The battle with the "Bishop" was over.
The large Genestealer stronghold deep within the fault had been reduced to a ruin of mingled steel and flesh, still trailing acrid smoke.
Cassius stood on a relatively elevated "high ground" piled from collapsed alloy girders and hardened fragments of Tyranid carapace.
The surface of his Cataphractii Terminator armour was covered in fresh marks left by the battle.
Several deep scratches from bone blades, broad patches mottled by corrosive bodily fluids, and blackened burns from energy weapons.
The white markings of Clan Magara remained prominent on his pauldrons, though green blood stained their edges.
Rather than leaving as usual, he stood atop the ruins, pondering something.
This brief, almost "distracted" state was exceedingly rare for Cassius.
Ever since that night in the warehouse, when he had engaged in that "Dialogue" with Lynn, so absurd it sickened him.
And that incomparably overbearing, mysterious power had forcibly invaded his consciousness.
He had felt that something had changed.
It was not a physical change.
His Power Armour's self-diagnostic systems and the accompanying Tech-Priest's scans had both confirmed that his physiological readings, neural responses, and even the condition of his Gene-seed were all normal.
The change had occurred somewhere deeper: his "consciousness."
His "thought patterns," honed by three hundred years of harsh training and the doctrines of the Iron Hands into something resembling a precision instrument.
Some long-forgotten, deliberately suppressed "fragments of emotion," deemed "inefficient" and "harmful."
Like ancient behemoths sealed deep within a glacier, under the impact of that foreign power.
They had begun to thaw and awaken quietly.
Now, standing atop the ruins, an exceedingly faint trace of weariness that should never have belonged to an Astartes warrior.
Swept across his consciousness like a fine, cold rain.
Not physical fatigue, but some deeper kind of "tedium"?
Immediately afterward, several blurred, dimly coloured "images of memory" flashed deep within his mind without warning.
They seemed to come from long, long ago, when he had still been mortal.
"She"...
The images stopped abruptly.
As though a sophisticated firewall had been triggered.
Centuries of doctrinal indoctrination from the Iron Hands Chapter, mental discipline, and a cold, self-forged will.
Instantly crushed those fragments of "weakness" and sealed them back in the deepest recesses of his consciousness.
Beneath Cassius's helmet, his dark blue eyes regained their absolute coldness and clarity.
But a nearly imperceptible crack had already been left in the iron bulwark of his mind.
He began to think, coldly analysing every recent anomaly with his logic-processor-like brain.
Lynn's recent behaviour has been somewhat abnormal.
In fact, when Cassius had pieced together the recent reports on the purging of a series of small Genestealer nests, pheromone flow analyses, and background Psychic Power fluctuation data.
And finally pinpointed the "Bishop's" hiding place, he had already guessed.
This was most likely deliberate guidance from Lynn.
That mortal was not omniscient or omnipotent; the intelligence he supplied always carried a precision that was "just enough."
As though he were carefully controlling the dosage and direction of the information.
This time, "following the trail" had gone so smoothly that it instead felt contrived.
Yet the contradiction lay in the fact that Lynn himself was currently busy investigating that Chaos Cult, appearing committed and "overwhelmed."
He no longer even deliberately avoided contact with the Sons of Medusa squad, as he had early in their cooperation.
Instead, he had begun "openly" recovering the Xenos remains left after their battles.
Though most were still converted into "money" through smuggling, as always.
This almost reckless acceptance stood in sharp contrast to his earlier caution, when he had seemed to be treading on thin ice.
What exactly is this man trying to do?
Cassius's thoughts turned to another key point.
"Anomalous Node Alpha."
Approximately three standard days ago, their tracking signal for Alpha had vanished completely.
Not death, but something like completely merging into the background noise, or entering some state of deep concealment.
Even the Tech-Priest's most sensitive detectors could pick up no usable traces.
For a mortal to establish a stable "cooperative relationship" with the "mortal enemy of all life," the Tyranids, with whom communication was theoretically utterly impossible.
Who possessed only the instincts to devour and destroy.
That alone already challenged all the Imperium's biology, xenology, and common sense.
Cassius had no choice but to connect this to the "mysterious power" within Lynn.
That power was certainly no known form of Psychic Power.
It lacked the nauseating taint of corruption from the Warp, yet neither did it resemble the pure holy power of the God-Emperor.
Could the depths of the Warp have spawned another new Chaos God with peculiar properties?
Even Cassius found the thought faintly absurd.
But he had tried to record what he knew about Lynn, about that power, about the lingering "sense of being bound" and strange emotions within his consciousness.
He had even tried to reveal a hint of it to the accompanying Tech-Priest or his squad members.
Yet he could not.
Whenever such a thought arose, the pink power entrenched deep within his consciousness would quietly stir.
Forming invisible mental shackles that forcibly suppressed his urge to express himself.
Disrupting the organisation of his logic, and even blurring the relevant fragments of memory.
It would not allow him to "divulge" anything.
He had also considered whether he should report everything that had happened here, especially the exceedingly dangerous "variable" that was Lynn.
To the headquarters of the Sons of Medusa successor Chapter, or even their parent Chapter, the Iron Hands.
But lately, the Warp turbulence near Necromunda had been unusually active.
Communication was exceedingly difficult, and every attempt to send reports to Chapter headquarters had ended in failure.
Time, too, seemed to be on Lynn's side.
All these thoughts flashed through Cassius's mind, but only a fraction of a second had passed in reality.
He abruptly raised his head, his gaze beneath his helmet sharp as a blade as it swept over his squad members, who were methodically conducting battlefield assessments and collecting samples among the ruins.
There was no time to waste on pointless confusion.
Threats had to be eliminated, and the mission had to continue!
"Collect all valuable biological samples, mark areas with Psychic Power residue, and prepare to withdraw."
His voice came through the amplifier, steady, cold, and unquestionable.
Lynn, naturally, had also keenly noticed Cassius's growing suspicions.
Through the system's subtle link, and his observations of the behavioural patterns of this "side-quest conquest target."
He could sense the unusual emotions beneath that bald sergeant's calm exterior.
That fellow must have been frantically analysing everything now, trying to work out just what Lynn was up to.
But Lynn believed that Cassius would never imagine his plan could be so insane.