As he watched the transports peel away from the fleet and enter the atmosphere, Kester still did not fully trust Pex and his troops.
This time, he had secretly retained blood and tissue samples from many Expeditionary Force soldiers. Only when every test came back clean would he feel a little more at ease.
Kester did not think he was being overly cautious. No amount of caution was excessive when it came to preventing xenos infiltration.
But the situation was urgent. He needed to focus on the collapsing situation on Euronia III, first containing the Orks and then confronting the Tyranids. Time was desperately short.
Otherwise, he would never have let Pex leave.
While Commissar Kester and the Tyranid-infected Pex schemed against each other, a mysterious chamber lay hidden within the Planetary Governor's residence in Euronia III's northern hemisphere.
Governor Cornwall was alone there, conducting a mysterious ritual.
He had taken off his lavish robes as Planetary Governor and changed into a plain coat, with a worn gray cloak draped over him. He looked like an ascetic monk in a monastery.
Cornwall first approached an old, simple table covered with all manner of materials. Transparent glass bottles held a multitude of colorful powders whose composition was impossible to identify.
To anyone else, these things would have seemed strange and unfamiliar. To Cornwall, they were intimately familiar.
With practiced movements, he picked up the bottle in the middle and various special ingredients, mixing them in the purple bowl before him. The process took a long time. Only when beads of sweat covered his forehead was the mixture finally ready.
After putting on silk gloves, Cornwall pinched up a little powder. The blue-violet grains resembled fragments of a galaxy as they sifted like sand from his palm into the purple bowl.
Cornwall