Verdict Ultima
"Sanctum Imperialist to vessel hull number S1L3NT03ATH, identify! You are in protected airspace, only available with Inquisitorial credentials, identify!" "Sanctum imperialis, throne of terra keep your pants on! This is Verdict Ultima, Light Cruiser of the Adepta Sororitas. Acknowledge." "You're leaving high, Adepta Ship, why are you leaving from the Sanctum itself? I thought you had a perfectly good port down in Canburra?" "This is Commandant Michael Goldenrod. Last I checked, I was still assigned a duty berth with the other lords of the Senatorium Imperialis, Sanctum." "I hate that this is necessary." Abbess-Sanctorum Morven Vahl spoke to Michael, he hadn't been able to convince her to even unload the cannons of her power armor, let alone take it off, and took it as a bad sign. "No more than I do, but it's better that they think I broke the rules, than you did..." "Listen to you, they were taking bets on how long it would take for them to enthrall you to their wiles, some of them... And yet you persist." "I don't know about that." Michael was fussing with his Great Sash of the Commandant, a grandiose version of a commissar's, it just wouldn't lay flat properly. "Let me, Great-grandfather." "You have children?" "You asked me about that a month ago, Lady of Terra... Did you think I am so old I forgot?" "You actually pay attention when I speak? So you're not a psychopath, like half those other lords of terra? Mind you, some of them are so far removed from human, it's almost required..." "I'd like to think I'm human, Milady. And I'd like to think I've served with enough Sororitas to have respect for their abilities." "You've fathered Sororitas, would you not respect your own daughters?" "I'd respect them for being my daughters first, so I'd submit they don't apply." "What about their mothers?" "I served with them, as I said..." "Ah, yes, your bodyguards." "Actually, I served with 'future' sororitas, at one point." "And with others." "A Lord-Inquisitor?" "A Lord Inquisitor-Terran, if you please. Ordos Custodes and Militaris. But if you have any file at all on Michael is, you know who I am..." "Oh?" "We served as commissars for regiments in the 22nd Imperial Division "Terra" together. But I've known Michael since he was in short shorts." "That must make fascinating reading, for your fellow inquisitors, my kind prefer votive texts." "Tch." Both commissars bit back their reaction, in Carmine's case it was a chuckle, in Michael's case it was a full-on chortle. They were both thinking that was a pretty good retort, Ordo Custodes spent enough time at the Convent Sanctorum to accrete purity seals from the locals, as the saying went.
Designation
S1L3NT03ATH
Comments