Campaign: The Child of Whispering Stars. Part 3

 

The interrogation chamber aboard the Shadowspire was quiet in a way that only Aeldari vessels could manage. There were no clanking bulkheads or humming lumen strips, no mechanical rhythms to ground the senses—only the soft psychic resonance of wraithbone walls, alive with ancient memory. Pale light curved along the chamber’s organic surfaces, flowing rather than shining, and it reflected faintly from the restraints that held Captain Durgan Grimskael upright within a sculpted arc of living material.

The squat mercenary glared through one swollen eye. His armour had been stripped away, leaving him in scorched underlayers stained dark with blood. Even bound, he looked immovable—like a chunk of iron torn from a mountain and hammered into the shape of a man. There was nothing fragile about him, not even now.

Captain Voss entered without a sound, as though he had always been part of the chamber and had simply chosen to reveal himself.

“You killed farmers,” he said, his voice quiet but carrying easily through the stillness.

Grimskael spat a clot of blood onto the polished floor. “Contract’s a contract.”

Voss tilted his head slightly, considering him. “Your contract did not include murdering noncombatants.”

“It included ‘remove resistance,’” Grimskael replied with a snort. “Farmers resisted.”

For a moment, Voss said nothing. He simply studied the squat, his gaze sharp and unyielding. The chamber seemed to tighten around them, as if the Shadowspire itself disapproved of the exchange.

“You were not the originator,” Voss said at last. “Your people do not strike without ledger or oath. Who hired you?”

Grimskael’s jaw flexed, stubborn as stone. “You think I’d break because you ask nicely, knife-ear?”

Voss stepped closer, and the air seemed to grow colder with him.

“I do not ask nicely.”

The wraithbone restraints shimmered faintly as psychic pressure began to build, subtle but undeniable. It was not enough to shatter a mind outright, but it was more than enough to remind one of how easily such a thing could be done.

Grimskael’s breathing slowed despite himself. His eye flicked around the chamber, searching for something solid, something real, something to anchor himself against the invisible force pressing in on him.

“You were paid through a broker,” Voss continued, his tone calm and precise. “Encrypted relays. Staggered transmissions. Routed through a relay station on Kharos IX.”

There—a flicker. Small, almost imperceptible.

But Voss saw it.

“The name,” he pressed.

“A Rogue Trader,” Voss said quietly. “Of course.”

“Not your usual pious lunatic,” Grimskael muttered. “Vale doesn’t care who bleeds. He just moves cargo. People. Weapons. Contracts.”

“And he knew what you were retrieving?”.

Grimskael shifted against the restraints, the living material tightening slightly in response. “We never even saw the target. That was someone else’s job.”

“Who?” Voss asked, his voice now razor-thin.

Grimskael let out a weak, humourless laugh. “Vale never meets his clients face to face. All encrypted packets. Routed through jungle relays and dead stations.”

“Kharos IX,” Voss repeated, more to himself than to the prisoner.

The squat’s expression hardened again, defiance returning like iron cooling after the forge. “You won’t make it through that jungle without stirring something worse than us.”

Voss leaned in until their faces were only inches apart, his eyes cold and ancient.

“I have walked battlefields older than your species,” he said softly. “Your jungle does not frighten me.”

Grimskael held his gaze for several long seconds. Then, at last, something gave.

“Vale subcontracted us,” he said. “That’s all I know. But whoever paid him…” He hesitated, then continued, “they paid in advance. A lot.”

“How much?” Voss asked.

Grimskael’s lips curled faintly. “Enough to buy silence.”

Silence followed, thick and deliberate, settling over the chamber like a weight.

At last, Voss straightened, the psychic pressure easing as he withdrew. The chamber doors parted with a soft sigh, revealing Jalen Varr waiting beyond, his helm tucked beneath one arm. His expression was calm, but his eyes were searching.

“Well?” the Pathfinder asked.

“We have a direction,” Voss said as he stepped past him.

“Kharos IX?” Varr pressed.

Voss gave a single, deliberate nod.

“And this Rogue Trader?”

“Arcturus Vale,” Voss replied. “A middleman who believes distance protects him.”

Varr’s expression hardened at that. “Then we close the distance.”

Behind them, the wraithbone restraints tightened slightly as the Shadowspire adjusted course, responding to the unspoken command. Captain Durgan Grimskael watched them go, and for the first time since his capture, his confidence faltered. The hunt had moved beyond ash-choked fields and shattered relay towers. It now led into jungle shadows and hidden networks, into a web of contracts and secrets that stretched far deeper than any of them yet understood.

And out in the void, something was listening.