[tense dramatic music]
[shouting]
[rain pattering]
[Jurgen] Living means learning to do what’s necessary.
Sometimes, if you're lucky, there’s joy to be found in that.
I know now my hands will never be clean.
It was just a job.
[sighs] You should know that.
Bellona wasn't what you think.
Wasn't who you think.
So people keep telling me.
But it doesn't matter.
[sighs]
Loyal to the last.
I hope this brings you peace, Jurgen.
[thunder rumbling]
[tense dramatic music]
[gasps softly]
Not peace...
Answers.
[wind howling]
[tense dramatic music]
[Sortha] Jurgen.
[panting, spits]
Time to go.
Klore’s guards will be on us any moment.
It’s not done yet.
[Sortha] Jurgen...? What are you doing?
Getting answers.
- I thought you couldn't read a null. - He’s not a null.
Just a corpse like all the rest.
[thunder rumbling]
[grunts]
[tense ominous music]
[Markov] She is a radical.
A dangerous radical.
You mean to move against her?
[exhales]
She is... well protected.
The collateral cost of direct action would be...
troubling.
An assassination, then?
[Markov chuckles]
It's a simple universe you inhabit, Heroth.
I admire that. You see the world in black and white.
While I? I am forced to exist amongst the graduated grey.
[exhales]
What do you need me to do?
Infiltrate her little operation.
Discover the truth of her plans.
Then, execute the target.
You almost make it sound easy.
If she’s as well protected as you say...
She uses psykers.
Bends them to her service and chews them up.
But you, she'll like you.
A null. Unreadable.
One who can keep a secret.
That’ll work to your advantage.
I'll have to win her trust.
The seeds have already been planted.
There is another, a woman, already embedded in her team.
One she doesn't trust.
Kill her.
- Expose her as a traitor. - [gasps softly]
Kill one of our own?
[Markov] The ends justify the means.
You must win Bellona’s trust.
Only then will she confide the full extent of her plan.
Only then can we hope to counter it.
Here’s the evidence you’ll need to frame operative Yusi.
And you're certain this will be enough?
[exhales]
Certain? I didn't think you that naive.
Bellona is an old friend.
This will work.
[tense music]
[gunshot]
What the fuck?
She was a plant, Baldur.
It’s all here.
She’s been spying on us, reporting our movements.
And you just happened to intercept her messages,
did you?
[scoffs] You think I'm fool enough not to take an interest
in the people I work with?
I should kill you just for being in my business.
Null scum.
[suspenseful music]
[suspenseful music intensifies]
Put the gun away, Baldur.
He’s right.
It’s all here.
Every damn mission.
Every single meal.
She was spying on us all and we missed it.
[Baldur scoffs]
Don’t think this means I trust you.
Regardless of Yusi’s apparently traitorous proclivities,
it was nevertheless a rash decision to terminate her life
without seeking to extract any potentially useful information from her.
Next time, you speak to me first.
Well, that was exciting.
Dispose of your waste.
[Bellona] What if we could change everything?
[Heroth] Everything?
[sighs] There’s no turning back the clock,
even with all the power invested in that badge.
The galaxy is dying,
and all we can do now is cling on to the wreckage as it crumbles.
Hmm. Perhaps.
But what if we could?
What if we could turn back the clock?
Imagine, Heroth, a universe free of the Great Rift.
What if there was a way to close it?
Seal it shut like a blinded eye.
And the Emperor rises from his Golden Throne
every morning to take breakfast.
Psykers.
Psykers?
The synchronised death cries of a billion psykers,
linked across a hundred worlds.
A psychic shockwave strong enough to seal the rift forever.
To close the eye.
To save us all.
How would you...
[inhales] I mean, is that even possible?
Let me explain...
There is an alignment of planets that sit along a Warp nexus.
Upon each of those worlds, psykers breed like vermin.
These worlds will form the basis of our great amplifier.
We destabilise these chosen worlds,
eliminating the governors and making way for civil unrest.
In the power vacuum that follows,
the proletariat will soon collapse into ungovernable violence.
[tense dramatic music]
The Administratum will abandon these worlds,
and the Black Ships will stop coming.
The psykers will proliferate, growing stronger.
You're talking about planetary engineering.
Building a weapon.
From the minds of psykers.
- Yes. - And the trigger?
The astropathic choir on Gheisthaven.
Stood on a bedrock of blackstone,
and fuelled by their proximity to the nexus,
they are conduits to the raw power of the Warp.
I am creating a drug to overload their minds.
We shall gift them this Sanctus,
unleashing a replicating death wave
that will propagate throughout the alignment.
A song that will resonate from the minds of every psyker on those scattered worlds.
And they shall give their lives
for the greatest gift humanity has ever known...
Salvation.
[tense ominous music]
[sighs]
What about Jurgen?
He’s a psyker.
Irrelevant.
What is one life in a billion?
What is a billion when compared to the trillions that will be saved?
Jurgen will give his voice to the choir like the rest of them.
Why tell me?
Why now?
Because you're a null.
You're the only one of us who can get close enough
to the choir on Gheisthaven to deliver the Sanctus.
And because I've seen the truth of you, Heroth.
I know you for what you are.
A man who values the sanctity of his own life.
[tense dramatic music]
[Heroth] The Sanctus is almost ready.
She means to use it immediately.
[Markov] Then the time is upon us.
The order is given.
Execute her, Heroth, in the name of the Emperor.
Before she kills us all.
And the rest of her team?
Do they know anything?
No. Bellona has kept them in the dark.
They have no idea what she’s planning.
[exhales]
Then use your discretion.
[sighs]
[thunder rumbling]
[dramatic choral music]
- [inaudible] - [slowed gunshot]
[dramatic choral music continues]
- [gasps] - [Sortha] Jurgen!
- [groans] - They're coming.
[gunfire]
We need to go.
[groans]
We need to go.
[Jurgen] I killed the wrong person.
Just my fucking luck.
All that time chasing a lie.
And now Baldur...
Shit.
Another wasted life.
Another ghost to haunt my dreams.
If it hadn't been for Heroth, I'd be dead too.
Me and billions more.
And I put a bullet in his skull.
Turns out we never know anyone until it’s too late.
I need a drink.
[sighs]
What now?
That wasn't the question.
Not really.
Standing here in the ruins and the pissing rain,
there was only one question left worth asking.
Who am I?
[tense music]
Murderer?
Addict?
Interrogator.
[tense dramatic music]