Maria immediately loosened her posture, going from a rigid salute to almost slouching against the wall of the room, folding her arms in front of her chest and fading into the background as the Inquisitor began speaking.


She didn’t know why the Inquisitor felt the need to explain what a Command World was to her, or a pleasure world for that matter. Did she think they were all a group of inexperienced recruits who’d never been off world before? The Krieger’s jumpiness certainly didn’t help matters. She was sure he had over three hundred confirmed kills of heretics and traitors and graduated near the top of his class in the Schola Progenium in order to become a Grenadier, and so on and so forth, but his jittery reaction to the other Psyker, whose name escaped her at the moment, didn’t bode well.


Perhaps she’d have to burn him before he decided to kill her? It wasn’t a pleasant line of thought, and she turned her attention back to the Inquisitor, and immediately felt a sense of foreboding at the mention of the Adepta Sororitas. She hadn’t met them yet, and in all honesty had no desire to. They were not an organization known for such silly things as “reason” or “not shooting first and then realizing you’re not a heretic until later”, though she took some comfort from the protection of being part of an Inquisitorial retinue. 


Sighing internally, she tuned out the banter that erupted from her present company, instead turning her thoughts to just what they would be tasked with exterminating as a part of this retinue. Probably some generic cult or somesuch - she’d seen enough over the years to know what was liable to pop up. Miraculously, the Inquisition hadn’t decided to execute her because of potential corruption or even mind wipe her, and as such she had some inkling of what they would be in for. Probably some Slaaneshi or Tzeentchian cult, if she had to guess. In the latter case, likely deeply entrenched into the command structure of the world, and in the former, probably a gaggle of rich hedonists living with harems of sex slaves.


The Krieger raised a question, with a predictable addendum at the end. It came as no surprise that the drone from Krieg would favor a more direct approach to things - evidently he had little inkling of how to do things that weren’t frontal assaults.


“If I had to guess,” she began, raising an eyebrow at the man, “we shall begin by digging fortifications all around key command points of the planet, with lots of heavy artillery and human wave attacks. All five of us! Then, once we’ve breached the outer walls, I’m sure your bayonet will do very well for that, we shall begin more wave assaults against isolated pockets of resistance. Once every single person who isn’t wearing a gas mask or a fancy hat has been brutally murdered or taken prisoner to be brutally murdered later by an assortment of Hospitaller Sororitas once they’ve coughed up all they know, sorry mercenary” she inclined her head towards Vala in a mock display of apology, “then we can go and dig more fortifications!”


She beamed brightly at him, doffing her hat with grandiose melodrama. “No, I’m sure you’ll get to poke somebody with a pointy object sooner or later, but we’re going there to investigate, which would imply subtlety.” She paused, “Granted, I too am partial to setting things on fire.” Raising a hand, Maria smiled innocently as a ball of warpfire manifested in it before vanishing. 


Turning to the Inquisitor, she raised a question of her own. “Lady Inquisitor, if I may ask, would it be too much of me to ask about reading material? Commissars are not generally known for being bookish types, and I’ve been wanting something a bit more engaging to read than the Uplifting Primer for some time now. Does this vessel, or the safehouse we will be living in, have a library I might access? I would like to further my knowledge of the Warp with something other than self-teaching, for obvious reasons.”