After the handover, I was promptly left to rot on the sidelines.
The Inquisitor and the captain were up on the command dais, discussing course plots and a bunch of affairs I couldn't make heads or tails of. Her retinue were all at their posts, each doing their own job. The entire bridge, and nobody so much as spared me a glance.
At first, I was still in high spirits.
I was like some country bumpkin touring a grand estate for the first time, craning my neck to look at everything on the bridge. The crew in their bizarre uniforms. The half-man, half-machine tech-adepts.
The consoles that looked both antique and futuristic at the same time… It all felt fresh and fascinating. I even saw, off in one corner, a "person" with their brain floating in a jar, hooked by tubes into a gigantic cogitator. The whole scene was cyberpunk hell.
…But after a few hours, the novelty got replaced by an endless, bottomless boredom.
The bridge was terrifyingly quiet, with only the hum of machinery and the occasional low-voiced report. I couldn't understand any of the instruments, and I couldn't understand any of the jargon they were throwing around.
Nobody talked to me, nobody cared about me. I was like an extra spare part, or like a passenger stuck in an airport lounge waiting for a delayed flight, standing there awkwardly, not sure whether to sit or stand (and the entire bridge, aside from the captain's seat, didn't have a single chair. Absolutely inhumane). I yawned once, then yawned again. My eyelids started to droop, and my stomach was empty enough to echo.
Sigh… My first interstellar trip was nothing like I'd imagined. No thrilling departure ceremony. No warm welcome party. Just a long, tedious wait…
Then, after who knows how much more time, right when I was leaning against a pillar and about to doze off, the bridge lighting suddenly turned red. A shrieking alarm finally blared, snapping me out of my stupor.
"All hands, stand by. Prepare to enter the Warp!" the old captain barked, rapping her cane against the railing in front of her. "Navigator, begin your work. Find us a course!"
That booming voice, utterly mismatched with her elderly appearance, finally jolted me awake.
"By your command, Lord-Captain!" Dozens, maybe hundreds, of voices answered in unison across the bridge's cavernous space.
At the captain's order, the entire atmosphere on the bridge instantly tightened. Heavy armoured shutters began to descend, sealing off the forward viewports. The alarm screamed without pause, and the lights became the same flickering, ominous red I'd seen back in the fortress.
I gripped the railing beside me, palm slick with sweat. Warp travel? I'd never heard of it. I had no idea how it compared to hyperspace jumps, wormholes, or warp drive from movies and novels. But whatever it was, it meant I was about to experience faster-than-light travel in person.
This was going to be exciting.
I watched the Inquisitor step to the edge of the command dais, arms folded, waiting in silence. The circular bun of her platinum hair caught the bridge's dim light like a pale dusk-moon. Beside her, the old captain's face had gone rigid, her right hand braced on that ornate cane, her fingers trembling ever so slightly.
At the same time, I noticed a murky green display screen in front of them. On it was a man in a lavish robe, with a third eye tightly shut in the middle of his forehead. He emerged from the shadows of the feed, walked up to something like an altar-platform, sat cross-legged, and raised both hands in the air in a pose so ridiculous it looked like a meme. Then he started twitching all over, muttering under his breath, like he was having a full-on seizure.
"…Navigator's mind has linked to the Astronomican!" a crewman shouted.
"Gellar Field engaged. Energy stable!"
"Warp drive charging. Ten, nine, eight…"
An officer who looked like the first mate began a loud countdown. A faint ozone tang spread through the air, mixed with a smell like water droplets hitting red-hot metal. I felt the deck beneath my boots begin to tremble.
I clutched the railing with a death grip, palms soaked, heart hammering so hard it felt like it was about to leap out of my throat. Like the first time I rode a roller coaster as a kid, pinned under the safety bar, listening to the gears clack-clack-clack as they hauled you up to the peak, equal parts terrified and thrilled.
"…Three! Two! One! Enter the Warp!"
Here it comes. Faster-than-light travel.
As the first mate bellowed the final word, I felt the ship suddenly dip hard, as if an invisible giant hand had shoved the entire hull.
And then…
Nothing.
No spinning world. No stomach-dropping lurch. No feeling like my body was being stretched into noodles. I was still there, gripping the rail, standing stiffly in the exact same spot, like a roller coaster that clattered up to the highest point and then just… got stuck.
The bridge fell dead silent.
Only the machines continued their low hum, and the red alarm lights kept flashing tirelessly.
The slight vibration vanished. Everything returned to calm. Calm to a degree that felt… wrong.
I blinked, looked at the equally baffled crew, then looked at the Inquisitor beside me, who also seemed momentarily blank. I couldn't help leaning in and asking in a quiet, curious voice, "Um… Inquisitor? So… is this 'Warp travel' some kind of extremely solemn religious ritual the whole ship has to perform together?"
The moment the words left my mouth—
Slap.
In the silence of the bridge, the sound was shockingly loud.
I watched the Inquisitor—usually so cold and composed, the sort who could watch mountains collapse without changing expression—slowly raise her black-gloved right hand, tilt her chin up slightly, and with the air of someone using every ounce of willpower she possessed, plant her palm squarely against her own forehead.
At the same time, the entire bridge exploded into chaos.
Crewmen sprinted from station to station, hammering at panels and tearing through readouts. Unfamiliar technical terms and panicked shouting collided into one deafening mess.
"Warp signature lost. Engine feedback: zero!"
"Navigator, my lord? Navigator, my lord! What do you see?"
"I… I can't see anything!" On the screen, the three-eyed man who'd been twitching earlier was now staring around in utter confusion. His third eye had opened wide and was rolling frantically, very much like Tenshinhan from Dragon Ball, except his expression was that of a student who realized, halfway through the exam, he brought the wrong test paper.
"Nothing! There's only… emptiness! Like… like the Gellar Field has completely sealed off the inside of the ship from the outside. No! More thoroughly than that! I can't even sense the Warp's existence!"
"Restart the drive. Try again!" Lord-Captain Nemia had lost her earlier grace and poise. Cane tucked under her arm, she slammed at something like a slate in her hand and roared into a vox pickup.
"It's useless, my lady!" a tech-adept cried, voice trembling. "The drive output is normal! But… but we can't get in! The Warp… the Warp has… vanished!"
Only the Inquisitor and I stood where we were, like two statues that didn't belong in the middle of this turmoil.
I stared at her hand still on her forehead, then at the crew who were now in full-blown meltdown, and belatedly realized…
Something had gone wrong.
And not the small kind of wrong, either.
The Inquisitor slowly lowered her hand. She didn't look at the terrified crew. She didn't look at the furious captain. Instead, she turned her head and fixed her gaze on me.
Her eyes—ice-blue, usually unreadable—now held a complexity I couldn't interpret at all.
Shock. Disbelief. Sudden comprehension. And a trace of something that looked a lot like deep, deep resignation.
"I should have realized earlier…" she murmured, so softly it was almost inaudible. "A 'reality' anchor that can block psychic illusions, that can override the perceptions of others… of course it can… block the entire Warp…"
She stared at me, and for the first time, I saw something like an actual "headache" in her expression.
"So… we can't go anywhere, can we?" I asked carefully. I didn't understand a single one of her technical terms, but I tried to read her face.
"No." She shook her head, restoring that iceberg-calm mask. "Not 'we.' As long as you are aboard this ship, it can't go anywhere."
Me: "…?"
Hey. I'm not taking this blame. I didn't do anything. I was literally standing here watching the show. How am I the reason your interstellar voyage failed? Your tech is unstable and you're just tossing the pot at me. That's not how blame works.
In the end, after three attempts—each failing the exact same way with the same "can't find it"—Lord-Captain Nemia had to declare the planned voyage to Holy Terra… cancelled.
The Black Mirror swung around in orbit, and we boarded the same luxury shuttle as before, slinking right back down to the world like a dog with its tail between its legs.
On the way back, the atmosphere was oppressive to the extreme. The Inquisitor didn't say a word, only massaging her temples as if genuinely troubled by something. My colleagues all kept their mouths shut, too, not daring to make a sound.
I didn't dare speak either. I just curled up in my seat and played dead. I still felt like this mess had nothing to do with me, but in that kind of atmosphere, any defense sounded weak and pointless.
—
We returned again to that grim Valmonda Fortress. The Inquisitor said she had matters to handle jointly with the garrison and the Adeptus Arbites.
"It seems that, until we find a way to suppress your 'ability,' the plan to bring you to Holy Terra will have to be postponed," the Inquisitor told me in an office that was still Gothic as hell, but at least brighter than the rest. "We deal with the immediate problem first."
"Then… what are we doing now?" I asked cautiously.
She raised a hand and pointed out the window. On the far horizon, beyond the massive silhouette of the city, several pillars of black smoke were rising.
"Donigaton. The city where you were found. That same day, it erupted into large-scale riots, with signs of cult activity. It still hasn't been put down. The local Arbites and the garrison are at their breaking point."
She turned her head and looked at me.
"You're coming with me."
"What?" I blurted, horrified. "What am I going for? I can't shoot!" Just thinking about that dark, Gothic city made the wound in my chest ache again.
"To watch," the Inquisitor said coldly. "You don't need to be afraid this time. I will provide you with sufficient protection. The weapons those rioters and cultists carry are unlikely to harm you."
She paused, then added in a tone that made my spine go straight.
"But you must be on the front line. This is your first assignment as my attendant. Do it well, and you will receive the Inquisition's full support, in every respect. Do it poorly…"
She didn't finish the sentence, but her eyes made the rest perfectly clear.
What could I say?
I snapped to attention and answered with the most sincere voice I've ever managed in my life.
"Mission acknowledged, boss!"
(End of Chapter)
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