gap, his mission almost over.
“There was so much promise in you...I took you under my wing, I trained you, I taught you to feed on the prey...and yet...” He continued, unmoving, his black cape billowing as the window faded, a balcony raising up to where the ledge once was as the Archon began to walk out.

Ren followed, then rushed the Archon, blade whirling as the Archon turned, his own parrying it.
The locked blades, locking eyes, trying to see past each other deceptions.
“...I almost believed I had found my son in you Ren.” he remarked, solemnly, before grinning psychotically as he finishing it. “Almost.”

They broke, Ren flipping over the Archon and onto the balcony, the dark prince following suit as they duelled, wind picking up as the fires below filled the air with embers and smoke.

“I will miss you of course”
The Archon blocked a lunge, bringing his own blade across Ren's arm, scarring it, forcing Ren to drop his blade.
“of all those I've known, you'll be the only one I'll ever miss.” He continued, a swift kick knocking the blade aside as he slashed across Ren's chest, forcing him to stagger back as he clutched it, finding the very tip cad simply drew a line in his skin.
As he regained his composure, drawing out a knife The fiend before him jumping up onto the railings.

“We'll meet again Ren.” The Archon retorted, balanced perfectly on the thin railing, Ren cautiously walking forward.
A single shot of brightlight lanced the Archon through his heart. He fell, and Ren rushed to the railing, looking down and seeing the impaled body on a spire below. Turning and nodding to the sniper, he left the balcony.

Ren woke, getting up as he slipped his cloak back on, sliding his rifle back into place, hand gingerly taking the splinter pistol from his stash as he left for the boarding mission.

[Felwether]

Some Music.

Vincent Nyl sat slumped back in the half-dark of his quarters, music played softly in the background. He had taken half a bottle of sedatives and was busy washing them down with the strongest drink he could find. His room was a simple affair, located near engineering, the bare, plasteel walls and heavy bulkhead door put him at ease - reminding him of a military billet. The air was thick with smoke, illuminated by a single lamp in the corner. He took another drag and exhaled lazily, watching as the acrid smoke drifted slowly up to the ceiling, swirling and rippling gently.

The shit had really hit the fan in the last few weeks. Vincent had been part of the original team on Teleostei but after the death of Franklin he had become somewhat 'unstable' – suffice to say Walter had him placed on a shuttle and brought to the brig aboard True Bane. Vincent had managed to convince Van der Mir that he wasn't completely insane and he had been waiting in the wings ever since. After boarding the Mooncalf he sank into a dark pit from which it felt he would never escape. Maybe he didn't want to.

Vincent had all but cut himself off from the outside world over the last ten days, emerging occasionally to eat or attend briefings with Van der Mir. He hadn't spoken more than two words to anyone else in the last ten days and, had been openly hostile towards several of them. Every so often he considered going to see how Kally was doing but always just opened another bottle instead. He was pretty sure it had started with Frank. It wasn't necessarily sadness but more the shock of it. It sickened him to think that he was actually surprised he felt anything at all.

He traced his fingers along the black combat blade tattooed to his scalp, feeling the dents and scars that criss-crossed his bald head. He felt old and useless.

"What the fokk am I even doin' here?" He muttered to himself before sinking the last mouthful amasec in the bottle. “Outta my fokken league, that's what I am...”

He roared wordlessly and threw the container across the room like a missile, shattering it into a hundred shards of glass. His eyes drifted towards the loaded pistol on the table before him and he stared at it thoughtfully for a moment before tearing his gaze away.

Maybe he could still help. His armour and weapons were layed out on his cot, ready to go – he'd been sleeping on the floor since he took the room. All he had to do was wait for the call.

[Damonique]

Jansen Savs-Bliskiriner-Mooncalf Dock, Amidships, Starboard Lock

Jansen leaned back into the inverted synth-padding pilots chair, running his silver-studded fingers about the instruments. The ship was finally his again. The first thing he had done after Van Dir Mir had brought them there was toss out the techno-servibox that had been used to suppress the AI, and then reactivated it from the secondary processor sealed in one of the munitions lockers.

"Bliss....whats your idea on this?" The pilot said, gruffly. He was mind-linked to the cutter, but said it aloud nonethelless. He was still getting used to his knew teeth. His original had been busted up in the hab-complex brawl, so Jansen had had the Mooncalf's surgical drone pull out all of his teeth and replace them with platinum replacements. They gleamed in between smirking lips.

"I can't answer that, Savs. Heresy is against my processing, and my thoughts on the subject come dangerously close to that line." The AI said aloud through its speakers in an electronic monotone, while in his mind Jansen heard the same, expressed in a lilting, female voice.

"Heh, well, I was never one to see the Inquisition as a true agent of the Emporer. More politics is all it is..." Jansen smirked wistfully. He had been briefed on the facts once they had reached the Mooncalf, but Jansen was still leery of the whole thing. He mainly decked himself in his ship, since he didn't trust the rooms offered aboard not to be bugged.

He had left the quarters hatch amid the cutter available to any of the others on their beleaguered force. And Ella had been a near-daily acquaintance since she was utilizing the Astropath's suite he had in the rear hatch. Occasionally she would stay by to play a game of regicide. She usually won, Jansen was more of a card player than anything else. He and skip occasionally played a few hands of Knave or Terran Deal. Other than that, Jansen had kept to himself.

"Jansen, you shouldn't spend your time here. At least give yourself a decent regiment of exercise. I insist. The AI spoke up after the short silence. Jansen knew it was right, he had done all he could in the box over the last seven days of transit, and in them he had only left twice, once to final off his deal with Van Dir Mir and again to the mess for Ella's birthday. That had been fun. Jansen had gotten drunk enough to imagine he was back home for a bit.

Tress would be in her early twenties no, long shot from the micheavious little thirteen-year old with bright red hair and a smile that could warm a serial killer he had left back on Glavia. There had been an awkward moment when had walked over and gave the Astropath a bear hug and called her Tressa, and that had been the end of the fun, but from what he could tell, everyone had just blamed it on the liberal amount of Skirran Vodka he had injested.

"Alright, you know best, Bliss...I'll be back later. I'll go shoot something." Jansen resolved, and headed for the rear hatch, collecting his Flak Coat. The leather was fraying around the edges, but the reinforced carbon mesh still held steady, so Jansen continued to wear it over his flight suit. His revolvers were already strapped about his person, so Jansen retrieved only his short-barreled Arbites Machinepistol before stepping out.

The docking deck was top notch, scrub-white with servitors in gilded chassis trundling back and forth, servicing the few docked vessels. Jansen noted that the cutter sealed and depressurized behind him, and jogged down the dockway to one of the main corridor sections.

The Mooncalf was a fine frigate, fast and sleek, and much finer accommodations than the grave and subdued inquisition vessels or spartan munitorium guardships. Everything was white-washed and gilded in gold and silver, even the servitors going to and fro about their business were dressed up regally.

Jansen reached the firing range and looked around, checking his identification with the servitor at the door. It let him pass, and Jansen took an empty booth beside a grizzly looking veteran dressed in a trophy coat similar to the one old Brenner wore. Xenos hunter, Jansen recalled, and watched the mans Las-shots sink into the target downrange. The accuracy was devastating. Jansen looked back to where his own target was set up and positioned his hands at his sides, in a lax position, and then drew.

The exercise was simple, Jansen needed merely to get both of his Autorevolvers Unholstered and firing in tandem as quickly as he could from a basic standing position. It took him a second and a half to get one Mateba pointed, a second longer for the second which was holstered at the small of his back under his coat. Both revolvers unleashead heavy .454 Wadcutters into the target downrange.

Five and a half seconds, twelve rounds into the target. The hard-cast rounds hand punched apart the ballistic-foam dummy downrange. One in each kneecap, one in each shoulder, three in the torso, three in the head, two in the throat. None of the rounds were dead-center where he aimed them, but he didn't suffer much from the heavy revolvers severe muzzle flip since he prioritized his targets from the knees up, so the recoil wasn't a huge hindrance.

Jansen wasn't a trick shooter like some of the gunslingers he had met, but he could make sure someone became very, very dead, very, very quickly. Jansen pressed a button to have the target removed, where it would be melted down and reformed into a new dummy, and brought out his Arbites Machinepistol, the short, ugly, ferocious firearm secured by a sling and a short forward hand-grip.

Jansen proceeded to unleash his troubles in the form off fully-automatic fire.

[ArchonDuPlex]

Ren made his way to the firing range, he detested the place for the crude weapons the humans used, yet he hand nowhere else to keep in practice. As far as he was informed, the boarding mission was on hold till further notice, and he couldn't sleep.
he entered the chamber ,clearing a slot for himself at the end with the servitor, and made his way to the booth.
He reached the firing booth, next to one of the humans..he couldn't rember his name..Jansen?..it didn't matter to Ren as got into stance.

The taget dummy was there, Ren flicked the splinter pistol from the holster, a sharp crack echoed as a lethal shard embedded itself in the neck of the target. the human next to replaced his target. Ren shot again, the splittering crack of the pistol sending the next shard onto the previous, right where a break in the armour would be, right on the jugular.
The human simply used his vulgar machine pistol and eviserated the target.

Ren sheathed the splinter pistol quickly, presing the button as he replaced the target, and drew his rifle, extending the barrel and aiming at the neck.

a near silent shot, and a flash of brightlight, the target's head fell off, the neck area scorched black by the intense strike.

[Atrum Daemon]

<Sound reasoning> Delaz canted. <I spared you because your elimination was not part of my mission parameters. You also did not pose a large enough threat at that time to warrant adding your destruction myself.>

Delaz stepped back and let the door close. He decided that visiting the bridge would be a fair choice of his next action. At the very least, doing so would keep him active and he had no desire to test him at the firing range.

***

Baldur took a moment to pause when a new human, Jansen if he remembered right, entered a booth next to him. He watched the Glavian pilot go through an interesting exercise of quick-drawing both his side-arms and firing them in tandem. An interesting idea, but one Baldur had never considered due to his unofficial specialty of killing Xenos with a meltagun. Something that became rather simple once one learned the ins and outs of melta-weapons.

Baldur signaled to one of the servitors to fetch him such a weapon. The servitor returned a few moments later with a standard meltagun, which Baldur relieved it of. The weapon was not his own, as he had made several modifications to the balance and power output modifier, but holding the weapon was very familiar.

His peripheral vision noted the Eldar ranger entering a booth on Jensen’s other side. He had had no contact with any Eldar before this new assignment, but his suppressed curiosity did not nag at him. He set up a series of targets and fired, sweeping the molecular beam across the holographic targets and causing them to vanish, imitating the vaporization of a human-sized target.

Content with what he had done, Baldur returned the meltagun to the servitor and reloaded his pistol. He holstered the weapon and left the range, checking out with the door servitor as he left. The Skitarii figured he would walk the halls for a bit before going to the mess hall. He was augmented, but not to the point where he was not able to eat and drink.

[Azazeal849]

“What’s wrong?” Ella asked Marc as they walked briskly down the corridor towards Van Der Mir’s briefing room. Marc was wearing his black double-breasted suit jacket with the inquisitorial signet on his right ring finger; Ella her green astropath's robe with the hood down, her own symbol of allegiance the red rosette backing the standard Telepathica emblem that was pinned over her heart.

“Who said there was anything wrong?” Marc replied, turning his head towards her as they walked.

Ella shrugged. “Astropath, remember?” Marc’s psychic avatar had been turbulent with streaks of red and white ever since he had come to collect her for the meeting.

“You know,” Marc said severely, although his tone held no genuine threat, “A psyker actively using their abilities on their handler without prior warning or permission is liable for summary execution.”

Ella knew he didn’t mean it, but her hand still automatically went to her hair, tugging nervously at her fringe. “I swear on the Throne I didn’t. Your aura’s just really volatile right now.”

Ella saw the oval ball of flame that represented Marc’s face ripple as the fiery features creased into a frown. For Marc’s part he didn’t pretend to properly understand what Ella meant when she talked about auras, but he was thinking that he shouldn’t get too close and spill his deepest concerns to someone who he might one day have to execute. Then he thought that as the person on the receiving end of the lasbolt, that fact counted double for Ella - and yet she had chosen to ask him.

“I’m just worried, that’s all.” he said at length, “Worried about my sister who’s decided she wants to go back into field work, worried about agent Sonder because of all the stress she’s under, and worried about Arcolin because he’s still breathing.”

Ella had only met Marc’s sister a few times so far, and hadn’t spoken to her at any length. She did however remember Kally Sonder, vividly - the Untouchable with a black hole where her psychic projection should have been. She also understood the unusual friendship she and Marc shared, despite the fact that the effects of her Pariah curse were almost as horrific to normal humans as they were to a psyker like Ella. And she definitely remembered Arcolin. Just looking at the man had sent shivers up Ella’s spine. She had never seen an aura in such an icy shade of blue, with the unmistakeable black fire of Warp taint roiling at its centre. His psychic avatar might still bear a human configuration, with no outward signs of what lay beneath, but the man was corrupt to the core.

“Didn’t Kally say that you should let her be the one to handle Arcolin?” she offered, “Not just because she’s better equipped for it, so to speak, but because she might be a little more…objective?”

Her tentative statement met with a wash of red through Marc’s avatar, but it vanished again just as quickly.

“I guess you’re right.” he admitted. He moved his head slightly. Eyes and which direction they were looking in were particularly difficult for Ella’s hazy warp-sight to render, but she guessed he was glancing down at the Tarot deck in the pocket of her robe. “How does it feel to be right all the time anyway?”

“It feels great, thanks for asking.”

As they reached the door and the motion augurs in the wall caused it to split open for them, Ella swapped her deadpan for a more earnest expression.

“Don’t worry, I know this Arcolin guy is a threat. I took a reading earlier, and he cropped up in it. I’ll tell Van Der Mir once he’s done with the briefing.”

They walked in, and offered professional nods of acknowledgement to Van Der Mir and the others who were already seated. Kally had made it there before them and Marc’s initial instinct was to go and sit down beside her, but conscious of the effect her proximity would have on Ella he opted instead for a chair further down in the front row. Marc and Ella took their seats quietly and waited for the others to arrive.

[ArchonDuPlex]

Ren followed the two the phyker and her handler into the room, slipping in with them unnoticed, and leaned against a wall between to supports, watching the briefing.
The pyker troubled him, as he instinctively blocked his mind.
"you know Ren" The farseer said, "all born in the craftworlds have open minds, this is a blessing and a curse"
"Farseer, how could it be a blessing? through it, we are drained by (slaanesh) she who thirsts. Through it even a human phyker could pry into our minds. I see no blessing" Ren replied, turning round, facing the Farseer.
"I suppose you would not young Ren, your path is of the ranger, not the seer."
"I am still vulnerable, and this is been proven by my failure."
"that is why I will teach you how to close your mind to others."

Ren listened to the briefing, filling the rest of his mind with a tune from his childhood, a sad melody that would bring tears to the eyes of lesser beings had they heard it.
The only thing he couldn't block was the steady pulse of his soul stone, quietly beating in time with his heart, silent to the ear, and only just audible to the phyker.

He looked over the assembled crew, and kept still. Drawing no attention to himself. The grey of his cloak matched seamlessly with the wall behind, he hadn’t even activated it, the worn dirty grey matched almost spot on with the metal of the walls.

He looked to Van Der Mir, ready to get his briefing on the mission.

[Atrum Daemon]

Delaz and Baldur ran into one another in the corridors. The two servants of the Machine Cult shared a brief binary discussion during which Delaz reminded the Skitarius of the briefing. For the sake of efficiency, the two decided to head to the briefing room together.

The crew in the corridors skirted around to avoid the two as they passed. Delaz found it to be a rather interesting reaction and one that was entirely understandable given the rumors about both Skitarii and Secutors. Of the pair, he knew Baldur was armed, though it was only his sidearm. Delaz had not taken any of his weapons from his room since he only brought them out when he was beginning a mission and only put them away when the mission was completed.

Delaz and Baldur entered the briefing room shortly behind Marc and Ella, the astropath. From a scientific standpoint, Delaz found psykers fascinating. The idea of a simple anomaly in human physiology giving birth to such talents was the complete fascination of many of his colleagues. Delaz had worked alongside battle-psykers before, finding them to be most interesting to observe in combat. If Baldur had interest in such things, the hunter did not show it.

They took their seats quietly after giving acknowledgment to Van der Mir and other important persons on the mission.

[PaintSerf]

Gavin stared into the man facing him in the sheet mirror in front of the sink. The man looked awful due to the lack of solid sleep, as if he hadn’t slept well in a week. It looked like the man had never really enjoyed much of solid sleep, courtesy of a lifetime’s worth of nightmares, but even this seemed exceptional. It looked as if he’d either been punched severely in the face or applied kohl decoratively around his eyes. They seemed slightly glassy and haunted, lost in those dark rings, which were livid compared to the pale and sunken flesh of his skull. The man in the mirror looked hunted in his posture as he slapped the flat edge of the knife in his hand against the opposite palm before sliding it further up his arm.

Feeling the point of the knife press against his wrist Gavin had to agree with that assessment. He knew he didn’t look good as he rolled the knife’s grip slightly and turned the point across his wrist. But Gavin also knew that he was feeling worst beneath the surface. Even though he had promised himself that he wouldn’t think, for this one time even, Gavin couldn’t stop himself from thinking. He’d never been good at shutting down when wound up tightly by something. Now, definitely more than ever, Gavin was wound up. Gavin’s vision blurred as his mind was dragged backwards in time like the knife slowly across his flesh.

He was a little boy again who, like many a young child, thought about life and its complexities. Most were of trivial matters about natural things, like when was snack, the sky its color, or about growing up. But perhaps the most important question was about the most fundamentally important thing for a child to know:

Do my parents love me?

The harder he thought about this question the more Gavin realized that…No. No, no they did not. He was a living, breathing, and resource consuming commodity. He was an investment, one of many similar investments, whose projected return was not very high… and that they would have to make some use out of him. Gavin knew this to be true, as if he were inside his parents’ very thoughts, without even knowing why or how. Many a night was then spent in the dark weeping alone.

He was more grown up now, in his teens, and he thought about life and its complexities. Most were more complex than when he was a boy, as they generally tend to be, but there is one particular subject that many young men fixate on. She had been rather pretty, or so he felt, with her luminous smile and auburn tresses. The most important question in the world to a boy at this age and in this particular place:

Does she like me as much as I like her?

The harder he thought about this question the more Gavin realized… No. No, no she did not. He was hardly an afterthought in her mind, a merely caught in there peripherals, as her thoughts were captivated by another. He was what Gavin would call a friend, whom he had told how much he felt for this girl, and Gavin saw them hand in hand as they snuck into a neglected coat room and… Gavin spent the night in shadow and silence while he drank himself into oblivion.

He was older now, almost at the point of manhood by age, and his thoughts were desperate. There was no more denying what he was anymore, despite how hard he had done so, and he was paranoid that anyone else would catch on. It was hard to explain why he was so capable with machinery even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to be. The overseer-mentors had been supervising him so closely, especially so, and he wondered about the most important question of all to him:

Am I still safe here?

Unlike his earlier questions it did not take an exceptional amount of time before Gavin realized… No. No, no I am not. He could feel that they were coming for him. The overseers-mentors and their skitarri retainers were marching towards him with an air of righteous indignation. He knew he could not hide so he knew he had to run, and avoiding his hunters was possible because he could feel their minds. Until he felt the bones of his thighs become pulverized mid stride as his world spun end over end through the air. In that brief moment Gavin knew he would never dance again, an admittedly odd thought given the context, until pain and darkness overwhelmed him.

Gavin’s reminiscence ended as he took the deep breath he’d inadvertently been holding in. His vision cleared again and he looked down at his wrist. He’d only been dragging it lightly across the skin of his wrist; hardly enough to scratch, and Gavin clenched his hand tighter around the hilt. The blade was wavering as Gavin took some deep breaths and tried to focus himself to the task at hand currently held in his wrist. Gathering his resolve Gavin thought about the conversation with Van Der Mir from earlier in the week.

Beyond suspicion… stay loyal to Kepler… easier than commissioning someone to kill him… others would ask questions… didn't know anything… didn't get involved… didn't go running to Sidonis… Useful…

Gavin gritted his teeth as the responses to his questions came back through his mind in snippets. Those words still cut Gavin deeper than the knife in his hand ever could. They were a frank assessment of what they all felt about him… non-person… naïve… inconsequential… oblivious… indecisive… coward… pawn… Gavin clenched the knife so tight that his knuckles turned white. He was shaking so much now that the blade was leaving cutting slightly into his wrist, in hesitant and uncommitted slices, as Gavin continued to fixate. His heart and mind were pounding out so rapidly and loudly that Gavin couldn’t hear anything else but the beat, and his hyperventilating breaths were deep and ragged with anxiety. His mind only roiled and pin wheeled deeper into despair.

The trust that he had in Kepler and Carbon had been used to bring him here to be a tool in this mission. Nobody really cared about Gavin Jenkins the human being; they only cared about Gavin Jenkins the mind auspex, or Gavin Jenkins the mental minesweeper. Carbon only trusted him because he’d done his part to keep them all alive for two years. Yvonne Kepler didn’t trust him because she hadn’t said anything, and because she said nothing, Gavin couldn’t trust her. Gavin Jenkins is only a tool. Gavin Jenkins is the worst kind of tool. Only he does stupid things like that… Trusting those who will kill him one day… Saving those who loathe his presence and would harm him if able… Because he won’t make a choice for himself; just like he’s never done, or ever will because he’s a coward… This is his one choice he can make… but Gavin Jenkins wouldn’t do it, because it’d be just so him not to… Coward…

Why should he care that some hellish warp spawn wanted to tear apart the Imperium by cloning the Emperor? What had the Imperium ever done for Gavin Jenkins? Nothing. What had the Imperium ever done to Gavin Jenkins? Hate and condemn him for being what he was by an accident of birth. Take his legs away from him. Try to turn him into a prisoner within his own body. Torture and abuse him. Force him onto battlefields. Make him see, hear, and experience things he never asked or wanted to. Foster a delusional dream in a physical and emotional cripple and yank it out from under him like they did with his real legs. Turn him into a tool, a pawn, an expendable resource instead of a human being.

Maybe he shouldn’t have cared so much and tried so hard to save Carbon lives? No one would need to know, as mind powers are an imprecise art… I just couldn’t see that mine there under so much dirt… Their minds must have been shielded so I couldn’t see that ambush waiting… Why should he feel so bad about Kally Sonder being sick with the plague? She was just a soulless abomination… Just like that Colonel from the Telepathica Security-Enforcement Detachment on Terra… Surely she deserved what was happening… What if he hadn’t tried to turn off the gas or open the doors at the Hotel? No one would need to know, as mind powers are an imprecise art... They all would loathe your anyway…

Gavin blinked at that last though and lowered the knife from his wrist. He remembered how hard he had tried to save those innocent people’s lives from that fire, or how awful he felt that he hadn’t been able to save more of them. Visions and memories of laughing at dirty jokes with the Carbon rankers raced through his mind. Gavin suddenly felt more disgusted and revolted at himself than he had ever had, because of those last bitter thoughts, and let loose with a choking sob as he slumped forward against the counter. His head thumped against the mirror as Gavin began to let loose with tears he didn’t even know he had left in him.

That hadn’t been Gavin Jenkins he was - or who he dearly hoped he was.

The Gavin Jenkins who, despite all that had been thrown at him by life and the Emperor, tried to do the right thing. He thought he was Gavin Jenkins who tried not to hurt when he could and care about others wellbeing, even if they didn’t care about his. It had hurt him to see the astropath with the null collar on, and it had horrified Gavin to see what had happened to Sidonis’ former logistician. Even though she was a blank, and considering his history with them, Gavin wouldn’t have wished what was happening to Kally Sonder on anyone but one particular individual.

The Gavin Jenkins who thought such bilious and loathsome things most certainly wasn’t the Gavin Jenkins he wanted to be. He didn’t want to be the Gavin Jenkins that put a Las to his temple and tried to pull the trigger. He didn’t want to be the Gavin Jenkins who stood over a sink with his knife at the wrist.

With a heavy sigh Gavin pushed himself away from the mirror and looked down at the silver Aquila hilt. An errant droplet of blood had run down the length of the blade and run into it. The wings indentations were filled with in darkly and ominously. Gavin looked at himself in the mirror and most emphatically did not like what he saw. Now with both hands Gavin grasped the knife as he lunged forward up at his throat and went to work with the weapon.

+++

He slipped on the charcoal colored fleece over his anonymous black fatigues that comprised the battledress for the IST. It read Jenkins across the nametape on the front. Gavin picked up the whistle off his nightstand where it rested next to a sheathed Aquila hilted knife with a bloody wing that rested peacefully on top of a letter that explained why he did something that he hadn’t yet done. The whistle clanked slightly as Gavin rolled it thoughtfully in his hand, the one with some gauze wrapped tightly around its respective wrist, before turning to look back in the bathroom.

The other night, as he briefly ghosted through the mess hall as a birthday party occurred far off on the other side of the room, Gavin had been told to appear for a briefing. It wasn’t one that Gavin had been anticipating attending but, considering he was still here, he felt he should do as he was instructed. Gavin looked at his shaky handiwork carved into the mirror one last time before walking out the door and sealing the cabin behind him.

C O W A R D

+++

Gavin wandered into the meeting hall with is posture hunched and his hands in his pockets. He kept his eyes angled towards the ground in front of him as he walked, and tried to avoid any real eye contact with anyone who was already here. It didn’t take a mind reader, like Gavin was, to know that he hadn’t made too many friends or acquaintances over the past week and a half. Gavin felt like they all knew what he had thought, thought of, and tried to do twice. Knowing he had nowhere to sit comfortably Gavin merely sat on an ornate side table that allowed him a clear view, when he would need to look up, towards the front of the room. Gavin merely swung one of his metal legs, with mechanical noises of function, as he idly thought.