“You will put me through to him, and now,” Katiya all but snarled at the tech priest on the other end of the vox link.

“The Omnissiah has provided no vox links commissar,” the synthesised mechanical voice of the tech priest replied, sounding calm even if its owner wasn’t. Katiya resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose in frustration. Executing a cog boy wasn’t out of the question, but it would cause alot of trouble and it sounded like this one really was trying. All of her efforts to reach Captain Raloch had thus far failed. The Captain was consulting the local Adeptus Arbities and their citadel in the center of the city. That was just Raloch attempting to be a good junior officer, doing a job that would bring him to the attention of Colonel Bradstreet. That was well and good, what Raloch didn’t know was that he was the senior guard officer on Pavonis right now and that the fragment of the regiment was all they were going to have for six months at least. The at least part grated on Katiya’s  mind as well. Most warp storms passed within a matter of weeks, but there had been times when they had lasted for months or even years. The companies they had to hand would be alone for all that time and only Third Company was really a line unit. The logistical companies had all, in theory, been trained but most of them had not fired their weapons in earnest since they completed their training. Worse still, most of thirds officers were fairly junior, having been promoted to replace casualties during their last deployment. Until a few months ago Raloch had been in command of the regiments heavy weapons platoons and wouldn’t have been due to earn his captaincy for several years.
 
“He is at an Arbities citadel, are you telling me we cannot get in touch with an Arbities unit?” Katiya asked mildly.

“Apologies Commissar, we have not yet had time to sync the machine spirits of our vox equipment with theirs, the ritual is…” Katiya cut the link in frustration and rested her head in her hands for a moment. The office was unpleasantly hot, but then everywhere she went seemed that way. She had only lived on Valhalla, an ice covered world of massive glaciers and ferocious winters for five years before her parents, both senior naval officers, had been killed when the Heretic fleet broke through at Absalam. After that she had been sent to the Schola Progenium, a reward for the children of Imperial Officials who died in the line of duty. Even at such a young age however the cold of Valhalla had never really left her bones. A knock on the door interrupted her bitter musings and the corporal she had sent to the palace poked his head through.
 
“Corporal…” she paused for a moment to dredge up the man’s name. She had only been with the regiment for six months and most of that had been in transit. That had been more than enough time to get to know the troublemakers and hard cases of which this man was neither.
 
“Connors isn't it?" she asked, dredging the name from one of the dozens of promotions she had certified. Katiya was already grabbing her great coat and settling her peaked hat on her head, and fastening her weapons belt around her slender waist. 

"Tell me about the palace on the way, can you drive a ground car? We need to get to the Arbities Citadel immediately."